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IFH 782: Turning Holiday Cheer into Chills: The Shaker Brothers’ Journey Behind Killer Christmas · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the INDIEILM Muscle Podcast, Episode number seven eighty two.
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  Speaker 2: Cinema Should make You Forget. You're sitting in a theater,
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle podcast.
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• 1:50
  Speaker 2: today's episode with guest host Dave bullis So.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: On this episode of the podcast, I have two New
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Jersey filmmakers, third film Killer Christmas, with guests Peter Paul
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: and Tony Shaker. You know, you guys are from Jersey.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I'm from Philadelphia, so we're about like what like two
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: hours three hours away from each other. So you know,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: it's always good to see filmmakers in this area because
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: usually it's all from right, it's all from New York right. So,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you guys have probably met a ton of
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: filmmakers from New York, but how how many have you
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: met from Jersey?
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I know any filmmakers in Jersey.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know. He's really more of
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: an editor.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think I know any filmmakers from Jersey, honestly.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well I'll have to introduce you to some.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: But so appreciate it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but but yeah, it's like it's like, you know,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: people can name Kevin Smith and like once he left
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: to LA, it's.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: Like you met personally.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no, personally. I was I was
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: actually setting up a joke, but I'm sorry. See this
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: is what happens when I try to try to actually
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: make a joke. You know, nobody trust me. I should
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: have stopped. But no, But all kidding aside, though, but no,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: like you know, personally, like you know, and that's what
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: we're trying to say, was in this area. You know,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: you have Philly, you have you know, you have Jersey,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: and you have New York. And it's like everybody either
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: goes to New York or and if they go to Pennsylvania,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: they all go to Pittsburgh and then if they if
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: they don't go to either one of those on the
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: East Coast, they're all going to La So it's like,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: you know, it's cool to have you guys on this
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: podcast because I like to hear about, you know, film
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: communities that are around the area that people don't really
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: necessarily think about, you know what I mean.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: I mean it only you do this from anywhere you
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: want in today's like world, especially with like the equipment
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: that's available at the price points that's available, Like we're
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: doing it from our basement pretty much like a makeshift office.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Like we don't even have to be in Jersey. We
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: could be in the middle of nowhere, like we filmed
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: in the middle of nowhere, you know we yeah, I
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: mean like it's it's it doesn't take much now to
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: get something done.
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  Speaker 4: Actually, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And you know that's becoming like more apparent too, is
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: that you know, you hear about people like like famous
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: rapper like and he has a studio in his basement,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: and the reason is that way he can just make
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: stuff at his house, you know, he doesn't have to
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: travel anywhere. And I think you know, whether you're making
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: your basement your garage or where I'm at right now
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: in my office. I you know, it's just it doesn't
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: really we don't have to go to a studio anymore,
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like you don't have to
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: go shooting a sound stage, or you don't have to
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: go to out to LA or even to New York
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: or so you know what I mean, that you could
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: actually shoot it in your own backyard.
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: All the software now like we use, I mean, we
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: edited this film ourselves.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: We shot this film ourselves. We edited ourselves.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: But the editing like we use you know, Adobe Premiere
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: Pro and like we have like a monthly subscription and
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: we get access to the stuff that they're using in
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: real studios you know around LA.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: And New York.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: So it's not it's not like we're using anything less.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: You know, our our equipment and our footage is all
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: up to par and we're doing it because you can
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: buy that stuff it you know, like Best Buyer, Amazon
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: or you know anywhere really like at this point, so
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: it's not even uh, it's not it's.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Not hard to do stuff at a professional level. Obviously.
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: The quality of our stuff, we're not saying is going
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: to be you know, these some of these guys have
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: years of experience and like they've got a dozen.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: Films under the belt.
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: Sure they're going to be able to do more with
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: what they've got, but like you can come in as
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: an amateur and this is our first film. Yeah I
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: thought it was, you know, for a first film. It's
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: like eighty plus minutes. Like it's not you know, it's
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: nothing small and nothing like you know, to take lightly
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: for us at least, like we put a lot of
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: effort into just the whole thing, top to bottom, and
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: it's like you can do it if you if you
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  Speaker 5: just want to, if you like, are willing to do
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  Speaker 5: all the work right, Yeah. Plus I mean having things like,
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: you know, some things like YouTube where every single person
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: can tell you how to do every single thing imaginable.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: I mean, so you know, and it's stuff where you
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: end up getting held up and not really knowing which
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: direction to go. You watch a couple videos and people
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: are like, here are things you can do that no
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: one even told you about, where you even imagine being
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: able to do, you know, five years ago, but here
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: it is now you can do it from your.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: Own home, you know.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: And I wanted to ask that too, is if this guy.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: This actually was your first film. So did you guys
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: start you know, making like like short films at first,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: or even like a you know, a quote unquote student film,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: or did you just go right into making this film?
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Nothing, never made another, never made a previous film. And
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: I've worked on.
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: Like a dozen sets and like various capacities, and I've
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: written like five or six screenplays, but I've never actually
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: produced anything, not even a short film. So it was
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: kind of like, you know, let's uh, I mean, Tony
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: basically was like, let's just make a film.
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  Speaker 4: Let's let's just do it.
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  Speaker 5: So it was like, why not, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Well that's great because I want to hear about the
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: whole experience and everything like that. So so let's just
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: go back to the beginning, right, So let's let's go
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: back to where all this started and where you sort
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: of got the inspiration for Killer Christmas. So you actually
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: wrote the film based upon your own experience, is right? No?
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  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no no way.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: If that was we'd be that I mean, I don't
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: want to say we'd be bad, but there would be
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: some issues if that was our like experience. No, we
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: we go up Christmas Tree chopping with our family to
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: like the same Christmas tree field out in western Jersey
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: and it's like a huge field and they've got like
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: this old retreat house across the street, and over like
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: the last twenty years we've watched it go kind of abandoned,
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: decrepit and like board it up and stuff, and like
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  Speaker 5: this last year, we were just kind of shooting the
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: shit and like throwing out some ideas and we kind
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: of liked one of them, the one of them that
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: basically became this film. Like we liked it, like you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: the seeds of it. We're like, oh, that'd be pretty cool. Man,
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: Like dude, the Sanda mask. He started slashing people up,
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: Like it's totally something we could do like a holiday
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: kind of fun thing, and like, you know, we love
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: horror movies and like there are some good Christmas ones,
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: but it's still like very underrepresented. And you know, we
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: kind of just started throwing out ideas on a family trip.
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  Speaker 5: But like the the actual story is not like true
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: to totally fixed. It's just kind of a fun shaden
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: freud way to like introduce a dark character. But like
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: the next week Tony came in and was like, dude,
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  Speaker 5: I want to quit my job and make this movie,
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: like let's do it, like why not? And you know,
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: I'm I'm I'm a little older and more skeptical. He's
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: he's much younger and less afraid of anything. So like,
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: you know, we kind of he put up the buddy
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: and we just like did it.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like the odd Couple.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: But the reason I said that was because I remember
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: in the in the intro email, it just said inspired
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: by twenty sixteenth Thanksgiving weekend, Christmas tree cutting cat. That's
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: why I said it was extoede experiences.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: It was inspired by a family trip.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: But the the goings on of the film are not
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: are not real fake fake.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Because I mean, I imagine you there have to be
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: some you know, something else had to happen because uh,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: you know, obviously I imagine you weren't, you know, chased by
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: a killer or something. But but you know, you know
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: they're saying they say in writing, you know, when you're
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: writing anything, you know, write what you know. And the
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: second piece off of advice usually is you know, hey,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: you could bring your own experiences to it. And whenever
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: you bring your own experiences to like you know, to
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: anything like hey look we got a crazy uncle, or
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: hey look, you know this thing happened to me when
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: I was a kid, and people sometimes don't understand it,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. That's because they don't have
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: they don't have the context or the connection that that
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: you might have to it. Which is why I imagined,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: you know, when you had this trip, uh this this
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Christmas tree cutting trip there, you know, you probably had
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: you know, a pretty you know experience one way or
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: the other, and then of course you took it and said, hey,
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: you know, this would be a really cool intro to
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: a horror movie.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, it wasn't that cool. Like if.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: We had a story like that, it would be awesome
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: because then we could say, like loosely based on true
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: events or something.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: U We'll be right back after a word from our
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: No.
