Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 699: Writing for Spielberg & Creating the Cult Classic Tremors with S.S. Wilson

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IFH 699: Writing for Spielberg & Creating the Cult Classic Tremors with S.S. Wilson · 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 Hustle Podcast, Episode number six ninety nine, Except no one's definition of
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your life, Define it yourself. Harvey Fierstein broadcasting from the back alley in
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Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to
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survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz.
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And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
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the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's
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show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film
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If you want to order it, just head over to www dot film
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bizbook dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest
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host Dave Bullis. Hey, Steve, thanks lot for coming on the show.
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Sir, welcome, You're welcome. So, you know, Steve,
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just to get started, I wanted to ask what got you into the film
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industry. Was it you know, did you like films you know, growing
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up? Or is it just sort of one of those things where one day
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you found yourself, you know, sort of writing screenplays or on set somewhere.
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Well, as it tends to happen right. My story is is a
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little different. I did love films. I was a huge film buff as
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a kid, and my dad supported that. And early on, when I
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was I don't know, ten or eleven, he bought a eight millimeter camera
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and I was one of those kids who made movies in the backyard and tried
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to do special effects with gunpowder and gasoline, which he also supported. Interestingly,
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you know. And then uh, my dad then when I went off
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to college, actually changed my life. I went off to college and I
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don't know what I should do. I guess I'll be a psychologist like my
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dad. That's what he was. And he came up after I'd been there
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a week or so he said, you know, what are your courses?
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And I said, oh, what I signed up for? And he said,
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well, this makes no sense. You've been making movies in the backyard
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for ten years. What's going on? And he went to my advisors and
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he said, do you have anything like film or movies or television? And
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he changed my whole course schedule. This is absolutely true. And I had
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never thought about actually trying to do it for a living, even though I'd
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been making movies for years and years and doing stop motion animation and then I
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you know, never looked back. I went, oh, well yeah,
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because you know, then there were people in the in the departments. You
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know, we didn't have much of a film program at Penn State all those
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years ago, like one television course and like two film courses, and he
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had to borrow cameras from the local PBS station whatnot. But uh, yeah,
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but that's what happened. And then then I got drafted that I went
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to USC Film graduate school and there met a lot of the people that I
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still work with. And even though it took almost ten years from graduating USC
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to actually break in and make short circuit, we were working in the film
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business making short films and little short animated things and films for schools and libraries,
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TV commercial things whatnot. You know, it's funny, Steve, that
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your your dad was able to change your whole curriculum because uh, you know,
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I actually used to work at a college and grades and all that stuff
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were so secretive. Uh. They actually fired a professor one time because he
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told a student's father what he got in the class as a final grade before
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the kid if the kid did and they actually just fired the professor on the
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spot because of it. Wow, yeah, it's just a but no,
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that just it's funny though. Uh, you know, it's funny how college
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has changed so much. But but you know you went to Penn State,
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and you know I've actually, you know, been up there. I actually
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attended a Penn State football game. I didn't go there for college, but
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you know I've been there once. Hitellians. Small world, right, because
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you're out in LA now right, I'm actually I live in areas owner.
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Oh okay, you know I actually have a few friends out there to go
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to LA went as needed, I see. So you know, just to
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ask this, Penn stated ever asked you to come back to maybe talk about
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screenwriting or directing or anything. I've been bad. It's funny, ironic timing.
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You know. They occasionally send me alumni stuff. I've never let them
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even know what I do. I should do that, but no, they
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haven't. They haven't tracked me out. They have no idea you know who
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I am or wearing. I was kind of an invisible student, geeky guy,
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and I just went through and left. Well, I thought me they'd
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have some kind of alumni, you know, sort of headhunter trying to kept
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tracking all this stuff, you know, but I have I've never responded to
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any of it, so I really actually have it on my desk as we
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speak. I said, oh, I should let them know. They probably
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would like to know, so well, then you know, you could just
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send on this podcast instead. I'm not going to go back just to listen
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to this podcast. I'm talking to Dave. So you know you brought up
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A Short Circuit, by the way. I watched that movie religiously as a
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kid, by the way, So I want to ask you know about your
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whole writing style. I'm actually always fascinated by people's writing styles and their approach
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to their own art, So I wanted to ask you, Steve, how
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do you approach writing? You know, do you know do you subscribe to
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any sort of methods. Do you do very long treatments first or you just
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sort of jump right into writing. Brent and I, who have written practically
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everything together at least certainly everything has been made, and we've been working since
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the days at USC, both in the short films and then we wrote Short
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Circuit, which was our big break. We have a very Our approach is
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outline, outline, outline. We don't normally write a treatment for tremors.
