Podcast | Indie Film Hustle®

IFH 122: What “Hamilton the Musical” Can Teach Indie Filmmakers

December 13, 2021December 12, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

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If you have been living underneath a rock you probably haven’t heard of the Broadway smash-hit Hamilton. For the rest of you, this remarkable musical by Lin-Manual Miranda has changed not only Broadway but storytelling as well.

I know that is a bold statement but let me ask you, how many other new Broadway musicals have you heard about in the past 5-10 years? How many have crept into pop culture? How many have changed the game like Hamilton? Not many.

So what can indie filmmakers learn from a musical on Broadway? Here are a few lessons I learned from Lin-Manual Miranda’s masterpiece.

Be Brave and Take Artistic Risks

When Lin-Manual Miranda told President Obama he would be rapping about Alexander Hamilton at a White House dinner, President Obama said:

“Good luck with that.”

Because seriously who in their right mind would rap about Alexander Hamilton. Who would write an entire musical about boring American history? Lin-Manual saw something that the rest of us didn’t. He was brave enough to stick to his vision and bring Hamilton to life.

As an artist, you should challenge your audience. You should push the envelope. If no one around you understands what you are trying to do then you might be on to something. Lin-Manual took a crazy idea and made it his own and in turn, made the world a bit richer than before.

Needless to say, Mr. and Mrs. Obama were blown away by his performance. Check it out below:

Listen to Your GUT!

One of the great plagues of artists and filmmakers in doubt. They let that 7 pounds of gray matter in their heads determine how they should proceed with a purely emotional and artistic endeavor. Art, stories, and music are not created in the brain, they are created by listening to your gut.

Art comes from “the gut.” You need to feel the story in your gut, in your soul. Does it ring true to your ear? Once the story is out then your brain comes in to help with structure, casting, marketing, production, etc. Listen to yourself!

I can’t tell you how many times I wished I would’ve listened to my gut and not my head. Listen to yourself! Trust yourself.

Watch this amazing documentary on the creation of Hamilton the Musical and see how Lin-Manual created his crazy art:

Challenge Yourself

Why are we here on this earth? To work a 40 hour week, pay rent and wait to die? No! You are a filmmaker. A very powerful artist using probably the most influential artistic medium known to man. As a filmmaker you need to challenge yourself, this is the only way you grow as an artist.

Lin-Manual was on the top of the world with his hit Broadway musical In the Heights. But he didn’t standstill. He decided to challenge himself so he wrote Hamilton, which took him years to complete.

Even after the success of Hamilton, Lin-Manual took on a new challenge, composing songs for the Disney Animated Hit Moana. The man does not sleep and neither should you. I challenge you to get this song out of your head.

If you study a filmmaker like James Cameron, his films get bigger and more challenging every time out. This is a man who never has to work a day in his life again. He has created the #1 and the #2 biggest box office films of all time.

After Titanic, he literally needed to take 8 years off to figure out what he could do next to challenge himself again. So what did he come up with Avatar. Now he’s planning four Avatar films back to back. You need to figure out how to do this for your own journey.

Challenge yourself guys! Take a listen to this week’s episode. I hope it inspires you. Also if you haven’t had a chance yet to see Hamilton, do yourself a favor and get tickets when it comes to your city. It’ll change your life =)

Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 2:21
So today I want to talk about this inspirational story of a man a young man who took a lot of risks and decided to put himself out there in a huge way. As an as a as an artist, as a writer, as a musician. As a composer. His name is Lin Manuel Miranda, and he is the writer and composer of Hamilton, the American musical. And if you guys have been under a rock for the last, for the last couple years, you would have not heard of this amazing show. But if you haven't then you have heard of Lin Manuel, he's been all over the place. And he wrote this insane, and I mean insane musical. Now, I'm gonna I'm gonna start off right by saying I am not a fan of musicals. I'm not a fan of Broadway. You know, I've seen a few shows in my life. I've never been a real big fan of those things. But Hamilton is a different ballgame. And I after studying him for a bit and studying what he did and studying the show. And listen to that soundtrack that is insane.

I realized that he had something to teach us and teach us as filmmakers and Phil and as an artist as artists. And I wanted to kind of put a light on it not that he needs any more light for God's sakes, he's got the light of the world on him. But you have to understand something that musicals generally don't jump off the arts page in the newspaper to come into pop culture earned to the mainstream. There is very few I don't remember one of in recent decades that has done that, and Hamilton has. And that's something to study because you want to wonder what happened. What did he do in that storytelling process that reached so many people? And, and Hamilton if you guys don't know and people who don't know, across the world who listened to the podcast, Alexander Hamilton is one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. And generally speaking, when you talk about history, American history, specifically but history in general sometimes can be pretty dry, can be pretty bland, and not really interesting. But this this guy, he read a book about Alexander Hamilton on his vacation, he's like, wow, I see hip hop. I see a rap battle between Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers and Hamilton and I see and he saw this, and it's crazy idea. It's absolutely lunacy. If anyone if you would tell that idea to anybody on the street people be like, wow, you're out of your mind. But he felt strong enough that he wanted to write this, this musical and put it on Broadway. Now he had had some success with a Broadway show called in the heights. And based off of that he was working, you know, just going doing the shows, seven, eight days a week or seven, eight times shows a week. And while he was doing that, he came up with Hamilton, and it took him years upon years to, to get this thing off the ground, but he kept going and kept pushing harder, and harder. And it's pretty, pretty inspiring. And he taught us three lessons. And I pulled three lessons out of this, and I wanted to kind of talk to you guys about it, because I think it's something that will help you guys along your journey. And I kind of, I think one of the big things again, why Hamilton is such such a nerve is we all see a little bit whoever sees the show, or listens to the music or understands the story, we all see a little bit of ourselves. in Hamilton in the show you you find yourself and I did for sure when I started listening to the music, and then kind of watching this amazing documentary, which I put in the show notes at indie film, hustle.com Ford slash 122, as the Show Notes for this episode, and I put this documentary on there, and it's pretty amazing. But first thing I think that he has lessons that we can pull from the Manuel's journey, as an artist is to be brave, and to take artistic risks. You know, he was invited by President Obama to the White House to do a poetry slam of some sort. And he was just invited to do like a bit from in the heights. But he decides that he tells Mr. President Obama is like, Look, I'm gonna do a rap about Alexander Hamilton. And, and Mr. President Obama said, Well, good luck with that. Because again, it sounds crazy, like who is going to listen to a rap about Alexander Hamilton? Like, it just didn't make any sense? Well, long story short, he rapped about it, and he tore the whole house down. And I actually have that performance in the show notes as well. So you can kind of see it, what, as an artist, you should challenge your audience, you should always be pushing the envelope. If there's no one around who understands what you're trying to do, then you might be onto something. You know, Lin, Manuel took a crazy idea and went all the way with it. And because of that, he is he's made the world a little bit of a better place because of it. And he's taught a generation of kids to love, not only history, but musicals and arts and things like that. I mean, the ripple effect of Hamilton will be heard for decades to come. It's generational, it's really, really remarkable. But as an artist, as a filmmaker, you should push that envelope and take risks. And again, I always say that I always say take risks, you know, with your films at a certain budget level, you know, you got 234 100 $500,000 you know, you have to make more calculated risk, when you have less than that you can be more more risky. You know, and with this is Meg, you know, I, I took some risks, you know, I went out. And you know, it's funny, I always talked to I talked to other filmmakers, friends of mine, in the industry and TV directors and so on that I've spoken to. And I tell them the process I went through to make mag and they just look at me like deer in headlights, they don't understand. They can't grasp the idea of what we did the kind of craziness the like, what, you had a guy with a boom, that's it. You had three people on set, that was your crew, like they just don't get it. And, and that makes me actually feel really good. That nobody got and nobody gets what I'm talking about. Because I mean, I'm onto something.

I think that means I'm onto something. I hope hopefully am we'll find out, won't we. But again, guys, be brave, and take those artistic risks. All right, next thing, next lesson I think we could pull from Hamilton is listen to your gut. One of the greatest diseases and plagues that affect artists and filmmakers throughout the world is doubt. Doubt is a horrible, horrible disease that we are fighting every day of our artistic lives. And that seven pounds of gray matter up in between your shoulder blades in your head, you know is where a lot of our artistic decisions are made and it shouldn't be their art in general, is an emotional thing. It's something that comes from your gut, your instinct in your soul. You have to ask yourself Does it ring true to your ear? You know, once your story is done, once you've developed and written it out, then you can bring your Brain and to help with structuring, casting and marketing, and production, etc. But you've got to listen to yourself. You know, I can't tell you how many times in my career that I wish I would have listened to myself, I would have listened to that gut. But that brain of mine, that Ed stopped me from doing something or put me down the wrong path. You know, a lot of times, especially in this business, you've got to go with your gut. And you've got to learn that if that's one thing that you can learn, a skill that you should really work on, is listening to your gut, because it won't guide you in the wrong direction. I can tell you that from being in the business for 20 odd years, and being on this earth for 42 years. your gut does not lie to you, your brain lies to you on a daily basis. But your gut doesn't. So learn to listen to your gut. Now, the third thing that I found a lesson that I pulled from Hamilton and Lin Manuel is challenge yourself. Why are we here on earth? Are you here to work a 40 Hour Work Week, pay some rent, and then wait to die? No, you are an artist, you are a filmmaker. filmmakers are probably one of the most powerful artists and influential artists in the world. You know why? Because we use one of the most powerful and influential mediums ever invented, which is film which is cinema, which is moving images in incorporates all the arts, music, sound, imagery, painting, acting, everything, storytelling, it's all incorporated in this one beautiful, artistic medium, you know, it cinematography and light and it just everything is there. And you need to challenge yourself. When you're in this in this world as an artist, you know, I'll use a perfect example. You know, Lin Manuel was doing in the heights, which was a big Broadway hit, he won a ton of awards. And he could have easily just sat around and done that for many more years, when he decided to challenge himself. And when he did, he came up with Hamilton. And you know, and on top of that, now he just did Hamilton, which is easily the one of the greatest musicals ever written and ever performed, and it is one of the biggest hits of all time. And he decides to go off and do an animated movie for Disney called Mwana. Which I've seen more on I'm By the way, if you guys have not seen one, you've got to go see it. It is probably one of the best Disney movies I've ever seen. And I challenge you to get his music out of your head when you see that movie because you'll be walking around listen to that music, but he challenged himself. He's like, you know, what can I do next? What's my next thing? You know, and a great example of that in our industry is the one and only James Cameron. You know, James has been gradually every column James because you know, we're friends now. Every every kind of project he does, he gradually grows and does something more challenges from Terminator to aliens from aliens to the Abyss from the Abyss to Terminator two, and then True Lies. And then he does this other little movie called Titanic, and he literally can't get any higher. He is the biggest box office draw of all time. He wins a just a gazillion Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards and all sorts of awards. He literally is on top of the world in his field. There is no one that's even close. He has catapulted himself beyond anybody else ever.

So what do you do? How do you challenge yourself after you've literally conquered everything you've ever wanted? He decides to take about eight years off and think about it. He travels and you know goes deep dive he comes a deep dive fisherman. That's how he challenges he becomes a deep, deep ocean Explorer, and does a bunch of documentaries and things like that. But then when he comes back, he's like, you know what, I'm gonna do this little movie called avatar. And then what does he do? He changes the game again, he pushes the technology, he does something that no one's ever done. And what does he do becomes the number one film of all time again. So he owns the number one and number two spots. And now what does he do? So now you've got the number one number two spot now what are you gonna do, you're obviously not doing this for the money. You stopped doing this for the money a long time ago. So what he's gonna do, I'm gonna do four new avatar movies over the next 10 years. That's what I want to do. And each one's going to be bigger and better. And I'm just going to take it, take it to a place that he hasn't been to before. And that's someone challenging themselves. I'll use I use something a little bit more down to earth myself. I'll use this as mag. I've made this as mag. It's done. It's in the can. I'm waiting now for festivals. I'm waiting now to see where it goes, how we're going to distribute it. Great. There are many filmmakers and I know many of them, after they make their feature, they'll live with that feature for the next two years, whether it just be running around with festivals, trying to sell it, trying to get deals, trying to get meetings, all this kind of stuff. And it's a waste of fucking time. I hate to tell you, it's a waste of time. You know, I think that you, you ride that train as long as you can. And that's great. And I'm planning to ride the mag train as long as I can. And I'm, I can't wait to see where she goes. But I'm not waiting for her. And I'm not waiting for her to give me anything else. If she gives me anything, it's all bonus meaning, any sort of attention, any awards, any access, any connections, any anything else money, whatever, I'm not expecting it, I'm not putting pressure on her. You know, I'm treating her like, you know, like my first girlfriend, not putting any pressure. But so what do I do, I'm already focused on my next two feature films. You know, I'm already writing my next one, which I plan to start shooting sometime in March or April. And then I got another one that I'm planning to shoot by the end of next year. So my goal next year is to do two feature films. I'm challenging myself. And this next project is going to be a bit little bit bigger than meg a little bit more complicated. And then the project after that's a bit more complicated than that. And if something else happens, other opportunities present themselves great. But I'm not waiting for those. And that's something that you shouldn't do, either. Don't wait around, for someone to knock on your door. Just keep working, keep challenging yourself. Keep pushing yourself, you know, I went in, I went into doing this as mag, I was like, You know what, I'm gonna do this myself. I'm gonna be the camera guy. I'm gonna do this, this, this and this, and I challenged myself, you know, I wanted to see if I could do it. It was a risk. I could have shot this movie don't get to look like dog crap. But I think it looks okay. And a lot of my cinematographer friends will see it, they say it looks cool. So I guess I did an okay job. So you challenge yourself, challenge yourself, it's the only way you're going to keep growing as a filmmaker and as an artist, and it could be little steps. But every time you go out to the plate, and you're gonna go and make a movie, or make a short or make a commercial or make something, challenge yourself, because if you get into a rut artistically, that is a one of the worst places to be, you're just going out there for the money, you're just doing this for the money, find a way to keep yourself creatively challenged. If not, you're not going to grow as an artist, or as a filmmaker. So guys, I hope you learned a little something in this episode. I was just so inspired by Hamilton, I thought, and what by what Lin Manuel Miranda did that I wanted to share that with you. And these are the lessons I've kind of pulled from from what he did. And I think they they're very valid lessons that can really help us as filmmakers, as storytellers. And as artists, you know, I really do think these three lessons are very valuable, and they don't technically teach these in school. So guys, don't forget, all right, be brave, and take artistic risks. Listen to that gut of yours. And continuously challenge yourself in every which way you can. And it doesn't only have to be artistically to guys in other aspects of your life. You should be doing all three of these things as well. Because guys, man, life is short. And I know that sounds cliche, but it is, you know, life is short, it goes by quickly. And if you don't challenge yourself and just sit there eating bonbons all day, you know, it's it's just a waste, man. So please, please Heed my words, please heed the words of Lin Manuel Miranda, and of Hamilton himself, who was if you listen and you listen to the story of Hamilton, you know, he was he was a hustler man. He was the original hustler. He hustled his ass off to get where he was, you know, before he was shot by Mr. Burr. But he was an insane it's a pretty insane story to listen to his story. So definitely check it out, go to any film hustle.com Ford slash 122. For the show notes, you'll see a bunch of videos on Lin Manuel on Hamilton, the great PBS documentary is about an hour and a half hour and 40 minutes long, great documentary, and you see how he built the whole show up. And whether you like musicals or not, man, it's really a great just story to watch and how an artist put together their art and what they went through and how they had no idea. You can tell when he was writing, he had no idea what's going to be a monster hit. He was just doing it and seeing what would happen. And that's how you got to act as art artists, man, just do it and see what happens. All right. So more updates coming soon about what's going to happen next year and we got a lot of cool stuff happening and don't forget that Head over to filmmaking podcast calm, that's filmmaking podcast.com and leave me a good Review Guys, please. It really helps me out a lot. I appreciate it tremendously. So thank you. And thank you again for all those good, great questions you guys are sending me. Again if you want to ask me a question, just send it over to [email protected]. And I will pick a handful of questions and answer them on air in our next upcoming podcast. So as always, guys, keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive and I'll talk to you soon.

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IFH 121: Joshua Caldwell – The Art of the $6000 Feature Film

December 13, 2021December 9, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

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I had the pleasure of meeting Joshua Caldwell, a brother in “indie filmmaking” arms. He directed a $6000 feature film called LAYOVER, which World Premiered at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival where it was nominated for the New American Cinema Award.

The story of how he made the film was educational, rebellious and funny. Many things he said mirrored my experience making This is Meg. Josh really has a great philosophy about making films and content. Check out the trailer below to see what a $6000 feature film in today’s world looks like.

If you are going to make a feature film in the near future you need to listen to this podcast. It will change how you think about making indie films. Below, I also included a talk the Josh Caldwell did at the Seattle International Film Festival that is AWESOME! After you listen to the podcast watch the video below.

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Joshua Caldwell – The $6000 LAYOVER: Rethinking Indie Film

Director Joshua Caldwell discusses making his debut feature film, LAYOVER, for only $6000 and how filmmakers need to rethink their role in the ever-shifting paradigm of independent filmmaking.

Here’s a bit more about Joshua Caldwell:

Joshua Caldwell is an accomplished director, writer, producer, and MTV Movie Award winner. He has worked with a number of high-profile producers, including CSI: creator Anthony E. Zuiker, for whom he produced CYBERGEDDON, the online global motion picture event for Yahoo!, and directed all of the film’s ancillary content for its immersive website.

His award-winning short film DIG, starring Mark Margolis of BREAKING BAD, was featured in numerous film festivals, and his latest short RESIGNATION screened at Comic-Con.

Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 6:03
So guys, I'm super excited about today's guest, Joshua Caldwell. I mean, Josh is I call him my brother in arms in my my brother in indie film arms, because, you know, as I was interviewing him for the for the show, I just started realizing everything he was saying was like, Oh my god, this is like, he's basically saying a lot of the stuff I've been preaching for a while now. But he's put a lot of it in practice. He's made now three feature films. And one specifically that we're going to talk heavily about in this episode is the layover, or actually just layover. layover was made for 6000 bucks, and he shot it on a on a DSLR you know how I feel about DSLRs. But I'm coming around. Again, I always say that DSLRs are good if you know what you're doing. And if you can shoot it properly. And my man knew what he was doing, because I saw the trailer for it. And it looks really, really good. He really talks a lot about really guerrilla stuff stealing every shot, you can imagine. I mean he was in he basically shot all around LA, went into the the highest profile locations and just stole shots, he actually went to LA x shot in LA x went on a plane shot on a plane. I mean it was it was pretty a pretty great story. And it just shows it shows you that you can go out and do it and you don't need a million dollars or half a million dollars or anything to go make your movie he did it. He proved it himself. And he just like you know what, this is the movie I wanted to make. And by the way, it's a French language. He's not a French, he doesn't speak French. But a French language indie film, basically done for $6,000. no action. I'm not sure about sex, but I don't think there's any sex in it either. And it's just basically a romp one night, throughout LA, it's pretty, pretty awesome. I can't I can't express to you enough how awesome it was to talk to Josh. And I really was excited to get him on the show. And then also to get this information out to you guys. So if you guys are going to make a feature film in the next year or two, or even thinking about making a feature film, you've got to listen to this podcast. It will change the way you look at movies, and how it make movies, especially in today's world. And the empowerment that you will have it which again is what I've been preaching all his time with what I've done with this is Meg when I'm going to be doing with my future projects coming up in 2017 and so on, and it's you I just want to give you guys the freedom to just go and shoot. And Josh really lays out a great battle plan, a blueprint on how he did it with layover and I'm really excited for you guys to hear his story, his antidotes and all the cool stuff that he's been doing over the last few years and he also have a common inspirational movie that kind of started us off this on this path, which is for lovers only I've talked about this movie by the Polish brothers many times on the show before and I will put a link in the show notes to the podcast with Michael Polish where we discuss in depth how they went and shot for lovers only which was basically done on zero budget. And a lot of these those techniques that they were using back then which is 2010 something like that 2011 is a lot of stuff that Josh used in this movie and I used in this as mag so without any further ado I'm not gonna talk anymore guys, I want you guys to hear this interview. Really get ready to listen up and listen to this many many times because it's very valuable information. Enjoy my conversation with Josh Caldwell. I'd like to welcome to the show Joshua Caldwell.

Joshua Caldwell 9:54
Caldwell.

Alex Ferrari 9:55
I got it man. How you doing man?

Joshua Caldwell 9:57
I'm good. Thanks for having me.

Alex Ferrari 9:58
Thanks for thanks for reaching out. And so we were talking a little bit off air before we started and you actually remember, I guess you remembered my name from years ago on another project that did right.

Joshua Caldwell 10:11
It's a whole decade ago. I think at this point. Stop

Alex Ferrari 10:13
it, man. You're making me feel.

Joshua Caldwell 10:16
How do you think I feel? Yeah, I

Alex Ferrari 10:17
know. Right? Exactly. So yeah, you you apparently you're one of the people who bought broken back in the day. Well, I

Joshua Caldwell 10:26
buy it. I'm trying to remember.

Alex Ferrari 10:28
It's fine. You boot

Joshua Caldwell 10:29
like, that's fine. That's okay. Yeah, no, I mean, I saw it, I think because it was available at some point. But yeah, no, I remember, you know, it was it was kind of one of those things when, you know, the dbx x 100, a was coming out, the Canon XL two was coming out, and everyone was like, 24 p was the huge thing. But like, people hadn't really used it to make, you know, generous terms, a decent looking movie, you know, something really cinematic. And so I think your guys, I just remember you guys blowing up and sort of, you know, reading about it and reading about this, like the the process behind it, you guys had the whole website with like, here's how we did the effects. And here's how we did the color correction. Here's how we did all this. And it was just like, you know what, at that time, I mean, the people that are sort of into filmmaking now don't realize, like, how little information there was, you know, even 10 years ago. And so, you know, I mean, I've talked about that before, but this idea of, like, you know, you and I, I don't know how old you are, but you and I are like, those were similar vintages. They're similar, we're in the same decade range, I guess. But you know, it's it's like how how, even in the early stages of the internet, there still wasn't like a ton of info. And so you really had to, like, suss out, like, you know, online, like how people were doing things like I've just I've said, you know, I'd be watching, like the behind the scenes on Magnolia back in like, 2000 and seeing a dolly and being like, a fisher Dolly and be like, what is that thing? Like, you know, Mind blown?

Alex Ferrari 11:56
Where do you get one of those?

Joshua Caldwell 11:57
Yeah, or, or Yeah, exactly. Or, like, What is that for? Like, I don't know what that's for, you know, or seeing a shot in the movie and trying to understand, like, you know, Oh, is that a zoom? Or is that a dolly? Or is that a combo? Both are like how do they get all this walking stuff so smooth, and you don't know what a steady kin is, you know, and then you discover Oh, there's a thing called a glide cam that you could use with your, your dv x or your GL to or whatever you're using, and suddenly like, but you're stressing all this out. And I just remember like, you guys, like had put up you know, taking this film you'd made this film, you know, that was very well received. But then you would also gone that step further of putting up this like wealth of information in terms of how you did it, and that just being very, like a really cool thing in in a in a very, very small lake of film, technique and information at that time.

Alex Ferrari 12:46
Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Yeah, when I went when I when I did that movie, I there was nothing. I did

Joshua Caldwell 12:51
nothing everywhere.

Alex Ferrari 12:52
I looked everywhere. And I was like, Well, I don't think this is

Joshua Caldwell 12:55
kids today's habits so

Alex Ferrari 12:57
Oh, these kids, they don't need kids. They could shoot on their iPhone, the iPhones better quality.

Joshua Caldwell 13:03
I know right? Like people people do this day I made it I did a short in college that I won an MTV Movie Award for called the beautiful lie. You know, that was shot on the exhale, too. And people are like, oh, Can I see it? I'm like, No.

Alex Ferrari 13:17
Yeah, no, that's no,

Joshua Caldwell 13:18
I don't even know if I can get it to for you to see it. Because it was like SD and it's on a tape somewhere and you're just like, don't worry about it, just let

Alex Ferrari 13:25
it go. Just let it Yeah. So how'd you get into the industry in the first place?

Joshua Caldwell 13:31
I so I started making movies in high school. And we just had a cool program where we had like avid systems and digital cameras, and we were able to like edit. And this is like 2001 no 2000 2001 that we had this and so I sort of just took advantage of it something that I kind of found myself really loving and you know, I grown up like you know, seeing movies with my dad and in playing you know, take seeing Batman and and coming back and playing Batman and getting neighborhoods get together and sort of play acting, you know, or building worlds with like Legos or Playmobil and sort of like creating, you know, narratives and stories and sort of acting that out, but not knowing what a director did or writer did or cinematographer or any of that, unlike kids these days, you know. And so you know, and then in high school, I discovered that they had this program and it was sort of being able to do this program for a learning perspective. But then we had our ASB officers Associated Student Body officers would make parody movies in order to sort of like you know, introduce the new homecoming theme or something like that and I had a friend that did it and so I started hanging out with him and sort of pitching ideas and eventually I took over directing these things and we did like you know we did a usual suspects rip off and these weren't like parodies like sometimes some of them were serious. You know, they weren't like all comedy, but I did like usual suspects. Rip off. We did like a snatch heist movie, I did a soap opera in in my big finale was we did an hour long Star Wars movie. Oh, wow. So it was like really great because we had the tools available. You know, talking about not having this info like, you know, back in 2002, trying to figure out how to make lightsabers work and do lightsabers on screen and After Effects, it was like, you know, and then I did one way and then discovered the way that you could actually do it where you could get it to flare out. And I was like, well, it's too late now to make it better looks now looks like a little toothpick that you're swinging around. You know, but just trying to discover that using like 3d Max and like, you know, getting free downloads of spaceships that that people have built in 3d maps and then animating that, you know, and just all that kind of stuff. But the idea was you always had, you know, you had a deadline. And we showed these at school assemblies. So like, you were somewhat censored, you can do whatever you wanted, but you were able you were expected to make 1300 Kids happy. You know, and so it was like a really great sort of formative experience at a very young age to sort of know that we had a deadline, we had no money and we had to find a way to make it work. And so that's that's where a lot of my kind of approach has was born out of

Alex Ferrari 16:17
which leads which leads us to I guess you did a handful of shorts, obviously prior to your first feature. Right? kind of got your your feet wet, and you learned a little bit of the tools. But on your first feature, which you made four 6000 from what if I read

Joshua Caldwell 16:31
6000? Yeah, 6000 layover? Can

Alex Ferrari 16:33
you tell us a little bit about that first feature?

Joshua Caldwell 16:35
Yeah, it was, um, you know, it's the story of a young French woman who is traveling from Paris to Singapore to visit her boyfriend. And she is sort of expecting him to propose once she gets there, and she has a unexpected layover in Los Angeles or a connecting flight is canceled until the following morning. So she's stuck here. For 12 hours, she has a friend here calls her up, they go out and that sort of starts this night of sort of self reflection and discovery and sort of consideration about you know, sort of whether the life she's flying to is the life that she wants and sort of in an interesting way she's given a pause button for 12 hours to sort of just take a breather and think about it and that's kind of what the show you know and it's a it's a traveling movie we traveled throughout the city of La you know we're all over the city

Alex Ferrari 17:31
I'm assuming you paid for permits and everything right

Joshua Caldwell 17:33
no no we had Yeah, we had the trailers and all that stuff following no no it was a total gorilla I mean shot on the five D You know, everything was stolen we didn't permit anything but it was an attempt and the 6000 was just that was the money we had so we made it work but we paid our actors you know, we had a small crew like we always get we get you know, online if you read some of the articles on like dough film school, you get a lot of people who've never made a movie before writing back and be like, Oh, you didn't make it for six grand? or How did you do this? And how do you do this? And it's just like, you know, one, well go make a movie yourself before you talk, but to like there, there are creative ways of doing it and you just didn't think about it. Like they would make assumptions that were clearly incorrect. Right? Oh, yeah, I

Alex Ferrari 18:16
hear it all the time. I hear it all the time. And people just always wanted like, well 100 100 Robert Rodriguez really make the movie for 7000 I'm like well, the movie he showed his agent was made for 7000 the one that we saw was made for 1.2 million.

Joshua Caldwell 18:31
Right after and everything exactly and so but you know, it's like it's possible it's possible nowadays certainly. And it was just one of those things where you know, we just did very limited crew there's four people the whole time and we didn't pay the crew but they got credit and we shot on weekends so nobody really cared if they didn't really want to do it. They didn't have to be there like it wasn't you know, it wasn't this thing where we had 30 people standing around and we weren't paying them you know it was very which is what you people usually do and I have done on shorts you know where you're like well I don't have the money volunteer and it's just like oh, you know, so layover was an attempt to sort of do an indie movie for very low budget that was different than what you were seeing made which was limited characters and like limited locations like one to three locations but they would have the crew and I just got to the point where I was like, well the crew is not what's up on screen. The crew is not helping me put something up on screen so having made these shorts and little things with the five D where I was running around town for no money and trying to shoot stuff and expected to turn in high quality work. I was like is this possible on a feature level Could I make a feature this way? You know and so I wrote a movie designed to be accomplished at that budget you know for no money I brought everything I you know, spent 14 years learning as a do yourself filmmaker to the table. You know, I brought my experience as a shooter to the table. You know, and and And we really kind of went for it. And it, it turned out pretty well. I mean, you know, it's a French language movie, I don't speak French, but we decided to challenge ourselves in that way. You know, and it was also coming at a time in my life where I was, like, you know, I'd been writing features and trying to get features made, and you kept going, like $300,000 for the type of movie I want to make, probably not going to get it, I don't want to spend time like looking for money. And it just kind of got kept boiling down to me going, alright, I'm about to turn 30 I want to shoot a feature. So what's the feature I can shoot, and if the feature I can shoot is layover for six grand, and that's the feature I'm gonna make. And, you know, it wasn't even a gamble. Because like the money was like, a non issue. Like, it wasn't like, you know, oh, I have this French language, indie drama with no stars, I'm spending a million dollars to do and I'm never gonna make that money back. You know, it was really so low risk that we never felt ever that we were like, We can't get this done or, or this isn't gonna work or it's not going to be as good as it can be. I mean, we you know, we shot on weekends, we had time in between the shooting days, to figure it out, think about it, which is a process I brought to, you know, another film I did negative more recently, you know, but that had a significantly higher budget, but we still brought the same approach, which was all basically, it was all in service of making of turning around the best movie that we could, which really involved getting the best performances that we could. And so everything about the film was shaped to give us the most time on set to get the best performance as possible. And so we didn't, we barely lit, we shot the five D at like 30 to 6400 ISO, you know, and that allowed us to basically spend like, show up light in 30 minutes and spend eight hours shooting the takes, and get us really, really, really great performances. And so you know, the thing that I say is like, everybody's sort of always thinking about their first feature and worried about the first feature, and I'm like, well, it's just a feature, you know, like, it's going to be good or it's going to be bad. And the thing is, though, is nobody's going to give you a shot until you just do that first feature. And really for me, like I made great shorts. I have a short that I'm like incredibly proud of called Digg and I spent like 40 grand to make it. period drama just got mark, my goal is Senate from breaking bad. It's like, really, really, really great. Nobody cares.

Alex Ferrari 22:14
No one cares, man. No,

Joshua Caldwell 22:16
I got I got nothing off of it. And the second I make a $6,000 French language neuron, the RS indie drama. Yeah, I get offers for the next three years off the same film.

Alex Ferrari 22:32
Now, first of all, I want you to I just want to say man preach on brother preach on because, I mean, I can't explain to you how much and the listeners know, this is as you've said, pretty much verbatim above at least three or four podcasts that I've talked about all those topics about backing into your budget. Damn something low for your first one. So you can just experiment and don't put pressure on it. It's not going to be a home run out the park, you're not going to get a deal with sun, you know, go to Sundance get a deal.

Joshua Caldwell 23:02
It could be it could no you could but that's a lottery ticket. It could but don't worry about Yeah, exactly. It's a lottery ticket. So very few people that can do that.

Alex Ferrari 23:10
Do the best work you can and that's all you can do within the within the parameters that you have. And that's exactly what you did. So what what what was the biggest thing you learned on shooting on the shooting layover.

Joshua Caldwell 23:22
So the biggest thing I learned shooting layover is that audiences. So really, it's a very technical thing, but it's a technical thing that leads into everything else, which is that audiences do not care about the image in so far as the way that DPS care about the image decision. What I mean by that is that as long as it looks decent, audiences do not care. If it as long as the performances are great, if you have a beautiful looking movie and the performances suck, because it took forever to get those beautiful shots, audiences will not care about your movie, they will not care performance and attachment to the story triumphs over everything else. And so in a way that gives you a huge amount of freedom. And I talk a lot about this now everything these new cameras like Canon cameras specifically and using them at very high ISOs which allows me to step into locations and not light and not spend time lighting shots and instead spend time getting performance because I've said this before on layover and a lot of people watch layover they think it's very beautiful because I think it's a beautiful film because you know use the natural city lights in LA and you shoot at 6400 ISO it's gonna look amazing. But I never once had an audience member. Watching layover say I really enjoyed your movie until I saw the shot with some noise in it and it ruined it for me Yet I have always had people say and some other projects I've done that will remain nameless, that, you know, we didn't, we spent a lot of time lighting and we didn't have time for performance and it was not set up in a way to succeed performance wise, people do not care about it, because the performances aren't great. When you have three takes, you're not going to get great stuff, unless you're using you know, unless you got frickin like huge a list actors and they know what they're doing. You know, and even then, but it really is like a thing where where I took from layover something that I now applied to everything that I have control over which is like, we are not going to spend three hours lighting the shot or this scene, like we're gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you to shoot above 3200 ISO which most DPS don't want to do. And I'm gonna ask you to trust me that it's gonna be okay, because I've spent two years doing it and doing it with great effect. And so, to me, what I took from that was, everybody really loves the performances and layover. And that was because we were in a place where we could play and we could try things and we can do things differently and we could spend the time to get the good performances and get the story right. rather than worrying about is this lit as perfectly as it needs to be. And guess what, at the end of the day, people still love the cinematography and layover. Right yeah, like Oh, it looks like shit and you can't you know, you clearly did it looks terrible, but the performances are great. It's like it still looks beautiful. It's really about you know, Mark polish and I talk a lot a bit about this now, because he and I have been sort of is sort of in the same vein,

Alex Ferrari 26:29
Mike saying that Mike's a friend of the show. Yes, I know. Mike. He's awesome. Mark his brother, Mark. Mark. I love Michael.

Joshua Caldwell 26:36
Yeah, Michael is great, too. But the market I've been talking about is sort of the idea of like, you know, framing is almost more important than lighting. Yep. And so in that respect framing doesn't take time like framings discovery framings like you know

Alex Ferrari 26:51
and still especially if you're shooting for like even if you're shooting at a higher resolution you can always reframe and post as well.

Joshua Caldwell 26:57
Exactly, exactly and it gives you that freedom and so like you know I took from layover this idea that wow, like we can go out in the street and go out into these locations that we've never seen before with a minimal light kit or a non existent light kit and shoot really really great material that people aren't going to believe we got and so that that to me is what I've taken from it and really have pushed DPS I've worked with now and push myself as a dp you know to sort of really take that to the next level and I think that that's what I'm most excited about what I'm most excited about in terms of like camera technology is low light sensitivity not resolution

Alex Ferrari 27:33
right absolutely in the cameras now are getting they're getting sick it's really getting

Joshua Caldwell 27:37
sick they're ridiculous I mean I you know parts of negative were shot on this this canon mb 20 that shoots up to 4 million ISO and we didn't shoot it that because it's unusable but you know we shot a big sequence in negative which is the shootout sequence in the middle of the desert. We shot that on at 25,000 and 100,000 ISO and you see the stars in the night sky and we were a little light with like you know i two people up there with a small light kit like huge lighting huge swaths of desert because those these cameras are just so sensitive and so it gives you a lot of freedom to move fast move quickly work with a small crew get a lot of materials spend a lot of time getting like great takes and great like I'd rather have 20 great takes I've got to choose from the Edit than one you know and so that's what it's about it's really about how do I on an indie budget build in the chance the opportunity to do sort of David Fincher Michael Mann style takes you know not 100 of them but a lot

Alex Ferrari 28:37
I remember looking at my freedom but look what Michael Mann did and he was one started he I think he's one of the first guys him and Fincher to use the Viper because it was one of the first cameras to actually see at night and you can actually see more than film could see with collateral I mean that movie Yep, I think he went to a foreign Miami Vice personally but

Joshua Caldwell 28:55
well it was a little great well agree to disagree on that one but

Alex Ferrari 28:58
it's a little grainy was just a little grainy that's Yeah, but

Joshua Caldwell 29:01
you know, I think what's I mean we can do this a whole side conversation. What I what I liked about Michael Mann is I think he's pushing he's pushing form. And the thing that's funny to me about Michael Mann in terms of people's like expectations of him as a filmmaker because they know him from heat and they know him like for these really great narrative stuff. I think like Michael at heart is in art is like an RD filmmaker. Like he's like so interested in the rd aspect of it and you see it now in his movies because he's got the freedom to play with it and like you're either gonna like it or you're not, but like, it's so much more about like feeling and mood and like that kind of stuff than it is about like a narrative thread. Like the narrative thread was almost like secondary in an interesting way but but anyway, but back to you know, yeah, so I mean, you know, everybody's sort of talking about this like resolution game. And I'm like, well, you got to think about like how that hurts you because like shooting at high resolutions means you got to pay a lot of money for storage. It's a lot of like, heavy workflow, you know, it's not something you can probably do on your home computer to you know, color it 8k, and so it creates a A lot of situ a lot of issues for you down the line that you're going to have to make sure you've got the money for in order to accomplish it and it doesn't 8k doesn't make your movie better no you know but I think that low light sensitivity on cameras can make your movie better because what can do is it can it can simplify and limit the amount of time you need to spend lighting which means you can now spend more of that time shooting and that's what's going to make you your movie better is to give you more material to shoot you know and to have in the Edit room than having one two takes

Alex Ferrari 30:38
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show now there's other there's the second move you made was B somebody had to get that off the ground

Joshua Caldwell 30:54
that was just a for hire thing honestly oh really that came out of yeah that that was something where they were looking for a director and they hired they had seen layover they really liked layover and I had also come off of doing a series called South Beach which was on Hulu and so be somebody kind of came out it was one of the it's one of those for hire things that kind of comes out of nowhere and you're like oh that's a really interesting story like you know I can see my sort of see myself doing this and and you know, it was something that was like an opportunity at the time and so I went for it and I sort of was intrigued by the idea of, of sort of taking this notion of like Roman Holiday and sort of you know and updating it and but shooting it in like a way that really spoke to me you know and sort of was my approach to it as opposed to you know somebody else's and so I and I was also intrigued by getting into this like digital world this kind of world of digital features and influencer movies and sort of seeing if that was something that you know would lend itself to my approach

Alex Ferrari 31:56
yeah what what affected Matthew's audience have on the financing of the film and also the selling of the film?

Joshua Caldwell 32:02
I mean financing was all of it it was all him you know i mean it was certainly like the impact of having 20 million very rabid followers you know you know possibly buying into that movie was was them determining This is worth the risk and then I know for a fact on Paramount side the reason why Paramount came in and agreed to you know license and release the movie was was an experiment as well to see like Oh, is this something real? This kid's got so many followers. Is it something we can translate into sales? I don't I don't actually know the answer on whether how that worked out. But I think it did I think it did pretty well.

Alex Ferrari 32:35
The I mean I'm sure they did pretty well on VOD and that yeah I mean

Joshua Caldwell 32:39
we did like a limited 10 week or 10 day theatrical you know for like a week but now it's on Netflix on iTunes on Amazon you know and so it it seemed to get you know i think that i you know I've had people friends of mine watch it they're like it's like it's good I get it and I'm like you know but I think it's like kind of directed in a very specific audience you know and but again like To me it was this idea of of again trying to experiment try things and it's like oh, how does this look if I have more money you know, but at the same time like one of my issues with that movie was I was given 12 days to shoot you know, like we shot that movie in 12 days and he's like yeah,

Alex Ferrari 33:19
from the trailer alone you but you bounced around a lot It wasn't like yeah room

Joshua Caldwell 33:25
bringing that approach which is hey, here's how we can sort of expand the scope of it but it was one of those things where I just you know now I feel like every in your listeners got to know there's like, here's the thing like you as a director we spend so little time actually directing you know, we're either editing when we're writing over pre production but like we spend very very little time on set directing and having that experience so the more that you can do it the better off you're going to be you know, I think about it like okay, like I did, you know layover or negative was like a 38 day shoot you know, and be somebody was a 12 day shoot. And then I just done sort of, I just did a short film that was a three day shoot and it just did a pilot which was a two day shoot. So like, what is that you know, 55 days so out of 365 days I've spent 55 of them on set directing,

Alex Ferrari 34:24
and the rest so prepping so those days Yeah, or editing those days right? Yeah, but

Joshua Caldwell 34:28
you're not there's not a huge learning until you're on set trying to figure out how to capture all this you know so so getting on set and having that experience and having to solve problems and figure things out is probably one of the best things you can do to learn how to do all this stuff and that's why like, you know, making layover I didn't do this at 22 before I'd done anything else I did after 14 years of just like Do It Yourself filmmaking and trying to figure out and going oh you know, this works this doesn't like you know layover is possible because when i when i the job working as an exact for Anthony psycho recruited CSI That was I was involved in digital then. And I didn't know much about digital and YouTube and all this stuff, but like, clearly you have no money. So it's like, how do you shoot stuff for cheap in digital, and so all of that came out of an experience of all these things like, wow, you have cameras that can shoot in low light, you can go out on the street and capture stuff without having to like, you know, because I knew from experience with the read that you can't really do that. And so all these things started to add up, but they all added up, because I was out there doing it, and testing and trying things and shooting narrative and seeing what worked and what didn't, you know, and so now it really is, like, you know, be somebody was like, sort of going, Okay, I don't understand how I have a far higher budget that I do on negative, and yet, I'm only given 12 days, and you know, negative, I can stretch it out to 38. You know, and then to me, I go, well, what's the better movie? You know, for me, it's negative, you know, in a certain way, but I really, I think that that's because I created a production model that, you know, as I mentioned, gives me more time to get greater scope, you know, and better performances for less money. And so now the learning is, well, here's where the waste is, here's how I can change this, here's where you need it, and where you don't need it, you know, and sort of starting to feel out. Okay, now, how do I take this low budget model of like me and two people shooting a movie and having it look really good? How do I apply this to things with bigger budgets? You know, how do I apply these things? Where I've unions? How do I apply these things where I have, like, you know, whatever. And so it's become like, now I'm trying to experiment with, with the whole form of production, the whole model of production, because, you know, one of the things that I find kind of frustrating is this idea, what what they what they've done in sort of the low budget indie world, is they've gone well, let's take the same production model of a 10 2040 100 million dollar movie, right? And apply it down to, you know, a million dollar budget. And guess what, you lose, you lose days, you know, obviously, you lose crew, you don't have the same size crew and $100 million movie, but you cut down to like, you still have a lot of crew, you still have a lot of trucks, you still have a lot of trailers, you still have a lot of this, that and the other thing, but what you what you really lose is days. And that is not really cool with me.

