IFH 393: Releasing an Indie Film Theatrically During COVID-19 with Joshua Caldwell

Alex Ferrari 2:10
Now today on the show, guys, we have returning champion, Joshua Caldwell, his first two episodes Episode 121 and 199. Both went viral. And so many people downloaded both those episodes because Joshua's coming from a micro budget world. So his first film he made for about $6,000, which is called layover, which is of course available at indie film, hustle TV. And he talks all about how he was able to make that $6,000 feature. And then the second one, he went from $6,000 micro budget to $100,000 feature film and now he's jumped again with his new film, infamous, starring Bella Thorne to a little bit over a million dollars. So it's amazing and so inspiring to watch a filmmaker go from a $6,000 micro budget film, and jump all the way up to a million plus dollar film with some nice major talent attached. Now Josh and I speak about how he used his micro budget skill set on a much larger budget. He basically says that he couldn't have made this movie at this scale without his micro budget toolbox, and kind of guerilla filmmaking style of things that he did back when he was making those low budget films. So we'll talk about that. We're going to also be discussing his film that is being released today. This Friday is being released in the middle of COVID-19. And it's being released theatrically. But the distributor decided to send it out to as many drive in theaters in the United States as it could find. So it's going to be playing throughout the United States but in Drive in theater, so this is kind of an experiment to see what happens. So I just want you to get ready for a bunch of knowledge bombs because anytime Joshua comes on the show, we just talk and talk and just so much cool stuff comes out of our conversations. So without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Joshua Caldwell. I like to welcome back to the show returning champion Joshua Caldwell, man How you doing brother?

Joshua Caldwell 4:30
I'm good How you doing? How you holding up? Where are you in?

Alex Ferrari 4:33
Isolation isolation six feet apart, but apparently my daughter's don't understand that they're on top of me constantly. They're not allowed out because they will be the first to take me and my wife down.

Joshua Caldwell 4:45
Oh, for sure. Everyone's like, what's it the kids back in school? I'm like, yeah, cuz they're gonna maintain social distancing. You know?

Alex Ferrari 4:51
Isn't that insane? I'm hearing that too. Like, oh, yeah, you know, maybe in the phone like in the fuck no. Social distancing with nine year olds. Are you kidding me?

Joshua Caldwell 5:00
It's like every fall. I'm like, Alright, what am I gonna get sick with this time? You know, like, now you know what naturally occurring stuff and then now it's gonna be the thing that kills me.

Alex Ferrari 5:09
Right so I'm like yeah, it's Yeah. For all the parents listening out there we we feel you we have kids at home as well it's we can't lock them under the stairs like they do in Harry Potter. It's no, we can raise the greatest challenge of our lives right now. For whatever teach whatever teachers are paid you need to double or triple it. I swear to god.

Joshua Caldwell 5:31
Oh yeah, for a walk for a little bit. My wife and I were like, I don't know, do you think we should homeschool the kids and after this right? No. Not happening.

Alex Ferrari 5:41
I know. It's, it's gonna be interesting. But yeah, but so you've been busy though. You've been busy. You've been? You've been you've been busy. We're here to talk about your new movie infamous. Which looks awesome. By the way, dude, congrats, dude. It's really awesome. You sent me the trailer for it. And the movies not out yet. But you know, I'm always been a big fan of what you've been doing since our first episode back in December 6 27th 2013. Yes, because I off the top of my head. I remember these you knew it. I didn't look it up right before we jumped on it. It was Episode 121 when we talked about layover was the first time and that was a $6,000 film. It was extra 10 bucks. Yeah, it was extremely popular podcasts is still one of the most listen to podcasts I have in the archives, believe it or not. And then we brought you back for Episode 199 to talk about, aka was an app, please forgive me negative, negative. Thank you. And that was 100k. film. And now we're here with infinite switch. It's under $25 million. We can't give exact budget, but it's under 25 million. But it's substantially more than 100,000.

Joshua Caldwell 6:55
Yeah. Without question. So, um, you know, a good amount of money to make it but obviously, probably could have used a little bit more.

Alex Ferrari 7:04
Isn't that as always, you know? Oh, I'm sure even Scorsese after Irishman said, you know, with another 10 million? I could have.

Joshua Caldwell 7:13
Yeah, no. Well, you know, and the funny part is like, I have a couple of friends who ended up. They did like, you know, a $2 million movie. Actually Joe Penna I don't know if you know him. But Joe Penna did this great movie called Arctic and they made it for like 2 million. And then he was getting this other movie. You know, they were talking about budgets and all that stuff up. And, you know, I don't know what they made it for. But I was like, oh, like, What's it? What's it like to have like 8 million? He's like, pretty much like having a $2 million movie except now you're paying everybody

Alex Ferrari 7:39
Well, paying everybody well, right?

Joshua Caldwell 7:42
Well, yeah, so cuz that's the thing is like, as you go up, it's like the thumb more money for like, props and sets, it's like just more money, which is great. They should be getting that money. But it's not. It's a weird point at which, at one point in those in that 10 range, you know, 10 to 15 range, it doesn't change much.

Alex Ferrari 8:01
So you, you don't have a techno crane for every single shot. You don't that that's not the way it works. Not the way I'm like, I want to check out what we were talking about before we jumped on, like how we even if you reached out to me, or I reached out to you when like, how are we got, we met for the first time to get you on the show. And you told me that you reached out to me if I remember.

Joshua Caldwell 8:24
Well, I yeah, as I recall, what happened was, you know, I was just looking, I was always on the lookout for opportunities. And I I saw that you've been doing this podcast was really cool. But I was like, I know this guy. Because back when I was in college or something like that this guy had done this short called broken that he saw on the DBS 100 something. And I just remember like, at the time when I think that guy Roger Ebert watching this thing like this 10 minute short, like, I hate this dude, you know, cuz obviously, it was obviously good for you. Because like, if you're getting this stuff, but at the time, you're like, you're a filmmaker, you're trying to get attention for your movies. And you see, like, you know, this guy getting a lot of love. And you're like, I want to be that guy instead, you know, I want to switch places. I'll tell you remember this because you did that you have this great website with this great breakdown of all the behind the scenes and the special effects and everything you did was like, in truth as much as I was like, fuck this guy. At the same time. I was like, This is such a resource at the time when that kind of stuff just did not exist. Like now you have YouTube, you want to know how to do lightsaber or do blue screen. It's so easy to figure that out. And at that time in what 2005 2006 like, there was nothing like it was hard to get video just to see video online. It was hard to put your own work online.

Alex Ferrari 9:34
Very difficult. Yeah, it was extremely difficult,

Joshua Caldwell 9:37
Quick time and it bedded and there's like a whole night and

Alex Ferrari 9:40
And YouTube was horrible that YouTube was YouTube. Oh, it was horrible back then

Joshua Caldwell 9:45
But you know you you not only but not only had you made a film, you had created a really valuable resource on how you made that film. I learned a lot by watching it, you know, and that's and so when, when it was that connection kind of came Through it's just funny because there's been those things very loosely, you're you're connecting, you're on the periphery, you're like, Yeah, I remember that guy. Like he made that film. And now it's like, you get connected up and you become friends and you get to talking and you get to participate in stuff moving forward. It's really, you know, it's fun.

Alex Ferrari 10:14
It's very cool, man. And, you know, it's, it's not all, not everything that shines glint glimmers that it shines, because you saw Roger Ebert's review come out. So up until Roger Ebert review came out, dude, I was getting love. Like, I was like, I was, I mean, every review was every review. It's like, it's the matrix meets Fight Club. It was like, This is the craziest reviews for that short film. After Roger Ebert, dude, it was like 10 negative reviews, like, bam, like just destroying me. Like all the haters, the haters. We got to take this guy down a little bit. It might have been one of the those reviews. It's funny, but I've been I've been so impressed with what you've been doing, man. And you're like, basically the blueprint of an independent filmmaker of at least an indie film, hustle filmmaker or tribe member because you start off with a $6,000 movie, then you jump to $100,000 movie now you have a substantially larger budget movie. Obviously Kevin Fay, he should be calling you any day now. I'm waiting for it. I mean, for you know, Black Panther three or four. I don't know what it is. But you're, you're ripe to be called. So just please, on this show. If you do get that Marvel call, please come back and talk to us about that's about I will always come back. And the funny thing. The funny thing is, this is what's gonna happen. Like after you're done with the 150 $200 million movie, you'd be like, dude, I just so stressful. Oh my god. It's like, I don't even I'm gonna make a $6,000 movie again. I just gotta go back to make a 6000 I can't I can't even Yeah, I can't do this. I don't want to take your 200,000,000x I need my freedom. I need my freedom. When you when you get hired on a movie like that, it's you're playing in someone else's sandbox, you know? Yeah. by their rules. Right. And their politics. Yeah. And unless you're a bit like even just sweeten. And though, I mean, that machine will eat and spit you out?

Joshua Caldwell 12:11
Yeah. It's also challenging. I mean, now those things have become so big. And you see what happened with like Ryan Johnson on like, you know, Star Wars movie and it's just like, yeah, you know, it's a tough, it's a tough thing to walk into, to step into, you know, and either got to be somebody, you could just take it, you know, and you just, that's your thing. And you're you're bigger than that. You know,

Alex Ferrari 12:30
Who's the director? Yeah, Director of Rogue One. Which one Rogue One. Oh, God, can we get Garth? Great? Great. Yeah, Garth Edwards, Garth Edwards, Gareth. Gareth. Gareth. Gareth. Thank you. It's gonna right, let's get right. Gareth. I mean, he got he got kind of bus sod as well. Yeah, through that hug.

