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FILMMAKING and HOLLYWOOD with Uwe Boll · The Smart Cookies podcast

• 0:00
  Not that my guest needs any introduction, but if I must come up with one, I'm simply
• 0:16
  going to say that Uwe Boll is a famous or maybe I should say infamous German filmmaker
• 0:21
  who's directed and produced more than 30 films and is quite unique and frankly unbelievable
• 0:27
  career over. It's an absolute pleasure. Yeah. I'll start with a surprising little anecdote,
• 0:35
  which is that you and I have met before. Of course, you won't remember because it wasn't
• 0:42
  a particularly memorable encounter for you. But 14 years ago, you came to a film festival
• 0:47
  in Slovenia, which is called Grossmann's Fantastic Film and Wine Festival. It's a small but really
• 0:54
  cute thing. And yeah, I attended it. I believe it was 2010. You were there with your film
• 1:00
  Rampage and before the film was shown, you gave a little talk and then I asked you if
• 1:05
  we can take a picture together. And I actually found the photo just before the interview.
• 1:10
  I will include it in the YouTube video of this conversation if people want to laugh
• 1:14
  at my stupid haircut that I sported back then. But I wasn't the only one who was kind of
• 1:20
  almost starstruck. You were absolutely the main thing at the festival there and people
• 1:25
  love the fact that you showed up. Anyway, we're going to talk about Rampage later, but
• 1:30
  I couldn't not mention this delicious little piece of trivia. No, that's cool. And I remember
• 1:37
  the festival actually. Now that you said it, at this time, I wasn't a lot of film festivals
• 1:42
  actually. And you never know how they turn out. So you have some small festivals that
• 1:48
  turn out very, very good. And you have also some festivals you think they're good, then
• 1:53
  you go there and you're like, oh, fuck, why, why I ever came here.
• 2:00
  I'm happy that you remember it because it was the only time that I attended that festival.
• 2:05
  And you were there. It was really cool. But let's maybe bring it back to the beginning.
• 2:11
  I believe you were born in West Germany in 1965. You go to university, you actually complete
• 2:17
  a PhD in literature from the University of Ziegen. So you kind of start in academia almost.
• 2:24
  But what was the thing or maybe it was a film that you've seen that left such an impact
• 2:31
  that made you go into filmmaking instead? I mean, the whole literature university, whatever
• 2:38
  was my fallback. You know, I always wanted to make films since I was 10. And I did like
• 2:44
  super eight millimeter stuff and 16 millimeter later video. And so we, Frank Lustig and me,
• 2:51
  my partner at that time, he wanted to make films too. And it was in my same school as
• 2:56
  me. So we chased the same dream. And it was definitely in my case, more like the Hollywood
• 3:04
  films like Mutinity of the Bounty or Western, like with John Wayne and stuff like this,
• 3:09
  I felt film is great adventure and I want to make films in general. So, but in Germany
• 3:17
  at that time, there were only two film schools in Munich and Berlin. And it didn't took me.
• 3:22
  They took only like 15 people per year. So I made the standard, standard film academy
• 3:28
  stuff, right? Yeah. So if you have no contacts there, whatever, like you're not getting in.
• 3:34
  And then I started in Cologne, what is close to my hometown. First, like economy and literature
• 3:42
  and stuff like this to be a teacher or a journalist in the end, if I never get old into the film
• 3:47
  industry. So and during that university time, we shot German Fright movie, the first film
• 3:56
  1991, Frank Lustig and me like on 35 millimeters and 16 millimeter mixed. And then we blowed
• 4:03
  up the 16 millimeter to 35 millimeter in the end and released it on some screens. And that
• 4:09
  made it like made us being in a way part of the film industry because we sold the DVD
• 4:15
  rights, the VHS tape rights at that point and got a little into the business, let's
• 4:23
  say this way on a small scale. But and then it evolved from there.
• 4:29
  So many people dream about making a film their whole lives, but the obstacles just prove
• 4:33
  too big or the whole thing is just too daunting and you don't know how to assemble the crew
• 4:38
  in the beginning, where to get the money. I mean, when you start to seriously think
• 4:42
  about it, the whole thing just becomes an enormous headache, no matter how much you
• 4:47
  love movies. And most people simply quit right there. And then we've all seen it a million
• 4:52
  times. How did you manage to make that very first film as a student? And where did you
• 4:57
  get the budget? Where did you get the money for it?
• 5:00
  So we there were two strategic ideas. I was a fan of Kentucky Frat movie from took Abrams
• 5:06
  took her. It was like kind of the guys that did naked gun and whatever, because it was
• 5:11
  a compilation. Right. So you could shoot a film, a scene with some actors. You shoot
• 5:16
  it for one day and you never need that actors again. And you never need the scene again.
• 5:20
  You just had we had a guy watching TV and switching channels in the film. So what was
• 5:26
  clever, because so we didn't need actors for a long time. So every actor in the film got
• 5:32
  no money because we convinced them from acting schools and from TV shows like, OK, give us
• 5:37
  one day for free. Give us one day for free. So they played for free. And then we had we
• 5:41
  found a camera guy in from Cologne, Richard Ekes, who did who had camera equipment and
• 5:47
  an editing table, a standback editing table. At that time, film was more complicated to
• 5:52
  do because you had to shoot it on film and you had to lab in a lab and all that stuff
• 5:57
  and the film material. So we also got film material from Aqva and Kodak and Fucci mixed
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  up like as test film material for free. You know, like so we really lined nine months
• 6:11
  for German Frat movie. And we shot the day there. And then two weeks we did nothing.
• 6:17
  We tried to prepare the next shoot and then we shot another scene and another scene. We
• 6:21
  acted in the film. We were our own art directors. We never had. We did everything basically.
• 6:28
  Right. There was no costume designer and so on. People had no makeup. And and but that
• 6:35
  is I think the best way to learn to make a film is to go through the whole process from
• 6:41
  the prep to the filming to the post production to OK, here's the film. And you need a lot
• 6:48
  of like persistence, endurance to to do this. You have to be kind of fanatic like, no, I
• 6:56
  really want to do this. And that is the center of my life to make that film work. Even if
• 7:02
  we both studied still, we both he was a very good soccer player, was a very good handball
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  player. We played in different, you know, like we were we were not giving up all our
• 7:12
  hobbies and the rest of our lives. But we got the film together. And I think the cash
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  costs were sixty thousand marks at that point would be like, I mean, that's a that's a lot
• 7:24
  of money for a student. Yes. But we were also able to raise some money with friends from
• 7:31
  like Frank from from him. Mostly my parents invested nothing. But I had ten thousand savings.
• 7:38
  So I had ten thousand. I think he had ten thousand and we raised forty thousand from
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  some people like from his family, friends, but also from an Internet, but not Internet,
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  like a guy who was a professional in getting you investors. And we pitched that project
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  to him and said, can you get us twenty grand, thirty grand? And he did a send out like a
• 8:01
  mail out to his his investors. And they were normally investing in houses and whatever.
