Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 320: No-Budget, $600 Camera, 3 Lights & Still Sold Worldwide with Elliot and Zander Weaver

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BPS 320: No-Budget, $600 Camera, 3 Lights & Still Sold Worldwide with Elliot and Zander Weaver · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
• 0:13
  Screenwriting Podcast, episode number three twenty. All good ideas start out as bad
• 0:18
  ideas. That's why it takes so long. Steven Spielberg broadcasting from a dark,
• 0:23
  windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft.
• 0:27
  It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting
• 0:33
  while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host,
• 0:37
  Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
• 0:43
  I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by
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  Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage
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  actually focuses on the kind of project you are in the goals of the project
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  you are, so we actually break it down by three categories micro budget,
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  indie film, market, and studio film. There's no reason to get coverage
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  from a reader that used to reading tempol movies when your movie is going to
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  be done for one hundred thousand dollars, and we wanted to focus on that.
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  At Bulletproof script Coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA,
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  WM, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free, Warner Brothers,
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  The Blacklist, and many many more. So if you need your screenplay or
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  TV script covered by professional readers, head on over to cover my screenplay dot
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  com. Now today on the show, guys, we have really inspiring and
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  unique filmmaking story. Today's guests are Xander and Elliott Weaver, the mastermind independent
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  filmmakers behind the feature film Cosmos. Now. On a daily basis, I
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  get pitched just tons and tons of filmmakers wanting to get on the show.
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  And as much as I want to help everybody out, I got you know,
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  I gotta make sure that the stories that I put on the show are
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  really good and really inspiring to the tribe. And I heard about Xander and
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  Elliott's film Cosmos just by running around the internet. And what made their film
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  so unique is that they shot their feature film just like I did, on
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  a black Magic pocket camera ten ADP. And that alone is not enough for
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  it to really grab people's attention, because, like I've said before, No
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  one cares about what you shooted on as long as it's a good story,
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  and these guys were able to shoot a sci fi adventure film Alas spielberg Zamechis
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  style about three amateur astronomers who intercept a faint signal from an alien race and
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  stumple upon something potentially world changing. Now, they shot this entire film for
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  about seven thousand bucks, and I was so blown away with how good it
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  looks. And what's even more impressive is they got distribution and they're selling their
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  movie around the world and making apparently good money with it. So the film
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  was shot with three people in a friend's garage on a six hundred dollars camera,
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  three led lights, and a decade old software post production software package.
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  They shot with two lenses, one old and one cheap. One was a
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  timber on eighteen to two hundred zoom which they buffer about one hundred bucks,
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  and some vintage glass from the sixties from a brand I'd never even heard of.
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  This is a kind of story we as filmmakers need to hear. We
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  don't hear these stories very often, but I want to highlight these guys so
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  much, and I can't wait for you to hear their inspirational story. So,
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  without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation Xander and Elliott Weaver.
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  I like to welcome to show Elliott and Xander Weaver. Man, how you
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  guys doing very well? Thank you, Alex, thank you very much fiving
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  us on the show. Oh Man, thank you for being on the show.
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  Man. You know, it's I get. I get. I get
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  bombarded with request to be on the show all the time, and they're like,
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  hey, I made this really low budget movie and I, you know,
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  and that was cool like five years ago, Like I made a movie
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  for five grand, Like that's that's cool. But I get thirty of those
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  a week, so it's not I need something a little extra. And I
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  actually, you guys came up on my radar with your film Cosmos a little
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  while. We've been trying to do this for a while now. By the
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  way, so everyone listening the reason why it's taken so long as schedules,
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  technology else sorts of thanks to finally get to where we're at. But I
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  saw what you're doing and I was pretty blown away by not just the efficiency
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  and the cost and all that stuff that he did. You know, he
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  did a movie for about seven thousand bucks, as you told me. But
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  the camera you used, and we'll talk about that and five years and I
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  say that with like, oh gotta help you, you know all that stuff.
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  I feel it, brother, I feel it. It's but I just
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  love what you're doing and the quality and everything looks so great. So we're
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  going to get deep into cosmos today. But before we do that, how
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  did you get into this ridiculous business? Well, we since I think this
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  is a story of many people who made movies and love movies. We've been
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  doing it since we were kids, you know, since we were And the
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  first film we actually made, Elliot was five years old and I was three,
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  and we got the home video camera and we made a film called When
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  the Toys Came to Life, When the Toys Come Live and our toys in
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  our bedroom came to life. And after that we were just we were hooked.
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  And all through high school we were making shorts with our mates and making
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  music videos for them and stuff, and we decided to just go straight from
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  high school and jump in. You know, we didn't go to a film
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  school, we didn't go to a university. There aren't really the same kind
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  of level of establishment, like there are over in the US for film school
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  options. So we were just we just thought we'd jumped straight in, get
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  some experience and and start trying to, you know, find our feet in
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  the industry. Really but yeah, passionate since since very small, very you
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  know. So the question is the juicue picks are for stealing toy story from
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  you guys? It's the question. Yeah, yeah, but you know we're
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  working on it, am I from the next movie, because obviously, I
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  mean I broke the story here that picks are stall. They saw your short,
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  stall your idea and has made billions of We were like seven or six,
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  and we were fuming in the cinema. We were like ready to table,
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  just walk out that first taste of you know, the industry screwing sippy
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  cups flying everywhere. It was just it was just rough back da I'm saying,
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  storming out of his birthday party. Can you imagine they get it better?
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  To be fair, I'll give them that was a productor a little bit
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  better than yours, just slightly, just slightly. All right, So so
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  let's let's talk about Cosmos. Mentell, how did Cosmos come to be?
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  Cosmos came about because we were actually trying to set up another project. As
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  Zander said, when we left school, we tried to set well, when
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  we left school, we both tried to jump into it and set our hearts
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  on directing a feature film, you know, finally getting around to this thing
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  that we waited to get out of high school to do. And we set
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  this project up. We started writing a script and we we kind of face
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  that challenge that all indie filmmakers face, which is do we write a script
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  we know we can achieve, or do we write the script we'd love to
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  see and look to me, I love to make but and we'll cross that
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  bridge later. And of course it's been like nineteen and twenty one years old.
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  We wrote the script we wanted to see. I thought, you know,
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  we'll cross that bridge, and then we had to cross that bridge.
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  So we were talking to finance and we were talking to investors, and we
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  got a crew together and it was all looking really really good. But understandably,
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  we were young guys and we were asking for something like five million quid
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  for a budget or something, because it all snowboard for the people we got
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  involved. It was going really well, and all the investment people kept going,
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  this is your story. Sounds great, fantastic, crew looked good,
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  but you know, you haven't done this before, and you're young, and
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  it's a lot of money to ask. And we were like, yes,
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  I mean a reasonable you make it good. I mean, I'm just I'm
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  just saying. It's like the equivalent of saying, hey, I need five
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  million to build a house. I've never built a house before. I've seen
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  it, I've seen it on TV. It seems fairly easy. So and
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  by the way, by the way, at the end of a five million
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  dollar house, you have a house. At the end of a five million
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  dollar movie, maybe you'll make money. Maybe you will. So we were
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  like, okay, you know, reasonable, reasonable concerns. They kept saying,
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  go away and make a film and prove that you can make a movie.
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  And we were frustrated because we were like, this is what we're trying
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  to do. Anyway, we put that initial film on the shelf, which
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  was called Encounter, went back to the drawing board and went, okay,
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  let's let's probably do what we should always have done. Look at what we've
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  got available. You know, we've got lots of computer screens, we've got
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  a station wagon. You know, our dad's kind of fol though. Car
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  We love astronomy and all this sort of thing. What can we know,
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  Robert Rodriguez filmmaking, What can we make a movie out of that we've already
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  got And that's how Cosmos was born. And our initial concept was to make
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  it in about twelve to eighteen months and then go back to those investors and
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  go, hey, there you go. Look there's a blue rate. Told
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  you we could do it. Let's get back to business. But because we
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  wanted to do it the way we wanted to do it, where we could
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  prove we had or hopefully prove that we knew what we were talking about and
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  we could take a script and deliver it. We wanted to basically do as
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  much of it as we could ourselves, and that meant it took a lot
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  longer. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back
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  to the show. But we fell in love with the project and we just
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  ran with it, and it took five years in the end, but we're
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  thrilled with the journey. So you so you, I mean, I'm assuming
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  you made this on the weekends and whenever you had spare time and stuff like
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  that. Yeah, well, initially we did so the first basically the first
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  year and a half of work on the film, so the right thing,
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  the casting of it, finding locations, costumes, making the props and everything.
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  Yeah, the first year and a half of the movie was was done
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  in a spare time while we were freelancing, and we've run a production company
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  as well, in dependent production company that makes TV documentaries. Then from the
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  end of twenty fifteen onwards, we were like, if we're going to made
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  this happen, we've got to commit to it. So we went full time
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  on it. And it sounds a bit rock and roll, it's not rock
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  and roll, but we we lived off the royalties from documentary production, which
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  is something that we talk about to filmmak Us a lot. We say,
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  you know, if you're looking for that liberation to be able to spend the
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  time making your feature film, your narrative feature, consider making some TV documentaries
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  and giving them out on the market and letting them do some work for you.
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  So those documentaries gave us that freedom, and for the next three years
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  or two and a half years, we worked all time on the movie.
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  Now, what was the crew situation, Like the crew situation was limited,
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  right, So we had on the production crew there was three of us and
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  that was our set, myself, Xander and our mom, and we did
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  right. We did everything. So we rigged all the gear, we lit
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  the sets, we rigged the mics, we shot, we did all the
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  props, we did a lot. Basically we directed as well, there's that,
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  there's that. And with the shoot it was fifty five days spread over
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  a year. Basically we shot in blocks and that was dictated because the actors,
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  you know, were busy and they had other commitments and we tried to
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  work around their commitments. And then in post production it was just it was
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  predominantly the two of us, Sandra and I, and then we worked with
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  a composer over about three months to do the soundtrack. So again it was
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  just Sander and I for like twenty eight months of just post production, just
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  staring at computer screens and just chugging a way through it. It seems like
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  a really it's a mad way to make a film. But again from the
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  very beginning, our objective was we want something that we can show people and
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  then they can look at. Basically, they can't pick anything away from us,
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  they can't sit there and go, well, you know, it was
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  well edited, but that was because you hired a professional editor, wasn't it?
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  Or it's well graded, but because you hired a professional color grader.
