Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 865: The Screenwriting Blueprint Every First-Time Writer Needs with David Hohl
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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- 0:12Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
- 0:15Speaker 2: sixty five. You try to do it, and you do
- 0:17Speaker 2: it honestly, you can't control people's responses.
- 0:19Speaker 3: Really. Edgar Wright.
- 0:23Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back Alley and Hollywood. It's the Indie
- 0:26Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
- 0:29Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
- 0:32Speaker 1: the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
- 0:36Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
- 0:39Speaker 3: I am your humble.
- 0:40Speaker 2: Host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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- 1:43Speaker 2: just head over to www. Dot filmbiz book dot com.
- 1:47Speaker 2: That's film bizbook dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest
- 1:52Speaker 2: host Dave Bullis.
- 1:56Speaker 4: With me Today is David Hall. David is a screenwrin
- 1:59Speaker 4: teacher and currently runs Horror Movie School and online film
- 2:03Speaker 4: school that focuses on the craft of making horror films.
- 2:06Speaker 4: He is also a producer and director, which will we
- 2:09Speaker 4: get in today in the show.
- 2:11Speaker 3: Dave, how are you great? Thanks? I'm excited to be
- 2:14Speaker 3: on your show. Thanks Dave.
- 2:16Speaker 4: Oh, thank you very much for coming on. This is
- 2:17Speaker 4: actually the second time because the first time the recording
- 2:21Speaker 4: got a little messed up. But hopefully, yeah, it was
- 2:24Speaker 4: a charm.
- 2:25Speaker 5: Right, yeah, I hope so hope second time, not third time.
- 2:28Speaker 5: But it was fun, so I look forward to it again.
- 2:32Speaker 4: Great, So you actually aready know the question, So if
- 2:35Speaker 4: it sounds a little rehearsed, it's like, well, David, it's
- 2:37Speaker 4: like almost.
- 2:38Speaker 5: Like, David, Well, I was just thinking about that today
- 2:40Speaker 5: and I was thinking all my answers will probably be
- 2:42Speaker 5: completely different because they're just off the top of my head.
- 2:46Speaker 4: Good, So then it's really a total, totally new that's right.
- 2:49Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 2:50Speaker 4: So Dave, the first question I have for you is,
- 2:53Speaker 4: you know, what advice do you have two people that
- 2:56Speaker 4: are writing their first screenplay?
- 2:59Speaker 5: Okay, for people well that are just fresh into it
- 3:02Speaker 5: and don't have really any education.
- 3:05Speaker 3: I'm assuming you're talking about that, right, yes.
- 3:10Speaker 5: Well, I mean there's a few people that might go
- 3:13Speaker 5: on the route of going to film school and UCLA
- 3:18Speaker 5: or USC or whatever it be, but you know, that's
- 3:23Speaker 5: not an option for a lot of people because it's
- 3:25Speaker 5: rather expensive and personally, I think there's there's better ways
- 3:30Speaker 5: to get in. And the first thing I would just
- 3:32Speaker 5: recommend is, get as many good books as you can.
- 3:36Speaker 5: With the internet nowadays, you can see you know, the
- 3:39Speaker 5: reviews on the books and see you know how well
- 3:43Speaker 5: screenwriters like them. So just try to find some good books,
- 3:48Speaker 5: study him for a few months, read as many screenplays
- 3:51Speaker 5: as you can, watch as many movies as you can,
- 3:54Speaker 5: especially ones in the genre that you're interested in, and
- 3:59Speaker 5: then start writing. But I would recommend you know, learning
- 4:04Speaker 5: how to do an outline and doing that properly first,
- 4:08Speaker 5: and then and then going in doing your first draft,
- 4:11Speaker 5: and then going and meeting people that are screenwriters or
- 4:15Speaker 5: screenplay consultants or writers' groups.
- 4:17Speaker 3: Like I know you had a writer's group.
- 4:21Speaker 5: It's very helpful, and you can run your material by them,
- 4:24Speaker 5: and then after you get it to a pretty good level,
- 4:28Speaker 5: then you can send it to a consultant to give
- 4:30Speaker 5: you final critiques before you send it out into the market.
- 4:35Speaker 5: You really don't want to send it out early because
- 4:39Speaker 5: if you send it to producers before it said its best,
- 4:42Speaker 5: then you know, if there's problems in it, they're going
- 4:46Speaker 5: to remember that, and then if you submit something again
- 4:48Speaker 5: in the future, they might not be interested in reading it,
- 4:50Speaker 5: even if it's ten times better at that point.
- 4:54Speaker 4: Yeah. You know, I also heard Dave that like certain
- 4:57Speaker 4: screenwriting competitions, they actually will take the name of the
- 5:01Speaker 4: script and the writer and then they actually have their catalog,
- 5:04Speaker 4: so if you do submit it again, they actually rule
- 5:07Speaker 4: basic upon that. So I know the Nicole Fellowship actually
- 5:11Speaker 4: mentioned that in a Q and A and they were like,
- 5:14Speaker 4: make sure this is as good as it possibly can,
- 5:16Speaker 4: because if you submitted again, you know, we have on database.
- 5:19Speaker 4: And thanks for mentioning my Screamwriters group, Dave, which is
- 5:22Speaker 4: the first Rand Screamwriters group. You know, we've been a
- 5:26Speaker 4: meeting for over a year now we finally have a name.
- 5:29Speaker 3: Okay, great, and you.
- 5:31Speaker 4: Were gracious enough to come in as a guest and
- 5:34Speaker 4: which was very good.
- 5:36Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I really recommend that.
- 5:37Speaker 5: I mean putting a group together, you know, it gives
- 5:40Speaker 5: you people to talk to that have a like mind.
- 5:43Speaker 5: You can share, you know, new things like maybe you know,
- 5:47Speaker 5: the people in the group don't have a whole lot
- 5:49Speaker 5: of money, so you know, one person can go to
- 5:51Speaker 5: one seminar, another person go to another seminar and then
- 5:54Speaker 5: sort of share the information amongst each other.
- 5:58Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a really good idea. Yeah, and so Deeve,
- 6:02Speaker 4: I wanted to follow up with that question. I wanted
- 6:05Speaker 4: to ask what challenges did you encounter when you were
- 6:07Speaker 4: writing your first screenplay?
- 6:10Speaker 5: Yeah, my very first screenplay I did. I believe I
- 6:14Speaker 5: was seventeen years old. I was in high school still,
- 6:18Speaker 5: and I thought, I want to do that movie stuff.
- 6:21Speaker 5: Let me, I can write a screenplay just like anyone else.
- 6:24Speaker 5: So I just wrote a screenplay, and you know, I
- 6:27Speaker 5: had my ideas of what characters I wanted and the
- 6:31Speaker 5: basic ideas, and had some scenes in my mind. And
- 6:35Speaker 5: so I went about and I wrote this script and
- 6:37Speaker 5: had some cool scenes, and I think it probably had
- 6:40Speaker 5: some good dialogue For a seventeen year old, I'd probably
- 6:44Speaker 5: not like it now. But when I went back and
- 6:48Speaker 5: read the entire screenplay, it really didn't have any focus.
