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BPS 477: What James Gunn Taught Me About Success with Will Keenan · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four seventy seven.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Assumptions allow the best in life to pass you by?
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  Speaker 2: John Sales broadcasting from a dark, windowless.
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  Speaker 1: Room in Hollywood when we really should be working on
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  Speaker 1: that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
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  Speaker 1: the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
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  Speaker 1: to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage.
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  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
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  Speaker 5: So in today's episode, I have actor, stuntman and founder
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  Speaker 5: of the Saint Babist Church. We're going to talk about
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  Speaker 5: everything from his first starring role in Tromo and Juliette
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  Speaker 5: where he was Tromo was actually written by James Gunn
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  Speaker 5: to moving to India to star in Bollywood films, to
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  Speaker 5: becoming an executive some of the biggest content studio around.
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  Speaker 5: With guests Will Keenan Hey, Will, thanks off for coming
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  Speaker 5: on the podcast. Dave Bullas, how are you? I am
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  Speaker 5: doing very well. Will, how are you doing on this
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  Speaker 5: on this fine Sunday morning.
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  Speaker 4: It's beautiful down here in Cape May County in New Jersey.
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  Speaker 4: And Hey, just so you know that you know this, uh,
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  Speaker 4: this opportunity to speak with you for your podcast, which
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: I've now checked out, kind of came out of nowhere
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  Speaker 4: in a way, but I'm glad. I'm glad we're doing it,
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  Speaker 4: and I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to
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  Speaker 4: now promote you as the podcast man in the Philly area.
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  Speaker 5: Oh thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: you know, that's the way I try to do it.
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  Speaker 5: I sort of come out of nowhere and I sort
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  Speaker 5: of find find people on social media and I sort of.
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  Speaker 3: Go, hey, I'm Dave, I got this podcast. You want
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  Speaker 3: to come on and talk?
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, you know, I I'm like, you know, I'm
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  Speaker 4: a big deal in my own head, but I get,
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  Speaker 4: you know, opportunities via social media. People ask me to
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  Speaker 4: be on podcasts or speak at at Confidence Says or whatever,
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: and I always then check their social media. You'd be surprised,
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  Speaker 4: you surprised how many how many people like reach out
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  Speaker 4: without having their own you know, especially for something like
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  Speaker 4: a podcast that is social at least the sharing of it,
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  Speaker 4: you know online. Uh, these try how many people reach
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  Speaker 4: out for a request but don't have their own channels optimized,
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  Speaker 4: if you know what I mean. So all I do
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  Speaker 4: is in one click, I know whether I'm going to
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  Speaker 4: say yes or no, So you were a big yes
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  Speaker 4: explanation point.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
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  Speaker 5: I you know, I try to try my best with
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  Speaker 5: my social media, and I know your social media that's great.
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  Speaker 5: And I agree with you because you know, I see
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  Speaker 5: other people who have podcasts and such and and you
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  Speaker 5: know even you know, actors, producers, directors, screwriters, and I
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  Speaker 5: see there, you know, some of the social media and
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  Speaker 5: it's just it's like nothing, It's just you know, it's
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  Speaker 5: just sort of sitting there and you know that's how
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  Speaker 5: they're going to promote their stuff. But but you know, yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I'm glad that you could. You could come on, and
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  Speaker 5: I want to talk to you obviously, you know about
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  Speaker 5: your career. You've got some awesome credits, and I also
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: want to talk to you about, you know, all the
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  Speaker 5: great things that you're working on. So, you know, just
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  Speaker 5: to start, I guess, you know at the beginning, you know,
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  Speaker 5: how did you you know, find yourself in the film industry,
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  Speaker 5: So you know, what was sort of your impetus to
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  Speaker 5: start in this industry.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, my first film was I was cast in right
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  Speaker 4: before I graduated or went down the graduation Aisle at
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  Speaker 4: New York University. And oh boy, is this before you
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  Speaker 4: were born? Dave nineteen ninety five. Summer of nineteen ninety five,
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  Speaker 4: right before, I think the week before NYU's graduation, I
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  Speaker 4: had been cast as the lead in Trauma's film Tromeo
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  Speaker 4: and Juliet. That was my first film, and it was
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  Speaker 4: a starring role. And I was not familiar with Trauma
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  Speaker 4: at the time. I throughout NYU I had been doing
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  Speaker 4: a lot of kind of performance art, dance theater, I mean,
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  Speaker 4: you know that kind of thing. And and prior to that,
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  Speaker 4: you know, a lot of my generation got into the
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  Speaker 4: Trauma movies. I was outclinbing and doing stunts and stuff.
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  Speaker 4: So when I saw the casting, like a leak before
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  Speaker 4: and YU graduation, I was with a friend of mine.
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  Speaker 4: He's like, oh my god, Trauma's casting. I'm like, who
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  Speaker 4: Who's Trauma? And he was like and uh. And then
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  Speaker 4: I went in for the casting and read for producer
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  Speaker 4: Andrew Wiener and then I was called back for Andrew
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  Speaker 4: and James Gunn and they were videotaping, uh the you know,
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  Speaker 4: the auditions, and I could tell like after the first callback,
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  Speaker 4: I was I was getting close, and we used to
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  Speaker 4: be considered, and then word came back that Lloyd, the
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  Speaker 4: director and mister trauma, you know, had seen the tapes
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  Speaker 4: and wanted to do a few more callbacks and put me,
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  Speaker 4: put me through the grind, so to speak. But I
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  Speaker 4: think I think named and Andrew Weener. Someone tipped me
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  Speaker 4: off to the fact that Lloyd's wife, Pattie Pie pat Kaufman,
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  Speaker 4: who was then the she had been for like twenty
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  Speaker 4: years the New York State Film Commissioner, that she really
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  Speaker 4: liking and she was voting for me. So at that point, uh,
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  Speaker 4: that point, I knew I was probably gonna get it.
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  Speaker 4: And Lloyd told this story once, I think it a
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  Speaker 4: few years ago and some kind of interview where he said,
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  Speaker 4: I walked in with a pizza box for the audition
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  Speaker 4: as a prop or something, and it's very likely I
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  Speaker 4: would have done something like that, but I don't remember.
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  Speaker 4: So Look, that was my foray into the film industry
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  Speaker 4: because when I was at NYU and right before graduation,
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  Speaker 4: I had been a part of this you know, performance
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  Speaker 4: art dance troup called Via Theater and we had done
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  Speaker 4: a few shows and got great New York Times reviews,
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  Speaker 4: and I was so fulfilled creatively that at the time,
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  Speaker 4: I was like, even after spending it was like forty
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  Speaker 4: to forty five thousand a year on NYU with curriculum,
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: men and room and board for four years, at the
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  Speaker 4: end of that, I was so happy with what I
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  Speaker 4: was doing kind of you know, avant garde theater in
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  Speaker 4: New York City, that I said, I don't care if
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  Speaker 4: I never make a dime at this. I want to
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  Speaker 4: do this for the rest of my life. But then
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  Speaker 4: that faithful day, why don't you just go, you know,
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  Speaker 4: my friend saying you should go audition for Tromo, So
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  Speaker 4: that that kind of changed everything. Because once I got that.
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  Speaker 6: Role, let's just say cult film wasn't such a huge
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  Speaker 6: departure from avant garde theater.
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  Speaker 4: I mean wild, wacky, weird stuff. I caught the film.
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  Speaker 4: But because when we premiered Tromo at the can Film Markets,
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  Speaker 4: and I guess it was the year after ninety six
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  Speaker 4: or maybe ninety seven, I saw myself on the big
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  Speaker 4: screening and I thought, oh my god, there's a there's
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  Speaker 4: a huge difference between theater acting and film acting. And
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  Speaker 4: I didn't know the difference when I make when I
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  Speaker 4: started that movie, and I thought I looked like a
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  Speaker 4: trauma monster. You know, though, once something that like that
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  Speaker 4: usually happens, you know, then I want to figure it out.
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  Speaker 4: So it's not that I switched to the film after that,
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  Speaker 4: but I did some theater. But you know, I think
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  Speaker 4: I racked up, like, I don't know, twenty five or
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  Speaker 4: more independent films during that period. Right after Tromeo in
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  Speaker 4: New York City, there was kind of like almost like
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  Speaker 4: the Last harab And the film in New York City,
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  Speaker 4: I guess according to Pat, you know, ninety five ninety four,
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  Speaker 4: a boycott had happened, you know, a boycott was finally over,
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  Speaker 4: and then a lot of in the film in New
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  Speaker 4: York was getting made and you know Good Machine, Cinoblast,
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  Speaker 4: Mira Max, like so many great films and filmmakers who
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  Speaker 4: were coming out of New York City at the time.