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  We wanted to, for better or worse, whether it ended up being a
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  good film or a bad film, we wanted to have something that we could
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  show these investors and they could go so apart from acting in it and writing
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  the soundtrack, everything else is you and we can go yeah now on our
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  X movie. We don't want to do that. We want to work with
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  people who have owned their craft and their masters of their skill, and they
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  can bring so much to it. But at least, hopefully it demonstrates that,
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  you know, we have an understanding of visual effects, and we have
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  an understanding of editing, and we have an understanding of Foley and all this
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  sort of stuff. We don't want to do it professionally, but at least
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  we can be part of those conversations as directors. That was the end anyway.
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  So I mean, because I mean, I've heard of these stories of
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  projects going on for five years and it generally never ends well. It generally
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  doesn't end well when you're hear like yeah, we've been making this movie for
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  five years, are like, oh okay, and it's I've worked on features
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  that took that long to make and it just never got released. They paid
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  it, they did it, and they just couldn't get it sold because it
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  was either too bad or for whatever reason. So that you guys actually got
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  it to the finish line and it looks and it looks as good as it
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  didn't it made as much noise as it did is a feat in itself.
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  Man, it really really, I mean, you are a guy. You
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  guys are definitely the indie film muscle pronounification. There's no question about it.
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  Because to stay on a project for five years, man, you got to
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  be committed. And that also says a lot about you as filmmakers. You
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  know, if I'm an investor, I'm like, these guys are serious.
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  Man. They stuck on this thing for five years, better or worse,
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  and there's a reason why it took them this long. It's not because they
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  were crazy, because they didn't have any money and if they would have had
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  a decent budget, this could have been done within a year. All in
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  So, now you chose the black Magic Pocket camera, which has just a
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  dear place in my heart because I shot my last film on the black back.
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  It's a pocket camera as well. I've I've been saying this for a
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  while. It's a stunning image. It's gorgeous. It's ten DP. I
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  don't care, it's gorgeous. I yeah, we totally agree. We think
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  it's this unsung hero of this CD filmmaking world and it's completely it's it's quite
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  overlooked. Actually, yeah, we saw and when when we shot the film
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  in twenty fifteen. We started shooting the film in twenty fifteen, and the
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  pocket camera, the original pocket camera, I think was it. Did it
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  come out in twenty thirteen something like that, Yeah, yeah, something like
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  that, Yeah, yeah yeah, and we we we saw the footage start
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  coming through online of people doing camera tests and we were just absolutely blown away.
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  But we just thought it just has such this film equality to it just
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  looks absolutely lovely. So as soon as we could we could, we freelanced
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  camera men at the time and we bought the camera to use for work and
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  then we were like, this is it. We've got to use this for
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  Cosmos. So it served us incredibly well. There are there are you know,
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  bumps in the road with the camera, battery life, for example,
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  is now doing the streams a bit iffy and all that kind of stuff.
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  But once you've got those things in place, Yeah, what you effectively when
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  you buy the camera is this beautiful sensor. Really and and um we were.
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  We were very happy with the results of the film, so much so
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  actually afterwards we approached after the film was released, we approached Flat Magic.
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  They gave it to give away to the filmmaking community, which was wonderful.
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  Like to have that association and that affiliation with them was the real moment of
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  pride. Yeah, what I love about what I love about the camera,
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  Yes, the battery power. I use the juice box, so I just
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  like used to have that. I just I put it in with the juice
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  box. At last, I wish we shoot six hours. Oh yeah,
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  yeah, he keeps going. It just goes and goes and goes with the
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  juice box. It was solid that part. And then I got the what
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  is it. Did you guys get the speed booster? We did? We
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  did get spot. Yeah, the metal bone speed booster just automatic gives another
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  step and a half. It's wonderful. And yes, the monitor in the
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  back can't have issues. Can't have issues. But you could plug in if
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  you're if you're so inclined, a little little monitor, pop it out or
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  something like that if you want to. But the speed that you could,
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  the speed you can move, the size of it, I mean, and
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  now I mean now they have the four K pocket camera or actually the six
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  K pocket cat. Four k's old school. Now they have the six K
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  pocket cameras well, so they have these other versions are a little bit more
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  beefy. But this has this super sixteen style. It's a super sixteen image.
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  It's a censor. It's a super sixteen censor. So for me,
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  like with my film, I wanted that like nineteen nineties sun Dance in the
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  vibe with a little bit of gra actually added it was too clean. I
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  added grain to the image in post. But it's such a beautiful camera.
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  Now, what lenses did you use? We shot most of the movie actually
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  on a single Steals lens that we had a twenty eight mile nineteen sixties Steals
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  lens that we just yeah, and it just like you said it. I
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  don't know what it is about that sensor, but the way sort of the
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  light blooms, it does have like a grainy. Although it's obviously digital noise,
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  it does have a grainy look to it. It looks like film grain.
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  Yeah, but it's but it's pretty clean, but it's pretty clear if
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  you shoot it right, it's clean. And but the aesthetic of the image
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  has that super sixteen clean look, and you and if you just add just
• 18:30
  a little bit of digital grain to it, which a little film grain onto
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  it on top of it, it could just take it to that other beautiful
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  It worked. It was perfect for our needs. You know, Cosmos is
• 18:41
  a film set predominantly in in this car, you know, in a station
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  wagon. So we had to get a camera and all the you know,
• 18:49
  a slider and stuff inside this car and shoot in the confines of the vehicle.
• 18:53
  And to have this small camera, it's just absolutely you wouldn't have been
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  able to do it. Otherwise you would have to have like cut the car
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  in half and like fly, you know, fly in and out and all
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  this kind of stuff. Like I actually, yeah, like I own up
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  up the black Magic four point six K camera, but I chose to shoot
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  with the little camera because of the ease. Even if you would have had
• 19:17
  a Red or an Alexa, you couldn't have shot this film. We couldn't.
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  We say that to people sometimes and they kind of look at this and
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  they go, what do you mean? And you go, well, I
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  mean it's tough to get a camera in a car, like it's not it's
• 19:27
  actually our car. It's not a set. You know, we're filming in.
• 19:30
  Can't chop the roof off. We've got to drive home. Um,
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  so yeah it is. And also it da ten DP and against some filmmakers
• 19:41
  look at you like you know you've landed from Mars. If yes, but
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  it doesn't. It doesn't matter to me, and it doesn't matter in general.
• 19:51
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to
• 19:57
  the show. But there is something beautiful about like film is high resolution,
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  but it's soft. It's a delicate image. It's not pin sharp, crystal
• 20:11
  clear high fidelity. And I think the ten ATP black Magic it has the
• 20:17
  same texture the film has. It's as a pin shot image if you want
• 20:22
  it. And it's clean, like you said, but it's soft. It
• 20:25
  just softens the edges in a way that film does. Um. I mean
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  they I've talked to black Magic a lot about this when I work with them,
• 20:33
  and I've told them that camera is just like in all of their actually
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  all of their images, they always have this this kind of like beautiful like
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  it's like red is freaking just scalpel esque in their image. It's so crystal
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  clear. It's a bit it's a bit much um where Alexa is also a
• 20:52
  soft image. But the Alexa costs eighty two hundred thousand UM as opposed to
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  the black Magic and all of that. Now, one thing I found interesting
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  about your story is that you guys, you had a sound stage. Obviously
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  they don't tell you, don't they don't say this publicly enough, but you
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  had a sound stage. It was your garage. You actually build a garage
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  sound stage where you shot a lot of the filming. Can you explain that,
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  processor sirs, Yeah, yeah, Well we the garage is actually a
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  friend of ours, so we One of the challenges that we faced is that
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  the actual set of the movie is that is this car, but the vehicle
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  that we would use to get from the garage every single day, so you
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  know, at the end of filming, we would at the beginning of the
• 21:38
  day, we'd get there and we get all the gear out and we'd set
• 21:41
  the props up in the vehicle and we'd shoot and then by the end of
• 21:44
  the day we had to de rig everything, put it all back in the
• 21:48
  car and drive off. We couldn't move it all set up. But the
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  film takes place across one night effectively, and instead of having the car out
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  in the middle of the field and shooting actually in the middle of the night
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  for the interiors, we just drove it into this garage. We put up
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  a black syke and we shot during the day and faked it as if it
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  was at nighttime and it worked superbly well. But we all we did all
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  start going a bit dlightly by the end of it because we weren't seeing any
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  daylight. It was the middle of the winter here in the UK, and
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  we drive in in the dark, shoot in the dark night, and drive
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  out in the dark. So yeah, we craved the lunchtime daylight that we
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  got every day. Now I wanted to go back real quick to the whole
• 22:32
  ten DP aspect. Did you shooting on ten DP affect your your distribution deal,
• 22:38
  your sales? Did you they go, oh, no, we can't
• 22:41
  take your film because we need four K. Can I just want? Because
• 22:45
  this is a myth people think you have to master in four K, you
• 22:48
  have to shoot in six or now twelve K or something like that. I
• 22:53
  want you, I want you. Please tell the people, Please tell the
• 22:56
  people the truth. Did it matter? No, it doesn't matter. Well,
• 23:00
  it didn't matter to us. We spoke to a handful of distributors,
• 23:06
  we spoke to a handful of sales agents. We even got two distributors bidding
• 23:10
  against each other for the film. And even when we'd settled on one and
• 23:14
  signing all the deals up, not once in the sort of six months that
• 23:19
  we were doing distribution and since have we been asked about what resolution the film
• 23:26
  was shot on. Not once did they asked us during the negotiation process,
• 23:30
  what resolution is it? You know, what did you shoot on? It
• 23:33
  didn't matter. And in fact, when we got the deliverable the tech specs
• 23:41
  in the tex specs for I Distributed, it actually said if you have shot
• 23:44
  your film in four K, can you please let us know because we will
• 23:48
  have to set up a special pipeline for you. Basically, not many people
• 23:52
  do that, you know. In other words, not many people do that,
• 23:55
  and we'll have to go a special route for you. So yeah,
• 23:57
  not once where we asked it in two K, four K, six K.
• 24:00
  They just they watched the screener and that's all they really wanted to talk
• 24:04
  about. So we often get asked too. We get emailed by people going,
• 24:10
  oh, you shot on the six K. I Reggie shot on the
• 24:11
  Black Magic six K, and we're like, no, no, we shot
• 24:14
  on the and they're like, no, the same things to be all.
• 24:22
  This will happen, right, they'll get in touch on us. Ay,
• 24:25
  we watched the movie, you know, really impressed with what you achieved with
• 24:26
  the limited resources. And you're like, oh, that's amazing, thank you,
• 24:30
  And they say what did what what camera did you shot on? You
• 24:33
  tell them and like Elliot said, they assume it's six sixth and you know
• 24:37
  it's the ten atp one and they go, really, I'm shocked. It's
• 24:41
  like, well, you you watched it, so like do you like,
• 24:44
  did it work for you, did it distract from the story for you?
