Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 433: No Film School, No Problem Gary King's Journey of Grit and Creativity

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BPS 433: No Film School, No Problem Gary King's Journey of Grit and Creativity · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four thirty three.
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  Speaker 1: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
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  Speaker 4: No, it's my pleasure, Gary, because you are a person
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: who I've had, who I've had, who I've wanted to
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: have on here for a while. You see, I'm already
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: messing up Grey. You see that I've had to I
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: wanted to have you on here for a while. And
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: I know I say that a lot, but honestly, you
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: and I have you know, talked briefly before via face
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  Speaker 4: Book and Twitter, and then there was like a gap
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  Speaker 4: and then we were talking briefly again. So you know,
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  Speaker 4: you're just a person who I met years ago, who
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  Speaker 4: I now get to have in this medium, and it's
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  Speaker 4: so good to actually reconnect and and you know, do
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: something like this.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's just so cool, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, man, I appreciate again you inviting me, because Twitter,
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  Speaker 5: you know, years ago, was actually a great place to
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  Speaker 5: network and meet people, actually physically meet people after you
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: connect online, and it's changed a little bit into more
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  Speaker 5: of like a news feed. So I appreciate the fact
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  Speaker 5: that you would follow up or you did keep in touch,
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  Speaker 5: because I think we did meet years ago when it
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: kind of first started. And I've just seen you blow
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: up and I have to kind of do a little
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: side note here and say, your voice and your style
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: reminds me of like an eighties DJ, back when I
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: was like commuting to school. I'm kind of old, you know,
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  Speaker 5: so you know there was these like shock jock DJs,
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  Speaker 5: not that you do a lot of cussing and you know,
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  Speaker 5: all these weird kind of antics and stuff, but you
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  Speaker 5: have that voice that really draws you in and stuff,
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  Speaker 5: and so you know, I think this is a really
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  Speaker 5: cool thing that you're doing.
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  Speaker 3: Gary. That is a huge compliment because I love the eighties.
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  Speaker 4: It was the best era of all time and in
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: the in the course of all human history, the eighties
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: is still the best time to ever be alive, and
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  Speaker 4: I appreciate that so much.
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  Speaker 3: Now my ego is going to be out of control now, Gary.
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  Speaker 6: It is. It is.
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  Speaker 5: It'd be like just to feed you get one more time,
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: Like you would be like one of the guys in
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: rotation at WKRP.
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, hey, this is David Gay RP. And I'd
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  Speaker 4: have like a horn or something like, you know, like exactly,
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  Speaker 4: and you're like, man, this guy's either you think he's
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: brilliant or or your dad would be driving and be like,
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  Speaker 4: what the hell is this clown doing on the radio?
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  Speaker 6: Exactly, Man, exactly.
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  Speaker 4: So Gary, you and I again because we met a
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  Speaker 4: few years ago, but you and I actually have a
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  Speaker 4: same sorry, a similar trajectory, a similar a similar career
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  Speaker 4: path because you actually started out in IT and and
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: development and stuff like that, and then you moved to
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  Speaker 4: New York to become a filmmaker. And I want to
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: ask about that, just the sort of stories at the beginning.
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  Speaker 4: So I assume went to college for maybe computer science
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  Speaker 4: or something similar. So at what point did were you
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  Speaker 4: draw into like the IT work? I mean, were you
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  Speaker 4: always a big IT guy growing up?
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  Speaker 5: Actually it was HR and not IT because I'm not
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  Speaker 5: really technical.
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  Speaker 6: I actually suck at that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 5: My brother was the engineer of the family, and I
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  Speaker 5: went and fell into psychology for a while and got
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: a degree in psychology and did human resources for five years,
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  Speaker 5: and it just wasn't a creative world, you know, like
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  Speaker 5: HR is all about rules and regulations, hiring and firing,
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  Speaker 5: and it's just kind of a very depressing realm that
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: you live in. And after five years, there was kind
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: of some way offs going around where it made me
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  Speaker 5: kind of wake up from what I was doing what
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  Speaker 5: I really wanted to do. And I was very lucky
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  Speaker 5: having my wife answered me when I told her I
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  Speaker 5: wanted to make films for a living instead of what
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  Speaker 5: the hell are you talking about? Her? You know, there
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  Speaker 5: was nothing like that. She just said to me, Okay,
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  Speaker 5: so let's figure out how we're going to get you there.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, it was like the perfect response. And this
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: was like mid two thousands and yeah. So we've been
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: going at it for a long time and every film
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  Speaker 5: that I do just gets me closer to the goal.
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  Speaker 6: But I'm definitely not even close to where I want
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  Speaker 6: to be.
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  Speaker 5: But it was definitely something where I had a love
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  Speaker 5: for it growing up because my parents showed me all
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  Speaker 5: these types of movies from different genres into fin errors
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  Speaker 5: when I was a kid, and that stuck with me
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  Speaker 5: the whole time.
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  Speaker 6: Even when I went and.
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  Speaker 5: Studied psychology, I didn't realize there was film school. I
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  Speaker 5: didn't realize people made films for a living, and that
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  Speaker 5: was part of the issue. That's why I didn't go
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  Speaker 5: to film school. I studied something else. But thankfully, as
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: you know, nowadays, you don't actually have to go to
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  Speaker 5: film school. You actually have to just go make films.
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  Speaker 5: And that's part of the process of learning.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, because you know, everyone has a camera nowadays and
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  Speaker 4: even making practice films. And you know that's something that
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: has been talked about in this podcast through a myriad
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: of guests, is just that if even if you don't
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: have access to me maybe like a red package or
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: or like an a Sony was the Airflex package, you
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: know you have even if you take your phone and
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: do it like Mark Duplas says, and just make a
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  Speaker 4: movie in your backyard for a hundred bucks or whatever.
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  Speaker 4: It's all training to build you, to make you get
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  Speaker 4: better so you can do other things, to do more
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  Speaker 4: things to do. Incident, now instead of one hundred dollar budget,
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  Speaker 4: you got a two undred dollars budget, and then you
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  Speaker 4: just keep moving forward.
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  Speaker 6: Exactly, man, exactly.
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  Speaker 5: There's nothing more educational than going and like writing something,
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: trying to translate it from the page to the screen
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  Speaker 5: by working with your crew, working with actors, trying to
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  Speaker 5: produce the damn thing, you know, and then you're trying
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: to edit the footage to make it seem like you know,
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: you had some type of you know, idea that was
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  Speaker 5: that made sense at the time. There's like I'm paraphrasing
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: Woody Yellen when he says something like I have this
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  Speaker 5: perfect film idea in my head and then I slowly
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  Speaker 5: mess it up as I write it and direct it,
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  Speaker 5: and you know, all that defini when it comes out.
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  Speaker 5: So it's such a learning lesson to do every film.
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  Speaker 5: I'm still learning. And the funny thing is, you know,
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  Speaker 5: all my films, the feature films that've done, are out
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  Speaker 5: there and it's basically my film school.
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  Speaker 6: They're almost like student films if you think about it.
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  Speaker 4: You know, So you were talking about Woody Allen and
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  Speaker 4: that that's also a guy who you know, some of
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: the things that he talks about and some of the
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: pointed things that he says are just like you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: that's exactly what my problem is.
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  Speaker 3: You know, yeah, that's what I was doing.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, just to take a
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  Speaker 4: step back, you know, I want to talk about just
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: in your background you mentioned HR and see this is
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: me Gary. When I see Silicon Valley, I'm immediately like,
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  Speaker 4: okay it guy coding, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, something with computer science.
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  Speaker 4: But so you worked in the corporate world, and that
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  Speaker 4: that's where I was, you know, about what a year
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  Speaker 4: ago or so, I worked at a college and it
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  Speaker 4: was just like, you realize, you don't.
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  Speaker 3: Want to do it anymore.
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  Speaker 4: It's such a grind. So you moved down to New
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  Speaker 4: York to become a filmmaker. I mean, did you, I
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: mean just to sort of to dig a little deeper
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  Speaker 4: into that. Did you have a plan that this was
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  Speaker 4: going to be it drive like a day that you
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: sat and said, listen, I'm not going to work this
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  Speaker 4: job anymore beyond this day and I'm just going to
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  Speaker 4: go to New York and become a filmmaker.
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  Speaker 3: Or did you sort of just do it on a whim?
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  Speaker 6: It was kind of it was a loose plan.
