Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 703: Writing and Selling Screenplays Outside of Hollywood with Allen Johnson

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IFH 703: Writing and Selling Screenplays Outside of Hollywood with Allen Johnson · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
• 0:13
  Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number seven zero three. Some succeed because they are
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  destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to. Henry van Dyke
• 0:24
  broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast,
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  where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the
• 0:33
  jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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  Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
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  humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur
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  How to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today than
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  ebook, and of course audiobook. If you want to order it, just
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  head over to www dot film bizbook dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
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  Now, in the screenwriting world, guys, there's a lot of myths
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  of BS rules or brules that that are taught to screenwriters, especially young and
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  up and coming screenwriters. That you need to have an agent, and you
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  really need to live in Hollywood, and you can't do it without being union
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  and all of these things that you have to have and have to do in
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  order to be able to make a living as a screenwriter. Well, today's
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  guest is Alan Johnson. He is a screenwriter who has not followed any of
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  these rules and has sold ten screenplays outside of the Hollywood system. He lives
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  in North Carolina, he does not have an agent, and he actually makes
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  a living doing what he loves to do as a screenwriter. So I wanted
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  to bring Alan on the show so he could teach us his tips and tricks
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  on how to get screenwriting gigs outside the Hollywood system, what he's done and
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  how he does it, and also tell us what his daily writing routine is
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  and just little tips and tricks on how he does what he does. So,
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  without any further ado, please enjoy this inspirational conversation with Alan Johnson.
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  I'd like to welcome to the show, Alan Johnson brother. Thank you so
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  much for being on the show. Bro Hey, I'm honored to be here.
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  Thank you so much for the invite. Looking forward to it. Yeah,
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  man, absolutely so. You are a long time tribe member, without
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  question, you've been. I talked to you on the Ask Alex show when
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  I was doing that for a while, like this is like two years ago
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  now too, Yeah, yeah, two or three years ago we did that
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  and we were talking and you reached out to me the other day and you
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  were just just as a casual statement, you just said, oh, by
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  the way, yeah, you know, I've shot I've sold ten scripts and
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  three of them got produced, and I also sold some plays and they're being
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  produced as well. And you know, and I'm like, wait a minute,
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  you don't live in LA and like, how is this work? So
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  I was like, I need to get you on the show. I invited
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  you on the show because I want to give everybody out there who's listening to
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  this podcast some hope that you don't have to live in LA to make this
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  happen. Look, we all love to get the big giant projects, but
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  there's ways of making a living with your art and with your writing outside of
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  the Hollywood system. So before we jump into all of that, sir,
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  how did you get started in the business. Well, it's been a really
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  long, slow journey. Like most kids of our of our vintage or of
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  similar vintages, as you like to say, Yeah, you know, I
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  grew up obsessing over our our film heroes. You know, I wanted to
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  be Obi Wan, I wanted to be Indiana Jones, you know, I
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  wanted to do all. I wanted to be James Bond, all these exciting
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  action heroes you know that we grew up with, and I grew up mainly
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  in South Carolina, and as we all know, it is another mecca of
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  Hollywood obviously, you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean there was nothing.
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  There was nothing. There is no realization that, you know, people
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  actually did this for a living. It was just a magic thing that happened
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  in a dark theater, you know. So um. I never really had
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  any formal any education. The only time I ever got close to anything was
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  like my senior year in high school. My friends and I got together and
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  made a ridiculous spoof film. It was awful. We had to borrow a
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  VHS cam quarter from the athletic department in order to shoot this thing over a
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  single weekend. It was awful. But that was That was my first taste.
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  And I was never a great student. I was. It was the
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  one always daydreaming, That was the note, always going home to my mom,
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  constantly daydreaming. Well look at me now, M daydreaming for a living,
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  right. Yeah. But but I couldn't get into a really good university.
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  I went to a junior college for a while and they actually had a
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  decent little theater program, and so I started getting into acting a few classes,
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  you know, of touching onto script analysis, stuff like that, and
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  I enjoyed that. And then I finally was able to transfer to a four
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  year university. I transferred to the University of Utah, which is great because
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  we had sun Dance right there in our backyard. So I had an opportunity
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  to see that. And you know, and again though this was in the
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  early two thousands. You know, this is like two thousand, in two
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  thousand and one and two thousand and two, so it's a very different world
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  than it is now. Um, we were just starting to see the celebrity
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  invasion of a sun dance and how that thing changed over time. Um.
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  But I continue to make a few little short films here and there. Nothing
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  was it wasn't was really great. I was not a talented filmmaker. Um.
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  The education that I got there was mainly theoretical, a lot of film
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  theory. I read a ton and uh watched a ton of movies which were
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  great. It's a great education. You know. I think that's something that's
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  missing from a lot of of of young filmmakers today. They don't study the
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  classics. And so I had a great background in that great study. But
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  all the upper level classes were all um they were They were geared for people
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  who were voted in essentially by the administration, and they only had a very
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  few amount of cameras and equipment. And then everything was taught on sixteen millimeter
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  because that's how real artists did it. And of course, you know,
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  back then, I mean they taught editing as actual splicing of the film.
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  Yeah, I remember seeing walking by these guys with these glazed look in their
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  eyes, staring at this fop fup thing in this box, you know,
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  as they're taping, they're you know, pulling the tape across their thing,
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  learning how to edit, and and of course we had to fight over the
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  few high eight cam quarters and we were editing on like a nineteen ninety nine
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  version of Final Cut, you know, the one that if you had a
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  five minute video, it took about five hours to render, and inevitably it
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  would crash halfway through and you'd have to start all over. You know,
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  people sleeping underneath the desks in the editing room and stuff like that. And
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  so that was you know, my film education, and I during this time,
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  I was never aware of any kind of um, you know, here's
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  a way to get out to LA and here's the way, here's a sponsorship
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  or any kind of internship or anything like that. Nothing like that was available
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  or you know, they just didn't offer it to me one way or the
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  other. You know, that was it. But at the same time,
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  I was continuing to try and do acting. I found a little agent there
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  in town, and I started doing commercials and things like that. At the
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  same time. Kind of my other passion along with this, I do historical
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  European martial arts. I specialized in historical European sword fighting, so I started
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  sport fencing in college, and then I got into the more historical aspect.
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  I started finding ways to get into films that way, doing some stunt fighting,
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  doing some choreography. But after a while I started really focusing in on
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  my screenwriting classes. I had a really great professor, and that's where I
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  really found my love. I really found being able to sit there and create
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  and to delve deep into these characters and come up with whatever I wanted.
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  I didn't have a budget, you know, so that really became a passion
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  for me, and that's really where I kept kept honing my craft. In
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  fact, I took it. Took the class a couple of times without getting
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  credit for it. You know, I had expired my allotment for getting collegiate
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  credit for those classes. But I kept wanting to take it because I loved
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  the the atmosphere so much. Um. So that went on for for a
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  while, and then everything started to stagnate. Uh, life wasn't going well.
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  I had some relationship changes that didn't go well. I was getting down
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  as getting depressed. Um. I was working at a movie theater as a
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  manager, that glorious gig, you know, whatever you can to even touch
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  the the yes and that, and we actually had to back then. We
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  actually had you know, flatbed reels with the film on it. You know,
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  we had to do it upright, you know, stuff like that.
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  So I'm sitting there and you know, I I one day, I'm sitting
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  there opening up the theater and it wasn't in a great area of town.
