IFH 844: How to Turn a YouTube Idea Into a Feature Film with Patrick Epino

Alex Ferrari 0:46
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:12
Joining me today is Patrick Epino. Patrick is an actor and producer, and he's known for The Void, Mr. Sad Man, and, of course, awesome Asian Bad Guys. Patrick is a graduate of the University of Chicago, and he earned his MFA in cinema from the film program at San Francisco State University. Patrick, how are you, sir?

Patrick Epino 2:13
Good, good Dave. How you doing?

Dave Bullis 2:15
Pretty good. It's pretty hot here in Philadelphia right now.

Patrick Epino 2:20
Yeah. Yeah. How hot you talking?

Dave Bullis 2:24
I well, I don't have an exact temperature, but I put my head out the window, and I was like, Oh my God. What the hell is going on here? So I've got, like, you can't see it, obviously, but there's, like, I have my air conditioner kicked on. Like, right before I was talking, like, right before we started this interview, I ran out to, like, make sure my air conditioner was down even lower.

Patrick Epino 2:44
Oh, man, yeah, is it like humid out there too?

Dave Bullis 2:47
Very humid that that's what's killing me right now. It's just how humid it is.

Patrick Epino 2:52
Yeah, just can't do the humidity. Man. I mean, it was hot here. It was like 90s for a while, but it's like a dry heat. You know what? I mean, not so oppressive as the as the humidity out there on the east coast. But, you know, hopefully, hopefully it passes.

Dave Bullis 3:09
Yeah, it's, it's just one of these. The worst part is, whenever I do these, the the podcast, I can't actually have a fan on anywhere near me. So, like, it's, if I'm, like, depending on that central air to pump in some cold air. So let's just, you know, but yeah, it's just one of those humid days. But thanks for everyone for listening to me talk about the Philadelphia weather. I'm just killing everyone's time right now talking about the weather here in Philadelphia. But you know, to get to something more interesting, you know, Patrick, could you just give us a little more, a little bit more about your background, you know, and how you got started in film.

Patrick Epino 3:46
Yeah, yeah. I'm from the San Francisco Bay area. I was born in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and went to college in Chicago, came back, went to went to film school at San Francisco State and moved to LA, and then just, you know, started making like films, independent films, short films. And then fast forward to 2011 and I met this dude, Steven dipianco, who became my partner in a YouTube channel slash Media Studio that we started called the National Film Society. We started, we became part of PBS Digital Studios, which is an online YouTube network. And then we decided one day to make something called Awesome Asian bad guys, which is, which is what we're which is out right now, you know,

Dave Bullis 4:42
So, you know, I wanted to, I always ask this because you actually went to film school, yeah, getting out now. What are your thoughts on the whole film school debate?

Patrick Epino 4:53
What's the debate?

Dave Bullis 4:54
The debate is, the debate is, you have some on this side that's. Say the that film school isn't necessary, and then you have the other ones who say, Yes, it is necessary. Everyone has the reasons why. But I just wanted to get your, you know, your own experiences and opinion of on the matter.

Patrick Epino 5:13
Yeah, I don't think it's necessary. I think it's helpful in a lot of cases. But I also think, like, you know, like, there's no reason that you have to go to film school. Both Steven and I went to different film schools. He went to NYU and, you know, and I've known a lot of people to go to some of the bigger film schools, like USC, UCLA, Cal Arts and stuff like that. And, you know, there's, there's been people who have, like, positive experiences and negative experiences. For me, I went to San Francisco State because it was, in all honesty, I didn't want to take a standardized test again ever in my life. So I looked for schools that didn't require like the GRE so, man, I also look for schools where I wouldn't have to go into huge debt. But, you know, and I loved it. I loved the experience. I think, like for me, it was something, a place where I could really have a lot of fun and, like, exercise some some stupid ideas. Get some bad, bad ideas out of my system, you know, bad films out of my system. And, and, and try to learn something. You know that being said, like, you know, when you get into when you go to film school, a lot of it is, like, you know who you end up working with and knowing afterwards. So, you know, you hear this all the time, like, oh, you know, make friends with people, and, I guess, create, like that network. And I think those are things that I've found from other people who have, say, gone to some of the bigger film schools that they've been able to fall back on. It's not true for everybody, but I've known people actually to go to some of these schools just for the network,

Dave Bullis 6:54
You know and that's actually one of the things that gets brought up a lot, is the the networking opportunities for you know, I a couple episodes ago, I had on Richard Walter, who is, you know, teaches at UCLA. And he mentioned that, you know, for their network alone, it's worth the price of the tuition. And he and he points to, so any of his graduates, some of his graduates have written movies for Steven Spielberg. Other ones are doing this and that. So that's, you know, that's one of the things that he uses to, sort of, you know, say, Yeah, you should go to, well again, like you said, though that they have the bigger programs, and you see it USC, UCLA.

