IFH 812: How Tremors turned into a Masterclass in Storytelling with S.S Wilson

Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:53
My guest on today's episode has one of the most successful horror franchises of all time, whether you've seen the first tremors, or whether you've seen any of the other tremors, or even the TV series, or even the new TV series that's coming out. He doesn't have anything to do with the new TV series coming out, but still, it's based off of his, of his concepts. You know, there's a lot to be gleaned from this episode, because when they make tremors one, you know, they had to watch the budget because, so what do they do? Well, they put their monster off screen and underground, then at the right moment, they reveal, you know, it's revealed in stages and stuff like that. It kind of reminds me of Reservoir Dogs. Y'all, I was watching that again. Reservoir Dogs, you never see the bank robbery. And I think the main reason for that is it's not only a really nice creative choice, but also because it saves money. You know, when you're making these first movies, I you know, the creative choices have to rule the day. So again, this is what this was all about. You know, is making a monster movie where they can control the rights and, you know, keep everything under budget. So how do you do that? Well, we're gonna find out today with guest SS Wilson, Hey, Steve, thanks a lot for coming on the show, sir.

S.S Wilson 3:02
You're welcome. You're welcome.

Dave Bullis 3:02
So, you know, Steve, just to get started, I wanted to ask, what got you into the film industry. Was it, you know, did you like films, you know, growing up, or is it just sort of one of those things where one day you found yourself, you know, sort of writing screenplays or on set somewhere. Well, as it tends to happen, right?

S.S Wilson 3:23
My story is a little different. I did love films. I was huge film buff as a kid, and my dad supported that. And early on, when I was, I don't know, 10 or 11, he bought a eight millimeter camera, and I was one of those kids who made movies in the backyard. Tried to do special effects with gunpowder and gasoline, which he also supported interestingly, you know. And then my dad, then when I went off to college, actually changed my life. I went off to college and said, I don't know what I should do. I guess I'll be a psychologist like my dad. That's what he was. And He came up after I'd been there a week or so. He said, you know, what are your courses? And I said, Oh, well, I signed up for and he said, this makes no sense. Even making movies in the backyard for 10 years. What's going on? And he went to my advisors, and he said, Do you have anything like film or movies or television? And he changed my whole course schedule. This is absolutely true, and I had never thought about actually trying to do it for a living, even though I've been making movies for years and years and doing stop motion animation. And then I, you know, never looked back. I went, Oh, well, yeah, because then, you know, then there were people in the departments we didn't have much of a film program at Penn State all those years ago, like two tele one television course and like, two film courses, and you had to borrow cameras from the local PBS station, whatnot, but, yeah, but that's what happened. And then I then I got drafted that I went to USC Film graduate school and and there met a lot of the people that I still work with. And. And even though it took almost 10 years from graduating USC to actually break in and make short circuit, we were working in the film business, making short films and little short animated things and films for schools and libraries, TV commercials and whatnot.

Dave Bullis 5:17
You know, it's funny, Steve, that your dad was able to change your whole curriculum because, you know, I actually used to work at a college, and grades and all that stuff were so secretive. They actually fired a professor one time because he told a student's father what he got in the classes as a final grade before the kid with the kid did. And they actually just fired the professor on the spot because of it. Wow, yeah, it's just, but, no, that just, it's funny, though, you know, it's funny how college has changed so much, but, but, you know, you went to Penn State, and, you know, I've actually, you know, been up there. I actually attended a Penn State football game. I didn't go there for college, but, you know, I've been there once, the lions, small world, right? And because you're out in LA now, right? I'm actually, I live in Arizona. Oh, okay, you know, I actually have a few friends out there.

S.S Wilson 6:09
I go to go to LA when, as needed,

Dave Bullis 6:13
I see So, you know, just to ask, does Penn State ever ask you to come back to me talk about screenwriting or directing or anything?

S.S Wilson 6:19
I've been bad. I It's funny, ironic timing. You know, they occasionally send me alumni stuff. I've never let them even know what I do. I should do that, but No, they haven't. They haven't tracked me. Now, they have no idea, you know, who I am or where. I was kind of an invisible student, geeky guy, and I just went through and left.

Dave Bullis 6:41
Well, I thought me they'd have some kind of alumni, you know, sort of Headhunter who kind of kept track and all this stuff,

S.S Wilson 6:48
You know. But I have, I've never responded to any of it, so I really, actually have it on my desk as we speak. I said I should let them know. They probably would like to know.