Joshua Caldwell 12:51
I thought Rogue One was great. It was it was fantastic. But it's just it's you're stepping into and this is nothing against I mean, Scorsese calls them rides. Like, that's fine that, but that's what you're stepping into, you're stepping in to, you know, you're you're stepping into a corporation, you're stepping into, you know, something that has much more going on than just the movie itself. The movie small part? Yeah, very small part. It's, it's the it's the 32nd commercial and Saturday morning, you know, that's all it is. And, you know, you have to be, you got to be respectful of that, if you're going to take that on, you know, yeah. And there are filmmakers that obviously get that willing to play in that sandbox. And there are others, it's, it's, it's really tough for them, you know, and I think it's, you know, the, the thing that's also challenging about this world is like, you know, you are as a director, regardless that you have the responsibility on you. And at the same time, you know, it's your name is on it, you know, and it's your filmography. Right. And, and that's gonna, it's the, it's directing is difficult. It's the, you know, it's the career where, you know, the things that you do are going to affect whether you get another job, you know, if you're a regular viewer at a regular company, and you do a project and the project, isn't that great? I mean, maybe maybe you'll be considered for being fired, I doubt it's just gonna be like, okay, that didn't work out. Let's move on to the next thing. You know, it doesn't follow you like your resume, and your filmography does, you know, and so that can be challenging too, especially if like, your particular try to be particular the way I am about, about the type of movies that you make.

Alex Ferrari 14:24
Right. Well, let's speak about the the, your latest film infamous, yeah. You wrote the script for this and wrote this and did the hunting and the packaging and putting it all together? Can you tell us the journey? Because I always I've been through that journey a few times in my life, but it's Oh, it's it's exactly what they teach you in film school, isn't it? It's exactly exactly they take they teach that and they don't that all I'm being sarcastic.

Joshua Caldwell 14:50
I didn't take that class. Um, yeah, no, I mean, Iyou know, I had come out of doing, you know, layover, I came out of doing south beach where and so you You know that I wasn't thrilled with the work that I had done I did a movie called beat somebody which was had a significantly higher budget than then layover, but I hadn't I didn't write the script, you know, there were a lot of issues with us going into production on that it was kind of a job. You know, and then I did negative, which was, you know, me going back and saying, Well, I'm gonna just go macro thing for myself, but suffering from, you know, just issues on the movie. You know, I also didn't write that movie. And time, there were a lot of these kind of like, you know, two to $3 million digital movies coming out Lionsgate was making digital movies, you know, legendary was starting to put these out. And I said, let me write something for that around that budget level, you know, that I think could be cool. And of course, you know, I just did a spy thriller with negative and I was thinking, you know, I kind of really want to do a heist movie. And trying to think of unique ideas for a heist movie. I don't recall what it was that really prompted this idea. But I think a couple years prior, I had seen this photograph by this, this photographer named Moe Gelber that have been posted on Facebook and it was a picture of this this young couple being led away in handcuffs. And the couple the woman was either pulling away from or going in for a kiss and she had a smile on her face and people were like Oh, it's it's a new Bonnie and Clyde modern day Bonnie and Clyde. True Stories. They didn't weren't robbing banks at the time they got arrested for the graffiti or something like that. But that image just kind of stuck with me

Alex Ferrari 16:27
Much less much less interesting film, but you're saying exactly.

Joshua Caldwell 16:32
But the image stuck with me and it was so it's kind of just a real visceral image and I remember at some point going well, is there a modern Bonnie and Clyde? What would that look like? And it would probably be something on social media. You know? If you look back at sort of the original Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie and Clyde were, you know, they were there The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde was created by newspapers to sell newspapers. You know, the real story is somewhat more tragic and much less romantic. But they were really kind of I mean, john john doe injure you know, baby face Nelson, these guys were the the outlaws that became celebrities as a result of media, you know, and so that you obviously have a natural comparison, which I tried to stay away from, but natural comparison and Natural Born Killers, even though that's a fictional film, it was still pertaining to this idea of let's take these killers and put them on dateline. And give them primetime interviews, you know, and thus turn them into celebrities. I was like, what's the modern version? Now? I'm like, somebody posting their stuff on Facebook, you know? And that just was that click, you know, it's like, okay, it's Bonnie and Clyde social media, modern day go. And for a long time, I told my agents about it. The idea. And I was like, well, maybe I don't know, if I want to write it, maybe, you know, maybe we'll find somebody else to write it. I was kind of just hemming and hawing on. And finally I said you want I think I do want to write I'm just gonna sit down and try and work this out. So I did and I spent, I spent, you know, I don't know, a couple months writing it developing it, you know, during the first draft. And then, you know, give it to my team, they read it, they had feedback, like, for example, in the, in the original version, they were just doing banks, and like, you know, small banks, and liquor stores and all that kind of stuff. And one of my agents had the idea of like, how can we make a different like, he's always going, how do we make a difference? And and one of the things he said was, what about like, what about putting in like a weed store? What are the Robin weed stores, because he had just seen this article about how like, all these all these dispensaries are unable to get bank accounts and credit transactions. So they have a lot of cash on hand. Like, awesome. Like, let's just do that. So switched up, put that in there. And then at that point, they were like, Okay, I think we're ready. Like to take it out. So we went through a cute, long process of like, taking it out to people take it out to studios, trying to get them on board, no talent attached. Tons of nose, you know, and I really kind of tried to firm up this belief at the time that like, you just got to go get your nose so you can get your Yes, you know, I remember a great story about a pertaining to this, which was about like a real estate agent who was trying to sell a house and her boss came and said, Well, how many how many nose Do you usually get before you get a Yes, she's like, well, like 25 He's like, how many have gotten 10? Well, you got a 15 more to go, you know, and it was that attitude of like, all I'm doing is getting through the nose to get the Yes. As opposed to letting it get me down that so many people don't want to do it. I'm like, takes one person, you know. And then in so pushing through that we eventually connected with a producer Scott Levinson really liked it. And he had a friend of his who was an actor who you know, had some budget available, you know, could bring money to the table and so we started going down that path and started looking at cast for the girl because he was going to play the lead and and then that kind of dissolved and went away and as things do

Alex Ferrari 19:54
No stop it and however happened for first time. First time, first time

Joshua Caldwell 20:00
You know, when Scott came to me and said, Look, I know this didn't work out, I believe in this project. I think we get a made, we got to take it out wide and and I said, Okay. And he started sort of giving it to some people. And one of the people he gave it to was Thor, Brian broadwell, who was Bella thorns manager. And Thor read it and really loved it. And because he had been talking to Scott and told him like Bella's looking for young writer directors, she wants to do this kind of thing. And Scott was like, I think I've got a script for. And so she read it. And we did a Skype call, like soon after, and she came on board. So we didn't have financing in place. We didn't have any of that. I don't know if she'll do that on another project. So no guarantees, but you know, because usually agents always Well, what's the offer? To her credit, she really believed in it. And she came on board very early, and we were able to use her to leverage financing. So it's like the whole thing of like, well, you take your financing without an actor and you can't get an act chicken egg, chicken chicken in the egg. We were very fortunate that Deb Bella, sort of we broke the mold with it. And we got Belle on board without having to commit to any kind of money at the time. And started taking it out and then went through a whole lot of nose again, you know, again, never have before and then finally landed with some some independent financier's that, again, really believed in the project and really want to get me you know, I went into it knowing that this movie was going to be a tough sell. I mean, there's violence, there's murder, there's robbery, it's it's got a punk rock sort of vibe to it, that I really tried to push in it. It's trying to be out there. You know, I remember, the one thing I wanted to do with this was I was like, the word subtlety is not going to be anywhere near this movie. Because I just think it's hard to break through the noise when you've got something that's like super subtle, and you're not backed by a massive marketing campaign going for your Oscar. You know, I just was like, I'm gonna make something like batshit crazy that people can't ignore. And so like Bella was a perfect complement to that. Right. Like, because she's attention getting, she's forward thinking, like, she riles people up, you know, and I wanted that for the movie. And, and so, you know, all this whole time, I was just like, there's gonna be people who don't want to make this. They don't want to come near it. I just want the person that says yes. Like, I do want to do that, you know? So that happened with Bella that happened with the venti tears that happened with our distributor, like they were the ones that said, yes, you know, and said, We love this. And we want to push it out there. And so that's the person I was always looking for, as opposed to being in a position where I'm getting so down on myself, because I'm a girl and nobody wants to make it. Who cares? If nobody wants to make it, you just need that one person to make it. You know, make it and that's who you're going to find. And sometimes you got to go through a lot of like, a lot of noes to get there.

Alex Ferrari 22:40
What was the what was the time period of this? How long did this take from the moment that you wrote this script to the point where you start shooting.

Joshua Caldwell 22:47
So I had the idea in 20, Summer of 2016. And wrote the script, September 1 draft was September 2016. We started going out 2017. Bella came on board in 20, July of 2018. And then we started shooting we shot the movie in June, no July of 2019. And now it's coming out in June of 2020.

Alex Ferrari 23:14
So basically it was three years, three years before before you start shooting. Oh, yeah. Before that. Yeah, three years before we started, and a year and a half before any talent was really any major talent. Yeah.

Joshua Caldwell 23:25
Yeah. So I just found that for a long time. But also like, it doesn't, I don't recall it being that long. I was kind of like, they'd be like, we're doing this and like, all right.

Alex Ferrari 23:33
But you were doing other things in between that while you were doing that?

