IFH 702: How to Make Four Features in One Year with Chad Archibald & Cody Calahan

Alex Ferrari 2:00
Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Jason Buff.

Jason Buff 2:05
Today we're talking with Chad Archibald and Cody Calahan of black fawn films, their films antisocial to and bite just premiered at the Fantasia fest up in Toronto, and it's supposedly somebody like threw up and it was so gross watching the movie bite that somebody threw up, I think, you know, I don't know how true it is. But it's a great thing to for publicity, you know. And I think they after that they started giving out like barf bags with their logo on it and everything. So I mean, these, it's pretty amazing how they have been able to get out and find an audience. And you know, as we talked about in the interview, they get out and they go to horror fests and they go to cons and do you know, they're out there, really getting the word out about their films. And that's how they've been able to build up an audience. And one of the things we talked about a lot on the show is the key to filmmaking is finding your audience. That's all you need to have if you want if you make a film, and are able to sell it and get it out to people who want to see it. That's all you need. Let me go ahead and get to the interview. This is Chad Archibald and Cody Callahan. First thing I wanted to talk about was just coming off of Fantasia fest. And, you know, one of the big things we talk about is distribution and how people are connecting with their audiences. And first, I'm kind of wondering how much of a role Fantasia fest plays into your overall strategy for getting the word out? And how are things working nowadays with with the way that VOD has kind of changed and DVDs aren't as big anymore? Can you talk about just the way that you're getting your film out there? How people can find it, and how you're connecting with your audience?

Chad Archibald 3:51
Um, well, I guess the whole Fantasia thing we, we love going to this festival, it's fairly close to us, it's about eight hours from where we live. So it's, it's been a staple with I think we've had like eight films there over the years. But we, you know, we generally come up with you know, 3040 people, our entire cast and crew. And we have a we have a great time up there. It's, it's kind of like our little vacation from the year. And I mean, it's just aside from that is actually, you know, just one of the best festivals out there. It's, it's run so well. The organizers put so much effort into picking great films and making it such a great experience. And the fans that are like the audiences are just there's so much fun. So I mean, we go up there with our films to revere them but we also love just going to actually watch movies and and, you know, just see what see what's coming and see what's coming out next, I guess, right. Now, I guess as far as getting our films out there, you know, we We have a sales team that goes out to all the markets and whatnot like the FM's and, and whatnot. But you know, it's, it's difficult with any indie film to really get noticed. And there's just so many films out there. So, I mean, we try to, you know, first of all, I guess isn't, you know, we're trying to make, okay movies that, that we hope, kind of end up getting standing out in the sea of other indie horror films right now. So I mean, I think that's obviously the first thing that you got to try to do. But aside from that, I mean, we, you know, we use tons of social media stuff. We have worked hard over the years, creating relationships with fans and whatnot, we go to tons of conventions, and, you know, we're always, you know, trying to get out there and push her films and just as well push ourselves. We, we hire a ton of different people in different shoots. And we always try to treat people with respect. And it, I think, that kind of gets the word out there a little bit, too. I mean, Canada. And then aside from that, you know, we always come up with little marketing gigs. Like we had little barf bags that the bites. You know, we did a big any social campaign at the Cannes market. And yeah, I mean, just try to try to come up with interesting ideas to engage your audience's

Jason Buff 6:35
Has it changed a lot since the technologies become cheaper and people aren't doing DVDs as much. I mean, is it a harder field to get into, like producing horror movies?

Chad Archibald 6:45
Oh, for sure. It's, it's completely different now. And every year, it gets a little bit harder, which is, it's funny, because it's like we, you know, make better movies every year, but the industry kind of gets a little more difficult every year. But it's, I mean, you used to be able to make a film and sell it fairly easily, because any distributor would be like, Okay, well, I mean, we're gonna sell 100,000 copies, to the blockbusters and the Rogers out there instantly. So, you know, there's actually no way we're going to lose money on these films, right. So there's just there's tons of money to be made back then. And distributors nowadays, you know, they have to really work to get people to watch it, or rent it on iTunes, or, you know, there's just so many films accessible to everyone at the touch of a button. So it's, it's, it's now a matter of actually getting people to watch your films and getting people to actually, like, choose them out of the sea of other films. I mean, it's, it's definitely changed. It's an it's still changing. And it's getting, you know, it's just, it's getting more difficult, but it's also just, it's getting different, right? People are just having having to come up with new ideas. And, you know, for years, there's been, you know, people in studios, who would just be paid, like, you know, tons of money to just sit there and try to figure out how to, how to resolve the industry, because it's, uh, you know, so many distributors have closed down, I think there's, like, you know, 13% of the distributors out there still, you know, still still kicking, but I mean, so many of the smaller guys just got ate up by big studios, or just had to close the doors whenever, you know, all the DVD market collapse, right?

Jason Buff 8:39
Do you feel like that has anything to do with people like doing more self distribution, or just the fact that it's, you know, people aren't renting DVDs anymore? There's no more there's really not like a physical product anymore.

Chad Archibald 8:51
Yeah, I mean, they're still out there. We still release all our, our, our films on DVD and blu ray. But yeah, it's, it's, it's got to the point where I think people who are like real big fans who are like collectors of DVDs and whatnot, they don't want to pick that those up. And the people who don't specifically have a giant DVD collection that, you know, they they end up going on VOD, and, and whatnot. So it's, it is hard, but they're still you know, we go to tons of conventions and sell DVDs from a booth and there's still, you know, a lot of people out there that really, really liked them. A lot of people are happy spending, you know, a few bucks on getting an actual physical product, it turns into kind of a collector's item, you know, right. Whereas, you know, you buy it on iTunes and it just disappears after

Jason Buff 9:46
You can't, you can't, you know, autograph or download either.

Alex Ferrari 9:52
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Jason Buff 10:00
Oh, And so what, back in the early days before you guys had kind of built up this following what was your primary way of kind of getting the word out? Is it always been the same way? Or have you? You know, have you used social media and view you used? You know, I mean, I guess my question is, how can people who are kind of going in this into this for the first time, start building an audience, and, you know, focusing on who their core audience is going to be.

Chad Archibald 10:29
Um, I think, years ago, me and Cody actually traveled across Canada with a movie called never lost. And we just, you know, we, we rented movie theaters from Montreal to Vancouver, and just kind of traveled every day, we would go to a different location, different theater and try to, you know, cellar versus trying to screen our film actually proved to be very difficult. I mean, we, we had a great time doing it, and we met a ton of people, but it's to make something like that really work and come out financially, okay, it's very difficult to get people to come and sit in a theater, especially if you don't have a following in that area. You know, like we can, we can pack Theatre in Toronto, because, you know, all our friends and family are from here, but but it was, it was something that I think were a little, you know, we learned a lot from doing it. And, I mean, even even when we're starting out, like, the the biggest thing, I think, that we did was just, you know, try to surround ourselves and work with a ton of people who are really passionate, and just from, from their passion and excitement about the film's, you know, they would spread it to other people. And, you know, it's not like it was making a huge difference in the industry or anything. But for us, you know, little guys just making a movie. It does help get the word out there, you know, if you post something on social media, then you have, you know, 10 other people posting it as well. And, you know, all their friends on other front pages, see it, and, you know, it kind of spreads like that. And I mean, we also, you know, we went to we'd rent out theaters around Toronto and Guelph, and whatnot, and Scream Screen, some of our films, they're just trying to make a big show that we, we screened a film years ago, where we had, you know, we had a big party at a bar. And we invited the cast and crew and whoever wanted to come and we had bands play. And at the end of the night, it was like the big trailer release, and we released a trailer there. And then we, you know, a few months later, we went and we had another bigger party, and we had, you know, more bands playing, we released a new trailer that was there. And the third band was like, or the third time was like, a release, where we showed a few of our music videos for the bands that were playing there. And we showed the trailers and we released tickets for the actual screening at the Cineplex and we ended up selling out three or four theaters. Wow. Which was, you know, it was great, but that was, you know, back in the day whenever, you know, there wasn't youtube today, that's

