Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 843: How to Turn a Short Film Into a Film Career with Jennifer & Kevin Sluder

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IFH 843: How to Turn a Short Film Into a Film Career with Jennifer & Kevin Sluder · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: forty three. Cinema should make You forget You're sitting in
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  Speaker 2: a theater, Roman Polanski.
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  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we showed you how to survive
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  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 1: the film biz.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: I am your humble.
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  Speaker 4: Host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur
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  Speaker 2: How to turn your independent film into a profitable business.
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  Speaker 2: It's harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to
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• 1:50
  Speaker 2: today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
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  Speaker 3: On this week's show, speaking of which we have two
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: great guests. They're a husband and wife team who were
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: both from North Carolina and now they both live out
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: in Los Angeles. They started their own film production company
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  Speaker 3: called Sunshine Boy Productions in twenty fifteen, and even before that,
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  Speaker 3: the husband was a was a Nicole Fellowship semifinalist, a
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  Speaker 3: two time Script Pipeline Top twenty finalist, a tracking would
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  Speaker 3: recommend He's won a ton of other screenwriting competitions, and
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: they went out to LA and they started to you know,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: produce their own films, and they finally now are going
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: to produce their own film which is called Heartless, which
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: we're going to talk about in the show. And we
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  Speaker 3: talk about all these different things about putting together packages,
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: about attracting investor, about how you do all this other stuff.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: And you know, their a husband and wife team wo
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: work together. Do they kill each other or they plotting
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: each other's you know, they plot each other's demise like
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: almost like a movie. We're gonna talk about all that
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  Speaker 3: good stuff on this week's episode of the podcast with
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  Speaker 3: guests Jennifer and Kevin Slutter. Yeah. I mean, Philly, I
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: think it's like twenty dere he's outside right now.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because it wore from that Super Bowl championship, so
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: so that I'll carry you through the long cold winter man.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the fires of the city burning down are kind
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  Speaker 3: of out by now.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, no doubt.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: When when they had gone when they won the Super Bowl,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: the people were actually messaging me like you're not out
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: in that, are you? And I was like, no, I
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: know way better than that I said that people out
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: in that we were just either they knew didn't know
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: any better, or they were so plaster they didn't know
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: where they were because uh, it was it was unbelievable
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: because like I have friends and they were posting videos
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: on their facebooks, like people were out in the street
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: firing their guns and stuff and like that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. We we had that back when the Lakers won
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: the NBA Finals and we were out in a bar
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: and man, there was this energy because everybody knew they
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: were going to win, and then they did win, and
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: I just turned to Gen. I was like, uh, we
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: need to go home. We uh, let's uh, the game
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: was cool, but let's go home. Let's go home. Because
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  Speaker 4: we were on Hollywood Boulevards. There's a little bit of
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: a drive. So I was like, all, let's book it now.
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  Speaker 5: And we made it homestake.
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  Speaker 4: Ye we did.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, uh that's smart. That's that's very smart. Uh yeah, yeah, seriously,
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  Speaker 3: So you got some of these crowds, man, people get
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: so excited, so U Joe, just to get started, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I know you both went to the University of North Carolina,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: North Carolina Chapel Hill, and I just wanted to ask,
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  Speaker 3: did did you guys actually meet while you were both
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: attending the school? Uh?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we met sophomore year and then we started
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: dating junior year. Uh. Folly warred down and she said yes,
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: and we went out, and uh yeah, the rest is history.
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  Speaker 4: We got married five years after that and we've been
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: together since then. Twenty years of marriage and twenty five
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: years of everything else.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know the reason I asked is I saw
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: that you both go to the same college and I
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: and I figured, well, either they met on set when
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: they met at college, you know, so I figured I
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: had a fifty to fifty shot.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, what were some of the things that
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: you actually took away from I know, you know, going
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: to film school or going to college in general, something
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: I talk about a lot on this podcast. But you know,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: while we're on the topic, you know, what were some
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: of the things that you both took away from at
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: your time in college.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: But on the film school side, it was interesting because
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: North Carolina didn't have a straight on film degree, kind
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: of like USC and schools like that. But I took
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: away a lot of film theory. There weren't a lot
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  Speaker 4: of practical applications. There were like editing classes, and I
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: took a directing class, took an acting class, took few
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: screenwriting classes, but it wasn't kind of a hands on
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: make a film kind of film school that you have
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: at AFI and USC and UCLA out here. I took
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: away like a knowledge about, you know, why films are
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: made and what they're trying to say. And I think
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: that's kind of stood up over time, as well as
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: the writing experience, but it was it was a cool experience.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: It was actually a radio, Television, Motion Pictures degree, so
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: I got a wide range of education.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, and my education there actually wasn't in film. A
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: lot of people who know me and my filmmaking capacity
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: are not aware that actually my day job is pediatrician.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: So I went to college and medical school at UNC
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: and met Kevin an undergrad. But I did have a
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: love of film at that time. We both took movie
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: criticism classes together. And it was a funny story because
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: our first movie date that we took that that Kevin
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: took me to.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: Thank you, This might be one of those things that
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: we should stay away from. That a doubt.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: The first one he took me to at a movie
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: criticism class that we both shared was Clockwork.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: Orange, Good Job, Good Job Vine. Yeah, well, I mean
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: it was it was like a classic, well known film,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: and I thought, you know, as she loves film, I
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: love film. It was Kubrick, you gotta see it. It
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: was a Kubrick Scorsese, which was a really cool film
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: theory class when you get to watch Kubrick and Scorsese
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: for a month. But yeah, that was that was when
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: I went to and took her. Hey night, yeah, good job. Actually,
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: afternoon date, my ta gave me a ton I mean,
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: oh yeah. I walked in and H. The Ta was like, oh,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: so everybody enjoyed the film, and H Kevin, did your
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: date enjoy the film? I was like, oh man, you
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  Speaker 4: know it lasted. It lasted.
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  Speaker 3: I was waiting for you to turn to Jennifer and
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: she's going, well that was something, all right, Yeah.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: That kind of happened, but we're over it now.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: So Jennifer were saying to him, like, so what was
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: going on to that film? It was like, why why
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: would you take me to see that?