Patrick Epino 7:32
Yeah. I mean, it's all about the the opportunities and, you know, like, like, what you make of them. I mean, that's, that's, that's kind of like something you you know, people's parents tell them, right? And then all of a sudden you realize, oh yeah, it is what you kind of make of it, right? So, you know, for those people who don't really want, perhaps, like the structure of a school or like to have to quote, unquote answer to So, like assignments or professors, then maybe it's not for you. And you can find out that, you know, you create your own work and you create your own network in other ways, right? Like, obviously, like some of these kids who grew up on YouTube, they a lot of them, I have no idea, but I assume none of them have gone or not, none of them that. Many of them haven't gone to film school, but they've developed, developed their own networks from what they've done. And so, you know, I think it's all about, you know, there's a million ways to get to the same place. And I think it's, it's about like, you know, the best and the best way for an individual to get somewhere. You know, if you're very, like, driven then, you know, maybe you have the personality where you don't have to be in school for it. But if you really thrive on structure and kind of like, you know, slowly learning the ropes of how to do things and being in a, being in that kind of environment, then, then maybe Film School is for you, yeah.

Dave Bullis 8:55
And, you know, that's a very good point to make. And, you know, and again, you know, I know, oh, that's, you know, the trade Parker, Matt Stone, you know, they, they came from almost out of nowhere, because they went to school in Colorado. And, I mean, the school that they went to, they didn't have, like, a very well known film program, at least, to my knowledge. I might be completely wrong, but, but, uh, you know, and they, and, look what Dave did. I actually, the reason I bring those up is bring them up is because I actually am reading a book by their producer for cannibal the musical, which they actually made while they were in college, and he actually talks about where they got the money. It's called, it's called doinkle. I don't know if you've ever the book is called that. I don't know if you never. I don't know if you ever seen cannibal the musical, but I haven't. It's a it's hysterical. And it also, if you like South Park in any way, shape or form, you'll like cannibal the musical. Basically, it's a musical about Albert Packard, who was a real life guy who actually went camp into this expedition deep in Colorado and ended up. You know, eating some people.

Patrick Epino 10:03
I think I know that story. I think I've heard that somewhere in my lifetime. I will look it up. I will, I will look it up. Indeed, is it? So it's a movie musical, or it's actually on, like, live performance,

Dave Bullis 10:25
It's a movie musical, but right now, it's actually coming out now as its own stage production as well.

Patrick Epino 10:30
Oh, sweet. I saw a Book of Mormon, and that was fun, so I will have to check out something about a cannibal. That should probably be even better.

Dave Bullis 10:40
Yeah, a Book of Mormon, I think, is going to play until the Earth goes into the sun.

Patrick Epino 10:45
So, yeah, I think, I think that is probably the best musical I've ever seen in my life. Out of the two musicals I've seen in my life, it was better than cats.

Dave Bullis 10:59
Yeah, it was very good. I'm usually not a musical guy. I'm more like a David Mamet type guy, but even I agree, like that was that was very well done, and it was hilarious, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, just, you know, just to sort of, before we move on to talking about your other projects. When you were in college, you know, create, you know, and you were saying you to get some of the these projects out of you, you know, when you were creating some of these projects for your entire time there at college, you know, did you sort of see what, what you had at your disposal, meaning, like, locations, stuff like that, and then work backwards? Or did you, you know, maybe for, like, your last project, try some a little more ostentatious, and try, or something more ambitious, and try to to do something that was like, you know, come, you know, we'd have to really put, you know, go outreach, you know, reach out to get some stuff that, maybe that I've had before, if you know what I mean?

Patrick Epino 11:57
I I tended more just to kind of see What I had, and then work backwards, you know, I mean, when I was in college, like, I I wanted, I thought about making films, but then it wasn't until after I really got out of college and before film school, and then going to film school, a lot of it was just, you know, like, I remember my thesis film. Like, I think everybody had this, you know, like, this idea of what a thesis film was supposed to be. And it's like, this big, you know, big production. And, you know, you really kind of go for it. You shoot it on, like, real film and all this other stuff. I made mine, like, for 500 bucks, like, on, you know, like, one of these really old, like, one of these Canon digital cameras that came out in the early 2000s you know, I was really of the mindset of just, kind of, like, taking an idea and then just trying to get it out as quickly as as possible. You know, like, as I've, as I've moved on, it's like, oh, man, you see what you can do and what other people can do with with, like, the big, fun tools and stuff, and I'd love, you know, like, Those are awesome. But I think just starting out, it was like, you know, let me, let me just see, let me, like, kind of explore. And then you could be, like, quickly, like, Oh man, that was garbage. And just, you know, throw it away, you know,

Dave Bullis 13:12
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You know, when you, when you look back now, you could see a lot of the mistakes that, you know, like, I look back at stuff I've made, night. It's, you know, the mistakes you you can see that mistakes even more than other people, because you know you, I'm sure you know you've shown, when you show things to people, sometimes they don't even notice other things and then, but to you, it's like standing right out in front of, you know what I mean?