• 24:47
  Or did you just watch it and enjoy it and not really worry. So
• 24:51
  yeah, I think it's very easy to get lost in the kind of k
• 24:53
  war with all the modern technology. But ultimately I think a storytellers I focus
• 25:00
  should be more on the script and the acting and the soundtrack. Stop it
• 25:03
  on, how many cakes? Stop it? Stop it? Sir? You're
• 25:07
  talking crazy talks? Are crazy talk. It's all about the cameras. It's
• 25:10
  all about the gear. If you've got a twelve K camera, if you
• 25:14
  have an Alexa with one hundred thousand dollars uh lens on it, that's all
• 25:19
  you need. You don't need a story or acting. That's that that that
• 25:22
  automatically makes your movie good, Isn't that? That's what I've been sold,
• 25:25
  That's what I've been doing. Am I wrong? I mean we also gassed
• 25:30
  you know what codec We shot in and we shot people. Go oh you
• 25:33
  shot raw? Then, right? And we actually we shot pro res lt.
• 25:37
  Okay, well that's now that's not honestly Okay, Now I'm gonna have
• 25:40
  to say that it is kind of crazy talk. Why didn't you shoot?
• 25:42
  Come on, guys, you could have shot raw? Well would have bitute,
• 25:45
  but you edited in final cut, which we'll get to in a minute,
• 25:47
  so raw would have been a big pain in the butt for you.
• 25:49
  It would have been. It would have been. I mean, we just
• 25:52
  we did our own little camera tests. We put our notes to the screen
• 25:55
  and we were like, LT, you shoto lty, not even pro res
• 25:57
  just yea yeah currently the difference l Yeah. We did HQ pro rays an
• 26:03
  LT tests and we were like looking at our monitor, you know, our
• 26:07
  Mac monitor, going which one is this? I can't tell? So we
• 26:11
  also like wanted to just like we wanted to. We're big fans of like
• 26:17
  committing on location, so like basically what it looks like and how it's lit
• 26:22
  and the color and you know, and so because that's those are the directors
• 26:26
  that we look up to from our childhood. You know, they didn't have
• 26:29
  that kind of flexibility that is now available to filmmakers, and I think it
• 26:33
  can hone your abilities and your craft. So to some degree, we wanted
• 26:37
  to test ourselves and go, look, we're going to bake this in.
• 26:40
  We're going to just shoot, and what we get is what we get,
• 26:42
  and we're going to live with it. And and that's that to us is
• 26:45
  part of the thrill and excitement of filmmaking. It's crazy man, crazy talking.
• 26:49
  That's crazy talk. And but you also had a limited theatrical right we
• 26:53
  did. Yeah, but how could I but sir, but how could you
• 26:56
  do that with a ten DP? That's not possible sir, how could you
• 26:59
  do that? Well, A great question. Yeah, it held up beautifully
• 27:03
  on screen. We did actually do an upbreads two K upbreads for the DC
• 27:08
  using Davincia resolves upscale, which is nuts. In fact, I've heard that
• 27:15
  many people are selling their Black Magic six ks and four k's going back to
• 27:22
  the originals and just upresing them because they prefer the image how it looks on
• 27:26
  the original. But yeah, we had a limited theatrical release. The movie
• 27:30
  was in nine cities across the States, which was just mad for us,
• 27:34
  right. We were not anticipating that, like two kids from Birmingham, UK
• 27:38
  making a movie and it's going to be shown in cinemas in America. That
• 27:41
  was that was a dream come true. And we've seen it. We saw
• 27:45
  it twice on a big screen. We had a premier here in the UK,
• 27:48
  premiere out in Los Angeles as well, and it just really holds up
• 27:52
  incredibly well considering and I just I just wish that filmmakers could, you know,
• 28:00
  I stopped worrying so much about it because the kit that we've got available
• 28:03
  at I think it tips now. It's just so incredibly powerful. Yes,
• 28:07
  and there's just no excuse, I think no when I and and that's why,
• 28:11
  that's another reason why I wanted you guys on the show, because you
• 28:12
  shot with this camera, because I shot with the camera as well, and
• 28:15
  everyone says all the same things you could get I've gotten with my film,
• 28:19
  and I did the same thing, like because on my monitor here where I
• 28:23
  color graded, it looked great. But when I was I premiered at the
• 28:26
  Chinese Theater in Hollywood with my film, and I was like, this is
• 28:30
  amazing, and but do you understand I was terrified. I just up as
• 28:33
  I did a DP a DCP upward as to two K, I'm like,
• 28:38
  it's I don't know what it's gonna look like. I'd like, it's gonna
• 28:41
  be super grainy. I'm like, okay, well it's supposed to be kind
• 28:45
  of grainy because I wanted it. And when I saw I projected in the
• 28:48
  Chinese and I just sat there before the audience came out that we did a
• 28:51
  little little text text us out on it, I was like, oh,
• 28:55
  Mike, it looks amazing. It's gorgeous. It was so and we did
• 29:00
  the DCP through to Da Vinci and I was just blown away. It's honestly
• 29:04
  enough, shot with all the cameras known to man, thirty five sixty and
• 29:08
  I've shot everything. It's probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever shot.
• 29:12
  That film. It's such a great camera. And that's why I wanted.
• 29:18
  I want people listening to understand. You can buy that little camera right
• 29:22
  now on eBay for six to eight hundred dollars. Yeah, maybe less maybe,
• 29:27
  and you can buy you could buy it the full like a full kit
• 29:30
  for like a thousand, twelve hundred bucks, and that comes with like a
• 29:33
  lot of I mean I bought my I bought mine off of eBay. I
• 29:37
  bought it like for I think a thousand bucks. But it was like a
• 29:38
  full kit, case, batteries, all of that stuff. And then to
• 29:44
  rig it out, it doesn't cost that much. Like, yeah, if
• 29:48
  you need to, if you need a mat box, I got my mat
• 29:52
  box for like one hundred and fifty bucks. We'll be right back after a
• 29:56
  word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Either Yeah, it's
• 30:06
  it's so you can really great. You can pimp it out, man,
• 30:10
  you can pimp it out really really really. I actually made our camera rigal.
• 30:15
  Yeah I heard about that. Yeah, yes, so please tell tell
• 30:18
  us about your your rig, sir. Yeah, we actually put up a
• 30:22
  video on our Facebook page a few months back just to show people because they
• 30:26
  kept We've we've spoken about the fact that I've made this rig, and I
• 30:30
  don't think some people believe that it was actually true. But yeah, it's
• 30:33
  It's one of those very kind of Heath Robinson held together with gaffetape kind of
• 30:40
  affairs. Really, but just you know, I went to I was looking
• 30:42
  online. We don't have a budget for this movie. I was looking online
• 30:45
  and and there's some wonderful rigs out there. But I think there's like two
• 30:49
  kinds. Right. There's there's these lovely machine milled, beautiful things, right
• 30:55
  that are quite expensive, but she plastic ones, and you think how they're
• 31:00
  going to snap when I first use them. Say, I just thought,
• 31:03
  because we had some very specific requirements with Cosmos getting in the car and being
• 31:07
  able to just the rig set up and what we wanted to do with it,
• 31:11
  I was like, well, don't I just make a custom one?
• 31:12
  So went to the hardware store, got some wood, got some copper pipe,
• 31:17
  got some snails, and just put it all together really, and you
• 31:21
  could see it in the behind the scenes. It's not pretty, right,
• 31:22
  it's not. But that's part of the fun of this baby, all right,
• 31:26
  fun of this film. You know, we are very proud and very
• 31:29
  like humbled by how well it's done, but we're also really excited because we've
• 31:34
  done it in sort of the most kit bashed ad hoc away. You know.
• 31:41
  We've got a cardboard mat box and we've got ankle weights on the back
• 31:44
  of our reeg and we're using a wheelchair for a dolly And it doesn't matter,
• 31:48
  or it doesn't matter to us. And it wasn't a film about It
• 31:52
  wasn't about standing behind a camera with a cap on and posing and looking cool.
• 31:56
  It was about making a film no matter what. And it wasn't about
• 32:00
  being cool and being seen with a red epic or an election. Yeah,
• 32:04
  we'd love love to work with that, you know, it would be a
• 32:06
  dream, but we for we forewent that that sort of the image of feeling
• 32:13
  good about ourselves in exchange for actually being able to get a film made.
• 32:19
  Yeah, no, it's And then when I saw when I saw the behind
• 32:22
  the scenes and I saw you guys in a wheelchair, I was like,
• 32:23
  oh, Robert, mister rogery this has helped us out so much because he
• 32:29
  was I mean, I'm a bit older than you guys. So I came
• 32:31
  up around the same time Robert did. I speak of him like I'm my
• 32:36
  friend, I'm not but um but Robert, but Bobby, Bobby um Bobby
• 32:40
  h No, uh Robert. He did the wheelchair thing with his with all
• 32:45
  Mariachi and I did a wheelchair thing. Every everybody of my generation did the
• 32:49
  wheelchair like we yes, And to be honest with you, this is what
• 32:52
  how I got because wheelchairs are expensive, They're not cheap. So what we
• 32:57
  did this is back in ninety ninety four were I think we went to the
• 33:00
  mall where you could rent a wheelchair for the day for a dollar twenty five
• 33:07
  Wow. But we just took it home questionable. No wait wait wait,
• 33:15
  used it, returned it afterwards, got my dollar. I got a quarterback
• 33:20
  because I returned it, so the essential rental would be. It was just
• 33:23
  because no one does that like and there's also the nineties and they didn't,
• 33:27
  you know, and it's it's a different world. Let's let's let's cameras.
• 33:31
  Let's cameras in the you know, security camera is less security. It was
• 33:36
  it was the wild Wild West. But yes, uh, that's that was
• 33:38
  what I do, right, that's the indie film hustle. No man that
• 33:45
  since I've been I've been. I've been living the brand since ninety two.
