Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Kris McMenamin | The Christian Reeve Podcast #345

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Kris McMenamin | The Christian Reeve Podcast #345 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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Hello and welcome to another episode of Christian Reef
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Podcast. Today's guest is a writer and
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director hailing all the way from the United States.
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His name is Chris Mcmenamin. Welcome to the show.
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How you doing? Thank you.
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And yeah, now I'm doing pretty good, you know, waking up
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caffeinating over here in the States.
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Caffeinating. I got to steal that.
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That's a new one. I'm caffeinating, always takes
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me a while in the morning to wake up.
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How many coffees is your go to? I don't.
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Know but I'm at least I'm at least 2 like 12 ounces before I
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get anywhere mentally. Yeah, yeah.
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But I'm also like that weird guy that drinks coffee all day all
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night. So like, I think I'd build up a
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tolerance at this point where it's probably just easier if I
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would have just took a couple of Red Bulls and shot them directly
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into my veins. What about you?
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When you're on set? Is it any different or just same
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old? No, I actually will.
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On the way to set I end up picking up like 224 oz coffees
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and they follow me around set. You know, we had a couple like
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star Game of Thrones Starbuck Cup moments that like narrowly
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avoided me accidentally advertising for Wawa, which is a
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gas store or a gas in convenience store chain over
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here accidentally leaving it in frame until my AD Margo would
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yell at me to go get my coffee. I get it, man.
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It's it's tricky when whenever you're on set to to know like
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how to pace yourself, I think because you don't know how long
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you're going to be on set. You know what I mean?
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Like it's maybe it's, yeah. 'Cause you, it's never the time
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that you set. It's either like, oh man,
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everything went so super well and we're, we, we should throw a
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couple extra scenes in here and get them done.
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Or it is, why did that scene just take 3 hours to film?
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It's a 5 minute scene. So it, it's a variable.
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It's all based on day. Especially when you have like
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film sets, like an Organism, there's, you know, 20 some odd
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people that it's all kind of depends on that's interdependent
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and one person's off on that day.
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You can end up having to compensate in other ways, which
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then creates like time or you know, because you can't
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sacrifice the quality. So the only thing you could
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sacrifice is your mental fortitude and time.
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I will say, and I know it sounds like an obvious point, but
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anything you've not planned for that you've inserted into the to
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the film last minute always ends up taking like so long because
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it's just not planned. Like I remember a short film and
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I've told this story on the show before.
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Shout out to Giuseppe. So we were doing the short film
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and there was like a door scene which was in the scripts per SE,
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but it it looked different. I think like the actor was
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supposed to like knock me out or something.
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Instead we went with which I thought was better as well, like
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a scare tactics thing. So they just like have a stare
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down and then he's just like, and then the guy's like just
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like kind of crawls out the space.
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But for some reason filming that was just pain in the fucking
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arse. I don't know why.
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It just something about like the camera angles and and I think it
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ended up taking like two or three hours.
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So we will just look at each other like why is this taking so
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long? It's just a short door scene is
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like 10 seconds of footage as well as.
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That's the worst is like the one that's like 10 seconds because
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in your head you're like, is this worth it?
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Is it really worth the two hours that we're spending on doing
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this? I've seen that.
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Like I let him. I knew as I was finishing it and
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I just didn't get the thing that I wanted to that was like, oh
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man, this is a waste of two hours.
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I'm not putting this in the film, but I won't tell any of
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the actors or anyone. I'll just get back and I'll send
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my like my, I'm in Philadelphia, my editors in New York City.
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And I would while it's uploading.
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I'm like, Maddie, don't even worry about takes like 20
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through 50. We're not using them.
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Don't even bother inventorying the audio.
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Don't tell. Ironically, Maddie's roommate in
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New York City was and they had no idea about this.
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They both applied to my project. Jacob, who plays adult.
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Spencer and Maddie are roommates in New York City.
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Didn't have any idea that they were working on the same project
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until they had like a shared because there's like there was
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three of them in the, the apartment, like 3 roommates.
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And they like do out their monthly calendar and Jacob's
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putting dates up and she's like, why are you going to
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Pennsylvania? Like why are you going to
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Philly? And he's like, Oh well, you
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know, like remember that movie I was talking about?
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I'm doing a movie in Philadelphia as the editor.
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But I it was always like, don't tell Jacob that we are cutting
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this. He's going to be very upset with
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me. It just happens, man.
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I mean, I think as well, and we'll get into your film in a
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second, but like, it's always worth just having extra scenes
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and stuff that doesn't necessarily make the cut, but it
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can be used later to promote the film in some way or I don't
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know. I mean, I suppose gone are the
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days of like DVD extras and shit, but I think I think it
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could make a return as especially as we're like heading
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towards physical media again, the resurgence of that.
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And I think especially with social media, it's like you've
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got a whole ton of of opportunities to to just put
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stuff out there and be like, oh, this didn't make the cart, but
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hey, here's some free footage. And it's like advertising the
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film, but it's also like generating conversation, I
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guess, like, oh, here's how this could have been.
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Maybe it would have been made things different.
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What do you think? It's like almost planting ideas
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in in the fan base, in people's minds.
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What's their you on that? No, I completely agree.
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We actually just I think two or three days, days ago did a
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social media post on ours that we're like that here's a deleted
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scene. And it's not because the most
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time, it's not because the quality wasn't there or it's not
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a good scene. It just doesn't fit the overall
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narrative. There's a, I have a ton of
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footage that and I'll probably release it over time that it
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just wasn't the right fit either tonally or you know, or in the
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overall structure or I was like, Oh no, we probably should still
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keep this under 2 hours type of thing where it had nothing to do
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with the quality of the performance or the quality of
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the scene. It's just it doesn't fit.
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So it's a great thing to release after.
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Like there's a lot of stuff that's more the because the film
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has like a younger cast and then the older versions of the cast
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are the protagonists for the majority of the film.
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There's a lot of the kids stuff that was fine, but tonally it
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didn't quite meet what I would needed for the flashback scenes.
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So it kind of, you know, ended up on the cutting room floor and
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like we did a whole bit. It just, I think physical media
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to a degree is going to come back mostly, especially as
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people get more and more wary of technology and the, they start
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experiencing like, oh, I had the, I bought that movie like 2
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years ago. Oh, what do you mean it's
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delisted or it got the rights to it got purchased by a different
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streaming organization in your contract essentially with, you
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know, an Amazon or a Netflix. You know, the availability of
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something is not you don't own anything digital that you think
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you do. So I think that I think there's
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a place for physical media. And I think the greatest thing
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about physical media was all that extra content that made you
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feel like you were in the club. Well, this begs a question as
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well. Like if you, let's say you
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purchase a film to watch on like Amazon Prime, right, which
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funnily enough, your film is listed on there amongst other
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platforms coming up in the future.