Patrick Epino 13:33
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean. Or you've seen something like 1000 times, you know. And you know, like things that you try to fix, you poured hours into it, and so you can't help but see, like, the flaws. But, I mean, I think that's the beauty of, you know, putting it out there and letting it go finally, because other people can see it. And, you know, most, most people don't notice those things, you know, and they just kind of want, they want, like, a great, entertaining story, something that they that'll engage them. You know, they're not right off the bat trying to like, you know, look for all the fixes and like the and all the places you've screwed up, right? That's for, that's for later down the road. But, yeah, I think lost my train of thought. Sorry,

Dave Bullis 14:22
It appens all the time on this podcast.

Patrick Epino 14:25
I've done that on camera lots of times,

Dave Bullis 14:30
so you know. So you know now that you know just, I want to just sort of move on and talk about some of your other projects, you know, and particularly automation bad guys. Now I wanted to ask you, you know, how did you just starting at the beginning? And the beginning is the script, obviously. So I wanted to ask you, how did this script, or this, actually, I should say, this concept, idea, come about?

Patrick Epino 14:54
Well, the concept, so, like, like I mentioned me and my friend Steve, had this, have this YouTube channel. National Film Society, and, like, a month into it, we made this video called, excuse me. Called, We made this video called Awesome Asian bad guys, where we just talked about our favorite Asian villains from movies and TV that we grew up watching in the 80s and 90s. And, you know, you we realized that, like, you know, the This is, like a thing in movies, right? Like, there's always, like, an Asian dude who's a bad guy who's like, he's like, you know, badass. He can fight. He can shoot guns. He can, like, cut you up with swords and everything. And he doesn't say much, if anything at all. And then he just dies, you know, he gets killed by the hero in some really just egregious way, you know, like, like, getting blown up by an exploding tip arrow in Rambo two or or, like, getting killed by an ice cream cone or something, you know. And, and we were just like, oh, this is kind of fun. We made this two minute video. And at the end, we were like, it would be awesome if, if somebody made something with these guys, like The Expendables, but instead of, like, old action heroes, old Asian villains, you know, Asian bad guys. And we kind of just threw it out there. It was, like, just something to wrap up the video. And then, you know, we got some good responses from it. And people were like, Oh yeah, that's a good idea. And then all of a sudden, we're like, you know, when we decided, like, oh, let's make something, we're like, let's make this, you know? And so we, Steve and I, reached out to some friends and supporters and stuff. We pulled on a few producers, this guy, Milton, Lou, Diana Williams, Phil Yu and Milton was our writer, and we decided to kickstart the thing. And it was kind of like a different process, because we didn't have a script, we had like a concept, and then we just, like, made a Kickstarter video. And and Phil our producer, he Our executive producer. He has like, this really popular Asian pop culture blog called Angry Asian Man. And, you know, once he got kind of, like, on board, it was a lot easier to to get people to, like, buy in, and that we, you know, that Steve and I weren't just like these, you know, crazy lunatics who had this ridiculous idea. And we did a Kickstarter. We raised 54 grand like it in October of 2012 we shot in 2013 screened it around 2014 and now it's out.

Dave Bullis 17:30
And you know, that is an awesome story. I want to you know how everything sort of came together? You know, I actually have heard of that blog, by the way, the Angry Asian Man and I didn't understand if that was like, if he was serious, or if he was like, this is sort of like a parody account. So could you, is it, is he, is he serious? Patrick, or is this like a is like a parody account?

Patrick Epino 17:55
Phil Yu is not that angry of a person. He's had this blog for a long time, and it's, it's not a parody at all. But, like, the name is just like, you know, it's a pop culture blog, and he talks about, you know, things that are important to like, you know, Asian Americans, whether it's like, political things, like, you know, current events or entertainment type stuff like, those are all things that kind of like, cover the scope of his interests and everything, like he has a film background, like a journalism background, and so it's just all kind of combines in one place. So he's not necessarily angry. It's just the moniker, I believe, that he came up with. And a lot of people think like, oh, man, this guy's just what's this guy mad about? But he's not really that angry. He's a good dude. Very good dude.

Dave Bullis 18:43
Okay, that's good to know, because I was wondering if you know, maybe he screams all his blogs or something, or whatever.

Patrick Epino 18:49
No, no, not at all. Not at all.

Dave Bullis 18:54
Okay, well, you know, off to check out a site then sometime. So, you know, just to sort of take a step back, talk about crowdfunding, awesome Asian bad guys. You know, I wanted to ask you, how did you put together your whole campaign? I mean, that's sort of like the million dollar question, right? Because everyone always wants to know, what was the secret sauce of a successful of a successful campaign. So, you know, could you give us the, you know, a little you know, any tips or any insight to your successful campaign?