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We did only because we were trying to sell it and we couldn't sell it
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as a pitch for because well we couldn't, and that didn't The treatment didn't
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sell either, by the way. But let me go back. So we
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outline in great detail. We are not comfortable until we know where the story
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is going, and we're very story oriented. Some people can start, you
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know, sort of with a character. Don't just say, oh, there's
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this character and he's a drug addict and he's got these problems and I'm just
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gonna think about what he does because he's a drug addict. We can't do
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that. We've got to know where we're going. So and we can't really
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get excited about something until we know where we're going, even if it's a
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rewrite, which you know, you get offered quite a bit in Hollywood.
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It's pretty much all Hollywood does anymore. Even if it's a rewrite, we
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will sit down before we even say yes to a job. We'll say,
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okay, we got to go through this movie figure out what we would change,
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or maybe they're telling us what they want changed. We got to be
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sure that we can make that work. And we got to know where it's
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going because your ending is so important in a movie in our opinion. Infect
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somebody well known, maybe one of the Zucker brothers said, you're ending is
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fifty percent of your movie. Somebody said that, and we kind of believe
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that. So we gotta know where we're going, what the surprises are,
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where the twists and turns are so long answer to that question is we outline
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like crazy. In fact, we used to drive studios crazy. And back
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in the day, early on when we were getting started, you used to
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get twelve weeks was a normal time to write a script, and we would
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outline for eight and they'd be calling us him so you're writing or you're writing.
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Well, now we're so outlining, They're like, are you out of
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your mind? But then we would write it and you know, four weeks
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because it was done. So you know, you mentioned tremors when you finally
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started outlining. Uh, you know, did was there ever a sort of
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an impasis for that movie where you said, you know what this is where
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we want to take it? So you know, you know what I mean?
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So we already know you know what the monster is going to be,
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and we sort of know where the location is going to be, it's gonna
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be in perfection. Uh did that? Was that a part of it or
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did that sort of come in during the outline and phase. Well, there
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again, we outlined it in great detail, worked on it with him on
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Underwood. Because the goal with Tremors was to become producers. We were frustrated
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that everything we had written up till then we discovered naive that we writers,
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that we were, that writers aren't really welcome on the set once you're done
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with the script, they don't want to hear from you again. And we
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would go to movies and that we had written and go, boys, that's
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not what I would have done. And our agent told us, we'll look,
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you guys want to produce, then you want control, and to get
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that, you're going to have to control the material from the get go.
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You can't be rewriting the studio as material. Blah blah blah. So she
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said, what do you have in your portfolio and your piles of notes?
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And we came up with we came out of our piles of notes with we
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got this underground monster idea. And she said, that's kind of cool.
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I've never heard of that before. We'll be right back after a word from
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our sponsor, and now back to the show. And so, first we
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sat down with Ron and we outlined the whole story, figured out who the
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characters were, where it was gonna go, and then we pitched it all
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over town. Couldn't sell it, and then she said, well that's uh,
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maybe you should write a treatment, very detailed, like twenty five page
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treatment. Did not sell send it to everybody, So well, I guess
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you're gonna have to write it on spec. So in between you know,
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the regular Hollywood movies we were writing, we were writing Tremors on spec and
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then took that all over town and it was a It was a huge Our
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agent was a huge part of getting this done. She was sentfral We called
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her the Mother of Tremors. This is Nancy Roberts, later our partner in
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Stampede Entertainment. She handpicked, you know, who the script was gonna She
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did what an agent really is supposed to do. She handpicked who the scripts
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and she knew the studio people. She told us in advance what they were
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going to say. You know, there were there were situations where because of
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her relationships, there were certain times if she had a spec script. She
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couldn't not show it to certain people because then they would be mad that they
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were shut out of the process. So she said, okay, this is
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going to be weird. I have to send this to Disney. They are
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going to say we hate this because it's got so much dust in it.