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  Speaker 4: So you know, I did a lot of them and
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  Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of cool stuff. You know,
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  Speaker 4: a number of it got distribution, some of it broke through,
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  Speaker 4: got great distribution, and some of them were never to
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  Speaker 4: be seen again after that first screaming. But you know,
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  Speaker 4: starting out as Tromo, which you know, it's one thing
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  Speaker 4: to be a lead in the Trauma movie, or to
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  Speaker 4: be in a Trauma movie, but to be branded as Tromio.
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  Speaker 4: You know, even though I was able to do a
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  Speaker 4: lot of other, you know, films after that, it was
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  Speaker 4: almost like had It's almost like starting out porn, I
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  Speaker 4: mean Truman Nott porn, but you know, you know, it
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  Speaker 4: opened up some doors and it slammed other ones shut.
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  Speaker 4: So after Tromeo, I did, I had to work really hard.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, there's no slight against Loiter Trauma there. You know,
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  Speaker 4: he's a mentor of mine in a lot of ways,
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  Speaker 4: and uh and fiercely independent and and just a really
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  Speaker 4: good human being overall. So I don't, you know, no
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  Speaker 4: slight on Trauma, but I had to work really hard
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  Speaker 4: after Traumeo too, kind of just be you know, accepted
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  Speaker 4: in the legitimate indie film industry if you can, if
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: you can, you know, call it that. And and and
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: at the time, they were kind of like, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I get I think a lot of the you know,
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  Speaker 4: the certain film organizations back that back then, you know,
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  Speaker 4: kind of look down upon Trauma because of their genre
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  Speaker 4: of filmmaking. But you know, they've been around for what
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  Speaker 4: now over forty forty some years, and I think the longest,
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  Speaker 4: one of the longest running independent film companies in the world.
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  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
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  Speaker 4: So I mean, Lloyd's been awarded all over the place.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: He've never won the AUSTA yet, but he says I
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: should have won the Actor for my my my second
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Trombo movie. I did two of them, my start as
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: the cinema's first her mapperadite cerials that are in Terry Firmer.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: He says I should have won for that until until Chop.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: What fans I have left say that playing the lead
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: in Tera Firmer was was my best role. But Chopped,
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: I think, at least with my ten fans left, they
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: say they say that's the best one anyway, So that
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: now the career started. And then, like I said, there
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: was I think it was timing. You know. It was
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  Speaker 4: the last hurrah of the inly film Broom in New
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  Speaker 4: York City, and I was working real hard and I
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: just got into the scene. You know, I sed to
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  Speaker 4: a lot of actors. You know, I still have actors
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  Speaker 4: who comedy either, you know, I asked me to help
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: them out or you know it, became a producer in
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: financier to help them with their films or to give
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: them advice. And you know, definitely, if you're an actor
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: and you're serious about it, you're actually getting schooling and
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: take take audition classes. It's a completely different technique than
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: actual acting on stage or film and film acting is
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: different from theater acting, is different from TV acting is
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: now different from like YouTube acting. But there's a technique
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: for auditions all itself, and I out of like I
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: don't know if some odd projects, you know, films, short films, TV,
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: so and so on, maybe less than a handful I
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: actually got cast via the audition because I was just
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: a horrible auditioner, and I at NYU, with all that curriculum,
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  Speaker 4: I had never taken an audition technique class, which which
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: I would have done if I were to do it
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: over and same thing with like the Business of Entertainment
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: or the business and acting kind of classes, I would
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: have done the same thing. Anyway, most of the most
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: of the roles I was cast in as an actor
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: were you know, either someone telling the filmmaker that they
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: should meet me or talk to me or see my work,
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: or meeting the filmmaker at like an independent film event
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: or film festival. And you know, I like to say
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  Speaker 4: I was cast more late at night at some indie
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  Speaker 4: film you know event, after getting to know somebody the
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  Speaker 4: filmmaker than I was in auditions. But that's how it
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  Speaker 4: all started. And then, you know, indie film business is hard.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, even though at the last Hurrah it was
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  Speaker 4: never a sustainable business. Out of all the movies I made,
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: I don't think I ever made a dime. In fact,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: I lost a lot of personal money.
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  Speaker 6: And then as the Internet kind of gained influence, we saw,
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: you know, the audiences for the format of a feature
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: lengths independent show, we saw lesson less people wanting to
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  Speaker 6: go see those, especially in the theaters.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I liken it too.
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  Speaker 6: Now.
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  Speaker 4: If I were to talk to someone pretty much under
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: the age of thirty and say, hey, let's go see
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: this really cool independent film, what I get is oh God, no, please,
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: you know, which is the same thing that I used
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: to do to people when they had asked me, you know,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: in the late nineties to go see a theater piece.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: You know, I was like, oh god, now, so much
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: bad theater. So many people by the early mid two thousands,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: had seen so many bad independent films, you know, so
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  Speaker 4: that you know, by the time the economic downturn happened,
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: you know, and I was financing movies, producing movies, getting
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: them distributed, and I was a distributor to myself with
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: go Kart for a few years back then. And you know,
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: it takes year to at least in most cases, two
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: years out of your life to make an independent film.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: You beg borrow and steal, and you know you're lucky
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: to get into a big festival. If you do, you
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: can have a healthy festival run. Unfortunately, that's like you're
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: theatrical now, because you're lucky if we get a real
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: theatrical deal. People are like giving their movies away to distributors.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: You're lucky to get a TV deal. I could get
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: a VOD deal.
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: But at the end of the day, you know, you're
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: lucky if five thousand people see your movie, you know.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: So this is like two thousand and fift two thousand
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: and seven, and I had a number of projects that were,
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: you know, somewhere high profile and films. But then I saw,
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: you know, and I was very aware of the online
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: video especially YouTube. When I first came out back then,
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: and I just knew that that was essentially the future.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: And I think like ten years ago I put up
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: my actors reel on there and I think it has
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: over one hundred thousand views by this point. But you know,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: if I were to do it all over again, no regrets,
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: I'd love my life and career. I'm doing fine. But
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: I always think, like, Okay, you know, if I were
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: to have done things differently, I think I would have
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: essentially switched to online video back then in two thousand
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: and six rather than take another a few years doing
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: American independent film. And then when the economic downturn got
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: really really bad, I think it was two thousand and
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: eight nine Tennis, I went to Bollywood. I went to
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: India at first on an exploratory trip because they have
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: the largest independent film industry in the world, and there's
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: actually like four distinct film industries there Bollywood, Hollywood, Collywood,
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: you know, and so forth. That uh that I started
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: working there for a number of years and worked with
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: some of the biggest stars there and made made a
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: few movies there and and things were going great. I was,
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: you know, I was, I was well received, the kind
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: of rolled up the red carpet for me. My Indian
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: friends who tell you now tell me it was because
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: I was a Westerner and had some real you know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: Hollywood credits. Uh. But you know, my trips there kept
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: getting longer and longer, and I was living like a king.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Put on me on the cover of like the New
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: York Post of all of the yeah called the Bombay
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Times of a I think they called me a young
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: hot Hollywood producer. And I had a driver, a chef,
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: a gardener, like I said, living like the king. By
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: at the time I was married to my With my
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: last trip there was eight months my wife, who has
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: h you know, I was done very well for herself
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: and and Hollywood said, hey, look, you don't come back.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: We're gonna have a problem in our marriage. And I'm
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: not coming there because she she was doing well here
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: building up her business. So I think it was within
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: three days I would back on a flight to Los Angeles,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: and I think it was like spring of twenty eleven,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: and this was the time I said, all right, this
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: is this is a career transition, still entertainment, but I'm
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: going to move from you know, quote unquote traditional film,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: independent film, you know, studio film, TV whatever to online video,
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: to digital So I locked myself in our house and
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: for about three weeks I put myself through like a
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: boot camp of trying to learn everything I could about
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: online video and and YouTube, especially because that's uh, you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: that's then that's when the it was kind of the
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: rise of the MCNs, the multi channel networks. And I
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: did that for about three weeks, and my now ex
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: life will tell you that we have a big had
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: a big dining room table was just filled with stacks
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: of printouts with highlights and notation and underlines. And at
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: the end of that three weeks, I was like, you know, haha,
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: I know everything about online video, which wasn't true, but
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: I was confident enough that now I'm one of those
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: guys who thinks, you know what you think about you
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: bring about, especially if you have positive, confident thoughts about it.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: So I think it was like two days later after
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: my you know, boot camp that I put myself through
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: to learn online video, I got a call from the
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: then head of human resources at a company called Maker Studios,
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: which was a growing multichannel network. I think it was
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: number one or number two at the time on YouTube
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: as a network. And then started working there. It was
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: very small operation at the time. The three founders hired
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: me and I worked with them directly, and I think
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: I was the fifty first full time employee. And there's
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: like three hundred channels we had on YouTube at the time,
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: getting about three hundred million views every month across the network,
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: and the company was valuated I think at the time
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: at like twenty five to thirty million dollars. And then
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: by the time I left two years later as VP
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: of Network Development and Original Programming. Wait man, I got
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: that wrong. VUP of network Programming and a regional development
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: or whatever. It was a long title. We had I
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: think one hundred and ten thousand channels, almost five billion
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: views a level, and the company was being evaluated I
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: think at the time it closed to three hundred million dollars.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: And then right when I knew the sale to Disney
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: was happening, there was going to be a big transition.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: I had been getting, you know, other offers from kind
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: of rival MCNs and so forth at the time, and
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: and then I accepted the job at end of Ball
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: to be their presidents of their first kind of digital
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: division in North America, and another two years after that,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: which was great. That was my so, I guess, transitioning
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: from Indie film, Bollywood film to digital. I you know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: I also went although I you know, truth to be told,
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: I stopped acting like ten or so years ago. The
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: movies that came out over the past I don't know,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: four or five six years were ones that I had
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: been involved with from somewhere and other years ago. But
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: I haven't sought acting roles in many, many years. So
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: but that was the other part of the transition. I was,
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: you know, going from actor, producer, so forth and so
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: on and traditional to a digital entertainment executive. And then
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: did that for a few years at End the Mall,
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: which was great and became then I think the first
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: six or eight months, we got all these awards and
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: we're the fastest growing MCN and there's a couple other
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: moniker that that we were given, which was great. And
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: and then after that again it was kind of like
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: if a mirrored maker. But there was a merger going
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: on with End them All and another big company called Shine,
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: and I had been told that even before I was
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: hired that this merger was eventually going to happen during
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: my tenure.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: And then I said, you know, it was an old
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: friend and colleague, Charlie Corwin, brilliant dude's who's at least
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: reported about to take over a CEO or actually it's
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: the new reform position. As see, they have imagined entertainment.
