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TSP Ep 127 Part 2: Brainstorming About Filmmaking Or More or Less of The Same
24 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Tom and Steve conclude their discussion on more or less the same things, but they do bring up some new topics to discuss like Premiere Pro having issues with IPP2, color, and how shitty Sundance is!
So come along with us as we learn a thing or two!
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Transcript
The Struggle of Pursuing Dreams
00:00:00
Speaker
Sorry about the rant. Oh, that was amazing. people just It's people waiting around for someone to tell them it's okay to do what they want to do. i would If I didn't want to make movies, i just like I said, I just fucking killed myself. like I don't have anything I have to live for. I can't be a goddamn me. I can't just sit there at home. Is that good me? Yeah, I can't do that shit.
00:00:24
Speaker
all right So getting back to it, there is one thing I wanted to ask you and then we can lead into the festival. Cause we were bringing it up. I don't remember what you mentioned, but you brought it up. Oh, I was like, I'm a little happy because I was. Oh yeah. Yeah. So we'll, we'll, we'll use that as leading. So, but let me ask you this. So let's be real.
00:00:46
Speaker
Let's say we do our thing with Dickhead, like so many of our contemporaries, and then so many like ah of our contemporaries, it just ends up on you, to be. Not to say that's anything to be ashamed of or anything like that. or No, dude, like I said, it's literally a miracle. It is a miracle to... But that's probably the reality
Reality of Filmmaking and Industry Saturation
00:01:07
Speaker
for us, right? That's a realistic place we end up. that's ah How do you feel? Like we went through all this, we talked so much about how good this is, how tight we got it. But at the end, it's just going to end up on 2B for no one to ever see
00:01:26
Speaker
and let's say hear about it on this podcast that no one listens to. like how how is
00:01:33
Speaker
What's that reality for you? Initially, it would be a huge disappointment. It would feel like essentially what I imagine being stabbed in the gut would feel like and then they don't pull the knife out. it just They just leave it there and they're like, you pull it out.
00:01:51
Speaker
Well, the good thing is once you're stabbed, you know, you won't bleed out because your body will contort to it. And then you just kind of got to wait until you pull it out yourself. Because the thing is, I have... I think I've maybe talked about this too. This is why I don't play the lotto. It's because I'm a dreamer and I have a lot of hope.
00:02:14
Speaker
even though at the same time, I live in two worlds of here. i like i'm very Maybe I'm very bipolar about this. I don't know, I've never seen a psychiatrist. can I can't accurately diagnose myself.
00:02:29
Speaker
Because in my head, I'm like, well, we had no idea what the fuck we're doing. Even if we have the greatest score in the world, the movie's good, but it's not Rosemary's Baby. No, unfortunately.
Changes in Streaming and Content Demand
00:02:44
Speaker
It's not Unfortunately. And the thing is, you know we're comparing it to these films, we don't exist in that time.
00:02:53
Speaker
I think about that a lot and it bothers me because I think, and you brought this up just now, just the oversaturation, the amount of these movies that come out and how hard it is for these films just to find their way. Like even just now, if we had actually released the film when it came out in like 2016 or whenever we had finished it,
00:03:17
Speaker
there was it The landscape is so different then. That's when the streamers were trying to gobble up content because they all needed content. They don't exist anymore. All these streamers are collapsing, right? They're collapsing. They don't want original content. They probably too much content, right? The yeah the investment is collapsing on them. They're caving in and they're just, yeah. and they're you know And also everyone tried to break off and do their own thing. Like you said what happened. You actually said that it was going to turn into cable.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, and essentially that's what it is, right? There's an MGM plus. Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck is that? MGM, they have one show.
00:04:01
Speaker
Like, how is that sustainable? They have like two shows on there and then like their library of old movies. Guess what? Netflix but has the same fucking movies sometimes. They just cycle through. Yeah. And it's like,
00:04:13
Speaker
i don't understand like I don't understand the models anymore. It doesn't make sense. It's like, why would you pay to have all of them? Tubi's free. And Tubi's great, dude. They have solid movies. Tubi is free. Mubi is free. Mubi's like the more advanced Tubi. because i had think out movies Because they got even more obscure films than Tubi. Where it's like, if you can't find it on Tubi, it's probably on Mubi.
00:04:40
Speaker
I don't understand. like Memories of a murder is not to be.
Streaming Services: Ads vs. Free Options
00:04:45
Speaker
Yeah. and I just think, like well, they got ads. i don't know how I actually don't know how it works. like That's where like the high level where people aren't paying for a billion dollars to have Seinfeld on their platform. and Then it just goes away. like Someone paid a billion dollars to have Seinfeld for like three years. I think it was Netflix. and Then after those three years, it just disappears and they're like, well, we used to have it. For reals? Yes.