Jason Buff 13:19
No, but that's exactly the kind of things that I hear from a lot of people now which is you know, if you want to have success filmmaking, especially, you know, way outside you know, in the indie film market, you really have to become your, your own giant publicity machine, you know, and connect with people versus some other people who want to, you know, have a company that's like, they're gonna make their film and then they're just gonna go out and sell it to a distributor that doesn't really seem to exist as much anymore.

Chad Archibald 13:49
Yeah, it's a it's definitely a challenge everything's a challenge and I mean, you have to take advantage of the things that don't cost money and ideas are one of those things that you know, you can often come up with ideas that you can do cheap or or I think if you can try to kind of think like a publicist a little bit just finding different angles of you know, how you can promote something you know, we had talked about years ago anti social which was you know, it's kind of like what a Facebook turned on its users into zombies. And we were gonna get, you know, little super cheap USB keys and put the trailers on them and you know, hand them out to everyone on the streets and stuff like that. So you know, people get a little USB key which would be a buck or two and you know, on the USB key there, it'd be like this you know, social media horror movie. But I mean, I think just even doing that there's there's the value of people actually picking up the the product like a USB key or whatever, but there's also a value in just just meeting All right, that'd be in like, Oh, so you guys are the actual filmmakers and you're actually on the street. It's almost like years ago when you're in line for like a concert and like, a guy would come over and be like, here's my band's tape. We're just handing them out to everyone. I'd like listen to the tape and be like, I met that guy. I think nothing FaZe did that years years ago, and I remember like, being like, I'm old school. I Yeah, added me this tape. And now he's, you know, now and watch his music videos on on much music when they played music videos.

Jason Buff 15:33
Right? Well tell me. Yeah, what's my error too? But, well, let me let me ask you one more thing about distribution. And then I'm going to change focus to, you know, screenwriting and some of the other aspects. Now, right now, you've got antisocial too, and you've got bite, and they both premiered at Fantasia fest? What what is the where do they where do you go from there in terms of like, I mean, are you guys kind of out of the the process now? Or are you just doing publicity? Or are you actually involved with where it's going to be going in terms of like, US distribution? European, just, you know, all that stuff? Is that like, where are you right now in that process?

Chad Archibald 16:20
I think we're, we're lucky enough to work with a studio. Okay, now called Breakthrough entertainment. And they have a team of people who, you know, we we've reached out to and sat down and discussing the festivals that the films are going to be in, or at least reach out to and apply to. And they also take it, you know, out as far as into the industry for sales. So I mean, we do our little part with the people that we know, to help out. But in all honesty, we're on our next film already. Well, yeah, we have a pitcher deal with breakthrough entertainment over two years. So we've just finished shooting the third of eight films, and where we're editing it right now and getting ready to go into production on the next five. So what

Jason Buff 17:10
That's like for four films per year? Yeah. Okay, well, let's let's go into that a little bit. Because that seems to me that seems insane. I mean, it seems like you guys probably, you know, make stop to eat for two seconds, and then you go back to work. Is that kind of your lifestyle?

Chad Archibald 17:28
Yeah, that's why I said Fantasia was our holiday because for nine days and, and as soon as we got back, we're back to work. It's funny, Cody's actually away right now working on better the dead, which is the third film that we're doing with Jeff Mahara? Who directed it?

Okay. So can we talk a little bit about? No, go ahead. Sorry.

Cody Calahan 17:54
No, it was just fine. Because I think we drove back from Montreal, I think. I slept in my bed for like, six hours, and then got up and drove to a cottage where we set up like all our edits, edit suites, and I've been here since Fantasia.

Chad Archibald 18:12
And that says, like, we have to kind of do these, these endurance trips of getting things done. So I mean, it's, it is insane. I mean, we, we really, were excited going into this slate of films. And I think the hardest thing is actually just just getting all the concepts together and getting them all approved by the studio and whatnot. Because, you know, like we said, it's it all starts with your idea and your concept being unique. If it's not a unique idea, then there's, you know, it's going to be very different, difficult to stand out.

Jason Buff 18:47
Well, there obviously has to be a profitable aspect of what you guys are doing, you know, so I mean, to to attract a company like breakthrough, right.

Chad Archibald 18:58
Yeah, I mean, I think the industry is, you know, the industry still buying movies, and they're still, you know, I think there's still a spot in it for sure. If you if you make quality films. And yeah, I think breakthrough is also kind of, you know, I think they've seen a lot of the films that we had done in the past for, you know, $10. And they can, they can see, you know, where we've come and where we're going and they really want to kind of invest in our future as well. So, this is, this is a first step to it.

Jason Buff 19:31
Okay, now I wanted to sidetrack for just a second ever. I wanted to sidetrack for one second, because I was reading one of your interviews, Chad, specifically, about desperate souls, which you made, I think when you were 22, right. Yeah. Now, you mentioned that you kind of messed up the sound and everything and you had some issues with that but ended up selling it to Lionsgate and Alliance films, right. Yeah. Okay.

Alex Ferrari 20:00
He will be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Jason Buff 20:09
Can you just describe how that happened or how it's possible that you know, to do something like that, because I hear so many nightmare stories about filmmaking and things going wrong and people who are never able to, you know, their film ends up sitting in a closet somewhere, you know, despite their best efforts and everything, and I was just wondering how that kind of happened or if you can talk a little bit about that.

Chad Archibald 20:31
Yeah, you know, we went out and we made this movie and we made every mistake in the book. We we shot it and all the audio was so horrible that there's generators in the background of everything. I went out and bought three red heads, like three 1k lights and lit the whole movie with that I was just clueless all we knew is that there was these cameras DVS one hundreds that shot. Sorry, there's huge bang and so anyway.

Jason Buff 21:02
And that was the last we heard of Chad.