• 33:49
  Sir, what is the biggest mistake you made making this film? I'm sure
• 33:57
  there's a list, but what's the one that you're like, Oh, um,
• 34:01
  I think I think the biggest. Well, so this is this is
• 34:05
  an interesting question. The thing that we often say we would do differently is
• 34:09
  we would just get some help, right, we would raise a bit of
• 34:13
  money, right, were two people? Who is very obvious, like two
• 34:17
  people, three people maybe? But the challenge that the reason it's not that
• 34:23
  simple actually for us is because part of part of the marketing for Cosmos has
• 34:30
  been leveraging this kind of indie film spirit. It's been connecting with the filmmaking
• 34:36
  community by saying, look, we're just doing this with nothing. Follow us
• 34:38
  along, be part of it. And and so if we'd have done it
• 34:44
  how most of the people do it, where they pull a band together and
• 34:46
  they kick start and they raise thousand dollars, then you're just the same as
• 34:51
  everybody else. Right, So to some degree, this nuts stupid way of
• 34:55
  doing a movie. Was took ages, but it paid off because it's allowed
• 35:00
  us to open up conversations. We're talking to you now because of it.
• 35:02
  We wouldn't be otherwise. I would say, if I wanted to get it
• 35:07
  done quicker, with less stress and just collaborate with more people, get it
• 35:13
  done sooner. But you know, I'm very proud of like the way we've
• 35:16
  done it and the experience that we've obtained from it. It's just like God,
• 35:22
  it's a measurable way to just have a bit of a glimpson and understanding
• 35:25
  about all these elements and aspects. It's like the ultimate film school. So
• 35:30
  I you know, it's a really interesting question. What did what didn't mom
• 35:36
  do? Should use your third crewmen of crew woman? She was essential so
• 35:42
  our mom professionally not anymore, but before we were born and while we were
• 35:47
  kids, she was a professional TV makeup artist, so we should One of
• 35:54
  the main disciplines that she had on the film, where she was hair and
• 35:58
  makeup and obviously keep you know, sort of rolled over into continuity, so
• 36:02
  she was keeping track of all the beard length and the hair length and the
• 36:05
  collars and all that sort of thing. And then we did also John just
• 36:08
  like roper In and put her to good use, doing the clap of board
• 36:13
  every now and then and sometimes holding the boom and sometimes running the smoke machine
• 36:15
  round. She was sort of almost like the third director. Really we were
• 36:21
  all in it together. But she was also we often say she was the
• 36:25
  onset mom, and every set needs a mom, you know. And all
• 36:29
  the boys, all the guys, they kind of she murthered them and they
• 36:34
  adopted her. So we all we had this sort of family family unit on
• 36:38
  the film. Yeah, Now, what did you guys use for smoke machine?
• 36:40
  Did you actually like buy one of those like party smoke machines or we
• 36:45
  Yeah, we had we already had like a mist like a disco smoke machine
• 36:51
  type thing, but and we tested it outside and we're like, this is
• 36:53
  just not not going to hack it, you know, like in the windy
• 36:57
  British winter, it's like, Okay, it's like a must just lit a
• 37:00
  cigarette. Yeah, that's not gonna work. So actually, the single biggest
• 37:04
  expense on the movie we bought a gas powered our ten smoke machine. Yeah,
• 37:08
  all the propane ones, yeah, the proper jobs, you know,
• 37:12
  And but for us we could justify it in our heads because we were just
• 37:16
  like, this is going to give us a production value. We're going to
• 37:20
  be out in a forest and it's going to give us the depth and allow
• 37:22
  us to kind of make it look like we have more lights than we do.
• 37:25
  And you know, we're big fans of like having that smoke medium to
• 37:29
  light in and all that stuff. So for us, it was it was
• 37:32
  about it was over ten percent of the budget on the smoke machine. It
• 37:36
  was yeah, But I want to get it. I want to ask you
• 37:38
  something because I've shot with a ton of haze machines and smoke machines in my
• 37:43
  career and you guys didn't shoot rats, So I know from shooting with smoke
• 37:49
  machines that smoke doesn't take direction quite well. How how Tony Scott shout every
• 37:55
  scene of every movie that he ever did with a smoke machine or a haze
• 38:00
  machine and it looked perfect every time? How he did it, I don't
• 38:06
  know. I can only imagine I've had trouble with four crews. How the
• 38:09
  hell did you wrangle smoke or haze in a shot and how did it not?
• 38:16
  How did you match it in post? And how did you deal with
• 38:20
  it in color, because sometimes if it's one SHOT's hazy and then the coverage
• 38:23
  is not hazy. How do you like, how did you do it?
• 38:29
  Well, it's difficulty. It was hard to tell, Alex, I have
• 38:31
  to tell you. It was ridiculously hard, impossible. We almost set everything
• 38:38
  on fire and I a degree burns and the whole lot. Really no.
• 38:44
  Yes, So we did get quite good at like timing the smoke machine,
• 38:49
  so you can. We could sort of like leave it off on its own
• 38:52
  and it would just trickle out on its own, very against the rules of
• 38:55
  owning a propane gas smoke machine is never leave it in attend did but you
• 39:00
  know, we were all grown up. You were only a few feet away.
• 39:02
  You were a few feet away. It was yeah, we think we
• 39:07
  do like a blast, right, we do. We like one of us
• 39:10
  would run around with the smoke machine, blast it into the grass and all
• 39:13
  that kind of stuff, and then you stepped back and interesting this enormous bog
• 39:16
  cloud. Right, you'd be behind the camera, ready actress, and I'll
• 39:20
  be ready, wait for it, wait for the moment, wait for them,
• 39:22
  you know, and then just when it was right, we went for
• 39:24
  it. I have to I just have to point something out that you were
• 39:27
  judging me morally about my my wheelchairs to scam. Sir. You let the
• 39:30
  propane machine unattended, sir, which actually could have killed people. My little
• 39:37
  scam did not kill anybody, and it was returned, sir, So both
• 39:42
  of you, I just I just wanted to point that out. Thank thank
• 39:45
  you. I take everything back. I'm sorry. So yeah, so then
• 39:50
  even even in post, don't like matching. We'll be right back after a
• 39:54
  word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Matching that haze.
• 40:06
  We did do it better did it was? For the most part we
• 40:08
  were it was okay, like we'd we'd for one reason or another. We
• 40:13
  didn't have too much problems, but we did. There is always that,
• 40:15
  you know, There's always that balance, isn't there When you come to your
• 40:19
  color grade and you I think you did a bit of smoke stuff in post
• 40:23
  being in pasting backgrounds and pasting, can you just take the smoke from behind
• 40:28
  this guy's head in this shop, yeah, and put it in this guy
• 40:30
  and he would just be like, okay, yeah, yeah, you have
• 40:35
  to. I mean it's it's I just want people that hearing this understand shooting
• 40:38
  with a smoke machine or haze machine. It's not easy and it's time consuming.
• 40:45
  It is you you shoot it up, settle weight, weight, shoot
• 40:52
  cut, do it again, and then like, oh, and you guys,
• 40:54
  you haven't only done an inside. I've never done it outside, so
• 40:58
  I can only imagine shooting it outside. You guys had action as well,
• 41:04
  like you'll be for ten minutes to blow to right and then suddenly you're like,
• 41:08
  I'll put the smoke machine over there. You know it's it's you're chasing
• 41:12
  your tail all night long. Now, can you talk everybody, because you
• 41:15
  guys did purchase a very high expensive wind machine, So can you tell people
• 41:20
  what that wind machine was? Yes, yes, absolutely, Well, you
• 41:23
  know, in the in the spirit of all high end special effects that you
• 41:28
  see in all the blockbusters. Um, we we went into our garden shed
• 41:34
  and we were digging around and we were aware that, you know, once
• 41:37
  upon a time we were the proud owners of a leaf blower. So we
• 41:43
  got that dice and leaf blower out, gave it a bit of a blast
• 41:45
  and thought, okay, well, we can't record any dialogue while you're using
• 41:49
  this, but we can have winds. So yeah, that was one of
• 41:52
  one of our jobs. In fact, my job. On the end of
• 41:55
  the shoot, I was directing and blowing hopped us the air into the faces
• 42:00
  of the actors. So you were just directing, right, yeah, yeah,
• 42:05
  method, it was method. Yeah. You wanted them to cry,
• 42:09
  so you just sh just slam dirt into their eyes basically at high school.
• 42:15
  Absolutely, yeah, Terry Glossy might look that's great. Oh sorry, you've
• 42:20
  just got amazing now. Um what I want to talk about post because when
• 42:29
  I read what you guys didn't post um again made my heart just just it
• 42:35
  warmed my heart because you were using two pieces of software that I used on
• 42:39
  I. Look, I'm a recent convert from Final Cut seven. When I
• 42:44
  say recent, I was probably like four or five years ago, like four
• 42:46
  four years ago, maybe I think four four years ago. I think I
• 42:51
  switched over to editing four or five years ago. I switched to editing too,
• 42:53
  in Resolve strictly, but seven solid with ten ADP and you guys were
• 43:01
  shooting a progress so I actually, I mean with my first film, I
• 43:07
  had to actually go to Resolve because I was shooting raw on the the old
• 43:09
  cinema camera, the original, the original two point five K cinema camera.
• 43:15
  So I had to go raw because I'm like, finally I have to leave
• 43:17
  poor final cut seven. So you edited in final cut seven and then you
• 43:22
  colored in color to apple color. If I'm mistaken right, I did a
• 43:27
  lot of apple color sound design in Final Curse seven as all oh yeah,
• 43:30
  oh yeah, yeah, so you guys are doing and what year was this?
• 43:36
  This was? Yeah started? So then truly truly no excuse. So
• 43:40
  because I'm saying because I I did all this in like two thousand and six,
• 43:45
  so there is um, there's no excuse. No, but you had
• 43:50
  what you had. And that's again that's another great lesson here you have it,
• 43:52
  you own it, use what you got. That's it. That's what
• 43:55
  I'm told about. And for us, we we we produced all of our
• 44:00
  documentaries using final cut seven. Again that philosophy. It is just like,
• 44:05
  look, there's been Oscar Oscar winning movies that have been edited on Final cut
• 44:09
  seven. We have no requirement to push to a new piece of software.
• 44:14
  We're not shooting in four K or eight K or something crazy. We're shooting
• 44:17
  into an ATP if it's good enough. Parasite won the best. Yeah,
• 44:22
  yeah, edited on Final cut seven yeah, No, Parasite was editing seven.
• 44:29
  Yeah it was, so you know, it's uneasy. I didn't know
• 44:34
  that. Yeah, it's still going strong. There's a small band of FCP
• 44:38
  seven users they're like, come on, keep it alive. Software. It's
• 44:44
  a crapiece of software. Though, I do like Resolve a little bit better
• 44:46
  than Color. I have to say. Yeah, we're in the process of
• 44:51
  kind of switching over to Resolve for all things, all things generally really you
• 44:55
  know, cutting and and grading as well. So I mean just magic cool
• 45:00
  way. No, no, And that's another thing that people want people to
• 45:04
  understand. It is like if you if you stay within the Black Magic ecosystem,
• 45:07
  man, it works beautifully. Like you you shoot raw, bring it
• 45:12
  into Resolve, and you can do everything in Resolve, and then you don't
• 45:15
  have to actually even go out to online anywhere. It all stays in.