00:05:09
Speaker
Or maybe it was like 900 million or something. No, I think it was a billion. It was an absurdly high number and it was- It was only for a limited time? Yes.
00:05:23
Speaker
and It's literally just to keep subscribers, right? Yeah. And what that equates to. And then they, you know, and then the thing too is like, there's a cap. Eventually, ah as many people that will have Netflix accounts will have Netflix accounts.
00:05:40
Speaker
It's gonna be like cable where it's gonna upload, except it's gonna be much faster. Yes, because- And we're probably already seeing that. We are, and that's why everything is getting priced up, right? Yeah. It's like, oh, now Hulu, I think Hulu used to be like $11, now it's like $17. And then- And Netflix, even with commercials, it still costs. And it's like, wait, I'm paying you money to watch ads?
00:06:06
Speaker
But it's like, if I pay you more money, I don't watch the ads anymore. And it's like, but I could just steal this for free and not watch ads. Or I could just watch on 2B with a couple of ads and I'd not pay. Huh, I wonder what I want. Yeah, dude, I'm paying for subscriptions right now, not of my choice. If it was my choice, I would just watch 2B.
00:06:30
Speaker
I don't mind the ads. Actually, I kind of like the fucking ads because then I get a break and I get to go to the bathroom or get up and get a beer. But Dickhead ends up on Tubi.
00:06:44
Speaker
What then? So how do you feel? Like I said, I think there'll be an initial disappointment. Um, depending on how all that works out, like I, I was thinking like, you know, Jake is kind of going through all this stuff with his movement. His movie came out like a decade ago. Um, maybe even longer. Maybe it was like 2009. Did I see it? I think I saw it. I saw it. Um, what's this phone called? Oh, fuck. Resolute or I don't remember. Fuck. I saw it.
00:07:23
Speaker
I think I saw it immediately after the interview within like a week or three. Restraint. Yeah. Called restraint and came out in 2017. So, yeah year after decade. Year after us, yeah. um And that's when it actually came out. I think they actually shot it earlier. I think that's when they shot in like 2009 or 2010 and ten it took a long time. Oh, it took that long, huh? I think so. Yeah, they had a struggle like us.
00:07:50
Speaker
And I think, and then he's just still now like still doing marketing and distributing, doing distribution stuff for it. Just to recoup, huh? Yeah. And then I was thinking, well, you know, like he kind of has a foot in the door there. We can just ask him like, Hey, how do you kind of do this thing to make the money back? At the end of the day is if we can, like I said, if we could get on Tubi and then at least make
Balancing Dreams with Reality in Filmmaking
00:08:13
Speaker
some of that back, that would be nice.
00:08:16
Speaker
I could be like, we were successful because it was an education. And hopefully we will only, if we ever go adventure into it again, it will only ever be better, easier, better, faster, whatever. Because I think at least that's where I'm at now. That's what I think it would be. And I think most real, more realistically, it would probably be us jumping in and doing an anthology.
00:08:45
Speaker
And like, since Steven stepped out of the room, I would say this would be so right. If we finish the VFX as good as we can, we finish the score as good as we can, we finish the color as good as we can, and we get into, we we're gonna get into some festivals. I mean, there, Jesus Christ. um but That's getting the festivals. you know No, Dickhead won't make festivals, but it's like you know what Jared and Clark ran into with their festival run. yeah you know I don't care what festival we get into. Ultimately, I want an audience
00:09:30
Speaker
to see it. And I want an audience who isn't related to me to see it. Because, you know, an audience that's related to me, they're doing it out of support or participation, that they were in it to some degree and wanting to see the end result. But I want an audience that is anonymous to see it, you know? Yes. That's all I want to in a sense,
00:10:00
Speaker
Like if is if that's our that's like the bare minimum. Yeah, I want it to be 50 anonymous people to see the movie and I would be thrilled beyond belief. ah There would be a sense of disappointment because I do believe it. I do believe into the.
00:10:19
Speaker
You believe in your film. I believe in it. And I think, and you know, and we joke about, you know, we do shit on ourselves and we're very self deprecating and Cargill was kind of getting on that. We're like, you have to be your biggest advocate. You shouldn't do that for your movie because people might take it at face value. Yeah. And so. It's like fuck. And I've thought about that a lot. We get beat at face value. Look at our faces, Cargill. But I thought about that a lot too, because I was like, you know, it's so easy to just say, yeah, we made some shitty movie called Dickhead. But also it's like, no, all of this, it works towards the movie. The title of the film works towards the film. Every little aspect that we've layered into it works towards the greater whole. It's called Dickhead because there's a guy named Richard Head in the movie and there's a reason behind it, right? His dad fucking hates him. He's a piece of shit, miserable guy.
