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IFH 710: Creating the Cult Classic Sharknado with Thunder Levin · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
• 0:13
  Filmhustle Podcast, Episode number seven ten. Be ruthless about protecting your writing days.
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  I e. Do not cave into the endless request to have in quotes
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  essential and long overdue meetings on those days. End quote. JK Rolling Broadcasting
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  from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where
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  we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles
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  of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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  Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble
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  host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur
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  How to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today than
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  ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory film distributors
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  over to www dot film bizbook dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
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  Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason Buff. Do you like NATO's Well,
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  my friend, you are in luck today because today we are talking with Thunder
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  Levin, screenwriter of Shark Nato and Shark Nato two. I was wondering if
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  you could talk for just a second about your experience when you first got into
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  Los Angeles and what your expectation was versus what you actually found. Sure,
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  I got a la in late nineteen eighty six with my student film in hand,
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  and I was quite prepared to send it to Steven Spielberg and have him
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  to say, where have you been. We've been waiting for you, right,
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  That's what usually happens, And that did not happen, to my great
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  surprise, although I did get a very nice letter back from his director of
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  development at the time saying I thought it was a very well done student film.
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  And so then I said about the hard slog of trying to make connections,
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  and I guess took about three or four years of just sort of knocking
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  on doors before I got my first directing job. And then that didn't go
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  very well. I was sort of outmaneuvered politically. I went into it being
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  I guess, very naive and thinking everybody was there to help me realize the
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  vision and all this nonsense, and no, everybody was there for their own
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  causes, or at least especially the producers, and so that did not go
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  very well. And so then it was a sort of a case of regrouping
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  and I started writing more, and it was a long time before before other
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  things started happening and I started doing corporate promotional videos for a living, which
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  actually is a fairly good living if you can make it work. But it
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  wasn't what I wanted to do, and so years went by, and finally
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  I was in my mid thirties when I thought, you know, this is
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  ridiculous. We've got to make something happen if nobody's going to hire me to
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  do it. I ought to make my own film, which had always been
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  the plan. It's just that, you know, that was a someday kind
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  of thing. Someday, if things don't work out, I'll just make my
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  own film and I'll show them. And then finally I realized, you know,
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  someday it was a couple of years ago. I've got to get going.
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  And tried to raise money to make an indie film and did not raise
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  enough, and so that project collapsed. But some of the investors that I
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  had contacted, you know, who had who had pledged funds, remembered me
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  a year or so later when I had another project, and now I seemed
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  like, oh, well, he's done this before, even though we hadn't
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  actually gotten the first film made, so there was there was some recognition factor.
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  When I went back to them a year or two later and said,
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  hey, what's let's make this film. We can do it for less money
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  than that other one, and and it's going to be more commercial and all
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  these things. It was just the funding it was. It was it's more
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  of a niche film. But I don't think that's why it fell apart.
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  It was a little science fiction film. But I think it fell apart because
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  we were trying to raise close to a million dollars and I just didn't have
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  the connections to raise that much money. But then the next film we tried
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  to raise money for, which was a zombie film, was much more modestly
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  budgeted. We went in saying we were going to make it for a hundred
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  grand, but we would have the option of raising one hundred and fifty,
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  and so we we eventually got to one hundred grand, and we said,
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  okay, we're invoking our option to raise one hundred and fifty because we think
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  it'll be a better film that way. And we raised one hundred and fifty.
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  So it was much more doable, and it seemed like it would be
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  much easier for it to make a profit. So you worked as a producer
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  on You're talking about mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood, I am, yeah,
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  and so I was one of I was, I guess credit wise.
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  I'm the executive producer on that. George Saunders was my pardner. He was
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  a producer, but I ended up raising about ninety five percent of the money
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  And so really it was a nuts and bolts from the beginning to the end
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  kind of production for me, and I learned a lot doing it. I
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  don't ever want to do it again. I know there are people out there
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  who enjoy putting the deal together and working all that stuff out, that that's
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  not really the part of the business that intrigues me. I like making movies.
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  I like the creative part. I like coming up with a story and
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  figuring out characters and casting and working with crew and cinematographers and sound people and
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  artists and actors and you know, seeing it all come to life. Putting
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  together the deal doesn't really doesn't really excite me that way. Can you talk
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  for just a second about how you were able to put together that kind of
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  funding? And I mean, I know it's not the really fun part of
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  filmmaking, but one of the things that I've been trying to focus more on
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  is talking about the non creative of aspects and the more business aspects of putting
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  together a film, So can you can you discuss just a little bit about
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  the process of actually putting the film together and raising the funds and what kind
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  of you know, things like did you have to make it a LLC?
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  And the legal aspects of it? Sure what I mean? I guess the
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  first thing for anyone to remember who's going into this is it's a film business,
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  not the film art, not the film craft. It's a business first
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  and foremost at least two people who are going to be investing and people who
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  are going to be buying films. So you've you've got to put together a
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  package that makes sense from a business standpoint. So it's not about g this
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  won't this be a really cool story because investors probably aren't going to care about
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  that. Some of them might, but most of them aren't. Most people
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  who are investing money in a project want to make money, so they need
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  to see that you have some grasp of the business side of it. So
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  the first thing is to do your research and figure out what movies are selling,
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  what movies are getting made on the low end, and what are selling
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  in the marketplace, and of course the marketplace is changing in the midst of
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  changing drastically. You know, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, it
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  was all about what can you get on the shelf at Blockbuster, And of
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  course that's not the case anymore. It's about how do you get attention for
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  a movie that's that's on vod or on iTunes or Amazon or what have you.
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  And the whole business really is sort of reinventing itself right now, and
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  even the studios are scrambling to figure out how all that is going to work
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  and how to make money from it. So it's a it's a weird time
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  to be making an indie film right now. But what we did was to
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  research to put together basically, we put together a business plan, and the
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  things we had to include in that were, how is this film going to
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  make money? What, you know, what's the physical process. We're going
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  to form an LLC, a limited liability company. The investors are going to
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  be the limited members, and the producer and I were the general members,
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  which meant that the investors would only have their investment at stake. They couldn't
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  be touched for any losses beyond the money they put in, but they would
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  have no particular say in running the company, and George and I would run
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  the company, and our investment would be sweat equity the effort we put into
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  making the film. And so then we put together this business plan that would
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  that listed movies that we thought were similar to our film, and we did
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  research on, Okay, what is the low end that these investors can expect
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  to make. So we did some research on similar movies that hadn't done so
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  well and how much money did they make, how much money did they spend.
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  We'll be right back for a word from our sponsor, and now back
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  to the show. What's the high end? You know? And of course
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  at that point what we were all pointing to is a high end was the
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  Blair Witch Project, which has been made for like, you know, sixty
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  grand and made one hundred million dollars, you know, And of course you
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  fill it with caveats like it's unlikely that the film will will achieve that kind
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  of success and your money is at risk and you could lose everything, and
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  you keep saying that over and over again to protect yourself legally. But at
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  the same time you have to paint a Rosie picture or else, Why would
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  anybody invest in your moving And what is it about our film? What elements
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  of our film make it likely to succeed? So, okay, zombies were
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  hot, so it was a zombie film. We would we would guarantee that
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  we would get at least one name star in the film. It would be
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  shot in twelve is on one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, So the financial
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  risk were very low compared to the potential rewards. Things like that. And
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  basically, we did some research online and we talked to other people who had
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  done this before, and there are you know, business plans out there that
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  you can get a look at. And we synthesized the best elements from a
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  bunch of different business plans that we looked at. We got distribution charts from
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  the Hollywood Reporter and from what is a box office Mojo, and a bunch
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  of these other things to show how similar films have performed. We put together
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  a budget, We put together a cast list of the kind of actors we
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  thought we would be able to get for the money we had. We put
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  together a schedule of how the investors could expect to see things proceeds. So
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  Okay, once all the money is in, it'll take this long to prepare
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  and cast the film, and this long to shoot it, us long to
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  do post. And from the time it's finished in post until the time it's
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  out on DVD, we'll take about this long. And once it's out on
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  DVD, how long do we expect it to take to recoup its money?
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  And then, of course there was the business side of all. The way
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  we structured it was that all funds that came in from sales of the film
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  would go to the investors first. We wouldn't get anything until the investors had
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  recouped one hundred and ten percent of their investment. So that was sort of
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  their protection that we weren't sort of, you know, going to run off
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  with the money or anything. The investors had the rights to audit the books,
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  things like that, so we set it up to protect the investors as
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  much as possible, to give them first position. Well, actually it was
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  second position after any debts that the film might have incurred. And did you
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  have a distribution model in place at that point. We did not have a
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  distributor signed. We had a couple of distributors at that point that we had
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  individually, worked with before, had experience with before, and so we mentioned
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  them and said that the film will be taken to these distributors and to others.