• 45:20
  Visual effects are connected, sound is connected. It's it's a pretty amazing piece
• 45:24
  of software. You're talking about. It's some kind of unknown future world to
• 45:29
  us. Something we're still dealing. Final Curse seven. Get the floppy disk.
• 45:36
  Get the floppy disk. No, no, get the zip Get the
• 45:38
  zip disc, sir, Get the zip disc. The zip disc and the
• 45:42
  jazz even do you know even know what a jazz drive is? Do you
• 45:45
  know what a zip disc? Do you know what a zip disc is?
• 45:50
  You guys are so young, You're so young, right, No, floppy
• 45:54
  disk was at one point two meg if I'm not mistaken, disk that held
• 46:00
  like one point two The zip disc held a hundred megs and it was like
• 46:05
  a plastic disc. And then the jazz was the big brother of the zip.
• 46:10
  It was all by Omega. It was a company. This Now I'm
• 46:14
  just I'm it'm dating myself and only like five percent of my audience is going,
• 46:17
  oh I remember that. No, I'm much apparently much older than you
• 46:22
  guys, extremely much much older than you guys. We used floppies a school,
• 46:29
  high school, putting our coursework on floppy disc the us being the whole
• 46:31
  flash drive thing was like, wow, the science finish science fiction, isn't
• 46:36
  it. Yeah? Yeah, now it's like, oh he's We were talking
• 46:40
  to someone not long ago and they were talking about MP three players. Weren't
• 46:44
  they something one was it? And they said, oh, you were saying
• 46:46
  They were saying something like, oh, apparently there was a time when MP
• 46:51
  three players couldn't do this and we were just like, oh my god,
• 46:53
  Like there wasn't a time when MP three players existed, but yeah, you
• 46:58
  know, yeah, yeah there was. There was a thing called tapes.
• 47:00
  Um see that records eight track. I remember track vaguely in a car in
• 47:08
  a car when I was a kid. I remember in anyway, I'm so,
• 47:12
  I'm so, I'm so fff and old. I appreciate you. You're
• 47:15
  reminding me. Thank you. Take a set for children of the tape recording
• 47:21
  you your mix tapes on radio and waiting, yeah, waiting for the radio,
• 47:23
  just like I hoping the DJ does not say a damn word over the
• 47:29
  song song And you're like, this is right because you hear that a thousand
• 47:37
  times and you're like, hey, welcome back, Like you're just waiting for
• 47:40
  that. You Oh my god, I used to do that all the time.
• 47:50
  So because you guys, you guys were the dps in this um as
• 47:53
  well. And it looks, by the way, fantastic. It looks gorgeous.
• 47:59
  UM. So that's extremely impressive. You got what I love about the
• 48:01
  film is that you you really made it. You can do so much production
• 48:06
  value, but yet in a very very small space. Really it was a
• 48:09
  small group of characters, and a lot of people think that you have to
• 48:13
  make a very contained movie like yours, which is contained, but it wasn't
• 48:16
  contained. There's like outside scenes and there's excitement and things like that. But
• 48:21
  it doesn't have to be in a room. I mean you you can think
• 48:23
  outside the box a little bit and it's still very But you did a car,
• 48:28
  um, but it was a car with outside and and you know,
• 48:31
  the sky, and there was a lot of production value and all the stuff
• 48:35
  that you did with it. Um. But when the look of the film
• 48:37
  is really great. When you got into color though, how much did you
• 48:42
  do? Was it? Like you guys were close to where you wanted to
• 48:45
  be And that's scary man. I'm like, I'm just I'm letting you know.
• 48:47
  I've been a Colors for ten twelve years. I have to shoot raw
• 48:52
  because I need that the freedom to like save me for me, the right
• 49:00
  thing to do. It is the correct sensible thing to do. As what
• 49:02
  you're saying, take definitely, I mean why not is the real answer to
• 49:07
  that question. Why would you not use those tools? They're available? But
• 49:10
  yeah, no, we we shot as we previously mentioned, we lit with
• 49:15
  the colors we wanted it, you know how we wanted it to be lit
• 49:19
  with big fans of splashing color in there. Yeah, Tony, you know,
• 49:24
  and we're not liking ourselves to no, no, no, no,
• 49:28
  no, just like Tony Scott. This is what I do. No,
• 49:30
  no, we understand. Yeah, we understand Tony. Rest in peace,
• 49:35
  Tony, But I mean Tony and Ridley both yea. So yeah, we
• 49:43
  goal was to just capture that as much as possible on a location, and
• 49:45
  then when we got to the color grade, for the most part, it
• 49:51
  was a few kind of vignette power windows here and there. We pushed.
• 49:54
  We did a thing. We did some tests early on. We'll be right
• 50:00
  back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
• 50:07
  When we were comparing the Black Magic footage to film footage, and we noticed
• 50:13
  that film had like a kind of slight greeny yellowy tint in the highlights.
• 50:17
  That's something we just saw and so we just pushed a bit of that in
• 50:22
  the saturation of the contrast that was so slightly. It was a very I
• 50:25
  mean, it was a time consuming process because it always is, isn't it,
• 50:30
  with the with the color matching and everything. But in terms of how
• 50:34
  how much we pushed the image. We didn't do a huge amount to it.
• 50:37
  We were quite delicate with it. And how about visual effects, because
• 50:39
  there's there's a couple of visual effects in the there's seventy visual effects of the
• 50:45
  film, one hundred and seventy. Yeah. Nice. Most of them are
• 50:50
  not visible there. We call them in vis effects because they're just not even
• 50:53
  supposed to be noticed. They're like set extensions and skylines and stars in the
• 50:59
  sky and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I handled the visual
• 51:02
  effects while eli It was doing all the sound design and the foley for the
• 51:05
  film. I did the visual effects on Blender, which is this fantastic open
• 51:10
  source the effect software is just getting stronger and stronger, and man, it's
• 51:14
  exciting to see what they're doing with it, pioneering stuff. And yeah,
• 51:21
  and after effects as well. But for the most part, like I said,
• 51:23
  it was some seth extensions, some skylines, but there were more involved
• 51:28
  things. For example, the front of the telescope. We replaced the front
• 51:32
  end of the telescope in the movie because it looked pretty awful. Actually it
• 51:36
  was. It was originally a tripod carry tube, and we created a prop
• 51:42
  for the front to make it look like a telescope. And then we got
• 51:45
  into the edit and we were like, that just does not sell rubbish,
• 51:49
  rubbish, rubbish, absolute trash. And so Elliott turned to me and he
• 51:54
  said, can we do something about that? So I had to figure that
• 51:57
  out. It was very much a learning process as we were and um,
• 52:00
  but yeah, I always say that, like when it came to the visual
• 52:05
  effects, it was something I was doing for fun before Cosmos was even a
• 52:08
  consideration. So if you ever get that kind of tinge of excitement about anything,
• 52:15
  just just explore it a bit, because for filmmaking is such a diverse
• 52:19
  discipline, there's so many different elements to it. Chances are it will come
• 52:22
  back and help you at some point. And you so you camped in after
• 52:24
  Effects Camp and after Effects Visual Effects three D in Blender three D and color
• 52:32
  and then you also my extrad sound and final couple, which I know is
• 52:37
  ridiculous because I've done it myself. It's not really built, not built as
• 52:43
  an audio not at all, not even a little bit naven a little bit.
• 52:45
  And then you guys also did fully as well. We did a lot.
• 52:50
  Yeah, we did the folly and I did that. So what was
• 52:52
  and was doing the visual effects. I was stumping around and rustling and breathing
• 52:57
  into microphones and all that sort of thing. And it's amazing. Sixty six
• 53:00
  thousand sound effects we put in onto one hundred audio tracks. So what what
• 53:07
  machine were you? What machine were you running? Because I know Final Cut
• 53:09
  seven fairly well, that's going to tax the that's going to tax the software,
• 53:14
  sir, Yeah it did. I don't just a Mac and ima iMac
• 53:20
  that's an iMac with with with an operating system that still runs Final Cut seven
• 53:23
  because now officially it's dead. Yeah, you can't upgrade. Yes, that
• 53:29
  is absolutely right. We have two imax right, this one which is to
• 53:32
  date and the one we made Cosmos on which we cannot change. Also,
• 53:37
  the Mac is like dead now you turn it on and you just try and
• 53:40
  open up Chrome or something. You just think we killed this computer trying to
• 53:45
  make that film. Yeah. Another feeling. It just wants to retire,
• 53:51
  It wants to be Is it is it something about Max? That is it
• 53:54
  something to say I still have three towers of old Max that I just I
• 54:00
  can't get rid of them. I just there's there's just something like I can't
• 54:04
  there's not I can't get rid of my mac. I don't like just just
• 54:08
  in case you need that CD ROM for some reason. Yeah, oh yeah,
• 54:13
  I mean, you know, absolutely see it with a floppy disk drive
• 54:17
  on it. So you know, gotta keep you gotta keep the options just
• 54:23
  in case everything goes to goes to hell. You got final cut seven.
• 54:28
  Let's rock and roll in the business now. And so you finished this whole
• 54:36
  movie. You're ready, it's been five years, um, and and you're
• 54:39
  like, okay, let's get this out to the world. Um. Tell
• 54:44
  me your adventures in distribution. Okay, yes, So we finished the film
• 54:49
  and we then set about putting together the marketing materials that we thought we would
• 54:53
  need in order to get a distributor. So we did our own poster,
• 54:58
  and we cut our own trailer, and we put a screener together and all
• 55:00
  that sort of thing. And then we decided to, in the spirit of
• 55:07
  the film, continue to do everything ourselves. So of course, why wouldn't
• 55:10
  you, Why wouldn't you, Why wouldn't we change? Why wouldn't we have
• 55:14
  learned our lesson after five years? Um? So we started. We actually
• 55:19
  tried to submit or we did submit the film to probably a dozen film festivals
• 55:23
  UM in sort of the tier of film festival that you hope your film might
• 55:29
  so Sundance of course by Southwest, you don't you donated to Robert Redford's retirement
• 55:36
  fund. Understand, I'm sure you appreciated that. We obviously got plat out
• 55:39
  rejected from from every festival we submitted to UM, and then we decided to
• 55:45
  just sort of we were going, well, we're going to go to We're
• 55:47
  trying to get into festivals so we can connect with distributors, but I wonder
• 55:52
  if we can just connect with those distributors directly. And we spoke to a
• 55:57
  few filmmakers that we knew who had done that route, and that's what we
• 56:00
  pursued. So with our marketing material and our screener of our film, we
• 56:04
  set about reaching out directly and sent out some introductory emails, sent out some
• 56:08
  screeners and just started talking to people really and we spoke to sales agents as
• 56:13
  well and try to set out whether that was the right route for us.