Alex Ferrari 37:14
Right? Because that that doesn't allow you to get the performance as you need. And to tell the story that you were trying to tell,

Joshua Caldwell 37:20
yeah, you know, I just had this, I just, you know, had this discussion with, with a producer on something. And, you know, I was given a bunch of reasons why one location was was better than the other. And I said, all of your reasons are production related. They have nothing to do with creative. And so I'm taking a less creative location, you know, to adjust for production, rather than production adjusting for creative. And what I need is sort of the power to control both, which is where I'm trying to get to, because when I can do that, then I can do stuff like negative where I have 38 days, you know, yeah, that's

Alex Ferrari 37:57
a pretty, that's a pretty bulky indie film. But yeah, well,

Joshua Caldwell 38:02
I mean, yeah, I mean, listen, they weren't like 38, full 12 hour days, you know, but the idea was to really not the, the idea was, we have so little money, so let's presume we have done, which means Let's spread it out. Like, you know, I don't want to find myself rushing to try and get, you know, car mount stuff, you know, and do every car mount scene in one day, which is what they would do on any other movie. You know, instead, like, we'll just go up when we go up. So like, you know, but I also was able to go and do like one of those a couple of those days, we're just going down and getting one shot. But that's the shot that helps expand the scope. But it's the shot you cut in a normal production.

Alex Ferrari 38:36
Right? Because you don't have the time. It's very summertime. It's extremely smart. A lot of the stuff that you're talking about is what I just went through with my first feature with Mike, it's just like, I had to just go out there and like, hey, let's just go do it and spread it out. And I hadn't days, it was all about time, having as much time as I could with the actors and Okay, it's it's all. It's It's wonderful to hear somebody else talking about this besides.

Joshua Caldwell 39:00
Yeah, I mean, I, a part of it, too, is just figuring out what works for you. That's true. Like, it's

Alex Ferrari 39:06
what like, what's your flavor? What's your, your process?

Joshua Caldwell 39:09
Yeah, there's some people that can deliver a movie in 12 days, three takes per scene, you know, with really, really great stuff. That's not really me, you know, and so it's hard to go and say, Well, I need 100 days. But like, arguably, I probably need 100 days and $100 million to really execute a lot of this stuff, like in the way that I would want to because it's like, it's weird. It's like, you either need so little money that you have none. And it's like you're just completely free. Or you need so much money that you can buy that freedom.

Alex Ferrari 39:36
We're all at the end of the day. I think all directors are aiming towards the freedom that Kubrick had. Yeah, with a complete with a studio behind you and you can do whatever you want. And but but a lot of people don't understand about specifically about Kubrick is that you hear about these long, because he had some of the longest he has actually the world record for the longest film schedule with eyes right? But the thing is, he has like You know, 10 people on crew? Yeah, that's it. He's like, just gonna just keep Why are you here? If you're not helping me anyway, get out? Yeah. And that's how he got all those days. He was never he was rarely over budget. That's the funny thing. I think of him as a recluse, but he wasn't he was actually always on budget. Thank you went a little bit over budget Eyes Wide Shut, but generally speaking, he was always on budget and just did his thing. But yeah, I think we're all aiming there. That's, that's what I would like,

Joshua Caldwell 40:25
well, and it's, it's sort of, you know, it's, I mean, it's, it has to get there, you know, because, like, people just aren't giving you that money studios aren't giving you that money anymore, you know, and so, yeah, so it's an interesting thing that I've been flirting with, and trying out and sort of like taking jobs, like be somebody sort of allowed me to sort of see how, okay, this is how this works. Here's how it change it. You know, here's how it adjust this. And so you know, you only have so much power in a for hire situation. That was it's hard. observer, it's hard for people to sort of understand and trust it, you know, because you're saying, you need to kind of give me the money. And let me go away and make this and people don't want to do that.

Alex Ferrari 41:03
Unless you have a hell of a of a resume, then yeah,

Joshua Caldwell 41:06
or you can just or you're just coming in. I mean, like, if I come in with a project, and I wrote the script, and I'm directing it, I'm going to produce it like, you know, I can kind of say, Listen, I'll take less than what you would normally get for this, but you need to like, let me just go do my thing.

Alex Ferrari 41:19
Gotcha. And you got to trust me. Yeah. Trust me that Oh, yeah. Done. Now, with layover, which is interesting, you have a $6,000 movie. What did you what was what came of it as far as your career as far as festivals as far as distribution? How that how does that help, because a lot of people listening can make a $6,000 film. So I'd love to hear the story of where that actually went to and what it actually did for you.

Joshua Caldwell 41:43
Yeah, so we finished it. And we were very fortunate. Both Travis, who is a longtime friend and writing partner of mine, like produced it. And we're both both from Seattle. So we have a friend at the Seattle International Film Festival who had sort of heard about us making the movie because we'd been tweeting about it and things like that. And he was like, Listen, I'd love to see when it's done. So we sent it to him steams. And sorry, his name is Brad up there. He runs. He runs the catalyst program. And he, he watched it and really, really loved it. And you know, he'd seen a non finished cut. But he really loved it. He wanted to program it. And we were, we were like, Listen, like, I mean, when we made the movie, we had no illusions about like, Oh, it's gonna get us in this. It's gonna get into Sundance, you know, we're gonna like, the, you know, it's, again what you said, it's like this kind of huge thing. It's gonna blow you up. I was like, No, I'm like, but I do think it might be a festival movie, because we're talking about it being like a French language

Alex Ferrari 42:41
day. Yeah, absolutely.

Joshua Caldwell 42:43
But so anyway, anyway, so they offered it to us, the premiere pro world premiere there, and we took it, we thought that like being a little bit of a bigger fish in a smaller pond would be good. Being in our hometown would be good in terms of like getting, you know, sellouts and things like that. And we really loved the idea of premiering, you know, our first feature at the, at the our hometown festival. And so, so went really well we have two sold out shows, we were nominated for their five plushie award there, which is like their their sort of prestigious independent award. And we didn't win. But it premiered there. And then I managed to get David Chen of slash film to come and see it. Because he lives in Seattle. And, and I said, Listen, I've got this, you know, you don't know me, but I've got this film. I know you're going to the festival, I'd love to invite you and have you see it. And he came and, and tweeted out some very nice things about it, and then interviewed me afterwards. And that was kind of the first notion of the idea of it being like us putting it out there that it was a $6,000 movie. And people started to not believe it, you know, and so we started writing articles. And we did a whole like, you know, we had a couple articles come out about like the sort of process we had something on no film school. And that sort of got us a little bit of attention. And then we got the usual like aggregators saying, hey, we'll put your money in a movie up and you know, not pay anything. And we're like, well, let's wait and see. And so so actually, David ended up coming on board as a producer, he ended up helping sort of provide some finishing funds for the film, and promoting it and sort of getting it out there. And we basically went through a couple more film festivals, not a lot, you know, kind of once you give away your world premiere, like, you know, unless you're a huge movie, people are really gonna play it, although some people, some people will, it's hard to know, I thought it was going to play more festivals than it did. And we started aiming for a fall 2014. So this was May of 2014. So then we decided to start aiming for a fall 2014 self release, we decided, you know, let's not do this aggregation thing, because we're never gonna make a dime off of it. And let's experiment again, like the nature of the film is to try things and experiment. So let's experiment with self distribution, and try that out and see if it's possible. And so David was also very intrigued by that and so we He ended up setting up our film on gumroad. Because they were like one of the cheaper, like they took less in terms of their their costs, and built a website and put it up and, and started selling it and put it up on Vimeo. And, you know, David David posted a couple articles about it. And, and then as a result of that, we ended up getting a guy out of Canada who agreed to sort of do additional distribution, and he ended up you know, he put it on iTunes, Amazon, that kind of thing, we kind of reached a point where we were like hitting our limit in terms of sales. So we were like, yeah, if somebody else wants to bond the cost of putting it up, like we feel like we've kind of made our money. But it would be beneficial just to get it out there.

Alex Ferrari 45:41
Was it a problem? was it? Was it profitable at that point?

Joshua Caldwell 45:45
No, well, it might have at this point, but it's it has not made, it's made probably last I checked, it's made about five of its $6,000 budget, okay. But here's the thing, like, here's what we learned from that, right? Like, we have no stars in it, you know, we have it's a it's a very friend, you know, it's French language, it's indie drama, and we kind of recognized Oh, like, there's a limit to this sort of circle of discussion about that extends out of you, right, there's a limit to your reach. And we kind of realized, okay, like, there's a limit to this reach. And it just never, it never really took off in terms of the public, you know, sort of consumption of it. But we were kind of always okay with that, because we'd made a feature in like, we made a feature that played into felt really reputable Film Festival was getting attention, and we were writing about it, people were intrigued by the $6,000 thing, and I started getting meetings off of it. And then I got, I got, you know, basically ended up getting the last three jobs iPad came out of directly out of layover,

Alex Ferrari 46:48
really. So that was just because that someone did people in the industry reach

Joshua Caldwell 46:52
out to you. Yeah, I mean, they just had heard about it, or saw it, or my manager was pitching me, you know, or sending it out to people. I mean, listen, like, the thing about Hollywood is while everyone's making Transformers movies, everyone came out to Hollywood to make the Godfather, you know, right? Well, for the for the most part, but creative execs really like you know, they love a lot of different stuff. And they're always looking for different things. And so the sort of idea of this low budget, French language film, made by a director that doesn't speak French, became very intriguing. movie on top of that, you know, they were, they were like, kind of always amazed at what I can do for the budget that sort of become the thing that I'm trying to Now get out of

Alex Ferrari 47:34
the cheap guy, he could do that. Yeah, he can do.

Joshua Caldwell 47:39
But I but it was more than that. Because I think like they've seen obviously a lot of cheap movies. And I think that it was really sort of just the right, it just works. I think the movie just ends up working.

Alex Ferrari 47:49
Got it. Now

Joshua Caldwell 47:50
what's but it was, but that's the thing that I that I also talk about is like, Listen, like if you want to go out and hunt down, you know, $4 million to make your first feature like by all means, like, go ahead, you'll probably do well off of it. But like, you can still do well, I mean, you need you should have your man, you should have an agent, you should have a manager, they got to be able to you somebody's got to be able to push you. But like it's possible to, to create a career out of doing something for for $6,000. That isn't some massive Sundance hit, you know, like clerks or something like that.

Alex Ferrari 48:17
Now, what's your approach when when you are working with actors?

Joshua Caldwell 48:22
You know, at this point, it's, it's hire the best actors that I can and kind of stay out of their way. You know, which sounds really simple but but what I do, what I do is I mean, what I tried to do is get get it into the text of the script, like, if it's not in the script, it's not going to be on screen. So like, get into the text of the script. And then what I do is I try to get it the best actors that I can, whether those are friends or whether they're whatever in it by in it in what I tried to do is also adjust the role to their sensibilities. So I don't ask the actors to do if they're not capable of doing big emotional crying scenes, I don't ask them to do big emotional crying seats. You know, it really is about creating, like limiting the role to what they do best. Because if they do that, and do it really well, no one's going to miss. Right? The biggest trick to movies is people don't miss what's not in the movie. Right? You know, if you don't, but what they do sort of what they'll cringe at or what they'll Scott that or what the roll their eyes at are the things that you put in the movie that you really couldn't afford to do well, right? Like, don't do a car chase, if you can't really do a car chase, do a foot Chase, because if you do a car chase to do it poorly, people are going to see that. But if you do a foot Chase and do it really well, people aren't going to go Oh, that was probably a car chase that they switch. You know. So it's sort of, you know, this so it's Same thing with actors like you know, you have to understand the sort of until you're in a place where you can hire whoever you want, and they're all very, very talented. You have to understand sort of those limitations, but if you can craft it If you can create those limitations in the character, then the actor can do what they do best. And you're not asking him to do something that they don't do very well. And so I sort of figured that out, we tailor the role to them. And then we sit down and we do a lot of talking, we do a lot of talking about the character and throughout the script, and this is where she's coming from this issue she is, and then if I can do any kind of, like, sort of real life training, like when we were with Katya on negative, she plays a spy. So we did a lot of like, you know, real steel gun training, we did a lot of like, you know, I have a guy that's who's a former British SS officer who does like concealed carry training. And so we did a lot of like, on the range gun training with her, you know, we did like, sort of some airsoft style training as well with like, you know, former former Army Rangers and things like that. So you're not using real steel, but it's still like you're holding a fairly realistic weapon, and you're doing, you know, cleanroom clearance and all this stuff, because like, what I didn't want her to do on set was think about how she was holding the gun, what I wanted her to do was behave, and just the gun was second nature. And so like, so we do training in that way if we can. And then and then really, once we get to set, it's about, we've done all that work, we've done all the work of the character, and then it's about just fine tuning, right? Like, oh, try this line, you need to be a little angrier here. But it's usually like not a lot of talking to actors, it's not a lot of discussion on set, it's not a lot of like, here's your motivation, which is like the cliche, it really is, like, just fine tuning what they already know. And then but also setting up an environment where you're not limiting, right, like you're not saying you got to hit this mark, because if you don't, then you don't, you're not in the light and the shot is screwed up, you're trying to get them out of thinking about the movie aspect, and more thinking purely from a character basis. So I set up the set and the way we shoot I do a lot of handheld, I adjust to them, you know, so if they aren't on their mark all move like I do a lot of these kinds of things were what I tried to do is like create the behavior and the blocking of what they're doing and then I shoot around them, I try to avoid asking them to adjust for camera and I try to adjust the camera for them. It's not always the case but like for the most part, I like to do takes where it's a lot of discovery and they're doing what they do and I'm just capturing it and then we go in and sort of like you know scalpel certain things. I'm like I just need this angle in this position or I need this and then we but they've already done the bulk of it, you know and so and letting them letting them do their thing like try not to get in the way too much.

Alex Ferrari 52:39
It's it's kind of like what I say is you're there to capture the lightning Yeah, yeah in a lot of ways.

Joshua Caldwell 52:45
And that just has come from me developing that approach over over the years of doing a lot of prep so I know the character they know the character it's all in the prep but like the idea of like you know, oh here's some action verbs or Oh like pretend there's a stone in your shoe or like oh try and get her to smile like I don't really do any of that like I am not really it doesn't really work for me and and I prefer try and do what I try to do is just get to as realistic a situation on set as possible.

Alex Ferrari 53:13
And then hiring actors who are close to the characters that they can play like you say their limitations are the limitations of the act of the character and a lot of ways and yeah,

Joshua Caldwell 53:22
that's really if you're working with they haven't been on shows they don't have as much experience they don't have as much like you know, talent because a lot of times you're starting out you don't have you know, unless you're in LA and you just know a bunch of actors like a lot of times you don't have like you know, access in the same way that you do. You know, as you build yourself up and you do more and so and so in that way you kind of want to limit it, but once you also get to a point where like, the actors, it's their job, it's

Alex Ferrari 53:49
Yeah, Meryl Streep is going to come in and do what she does.

Joshua Caldwell 53:52
Like you're not you're not directing Meryl Streep, you're just kind of like, you hire Meryl Streep, and then you let her do her thing. You know. So it's, it's, it's sort of that prospect, and I think it's trying to create, you know, you know, and this is something that I now it's like, kind of also onset, it's like doing a lot of like real environments, like again, like, even for negative we didn't permit most of negative we kind of just stole it. But in a live environment.

Alex Ferrari 54:19
So So tell us a little bit about First of all, tell us a bit about negative and then also the concept of stealing a shot because I know a lot of people don't understand what that might mean. So if you can explain the concept of stealing the shot, and what are some of those tricks that you don't get caught?

Joshua Caldwell 54:34
Right? So So I'll start with negative so negative is the story of basically it's the story of this guy, his name's Hollis, who's a, he's like an amateur, slightly professional photographer, a bit of a hipster and he's out one day taking photos and he snaps a photo of this woman. And next thing you know, he's back in his place developing the 35 millimeter film and there's a knock on his door and she shows up and she demands the negative two Man is the photo. And before she takes it by force before she leaves, men with gun show up, and so she escapes with him, gets him to come with her. And they have to essentially escape out of LA, you come to find out that she's a former British spy who was trying to negotiate a retirement deal with the cartel when things went wrong, and now they want a dead and because of his involvement with taking your photo, and whatever, he's involved as well. And so they basically have to escape from LA to Phoenix to meet up with a former contact of hers, and figure out what the next steps are. And so it's a bit of a spy movie bit of a bit of a road movie. It's a thriller. It's it's a lot of fun. It's really really it's it's cool. It was written by Adam Gaines, who's like this fantastic writer with really really great ear for dialogue and Katia winter for and Simon quarterman for Westworld, isn't it? And Thaddeus

Alex Ferrari 55:58
from where

Joshua Caldwell 55:59
Kati is from she was in Sleepy Hollow. Oh, very cool. And she's also been on Dexter and so she's been she's been around she's done a few things. And so marvista financed it and produced it along with myself and we'll Borthwick who's my producer on it and it was one of the you know I repeat it and it was one of these things where what I wanted to do was I wanted I wanted marvista to give me money and leave me alone and go I'm just gonna make this movie The way that I wanted to make it so that's what we did we basically like I said we shot for 38 days over the course of six months you know we have gun fights in it we have a really awesome fight scene you know we have a lot of travel we go from LA to LA to Phoenix you know we did a road trip to shoot a bunch of stuff on the road you know, we shot a bunch of stuff up in the desert you know, and I was as a dp was in addition to be a director and the camera operator was basically trying to collapse the conversation because I was like I think that I need to try and do this my way in terms of like the visuals and see if I can take the layover approach and apply it to something with a bigger canvas and see if that can work and I think it absolutely worked so it was a really really great thing and we're just now in the process of searching for film festivals like somewhere where we can premiere it and then you know and then we'll we'll Marvis still put it out and then release it probably sometime next year.

Alex Ferrari 57:17
Now this really interesting about marvista because you know this movie doesn't sound like generally when distributor or a company a production company like marvista or that caliber they're generally looking for some sort of star power that's going to be able to sell overseas and things like that which what you're telling me basically goes against convention in a lot of ways because it's not a job or movie in any there's not a horror movies that yeah you know unless there's a lot of nudity internet which i don't i don't know i don't think there is I'm thinking I'm now I got my my dirty AFM hat on right which is unfortunate I'm just curious about how that came to be

Joshua Caldwell 57:54
yeah well I mean marvista had been a fan since layover and you know their their their thing is they do sort of their lifetime you know they make a lot of money doing those kind of movies but they've started really looking for under a million dollar grittier Film Festival style movies, right? Like things that are very much against what they've been doing that like might you know, play festivals and win some awards and get some attention in a different way but make them low enough low budget enough that they're not taking huge risks you know, it's not like huge a huge gamble for them. And I think they were kind of intrigued I mean they really like the scripted like the package I was about to make it no matter what I was about to maybe even self funded and marvista came in and they were really intrigued by not only sort of every the package but also just you know how much we were going to make it for which I can't talk about unfortunately but also the way in which we were going to make it and I think that there was like the idea was give us enough money to make this but not so much that you really care and then let us go make it and let us bring it back to you and it was really me also talking to them and saying listen like I need to make this my way like I just come off doing a project that like I was not happy with because I didn't have control over it and I just I need creative control you know not final cut but I need I need creative control to execute this the way that I want to execute it and they were very very generous and in allowing me to go do that and very supportive of that process. So you know i think that they have a sense of what they can make off of it and they know that whatever they gave us budget wise is much less than

Alex Ferrari 59:33
what the obvious how that works. Yeah, no, no, I

Joshua Caldwell 59:37
think they're they're stoked on it though. They really like it.

Alex Ferrari 59:39
Now as far as stealing shots. Can you talk a little bit about tricks, tricks that you've learned along the way on how to steal shots, what to do and what is stealing the shot specifically?

Joshua Caldwell 59:49
Well, you know, listen, you know, when I talk about stealing shot, I'm not talking about stealing shot with a bunch of trucks and gear and equipment and crew and all this stuff, right? Like you'd be going Now route you need a permit like because that's what the least care about. But one of the things that's become really interesting with this whole YouTube thing and iPhones and all this stuff is the the the really proliferation of people shooting stuff, right people are shooting stuff specially in LA all over the place and it would be a police officers full time job to sort of police that. So they don't really care as long as you're not blocking sidewalks as long as you're not impacting pedestrians, as long as you're not, you know, sort of like creating a headache for traffic or, or doing anything dangerous, they're not really going to pay attention to you, especially if you're a limited crew, if you're like under three people, they don't really care either. So that gets you around sort of the law thing, the permit thing and again, like check with your lawyers do your due diligence, like don't take my word for it. But this is in my experience, because a permit only gives you really permission for that moment, when an officer shows up and says do you have permission to be shooting here, you know, that's it, it's not something you need for distribution, it's not something you have to prove later. Like it's literally just a document that's good for like the day that it's a fault, you know, it's dated.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:09
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Joshua Caldwell 1:01:20
And so, you know, that gives you a lot of opportunity to sort of steal stuff now, you know, stealing shot basically means not paying money for it, and not permanent. And so there's, you know, a lot of sort of looseness in that but really it's just it's getting the shots without people sort of stopping you and the fact is I've never really been stopped because I move so fast so like one of the things about like layover is layover again opens on an airplane flying by Los Angeles we're on a real plane and we landed at LAX and we walked through the airport and we get on a shuttle and we go to a hotel and all that's in the movie none of it is permitted none of it was paid for well

Alex Ferrari 1:02:02
you shot in the airport yeah How did you shoot in the airport

Joshua Caldwell 1:02:06
well up so we just walked through and we got one take and you know I had a five D kind of like pressed against my chest right behind my actress and we sort of just walked in I shot it all documentary style knowing that I would cut it up later and that's the secret like you can't do it where you have multiple takes and important performances and certain lines you got to nail and you can't do any of that if you're stealing a shot you need to kind of steal a shot like that that that you can shoot kind of doc style so that might not fit into like somebody's style of shooting works in mind but you know we shot in Union Station you know but we do all these is like kind of walkthrough so they like they show up is like seconds you know they show up is like the short things these interludes these in betweens you know and we we basically you know but that gives so much scope to it that gives such

Alex Ferrari 1:02:59
issues yeah if you're shooting at Union Station i mean i guess if you walk in with a small enough camera and you're not making a big deal of it you're just shooting with natural light and you're just following somebody or getting someone's yeah and

Joshua Caldwell 1:03:09
you're walking through like they don't even know to stop you they're not looking for that right you know they're looking for like shoulder cameras and like whatever and so you know I shot negative with the C 100 mark two and you know, which is a fairly small compact camera and so like by keeping it sort of close to my chest and like having a monitor where I could kind of just look down and see it it just walking like I chose a style that benefited from that approach you know that's what it's like it is my stuff

Alex Ferrari 1:03:37
and that's it is a compact camera but it's definitely not a DSLR camera so it does have a little bit of a footprint to it yeah you got to be a little slip with that but

Joshua Caldwell 1:03:45
now yeah but nowadays these cameras they have autofocus that's fantastic you know you can get away with like so much because these cameras are really small, they're compact, they're light, it's just really like it's it's it's if you're stealing it like we shot a whole chase sequence through this Chinese market in Chinatown, right and the way we did it was just walking through it like we just walked through it I would I would like I'd stop and I go okay we stopped and then I get to the front shot and I do like a walking backwards thing for like 20 feet and then we turn around to do a side shot like we would just move through it and I knew that I was just going to chop it up so much and nothing was the geography was not going to like be you know not have a continuity to it so it didn't matter and I could just like you know I could just cut and so that's very different than going out and shooting a dialogue scene where you know you need to do multiple takes multiple You know, you're trying to get performance you don't want anybody bothering you. And so for negative what we did for a lot of those was we were out in the desert we just went up to Palmdale and found like these tracts of land that, you know, I've shot on before, and we would just go shoot and nobody bothered us because nobody cares.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:46
Yeah, you know, I just went to one of the scenes in my movie, I wanted the Hollywood sign. And I was nervous because I'm like, oh man, but halfway up, I figured out I'm like, there's no one coming up here. I'm exhausted. No, by the time someone would call somebody. It's Over. Yeah, yeah, it's it was pretty eye opening and it gave me a scope to the movie.

Joshua Caldwell 1:05:05
Yeah. And again, people I think in LA, they kind of give you the benefit of the doubt. You know, like they kind of assume one again, like YouTubers are shooting all the time, you know, with layover layover was interesting because the other thing about shooting with a DSLR is people don't assume you're shooting a movie. Right? Right. You know people's perception This is what it really boils down to people's perception, although it's changing. But people's perception of making a movie or making a movie is not one guy with a small tiny camera. Right? You know, it's sound guys and lights and trucks and a lot of people and a big camera. And so that's what they assume making movies. I mean, when we were shooting in the airport, you know, we had people sort of be like, oh, like, what are you shooting? I thought I thought people were gonna flag me thinking I was taking photos. You know, like, but I was also not taking photos of like, you know, I didn't try to shoot the security area. Like I wasn't an idiot. I just looked like, like, the actress I was with just we just look like travelers. You know, so it was just you and her. It was just me it just me and her. Yeah. Done. You know, we bought we bought two tickets to San Francisco. And we went to the airport early and shot the end of the movie. And then we waited, we flew up to San Francisco. And when we flew back, we shot on the plane coming into LA and you know, and then we shot on our way out and yeah, like you just kind of like, you know, it just looked like we were taking photos. And so people just don't know, and they don't they don't assume that you're like making a movie. They seem like, you know, our our cover was gonna be, you know, oh, well, we're, you know, we're just like travel bloggers. And if people were like, Well, you can't shoot and be like, okay, right, you know? Yeah, like, it wasn't like, I mean, we even tested it. We went we went did a test shoot, we went to like the baggage claim area at LAX and shot with the camera and shot a couple things. And like, nobody paid attention to us.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:51
Wow, really? Yeah. Well, that's great. That's great, great, great advice.

Joshua Caldwell 1:06:55
I mean, but yeah, you know, and so but there's only certain things you can do, like, you know, I mean, I'm not going to attempt to do a scene where somebody is holding a gun in public, like, yeah, that's just that's just foolish. Yeah, it's just foolish. So it's like, so what it is, is it comes back to your script, right? It comes back to what you talked about, which is like, you know, adjusting your script for the budget you have. And basically, it's creating, like a modular script. So like, what you're doing is you're creating a script with scenes that can kind of be shot anywhere, and like, you know, like, you know, when layover and reference layover layovers easier because people actually watch it, you know, but like, layover, there's a club scene. And I knew I was never gonna be able to afford to do a club scene because I've done music videos. And I know, it's like, it's cost

Alex Ferrari 1:07:35
articulates, it's ridiculous.

Joshua Caldwell 1:07:37
So I was prepared, I was one I was like, okay, no people in the club, see, maybe I can come in with them, and bring a camera, like I'm a photographer, you know, like, and then we'll shoot the like scenes. Or maybe I'll buy a table for like, you know, part of the budget for three 400 bucks, and I'll bring my iPhone and we'll like to shoot on the iPhone, right? But the whole premise of this in terms of how we execute it was all done because in the script, I was like, I'm never gonna get like, a club that I own to shoot this scene. So I need to write a scene that does that, that has limited action, no dialogue, and does not require me to do repeat performances. Because if I have to steal this in order to get the size of us being in a big club, like I can't afford to have people go like why do you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, you know, so I didn't so I designed it to be kind of documentary like the point of the club scene in layover is her letting go she's taking ecstasy she's like letting go she's having a fun night. And that's what that scene really needs to reflect and then there's a small bit of action now we ended up getting permission to come into an existing club that was open and we were allowed to be in there for an hour with our cameras and we were able to shoot a lot of that stuff but it was designed to be done in a way that did not require a lot of effort production wise and that's part of it right like just being smart about it like again though the airport not shooting stuff that requires a narrative not shooting like the narrative is she gets on she flies in LA actually gets off the plane she walks to the airport, she gets on a shuttle goes to a hotel, that's all you need to know. And I can roll a lot of it because all I'm looking for is a little piece that I can edit.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:12
Well, I mean it's perfect you're basically telling you basically saying the same thing that mark and Michael did a Polish did on for lovers only. Yeah, they weren't exactly they went over to France and shot and every Cathedral every place they wanted to because they were shooting with a DSLR and they happen to have a star in it was Dana that helped to sell it the selling of it, but yeah, but they on abortion standpoint, that's what they did.

Joshua Caldwell 1:09:38
Listen, like we got kicked out of the church then we'd shoot the scene in a cafe. Right? No, you gotta be you know, yeah, kind of like whoa, yeah, exactly. You got to be you know, so you design a script to be done like that. Like I always say, you know, don't write in. Don't be specific about things like don't be specific about the house. It's just it's a house. It could be a small house, a big house. It really doesn't matter. Because once you write in what you know, a way in which it matters, then that there's only one way you can do that, you know, there's only one house that you can get, and that's gonna cost you money. And that's, you know, like, if your uncle, by the way has a Ferrari dealership, and he's gonna loan you a Ferrari great, right? The Ferrari is awesome, you know, but don't write in a Ferrari knowing you can't get it without paying for it. And so Exactly, yeah, that's the kind of thing and also like, you know, and I ran into this on South Beach, because, you know, I came in to South Beach, South Beach was my first job after layover. And it was certainly massively not massive, but it was a much, much bigger budget than I had a layover, although pretty much any budgets bigger than what I had in labor. But you know, it wasn't a lot. And so what I, you know, I sat down with them, because they were like, well, these locations are costing more money than we expected that it into, and I said, Listen, you guys have written a TV series or a Hulu series, but you've written a story that's entirely about rich people. Like everyone in this story is rich. And so, you know, you've set up expectations for an audience, right? Like, you've got Samantha, who's a club owner of the hottest club in in South Beach, you've got her dad, who runs the hottest record executive record label is in Miami, right? These are people who require the look of success in your show, or nobody's gonna buy it. So suddenly, you've got to find you can't give this high powered record, record label owner, a corner office in a basement. You know, you can't do it, you got to give them something with views. So that stuff, you know, you can't have 20 extras in a club. That's the hottest club in South Beach. Like you need three 400 people to fill this thing. You know, so I'm like, that's that that's your problem. The problem isn't like it's costing you money. The problem is you wrote us you wrote a script that's cost you money. You know, there's only so much I can fake. You know, I can fake nice clothes. You know, I can't fake

Alex Ferrari 1:12:02
300 people club, right? Yeah. There's only so much I can do. Yeah, and

Joshua Caldwell 1:12:07
so Yeah, exactly. So but that's the thing is, like, you know, don't write scripts about rich people. You know, like, you're not gonna be, you're not gonna be able to afford just to fund the creative that's required to make them look the part. And then you're in that whole, like, you know, middle school thing where like, you're playing, you know, you're shooting your brother's playing gangsters and cops, and they're 12 years old. You know, that's, that's where you get into. And so Amy, like, the thing for me is that I'm, I've said this before, like, I'm really allergic to cheapness as a director, like I don't, I will make any adjustment I can to make it not feel cheap. Because if you feels cheap, your audience is just gonna sense that too. And then we're going to turn off because it's again, going back to like the chasing right, like, fast, fast, the fast series has cornered the market on chases, like so unless you're chasing is so outstanding is so different and so unique and achievable with whatever money you have. Why are you bother, don't bother, because everybody's gonna compare it to that, right? You know, and so find a way to be different because trust me, like, I've had the experience on stuff, I've produced stuff I've been involved with, not as a director, fortunately, but on other things, where you write a chase sequence, and it just gets cut, and cut and cut. And all of a sudden, you're in a loop de loop, you know, in a warehouse. That is not very exciting. You know, and everybody sees Wow, that was a really rinky dink chase sequence that clearly they had no money. I never want people to say, Wow, you clearly had no money. I will do everything I can to not put in the idea in there into my audience's heads, that I had no money to pull off what I wanted to pull off, I would I hate this idea of let's take a million dollars and make it look like 20 million, right? Like, take a million dollars and make it look like you know, like don't reach for a $20 million thing. Do the million dollar version really, really, really well. You know, like do an outstanding put Chase, do an outstanding fight scene. Like because you could afford those things but you can't afford you know, to blow up an airplane. You know, as a car flies out of it. Like you're going to do that visually on your own home computer is gonna look like crap.

Alex Ferrari 1:14:24
And that was the funny thing is on swingers. Doug Liman actually said, you know, instead of us trying to make the million dollar movie, which I think they had, like, I think half a million bucks or something like that to make that movie or 3000 something like that, instead of trying to make the $300,000 we've got look like a million or two. Let's make the $300,000 movie look like a $20,000 movie, but let's just blow open the scope. And guess what they did? Yeah, it worked perfect cuz you look at that movie. You don't go Oh, that looks like a 345 million dollar movie. No, it looks like what it is. But they were able to travel to Las Vegas and yeah, do all this stuff that are all over the place. Yeah, with that with a net have been able to do if they were trying to blow push that production value up to a million dollars

Joshua Caldwell 1:15:05
that's what we did on layover you know layover is nighttime it's all shot at night run motorcycles are traveling through the city and shot on a five D it's not like you know it's almost entirely handheld you know like the lights are sort of blown out that not like perfectly lit like you know but there's a beauty to it and there's an experience to it and what I've kind of gotten to where I've gotten to that I'm very a place where I'm very very excited about is this idea of like you are following along on this you're not you don't feel like it's staged you that's the interest that's the feeling that I now as a director I'm interested in in trying to get on film and try to create for my for the audience is this idea of like, Is this real? Like because it feels like this is a documentary? So I know it's not

Alex Ferrari 1:15:54
I got you so I got three last questions I asked all of my all my guests go home what is the advice you would give a filmmaker just starting out in the business

Joshua Caldwell 1:16:07
Get yourself a camera, whatever that camera is don't worry about how good it is and and find and start shooting. And you know some of the best advice that I saw was funny enough on in you might have been on this not this thread, but like on the board. But remember the IMDb like messageboards of course, like with all the like filmmakers and there were some like a couple guys on there that were clearly like hot shots and they're like you know making like some direct to DVD movie. But But the best thing that I saw was Get yourself a camera find some plays short plays, and we're now at the zoo, whatever. Get to people that you know get a couple people together and start shooting and and and get some editing software and try to put it together and learn from that and see how you messed up and see what doesn't work and see how you cross the line. But really like I think that you can read about it you can study up on it, you can do it but you got to get out and you got to do it. You got to see what works for you. So like, I really don't think there's a substitute for like doing it. And nowadays, you know, if it's an iPhone, it's up choosing that like, you know, what's that the issue like 2k or 4k on the iPhone, the shot the shot. tangerine tangerine on Yeah, like whatever it is, you know, like there's there's you don't really have an excuse anymore. And don't worry what's going to happen with it. It doesn't matter. Yes, not right now Your goal is to just make things put them together, see how it works, see what didn't and then make it again?

Alex Ferrari 1:17:36
Don't be precious. Exactly. Don't be precious.

Joshua Caldwell 1:17:39
There's no any time to be precious later. You got to earn you got to earn it. You got to

Alex Ferrari 1:17:43
earn Yeah, exactly. As opposed to I know so many filmmakers, I make their first feature. And they and they are on it for three years. Yeah. And just on it for three as opposed to just keep going, keep going keep going. They're just on it for three years. What's the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Joshua Caldwell 1:18:01
I'm okay, I don't have one that took me the longest to learn. But it's something that it takes people a long time to learn. And that is, nobody's going to do it for you. Yeah. So I learned very quickly after I won my MTV Movie Award, and nobody saw the awards and nobody cared that I was not God's gift to filmmaking and not the second coming of Paul Thomas Anderson. Right. You know, I won this award and really thought like, oh, the doors are open. You know, I know it's an MTV Movie Award, but like who when you know, who's a student filmmaker wins an MTV Movie Award, right? And it just didn't happen that way. Doors didn't open, and I didn't, you know, get agents calling me and I wasn't making my first feature at 23 It took me a couple of years to really, you know, go, okay, nobody's gonna do this for me. So if I'm going to make it happen, I've got to start hustling. And that's one of the best lessons that I've learned and I was fortunate that I actually learned it early on, rather than 10 years of sort of bitterness waiting for people to read my scripts and give me a shot even though I hadn't really earned the right to do that.

Alex Ferrari 1:19:11
I am that bitter guy took me a little longer to figure that out my fault well

Joshua Caldwell 1:19:18
there's a lesson for you you can take that Yeah, no, it's the truth.

Alex Ferrari 1:19:21
I was waiting around I was waiting around I wasn't waiting around for people to do stuff but I was like I wrote scripts try to get the money yeah man got a short shot a short that shorts gonna blow me up because you know when I did broke and broke it did open a lot of doors for me. Right? You know, I got the I didn't get deals, but I got a lot of meetings, a lot of stuff. But I didn't have anything ready. I had no script. I had done nothing. And I lived in the East Coast at the time. So it was right. It was really a waste. All that was a waste.

Joshua Caldwell 1:19:49
It's so easy. When you have because I feel the same way. It's so easy at a younger age when you have something like that happen, right? Like all these people want to meet with me, or Oh, I won this award. Like unless it's literally like an Oscar, or like Sunday but then even even then even then, but but at least you could say you won Sundance or an Oscar. But you know, it's it's it's that thing of it's all just like it's all talk, it's just all talk even now I'm just like I'm telling my agents I'm just like, I got to stop it with the generals because like they're a waste of time for me. Like, I'm so tired of these, like, let's go in when I have something but like to sit to say like, like, watch.

Alex Ferrari 1:20:28
Let's go Yeah, let me Yeah, he's like hey, I just want to come over there and like have me agree.

Joshua Caldwell 1:20:32
Right? Because the idea is it's it feels like something's happening when nothing is happening. That's what this that's what this town is built on. Yeah, and it's distorting and you can get really lost in it and you can be waiting around saying Oh, they just they're gonna read my script and then and the fact is your scripts probably not that great. You know, and like, you know, you got to create opportunities for yourself like that's what it really is like we're in an age where you know, whatever system was in place in the 90s were like filmmakers could come out of Sundance and like blow up and do big big features you know, it's not that anymore like people are looking to YouTube and there's also no excuse now like you have such an opportunity with like the the cheapness of shooting editing sound equipment, but not only that, now you have distribution that's what's really cool and different about this world you know, whether it's indie film, whether it's YouTube whether it's whatever is like I mean for 2000 bucks you can pay to have your movie on iTunes, Amazon, VUDU, like whatever any of those you could pay upfront to make that happen. Yeah, you somehow that much like yeah, like the stripper or something like that. And so that was never available before you were making a movie and spending whatever money you were spending wrong hoping that somebody else would do it now that's not the case. And the fact is, like, you know, yes, there's so many people now on YouTube and it's like saturated it's like a saturated market but like, I think that what I've seen is like good content still breaks through and if you have somebody if you can get somebody like an agent or manager that can help push through into the Hollywood area because listen, people in Hollywood are not watching YouTube all day. They're being told who's on YouTube and earning a lot of money you know, and then they watch them and so you know, and also like think about this too like a lot of people make movies like you know for fans like or for an audience maybe your first couple movies should be made for the industry right like what movies would an industry like exact like to watch what would he enjoy because then he goes I really liked this guy. Let's get him to make this movie. You know, that's what happened with layover layover didn't find a massive audience in terms of the public because what America you know, it's America and who's watching you know, 80 movie with subtitles?

Alex Ferrari 1:22:40
That's why I find so fascinated about layovers, because it's so not El Mariachi, its own bar away from clerks, or, or any of those kind of movies. It's a foreign film shot in LA by a non foreign director. Yeah, it's like, if someone would tell me like, this is going to be my first feature and I think I'm gonna be able to get work off of this in LA. Oh, you're nuts.

Joshua Caldwell 1:23:03
Oh, yeah, for sure.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:04
You're nuts. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

Joshua Caldwell 1:23:05
it's, it's I never thought it was gonna lead to what it led to. But it's this idea of like, like you said, the pitch sounds so intriguing. You're like, I got to watch this. And then that's at least good. If it were terrible, you'd be like, forget it. But like, people seem to really connect with it in some way. Because it's about you know, it goes back to like, layover is about a choice layover is about coming to a fork in the road, and trying to figure out which direction to take. And everybody has been in that position.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:30
Hmm, amen. Now, what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Joshua Caldwell 1:23:39
Time is the insider. Okay. By Michael Mann. Yep. Good. second favorite film of all time is traffic to film. And I would say my third favorite film of all time is Casa Blanca.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:53
Nice. I guess I always always like I always find it fascinating to ask that question, because it really gives me a good idea of the sensibilities, especially when I'm talking to a director or writer. Yeah, their sensibilities and those three movies pretty much says a lot about us.