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  At the time, we felt like we could probably get a better deal
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  on the distribution end if we didn't pre sign with an investor in retrospect.
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  That was probably a mistake, but we felt that any investor looking at just
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  our script and our little package with filmmakers who were essentially unknown, would not
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  give us a very good deal, but that if we went out and made
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  a really good movie, then we could command a higher price. In retrospect.
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  It probably would have been safer. It probably would have been better to
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  take the safer deal and make a deal upfront. We did have a couple
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  of distributors who expressed some interest upfront, and that would have at least guaranteed
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  a certain a certain minimum income for the film. Right now, can you
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  talk about what it feels like as a director to walk onto the set for
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  the first time. I mean, I know you had directed other things,
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  but this was probably the biggest thing you had directed at that point. Right
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  I'm not sure it wasn't necessarily the biggest. It was the first film where
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  I essentially had creative control, and so that was a big deal for me.
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  And it was certainly the first film that I was solely responsible for from
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  beginning to end. And it was interesting because in my position, I'd been
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  telling people for years and years that I was a great film director, but
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  really had no way to prove it. You know. It was just you
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  got to take my word for this. I can see it in my head.
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  I know it. You know, I know what it's going to be
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  like. It'll be great, you'll see. And so in a way,
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  when things didn't go terribly wrong in the first hour of shooting, it was
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  just sort of a great vindication for me that that shoot actually ended up being
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  probably to this day, the best film set I've ever been on. I
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  spent a lot of time putting the crew together and interviewing people, and people
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  were getting paid you know crap. I think most people were making a one
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  hundred bucks a day. But I spent a lot of time interviewing people and
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  making sure we had people who were going to be really excited about doing it.
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  Everybody was essentially moving up a step or getting their their break, getting
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  into the business at the entry level, or you know, like the cinematographers
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  were people who had not shot features before, but it shot really good short
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  to a really good music videos. That was a kind of people we were
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  looking at. A costume designers had only been an assisting costume designer, things
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  like that, So everybody was looking at this film as a really good opportunity
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  for them, even though they weren't making much money. So we had we
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  had really good spirit on the set. Everybody got along really well. There
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  was a great sense of community and we're all just really working hard to make
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  this thing the best it could be. And so my experience on the set
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  of a director, there's an hour of sheer terror at the beginning of the
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  shoot, where, oh God, do I know what I'm doing? Is
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  everything going to fall apart? Are all the pieces in place? Or is
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  this going to be an utter disaster? And once you get past that,
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  and for me actually that that's kind of a daily thing. I mean,
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  I've directed several features now and every morning I feel the same way until the
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  first shot is in the camp and then everything is fine. But that that
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  shoot, that it was just a wonderful sense of vindication. It's like,
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  finally I was doing what I was supposed to be. You know, this
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  proved nut. It was less about proving to other people, and it became
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  a confirmation to me that what I've been saying all these years was actually right,
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  and that this was what I was meant to do, and that here
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  was a place where I was at home and I didn't have to count ow
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  to people who didn't know what the hell they were talking about, and I
• 17:06
  didn't have to support somebody else's vision. I was doing what I was supposed
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  to do and it was working, and so that was a that was a
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  very powerful sort of reaffirmation for me. And then when the shoot went so
• 17:19
  well and everybody got along so well, and despite doing it on an utterly
• 17:25
  insane schedule, everything worked out. It was it was just the most wonderful,
• 17:32
  wonderful thing. And to this day, I'm very proud of that film.
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  I mean, you know, it's a low budget zombie horror comedy and
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  it's it's silly, and it's you know, it doesn't look like a million
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  bucks, but I'm really proud of it for what it was. I think
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  it was a great film, and I will put that up against Shaun of
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  the Dead or Zombie Land any day. It doesn't. It doesn't have it
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  doesn't have quite the production value of zombie Land, but I think the characters
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  are just as engaging, if not more so. I think the story carries
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  you along. Very few people have really seen it, but the comments that
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  we see on the various internet forums when people actually do watch it, I'd
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  say ninety five percent of them really really get into it. All the comments
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  we've had been been very positive. So it was it was a great experience
• 18:25
  from the beginning to end, except for the fact that it hasn't turned a
• 18:29
  profit yet. Now, as a Spielberg fan, how was it? Was
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  it kind of cool working with c Thomas Howe. Did you ever like talk
• 18:37
  to him about what it was like working on ET or anything like that.
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  Yeah, yeah, we uh, we had a few conversations about that he
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  had. Tommy has stories about everything because he's not only has he been in
• 18:49
  the business since he was a kid, but his father and even his grandfather.
• 18:55
  I think we're both in the business as stuntmen. So he grew up
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  in Hollywood and he has a lot of great stories. And I remember one
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  that he was talking about was that Spielberg had a trailer on the set that
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  was filled with pinball machines and video games and stuff, and so so you
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  know, in between shots, the kids were all in there and it was
• 19:17
  basically like their own portable arcade and they just had a blast playing games while
• 19:22
  the crew was you know, setting up the next shot. Now, when
• 19:23
  you get on a set, who are the people that you're really relying on
• 19:26
  that you kind of lean on throughout the day? Right? Well, for
• 19:30
  me, the main collaborator on a film is the is the cinematographer. To
• 19:36
  me, that's that's the most important working relationship on a film for a director.
• 19:41
  The other one, of course, is the first the first ad,
• 19:45
  because he's the one who really runs the show. A lot of young directors
• 19:51
  from films coming out of film school or just you know, people who want
• 19:55
  to want to make movies. We'll be right back after a word from our
• 20:00
  sponsor and now back to the show. They don't realize just the extent to
• 20:11
  which they are not in charge. The director, especially a good director,
• 20:17
  if he knows what he's doing, he will allow the first ad to do
• 20:22
  his job, and his job is running the set. And you know,
• 20:26
  you need to have your vision, you need to know what you're doing and
• 20:30
  what's coming next, and be able to express that clearly. But the first
• 20:33
  AD is the one who's really sort of directing the troops. And if he's
• 20:38
  good at his job, if or she is good at If the first AD
• 20:44
  is good at his or her job, it frees up the director to not
• 20:47
  have to worry about a lot of that stuff and to focus on working with
• 20:51
  the cinematographer and working with the actors, and those are for me, those
• 20:57
  are the key relationships. The cinematographer is going to be translating your vision onto
• 21:03
  the screen, so you have to have a good relationship with your DP.
• 21:08
  For me that I've always started working with my DP at the very earliest stage
• 21:14
  that I can. I'd like to have my DP in the room when we're
• 21:18
  doing storyboards, if I'm doing storyboards. In fact, for me, the
• 21:22
  best situation is if my DP is also an artist and can do the storyboards
• 21:26
  himself. So We'll sit in a room and we'll go through the script,
• 21:30
  and I'll block out my vision and what I think the shots will be,
• 21:34
  and I'll describe them to him, and maybe i'll draw stick figures, and
• 21:38
  then if the DP can draw, he will do storyboards, because I can't
• 21:42
  draw to save my life. So I'll draw a stick figure of what the
• 21:45
  shots should be, and then he'll look at it and go, other,
• 21:48
  fuck is that? And I will explain it to him and he'd say,
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  oh, yeah, I don't look like that, and he'll draw it out,
• 21:56
  or we'll have a storyboard artist in the room with us who will draw
• 22:00
  it out, and then maybe the DP will make a suggestion, well,
• 22:02
  what if we did it from this slightly different angle, or what if we
• 22:06
  move the camera here. I like to collaborate with my DP as much as
• 22:10
  I can, so that really the way the film looks becomes kind of a
• 22:14
  shared vision, and that way, when we get on the set, I
• 22:18
  don't need to explain anything. He knows exactly what it's supposed to look like,
• 22:22
  exactly where the camera's supposed to go, exactly where he wants the lights
• 22:26
  to go, so I don't need to worry about explaining that to him.
• 22:30
  All we'll need to do is adjust for you know, those situations where the
• 22:36
  location or the set requires that something be changed from what our original plan was,
• 22:41
  and then we'll figure that out together, and then he can worry about
• 22:45
  all that and I can go work with the actors on their performance and they're
• 22:49
  blocking and so forth. So for me, the most important relationship is between
• 22:55
  the director and the DP. Then between the director and the AD. That's
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  got to be a working whip. You're not too concerned about a creative relationship
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  there, but you've got to be able to get along, and he's got
• 23:04
  to be able to understand the way you work. If there's friction between the
• 23:10
  director and the first a D, things tend not to work very well.
