Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 737: How to Write for and Land a Movie Star for Your Indie Film with Shaye Ogbonna

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IFH 737: How to Write for and Land a Movie Star for Your Indie Film with Shaye Ogbonna · 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 ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle
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Podcast, Episode number seven thirty seven. People who succeed are not the ones
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who never fail, but they are the people who never quit. Anonymous broadcasting
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from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where
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we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles
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of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble
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host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How
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to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever
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Well, guys, today we have a special sun Dance Film Festival edition of
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the show. We have the co writer of the Sundance film God's Country,
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Shaye Obana, and the film stars Westworld Handy Way Newton. Now, if
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you're interested in going deeper into God's Country and the making of God's Country,
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we also have the other co writer and director of the film, Julian Higgins.
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On the Indie Film Hustle podcast on episode five forty nine, now I
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love talking to Shae because it was a really inspirational talk about how he kept
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going through the tough times. It's been overnight success of twelve years of him
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trying to make things happen for himself, and how he kept going, how
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he was able to build a group of guys that we're able to help,
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that we were all able to help each other and bring each other up and
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carry each other during the tough times. And it was really a masterclass on
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how to make it in la how to make it as a writer, and
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what to do. So please enjoy my conversation with Shae Obana. I like
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to welcome to the show a shoe Obon. How you doing the shad.
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I'm good. I'm feeling good. I'm excited. Obviously it's a big week
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and it's it's been a long time coming, so yeah, I'm feeling pretty
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good. So yeah, man. First of all, congratulations on it's being
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accepted in the Sundance. Writing a film that's accepted the Sundance, and so
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it's one of the better ones I've seen at the festival this year so far,
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so really really congrats. But before we get into the magical lottery ticket
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that is the sundance acceptance, and we'll talk all about that. How did
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you get started in the business? Ben in the business, I'd say officially
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got started in the business. My first job, job, official job,
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was in twenty nineteen when I got my first job and I writer's own as
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a staff writer on the limited series Evil, which is about evil and Evil
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which think Teddy. They're still in the element. But i'd say my start
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I came out to LA about twelve years ago, two thousand and nine.
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I got into a FI, the American Film Institutor, and when I got
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in, I got accepted as a screenwriter. The way AFI is, if
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anybody knows anything about American Film Monstitute, it's a conservatory model, so you
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work in your discipline, in your craft. So they accept like twenty eight
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directors, twenty eight writers, twenty eight producers, and twenty a cinematographers and
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also production des honors and editors. And the first year you all working together
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on your short films, and then the second year you worked primarily on the
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thesis film and as the writers were like working on like you know, writing,
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you know, a couple of features. There was I didn't even like
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when I got to AFI, I didn't I hadn't had a plan of on
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being in television. So I took a TV blast for second year, and
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that just like kind of like really changed and at the time it was like
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the Golden age television like mad Men, Bad and propping off, and so
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that was kind of like that was a huge at a huge effect on me
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as a right, and that was when I decided I also want to work
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in TV as well. But when I got to e F five, I
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had a plan which was too and this is something I've heard from people that
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I respect, which is like network across. So when I got to f
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FI, my plan was to like find my tried. So when I got
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there, I immediately tried to connect and collaborate with people that I that I
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work, I respected, and who were really cool people. And so when
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I got there, when I was there, me and like three other writers
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and a director from a collective, and we just started like obviously we would
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work in the DAT five, but you know, on our own, we
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will be writing like shorts, sketches, and we were like doing this up
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while the FI. Then right after five we were still working, we were
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like you know, put through our own little projects, and we even did
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like a web series, and so like those they don't tell you this in
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school, but you know it's it's just generally when you got out of school,
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nobody's offering you a one hundred million dollar feature or a five dollar feature
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to write or direct, and and the TV industries and kind of like,
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hey, we got this stabvage job or succession, come get it like that.
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It don't really work like that. So we are we were like Brian
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and run out of school making our own stuff and kind of like getting better
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and and working on our own, on our own material that that kind of
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got us noticed by different entities that kind of helped me skip a few steps.
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Like I didn't I didn't I was never right as assistant, I was
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never really a PA. I never really did the intern thing. And so
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like just kind of like working that collective gave gave me the opportunity to work
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and to get my stuff seen and also get better and ultimately like kind of
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take a different path than then probably most people take. And it was we're
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gonna in that collective that we we pulled all our resource together and eventually made
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an independent teacher really low budget individual independent feature called low Light, which was
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kind of a small chrome film. It's an ensemble Prome film. I get
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acted it as well, and that was kind of the thing that really kind
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of like push things for it. I think it was they ultimately led me
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to give representation and ultimately led me. It ultimately led me to meeting Julian
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and ultimately led me to God, to God's Cent. So so you need
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to tell me when you show up to LA they don't just hand you a
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ticket to go to the studio and just start writing and get paid. Then
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do that. It was the most surprising thing ever then, like Shane Black,
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like, I was just like, yo, man, when is when
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am I gonna get my three million dollar speck for a page like by five
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against the ten million advanced? Like when's that it's supposed to come immediately after
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our graduate because because they they did not recognize your genius early on. I
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think we all have this problem. Yes, we absolutely all have this problem.
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It needs to be rectorified, absolutely, absolutely, no question, ben
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No. I find it really interesting that you started off you were smart.
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I got don't know if you were smart enough, but you you figured it
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out that doing it alone, especially as a writer, because writer is a
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very solitary profession and writers generally don't you know, I'm a writer. I've
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worked with writers. You know. Sometimes you've got really personable writers and other
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writers who just are Charlie Kaufman sitting in the corner, uh and and they're
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so writers don't generally think about a collective or about networking, or about putting
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together a team or a group of people like minded people to try to get
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something made. And that is so valuable because I think what you just said
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is if you wouldn't have done that, you wouldn't have been able to get
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your first feature made, You wouldn't get your your you wouldn't have been able
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to get your representation, so on and so forth. So it was this
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group that you all lifted yourselves up. I mean, look, Spielberg,
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Lucas Coppola, Scorse, they all did it back in the day. They
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got this group together and they helped each other out, and it was great.