00:11:12
Speaker
You know, there you go. He's an abusive father. Yeah. And the the last, you know, slam dunk on the abuse or the first slam dunk. This is what happens when you abuse people. Yeah. You know, you know and and we see kind of the results of that. We see the results of what loneliness and pain and suffering and all this kind of does to a person. It's there.
00:11:35
Speaker
He wanted to be sure. If not, you could just watch people get murdered and you know, like make jokes and have a good night. I know to know exactly. And so we get on to be. And it doesn't get picked up anywhere else. Oh, wait shit. Then we're like, OK, we help Alex do Rico. And then we probably, you know, I would say I would probably want to. Save up. Recoup.
00:12:05
Speaker
pay off debt, and then plan on how we could as cheaply and effectively do an anthology. Yeah, I guess I see it as sad as it is to be imagined, fade out. Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, I i thought, ah I've been thinking about it a lot.
00:12:32
Speaker
um and it's like i I understand that like there's probably a lot of people that want to just be filmmakers. Yeah, we're not original in that respect. No, i don't think like we are not alone nowhere in this endeavor. And then we found our contemporaries, you know which is nice because to know we're not alone. And that I think the thing that kind of
00:13:03
Speaker
I guess that the thing that makes me nervous about it is I haven't really seen anyone go anywhere.
00:13:16
Speaker
like
00:13:18
Speaker
all of Everyone that we've had on this show has came out has come out with something that has gone nowhere. and two And I don't mean to disparage them, because I i think i do think it's like, it's not even a one in a million. It's like one in a hundred million chance. Literally it's one in eight billion or, you know, like, I don't know, a hundred thousand and eight billion. Cause I mean, you know, and and like people, the thing is though is like, what um what inspires me is,
00:13:54
Speaker
even though those films didn't go anywhere, none of them have really given up on the dream. Well, they're like us too, right? Where they're still working at it. And I think that's for it the what, and i I think that you have to be realistic about it in a sense too, where it's like,
00:14:14
Speaker
I don't want to be like 75 years old and it's like, let's get together and make a quick film, buddy. We go number two. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, we'll have fun. We'll get drunk and have fun. And like, maybe that's cool. But also it's like, I actually want to like do this. Well, you know, see, for me, it's like, I don't want to do that. It fits that case because I got my family, you know, I'd rather honestly, I'd rather just sit on the couch and watch movies.
00:14:43
Speaker
if that's the case. It's a lot of hard
Passion and Challenges in Filmmaking
00:14:46
Speaker
work what we're doing. It is. It's a lot of fucking hard work. I you know i was thinking. I don't want to work that hard. Yeah, I was thinking. um
00:14:56
Speaker
I was thinking the other day, I was like, how the fuck did we make dickheads? Sometimes I'm like, how the fuck did we do that? like right like what how the like We got it people together, like all that work, like right like so doing all the scheduling and the casting, ah working with the actors, working on the script. like Script writing is easy. We could do that. like That's pretty easy. I can do that all the time. I do it all the time. But also at that point in our lives, it wasn't that easy because it was so new to us.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah. You know, like the diligence we applied to it, it wasn't really that easy. Now, yeah, sure. Maybe it's a lot easier. I could, I, I wrote for the, my next film that I would love to do, it's only 30 page, like rough draft, I think of a film that I wrote like in two days, you know? yeah It's not hard to write a movie. It's really not. No.
00:15:53
Speaker
You know, it's it's not that hard. I still write one script a week. I used to do... It's hard to write a good movie. Oh, yeah. Very hard. I think it's also... That's where the difficulty is. and Okay, let me say, it's very easy to write a movie. It's very hard to write a, like not even a good movie, but just a movie that works. And I want i want to kind of switch the the wording and the verbiage sure to that.
00:16:21
Speaker
because good and bad, like that's they're so arbitrary in a sense. They're almost synonymous then? Yeah, it's like but a movie that works where the pacing is is right and the characters have growth and arcs and changes. They don't have to. i don't like That's the other thing too. is like i don't think ah A character doesn't have to change. Ghostbusters is a perfect example. Right. Venkman is Venkman.
00:16:49
Speaker
from A to B. And that's one of the best written movies, I think, ever. Like, yes i would fight i would fight out adele I would fight that. Like, you want to bring up, ah you know, Laventura or you want to... No, people talk about Back to the Future. I'm just like, yeah, I love Back to the Future. I watch Back to the Future a lot because I loved it that I went back to the Back to the Future. But like, honestly, Ghostbusters. Yeah, that is fucking tight.