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See, I'm, I'm used to dealing with this man six years.
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I'm a professional. I know I'm dead.
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And again, we'll get we'll get to the film, we'll get to the
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film, but you've got to wait and stay on this journey with me
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first. So you see it all the time.
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You buy a film and it's not especially with Amazon Prime
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Video. Like I don't get what's going on
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there. Like you pay for the the
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subscription, but then you have to pay additionally for other
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films. I don't what the fuck's going on
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there. But let's say you do that,
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right? You've paid £5 or something for
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a film. Now, as you quite rightly said,
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you don't own the film, right? If you bought a DVD, you own the
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DVD. You can play that whenever you
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want, but you don't own the film, at least in a, in a sense
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that you can use it whenever you want on demand, because as you
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said, like you can just delist it.
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But then that begs the question, if you've bought that and it
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gets delisted, you just wasted £5.
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Is it a rental? I think your days.
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Well, and I think you're what what you're doing is you're
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leasing it like you might not have to pay for it again, but
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you might not have to pay for it while it's there.
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It's not like a so you got like your 24 hour rental, your
10:17
purchase, your purchase. And also I think probably why it
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also plays into why the price. You know, you you know, you get
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a physical media DVD. I mean, grant, you can get you
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can go to your local store and get it for like 10 bucks.
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But like most, if you got a brand new ones like 20 bucks,
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something like that, 25 bucks, depending on the quality and all
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that jazz. It's a cheaper version.
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And I think that's how they got people in the doors, like for
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999, get the HD version. And again, slightly hypocritical
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because yes, my film is up on Amazon and.
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For now, I mean, it's, it's going on other places, isn't it?
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It's not starting with Amazon and then going from there.
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Amazon was the first one. There's a holiday backdrop, so
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obviously we wanted to get it up before Christmas if possible
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because that's how you make money, I heard.
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But I think you're really you're just leasing it because it's in
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the cloud, it in storage, owned by whatever streaming company it
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is. I think there's an interesting
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future, especially probably in places that are more not quite
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as what we'll say pro capitalism as the United States.
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But I think there's more progressive countries out there
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that there's a court case that'd be made on.
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Yeah, you sign their terms and conditions, but is it the
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responsibility of the business to offer that an option that is
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that they have a contractual obligation to keep access for
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you or you know, a download option available.
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I think that you're going to see that in a more progressive
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country that has stronger antitrust laws is that like, I
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think there's probably a compromise there that I think is
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fair, but you have to demand fair.
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And that would be like you have a secondary option that at any
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point you can download, even though it's massive, you know,
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you know, some 400 megs or whatever, or you know, but you
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should have an option to download that film.
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If you really truly want to not download in my app like a Hulu
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and Netflix, Amazon where you can download in the Prime Video
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app or the Netflix app where you, I mean, give me my, my full
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file of the movie in like an MP4.
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Like that's where, like, it hasn't really been tested
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because no one has demanded that kind of accountability from
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corporations. And again, it's, it's because
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like there's typically these films will stay on there, but
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like every now and again, something gets taken off.
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So it's, it's just not become enough of an issue for people to
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kind of kick up a fuss yet. But it, we, I don't know, I
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think we're headed there, especially with companies like
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Netflix that are getting very, I don't know if trigger happy is
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the right way, but they, they, they love to take stuff off
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their platform, particularly stuff that's doing well.
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I don't understand that they'd love it.
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It's. A fine demand type of deal.
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Oh, you really look as well. We'll bring it back and it'll be
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a big deal in three months, but. You like that?
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We're taking it away. It's like a weird toxic
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significant other with Netflix. You love me, or guess what, I
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won't see you for six months. Yeah.
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No, no, I'll text you. Don't text me.
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Yep. But yeah, now that I think,
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well, and I think what you're going to see it more and more
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because it doesn't necessarily affect say me who is more of an
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independent. I don't necessarily have an
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attachment to any studio unless they would like to pay me in
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that court. I would, but you know, right now
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I don't Misfits doesn't have any studio ties.
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But as you continue to see the mergers, you're going to see it
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was their studios over here with their movies, and there's the
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place that they go over here as they become one who owns the
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content. So if Netflix now owns Warner
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Brothers content, if it goes through or whatever, are they
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going to choose to keep it on, say, an Amazon, which is a third
14:57
party because they want the money or do they want the
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exclusivity and we'll say Warner Brothers, let's say Harry
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Potter. Will Harry Potter only be on
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Netflix and anyone who bought it on Amazon is, you know, Sol?
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It's an interesting question. It hasn't been tested, but we're
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going down that road where the stream streaming and companies
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are buying more and more studios.
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So you're going to eventually have a conflict of interests on
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their platform success versus their film slate success.
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Well, we've also seen it as well, like with companies like
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Sony and their weird relationship with them because
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they own Spider Man and they have like a working agreement to
15:52
allow Marvel to use that character, at least in films.
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I don't know if they, I don't think they own Marvel.
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They they, they don't own the character of Spider Man, I don't
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think. I think it's just the film.
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Films, film and. Television remains.
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Right, right. Exactly.
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But it creates this interesting paradox where it's like, OK,
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we'll, we'll let you use this, but then only to a certain
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degree, like you. And you're not allowed to put
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like XYZ villains in it. That's why we've never seen
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like, like Venom in a Marvel movie, for example.
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Well, if you, if we. No, no, yeah, no, I'm right.
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Yeah, yeah. Because we're.
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Not no, you're right. Yeah, it's all negotiation is
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like I want to use this character and well, you've even
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seen it with Marvel internally. Like I believe James Gunn wanted
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to use a whole bunch of other characters in like the Guardian
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movies. But like, yeah, you have the
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creative arm yelling at the film arm that like or yeah, Sony was
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always an interesting one because it was like, no, you
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can't take the, you know, Venom or weirdly Morbius, which did
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fantastically. What?
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Do you mean it's more than time just killing it?
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The Internet convinced them to re release it and then let it
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bomb a second. More than time, baby, Come on.
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Oh, I love Matt. I love Matt Smith.
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But. The cringe shakes.
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Terrible. Yeah, but yeah, no, you, you as
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corporations fold in on corporations to make mega
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corporations. There's all kinds of ethical and
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legal issues that just don't get tested until it's too late.
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And I'm sure you'll see one eventually where, you know, when
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I went to go try to get distribution for my film year
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and a half earlier, had put together a list of every
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primarily US, but some international distribution
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companies. And I was like, OK, I, you know,
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wrote them down what their pros, their cons were.
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I was probably going to submit to all of them like a shotgun
18:07
shot. But you know, I at least knew
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what I was going to get into if I got responses from them over
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the course of a year. And as I was getting into post
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and had like a screen or copy that I could send out, I started
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sending these out. Over 50% of those independent
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distribution companies were bought by studios, larger
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studios, and then they weren't bought to be distribution
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companies anymore. They're bought for their
18:39
libraries and they were no longer accepting new films.