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: I mean, we kind of were just spitballing, like it's
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: a little too dark for us to really be the
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: part of our real lives, you know, not if that
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: comes from personal experiences, that's all just from the you know,
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: the imagination just kind of like I mean, personally, I
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: like writing things that are like real to life, like
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: not really supernatural. I know, supernatural is kind of like
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: hot right now, but like, you know, I think it's
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: scarier when it's something that could be real, and like,
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: you know, I think we've you know, we live in
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: a time where people are just fucked up in the head,
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: and you know, someone like this could actually exist, if
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: not does exist. So it's it's not like inspired by life,
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: but it's something that like, you know, based on just
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: kind of what you see in the news and in
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: the media.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: And like what happens every day.
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: It's almost like something that you know, it's like, holy shit,
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: I bet someone like that does exist or someone close
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: to it who's.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Just you know, just fucked up in the head. You know.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was just that the guy in the news
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: the other day where he I don't know if you
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: guys heard about this. He was like a madman living
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: in a house. Everyone had all all these complaints against them,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and he kind of like snapped finally one day and
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: started driving around just randomly firing out of his car.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Have you guys heard about that?
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: No? Was this a guy in Florida like that shot
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: four people randomly?
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: Or is this like a different thing, This is a
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: different thing, oh man, because there's just okay then yeah, no,
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: I have not heard about that one. It's sad that
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: that's the question where it's like is it this guy,
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: it's a different one, you know.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Like, man, yeah, I know, seriously, so many of them
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: are like, wait, which one am I talking about? I mean,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: it's just if you don't laugh about it, you'll cry.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just it's but I mean, yeah, it's
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: I you know, there's and they described it in the article.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: His neighbors described him as a madman, and they were like,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: this guy was constantly he was in his house firing
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: off his gun, like he would through the roof and shit,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: and nick cops would come and they would knock on
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: the door. He refused to open the door and they
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: would leave, And I go, I don't even know if
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: that's like standard procedure.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: I don't know, but when someone shooting off weapons and
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: how do you know there aren't people in there that
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: he's shooting.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: So so like when I was reading this article, I'm like,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: it's just going deeper and deeper into this and I'm like,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: how the hell did nobody stop this guy? Like, I mean,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: my god, but but you know, you mentioned, uh, there's
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: two things I also want to want to touch on
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: really quickly here before I get into it, before we
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: continue to on your on your journey, because I want
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: to ask Tony about quitting his day job. That's all.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: That's really really cool. I want to ask you mentioned
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: some holiday horror movies, So what are some of your
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: favorite holiday horror movies.
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: I think that the uh, you know, when we're talking
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: holiday horror movies, especially around Christmas time, I feel like
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: Black Christmas kind of stands out on its own to
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: some extent, just because that's a movie where you're in
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: the perspective of the killer the whole time, which was
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: such a unique thing that they did when the movie
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: was released.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: So you're the one sort of.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: Murdering people at times, and it's it's just this whole
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: creepy kind of mind fucking And in that movie, you know,
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: for anyone who's seen it, you know, you just you
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: just you know how it ends and you know how
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: it progresses, and you know the sort of twists and.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: Turns that go along the way.
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: So I feel like I feel like that movie is
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: just it's it's a good one to look.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: At how about you, Tony, Oh no, that was me.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: That was I'm sorry, how about you? Sorry about that?
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: I mean I liked Halloween. It was a nice slow
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: build Uh you know, I think the I think Crampis was.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: I mean, it was scary, it was good. I mean,
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: I feel like there aren't enough good ones honestly Halloween.
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: Halloween's great. It's like a legend, you know, It's it's classic.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: But and ours kind of has. I hope it has
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: a little bit of like a feel to it. Like
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: we did a couple of little homajie things towards it,
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: and like we're you know, kind of like especially with
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: the pace build up and the uh.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: You know, the type of individual. But like I know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: I just I mean, I don't know.
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: I'd say like Crampus and Halloween are probably my two favorites.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Have either of you.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Seen Santa Sleigh?
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: No?
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: I have not, So it's the it's just it's just
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: funny as hell. It's just it's Bill Goldberg, the performer
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: pro wrestler. He portrays Santa and who's actually really evil
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: in the in this film's timeline, and he's really evil
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: and uh he got he had a curse put on him,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: so we had to give out gifts for kids every year.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: But this Christmas and the Chris ends, so now he
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: can go around and just like brutalize everybody.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Nice. Nice. I We'll check that out then.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just every year I make sure to watch
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Santa Sleigh. I held all by the thumbs, like, how
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: good is this going to be? Man? You know it's
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: they just you know, got a pro wrestler in the movie.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Come on, it's it's freaking yeah. I know, did you what?
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: We you a big wrestling fan growing up?
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: I mean when I was in my much younger, younger
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: days and then on and off after that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: But like one of my uh.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: One of my good buddies, like runs like a podcast
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: is like the bout to wrestling, So I still randomly
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: keep up on it. But like when I was younger, man,
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: yeah I enjoyed it. But I was back in like
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: the nineties when it was like.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Just awesome, like hal Coogan AULTI Warrior. Yeah yeah, I
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: see everyone remembers those guys like the eighties and the nineties,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: you know, but like no nobody you know today you
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: could held a gun in my head and I couldn't
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: tell your five people.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: No, I couldn't tell you who wrestler was, or no
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: I would. I would have no idea. Now it's like
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: ultimate fighting.
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: I mean now it's more like mixed martial arts because
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: it's actually real. But like back then, it was wrestling
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: and boxing like you could actually you know, a big,
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: a big primetime boxing match was awesome, or watching like
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: a cage match or like anything the Ultimate Warrior did,
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: or like you know, Rick Flair, like anybody.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: I mean that the wrestling was more entertaining.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: Back then, you knew it was entertaining, and if you
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: wanted to fight, you just watched, Like Tyson and Holyfield,
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: They're like.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: Any one of these Ridgi bo or something. I'm dating myself, man,
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: I'm old older, No, No.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: I mean all those box I mean yeah, I remember
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: all those guys too, man, And it's just like, you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: just just growing up as a kid, you know, in
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: the in the nineties. I remember Alt Warrior and Hogan
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and all those guys, and you know, Matcham and Randy
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Savage and everything. You know, people still remember.
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: I had the whole scarf outfit going one one Halloween
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: with the bandana and the glasses and like the boa
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: around my neck like I did the whole thing, dude
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: with the boots, Like yeah, I mean it's you know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: it's it was, Yeah, it was. It was a fun
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: time to grow up. Look, which, honestly, like this film
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: is like we tried to be as like throwback classic.
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: I don't know if it came across like that, but
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: like we really wanted to be like one of these
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: older kind of classic like you know, Friday the thirteenth,
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: you know, Halloween, like eighties feel like even from like
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: the color correction we put on it, to like the
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: you know, the kids running down the halls, to like
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: certain like creeping scenes and reveals, like they're supposed to
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: just be like old school throwback, like just kinda just
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: like you know, a little kind of fun, scary, campy movie,
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, you know, eighties horror that seems
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: to be like, you know, the absolute epitome of horror,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: like the horror genre, because there was so you know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: there was slashers coming out, but they were all unique
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: in their own way. You had you know, Halloween, you
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Fire thirteenth, you got Nightman, Elm Street, you have a
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: couple of the other ones, and you know, and they
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: all they all were unique though. I mean you wouldn't
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: confuse you know, Jason and Michael Myers, even though they
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: both sound the same fight described it to you. But
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: I mean they're both and the movies are completely different too,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: which is also a plus.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: Plus you got these great screen queens who came out
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: around then and build careers on their incredible vocals, you know,
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: like the great Screams.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: Plus. I mean, I think like with the film we
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: were doing, is you know, we.
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: Took technology out of it a lot, because that's something
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: you see a lot more push these days, where you'll
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: have like very technologically based horror movies, so like special
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: effects and stuff like US has very little real real effects.
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: There's a couple of blood things, but obviously honestly it's
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: you know, we did no practicals, no blood spurts.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: We just added a couple of blood things digitally. But yeah.
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: But but even like on top of that, like I
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: remember there was a movie a couple of years ago,
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: I think it was Unfriended or something where it's like
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: a horror movie that takes place over people's computers kind
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: of thing, And you know, I get the appeal when
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: you're trying to do the you know, appeal to the
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: younger generation and the computers and the cell phones and everything.