Chad Archibald 21:04
Yeah. Anyways, there's a these cameras dv x 100 said, We're the first cameras to really shoot 24 P. So it's basically you know, that moment when, you know, a prosumer prosumer camera stop looking like your home video, right. So we had pre ordered two of those. And I mean, I know at that point before then it's like, you know, to go out and film the movie. On a prosumer camera, it still had a very video II look. Right. So these are that does that HD? No, that was standard def, right? Yes. That's what I thought. Yeah. So. So we went out and we shot this movie, you know, we literally thought we could shoot it in a week. And it took you know, two years. Of course, were so clueless. And, yeah, we we made every mistake in the book, I ended up having to build a sound room in my basement and I rerecorded every line of dialogue every sound every movement every footstep in this room in Vegas video and linked it all up and made the m&e and because I figured out what an m&a was at that point. And you had Yeah, and then released a movie. And, you know, we went and met with some people in Toronto, it's, it's kind of it's difficult to get well, it's funny, because so many people think it's, you know, so hard to set up meetings with people in the industry. But I mean, if you have a product, if you have, you know, an idea or whatever it's like, it's really not that hard. Like people are generally, you know, interested in finding what's out there and finding, you know, connecting with people. So we always say that in meetings or whatever it's like, you know, reach out and try to try to meet with people like we we meet with people all the time, people are like, hey, you know, I'm trying to get into film and we'd love to buy a beer. That's, that's what entices us, apparently. But anyways, yeah, we, you know, got it to someone who who was interested in back then there's still again, Rogers videos and all those stores. So they looked at it, and they were like, you know, this is a, it's a complete movie, it's got all the pieces, it's got all the deliverables, which are a whole other story, but we got it all together and, and sold at Lionsgate and lights. And a, it's just, it's a worst movie ever. Like, I wouldn't be able to give it away. Just, it's horrible.

Jason Buff 23:38
That's the first on the show.

Chad Archibald 23:41
But it's, but the fact is, we made every mistake in the book. And I think from that experience, that's where a lot of the knowledge that I have now about filmmaking came from, you know, I think the problem with people is that, you know, people getting into the industry right now is they're so eager to just, like, jump into making a film. And, you know, sorry, that's kind of what we did do. So I'm not saying but I mean, like, there's technology out, there's iPhones, or whatever it's like, go out and just make mistakes and make every mistake that you can possibly do, and work on making and fixing it and figuring you know, figuring out exactly what you have to do to make a movie. And then whenever you actually get some money and put it into a film or if you're investing your own money, you know, you can you can have a better chance of it getting completed from on again. Yeah, there's so many people out there that did start they jump into a feature and underestimate it and don't know how to you know, resolve issues on them by themselves whenever, you know, shit hits the fan. So I think it's it's important if you don't have the money, you have to be able to trust yourself to figure it out to get the project done.

Jason Buff 24:56
Now, you mentioned deliverables and said that was a whole other topic. Can you just bring If we talk about deliverables, the importance of, you know, having the things that you need to give for to make sure the film is all legal and everything, just the kind of most important things.

Chad Archibald 25:12
Well, I mean, I think, you know, you have to have your contracts without your cast and crew and whatnot. There's, there's different kinds of deliverables. There's deliverables, if you want to sell the film, but if you want to do tax credits is a whole other list of deliverables. But I mean, it's, you know, anything that you can think of, that you think you might be available for, right, you know, location agreements. You know, if you're using music from someone, or someone's doing the score, you know, make sure they had signed some paperwork. And a lot of the templates are good enough online, you can search them, search them all up, just basically anyone you work with, who's adding anything creative, just make sure. Or if you're working, you know, if you do know, a distributor or moderator go to anyone and just say, you know, can you send me a list of what you would ask for if you bought a film? And you know, you have all your different you know, an m&e, like your music and effects tracks. So, you know, when you when you release a film you have, you have to deliver one track, that's all your dialogue, then you have to release additional tracks that are basically all the sound effects in the movie. So, you know, footsteps, close, explosions, all the music. And basically, then if you sell it to Japan, they can go they can delete your dialogue track, they still have all the other sounds of the movie, and then they dub over, you know, beautifully in and then of course, like your trailers, your poster elements, you know, 50 stills, you know, stills from set, poster material. Right? Yeah.

Jason Buff 26:50
Okay. So moving into building a project. Okay, and what I want to talk for a second about your process for screenwriting? Because a lot of our we talk a lot with screenwriters, and I'm a screenwriter and people like to know what can you talk a little bit about your process for beginning a project and how you kind of start putting together your screenplays. And especially since you guys are kind of cranking stuff out? What is the secret? If you found one for kind of getting to your final draft of a screenplay quickly and effectively.

Cody Calahan 27:32
I will, I think we used the immune challenges to write a lot more because we would make one or maybe two movies a year. But now since we're we are doing so much we spend sort of less time actually writing scripts and more time, just coming up with solid, solid concepts and then bringing on new new writers. And I think for us, I mean, obviously with every every movie, we do something good. And we're like, Okay, we got to do, we got to remember that do that again. But for every good thing, there's 50 past things we do. And I think as as we've sort of grown, you know, writing and you know, helping other people, right? And then getting people to write for us, is just trying to try to keep our ideas, you know, fun and simple and clean. Because I think both me and shadow made movies where at some point in time, there's a character who needs to explain something. And I think I think we've both had that moment of like, well, I can't cut the scenes, because I'm, I need to get this information across. But I wish I could go back. Because no, no point in a movie. Should somebody sit down in front of somebody and go and take a deep breath and explain why you're watching. And I've done it. I know lots of filmmakers do it. But I think for us, it's like every time we make a movie, you know will sit at Fantasia and then leave and go talk to each other and be like, Okay, so let's never do that again. Everybody loved that. So let's make sure we do that again. So I feel like every every movie even though they're all so so different, like any social to invite, I don't even know if you can compare them how different they are. Both of them came out of what we've learned from the drowns man and sublet, and any social one. And it's it's funny, because it's like, all of those movies are so different. But still, filmmaking comes down to like some pretty simple rules that you can play with and try to break but there's some things you just have to stick to because every time we we don't you can see the audience's reactions or read about it in a review. You can also

Jason Buff 29:46
Big make mistakes then that you learn from.

Alex Ferrari 29:51
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Cody Calahan 30:01
Well, I'd say I would say that the biggest one is, is having a, having a concept that that is cool enough that the audience goes, Oh, okay, well, that's interesting and something a little different. But don't go so wacky, that you need a character to explain why you're watching the film. And like, you know, even on any social, it took us forever to try to figure out a way to tell the audience that Facebook, but you know, in our case, the websites called Red Room, how does how does this website, you know, basically possessed people? And why is it doing it without having one character talk to you for five minutes. So it was about getting all those pieces of information and suddenly trying to put give them to different characters at different times. So by the time the, you know, the hammer comes down, and it's like, this is the thing that's killing people, you already have enough to put everything together so that we don't have to explain a lot. I think that one for for us is the the biggest and also trying to trying to keep when you're going to do such graphic horror movies, where people are throwing up at a theater, you got to remember that, like, for an hour and a half, if you're going to be that discussing that you kind of you should add a little bit of humor. Just just to release the audience here and there. And I think sometimes, you know, I mean, for me, personally, I can get so sore in the movie, and so intense about it that I want it to be so serious, but sometimes you can have to step back and go, Okay, well, there's a movie about Facebook, turning people into zombies. So let's tread lightly on the on the serious factor.

Jason Buff 31:46
So do you start out with a kind of a blueprint and put the whole thing together? You know, before you actually start writing? Or do you just kind of jump in?