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  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to
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  the show. I've got a gun pressed up to my face because the guy's
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  jack and the till for literally sixty five bucks. I'm like, dude,
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  this is going to buy you us shoe, you know, not even a
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  pair. And so I think I need a life reboot. I just need
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  to kind of hit reset. And it was your fight Club moment. It
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  was when Tyler Journey Putt put the gun to the head at the end in
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  the back alley, is like, what do you really want to do?
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  Yeah. So, but at this point I didn't have any options. So
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  I went back home to South Carolina. I went back to my roots,
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  and you know, again, I was hoping that I'd be able to kind
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  of get back into things and and find a new way to get back in.
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  But it was even worse, you know it was it was just dry.
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  There was no market, There was no opportunity. I did find a
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  little agent, got a little extra work here and there. But you got
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  an agent in South Carolina? Yeah, so they had they had, They
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  had screenwriting agents, writing agents in South Carolina. This was more. It
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  was more talent agent, just because I was trying to grasp for anything.
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  So it was not a literary agent, wasn't anything like that. So I
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  got into Kevin Bacon movie as an extra sitting in an office, and you
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  know it, well, well, now I'm great at the six degrees of
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  Kevin Bacon. I score at that game now, right, So uh but
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  you know, at that point it was there was nothing. So I submit
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  one of my favorite scripts of all time to a screenwriting contest. This is
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  the script that I just absolutely loved. Um, I was, this is
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  the best work I'd ever done. And the thing with this contest is is
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  if you submitted to this contest, you get free coverage. And I was
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  really excited about that, and the coverage I got back just absolutely eviscerated me.
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  It destroyed my story. I mean, you know, I keep I
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  keep it with me everywhere I go to keep me and to remind me.
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  I mean, I've got the thing right here. And the comments were you
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  know this, this is a premise without any commercial spin. Why would a
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  producer spend money on this? This has been done many times. This script
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  is dull from page one. There isn't a shred of originality to it.
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  This There's like full four pages of that. I quit that day, I
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  quit that day. I was done. That's it. That was the best
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  thing I could have ever written. You took your shot, you went up
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  to the plate, and that was it. That's it. That was it.
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  There was nothing. There was nothing, So I started getting into jobs
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  I had. I was doing um designing brochures for a restroom partition company.
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  I was one of those horrible people that called you in the middle of the
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  dinner asking if you want to refinance on your home. I mean, that's
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  how bad it had sunk, you know. So about a year after that
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  contest, I get a call out of the from a friend of mine from
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  out west who still lived in Utah. He was a DP, really good
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  DP. He had been working on an independent film for a producer and he
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  says, are you still writing? Kind of you know, what are you
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  looking at? He says, well, this guy I just finished shooting a
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  film for him. He wants to jump right into another one, but he
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  needs a writer. Can I send him something for you? Wow? If
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  that's like, that's if that's not the universe knocking on your door. I
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  don't know what is, man, But it's one of those things where like
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  do I even dare to get my hopes up even a little. So of
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  course I sent it off and in less than a week called me up said
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  I love what you write. You wrote here, I want you to write
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  this story for me. Here's the concept. We're shooting in a month,
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  let's go. That was my first professional sale. That's my first professional assignment.
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  Since then, I've had ten ten professional sales. They've all been assignments,
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  and three of them had been produced. I've been able to produce or
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  sell four stage plays, three of those have been produced. I've been able
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  to write magazine articles. I've spoken on panels and workshops in conventions and two
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  different kinds of writing groups. Um, and my best accomplishment ten years ago,
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  I got married and my wife is still with me. They haven't they
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  haven't disowned me yet. You know, so from you know, literally from
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  going to the point where I thought there was no hope whatsoever. I thought
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  that I didn't have anything to offer. And here and all this takes place
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  in sunny South Carolina, you know, right, not play. That's that's
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  fascinating, man, that's fascinating. So did you ever consider moving to LA
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  I did a little bit. I had seen a number of people who had
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  made that jump, especially when I was living in Salt Lake. You know,
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  they're they're excited. They had both as actors and producers and directors and
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  writers. They made that jump and just about without fail. Within six months
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  to a year, they all came back. They got chewed up and spit
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  out, and they were angry and bitter and broke. And to me,
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  that's all I knew. Say, well, if you make that jump,
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  unless you've got an in already, there's no hope. So I was too
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  scared to make that jump. I never, you know, thought, you
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  know, I could, I could do that. It takes a lot of
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  money to make that jump. And it just wasn't there, you know.
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  I mean, being an East Coast boy myself, it took me years before
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  I jumped out here. I got out here eleven years ago, and it
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  took me. I mean I went out once. I think right after that
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  whole shooting for the mob thing came out to La and I was my hats
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  handed to me like completely, like so handed to me, wasn't even funny.
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  And I went back to back to Florida with my tail between my legs.
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  It took me another four years before I attempted it. Yeah, no,
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  not four years, like seven years before I attempted it again. But
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  at that point I was a little bit different. I was on my feet,
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  I was coming from a place of strength but I came out here with
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  nothing like I had. I knew two people, no job prospects. My
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  whole plan was have a final cut system. I'm just going to set it
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  up in my extra bedroom that we're gonna get a two bedroom place in North
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  Hollywood and we'll see what happens. And it just so happened that everything kind
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  of worked out. But it's I get you. I get it's not an
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  easy jump. But also if you only know one way, like like,
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  oh, if you moved to La if you don't have a job waiting for
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  you, you're going to get destroyed. Yes, yes, and no.
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  It all depends on how you lay it out. What I find fun,
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  what I find interesting about your story, and I think it's something we could
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  dive into a little bit. Is that first right hook that you got with
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  that coverage? Yeah, that decimated you absolutely, That completely knocked you out.
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  And it's so many of us on our journey, you know. I
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  always I always refer to that quote by Rocky Bouboa's like it's about how hard
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  you can get head and keep moving forward, And it's so true. And
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  you're going to get those punches and you're gonna get that shrap. No,
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  you're gonna get that's the scarring. You're gonna get all of that stuff.
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  You know, you're gonna get weathered. You know. I think you're gonna
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  get weathered during this, during this process. And I find it fascinating that
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  how old were you when you got that that smack? Uh let's see that
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  was I think I was probably in my early to mid thirties. Yeah,
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  so you weren't a kid anymore. You know, you weren't a kid,
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  but at that point, and I feel you because I was there, because
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  I lived outside of the Hollywood for so long that that one punch, you
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  know, knocks you out, and you know, it's it's it's interesting.
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  If you wouldn't have gotten that phone call from that DP, what do you
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  think would have happened? Because that phone call changed your life. It absolutely
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  did. Um. You know, I like to think that if you I
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  didn't have that perspective then, but I kind of have a little bit of
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  this perspective now. If you keep on doing what you do and you do
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  it in the right way, I think that you are going to be given
• 18:26
  opportunities to succeed. You just have to be sure that you're in a place
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  to accept them and have the I guess amo for lack of a better term,
• 18:36
  to take advantage of the situation. If I wouldn't have had a script
• 18:38
  ready to go when he made that call, that opportunity would have passed me
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  by. You know, I'd like to think if I was still trying to
• 18:45
  do the right thing and be a better person and stuff like that, somehow
• 18:48
  I would have been rewarded with another opportunity. But you can't bake on that,
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  you have no idea, and my spirit still would have been crushed.