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They headed dusts and we're like what, Sure enough, that's exactly what came
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back. And all of this was, of course off the record, you
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know, under the wire. But she got off the phone. I think
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I was there at some point. No, no, she was on the
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phone to somebody Disney and they were passing in a very polite way. Well
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it's not, you know, right for us at this time, and she
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said, come on, Eisner doesn't like dust. There's puns on the other
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end. But that's all really, really true. And then she handpicked Jim
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Jack's wonderful, wonderful executive, classic old school executive who who at Universe,
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so who loved movies, loved all kinds of movies, knew exactly what Tremors
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was. He saw exactly it's B movie, monster movie roots and she knew
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that Jim would get it and he would fight for it at Universal which is
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exactly what happened. And then she enlisted Gail and Hurt. She was the
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one who brought Gail and Hurt in because Gail Anne looked at our buddy Ron's
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short movies, which was all he had at the time. He had not
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done a feature. And when we did Tremors, and the studio was like,
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wow, we're going to hand off this movie to a guy who's only
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directed films for schools and libraries. And Gail looked at the movies, fun
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guy as a filmmaker, don't worry about it. And then she shepherded us,
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especially at the beginning, you know, made sure we weren't going off
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the rails in some way to get her in trouble. I guess she was
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executive producer. She saw the dailies and said, good, is it gonna
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work? Yeah, you know, I really liked Tremors. I'm gonna tell
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you why, Steve, because you know, first it just seems everything happens
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naturally, you know what I mean. It's you know, and I again
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when you said you were you started with characters, you know, when you
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were working with the idea, it's because you know, all those characters seem
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like they're real people who live in that world and they all see you know,
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and when they you know, when some of them finally die. For
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anyone listening, I'm not who hasn't seen it yet, I'm not going to
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spoil it. But for anyways, when they finally die, you know,
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you actually say, oh my gosh. You know, there isn't a ton
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of guys, you know that are just getting mauled. These are all the
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characters right here. So when they finally die, when not when some of
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them die, they go, oh my gosh. You know, that actually
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is impactful in the story. It's those escalating circumstances, you know what I
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mean here, Oh well, my my, you know, you're very welcome
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and uh, you know, and because when when when you see the worm
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for the first time, you think that's the monster and then it becomes bigger,
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and you're always escalating that further and further and further, and it's always,
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you know, they they find a solution, the problem escalates, They
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find a solution of the problem escalates. I mean that that's just it's phenomenal.
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And I don't know if you know who read letter mean is, but
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they actually are A popular online review group, and they actually gave it a
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you know, they actually have this one segment where they talk about movies they
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like, and they actually reviewed Tremors and they said it's one of their favorite
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movies. So great. It's always nice to hear all the things you're saying.
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We worked very hard on. They were all very important to us.
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My partner is not a being movie monster fan. I saw them all up
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until the mid seventies or so. I saw everything, and I knew all
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the cliches we were playing with. My partner is just all about character.
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And again and both of us it was very important that yes, the characters
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matter, that they they seem, that the plot, things that happened seemed
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to come naturally out of the situation. And and even even the monsters are
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consistent in what they do. You know, they don't change the rules,
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they don't suddenly become indestructible or anything like that. And one other compliment I
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want to give you two is the way that you constructed this with sound,
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because you know what I mean, Like in the beginning, when Earl and
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I forget Kevin Bacon's character, Uh yeah, well yeah, Val, Earl
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and Val when they're looking for you know, the doctor, they're you know,
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they're not yelling his name, they're just sort of walking around and you
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can really you know, they're hearing the planks walk. You hear the bucket
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kick, and you're you know, and then you know, Val says,
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we know where's that music coming from? You know what I mean? And
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you know, and and it just it always escaltes with that sound. And
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then when when you have Chang's Joke Store, you have that that that refrigerator
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that's always makes that noise, and then that causes you know, further conflict.