Cody Calahan 31:54
I'm usually it's like, shall call me like, he'll be driving home? And they'll call me or something and be like, what about a movie? And like, you know, that that, and I'll call him and with with an idea. And usually we go through? I don't know, recently, we've gone through about 50 different ideas, just trying to find the right one to put our time into writing. But I feel like for us, it's not. It's not that we we take an idea. And we work on it so long that we figured out how to make it work. But we wait until there's that spark, or something different or like okay, cool. I haven't seen that before. And usually we we we wait for each other's reaction. And if the reaction is like, okay, that's really cool, then we keep developing. But as we go through so many different ideas, and sometimes we'll you know, well, we'll write a 12 page treatment, send it to each other, and the other person's like, Nah, not feeling it. My Desktop has like, his a folder called old movies. And I was just looking at it now. And there's, there's probably 24 treatments in there. None of which.

Jason Buff 33:01
Right? Do you have any kind of go to structure that you use when you're like plotting things together? I mean, do you ever use something like save the cat or, or hero's journey or anything like that? Or I assume for a horror movie, it's a little bit different.

Cody Calahan 33:15
Yeah, I mean, say the Cat's got some, I mean, that looks that looks great. Because I do think no matter whether if it's for drama, or comedy, or whatever, there is, there's structure things that have worked forever. So that so you know, there's some things to keep in mind. And especially if it's your, if it's your first film, I would never tell anybody did not experiment. I think that's the point of making movies. But you know, there's some things like that you need to you need to stick to like, giving your your character a reason to be in the story and not just being like, Okay, I'm gonna go make a horror movie. So I'm going to spend, you know, all the money on blood and gore. Because that's what people want to see. It's like, I think, you know, I think there's so many movies, I think audiences are getting smarter. And I think you gotta be, you gotta make something that's about people and stuff before, you know, heads are exploding. Not that we don't do that.

Chad Archibald 34:08
I think the other thing as well, that we've gotten used to doing and I think this is a little bit more of a producer writing thing is that, you know, you make sure that you can pull off what you're writing. So if you already know what your budget is going to be, or if you know that you're going to be doing it on your own with your friends. It's about coming up with ideas that you can that you know, that you can pull off well, as opposed to coming out, like creating ideas that are so big that you're just setting yourself up for failure. We mean, Cody have done it in the past. So many other filmmakers I know have done it, where it's like, you know, they've got a bunch of cops coming in, and it's like, as soon as you see the cops, they're just like a bunch of kids and they're like just wearing all these like, whatever blue dress shirts that are all big and wonky and it just takes you out of the whole story.

Cody Calahan 35:01
You know, you're reading the script. It's like, you know, the bad guys walk out and there's a riot scene, and then you go to shoot it. And it's like, your four buddies, your grips your gaffers. And there's like 10 people in the shot and you're like,

Chad Archibald 35:15
And none of them are actors. So they're all like, you know, there's always a guy who's laughing in the back and

Cody Calahan 35:20
staring at the camera. Yeah.

Jason Buff 35:24
Okay, so moving on from screenwriting. Going into pre production, I'm gonna try to get through this as fast as possible, because this is this is the kind of stuff people need to know a lot of people want to be in your shoes. The there's the touchy subject of budgeting, investing, and kind of having an idea of what a film can make. Can you guys discuss that a little bit? And how you figure out, okay, we can, for example, you know, $100,000, half a million dollars, a million dollars going up and up and up? It's like, how is there some sort of information you can give us about how all that works? And how you budget?

Chad Archibald 36:09
People love that question. It's so funny how often people ask me, like, what's that? What's the sweet spot? Like? Yeah, well, you know, you make a movie for that, and you're gonna make your money back or, you know, it's, I mean, it, it's different, because, and you always have to say this at the start is, it does come down to your concept, you know, you can make a movie, for 100 grand, that has a really good idea. And it could, you know, go insane, it could, it could make you millions, it could, you know, be huge, or make a movie for 100 grand, and it could not sell anywhere. So, I mean, it always does come down to your concept, and you know, the quality of, you know, filmmaking that you're that you're dealing with. So, I mean, there is no sweet spot, that's always going to be like, you know, this is, this is the safe area, you're always going to make your money back. Now, there's accounting things, like for example, if you wanted to use, you know, tax credits, you know, you can look at your budget and be like, Alright, we're gonna invest this much, and we'll get this much back in tax credits. And, you know, it's always a percentage. So it's, you know, depends on what your entire budget is. But it's, I mean, a lot of the stuff that we do is non union. And, I mean, we do things like ad social, to which union. So there's obviously a big gap there. When you go non union, you can, you can shoot stuff for a lot cheaper. And there's, you know, less rules that are going to demand your funds. But I mean, I think if you, you know, if you go and you make a million dollar film, you're probably going to want to go union, because you're going to want to like to get some names, and that's going to help sell your product, because I think it does kind of, unless your films that complete breakout head, it does cap out a little bit, you know, if you don't have any names in your movie, it can be really, really awesome. And still, you know, a lot of distributors will be like, I'm not gonna buy that, or I'm gonna buy it for this much money because it's got nobody at it. So but I mean, you know, there's, there's exceptions to every rule. You know, if people are looking for safe answers, that's, that's your safe answers that, you know, if you're going to, you know, make a movie for a million bucks, you got to make sure you try to get some names in it. If you're going to make a movie for nothing, then make sure you got a good concept to sell it.

Jason Buff 38:43
Yeah, and so where exactly do you find the money? Where's the money? That's yeah, what do you have any like phone numbers and addresses?

Cody Calahan 38:54
Yes, it is the best answer if we can answer that this podcast would be amazing.

Jason Buff 39:00
All right, well, I won't hold you to that.

Chad Archibald 39:03
Industry, they released the phone number.

Jason Buff 39:07
Phone calls from this guy. Okay, so the the main thing I'm what I've been saying is just you have to really, it's like any business, you have to build something that people are going to be interested in, you have to have an actor or actors or, you know, somebody with a track record. You know, I always advise people, you know, if you want to make a movie for $100,000, make a movie for $10,000 or whatever you can afford at that moment, and then, you know, build up, you know, and I don't know how you guys feel about that. But it just seems like most people that are making films, it's like they start out with something really low budget, and just kind of an even just shorts, you know, and then slowly move up with the next project. And as long as they can demonstrate that they have a track record, they're gonna you know, be able to keep making movies.

