Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 702: How to Make Four Features in One Year with Chad Archibald & Cody Calahan

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IFH 702: How to Make Four Features in One Year with Chad Archibald & Cody Calahan · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
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Film Houstle Podcast, Episode number seven. So to be ruthless about protecting your
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writing days, I e. Do not cave into the endless request to have
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in quotes essential and long overdue meetings on those days. End quote. JK.
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Rowling Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle
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Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker
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in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I
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am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's
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harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films from
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ebook, and of course audiobook. If you want to order it,
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just head over to www dot film bizbook dot com. That's film Bizbook dot
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com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason Buff. Today we're talking with
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Chad Archibald and Cody Callahan of Black Vaughn Films. Their films Antisocial two and
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Bite just premiered at the Fantasia Fests up in Toronto. And it's supposedly somebody
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like threw up and it was so gross watching the movie Bite that somebody threw
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up. I think, you know, I don't know how true it is,
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but it's a great thing to for publicity, you know. And I
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think they after that they started giving out like barf bags with their logo on
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it and everything. So I mean, these it's pretty amazing how they have
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been able to get out and find an audience. And you know, as
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we talk about in the interview, they get out and they go to horror
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fests and they go to cons and do you know, they're they're out there
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really getting the word out about their films. And that's how they've been able
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to build up an audience. And one of the things we talk about a
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lot on this show is the key to filmmaking is finding your audience. That's
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all you need to have if you want. If you make a film and
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are able to sell it and get it out to people who want to see
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it, that's all you need. Let me go ahead and get to the
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interview. This is Chad Archibald and Cody Calahan. First thing I wanted to
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talk about was just coming off of Fantasia Fest, and you know, one
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of the big things we talk about is distribution and how people are connecting with
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their audiences. And first, I'm kind of wondering how much of a role
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Fantasia fest plays into your overall strategy for getting the word out and how are
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things working nowadays with the way that vod is kind of changed and DVDs aren't
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as big anymore. Can you talk about just the way that you're getting your
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film out there, how people can find it, and how you're connecting with
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your audience. Well, I guess the whole Fantasia thing. We love going
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to this festival. It's it's fairly close to us. It's about an eight
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hour from h where we live. So it's it's been a staple with I
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think we've had like eight films there over the years. Um. But we
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you know, we generally come up with you know, thirty forty people,
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our entire cast and crew and uh, and we have a we have a
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great time up there. It's it's kind of like our little vacation from the
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year. Uh. And I mean it's just aside from that is actually,
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you know, just one of the best festivals out there. It's it's run
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so well. Um, the organizers put so much effort into, uh,
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you know, picking great films and making it such a great experience and the
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fans that are like the audiences are just there's so much fun. Um.
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So, I mean we go up there with our films to premiere them,
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but we also love just going to actually watch movies and and uh you know,
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just see what and see what's coming and see what's coming out next.
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I guess, right, Um yeah, I guess. As far as uh
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getting our films out there, uh, you know, we we have a
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sales team that goes out to all the markets and whatnot, like the AFMs
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and and whatnot. But you know, it's it's difficult with any indie film
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to really get noticed and there's just so many films out there. So I
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mean we try to you know, first of all, I guess you know,
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we're trying to make okay movies. Um that that we hope kind of
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end up getting standing out in the sea of other indie horror films right now.
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Um So, I mean I think that's obviously the first thing that you
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got to try to do. But aside aside from that, I mean,
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we you know, we use tons of social media stuff. Um. We
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uh have worked hard over the years creating relationships with fans and when now we
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go to tons of conventions and um, you know we're always you know,
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trying to get out there and push our films and just as well push ourselves.
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Um. We we hire a ton of different people on different shoots and
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we always try to treat people with respect and it I think that kind of
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gets a word out there a little bit too, I mean, at least
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in Canada. Um. And then aside from that, you know, we
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always come up with little marketing gigs, like we had little bark bags at
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the Bites. Um, you know, we did a big any social Can
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thing at the can Market and yeah, I mean just try to try to
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come up with interesting ideas to engage your audiences. Right. Has it changed
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a lot since the technology has become cheaper and people aren't doing DVDs as much?
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I mean, is it a harder feel to get into like producing horror
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movies? Oh for sure. It's it's completely different now and every year it
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gets a little bit harder. Which is it's funny because it's like we you
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know, make better movies every year, but the industry kind of gets a
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little more different goalth every year. Um. But it's I mean, you
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used to be able to make a film and sell it fairly easily, because
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any distributor would be like, okay, well, I mean we're gonna sell
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a hundred thousand copies to the Blockbusters and the Rodgers out there instantly, so
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you know, there's actually no way we're gonna lose money on these films.
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So there's just there's tons of money to be made back then, and distributors
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nowadays, uh, you know, they have to really work to get people
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to to watch it or rent it on iTunes or you know, there's just
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so many films accessible to everyone at the you know, touch of a button.
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So it's it's, uh, it's now a matter of actually getting people
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to watch your films and getting people to actually like choose them out of the
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sea of other films. I mean, it's it's definitely changed. It's and
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it's still changing, and it's getting you know, it's just it's getting more
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difficult. But it's also just it's getting different, right, people are just
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having having to come up with new ideas, and you know, for years
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there's been you know, people in studios, you know, with just being
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paid like, you know, tons of money to just sit there and try
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to figure out how to how to resolve the industry because it's you know,
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so many distributors have closed down. I think there's like, you know,
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thirteen percent of the distributors out there are still you know, still still kicking.
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But I mean so many of the smaller guys just got eight up by
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big studios or just had to close their doors whenever, you know, all
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the DVD market collapse, right, Do you feel like that has anything to
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do with people like doing more self distribution or just the fact that it's you
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know, people aren't rinting DVDs anymore, there's no more. There's really not
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like a physical product anymore. Yeah, I mean there's still out there.
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Um, we still release all our our our films on DVD and Blu ray,
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um. But yeah, it's it's it's got to the point where I
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think people who are like real big fans, who are like collectors of DVDs
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and we're not, they're the ones who picked that those up. And the
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people who don't specifically have a giant DVD collection that you know, um,
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they end up going on vod and and whatnot. So it's it is hard,
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but there's still you know, we go to tons of conventions and sell
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DVDs from a booth and and there's still you know a lot of people out
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there that really really like them. A lot of people are happy spending you
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know, a few bucks on getting an actual physical product. It turns into
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kind of a collector's item, you know, whereas you know, you buy
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it on iTunes and it just disappears after you can't you can't you know,
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autograph a download either. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
9:58
and now back to the show. Um, so what back in the early
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days before you guys had kind of built up this following, what was your
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primary way of kind of getting the word out? Has it always been the
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same way or have you you know, have you used social media? And
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have you you used you know? I mean, I guess my question is
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how can people who are kind of going in this into this for the first
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time start building an audience and you know, focusing on who their core audience
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is going to be. Um, I think years ago, me and Cody
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actually traveled across Canada with a movie called Never Lost and we just, uh,
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you know, we we rented movie theaters from Montreal to Vancouver and just
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kind of traveled every day we would go to a different location, different theater
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and try to you know, sell or try to screen our film. Um.
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It actually approved to be very difficult. I mean we have we had
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a great time um doing it, and we met a ton of people.
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But it's to make something like that really work and come out financially, okay.
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Um, it's very difficult to get people to come and sit in a
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theater, especially if you don't have a following in that area. You know,
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like we can we can pack the theater in Toronto because you know,
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all our friends and family are from here. But um, but it was
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it was something that I think we were a little you know, we learned
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a lot from doing it, um. And I mean even even when we
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were starting out, like the the biggest thing I think that we did was
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just um, you know, try to um, surround ourselves and work with
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a ton of people who are really passionate and uh just from from their passionate
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excitement about the films. You know, they would spread it to other people
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and you know it's it's not like it was making a huge difference in the
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industry or anything, but for us, you know, a little guys just
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making a movie. It does help get the word out there. You know,
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if you post something on social media, then you have you know,
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ten other people posting it as well, and you know, all their friends
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on other from page to see it, and you know, it kind of
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spreads like that. And I mean we also, you know, we went
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to we'd rent out theaters around Toronto and golf and went on and screen to
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screen some of our films there and just try to make a big show of
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it. We screened a film years ago where we had you know, we
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had a big party at a bar and we invited the cast and crew and
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whoever wanted to come, and we had bands play and at the end of
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the night it was like the big trailer release and me you know, released
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the trailer there and then we you know, a few months later, we
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went and we had another bigger party and we had you know, more bands
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playing. We released a new trailer that was there, and the third band
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was like there. The third time was like a release where we showed a
12:54
few of our music videos for the bands that were playing there, and we
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showed the trailers and we were least tickets for the actual screening at the Cineplex
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and we ended up selling out three or four theaters well, which was you
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know, it was great, but that was you know back in the day
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whenever you know, there wasn't YouTube, not to day list, but no.