Patrick Epino 19:21
Sure. I think a lot of it was just putting, putting a lot of the Kickstarter right, like it always starts strong, and then there's, like, those weeks where it's just flat and and, and then maybe, if you're lucky, like you, you finish off and you and you get your goal. But during those weeks, they were stressful, because what you really don't want is to, like, you know, no one wants to, like, kind of fail in public, right? And because you also, like, tell everyone you know you're doing this, then all of a sudden, if it kind of goes kaput, then you're like, can't really, you know, ignore that that happened. But, you know, a lot of it was just constantly an outreach, you know, creating content, whether they were graphics or videos. We did a lot of like these web a thons, where we would do things like, you know, take, take shots of alcohol for money. If people pledged during that span, we would sing songs, just Goofy, Goofy stuff. And, you know, people, and also, we brought, like, you know, some of our cast on, because a lot of the people that were into that were part of that. A lot of our backers were like, you know, super stoked to see some of the people that were in and taking part of the project. And I think a lot of it also helped that, you know, Steve and I had been making YouTube videos for about a year at that point, and just kind of like the shameless self promotion of getting people to try to, like, watch our videos. And also, you know, it kind of melded, well, you know what? I mean, it was, like, it just, it didn't miss a beat, but it just kind of ramped up a little bit more. And, you know, it helped, like, having, again, like, like a big, like a big team, a strong team, constantly pushing because, you know, people know is what, I know, what it's like when it's just kind of, you hustling an idea, but when you have, like a team, it's, it's a it's way more, way more effective.

Dave Bullis 21:33
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, I've done crowdfunding myself, and the first two times were in 2009 and that's when Kickstarter wasn't around. Then it was just Indiegogo, right? And believe me, it was like, the question I had to answer every single time was, what is crowdfunding? And the second question is, what's Indiegogo?

Patrick Epino 21:57
Right! Right. Like, is this? Is this legal? You know, is this. Why are you asking for money? You know what I mean? Who does that, right? But now, now, everybody does it. And you know, you get all the Kickstarter like, posts and emails on Facebook and stuff.

Dave Bullis 22:12
Yeah, that's how you know when you're you're in the film industry now, is your entire timeline. And Twitter timelines are just nothing but Kickstarters and all sorts of other stuff. And, you know, I sometimes I'm just like, my god, you know, I open up my Twitter on my phone, I'm like, Geez, it's just, you know nothing. But you know, new film projects from, you know, really gets me to Patrick is when they don't even introduce themselves, like, I meet random people all the time on Twitter, and they don't even introduce themselves or say, Hey, Dave, what's going on. They just go right into, hey, I need money. Give me now. And you're like, What the hell?

Patrick Epino 22:48
Right! Right! Because we're already at a point, man, we're like, everybody's so, so inundated with those right that, like that. You know, there's kind of a craft to it, right? Because you really have to get through people's filters at a certain point. You know, there's like, there's like, a little bit of a, you know, sometimes with different people at different times, crowdfunding, like fatigue, you know, and it's, it's, I don't know, like, I haven't done a crowdfunding, you know, campaign in a while, or, or helped with one. So I don't know if it's like tougher now than it was a few years ago, because it's more popular now, but there's just so many more of them. So I don't know it's, it's, it'll be interesting if anyone have to do one again.

Dave Bullis 23:33
Yeah, you know, a lot of I want to word this correctly. I think a lot of people have sort of seen this and seen other people do it, and they said, like, hey, that seems easy. And then they get into it, and it's like, Oh, my God, this is a full time job. So not only do I have to work my other full time job, I got to come home and do this full time job. And, you know, I've seen so many crowdfunding campaigns that have crashed and burned, and immediately that person's back up on Twitter or Facebook. Crowdfunding doesn't work. This thing's already,

Patrick Epino 24:08
yeah, I've seen some things, and it's one of those things too, right? Because, like, if you've done one and you put the work in, like, when someone else is like, okay, it's so easy, you know, they it seems like they're just kind of like, they believe it's always just to put it up, do a little video on your computer and ask for money, and then, like, it'll come, you know, like, I've seen people do things and like, I'm like, you know, are you serious? You know? Like, you know, there's great projects, but then sometimes you get a couple, like, the ones I think you're referring to, or maybe you've seen before, where they just don't understand, like, they're not like, you know, that there's, there's something, there's a give and take, you know, and I mean, there's an effort that has to be made. You actually have to see that effort right for me to care about what it is that you're doing. Like, I've seen people who, who will, like, you know, do a. A, I'm not going to talk about it. Might come up with somebody else, but, but you know what I'm saying? It's like, when they don't put the effort in, you're just like, oh, you know what? Not, I'm not even watching this.

Dave Bullis 25:18
Yeah, that's exactly right, you know? And it's some some of the things that I've seen on some of these crowdfunding campaigns, whether it's, you know, they don't have a video, or I look at their perks, and it's like, you know, hey, $10 get you a thank you tweet. $50 get you a postcard or something. I'm like, What the hell is this like? Who created this like, as, like, a thank you tweet is just, should be anyway, that should just be common courtesy, you know. And it's just some of this stuff, and then, you know, it's just eventually, you know, that's why I anyone who ever comes to me privately and just asks for any help, like, I've given some people help before, and I'm always like, look, networking is the first thing, and then sales is like the second thing. Because what I mean by that is you have to have a if you have a list of people that you know and have talked to, they're more open to hear your sales pitch than some random stranger who you know, who you've never met before?