Dave Bullis 6:57
Well, then you could just sit on this podcast. Instead, go back, just listen to this podcast. I'm talking to Dave. So you know, you brought up short circuit, by the way, I watched that movie religiously as a kid, by the way. So I want to ask you know about your whole writing style. I'm actually always fascinated by people's writing styles and their approach to their own art. So I wanted to ask you, Steve, how do you approach writing? You know, do you subscribe to any sort of methods? Do you do very long treatments first, or do you just sort of jump right into writing?

S.S Wilson 7:30
Brent and I, who have written practically everything together, at least, certainly everything has been made, and we've been working since the days at USC, both in the short films, and then we wrote short circuit, which was our big break. We have a very our approach is, is outline, outline, outline. We don't normally write a treatment for tremors. We did only because we were trying to sell it, and we couldn't sell it as a pitch for because, well, we couldn't, and that didn't, hence treatment didn't sell either, by the way. But let me go back so we outline in great detail. We are not comfortable until we know where the story is going. And we're very story oriented. Some people can start, you know, sort of with a character. Don't just say, oh, where's this character? And he's a drug addict and he's got these problems, and I'm just gonna think about what he does because he's a drug addict. We can't do that. We got to know where we're going. So and we can't really get excited about something until we know where we're going, even if it's a rewrite, which, you know, you get offered quite a bit in Hollywood, is pretty much all Hollywood does anymore. Even if it's a rewrite, we will sit down. Before we even say yes to a job, we'll say, Okay, we got to go through this movie figure out what we would change, or maybe they're telling us what they want changed. We got to be sure that we can make that work. And we got to know where it's going, because your ending is is so important in a movie, in our opinion. In fact, somebody well known. Maybe one of the Zucker brothers said your ending is 50% of your movie. Somebody said that. And we kind of believe that. So we got to know where we're going, what, what the surprises are, where the twists and turns are. So long answer to that question is, we outline like crazy. In fact, we used to drive studios crazy, and back in the day early on, when we were getting started, you used to get 12 weeks. Was a normal time to write a script, and we would outline for eight, and they'd be calling us him. So you're writing, or you're writing, well, now we're still out like, Are you out of your mind? But then we would write it in, you know, four weeks because it was done.

Dave Bullis 9:40
So, you know, you mentioned tremors when you finally started outlining, you know, did was there ever and sort of an impetus for that movie where you said, You know what this is, where we want to take it. So we, you know, you know what I mean. So we already know, you know what the monster is going to be, and we sort of know where the location is going to be. It's going to be a perfection. I. Was that a part of it, or did that sort of come in during the outlining phase?

S.S Wilson 10:15
Well, there again. We outlined it in great detail. Worked on it with Ron Underwood because the goal with tremors, was to become producers. We were frustrated that everything we had written up till then, we discovered naive, that we writers, that we were that writers aren't really welcome on this, but once you're done with the script, they don't want to hear from you again. And we would go to movies and that we had written and go, boy, that's that's not what I would have done. And our agent told us, but look, you guys want to produce, then you want control. And to get that, you're going to have to control the material from the get go. You can't be rewriting the studio's material. Blah, blah, blah. So she said, What do you have in your portfolio and your piles of notes? And we came up with. We came out of our piles of notes with. We got this underground monster idea, and she said, that's kind of cool. I've never heard of that before. And so first we sat down with Ron, and we outlined the whole story, figured out who the characters were, where it was going to go, and then we pitched it all over town. Couldn't sell it. And then she said, Well, that's maybe you should write a treatment road very detailed, like 25 page treatment did not sell, sent it to everybody. So she well, I guess you're gonna have to write it on spec. So in between, you know, the regular Hollywood movies we were writing, we were writing tremors on spec. And then took that all over town, and he was a huge our agent was a huge part of getting this done. She was central. We call her the mother of tremors. Nancy Roberts later, our partner in stampede entertainment, she hand picked, you know, who the script was gonna she did what an agent really is supposed to do. She handpicked who the script. She knew the studio people. She told us in advance what they were going to say. You know, there were, there were situations where, because of her relationships, there were certain times, if she had a spec script, she couldn't not show it to certain people, because then they would be mad that they were shut out of the prospect. So she said, Okay, this is going to be weird. I have to send this to Disney. They are going to stay we. We hate this because it's got so much dust in it. They had dust. And we're like, what? Sure enough, that's exactly what came back. And all of this was, of course, off the record, you know, under the wire. But I actually got off the phone, I think I was there at some point. No, no. She was on the phone to somebody at Disney, and they were passing a very in a polite way. Well, it's not, you know, right for us at this time. And she said, Come on, heisner doesn't like dust. It was on the other end. But that's all really true. And then she hand picked Jim jacks, wonderful, wonderful executive, classic, old school executive who who at Universal, who loved movies, loved all kinds of movies. Knew exactly what tremors was. He saw exactly it's B movie, monster movie, roots. And she knew that Jim would get it and he would fight for it at Universal, which is exactly what happened. And then she enlisted Gail and heard she was the one who brought Galen heard in, because Gail and looked at our buddy Ron's short movies, which is all he had at the time. He had not done a feature when we did tremors, and the studio was like, well, we're going to hand off this movie to a guy who's only directed films for schools and libraries. And Gail looked at the movies, fun guy's a filmmaker. Don't worry about it. And and then she shepherded us, especially at the beginning, you know, made sure we weren't going off the rails, some way to get her in trouble. As she was executive producer, she saw the dailies and said, Good, it's gonna work.