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: Clearly clearly it's such a romantic story.
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, hopefully we've gone to some some more A
• 7:55
  Speaker 6: couple friendly films over our twenty five years. Yeah, I
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: tried to start on a low point like and and
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: just work my way up from there.
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  Speaker 5: I guess it was faith though, because here are in
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles producing varcom so that kind of kind of
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: makes sense actually now I think about it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and after that, you're like, well, there's there's other
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: can go up from here, right, So it's kind of
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: like this ultra violent film, and you know it, it reminds
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: me of this whole funny story. I had a friend
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: of mine and and he was going on a date
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: with with this girl that he had known for a while,
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: and he didn't know what to He wanted to take
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: her to the movies, and he didn't know what to
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: to take her to see. So he, you know, he's
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: looking at what's playing and the movie, uh Bruno was playing,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: you know Bruno.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and he didn't.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Quite know what it was. So he takes this girl
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: in there and to see it. And right around when
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: they had like the the whole uh where he was
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: showing that the people like his show, then they had
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: a test audience and that in the film and they
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: were like, this is awful. What is this crap? Well
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: the girl was, you know, more on the religion side,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: and she goes, I can't watch any more of this,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: and the whole get and so he takes her out
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: out out of the theater right and he forgot where
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: he parked his car. So he's trying to walk around
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Philadelphia trying to figure out where he parked his car.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Trauma, like, oh my god, I took a girl. What
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: ab I done?
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: And it was just hilarious because now she's upset already,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: and now he can't find the car and he's like,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: I think I parked it down here or was it?
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Oh my I'm forget. Finally, like about an hour later,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: they found the car and he goes, she never called
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: me again.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's along ride home. I feel better
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: now thanks to the sewer.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Dave, no problem, No problem at all, Kevin. Usually my
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: stories helped build people up.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: I am. I'm feeling much better about myself.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: So so if you both, you know, graduate from college,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: you know, when when is it that you both decide,
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: you know, to to take the trip out to Los Angeles.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after word from our sponsor, and
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: It was after her residency in Michigan. She worked in Kalamazoo,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Michigan through Michigan State, and we were kind of we
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: had left North Carolina to go there and it was
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I guess that was step one and.
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, basically he went to Michigan with me for
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: we knew no one and for me to pursue my
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: dream of pediatrics. And then when I was on with that,
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: I was like, well, there are kids you can take
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: care of worldwide. Where are we going for you next?
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: And he's like Los Angeles. I'm like, let's do it.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: So that's that's kind of how that happened.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So then we hopped in a truck and head
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: out to Beverley did So.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: You actually drove the whole way there. So what was
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: that like? Because I've had a couple other people I
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: know who have just taken that trek and they've driven
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: across the country, you know, So what was that like
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: for both of you?
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: It was cool because we met with family and stuff.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, really, we met with family in Colorado.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, hung out in Denver, and our brother was living
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: in Vegas at the time, So it was it was
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: kind of cool because it was going to take the
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: truck like four days to get there something. So we
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: had a little time and we took my car and yeah,
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: we I mean we rode through the Rockies and I
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: mean I grew up in you know, North Carolina with
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: mountains around, but not like the Rockies. So that was amazing.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: So it was a beautiful drive. It was a beautiful drive,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: and it was cool and you know a little bit
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: of excitement, you know, going out to a new state.
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I was back in the day when you had CD.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: So he was popping a CD and hit the road
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: and that was it was fun. It was a lot
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: of fun.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: So that was that. That's actually pretty cool. So how
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: long did it take you, like totally get out there?
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Did you actually? Like so so it sounds like you
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: spaced it out for a while rather than do like,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: you know, like a marathon just drive to get there.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we weren't the kind of people that were like
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: we got to get a certain number of miles done
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: to day. It was, you know, he's just riding along
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: listening to music. And I guess one is we spend
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: a day and maybe day and a half in Denver
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: and then then day day and a half in in
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Vegas and yeah, but yeah, yeah, might have been a week.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: I have no idea it was. It was a while back,
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: but we we did take our time and we got
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: to see uh sea, parts of the country I had
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: never seen before, so that was kind of cool.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: Yep, that's awesome. So so when you finally get out
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: to l A, did you already have a place to
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: stay or did you sort of get out there and
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: and and have like somebody to stay with at that point.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: We we actually went to Huntington Beach, just where Jim
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: got our first job. So I do remember having never
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: been to California when we first got there, and we
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: we lived only like a mile or so from the beach,
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: so we hopped in the car. We didn't have anything
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: in the apartment because the truck wasn't there yet, so
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: as well, you know, nothing here, let's go see the town.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: And we're like, oh my god, let's go to the beach.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: And this is in July, yeah, and we're like, oh,
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: it's you know, it's all sunny during the day or whatever.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: And we went down to the beach and it was
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: probably like fifty eight that night. We froze our Can
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: I say asses. Yeah, it's totally hard, asses off. And
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: so it was like, all right, cool, cool, we saw
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: the beach, let's get back in the car, let's go right.
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: We just moved from sun from snowy Michigan, and we're like,
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: oh my gosh, what did we do? But it just
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: gets cold here at night, that's all well, relatively speaking.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like cold Pacific water cold. Yeah.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you leave the nice warm weather and you're like,
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: oh my god, what mistake have we made?
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Well? I was used to that East Coast beach water
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: that's you know, like ninety degrees and the being at
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: the North Carolina South Carolina beaches, So I thought it
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: was gonna be like that, and oh no it was not.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: It's a two different between two coasts.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: So when you get out there and you know, I know, Jennifer,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: you actually have you know, one of your first jobs
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: out there, you know. So, so Kevin, while you know,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: while your wife is is you know, working like a
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: good full time job, did you start to go into
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: movies full time? And and sort of you know, so
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: you use that as a leaping off point.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: It was half on, half off. It was temping and
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: and writing. But I did. I did quite a bit
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: of writing. We Actually the big decision was made to
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: come out here because I had I had a sci
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: fi specscript and I thought it was the next greatest thing,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: and and here's my ticket and all that sort of stuff.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: And I think I had that the move to l
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: a with your script and you'll make it in a
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: couple of years kind of kind of mindset, not realizing
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: that it takes a bit longer to do that. But yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: it was. It was uh yeah, kind of kind of
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: half on, half off, uh, and then gradually over time, Uh,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: it became full time deal for me.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: So when when you actually came out, you had already
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: written a feature length script, uh, the sci fi script
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: you were just talking about. So what you know did
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: you use did did Were you able to use that
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: as like a calling card to get your foot in
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: the door to to a couple of different places?