Joshua Caldwell 23:36
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I hit you know, I was doing my own stuff. I was like doing client work, I was writing other things I was, you know, staying busy in that space. And, and, but at the same time, like, this was the thing, you know, and I wanted to the other thing that I was really quickly, I was also starting to get aware of was like, the topical nature of the film was like, This is not a film that can be made five years from now. Like, it's either gonna happen in real life, or it's just gonna die. I think you can watch the movie five years from now and still understanding love it. But I think like, I don't know, if this movie is gonna get made in three years, you know, like, so there's an urgency to have like, this feels topical, and it feels like we got to get it going now. So there was an urgency to try make that happen.

Alex Ferrari 24:15
You know, the the the other thing I wanted people to understand I asked you that that question specifically because so many filmmakers listening, have no idea what it really takes to go out and get financing. Because the other films you move much quicker, because they were much lower budget, you had much more control. And when you have more higher paying, and it was already there, correct, exactly. But when you're going out and trying to get, you know, seven figures plus on a budget and getting some cast attached, it's a time period, you got to play that game. And it's it you got I mean, sometimes I mean, I was chasing money for one of my projects for three, four years and still, they're still gonna pay you and you get it and you lose it. Oh, I get it. So many times, my knees about How many times the money is about to drop? Being wired, it's being wired. It's being wired today the money is being wired today oh my own there was a mixup with the wiring. They got the account number account number one out numbers went to the wrong place. Now I got bounced to England. And now this thing, I just can't even.

Joshua Caldwell 25:20
You know, it's the challenge to you know, that I think sometimes people have this perspective is like, oh, like, Well, certainly it's low budget, a couple million dollars is low budget, you know, it's also a couple million dollars, like, most people don't see that amount of money in their lifetime. And here you are asking somebody to give it to you, on the trust that you're going to return provided a product that is going to give them a high, right, like it's still a business transaction as much as about the creative. And so I see a lot of people and I was probably like this too, when I was much younger, which is like, oh, that just nobody believes that, you know, they don't get it. They want to want to give you the money.

Alex Ferrari 25:57
They don't want to give me my 10 million for my genius. Yeah, yeah, like

Joshua Caldwell 26:00
Exactly. Like I deserve this, I'm entitled to whatever. And I think like, you know, that's the thing is like you are going out, and you're asking for people to give you like a significant amount of money more more than whatever your house costs, you know, and putting that trust in you and backing you to make it and no amount of like, Oh, I did the greatest short film that went to all these festivals is gonna necessarily convince them nothing.

Alex Ferrari 26:23
And there's not even district nine, which is arguably one of the more successful short films ever made. You know, if it wasn't for Peter Jackson coming on board and saying, Come this way. Now, I'll take care of everything for you, sir. And right, and we're gonna make it never gets made and never gets made. So I don't care. And that's another thing. I want everybody listening if you have this short film that won everything, and we've seen how many, like just insanely viral short films, from really talented directors have come out in the past 1015 years. Like I still remember a product. Oh, yeah. Mark Wahlberg. I hooked on this one. And yeah, that one got hooked on that one. And I there are there. It's a long process to play in the system. Like if you want to play the game, those are the them the rule is prepared. Yeah, you want to you don't want to play the game. take six grand, go make a French speaking love story. Right? In the middle of Los Angeles at night. Exactly. Exactly. or run to Sundance over over four days in a movie. You can do that all you want. And then you have all the edits all the control you want. You don't have to ask anybody for anything. It is a wonderful place, but you don't get to play with the same tools. And the same twice.

Joshua Caldwell 27:44
Yeah. And and just nobody owes you anything. Yeah, you wrote a script, nobody owes you anything. No one cares. Oh, you no one cares. They just they just don't, you know. And so it's been it's a process of creating, you got to create a character you to create the version of yourself that people are going to care about and want to work with and want to be a part of, you know, as challenging because even if you're, you know, I mean, I'm certainly not close to being, you know, where I hope to be someday. And even, you know, but even with the things I've done, and the ability to say, well, I've done three features, I've done this series for Hulu, it's still going through the process of of tons of nose, you know, and you get the people saying, Oh, well, we're developing something similar, which is bullshit and their way of saying no, yes, I heard that. was also you're like, Well, where's that, you know, that did come out. But it's, you know, it's just Who knows? It's the it's the person woke up on a certain side of the bed. It's, you know, they don't like this. It's such a subjective experience.

Alex Ferrari 28:39
No, I promise you it's like it's a it's something as simple as the assistant that's reading your script. The boss yelled at them this morning going, Oh, I need you to find me something for that internet based. That's about some some kids on the internet doing wrong stuff. I want a script like that. And your script happened to land on that table, something along along those lines. I just wanted to bring something to your attention Joshua, just like you when you were in college, and you looked at my quote unquote, success with broken and you said fuck that guy. I promise you someone listening to this episode right now is like, this guy goes on third movies. Like it's, you know, above you know, you know, under 25 million screw this guy, man. Why is the trailer and like, this movie sucks. Exactly. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. So it's it's a, it's a circle of the filmmaker life. It's just

Joshua Caldwell 29:43
I mean, it's it's easy, man. It's like, it's hard. You know, it's I I'm still in that position where I see people getting opportunities. You're like, bam, like, what do they do? You know? And the one thing that I've also I mean, I wrote a big long article about this called relative success and in Hollywood, you know, the idea that like, well, what you need to define what success is To you, you know, because like, I've had plenty of people who are like, you know, I know somebody you got a movie with a great distribution deal and I talked to and you see the news, you're like, Oh, that's amazing. And then you talk to him. He's like, dude, we are screwed. You know,

Alex Ferrari 30:11
Wait, but you meet screwed by a distributor? No, stop it.

Joshua Caldwell 30:16
Don't talk bad about distributors that we love them. In the first video, it was like, Oh, it's a terrible deal. But it's the only one we could get, you know? Or, or Yeah, we sold our script, but like, we have no control over it anymore. And like, I don't know, the guy directing it. Like, we don't know if it's gonna be good. You know. And so it became like, like, I was reflecting a lot on this, because I was in this period of like, what do I want to do? Am I gonna be successful doing this? It's like, Well, what does that mean to you? You know, and so it's very easy to look at other people, and sort of have envy and have desire and say, Oh, I wish I was there. But like, you know, one, you don't know the circumstances by which they had to get there, you know, but to it's like, the only thing you can't control what somebody else is doing, and the advantages and the opportunities they're being presented with, you don't control any of that. All you control is what you're doing. So what are you doing? Are you pounding away writing that script? Like, are you doing what I did? where I spent fucking? Like, I mean, seven, you know, 10 years in coffee shops, you know, after a full time job, having dinner with my wife for an hour, and then going out for three, four hours to write I mean, the sacrifice that comes from that, you know, so like, yeah, I mean, I obviously people can look at me and say, Well, fuck that guy. This would be shitty, like, you know, yeah, whatever. I can fit two fingers, two fingers, middle fingers up. But like, at the same time, it's like, you know, I've been working at this for a long, long time. And I've been putting in the work, you know, like, I that's all I do it up, and I put in the work. And it's hard. And it's like, not an easy thing. And you got to stick with it. And that's where you're going to get to where you want to be you got to stick through those noes to get to find out one person that's going to say, yes, if you're going to be discouraged, after two, three people say no, then well, you'll never miss it. And this is not your business.

Alex Ferrari 31:55
This is so nice. And it's not even in Hollywood, again, is always the nicest fuse I've ever seen in my entire life. It's this. There's no other business that does it just quite so nice. They sort of learned their lesson that like you never know, you never know you don't want to piss this guy or this girl off because she could win the next Oscar. She could be the next director. He could be the next director. It's like the Oh, we're working on something similar. So we pass.

Joshua Caldwell 32:25
Oh, we got some in development that's kind of like this. And

Alex Ferrari 32:27
There's it's the nicest. Yeah. You create, like a cheat sheet of like the excuses that they say you're like, Oh, that's that's excuse number seven. Oh, I didn't know that one. That was good. Yeah, exactly. So all right. So you you've gone to this much larger budget, this is the largest budget you've worked with. Okay, so this is the largest book as you worked with in your career? What lessons did you take from your micro budget, low budget days into this bigger budget?

