IFH 859: What James Gunn Taught Me About Success with Will Keenan

Alex Ferrari 0:47
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:54
So, on today's episode, I have actor, stunt man and founder of the St Baptist Church. We're going to talk about everything from his first starring role in Tromeo and Juliet, where he was Tromeo, which was actually written by James Gunn, to moving to India to star in Bollywood films to becoming an exec at some of the biggest content studios around with guest Will Keenan. Hey, Will, thanks all for coming on the podcast

Will Keenan 2:22
Dave Bullis. How are you?

Dave Bullis 2:24
I am doing very well. Will, how are you doing on this on this fine Sunday morning?

Will Keenan 2:31
It's beautiful down here in Cape May County in New Jersey. And hey, just so you know, that you know this this opportunity to speak with you for your podcast, which I've now checked out, kind of came out of nowhere in a way, but I'm glad I'm glad we're doing it, and I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to now promote you as the podcast man in the Philly area.

Dave Bullis 2:49
Oh, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Yeah, you know, that's the way I try to do it. I sort of come out of nowhere, and I sort of find fine people on social media, and I sort of go, "Hey, I'm Dave, I got this podcast. You want to come on and talk, but

Will Keenan 3:04
You know, I.. I'm like, you know, I'm a big deal in my own head, but, but I get, you know, opportunities via social media. People ask me to be on podcasts or speak at conferences, or whatever, and I always then check their social media. You'd be surprised, be surprised how many, how many people like reach out without having their own, you know, especially for something like a podcast that is social, at least the sharing of it, you know, online. These surprised how many people reach out for a request but don't have their own channels optimized, if you know what I mean, so all I do is in one click I know whether I'm going to say yes or no. So you were a big yes with the exclamation point.

Dave Bullis 3:47
Oh, thank you, I appreciate that. I, you know, I try to try my best with my social media, and I know your social media, that's great, and I agree with you, because you know I see other people who have podcasts and such, and you know, even you know actors, producers, directors, screenwriters, and I see their, you know, some of their social media, and it's just, it's like nothing, it's just, you know, it's just sort of sitting there, and you know, that's how they're going to promote their stuff, but, but you know, yeah, I'm glad that you could, you could come on, and I want to talk to you, obviously, you know, about your career, you got some awesome credits, and I also want to talk to you about, you know, all the great things that you're working on, so you know, just to start, I guess. You know, at the beginning, you know, how did you, you know, find yourself in the film industry? So, you know, what was sort of your impetus to start in this industry?

Will Keenan 4:32
Yeah, my first film was, was cast in right before I graduated, or went down the graduation aisle at New York University, and oh boy, is this before you were born, Dave? 1995 summer of 1995 right before I think the week before NYU graduation. I had been cast as the lead in trauma's film Tromeo and Juliet. That was my first film, and it was a starring role, and I was not familiar with trauma at the time. I throughout NYU, I had been doing a lot of kind of performance art, dance, theater, I mean, you know, that kind of thing, and, and prior to that, when a lot of my generation got into the trauma movies, I was out climbing trees and doing stunts and stuff, so when I saw the casting, like a week before NYU graduation, I was with a friend of mine. He's like, 'Oh my god, trauma's casting. I'm like, 'Who's trauma? And he was like, 'What? And then I went in for the casting and read for producer Andrew Weiner. And then I was called back for Andrew and James Gunn, and they were videotaping the, you know, the auditions, and I could tell, like, after the first callback I was, I was getting close, at least to be considered, and then word came back that Lloyd, the director, and mr. Shoma, you know, had seen the tapes and wanted to do a few more callbacks, would put me, put me through the grind, so to speak, but I think I think may have been Andrew Wiener, someone tipped me off to the fact that Lloyd's wife, Petty Pie Pad Kaufman, who was then the she had been for like 20 years the New York State Film Commissioner, that she really liked me, and she was voting for me. So, at that point, that point, I knew I was probably going to get it. And Lloyd told this story once, I think, a few years ago, in some kind of interview, where he said I walked in with a pizza box for the audition as a prop or something, and it's, it's very likely I would have done something like that, but I, but I don't remember, so look, that was my foray into the into the film industry, because when I was at NYU, and right before graduation, I had been a part of this, you know, performance art dance troupe called Via Theater, and we had done a few shows and got great New York Times reviews, and I was so fulfilled creatively that at the time I was like, even after spending it was like 40 to 45,000 a year on NYU with curriculum and room and board for four years. At the end of that, I was so happy with what I was doing, kind of, you know, avant-garde theater in New York City, that I said, I don't care if I never make a dime at this, I'm, I want to do this for the rest of my life, but then that fateful day, why don't you just go, you know, my friend saying you should go audition for Tromeo, so that kind of changed everything, because once I got that role, although let's just say Colt's film wasn't such a huge departure from avant-garde theater, wild, wacky, weird stuff. I caught the film bug because when we premiered Tromeo at the Cannes Film Markets, and I guess it was the year after 96 or maybe 97 I saw myself on the big screen, and I thought, oh my god, there's a, there's a huge difference between theater acting and film acting, and I didn't know the difference when I made, when I started that movie, and I thought I looked like a trauma monster, you know. So once something that, like that, usually happens, you know, then I want to figure it out, so it's not that I switched to film after that, but I did some theater, but you know, I think I racked up like 25 or more independent films during that period, right after Tromeo in New York City.

Will Keenan 8:12
There was kind of, it was like almost like the last hurrah indie film in New York City, I guess, according to Pat, you know, 9594 a boycott had happened, you know, a boycott was finally over, and then a lot of indie film in New York was getting made, and you know, Good Machine, Cineblast, Miramax, like so many great films and filmmakers were coming out of New York City at the time, so you know, I did a lot of them, and a lot, a lot of cool stuff, you know, a number of it got got distribution, some of it broke through that great distribution, and some of them were never to be seen again after that first screening, but you know, starting out as Tromeo, which, you know, it's one thing to be a lead in the Troma movie, or to be in a Troma movie, but to be branded as Tromeo, you know, even though I was able to to do a lot of other, you know, films after that, it was almost like almost like starting out in porn. I mean, trauma, drum is not porn, but you know, you know, it opened up some doors and it slammed other ones shut. So, after trouble me, I did, I had to work really hard, and this is no slight against Lloyd or trauma, there, you know, he was a mentor of mine in a lot of ways, and, and fiercely independent, and just a really good human being overall. So, I don't, you know, no slight on trauma, but I had to work really hard after Tromeo to kind of just be, you know, accepted in the legitimate indie film industry, if you can, if you can, you know, call it that, and at the time they were kind of like, you know, I think a lot of the, you know, the certain film organizations back that, back then, you know, kind of looked down upon trauma because of their genre of filmmaking. But you know they've been around for what, over 4040, some odd years, and I think the longest one of the longest running independent film companies in the world. So I mean, Lloyd's been awarded all over the place. He's never won the Oscar yet, but he says I should have won the Oscar for my, my, my second trauma movie. I did two of them. I started as the cinema's first hermaphrodite serial killer in Terra Firmer. He says I should have won for that until Chop, until Chop. What, what fans I have left say that playing the lead, and Terra Firmer was, was my best role, but Chop, I think, at least with my 10 fans left, they say they say that's the best one. Anyway, so that's how the career started. And then, like I said, there was, I think, it was timing, you know, it was the last hurrah of the indie film broom in New York City, and I was working real hard, and I just got into the scene. No, I said to a lot of actors, you know, I still have actors who come and either, you know, ask me to help them out, or you know, became a producer and financier to help them with their films, or to give them advice, and you know, definitely, if you're an actor and you're serious about it, and you're actually getting schooling, take audition classes, it's a completely different technique than actual acting on stage or film, and film acting is different from theater acting, is different from TV acting, is now different from like YouTube acting, but there's a technique for auditions all itself, and I out of, like, I don't know, 50 some odd projects, you know, films, short films, TV, so forth, and so on, maybe less than a handful, I actually got cast via the audition because I was just a horrible auditioner, and I even at NYU, with all that curriculum, I had never taken an audition technique class, which, which I would have done if I were to do it over, and same thing with, like, the business of entertainment or the business of acting kind of classes. I would have done the same thing anyway. Most of the most of the roles I was cast in as an actor were, you know, either someone telling the filmmaker that they should meet me or talk to me or see my work, or meeting the filmmaker at like an independent film event or film festival, and you know, I like to say I was cast more late at night at some indie film, you know, event after getting to know somebody, the filmmaker, than I was in auditions, but that's how it all started. And then, you know, indie film business is hard, and even though at the last hurrah, it was never a sustainable business. Out of all the movies I made, I don't think I ever made a dime. In fact, I lost a lot of personal money. And then, as the internet kind of gained influence, we saw, you know, the audiences for the format of a feature-length independent show. We saw we saw less and less people wanting to go see those, especially in the theaters. You know, I liken it to now, if I were to talk to someone pretty much under the age of 30 and say, "Hey, let's go see this really cool independent film, what I get is, "Oh god, no, please, you know, which is the same thing that I used to do to people when they had asked me, you know, in the late 90s to go see a theater piece, and I was like, "Oh, god, no, because I've seen so much bad theater, so many people by the early mid 2000s had seen so many bad independent films, you know, so that you know by the time the economic downturn happened, you know, and I was financing movies, producing movies, getting them distributed, and I was a distributor myself with Go Card for a few years back then, and you know, it takes years to at least most cases two years out of your life to make an independent film. You beg, borrow, and steal, and you know you're lucky to get into a big festival. If you do, you can have a healthy festival run.