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: So Charlie's killing it. So yeah, he brought me into
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: end them all and he told me about the merger,
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: and we kind of made a gentleman's agreement. I said,
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: all right, look, I'll build what I say I'm gonna
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: build for two years and then you know, kind of
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: all bets are off, you know, because I like to
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: feel like I've had my career is I like to
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: build things and then essentially hopefully set them up with
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: the right people to continue and then and then move
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: on to something else. So that happened, And then and
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: then I took to prayer. I was asked to join
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: stream up at the time the fastest growing or now
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: the largest and fastest growing at the time live streaming network. Uh.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: And I was present with that for six months. And
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: then it was during that six months I realized that,
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: you know, towards the end of that, I was entering
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: in twenty fifth year my professional career, and I really
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: just decided to take stock of it all, and I
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: thought I needed a break. I realized my mother was
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: falling ill, so I kind of announced and left that
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: I was taking a sabbatical for six months, a true
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: sabbatical away from the industry. And what I was really
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: doing was was doing that, but also spending time with
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: my mother and attempting to take care of my mother.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: And as she started to fall ill, and I thought,
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: you know, she would give me at least the six months.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: But I got there, and my sisters say, she just
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: kind of waited for me to come home to pass
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: because she gave me six days instead of six months,
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: and that was July fifth. And then instead of like
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: you know, going right back to work or going right
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: back to Hollywood, I decided to continue with the sabbatical
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: and reconnect with family and friends and then you know,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: really kind of going all walk, come out and decide
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: what I wanted to do with the next few years
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: or with the rest of my life and career. And
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: it kind of all, you know, came together. It's like
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: divine intervention because you know, my mother's little condominium in
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: South New Jersey when I would come home, and unfortunately,
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: you know, the past few years, it was only I
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: was only able to get home two or three times
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: a year, whether just to go see her and my family,
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: or because I was at bitness, or I was speaking
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: at you know, conferences or conventions in New York. I
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: always did them. But it used to be before she
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: started to fall ill a few years ago, you know,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: that everyone could come over and we used to sleep
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: six to the floor, friend's family, you know, when I
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: was back in town. But you know, as she started
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: to get sick, I realized, you know, I couldn't make
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: her house the congregation house anymore. So I'd been looking
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: for property to buy in South Jersey, but then everything happened.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: She passed her than I had imagined. So then there
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: was this opportunity to buy this over. I think it's
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: one hundred and eight year old historic church in Cape
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: May County, KA Courthouse to be such specific one of
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: the favorite areas of my mother, and I renamed it
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: Saint Bab's in honor of my mother. Her name is Barbara,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: and I started the foundation, a not for profit out
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: of one two three charity called the Barbara A. C's
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Keenan Foundation, and it's essentially to continue her work. She
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: was a registered nurse her whole life and career, and
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: if you look at one of our online channels, you'll
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: see that people have said that she was like the
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: mother Teresa of nursing. You know. So I really believe
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: that my mother did not become a doctor, which is
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: what everyone thought she should do, because she kind of
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: raced through nursing school and was the kind of nurse
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: where doctors would defer to her. But I believe she
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: didn't go because she had to put me through NYU.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: And in that way, this was my way of saying, Okay, like,
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: you know, some people think I'm nut for you know
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: what a lot of people would think, you know, peak
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: of my career right now to kind of meet Hollywood
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: and go do this it's not for profit, But I
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: kind of think the opposite. To me, It's that I'm doing, uh,
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: doing this to spread her her good work and to
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: also take all the skills I've learned in Hollywood and
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: apply them to something that you know, I think can
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: do some real good in this community and the surrounding
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: communities where we are in South Jersey. But also it's
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: going to have a very strong online digital component, so
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: I hope to be able to you know, do the
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: same kind of you know services for people online as well.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: That was a long winded answer to so tell us
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: how you started your career. In fact, I started and
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: finished my career. There you go.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's it's okay.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: Well, I tend to ask open end of questions and uh,
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: you know, I I love hearing stories like and you know,
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: that was an amazing, amazing you know career you've had,
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: you know, but I you know, and and there's certain
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: things obviously I want to ask some more questions about,
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: you know, just just sort of going back to talking
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: about how when you know, when you first got started
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: and you were working on Tromeo and Juliet. You know,
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: James Gunn was a writer on that, and you know
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: James Gunn just.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: A writer, Yeah he was. He was Lloyd's right hand
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: James wrote it. He was the i'd say, the main
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: uh non financial producer, you know, besides Lloyd. And you know,
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: Lloyd is the first to admit this. And maybe people
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: watch you know, certain documentaries, uh farts of Darkness Trump
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: the Trouma Apocalypse movie. You know, Lloyd gives people like
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: Jane's and myself and and after me, I think it
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: was tren Haaga, lots of people before. He takes people
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: like that who show the passion to drive, have the
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: talent and and who will you know, uh stay up
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: all night and to make you know, make the Trauma movie. Uh.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: He gives them a lot of economy and uh, you know,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: so James, James did so much. I mean he you
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: know essentially you know, the people like James, myself for
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Terror film, or Trent for some Tooxy for you know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: it's an uncredited, uncredited kind of co director of position.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: And I think Lloyd has said that before. But you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: you work with all the actors, you rehearsed them, you
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: stage all the scenes. You know, there's so much. And James,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: you know, not only wrote a brilliant script, but you
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: know he was beside Lloyd. It was the main guy
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: on that movie.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's you know, I've actually had Lloyd on the
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: podcast before and we've talked you know, about about you James,
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: and also about you know, about Trent and also about
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: you know, we were just saying where he you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: he would find different people and uh you know sort
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: of shoed them along different projects. You give him, give
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: him a chance, you know, to you know, maybe write
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: the next Stroma movie. And you know that's you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: it's just like it's a small world because usually most
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: people have in this podcast one way or another, have met,
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: met or worked with Lloyd in some capacity because he's everywhere, right,
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: and we've.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: All learned so much from Lloyd. I mean, I didn't
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: go to film school, right, so Trauma was my film school. Uh,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: and it was the art of low budget filmmaking and
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: the art of guerrilla marketing, you know, the art of
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: the sound bite, the sound bite. Lloyd is Lloyd is
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: a genius. And you know one of the things we
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: all learned from him is that, you know, he's a
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: very very passionate guy. So his energy, especially on set
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: is is uh is so so very intense. But he's
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: been doing it so long and he's said, you know,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: he's a genius himself, that he has this intuition, the
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: sixth sense about him. Like I remember he'd be saying things, well,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: you gotta you gotta watch out for this, you gotta
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: worry about that, and I'm like, well, that'll never happen
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: because of this and that, and He's just like, all right,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: all right, you'll sing, you'll sing, and then it would happen.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: And I'd like, there was no rational reason for that
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: to happen, except but we just can. He can almost
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: foresee the future when it comes to being on a
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: film set. It was, It's amazing. So we've all learned
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: so so much from Lloyd. And then you know, look,
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: you know, there's so many people who've gone through you know,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: the trauma school, so to speak, and look what they're
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: doing now. I think James Gunn is the latest. You know, uh,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: you know prototypicals got a work example. Uh, he is
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: one of the biggest directors in Hollywood right now. And
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: you know, I am honored that James and I made
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: our first movie together that was Coronio.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: You know how how far James has gotten, you know,
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: when you made Super and then you mean and now
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: with Gardyon's a galaxy, I.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: Means, well, here's the thing. And I told James this,
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: like Super although an awesome movie and produced by someone
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I had worked with before, Ted Hope, one of the
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: one of the best you know, film producers in the world.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: He's now running Amazon Film. And before Super came out,
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: like Ted's got a bit, you know, a pretty sizable
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: social media audience, James had one. And if I at