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I didn't even know that, Like I had already came in with that
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mentality, but I didn't even know that those guys did that until like watch
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like the Spielberg document. Now that I heard about it before, but I'd
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never actually seen it, like actually seeing images of Spielberg on the star if
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they set with like a like the then the big shootout with there like a
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mask, well the blacks like Spielberg like work like bet Gamra all that,
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you know what I mean. So like even they the masters were thinking of
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that, you know what I mean. So like, yeah, I it
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was just it was something inherent and I agree is writers, we're not necessarily
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like it seems antithetical to the way we work to be like collaborative. Why
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did like it was a fop of me going to a place like the American
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Phone Listitute or I mean, I think any any really good graduate undergraduate film
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school leave a graduate program. If you go like everybody's on the same level
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as you it generally everybody's pretty good. They're just undervalue at that point because
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you're young or whatever. That's the time to like build those relationships and build
9:50
those collaborations and not try to go you know, network to go go write
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a query letter to Spielberg or something like that, because like that's if they're
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not on you're like I hate say, but like it's levels of this and
10:01
they're they're at a different level. We'll be right back after a word from
10:05
our sponsor and now back to the show. Come up with the people that
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that are like brianding out there with you, and it's it's it's it's it's
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super rewarding personally, but it gives you you pull resources, you know,
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right, money, talent, Tom with connections. Yeah, connections. It's
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one of my biggest pieces of advice. I'm not a big one advice,
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but like that's a big piece of advice that I would get to any really
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crafts person, but specifically like writers and directors, like at least with like
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cinematographers and other people like you, they're they're working. Like all my prayers
10:43
are the dps and editors constantly working, you know what I mean. And
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like with the writers and director just a little bit tougher the crack. You
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know, Nobody, like I said, nobody's offered you like a film.
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Nobody's offering you a TV shows. So you have to like find ways to
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work and network and build yourself with Yeah, I think I think you know,
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being in the town like La Man, if you don't have friends,
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if you don't have relationships, you can't get anywhere. Man, you just
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can't. And that's something that they don't teach you. They don't teach you
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that at school. You're like, you don't understand what the value is of
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those relationships because all of my all of my jobs. When I first got
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to LA, man, we're friends of a friend. I got to LA,
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I need two people a DP, I need two dps. That was
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it, and within I don't know, within two or three months, I
11:31
was non stop working as an editor, colorist, post supervisor. And then
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it just started to build on itself because you're like, oh, this guy's
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really good one to do this. But it was all about those building those
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relationships, going to these little parties and like, you know, introducing yourself
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and all this kind of stuff. Man. You know, I'll tell you
11:46
a quick story. You know Barry sonofeld Right and and the Cone bro.
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You know, Barry was the DP on Blood Simple for Yeah. Do you
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know how he got that job? He told me when he was on the
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show. He said, hey, man, listen, I go how'd you
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get involved with the Coen brother goes? I went to this party. I
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was young. I finished. I just got finished doing porn because that was
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how he paid off his first camera. That's fine. I think I heard
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about that. Yeah. So then he's like, I'm sitting in the corner
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and I look over and then in the other corner it's this tall, lanky
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dude. So I walk over to him. Hey, what's your name,
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because I'm Joel. He goes, oh, I'm Barry. He's like yeah,
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and he's like, I'm been shooting this thing this weekend. We're shooting
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this trailer for this movie that we're trying to get the raised money money for
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a blood simple. He's like, well, I got a sixteen minut.
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Let me the camera. He goes, You're hired. That was it.
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That was I'm like really and that was the way and that's how Barry Soonefeld
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and Joel, joe Onnathan took off. But it was about being you gotta
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put yourself out there. Man. You're absolutely right. She's a rare.
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It's good because there's writers, like you said, like a lot of us
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are like some of us are Charley Coughing people, but a lot of us
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are not really super like the social butterfly. Some of us are, obviously,
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but you gotta like, you gotta get out, especially in la no,
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I gotta get out there. You got it. You got a network
13:00
to meet people. You can be the best writer in the world. But
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if you're just sitting in the corner writing like these amazing scripts and nobody's really
13:05
get a chance to see it. A lot of times they're not just they're
13:07
hiring you, not just the work. They're literally they're ironing you, like
13:11
they want to be in business with you. And nobody's gonna know that.
13:15
If you, like, if you're just sitting in your room while dan,
13:16
you're not getting out, you're not meeting people, or at least if you're
13:18
not a big social person connected, collaborate with people who are who can kind
13:24
of like work those avenues, or you will at least put you in those
13:28
situations to like be the icebreaker in those socials. Would you at the beginning
13:33
of your career, if you've found if you found a director or a producer,
13:37
you guys are just starting out. I'm like, listen, man,
13:41
if you get this produced, I know you don't got any money, pay
13:45
me something on the back end. Would you rather have something that's been produced
13:48
and no money at the beginning, or a little bit of money and nope,
13:52
and nothing gets produced the former like one hundred percent, Like I am
13:58
water percent like the that that's the way we came up, like very little
14:03
bloody, but it's being produced that is that has a higher value to the
14:07
industry than having money and not really adding anything out there. That's always been
14:13
a way, and that's that's kind of the way the people that I look
14:16
up to, that's the kind of the way they came up, you know,
14:18
people like really like just like let's get it made, even we'll we'll
14:22
make our budget are aesthetic, you know what I mean, Like we'll bake
14:26
our resources esthetic because we're that good is creative. So yeah, I'm one
14:30
hundred percent in that camp of just like not having a lot of money and
14:33
getting out there producing something. Now, was there a film that lit your
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fire to come into this ridiculous business? I think I don't know if there
14:43
was a specific because the films that are the films that I love are not
14:46
well. I mean, for me, like my favorite film of all time
14:50
is Heat. I'm a Michael Man say so, Like I just like and
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I like to write in the crime. I love like prom films and really
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elevated you know, prompt cinema and so for me, like, that's like,
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that's the film. I was just like, man, this is like,
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this is like you can make something that just like sits with you BeForever
15:07
that you constantly revisit. So I don't I don't know if I would say
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that was the film that got me in the industry. You know what's funny?
15:13
It go like as a kid, I always say this, it's gonna
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be funny. So Rocky four was the first movie I saw as a kid
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that I was just like, yo, I want to do this. It
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did, don't don't they? Man, listen, I just had it.
15:28
I just had a filmmaker on who made an entire movie about the opening of
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Rocky three in Staten Island and how it affected him and his friends and stuff
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like that. Yeah, dude, Rocky four. To look, there's you
15:41
could turn on Rocky four, right, I literally, you know what?