Will Keenan 13:51
Unfortunately, that's like your theatrical now, because you're lucky if you get a real theatrical deal. People are like giving their movies away to distributors. You're lucky to get a TV deal, I could get a VOD deal, but at the end of the day, you know, you're lucky if 5000 people see your movie, you know. So this is like 2006 2007 and I had a number of projects that were, you know, some were high-profile and be films, but then I saw, you know, and I was very aware of online video, especially YouTube, when it first came out back then, and I just knew that that was essentially the future, and I think, like, 10 years ago I put up my Actors Reel on there, and I think it has over 100,000 views by this point, but you know, if I were to do it all over again, no regrets, I'd love my life and career, I'm doing fine, but I always think, like, okay, you know, if I were to have done things differently, I think I would have essentially switched to online video back then in 2006 rather than take another few years doing American Independent Film, and then when the economic downturn got really, really bad, I think it was 2008 910-ish, I went. Bollywood, I went to India at first on an exploratory trip, because they have the largest independent film industry in the world, and there's actually like four distinct film industries there - Bollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood, and so forth - that, that I started working there for a number of years, and worked with some of the biggest stars there, and made it, made a few movies there, and, and things were going great. I was, you know, I was, it was well received. They kind of rolled out the red carpet for me. My Indian friends tell now tell me that was because I was a Westerner and had some real, you know, Hollywood credits, but you know, my trips there kept getting longer and longer, and I was living like a king. I was on the on the cover of, like, the New York Post of all of the year, called the Bombay Times, of, I think, they called me a young hot Hollywood producer, and I had a driver, a chef, a gardener. I was, like, I said, living like a king, but at the time I was married to my last trip, there was eight months, my wife, who, who, as you know, has done very well for herself and Hollywood, said, "Hey, look, you don't come back, we're gonna have a problem in our marriage, and I'm not coming there because she, she was doing well here, building up her business, so I think it was within three days I was back on a flight to Los Angeles, and I think, like, spring of 2011 and this was the time I said, all right, this is some, this is a career transition, still entertainment, but I'm going to move from, you know, quote unquote traditional film, independent film, you know, studio film, TV, whatever, to online video to digital, so I locked myself in our house, and for about three weeks I put myself through like a boot camp of trying to learn everything I could about online video and, and YouTube, especially, because that's, you know, that's then that's when the, it was kind of the rise of the MCNs, the multi-channel networks, and I did that for about three weeks, and my now ex-wife will tell you that we have a big had a big dining room table was just filled with stacks of printouts with highlights and notations and underlines, and at the end of that three weeks I was like, you know, ha ha, I know everything about online video, which wasn't true, but I was confident enough that I'm one of those guys who thinks you know what you think about, you bring about, especially if you have positive, confident thoughts about it.

Will Keenan 17:28
So I think it was like two days later, after my, you know, boot camp that I put myself through to learn online video, I got a call from the then head of human resources at a company called Maker Studios, which was a growing multi-channel network, I think, was number one or number two at the time on YouTube as a network, and and then started working there. The it was very small operation at the time. The three founders hired me, and I worked with them directly, and I think I was the 51st full-time employee, and there's like 300 channels we had on YouTube at the time, getting about 300 million views every month across the network, and the company was valuated, I think, at the time at like 25 ish to $30 million and then by the time I left two years later as VP of Network Development and Original Programming, or wait a minute, I got that wrong, VP of network programming and regional development, whatever it was, a long title we had. I think 110,000 channels, almost 5 billion views a month, and the company was being evaluated, I think, at the time at close to $300 million And then right when I knew the sale to Disney was happening, or there was going to be a big transition, I had been getting other offers from kind of rival MCNs, and so forth, at the time, and then I accepted the job at Endobal to be their president of their first kind of digital division in North America, and that was another two years after that, which was great, that was my, so I guess transitioning from indie film, Bollywood film to digital, I, you know, I also went, although I, you know, truth be told, I stopped acting like 10 or so years ago, the movies that came out over the past, I don't know, four or five, six years, or ones that I had been involved with from somewhere or another years ago, but I haven't, you know, sought acting roles in many, many years, so, but that was the other part of the transition, I was, you know, going from actor, producer, so forth and so on, and traditional to digital entertainment executive, and and then did that for two years at End of Mall, which was great, we became, then I think the first six or eight months we got all these awards, and we're the fastest growing MCN, and there's a couple other monikers that that we were given, which was great, and and then after that again it was kind of like a mirrored maker, but there was a merger going on within the mall and another big company called Shine, and I had been told that even before I was hired that this merger was eventually going to happen during my tenure, and then I said, you know, and it was a, an old friend and colleague, Charlie Corwin, brilliant dude, who's at least reported about to take over a CEO, or actually at the newly formed position as CEO of Imagine Entertainment, so Charlie's killing it, so yeah, he brought me into Endemol, and he told me about the merger, and we kind of made a gentleman's agreement, I said, all right, look, I'll build what I say I build for two years, and then you know, kind of all bets are off, you know, because I like to feel like I've had my inquiries, I like to build things, and then essentially hopefully set them up with the right people to continue, and then, and then move on to something else, so that happened, and then, and then I took to prayer, I was asked to join Stream Up at the time, a fastest growing, or now the largest and fastest growing at the time live streaming network, and I was president of that for six months, and then it was during that six months I realized, you know, towards the end of that I was entering the 25th year my professional career, and I really just decided to take stock of it all, and I thought I needed a break. I realized my mother was falling ill, so I kind of, kind of announced and left that I was taking a sabbatical for six months, a true sabbatical away from the industry, and what I was really doing was, was doing that, but also spending time with my mother, and attempting to take care of my mother as she started to fall ill, and I thought, you know, she would give me, you know, at least the six months, but I got there, and my sister says she just kind of waited for me to come home to pass, because she gave me six days instead of six months, and that was july 5, and then instead of, like, you know, going right back to work or going right back to Hollywood, I decided to continue with the sabbatical and reconnect with family and friends, and then, you know, really kind of go on a walkabout and decide what I wanted to do with the next few years or with the rest of my life and career, and it kind of all, you know, came together. It's like divine intervention, because you know, my mother's little condominium in South New Jersey, when I would come home, and unfortunately, you know, the past few years it was only I was only able to get home two or three times a year, whether just to go see her and my family, or because I was at business, or was speaking at, you know, conferences or conventions in New York, I always visit them, but it used to be before she started to fall ill, a few years ago, you know, that everyone could come over, and we used to sleep six to the floor, friends, family, you know, when I was back in town, but you know, as she started to get sick, I realized, you know, I couldn't make her house the congregation house anymore. So I'd been looking for property to buy in South Jersey, but then everything happened. She passed quicker than I had imagined. So then there was this opportunity to buy this over, I think it's 108 year old historic church in Cape May County, Cape May Courthouse to be specific, one of the favorite areas of my mother, and I renamed it St. Babs in honor of my mother, her name is Barbara, and I started the foundation, a not-for-profit 50123 charity called the Barbara A C's Kenan Foundation, and it's essentially to continue her work. She was a registered nurse her whole life and career, and if you look at some of our online channels, you'll see that people have said that she was like the Mother Teresa of nursing, you know.

