IFH 212: OUTATIME & the Back to the Future DeLorean Documentary with Steve Concotelli

Alex Ferrari 1:18
So guys, today we have on the show a very cool filmmaker by the name of Steve conch, italie he directed a documentary on one of my favorite movies of all time, of course called Back to the Future. And he made a movie about the restoration of the DeLorean, anyone who's ever watched Back to the Future knows how important that DeLorean is, it is a one of the seminal parts of pop culture. And it was dying in the backlog of universal I saw there when I did my tours back in the day. And I was like, Wow, it seems so sad. And it's just been tore up by the elements. And he was able to get together with the producer Bob Gale, of Back to the Future, as well as some amazing talented artists that work and mechanics who are going to be able to put together and put back together the DeLorean. And the movie is called out of time saving the DeLorean Time Machine now wanted to have Steve on the show, because he wanted to kind of talk about we haven't had a lot of documentary filmmakers on first of all, so I wanted to get a few more of those on this year, as well as to discuss the process of dealing with a big studio with a huge IP, huge intellectual property for universal and how he was able to get this whole thing going, you know, he was starting doing the documentary without permission, and then finally got permission and how he got it onto a blu ray, special edition anniversary and all this kind of stuff and how he was able to make money with the film, how he's able to tour with the movie, and different kind of distribution. ideas that he was able to implement, because of the rabid fan base of the film of the original trilogy. There's a lot of knowledge bombs in this episode. So if you are a fan of Back to the Future, it's going to even be more so and I think most people listening have seen has seen Back to the Future. If you have not seen Back to the Future, for God's sakes, what's wrong with you stop listening to this podcast right now and go watch it on Netflix or Amazon or rent it or do whatever, but you need to watch the Back to the Future trilogy. But without any further ado, here is my conversation with Steve Concotelli. How are you doing, sir?

Steve Concotelli 3:30
I'm doing just fine. How are you Alex?

Alex Ferrari 3:32
Thank you, brother. Thank you, man, thanks so much for being on the show. I'm a huge fan of your movie out of time. And you know, I'm obviously a huge fan of Back to the Future. And I thought this would be a beautiful melding of, of not only geeking out because we are going to geek out in this episode a bit, but also discovering how you made the movie and went down the road and your Kickstarter your distribution plan and get to the nuts and bolts of actually making the movie but while we geek out a bit. So what gave you the idea of making out of time? Like how did you even wake up one morning go? I'm going to make a movie about restoring the DeLorean?

Steve Concotelli 4:11
Well, it's interesting. It started back in 2011 when Universal Studios first announced that they were going to restore the screen use Time Machine. And at the time to give a brief history at the time the screen just car had really started falling apart. You know it had been out at the Universal Studios backlog for 30 years. It was not in great shape. And so universal and Bob Gale made the announcement they were going to restore it. And I was fortunate enough to be very close friends with Joe Walzer who was the superfan in charge of the restoration. And so here you had this phenomenal year long restoration project that was going to kick off. And you know, I said well, is anybody filming this is you know, is anybody going to turn this into a movie because fans would love to see the nuts and bolts of this restoration and it turned out nobody had any plans. Do it. And so, you know, I kept asking who's doing this? Who's doing this? And finally just kind of dawned on me like, Oh, crap, I guess it's gonna be me then. Right? And and so I took it upon myself to just start documenting the entire restoration in the hopes of possibly turning it into a film, which we then did.

Alex Ferrari 5:19
And now How did you get Bob Gill and universal involved and actually get them to say, Hey, you, you're official, we give you the stamp of approval.

Steve Concotelli 5:30
That was a very, very long and nerve wracking process and beyond. Well, yeah, because I didn't work for Universal Studios. And so, you know, when I started shooting it, it wasn't exactly, you know, done with official authorization, I'll say that much. It was done. I was part of the restoration team, I was documenting it. And that was fine. But you know, turning it into a film is something that was entirely next level, like when you work with a studio, there's approvals and IP and licensing, and there's a lot of things that back then I had no concept of

Alex Ferrari 6:01
And they are not. And Back to the Future in the DeLorean. It's fairly popular IP.

Steve Concotelli 6:07
Yeah, that's the among their most popular intellectual property. And so we did it very slowly, and very methodically. And essentially, what it boiled down to is Bob Gale. Now, now Bob, is the CO creator of the Back to the Future trilogy, you know, he wrote them produce them, and he is the Godfather, even to this day of all things back to the future. So if any product, anything back to the future, gets approved, it goes through him, he's the authority. And luckily, Bob was spearheading the restoration, he was directly in charge of it. So as the restoration progressed, I got a chance to meet Bob and know Bob, and we put together halfway through the restoration, we did like a little five minute, here's what's going on with the restoration update that Bob hosted. So I shot footage of him. And we got to know each other and kind of test the waters to see what kind of reaction you know, the restoration footage would get. And, and, but yeah, and then, as we progressed and got further and further into filming, you know, it became clear like, Look, I really need to get some official endorsement from Universal. Because, you know, by the time a year long restoration was done, and then say a year of an interview, as I was two years into a project, I wasn't even sure I could produce legal. And like, oh, boy, what are we going to do? So Bob, sat me down with universals licensing team, their marketing teams, to to essentially essentially make a pitch for me to say, Look, he knows what he's doing. He's been doing this a long time. And, you know, basically, Bob gave me his official endorsement. But even then, I don't think universal was quite on board until 2015. I mean, that's three, three years that I wasn't sure. And then that's when they asked me to possibly put together something for the 30th anniversary blu ray that came out, you know, and they said, Can you do you have enough footage that you can cut together? Maybe a 15 minute feature out? I said, Sure. No problem. And I'm sure Universal Studios was afraid that, you know, I was just going to make them look terrible, because the shape of the car. And then I sent them a quick cut. And they saw it and as soon as they saw my movie, as soon as they saw they, they're like, okay, we totally get it. We're totally on board. Because it's it's not about blame. It's not about you know, oh, criticizing this party. It's not about fans being you know, sniping at each other. It's about celebrating this great car and everybody coming together to get it restored. And yeah, once they saw all their fears were gone. This Yep, will license this. You can have access to everything you need. I got all the proper permissions and all that stuff. And we were off like a shot but but it was I want understated, it was three years of very nervous, is this going to happen? Because all it would have taken was one phone call from universals legal department and boom, the whole film would have been shut down. And this is you know, after two and a half years of my time. So it was it was a it was a tough long road that I'm sure a couple other any filmmakers out there understand

Alex Ferrari 9:01
Oh, yeah, i know a few.