Patrick Epino 26:21
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And I've seen some of those, some of those campaigns where the where the perks or rewards or whatever, it's like, Oh, for 10 grand, like you get a credit, and you can visit the set flight not included, you know, I mean, it's like, these random, random things, and it's like, really, are you really that kind of, like, full of your your the lack of perspective, you know what I mean sometimes. And it's like, I don't mean to sound like a, like a crotchety old man, but like, I'm like, like, come on.

Dave Bullis 26:56
No, no, you got to be the crotch old man sometimes. So you got to be like, you damn kids get off my lawn. But trust me, I'm that way sometimes, too, Patrick, I'm just, you know, after you get hit up with so many crowdfunding campaigns, you're just like, Look, guys, this is how you're screwing up, and this is how you're doing it. You know what? I mean? Yeah, exactly. Oh man. And, but, you know, and I'm glad you guys were successful, you know, as a side note, I actually saw your project, and I did not remind myself to contribute, because I would have, obviously, I'm a huge Asian movie fan, and obviously I would have contributed to this, but I just completely forgot to remind myself to contribute. So the next one, Patrick, I'll owe you one. Okay, awesome. So we'll make a note of that. You put that in the bank, and then, you know, sometimes you can, you know, charge me 10 grand to come to the set, not included, right?

Patrick Epino 27:50
Lodging not provided, right?

Dave Bullis 27:52
I'll just drive there and sleep in my car.

Patrick Epino 27:55
Exactly, exactly.

Dave Bullis 27:57
So, you know. So you know, I want now that you, know, we're funded and everything you know, in this whole process of creating awesome Asian bad guys, you know, where, where abouts, did you actually reach out for casting? I mean, I know you have some pretty cool actors involved in here, so, you know, how did you go about reaching out to all of them?

Patrick Epino 28:15
Um, well, we'd actually made a couple YouTube videos with Randall Park and Aaron Takahashi. And, you know, the Asian American, like, entertainment community is pretty, pretty a lot of people know each other, you know, because they all kind of run into run in the same crowds. And like, you know, a lot of people go out for the same stuff, you know. So a lot of folks knew each other. And I think, like, for us, it was kind of like going after, going to one person, then the next and the next and again, like, like, like, I've said having, having a strong team and having Phil on board was was important, because, in all honesty, like, it gave us more legitimacy. And, you know, people had seen some more videos, and that was helpful too, because it was like, Who are these clowns? And then they would kind of be like, Oh, let me click on this link that you sent me and see what. And they're like, Oh, okay. They don't seem like complete idiots, you know. So now they, I think it was a process of just going, like after one person and getting like them to buy in, and then the next person, then it's like kind of a snowball effect. And, you know, the whole, the whole time, it was a big had, like a big family vibe to it, you know, on set during the table read, before we shot everything, it was, it was, it was, it was very cool.

Dave Bullis 29:36
And that, you know, that's great when you can actually get that synergetic effect for the for the cast, and, I mean, and that's awesome, too. Again, you know, back to network, we were just talking about that, you know. And that's, that's amazing. You were able to, you know, to reach out to them. So, so, you know, I don't want to say easily, but, you know, you I guess you could say, had less obstacles, let's say, to reach out to some of these people, you know.

Patrick Epino 30:07
Yeah. Yeah, there was a different path, you know, like, because I guess in the traditional sense, it's like, oh, you write a script and like, oh, you go to some actors. Maybe you have to go through their agents. Or maybe, like, if you know somebody who knows them, you kind of, like, ask them to to talk to you, or, like, ask for contact info, you know. So again, like, I think just by having made, like, you know, so many videos, and being out there and and it was, it was definitely it was definitely positive, is definitely helpful, would have been a lot harder if we were more anonymous, and we're just kind of, like trying to reach people in a more indirect way. So I think that was, yeah, that was, that was hugely helpful. We'd probably still be trying to get cast if, if we hadn't made all those YouTube videos, we'd still be doing it now,

Dave Bullis 31:01
And, you know, that's a great point to make. And if there's one thing that I would definitely take away from from that, it is you. You guys really had a built in audience. But also, to add to that, that you which means you guys really had the pre launch lockdown, meaning that you had, you know, I always say a three month lead time, at least for a project. That way you can just it's talking about it to people. It's building up an email list, it's building up a Twitter list, it's building up all that good stuff. And then when you finally do launch the thing, it's not a surprise to everyone. Some people will always be a surprise to but you know, at least, you know, your core group there will not be a surprise,

Patrick Epino 31:44
Right, right! We were, we were already kind of out there, and we did. We'd been talking about the project, and we shooting videos to update everybody and keeping like, you know, I mean, that's, that's a huge load of work, you know what I mean, to keep churning out, like, the the content, and just keeping in touch with everyone who is like generous enough to support us and to believe in what it was we were trying to do.