• 8:06
  Right. So never in the film. But because it was so not film people at all. No. But it
• 8:11
  was so small, you know, like five thousand marks. So I think we got four investors from
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  him, each five thousand marks. And yeah, they didn't get any money back. But but I think
• 8:27
  they never expected to really get the money back. It was more like kind of a sponsor,
• 8:32
  you know. And we went to a car dealership. I remember Ziat from, you know, and we got
• 8:38
  like free rental cars for a few weeks and put them in the film. So you see in the film
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  various product placement things, Chio chips, you know, like we got like a fax of Chio chips
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  and we had them as catering, you know, like like here eat more chips, guys. Right. And
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  they got also vouchers from McDonald's. So I contacted McDonald's and say, look, we can
• 9:03
  show McDonald's and our film at one point in the back. And they had no clue what we
• 9:07
  were shooting. And I think they gave me that vouchers like two bucks each, like a whole
• 9:12
  staple of it, like a few thousand bucks in McDonald's vouchers. And because they didn't
• 9:18
  really care, it was not a big investment. Right. They just sent me this as a marketing
• 9:22
  thing. But look, two thousand bucks at McDonald's was for us like seven, eight, nine days of
• 9:30
  full catering for everybody. Yeah. I mean, of course, this kind of production, the real,
• 9:38
  real indie, no budget, super low budget production, people cannot be picky. They know who's in
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  a film like this or works on a film like this. They're not getting pampered, you know. So,
• 9:51
  you know, all the girls in the film, we said to do your own makeup. I mean, we don't have
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  any makeup artists or whatever. Like, well, however you do yourself, that is how you will
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  look like. So and it's funny enough that after now, when in today's time, when you compare
• 10:10
  it, it gets so much cheaper to shoot a professional film. Right. So because you can shoot even
• 10:15
  with your cell phone on 4K and have like a super good picture in a way to you. You barely
• 10:23
  need great equipment. And you also don't like the last few films I did with digital. I didn't
• 10:31
  did makeup or hair or whatever. I said, I give a shit like and nobody cares. There's
• 10:37
  there was there's so much things in the big film world. What is all like this kind of
• 10:43
  bullshit around to spend the maximum amount of money, you know, hair and makeup truck
• 10:49
  and everybody sits there and gets like nothing done. They're looking exactly the same when
• 10:54
  coming out of the truck as before. So I think it's it's in a way it goes back now to the
• 11:02
  real for a lot of people, more independent days where you can make proper product for
• 11:10
  very small money. Yeah, I think it was years ago already where there was a feature film
• 11:16
  that actually was quite successful at the festival circuit. I think it was called Tangerine
• 11:21
  that was just shot with two iPhones or something. I haven't seen it. I didn't watch the two,
• 11:26
  but I remember the name. Yeah. And Steven Soderbergh shot some stuff with iPhones. Right.
• 11:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The way I mean, of course, you have to have a professional sound guy
• 11:37
  with it. You're not shooting the sound with the iPhone. But the picture, if you frame it right,
• 11:42
  or you put it on a little steady cam or a gimbal camera, whatever, like you can with an iPhone
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  shoot very good material, you just need an external hard drive to save it. Because if you shoot 4k,
• 11:58
  your iPhone will be very fast full. So you need you need the data transfer the whole time.
• 12:05
  Yeah. When it comes to your taste in movies, what kind of films do you like? What are some of
• 12:09
  Uwe Boll's most beloved titles of all time? They don't have to be ordered or ranked just from the
• 12:15
  top of your head. What comes to mind? Yeah, for example, Jaws, Escape from New York,
• 12:23
  Dances with Wolves, but also older older films like I like Western Rio Bravo, El Dorado, like
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  this kind of Western I really liked. And I mean, it's a mix, right? I think interesting is when I
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  see now who gets the prizes right now in the US, like the Golden Globes and whatever, right? And
• 12:45
  most of the TV shows. Yeah, the Oppenheimers and yes. Okay. I didn't watch Oppenheimers before. I
• 12:50
  watched it soon. I went digital like at home. I didn't made it to the movies. I also didn't
• 12:56
  watch Barbie because I just couldn't do that to me. I mean, I'm sure Barbie's a bad film or it's a
• 13:02
  satire, but I'm just not really into this stuff. But the TV series, they're getting all the prizes.
• 13:13
  When I zapped through the channels and the streamers, I watched them all. And I liked them
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  all. When I watched the bear on Disney Plus about the cooking, the chef guy, whatever it's,
• 13:25
  it's the chef. Yeah. Yes. No, the bear is the title was Jeremy Allen White. Yeah, yeah. But
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  it's about the chef, right? And because I had the restaurant, I could totally identify my wife and I
• 13:38
  watched it. And we were laying in a bed and I was like, Oh my God, it's exactly the same shit we
• 13:43
  went through. You have like drug addicted chef, the people don't come, the food is bad, the fridge
• 13:49
  doesn't work, whatever. So, and we left the bear and watched the first two seasons and boom, now
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  it gets all the prizes, right? And then we watched also beef on Netflix with Ali Wong, like with the
• 14:02
  Chinese guys who fight. Yeah, I haven't seen it. That is a great show. It was the same thing. So we
• 14:07
  gave it a shot and a lot of films, I have to say, I switched off a lot of TV series I switched off.
• 14:13
  I watched five minutes. I say, no, I'm not doing that to me. Forget it. I say, don't give it the
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  whole eight episodes or whatever. But that the beef I watched also completely almost binge
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  watch. I love that show. And boom, it wins all the pricing succession wins all the pricing,
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  a show I love the, you know, you better call it soul or breaking bad shows I love Ozark I love
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  show. So a lot of Yellowstone now I really like was Kevin Costner. So it's you know, like this
• 14:43
  are shows like where now it's all mixed up, you have TV series and films you like. And in films,
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  it got harder and harder and harder to really love a film. I think the last 10 15 years were
• 14:59
  film wise when you see who runs for the Oscars. A joke. I mean, they are like I mean, think about
• 15:06
  Lala wood or Lala land or whatever moonlight or everyone's everywhere all at once with the winner
• 15:13
  from last year. That was that film was total crap. I didn't like I think it was an overdrive
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  TikTok video and compares this to French connection raging bull, the good fellows,
• 15:26
  the godfather, apocalypse. And now the deer hunter that were films, you know,
• 15:32
  Ronan heat from Michael Mann that are all films I love, you know, like more like this kind of
• 15:39
  existential like films, they hit you hard in a way. And they are kind of genre, but there are more
• 15:50
  as genre, you know, compared heat with De Niro and Pacino was a normal action film like a Michael Bay
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  the Rock action film, whatever. So in heat is something additional. It's just better.