Dave Bullis 13:57
Yeah. You know, I really like tremors. I'm gonna tell you why, Steve, because, you know, first, it's, it just seems everything happens naturally. You know what I mean. It's, you know. Again, when you said you were, you started with characters that you know, when you were working with the idea, it's because, you know, all those characters seem like they they're real people who live in that world, and they all see, you know, and when they, you know, when some of them finally die. For anyone listening, I'm not who hasn't seen it yet. I'm not going to spoil it, but for anyone who's when they finally die, you know, you actually say, Oh my gosh. You know, there isn't a ton of guys you know, that are just getting mauled. These are the, all the the characters right here. So when they finally die, when not when some of them die, they go, Oh my gosh. You know that actually is impactful in the story. Thank you. It's those escalating circumstances, you know what I mean. And even with here, oh well, my you know, you're very welcome. And you know, and because when it when you see the worm for the first time, you think that's the monster, and then it becomes bigger, and you're always escalating that further and further and further. And it's always, you know, they find a solution. The problem escalates. They find a solution to. Problem escalates. I mean, that that's just, it's phenomenal. I don't know if you know who Red Letter Media is, but they actually are a popular online review group, and they actually gave it a you know, they actually have this one segment where they talk about movies they like, and they actually review tremors, and they they said it's one of their favorite movies.

S.S Wilson 15:18
So great. It's always to hear all of the things you're saying we worked very hard on they were all very important to us. We my partner is not a B movie monster fan. I saw them all up until the mid 70s or so. I saw everything, and I knew all the cliches we were playing with. My partner is just all about character. And again, in both of us, it was very important that, yes, the characters matter, that they seem, that the plot, things that happen, seem to come naturally out of the situation, and any of them, even the monsters, are consistent in what they do. You know, they don't change the rules. They don't suddenly become indestructible or anything like that.

Dave Bullis 16:02
And one other compliment I want to give you, too is the way that you constructed this with sound, because you only mean, like in the beginning when Earl and I forget Kevin Bacon's character, oh yeah, Val, yeah, Val, Earl and Val, when they're looking for, you know, the doctor, they're, you know, they're not yelling his name. They're just sort of walking around. And you can really, you know, they're hearing the planks walk, you hear the bucket kick, and you're, you know. And then you know, Val says, We know, where's that music coming from, you know what I mean? And you know. And it just, it always escalates with that sound. And then when you have Chang's drugstore, you have that, that that refrigerator, that always makes that noise, and then that causes, you know, further conflict. I mean, that's really, really good writing, and in using that audio for filmmaking,

S.S Wilson 16:47
Oh yeah, sound was, well, we knew sound was gonna be critical. We were a low budget movie, and we, and that's why we that's part of the reason we picked underground monster as one of the ideas that we decided to develop. We thought, oh well, they're underground most of the time. We'll never see them. Heaven knows, we had endless problems even, even though we, in theory, weren't seeing them. But we knew that sound was going to be critical. We had great sound people, you know. And it was, you know, years ago, people have asked me, you know, what? What is this bass sound of a Graboid? And sadly, I don't know. And I, you know, I've lost track of the people who invented that sound?