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So 50% of the list that I created a year and a half ago
18:47
was no longer valid because they had become part of larger
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corporations. And they most, I have a inbox
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full of emails that like, oh, we appreciate your submission, Mr.
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Mcmenamin, but we're not taking on it any new films due to our
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merger with XYZ. So you're seeing consolidation
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and I think it plays in consolidation of corporations,
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plays into everything downstream especially and something
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creative where it's usually not supposed to be governed by,
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though it always has some kind of influence from money, it
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wasn't always as governed by it. Yeah, I I know what you mean.
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I think it's less about the content these days and more
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about how much money can we make with said content.
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Meaning, don't get me wrong, it's always been a business.
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It always will be business, but back in the day, it was like you
19:45
throw money behind projects and there was more freedom for
19:48
creativity. Whereas now it seems to be like,
19:51
you know, getting as much content as possible and then
19:54
from said content, how much money can we make from this?
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This is why you see like shitty sequels and unnecessary sequels
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and you know, like maybe the same old films on the streaming
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platforms because you know that the IP is going to do well
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versus other IPS that maybe don't do so well.
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Some things are a bigger risk than others, you know, and
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there's a lot of factors involved in this.
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But it's interesting how all of these different companies,
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specifically streaming platforms have approached it.
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They've all approached it very differently.
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And as you mentioned, you know, these these big massive film
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companies are buying up these distribution networks, which
20:34
makes perfect sense like, but it does kind of limit freedom of
20:40
movement, I suppose. Kind of limiting the voices that
20:44
you're going to hear from because you're because you're
20:47
already got your stable of directors that you want to work
20:50
with, stories that you want to do.
20:53
And a lot of them are not going are going to be formulas that
20:58
have been tested. Business, you know, I work in IT
21:04
like, but I do a fair amount of like overall business in the day
21:10
job. You don't want variables that
21:13
you don't know in business. Now if you apply that to film,
21:19
which is dangerous because you'd kill all the creativity in it.
21:25
You want tested things. So, you know, if you get no
21:29
offense to him, you know, if you get Mark Wahlberg and you put
21:32
him in a movie with, you know, XYZ female lead and he Mark
21:38
Wahlberg's. All over the screen, yes.
21:43
Exactly. To be fair, I did like both his
21:47
spy movies. Me and my wife really enjoyed
21:49
them, but they were very typical Mark Wahlberg fair.
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He's slightly funny with the action.
21:57
It's just over an hour and a half.
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It's generally the same film. Yes, you might change the
22:04
setting or you might change the relationship slightly, but it's
22:07
the same film over and over. But you know that that will do
22:11
moderately successful. And that is a tested thing.
22:18
You don't, you know, you know, the blockbusters.
22:21
It was, I actually read an article recently that you know,
22:25
the death of you know, what was super popular back in like the
22:29
90s, early 2000s was that one to like $15 million movie.
22:37
It was like that mid budget movie at the time.
22:41
What ends up happening is that over time it is easier.
22:46
Why you see so many $100 million movies instead like every movies
22:50
like 8090, a $100 million movie, even if it really doesn't need
22:55
to be. I don't know how many comedies
22:57
need $100 million, but over time it's easier to bank on branding
23:04
than it is to bring in different movies and different voices.
23:08
If you do the same thing, you can see the same results to a
23:12
degree. Absolutely.
23:14
Let's move it forward. Let's finally talk about your
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film Misfits. Tell us all about your film
23:20
Misfits. What is everyone missing out by
23:22
not checking it out? I mean, I think you're you're
23:24
missing out on an enjoyable, heartfelt, affecting ride.
23:30
Misfits. Basically it comes down to that
23:33
we are looking at a a slightly dirtbag group of friends who are
23:42
all mean well they all have a lot of flaws who come together
23:48
after one of their own passes away.
23:51
Our main character Josh's wife and we use the term full housing
23:56
it it to the American sitcom with faggot.
24:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We go because I have to make
24:06
like an, you know, a joke on the Uncle Joey that no one wants to
24:10
be the Uncle Joey of the situation.
24:13
Everyone wants to be Uncle Jesse, but and to kind of, you
24:21
know, Josh has a lot of issues with guilt and moving on.
24:26
And that also translate that financial problems occur.
24:31
And our big finale is there is a professional wrestling match
24:37
that him and his friends get to try to save the house.
24:41
And it's it's a lot of well tread stories, but they're all
24:48
combined together and it's an ensemble comedy drama that we've
24:54
gotten really great responses from.
24:57
You know, you've made me cry, you've made me laugh.
25:01
Did that guy really get punched in the face?
25:03
So you know all the important questions and things that you
25:06
could want from a movie. Why the decision to use
25:08
wrestling was the the backdrop for the showdown?
25:12
Where did that come from? So a, so it's a couple, it's a
25:17
little multifaceted. 1 Practically, if it were to be
25:22
any kind of physical contest, generally wrestling allows for
25:29
four people in a ring instead of your traditional like more
25:33
boxing type of thing where or like MMA where it is generally
25:38
one-on-one that didn't fit the movie.
25:42
We needed to have two of the protagonists in that ring.
25:49
Also, most other sporting things are team sports and I don't want
25:55
to field a team of, you know, 12 people for American football or,
25:59
you know, whatever it was. The other thing that kind of
26:04
went with wrestling is it's already acting like professional
26:09
wrestling. You have to be able to act or
26:12
you're or you're going to just be the guy who gets pulled over
26:16
every every night on the independent circuit and you lose
26:19
and you just get the cap crap kicked out of you while the
26:23
charismatic 1 ends up winning and going up.
26:28
So I knew that there was some really great actors in that.
26:33
And then kind of the final thing is the yeah, I'm not pompous
26:39
enough to think that anything I say is new.
26:42
Everything's already been written at some point.
26:44
The Save the Community Center storyline, which is like save
26:49
the house, save the Community Center, save the whatever.
26:52
We need money to fix a problem. It's already been done.
26:59
So you have to find another way to make it interesting and maybe
27:02
a little innovative. And bringing in professional
27:05
wrestling allowed it to be exciting.
27:07
It allowed four people to be in that ring.
27:10
It allowed us to tell a story while getting that, you know,
27:14
oh, factor of like, you see that hard hit and you get that little
27:20
bit of audience, like, oh, you know, blood pops out, you know,
27:25
that's the fun stuff. So you mentioned that some of
27:27
the actors were involved in the scene, but some weren't.
27:31
So did you actually use real professional wrestlers in this
27:35
particular production? Yeah, so both Santa Crusher and
27:41
Zoe, the two physical opponents, are professional wrestlers in
27:48
local promotions. Well, US based promotions here.