Joshua Caldwell 32:57
Yeah, you know, I've been thinking a lot about this, because, like, I think that one of the things that, that I so enjoyed about the lower budget stuff, the micro budget stuff was the freedom, you know, the ability to shoot in certain ways and, and get a lot of material and like have, you know, a ton of days, you know, where you're not, you're not trying to just adhere to a schedule, and a part of you is going like this is not going to last, like I'm not going to have you know, this you're not goobric you're not goobric Yeah, yeah, you got it, but there's the curve that you got to get through, you know, where you were, you don't and I was just thinking like, Well, how do I continue to do something that feels my aesthetic, my style, you know, you know, in a in my approach in a vein that is not going to have the same Unlimited, you know, non limitations on it. And true to form with this one, like, you know, we had that that was the case with this, I mean, you know, we It was a union shoot, so as I otzi you know, so that comes with an increase I mean, I think for us it was actually like the pay didn't increase because of the level we were at. But obviously you pay into health you know, the health insurance and like all that kind of stuff and those are added costs. But also you're now limited in certain ways with you got to have certain number of crew got to do this based on the tier that you're in. You know, and also like you can't suddenly shoot for 40 days you know, if you don't have the budget to do it, because you can't really scale down You can't just say okay crew don't work today. Brian just go shoots up on our own. And also it just come it comes what you know, we've all been on the bigger sets you know, it just comes with well not all of us but it comes with you don't if you running around with a five D and you can just go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, okay, and shot five angles and five minutes. It doesn't work like that. You know, you've got equipment everywhere you got people explain what's going on. It's so much slower. And if you're trying to keep a pace and trying to do tons of takes and trying to do this like that can be a really challenge real challenge. I mean, there's absolutely no way I could have done this as my first feature would have been an absolute disaster. You know, but having done the previous micro budget things, it allowed me to have to frame a lot of the conversations with my creatives and with the producers around, how are we going to do this. So like, one of the things when the financers came on board, I said, here's the thing, guys, like, I'm not going to do this as a 15 day shoot. Like, it's not happening, if that's how you want to do it, you know, awesome, but we're not gonna make the movie together. Because I had done those 15 day shoots, and they're awful, brutal, brutal. And it's just like, the problem I have with it is it's not about getting the best material, it's not about making the best movie, it just becomes an assembly line. And I knew that this, make something really special and have the time to do it, right. And I knew that we're gonna have a lot of stunts and a lot of gunfire and like, a lot of locations, it's a road movie, there's like, 34 locations in the movie. And, and so you know, that that's what started, I said, we're not doing a 15 day shoot, I'm not saying it's got to be a 35 day shoot as much as I would like that. But we're not doing a 15 day shoot. And we are gonna end up doing a couple days of Florida, with a skeleton crew. And they said, Alright, of course, you come back to this conversation later, you know, two days before is supposed to go to Florida. But you know, I kind of was like, that's how I'm going to make the movie. And they said, Okay, I was in a position to bring my dp on who I'd worked with, on my second feature, who I really loved. Now, I dp negative, and very briefly thought about doing this, but you know, there's a comfort level with producers when like, you know, you're trying to do everything, and they're like, hang on, like, once you hire somebody that's actually supposed to do that. And I sort of always knew I was gonna do that I just was in my head thinking, Oh, is this a possibility? I'm really glad I didn't, because I think we looks amazing, thanks to Eve's contributions. But a lot of this conversation with her came out of the idea, like, Look, like I've done, I've done all these other movies using available light, using like artificial light making use of small lightweight cameras, like, we need to be in that world, because we do not have the time to be doing major major setups, you know, with certain exceptions, you know, and so we, sorry, my kids are popping in, but, um, with, with, without, with certain exceptions, we built in the schedule. And so, you know, and then I also made the decision to operate, because I had realized through previous experience, that, how I direct flows through the operation of the camera, and how that camera interacts with the actors. And I also knew we can move faster, because rather than trying to explain to somebody else, this handheld move that I want, or, or provide them the freedom to take a chance on something without the risk of being fired, right, because like, operators are like, Why don't want to ruin a take by doing something he doesn't want me to do? You know, you have to work together before because all this crew was out of Oklahoma where we shot you know, I was able to just move faster. And I was overdoing this, this, this, let me do the move. As soon as I knew I had it, we were done, we're moving on. And so and then also, it comes back to having those early conversations with your entire crew and your production managers and all this stuff of saying, like, we need to be mobile, like we need to be small footprints, like we need to be in a position to move quickly, because some of these days, we're gonna have three company moves. And it also includes a stunt, you know. And, you know, and so because the one thing I did wanted to do on this was I wanted to make a road movie, I wanted to make a movie that had scope, I wanted to make a movie that felt like it was big, you know, and, and, and so to do that, you got to, you got to move, but you also got to shoot quality. You know, like, I just really, I've never really wanted to do the whole, like, going to a room thing. You know, I think people can do that really well. I can't so much of the work that I do is about being on location and being you know, giving a scope and giving the wide shots like the wide shot is free, you know, like whether you should have close up or wide still cost the same amount of money.

Alex Ferrari 39:07
So okay, so let's touch on that a little bit. What are some tips to give your micro budget or even lower budget films some scope? Because just from my point of view with ego and desire, I mean, I was shooting wide all the time because I had a cast of 1000s who had no idea they were movie and just these mountain views and it was just it that movie looks so big, but it was shot with little little, little cameras so yeah, so what are some of your tips

Joshua Caldwell 39:39
I think it's um, it's not just about framing wide although you want to do you want to have positions where you can give scope but I think it's also about depth. You know, like if you continue in it's also about not being endorsed if you don't have to be you know, because I think when you when you're outside and you see a long ways down There's an assumption. First of all, most audiences don't know it. They just know, okay, they're outside and there's depth, but from the people that know, there's an assumption that you locked all that down when maybe you didn't, you know, or that you somehow had control over it when you did. So I, to me, I think it's about, it's about creating depth to your frame, even if you're shooting a lot of mediums or close ups, I think it's about getting your wives when they count. You know, I think it's about you know, in our case, we did a lot of long takes. So there are a number in the movie of really cool wonders that we did, that I knew from the beginning I was going to do, I did it intentionally because of the subject of the movie, or the way that we were started off approaching the movie. But I also I also knew that like, Well, so what had happened was, here's this is what is tip, but there's a little bit of a story. So I directed a series of two episodes of a series that have not has not come out yet Funny enough, it's about a pandemic. And but one of the episodes had was about this, like home invasion. And in the middle of the pandemic, and these, the two robbers and the two homeowners kind of get locked at home, and there's a fight and all this kind of stuff. And the script was the longest script of all of them. And there was a lot of action in it, and find all this stuff. And I remember one of the other directors who producers, creators of it was saying, like, Hey, man, we just spent like four hours trying to do a punch, like, you might want to think about the action in the movie. And I started thinking about it. And I started thinking, like, you know, if we could shoot a lot of this as a single take, we'll spend a lot of time setting up for it. But then once we got it, we're done. And the other thing that allowed me to do was it allowed me to, when you're in a single take, the audience understands that they're not going to see everything. And so what actually allowed us to hide some of the more complicated action pieces, like a guy getting stabbed in the stomach, you know, we didn't have to see that on screen. Because we were we happen to be over on somebody else, that was more important to be in that moment. And we come back and all of a sudden the guy's bleeding out. And and so what happened though, was we were able to get like the longest script done in about two to end the two days that we had with time leftover, because we spent a lot of time rehearsing. But once we got those, once we that was in the can it was in the camp, instead of going, Okay, we spent a lot of time get this one shot, got to do three more angles. And we got to do just as many takes, you know, and so for a lot of the scenes that involved robberies involved gunfire, I made the choice to do it as as this kind of complicated single take, but I knew that once we got it, we were done. Yeah, you're done it, and it wasn't gonna take if it takes to do it. It might take 10 but 10 takes is great.

Alex Ferrari 42:40
Yeah. And you know, so it's an ROTC. It's like an ROTC though return on time. So to cut out 10 minutes of your movie and shoot 10 minutes, and not have to edit really those 10 minutes to if you're able to do a one or that's four or five minutes, or even even a 10 minute one, or if you're really ambitious. Yeah, it might take you all day, but you knocked out 10 minutes like for you to shoot coverage of 10 minutes and edited it. That's a lot. That's not a day generally. Yeah, yeah. Generally speaking.

Joshua Caldwell 43:10
Yeah, no. And there was another one where we were in this. So we were in this house that was under construction, which is one of their hideouts, and I wanted to shoot this particular scene at what was supposed to be done, right. But pre dawn, so before the sun came up, and I was just like, well, we should just shoot this as a water because there's no way we can like this. There's no way we can, you know, but the other thing that I liked about it was, it wasn't just like a time saving tip or even like a scope tip. Like it was born out of the story. You know, it was born out of just a particular you know, with this movie, what I wanted to do was I wanted to create a very subjective experience of our main character, Arielle. So I've positioned it as basically this movie is Arielle, his Instagram feed, like you are seeing the story she wants you to see. And then I started thinking about, well, what are some things to hit it that without being literal, because it never says it in the movie? But like one of those things is like well think about like, how do we view content now like we're so used to seeing Instagram stories, which are 15 second long takes like you're, you're not used to seeing edits, you know, and all this kind of stuff you're used to seeing, you know, longer longer sort of just reality driven types of takes and so I want to do incorporate that and I also want to just the immediacy, I wanted the idea we're live streaming this you're feeling like you're there, it's as if they have a camera man with them, you know, and so it became a very subjective experience but at the same time that gave me so much freedom because I was like, well, we don't need to worry about shooting this I don't need to worry about shooting this like you know, we can get away with so much more especially the longer takes and so you know, the long takes are certainly good and and it's you know, I mean it kind of going back to layover it's about locations to you know, like, layover was shot very expensive inexpensively. But we were all over Los Angeles, you know, I mean, not always legally

Alex Ferrari 45:00
So you stole everything. And I stole everything. It's It's fine. Right? where we come in a long history Hitchcock sold stuff. It's okay. Yeah.

Joshua Caldwell 45:10
But it's the same thing. It's still having that mentality like, how are we going to steal stuff? The other thing that we did and again, part of this was designed in the movie was, you know, because it's, it's so much social focused and they're the idea that that our yellows filming stuff with their phone. There's a there's like a montage in the movie. And I'm like, they were like, how you doing the montage? Cuz I'm going like you're trying to do a montage in a movie on 21 days, like, forget it, like not happening, right? Because you want these little clips. But I said, I said to everybody, so they might dp I did myself. I told Bella, I'm like, here's some iPhones, just shoot, shoot everything. You know, like I so I'm driving to set shooting the sunrise like I'm getting like cars on the road, I'm getting all this stuff. I've been one shot a couple things that were like, I probably would have done on like the Alexa mini if I had the time. But I was just like, I'm just gonna do it on the phone, because it's better to have it than not having. And I've already established a visual language in the movie whereby we are using iPhone footage. And so as a result, it just feels so much bigger, because it feels like we had so much time to shoot all this extra content. That's one second one second, one second, one second, you know, but we didn't have to take up the time to do it on an on an Alexa mini where it just takes forever, because you got to set up and it's like, okay, we're gonna like this, we're gonna do this, you're like this is on screen for three frames, we don't need it.