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  You know, it really gets you even if it's just a genre film. Ronan was the same. You know,
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  or Leon, like the professional from Luke Besson was John Reno. There was something extra in it.
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  What made that films just great. So, you know, and I always look out for films where I watch them and
• 16:29
  say after like, wow, that was a real heavy hitter. And I really loved them. But the last five, six,
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  seven years that goes less and less. I find films like this less and less. And I see more TV series
• 16:45
  where I say, look, that is really good. I really like, you know, maybe they spend more time for
• 16:51
  the story. Because if you have an episode, you can you can flesh it out better. Yeah,
• 16:58
  it seems like you're drawn to films that are a bit more of a character study, because you mentioned
• 17:02
  Raging Bull and I don't know if you mentioned Taxi Driver and also TV shows. Like you said,
• 17:07
  they have a lot of time to devote to developing a character, whereas with a movie that's 90 minutes
• 17:13
  long, you get a couple of car chases and it's over. You know what? I laughed in the last
• 17:19
  when you go like the last 10, 15 years, I laughed that will be black was with Daniel Day Lewis.
• 17:24
  I yeah, there's some fantastic movie. I love Paul Thomas Anderson. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:31
  You know, I love okay, I love Boogie Nights, but I didn't like right. Magnolia was okay.
• 17:38
  But then I think the master was bad. You know, so interesting. Yeah, so I didn't. Yeah,
• 17:45
  we're like too artificial for me. You know, licorice pizza. Right, right. I like licorice pizza.
• 17:52
  Yeah, I haven't seen that one. Yeah, it was kind of like more a comedy, you know, so and it was
• 17:56
  a lighter but I think it was good. Now he's shooting a film with Leonardo DiCaprio. Let's
• 18:02
  see what that would be. And but that will be black was an absolute masterpiece. And I loved
• 18:09
  that and Boogie Nights too. And so and I love for example, also, yeah, Wolf of Wall Street from
• 18:17
  Scorsese with DiCaprio. I love that film. That was great. Totally overdrive. And I loved recently
• 18:24
  Babylon from with Brad Pitt, Damien Chazelle, Damien Chazelle. I didn't expect anything from
• 18:32
  the film. I was like watching TV and I like oh, they have Babylon now. So let's watch it. So I
• 18:38
  watched Babylon. And I loved it because it was for me a little like Wolf of Wall Street in the silent
• 18:44
  movie time, where it was so overdrive. And so crazy, you know, I mean, it was super I was laughing
• 18:52
  my ass off a lot of times. Especially those scenes at the beginning where they show you the silent
• 18:57
  movie era and the studios they've built. I mean, that was just insane. Yeah. The first the first
• 19:04
  sound film they shot, right? When the guy died. Yeah, that scene is fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:11
  That. But it was this kind of like the times I loved, you know, where the film industry was not
• 19:17
  like an algorithm like now, where it's more where it was more like one or two crazy people determined
• 19:26
  what was going on. And they didn't really care. Right. So there was a big, big freedom for
• 19:32
  filmmakers, because the real producers of studios, they were not really controlling what they were
• 19:38
  shooting. They just wanted product as cheap as possible with the biggest stars as possible.
• 19:43
  It had to whatever so that they can fill the screens. There was no TV. Everybody ran to the
• 19:48
  movies every week, you know, that you have maybe in countries like India still, where a lot of
• 19:55
  people have no TV. But now we have all cell phones in the movie. The box office goes down, too. But
• 20:01
  it's where where you went even to movie theaters to get warmed up in winter. And so and I love that
• 20:10
  film. It totally entertained me. And it was just great. And all the actors were insanely good. All
• 20:19
  the actors were very good. Yeah, I think a lot of filmmakers really appreciate that film. It's a
• 20:25
  filmmaker's film, right? Kind of like a love letter to that period of filmmaking. Yeah. And you know
• 20:30
  what happened? We know why I watched it in the movie in the movies because of Amsterdam. So
• 20:37
  Amsterdam, the film was Christian Bale with Margot Robbie, what played in I haven't seen it. But it
• 20:43
  was two weeks that came out two weeks before Babylon. And I hated it. And it was shit or
• 20:49
  totally boring. And then I didn't two weeks later comes the next film with Margot Robbie, right.
• 20:55
  And I was done. So there was a reason I never went to Babylon to the movies because in the movie
• 21:00
  theater, because I felt like, fuck, I'm not watching the same shit again as I watched in
• 21:06
  Amsterdam. So whatever. So I never watched it. And then like four years later now, four, five,
• 21:12
  whenever it was three or four years. And I'm happy that I've catched it. I think it was also on Disney
• 21:19
  Plus, I think. Yeah. But they lost a lot of money with the film, because when you see the film, you
• 21:23
  see how big that film was. I mean, there was a big, big tent pole movie thing, what tanked totally.
• 21:33
  As so many films about filmmaking, right? Okay, let's go back to your path. Yeah. We talked about
• 21:42
  your kind of humble beginnings in Germany. But once you started, you didn't stop. Not only that,
• 21:50
  you actually ramped up. You went across the pond to the US or was it Canada first? I'm not sure.
• 21:57
  It was America. How did you manage that pretty incredible jump? To do the bridge fast.
• 22:05
  After German Fright movie, the UFO in Germany gave us money to do a political film. So small
• 22:11
  budget, 150,000. So we did that film. Then Frank and I, in a way, split up. And with the last money
• 22:18
  we had, I did Amok run, like Amok Love, like a very dark serial murder scene. And then I got hired by
• 22:26
  a townhouse film in Wiesbaden, a production company. So I was the assistant of the CEO of the
• 22:31
  company. That brought me into the real TV business, film business, whatever. And I saw there are a lot
• 22:39
  of German money goes to Hollywood and whatsoever. And I always wanted to do more American films,
• 22:44
  Hollywood films. So then I was able with investors to raise around three, four million bucks,
• 22:49
  like as a private investment. And I only got that done because I worked at townhouse film,
• 22:55
  but it was a real studio. So I was believable that I can make a film, like this kind of thing.
• 23:03
  And then I went to Los Angeles, first time in my life. I was already 26, whatever. I don't know
• 23:09
  how old I was at that point, but I was already a little older. I went the first time to LA.
• 23:14
  And because the investors told me, you need to get some actors, you need a distribution,
• 23:20
  then we give you the money. And I went there and met various actors by luck also in a restaurant.
• 23:27
  I met Mickey Rourke, but I couldn't make a deal with him. I met Jean-Claude van Damme,
• 23:32
  couldn't make a deal with him. So then I met a region entertainment. They did a lot of this
• 23:38
  $2 million films basically. And they got them Michael Paré, Caspar van Deen, Eric Roberts.