Dave Bullis 32:08
So, you know now that you, you had the script and you had everything casted at this point, you know, when it was the first you know, if we could go to the first day of filming, you know, I know that you and Steven actually co directed this. So, you know, how, how did that directing style works? I know sometimes, you know, we could sometimes, you know, you could see things white. He could see things as black. So, you know, how did you guys work together co directing this?

Patrick Epino 32:40
It was terrible. I hate that dude. Now. It went, it went well, I mean, we've been working together for by the time we shot, I believe we've been working together for almost two years. And, you know, we developed a good shorthand of how we of how we do things, and we, we talked about that actually, ahead of time, because we also know, like, it's, it's difficult to have two, you know, the two headed dragons sometimes. And, you know, a lot of it was just kind of talking about, like, you know, maybe one of us would focus on something on one day, and then maybe we would, like, kind of just switch off. You know what I mean, I want to do this, you know, I want to do that scene, something you just kind of work out ahead of time. Because, I guess, you know, like is, you hear enough stories and it's like, oh, we should actually, you know, address this and tackle this and prepare ourselves for, like, you know, any, anything that might come up. And I think, you know, it's just it was helpful, you know, we were good friends and we work together. Well, we have, you know, we're very similar, but like, you know, also very different, you know, we we work hard and we love what we do. But, like, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's his own person. I'm my own person. But it's just one of those things, like, if, if we hadn't again, like, I keep mentioning, like, the two years of working together and building up this body of work, but, man, you put those like hours in and all of a sudden it just, it just kind of, you know, comes along, not necessarily seamlessly, but it's, it's a much, much smoother ride.

Dave Bullis 34:20
Now, just to ask a stupid question, but how much did you storyboard?

Patrick Epino 34:26
We didn't. We did like we did. We didn't. What do you guys? We did like overhead maps, you know, for with our cinematographer Nasser and we, we thought of storyboarding, but it was just quick, quick and dirty storyboards, you know, like stick figures, and just when we needed to, we were just trying to map out, like camera moves and just blocking and stuff like that.

Dave Bullis 34:54
Okay. I mean, you know, since you and Steven work together so much, I'm sure. Were, you know, a lot of that was, you know, already figured out. You know, you had a lot of, I'm sure you guys had all your notes you work with the DP, and, you know, you were able to you since you were able to work together so much beforehand, I'm sure, you know, wasn't such a shock. You know what I mean?

Patrick Epino 35:13
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, like, I don't think we storyboarded that much, but yeah, I mean, it was, it was a question of just like, you know, getting the coverage we wanted. And you know, we knew that, even we knew that we couldn't, like, do crazy, crazy shots, you know. And so we were just like, Okay, we're going to be in this place. We scouted the location, we looked at how we were going to make it appear to be something else. And then we would set things up, and then we would just kind of like, get our shot list from that.

Dave Bullis 35:43
Okay, yeah, and you know that that's, you know, you over again, you know, going back to you, you guys able to work together so much, but, and which is good, you know? I mean, sometimes, you know, I have to storyboard like a madman. And you know it's, it's, I don't know it's, it's just, it comes down to whatever I think you're most comfortable with. Because sometimes I've worked with, like, more experience. Like, one thing I've learned on film sets is always get a experienced dp and some, some dps are like, Don't worry, Dave, I know what a medium shot is going to look like. You know it's

Patrick Epino 36:17
Right, right! Yeah. I mean, you know, like, I all storyboard things where, like, you know, it's, it's getting a little bit more complex, you know, I'll storyboard like a sequence if it needs to be storyboarded. I mean, like, like, fight scenes, you know, sometimes need to be storyboarded. And that whole, that whole like, experience was, like, completely new to me. And so that was, that was a Yeah. That was kind of, that was a trip, yeah.

Dave Bullis 36:45
And, you know, I mean doing some fight scenes, I always, I always left it up to my fight center tire folks. I did a fight sequence like that a couple years ago, and for this film project we did, and I ended up like we were choreographing this thing for way too long, and then, you know, it's one of those times where, just like, literally days got away with you, away from you so quickly. And, yeah, I mean, and as, you know, as as most things do a film, so, right? So, you know, I wanted to ask you, you know, in casting awesome Asian bad guys, I meant to ask you, this, was there anyone you tried to get, but you couldn't get?

Patrick Epino 37:22
Oh yeah. I mean, they're like, there's,

Dave Bullis 37:25
Can I guess? Can I guess? Can I guess one of them? Yes, go for it was one of them, James Hong?