Dave Bullis 17:24
Yeah, you know, because for everyone that's seen the movie, know, that's that sound that they make, you know, and it's, you know, it just all ties in very well together. And everyone I'm going to link to tremors in the show notes to file Amazon or Best Buy, because it's right, it's totally recommended watching. I remember seeing tremors years ago, Steve, and it just blew me away. But see, and I didn't know what I was watching, because no, now, you know, I've studied filmmakers. I've studied this. When I go back now I can, I can sort of go through with a surgeon scalpel, and I can pick out all this stuff. Oh, this is why I found this so fascinating, you know what I mean, and this is why I found it so entertaining, so and then I get to talk to the guy who wrote it and you said, made it so. So now you could tell me how wrong I am. No, I'm just kidding. But no, no, it's just, you know, it's just, it's a phenomenal film, and that's why I'm so glad you know that the, you know, I got to see the franchise, you know, the mean, like tremors, two, tremors, three. You know, I know you guys. You did four as well, and you also did the TV series. And it was always great to see, you know, this sort of franchise expand and you know, so, you know, I always talk to, you know, my friends and always say, you know, some franchises, you know, they they sort of go this way. Some go that way, you know. I mean, Friday 13th Nightmare on Elm Street. But tremors always sort of kept it in perfection one way or another. Because there was always, You know what I mean, there was always a sort of reason why that, you know, you know, like, like tremors three, when it's called back to perfection, right? And that's where Melvin's creating that whole town, right? And that leads into the whole TV series. But it's just stuff like that, you know what I mean, that's, it's all comes organically,

S.S Wilson 19:00
Well, we, yeah, it was very important to us to make the world consistent. And it wasn't easy. You know, we never expected even to do tremors two that came along years later, only because of the success of VHS. You know, tremors one was not a huge hit. I mean, you know, Kevin big and reviewed viewed it as a flop, and he absolutely disowned it for many, many years, and it wasn't I flop, per se, but it, but it did not do nearly what the studio hoped it would do, and and they were disappointed. And so we were floored, and we got this call from video department who said, Hey, what about tremors? Two? He said, What about it? They said, we want it. What? So then we all had to sit down, because we were busy doing all kinds of other stuff at that point in our careers, and say, God, can we come up with the tremors too? And then, you know, then we said, well, all right, the big cliche is, there's a queen Graboid. And we all went, Okay, no way we're doing a queen grab we're not going to do it. And what do we do instead of that? And finally, I I'm gonna say it was me. I think it was me. I was driving along in the desert, as I often am, and I said, I wonder if they just turn into something small. How weird would that be? And then we ran with that idea,

Dave Bullis 20:23
Yeah. And I remember seeing that too, because that's when they were actually walking on land. I free, and I forget the name that in the movie that that the characters give them Shriekers, that's right, yeah. And then, because it's the third that they're called ass blasters, right?

S.S Wilson 20:37
Well, that's their third incarnation that gave us, that told us where to go with the third one. We thought, Okay, well, they'll change into a third form. And that at the time, again, it was really important to us to keep the characters consistent, the rules consistent, other than but, but still come up with surprises. You still can't, you can't just do the same thing over and over. So that's how we came up with the ass blasters and that I in fact, the effects guys, Tom Woodruff and Alex Gillis of amalgamated dynamics, were the ones who came up with ass blasters because they were, well, just as invested in we were in protecting their monsters and making them consistent. They have a wonderful design approach. It's very real world based volumes and volumes of books about animals and creatures and skin textures. And they literally came in one day and said, Hey, are you? Are you aware of the bombardier beetle? And we're like, No, we're not. They said, that's a beetle that mixes chemicals in its butt and makes us sound like a firecracker. We're like, that's a real thing, absolutely. And we we think that's what ass blasters should do. And we're like, we are totally on board with that, or something else. I was gonna say, oh, oh yes. And then we got thrown a curb by Universal because they said, Okay, tremors through definitely be the last one. There will definitely not be any more. We understand our market perfectly, and we know exactly how the DVD world works, and this is it. So we said, Okay, we'll wrap it up. That'll be, that's cool. We will say that this is the last form that creatures take. Boom. The end. Goodbye, perfection. And almost immediately was, well, no, we, we did really, much better than we thought. We must have tremors for,

Dave Bullis 22:15
Yeah, cuz I, you know, I actually saw tremors four. And I actually was kind of shocked because I thought, you know, because I was like, Oh, well, I didn't know they made another one. And, you know what? This is funny, Steve, you're, you know, as you could kind of tell him, a movie buff. I didn't even know you did a TV series. I actually didn't know you did a TV series until last year.