Joshua Caldwell 1:24:08
I mean, Costa Blanca is a huge outlier, but it's just such a perfect film. It is like it's just it's an unbelievably perfect film. It's one of those things I just like I can put on any time and just enjoy it. And so and I can watch it as many times as possible, but

Alex Ferrari 1:24:22
inside Yeah, sauerberg I mean traffic is is is a genius.

Joshua Caldwell 1:24:27
Traffic blew my mind. I saw it like five times in the theater. Yeah, but

Alex Ferrari 1:24:31
also Soderbergh is one of those directors that doesn't get as much credit as he should. Man is amazing. I mean, out of sight,

Joshua Caldwell 1:24:39
out of sight, even the even the che, you know, yeah, the two movies, like his work on the Nick is unbelievable. It's like, I mean, it's funny because I see myself starting to go in that direction. Like we're I'm a dp and I'm operating and I'm editing and I'm like, you know, and I'm like, Oh, that's that's kind of like the path he took in season. work out for him. But it's this idea of like, you just kind of get to a place where you're wanting to condense all these conversations, you know, you know,

Alex Ferrari 1:25:07
I mean, I just I just dp my feature I edited it I was the camera up. I was a direct I did I did yeah, pretty much everything on it. You know, almost everything. I had a three man crew on it. And you You're right, you're like, I don't want to have to, I couldn't have had all those people. It would just take too long. And we were able to shoot something and from idea to finish in six months. Yeah, there you go. And you're done. And you're out the door.

Joshua Caldwell 1:25:31
And it's all you Yeah, oh, for better or worse. Yeah, that was the thing on negative was I was like this. But for better or worse, this represents exactly what I want it to be, you know, whereas before, it's sort of like, okay, it's sort of what I want, it's close, like, the DP is fantastic. I don't really have a complaint about it, but like, I would have done this, or we could have sped this up or been quicker on the lighting with this, you know, and it's, instead of just being like, yeah, I'm going to put one light up. I mean, you know, I know you're, I don't know what you are on time. But like this last project that I just did, in, I just shot this project in Mexico City with canon. And it's called ciudad, it's a short, it's a it's a short, that's like a proof of concept for a feature. And the idea is, you know, we basically went down there and we, we can't shop completely without permits. And we shot in these, you know, it's a narrative documentary hybrid. So it's like, there's narrative elements where we're doing dialogue, we're doing it French New Wave style, or rent controlled environments, like indoors, restaurants, you know, apartments, whatever. And then we have these kind of like on your street is a story of like a combat of a photojournalist, you know, who's like, covering Mexico City. And so she's basically like, so we shot the narrative stuff, like like Mark is actually in it Mark polish, she came down, and that's awesome. And so we actually like, shot the documentary stuff, like, I mean, the narrative stuff, these conversations in these locations, that one I'd never been to before I'd never seen. And we did it with basically existing artificial light, like I put up like one or two lights, at most in these scenes. And I just shot it like on this canon c 300. You know, I shot at high ISOs that was a whole part of it, which was like, it was like a live learning exercise for like, DPS and students down there to sort of see, you know, you can push this camera beyond 3200. I know everyone tells you not to, but you can, and this is what it looks like. And this is what you get, you know, and be able to shoot like five page dialogue scenes in four hours, because you're spending 20 minutes lighting. And then you go out in the street, and you shoot all of this documentary, like we were like, basically, like Nightcrawler Lee, we're patrolling around Mexico City, trying to find like, you know, action with like cops and things like that. And it was like, it was really like life changing for me, because I was able to really prove how you can shoot something cinematic, without the use of like anything other than the camera. And so it's created now this, this sort of approach that like, I'm starting to blend into other things I'm doing, which is this kind of like feeling of documentary narrative hybrid. And the thing about the documentary and the thing about stealing shots, and the thing about like, that aspect of it is, you don't know what you're gonna get, right, like we were shooting with her. We ran into a police raid, with like cops and riot gear, we ran into a truck, a semi truck and crashed into a building, and then like, destroy the entire front end of the cab. And then we hopped happened upon a fatal hit and run, where we showed up and like, I mean, they were like, like, I have a shot in the movie of them moving the body from like the street to the corner, like bam. And it's just like, you would never plan that. And you can never do that without a huge amount of money to stage all that. And yet it works within the narrative, because it's about her being in Mexico City shooting this stuff. And so it's really, for me, it's like kind of the new thing, which is like this idea of like something like Soderbergh does this too. He doesn't like, you know, he builds the lighting into his sets, he puts up one or two things, and that's it. And he just moves he just moves, moves, moves, moves, moves, and shoots really quick, and like, by gets a lot of material. And so that's kind of where I want to be, which is this idea of like, let me break open this traditional production model, let me shoot things a different way. And then all you're doing in talking to terms of the money is expanding the scope of how that's captured. But the idea of blending reality, what is real, what is not what is in this movie is real. What is it? And having documentary and narrative footage look exactly the same? There's no differentiation, differentiating between them, is probably the is the next sort of frontier of what I'm exploring as filmmaker.

Alex Ferrari 1:29:34
You know, I think, and I'll end it on this, but I think that what what you discuss and what I've discussed in the past about doing our respective films, is that you you know, a lot of young filmmakers and just indie filmmakers in general. They get caught up in the dogma of film. Yeah, what they're told and books, what they're told in schools, that this is the right way of doing it. This is the this is The way it's been done all this time and it's it's the few people who said fuck it I'm not gonna do it that way I mean Robert Rodriguez you know he did it his way and you know all the guys from the 90s Kevin Smith Richard Linklater, you know all those guys, they did it their way SATA Berg. I mean is is the poster child for that. Yeah, and it's really just doing like Mark duplass I mean, seriously are just wow. Yeah. duplass brothers. I mean, the duplass brothers, Joe Swanberg, Lynn Shelton, all these kind of guys. They, they just do. They're just doing it their way. And, you know, I don't know if you've had the same experience. But I've talked to industry, friends of mine who are like either TV directors, or film, you know, big time film directors and things like that. And I tell them my process for making mag, and they just look at you like deer in headlights? Yeah, they don't get it. They're like, What do you mean? Like, I'm like, yeah, we shot? We shot it with three people on the crew the entire time. Yeah, but But how did you get? How does it look like that? Exactly. Like I did this, I did that. I'm the colorist on it. And all this guys. Yeah, they just don't get it. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. I find it so invigorating, honestly. Like, it's a lot of fun. It's like, Oh, you guys don't know how the sausage is made?

Joshua Caldwell 1:31:29
Yeah, you know, I remember. You know, it's funny, because I remember like, at, at the, at in Seattle, I was on a panel with all the catalyst filmmakers. And of course, you get the question of like, what was the budget on your movie, of course, you go down the line. And everyone's like, I can't tell you, I can't tell you, I can't tell you and get to me, I'm like, I'll tell you who's six grand. And then like, all of a sudden, you're the focus of that conversation, because they can't talk about what they spent, and they probably spent half a million dollars. And you're suddenly the like, the spotlights on you, because you're like, one, you can talk about it. And two, it's such a ridiculous number that everybody wants to hear about it. You know, a part of it, too, is like, you know, you've done this is like, how do you create a conversation around what you're doing? and get people to want to talk to you about it? How do you get execs to go understand how you made this movie for six grand, and then they want to meet with you. And then they want to talk about it. And then they want to find a way to like, do what you're doing. Because it's faster, you know, so it's just like, it's a really interesting sort of position to be in and, and sort of coming from that perspective of like, you know, it's, it's what I said, and I know people who are like this, we're like, you know, they don't want to edit themselves, they don't want to shoot themselves, they don't want to take the time to learn, you know, but as a result, they're always going to be reliant on other people to make their films, right. And if you don't have money, then you're asking favors, and who wants to keep asking favors for life. But if you're a guy who can shoot, edit, direct produce, right? You know, we'll leave off music and sound mixing. But you know, those are like five serious roles that you can do yourself. You're never in that position, the only person that's going to not get it done is you. You know, you've no excuses. Oh, well, I don't have a dp so I can't go shoot, go shoot it. Yeah, you know, like, there's nothing stopping, you just learn how to do it. And then all you need is the camera and you can get out and you can start creating content, you can start getting out there more and doing it more. But like, you know, in this low budget, indie world, if you're always in a position where you need money, you have to have this you have to have that then you're going to be doing a lot of waiting. And clearly people have created career out of that. But like, you know, it doesn't have to be that way.

Alex Ferrari 1:33:31
And go back to Sonnenberg real quick. I mean, you know, he did sexualize a videotape, but on the same, the same method he did Ocean's 1112 and 13 Yeah, let them for yourselves. I had no idea. He lit those themselves. And they're gone. Yes.

Joshua Caldwell 1:33:45
Yeah, I was having a conversation with Tim Smith at Cannes and he was telling me about how he was helping out Soderbergh on was it full frontal that like, yeah, back in the day, he was just like, Yeah, he's like, you know, we rented out a hotel and he's just on the Excel two and our Excel one s or whatever, and he's shooting around, it's just like, you know, it was insane. We were shooting so much. And he was just doing it. He was experimenting and like, you know, he's like Brad Pitt's sleeping on the floor next to me, because we're all tired. You know, and, and it's that same thing, he did it with skits. opolis, where he just went off and like, kind of made this thing and kind of like, you know, and so he's he's got that experience so that he can back it up, and he can, you know, and then and then what's really great about is that he's got $100 million that he can play with, you know,

Alex Ferrari 1:34:26
can you imagine he's like, Okay, he's right thing. Well, like he like, Oh, we can't go to a casino so we're just gonna build one.

Joshua Caldwell 1:34:33
Yeah. I mean, that's what Yeah, exactly. Then you have complete control. Like, Funny enough, my, a very great friend, dp mine. He does like, he'll do group work in New York. You know, like, whatever. But anyway, so he did a grip workout. He did grip work on a pickup scene, in haywire. So this scene where Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender are like, talking in the pub. I don't know if you see them. I haven't seen okay, but there's a conversation where they're they're talking in the pub, right? They're just having this conversation so that was shot in New York is supposed to be somewhere else, but it was shot in New York. So he's like so Paul is like my dp friend. He was like, yeah, so Soderbergh comes in everything's already set up. He's got his two red cameras. He's got a two monitors. It's already set up for the shot. He's like, they basically shoot the scene. You know, it takes them half a day to shoot this dialogue scene. Like that's it, and then they're like, getting ready to go and if somebody says, Oh, hey, Steven in this in this shit in the mirror, you

Alex Ferrari 1:35:33
Sorry about that. Can you say that one more time you just broke up.

Joshua Caldwell 1:35:37
Oh, I was just saying. So anyway, so right before they were getting ready to break up and pack down, somebody pointed out on the monitor that you could see one of the flags or one of the like frames, for the light for the lighting, like in the shot in the mirror in the reflection, and Soderbergh looks at and goes nobody's gonna see that it's like that's it and like True enough if you look in the movie, you can see it if you're looking for it, but if you're not looking for it, you never know you know, and it's like it's just that kind of thing where it's like you get what you know what you can get away with. And if you can do that then you can shoot faster and you shoot more and shoot better and you shoot differently and you can you can get to a place of doing some really really cool stuff because you know, you're not letting stuff worry.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:20
Yeah, amen brother. Amen. Now where where can people find you?

Joshua Caldwell 1:36:24
So the best place is Twitter. My handle is at Joshua underscore Caldwell ca l d w e Ll or you can go to my website Joshua dash Caldwell COMM And that'll have news and all that kind of info and you just kind of branch out from there.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:39
Very cool, man. Look, man, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, man. I feel like I found a brother in arms here, man. It's very

Joshua Caldwell 1:36:46
Yeah, well, you know, when I saw when I heard about shin and saw what you were doing, I was like, Alright, this guy's gonna get it.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:51
Yeah, absolutely. There's no question brother, I appreciate you. Thank you for dropping some major knowledge bombs for the in the for the tribe. And I appreciate it

Joshua Caldwell 1:36:57
Of course, anytime.

Alex Ferrari 1:37:00
I told you, I know it's a little bit of a longer episode. But there is a lot, a lot of knowledge in that episode. And I wanted to thank Josh for coming on the show and really dropping some major knowledge bombs on the tribe. And again, if you want to check out the links to lay oversee the trailer for layovers, you can really see what a movie, a $6,000 movie looks like. from his perspective, head over to indie film hustle.com, forward slash 121. For the show notes, and all the links of everything we discussed in this episode. It's an exciting time to be an indie filmmaker, guys, I have to tell you, and coming from a perspective of someone of my vintage, you know, I wish I would have had all of this kind of stuff when I was coming up. I unfortunately did not have that type of technology, nor the amount of knowledge that there is out here. So honestly, there's no excuse at all. For you guys not making a feature film a year, if not two, or three a year, and getting them out there making money with them and continuing to grow. As an artist, as a filmmaker. And as an entrepreneur. You're building up your filmmaking business, there is no excuse. And I will continue to hopefully prove that in the coming months and years, which is what I'm planning to do with all the features that I've gotten a taste since I've got a taste now to shoot a feature film, and I'm like, hey, it's not that big of a deal. I'm going to shoot more of them and I'm going to shoot as many as I can and tell as many great stories as I can and get it out there to the world and build a business because at the end of the day guys, it's called show business and the word business has four more letters, double the letters than the word show. So also today's show is sponsored by masterclass if you guys want to take some amazing courses online from Warner Hertzog Academy Award winning Warner Hertzog on filmmaking. Aaron Sorkin for screenwriting, uh, Hans Zimmer for film composing, as well as if your directors or filmmakers, you want to know how actors really act and how they like to get inside the head of an actor. You could take two classes from Dustin Hoffman, and Kevin Spacey. All at masterclasses just head over to indie film hustle, calm forward slash masterclass and check them out. I've been taking those courses now, since they've been coming out and I know they have a bunch of new courses coming out soon for filmmakers and I'm excited cannot wait to see what's coming up. So indie film hustle.com forward slash master class. And also don't forget to head over to free film book calm that's free film book calm to download your free filmmaking audio book from audible. So guys, thanks again. As always, keep the hustle going. Keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you soon.

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IFH 120: What the HECK is a Scriptment?

March 11, 2022December 7, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

So what is a Scriptment? I found it to be a liberating form of prepping a story to be filmed? When I was in pre-production on my first feature film This is Meg, I wanted to get into production as fast as I could without waiting to develop a full screenplay.

I’ve written a few screenplays in the past and as any screenwriter will tell you, it ain’t easy. So I found inspiration from filmmakers like Mark Duplass, Joe Swanberg, Lynn Shelton, and the Godfather of independent film John Cassavetes. According to Justin Ladar (writer of Mark Duplass’ The One I Love), he defines a scriptment as follows:

“Basically a full script minus a lot of the dialogue…If you take away exterior or interior sluglines, it reads like a short story.”

He explains what it was like working with Mark on The One I Love:

“What would happen is that I would script [the dialogue in] a scene the night before or while the crew was prepping. [The cast] would get the pages and they would see just from a pacing standpoint [what needs to happen and when].”

When I was working with Jill-Michele Meleán on This is Meg we came up with a style that would work for the budget and time we had. It was the most freeing experience of my creative life.

No pressure, no hitting your marks, and no drama (except in the story of course). As the director, I was there to capture the lighting. The remarkable actors that were cast in Meg brought themselves to the project.

Jill and I would discuss the scenes with each actor prior to the shoot day. We would have plot points in each scene that need to be hit for the story to move forward, how the actors got to those points was up to them. They would improv the dialog and flow at the moment. It was amazing to watch.

That energy spills off the screen when you watch my two feature films This is Meg & On the Corner of Ego and Desire.

The term “scriptment” was coined by the legendary filmmaker James Cameron, during his involvement in bringing SpiderMan to the big screen. Cameron wrote a lengthy 57-page scriptment for the first proposed Spider-Man film (read the James Cameron SpiderMan scriptment here).

According to Wikipedia,

“Cameron’s scriptment for Titanic (1997) was 131 pages. The term became more widely known when Cameron’s 1994 scriptment for the 2009 film Avatar was leaked on the internet during pre-production, although other directors, such as John Hughes and Zak Penn, had written scriptments before. The scriptment for Avatar (2009) and its notoriety caused the spread of the term.”

Though James Cameron used a scriptment as the starting point of the screenplay, Mark Duplass, Joe Swanberg, and Lynn Shelton used the scriptment as the blueprint of the film. Take a listen to my explanation of what a scriptment is to me and how it can jump-start your first feature film.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 0:00
So guys, today's show is all about giving you freedom to make your feature film. And I you know it this is one of the most freeing experiences that I ever had while I was making this is mag is being able to move so quickly through the creative process, from from idea to script meant to shooting it, editing it, finalizing it. And we did it all within I think about four months, literally from the idea all the way to the final edit and color and export. And it was such a freeing amazing experience that I wanted to share with you guys what exactly it was. And hopefully you guys can do something similar for your first few films. Now, what is a script meant? Scripting is basically a full script minus all of the dialogue. It allows it takes away a lot of the exterior, the interior kind of slug lines, and reads like a very cool short story. Now, I'm not the first to think about Scrivener is by any stretch. Mark Duplass has been doing it basically his entire career as well. I mean someone like James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino, they love writing scripts prior to writing their screenplays. But what Mark does is he actually writes the script and and that is what he uses to make his movies. So what he likes to do and I'll tell you from from what I heard about what Mark does and to also what I did was you reverse engineer your story based around things you have around you. Robert Rodriguez did this so to Kevin Smith, these guys, this is not a new concept. I think it needs to be a lot of people need to remind be reminded of what this could what this very powerful thing is for especially for first time filmmakers for people just you know, just starting out people who just want to make a feature film, and, and not get caught up in the drama, if you will of writing a screenplay at the very beginning of their career. You know, I've written screenplays before. They're very taxing. They're very, they're rough. You know, as anybody will tell you, they're rough they write they can be extremely rough to deal with. But I didn't want the writing and the formatting and all this kind of stuff to kind of get in my way of telling the story that I wanted to tell with Jill on this as Meg. So we decided, hey, let's just do this. Kind of like the league, the effects show the league did or Reno 911 or Curb Your Enthusiasm. All these guys have very loose scripts. So they would just start with an idea and structure it out very well. And that's it. That's the misnomer. That's a kind of myth about scripts, or about these non scripted feature films or television shows as they are scripted, but there's just scripted in a different format than you're normally used to. So let's say that you were going to do, you know, like, again, I'll use Meg as an example, what I did was,

I took, I took me and Joe sat down, and we're like, Okay, what do we have access to, okay, we have my office, my back office, your house, this other house, this other house, this other location. And we'll you know, we'll go up to the Hollywood sign and do a location shot there. And we'll grab some stuff on the street and be like, okay, boom, boom, boom. And once we knew all of our locations, and all the things we had access to, we started riding around that idea, and started building everything around what resources we had at our disposal. And by doing that, we were able to construct a screenplay or a scriptment fairly quickly, Jill, did a lot of heavy lifting, and came up with a story. I gave her my notes and like, hey, no, you know, what, we have this location, let's try to change it over here. And, you know, gave her some guidance in regards to the production aspects of things what we had access to, but, you know, she came up with this scriptment that was, at the end, almost like 45 pages, so wasn't like, you know, we just throw a three or four page outline together and ran, it was it was a pretty detailed script meant, and there were scenes that were fully scripted out. And there were other scenes that were very loosely screened, or scripted out, you know. So, once the movie gets released, I can talk a little bit more about specific scenes in the movie. And you guys, and inside the inside the indie film Syndicate, I'm going to be going over this in detail in the coming weeks and months, on on how exactly we did this. So by doing this guy's, we were able to get this movie done so so quickly. And, you know, a lot of people who work with Mark do plus, you know, especially screenwriters, they just get are in awe of how quickly they're able to put stuff together, like he'll come up with an idea. And six months later, they're done, like literally done six months later, because he keeps the budgets very low. And that's the other thing too, you keep the budget very low, you use what you've got, it's a collaborative art, you need a lot of help from a lot of different people to make something like this happen. But it's extremely doable. And you write around what you have. And it's not that difficult to do, honestly, you have to use proper structure, you have to get your storyline and everything organized properly, have your your points, your hero's journey, or whatever kind of story you want to tell if it's a three act story, if it's four Act, or 6x story, or two acts story, you can do so but just organize it out. And then when you get on the set, this is what happens. When you get on the set. You've already hopefully talked with your actors prior to get on the set. When you do that, when you get on the set, you could start riffing, and you go, Okay, guys, this is what the scene is really about. We need to we need to hit this point, this plot point, this plot point, and this plot point. And we have to hit these marks, how you get to those marks is completely up to you. But we need to hit these marks in order for the story to continue to move forward. And when you allow actors to really feel free to do so. The magic that comes out is pretty remarkable. Now again, you have to hire the right actors who are really kind of versed in improv, and are comfortable doing this. But you'll be surprised at a lot of actors who are able to do this. And also, you know, when you're casting actors, this is on a side note when you're casting actors, try to cast people who are very close to the role that they're going to play that there is not it's not a complete stretch for them to do I mean look, Daniel Day Lewis is Daniel Day Lewis, Robert De Niro's Robert De Niro. And you know, all these guys do Meryl Streep's Meryl Streep, generally speaking, if you as a director, or as a filmmaker can cast someone who's close to the character that you are trying to have them portray, it's going to make things a lot easier, because at the end of the day, you don't want them to act. You want them to be, you want honesty out of those performances. And if they can be themselves and just come up with lines or read lines that you've written for them, all the better. And that's how fast that's how we were able to do what we did on this as make so fast is we, you know, Jill actually wrote the screenplay, or wrote the script meant around her friends. And she talked to her friends before she wrote the scenes. And she knows like, Look, I know this person, and I'm going to write the scene based on her or based on him on their characters on their, their people. And, you know, I know I can get this performance out of Carlos or Deborah or Joe or Krista. And and, and that's how we wrote the scenes out and we kind of found things on the day, and it's so freeing, it's so exciting and so fun because you really don't know what's going to happen as a director as a filmmaker. And a lot of times I was just there trying to capture the lightning in the bottle. That was my job was there to just capture the lightning that was coming off in front of that lens.

It's my job to capture it, and then to mold it when I get into the editing room. But that is the power of a scriptment. And it's something that I think a lot of filmmakers, you know, the screenplay, at least for me, was always this big monstrous thing that had to be perfect and had to be read perfectly and you know, if the the formatting wasn't right, or the the way you said things wasn't right, or this or that it just created so many obstacles from actually going out and making your movie that I think that discriminant is a way to loosen those shackles, if not shake those shackles completely off, where you could, in theory, grab 1000 bucks and go make a movie. You know, grab a camera, grab some lights, maybe even lights, maybe no lights, grab some audio, get some friends together make a movie, this is what Mark Duplass did. This is what Joe Swanberg did this is what Lynn Shelton did, you know these guys all did that, and they kind of just ran with it. And they made some really fun, heartfelt movies by doing so. And I don't think it's something that you guys can't do yourselves. Now, it also depends on the kind of story you're trying to tell guys. If you're trying to tell a story. That's super action packed, big thing, you know, big action sequences and all that kind of stuff. This, this process might not work for you this is this process will work. You know, though I am I'm interested to one day try this formula on an action movie, or on a horror movie. I'm really curious to see. And I might do that in the future, just to see what happens. You know, and it has been done to the horror genre, as well. So, you know, well, I mean, the biggest example of that was Blair Witch, The Blair Witch Project was done, they did that there was literally no script, they just kind of were guided along and the actors kind of made everything up as they went along. So it can it can work in those genres as well. But if you have a lot of big science, you know, big science fiction or big visual effects and things like that, you really have to plan certain things out. But there's no reason why it's some of the dialogue in those scenes cannot kind of riff like this, but again, you have to keep that budget low. And you know, I kept I kept the budget under 25 million, like I say all the time. afford this is Meg and kept it in a budget range that I felt very comfortable with by doing this kind of this kind of work, but I know that Mark do plus and those kind of guys they'll work with, you know, under a million dollar budget, sometimes a little bit over a million dollar budget. You know, I know drinking buddies the movie with Olivia while Jake London, and a Kendrick by Joe Swanberg. They, that movie budget was about $550,000 I'm like, that was his biggest movie ever, budget wise. And that movie was completely done by this way. It's just that was his. That's, that's Joe's process. That's how he likes to to work. And I understand I once I did it with this as Meg, it's so fun, so freeing, and the actors get to really have fun with the characters and create the characters on the fly. And by just being able to loosen things up a little bit. It works so wonderfully. And again, this is not for everybody. But I think for a majority of you guys out there for at least a portion of you guys listening to this, this might be a way for you to get off the ground to get your first feature made, you know you do very low risk, again, 1000 bucks. You know, if you guys can't raise 1000 bucks by asking your parents and friends, you're in deep trouble my friends. So you gotta at least raise a grand, let's say, get somebody who owns a camera or shoot it with your iPhone, for God's sakes. Do something like that. Make sure your sound is good, make sure your visuals are decent. And go tell your story make a movie, there's very little risk involved there. When you start getting into the 50 100,000 to 200,000 million dollars, you guys better know what the hell you're doing. You know before before you get going, you better have a distribution plan and all that kind of stuff. But at this level at that low budget. Under $10,000. You can you can have some fun and experiment. So if you don't feel comfortable doing with a feature film right away, do it with a short, you know, take take 50 bucks, take 100 bucks, and go make a few shorts like this. Get your feet wet. And see how it works. Do a few scenes do a few five minutes short films like this. Again, keep the budget really low 100 bucks, you know no more because if you start doing like 234 100 500 bucks, well shit then you could go make a feature at that point. But anyway,

I just hope that this this podcast kind of helps you guys understand that there is another option out there for you. There is another path to make your first feature film that you don't have to go the traditional route Out of getting a screenplay like getting it developed going through all of the rigor Maryrose submitting this to a to actors and so on. And again, at the beginning guys, I know, I know a lot of people are gonna have this question like, Well, Alex, if I have a script, and I've never done anything, can I approach named talent? I'm gonna probably say no, unless you have a relationship with that name talent, or some somebody like that it's going to be very difficult. We were lucky that Jill had very, you know, you know, they're her friends. And they were able to reach out to her friends and and we were able to do this in this fashion because they trusted her, and they trusted me. But when you're starting out, don't don't worry about getting actor like big name actors, if you can. Great. It all helps, you know, even if it's you know, TV actors, or people that we recognize are just good solid. performers. Great. But don't get caught up in that. That's another obstacle. Again, you go look at Mark Duplass. Go look at Joe Swanberg. Oh, look at Lynn Shelton. All of those movies when they first started out, did not have names in them. They just wanted to tell a good story with their friends, or people that they knew who can act, and so on. So that's what I would recommend for you guys to do as well is to go in, get a bunch of your friends or actors that you can find, to go out and have some fun with. And that's a big key point, guys have fun. This should not be stressful. There should not be anger, and high jinks and drama and all this kind of stuff. It should be fun, guys, if not you'd go out and get real jobs. You know what I mean? I know it's hard work. And I know it's sometimes it's stressful. And I know, it can be a little bit overbearing, sometimes making, making movies and being an artist in this sense. But at the end of the day, man, you have to have fun. And if you don't have fun, that shows up on the screen. And when you guys finally see this as Meg, I hope you can sense the fun we had. We had no drama at all ever on the set. We everything flowed so beautifully, so wonderfully all the way through the editing to the final part to the final, you know, cut of the movie in the final color in the mix and everything. It all just worked so beautifully. And I've never I've never experienced an artistic endeavor like that in my entire career. And I was like, wow, because I completely loosened the shackles. I completely just said, Fuck it. I'm just gonna go out and do this, I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about, oh, I got to do this, or I got to do that. And this is the way I have to do I finally after 20 odd years, decided, You know what? I'm not gonna listen to what everybody else is doing and do and I'm going to do it my way. And for me, it's working, you know, and I did again, I did make a budget that I can feel very comfortable with that I can continue to do those kind of movies indefinitely if I have to. You know, Joe Swanberg made, has made like 32 feature films, you know, when you have made six feature films, you know, I'm going to put in the show notes, my links to both Mark do plus and just wants Berg's keynote addresses at South by Southwest and, you know, backgrounds on both those guys because if you want to study, you know, people the process, these guys are definitely two guys that you should definitely look look for, look at and study their processes. And again, of course, the show notes are at Indie film hustle.com forward slash 120. But, but again, Jo Jo was one of those guys that just kind of decided to keep making movies, he's like, Well, if no one's gonna pay attention to me, at least I want to be prolific. And that was such a great way of looking at, he's like, I'm just gonna keep making movies. And he'd made one year he made six feature films. He made it with his you know, I think I don't know if it wasn't VHS, but it was mini DV cameras. You know, he just went on shot with a bunch of friends, no stars, no faces, no marquee value.

He just said, Hey, I'm gonna go make some indie movies. And he did. And he sold them. He did some for a lot. But he sold them and he was able to make that year he said he was able to make 50 or $60,000 by selling six movies, you know, and having some other movie money come in, in that keynote address. He really talks a talks a lot about the financials, of how he was able to make it and it's so wonderful to hear. It's very honest, and tells you exactly what you want to hear. So definitely check that out anything else.com forward slash 122 in the show notes for his his keynote speech because it's it's really amazing. But back to scripts. Again, I just want to give you guys the tools to feel free to make your movies no matter where you are in the world. I want you to be able to feel free to make these kinds of movies and just go out and make them and then from there that grows to the next level and the next level the next level. And one last thing before I go guys, I want you to just please and I've said this before in the podcast, but I'm going to continue to repeat this until people understand it. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. You can't expect every movie that you make, to be the homerun, to be that one lottery ticket win that you're looking for. When you put that kind of pressure on the movie, it will succeed, you will be you will fail many times, and you are setting yourself up for failure. With this as Meg, I am putting it out into the universe, I'm putting it out into the world. And whatever happens happens, people will love it, people will hate it. I know that for a fact that people will love it, and people will hate it. That's it. And there'll be some people in the middle and other people on the extremes. And that's just the way it is. That's just the way it happens with all arts. So you have to prepare yourself for that. But am I expecting it to get you know, to get into Sundance and when me the lottery ticket? No, because you know what I didn't get into Sundance. And it wasn't the end of the world. Because I was excited. I was like, hey, if I get it great. If I don't, let's go on, you know, so you always go for you always aim for the fences. But understand that don't put the pressure that if it doesn't, your whole world is over and you can't make any more, I want you not to feel that way, I want you to feel like I'm going to make five feature films. And I'm just going to keep going no matter what. And you make them at a low enough budget that you could keep going, you could have a day job and save yourself up 1000 bucks, find yourself somebody with a camera or shoot it with your own iPhone, and you make your movies. And that's how you do it, you just keep going. But the thing is that if if you're going to go and I'm going to use baseballs and analogy, because it's a great analogy. But if you're going to go up to the plate, a lot of filmmakers will go up to the plate for the very first time. And they expect to hit a homerun when they've never taken a swing. That's what happens with most filmmakers. Most filmmakers have not been shooting commercials or music videos, or short films, or anything for a long period of time where they have gotten a lot of swings at bat. You know, I've gotten a tremendous amount of swings at bat. But I've never want I've never done one with a feature. But I've done a lot of other shooting in my career. So I feel comfortable up there at the plate, you've got to feel comfortable up there at the plate. So Robert Rodriguez before he made mariachi, he shot like 20 or 30 short films, he do it every weekend. And he didn't show those films to anybody. The no one, he was just doing them to practice, because he's kept going up there and swinging away, swinging away. Sometimes you hit maybe he'd made it single. Maybe he fell out. If you guys don't know about baseball, you got to look up the rules. But anyway, um, but that's what he did. And that's what I plan to continue doing with my features. Because I think what you need to do is you got to focus on those singles, those doubles, possibly some triples, instead of going for the home run every time. Because if you focus on those singles, so let's say, you know, let's say you make a movie and that movie, you know, you made for 1000 bucks, and you sell it for 4000 bucks you make on it. We've made four times your money. Well, how that's a success for me. It might not be the game winning home run, but damn, you made money as a filmmaker. You're, you're the top 1% of filmmakers if you're able to do that. So what do you do next, you make another movie for maybe $2,000 This time, I if it was me, I'd make I make another movie for 1000 bucks. But that's just me. But you make another move for 2000 bucks this time. And let's say you go out there and you make another 4000 bucks, you doubled your money. And you move on and you make another movie for 2000 bucks. And that other movie makes 10,000 bucks. And all of a sudden somebody's looking at you some people are like, hey, this guy's making movies. This girl's making movies. How much do you need for your next movie? You go well, I you know, I feel comfortable. Now. I need about six or $7,000 to make the next movie. I want to 10,000 bucks for the next movie. Okay, great. Now mind you, you're working other jobs to make a living and all this stuff, but you're making art and you're making you're building up a business and it takes time to do that. So I want you guys to focus on the long game. And I've said this a million times, focus on the long game and a scriptment can do that for you can help you get that movie made very quickly where you could, in theory, make a movie, two movies in a year once you get the ball rolling. Next year, I'm going to announce a dish. I'm going to announce it that today. I'm already in prep for my next movie. I'll announce it after the New Year sometimes I don't know I'm working on this on the scriptment as we speak and and I already have a second one I'm working on as well. So my goal next year is to shoot one feature and at least begin either shooting or in pre production on the second one and see how see if I can do two in one year. That would be ideal for me next year. without anything happening with this as make you see you notice I'm not even paying attention to this as make, you know, Mrs. Maga is going to do what she does. But I'm not putting any pressure on her. I'm moving, I'm moving along with her without her without anything that she happens to bring, if she gets sold for a million bucks, or for five grand, or, you know, it gets a manager or it gets a producer to come in and give me money for another movie, I'm not counting on any of that. I'm only counting on what I can control. And what I can control is going off and making another movie and, and getting ready to make a third movie and so on. And that's the mentality that I think filmmakers starting out who want to tell their stories who want to make a living doing this have to do and I hope this podcast brought some light into your into your darkness now brought some light to the subject and shows you and kind of informed you that there is another way there is another way to go make a movie, there is another way to get your feature filmmaking career started and going off and by the way, this can work for series too, if you want to make a little pilot and like a bunch of like you know, a webisodes you know, web series. Or you know, you want to create a pilot to pitch to Netflix or to Hulu, or Amazon or crackle or one of these guys, this process works wonderfully. Because if you're able to create and this is what Mark Duplass I'm gonna go back to mark my man Mark, he was able to pitch togetherness, an HBO show and ran two seasons on HBO based on this premise. This is how he worked on that show. I don't know how he did a pilot or anything like that beforehand, but but this is how he did the show. And it was wonderful because it was very low cost. And you know what studios love low cost high quality, they love that. And if you can get something out to a point where you can do that, you're going to work you're always going to work, guys. So just keep that in mind. So it can translate to a lot of things. But we're focusing on feature films right now. But that's I hope this helps you guys. I really do. Because I you know, I think sometimes I've had to go through all this pain in my career, to be able to share this, this information with you guys. And I hope that I can continue not going through pain. Hopefully we don't go through too much more. But you know what, at the end of the day, guys, honestly, your failures and your pain is who makes you what makes you a better person. And what makes you a more informed person to make sure you are who you are. So all these years of struggle and everything that I've gone through, I'm hoping that my journey can be a beacon of light for you guys at least a beacon of information to at least share it with you what I'm doing. And hopefully it can translate and help even one of you guys out there.

It's worth it. I know that sounds really cliche, but but that's, that's I think it makes sense. So thank you for listening to my ramblings this week guys, I hope it was helpful to you and we will continue doing more ask Alex episodes in the future you guys keep sending me tons of questions. So I had no idea that this was going to be such a big deal. So I'm glad I'm helping you guys out I'm glad you like the episodes and and please keep sending your your suggestions for questions at ifH [email protected]. And also guys don't forget the show is also sponsored by masterclass and you gotta head out to indie film hustle.com For slash masterclass to get access to Werner Herzog's master class the Oscar winning a director as well as Aaron Sorkin screenwriting masterclass, which is honestly remarkable I again taking it again since I'm going through my my process right now, it's my scriptment for my next project, as well as now the new Hans Zimmer film score masterclass, is up. And as far as also acting, the Kevin Spacey masterclass, and the Dustin Hoffman, Master Class learn their techniques. They're on my list of things to watch. I've actually purchased them already, because I want to I want to see what Dustin and Kevin have to say about acting. I mean, it's invaluable these courses, so head over to indie film hustle.com forward slash master class. So as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you soon.

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IFH 119: Ask Alex – E&O Insurance, Music Rights and Copyright Oh My!

March 11, 2022December 2, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

So after last week’s huge success of the “Ask Alex” segment, I decided to bring it back this week. The IFH Tribe filled my inbox with tons of amazing questions, which I’ll try to cover in future episodes.

If you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future episode of the podcast just email them to [email protected] and I’ll do my best to answer them. This week we have a bunch of questions from tribe member Jake from Australia.

Here are the questions I answered in this week’s podcast:

What happens if I’m shooting guerrilla-style and accidentally catch a sign in the background or someone is wearing a brand logo in a shot?
What is E&O Insurance (Errors and Ommissions) exactly?
How does E&O Insurance work?
Where are the best deals for E&O Insurance?
What do you do if you want to use Licensed Music?
What things might arise if using a track (or tracks)?
What can copyrighting your film cost you?

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 2:20
So guys, you know I guess the Ask Alex segment is very popular because I got inundated with questions from the tribe and a guess you guys want me to answer some questions for you. So we'll start doing these ask Alex's every once in a while when I don't have another topic to talk about. You guys are definitely inspiring me to create more content and answer more of your questions, but I'm here to help guys so let's get into the first question and these questions are from Jake in Australia. Now I'm not going to do a horrible Crocodile Dundee impression here. So let's just move on. First question is what happens if I'm shooting guerilla style which is the only way I like to shoot and accidentally catch a sign in the background or someone's wearing a branded logo on the shot? This is a very common question I get this asked a lot and a lot of people are still confused about what the legalities of things are. This is my feeling on this guy's and I've gone through this I'm going through this right now with Meg you know i i'm very conscious you know of shooting when we're shooting to make sure we kind of block out logos or we like to call it geeking out when you geek out a logo or a license plate or something like that. That you don't need to be in the shot. You could do it if you could do it practically on set great I have VFX guys that are going to be able to clean things up for me so if I know I can't do anything about it or something snuck in I'll do it it's it's a really kind of a dance the subject because look you know there was a guy who made a movie kind of like guerilla style in Disney World which was a completely depraved movie about Disney World guy losing his mind in Disney World and he obviously did not have any rights to Mickey to Donald to all the copyright infringement running around there they were on private property was it like it was it was a nightmare. But that movie got released how they got released I really don't know and I would not advise something like that but with that said general rule of thought and again I'm not this is not legal advice please search out a an attorney and ask a proper attorney for legal advice. This is just my opinion, from my experience but when in doubt don't show it don't put a poster up on the wall. Don't put you know don't catch you know if you catch a logo on the street. If you're outside on the street and you see a logo on the on you know on the seat, you know on the on the store or something like that. If it's a brand name, big store, you know, got it's it's it's a weird thing. I've seen movies that leave it in no problems. And they pass no insurance, which, that's the next question I'll get into. And then sometimes they need to get cleaned out, it's fairly inexpensive to get that stuff painted out, depending on the shot, obviously painted out in visual effects. But when it was said and done, guys, always, always side on this shot on the side of cautious, being cautious, and do not shoot it, if you can help it. So if you catch and you happen to catch a shot or something like that of a logo, if it's in the background, and your movies costing 10, grand, no one's gonna care, no one's gonna come after you for that, you know, now, if you're pissing on a Mickey Mouse in your scene, or created a bomb out of an old Donald Duck, doll, not so much. But if it's something in the background look, you got to look at a movie like clerks was shot in a convenience store, with logos from movies all over the place that got released, you know, so you have to really go after you've really got to talk to an attorney. And be very specific about it. I talked to another friend of mine, today actually about this. And she made a movie and all the chat tons of logos all over the movie. And the distributor told her as long as you're not doing anything specific with it, is in the background. It's okay. Um, I'm not from that school of thought, I always like to just like, make things as clean as possible. So right now we're actually going through the VFX process of cleaning up logos, on shirts, and in background things that I knew were there that we just could not get rid of some stuff that we didn't know that was there. And we're fixing it in post. So but I have that capability. It's very affordable for me to do so. But I would just lean on the side of just don't do it. Okay, second, what is in Oh, insurance? Exactly. How does it work? And where are the best deals? Well, Jake, um, you know, insurance stands for errors and omissions insurance, you will not get a distribution deal. Or from from a real distributor without an without, you know, insurance in today's world. You know, insurance is basically just that, you. Let's say that you, you happen to piss on a monkey in the middle of the movie, for whatever reason you're picking on Mickey, I love Mickey, I'm just using him as an example, because he's a corporate logo that we all know. And it's copyright trademark. So you're pissing on Mickey in the scene. And nobody notices that you picked on Mickey, it just they thought it was some sort of rag doll. Well, let's say you get that thing distributed. And let's say Warner Brothers picks it up. And Warner Brothers releases theatrically around the world. And all of a sudden, someone from from The Walt Disney Company says, Hey, you are pissing all over Mickey, what the hell we're suing? Well, because you didn't and then they use let's say you did not have no insurance, you would never Warner Brothers would never get a movie without no insurance. But I'm just using it as an example. If If you release a movie without you know, insurance, and someone wants to sue you for something, whether that be a logo in the movie, whether that be you infringed on some sort of trademark, something along those lines. Without no insurance, you are screwed. That means they're going to take everything you've got, as far as the company that you've opened up for the movie, and they're gonna sue you. If you have no insurance, you know, insurance will take care of that. But you know, insurance, the Getty and all insurance, you best believe that they will be going up the butt of your movie and making sure there is no issues. Because it's on it's on their ass if something does happen, so they're going to make sure that everything is clean, and kosher, and we're good. So sometimes it does slip through E and O insurance. But generally speaking, you don't have to worry about if you get in on clearance, but you will need DNO insurance, where you could get the best deals. here in the States. I've seen it go up to $10,000. I've seen them as cheap as 20 $500 for an you know, you know, policy for a feature film. So that's generally the range you're going to be going for. I've even heard some people like 1600, but you're going to be in around 2000 range 2000 or $4,000 range. For you know insurance, do not purchase that insurance until you have a deal until you have a distribution deal. Do not do that unless you're going to be distributing it or making money with your movie. But do not spend that money until you have to get it next The question is, what do you do if you want to use licensed music in your feature film?