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  Speaker 5: It was definitely My wife had friends and family out
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  Speaker 5: in New York, so we we were living in the
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: BA area Silicon Valley, and we said, okay, New York
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: or LA are probably the two most prominent places where
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: we can get stuff down done in network and all
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: that stuff. And she's from upstate New York, so a
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: lot of her friends actually moved down into the city
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: and had she worked for the hospitality industry, so she
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: put out feelers to both New York and LA and
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: I just said, okay, so wherever you land your job,
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: that's Fate telling us that's where we need to go.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: And those are the people I'm supposed to meet because
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: I had no connections, and it just figured, you know,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: I was just going to let you know, Fate play
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: a hand and who I'm going to work with, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: what kind of stories I'm going to tell, what kind
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: of locations we're going to use, And it ended up
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: being New York and it was an amazing experience. Again,
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: the part of the plan was my wife was going
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: to have the stable job while I was just starting fresh.
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: We did cash out my four and one K, which
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: wasn't much after go to Uncle Sam took taxes away,
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: but we used that to make my first feature film.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: I saved up a little bit more and when we
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: moved out there, I made contexts by doing some web
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: commercials and doing some other smaller projects first to build
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: up a network of people that saw my passion, saw
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: what I was trying to do, knew there wasn't much
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: money in it, but because of the story I written
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: and the things that I wanted to do, they were
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: in it for a little pay, knowing that we were
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: going to try to make something that was going to
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: get a lot of exposure for them.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: So when you made that first film, Gary, did you
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: write for the budget? And no, Hey, listen, I can't
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: make a huge action film.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: I can't make a four million dollar action film or
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: something like that. So did you write knowing this has
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: to be a small, compacted film? Small not obviously, you know,
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: it's professional and everything. I just met like small as
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: in scope again because we're not right, We're not trying
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: to make a four million dollar action film.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: So yes and no.
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: Because my first feature film was called New York Lately,
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: and at the time I was really inspired by Robert
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: Altman and Pete t. Anderson and very a kaleidoscope of characters,
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: you know, following multiple storylines like shortcuts and boogie nights.
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: The thing was, I also picked.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: That type of project because I was asking at the
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: time actors to work for no money. It would just
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: be the wonderful meals, copy and credit. So what I
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: wanted to do was have a lot of characters so
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: that each actor was only committing three to four days
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: of filming. It would still be a feature film, but
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: you know, the majority of actors were only committing three
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: to five days of their time and not like sixteen
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty five days of no pay, because I really
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: feel like shit if I was doing that. But this
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: was something we were casting a lot of newcomers, a
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: lot of people that hadn't had a lot of experience
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: at the time.
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: One of them actually is blown up.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: She's on You're the Worst is Kelvin donnaghue, and she
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: was in a small role in my film at the time.
• 11:13
  Speaker 6: She had some credits and she filmed for one day,
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: you know.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: So it was kind of just trying to be practical
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: about asking for people's time and commitment, knowing you weren't
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: paying to make a multiple storyline, a lot of actors
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: and characters, and then just being inspired by the type
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: of films at that time that I was digging. So
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: I just wanted to kind of combine those two.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: So let me ask you this, Gary, did you ever
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: when Heather got you know, was just got that a level,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: elite level, did you try to reach out to her
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: and she say, who are you or something like that.
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: Actually, no, you know, the funny thing was I moved
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: to LA right, I think as she booked it, or
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: was a little bit before she booked it. So she
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: moved to LA before I did, about four years ago
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: or something like that, and we connected for dinner and uh,
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: you know, just cut up and then she booked it.
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: And so you know, she.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: Definitely thanked me when I text her, like holy shit,
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: congrats and stuff. And I mean, obviously he's busy now,
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: so she won't write me back is often, but she
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: definitely does respond.
• 12:19
  Speaker 6: She's a very sweet girl.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know that's awesome. And uh, you know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: I always make that joke with friends of mine if
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: any of us ever, you know, won a contest or
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: got distribution, it'd be like, immediately it all goes to
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: your head.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: And become you know, like your ego just gets that
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: so out of whack.
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: And we all make that joke with each other that
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: like as soon as one of us hits like, we're
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: not going to know anybody anymore, You're just gonna be
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: a big time with everybody.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: It's almost like you make it and you like buy
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: a new phone and don't import your contact so you're like,
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: you're like, who the hell is this now? Like you're
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: not gonna you know, told you're gonna change your whole
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: like click of people or something that'd be that would
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: be actually pretty.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Terrible, And you know that that's the dream, Gary, that's
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: the dream. No, I'm just kidding. If everyone listening, I'm
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: just making a joke. I don't want people writing me
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: more hate mail. But but but walking aside, Gary, just
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: to get back.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: To, you know, to your career.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: One thing that you taught me, and this was what
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: you taught me a few years ago, which I've always
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: kept with me, was when you're filming a movie and
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: and you're the director and you're directing these actors and
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: you're going through take and take and take. One thing
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: you taught me that I always keep with me is
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: each take you need to have a variation of something
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: so that way, when you're editing, you have choices to
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: go through. And as as you know pointed as that is.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: For some reason, when I was making my first films,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: I don't know why, I'd never thought of just even
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: trying to do anything different, because like my early films,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: everything was like every everything was the same, Like every
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: take was literally like exactly the same. And when you
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: told me that, I was like, oh, yeah, that actually
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: makes a lot of sense, you know what I mean,
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: And you make those adjustments. So so that's something Gary
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: that you've taught me that I've kept with me is
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: just you gotta you gotta have those choices when you're
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: in the editing room.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Man, that's funny because that basically happened on my
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: first short film. When I was sitting there reviewing the
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: footage with my brother. He was like, dude, like every take,
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: like all these takes are the same thing. You didn't
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: deal with do anything else, So am I what are
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: you trying to even choose? Except like if his hand,
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: you know, happens to like randomly lift up at this
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: line versus this other line, or whatever you know, but
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: basically I hadn't on that first film, didn't tell me
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: to do anything different because I was just looking for
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: this single thing. I was so focused. I'm trying to
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: get this one thing that you know, I didn't really
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: ask them to play around. But I mean directors have
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: different techniques. Some people like definitely have one single thing
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: in mind and they're just trying to nail that one thing.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: And that's what it is. And I've heard other actors
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: say that, you know, why do I want to play
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: around with stuff? Like, just tell me what you want,
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna nail it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: So it's funny.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: It's like it's it's this kind of organic thing that
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: you feel on set. You know what you want and
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: you have to feel out how the actor and how
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: the actor works and stuff. So it's it's it's really
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: really a weird thing to work as a director because
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: you actually don't get to do it a lot.
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: Or not me, I don't get to do it a lot.
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: You there's like years in between times when you're on set.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: You can do some smaller short projects or things like that.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: But when you think about it, the director, if you're fortunate,
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: maybe you get to do two or three projects a year.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: If you're you know, if you're playing around a lot more,
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: that's great. But if you're doing like really big projects
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: with a lot of money, the opportunity to work with
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: actors is not as much. When the you know, when
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: the money's going, when the crew is there and everything's
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: on the line, like there's not you don't get to
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: do that very often. So it's not like you get
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: a lot of practice.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and very true.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: And you know that's why again we're talking about making
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: movies yourself with you know, even just for practice, so
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: that way when you do actually get up to the plate,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: you know, you're actually able to sort of make the most.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Of every every single take and everything.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: And you know, as we sort of you know, talk
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: about that, you know, these directing styles. One thing too,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: I forget who taught me this, but basically I think
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: I think I maybe heard it from somebody. But he
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: said what he would do is he would just let
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: he would let the actors go the first take was
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: with no direction. They would just go through the script
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: and then he then he would slowly come back in
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: and start making adjustments here or there. And you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: some people are you know maybe their their third take
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: is always going to be their best for some weird reason,
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: and then the other actor always has their best take
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: is like the first take, you know, and just sort
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: of working and knowing everybody sort of ticks like that
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: or knowing that sort of thing. You know, that also
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: helps repair, which is also why Gary, I've noticed a
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: lot of directors always work with the same actors over
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: and over again.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: Right, very true, very true. A part of the rehearsal process,
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: if I'm lucky to get it, is finding out actors
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: working style.
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: Some people love to be told exactly what to do,
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: like look here at this line and look there, and
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: others want to be told what's my motivation? Like why
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: am I doing this? I need to know and feel
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: organically if you need me to go over here or
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: do this, like tell me like my internal characters motivation
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: or behaviors or thoughts to be.