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But that that's exactly the kind of things that I hear from a lot
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of people now, which is, you know, not if you want to
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have success filmmaking, especially you know way outside you know, in the indie
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film market, you really have to become your your own giant publicity machine,
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you know, and connect with people versus some other people who want to you
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know, have a company that's like they're going to make their film and then
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they're just going to go out and sell it to a distributor that that doesn't
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really seem to exist as much anymore. Yeah, it's a it's definitely a
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challenge. Everything's a challenge, and I mean you have to take advantage of
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the things that don't cost money. Um and ideas are one of the things
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that you know, you can often come up with ideas that you can do
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cheap or or um. I think if you kin try to kind of think
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like a publicist a little bit, um just finding different angles of you know,
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how you can promote something um, you know, we had talked about
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years ago any social which was you know, it's kind of like what a
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Facebook turned all its users into zombies and we have you know, we were
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going to get you know, little super cheap USB keys and put the trailers
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on them, you know, hand them out to everyone, um on the
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streets and stuff like that. So you know, people would get a little
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USB key, which would you know be a buck or two and uh,
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you know on on the USPA ky there would be like this you know,
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social media horror movie. But I mean, I think just even doing that,
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there's there's the value of people actually picking up the um the product,
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like the USB key or whatever. But there's also a value in just just
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meeting peop people right and being like, oh, so you guys are the
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actual filmmakers and you're actually on the streets almost like years ago, when you're
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in line for like a concert, and like a guy would come over and
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be like, here's my band's tape. We're just handing them out to everyone.
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I'd like listen to the tape and be like I met that guy,
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and you know, I think nothing face did that years years ago, and
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I remember like being like school. Yeah, yeah, to be this tape
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and now he's you know, and now I'm watching music videos on on Much
15:28
Music when they played music videos, right, well tell me different. Yeah,
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well that's my era too. Uh but uh well, let me let
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me ask you one more thing about distribution and then I'm gonna change focus to
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uh, you know, screenwriting and some of the other aspects. Um.
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Now, right now, you've got Antisocial two and you've got Bite and they
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both premiered at um Fantasia fest. Um what what is the where do they?
15:58
What do you go from there? In terms of like I mean,
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are you guys kind of out of the process now? Are you just doing
16:06
publicity or are you actually involved with where it's going to be going in terms
16:10
of like US distribution, European justustry, you know all that stuff. Is
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that like where are you right now in that process? Um? I think
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we're we're we're lucky enough to work with the studio Kay called Breakthrough Entertainment and
16:27
they have a team of people who, you know, we we've reached out
16:32
to it and sat down and discussing the festivals that the films are going to
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be in, or at least reach out to and apply to and they also
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take it, you know, out as far as into the industry for sales
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UM. So, I mean, we do our local part with the people
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that we know um to help out. But in all honesty, we're on
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our next film already. We have an eight picture deal with Breakthrough Entertainment over
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two years. So we've just finished shooting the third of eight films and we're
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we're editing it right now and getting ready to go into production on the next
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five. So so what that's like four films per year? Yeah? Yeah,
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Okay, Well let's let's go into that a little bit because that seems
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to me that seems insane. I mean it seems like you guys probably you
17:22
know, may stop to eat for two seconds and then you go back to
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work. Is that kind of your lifestyle now? Yeah, that's kind of
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kind of why I said Plantastion was our holiday because for nine days and as
17:34
soon as we got back, we're back to work. It's funny. Cody's
17:38
actually away right now working on Better the Dead, which is the third film
17:45
that we're doing with Jeff mahar who directed it. Okay, so can we
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talk a little bit about Oh go ahead, sorry, no, it was
17:55
just fun because I think we uh we drove back from Montreal and I think
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I slept in my bed for like six hours and then got up and drove
18:03
to a cottage where we set up like all are as at its suits and
18:07
I've been here since plantation and that's it. It's like we have to kind
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of do these uh, these endurance trips of getting things done. Um.
18:19
So, I mean it's uh, it is insane. I mean we really
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we're excited going into this slight of films, and I think the hardest thing
18:29
is actually just just getting all the concepts together and getting them all aproof by
18:33
the studio and whatnot. Because you know, like we said, it's it
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all starts with your idea and your concept being unique. If it's not a
18:38
unique idea, then there's you know, it's going to be very different,
18:44
difficult to stand out. Well, there obviously has to be a profitable aspect
18:49
of what you guys are doing, you know, So, I mean to
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attract a company like um Breakthrough, right, Yeah, I mean I think
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the industry is you know, the industry is still buying movies and there's still
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uh you know, I think there's still a spot in it for sure,
19:06
if you if you make quality films, right, and yeah, I think
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breakthrough is also kind of you know, I think they've seen a lot of
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the films that we had done in the past for you know, ten dollars,
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and they can they can see, you know, where we've come and
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where we're going, and they really want to kind of invest in our future
19:26
as well. So this is this is a first step to it. Okay.
19:30
Now, I wanted to side track for just a second. Everyone.
19:36
I wanted to sidetrack for one second because I was reading one of your interviews,
19:41
Chad, specifically um about Desperate Souls, which you made I think when
19:45
you were twenty two, right, yeah, Now, you mentioned that you
19:49
kind of messed up the sound and everything and you had some issues with that,
19:52
but ended up selling it to lions Gate and Alliance Films. Right,
19:56
yeah, Okay, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
20:06
and now back to the show. Can you just describe how that happened or
20:11
how it's possible that you know to do something like that, because I hear
20:15
so many nightmare stories about filmmaking and things going wrong and people who are never
20:21
able to you know, there are film ends up sitting in a closet somewhere,
20:23
you know, despite their best efforts and everything. And I was just
20:26
wondering how that kind of happened, or if you can talk a little bit
20:30
about that. Yeah, you know, we went out and we made this
20:33
movie, and we made every mistake in the book. We shot it and
20:37
all the audio was so horrible that there's generators in the background of everything.
20:42
I went out and bought three redheads and like three one K lights and lit
20:48
the whole movie with that. I was just clueless. All we knew is
20:49
that there was these cameras, these DBX one hundreds shot Sorry, there's a
20:56
huge bangings anyways, and that was the last we heard of chat. Yeah,
21:06
anyways, there's a these cameras DBX one hundreds that we're the first cameras
21:10
to really shoot twenty four puh. So it's basically you know that moment when
21:15
you know a pro prosumer camera stopped looking like your home video, right.
21:21
So we we had pre ordered two of those, and I mean, I
21:25
know at that point before then, it's like, you know, to to
21:29
go out and film a movie on a pro sumer camera. It still had
21:33
a very video e. Look right, Um so these is that HD?
21:37
No, that was standard death right, Yeah, that's what I thought.
21:41
Yeah, so it Uh so we went out and we shot this movie.
21:45
You know, we literally thought we could shoot in a week, and it
21:48
took you know, two years. Of course we're so clueless and uh yeah,
21:53
we uh we made every mistake in the book. I ended up having
21:56
to build a sound room in my basement and I rerecorded every line of dialogue,
22:03
every sound, every movement, every footstep in this room and Vega video
22:10
and linked it all up and made the M and E and because I figured
22:15
out what an M and E was at that point, and yeah, yeah,
22:21
and then released the movie. You know, we went and met with
22:23
some people in Toronto. It's it's kind of it's difficult because well it's funny
22:29
because so many people think it's you know, so hard to set up meetings
22:33
with people in the industry. But I mean, if you have a product,
22:37
if you have you know, an idea or whatever, it's like it's
22:40
really not that hard. Like people are generally, you know, interested in
22:45
finding what's out there and finding you know, connecting with people. So we
22:49
always say that in meetings or whatever, it's like, you know, reach
22:52
out and and try to try to meet with people, like we we meet
22:56
with people all the time. Just people are like, hey, you know,
22:59
I'm trying to get into film and you would love to buy a beer.
23:02
That's that's what indices us apparently. But anyways, yeah, we uh,
23:08
you know, got it to someone who who was interested and back then
23:12
there's still again Rogers Videos and all those stores. So they looked at it
23:17
and they were like, you know, this is uh, it's a complete
23:19
movie. It's got all the pieces, it's got all the deliverables, um,
23:22
which are a whole other story. But we got it all together and
23:26
and sold it the lines getting lines less and I it's just it's the worst
23:32
movie ever. Like I wouldn't be able to give it away. It's just
23:36
it's horrible. Um that's a first on the show. But it's uh.
23:41
But the fact is we made every mistake in the book. And UM,
23:47
I think from that experience, that's where a lot of the knowledge that I
23:51
have now about filmmaking came from. You know. I I think the problem
23:56
with people is that you know, people getting into the industry right now is
24:00
they're so eager to just like jump into making a film and you know,
24:03
sorry, that's kind of what we did do. So I'm not stand small,
24:07
um, but I mean like there's technology out the iPhones or whatever.