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: the time, if I were to go by what social
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: media was saying, I thought Super, which I think the
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: budget was around four million dollars, was going to be
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: like a hit, you know, like with the indie film
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: the World, four million dollars eighty film that could but theatrically,
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: And this goes back to what I was saying, you know,
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: about switching when I decided to switch from indie film
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: to digital theatrically, you know, I think it made one
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars a box office. And as someone who
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: started out with James, who you know, was a supporter
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: of James and you know, a longtime friend of James,
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh shit, man, this could hurt his career,
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: you know, And and I thought he was he would
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: have been left for dead, you know. But Marvel such
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: an amazing, amazing company and amazing movies.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: And now back to the show.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: They I'm told not by James. You know, you hear
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: stories that that they started to look at some of
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: the properties and characters and brands that have not been
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: licensed either by others or you know, Marvel would make
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: in partnership with others, and they started looking at and
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: then they started, you know, attaching essentially you know, known
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: fanboy directors, ones that have the cred, you know, the
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: kind of the fan cred and the cult cred like James,
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: and then hire them and surround them with with you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: top above line crew and and wow, look what he
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: was able to accomplish, you know, with essentially Marvel backing
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: him after you know, he he had a movie that
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: wasn't a huge, huge hit. I think it critically it
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: was it was okay. But you know, when I was
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: a producer and actually raising the money for movies, I started,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: and this is right before I switched to digital, started
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: becoming a tyrant away because you know, every two hundred
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: thousand bucks, every million bucks you know, in a in
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: an independent film is it's because you know a lot
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: of them go to the budget, not mine where I
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: was writing the checks. And it takes so much out
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: of your life that uh, hold on, real click my
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: dog wants to get in hold on? All right? Chermany here?
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: All right? Where was I What was I talking about?
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: Are you talking about your money in the producing any film?
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah that? Oh yeah. I was becoming a tyrant
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: where you know, when it came to i'd source the property,
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: I'd start to come up with the potential like talent
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: and above the line crew attachments, and then I would
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: I would talk to my pool of investors and then
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: start you know, early talks with distributors and buyers and
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: so forth. And uh. And it got to the point
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: where unless the directors you know, on my short list,
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: unless their last movie was a critical and commercial success,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: like I don't if you made the movie for a dollar,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: did you make the dollar back? Did you make a
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: dollar and ten cents? You know, because a lot of
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: those things when you're doing the financing of independent films,
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: a lot of those things, you know, falls into the
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: whole number crunching algorithm, you know, bankable or not, you
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: know what I mean. And that was in addition to
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: me trying to put in in successfully the last three movies,
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: putting in directors contracts that you know, they were obligated to,
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: you know, produce a shot list and storyboards and everything,
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: because too many times in an indie film, I mean
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: it's like, look, if you're making a movie that costs
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: a dollar or one hundred thousand or a million, it's
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: the same. It's essentially the same amount of work. You know,
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: the crew could be bigger or smaller. But when you
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: really break it down this there was a very smart
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: production manager named Randy Tureau in LA who taught me
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: this when we were making a movie called The Policy
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: of Love because Shirley McClain, the Oscar went In actress,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: wasn't the cast and she wanted she wanted her character
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: to have like one of those little lap dogs, almost
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: as a prop. And she was an Oscar winning actress,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: and I was a little not starstruck, but I wanted
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: to make her happy, because if Shirley McLain isn't happy,
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: we got problems with the production, okay, But when I
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: was telling my production naser about this, he's like, no,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: it'll cost too much money. I'm like, what are you
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: talking about. It isn't dog cost per day and it'll
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: only be like you know, I think it was nine
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: days out of the eighteen day shoot. We need the dog,
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: and yeah, the trainer, We need a trainer, you know,
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: legally and all that kind of stuff. He said, Okay,
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: there's that. This is how much that costs. He said,
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: but when you break down our budget, every day of shooting,
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: every ten minutes costs this much money. And he said,
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: if that dog prooves on set, if that dog won't
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: do the tape, you know, you're wasting five minutes, ten minutes.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: There's thousands, tens of thousands of dollars going out the door.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, are you ship man? So
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: that was one of uh, that was one of the
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: one of the lessons. I know. What brought me to
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: that was I trying to get to another larger point.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah it's James. Yeah, so anyway, uh, Viva James gone,
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: Viva Los James gone, Viva Lou James gun.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: It's good.
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: It's just a yeah, like you were saying with Super Yeah.
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: I was just going to say that, you know, it's
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: amazing you know that that you know what he would
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: you know, we're you know, uh, he's been able to do.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: And that's why I always always he.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: Never he never went to film school either. Yeah, you know,
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: trauma was his film school and here he's you know,
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: how many how many studio like Superhero movie, you know,
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: mainstream like popcorn movie directors never went to film school. Yeah,
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess James Gunn did. He went, he
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: went to the the Film School of Trauma. But he
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: was you know, I think he had just graduated or
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: he was his last jun year or something at Columbia
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: as a writer. You know, when when we started Tromeo
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: in ninety summer of ninety.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: Files, because we need to look at all the directors
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: that went to that that didn't go to film school.
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, like Tarantino didn't go. I can't remember if
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: Kevin Smith hasn't gone. But but yeah, and James Gunn.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: You know, you get out.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's not there's not many. I mean, who get
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: like even Tarantino movies. You know, they limited that budget
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: to a certain extent, you know what I mean. I
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: think James Gun's first Guardians of the Galaxy budget was
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: I'm just gonna think a lot guests here, considerably higher
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: than all of Tarantino's budgets.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, Yeah, I think the first Guardians was
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: somewhere around maybe one or one twenty.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: I think somewhere on there.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you look, you would know better than me.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: And I'm guessing Tarantino got to play with one hundred
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: milli at least for one of his movies. But maybe,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe not. I think when you add the
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: marketing into you know, the budgets, but then you know
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: same thing. You you add how much they spent on
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: marketing Guardians, and it blows you know, the overall budget
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: of any of Tarantino's movies out of the water. I
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: think I'm right, And if anyone's listening to this podcast,
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: please google it right now and find out.
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: No, I'm pretty yeah, I'm like one hundred percent sure
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: that you know, you're you're absolutely right, will because you know,
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: I think the most money a Tarantino movie costs to
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: make just production without marketing, I think was was Inglorious
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: or Jango, and I want to say it was around
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: sixty million just to make it. If you had in marketing,
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: it's probably you know, bumped up to maybe one hundred
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: or so. But with Guardians, I mean it's probably.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: When you yeah, and there's a difference. I mean, Tarantino's
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: movies are Although James wrote the script for Guardians they
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: were the original concepts and the inception of the idea
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: was his right when he he uh you know his
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: I guess his first real breakout film was res war
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: Dogs and then you know with Harvey and played the
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: Mirrimax game for a while. Uh, and James was hired
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: to write and direct Guardians. But you know that was uh,
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: you know it was it was I think a long
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: time coming for James. He's been, you know, a comic
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: book fan for a long long time. I'm sure Tarantino
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: is as well to a certain extent, but maybe maybe
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: not like James's. Although I have to believe Parentino has
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: been offered to direct the end or write uh some
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: kind of superhero mobi.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: I think he was try at one point to get
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: on the Bond franchise. And I think when they were
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: going to reboot Oxceno Reale, uh yeah, and I think
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: he made a pitch and then and they were actually gonna,
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: like legitimate thinking about hiring him, and instead they went
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: they went I don't think with Sam Mende's on that one,
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: but I forget who it was on the first Christine Royale.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: But but yeah, so that's you know, who knows.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: But if hearing, could ever, you know, do the Superhero
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: movie the way because I mean, you know, sometime again,
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: like you said, well, when you're working with the studio,
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: well after ten movies, so he's got he's got two left.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: Okay, so maybe one will be a superhero movie. Yeh.