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: Actually, let me let me think of which one was.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: Uh it actually, yeah, that one was the one, now
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: that I think about it. It never it never moved
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: into production, but it actually did well in Nichols, I
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: think in like two thousand and six or two thousand
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: and five or something like that. And but it. It
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: never never picked up and I'm actually rewriting it now,
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: but uh so it did. It wasn't necessarily a calling card,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: but uh I moved on to other projects from there
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: and kept on writing, writing, writing, writing, and and uh yeah,
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: and different things kind of got picked up at different
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: times and got got interest.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: So did you ever were able to sort of use that?
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: And they would say, hey, Kevin, you know we like
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: the way you write, you know, could you write something else?
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: You know, maybe for us something like that.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: Uh, it was it was more the line you get.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: Uh it's like, wow, I really like the writing in this,
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: but you know it wasn't for us, but uh, you
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: know it would it be okay if we contacted you
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: down the line. I'm like, yeah, sure, that'd be great.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: And then they didn't contact me. So but you know,
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: there's there's always stories like that with with scripts and
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: writing and and uh yeah that's part of the Yeah, yeah,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: it definitely is.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: I thought you were going to tell me keV that
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: they asked you, so what else you got? And you
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: were like, well, I because I had a friend of
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: mine who had him that happened to him where he
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: got his foot in the door he had a script
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: and they actually asked him what else do you have
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: or what else you got? And he had nothing else
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: to show him.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Then I was like, hey, what I mean, I did
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: this one? Come on, come on, yeah, it's it's generally
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: a plan when when when you're going out with specscripts
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: or whatever, you have to answer that question before you
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: go out. That's continually a thing. The one I was
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: saying that I came out here with and I said,
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: I'm rewriting that one now, you know that's basically coupled
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: with another sci fi that that actually optioned this week,
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: when I'm pretty happy about that. So that would be
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: the kind of companion there's like, all right, this is cool.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: What else you get? Well, here you go. So but
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: it takes time to get you know, that enough scripts
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: that you have that option.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and also just to put that portfolio together for
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: any writer, you know, just to put together like even three,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: you know, solid pieces of work is a challenging of
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: itself because you're always wondering, you know, how to be
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: cause I mean, you know, whenever and I'm sure you
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: had this too, because it happened to me as well.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: You know, when you when you go to start writing
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: screenplays or TV pilots or whatever. You know, you say
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: to yourself when you're first starting, you're like, ah, look,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: I've seen ten thousand TV shows, I've seen ten thousand movies.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I know how to write a screenplay. And you kind
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: of start putting this together and you're like, oh, this
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: is a lot different than I thought it was gonna be.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: It's it's a lot different, you know, from from reverse
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: engineering it. Oh, I've seen every episode of you know,
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: mash and I'm gonna make a you know what I mean,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: and I'm gonna just kind of reverse engineer it and
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: then actually doing it, you know, from the ground up.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: So you know. But so did you ever have when
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to tie in this all together, and did
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: you ever have like a writing group or anything like
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: that to to sort of you he says, like a
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: feedback meter or maybe or maybe you just give the
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: scripts to like Jennifer and she was like, Kevin, you
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: what are you doing here? What is this?
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Why did we come out here? This is horrible? No,
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: actually I haven't really been a member of a writing group.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: I did get involved with this online service that actually
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: has a really great screenwriting competition the script Pipeline, and
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: there was a guy there, Dave Klein. He he had
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: a lot to do with me being too able to
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: elevate ideas and do better larger budget scripts, and he
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: worked with me on a sci fi script and he
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: actually worked with me on the one that optioned.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: And just the tips that he gave me about how
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: to make ideas better and how to make scripts better,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: We're really good. So he would kind of be the
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: writing group on the independent front, like the independent horror
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: stuff that I've been doing. And I do have a
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: feature that I'm finishing up with that you know, I've
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: had people read it. I've had uh you know, luckily,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: I know quite a few talented actors and they came
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: in and did a script read and illustrated what needed
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: to what needed to change, what was good, and uh,
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: I rewrote based off of that, but not technically a
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: writing group. But Jen does read my stuff and she
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: does give notes it, but uh, not not as much
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: as before.
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not sure how helpful it is because basically
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: I just put smiley face.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: Kind of stuff. That's what I know. I really nailed
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: the seeing Davis, I get a smiley face.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I'm like, yes, yes, So jen's not like busting out
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: like a red pen and being like crossing out like.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Noah, No, it used to be like that, but it's
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: just it just created at tension in the marriage and
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: there's no real need for that. So yeah, it's like
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: why don't you love me?
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: It's like why don't you love now? I just look
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: for titles and put this stuff I like nowadays it's
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: pretty nice.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and smiley faces. It does make you feel good
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: when you get a smiley face at the end.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and that that that does sound a lot
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: better than my red pen. And I read bad idea
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: because I used to be that guy who when whenever
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: you would hand me a script to read, I would
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: always bust out the red pen and I would make
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: notes like I wasn't And then somebody was like, you
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: know how obnoxious you're being by doing this, and I said,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: I said, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be obnoxious.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I said, it's just to me, it's easy to read
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: on a you know, it's a it's a white piece
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: of paper with black font and I said, it's just
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: easy to read.