Alex Ferrari 46:31
But that's the thing that people listening should understand is that if you are only going to go about your screenwriting or your your filmmaking process, in the way it's laid out in the textbooks, you will not survive. There has to be this out of the box. Like, hey, let's just go grab it. Like that's a great idea. And it works thematically with what you're doing. Like if the footage is not exactly perfect. Like it doesn't match exactly the Alexa, it's fine, because that's the kind of you're setting up that language. You've already seen it. Yeah, yeah, you said you set up that language within in the piece. But like sometimes, you know, I mean, I remember shooting you, I'll shoot with a red and then shoot with a Blackmagic Pocket somewhere else. And you just insert little shots, and nobody will ever notice. But nobody notices. But you're able to grab extra shots, extra angles, and that also adds a lot of more production value. The second you start moving that camera, you start getting different coverage, it just adds more production value.

Joshua Caldwell 47:27
Yeah, and it comes to look, but it also comes back to it comes back to because you just mentioned this that nobody notices is like it comes back to that right. Like, it's the same thing I did on layover, which is that the freedom that shooting on a five D at 6400 ISO gave us far outweighed the tiny little bit of noise that might have been noticed by one person right now, it allows you to it allows you the freedom to sort of tell the story, you know, if you could tell the story well, and you can tell the story with scope, and you can make something that feels personal people watching it, or his phone or whatever, that will far outweigh any kind of perfection in the image, you know. And so I would say that to my dp I'm like look like we are thought it's gonna be way better for all of us to have more angles and more of this than to just have that one perfectly lit image. Like it my dp agreed. And really what we settled on was the idea that the only time we're ever really going to take that time to light is either if it's at night, and we have to, because there's a lot of night stuff in the movie. Or if we're settling, like if we're going to be on Bella's face for a four minute scene. Right? Take the light and right, yeah, but for a lot of the little interstitial in the quick stuff, like he would be like, I'm not gonna like this, like I remember we went into there was a convenience store where we had a ton of action. There's I mean, in addition to like, just a couple scenes that happen in it, there was in outside of it, there was also a huge gunfight that occurs in it. And I remember talking to even like, because we initially talk, she's like, there's a lot to do in here. I'm going to swap the bulbs and let you go, you know, and I'm like, so that's also like, you got to have a dp that's going under Oh, oh, 110% and it is going to buy into it, you know, and and support it, you know, in the way that she did and I mean, I think it's like Personally, I think it's your best work and the stuff in there you don't notice you're not missing it. You're not going like oh, like there's a shadow there like it feels like real which is what I'm always going for like I always want that feeling of like oh, we just sort of stepped in here and turn the camera you know is that lends itself a reality

Alex Ferrari 49:27
That I think this I think there was a film specifically that was an inspiration of both you and I which was for lovers only. Mark and Michael Michael polishes and Mark polishes. amazing little five D film and they were the first five D feature essentially if I'm not mistaken, if not the first No, I think it was I think it was Yeah, if it wasn't the first definitely the most profitable of its of its day without question. But they you know they did they did very similar things. So I think we both took the same idea like you grab the camera and ran Around LA, I grabbed the camera and ran around Sundance day grabbed the camera and ran around Paris. And, and the value, the production value, the scope, the quickness the things they were able to get. It is it's exciting. It really is excited. Like I love that little micro budget. I you know, yeah. running around doing I mean yeah, like so much fun, man.

Joshua Caldwell 50:23
It really so much fun. So much fun. And the other thing too is like, you know, you got to, you got to, again, you got to know all this, like we shot on the Alexa Mini. But, you know, I've seen the Alexa mini really built out. Oh, yeah. Like a studio studio app on your shoulder, you're like, what? And I said to my team, I'm like, we got to keep it small, like this thing has got to be tiny. Like, you know, we got to get everything off it. We got to keep it super light, super mobile, because like, that's how you're then able to like, hey, just grab this, like, Oh, this is cool. Like, let me just pop in here, like, you know, and it drives my dp nuts, but at the same time, like, that's what you need, you need the ability to capture a lot of this footage. So they can very easily put something together that feels bigger, as opposed to being well, I only had the one angle, you know, right? I didn't have the cutaway or I didn't have this and like so, you know, it's it's, um, you know, you want to be you want to be like, again, I remember being a filmmaker, you know, when I was younger, going like, oh, let's get the camera as big as possible. Let's put on a matte box, even though we're not using it, you know, there's no reason to. But now I'm like, how do we get it as small as we can? That's, you

Alex Ferrari 51:29
know, when you're younger? Sir, you're you're compensating for a larger camera you did you need that you need that and you knew full zoom. Camera package, you need a full zoom, you need all the cables popping out there. Why? Because that's, that's a real filmmaker at that point. Yeah, because I see Spielberg and I see Nolan with that, like, I need to shoot IMAX. But the difference is they have 200 million plus to make 100 days and 100 days, if not more, to do whatever the hell they want it and you understand that? strip it man strip it down as tight and move as many as fast as you can. Now, so this was a, this was a project that you not only wrote it, took it through development and packaging and everything, getting it ready for production. But then you now have been involved with the distribution side of things, and and selling it. So how did you get this thing? After you get it done? You went with a sales agent or sales company? How did it go?

Joshua Caldwell 52:29
So the sales agent came with the financier because a lot of the discussions, you know, what we ended up doing was that whole foreign sales model, you know, so a lot of those discussions roll around, well, this cast member is worth this, this cast member is worth this, this is what they get you so, you know, I think that's also one of the challenges of indie filmmaking, you know, because you are in a lot of cases dependent on talents, previous work and their reach. You know, if you're doing a movie, I think like a big movie, big studio movie, I think there's ultimately, like, a total responsibility to, you know, really diversify and really, like, try and do what you can to, like, you know, build some people up because it doesn't matter, movies being sold on something else. But indies are tough, you know, we went through a process of having some real discussions about like, you know, about the film, and who's best for it, and you find yourselves in some way, like a little boxed in, you know, because there's a foreign market, and it's limiting. And, you know, it's, that's where a lot of that work has to be done, you know, to really helping build out, you know, the value of a lot of people, because people don't realize that you're like, Oh, just cast this person, like, well, not yet, you know,

Alex Ferrari 53:45
Let's say at the $6,000 movie, absolutely cast, whatever you want

Joshua Caldwell 53:48
But at some point, then you get to a budget where like, yeah, you're responsible for trying to get this back and your financier is are only going to guarantee this money if if the, the sales company can guarantee the sale for this amount of money. You know, and so, you know, so that that was also challenging, because you could say, well, I want this person or like, well, they don't have the same value that like this person does, you know, and you know, so you just got to you got to be smart about it, you know, and you got to really you know, sort of know what you're looking for but also be open to ideas that that you may not have thought of but they were on board in that casting process

Alex Ferrari 54:21
But you worked in with so then you you finance this film based off of predict of estimate presale estimates. Yeah, yeah. That's how the that's how the financing got put in place. That's how that Yeah, so it's just it was independent financing, right. So it's as secure as secure as you can get an independent film basically, like you have an sales company that says okay, in Germany, we're gonna get 15 $50,000 for x actor guaranteed. Next, England's gonna give us 100,000 if this actors are in it, and this is this genre and this thing, and you had all these estimates laid out first and that was Good, general idea. So the investors felt somewhat comfortable that they're going to recoup their money at least.

Joshua Caldwell 55:05
Right, exactly. And they do projections, which like, sometimes turn out to be true sometimes don't. But it's the surest thing you can get, you know, to having some kind of like, okay, maybe we might make our money back.

Alex Ferrari 55:16
But that's it. But that was a sales a sales agents or sales company, basically who wills company.

Joshua Caldwell 55:21
Yeah, sales agent sales company that was working with, yeah, they go to market. So like we announced, in 2019, we announced the project at Berlin, you know, and then they're a Berlin, they're doing the thing in the hotel room where we have this script with this actor, you know, with Bella Thorne in it, and this actor, you know, or whatever, and this director, and this is what it's about, and they go, okay, like, well, we would give this much for that, right? And then you take that as a promissory note, and you go to the bank, and you say, they will agree to get this as long as we deliver this movie. And the bank says, Okay, here's the loan or whatever it's going to be. And so it's a big thing. I hadn't really been down that before. before and it's it's, it's challenging world, you know, because it's, it's a lot of it's, you're like, this person is valuable in Germany and has no recognition in France. You know,

Alex Ferrari 56:16
I can't, I can't wait outside of the states. I just let you know, I can't walk the streets of Mumbai. I'm just saying I'm huge. Imagine broken, broken ruin. I mean, I can't walk the streets because of broken up. It's all sarcasm, just Sundance anymore, but that's what there's that. But that's for other reasons. everyone listening, it's called sarcasm. Anyway, so um, alright, so then you you got picked up by vertical eventually, right?

Joshua Caldwell 56:43
Yeah, picked up by vertical. So we, you know, we've independently financed it. You know, two great producers, Sean suhani. And Colin banks. Were on board to sort of the finance ears. And, and we basically sorry, not banks beats con bait. I always kill called banks, for some reason,

Alex Ferrari 57:04
Because he's got the money, baby. He's got the money to get it. Right.

Joshua Caldwell 57:06
I got it. Right. Yeah. But anyway, you know, so they financed it. And then, you know, look, I mean, we finished the movie. And we took we went to Sundance, you know, we got a cut done for Sundance, because like, why not take that shot? And didn't get in? Supposedly came close, but didn't get in?