24:11
It's like, go out and just make mistakes, man, make every mistake
24:14
that you can possibly do, and work on making and fixing it and figuring,
24:18
you know, figuring out exactly what you have to do to make a
24:21
movie. And then whenever you actually get some money and put it into a
24:25
film, or if you're investing your own money, you know you can you
24:29
can have a better chance of it, you know, getting completed for one
24:33
again. Yeah, there's so many people out there that start they jump into
24:37
a feature and underestimate it and don't know how to you know, resolve issues
24:42
on them by themselves. Whenever, you know, shit hits the fed.
24:47
So I think it's it's important if you don't have the money, you have
24:49
to be able to trust yourself to figure it out to get the project fune.
24:56
Now, you you mentioned deliverables and said that was a whole other topic.
24:59
Can you just breathe fully talk about deliverables. The importance of you know,
25:03
having the things that you need to give for to make sure the film
25:07
is all legal and everything just the kind of most important things. UM.
25:11
Well, I mean I think you know you have to have your contracts with
25:14
all your cast and crew and whatnot. Um, there's there's different kinds of
25:18
deliverables. There's deliverables if you want to sell the film, but if you
25:19
want to do tax credits as a whole other list of deliverables. M But
25:23
I mean if you know anything that you can think that you think you might
25:26
be viable for right you know, location agreements, um. You know,
25:32
if you're using music from someone, if someone's doing the score, you know,
25:34
you make sure they have signed and paperwork. Um. And a lot
25:37
of the templates are you know good enough? Mind you can search them,
25:41
search them all up just basically anyone you work with who's adding anything creative,
25:45
just make sure something um. Or if you're working you know, if you
25:49
do know a distributor or want to retout to anyone and just say, you
25:52
know, can you send me a list of what you would ask for if
25:56
you bought a film? Um? And you know you have all your different
26:00
you know an m Andy, it's like your music and effects tracks, so
26:03
you know when you when you release a film, you have you have to
26:07
deliver one track that's all your dialogue. Um, then you have to release
26:11
additional tracks that are basically all the sound effects in the movie, so you
26:15
know, footsteps, close explosions, all the music, and basically then if
26:22
you sell it to Japan, they can go they can delete your dialogue track.
26:26
They still have all the other sounds of the movie, and then they
26:29
double over you know beautifully and needs right. And then of course like your
26:38
trailers, your poster elements, you know, fifty stills, h you know
26:44
stills from set post material right, yeah, okay, Um, So moving
26:51
into building a project, okay, and um, what I want to talk
26:56
for a second about your process for screen right, because a lot of ore
27:00
we talk a lot with screenwriters, and I'm a screenwriter, and people like
27:04
to know what can you talk a little bit about your process for beginning a
27:08
project and how you kind of start putting together your screenplays, and especially since
27:14
you guys are kind of cranking stuff out, how what is the secret if
27:18
you've found one for kind of getting to your final draft of a screenplay quickly
27:23
and effectively that few codes? Um, well, I think we used to
27:33
me and Chad used to write a lot more because we would make one or
27:37
maybe two movies a year. But now since we're we are doing so much,
27:42
we spend sort of less time actually writing scripts and more time just coming
27:47
up with solid, solid concepts and then bringing on new new writers. And
27:55
I think for us, I mean obviously with every every movie, we do
27:59
something good and we're like, okay, we got to do we gotta remember
28:02
that and do that again. But for every good thing, there's fifty back
28:04
things we do. And I think as as we've sort of grown, um
28:10
you know, writing and you know, helping other people write and then getting
28:14
people write, for us is just trying to trying to keep our ideas um,
28:18
you know, fun and simple and clean. Because I think both me
28:22
and Chad have made movies where at some point in time there's a character who
28:26
needs to explain something, and I think I think we both had that moment
28:32
of like, well, I can't cut the scene because I need to get
28:36
this information across, but I wish I could go back, because no,
28:38
at no point in a movie should somebody sit down in front of somebody and
28:41
go and take a deep breath and explain why you're watching itself and I've done
28:48
it. I know lots of filmmakers do it, but I think for us,
28:52
it's like every time we make a movie, Um, you know,
28:55
we'll sit at Pantasia and leave and go talk to each other and be like,
29:00
so, let's never do that again. Let's but everybody loved that,
29:03
so let's make sure we do that again. So I feel like every every
29:07
movie, even though they're all so so different, like any Social two and
29:11
Bite. I don't even know if you can compare them how different they are,
29:14
but both of them came out of what we learned from the Drownsman and
29:19
Sublets and any Social one. And it's it's funny because it's like all of
29:25
those movies are so different, but still filmmaking comes down to like some pretty
29:30
simple rules that you can play with and try to break, but um,
29:33
there's some things you just have to stick to because every time we we don't,
29:37
you can see the audience's reactions or read about it in a review.
29:42
Okay, one of those big mistakes then that you learn from. We'll be
29:51
right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
30:00
Well, I say I would say that the biggest one is is having
30:04
a having a concept that um that is that is cool enough that the audience
30:12
goes, oh, okay, oh that's interesting and something a little different,
30:15
but don't go so wacky that you need a character to explain why you're watching
30:19
the film. And like, you know, even on the anti Social it
30:23
took us forever to try to figure out a way to tell the audience that
30:29
Facebook. But you know, in our case, the website it's called red
30:33
Room. How does how does this website you know basically possess people? And
30:37
why is it doing it? Without having one character talk to you for five
30:41
minutes? So it was about getting all those pieces of information and subtly trying
30:45
to put give them to different characters at different times. So by the time
30:49
the you know, the hammer comes down and it's like this is the thing
30:53
that's killing people, you already have enough to put everything together so that we
30:57
don't have to explain a lot um. I think that one for for us
31:02
is the biggest then also, um, trying to trying to keep when you're
31:10
when you do such graphic horror movies where you know, people are throwing up
31:12
at theater, you've got to remember that like for an hour and a half.
31:18
If you're going to be that discussing that you kind of you should add
31:22
a little bit of humor, just just to release the audience here and there.
31:26
And I think sometimes, you know, I mean for me personally,
31:30
I can get so so into moving so intense about it that I want it
31:33
to be so serious. But sometimes you kind of have to step back and
31:36
go, Okay, well there's a movie about Facebook turning people into zombies,
31:41
so let's trud lightly on the on the serious factor. So do you start
31:47
out with a kind of a blueprint and put the whole thing together, you
31:49
know, before you actually start writing, or do you just kind of jump
31:52
in, Um, Well, usually it's like shadow call me, like he'll
31:57
be driving home. They'll call me or something and be like what about a
32:00
movie? And like you know that? And I'll call him with with an
32:05
idea and usually we go through I don't know recently, we've gone through but
32:12
fifty different ideas, just trying to to find the right one to put our
32:16
time into writing. But I feel like for us, it's not it's not
32:21
that we we take an idea and we work on it so long that we
32:24
figure out how to make it work. But we wait until there's that spark
32:29
with something different or like, okay, cool, I haven't seen that before.
32:31
And usually we wait for each other's reaction, and if the reaction is
32:36
like, Okay, that's really cool, then we keep developing. But I
32:39
don't we go through so many different ideas, and sometimes we'll you know,
32:44
we'll we'll write a twelve page treatment, send it to each other and the
32:45
other person's like, nah, not feeling it started again. Like my desktop
32:51
has like there's a folder called old movies and I was just looking at it
32:54
now and there's there's probably twenty four treatments in there, none of which they
33:00
have to make. Right. Do you do you have any kind of go
33:05
to structure that you use when you're like plotting things together? I mean do
33:07
you ever use something like Save the Cat or or Hero's Journey or anything like
33:12
that, or I assume for a horror movie it's a little bit different.
33:15
Yeah, I mean, say the Cat's got some I mean that books.
33:17
That books great, because I do think no matter whether it's horror, drama
33:22
or colony or whatever, there is there is structure things that have worked forever,
33:27
so that so you know, there's some things to keep in mind,
33:29
and especially if it's your if it's your first film, I would never tell
33:32
anybody did not experiment. I think that's the point of making movies. But
33:37
you know, there's some things like that you need to um, you know,
33:40
you need to stick to, like, you know, giving you your
33:44
character a reason to be in the story and not just being like, Okay,
33:46
I'm gonna make a horror movie, so I'm gonna spend you know,
33:49
all the money on blood and gore because that's what people want to see.
33:52
It's like I think, you know, I think there's so many movies.
33:55
I think audiences are getting smarter, and I think you gotta be you gotta
34:00
makes something that's about people and stuff before you know, heads are exploding.