Steve Concotelli 9:03
Yeah, you know, and it, it could have easily broken the other way. And yeah, I had more than a few sleepless nights, sleepless months about that, to be honest.

Alex Ferrari 9:12
So Bob Gale was basically you were Donnie Brasco, and Bob Gale was alpa Chino. Yeah. And he's just he's the He's fine. He's with me. Work. Yeah. So he got you in the door, but it was your work that kept you in the door.

Steve Concotelli 9:25
Correct. I mean, Bob. Yeah, that's exactly what it was he he opened the door and he wouldn't have gone to bat for me if by then I hadn't already proven myself as a professional. You know, and the story I was trying to tell and yeah, you know, once universal saw it, they they embraced it. So definitely, but it took a lot of convincing and a lot of baby steps. And, and boy, you could do a whole episode just on the difficulty of trying to license intellectual property from a studio because, like, like, I'm a fan. Like when I started this movie, I truly had no idea of what it took to make a movie like this because I'm sure a lot of your listeners are thinking, Oh, you make a movie with the time machine, you go and shoot your footage, and you own it. So you just go and go and make a movie. But it turns out not to be the case. Because the car is owned by DreamWorks, or, you know, a subset of universal for it, the intellectual property, and then Universal Studios owns the film rights, and then you have to get approvals from you know, the producers and any actors that appear in the footage. And, and I had no concept of how to do any of that stuff.

Alex Ferrari 10:26
Let me ask you a question, though. And this is just a this now we're getting into a little bit of the weeds as far as legal and documentary is concerned. But documentaries do have a lot more leeway than narrative do in the sense that like, you know, I can remember Fahrenheit 911 where, you know, Michael Moore was basically ripping apart the the president of the time, George Bush, and he was using him in his documentary, and he was he didn't get any obviously didn't get any permission for that. How does it work? Why can't you just document something and release it to a certain extent or not?

Steve Concotelli 11:00
Well, I bet if I wanted to put it on YouTube, I probably could have gotten away with it, but I wanted to release it and try to make money off of it. And that's, that's an entirely different ballpark. Because if you're trying to monetize somebody else's intellectual property, that's, that's the line you you have to have legal permission for. And, and to be honest, you know, like, I was getting to know, Bob and I have tremendous respect for universal. I wanted to do it the right way. You know, I, I wanted Universal Studios to endorse the film and, and, and be a part of it and not fight against it. And, you know, I did, I didn't want to just try to release it as like a fan documentary, I wanted their stamp of approval so that the world would know, like, Look, universal, has declared this the official time machine documentary, and, you know, it's, it's quality content. And, and thankfully, that's what happened. And yeah, and the blu ray in 2015 really kind of jump started that because once once I had a little 15 minute feature at on the official blu ray, I was an official part of the franchise and that right, and that helped that but I, you know, it's still involved, you know, licensing and paperwork and attorneys and title clearances. You know, I mean, even even the title of my film, which is out of time, like the Time Machine license plate, even that was like, when I started Can I use that? Is that owned by somebody does universal own that does the DMV on that? Who do I have to ask? And you know, all these questions had to go down this infinite rabbit hole of minutia and felt like okay, you somebody universal said it was okay, I use this, you know, and it's just, it's, it's so far out in the weeds when you're producing these indie Doc's that it just it boggles the mind. You spend like 75 or 80% of your time dealing with things that have nothing to do with making your movie, as I'm sure you can attest.

Alex Ferrari 12:44
Yes, absolutely. No, I was, I was working on a show for Hulu, and the characters that the ads director and the producers wanted to get some universal characters on some t shirts, like yeah, like that they live. And the Brian Frank glasses. Yeah, exact because the whole show was about the whole episode of that series was about guys putting eyeglasses so it was kind of like a wink, wink, nudge nudge. And they got it. You know, they it was, it was fairly simple, honestly, to get a right to get the they live logo or whatever. Put on a T shirt. And you have to make it yourself. It has to be custom. You can't sell the T shirt. But it was but it did. There was some paperwork. And then there was a back and forth and they wanted some other people that like, yeah, we kind of own that one. But it's also a quarter owned by somebody else. Exactly. So you might have to go somewhere else. So exactly like you're talking about, like the DeLorean his own partly by DreamWorks or Spielberg at that point, right?

Steve Concotelli 13:45
Yeah, it's, it's a subset of one of the conglomerates and somebody, you know, the appropriate person at the appropriate subset company had to have an email that says, you know, yes, we authorize this, you know, and again, they don't know who I am. I'm just a fan trying to make a film and, and studios, and rightfully so are very leery about, you know, fans saying, hey, I want to make a movie about your movie. Let me use your IP or your footage. Sure. And And so yeah, it's uh, I'll say this. If you're making a unique documentary about something like unrelated, go for it. But to make a feature Doc, about a very famous feature film is among the most difficult and dumbest things you can try to do. Well, there was a movie. The the shark, the shark.

Alex Ferrari 14:28
Shark is still working. Yeah, you're still working, which was legendary, because it took forever for it to come out. Like they had interviews with Roy Scheider before he died and, and they had Spielberg they had Dreyfus they had everybody and universal was like, I don't know and this is where everybody was like, when is this coming out? I remember that. And finally, it got released like on the 30th anniversary or whatever. 40th anniversary Yeah, release on a DVD somewhere and we finally get to see it, which was a great doc but What a one thing saving, but you were better?

Steve Concotelli 15:04
Well, I appreciate it. But I think they had the same thing to where, when the anniversary of jaws came around the studio was looking for content that tied into that. And here, you know, these fans had essentially made this entire film for them, like, oh, why don't we just give them the okay to release that, you know, and, and my situation on out of time was kind of similar. Were back in 2011, when the restoration started, and I started shooting footage, I was already thinking, look, in three years, they're probably going to do a 30th anniversary release. And then they're gonna want some of this content, right. And sure enough, you know, in 2015, universal called, hey, we're thinking about a blu ray, do you have something? I'm like, I got you covered. Believe me.