• 23:46
  And they said, we're not shooting in Los Angeles. We will shoot in Vancouver, in Canada,
• 23:52
  because whatever you shoot there, you get 35% back, like subsidies basically. And that was very-
• 23:59
  From the Canadian government or whatever.
• 24:01
  Yeah, exactly. And the Canadian dollar was very low. So you had also a benefit because whatever,
• 24:09
  in LA, a gaffer, electrician, let's say gets 300 bucks a day, 300 US. In Canada, they got 300
• 24:18
  Canadian, what was like 200 US. So now you got the people cheaper, plus you got the rebate. So you
• 24:26
  get out of 3 million, a $5, $6 million film basically. And that is why we shot-
• 24:33
  So you get more bang for your buck.
• 24:36
  Yes. And you can spend, if you want, look, you have two options. Let's say you spent 3 million
• 24:42
  and you get a million back from a government, and you pay it back to the investors, or you bank the
• 24:49
  1 million and spend an additional. And so you have a $4 million film. Because banks would cashflow
• 24:59
  this tax rebate there. And then film by film, we decided, okay, let's put that money additional in
• 25:07
  the post-production, computer effects, whatever, music, or we pay it back to the investors.
• 25:13
  So, and then I grow that investor business in Germany with more investors. We offered more kind
• 25:20
  of, like also bigger returns when I moved into this video game based films, House of the Dead,
• 25:28
  Alone in the Dark. That happened only because I was looking for, not because I'm a big video
• 25:35
  gamer, it really happened only because I saw a market where you can make more money. You can
• 25:41
  make bigger films and sell to bigger companies because they will be of course interested in
• 25:47
  House of the Dead because it's a Sega video game, what is worldwide known. So that was the thing
• 25:54
  what brought me into that video game world, basically. Interesting. So like you mentioned,
• 26:00
  in the early 2000s, you start making these movies based on video games, House of the Dead, Alone in
• 26:05
  the Dark, Blood Rain. And these movies are not very popular with the critics. I believe Alone
• 26:11
  in the Dark was called one of the worst movies of all time, which is in and on itself a completely
• 26:15
  absurd statement. What do you think? Do you think what happened was that because one of your movies
• 26:22
  got a really bad review from the get-go, then people just couldn't wait to tear up the next
• 26:27
  one in the same manner. And it was just kind of a snowball type of reaction. You know, like in high
• 26:33
  school, if you start off with a really bad grade, then you're always a D student in the teacher's
• 26:37
  eyes. Yeah, and exactly that happened to me. They're 100%. I think the films from before,
• 26:43
  after Sanctimone, I did Blackwoods, then I did Heart of America, was a very good film, actually.
• 26:49
  And then I did House of the Dead. But the House of the Dead was the first film with a theatrical
• 26:55
  release. The first film was in US, in South of movie theaters. And that means all the reviewers
• 27:03
  watched it. So that was the first film from overball they ever recognized. And they hated it.
• 27:09
  But I mean, I'm not really expected from a zombie movie based on a video game that I get like in the
• 27:15
  New York Times, an article that I'm the new market. So I was not expecting reviews, but I was also not
• 27:23
  expecting so much hate. You know, and they treated me from the beginning on like a total outsider in
• 27:29
  Hollywood and a total like an enemy, the German Nazi enemy. I don't know. But they really
• 27:35
  treated me like this. And then because I kept doing the video game based films,
• 27:44
  they completely lost their shit on me. I mean, you cannot say it different. It's always funny when
• 27:50
  the last four or five years when people discuss with me, oh, they hate, you know, they're getting
• 27:54
  canceled, whatever I said, look, all of this is all my career. So nobody can cancel overball,
• 28:01
  because I got canceled 2002 with House of the Dead and it never stopped. So it's, it's like,
• 28:08
  it's like, kind of at one point, you just give a shit, right? You cannot handle it anymore.
• 28:14
  It makes you only mad. And you also I had to focus on making films. So but it was really like
• 28:21
  exactly how you said it's like the teacher who had a bad opinion about you, who sings you cannot
• 28:27
  really pull it off, will not see a film when you actually pulled it off. Right. So they,
• 28:36
  they overlooked later, I think all my good films because they didn't have theatrical releases
• 28:42
  anymore. So they stopped watching my films after in the name of the king, you know, and then they
• 28:49
  didn't recognize whatever Rampage, the four assault on Wall Street, you know, like films, they are
• 28:55
  like plainly good, like, and some are actually, I think, really good. And that is the thing. And,
• 29:03
  and that is the that is the problem. If you do like take Paul Thomas Anderson, or Terrence Malick,
• 29:09
  or get people like this, they did the first film and it was a mega success with the with the critics.
• 29:16
  So they getting a lot of credits moving forward. You know, they're getting not so harshly bashed
• 29:24
  whatever, as somebody who starts on the wrong foot with them. So and I think that is, it's sad
• 29:30
  because it ricks the system a little in a disadvantage for people that maybe have a slow
• 29:38
  start or they maybe have the wrong films to start with, you know, so and yeah, so that is, I think,
• 29:48
  just how it how it played out. But without all that video game based films, I wouldn't had a career.
• 29:55
  I mean, I wouldn't, I would made a few films and what maybe do now German Daily Soaps, I don't know.
• 30:03
  So I really, how do you assess? How do you assess that period of your filmmaking, like films such as
• 30:12
  House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark Blood Rain, etc. I mean, they are they are like, well, I think
• 30:17
  what the video game was hated in my case was that they didn't saw me as the total freak in, you know,
• 30:24
  that they know I was not totally into video games myself and was not, were not was not playing
• 30:31
  eight hours a day video games. So that is where the game was hate you already, because you're not
• 30:35
  one of them. In a way, you know, I'm not a fan boy of, you know, like, I know there are some great games
• 30:43
  and but also video game based movies at that time were like nothing. They were not like comic book films.
• 30:51
  They always got Superman, Batman, whatever, like they were already big films, big franchises,
• 30:59
  but video games, what was done before me like Wing Commander, you know, like Street Fighter,
• 31:07
  some smaller kind of low budget films at that point. And, and then I was the first guy coming
• 31:14
  in and do like strategically film after film after film based on video games. They were like,
• 31:18
  what the fuck? Like what's what is happening here? And as you see the studios reacted in a way because
• 31:25
  then the biggest studio films came Prince of Serbia, World of Warcraft, they all came
• 31:32
  in a way after me Resident Evil. So and I don't think that films were great. But I don't think
• 31:39
  that films were horrible and already bad films, you know, like, if you watch Blood right now,
• 31:47
  I think it holds very much up and it's more gory as most of the other films done like on
• 31:54
  based on video games alone in the dark CGI looks good. The actors tarot was not so good. And it's
• 32:01
  just a simple genre. Right? You know, with a lot of kind of fun, fun entertaining flicks that are
• 32:11
  deviating from the source material of the video games, which people resented, especially gamers.