• 56:16
  And in the end we we m We got we actually got two distributes competing
• 56:23
  in bidding for the film, and pushed it up the or you know,
• 56:28
  yeah, pushed the bid up and made it more favorable for us, and
• 56:31
  then ended up going with one that we felt offered us something that was worth
• 56:37
  you know, the deal, worth signing up to, and that's what we
• 56:40
  did. That process took about six months from from the day of finishing the
• 56:44
  film too, But that's nothing good. But that's nothing for guys like you.
• 56:47
  You've already taken You're taking you four and a half five years to make
• 56:51
  a movie six months for distribution, that's nothing a sense of time. It's
• 56:57
  like, we're like movie six months. Yeah, it was an interesting process
• 57:07
  for sure, But we used IMDb pros free trial to create a list of
• 57:12
  distributors that you know, in the in the kind of realm that we were
• 57:15
  looking for, and we just we just went down that list and ultimately it
• 57:19
  worked out and we found a home for Cosmos that has done for the most
• 57:23
  part, well we wanted it to do. Although no distribution story is plain
• 57:28
  sailing for sure. Yeah, I haven't heard of one of those yet.
• 57:31
  It was like, yes, it was fantastic. They only gave me money.
• 57:36
  I actually didn't know what to do with all the money and attention I
• 57:38
  was getting. Um, it was generally not something you hear but but generally
• 57:44
  speaking, though, you're happy with where you went with the distribution company and
• 57:47
  how things have been, how it's been put out into the world and everything
• 57:50
  like that, because look, I've seen it everywhere and I've seen it pop
• 57:53
  up a bunch of different places. So I'm assuming that's you guys. As
• 57:58
  far as marketing is concerned, Yeah, it is. It is us for
• 58:00
  sure. Yeah, we will, we will. We're with Gravitas Ventures,
• 58:04
  and I think their model is very much the giving to the producers. They
• 58:07
  know their movie, they can market it, you know, we'll put it
• 58:09
  on the platforms, and so the as far as we're aware, most of
• 58:15
  the marketing of the movie is our work really. You know, we put
• 58:19
  the post in the Trader together. We did an ad spend on some social
• 58:22
  media to try and get it out there, and we're just trying to engage
• 58:25
  with the filmmaking community and share the process really as much as we possibly can.
• 58:30
  But you know, we are, We are certainly happy with the reach
• 58:35
  of the movie. It's available on you know, many platforms. It's in
• 58:40
  the US, it's on like Hulu to be, it's on Prime streaming and
• 58:45
  video. It's all the all the all the spot and VOD options that you
• 58:50
  could really hope for, to be quite honest, But there's also certainly a
• 58:53
  strong argument for that kind of independent distribution route where you handle it yourself,
• 58:59
  if you do all the marketing anyway, right, like why not? Why
• 59:02
  not made that final step for us? We our goal was very much to
• 59:07
  be able to finish the movie, give it to somebody else have control over
• 59:10
  the marketing, because we didn't want it that to be in someone else's hands.
• 59:15
  We were worried that it could be marketed incorrectly, but to not to
• 59:20
  not have all our times spent on getting that movie out there. So it's
• 59:23
  actually made sense to hand it to somebody else because we wanted to start writing
• 59:27
  a new project, to start moving forwards and not get kind of like bogged
• 59:30
  down in the in the personal distribution of the movie. Now. But the
• 59:35
  other thing is too, you guys had a very different endgame for this film,
• 59:39
  and that's something that's really important for filmmakers to understand listening, is that
• 59:44
  your goals with the film were not to make a million dollars or you know,
• 59:47
  or be you know rich or anything like that off the film. Money
• 59:52
  is nice, We would like to have money. If we can't keep going
• 59:55
  without it, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 1:00:04
  now back to the show. Um, but because I'm assuming you don't want
• 1:00:09
  to do another five years like this, I'm assuming, I'm assuming this is
• 1:00:15
  it. You're not doing any more, no more of these movies. You
• 1:00:19
  have to promise me no more. But um, but you, But your
• 1:00:22
  goal was to get it out there and get your name out there for people
• 1:00:27
  to see you, to have conversations about other projects, to talk to other
• 1:00:30
  investors. That was the endgame for this film. Correct, Absolutely, Yeah,
• 1:00:36
  I mean the film has the film has been out six months now and
• 1:00:40
  we are starting to move into a phase where the film is making us money,
• 1:00:45
  which is great because that's a real uptick. But you're right, our
• 1:00:50
  goal was we have the philosophy that, like, we couldn't buy our way
• 1:00:54
  into the movie industry even if we had loads of money, So we've got
• 1:01:00
  to find something of value beyond the finances that would allow us to progress as
• 1:01:05
  film directors. So if we could trade the financial reward for the exposure and
• 1:01:10
  hope people liking the movie and the word getting around and maybe people in industry
• 1:01:15
  hearing about it and going oh, yeah, I've heard about this film.
• 1:01:17
  Actually that was more valuable to us as filmmakers. And we do try and
• 1:01:22
  stress that to people we talked to and you know on things like this,
• 1:01:24
  that we're not at all sort of suggesting that this is a business model for
• 1:01:34
  seven seven thousand dollars five year model then no, not so much. We
• 1:01:39
  were you know, we run a production company. Aside from this, we
• 1:01:43
  we've got other projects and other fingers and other pies. The reason we wanted
• 1:01:47
  to make this movie initially was as a bargaining chip to get that initial film
• 1:01:52
  off the ground. In the end, it was just supposed to be something
• 1:01:54
  that we could barter with, but now you know, it ended up becoming
• 1:01:58
  something bigger and it's actually acting in a way, is like a crowbar to
• 1:02:01
  open industry doors. And since the film has been released, we've had people
• 1:02:06
  from you know, Hollywood minimailists and you know, we've been talking to managers
• 1:02:10
  and we're potentially talking to people and it has it has given us that sort
• 1:02:16
  of UM springboard. So yeah, we we traded the finances for um the
• 1:02:23
  potential, you know, to be able to help our create move further on.
• 1:02:28
  But the other thing is that you also didn't make a two hundred thousand
• 1:02:30
  dollars movie and had that goal and then you made a seven thousand dollar movie.
• 1:02:36
  Yes, you know, very very Rabbert Rodriguez esque it was. It
• 1:02:39
  was a nice round seven thousand. Yeah, absolutely on the dot exactly.
• 1:02:46
  Um no, that's that's amazing. Guys. You guys are definitely an inspiration,
• 1:02:51
  an indie filmed inspiration, and in you know, it's it's you did
• 1:02:55
  it in today's world, but yet a little bit in the past because five
• 1:03:00
  years to do. But but all the things that you did travel to this
• 1:03:05
  point right now. And the basic um spirit of what you do is is
• 1:03:10
  getting out there and doing it. And not everyone needs five years, some
• 1:03:15
  might, some might need seven. But um but you did it, and
• 1:03:20
  you did it on your own terms, and you told the story you wanted
• 1:03:22
  to tell, and it's doing exactly what you want for it. And you
• 1:03:24
  can't really ask for I mean, you could ask for a much more,
• 1:03:28
  but generally speaking, you got what you aimed for. Yeah, we absolutely
• 1:03:31
  we actually got a lot more than we aim for. I mean, we've
• 1:03:34
  walked away with the movie that people are watching and they're enjoying and we hiring
• 1:03:40
  people contact us every single day to say, you know, I've checked out
• 1:03:44
  your movie and we're in lockdown and it's brought me hope and it's broa know,
• 1:03:47
  and it sounds corny, right, but like, ultimately, as filmmakers,
• 1:03:52
  our goal is to like tell a story that people connect with and and
• 1:03:55
  and to hear that people are enjoying the film and wanting to kind of connect
• 1:04:00
  with the community and be part of it. It's just it's an absolute dream.
• 1:04:03
  And on top of that, the actors that are in the movie definitely
• 1:04:08
  my family, you know, like we've been to the weddings and we've moved
• 1:04:12
  houses and you know, we're all part of it together now and it's been
• 1:04:16
  a testing experience, but just an incredible one as well, very very lucky.
• 1:04:20
  Now, I'm gonna ask you a couple questions as well, my guests,
• 1:04:24
  What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today
• 1:04:29
  blindly? Um, yeah, take five years. Take five years, and
• 1:04:35
  make sure to take something nuts. I would say, be be passionate because
• 1:04:45
  I think there are a lot of people, you know, and and I
• 1:04:48
  talked to a lot of people. We cross paths of filmmakers, and I
• 1:04:50
  think you can and also young crew. You can sort of sniff out the
• 1:04:56
  ones who kind of want to be in it because they think it's cool and
• 1:05:00
  it'd be like I'd love to walk the red carpet and I'd love to be
• 1:05:01
  it's a glitzy glamor industry. And then you can also immediately tell the people
• 1:05:05
  that don't care about that at all. They just they have to do this
• 1:05:10
  because they love it so much. And I think I think the people who
• 1:05:13
  are in positions of power can tell why why you're sitting in front of them.
• 1:05:16
  And if you're passionate and you love it so much, I think that
• 1:05:19
  that you're going to win them over. So I'd say be passionate about what
• 1:05:23
  you that's good to do. I say, really identify like what it is
• 1:05:29
  about making movies that he's going to make you happy? Like why do you
• 1:05:32
  want to do it? Because if you're doing it for the end goal,
• 1:05:36
  if you're doing it because it's going to get you somewhere someday, that's just
• 1:05:42
  not really going to get you through those challenging night's where you're you know,
• 1:05:45
  you could find look at sevens crashed on you for the hundredth time and you're
• 1:05:48
  in the middle of a render and you just love you know. It's to
• 1:05:53
  me, a big thing that I've learned through the making of Cosmos has been
• 1:05:58
  about just enjoying the process. Don't forget that it's filmmaking that you love,
• 1:06:02
  not the next movie, not the movie you're making ten years, not where
• 1:06:08
  you'll be or what you could be doing someday. It's it's right now.