- 6:51Speaker 5: And that's because I just wrote off the top of
- 6:54Speaker 5: my head. I didn't realize that there was this whole
- 6:58Speaker 5: art to screenwriting, having structure and knowing how to do
- 7:03Speaker 5: outlines and things. So I would suggest to others to
- 7:07Speaker 5: really learn outlining. And that was my biggest challenge, is
- 7:12Speaker 5: trying to write without doing those things that I just recommended.
- 7:17Speaker 5: I read like one or two books, but nowadays there's
- 7:22Speaker 5: a lot more education out there.
- 7:24Speaker 3: There's more seminars.
- 7:26Speaker 5: A friend of mine, David Freeman, has a great seminar
- 7:29Speaker 5: called Beyond Structure.
- 7:32Speaker 3: That's one.
- 7:32Speaker 5: Michael Haig has seminars Chris, So you know, there's a
- 7:37Speaker 5: lot of great seminars out there, and then there's specialty
- 7:40Speaker 5: seminars for different genres. I have a class on horror.
- 7:45Speaker 5: So I would just recommend getting the education and learning
- 7:48Speaker 5: how to do outlining before you go into it, because
- 7:51Speaker 5: that was my biggest mistake when I first started.
- 7:55Speaker 4: And that's something I found out too, is that outlining
- 7:57Speaker 4: is so key because you have to know where your
- 8:00Speaker 4: story begins and where it ends, and you need to
- 8:03Speaker 4: see that in a hole. You know, whether it's you know,
- 8:06Speaker 4: just one sheet so you could see like, you know,
- 8:08Speaker 4: just in one glance, or whether it's like you know,
- 8:10Speaker 4: writing it over the span offical pages to add in
- 8:12Speaker 4: like a beat sheet. It's just so important to know,
- 8:15Speaker 4: you know what's going on the scenes, everything like, and
- 8:19Speaker 4: what's happening in those scenes, and then you can really
- 8:22Speaker 4: start to develop that mood from there.
- 8:24Speaker 5: Yeah, and when I did my first screenplay, I did
- 8:28Speaker 5: know what my beginning and end was, but I didn't
- 8:31Speaker 5: know all of the signposts along the way. I just
- 8:35Speaker 5: sort of tried to fill it in as I was writing.
- 8:39Speaker 5: And just because you some people think just because you
- 8:42Speaker 5: have an outline, it means you're being rigid and you're
- 8:45Speaker 5: being formulaic and that you're not being creative. But that's
- 8:48Speaker 5: really not true. The structure just gives you the spine
- 8:52Speaker 5: of the story. Or if you look at it as
- 8:55Speaker 5: building a house, it's a blueprints of the structure of
- 8:59Speaker 5: the house. But that does mean you can't be creative
- 9:01Speaker 5: and go in and paint the walls however you want them,
- 9:04Speaker 5: or put the trim on the on the ceiling or
- 9:08Speaker 5: the door knobs a certain way, so that once the
- 9:12Speaker 5: structures there, it gives you freedom to go in and
- 9:14Speaker 5: do all the the real creative stuff in my opinion.
- 9:18Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and I agree on that too. And you know,
- 9:21Speaker 4: and speaking of resources, there's other places online now where
- 9:24Speaker 4: you can literally pull off screenplays, and you can pull
- 9:27Speaker 4: off even like, you know, things like about sequences and
- 9:30Speaker 4: about you know that you were speaking about the signposts
- 9:34Speaker 4: on the road. Were you speaking about like the nine
- 9:36Speaker 4: main beats, like you know, like an inciting incident the first.
- 9:40Speaker 3: Yeah, generally those things.
- 9:42Speaker 5: Yeah, they're different according to who you talk to in
- 9:44Speaker 5: terms of terminology, but the basic that's what I meant
- 9:47Speaker 5: by signposts, the basic plot points, you know, the major
- 9:51Speaker 5: plot points, and then the lesser plot points along the way.
- 9:57Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
- 10:03Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
- 10:06Speaker 4: So, Dave, what challenges do you encounter when you're writing
- 10:09Speaker 4: a screenplay? Now?
- 10:12Speaker 5: Now, well, I joked last time about it being my
- 10:15Speaker 5: daughter because she's five and she's always tugging my leg
- 10:17Speaker 5: asking for something. It's actually true. So I'd say the
- 10:20Speaker 5: challenge is just working in a schedule with everything else
- 10:27Speaker 5: that's going on in life. And I know that's something
- 10:29Speaker 5: that a lot of people have problems with. There's a
- 10:33Speaker 5: lot of people interested in screenwriting that work full time
- 10:37Speaker 5: and they have kids, or they have spouses, or they
- 10:40Speaker 5: have other obligations. So just being able to schedule things
- 10:46Speaker 5: and having a time where you can really get in
- 10:48Speaker 5: and write, that's a challenge. And you just have to
- 10:53Speaker 5: be persistent. You have to just write it out. You
- 10:56Speaker 5: know that it's this time, and you know you could
- 10:59Speaker 5: be creative. Piece some people say there's there is no time.
- 11:02Speaker 5: I have no time. Well, that just means that your
- 11:05Speaker 5: priority is low. If your priority is not to do it,
- 11:08Speaker 5: then you won't do it. But if it is a priority,
- 11:11Speaker 5: then you will do it. Even if it means waking
- 11:13Speaker 5: up an hour early and you know, getting to work
- 11:18Speaker 5: an hour early and getting your laptop out before and
- 11:22Speaker 5: writing a few scenes or or something, you can you
- 11:25Speaker 5: can do it.
- 11:26Speaker 4: Yeah, And you've had a lot of writers doing that too,
- 11:28Speaker 4: where they've either gotten to work early or they stay
- 11:31Speaker 4: late just to knock out something and it and you
- 11:33Speaker 4: know that with that extra hour or so, right, right, So,
- 11:38Speaker 4: And if your approach to writing is you know, I know,
- 11:41Speaker 4: you break it out into eighths. Do you want to
- 11:43Speaker 4: talk more about your your real method.
- 11:48Speaker 3: Well, uh yeah.
- 11:49Speaker 5: I won't get go into a lot of detail because
- 11:52Speaker 5: that might take some time and people can learn that
- 11:55Speaker 5: on my website too, but it's basically it's based on
- 12:01Speaker 5: the sequence method from USC where they break it down
- 12:06Speaker 5: into sequences. And the reason I like that is because
- 12:10Speaker 5: they're bite sized pieces that you really you could understand
- 12:15Speaker 5: what each section is attempting to do within the story.