Now this is one of the biggest mistakes a lot of filmmakers make in regards to music and not having the proper clearances and contracts and agreements in place for music. I know a lot of people like to put whatever what type of music they want in the movie. They'll go to iTunes, download their favorite song, put it in the movie and send it out to festivals and you know maybe it'll go into festivals, no oral care. the realities of this is that if you use copyrighted music that is not yours and you do not have a release for it, or an agreement for it, you are in trouble and they can sue you. And in this lovely world of lawsuits left and right, they can sue you. So you need if you're going to use any sort of licensed music, you need to have an agreement in place first, do not and I repeat, do not just get festival rights, please. That's one of the biggest mistakes people do a lot of filmmakers will just go, Oh, I'm gonna get this really big song. And I'm just gonna get festival rights for I'm just gonna pay for festival rights. Well guess what, guys, if you pay for festival rights, and let's say you use a Bruce Springsteen song or a lady gaga song, and for whatever reason, Gaga loved your movie, and she's going to give you festival rights for the movie. Well, great, that's wonderful. And let's say now you get a distribution deal. Well, your rights only are for festivals. So now you want to go worldwide distribution. Well guess what that's going to cost an arm and a leg, it could cost 100 200 $500,000. A million dollars, it all depends on the kind of song you're using. So if you only have festival rights, that pretty much will kill your deal with the distributor, it's dead. Let's even let's even go lower. And it's not something as big as Gaga. But let's say you pay $10,000 or $15,000 for festival rights, and someone goes to you get a theatrical run. And the musician or the copyright owner of that song will say well, if you want, you know worldwide rights in that they just break the rights down to theatrical rights, VOD rights, DVD rights, international rights, all that they'll just break it all down. So let's say Oh, if you want worldwide rights for the movie, then you will have to spend $100,000. And that's not how that's not crazy number. I mean, it is crazy for an independent filmmaker. But that's the kind of numbers you will get with these bigger songs are licensed music. So you got to be very careful. So one big tip, if you're going to use licensed music, use it but make sure you pay for rights all the way through before you ever get into a festival. My idea is this guy's there's my suggestion. I mean, is this. There are many, many, many composers out there who are very willing to work with, with independent filmmakers to get their movie music on feature films. Same thing goes for bands, singers, all these people want to get their music out there. So there's a lot of times you will get really great music for free, you don't even have to pay them. Because they want the exposure depending on the level of your movie, they might just want to like, Hey, I just want to have my song on there, you know, give me 50 bucks, give me 100 bucks, and you got the rights to it, and so on and so forth. And that does work, guys. And I've done that on many projects of mine in the past. So we can work with composers for and make sure you get the rights and you know, you get paid for it. You pay them for original music, work with bands work with singers work with artists directly, and make sure you get all the rights that you need, all the way through. And the last question is about copyright, how to how to copyright your your material, your script, your movie, and what you need to do to do that. Well, first things first guys, and I'm only talking about the states here in the US because that's all I know. But you can use this equivalent in whichever country you are in. Generally speaking, once you have a movie done, you should have the movie copyrighted. First of all, if you have a script, you got to copyright the script. Now I know a lot of people here say oh, you gotta send it to the W ga and get it registered w GA, that doesn't mean anything. The w ga is very nice. It's very cute. It's very cool, you thrown away 25 bucks or 50 bucks wherever they charge nowadays, the only one that really matters is the one in Washington. So it's I think 35 bucks to get yourself copyrighted, you could do it on the website. It's very, very simple. You get your stuff copyrighted right through there, you got your script copyrighted, now you can you can use a company to have the copyright or you could do it for yourself. But eventually you will have to go to an LLC, that will be running your your movie. I'll talk about the LLC in a second because I think a lot of you might not know what I'm talking about. But so you copyright your your script. And then when the movie is done, you copyright the movie, because that's the only way you can protect your movie. And if you don't do that you leave yourself open to all sorts of things if you do not copyright your movie. Now what are the chances of someone stealing your movie after the movie has been made?

It's rare, but it does happen. I mean, the movie called It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart, which is a Christmas classic was out of copyright. They forgot the copyright and everybody because it fell in the public domain and everybody and their mother could just copy it and sell it however they want. Same thing would happen with neither living dead. George Romero's classic about zombies No one copyrighted it. So right now if I want to, I can get a copy of Jordan Romero's Night of the Living Dead, and release it myself and call it the indie film, hustle, really any film, hustle presents, neither living dead. And I can sell blu rays, DVDs, sell it wherever the heck I want to, unfortunately, so is everybody else. But that is a problem that that was what happened with that movie. So make sure you copyright your stuff. And finally, this is a bonus question that James is not asking, but it kind of leans into it LLC, you need to have an LLC or a company, a limited liability company. For your movie, every movie that you create, you should, you should do a company because if you do it personally, you're you're completely exposing yourself to any issues that that movie might incur any problems, any lawsuits, any attacks, anything like that will come after you any liens will come after you personally you do not want to do that. So let's say you have your own personal company, production company or so on. Well, you can't, you should not use your personal company for that project or for many projects because again, if something happens with that project legally or financially or something happens, someone slips and falls on the set, they're going to sue that company, the company that they've the company is associated with that movie, and then you can lose your company you can have problems with your company that's why you have to open up a specific company per project. I would not say that for short films, but for feature films Absolutely. And you have to make it a limited liability company very something very simple that you can do throughout whichever state you live in, in the in the in the US if you're overseas somewhere you should have some sort of company if it's not, I'm sure limited liability companies are not everywhere. So depending on what country you live in, you have to have a company something that can protect you a barrier between you and for the project between you and the project. So if something happens it stops at the company something very simple to do and a lot of filmmakers don't do it and that is a huge mistake. So that is my advice on that guys. Thank you for these great questions. Jake I really appreciate it I've got I've got weeks of questions lined up coming up in the coming months ahead so I'm not gonna try i'm not i'm gonna try not to do this every week unless you guys want me to and I will be more than happy to do so. But I'll be doing other other episodes as well so obviously my interviews got some really cool interviews coming up really got some cool stuff about Sundance coming up. We didn't get in i know i know i was gonna I forgot I was gonna tell you guys this this is Mike did not get it did not get it. It's okay you know I submitted it like everybody else did. And you know, you just take a shot in the dark Sundance is one of those things that you always you always submit just to give it a shot you never know what happens. You know, I've like I've told you before I've been involved the projects that did get in and they were a complete shot in the dark. So it happens I'm not worried about it. I've got many other festivals lined up and hopefully we'll get into some other festivals but you know, I didn't get bummed out so I was kind of expecting not to get in by so we did not officially get into Sundance guys, it's okay we will survive. But we do have a bunch of other cool stuff coming up that we will be at Sundance and again if you guys are going to be at Sundance, I'm going to be there too and we got to get something together and see if we could all hang out at a bar or something and network and do all sorts of cool stuff. And we're going to be doing some events there as well i'm going to be doing a panel there just kind of getting everything finalized but I will be doing a panel at slam dance actually this year and we will be talking more about that in the weeks in the next few weeks as soon as I get something locked locked in dates and times I will let you know guys very very excited about it. But we do have a lot of cool interviews coming up in the in the coming weeks and again guys thank you so much for doing everything you guys do man you guys inspire me I get so many emails from you guys every week, every day actually telling me your stories and I really with all my heart I really appreciate all of the well wishes about Meg and what and the thanks that you guys continuously give me for what I'm doing here with the podcast and with indie film hustle but I do it for you guys man you gotta lead with giving you got to lead with a sense of abundance you can't live in a mentality of of I don't have enough you know that's why I want to give as much as I can to you guys I want to give as much free information as I can. And I want to just give and help as much as I can you guys and you guys are so cool. And so thing I'm so thankful to have you guys all as part of the indie film hustle tribe and thank you So much again and I do have more news coming up and I'll wait till probably towards the end of the year about what I'm doing next year and it's gonna be one hell of a year. If 2016 was amazing for indie film hustle and for myself shooting my first feature film, indie film hustle kind of blowing up the podcast growing levels that I was not expecting it to. 2017 is gonna make 2016 look like it was 1987 Anyway, guys, don't forget to head over to filmmaking podcast calm that is filmmaking podcast.com and leaving a good review, please, I really would appreciate it. It helps the show out a lot, and helps me get it out to more and more filmmakers. And please spread the word guys spread the word, email people share my stuff, when we put it out there share this stuff that the posts and things like that, you know, get the word out there with as many of your friends and filmmakers as you can because I really want to help as much as many filmmakers as I can. I really want to see all you guys succeed and give you the real skinny on what the hell is going on in this business, which is changing on a daily daily basis. So also if you want the show notes, head over to indie film hustle.com forward slash 119 that's indie film hustle, calm forward slash 119 to check out the download the episode and check out the show notes. So as always, keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you soon.

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IFH 118: Kevin Smith, John Milius & Directing John Malkovich with Zak Knutson

March 11, 2022November 29, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

This week we have Zak Knutson on the show. Zak is a producer/writer/director/editor based out of Los Angeles. In 2005 he co-founded Chop Shop Entertainment, a filmed entertainment company that supplies added value materials to all of the major studios, and a large number of independents. Chop Shop Entertainment has supplied more movie based content for the internet than any other company in the industry.

The last Chop Shop project was Milius, a documentary on Hollywood rebel John Milius. The film opened at the SXSW Film Festival in 2013. The film also played at the Telluride Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival. In 2014 Knutson directed Marvel 75: From Pulp to Pop for Marvel and ABC Television.

Zak Knutson directed “Shock the World” a documentary about Jesse Ventura’s path from professional wrestler to Governor of Minnesota. Shock the World premiered April 2015 at the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival.

His latest film Supercon starring Maggie Grace, Clancy Brown, Ryan Kwanten, Mike Epps, and John Malkovich. Here’s the logline:

A rag-tag group of former TV stars and comic book artists, who make their living working at conventions, decide to steal the loot from a crooked promoter and an overbearing former TV icon.

Enjoy my entertaining and funny interview with Zak Knutson.

Right-click here to download the MP3

Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 3:40
So today guys, we've got a really cool episode I've got Zak Knutson on the show today I reached out to Zak because we have a mutual friend, and Zach's a director and he's been working with he kind of made his bones with Kevin Smith. He worked on actually the first time I saw him was in the behind the scenes of clerks two years ago when they were doing webisodes. When webisodes were not something being done at all in the industry. And I saw Zak and his partner at the time that were shooting all these behind the scenes, videos and webisodes for Kevin and for our clerks too. And then they kind of kept going with it because he also was the director of Kevin Smith's to fat for 40 burn in hell sold out an evening with Kevin Smith. Just all these those wonderful if you haven't seen those Kevin Smith, stand up bits. They're hilarious, but he directed all of those and then he got he got this idea to make this insane documentary called millionaire based on the rebel filmmaker, Writer Director probably the most dangerous man in the film industry, john malleus. He, he wrote, I can't I can't even go into john Williams because it's just going to go on for days. He's written So many scripts and it's responsible for so many amazing movies. It's not even funny, but he made this great documentary about miletus also shot a bunch of stuff for Marvel with their some television documentaries. And he just finished directing his first narrative feature called supercon. Starring Maggie grace, Clancy Brown, Mike Epps and john frickin milkovich so that was really amazing to talk to him a little bit about how it was to work with such an amazing cast and super concept really funny funny movie. Will you'll hear all about the movie in the in the interview, but it's a really great episode. Zach, I wanted to bring him on because he has a you know, he's an indie filmmaker through and through and he you know, learn from one of the masters of indie filmmaking, which is Kevin Smith you know, he's one of the filmmakers from our generation both Zak and I are pretty close to age, if not the exact age and and I wanted to kind of pick his brain about what it was like working with Kevin, what is it like doing his first movie what the the trials and tribulations were of making millions which was a thing he told me like it was a four or five year I don't remember exactly was a long time. They were on that and he got the interview. Everyone from Spielberg to Lucas Scorsese, everybody. I mean, he interviewed everybody. It was such a great documentary but but he dropped some really great knowledge bombs, some amazing advice on how to work on production. He also lets us know what his favorite comfortable shoe is. to direct in which I am going to be buying a pair of myself because they're very, very important to have good shoes while you're acting. If you're the kind of director that Zak and I are, which we're always on they're always moving around, never just sitting around a villa video village but Anyway, I digress guys. So without any further ado, guys, I want to bring on Zak Knutson. Guys, I'd like to welcome to the show Zak Knutson. Knutson,

Zak Knutson 7:02
Knutson.

Alex Ferrari 7:04
Knutson. Thank you, sir.

Zak Knutson 7:05
No worries.

Alex Ferrari 7:07
Thanks for coming on the show, brother. I appreciate it.

Zak Knutson 7:09
No, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Alex Ferrari 7:12
Yeah, we have a mutual friend Austin, who was my gaffer on Meg. And he said these, these two film geeks have to get together. So I reached out and here you are.

Zak Knutson 7:23
I said, thanks for having me. Yeah, no, Austin Austin was my dp on a couple of Marvel projects. I did.

Alex Ferrari 7:29
Oh, we'll definitely get in. We'll get into that in a little bit. But how so how did you get into the film business in the first place?

Zak Knutson 7:37
Slept with a lot of guys. No. I always wanted to be in the movies. I didn't know how or what but I always wanted to be in the movies. And I grew up in Orange County, California, which is about an hour hour and a half south of La which I always say it's kind of like living in New Jersey to New York. You're just right across the river, but you can never get to it. And I decided to after I didn't. I had a football scholarship to go to Colorado State and decided I didn't want to play football. I wanted to be in the movies. And I moved out to LA and tried being an actor and I got a little bit of success and then the bottom fell out but I ended up realizing I liked what was going on behind the camera more than I like what was going on in front of the camera. And just started doing things like I was a PA on this movie called speed with Keanu Reeves. I kept doing a little bit parts and there's

Alex Ferrari 8:31
also stuff right there's a European speed that's that's pretty freakin awesome. Yeah. How was How was that? How was that experience?

Zak Knutson 8:40
It was awesome. It was awesome. We got to we got to work with john de Botton, we were shooting at the LA at La x. We I did all the freeway stuff. And then I did all the stuff at La x. I didn't do anything else. And that alone was like I think that was three months. It was an awesome experience just to kind of walk watch a movie that level and how it was going because Keanu Reeves was famous, but Sandra Bullock wasn't. And piano wasn't the piano that he is now you know. And it was just it was awesome to kind of see that experience and watch that massive machine move forward. And you're just sitting there going yeah, I want to do this. Right. So you're doing the PA stuff. And that led into I started working in the office because I thought that might be a better route. So it was the production office. And I did a bunch of stuff there and that led into me meeting Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back after I did this horrible TV show for Fox and yeah, and then they just kind of went well you're kind of Alright, we'll keep you around and I was like 10 years

Alex Ferrari 9:48
so hot so so you work with kit that brings us right into Kevin man. You know Kevin is is a indie film legend. He's one of the first guys to come out with clerks and the whole $27,000 and You know I'm sure everybody listening knows Kevin's story. And and Kevin's been not shy about being in the spotlight over the last two decades or so

Zak Knutson 10:09
putting him out

Alex Ferrari 10:12
I watched comic book men all the time among all the other things so I the first time I saw you believe it or not was I saw you when I didn't know who you were but I saw you in the behind the scenes of clerks too, because he was shooting all these behind the scenes and releasing them, I think weekly or something like that. And you were you were a part of the team that was putting it together.

Zak Knutson 10:34
It was me it was essentially the guy's doing that was me and Joey Figueroa who was my partner for years and years and years and years years, it was just me and Joey doing everything we did all the behind the scenes. We did all the webisodes. We did all we did the feature length documentary. It was just him and me. We did everything

Alex Ferrari 10:52
that Yeah, and I remember it because Kevin, of course brought you guys in front of the camera a bunch of times. And you were explaining how you were doing it. And it was during one was that clerks two was what? What year was that? 10 years?

Zak Knutson 11:03
it's I think it's 10 years ago now.

Alex Ferrari 11:06
Right? So it was just a little bit after I released my first short film, so there was not a lot of information out there on how to make an independent film back then.

Zak Knutson 11:16
Yeah, I mean, it was kind of the interesting thing is when we started doing webisodes, which nobody knew who though what the hell that was. Yeah, I mean, it was a try pitching that to The Weinstein Company, or I think it was Yeah, it was it was my dream company at that point. It was, yeah. Okay, so we're gonna put out things on the web. And the nice thing is they didn't know what the hell what it was. And the only person even doing it at that point was Peter Jackson. Yeah, what do you do and all this stuff? I think, Lord of the Rings, Lord. Yeah, it was all the Lord of the Rings stuff at that time. So it was him and us. Only thing is he had Lord of the Rings. And we had a convenience store. screen and monsters visual effects. And it was like we got dick and fart jokes. That really I attribute that that's where I learned how to edit. That's where I learned how that was really because we were doing I think we'd put up webisodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And YouTube had just come out. So we were able to put our stuff on the front page of YouTube. And by the end of the day, yeah, we'd have by the end of day, 150,000 hits, and we were like, oh, huge, huge. Look at that. Amazing now everybody's got like 22 million.

Alex Ferrari 12:26
That would kill 450,000 now.

Zak Knutson 12:29
It actually was Ming Chen who would set us up with YouTube so I'd get okay man. Here's a new one manga get it up and put it on the front page of YouTube. Sorry, I got a plane going overhead and live by Burbank airport noise. And that was really kind of hardcore film school was learning how to shoot and edit and doing it on a turnaround because the turnaround wasn't the same. Oh, I know. You had to wait. You wait. And then we'd edit for another four. When we got back to the house in Orange County, where we shot the movie. It was just insane. But it was fun. It was really fun.

Alex Ferrari 13:02
Yeah, it was that was I love clerks to man i was i was a very big fan of movie but I was I was that was the first time I saw something like webisodes. You're right. And YouTube was in its infancy. Basically it was just coming out that the quality wasn't that great. I remember it was all standard def and the compression kind of socked in all this kind of stuff. But that was the first time I saw webisodes really and especially in the film business and Kevin was always a little bit ahead of the curve on some stuff. He was a he was

Zak Knutson 13:30
one of the first guys to kind of get his hands into the internet when it came out. Like he had a message board before anybody had this internet presence for anybody.

Alex Ferrari 13:40
And he's done pretty well with it and he's the first guy to do the whole podcast thing which you know, which obviously he still podcast like the crazy man. It's pretty it's very interesting. So you worked with him on how many projects you were with him? 10 years so what did you do for my

Zak Knutson 13:54
first name? My first time I worked with Kevin I was the production Secretary on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. And then that rolled into being the visual effects assistant on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. And then on jersey girl, I was the post production coordinator. I think that's what my title was okay. And then after jersey girl, which was insane because that that was up that lasted 18 months.

Alex Ferrari 14:20
But that was like the biggest movie he'd ever done at that point. Right? That was a big budget.

Zak Knutson 14:25
Big time. It was like, Yeah, yeah, it was because we had like a it was a 30 $30 budget. We had Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez

Alex Ferrari 14:35
when they were already Ben Affleck agenda. They were ready Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez it wasn't like when they were doing mallrats when Ben was nobody.

Zak Knutson 14:42
Oh yeah, this is Ben Ben had already won an Oscar. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 14:45
so Ben was Ben Jennifer was and then that whole bennifer crap better for happy and that destroyed everything.

Zak Knutson 14:51
Yeah, months where we would get we tested that movie into the ground and Kevin wouldn't change. It was a whole thing. And

Alex Ferrari 14:58
but and then it was also he worked The Vilma sigmon as a dp which was the first time he had worked with, like, a fucking legend. Yeah,

Zak Knutson 15:07
I mean really I mean

Alex Ferrari 15:12
God rest and rest in peace brother. I mean he was he was a legend. And when I remember that I was like, I'm sorry. paint with light Yes, I paint with lights with this this dick and fart joke I don't understand

Zak Knutson 15:25
it. I remember we get in the call mode. You're telling me goes bill Marsh gonna be the DP. I was like zigman. Your 100 years ago, it was like the rest of development. You go Really?

Alex Ferrari 15:38
Close. Close. Close Encounters. Really? Yeah, that guy?

Zak Knutson 15:42
Oh, that's great. Oh, huge.

Alex Ferrari 15:45
Yeah, that was Yeah, I'm sure how did Kevin work with him? Because I know that once. It's been an interesting clash of styles.

Zak Knutson 15:52
I think I think everything was fine. I just, Kevin. I took this away from my own movies. Everyone knew and I just did my own feature. I think Kevin likes working with people that he likes, and I think he did eternally after. I think Kevin really wanted to work with Dave Klein again, you know, because David Dunn, clerks and mallrats but he didn't get to do dogma and Dave kind of went off and did his own thing, kind of cutting his own teeth and learning because nobody gets to be dp straight out of film school. But Dave was, but Dave hadn't really learned the craft. He'll be the first one to admit it. Dave does homeland right now on Showtime and he's been nominated for like three Emmys or something like that. Right. Right. Which score to score to shot but he also Oh, it's awesome. And, like, hits that sweet spot for Dave, who I love to death. And I think I think Kevin no matter who he worked with, he always wanted to work with Dave again. Because Dave was this guy you want to work with Dave So vilmos was Bill motion he respected him and I think Bill most respected Kevin but I think it's that thing of honor work of Dave Dave's my guy

Alex Ferrari 17:04
came up together they came up together. Exactly, you know, and that must have been so so you worked with Isa you did. Jersey girl Then where did you go from there just kept working on with them, but basically on every project

Zak Knutson 17:15
after jersey girl Ay, ay, ay was the line producer UPM whatever you want to call it on a James frame on James Franco's first first directorial effort called the ape which Scott Mosier edited and Dave Klein shot I think we shot that in 12 days in downtown LA so because I wanted to get into producing I wanted to kind of spread my wings a bit Sure. And I did two movies with James and Vince is his producing partner and then we went into clerks to an unclear why wasn't good to ask don't when we were in post on jersey girl We had lots of downtime because we were just sitting around waiting for people to make like Weinstein Company to figure out what's going on with GE and all this other guys

Alex Ferrari 17:59
that the I mean he just got pork Kevin I just got caught in the frickin eye of the storm man that day.

Zak Knutson 18:04
It was it was I've never seen anything like that. It I mean, yeah, it was insane. It was insane and then to be caught in the kind of the crossfire it was silly. Yeah, but it was during that time all of a sudden that came up that you know, Kevin came in, he was having meetings and he goes, I'm gonna do Green Hornet. So we're gonna go to Prague for a year. And Joey and I heard that we're like, well, we just don't want to go to Prague to do what we're doing now. Like I didn't get in the movie business to be a post production you know, supervisor or anything like that. Although I've done it, I like it. I want to do creative so we were so we kind of figured out this game plan like alright, the webisodes. We did like before, or the webisodes. We're gonna do webisodes. We're gonna do these things we're gonna do and this is before the Peter Jackson stuff or anything. Like Okay, we're gonna put out stuff on the internet, and we can do it. And this is going to be so we made this whole pitch to Kevin, but we're in Prague, we're gonna do our jobs at same time we're gonna shoot all this other stuff. And him and Scott, were like, We love that idea. Because that's something nobody's doing right now. You're looking forward to the whole thing. And then Green Hornet didn't happen. Right? Right. And Kevin was gonna do Fletch. Just gonna do it with Fletch.

Alex Ferrari 19:20
Fletch would have been awesome.

Zak Knutson 19:23
Read the flex script. It was really good. It was really good. It was one of those like, man, when that's when Fletch didn't happen. Then it was like then clerks two came up and we were actually doing we were doing the documentary with the post production supervisor at the time who actually directed it's called back to the well on the Clarks x DVD. And we were doing it we were shooting the interview with Scott and Kevin at the quick stop in Jersey doing their interview and it was after that Kevin first mentioned, I think I think I'm thinking about doing a C While doing clerks to and it was just kind of that surreal moment where you're with these guys who stand their rear with clerks and you're in the location and the whole thing and it's three o'clock in the morning. Go oh shit they're doing it. You're gonna do a sequel to clerks

Alex Ferrari 20:16
like this Kevin does Kevin owned that damn quick stop at this point.

Zak Knutson 20:20
No no

Alex Ferrari 20:22
I mean seriously it's like a frickin landmark.

Zak Knutson 20:24
I went I think he tried to at one point I think I remember hearing a story where he was going to buy the building yeah not to buy the building and then they were going to put a second story on top and then the second story was where the rescue offices were going to be which has been awesome but I don't think that I think the family won't know this is our business like we'd like this place and these same families still owns it Wow.

Alex Ferrari 20:49
But they obviously they they love Kevin so they do they work with Kevin when he needs it Are

Zak Knutson 20:54
they get a nod they get a lot of business when people go in there just to buy you know, a gallon of milk or eggs or a pack of cigarettes or go you know, to drink this coffee hot?

Alex Ferrari 21:03
Yeah. Every day every damn sure every second every single day. It's it's Yeah, it's it's tourist attraction at this point.

Zak Knutson 21:09
Oh, it's I mean, it's Leonardo New Jersey. I think that's the only tourist attraction and Leonardo.

Alex Ferrari 21:17
So um, so you were saying,

Zak Knutson 21:19
Oh, so when Clark came up, we we pitched this idea of, Okay, we're just going to do webisodes. We're going to do a feature length documentary. We're going to do webisodes, we're going to do the entire DVD. We're going to do all this stuff and we're sure we'll shoot all the EP gay. That's awesome. And they said yes. And that was it. That's when Jodi and I kind of decided we that's when we formed chop shop. And that's when we kind of did all of our stuff. Moving forward. We moved out of working for people and working for ourselves and making our own stuff that's kind of where it all started. So

Alex Ferrari 21:50
then basically, you had you've just basically built your own production company and then your main client was Kevin.

Zak Knutson 21:56
Yeah, exactly. Man main client was Kevin. That's where the bread and butter came out of. We did some other stuff. We did you know, we did stuff for Sony. We did stuff for Panasonic. We did stuff for Disney. But really, I mean, what we did was you were always coming up with stuff to It's like he did the evening with Kevin Smith stuff.

Alex Ferrari 22:15
Which genius. You shot that stuff? Right? Right. Well,

Zak Knutson 22:19
we didn't do the first two. First you were done by Sony. And then the contract was done with Sony. So he was like, I want to do it with Bob and Harvey. So we shot the next the two or three he's

Alex Ferrari 22:32
he's got 45

Zak Knutson 22:33
Yeah, yeah, he's got a bunch of them. It's almost like and they start blurring together is like which one about redstate? You're talking about the one about Bruce Willis. He's

Alex Ferrari 22:43
the print story, which is the one like

Zak Knutson 22:47
I think the first one

Alex Ferrari 22:48
was the first one. I think the prints and the john Peters story was the first one because it but it was like three hours. I mean, it just keeps going.

Zak Knutson 22:59
We did the one we did in New Jersey for his birthday, which I think might if it wasn't the last one is the second or maybe it's the first one. It was that this whole thing was going on in the press about Dane Cook and Dave Chappelle are going back and forth about doing sets as long as they could like all of a sudden Dane Cook it for hours at the Comedy Store. Dave Chappelle did five hours at this point. So Kevin came out and he goes, What's the record? At that point? It was like seven hours. I think Dave Chappelle did seven hours in like Cleveland, and he goes okay, I'm gonna do seven and a half hours. That's

Alex Ferrari 23:34
Yeah, he could he could talk for seven and a half hours. Sure. When

Zak Knutson 23:37
he didn't he didn't sit down we have to shoot. We didn't even think about it because we'd never done it before. I don't think we had to shoot the ending of the DVD first because we knew people were going to be leaving because by the time seven and a half hour is going to be up it was going to be like 330 in the morning.

Alex Ferrari 23:53
And it's just gonna be 15 people in the audience.

Zak Knutson 23:55
Yeah, exactly. Exact But surprisingly, I think most people stay at some people young kids and jobs and babysitters but I mean it was like an event it was an event great way to put it. Great way to put it

Alex Ferrari 24:09
so then you work that you worked with a bunch of those so you did a bunch of those videos for him and then where did you go from there?

Zak Knutson 24:16
Obviously we did all those and then once he works it and then we did some we did some stuff on it. Forgive me at the point oh, and then we we produce the

Alex Ferrari 24:27
show? Yeah, spoilers, right. Introduce spoilers,

Zak Knutson 24:31
good spoilers. That was hulu's first original show, which show which we did. We did that for a season. And then they did season two, I believe up in Vancouver or something like that. Because we were down here, and at which point we were trying to get our own kind of stuff going and then I started writing. I wanted to get in writing and directing what I wanted to do and now and then technically we kind of rolled over during this entire time towards the end. We started doing millia which is documentary I did on Writer Director john Miller which I

Alex Ferrari 25:02
was gonna I was gonna come into Millis because seriously, I was it for anybody listening if you guys have not seen the john millia story, the documentary it's, it's really remarkable and if you're a film geek, you've got to watch it.

Zak Knutson 25:17
It is a it's a it's it's film geek heaven. I will say that it really is. I mean, everybody and their grandmother you

Alex Ferrari 25:23
so that's the thing, dude. Like you talked to everybody's Spielberg, Lucas Coppola and like, every, like, I think Scorsese is everybody.

Zak Knutson 25:32
Yeah, we need to get all those guys in one way, or the only documentary to have all those guys shoot original interviews for it wasn't like, taken from archival footage,

Alex Ferrari 25:43
because it's john. Yeah, cuz john is that guy, you know, and for people who don't know, and I'll talk a little bit about john from, from what I know about, but he was like one of the best writers in the history of the business. And he's made, how many movies how many of his movies have been made?

Zak Knutson 26:02
It's been a while now. I'm gonna go into my john Millis bank here. I mean, john. Yeah. JOHN started out at USC with he was a he was in the same class as George Lucas. And George Lucas. Randall Randall closer who did grease Blue Lagoon. White Fang ran a class he was there. JOHN Carpenter was there. Oh, that guy? Oh, that guy. But john Carpenter won't have anything to do with USC. Oh, it's kind of an awesome thing. Because they tried suing him over Halloween because he used their equipment to shoot Halloween. Oh,

Alex Ferrari 26:39
really? Oh, that's frickin because it was such a huge hit. So anytime there's a huge hit, you know, the lawsuits will come out.

Zak Knutson 26:47
Yeah, exactly. No, but all these guys were they're learning how to make film. And at the time, you didn't go to film school and actually come out and be a director there. Like, you'll probably end up doing like, you know, industrial films or things like yeah, at

Alex Ferrari 26:59
that time, there was no pathway to going into the studio system out of film school during that time. It was Coppola was the first guy

Zak Knutson 27:07
that not the school but the film school was literally shot.

Alex Ferrari 27:10
Yeah, it's I just I literally I just want to speak at USC, like a month or two ago. It's it's I mean, seriously, it's like, it's like going to Rome. in a row.

Zak Knutson 27:21
The Schwarzenegger bill. I mean, all these buildings. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 27:25
I'm doing they're taking me around the tour. Like hey, we have five sound stages here. I'm like, I'm looking like I'm like, Are you freaking kidding me?

Zak Knutson 27:33
Literally old stables that they converted. I heard about this film school. And that's where john and all these guys kind of learn the basis of their craft. And then john went over to work at AIP that I think that was his first real job. He wrote him and his writing partner. And we didn't we weren't able to put this into the dock. Not because we couldn't tell the story but john tells that in order to pay the bills him and his buddy were living in West Hollywood, they wrote softcore porn for magazines. Sure, sure. I was like well we gotta find some of these I want to find the stuff that john melius wrote it because he knew it was gonna go into some like, you know, she wore sexy lingerie when World War Two had to go into some tirade. You know? Yeah, exactly. But john was the guy that if they were right, if they were doing a short I always want to john to writing. john was the best writer and he continued to be that for his entire career.

Alex Ferrari 28:26
I mean, john, I mean, little little known fact that you say this in the in the doc is like he wrote that amazing monologue in jaws.

Zak Knutson 28:38
Lead wants to take credit for it. Steven Spielberg says it was john. It was really john and Shaw. Yeah, did on wrote 10 pages over the phone one night. He showed it to shosh. I goes, this is great, but it's too long. Yeah. And he took John's 10 pages, put it in the five pages. And that's what we got in the movie. And if you are shocked

Alex Ferrari 29:01
it's genius. I mean, he did Conan, which is still so I mean, Conan, Red Dawn. He wrote Dirty Harry. I mean, seriously.

Zak Knutson 29:10
He writes, too. He was a big rewrite guy. Yeah, he

Alex Ferrari 29:13
was he was a ghost. He was the guy always behind the scenes, just rewriting everything. He was the go to guy. Yep. Yep. He was. He was a rock star. But he was quiet rock star. That's the thing. He wasn't it wasn't the time of the fight. It wasn't the Shane Black days, where they were making $5 million. A script.

Zak Knutson 29:30
Well, actually, he broke the record. When he was gonna he wrote a script called the life and times of joy. Judge Roy bean. Yeah. written it for Lee Marvin. Lee Marvin had the script and he was doing a movie with Paul Newman's the story. And Paul Newman picked it up because Lee had a couple of drinks or whatever went to his trailer, Paul picked up the script and read it and fell in love with it. called Warner Brothers says I want the script. And so they called john john said, Sure you can have it but I'm going to direct it based on that. If not possible, you've never directed a movie before.

Alex Ferrari 30:03
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Zak Knutson 30:14
They go Yeah, they go now even you you've never directed a movie for your near night because john had done Dylan's your for AIP doesn't count. doesn't count. Yeah. That's a that's an independent. That's that Roger Corman shit. Yeah, over here. We do real movies. Right? So Johnson will tell you what, it's gonna it's this price with me directing or it's this price with me not directing. He

Alex Ferrari 30:36
pulled the front he pulled the Frank Darabont. Yeah, exactly.

Zak Knutson 30:41
Yeah, and the longer it went, the higher the price went. So john actually broke the record at the time for the highest price ever paid for a script, which at the time was $330,000

Alex Ferrari 30:54
back in the 70s Oh,

Zak Knutson 30:56
maybe I think this would be the late 60s maybe 1970

Alex Ferrari 31:01
Oh, cheese is that's a that's that's basically like a $3 million payday back then. Oh,

Zak Knutson 31:06
huge, huge and john, if you look I think we've even got a couple of the old variety articles where it was like and people were pissed because you're like this is gonna ruin Ryder. You know all this kind of stuff. Of course john Yeah, but john was the first one to kind of go look if you want me to direct it'll be nothing but if you don't want me to direct you're gonna pay for it. And they paid for that kind of set john up and the other thing it did was a day it enabled you know guys like Francis to be able to bring john on to do things like it gave john freedom to do other things. He could write Apocalypse Now for Francis for nothing because he loved Francis right? He could do this kind of stuff and they all help each other that's the one thing I wish a lot more is dead now. Which is help each other out.

Alex Ferrari 31:51
You know it you know, that's something I talk about man on on that's one of the reasons why I created indie film hustle in the first place. I wanted to help other filmmakers and and a lot of a lot of filmmakers, man, they hoard knowledge. And at the end, I'm like, Dude, why are you gonna hoard the knowledge? You know, it? lets you know raise a rising tide lifts all boats, man. You know, and I've just I just heard a great quote by Robert Rodriguez the other day, where he says, If you compete with other people, no one will help you. But if you compete with against yourself, everybody will help you.

Zak Knutson 32:24
It's true. It's totally true. I am a big believer in that.

Alex Ferrari 32:28
Yeah, you just help each other out. And that was the thing about those guys. And from all the documentaries that I've seen on the the core group, which is George Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola, miletus, de Palma. They were all kind of like the barbarians at the gate. And they're like, Look, and one of us is not gonna be able to knock this door down. But if all of us do it, and Scorsese as well, all of us do it, we can, we can do it together and they just helped each other. And I think what was the points thing you got? There was a points joke in the in the documentary if I remember, which was a great thing about God. Yes, somebody? Yeah. Emily has got points on what Star Wars? And then

Zak Knutson 33:05
yeah, no, they've made a deal, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and john Millis. They all had movies coming out. And they were all buddies. They're like, like, Steven, when when john was doing the Wyndham lion, Steven would come in and help edit the action stuff, because that's what he was really good at. And when Stephen had a speech that had to be done, that's where john had come in. And Lucas was very much at the end of the technical aspects of things and visual effects and editing techniques. And that's where he would come in. So they all help each other out one day, they said, You know what, let's all trade points on our movies. So if one of us because one of us is going to get one of us hits, we all win. And they were like, Great, good idea. So john,

Alex Ferrari 33:49
What year is it? This is, this is before Star Wars, obviously

Zak Knutson 33:53
70 1975 or 1976, before jaws and

Alex Ferrari 33:57
before, after, after, they were already

Zak Knutson 34:00
successful, because the movies that they had coming out was they traded points. It was two points to each of them. And sorry, I got another plane going overhead. It was Lucas had Star Wars coming out. Spielberg had Close Encounters of the Third time, and john had big Wednesday. So all of a sudden, these movies come out. And it's like, you know, Star Wars encounters is huge. But Star Wars becomes a cultural milestone. Yeah. And when big Wednesday came out, big Wednesday, by all intents purpose was a flop. It's now a cult classic and Everett, surfers favorite movie and the most accurate depiction of it. But it's like, you know, so yeah, John's got points on Star Wars on Star Wars. And because it was at Close Encounters of the Third guest, so

Alex Ferrari 34:48
those points alone. You're good.

Zak Knutson 34:53
As we tell him until we tell us a story in the documentary his manager, his business manager took Money.

Alex Ferrari 35:02
Now, that'll

Zak Knutson 35:04
make your butthole Parker ah. Oh yeah, that's where john john went to David Milch that here's a story that it's in the dark, but I'll tell the story. Sure. Essentially, john, his business manager took all his money, just swiped it. And it was heartbreaking because john had worked his entire career and had built this and then all of a sudden it's gone. John's now got an ex wife, three kids. Yeah, no good place to be.

Alex Ferrari 35:29
So how long ago did he get get taken? Oh, this

Zak Knutson 35:33
wasn't that long ago because how john Johnson was in going to college john son wanted to be a lawyer. Want to go to law school. So john had to kind of go hand in hand to David Milch. And say, you've got this show Deadwood. I want to be a staff writer on

Alex Ferrari 35:48
it. Yeah, yeah, I heard that. We remember that from the dock.

Zak Knutson 35:51
Yeah, yeah. And David Mills said You're crazy. You wrote Apocalypse Now. You can't be a staff writer. Like that's that's not possible. So what Milton did was Milt wrote him a check for the first two years of tuition I think it was jack and said here, here you go. That just just john go go. I want you to be john. I don't want you to be a staff writer on Deadwood. And as the story goes, and Ed O'Neill Al Bundy for anybody. I don't Neal tells the story because he's really good friends with milk and a couple years. A couple I think a year later john was able to sell or john had Rome I think it was wrong. And he was and all of a sudden so john had Rome on the air and he got that going. And all of a sudden one day john David Milch got a check. And he goes son of a bitch he called a battle Neil he goes Do you believe this crazy fucking millions he goes What are you talking about? He goes he just paid me back because I just opened up an envelope got a check from john he does he's the only son of a bitches aid me ever paid me back in my entire life. Wow. If anybody knows story David Milch. He is a renowned gambler. So that's really saying something to show John's character like you know, john wasn't gonna let his friends Hey,

Alex Ferrari 37:10
that's that's it so I mean so if you guys haven't been sold already you've got to watch that movie I'll put a link to it in the show notes guys because it's we could talk about john melius for the next three hours easily.

Zak Knutson 37:22
Hulu if you have epics on epics

Alex Ferrari 37:25
yeah i mean it's it's such a great doc and it took you how long to make it oh god five years

Zak Knutson 37:30
beginning to end it was five years.

Alex Ferrari 37:33
How did I just have a curiosity man? How the hell do you get that started? Do you just call john up and go hey, I want to make a doc about you.

Zak Knutson 37:41
A guy who'd been working with Kevin and well I got to know really well this guy by the name of Ken plume he had done this interview with john that was like 47 or 67 pages or something he used to work for IGN 10 years prior did this interview with john that was epic. And I read it and it was in that interview was the basis of the documentary cuz I didn't know like I didn't know john did all this ghost writing for like all the Harrison Ford the jack Ryan movies. Okay. Ghost Rider on that. Oh yeah. One of the biggest scenes I think it was clear and present danger yeah this whole thing about they're driving down the street and the Mexican cartels or pin the Secret Service guys. Secret Service actually uses that scene to show people this is the right way of doing it in the movie got it right because john did it when he

Alex Ferrari 38:36
made that amazing scene when they got pinned down between the the the buildings and the gal blocked in that's Johnson

Zak Knutson 38:43
Yeah, that was all john that was all john sitting at lunch one day with mace Neufeld and Harrison Ford with salt and salt and pepper shakers and I think a napkin and showing them how it would be done.

Alex Ferrari 38:54
That's the best part of the movie like so clearly remember that it's so amazing

Zak Knutson 39:00
that's all john millison I think he when they asked for payment he said I don't need any pay just buy me a brand new suburban filled with cigars that's he got a brand new suburban filled with cigars.

Alex Ferrari 39:14
Seriously, man I mean they just don't make them like that anymore Do they?