34:02
Not that we don't do that. I think the other thing as well,
34:08
that we've got used to doing. And I think this is a little bit
34:12
more of a producer writing. The thing is that you know, you make
34:17
sure that you can pull off what you're writing. So if you already know
34:21
what your budget's going to be, or if you know that you're going to
34:24
be doing it on your own with your friends, it's about coming up with
34:29
ideas that you can that you know that you can pull off well opposed to
34:34
coming out like creating ideas that are are so big that you're just setting yourself
34:38
up for failure. We me and Cody have done it in the past.
34:44
So many other filmmakers I know have done it where it's like, you know,
34:46
they've got a bunch of cops coming in, and it's like as soon
34:49
as you see the cops, they're just like a bunch of kids and they're
34:52
like just wearing all these like whatever blue dress shirts that are all big and
34:57
wonky, and it just takes you out of the whole story. Oh yeah,
35:00
and it's you know, you're reading the script, it's like, you
35:02
know, the bad guys walk out and there's a riot scene, and then
35:06
you go to shoot it and it's like your four bodies, your grips,
35:08
your gaffers, and there's like ten people in the shot and you're like,
35:12
oh, and none of them are actors, so they're all like, you
35:16
know, there's always the guy who's laughing in the back and staring at the
35:21
camera. Yeah. Okay, So moving on from screenwriting going into pre production,
35:28
I'm gonna try to get through this as fast as possible because this is
35:30
this is the kind of stuff people need to know, a lot of people
35:32
want to be in your shoes. There's the touchy subject of budgeting, investing
35:44
and kind of having an idea of what a film can make. Can you
35:49
guys discuss that a little bit and how you figure out, okay, we
35:52
can for example, you know, one hundred thousand dollars, half a million
35:57
dollars, a million dollars going up and up and up up. It's like,
36:00
how is there some sort of information you can give us about how all
36:05
that works and how you you budget? People love that question. It's so
36:09
funny how often people assularly like what's that? What's the sweet spot? Like
36:14
yeah, well this like you know you make a movie for that and you're
36:17
gonna make your money back, or you know it's um, I mean it's
36:23
different because and you always have to say this at the start, is it
36:29
does come down to your concept? Um, you know, you can make
36:32
a movie for one hundred grand that has a really good idea and it could
36:40
you know, go insane, it could it could make you millions, it
36:44
could you know, be huge. Or you make a movie for one hundred
36:47
grand and it could not sell anywhere so I mean it always does come down
36:51
to your concept and you know, the quality of you know, filmmaking that
36:54
you're that you're dealing with. UM. So I mean there is no sweet
36:59
spot that's always going to be like, you know, this is this is
37:00
the safe area. You're always going to make your money back. Now,
37:04
there's accounting things like, for example, if you wanted to use you know,
37:06
tax credits, um. You know, you can look at your budget
37:09
and be like, all right, we're going to invest this much and we'll
37:12
get this much back in tax credits, and you know, it's always a
37:15
percentage. So it's you know, depends on what your entire budget is.
37:20
But it's uh, I mean a lot of the stuff that we do is
37:25
non union UM. And uh I mean we do things like any social too
37:31
wish union UM. So there's obviously a big gap there. When you go
37:36
non union, you can you can shoot stuff for a lot cheaper um,
37:40
and there's a you know, less rules that are gonna demand your funds.
37:45
UM. But I mean I think if you you know, if you go
37:47
and you make a million dollar film, you're probably gonna want to go union
37:52
because you're gonna want to like to get some names in it that that's going
37:55
to help sell your product, because I think it does kind of unless you're
38:00
Holmes a complete breakout hit. Um it does cap out a little bit.
38:05
You know, if you don't have any names in your movie, Um,
38:07
it can be really really awesome. And still you know, a lot of
38:12
distributors will be like, hmm, I'm not gonna buy that or I'm gonna
38:15
buy it for this much money because it's it's got nobody in it. Um
38:21
So. But I mean, you know, there's there's exceptions to every rule.
38:24
You know. If people are looking for safe answers, that's that's your
38:28
safe answers that you know. If you're gonna, you know, make a
38:30
movie for a million bucks, you gotta make sure you try to get some
38:32
names in it. Um. If you're gonna make a movie for nothing,
38:37
then make sure you got a good concept to sell it. Um yeah.
38:43
And so where where exactly do you find the money? There's the money?
38:47
Um yeah? Do you have any like phone numbers and addresses? Yes,
38:53
there's the best answer if we can answer that this podcast to be all right,
39:00
Well, I won't hold you to that. The industry they released the
39:05
phone number. It's like wait for phone calls from this guy. Okay,
39:09
So yeah, the main thing I'm what I've been saying is just you have
39:14
to really it's like any business, you have to build something that people are
39:17
going to be interested in. You have to have an actor or actors or
39:22
you know, somebody with a track record. You know. I always advise
39:25
people, you know, if you want to make a movie for a hundred
39:30
thousand dollars, make a movie for ten thousand dollars or whatever you can afford
39:32
at that moment, and then you know, build up, you know.
39:37
And I don't know how you guys feel about that, but it just seems
39:39
like most people that are making films, it's like they start out with something
39:43
really low budget and just kind of and even just shorts, you know,
39:46
and then slowly move up with the next project, and as long as they
39:50
can demonstrate that they have a track record, they're gonna, you know,
39:52
be able to keep making movies. We'll be right back after a word from
39:58
our sponsor and now back to the show. Yeah. Well, I mean,
40:06
it's so it's so tricky, and it's so like there there's like filmmakers
40:10
do need to be to have a sense of responsibility for everyone else because it's
40:15
it's become an issue over the years now that everyone can make a movie.
40:20
Um. There's so many people out there that are like, you know,
40:22
I've never made a movie, but I just think that I was born to
40:25
make a movie. UM. So I'm I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna
40:30
talk to you know, all these lawyers and dentists or whatever the hell and
40:34
raise some money and we're gonna go out and we're gonna make the best movie
40:37
ever because I was born to make movies and I watch a ton of movies,
40:40
so I'm just gonna be the best at it. Um. And then
40:43
they go out and they, you know, make a shitty film or a
40:46
great film. Who knows. But chances are, like anything else, it's
40:51
like you get better at doing something by doing it. Um. And there's
40:55
a lot of people that raise a lot of money and lose a lot of
40:58
money. For people in the industry or not in the industry, there's a
41:01
lot of people who you know, sit back and they look and they're like,
41:04
oh, this is like you know, my sister in law's cousin's son
41:09
and he's a filmmaker and he's telling me, he's gonna you know, hit
41:13
the jackpot with this movie, and I'm going to give them fifty grand and
41:16
they're gonna give me back two hundred grand because that's what his little paper proposal
41:21
told me. Um. And then they go and invest the funds and into
41:25
someone who's you know, made a little booklet that looks really awesome but has
41:30
no idea what they're doing. Um. And you know, then then that
41:35
person you know gets burnt and tells his story that you know, never invest
41:37
in a film, you'll lose all your money. And then independent like independent
41:43
people fund like financing films like that are you know, they're never gonna do
41:46
it again. Um. I think everyone should be working together and you know,
41:52
raising responsible numbers to try to be like, Okay, how would I
41:57
get ten grand from you even if you if I lose it all and there's
42:00
nothing back, Like I mean, I could print off DVDs and sell ten
42:06
grand worth and you know a while, you know, it's like there's still
42:09
you know, it's it's not that much money, so you can like you
42:13
can still recoup it for someone. Um. But I mean we you know,
42:16
me and Cody know people who have invested millions of dollars and products that
42:21
never got finished. And it's it's sad, but it's you know, it
42:27
hurts everyone in the industry, and it's a you know, it's it's the
42:30
responsibility now that everyone has the power to actually make a movie. You know,
42:34
you can go out and buy you know, a camera for three thousand
42:37
dollars and make it, you know, a movie that could be a hit.
42:42
So technology is not really a factor anymore. It's just a yeah,
42:45
you know, there's people out there that have done that. They've gone and
42:49
raised a million dollars and when shot a movie with like casting their buddies in
42:52
it. Noah, it's a crazy again. Like I'm not saying don't be
42:55
ambitious, but I just mean, you know, try to try to figure
42:59
out what you're doing before you start spending people's money on it. Yeah.
43:02
It's funny because you know, back when I was more you know, in
43:07
the age, in my twenties trying to make films. Uh, I had
43:09
a couple I think I had three friends who got money by showing people El
43:15
Mariachi and they kept like they had they had an investor meeting. They were
43:17
like, look at this movie and look how much money this movie's made,
43:21
you know, and they went out and they shot their own movie and nobody
43:24
ever saw. I mean this was back in the days of like, you
43:27
know, sixteen thirty five millimeter and it was a lot more expensive. But
43:30
it was always funny to be like everybody was using the same one example,
43:35
or clerks or you know, back in like the late nineties. You know,
43:38
yeah, yeah, that was that's it. I mean, you know,
43:47
to go and and try to try to find money, and I mean
43:52
me and me and Chad and a few people. We spent a bunch of
43:57
money and shot trailers or movies that we wanted to make, and we thought,
44:01
okay, so we're gonna go out, we're gonna make these shows.