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: But there's something so unique about being detached from everyone
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: and being in a place where, you know, you're stuck
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: in the middle of nowhere and you don't have a computer,
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: you don't have a phone in the wood kind of thing,
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: you know, Yeah, yeah, where it's you know, that's it.
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: You're you're stuck with your own wits about you and
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: you know, good luck. So I think that that makes
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: it so much scarier when you when you take away
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: the screens that are sort of the fiction in our
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: own lives and you force people to sit there and
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: see people without all these little distractions in them.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: It was funny because when I went to a screenwriting
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: seminar one time, the instructor said, the first thing you
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: have to do when you sit down to write a
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: screenplay is figure out how cell phones won't work.
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: Yes, that's actually, like I kid you not, that's that's
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: a task in every screenplay, Like, especially if you want
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: it to be scary. You want to like, you know,
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: create ways for your characters to not get help. You
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: want to put obstacles because every time they have a
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: goal that they have to achieve, you have to put
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: at least one or two obstacles in their way.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: And like figuring out clever, real ways to not have
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: cell phone is like is an art, Like it's not.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: It's not uh, it's not easy.
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: You can't just be like the world has no cell phones.
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: Like that's not like a thing. Especially want to be real,
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: you know, like.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with you completely.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our spont sir,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: I never heard that being taught in a course, like,
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: but now that you say it, like, that's totally true.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: It really is a real important thing to do.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, because everyone has a cell phone nowadays.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: But and it's funny though, whenever I watch a horror
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: movie and they get no reception, you know, friends of mine,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: they're like, I'll come on seriously, and I go, look,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: I'm in my office sometimes, you know, and we're in
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: the middle of Philly right by of course, oh yeah,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: and I'm like leaning out the window, going all right,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I think Alma's got a bar here, and you know,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: and I have two phones. I have an iPhone and
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: an android, neither one gets any service, and I'm like,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: all right.
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: Well, actually the place where we were filming, we actually
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: had no survey, had legitually no service. This place was
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: as you've seen in the movie. It's like a six story,
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty five room abandoned hotel, you know,
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: in the middle of this little small town in upstate
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: New York that no one's ever heard of it. It's like,
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: we got it's got, we'll shut We'll shot it out though. Yeah,
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: Sharon Springs, it's where the soul for bats are. Sharon Springs.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Everyone, don't get me wrong. Everyone, there's awesome, but
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: it's fun. It's like really for it's like two three
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: and a half hours away from New York City at
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: least at least Yeah.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: We also drove up in the middle of a snowstorm,
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: so it took us closer to what eight hours maybe, yeah,
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: like eight hours when we first got up there was
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: great for the scenery, like are all our stuff is
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: snow covered? But in terms of like setting up, like
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: that first day of getting there was just literally an
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: eight hour drive through you know, a snowstorm, like twenty
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: twenty miles an hour up eighty seven, going all the
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: way up like past Albany and out towards Syracuse this place. Yeah,
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: and then when we got there that was the own
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: number of scary events to begin with.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, sorry, go ahead.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: No, I was just gonna say, did you guys document this?
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Did you guys like take out a like a mini
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: handheld or anything to document some of this?
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: We did not. We should have a Well here's the thing.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: So we did get a lot of behind the scenes
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: stuff when we were walking around at the abandoned hotel,
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: because we started hearing noises pretty early on and footsteps
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: were literally like when we first drove up there the
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: first time, there was like a flutter of noise in
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: the hotel and then it went real quiet, and it
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: was us too, and our cinematographer Marco and we we
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: we like all right away look at each other, like
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: you heard that right, It's like, yeah, we definitely heard that. So,
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: like we went in, we tried to get into this
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: place because it was all boarded up. We had to
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: undrill the doors and then put on a padlocks that
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: we could go in and out, and you know, we
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: walked in, we searched around like you could hear some
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: noise in different levels and we'd go quiet, So like
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: we kind of like were real creeped out. So we
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: put like a listening to a microphone and we recorded
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: a couple of hours of sound and then you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: we heard when we played it back later on that day,
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: like we heard all kinds of shuffling, all kinds of
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: random noises, but never any voices. So then like the
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: next day, we went in and basically like walked around
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: the whole place, and that's when we took footage. So
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: we have like, you know, an hour or so of
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: walk around footage on our YouTube page.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: That's like us literally just kind of.
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: Walking around this house kind of like telling whatever vagrants
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: might be there that we'd be shooting a film and
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: that they needed to clear out and that Like this
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: was like in the three or four days that the
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: three of us went up to kind of prep everything,
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: to make sure we had our shots set up, to
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: make sure our generator was working, to make sure we
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: had everything good to go so that when like the
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: rest of the crew and the actors came.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: Up, you know, we hit the ground running. Yeah.
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I remember that first day in the fresh
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: powder of the snow. I mean we found sets, multiple
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: sets of footprints all around the hotel trying to get in,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: so I.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Mean like right away we were kind of like, oh.
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: God, yeah, Like the landlords had told us, like the
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: real estate company that bought up the abandoned building, and
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: like they bought up a bunch of properties and we're
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: fixing up a different one. They're like, look, some vagrants,
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: even though they boarded it up, They're like some vagrants
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: during the colder winter months kind of try to come
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: through here and looking for shelter. If you see any,
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: just show them away.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: They'll leave.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: We're like, uh, We're like we're not really like qualified
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: or capable to do that, and like, you know, thankfully
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: we didn't see any, but like you know, there were
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: times people would come screaming around a corner because like
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: the wind in the window flickered the blinds and they
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: thought someone was in one of the rooms and they
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: come screaming around a corner, and that three of us
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: got to go with flashlights and like holding up like
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: a chair leg to make sure like nothing's going on.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: You know, Like mind you we were only filming at nights.
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: We were filming from like six pm to like you
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: know seven am the next day obviously with lunch breaks
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: and all that stuff.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was just it was like, yeah,
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: it was dead and night.
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: We had like all battery operated you know lights with
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: like blue gels on them for the moonlight, and then
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: like we had a generator running outside that we ran
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: like two hundred feet of taped together like extension cords
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: through windows so that we could get our smoke generator,
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: like our smoke machine working, because we want to haze
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: the whole floors for every shot. But we had to
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: have the generator outside because there's no like the whole
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: building has like no sprinklers, no uh you know, no
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: no uh no electricity and no power like, so we
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: couldn't have any kind of like combustible stuff inside. So
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: like it was cold as hell. You know, people's breath
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: was going up and like, yeah, it was I mean,
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: it was a crazy, crazy, crazy shoot. Like it was
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: really fun, it was awesome, but like you know, it was, uh,
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: it was as cold as it looked like it was, definitely,
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: and it was also pretty scary just in general just
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: being in that place. Yeah, I mean, especially because there
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: was one of the one of the first days, we
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: actually ended up finding a couple entrances wide open into
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: this hotel. One of them ends up being the main
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: entrance used by these kids in the movie. Literally was
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: just a door that was just wide open that you
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: could just walk through, no problem. Well, you had you
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: had to go through a little bit of a little
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: entryway in the back that was filled with litter and
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: debreed to get to the door. But the door itself
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: was open into the kitchen, so like if you knew
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: about it, like you.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Could get in there.
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we ended up chaining that up. But
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: then there was one day when we went back for
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: the chains and and like there was like glass shards
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: in the chain rope, like someone had put it there
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: to like booby trap it when we were trying to
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: untie it, and we're like, dude, that's kind of messed up.
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: Like there was definitely someone, well we think there could
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: potentially have been someone in the hotel. You know, it
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: was a large enough place and we were pretty loud
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: and noisy, so they could always probably stay away from us.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: But like you know, plus we never touched the basement.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: We never went to the base It was too scary.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: We went we went with the manager to like check
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: it out, and we literally went like to the bottom
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: of the stairs kind of like peaked left and right,
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: and even he was like, yeah.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Let's just go back upstairs. We all just went right back,
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: none of us.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: None of us the basement because it has no like
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: no windows, no lights, nothing like pitch black, and its
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: way through and it's like amazing, a.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: Huge yeah, yeah he was.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: He was like, yeah, like, if you want kids to
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: get lost in here, I'm sure you can make that happen.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: And we're like, no way, no, we're not trying to
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: get anyone, like actually, we're trying to get everyone back home.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll become like the Blair Witch Project. We're like,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: what the hell this basement.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: Being afraid that like suddenly like this would become a
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: found footage movie.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, And see, like filming in a place like
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: that is a journey of itself. And I mean, so
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask, you know, and also this is
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: a two part question here. I wanted to ask First,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: you know, Tony, you mentioned earlier about quitting your job
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: to make this film, So what was that, Like, I mean,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: and I want to ask too about you know, how
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: you guys went about producing this and even writing this.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: But I mean, Tony, at first, you know, you said
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: you wanted to quit your job, and so did you
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: just decide one day, I'm literally just gonna quit my job.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: I mean, so we went Christmas tree cutting. We always
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: go the weekend of Thanksgiving, so that I think we
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: might have gone on a Saturday. And I think literally
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: the next Monday or something that came home from work,
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, I'm quitting my job, so we're
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: we're gonna make this movie or something like, you know,
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: you know, let's do this. And for me, it was
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: something where I've always loved movies. I've been binging them
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: instead of doing real like school work and stuff like
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: that when I was a kid, and then that carried
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: on into adulthood instead of doing other stuff.