Alex Ferrari 39:56
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Chad Archibald 40:05
Well, I mean, it's so it's so tricky and it's so like, there, there's like, filmmakers do need to be, to have a sense of responsibility for everyone else. Because it's, it's become an issue over the years now that everyone can make a movie, there's so many people out there that are like, you know, I've never made a movie, but I just think that I was born to make a movie. So I'm, I'm gonna go out, and I'm going to talk to, you know, all these lawyers and dentists or whatever the hell and raise some money and we're gonna go out and we're gonna make the best movie ever because I was born to make movies, and I watched a ton of movie, so I'm just going to be the best at it. And then they go out and they, you know, make a shitty film or a great film, who knows, but chances are, like anything else, it's like, you get better at doing something by doing it. And there's a lot of people that raise a lot of money and lose a lot of money for people in the industry. Or not, not in the industry, there's a lot of people who, you know, sit back, and they look and they're like, Oh, this is like, you know, my sister in law's cousin's son, and he's a filmmaker, and he's telling me, he's going to, you know, hit the jackpot with this movie, and I'm going to give them 50 grand, and they're going to give me back 200 grand, because that's what his little paper proposal told me. And then they go in and invest the funds and into someone who's, you know, made a little booklet that looks really awesome, but has no idea what they're doing. And, you know, then then that person, you know, gets burnt and tells his story that, you know, never invest in a film, you'll lose all your money. And then independent, like, independent people fun, like financing films like that are, you know, they're never going to do it again. I think everyone should be working together and, you know, raising responsible numbers to try to be like, Okay, I'll, how would I get 10 grand from you, even if you lose, if I lose it all, and there's nothing back. Like, I mean, I could print off DVDs and sell 10 grand worth and, you know, a while, you know, it's like, there's still, you know, it's that much money, so you can like, you can still recoup it for someone. But I mean, we, you know, me and Cody know, people who have invested millions of dollars in products that never got finished. And it's, it's sad, but it's, you know, it hurts everyone in the industry. And it's, you know, it's, it's the responsibility now that everyone has the power to actually make a movie, you know, you can go out and buy, you know, a camera for $3,000 and make it, you know, a movie that could be a hit. So, technology's not really a factor anymore. It's just, yeah, you know, there's people out there that have done that they've gone and raised a million dollars in one shot, and maybe with like, casting their buddies in it. Now, it's a crazy. Again, like, I'm not saying don't be ambitious, but I just mean, you know, try to try to figure out what you're doing before you start spending people's money on.

Jason Buff 43:03
Yeah, it's funny, because, you know, back when I was more, you know, in the age in my 20s, trying to make films, I, I had a couple, I think I had three friends who got money by showing people around El Mariachi, and they get like they had they had an investor meeting, they were like, look at this movie, and look how much money this movies made, you know, and they went out and they shot their own movie, and nobody ever saw. I mean, this was back in the days of like, you know, 1635 millimeter, and it was a lot more expensive. But it was always funny to be like, everybody was using the same one example or clerks or, you know, back in like the late 90s, you know?

Chad Archibald 43:39
Yeah, yeah. That was uh, that's it

Cody Calahan 43:48
To go on, and try to try to find money and I mean, me and me and Chad and a few people, we spent a bunch of money and shot trailers for movies that we wanted to make. And we thought, okay, so we're gonna go out we're gonna make these shows we're gonna make them look super high quality, great little concepts, try to get the stories across in these short little two to three minute trailers and then start setting up meetings because we have something to show that will show that we can do show that we can drag bla bla bla and it's funny because I think we made four of them. And we've picked some but and just kind of realized that it's like to go like, Okay, that's cool, but it doesn't you know, show numbers doesn't show you guys can make money back but when we met breakthrough, we showed them the trailers and it's funny because they, they didn't necessarily want to make those movies but when we showed them the trailer, they were kinda like, Okay, do you guys can do you guys can do that. We'll give you a tiny bit tiny bit of money and we'll see if we'll see if this works. And that was that was an historical one. But I've mean half of the why we got that was a trailer for a completely different movie, but at least we You know, put all our effort into that, and we didn't spend too much money getting a getting a pitch piece ready, because that's the other thing, too, is don't spend 20 grand getting something together to pitch to get money for a movie. Make a movie.

Chad Archibald 45:16
Yeah, exactly. And we are like, we also, you know, there's a ton of people out there that will be like, Oh, we've got this DP, and he just did a huge film. So we're gonna put all his stuff in our reel, saying that, you know, our team has made it where, you know, he may have had a ton of money and, you know, a whole different group of filmmakers, you know, it is about the team that you're working with. Everything that we went to break through, it was stuff that, you know, our team had made, specifically. So you know, we can we can say that whenever we walked in, it's like, it's not like, we're just pulling people's reels and creating a team that's never worked together on a budget so low. And saying that we can pull off, you know, what you're seeing here, this was us going in there being like, we made this with, you know, out of our own pocket with the team that we currently have to do this, this film. So

Jason Buff 46:09
You get the feeling that a lot of these companies just want to make sure that, you know, you guys kind of know what you're doing. And it's like, okay, well, we can, you know, we just want to see that they can they have a beautiful image, they have good actors, they have they, you know what I mean? It's like they're there. They know how to make a movie, you know, versus a lot of these people who, you know, you never know, I get people that send me their shorts all the time. And some of them look, you know, high end professionally shot, amazing. And others just look like somebody with their, you know, handycam walking around or their iPhone and have no sense of, you know, cinematography, movement, storytelling, or anything, you know?

Chad Archibald 46:48
Yeah, and it's weird, because there's been like, we've got a ton of shorts and stuff sent to us. And sometimes it's like, you look at them, and they're just a mess, but you can see something in them. And you're like, cool. Let me know. Because I feel like the next thing that they do, they're gonna learn from their mistakes on this one. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's, I think, it does come down to just proving yourself making sure that you know, people know that, that you can handle produce a good product. But also, just again, it does come down to content, like if Cody and pitch this idea of Facebook, turning people into zombies in the studio, then like that, it didn't matter what we actually did. It does come down to, we have a concept concept in the industry, you know, people say concept is currency. So, that's how you get creative. So, I mean, you can have, you know, tons of actors and tons of people involved and whatnot, and you bring it all together. And if you don't have a concept that's going to stand out, and you know, you're gonna get burned out. So it is all comes down to it. It's about you know, coming up with that idea that's going to stand out.

Jason Buff 48:00
Okay, let me I'm gonna try and do a little more rapid fire because I know you guys are pressed for time. I didn't mean to interrupt. Sorry. There's a little delay. Okay, so moving into production, who are the most? You know, you've got your screenplay? Where do you go from there? Where do you start? Do you work with like movie magic, start working on the budget, hire a line producer, how does what is the, from the end of the screenplay to the beginning of the filming kind of what what happens there.

Chad Archibald 48:38
So, usually what we do is once we get a treatment, or a script approved, we create our basic budget of the idea. And we start assembling our team, we're lucky enough, we've worked with a lot of the same people, because we're doing so many films back to back. But we've worked hard on you know, building a crew of people that we really trust we really enjoy working with and, and respect. And, I mean, that's, you know, it's another, you know, tell everyone is, you know, find people that you're happy working with, I get to work with Cody every day is my best bud. It's it's, it's, it's finally can doesn't seem like work, you know, obviously that some days it really do. It's more fun to work with people you like, and respect. And there's, there's a lot of people out there in the industry that want to make movies. And, you know, there's a lot of people that let it go to their heads right away that, you know, once the pressures on some pressures on of making a film, you know, they get angry or frustrated or, you know, blow up or whatnot. So, I mean, we, we worked really hard to find people who work really hard deal with stress well, and are always, always able to kind of put a smile on their face and