Will Keenan 23:54
So I really believe that my mother did not become a doctor, which is what everyone thought she should do, because she kind of raced through nursing school, and, and was the kind of nurse where doctors would defer to her, but I believe she didn't go, because she had to put me through NYU, and in that way, this was my way of saying, okay, like, you know, some people think I'm nuts for, you know what a lot of people would think is, you know, peak of my career right now, to kind of leave Hollywood and go do this, this not for profit, but I kind of think the opposite, to me it's I'm doing doing this to spread her, her good work, and to also take all the skills I've learned in Hollywood and apply them to something that you know I think can do some real good in this community and the surrounding communities where we are in South Jersey, but also it's going to have a very strong online digital component, so I hope to be able to, you know, do the same kind of, you know, services for people online as well. That was a long-winded answer to. You, so tell us about how you started your career. In fact, I started and finished my career. There you go.

Dave Bullis 25:06
It's okay. Will I tend to ask open-ended questions, and you know I love hearing stories like yours, and you know that was an amazing, amazing, you know, career you've had, but you know, and there's certain things, obviously. I want to ask some more questions about, you know, just, just sort of going back to talking about how, when you first got started, and you were working on Show Meal and Juliet. You know, James Gunn was a writer on that, and you know, James Gunn just

Will Keenan 25:35
He was more than a writer, yeah, he was, he was Lloyd's right hand, James wrote it, he was the, I'd say the main non-financial producer, you know, besides Lloyd, and you know Lloyd is the first to admit this, and maybe people watch, you know, certain documentaries, Farts of Darkness, the trauma apocalypse movie, no, Lloyd gives people like James and myself, and, and after me, I think it was Trent Haga, lots of people before he, he takes people like that, who, who show the passion, the drive, have the talent, and, and who will, you know, stay up all night to, to make, you know, make the trauma movie. He gives them a lot of autonomy, and you know, so James, James did so much. I mean, he, you know, he essentially, you know, people like James, myself for Terra Film, or Trent for Citizen Talks. Before, you know, it's an uncredited, uncredited kind of co-director position, and I think Lloyd has said that before, but you know, you work with all the actors, you rehearse them, you stage all the scenes, you know, there's so much, and James not only wrote a brilliant script, but you know, he was beside Boyd, he was the main guy on that movie,

Dave Bullis 27:00
Yeah, it's, you know, I've actually had Lloyd on the podcast before, and we've talked, you know, about, about, you know, James, and also about, you know, about Trent, and also about, you know, we were just saying where he, you know, he would find different people, and you know, sort of shepherd them along in different projects, you know, give him a, give him a chance, you know, to, you know, maybe write the next trauma movie, and you know, that's, you know, it's just funny, it's a small world, because usually most people have on this podcast, one way or another, have met, met, or worked with Lloyd in some capacity, because he's everywhere, right.

Will Keenan 27:27
And we've all learned so much from Lloyd. I mean, I didn't go to film school, right. So trauma was my film school, and it was the art of low-budget filmmaking, and the art of guerrilla marketing, you know, the art of the sound boy, the sound bite, Lloyd is Lloyd is a genius, and you know one of the things we all learn from him is that, you know, he's a very, very passionate guy, so his energy, especially on set, is is so, so very intense, but he's been doing it so long, and he's such, you know, he's a genius himself, that he has this intuition, the sixth sense about him. Like, I remember he'd be saying things, well, you gotta, you gotta watch out for this, you gotta worry about that. And I'm like, Lloyd, that'll never happen because of this or that, and he's just like, all right, all right, you'll see, you'll see. And then it would happen, and I'd be like, there was no rational reason for that to happen, except Lloyd just can, he could almost foresee the future when it comes to being on a film set, it was.. it's amazing. So, we've all learned so, so much from Lloyd. And then, you know, look, you know, there's so many people who've gone through, you know, the trauma school, so to speak. And look what they're doing now. I think James Gunn is put the latest, you know, you know, prototypicals, but a word example is one of the biggest directors in Hollywood right now, and you know, I am honored that James and I made our first movie together, that was Trommie.

Dave Bullis 28:51
Yeah, it's amazing, you know how far James has gotten, you know, when he made Super, and then he made.. and now with Guardians of the Galaxy, I mean,

Will Keenan 28:59
Well, here's the thing, I told James this, like super, although an awesome movie, and produced by someone I had worked with before, Ted Hope, one of the one of the best, you know, film producers in the world. He's now running Amazon film, and before Super came out, like Ted's got a bit, you know, pretty sizable social media audience, James had one, and if I, at the time, if I were to go by what social media was saying, I thought super, which I think the budget was around $4 million was going to be like a hit, you know, like with the indie film, the little $4 million indie film that could, but theatrically, and this is goes back to what I was saying, you know, about switching, when I decided to switch from indie film to digital, theatrically, you know, I think it made $100,000 at the box office, and as someone who started out with James, who you know is a supporter of James, and you know, a longtime friend of James, I was like, "shit, man, this could hurt his career, you know, and, and I thought he was gay, he would have been left for dead, you know, but Marvel, such an amazing, amazing company, and amazing movies, they.. I'm told not by James, like, you know, you hear stories that.. that they started to look at some of the properties and characters and brands that have not been licensed, either by others, or, you know, Marvel would make in partnership with others, and they started looking at, and then they started, you know, attaching essentially, you know, known fanboy directors, ones that have the cred, you know, the kind of the fan cred and the cult cred, like James, and then hire them and surround them with, with, you know, top above wine crew, and, and, wow, look what it, look what he was able to accomplish, you know, with essentially Marvel backing him after, you know, he, he had a movie that wasn't a huge, huge hit. I think it critically, it was, it was okay. But you know, when I was a producer and actually raising the money for movies, I started, and this is right before I switched to digital, I started becoming a tyrant in a way, because you know, every 200,000 bucks, every million bucks, you know, in an independent film, is it's because a lot of them go over budget, although not mine, where I was writing the checks, and it takes so much out of your life that hold on real quick. My dog wants to get in. Hold on. All right, Chairman, you're here. All right, where was I? What was I talking about?