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: I know, because you know, when you're working with studios,
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: there's expectations of you know, like I said, intellectual property
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: of freezects and characters and you know making and then
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: you know you have your artist's vision and you know,
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: as we speak about that, that's something that has you know,
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: I've seen as sort of it's almost a miss mixed
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: match of styles. And I think James has been one
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: of those guys who was even this is even more
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: rare now because when you see these different styles, you know,
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: you see the the problems with Fantastic Four and Josh Trank. Uh,
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: then you see the problems with you know, like Suicide
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: Squad and David Errors. There's just there's a clash of
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: styles and it's just a lot of these studios want
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: to go out and they want to get you know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: Alvan Gard directors or maybe some Indie Darling directors. But
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: but it very rarely does it ever work out, and
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: it worked out for James. But you know, as you
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: talk about independent l mail, will you know you talk
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: about you know, making an a pair of films? You know,
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: have you you know see you know, with all the
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: advances in digital technology and you work for Makers Studio,
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: have you ever thought about you know, maybe you know, uh,
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: going on like kickstarter or Indiegogo or maybe crowdfunding like
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: an indie film with it again with a smaller budget
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: and maybe you know, shooting it on like you know,
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: like a red or you know something like that that's
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: a digital format.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Have you ever thought about that?
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean I I have and I may you
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: know I have. You know, I'm doing what I'm doing
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: now in UH with Saint Babs the foundation I started
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: down here in kid May. But and there will be
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: you know, there's a number of aspects to it. There's
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: definitely going to be community services.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after a word from our
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: Self development. It was gonna be a large recovery aspect.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: My sister teaches at U Penn. She's big in the
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: recovery movement, so she's gonna be doing a lot of
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: those things here, and there'll also be you know, kind
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: of an arts education aspect to what we're doing down here.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: And I do plan on creating uh, you know, content
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: for a number of platforms here and as far as
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: like you know, the format of feature length storytelling, the
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: narrative feature film. I have one or two I think
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: you know, left in me as far as you know,
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: uh getting them off the ground and and you know,
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: executing them, and crowd funding may be you know, a
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: way to go for for one or both of those.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: We'll see. You know, when I was making indie movies
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: back in the day pre internet and then after the Internet,
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: you know, before crowdfunding came about, and I raised my
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: money mainly from you know Wall Street dudes who would
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: in fifty grand or one hundred grand up pop and
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: didn't expected back. They really just wanted to meet the actresses.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: And you know, there was fun pre sales. There were
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: a number of different you know kind of independent film
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: financial products back then, which which you know, I think
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: was during that economic gowns And I was thoughting about,
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: you know a lot of the funders left in the
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: indie film and some of them that you know a
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: number of them have not come back. It's harder and harder,
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: but the bright light I think for indie film at
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: least creation has been crowd plumbing. When you look at Kickstarter,
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: when they look at indiegg, I think they've undid more
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: independent films, uh, you know, than than true independent uh.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: You know. Film finance companies, whether it's banks or hedge
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: funds or so forth and so on, so a lot,
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: you know, a lot more getting funded that way. And
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: I also think it's a great kind of democratizer because
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: when people, you know, they have they have an idea
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: for an indie film, it's the story they've fallen in
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: love with. You know. I still get people pitching me,
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: you know, and they'll send me the script or whatever.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: And even before I read a script, I'll have a
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: lot of questions. And you know, I'm that guy who
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: thinks she's so good at it that he can read
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: a script and like, tell you what do you want
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: to make it for? And they tell me four million.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: I'm like, you'd be crazy to make this for over
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: four hundred thousand, because I'm also thinking about, you know,
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: the back end, like what is the audience for this movie?
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: Is it true that you know a number of people
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: are going to go and see it and make that
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: four hundred thousand or four million dollars back, Because you know,
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: James is you know one of a million. Because most
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: of the time, when you make a movie that doesn't
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: make money back, and you're making it and you're making
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: it harder for yourself to make your next movie. You know,
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: I've had plenty of mentors tell me, hey, don't rush
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: into just making this movie. If it takes you four
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: years to put together the right movie, let it take
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: that long. Because if you're just one of those filmmakers
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: like I just need to make another movie, and you
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: make something and you do it quickly, and yeah, it
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: gets into a festival or whatever, but you know, you
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: beg borrow and stole hundreds of thousands or more dollars
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: to make the movie, and it didn't it wasn't critically acclaimed,
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: and it wasn't some kind of commercial success, even just
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: one dollar in the black. Then then you're actually hurting
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: your own career as a filmmaker. So the next movies
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I make, I mean, I may you know, truth be told.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: I still at least a few times a year I
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: get asked to, you know, uh, star in a movie
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: that's of the genre I'm known for, like I guess comedy,
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: horror or cold movies. Uh, and I may, you know,
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: and I've been saying no for years because as an executive,
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: you know, I can't divide my focus. And I'm and
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: I was very, very concerned that if I continue acting
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: while I was an executive, that whatever a company I
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: was working for and be like, oh see, he still
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: just wants to be an actor or whatever, you know.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: So I was I really wanted to make that crystal
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: clear to people. And I was one of the variety
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: writers that told me that, you know, if you take
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: Tom Cruise and all the big actors who created their
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: own production companies out of it, I think they said,
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: I was the first actor who used to like start
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: real movies. Yeah they weren't eighty million dollar movies. But
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: who then of his own accord, essentially not creating a
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: production company, but was hired to be an executive. And
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: then and then you know, kind of grows the uh
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: the executive ranks, at least in the in the digital world,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: within a when a short period of time. Uh, but
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: where are we going with that.
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: Oh know, we were just talking about independent film and
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: and uh, I was gonna say, you're you're, you're a
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: trailblazer in that in that regard will because you know,
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: just like you know they were saying, was you know,
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: you're actually you know, sort of starting your own almost
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: like I guess I don't want to say marketing funnel,
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: but but in a way, you are, if you know
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: what I mean, because you're you know, you're finding the scripts,
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: You're and then you're you know, you know what, you
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: know what what's gonna you know what what what what's
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: the make production for? So like you just said, you know,
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: don't make this for four million, make it for four
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: hundred thousand, you know, because you know that production side is.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: If you have to make it. And we've all talked
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: to filmmakers like I have to make this movie. I
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: have to make this story. And you know, I will
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: grill directors like why why do you have to ma,
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: I'll keep going because I'm trying to get down to
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: like the essence of it. And I've had you know,
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: once I start to break them down, I've heard I've
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: had filmmakers say to me, I just want to lock
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: people in a room and force my emotions on them.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, no, that's evil, or some of
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: them say some of them say like, I just want
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: to make the movie I would want to go and see.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: I was like, all right, that's eight people, here's eighty
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: dollars make a YouTube video, you know, you know, and look,
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: plenty of people get movies made just because of their
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: their force of will. But it's not to say that
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: there's an audience for them. It's not to say, you know,
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: it's not going to hurt your clear that that doesn't
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: do well. It's like, you can be original by looking
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: at what you know, by giving people what they want
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: at the same time, you know, and you can you
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: can add your own voice or your own style to
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: something that people actually want to watch. That's why you know,
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: I'm looking at I've been in the digital world for
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: years now, and you know, these are in my minds
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: in many cases, the new stars. They're putting butts and seats,
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: they're you know, they're the new A listers in a way,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: you know, And we're seeing them, these digital stars, these
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: YouTube styles or Instagram influencers, they're seeing them in aked
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: movies now and I'm due to do TV, so I think,
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: you know, it's essentially traditional and digital or converging, which
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: is a really really exciting time because it also affords
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: you know, people just starting out or even people who've
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: been doing it for a while, there's a new avenue
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: to want to express yourself and or to you know,
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: the new getting discovered at Schwab's drug store is the Internet.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just you know, making a YouTube, you know channel,
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: Like when you were at Maker, you guys ended up
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: attracting Paudie Pie and you know, now he you know,
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: he was discovered and you know that just his whole
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: career director. Now he's the number one YouTuber in the world.
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: And you know, it's funny, as we know, as you
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: were talking about budgets, you know, well, it's funny because
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: I had a friend of mine who actually wrote a
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: literal one location script and it was going to take
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: place inside of his own house. He could shoot it there,
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: and you know, and I said, you know, it was
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: kind of it's kind of stereotypical of an indie film.
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: It's a lot it's about a guy who loses a girl.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: You know, it's one of those but you know, he's
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: at his house, and so what happens is it was
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: gonna be his house right in the one location. And
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: he ended up, you know, meeting me later on and said, okay,
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: I got to raise two hundred thousand dollars to shoot
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: this thing. And I said, wait a minute, what do
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: you need two hundred thousand dollars for? Like I've read
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: this script. I said, you could shoot this in for
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: like probably the change in your couch.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: And he was to see his top line budget and
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: how much he was paying himself.