15:43
You want to hear some funny. Yesterday, in traveling through YouTube, the
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end fight sequence from Rocky four came up. It's like, hey, do
15:50
you want to watch the end fi I'm like yes, And I just sat
15:54
there and watched Drago at Rocky fight. I've seen that fight a million tons,
15:58
but something about what the loan did man and and and with that character
16:03
and the like with mister t and and and Rocky and and three and four
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specifically, uh, three and four specifically two I enjoyed one is a masterpiece.
16:15
Five we don't talk about. And then Rocky Balbol was like I can't
16:18
believe he did it again, Like it was like what, yeah, Like
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I I am a yeah, I'm a I'm a Rocky I'm a Rocky apologist.
16:27
Obviously, when when the funny thing when Creed came out, I got
16:30
mad because I was like, why do I write then it's fondable follow?
16:33
What are you talking about? Like I felt I was so bad about that.
16:37
And then I was like champion, Like you know, from the moment
16:41
I saw it, Creed two was a dimmer story because I felt like Creed
16:45
two I was rooting for Drago's kid. I was like no, no,
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no, no, I was like, I need drags kid to win it.
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Creach K had a little bit rougher. I would agree with you.
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I would I would agree with you man, Like, yeah, you can't.
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I was like Michael b Michael bees Off and you know in the mansion,
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He's like man, I lost. I lost it, like they have
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not look at you. If I would have done Create two, I'm gonna
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be he would have lost in Free two and they Create three would have been
17:11
the rebatch you know what I mean? That would have been like the way
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I would have bet it. But LOSTO is Rocky Rockey threedocty four. They
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get reduced. It's like can't they can't be. It's the can't be one
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like don't don't like seriously, don't sleep on like the steaks or so like
17:25
I mean the stakes and Rockey wore it couldn't be ire. It's literally like
17:27
we're trying to stop a nuclear war. If Rocky when Rodney Beach Drive though,
17:32
he like destroys, he destroys the Sophie Dudiath Like what are you talking
17:36
about? So like I'm joking around, I'll be this is what I love.
17:38
Like for me as a kid, watching that, it was just like
17:41
that was when like you're dreaming, like I remember like watching that footy popcorn
17:45
in my mouth and play boxing with my buddy, and that was when I
17:48
was just like, yo, I want this feeling that I have right now.
17:52
I wouldn't give this feeling to other people, you know what I mean.
17:53
So that that's what did I remember that had the most effect on see.
17:57
And that's the funny. I love that you said that. Man,
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this feeling I want to give to other people, that's a really good place
18:03
to come from as a writer, as a creative, that you're trying to
18:07
give back through your art to your community in one way shape, refer to
18:11
the world in one way, shape or form, as opposed to being a
18:15
more of an ego centric place of like I need to be big, I
18:17
need to be this or that. Those guys I've met those guys. It's
18:21
hard, man, This business is so damn hard in general. And if
18:25
you think, I know, you've met them, you know, guys who
18:27
think they're guys, and guys would think that you know, they're the last
18:30
coke in the desert, and they think that you know, and you know,
18:33
and you're just like, you're doing it for the wrong reasons, man,
18:37
you're doing it for the wrong reason. You won't make it. My
18:41
order to say, life and me it is about like I always say this
18:45
upra at the temple of the story. I'm a writer, you know what
18:47
I mean? So like ego, you know this happened to God's watch to
18:51
like me like my ego shifting the door, especially when I'm collaborating on something
18:56
that's a personal project with people that I actually love, you know what I
18:59
mean, considered like you know, contemporaries of friends or whatever you want to
19:03
call it. About the I it's just about like like I want to be.
19:07
I want to give some kid or some adult or whoever, like the
19:10
feeling that I got from watching you know, from watching Rocky forter for instance,
19:15
or watching yat seventy five thousand times. You know what I mean.
19:18
I want to give people that feeling. And so that's why I do this.
19:21
Now, I gotta ask you, man, because I know there's a
19:22
lot of young writers listening, how did you keep going all those years that
19:30
when doors weren't opening, man, doors weren't opening, Things weren't happening the
19:34
way you wanted to, and you just kept your head down and you just
19:38
kept going. If I may use a Rocky quote, you know, it's
19:41
about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. And it's so
19:47
it's so true. What did you do to make it through those Because we're
19:51
not talking about months, we're talking about years. So there must have been
19:55
something that you did that made you wake up every morning you're like, man,
19:57
I got to write or I gotta do this and I gotta keep going.
20:00
What was that thing? We'll be right back after a word from our
20:03
sponsor, and now back to the show. I think it was kind of
20:12
two things. One thing was like, this is gonna sound really like OKI,
20:15
but you just have to get to a point where you're like, there's
20:19
no like, you have to you have to you have to actually define yourself
20:23
and declare that you are a writer, that you are director. Like a
20:26
lot of people they like it is a mental thing, like you being You'll
20:30
be in conversations and you'll be like, well, I'm I'm studying to be
20:33
a director or I'm working toward, you know, making my first thing.
20:37
You know, you have to mentally like tell yourself even if you're working,
20:41
if you're if you're working your day job at a grocery store or wherever,
20:45
you have to tell yourself mentally that I am a right you know that,
20:48
Like you have to approach whatever that day job is. You have to approach
20:53
it as it's literally what I do to pay the bills. But like what
20:56
I am as a writer. So if that means like I have to,
20:59
like if I have an earlier ship at my job, that means when I
21:03
get off, I'm writing for the rest of the day, or I get
21:04
up if I have to, let I get up in the morning and I
21:07
write, so like the intention is that my day and my focus is on
21:11
my crap and everything else kind of like come second to that. And then
21:15
like the other thing is like what I mentioned earlier about if you had a
21:21
tride, if you have a group, y'all hold each other down, like
21:26
like one of you might be having like the lean time and the other like
21:29
you you're constantly For me, what helped me move forward was like I had
21:33
these other people that I was, for lack of a better word, like
21:37
be olden to it. We all worked together and it was just like even
21:41
in our leanest times we weren't making any money, gets felt like I was
21:45
working because even us just going out on the weekend and making like just the
21:48
stupidest sketch you know, by Dodger Stadium or something like that, that felt
21:52
it feels the same. That felt the same way as I felt making God's
21:57
couns you with with Tandy, do you know what I mean. It's just
22:00
like having that group that you're you get it together, it really kind of
22:06
disulates you from those really hard times. And yeah it takes years, but
22:11
those years they tend to like fly by because you're making progress the costly moving
22:17
forward like set be intentionally set kind of like set of planning, like you
22:21
know, like okay, well this month, we're gonna make you know,
22:25
this little short seed and then you know, in the summer, let's make
22:27
like a short film. We'll make a sketch, and then let's start let's
22:30
let's work. Maybe we'll do a web series, you know, like uh
22:34
like just always like kind of plan and always kind of like move forward,
22:38
take your permial steps with the next thing. That's kind of what got me,
22:44
got me through my cloud of like cause like I said, I didn't
22:45
have a traditional the most traditional route to where I got. That kind of
22:49
helped me power throom that non traditional path and and then that's how you got
22:55
Lowlife made. Like Lowlife was made specifically by you guys and your group together,
22:57
like we're gonna go make a feature. And literally the way Low Life
23:00
Papper was, it was like it was like almost like a huge collection of
23:07
all these sketches that we worked Like a lot of the sketches that we had
23:10
worked on, some of them were baked into the strip. Some of the
23:12
characters we had worked on we had they would get other sketches, so it
23:15
was kind of like expanding those characters. So it kind of became this weird
23:18
universe almost like it DCU, but you know, our NCU of characters,
23:23
and it just kind of like came together in this one film. And obviously
23:27
like we were inspired. We were inspired by Tarantino, the Sporsees of the
23:32
world. We all grew up, you know, watching like those like on
23:34
Tour, you know, the Shade Blacks that that John were storytelling in this
23:41
specific space. So it's like that we were very much confluenced by the stuff
23:45
that we were really into, like you know the eighties, the eighties,
23:48
big blockbuster stuff, but also like you know, bad Neutenant stuff like that.