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  I would still have been in a soul crushing job that I that I hated,
• 19:00
  waiting for what I don't know, you know. I mean, I'm
• 19:06
  still waiting for that studio to call me. You know. I've taken meetings
• 19:10
  and I've done a lot of things outside of that, but I'm still waiting
• 19:12
  for Marvel to call me and see, you know, to get that,
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  you know, like I always put out there, like Marvel, I'll take
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  the meeting, We'll see what happens. But I was I put out there
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  that. You know, My my favorite character in all of fiction is Obi
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  one, and so apparently the universe has passed me by. With the opportunity
• 19:30
  to write the Kenobi series. But that's okay. I'm happy that it's happening.
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  But I'm also going to ask you about I was going to ask you.
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  I was gonna ask you. I was going to ask you that.
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  I was like, so, what do you think of that whole Obi Wan
• 19:41
  Kenobi series coming out? Because I know you're such a huge fan of Obi
• 19:44
  Wan. Yeah, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 19:52
  and now back to the show. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm
• 19:56
  I'm excited for it. I'm glad that it's happening, and I'm resolutely tickled
• 20:00
  that that you AND's going to be a part of that. And uh,
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  you know, I couldn't I couldn't think of anybody better to do that,
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  And I'm just the only negative is that I'm not involved. But I'm obviously
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  obviously Yeah. I mean I said the same thing. I said the same
• 20:15
  thing about every single mar of A movie ever made, and for that matter,
• 20:21
  every Star Wars movie ever made. UM. So, all right,
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  so you got the one, the one opportunity to write a screenplay, and
• 20:27
  do you mind if you do you mind talking about money or is that something
• 20:30
  you want to kind of keep quiet even in the early stuff. I can.
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  I can tell you what I was told. I have no idea if
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  what I was told about the budget at the beginning was the same at the
• 20:41
  end. So at the beginning they were talking about a three hundred thousand dollars
• 20:45
  budget, and I think it ballooned up from there. I'm pretty sure I
• 20:49
  have no idea what it ended up being at the end. Of course,
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  you know, as a rioter, you know, you work with them before
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  early on in the process, you complete your draft, you turn it in,
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  and then you sit around and the film comes out and you're like,
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  oh, that's what you did with it, you know, Um, so
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  that's you know, you're usually out, you know, once you turn in
• 21:07
  that final draft, you're usually out of the process. So by doing that
• 21:11
  one project, that kind of just you just kept getting work from that producer.
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  You start, how did you get the next the next handful? It
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  was, it was all kind of linked together. There were a couple other
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  projects that came from that producer. There were other people that worked on that
• 21:26
  production and other capacities that went on to do other jobs that ended up reaching
• 21:30
  out to me and said, hey, I really like what you did here.
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  You're easy to work with. I like how you Collaborateum, I have
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  this idea, you know, or I'm working with this, or I've got
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  this business partner he wants to do this thing. Let's explore this idea.
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  And it kind of ballooned out from there. Um. So it was it
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  was these links and chains, and then a couple of times there were instances
• 21:52
  where I saw somebody that was working on a project that I liked, and
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  I just contact to them, you know, online and just say, hey,
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  I really like what you're doing. This is a lot like the type
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  of stuff that I enjoy doing. Here's my IMDb. If you're ever looking
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  for another writer in the future, UM, you know, I'd love to
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  work with you. And once or twice that's then you know they've come back.
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  They haven't all worked out as far as getting all the way through production.
• 22:19
  Um, but you know, just keeping an eye out, just being
• 22:22
  a fan. You know, I'm just saying I like what you're doing.
• 22:26
  I want to be a part of it. Here's what I've done so far.
• 22:29
  You know, if you want, if you'd love to want to collaborate,
• 22:32
  I'm here, you know, so you're you're you're basically you're hustling,
• 22:34
  sir. Yes, yes, at times, you know, and then again
• 22:38
  it's it's it's kind of funny because one thing that I've had to accept as
• 22:42
  I I'm getting on in my years, I'm not as young as I used
• 22:45
  to be. I'm now doing the dead anything, yes, seasoned like a
• 22:51
  great chicken or something like that. I don't know, but um, but
• 22:55
  I've had to manage my expectations a little bit more. What I think it's
• 23:00
  really important, at least for me in my career to identify what am I
• 23:06
  willing to sacrifice to get my goals? What am I not willing to sacrifice.
• 23:11
  As you get older, that does become very important. It changes,
• 23:15
  it changes. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve my my screenwriting dreams.
• 23:21
  I'm not willing to sacrifice my relationship with my wife. I'm not willing
• 23:25
  to sacrifice my relationship with my kids. That means that sometimes my indie film
• 23:30
  hustle turns into a little bit more of an indie film shuffle, you know.
• 23:33
  You know, it's a filmmaking over forty indie film shuffle, you know,
• 23:37
  But it's it changes, you know, it. You have to be
• 23:42
  at peace with that too. So as long as you're willing to establish you
• 23:47
  know, what you're willing to sacrifice, what you're not willing to sacrifice,
• 23:49
  and then work towards that and be at peace with the rest, you know,
• 23:53
  you can manage your expectations a little bit better from there. I think
• 23:57
  as you as you get older, you start to realize, at least I
• 24:02
  have that you start defining what happiness is for you, and you start defining
• 24:07
  what um, not only what you're willing to do, what what kind of
• 24:11
  bs you're willing to put up with if any as you get older, but
• 24:15
  that that tolerance level goes way down than it used to. Like things I
• 24:19
  did in my twenties, I would shoot somebody now if I had to do
• 24:23
  um, because I just don't have the patience for that anymore. Fishness anymore.
• 24:27
  Yeah, I just don't and and and and just being just understanding the
• 24:33
  definition of what makes you happy is so powerful, man, because I really
• 24:40
  hope, um, I really hope that people out there can just dive into
• 24:48
  that one question like what makes me happy? Like what what? What do
• 24:53
  I really need to be happy? And is it? Do I have to
• 24:57
  live in the Hollywood Hills and make a billion dollars. Sure, that's a
• 25:03
  dream if you wanted to be a dream great, is it going to really
• 25:06
  make you happy? What are the chances of you getting to that point in
• 25:10
  this lifetime? You have to be honest with yourself. I'm all about chasing
• 25:14
  that dream, Don't get me wrong, That's what my whole thing is about.
• 25:17
  But be you know, like I always say, I follow your dream,
• 25:19
  but don't be an idiot, you know. So it also translates well
• 25:26
  to you know, how we spend our time. I'm really disturbed by this
• 25:32
  growing trend of how much time people spend, especially online, discussing how much
• 25:37
  they hate something. You know, it's so much wasted energy. If you
• 25:42
  were to take half of that time right and dedicated it to something constructive,
• 25:47
  or at least building up something that you like, you know, how much
• 25:51
  better you know would it be? You know, you could you could actually
• 25:53
  be generating something positive. And I've noticed that, you know, with with
• 25:57
  people that work with professionally, if somebody's constantly talking about how much they hate
• 26:03
  something and how much you know this is this is horrible, and that's horrible.