Zak Knutson 39:19
Oh, john has got a thing where you know a he would he would make the head of the studio in his deal he got a brand new gun because John's a huge gun guy. Yeah. People like to paint him he's he's just to the right of a tell the honeys Really? Don't get me wrong. I don't think he you know. Even john likes a second amendment like that. Yeah, but he would have, he would have he would want the head of the studio to present him a gun as a gift to the completion of the contract. So he has these amazing, you know, talion, handmade rifles, shotguns almost, and that was part of his contract was part of his deal. So he got paid and then He got a new shotgun or a new handgun or a vintage this or whatever that was part of his contract

Alex Ferrari 40:04
if so this is this is that I'm going to just share with you one of my dreams as a director one day, if I ever have the opportunity to do a studio movie i want i want to do something similar but I just like I would like the entire Criterion Collection on blu ray.

Zak Knutson 40:19
Oh, that you'll get easily that's like I was

Alex Ferrari 40:22
just I just I just want the entire Criterion Collection. If it's not on blu ray Give me the DVD and the blu ray. I want them all for life

Zak Knutson 40:33
on is not in print anymore go on eBay and find it get it to me I want one one through whatever they hold them.

Alex Ferrari 40:39
I want them all I want them all. I might never see them all but just in case I want them all. That would be that would be my that would be one of my my dreams. And it's not asking a lot honestly.

Zak Knutson 40:53
That's that's good dude. Man. Those guys are Scott and Kevin chasing me was put out by criteria. Yeah. And every every time they put out a DVD would send it to Scott. And I just after a week of being the kind of brother father. I just kind of keeps taking all those criteria in this to go through.

Alex Ferrari 41:11
So by the way, Scott how Scott to work with as a producer, man, he must be he's must be a pretty cool dude.

Zak Knutson 41:17
He's got a dream. Yeah, I mean, that's the only way I can eat. He is. He's awesome. I really I have a hard time even describing Scott to people because he's just undescribable amazing. Yeah, I mean, the guy. He's been a champion. For me. He helped me out with anything I want to do. He's a great sounding board. Like even now with supercon movie I just did. It's like, he's open. Like, I'll watch cut. I'll give you notes. He's been he was a producer on millea. He's the guy who helped us find the money in order to go go out and do it. Which is gonna be a consulting producer. And on a couple of documentaries. I got going like he's just, he's awesome. Yeah, there's no other way to put it. He's always he just Mosher.

Alex Ferrari 42:06
Now one before we move on familiarise off since you were able to sit down with these frickin legends. Do you have any stories behind the scenes of like talking to Spielberg or Lucas or Coppola or Scorsese or De Palma or any of these any any cool stories?

Zak Knutson 42:22
Lucas, I wasn't there. I was in Mexico City. I didn't I didn't do the interviews for Lucas or Swartz Nagar, which are two of the interviews I wanted to do because I was in Mexico City doing doing a Mel Gibson movie. I was like, you got to go do this. I need the money. Yeah, because we were financing it all ourselves at that point. They were the first two big names to sign on. But see, Spielberg we chased Spielberg for I think four years, until we finally got him. And then when we got him, we went to amblin at Universal, and I'm sitting there doing the interview with him because we had to deal Joey got to do Scorsese. I got to do Spielberg. Scorsese was his and Spielberg was mine. Okay? So I'm sitting there and it's like, okay, we're interviewing Spielberg, no, okay. Okay, this is amazing. And during the during the entire thing, there was a picture when john was telling the story, it's an old picture black and white, John's telling the story. And I would pull the picture out and give it to anybody and say, describe to me what's going on in this and they'll usually spark some kind of a story or conversation about it. And I'm Spielberg's talking and I'm trying to be all coy and cool and of course Jen and I as I pulled the picture out all my notes and all my questions in my head just went flying you know so in the middle of the interview it's like boom All I hear is paper flying and it was almost like you hear me go Yeah, I'm just like oh my god this is horrible. You watch back to the interview now he says like Now don't worry about he just kept talking. Interesting was we had all the cameras and all the lights set up and all that kind of stuff. Goes move the camera closer to you because you want the audience to feel more of a voyeuristic part of it. And I'm thinking like we had this look for the whole thing and I was two seconds away from just going this way I want to shop the look and did that thing registers in your brain where you're like, I can Spielberg stupid movie. or something. You might know something you don't You arrogant, dude. I just moved my chair. Close your camera. We're all good to go. But it's a you have that stupid filmmaker like arts right? Your Steven?

Alex Ferrari 44:33
Oh, yeah, yeah, I should. I should probably listen.

Zak Knutson 44:37
Because I think maybe he knows what he's talking about. Maybe

Alex Ferrari 44:41
Maybe you should take a listen to him. Wow.

Zak Knutson 44:43
your entire life for this and now it's happening and you're gonna go Go fuck yourself. I want the camera here. It's like no, listen. Yeah, exactly. We chased forever. We interviewed him in New York. Of course, that was

Alex Ferrari 44:55
awesome. Well, he just he just talks. He'll talk for four days.

Zak Knutson 45:00
Going I said, Why don't you watch the documentary? Just pull the string? And he just goes,

Alex Ferrari 45:06
Yeah, yeah, just as you just he doesn't stop he's just all he's always teaching.

Zak Knutson 45:12
Yeah, you just kind of leave you want to lean forward with like your hands on your on your chin just got to tell me more. And Marty when you start noticing little things that you're never able to notice for like he's got, he's impeccably dressed. And he's got his initials on like the sleeve of his French cuff shirt. You know, it's like, oh, by the way, all the stupid things.

Alex Ferrari 45:35
So do you know why he has that? I'll tell you exactly why he has that. I'd love to know, the reason why he is that way is that he directed a short film for this guy, what's his name, Giorgio Armani. And his deal was, I'll direct your short promotional film. I need Armani suits for life. So all in all, all of his clothing comes from Armani, fur, and they're all custom made for Marty because Marty directed a promotional short film for Giorgio Armani.

Zak Knutson 46:09
That's a good deal. I would do that deal. I think he's impeccably dressed. That's the first thing he knows like, Damn, dude, you look good.

Alex Ferrari 46:18
That's because because the man has shit customized for him by Giorgio Armani for the rest of his life.

Zak Knutson 46:23
That's why I like that man style. Well, it's

Alex Ferrari 46:27
it's Marty man. It's it's Marty What are you gonna do? So uh, but anyway, so did you just contact john and john said Yeah, sure. I'll do it.

Zak Knutson 46:34
Oh, yeah, essentially get back to it. So can still add his contact info. So we literally kind of were talking about a beverage talking to Scott Mosier. I was like, did you know this guy was the basis for Walter and The Big Lebowski. He know this guy wrote Red Dawn, you know, the same guy who did this did that and he was like, why don't you just do a documentary on like being light bulb went off. So we called. We got in touch with john. We talked to his assistant, we pitched his assistant we sent over like kind of a rough outline we did. And john came to our office, we figured it was actually Kevin's office, Kevin was kind enough to give join me in office in his office. So he came down to our place when he was in town because he was living in New York at the time. And him and Leonard came in and we pitch john, and what should have been a one hour meeting became a five hour meeting. JOHN starts talking, he doesn't stop. Pre stroke, john, for anybody doesn't know. And we covered the documentary. So john, was,

Alex Ferrari 47:27
is he getting better? But is he getting better? By the way? Yeah, he's talking more now.

Zak Knutson 47:31
That it's one of those things. It's a slow, slow process. But john weed because when we started the documentary, john had not had the stroke. And actually, we were doing a Kevin Smith show in New Jersey, one of the live things. And immediately after the show, we were going to drive to upstate New York where john lived, and we were going to do the interview. And we got a call. As soon as we finished the show saying, don't come up, something's happened. Go back to LA, we'll tell you about it later. So we were supposed to interview john the week that he had a stroke. We never actually got john on camera, pre stroke. We actually shut down the doc for I think it was nine months to a year. And then john came out to LA to continue his physical therapy. His kids live out here. Sure. And at the time, john could only say yes or no. And he didn't know whether or not he was saying yes or no. Like, that's how the aphasia through the stroke really affected him. Oh, man, it was really sad. But the kids and john who knew everything that was going on, he just the, the way it's been best explained to me was the bridge from the brain to the mouth blew up. Right? His body was slowly repairing it. And that's the way it was with physical so everything in the head was there, his mind is fine. It's just he was trying to get back those motor skills and those speech skills so you can communicate, it was kind of this thing of this guy who loves nothing more than the talk and share stories was now robbed of that. So he's trying to get it back. So his family and john, they still wanted to continue going down the road of the documentary. And that's what we did. And we are able to get them on camera for the end of the documentary and get them to talk and do all that other kind of stuff. So yeah, he's definitely doing better and coming back and he's got other projects. He's got this Kangas con. Yeah, he's

Alex Ferrari 49:24
been trying to do that forever. Right. Yeah, they're trying to

Zak Knutson 49:27
find a director right now for it. I think it's going to be I don't think it's going to be a movie movie because it doesn't have a caper superhero in it. Yeah. I'm thinking that this day and age, I think it's going to go to someplace like Netflix or HBO, or someplace where you can do cool stuff. first draft of that, and it's amazing. It's everything you want to john millia script to be yes. So good. It's got that thing of, you know, I think it's first draft of the script was on like 230 pages.

Alex Ferrari 49:58
Because it's just because it's done. So I

Zak Knutson 50:00
think if it goes someplace like HBO or Netflix, it can be a miniseries, which I think is really what it should be to be able to tell that story and have those massive epic.

Alex Ferrari 50:09
It's kind of it's kind of like what's Kubrick's doing Cooper? They're doing Napoleon that Cooper. Yeah, that Kubrick script I think Spielberg is trying to get Napoleon done as a mini series because it was just a massive amount of stuff. So you also work with Marvel for a little bit, man what it was that you weren't good at two docks for them like the Marvel 75 and Captain America. 75. Right.

Zak Knutson 50:32
That was fun. And that was fast. That was super I got a call from Matt Pernice Yarrow, who he was the EP on melius and we'd gotten to be friends. He was also a producer he did fanboys and I did a little bass and fanboys and we had friends and all that kind of stuff. And he said hey, I got this thing with Marvel. It's called 75 years from pop the pop and it's gonna be Marvel 75 years and we're going to do in an hour special for ABC. Like Yeah, I'm in because I like comic books. I knew a lot of that stuff sure. But from the get from getting that phone call to airing it was seven weeks

Alex Ferrari 51:09
Oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, it was it was like How the hell do you like coordinate all those interviews?

Zak Knutson 51:15
It was that thing of Marvel was a lot of help Johnson really and Harry go at Marvel were huge helps and you know and getting everything going Scott Mosier was the editor on the first one so that put me at a place of I've never directed a network special before they should be oh shit but I had Mosier there I had Matt Prentice hero there I had my buddy Andre there who had me on knew I was like, okay, we're in a good place we can keep going. And we just did it. It was one of those things where Okay, you don't have time to be scared. Just do it. Wow. And even Scott hit me up. I think it was a couple of weeks ago. He's like I finally watched it. It's actually pretty good. We did a good job on that.

Alex Ferrari 51:54
Is that is that an impression of Scott?

Zak Knutson 51:56
Yeah, he's got he's really dry a very try. From

Alex Ferrari 52:00
what I've seen in the behind the scenes. You've hit him pretty good.

Zak Knutson 52:03
Yeah, usually I try to do the opposite because everybody's got a Mosher. I do. Hi, I'm Scott Mosier. Anyway, I digress. Yeah. And then a year later because and the thing is, when that thing aired, it was election. It was the midterm elections. And Marvel did or I think ABC didn't really have a lot of faith in it. They didn't think it was really going to do anything. So it aired election night. I think a quarter of the country never even saw it because all the election coverage was going on, right? And then all of a sudden it was like it started like he got great reviews. And then DVR was a huge thing and people bought it on iTunes and people were loving it. They're like okay, we think we pooch this one. So we did another one of the following year. Captain America was Captain America which was Craig a huge cap fan. I got to meet all these guys and you met you met cap for God's got Mecca even I got my I got it. We have a shield. If you watch the documentary, we bought a one to one replica metal shield app. And as a wrap gift, Matt Prentiss arrow he says keep it just keep it so when we went to go interview Chris, I was like, Hey, man, can you find my shield? Because Sure. So I got assigned metal Captain America shield. My total nerd and he was like, This is awesome. This is awesome. This can be so cool. In my office. Exactly my system worked on. I had we signed an NDA, because we couldn't talk about anything because they were doing Civil War. I was working on civil war in Atlanta. So it was nice that like I could talk to my sister and be like, what's going on? while we're doing this? Yeah, we're doing this over here. But she and I were the only ones who could talk because marva locks you down. You're not allowed to

Alex Ferrari 53:51
speak about anything? Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. But yeah, no,

Zak Knutson 53:55
but that was another one where I think we had, I think that one they were nice. And they gave us eight weeks to do it. Oh, that was nice. That's nice. It was fun. It was a blast. He did end up traveling around the country and you know, shooting all these interviews and meeting all these people and getting to tell his story. And really, and I mean is like Joe Simon and jack Kirby kind of enabled it since jack Kirby state was kind of finished all their lawsuits with Marvel, we were able to say, jack Kirby was a massive influence. Josiah, like these guys, the creators, we were able to put a real focus on the creators on the comic book guys, not just the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Started with a bunch of guys who were usually poor, Jewish, they were bullied. They were always remember. And they created this amazing guy. We now like cap, you know, it's great.

Alex Ferrari 54:53
That's awesome. That's awesome. So now after all of this, you've, you've had this a pretty cool career. So far, and then you get a shot to direct your first feature film. Yeah. Which is called supercon. Yep. And you've got you got a pretty decent cast I would say. Not bad. Not bad for you first time out. You got an Oscar nominated Mr. john malkovich. In the movie, I

Zak Knutson 55:20
still don't know how that one. Yeah, you've

Alex Ferrari 55:22
got to tell me man Well, first and foremost, how did the movie come together? How did like the financing of this than that? Because it's not a it's not like my movie, which was much lower budget than so how did how did that whole thing come together?

Zak Knutson 55:36
It came about there was Marian McDonald down in Austin. I knew her and actually Susan girl whose husband is Kenny grill who I did Zack and Miri Make a Porno with he was a special effects guy. They were looking to put together a movie and they wanted to get the movie business. They really liked it. Okay, and they came to me and they said, Do you have any ideas? Yeah, I got a couple of playing around with and one of the ideas was essentially I know, a buddy of mine is Dana Snyder, who's the voice of master shake on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Okay. And I had gone to this convention with him in Florida called supercon.

Alex Ferrari 56:14
Yeah, no, I've been I'm from Florida, so I'm very well aware.

Zak Knutson 56:18
There we go. Yeah. So I went down there with him. And it was just we met these people and these guys. God, this is like, what an amazing world. I've been to comic book conventions, but I've never seen the behind the scenes. Oh, yeah. And that's a whole different world. And then essentially, it was like Okay, and then we had heard this story about a bunch of guys ripping off Dragon Con in Atlanta. They dressed up as storm troopers gone in and how they escaped was the Bible first. Legion was walking because they have this huge cosplay princess downtown Atlanta. They had rip off the office and then how they got out was they got him to the cosplay parade. And I was like that's great like heist movie.

Alex Ferrari 57:02
Like a geeky heist movie.

Zak Knutson 57:04
It was like you know, you've seen all the cool like Thomas Crown Affair Oh 123 all this kind of stuff. But it was like whoa, what if you What if we made George Clooney and Brad Pitt morons? thing so we essentially we're gonna start doing it as just that story. I knew a couple people at Lucasfilm through my contacts with Kevin because we got up to Skywalker and immix mailing us up at Skywalker on we shot some interviews for Lucas Films. I was like maybe, you know, and fanboys have gotten the rifle. Like maybe we can actually get the rights to actually use stormtroopers. And then Disney bought them. And that's the end of that. And I was like, okay, that's Disney is never going to let that happen. So they said, well, doesn't have to be stormtroopers. It can be whatever we want it to be that we started with. So me and Dana and Andy sipes who was a writer on code monkeys, and he's a great writer does a bunch of stuff he's pitching shows around right now for something else. He was the matter of fact, him and his writing partner gated that show trip tank on Comedy Central. We started writing this thing. And Susan and Maria paid for it. And we wrote this script, and it was like, what is it that we're going to get made? Right? This isn't that because this is just too weird. And then all of a sudden, they got financing, and they got this other outfit and evolved and we all of a sudden, I found myself after a year and a half down in New Orleans. And we're in an office and we're actually going to make the movie, you know, and we're sending the script out to actors and getting response and it was amazing. And the cast we ended up getting was we we sent it out to john or the one of the one of the producers at the time, we said it's not what the movie anymore was like, we're gonna send it out to john Malik, which I was like fucking Why? Like, my thing is I'm always like, I will be mister. I just I don't have enough faith in my own stuff. Even though I like Like, there's no fucking way anybody's gonna make this. That's not a huge pirate either. That's the thing. It was like john McAfee. And we met with john because he's got a place in New Orleans, where I got another plane. Yeah. He said he really liked the scripts. And Julian sands is a friend to his Reddit and he goes, you got to do this because Julian, he was in wishmaster. And he comes he goes, you should really do this. This is funny. So john signed on. And then we had Maggie grace. She was actually the first one to sign on. She read it. She wanted to play Allison. She was all stoked for it. To take on the character. She had a Pinterest board for the character she'd come up with, like, that's awesome. And then we got Clancy Brown to play. Amazing. Class is there's no one cooler. And Clancy Brown guys is a true Pro. He came to play He's not he wasn't that sure himself and comedy but it was like Clancy everything you've done. It's been funny whether you like it or not, you know, but one of the things we have a we have an action sequence for clients. He actually has a sword in his hand. And at one point couple of camera guys were getting ready to shoot. When the camera guys leaned over to me go do it. I just want to say thanks. Thanks for what he does. You got the Kurgan with a fucking sword in his hand again, fucking.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:32
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. Actually, a funny thing I actually reached out to Clancy on on a short that I was going to do, and we couldn't get him for scheduling. But he was such a pro man, he was so sweet. And so nice and most professional. It was

Zak Knutson 1:00:58
not be more awesome, especially for a first time filmmaker like me, in order to you know, to have Clancy there and to be as awesome as he was and not to say the RS cast wasn't Russell's great Mike Epps great, you know Ryan Kwan, everybody, uh, Brooks. Brooks is a friend of ours. We got in there. It's like, it's I could not have been more lucky with the cast that I got.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:23
No, and then some relief. Absolutely.

Zak Knutson 1:01:27
But it has it's one of those things where super cons of a heist movie, but it really is. It's a comedy. It's a real and it's a hard R. It gets an R rated dick and fart joke. Like it really is

Alex Ferrari 1:01:39
with john with with john malkovich, john Mack, and

Zak Knutson 1:01:42
it's one of those things,

Alex Ferrari 1:01:42
man, where does he do that? Has he?

Zak Knutson 1:01:45
Ellen Molly, I was telling my wife. I was like, I called her up one day from set chills. What's wrong? I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to go to movie jail after this. Done. I gotta, I gotta go back to construction or something. I can't do this. She goes, What's going on? You're freaking out. I said, I've waited 20 years to do a movie since I was 20 years old. 42 whatever. It's like. I've got john malkovich and Clancy Brown. And I'm doing this scene and in the middle of it I just realized john Malka just two Academy Awards Clancy's Clancy's worked with their bodies in a praise literally in a movie I called perfect. You can't change it. Absolutely. You know, I Shashank and I'm just like, I've got these two guys in a movie and I got them doing dick and fart jokes. What the fuck am I doing? Oh my God. He goes Calm down, calm down, but it's one of those moments where you just go and then all of a sudden you just go Wait no, I got john. I'm good. I got Mike I got Russell Peters. I got ya know, this is great. We're all having a great time. So this is good. This is good.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:56
But there's that moment man, you know, it's meant to it's so funny how our paths are, are parallel in so many ways. Because the exact same thing I've been waiting 20 years to make my movie. And I literally just made it and we're both editing it down the street from each other basically.

Zak Knutson 1:03:11
Yeah, exactly. That thing of like, you have those moments where you just like, lost.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:18
This is just frickin This is Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you like and it wasn't it wasn't for you, because I haven't talked to anybody else who's actually literally kind of walked the path that I've walked. We walked different paths obviously. But

Zak Knutson 1:03:34
but we've gotten to the same going to the same destination

Alex Ferrari 1:03:38
same destination so when you were making your first movie, I'm assuming that you did the same thing I did, which was create this mountain that was the feature film your first feature film it was this monstrous Goliath that you had to climb? Yeah. And it was like there's just no way I can't do it dislike and you always throw obstacles in front of yourself to not make the first not to make it my pretty close and fat

Zak Knutson 1:04:05
fingers like I never thought I when we were writing I was like nobody's ever gonna make it. They're never gonna

Alex Ferrari 1:04:09
pay Yeah, because you've been you've probably been close so often

Zak Knutson 1:04:12
oh that's it you don't It's that thing of look. I always say your job in this town is not to work your job in this town is to get said no to you. That's your job. If you get a couple knows that day, but eventually just as law of averages, you're gonna have somebody say yes,

Alex Ferrari 1:04:26
it might take 20 years.

Zak Knutson 1:04:29
For me, like I have friends of mine who were like way more successful way earlier, but I've also never been one of those guys who gets super jealous when other people I'm always super happy with my friends like what do you mean George is like an actor. It's like we were tour guides Universal Studios together and now this guy's like kicking ass as an actor on how he shows it's like in movies. It's like it's wonderful. I know guys who are just like, anytime somebody else gets something they're angry or pissed. I'm like I'm not that guy. I always root for you know, it's hard enough in this town. Like, no, it's great when somebody gets something going, they want to get going, you should be happy for him. You know? Absolutely, absolutely that thing of like doing supercon it was you I got down in New Orleans and I was like, holy shit, we're gonna do this thing. Oh my god, I have no idea what I'm doing then you start calling people and you get even more freaked out. I had a monitor every morning, which was one foot in front of the other every time I get out of bed, one foot in front of the other. You have this massive mountain. Instead of looking at the top of it. Just look down. Look at your feet. Just keep putting one step in front of me. Exactly,

Alex Ferrari 1:05:29
exactly. And then after an after you got the whole thing in the can. That monster doesn't look it's a toothless tiger.

Zak Knutson 1:05:39
It was like a wait. Yeah, it was like, I would say I've got a gorilla on my back. And he's always bugging me. If I'm not doing something, he's always bugging me. It was like the gorilla. The second wheel, I yelled at them. And that's a wrap on supercon That was our last day last shot. It was like the monkey took a vacation for a little while. We just like we actually shot this like, cuz even during production, there were we had so many things that went on. It was like we're never gonna finish this thing. And then all of a sudden, it was like, holy shit. We got the movie in the can.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:18
We just have posts to deal with. And we I could Yeah, I could do pose that's

Zak Knutson 1:06:22
like posters, like, Yeah, but we've got the footage, it can now be turned in. Like we have the raw materials. That's essentially what everybody's wanting. Like you've got it. It's shot.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:33
You just got to make that cake. It's got to gotta bake that cake.

Zak Knutson 1:06:37
And I got john malkovich and Clancy Brown in it. I'm doing pretty good.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:40
Not Not bad for your first time out, brother. Not Not Not bad. Now, what was it like directing, john? And do you have any advice on directing someone of his caliber?

Zak Knutson 1:06:50
I still ask the question myself. One of the things when john first shot because john, we were talking about the character of said, and john goes, I said, What ideas do you have for said, he goes, Well, I would really like to wear to pay. I like cool. No problem. So originally, the character was written as kind of like a Stan Lee. Yeah, after john mon. We said, well, let's ratchet it back as he's not that old. And I don't want john to play, you know, 93 or 94, or whatever standard? Nothing against Sure. Sure. Like we need to do we need to do a little pivot on the character here. So I was like, okay, and he says, I really like to wear to pay, and I really like to wear a bow tie. That was his only thing. Okay. And then, but he doesn't know much about comic books. I was like, well, Jonathan, you really don't need to know much about the comic books. It's like any kind of creative thing that really it's about the people who make them. So I started telling about, you know, there's a guy by the name of Jim starlin, Jim starlin, created theta star Lord, these big things. And I started saying instead of staying lean, that I think should be a little more like Jim starlin, who went to Vietnam came back, you know, you went to Vietnam, because he was he was going to art school, I went through this whole thing. But he's the nicest guy in the world. He goes, Okay, I got that. I said, Now, john, look, I'm not going to be the arrogant douchebag director here. I said, I'm just gonna ask you straight out. I said, Is there a particular way that you want to be directed because I've been in front of camera been behind and some actors want to be completely left alone? Some people really want you to get in there and really work with them. I said, I'm not going to be arrogant enough to say, I know how to direct you. You're obviously know what you're doing. He goes, No, no, no, no, no. I'm glad you asked the question. I wish more directors would ask, would would, would ask the question, because if you don't see me doing something you think is true to the character. Bring it up to me, and we'll talk. Okay, perfect. And there were a couple things. There was a scene between john and Clancy. In the rehearsal we did john did this really kind of angry kind of take? I loved it. Then when we started rolling camera, or you know, hit the button on that on the Alexa. JOHN is doing it, but he wasn't getting this kind of anger that I wanted, because essentially John's character never gets a you never see a man or you never see him turn the side myth. This is the part I just want up to Jonathan. In the rehearsal, he did real angry take us that this is the scene where I want to see that partisan. This is the part I want to see sit hasn't been this angry since Vietnam. You know, he was listed. He's pissed off at the officer. She goes, Oh, Lieutenant Newberry shows up. And that's all he needed. Then all of a sudden, we go back I go action. And we run this thing out. And we shoot it and john, we shot in this auditorium and it's just him and Clancy and the crew, you know, we're behind. And john does this thing. And it's amazing and I looked at my first ad Doug at IGN. looked at me like, I don't think that's gonna get any better than that for they're like, God, that's a wrap.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:06
We're good, we're good, we're good. We gotta

Zak Knutson 1:10:08
get better in general like where you gotta get me like, even Clancy game I mean that was awesome just to be on the opposite side. Why these amazing kind of like, jobs gonna put on a clinic right now for everybody. And even in the crew you know, it's you know, it's kind of awesome when a crew comes up and goes holy.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:31
That's right, exactly. When you got the grip going Damn, that was good. You know?

Zak Knutson 1:10:36
Yeah. That's it we you know, you like Okay, we got something special in that take. Kind of right there.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:45
Why are you gonna do it? Yeah,

Zak Knutson 1:10:47
I would say this as far as doing the first with the budget level we had which was about $8 million dollars. I had a baby. Okay, add a first ad in a production designer, and everybody on the crew is great. But the two guys I leaned on the most in prep, I leaned on this guy, Freddy woff, who was my production designer who's amazing. He did bone Tomahawk, Freddy because I don't know shit about production design. And I liked his stuff. And we're very good friends now. And I leaned on him a lot. But then when we got into production, I had a first ad. His name's Doug Metzger. And Doug did Dances with Wolves did The Italian Job he just he just finished Baywatch. with

Alex Ferrari 1:11:27
with with rock, the rocker.

Zak Knutson 1:11:30
And dog Doug was the first ad on a movie I was I did. I was a horrible stunt man and called on Deadly Ground with Steven Seagal. That's right.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:39
Hey, on Deadly Ground. That was if I'm not mistaken, was like that. Was that his directorial debut? If I

Zak Knutson 1:11:47
remember correctly, yes. You see, I guess debut. It was.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:51
It was a horrendous that was the Alaska movie, right? That was that whole? It was oil and Alaska and Michael Caine was the villain. What a horrible fucking

Zak Knutson 1:12:02
black air Michael Caine. And he does the speech at the end, which is

Alex Ferrari 1:12:05
Oh, it's so bad. He was walking around in some sort of like, Indian coat or something like that. It was just oh pelts or something. It was just horrendous. Okay,

Zak Knutson 1:12:16
good, tequila. But Doug was the first ad on that movie. And I had always remembered Doug, because Doug was the only person on that movie him and the actor by the name of Mike Starr, who was in Jersey girl. And I've actually gotten to know a little bit because he hangs out at the same restaurant bar, hang out, and now it's got a great, but Doug was the first ad on that movie. And him and Mike, were the only really nice guys on that set. Always remember, like, for first ad to be a nice guy like that. So years later, a stock guy by the name of Gary Jensen introduced us because he's like, you got to talk to Doug. And Doug became my, my Cornerstone, my whatever the hell you want to call it, like, people would come up with questions, because essentially your job more than anything, when you're directing isn't like, Oh, this is I want the camera to flow. It's like, red, green. Yes, no. You have to have a decision. Even if it's wrong, you better have a decision. And you it doesn't matter, you better have it because you've got entire departments who are ready to go. So you got to know everything you want to be in this movie. And sometimes when we run into schedules, like we live, we have a dance sequence in this movie, we have a musical number that has no place being there. But it's everybody's favorite scene. But when we were shooting it, we're in New Orleans, we're outside. It's at night, it's 97 degrees 100% humidity. It's mosquitoes fire ants, the whole thing. And one of the grips, no faulty is he put a spike down to hold something down and he had watermain. So all of a sudden, this dance sequence that we had with a 30 foot crane arm and all this other stuff we can't do because now we're flooded with four inches of water, and a year below sea level. So the waters not sinking. So all of a sudden, oh shit. Alright, how are we going to do this dance secret? How are we going to do this musical number? This is possible. I got I had seven crew and seven grads, seven cast members, 50 extras and 100 crew. And everybody's looking at you going should What do you want to do? I had remembered a story that I had just told Doug earlier that day, and we were laughing about it because he's that's actually a really good idea, which was essentially john, john melius had gotten to know john Houston. And he says, you know, john, if you ever don't know what to do, one day goes if you ever tried to figure out what to do, he goes when you show up to set go to your go to your first ad and your grips here and get all the departments. I want 50 yards of Dolly tracks set up right here Dolly track and that's going to take them to lunch to set that up. Because they've got to put the lights on

Alex Ferrari 1:14:55
that's a fucking that's a it's a nightmare. Yeah.

Zak Knutson 1:14:58
And essentially so they go off Do it and that buys you about four hours to figure out what the fuck you want to do. Okay, so essentially and I was like and then after lunch you go okay and john story is Euston goes okay, I don't like it. They're all down, put the sticks right here. Sudden, I've got we can't turn off the water. It's just billowing over. We've got a marsh created. I've got literally 175 people literally standing there looking at me going, what the fuck do you want to do now? And I looked at Doug and Doug looked at me and I said, Okay, I want Dolly track. cameras. And I don't remember, the DP is like, Well, you know, I really think I was like dawn can be Dolly track here. That bought me half hour and go okay, how the fuck am I gonna do this? Now Doug was like, that's good. You really you got you got 30 minutes to figure out what the fuck you want to do. So he figured it out. And we got it. And now everybody's favorite scene in the movie. But it's I storyboarded that thing for two months.

Alex Ferrari 1:16:11
And it gets thrown out. Oh, yeah,

Zak Knutson 1:16:13
literally got thrown out. Because I knew I was like, I have to know every single shot we're going to do in the movie. Every single shot we're going to do in this sequence because I'm not going to have enough time because we're it's it's plus it's in the summer. So the nights are shorter. So I've gotten the crew to be willing to work French hours. So there wasn't going to be a lunch break. But he What are French hours, French hour, essentially you work through lunch, okay, you don't actually break for lunch. So you show up to work, you work 10 hours instead of 12. And but you burn all the way through. He doesn't go you don't break for lunch, we bring out food to you. You eat there, because the nights are shorter. and pleasant was like nobody wants to shoot at night and it's humid.

Alex Ferrari 1:16:56
I'm from Miami, I get it. Yeah, there you go.

Zak Knutson 1:16:58
You know better Yeah, like, Okay, so that's what that was my fans like, and then all of a sudden. And I think the one thing I learned too is you have to be prepared, you have to know what you want. But when something like that happens, or when an actor comes up to you says I got an idea. Or you go this, I want to do this. Or maybe I want to do this you have to be able to go Yeah, you know what, that's a good idea. We should use that. Don't lock yourself off to what you drew on a piece of paper on your iPad or what you're absolutely. Because you're hiring these actors for a reason. Because they're talented, they bring something to the table and I always believe that once an actor does a role, really they own it. Because that's who they're going to be associated with. And plus you may not come back for future sequels or if there are sequels because no sequels but the actor is more likely and be associated with this character. That's now I look at it as there's like, you know, you're kind of the surrogate, you write it, you birth it, you hand it over and then you just kind of go Okay, you're on your own you're college make yourself out. So but yeah, no, and also no tricks like set up the dolly track over here. So you can buy yourself a half hour to figure out what the fuck you're gonna do. That's it.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:09
That's a great, great, great piece of a great knowledge bomb as I call it.

Zak Knutson 1:18:16
freak out. The crew will look at you if you freak out. The crew freaks out. But

Alex Ferrari 1:18:21
yeah, yeah, yeah, so what So real quick, what is the biggest lesson you learned shooting your first film?

Zak Knutson 1:18:27
Ah, biggest lesson I learned. Got there so many. Don't stop until you get what you want. When you get what you want, stop. Don't there's a thing now with a lot of people just want to shoot to shoot or let the camera run? Oh, God, I don't I don't I don't I'm not a fan of that, especially like in a comedy.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:51
No, I'm in post. That's why I hate it. Because I have to deal with it later. It's just obscene amounts of footage you're gonna go through.

Zak Knutson 1:18:57
That's it. It's like if it's funny. That's different, at least in a comedy. You know, I'm coming from a comedy standpoint right now. It's like, I just don't want to do comedy. I want to do other stuff, too. But it's that thing of, you've got X amount of shots to do in the day, I went, I was a first time film director. I didn't have a whole lot of money. But I did have money because we built an entire comic book convention. I had real actors not but with that comes its own restrictions as well. It's not like, yeah, you can do whatever you want. It's not that at all. But your time is, your time is is so precious. And you have to get through X, Y and Z shots. So stay on the shot until you get what you want. But no one you got it to move on to the next thing. My entire time. I never went I went over. I went over 12 hours one day, and I only went over a half hour. Nice because I'm not a fan. If Clint Eastwood can shoot all his stuff and have it look as good and amazing as he Doesn't eight hours? No reason why I shouldn't be able to do it in 12 we haven't you know, spent the last 20 years working on film sets. Working 12 hours, man, it just kicks your ass. It does. And you start going into 14 hours. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 1:20:16
And you might be able to pull that off a day or two man but you know, we're not 20

Zak Knutson 1:20:22
like, Go fuck yourself. And plus, I just I think it goes to show you don't know what you're doing. Right? It's not like we're in Louisiana. We had rain we had rain wasn't the problem. The problem was lightning. When you're shooting outside lightning, it's if it's in a certain range of space, like five miles out, you instantly shut down for 40 minutes. You're not shooting anything. Because the crew can't even move the gear inside the gear a crew instantly walks into a safe place. Well, shit, man when you're shooting an independent film in New Orleans in the middle of summer, and it does nothing

Alex Ferrari 1:20:56
but rain for 40 minutes. Yeah,

Zak Knutson 1:21:00
I miss precious time is precious. You can't you got to know what you want and go. You know, that's the big thing. manage your time. You'll get what you want. But at the same time when you get what you want. Move the fuck on.

Alex Ferrari 1:21:13
Yeah, that's a that's a good quote.

Zak Knutson 1:21:18
That would be the one thing I bet plus a really good first ad, a first ad who's far more. Matter of fact, everybody you hire should be vastly more talented and experienced.

Alex Ferrari 1:21:28
Yep. Amen. Amen. I

Zak Knutson 1:21:31
know, people get threatened by somebody who's more talented or more experienced. I'm not gonna say I know everything. I know what I want. But it's that thing of, Oh, you got a better idea? What is it? Yeah. Yeah. If somebody's got

Alex Ferrari 1:21:48
a better idea, I'm using it. Right? Because you get the credit for it later. If it's

Zak Knutson 1:21:53
not good, hey, if I'm going to take the hit anywhere, I'm more prepared for the hit than I am for the, for the accolades. You know, it's one of the things I always expect everything to go the worst and all that other kind of shit. Man, what a good, I'll take it. It's great. You know, the actors came up with stuff ready came up with Doug first he came up with gags if he did the scary movies, with Joker, but with the Zucker brothers, like why am I not gonna listen to him? Yeah, he's got great ideas. Yeah, I'm using that.

Alex Ferrari 1:22:25
So out of all these people, you've worked with Kevin and john, and you've interviewed so many amazing people? Is there one piece of advice that any of them gave you that you can share with the audience?

Zak Knutson 1:22:37
Bob Gale, and it was that I kind of went over it earlier, which was the main job as a director is going to be to just have a just make a decision. That's your job is to answer questions, which is essentially making a decision. Somebody comes up to you and goes, red, green, look at it, green. Even if you're wrong, you can fix it later, but have a decision for them. What do you want to do? Yes or no? You got to make the decision now. Because like on tomorrow on our movie, it was $100,000 a day, essentially. And not 100,000 died, but it was some something weird. Yeah, it was like $100,000 a day. Every dollar was costing us about $9,000. Like, the more you're sitting there with your thumb up your ass gone. I don't know. And I've worked with those guys before.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:26
Of course, we all have.

Zak Knutson 1:23:28
I don't know what do you think like fuck you, man. You're the director. You figure it out. Yeah. I don't want to end I'm not Kevin was never that way. Kevin always knew what the hell he wanted. Kevin always had the movie in his head before we even started shooting it exactly what he's gonna get if anything else he got was gravy. You know the what. And the other thing Kevin does is he runs. He tries to keep the set fun, which is something I try to do. I know Quentin plays music and all this stuff. I find it I don't have enough time to play DJ as well. I'm not that skilled. But I want everybody to know that they're doing a good job. You know, extras. We couldn't have made this movie without background actors and extras. So do something as simple as at the end of the day, go over to where your extras and background are and just say thank you. All of a sudden, man I was getting thank you notes from extras and background actors or I was like, what how am I getting but it was because I just took enough time to say thank you to the crew. Same thing, always tell them thank you. Somebody shot your focus puller really nailed the difficult shot at the son of a bitch now, because they work with people all the time who don't. And I never get that. I just think it's it's nice because you cruise in there with you. Your crew is there with you. And they're going on their journey to and they don't want to make shit. Nobody gets in the business to make shit. They want to make something good too. So if they see you're excited and the actors are happy in the rest of the crew, that that's gonna it's that leadership. thing i don't i never kind of I'm a leader but it's that if I do it and I know everybody's looking to me it'll be better I it just it makes it better experience for everybody. Yeah tried all the time and no matter whether I'm working on a documentary or whether I'm working on a feature film or behind the scenes or helping somebody out it's like, if you have a positive attitude toward it, it kind of bleeds over into everything else for everybody

Alex Ferrari 1:25:25
so yeah, absolutely. I agree with you i do the same thing on my sets it's absolutely you always be thankful and always be grateful for them and and you're right they just are not used to it a lot of times which is mind boggling, but it's true.

Zak Knutson 1:25:37
Yeah, I mean, I've worked with directors who are just complete pricks and I just see the crew shut down on them. Like we're getting paid union anyway so we'll do what we want when we want to do it. That's like I don't want you hate going to work i didn't i never I had the whole reason why I'm in this business so I don't have to wear suit. I like wearing flip flops and shorts. Or like getting up and going to work is awesome I don't I always hated working on a set where I was like God dammit I gotta go to work today I hate that feeling. I hate that feeling. I never want to experience that feeling because then it's like a job I don't want to have a job yeah, no factory I could do that. I don't want to do that some people do is great not NACA shows up that's not what I personally want to do. I want to do this and I wanna have a good time doing it. I want the people around me to have a good time doing it.

Alex Ferrari 1:26:31
Amen brother, amen. mantra

Zak Knutson 1:26:35
mantra I got a whole bunch of other shit but that's that's the big one.

Alex Ferrari 1:26:41
So I have two last questions I ask of all of my guests are. These are my Oprah questions so be careful.

Zak Knutson 1:26:50
Wait for the James lifted actor studio like

Alex Ferrari 1:26:52
No, no. It's like if you were if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be now? What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in life or in the film business?

Zak Knutson 1:27:08
Really good question. Try not to give you some witty bullshit answer and give you an honest one.

Alex Ferrari 1:27:14
Appreciate that.

Zak Knutson 1:27:18
The people that surround you, influenced you. That's when that's the one I never really bought for a long time. You know, the people that surround you influenced you and they can help propel you or pull you back. I've been lucky enough to where over the last couple you know 20 years. I've met friends of mine because I was a bouncer and a titty bar those guys are still my friends. And they actually give me really good notes on projects. Right very, very supportive. And then you know the guys I work with who I'm very tight with now like Dana and Andy and j Edwards, my editor and these guys, they're all driven and they help propel you forward and be more creative. So the people that use arrivee surround yourself with it's never gonna happen it's never gonna happen. You don't need that you're gonna get enough of that in this business. So surround yourself with creatives that are positive but at the same time not delusional. There's reality involved there

Alex Ferrari 1:28:20
there's apps that's absolute truth my friend because I tell you you know when I was in Miami it you know I love Miami but I was there for a long time and the business is just not the same as La obviously. And the second I landed in LA man, I just took off because I was surrounded by people just different caliber of professional and good people.

Zak Knutson 1:28:43
closest people ever get to Hollywood is just getting off the plane Yep. So you've kind of already wanted that point but that's not the goal always keep the goal in mind I'm not saying I haven't reached mine I'm still going for it So yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Alex Ferrari 1:28:58
Yeah, absolutely. And you just were you know when you when you work with you know me you had you worked with Kevin for a long time and just by working with him that I'm sure propelled your skill level to a much higher level

Zak Knutson 1:29:10
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 1:29:13
You went to the Kevin Smith film school

Zak Knutson 1:29:15
very much so I always say like when you go to film school it's not really kind of the school districts is really the Kevin Smith Scott Mosier film. School of film.

Alex Ferrari 1:29:26
Yeah, that's not a bad film school to go to tell you the truth. Like tuition was good. So and then what are the three three of your favorite films of all time?

Zak Knutson 1:29:39
Well, first off Star Wars but I can't be original trilogy is one film The Trinity. So that's one. I'm obsessed with a movie called revenge that Tony Scott.