27:55
Sam, who plays Josh, actually did a small stint as a
27:59
professional wrestler in his 20s at what's famous here in the US
28:05
and the Philadelphia area as ECW, which was Extreme
28:09
Championship Wrestling, the beginning of like, the barbed
28:13
wire at, you know, type of wrestling.
28:17
But really, yeah, we also used for a couple of the goons, some
28:22
of the other wrestlers in the promotion that we partner with
28:28
cause truthfully, you know, you gave them a little bit of
28:32
direction. You gave them a character,
28:34
they're already acting, but they also have that physicality down
28:37
in John Zoe, who played the two main physical bad guys, and then
28:44
Charlie and Chris, who play the goons.
28:49
Like, they helped us and we work together to choreograph that
28:54
extended Climax wrestling match together.
28:59
So the the actors that weren't professional wrestlers, did they
29:02
receive extensive professional wrestling training or was it
29:05
just kind of guidance on the day?
29:06
Like how did you kind of work with that?
29:09
More than they expected, less than I'd hoped for, They got.
29:14
You wanted to involve them in the wrestling school before the
29:16
year. Yeah, if, if, if I had the
29:18
budget, they would have went to wrestling school.
29:19
But what we did do is we spent about crossed about 8 weeks,
29:26
about 6 sessions at a place called here in Philly called the
29:33
Worldwide Dojo where one we worked out the choreography and
29:40
practice and practice and practice as well as they got
29:43
some basics from the individuals that were the professional
29:47
wrestlers. How to take a bump, how to go
29:49
off the ropes, how to, you know, when you get suplexed, how you
29:54
tuck your neck in so you aren't exposing your brain to the mat.
30:00
All those kind of important safety things.
30:04
And then just drilling it into them that you know, every
30:08
physical move. Because it is, it's a very long
30:12
choreographed scene. And the way we had to do it is
30:14
we for the wide and the side shot, we did it live like it was
30:22
a wrestling match in front of a crowd of about 600 people at an
30:28
actual the Our 3 Legacy Wrestling was the promotion.
30:32
We partnered, but we were the start of their night and then
30:37
they had another like 8 matches after that.
30:40
But we ought to film that section as 1-9 minutes, 10
30:45
minutes section. So everyone had to be prepared
30:50
to do this 10 minute basically dance sequence so.
30:56
It reminds me of this film that was made years ago.
31:03
What the fuck was it called? Fighting with My Families, based
31:06
on the story of Paige the professional wrestler.
31:09
And I know you, you know this, but maybe our viewers don't
31:12
know. So there's been a lot of
31:14
wrestling movies made over the years, and famously many of them
31:18
have been shit. There's there's a few, there's a
31:21
few, there's a few that stand the test of time, but most of
31:25
them are just. Enjoy being good.
31:28
Yeah, and most of them are cheesy, whatever, but like for
31:30
wrestling fans, doesn't matter. It's just fun, right?
31:34
But when you get your more serious ones like The Wrestler,
31:37
for example, which was a lot of it gets a lot of criticism.
31:42
But I think it's very real because The Wrestler starring
31:45
Mickey Rourke is a very kind of true to life breakdown of a
31:52
professional wrestler who you know has gone past their glory
31:56
day and now they're on the independence and what that looks
31:59
like for some people. If you go and watch which
32:04
documentary was it beyond the mat, you'll see a little bit of
32:07
that with the professional wrestler, Jake the Snake
32:10
Roberts, who fortunately is in a great place now, but at the time
32:14
wasn't. So I feel like that film at
32:18
least was true to life there. But obviously the argument in
32:20
the wrestling industry is it makes the wrestling industry
32:23
look bad. If you bring to a more recent
32:26
example big Hollywood budget film Fighting With My Family,
32:31
stars can't remember the actress's name.
32:35
Florence. Pugh, Florence Pugh.
32:37
Thank you. Yes, it has the rock in it, but
32:42
he's playing a younger version of himself even though he's just
32:45
the same age. It's weird.
32:47
He he's always the same age. It doesn't matter.
32:50
Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, they film a taping of of
32:54
Raw like, just like your film like a real wrestling event.
32:59
I'd like to draw some comparisons here because I think
33:00
it might be fun. But in that instance, big, you
33:04
know, raw event, there's probably like, I don't know,
33:07
30,040 thousand people in the arena.
33:10
And that they, I mean, I get it. But if you watch the film and
33:17
you look in in like the backgrounds of the shots and you
33:20
see all the fans like they're just not engaged.
33:22
It doesn't matter how much you pump into it, all the crowd
33:25
noise and they and these people did well, like they did what
33:28
they were told, you know, and everything.
33:29
But like, it's just, I think it's a lot very difficult to
33:34
control a crowd that size and to get them invested in because
33:38
they were there to see Monday Night Raw.
33:40
They were not there to see a film being done.
33:42
They probably would have been told like, Oh my God, the rocks
33:45
going to be here and we're going to film this film.
33:48
Like, this will be fun. But it's like, I don't really
33:50
care. I just want to see like, Braun
33:51
Strowman or some shit at the time, 2016 or whoever, who was
33:56
big at the time. Yeah, maybe Brock.
33:58
I don't know. It's been a while, but you get
34:02
my point, right, Seth Rollins, there you go.
34:07
So bringing that back to your film.
34:09
So I think I've heard of Free Legacy.
34:11
Actually, I might have heard of them.
34:14
So 600 people. That's a lot easier to control.
34:18
It's independent fans as well. So you're probably going to get
34:21
more excitement, to be honest. What was it like kind of working
34:25
with the crowd and and the people at the wrestling event?
34:27
So yeah, I think you got when you get people like at a roll 1,
34:33
it's a lot of people, but two, you run into the fact that not
34:39
all of them are super wrestling fans.
34:42
You know, every single person that shows up to an independent
34:48
wrestling thing is a super fan. They are hyped.
34:52
They are ready to go. I didn't have to do a ton before
34:58
our match went. I had my people at the door, one
35:02
obviously getting waivers signed for like the background extra
35:05
waivers signed as they were coming through the door, but
35:08
also hyping them up a little bit before the event.
35:12
I. That's that's a shout.
35:13
Did you have to pay every single person that showed up at that
35:16
event? No, no.
35:17
We made it a thing where it's like, you know, you can cover
35:21
early. You can see this thing, they're
35:23
paying for it to go to the event.
35:26
They were seeing our thing as part of that event.
35:32
So no, we just had them sign background forms and thankfully
35:35
everybody, nobody had a problem. We gave them the option that
35:38
like, hey, you're welcome to sit out here outside of the fit out
35:42
of the where we're filming. If you want to go sit in the way
35:47
way back where we're not going to get you because you don't
35:50
want to be in the film, fine. But nobody's nobody opted for
35:54
that. I.
35:55
Was gonna say we we did. This one guy just sat there like
35:58
fuck you. Yeah, that, that probably.