Dave Bullis 31:41
Are you talking about your money in the producing indie film?

Will Keenan 31:45
Oh yeah, that.. oh yeah, I was becoming a tyrant, where you know, when it came to I'd source a property, I'd start to come up with the potential like talent and above the line crew attachments, and then I would.. I would talk to my pool of investors, and then start, you know, early talks with distributors and buyers, and so forth, and, and it got to the point where, unless the directors, you know, on my short list, unless their last movie was a critical and commercial success, like, I don't care if you made the movie for $1 did you make the dollar back, did you make $1.10 you know, because a lot of those things, when you're doing the financing of independent films, a lot of those things you know falls into the whole number crunching algorithm, you know, bankable or not, you know what I mean, and that was in addition to me trying to put in, and successfully the last few movies putting in directors' contracts that you know they were obligated to, you know, produce a shot list and, and storyboards and everything, because too many times in an indie film, I mean, it's like, look, if you're making a movie that costs $1 or 100,000 or a million, it's the same, it's essentially the same amount of work, you know. The crew could be bigger or smaller, but when you really break it down, this was a very smart production manager named Randy Turow in LA who taught me this when we were making a movie called The Politics of Love, because Shirley Maclaine, the Oscar-winning actress, was was in the cast and she wanted, she wanted her character to have like one of those little lap dogs, you know, almost as a prop, and she was an Oscar-winning actress, and I was a little not starstruck, but I wanted to make her happy, because if Shirley McLean isn't happy, you got problems with the production, okay? But when I was telling my production manager about this, he's like, 'No, it'll cost too much money. I'm like, 'What are you talking about? It was a dog cost per day, and it'll only be like, you know, I think it was nine days out of the 18 day shoot we would need the dog, and yeah, the trainer, you need a trainer, you know, legally, and all that kind of stuff. He said, 'Okay, there's that. This is how much that costs, he said. But when you break down our budget, every day of shooting, every 10 minutes costs this much money. And he said, 'If that dog poops on set, if that dog won't do the tape, you know, you're wasting five minutes, 10 minutes, there's 1000s, 10s of 1000s of dollars going out the door, and I was like, holy shit, man. So that was one of it, was one of the one of the lessons. I'm not what brought me that was I trying to get to another larger point.

Dave Bullis 34:34
It's

Will Keenan 34:36
James. Yeah, so anyway, Viva James gone, Viva Los James gone, Viva Lou James gone.

Dave Bullis 34:46
It's, it's just, yeah, like you were saying, with super, yeah. I was just gonna say that, you know, it's amazing, you know that, you know what he would, you know, where you know he's been able to do, and that's why I always, always, and

Will Keenan 34:59
He never. He never went to film school either.

Dave Bullis 35:01
Yeah,

Will Keenan 35:02
You know, trauma was his film school. So, and here he's, you know, how many, how many studio, like superhero movie, you know, mainstream like popcorn movie directors never went to film school. Yeah, I mean, I guess James Gunn did. He went, he went to the film school of trauma, but he was, you know, I think he had just graduated, or he was his last year or something at Columbia as a writer, you know, when, when we started trauma in 90 summer of 95

Dave Bullis 35:36
Because when you look at all the directors that went to that didn't go to film school, I mean, like Tarantino didn't go. I can't remember if Kevin Smith hasn't gone, but, but, yeah, and James Gunn, you know, yeah,

Will Keenan 35:47
There's not.. there's not many. I mean, who get, like, you know, even Tarantino movies, you know, they.. they limit that budget to a certain extent. You know what I mean? I think James Gunn's first Guardians of the Galaxy budget was. I'm just gonna take a wild guess here, considerably higher than all of Tarantino's budgets.

Dave Bullis 36:08
Yeah, okay, I think, yeah, I think the first Guardians was somewhere around maybe one or 120 think somewhere around there,

Will Keenan 36:15
Yeah. I, and you look, you would know better than me, and I'm, I'm guessing Tarantino got to play with 100 million at least for one of his movies, but maybe you know, maybe not. I think when you add the marketing into, you know, the budgets, but then you know, same thing, you, you add how much they spend on marketing Guardians, and it blows, you know, the overall budget of any of Tarantino's movies out of the water. I think I'm right. If anyone's listening to this podcast, please Google it right now and find out.

Dave Bullis 36:45
No, I'm pretty, yeah, I'm like 100% sure that you know you're absolutely right, will, because you know, I think the most money a Tarantino movie cost to make, just production without marketing, I think was was in Glorious or Django, and I want to say it was around 60 million, just to make it. If you had in marketing, it's probably, you know, bumped up to maybe 100 or so with Guardians. I mean, it's probably when you,

Will Keenan 37:08
Yeah, and there's a difference. I mean, Tarantino's movies are, although James wrote the script for Guardians, they were the original concepts, you know, the inception of the idea was his, right, when he, he, you know, his, I guess, his first real breakout film was Reservoir Dogs, and then, you know, with Harvey, and played the Miramax game for a while, and James was hired to write and direct Guardians, but, you know, that was, you know, that was, think, a long time coming for James, he's been a comic book fan for a long, long time. I'm sure Tarantino is as well, to a certain extent, but maybe, maybe not like James is. Although I have to believe Tarantino has been offered to direct and or write some kind of superhero movie.

Dave Bullis 37:58
Yeah, I think he was trying at one point to get on the Bond franchise, and I think when they were going to reboot Casino Royale, or sorry, yeah, and I think he made a pitch, and they were actually going to legitimately think about hiring him, and instead they went, they went, I don't think it was Sam Mendes on that one, but I forget who it was on the first Christina Royale, but, but, yeah, so that's, you know, who knows, but if Harentio could ever, you know, do the superhero movie the way, because I mean, you know, sometimes again, like you said, well, when you're working with a studio,

Will Keenan 38:28
He's gonna retire soon,

Dave Bullis 38:29
Well, after 10 movies, so he's got, he's got two left,

Will Keenan 38:33
Okay, so maybe one will be a superhero movie,

Dave Bullis 38:36
Yeah, cuz I know, cuz you know, when you're working with studios, there's expectations of, you know, like I said, intellectual property of presets and characters, and you know, making, and then you know, you have your artist vision, and you know, as we speak about that, that's something that has, you know, I've seen a sort of, it's almost a mis mixed match of styles, and I think James has been one of those guys who was even, this is even more rare now, because when you see these different styles, you know, you see the problems with Fantastic Four and Josh Trank, then you see the problems with, you know, like Suicide Squad and David Ayers. There's just.. there's a clash of styles, and it's just.. and I, they, a lot of these studios want to go out and they want to get, you know, avant-garde directors or maybe some indie darling directors, but it.. but it very rarely does it ever work out, and it worked out for James, but you know, as you talk about independent film, no, will you know, you talk about, you know, making independent films, you know, have you, you know, seen, you know, with all the advances in digital technology, and you work for Maker Studio, have you ever thought about, you know, maybe, you know, going on like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or maybe crowdfunding like an indie film with, again, with a smaller budget, and maybe you know, shooting it on, like, you know, like a red, or you know, something like that, which is a digital format. Have you ever thought about that?