Alex Ferrari 57:23
Yeah. And we're also developing this project as well. So we can't we have to pass? Yeah, save it. Yes. Yeah. You were so close. Oh, it's like you and like one other guy. Ah,

Joshua Caldwell 57:32
you it's between you and this other movie. We just decide to go. But it but, you know, it's tough because festivals are hard, man. You know, festivals are really hard.

Alex Ferrari 57:44
And now and now, which we have ever gotten to that we haven't even gotten to that part yet with the COVID. That situation like

Joshua Caldwell 57:50
I know. And so we actually then our our targets were Sundance south by and in Tribeca. Sure. And it probably the saving grace was we did not get into into South by or Tribeca I think it would have been much more devastating to have gotten in.

Alex Ferrari 58:07
Oh, and that screen canceled.

Joshua Caldwell 58:09
Forget it. And, you know, I think we kind of took a shot. But really, like, the our producer really believed, you know, look, festival will be great. It's not necessary. You know, because the other thing too is I mean, it's a it's a really, I think it's a really commercial movie. It's not some like you know dour after school special about the dangers of online social media crimes, you know, or something like that, like, wow, after

Alex Ferrari 58:34
school special. You have dated yourself, sir.

Joshua Caldwell 58:37
Exactly. did not make that movie. You know, but but what I tried to do what I really wanted to do, and what I've always wanted to do with the movies I made because I wanted to create a movie that had kind of this commercial backbone, you know, the spine to it, that was a commercial movie, but then had sort of a depth to it, you know, throughout that created really interesting characters with kind of asking interesting questions, you know, but at the same time, if you didn't want to pay attention, all that you could still just enjoy the gunfights. So I knew that we had something that was potentially desirable from a distribution Pam standpoint. Because it's a really fun movie that moves, you know, when there's a lot of action and clearly, you've seen the trailer so you can tell like, there's a lot to put in there. And that's the trailer is not even a fraction of the movie overall.

Alex Ferrari 59:25
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. So,

Joshua Caldwell 59:37
you know, so we really did, we felt that and then, you know, we just and then COVID gotten away of a lot of stuff, you know,

Alex Ferrari 59:43
so how is How is COVID been a pro and the cons of COVID because there is some pros to the release. Yeah, so tell me what you think. So,

Joshua Caldwell 59:52
it's been it was a bit of a negative because it's impacted. It's impacted sales, you know, because everyone's closed down. Berlin Not a lot of people showed up, you know, canceled festivals, not for us, but obviously for other people. You know, and obviously that this is all obviously the beyond the mass death and destruction and economic collapse that it's caused. I mean, that's

Alex Ferrari 1:00:16
in our small little world and in our small little world.

Joshua Caldwell 1:00:20
But at the same time, you know, and as a result, like with vertical, we would have done the whole like theatrical thing. You know, we're 2030 City, VOD, VOD day and date release that everybody does, you know, and so obviously, that's not happening. So we lose the theatrical but at the same time, like one nobody goes to see in the theater with those things anyway. But to I always believe that the audience for this movie or watching this at home or on their phone,

Alex Ferrari 1:00:46
yes, specifically this movie?

Joshua Caldwell 1:00:49
Yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not as cool as it is to see to the theater in a theater, because that's how you want every movie to be seen. More people see it that way. So I'm fine with that. You know, and so I think the only thing might be that there's a chance we might not have come out as quickly as we did. If it weren't for COVID. We might have waited a little bit longer. But I think we saw an opportunity, you know, with the lack of content coming out with a lot of people still stuck in their homes. You know, we wanted to we saw an opportunity to like, you know, maybe fill a void if people really wanting to see Josh Cobos. Next move.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:25
Obviously, sir, as obviously this guy fucked up now.

Joshua Caldwell 1:01:31
But at the same time, though, it's like we finished in January, like we were done with the movies pretty quick turn around, turn around right before this whole thing hit. So like, the other thing is, we had a, we had a done movie, you know, a lot of people were still in post or they weren't complete, or like, you know, the post houses got shut down. So we were in a position where we did have something that we could sort of offer and put out and I think that, you know, we saw, I hate to say it call an opportunity. But you know, there was, yeah, it is. But I mean, there was a chance for people starving for content to provide them with maybe something that would be fun to watch and kill a Friday night while there, you know, in quarantine.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:08
Yeah. And I think this film specifically has a really good, you know, it's it's a perfect streaming film. Yeah, it's built like for, for streaming without question.

Joshua Caldwell 1:02:20
And the other thing is I, you know, I mean, I hope people get it really like, I hope people get it because we really tried to explore, like, you know, Celebrity, like, Who are we in America, you know, I read this great book called fantasy land, which I've been recommending to everybody which talks, it's kind of a revisionist history of America, and the way in which America has sort of managed to create itself as this kind of like Fantasyland where, like facts no longer matter. And, you know, everybody can have their own viewpoint, and, you know, this kind of thing. And, and this movie lives in that world. You know, this movie lives in a world where it's not about like, you're not going to see the cops after them. In this movie, you're not going to see a detective trying to figure out, Oh, where are they, you know, you're not gonna see like, Instagram shutting down their feed like, that misses the point of this, you know, this is like a satire. You know, this is about this is about celebrity in America, the way that we anoint people. And, and, and give them a mouthpiece and give them a pedestal, whether they're deserving of it or not. And America's Got a history of man, we've already done it. We do it with Bonnie and Clyde, we did it with all these other serial killers. We gave them a voice to talk to America, and they did it. And America has supported that a lot of ways. And I think like, you know, you have those stories of like the Justin soco who like tweeted the like, going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS, you know, and when you have America, waiting for her flight to land, to see what's going to happen. That's the world that this movie lives in. Because it's a movie where I firmly believe that this was going on, and it was too young, good looking people, we would all be following them. Do you remember seeing them and liking it? Oh, there's no question. If we hate it, and disagree with it, we would still be following,

Alex Ferrari 1:04:12
obviously, because that's the entire careers of the Kardashians. So I saw great I saw a great meme the other day, it was all the Kardashians, and they're just because you haven't heard about the Kardashians, like at all right? It's been a bit right. So they're like, yeah, they're all discussing who they're going to give COVID to set the cover relevant. There was a movie this this movie reminds me of this and in a completely different way, but yet similar. There's a movie in the 80s called The Legend of Billie Jean. Do you remember that movie? I can see that? I haven't seen it. But I heard of it. It's with Slater. Kelly Slater. I forgot her name. She's a she was Supergirl, the original Super Girl. But her really young it's Christian Slater's first movie, okay, ever he's a kid in it. And it's basically a story about, it's a lot more it's 80 is innocent, so, but it has, but she becomes like a rebel because she like, you know, stab somebody for protecting somebody else and she becomes an outlaw. And then, and then she gets it, she gets a cult following of everybody's behind Billie Jean. And it's like this whole reading. I love that movie, but it reminds me of it was media, it was media building, it was media building her up into something that was just literally a disagreement, a local disagreement that turned into a nationwide phenomenon. Right. Um, which was really in the hole cops were after her and all this kind. Yeah, it was is really interesting.

Joshua Caldwell 1:05:38
Yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's the world we live in now, you know, and I wanted to make something I also wanted to make something that was like, you know, reflective of that, you know, and so using things like trying to trying to think about the way in which the audience is now consumed content, you know, and trying to angle for some, like, something like that even even the opening font of the movie, that gives the title over over her in the beginning of the movie is that sort of neon cursive that you get on Instagram, right now. And, and we really wanted to saturate it, you know, really get the Chroma saturation in this so that it was reflective of the way in which we see posts on Instagram, that have all been filled, terrorized. You know, I didn't want to make this cool blues and blacks movie like this, to me was like, this movie had to be colorful, it had to be that look like content that we are already seeing, you know, line. And so that was the things we talked about it from wardrobe, to production design, to the cinematography was all about color, color color, it's got to be Poppy, it's got to be fun. And it's also got to be so sort of like unapologetic, you know, I'm not going into this saying like, This is bad. I'm also not going into saying that this is good. I'm kind of going saying this probably would happen. Like, you know, I wouldn't be surprised about it.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:50
So let me ask you now, because you know, we used last time you shot was late last year, moving forward, man. As far as COVID is concerned, how do you think shooting is going to be like, because like, we can't really the way you made this movie you can't make now the way I've made my movies, you can't make them now like that, like it's just not possible. And nobody really knows what the future lies and how long that future was. I don't believe that we're going to be social distancing for the next 20 years. I don't think that's gonna happen. But in the next two to five, maybe, maybe, how do you how do you like, as a creator as a film director, who needs a crew on set to make something happen? How do you see this playing out for yourself in your career? And for basically for everybody? That's a big question. And, and I don't expect you to have the answer by just like your opinion.

Joshua Caldwell 1:07:44
Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna be challenging because I think that you know, I think it's gonna hurt a lot of Indies, you know, because you see these sort of production manuals coming out for like, here's how we do this. And you're going what you're testing everybody on set every day, like, Who's,

Alex Ferrari 1:08:00
it's gonna slow it's gonna slow down so much, it's gonna

Joshua Caldwell 1:08:02
slow down so much and, and at the same time, though, I, you know, I keep hearing like pretty, you know, people going, oh, we're ready to go back, we want to shoot in July. I'm kind of going like, nobody's going back to work until the unions and the guilds are going to believe that everybody is safe. And I have a very hard time believing that sag. Ever agrees to go back until there's a vaccine. Because I can watch is like a crew. As much as a crew can wear masks and gloves instead, for the most part to stay six feet away from each other. Actors can't do that. Like, what's the movie gonna look like? Where they're like, constantly six feet up, you can't do romance stories. You can't do anything, you can't do anything, you know. And so I think that's gonna be the biggest hurdle, because they can't wear masks in the scene. And most of the time they're in close proximity to people and if so it's gonna be very very difficult until that happens as much as everybody wants to come back and the other thing too is as much as you can go make a movie without like IRC. You cannot go make a movie without sag.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:03
Yeah, I mean, you could go non union But still, it's still

Joshua Caldwell 1:09:06
Yeah, but I mean, it's you got to get people to sign up you want to have that union act like you don't get a chance with anybody and then what are you doing you're making movies so small for such a small budget that like because you can't guarantee you're gonna get a million dollars back because you don't have a actor whose value correct no monetary

Alex Ferrari 1:09:25
And is he ever Is there even a foreign market right now there's not there now there's it's very difficult to sell anything.