- 12:21Speaker 3: And then also it gives.
- 12:23Speaker 5: You a goal, a really clear goal that you know
- 12:26Speaker 5: you can make and then once you make that goal,
- 12:29Speaker 5: you know, of the twelve pages or so or fifteen,
- 12:34Speaker 5: depending on what you're shooting for. Once you make it,
- 12:38Speaker 5: then you just go on to the next and then
- 12:39Speaker 5: you have another clear goal. So I think it's easier
- 12:43Speaker 5: to get through the whole script doing that. And my
- 12:46Speaker 5: real outlining technique is basically taking that sequence method and
- 12:50Speaker 5: putting it onto a outline template where someone can just easily,
- 12:57Speaker 5: you know, put in the major plot points of each
- 13:00Speaker 5: of the reels and then build it and you can
- 13:06Speaker 5: look at it from an overview it's like a bird's
- 13:08Speaker 5: eye view and see this entire structure of the screenplay,
- 13:13Speaker 5: and you could play around and move move the scenes
- 13:15Speaker 5: around and things until you know it's really clear, and
- 13:19Speaker 5: then you can write a first draft really quickly. And
- 13:21Speaker 5: that's that's my goal, and I found it very successful
- 13:26Speaker 5: when I've been hired to do something with a tight deadline.
- 13:31Speaker 5: You know, I've had to write features in three weeks,
- 13:34Speaker 5: which is crazy, I think, and uh, you know, but
- 13:39Speaker 5: if I have the outline, then three weeks is actually
- 13:43Speaker 5: actually a long time. You can do it quicker than that.
- 13:46Speaker 5: So usually if I had three weeks, I would spend
- 13:50Speaker 5: you know, a whole week just doing the outline, and
- 13:52Speaker 5: then I would zip through the first draft, you know,
- 13:56Speaker 5: in the in the two weeks or less. So that's
- 14:00Speaker 5: what a nutshell of the out the real outlining method,
- 14:05Speaker 5: you know.
- 14:05Speaker 4: And I found that that also helps a lot with outlining,
- 14:09Speaker 4: just sequencing it out and breaking it into eights, you know,
- 14:12Speaker 4: so you have you know, you have two sequences in
- 14:14Speaker 4: act one, four and act two and then two and
- 14:16Speaker 4: act three, and it really helps to sort of just
- 14:19Speaker 4: see this and break down in the medical pieces. It
- 14:22Speaker 4: really helps you now you can say, hey, this isn't
- 14:24Speaker 4: as much as just if I said, you know, okay,
- 14:26Speaker 4: we're going to lack one, Act two, and then act
- 14:28Speaker 4: two to act three, then you know, to a conclusion.
- 14:31Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 14:32Speaker 5: And that's why, you know, in the early days of screenwriting,
- 14:35Speaker 5: when people just had Sidfield's book, they always would say
- 14:39Speaker 5: the same thing that as soon as they got into
- 14:41Speaker 5: act two they would get lost and bogged down, and
- 14:45Speaker 5: and it would take forever because there weren't really those
- 14:48Speaker 5: clear sign posts along the way, so it got difficult.
- 14:55Speaker 3: And the whole.
- 14:56Speaker 5: Idea of of reels, you know, come from when in
- 15:02Speaker 5: the theaters they actually used reels of film, and they
- 15:04Speaker 5: were broken down into it wasn't.
- 15:07Speaker 3: Just one giant real the entire movie.
- 15:11Speaker 5: They'd have to switch the reels and so they would
- 15:13Speaker 5: be in in you know, I think they were eleven
- 15:16Speaker 5: minute twelve minute reels and then they would switch it over.
- 15:20Speaker 3: So that's the idea of a reel.
- 15:22Speaker 5: And if you take those eight of them, they pretty
- 15:26Speaker 5: much come to the exact perfect length of a feature.
- 15:30Speaker 4: So and when we talk about all the resources online
- 15:34Speaker 4: and you know, you could learn online pretty much anything. Now,
- 15:37Speaker 4: in the subject of one, what was some of the
- 15:39Speaker 4: reasons why you started horror excuse me, the Horror Movie School.
- 15:44Speaker 5: Yeah, it's Horror Movie School dot com. And the reason
- 15:46Speaker 5: I started it is because when I worked in Hollywood
- 15:51Speaker 5: after school, the first job I had was in post
- 15:56Speaker 5: production and I had that for several years and I
- 16:00Speaker 5: saw all of these films come in, you know, where
- 16:03Speaker 5: we would do the post production, we would do music,
- 16:06Speaker 5: we would do sound effects, editing and all that. And
- 16:12Speaker 5: I got to see, you know, the films worked on
- 16:15Speaker 5: and they were mainly independent films, but you know, they
- 16:17Speaker 5: were anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to you know,
- 16:22Speaker 5: maybe ten or fifteen million dollars as independent films, and
- 16:28Speaker 5: I got to see them being worked on, and then
- 16:30Speaker 5: I got to see what happened to them, you know,
- 16:33Speaker 5: in a year or two down the line. And I'd
- 16:37Speaker 5: always find that the horror movies ended up on the
- 16:43Speaker 5: shelves of Blockbuster or or sold distributed, and I'd see
- 16:48Speaker 5: them and i'd rent them even and I'd say, hey, hey,
- 16:51Speaker 5: this is one of the ones I worked on. But
- 16:54Speaker 5: the other ones, the comedies, the dramas, they disappeared, and
- 17:00Speaker 5: I figured they're just shown at Christmas time at the
- 17:03Speaker 5: director's house, you know, for their family or something. And yeah, yeah,
- 17:09Speaker 5: so they you know, they spent five hundred thousand dollars
- 17:11Speaker 5: of their life savings and now it's just something that
- 17:14Speaker 5: their friends watch. And you know, that's sad because maybe
- 17:19Speaker 5: it was a really good story. But the thing that
- 17:22Speaker 5: I learned was that genre is something that really sells,
- 17:26Speaker 5: and it's something that you don't need star power for.
- 17:30Speaker 5: So that comedy, you know, if it had a star
- 17:32Speaker 5: in it, it might have been very successful because people
- 17:35Speaker 5: would have wanted to see it. But if there's no
- 17:38Speaker 5: one in it, they recognize no one's going to want
- 17:40Speaker 5: to rent it, but horror. They're going to want to
- 17:42Speaker 5: rent it simply because it's horror and because it's the
- 17:45Speaker 5: cool idea. It's a star unto itself. That's what I say.
- 17:49Speaker 3: And so I.
- 17:50Speaker 5: Figured that I can help people learn this genre. It's
- 17:54Speaker 5: something I've been working on for many, many years, and
- 17:58Speaker 5: it's it's something that can help people break in. There's
- 18:02Speaker 5: a lot of producers out there looking for low budget
- 18:05Speaker 5: or things to mill make, and you know, once you
- 18:09Speaker 5: break in, then you can do what you want. You know,
- 18:11Speaker 5: you could be Sam Raimi and you know, do Evil
- 18:14Speaker 5: Dead and then decide you want to go do a
- 18:16Speaker 5: Western or a Spider Man or something. But if you
- 18:21Speaker 5: love horror, you know you can stay in it too.