• 23:14
  And I've experienced both of those where I've had really great relationships with my a
• 23:18
  D and not so great relationships. And life is a whole lot better than
• 23:23
  the director in the AD get along and then the other key, the other
• 23:27
  key relationship on a set, And this was something that maybe surprised me a
• 23:33
  bit in the early days, was the relationship between the director and the star,
• 23:40
  especially in these low budget films where you have just one name actor and
• 23:45
  that actor has a lot more a lot more cloud on set than some directors
• 23:51
  might like, because probably he's the reason your film got funded, and he's
• 23:56
  the reason your film is gonna get this tributed, and he knows that.
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  So having a good relationship with your star where you're both working towards the same
• 24:07
  vision is really crucial because if you get on if you come into it with
• 24:12
  different visions and he's pushing to get it his way and you're pushing to get
• 24:18
  it yours, and he has a certain level of control because you know you
• 24:23
  can't physically make him do something he doesn't want to do, that that can
• 24:29
  become an awkward situation too. So making sure that you and your star are
• 24:33
  on the same wavelength and that you both see at least his character the same
• 24:38
  way can be very helpful, and the star can become a great ally too,
• 24:45
  because on a low budget indie film where you're trying to shoot the film
• 24:49
  in ten or twelve or fifteen or even twenty days, you really don't have
• 24:53
  time to do the kind of dramatic work with the actors that you like to
• 25:00
  do, and so your star, if he really understands his role and you
• 25:06
  guys are on the same page with it, he can then become a very
• 25:11
  helpful force for working with the other actors as well, because one would expect
• 25:17
  in an indie film, especially in a B movie, where you tend to
• 25:21
  be casting someone in the lead who's probably already had a career and has been
• 25:26
  doing it for a while, because those are the people who will sell a
• 25:30
  low budget moving Did you ever find yourself maybe over directing or doing things that
• 25:34
  they didn't really need you to do, or did you learn no, just
• 25:37
  the opposite, in fact, is that you can actually do less because they
• 25:42
  know what they're doing, and they can also pass along their experience in their
• 25:47
  their years of wisdom to the less experienced members of the cast, because on
• 25:52
  a low budget indie film, you're probably going to have a lot of actors
• 25:55
  who haven't done this as much right, and so having a good relationship with
• 26:00
  your star he can sort of carry some of that burden for you, and
• 26:03
  he can he can talk to some of the actors about what they're doing and
• 26:07
  the little the little techniques of acting that he's picked up in his years of
• 26:11
  experience that will help them do what you need them to do, you know,
• 26:15
  and and you've you've got to you've got to balance that by making sure
• 26:19
  that everybody in stands it understands that you're in charge, and a good star
• 26:26
  gets that and he won't question you publicly. You know, I had a
• 26:30
  moment at a moment on one of my films where you know, now I
• 26:36
  don't even remember what it was, but it was it was a case of
• 26:40
  the star sort of questioned something, you know, and I took him aside.
• 26:44
  And he was a guy who who you know, made dozens of films
• 26:48
  and it had a very successful TV series, and I had to take him
• 26:52
  aside and say, look, you know, we can we can talk about
• 26:56
  this as much as you want. If you don't like what I'm doing,
• 27:00
  we can, we can work it out together, but you can't question me
• 27:03
  in front of the rest of the cast and crew. And he was like,
• 27:07
  you're absolutely right. I apologize for that. And then when you were
• 27:10
  shooting and we had a very good and yeah, okay, we we were
• 27:19
  literally out in the middle of the jungle and we did not have a stunt
• 27:22
  coordinator on that film, and so Adrian Paul kind of took over that role
• 27:26
  for us, and he would help the other actors with the physical stuff that
• 27:32
  they needed to do thanks to all his experience, you know, on Highlander,
• 27:37
  mainly because you know, he spent several years doing endless fight scenes and
• 27:41
  stuff, so he was he was really good at that and he was able
• 27:45
  to help the other actors in ways that I probably would not have been able
• 27:51
  to, And even if I had been able to, I certainly wouldn't have
• 27:53
  had the time because there are so many things. I've often said that directing
• 28:00
  feature film is probably the most all encompassing, intense experience that a human being
• 28:06
  can have, short of going to war. There are so many things that
• 28:10
  you have to keep in your head, so many things going on at any
• 28:12
  one moment. Aren't doing what I need, and I would have had to
• 28:15
  go back and talk to them, and there would it would have cost more
• 28:18
  time. But actually my star was talking to them and was bringing them along.
• 28:23
  And especially if you're working with if you're doing an action movie, as
• 28:27
  most of might have been, and your star is someone who's done a lot
• 28:30
  of action work before, then he can also be very helpful with the physical
• 28:34
  stuff. Both see Thomas Howe on Mute and Vampire Zombies, and also Adrian
• 28:42
  Paul who was my star in AE. You know, they both had a
• 28:45
  lot of action experience, and so they would they would help the other actors.
• 28:49
  Okay, here's how you here's how you might want to run through this
• 28:53
  scene. Yeah, we're running through the jungle, Well, how are we
• 28:57
  going to make sure we don't trip and fall over this? You know vine
• 29:02
  here? There's a lot going on, and it's a funny thing to think
• 29:07
  about how much time it takes to simply be able to run through a patch
• 29:14
  of jungle. This is something you don't think about when you're watching an action
• 29:17
  film, But simply being able to run through the jungle for a hundred feet
• 29:22
  without tripping on something is harder than you might think. And so having somebody
• 29:30
  with a certain level of experience at that kind of thing, how do I
• 29:33
  slide down this hillside without falling over and breaking my angle? That that can
• 29:38
  be very helpful, especially when you don't have a huge stunt team, you
• 29:42
  know, working with everybody on one of these films. You're you're lucky if
• 29:48
  you have a stunt coordinator at all, much less a whole stunt team to
• 29:52
  work with each of your ten different actors in a scene. We'll be right
• 29:56
  back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show that
• 30:06
  are you were responsible for? That it can really get overwhelming, and you
• 30:10
  tend to develop a tunnel vision to a certain extent, and I know it
• 30:15
  happens for me that I am totally focused on the moment we're putting in front
• 30:21
  of the camera, and if somebody asked me about another moment in the film,
• 30:25
  I'm like, what huh, there's another moment, and I'll have to
• 30:29
  make a physical, conscious effort to change my focus and think about this other
• 30:36
  thing that needs to be addressed. Yeah. So on Ae we were out
• 30:38
  in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica. There's very little film infrastructure
• 30:42
  there, and what there is is based in the capital of San Jose.
• 30:48
  So the people there are San Jose's just a city like La People there have
• 30:52
  no more experience working in the jungle than anybody here would, so even our
• 30:57
  quote unquote local crew was still out of their element. So yeah, Adrian
• 31:03
  was very very helpful on that production and it was great working with it.
• 31:08
  Now, why was the decision made to shoot in Costa Rico? Is that
• 31:12
  just because the screenplay or was there some sort of financial incentive for shooting there?
• 31:18
  That was actually a wed a weird situation. That decision was made by
• 31:23
  the partners at the Asylum. That was an Asylum film and they had shot
• 31:29
  several films in Belize, which honestly is where I expected to shoot the film.
• 31:34
  But they wanted a different look because most of their jungle films had been
• 31:38
  shot in Belize, and so they started looking around at different places where we
• 31:44
  could shoot a jungle film, and we were talking about the Dominican Republic too,
• 31:49
  and we were talking about Puerto Rico, and I was kind of interested
• 31:52
  in Puerto Rico because I had another project, an indie project that I didn't
• 31:59
  develop that I thought we would probably shoot in Puerto Rico because it needed both
• 32:02
  jungle and a Spanish colonial city, and so you got both of those in
• 32:08
  Puerto Rico. Plus they speak English. Plus it's close to you asked you
• 32:13
  know, there are no import restrictions or anything because it's part of the US,
• 32:16
  and it's so close by playing that you could fly equipment and and stuff.
• 32:20
  So Puerto Rico was interesting to me. But they decided that Puerto Rico
• 32:25
  was probably going to be too expensive, and I think there were union issues
• 32:29
  there too, so they were looking at Dominican Republic, and then Panama got
• 32:34
  into the mix, and then finally the decision to shoot in Costa Rica,
• 32:38
  oddly enough, was made for two reasons. One was that one of the
• 32:45
  partners at the Asylum, his father, I think, owns a house in
• 32:51
  Costa Rica, and so somehow that made it better. I guess they just
• 32:54
  had a connection there. And then they got in touch with a local production
• 33:00
  company in Costa Rica who kind of sold them on shooting there. And as
• 33:05
  it turns out, it might have been a mistake because it turns out the
• 33:07
  Costa Rica is not an inexpensive place, and we were there during prime tourist
• 33:13
  season and there was no local crew in the jungle. So even the quote
• 33:17
  unquote local crew we were hiring all had to be transported from San Jose.