S.S Wilson 22:34
Well, it's easy to do. I mean, there's so much material now. There's a lot of stuff that I don't know. I mean, the stuff that's being, you know, I'm probably not even up on half of Netflix's shows and all this stuff. But anyway, I don't blame you.

Dave Bullis 22:47
Well, you because, you know, I'm such a movie head, and I'm always like, you know, looking for different stuff. And I said they did tremors TV series before, I said, Wow, I didn't notice that. So I actually, I actually bought it offline, and I actually went through and I was like, oh, okay, so it sets up. It's, you know, it's three into the TV series, and then four is a prequel. Yeah, you know, I have to ask, you know, when you make these tremor movies, Michael, gross, seems like the coolest guy in the world, is He? Is he the coolest guy in the world? Because, I mean, he just seems like he would just be an awesome guy to hang out with,

S.S Wilson 23:20
Yes, he's just a wonderful, funny intellectual, not full of himself, actor. He's very He's great on the set, you know, at understanding, you know, who has the scene. You know, he's not trying to steal other people's lines or anything. He's an actor's actor and and he's so he's become, you know, he became Bert. He took over Bert, you know, from us and and he would always on tremors two and three and four, even though he wasn't playing Bert. He would, he'd always come to this set with little pencil, delicately penciled lines in the script, and then he wanted to sit down, and we sit down with us before we met. He said, Okay, I got this idea for a change here and change here, and then we could go back and forth. It was, well, if you say that, then we won't know this. Oh, yeah, you're right. Never mind, never mind. But a lot of times, you know, especially with the bird character, he's he defends the character, and he loves it. I thought at some point, I thought he was going to get tired of it, but I always have to tell this quick story. You know, he was a huge television star. When he did tremors, one he had just finished years and years on family ties, playing a guy who could not be more different from Burt. And they asked us to read him, because he was a big television star, and they felt like that would help the movie. And we went read the Father on family ties. Okay, we'll do it because they want us to do it. Well, he blew us away. You know, he came in because he's an actor, and he completely just Ron tells us he was actually jumping up on his desk. At one point being showing how afraid he was of the monster underground. Anyway. Then some years later, Michael told me the story of walking down the street in New York and getting that look that fans get when they start to recognize you. And the guy was walking toward him, and he he sees the look, he knows the fan's gonna say it, and then the fan says, You're that crazy gun guy? And Michael said, Yes, I finally escaped family ties.

Dave Bullis 25:27
I thought you were going to say, Oh yeah, I was the down on family ties. Crazy gun guy. Yeah. You know, it's funny because I introduced a friend of mine two tremors, and he actually goes, Wait a minute, that's the dad from family. And I said, Yes, he's with the Heaton family, and I'm sorry, Keaton and Heaton. And I said, Yeah, you know. And he goes, Wow. He goes, this is a different role for him. And I said, Yeah. And I said, he fits it like a glove, because one of the my favorite shots of the whole movie is where Reba McIntyre and Michael Gross, or in their underground bunker, and the wall starts to shake, and they see the the Graboid come through, and they start to fire. They have those rifles, those uh, bold action rifles, and they're out of ammo very quickly. And the camera just pans over to the wall of guns. And they literally just are pulling guns off the wall. And, I mean, it's, it's so if, again, organic characters, and that fits so well, because I would actually be disappointed Steve, if they did not have a wall of guns.

S.S Wilson 26:29
Oh, he knew that was a key moment in the movie, and it was great at the premieres and at the test screenings. You know, the audience would, they would laugh through the next all the way through the next scene.

Dave Bullis 26:40
And, you know, it was, you know, a phenomenal and Tremors is definitely one of my favorite movies. And I think, you know, when I, when I go back to, you know, writing, writing my own stuff, you know, I always like to dissect movies that I've Well, I've watched, you know, and I like to dissect movies that I've really liked and, you know, and now, because this podcast, I get to talk to people who've who've written great stuff that I like. So, you know, it's just, it's, you know, it's just great being able to talk to you, Steve, and, you know, finding out these little interest in christicities, I think I just butcher that word, by the way, but, but, but, you know, and I want to ask, you know, Steve, you know you have such a great career. You know you did short circuit, batteries not included. Short circuit two tremors, as we all just talked about, I did Ghost Dad. You know, is there any sort of writing advice you could give to anyone listening who's writing a screenplay right now?