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: So just a real passion for movies.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: And I guess uh at some point I had the itch,
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: you know, to try to see what it was like
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: on the other side of things.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: So it was something that was in the back of
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: my head.
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: And then you know, when we were coming up with
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: this idea on the Christmas tree farm, and and I
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: sort of was toying with the idea over the weekend.
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: I was like, you know, this is this is doable,
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: Like this isn't something where you know, like this isn't
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: this this crazy blockbuster film that needs to be done
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: where it's like, you know, insane special effects and stuff
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: like this is a movie that we could actually make
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: and and hopefully make well. And I think it, you know,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: came out pretty good, especially for a first movie. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: uh so that to me was what was going through
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: my head. And I said that, you know, I have
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: I have plenty of time in life to uh to
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: do the to do the responsible quote unquote move and
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: not quit my job and make a movie. But I
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: don't know how many opportunities I'll have to really jump
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: on it. So I figured, uh, you know, might as
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: well strike while the you know, the embers are hot
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: and and see what happens.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: You know, I really like that settlement, Tony. I really
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: like that sediment because I think sometimes it happens, actually
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: most of the time, it happens in reverse where they
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: do the responsible thing first and they go to make
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: their movie and they're like, well, maybe I'll make it
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: the next year, next year, next year, and then it
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: never actually happens until you know they reach, you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: the age of I don't know what, you know, whatever,
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: whatever you want to be filling the blank, and then
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, it's like, well, now I have
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: a wife, I have kids, I have a mortgage, I
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: have a car payment. How the hell can I quit
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: my job to go make a movie?
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Exactly. I think there's a great line. I want
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: to say.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: It's someone like Bill Burr or someone I can't remember
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: exactly though, he says, you know, the scariest thing in
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: life isn't isn't sleeping on a futon when you're whatever, age,
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: it's it's waking up next to a wife you don't love,
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: with kids you hate, and a mortgage on your head
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: and a dead end job that you never want to
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: go back to.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: You know, that's the scariest thing. You know.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: I take sleeping on a futon every single time over that,
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: And and I think that's a that's a line that
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: sort of stayed with me ever since I first heard it.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: I think it's a great line because you know, that's
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: the truth. Too many people get roped into this this
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: sort of you know rat race we call life, and
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: and they end up in a position where they can't
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: take a gamble or take a chance on something, you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: because they've sort of put so many external, you know,
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: things on and and I feel like that to me
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: was my mentality. I said, you know, I'm in the
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: place where I don't have all these all this baggage,
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: all these different things on me, where I can take
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: this opportunity and not have a negatively impact you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: all these people like a wife and the kids and
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: all these things. So I said, Scarret, you know, like
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: if I want to do the responsible thing, I'll do
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: it in twenty years. But I'm gonna take a chance
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: right now.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's the thing too. Now it's almost in
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: today's world, it's almost if you don't take a chance,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: that's that's even riskier than than any than not taking
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: it chance.
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the grind sucks when no one wants to do
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: like the regular I mean it's yeah, like I had
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: a regular job for a while.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: And you know, it sucked.
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: Like being being a creative person and chasing stuff is
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: definitely better. It's definitely you know, it's more stressful, it's
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: less financially secure, but it's definitely satisfying.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you feel like you're actually making you know, you're
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: actually making a different you know what I mean. You
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: actually feels good, you know what I mean. It's not like, oh,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to work to make you know, to
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: do this their job. I really don't want anymore.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: Yees aually where you put like forty percent effort and
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: you surf the web all day, Like, what's the point?
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: You know, it's you know, it's not a way.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: I just want to do things, you know, spend the
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: next whatever amount of time.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's and I mean, hey, the reason I started
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: this podcast, man, I mean I was working at a
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: multimedia job at the college I graduated from, and they
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: passed me over for a promotion one day, and I
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: was like, listen, every day I get this shit kicked out.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Of me here.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: And I was and I have and like, you guys
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: aren't going to like reward me for it. Like I mean,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: I literally to be honest with you, Peter like and
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: and Tony, I was getting like every I was floor
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: from the time that I got in there to the
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: time I left I was just getting like ding, like
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: shit and yeah, and I was like, where's the reprieve here?
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: So like you know, and I mean, finally you just
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: got it. I started having something creative because I couldn't
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: make any movies because one I didn't have the time,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: and two I was just it was like non because
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: of the job. It's like non stop and you go
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: home and you're like you're carrying it with you, like
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: god damn it, I hate that guy.
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: You're sitting there time when you're working forty fifty hours
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: a week plus the commute, plus like you know, you're
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: not getting a full night sleep because you got to
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: get up early in the morning.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: It's hard to do things when you get home in
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: the evening. And on Saturday Sunday, you just want to chill,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: like you don't you don't want to like say, okay,
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go out a twelve hour day on set now,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: like I'm gonna go, you know, do something like creative
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: because you just don't have the energy for it. You
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: need to recharge, like it's super hot. You know.
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: I've been writing for a long time, and I used
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: to try to write on nights and weekends and like
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: you just don't get as much for productivity as you do,
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: like when you give it your good hours during the day,
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: like you're you know, ten to three pm and you're
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: like in a zone and you're energized and you're focused,
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: and it's like, you know, I'd rather have those hours
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: for myself than like give them away.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true. It's just it makes you. It's more fulfilling,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: you know, It's it's what you want to do, and
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: you know that that's why you know, you guys, you
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: know Tony, you quit your job and you guys went
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: out and made this film. So so just to you know,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: continue along with actually making you know, Killer Christmas. Did
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: you guys, you know, when you were writing the script,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: you know, was there any sort of do you guys
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: read you know, did you grab a book you know
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: from you know, the ten thousand screwwriting books out there,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: did you grab a book or did you just you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: just start writing.
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: I mean so like we came up with the idea
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: on like a broad stroke level, but like in terms
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: of writing it, like I mean personally, I've written seven
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: or eight scripts at this point. A couple of them
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: have you know, made some rounds, and like, you know,
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: I've learned how to write a script in terms of
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: like what is the you know, the three act concept,
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: plot point one, plot point two, the middle, you know,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: uh kind of defining moment, the changes, things like there's
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: in terms of structurally writing, like there's something I've been
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: working on, you know for the last about ten years now.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: I started in oh seven seriously writing. So like writing
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: the script was something like once we got the idea,
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: it was we we punched it out in about a
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: month writing you know, three or four hours a day,
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: every day, almost every day, five six days a week,
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: and then we had a first draft from we had
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: a first draft by New Year's we and then we
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: kind of like polished it up at the very beginning
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: of January.
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: But like in.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: Terms of writing, it's more of like it's like it's
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: this point, you know, It's it's like once you know
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: what you you so like the way I write at least,
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: and the way we've kind of right written together is
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: that like you know, we build our storyboard, we build
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: our concept, we figure out who our characters are. You
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: come up with the moments in your script. You've got
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: you know, your introductory Act one, who is everybody Well first,
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: at least the way I you know this one is
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: is you have an inciting event at the very beginning
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: which kind of sets the tone, and then after that
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: you have Act one, which tells you who the players are,
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: and then you have plot point one, which establishes a
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: goal for the players, something they're going to do.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: And then you have Act two A, which is essentially.
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: You know, the players on their journey, and then you
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: have something crazy that happens in the middle that flips
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: the journey on its head. And then you've got Act
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: two B, which is the reeling period where you know,
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: shit hit in the fan, and then you have plot
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: point two, which is the movement to regroup and like
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: the energized you know, a new goal is set and
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: you know stakes are heightened.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: And then you have PLoP, you know, the Act.