44:04
We're gonna make them look super high quality, great little concepts, try to
44:07
get the stories across and these short, little to three minute trailers and then
44:15
start setting up meetings because we have something to show that it will show what
44:19
we can do, show that we can direct, blah blahah blah. And
44:22
it's funny because I think we made four of them, and we pitched some
44:30
but and just kind of realized that it's like people like, Okay, that's
44:34
cool. But it doesn't you know, doesn't show numbers, it doesn't show
44:36
you guys can make money back. But when we met Breakthrough, we showed
44:38
them the trailers and it was funny because they they didn't necessarily want to make
44:42
those movies, but when we showed them the trailers, they were kind of
44:44
like, Okay, if you guys can do if you guys can do that,
44:46
we'll give you a tiny tiny bit of money and we'll see if we'll
44:50
see if this works. And that was that was any sort for one,
44:52
but I mean half of the why we got that buzz a trailer for a
44:57
completely different movie. But at least we you know, put all our effort
45:01
into that. And we didn't spend too much money getting a getting a pitch
45:06
piece ready, because that's the other thing too, is don't spend twenty graham
45:08
getting something together to pitch to get money for a movie make a movie.
45:15
Yeah exactly, and we uh like we we also, you know, there's
45:20
a ton of people out there that will be like, oh, we've got
45:22
uh this DP and he just did a huge film, so we're going to
45:27
put all of his stuff in our reels saying that you know, our team
45:30
has maded Um where you know, he may have had a ton of money
45:34
and you know, a whole different group of filmmakers. You know, it
45:37
is about the team that you're working with. Um. Everything we went to
45:42
break through with was stuff that you know, our team I had made specifically
45:45
so you know we could we could say that whenever we walked in. It's
45:49
like, it's not like we're just pulling people's reels and creating a team that's
45:52
never worked together on a budget so low and saying that we can pull off
45:57
you know what you're seeing here. This was us going in there being like
46:00
we made this with you know, out of our own pocket, with the
46:04
team that we currently have to do this film. So you get the feeling
46:08
that a lot of these companies just want to make sure that you know,
46:13
you guys kind of know what you're doing, and it's like, okay,
46:15
well we can, you know, we just want to see that they can.
46:19
They have a beautiful image, they have good actors, they have they
46:22
you know what I mean. It's like they're they're they know how to make
46:25
a movie, you know, versus a lot of these people who you know,
46:29
you never know. I get people that send me their shorts all the
46:30
time, and some of them look you know, high end, professionally shot
46:35
amazing, and others just look like somebody with their you know, handicam walking
46:38
around or their iPhone and have no sense of you know, cinematography, movement,
46:44
storytelling or anything. You know. Yeah, and it's weird because you're
46:49
thin, Like, We've got a ton of shorts and stuff into us,
46:52
and sometimes it's like you look at them and they're just a mess, but
46:54
you can see something in them and you're like, cool, let me know
46:59
you because I feel like the next thing that they do, they're gonna learn
47:02
from their mistakes on this one, you know. And uh yeah, I
47:08
mean it's uh, it's I think it does come down to just proving yourself,
47:14
making sure that you know, people know that, um, you can
47:19
handle produce a good product. But also just again it does come down to
47:24
concept. Like if if Cody didn't pitch this idea of Facebook turning people into
47:30
zombies and the studio to end like that, it didn't matter what we actually
47:32
did. Um, it does come down to we have a concept. Concept
47:37
in the industry, you know, people say concept is currency, so that's
47:40
how you get treats. So I mean you can have you know, tons
47:44
of actors and tons of people involved and whatnot, and you bring it all
47:49
together and if you don't have a concept that's going to stand out, and
47:51
you know, you're gonna get turned out. So it is when it all
47:54
comes down to it, it's about, you know, coming up to that
47:57
idea that's going to stand out. Okay, let me I'm gonna try and
48:01
do a little more rapid fire because I know you guys are pressed for time.
48:06
I didn't mean to interrupt. Sorry, I'm saying there's a little delay.
48:13
Okay. So, UM, moving into production, who are the most
48:16
Um, you know you've got your screenplay. Where do you go from there?
48:21
What do you start? Um? Do you work with like movie Magic,
48:23
start working on the budget, hire a line producer? How does what
48:28
is the from the end of the screenplay to the beginning of the filming kind
48:31
of what what happens there? H So, usually what we do is,
48:39
once we get a treatment or a script approved, UM, we you know,
48:45
create our basic budget of the idea and we started assembling our team.
48:50
We're lucky enough we worked with a lot of the same people because we're doing
48:52
some rene films back to back. But we've worked hard on, you know,
48:55
building a crew of people that we really a trust, we really enjoy
48:59
working with and respect um. And I mean that's you know, it's another
49:05
you know tell everyone is you know, find people that you're happy working with.
49:07
Um. I get to work with Cody every day. It's my you
49:10
know, best bud. And it's uh, it's it's it's fun because it
49:16
doesn't seem like work. You know obviously that some days it really do.
49:22
It's more fun to uh to work with people you like put within respect um.
49:29
And there's there's a lot of people out there in the industry that want
49:31
to make movies and uh, you know there's a lot of people that let
49:36
it go to their heads, uh real way that you know, once the
49:38
pressures wants the pressures on of making a film, um, you know,
49:43
big anger or frustrated or uh you know, blow up or whatnot. So
49:46
I mean we uh, we worked really hard to find people who you know,
49:51
work really hard to deal with stressed well and are always always able to
49:57
kind of put a smile on their face. And we'll be right back after
50:00
a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. And uh and
50:09
continue on the day. So, I mean it's it really makes the difference.
50:14
Everyone on our crew treats each other with respect. Um. You know,
50:17
it's a key with with us doing all these films, UM, is
50:21
that everyone everyone gets along and if there's an issue, you know, we
50:24
all talked about them. We all figure out how to how to deal with
50:27
it. We don't fire people. We don't you know, we don't blow
50:30
up with people. You never hear people yelling and screaming on each other on
50:35
our sets. Um. We make a point of making sure that we got
50:38
a crew. It's it's passionate and we're all in it together. And we're
50:42
you know, we say black Fawn family all the time. You know,
50:44
we all we're all the brothers and sisters that can bicker and whatnot, but
50:47
in the end we're always we always have each other's back. Um. Anyway,
50:52
so we call all these people that we like and uh see you know,
50:54
see if they're able to come out and uh set up our crew figure
50:59
out you know it's a studio if the build we're going to do, UM,
51:02
get people involved there. And our pre production times are pretty quick.
51:07
Um. I mean we had I think three or four weeks of pre production
51:13
on UM Bite and that's like literally from you know, we got the script
51:17
like finished three weeks before we started shooting UM. So you know, it
51:23
all has come together really quick. But yeah, it's just it's almost like
51:29
a checklist for us. Now here, here's the people that we need.
51:31
Let's call them, figure out where we're gonna lodge people, Where are we
51:35
going to shoot this where you know what do what elements do we need UM
51:37
to do? That's our gear. UM. We've again because we were doing
51:42
so many films, we've set up relationships with William of White, so you
51:46
know every show that we every movie that we're doing, we just you know,
51:50
we call them. Everything's all our accounts are all set up, everything's
51:53
ready. We just got a call center just UM discuss what we're doing.
51:58
And you know they've got our back on everything. Panda Vision does all our
52:01
cameras UM as well as you know, some support from from additional camera houses.
52:08
UM. But it's uh, you know, we've got it laid out
52:13
with people that we really trust and work well with, and you know,
52:15
luckily we can we can kind of make all these calls fairly quickly and get
52:19
everything together that's from like a producing standpoint, I guess from directing standpoint,
52:24
it's uh, you know, it's it's even more of a challenge to get
52:30
a film ready so quickly. And I mean we're not we haven't done it.
52:34
It's not like we're going and storyboard all of our stuff with the storyboard
52:37
artists and you know, as amazing as that would be. Um, that's
52:40
one of the luxuries that we don't they were always jealous of. Because we
52:44
are making these films so quickly, we do have to you know, we
52:46
end up with a with a little booklet of like Chicken Scratch where it's like,
52:52
you know, we've we've storyboarded everything. O't but I mean it's almost
52:55
like it's in Chinese. It's so more kind of uh. But I mean
53:01
whenever you sit there and actually you know, go through it with with the
53:05
DP can decipher it all and get on the same page, and you know,
53:08
we you know, sometimes we print them off and you know, give
53:10
them to everyone, show everyone what we're doing every day. Can you just
53:16
arrive in the morning with like, Okay, we're gonna do you know,
53:21
this establishing shot. Then we're gonna do a close up here and then we're
53:23
gonna and you just kind of put all that together the night before and then
53:29
arrive and do the shot list. Is that kind of how it works?