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I mean, that's really really good writing and using that audio for filmmaking.
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Oh yes, sound was well. We knew sound was gonna be critical.
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We were a low budget movie and we and that's why we that's part
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of the reason we picked Underground Monster. That's one of the ideas that we
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decided to develop. We thought, oh well, underground most of the time,
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we'll never see them. Kevin knows. We had endless problems, even
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even though we in theory weren't seeing them. But we knew that sound was
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going to be critical. Uh, we had great sound people, you know,
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and it was you know, years ago. People have asked me,
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you know, what, what is the base sound of a grab boid?
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And I'm sadly I don't know. And I you know, I've lost track
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of the people who invented that sound. Yeah you know, uh, because
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for everyone that's seen the movie, you know, that's that sound that they
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make, you know, and it's you know, it just all ties him
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very well together. And everyone I'm going to link to Tremors in the show
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notes to filef Amazon or Best Buy, because it's right, it's totally recommended
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watching. I remember seeing Tremors years ago, Steve, and it just blew
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me away. But but see, and I didn't know what I was watching
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because I know now, you know, I've I've studied filmmakers, I've studied
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this. When I go back, now I can I can sort of go
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through with a surgeon scalpel, and I can pick out all this stuff.
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Oh, this is why I found this so fascinating, you know what I
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mean? And this is why I found it so entertaining. So and then
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and then I get to talk to the guy who wrote it, and uh,
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you know what made it so uh So now you could tell me how
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wrong I am. No, I'm just kidding, but um but um no,
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no, it's just uh, you know, it's it's just it's a
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phenomenal film. And that's why I'm so glad you know that that the you
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know, I got to see the franchise, you know what they mean,
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like Tremor's two, Tremors three. Uh, you know, I know you
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guys you did uh four as well, and you also did the TV series,
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and it was always great to see you know, this sort of franchise
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expand, and you know, because you know, I always talk to you
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know, my friends and always say, you know, some franchises, you
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know, they they sort of go this way, some go that way,
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you know, I mean Friday thirteenth to night right now I'm street. But
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Tremors always sort of kept it in perfection one way or another because there was
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always you know what I mean, there was always a sort of reason why
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uh that you know, uh, you know, like like Tremors three when
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it's called back to Perfection, right, and that's where Melvin's creating that whole
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town right and actually leads in the whole TV series. But it's just stuff
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like that, you know what I mean, that's it's all comes organically well,
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we Yeah, it was very important to us to make the world consistent,
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and it wasn't easy. You know, we never expected even to do
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Tremors Too. That came along years later only because of the success in VHS.
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You know, Tremors one was not a huge hit. I mean,
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you know, Kevin Bagan review viewed it as a flop and he absolutely disowned
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it for many many years. And it wasn't I flop per se, but
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it but it did not do nearly what the studio hoped it would do,
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and they were disappointed. And so we were Florida and we got this call
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from video department who said, hey, what about Tremors too? He said,
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what about it? They said, we wanted what? So then we
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all had to sit down because we were busy doing all kinds of other stuff
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at that point in our careers, and said, God, can we come
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up with the Tremors too? And then you know, then we said,
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well, all right, the big cliche is there's a queen grab boid and
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we all went, Okay, no way we're doing a queen grab. We're
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not going to do it, And what are we do instead of that?
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Then finally I get I'm going to say it was me. I think it
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was me. I was driving along in the desert as I often am,
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and I said, I wonder if they just turned into something small, how
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weird would that be? And then we ran with that idea. Yeah,
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and I remember seeing that too, because that's when they were actually walking on
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land um Forge and I forget the name that that in the movie, that
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that the characters give them Shook the Shriekers, that's right, yeah. And
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then because it's the third that they're called ass Blasters, right, well,
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that's their third incarnation that gave us that told us where to go with the
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third one. We thought, okay, well they'll change into a third form.
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And at the time, again it was really important to us to keep
19:33
the characters consistent, the rules consistent, other than but still come up with
19:37
surprises. You still can't you can't just do the same thing over and over.