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: Able to do that.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: So you can always explore that working relationship in rehearsals
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: if you have a luxury. But you're right, it is
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: funny because as you start filming, you realize, damn this
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: this one actress, Okay, her best takes or take one
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: and two, and then it just starts to you know,
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: fills a lot because she comes out of gates like boom,
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: you know, right there. And then there's others where like,
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: you know, we're not really going to get anything good
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: until takes four, five, and six, because we've consistently seen that,
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: and you start, you know, you know, switching up your
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: shot lists because of that, which is hilarious. So, I mean,
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: there's so so many different things going on set as
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: a director. It's funny that you got to think about
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: things like that. And I'm talking to you about this
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: because not really, it doesn't get talked about a lot
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: until you actually do it and you realize, oh, that's
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: how it works, you know, although I see, like books
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: don't tell you this kind of stuff a lot of
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: the time.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's so true because you know, I have
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: a ton of filmmaking books, and you know, as I've
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: sort of read them through different eyes, you know, you
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: read reading through the eyes of like a complete novice,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: you know, your complete needs, and then you really and
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: then you realize some of these books they're written by
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: people who've either never written or made a film, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: it's a lot of theory or they made a film
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: like thirty years ago and you're like, well, you know, okay,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: some of it's still pertinent, but some of it's just like,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: you know, hey, here's a great deal in a movieola
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: and you're like, what the heck. So it's you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: it's just stuff like that, and you realize, well, damn,
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: this book's out of date.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: And but but you know, that's why I wanted to
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: start this podcast.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Stuff like that, you know, really getting into the nitty
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: of gritty of stuff that people can actually take away.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: And it's actually full on, you know, actual practical advice,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: no theory, it's just this is how it is, and
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: this is what you can do when a situation like
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: that arrives exactly.
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: Man, the funniest thing I definitely in the beginning of
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: my career, like twelve ten, twelve years ago, I bought
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: a lot of screenplaybooks. And obviously, when people are writing
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: and they're reading these screen how to you know, how
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: to write green plays? You just take the golden nuggets
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: from each book. Obviously, not every book is the Bible.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: We have to follow to the te you know, but
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: it's funny when you actually look at these authors, when
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: you actually research. Like you said, you take a look
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: at their actual filmography, like what have they done? And
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: sometimes it's nothing or Okay, they've sold a lot of stuff,
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: which is great, nothing has been made or some people
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: like have sold one thing. So obviously they have some
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: type of credentials, but they're not the only one that
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: knows how to do it, which is you know, the
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: funniest thing, because I had some people try to tell me, oh,
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: your script doesn't follow Robert McKee. It's like, well, that's fine.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't want to follow Robert McKee's story.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: This script doesn't want to, you know, do his formula.
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: There's they prescribe just to one book, which kind of
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: drives me mad.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: You know, I have. I did the same thing.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: The first book I ever read was actually a screenplay
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: formatting book. It was called the Screenwriners Bible, and I
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: did read the story and you know, by McKee.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Right back after a word from our sponsor and now
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: back to the show.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: And you know, I've read all these different books and
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: I think you you know, I'm in the same boat
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: with you because I think a lot of the times
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: there's so much theory going on that eventually you have
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: to say, what can I use out of this book?
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: It's kind of what Bruce Lee you always say, you know,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: you get rid of take what's useful, and get rid
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: of the rest.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: And you're always you're always looking for that.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: You're always looking for like what is that one quote
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: or golden nugget that I'm going to read? That's good,
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go aha, I have an aha moment, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: now my perception has changed and that has given me
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: a new way of thinking to solve a problem or
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: a dilemma or something like that. But you really, those
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: books are really it's far few and far between because
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: you're trying to, you know, constantly have all this theory
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: and worry about all these formulas like oh, my gosh,
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: does this scene have a positive or negative charge? You're like,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: what the hell does that even freaking mean? You know,
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: you're you're have all this theory in these books and
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: you sit there and you go, well, how do I
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: actually implement that? You know, you can't be writing and
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: go writing to a formula or writing to a template
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: or writing to oh does this scene of a negative
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: or positive charge? And eventually you start getting lost in
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: your own head and then you never actually you get
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: stuck an indecision and never actually do anything.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's totally true, because you're right, you just start
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: overthinking things. And part of the goal is just to
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: finish a script. To me that I have so many
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: people that have said, oh, I'm working on a script.
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: I'm writing this, I'm writing that. I've gotten an idea.
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: I always say, have you finished it? Have you finished
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: a draft? Well, no, I haven't.
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: It's like, man, you know, it's like you got to
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: get over that hump.
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of people that have this fear of
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: just like actually finishing it and getting that feedback. And
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: I call it the vomit draft. There's a million different
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: names for the first draft. You just got to get
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: it out there, done and give it to some trusted
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: readers and just get that kind of feedback because again,
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: almost like making a film, it's writing a script is
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: a learning lesson because after you write it, you've learned
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: so much. You have something on the page to analyze
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: and dissect now and get some feedback and then rewrite.
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: Because as they say, the cliche is writing is rewriting.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, writing is rewriting definitely, because once you get that out.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: You have to think you can go back and figure
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: out what actually things are. Oh, this is what this means.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: And I think a lot of times too, that's where
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: you get sort of caught up. I think a lot
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: of times where writers get caught up. Honestly, Gary is
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: input versus output. And here's what I mean by that.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of times when writers are writing
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: a script or maybe even on the filmmakers are making
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: a short film or a feature length film, they're more
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: focused on the output of what the movie is going
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: to give. That meaning they're that all this movie is
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: going to go to Sundance and we're gonna win and
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: we're all going to become millionaires overnight.
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: And I guilty.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: I think we've all had that, honestly, man, I think
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: we've all had that where it's like, Hey, this short
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: film this, I'm gonna put this up on YouTube or
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna do this, and we're going to become, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: overnight sensations and that's going to be our meal ticket.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: And I and I honestly think you have to have
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: that attitude at some point because you have to have
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: some kind of passion or in the game that you're
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: going to be the best one, And I honestly I
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: think that's actually a good thing. But I think the
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: other part of it is it's like a double edged
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: sword because then you become so focused on what it's
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: going to give you that you're not focused on that
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: input of actually making it a good movie.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: You're focused on the right parts of it.
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: I totally agree it's a hard thing to balance. You definitely,
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: you know you want to make a living at it,
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: so you want that type of success, but it shouldn't
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: be your driving goal when you're creating, because then you're
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: kind of guessing what some other person wants when it
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: should be your story. It should be what you want
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: to tell and the byproduct of that. And as always
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: you see that, especially at the film festivals and the
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: festival darlings. Usually it's the more personal the story, it's
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: actually the more accessible it is to an audience because
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: they still relate to it because they see that struggle.
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: Regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation and whatnot,
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: they relate to that struggle, you know. So it's something
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: where the more watered down and the more you're trying
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: to guess, the more story by committee the film is
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: and it's just becomes something that nobody really cares about.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's universal themes that really could sort of you know,
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: hit home. And also when I noticed when the movie
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: does come with a story like hey this is my
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: biopic or hey this is you know, something that's actually
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: happened to me, and it's a you know, I mean
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: I've had you know, different people who I actually had
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: a Sundance Award when are on here, which was Morgan
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: Jay Freeman. He's episode ninety nine. He was actually on here.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: He actually won Sundance I think in what ninety two
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: or something, and he was explaining, you know how the
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: whole thing sort of came together, and you know, it's
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: you know, it was a movie about these kids in
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: New York and a lot of people were like, hey,
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: you know what that's it has a universal theme. Or
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: you can grow up anywhere like this, and you know
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: you'll feel some of that, you know, you'll feel some
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: of that, some of those universal themes like ostracization, being
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: a kid, you know, you know, stuff like that. And
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: you know that's why it's not a bad thing to
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: put any of that stuff in a screenplay.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: I you know, I was a part of a writers
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: group one time, and people.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: Were actually saying, like, oh, why does everything have to
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: have universal themes blah blah this or that. I'm like
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: because it, you know, it's what draws people into your story.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: You know, feelings, regret and stuff like that. Everyone has those,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: and I think that that's a key element to sort
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: of why some screenplays sell, get made, et cetera.
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, it's funny too, because there's there's not
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: a formula at all. I mean, I made my most
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: successful one to date was in festival Wise. Critically Wise
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: was how do you write a Joe Sherman's on my musical?
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: And it's about browdie musicians, about Broadway people aspiring for success,
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: and some characters are people that haven't reached it and
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: they almost have to give up their career and it's
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: about you know, striving but not getting there ever. And
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: even though it's about Broadway, it had so many people
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: at the festival circuit come up to me and said, man,
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: I just really up for this character or that character's me.
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: Even they're not a dancer or a singer, but within
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: their life they had some type of goal that they
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: never reached. And they never got to get there, and
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: they will never get there. And so it's again, like
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: you said, a universal theme. It can be any topic
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: or subject setting, but there's something there that people relate to.