- 18:23Speaker 5: It'll just give you a way in.
- 18:25Speaker 4: Yeah, because you look at movies like Powder them Activity,
- 18:28Speaker 4: and you look at other, you know, other movies like
- 18:30Speaker 4: The Blair Witch Project. They were basically like a no
- 18:33Speaker 4: to well they would be classified as like a no
- 18:36Speaker 4: to micro budget films and then they had minimal locations,
- 18:40Speaker 4: but they really folks in the horror and they did it.
- 18:42Speaker 4: I mean, both those movies did extremely well. And I
- 18:46Speaker 4: know they're outliers obviously because you know, because they've both
- 18:48Speaker 4: made a couple hundred million dollars. But yeah, it is
- 18:51Speaker 4: real point though, because if you know, if we had,
- 18:54Speaker 4: let's say, five thousand dollars to make a movie which
- 18:58Speaker 4: is basically considered no budget, if we could actually you know,
- 19:02Speaker 4: get one location, whether someone's house or what have you,
- 19:06Speaker 4: and then you know, we could actually film the movie
- 19:08Speaker 4: there exactly.
- 19:10Speaker 5: And and you know you can do that with a
- 19:12Speaker 5: drama too, But the difference is you have a lot
- 19:15Speaker 5: better chance of selling the horror film or getting someone
- 19:19Speaker 5: to you know, rent to watch it whatever, just because
- 19:24Speaker 5: it's the genre. You have a fan base built in already.
- 19:28Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 19:29Speaker 5: I mean, I think Paranormal Activity the last time I checked,
- 19:32Speaker 5: which maybe something's changed by now, but I think it
- 19:37Speaker 5: was the most successful film of all time in terms
- 19:39Speaker 5: of return on investment. The amount of money put in
- 19:42Speaker 5: according to how much they made. It was just insane
- 19:47Speaker 5: how much they made.
- 19:49Speaker 4: Yeah, it really is. And you're a little side fact.
- 19:53Speaker 4: One person I had on the on my previous show.
- 19:57Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our and
- 20:04Speaker 2: now back to the show.
- 20:07Speaker 4: Actually used to work with Orn Ptelly and they worked
- 20:10Speaker 4: together at Sony and they actually were both coders and
- 20:15Speaker 4: Oran one day just quit because he said, guys, I
- 20:18Speaker 4: sold a movie to Sony or whoever, and he said
- 20:21Speaker 4: that's what I do now, And they thought they was
- 20:23Speaker 4: kidding around. He was serious. And now that guy's into
- 20:27Speaker 4: filmmaking now and his name was Scott McMahon and he
- 20:30Speaker 4: just had him orran on his podcast to discuss to
- 20:33Speaker 4: discuss how he did it. So it's actually if you
- 20:36Speaker 4: want to look up Scott's podcast, I'm gonna put the
- 20:39Speaker 4: link on the show notes. But it's really really interesting
- 20:42Speaker 4: how he talks to Orrin about how the movie got
- 20:44Speaker 4: discovered and how Orn was able to get to get
- 20:47Speaker 4: into where it was.
- 20:48Speaker 5: Oh, that's great, I'd love to hear that. What's the
- 20:51Speaker 5: website address.
- 20:52Speaker 4: Again, it's I forget what his I think it's called
- 20:55Speaker 4: Filmmaker Fridays is his podcast name, but the guy who
- 20:59Speaker 4: runs is called Scott McMahon. I'm gonna put the url
- 21:02Speaker 4: on the show notes.
- 21:03Speaker 3: Okay, fantastic, And you.
- 21:05Speaker 4: Know, just to just continue with the online learning, you know, Dave,
- 21:09Speaker 4: do you ever think that like online learning or you know,
- 21:13Speaker 4: distance learning is sometimes is called do you ever think
- 21:15Speaker 4: that will replace standard universities?
- 21:18Speaker 5: It's never going to replace it because the universities are
- 21:22Speaker 5: too large and they have the reputation, and there's always
- 21:24Speaker 5: going to be someone that has a lot of money
- 21:27Speaker 5: and a lot of time and wants to have that,
- 21:32Speaker 5: you know, just the name saying they went went there.
- 21:37Speaker 5: I don't think it's necessary to go there. There's lots
- 21:39Speaker 5: of people that have been successful that haven't gone to
- 21:42Speaker 5: the major universities, and there's a lot more people that
- 21:46Speaker 5: now have access to education and learning. Like I was
- 21:51Speaker 5: saying before, there's a whole lot of people out there that,
- 21:55Speaker 5: you know, they have to support themselves, they have to
- 21:57Speaker 5: have a job, they have to you know, help their
- 22:00Speaker 5: families or what have you. And online learning gives them
- 22:04Speaker 5: the opportunity to, you know, when your kids go to sleep,
- 22:07Speaker 5: you pull out the computer at any time of the
- 22:09Speaker 5: night and you can get that education. You can do
- 22:12Speaker 5: the practices, you can learn from seminars, audio video, what
- 22:17Speaker 5: have you. You know, whenever, even at lunchtime at your job.
- 22:22Speaker 5: So there's no excuses for not doing it because there's
- 22:26Speaker 5: so many opportunities out there, and it just online learning
- 22:29Speaker 5: just is great. I mean I use it all the
- 22:33Speaker 5: time still. Whenever there's a little class or seminar that
- 22:37Speaker 5: I want to learn, I go online and I just
- 22:39Speaker 5: do it when it's convenient.
- 22:42Speaker 4: That's great because you know, and even like there's apps
- 22:44Speaker 4: now for the phone, you're where there of Android or
- 22:46Speaker 4: iOS there. You know, I've all sometimes because I'm taking
- 22:50Speaker 4: some all like classes right now and I can just
- 22:52Speaker 4: pop it open and I can go through a lesson
- 22:54Speaker 4: right then and there.
- 22:55Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's great. Technology makes it easier. And not
- 23:00Speaker 5: only classes, but just like things you're doing. You're doing
- 23:03Speaker 5: this podcast. It's a great educational tool for people to
- 23:07Speaker 5: learn things. And you know, a lot of times you'll
- 23:10Speaker 5: learn things that you'd never even learn in a film
- 23:13Speaker 5: school in places like this.
- 23:16Speaker 4: And it's also a good place in network too, because
- 23:18Speaker 4: you're people with different experiences and you may not be
- 23:21Speaker 4: exposed to them, you know, without that. Yeah, and then
- 23:27Speaker 4: so Dave just to move to production now, you wrote
- 23:30Speaker 4: and directed a feature length film called In Search of Lovecraft.