23:55
Yeah, we were constantly like you know, pushing each other and and
24:00
moving forward. That's awesome, man, that that's great. And I hope
24:03
I hope everyone listening takes a lesson, man, because it's it's almost like
24:07
a mastermind, like it's a mastermind that it's like you're working with a group
24:10
of people that you're constantly helping each other, but you're also keeping yourself accountable
24:15
to each other. And even when you're not working quote unquote and not making
24:18
money, you guys are still working on something on the weekends or you're still
24:21
working on something, and you just keep you keep exercising the muscle. If
24:26
you will get it. That was what it's about. That's what the collective
24:29
was to be. It was constantly because if you don't, like, because
24:32
those years are so lean, if you don't exercise that muscle, if you're
24:36
not out there putting in the work, then yeah, like it's gonna it's
24:38
gonna be a longer process. Or all you're doing is you're just really setting
24:42
yourself up because it's so it's so difficult to break in this. We've all
24:47
heard the stories. But if you like you're really out there exercising that muscle,
24:51
people will see it. People will find you. The industry won't find
24:55
if you're out there like doing like the way that I approachinks that that's how
24:57
it works out. So when you when did you like literally declare yourself a
25:03
writer because I know. For me, when I sat down and started writing
25:07
my first script in my first book, you know, it took me a
25:11
minute. There's a lot of imposter syndrome that happens in our business, a
25:15
lot of imposter syndromes. I've talked to the Oscar winners are still a freaking
25:18
habit. I'm like, well you kidd are you like kidding me? Like
25:21
you just want an Oscar tore Like yeah, but I've had directors who are
25:25
on set. I'm like, yeah, I feel like security is going to
25:26
take me off in the dame like mad, You've made a billion dollars at
25:29
the box office, Like I know. So it's a straight thing. So
25:33
what was that thing that fear that you had to break through to finally declare
25:38
yourself like I'm a freaking writer because it is. It is a conscious choice.
25:44
It is a conscious choice you make because I had to make it personally.
25:47
Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm sund to go. I mean I
25:49
feel like it was right around the time we did Low Life, Oh wow,
25:53
because I was literally like I was like ord being. I was like
25:59
I was literally and I act in Low Life too, So I'm like working,
26:03
I'm working to day job, you know, making very little money,
26:07
but I was but I'm obviously to work with my guys. And it was
26:08
something about when we finally like we had worked on Low Life, we had
26:12
worded like a writer's room, and it was something about that first day when
26:18
we started like making it at some CD motel, you know, a studio
26:22
city where literally like promise happening around. So it was like it was in
26:26
the air, like you didn't we need to just point the camera and shoot,
26:29
like we don't got to make this stuff up. It was a round,
26:32
it was running over well. It was just like my bank account,
26:36
there's nothing in here. I'm waking up at like three in the morning to
26:40
go walk to set and I'm making no money. But I was like,
26:41
this is it I'm doing. That was like it was around at tom but
26:44
I was like, you know what, I'm the brokers out the been in
26:47
my life, but I'm a writer, Like I'm literally doing this. And
26:51
from that point on, the mentality was different, Like obviously, like I
26:53
didn't come out of Low Life and immediately get a job. It still took
26:56
some time, but I from that moment on, I saw my so as
27:00
a writer. I saw myself as a creative and everything else I did.
27:03
It was just what you gotta do to eat, you know what I mean.
27:04
But yeah, that was It was around the time of Low This is
27:07
so funny because you said I was the brokest in my life, but I'm
27:10
a writer. That's a quote. That's so true. And I saw that.
27:15
I saw your trailer for Low Life, and I was like, I
27:18
know that. I know that motel. I used to drive by it all
27:19
the time. That un still is about the history. I don't even know
27:23
if it's still it's still the route, but like, yeah, that ship
27:26
still had a history and it was perfect. Oh no, it's pretty yah.
27:32
It's things we had shot every day coming fool Circle. We had shot
27:36
part of a web series, diver Pool, so since we ended up we
27:38
were gonna shoot in a dimper location in low light, but we off that
27:41
location and that both tables available, so let's go back, you know what
27:44
I mean. So it was like it was like graduation it. That's hilarious.