• 26:07
  You don't want to work with that person. You want to be with
• 26:11
  the person who's who's upbeat, who's positive, who builds up, you know,
• 26:15
  and and and that took me a while to realize one of my um
• 26:18
  in my past. I was also a film critic for about a year for
• 26:22
  a small little newspaper, like you did anything to be around the business,
• 26:25
  like anything, anything. And I enjoyed being the film critic in the in
• 26:30
  the sense that, you know, I got to go to all these screenings
• 26:33
  and stuff like that, and that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed
• 26:36
  that watch about four to five movies a week, you know, in the
• 26:38
  theater. But I was a terrible critic. I was bitter because I thought
• 26:41
  that's what I had to be. You know, that's that film school mentality.
• 26:45
  You know, if it's not black and white and subtitled, then it's
• 26:48
  just drivel for the masses, you know, anything that could remotely be you
• 26:53
  know, commercially relevant. You know, that's that's for the groundlings down there
• 26:59
  and in you're to be above such things, and you start to buy into
• 27:00
  that stuff and it's ridiculous. But then one day you wake up and the
• 27:04
  sun is shining and the birds are singing, you think yourself, Man,
• 27:07
  I just want to watch Andy punch some Nazis man and and there's nothing wrong
• 27:12
  with that. And that's that's that's what I want to do, you know.
• 27:15
  And so that's that's kind of been my thing. You know, I've
• 27:18
  been I've been pumping this theory out lately, and it's it's gonna be in
• 27:23
  a bunch of episodes coming up. And I've said it a couple of times,
• 27:26
  but I think it's something. It's a really great analogy about the disease
• 27:32
  at both you and I have. And it is a disease. I mean,
• 27:33
  once you get bitten by this this virus, which is called being a
• 27:37
  filmmaker, being in the film industry, it is there is no vaccination for
• 27:42
  there's no immunization for it. And I mean it's kind of like herpies.
• 27:48
  It's kind of like once you get it, you got it for life.
• 27:52
  It sometimes it's dormant, but sometimes it flares up, and you know,
• 27:56
  and and but no matter what you do, you're always as a little itch.
• 27:59
  There's something like you know, it's it's always there. It's a horrible
• 28:03
  analytic, but it's so true. It is. It is absolutely true,
• 28:07
  you know, And and it's it's one of those things where you know,
• 28:10
  it's when people ask you, you know, about writing, why would you
• 28:12
  do something like that? And you have other talents, don't you? And
• 28:17
  you respond to something ridiculous like it's not that I can't do anything but right,
• 28:22
  but I just can't do anything but right, you know, and they
• 28:26
  just sit there and blink at you, and you're like, ah, well,
• 28:29
  you know that's they don't get it. Either get it or you don't.
• 28:32
  And I am so incredibly blessed. I'm so fortunate that I have an
• 28:36
  incredible wife who supports me in that. And I mean, if you everybody
• 28:41
  has got to have that person in their camp, whether it's a spouse or
• 28:47
  a partner or a friend or whatever that just supports you one hundred percent.
• 28:52
  You also need the people that can call you out on stuff. And sometimes
• 28:56
  I could be the same person. Sometimes you can get somebody that you know,
• 28:59
  give you honest feedback that can really be critical but loving. But you
• 29:03
  always need that person there to say, no matter what, I'm gonna believe
• 29:08
  in you. Because you have to have that life raft. It's way too
• 29:11
  hard without it. Yeah, there's no question. I mean, I couldn't
• 29:15
  have well, there would be no Indie Film Muscle without my wife. So
• 29:18
  I'll be straight up. I mean, if it wasn't for her telling me,
• 29:22
  Alex, do what you gotta do, you're gonna and I still worked,
• 29:26
  and I still was doing post, and I was still directing every once
• 29:30
  in a while. But she was the one that just kept supporting me.
• 29:32
  And she's like, I know this is going to turn into something. It's
• 29:34
  just going to take time. I believe in you, and that that belief
• 29:38
  is what got me through. You know, all this time that I've been
• 29:42
  doing this. It's been a little over four years now that I've been with
• 29:45
  Indie Film Muscle and all the stuff I've done. But if it wasn't for
• 29:48
  her, it would have never It really wouldn't have happened. You know.
• 29:51
  If I would have had someone nagging or jumping on top of me, You're
• 29:53
  like, what do you need Go get a staff job somewhere, or we'll
• 29:59
  be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 30:07
  No, she gave me the freedom to do what I need to do.
• 30:10
  And there's never underestimate the power of a good A good partner, whether
• 30:14
  male or female, whatever, you know, whatever, whatever support you can
• 30:18
  get, man, that is so invaluable. And and the thing, you
• 30:23
  know, again, I wanted to have you on the show, man,
• 30:26
  because you represent something that I haven't had on the show before, which is
• 30:32
  somebody who's making a living outside of the Hollywood system, and to give people
• 30:37
  who are listening hope that that can be done, because that is not an
• 30:41
  image that is projected anywhere. I don't see that anywhere. I don't see
• 30:45
  anyone talking about it. I don't see anyone saying, hey, I live
• 30:48
  in South Carolina and I'm a working screenwriter, like that is not something I
• 30:52
  see. I just don't see it. And I'm in this every day.
• 30:56
  I read everything. I'm in this all the time. I talked to a
• 31:00
  lot of people I've never seen this. So that's why I wanted to kind
• 31:03
  of put this this image out into the world. And having you come on
• 31:07
  it's so important because I really do hope it gives people out there, not
• 31:11
  only not in the US, but in the world. You know, and
• 31:15
  you know that they don't live in a near a major city, or they're
• 31:18
  you know, in Calcutta somewhere, or you know they're in South Africa or
• 31:22
  something like that. There's always a way to do it. It's just about
• 31:27
  being prepared when that opportunity knocks. But you've got to show up every day
• 31:32
  with no expectations. You know, you got to show up every day with
• 31:36
  no expectations of what's going to happen. And if you just keep showing up
• 31:40
  every day, and I use Indi film Hostle, it's such a good analogy
• 31:42
  for that because every day I would show up, I would put out two
• 31:45
  podcasts every day. I would put blog posts out every day and at the
• 31:51
  beginning, you know, crickets. I mean I did jump. I didn't
• 31:55
  move fairly quickly. But it's still every day show up, grind, grind,
• 32:01
  and you gotta love that kind of one of the things that I talk
• 32:04
  about when I do my little classes and workshops. You know a lot of
• 32:07
  people, especially through the more artour variety, like to talk about the muse
• 32:12
  and being inspired and stuff like that. Well, you know, sometimes you
• 32:15
  just got to tell that lazy old muse, I'm going to be here tomorrow
• 32:20
  from three o'clock to eight o'clock. If you want to show up, that's
• 32:24
  I'm going to be here working. Yeah, And and sometimes she sews up
• 32:29
  and sometimes she doesn't. That's fine. I still have a plan, right,
• 32:32
  I'm regardless. Now, do you have an agent? I don't.