S.S Wilson 27:30
Well, if you like our style, and that's step number one, if you like the movies we've done, then do what you're doing. First of all, analyze the stuff you like. That's a lot of you know, pros, we'll call ourselves that would say that, because you won't be copying the stuff that you like. You'll be learning from it. You know, you you obviously understand setups and payoffs. For example, it's a big thing for me and Brent, setting something up early in the movie, having it pay off later in surprising way. Those are hard to do. It's hard to do those correctly and without cheating. And a lot of times you see movies cheat, I feel a little at odds with kind of the current movie making steam, giving anybody advice, because film after film that has no plot and makes no sense is wildly successful. And I've begun to wonder, you know, I rail at this, and I go, Oh, my day, and blah, blah, blah. And yet, you know, this is for years now I've been seeing this. I've started to think, oh, the audience has really changed. Now. I think the younger audience maybe does not care as much about what I think is important in storytelling. And they truly do enjoy these movies. You know, part of me says, well, they don't really enjoy them. It's just that's the only, that's the only thing they you know, that's the only thing on this weekend. So they go, I'm less and less sure of that. But anyway, I would say, analyze the stuff you like, whatever it is, you know, if it's ordinary people, analyze that and and write a lot, by the way, you'll hear this too from other people. Don't get hung up on your one script. Brent and I did this, you know, early on, we would write a script and go over and over and over and over, and then we've looked at one of those early scripts. This was like four or five scripts before short circuit, you know, go, well, it wasn't very good. And none of the versions we did just wasn't very good. You gotta, you gotta move on. Write something get it done. Say goodbye to it. Write something else. If you're, if you're a writer, you have plenty of ideas. And the worst, worst case is you find out, well, maybe I don't like it. You know, you do four or five scripts and you go, I don't like this. That's fine too. But write a lot. Don't get hung up on one thing, and you don't beat it to death. You know, push yourself to to a degree. You look out. Outside your comfort zone. Although I do think that you know, if you like emotional what's the Julianne Moore picture she just did where she was a lady with Alzheimer's. I can't think of, I can't remember the name of it. That's a very emotional picture that I would never try to write, right? But maybe, you know, other people would, they would take, that's exactly the kind of movie I wanted to study those and write a lot. I've already said, what I'm gonna say?

Dave Bullis 30:41
Yeah, you know, that's great advice, you know, Steve, you know, just going through and analyzing your movies that you like and why you like those. And like, for instance, I had Victor Miller on here, and Victor Miller wrote Friday the 13th part one, by the way, which also starred Kevin Bacon, by the way, wow, yes, yes. Small world, right? So, you know. And we were talking about, you know, how do you, you know, how do you break it down? And Victor said, listen, he goes, I've been doing this for 30 years now. Whatever he said, I'm still always looking for different ways of writing and telling a story. He goes, so and he said to me that, you know, he's always looking for a different method, something to sort of crack the story or another way to write. And, you know, it just, it just very reassuring and unassuring the same time to hear veterans like you and him, you know, just talk about screenwriting and always say, you know, they even with hits because tremor, you mean, because, again, you have, you've had tremors. You've had, you know, short circuit. And, you know, even, and he's, you know, had Friday 13th part one. He's had a few Emmy award winning pieces. And it's still, it's, again, it's reassuring, and it's, it's a little worrisome to hear that, you know, there's always, they still don't have it all figured out. Oh, you I mean, oh, even, even after these hits,

S.S Wilson 31:54
Every script, yes, every script, has its own life that it takes on and its own problems that it throws at you, and you suddenly find yourself going, Why did I even like this idea? I feel so trapped now. And, you know, sometimes you're beating your head against the wall, but, but, you know, that's, that's the great thing. It is a creative process. They Yeah, they do. They do each one is different. Brent and I are doing one right now, as a matter of fact, that is, that is very different from anything we've ever done. Ron challenged us. He said, You know what, I would really like to do another low budget movie. Ron is big in television, right? He's directed every TV show you've ever heard of, and he goes from show to show to show. And he said, you know, it'd be fun to do another low budget movie like we did tremors. Why don't you guys write a sci fi movie with no special effects? And we went really wrong. Then we thought about, we sat down so we actually have come up with an idea we're about, I don't know, halfway through the process now, our anguishing process, it was really hard. I mean, we just, you know, because we just, we just had to throw out idea after idea after idea until we came up with this idea that I don't want to talk about. But anyway, yes, good, good note, yes, good writers are always questioning what they're doing. And always, a lot of times, I think, wandering quietly in their dark corners.