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: Well, well, it's funny, I was, It's funny. What happened was,
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: I said, you know, where's all this money going? He goes, well,
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: you know, I have to pay a cinematographer. I got
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: to pay this, I gotta pay that. Well, he ended
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: up getting a production company involved, and he actually sat
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: down with one of their producers and she even said, like,
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: I don't know where all this extra money. You know
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: where you got two hundred thousand dollars from? And she
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: got she said, if we could do his whole thing
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: for fifty and even I said, you know what I said,
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: you know even that I was like, you could probably
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: shoot you know, private for a little cheaper, but but
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: you know, you.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: Can still make it look good and that's thanks to technology.
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, and still make it look good because you know,
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: at some point, by the way, he ended up never
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: making that film, by the way, uh so, uh yeah,
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: But you know, it's just it wasn't.
• 48:42
  Speaker 7: The fact that filmmakers is that if you can write,
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: if you if the story is really really good, that
• 48:47
  Speaker 7: you have and you are dead set on getting this
• 48:51
  Speaker 7: movie made, and in a way, budget shouldn't matter, right
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: and in a way shouldn't matter where the money comes from.
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: So with and so on, But write the script as
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: if you were going to make it yourself. In this case,
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: your friend wrote like a one location script. You know,
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: that's probably one of the biggest budget busters. When people
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: write scripts and stories that they have to maney locations
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: to many set up so far and so on, too
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: many you know, characters. But many times people come up
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: with the good you know, writers filmmakers come up with
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: a good story and they overwrite it, meaning that it's
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: it's a good story, but because of the way they
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: wrote it with all the locations, that you can't make
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: it for anything less than twenty million, forty millions. Four
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: hundred million dollars. Right, So, and that's that's a tough,
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: you know, mountain to climb. So what I say is
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: that you know the essence of it. You know, if
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: it can be done in five locations, doing five locations,
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: if the story when you start sending out the script,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: the script and the characters, the dialogue, the story starts
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: resonating with people or resonating with you know, big production companies.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: They'll find ways to make it a bigger movie and
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: increase the budget. You don't have to do that for them.
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: If you really want to get the movie aide, write
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: the script where you know you can make the movie
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: for a certain amount of money. But you know, if
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: everyone still has the idea that you know, imagine entertainment
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: is going to option your script. They will if they
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: like it. Whether or not it looks like, you know,
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: a two hundred million dollar movie or a twenty million
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: dollar movie, or a two million dollar movie or twenty
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: or two hundred thousand dollars movie. You know, if if
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: it's good, it's good. And you can always broaden the
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: scope and you you know, it's much. You know, an acting,
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: we used to say it's much. It's it's easier to
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: go bigger as an actor and then tone it down
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: than it is for someone who's very toned down to
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: do a big performance, you know. So with with script writing,
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: I think it's the opposite. It's like, you know, you
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: have the story, then keep it, keep it small. But
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: the the good elements of you know, of the script
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: are are noticeable so that you can expand it from there,
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: because it's much harder to take a really really good
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: script that my god, I love it, but there's no
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: way you can make this for under one hundred million dollars. Uh.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: Then there's a lot of work that goes into trying
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: to pare down paardown and and then you know, you
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: have the filmmaker who's watching his you know, these these
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: these you know, ten million dollars scenes that he was
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: so attached to, you know, get get thrown out to
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: make it for you know, much less. Does that make sense?
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense.
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: And I'm glad you brought it up too, Will, because
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: you know, you do have four writing credits, and I
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: wanted to ask, you know, at least you know, touch
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: on you know, your writing process, because you know, I
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: wanted to dig into that a little more and ask.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: You do you.
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: So actually, yeah, I'll just ask that you know, what
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: what is your process on writing?
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: Will do you do you ever?
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: Do subscribe to a method or do you just sort
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: of you know, have your own process?
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I think, well, it depends on what I'm writing. Right.
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: I haven't taken part in writing a future length film
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: script in in a while, but if I remember correctly,
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: you know, once I'm in the mode of knowing, I
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: have to get it, get it done. And in most cases,
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: I think I wrote with partners, and then we would
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: kind of divide work, you know, well you write this
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: section or this scene or so forth, and then and
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: the other one writes this one, and then when we're done,
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: we we passed them to one another and essentially edit
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: them or or co write the scenes. So when I
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: was writing future film scripts, whether it was alone or
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: with a partner, you know, I went through a process.
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: And I think I consider myself a fast writed. You know,
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: there might be I might be able to bust out
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: a full script or you know, at least my what
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: I'm supposed to do through the script you know pretty quickly.
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: But then you know what they say, writing is rewriting it.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: So it's always kind of like fine tuning and polishing.
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: But just like yeah, what great filmmakers said it about
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: full movies, But same thing with scripts. It's like, you know,
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: they they're never done. You could keep going forever making
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: it better. There's always room for improvement essentially, right, But
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: there's comes a point where where you have to say, okay,
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: it's go time. You know, there's not to the point
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: where other people are saying, this is great, but I
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: want to be involved in this, even though you know
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: there's still more refining to be done. But that can
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: be done essentially later in the process in pre production
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: or even on set or if rehearsals with the actors
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: and so forth.
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you also you're talking about you know, what
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: you have to write, you know, as if we again
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: the difference between you bring an independent film or maybe
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: if you're good, let's just say you're going to write
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: a film right now. I always tell people to, you know,
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: do the Rodriga's list. You know what actors will have
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: access to, what locations, why have access to what props
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: do I have access to and build a film around
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: that that, you know, what you have, and then you
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: can sort of make a film around that.
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, And then you're baking into the cake stuff you
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: already know. And they say, write what you know?
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, rather than you know, make a script
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: where it's going to cost you know, fifty million dollars
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: and explosives and and stunt work and and squibs and
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: everything else and you don't have you know, we can't
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: shoot that at my grandmam's house or anything, you know
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: what I mean. It's it's uh so you know, when
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: I was making.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: Money, these are filmmakers who actually want to direct their
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: own movies. And we all know the stories about people
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: who wrote scripts that they wanted to direct and they
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: didn't or you know, stuck to their guns and did.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: But if there are some writers out there who just
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: want to write a big studio movie, and that's you know,
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: that's different from what I was talking about, you know
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: about writing for budget.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was just going to say,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: you know, when.
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: I was making my student film again, I didn't go
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: to film school either, and when I was making my
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: student film, basically that's what we did. We forgured out
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: what locations we had and we just pulled all our
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: resources together and we we shot a film my one
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: friend's grand grandparents' house, and that became pretty much like
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: five locations because we would use different rooms for different things.
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: And it's just you know, again using what we have.
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: You know, we have access to the sort of you know,
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: to make these indie films. And like I tell people,
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: if you even if you make an indie film and
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: you realize, you know what, maybe this isn't going to
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: go anywhere, you know what I suggest? Well, honestly I
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: tell people sometimes just put on YouTube. I know it's
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: as weird as that sounds, yeah, because that way, at
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: least you know it's gonna get seen. And two it
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: could you know, maybe you'll attract somebody who says, hey,
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: you know what if you do that for nothing? You know,
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: maybe you know, with a big note, let's see what
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: you can do with a slightly bigger budget of maybe
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: you know, five.
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: Thousand, four thousand exactly without if you finished your movie
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: with a shorter feature and it's you know, wasn't getting it,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: isn't getting accepted the festivals generally recourses to put it online,
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: you know, and hope and hope that you know, you
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: can attract some attention, like you know, to me, the
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: especially you're going up against you know, you finish your film,
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: you're going up against so many other movies, a lot
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: of them well funded, especially in a marketing campaign, you know,
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: so you can't compete with that. How how do you compete?
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: It's one of the things Ted Hope was saying when
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: he know he's been he's been sounding the siren of
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: the dafnel of indie film for for years and now
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: he's part of you know, one of the main people
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: I think bringing it back with Amazon's backing, which is great.
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: But Ted used to say, like from day one, you know,
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: when you're writing your script, you start putting online. You know,
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: you create a page for your movie and you start
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: putting online like you know, taking a picture of the
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: title page, the cover page of your script and putting
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: up there and start engaging people. And they did that
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: with Super through aub It's why I thought it was
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: going to be such a big hit. You know, you
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: take pictures of casting and there's so many you know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: there's you can do live streams of your your cable
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: read and so forth, because you're essentially engaging people who hopefully,
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: by the time your movie is for released, they they
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: feel somewhat invested in it, you know, and that that's
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: your audience because you don't have fifty or one hundred
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: million dollars to essentially you know, the Hollywood business model
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: of of just moving butts and seats from one movie
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: to the next via you know, essentially TV and online
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: advertising that costs a lot of money.