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: Three where it's you know, now you've got to go
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: do what you're setting out to do, whether it's escape
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: or you know, killer be killed or whatever it is, right,
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: and so like in terms of structure, you know, like
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: we build out our outline, we figure out who the
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: characters are and what they're doing in each one of
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: these moments of the script, and then you kind of
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: plot it out and like, you know, come up with
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: like a ten twelve page outline that basically lays out
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: every single scene. So we have just a whole you know,
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: kind of from beginning to end. We know scene one
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: is going to be a Scene two is going to
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: be you know, be, scene three is gonna be whatever.
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: And then in each one of these scenes, who the
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: characters are, what their motivations are, what their intents are, what,
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: you know, what they're trying to get, what's going on?
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: And then like what are you know, what is the
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: purpose of the scene, Like the scene is to you know,
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: establish who people are, or to lay kind of a
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: red herring, or to give motivation or to whatever.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: Right, And then after that's all kind.
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: Of laid out and you know your whole story and
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: you know your characters and you know the way the
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: plot line is going to work, then you start writing.
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: Then you say, okay, act one, scene one, page one.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: You know, I know that in this seat, I need
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: these ten things to happen, and now you just write it.
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: And then after you write the scenes and you get
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: it all down, you know, you start polishing, you start
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: working the dialogue, you ask friends to read it.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: You know, you get people's feedback.
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: You see if people are you know, characters or plot
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: lines are believable or not. Like we you know, we
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: are lucky that we have a large family and siblings
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: who are interested in our creative pursuits. So like they'll
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: give us pretty quick feedback. And I've got a few
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: friends who are readers who you all send them a
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: script and they'll they'll they'll, you know, within a few days,
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: they'll tell me what they think of it. And so,
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: you know, then we do a couple of rounds of polishing,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: and like, you know, by like mid January, we were.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Already cast it.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: You know, we were already in the cast process, and
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: like our script was pretty much done. But then when
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: we went to filming, you know, obviously, like we want,
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: we gave our cast like the script and you know
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: for rehearsals. And we had one rehearsal where they all
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: got to do a read through and kind of work
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: with each other a little bit and then they'd take
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: it home. But like our whole thing was like, you know,
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: you're not married to the words on the page. We
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: want you to like get the moment. We want you to, like,
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: you know, be there with the characters. So you know,
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: even if it's a couple of words off or even
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: if you bring something to your you know, your own
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: little flavor. Granted, some of the actors brought stuff we
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: didn't like and it ended up on the editing room floor.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: But some of the actors did things we didn't expect.
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: So like there's a give and take there, you know,
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: as long as you're hitting the main points of the
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: of the script, and like, you know, ninety percent of
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: it was as written, but you know there's some liberties
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: taken here and there, and you know, putting a button
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: on the scene or like you know, just giving it
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: your own kind of like creativity. So you got to
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: you know, we you know this the script is like
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: a living thing. It's never going to be you know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: if you if you right now transcribed the film after
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: the fact, and what you have right now at the
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: end product was probably never what it looked like at
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: any point along the way.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that, by the way, that was a really good,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: you know, screen that was almost like a screenwriting courson
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: of itself. By the way, that was really good.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Thanks man.
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: No, I've I mean, I'm a self taught screenwriter. I mean,
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: I uh, my training is as an attorney. So like
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: I worked, you know, really boring jobs, and you know,
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: I've looked at I know how to write.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: I'm a formulate writer.
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: But like in my mid twenties, I knew I hated
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: being you know, I hated the track I was on
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: and uh and you know, I basically decided, you know,
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: I wanted to be a writer. And so like, you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: I got all the books, I you know, wrote my
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: first couple of screenplays sucked. They still suck, you know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: but like you gotta it's it's all about repetition. It's
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: about exercise, it's about doing it over and over. It's
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: about you know, there's no one way to write it.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Well, be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: You get, you know, five different people's information, and then
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: you kind of build your own, your own method, and
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: no two screenplays you write are ever going to be
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: the same anyway, so they're not going to follow the
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: same method. They're just kind of generally going to have
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: the same bigger picture. And then you just you know,
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: you work with your specific details as they go as
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: they you know, on each one.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I think when you get into writing,
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: you know, you finding your own voice is really key
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: to all of this, you know. I know there's you know, thousands,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: like I said, there's like ten thousand screenwriting books out there.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: But until you actually add your own voice to all
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: of this and actually start to make your own special sauce,
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're just gonna it's almost like a boilerplate template,
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, It's almost like, well, you know,
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: you don't want to have something where somebody reading, well
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: anybody could have written this, you know, then you're just
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: sort of like a face in the crowd.
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: Sure, but the boilerplate template, like you have to like
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: you have to know how to write before you can
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: like write freely. So like the boilerplate template, it's good
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: to just say, Okay, you know, I can't be doing
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: Act one things in Act too. I can't be laying
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: out who introducing new people for the first time, you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: halfway through the script, because no one's gonna be able
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: to people are there's no foundation for it. So like
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: there's certain formulaic things that definitely you know that, I mean, yes,
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: you can be a super creative, avant garde director and
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: like throw everything on its head, but ninety percent of
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: films that actually reach the audience follow like the generic
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: you know, act one, act two, Act three, like template. Yeah,
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: you got to bring your own flavor all the way through.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: You gotta, you know, your characters have to have life,
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: they have to have purpose, you know, they have to
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: have their own individual voices. They can't you know, all
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: be like you know this this same kind of like
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: analogous person like you know.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: So it's yes, there's.
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of art to it, and there's a
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: lot of form, but I think like they're both just
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: as important when you're talking about like getting one hundred
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: page work or a ninety page work, Like you know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: there's there's a long, there's a long. There's like a
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: very big picture you have to put together, and then
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: you got to be really artistic within it.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like I you know, I've said before
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: in the podcast too, I think like the templates, the boilerplates,
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: you know, templates and stuff. I think it's a kind
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: of like training wheels. You know, you have to you know,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: get used to riding a bike and then you can
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: take them off and go, Okay, now you know, now
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: I've had experience riding a bike, and now I don't
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: need these these training wheels anymore.
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, yes, exactly exactly.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: So so as you you know, you actually, you know,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: wrote this draft of Killer Christmas. You know, you send
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: it to some people, you know, did a couple more drafts,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: and you finally had a shooting script. So now how
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: did you guys, You know, once you finally had that
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: draft that you were ready to shoot. You're ready to go.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: So how did you guys go about getting the location?
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Because this is just just a note before you before
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: you answer. I always say locations are the hardest things
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: for filmmakers to get, uh And sometimes filmmakers are aware
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: of it, sometimes they're not. Because you know, if you
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: have a big contact list, it makes location getting a
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: tad bit easier because usually locations went insurance. They want
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: to ask you like ten thousand questions about stuff, which
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: is all understandable. But you know, how did you guys
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: go about getting this whole entire Christmas tree farm?
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: So so the the Christmas tree farm and the and
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: the hotel, we're actually two different places in our mind.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: We actually like we went into this and we're like,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: oh sweet, we're going to use this location that we've
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: been to god knows how many years for how many
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: Thanksgiving weekends.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: It's cut the tree.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: So we we approach them and they're like, yeah, no, no,
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: we're not we're not a big fan of having people
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: running around screaming being murdered around here, and you know, shockingly,
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: So from there it was it was a lot of
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: online research. I mean, we were you know, for the
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: Christmas tree one. We were just looking up different farms
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: all over the place. We started visiting a couple and
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: the you know, within you know, a couple hour drive
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: of us, and then we ended up coming across this
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: very nice couple who had a great farm, but was
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: right by a highway and so you were getting a
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: lot of background noises, which was something that we hadn't
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: really thought about going into it, because you know, we
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: thought that the farms would be more secluded. They gave
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: us a pamphlet of a ton of tree farms. Then
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: we just started hitting up a bunch of those guys.
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: It was like a directory basically, yeah, of like tree
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: farms in the Northeast region. Oh yeah, so so we
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: started contacting a bunch of these guys, start going to
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: different farms. For some reason, every single time we visited
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: a farm, I just I really had to pee and
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: couldn't find a bathroom. So he literally on every we visited,
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: and he found a way to piss on every single one,
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: every single tree farm, I had to go pee. And
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: then funny enough, the one that we found and that
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: we ended up using was the only one I didn't
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: have to pee at, So maybe it was a sign,
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: a sign from my.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: Bladder, this is the one. Uh.