Patrick Epino 37:32
Oh yeah, absolutely. Man, absolutely James Hong, like a lot of people that we know, know him, and so I always joked around that, like we asked him four times if he would do it, if he would be part of awesome Asian bad guys, and four times he turned us down. And I kept joking that we kept asking him because he's so old, I thought he would forget and say yes, but, but now he's a really sweet, sweet, sweet guy, very, very, like, good dude. He was shooting a movie at that point, so he, you know, like, at a certain point, we're just like, Okay, it's not gonna work. Like, maybe next time, you know, and, but he's rad, you know, we want, definitely wanted, you know, low pan, you know. I mean, come on, big trouble of China is one of the all time greats,

Dave Bullis 38:23
Favorite movie of all time

Patrick Epino 38:24
Yeah, and so, I think, yeah, he was, he was super cool. I think it was shooting like, rip RIPD or something. And, yeah, he just, he just couldn't, couldn't make it. But we also wanted bolo. Do you know? Do you remember that guy? Oh yeah, from sport and yeah, bull you Exactly, yeah, yeah. We wanted him. And it's kind of funny, like we were searching for him, you know, because it's like people knew him, or knew where he was, and there was like he, apparently, he works out at like, a gym, I guess, relatively close to where Steve lives. And so the idea was that Steve was going to go to the gym and try to, like, solicit him for for awesome Asian bad guys ask him for you would want to do it. But it never happened like, I think he probably would have gotten his neck snapped in half, but it was he definitely was something that we that we were hoping to get as well.

Dave Bullis 39:31
You know, that was funny. That's actually the first two guys. That came to my mind was James Hong. Number two was bolo. Number three was going to be Gerald Okamura,

Patrick Epino 39:41
Yeah, Gerald, we know him. We've met him. He's come he's a, he's a very good dude. He lives down here, out here in LA and, yeah, like he's, he's awesome. I mean, would, would love to get him for the next one.

Dave Bullis 40:05
Cool so, you know, some point down the line, would you ever do a sequel?

Patrick Epino 40:11
Yeah, yeah. I mean, would love to man, like, in all honesty, it's like, you know what? As we worked on this, it was like, oh, you know, we love to make like, like, because there's so many bad guys, right? And there's so many things you could do with it. We had an intern who made like, went through IMDb and made list of bad guys, and it was like, Man, I don't even know who these people are, you know, there's like, non stop, you know, and, and, yeah, I mean, would love to make a sequel. And would also just kind of love to, like, play off of like the Marvel universe, in the sense, and create, like, our own awesome Asian bad guy universe where it's like, and even like, you know, awesome Asian bad girls like, because there's also like, you know, like Lucy Liu, like Maggie Q, like, just, there's tons of bad girls, and so it's like, oh, it's like, you could be Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy type thing, you know, and then have them meet in some, like, huge, you know, epic Asian badness movie or something. And, yeah, definitely something that we want to explore and keep it moving forward.

Dave Bullis 41:23
Yeah, you know, that would be a good idea. Awesome. Asian bad girls. You could do like, you know, there's Go, go. You worry from Kill Bill. I forget her name, but tell my head, but, but that, but that. You know, when you do make a sequel, let me know, because I think that'd be awesome, though, from what I've heard, by the way, bolo is apparently just an absolute awesome guy.

Patrick Epino 41:44
Oh yeah, wow. Um, how did you hear that?

Dave Bullis 41:49
Just from people working on film sets that have awesome why did you hear something else?

Patrick Epino 41:55
No, no. Oh my. My silence betrayed me. No, no, no, no. Because I think I just have this vision of who he is, right? I have this vision of him from the movies I watched as a kid, and have this which led to the vision of, you know, saying to Steve, hey, maybe you shouldn't go to the gym. He might kill you. Don't ask him if he needs a spotter, you know. But yeah, I'm sure, you know, tight knit community. And, like, I'm sure he's a good dude. Everybody here know everybody here seems to know everybody else. And it's like, Oh, do you know this person? Okay, got it?

Dave Bullis 42:33
Yeah, I'm very used to, like, growing up my teens, I did Kung Fu and, like, I met, like, a lot of the old school kung fu guys. Like, I mean, old school where, like, you know, you have guys over here, women over here, you don't get a water break, you don't talk during class unless you absolutely spoken to. So I'm, like, used to the old, strong fisted, iron fisted kung fu master type deal. So maybe those guys I knew who work with fellow were kind of that way too, you know, then they did martial arts from when they were before they could even walk, you know. So, you know, maybe that's maybe, that is maybe you did make a good idea, but not having Steve Cohen, it's like, Mr. Young, can I talk to you about, you know,

Patrick Epino 43:26
It would have made for a good YouTube video if he got his, got his, got his ass kicked. But, you know,

Dave Bullis 43:34
I mean, the man has fought Bruce Lee.

Patrick Epino 43:36
So I know, I know that's that's impressive. I led beyond words how impressive that is.

Dave Bullis 43:46
You know, I wanted to ask you too, you know, what was, you know, the hardest part of filming, automation, bad guys, you know, was there any particular day that was particularly hard or had just an absolute obstacle you guys had to overcome?