27:48
Man. Now, you've worked in some writers rooms and you've also worked
27:52
alone as a as a you know, a feature writer. How do you
27:57
what did you bring from the right riitor's room into your feature work and vice
28:02
versa, what did you bring into your future work from your future work into
28:04
the writers room, because it's two very different feeling. I mean, writer's
28:07
room is a completely different environment than you just sitting down writing. So is
28:11
there anything you brought for each other to help each other and each other's yeah,
28:15
I mean, well helped me. Like I said, I've never I'd
28:19
never been a writer's assistant. I had never really been a PA, so
28:22
I didn't have professional experience in a writer's room. But because of the collective
28:27
for like the past like five years before I got that job, we worked
28:30
like a writer's room. So a lot of the habits that I saw in
28:33
the writer's room I learned in working with my guys. So like, but
28:38
it would help me because like the apostle syndrome, I'm not big, I'm
28:41
not I'm not like the biggest like picture in terms of like the cost of
28:44
that pitching stuff. Some people, a lot of people in the writer's room
28:47
specifically be comedy writers room. That's really what you're doing. And so I
28:51
kind of hold that crap with my guys. I mean, when you're when
28:53
you're in a group of guys and you know, we're like, you know,
28:56
we're like cracking on each other, and it could be really like testosteroni
29:00
whatever. Like you learn to kind of like to pitch and you learn how
29:04
to like sometimes you gonna have a bad pitch and it may not work out,
29:07
but keep you know it doesn't don't stop, don't let it stop,
29:11
continue to move forward. So like it helped me, Like when I finally
29:15
got my first professional writers whom the reason I was able to get that job
29:18
and then I was able to kind of like skip a bunch of step steps
29:22
and be successful was because I had hone those skills. Working with my guys
29:27
on on Low Life. We we literally wrote Lowlife like like a writer's room.
29:33
We broke it, we broke story. We assigned each other different sections
29:37
and we would ball from rend our section, bring it back, and then
29:38
we would like you know, edit together like a writer's room. So like
29:42
that helped me to really make that transition, even though I still felt some
29:45
aposter syndrome. It got me that that first job, but it also helped
29:49
me make that transition. Like that was a tough transition. It's like going
29:52
from like it literally is like going from high school to the pros an athlete,
29:57
we'll be right back after word from our sponsor and now back to the
30:04
show. So that helped me, Like being able to like have that experience
30:11
with my guys helped me make that transition. And in terms of welcome the
30:15
Writer's Room to feature, I think it's all about about process and time management.
30:21
You know, in the writer's room, professional writers room, like you're
30:22
constantly working, you're working against deadlines, like it's got to get done,
30:26
you know, and you're getting assignments, and it's much more about time management.
30:32
I think in the future world, specifically, when you're working alone,
30:34
you generally don't have any like deadlines you're trying to hit or you're just kind
30:40
of like going with the flow. But working in the writer's room helped me,
30:44
and I guess you could say specifically with God's Country, it really helped
30:48
with like process and development and breaking story and time management. I think those
30:55
kind of like different virtues or whatever you want to call them. That's what
30:59
I took from like the Writer's Room were all and brought it to the feature.
31:03
Now, before we get into God's Country, man, I need to
31:06
ask you what was it like getting the phone call or how did you find
31:08
out that you got into Sundance? I always love asking these stories. Juliet,
31:15
my partner, he got the call and then one day he called me
31:19
and he was just like, so, it's like whenever like good things happen,
31:23
it's kind of Julie. He's like, so there's some news, and
31:27
I weirdly had this feeling. I was like, this is around the time
31:30
that I think they announced this Sunday, so it's like kind of like I
31:33
wasn't like, I hate to say, it's gonna sound really are I wasn't
31:37
like really surprise. It was cool. It was awesome, and it's an
31:41
awesome feeling, but it's also part of me that just like I was like,
31:44
man, the work is put in on this stable of film, the
31:47
themes, just like the people that are involved in it. It felt like
31:51
it was perfect for Sundays. But you never know. Sometimes these things are
31:53
political or whatever you want happen. So it's still is cool. But yeah,
31:57
like Julian followed me up and was just like, so news and then
32:01
he was like we got up the sun dance and it was just like wow.
32:06
I definitely had to take a moment to be like could you repeat that?
32:10
Oh, you know what I mean? So yeah, and it like
32:13
went out like that. Me and June when I got grabbed a beer and
32:15
it was kind of us just really reflecting, just really being like, man,
32:19
this has been like a five year process and this is kind of like
32:21
the culmination of everything. Yeah, how long did it take to get to
32:22
get the movie off the ground. It took me and Julien med late twenty
32:29
sixteen. We started talking about on the project early twenty seventeen. I think
32:35
twenty eighteen we went to Montana because I had never been. Like, we
32:38
shot in Montana and the story set in the Mountain West. So he had
32:43
been before because he had shot he had made the short version of of the
32:45
film, and so he had been. He had shot at Montana before.
32:49
He had familiarity Montanna and his DP Andrew Wheeler like he lives, he parked,
32:53
parked, Tom lives in Montana. So I had never been. And
32:57
so twenty eighteen you go to Montana. That was huge on Macross, like
33:00
being able to go and see the landscape and see the terrain and kind of
33:04
see the environment. It helped with me to write, you know, to
33:08
actually write those scenes, a lot of ideas that I came up with,
33:10
I came up with, I came up with when we were in twenty eighteen,
33:15
we went to go to Montana, So twenty eighteen to go to Montana,
33:17
and we was like and we started writing the script around that time,
33:22
and then like we were gonna shoot early twenty nineteen, but we just felt
33:25
like we didn't have enough enough financing to actually do the film the way we
33:30
wanted to do it, so we didn't start shooting until February twenty twenty.
33:35
So we started talking about the film in twenty seventeen, started working on the
33:39
script like twenty eighteen. We don't start shooting in twenty twenty, but nothing
33:45
but nothing happened in twenty twenty. So you was just it's a smooth sailing
33:49
in twenty twenty for you. Right in production West shot we started shooting February.
33:52
Oh yeah, you took a second, took your Second's trouble bad.
33:58
You hit me with the troller right out. Yeah, So something happened at
34:00
twenty twenty twenty, like literally February bar twenty twenty is when the world just
34:05
like changed and we were making our movie at that time, and we had
34:08
about two weeks left on the schedule. We're literally shooting in the mortuary and
34:12
we get we get the call like, yeah, we got to shut down.
34:15
You know, Sandy Way's got to go back to the UK. The
34:19
ukay might shut down, She's got to get back. We all had to
34:22
leave, and it was like it's like you having like the best moment of
34:24
your life and all of sudden becomes the most oppressing moment of your life.
34:28
We didn't go. We literally went back, I think a year to the
34:30
day we went back to finish and it was the greatest thing to happen because
34:35
it may that year. When we were home, me and Julian worked on
34:37
elements of the script, like we went back to rewriting and we worked on
34:42
elements of the script that we felt that's still with issues that we we were
34:45
shooting at twenty twenty something, we noticed like due this could this could be
34:49
better. We went back and made those states better and we ended up making
34:52
a better film in twenty twenty one. Some things got reshot and then we
34:54
added we obviously like finished what we didn't get a chance to when we were
34:59
there. That's awesome, man, that's awesome. Now, So so you
35:05
basically you guys just got together and started writing this concept. Can you talk
35:07
a little bit about the thieves of the film, because I've seen the film.