• 32:37
  No, It's again another beautiful example of like, oh, you need an
• 32:43
  agent to get anything done. No, you don't. Well, writers and
• 32:45
  agents ain't really talking these days anyway, So that's true. D S and
• 32:51
  the WJA aren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment. But are you are
• 32:55
  you a union? By the way, are you union? So do you
• 32:59
  have an agent at all? No? I don't. And and and that's
• 33:01
  another that's a great amount. Another wonderful thing about your story is that,
• 33:07
  like so many people tell you in film school, or you need an agent
• 33:09
  to get anything sold, or you need an agent to have a career,
• 33:13
  you don't, right, No, you don't. You don't. Now I
• 33:15
  would, you know, it's something I would like to get it. I
• 33:19
  would like to get the point where I'm getting those wa wages you know,
• 33:22
  and things like that. But the WGA and the ATA aren't talking these days
• 33:25
  anyway. So I'm just, you know, doing the thing that I've always
• 33:29
  done for the last ten years. You're hustling outside as usual, you're hustling
• 33:34
  outside the system because you're not WGA though you're not in union. No,
• 33:37
  so you know, and then and again, your rate for screenplays varies,
• 33:42
  you know, because what is the what is the WGA minimum? I think
• 33:45
  isn't that thirty forty thousand. I think it's like thirty six for a feature
• 33:50
  or something like that. It's been a while since I've looked at the schedule
• 33:52
  of minimums. But um, and again, with with so much new media
• 33:57
  stuffy, it's there's a lot of variety, and they've a lot of a
• 34:00
  lot of work to try and make it affordable for different levels. So they
• 34:04
  got you know, the ultra low budget low budget, and there's different ways
• 34:07
  that you can kind of use union writers and defer payments or break it up
• 34:13
  a little a little bit. And I'm not an expert in that stuff,
• 34:15
  but yeah, I try to work with people's budgets. Um. I try
• 34:20
  to make sure that it's, you know, something that works for me,
• 34:23
  you know. And this is something again my great wife has to keep reminding
• 34:28
  me of. And I have a tendency to undersell myself. Oh, she
• 34:32
  keeps on reminding me, you're worth more than this, and so I need
• 34:37
  that voice in my head as well to to help out with that. This
• 34:42
  is I'll tell you what this is a This is another affliction that we have,
• 34:50
  is that when you hustle so hard and because for me, when I
• 34:53
  was coming out and post literally anything that knocked on the door, I took
• 34:58
  right, I just took it because I was outside the system, so like,
• 35:01
  oh my god, it's a job, I gotta take it. You
• 35:02
  know. I was an editor in Florida, you know, with the occasional
• 35:07
  directing job, which was rare. So I took anything and I worked with
• 35:13
  any budget. That's why my IMDb is sick, it's stupid, like it's
• 35:16
  so long, because I took every single project that showed up and at a
• 35:22
  certain point, you know, you just have to like, hey, I'm
• 35:24
  worth more than this and it and it took my wife to tell me,
• 35:28
  like, you can't. You can't keep doing this. You're killing yourself for
• 35:31
  a few grand like that's that might have worked when you were twenty five,
• 35:36
  but you can't keep doing that, you know. So it's a mind shift.
• 35:38
  It's a mindset change that you have to kind of do in your head
• 35:42
  because you're just you're just like it's that kind of like, oh I if
• 35:45
  I don't take this, when's the next one showing up? So I got
• 35:49
  to I gotta take it, and I'll underbid anybody else to get it,
• 35:52
  so make sure I get it. It's that kind of desperate mentality that we
• 35:55
  outside the system sometimes have because the impossible the syndromes sing in there, like
• 36:01
  if I overbid myself, you know, they'll they'll say no, They'll realize
• 36:06
  that, you know, I don't really know what I'm doing, you know,
• 36:08
  in that type of and then you read other people's screenplays and you're like,
• 36:12
  Okay, I'm okay, I'm at least better than that, and that
• 36:14
  got made. So let me keep going, you know exactly exactly. Now
• 36:19
  I want to ask you, what is your writing process, Like, do
• 36:22
  you have a daily writing process? How do you work? I used to
• 36:24
  have a daily writing process, but with my kids that kind of changes a
• 36:29
  little bit, so I kind of have to to be flexible and adjust and
• 36:36
  a lot of it depends on, you know, if I have an assignment
• 36:38
  or not. If it's something that I'm just writing spec then I can kind
• 36:43
  of just go with the flow and write when I have time. To do
• 36:45
  something like that if I have a writing assignment. Of course, my family's
• 36:50
  understanding, we kind of create blocks of time for me to work things like
• 36:54
  that. But what I like to do, especially with assignments, is I
• 36:58
  spend a lot of time in outlining and developing before I even type fade in.
• 37:04
  I would say that out of my entire the entire time that I spend
• 37:07
  writing, probably at least sixty five to seventy percent of that is before I
• 37:14
  actually write the script, you know. So I really like to take a
• 37:16
  lot of meetings with the producer or the studio or the director, whoever's involved,
• 37:21
  and really make sure we get on the same page about what's going on.
• 37:25
  And I really try to, especially with all these things being you know,
• 37:29
  low budget, low ut ultra low budget things. I write to their
• 37:34
  assets, so we'll have meetings about you know, where are you planning to
• 37:38
  shoot this? You know, what type of things you already have that you
• 37:42
  know you want to use that I can use in developing the story. Do
• 37:46
  you have performers that you know you're going to cast in your movie? Can
• 37:50
  I see their real Can I see some of their previous works so I know
• 37:52
  how they deliver their lines. What kind of cadence do they have? Let
• 37:57
  me get inside their heads so I can deliver something that it's with the kind
• 38:00
  of characters that they do, you know, those type of things that I'll
• 38:04
  sit down and talk with them. If they've had department head set up like
• 38:07
  wardrobe or you know, locations or you know, stunts and special effects.
• 38:13
  What can I do to make your job easier? You know, what can
• 38:16
  you do? What can you not do? How long are you're going to
• 38:19
  be shooting? You know, do you want to avoid nights? Do you
• 38:22
  want to avoid you know, dealing with rain? You know, so I
• 38:25
  get all those questions answered beforehand, so that when I start writing my outline,
• 38:31
  everybody's already on, you know, on that same page with Okay,
• 38:37
  here's the things we're going to do. It's so much easier to change ten
• 38:40
  pages of an outline then realize you're on page seventy of a screenplay and you
• 38:45
  got to go back and start over because something doesn't work. You know,
• 38:50
  when you're able to hand those those producers or that director that outline and they
• 38:54
  can see what every single scene is, where it's going, the things that
• 38:59
  they'll need, it's so much easier to change stuff in that moment rather than
• 39:05
  pumping out draft after draft after draft, and then you know, having people
• 39:09
  kick around this ninety page document as opposed to something that's ten pages. So
• 39:15
  that's something that I usually try and do with a lot of these projects.
• 39:19
  You know what it was great about that is you are really coming at it
• 39:22
  as being of service to your client, basically, where a lot of screenwriters
• 39:28
  have this ego that it's like, it's my work, it's my story,
• 39:31
  it's my screenplay. I'm like, no, dude, you were hired for
• 39:36
  a job and you being paid for that job, and you need to be
• 39:38
  of service to the client. Uh. You know, when you when you
• 39:43
  get to the point where you're Aaron Sorkin or Charlie Kaufman or Shane Black then
• 39:46
  or Tarantino, then you do whatever hell you want and it's a different conversation
• 39:50
  at that point. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 39:59
  now to the show. But you're still being of service. And even these
• 40:04
  even these screenwriters who are working on Avengers, I promise you that they were
• 40:10
  being of service to the most Really, they have a very specific sandbox that
• 40:15
  we're working on you know, and going back to you know, talking about
• 40:20
  Star Wars. You know, we've seen a lot of writers come and go,
• 40:23
  and I really think a lot of that is probably because you know,
• 40:25
  I'm not in the room. I don't really know, but I imagine a
• 40:29
  lot of that is, you know, the producers say here's our overall vision.