• 32:17
  And I think I think video, I think House of the Dead was actually, I mean, it was cheesy on purpose,
• 32:22
  but it had some unbelievable shots. It had some like the Matrix rig set up with like turntable
• 32:29
  cameras, we had like crazy action scenes in House of the Dead. And I think they still work very
• 32:35
  well, you know, and when you when you also see it now, look at the last five, six years, how many
• 32:41
  films totally bombed in the movie theaters, like hundreds and hundreds of films made no box office.
• 32:46
  And yeah, that did 11 million in the US. And they're like, Oh, what a disaster. You know,
• 32:53
  and I mean, look at the numbers now, that would be not a disaster, that would be actually a very
• 32:59
  solid box office for a $7 million zombie film. You know, and they're all counted like a loan is
• 33:08
  deducted 5.9 million in the US. And they're also like, what a disaster. Yeah, okay, that wasn't
• 33:15
  way less as we want it, of course, but also in comparison to today's time. So what, you know,
• 33:24
  all that films made 10 20 million in DVD sales. So I mean, they were very strong on DVD blood rain
• 33:32
  was one of the strongest titles in Germany of all times, you know, and in the name of the king was
• 33:38
  Jason Stasem sold also around the globe, like millions and millions of DVDs. So it's always
• 33:44
  when they a lot of the film critics, I think also have no clue from the actually like the revenue
• 33:50
  business, like what comes back if you make a film, and for what sources and the reality is
• 33:58
  theater revenues are barely covering the cost to put a film in the theater. Like,
• 34:06
  it you know, like, so last year, you can say only Barbie Oppenheimer, Mario Brothers, Super Mario,
• 34:15
  and Avatar made any money. Everything else lost money because they spent more to releases,
• 34:24
  releases as the as money came in. You know, I think also some reviewers are not aware that the
• 34:30
  movie theater getting half of the revenues, when they say, Oh, the film made $100 million box office,
• 34:35
  okay, means 50 million back to the studio. So another 100 million back to the studio,
• 34:43
  and the profit margins are way higher in the DVD market and rental market. Also,
• 34:50
  that is all gone now because of the streamers, what is very, very bad for the industry. But
• 34:57
  we made in the beginning, we sold, I think they sold to retail for like 1099 DVDs and
• 35:04
  retail sold it for 4099. So it was 10 bucks per DVD, and it was only a $1 to make that DVD.
• 35:14
  So there was the money. If you sell a million DVDs, you have $9 million like back. And I mean,
• 35:22
  that was the money in the whole film industry. And I think that is now in a devastating disaster
• 35:28
  situation with the streamers, because the streamers only pay money based on you have superstars,
• 35:37
  whatever, you know, like, like they all you produce something for the streamer. But if you
• 35:41
  sell a film to the streamers, you cannot make nearly like you cannot even make 10% of what you
• 35:47
  made with DVDs and Blu rays 10 years ago. I have to ask you this, how did you develop such
• 35:54
  thick skin? If the critics were as vicious with me as they were with you, I would have cried myself
• 36:01
  to sleep. I would cry into my pillow every night, going to bed, and I would also leave the
• 36:07
  filmmaking industry faster than you can say biscuit. Were you always that way? I see it more like this.
• 36:15
  When I grow it up, I grew it up with a lot of money. And I always had to like save money and
• 36:22
  work for it for a university, whatever I worked at the chemical industry by a liver cousin,
• 36:27
  when my father worked, I worked at money's man in the steel industry to make money. So I know what
• 36:33
  hard work means. And for me, it was always a pleasure that I made it that I actually make
• 36:41
  films coming from the little shit town by liver cousin, you know, and you think like, okay,
• 36:47
  I cannot now get all like crying and whiny because critics don't hate me. What is if critics
• 36:55
  would love me, but it would never made a film again. So what would I pick? You know, then I
• 37:00
  picked like they all hate me, but I can't keep making films. So and I think that helped me.
• 37:05
  You know, it was not that it didn't have an effect. Of course, it has an effect. But it's also this
• 37:11
  kind of way you think, No, I don't let myself getting so down, you know, like so like pushed
• 37:20
  down and believe in the end, I'm a total loser. That didn't succeed it basically, right. But of
• 37:29
  course, you're happy about any half ass positive review, you know, where people say, Oh, actually,
• 37:38
  I like that whatever it's, it's of course, dogs barking again, I think now a package comes DHL
• 37:45
  package or whatever. So no problem. And I hope my wife opens to do but I think that is the thing,
• 37:56
  you know, it's this kind of like if you remind yourself where you come from,
• 38:03
  then you it's easier to handle things like this because you feel already, in a way blessed,
• 38:09
  right, you feel like, wow, I actually making films here I'm on set with Christian Slater,
• 38:14
  you know, and you never you never thought about that, that that would actually happen
• 38:21
  on this scale. So and that made me happy. Yeah.
• 38:26
  Now, speaking of critics, we also have to mention the legendary raging ball period, right before
• 38:33
  any of these YouTube muppets that are doing it now, such as Jake Paul. Yeah. In 2006, already
• 38:40
  you challenged some of your fiercest critics to a boxing match. And I believe you also easily
• 38:45
  defeated them all. Can you walk us through what led you to this original idea?
• 38:50
  Yeah, that was really because when Blood Rain came, the reviews were the same like Alone in the Dark
• 38:58
  or House of Sudette. And I felt these are totally different films. I mean, why? What the fuck? I
• 39:03
  mean, what should I make? Why is Blood Rain not better as Underworld or whatever, you know, like,
• 39:09
  I mean, because I felt it was better. So that was the thing. It was like, and I had really big
• 39:14
  stars in Blood Rain. I don't think there was a bigger cast of the movie. I mean, I think
• 39:19
  there was a bigger cast on any video game based film, you know, as in Blood Rain at that time,
• 39:28
  Ben Kingsley, Cristano Loco, Michelle Rodriguez, Billy Zane, Geraldine Chaplin, Meatloaf. So,
• 39:37
  and then I felt, okay, guys, if you want to destroy me, destroy me in the ring. Let's fight. Let's do
• 39:43
  a real fight. So I did that. Respect. Yeah, so exactly. And then you will see how reality
• 39:50
  will hit you, right? In the form of my fists.
• 39:58
  Chad. Yeah. When I played handball always, and my father was actually German,
• 40:05
  but by a little bit because they were German champions in handball. So I come from a handball
• 40:09
  family. But then when I was like 16, 17, I went to boxing additional and boxed for like 12, 13 years
• 40:17
  and really boxed like in a real top club. You know, we had Darius Misiaszewski, who was later
• 40:24
  the Tiger, like the world champion in professional boxing, or Felix Sturm, who was later also world
• 40:32
  champion. So we had very good trainers, very good, let's say, sparrings and so on. So I know I cannot
• 40:41
  like get easily defeated by people they never boxed. So it was clear for me that I'm not in
• 40:46
  the big risk that I get totally destroyed by four film critics. You know, so that was also the reason
• 40:54
  I felt, okay, let's do four guys. That's amazing. Do it in one night, like boxing four guys in a row.