Alex Ferrari 1:29:49
Oh my god. It's an amazing film. It's an amazing movie. I love I love the

Zak Knutson 1:29:54
studio version. And I like his Director's Cut that he put out but I actually do like the studio version. Better. But I think revenge is ever everything I want in a movie. It's so good. It's beautiful the story, it's heartbreaking, it doesn't have a happy ending, not my huge Tony Scott fan. I don't think he gets enough credit for his influence on film in the last 30 years,

Alex Ferrari 1:30:17
he changed, he changed the action movie. I mean, he was, yeah, he did change the action movie.

Zak Knutson 1:30:23
He changed everything, in my opinion.

Alex Ferrari 1:30:27
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. And that was one of those movies. And I was working at a video store when that came out. And that movie was one of those that just kind of came and went. It wasn't a big hit at the time. It kind of grew quietly. But it's just one of those odd movies that not odd in the sense of the story but odd that it didn't get the recognition that it shouldn't have Kevin Kevin Costner in it and Madeline Stowe and Anthony Anthony Quinn

Zak Knutson 1:31:02
and Jose for air and that was Miguel for air at john Jagger's I'm ah yeah movie ever

Alex Ferrari 1:31:10
Yeah, it was so freakin good and it's shot like a Tony Scott movie. Yeah, it's shot like a Tony Scott movie I mean it's gorgeous.

Zak Knutson 1:31:18
What I did that Mel Gibson movie we shot in the same locations that they shot revenge which was also a lot of the same locations that they shot man on fire which is my other movie which is another Tony Scott thing or not another I won't throw another Tony Scott one in there but the stand there in those locations where they shot those movies and I was like, Oh shit, Tony Scott, like, walked by ballcap walking around and he was

Alex Ferrari 1:31:41
and he wore spandex a lot. I heard I saw that. I saw that.

Zak Knutson 1:31:48
Like Days of Thunder words like walking around. No, he's got speed away with that director's vest on and he's got Gar and a ball cap. Balls he did.

Alex Ferrari 1:31:55
That's exactly how he did it. But then he would wear black spandex underneath for comfort. And it was I saw that was behind the scenes of Oh god. What was the Will Smith, Gene Hackman.

Zak Knutson 1:32:11
Oh, enemy of the state. Yes. Will sequel to the conversation. Yes.

Alex Ferrari 1:32:16
Exactly. The

Zak Knutson 1:32:17
back is that that's the conversation. This is a sequel to conversation

Alex Ferrari 1:32:22
but but the funny thing is that behind the scenes, I would see it and he would be just dressed in Fuck, it's bad to x. And I will

Zak Knutson 1:32:29
say this as balls. Two things you're gonna want to do, especially if you're working in New Orleans or anywhere where there's any kind of heat or cold. Make sure you got uncomfortable shoes. Always. Okay, personally. Russell Peters bought me a pair of Nike Air Force One fly nets. I'm never wearing another pair of shoes in my entire life. They're awesome. They are the best most comfortable shoes you can wear on set. Don't be a fucking dick and wear a suit to set. am fucking Ramy

Alex Ferrari 1:32:59
right? Or Scorsese god bless

Zak Knutson 1:33:02
or scores and Scorsese see pictures of me chilling out he's not wearing a fucking suit every day. Yeah, don't be that deca that pretentious fucking prick. I think there's no purpose to wear suit on set. It's just fucking stupid. Never I see pictures of some guys were like Don't be a fucking dick.

Alex Ferrari 1:33:20
While you were a monocle and loud. One of those bull horns.

Zak Knutson 1:33:23
His name is Sam Raimi or Alfred Hitchcock, you're not allowed to wear our art. I tell Paul Feig it because Paul

Alex Ferrari 1:33:31
Yeah, he's immaculate. immaculate.

Zak Knutson 1:33:35
I don't want to see Paul in anything other than the suit at this point if Paul ever wore a pair of jeans and a pair of jeans and sneakers and be like Paul you're falling apart What's going on? Yeah gotta get your back in so what jacket no

Alex Ferrari 1:33:47
So what you're saying is basically if you're going to wear suit this at first of all you have to be a really talented filmmaker. And secondly you've got to start that way kind of like set the precedents

Zak Knutson 1:33:57
just don't all of a sudden MCAT gamut where it well

Alex Ferrari 1:34:02
well well, it's got Hitchcock where

Zak Knutson 1:34:06
you that Washington where dickhead like dammit shine your shoes you dirty piece is that

Alex Ferrari 1:34:12
is that off the rack? Is that off the rack? Seriously?

Zak Knutson 1:34:16
I'm not exactly the books like I'm not I don't have the Calvin Klein body you're

Alex Ferrari 1:34:21
not the fashion forward guy I mean either I'm board shorts and flip flops. Dude I'm literally in board shorts and flip flops right now.

Zak Knutson 1:34:31
I think doesn't get enough credit and I put the pick out three stuff. But they're comedies because I like our I go comedy,

Alex Ferrari 1:34:41
but to go without saying obviously Shawshank is Shawshank Shashank

Zak Knutson 1:34:44
is perfect you can't. Like Shawshank he can't. There's very few films where you're like don't touch it right? Not not touch or nothing Shawshank is one of them. It's a perfect perfect movie. Yes a perfect blend of Comedy Action drama. Everything is like you know Raiders of the Lost Ark. I will watch Raiders of the Lost Ark massacre later.

Alex Ferrari 1:35:06
It is it's a masterpiece.

Zak Knutson 1:35:08
That's one thing I think I'm I think Marvel does. I think Marvel does better than most but I still don't I still I haven't seen the action star that gets beat up nd gets all the time.

Alex Ferrari 1:35:25
Well I mean looking at same thing with Bruce man Bruce got picked up. I mean, john McClane gets the sheer kick out of them all the time

Zak Knutson 1:35:31
relate to and that's kind of why I really do like the jack Ryan movies, or at least the very first one without Baldwin, because I like the books too. Because here's a guy he's like, I'm an analyst. I'm not a fucking I'm not a navy seal. I'm an animal. I write books. I write fucking manuals. This is what I do. And all of a sudden, this guy's thrown into it. JOHN McClane doesn't have any shoes on he's a cop from New York. All of a sudden, these guys save everybody in an office building. It's like, it's a relatable hero. But I'd like to see when your movie here at the worst thing to me is like the movie hero who can do no wrong and he looks great. It's just

Alex Ferrari 1:36:11
luminiferous. Schwarzenegger, Stallone.

Zak Knutson 1:36:15
JOHN Claude Van Damme world Yeah, but even their early stuff like the best Schwarzenegger stuff like kick predator predator.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:21
That's a masterpiece it's a masterpiece it's a masterpiece and

Zak Knutson 1:36:23
he gets a kick out of it.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:24
He does no you're absolutely right. He does. commando doesn't get Commando. Not that so much. It doesn't get kicked but it's still great he's such

Zak Knutson 1:36:33
a good fucking move. Oh, I think he won the first fight. No, he was right. he'd lost you ask people who won rocky you know in Rocky did rocky when they go Yeah, like no we lost that's how good that fucking movie Stallone

Alex Ferrari 1:36:48
I mean seriously.

Zak Knutson 1:36:50
I like movies where the weather heroes get get you know they beat the thing that they're going to plan on happening never happens. I will that's that's my favorite stuff. It's like indie. He's fighting the guy with a plane spinning propellers guy hauls off hits. He hits the deck, but just like he can he just falls to the ground on his ass. And it's like blood coming out of his lips like Oh, you got a long way to go. This one

Alex Ferrari 1:37:16
was the perfect movie as well. So what was it? What was your third one? It was our RNA those the third one?

Zak Knutson 1:37:21
I'd say you know, it'd be a toss up between Raiders and the jerk

Alex Ferrari 1:37:26
of a church man. Yeah, Steve Martin.

Zak Knutson 1:37:29
That's one of those movies are in like it opens up with our board a poor black child. Brilliant movie just goes places where you comedies never went? And it was Carl Reiner. And it was you know, Steve Martin. It's just up the ante for the guy. Grab away grab it. What the hell but it's just one of those things where it's I will laugh at that I will judge but most women in my opinion, from what horrible bullshit research I've done. They do not like to jerk like the reason why they don't most women I think don't like The Three Stooges. Right? When I met my wife, it was like, Okay, what movies you like and we started talking? I said yes, like a jerk and tries brightened up she's like yeah, I love the jerk. Bernadette Peters I like okay, you're gonna be beekeeping then she started singing the song with the ukulele and all I was like, Oh, you're good. I like you.

Alex Ferrari 1:38:35
So and I'll throw another one out from that same kind of like time period. stir crazy yeah, stir crazy Silver Streak that that Gene Wilder with Richard Pryor man

Zak Knutson 1:38:47
oh and and i mean you look at something like like I think Young Frankenstein.

Alex Ferrari 1:38:52
You know, the fundament, I had the opportunity to do a workshop with the cinematographer of Young Frankenstein. I forgot his name. I did a week long I sat with him and we had lunch and we It was like, you know, seven people up in Maine somewhere. And we just talk shop man, he was just telling me these stories about Oh, yeah, you know, and he almost got an Oscar nomination for that. Because that was the first year that they did not do a black and white cinematography award. Of course, that was a first year that did not do it if they would have done it. He would have won the Oscar. because there wasn't a lot of black and white films being made that year obviously

Zak Knutson 1:39:29
no, no they still they don't want I think what's the last black and white film by Studio to be made at wood?

Alex Ferrari 1:39:35
No, wasn't it the man who the Coen Brothers yeah the man who wasn't there I think was the last I'm there might have been another one. That right like a studio studio. Yeah, I think that was the last one but but yeah, I had the opportunity to work to work with him and just have him teach you lighting is

Zak Knutson 1:39:56
one of the great movies behind that movie or like the shots were from the original Franken Find the variable to go into universal and find the original prop guy and the original set dresser and pull those original things out and those are what's in the movies from the original monster movie it's like

Alex Ferrari 1:40:10
so much beautiful

Zak Knutson 1:40:12
movie in the love of it. I mean just Mel Brooks in the style of comedy and I mean it just Madeline Kahn

Alex Ferrari 1:40:21
Gene Wilder I mean gene wow

Zak Knutson 1:40:22
I mean everything about that it's like I look I don't touch your frame. That's your frame you're messing with that magic it's on there. Don't touch it.

Alex Ferrari 1:40:33
That's a matte so you shouldn't go back and redo the visual effects on facts are no special no special additions no that's why when

Zak Knutson 1:40:43
like oh god people go on a great night now. Star Wars It was like I want to see the original Star Wars Oh the original Star Wars which sounds all fucked up Yeah, I don't want that well that's the original Star Wars, Star Wars sounds all you know you what you want is you want the explosion and you want the match cleaned up? Yeah, because guess what the original Star Wars match whatever we couldn't see him on the screen because 50% of the light gets lost between the projector and the screen

Alex Ferrari 1:41:11
but you saw it on VHS. I always used to say I'm a VHS I used to see the little boxes going around the the TIE Fighter. I always see that shit. It used to drive me nuts. Even when before I knew anything about visual every one of those boxes doing there. I remember that there's there's I get certain like they did with Blade Runner. They went back and spent 20 million bucks and didn't redo anything, cleaned everything up. re composited everything on that remaster that really put out

Zak Knutson 1:41:37
and I really I mean it to me. It's like it's always up to the director to like the fact that George went into his movies. I don't give a shit. I always have. Yeah, you know, like, okay, he went in and he put you know, that horrible scene with Jabba the Hutt back in the first movie. I don't give a shit. I guess that's a great thing about DVD or Blu ray I just jump ahead of it. I don't care. I am I am. I mean I'd like as much money as they made off mean. last 42 years of

Alex Ferrari 1:42:04
my life. How many how many? How many copies of Star Wars Do you own?

Zak Knutson 1:42:08
I'll tell you about every format I'm assuming. I bought I remember getting the VHS when it first came out. Of course. A friend of mine had eight millimeter. Wow. Which I was like that's gotta be worth some money. Matter of fact, I got invited to go see the original print of Star Wars. Dave Mendell, who is the showrunner for Veep just won the Emmy here Yeah, a few weeks ago yeah, he's a huge Star Wars fan he's got some awesome shit. Yeah, like he's got the Chewbacca from Episode One. He's got Chewbacca from from Episode Four, which was actually the added outfit was used as to Balkans wife in the Christmas special Oh,

Alex Ferrari 1:42:48
let's not talk about that. Oh, that's great. That's

Zak Knutson 1:42:52
my saying it because he's got it. It was in a New York Times article they did on him and all his stuff. But he got a hold of an original 1977 Star Wars print and in Westwood and invited a whole bunch of us to come see it are obviously completely you know, Goofy for Star Wars. And the first real was beat the shit right for obvious because that's the one everybody throws up. But man to watch that movie in a theater projected and the last reel was almost pristine. It was pretty great to listen to the original sound and see the original picture you're not seeing any of that stuff, but you're looking for it. And but all of a sudden, I because I found myself like Alright, let's see the fight. I want to see all the stuff. I've seen that movie hundreds of times. Sure. Of course. I still sitting in that theater and I was sitting with my buddy Ryan, we're sitting there watching the movie. I lost myself again. Of course, I totally forgot about looking for all the techie shit I wanted to look for. All of a sudden, I was, you know, wrapped up in the story. Again, wrapped up in a story and even though I knew exactly what's going to happen frame by frame, I was just like, this is fucking awesome.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:11
Vader oh my gosh, I was Raider.

Zak Knutson 1:44:14
Every time we walk through that door in the opening, I get chills because I'm like, that's the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy. You just know it. Holy shit. You can't even see his eyes. Awesome. Yeah, you start going goofy for that kind of stuff.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:29
Dude, you're talking to a guy who has a life size Yoda in his office. So I want what I have a life size Yoda in my office. So yeah, it's I get you. And oh, by the way, I also have a George Lucas autograph lunchbox.

Zak Knutson 1:44:42
Which one did the

Alex Ferrari 1:44:45
lunchbox The story goes? And I've said this on the podcast before but my cell phone people haven't heard it. I was working in my office in Toluca Lake. years ago, and my buddy goes hey, George Lucas having lunch next door. I'm like, get the fuck out. We're here to why would George Lucas be having lunch at Toluca Lake next door? That's like ridiculous. So I walk out. And Holy shit. George Lucas is sitting there with his daughter having lunch. And I'm like, Fuck, that day. I had ordered a Star Wars lunchbox, just a generic, you know, lunchbox. Yeah, you know, like on Amazon for 10 bucks, because I always wanted to have a lunch a Star Wars lunchbox because I'm from the 80s. So and I want it so it came that day, and they're in the window of the time that it would be in my office. At work, it would have been only three or four hour window in that three or four hour windows when George Lucas was next door. And I always have autographed pins lying around for my clients to autograph posters and shit. And I got the thing autographed by George Lucas and his daughters. I can't just just just go go just autograph it because he doesn't sign. I mean, George Lucas never signs. So like, I didn't know that George Lucas never science and he has assigned for years he never signs. So like if you just just google George Lucas autograph on eBay. Just try to find one. And it's like 2500 bucks. Like, damn, I knew that it George Lucas never science, but I had him sign it to me. So I said, say say Alex because I'm never selling it. It doesn't matter. I'm never gonna sell.

Zak Knutson 1:46:16
I had work with Mark Hamill, on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and I have a I have a mini lunchbox I got when I was a kid. Empire Strikes Back mini lunchbox. Yeah. And Mark came into the office and Mark like pictures like he didn't he knows Luke Skywalker. So he was willing to sign stuff for everybody. I literally brought up and he said to Zack, and it was a mini lunchbox I have to Zack force yourself Mark Hamill. poster signed by him and stuff. It was just like, this is awesome. This is so cool thing is like I've been able to say like, because when I've been up at Skywalker Ranch, I've seen Lucas I've never actually met the guy. Yeah, I've seen him. But I've you know, I've worked with Carrie Fisher a couple times now. And now I have Harrison Ford and my documentary and he jumped at the chance to be in the documentary because he loved his job. And it's like, Okay,

Alex Ferrari 1:47:11
did you get Did you get anything signed by him when you were working?

Zak Knutson 1:47:13
Wow, I was too much of a nerd.

Alex Ferrari 1:47:15
I was a fresher. Yeah, you were prepared. Yeah, you are. You are Pro.

Zak Knutson 1:47:19
Was that thing of like you're sitting there? It's like, No, I'm having a conversation with Harrison Ford. Like, this is better than anything. I do have a picture with him. I do after I did get a photo with him.

Alex Ferrari 1:47:31
I least I live because that's that's acceptable. But when you bust out the shit the sign, that's when you bite the pens you might have crossed the line.

Zak Knutson 1:47:41
And I was even thinking a couple times like oh man, How awesome would it be to have a you know? comedy poster signed by Scorsese not Goodfellas, that Raging Bull King a comedy you're in on that? picture. That's where I think like okay, now do you mind if we take a photo and Joe and I would get a photo with whoever it was?

Alex Ferrari 1:48:01
So I'd like to apologize to the audience for us just geeking out for the last 20 minutes. Yeah.

Zak Knutson 1:48:08
Last two questions. Oh, and by the way, here's some nerdy shit about a Star Wars movie. autograph.

Alex Ferrari 1:48:16
Zack, man, dude, I knew this was gonna be an awesome interview. I really appreciate you being on the show. Man. Thank you so so much for taking the time and I know you're busy in post with supercon so I appreciate you taking the time out, man.

Zak Knutson 1:48:29
Thank you, man. I appreciate it was a blast and fun time to hear any kind of good stuff. It's it's been it's been fun. I'm sorry for wasting all of your listeners. Our 42 hours? Yeah, no. We

Alex Ferrari 1:48:43
there was a lot of knowledge in there mixed in with some geekness which I was expecting.

Zak Knutson 1:48:50
A little about all geek. Yeah, we geeked out

Alex Ferrari 1:48:53
a bit. But there was a ton of knowledge. And there's so thanks again, brother. I appreciate it.

Zak Knutson 1:48:56
No problem. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Super con 2017 go watch it.

Alex Ferrari 1:49:02
I know it was a long one. But I hope it was worth it for you guys. I love talking to Zak and he has amazing stories. Very, very funny stories and very good and a bunch of good knowledge bombs thrown out there. Really great advice for filmmakers just starting out. So I hope you guys got something out of that. Now don't forget to head over to filmmaking podcast calm that's filmmaking podcast calm and leave me a good review. Would you guys on iTunes, it really helps the show out a lot. I really appreciate it. And if you guys want to check out what all the hoopla is with indie film syndicate, and you still you know, I know you guys might have missed this Cyber Monday Black Friday for four or five days that we're giving you the first month for free. But I'm still gonna give you guys 20% off and you can head over to indie film, syndicate calm and just use the promo code. I f h 20 off. That's AI f H two O off and I'll get you 20% off your first month of the syndicate and you can check it out. It's, I mean the amount of stuff that we have are now closing in on 350 video lessons in the syndicate, just hours upon hours of knowledge and information about everything you can think of in the film industry that can help you guys get closer to your goals. I wish I would have had it when I was starting out. It's a lot of great information in there. So definitely check that out guys. And also, just I want to let you guys know I've been taking the master classes or Warner Hertzog Aaron Sorkin i'm actually going through Aaron Sorkin's again. screenwriting legend Aaron Sorkin's masterclass again, because it's so amazing because I'm in the middle of writing my next project and I'm using a lot of the techniques he's using that he talks about in that course. But Warner's was really good and they just released Hans Zimmer films composing course, which I'm going to take as well because you really got to know what, how to talk to a film composer and what they're doing with their processes. And they also have Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman which are my next ones up because I want to see what they do and how they you know teach actors how to act and and how to perform and to get that information is invaluable. So all you got to do is head over to indie film, hustle, calm Ford slash masterclass. And it'll take you right to the courses and check them out. See what you guys think. You know, they're really really really valuable, great information and I love what those guys are doing over there. And hopefully they're going to be coming out with some really cool ones as well. And just on a side note, they did just released the pre pre enrollment for Gordon Ramsay's cooking masterclass, which I'm going to be taking because I love to cook on the side. And, and I'm a big fan of Gordon, and what he does, so it's gonna be really cool. So, head over to indie film hustle.com for slash masterclass, guys, thank you so much for everything, all the support all the help. This has been a record breaking month for indie film, hustle, we've had more traffic, and more downloads than ever before, for the podcast and for the website. So you guys, I owe it all too you guys, thank you so so much for spreading the word about the indie film, hustle tribe. And getting just getting the word out there, and just supporting what I'm trying to do here at the indie film, hustle and getting the word out there. So again, it's gonna be a lot of cool stuff coming up in the new year, we still got a month left in the in this year. But I have a bunch of really, really cool stuff coming up in the new year. And I got some big Sundance announcements coming up again, not about getting in the festival. I doubt that I got in, but about other cool stuff that we're going to be doing at Sundance. So as soon as everything is completely solidified, I'll be telling you guys all about it. And if you guys are going to be there, actually, if anybody is going to that's listening, are you guys going to be at Sundance this year or slam down? Same thing? Let me know and maybe we can kind of coordinate a little meet and greet. Kind of get together an indie film hustle kind of get together at a bar, something like that one night, we can all kind of sit down meet talk to each other. And network and you know, kind of see we can help each other out. So if if you ever if you want to get a hold of me just hit me up in my email [email protected]. That's [email protected]. And don't forget to send me your your your questions for the new ask Alex segment that I'm doing on the podcast. So if you have any questions, filmmaking questions, please filmmaking only. So if you have any questions about filmmaking, please email me at [email protected]. And I'm going to pick a few questions. Try to do it every week, if not every other week and answer questions for you guys live on the podcast to help you guys out more. So thanks again guys. I'm not gonna talk anymore. Keep the hustle going. keep the dream alive and I will talk to you soon.

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IFH 117: Ask Alex – I’m Making My First Feature Film…HELP!

March 11, 2022November 23, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

So this episode is going to be fun. I’m starting a new segment I call “Ask Alex.” Yes, I know it’s very creative = ) I asked the IFH Tribe to submit questions to [email protected] and I’ll do my best to answer them. This week we have a bunch of questions from tribe member Kenny from Sweden. Here are the questions I answered in this week’s podcast:

Which is the best type of camera to buy for your first feature that is cheap? (DSLR or anyone else. Also including lenses or where you can use one lens?)
Which is the most important person to hire, a DP or a sound guy for a film? I´ve heard both. Some say good footage and other good sounds.
If you don´t have English as your first language should you make your films in your own language since it is your mother tongue or in English(If you know how to speak of course) to reach a bigger market since more people understand and speak English?
Which format is best to use for the finished film? (I know you had a podcast about this but I want to hear your personal opinion)
Which part of post cost most money on of following things, sound, colorist or foley. I think it is in that order. Is that correct? How much of the budget should you save for post-production in your opinion?
Should you do this and if so the best ways to send an edited film over the internet for sound editing and colorization and maybe name a few companies that do this for small independent films. Would you be interested in doing that?
What do you say about moving to LA to be a filmmaker if you come from another country? (You had a podcast about that but I am thinking based on an international perspective from a foreigner)

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Alex Ferrari 2:21
So guys, for everybody in the states here listening to me happy Thanksgiving, happy turkey day, for everybody else in the world is just another Thursday. But for here in the States, we like to celebrate Thanksgiving, which is what we're grateful for. And in the celebration of stuffing our face with as much food as humanly possible, a very American thing to do. Now, this episode is going to be a little bit more interesting and more fun because I'm going to be doing something I have not done before in the past. I'm going to be doing more of these episodes in the future. And it's going to be basically a whole segment I call ask Alex. I know it's very, very high in marketing and very creative. But I wanted to kind of connect with you guys more and really answer the questions you have for me. So I've got our first series of questions by a listener in Sweden, his name is Kenny. Kenny, sent me a bunch of questions in regards to his first feature film. So rather than just doing a long winded email, I decided to sit down and just do a podcast and answer all the questions. So everybody all the all of the tribe can learn, hopefully in take something away from these answers. So first question up is what is the best type of camera to buy for your first feature film that is cheap. I know everybody does DSLRs but is there anything else you can suggest also include lenses and where you can get them? Okay, so my suggestion, and this is a big a big thing. A lot of people ask me this question. My suggestion is black magic. And again, I am not being paid by black magic. Black Magic is not a sponsor, but I love their cameras. Because of the the amazing quality you get for the cost. If you're just starting out, you might want to buy a pocket camera one of the Blackmagic Pocket cameras, it's under 1000 bucks. It's small, it's powerful, you can shoot RAW with it. It is only 10 ADP, but for your first feature you should be fine. It is a very powerful camera. If not you want to go up to the next level up which is the black Blackmagic cinema 2.5k which is what I shot Meg on or the 4k and if you want to go up a little higher than that you can go to the Blackmagic Ursa. Now these are all very affordable cameras in the grand scheme of things. I know $1,000 might be a lot for a lot of you out there, but it's definitely something you should be looking into. And you can get them used fairly inexpensively too. You could probably get one used for four or 500 bucks online or on eBay. As far as lenses are concerned the most affordable cinema The lenses you can buy are the rochen ons, or the rookies as they're called. The rochen ons are very inexpensive set of lenses that you can buy at two to 300 bucks a pop, for like a 14 millimeter,

I think it's a 1424 3550 and 85. I have a set of those myself, we shot a lot of mag on that. But I also suggest getting the Sigma 18 to 30 millimeter zoom. That is a really, really great lens, it's very high end. For the cost, it's about it's a little bit pricey, it's around 600 bucks, 700 bucks, but you could shoot an entire movie pretty much on that most of the shots I shot in this is Meg were shot on that lens. Very, very powerful, very affordable. But that's what I would suggest, I would not go DSLR I'm not a fan of DSLRs generally speaking, sorry, all your DSLR lovers out there. I'm a post guy and I know what happens when you take it into post. Please leave comments in the comments below. And let me know what you think. But I'm not a fan of the DSLR. I always like to make sure I have the best image possible when shooting something and the Blackmagic cameras definitely do that there are other options out there. But that's my suggestion. So next question. What is the most important person to hire on a set? Is it a dp a sound guy? What would you suggest? Well, a dp is a very, very, very, very, very important member of the crew that you need to hire, I would suggest hiring a good dp. Someone who understands lighting, someone who can shoot very fast and shoot on a budget. I don't want somebody sitting there for six hours lighting scene, we don't have the time we don't have the money. That's not this movie. And as far as sound is concerned, sound is so crucial man, I can't even tell you, I was really nervous about the sound on this as made considering that I was basically doing the sound myself, I took a course, which I'll leave in the show notes about how to record proper sound. And when I discovered it wasn't that difficult to do on my kind of film, which was a very dialogue heavy character based film. It made sense to do it on an action movie or something that was a little bit bigger, I probably wouldn't do the same technique. But But I find a good sound guy to work with. I'm telling you it's very, very important. If not, if it's something small, that's very controllable, Varick a lot of indoor sets, or indoor locations that you can control, getting yourself a nice task cam, and a good mic and somebody to hold a pole that knows what they're doing. You'll be amazed at how good the sound can come out. And I can I'll leave you a link in the show notes as well on a podcast I did on how to record audio cheap. Now the next question he has is should you have your film in English, even if it's not your first language? You know, your mother tongue isn't English. But you are, you know, you're he's from Sweden. So he wants to know, my suggestion is this. It all depends on who you're trying to market this to. If you're going to have a bunch of people with very thick Swedish accents speaking English, I would say do not do English, I would do your native language. Because if you're trying to sell to an American or an English speaking audience, then you should have clear, understandable English because of the accents are very thick, then the audience you're trying to sell to a really not going to be interested in it. So perfect example was an mariachi Robert Rodriguez, you know, he's, he was born in America, he was you know, he's an English boy raised in Texas in Austin. And he went down and he shot his movie in Spanish, because that's how the actors he had access to all mostly of them spoke Spanish. So he decided to make the whole thing in Spanish and it worked very, very well for him. So it all depends on who you're trying to the demographic you're going after. If you're going after an English speaking demographic, obviously trying to shoot it as cleanly in English as you can. If not, it also depends on the kind of movie you're making. If you're making more of an arthouse movie, foreign might work a little bit better for you. And like Robert said, because he made that movie in Spanish. He says a lot of film critics and a lot of audience members gave a lot more weight to things that he really did. That didn't mean anything but because they weren't a different language. It gave it a little bit more of, of gravitas to it. So that's what I would suggest depending on what kind of market you're going after will determine the and also the accent the access to the actors that you will have speaking will determine your decision in regards to language of your film. Next question is what is the best format for your finished film. Generally, in the world of today, Apple pro res four two to HQ or Apple pro res 4444 is perfectly fine and acceptable. And pretty much the industry standard as far as digital deliverables are concerned that we get into dcps and all that kind of stuff, but that's something else. I would say the progress files are fine if you're looking for a tape format to master your master things on, I would go with an HDFS, our HDFS, HDFS our tape, which will be the 1080 p Master, but it's something that you will be needing in the future for deliverables and things like that. But a lot of times, the digital deliverables are more than fine, you can master that in 4k, 2k and so on. So that would be my suggestion for that. Next question is Where should you spend your money in post production when shooting your first feature film, obviously I always say the colorist because he he should be getting I think the majority of the nom joking. The honestly, the no joking aside, I think it's going to be your sound guys and your colorist, a creative editor, you can either edit yourself or find a creative editor fairly inexpensively nowadays, even in different countries is not something that's going to be you know, you could edit it yourself, while a colorist, and a online editor and a sound house or sound mixers, or designers, those guys are going to be a little bit a little bit more, a little harder to find, and also something that you might not be able to do yourself. So I would spend your money on making the image look great, and sound great. And that will set you apart from most feature films, where they they spend a lot of most low budget indie film films, that they spend their money in other places in post, where I don't think it makes as much sense, you know, to spend a lot of money on a big big editor, you know, doesn't make a whole lot creative editor doesn't make a whole lot of sense on an indie movie. Because, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, I've worked on movies that had like Oscar winning editors on it. And they spent all their money on Oscar winning editors, but they ran out of money and color and sound. And I'm like, Well, that doesn't make any sense. You know, you're in a small indie movie, we're not talking about a $20 million movie here, we're talking about $100,000 movie. So you know, it's you got to think a little bit smart about it and just focus on the image. And also on the sound. Those are two very key points. So I would that's where I would focus most of my post production budget on. This one's an interesting question, what is the best way to send a final edit of a film over the internet for sound editing, color grading, you know, what I would suggest is you could probably send audio over the internet, unfortunately, you will not be able to do that with with the image portion of it or the video portion of it, you could easily compress down your entire movie to an h2 six, four MPEG compressed file, which will be five, six gigs at the most. And then you can send all your audio files over which could probably be anywhere between 10 to 15 gigs, depending on how crazy it is. That would be that that's still pretty big. But you could probably get away with that over the over the internet. So if you're going to try to send it over to let's say, you're in Sweden, and you're sending that whole movie over to someone here in LA, to do your sound mix, which is doable. You could probably do audio, video or film The film portion of it or the image portion of it, you're going to have to send a hard drive. There's no questions about it, you definitely going to have to send a hard drive. And the last question is what do you say about moving to LA? If you come from another country? Well, the same thing. I mean, I did a whole podcast about do what do you need to move to LA? To make it in Hollywood was one of my very first podcast and I just released it last week in the throwback Friday release of the podcast, but do what what would be suggestions? Should you move over if you're from another country? Listen, I'll say I'll say the same thing I say all the time. You know, LA is is I know I know a lot of people talk about Atlanta and Chicago and New York and New Orleans and there's other mechas in the states that shoot film, no questions about it. Absolutely. But there is something about LA and I've shot into many of those places. And I've been to many of those places. But LA is la Hollywood is Hollywood. And you know there's so much so many resources here that you will not get anywhere else in the country and probably nowhere else in the world that has the condensed amount of people knowledge, resources, facilities, things like that. You will learn more here in a month than you will in a year working in many places. Now again, these are broad, broad statements. Obviously if you're working in Atlanta right now which is extremely hot, and no pun intended to Atlanta, but but there's a lot of production going on there and a lot of films being shot there and a lot of TV shows me shot there. You can learn a lot there's a lot of shows me shot in Vancouver I mean a lot of shows me shot to Vancouver. So they turn into like these little mini Hollywood mini mini las. But what I've noticed and what I've found is that if you decide to move to let's say, and I'll use my own My own hometown Miami, Miami used to in Florida used to have a pretty good tax incentive. So a lot of people were starting to move to Orlando, starting to move to Miami, thinking that that was going to be like a Hollywood and or Mecca, and they were going to go there and learn everything they did. And a lot of I know a lot of people who did that. But when the tax incentive ran out, and they did not renew it, that industry completely dried up. So that was a big bucket of cold water for a lot of people that I knew that did that, you're not going to find that in LA, if the market dries up in LA, the whole system is going down the hell if there's no work in LA. So I think that, you know, a lot of movies are started here, a lot of shows are started here, the creative is here, the writing is here. Resources are here, no matter how much we might be shooting elsewhere. A lot of the home basis is here in LA. So if you can't come from another country, and you can afford to move here, I would do it as soon as humanly possible. Every year you waste is another year you lose. And that was the biggest mistake of my professional career not moving here earlier, I took me way too long to move here. Because what I've been able to learn in the last eight, 910 years working and living in Los Angeles, is just just astronomical, comparatively to what I was learning in Miami. And some of my best friends who still work in Miami and live in Miami are the first ones to tell you that it is amazing what you learn. in an environment like this. Like I said, the first year I worked here was like working four or five years in LA and Miami, it was pretty remarkable. So if you can afford it come out here you have to have a plan, you have to have at least a year of living financially, money to live here for a year. And debate when I say live here for a year is not just enough to take rent in this, you're gonna have to support yourself for a year, you're gonna have to work for free for a lot of that time into you're able to break into a company or a production or team up with someone to start getting some, some pay as a filmmaker out here. So you need at least minimum six months, more how roughly a year. So what I did, I had at least a year worth of savings, I was lucky that I was able to get going pretty quickly. But it's something that you should definitely do. But be very smart about it. plan things out. Think about it before you come out here, try to make connections, try to take meetings, try to reach out to people do your research on where you're going to live, all that kind of good stuff. So but yes, if you live in another country, and you want to be a filmmaker and you think you want to learn a lot, a lot, a lot more about things, and LA is la it's no other place in the world like it. So guys, that's the end of this session of ask Alex, I hope this was helpful for you guys. I hope you got something out of it from my ramblings. Um, but I have a couple other episodes coming up. They're going to be from other tribe members who have sent me questions, and I am going to do the best I can to answer them. So if you want to submit some questions to me, just email i f h [email protected]. That's IF H [email protected]. And send me over a list of questions. And I'll pick some questions to answer on on the podcast. And hopefully, I'll be able to answer your question and at the same time, give that information to the rest of the tribe. So guys, I have some exciting news coming up. I can't say anything yet. It's not about film festivals yet. So I can't I'll tell you when. And if we get into any any festivals with Meg, so I'll let you know. But this is other news about about my trip to Sundance, what I'll be doing there. All sorts of crazy stuff. I'm so excited about the new year, I can't even express to you how excited I am for what I'm going to be doing with indie film, hustle. And at Sundance what I'm going to be doing there. Again, I'm not in the festival. I'm not in slam dance either, yet, hopefully we'll see. But I am going to be there and I'm we're going to be doing indie film hustle is going to be in full effect. And we're gonna be doing some insane stuff. So I cannot wait to share all the craziness that I'm going to be doing at the Sundance Film Festival this year. And hopefully, hopefully I'll be there with a movie but if not, at least, you will get to see Sundance through the lens of myself and indie film hustle. And today is Thanksgiving, but tomorrow is another holiday. It's called Black Friday people and I am planning on doing a huge Black Friday sale for indie, indie film syndicate, you're going to get a one month free coupon to test out Test Drive, the indie film syndicate and because you're listening to this right now on Thanksgiving, I'm going to give it to you early. So all you got to do is head over to indie film hustle calm Ford slash i f s Friday, that's indie film hustle calm Ford slash i f s Friday to get one month free access to the indie film syndicate. Now if you don't want to jump onto the syndicate, I don't know why you wouldn't but if you don't want to jump over to syndicate and you just want to check out one or two of our courses, head over to film school hacks.com and you will get currently most our courses I'm gonna say most because we have some masterclass courses and things like that in there as well. But most of our courses are going to be $14 for Black Friday, so you could check them out some of them run from $200 and some of them are 150 bucks but all of our courses are all most of our courses excuse me are 14 bucks so head over to film school hacks.com to check out those so those are our big big deals that we're having out for Black Friday and definitely go check them out guys see if there's anything that interests you you know 14 bucks for a force for a course is not bad or you can get 30 days access to almost all of our courses for free heading over to indie film hustle comm forward slash i f s Friday. So guys, I wish you for all my listeners here in the States happy turkey day. Don't need too much. Because you know being on set you got to be you got to be Slender Man. You got to be you know, limb, you got to be able to move, trust me. I'm not so it helps a lot more when you're actually in shape. So don't don't go too crazy. But Enjoy yourselves guys. And I I'd like to say I'm very thankful for you guys. I'm very thankful for all my listeners. And for everybody who follows the indie film, hustle blog, and all those amazing well wishes, emails of your stories and messages you guys send me. I'm really just so grateful that I'm able to help you guys out in my small way. Get closer to your dreams, as well as see me try to get closer to mine. So guys, keep that hustle going keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you real soon.

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IFH 116: Fast and Cheap: Lessons Learned for the No-Budget Feature Film

March 11, 2022November 22, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

In this week’s episode, I go way back to a simpler time, the 90s, and discuss the lessons we can learn from some filmmaking legends. I’ll discuss films by Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, Christopher Nolan, and Richard Linklater to break down and learn the techniques they used to make awesome, no-budget feature films with limited resources.

“In no-budget filmmaking, your limitations are your guide.”

If you take note of what filmmakers did before you, you can jump-start your filmmaking career. Enjoy!

I also included this killer video by The Royal Ocean Film Society. In the late 1980s and 1990s, there was a great movement indie cinema of no-budget filmmaking that was the beginning for some of the most successful and popular filmmakers of the modern-day. Let’s take a look at five features from that movement and see what lessons we can learn on how to make a great film with as little money as possible.