Alex Ferrari 15:48
I've got so I'm looking at your blu ray as we speak, sir. Yeah, I've got that. 30 that aversary.

Steve Concotelli 15:55
Yeah. And I have a nice little out of time feature right on there, which, you know, is a fan is no, I think that's something that I did completely by myself, like my own time. With my own crappy camera editing it on my own crappy home edit system is on the official back the future blu ray, like behind Doc Brown is mind boggling. I still can't believe it. But it happened.

Alex Ferrari 16:17
Now you you also started a Kickstarter campaign. And you knew you'd launch the Kickstarter game, which was fairly successful. It was very successful, actually. Yeah. Now, how did you prep and launch the Kickstarter campaign? Because I've had, I mean, I did my own crowdfunding campaign for my feature film. And but you know, this is it could be a beast, but you also have you also had a, a wonderful audience to tap into. So how did you prep it and launch it?

Steve Concotelli 16:47
Well, Kickstarter is its own separate nightmare. I'll just start by that. All right, Kickstarter, for all the people who think Look at all that free money. Now, if I had simply gone to work every day, and work a regular job, I would have made far more money. That's a simple true, amen. And Kickstarter is a nightmare. And even like, your worst fear with Kickstarter is that you won't succeed. Your second worst fear is that you do succeed. Now, why is that? Why is that? Well, because if you're wildly successful, suddenly, you know, like, I found myself with 600, bosses, all demanding, like, when is this going to be done? We know when, when or what are you doing what's going on. And it was like having 6600 managers emailing me all the time, asking questions, and vast majority were great, but you do get some squeaky wheels. And I was very, very sensitive, because first, I wanted to have a good Kickstarter. But second is that I didn't want anybody bad mouthing me to Universal Studios. Because whether whether I accepted it or not, by having this film, and Bob Gale was in my Kickstarter video, so by having by having his endorsement, I, whether I like it or not represent Back to the Future. I represent the franchise and I represent the studio. And I took all that very seriously. So every time I would answer a question or deal with the public, I did it professionally straightforward in the most kind of corporate appeasing way that I could, because the last thing I wanted to do was to have you know, Bob, get some angry email from a family who is this? Who's the Steve guy? And what's he doing? And he's running Back to the Future like that would have been the death of my film. Right. But but to backtrack, and in terms of what we did, we, we set the bar, our goal for the film was $25,000, which I thought was pretty reasonable. And I didn't think we'd hit it. And Joe Walzer, who is the head of the restoration, and he's the main guy in the film, he was very involved in one thing Joe does aside from making time machines is he's a master at marketing. And he said, Steve, we're gonna blow the doors off it. And I didn't believe him. And he goes, trust me, within 24 hours, we hit our $25,000 like one. And then I think we ended around 75,000, which was three times our goal, which is great. But nervous and, and the way we prepped for it was I would say, not enough. That's not exactly true. I I benefited because during the entire restoration, Joe had set up a Facebook page for the time machine restoration team. And it was for fans to kind of track the progress and Joe was very tied into all the Back to the Future online Facebook pages, the big ones, all of them. So he already had access to a very large very rabid Back to the Future audience. And that was the reason my Kickstarter was successful. I if I had tried building it from scratch, it would have taken a year you know, just to try to get up to speed and building word of mouth. But Joe had been cultivating this because of the restoration for two years and we had been putting videos online you know, so his own Facebook page had but 75,000 people and then the other back of the user pages had millions, right so once we decided to launch our Kickstarter he posted everywhere on all the Facebook pages for back feature. Check this out. It's official. And then when people clicked on our Kickstarter, there was Bob Gale sitting right next to me in my Kickstarter video. And Bob is essentially saying you can trust this guy, he's going to finish this project, you can trust your money with him. And that and that. Put a lot of people over the top because you know, fan docs are a dime a dozen. It's easy for anybody to do it. But to have the creator sitting there next to me endorsing me gave my huge Yeah, it gave me a lot of credibility. And then the other thing we did that was excellent is we had fantastic Kickstarter giveaways, like, like, tears, tears that nobody else had. And the most popular one was, we made small five by 7000 desktop display shadow boxes, with pieces that were taken out of the time machine that were too damaged to put back in. So we turn them into collectible display cases that were with a CFA signed by Bob Gale and Joe Walzer. So essentially, you could own legally a piece of the time machine for real.

Alex Ferrari 21:00
And what was the cost of that? Just curious, way too low.

Steve Concotelli 21:03
We priced them, we priced them at like 200 bucks, I would have thought that they sold out in like 15 minutes. And then we did a second round of them. Like I think I could have charged $400 for those suckers. I had no idea.

Alex Ferrari 21:15
No, you would have probably you could have easy, depending on what it is you could apart 500 or 1000 a pop and

Steve Concotelli 21:21
Yeah, all day. Yeah, that we could have been you know, in retrospect, hindsight is 2020. But we, you know, again, it wasn't about trying to, you know, rake them over the coals that was just to get those out and stuff and, and they were wildly popular. We had a really cool poster, I had some artwork that I'd taken over the finished car. But we had stuff that wasn't just like just the movie, it was real. Back to the Future, like official type stuff. And it just just blew the doors off. So it was, you know, and then at the end of the Kickstarter, I'm sitting there thinking, Oh, God, now I have to fulfill all this nightmare stuff, which that's, and I filled everything myself, right. Like I didn't have a fulfillment company, I boxed and shipped, you know, 600 individual items to our back guard backers across the world. That's an education in itself. Hmm. And believe me while you're sitting there boxing up, like, out of time license plates at two in the morning, you're thinking to yourself, man, I should, I should have just gone to work. I should have just gone to work.

Leading it's just and I know we all go through that every indie filmmaker has that same story about just like how much of a nightmare it is. And it's like a bootcamp Brotherhood in that regard.

Alex Ferrari 22:34
No, there's no question it is it is fairly brutal. And at your level, I could only imagine and again, you had such a responsibility, because you were representing Back to the Future. So that it's not like another little indie movie that no one ever heard of, like, You're, you're doing an official doc.

Steve Concotelli 22:50
And not just that, but I couldn't pull the plug like, you know, I wanted to quit the film about a dozen times over, you know, the years just because it was exhausting and too much work and just a drain. But you can't you know, because I am representing this giant franchise, and I have to represent the best of what it is. How long did it take you from start to finish? Oh, for a little over four years, which, at the time, I thought that was forever. And then I and then as I met other indie filmmakers, I realized that's on the short end of indie filmmaking.