• 33:23
  They all had to be put up in hotels. You know, normally think,
• 33:27
  well, we're going to hire a local crew, they'll just be living
• 33:30
  at home and they'll come to the set every day. But it wasn't like
• 33:32
  that. So the expensive shooting in Costa Rica, and everything's very expensive there,
• 33:38
  it's not it's not this third world, you know, country where you
• 33:43
  can hire a labor for ten cents an hour or something. What little film
• 33:47
  production there is there was mostly TV commercials and an actual Costa Rican television programs,
• 33:57
  so they were all used to working sort of a a normal day in
• 34:00
  a studio setting and getting paid decent rates. And we were coming in with
• 34:06
  this crazy low budget film that was going to be shot out in the middle
• 34:08
  of the jungle, and we wanted people to work for what to them was
• 34:13
  very little, and so it was costa. Rica actually was a wonderful place,
• 34:19
  but from a production standpoint, it actually kind of worked against us and
• 34:22
  it ended up costing a lot more than anybody expected. But it was beautiful.
• 34:28
  When you're shooting in the jungle, how do you scout out locations?
• 34:30
  Do you just kind of say, okay, well here's a river and we
• 34:34
  can shoot it like this. I mean, is there are you shooting it
• 34:37
  kind of in the same area or do you do you have like a location
• 34:39
  manager there that it's dealing with that sort of thing. It's funny. We
• 34:44
  didn't have an actual location scout. We hired a tour guide who basically took
• 34:50
  people, just tourists on tours, and we hired him to show us all
• 34:54
  these places, you know, and so during pre production he took us around.
• 34:59
  We needed a waterfall, we needed a river, we need a dense
• 35:01
  jungle, we needed an open clearing. So he took us around to a
• 35:07
  bunch of waterfalls and rivers and things like that. Apit he knew about.
• 35:10
  But yeah, we all we had to get it all in one basic area
• 35:15
  because we couldn't afford time wise or money wise to be traveling all around the
• 35:21
  country. And we were fortunate we found this I guess it was a plantation.
• 35:25
  I guess it was a I'm sure it was a coconut plantation. I
• 35:30
  forget what they were growing there, but it was. There was this plantation
• 35:32
  where a part of it was cultivated, and then part of it was just
• 35:36
  wild jungle. And they happen to have a cave, which we needed,
• 35:38
  and there was a river on their property, and so we talked to the
• 35:43
  owners of this land and we were able to end up shooting about eighty percent
• 35:47
  of the film on this one plot of land where we had most of the
• 35:52
  things we needed. And that really saved us, because before we found that,
• 35:57
  we were going to be moving around instantly, and that would have just
• 36:00
  cost way too much time getting to new locations each day and setting up all
• 36:06
  over again. And you know, the producers kept saying, well, it's
• 36:08
  it's a jungle country. Just pull over the side of the road. And
• 36:12
  shoot, and I was like, no, you can't do that. For
• 36:15
  one thing, at the side of the road that the jungle was so dense
• 36:17
  that you literally couldn't get into it. You would have had to hack your
• 36:21
  way in with a machette. And you know, you want you want the
• 36:24
  actors to appear to be running through dense jungle, but it's virtually impossible to
• 36:30
  get your equipment in and shoot that way. So you need a place with
• 36:34
  paths and roads and dirt trails and stuff where you can get to places that
• 36:40
  look like they're in the middle of the jungle but are actually easily accessible.
• 36:45
  And you know, where where are fifty people going to sit down and have
• 36:49
  lunch on their break, And how are you going to run electricity in?
• 36:52
  And where are you going to lay dolly track and all this stuff. So
• 36:55
  shooting in dense jungle is pretty tricky. But we were lucky in that we
• 37:00
  found a lot of beautiful locations very close to each other. But the days
• 37:05
  where we had to move and go to a different location, like we did
• 37:07
  for the waterfall, it was pretty hairy. And finding all these things because
• 37:15
  they were they were widely spaced, was tricky too, But it all worked
• 37:20
  out. Was your DP working with like big five K lights and things like
• 37:24
  that outside or did you try to use mostly natural light when you could.
• 37:29
  No, it was mostly it was mostly natural light. In fact, one
• 37:31
  of the interesting things was we had this scene inside the cave that was supposed
• 37:37
  to be lit by glow stick you know, these chemical light sticks, and
• 37:43
  at a certain point we decided to just light it with glow sticks, and
• 37:47
  we bought the brightest glow sticks you could find, and we wrapped a bunch
• 37:52
  of them together and we actually shot one scene where they're walking through this dark
• 37:55
  cave lit entirely by glow sticks, with people holding them or their face and
• 38:00
  stuff. So that was kind of cool, you know. No, we
• 38:02
  had we had a very minimal lighting kit, and we were really only using
• 38:07
  it. I mean, you know, he'd set up a backlight occasionally,
• 38:09
  but we were in the ju when we were outside in the jungle, we
• 38:13
  were mostly using available lighting because it was a matter of well, where are
• 38:16
  you going to run power from? Can we get a generator into this place
• 38:21
  we were there? There were there were days were you know, the only
• 38:23
  way to reach where we were shooting was in a four wheel drug pickup truck.
• 38:29
  There was no way to get a grip truck there, so transporting a
• 38:34
  lot of equipment just what wouldn't have been practical. So a lot of that
• 38:37
  film, the vast majority of that film was shot with available light and reflectors,
• 38:43
  and every once in a while we'd we'd set up a couple of couple
• 38:45
  of lights here and there, and then inside the cave where we needed actual
• 38:52
  light. That was that was one day where we brought in a generator and
• 38:55
  we had to do a real lighting setup. And then some stuff that we
• 39:00
  actually shot in the city. You know, there were sets and buildings and
• 39:05
  so forth, and those we had lighting, but that you know, we
• 39:07
  weren't in the jungle there. We were in a controllable situation. Now,
• 39:12
  can you talk for a second about how you developed a relationship with the Asylum
• 39:15
  and how you first met David Lott and those guys. That was a very
• 39:20
  slow process and it wasn't intentional. I met David Lapp before the Asylum existed.
• 39:25
  Basically, I had had a day job that I won't even mention what
• 39:30
  I was doing because it's so embarrassing. But while I was there, I
• 39:34
  made friends with this woman who was a talent manager and she knew David.
• 39:39
  I don't really know how she knew David, but she knew David Latt.
• 39:44
  They were friends, and so eventually she introduced me to him and we started
• 39:49
  talking and nothing came of that. This this is actually, I think one
• 39:53
  of the most important lessons for somebody coming out to Hollywood to try and get
• 39:58
  into the business. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 40:07
  now back to the show, is to just meet as many people as you
• 40:10
  can, because you never know what's going to turn into a great connection.
• 40:16
  So I met David Latt, and I just knew him. He was just
• 40:22
  somebody I knew, and we would talk every once in a while when we
• 40:25
  were visiting with our mutual friend. I didn't really time with him on my
• 40:29
  own per se. I mean, my girlfriend and I were invited to his
• 40:32
  wedding, you know, and on and off over the years we'd be in
• 40:37
  contact. Maybe we'd go to parties, the same parties occasionally because we had
• 40:44
  mutual friends. I ended up a friend who introduced us ran a co ed
• 40:49
  softball team, and David's wife played on the team and I played on the
• 40:53
  team, so so jud We were just in contact on and off for years,
• 40:58
  and when the Asylum started, I think it was called something Else.
• 41:02
  They were actually doing art house films, you know, and I talked to
• 41:07
  him on occasion about trying to get something going, and it never really amounted
• 41:12
  too much, and I guess I was just oh, that that friend of
• 41:15
  Donna's who wants to be a director, and so I don't think he really
• 41:22
  took me terribly seriously. But then once I made the Zombie film and I
• 41:25
  could actually show him something, I could say, here, look at this,
• 41:29
  I can do what I've been saying I could do. And he looked
• 41:32
  at it, and there was a movie proving that I could do what I
• 41:36
  said I could do, and he couldn't sort of ignore that anymore. And
• 41:38
  by then the Asylum had sort of become this low budget film factory where they
• 41:44
  were churning movies out in large numbers, and they had plans to expand and
• 41:47
  make even more films, and they had just hired a new director of development
• 41:52
  to guide that process. When I made the Zombie film, and he said,
• 41:55
  okay, it's pretty good. I will put you in touch with my
• 42:00
  director of development. And you know, when he puts out a call to
• 42:04
  writers for script ideas. You'll be on the list, and so we went
• 42:08
  through a few different scenarios where I got an email from the director of development
• 42:15
  saying, hey, we need we need some ideas based on this this concept,
• 42:21
  you know. And there were a few where I pitched ideas that nothing
• 42:23
  ever came of it. And then finally there was they were going to do
• 42:29
  a knockoff of Fast and the Furious five, I guess, and I was
• 42:32
  into cars and street racing and so forth, and so I pitched him my
• 42:37
  idea and they went with it, and it just sort of we developed a
• 42:44
  relationship from there and I wrote that first script for them. I wrote that
• 42:46
  in ten days because we spent a while talking about the story, and by
• 42:52
  the time they finally approved what the story was going to be, they called
• 42:57
  me into the office and say they said, okay, we want you to
• 43:00
  write this for us, but we need to script in twelve days. And
• 43:05
  I was like, I've never written a script in less than two months before,
• 43:08
  but okay. And what's worse is that it was right before Christmas.