00:17:17
Speaker
Oh yeah. Damn dude. Tight. And when you say like, yeah, that was written, that wasn't ad-libbed at all. It's like, yeah God damn, not only was it tight, but it was so well done that it feels just off the cuff the entire time. But of course you talk about like some of the greatest of the greatest, right? Some of the greatest comedians, some of the greatest actors, some of the greatest what i don't writers, directors. And it's like, it's so funny. Cause I always think like when we talk about movies, we always go back to like,
00:17:48
Speaker
old. And I always think about that and we don't ever really talk about new stuff in that regard because of that saturation. Well, also, I think you made a good point in previous podcasts where I think I've shit on contemporary movies far too much. And you were always like, yeah, dude, but when you look at the old stuff, you're only looking at the best of the best. You know, like how many movies came out in 1991? Oh, but I'm only watching the best of the best that came out in 1991, right? Yeah, it was probably like 5,000 or something.
00:18:23
Speaker
but you know But I mean today, like how many movies are coming out today? 50,000 years. It wasn't like ten times like in 1991, it was probably like 5,000 maybe, just throw an arbitrary number. But like nowadays but without a fact, it's probably like 20,000, 10,000 films coming out nowadays. Because of the ease to make, of I mean, we couldn't make a we couldn't have made a film in 1980, probably not. I mean, maybe.
00:18:50
Speaker
we if With our skill sets, we probably could have done it. yeah because we're just where I think the thing was, it's like for us, it was we were were good at talking people into helping us. Well, not just that, but like I could develop a role of negatives. I could develop a role of film. Yes. I could have figured that out. But like but I think that was always like one of our strengths is just imparting our passion.
00:19:18
Speaker
At least, I mean, it it gets brought up all the time. Even just with Adam and Pat and John, they're just like, you guys are just so passionate. It makes it easy to work with you. We're infectious like that. We're like an STD that doesn't go away. Exactly. And we stay with people for years. They're like, God damn it, man. That one night, that one night, if only I wrapped up. It's like, hey, guys. We're back. You thought you got away in Australia. like Guess what?
00:19:46
Speaker
Uh, you always bring it back, you know, and then it's like ah You're right and I I you know yeah it always comes back to that fucking goddamn willy woody allen that goddamn cocksucker Midnight in paris and it's like I hate that. He made that fucking movie because it's so goddamn true and I hate it so But it's so true. It is so fucking true and it's We are, so you know, it's so hard to not just obsess and love the past to an unrealistic degree. We hold the romanticism. Yeah, you just completely romanticize it. And it's like, it's not real. Those people were struggling and they fucking hated life just as much. Yeah, where he's like, dude, Novocaine wasn't even invented, right? When he tells her, he's like, Novocaine doesn't exist in this period. yeah It's not as great. She's like, I love it.
00:20:40
Speaker
But honestly, if Marianne cotard, she was like, Steven, stay. okay I was I'll stay with you. Yeah, I mean, just kill me when the pain starts. Yeah, no, I mean, you get like TB in like two minutes, right? like I and always think about that tuberculosis because it's so fascinating. like
00:21:07
Speaker
There was just like a generational gap where people just stopped having family members that had died from TB. Dude, I have to test for it at work. Yeah. I mean, I haven't. It's kind of. It's supposed to. It's kind of a.
00:21:20
Speaker
redundant because like it's pretty treatable if you get it. Even if you do get it, it's like not a death sentence anymore. But go 100 years ago, every single person you met knew someone that died from tuberculosis or 150 years ago or whatever. It's probably 150 years by now, like in the 1800s.
00:21:39
Speaker
Every single person knew somebody that died from tuberculosis. I mean, that's ah generalizing. And there's probably like some people that didn't, but it's like cancer. It was like, and cancer was still around. on I think on Reddit, I saw a post where they were saying like, back in the day, anyone who had diabetes, you ain't going to live. You ain't going to survive diabetes for very long. And now, I mean, people literally can reverse it. Yeah. I mean, that my mom did. She had, she was diabetic and now she's pre-diabetic.
00:22:08
Speaker
What? You know? ah Yeah. You know, and I was thinking, because i was I was thinking too, like convenience is bad. Why? Because when things are given you to you so easily, you lose something.
Nostalgia vs. Modern Filmmaking
00:22:27
Speaker
Like you lose that. Like, you know how everyone's like complains that DoorDash is expensive?
00:22:35
Speaker
Yes, it is. And it's like you don't have to have people bring you food. Yeah. Well, yeah. Do you know how fucking luxurious yeah that is you ever is? You remember those Schwinn trucks when we were kids? Yeah, I haven't seen a Schwinn truck in a long time. You know, I used to think like, that's so crazy. Like people just have dinners brought to them and those were like fucking TV dinners and shit. But now it's like all your groceries just brought to your fucking house by some stranger that's getting paid minimum wage minimum wage to pick your groceries for you yeah and it's like that and we're just like we complain about it yeah it's like you could just fucking go to the store yourself and save the money and get what you want yeah that grape might be wrinkly get another grape
00:23:28
Speaker
yeah You know, or you know, guess what? You could have grapes for whatever the fuck you want because of how we've, you know, made the fucking- Yeah, we have fruit year-round. Transportation systems and the fucking way that we can move shit around, like, I'm trying to think of the word. I can't because I'm drunk. Globalism? No, it's like,
00:23:54
Speaker
with commerce and trade and transportation, all that shit. Essentially, you can have a tomato whenever you want. Yeah. That didn't always used to be the case. There were times where it was like, well, it's winter. Oh, I really don't grow. I really want some tomato in my hamburger. Oh, yeah there's no hamburger. All the cows die. They got that male cow to see. What? right But I want a burger with my fucking tomato and lettuce. Oh, there's no lettuce either. What?