Patrick Epino 44:01
Yeah, I mean, I think, like, there were, you know, just a couple things, because we shot it in like, seven and a half eight days. I think shooting some of the fight sequences took some time, because it was like, you know, those always take time. And, you know, also adjusting to, like, people's schedules, you know, to be honest, like a lot of you know, like, we raised 54 grand on Kickstarter. A lot of times we a lot of times, like, our, some of our actors, you know, they had other, like, other commitments come would come up. And that was we understood that. We knew that was going to happen, because these guys are talented and constantly working, and it's not like we were paying them much, if anything, no, and, and so they, you know, part of it was like writing around their absences. You know, our our producer, writer, Milton Lou he, you know, he would, kind of, he would find out that. Oh, so and so couldn't make it the next day, so we'd have to kind of write, he'd have to write around them and, you know, put them somewhere else and give them a reason why they're not going to be in the main, you know, in this particular scene anymore, you know. And I think that, to me, is always, like difficult, especially when you're on set, you know, doing the producing stuff, and then you have to figure that stuff out, like, like, during, like, during like, you know, there's some downtime or overnight, on your own time,

Dave Bullis 45:30
Yeah, and, and, you know, that's, that's one of the things, you know, I always say is producing is a skill of in itself. You know, a lot of times, I mean, and this is, this can be even, you know, sort of parallel to crowdfunding, people will see other people do it, and it's just sort of like, oh, anyone can do it. And then suddenly it's like, Oh, my God, it's all this, and you just want to and, you know, then, you know, those people usually go, I'm so sorry. I know this was all this entailed,

Patrick Epino 45:58
Right, right! It's like, you know, like, right? The typical questioner, like, what does a producer do? I mean, like, on a set like this, everything, like, that's, that's just how it works, you know? And it's, it's not for the not for the faint hearted, for sure.

Dave Bullis 46:17
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I wanted to ask you to Patrick, you know, what's next for you, and and, and Stephen,

Patrick Epino 46:28
Well, we were focusing a lot on just getting this out. And, you know, like getting it out, we worked with a company called film buff out in New York to get awesome Asian bad guys out on on digital VOD platforms like iTunes and Amazon, Xbox, and now it's like, you know, we're still pushing it. And, like I said, for me, it's, you know, I really think it's time now to, like, start thinking about the ideas of moving it towards, like a sequel or an awesome agent Bad Girls version, and what we could actually turn this, turn this into and really have some fun with it. And, you know, there's, there's some other ideas to kick around as well, but I think those are things that that are kind of at the top of the priority list.

Dave Bullis 47:16
Okay, very cool, you know, you know, in closing, Patrick, you know, we've been talking for about, you know, 40 minutes now, is there anything you know that we haven't discussed, or anything I can cover that you would have like to say in closing?

Patrick Epino 47:32
I don't think so. I don't think so. No, no, no. Man, like, sorry. Like, end of, end of a Monday, work day. Think you covered a lot of stuff, just like, you know, I guess I could talk about where people can get it.

Dave Bullis 47:57
That's actually my next question.

Patrick Epino 48:00
Okay, and scene,

Dave Bullis 48:01
So, Patrick, what people find Awesome Asian Bad Guys online.

Patrick Epino 48:05
They can get it on our website, awesomeasianbadguys.com where you can also get, like, the deluxe version. And like, you know, some, some cool T shirts, like bad guys, T shirts, bad girls T shirts there. And you can also get it on iTunes, Amazon, Instant Video, Xbox and Google Play and maybe voodoo. Is it voodoo or voodoo? I think it's voodoo, Voodoo, right? So, you know, check it out there, and you know, share it with your friends and tell your friends

Dave Bullis 48:37
And where people find you at, specifically online, Patrick?

Patrick Epino 48:40
They can find me on Twitter at Patrick Epino,

Dave Bullis 48:46
Awesome. And you have a website or anything?

Patrick Epino 48:48
Yeah, it's awesomeasianbadguys.com, which actually is also nationalfilmsociety.com, it forwards so you can check us out there.

Dave Bullis 48:58
Very cool. And everyone, by the way, I will link to all that good stuff in the show notes, like I always do. So it's very easy to find all that stuff and just click on it, and you can, you know, talk to Patrick and and check out awesome Asian bad guys. And that was a joke, by the way, Patrick, that was a big series.

Patrick Epino 49:19
I got so much money for crowdfunding campaign.

Dave Bullis 49:23
It's, I just actually what we were talking somebody like, my phone went off. It's on silent. But I looked over and it's just like, Hi, Dave, check out my campaign. Like, Lou, that's all it says. I'm like, Who is this person? It's, I swear, man, it's becoming like, more and more prevalent.

Patrick Epino 49:41
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's the name of the game. I guess forward me that guy, I'm gonna give him some money. Now, there you go.

Dave Bullis 49:50
We've, we have cracked the code of crowdfunding right here,

Patrick Epino 49:55
Exactly.

Dave Bullis 49:56
Patrick, I wish you the best of luck, and again, when you. Uh, make Awesome Asian Bad Guys part two, please, please give me a heads up about that

Patrick Epino 50:30
definitely will Dave, thank you so much for for having me

Dave Bullis 50:30
Anytime, my friend, anytime. Uh, Patrick. I wish you the best and have a good night. Buddy.

Dave Bullis 50:40
You too.

Dave Bullis 50:41
Take care, buddy.