Alex Ferrari 50:00
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Chad Archibald 50:09
And, and continue on today. So I mean, it's it really makes a difference. Everyone on our crews treats each other with respect. You know, it's a key with with us doing all these films is that everyone, everyone gets along. And if there's an issue, you know, we all talk about it, we all figured out how to how to deal with it. We don't fire people we don't, we don't blow up at people, you never hear people yelling and screaming at each other on our sets. We make a point of making sure that we've got a crew that's, that's passionate, and we're all in it together. And we're, you know, we say black font family all the time, you know, we all we're all the brothers and sisters that can bicker and whatnot. But in the end, we're always we always have each other's back. Anyway, so we call all these people like to see, you know, see if they're able to come out and set up a crew figure out, you know, if it's a studio have to build, we're going to do get people involved there in our pre production times are pretty quick. I mean, we had, I think three or four weeks of pre production on by, and that's like literally from, you know, got the script, like, finished three weeks before we started shooting. So, you know, it all has come together really quick. But yeah, it's just, it's almost like a checklist for us now, here is the people that we need, that's called figure out where are we going to lodge people? Where are we going to shoot this where, you know, what do What elements do, we need to do, that's our gear, we've, again, because we were doing so many films, we've set up relationships with William a flag. So you know, every show that we remember that we're doing, we just, you know, we call them, everything's all our accounts are all set up, everything's ready, we just got a call center, just discuss what we're doing. And you know, they've got our back on everything, you know, television does all the cameras, as well as, you know, some support from from additional camera houses. But it's, you know, we've got it laid out with people that we really trust and work well, within, you know, luckily, we can kind of make all these calls fairly quickly and get everything together. That's from like a producing standpoint, I guess from a directing standpoint, it's, you know, it's even more of a challenge to get a film ready so quickly. And I mean, we're not we haven't done it, it's not like we go on and storyboard all of our stuff with the storyboard artists, you know, as amazing as that would be. That's one of the luxuries that we built, they were always jealous of, because we are making these films. So quickly, we do have to, you know, we end up with a, with a little booklet of like, chicken scratch, where it's like, you know, we've we've storyboarded everything out, but I mean, it's almost like it's in Chinese, it's so far. But I mean, whenever you sit there and actually, you know, go through it with with the DP can decipher it all and then get on the same page. And, you know, we, you know, sometimes we print them off and give them to everyone show everyone what we're doing every day.

Jason Buff 53:16
You just arrive at the morning with like, Okay, we're going to do, you know, this establishing shot, and we're going to do a close up here. And I'm going to you just kind of put all that together the night before and then arrive and do the shot list. Is that kind of how it works.

Chad Archibald 53:32
Yeah, like I mean, we have already extended the whole schedule, and works with us on figuring out the best way that we can, we can do this. And, you know, just go through, you know, they send it out to everyone the day before everyone gets it, they kind of give a little scheme of what we're doing, what rooms we're in. At the end of our days, we generally try to, you know, have a little discussion with our lighting team will honor what we're doing first the next day. And you know how we can get a jump on the day, because that's always the biggest challenge is getting the first shot off. And yes, so I mean, it's a that

Jason Buff 54:12
You have any advice for, like I recently watched the drowns woman. And the quality of the image on that is incredible. And I don't know, I don't know what the budget was on the film. But I was wondering if there were any sort of tricks or tips that you had for, you know, getting that kind of production value, and working at that kind of like budget level. You might need shot or is it just like you'd like the whole thing and then shoot from different areas.

Chad Archibald 54:43
I think I'm the draftsman depending on on where we're talking about, like we're the draftsman, there was a set that we had built. Right and I mean, you know, so many people talked about lighting and cameras and lenses and when not, but I mean it's, it's Something that people just miss, from like an indie perspective, so many people will just just totally skimp out on set design in our direction. Filling your frame with things and Cody came from our background. So, you know, when me and him started working together on stuff I really learned a lot from, from him and kind of his insights on that. Because it is, you know, it's like, light something beautifully, you can, you can have a great camera and but if if your frames not the pieces aren't all in right spots, then you know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna be the shot that you're looking for. So even like things like the John's been, like, we, we've built a bunch of our sets. And when we build their sets, it's literally like, it's us building the sets, it's not like, you know, we hire a big, you know, we have a small team of people that we really trust that are so hard working. And we all get together and build this stuff in a few days, and, you know, it's tired, it's nice, we're, you know, pulling 30 hour days and, and whatnot to actually build on but we do it so that we can actually have that control where we can, you know, put elements wherever we want them to create our friends and whatnot. So it's to start off, you know, that's how we, we try to, you know, make things look great Johnson layer was completely, we decided that we can shoot up in the basement, we don't want to be limited by, you know, your standard basement reps that look like every other indie film. You know, we wanted to use water and we wanted to flood plays, and you know, we can't do that inside of studio or inside someone's basement. So I mean, we could do it, but, you know, again, burning patients and people we can do it once. But as far as you know, you set up your room and you have your, your basic setup of like this is, this is kind of the look that we're going to have, this is our standard look for this room. And then accordingly, depending on how you're shooting things, you know, you have floating lights moving around, you have whatever you need to kind of, in taste the shot a little bit. And I mean, also, you know, keeping continuity with everything, as much as you know, you move later on, in between shots, and you know, make every shot look great, you know, so you don't want to go from a shot a wide where your actors faces shadowed, and, you know, you push into the close up and it's like, they're beautifully lit. You know, it's about standing the lighting for all the shots when you start when you start on your watch, you know. But I mean, it's often that it's, it's just about kind of creating, training or atmosphere filling your frame using using the foreground and the background we had in the Johnson lair, we decided we wanted to use these kind of aquariums. And we've kind of like hidden along so they were like old tomato plants that had dried up from an action that we had kind of dangled over everything just to kind of give everything a little bit more textures, stuff that light can kind of touch as opposed to just have inflatables, right. And then we we took all these aquariums, you know, filled them with dirty water and leaves and crap and then we threw through lights, little lights, and behind them, like just a little keynotes or short keynotes or whatever and let them all up. So then, you know, as they're walking through here, there's no like the only light source is kind of like these beard like, dirty, musty Aquarian. Very sad. That's what the illusion that that's the only light sources these things and they're always you know, there's something going on in the background and, you know, dirty water just kind of has like a little bit of a gradient to it to kind of, you know, create something a little interesting. And just visually appealing in the background. Yeah. Right.

Jason Buff 59:06
Now, can you talk a little bit about sorry, did you Skype okay. It's like doing a broadcast broadcast to the Middle East or something. Okay, so I want to one of the things that always jumps out at me literally, is, you know, these scenes these really gut wrenching horror scenes where you know, you've got your actress there, you've got you know, they're being dragged off or something horrible is happening to them. Can you talk a little bit about directing a scene like that how it feels being on set during something like that, because it just like, I've always been curious how, you know, just what are you talking about? Do you cut the camera, cut the scene and everybody's laughing two seconds later or what? kind of what's that? Like?