00:24:25
Speaker
You can have some potatoes. Okay. Can I? Oh, cool. You mean french fries? No. Eh? No french fries. There's no oil to fry them in. but Oh. What? Why aren't there? There's no vegetable oil? Yeah, like all the corn died. All the corn died. Bass chord playing. Wipe them all out. So wait, wait, wait. You're just like, I can just boil this potato?
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah. Well, no water ran out. I want to get water on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Potable water. Yeah. Yeah. You can drink the shit water if you want. Good luck. You know, like that's like convenience. though yeah We don't even really, you don't even think about that. Dude, I was bitching about internet all the, I mean, we'll get into it. Uploading. Only three megabytes. What the fuck?
00:25:18
Speaker
You know, and then there was dial-up, you know, it'd be waiting 30 minutes for the Playboy image to appear. I remember the Celebs DB. You couldn't even use your your telephone. No, if someone is, you know, you're if you're playing Runescape and you're just mining minerals all day and your mom picked up the phone and then some motherfucker picked up all your goddamn coal, you know, like, God damn, mom, please. Well, also back in the day, same line. Internet used the same line as a telephone. If you were all one, you couldn't get the other.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, you would be on, you know, I'd be sitting there downloading my music off Shiraza and it was, it said it was um Mrs. Robinson by ah The Beatles, which, you know, they didn't sing that song.
00:26:05
Speaker
I didn't know that for years. I thought for the longest time that Mrs. Robinson was sung by the Beatles. really And then I remember I told someone and they just looked at me like I was the dumbest motherfucker on earth. They're like, Simon Garfield don't even sound like the Beatles. And I was just like, that's how it was labeled when I downloaded it. When I was fucking 14 in 2001 or whatever.
00:26:27
Speaker
and Yeah, I remember. um Yeah, we would be on the Internet all the time. Just I would always be downloading stuff because I was like one of the I've been learning. I learned how to pirate like early. Like I was an early adopter.
00:26:43
Speaker
Because we were just so poor and never had anything unless we stole it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember we'd get off and then you would just like, it'd be like, hey, we've been trying to call you, you know, like grandma died. It's like, oops. I mean, I don't think that actually happened. Most of my grandparents died really young, but. So. But yeah. You were saying that.
00:27:10
Speaker
you don't think dickhead is for the Sundance crowd, but possibly Sundance Midnight? Yeah, like the thing is, it's like, at least when you, I don't know if you've ever, if you've looked at like what premiered. I did when I was researching. Last year was, what's the one with Christian Stewart, Love Lies Bleeding? Yeah. That premiered at Sundance Midnight. I was like, oh shit.
00:27:38
Speaker
And I'm like, even that, I'm just like... because i think That's the movie you guys get for the offshoots? Yeah. God damn. Because I really liked that movie. I know you didn't like it at all, but I was a i was a fan of it. Again, it was a film I didn't finish. So, you know, like, Angelheart. You know, maybe i need I didn't give it its due. It was definitely a movie that got better and better. And then, because they also because it's absurd.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't give it that long, so I kind of stopped as it was building, for sure. Because it's a movie where you're just like, what is real in this movie? Well, I was just like, what is this? I'm out. I'll tell you, it's kind of a spoiler, but not, she becomes a giant Godzilla-sized person at the end of the movie. Well, you were comparing it to Tarantino a lot.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yes, it really felt like, or even like a Cohen brother kind of thing, like an early, it really reminded me of like Blood Simple or... But that's two filmmakers that you you got to stick with it, yeah right? Like Reservoir Dogs, I mean.
00:28:50
Speaker
You kind of have to stick with that film. And then it's like, if you just watch where they're talking about sitting in the car and you stop there, it's just like, oh, Madonna's big dicks. Fuck this movie. Yeah. Or if you even just watch where they're just like, yeah, let's get a taco, you know, or whatever that line is, I hardly could tell. So it's like.
00:29:07
Speaker
you know they're like casing out the joint and they're talking about shit and you know and he's like. There's that scene where he's I love this scene and where's where dogs i still think it's probably it might be turn to his best. so no I am for sure that Pulp Fiction.