- 23:35Speaker 4: What challenges did you encounter when you made that movie?
- 23:41Speaker 5: Well, primarily, I am a screenplay consultant. That's what I've
- 23:44Speaker 5: been doing for over I think it's over fifteen years now,
- 23:48Speaker 5: and that's what I'm known for. Mainly, but I've done
- 23:52Speaker 5: production also. When I very first started, you know, when
- 23:54Speaker 5: I was a teenager, I was doing national commercials Prodigy
- 24:00Speaker 5: and Macy's and Dodge and things like that, I would
- 24:02Speaker 5: work in production.
- 24:03Speaker 3: So I've always worked in production.
- 24:06Speaker 5: And when I was studying screenwriting when I moved to
- 24:09Speaker 5: Los Angeles, I also did a whole ton of low
- 24:13Speaker 5: budget films with students and some really low budget horror
- 24:17Speaker 5: movies features. I worked in production, but I'm always the
- 24:22Speaker 5: script person, the script analyst. But I was talking with
- 24:25Speaker 5: my wife and we were just saying, you know, do
- 24:28Speaker 5: you think you can make a feature? And I said sure,
- 24:30Speaker 5: And it was sort of a bet. You know, before
- 24:33Speaker 5: your birthday, which is in three months, can you get
- 24:35Speaker 5: a feature put together? And so just for the experience,
- 24:39Speaker 5: I did it. I wrote it really quickly and started
- 24:44Speaker 5: casting it and got all the locations and got some
- 24:48Speaker 5: really cool locations. Actually, we're the only production at least
- 24:53Speaker 5: at the time, which was I think three years ago,
- 24:58Speaker 5: to ever shoot at Quait Tower in San Francs, Cisco,
- 25:00Speaker 5: because normally they wouldn't give you permission to go in
- 25:03Speaker 5: and shoot, but we sort of.
- 25:08Speaker 3: Talked our way in with.
- 25:09Speaker 5: The manager and and got into shoot there, that, and that.
- 25:13Speaker 5: So that was cool, and we have a lot of
- 25:15Speaker 5: high profile San Francisco locations that we shot in.
- 25:20Speaker 3: The biggest obstacle was time.
- 25:24Speaker 5: We'd we'd run out of time because we had almost
- 25:27Speaker 5: no budget. We shot the whole thing in ten days,
- 25:31Speaker 5: and so all of these things I had on my
- 25:35Speaker 5: shot lists, you know, I would say, Okay, we're on
- 25:40Speaker 5: this shot. Now, get the Dolly ready. I want to
- 25:43Speaker 5: do a Dolly shot here, and at the same time,
- 25:46Speaker 5: you know, boom the arm up so we can get
- 25:48Speaker 5: a shot. So Dolly shot with the boom and they'd say, no,
- 25:53Speaker 5: I don't think so, we don't have the time for that.
- 25:55Speaker 5: We're going to put it on sticks and shoot it,
- 25:58Speaker 5: you know, straight, And a lot of that happened. So
- 26:01Speaker 5: that was disappointing, and that taught me just that the
- 26:06Speaker 5: next one I do, I just need a bigger budget
- 26:08Speaker 5: so we have more time, more time.
- 26:11Speaker 4: Yeah. And that's what I've learned too, is I would
- 26:15Speaker 4: much prefer to have more days. Yeah, but and make
- 26:18Speaker 4: them less hours, because I mean you hear sometimes like
- 26:20Speaker 4: fourteen sixteen, eighteen hour days. Oh yeah, that just grinds
- 26:25Speaker 4: out your crew more than anything.
- 26:27Speaker 5: Yeah, we were doing for ten days. We did eighteen
- 26:32Speaker 5: to twenty hour days every day, and yeah, the only
- 26:37Speaker 5: thing that kept the crew from mutiny was having really
- 26:41Speaker 5: really good food. So I would I would definitely don't
- 26:45Speaker 5: skimp on food if you're making your crew work a lot.
- 26:49Speaker 4: Yeah. I was actually shooting a zombie trailer with a
- 26:53Speaker 4: friend of mine and business partner, Chris Witt, and we
- 26:55Speaker 4: actually had this catering company actually donated food to us,
- 27:00Speaker 4: so like all the lunches were like this amazing food
- 27:03Speaker 4: each day. And because I'm glad they worked out that
- 27:08Speaker 4: way because it was raining every single day we were shooting.
- 27:12Speaker 4: Just like putting the cast out there was so brutal.
- 27:15Speaker 4: It was cold, and uh, you know, I think that
- 27:19Speaker 4: is one thing I really made up for it was
- 27:20Speaker 4: the fact that we had all some food.
- 27:22Speaker 3: Yeah, that always helped.
- 27:25Speaker 5: And I need to talk to you sometimes and how
- 27:27Speaker 5: you got it donated.
- 27:28Speaker 3: It's pretty good. You know.
- 27:31Speaker 4: It's different producers. I always say, different producers at different
- 27:34Speaker 4: skill sets and sometimes it's just you know, connections or
- 27:37Speaker 4: it's just being like you were able to you know,
- 27:39Speaker 4: talk your way and then shooting in certain locations and
- 27:42Speaker 4: you know, I forget who told me this, but someone
- 27:45Speaker 4: said that a producer with a large rollodex is actually
- 27:48Speaker 4: like yours, like your best asset, because you mus call around.
- 27:52Speaker 3: And that's true. That's true.
- 27:55Speaker 4: So if you were to make another film, Dave, do
- 27:58Speaker 4: you think you would go to the crowdfunding route?
- 28:01Speaker 3: Say that again? Which route?
- 28:03Speaker 4: The crowdfunding route? Do you think you mean six stor
- 28:06Speaker 4: if you do, I I might.
- 28:11Speaker 5: I think you know, I know several people that had
- 28:14Speaker 5: success in it. One of my friends did a short
- 28:20Speaker 5: film successfully and got funding through that. Another friend did
- 28:24Speaker 5: a documentary. Any budget that I want to work with now,
- 28:29Speaker 5: I think it'd be probably too much to raise through that.
- 28:33Speaker 5: I know there's been some success. I know there's a
- 28:36Speaker 5: there's this game maker. I'm I'm a big Lovecraft fan,
- 28:39Speaker 5: being horror or a person. And there's this game designer
- 28:43Speaker 5: named Sandy Peterson who designed the Colicatulu horror Lovecraft game,
- 28:48Speaker 5: and he did a Kickstarter to raise ninety thousand dollars
- 28:51Speaker 5: to make a new Lovecraft game and he ended up
- 28:54Speaker 5: raising I think one point four million instead of ninety thousand.