36:02
Yeah, there probably was one, but I clearly ignored him.
36:06
No one cares about Dave. Screw Dave.
36:08
Yeah, no, fuck Dave, but you. But we right before the match, I
36:15
got into the ring, which was a weird and surreal experience to
36:19
give a I've done a little bit of public speaking, but never in a,
36:23
you know, a ring and everyone's around you in a circle.
36:30
But gave a little hype speech, gave a little bit of a, a
36:34
primer, like it wasn't complicated.
36:37
It was all right. These two, you don't like them
36:40
when they come out. You like the current guy.
36:44
You know these two. When the girl goes around with
36:48
the Round 2 sign, you switch and I got, you know, the entrance
36:55
scenes are just fantastic because you can see the crowd
36:59
fully engaged in especially heckling the the protagonist
37:06
that they come out. And like I had I also had
37:12
Christians kids in the front row for him coming out and they were
37:16
like, they were yelling at, you know, yelling at their dad that
37:19
he sucks, which was super fun. I'm like, let me put you in that
37:22
frame of mind. But everybody there, I think
37:27
because they're all so invested in three legacy wrestling and
37:31
also John, who plays Santa Crusher and Zoe are we're at the
37:36
time and still are to a degree like wrestlers in that
37:39
organization that they've grown to love.
37:43
They were very comfortable both booing for John and loving Zoe.
37:48
So I, I think I had it a little bit easier because I by using
37:53
the, the wrestlers that they knew they had some kind of
37:57
grounding already there and then they just took it to 11.
38:00
I thought I'd have to add crowd noise.
38:03
I actually did not have to add any post crowd noise.
38:06
That's how loud they were. I had to find I had actually cut
38:10
the levels when I needed the the the dialogue.
38:15
Talk to him. Well, I've got a tough question
38:18
for you, perhaps the toughest question you may ever receive
38:21
regarding this film. You ready?
38:24
Yeah, yeah, I'll go work. Is Misfits a wrestling movie or
38:30
a Christmas movie? I've.
38:31
Got to be honest, it's neither. What?
38:35
It's neither. So it's got a holiday backdrop,
38:37
but it's definitely not about Christmas.
38:39
It's it's in the same way like is Die Hard?
38:42
Yeah. A Christmas movie?
38:43
It's not. Somebody can come fight me for
38:46
that. But a lot of people that will
38:47
fight you for it, and I'm surprised they're like, what do
38:50
you mean? There's a Christmas tree in the
38:52
background? And he literally, he's a
38:54
Christmas work dude. And I'm like, so fucking what?
38:57
That doesn't make it a Christmas film.
39:00
So they me and my friends who are very similar to the weirdos
39:05
and the misfits and misfits is we have lots of movie fights.
39:10
There's a very famous one over here.
39:12
Like in my group is aliens a sci-fi or a horror movie?
39:18
And it's the answer is it's a horror movie set in space.
39:23
But that is a debate for another day.
39:26
But like, so yeah, I use the Holidays 1 as a way to soften
39:32
some of the the rougher edges and make it a little bit funner
39:36
and a little more heartwarming. And there's some story reasons
39:40
to use the holidays as the backdrop for a good amount of
39:45
the film. Also, wrestling.
39:48
While I have different spots of wrestling throughout it, again,
39:52
it ends up I guess it's more of a wrestling movie than a
39:57
Christmas movie. But really at the end of the
40:00
day, I'd say half the film to 2/3 of the film is really a
40:05
family drama. I think that the wrestling is
40:11
kind of the punctuation at the end of the sentence.
40:15
So misfits to a very wrestling Christmas is not.
40:18
I mean, if somebody, if enough people watch it and demand it, I
40:22
will make a full wrestling sequel that's like the daughter
40:27
becoming a professional wrestler and will redo fighting with my
40:30
family but with misfits. Fuck it why not man Best.
40:35
That's what Holly Hollywood does is just remake films so.
40:38
Yeah, somebody wants to pay me. That's all that it would take
40:41
for me to do it. Let's be honest, everyone.
40:45
No, I have, I have integrity. But at the same time, people
40:50
that haven't sold out are people that haven't been given the
40:53
opportunity to sell out. Just think of Shane McMahon's
40:56
theme song Here Comes Money. What did you learn about
41:01
wrestling for for doing this film?
41:03
When did I learn about it? No.
41:05
What did you learn about wrestling by doing this film?
41:08
That independent wrestling is some of the hardest people I've
41:12
ever met. Like they are the toughest
41:16
people and that a lot more goes into it than you think.
41:22
Production wise. Production wise, also practice
41:26
wise, being backstage and you know, my I went and bought
41:35
everybody pizza. So the wrestlers really liked
41:37
us. Once I was like, hey, here's
41:38
some free food. Cool.
41:41
Good on you. But we were we were talking to
41:44
them and watching them and everybody that has a match later
41:47
that night has practiced that week and now they are backstage
41:53
and they are running through the moves.
41:57
They're talking about contingencies.
42:03
It's very tactical and it's also very like they know some are
42:11
very like super scripted, especially ones where there's
42:15
more danger involved. Like when I do this backflip off
42:19
the ropes, you got to be there to catch me or you know, I'm
42:23
going to pancake myself. But they are well rehearsed.
42:29
They are incredibly intelligent, tactical people, figuring out
42:34
angles and things like that that you just don't really see or you
42:38
don't generally want to think about.
42:40
When you think about professional artists, you think
42:42
that like, oh, OK, this guy's going to win.
42:44
It's yes, it's scripted, but it's still you think that
42:50
they're just kind of like, all right, let's screw around for,
42:53
you know, 5 minutes and then, you know, you pin me.
42:56
Where a lot of it is, especially to get the level of performance
43:01
and the quality that people have come to expect from wrestling.
43:05
There is practice, there's communication and there's acting
43:10
throughout the whole thing while doing backflips, and I don't
43:13
think people appreciate the both the athleticism and the
43:19
intelligence that it takes to put on a good show.
43:21
Totally agree. We often hear about the reality
43:26
of the locker room in professional wrestling.
43:28
Even though everything is pretty well known by this point, I
43:32
would say there's still a few closely guarded secrets.
43:35
And I know modern professional wrestlers are still pretty, for
43:40
the most part, pretty fierce on protecting the locker room and
43:43
and like keeping which I think's fair enough, you know, to be
43:46
honest. But did you notice anything like
43:49
that? Obviously you're an outsider.
43:50
You're there to do a film and it has wrestling in it and that
43:54
that's, you know, you're working with this promotion.
43:56
So there's it's all positives like you, it's well, I imagine
44:00
you were welcomed positively and obviously, as you mentioned,
44:03
pizza helps, but was did you notice anything interesting in
44:07
the locker room, the vibe, the how it anything there that kind
44:11
of spoke to you in some way? I think you, well, I think you
44:16
see the vibe and I think it's probably the same as any
44:19
professional sport to a degree, is that you see like the young,
44:24
you have your like your dichotomy of like your the guy
44:28
that is been been here, done this, you know, all that stuff.