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: And that was powerful for me to learn from that
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: film because I made other films that I thought were
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: great and they you know, didn't turn out how I
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: thought they were going to be. And you know, the
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: festivals didn't really take to them. Audiences you know, some
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: some liked it, some didn't. So it's just, you know,
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: once you have that type of critical success, it's not
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: like you can just copy and paste it to the
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: next thing.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: It's always it's such an organic, interesting process to try
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: to just create something that people will respond to.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the key.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: That's why I think a lot of times when people
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: take these movies and they sort of they deconstruct them.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: They'll take like The Godfather or Raging Bowl or whatever,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: and they take it and they reverse engineer it and
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: they go, how can I make that? Oh, well, you
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: see this one scene here in Scarface where he kills
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: the guy unexpectedly, Well, that that's what you that that's
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: his hero's turning point. Blah, blah blah blah blah. I'm like, Okay,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: you know, at first, you when you when you're reading
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: screen when you're reading these screenwrining books, you're like, oh, wow, yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: that that's a brilliant that's a brilliant thing to say.
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: That's a brilliant analytical statement. But then as you sort
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: of realize, well, but how does that work towards us,
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: you know, well, maybe yeah, you might be able to say, hey,
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: if someone's reading your screenplay, hey remember in Scarface when
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: he did this thing.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it might be cool here.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: Maybe I don't know, but I mean, like, you know,
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: but to write using that whole idea, I don't know
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: if that's that's that holds a lot of weight to it.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: You know, you want to you don't want to be
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: ripping off movies. I actually had a friend of mine
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: who was in a screen running competition, but he was
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: a judge, and he literally said he would read these
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: screenplays and he said, Okay, this is a scene from
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: The Godfather, this is a scene from uh, you know,
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: uh Casino, stuff like that, And he realize they're just
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: copying these movies because you know, that's what they like,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: and they're trying to make a version of that.
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: Right, that's true.
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: But you know what, Dave, I think every script needs
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: the line. You know, first you get the power. Once
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: you get the power, and you get the women, like
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: everyone needs that. I just kidding, but yeah, no, I
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: mean it's so true though, like you can't you can't.
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: Just like I said, copy and paste things.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: They can definitely be inspired by stuff, but you know,
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: you can be influenced by things. But to try to
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: just say it worked there, it's a moment I can
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: think that that I think will just work here because
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: it worked there. That's that's a little hard to kind
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: of like force it in. So you know, it's something
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: where it's it's a learning lesson. Again, I think people
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: definitely once they finish that script and get that feedback,
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: you can tell when something's you know, authentic and.
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: Should be there.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: Whereas people be like, this feels like it's from a
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: left field because it was doing this and all of
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: a sudden put this scene in here, and it totally
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: doesn't make sense, you know.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, I do agree that that line
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: should be in every movie, by the way, and that
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: that should be I take that back, It should be
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: in every movie, and uh that that that is uh
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: you know that is something that that it just lets
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: you know who the guy is. You know who let
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: who the guy is, and they wants the women in
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: the power and and everything. So, you know, guys, as
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: we're talking sort of too about you know, making writing
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: screenplays and and actually all these sort of fine points
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: about directing, I wanted to ask about your second feature
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: film because after you made your first feature, or after
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: you made your first film in New York, you know, where,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: at what point did you start wanting to make your
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: second one. You were already like, look, I'm gonna use
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: this momentum and push this right into my second film,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: which was I think, uh it was Dying of the Dead,
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: right or.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: It's actually I got lucky.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: I got hired to make a horror movie called Dismal
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: by some producers who were based in North Carolina, and
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: we went to shoot in Georgia.
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: So that was just a director for hire.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: And I wanted to gain that experience of working with
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: somebody else's script, working with a producer, working on location.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: So I was out in Georgia for like I think
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: five or six weeks. So it's something I, you know,
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: got very lucky with and I was really excited because
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: I started looking like Woody Allen or you know, Steven Soderberg,
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: like I was pumping out like wow, this this year,
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: I got two movies coming out. And then the next
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: year I had What's Up Lovely, which I was doing
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: on my own, and I made it for like two
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: thousand dollars, So I had three movies coming out in
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: two years. So I was like, this is cool. This
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: is something I'm going to keep doing because that's it
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: feels so easy, you know, like.
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: Movie the Year.
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, this is a great pace. Obviously it doesn't doesn't
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: work like that.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so sorry.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: Eventually the break starts a slam and you're like, oh man,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: you know, and I think we've all been there too,
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: where you're like, well, what the hell's next and you
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: just want to make something, you know, like I'll make anything.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Let's just do this thing.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: Uh So I but I but I what I meant
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: to say was death of the dead. I'm sorry, I
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: call it dying of the dead, but death of the day.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: So I'm starting to like all you know, all the
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: ramerror movies are coming into no but I'm just kidding.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: But uh, but when you actually so, when you started
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: to actually go back and make your own films, you know,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: at what point were you just like, you know, I
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: want to go back to.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Making my own stuff.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, you did say you got a director for hire,
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: gig and you got to work with somebody else's script.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: But at what point were you like, you know, I
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: want to go back to just you know, doing some
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: more of my own, my own material.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: You know, at that time, I was really really inspired
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: by Steven Soderberg and his body of work at you know,
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: his commercial peak was I think got the late nineties,
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: mid two thousands, where he was doing we were saying,
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: we were calling it the one for one for me,
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: one for them, one for them, one for me. So
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: he was doing you know, Aaron Brockovich for the studio,
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: but then he'd go and make the or he make
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: Out of Sight for the CEO. Then he'd go and
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: make some gosh full as a full frontal I think
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: it was called. So he'd make you know, smaller independent films,
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: experimental stuff like The Girlfriend and Experience. I was in
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: love with him doing smaller films that were taking risks
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: and doing different type of storytelling, and then he'd makes
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: something for the studio, And obviously I was doing on
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: a way lower budget, way lower scale and scope, but
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: that was kind of like my idol at the time,
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: just like, you know, if I can sustain this thing
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: where I'm going to make something for myself and then
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: go get hired to do something and take some of
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: that money and you know, funnel it back into mind
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: to make another film for myself, like this could be
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: kind of cool. And that's what I was trying to
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: do in my early early career with the first I
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: think four films or so.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know Steven Soderberg, He's always up to something,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: and it's always really cool to see directors like that.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: I have a friend of mine he loves Richard link
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Letter because Richard just does whatever he wants. I mean,
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: if you watch the same thing exactly, because if you
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: watched uh, his latest one, which I think is called
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: Everyone Loves Some or Everyone Wants Some, Uh, that one
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: that was that last year. I had a friend of
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: mine who watched it and was like, Dave, is there
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: a plot to this movie? And I said, I said, well, no,
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: it's Richard Linkletter. It's just you know, it is what
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: it is, and uh, you know, it's it's I knew
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: what to expect going in there, you know. And and
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: that's sort of why I think everybody wants to have
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: now the director's career who everyone wants to have is
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: of course Damien Chase, because you know he did he
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: did uh.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Lot of Land and then he did with all that
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: whip whiplash.
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah I could I just blanked down in that name.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: But uh but yeah, but you know, and that's sort
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: of the thing is. You know, again, I think a
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: lot of people are are focused on that, on that output,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: because again you're the saying, well, Damien now can pretty
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: much do whatever he wants.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: He used to be Tarantino.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Everyone wanted his career because and and that's where I'm
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: guilty at Gary. I still want his career just because
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: he came out of no where working at a video store.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: That's what I love is that he didn't go to
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: film score or anything else.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, man, I mean that's I remember you on
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: your other podcast you mentioned that you worked I think
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: at a video store. I worked at a Blockbuster up
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: in Seattle for a summer one summer while I was
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: in school, and it was awesome.
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: Man.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: And again I didn't go to film school either, and
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: so it's something where just watching films, absorbing them and
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: then again is more about the actual making of them.
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: Is the education you need. Film school was amazing, don't
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: get me wrong.
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: If I had the chance that the networking opportunity is amazing.
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: The people, the connections to get, the alumni connections you
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: get once you start entering the industry are totally totally amazing.
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: And that's something I wish i'd done.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: But I met so many people that have gone to
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: film school or no people that have gone, and they say, oh,
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: well they you know, they don't really they don't really
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: make movies though they don't really know how to like
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: direct movies. They've done some shorts, but they've never done
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: a feature or whatever. So it's you know, it's still
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: a live sword. But it's something I think everyone was
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: living that dream when you wanted to be Tarantino or
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: Rubber rigaz back in the nineties, and like you said,
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: Dame Gazelle, now it's there's so many that's a good thing,
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: like you have idols to aspire to be, which is,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: you know, keeps your fire going.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: So when you worked at that Blockbuster in Seattle, do
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: you have any funny stories, Gary, any funny customer stories any?
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, uh yeah. The best one I remember was
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: we had a tape, you know, the dropbox, the overnight dropbox.