35:10
It's a beautiful film. It's it's beautiful, it's haunting, it's it's
35:15
definitely dark. Uh, without question. Can you talk a little bit about
35:19
the themes and how you kind of interweave them into the characters a bit without
35:22
giving away too much obviously. Yeah. Well, the thing about myself and
35:28
Julian is there we're both big fans of the Western genre and the way we
35:32
kind of like robe down this is I think it's maybe Junior's statement is that
35:37
the Western is American American mythology. America is a relatively young country and so
35:43
like the Western is like our mythology and also for us specifically, the Western,
35:47
I think, is where America goes to work out its problems. Like
35:51
there's a lot of I've written a couple of like Westerns, and like the
35:54
cool thing about Westerns is there's there's a there's theme that you could like really
35:58
explore Westerns and explore from an itchesting perspective. One of them is race,
36:04
and one of them obviously you can. You can explore themes of gender,
36:07
you can export themes of inequality, expansion. You know. This is that
36:14
the Western is just like the genre where you can really do some interesting things.
36:16
So for us, we always approach God's Country like it was a modern
36:21
Western. And for me, like for obvious Grief, it's like the idea
36:25
of centering a black woman or a marginalized person within the Western genre, which
36:31
is like this super American genre and landscape is just that's the dream for me,
36:37
you know what I mean. So like for me, that was the
36:38
that was the core of it. It's just like this is a Western and
36:43
we can like we can approach themes of race and gender inequality, and you
36:50
know, like you know, I'm trying, like I think, what's the
36:55
right word when I'll give the things away, But is like, you know,
36:59
things of like sexual assault or we could we we can, we can
37:05
really explore those in this genre. But let's not like let's not focus on
37:08
them, like that's not let's not make these themes. We want to approach
37:12
it from a subtle from kind of a subtle perspective. So at the end
37:15
of the day, it was just like it's a Really it's a really simple
37:19
story about one character having a dispute with a couple of other characters, but
37:22
also this character being considered an outsider. It is commuted, and that's really
37:29
what the story is. And obviously there's a there's issues and themes of grief
37:32
that are being explored in the film as well. These are also universal things.
37:37
That's the coo. And It's another thing is like, let's even though
37:39
we're kind of like we're exploring these issues in this particular in this particular project,
37:45
less like it's boring from a place of humanity and kind of like things
37:49
that feel universe. I think grief is something that we all experienced on some
37:52
in some way, shape or form. So it's the support that for me,
37:54
it was import that coming into the film the character is grieving, because
37:58
I feel like you're gonna initially identified with the person like that because we've all
38:01
been so that's kind of like that kind of like went off on the tangent.
38:05
But for me, it was always like, yes, there's a lot
38:07
of beads in this film, but let's just approach it specifically from story.
38:10
Character A want something character be's getting in their way and they got to work
38:15
it out. Yeah, and you've got You've got a great actor from Yellowstone
38:20
in your in your film, which I think Yellowstone right now is probably the
38:23
some of the best television being written right now, without without question. And
38:28
if you want to talk about modern Western, I mean Taylor, Taylor,
38:30
don't play. He's missed the modern Western. I'm not gonna lie like I've
38:36
seen Yeah, we I mean obviously I watch wynd River, you know,
38:40
it's obviously like it's fling like kind of the same landscape as God's Country,
38:45
Hello high Water, you know, which he wrote, which is probably the
38:51
best modern Western in the in the past few years. Yeah, Taylor's got
38:53
a lot. He knows Texas. He knows like the budder I grew up
38:58
parts of the I grew up in suburban you know. He okay, but
39:00
just living in that environment. Like you drive, you drive out of town,
39:05
you drive west, you know what I mean, you drive a little
39:07
bit out of the outside of the major cities. Like like that scene in
39:09
Hella Water were like they're like they're hurting the cattle a fraud. I look,
39:15
and they're trying to like it. And like Jeff Bridge is a week
39:16
to go around there. He says, like it's the it's the what the
39:19
twenty first century, and I'm herding cattle like from a stone. I'm like,
39:22
yeah, that's that's really what it's like. And it is those that
39:24
color, those little nuances, that that's what makes it feel like a modern
39:29
Western, you know, like no culture for old man is another lady great
39:31
example. Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love I love the
39:36
genre. Yeah, and and I just moved to Austin from LA. So
39:39
jump, well, this is where all the cool kids are hanging out,
39:43
man, this is where all the cool kids are hanging out. And there's
39:45
no state tax but uh, which is from Boston to LA. Like I
39:52
when I when I moved to LA in two thousand, above, I came
39:53
from Austin. So it's just like, yeah, Austin is like one of
39:57
the places in the world that I consider. Oh, I love I love
40:00
the city. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
40:08
now back to the show. I Love Austin. And then you're right,
40:14
man, you drive outside of Austin about an hour out, you are not
40:19
in Austin anymore, Like this is a whole You're like, you're literally in
40:22
hell or high Water. You're in you know, you're Yellowstone, You're just
40:27
it is a completely different world, completely different everything. But uh, it's
40:31
it's it's interesting. It's really interesting. I love, absolutely love living here,
40:36
man, And uh, and I got it's so funny because I got
40:38
hooked on Yellowstone when we got here. I was like, Oh, I
40:43
gotta we gotta watch Yellowstone. Now I'm like a fat, like completely fanatical
40:46
about Yellowstone and all the stuff that he's doing. But yeah, that's why
40:50
I was really excited to watch God's Country. Man. It's a really great
40:53
chapter in the films that are being created in in this genre. Man,
40:59
you did a fantastic job. How I gotta ask, like, how did
41:01
you guys get the financing together for this film? And and was it before
41:07
Tawani or after? How did that work out? How did she get involved
41:10
in it? Because she's a fairly big star. Now she's in one of
41:14
the biggest TV shows on HBO, and you know she's she's no joke.
41:20
Yeah, anyways, major, So we the thing like Julian So Julian kind
41:30
of Life was inspired by the way we did Lowlife. The way we did
41:32
Lowlife was like We literally made it pennies. We spread together everything we could,
41:37
and but the idea was, this is a train that's leading the station
41:43
partners financial whoever get on, get old board to get out of the way.