Joshua Caldwell 1:09:32
So all the post houses are closed, nobody can do dubbing nobody can do subtitling so even if they can buy it, I mean, they probably loved the content because Europe's the same way their star for for content but at the same this is it's so weird. It's like you're trapped at home. But in all anybody do is doing is consuming TV shows and movies. But there's no possible way for the producers of that content dad to try and do more.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:59
I literally just signed up for HBO max. Because, because, because I need friends. I'm sorry. I need my friends and they have a couple of other things that they're going to have on there that I wanted to get. And then I just they get oh here we have HBO NOW AND I'VE NEVER I've never paid for HBO. I just this is just never a thing that I did. So I start going through I'm like, Oh, that's how I've always watched Chernobyl. I want to watch that. Oh, I haven't seen ballers I've been dying to watch ballers and like I'm trying to like all these shows are like, oh my god. Like right now we're in the middle of we just finished blacklist. So we just caught up again, seven seasons of blacklist. Wow. That's a commitment. We went through that in about three weeks. My wife and I we just pile through it, man. It was like, it's so good. And now we're like, How to Get Away with Murder. We're in the first season of .Such a great show. So good. Good.

Joshua Caldwell 1:10:47
We kind of stopped around season three, but it's it's good first seasons really, really good.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:51
Yeah, it's a really good, really good show. And now we're like after that, like, well, let's jump jump into remote. And then Netflix is popping out stuff. Every frickin week. And we haven't mentioned Tiger.

Joshua Caldwell 1:11:03
Tiger King. Oh, God. See, the fun part is like my wife and I are the opposite. Like, because we have like, we have our two young kids. I have a six year old two and a half year old. Like we get, you know, we get them down to a maybe we have till 10 because our kids are waking up at six. I'm like, look at all these people on Twitter that I fall and they're just like watching four movies a day. I'm like, you guys, nothing has changed for me back. I've consumed less content than I did before. No waiting because no time and I can't watch stuff around my kids. I can't put on like pocalypse now around my six year old like he's gonna be like what is although they have seen parts of infamous which is pretty, pretty graphic.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:46
No, it's like, I haven't like to watch a film. I've watched fewer films. I'm watching a lot of television. Like because we could stop midway and it's not that big of a deal. And you can just kind of cook through it. But actual cinema sitting down and enjoying so like the next big event for me and it's not even cinema is Hamilton when it comes out. Last year I'm like, Yes. Um, so it's been a dream of mine to get tickets. We haven't gotten tickets out. I was my wife was just about to get me tickets for my birthday. Or favorite this season because it came back to LA. It came back to LA and and then COVID happened. So I'm like, I'm never gonna see Hamilton. And now when I had July 3, baby, I'm like,

Joshua Caldwell 1:12:28
I also like to how they were like, Oh, they decided to move it up a year early. I'm like a year they were gonna sit

Alex Ferrari 1:12:33
I'm talking about you paid 75 mil for that. Come on. Jesus. Sorry. shot it like two years ago, which is great. No, no, they shot it first year. No, it was first. Yeah, whenever they would see original cast.

Joshua Caldwell 1:12:47
Right, right. I'm saying I don't know what that was what date that was, but it was a while ago. So they've been sitting on it for like,

Alex Ferrari 1:12:52
oh, they've they've sat on that for since the beginning and they just holding on to it waiting for the moment to finally release it. Okay, let's not go down our Hamilton path because I I've listened to so I can literally verbatim sing that the soundtrack. I've listened to that thing so much. Um, okay, so moving forward, man. I just like to hear what you think if you're a filmmaker, and you know, you and I've been down the street a bit a little bit been around a block couple times got a couple of movies on our belt. We've been working in the industry for a while. You're just starting out, man. And you're in COVID? What do you do? Like how do you like if you're just start like right now? You're at home? You got a camera? Maybe you have a couple friends? Who gives zoom? you zoom in on? Like, how do you like how do you start? Like what do you do because this is not going to go away in a month. I'm I'm fairly certain that this is going to be until 2021 and beyond. Before things start to settle back up right next summer. Will things will start to maybe start coming back hopefully by then. So that's a while what do you do, man? What do you do as a filmmaker?

Joshua Caldwell 1:14:00
Well, I mean look like if anything you shouldn't feel as urgent to you know, you shouldn't feel in that position where like, I got to get it done. I got to get my feature made I'm losing time. Right. Like I mean, I remember being 22 being like I haven't made a feature yet.

Alex Ferrari 1:14:14
I gotta do it. Orson Orson Welles made his 23 What am I doing with my life?

Joshua Caldwell 1:14:18
Yeah, like, like feeling that hurry? I mean, to me, I think it's the perfect time to be kind of fucking around. And like doing it without consequence. You know? Because learning I think that's Yeah, learning because I think that's one if you haven't gone to film school, that's what film school should be. But to you know, you're gonna there's gonna come a time where there's a lot of money. Hopefully, for some people out there, there's gonna come a time where there's a lot of money on the line. And if they fuck up, there's not going to be another chance, you know? And so what better time to be in a position where like, basically, you're like, you can't do anything except that which has no public consequence, right? Like, you're not going to feel compelled. You don't necessarily need to feel compelled to release it. You know, because you're like, I'm just gonna learn, I'm gonna learn how to go to green screen. I'm gonna like, I mean, thank god like it's not 2005 where you're like, all you're stuck with is Alex Ferrari is one site

Alex Ferrari 1:15:16
That one DVD

Joshua Caldwell 1:15:19
You don't know how to, you know, you're like, wow, I want to do lightsaber, it's like, well, sorry, I didn't do lightsabers and broken sorry. And you got all these broken knockoffs coming out? I think it's like, you know, you, you've got such a resource online, now, anything you want to do, Oh, do this, do that, do this, that and try taking the time because now you've given this sort of, you've been given a little bit of a pause button, you know, to, to, to kind of work on your craft, and you have if you have some friends, you know, I mean, look, it's, if you could do some fun stuff, you know, but like, the best thing that you can do is be in a position to work on people with performance, and that's hard. You know, so is it? Is it doing some live readings? You know, over zoom? Is it getting? Is it working on your writing? You know, is it is it sitting down writing because, like I look, I I've been in a position where I feel rushed or used to feel rushed to writing and I the scripts were not ready. They were not the best ideas. You know? I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do, let alone Tell me what other people to do it.

Alex Ferrari 1:16:23
Look, I was I was riding my bike with my family around the neighborhood the other day, and I saw an indie film crew, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And as I turn the corner I saw cuz you could smell them. You could just there's just something you could point them out. Like, I didn't see the crew yet. I didn't see the cast yet. But there was just something about their energy. I'm like, they're shooting something. I'd look around. I'm like, oh, there's a red. Okay, so they got a red. So there's the DP, the director, I guess, a producer, somebody else in a car, building it out. Right? No masks, no masks, no social distancing. Then I turn the corner there seven actors, huddled together together all standing together in costume. And they're making a quarantine movie. Can we just say right now? anyone listening? I'm sorry, if you're in the middle of editing your quarantine short, or your quarantine feature that you think you're really ahead of the game that no one else is doing? on the pulse of the society right now that you were the first to jump out at this. Please understand, I've been sent easily 15 to 20 quarantine shorts to look at in the last three weeks. And there's a Oh all the time. I'm getting them all the time that hey, we went on shot this court. Like it's just another way to kind of hack the system. And I was the king of trying to hack the system. Trying to like right, get the leverage whatever I could do to stand out and all that kind of Yeah. Stop. Nobody wants to watch a quarantine film. I have one quarantine film that they do want to watch. And that's contagious. Yeah, continue the content. I just finished outbreak I just finished outbreak again. I just watched I hadn't seen this is 95 I watched outbreak I'm gonna pry watch contagion. But that's not a quarantine movie. That's Yeah, exactly. That was a contagion.

Joshua Caldwell 1:18:19
But But even even so it's like, you know, and beyond that. Nobody is gonna want to watch it when this is all over? Oh, no, everybody's writing scripts or like, you know, nobody one, nobody's gonna make it. But to him, like even if they made it. This is the last thing anybody wants to watch.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:32
Nobody wants to watch.