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, And you know that's you know again, you know,
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: we have all these options that are coming out.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: I might go farther and this is this is where
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: filmmakers start to hate me because I try to talk
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: people out of filmmaking because I know, I know what
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: goes into it. I know what the what the success
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: rate is. I talked to people out of acting. And
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: that's what when I when I said when I grill
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: filmmakers are grill actors. I want to find out what
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: their true purpose is with what they want to do.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: Is it fame, you know, which is kind of shallow?
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: Is it you know you want to change the world.
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: Is that you want to impress some people like you know,
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: and if I find that the the underlying kind of
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: you know, foundation is is you know, a posit one
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: and makes sense to me, then I'll try to help them.
• 58:02
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: But there's plenty of people who made films that should
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: have been you know, instead of finishing it and putting
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: it on YouTube because no one else wants to we'll
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: play it, you know, maybe don't make the movie in
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: the first place, and make a short film and put
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: it on YouTube. That is the essence of your feature.
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: And you know, yeah, a long gone of the days
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: where you know, a short film at some dance would
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: strike a free picture feature deal, you know, but there
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: is a version of that and it's and it's YouTube now,
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: so it's like, what's uh. You know a lot of
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: people have gotten future film deals from shorts on YouTube.
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: But if you've already made your movie, then yeah, you
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: got to put it online and you got to try
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: to show some kind of audience for it. Because whether
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: you're you know, whether I was a digital exac or
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: a film producer, if I'm looking at if you know,
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: if someone pitches me something and I like the idea,
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: and I take a meeting or I want to learn more,
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: you know, either the movie played festival and got distribution
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: and there's numbers to look at, or you know, I
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: can see the film itself, but if I see it
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: online and it looks like it got ten thousand, one
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: hundred thousand views, or there's engagement people really like it,
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: then that helps me, you know, that helps me as
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: a green lighter, as a decision maker. A lot of
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: people are still like, well, I don't want to put
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: it up there. I don't want someone to steal my
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: idea that is long and gone, that's been gone ever
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: since the Internet came out. You know, you can hold
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: your precious idea and never get it made, or you can,
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: you know, start to put it out there and do it.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: Do your idea better than anyone else could, so you
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: become that person you know when it comes to that idea.
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, Yeah, that makes absolutely perfect sense.
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: You know, I had a manager before. They weren't meaning
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: they weren't representing me or anything, but I was talking
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: to them about this project that I did, and he
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: was very out of me.
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: He said, don't put it online.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a while. Heard from our sponsor,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show, he.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: Goes, don't do anything with it, and he goes just
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: so and and now other marketers who I.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: Really responded, I'm not an agist, but I'm guessing this
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: was a few years ago, and they they were unaware
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: of the influence that comes with people engaging with you
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: or your content online.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, about this is probably about four years ago or so.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: This is he was.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: He's playing in his forties and now you know, it's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: talk to the marketers. They were like, Dave, just you know,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: do your thing. So I'm actually, you know, that's been
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: something I've been sort of.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the only people who listen, the only people in
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: my estimation, who are getting signed, you know, by top
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: agencies or managers. And I've seen it for the past
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: number of years, and i was actually a conduit for
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: a number of them happening. You know, talents, whether it's
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: on camera talents or behind the camera talent. The ones
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: who are getting signed are the ones who are building
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: audiences by themselves online. You know, there's plenty of talent
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: out there who are not putting their stuff online, and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: they're great, they could be better than the talents who
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: are getting jobs now. But this is how to get
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: jobs now. Yeah, but no one ever sees your work.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: If no one ever sees your work, then then you know,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: continue with that with that second career, and that's probably
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: all you're going to get.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very it's very true.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: I've had Jason Brubriker on here from Miss Trip. They
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: actually put together a movie project for Netflix, all from
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: all YouTubers. They got some of the top YouTubers, put
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: them all together on a movie and sold us a Netflix.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: And you know, it worked out well because everyone you know,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: that's a big business right now.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: I consider that a new genre of independent filmmaking, but
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: it's the only one. And you know, you might have
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: to check this too, but I'm going to make a
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: grand statement that the only independent films that have made
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: their money back and gone into profit, except for you know,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: the ones that really break through and get nominated for rosters,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: the only independent films that make their money back and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: or going to profit in the past few years have
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: been ones that have digital stars in them. And I'm
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: talking truly independent films, you know. And if you you
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: know and name me a time when a genre an
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: independent film was profitable, this might be the first time
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: independent films starring digital influencers might be the first time
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: independent film and is a sustainable business at least for
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: at least for a minute, you know what I mean.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's true.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: And also you know they come with their own building,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: audience and everything, and I mean that's so it's so
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: you know, interesting for investors, and you know, it's why
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: and distributors as well. And and again I think that
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: as we slowly go aboard, you know, like you were saying,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 5: that's sort of being discovered in the old sweet shop.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: You know, there's also is a Hollywood where you know,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: an actress was discovered at like a malt shop or something.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: This is this is the new way, right, Yeah, no,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: that's it.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's that's how you get discovered. And you know,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: tell actors too, it's it's like they're serious. They're even
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: going to acting school like some of them, you know,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: expensive acting schools, and and they're not online, you know,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: they're not they're not showing their acting talent online. And
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: it boggles my mind because when I was a young
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: actor before the Internet, I would hope that I would
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: have embraced it if the Internet were there, and I
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: would have, you know, essentially showed off my talent online
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: and and that what works. I've seen it work for
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of people in you know,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: in the years after. But the ones who are like, no,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: they're still doing you know, an actor is still doing
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: like black Box theater, but but they're doing nothing online.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, uh, And I don't know if
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: it's because their their curriculum keeps them so so busy
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: and they don't have time to be online, but to me,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: it's the only way to get this covered. Now.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's so, that's so true. And you know, because
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: I've had people on here and they've we've talked about
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: a lot of the competitions and stuff like that, and
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, it's sort of putting it all
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: together as well.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: You know, I have a friend of mine who's brown here.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: I mean screenwriting competitions, or we'll say competition.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: I generally mean screenwriting competitions. But what I was gonna
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: say was.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, all that stuff's good. Submit your script and if
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: you get, like as a finalist in Nickels or ones
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: that are known awesome, it's like a feather in the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: cap and it would make someone like me or you know,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: other green Lighters or whatever, you know, put your script
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: near the top, like oh okay, so one, you know,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: it's the group thing. Someone else like this and I
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: heard of them, and then we we might still read
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: your script, you know what I mean. But as as important,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: if not more, is that, you know, you know, let's say,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: instead of instead of getting a screenwriting Fellowship award for
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: your script, which yes, agencies, managers, production companies, if you
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: have that on there, they'll be like, oh, okay, I
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: guess we should really read this one. But at the
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: same time, and maybe even more powerful, is putting some
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: you know, putting some kind of content online that gets
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: you know, ten thousand engaged views, people saying, oh my god,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: this is awesome. Are you going to do a larger version?