• 41:00
  Yeah, just mash up all of them in the same evening.
• 41:04
  Yeah. And I, the thing was also like, I didn't really know how they were looking like that was
• 41:09
  different to what you normally you know, how tall they are, or heavy they are. I didn't really care.
• 41:15
  So they applied and then they wrote negative things about me, what was the main point for the
• 41:21
  application. And then we said, okay, you guys come up to Vancouver and then we do a whole night of
• 41:26
  real fighting, had a big arena, 1000 people came and paid money to see that. And it was, it was like,
• 41:35
  so I prepped because I was like, I don't want to lose. So I want to make sure I have also the
• 41:42
  cardio condition to beat four people up. Yeah, because it costs it costs, it costs energy to
• 41:50
  beat four people up if they can box or not. It's like so it's not so easy to knock them down.
• 41:56
  So and so that is what we did. And I really talked to them later. And I think most of them
• 42:03
  turned more friendly to me after in a way. And some directors like Ron Howard, he was,
• 42:11
  he said about it, he said, I wished sometimes I could do this. And
• 42:17
  right, of course, who doesn't?
• 42:19
  directors have disappointing past with some critics, right? So and yeah, but that was basically
• 42:28
  it. And then of course, everybody came, can you come to our film festival and box?
• 42:33
  And I did another boxing fight in Spain, I did another boxing fight in Texas.
• 42:38
  But then I said, so now it's enough. Like I said, it's not the point now, that I'm like,
• 42:43
  what you just said, like a influencer going with my I want to go with my films to a film festival,
• 42:50
  and not an invitation, because I'm boxing people. So yeah, but that was also kind of similar to the
• 42:58
  video game films also, pre pre YouTube influencer time. I did exactly that what they're doing now,
• 43:07
  right with all that celebrity matches and all the stuff they're doing. Yeah, but I mean, it was for
• 43:15
  me, it was fun. It was kind of satisfying. And I don't regret it at all.
• 43:22
  You lived the fantasy of everyone who was who was ever done injustice to by a critic. Be honest,
• 43:29
  did you feel like, like a Mike Tyson in there when you're knocking knocking these guys about
• 43:34
  a little bit? Yeah, no, I cannot compare myself. I've actually met Mike Tyson, right? I mean,
• 43:41
  maybe some sort of photo. I met him at a film festival in Kazakhstan. And there he was already
• 43:48
  and he was a vegetarian, right? So he turned total vegetarian when he was in jail. And
• 43:55
  it was amazing to see that his height is like my height. You know, and you think that guy, like,
• 44:03
  killed everybody in the ring. I still think when he was, he would, everybody was right now,
• 44:09
  world champion would have no chance against him, no chance. And he told me, like, I asked him about
• 44:15
  it and I said, Look, why you were boxing bigger guys, taller guys, heavier guys, but you always
• 44:23
  had the hard hand it like this guy's went down, like, and he said he had two assets. He said he
• 44:29
  really could see their hands like he had very good reactions, right? He could see the hands so that
• 44:34
  he didn't get exactly hit on a knockout point or whatever that you get only hit here, but then,
• 44:39
  and he was very accurate. And he said he had the same power left or right. And not a lot of people
• 44:46
  have that, right, that he was always standing like a pitbull in front of the people. He was not
• 44:52
  really like Muhammad Ali or everybody with the left jab and then comes with a hard hand. He was
• 44:57
  with a hard hand. He was just standing right there. And he knows whatever if I get him with the left
• 45:06
  or the right, it's lights out. And that is what he did, right? So he was standing so stable.
• 45:11
  And that is why I laughed at him on his peak. He was absolutely undefeatable. It was unbelievable.
• 45:17
  We'll never forget that. Yeah. And terrifying. Also, when he entered and when he entered the ring,
• 45:25
  usually people have a song, I don't know what that's called, entrance song, I believe it's
• 45:31
  called, and he just had one note. It was so scary and terrifying. Yeah. Just like bird,
• 45:40
  like some sort of humming. And when HBO went out of boxing, what was the biggest mistake HBO ever
• 45:49
  did? The last HBO boxing, they showed highlights of 40 years, 50 years, Ali Frazier, right? And you
• 46:01
  can say from the... And Tyson took three minutes off the 20 minutes. Everybody from HBO said,
• 46:11
  and then he came. When he entered the heavyweight thing, it was only comparable to Muhammed Ali.
• 46:25
  I think they're definitely the two most famous fighters in the history of this sports
• 46:33
  is Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson. I mean, you have maybe Floyd Mayweather made more money
• 46:40
  and was more successful, but it's different. That was history what you were watching, right?
• 46:47
  It's a way you say that will never happen again. And that is what I love. I left my time with him.
• 46:52
  We talked for hours and hours because I was at that festival with my boxing film about
• 46:57
  Mark Schmilling. And of course, he knew everything about boxing history. So he watched the whole film
• 47:02
  with me side by side in the movie theater. And then the next day was the Mike Tyson dooku about
• 47:08
  him. And I watched the whole thing with him. And that was a great experience for me as a box fan.
• 47:16
  And especially if you see a guy of my size, like 1.76 meters, killed the two meters guys in the
• 47:26
  ring. They had no chance. They were like dead. Unbelievable. So yeah, that is boxing. I love
• 47:34
  boxing. I follow boxing worldwide always. You mentioned Christian Slater already.
• 47:44
  And you worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, actors such as Ben Kingsley, Jason
• 47:48
  Statham, Bert Reynolds, JK Simmons, who later won an Oscar and many more. What's it like hanging
• 47:55
  out with these people? What's Hollywood like? I was never living in Hollywood. So I just got actors
• 48:05
  from there or showed films there. I don't personally like Los Angeles. The longest I was there was four
• 48:12
  weeks at that time before I made my first film where I tried to get actors. But later, I always
• 48:18
  like a week and I'm gone. So I'm not living the Hollywood life. I never did it. And I don't have
• 48:23
  a lot of Hollywood friends. But when you shoot a film, of course, you go for dinner with them.
• 48:28
  You meet them also private during the time you shoot a film. And I have to say,
• 48:37
  some of them were not this kind of like, I want to hang out every day with, you know, so where you
• 48:46
  just feel like it's politics because you don't want to shoot a film and you always try to be
• 48:54
  friends with your actors. You always want that they support you, that you support them and that
• 48:59
  you have a good relationship with them, even if they're maybe intellectual, not necessarily
• 49:05
  so bright or, you know, like, knowing so much they are actors, they're playing their parts.