Joshua Caldwell 1:18:34
Right? a comedy. The only thing anybody's gonna want to watch this comedy, you know, but I think I think that's true. And to that point, like, if it's for a quarantine short, like, I just find that incredibly irresponsible, because you're risking other people get sick, yes, for a movie that nobody wants to see. And so I think that's important too, which is like don't make quarantine short. Nobody's gonna watch it. Don't put people into you know, danger. Because you're trying to get a short made, don't make them feel like they've got to work if they don't, you know, or risk it for it. Because this isn't worth it. And, you know, I think that it's about having the time and the space to figure out something a story that you want to tell because that's it. It doesn't even even with like Southland I mean, I'm sorry, it was called South like, even with infamous You know, I've done a couple movies, but I haven't done anything that would make somebody go like, Oh, definitely, let's give this guy 20 million to do this movie. You know, so for me, it really came down to I just need a good script, a really good script that's going to attract talent, and attract finance ears because the talents attracted to it, you know, right. And I think that that takes time took me three years. You know, if you're not picking back up till 2022, like you got some time to get that script going. You know, so I think it really comes back to the the act of I do believe that like we need to get a little bit away from the technology side of it and this idea of cameras and this and that. Please stay on. Big breach. People just don't, they don't care. They don't care that you move your shot on red. They don't care that was shown on Alexa Mini, no care that is shot on iPhone, if it's engaging, and it's a good story and it's personal and it makes them feel something. They'll watch it, they'll get behind it.

Alex Ferrari 1:20:16
You know, absolutely look at ego and desire was shot on a Blackmagic 1080 p camera shot at MPP. It doesn't matter if you know and of course tangerine on an iPhone. We've gone past the point where the image is the barrier, like when I did make broken with the dv x mini DV standard def, there was limits to the image quality now literally what you have in your pocket is fine. Is it? Yeah. Is it the Alexa mini? No. But if you're making a certain kind of movie, who cares? I mean, so it's good enough for zabur he's doing I he's, he's he's doing all right. You know, you're right. But he also has a few Oscars under his belt too. So he can do stuff like that.

Joshua Caldwell 1:21:01
If he peed a few things, you know, but it's, I mean, his stuff was great. Like, I love the basketball movie. Like, you know, I thought it was cool. You know?

Alex Ferrari 1:21:10
He's, I love He's like, he's my here's my power animal.

Joshua Caldwell 1:21:13
I just want to see the movie. I want to see the movie he does during quarantine because you know, he's doing something.

Alex Ferrari 1:21:18
It's not contagious to I could tell you that. Yeah,

Joshua Caldwell 1:21:21
I mean, but he's doing something on his iPhone and he's gonna star in it. It's gonna be dishonorable.

Alex Ferrari 1:21:26
I think they brought him in for the DGA.

Joshua Caldwell 1:21:29
They put him as the head. He's like the head of like the DGA like recovery thing or something

Alex Ferrari 1:21:33
Like how to shoot in contagion? Yes. And is it? Isn't it the most Hollywood thing to do? Or get the guy who shot the movie about a pandemic put him in charge of figuring out how to shoot a movie during a panda? Yeah. Which has nothing to do with the movie, how he made it, just like he must know more than we do. When I heard that, I'm like, that's so Hollywood is like, get the guy who shoots. Yeah, it gets the guy who shoots airplanes, like do you know? Do you know how Tony Scott got a Top Gun? No, he shot a commercial with an F 18 landing behind a Honda or like a Mercedes or something. Oh, really? Right. And Jerry Bruckheimer is like, that's our guy.

Joshua Caldwell 1:22:15
That guy? Yeah. I'd be cool if you could, like, easily get a commercial with a f 18 Hornet and

Alex Ferrari 1:22:23
The 80s. And it was Tony Scott. He was Yeah, it was browsing commercials before he shot his first movie, rest in peace, Tony, we miss you.

Joshua Caldwell 1:22:31
It's, you know, I just think it's the craft, you know, the craft will be there. But I think the storytelling won't be and I think you know, take the time, also learn stuff, I mean, get get away from it to, you know, like, get away from you a little bit. Learn as much as you can something else learn as much as you can read some books I put exploring, yeah, you give it a pause, but nobody's doing anything. And odds are like, if you're a new person, like they're not going to be considering your script, like even, even if they're looking at scripts now and doing development, like nobody's playing to shoot anything right away. And the things that come back are the things that they know they can make money on. Right. So it's a little bit of Arrested Development of bow tie at the moment, which is, you know, I'm sure difficult for everybody, because sitting through, you know, a year two years of this can be tough, you know, but at the same time, like, I also know, if you're in your 20s, that's two years closer to being in your 30s when you're more likely to have success and more likely to get given.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:24
So just click through those 20s as fast as possible. It's what you say period,

Joshua Caldwell 1:23:28
Those 20s enjoy yourself. Have some fun, go have some adventures, get some life experience, then come back and tell stories about it. That's what you need to do.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:35
Look, I just woke up yesterday. I'm 45 Dude, I don't know how that happened. Like I don't don't look at I appreciate it's clean living sir. Clean living. But I mean, yeah, your 20s are a blur.

Joshua Caldwell 1:23:48
But I wasted way too much of my 20s Oh, I wish to try and make it. You know, I should have enjoyed my 30s I'm rebalancing it out and

Alex Ferrari 1:23:58
I'm seeing exactly yeah, it's only only age, if you're in your 20s guys, enjoy yourselves hurt, you know, hustle, learn, grow, get experience, but take advantage because I promise you Your body will never be that good again. No, no matter how good a shape you are. Yeah, if you're vegan, if you you're in amazing shape. Just be kind Be kind to your ankles and knees.

Joshua Caldwell 1:24:27
I am a professor of film don't Professor history of Bill professor in college who ended up he was so great, but he always had this thing. He was like basically you turn a tee and then you start to die.

Alex Ferrari 1:24:38
That's exactly true. Like your peak is 18 physically in your 30s You're dead already. Basically. You're dead man walking.

Joshua Caldwell 1:24:47
You're definitely walking at that point. You're like, Yeah, all right. Thanks for the encouragement. So can you tell everybody where they can find infamous and and get in contact with you or see more of your work? So infamous is gonna be Everywhere VOD, not subscription. You know, so not Hulu, not Netflix, but on June 12, will be everywhere iTunes Amazon, buddhu. Fandango, Google, you name it, you probably see it. And, you know, I'm on Twitter at Joshua underscore Caldwell. I'm on Instagram at Joshua Caldwell director. You know, those are good places to kind of get on on there and find me and, you know, I've really, you know, kind of, you know, this, I mean, coming on this podcast talking through stuff, how we did things, I tend to be trying to be very open as open as it can be about that process. And what that's like and respond in kind to, you know, I people hit me up, like, trying to do this, I live in Africa and want to come to the states go to film school and like, why? He's like, well, you get better. I'm like, dude, make yourself good there, you know, and then they'll come find you. But, you know, the thing that I the thing that I always say to people is like, if you can, if you can just take advantage of where you are, if you're in Kentucky, find some cool fucking ghost story that takes place only that is some legend in Kentucky that nobody's ever heard of. and shoot it there. People are so quick to get to LA, you know, because because if you get to LA, I mean, I did it. But it's like Dell, if you have a great story, you tell an awesome little story that's regional that's about your area and is really good and breaks out because nobody's heard of it before people will come find you.

Alex Ferrari 1:26:25
You know, so slacker slacker. mariachi clerks. Yeah, she's got to have it. Like all of those. They're all stories about where they're shocking. I mean, come on. Okay, stop it, just stop it around it. We've said that too many times. That's a personal story is a very personal story of, of a crazy person that gets kidnapped. Yes, and has special powers.

Joshua Caldwell 1:26:50
And, you know, but anyway, but I think that like, you know, there's a lot to be taken advantage of, especially if you're stuck at home, and you don't know where to go, like, do some local research. But yeah, but I mean, people are always, you know, people can feel free to reach out and I try to respond in kind. I'm always trying to be open about that process. And, you know, this kind of really insane journey.

Alex Ferrari 1:27:08
But man, Joshua, it has been a pleasure. As always, I know, we could probably sit and geek out for at least another five hours. But But I know you have kids

Joshua Caldwell 1:27:16
Do it over the years. We'll spread it out.

Alex Ferrari 1:27:18
I mean, you've got kids to go take care of now and homeschool.

Joshua Caldwell 1:27:20
So we got to stop the bouncing.

Alex Ferrari 1:27:23
Exactly. Man. It's a pleasure, brother. Thank you again for sharing your adventures with the tribe, man. Thanks again.

Joshua Caldwell 1:27:29
Great. Thanks, Alex.

Alex Ferrari 1:27:31
I want to thank Joshua for coming back on the show and dropping those major knowledge bombs on the tribe today. If you want to check out his movie, the trailer for his film, or links to his other episodes, head over to the show notes at indiefilmhustle.com/393. And guys, I just wanted to give you an update that my film distribution confidential course, which is the film course, that all distributors do not want you to take, because it will give you way, way too much information about their process. And how not to you guys not to get screwed, is coming along fantastically. Now, if you do want to sign up for early access, because I am going to be emailing those people on that they have signed up for early access, they're going to get not only a special price, but they're going to help me build and beta test this course because I want this course to be the ultimate film distribution, current film distribution course, anywhere in the world. So if you want to get access to it early, and get a special price for it, head over to indiefilmhustle.com/fdc that's FDC like film distribution confidential, so indiefilmhustle.com/fdc and I'll put that in the show notes as well. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you're hanging in there in this crazy, crazy upside down world that we're living in right now. This too shall pass we will get past this year. just won 2020 to be overweight. I really am not looking forward to the fall to the summer or the fall at this point. Because God knows I was talking to a friend the other day I'm like, you know any day now the mole people and the the dwell, the ocean dwelling people are going to come up to fight for supremacy for for Earth. So that's coming any day now. I think I saw Atlantis popping up and the aliens should be attacking momentarily. I mean, that's the I mean seriously, that's what's left for 2020. But when I said the same thing early on in 2020. So let's let's just hold our tongue and hopefully nothing else. Major happens this year. So thank you again, so much for listening. As always keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive. Stay safe, and I'll talk to you soon.