Alex Ferrari 23:23
Taya, Doc Doc's can go for a while.

Steve Concotelli 23:25
Yeah, I've got friends who've been making Doc's for 789 years, and they're still not done. So I, for years felt like a long time. But um, you know, it was actually bought right on par with most. And considering how much I did by myself. That was, you know, I think that was a pretty decent schedule.

Alex Ferrari 23:43
And you do come from an editing and post production background. Now, you couldn't you wouldn't have been able to make this movie unless you were the editor.

Steve Concotelli 23:50
Yeah, I don't think so. I, I've been a professional, like, television editor in Los Angeles for about 12 years now. So, you know, I knew that I needed to edit it, not just for myself, but because I had over what, 120 hours of footage. And it would have been too hard for anybody else to get up to speed on where this stuff was, you were shooting it as well. Yeah, because I shot it. And so I knew kind of where stuff was I knew how the how the restoration progressed. And then I shot all the interviews. And then I went through and logged all the interviews, so I knew where all the sound bites were. And I know several other friends who are top notch professional editors, but it would have taken them weeks just to try to get up to speed to find anything. And then you know, after working 12 hours of their day job, the last thing they want to do is come home and try to cut my film, you know, and and I couldn't have afforded any of them even if they wanted to. So it just it fell on me.

Alex Ferrari 24:42
Now can you explain to the audience and this is something I preach about a lot about tapping into an existing fan base when you're making a project because it's so invaluable? I mean, you I know. Yes. And a lot of people like Oh, he's making something for Back to the Future. That's monsters fan base. I'm like yes. But the concept is still the same is if you went out to create a product that was going to be sold to a audience, and you knew what that audience wants, and you gave that audience what they want it. And it's that that concept can go from narrative to documentary. But can you explain the power of that?

Steve Concotelli 25:20
Well, I think it would be hard to make a documentary, if you didn't already have, identify your fan base and who you're trying to appeal to. I mean, you're right back to the future. It has a gigantic fan base. And not just that, but sci fi fans tend to be very tactically adapt. You know, they're they're online, they consume digital media, they like blu rays, over DVDs, they are digital download and streaming so that they're very active online. And that's definitely the Back to the Future fan base. And, you know, trying to tap into that is is essential. I don't know if I could have made the movie without it. But even then, even with the gigantic fan base that they have, it's still difficult because my film from the outside is it's a niche film. It's a film about a car, where the car and or even a restoration.

Alex Ferrari 26:07
Yeah, is arguably it's the car.

Steve Concotelli 26:09
Yeah. And you know, a lot of people you hear that you're like, Oh, it's a, you know, it's like an episode of monster garage where they're, they're wrenching on a car for an hour. It's just like, Well, no, you know, and to try to explain what it isn't like, Oh, is it? You know, is it a documentary about, you know, behind the scenes of the filmmaking? No, that's, that's, that's not what this is. This is about the history and restoration of this screen use Time Machine. And so you know, like it, you know, every even that cuts back on the potential audience within back the feature that you can apply to? And yeah, you want to make your audience as big as possible. And, you know, thankfully, they had a very big fan base, but trying to build it from scratch. I I don't know if I could have done it.

Alex Ferrari 26:50
Well, then also, I mean, you're right, because, you know, like, perfect example. I always use this example. The Vegan vegan chef movie. Yeah. You know, you. Yeah, exactly. It's like you're like these people are interested in cooking like, Well, no, it's it's cooking. And people are interested in cooking, but it's vegan cooking. And now with vegan cooking, there's raw vegan cooking, correct. There's vegetarian, there's paleo. There's all sorts of other sub genres of the larger cooking. So same thing goes with here, there's a Back to the Future fan. And then there are fans of like, of the DeLorean. and would like to see that so that it is big, but it's still a smaller sub subset of that.

Steve Concotelli 27:29
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And that's, you know, when you're making this film, you have no idea how big or how small that subset is going to be. And that's, that's one of the biggest risks of any filmmaking is when you take on a passion project, you know, you're you're in it to the end and, and it could fly and it could flop and you just kind of have to write it out. And whatever happens happens.

Alex Ferrari 27:49
Now when you when you finish the movie, so the movies done now, how did you mark thank goodness, thank God, it's over. It's over. I've gave I've given birth, I'm done. Yeah. Did you distribute the film yourself? Did you market the film yourself? Or did you have universal help you How did that whole process go?

Steve Concotelli 28:07
Universal, didn't help market the film itself, because, and this is, again, is the legality of a major studio. My I had licensed footage, but my film wasn't an official Universal Studios film, The featurette on the 30th anniversary, Blu Ray was but when it came time, and I made my feature length standalone version of the film, you know, they were hesitant to promote it, because oh, it's not one of our films, and blah, blah, blah. They did give me some shout outs on their Facebook page, which was great. But in terms of marketing, actually, a lot of that was once again, Joe Walzer was him, motivating and kind of, you know, gathering the troops on the Facebook pages and other social media platforms to get the word out to all the big Back to the Future. Facebook pages and user groups, and I did some discussion on the prop replica forum. You know, those guys, they love props.

Alex Ferrari 29:02
So that's, that's a whole other sub genre to like, yeah, price is the ultimate This is the ultimate prop.

Steve Concotelli 29:07
Yeah, but but in terms of distribution, I actually have a domestic distribution company for North America. And so I handed over the actual, you know, creation and distribution and getting on all the streaming services, they handled that, okay. And again, that's a whole other subject is, you know, distribution distributor versus going with an actual domestic distributor, let's, if you don't, I'm still walking through that for international.

Alex Ferrari 29:37
So let me let me ask you a question that and you can say, I don't want to talk about it, or you can answer it. Do you think that because if you would have come to me and I would have been consulting you on this project, and you would have come to me like Alex, I have this movie, it's it's about Back to the Future about the machine Time Machine. What do you think I should do? Should I try to self distribute this or should I go through a distributor for domestic We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. And I would have sold you 110% that goes self distribution purely because you had such a fan base that would have turned up for Yes. Because for internationals different International, absolutely, but for self distribute for domestic, which is what I did, you know, and I had no nowhere near the fan base of Baghdad. And we have been fairly successful with it. I think you could have done gangbusters so I'm curious on why you chose that route? Because it was what year was it? When you finally released this?