44:33
And generally he's going around just friendly hanging out, all
44:38
that stuff. Does a little bit of practice,
44:39
does a little bit of eating, does a little hanging.
44:42
And then you got like the, the new people that are very like
44:46
they're anxious, they're running through it, they're psyching
44:49
themselves up. I think it's weird because I
44:54
think it is the same dichotomy that you're going to see on a a
44:59
football team or anything that they spend.
45:04
It's the same levels of energy and the same different
45:07
personalities. And I think it also probably
45:11
depends on the promotion you're at.
45:14
It's a very top down type of it's a very top down sport.
45:19
So if you don't have good management or good leadership
45:22
there, you're going to have a nasty backroom because you get
45:25
egos, you get things. It's just like if your coach
45:29
isn't a good doesn't promote good culture on your sports
45:34
team, you're going to have that infighting.
45:37
You're going to have the I want the spotlight.
45:40
I want, you know the you know, I'm going to do this hazing
45:44
thing to you. I think you find that like
45:48
wrestling promotions and I've been backstage at a couple now.
45:53
It all depends on what culture gets set at the top, which I
45:57
think you probably had some of where you saw a lot of those
46:00
issues with like the WWE is over time is that came from the top.
46:06
Obviously if you've now, you know, it's been pretty exposed
46:09
now how terrible Vince McMahon is, but you know that filters
46:15
down. You treat people bad, then you
46:18
have that infighting. You have the thing where you
46:21
know you have the egos, you know you have your screwing Bret
46:25
heart over because you know you want him to.
46:29
Drop Goldberg. Sorry.
46:32
God can help with Yeah. Then you have a, you have
46:34
Goldberg or Rhino or something like that.
46:36
You know where it's not like you're not doing.
46:40
You're just a big guy, aren't you?
46:43
But I think a lot of it comes down to culture, and I think
46:46
that drives whatever locker room challenges or successes you
46:50
have. One of my favourite wrestlers of
46:53
all time is CM Punk. I remember years ago he turned
46:56
around and made a comment about sort of protecting locker rooms
47:03
but also protecting the business still.
47:05
Like it's still an important thing for him, despite the fact
47:08
that wrestling is very, very exposed.
47:11
You know, things get spoken about, but it seems like a lot
47:15
has been protected by the wrestlers themselves in spite of
47:18
all of that. You know, 'cause if you look at
47:20
like the dirt sheets for those who don't know wrestling speak,
47:24
it's, it's basically like I use the term journalists loosely.
47:30
There's wrestling journalists, some are great, like Pro
47:32
Wrestling Insider is fantastic, for example.
47:35
But then there's ones like what's what's Dave melts as one
47:40
the I don't. Know, but it's not worth even
47:43
thinking about. Stuff like that where it's like
47:45
they get second, third hand information from sources and
47:49
yeah, every now and again, like their sources are probably
47:51
right. But like a lot of the time it's
47:54
wrestlers who are annoyed or just want to kind of spread
47:58
bullshit and they're giving you information and you're taking
48:01
that as fact or, and you're not fact checking it, you're just
48:05
taking it as gospel or maybe worse is just kind of giving
48:09
your opinion and saying that that's fact.
48:11
Like, oh, well, I think it's probably this based on this,
48:14
this, this. And you're like, OK, but anyone
48:16
can say that. Like where's the journalistic
48:20
integrity? Where's the fact checking where?
48:22
I mean, you're still a journalist, you know?
48:26
And I think protecting the locker room, there's there's a
48:29
difference between protecting the locker room.
48:32
If it is something insidious like no, expose that, you know,
48:36
expose that stuff. But the but when it comes to the
48:39
stories, comes to the what you see, like I'm going to I'm going
48:45
to akin it to being a kid at Christmas when you're like
48:48
starting to get to that age where Santa may or may not be
48:50
real type of thing. If you ruin the magic of it for
48:56
other people just to get a scoop or like, Oh, I heard you know
49:00
blah blah blah is going to put over this person, you're ruining
49:05
the magic of it. It's like going in and someone
49:08
like putting up a poster outside of a movie at a theater with all
49:13
the spoilers. Like don't you don't want to
49:16
ruin the story elements, especially for like in
49:21
wrestling. If you are a fan, there's
49:25
stories that go on for years. So of course you don't want it
49:28
ruined because you know someone heard backstage that this
49:32
person's going to lose it. You know, whatever.
49:35
Big pay-per-view this. Is why I find it difficult to
49:38
watch wrestling now. I, I kind of, I jump in for the
49:41
WrestleMania season, but I don't know, like I just hate
49:46
everything always being spoiled and like revealed, you know, and
49:49
I like it when they're wrong. I love it when they're wrong.
49:52
Like, they were most recently, like, they're talking about
49:54
Chris Jericho maybe coming back to WWE and they were wrong.
49:58
They were always going to show up at this Raw, and he didn't.
50:00
And I was so happy that he didn't because I was like, yeah.
50:04
And a fuck you, man. Like you don't know shit like.
50:09
Yeah, I don't ruin it. Like I get everyone wants
50:14
attention. They want to be the most
50:17
important person in the room sometimes.
50:20
And that leads to things that like morally, like, why ruin
50:26
something for someone else? Because you're going to get the
50:28
clicks or you're going to get the views.
50:31
And it's, it's honestly bullshit because then what happens is
50:36
everybody's trying to do that click bait type of crap.
50:39
And you know who you're like who actually ends up enjoying it?
50:43
Nobody. You ruin it for literally
50:46
everybody. This is what I mean.
50:47
Like, I I wish there was a universal agreement between all
50:49
the wrestling journalists that they would, like, keep kayfabe
50:52
on storyline stuff if they learn.
50:55
Like, do you know what I mean? If you learn that, oh, someone's
50:57
going to be debuting or some shit, just just keep it
50:59
yourself. Don't say anything.
51:01
Yeah, you know. Prepare your article for the day
51:04
after. You can still be the first
51:05
person to post on it because you heard about it, but like don't
51:09
do it beforehand. Wait till it happens.
51:13
And it's, I think it's the move towards mentally trying to put
51:21
out positivity. I think that's just in the
51:24
general sense is that like there are things like if you can be
51:31
the first one to like, oh, this person debuted.
51:34
Here's all the info I already had and I had time to research
51:38
and my article's going to be the best because I had that.
51:41
Or you can release some shitty clickbait article that's like a
51:45
3 minute read but you got a ton of views.
51:49
You have two options in front of you.
51:51
One is clearly the more ethically positive decision.
51:59
It's consciously choosing to do the ethically positive thing.