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: You know, yeah, but it hurts our feelings.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: We're sensitive writers, man, we can't take too much.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean like when I used to hand in
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: my stuff, I you know, I would get all sorts
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: of feedback, and uh there was one guy who just
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: hated every single thing that I would write, and uh
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: he he yeah. He would just be like he would
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: write stuff to me like I don't know what's going
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: on here, you know, He's like I you know, or
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: like he didn't really say some people. And that was
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: him being nice to me, because some people he would
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: write things like I'm bored and one and one person
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: he wrote on the front of the paper, I mean
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: front of the script. No, and that was it.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: Oh man, Oh that's rough.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: I was like, no, go into another line of work.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: This is it for you. Yeah.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I was like, man, I thought I was getting a band.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: I was like, but he was thinking he was He
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: must have either liked me or or or or at
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: least I liked the stuff at some point, because I
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: didn't get it that bad, right, Yeah. Man, So you
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: know at this point, Kevin, you know, you moved on
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: and he started working with Jose Rivera and he started
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: working for him right, and he started because by the way,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: i've your bio open, I don't know, just so you know.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: Jose, Yeah, he's a he's one of the best writers
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: in America.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: It was I was a director of development with the company,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: so it was kind of trying to get packaging together
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: with one of the scripts that he had written and
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: and working on. Basically my job was to uh make
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: the project look good to potential investors and and then
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: uh you know, just kind of having a couple of
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: conversations with him. But yeah, it was as it was
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: a job where you know, we developed projects from those
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: writers and Donald Harrington was on there too, and that
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: was just you know, my job was to make their
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: projects look enticing to investors.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: And so like you would like, you know, maybe you
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: would get the book and sort of like read it
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: over a weekend and maybe make notes and say, hey,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: this would be a good property and then maybe put
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: together pitch packet stuff like that.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, the with with the Harrington book, Yeah, I
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: read it and I was like, hey, I think we
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: should do this. The producer was like, yeah, yeah, I
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: think we should, and and then uh, she she handled
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: the uh the optioning of the material and all that,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: and then you know it was it was my job
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: to find writers for it. So went out to different legacies,
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: got uh, got recommendations, and you know, it was just
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: it was one of those things where just things didn't
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: come in line, and that book never got never got
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: off the ground. But you know it was it was
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: a pretty awesome piece of material. So you never know,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: I left that company and they may still have it
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: on their have it on their slate, not really sure,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: but I mean it would be a pretty pretty cool, uh,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: pretty cool movie, yeah.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: Because you know that's that's the big thing now, right,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: everything is pretty much an existing property. And I know
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: most of the movies you've seen in theaters now you
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: know they're based off a graphic novel, they're based off
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: an existing property, like all these superhero movies, or in
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: this case, they're based off of a book, which you
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: see a lot of more movies coming out. You know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: they're already based on something. So you figure something like
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: this would be you know, like perfect, a perfect project
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: so to speak, you know what I mean, Like then,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: you know, for for to make a movie out of it.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, actually not just with superhero movies. We watched the
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: movie which is really great. It's a horror film called
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: The Ritual, and that was based off of a book.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: I would have I don't know. I thought that was
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: like a digital speck idea, but no, that was that
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: was based off of a book. So yeah, it's it's
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: uh when you have I p it just it really
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: helps out with with the marketing of the film because
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: you have a built in audience, and the bigger the
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: built in audience, the bigger the film. So I mean
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: I get it from that perspective. Yeah.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like the The Hunger Games, you
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: know when what's that that that that series or and
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: obviously the Harry Potter series. I mean that that that
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: series was a gold miye even before they made it
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: into movies.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I remember when in that d D job. I
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: remember when Twilight got set up and and I remember
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: talking to my boss and I was like, oh my god,
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: we need to get away a property. People are going
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: to be lined up around the block to see this film,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: and and then it just yeah, it took off even
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: bigger than than I thought it was going to be.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: But that was kind of I think this was two
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: thousand and seven or so that I had this job
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: two thousand and eight around in that range, and uh yeah,
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: and it's just kind of grown from there having books
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: being the on the source for your larger budget movies
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: and you're in your like three four different movies in
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: a series and all that.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh, because that's something you know, that's just
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: some of the things I've noticed more and more is
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: that a lot of these things are based off of books.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Even like, you know, I was going through all the
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Best Picture nominees uh for this year's Academy Awards, and
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: I'm like, you know which ones are actually based upon
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: you know, ips, and which ones are original ideas?
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Uh?
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: And then you got to take it and say, well,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: what movies have actually done well in the box office,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: you know versus versus we know what they've done. So,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: you know, the more the ip that you have to
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: back you up. I mean, you know, right now as
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: we're recording this, Black Panthers number one, Uh, Black Panthers
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: are you know, intellectual property, and then and then Jumanji
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: was a remake, and then that was number one. I mean,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: we can go on and on, but it's like that
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: seems to be like the thing.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: You know, Yeah, pretty much. You can get a lot
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: of advertising dollars behind behind an ip as well because
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: of that built in an audience, and and I think
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: that that boosts up your sales as well. It's tougher
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: for a SPECS, even if it's even if it's something
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: that would have a larger budget, just because you don't
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: have that brand name knowledge. So uh yeah, it's a
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: it's a it's a tipped scale, so to speak, in
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: in in favor of the books.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: So you know, as we sort of you know, continue
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: on with your with your journey, going through going through la.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: You know, at this point you started writing screening full
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: time and I started doing screening screwing full time. And
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: you you you were in Nicle Fellowship finalist. Uh, you
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: were on the script pipeline.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: And then I also saw you were on the twenty
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: fourteen Young and Hungry list. So when you when you
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: were on these lists, Kevin, like, at what point, I mean,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: was there at some point like were you getting agents
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: and managers that were coming after you saying like hey Kevin,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, you know, are you represented?