- 28:59Speaker 5: So you can definitely succeed if you do it right
- 29:03Speaker 5: and you have some kind of a name there, But
- 29:08Speaker 5: I think I'd be more likely to go private investor
- 29:13Speaker 5: route and just to a you know, business plan and
- 29:19Speaker 5: get a lawyer and go to private funding.
- 29:24Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I've often talked about this, maybe
- 29:27Speaker 4: you could do a mixture of the two, because I've
- 29:29Speaker 4: talked about this to other filmmakers and just to say, like,
- 29:32Speaker 4: you know, maybe not crowdfunds your entire budget. Maybe crowdfund
- 29:36Speaker 4: maybe you know, twenty thirty percent to use that as
- 29:40Speaker 4: it was like a proof of concept. But you know something,
- 29:45Speaker 4: you know, I've got into discussions before about if you
- 29:48Speaker 4: need to crowdfund like five thousand dollars, is it really
- 29:52Speaker 4: quote unquote worth it? And some people say yeah, some
- 29:54Speaker 4: people say no.
- 29:57Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
- 30:03Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
- 30:06Speaker 4: But you know, I see what you mean about, you know,
- 30:09Speaker 4: having a name attached, because you have to have you know,
- 30:11Speaker 4: the perks have to be right, the project has to
- 30:13Speaker 4: be you know, little has no quality. You know, everything
- 30:16Speaker 4: has to you know, there's a whole checklist. And you
- 30:19Speaker 4: know I did a podcast with John Tregonis a couple
- 30:22Speaker 4: of weeks ago. I'm gonna have them on again, and
- 30:24Speaker 4: we always get into that about you know, sometimes filmmakers
- 30:29Speaker 4: just they set this unrealistic goal and there's absolutely no
- 30:33Speaker 4: way they're ever going to make it, like you know,
- 30:34Speaker 4: like you know, five hundred thousand dollars this simple zombie movie,
- 30:39Speaker 4: and you're like, what, what's costing five hundred thousand dollars?
- 30:42Speaker 3: Right? Or or how do we you know? Who are you?
- 30:45Speaker 3: Why are we going to give it to you?
- 30:46Speaker 4: Yes?
- 30:47Speaker 5: Exactly know when when we can, you know, do it
- 30:49Speaker 5: ourselves or give it to some person we we've heard
- 30:52Speaker 5: of and if I I'm not exactly sure, but I've
- 30:58Speaker 5: been told that in crowd under, you know, if you know,
- 31:03Speaker 5: correct me, that you can ask to raise a certain
- 31:06Speaker 5: amount and if you don't hit that goal, you still
- 31:10Speaker 5: receive the funds, while in Kickstarter you don't receive any
- 31:14Speaker 5: funds unless you meet the full goal.
- 31:17Speaker 4: Yes, indiego go or indiegog, I keep calling it INDI
- 31:20Speaker 4: a go go. But in indiego go you can have
- 31:23Speaker 4: it set either way, whether it's you know, whether you
- 31:26Speaker 4: meet the goal and you get nothing, or you meet
- 31:28Speaker 4: the goal and eve if you don't meet the goal,
- 31:30Speaker 4: you still get something. So you can have it set
- 31:32Speaker 4: either way Kickstarter, it's all or nothing, so you're, yeah,
- 31:35Speaker 4: a dollar short, you get absolutely nothing.
- 31:38Speaker 5: And I, in a way, I think I like that
- 31:40Speaker 5: better because then that way the people that are getting
- 31:42Speaker 5: involved in giving you money know that the project is
- 31:45Speaker 5: gonna you know, go forward, as opposed to you know,
- 31:49Speaker 5: you get partial funding and then it might not ever
- 31:52Speaker 5: be finished.
- 31:54Speaker 4: And you know, there's been discussions about that, you know
- 31:57Speaker 4: online too, about you know, what is that better? And
- 32:01Speaker 4: really it does come down to the project. You know,
- 32:03Speaker 4: I was all gonna try grownus about this, and he
- 32:06Speaker 4: I didn't even know about this, but there was a
- 32:08Speaker 4: whole zombie like you know crowd in within indiegog, and
- 32:13Speaker 4: basically he was tolking out the idea of just having
- 32:15Speaker 4: your hashtag go go zombie because there's so many zombie
- 32:18Speaker 4: projects on there and they all get funded too, which
- 32:20Speaker 4: is which speaks a lot about the horror genre and
- 32:23Speaker 4: the zombie, the zombie subgenre. And so Dave, just to
- 32:30Speaker 4: continue with the whole conversation about your projects, what are
- 32:33Speaker 4: you working on next?
- 32:36Speaker 5: Well, I'm working a lot on you know, student things.
- 32:41Speaker 5: I have the Horror movie school dot com, and then
- 32:42Speaker 5: I have my consulting business. So I do screenplay consulting
- 32:46Speaker 5: for a lot of writers. I just talked to someone
- 32:49Speaker 5: today actually about a really really big project, which I'm
- 32:54Speaker 5: not gonna say until I get it, you know, signed.
- 32:57Speaker 5: But that's something I'm working on. And then I have
- 33:00Speaker 5: my own spect projects that I'm working on. I think
- 33:04Speaker 5: I mentioned to you this before. I'm actually getting away
- 33:09Speaker 5: from horror on this project and doing a kid's Disney
- 33:13Speaker 5: type Disney type film because I have some a good
- 33:17Speaker 5: friend that works in directing for Disney, and so that's
- 33:22Speaker 5: an open opportunity. And also I'd like to have something
- 33:25Speaker 5: that my daughter can watch and I can tell her
- 33:28Speaker 5: I did it. I can't show her any of my
- 33:30Speaker 5: horse But I mean, my true love is still horror,
- 33:36Speaker 5: but I like to be diverse. I mean, I watch
- 33:40Speaker 5: romantic comedies too. It's not that I'm stuck only in horror.
- 33:43Speaker 5: It's just happens to be my specialty.
- 33:46Speaker 4: And speaking of hard Disney, we were just talking about
- 33:48Speaker 4: Escape from Tomorrow.
- 33:50Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you turned me onto that last time, and
- 33:54Speaker 5: I had never heard of it actually, so I looked
- 33:56Speaker 5: it up and I read a little bit about it,
- 33:58Speaker 5: and I guess the guy got an inheritance from his grandparents,
- 34:03Speaker 5: and he spent six six hundred and fifty thousand on
- 34:07Speaker 5: making this film, and he shot at gorilla style in
- 34:11Speaker 5: Disneyland or Disney World, I guess it is in Florida,
- 34:15Speaker 5: and it's in black and white, and I watched a
- 34:19Speaker 5: few scenes and it has a really interesting.
- 34:21Speaker 3: Look to it.