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: And then you know, as far as the the abandoned places,
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, we want to visit it all sorts of
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: places all over the place.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: I think there was like a girls what was it,
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: like an old girls school. I think one of them
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: was a penitentiary one. Yeah, Like we found like something
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: called like the Art of Abandonment. It's a website of
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: like it's like an urban exploring thing where people sneak
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: into abandoned places and they take pictures and they post
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: it up. So like we found a bunch of places
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: on this and then we started tracking down the owners
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: because like some of these places were you know, in
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: leans or in bankruptcy or completely abandoned, and like then
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: we started setting up meetings and driving around to places,
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: and like we were really lucky to find this hotel,
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, so we ended up
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: finding this hotel which is actually owned by this group
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: that owns a couple of different, big, big plots of
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: land in that in that Sharing Springs area, you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: trying to build bring the sulfur bats back, because that's
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: a big thing in Shared Springs. And so they had
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: just started to work on one of the plots of
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: land and we had approached them. Thankfully they hadn't touched
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: at their hotel, which is where we filmed. Yeah, and
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: we said, hey, you know, we're interested in filming here.
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: And you know, they were a bit hesitant at first
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: because obviously, you know, the whole running around people getting
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: killed and and all that stuff seems like, you know,
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: not the most ideal way to go about it. But uh,
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: you know, they were super cool with it. We ended
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: up you know, striking a deal with them, uh, you know,
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: a combination of cash and also we bought them of
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: this awesome four k drone that they could use to
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: track the progress of all the sites that they were
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: building up upon, and uh yeah, so they ended up
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: letting us go up there and film there and and
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: really make the place our own.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: And you know that that is absolutely freaking fantastic by
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: the way that you guys were able to go to
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: all these different places and also look them up online.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Because I'm telling you, you know that that that's why
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: what I mean by locations of the hardest thing to
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: find for for filmmakers, because you know, just being finding
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: a place that's cool with this stuff. See that, that's
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: what I mean, you know. And it's like I said
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: to Alex Ferrari and any film hustle, you know, there's
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: two things they usually ask They ask you well but
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: beyond if you have insurance, but they usually ask is
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: their nudity? And will there'll be blood? And you know
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: if and usually if.
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: It's we we actually had to get because of the
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: insurance things. They asked us those things and we didn't
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: do any nudity or any practical blood effects, So that
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: are so that we could get insured for these things.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and and and yeah, because I I've you know,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: dealt with insurance insurance before, and I remember one of
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: the questions on the actual form we were filling out
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: with the with the law firm they actually which actually
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: dealt with the insurance. They were like there was actually
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: a box that said will there be nudity? And then
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: there's another one said will there be you know, practical
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: effects like a lah gore except and they were listening
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: it all out and I'm like, wow, I've never seen
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: this before, but that that that's that stuck out my
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: mind because now every time you go to you to
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: film somewhere, that's like the two big questions they always ask,
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: well the nunity, well.
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: The big gore, yeah, And like we actual, yeah, we
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: had to we had to make sure that, you know,
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: we didn't do any blood stuff that you know, the
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: weapons we got were were not real weapons. So like
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: the weapons you see, we actually had them made at
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: some at a place called the Specialists in Brooklyn, Like
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: they do uh custom like props for all kinds of sets,
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: like real big movies, and they've got like a big
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: kind of armory with all kinds of weapons, and you know,
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: they do manufacturing of like they basically did our big
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: slasher knife and our little Bowie knife and both of
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: those things as real as they look are like rubber
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: on plastic with like you know, really nice paint and
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: like fine edging and trimming and stuff like so, so
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, we had to do all that stuff
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: to make sure insurance was like you know what would
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: actually ensure the production. We couldn't use any blood spot
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: even even like little like blood packets. We couldn't use
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: those anything that was attached to an actor that could
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: potentially pop on them or burn them or like you know,
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: all kinds of stuff. So like, yeah, it's real, it's
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: a it's a real concern, and like you know, obviously
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: the locations told us that we needed to provide insurance,
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: which we knew right away. So like you know, as
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: long as you get that done and you do everything
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: by the book, you know you can you can do
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: it and like you know, add it in later in
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: post production and shoot it in a way that you
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: don't need as much blood. Like it's really not as
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: gory as it's like, it's not gratuitously gory, you know. Yeah,
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: we're not looking at saw here, We're looking at more
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: classic Halloween.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you could I imagine too, because I guess
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: we were talking about gore and stuff like that. It's
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: kind of hard to you know, go into a place
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: and be like, you know, hey, we're just gonna spray
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: blood all over this place. I mean maybe you could
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: have did in the basement there, think I wouldn't have
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: find them, but.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: No one would have been down there. There would have
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: been blood already.
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but did you mentioned Alex At Indie Film Hustle,
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: we we wrote an article for them that was just
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: published last week. It's called how we made a four
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: K feature film for under fifty for under fifty grand,
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: and it has our whole budget breakdown in there.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: And it has like you know, we kind of just
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: wrote an article a step by step on like the
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: things we're talking about now, and like all kinds of
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: different you know, things you need to be looking out
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: for and like how much how much we spent on
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: like different line items and whatnot, so like that that's
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: out there. I mean, you know, Alex is a cool
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: person and you know, really helped us out and like let.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Us put our story up so it was it was
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: it was nice.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Alex is a good guy. Uh, and by the way, everyone,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna link to that in the show notes. That's
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: really freaking cool.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: Awesome, thank you, thank you. It's on our Facebook page.
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: That's that's that's that's the only place we know obviously,
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: except for it's on Indie Film Hustle in our Facebook page.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: So if you want Tony where you want to find it.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, cool, And I'll make sure to look that
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: the show notes. But and which is really really cool
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: because actually, you know, Alex I, we're really good friends.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: We talk all the time.
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: Awesome.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: And yeah, so it's good because you know, us indie
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: film podcasters, like we all stick together, like we all
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: know each other.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: But so you know, as you guys are making this,
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: you know, this being your first film, was there ever
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: a point in a time where you just said, what
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: the hell have we gotten ourselves into a lot?
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: That was I mean, but there's you know, yeah, there
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: are definitely fights and like, you know, all kinds of
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: tense moments and like, you know, things that like if
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: this thing doesn't happen, holy shit, we're done, Like everything's over.
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: Like we did all this fucking work for nothing, bro,
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: Like you know, so that you know, sometimes things just
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: rolled along and you were like, oh man, it's all
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: working out, it's all it's all come together, and then
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: like you'd hit something in your like holy shit, bro,
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: we're never like we we couldn't find a choir for
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: the longest and then suddenly we found a choir and
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: then it was expensive, but it was what we wanted, right,
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: Like it was these kids they're out in Utah. We
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: wanted this, like we want them to sing these creepy
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: Christmas songs.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Like you know, we got to do it. It took us
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: three months just to find them.
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: Let's let's do it right, like you know, the location stuff,
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: like it was tough to do. It was a drag,
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: Like I mean we were talking like there are days
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: we'd drive an eight hour round trip in the day
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: just to go check out four places, right like you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: and like eating lunch on the road and just being exhausted.
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: Be like, dude, we're never going to find a fucking
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: place that we can use, like especially because we were
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: trying to get something in that wintertime with the snow,
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: so you know, we were on a tight deadline with that.
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: So it's like, yeah, like we were doing it that Yeah,
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: like we were like basically like, yeah.
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: We want to shoot a month from now, and yeah,
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: like okay, no no one, you know, no one had
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: that availability. But we luckily found places that in February
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: were dead. Like a Christmas tree farm after Christmas doesn't
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: really do much until you know, this one has like
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: a flower like greenhouses and stuff, and they make like
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: flowers that they send down to New York City.
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: They're up in Red Hook, New York.
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: They're called uh it was j fw fw Battenfeld and
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: Son Christmas Tree Farms. But they do all kinds of
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: like flower things and they send them down to New
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: York or up to Boston and like that's kind of
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: what they do to make do in the winter, and
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: like they're like, yeah, man, Noody's in Christmas tree Farms.
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, like, dude, half the time there are people
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: out on snowbollills. They had like one hundred and thirty
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: acres and big like big hills and stuff. And we'd
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: be shooting on one hill and there'd be snowmobiles chilling
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: out ripping around on the next sail, and we got
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: to like be like, dude, can you guys keep it
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: down for like an hour so you can just like
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: keep shooting because you'd hear it in the background and
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: it's like, you know, we're trying to like do Yeah, it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: Was uh, sometimes it was sometimes it was awesome.