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: You know, were they trying to set things up for
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: you in a in a way like meaning that if
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: you come to them, you know, they had a lot more,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: they had more contacts that can help you get you know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: uh something funded.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: Uh yeah, yeah, the the one that landed me on
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: the Young and Hungary List. Interesting story. Yeah, all all
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: that happened. It was a Tracking Board recommend Tracking Board
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: is a site, an online site that that basically says
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: what's going on in the industry. I was just looking
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: at it today and it's all like announcements, so everything
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: from jobs in the industry to reviews of films, to
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: announcements of attachments in movies and you know, Michael Fassbender
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: is starring in this or he just signed on to
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: do this. So it really keeps you up to date
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: on everything that's going on in the town. And they
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: have contests. They have the launch Pad competition for screenplays,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: and they also have a Tracking Board recommend and that
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: one there's not as many awarded. But I got that
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: in twenty fourteen with a script called The Memory Sphere.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I had had a manager and then the
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: manager handled the taking out to agents and all that,
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: and you know, unfortunately, I think The interesting thing with
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: that script is the budget on it wasn't big enough
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: to be one of those let's go into the studios
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: and get that size of budget, So it's kind of
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: an in between project. It was too big to be
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: an independent feature, and then it was too small to
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: be a big studio feature. So it was kind of
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: in this this middle range, and so it got passed
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: on by by the people that read it, and then
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: it was kind of just around and I got the
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: property back and and wasn't with the manager anymore. So
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: then I started marketing myself, and that's the one that
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: option this week. So there was a producer that came
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: along and he optioned it. So and I think that's
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: because the budget hasn't changed on it. I just think
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: the marketplace has changed, and you have places like Netflix
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: and Amazon studios that would take a movie of this
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: size or even a movie that's bigger than that, and producers.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: So I think that opens up a lot of avenues
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: for riders to ride in that budget range. Uh. And
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: and that's very exciting because that really was unsure whether
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: that film was going to get made or or if
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: I could get interest back in it. And so so
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: we'll see where it goes, you know, and options one
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: thing as sales another thing.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, and uh, you know Netflix, since
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: you brought that up, you know, they've been doing a
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: lot more stuff, you know, their own original programming, which
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: is great. And then uh, just down the line, guys
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: were talking about anyway, Uh, Apple's coming out with their
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: own original content. And then uh, you know what I heard.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: The next big thing is Kevin by the way, an
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: original content. But you know it's going to be creating
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: content for people while they're driving in their autonomous cars.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Oh look God, whoa wow, I want to go there. Yeah.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: So you like you you watch you watch a TV
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: show on your way to work, You're being driven to work?
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: Is that what that is?
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Correct, And basically they would be specifically where you could
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: only watch it inside your car, so that that would
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: be the hook of it. So like if you made
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: a partnership with like let's just say Dodge or BMW
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: or something, they're only on their channel where you can
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: watch inside the car at first, that would be the thing.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: I'm sure they probably expand it where you could probably
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: watch it with whatever. But that would be the thing
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: where their programming would just be for people who have
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: their car.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Oh, I just I just thought of a stopa movie
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: just like everybody's riding along in these cars is like
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: ten years from now, and everybody's just staring at a screen,
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: but they're being fed like all this information and they're
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: being mind controlled. Yeah, my paranoia got the best of me. There,
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: it's a cool that's a cool outlet for product.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is that sounds like the episode of
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Black Mirror.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: Uh I did I've been watching too much Black Mirror
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: because I went I went too dark on that. Yeah,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: it's sork if I stole your thunder there man.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: No, No, it's all good because it's kind of like,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: you know, everyone has their own news channel now, so
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: what what actually happened? What's the actual news? What's fact?
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: What's not true?
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I would need one that was just just like
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: tell me good stuff about me, you know, just stare
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: at the screen. You're good enough, you're smart enough, you
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: can do it today on the job.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: That's it. That sounds like Kevin and that sounds great.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: H you know what I mean? Like, usually if you
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: watch too much bad news. I mean, they actually did
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: a report on this if you watched you know, and
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: this is obvious if you if you watch too much
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: bad news, you start to have a bleak outlook on everything,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And then suddenly you're kind
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: of like, well, you know, everything sucks.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I just uh yeah of the Facebook, Tom
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: One's the thing that I just went to. There. Sometimes
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: I just like I can't do it. I can't do it.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: I can't look at anything else. Yeah, a horrible place.
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: That that also was part of it too, was just
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: the whole h you know, social media aspect of it,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: where it's like I can share something and it doesn't
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: necessarily need to be true. It could be some some
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: person with an opinion and they kind of make it
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: look like a news channel, you know what I mean. Like,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: you know, you know it is your spouse, let's give
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: a microchip in his brain. You're like, what.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: That's scary, stough Man.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah it's hot. So you know, just going
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: back to you, Kevin, Sorry, we're going I'm going off
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: of like this Black Mirror episode now, but just going
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: back to you.
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: No, let's ditch it let's let's make it, make it happen, man.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, seriously.
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: So, so in twenty fifteen, you actually started Sunshine Boy Productions,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: which I think is a really good idea because again,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: just going back to original content, I think, you know,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: the more control you have, the better you know. And
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: I've talked to different guests about this, and you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: there's all a different opinion and different varying viewpoints of this,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: but you know, I always but I really liked that
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: you started your own company because I started my own
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: company too, just to just to make you know, it
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: gives you a little more leeway on things. But so
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: you started. So at one point, did you know you
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: started your first short film, play Violet for Me, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: you actually had a director and everything on board. So
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: you know, what point did you know you wanted to
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: produce something? And then and you know, and then just
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: sort of you know, what was that impetus for for
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: you to finally say, all right, this is the year
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm just gonna produce something.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Uh. Tying in with the story from before, it is
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: like uh, you know, the Young and Hungry List and
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: the the getting the award and and then having a
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: ton of people pass in Hollywood. I was kind of like, man,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: I just want to get something on screen. I just
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: want to get something on screen. And my friend Matt
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: Mercer is a talented director, and uh, we were at
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: a we were at a friend's birthday party. Actually, I
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: remember that's where I pitched Play Violet for me. And
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: I knew nothing about how to produce a film. I
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: had no clue. I'd just been a writer up to
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: that point. And I was like, you know, I didn't
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: know how much it was going to cost, and I
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: didn't know, you know, I knew who I you know,
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: I knew what the idea was going to be sort of,
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: but I pissed it and he was like, well, yeah,
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: let's put it together. And he told me I wish
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: you would cause I was like, oh wow, because you
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: can really put a movie together, a quality movie together,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: for not a lot of money, and and so I
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: was like, well, that's worth the investment. And once we
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: had actually shot the film and got everything together, that's
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: when I was kind of like, oh wow, I guess
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: I'm a producer now, you know. I learned how to
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: deal with sag, I learned how to do the paperwork,
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: I learned how to you know, get people on board
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: to star in the film, and and uh, and then
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh wow, I guess I guess that's producing.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: I don't know. So after that, because I had the
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: execut producer title on the thing, I was like, well,
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: let's have a company and you know, form that with
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Jen and and the rest is history.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: So so, Jenny, what we you know? Did did Kevin
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: pitch this to you and say, you know, I want
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: to start my own company and you and you were
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: kind of like, what are you thinking? What do you
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: go crazy?