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: So we come in the morning shift, we go through
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: the bin, empty the drop box, and you always have
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: to do the check. So like it says back lash
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: the Mohicans, you have to open up the case and
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: make sure it's last Mohicans in there, you know. So
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: we're going through the check to make sure for the
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: tapes are correct. And I open up the case and
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: the title is just let's say lash the Mohicans. I
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: can't remember exactly what was, but it was wasn't that tape.
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: All it had was this label that said X handwritten X.
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: I'm like, what's this?
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: You know what? I'm not sure what this is?
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: A wet better check to see what it's I have
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: a feeling what it might be. The store is not opening.
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna put it on the overhead monitors just to see.
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: And it was full on fucking like it was a
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: total porn and someone had purn the wrong tape. And
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: it was funny because we had to look up the customer.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: We had to make that embarrassing call and as soon
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: as we called, as soon as we called was hey,
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: this is a blockbuster. The customer that said, oh, you
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: got the porn, didn't you, Like he knew somehow he knew.
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: And so that was I think probably the weirdest, funniest story,
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: because I mean, who the hell re turns a porno?
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: It's a blockbuster. It's just crazy.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: It's just called X.
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: And yeah they label it X. I mean what that
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: at least name it like you know, DeBie does Dallas
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: or like like title unless in his house, you think
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: his pomographs like x X one, X two, x three,
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: and he has like a database because he doesn't want
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: his wife to know there was like porn. So he's
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: got like you know, some secret you know, filing system
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: or something.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: He's hiding it away.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: And it's weird, you know, but they're they're all late,
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: you know, they're all displayed nicely on the shelf. But
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: the wife thinks, like, oh, it's like X man or
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: something like who knows. But then there's something else totally.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: There could be a movie in there to Gary, like
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: some guy returns the tape and the Blockbuster employees like
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: watch this and the like, oh my god, this is
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: like a smut film, and then the guy comes after them.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: There's almost like a movie in there.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: That's like, I love Brian de Palmer blowout or let's
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: like blow up. That's like, that's totally dude, that's like
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: and you could set it in the eighties because like
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: they don't have video stories anymore, video stories anymore.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: It's like eighties or nineties. Dude, I think you got
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: a film.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah we should. We should write that together, man.
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, okay, so dark comedy or a suspense thriller.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: Oh you know what, I think dark comedies work better
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: right now.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: But it could be a cool suspense thriller to throw.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: It back, you know, just almost like that Brian de
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: Palma style kind of like uh, you know sisters.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: Hmm, wow, that'd be really dark. But I would love
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: a female lead. That'd be cool if if she's the
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: one that finds it and then you know, this guy
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: starts trying to like you said, trying to get that
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: tape back or.
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: That's interesting that's that's uh pretty cool man.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: By the way, everyone listening to this, that's guyranized now
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: trademark licensed you and not gonna be in the theater,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: just like eating popcorn for a preview some of the
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: new Tarantino Manson Family Murder movie, and you're gonna see
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: that's gonna be a trailer. This idea, like, wait a minute,
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: that was that podcast I did with Dave That was
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: our idea.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: Right from Paramount Studios X.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: She was a lonely videos to We're block but and
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: then it changed yeah right, uh yeah it'd be but
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: it would be you know that that would be a
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: fun idea to do because I know a lot of
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: times Kevin Smith, you can't say this is a pot
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: but I have Kevin Smith podcast fing in front of me,
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: and he always uses his podcast as sort of like
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: a way to sort of get new movie ideas and
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: stuff like that. I think it's great because I think
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: podcasting is such a really cool tool. Some people make
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: books out of it, like Tim Ferriss and James Autacher
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: and stuff like that. And I really Kevin's idea though,
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: just using it to sort of facilitate, you know, making
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: new movies and stuff like that, or.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: You know, or what have you. I think it's just
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: really cool as a creative outlet, you know what I mean.
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, man, that is really cool. I didn't realize he
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: did that.
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: It's I think if you have an audience, podcasting could
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: be amazing, you know, because it is the way to
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: directly talk with them instead of having to like write
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: tweets or like a long Facebook post. I mean, it's
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: definitely something where it's a lot more you get to
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: like express yourself a lot more quickly and something, like
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: you said, organically instead of having a proofread writing and
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: then just sharing with your audience and then getting feedback
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: that way.
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: That's that's interesting. Man.
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: It's something again, if you had a pretty good listening
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: audience says something that really could work.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: You know, and he has he has huge audience. I mean,
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: he has a huge audience.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he does.
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: And you know, I actually have have had it on
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: the Thornton Brothers and they had a really cool idea
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: for a film that's centered around a podcast, and basically
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: it's about a guy who's in his basement and he's
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: this real far right radical guy and he has this
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: podcast that he uses to sort of just through all
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: this venom and hate to out in the world. And
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: then one day a listener comes to silence him. And
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: it's a really really cool it's called Cactus Jack, and
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: I can't wait to see them do it, and I really,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: you know, just hope that that they keep pushing forward
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: with it.
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: Now, did they they pitched it on the show to
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: you or they were already working on it and they
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: just kind of told you this is what we're doing.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they were already working on it and they
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: pitched it.
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: Okay, okay, yeah, that's cool. I mean it sounds like
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: a what like a one location type of thing. It's
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: like a smaller budget to be able to just or
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: is it like a huge scope tech movie.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: It's just one one location, almost like Don't Breathe, which
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: I think is awesome and I'm like, guys, keep going
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: with that idea, man.
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny because they totally reminded me and it's
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: totally not the same film, but just pump up the
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: volume with Christian Slater from the eighties and he wasn't
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: even like a far right guy in that movie, but
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: he was just this underground college DJ. But they just
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: kind of see that setting just like if they can
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: get an actor to be you know, a charismatic as
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: Christian Slater from back then, or if it's a female.
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: Who knows if they're actually thinking it's gonna be a female.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: But I mean, yeah, whoever's playing that DJ better be
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: fucking charismatic because they're gonna be carrying that movie a lot.
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: That's that's really cool.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they actually did some test screen and he's actually
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: like real, real interesting. And by the way, I apologize
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: for for going off topic and I'm talking about other
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: people's movies.
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: Sorry, no, man, No, that's awesome. That's awesome.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: So let's talk more about Kevin Smith.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: Oh but yeah, but you mentioned one of your movies,
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: by the way, that you crowdfunded, which was how do
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: you write a Joe Shechrmer Song?
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about that.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: You know, you successfully crowdfunded a large portion of I
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: believe there was going to be an orchestra as part
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: of like of one of the extended goals I believe,
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: So I wanted to ask Gary, you know, where did
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: the impetus for the idea come from to actually make
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: this film, you know, and really, how did you go about,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: you know, actually actually making it.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: So I've always loved musicals growing up. My parents showed
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: them to me, and it was something that I always
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: just enjoyed, Like I did not have a problem with
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: people just breaking in a song and dance, and they
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: showed me like Singing in the Rain, the Music Man,
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: My Fair Lady, and I loved them. And then I
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: discovered Westside Story, which is a little bit darker, but
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: they still broke out into song and dance, and I
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: was like, this is awesome. You know, musical is one
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: of my favorite genres. And then I discovered all that
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: jazz and I was like, wow, this blew my mind,
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: like the editing style and the the way the songs
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: were incorporated into the film versus them breaking out into
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: song and dance, like you know, that's a totally different
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: type of musical. And then Once came out and I
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: was like, man, okay, so this is like low key,
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: smaller film but amazing songs, you know, but shot for
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So I was like okay,
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: Like I love musicals. I don't think we make enough
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: of them, and I wanted to do something for modern
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: audiences which kind of blended both the spectacle and being realistic.
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: So I wanted to write a story that kind of
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: was grounded in reality but still had some amazing songs.
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: But I never had the song. So I just had
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: that idea for years until after I moved to New
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: York again. I was there for a few years and
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: networked and made a few films. And Mark Deconso, one
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: of my lead actors from New York Lately, had a
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: friend named Joe Sherman, and he said, dude, I want
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: to show you something. We were let's see, trying to
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: think North Carolina. We were in North Carolina at the
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: Charlotte Film Festival and I was in Mark Schrroman. He
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: pulls out his laptop because I want to show you something.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: It's like, dude, Mark, I don't want to watch poem
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: right now? Know where at a festival it's all good?
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: And he's like, no, no, no. This guy named Joe
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: Sherman he writes music and it's awesome. And he showed
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: me some songs and I was like, is this guy
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: for real? Like is he already signed. Is he doing
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: Broadway movie Broadway shows? He's like no, he just moved
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: from Minnesota and he's just you know, fresh off the
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: boat and he's like trying to make his way in
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: New York.