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So that's how we came up with the ass Blasters. And in fact,
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the effects guys Tom Woodriff and Alla Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics are the ones
19:49
who came up with ass Blasters. We'll be right back after a word from
19:55
our sponsor. And now to the show because they were just as invested in
20:04
we were in protecting their monsters and making them consistent. And they have a
20:08
wonderful design approach. It's a very real world based and volumes and volumes of
20:14
books about animals and creatures and skin textures. And they literally came in one
20:18
day and said, hey, or you are you aware of the Bombardier beetle
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and we're like, no, we're not. They said, that's a beetle
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that mixes chemicals and it's button makes us sound like a firecracker. That's a
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real thing. Absolutely, we think that's what asked blasters should do. And
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we're like, we're totally on board with that. Something else I was gonna
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say, oh oh yes, And then we got thrown a curb by Universal
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because they said, Okay, Tremors Through will definitely be the last one.
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There will definitely not be anymore. We understand our market perfectly and we know
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exactly how the DVD world works and this is it. So we said,
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okay, we'll wrap it up. That will be that's cool. We will
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say that this is the last form that creatures take Boom the end perfection,
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and almost immediately was well, no, we we did really much better than
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we thought. We must have Tremors four. Yeah, because I I you
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know, I actually saw Tremors four, and I actually was kind of shocked
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because I thought, you know, because I was like, oh, well,
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I didn't know they made another one. And you know what, this
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is funny, Steve here, you know, as you could kind of tell
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them a movie buff. I didn't even know you did a TV series.
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I actually didn't know you did a TV series until last year. Well it's
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easy to do. I mean, there's so much material now. There's a
21:33
lot of stuff that I don't know. I means the stuff that's being you
21:34
know, I'm probably not even up on half of Netflix's shows and all stuff.
21:38
But anyway, I don't blame you. Well, I mean because you
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know, I'm such a movie head and I'm always like, you know,
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you know, looking for different stuff. And I said they did a Tremors
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TV series before I said, wow, I didn't notice that. So I
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actually I actually bought it offline and I actually went through and I was like,
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oh, okay, so it sets up it's you know, it's it's
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three into the TV series and then four is a prequel. Yeah. Uh,
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you know I had to ask, you know, uh, when you
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make these Tremor movies, Michael Gross seems like the coolest guy in the world.
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Is he Is he the coolest guy in the world, because I mean
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he just seems like he would just be an awesome guy to hang out lest.
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Yes, he's just a wonderful, funny, intellectual, not full of
22:21
himself actor. He's very He's great on the set, you know, at
22:26
understanding you know who has the scene. You know, he's not trying to,
22:30
you know, steal other people's lines or anything. He's he's an actor's
22:32
actor and uh. And he's so he's become you know, he became Burt.
22:37
He took over Burt, you know from us and uh. And he
22:42
would always on Tremor's two and three and four, even though he wasn't playing
22:47
Burt. Uh. He would he would always come to this set with little
22:52
penciled, delicately penciled lines in the script and then he would sit down and
22:56
he wo sit down with us before we went and say, okay, I
22:57
got this idea for a change and change here, and then we could go
23:00
back and forth. It was well, if you say that, then we
23:03
won't know this he's, oh, yeah, yeah, you're right, never
23:04
mind over mind. But a lot of times, you know, especially with
23:07
the Bird character, he's he defends the character and and he loves it.
23:15
I thought at some point I thought he was going to get tired of it.
23:17
But I always have to tell this quick story. You know, he
23:21
was a huge television star when he did Tremors one. He had just finished
23:26
years and years on Family Ties playing a guy who could not be more different
23:30
from Bird, and they asked us to read him because he was a big
23:34
television star and they felt like that would help the movie. And we went
23:37
read the Father on Family Ties, so we don't know, Okay, we'll
23:42
do it because they want us to do it. Well, he blew us
23:45
away. You know. He came in because he's an actor, and he
23:49
completely just Ron tells the story that he was actually jumping up on his desk
23:55
at one point, being showing how afraid he was of the monster underground.