Here are some key points discussed:

Shoot black and white
Be disciplined
Try not to use guns
Film something that hasn’t been seen before
Take stock of what you have and make a movie about it
Don’t take things so seriously

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Alex Ferrari 2:26
So guys, today's episode, I wanted to go back a bit and talk about a time of a much simpler time a lovely time called the 90s where a lot of indie film guys got their start. And I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about the lessons we can learn from a lot of these guys who started their careers back in the late 80s, early 90s. And what they were able to do, and how they did it, and I've studied them over the course of my career, and just started finding similar themes and similar things that each of these guys did, to kind of get out there to get a career started. So why don't I go over, go over individual filmmakers as well as movies and concepts as well. And I hope you guys get a little something out of it. Because I've been I've been getting contacted a lot by filmmakers who you know, are trying to get their first movies made. And I see they tell me like, Oh, I'm going to do this kind of movie, this kind of movie. And it's going to cost X amount of dollars. And I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like my god, you know, the chances of you actually making any money back is going to be very, very difficult. And I wanted to kind of give a little bit of a helping hand if I can with this episode. So first and foremost, guys, when you're going to go into making a movie, your first feature film, do it as cheaply as humanly possible. Dirt Cheap, okay, I mean the bare minimum of what you can do to get your movie finished and made, because a lot of filmmakers will show up and go look, I've got $200,000 for my first movie, I'm like, Well, if you have $200,000 for your first movie, you better pick a genre that's really marketable, you probably better pick a couple stars that are going to be involved. So you can at least get some basic sales off of that. And if you don't do that, you're going to be destined for failure. Because even Sundance winners and big big movie, no big fan of Sundance Tribeca, South by Southwest, full blown winners in audience winners and best of shows, you know, for you to read, read, get the $200,000 back on a let's call it a drama, or a comedy or a drama at or something that's not genre based. extremely, extremely difficult and I think a lot of filmmakers make that big Mistake right up front. And when they finally do do that, and they completely fall on their face, they're discouraged. And never make another movie again. And I don't want to see that happen to you guys. So try to make your movie as cheap as possible. And you know, you could take Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, rich, Richard Linklater, Spike Lee, all of these guys, all their first movies were very inexpensive. But obviously the famous one, which is Robert Rodriguez, a $7,000, Kevin Smith at 30, or $27,000, he put on his credit cards, all that kind of stuff. And I'll use this as magazine example, use myself, you know, we made the movie for under $25 million, we'll release the final budget once the audit is done. But we made the movie at a place where we feel comfortable that we can recoup our initial investment. Now that could be half a million dollars. That could be $5,000. Nothing Meg in general, but just a general statement. Because if you have a certain star, or a certain genre or a certain thing, and a half a million dollars, and you know you can pre sell or sell certain territories and things like that half million dollars makes a lot of sense. If you know you're going to probably get 1.5 back for it. But if you're going in with a drama with no stars at 100,000 200,000 $500,000, budget, good luck. It's, you'd be one of the few and when I say few, I can count them on my hands. If I could even think of movies, that blue out of the water at that kind of budget range when they're first starting out. But what you need to do is embrace your limitations. Do what you can do very well. So again, I'll use Meg as an example. You know, my limitations, which were and limitations I set on myself. I knew what I had, I knew what kind of cast that can get. I knew what kind of locations I could get. I knew what camera I can afford that I could have complete control over as opposed to getting a free Alexa, which would have brought all sorts of, you know, headaches of financial headaches, as well as technical and logistical headaches for this kind of movie. And I just, I just fell right into what I had access to. You know, I'll go back to mariachi, you know, Robert had access to a full Mexican town. So he made a movie about a full Mexican town. Kevin Smith had access to a convenience store. And he made a movie about a convenience store. Richard Linklater made a movie called slacker. What did he have access to Austin Austin back in the 90s, which is not the pool hip Austin, that it is today. He just made a movie about his backyard. And that's another thing you guys have to understand. You should make a movie that is close to you. That is your experience your perspective on something. There's been a lot of convenience stores and movies in the history of film. But no one has ever done it quite like Kevin Smith. It was his perspective, his rawness of what it's really like to be a clerk. And that was his that was his truth. Same thing goes for a go to Richard Linklater and slot and slacker. He wanted to show what these people and this town was like, from his perspective, his voice. And if you start going back and watching all of the first movies of a lot of these great directors, they're going to they're going to a lot of them are going to be very close to home. They're going to be you know, I'm sure there's an there's the occasional, you know, oddball out like the following, you know, by Chris Nolan. But it was still something that he had, he used what he had access to, which was a 16 millimeter camera, and he shot it on weekends for a year, you know, so he definitely embraced his limitations, and tried to make the best thing he could, with the limited tools and an experience and locations and everything yet, but a lot of these other people who really kind of break through, they are telling a story that's very true to who they are, and where they come from. And that unique voice is what people are looking for. They're not looking for an eye. Like if I went out right now and make clerks no one wants to see that movie. And that's what happened with like when Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs came out how many rip offs of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction came out after that. I mean, it was ridiculous how many tried to be hips, the hip, kind of movies came out, but it wasn't authentic, and audiences can smell that. And when you find something authentic, something with some heart, something that that rings true. That's when you break out man. So that's why clerks My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you know for you know, which was one of the biggest independent films of all time. Sure, it wasn't done on a little low, low budget, but it wasn't a studio movie by any stretch. That movie made to $300 million. Why? Because Nina the director, writer wrote from Her heart from her experience from her voice. No one had ever done a movie like that before. But then of course, everyone could relate to that movie, because of the story and how she was able to write it. But again, it came from her life experience. She's got to have it Spike Lee's first movie was all about his experience in New York, what it was like to be a black woman in New York in the late 80s. And that whole experience something that no one had ever seen on screen before. So boys in the hood, another one john Singleton's first movie, is a masterpiece. And it was it completely rings true to the experience he saw that he grew up with, and no one had really talked about it, you know, they did collars, you know that. That movie by Dennis Hopper, and Sean Penn, about the gangs in you know, South el, and you know, South Central and all those areas, but no one was really, it was kind of very Hollywood II, as opposed to boys in the hood, then when you watch boys in the hood, you will tear up, you will go Holy crap, it was so powerful. It was like an atom bomb going off in cinema when that came out, you know, from a 23 year old Why? Because he was authentic to who he was, and his experience. And that's what I want you guys to kind of look for when trying to make your first movie, find something that's authentic to you, that only you could tell that story in mind you. You like, Oh, well, you know, I work in a in a video store. Well, you know, nobody works in a video store anymore. But you work at a convenience store, oh clerks has already been done? Well, maybe you could tell it in a different way from your experience, from your place where it maybe has not been told in that way. You know, there's been a lot of movie, there's been a lot of action movies in the world. But it all depends on the kind of perspective you put on it. And what your voice is, what your your message your theme is. And I think as when you're first starting out, it's the easiest thing to do with a feature. You know, I've done my first shorts were very ambitious, very action packed, very true. But I'll be honest with you looking back at some of those movies, I'm like, you know what, there's just something missing. For me as an artist and being critical of my own work, I'll go back and go, you know what, there's something missing there. Maybe I was onto something, maybe I wasn't, I don't know. But Meg, for, for what better or worse, I really love this as Meg, because it's a really authentic view of what I was seeing through the eyes of Julie, you know, and what she was going through as an actress in LA and I had been very close to that world. And we've all seen movies about actresses, and actors trying to make it in Hollywood. But I don't think anyone's seen one like this before, because it's a very unique perspective, a very unique, authentic view of this world. So that's what I was trying to do. And I did it again, on a budget that I feel comfortable, I can get a return on. So look around you and find out what you have access to. And then you start building your story around that. That's exactly what we did. With this as Mac, we started looking and taking inventory of everything we had. So I'm like Alright, we have an edit suite, there's going to be a scene with an edit sweeten it, because as good production value is the edit suite that we added to the movie in you know, we have houses or you have your house, my house, how many rooms can we do how many things we could do great. We have a car, we have these cards? Great. I have some friends with houses. Great. And then I have all these actor friends of mine. Great. That's a resource. Let's use that. Okay, then I have all this that I bring all my camera gear great. And then that's how we were able to construct the story of this is Meg within the limitations of what we had access to. And clerks did it. mariachi did it. slackers did it. And a lot of people will go well, how about like district nine? You know, Neal cams, a great little short, that got him his first feature. Now, I'm going to argue with it and have a paranormal activity. Okay, great. So I'll argue with you that those two movies were not, quote unquote, from, you know, like a little personal movie. But if you look at district nine, what did it do? Neal set the movie in South Africa, an alien invasion kind of movie in South Africa. I've never seen that before. Have you know, now would have that movie still had the same impact if it was set in Chicago? or New York or LA? I don't know. I personally don't think so. I think one of the charms of that movie is because it's set in South Africa. And why is it set in South Africa? Because guess what, Neil South African, and he felt like he wanted to put something from his experience. So he melted his experience with a really cool sci fi story. Now that was the other thing I'm saying the kind of stories I'm talking about are either going to be dramas, comedies, dramas, even actions but And sci fi, if you look at some Sundance winning movie called sleep dealer by Alex Rivera, that's a movie about basically immigration. And, but he threw a sci fi twist in it. He's a Mexican filmmaker, and he decided to throw his experience, as you know, day laborers and not his experience. But the story of day laborers, but he threw it in with an insane sci fi twist to it. And again, he just twisted it, but used his original and his authentic experience to tell that story. And it's his voice. And that's well The other thing I want to tell you guys, I'll argue that district nine, sleep dealer, paranormal activity, those also are genre movies. So genre, kinda is different than what I'm talking about the drama is the comedies that even the actions but action, sci fi, Hor, those, those are genre genres. And because of those, those are much easier to sell and don't need as much of as an authentic voice as a drama or comedy does. Now, look at district nine. District nine had a very authentic voice mixed in with a sci fi movie, and it was a huge hit. So we mixed genre with authentic voice. And that's something that you guys could do as well. genres are going to be much genre films are going to be a lot easier to sell a lot easier to get out there. And it all depends on what you want to do with your filmmaking career. If you want to go down the festival circuit, you want to make personal films want to make big blockbusters, I you know, it's up to you. Robert Rodriguez made mariachi which was an action movie, which is a genre movie, but was very authentic to his voice, which is in his backyard, which is a Mexican town. He's a Mexican American filmmaker, and he was using his authentic voice his experience to make his genre movie. So to review a little bit of what we just talked about, make your first movie is dirt cheapest possible, the cheaper, the better. Because if you're able to make a movie for 15 grand, you should if you know even remotely what you're doing, make yourself 30 grand off of that. And then the next one you can make will cost 30 grand and then off that 30 grand, maybe you can make 50 or 60 grand off of that. And then you can start growing and growing and growing. And then you can start jumping budgets, once you start figuring the process out a little bit. But trying to jump in right away with a huge budget when I say huge budget $100,000 for someone's never directed a day in their life is a lot $200,000 that's a lot of fucking money, excuse my language. And I know a lot of filmmakers just want to like oh, I'm got my big budget, I'm gonna use all these tools and stuff like that Don't be idiots. Try to do something small First, if you can, if you can execute something on a smaller scale, tell a good story on a $20,000 budget on a $15,000 budget on a $10,000 budget, then you have a much, much better chance of telling a good story and making it look good. When you have a bigger budget. There's a lot of things that you don't think about when working on a bigger budget. But if you do something small, that might work better and I'll use myself again with Meg as an example. You know, we raised a good amount of money to make the movie but it was a number that we felt very comfortable with. I could have easily tripled or quadrupled that kind of budget and made a much bigger movie. Because I have 20 years of experience under my belt. I've directed four or $500,000 music videos and commercials and things like that in my career. But I decided no I'm not going to do that. I'm going to strip it down to the bare bones and Mike look this is about story. Let's see if I can tell a story that I'm proud of before I start jumping into the next big project. Don't be in such a rush to jump into these bigger budgets guys all right, learn from the lessons of Robert Rodriguez Kevin Smith, Spike Lee all these guys that started Richard Linklater that started out with smaller smaller budget selling very personal stories because that's what will take you to the next level and the next level and the next level after that. And again, there always are those people who who are the exception but generally speaking, I don't know of any examples of people who who made a drama or a comedy or a drama at at a very you know, it robust budget with no stars or anything like that involved and was able to be very successful with it. I know of many people who did genre movies, horror movies, action movies, I mean, Eli Roth, Peter Jackson, all these kind of guys. They did genre movies and and that's how they got noticed and how they broke out and started their career. I mean, we can go all the way back to Martin Scorsese's first films. Who's that knocking Which was completely from his experience all his short films, most of his early short films were based around his experience, which is his his experience in the streets of New York, in the 60s and 70s. Growing up seeing the mobster seeing the thing that was his authentic voice. And that voice he's carried on throughout his career jumping in and out from that his next movies and other gangster movie because he's so good at it because he understands that world so well, but that's his authentic voice from where Martin Scorsese came from, then he didn't mean streets, then he starts jumping into something like taxi driver. Then he jumps into Raging Bull, and these other movies that aren't his personal stories anymore, but his personal stories are what got him to the next level. And that's what I'm trying to tell you guys. You should look at. And I know a lot of you going well, Alex, I don't have a personal story. I live in Podunk. Wherever. Not a lot of stuff happens here. On mic. Perfect. That's exactly where your story is. What if something happens in that little town with those characters, those people that you know so well, that you might have never seen on screen before. Again, slacker. No one had ever seen that world before. You know, boys in the hood, no one ever seen that kind of world before. Clark's no one ever seen his partake on that world before. Same thing with mariachi. So guys, I hope you learn something out of this podcast. And I hope you take some of the advice I've given you out here. Hopefully it makes sense to you, and will help you along your, your journey, as filmmakers, as an author, and as artists, and I hope you guys can launch successful careers as filmmakers, which is what we're all trying to do. We're all trying to do that we're all trying to make a living doing what we'd love to do. And hopefully we can look at others who have done it and taking their careers to levels that we can only dream of. So I'm going to put links to all of the movies that I've talked about in this episode in our show notes at indie film hustle.com forward slash 116. There also be a great little video about 10 minute video on lessons you can learn from filmmakers in the 90s when you're making your first feature film. So definitely check that out guys. And as always, please head over to filmmaking podcast calm, and leave me a good review on iTunes, and really helps me out a lot guys. And I want to get this out to as many people as humanly possible. And also I've got a bunch of great stuff coming up at the syndicate, we're going to be uploading a ton of new courses, as well. So check that out as well indie film syndicate.com. And finally, guys, I wanted to ask you, if you want to ask me something. So I'm going to start creating a little a little section either I'm going to do it in its own podcasts, or I'm going to do it at the end of podcast, depending on how many questions I get. But I want you guys to send me some questions. If you have a question that you're just dying to know. And you really wish you could ask and get an answer to and you think I can possibly answer it for you. email me at IF H [email protected]. That's IF H [email protected]. And that will just write me a question going, Hey, this question and this question and I'll do a podcast episode, answering those questions alone. And hopefully that will help you guys a bit. So you could either do it, that'd probably be the best way to get a hold of me with it. So ifhsubmissions.com. So keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you soon.

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IFH 115: How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck with Steve Stockman

March 11, 2022November 15, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

In this week’s episode, we have Steve Stockman. Steve is an author/writer/director/producer at Custom Productions, Inc. in Los Angeles. He’s created and Executive Produced tv-series Brew Dogs for the new Esquire Network, Dogs of War for A&E, Devils Ride for Discovery Channel and $24 in 24 for Food Network; plus worked on over 200 commercials, music videos, and web series.

He also wrote and directed a film called Two Weeks starring legendary Oscar® Winning Actress Sally Field.

His book, How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck, is now in its 6th printing from Workman Publishing. It’s based on a course he’s been teaching to kids for the last 14 years, but adults understand it as well.

“Like two years of film school in 248 pages.” – Steven Pressfield, Author of The War of Art and The Legend of Bagger Vance

It’s not technical—it doesn’t matter whether you’re shooting RED or iPhone. It’s about how to shoot video that’s entertaining, effective—and that actually gets watched. Enjoy my conservation with Steve Stockman.

Right-click here to download the MP3

Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 5:39
Now today we have a really cool guest. His name is Steve Stockman, I read his book, how to shoot video that doesn't suck. And when I read I was really impressed with him and I reached out to Steve to see if he'd come on the show and he said he would. And Steve after doing research on steve steve is not just an author. He is a producer a director he directed a movie called two weeks star he wrote and directed a movie called two weeks starring Academy Award winning Sally Field and we talked a little bit about how it's like to work with a cat on actors of her caliber as well as a great cost to as an amazing cast. And now he also he's a producer on shows for a and he and Esquire magazine for Food Network and is done easily over 200 different web series music videos, commercials and so on. And his book, how to shoot video that doesn't suck. Suck is now in its sixth printing. And I found out is the best selling cinematography book on the market, which is pretty amazing. So I really wanted to dig in with Steve about how to shoot video that doesn't suck as well as all his other experience of being in the industry. So enjoy my conversation with Steve Stockman I'd like to welcome to the show Steve Stockman man thanks so much for jumping on the on the indie film hustle podcast.

Steve Stockman 7:03
Well, thanks for the invitation. I appreciate it.

Alex Ferrari 7:05
No problem. No problem. So I always like to start the the episodes with the origin story. So how did you get into the crazy film business?

Steve Stockman 7:14
Well, I started in the crazy radio business. I actually I think when I was when I was a kid my dreams when I was eight years old, I can still remember, I dreamed of going into radio and going into film. And I started in radio when I was in high school. And so when I got to college, I continued and sort of went from there. And I had a career in radio at first. And but I've always been a marketer. And I've always loved how marketing works. And I used to, you know, sit around as a little kid and count the number of cuts and TV commercials and all kinds of other odd behavior and I always loved movies. So as I went through radio and doing radio marketing, I got involved in a lot of television campaigns for radio formats, and started doing that from the client side and when I left radio, I started doing it. From the production company side I started a production company called custom productions which is now in Los Angeles. And we did television campaigns for entertainment clients. So we did TV commercials to promote radio stations all over the world we did TV commercials to promote home video releases from Wayne Avista, another large companies. And we eventually, you know, still do commercials occasionally do web stuff occasionally. But I moved to Los Angeles and got involved in independent film and now television.

Alex Ferrari 8:52
Very cool. So yeah, cuz you have a voice for radio? No.

Steve Stockman 8:57
It's my dad's I can't really take much credit for it.

Alex Ferrari 9:02
So So then what inspired you to write your book how to shoot video that doesn't suck? Well, great title, by the way.

Steve Stockman 9:09
Thank you. I am. I was getting a lot of questions about online video. And this started maybe five or six years ago, when online video started to mainstream and when phones started to be reasonable things to shoot video on. And it started to be like a doctor in a cocktail party, except instead of saying, Hey, could you look at this boil on my neck? People would say, you know, I just shot this video and you're a director, could you look at this. And so I'd get these videos. And a lot of times they had the same kinds of issues with them. And I've been teaching a course at this thing called summer stars camp for the Performing Arts, which is a nonprofit camp that takes 11 to 14 year olds from the inner city and gives them an intensive arts experience for 10 days. And I've been teaching how to shoot music videos. And I had thought that those kids didn't know anything about how to shoot because they were underprivileged. And they didn't have video cameras and all that. What I realized when the internet boom hit is that nobody knows anything about shooting video, principally, because until six years ago, nobody except professionals ever did. Right? You know, you'd have your home video occasionally. But nobody really knew how to do it. We never asked anybody to do it. And so I had taught this course for these kids. And I was getting asked more and more about how to do video and I was hiking with a friend of mine and Joshua Tree, radio guy, actually an old friend of mine, who, whose producer had called me two days earlier to show me a video, which sounded terrific, and was so boring, and that was unwatchable. And you know, we were talking about it. And he asked me some advice. I went, wait a minute, I wonder if anyone has written this book. And so I went back to my hotel room that night, and instead of, you know, surfing porn, like a good American, I searched for video books, and all of the books that I could find were technical video books, they were about, you know, how to do three point lighting and how many peas in your HD? And how do you plug your computer into your camera and, and that stuff not only doesn't interest me, because as a director, I generally have other people do that. But it also isn't the thing that's going to make your film or video successful. And so I came up with this great idea. And I put this book together called it how to shoot like a Hollywood director and called another friend of mine and radio and told him about it. And he said, Well, I don't really care if my guys shoot like Hollywood directors, I just wish they could shoot video that didn't suck. Oh, well, that's much better title than what I had. So. So that's the that's the origin story of the book now.

Alex Ferrari 12:08
So what are some of the biggest mistakes you see people make when shooting videos. And again, a lot of the stuff we're talking about guys is about people just shooting, you know, online videos and things like that. But a lot of these lessons can definitely be translated over to filmmakers as well. So what are some of the biggest mistakes, Steve, that you've seen with people,

Steve Stockman 12:28
the biggest mistake is to not think in shots. And that's kind of both a superficial and deep thing to talk about. Because we know especially if we shoot indie film already, or we do a lot of our own videos already, and we pay attention to this stuff, we know that most shots in a feature film or a movie or a great video produced today are somewhere between half a second and five seconds long at most, you know, and rarely Are you gonna see a much longer shot without some sort of change on the screen. But people don't really think about first, when they're starting out, they don't even realize that. And so they tend to let the camera roll a long time. And secondly, they don't think about how those shots are constructed, and how that affects the overall movie process. So the first thing that I tell people who are just starting out is to practice shooting in shots and start your shot when something interesting is about to happen and stop it when that interesting thing has happened. And then move somewhere else and shoot something different. And that's a real eye opener for people. Because even if you just do that on your home vacation video, you will go from having horrible, boring videos that last three hours to you know, having a three minute entertaining video sort of fall out of your camera. And that's that's maybe the first biggest mistake people make.

Alex Ferrari 13:58
And so what are some tips you can give indie filmmakers that they can kind of take away from the book.

Steve Stockman 14:06
I think the first thing for indie filmmakers to think about his that film is a medium that has story embedded in every single moment of it. So what I mean by that my metaphor for this is a little obscure, but a holograms you know when they were holograms were invented. And even now if you shoot a hologram, and you print it to film, and you look at it, you can see a three dimensional image on this flat sheet of paper. What's really interesting about a hologram though is if you cut that sheet of film, and you take away one section of it, that section will have the complete hologram on it. So it's not like a photograph where if you cut a corner off it you're just cutting that corner of the picture. Every piece of the hologram has embedded in it. The full picture, which is fascinating. But I like to say that every piece of a film has story embedded in it. So the big picture of the film is, you know that there's a kid who's stuck on a farm working with his aunt and uncle and he hates it. And he's dying to have an adventure, and get off this dusty planet and see the world. Right and the best.

Alex Ferrari 15:29
Sounds familiar that sounds familiar. familiar,

Steve Stockman 15:32
big picture. Did he live where?

Alex Ferrari 15:34
No, no, no, no, it sounds a little familiar. I think I think some name George is George. Yes, sir. George.

Steve Stockman 15:41
So the big picture is the story of this kid, and the kid is the hero. And the story is how he goes from living on a farm to taking a giant journey to rescue a princess to destroying the Deathstar. Right, that's the big picture. But if you take the next smallest unit of film, which is the sequence, inside that film, there are different complete stories being told, there's a sequence where the kid meets a magician, and they decide they are going to leave the planet. And so the hero of the sequence is, it's still this kid. And in the beginning, he meets the magician, and in the middle, he negotiates with a rogue ship captain to get transport off the planet. And at the end, they run away from people who are after them and managed to escape. And that's a sequence that takes seven, eight minutes in the film, and it's part of the bigger picture. But it has its own story, its own hero, it's beginning and middle and end. The next unit down is the scene. And inside the sequence about escaping the planet, there is a scene where the magician and the boy go into a bar to negotiate with the rogue ship captain. And the hero of that scene is the rogue ship captain. And you learn about what he's thinking in terms of how he can get the best deal and get off the planet before he's killed. And so at the beginning, he meets the magician and the boy in the middle, he negotiates a deal. And at the end, he agrees, and that's that scene, which goes inside the sequence, which goes inside the film. But inside the sheet scene, there are shots, and the shots also have a hero, beginning, middle and an end. So there's a shot where we're looking outside the window, and there's a bounty hunter who turns his head and recognizes the rogue Captain as someone worthy of capture. And in that one shot, the hero is the bounty hunter, the beginning is he sees the captain. And the middle is he expresses surprise. And the end is he calls somebody, right, and that's just a shot, that's like, four seconds of time on the screen. But that's a complete story too. And so usually, bad film and television can be fixed by looking at whether every single level of what you're making, has a hero beginning, middle and end from each individual shot, all the way to the finished piece. And if every single piece of it works as a story, than the whole will work as a story much better.

Alex Ferrari 18:24
That's really great advice. Actually, a lot of a lot of filmmakers don't have surprise and no I not from you, but just generally speaking. No, it's that so many, so many filmmakers don't understand that each, there are multiple elements. And I think also if you break it down that way, it it lessens the beast the mountain that you have to climb because if you look at, I've got to entertain somebody for 90 minutes. If you if you go under that big huge Mount Everest, that's a huge deal. But if you start breaking it down, like sequence scene shot, it really does make it a lot easier. And then you could it's like baking the cake, you've got to learn the you got to learn the ingredients, you can't just look at the cake and just throw a bunch of stuff in the oven, you've got to understand each ingredient how they work together and so on. So

Steve Stockman 19:16
and I would I would say it also goes to you know, the level of pitch you know, when you're pitching someone your story in three sentences, you have to have a clear beginning middle. And maybe you don't give them the whole end but you intrigue them with how it might end. And you have to know who the hero is. And and so in every part of the development process and the shooting process and the scripting process, you can be running this story check for every single piece of it and that will keep you in tune all the time.

Alex Ferrari 19:46
Now you've you've directed a few things in your in your day. So I wanted a couple things from that I've done my research on you so you've been directing for a little while now. What while a little while you just got out of school last week. I think or so. Yes.

Steve Stockman 20:02
Okay. 24 year old I have a lot of experience Exactly.

Alex Ferrari 20:06
Same here, my friends say. So um, do you have any directing advice for first time filmmakers like going on set how to deal with that whole pressure because I know, being a fan, I was a first time filmmaker at one point. And even on a small set, it was very intimidating. So do you have any advice, maybe for preparation, or how to deal with the politics of a set, all that kind of stuff?

Steve Stockman 20:32
Yes, the big picture advice is that you're always walking a line between controlling and allowing. So what I mean by that is that every part of a director's job is to find the right place at the right moment on that line. directors who try to control every single thing, prevent themselves from hearing good ideas from their collaborators. And they prevent people from doing their best work. Because they interrupt other people's ideas, they don't make people feel like they're contributing, they don't hear suggestions that people make that might be huge improvements or, or problem solvers. So if you don't, if you're not open, if you're totally closed and controlling you, you will never get the best out of your collaborators. And on the flip side, if you have no idea what you're doing, and you let everyone tell you what to do, you will have a directionless film that will not be on time and not be on budget and probably not be any good. So every step of the directors process is walking that line. And some of my favorite examples you know, are like the Godfather, which is you know, arguably one of the best movies of all time in terms of the way it's put together. You know, and and they're shooting the opening scenes of the Godfather, which start in the dark, and then open on Marlon Brando's office. And in that scene, Marlon Brando is famously petting a cat. That cat was a stray that happened to be on the lot that Brando picked up and started petting and it became part of that scene and it told you a lot about Brando's character that he was you know, old world and he was a nice guy, and oh, surprise, he can have people killed. That was that was that was a big deal. That revelation that he was we were going to understand this guy's a human being and as a monster. And that cat wasn't on the set. Now if, if Francis Coppola had been the kind of director who tries to control everything, he would have said, well, there's no cat in my script. And I didn't picture this with a cat get that cat that cats bothering me. And instead, he trusted his actor. And he allowed the cat and he shot the scene, which is masterful.

Alex Ferrari 23:07
And he also he also allowed those cotton balls in his mouth.

Steve Stockman 23:11
Exactly. Yeah, there's a lot he allowed on that set, you know, and I, I of course have all the fan books on the Godfather, since it's probably my favorite movie of all time. And if you haven't seen it, you should see it at least five times this week.

Alex Ferrari 23:25
Yes, everybody. Yes. Yes. It's like an Oracle. The Godfather is an Oracle if you have a problem with life. The answers in The Godfather? And yeah, I think Tom Hanks was saying that I think years ago I saw Um, I think on The Tonight Show or something like that. And he would just refer to anytime there's a problem just the answer is in The Godfather.

Steve Stockman 23:45
Yes. Anytime you want to be humbled as a filmmaker you should watch out because there's stuff in there that just you will never be able to do. No matter what

Alex Ferrari 23:53
I miss Frances man, I really miss Francis. I wish he could come out and do some stuff. I you know, I was watching. I didn't mean that they get off. No, but I was watching the Palma, the new documentary

Steve Stockman 24:04
that I meant to say I have not seen that yet. But I'm a fan. It's a

Alex Ferrari 24:08
great doc. It's a great doc. It's just Brian Obama just completely, completely unleashed. He doesn't care. Yeah. So he just says whatever he wants to say. But it was really interesting that he said one thing and I try to go back and there's only very few exceptions. But he said that, so that when you study directors, you're really going to talk about the movies they made in their 20s 30s 40s and 50s. Not like maybe 30 actually more sometimes 20s but mostly 3040s and 50s. And then after that you don't you don't hear from them anymore like that you those films that they make in their 60s and 70s are just not the same. And there's very few like Martin Scorsese is the only guy I can really think of off the top of my head. That's his Woody Allen obviously, yet another guy, but it was very interesting. And Francis. I mean, he's Francis Ford Coppola, for God's sakes. I I just wish he would come back. I really wish you'd come back and do something like it just blow everybody out of the water one more time.

Steve Stockman 25:06
There you go, Francis, you heard it here.

Alex Ferrari 25:07
You already Yes, Francis is listening. But you were saying I didn't mean to interrupt you in regards to the Godfather and, and well,

Steve Stockman 25:15
so we were talking about finding that line of how to be a first time director. So So I think the the second thing that comes up a lot, if you're a first time director, you don't know what you're doing. And if you're really smart, you may have hired people who do. So you may have a line producer, or a grip, or a sound guy or a gaffer, or actors who have made more movies than you, hopefully your entire crew is not there for the first time. And I think it's, I think it's a strength, not a weakness, to be able to say, hey, look, guys, my first movie my first day on a set, and I really appreciate all your support, I'm gonna listen to any suggestion, if I can't do it, I'm really sorry. Because I do have to keep the schedule, because obviously, we're a low budget production. But I really do want the suggestions. And I will really try to listen. And if you have something important to say, Please bring it to my attention. So that I can include it in my planning for what I'm going to do next. And by saying that, what you're saying is, I want to hear you, but I'm still going to decide, because that's my job. And the only way I'm going to learn my job is by doing it, you know, in deciding and maybe getting it wrong, but I'm not going to decide like an idiot without listening to the people who know better First up, but I am going to decide. And that to me is striking. First timer balance, you know, people who try to hide that they're first timers or try to pretend they know more than they do get in trouble because it becomes very obvious very quickly, that they're full of shit. Oh, no, they don't want that to happen on a set.

Alex Ferrari 27:03
Oh, no, the crew, the crew, a season crew will smell it in the first five minutes.

Steve Stockman 27:08
Yes, but they'll help you if you're willing to be helped.

Alex Ferrari 27:11
Exactly. That's the thing. That's the thing. And I've been on sets with, you know, guys who've been in the business for 40 or 50 years. And you know, some of them are very gracious, some of them are ballbusting. So it all depends on who you hire. But like, like I think it was, he said Woody Allen or the Palmer someone said that 90% of directing is casting. And not only casting,

Steve Stockman 27:40
a lot of people have said that I think it's in my book as well. Yeah, I think yeah, it's not

Alex Ferrari 27:43
only casting your actors, but casting your crew.

Steve Stockman 27:46
Yes. If you're if you're doing it, right, I think the the writer you're doing it, the closer you come to the Tao of directing, you know, which is to touch without touching, which is to get what you want with a very minimal amount of effort. And where you're focused on flow and team function and how things move forward. Rather than being focused on how am I going to control everything, right, you know, you set the vision, you're, you know, when you're doing a big feature. You know, two weeks was not a giant feature, but there were still 100 people working on it every day. And if you're doing a feature correctly, or a commercial correctly, or a TV show correctly, you should be setting the vision as the director, you should be clear in communicating that vision and you should take input, make decisions, and then help people execute their version of your vision. And only stick your nose in and correct things that are close to dawn and just aren't going to work and really aren't better than what you had in your head. You know, and let the rest of it play and let people bring stuff to the table.

Alex Ferrari 29:05
Absolutely. You bring up two weeks, that was a film that you directed, and produced right with and wrote as well. So and it stars Oscar winner Sally Field. So which was amazing. And you had a great cast, by the way I saw the cast that you had involved with that movie. Really great, great group of actors. Can you tell us a little bit about us? Yeah. How did you get the film off the ground?

Steve Stockman 29:28
Um, well, this is a was another interesting lesson for me. I wrote a bunch of scripts, you know, because I've always been a writer and I wrote commercials and you know, I've written my whole life. And so I I'm moved to Los Angeles with my commercial production company because I wanted to do features and I knew I'd never do them in Boston, which is where I was living at the time, even though I love Boston. And so I came to LA to kind of immerse myself in this environment and also because I had to tell people what I was doing. And once I told them, I would be humiliated if I didn't actually do it. So self management thing.

Alex Ferrari 30:10
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Steve Stockman 30:21
So I came to LA and I and I started writing and I my scripts were reasonably well received, you know, some agents were interested lawyers were interested. But it wasn't they weren't kicking ass, they were kind of high concept things. And my mother had, my mother died like, few years before I got around to this, and I made notes on my hard drive at the time, just because it was a very weird and obviously painful experience. But it was also kind of interesting. So I wrote a lot of stuff at the time. And then, but I didn't look at it for like five years, and I was hunting around for the next idea to write. And I was thinking, high concept, this and high concept that and then I kept going back to these notes, and finally decided that it was a pretty interesting experience. And I would write about it. And when I did that, I did some readings, some some cast readings, you know, to hear how it played on its feet and stuff. And the difference between that and the earlier scripts I had written was night and day. It was people loved it, they cried at the end, and they all wanted to be in it. And it's a good sign this Yeah, well, this was where I learned the another key entertainment rule, which is if you find that you're pushing the boulder uphill all the time, it's probably time to find a new Boulder. You know, the difference between a script that people like well enough, and a script that inspires them to actually do things is night and day and it became so easy to get people involved. So I took that script and I did some readings and I raised a little bit of money and I found a casting director who also loved the script and was able to pay her some of the little bit of money I'd collected which was nowhere near her rate but it was enough to let her know I was serious and then she actually you know Sally Field was the second two time Oscar winner who was attached to this movie in the course of getting it together and you know, and we were able to get a cast because she believed in what we were doing and we had some money and then as we started assembling cast we assembled more money until finally we had enough to actually make the movie and we cast and movie more or less the same time and went ahead on

Alex Ferrari 32:51
it. That's awesome. But how did how would you direct the legendary actors like Sally Field?

Steve Stockman 32:59
How do you I think you try to stay out of her way. I'm not sure I did. Like it wasn't the most fun experience I've ever had. I really owe a lot to Sally because she she came into the movie and she really stuck with it and she did everything she said she was gonna do and she gave a great performance but there were times where I could feel my inexperience was maybe

Alex Ferrari 33:26
gravitating towards grading on her yeah grading otter I get a

Steve Stockman 33:29
little bit so I learned a lot about that. And so but I think that this is part of the key to you know, with great actors or great grips or great other people, you provide them with support, let them help your vision and stay out of the way you know so so one of the things I learned on two weeks is that some of the actors that I had were better after their third take and some of the actors I had only had three takes in them and so figuring out when to shoot whose close ups you know became kind of an interesting thing I'd never really considered in commercials you know you don't worry about that in commercials you just tell the actor to stand there and smile and eat the pizza and they do it they fire but if you have a if you have you know an Oscar winning actor or really experienced you know, really great cast, they have a way that they work best and if you can't figure that out, you're doing a disservice to the project so i think i think the that all of two weeks was me learning how to work with a big cast that had different working styles and try to make it all come together.

Alex Ferrari 34:46
Now you've you've actually worked so that was an indie film correct that was wasn't a studio finance film you find that you found financing outside this just after

Steve Stockman 34:54
MGM released theatrically and you can find it in you know for me on Netflix. And Amazon and all that stuff. Okay,

Alex Ferrari 35:02
so then Joe, you've done indie films, but you also are producing hit shows like devils ride and brew dogs. Can you tell us a little bit of the difference between doing indie films and doing you know shows like that?

Steve Stockman 35:20
Yeah, I think that the difference is that you're working with non actors. And yet, for me, and I, by the way, I don't know if I do reality television the right way or not, but it's the only way I know how to do it, because I am a narrative guy. So I do my unscripted television, very narrative style. And so, for example, on blue dogs, which is the story of two Scottish guys who run a brewery called brewdog, who've just opened by the way, they're their newest brewery in Columbus, Ohio. So now they're in the States, but they were in 32 countries at the time that we started working with them. And we did this series for the Esquire network where you can still find it. And these couple of young guys 30 years old, came to the United States to brew craft beers. stant craft beers with the world's best craft breweries. So we would go to went to stone brewing, and we were brewed a beer using the world's hottest chili pepper, and we brewed it in a 1940s Railway car that we turned into a brewery and hooked it up to the Amtrak Pacific surfliner. And we had to brew the beer between the time we went from San Diego to LA and back. Nice. And it's that kind of thing. And that's so so you're working with non actors, in a sense, although James and Martin are terrific hosts and got even better as the series progressed. But you know, they're interacting with real people, and they're in real situations. But a lot of what we did was well planned and thoroughly produced. So even though we weren't writing lines for people, we were setting up situations in which we expected something fun to happen. And it did. And then sometimes we had to change our plans going forward to accommodate what had already happened. And that was fine. So it was kind of a cross between kind of an improvisational version of television. And I'm just shooting a pilot now for, that I can't talk in too much detail about but it's a sitcom about a couple with a new child. And they're famous musicians and the this thing, it's like, not reality, like the Kardashians, it's more like a reality version of Modern Family, where these are people who are naturally funny. And if we put them in situations that are fun, and we can do intelligent, really interesting, kind of classic sitcom style comedy, in an unscripted setting, where again, we're not writing lines, but we are doing a little bit of improvisation. And we are putting them in situations that they really have to do, but we think will be fun to watch. And so again, just going back to the story point, we're bringing this hero beginning middle and end into unscripted television and saying, Okay, let's plan this like a movie. And let's make sure that our story is good from the time we planet, that at the time we finish shooting, it doesn't mean we're not going to switch things around or improvise on the fly or try something different if what we're doing doesn't work. But it means when we go into the field, we're going to have a really good idea of what's going to happen. And it's going to be a really solid story, which we'll trash if we need to, but we're prepped when we go out. And I think that's different than the way a lot of people do it.

Alex Ferrari 39:00
Very cool. Very cool. Now I wanted to ask you something as a filmmaker, and as also as a content creator, what are your feelings of the changing landscape and distribution? The indie flicks the Amazon Video direct the iTunes, the whole streaming thing? And how many different opportunities there are not just for indie filmmakers, but also for show runners things like that, What's your feeling on it? And how, how it's changing the game.

Steve Stockman 39:29
Um, I think we're in a little bit of a bubble right now as my instinct, where there are lots and lots and lots of sources that have raised lots and lots and lots of money. And so it's possible to take your science fiction series to Comic Con, digital channel and to sci fi and to a&e, if you want or two stars or Netflix or any of these other places, and That's great. If you're creating great content, again, going back to the rule of if you make something that people really want, you know, you'll find a place to put it. And so this is awesome, I think it, I think, isn't gonna last forever. I don't want to say it's like a bubble about to burst because that I don't think that's right. But I think that it's definitely going to contract a little bit. As cable networks continued to lose viewers and thus also lose budget, some of those things are gonna get a little harder to do, and some of these digital channels aren't going to work. And so that's going to reduce some outlets going forward. But I think it's super exciting right now to be in a place where if you can find sponsorship, or you can make deals or you can create something awesome, you have an opportunity to put it somewhere where people will see it and where it will be, you know, something you can be proud of. and point to that, you know, has way more outlets than there used to be?

Alex Ferrari 41:07
Yeah, absolutely. And things like Netflix and specifically amazon video direct, where now you can literally just upload your own movie or TV show or series and start making money right away. It might not be massive amounts of money. But it's all about marketing as well. How many eyeballs Can you push to set format to help you. But it's pretty exciting, though. It's pretty, pretty exciting. Now, this is my Oprah section of the of the show. So I'm going to ask you something, am I gonna cry, you might cry, I need to know what kind of tree you are. So what are the lessons that took you the longest to learn whether in life or in the film industry?

Steve Stockman 41:47
Oh, man. Well, surprisingly, it's a lesson I've been quoting for some time, and I think it's in how to shoot video. That doesn't suck as well. But I quote it all the time. And it's a lesson from the great American philosopher health, as you may recall, was a space alien puppet, who was popular in television in the late 80s, early 90s. Yes. And Alf said, The secret to life is to figure out what you don't do well, and then don't do it.

Alex Ferrari 42:25
That is, that is going to be the quote, I start off this episode with By the way, it's just such That's awesome.

Steve Stockman 42:31
It's my all time favorite quotes. And I think I keep repeating it, because I'm slow at learning it. So So figure

Alex Ferrari 42:41
out me figure out what you don't do well, and don't do

Steve Stockman 42:45
it. Exactly. Such a great quote. So So I think, you know, I like to think I'm good at everything. And I think a lot of people do and and in truth I'm not, you know, I'm not the all time best business manager on the planet, although I can, I can do a lot of that stuff. So I have finally gotten to a point where I'm going, you know, if I really want to grow what I'm doing, I'm going to need to bring in some business management help and have a chief operating officer and all that kind of stuff. And so I'm finally at that point where I'm going Oh, so this is how you actually grow strategically and think about it. But for a long time, you know, I've just sort of kept the company small enough that I did everything. And I realized I'd really rather be making new shows than negotiating contracts with lawyers, which is how I spend half my day. So

Alex Ferrari 43:35
yeah, that's something I've learned as well. I'm starting to learn now with just with indie film, hustle, like at certain point, like you've got to start letting go of the reins and start concentrating and doing what you want to do and hire good people who can fill you know those areas for you. And just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.

Steve Stockman 43:55
Yes. And I've actually I'm very good at that in terms of sets and production and all that. And I've always been less good at it in terms of running my business. So that's the biggest lesson for me. I think that's been hardest for me to learn.

Alex Ferrari 44:09
Now what are your three favorite films of all time? I think I know one of them.

Steve Stockman 44:15
Yes, the Godfather. You know, it's funny, I was just wondering if I should look no in the back of how to shoot video that doesn't suck. There is a complete list of all the films I think are the most influential and important for you to see. Dating back from 19 you know, whatever, go six to nearly the present day because the book was published a couple years ago. Godfather is definitely top of the list. And I and after that there's about 10 that are equally wonderful in my mind. So for example, Mary Poppins may be my favorite. My all time favorite filmed music. A call. Although you can make a case for singing in the rain as well,

Alex Ferrari 45:04
I would throw grease in there as well. But that's just me.

Steve Stockman 45:07
That is just you because I certainly would not think it's on my list at all. Maybe it depends on how old you were when you saw it.

Alex Ferrari 45:19
That's for me has nothing to do with it.

Steve Stockman 45:23
And other favorite films, I would say, God that's a tough one because there are so many you know, it's everything from I'm I'm kind of omnivorous so I like all kinds of films. So so on my list is everything from from Jackie Chan's Drunken Master genius, brilliant. To the matrix to Casablanca, you know, to an old sci fi movie called The hidden which is one of my favorite.

Alex Ferrari 46:05
Anything in the 80s I'm, I worked in a video store in the 80s. So I remember video boxes very well in my head. And that was one of those movies I can hit. And I know I've seen that box in my head. So what

Steve Stockman 46:15
outspent the opening scene is just watch the opening scene and then you can turn it off. It's fantastic. It's about a it's about a space alien that comes to her Earth and it's kind of a parasite and it invades people's bodies and then does whatever it wants and after it kills them It leaves to the next body.

Alex Ferrari 46:33
Is there anybody in it or is it just a

Steve Stockman 46:35
Laughlin? Is the FBI agent who's tracking this space alien and it and he turns out to be a different kind of space alien himself. And Michael Nori is in it. It's a it's a classic late 80s cast

Alex Ferrari 46:51
Yes. I just looked it up and yes, I do remember the amazing cover for that with the word hidden. cracked and middle awstats Yes, we had that we rented that one very well.

Steve Stockman 47:03
So you know heavy films. I like stuff like once upon a time in the West once upon a time in America. I love everything by Preston Sturges. I love most of the early Brian De Palma stuff I love most of the early David Lynch stuff. Hitchcock obviously, you know, I've seen all of that and enjoyed it. So

Alex Ferrari 47:28
do you like some of the contemporary guys like Nolan or Fincher?

Steve Stockman 47:32
Yeah, like Christopher Nolan a lot. I think David Fincher is more my style and a lot of ways but you know, memento and the Batman series were awesome. And the other two or three what's the one with prestigious prestigious the US is pretty interesting, although ultimately not perfect as a movie. And, and the and the one where the buildings band and Leonardo DiCaprio is essentially Yeah, inception. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. Those are all right. They're not as thoroughly thought out as I'd like. But, you know, there's some amazing stuff in them. And he's an amazing director. Yeah, I mean, on the on the more modern side, I like drive

Alex Ferrari 48:19
on and Nicholas is, he's drive was amazing. It was such a unique voice.