• 43:15
  For some reason, I always seemed to be writing scripts for The Asylum right
• 43:16
  before Christmas, and I had a Christmas party plan, and so I lost
• 43:22
  a day and a half two days shopping and getting ready for this party.
• 43:27
  So I really had to write that script for two hundred miles per hour in
• 43:30
  ten days. But I did it, and I got it to them and
• 43:37
  it was what they needed. And that led to another and another and eventually
• 43:43
  to this, uh, this sort of insane moment where they said, Okay,
• 43:47
  we want you to write a movie called Sharknado. What's your process when
• 43:53
  you begin writing? Do you try to outline everything before you ever start writing?
• 43:59
  Or do you, I mean, what do you do before you actually
• 44:00
  start working on the screenplay? It depends on the situation, because if I'm
• 44:07
  writing on assignment for somebody, then I'm gonna be having to fulfill their needs.
• 44:15
  The Asylum has a very specific process. They start with a one sentence
• 44:21
  logline that they will provide usually, and they'll ask for a one variety of
• 44:25
  one paragraph pitches that would fulfill this concept. And then they'll pick one of
• 44:32
  those one paragraphs and they'll say, okay, now write a one page story
• 44:37
  with a clear eight acts structure. So I'll write a one page story and
• 44:40
  then they'll give you notes on that, and once they're happy with the way
• 44:46
  the one page goes, they'll say, okay, now write us a three
• 44:51
  page outline with more detail and break it up into the eight acts for a
• 44:58
  TV movie because most of their stuff, you know that they're hoping they can
• 45:01
  sell it to sci fi or whatever, so it needs the TV movie structure
• 45:05
  of eight acts. And so then you do this three page outline for them,
• 45:09
  and then when there'll be notes on that, and then they'll finally approve
• 45:13
  that and then you go to script. So that's the way I have to
• 45:15
  work for that. When I'm doing a spec project, I prefer not to
• 45:21
  do that. What I generally do on a spec project is I'll have a
• 45:27
  basic idea of what the story is going to be, so I'll probably have
• 45:30
  that one paragraph idea, and then I'll go to an outline format, where
• 45:37
  what I do is I make up a sheet with lines tabled one through ninety,
• 45:42
  and each one of those lines should correspond to a scene, on the
• 45:45
  general assumption that it'll be about one scene per page. So I've got ninety
• 45:52
  scene and usually the opening of the film will just be in my head because
• 45:58
  that's the the I it is for the story, and so I'll fill out,
• 46:01
  you know, the first one, two, three, four, five,
• 46:05
  ten lines with a one sentence description of what is that scene. And
• 46:10
  then usually if you know what your story is, you know what your beginning
• 46:15
  is, you probably have an idea how you want it to end. So
• 46:17
  I'll go in and I'll plug in, Okay, what's the climax of the
• 46:22
  film, and that'll be like number eighty five, eighty six, eighty seven,
• 46:27
  and then okay, what's the turnaround in the middle, and so somewhere
• 46:30
  in the middle, and this will be less precise where it goes. I'll
• 46:34
  say, okay, now this happens, you know, and maybe there'll be
• 46:37
  a couple of intermediary moments. And so I'll have this one sheet of ninety
• 46:42
  lines where there's a bunch filled out at the top and there are a few
• 46:46
  interspersed in the middle. Okay, I know this kind of thing has to
• 46:50
  happen somewhere in here, and then there'll be more detail towards the end.
• 46:53
  And on a spec script, I'll just start writing the script then, and
• 46:58
  usually as I start, more ideas will come to me to fill in those
• 47:02
  blank lines in the middle. So probably by the time I've finished the script,
• 47:07
  I've also finished the outline, and I'll be able to move things around.
• 47:12
  I don't do the index cards like a lot of film schools teacher and
• 47:16
  I know a lot of writers to do. You just let the structure come
• 47:21
  out. I like this. I like this outline because I want the structure
• 47:24
  in front of me. I want to physically see it all in sort of
• 47:28
  one gaze, one glance, so it's having it fit on one sheet of
• 47:34
  paper or sometimes two sheets of paper tape together. I like to be able
• 47:38
  to see the structure of the film in front of me. Do you have
• 47:42
  any basis? Did you just kind of feel out the structure or do you
• 47:46
  have like beats that you like to hit by specific points? I mean,
• 47:50
  I hate to say something like save the Cat or whatever, but you know
• 47:53
  anything like that that you ever use if you're in a bind and you can't
• 47:58
  really figure out what's going to go somewhere. No, I've never read said
• 48:01
  of the Cat. I've never read trueb I've never read any of these screenwriting
• 48:06
  guys. In fact, it's funny because I've been talking to a film school
• 48:12
  about possibly teaching a class for them. And I want to teach a directing
• 48:15
  class, but because of Shark Nado, of course it's to their advantage to
• 48:20
  have me teach a screenwriting class. And I keep telling them I don't know
• 48:23
  anything about screening. I just sort of do this instinctively, So no,
• 48:29
  I don't really do that. I just get an idea, and then I'll
• 48:34
  get an idea of who the characters are, at least who the main characters
• 48:37
  are, and then I just sort of watch what they do and I write
• 48:39
  it down. Do you have any tricks for characters? Are like, how
• 48:43
  do you keep characters consistent and really developed your characters? I really don't know
• 48:47
  how to articulate how I do that. It's just I mean, I just
• 48:52
  put myself. Maybe I'll put myself in the head of the weed character and
• 48:59
  try and put myself in that place and say, Okay, what would I
• 49:02
  do if I were this person in this situation? And then for the bad
• 49:07
  guy, I'll think, Okay, what wouldn't I do? I don't know.
• 49:12
  I really have never analyzed It's it's a much more organic process for me.
• 49:16
  I mean, I could tell you how I direct a film, but
• 49:20
  how I actually write one of these scripts? It's it's just sort of a
• 49:23
  thing that happens, you know, And and there are certain rules. I
• 49:28
  mean, obviously you know that you have to establish all your characters and the
• 49:35
  impetus for the story. All has to happen within the first twenty pages.
• 49:39
  I'm preferably within the first ten. There needs to be some action in the
• 49:44
  opening. At some point in those first twenty pages, the hero makes a
• 49:49
  decision that propels you into the story, or propels the hero into the story.
• 49:55
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 50:01
  to the show. The dilemma has to be presented to the hero and then
• 50:07
  he has to make a decision as to what to do, and that changes
• 50:10
  his world. Somewhere in the middle, there has to be a turnaround where
• 50:16
  suddenly things aren't going to go the way the hero had hoped they were going
• 50:20
  to go. And then as you get towards the three quarter point in the
• 50:25
  story, you know that there generally needs to be an all is lost moment
• 50:30
  where it looks like everybody's going to die, and then that propels you into
• 50:35
  your action finale where the hero does something and saves the day. That's about
• 50:40
  as close to a formal structure as I really get, and then it's just
• 50:46
  a matter of what happens. And now again, when I'm writing for The
• 50:52
  Asylum and they have this very strict atact structure, that's a bit different because
• 50:55
  I know that each act is going to be about twelve minutes long. The
• 51:00
  first act will be a bit longer, and the last act will be a
• 51:02
  bit shorter, and in each of those acts there has to be an action
• 51:07
  beat, so that that needs to be fulfilled in the outline stage. So
• 51:12
  you're writing for commercials or is it like is it a break up? Well,
• 51:17
  they don't want you to write for hard commercial breaks, although on Sharknado
• 51:22
  two I started doing that because Sci Fi when they air these movies will often
• 51:29
  put the brakes someplace other than where you thought they were going to go,
• 51:34
  but they still want it structured so that every twelve minutes there's there's an action
• 51:37
  beat and sort of a mini climax, and then each one would get progressively
• 51:44
  bigger until you reach the end. So yeah, you do, especially for
• 51:49
  the ones that they know are going to Sci Fi, you do have to
• 51:52
  deinyate your acts and they all need to be about the right length, you
• 51:58
  know, so maybe one act could be a bit short, or maybe you
• 52:00
  could have a ten minute act if you have somewhere else in an act that's
• 52:04
  fourteen or fifteen minutes. But that's about as structured as I get. Now.