52:03
Moving it forward, what were the biggest challenges with getting
52:05
this film made? Well, budget.
52:08
Budget is always tough. Budget.
52:10
What budget? Yeah.
52:13
Wow, that yeah, there's the thing.
52:15
Who doesn't enjoy eating pizza? Several times I've.
52:18
Seen Pizza Mate every day. I never complained about.
52:20
Hey listen, when it comes to stuff like that, I'm like,
52:23
there's food and it's free. I'm there.
52:27
Great. Thank you.
52:30
I think our big, our biggest challenge is, yeah, we had
52:33
obviously budget, you know, we, we made the comparable budget
52:37
when we did the, the numbers, if we had to pay for everything was
52:40
like $2,000,000, we needed to do it for around 65,000.
52:48
Jeez, did you pull it off? And we made it and it was great.
52:51
But it was, yeah, it came from like our crew brought their own
52:55
equipment. You know, we worked with people
52:59
that we partnered with, like the wrestling organization where we
53:03
didn't have to rent a ring in an arena and all that jazz.
53:07
But our other big challenge was schedule is that obviously I,
53:13
I'm not paying a ton. These people are doing it
53:16
because they're passionate about the project.
53:19
But with that, you have to, it's a give or take.
53:23
So we've had to film this over the course of about a year, year
53:29
and a half every other weekend. So that creates continuity
53:36
problems, it creates scheduling problems.
53:41
You know, all the things that you think happen in your life
53:47
and over the course of a year happen for 80 some odd people on
53:52
the cast and crew and keeping schedules and keeping dates and
53:59
working with everyone to make sure that we're all working
54:03
together while we're all living lives.
54:06
That was such a massive challenge that created.
54:11
You know, there's also how much Gray have I have my actors added
54:16
since? I have to say, like you do
54:21
always approach a paid project differently to how you would
54:25
approach a non paid project. And it's not to say you don't
54:28
give the same level of effort. But I think as you said, with
54:31
scheduling, if, if you said, OK, you're locked in, I've got you
54:35
for 3-4 months. It's like, right, my schedule's,
54:39
you know, available to you. It's exclusive to you, no one
54:43
else. But if it's like a free thing
54:46
and you're doing it like when you can, then it's, it's going
54:49
to start looking like that. And I always find this a lot
54:52
because I, I, I've made the decision, I made it years ago
54:56
based on bad experiences to never again do like student
54:59
films, at least physically in person.
55:02
And a big reason for that was that they never got released.
55:06
And they're very unprofessional a lot of the time.
55:08
And I look at the people and I'm like, listen, I know you're a
55:10
student, but like, you want to get into this industry.
55:12
And the way you hold yourself is completely unprofessional and
55:16
ridiculous. And without sounding like a
55:18
pompous prick, like I'm an actor, I take this seriously.
55:21
Don't waste my time, right? But more, more important than
55:25
that, I think is, oh, we worked on this thing together and you
55:30
have no intention of releasing it.
55:31
What's the point? This was a waste of time.
55:35
You know, that's the biggest thing, you know what I'm saying?
55:38
Because if I'm not getting paid for it, that's one thing, right?
55:41
But I poured my heart into this thing.
55:43
I want to see it released. I want to see like I remember
55:47
there's a film that I, I did and we went, we went up to the
55:52
mountains. So I live in Manchester in the
55:54
UK, right? And there's an area maybe like
55:59
30-40 minute drive from Manchester called the Peak
56:02
District. It's beautiful.
56:03
It's really, really gorgeous. And we did filming in the city
56:07
centre. We did filming there and it was
56:08
an incredible experience and I loved working with the guys and
56:11
we got some great principal photography.
56:13
We captured everything we wanted.
56:16
I think it was, you know, ticks across the board, right?
56:20
And I'm waiting and I'm waiting and waiting.
56:21
And it's been like about part of a year.
56:23
And I said to the director, like, are you ever going to
56:26
release this? Like, what?
56:27
What gives? And he said, no, no, no,
56:29
sometimes things just don't happen.
56:31
And but he'd sent us the full film, done, edited everything.
56:36
And I'm like, motherfucker, just put it on YouTube or something.
56:38
But he's like, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that.
56:41
Like, and you'll see it. Like if you go check out my show
56:44
reel, you'll see a part of it and I've always kind of put like
56:47
a little part of it here and there.
56:49
So you can kind of like piece it together a little bit.
56:51
But yeah. And I'm allowed to do that.
56:54
I'm allowed to use it as part of my show reel, but I'm not
56:56
allowed to like, for instance, put out myself.
57:00
And I I for me, it wouldn't even be about like, oh, I want the
57:02
credit. It's like I want people to see
57:04
it because I'm proud of this thing that we did.
57:06
You know, I just don't. I I think what made us gave us
57:12
also being successful. And what you really need to do
57:15
in that scenario is a lot of people either took back end
57:20
points to be in the film or small amounts of money.
57:26
So it wasn't quite, I mean, it was unpaid, unpaid like let's.
57:31
I know you. I know what you're saying.
57:32
Really paid, but is communication?
57:37
Yes. Like you, if you're going to ask
57:39
someone to put themselves into it and you want them to be
57:43
passionate, you want them to be a part of it, this thing that
57:47
you're creating, you need to communicate with them.
57:50
You need to be honest and you need to tell them.
57:54
Like the way that we set it out was, hey, all right, so we're
57:59
going to shoot over the course of this time.
58:01
It's going to be about this many days.
58:02
We might add a couple. We might lose a couple.
58:05
You know, this is what's expected of you as an actor,
58:11
photographer, as a sound guy, blah, blah, blah.
58:14
Here's what our business model looks like.
58:18
And this is what we had. We had like an ABC option, you
58:23
know, a was we're going to try, we have a meeting at the end
58:27
with a large streamer that could go one way or another.
58:32
It probably won't happen. Let's say 10% chance that we're
58:36
going to get bought out in that way or licensed directly from
58:42
that very large streamer straight out the gate.
58:46
Then there's BB is we're going to contact and communicate with
58:52
many, many distributors, try to find the right one.
58:56
Look at what contracts are offered.
58:58
And then C was all right, we didn't get a distributor.
59:04
Unfortunately, about 90% of independent films do not get a
59:08
distributor. They don't get real
59:10
representation. So C was all right, we're going
59:14
to submit to Film Hub and Indie rights, which are more
59:19
aggregators than distributors. They'll take mostly anything and
59:24
just kind of throw it up as like a profile to streaming
59:29
platforms, large and small and kind of throw it like, hey,
59:33
please take these things and kind of spam them in and you'll
59:37
get picked up by probably something smaller streaming
59:40
wise. And then our D plan was if they
59:44
reject us too, we'll put it on YouTube.
59:47
So very clear communication and it's probably going to take from
59:53
post being almost done about six months before it's going to come
59:57
out because we don't have a direct pipeline already set up.