Steve Stockman 48:26
And lately Lately, I've been seeing some fairly disappointing movies, I go to the movies a lot, and not a lot sticks. I think. I think I've gotten crankier about this as I get older.

Alex Ferrari 48:41
I think

Steve Stockman 48:45
it's kind of like, I don't care what kind of food it is, but it better be the best of its kind, you know, perfect. Food for my French doesn't matter to me, as long as it's really good. And if it's not really good, I don't really want to be in the restaurant anymore. Whereas a while back, maybe I would have sat there and eaten the dinner and and enjoyed it. You know, but now I've become a professional critic. So,

Alex Ferrari 49:11
so So was there ever a point in your life that you watched Bloodsport, and said that movie is amazing?

Steve Stockman 49:18
I don't think I've watched that movie. Oh,

Alex Ferrari 49:21
okay, you gotta go now when you're done with this interview and watch great sport, and I'm not sure if it's going to hold as well as it did when I saw it in the 80s. But it is wonderful 80s camp and, and the beginning of all those kind of Bloodsport movies, those fighting movies and, you know, pit pit fighting and all that stuff. It was I had Forrest Whitaker in it. Right? I mean, it has of course john Claude Van Damme doing his in the height of his career. The height of his john Claude Van Damme is But anyway, there's movies like you were saying like as you get older, you kind of put up with less and get crankier. Like that's kind of where I'm at as well like In the 80s, you know, when I was when I was younger, you know, Steven Seagal and john Claude Van Damme were the greatest actors of all time. But right, as you get older, you just like, Huh, not the things change, perspective change, and that's what art does to what good art does, you should change as it should change as you get older. Yes, without question, so I should so where, um, where can people find you online? Like you personally,

Steve Stockman 50:27
I, I am. My website is Steve stockman.com. Okay. And there's a lot of stuff that kind of builds on the book and examples from the book and all that other kind of stuff is right there. And I'm on Twitter at steve stockman. And I don't know how to keep you busy for a while there's a lot of stuff on the website. So look around, including if people want to ask questions about movies or about how to make things or if they want to say hey, here's a video I did. What do you think? Or I was having this particular problem on the set. You know, you can you can pop me a question, and I use those to spur blog posts. So I will answer your questions online.

Alex Ferrari 51:19
Very cool, man. Steve, thank you so much for doing on the show. Man. I hope you had a good time.

Steve Stockman 51:23
Thanks for having me. I did thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.

Alex Ferrari 51:27
It was a great guest man had a ball talking to them. And now we hopefully know how not to shoot video that sucks. So hope you guys got something out of that. And also, Steve created this great little trailer for his book and gives you a bunch of tips on how to make video how to shoot video that doesn't suck. So I'll include that in the show notes at indie film hustle.com forward slash 115. And as always, please head over to filmmaking podcast COMM And leave us a good review of the show. It really helps us out a lot in the rankings and getting the word out on indie film, hustle. And guys, I hope you're enjoying all this new content that I'm creating for indie film, hustle. So we're trying to do an article a day, five days a week. So either a podcast slash article or an article in general, we've been doing some we've been getting some really great ones, especially one that we just posted a little bit ago is where you can go download all of the new contending script screenplays, Oscar containing scripts for 2017. And definitely check that out guys. Just go to indie film, hustle, calm, Ford slash 2017 screenplays, and I've added in a bunch of new screenplay since then you have all of Stanley Kubrick's screenplays are there as well as the Oscar winning and Oscar nominees script from 1999 to 2006. A bunch of the best ofs so like the green miles there and a bunch of great screenplays are there as well. So it's a great resource guys, and I would download them as fast as possible for educational purpose of course, but the studios will take them down as as we get closer to the Oscars, or right after the Oscars. So definitely go in there and download and enjoy and read and learn guys so as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you soon.

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IFH 114: The Six Stages of Character Development with Michael Hauge

March 11, 2022November 9, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

This week we have a returning guest, screenwriting guru Michael Hauge. In this episode, he discussed The Six Stages of Character Development. A very eye-opening episode.

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Alex Ferrari 2:00
So today guys, I've got a special treat for you. We're going to discuss what it takes to get really good characters and I've got a friend of the show Michael Hauge, he is going to be discussing the six stages of character development. And a lot of people are confused about characters, and how to develop each character making really amazing characters like a Walter White from breaking bad. Or Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, or whatever any any great character you can think of in history. They all started with some development. And of course actors bring a lot of panache to the character. But it all starts with what's on the page. So he's going to go over those six stages for you. And this is part of this is a kind of a sneak preview of the course that Michael and I released called screenwriting and story blueprint, the heroes two journeys, which also includes another mega star in the screenwriting world, Chris volger, the writer of a writer's journey, based on Joseph Campbell's work, and the course is pretty pretty amazing. If you guys want to get about 25% off, head over to indie film hustle.com forward slash story blueprint, that's indie film hustle.com Ford slash story blueprint and it'll take you right there, you'll have 25% off the the course and it's awesome. It's a really good course about three hours on really understanding character, story, structure and everything. And it goes from two different perspectives Michael Hague's perspective, and Chris Volkers perspective, and how they meet in the middle and have different ideas about story, and it's really wonderful to watch. And they were really awesome. And as you know, both of them have been guests on the show, and I will leave links to their podcast episodes, to show notes at indiefilmhustle.com/114. So without any further ado, enjoy Michael Hauge.

Michael Hauge 4:27
And that brings us back to this six stage structure. Now I used to think that character arc just occurred in its own sweet time, wherever it was. And I think if you read my book, I sort of refer to it that way. I say there's a structure to the plot, but not to the character arc and I was wrong. I think there's a very clear structure to the arc for the character. Because each of the six stages I gave you before correspond to a stage of the hero's inner journey.

Even though through the movie, there is a constant tug of war between identity and essence, there is also an That's why they call it an arc. It's a gradual transition or transformation. So in the setup, remember that first 10% this is where your hero exists completely and totally within her identity. Shrek is just an ogre, who keeps people away. Rows is just a woman who exists in all of this protective wealth. Mitch mcdeere is just a guy who is going after money. He says, Daddy, did you ever believe that I'd be able to make this kind of money. And she says sure, because of course, she sees his so we're going to get back to her in a second, then an opportunity at 10% is presented to the hero. And for the next 15% of the film, in that new situation, not only are they getting used to the new situation, your hero is going to get a glimpse, a peek at what life would be like living in his essence. So not only does rose start getting acclimated to the Titanic, starts to get a sense of what the other thing might be cuz she sees jack making these passionate drawings. And she looks in any catches are looking and she looks away. And she has this beautiful art that nobody else understands. But she it touches her. And in Shrek, it's it's there's this very pointed moment. Which also is, to me a very subtle form of it, it'd be interesting to see if Chris agrees, because I haven't talked to him about this. But it seems like there's a very subtle but obvious sense in which trek is refusing the call. Because he steps out. And he says, All I want is privacy living in his identity. And then what's the opportunity, all these fairy tale creatures, and he says, Oh, no. And he says, I want you, I want to get you off my land are going to do whatever it takes to get you back. And he thinks they're going to just run away. And instead they all applaud. And somebody comes up and drapes a robot over him, there must be some name for a royal robe. It's like he's been crowned you're our hero. And he, he like shakes his head and immediately shrugs it off. He's getting a glimpse of what it would be like to be accepted. But he wants nothing to do with it. He just wants to be in his identity. But he's still getting a picture of it. Then what happens? stage three goes into in, or that leads him into the new situation. Same thing happens when he goes to Lord for quad. It's preceded by him fighting off the soldiers who come after him. And it's like a mock wrestling match like a WWE f match. And when it's done, there's this scene just for a joke where he's going like this, he says thank you, thank you. I'll be here till Thursday. And it's just sort of a but it's also look at this. Now he's starting to accept the possibility of being a hero, getting more of a glimpse. And then of course, at the one quarter mark, Lord farquaad says, okay, you want your land back, here's your goal, rescue the princess, bring her back to me. That's the outer motivation. That's the visible goal. And it happens precisely at the 25%. So now what happens for the next stage, the hero is straddling the fence or straddling something, one foot into essence, one foot back, not fully committed. He's still talking about onions and layers, and he just wants to go in and get the princess take her back and be done with it. But he is starting to pursue something that is going to make him more of a leader more popular, more accepted. That's good. And he's starting to get closer to donkey, which takes risk because he's never really had a friend before. And then at the midpoint, he gets the princess they come down the hill precisely at the midpoint, what happens he takes off his helmet and tries there's that wonderful moment when he smiles that sort of toothless smile, trying to look his best. Okay, and now he realizes Wait a minute, I'm starting to fall for it. And that's the point of no return. Especially because the scene that follows it this also runs parallel for the princess but the princess has been talking in this artificial language. Now aren't my prince and Duff thou want to save me and you thou must carry me and give me a kiss and all this malarkey. And that's her living in her identity.

She is the opening shot of the princess is her in a tower a perfect image. Have identity, because towers are both protective. And their prisons. Exactly the same opening in Shakespeare in Love opens in a castle. So she's perfectly protected. She's, you know, there and safe and apparently well fed and stuff, but she can't leave. She's stuck. And of course her identity is she is defined by others because she's defined by fairytales. She knows all the rules, you know, you've got to carry me away, and then you got to give me a kiss. And he says, You've had a lot of time to think about this, haven't you? Because he's saying, this is your identity, but he sees her as something more. And then later when they have the Robin Hood encounter, and she shows that Charlie's Angels parody kick, he starts to respect her as something more than this hothouse flower that he's rescuing. And they start to fall in love. So that's the point of no return, he starts pursuing her until he overhears her. He gets too frightened when he hears her talking about ogres as too ugly, and you can't have a relationship with an ogre. He doesn't know she's talking about herself, because she's also retreating at that point to her identity. But that's when major setback typical for a romantic comedy, which is what this is, the two people will separate at that point. In Sleepless in Seattle, right at the three quarter mark, Annie, the Meg Ryan character declares, I'm back I'm going back to Walter Sleepless in Seattle is history. And of course, then the audience thinks that all is lost. Because what's happened is on the inner level, once the character passes the point of no return, they fully commit to living in their essence, trek is going to open up and risk doing that. And now the outside world starts coming in the conflict in the first half of Act Two, and someone was asking about that, that first half the conflict comes from obstacles inherent in the goal, the moat and the dragon and all the things we knew he was going to encounter. But now what happens is the other worlds coming in, he doesn't think she can love him. Lord farquaad comes in and takes her away. And so the hero retreats, the hero gets finally so frightened of risking this new thing that they make one last try retreating to their identity. And that really is the major setback at the end of Act Two. So they run away. And they go back, it's when she remember, she jumps on the lifeboat. Go, it's the the lifeboat for the rich. She's gonna make one last stab at being rescued in Titanic by her identity. And then she says what all heroes must then say, in stage five. And that is, wait a minute. This sucks. This may have worked for me at the beginning. But I've had a glimpse, I've had a taste of who I truly am. This doesn't work for me anymore. I can't do this, I have to go after who I truly am. I have to be myself. And I certainly have to find my destiny, which in a love story is the other person. And so that's the final push. It's saying I don't care what it takes, I will risk death. Because I already I already experienced it. My identity is already dead. I can I can do this. And they take every last ounce of courage they have until they reach the climax. And the climax is the moment not only of achieving that visible goal, it's the moment of fully realizing the character's essence. And that takes us into the aftermath. The aftermath is the part of the story where we say, Okay,

this is now the new life, the hero is going to live having fully realized who they truly are. And so at the end of Shrek, we see him leaving the swamp that was his protection and leaving behind the fairytale creatures. Because the fairy tale creatures were her identity. This is a this is really a movie about getting rid of the fairy tale definition of the way you should be or the way life is and defining themselves. So they ride off into the sunset. And they're fully living their essence or when he says at the end of the firm. Okay, we're we're going back to Boston. It was interesting when Chris was talking about the elixir because sometimes it's very subtle, but I think the elixir in that movie is the law. He's saying we're going right back where we started, which is I mean, there's a circular pattern if you ever saw one. But now he's going back to the law because he says when he's talking to Ed Harris, in that movie, the FBI guy, and he says, here's the tape of our conversation where you tried to bribe me really forced me to do this. He says, You know, I could you I could get a lot for this or something like that. He says, Why are you giving it back? Just because it's against the law. And then he says, You know what you did. He says, You made me remember the lies that four years of law school didn't do that. But you made me remember the law, meaning you put me in touch with who I truly am, which is someone who stands up for what's right. And then when Abby comes back, there's that wonderful line, where he says, Did I lose you? And she says, How could you lose me, I have loved you, since the moment I knew you. And before I loved you, I loved the promise of you. And you have now fulfilled that promise. That's what brings two people together, she says, I see, I have always known who you truly are, you just had to step up into it. And you've done that. So now you cannot lose me. Because that's who I was always in love with. Not the guy who was scared of the trailer park, who had forgotten the law, the guy who lived his essence. And so the elixir that they take back is he has found his ideals. And now he's going to go back and be a lawyer that stands up for what's right, and go serve the law, our society, whatever, in a different way at the end of the story. And one last thing before I open it for questions, which you may or may not want to hear, but as I said, at the top, this is very much about real life. Everyone in this room has a visible goal might be slightly different. But you either want to finish a script. Or you want to get an agent, where you want to finish your novel or you want to get it published, you want to get your movie produced, you want to finish your film, or you have some brass ring you're after. Because you long at a deeper level to be a part of making movies. And you are pursuing that goal, because it's part of your learning. That's the good news. But here's what I got to tell you. We all pay lip service to what we long for. There's a part of all of us that we frequently we always have to go back and revisit that you can say, Yeah, I want to make it in Hollywood. But what you also have to ask is how would you fill in the blank, I'll do whatever it takes to sell my script. Just don't ask me to blank. I did this as an exercise in a classroom in Switzer with one of my students. And I said, Would you be willing to go through this process? So she got up in front of the room? And she said, The thing is, I can't figure out why I can't sell my script. She says I've written a number of scripts. And I said, Well, have you read books on screenwriting? Yeah, I've read, you know, books I've taken classes will do have a regular regimen. Now I write every day. And I said, God, it sounds like you're doing everything you can do. And she said, Oh, yeah, because when I grew up, I was taught, if you want something done, you do it yourself. So I turned into the sort of shrink slash asshole that I sometimes am prone to be. And I say, let me ask because she was making an identity statement. Oh, this is who I am. This is how I was raised. And so I said, let me ask you some, when was the last time you phoned somebody and ask them to help you sell your script? And you could practically see or melt? It was like the Wicked Witch of the West? No, no, no. Because when you touch somebody whose identity it is, you've like, slapped him upside the head.

And she said, because that's what her wound was, she was raised to believe you can't ask for help. And I said, let me ask you something. And I said, why not? And she just got very frightened at the prospect. But I said, let me ask you some Why do you want to be a screenwriter? She said, Oh, because I love it. I just love movies. And I love taking that story and turn into that. And I said, If I could promise you, you would have that experience every day of your life. Would you be willing to risk calling people and asking for help? And she said, Sure. Because that's the solution. You've got to get in touch with what your inner conflict, you've got to get in touch with your identity. But the answer is find your lung and live in that space risk going into that space, because that's what heroes do. They want so badly to get that the finally it's worth the danger and worth the risk of of die of letting who they thought they were die and resurrecting something much more.

Alex Ferrari 19:25
So I hope you got a lot out of that. That little snippet of the course by Michael Hauge and Chris volger. I mean, I've been a big fan of Michael and Chris's, since I was in college actually. And I was I jumped to the chance of working with them on this project and really excited to share this information with you but it's a lot of great valuable stuff that you just heard. And the course is also a lot of cool stuff as well. So again, if you want to get access to the course head over to indie film hustle.com forward slash, story blueprint. And guys, that's it for this Episode man I really hope you got something out of that one I got a lot of cool stuff coming up in the coming weeks as you've noticed on the on the blog I've been posting a ton of content and I'm going to be hopefully doing one a day. five five pieces of content a week is my new goal. So to podcast possibly three and as well as cool articles and since this is a screenwriting episode I want to let you guys know if you haven't already known, I created a post that has all of the 2017 oskin contending screenplays available for download. I've got screenplays by MAC Max Landis, Victor Frankenstein, Zootopia, Secret Life of Pets, the Coen Brothers Hail Caesar, the amazing film Captain fantastic Bridget Jones baby, and a ton of other amazing screenplays that you can download. And it is for a limited time the studio's put these up, only for a while. So up until basically the Oscars and after that they get pulled down most of them will get pulled down. So if I were you I would go there and you can legally download them for educational purposes only. At indie film hustle.com forward slash 2017 screenplays, that's indie film hustle comm forward slash 2017 screenplays, it is absolutely free. You can download as much as you like. And as a bonus I also added about 70 other screenplays from the best of 2016 2015 2014 and 2013. So we've got American Hustle there. Dallas Buyers Club, kill your darlings Nebraska Hitchcock, beasts of the Southern wild Desa time ton of different Brooklyn Bridge of Spies, The Big Short Beasts of No Nation. Straight out of Compton, a ton of great articles I mean, she's got a ton of great screenplays that you can download and learn from it's an I would always advise you to read as many screenplays as you can see, you can see how other screenwriters craft their stories. So it's a little bit of a bonus a little bit of a fun thing for you guys, but I think it'll be very, very helpful in your screenwriting endeavors. And guys, if you can't please have an filmmaking podcast.com and leave me a good review on iTunes. It really helps to show out a lot and gets the message of what we're doing here at indie film hustle out to the world. So thank you guys. And as always keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive and I'll talk to you soon.

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IFH 113: Post Production Process: Understand It or Die

March 11, 2022November 8, 2016 by Indie Film Hustle

Filmmaking is a long process and is divided into three stages. The first stage is pre-production stage, the second one is production, and the last one is the post-production stage. In this podcast episode, I go into each of the following steps of the post-production process and add a few bonus ones as well.

Pre-Production Stage:

Pre-production in real is not much difficult. This process starts when the producer of the film select the cast and the crew of your film, and you develop your final script. It is a filmmaker who is trying to convince the people that the shooting will start soon. After that announcement, the producer will wait for the cast to agree to do the work and for the financial partners to fill the banks of the producer.

The Production Stage:

After getting your finances, the production process will get started. This production phase will have all kinds of action. You will get started with a tight schedule of nine to eighteen days, working for 14-18 hours in a day. All the activities are carried out at once. The light, camera, action, actors, scripts, costumes, props, schedules and most importantly the temper tantrums due to the long and hectic schedules. Apart from all this, production is somewhat a fun process if you get what you want quickly but if the case is opposite, these days can turn into nightmares for you.

Whether these days are joyful or tiring, the end of the production phase always comes with a party. Everyone in the cast and the whole team will party hard at the end and will go to their homes. Their work is done. In the end, you, the producer is left with all the work. You may wake up after approximately two days because of the continuous hectic routine you followed in the last days.

After that, you will have a whole tape of the film which can be twenty hours long, and then the next stage will be the post-production stage.

The Post-Production Phase:

What is post-production? Post-production is not a difficult process. There will be no hectic schedule of working for 14 -18 hours like the production process which includes a lot of work. The first thing to do after the production process is complete is to call your cinematographer so that he can introduce you to different editors. All you have to do next is to hire some good people and keep an eye on their workday for an hour or so. The production process will be easy for you if you follow it step by step. Here are the 13 steps of post-production process which are to be followed by every producer.

The 13 steps of post-production process are as follows:

Post Production Process: The Selection of Editing Software:

The first step to follow in post-production is to select an editing program. Selecting your editing application can make your workflow run smoothly or cost you months and tons of cash. You can make that decision based on the needs of your creative editor and the original format you shot your film on. You’ll need to find a balance between the two.

Please consult with a Post Production Supervisor at this stage of production. They can save you a ton of time and cash.

Post Production Process: Selection of a Creative Picture Editor:

The selection of an expert editor for your film is the biggest decision. The proper formation of your film depends on the creativity of your film editor. The editor is the one who will develop the Edit Decision List (EDL). He will go through all of the scripts and the scenes of your movie and decide which shots will be used to create a flow of the story correctly. Here comes the big work of the editor’s creativity.

The best way is to hire an appropriate editor for your film before the start of the production phase. The benefit of having your editor in the production process is that he will guide you about the scenes which are required to make a perfect sequence. The editing of the film is about 8-10 weeks long procedure, and it will involve different stages. The first edited draft is called Rough cut, and the final draft is called an Answer point. A good edit has two ends; the first one is when you are satisfied with all the visual images and the second one is when you are happy with the sound effects of the film.

If you want to learn the creative art of being an editor you need to watch the videos below.

Post Production Process: Selection of a Sound Editor:

After the preparation of the edited movie, there is a need to improve the sound quality. For that purpose, you have to hire a sound editor who can make the movie look more attractive with different sound effects.

The sound editor will perform some major tasks like he will cut the dialogue tracks and recreate those sound effects and then make the cue sheet for another step in the post-production process i.e. the mix.

Post Production Process: Automatic Dialogue Replacement:

This step is carried out in a big room with the projectors. The central focus of this ADR is to replace the dialogues in the film which are not adequately recorded. All the actors again deliver These dialogues, and the voice is then synced to the edited version of the movie.

Post Production Process: Work with Foley Artists:

Making the sounds of the dialogue clear is not the end of the audio editing process. You have to go again in the ADR room, and with the help of the hired Foley artists, you will include the additional sounds in the edited version of the movie. These sounds will add the sounds of footsteps and others. The sound people are called Foley artists.

Post Production Process: Music:

The next step for the post-production process is to include the desired music in the film. The best thing is to hire a musician with his studio so that he can create new music for your film. Producers never use the previously used music in a movie as it is against the laws. If you have already bought the rights to use that old music than you can add to your movie.

Producers never prefer the usage of pre-cleared CD music because of its low quality. It is better to use a contemporary type of music in your film because the usage of traditional and public domain music will be hazardous.

Post Production Process: The Mix:

The mix or the re-recording section of the movie will include the setting of the sounds in the whole movie in a row where they fit. After all of the above steps, you will have a series of music that will include the songs, the background sounds, etc. All you have to do is manage these sounds effectively in the whole film.

Post Production Process: Music and Effects (M&E):

This is a part of the film production that you have to sell the rights of your movie to the foreign nation. There is a requirement of the international buyers that they need the soundtrack which is free from the English dialogues so that they can dub the dialogues in the desired manner. So, it is better to get the only music and effect version of your film.

Post Production Process: Creating Your Opening and End Credits

After the formatting and the finalization of the sound effects and track, you have to finalize your titles for the movie. The producer has to get the 6 – 8 opening cards of the title and finally the Rear title crawl. These title files are then added to the final tracks.

Post Production Process: Digital Cinema Package:

For the final print of your film to be delivered to the cinemas, you need your digital cinema package or DCP. It will contain the final edited film in a hard drive. This hard drive will be used for the distribution of the movies into the theaters. Click here for more on DCP (Digital Cinema Package).

Post Production Process: A Dialogue Script:

A film without subtitles in a foreign country is of no use. You have to create a dialogue script for the foreign people so that they can create the subtitles accordingly. This dialogue script will contain the codes for each and every pause and the dialogues so that the subtitles can be created by the scene and the actual dialogue.

Post Production Process: Campaign Image for the Film:

Getting an appropriate campaign image for your film is imperative. The picture of the film should depict the storyline of the movie and should include the name and the credits for the films. This image will create a first impression on the distributors and the programmers of the movie.

Post Production Process: Trailer:

The last step in the post-production process is getting a perfect trailer for your film. The trailer should be 90-120 seconds long. It should have the ability to deliver the moods and atmosphere of the movie. The success of the movie will depend on the strength of the trailer. This is all you need to know about the post-production process of filmmaking. If it is followed appropriately, the film will get a good reception.

If you want to learn how to edit a trailer for Hollywood Trailer editors click here!

If you need help with understanding post-production workflow or need to consult a professional post supervisor click here.

Right-click here to download the MP3

Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 2:20
So guys, today's episode is something that's very near and dear to my heart postproduction where I've been making my bones for the last 20 odd years working on God 1000s of different projects over the course of my career and probably over 50 or 60 features easily over 100 150 indie film projects either shorts and or features documentaries and so on. So I've got a lot of experience working in the in the post production field and I wanted to come up with a podcast that kind of talked about the steps of post production because there's a lot of confusion A lot of people don't understand the basic understanding of what post production not workflow but just the steps that are taken in post production and a couple of tips I'm going to throw at you during this this list these 13 steps is going to help you with workflow which is so so massive and there's another episode I did on post production workflow called post production workflow understand it or die which is Episode 14 you can download that one at indie film hustle.com Ford slash zero 14 and that's a really good episode a very very popular episode as well. So let's get into it guys so step one selecting the editing software they're going to be using to edit your movie a lot of people just you know grab whatever they have access to and not think about things going down the line so a lot of people like well have access to an avid or have access to a premiere or I have access to Final Cut seven or Final Cut x or god forbid sony vegas I'm sorry if anyone's anything out there in sony vegas land Stop joking joking but no really stop it's it's hurting yourself and people around you. But anyway. So by making that choice is very, very integral because depending on the format you shooting on so if you've shot on Alexa, you shot on a DSLR you shot on a red and so on. There's different workflows that you're gonna have to understand. So picking that software is going to be very crucial to you and I know a lot of times creative editors, especially older creative editors, or more established creative editors will work with avid and which is great avid is the industry leading piece of software. But sometimes avid does not work really well with anything other than edits going down the line working with red or working with specifically red. I'm in the middle of a project right now we're having issues, reconnecting certain things and you know, just things get wonky. I'm not sure as much of that might be the problem with read or maybe with avid, but I know that premiere is much more table in that world, no final cut is. And I know DaVinci Resolve handles it wonderfully. And I'm a big, big, big fan of editing in DaVinci. As everybody who listens to this podcast, no, I edited didn't I edit. This is Meg, completely 100% individually. But anyway, picking that is very, very important. So understand that you will have to pick something that's going to, that's going to work with your workflow going down the line, whatever that workflow might be. But make sure you're very cautious about what you're editing on, and it's going to be able to achieve what you need. Second is selecting an editor, someone who understands story understand what they're going to be doing. And then that will also determine what sort of what software you're gonna be using. Because the editor generally speaks, generally speaking, uses the software that they're most comfortable with. But choosing that editor is such an important person, it's such an important job in the post production process. Because you can find editors that are creative editors only who just going to be doing the creative, which is generally speaking what most people do. Occasionally, you will find a creative editor who happens to understand the technical aspects of things which are really, really beneficial if you can find someone like that. But as again, generally speaking, you're going to mostly find just creative editors, who are going to be able to do creatively what you need to have happen with your movie. So picking that person is very, very, very important. Now the next part of the post production process would be selecting a sound editor, someone who's going to be able to once as much even a sound editor as a sound house, someone, either a house of post production company, an audio post production company, or a person who's going to be able to do all the aspects of what is needed in audio post production. Now I've worked with guys who do everything in their house, and they're a one man band, and they can literally do everything I've found I found that guys that do everything like that in their house, they're really not capable of giving you everything that you're you need unless they have a Foley stage and a full ADR suite and all this kind of stuff. Is it possible, yes. But generally speaking, I would go with a post production house of some sort. And there's many out there who will work on a low budget world that I know of the guys work over at monkey land audio here in Burbank. They definitely work with low budgets and work with independent filmmakers and are indie friendly. Again, I'm not, I'm not doing this as a marketing campaign for them. But they're just there's many other ones in LA, that do that as well. But, but definitely, finding a sound editor someone or sound post production house is going to be able to get you all the sound elements that you're going to need and deliverables, you're gonna need to make your movie move forward. The next step is ADR. So I'm gonna explain to you what ADR is automatic dialogue replacement, which basically means that if you record something on the day on location, and there happens to be a plane flying by that that's not going to be usable in the final mix of your movie. So you're going to need someone to go in, you're going to need the actors to come into into an ADR session, which they'll put up the picture up on a screen. And then at that point, the actor will mouth the same lines that he or she had on the day, and replace that audio cleanly. Now, I'm not a huge fan of ADR, I actually hate ADR because I feel that it never matches exactly the way the energy was of the day, or the vibrance of the performance of the day. So I really like on mag, we I think had two lines of ADR and it was mostly grunts, and like, kind of stuff. It was not like full blown dialogue. So I kind of ran with it. And of course, a movie like mag made sense to do something like that, because it was very kind of raw and naturalistic, but it is something that you will have to do I have had to do ADR and other other movies have on other projects of mine. So definitely keep that in mind that you will need to do that. Another thing you're going to need to is finding a place that does Foley Foley is basically somebody going out and making all the sound for every little movement that happens in the movie. So obviously, when you're recording someone running down the street, and there are two plsa, two people walking down the street and they're talking Well, your focus on the day is to record the dialogue that the people the actors talking, you're not focused on recording the footsteps, or the wind blowing, or the tree that they kind of ran the bush they ran into or anything like that that's what Foley's for, and you have to find a studio that has a full Foley stage. In that Foley stage they have. They're so awesome. These places it's like basically a junkyard of a million different sounds, things that can make sound. They have floors, where if you lift up 111 part of the floor you got sand, gravel, water, wet, dry, it's for sand. It's awesome. It's really, really awesome. But you need A studio that can handle that that's why I'm saying a lot of times these one man bands can't do that now could you replace those sounds instead of Foley with canned sound effects like Can people walking when I say can means that there's someone else's recorded generic footstep somewhere and then the the sound mixer sound designer can actually just replace your footsteps with those canned footsteps yes of course you can but it's never 100% sometimes it works wonderfully and again I'll use Meg as an example. We use a lot of sound effects in mags that were canned because they're perfectly fine You don't need to do a brand new Foley session for those but there were other things that were very specific like you know, when Meg is getting up out of bed and her she her sheets are kind of rubbing up against each other that kind of give give a little bit of a sound it's very difficult to find that in a sound design scenario in a in a canned in scenario you're gonna have to find you know, kind of foley artist to kind of match that exactly for it to sound right. So it's definitely something you have to keep an eye on but that is something else you will need and if for deliverables, you will need a full m&e track. This is a little bonus sidetrack but for deliverables, but an m&e track means music and effects. So when you try to sell this movie or your movie overseas, you will have only music and effects track and then they can replace their dialogue with foreign actors replacing the dialogue of your actors. But without that m&e track, they can't do that. So then you will not be able to sell your movie to other territories. So having a full fully laid out m&e track and if you go even fully more that you can actually spread that set, separate the music, and the effects. And then every single sound effect has to be created in a Foley session and or sound design session. And that's much, much more expensive and much more for higher end movies. But that's something else that you'd have to keep an eye on for your project. So speaking of music, that is our next step is music. Finding a composer to be able to bring music to life in your movie. Now it could be with a pre pre recorded music, existing music, or you hire an actual composer to compose original music for your movie, something that you will definitely need in about 99.9% of all movies will have some sort of music in it. So definitely hiring some hiring music composer is extremely important. Now my experience is working with music and doing all the movies I've done is generally speaking, you're always waiting for music at the end of the you know, the edits done, the colors done, the the mix is ready to sound houses waiting for music to do the final mix. So just stay on top of your composer to make sure those deadlines are hit when working with a composer and again, I'm being very general here guys, not all composers take time. But a lot of times you're also rushing the composer to create music based on timelines too, and they're doing the best job they can. But hiring that composer will bring life to your movie or putting in a pre recorded music or, or needle drop music as they say, which is stock music that you can easily get the rights to, you could do that as well. The next step is the mix. Now the mix is extremely important when mixing the audio, all the audio elements together. So a lot of times I've had this happen, the the sound, the sound guys have created sound effects for certain, let's say, you know, moments that need to be like accented. So, you know, I'll use the example of you know, a horror movie when someone you know, goes in and slices somebody like, you know, the axe murderer is coming in to slice something, the sound effect might be really big to just like really scare the hell out of the audience. Well, the composer might have had the same thought and created a big hit of music at that same moment. Well those two sounds are going to fight each other. So then that's where we have to kind of work around like okay, what do we want in the mix. And that's why it's so important. The mix is so so important because certain things you want to bring down lower certain things you want to bring up higher, depending on what kind of emotional reaction you're trying to get from the audience. Hitchcock was the master of this, he literally played his audience like a fiddle because he was able to just bring things in and out and he was able to do that with images as well. But as far as the mix is concerned, he would just pop things up just right at the right moment and bring it back down and that is why the mix is such an important part of it. So being in the room in a properly constructed room where you can hear a five one mix five one is a surround sound mix now they have seven one they have Atmos there's multiple different kinds of mixes that you can create and I was the next the next step is something I've already kind of spoken about which is music and effects, creating that m&e track very, very important going forward because you will not be able to sell your movie international Unless you have a full m&e track laid out, another step that you're going to be dealing with is titles, the the basic titles of the beginning basic critics at the end, rolling credits and so on. I have been involved with so many movies that have yet to once not one time and 70 odd movies that I've finished that the end credits or any of the credits were done in the first pass, they're always adding something, something's always misspelled, someone's changing their credit, like, Oh, I need to have this guy up above this other guy or this girl above this other girl, because of ego or because of contractual issues, and so on and so forth. But you will need to create these titles. So whoever is going to be doing your online, being your online editor, you will have to find, see if he'll be able to create those he or she will be able to create those opening credits, which either could do basic opening credit. Or you can do like, you know, seven style David Fincher seven style credits, which are much more elaborate, and a production in themselves. And then basic rolling credits. So you that's a conversation you have to have with your online editor. Now, as opposed to a creative editor, and I'll talk about this really briefly. Creative editors, they're literally just to be created, the online editor is the person who's going to put every thing together, that's going to put in the final edit, that's going to put in the color graded images, that's going to put the final mix, put in your titles, and get everything ready for your deliverables online editor is extremely, extremely important. And sometimes very overlooked by producers that like oh, my editor could just put it all together. And I cannot tell you how many times I've had movies come into my, into my office, that that just happened, Oh, I thought my editor was gonna be able to do it. And the editor had no idea creative editor had no idea technically what needed to be done, or they're moving on to another project. And they're being creative, and they're not worried about deliverables and titles and any of that crap. So very, very specific, you got to find a good online editor. And on another side note, guys, please, for God's sakes, talk to a post production supervisor. I mean, seriously, it's so upsetting. You could either talk to a post production supervisor, if you have the money, hire a post production supervisor, if not consult with one. So they can talk to you about workflow and making sure things are done right. If not, you might get stuck and lost in the pit that is post production. Unless you understand the roadmap that you need to take to get out of the forest. Sometimes I've seen people wander in that forest for months, if not years, trying to get their movies finished. But just a little conversation, a little consulting with a post production supervisor could save you 1000s upon 1000s and months upon months of time, so please keep that in mind. Another part of the the process is obviously color grading. So without a colorist color grading your movie, it's going to look like crap. And if you want to create high production value in your movie, you've got to get a color graded even if you want a simple basic color. Like I don't really need the color graded, I'm just going to do it myself in my avid or my should do it myself in Premiere Final Cut does something basic, I don't need anything really crazy. I don't want this to look like a Michael Bay movie. Well, even the basic stuff is hard to do. And you have to make sure everything evens out, seeing the scene and thematically everything works the same way. You know colors is very well needed. And if you don't use a colorist nowadays, you're not going to sell your movie, it's very difficult to do so without having some basic color. And I'm not talking about crazy stuff, I'm just talking about just getting everything built look even and nice and clean. Or you can create very, very cool looks as well. So next on the list is the DCP the digital cinema package as part of your deliverables. So now you've created your movie, your movie is edited, it's colored, has a final mix to it has your titles to it. Everything's ready to go now you create a DCP. Now a lot of people say you got to create a DCP right away. I disagree. This EP is basically a digital cinema package is only for theatrical exhibition. So if you're going to go to a big festival, then you might need a DCP depending if it's like a Sundance or trackback or any that big festival, they only exclusively will project in the DCP format. So you have to create one eventually, but don't spend the money until you need it. All right, please do not spend the money until you need it. Another part of the deliverables things a lot of people don't really pay a lot of attention to is a dialogue script. So a dialogue script is basically a script that just lays out all the dialogue of your movie. So that way you can send that dialogue script in. So people in foreign countries can create a subtitles or things like that, that they might need to sell your movie. So you need to create a dialogue script as well. Now you also another step guys a lot of people forget about is the campaign image of for your film. Now campaign image is basically a still and you're going to need multiple stills a lot of distributors are going to ask for 6070 stills. And this is something that a lot of people forget I even forgot about it in mag, I don't have a tremendous amount of behind the scenes stills. And when I say stills, I'm not talking about those cool behind the scenes stills of you and, and the camera and the crew shooting the scene. Those are great. And those are needed as well. I'm talking about the promo stills the campaign image, meaning that when a camera man is literally or some photographer standing right next to the camera man, taking an image of shot of the scene as is being recorded. And those are the scenes that they go out and help promote your movie, something you have to have, if you expect to sell to a distributor, or get those out there and it's helpful regardless. Now you'll see I know a lot of people like well I'm shooting in five or 6k, I could just pull it off the read. Or I could just pull it off the raw image of my you easily could do that as well, especially if you start shooting at the higher resolutions. That's a lot easier to do nowadays. But for the rest of us are not shooting at that super, super high resolution, it's helpful to have something more traditional by just shooting it with a high end iPhone, or shooting it with a professional or having a professional photographer shooting stills for you on set. And the second to last thing is so important. I can't even express to you how important this is. The trailer. The trailer is so so so important to your post production process to the process of selling your movie. Have I mentioned how important the trailer is. The reason why I laugh is because a lot of people forget about the trailer, they like oh, I'm just going to kind of just throw something together, you have to understand that the trailer is going to be seen by more people. At least 50 100 times more people will watch that trailer than will watch your movie. And it is going to be that is the biggest calling card for your movie is not the poster man anything is the trailer and today's social media world that everything is video video video, that trailer, you know I released Meg and within the first couple days we we got word downloaded almost 20,000 times or a little bit over 20,000 times throughout all of our platforms, which is pretty amazing for such a small little movie with you know, no major backing or major studio bind it. So it's just a small little film. And it's like oh, that's really really cool that was able to do that. But that trailers being seen and gain the interest. So keep it very take it very seriously about shooting or about editing a trailer, hire professional editor, trailer, trailer trailer editor, who understands how to sell movies, if you have the money, hire a trailer producer, and have them actually write a script for the trailer. Super, super, super important guys. And then the very last thing that's not on the list, but I thought I throw it in there is the website. Now I know this is not part of your post production process. But it is the process of selling your movie. So at the end of it, if you don't have a website, a real website for your movie, you're screwed. You need a website you need for everything to everybody to come to a website to help sell your product, to sell your movie to tell people where screenings are to show your trailer to show behind the scenes footage to connect to your Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Pinterest and all the other platforms as well you need a hub. So creating a very cool website is very, very imperative, especially in today's world. Now you can go to many different places to create a website, you can create your own website by using different plugins on WordPress, multiple things like that, I have a whole course or I have a whole course but I have a whole article written about how to create a kick ass website. And I will leave that in the in the link in the show notes. Which of course the show notes will be at indie film, hustle, calm, forward slash 113. And I hope that's it guys, that's basically all the steps I went past 13 steps, I added a few other ones in there as well. But I wanted to kind of give everybody a brief under a brief overview of the post production process a lot of people and it's really quick guys, it's I can go into details about every aspect of what I talked about today. But it was just a very, you know, broad overview of the basic post production process. And you might have known a lot of it, you might have just found one or two that like I didn't know that I need to do that. I'm going to do a whole other thing about deliverables coming up in the months, weeks and months ahead. and a bunch of other stuff that I'm going to be tossing into the syndicate, doing some mini courses on post production workflow, post production, deliverables, and so on in the syndicate, which of course you can check out at indie film syndicate.com Now guys, I know it's the holiday season, and we are now officially in the holiday season. And I know you guys if you're listening to the show, hopefully your fans The show and you really love what we do at indie film, hustle. And I wanted to get in just kind of if you guys want to help us out, and you can't afford to buy any of our courses, or join the syndicate, or anything like that, there's a really easy way for you guys to support indie film, hustle, super, super easy way. And all you got to do is go to indie film, hustle, calm Ford slash Amazon. So if you guys are going to buy anything in the holiday season, on Amazon, or anything else like that, just head over to indie film, hustle.com Ford slash Amazon, and we get a small commission off anything you buy, and you guys get charged nothing for it, by the way, nothing, it's just a way for you to help support the show. So I really, really would help I really would be just completely grateful that if you guys are buying anything anytime in the year, but of course now because of the holidays, and Black Friday and all that kind of good stuff. Just head over to indie film, hustle, calm Ford slash Amazon book market. And anytime you're going to buy anything, buy it through that link, and it helps support us. So anything is liberalism, bar soap, or as big as a camera package. It really would help us out dramatically. So any film hustle.com for slash Amazon, I really, really greatly appreciate it. And of course, head over to filmmaking podcast.com and leave us a good review on iTunes. You have no idea how much that helps us to get the word out on what we're trying to do here at the indie film hustle podcast, guys, thank you again so much so so much. I got some really cool guests coming up in the coming weeks. So stay definitely stay tuned. And as always keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive and I'll talk to you soon.

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Pre-Production Stage:

The Production Stage:

The Post-Production Phase:

Post Production Process: The Selection of Editing Software:

Post Production Process: Selection of a Creative Picture Editor:

Post Production Process: Selection of a Sound Editor:

Post Production Process: Automatic Dialogue Replacement:

Post Production Process: Work with Foley Artists:

Post Production Process: Music:

Post Production Process: The Mix:

Post Production Process: Music and Effects (M&E):

Post Production Process: Creating Your Opening and End Credits

Post Production Process: Digital Cinema Package:

Post Production Process: A Dialogue Script:

Post Production Process: Campaign Image for the Film:

Post Production Process: Trailer:

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