53:31
Yeah, Like, I mean, we have our id who extend the whole
53:34
schedule UM and works with thoughts on figuring out the best way that we can
53:38
we can do this and you know, just go through Uh you know,
53:44
they send their clothes out to everyone the day before everyone gets it. They
53:46
kind of give a little skim of what we're doing, what rooms we're in.
53:50
UM. At the end of our days, we generally try to,
53:52
you know, have a little discussion with our lighting team, want to what
53:55
we're doing first the next day and you know, how we can get a
53:58
jump on the day because that's a whole He's the biggest challenge, it's getting
54:00
first shot up UM. And yeah, so I mean it's a yeah that
54:10
Do you have any advice for Like I recently watched The Drownsman and the quality
54:17
of the image on that is incredible. UM. And I don't know,
54:22
I don't know what the budget was on the film, but I was wondering
54:24
if there were any sort of tricks or tips that you had for you know,
54:30
getting that kind of production value and working at that kind of like budget
54:35
level. UM, do you like each shot or is it just like you
54:39
like the whole thing and then shoot from different areas? UM, I think
54:44
I'm the Drownsman depending on where where we're talking about, Like we have the
54:47
Drownsman. There was a set that we had built right and uh, I
54:51
mean you know so many people talk about lighting and uh and cameras and lenses
54:58
and whatnot, but I mean it's it's something that people just miss from like
55:04
an indie perspective. UM, so many people just just totally skimp out on
55:07
set design in our direction, UM, filling our frameworks things. And Cody
55:13
came from our background, so you know, when me and him start of
55:16
working together on stuff, I really looked a lot from from him and kind
55:21
of his insights on that. UM, because it is you know, it's
55:24
like light something beautifully. You can you can have a great camera and but
55:30
if if your frame is not um, the pieces aren't all in the right
55:35
spots, then uh, you know it's not gonna it's not gonna be the
55:37
shot they you're looking for. UM. So even like thinks like the Drohnsman
55:42
like we've we've built a bunch of our sets, and when we build their
55:45
sets, it's literally like it's us building the sets. It's not like,
55:47
you know, we hire a big you know, we have a small team
55:51
of people that we really trust that are so hard working and we all get
55:55
together and build these in a few days and you know it's entirely it's it's
56:02
nights that were you know, pulling you know, three hour days and and
56:07
when not to actually build them. But we do it so that we can
56:09
actually have that control where we can you know, put elements wherever we want
56:13
to put them to um create our frames, and we're not so it's uh
56:19
to start off, you know, that's how we we try to you know,
56:22
make things look great. Grounson Layer was completely you know, we decided
56:24
that we can't shoot having a basement. We don't want to be limited by
56:29
you know, your standard basement rips that look like every other indie film.
56:35
Um, you know, we wanted to use water and we wanted to flood
56:37
place and you know we can't do that inside of studio or inside someone's basement.
56:42
So um yeah, I mean we could do it, but you know
56:47
again, burning stations and people. You can do it once. But as
56:54
far as you know, you set up your room and you have your your
56:57
basics, set up a place this is this is kind of the look that
57:00
we're gonna have. This is our standard look for this room. Um.
57:06
And then according like depending on how you're shooting things, you know, you
57:08
have floating lights moving around, you have you know, whatever you need to
57:14
kind of uh entice the shot a little bit. And I mean also you
57:19
know, keeping continuity with everything as much as you know, you move lights
57:22
around, um in between shots and you know, make every shot look great.
57:25
You also, you know, you don't want to go from a shot
57:28
a wive or your actors faces shadowed and and you know you push in the
57:32
close up and it's like they're beautifully lay. You know, it's about about
57:37
standing the lighting for all the shots when you start, when you start on
57:42
your watch, you know, um, but I mean it's often that it's
57:45
it's just about kind of creating, creating your atmosphere, filling your frame using
57:51
you know, using the foreground and the background we had in the drowns from
57:55
Layer. We decided we wanted to use these kind of all the aquariums and
58:00
we've kind of like hid them among soul. I think they were like old
58:06
tomato plants that had dried up from a vecn that we had kind of angled
58:10
over everything just to kind of give everything a little bit more textures, stuff
58:15
that light can kind of touch, opposed to just having flow holes. M
58:20
And then we took all these aquariums, you know, filled them with dirty
58:23
water and leaves and craft and then we threw through lights little lights and behind
58:29
them like just little keynotes or short keynotes or whatever, and let them all
58:35
up. So then you know, as they're walking through here, there's no
58:37
like the only light sort is kind of like these weird like dirty musty aquarium
58:45
or at least that that's what the illusion that that's the only light sources these
58:49
things. And they're always you know, there's something way in the background,
58:52
and you know, a dirty water just kind of has like a little bit
58:55
of a gradient to its kind of you know, create something a little interesting.
59:00
And I'm just visually doing in the background. Yeah, right now,
59:06
can you talk a little bit about Sorry interrupted, you kid, damn Skype.
59:15
I'm done. Okay. It's like doing a broadcast broadcast to the Middle
59:22
East or something. Okay, So I want to One of the things that
59:24
always jumps out at me, um, literally is U you know these scenes,
59:31
these really gut wrenching horror scenes where you know, you've got your actress
59:37
there, you've got you know, they're being dragged off or something horrible is
59:40
happening to them. Can you talk a little bit about directing a scene like
59:45
that, how it feels being on set during something like that, because it
59:49
just like I've I've always been curious, how you know, just what are
59:53
you talking about it? Do you cut the camera, cut the scene and
59:57
everybody's laughing two seconds later or what kind of what's that like We'll be right
1:00:02
back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Uh
1:00:15
Um, I don't know. Sometimes it go it can it could go either
1:00:20
way. Like sometimes it's you know, you'll you'll shoot a scene where where
1:00:24
you know, the bad guys getting killed or whatever, and there's a huge
1:00:29
explosion of blood and sort of as soon as you cut the camera, it's
1:00:32
like, you know, the gore guys are cheering and everybody's laughing because it's
1:00:36
you know, it is a little ridiculous. But then sometimes you have those
1:00:38
scenes where you know it the actors get so into it and you get s
1:00:45
into it and you're you're pushing for the best performance and you sort of get
1:00:47
a performance that's that's like real, and so you know that's so I think
1:00:53
it goes either way because that you know, we've had times where you know,
1:00:57
the scene ends, we say cut and it's just silence and everybody's like,
1:01:00
holy shit, Okay, I think we got that. We can move
1:01:04
on. Um I think it kind of depends what what the scene. You
1:01:08
know, what the scene is. You know, if it's if it's somebody
1:01:12
running around with the chainsaw, got people off in his blood, spraying everywhere,
1:01:15
we usually get a pretty positive response from our crew. But if it's
1:01:20
something more emotional, then you know, sometimes it's one of those ones where,
1:01:25
um, I can't remember the exact scene, but I remember shooting something
1:01:28
with Jeff mahars Ours, our usually our DP for everything, and you know,
1:01:32
if I said cut and he just sort of looked at me and he
1:01:35
was like sort of had that holy shit look on his face and such.
1:01:37
Okay, now we're moving on. So let's go to the scene. Scene
1:01:42
thirty four, that was twenty minutes before this when you were happy. Yeah,
1:01:50
it's uh. We we did the film Bite and it was full of
1:01:54
you know, goody growth, disgusting eggs and h dripping like it it suppos
1:02:01
don'ts be like new kids. Um. So it's really like when you watch
1:02:06
the film, it's it's it's pretty gross, but on set it was you
1:02:08
know you kind of know when you've got something good because um, you get
1:02:14
those reactions, right, that's kind of that's like what you're talking about.
1:02:16
Whenever you have been poor scene and it's like blood explodes everywhere. It's like
1:02:21
you always like hope that whenever it's dumb and you call it cut, everyone
1:02:23
cheers and like, you know, love it. It's always a bum.