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: Actually I think it was the opposite. I mean, Kevin
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: correct me if I'm wrong, But I was like, we
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: should start a company.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Let's do this because now the truth comes out. Now
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: the truth comes out. It was actually her idea day,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: but a man, I thought I could fake it.
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: No, No, what happened was again I was like Kevin,
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: I knew nothing about filmmaking, and we were on set
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: for play vitel for me all day and basically I
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: was just like in awe. I was just taking pictures
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: and just just watching it all unfold and just just
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: watching just these incredible talented human beings say the lines
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: that my husband wrote.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: I was hooked.
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: I was hooked. I love being on set. I love
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: that experience. And after we you know, went through the
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: festival run, I was like, well, I think, I think
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: this is really great and I really like to do
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: more of it and I want to see more of
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: your work on screen. And so just kind of came
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: about like that, like I've done some other startup things,
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: other projects for my other work for for pediatrics, and
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: so I had a little bit of knowledge and how
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: did we get things going? And uh, we just looked
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: into starting our small business and just incorporated actually this month.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: So yeah, so here we are.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: So as sort of you've gone along with this, Jennifer,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: and you became the director of marketing. You know, what's
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: sort of the challenge that you've seen thus far with
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: just you know, marketing you know, different short films, different movies. Uh,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: you know, just with the current current social media climate
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: and everything and with the way it is.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: I guess the biggest challenge for me was just learning
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: how to do it because I obviously didn't have any
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: background any training in it, so but I really love
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: learning new things. So it started out first with web design.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: I wanted to see if I could make a website,
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: and there's all these wonderful platforms out there I went.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: I ended up going with Squarespace because they just have
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: these beautiful templates, wonderful customer service, because I knew I
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: was gonna need a lot of help building the first one,
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: and then I just it just went from there. I thought, well, Okay,
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: we've got this this presence online, what's another way of
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: inexpensive advertising, And it's it's through social media, and it's
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: it's readily available, it's free. So then I learned how
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: to how to manage Twitter, and then uh then just
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: worked on the Facebook pages and then Instagram came after that.
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: So as far as the current social media climate, I
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: think we're kind of far removed from, you know, a
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: lot of the negativity that's that's out there in the
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: current climate because we're a short film producing company working
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: our way up to features, and our our movies don't
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: really have any specific sort of political message or or
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: anything like that. They're all about entertainment on horror, sci fi,
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: and neo noir. So unfortunately, I've been very far removed.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: I was concerned, honestly when I first started on Twitter
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: about what I might experience. And you know, you see
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: all these negative comments on television screen whatever you're watching.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: You'll see some really really nasty people out there. But
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: I've been pretty far removed from it. We try and
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: keep our messages positive and not respond to the negative stuff,
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: so I think that helps. So I've been pretty fortunate
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: not to have to experience much of that yet.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: So also though, as part of the climate, what I
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: was what I was actually, I'm sorry I should have clarified.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: I was actually referring to was just the because everything
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: is a little crowded out nowadays. I know there is
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: trolls and and things take get negative, but you know,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: there is so many people out there on Twitter now,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: different filmmakers, everyone has a podcast, you know. So I
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: was just wondering, you know some of the you know,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: how do you get your message out there? I mean, so,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: what are some of the things that you've learned with
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: you know, how to sort of cut through all the noise?
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: Oh, okay, sorry about that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: No, no, it's my fault. I actually should have been
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: much more more specific.
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, that's good. I guess I just sort of
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: let things happen organically. I ended up connecting with some
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: filmmakers on Twitter and just promoting their stuff on our site,
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: and they ended up just promoting some of our stuff,
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: and then I ended up getting actually we met Lillian
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: through Twitter. Lilian Sue our you know, publicists who connected
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: us with you. So I think I just we just
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: sort of put a positive message out there, and I
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: like to tweet stuff about behind the scenes and the
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: stills and just just the beautiful pictures that the wonderful
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: cinematographers we've worked with have created. So just sort of
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: putting that out there and seeing what comes back. We've
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: just been pretty lucky to connect with some people. Yeah,
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: So I actually haven't had a real targeted goal except
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: for specific instances like when we go to a particular
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: festival or we have a trailer put.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Out, We'll be right back after a word from our
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: So I do have a targeted approach for that, But
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: in general, I'm just trying to connect with other filmmakers
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: and that's sort of.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: Work for us.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: So what have you had the most success with in
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: terms of social media? Have you have you you know,
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: have the most success with YouTube or Instagram or Twitter.
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: We haven't paid into YouTube yet. I have not had
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: the time, honestly to get that together, unfortunately with my
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: other full time work. That's one of my goals. I
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: think probably we've had the biggest success on Twitter simply
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: because play Biler for me, our first film is a
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: noir and it's such a small genre that has rabid fans,
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: but they're a small, small number of them. So I
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: think that's where I was able to connect with people
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: the most, is tweeting about noir, reaching out about noir,
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: talking to people about noir and noir sites. So we
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: end up getting several reviews based on that that we
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: would not have before because that was our very first
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: a film for for a brand new company. So I
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: feel like that's where I had some success. And I
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: guess the biggest claim to fame is that Oscar Isaac
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: actually ended up watching play Violet for me, and that
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: was true. That yeah, I was, actually I was. Actually
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: there was a direct message back and forth between myself
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: and another screenwriter who was working on a project in Texas,
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: and we were just chatting about Violet and he liked
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: it and he complimented the writing and I was like, well,
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: that's so rare. Like, no, people don't compliment the right
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: and they compliment everything else about a film, but most
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: people don't mention the writing. And I said, thanks, that's awesome,
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: and I passed them on the Kevin, He's gonna be
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: really happy to hear that. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah,
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: I'm a screenwriter too. So we started talking about his
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: projects back and forth, and then he's like, oh, yeah,
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: by the way, you know, I grew up with Oscar
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: Isaac and you know, he sent me some pictures of
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: them when they grew up and he was like, yeah,
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: he watched it and thought it was cool. I was like,
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: oh my god, that's amazing. Yeah. So that's Twitter, I
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: think has been the biggest support for our film so far,
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: in our in our company.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It just goes to show you the power of
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: social media, or the power of Twitter, I should say.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: I always I'm a big fan of Twitter. I actually
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: meet most people through Twitter. I met Lillian through Twitter.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: So it's very very you know, it's social media. It's
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: all just a tool. You just have to know how
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: to wield it.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: So, uh, you know, and last year, Kevin, you just
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: to go back to the entire Sunshine Point Productions. You
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: know you actually we're gonna you actually directed your first film,
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: which was Heartless, so so, and you're hitting the festival
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: circuit now right.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, we just had our world premiere last weekend
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: in Oxford, Mississippi. Awesome festival alone, great and yeah it
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: couldn't be happier. It's it's rolling along.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: So so you know what what you know what what
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: finally decided? What finally made you decide to sort of
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: go behind the camera and direct your first film?