Steve Concotelli 30:44
The feature came out last year 2016.

Alex Ferrari 30:46
So distribute was around self distribution is the thing. Yeah, all that thing. I looked into it. So what was the reasoning behind you choosing a traditional distributor versus a self distribution outlet? And also do you know, Mr. If you want to answer this, are you happy with your choice?

Steve Concotelli 31:02
Fair enough! Well, I won't mention my distributor by name. But you know, at the time of my thinking was this is that because of the the subject matter. It was, you know, car car based and it was kind of the way I produced it was kind of modular, I have a TV background. I was really hoping to also get it on television. And to and to do that the distributor I went with had a very solid reputation for indie Doc's high profile indie Doc's, I vetted them, because I've heard horror stories about, but yeah, terrible. So Believe me, I did my work. I vetted them against several people and in industry, people, I trusted to make sure that they had an actual reputation. And then, but I was wanted to try to get them on television rights, because I felt it was a great property for like, you know, the Back to the Future trilogy, screenings on TBS. Okay, here's an extra hour of awesome content that ties in Sure. And, and I didn't really have the method to do that myself. That was the next level up of distribution beyond me. Sure. And I needed help for that. And, and to be honest, I had done so much of this film by myself that I was ready to ask for some help. Yeah, like, you know, like, I didn't so much, I dropped the ball on so much because I was doing it by myself and details missed that I didn't want to screw up my distribution. So I was like, I want to hand it off to a group of professionals who know how to get the marketing out there the messaging who know the easiest way to get these produced for the cheapest way and and it was just, you know, it, it had everything I was looking for at the time. And so that's what I went with I mean, you know, now what I choose different Yeah, it's it's been about a wash I distributor, I have friends who have done distributor, I hear decent things. And I would certainly consider them next time around. But for this one, it just seemed like the best way to go for the situation I was in and then you're now doing an A you went through somebody else for international Actually, I just went around and around I had a company in LA that wanted to distribute internationally and then a my domestic distributors like great, you know, go sign up, it'll be awesome. And then they gave me their what they were looking for and what they wanted was out rageous expenses just outrageous as for

Alex Ferrari 33:11
Oh, you mean as far as like, you know how much it goes? There can and

Steve Concotelli 33:14
Yeah, yeah, like their their caps were just were like, more than I would ever make ever. And she's like, no, right. So now, you know, now I'm actually looking at you know, I was on the phone with the stripper just like a couple of weeks ago in terms of, do I want to do that or, or for international? Can I just put it on Vimeo, which I could do by myself. And I'm going around around with all that stuff right now.

Alex Ferrari 33:37
Still, right! Well, when we get off when we get off this interview, I'll talk to you a bit about that. So yeah. So can you did you tour at all with this film? Did you like go to conventions? Did you do anything like that?

Steve Concotelli 33:49
Yeah, I did. Actually, I went to a couple of the comic conventions where we screened the film and then I gave a couple of Q and A's. I went to San Jose Comic Con Philly Comic Con, I went to Salt Lake Comic Con a couple weeks ago. And then I actually I went to DeLorean DCs, which is the DeLorean convention that they have every two years, I went and spoke there and showed the film. So not like a full fledged tour. But but enough that I'm tired of flying all over talking about it. But yeah. And that was great. Like the convention stuff is, is fun, and especially when Back to the Future, had a large representation at all those conventions I went to, like, I went to the ones that Chris Lloyd was at that Michael J. Fox was at so there was already just a huge back of the future fan base there. And that's why I selected those.

Alex Ferrari 34:40
Now, did you sell anything there while you were there? Or I guess, okay,

Steve Concotelli 34:44
No, I whenever I went, I always had a table and I would sell some copies. And, you know, some days were more successful than others. You know, most of the time you sit there like, you know, the guy at the table with 20 copies of his movie he's trying to peddle you know, like I've been there

Alex Ferrari 34:59
A bit that night. It's Yeah, it's brutal.

Steve Concotelli 35:01
You know, you're that guy. But I always tried to at least hedge my bets, you know, so Terry and Oliver holler, they, they drive around the country, and they're, they're back to the time machine raising money for the Michael J. Fox foundation. And they're very well known, and they're at all the conventions. So if I was at a convention with them, I would try to get a table close to them, because there would be all the fans around the car, you know, and I tried to parlay as much as I could. But even then, you know, it's, it's still hard and, and breaking through and letting people know what my film was, was always the biggest hurdle. Just like, what what is this film? What is it about? You know, and that's, you know, I could I could list 1000 things that I did wrong on this film. And you know, and cutting through the clutter and having, you know, a clear title and, and letting fans clearly know what your film is about. It got a little muddy in there, and I'm even now I'm still trying to what is what's your movie about? I've never heard of it. What is it? Right, right.

Alex Ferrari 36:02
Now, did you? Did you get to meet? Meet Bob Zemeckis at all? I don't remember he was in the dock or not.

Steve Concotelli 36:08
No, no. Bob Zemeckis was not in the dock. I met Bob, very briefly once a few months ago and on it back to the future, an unrelated thing. But the only people I've met, I know Bob Gale, very well. I met Claudia wells, who was Jennifer Parker. I know her pretty well. Okay. I met Chris Lloyd. I met him a few times Tom Wilson. Never met Michael J. Fox, though because he was he was never at the same conventions that I was at. But, you know, like, it's if there's ever a Back to the Future thing in Los Angeles, and they're all there. I'm sure I will be there and get a chance to meet them. No, I mean, it's, it's it's cool. But again, like, you're in it for so long. After a while you're like, yeah, it's cool. But I'm okay. Sitting this one out. No, no,

Alex Ferrari 36:51
I did. Yeah. After you're on the same project for years and years and years. Because for you, it's not just a year that the movies been out. You've been on this? half a decade. Yeah.