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: And I was like, I got to meet this guy,
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: and we did.
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: We talked, and I told him about my initial idea
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: about aspiring artists that are anonymous in New York. There's
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: so many, you know, amazingly talented singers and dancers in
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: New York, but they're your waiter, they're your server, they're
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: your bartender, you know, and you'll never know that they're
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: actually talented. That was the first spark of the idea
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: of the film, to be like, I want to show
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: what these people do and the struggles they go through
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: and the fact that you'll never know because they'll never
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: make it. And that evolved a little bit after, but
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: that was the beginning. And with his songs incorporated and
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: just starting to do a few drafts and just you know,
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: honing in the story.
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: That's how it became the movie that it is.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: And you see, that's sort of how those ideas are
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: a ferment, you know, those ideas sort have come out
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: of nowhere, you know, And it's just it's just amazing
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: how even the simple thing that someone showing you a
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: video can just open up a whole new sea of
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: things and the whole new sea of ideas and possibilities.
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: Right man, I have like, literally right now, fifteen different ideas,
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: and back then, you know, I was tuning around with
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: like three or four. But the thing that always happens
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: is I meet somebody, or I find a location, or
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: something happens where all of a sudden, that idea of
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: bubbles to the top. So, for among us, the film
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: that's coming out, the horror movie coming out August eighth,
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: gotta plug it.
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: That film.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: I had always wanted to do a horror movie, but
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: you know, didn't think about it other than that, I
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: just want to make something scary. And again, Mark Deconso,
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: my usual guy, the actors that my family has a
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: lake house up in Maine. We could totally shoot for
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: next to nothing as long as we just you know,
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: we can stay there and just make sure we don't
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: screw up the house or anything. And then you know,
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: and I was like, okay, you can't blow it up. Okay,
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: we won't blow it up, but we'll make it a
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: haunted house, but I want to twist the conventions and
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: play with the genre so it doesn't feel like paint
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: by numbers type of movie. But that's you know again,
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: like that's why that movie came about, That's why we
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: shot that one next. So there's always something that comes
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: into play that brings the project to the to the surface.
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: So you can't blow up the house, you can't. You
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: can't go through the walls, you can't you know, put
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: blood everywhere, away all your fun Gary.
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: I know, man, I know.
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: So then we just wrote a you know, one room
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: talkie movie with white walls behind it and shot on
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: hi aid VHS and no, just kidding, no, I mean
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: we definitely that was That's the part of the fun.
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: It's like, okay, so there's a little bit of you know, constraints,
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: so how are you going to be creative around that?
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: And that's what how the film became what it is.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: You know, it's funny, and I do want to ask
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: you about the about the film again in just one second.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: I want to a little anecdote about filming in a
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: friend's house, a friend of mine, A friend of mine.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: When I did my student film, which was my first
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: ever film. I actually he said, hey, we can film
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: my grandparents' house. He goes, they're away. They have like
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: three houses and this is the one house that they're
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: not going to use and they're not using for the
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: time for a long while, and we can film there.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: The first day of filming, we accidentally knocked the entire
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: door off the hinges. And because this guy had to
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: burst into a room, right, so rather than rather what
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: happens is the door. I've never seen a bathroom like this.
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: The door hits into the sink. There's no stopper or whatever.
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: So he bursts in the room and he hits the door,
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: gets the sink and literally the door comes off in
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: his hand like he's now holding the door like it's
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: like a prop, and he's like what. The guy goes,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: what the fuck did you just do? And now we're
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: like we're trying, and we're trying to actually figure this out.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: So then it becomes the idea of do we call
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: a carpenter or do we try to fix it ourselves?
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: And it's almost like a sitcom. It's almost like a
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: bad eighties sitcom where it's like, oh, great, now we
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: got to fix this.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: Door, and as we fix the door, something else has
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: to break.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: But we ended up on the guy's dad was actually
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: had a carpenter friend. He came in and he actually
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: fixed the door for us at a later time.
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: It was just.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: It just it was just the incident itself.
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: That's so two things come to mind with that story.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: So number one, hopefully you use that take in the
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: film like that made it into the movie. Oh yeah, okay.
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: And two, you could totally tell you guys are film
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: nerds versus like sex freaks, because like risky business, like
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: if someone's house was empty, like party, but you guys
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: said let's make a movie.
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: You guys were film nerds, which is great, kudos to that.
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: Exactly, a couple of guys fill the house to themselves,
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: time to make a movie, right.
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Right, That's the first thing that comes to my mind.
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: It's funny too, because that same guy his grandparents let
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: us use their beach house.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: This is I'm sorry, I'm sorry to keep holding these.
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: Stories, but this is great. This is great.
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: He said, Hey, my great parents let us go, let
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: us use their beach house. So you know, of course, hey,
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: let's let's bring down some beer. Let's bring down some stuff. Well,
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: he when we get there, he says, oh, there's only
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: one rule, and and I said what's that? He goes,
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: there can be no girls here, and I and I said,
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: why is that? He goes, Well, if if somebody were
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: to come in, he goes, like from my family, he goes.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: And then if they told my grandparents they would get
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: upset because they're very old fashioned and and this and that.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: So I said, well we can, we can make another
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: movie while we're in here, and he stared daggers into
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: me and he goes, he goes, I'd rather just have.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: A party nice.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor her.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: Because this guy was I think a little burned out
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: of movie the first one. But uh, but no, it
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: was just hilarious and uh and that that was We
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: ended up just actually driving to a c anyway because
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: he's right by he was, so we ended up I
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: ended up winning like two hundred bucks at a slot
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: machine that night. But but that's all. But to get
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: back to your your actual filmography, and your latest film
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: is actually droughout the August the eighth, So if you could,
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: you know, could you just give us a you know,
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: a sort of a summary of the film, and give
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: us a log line, and and you know, just a
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: little more, any more information you give us about the film.
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So among us is it's a supernatural thriller, horror thriller.
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: It's about two it's a married couple of two characters. Mainly,
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: it's a very character driven story about My original idea
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: was to st the movie off with people just leaving
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: the house already, because with most horror movies, you always
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: ask if the house is haunted, why don't you just leave?
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: So this one we already address it. They leave the
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: house and they get into a car accident, the husband
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: gets paralyzed, and we flash forward a few months and
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: they're struggling with their marriage now that they're living in
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: an isolated area, hoping they've escaped whatever was haunting them.
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: They've lost their child.
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: They're a broken family, and the story is really about
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: trying to move on and trying to still stay together
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: and still love each other amongst all this tragedy, and
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: there's a haunting still. So it's something where I try
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: to make something a little bit different but still play
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: with a lot of stuff where there's you know, some
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: scares and some suspense, but there's definitely more there, and
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: I don't want to talk about the other, you know,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: elements that I put in there other than that I
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: love to I channeled Brian to Palma, Little John Carpenter.
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: But also I had films when I was writing and
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: making it that I showed the actor and my DP
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: that I wanted to kind of feel in term, I
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: wanted our film to feel like in terms of the tones,
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: so it'd be like eyes White shut that marriage, you know,
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: think about that marriage that they had, The Gray with
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: Leam Nice and Jel Carnahan's The Gray, Uh, three Colors
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: Blue was another one, Insidious, the Descent, Rust and Bone.
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: So these were the ones that I kind of told
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: people like, these are the films that show people that
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: are struggling and you really care for them. And that's
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: the kind of movie that I really wanted to make.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I love those those movies by the way
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: that you mentioned, because because those movies, you know, are
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: those sort of movies where it's more about the character
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: and more about you know, using the location you have rather.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Than again exactly, rather than again exactly.
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry, Gary, Oh no, I just said, yeah, I'm
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: agreeing with you.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Sorry I thought I kept cutting you off. I'm sorry
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: about that. No, so because sometimes you know, actually cut
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: people off. I'm sorry about that, but I always like, whoop. Sorry,
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: I didn't mean to step on your line. But but
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: what happens is, you know, movies like that are really cool.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: What I mean, like The Gray for instance, I remember
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: the selling point for me was they had a production
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: still or maybe it was maybe it was just a
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: quick video and Liam Neeson had those broken mini bottles
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: on his hands, ready to fight those wolves, and I went, well,
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: this movie is gonna be great. I mean, how can
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: you go wrong about that?
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: It's yeah, that movie is amazing. I was one of
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: my favorite movies that year. I mean, the performances and again,
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: just the kind of movies that I love is like
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: you really get to know the characters to care about them,
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: and then the shit goes down, you know.
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: And that's something I analyzed.
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: And this is how we're talking about scripts, Like I
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: didn't analyze the script of the Exorcists, but I watched
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: it and I remember it was about forty minutes into
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: the running time before anything really you know, spooky happened.