Alex Ferrari 1:00:02
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Cody Calahan 1:00:15
Um, I don't know, sometimes it can, it could go either way. Like, sometimes it's, you know, you'll shoot a scene where, you know, the bad guys getting killed or whatever. And there's a huge explosion of blood. And it sort of as soon as you've had the camera, it's like, you know, the gore guys are cheering and everybody's laughing because it's, you know, it is a little ridiculous, but then sometimes have those scenes where, you know, the actors get so into it, and you get so into it, and you're, you're pushing for the best performance and you sort of get a performance. That's, that's real. And, you know, so I think it goes either way, except, you know, we've had times where, you know, the scene ends, we say, Cut and it's just silence. And everybody's like, holy shit. Okay. Well, I think we can move on. I think kind of depends what what the scene, you know, what the scene is, you know, if it's, if somebody's running around with the chainsaw, people, often there's blood spraying everywhere, we usually get a pretty positive response from our crew. But if it's something more emotional, then, you know, sometimes it's one of those ones where I can't remember the exact scene. But I remember shooting some with Jeff Mahara, those are, those are usually our DP for everything. And I said cut and he just sort of looked at me and he was like, sort of had that holy shit look on his face and said, Okay, now we're moving on. So let's go to scene. Scene. 34. That was 20 minutes before this when you were happy

Chad Archibald 1:01:49
Yeah, it's, we, we did the film bite, and it was full of, you know, gooey, gross, disgusting, a eggs and dripping. Like it sounds to be like mucus. So it was really like, when you watch the film, it's it's pretty gross. But on sad it was, you know, you, you kind of know when you've got something good because you get those reactions, right. That's kind of that's like, what he's talking about whenever you have been foreseen, and it's like, blood explodes everywhere. It's like, you always like hope that when I was done, and he called cut, everyone cheers. And like, you know, it's always a bummer whenever you do one of those scenes, and it goes. And it's like, okay, it's quiet. It's like, shit, you always want that cheer at the end, you know, you want that. With bite, it was like, anytime is the stringy mucus stuff that like as soon as it's stuck to something, it would be like webs it kind of, is really very gross. And, you know, we had so much fun making a movie because, you know, it used to be called cut and be like, ah

So and yeah, but I mean, I think when it does come down to shooting national coverage of your, of your cast, or somebody you know, depending on what your movie is, if it's, you know, if it's a serious moment, and they have to stay in character. You know, a lot of times we'll keep everyone quiet. Or we'll even you know, try to keep as few people on set as possible. But yeah, I mean, we we've shot a bunch of films, we haven't gone into that territory of like, dirty, dark, like truly disturbing, like, upsetting scenes that are so uncomfortable to even shoot. I'm sure we will eventually add a little bit of a lighter tone to them.

Jason Buff 1:03:55
Okay, sure. They're pretty, pretty light hearted. family movies

Chad Archibald 1:04:06
About making like Serbian film or something like that, you know, it's like, I can't I can't. I don't know how people will react on a disturbing scene, like close. Sorry, I had a whole discussion about that movie today. So it's like I look at our movies. Pretty big hearted, you know, joking around and, you know, some of our stuff is a little cartoony even, but

Jason Buff 1:04:29
Uh, was that I didn't hear you.

Chad Archibald 1:04:33
Serbian even sometimes a little jokey and cartoony?

Jason Buff 1:04:37
No, but what film that you say that to what you were talking about?

Chad Archibald 1:04:40
Serbian film. Okay. Which? I don't know if Yeah, well,

Jason Buff 1:04:46
I haven't seen it. I've heard about it. I haven't. You know, it's not on my list that

Chad Archibald 1:04:51
You're thinking about things like that. It's like because I do I've often wondered. I seems They're true and disturbing, or like rape scenes or anything like that, it's like it, you know, we haven't done anything like that, and I'm sure it's, it's a tone that I'm sure there's a weird tone on set for those, they think it would probably be a, you know, something that would be very awkward to direct, or you would really have to put a lot of pay a lot of attention to how you're treating everyone and your actors and respect. And you know, if you're, you know, doing very serious thing, and you want to make sure that everyone shows after, like, take big breaks in between or if you just want to shoot, keep shooting, and you know, everyone can go cry at the end of it.

Jason Buff 1:05:42
Yeah, well, I mean, okay, talking about the I'm trying to wrap up a little bit, because I know you guys have to go. How do you deal with the emotional stress of shooting and everything? Is there any, any way that you have been able to kind of because I mean, you guys, you're shooting a lot of movies, but I mean, for a lot of like normal people? It's, it's, I mean, probably the most stressful thing you can do? You know? Is there any way that you've learned to deal with that overcoming, you know, doubts, or any sort of psychological aspect of filmmaking that you can discuss?

Cody Calahan 1:06:20
I think. I mean, that's kind of the great thing about Blackphone. And myself and Chad, because I think we lean on each other a lot. And we share. Like, when, when I'm directing, I mean, I'm him a lot. And when he's directing, he leans on me a lot. So it's like, at least we know, when we go into a film, even if we're not directing or producing, at least we know, when we go into film, that there's somebody else there if if something goes wrong, or something's like, just we can't handle it, something, at least are some of the some of the person there to powwow with or to, you know, just so we're not ever doing it on our own. But I'd say, for me, what I've learned over making movies is, you know, the minute you get there, put 100% into everything while you're there. But just, you know, try not to take everything home. You know, like Leave, leave, leave some of it. You know, it's, it's hard because filmmaking is, you know, 50% Worth 50% passion. So it's hard to leave it sometimes. But I mean, for me, I think it's made me a better filmmaker, not taking it home, not dwelling on it, and not allowing myself to sleep, because I'm thinking about a scene tomorrow, and I can't figure it out. So I don't know, for me, I, I try my hardest. And then that's not to say that I don't do it, but I tried my hardest to sort of give it all on there. And then, you know, I'll still think about it at home, but I try not to bring it all home.

Chad Archibald 1:07:44
Yeah, it's weird, like filmmaking is weird, especially indie filmmaking. The majority of the products we do are overly ambitious, but just enough, we'd like to think. So it's one of those things is like, you get what you put into it every day, which is, I think it's kind of a dangerous concept. It's almost like, you know, you're, you're swimming in the ocean, and you're doing a contest, and the more water you drink, the better you are, that's how you're gonna win. You just got to keep drinking water anymore. Why? Who whoever drinks the most water wins, where it's like, it's endless. It's not like, a drink all the water, you know, it's like, when you go to make a movie, it's like, there's always more you can do, there's always things that can make the shots better, or make your days go better, or make your, you know, film goes better or more takes and like it's never done. So I mean, there are points, especially directing, when you're just like, you're pushing so hard, and you're like, you know, you just want it to be better and better and better and bigger and bigger. And, you know, you have to kind of control yourself so that you don't get you know, one shot done in a day. It's so I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's always it's always a struggle, and it's always stressful. And yeah, like Cody said, you know, having working with people that you trust and be able to kind of lean on each other. And knowing that you're all in one together and you're all trying to make it work is is definitely what kind of gets us through through our shoots. Because we, you know, we tend to do very long days.

Jason Buff 1:09:26
How long do you guys usually shoot, like a typical film, you know, bite or antisocial to or the draftsman? How long did this take to shoot?

Chad Archibald 1:09:38
I mean, they're all different. I think bite took about 15 days and 15 days in Ontario and then we shot additional two or three days and

Alex Ferrari 1:09:51
we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Chad Archibald 1:10:01
I mean, they're all different. But again, it does come down to you know, you're how ambitious you're going to be. Johnson was, oh, man, we just kept going back for more shoots and more. Anytime you're dealing with water, things like that, it just gets so insane. So it's it. I mean, we probably shot 30 days on groundsman, if you actually add them all up, hanging in social too, we shot a fair bit more than we planned as well. Not too many, I've actually been shot like, you know, 20 days or something like that on a social, too. Yeah, and we usually have an editor on side as well, who read it as we go. So we kind of get to actually, you know, on day two, we see one's footage, or we see day one scenes cut together.

Jason Buff 1:10:49
Right! I was gonna ask you that. So you can kind of see what if you're, if you miss anything, or whatever, you can just do a quick reshoot while you have everything set up. Right?