41:46
This thing is gonna start this day. You don't want to get out
41:51
of the way. We're not waiting up. So that was the mentality.
41:52
Julian kind of saw that and wanted an apply to God's country, and so
41:59
we we specifically wrote for the esthetic. We we specifically made the film a
42:06
certain way to where it wouldn't be cost prohibited, you know, to make
42:08
it like we weren't making a five million dollar movie. We would write it
42:13
looks like that way we weren't. We didn't approach like it writing a ten
42:15
million dollar movie or even a five million dollars. We approached it as like
42:21
like, again, make make the make the movie and the story, make
42:25
it, make the budget or whatever, make it your aesthetic. So we
42:30
kind of had we approached it with that same mentality, like we we were
42:34
able to find some pot. There was a colleague of Julians that actually uh
42:39
contributed enough a significant amount for us to like make the film in twenty nineteen.
42:46
But at the time, we feel like that wasn't that wasn't enough to
42:50
really make it the way we wanted to make it, so we just waited.
42:52
We were like, let's wait a year, and let's start going out
42:55
to some At the time, we were gonna go with just like a like
42:59
a hate to say the word like as unknown unknown, non bankable, non
43:04
bankable. Yeah, no bank let we go non bakable. Uh we we.
43:08
I don't think we had even like decided yet, but we were like
43:10
literally auditioning non bakable actresses. But then we were like, you know what,
43:15
let's wait a year, Let's see if we can get if we can
43:16
get some more financing, and then let's just go out to more bankable actresses,
43:21
which is what we did. So we spent twenty nineteen offering and and
43:24
and and and really not offering but like looking to see if we get you
43:28
know, fond a bankable actress. And we were able to connect with Cold
43:31
Iron, who ended up being the production company on the film that he ended
43:37
up uh bringing in securing the financing to actually go make the film the way
43:42
we wanted to make it, and actually working with Cold Iron, we were
43:45
able the script went around and the Candies Age and Tandy and Tandy's agent,
43:52
Tenny Ways agent reached out to us and were just like this is really really
43:57
like this, we'd be this, this could be good to anyway, Like
44:00
what do you you know? Are you are you interested in world cause we're
44:02
like yeah, of course, And so she read it and immediately connected with
44:08
the material and cutting to a few weeks later, like we were meeting Me
44:13
and Julian were meeting with Tandy Candy Way ironically at the same literally the same
44:19
bar where I met Julian in the twenty sixteen and we had the first our
44:22
first discussion that led to God's Country. We ended up meeting with Tandy like
44:25
literally at the same place. It was like all like kids in serendipitous as
44:29
they say, so yeah, in terms of the financing, like it was
44:32
just like it really was like kind of too. It was like a private
44:38
a Fred of Julian's, who's a really great guy that just really like like,
44:43
well, you know, supported us, supportable and you're doing He invested
44:45
and then it was like it was cold iron that kind of came in with
44:49
the rest of the financing and that was really it. That's awesome, man,
44:52
that's awesome. Well, I know you guys are going to have a
44:54
really successful screenings over at at Sundance, and and uh, I'm sure,
44:59
I'm sure sure it's going to find a home somewhere. I doubt that it
45:02
won't. I don't think it's cross. I doubt that it won't find a
45:07
home somewhere. So I think you guys are going to do just fine.
45:09
I'm going to ask you a few questions to ask, oh, my guests,
45:12
man, what advice was it? And I think we've kind of talked
45:15
about I'm gonna ask it anyway, what advice would you give a screenwriter trying
45:19
to break into the business right now? One I've already mentioned, which is
45:22
like network across trying to find trying to find people that you can collaborate with,
45:29
that can get that you could actually make your stuff with. I mean,
45:31
we've seen we've seen it happen with a lot of people who are major
45:37
force in the business right now. They collaborate with people who are on the
45:39
same level as then and they, like we talked about, just work that
45:44
muscle. And also, you're putting stuff out there, and when you put
45:45
stuff out there, it has a value versus not, you know, just
45:50
writing you know, you know, writing a bunch of scripts. Yeah,
45:52
you may get better as a writer, but if they needed to day,
45:54
the goal is to get your work produced. So I always say that worked
46:00
the cross and then the second one I would say, take an acting class.
46:06
I was like, take an acting class or act in something like.
46:10
For me, one of the greatest lessons I learned was from acting in the
46:14
stuff that I was working all through the collective, like in my collect in
46:16
that collective, one of our guys is the director. He's always putting me
46:20
in stuff and he always had me playing like the same character, which is
46:22
hilarious and so like, by acting in things it helped me. It gave
46:28
me different perspective, a different perspective on scene work. Like a good example
46:32
was in like in Low Life, I wrote this huge monologue for like a
46:37
character in this script in the movie. Anybody's seen the movie, there is
46:39
a character the movie that has has a tattoo. That's a pretty uh,
46:43
that's that's that's pretty like it's something it's to as fits him to a lot
46:46
of people. But there was like a story behind it, and I wrote
46:50
this like crazy monologue about what happened to jail and everything, and why he
46:52
got the tattoo. He's like, he's a recently the least convict. And
46:57
it was this cool monologue and if he got all said and you realized,
46:59
like this ain't working, like this is too much. Like it was this
47:02
huge monologue and I'm at that time I got my actor had on I'm not
47:06
I'm no longer writer. I'm like, I'm I'm I literally was just like,
47:08
let's let's cut it. Let's cut this, Let's cut this monologue,
47:12
and let's just make it a mystery. Let's just make it. Let's just
47:15
make it the entire movie that no one knowles why he got this. People
47:17
will constantly be asking that question, and it's gonna like so much figner this
47:21
engagement. It'll be like, why does he understand what? Like and because
47:27
he seems like a really vast god, but this tattoo and so like,
47:30
I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't have my actor had it. Because
47:34
my buddies who were into my buddies who were in the group that are writers,
47:37
they were all set that day and they were like begging, does not
47:38
have to cut this. They were like shit was like, no, no,
47:40
no, don't cut it, man, It's like, this is what
47:43
the movie's about. I was like, nah, man, trust me,
47:44
it's not worth it. Let's cut it, let's go. And it ended
47:46
up being like a great decision that I think really like took the movie to
47:52
a different level. So I one hundred percent recommend take an acting quiet or
47:55
acting something. The funt thing is, I think a lot of writers at
48:00
probably originally wanted to act, but they either like there we were generally like
48:04
quiet people, or they just they don't have the chops, or they they
48:07
were afraid or whatever you want to say, but act like I would,
48:10
I would be like, take at least just take an acting class. I
48:13
think it will make you such a better writer, and it also will help
48:15
you with getting your stuff out there. Sure, because you meet other actors,
48:19
other actors, so you could people work and and and work shopping stuff.