Steve Concotelli 37:01
Yeah. Easy. Yeah. And it's just, and even now, you know, we're still promoting it and and back, the future still continues to be popular. And they're always talking about, you know, putting up fan events in the upcoming years. You know, they did a huge 30th back to the feature fan event in 2015. I don't know if you were a part of that at all, or if you went to it. Not at all. It was put on by Joe Walzer like the same guy who did the restoration. Of course, he's the one who put on this massive like five day back to the teacher, superfan event. And so like, you know, we were out at the pointy Hills Mall where they had a big like, they had a big twin pines mall sign built and put in the same place. And they had Doc's truck and you get pictures in front of it. I mean, it was it was like fan insanity. That's like a man like

Alex Ferrari 37:48
That's like mecca for back oh was like going like that it's going to that mall? Yeah, it's still there.

Steve Concotelli 37:54
Oh, yeah, the mall still there. And not only that, but they they screened the movie in the mall, like in the parking lot there. And then, of course, when they have the scene, you know what the terrorists they did, they reenacted it live in sync. So Marty drives the dorians driving around the crowd, and the VW is chasing around and there's 1000 fans just screaming their heads off. It's just like, like, this is just insanity. You know, like, it's so surreal. You can't even believe it's actually happening.

Alex Ferrari 38:20
That's that that must be insane.

Steve Concotelli 38:22
Yeah, Yeah,it was. It was mind blowing. And yeah, like 10 year old me like growing up in the Midwest and seeing Back to the Future on the screen. Like, if he saw that he'd be like, Well done, old Steve. Well done. Like that. That was a dream come true. Now, did you?

Alex Ferrari 38:37
Did you talk to Bob a lot. And you've been involved with Bob a lot? Did you discover any inside stories about the making of Back to the Future you could share?

Steve Concotelli 38:45
You know, oddly enough? No, I, I really, I really didn't. And actually, at the same time casting Gaines put out a book, which was like, we don't need roads. I think it was called the Back to the Future history, which had all those stories. So I just read his book. Oh, oh, these are the stories I didn't know. But but with Bob, you know, I honestly I tread pretty lightly. I when I when I'm around him. I try to be very cautious of his time. And I try to be very respectful because he's, he's still working. He's still a very busy guy, you know, he's got 1000 things to do. And, you know, I try to be cautious and I try not to, I try not to do the fan stuff. You know him. You know what I mean by that, like,

Alex Ferrari 39:28
I've been around like celebrity fans. And imagine when you're working with a person you idolize, or you're working with someone, you have a tremendous amount of respect, and you just want to kind of geek out to Yeah, it's tough. And trust me, I've been in I've been in a room with huge celebrities and movies that I want to that I grew up with, and I just want to go take a picture of you. Can you sign this for me? Like but you can't because you're professional?

Steve Concotelli 39:55
Yeah, you know, and I crossed over from that fandom into professional You know, back to feature filmmaker Domine. And you know, you don't want to, he gets the fan stuff all the time at the conventions. And that's great. And he loves it, but when I'm around him, I want to be the professional and, and you know, every time I would contact him because I needed help with something, you know, Shabaab, what do I do? You know, universal is not calling back. What should I do about this? And but, you know, it's mostly like, I'm in trouble, Bob, what am I gonna do?

Alex Ferrari 40:25
Right, as opposed to? So Bob, how was it in the first day of shooting?

Steve Concotelli 40:28
Yeah, no, I like every now and then he'd be telling those stories while people were in the room and I would listen, but I, I never really, really went down that road. You know, one thing I did say to him though, is when I was in production on and I was pretty far along I said, you know, Bob, making this film is the hardest thing I've ever done. I had no idea just how insanely hard it would be and he shakes his hand he goes yeah, you know, like nobody nobody understands how hard it is to produce a film and and you know, Back to the Future was a terribly difficult film to produce especially with Eric Stoltz Nadir reshoot a bunch of it. Like, I put myself in his shoes being what, you know, like a 32 year old producer, with this giant film and millions of dollars bleeding out and like, you're never gonna make another movie again. If this bombs, like the pressure, he must have been under you know, I think Bob's the bowels as they call it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I kind of think about that and empathize about that, because, you know, my film is is not even on the same level, but it's still stressful and hard. And, and I think that's why Bob and I kind of got along because he he understands that what being a producer isn't the sacrifice and the troubleshooting and just the misery that that's involved with it because he's done it

Alex Ferrari 41:36
Is the misery It really is. And for people who don't know they're listening. If you watch Back to the Future, that Michael J Fox was not the original Marty McFly. It was Eric stolte. And they'd shot what like, a third of it, I think third of the movie with Eric Stoltz. And you see some of that in the behind the scenes on the blu ray. And you just you that the call had to be made that someone that Robert Zemeckis had to go to Spielberg and go, look, yeah, we got to recast and like, yeah. Oh, can you imagine? No,

Steve Concotelli 42:11
I can't imagine that competition at all. It's just like, you know, the heartache or even like when you're when they're shooting with Eric Stoltz, you know, great actor, but just imagine looking at your dailies just going to yourself, JJ. This movie's gonna be bad. This is like he's just he's great. But he's not good for this. And just just imagine that that that sinking feeling, you know, of like, are we ever going to work in this town again, I I have nothing but tremendous empathy for them as producers now and you know, all of us who have been indie producers, because it's so it's such a hard damn job that you can't even begin to describe how hard it is.

Alex Ferrari 42:46
Yeah, we were in we're indie guys. So it's a bit difference. We do have pressures, but I cannot imagine the pressures of millions of dollars. Yeah, totally. It just on top of you in a studio and, and a concept like Back to the Future, which was, it was a pretty out there concept. Yeah, it was with a question.

Steve Concotelli 43:06
Yeah. But again, what's what's great about Bob is he again, he's very producer, he were, you know, I'm like, Bob, I'm making this film. And his opinion is kind of like, you know what, go for it. Give it a shot, give it a try. And that's such a producer thing to say, No, just throw it up against the wall and see what sticks. You know, don't edit yourself. Don't stop yourself from trying it. Just go and try it and see what happens. Now,

Alex Ferrari 43:27
Why do you think back to the future is such a classic and is touched so many people?