23:59
Anyway, Then some years later, Michael told me the story of walking down
24:03
the street in New York and getting that look that fans get when they start
24:07
to recognize you, and the guy who was walking towards him, and he
24:11
sees the look he knows the fan's gonna say it, and then the fan
24:14
says, you're that crazy gun guy and Michael said, yes, I finally
24:21
escaped Family Ties. I thought you were gonna say, oh yeah, I
24:26
was the Donald Family Ties, the crazy gun guy. Yeah. You know.
24:32
It's funny because I introduced a friend of mine two Tremors, and he
24:34
actually goes, wait a minute, that's the dad from Family Ties. And
24:37
I said, yes, he's with the Heating family and I'm sorry, Keaton
24:41
and Heat and I said, yeah, you know, and he goes,
24:45
wow. He goes, this is a different role for him, and I
24:47
said yeah, and I said, he fits it like a glove. Because
24:49
one of my favorite shots of the whole movie is where Reba McIntire and Michael
24:55
Gross are in their underground bunker and the wall starts to shake and they see
25:00
that the grab woid come through and they start to fire. They have those
25:04
rifles, those bold action rifles, and they're at a amo very quickly,
25:08
and the camera just pans over to the wall of guns and they literally just
25:12
they're pulling guns off the wall. And I mean, it's it's so I
25:17
again, organic characters, and that fits so well, because I would actually
25:21
be disappointed, Steve if they did not have a wall of guns. They
25:25
knew that was a key moment in the movie, and it was great at
25:27
the premiers and at the test screenings. You know, the audience wouldn't they
25:33
would laugh through the next all the way through the next scene. Yeah,
25:37
and you know it was, you know, a phenomenal. Tremors is definitely
25:40
one of my favorite movies. And I think, you know, when I
25:42
when I go back to you know, writing and writing my own stuff,
25:45
you know, I always like to dissect movies that I've I've watched, you
25:48
know, and I've I liked to dissect movies that I've really liked, and
25:52
uh, you know it. And now because this podcast, get to talk
25:55
to people who've who've written great stuff that I like. So you know,
25:59
it's just it's you know, it's just great being able to talk to you,
26:00
Steve, and you know, finding out these little intriticities. I think
26:04
I just butcher that word, by the way, But but but you know,
26:07
and I want to ask, you know, Steve, you know,
26:10
you have such a great career. You know, you did short circuit batteries
26:12
not included a short circuit two tremors, as we all just talked about,
26:17
I did Ghost Dad. You know, is there any sort of writing advice
26:21
you could give to anyone listening who's writing a screenplay right now. Well,
26:26
if you like our style, and that's step number one, if you like
26:29
the movies we've done, then do what you're doing. First of all,
26:32
analyze the stuff you like. That's a lot of you know, pros.
26:36
It will call ourselves that would say that, because you won't be copying the
26:41
stuff that you like, you'll be learning from it. You know, you
26:44
you obviously understand setups, some payoffs. For example, it's a big thing
26:47
for me and Brent setting something up early in the movie having a payoff later
26:52
in surprising way. Those are hard to do. It's hard to do those
26:56
correctly and without cheating, and a lot of times the movies cheap. I
27:02
feel a little at odds with kind of the current moviemaking scene giving anybody advice,
27:08
because film after film that has no plot and makes no sense is wildly
27:15
successful. And I've begun to wonder, you know, I rail at this
27:18
and I go, oh my day, and blah blah blah, and yet
27:25
you know, this is for years now i've been seeing this, I've started
27:29
to think, well, the audience has really changed. I think the younger
27:32
audience maybe does not care as much about what I think is important in storytelling,
27:40
and they truly do enjoy these movies. You know, part of me
27:42
says, well, they don't really enjoy them. It's just that's the only
27:45
that's the only thing they you know, that's the only thing on this weekend,
27:48
so they go. I'm less and less sure of that. But anyway,
27:52
I would say, analyze the stuff you like, whatever it is,
27:55
you know, if it's ordinary people, analyze that. Uh and and write
28:03
a lot. By the way, you'll hear this too from other people.
28:06
Don't get hung up on your one script. Brent and I did this.
28:10
You know, early on we would write a script and go over and over
28:12
and over and over. And then we've looked at one of those early scripts.