• 1:06:11
  And if you're on set with a camera and you're making a movie with actors,
• 1:06:15
  you're doing it. You're just doing it. So just enjoy that and
• 1:06:18
  try to hold on to that through the whole process. Now, what is
• 1:06:21
  the lesson that took you the longest to learn, Whether in the film business
• 1:06:25
  or in life. Things take time yea, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:32
  Patience, persistence, things take time, Things take longer than you ever thought
• 1:06:39
  they could. Just accept it and don't fight it. You know you're doing
• 1:06:45
  the best you can. I remember hearing there's a phrase that we i'd Ad
• 1:06:48
  used to tell us. He heard and he told us, and he said
• 1:06:51
  that people overestimate what they can achieve in a year, but underestimate what they
• 1:06:57
  can achieve in a decade. Ye, and it's like that. That's I
• 1:07:00
  remember leaving school at eighteen and being like, this is it? You know,
• 1:07:02
  by the time of twenty two? Should be any time now? Oscars?
• 1:07:06
  Should I Should I get the tux? Now? What should I do?
• 1:07:10
  And now I'm thirty two, It's been fourteen years since I left school,
• 1:07:13
  and I've just you know, it's been six months we've released that first
• 1:07:16
  film. It took a love a lot longer than we thought it would,
• 1:07:18
  but we didn't give up and we are now here. So patients, don't
• 1:07:24
  give up. Keep working hard. I love what you do, and it
• 1:07:26
  will come. And three of your favorite films of all time? Oh man,
• 1:07:30
  definitely et Yeah, I figured huge compliment man than I no. No.
• 1:07:39
  When I saw Cosmos, I'm like, oh boy, these guys love
• 1:07:42
  that Spielberg. Boy, they just love it. Steven Spielberg. Yeah,
• 1:07:46
  I mean it's good. It could easily be three Spielberg films to be top
• 1:07:49
  three. But tell you what, we watched the other day again the first
• 1:07:53
  time in a while. Meet Joe Black. Of course. Yeah, it's
• 1:07:57
  good. I love I love mee Joe Black, I love me Joe.
• 1:08:00
  What a movie? Wow, incredible. Um, but yeah, you go
• 1:08:04
  and picks a big one. It's hard to pick a favorite movie. I'll
• 1:08:09
  tell you what, not picking a favorite movie. But another good Martin Preston
• 1:08:12
  movie is Scent of a Woman. Oh yeah, when scene anything, Spillberg,
• 1:08:20
  Jaws, Close Encounters, Pilads, it's all good man, you can
• 1:08:26
  still fans. I mean, you can watch Jaws right now. And it
• 1:08:30
  is perfection. It's the shark. I don't care. It's just perfect.
• 1:08:38
  It's exactly what it needs to be. I don't want to seeg sark.
• 1:08:41
  I want, I want, I want that shark. It's it's so so
• 1:08:45
  perfect. And did you know I'll give you a little bit of Jaws trivia.
• 1:08:48
  The scene in the boat where they're drunk. It's the night before the
• 1:08:53
  big thing, and um, what's his name? Oh the old Oh god,
• 1:08:58
  Robert Robert Shaw is doing that whole like long diatribe about like this dialogue
• 1:09:03
  and he's like talking about that that was actually written by John Millius. Really,
• 1:09:10
  Spielberg called them like the night before and said, hey, John,
• 1:09:14
  man, we got to shoot shoot the scene tomorrow and we need a scene.
• 1:09:16
  And John, here's actually and he wrote the scene out for him.
• 1:09:19
  Wow, I'll just up for you. Yeah. And then but what's like
• 1:09:24
  it's like you calling one of your mates and going, hey, dude,
• 1:09:26
  can you can you help me out with this show? But that's who they
• 1:09:28
  were. They're like the yes, young filmmakers. You know. That's amazing.
• 1:09:31
  I mean it's funny because we'll have this, we'll talk to the film
• 1:09:34
  you know, we'll talk to filmmaks like yourself, and you'll have this phrase
• 1:09:38
  like what's the perfect film? And people say Jaws and suddenly everyone goes,
• 1:09:42
  oh, Jaws, Johns is a perfect It is. Yeah, there's I
• 1:09:47
  mean Spielberg has a few perfect films. I mean there's he's he's got a
• 1:09:51
  couple in his you know. And I mean I can go into the Kubrick,
• 1:09:56
  So I can go into Fincher, I can go into Noland. We'll
• 1:10:00
  be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
• 1:10:06
  show. I can go to mart I can go to Marty, I mean
• 1:10:13
  Coppola, I mean Godfather, obviously, Scott. We love Gladiator as well,
• 1:10:17
  Blade, Blade Runner, Blade Runner, Alien Aliens, if you want
• 1:10:24
  to go down. So that's the funny thing. Okay, now that's just
• 1:10:30
  too just this film geeks talking guys, so just bear with us, um,
• 1:10:34
  Cameron. I when Titanic came out, people were like, you know,
• 1:10:40
  I don't how old you guys. When Titanic came out? Nine yeah,
• 1:10:45
  okay, cool? Have you seen it? Yeah? Yeah, so
• 1:10:48
  so okay, so nine, So it's nine. I was a bit older
• 1:10:50
  than you, ninety seven. Um. But uh when when everybody it was
• 1:10:57
  a big hooplaw, two hundred million dollars, it's gonna bomb. Who's gonna
• 1:11:00
  want to watch Titanic? I mean we all know how it ends, Like,
• 1:11:03
  why would you do that? And I just kept saying to everybody who
• 1:11:08
  was saying that anyone I talked to him, like in Camera and I trust.
• 1:11:12
  Yeah, in Cameron, I trust because he has yet to make a
• 1:11:15
  bad movie. And if you look at his filmography from the Abyss Aliens Terminator
• 1:11:21
  Terminator to True Lies, he just always delivered it just always. So.
• 1:11:30
  Then when fast forward a decade and then Avatars, they're saying the same thing
• 1:11:34
  about Avatar. I'm like, hey, Camera, I trust, and Cameron,
• 1:11:40
  we trust. He's one of the most underrated filmmakers I think in history.
• 1:11:45
  He's the most one of the most successful filmmakers in history. And the
• 1:11:48
  funny thing is that, and I always tell people that's like, do you
• 1:11:51
  understand that nobody else could make Avatar? Like there is no Spielberg. Spielberg
• 1:11:57
  is not getting half a million, half a billion dollars to go develop a
• 1:12:00
  new ip, new technology about blue people um with with arguably no major bankable
• 1:12:09
  stars, like major stars involved, you know, other like you subordinate with
• 1:12:13
  not nothing that could support a half a billion dollars? Did that today?
• 1:12:16
  Yeah? Today's stars? Yeah? Yeah, And so nobody not Peter Jackson,
• 1:12:21
  definitely not Venture, definitely not Nolan, Like nobody else could do it
• 1:12:26
  other than someone like James Cameron. There is nobody else. And when you
• 1:12:30
  when you realize and I've heard these interviews, like when you're the only person
• 1:12:35
  on the planet that could do something like there's no there's not an argument here.
• 1:12:42
  Could Spielberg make a movie like Avatar? Yes, but not by himself.
• 1:12:45
  He doesn't have the skill set. Cameron is like at a whole other
• 1:12:50
  level, like with the technology and and you know, and and Nolan and
• 1:12:55
  all, you know, there's just nobody else that could do that film.
• 1:12:57
  No one else would write, no one else would get a check half a
• 1:13:00
  billion dollars. Now, you're right. Actually that's something you quite easily overlook
• 1:13:03
  because you just go, yeah, it's Cameron, but you take it,
• 1:13:06
  you take it for granted. You just take it like, oh, yes,
• 1:13:09
  it's James Cameron, but there's nobody else. I love watching hind scenes
• 1:13:14
  footage of especially saves in the water camera on his shoulders. Did you did
• 1:13:20
  you? Did you? Guys listen to my interview with Russell Carpenter, the
• 1:13:24
  DP from Titanic, So you have to you have to listen to about tell
• 1:13:29
  you a quick Cameron story and everyone place again. We are now you guys
• 1:13:31
  can leave. It's now just between us. We're just we're just talking now
• 1:13:35
  because we're geeks. Um. Russell Carpenter gets called into his Malibu house and
• 1:13:43
  it's like we're gonna do true lies. It was about true lies because he
• 1:13:45
  did true lies and then he did Titanic and now he's doing all the avatars
• 1:13:48
  um and he calls him up and James Cameron just brings him into his mansion
• 1:13:53
  and Malibu and they're walking around and he's just talking to Russell like he got
• 1:13:56
  the job, Like there's no offer, there's no nothing. He's just talked
• 1:14:00
  to him like he's been hired. So he gets out, he leaves.
• 1:14:03
  He's like, I think I was hired. And then and Cameron during that
• 1:14:09
  time, even during the Titanic time, his reputation is he's rough. Let's
• 1:14:14
  just call he's rough. He's a little bit of a taskmaster. Let's call
• 1:14:16
  it um. Cameron's legendary for being that dude on set. And so then
• 1:14:23
  he's shooting true lies and everyone's like, how's it working with James Cameron.
• 1:14:26
  He's like, it's great. I have no problem. I don't understand what
• 1:14:29
  everyone's having such an issue with James. Like, we've been shooting for a
• 1:14:30
  couple of days. It's been peaches, it's been great. So they're in
• 1:14:36
  his Malibu house again, his screening room in Malibu, and they're in they're
• 1:14:41
  seeing dailies and he's a shot comes up from Arnold and then I'm gonna guys,
• 1:14:50
  everyone prepare yourselfs. I'm gonna curse. I don't curse very often.
• 1:14:53
  Them just quoting mister Cameron at this point, and he goes, what the
• 1:14:59
  fuck is that? And Russell was like he starts like and the production designers
• 1:15:06
  there and the first day, D's there and a couple of their keys are
• 1:15:10
  there, and he goes, Hey, Russell, I just spent twenty million
• 1:15:14
  dollars in the biggest movie star on Earth. It'd be nice if I could
• 1:15:16
  see his fucking face. Oh no, wow. And then all of a
• 1:15:24
  sudden, the next shot comes up and he just goes to town and every
• 1:15:28
  singles shot and Russell's just like, okay, okay. So he leaves.
• 1:15:32
  He's out in the parking in the parking area, and he's like, he's
• 1:15:34
  calling his wife. He's like, I've been fired. I've been fired.