• 40:32
  You can work with this or not, and if you know, things
• 40:36
  get outside of that and they decide, you know, I can't stay in
• 40:38
  this box that you've given me. Then you move on to somebody who can,
• 40:43
  right. You know. It's the thing with independent stuff. It doesn't
• 40:45
  matter how artistic or eloquent you think your script is. If it's unshootable,
• 40:51
  it's unproducible, then they'll find somebody else to to to replace you with.
• 40:55
  So it's not so much selling out as it is buying in. Right exactly
• 41:00
  now, I want to ask you, Ben, how do you stay motivated
• 41:04
  when you're not surrounded by the business, you know, because like for me,
• 41:07
  I mean i'd live in Hollywood, I live in the Mecca. When
• 41:09
  i'd walk out my door, there's everywhere there's something about the business. And
• 41:14
  I know a lot of people outside Hollywood it's like when you come to Hollywood,
• 41:17
  I'm sure you have you been You've been here, right, You've been
• 41:20
  to La. Oh. So if you get to la one day, you'll
• 41:23
  walk around, your mouth will be on the floor and you'll be like,
• 41:25
  oh my god, the streets are paved with gold. I was like that
• 41:29
  for about two years until became cynical, you know, because when I first
• 41:31
  got here, was just like, oh my god, is that a post
• 41:34
  house? Is that Warner Brothers? Is that Disney? Is that Sony?
• 41:37
  Like you just every everywhere you go, it's all about the business. You
• 41:39
  know. Any coffee shop, that's the big joke. Any coffee shop you
• 41:43
  walk into, all you see is final draft everywhere, you know, and
• 41:45
  all these laptops. But you don't have that in South Carolina. I didn't
• 41:49
  have that in Miami. So how did you stay or how do you stay
• 41:52
  motivated to just kind of keep after this this this dragon? If you will,
• 41:59
  well, I think that, you know, writing is one of those
• 42:00
  things where you have to be in love with the with the process of writing.
• 42:07
  That's the thing that has to be pleasurable for you and rewarding, because
• 42:13
  if you're chasing accolades or or you're chasing the end result, you're going to
• 42:17
  be disappointed because production is an absolute meat grinder on scripts. You know,
• 42:24
  you you don't realize it at first, but the script that you write will
• 42:29
  not be the film that's seen. And if I'm looking to see every single
• 42:35
  word that I put on this page beautifully, you know, blown up into
• 42:39
  a big screen or on the TV exactly the way I wrote it, I
• 42:43
  can't use that as my vote of motivation because it will never happen. You
• 42:47
  know. Um, if I'm if I'm chasing you know that that that name
• 42:52
  on the screen. Yeah, it's nice to see your name on the screen.
• 42:54
  But you know what, everybody gets rewritten. Everybody ask Away, everybody,
• 43:00
  Oscar Wemming, everybody you talk. I mean, you had that great
• 43:04
  interview with John August a couple a couple of episode and he's one of the
• 43:09
  best writers in the entire business, and he gets rewritten, you know,
• 43:14
  and and kind of coming back to my story, you know, I've I've
• 43:17
  had, um, I've made ten sales and three you've made it through production.
• 43:22
  You know, John August has like what eight or nine films on his
• 43:25
  IMDb, But what do you say sold like thirty or something like that.
• 43:28
  He's worked on thirty or forty projects. Same thing with Jim wools you know,
• 43:30
  the writer of Fight Club. When you look at when you look at
• 43:34
  his IMDb, he's got like a handful of credits. But Jim doesn't stop
• 43:37
  working. He is constantly working on projects. But they just for whatever reason,
• 43:43
  they don't go over the finish line. And a lot of these single
• 43:45
  writers, a lot of these guys never see the light of day. Yeah,
• 43:50
  and it's sad. And I love what John said. I love what
• 43:52
  John said. He's like, you've got to become kind of like a stockpicker,
• 43:57
  like is this is this project? Have the leg to get to the
• 44:00
  finish line? Like what are the what are the you know, if I'm
• 44:02
  going to take on this this gig, It's not about the money anymore.
• 44:06
  It's about like I want to see something produced, you know. So like
• 44:08
  when Tim Burton, when Tim Burton calls generally speaking, those those projects get
• 44:13
  done. Yeah, that's true. So yeah, to kind of come back,
• 44:16
  you know, full circle to your original question. And I have to
• 44:20
  be in love with that story. Is this a place that I want to
• 44:22
  live for a few months? Is this exciting? To me, So that's
• 44:25
  what keeps me motivated is the joy of writing. I enjoy that creative process.
• 44:31
  I enjoy collaborating. It took me a while to realize, but I
• 44:35
  am one cog in the machine. But if I do my job really well,
• 44:39
  everyone else will will be excited by that too, and things will run
• 44:44
  more smooth. So I have to be in love with you know, what
• 44:46
  I do and the way I do it. And to me, that's that's
• 44:51
  you know, self motivating. If you have to look to other sources to
• 44:54
  be able to do something that you claim you love it, it's not going
• 45:00
  to work out. It's gonna end. You know. If you're going to
• 45:04
  self motivate, you know, you got to be in love with the process
• 45:07
  and committed to that. And that doesn't mean you don't have bad days or
• 45:12
  bad weeks or even bad months or years, bad years. Man. There
• 45:16
  I don't know anybody who has any job on the planet that hasn't at some
• 45:21
  point said, man, this is a drag, and that's okay. You
• 45:24
  do that and then you find other things to get your mojo back and you
• 45:28
  keep going. Right, It's it's about being in love with the grind you
• 45:31
  got to you've got to love the daily grind. You can't do this for
• 45:36
  the Red Carpet. You can't. You can't do it for the Red Carpet.
• 45:39
  There's so many filmmakers to do it, literally for the Red Carpet.
• 45:43
  And I'm like, dude, because when the Red carpets over, which is
• 45:45
  so quick, it's it's done, and now now what Now you're depressed for
• 45:51
  like months because it takes for ever to get another project off the grind.
• 45:53
  And it's especially true for riders because honestly, nobody cares about riders, it
• 45:58
  really don't. I was I was at a workshop once and uh, A
• 46:02
  girl asked me if I was famous, and I'm like, no, of
• 46:06
  course not, I'm not famous. She's like, what, you write movies?
• 46:07
  So I said, what's your favorite movie at all time? And she
• 46:10
  said, like Clueless or something like that. Who wrote that? She had
• 46:14
  no clue her most favorite movie at all time, She had no clue who
• 46:16
  the author, she knew, the author of her favorite book, she knew
• 46:20
  the stars of her favorite show. You don't get famous, and that's okay,
• 46:24
  there's there's there's only a handful to do. And and you know,
• 46:29
  I mentioned a few of them, Sork and Tarantino, Shane Black, Kaufman,
• 46:32
  and most of those are filmmakers as well, but both like gold Writers,
• 46:37
  Yeah, yeah, Goldman. You know, there's you know, there's
• 46:40
  a handful of them. There's not a whole lot of them that people really
• 46:45
  know who they are because it's you know, it's a thankless job. Unfortunately,
• 46:51
  it is a thankless and it's one of those things that unfortunately, and
• 46:54
  this this might sound a little self righteous, but that's okay because you know,
• 46:59
  we're having fun here. But you know, it's one of those it's
• 47:01
  like it's like driving. Everybody understands because they know how it works. They
• 47:07
  think they know how to do it. Well, yeah, I watched I
• 47:09
  watched the movie, so I obviously can make one. It's the only industry.