• 49:11
  You know, Ben Kingsley is not Gandhi. Yeah. So and I had a good dinner with him at an Indian restaurant.
• 49:18
  And then we shot the film and I never talked to him again. You know, so Ron Perman, I saw
• 49:25
  after King for the Blood Rain premiere, he came with me to the Blood Rain film premiere.
• 49:30
  And Jason Stasem, I had another dinner with in when he shot another film and it was in Vancouver,
• 49:37
  where we had a dinner together and talked. So but then normally actors are like they're moving on.
• 49:44
  You don't stay long friends with an actor, especially if it's a busy actor, if it's a
• 49:50
  successful actor, you know, they are like for a time they stay in contact with you and then it
• 49:58
  dissolves. And then only the unsuccessful actors, they stay on you because they want to get hired
• 50:04
  for your next film. They keep emailing you. What are you doing? Are you shooting as a film
• 50:10
  apart from me? But the actors you want again, like Jason Stasem, whatever, like they are not
• 50:16
  like responding. Yeah. I also have to tell you, I just remembered that some of your rants from that
• 50:25
  time are so good, they're literally an art form. Whenever I have a bad day or I'm pissed off,
• 50:31
  I'm going to sometimes watch one of them and just be amazed at how you weren't taking any prisoners.
• 50:37
  You just went like straight for the juggler, which is how it's supposed to be done.
• 50:42
  It's just marvelous to watch. And some people actually did respond some of the big names that
• 50:46
  you mentioned, like Michael Bay wasn't that happy. I think he was quite triggered at the time. You
• 50:51
  too seemed like Tupac and Biggie of the filmmaking business or something. Did you later ever bump into
• 50:58
  anyone who demanded an apology or something? No. I didn't apologize to anybody, but
• 51:05
  because I meant it, I said about it. It's not like Michael Bay didn't make some good films,
• 51:10
  but I just think he had so much. He had always so much money and all the big stars. And for this,
• 51:15
  he came out flat. Most of the films are kind of just flat entertaining. They're not like
• 51:21
  Goodfellas or like Scorsese films, Oliver Stone films or Michael Mann films. He never made it to
• 51:29
  that level to deliver this kind of big star driven films where they're great. I think he made a lot
• 51:40
  of good films, The Rock or whatever, but he always had all that money and all that actors and he could
• 51:46
  make more out of it. But I didn't really bounce into people. They said, oh, you asshole, you
• 51:54
  insulted me or something. That didn't happen. But I'm also not diplomatic. And I was, of course,
• 52:02
  also hurting my career a lot of times that I'm blunt. I say what I think and I'm not like
• 52:09
  treat people better as me or better as anybody I meet. I'm not starstruck. I talk on set to
• 52:19
  Ben Kingsley the same as I talk to my last film, First Shift in New York to Gino Pezi. But of
• 52:26
  course, they're totally different actors in a way of success. Ben Kingsley, Oscar winning, everybody
• 52:33
  knows him. Gino Pezi, very good actor, but not so known. But I treat them the same. And I think,
• 52:41
  I don't know, maybe some people do it different, but I think it's the best way to handle actors
• 52:49
  also. They have to feel that I'm on that film way longer as they will be on that film. I had whatever
• 52:58
  prepped it, made it post-production, distributed, sell it. And I have to be the leader doing the
• 53:07
  film. They have to know like I'm the boss, not them or whatever, even if they get way more money
• 53:12
  as me to make the film. But that is because they are stars. Yeah.
• 53:21
  Do you think these days the tides are turning a little bit when it comes to evaluating Uwe Ball's
• 53:27
  catalog? Because whatever people might think about your movies, you are a total maverick in the
• 53:32
  industry. And I can see that people are appreciating you more and more because of that.
• 53:37
  And because of what you just said, you didn't give a shit, you treat everybody the same. You're blunt,
• 53:41
  you're honest. You did an interview for another podcast recently and a lot of people in the
• 53:47
  comments said, I'll take Uwe's films over the standard Hollywood crap any day.
• 53:53
  No, that makes me proud. I'm happy if that would happen. I'm happy that they're reevaluating some
• 53:59
  of the films. I'm also very happy, for example, how much some films, especially like Postal and
• 54:06
  Rampage, are really turned into kind of cult films where people talk about and where they say,
• 54:12
  I never saw stuff like this ever again after or before. And that I, I'm happy that they're
• 54:23
  doing it. That makes me proud. And in the very end, it counts more of what the people think,
• 54:29
  what the audience thinks and not what the reviewers think or an agent in Hollywood, whatever.
• 54:37
  Film history is always made after the fact. And that I needed time and I did 100% a lot of films
• 54:48
  just maximum entertaining. They were not great films, but I never did, in my opinion, I never
• 54:55
  did a totally shit film where I would say that is really absolutely unwatchable. Everything what I
• 55:02
  did was entertaining. Like nobody said, oh, I started sleeping in an overball film. And that,
• 55:10
  I think, is already an accomplishment. And on the other hand, I think with some of the films,
• 55:17
  I made an impact. What now makes people change their opinion. And I see that always when I,
• 55:26
  for example, ask an actor for a film to play a film, whatever. And as soon I sent normally a
• 55:33
  streaming link then to the actor if he didn't watch one of my films. And I normally sent them
• 55:40
  Daphore and A Souther Wall Street. And the feedback is every single time very, very good.
• 55:53
  They're very, very impressed. And they said that A Souther Wall Street was better as Wall Street 2.
• 56:00
  And Daphore, everybody watches it, thinks like I was crying the whole time. I had various times
• 56:10
  where actors told me that. They said that was a sensational film. Why I never heard about it.
• 56:19
  And that is then the welcome in the distribution world. If in Daphore I would have George Clooney,
• 56:26
  I bet the same film would have got Oscar nominations. Exactly the same film, but
• 56:32
  just with George Clooney. It didn't have that A-list star what brought that film to a bigger
• 56:39
  audience. But I'm happy if people give it a shot and watch some of the films again, or maybe the
• 56:46
  first time. I bet that I could in the very end get some good reviews retrospective.
• 56:56
  If I can return to that story from the beginning when you came to Slovenia with Rampage,
• 57:00
  I remember that a lot of people in the audience, and me included, most of us actually didn't see
• 57:07
  any of your films before. But we have heard about your reputation, about these movies are so bad,
• 57:13
  etc. So we expected some sort of an unwatchable disaster to unfold on the screen. And then after
• 57:21
  we saw Rampage, we were quite almost a little bit shocked because Rampage was a completely solid,
• 57:27
  coherent film that actually had a message, actually had something to say. I think you gained
• 57:32
  quite a few converts that day. People really liked the movie. Yeah, no. And that was my experience
• 57:39
  from whenever when I toured, I was in Germany on a tour, like sneak preview tour, like in a big
• 57:45
  multiplex cinema. They always like sneak previews. And I went to that screening. And when the movie
• 57:53
  started, you had like booze, like, oh, god, uber, and they had also this kind of fuck like Rampage.