1:00:03
So it's setting expectations and communicating with them
1:00:06
thoroughly and following through on your word.
1:00:10
You know, we ended up very lucky that I didn't have to go down to
1:00:14
DI, ended up in B, and we got a great distributor who's working
1:00:18
on our behalf. Obviously he got it on Amazon.
1:00:21
We're coming up on other platforms over the course of the
1:00:24
next couple months. But I let them know what we were
1:00:30
willing to do and where we were willing to go.
1:00:33
And that's how you get people's buy in.
1:00:35
Like, that's how you build a community as you'd be honest
1:00:37
with them. And that way they have
1:00:40
expectations. If you let them make up their
1:00:43
expectations, they're going to be wildly higher than you're
1:00:47
going to be able to fulfill. Yeah, yeah.
1:00:49
Like, oh, yeah, don't worry. He's going to get it.
1:00:53
Martin Scorsese's going to pick it up and put it on his back and
1:00:57
run it across the East and it'll be on every stream platform.
1:01:02
That's an expectation. That's not going to happen,
1:01:04
guys. But if you set something out
1:01:08
that's, you know, here's ABCD, that makes life a lot easier and
1:01:15
makes everyone a bit more cohesive.
1:01:16
What I've seen online, the reception's been pretty
1:01:19
positive. The reviews are being positive.
1:01:22
What say you? What did it mean to you and your
1:01:25
crew to see those sort of positive reviews and sort of the
1:01:28
general reception to the film so far?
1:01:30
We've been kind of blown. It was I'm my own worst critic,
1:01:34
obviously, as most creative people are.
1:01:37
You know, we love what we do and we hate it at the same time.
1:01:42
But to get especially like the professional reviews of like I,
1:01:48
I also got three out of four stars.
1:01:50
And so did you know XYZ, you know, Oscar winning film from
1:01:55
this professional critic is both surreal but amazing.
1:02:00
We've also done super well so far in the festivals we didn't
1:02:07
submit to like a Sundance or a Tribeca because no one gets
1:02:12
that's truly independent gets picked there anymore.
1:02:14
Anyway. It's generally someone, some A
1:02:18
list stars slumming it and they, you know, small budget, $25
1:02:24
million film, but rookie. Numbers well.
1:02:29
What so? Those are rookie numbers.
1:02:33
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
1:02:36
No offense to like did a list start, but like as soon as you
1:02:39
attach yourself to a a film and it's like, oh, but we didn't
1:02:43
have the studio system. I'm like, no, don't worry, man.
1:02:46
As soon as you signed up for it, it became a studio film.
1:02:49
Calm down. But we got really lucky and
1:02:54
really impressed because we're also not one genre.
1:02:57
What we found in the festivals is they're like, oh, OK, is it
1:03:03
you want to go for best comedy or best drama?
1:03:05
Well, we're not either of those things.
1:03:08
We're comedy, drama, action, holiday, little bit of romance.
1:03:13
So the only thing that we ever can really submit for is the
1:03:17
overall best feature that's like all genre.
1:03:21
And we've done remarkably well. I think we've something like
1:03:26
eight wins or or win slash 2nd place, like honorable mention
1:03:30
stuff. Thank you.
1:03:33
Yeah. Like, it's crazy because at
1:03:35
first I was really, really worried that I that I wasted any
1:03:39
money that I put into festivals. And then we did really well.
1:03:43
And now I'm becoming spoiled. I'm like, I don't want second
1:03:46
place anymore because we got like 3 or 4 win wins and then we
1:03:50
have like these honorable mentions, but like all the ones
1:03:53
that are local festivals or within a driving distance of me,
1:03:57
I'm like, I want to go get an award on stage.
1:04:00
I'm like, oh, Chris, you've become the spoiled bitch about
1:04:02
this, aren't you? Yeah, we actually got to take
1:04:06
what comes that you. I mean, it's, but at the same
1:04:09
time we see, I don't think it's ever a bad thing to to aim big,
1:04:12
to want more, just like. Yeah, but then my kids will keep
1:04:15
me grounded that they're like, yeah, it was OK.
1:04:18
I liked it. And I'm like, all right, thanks,
1:04:21
guys. Brought me back down.
1:04:23
Like, why'd you bother doing this?
1:04:24
I'm like just I love you. Ouch, why'd you bother?
1:04:28
Doing that though, like on a specific part, they're like, I
1:04:31
didn't get this and I'm like, I don't want to have this
1:04:34
conversation with you. Thanks for bringing me back down
1:04:38
to earth though. Can you just throw that oh you
1:04:41
understand when you're older line.
1:04:44
I'm sure I did that that that's the.
1:04:48
That's the standard parent response.
1:04:49
You just don't have the context yet.
1:04:54
All right, a couple of final quick fire questions for you to
1:04:57
draw things to a close. What has filmmaking taught you
1:05:00
about life? Being prepared and communicating
1:05:04
is almost as important as how good something is.
1:05:07
And that the truth. What's the best advice you've
1:05:10
ever received? Be passionate about the thing
1:05:12
that you're doing, especially in film, because you're going to
1:05:15
spend so much time with it. You'll end up miserable if you
1:05:20
compromised in such a way that you don't like your product
1:05:23
anymore because you're going to spend hundreds of hours with it
1:05:27
and it'll piss you off the no end when you realize you don't
1:05:32
like the thing that you made. Great advice.
1:05:34
What's the biggest life lesson you've learned so far?
1:05:36
That the people involved matter more than anything else and
1:05:44
anything in life is the group of people that you surround
1:05:47
yourself with Affect how something is and your enjoyment
1:05:51
level more than the activity itself or the quality of the
1:05:55
activity. And final question for you.
1:05:58
Do you have any upcoming projects or final thoughts that
1:06:01
you'd like to share with our listeners?
1:06:03
If I have, we'll see how Misfit sells.
1:06:07
If it sells well, you absolutely will be seeing more from us.
1:06:11
If not, we might quietly do something else.
1:06:14
But hopefully we will be doing stuff in the near future.
1:06:20
It just kind of money in, money out situation.
1:06:23
So once we get it, we're working on some scripts.
1:06:26
Well, I wish you the very best of luck with that.
1:06:29
Congratulations on everything with Misfits, and thank you so
1:06:31
much for being on the show. It's been a real pleasure.
1:06:35
It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
1:06:39
Always a pleasure. And to all of the listeners of
1:06:42
the Christian Reef Podcast, make sure you go check out Misfits.
1:06:44
It's available now on Amazon Prime Video and soon to be
1:06:48
elsewhere. And yeah, I hope you enjoyed
1:06:51
this show and let me know who you would like to see on the
1:06:54
show next, what you would like to hear on the show next.
1:06:57
As always, thank you very much for listening and I'll see you
1:07:00
in the next one.