• 47:13
  It's you know, with the film stuff. You know, if you
• 47:15
  sit somebody in front of a camera, there's a lot of buttons there.
• 47:17
  There's a lot of numbers on that thing. That's kind of scary. You
• 47:21
  sit somebody down in front of an aven or like, why are their colors
• 47:23
  on the keyboard? You know, this is ridiculous, This is scary.
• 47:27
  But you sit somebody down to write a story. They're like, oh,
• 47:30
  I can make words, I can write top to bottom, left to right.
• 47:32
  You know I can do this. This is easy, right, you
• 47:36
  know. So it's one of those things that, unfortunately, especially with the
• 47:38
  independent productions, it's a little bit difficult to convince people this is something worth
• 47:44
  investing in. You know, I'm worth investing in to get you a good
• 47:47
  script. And they're like, well, I can write a script. Anybody
• 47:51
  can write a script. That's easy. Yeah, maybe, yeah, exactly.
• 47:57
  Now I'm gonna ask a few questions, ask all of my guests,
• 47:59
  sir, what advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business
• 48:02
  today? Study the craft. Study there. There's a lot of especially young
• 48:09
  writers, get so caught up and so excited about the idea of breaking the
• 48:14
  rules, being the rebel, and when you're starting out, it just looks
• 48:17
  like sloppy riding. There's there's a reason why this format is specific to the
• 48:24
  industry is because it tells other people how to do their jobs. If you
• 48:29
  don't know how to properly format a slug line, when they go to drop
• 48:31
  that script into movie magic, it's going to get all screwed up and they're
• 48:36
  going to have to spend extra time to fix the problems that you created because
• 48:38
  you couldn't format a slug line properly. And you're not gonna get called again,
• 48:43
  No, probably not. But if you can do that easy, and
• 48:45
  if you can say, hey, you know what, I can help you
• 48:47
  with tagging the props and the vehicles and stuff like that on my end so
• 48:52
  it can populate it, you know, when you drop it in, you
• 48:54
  know, you might earn yourself some extra points there. So that's certainly something
• 48:59
  that I would I would suggest, um, you know, for for young
• 49:02
  writers to do, uh, study the classics. Read as much as you
• 49:07
  can read screenplay, See how they work, see how they look on the
• 49:10
  page, um study or genres whatever you're whatever you're writing, and whatever your
• 49:15
  wheelhouse is, you know, um, make sure that you you understand that
• 49:21
  understand subtext um. You know, for the love of God, please understand
• 49:25
  on the nose dialogue and how to avoid it, you know, and don't
• 49:30
  get so obsessed, especially when you're first starting out with trying to blow people's
• 49:34
  minds. You're not going to out inception inception. I mean, it's just
• 49:39
  an action movie that the actors, the characters themselves slept through, you know,
• 49:45
  so it's it's you know, you're not just learn how to be entertaining,
• 49:49
  learn how to tell a story, and then you can go and write
• 49:52
  your existential crisis piece that's in slow and black and white and all that stuff.
• 50:00
  You right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
• 50:06
  the show, why don't you try to build three or four houses the proper
• 50:10
  way and then if you want to create your your your masterpiece and have windows
• 50:16
  on the floors and doors in the ceiling, then do that. But I
• 50:22
  believe it was David Mammett in his book on directing. He had a story
• 50:25
  in there about I think it was in the sixties or seventies, there was
• 50:28
  a trend called counterculture architecture where basically, as all these hippie architect architects,
• 50:35
  we're fed up with the fuddy duddy way that they used to do things back
• 50:38
  in the day, and we're going to build build links based on how we
• 50:43
  feel, not upon these formulas, these these gross things that you know,
• 50:47
  you old guys use, and of course it was a colossal failure. There's
• 50:52
  a reason why these blueprints exist, and you know, you need to need
• 50:57
  to figure that out. So then when you go to bend a few of
• 51:00
  the rules, you know exactly what you're doing, how far to take it,
• 51:04
  and you're doing it so it serves a purpose in the story as opposed
• 51:07
  to I'm just being a rebel because that's cool, because it's not your ego
• 51:12
  you're feeding, it's the story out you're feeding exactly. Now, can you
• 51:15
  tell me what book had the biggest impact in your life a career? So
• 51:19
  when you know, with most writers, when they start out, usually the
• 51:22
  first thing that they come in contact with is Sidfield's screenplay, And of course
• 51:27
  that was one of the early ones, and that was influential. But the
• 51:30
  one that really struck out, struck me accord with me, was one called
• 51:34
  Lou Hunter's Screenwriting four thirty four, the most obnoxious title ever. He was
• 51:39
  a screenwriting professor at UCLA, and it's essentially his class and this is the
• 51:46
  first book that I had ever read where he actually takes you through the entire
• 51:51
  process of writing the script. Here's how I gather ideas. Here's some things
• 51:54
  that you can do to formulate ideas about stories. Here's how I can developed
• 52:00
  characters. Here's how I give them personality and voice, and he actually goes
• 52:06
  through and writes an entire screenplay inside the book, showing you the process that
• 52:10
  he goes through. So he essentially, you know, broke down this mystification
• 52:16
  of how you somehow put all these words on a page, and it makes
• 52:20
  sense into I'm doing these specific things to achieve this creative result. And so
• 52:25
  that was really really influential to me. So Lou Hunter's screenwriting four thirty four.
• 52:30
  You know, I have no idea if it's even still available. Of
• 52:32
  course, this is back in like two thousand and two thousand and one,
• 52:37
  so we're going back a little way. Amazon will have it. Amazonal someone
• 52:39
  I have it. It was a great one. Now, what is the
• 52:42
  lesson that took you the longest to learn, Whether in the film business or
• 52:44
  in life. Knowing my worth is a big one. Knowing whose opinions really
• 52:52
  matter. I made the mistake with my first film. I read the comments,
• 53:00
  Yeah, I don't do that. Don't do that, you know.
• 53:04
  But you know, especially as a writer, you have so little control over
• 53:08
  the end result of that picture. It's never it's never going to be exactly
• 53:15
  the way you wrote it. The lines are never going to be delivered exactly
• 53:19
  the way you thought. People are going to make stuff up. The actors
• 53:22
  want to put their stuff in. Anybody who has a voice on that set
• 53:25
  is going to want to change it in some way, and it happens,
• 53:29
  and that's the process, and you kind of have to be a piece at
• 53:30
  that. So learn whose opinions really matter and just ignore the rest because it
• 53:36
  really doesn't matter. Now, what did you learn from your biggest failure?
• 53:42
  What did I learn from my biggest failure? Um? I think that I'm
• 53:50
  enough, m'kay. That's one a very popular one. It's it's it's you
• 53:55
  know, it's one of these things where you you get hammered by people,
• 54:01
  and there are legions of people out there that will tell you you're doing the
• 54:06
  wrong thing, you don't know what you're doing, you're a hack, you're
• 54:09
  an impostor, and and if you don't, if you buy into that,
• 54:15
  that can crush you. But realizing that you're enough, you know that,
• 54:22
  that can that can really bolster you and keep your float because they're you're you're
• 54:27
  you're vastly outnumbered, fair enough, and so you're just being able to rely
• 54:34
  on that is extremely helpful. Now, what is the biggest fear you had
• 54:37
  to overcome to write your first screenplay or just to become a screenwriter in general.