1:02:27
Or whenever you do one of those scenes and it goes and everyone goes like
1:02:34
okay, um that's quiet, it's like shit, you always want that cheer
1:02:37
at the end, you know you want that. Um. With Bite,
1:02:40
it was like anytime this the stringy mu kiss stuff that like it would as
1:02:45
soon as it stuck to something it would be like webs it would kind of
1:02:49
and it's really very gross. Um and uh, you know, we had
1:02:52
so much fun making that movie because you know, as soon as we'd called
1:02:55
cut and we're like, ah, so gross, and you get um so
1:03:05
and and yeah. But I mean, I think when it does come down
1:03:07
to shooting, the actual coverage of your of your cast or so many you
1:03:10
know, depending on what your movie is. If it's you know, if
1:03:13
it's just a serious moment and they have to stay in character, you know,
1:03:17
a lot of times we'll keep everyone quiet or we'll even you know,
1:03:21
try to keep it a few people on set as possible. Um. But
1:03:27
yeah, I mean we've we've shot a bunch of films. We haven't gone
1:03:30
into that territory of like dirty dark, like truly disturbing, like upsetting scenes,
1:03:39
um, that are so uncomfortable to even shoot. Um, I'm sure
1:03:46
we will eventually. All of our films have had a little bit of a
1:03:51
lighter tone to them. Okay, sure, Yeah, they're pretty pretty lighthearted.
1:04:01
We're family movie, we're a fan so I mean, like we're not
1:04:05
making like serbian film or something like that. You know, it's like I
1:04:09
can't, I can't. I don't know now people would react on a disturbing
1:04:15
scene like some of those. Sorry, I had a whole discussion about that
1:04:18
movie today, So It's like, that's what that's what I think when like
1:04:20
I look at our movies and pretty pretty hearted, you know, joking around
1:04:25
and um, you know, some of our stuff is a little cartoon even
1:04:29
but uh, who was that? I didn't, I didn't, I didn't.
1:04:31
I didn't hear you. Some of ore stuff is even, you know,
1:04:34
sometimes a little joking cartoon. But what film did you say that you
1:04:38
you were talking about serbian film? Oh, okay, which is I don't
1:04:44
know if yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I haven't seen it. Effort
1:04:45
about it, I haven't, you know, it's not on my list.
1:04:51
I was thinking about things like that. It's like, because I do,
1:04:54
I've often wondered, I it seems are truly disturbing or like rape scenes or
1:05:03
anything like that. It's like, you know, we haven't done anything like
1:05:06
that. And I'm sure it's a it's a tone that, Um, I'm
1:05:11
sure there's a weird tone on that for those I think it would probably be
1:05:15
a you know, something that would be very awkward to direct or you know,
1:05:19
you would really have to put a lot of pay a lot of attention
1:05:23
to, um, how you're treating everyone and your actors and respect and you
1:05:28
know, if you're you know, doing very serious scene and you want to
1:05:31
make sure that everyone chills laughter, like take big breaks in between, or
1:05:36
if you just want to shoot, keep shooting and you know everyone can go
1:05:39
cry at the end of it. I don't know. Yeah, well,
1:05:43
I mean, okay, talking about the I'm trying to wrap up a little
1:05:45
bit because I know you guys have to go, Um, how do you
1:05:48
deal with the emotional stress of shooting and everything? Is there anything in any
1:05:51
way that you have been able to kind of because I mean, you guys,
1:05:58
you're shooting a lot of movies, but I'm for a lot of like
1:06:00
normal people, It's it's i mean, probably the most stressful thing you can
1:06:06
do, you know. Um, is there any way that you've learned to
1:06:12
deal with that overcoming you know, doubts or any sort of psychological aspect of
1:06:16
filmmaking that you can discuss? I think, I mean that's kind of a
1:06:23
great thing about Black Phone and myself and Chad because I think we lean on
1:06:28
each other a lot and we share um when when I'm directing, I mean,
1:06:33
I'm him a lot, and when he's directing, he leans on me
1:06:35
a lot. So it's like at least we know when we go into a
1:06:39
film, even if we're not directing and we're producing, at least we know
1:06:41
when we go into a film that there's somebody else there if if something goes
1:06:45
wrong or something's like just we can't handle something, at least there's some of
1:06:49
the some other person there to pow wow with or to you know, just
1:06:55
so we're not ever doing it on our own. But I'd say for me,
1:06:59
what I've learned over making movies is, you know, the minute you
1:07:02
get there, put on hundred percent into everything while you're there. Um,
1:07:06
but just you know, try not to take everything home, you know,
1:07:12
like leaves, leave leave some of it. It's a it's it's hard because
1:07:15
filmmaking is, you know, fifty percent work, fifty percent passion. So
1:07:18
it's hard to leave it sometimes. But I mean, for me, I
1:07:20
think it's made me a better filmmaker, not taking it home, not dwelling
1:07:25
on it and not allowing myself to sleep because I'm thinking about a scene tomorrow
1:07:29
and I can't figure it out. So I don't know. For me,
1:07:31
I try my hardest. And then that's not to say that I don't do
1:07:35
it, but I try my hardest to sort of give give it all on
1:07:39
there and then you know, I also think about it at home, but
1:07:41
I try not to bring it all home. Yeah, it's it's weird,
1:07:45
like filmmaking is weird, especially in new filmmaking. Um, the majority of
1:07:50
the products we do are overly ambitious, but just enough we'd like to think.
1:07:57
Um. So it's it's one of those things that it's like you get
1:08:01
what you put into it every day, which is I think it's kind of
1:08:05
a dangerous concept. It's almost like you know, you're you're swimming in the
1:08:11
ocean and you're doing a contest and the more water you drink, um,
1:08:16
the better or that's how you're gonna win. You're just gonna keep drinking water,
1:08:21
and the more water, whoever drinks the most water winds where it's like
1:08:25
it's endless. It's not like you going to drink all the water, you
1:08:28
know. It's like when you go to make a movie, it's like there's
1:08:30
always more you can do. There's always things that can make the shots better,
1:08:32
or make your days go better, or make your um, you know,
1:08:35
film go better, or more takes, and like it's it's never done.
1:08:40
So I mean, um, there are points, especially directing, when
1:08:45
you're just like you're pushing so hard and you're like, you know, you
1:08:47
just want it to be better and better and better and bigger and bigger,
1:08:49
and you know you have to kind of control yourself so that you don't get
1:08:53
you know, one shot done in a day. It's uh so, I
1:08:59
mean in it, it's uh, it's it's always it's always a struggle and
1:09:03
it's always stressful. Um. And yeah, like Tody said, you know,
1:09:08
having working with people that you trust and being able to kind of lean
1:09:12
on each other and knowing that you're all in together and you're all trying to
1:09:15
make it work is uh is definitely what kind of gets us through through our
1:09:19
shoots because we uh, you know, we tend to do very long days.
1:09:26
How how long do you guys usually shoot, like a typical film,
1:09:29
you know, Bite or Antisocial two or or The Drownsman. How how long
1:09:32
do those take to shoot? Um? I mean they're all different. I
1:09:40
think Bite took about fifteen days and fifteen days in Ontario, and then we
1:09:45
shout additional two or three days and we'll be right back after a word from
1:09:53
our sponsor. And now back to the show. Um, so, I
1:10:00
mean they're all different, but again it does come down to you know,
1:10:04
your how ambitious you're going to be. Drownsman was oh man, we just
1:10:09
kept going back for more shoots and more. Anytime you're dealing with water things
1:10:14
like that, it just gets uh so insane. So it's uh it.
1:10:20
I mean we probably shot thirty days on Drownsman if you actually add them all
1:10:24
up. Um. I think any Social Too, we shot all a fair
1:10:28
bit more than we planned as well, not too many, I bet you.
1:10:31
We shot like, you know, twenty days or something like that on
1:10:33
any Social too. Um. Yeah, And we usually have an editor on
1:10:41
set as well who who edits as we go, so we kind of gets
1:10:44
actually, you know, on day two we see day one footage or we
1:10:46
see day one scenes cut together. Right, I was gonna ask you that,
1:10:50
so you can kind of see what if you if you miss anything or
1:10:54
whatever, you can just do a quick reshoot while you have everything set up
1:10:57
right exactly, so you can kind of run over and grab a shot that
1:11:00
you missed her at least put it on a list and come on back on
1:11:02
a weekend or something like that to uh to grab it. Um, so
1:11:06
I mean that definitely. That definitely helps us moving and it also gets you
1:11:11
know, the entire cast and crew and everyone a little bit of h it's
1:11:15
exciting. You know. It's like you're watching something and you see some scenes
1:11:18
come together and they look really really good, and you can kind of you
1:11:21
know, show up the cast a little bit of their performance. You know,
1:11:25
give them a little taste of what we're doing. Um. You know,
1:11:28
there's a lot of sort of the cast goo and uh. They do
1:11:30
an entire film, then they go and they send a theater and watch it
1:11:33
and they're like, oh my god, this is horrible. And I mean
1:11:40
but we all I'm sure casts of some of our earlier films do that as
1:11:43
well. Um uh, but at least being able to kind of show them
1:11:47
so they have they have a confidence in the crew, has a confidence that
1:11:50
everyone's building something that's going to look really good and uh and come out.