• 1:15:36
  I've been fired. I've just been fired. There's no way I can go
• 1:15:40
  back. I mean, obviously James Cameron wants. Then the production designed in
• 1:15:44
  the first dad come out and he goes Russell Russell. He does that to
• 1:15:46
  everybody because what do he goes, No, No, that's he called all
• 1:15:49
  the other dps he's worked with. He does it to everybody. He calls
• 1:15:53
  up the DP from the from like the Abyss, and he goes, he
• 1:15:55
  goes, did he try the whole I want to see the face guy?
• 1:15:58
  Yeah, he does to them, me too. He does it to everybody.
• 1:16:00
  It's not you You're fine, just keep going. And that is James
• 1:16:05
  Cameron. We saw recently, we saw the some of the behind the scenes
• 1:16:12
  from the Abysses. I was about to say that, did you see that
• 1:16:15
  documentary? Have you see the set like the Underworld? No? But did
• 1:16:17
  you see the documentary? Did you see the Yeah, you've seen the whole
• 1:16:20
  documentary right, the whole ideas. What am I looking? I mean,
• 1:16:25
  all the way from the beginning, right Cameron? You go, oh,
• 1:16:27
  yeah, the guy that made Avatar. You go, no, no,
• 1:16:29
  no, no, no, no, nows like, oh yes, so
• 1:16:31
  nuclear silo, Let's fill it with water and build our set. What are
• 1:16:34
  you talking about? He's been and I'll I'll give you one more camera story
• 1:16:40
  and then we will end this interview because we could just keep talking for another
• 1:16:44
  hour. I read it. I read in one of Cameron's biographies on the
• 1:16:48
  abyss if you saw the behind the scenes with this, And by the way,
• 1:16:51
  anyone listening here should go watch The abyss if you haven't seen it,
• 1:16:55
  and get the DVD and or Blu ray and watch. Argueably one of the
• 1:17:00
  best filmmaking documentaries I've ever seen. Up there with Hearts of Darkness for Apocalypse
• 1:17:04
  now it is amazing to watch. You just sit there with your mouth on
• 1:17:09
  the floor of the entire time they're doing it. And the suits at twenty
• 1:17:14
  century Fox, it was it was way over budget. It was like a
• 1:17:16
  fifty at that time. It was like fifty million bucks sixty million dollars to
• 1:17:19
  make the movie. And it was just going up and up, and like
• 1:17:21
  you know, the tarp broke and the filtration system broke, so people and
• 1:17:27
  they had to buy these really expensive like design these really expensive suits so people
• 1:17:30
  could not only see and we can see their faces. So he has like
• 1:17:34
  he so on the line item it's wardrobe. It's wardrobe, but it costs
• 1:17:39
  like ten thousand dollars and everyone like no one knows what's going on at the
• 1:17:44
  studio. In the studio and like they're somewhere in North Carolina, and so
• 1:17:46
  a suit flies in and if you saw the behind the scenes camera, you
• 1:17:49
  know you're underwater for ten hours, so you have to decompress for two or
• 1:17:55
  three hours underwater so you can come up without getting the best ends. And
• 1:18:00
  Cameron was doing this all day every day. He was more he was in
• 1:18:03
  the water more than anybody else. So he was a Taskmaster, but he
• 1:18:09
  was proving he's walking the walk, so this he's just getting out of this
• 1:18:14
  decomposition. And he takes off that that that's you know, that helmet that
• 1:18:17
  he that they built, right, and this guy comes up, who's obviously
• 1:18:21
  a suit an executive. He comes up and goes, hey, James,
• 1:18:26
  I'm here from the and before he could finish the sentence, James took the
• 1:18:30
  helmet and slammed it on the guy's head. So now the guy can't breathe
• 1:18:33
  because it's without oxygen. That thing is air tight, So now he can't
• 1:18:38
  breathe. He grabs him by the by his tie and dre and lifts him
• 1:18:44
  over like he's dangling from the edge. And if he falls into water,
• 1:18:47
  the dude is gonna die. If he falls into water, unless someone gets
• 1:18:51
  to him, he's gonna die. And he dangles him there while the guy's
• 1:18:55
  like barely breathing for like ten seconds. Then he pulls him back in,
• 1:19:00
  rips the thing off. He goes, if I ever see you on my
• 1:19:01
  fucking sent again, I'll kill you. And now you see, this is
• 1:19:06
  the nineties, guys, this is early nineties. This is a whole other
• 1:19:11
  world. I don't suggest you do something like this. But these are the
• 1:19:15
  legendary stories of James Cameron. This is one of a billion of them that
• 1:19:20
  I have heard or read about over the years, and I know a lot
• 1:19:25
  of people who've worked with him. And every single time I meet with somebody
• 1:19:30
  like I had another guy. Okay, one more story, and that'll be
• 1:19:31
  the last James Camera story. Buddy of mine, he was at the DGA
• 1:19:38
  and he's a DJ director and he's you know, he's a good director in
• 1:19:41
  his own right and has a couple of films under his belt, and he's
• 1:19:44
  big in music videos at the time. And I think he was Spielberg and
• 1:19:47
  Cameron, I think in Jackson or someone like that. We're there giving a
• 1:19:50
  talk to the other and they're like, yeah, you need to do this,
• 1:19:54
  and we're doing this is a new way and doing this. We'll be
• 1:19:58
  right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 1:20:06
  And my buddy comes up. He stands up, he goes, hey,
• 1:20:09
  James, that's really nice because you're James Cameron. I don't have access to
• 1:20:15
  that kind of stuff. Like in front of everybody, called out James Cameron
• 1:20:17
  in front of all these other directors, and James goes, well, what
• 1:20:19
  are you doing? Him? Alread you want to come to set now?
• 1:20:21
  This is this is Avatar. Before anybody knew what the hell Avatar was,
• 1:20:26
  before anyone knew what the technology. All you heard was rumors about what the
• 1:20:29
  technology was that was being built. And I even heard I was here at
• 1:20:32
  that time. I was here in La so I heard, like through the
• 1:20:34
  grapevine, like James Cameron's doing something like a dista. So he shows up,
• 1:20:40
  shows up onto set, which is the what is that the volume?
• 1:20:44
  The volume right, and he's yeah, the volume, and there's this and
• 1:20:47
  they're basically developing technology. This is all brand new technology they're developing. So
• 1:20:53
  behind him in this sound stage just like three rows up with just computers.
• 1:20:58
  It must have been forty po with wires and computer gears and and just servers
• 1:21:03
  and ship just because you know. And you see James Cameron with this monitor
• 1:21:09
  in front of him, and in the monitor wherever he moves the camera,
• 1:21:13
  you see Avatar. You see whatever that I forgot the name of the planet.
• 1:21:17
  Pandora. Yeah, you see Pandora, right, So you see Pandora
• 1:21:20
  in real time, in real time, you're seeing everything in real time,
• 1:21:26
  so he sees everything, but it's all virtual. So then my buddy's standing
• 1:21:31
  behind him because he's shadowing him. He stands behind and he's watching and he
• 1:21:35
  goes all right, action and it's the scene where they like they arrived the
• 1:21:38
  first time the helicopter and they jump out that thing, right, So he
• 1:21:42
  does and he goes in the tankers action and he jumps off like a stool.
• 1:21:47
  He jumps off with the camera and he runs and he runs into a
• 1:21:50
  digital tree, like he runs into a digital tree, and he goes,
• 1:21:57
  hey, Jimmy, can you move this thing about twenty feet that way?
• 1:22:00
  And he goes, sure, James, And all of a sudden, like
• 1:22:03
  from God, a mouse from God comes into the screen, clicks on this
• 1:22:09
  tree in real time, lifts it up, roots at all, moves it
• 1:22:14
  over thirty feet and plants it over there. Let's go again, and he's
• 1:22:18
  like, and then they do and they so then my buddy comes up to
• 1:22:23
  him after like a few hours of this, and they're like prepping something and
• 1:22:26
  he goes, James, man, this is a this is pretty cool technology,
• 1:22:30
  man. And this is where you understand where James Cameron's in a completely
• 1:22:32
  different playing field than any of us are. He goes, you know,
• 1:22:35
  we'll be really fucking cool if I didn't have a cable to this damn thing.
• 1:22:40
  This cable has been driving me nuts. I wish we could figure out
• 1:22:43
  a way to do this without a cable. It's the most cutting edge technology
• 1:22:46
  in film history at the moment. And he's like, but the cable is
• 1:22:49
  buggy yet, and that and that is and that is James Cameron. I'm
• 1:22:58
  sorry everyone for listening. If you're still with us, we turned this into
• 1:23:00
  a James Camera love fest. I apologize. But guys, guys, where
• 1:23:06
  can people find you? What you're doing, your film, all that good
• 1:23:10
  stuff. Well, we have a website, Cosmos movie official dot com where
• 1:23:14
  you can find out where you can check out the film and follow us on
• 1:23:16
  social media and even buy some merchandise if some merch are you selling merch We're
• 1:23:24
  selling caps and they're they're flying up the shelf. But yeah, we're on
• 1:23:28
  all social media, and we make we make it a personal quest to reply
• 1:23:32
  to every single piece of correspondence we get. So if you have any questions
• 1:23:35
  about the process or about your own movie and how distribution might work, all
• 1:23:41
  this that and the other just get in touched. We're always happy to talk
• 1:23:44
  genuinely, Thank you guys for being an inspiration to the to the film tribe
• 1:23:50
  and to filmmakers everywhere. We need stories like this to keep us going because
• 1:23:56
  it is a fairly depressing time now we're in currently and Andre before you know,
• 1:24:03
  the situation that we're all in, it was still depressing twenty nineteen.
• 1:24:09
  It was still fairly depressing for filmmakers, especially in the pending filmmakers and making
• 1:24:13
  money and making your movies and all this kind of stuff. So these are
• 1:24:15
  the kind of stories I'd like to promote and really give people inspiration to go
• 1:24:18
  out there and make their movies. And you guys are the personification of indie
• 1:24:23
  film hustle. So thank you guys so much for being on the show.
• 1:24:25
  I really appreciate it. Well, thank you very much for having us.
• 1:24:29
  It's honestly, it's awesome to be on the show. Is thank you.
• 1:24:33
  I want to thank Xander and Elliott so much for coming on the show and
• 1:24:36
  inspiring the indie film hustle tribe with their misadventures in making Cosmos. Thank you
• 1:24:45
  so so much, guys. If you want to get links to anything we
• 1:24:46
  spoke about in this episode, please head over to the show notes at fool
• 1:24:50
  approof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three twenty. Thank you so much for
• 1:24:55
  listening. Guys, As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll
• 1:24:58
  talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcasts at Bulletproof
• 1:25:02
  Screenwriting dot tv.