• 54:45
  Um, that's not going to happen when I want and how I want
• 54:49
  it. Yes, it's great one. Yeah. Yeah. Ever want to,
• 54:53
  you know, get a good chuckle ask some young filmmaker about their five
• 54:57
  year plan. You know, Um, you you have these expectations and these
• 55:04
  ideas by this time, I'm going to do this by this guy. You
• 55:07
  have all these grand ideas and it's not going to happen that way. And
• 55:12
  it's okay. You'll you'll figure it out. You know, three of your
• 55:15
  favorite films of all time. Well, I would not be here having this
• 55:20
  conversation if it wasn't for Star Wars in Indiana Jones. It's it's cliche,
• 55:25
  but I am I am. I am no longer too ashamed to say that
• 55:30
  those popcorn movies have had the biggest impact on me and still remain my favorites
• 55:37
  to this day. I am so much of a fan. I even like
• 55:40
  the prequels Alex stop It, stop It, sty It listen, hot take,
• 55:45
  hot take. I will I will contend that any complaint that people have
• 55:51
  about the Prequels either can be explained within the context of the films, or
• 55:55
  has a precedent already set in the original trilogy. I'll go to I M
• 56:01
  I uh, that's another episode for another time, sir. I uh,
• 56:06
  listen, man. I just I just I just I Actually I just watched
• 56:08
  Phantom Menace the other day with my daughter for the first time because she's a
• 56:12
  Star Wars fan, because I'm a good dad. And it was horrible.
• 56:17
  It was it was really really I mean like I was just looking at him
• 56:22
  like this is I loved it when I first came out, like I was
• 56:25
  like I was. I drank that kool aid I bought, you know,
• 56:30
  I did all of it. The action sequences were fantastic, you know,
• 56:34
  the pod race I loved. But Charger, oh my god, it was
• 56:38
  just painful. I did enjoy Attack of the Clones better and I and I
• 56:44
  did, And I think Revenge of the Sith is probably the best of those
• 56:46
  of that trilogy. Um Hayden's acting could have been better. Youwan was fantastic.
• 56:52
  One of the highlights of the series was with with With Without without a
• 56:57
  doubt was Ewan umly Portman was basically just dressing. She didn't let her do
• 57:02
  what she does. Uh, it's it's a painful. It's a painful process
• 57:07
  to go through. And I don't want to get into it, Alan,
• 57:12
  but I don't want to get into it. Um. But I do tell
• 57:15
  people if if you are introducing your kids to Star Wars, you have to
• 57:19
  watch it in this order. You watch New Hope, Empire, then Phantom
• 57:24
  Attack, Revenge, and then go to Revenge of the Jedi or excuse me
• 57:29
  to Return of the Jedi. That's that's the original six. Then you continue
• 57:34
  from then you can, and then you continue with the new trilogy, which
• 57:37
  I love the new trilogy. I think the new trilogy is fantastic, fantastic,
• 57:39
  and I loved Rogue one. Rogue one, I mean, the greatest
• 57:44
  Darth Vader scene ever. Oh yeah. And you want to hear something funny.
• 57:46
  My buddy worked on that. He worked on on Rogue one, and
• 57:50
  he was telling me, He's like, dude, I would just sit there
• 57:53
  and because they could have they could look at any clip in the system in
• 57:57
  ILM, so they would he would just grab the quick time for that sequence
• 58:00
  and he was just played in the background on loop. He's like, it
• 58:04
  was just the greatest thing ever. Yeah, so sorry, sorry everyone,
• 58:08
  we're geeking out. We will now stop. So yeah, if you had
• 58:13
  to nail me down to one specifically, I'd probably go with Empire. That
• 58:16
  thought. That was just a fantastic film, and of course Raiders is just
• 58:21
  just so fundamental and as far as a third one, the other film that
• 58:25
  was just incredibly influential for me was was Braveheart. That one was I saw
• 58:32
  that at the time I was working at a movie theater and this was when
• 58:36
  I was, you know, in high school, and because I worked into
• 58:38
  me at movie theater, I saw twenty six times in the theater. Yeah,
• 58:43
  and that was the point where I think I decided, I don't know
• 58:46
  what this thing is or how it gets done, but I want to be
• 58:50
  included in something that generates this. Yeah, you know, that was a
• 58:54
  childhood hero that you know, the story whom it comes from Scottish heritage,
• 58:59
  and so that was just, you know, a dream come true to see
• 59:00
  that that thing on the big screen and I wanted to be a part of
• 59:05
  that. I had no idea how or why or you know what that was.
• 59:09
  That was what big calling cards for fantastic film. Fantastic film. Now,
• 59:14
  where can people find you and your work and what you're doing. Okay,
• 59:17
  Well I've I've got a website and it's long and obnoxious, and we
• 59:21
  can just put that in the show notes. I'm on Facebook and I'm on
• 59:24
  Instagram. My Instagram is at Alan j Underscore, right fight. That's all
• 59:30
  l E N the letter J Underscore w R I T E fi ght because
• 59:37
  I write N I fight. Nice fantastic, Alamn. I really do thank
• 59:42
  you so much for being on the show. It's my pleasure. Thank you,
• 59:44
  and and and giving everybody a new image of what a working screenwriter is
• 59:51
  and can be. So I really do appreciate it, and I hope it
• 59:53
  does aspire and give some hope to a lot of screenwriters out there. We'll
• 1:00:00
  be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
• 1:00:07
  show. Well, it's not a pretty image, but it's one that works.
• 1:00:12
  There's a lot of mileage. Let's say, it's not the years,
• 1:00:14
  it's the mileage. Right, That's that's how it how it works out for
• 1:00:16
  us. But I'm absolutely tickled that I could, you know, be a
• 1:00:21
  part of this and try and give back to the tribe. I really admire
• 1:00:23
  what you're doing and how much you're giving out, and I think that it's
• 1:00:29
  just a wonderful thing. And the more people that do this type of stuff,
• 1:00:32
  that that rising tide is going to raise all of our ships. Thank
• 1:00:36
  you, brother, I appreciate it. Thank you. I want to really
• 1:00:39
  thank Alan for dropping those inspirational knowledge bombs on the tribe today. Thank you
• 1:00:45
  Alan so much. You are an inspiration to many screenwriters listening to this today.
• 1:00:49
  There is hope you can make a living as a screenwriter and you don't
• 1:00:53
  always have to go for that giant home run, the big movie studios and
• 1:00:59
  a two hundred million dollar movies. You know you don't have to. That
• 1:01:01
  shouldn't be the only bar to a successful screenwriting career. There are hundreds,
• 1:01:07
  if not thousands of other writers making a living in the screenwriting space or in
• 1:01:13
  the playwriting space, loving what they do and actually generating revenue every day with
• 1:01:19
  it. So thank you Alan. If you want to get links to contact
• 1:01:22
  Alan or anything else we spoke about in this episode, please head over to
• 1:01:25
  the show notes at any filmhuscle dot com forward slash seven zero three, and
• 1:01:30
  if you have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:01:36
  Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out
• 1:01:39
  a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening. Guys,
• 1:01:42
  as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe
• 1:01:45
  out there, and I'll talk too soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie
• 1:01:49
  Film Hustle podcast at Indie Film hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:01:53
  E F I L M hustl dot com.