1:11:56
You know. It's a good way to kind of get everyone excited about the
1:11:58
project and keep a keep everyone's passion that was up high. Okay, so
1:12:02
moving into post production, just a couple more questions, um you uh huh,
1:12:10
I think we may have lost Cody. Oh yeah, let me see
1:12:15
that's not good. Hold on a second. Yeah, he doesn't look like
1:12:17
he's on there that maybe he had to leave. Um, let me see,
1:12:21
I can product. It's like, dude, no more, come off?
1:12:30
Did it? Won't let him return on? And he let me let
1:12:32
me put him back on. Uh there we go. Uh We're like,
1:12:45
where did you go? Man? We were all we were concerned. I
1:12:48
don't want to let him know that we didn't notice he wasn't there? Are
1:12:51
you there, Cody hey Man? Sorry about that? Uh yeah, okay,
1:13:00
So let me let me launch into a few more quick questions about posts
1:13:03
just for our my my people here. Um, the getting into the post
1:13:10
production process, Um, how long does that typically last? And what is
1:13:15
the kind of Um can you walk through what happens first, what happens next,
1:13:19
just so people have a general idea of how it all comes together.
1:13:26
Yeah, we, like I was saying, we do a lot of our
1:13:30
idea on set. So by the time we're duntioning the movie, you know,
1:13:33
eighty percent of its ideally cut. And I mean we fairly fast turnarounds
1:13:42
on our films. I think we shall buy in December and it screamed at
1:13:45
the cam market in me. Wow. So again, like we like we
1:13:53
were saying with with all the lists that we have for production, we do
1:13:57
the same in post Um. You know, Red lab in Toronto does all
1:14:00
of our color correct um for each our films, and we've worked out a
1:14:02
deal so they know when it's coming in Um Urban post as our post sound.
1:14:08
Uh you know. So we create our schedules with all of them,
1:14:12
and you know, we get to edit together and we take it to the
1:14:16
studio. We sit down with them and kind of get everyone's input and trim
1:14:21
it down, make whatever change we need to lock our picture, send it
1:14:25
off to Red lab Um sitting there and do our color sessions with them,
1:14:29
send it off to Urban. They work on on other sound edits. For
1:14:32
whatever reason, we always end up on some crazy deadline like it's going to
1:14:35
screen somewhere, and uh, you know, it's a big panic to actually
1:14:41
get it all done. But I mean, luckily we have much great companies
1:14:47
we're working with um in posts that you know, they work really hard to
1:14:53
make it all happy to I think they excited when they see, you know,
1:14:55
they have to work on something that they get to see in a theater.
1:14:59
Like two weeks and in terms of um The Drownsman, which is I
1:15:06
haven't been able to see the other two movies because they're not out yet.
1:15:10
Um, but um, you work with George Flores on that, right,
1:15:15
Yeah, yeah, I worked. I worked with George a bunch of times
1:15:18
because George is a friend of mine. Actually I love George. Yeah,
1:15:24
he always He taught me more about filmmaking. I think when I was starting
1:15:27
a small film UM down here, and he was just one of the people
1:15:30
that I was talking with about doing post sound and he would just sit there
1:15:34
for you know, and talk about all these things that we need to make
1:15:38
sure we had and everything. I mean, just very generous with his time.
1:15:41
So I'm I want to make sure I promote George on the show.
1:15:45
Absolutely. No. George did uh film called Never Lost with me years ago
1:15:51
and he did the dance and uh you know, we had such a great
1:15:56
time working on with those films. And uh yeah, I definitely each supporter
1:16:00
of George as well. So the typical time from editing and doing sound and
1:16:05
when when do you work with um like soundtrack music and things like that.
1:16:12
So we have um like for example Johns and any social bite all those films
1:16:18
were scored by UM a woman named Steph Copeland, who you know, we
1:16:26
get along with, work so well with her, and she's so talented.
1:16:30
Um. You know, I'm sure we'll work on many more films after this,
1:16:34
but you know she loves to come in early as well and just kind
1:16:36
of some of the hits or you know, she's already got stuff that she's
1:16:41
working on before she even sees that. It's where she's just read the script
1:16:44
and she's getting idea and building fronds. She's again very passionate UH artists who
1:16:51
uh just is always working hard, always you know, really excited to a
1:16:57
project and whatnot. You know, so we uh as soon as we are
1:17:00
a picture lock that's kind of what everyone's always waiting on. Everyone's excited to
1:17:04
be like okay, Picchulock, pitchlochlock. So as soon as we get it,
1:17:06
we kind of you know, press the go button. It goes to
1:17:10
her, it goes to Urban Post, it goes to a red lab and
1:17:15
everyone gets to start working on it kind of at once. Okay, well,
1:17:24
guys, I don't want to take much in let me just ask you
1:17:26
one final UM question. How what can you give just a little bit of
1:17:31
advice to people out there who haven't made their first film and are you know,
1:17:34
wanting to you know, get out and kind of do what you guys
1:17:39
have done. Do you have any sort of like, you know, if
1:17:41
you could go into a time machine and tell yourself before you started, what,
1:17:45
what kind of advice would you give yourself. I mean, the things
1:17:48
that I would say are definitely lick we're doing now. We work on tons
1:17:56
of different ideas to find the right one. I would say, spend the
1:18:00
time, don't don't get excited with with with an idea that it's just a
1:18:06
you know, generic throwaway idea, and just to dive at it to make
1:18:10
a movie. Um, you know, make sure you spend spend your time.
1:18:13
A lot of people write scripts because they're you know, they sit down
1:18:15
and there's power or a script just as if it's like if they have a
1:18:18
script, they're going to make a good movie. You know, So work
1:18:21
hard. Make sure you understand your concept or your your film that you're going
1:18:26
to make, and make sure you really want to make it, um,
1:18:28
because that's a too A lot of people lose passionate halfway through they realize it's
1:18:31
like, yeah, this film's not really I don't really care about it.
1:18:35
UM. So I mean, figure out, figure out what you want to
1:18:40
make and then figure out a concept that you're really passionate about the you know,
1:18:43
you think scene and you know it matters what you want to do.
1:18:45
Are you making a film to create an art piece? Are you making a
1:18:48
film to sell to the market. Are you going to go for you know,
1:18:51
something that's gonna make funds back, or are you trying to do something
1:18:56
that's you know, on art piece. UM, you kind of have to
1:18:59
know what you to do before you go into it. UM. And then
1:19:01
after that again, take your time and find the right people to work with.
1:19:06
UM. There's a lot of great people in the film industry, like
1:19:09
any of any industry, there's a lot of great people, and there's a
1:19:12
lot of people um that it's actually counterproductive to work with. UM. So
1:19:16
find find the right people you want to work with, surround yourself with them,
1:19:20
UM, and find talented people. And I mean, if you you
1:19:24
know, go out and show how passionate you are and and and show people
1:19:29
give people confidence. UM. You know what your your plan is and you've
1:19:34
you've worked hard to organize it, and UM, figure things out then you
1:19:40
know they will have confidence in you. Um, and then aside from that,
1:19:44
just go out on your own, even with your iPhone and shoot some
1:19:46
stupid stuff with your friends. Um. You know, it's there's a reason
1:19:51
why I'm film school. They're liker, go go do an action scene,
1:19:56
Go chase scene, Go do these because like they don't want you to come
1:19:59
back with a beautifu full chase scene. They want you to go realize the
1:20:01
mistakes and the issues that you're gonna that are gonna rise when if you make
1:20:05
it a chase scene. You know, um, just so the next time
1:20:10
you do it, you you've already gone through a few steps at least them,
1:20:13
and learned. You know, if you do ten chasing, your eleventh
1:20:17
one is going to be amazing. You know, it's going to be even
1:20:19
better than the other one. So that's um, you know, don't be
1:20:24
don't be afraid to go out and make crappy shorts or whatever. Like,
1:20:28
don't they don't even have to shorts or anyone to get giant cruise together about
1:20:32
you know, um understanding how to do these things. And it doesn't take
1:20:36
big cameras or anything. It's it's the same as everything else you know,
1:20:41
and you're just gonna go out and make sure mistakes and then from them.
1:20:45
All Right, guys, I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot for coming
1:20:47
on the show, and I look forward to seeing Antisocial two and Bite.
1:20:51
Uh. But anyway, thanks a lot, guys, Thanks so much.
1:20:55
Man. All Right, that's gonna do it for today. My thanks to
1:20:58
Chad Archibald and Cody Hellahan of Black Fawn Films, and we'll see you next
1:21:01
Tuesday. I want to thank Jason so much for doing such an amazing job
1:21:06
with this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about
1:21:09
in this episode, head over to the show notes at Indy film muscle dot
1:21:12
com. Forward slash seven so too. If you have it already, please
1:21:15
head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe and leave a good review for
1:21:20
the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you
1:21:24
again so much for listening. Guys. As always, keep that hustle going,
1:21:27
keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to
1:21:30
you soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at Indie film
1:21:34
Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E F I l M hustl
1:21:40
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