48:22
Yeah, no question, no question. Man. I took an acting
48:25
class and I've been an actor and I hate it. It's horrible. It
48:30
makes you a better director too, because you've really feel the empathy of what
48:35
you're asking another performer to do. Because a lot of times directors just like
48:39
just dance, Okay, dance like you know, just like move here,
48:42
move there, like and it's like you don't understand their open you have to
48:45
open yourself up. And oh dude, it's highly recommended the directors. Yes,
48:50
please take an acting class or act because yeah, you kind of like
48:53
there came to be. It's not pieces on the chessboard. So you got
48:57
to like you got to learn how to how to like communicate and talk to
49:00
them absolutely. Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest to
49:02
learn, whether in the film business or in life. Oh man, I'll
49:07
pushing with a gave me press book. Long is less from me patients.
49:17
I think as there's this mentality coming up and specifically with writers, is that
49:23
you just got to like write a bunch of scripts, you know what I
49:27
mean, you gotta write a million scripts and just keep putting stuff out there
49:31
and keep pushing and I and I'm and I'm. The thing I've learned is,
49:35
as I'm growling this businesses it's about quality not quantity. So like patience,
49:40
whether it's like instead of like going and jumping on something new, maybe
49:45
like stepping away, like I'm a big fan of like get you working on
49:46
something, maybe step away from it for a little bit and go work on
49:51
something else. And then don't just put it out there. Don't put something
49:52
out there. Don't put something out there until it's right. We'll be right
49:58
back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
50:07
And that's where the patience comes in. So like you may work as out
50:08
there and you may think it's like pretty good, but maybe take a step
50:12
back, step away from it, and then return to it and look at
50:15
it again with fresh eyes, and you might see some things that that you
50:19
didn't see before. It were like glarring issue that now you know the issues
50:22
that were glaring before, but now that you're reading the press perspective, now
50:24
they're they're glaring issue. So patience, it is something that we have to
50:29
deal with all the dodgsquamps. You're going literally at the weeding year to to
50:31
to finish the film. So I feel like in this industry and in life,
50:37
it's a marathon. It's a war of attrition. So just like,
50:40
you know, be patient and and just like have some results. I think
50:45
I think those are the things that will will carry you throughout this throughout this
50:49
particular industry, throughout this particular experience. I think the business teaches you patience.
50:53
Man, whether you like it or not, you're you're gonna you're gonna
50:55
learn. You're gonna learn patience if you like it or if you don't like
50:59
it, because you're gonna get a lot of Like I always say, I
51:01
got shrapnel, lots of it from this business, you know. And that's
51:05
uh, And that's but when you first came in. So when's the money
51:09
coming? When am I getting my first job? When am I getting Like,
51:13
Yeah, it's not it's just they just don't teach them. I'm still
51:16
like, I'm working, working writer, I'm technically successful, and I'm still
51:20
I still have to Lauren Faky like when is his check coming? When is
51:23
this? You gotta be like, look, it's no cod like you know,
51:30
you don't. You don't control the world, like don't don't push,
51:32
don't push the river, it flows on its own. Now. Three screenplays
51:39
that every every screenwriter should read. Oh man, I can get okay,
51:47
I would say Shane Black's work. Mm hmmm, So let's go with just
51:58
just Shane's Black work period. That's that's good. He changed the game,
52:01
Like Shane changed the game. Like he skinwriting before Shane with I think it's
52:07
just very kind of like stodgy, formulate, kind of like, you know,
52:12
really like not exciting. You know, the the read wasn't exciting,
52:17
it was about It was literally a blue prep for the movie. And then
52:20
Shane came through and May and made the re entertaining. So any of Shane
52:25
Black's work, I would say, read Sorping's work, maybe Social Network if
52:32
you want to, if you want to like read how dialogue can push the
52:37
scene and be careful. Everybody thinks they sortid. Everybody thinks they're terrants.
52:40
You everybody thinks they can write great dialogue. Then we all think that,
52:45
and I'm sure we all we got there. I think I did a dialogue.
52:47
But if you want to like really like read how dialogue pushes a scene
52:53
Ford read read Social Network, Resorpings work, and then I want to like,
53:02
I think the deep Wall is Tarantino, but he but he's an anomaly
53:07
man like Tarantino is. And then you can't write like like, all you
53:10
could do is read Tarantino and just be depressed because you're not gonna write like
53:16
him, because nobody could write like him because he's guaranteed. Yeah, that's
53:20
what I was saying. That's what I don't want to do that because you're
53:21
gonna read Tarantin though like it be like, man, I can't do that,
53:23
or think you need do that, and then try to do that and
53:25
really look bad. Try to do that. Like I'm trying to think,
53:30
like that's some good. That's some good like TV, some good TV scripts.
53:35
I would say, read Breaking Bad, just read Breaking Bad, pilot,
53:39
break It Back. Read. Yeah, as writers re read some pilots.
53:44
There's some good pilots Breaking Bad. I think Fargo, Uh, Fargo
53:47
is a good Sopranos mad Menos six feet under, six feet under to read
53:54
like the seminal television work that is like really changed the game. Read it
54:00
like read the pilot at Billions here if you can, you know, Like
54:05
I try to read a lot of TV pilots on they're really they're generally really
54:07
good, and they're good at setting things up. That's really what pilots are.
54:12
Say, Man, I appreciate you coming on the show. Man.
54:13
I wish you nothing but success at Sundance and and and keep doing what you're
54:17
doing, brother, and thanks for being an inspiration everybody listening man. I
54:21
appreciate you. I appreciate you having me ony man. It's been a lot,
54:23
it's been fun, it's been a blast. I want to thank Schay
54:27
so much for coming on the show and sharing his journey with us. Thank
54:30
you so much, Shay. If you want to get links to anything we
54:32
spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at any filmwuscle
54:36
dot com Forward slash seven thirty three, and if you have it already,
54:38
please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and leave a good review
54:45
for the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank
54:47
you again so much for listening to guys. As always, keep that hustle
54:51
going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll talk
54:53
to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at Indie
54:58
film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E F I L M
55:01
h U S T l E dot com.