Will Keenan 40:00
Yeah, I mean, I, I have, and I may, you know, I have, I'm doing what I'm doing now in the St. Babs, the foundation I started down here in Cape May, but, and there will be, you know, there's a number of aspects to it, there's definitely going to be community services and self development, there's going to be a large recovery aspect. My sister, who teaches at U Penn, she's big in the recovery movement, so she's going to be doing a lot of those things here, and there'll also be, you know, kind of an arts education aspect to what we're doing down here, and I do plan on creating, you know, content for a number of platforms here, and as far as, like, you know, the format of feature-length storytelling, the narrative feature film, I have one or two, I think, you know, left in me, as far as you know, getting them off the ground and you know, executing them, and crowdfunding may be, you know, a way to go for one or both of those, we'll see, you know, when I was making indie movies back in the day, pre internet, and then after the internet, you know, before crowdfunding came about, I raised my money mainly from, you know, Wall Street dudes who would throw in 50 grand or 100 grand a pop and didn't expect it back, they really just wanted to meet the actresses, and you know, there was farm presales, there were a number of different, you know, kind of independent film financial products back then, which, which, you know, there was during that economic downturn, I was talking about, you know, a lot of the funders left in the film, and some of them, that you know, number of them have not come back, it's harder and harder, but the bright light, I think, for indie film, at least creation has been crowdfunding. When you look at Kickstarter, when you look at Indiegogo, I think they've funded more independent films, you know, then then true independent, you know, film finance companies, whether it's banks or hedge funds, or so forth, and so on, so a lot, you know, a lot more getting funded that way. And I also think it's a great kind of democratizer, because when people, you know, they have, they have an idea for an indie film, it's a story they've fallen in love with, you know. I still get people pitching me, you know, and they'll send me the script, or whatever, and even before I read a script. I'll have a lot of questions, and you know, I'm that guy who thinks he's so good at it that he can read a script and, like, what do you want to make it for? And they told me 4 million. I'd like, you'd be crazy to make this for over 400,000 because I'm also thinking about, you know, the back end. Like, what is the audience for this movie? Is it true that, you know, a number of people are going to go and see it, and make that 400,000 or $4 million back, because you know James is, you know, one of a million, because most of the time when you make a movie that doesn't make money back, you're making it, you're making it harder for yourself to make your next movie, you know. I've had plenty of mentors tell me, hey, don't rush into just making this movie, if it takes you four years to put together the right movie, let it take that long, because if you're just one of those filmmakers, like I just need to make another movie, and you make something and you do it quickly, and yeah, it gets into a festival or whatever, but you know, you beg, borrow, and stole hundreds of 1000s or more dollars to make the movie, and it didn't, and it wasn't critically acclaimed, and it wasn't some kind of commercial success, even just $1 in the black. Then, then you're actually hurting your own career as a filmmaker.

Will Keenan 43:30
So, the next movies I make, I mean, I may, you know, truth be told, I still, at least a few times a year, I get asked to, you know, star in a movie that's of the genre I'm known for, like, just comedy, horror, cold movies, and I may, you know, I've been saying no for years, because as an executive, you know, I can't, can't divide my focus, and I'm, and I was very, very concerned that if I continued acting while I was an executive, that whatever company I was working for, like, oh, see, he still just wants to be an actor, or whatever, you know. So I was, I really wanted to make that crystal clear to people, and I think it was one of the variety writers had told me that, you know, if you take Tom Cruise and all the big actors who created their own production companies out of it. I think they said I was the first actor who used to like starring real movies. Yeah, they weren't $80 million movies, but who then, of his own accord, essentially not creating a production company, but was hired to be an executive, and then kind of rose the executive ranks, at least in the digital world, within a short period of time. Where are we going with that?

Dave Bullis 44:49
I know we were just talking about independent film, and I was going to say you're a trailblazer in that, in that regard, will, because you know, just like, you know, they were saying, was, you know, you're actually. You know, sort of starting your own, almost like I guess I don't want to say marketing funnel, but, but in a way you are, if you know what I mean, because you're, you know, you're finding the scripts, you're then you're, you know, you know what, you know what, what's gonna, you know, what to make production for, so like you just said, you know, don't make this for 4 million, make it for 400,000 you know, because you know that production side,

Will Keenan 45:20
If you have to make it, and we've all talked to filmmakers, like, I have to make this movie, I have to make this story, and you know, I will grill directors, like, why, why do you have to, man, I'll keep going, because I'm trying to get down to, like, the essence of it, and I've had, you know, once I start to break them down, I've heard I've had filmmakers say to me, I just want to lock people in a room and force my emotions on them. I'm like, all right, no, that's evil. Or some of them say, some of them say, like, I just want to make the movie I would want to go and see. I was like, all right, that's eight people, here's $80 make a YouTube video, you know. And look, plenty of people get movies made just because of their, their force of will, but it's not to say that there's an audience for them. It's not to say it's not going to hurt your career if it doesn't do well. It's like you can be original by looking at what you know, by giving people what they want at the same time. You know, you can, you can add your own voice or your own style to something that people actually want to watch, that's why you know I'm looking at, I've been in the digital world for years now, and you know these are my mind's medications the new stars, they're putting butts in seats, they're you know, they're the new A-listers in a way, you know, and we're seeing them, these digital stars, these YouTube stars, or Instagram influencers, you're seeing them, but they can leave now and do to do TV, so I think you know it's essentially traditional and digital or converging, which is a really, really exciting time, because it also affords people just starting out, or even people who've been doing it for a while, there's a new avenue to want to express yourself, and, or to, you know, the new getting discovered at Schwab's drugstore is the internet.

Dave Bullis 47:13
Yeah, it just me, you know, making a YouTube, you know, channel, like when you were at Maker, you guys ended up attracting PewDiePie, and you know, now he, you know, he was discovered, and you know that just his whole career trajectory, now he's the number one YouTuber in the world, and you know, it's funny, as we, as you were talking about budgets, you know, well, it's funny because I had a friend of mine who actually wrote a one literal one location script, and it was going to take place inside of his own house, he could shoot it there, and you know, and I said, you know, it was kind of, it's kind of stereotypical of an indie film, it's a lot, it's about a guy who loses a girl, it's one of those, but you know, he's at his house, and so what happens is it was gonna be at his house, right, and in one location, and he ended up, you know, meeting me later on, and said, okay, I gotta raise $200,000 to shoot this thing, and I said, wait a minute, what do you need $200,000 for? Like, I read the script, I said you could shoot this in for like probably the change in your couch, and he was

Will Keenan 48:10
To see his top line budget and how much he was paying himself.

Dave Bullis 48:15
Well, well, it's funny, I was.. it's funny what happened was, I said, you know, where's all this money going? He goes, well, you know, I have to pay a cinematographer, I gotta pay this, I gotta pay that. Well, he ended up getting a production company involved, and he actually sat down with one of their producers, and she even said, like, I don't know where all this extra money, you know, where you got $200,000 from, and she got, she said, if we could do this whole thing for 50, and even I said, you know what I said, you know, even that, I was like, you could probably shoot, you know, probably for a little cheaper, but, but

Will Keenan 48:45
Still make it look good, and that's thanks to technology,

Dave Bullis 48:47
Yeah, yeah, and still make it look good, because you know, at some point, by the way, he ended up never making that film, by the way, so you know, it just, it wasn't the fact