Steve Concotelli 43:34
So you're you're getting into fandom now? I told you I was gonna get I know, I know. But it's, I think everybody listening who's a fan knows at all knows the answer to that already. And it's just because it's, it's a timeless story. It's, it's a sci fi movie. It's a romance. It's an action movie. You know, it's an it's all these different movies combined into one and every, every line of the script is perfect, and it's tight. And it just propels the story forward every single second, you know, not not a second wasted on screen. And, and you know, even when I saw it, I was too young to understand the going back and visiting your parents stuff like that time machine, man, just like still to this day when I see those scenes, like my heart still skips a beat. And I've sat in that car hundreds of times. And like I still like, get you know, I feel my pulse race just because of how cool it is. And my wife teases me. And just like how can you even sit and watch this movie? After all the times? You've seen it making your film I like because it still excites me. It is it is it for me. It's I remember I remember going to see it in 1985 Yeah, me too. I

Alex Ferrari 44:43
Remember going to the theater, seeing it and my mind being absolutely blown. You know, that was that there was that wonderful, wonderful time in the 80s that so many great movies were made like 80 from at Walmart. It's just so many great movies. 85 summer of 85 was amazing. memory

Steve Concotelli 45:00
Or Yeah, you're talking my language now like I was I was 10 when back the video came out so I was just a little on the young side, but I was still in that sweet spot for all those awesome, awesome 80s movies I mean, between Ghostbusters theaters gram backs future Gremlins and that Goonies but here's another one that it's one of my Joe Walzer. It's one of our favorites. And nobody ever talks about an explorer. So it's amazing. I love him waters, like so many people don't know, explorers at all. And yet, that's one of my favorite quintessential 80s teenager. You know, films. I

Alex Ferrari 45:34
Love everything about them. I would also throw flight of the Navigator in there. Yeah. And then I would also throw in Monster Squad. Yeah, Monster Squad. Absolutely. Toss those guys into that because those are also lesser known. Yeah, no, because The Goonies took you know, took over. But now we're geeking out in the 80s movies. And we could I could talk about 80s a whole episode on

Steve Concotelli 45:56
What's funny is actually in a way Goonies kind of kicked off my whole out of time movie in a way I owe it to Goonies. Why? And, and I'll tell that story real quick. In 2010, before I knew anybody, like actually was before that, but I, I had put together a parody trailer, you know, that when the mashups were really popular? Well, I did a mashup I did a mash up of Goonies of The Goonies meets Pirates of the Caribbean, okay. And I'm a professional editor. So what I did was I took both films, professionally, digitize them, and cut together like a professional trailer, not you know, not what and it looked, it looked real. And it was called Goonies of the Caribbean. And when you watch the trailer, it has a plot, like The Goonies discover, you know, the ship, and then the pirates come out. And it was this whole thing, and it was really well done. And it was popular online. And in fact, I got an email from dick Donner one day telling me how much he liked my trailer. And he's just like, and remember, Goonies never say die. And I'm just like, Dick Donner. Just make me a Guney. I'm like, I call on it. I'm on it. Like, yeah, he did. But that story aside, one day, I get an email from a guy who's just like, hey, you'd like Goonies and like, Yeah, because check this out. And he sent me a photo of Corey Feldman is an adult sitting in a time machine. And I said, Who are you? And where is that? He goes, I'm My name is Joe Walter. It's my time machine. And I'm like, I've got to meet you. And then like, two days later, I was at his condo checking out his time machine, and we've been friends ever since. And then

Alex Ferrari 47:25
I've heard that before I was checking out Scott. Okay.

Steve Concotelli 47:28
Yeah. And Joe ended up he is the head of the restoration. But that's how I met is because Joe saw my Goonies pirates trailer online and emailed me about it. Tell me how much he liked it. And that started this whole weird adventure. So The Goonies Goonies are at the core of everything. You got

Alex Ferrari 47:43
an email from dick Donner?

Steve Concotelli 47:45
It did it was, it was amazing. I couldn't believe it. Like, you know, like, oh, you're always afraid that they're gonna say, Thank you take that down. Right now. We will sue you, you know, like, something like that. But he, he said, it just tickled his fancy, and he really liked it. So I'm just like, boy, I'm framing that one. That's awesome. Yeah. I see smile thinking about that one.

Alex Ferrari 48:05
So I'm going to ask you a few questions. I asked all of my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker wanting to break into the business today?

Steve Concotelli 48:14
Boy, I don't know. Because I feel like I'm still trying to break into the business to be honest. Like I don't like you should go ask a successful multimillionaire film producer that question because if I knew the answer, I'd be doing it. You know,

Alex Ferrari 48:25
But you've been doing it. You've been in the business for 10,15 years now. Yeah. You're a little, you're a little ahead of the film students. So

Steve Concotelli 48:33
Yeah, advice for that? I do have an answer. If, if there's one field that you want to do, whether it's writing for scripted TV writing features you're in or whatever you want to do, in college intern at the company you want to intern at in college, if you that will set you on the right foot for everything else that follows. So if you get an internship with, you know, like, say, NBC Universal or on one of your favorite TV shows, as an intern, you get to sit in the writers room, you get to meet the people, you get to know how things work, and then they'll be more inclined to hire you as a PA. And once you're a PA, they'll be more inclined to hire you because you know, all the ropes are ready. If you get you can get into the place. You want to work early as an intern. Do it and that will set you on the right path.

Alex Ferrari 49:20
That's a great advice. That's exactly what I did in college. I worked at Universal in Florida. Oh, there you go. Yes, I was working in the backlog all through all throughout my I actually skipped school to work for free. It was

Steve Concotelli 49:31
Oh, that was awesome. Yeah, I interned out here for a few companies. So I did it, but they were they were feature companies and I just didn't end up doing feature. So but yeah, great experience and that that will help more than anything else.

Alex Ferrari 49:44
Now, can you tell me what book had the biggest impact on your life or career?

Steve Concotelli 49:50
I wasn't prepared for these questions.

Alex Ferrari 49:51
I know you weren't. You have anything? On top of your head?

Steve Concotelli 49:58
No I don't you know, I will give a shout out I one book that that pops to mind that I really, really enjoyed is Rebel Without a crew. Yeah, of course, Robert. But um, yeah, I mean, that's just that's such a filmmaker go to, because any any book that details, the horrible struggles of any other filmmaker I want to read. Like, I want to know that every other filmmaker is having just as much of a miserable time as I did you know when that's comforting. I don't say that to be mean, I say that in terms of comfort, because because making films is hard. And it's an even successful people struggle with it. And I like knowing that

Alex Ferrari 50:37
You don't want to hear from somebody, you know, I had a great time. It was easy.