• 52:07
  When you wrote Apocalypse Earth, did you eat that write that about the
• 52:12
  same time as Schartnado? Yes, and and it should it should be noted
• 52:15
  that it was not called Apocalypse Earth when I wrote it. It was just
• 52:19
  called AE and there were a variety of things that AE was going to stand
• 52:23
  for, And basically when people ask me what did it stand for? I
• 52:29
  said almost everything. Apocalypse Earth was actually a tag that was added on during
• 52:34
  post production by the Asylum, And at first they were going to call it
• 52:37
  Alpha Earth, and I was like, no, we can't call it Alpha
• 52:39
  Earth. That gives away the twist at the end, So Apocalypse Earth.
• 52:45
  Somehow I thought, well, there's this big apocalypse in the opening scene,
• 52:47
  so if we call it Apocalypse Earth and people see that, maybe they won't
• 52:51
  be looking for the twist later on. But yes, I was Let's see,
• 52:53
  how did how did that go? They came to me, I was
• 52:58
  talking. It was after America Warships and we were talking about what my next
• 53:01
  project for them was going to be, and we were talking about a giant
• 53:07
  monster movie that they wanted, and so at first I agreed to do this
• 53:10
  giant monster movie. No, that's not how we're We were talking about what
• 53:15
  we were going to do, and we were still tasking around ideas and they
• 53:19
  came to me and they said, we want you to write a movie called
• 53:22
  Shark Storm. And that just didn't sound very appealing. It seemed like sharks
• 53:30
  Storm. Okay, well there's been a lot of movies about sharks and storms
• 53:34
  and you know it, just why would we need this that? It didn't
• 53:38
  appeal to me. So I said no, and we kept talking about about
• 53:44
  other projects, and we started talking about this giant monster movie that they wanted
• 53:50
  to do, which I guess was going to be a mockbuster of Pacific rim
• 53:54
  and so I started working on that in sort of a vague concept form,
• 54:00
  and then they came back to me and they said, Okay, what we
• 54:05
  really want you to do is Shark Nado. And I said, what does
• 54:08
  sharks have to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? And they said no,
• 54:14
  no, no, not Shark Nado. Shark Nado a tornado full of
• 54:17
  sharks, and I said, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
• 54:22
  That a lot more sense, and if I can write it that way,
• 54:27
  then sure, I'd love to do that. Because the Asylum tends to play
• 54:30
  all their movies completely straight. They don't like they don't like to stray into
• 54:37
  forest or a comedy unless it's a comedy, which personally I have always taken
• 54:43
  issue with because I think, if you're going to make a low budget movie,
• 54:45
  and you know it's going to be low budget and it's going to look
• 54:49
  kind of cheap, then it's better to get the audience laughing with you than
• 54:52
  at you. That was certainly the approach I took with Mutant Vampire Zombies from
• 54:58
  the Hood. And so when they say Shark Nado, I was a little
• 55:00
  concerned that they would want to play it completely straight. And I just didn't
• 55:05
  see how you could take a movie called Shark Nado and play it completely straight.
• 55:09
  And they said, no, we understand it's called Sharknado. There's going
• 55:14
  to be a certain tongue in cheek element to it. And so with that
• 55:17
  comforting thought, I agreed to do it. And originally I was supposed to
• 55:22
  direct it, and so I guess this was this would have been the summer
• 55:28
  of two thy twelve, and so the outlining process went pretty smoothly, and
• 55:34
  then the script writing, the first draft went very smoothly, and it was
• 55:38
  done in a relatively quick period of time, and there weren't a lot of
• 55:43
  notes, and it was just done, and I was going to direct it,
• 55:49
  except that I felt a little burned on American Warships because I thought i'd
• 55:54
  what we had done on set was really was really a good movie. And
• 56:00
  then I thought the visual effects, which we'd really been depending on, kind
• 56:05
  of let us down. And if i'd known their process a bit better that
• 56:09
  that was the first film I directed for the Assauntment, and if i'd really
• 56:13
  sort of known a bit better what we were going to be dealing with,
• 56:16
  maybe I wouldn't have left the film so dependent on the visual effects. And
• 56:22
  so I was looking at the script I'd written for Shark Nado and thinking,
• 56:27
  there's just no way, there's just no way that this can be done on
• 56:30
  the kind of budget they're talking about. At least I don't see how to
• 56:34
  do it. I could do it for twenty million, maybe I could do
• 56:37
  it for ten million. It's really one hundred million dollars film, and so
• 56:42
  I sort of shied away from directing it because I didn't want to be in
• 56:46
  that position again, because even though the script had this tongue in cheek element
• 56:52
  to it, I still I didn't want to be unintentionally bad. You know,
• 56:59
  the the stuff that was going to be cheesy had to be where I
• 57:02
  intended it to be cheesy. I didn't want to be in a position where
• 57:07
  I just didn't have what I needed to make it the way I wanted it
• 57:09
  to look. And at the same time, I had been getting utterly enthralled
• 57:15
  with Game of Thrones, and I had this sort of craving to create a
• 57:22
  whole world. And I've always been a science fiction guy. So I went
• 57:29
  into the director of development and I said, look, you know, we've
• 57:32
  got this Sharknado and I'm supposed to direct it. But truth is, what
• 57:36
  I really want to do is make a movie where I can create a whole
• 57:39
  world and have a society in it and just sort of build something from the
• 57:45
  ground up, whole alternate reality. And he said, well, we've got
• 57:52
  this project that it's the one sentence description is a group of refugees from Earth
• 58:00
  have to survive on a hostile alien planet, And that just said it perfect
• 58:04
  to me. But I said, yes, I'll do that, and so
• 58:07
  I started writing that and that would have been I guess September of twenty twelve,
• 58:12
  and so I wrote AE. And as that writing process was going along,
• 58:17
  they scheduled the shoots of AE and Shark Nado for exactly the same time.
• 58:24
  They were both going to shoot in January, and so I was forced
• 58:29
  to choose. And at that point I decided to do a E. I
• 58:34
  wanted to do this science fiction film in the jungle, and so I said,
• 58:37
  you know, I respectfully withdraw from Sharknado. I hope somebody else makes
• 58:45
  it work, and I'm going to go off to Costa Rica and shoot my
• 58:49
  science fiction movie. And in retrospect, I don't know if that was the
• 58:52
  stupidest thing I've ever done or not. You know, because if I had
• 58:57
  written and directed Shark Nado, then I would be the one getting all the
• 59:00
  attention for it, and maybe I'd behailed as this great genius, whereas now
• 59:08
  Anthony and I are splitting the attention for it. But at the same time,
• 59:15
  you know, you wonder maybe things went the way they were supposed to
• 59:19
  go, and maybe it wouldn't have worked if I'd directed it. Who knows
• 59:23
  if if something Anthony did, you know, and dealing with not having the
• 59:29
  resources he needed to properly create this, uh, this insane situation that I
• 59:37
  had written. You know that it could well be that that is what endeared
• 59:42
  it to people. So maybe things worked out for the best. And I'm
• 59:45
  getting the attention from Sharknado, but I also have this, uh, this
• 59:50
  serious science fiction film that I can point to and say, see, I
• 59:52
  can do that too. Now, when you saw Sharknado, was it pretty
• 59:55
  much kind of how you had envidgeted or is it very different from your idea?
• 1:00:01
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 1:00:08
  to the show. Well, Anthony didn't want me to see it until it
• 1:00:14
  was done. It was funny because we met for the first time in the
• 1:00:16
  editing room. We were sharing an editing suite. I was cutting AE at
• 1:00:22
  the same time he was cutting Sharknado, and I was in there working with
• 1:00:27
  my editor and this guy walks in and he walks up to me and he
• 1:00:30
  says, I want to punch you. And I didn't know who he was,
• 1:00:36
  and I said, okay, why and he said, I directed Sharknado.
• 1:00:42
  I said, oh, well, then you have every rights a want
• 1:00:45
  of punch for that makes sense. And so that was the beginning of what
• 1:00:51
  has become a great friendship. But he didn't want me to see it until
• 1:00:53
  it was done, so I didn't actually see it. I mean, while
• 1:00:59
  we were editing, you know, I would look over my shoulder because we
• 1:01:01
  were sharing this editing suite, and so I would occasionally look over my shoulder
• 1:01:07
  to see what had become of my words, and some of it looked right,
• 1:01:10
  and some of it was like, what the hell is that, you
• 1:01:14
  know, because there was a car chase, and I didn't write a car
• 1:01:16
  chase. What was that about? You know? And obviously they didn't have
• 1:01:22
  the wherewithal for it to be raining constantly in every shot and for Los Angeles
• 1:01:27
  to be filling up with water, which was this giant disaster that I had
• 1:01:30
  written. So when I finally saw it, I saw it with the public
• 1:01:34
  along with everybody else. I was just at home watching it on TV.