Will Keenan 48:57
I always tell filmmakers is that if you can write, if you, the story is really, really good that you have, and you are dead set on getting this movie made, and in a way, budget shouldn't matter, right? And in a way, shouldn't matter where the money comes from, so forth and so on. But write the script as if you were going to make it yourself. In this case, your friend wrote, like, a one location script, you know, that's probably one of the biggest budget busters when people write scripts and stories, is that they have too many locations, too many setups, so forth and so on, too many, you know, characters, but many times people come up with a good, you know, writers, filmmakers come up with a good story and they overwrite it, meaning that it's, it's a good story, but because of the way they wrote it, with, with all the locations, now you can't make it for anything less than 20 million, 40 million, $400 million right, so, and that's, that's a tough, you know, mountain to climb, so what I say is that, you know, you. The essence of it, you know, if it can be done in five locations, do in five locations. If the story, when you start sending out the script, if the script and the characters, the dialog, the story starts resonating with people or resonating with, you know, big production companies, they'll find ways to make it a bigger movie and increase the budget. You don't have to do that for them. If you really want to get the movie made, write the script where you know you can make the movie for a certain amount of money, but you know if everyone still has the idea that, you know, Imagine Entertainment is going to option your script, they will if they like it, whether or not it looks like, you know, a $200 million movie or a $20 million movie or $2 million movie or 20 or $200,000 movie, you know, if this, if it's good, it's good, and you can always broaden the scope, and you know it's much, we, you know, in acting we used to say it's much, it's easier to go bigger as an actor and then tone it down than it is for someone who's very toned down to do a big performance, you know, so with script writing I think it's the opposite, it's like you know you have the story, then keep it, keep it small, but the good elements of, you know, of the script are noticeable, so that you can expand it from there, because it's much harder to take a really, really good script that, my God, I love it, but there's no way you can make this for under $100 million then there's a lot of work that goes into trying to pare down, pare down, and, and then you know, yeah, the filmmaker was watching his, you know, these, these, these, you know, $10 million scenes that he was so attached to, you know, get, get thrown out to make it for, you know, much less, that makes sense,

Dave Bullis 52:00
Yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense, and I'm glad you brought that up too, will, because you know, you do have four writing credits, and I wanted to ask you, at least you know, touch on, you know, your writing process, because you know, I wanted to dig into that a little more, and ask you, do you, so actually, I'll just ask that, you know, what is your process on writing, will do you ever do subscribe to a method, or do you just sort of, you know, have your own process?

Will Keenan 52:25
Yeah, I think. Well, it depends on what I'm writing, right? I haven't taken part in writing a feature-length film script in a while, but if I remember correctly, you know, once I'm in the mode of knowing, I have to get it, get it done, and in most cases I think I wrote with partners, and then we would kind of divide work, you know, will you write this section or this scene, or so forth, and then, and the other one writes this one, and then when we're done, we, we pass them to one another, and essentially edit them, or or co-write the scenes, so when I was writing feature film scripts, whether it was a loner with a partner, you know, I went through a process, and I think I consider myself a fast writer, you know, there might be, I might be able to bust out a full script, or, you know, at least my what I'm supposed to do for the script, you know, pretty quickly, but then, you know, what they say writing is rewriting, and so it's always kind of like fine tuning and polishing, but just like what great filmmakers said, it about full movies, but same thing with scripts, it's like, you know, they, they're never done, you could keep going forever making it better, there's always room for improvement, essentially, right, but there's comes a point where, where you have to say, okay, it's go time, you know, there's not, it's, it's, it's, it's to the point where other people are saying this is great, let's, I want to be involved in this, even though you know there's still more refining to be done, but that can be done essentially later in the process, in pre-production, or even on set, or through rehearsals with the actors, and so forth.

Dave Bullis 53:57
Yeah, and you also talk about, you know, what you have to write, you know, as again the difference between you're writing an independent film, or maybe if you're let's just say you're going to write a film right now. I always tell people to, you know, do the Rodriguez list, you know, what actors do I have access to, what locations do I have access to, what props do I have access to, and build a film around that, that you know what you have, and then you can sort of make a film around that.

Will Keenan 54:23
Absolutely, and then rather than you're baking into the cake stuff you already know, and they say, write what you know, you know,

Dave Bullis 54:29
Yeah. Rather than, you know, make a script where it's going to cost, you know, $50 million in explosives and and stunt work and squibs and everything else, and you don't have, you know, we can't shoot that at my grandma's house, or anything, you know what I mean. It's, it's so, you know, when I was making money,

Will Keenan 54:44
These are filmmakers who actually want to direct their own movies, and we all know the stories about people who wrote scripts that they wanted to direct, and either didn't, or no, stuck to their guns and did, but there are some writers out there who just want to write a big studio movie, and that's, you know, that's different from what I was talking about, you know. About writing for budget.

Dave Bullis 55:02
Oh yeah, absolutely. I was just gonna say, when I was making my student film again, I didn't go to film school either. And when I was making my student film, basically, that's what we did. We figured out what locations we had, and we just pulled all our resources together, and we shot a film, my one friend's grandparents' house, and that became pretty much like five locations, because we would use different rooms for different things, and it's just you again using what we have, you know, we have access to, to sort of, you know, to make these indie films, and like I tell people, if you even if you make an indie film and you realize, you know what, maybe this isn't going to go anywhere, you know what I suggest, will honestly, I tell people sometimes, just put on YouTube, I know it's as weird as that sounds, because that way, at least you know it's going to get seen, and two, it could, you know, maybe you'll track somebody who says, hey, you know what, if you do that for nothing, you know, maybe, you know, with a big, let's see what you can do with a slightly bigger budget of maybe, you know, 5000 3000

Will Keenan 55:56
Exactly, without, if you finished your movie with a shorter feature, and it's, you know, wasn't getting, isn't getting accepted. The festivals generally recourse is to put it online, you know, and hope, and hope that you know you can attract some attention, like, you know, to me, the especially you're going up against you, finish your film, you're going up against so many other movies, a lot of them, well funded, especially in a marketing campaign, you know. So, you can't compete with that. How do you compete? Is one of the things Ted Hope was saying when he, he's been, he's been sounding the siren of the death knell of indie film for four years, and now he's part of, you know, one of the main people I think bringing it back with Amazon's backing, which is great, but, but Ted used to say, like, from day one, you know, when you're writing your scripts, you start putting online, you know, you create a page for your movie, and you start putting online, like, you know, taking a picture of the title page, the cover page of your script, and putting up there, and start engaging people, and they did that with Super throughout, that's why I thought it was going to be such a big hit, you know. You take pictures of casting, and there's so many, you know, there's can do live streams of your, your cable read, and so forth, because you're essentially engaging people who hopefully, by the time your movies for release, they, they feel somewhat invested in it, you know. And that, that's your audience, because you don't have 50 or $100 million to essentially, you know, the Hollywood business model of just moving butts and seats from one movie to the next via, you know, essentially TV and online advertising that costs a lot of money.

Dave Bullis 57:35
Yeah, absolutely, and you know that's, you know, again, you know, we have all these options that are coming out,

Will Keenan 57:41
I might go farther, and this is this is where filmmakers start to hate me, because I try to talk people out of filmmaking, because I know what goes into it, I know what the success rate is. I talk people out of acting, and that's what you know when I said, when I grill filmmakers or grill actors, I want to find out what their true purpose is with what they want to do, is it fame, you know, which is kind of shallow, is it, you know, you want to change the world, is it you want to impress some people, like, you know, and if I find that the, the underlying kind of, you know, foundation is, is you know, a positive one and makes sense to me, then I'll try to help them, but there's plenty of people who made films that should have been, you know, instead of finishing it and putting it on YouTube, because no one else wants to, will play it, you know, maybe don't make the movie in the first place and make a short film and put it on YouTube, that is the essence of your feature, and you know, yeah, long gone are the days where, you know, a short film at Sundance would strike a free picture feature deal, you know, but there is a version of that, and it's, and it's YouTube now, so it's like, was you know, a lot of people have gotten feature film deals from shorts on YouTube, but if you've already made your movie, then yeah, you got to put it online, and you got to try to show some kind of audience for it, because whether you're, you know, whether I was a digital exec or a film producer, if I'm looking at, if you know, if someone pitches me something and I like the idea, and I take a meeting, or I want to learn more, you know, either the movie played festivals and got distribution, and there's numbers to look at, or you know, I can see the film itself, but if I see it on online and it looks like it got 10,000 100,000 views, or there's engagement and people really like it, then that helps me, you know, that helps me as a green lighter, as a decision maker. A lot of people are still like, well, I don't want to put it up there, I want someone to steal my idea, that is long and gone. That's been gone ever since the internet came out. You know, you can hold your precious idea and never get it made, or you can, you know, start to put it out there and do it, do your idea better than anyone else could. So you become that person, you know, when it comes to that idea. You know, I'm saying,

Dave Bullis 1:00:09
Yeah, that makes absolute perfect sense. You know, I had a manager before, they weren't, I meaning they weren't representing me or anything, but I was talking to them about this project that I did, and he was very adamant. He said, "Don't put it online. He goes, "Don't do anything with it. And he goes, "Just so. And now other marketers who I really respect..