00:29:22
Speaker
This is best. I mean, i think is I think Once Upon a Time is the most refined of Tarantino, which says a lot, because that's his latest movie. But man, Reservoir Dodge has just got that special place. It's just like... This is that indie film, raw, just, you're just trying to make a good ass film with what you have and you fucking mail it. You know, it's so funny when you talk about, it's gonna be so unpolitically corrected, I'm sorry. Don't cut it, it's funny.
00:29:57
Speaker
um You talked about Ghostbusters being so tight, and I was thinking, you know, Ghostbusters is like a 14-year-old Vietnamese whore. And Reservoir Dogs is like the girl that's been in the game a while. but She knows what she's doing, but she ain't that tight. yeah And it's like, you know, I've never been with a 14-year-old. That's gross. um But it's just a, you know, it less it's just a joke, you know. God damn, calm down, people.
00:30:24
Speaker
I'm sorry, we got canceled. even We lost our half our audience. again We lost half our audience. We moved from one to zero. And off. Sorry, Karen. But yeah, you know, I was thinking about because you're talking about how tight Ghostbusters is. And that's like, that's what I kind of, you know, I have i hope like, this is, again, the bipolar like thing. I don't think I'm actually bipolar, but it's like I'm of two minds where it's like,
00:30:54
Speaker
The tighter the film is, the better. But then it's like, you don't want it to be, you want ah sometimes you want to like enjoy it. And you sometimes you want that excess. That's exactly what I was thinking for Dickhead though. Like for some of the scenes we cut, especially one in particular, I know what you're, you know what I'm talking about. And it's like, do we need to be that tight? Maybe we do. I don't know. You're very adamant about it. So I i rely on that.
00:31:21
Speaker
Like, that's what reassures me. Like, okay, fine. If you if you believe this i think that strongly, I am okay with it. But if it were me on my own, ah well, we cut out, in the school scene, we cut out the extended version of that ah with the teacher being a pervert. And if you're if you're sure on that,
00:31:49
Speaker
then okay, that's all I need. Yes, I'm super sure. It's like on my own. I don't know if if it were me on my own, I would leave it in. Because it's it's to the extent where it's like, I don't fucking know, I like it, so I'm gonna leave it. This is where I struggled too. But I don't know. Because I don't think it's necessarily right or wrong. To have it. To have it.
00:32:16
Speaker
There is a purpose for why I think it should be cut. But there's also a purpose why it should be there. Exactly. And then it's just which which.
00:32:28
Speaker
why which What is the thing that we're trying to deliver at the end of the day? But see, I think it it delivers either way.
Film Editing Choices and Challenges
00:32:35
Speaker
But but this is where i this is where I went back and forth because when people were saying to cut it, I was like, no, fuck you, stupid. No, I know you mulled over it a lot. And last time I left you, you were very sure that we were going to keep it. And then the next time we meet, you're like, yeah, we're cutting it.
00:32:52
Speaker
I thought about it. And then I was like, no, we shouldn't. You're like, no, it's getting, we need to cut it. I know for a fact we need to cut it. I was like, well, I don't know for a fact if we do cut or we don't, but if you know, I thought about it. That's all I need to know a lot. And then the reason why I thought about this is the only way I think indulgence, and that's why I feel what it is. It's not right or wrong. It's indulgence.
00:33:19
Speaker
because it- I don't feel that way. I do and I'll tell you why. but it But if you see it that way, sure.
00:33:28
Speaker
Everything that we cut is already shown. a little bit. it shown every It's just not necessarily exclamation. And that's an exclamation point. It is. And sometimes it's that is good. And I actually think oftentimes it's better to have an exclamation point than not. I don't mind lingering. but The thing is, and this is why I thought we should cut it, is because we got rid of that scene that's right before it. Which I also don't think we should have got rid of. And while I know you like that one, I was just thinking something had to give there. We had to do something to make that just a little bit tighter because we had to, one,
00:34:19
Speaker
We had to bring the focus back on Jennifer. Which we do. Absolutely. And two, that scene is just, we are playing a very fine line with how long it is. Oh. And I don't know. We're pushing it. I don't know if it is good enough to allow the indulgence. Yeah. And I was safe, it was a safe cut.
00:34:46
Speaker
Oh, it's very safe. And that's why I was thinking we need to play it safe because if it was like undeniable, there'd be no choice. You would know just to leave it in. If it was undeniable. Well, it was if it was until it wasn't. Bo was.
00:35:04
Speaker
i would that
00:35:07
Speaker
i was so sure I was so dead set that we just left that in. It was never a thought, right? But when we saw that we could kind of cut that scene that I felt was weak, because it's almost like... I didn't feel that scene was weak. The only thing I feel weak about that scene... The Suzanne scene where she kind of gets her moment. Yeah, the only thing I feel weak about that is the the cinematography.