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: Sometimes it was like, you know, we're not you know,
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: we're on the brink of not of collapsing, right, but
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: like it never you know, once you're in it, like
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: there's no turning back, like there's you know, there's no like,
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: there's no quit like at this point. So you gotta
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: you gotta just keep doing it, you know.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the only the only way out is through.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, so what once you guys committed, you
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: just had to keep going. So and you know, being
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: again this being your first film, you know what was
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: what was just the number one biggest production issue, whether
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: it be a location, whether it be weather, whether it
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: be something that happened, and you know what was what
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: was that one biggest thing that that one biggest obstacle
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: you ever came.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: Sound.
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: Sound Yeah, sound is like sound is so under rated,
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: Like it's you know, because we were shooting, you know,
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere,
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: with everything battery operated. We were using like a shotgun
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: on a boom and you know, our sound guy. We
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: we also had a mic on the camera set up,
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: so we had two, two potential you know, versions of
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: anything that was said, and we're lucky we did because
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: sometimes one wasn't on, one wasn't working, one battery did this,
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: you know, one of them had bumps on it because
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: we were in the middle of the nowhere and like
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: someone would hit something or so like, sound is definitely,
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: you know, something that like you know, in hindsight, we
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: probably we I mean, it's it's good now because we
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: got like, you know, sound engineers to level out, you know,
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: all kinds of things and like that itself is obviously
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: a whole process, the post production process and then getting
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: arrangements for music and everything like that, and then doing
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: fully and then like, yeah, sound is definitely something that
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, on the next one, we will
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: we will give more.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: Focus to before we even start filming. Yeah, yeah, because sounds.
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: Sounds the one thing where it's if you watch a
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: movie and you don't recognize the sad or like you're
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: not paying attention to the sound at all, that means
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: it's done well. If you pay attention to the sound
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: that means.
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: It's done poorly.
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: You know, like it's one of those things where you
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: only notice it when it's bad, but not when it's good.
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: And so it's tricky.
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: It's tricky because you know, too many people underappreciate it,
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: and you know that's oking we definitely want to focus
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: more on going forward.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it sound is one of those things. I had
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: Kelly Baker on here, and he's a sound designer for
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: like all gust fans Ance films, and he actually wrote
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: a book and he about about sound design and he
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: said it's usually one of the last things that filmmakers
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: think about. And it's so true because even when I was,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: you know, making films and stuff, you know, you just
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: never really think about it until you actually need it
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: and you're like, oh shit, what am I going to
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: do it? You know, I really have it?
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Yeah, it's a very it's a very very
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: very true statement. So like that's definitely something like, you know,
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: in hindsight, we would have put more resources towards and like,
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: you know, but.
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: I think overall it turned out fine, but it couldn't
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: have it was it could have been easier.
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: It could have been easier, Yeah, it could have been
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: easier process.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and and see, and that's the thing, you know,
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: you got to take what is it, two steps forward,
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: one step back. And I mean now when you guys
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: go to your next project, you know, sound, you know,
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: you'll remember that that you know, this was important, you know,
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: and planning for that ahead of time, you know, And
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: and honestly we've all been there, you know.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and also.
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: Coordinating special effects in the pre production process because like
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: some of the VFX guy, like when we went out,
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: you know and found a young kid from like Brooklyn
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: who did a lot of our VFX and color grading
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: for us, and he gave us a few suggestions and
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: like he had questions for the DP that like, it
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: would have been good for them to have a conversation
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: before we did the lighting arrangement so that they could
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: get the same page about what we were trying to
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: do to get certain right the right type of color.
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: We got to the color we wanted, but there could
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: have been fewer steps if they were coordinated before we
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: shot stuff. Really yeah, I think I think for us,
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: we looked at it as a three phase thing where
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: it's pre production, production, post production. When it is true
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: that you have those three steps, but really they're they're
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: so intermingled in ways that you don't even think about
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: in the beginning that that you know, at least for me,
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: I'd say, I wish that we had known some of
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: the post production things in the pre production spot, just
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: so that we could have everyone on the same page,
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: make sure that we could, you know, keep things as
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: tight as possible.
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: So, like I think that the the the lesson learned
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: is anyone who's going to touch it in post production
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: should be involved in the pre production process absolutely, so
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: they know what they're getting into, and so the person
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: who's handling the actual production knows what to be giving them,
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: knows what they're expecting.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right exactly. And that goes in with deliverables too,
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that, you know, where it's you know,
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: coordinating everything, you know, coordinating the effects and stuff like that.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: I was going to shoot one time and the cinematographer
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: and the set designer we're not on the same page.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: And the cinematographer walks into the set and goes, what
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: the fuck is this? He goes, this is completely wrong,
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: he goes, he goes, I told him not to paint
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: the walls this color, he goes, because I mean and
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: they and him and everyone, all the people who were
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: like the director, of the cinematographer and the producers, they
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: all went outside and it's like, I guess they had
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: to have this big meeting because I guess the ship
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: had hit the well, I know, this should had hit
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: the fan. And it was like, you know this this
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: is because and the cinematographer I remember passing him, he goes,
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: see this is what happens. He goes when the set
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: designer doesn't fucking listen, and he's like, this is what happens.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: And and they ended up having to just to just
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: to uh like really, uh, what's what we're looking for here?
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: Just think on the fly. I guess so just they
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: had to sort of jerryig something else completely, but you know,
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: stuff like that, you know, and uh but you know,
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: you know, I but see again, two steps forward, one
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: steps back, you know. And that's why you guys got
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: to take it into your into your next project. But
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you know, as we already talked
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: about how you edited it and how you you know,
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: put put this all together. You know, here's the big
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: key now is distribution so what do you what do
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: you guys plans? Where can people see kill a Christmas.