- 34:23Speaker 5: And it's just amazing that he pulled this off, shooting
- 34:27Speaker 5: the whole thing gorilla style and not being caught. I
- 34:31Speaker 5: mean I read that he and the crew would go
- 34:34Speaker 5: and take these rides, you know, fifteen times in a
- 34:39Speaker 5: row to get the scene right, and nobody noticed anything
- 34:42Speaker 5: that was going on. He used as their phones had
- 34:46Speaker 5: their scripts on him, like you were telling me, and
- 34:49Speaker 5: they were using cameras that looked consumer you know that
- 34:53Speaker 5: other people in the park might have. So it's very interesting.
- 34:57Speaker 5: I'm going to watch the whole thing, but I wouldn't
- 35:01Speaker 5: recommend doing that. I mean, if that guy came to
- 35:03Speaker 5: me and said should I do this? I would tell
- 35:06Speaker 5: him no. And I guess in this case I would
- 35:09Speaker 5: have been wrong because it was successful and went to
- 35:13Speaker 5: the festival. But you know, that's one out of a million.
- 35:20Speaker 5: I know another person, a friend of mine, that shot
- 35:24Speaker 5: something similar movie where I told him he shouldn't be
- 35:27Speaker 5: doing it because he didn't have the rights, and he said, oh,
- 35:30Speaker 5: that's no big deal. And then as soon as he
- 35:32Speaker 5: finished it, the first advertisement he put out, first marketing
- 35:36Speaker 5: thing he put out there, he got calls from lawyers saying,
- 35:39Speaker 5: we're going to sue you out of existence if you
- 35:43Speaker 5: show this or market it at all. So I was
- 35:48Speaker 5: really surprised that Disney didn't go after this guy, but
- 35:52Speaker 5: luckily they didn't.
- 35:54Speaker 3: So you can see it. It looks very interesting.
- 35:57Speaker 4: Yeah, I definitely would check it out. Sorry, recommended to
- 36:00Speaker 4: filmmakers who just interesting how he how he actually did it,
- 36:04Speaker 4: and obviously just feel what he did with the with
- 36:07Speaker 4: you know, although he had a larger budget than most
- 36:09Speaker 4: people had, it's just how he went about doing it.
- 36:12Speaker 4: But yeah, like you said, Dave, I would if somebody
- 36:14Speaker 4: asked me about this, I would I say, no way,
- 36:16Speaker 4: do not even attempt to do something like that.
- 36:19Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 36:19Speaker 5: And and the funny thing is he knew that there
- 36:23Speaker 5: could be major trouble because I read that he uh,
- 36:28Speaker 5: as soon as he had everything in the can, he
- 36:30Speaker 5: went to I guess South Korea and had all the
- 36:33Speaker 5: visual effects done in South Korea. Because he didn't want
- 36:35Speaker 5: any of the post production houses to talk about it.
- 36:39Speaker 3: And it to get to Disney though.
- 36:42Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's a good way to do it, I guess.
- 36:45Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know how much that extra would
- 36:48Speaker 4: have cast them, but yeah, it's it's a really interesting story,
- 36:52Speaker 4: you know. It's it's always some of these films, you know,
- 36:54Speaker 4: like Bullfinger. There was a that was based off a
- 36:56Speaker 4: real movie where apparently, you know, like actors would just
- 37:01Speaker 4: walk up this actress on the beach and just say
- 37:03Speaker 4: lines to her and she go what and then you
- 37:04Speaker 4: know they use that as the actual movie. I don't
- 37:07Speaker 4: know the name of it, but that's what bo Finger
- 37:08Speaker 4: was based off of. Okay, so yeah, it's you know,
- 37:13Speaker 4: it's crazy to these stories.
- 37:15Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 37:16Speaker 4: So so, Dave, you know, just to wrap everything up,
- 37:20Speaker 4: is there anything else you'd like to share or discuss
- 37:22Speaker 4: that we haven't talked about yet.
- 37:24Speaker 5: Oh, just a couple of tips. Maybe we talked a
- 37:32Speaker 5: little bit about this last time. I would just suggest,
- 37:36Speaker 5: you know, if you know what genre you have a
- 37:39Speaker 5: love for, you know, watch as many films as you
- 37:42Speaker 5: can and get the scripts, because you can't just get
- 37:44Speaker 5: it from watching the movies. You have to get the screenplay.
- 37:47Speaker 5: So pick up copies of the scripts, the specscripts, preferably
- 37:53Speaker 5: before they're turned into shooting scripts, and read them and
- 37:57Speaker 5: read them, read a lot of them. And also, whenever
- 38:00Speaker 5: you see a movie, rent a movie or whatever, write
- 38:04Speaker 5: down the names of people that did them, you know,
- 38:07Speaker 5: write down the names of the writers, the producers, the
- 38:09Speaker 5: directors or cinematographers even and then you know, you could
- 38:16Speaker 5: probably look them up on IMDb Pro. You know, IMDb
- 38:22Speaker 5: pro is not that expensive. I think it's fifteen bucks
- 38:24Speaker 5: a month or something, and it gives you contact information
- 38:28Speaker 5: and just you know, write them and you know, tell
- 38:31Speaker 5: them you're a fan and you really like this, how
- 38:33Speaker 5: did they do the scene or whatever? And I find
- 38:36Speaker 5: that when you're honest and you're not just making it up,
- 38:41Speaker 5: if it's true, and you're also you know, telling them
- 38:50Speaker 5: that you like what they've done, they're more likely than
- 38:53Speaker 5: not to respond to you. And you know, most of
- 38:57Speaker 5: them are nice people. And you know, if you could
- 39:00Speaker 5: build up a conversation and then let that last for
- 39:03Speaker 5: several months, then at some point they might consider reading
- 39:07Speaker 5: something you've done, you know, So just constantly build those
- 39:11Speaker 5: those relationships anyway you can. And the writer's group is
- 39:15Speaker 5: another good way, you know, because you might be in
- 39:18Speaker 5: a writer's group with a bunch of guys that are
- 39:21Speaker 5: brand new and then in two years one of them
- 39:24Speaker 5: just made it big and you know, he's writing sci
- 39:31Speaker 5: fi action movies and a studio told him about a
- 39:34Speaker 5: comedy and he knew that you did comedies, and so
- 39:36Speaker 5: he tells you about it.
- 39:38Speaker 3: You know.
- 39:38Speaker 5: So there's always those possibilities to just keep up the networking.
- 39:43Speaker 4: You know, Michael K. Sutter, who's on the first episode,
- 39:46Speaker 4: actually you know, he's been able to pitch to some
- 39:48Speaker 4: actually amazing people and he actually wrote a script about
- 39:52Speaker 4: Mickey Mouse.
- 39:55Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
- 40:01Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
- 40:04Speaker 4: And now he got to pitch that to Disney and
- 40:06Speaker 4: now I don't know if they sign it or not,
- 40:09Speaker 4: but I know he's got a lot of meetings from that,
- 40:12Speaker 4: at least just from that script alone. Great. And you
- 40:16Speaker 4: have two books that you're working on, correct, Dave.