00:35:33
Speaker
Well, not only is the cinematography on all the Suzanne's closeups, not like it's not great. No, it's terrible. It's terrible, but also I felt like it was us explaining to the audience more than we were explaining to Jennifer, and I didn't like that. I didn't like that we were essentially using that scene to spout exposition to the audience.
00:35:59
Speaker
when, because that scene is like, yeah, me, and I really like Kevin still, you know, we had a thing and you gotta be careful, don't buy into your own bullshit. And it's like, but we I want jet people to just understand that Jennifer had it has everything in control. And the second she starts losing that control, everything just spirals out for her. And I felt like we, and the thing too is like,
00:36:29
Speaker
It cut five minutes. But you'll understand where I say all of that is like a perfect microcosm of the film, right? It's this just like perfect little thing that explains what's going to happen now. Yes.
00:36:52
Speaker
And I, I don't know. I just was, I was, I just kept thinking like, the thing was that the revelation was when I saw that scene gone. How you didn't miss it? i One, I didn't miss it. The cinematographer, you were right. We couldn't, I couldn't get over this one. I couldn't get over a cinematography and how bad it was. Yeah. That was tough. Oops. That's my fault. Second, once it was gone,
00:37:17
Speaker
As an audience member, I realized you don't you didn't notice. No, you don't. And it actually cuts because I was going over the ah ah audio. So i'm again, essentially 60 FPS for the 24 FPS film. Again, you see it and it so very well and naturally leads right into the bathroom. Mm hmm.
00:37:47
Speaker
So well. So well, it hurts. So well, it hurts. Because Kevin leaves and just a boom, bam, into the bathroom. And he's like, fuck. That's just such a nice cut to that. So nice. And the thing is,
00:38:12
Speaker
if the cinema are like if ah If a couple of things were just a little bit more right, I would have fought to the end for it. So the cinematography ruined it? Fuck man, I'm sorry. It partially, it was bad. I know, I know, it's bad. It's bad, I know. And my thing too is like, the the mistakes that we had to leave in for the sake of just continuity and storytelling,
00:38:39
Speaker
I feel like we have like this scale. It's like the scales of justice. Yeah, and we're so, we're riding that fucking, it's so tight. And it's like, if we, and i and remember, i I think I told you this, I was like, if we can get rid of it, we have to.
00:38:57
Speaker
Well we can, we did. Because we ride that sunlight, right? It's like we have that fucking jump scare that doesn't work and we have, we have like that fucking window. We have the weird drone shot that we're gonna have to make day for night work. We have all of these little things. We're pushing it.
00:39:14
Speaker
that We're riding that line, man. We're riding hard and the thing is, is like, we just hope, right? Like the cinematography, again, in the goddamn party. Sometimes I'm like, some of those shots, I'm, well, not even the cinematography, it's not the angles or the the blocking, it's just the lighting in the party is like- It's just the rushing of of that. Cause it was like, we can't get dramatic lighting here. There's no way. There's no way we can spend that much time.
00:39:39
Speaker
No. Just aim that light, bounce it off the wall, use that to reflect off of everything and light the room. Yep. And that was all we did. And god damn, is it flat. It's so flat. And the thing too is like the walls are just blank. Yeah. There's nothing to look at. It's just and not only is there nothing to look at, but it's like, why would you make me look at that?
00:40:06
Speaker
And it's like, I don't want you to look at that. Yeah, let's just. ah But the thing is, like, we have to have these scenes. We have to. We have to because you have to understand where the characters are in relation to what's going on. Yeah, I mean, we we didn't see the bird in the tree and do the narration. We didn't do that and we can and we can't go back. And that's the thing is like and that's what's tough is because that's the
00:40:37
Speaker
That's where i'm I've always kind of kind of struggled, I guess, in a sense, is it's like,
00:40:48
Speaker
we have like I said, there's like this scale. We have the bad and the good. And the whole thing is like, we just have to tip it as much as we can in the good. Yeah. Because the problem is when you look at what we had, what we used to have, it used to be so, the bad used to be so heavy.
00:41:07
Speaker
And it just used to be like nothing felt like it worked. like Like we so easily have a bad film. It's so easy that this movie doesn't work, which is very scary. It's so easily bad. And there's stuff that we've seen that no one else has called out and I don't know what that means. It's so delicately okay. Yeah. So easily bad, which is really scary, right? Yeah, it is because it's like,
00:41:36
Speaker
It's like you said, we've only really shown it to people we know. I don't think of it, it's like if we just showed it to, ah like that's why that the like I was nervous about the festivals in a sense, because it would be like the first real
00:41:54
Speaker
so they These people don't know us. They don't know what we've been through. they don't And they don't care. then that was you know like it' like If 100 people died making the movie, they don't give a shit. yeah they're just like I watched 45 movies that are just like this. They all sucked. and You're moving and getting in this festival. The movie sucks even more. You don't have ah Ed Harris in your film. You don't have Dave Franco, Kristen Stewart.