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: Uh? I had written a horror uh feature, and a
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: couple of my friends were like, hey, you should direct this.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: And at first I was like, are you crazy? That's
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: that's that's crazy. And then uh, the more I thought
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: about it, I was like, well, okay, maybe. So then
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I talked to a couple of director friends of mine
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: and they they of course recommended that I do a
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: short just to you know, to see and can like
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: build my way up. And and then I was I
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: was just kind of like, all right, well, let's let's
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: see what we can do. I had the idea for
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: the Shore. I was on another friend's set and had
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: the idea for the for the po adaptation that I
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: turned into Heartless And yeah, I just I guess, uh,
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: as far as like just getting getting my feet wet
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: or or whatever, I had to you know, talk to
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: some people and and get some suggestions and and then
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: then I just dove into it and and I had
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: written the script and and people. I guess the biggest
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: thing was nobody told me no. Nobody was like, are
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: you crazy, dude, What's what's going on. It's like, there's
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: no way you can't. You can do this. Everybody was
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: so supportive and they were like yeah, and everybody I
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: talked too hopped on board and and you know that
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: that really helped out. Yeah.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like your network is your net worth?
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, really and and uh, I've been very fortunate
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: in having the group around me in Los Angeles, all
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: these just just incredible independent filmmakers and and uh yeah
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: I had help everywhere. So that was that was very good,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: especially when you're when you're doing your your first, uh
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: your first directorial effort, it's uh, it's daunting, but you
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: know it can be done. And I also have a
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: wonderful wife that like calmed me down when I was
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: freaking out like you know, a week before we went
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: into shooting. But uh, you know it was it was
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: a really really great experience.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: So what was the biggest obstacle then, because you know,
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: this was your first directoral movie, you know, so what
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: what was like the biggest obstacle that you faced.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: Well, it's a it's an adaptation to the telltal heart
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: By by Poe and I and I didn't want to
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: the way I looked at it, I was like, if
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: you want to do Poe, go big or go home.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: So I put quite a bit of blood and gore
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: into it. And this required you know, shooting, shooting in
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: a way and we shot for three days, but shooting
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: in a way that you could do seven effect blood
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: effect sequences in that amount of time. And that was
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: a challenge just logistically. But I had really great blood
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: experts on on set and they took care of that.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: I think the biggest thing was just scheduling and getting
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: eleven pages shot with with these kind of intricate sequences
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: in there. But once again, it's you know, I had
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: I had people around me that, you know, my DP
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: had directed films, my gaffer had directed films, my grip
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: had directed films. Is like at any given time, I
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: had four or five directors on set, so I had
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: a great network of people that I could talk to
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: and and help me through that. So I would say,
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: you know, outside of the bloodffect, the biggest challenge was
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: like scheduling in a day and making sure that you
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: get the shots and and uh, but that that worked out.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: So like you didn't have any actors, no show or
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: anything like that.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: No, not, It's it's cool. It's like you were talking
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: about social media. It's like I cast the thing entirely
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: through Facebook. And there were people that I knew. Uh,
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: Stacey's a good friend and and we've worked with her
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: on a short that we produced before this called Feeding Time,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: and and uh, she was like she was the one
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: that I wanted for that role. Reached out to her,
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: got her. Joanna I had met uh, you know, several
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: years years earlier, but it never never really talked to
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: But that was a Facebook message I sent to her
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: and sent her the script and she signed on like it.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: I think the entire casting for the film probably took
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: about forty five minutes. It was just just a series
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: of Facebook messages and people that I had met and
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: then they they read the they read the script forty
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: five minutes as far as like my part, but yeah,
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: it's so this is kind of like when you have
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: a network and you have people you can get to,
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: it's really help. And then Matt, Matt's in it, and
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: that's like, you know, one of my best friends. So
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: it's like, hey, dude, want to do it? Yeah? Cool,
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: he signed on. So yeah, no cast problems, no, no DEAs, no, uh,
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: nothing like that. There. They were awesome to work with,
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: which is really cool. Is the first time director to
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: not have, you know, any of that kind of conflict.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: But no, they were they were awesome, and they were
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: great with working with me and having patience with me,
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: and yeah, and it worked out.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you definitely dodged a bullet there, because I
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: mean we've all heard horror stories. I mean, hell, it's
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: happened to me where I've had a film and you know,
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: you cast actors and they they go, oh that was today.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: I'm like, man, you what the amount of emails and
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: texts I've been sending you man? Come on?