Steve Concotelli 50:41
No, no. Because odds are they're lying, or they just had some kind of CO EP credit where they just show up once a week and walked around the set and home like, No, you weren't involved. You didn't do it? No, now it's just like, yeah, like, I want to know, the real stories. And again, in making this film, one of the great things is that at the conventions, I get to meet a lot of the other indie filmmakers. And we all have the same stories about how hard it is, and the studios and this and that, and it's just, and you realize that when things go wrong, it's not that it's not that you're doing things wrong. It's simply part of the process. Like that's making if you're, if things aren't going wrong, you're not making a film, right.

Alex Ferrari 51:20
Got some great tag. That's a great quote, sir.

Steve Concotelli 51:23
Feel free to use it

Alex Ferrari 51:24
That's a great quote. Now, What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Steve Concotelli 51:32
In this film, it's Don't try to do everything yourself? Okay? battle, that alone was the biggest mistake. And the biggest hurdle that I kind of essentially threw up in front of myself, was I took I took on way too much of this project by myself. And I, like I wrote the film, I produced it, I shot it, I directed it, and I cut it. And I did all the graphics, I ran the Kickstarter, I designed the web page, I designed the DVD sleeve, like I cut the trailers, I cut all the bonus features, like I literally and I say that not as a source of pride, but more of a source of embarrassment, that, that I didn't bring in more people, but you know, at the time, this stuff takes a lot of time, and people people want to be paid. And I didn't have the money to pay people and, and when you and then if they do it on their own time, it would have taken another three years to get done. Because they you know, cut for 20 minutes here an hour here. And I was on a I was on a deadline. So I I ended up doing way too much by myself and details were constantly kind of falling through the cracks, or falling through the cracks and dropping and, and it was just, you know, the nature of trying to do too much as an individual and I yeah, having a team of like two or three people who are all equally dedicated, who will have an equal share in it, that will all support each other and not have anybody bail i think is critical. And makes things a lot easier because you can hand stuff off if you need to.

Alex Ferrari 52:59
Now, what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Steve Concotelli 53:02
Ah, let's see Max, if I would. Well, actually, I would say on the top of the list I put It's a Wonderful Life, okay, which which is not unlike Back to the Future you know, it's it's seeing what happens life without you, you know, when a different path and there's a little bit of time travel and mystery in there. So I would say that and then back to the future. Definitely number two. I would put Ghostbusters at number three, I would put you know, the Star Wars you know, the original trilogy somewhere, you know, for Raiders five, and then you just start getting into all the other you know, awesome 80s movies. It's simply a list of babies and I totally admit it you know, it's Yeah, again, I put explorers up there you know, even though the alien third act is really weird and Goofy and a little a little clownish but I still I still love it. Yeah, I you can definitely tell that I grew up completely within the 80s and that's you know, they're they're my favorite films and

Alex Ferrari 53:59
So that's why you must love Stranger Things.

Steve Concotelli 54:01
You know what I do? I haven't finished second season don't spoil it but yeah, I'm I'm savoring this one. I'm savoring it going slow. Yeah, I love it's funny because when I watch Stranger Things, I think to myself, none of us made proton packs that look that good in the 80s since like, that's my eyes like we get cardboard boxes. None of ours look that good.

Alex Ferrari 54:23
I actually I was I dressed up i think i think it was the six I think it was at five actually. I think it was 85 I dressed up and we did a whole show on my school and I was one of the Ghostbusters and yeah, I did not look that good.

Steve Concotelli 54:37
No, but it's so funny because all of my friends like obviously since I made a movie about the restoration of the time machine. I have come to know a lot of very very good fan prop makers including all the Ghostbuster guys all the Back to the Future guys all the aliens guys. And so like you know their their proton packs and stuff now, our screen accurate and like they have the full sighs Actos like in their yard like that's how big my fans my friends are. But, but like, yeah seeing like all of us have pictures of us in the 80s dressed just like those kids like oh my god I almost have that photo being my friends dress

Alex Ferrari 55:14
Like Ghostbusters the 80s That's insane. And that is the genius of the duffer brothers.

Steve Concotelli 55:18
Yeah, that's Oh my god. Yeah, they they got everything right on that one, you know, but again, I would love to know the story of how hard it was them to try to get the series made anywhere else. Those are the great stories of you know how back to the teacher was rejected by everybody how jaws almost didn't get made because they went you know, over budget over time. The stories behind the your favorite films of how they were disasters are the stories I love the most.

Alex Ferrari 55:43
Absolutely. Now, where can where can people find you and find information about you your work, and also the movie.

Steve Concotelli 55:49
The movie, they can go to my website, it's outatimemovie.com and out of time is spelled like the license plate. It's outatimemovie.com The movie is currently available on iTunes, Hulu, Vimeo, and it's also available on blu ray and DVD. And we ship worldwide. And it's all All the links are available through the website. And if they want to email me if they want to criticize my film, you know, tell me that my filmmaking isn't that hard and that I'm wrong or that explores isn't awesome. They can contact me through the website because as I said before, I run the website because I literally do everything related to the film. It comes straight to me. It's not some big team of people, although I wish it were.

Alex Ferrari 56:35
Steven, thank you so much for taking the time out to do this man. It's been an absolute pleasure. geeking out with you and also talking, talking shop with you, man.

Steve Concotelli 56:42
Absolutely. And hey, I just want to say keep up the good work. I love the podcasts. I love hearing other indie filmmakers stories. And thank you for doing this. We appreciate it.

Alex Ferrari 56:51
Oh, brother. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Man, it was great talking about Back to the Future a lot and having Steve on the show and, and really just discovering his whole journey of how he was able to put this this kind of crazy film together. So Steve, thank you again so much for being on the show. And if you guys want links to anything we discussed in this episode, just head over to indiefilmhustle.com/212. And also want to let you guys know that Udemy is having its New Year's Day resolution sale, every single course on Udemy now is 10.99 including all of our Udemy courses. So just head over to indiefilmhustlecom/udemy and download as many of these courses as you can get your new year off started, right? We've got about 13-14 courses up there, as well got a couple of new ones about Facebook, if you want to get anything really understand about Facebook, and also goal setting, how to set up your goals for 2018 and how to achieve those goals. We have those two new courses as well. So any film hustle.com forward slash Udemy. And as always keep that hustle going keep that dream alive and I'll talk to you soon.