- 40:20Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 40:21Speaker 5: One is one hundred and one screenplay Tips Blasting down
- 40:25Speaker 5: the Gatekeeper's Doors. It's a book with one hundred and
- 40:30Speaker 5: one different things that have come across over the years.
- 40:33Speaker 5: There's little tips that are expanded out and explained in
- 40:38Speaker 5: this book, and they're just little things that you can
- 40:43Speaker 5: read at your leisure, you know, whenever you have a
- 40:45Speaker 5: free few minutes, you can pick it up and read
- 40:48Speaker 5: one of the tips, and I think they all will
- 40:50Speaker 5: help your writing overall, your screenwriting. You can get a
- 40:54Speaker 5: condensed version of it, sort of a cheat sheet of
- 40:59Speaker 5: it that just lists them with basic information on my website,
- 41:03Speaker 5: which is David Hall dot com, DA V I, d
- 41:07Speaker 5: H O HL dot com and subscribe to the newsletter
- 41:11Speaker 5: and then that will get sent to you and that's free,
- 41:15Speaker 5: and that'll just give you all the basics and then
- 41:17Speaker 5: the book coming out will be more expansive. And then
- 41:20Speaker 5: I have a horror writing Thirteen Steps to Terror, which
- 41:26Speaker 5: is a book on the horror genre. And you know,
- 41:30Speaker 5: I looked out there and I didn't really see anything
- 41:32Speaker 5: good for horror screenwriting. There's a ton of general screenwriting
- 41:36Speaker 5: books and some good comedy books, like Steve Caplan's book,
- 41:42Speaker 5: Get That if you have any interest in comedy, but
- 41:47Speaker 5: there's nothing really good out there that I've seen for horror.
- 41:49Speaker 5: So I'm bringing that one out. Hopefully people will learn
- 41:54Speaker 5: some good pointers in there.
- 41:56Speaker 4: And I would also recommend Steve Caplan's book. I think
- 41:59Speaker 4: Steve is all awesome. I've got to talk to him
- 42:01Speaker 4: a couple of times. I actually hope to have him
- 42:02Speaker 4: on the podcast in the near future.
- 42:05Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a great guy, very funny, very interesting, a
- 42:08Speaker 5: lot of good stuff in his books. And even if
- 42:10Speaker 5: you're doing horror or any other genre, you know, there's
- 42:15Speaker 5: always a place for comedy within within what you're doing,
- 42:19Speaker 5: as well as just the genre itself, So you should
- 42:21Speaker 5: know comedy elements like anything else.
- 42:25Speaker 4: I agree, And you know, I've actually taken Dave's course
- 42:28Speaker 4: by the way, the Horror Movie School, and I highly
- 42:30Speaker 4: recommend it for anybody out there wondering. You know, after
- 42:33Speaker 4: I got done the class, I did have a couple
- 42:35Speaker 4: people ask me about it, and I always I did
- 42:37Speaker 4: tell him, hey, it is definitely a worthwhile course and
- 42:41Speaker 4: good thank you. So the amount of materials and everything
- 42:44Speaker 4: you get, and so definitely to checked it out, especially
- 42:47Speaker 4: if you're interested in horror screenwriting. And so those two
- 42:50Speaker 4: books you're working on are there, are there going to
- 42:53Speaker 4: be Kindle or Nook only? Are they also going to
- 42:55Speaker 4: be in physical copies?
- 42:58Speaker 5: The one hundred and one screenplay will probably only be kindle,
- 43:02Speaker 5: and I'm hoping the the Horror one will be with
- 43:06Speaker 5: a bigger publisher and be hard copy as well. Okay, excellent, Yeah, so, oh,
- 43:13Speaker 5: can I just give my website really quick?
- 43:15Speaker 3: So sure, it's Horror Movies School dot com. So www dot.
- 43:19Speaker 5: Horrormovieschool dot com and you could subscribe to a newsletter
- 43:25Speaker 5: there and it'll give you a lot of free stuff,
- 43:28Speaker 5: some free papers, a couple of free seminars audio seminars,
- 43:33Speaker 5: and then information about the class if you're interested.
- 43:36Speaker 4: I bet you actually beat me to the punch. It
- 43:37Speaker 4: was actually the next thing I was gonna say. Okay, thanks,
- 43:40Speaker 4: no problem, but you know, Dave, thank you very much
- 43:43Speaker 4: for coming on. And again everyone check out Dave at
- 43:46Speaker 4: Horror Movies School dot com and you can follow him
- 43:49Speaker 4: on Twitter at script m d Dave. Was there anything
- 43:53Speaker 4: you'd like to say to end the show?
- 43:56Speaker 5: No, just keep writing and great work what you're doing, Dave.
- 44:00Speaker 5: It's a good resource for people, so so keep it up.
- 44:03Speaker 4: Oh, thank you very much. I'm actually working tomorrow we
- 44:06Speaker 4: get this on iTunes. I think I finally found out
- 44:09Speaker 4: the problem of why it won't import right, so hopefully
- 44:12Speaker 4: once I've done that, you know, because people have been
- 44:14Speaker 4: asking again and again why this isn't on iTunes and
- 44:17Speaker 4: why it's just on Potomatic. Potomac is good, but iTunes
- 44:21Speaker 4: obviously is a brand name and people and people already
- 44:23Speaker 4: have the you know, the podcast app on their phone,
- 44:26Speaker 4: so you know, I do want to get it on
- 44:29Speaker 4: there eventually, but you know, and again, Dave is a
- 44:33Speaker 4: great script consultant. I'm actually I was just before the show.
- 44:35Speaker 4: I was talking to him about a script I'm working on,
- 44:37Speaker 4: which is another horror comedy. And I've mentioned this in
- 44:40Speaker 4: one of my podcasts about two weeks ago when it
- 44:42Speaker 4: was just me and it's a you know, it's a
- 44:44Speaker 4: fun slasher movie and I hope to you know, you
- 44:48Speaker 4: maybe just write it for fun or maybe you know,
- 44:50Speaker 4: produce it somewhere, Doline. You never know, right, So all
- 44:54Speaker 4: right again, Dave, thank you much very much for coming on,
- 44:57Speaker 4: and I hope you have a great night.
- 44:59Speaker 3: Okay, you too, Thanks Dave, Thanks allay all.
- 45:03Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
- 45:05Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
- 45:07Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
- 45:09Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie Film Huscle
- 45:11Speaker 2: dot com Forward Slash eight sixty five. If you have
- 45:14Speaker 2: it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com,
- 45:18Speaker 2: subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
- 45:22Speaker 2: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
- 45:24Speaker 2: so much for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going,
- 45:26Speaker 2: keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
- 45:29Speaker 2: talk to you soon.
- 45:31Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at
- 45:34Speaker 1: indiefilm hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
- 45:38Speaker 1: F I L M h U S T l E
- 45:40Speaker 1: dot com.