Chad Archibald 1:10:57
Exactly. So you can kind of run over and grab a shot that you mister, at least put it on the list and come on back on a weekend or something like that, to grab it. So I mean, that definitely, that definitely helps us move in. And it also gives, you know, the entire cast and crew and everyone a little bit of it's exciting, you know, it's like you're watching something and you see some scenes come together and they look really, really good. And you can kind of show the cast a little bit of their performance, you know, give them a little taste of what we're doing. You know, there's a lot of ways for the Casco and they do an entire film then they go on the Senate theater and watching like oh my god, this is horrible. And I mean, we all do I'm sure cast is some of our earlier films do that as well. But at least being able to kind of show them there. They have a confidence in the crew has a confidence that everyone's building some thing that's gonna look really good. And then come out and you know, it's a good way to kind of get everyone excited about the project and keep keep everyone's passionate levels up high.

Jason Buff 1:12:03
Okay, so moving into post production just a couple more questions.

Chad Archibald 1:12:07
You hmm, we may have lost Cody

Jason Buff 1:12:13
Oh yeah, let me that's not good. Hold on a second. Yeah, he doesn't look like he's on there. But maybe he had to leave let me see I can try texted me he's like dude, no more

Chad Archibald 1:12:30
Often it won't let him return a line and he let me

Jason Buff 1:12:33
Let me put them back on there we go. Like where did you go man, we were all we were concerned. I don't want to let him know that we didn't notice he wasn't there. There Cody. Hey, man. Yeah, sorry about that. All right. Yeah, okay, so let me let me launch into a few more quick questions about post just for our my people here the getting into the post production process. How long does that typically last? And what is the kind of can you walk through what happens first? What happens next just so people have a general idea of how it all comes together?

Chad Archibald 1:13:26
Yeah, we like I was saying we do a lot of our editing on set. So by the time we're done shooting a movie, you know 80% of it. Ideally cut and I we fairly fast turnarounds on our phones, I think we shot by in December and screen that the cam market in May. So again, like we'd like we were saying with, with all the LEDs that we have for production, we do the same in post. You know, red lab in Toronto does all our color correct? For each one of our films, and we've worked out a deal. So they know when it's coming in. Urban posters are post sound, you know, so we create our schedules with all of them. And, you know, we get an edit together, and we take it to the studio, we sit down with them and kind of get everyone's input and trim it down, make whatever changes you need to lock our picture, send it off to read lab, sit in there and do our color sessions with them. Send it off to urban, they work on on other sound edits, for whatever reason, we always end up on some crazy deadline like it's going to screen somewhere. And you know, it's a big panic to actually get it all done. But I mean luckily we have such great companies are working with and post that. They work really hard to make it all happen to anything excited when they see you need to work on something they get to see in a theater in two weeks. I

Jason Buff 1:15:02
And in terms of the drowns Minh, which is I haven't been able to see the other two movies because they're not out yet. But you work with George Flores on that, right?

Chad Archibald 1:15:14
Yeah, I've worked with George a bunch of times. Because

Jason Buff 1:15:19
George has a friend of mine, actually.

Chad Archibald 1:15:20
I love George.

Jason Buff 1:15:24
He always taught me more about filmmaking, I think when I was starting a small film, down here, and he was just one of the people that I was talking with about doing post sound. And he would just sit there for, you know, and talk about all these things that we need to make sure we had and everything. I mean, just very generous with his time. So I'm, I want to make sure I promote George on the show. Absolutely.

Chad Archibald 1:15:46
No, George did a film called Neverland. With me to go, and he did this. And, you know, we had such a great time working on with those zones. And, yeah, I definitely have a huge supporter of George as well.

Jason Buff 1:16:04
So the typical time from editing and doing sound, and when do you work with, like soundtrack music and things like that.

Chad Archibald 1:16:13
So we have, like, for example, drowns in a social bite, all the sounds were scored by a woman named Steph Copeland, who, you know, we get along with works so well with her, and she's so talented. You know, I'm sure we'll work on many more funds after this. But, you know, she loves to come in early as well. And just kind of minutes or, you know, she's already got stuff that she's working on before she even sees that is where she's just read the script, and she's getting ideas. And building functions, again, very passionate. artist, who just is always working hard and was, you know, really excited to project and we're not, you know, so we, as soon as we pitch a lock, that's kind of what everyone's always waiting on. Everyone's excited to be like, okay, feature lock feature luggage locks, as soon as we get it, we kind of, you know, press the go button, it goes to her, it goes to urban post, it goes to a red live, and everyone gets to start working on it kind of at once.

Okay, well, guys, I don't want to take much. And let me just ask you one final question. How? What can you give just a little bit of advice to people out there who haven't made their first film and are, you know, wanting to, you know, get out and kind of do what you guys have done? Do you have any sort of like, you know, if you could go into a time machine and tell yourself before you started, what what kind of advice would you give yourself?

I mean, the things that, that I would say are definitely, like we're doing now we work on tons of different ideas to find the right one. I would say spend the time Don't, don't get excited with with an idea that is just a generic throwaway idea and just dive at it to make a movie. You know, make sure you spend spend your time a lot of people write scripts, because they're, you know, they sit down as prescriptive, as if it's like, if they have a script, they're going to make a good movie, you know. So, work hard and make sure you understand the concept or your your film that you're going to make and make sure you really wanna make it because that's it to a lot of people lose passion halfway through their eyes. So again, this sounds not really, I don't really care about it. I mean, figure out, figure out what you want to make and figure out a concept that you're really passionate about the you know, you think she can, you know, matters what you want to do. Are you making a film to create an art piece? Are you making a film to sell to the market? Are you going to go for, you know, something that's going to make funds back? Are you trying to do something that's, you know, in our piece, you kind of have to know what you're going to do before you go into it. And then after that, again, take your time and find the right people to work with. There's a lot of great people in the film industry like any other any industry, there's a lot of great people and there's a lot of people that it's actually counterproductive to work with. So find find the right people you want to work with, surround yourself with some and find talented people and I mean, if you you know, go out and show how passionate you are and show people give people confidence that you know what your, your plan is, and you've you've worked hard to organize it and figure things out that you know, they will have confidence in you. And then aside from that, just go out on your own even with your iPhone and shoot some stupid stuff with your friends. You know, it's there's a reason why in film school they're like I go to do an action scene go chasing go do these because like they don't want you to come back with beauty for Chase team, they want you to go realize the mistakes and the issues that you're going to that are going to arise whenever you make a chasing, you know, just so the next time you do it, you you've already gone through a few steps. And, and learn. Now, if you do 10, chasing your 11th one is going to be amazing. And it's going to be even better than the other one. So, that's, you know, don't be don't be afraid to go out and make crappy shorts or whatever, like don't they don't even have to be shorts, you know, you're gonna get giant crews together and devote, you know, understanding how to do these things. And it doesn't take big cameras or anything. It's the same as everything else, you know, you just got to go out and make your mistakes and learn from

Jason Buff 1:20:45
Alright guys, I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot for coming on the show. And I look forward to seeing antisocial too, and bite. But anyway, thanks a lot, guys.

Chad Archibald 1:20:54
Thanks so much.