28:15
This was like four or five scripts before a short circuit. You know,
28:18
we go, well, it wasn't very good, and none of the
28:22
versions we did were very good. It just wasn't very good. You gotta
28:25
you gotta move on. Write something, get it done, say goodbye to
28:27
it, write something else. If you're if you're a writer. You have
28:33
plenty of ideas and the worst worst cases you find out, well, maybe
28:37
I don't like it. You know, you do four or five scripts and
28:41
I don't like this. That's fine too, But write a lot. Don't
28:45
get hung up on one thing and you know, and beat it to death.
28:49
You know, push yourself to a degree. Look outside your comfort zone.
28:56
Although I do think that, you know, if you like emotional Uh,
29:02
what's the Julianne Moore pictures she just did where she was a lady with
29:06
Alsheimer's I can't think of. I'm I can't remember the name of it.
29:10
That's a very emotional picture that I would never try to write right, but
29:14
maybe you know, other people would, They would take That's exactly the kind
29:17
of movie. I wanted to study those um and write a lot. I
29:22
already said what I'm gonna say. You you know, that's great advice,
29:26
you know, Steve, you know, just going through and analyzing, you
29:30
know, movies that you like and why you like those and uh like,
29:33
For instance, I had Victor Miller on here, and Victor Miller wrote Friday
29:36
the Thirteenth Part one, by the Way, which also started Kevin Bacon by
29:38
the way, Wow, I did nothing. Yes, yes, small world
29:42
right, So uh you know, and uh we were talking about, you
29:47
know, how do you you know, how do you break it down.
29:51
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the
29:57
show. And Victors said, listen, he goes, I've been doing this
30:02
for thirty years now, whatever, he said, I'm still always looking for
30:07
different ways of writing and telling a story. He goes, so and he
30:11
said to me that, you know, he's always looking for a different method,
30:14
something to sort of crack the story or another way to write. And
30:18
you know, it's just it's just very reassuring and unassuring at the same time
30:22
to hear veterans like you and him, you know, just talk about screenwriting
30:26
and always say, you know, they even with hits because tremor you mean,
30:30
because again you have you've had tremors, You've had you know, short
30:33
circuit, and you know even and he's you know, had Friday Thirteenth Part
30:37
one, he's had a few Emmy Award winning pieces, and it's still it's
30:41
again, it's reassuring, and it's it's a little worrisome to hear that,
30:44
you know, there's always they still don't have it all figured out, you
30:47
know what I mean? Even if even if these hits, every script,
30:49
yes, every script has its own life that it takes on and its own
30:53
problems that it throws at you, and you suddenly find yourself clean. Why
30:57
did I even like this idea? I feel so trapped now, and uh,
31:02
you know, and sometimes you're beating your head against the wall. But
31:06
but you know that's that's the great thing. It is a creative process.
31:08
They yeah, they do, they do. Each one is different. With
31:11
Brent and I are doing one right now as a matter of fact, that
31:15
is that is very different from I think we've ever done. Ron challenged us.
31:18
Uh, he said, you know what, I would really like to
31:21
do another little budget movie. Ron is big in television right now. He's
31:22
directed every TV show you've ever heard of, and he goes from show to
31:27
show to show, and he said, you know, it'd be fun to
31:30
do another low budget movie like we did Tremors. Why don't you guys write
31:32
a sci fi movie with no special effects? And we went really wrong,
31:37
and then we thought about it. We sat down and so we actually have
31:40
come up with an idea we're about I don't know halfway through the process,
31:42
now, our anguishing process. It was really hard. I mean, we
31:47
just you know, because we just we just had to throw out idea after
31:49
idea after idea until we came up with this idea. But I don't want
31:52
to talk about but anyway, Yes, good, good note. Yes,
31:57
good writers are always questioning what they're doing, and always a lot of times
32:00
I think, foundering quietly in their dark corners. And you know, I'm
32:08
not even a professional writer yet, Steven, but you know I often feel
32:13
that way, right, feel. I always feel like, what the hell
32:15
did I start? But you know, it's funny. I actually pitched an
32:21
idea one time and the producer hated it, right, And he came back
32:24
to me later on and he goes, you know what I mean. This
32:27
is later months later, and he was already working on something else, but
32:30
he goes, you know what, I was driving down down down this uh
32:35
this interstate and he goes, you know, and all of a sudden,
32:37
they couldn't stop thinking about your script idea. And I started laughing at myself,
32:40
and he goes, you know, it's a lot better than I thought
32:42
it was. I said, see, it's always a rose colored ducer yeah.