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: You know, because when people are making decisions about you know, money,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: which is essentially life or death in the industry, you know,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: so many people, especially in you know, an established Hollywood
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: you know, everyone's afraid to stick their neck out. It's like, okay,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: if everyone else agreed, then maybe we'll move forward from this,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: you know. So one of the things that's getting everyone
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: on the same page these days is you know, look
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: if Nickels Screenwriting Fellowship liked it great, you know, look
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: at all the movies that they've awarded and how many
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: got made and how many were successes you know in
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: there since they've been around. But if I go online
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: and there's just the cold open of the movie and
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: it's got engagement and people are liking it, that where
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: I am in my career now, if I'm going to
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: continue to green light stuff and get get it made,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: that's almost more important than the Screenwriting Fellowship.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's I actually had a friend of mine on here, uh,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: Nick Murphy, and he actually started a YouTube channel. It
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: was called Continued question Mark and they actually you know,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: they do panels now because they've just built that audience
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: and then they end up now they've did They've done
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: a crowdfunding campaign for another web series. I mean, so
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: they've done very well with that, and again you know.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: They well, that's great, and dude, to me, that's networking
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: and you got to do that too, And that's something
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: that you know, I became. People think I'm like a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: master networker, and I think I'm pretty good. But everyone
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: thinks I know everybody. That's not true. There's plenty of
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: people I can name and know more people and you know,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: entertainment than I do. But that's the perception, right. But
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: it took me a while to learn that if I
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: were to, you know, have gotten good at networking and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: everything in the beginning of my career, it would, I
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: think it would be a little a little different. And
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to think back then that I don't
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: want to have to go in schmooze. I just want
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: to be an urduced, you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: But you know, this is the the you know, it's called,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: you know, the entertainment industry for a reason. You know,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: you got to have you got to have both. You
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: got to know the business side of things, which includes
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: networking and schmoozing, because you know sometimes I mean, look,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: Charlie Korn when who hired me at end of all
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: that was a fifteen year relationship and then it culminated
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: in me becoming president of you know, the North American
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: Digital division of the biggest TV production company in the world.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: I think it's the largest independent production company in the world.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: And that was you know, Charlie and I had tried
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: to work together a few times throughout the years we've met,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: like ninety six or seven and things didn't work out,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: but you know you got to you got to start,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: you know, not only building your community online and building
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: up an audience online and having people say, hey, your
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: work's great online, so that the industry of like, hey,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: you know, the average Joe or Josephine likes this person's work,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: maybe we should you give him a shot. But also,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: you know, you got to start building your network as
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: soon as you can. And if you're an actor, it's
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: just another role. You're going out to events and meeting
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: people and you're playing the role of networker, you know,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: and for filmmakers the same thing. You can't. In many
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: cases you can still be the shy you don't like
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: to talk to anyone. You're very introverted, but you're brilliant,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: you know, artist or filmmaker, And if you can't get
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: a little more extroverted online, then you know, these are
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: all just learned, you know, kind of skills that you
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: can always improve upon. You know, you know where you're
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: at currently if you're not much of a networker schmoozer,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: you know, read hollywooden friends and influence people and then
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: just go out to one of that and just try
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: some of the techniques and all of a sudden you're like, hey,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty good at this, you know. But it's those
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: so important because talent, you know, sometimes talent rises to
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: the top, and sometimes you know, the best talent never
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: never rise. And these are the reasons why. So you know,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: if you don't do your homework and find out what
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: it takes, then you shouldn't complain about not getting a shot.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: About its life's unfair about you know, I'm so talented,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: I'm more talented than this person. But you know, they're
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: they're getting jobs that I'm not, or they're getting cast
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: and I'm not, or they're getting funded and I'm not. Okay, well,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: then you know, find out why, and I guarantee why
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: is that they're doing some other things in some other
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: areas that you are either judging harshly rashly and saying no,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: I don't want to have to do that. But then
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: you know, it's it's the same in every industry. It's
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: just a little more has a little more pizaz.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: Show in Hollywood.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, You're absolutely right, Will, and you have
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: to go out there and network and uh, you know,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: I know we've been talking for about an hour and
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 5: I know, you know obviously I could talk to you
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: all day. Will, I just want to say, you know,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 5: I wanted to ask too. I want to get to
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: talk about the Church of Babs.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 5: You know, you currently have a GoFundMe and by the way,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: everyone listening, I'm gonna put this in the show notes
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: for his GoFundMe at you know, at Dave Bullis dot
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: com where the show notes usually are.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: So Will I just want to ask, you know, just
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: about Church of Babs.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: You know again, I sold the article about it in
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: the Philadelphia dot com Inquire online site.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but put that link too. That was pretty good.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm gonna make sure to put that in there
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: as well. So I just want to you know, as
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: we talk about Church of Babs, you know, is there
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: anything you know, I know we talked about earlier, discussed
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: it briefly, but is there anything else you wanted to
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: mention about the Church of Babs or you.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: Know, Joe well Lucky. The go fund me campaign is
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: GoFundMe dot com slash st d a d think that
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: and that's you know. So we've raised almost twenty thousand
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: dollars in very short time, and we need more. The
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: reason being that I want to you know, it's a
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: one hundred eight year old church. I want to restore it,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: you know, and then also innovate a little bit. But
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: we also want to start a number of programs for
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: the community and the online community. And you know, when
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: I acquired this two acre property in Ka County, New Jersey,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: which is incredible, I'm surrounded by natural wildlife preserve of
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: the Audubon Bird Watching Society, the New Jersey Motorsports Park,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: private beaches, public beaches. It's just an amazing, amazing area
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: of South New Jersey that you know, people think of Jersey,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: they think of sopranos, but especially South Jersey, I think
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: gives gives Jersey its name on license plates, the garden state.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: But because of an old historical property like this, like
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: I had to but I acquired it, I had to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: pay all cash and it wasn't you know, I'm not
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: a multimillionaire because you can't get a more or at
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: least I couldn't get a mortgage for a property like this.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: It's commercially zoned, but there's no historical rental income because
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: it was a church and it's not a private it's
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: not a residential place, and no residential private mortgage lenders
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: were went, so I had to put all cash into it.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: So we're reopening grand reopening at Saint Bab's in May
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: on Mother's Day in twenty seventeen, coming up a few
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: months and for a whole week, we have a number
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: of festivities happening and certain celebrity friends of mine will
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: be making appearances, We'll be launching a bunch of initiatives,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: will be lots of great art and music, you know, showing.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: So the money from the gofund campaign is going to
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: both the restoration and launching these programs. And I think,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: you know it's it's not just one good cause of
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: many good causes, and you know this is we're just
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: getting started. So I think, you know, after the opening,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: than the next year too. Just like I tried to
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: do with Maker Studios and end them all and stream up,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: I'm going to turn this into into something that people
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: will be proud of and really think well off.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 5: And uh, you know, everyone I'm going to link to
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: again in that article in the show notes, and uh,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: you know, well, I know you're going to do an
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 5: amazing job with this. And again when I read that,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 5: when I read the article, I said, this is this
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 5: is amazing and this is such.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: A next time we talk. What thank you? Thank you?
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: Next time we talk? Why don't you come to Like I,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: I'm also building a studio in the church and and
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 4: you know there's lots going on here. The whole place
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: is getting wired. Why don't you come to your podcast
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: down here? Maybe you know it's not during the grand
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: reopening week, which I think will be fun and I
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: think there'll be some press to come out of that.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: But you know, that's the other thing, whether it's artists,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: people in need, people in recovery. I want this to be,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: you know, not their second home unless they wanted to
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: make it their second home. But you know, I'm opening
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: the doors for people to create, uh, to commune and
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: so forth. So you know, feel free to do your
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: podcast down here. And then, oh, thank you.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: I appreciate that. And I'm definitely gonna go and go
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 5: come down. I want to be there for the grand opening.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: Uh you know we can meet in person and uh,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, why don't we do Why don't we do during
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: the opening in front of people, why don't we do
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: like a live podcast or.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: Something you know that sounds amazing. Let's do it.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: That's it. And then I'll be I'll be a guest
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: if you want me as a guest. But maybe we'll
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: book one or two other people too. And and I'll
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: give you the list of you know, the talent and
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: the people coming, and you can look at that and say, oh,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: they'd be great on the podcast. And maybe we'll do
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: it that way.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 5: Okay, that sounds amazing, will uh yeah, and and uh
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: and I think that'll be a great, great, uh you
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: know tool for uh, you know, everybody.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: And uh, because that's very interesting.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: I haven't done something like that yet, and I've been
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 5: meaning to and I will before, you know. Just in closing,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 5: I wanted to ask, is there anything else that you
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: wanted to say? Just in closing, uh, that we need
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: get a chance to discuss.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: Oh. I heard from a very very good source that
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: Lloyd Kaufman of Trauma is developing another movie based on
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: a Shakespeare play. And I was told that not too
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: long ago, when Romeo and Juliet played at the Museum
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: of Modern Art in New York a few months ago.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: So I, uh, if I do another Trouma movie again,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: that that sounds like that'd be the one.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that that you know again, you'd be you would
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: be able to reunite with Lloyd, and uh, you know again,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 5: I think that would be amazing because Lloyd is always
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: you know, now he's just making some some really great
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: movies too. Because now with with what was a tox
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: Avenger four came out, I thought that was very well
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 5: done and I actually bumped into a few years ago.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: By the way, I'll tell you that story I in
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: person when I see you. But yeah, no, but I
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: think that'd be right though, because it's it's you know,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: I always great. It's great independent film. And so again,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 5: Will I want to say thank you for coming on
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 5: where you will find you online?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: By the way, I'm Will Keenan w I L L
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: K E E N A N on Twitter, same thing
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: on Instagram. On Facebook, I think if you just search
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: my name it comes up. I have a blue check
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: next to my name on Facebook. What else LinkedIn for
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: Will Keenan? And now there's a Saint Babs the foundation
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: I just started Facebook and Instagram. Please follow those as well.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: Will Keenan.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: I want to say thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: Dave Bullis, thanks for asking me. This was great, This
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: was fun. Let's let's do it again.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: It sounds great, my friend. I will talk to you
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: very soon.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: All right, Take care man, take care will by everybody.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episodehead
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: Forward Slash four seventy seven. Thank you so much for
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: listening to guys, as always, keep on writing no matter what.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: dot tv.