• 1:01:37
  There wasn't a premiere or anything at the at the Asylum or anything was been
• 1:01:40
  It wasn't. What happened out here is we get the East Coast Sci Fi
• 1:01:46
  feed and then there's the re airing for the West Coast. So the plan
• 1:01:52
  was the people were just going to watch the East Coast feed, you know,
• 1:01:57
  wherever they were, and then we were all going to get together there
• 1:02:00
  to watch the West Coast feed at the party. But then, you know,
• 1:02:05
  during the initial broadcast, this whole thing started happening on Twitter and it
• 1:02:10
  just just sort of became insane. And so I was on the computer and
• 1:02:15
  I was corresponding with people and tweeting and getting phone calls for people saying can
• 1:02:21
  you believe what's happening and all this stuff, And so then I had to
• 1:02:24
  run out at the last minute to go to the party for the second airing,
• 1:02:30
  and I got I guess it was going to start at nine o'clock here,
• 1:02:34
  and I got in the car and I got on the freeway, and
• 1:02:37
  for some reason, I guess there's been an accident or something, but the
• 1:02:42
  FRULA was at a dead standstill. And after about twenty minutes of this and
• 1:02:46
  realizing I'd already missed the beginning, I just gave up and went home and
• 1:02:52
  got back on Twitter and got back on Facebook and email, where the world
• 1:02:55
  was still blowing up, very strange things happening, and I was corresponding with
• 1:03:01
  Damon Lindelofen, and I was starting to get requests for interviews, and it
• 1:03:06
  was just sort of the most surreal night of my life. Well, yeah,
• 1:03:09
  for the So for the first twenty to thirty minutes of Sharknado, I
• 1:03:14
  was sitting there going, what that's that's not that's not what I know?
• 1:03:17
  Wait what? But after that, after about the first thirty minutes, it
• 1:03:22
  settles down to be basically the way I wrote it. I mean, it
• 1:03:27
  doesn't look like what I saw in my head, because I still had this
• 1:03:30
  huge disaster movie los Angeles is filling up with water kind of thing, you
• 1:03:36
  know, as the background. I to me, it was a it was
• 1:03:40
  a two layer thing. There was this realistic disaster movie going on where Los
• 1:03:45
  Angeles is flooding, and then on top of that, there was this ridiculous
• 1:03:50
  element of sharks falling from the sky. And so obviously the realism of the
• 1:03:55
  of the disaster scenario was not achievable on the budget they had, and so
• 1:04:00
  I can't say that it looked the way I saw it in my head when
• 1:04:05
  I wrote it, except for certain moments where where it really did. But
• 1:04:12
  on the whole, you know, I was I was a little frustrated that
• 1:04:16
  they couldn't really achieve that kind of level of destruction and disaster, but still
• 1:04:25
  that they kept to my script from from about the twenty or thirty minute point
• 1:04:30
  on and I was no longer going. Wait, I didn't write that.
• 1:04:34
  Anthony changed a fair amount in the in the opening. Do you think they
• 1:04:39
  carried off the tone that you had, the kind of comic tone, but
• 1:04:43
  not like the actors took it seriously, but they were within a world that
• 1:04:45
  was kind of yeah, you know, chaotic are absurd in a way.
• 1:04:49
  Yeah, I mean that that the tone was what I intended, the production
• 1:04:56
  value was where it wasn't what I had envisioned. But one of the reasons
• 1:05:00
  that I ended up not directing it was because I knew there was no way
• 1:05:03
  to achieve what I had in my head. So I think it all worked
• 1:05:06
  out for the best. Now you guys went back and making Sharknado two,
• 1:05:11
  was the process completely different now that you had had all this success with the
• 1:05:15
  first one. Yes, it was It was interesting because the first one,
• 1:05:26
  nobody paid any attention to me, the outlining story, outlining process. You
• 1:05:30
  know, there were a few notes, and then it was like, okay,
• 1:05:34
  go ahead and write it. And then the first draft of the script,
• 1:05:38
  The Asylum had a few notes which I addressed. Then sci Fi had
• 1:05:41
  a few notes, and then it was done and you know, nobody thought
• 1:05:45
  anything of it. It was just this ridiculous little movie. By the second
• 1:05:49
  one, of course, that had become this phenomena, and so everybody had
• 1:05:55
  their eyes on it, and every little thing that I did was being examined,
• 1:06:00
  buying, you know, half a dozen different people who all had to
• 1:06:02
  have input on it. So it was it was a much more political process
• 1:06:08
  getting the second script done, and of course there was a lot more writing
• 1:06:13
  on it because the first one nobody thought anything of it, and the second
• 1:06:16
  one suddenly, suddenly it was going to become this franchise if we didn't screw
• 1:06:21
  it up. So there was there was a lot more pressure, There was
• 1:06:25
  a lot more eyes on and the whole process took a lot longer getting the
• 1:06:29
  getting the script done. Now, what does it feel like when all of
• 1:06:31
  a sudden people are you know, noticing you and wanting to interview you,
• 1:06:36
  and you know, you get all this recognition. How does that feel?
• 1:06:40
  Does it a good feeling or is it kind of does it give you anxiety
• 1:06:44
  or no? Well, the only anxiety has actually has happened in the last
• 1:06:47
  couple of months where somehow my home address got out on the internet, I
• 1:06:53
  guess, And so I've been getting fan mail at home, and that's a
• 1:06:57
  little disturbing, you know. Fortunately, it's all been good. There haven't
• 1:07:01
  been any death threats or anything, but the fact that somehow my address got
• 1:07:06
  out there, that that makes me a little bit anxious. Other than that,
• 1:07:10
  it's it's just been wonderful, you know. I mean, I came
• 1:07:13
  out to Hollywood expecting to be the next Steven Spielberg and imagining something like this,
• 1:07:19
  but imagining it happening twenty years ago. And so after years of struggling
• 1:07:25
  in anonymity. While I still hope for a level of success and public appreciation,
• 1:07:32
  I'm not sure I necessarily expected it anymore. So when it when it
• 1:07:38
  finally started happening, it's just been wonderful. But I had been, you
• 1:07:42
  know, sort of preparing myself for this kind of career you know, for
• 1:07:47
  twenty odd years. So I think if it had actually happened when I was
• 1:07:53
  a young when I first came out here, I probably would have messed with
• 1:07:56
  my head. I think the years of of struggling have allowed me to stay
• 1:08:01
  a lot more grounded during this whole process and just sort of take it for
• 1:08:06
  what it is and enjoy it and not let myself get too carried away with
• 1:08:12
  it all. But you know, it's a wonderful thing. You go to
• 1:08:15
  these conventions and people are lining up to get your autograph and telling you how
• 1:08:21
  much they loved the movie and what fun they had with it, and little
• 1:08:26
  kids. Do I remember at Comic Con, not this last summer, but
• 1:08:30
  the year before, after the first movie had just come out. I walked
• 1:08:34
  on to walked onto the floor at Comic Con the first night I got there,
• 1:08:39
  and it was about to close. I'd gotten there really late because there
• 1:08:43
  was traffic or I don't remember what it was, but I got there late.
• 1:08:45
  So I just figured I'd take a quick walk around the convention floor.
• 1:08:50
  And I'm walking through these tables of displays and stuff, and the very first
• 1:08:56
  little snippet of a conversation I hear is I'm walking past them, but is
• 1:09:00
  this guy saying yeah? And then he dives into the shark and then he
• 1:09:03
  cuts his way out. And that was literally the first thing I heard as
• 1:09:08
  I walked through the convention from our comic coun and that was just surreal.
• 1:09:14
  And then the next day, we were doing this poster signing, and you
• 1:09:18
  know, we've been signing pretty consistently for like half an hour, and I
• 1:09:24
  was kind of surprised that people were still coming, and so I took a
• 1:09:28
  break and I went out to look for the line to see where all these
• 1:09:30
  people were coming from, and I couldn't find the line. All I saw
• 1:09:33
  was the big crowd of people filling the hall and then I realized that was
• 1:09:40
  our line, and they were actually lined up out the door to get these
• 1:09:45
  poster signed. And mind you, I and and Tara weren't even there.