Dave Bullis 33:13
I and, you know, I'm not even a professional writer yet, uh, Steve, but I, you know, I often feel that way, right? I often feel, I always feel like, What the hell did I start? Yeah, but, you know, it's funny, I actually pitched an idea one time, and the producer hated it, right? And he came back to me later on, and he goes, You know what? You go, I mean, this is late, months later, and he was already working on something else, but he goes, You know what, I was driving down the doubt, down this, this interstate. And he goes, you know, and all of a sudden, they couldn't stop thinking about your script idea. And I started laughing at myself. And he goes, you know, is a lot better than I thought it was. I said, See, it's always those rose colored glass

S.S Wilson 33:56
A rare producer that's great,

Dave Bullis 33:56
Yeah, but, but, you know, Steve, you know, we've been talking for about 30 minutes now, and I just want to ask you in closing, is there anything that you know we we didn't get a chance to discuss that you wanted to or is there any sort of thing you want to say sort of put a period that in this whole conversation?

S.S Wilson 34:10
Oh, I'm writing novels now. I'd like to mention that, to plug them among the other things I'm trying to do, but, but as far as was, there's anything else? Advice wise, I would say, Nothing springs to mind. I'm much better the questions

Dave Bullis 34:37
where you'll find you at online.

S.S Wilson 34:38
Oh, well, stampede entertainment maintains a website, knowing we always have hopes that we will sell something of our own and ramp up into production stampede-entertainment.com and then I'm on Facebook, of course, as SS Wilson and then the books are available at Amazon, Tucker's monster and phrase free cats.

Dave Bullis 35:05
And I will link to all that in the show notes. Everyone,

S.S Wilson 35:08
You have an impressive list of podcasts. By the way, there's like, 150 of them or something.

Dave Bullis 35:18
Yeah, like 127, or eight.

S.S Wilson 35:20
Oh, okay, I overstated a little bit, but I was quite impressed when I went to your site and I listened to a few things, of course, before I agreed to do this. And so I was impressed with your with your polished approach.

Dave Bullis 35:32
Well, thank you. I've actually been proud of that, because I had somebody, I won't say who, but they came on, they said, Dave, thank you for not being that guy. And I said, What do you mean? They said, You know, they said, like, there's so many people have podcasts now. And they said, you know, they're sort of like, in their mom's basement. And they they get people on the podcast, and they can just, like, sort of like, be malicious, you know what? I mean? It's just like, Oh, so you made a movie, huh? What do you think? And I'm like, No, I would never be that guy. I hate people. Like, I actually Steve real quick. I was on a podcast with a friend of mine, and he asked me to be on his podcast. So I went to his house, which, by the way, we went to his mom's basement to record this. And then he started going, like, Oh, so you made a TV pilot and pitched it to NBC, huh? And I said, Yeah, well, is that? Is that bad? And he's like, Well, I didn't know any This is the podcast, by the way. And he's like, Oh, it couldn't remind me too much of clerks. I said, Oh. I said, Yeah. I was like, and, and honestly, Steve, I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. So what I did was I started, you know, I was like, if I started insulting you right now, dude, I said, believe me, I said you would cut this all out. And then finally he started to, like, ease up a little bit after we exchange little words, but, uh, but, yeah, I never would, would it would bring somebody on just to insult them. And I thank God that I've never had one bad podcast. I've never had anybody had bad feelings. Everything's always been great. So I'm proud of that.

S.S Wilson 36:54
Well, you should be. That's, that's, that's good to hear. And I'm forewarned, I haven't had that experience,

Dave Bullis 37:02
So I can put you, yeah, give you that warning. I'll be like the harbinger of hair, of horror. You know what I mean? Like always warning you about things that are coming, kind of like old friend and tremors. But he was, he didn't tell them. He just, he's but his dead body showed them without something, Right? Steve, I want to say thank you very much for coming on the podcast, sir, and please stay in touch if you need anything.

S.S Wilson 37:55
My pleasure. Thank you.

Dave Bullis 37:59
Take care!

S.S Wilson 38:02
Bye! Bye!