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: So it's forty minutes of character development. And I was
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: lucky enough to talk to William Freakinet. He did a
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: book signing, and this was in Brooklyn. We just had
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: watched Sorcerer and he had an autobiography out and after
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: the screening I got gone to sign it and I
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: just said, hey, mister, I said Billy.
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: No, I didn't say Billy. I said, mister freaking.
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: What advice do you have for me if I'm going
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: to go shoot a horror movie in a few a
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: few weeks actually, And do you have any advice? Just
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: simple advice? And he just said, no bullshit scares, make
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: us care, and that's exactly what I aim to do.
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: So and using that advice, that's when he says, no
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: bullshit scares. Using that advice, does he mean like none
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: of the sort of stuff where like, you know, a
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: scare happens or or and it's like turns out to
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: just be a false Uh you.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: Know what I mean? Like the person sort of looks
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: behind the curtain and there's nothing there. And then I.
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: Remember, because the Exorcist had a moment when you know,
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: the mother goes up to the attic and there's a
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: big candle and then a flame and she's scared because
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: the caretaker's up there.
• 54:53
  Speaker 6: So that's like the genuine thing because that happened.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: I think it's the one where the hand comes off
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: and touches you, you know, when they're like, I'm trying
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: to think of what movies that did, but like a
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: character's looking around a spooky house and then a hair
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, a hand comes from off frame and then
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: touches the shoulder and then the music is jacked by
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: like you know, ten times louder now and just just
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: to give you that scare versus like a scare that's earned,
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, And there's actually a really good, uh sort of
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: movie school if you will, about that where if you
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: look a up the First Halloween where Donald Pleasants is
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: sitting outside Michael Myers's house and those kids go up
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: there and they're like, hey, knock on the door, and
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: Donald's Pleasants as doctor Loomis goes, hey, Mike, you know,
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: get out of here, your motherfucker your little shit. Yeah,
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: and the kids freak out and they run away. Well,
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: Donald Pleasants all proud of himself. Well, the sheriff grabs
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: his shoulder real quick. But there's no music whatsoever.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: There's none.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: It's just it's just Loomis going, Oh my god, Jesus,
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: you could be Michael Myers, you know, And it's just
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: that that right there. And I realized I'd never even
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: thought of it, and so I watched it again. I'm like, man,
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: there is no musical cue there, and it's brilliant. It's
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: almost like that guy John Carpenter knows what he's doing.
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think.
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: He might have something. He might go places. No, but like, yeah,
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: Halloween is an amazing felm. And I think there's another
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: scene where Jamie Lee Curtis. Lorie is walking in the
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: daytime and she's walking home from school and I think
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: she's staring at the house. And as she's staring at
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: the house, she bumps into somebody and again I don't
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: believe there's like a music cue there, but it starts
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: the shit out of you.
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: And it's exactly, you know the point.
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: Like, so we have something in my movie where I
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: totally didn't purposely try to make it a jump scare,
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: but there's a moment like some character says something to
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: someone who's back is turned and I didn't put in
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: a cue. I didn't put in like a dude to
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: try to like just make people jump, because it's not earned.
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: That's like the jolt, that's like a startling moment versus
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: like a truly truly terrifying moment where you're startled because
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: it's actually happening to that character in that scene, not
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: because the score is making it happen.
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, because I think that. And that's the
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: the main problem I have a lot of modern horror
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: movies too, is is there's no real there's no real
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: idea of there's a real core, you know what I mean.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: It's it just feels like it's sort of put together,
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And it's just I actually
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: it's the problem. I have a lot of movies lately.
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: But but I digress. I mean, I trust me. I
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: watched so many movies, Gary and I have a twenty
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: minute role. If you can't droll me in with the
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: first twenty minutes, I turn it off. You know, I'm
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: done with that. But I just feel sometimes that there's
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: not a lot of there's there's a there's too much money,
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: not a create not enough creativity, or maybe there's there's
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: too much focus on the output and enough on the input, you.
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: Know, m yeah, I mean, thankfully there's a resurgence of
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: solid horror movies lately, but like you said, I mean
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: for every solid horror movie, there's like ten that copy
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: it or copied the one that came before it that
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: was a hit, and they don't really know what they're doing.
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: They're just trying to copy the formula.
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: And that's that's when it just becomes stale or you
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: know something where you're like this, this, this has no
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: this had no reason to be made except for money
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: because obviously, like people really didn't care about it.
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: But so, you know, you with your new movie among
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: Us coming out on August the eighth, you know where
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: that can people view that at?
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: It is actually available on every major cable provider, which
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: is amazing. This is my first time my film is
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: going to be this wide to basically be on demand.
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: So if you're at home on August eighth, you can
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: just turn on your cable provider and among Us will
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: be there. You can also get it on iTunes, Amazon, Google, YouTube,
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: like all those kind of streaming kind of services view
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: d services you can get and it also is available
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: on DVD and Blu Ray on Amazon dot Com, and
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: the DVD and Blu Ray have some bonus features, so
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: it has a deleted scene, alternate ending, and some bloopers
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: so you get some fun stuff that way.
• 58:52
  Speaker 6: I love physical media. I still collect physical media.
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: I know I'm old school, but I wanted to make
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: sure our distributors, Gravitas put some bonus features on if
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: they're going to put out physical meaning, I think you
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: got to put something not.
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: You can't put out bare bone stuff.
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: You got to put something fun for people to be
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: able to want to collect it.
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Gravitas is awesome, by the way. I mean,
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: congratulations on everything, Gary, I mean, you know, just just
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: for meeting you a few years ago, I mean, you
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: have just exploded it. I'm like, man, he's Twitter verified,
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: he's got a wiki page.
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: I mean, man, well, yeah, I mean if that's if
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: that's success, then sure I'll take it. But you know, obviously,
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: for me, the funniest thing is like, if there's what
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: you're never satisfied where you're at, because man, ten years ago,
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: I would have loved to be here now where I'm
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: sitting being like, man, okay, a film with distribution. It's
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: awesome because you know, when I first started, the first
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: two or two films I made when in terms of
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: distribution didn't get picked up. And so now I'm like,
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: I have distribution.
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: This is great.
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: They actually gave me a sweet deal. We're making money.
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: This is awesome. But now obviously I want want something bigger.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: I want something a little bit more, and that's the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: thing that drives me to keep going.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: So thank you again.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: I didn't I totally don't mean like not to sound
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: like I that I'm not very appreciative. Like, I totally
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: love the fact of where I'm at, but it's just
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: there's so much more to do and so much things
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: to create that I just want so much more, you
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: know what I mean.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I completely understand, Gary, true, Trust, I completely understand.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: You know, there's nothing wrong against universal theme. There's nothing
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: wrong with want of a better life for yourself.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: Right, that's true, man, that's very true.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: But yeah, the funniest thing is that I was shocked
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: about the Wikipedia page. I have no clue who created it.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: I was really shocked about that piece. I mean, I
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: still don't know. Sometimes I see it being updated and
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: I'm like, wow, I don't know. I don't know who
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: was doing this. This is funny.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: See, I expect ahead.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: I was gonna say, see, you're you've got this fan
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: base you've been developing and and and they're doing it,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: you know, and uh they're they're they're holding the Gary
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: King or they could think you're that guy from that
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: World's End with That's so I'm page.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: That's the page.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: I think that's the page they're actually they thought they
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: were doing and then it turned out to be me.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's pretty much.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: When I saw that movie, I was like, Oh, Gary King,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: I know that guy.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: That was part of the fun of that movie because uh,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: my friends said when they were watching they would giggle
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: every time. Not I mean the movie's funny, but they're
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: like it was the extra funny factor because they'd be
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: like Gary King and it's like they just think of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: me it started giggling.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh again, that that's all.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: I got another layer of enjoyment out of that movie too,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: just because by the way, Gary. Speaking of which, uh,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: some Twitter questions came in do you have a few
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: minutes just to answer maybe one or two questions. I yes,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: So this question came in. I'm sorry, let me go
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: grab my phone. I know this is not good for
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: an audio podcast. As I grabbed my phone, I know
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: everyone's like, oh right. So this one came in and
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: it said, I demand to know what Carrie's favorite records
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: are to write to? All caps. This is the most
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: important question. So Gary, Gary, what are your favorite records
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: to write to?