• 1:09:47
  It was me and Anthony and Jason Simmons. We'll be right back after a
• 1:09:56
  word from our sponsor, and now back to the show and one other cast
• 1:10:05
  member, I think, so the big stars weren't even there, and we
• 1:10:10
  had a line out the door of people to get their Sharknado poster side and
• 1:10:14
  it was just like, Wow, what is going on here? This is
• 1:10:16
  amazing. And then this mother came up with a little girl who must have
• 1:10:20
  been about I don't know, six or seven, and she was dancing around
• 1:10:25
  and going Sharknado was jack Nado and she was spinning around in circles. And
• 1:10:30
  it's just been a remarkable experience, and it's just so it's just really wonderful
• 1:10:36
  to see that people have gotten into him like this and have embraced it in
• 1:10:41
  the spirit that we intended. Just a wonderful feeling. Well, it's funny
• 1:10:45
  because my son's completely obsessed with tornadoes right now, and his favorite movie is
• 1:10:50
  Twister. He's six years old, and last night I had Sharknado on,
• 1:10:55
  you know, doing a little bit of research, and I was like,
• 1:10:58
  son, this is a tornado, but tornado with sharks in it, and
• 1:11:00
  he just about lost his mind. And that was the first thing he said.
• 1:11:05
  This morning, He's like, Dad, can we watch Sharknado? And
• 1:11:08
  I was like, after school, maybe it's you know, I pick a
• 1:11:12
  time. I'm sorry. So I had one more thing that you had mentioned
• 1:11:17
  something in an interview before that's kind of a different topic, and I just
• 1:11:20
  wanted to ask you this real quick and then let you go. You had
• 1:11:26
  said that if you could do things all over again, you would have made
• 1:11:30
  a feature film a lot earlier in your career, and I was wondering if
• 1:11:32
  you could just talk a little bit about that. Well, like I said,
• 1:11:36
  it had always been in the back of my mind that if I didn't
• 1:11:42
  succeed, if I didn't get where I wanted to go following the traditional route
• 1:11:47
  of trying to get a film, getting somebody to make a film, getting
• 1:11:50
  a production company or a studio to hire me to make a film, that
• 1:11:56
  eventually I was just going to have to raise the money and make my own.
• 1:12:00
  But I guess I kept putting off that moment because that reaching that decision
• 1:12:06
  sort of implied that I had failed up to then, that nobody was going
• 1:12:12
  to hire me to make a movie, and so coming to accept that and
• 1:12:18
  saying Okay, I'm gonna have to take matters into my own hands took longer
• 1:12:23
  than it probably should have. If I had made that zombie movie five or
• 1:12:27
  ten years earlier, then the things that came as a result of it would
• 1:12:33
  have happened five or ten years earlier, and you know, hopefully I would
• 1:12:38
  be five or ten years further along in my career than I am now,
• 1:12:42
  because because everything that's happened, from making movies to The Asylum to the success
• 1:12:46
  of Shargnadom, all of it can be traced back to that zombie film where
• 1:12:51
  I proved that, yes, I can actually make a movie. So if
• 1:12:56
  I had, if I had done that sooner, then maybe I'd be further
• 1:13:00
  along now, and maybe I'd be making big studio films now, or at
• 1:13:03
  least maybe I would have spent an extra ten years doing what I wanted to
• 1:13:08
  do rather than just struggling to make a living. So I do sort of
• 1:13:14
  regret not having made that film earlier. The question arises, you know,
• 1:13:18
  would I have would have been as successful if I'd done it when I was
• 1:13:24
  younger and had less experience and less maturity. I don't know. There's no
• 1:13:30
  way to know. Of course, I think it would have. Don't you
• 1:13:32
  think technology also kinds of plays a role to a certain extent. I mean
• 1:13:36
  that it's so much cheaper to Yeah, yeah, we were. We were
• 1:13:40
  able to make that film cheaper than if we'd shot it ten years earlier and
• 1:13:45
  had to shoot on film, actually even five years earlier, because we were
• 1:13:49
  We were sort of you know, we weren't the first indie film to shoot
• 1:13:55
  on HD, but it was still a relatively new thing and and so the
• 1:13:59
  technology was still actually sort of a question mark at that point. I remember
• 1:14:02
  we built a computer to edit it, and it was like, Okay,
• 1:14:05
  what does this computer need to be able to do? And ended up sending
• 1:14:10
  like five grand to build a computer And now you could do it for eight
• 1:14:14
  hundred on a laptop. So yeah, I probably would have been more expensive
• 1:14:18
  if we'd done it sooner. But at the same time, there was more
• 1:14:25
  money available because films were more expensive then, and part of the so called
• 1:14:30
  democratization of film that's come with the digital revolution, I think there's a little
• 1:14:34
  less respect for what it takes to make a movie now. People think,
• 1:14:39
  oh, well, anybody with a video camera can make a movie, and
• 1:14:42
  that's not true. And unfortunately, I think people think, oh, it's
• 1:14:47
  really cheap to make a movie now, and that's not true either. Certain
• 1:14:50
  elements have become less expensive. You don't have to process film stock, you
• 1:14:56
  don't have to buy film stock, you don't need to print your movie.
• 1:14:59
  At the end, renting a high end HD camera costs as much as renting.
• 1:15:05
  You know, a pan of flex used to do, so that hasn't
• 1:15:09
  changed so much. If you're really trying to do it at a professional level,
• 1:15:13
  Yes, you can go out and buy a cheap HD camera now hell,
• 1:15:15
  I mean, you know, there there are phones that will shoot four
• 1:15:19
  K videos, but but they still have crappy, little plastic lenses. It's
• 1:15:25
  not like you're really going to be able to make a movie that looks like
• 1:15:27
  a movie on your camera phone. So, yes, certain elements have gotten
• 1:15:32
  cheaper. You know, you don't need to rent an Avid anymore. You
• 1:15:36
  can do it on any home computer. You can edit a film. Now
• 1:15:42
  digital effects can be done on less sophisticated computers, but you still need the
• 1:15:47
  really good software and you still need people who know how to use it.
• 1:15:51
  And and so the craft hasn't changed. It hasn't gotten any cheaper, but
• 1:15:57
  unfortunately people seem to think it has. And so, you know, it
• 1:16:01
  used to be that people in the film industry got paid pretty well, and
• 1:16:08
  part of that was the assumption that they had a craft that they had learned
• 1:16:13
  over many years that was a rare skill. And part of it was the
• 1:16:19
  fact that you're not going to be working fifty weeks a year, so you
• 1:16:25
  need to be paid enough when you are working to live, you know,
• 1:16:29
  in between projects. And one of the unfortunate things that's happened in recent years
• 1:16:32
  is people seem to have forgotten that these are still hard one, hard fought
• 1:16:38
  skills that take a lot of time to perfect, and not just anybody with
• 1:16:43
  a computer and an iPhone can do it. You need to know what you're
• 1:16:46
  doing. But because of the technological advances, there's a there's a changed perception
• 1:16:54
  I think of what's involved here, and so people think that they shouldn't have
• 1:17:00
  to pay for all this stuff. So you see all these visual effects companies,
• 1:17:02
  you know, winning Oscars and then going out of business because they're forced
• 1:17:06
  to do things so cheaply. And you see people making films on their iPhone
• 1:17:13
  and then they get surprised when they can't sell the movie to a distributor.
• 1:17:16
  So it's been a double edged sword, I think. And yes, certain
• 1:17:23
  aspects of it are a bit cheaper than it used to be, but costs
• 1:17:27
  like sets and feeding your crew and hiring actors and hiring crew and putting them
• 1:17:34
  up if you're in a different location, or building sets or finding locations and
• 1:17:40
  paying for them. None of the costs of this stuff have changed. Movies
• 1:17:44
  are expensive. It's very hard to make a good movie cheap. You know,
• 1:17:48
  every once in a while it can be done if you have a concept
• 1:17:50
  that lends itself to that, like you know the Blair Witch Project then,
• 1:17:55
  or if you're making a movie about two people sitting at a table talking.
• 1:18:00
  But to make to make a popcorn movie still costs money. Just because the
• 1:18:05
  cameras in the editing equipment are a bit cheaper now, it doesn't really change
• 1:18:09
  that. I want to thank Jason so much for doing such an amazing job
• 1:18:14
  with this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about
• 1:18:15
  in this episode, head over to the show notes at Indy film Muscle dot
• 1:18:19
  com. Forward slash seven ten, and if you have it already, please
• 1:18:23
  head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe and leave a good review for
• 1:18:29
  the show. It really helps us out a lot. Guys. Thank you
• 1:18:31
  again so much for listening to guys. As always, keep that hustle going,
• 1:18:34
  keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to
• 1:18:38
  you soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at indie film
• 1:18:42
  Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E F I l M hustl
• 1:18:46
  dot com.