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: Oh wow? Yeah no, no, I feel very fortunate. Then
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: I will think all of them when I when I
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: see them next.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you'd be like, hey, I was talking to this
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: guy Dave and he was telling me horror stories. And
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: they'll go like, who's Dave.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: Who the hell? Yeah, I just go up and hug them,
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: just like thank you for not doing that. They were
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: they were awesome. They were it was fun, it was good,
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: and they were all energetic about it and and they
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: they really really did a great job. And they we
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: just got a review this week and it was talking
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: about the acting in the film, so they were they
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: were tremendous.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: See, and that's good man, because you know they always say, uh,
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: gooder bad director, gooder bad acting is always a result
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: of gooder bad directing.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: Well cool, Yeah, see I think it would go the
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: opposite way too, you know that, Uh it really is.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: It does reflect very well on you when you when
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: you get the talent in there and they do their
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: job and and just kill it and then all of
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: a sudden, Wow, you're a good directory. Well had great talent.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then then that that's the key to directing,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: right is uh good script, good script, good actors, and
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: then uh good cinematographer, and then you look like a genius.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: And yeah, yeah, I came from a retail management background,
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: and when I was talking to Jen about how I
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: wanted to put the thing together, you know, I always
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: harken back to that, and and you know, it is
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: amazing how much better a manager I was when when
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: the staff was better. It's like when I wasn't having
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: staffing problems when you know, you know, it's just it's
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: just an interesting thing when you surround yourself with with
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: really really great workers and great people, then all of
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: a sudden, you're you're so much better at your job.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so trut It allows you to focus, so
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: you're not constantly like on the phone going hey where
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: are you or you know what's going on?
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: Now?
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: I got to go to plans Z now because I've
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: already gone through plans you know, a through y. So
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: it's kind of like, you know what I mean, It's
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: just you're kind of now you can actually focus and
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: and again you will call you a good manager.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: And now back to the show.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's I mean, I've said it on like
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: the speech to the to the cast and crew on
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: the on the last day of filming or whatever. But
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's it. They just all from from you know,
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: actors to you know, AC to a d to you know,
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: every single job on that film for us to get
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: it done in the time that we got it done,
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: with all the different things that we need to do
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: with the everything, if one person hadn't pulled their weight,
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: then you know we have to go back, but you
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: pickups with to do that. It's like it's really a
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: credit to just how great that cast and crew were
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: that you know, I didn't have to do four or
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: five takes on scenes. I didn't have to you know,
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: adjust because the the camera person wasn't you know, wasn't
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: doing their jobs. It's like that wasn't the that wasn't
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: to worry, which really I mean that that made it.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: That made it much more enjoy enjoyable experience and much more.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: It just made it go better. And it's a it's
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: a credit and they were an incredible cast and crew.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and to see that, that's awesome, you know, and I'm
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: glad you could take that experience and you know, and
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: and keep you know, parlaying that. And I know you
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: mentioned you were you're eventually going to make a feature
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: so and so I know, Kevin, I I Jen Jennifer.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: I know we've been talking for forty five minutes now,
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: you know, is there anything you want to say to
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: sort of put a period at the end of this
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: whole conversation or maybe just say something or anything you
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: want to discuss that we haven't had a chance to yet.
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess we could just talk about where to
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: find us. So we have websites, as we've already discussed.
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: Sunshine Boy Productions dot com have all of our short
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: films on there, and Heartlessmovie dot com is the new
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: one coming out. It just just had its world from
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: here at Oxford and we're on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: We love to connect with people, so be really happy
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: to do that.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: And we're we're setting off on the festival trail. We
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: have three more festivals coming up. We have We're going
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: to be at Evermore in Durham this weekend or next weekend.
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: This weekend, oh yeah yeah yeah, well next weekend now
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: yeah uh.
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: And then after that we have our our West Coast
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: premiere at the No Host Cinifest, which is an amazing festival.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: It's got a great horror line up in that block.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: And then after that we're going to uh Chattanooga, uh
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: And I have never been there, so that's I'm just
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: super excited about that one.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: So when when you when you're at these film festivals,
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: do you actually fly out or you drive out?
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: Uh?
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: Fly? Well, I mean the ones here drive to, but yeah,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: we we fly out.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Okay. I was just wondering, honestly, because I imagined, uh, you know,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: driving across the country A couple of times, you're like,
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: all right, it's cool. But now now like we're getting
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: into double jigs digits now, and it's kind of like,
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, you know, drive. I had a friend
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: of mine who actually drove. The reason I always asked
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: I asked that question is I had a friend of
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: mine who actually drove from here, uh In in Pennsylvania
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: out to uh Nevada and and and he was and
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: but he he he went on like this whole tour
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: of differently different things. And he was driving I think
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: it was, I want to say it was Iowa or Wyoming,
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: and he said it all started to hit him as
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: he was driving out there, and he goes, it was
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: just like a flat area. It was all, you know,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: completely flat, and he's like, I just saw the same things. Like,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: you know, it was kind of like a prairie and
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: then a farm, and then and then a little bit
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: and then it was like, you know, just open grassland
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: like a prairie. So it was like prairie farm, prairie farm.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: And he goes it starts to mess with your mind,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: and you like.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: You know, uh, yeah, we we've done that job. Actually,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: I know the part of the country he's talking about us.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: On the way out from Michigan, we drove that.
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: I think doing that for for weeks and weeks would
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: be really I don't think our marriage would.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: Laugh that you didn't mission it was we we with
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: the with Feeding Time, the short film before Heartless.
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: I did actually go on a road trip with with
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: Matt and we drove from here to Provo, Utah. Now
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: that was pretty cool, but that's not like all the
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: way across the country. It was. That was a ten
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: hour drive and it was awesome. That was fun. Listen
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: to music show with your friend. That that was great.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: Oh that's all. Yeah, See, that's awesome. It's awesome when
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: you can when you can go with a friend.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: Because even when I take a trip trip out to Pittsburgh,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: it's like four hours, and it really helps if you know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: if everyone's into the trip, you know what I mean,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: and everyone's you know, you know, and it just you know,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: it makes it go a little easier. When when the
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: last time I went, it was snowing as we were
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: getting into Pittsburgh and we were more concentrating on not dying, uh,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: because I was like, I think I got a little
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: fast and He's like, Godelby had a drive. I'm like,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: all right, so so uh yeah, you know, it's just uh,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's a it's this crazy journey, right,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: so every so everyone, I will link to everything that
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: that Kevin, Jennifer and I talked about. Kevin and Jennifer,
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: I want to say thank you so much for coming on. Hey,
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: thanks for alis man.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: This is a blast.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: had over to the show notes at Indie film Muscle
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: dot com. Forward Slash eight forty three, and if you
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you again so much for listening to guys.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 55:25
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• 55:28
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• 55:31
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