Will Keenan 1:00:27
How old was he? I'm not an ageist, but I'm guessing this was a few years ago, and they, they were unaware of the influence that comes with people engaging with you or your content online.

Dave Bullis 1:00:42
Yes, but this is probably about four years ago, or so. This is, he was, he's probably in his 40s, and now you know, talking to marketers, they were like, "Dave, just, you know, do your thing. So I'm actually, you know, that's been something I've been sort of,

Will Keenan 1:00:55
Yeah, the only people listen, the only people in my estimation who are getting signed, you know, by top agencies or managers, and I've seen it for the past number of years, and I was actually a conduit for a number of them, happening, you know, talents, whether it's on camera challenge or behind the camera talent, the ones who are getting signed are the ones who are building audiences by themselves online, you know, there's plenty of talent out there who are not putting their stuff online, and they're great. They could be better than the talents who are getting jobs now, but this is how to get jobs now.

Dave Bullis 1:01:29
Yeah,

Will Keenan 1:01:30
But no one ever sees your work. If no one ever sees your work, then, then you know, continue with that with that second career, and that's probably all you're going to get.

Dave Bullis 1:01:41
Yeah, it's very, it's very true. You know, I've had Jason Brubaker on here from Distributor. They actually put together a movie project for Netflix, all from all YouTubers. They got some of the top YouTubers, put them all together in a movie, and sold it to Netflix.

Will Keenan 1:01:55
Yep,

Dave Bullis 1:01:55
And you know, it worked out well, because everyone, you know, they already have

Will Keenan 1:01:58
That's big business right now. I consider that a new genre of independent filmmaking, but it's the only one, and you know, you might have to check this too, but I'm going to make a grand statement that the only independent films that have made their money back and gone into profit, except for, you know, the ones that really break through and get nominated for rosters. The only independent films that make their money back and or go into profit in the past few years have been ones that have digital stars in them, and I'm talking truly independent films, you know. And if you, you know, and name me a time when a genre and independent film was profitable. This might be the first time independent film starring digital influencers might be the first time independent film can is a sustainable business, at least for at least for a minute. You know what I mean.

Dave Bullis 1:02:54
Yeah, yeah, it is true. And also, you know, they come with their own building audience and everything, and I mean, that's what, so it's so interesting for investors, and you know, it's why in distributors as well, and again, I think that as we slowly come aboard, you know, like you were saying, that's sort of being discovered in the old sweet shop, you know, there's old stories of Hollywood, where you know, an actress was discovered at, like, a malt shop or something, this is this is the new way, right?

Will Keenan 1:03:21
Yeah, no, that's it. I mean, that's how you get discovered, you know. Tell actors, too, it's.. it's like they're serious. They're even going to acting school, like some of them, you know, expensive acting schools, and.. and they're not online, you know? They're not.. they're not showing their acting talent online, and it boggles my mind, because when I was a young actor, before the internet, I would hope that I would have embraced it if the internet were there, and I would have, you know, essentially showed off my talent online, and in that way works, I've seen it work for a lot of, a lot of people in, you know, in the years after, but the ones who are like, no, they're still doing black, you know, an actor is still doing like black box theater, but, but they're doing nothing online. I'm like, well, you know, and I don't know if it's because they're their curriculum keeps them so, so busy, and they don't have time to be online, but to me it's the only way to get discovered now,

Dave Bullis 1:04:22
Yeah, that's so, so true. And you know, because I've had people on here, and they, we've talked about a lot of competitions and stuff like that, and I think you know it's sort of putting it all together as well. You know, I have a friend of mine who's been on here in

Will Keenan 1:04:34
Screenwriting competitions, or will say competition,

Dave Bullis 1:04:38
I generally mean screenwriting competitions, but what I was going to say was,

Will Keenan 1:04:41
Yeah, all that stuff's good. Submit your script, and if you get, like, as a finalist in nickels or ones that are known, awesome, it's like a feather in the cap, and it would make someone like me, or you know, other green lighters, or whatever, you know, put your script near the top, like, okay, someone you know, it's the group thing, someone else like. This, and I heard of them, and then we, we might still read your script, you know what I mean, but as, as important, if not more, is that you know, you know, let's say, instead of, instead of getting a screenwriting fellowship award for your script, which, yes, agencies, managers, production companies, if you have that on there, they'll be like, "Oh, okay, guess we should really read this one, but at the same time, and maybe even more powerful is, is putting some, you know, putting some kind of content online that gets, you know, 10,000 engaged views, people saying, 'Oh my god, this is awesome. Are you going to do a larger version? You know, because when people are making decisions about, you know, money, which is essentially life or death in the industry, you know, so many people, especially in, you know, an established Hollywood, you know, everyone's afraid to stick their neck out. It's like, okay, if everyone else agreed, then maybe we'll move forward on this, you know. So, one of the things that's getting everyone on the same page these days is, you know, look, if Nichols screenwriting fellowship liked it, great. You know, look at all the movies that they've awarded, and how many got made, and how many were successes, you know, in their since they've been around, but if I go online and there's just the cold open of a movie and it's got engagement and people are liking it, that where I am in my career now, if I'm going to continue to green light stuff and get, get it made, that's almost more important than the screenwriting fellowship.

Dave Bullis 1:06:39
Yeah, it's I actually had a friend of mine on here, Nick Murphy, and he actually started a YouTube channel, was called Continue, question mark, and they actually, you know, they do panels now because they're, they've just built that audience, and then they end up now they've done a crowdfunding campaign for another web series, I mean, so they've done very well with that, and again, you know, they,