• 58:01
  They didn't know the actors, right? So but after 1015 minutes, they were all totally into it. And
• 58:10
  that was a very like commercial crowd people they watch normally only Oppenheimer, right? Like they
• 58:16
  they don't that you don't have art house of sinny ass people going in a sneak preview. It's a more
• 58:22
  party crowd. They want fun, whatever. But not one person out of Rampage ever left. You run a very
• 58:29
  successful restaurant business, but will you make more movies in the future? What's in store? I shot
• 58:34
  a film first shift in New York in March, a police drama. I don't know that you saw the trailer.
• 58:41
  I can send you the No, no, I would send you a link, please do. And so that film will come out
• 58:50
  in the US in June, on some movies here in some movie theaters and in Germany, too. And we also,
• 58:57
  I think, sold Eastern Europe, but then the guy didn't send me a confirmation and the contract,
• 59:06
  but I hope we can sell various territories. So first shift, very happy about it. And I would
• 59:14
  shoot in Croatia in April at a film with all nice run. And it's so it plays in Italy, but we're
• 59:23
  shooting in Croatia because with Boris Velkan, I made the much mailing, blue, Barella and so on.
• 59:28
  So we're co production. And it's basically a film or place in one day, where like a migrant boat
• 59:34
  from Africa comes onto an island in Italy. And then the situation goes completely out of control,
• 59:41
  like a very harsh action film based on every day's situation in Lampedusa, Italy, whatever.
• 59:51
  Right. So and it would be very controversial as usual. But I think it's a good subject matter
• 1:00:03
  for like, I like always to be kind of realistic, you know, where you have a realistic approach to
• 1:00:10
  something what I did in the Southern Wall Street and rampage, the four, they're all films based with
• 1:00:15
  a real thing. And then I spin a story around it. And the migrant issue is something I'm looking deep
• 1:00:25
  into it. I'm not a Nazi and want want to kill them. Right. But what I want to show in the film,
• 1:00:32
  but in the film, it will be kind of this right to where it because it keeps going and keeps going
• 1:00:38
  and keeps going. And then you will have people from the population who will try to kill them at one
• 1:00:45
  point, you will have a total right wing turn in Europe. And that is what the what the film will
• 1:00:51
  basically show place maybe in three, four years. And it will scare the shit out of all the governments
• 1:00:59
  in a way but at the I see myself as a filmmaker who who should do this because nobody else would do a
• 1:01:10
  film like this. Right. So yeah, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Last question, if you could give any advice
• 1:01:18
  to young filmmakers in the era of smartphones, tic tocs and social media in general, what would it be?
• 1:01:24
  Yeah, I mean, definitely, you have so many possibilities, also editing to a special effect
• 1:01:31
  possibilities. Like it was never easier to put your own channel together and start with making
• 1:01:41
  maybe short movies or something where you express yourself with you with the quality. So like focus on
• 1:01:48
  printing your own business card with this kind of productions doing doing it all yourself, you learn
• 1:01:56
  how to make a film at first small films or short films. And then you can enter the real business
• 1:02:03
  with this material, you know, like you can say, look, what I what I can do with my cell phone.
• 1:02:09
  If you hire me, I can make a TV show, I can whatever. So I think it's now way easier as in my times,
• 1:02:15
  where you had the money to really shoot or to have like when VHS cameras with shitty
• 1:02:27
  quality. So I think now it's a good time for newcomers. And it's also when I talk to people,
• 1:02:34
  it's definitely time where you can make even on YouTube, a lot of money. I know people that only
• 1:02:46
  distributing over YouTube, and they recoup 20 30 40,000 bucks with films, you know what they maybe
• 1:02:53
  made themselves. So I think YouTube is the best public source of the biggest streamer in the world,
• 1:03:03
  right? So where you can express, are you talking? Are you talking about like, just random YouTube
• 1:03:10
  videos, people dancing or whatever? No, or are you talking about proper films with a story and actors?
• 1:03:17
  Yeah, I know that is the thing. I know people, they shoot films and releasing them only through
• 1:03:22
  YouTube, and they put their 30 40,000 bucks. And there are also the various film channels they can
• 1:03:29
  take, take you in, right? You can also self distribute and post your film on Amazon, on Google Play,
• 1:03:35
  VMO against money, then you have to advertise it because otherwise nobody will pay money for it,
• 1:03:42
  right? So but all of this is possible. So there are distribution possibilities. The question is
• 1:03:47
  only what can I do to find an audience? What can I do that people actually, like looking for my stuff?
• 1:03:55
  And there, I think people are more successful, as we see with Logan Paul and all Mr. Beast and
• 1:04:03
  all that, if you are a little more like a creator, like an influencer, you know, you make your channel
• 1:04:09
  and you put your stuff on your channel and grow audience. So and of course, that is normally not
• 1:04:17
  a fiction film that are normally videos from real stuff. And I hate that stuff. I think it's really
• 1:04:25
  stupid. It's not a YouTube crap. But it's also possible to make real fiction films, and real
• 1:04:34
  things with actors and release them through various outlets online and recoup some money.
• 1:04:42
  If it's a lot, I don't know. But I know people, as I said, they made 20 to 40,000 euro revenue
• 1:04:47
  only with YouTube advertising, right? So no, like you can watch it for free and the advertising
• 1:04:55
  is on it. And that is not so bad. If we would cut that with German fried food, my first film
• 1:05:04
  where we spent 60 grand would be not so bad, right? Uwe, this conversation was such a delight. Thank
• 1:05:10
  you so much for taking the time. Do you have any social media where people can follow what you're
• 1:05:15
  up to these days? Yeah, I'm on Twitter. And let me see here what my I'm here. It's a ball seven.
• 1:05:26
  Like the number seven, not written out. Yep. Evan is Twitter overball seven. Yeah. And I'm also on
• 1:05:33
  Instagram. I'm not the biggest Instagram and Twitter guys, right? So it's not like that. I'm
• 1:05:39
  really, really doing you're not an influencer yet. Yeah, right. But but on Instagram, it's overball
• 1:05:47
  films. It's like over undersigned films where I put it in the chat. That is me because there are
• 1:05:55
  a lot of people also, of course, like, impersonating me. There are various overballs on Twitter,
• 1:06:05
  various overballs on Instagram. Oh, yeah. But only this one. Oh, no. It's really me, right? So, yeah.
• 1:06:14
  Overball identity theft. Okay. Thanks again, Uwe. This was a blast. I put it here also in the chat.
• 1:06:21
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• 1:06:26
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• 1:06:35
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• 1:06:42
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• 1:06:49
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• 1:06:56
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