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: At So we used an aggregator called Juice. It's like
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: one of the recommended aggregators by iTunes, And what they
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: do is they're they're kind of like the new way
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: to do do it yourself indie distribution.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: You pay an a la carte fee.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: It's about thirteen fourteen hundred bucks for the first platform
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: you submit to and then maybe about two fifty three
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: hundred for each subsequent platform. So as long as your
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: movie is up to spec in terms of all of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: the technical stuff, you submit it to Juice and then
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: they go through a whole QC process to make sure
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: that it's gonna be something that is going to be
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: approved by the platforms. And these platforms don't accept direct
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: submissions from you know, us lay people. They basically only
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: accept it from big time studios and like, you know,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: reputable production houses as well as these aggregators. So, like
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: it was a back and forth process to make sure,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: you know, we had to do a couple of corrections
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: to get it up to spec. For them, like in
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: their QC process. But then after that it was like,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: you know, we paid a few thousand bucks and we
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: will be on cable video on demand, so about seventy
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: five million cable boxes in the US, and then we'll
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: be on iTunes, we'll be on Google Play, we'll be
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: on Amazon Direct, we'll be on Microsoft Network, and we'll
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: be on Sony PlayStation Network. And it comes out November
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: twenty second, so the Wednesday of Thanksgiving.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, something to watch with the family. Yeah. Man, it's
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: a family treat, bro exactly.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: Kids will get something, they also get something and everyone
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: in between, Yeah and everyone.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: I'm going to link to that in the show notes,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: by the way, wherever you can check out Killer Christmas.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: And I also I'm going to check out Juice by
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: the way. That's interesting, and I'm going to link to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: that in the show notes as well. Because I have
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: Jason Brubaker on here a lot and he works for Distriber.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: We always talk about different aggregators and stuff like that.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: Haven't heard of Juice yet, but I'm gonna check it out.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: But like we'd searched, we'd like researched a few of them,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: and like we'd had conversations with their customer service people,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: and like they were the ones we felt most like
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: comfortable with, Like they're very hands on. They're based out
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: of Canada. They work with Ubiquity, and Ubiquities is essentially
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: the clearing house for cable on demand, so a lot
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: of the aggregators have to go through Ubiquity anyway to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: get on cable boxes. But Ubiquity basically picked one of
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: the aggregators last year and purchased them. So if Ubiquity
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: bought Juice, so we went with Juice because they are
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: basically the the like the child company of the of
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: the cable clearing house.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: So like, plus every interaction we've had with them, i mean.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: They're really good, very professional, you know, they they they're
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: great at like great responsiveness.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: I mean they're constantly going, you know, questions back and forth.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: And even their.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: Website, I mean they've got something that we really liked
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: was they've got so much information on their website that
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: is open for anyone to.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: Pick up and look at.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so if you're someone who's considering or if you're
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: someone who's going through the process and trying to get
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: more clarity on things, it's very out in the open
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: and you know there's no restriction of information.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, Their effic is really very thorough.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. And I think also too, I think that's
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: where we're going. Where is is it's more of open
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: and honest data. I think, especially for guys in our industry,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: you know, I think for for stuff like this, I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: think you know, there there will be places like that
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: where it isn't open, open and honest, where you know
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: it used to be so closed, you know, it just
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: be everyone had would have just everything was behind closed doors.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: And I don't think that everything's gonna be out in
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: the open, but it's gonna be a lot more about
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: you know, hey, look, you know this is how the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: process is going to work with us, and we're not
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: just gonna buy your movie and then throw it into
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: you know, a pile or put it one of those
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: DVD packs or whatever, you know what I mean, like or.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: What have you.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: And I know, we've got a great dashboard, like they
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: show us like the different platforms, the exact red new streams,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: a number of sales, so like it's very like it's
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: really like a lot of info and like that's great
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: because you get to really track what you're doing, and
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: like the same thing goes like we're doing a whole
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: marketing effort with YouTube. We're basically like putting our trailer
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: before videos, like so you have to wait a certain
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: amount of time to skip it. And then we're doing
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: like display ads on like Google with just a poster
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: where it like pops up in the sidebar or like
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: as a recommended whatever. And then we're gonna we're doing
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: we're like boosting those two things we're doing now, and
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: those two things basically give you like all kinds of
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: metrics and information like the same thing, like you could
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: see like your you know, everything from cost your perview
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: to like the average time people watch to like all
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: these different measurable stuff. And then like we're as of
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: the twenty second the day we launch, we're also going
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: to be doing like you know, Facebook boosting and like
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: Instagram ads like where the video are like we'll have
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: a couple of gifts from the like from the film,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: like nice little scare moments that'll be popping up at
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: people's video feeds. So like all this stuff is like
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: you know, accessible through very user friendly like dashboards where
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: you know, as long as you're putting in the right
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: kind of media and you can you know, navigate around
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: a little bit, like you could run your own ad
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: campaign and then on the distribution platform with Juice, you
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: could you know, run your whole distribution campaign. And this
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: is all do it yourself at this point, like you know,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: it's really like yeah, I mean it's crazy, Like it
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: really is crazy. You can start your own production company
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: and and make your own film and all of these
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: tools are accessible to you. Yeah, and that's something that
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: you know, we were approached by a number of sales
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: agents about Killer Christmas, and you know, something that we
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: that we noticed and that we were hesitant with was
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: you know, we're asking about the availability of a lot
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: of these metrics and a lot of these numbers. Like
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: you know, once it goes in house, you know, you
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: won't really see the specifics, you know. Yeah, Well, and
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: that's us was like, that's the most important piece of information.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 5: You want to know who's looking at it. You want
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: to know how much people are watching it. You want
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: to know all this data so you could target ONDI
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: is better and also make sure that you get your
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: bottom line paycheck.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: Plus they also take twenty five percent off the top
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: plus they take up to like twenty five to forty
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: K and marketing expenses and other you know, going to
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: road shows and going to like the the film marketplaces
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: and things like that, and you know, it just becomes
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: something where once you really like, you dig in, you
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: pick their brains, you figure out what they're trying to do,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: and then you look around the web and you're like, well,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: we can do every single one of these things ourselves
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: without you know, basically getting gutted by some shark, so
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: like you know, and having total control over it too.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's sort of where it comes in is,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: you know, if somebody does buy the buy the movie,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: and this is for anybody out there, someone does buy
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: your movie, you know how you know, what is the
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: marketing for? You know, how are they going to get
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: the word out? How they going to get people to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: not only just not even just buy it, but just
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: go to the landing page, you know. And that's sort
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: of you know, I was talking about this to a
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: couple of other filmmakers last week, not even on the podcast,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: and they were saying, you know, we just don't want
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: to sell our movie to some body, and then it
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: just they just put it up on uh you know,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: uh or some site and then it's like nobody says
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: a word about it, and it's like you know what
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's like almost like a So it's almost
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: like a low risk for them, but it's a high
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: risk for you because you're like, well, well, now I'm
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: my own marketing team, and hell I could have just
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: did what you just did, So why did I even
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: cut you in in the first place.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: That's exactly what that's that's that's what went through our buying.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: So yeah, so we've really just done like we do
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: all our own marketing or all our own pr we
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: reach out, you know, every day we reach out to
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: new people. You know, we're we're tweeting at people, or
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: we're like you know, like emailing people or looking up
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: like you know, going through IODB pro and finding another
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 5: dozen you know, uh, you know, critics or like whatever.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 5: So like, you know, if you're constantly doing your own work,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: no one's gonna work harder for you than you are.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 5: Like that's just kind of the truth, you know. And
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 5: these people are happy to just buy a thousand of
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: these films because one of them will actually just hit organically,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: but everyone else kind of loses out and like they
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: get paid no matter what on the aggregate. So like,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: you know, as an individual filmmaker, like no one, no
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: one cares about you more than you do, so you
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: got to do it yourself.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: Yes, very very true, guys, And I think that's an
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: excellent way to sort of put a period at the
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: end of this whole conversation. Guys, where can people find
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: you out online?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: Killer Christmas dot com and Shaker Productions dot com. We
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: also have a Killer Christmas Facebook page and a Shaker
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: Productions YouTube channel as well as an Instagram.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, as a Shaker Productions Instagram as well, So
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: we're on all the socials and whatnot.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: Cool and I will link to that in the show
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: notes everybody. It's at Dave Bullis dot com. Twitter, It's
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: at Dave Underscore Bullets. And by the way, I'm gonna
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: follow you guys. I'm sorry, I'm gonna subscribe to you
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: guys on YouTube. I'm getting more, more and more into YouTube,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: so I'm gonna subscribe to you guys probably tonight. And
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: because I think YouTube is really is I mean, honestly,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: that's like the social media for guys like us. You know,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: if you're in the film industry, you have to be
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: on and like somebody like YouTube, YouTube or Vimeo or something.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so it just behooves it, you know. So uh,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: you know, And I want to say Pete and and Tony,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: thanks you so much for coming on the show, guys.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: And uh you know, yeah serious, you're like the man.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: We really appreciate your time to Oh oh thank you.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: I try, guys, I try, but no, it's great. And again,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: I'm always glad to talk to filmmakers who are actually
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: out there doing stuff. And again, you live probably what
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: you know, four hours for me, maybe less, not even.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: We could probably make two, like under three, maybe two
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: two and a half hours, depending on like you know,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: if it's the middle of the.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: Night in the zone traffic. So yeah, we'll get up
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: for a drink.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: Bro, Yeah, yes, seriously, let's meet up for a drink.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: I got other friends too, I gotta I have in
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: Jersey and New York. I gotta go meet h GT
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: meet up somewhere with someday, because you know, you meet
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: all these people and I'm like, man, I got all
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: these all these people I gotta go talk to and
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: it's like, or go meet and eventually because you talk
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: to them or something, you know what I mean. It's
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: just you know, eventually. Cool awesome guys, and uh, you know,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: we'll grab a drink sometime and uh.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: You know, we'll go to a pizza place in Jersey,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, well I'll take you to the real places.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and gems and people who plays like that. You
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: got more of those?
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you got. You gotta go to like uh Steve's,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: Steve's Prince of Steaks. You gotta go to like John's
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Rose Pork.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: These are where the real Philadelphians go. Man, all right,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: we will do that though, guys, I get I wish
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: you the best, and uh, I have a great Thanksgiving
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: by the way, as we're talking about, oh, thank you guys,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: So everyone listening to this, I have a great Thanksgiving
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: as well. And uh, check out Killer Christmas by the way.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: It's fun for the whole family. Uh, you know, check
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: it out. Seriously, the kids will love it. So everyone,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: I'll linked again. I'm gonna link to everything in the
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: show notes and have a great night. Guys.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: Thank you, too, Kah.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie Film Muscle
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: dot com Forward slash seven eighty two, and if you
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you again so much for listening to guys.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: E F I L M h U S T l
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: E dot com.