Will Keenan 1:06:59
That's great, and, dude, to me, that's networking, and you got to do that too, and that's something that you know I became people think I'm like a master networker, and I think I'm pretty good, but everyone thinks I know everybody, that's not true, there's plenty of people I could name and know more people in entertainment than I do, but that's the perception, right, but it took me a while to learn that, if I were to, you know, have gotten good at networking everything in the beginning of my career, it would, I think, it would be a little, a little different, and I didn't want to think back then that I don't want to have to go in schmooze, I just want to be an artist, all that kind of stuff, but you know, this is the, the, you know, it's called, you know, the entertainment industry for a reason, you know, you got to have, you got to have both, you got to know the business side of things, which includes networking and schmoozing, because you know, sometimes, I mean, look, you, Charlie Corner, when you hired me at Endemol, that was a 15 year relationship, and then it culminated in me becoming president of the North American Digital Division of the biggest TV production company in the world. I think it's the largest independent production company in the world, and that was, you know, Charlie and I had tried to work together a few times throughout the years. We've met in like 96 or seven, and things didn't work out, but you know, you got us, you got to start, you know, not only building your community online and building up an audience online and having people say, hey, your work's great online, so that the industry of, like, hey, you know, the average Joe or Josephine likes this person's work, maybe we should, you know, give them a shot, but also, you know, you got to start building your, your network as soon as you can, and if you're an actor, it's just another role, you're going out to events and meeting people, and you're playing the role of networker, you know, and for filmmakers the same thing, you can't, in many cases, you can still be the shy, you don't like to talk to anyone, you're very introverted, but you're brilliant, you know, artist or filmmaker, and if you can't get a little more extroverted online, then you know these are all just learned, you know, kind of skills that you can always improve upon, you know. You know where you're at currently, if you're not much of a network or schmoozer, you know, read Hollywood and friends and influence people, and then just go out to one of that and just try some of the techniques, and all of a sudden you're like, hey, I'm pretty good at this, you know, but it's so, so important because talent, you know, sometimes talent rises to the top, and, and sometimes you know, the best talent never, never rise, and these are the reasons why. So, you know, if you don't do your homework and find out what it takes, then you shouldn't complain about not getting a shot, about it's life's unfair, about you know, I'm so talented, I'm more talented than this person, but you know they're they're getting jobs that I'm not, or they're getting cast and I'm not, or they're getting funded and I'm not okay. Well, then you know, find out why and I guarantee why is that they're doing some other things in some other areas that you are either judging harshly, rashly, and saying no, I don't want to have to do that, but then you know it's the same in every industry, it's just a little more, has a little more pizzazz in Hollywood.

Dave Bullis 1:10:25
Yeah, you know, you're absolutely right, will, and you have to go out there and network, and you know, I know we've been talking for about an hour, and I know, you know, obviously I could talk to you all day, will. I just want to say, you know, I wanted to ask, too, I want to get to talking about the Church of Babs. You know, you currently have a GoFundMe, and by the way, everyone listening, I'm going to put this in the show notes for his GoFundMe at, you know, at Dave bullis.com where the show notes usually are. So, will I just want to ask, you know, just about Church of Babs, you know, again, I sold the article about it in the philadelphia.com Inquire online site.

Will Keenan 1:10:57
Yeah, but put that link too, that was pretty good.

Dave Bullis 1:10:58
Yeah, I'm gonna make sure to put that in there as well, so I just want to, you know, as we talk about Church of Babs, you know, is there anything, you know, I know we talked about earlier, discussed it briefly, but is there anything else you wanted to mention about the Church of Babs, or Joe?

Will Keenan 1:11:13
Well, look, the GoFundMe campaign is gofundme.com/stdABSSaintBabs, and that you know, so we've raised almost $20,000 in very short time, and we need more. The reason being that I want to, you know, it's 108 year old church, I want to restore it, you know, and then also innovate a little bit. We also want to start a number of programs for the community and the online community, and you know, when I acquired this two acre property in K County, New Jersey, which is incredible, I'm surrounded by natural wildlife preserves of the Audubon Bird Watching Society, the New Jersey Motorsports Park, private beaches, public beaches, just an amazing, amazing area of South New Jersey that you know people think of Jersey, they think of Sopranos, but especially South Jersey, I think, gives gives Jersey its name on license plates, the Garden State, but because it's an old historical property like this, like I had to, when I acquired it, I had to pay all cash, and it wasn't, you know, I'm not a multi millionaire, because you can't get a more, or at least I couldn't get a mortgage for a property like this. It's commercially zoned, but there's no historical rental income, because it was a church, and it's not a private, it's not a residential place, so no residential private mortgage lenders would win. So I had to put all cash into it. So we're reopening grand reopening at St. Babs in May on Mother's Day in 2002 1017 coming up a few months, and for a whole week, we have a number of festivities happening, and certain celebrity friends of mine will be making appearances, and we'll be launching a bunch of initiatives, there'll be lots of great art and music, you know, showing, so the money from the Go Fund campaign is going to both the restoration and, and launching these programs, and I think you know it's a, it's not just one good cause, it's many good causes, and you know this is, we're just getting started, so I think you know, after the opening, and within the next year or two, just like I tried to do with Maker Studios, and end them all, and stream up, I'm going to turn this into something that people will be proud of, and really think well of,

Dave Bullis 1:13:26
And you know everyone, I'm going to link to again in that article in the show notes, and you know, will I know you're going to do an amazing job with this, and again, when I read that, or when I read the article, I said, this is this is amazing, and this is

Will Keenan 1:13:40
Next time we talk, what? Thank you. Thank you. Next time we talk, why don't you come? Like, I'm also building a studio in the church, and you know there's lots going on here. The whole place is getting wired. Why don't you come to your podcast down here? Maybe you know it's not during the grand reopening week, which I think would be fun. I think there'll be some press that come out of that, but you know that's the other thing, whether it's artists, people in need, people in recovery. I want this to be, you know, not their second home, unless they want to make it their second home, but you know, I'm opening the doors for people to create, to commune, and so forth. So, you know, feel free to do your podcast down here, man.

Dave Bullis 1:14:20
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm definitely gonna, going to go come down. I want to be there for the grand opening, you know. We can meet in person, and you know, yeah.

Will Keenan 1:14:29
Why don't we do, why don't we do during the opening in front of people? Why don't we do like a live podcast or something?

Dave Bullis 1:14:34
You know, that sounds amazing. Let's do it. That's,

Will Keenan 1:14:37
I'll be, I'll be a guest if you want me as your guest, but maybe we'll book one or two other people too, and I'll give you the list of, you know, the talent and the people coming, and you can look at that and say, "Oh, they'd be great on the podcast, and maybe we'll do it that way.

Dave Bullis 1:14:51
Okay, that sounds amazing. Will, yeah, and I think that'd be great, great, you know, tool for, you know, everybody, and because I. That's very interesting. I haven't done something like that yet, and I've been meaning to, and will before you know, just in closing, I wanted to ask, is there anything else that you wanted to say, just in closing, that we can get a chance to discuss?

Will Keenan 1:15:14
Oh, I heard from a very, very good source that Lloyd Kaufman of Troma is developing another movie based on a Shakespeare play, and I was told that not too long ago when Shromeo and Juliet played at the Museum of Modern Art in New York a few months ago, so I, if I do another show my movie again, that sounds like that'd be the one,

Dave Bullis 1:15:50
Yeah, that we know again, you'd be, you would be able to reunite with Lloyd, and you know, again, I, I think that would be amazing, because Lloyd is always, you know, now he's just making some, some really great movies too, because now with what was it, Talks Avenger Four came out, I thought that was very well done, and I actually bumped into the wood a few years ago, by the way. I'll tell you that story in person when I see it, but yeah, no, but I think that'd be great, though, because it's, you know, I always great, it's great independent film, and so again, will I want to say, thank you for coming on. Where we will find you out online, by the way,

Will Keenan 1:16:26
I'm Will Keenan, W I L L K E E N A N, on Twitter, same thing on Instagram, on Facebook. I think if you just search my name, it comes up. I have a blue check next to my name on Facebook. What else, LinkedIn? LinkedIn, look for Will Keenan. And now there's a St. Babs, the foundation I just started. Facebook and Instagram, please follow those as well.

Dave Bullis 1:16:52
Will Keenan, I want to say thank you so much for coming on.

Will Keenan 1:16:56
Dave Bullis, thanks for asking me. This was great. This is fun. Let's, let's do it again.

Dave Bullis 1:17:01
It sounds great, my friend. I will talk to you very soon.

Will Keenan 1:17:05
All right. Take care, man.

Dave Bullis 1:17:06
Take care Will.

Will Keenan 1:17:06
Bye everybody.