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: Jesus Man? Oh god.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: So yeah, it's it definitely varies from script to script.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: Obviously.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: When you know you're writing a certain genre, you kind
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: of pick and make create a playlist for your stuff.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: So I actually did a music drama that's done and
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: we're in development almost, you know, hoping to shoot soon.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: It's being shopped around. It's kind of a road trip
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: movie about a singer songwriter. So I pulled up Man,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: I made a playlist of these random people, you know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: the beauty of Spotify. And I'm not being sponsored by
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: Spotify here, but I mean I can pull up the
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: playlist right now, since sitting in my computer, I can
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: just I'll name a few artists from that playlist that
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: I that I had.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: So you went to your phone. I'm going to my laptop.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: Let's see here.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: By the way, I actually just submitted to have this
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: podcast on Spotify. So if you, if you are endorsed
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: by them, Gary, please put in a good word for us.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 6: Right, Okay, So I had.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: Let's see, so I had some Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: Marvin Gaye, Beach Boys, let's see, Iggy Pop, Ario Speedwagon,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: Joe Cocker, The The Who, Future Islands. Well, and let's
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: tell this this reader, I'm not this reader, this listener.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: I will share my playlist with you. If he tweets me,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: I can. I can always send this off to him,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: like I can make it public. But not.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: But yeah, no, it's it was. It's definitely like it's
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 6: a it's a road trip movie.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: It's it's a singer songwriter and she meets a guy
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: who plays like the blues, and so it's all these
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: different styles that are going through and she's remembering her
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: father had passed away and he loved, you know, older
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: kind of music like the Beach Boys and stuff. So
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: it's like a mishmash of all these types of musical styles.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: So it celebrates various types of artists and genres as
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: as this movie goes along. So I'm really happy about
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: it and I can't wait to make it.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: The guy did actually tweet both of us, so it's
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Dave muhalland so.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: You can see you'll see the sweet at.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: Your timeline, right nice?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: Okay, So, and the second question that.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: Came in Gary was was I'm sorry I put my
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: phone down, but I know the gist of it was
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: basically was basically, you know, where if if you could
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: give any advice for a person to start making a film,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: where would it be.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: What would it be? I'm sorry.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: And the first time, first time ever, it's like.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: A first time filmmaker.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 6: I would It's funny because I remember.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: So there's piece of advice that Allman says is basically,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: don't take any advice. And he's a maverick and he's
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: one of those guys who didn't take any advice and
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 5: you just is his own thing. So that's that's, you know,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: one thing that you can say. What the other one
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: is for me is just not to give up. Definitely
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: see it through to the end, because once you do,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: you'll either know if you love it and if you're bitten.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: By the bug to want to make more, or if
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: you've had enough and think, okay, I did that and
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: I'm going to try something else now.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: Because filmmaking is not easy.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of work into it, a lot of
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: different people that come into play. I was very fortunate
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: to meet people early on in my career that believed
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: in me and wanted to work with me for very
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: little money. And I know the do Plos brothers say
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: this too, where they say, you know, if you're making
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: a movie and people you're paying people one hundred a
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: day just to be there, but you know others are
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: asking for more. Those aren't the people you want to
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: work with. And you're starting out because you want people
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: there for you for the story, not from the money.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: Because at that stage, at that level, everyone's there trying
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: to make something great, trying to elevate their careers. So
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: it's something Just do it, do it for the love,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: and then do it again.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: And that is excellent advice.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: Gary, don't take any advice, no, but right.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: So whatever I just said, just do it and then
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: just go do what go do what you want.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and seriously and getting together and this is not
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: to not to keep you for too long. I'm sorry, Gary,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: I know we're going over, but I just wanted to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: mention one thing that I've been listening. I listened to
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: a lot of podcasts on my drive to and from work,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: and I also listened to a lot of books.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: On audible, uh via audible.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: And one thing I've noticed is, you know, building that mastermine,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: building a crew around you, you know what I mean
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: of people who are not only supportive, but also we're
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: striving to make you better and also bring you opportunities
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: and stuff like that, and and uh and it's and
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: it's a mutual beneficial thing. You know, it's not just
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: all them giving to you. But I think just you know, uh,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: building that finding those people is like a skilling of itself,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean, like finding a producer who
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: just would work with you, almost like finding like your
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: your Frank Marshall, or finding like your Lawrence Bender, something
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: like that, you know what I mean. And people have
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: asked me to because you know I do so like
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: I'm I'm okay, this is the only time where I'm
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: gonna get a little cocky.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: Gary. I'm not a very cocky guy. I am.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: Actually I'm not gonna just just make stuff up. I'm
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: actually very good at networking and producing stuff. I I
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: that is the only time I've ever gonna I've realized
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: I'm It's just like a natural thing for me to do.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: And I'm always meeting new people and stuff like that,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: and that.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: That's gonna be your sound bite to promote this show,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: by the way, You're just gonna use that piece there.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: Like like who is this guy again? Why do I
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: Why am I listening to this show? But that that's
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: actually where I'm really good at. And I and honestly,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: when I when I've been able, when I've been asked
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: to do other people's movies, I'm always like, I don't
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: want to fucking do that. I don't want to make
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: it anybody else's movie. I want to make my own movies,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: you know. And it's just kind of you kind of
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: wonder where to draw that line though, because that's what
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: I've been wondering in the in the in the the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: past couple of years, because I've I've turned down so
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: many movies have an offered me come on as a
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: producer because I'm just like, well, there's no money, it's
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: just well, you know what i mean.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: And it's probably good for both of us.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: I turn it down because you know what I mean,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: Like I was just looking for money from this one
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: project or I might you know what I mean, And
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: it's not what I really want to do, So my
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: heart's not into it, you know what I mean. So
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: I think it's good for everybody if if me saying no.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I mean, a great producer is hard to find.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: I produced myself out of necessity, not because I love it,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: but finding a producer that loves it is rare, and
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: if they're good at it, you got.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: To hold on to them.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 5: And that's why I'm sure, Like you said, Lawrence Bender
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: work with Tarantino for like three or four films, and
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: all these other people, if they partner up, they partner
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: up for a very very long time. And it's something
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: my wife does very well, and she does for my
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: films only because like you, you know, it's like I
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: believe in these projects. I don't want to be hired
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: to do something just to do it. So it's something
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: where it's such a hard skill and it's such a
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: it's not only hard, but it's something it's very delicate.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: Like you said, you have to be very good at
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: what you do to get things done right away. And
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: it's it's again if I might be giving you a
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: call later about producing, but now I'm just kidding you. Definitely.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: The cool thing is as a filmmaker for yourself too,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: you know what it takes to produce something, so as
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: you're writing it or as you're directing it, you can
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: wear both hats to know what you can demand of
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: the crew or of yourself based on what you have
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: with the with the project.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: And if that's a.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: Really great skill, like that's what I'm proud of as
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: a director, having produced, I know when to ask for
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: things and when not to ask for things based on
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: what's going on.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: And the producers really, you know, appreciate that.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: Anytime you want to call me Gary to talk about producing,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: let's do it, man.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: All right, sounds good.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: I was just telling the story the other day about
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: how I got a bunch of different locations for free,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: and people were like, how the hell did you do that?
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, it's a funny story.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: So but but you know, it's just you know, I've
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: been doing a lot of writing for the past couple
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: of years, and I hope to actually enter some scripts
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: into slam Dance this year, you know, just to sort
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: of get that juice back. And that's when the main
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: reason I created this podcast was not only just to
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: do something creative, but I get to meet all some
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: people and I mean it's just been all positives you
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: know about this podcast, and it's just you know, it's
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: it's just awesome, man, and Gary, I just want to
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: say thank you so much for coming on, and uh,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: before we go, I just want to have one more question,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: that is where can people find you out online?
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: First of all, you know, this conversation went really really quickly,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: so I enjoyed myself a lot, and they can find
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: me at the best place is g r king dot com.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: It's g r k I n G dot com. I
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: believe there's links to my Facebook, to my Twitter there,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: and there's information to all my films where you can
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: find them. So New York Lately, What's up, Lovely? And
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: how do you write a Joe Sherman song? You can
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: see a little bit of information about them, as well
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: as links to Amazon Prime where you can watch them
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: for free and you can find out information about, among us,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: my latest horror movie coming out, where I would love
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 5: for you guys to check out and appreciate the support.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: Gary, I want to say thank you.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: You have to add one link to X the project
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: the working title also just X handwritten X.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: And yeah, by the way, was X Was it a
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: VHS tape or was it a DV day?
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: I'm hooked. That's it. Let let's hitch this tomorrow.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 6: Right, I'll make some calls, we'll get to the meeting.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: Seriously, let's do it, man, Let's do it. Yeah, what's
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: stopping this?
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: Nice?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: Nice?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: Gary R.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: King. I want to say thank you so much for
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: coming on.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: Buddy, Dave, Dave b Thank you sir, and hope to
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: come back again sometime and definitely we'll be talking soon too.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: TV Forward slash for thirty three. Thank you so much
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: for listening to guys. As always, keep on writing, no
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: matter what, I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: dot tv.