32:49
But um, but you know, uh, Steve, you know,
32:52
we've been talking for about thirty minutes now, and I just want to ask
32:54
you in closing, is there anything that you know we we didn't get a
32:59
chance to discuss that you wanted to or is there any sort of thing you
33:01
want to say sort of put a period the end of this whole conversation.
33:05
Oh um, I'm writing novels now. I'd like to mention that to plug
33:10
them, um, among the other things I'm trying to do. Um.
33:15
But but as far as uh seems like, was there's anything else advice wise,
33:22
I would say having springs to mind, I'm much better the questions where
33:31
you will find you out online? Oh well, the stamped Entertainment maintains a
33:36
website, um, you know, and we always have hopes that we will
33:40
sell something of our own and ramp up into production stampede eath and Entertainment dot
33:45
com. And then I'm on Facebook of course as ss Wilson and and the
33:54
books are available at Amazon, Tucker's Monster and Freddy's Fredy Cats, and I
34:00
will link to all that in the shirts. Everyone have an impressive list of
34:06
podcast by the way, there's like, uh yeah, like one twenty seven
34:14
or eight. Now, Okay, I overstated a little bit, but I
34:16
was quite impressive when I went to your site and I listened to a few
34:20
things, of course before I agreed to do this, and so I was
34:22
impressed with your with your polished approach. Oh thank you. I've actually been
34:29
proud of that because I had somebody I won't say who, but they came
34:32
on and they said, Dave, thank you for not being that guy.
34:35
And I said, what do you mean. They said, you know,
34:37
they said, like there's so many people who have podcasts now, and they
34:39
said, you know, they're they're sort of like in their mom's basement and
34:43
they get people on the podcast and they can just like sort of like be
34:45
malicious, you know what I mean. And it's just like, oh,
34:47
so you made a movie, huh. And I'm like, no, I
34:52
would never be that guy. I hate people like because I actually steve you
34:54
know, real quick. I was on a podcast with a friend of mine
34:59
and he asked me be on his podcast. So I went to his house,
35:01
which, by the way, we went to his mom's basement to a
35:05
going this and then he started going like, oh, so you made a
35:08
TV pilot. And pitched it to NBC. Huh and I said, yeah,
35:14
well, is that is that bad? And he's like, well,
35:16
you know, and he's this is the podcast, by the way, and
35:19
he's like, oh, it could have reminded me too much of clothes.
35:21
I said, oh, I said yeah. I was like and and and
35:23
and. Honestly, Steve, I'm I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet.
35:27
So what I did was I started, you know, I was like,
35:29
if I started insulting you right now, dude, I said, believe
35:30
me, I said, you would cut this all out. And then finally
35:34
he started to like ease up a little bit after we exchange a little words.
35:37
But uh, but yeah, I never would would. It would bring
35:38
somebody on just to insult them. And I thank god that I've never had
35:43
one bad podcast. I've never had anybody had bad feelings. Everything's always been
35:46
great. So I'm proud of that good. Well you should be. That's
35:50
that's good. That's good to hear. And I'm for a Warren. I
35:52
haven't had that experience yet, so I can put you, Yeah, I
35:58
can give you that warning. I'll be like the harbinger of of horror,
36:00
you know what I mean, Like always warning you about things that are coming,
36:04
kind of like old Fred and tremors. But he was. He didn't
36:06
tell them, he just he but his dead body showed them. But there's
36:07
something right, uh, Steve. I want to say thank you very much
36:12
for coming on the podcast, sir, and please stay in touch me anything,
36:15
let me pleasure. Thank you, take care about you. Bye bye.
36:21
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on
36:22
this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in
36:25
this episode, head over to the show notes at Indie film Muscle dot com
36:29
for Slash six ninety nine. If you have it already, please head over
36:32
to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
36:38
It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so
36:42
much for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep
36:45
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36:47
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36:52
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