00:42:24
Speaker
We got Gianluca. Who? How do you even say that? Gianluca? He a GI Joe Luca? Like, what the fuck? yeah Like, why are your guys' names on every single department other than hair and makeup? You know, it's like essentially it's a movie like where I was thinking about the credits and I was like,
00:42:49
Speaker
Our names, are if we were doing it accurately, our names would be on everything except for hair and makeup. That's why I don't want to put our names too much. We have to omit our names. Yeah, we have, and it's like, we have to like, and I hate to say it cause, cause everyone did, ah you know, they did- Everyone did phenomenal. They did phenomenal. That's not to shit on anyone. It's just, you know, when you see the same person doing everything,
00:43:18
Speaker
That's not a good sign. Yeah.
Film Festival Submission Pressures
00:43:20
Speaker
It's like, who made this movie? And it's like, Tom, Steven, Margarita. Yeah. Like, you know, like it's like people filled in and did stuff all over, but like for the most part, it was like the three of us guys, like the core. And then people were like kind of like helping as they could. Assisting, yeah. Well, so.
00:43:46
Speaker
We put together a list for film festivals. Oh, let's get into this, yes. And the two, well, the biggest festival to submit to was Sundance, is Sundance. I mean, that's like the dream, right? At least for American festivals. And for me personally, South by Southwest is the festival I want to try for. But so Sundance,
00:44:17
Speaker
That's a big one. It's undeniable. It's undeniable. And Sundance had their deadline on September something.
00:44:30
Speaker
I don't know. 22nd, I think. There you go. And a lot of festivals will accept works in progress. They'll accept your film as is.
00:44:45
Speaker
ah You can finish the post-work in that time to be released if you get accepted. So we worked on our temp cut of the film. And for me, that was rough, man. Cause you know, we kind of jumped on it late. We had like 10 days to finish it. And I think one of the biggest issues for me is the fact that I should have done more.
00:45:17
Speaker
Like i I knew our timeline way before you did. And I was like, Tom, we need to get together and talk. And it was like, why didn't I just fucking tell you what the deal was from the start? It was so stupid. And just thinking of all the mistakes I made with planning and figuring this out to meet the deadline for Sundance.
00:45:40
Speaker
And once I met with you, you were like, yeah, let's fucking do it. Let's get that fucking temp, that work in progress cut of the film out to Sundance will let, and then when you submit to Sundance and it's not completed, you're supposed to put a title card of all the work you still need to do.
00:45:57
Speaker
And of course, I think that's a deadline we could meet for the actual festival if we were to be accepted, because we don't have a lot to do outside of audio, I don't think. I mean, coloring could be a whole issue. Obviously, we have a green rectangle we need to get rid of. But, you know, if those could be solved, which with Jorge, it sounds like he has a good plan for solving that for us. He does.
00:46:23
Speaker
so It's not that big of an issue because we don't want a lot. We just want a film that looks good. Color-wise, we just need to get rid of blemishes, VFX-wise. I mean, I do want to have a little VFX there, like with police lights and some shootouts. But really, most of the VFX corrections is just like, oh, there's a weird shadow here. Let's just mask it out. It's really not that.
00:46:51
Speaker
much work, time consuming perhaps, but really not that much work. And then of course, audio is a big one, which we already got a great audio team who's working on this, who we feel can absolutely deliver. We're very confident in them. They've given us a lot of hope. A little further. I want to jump in real quick too, is when we kind of told them that we were going to do this,
00:47:16
Speaker
It was kind of like, well, if you guys get in, we'll just get this done for you as soon as possible. They said that? Yeah, I was talking with Adam. He was like, if you guys get in the Sundance, I'll drop everything and do this. Okay, well, that's gonna, oh man, that hurts more. But I mean, whole i mean if we get into a big festival, right? let's everyone No one, like I said, no one is stupid. This is, everyone that we have worked with, everyone that we've talked to, this is what they want to do.
00:47:47
Speaker
If, and the thing is, and this is why, and I'm like, sorry, I'll let you get back into, I'm sorry. um Like when I talk with Adam and he's like, you guys really have something here.
00:48:04
Speaker
Which means a lot, especially to narcissists like us. Well, it's not even to narcissists. No, I know, I know. Remember self deprecating? It's exactly, it's the exact opposite of narcissism where I'm just like, are you just blowing smoke up my ass? Self defeatist to build that defense mechanism. So when we are defeated, we're ok we'll be right.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah. We'll still be right. Right? if If it's like, if it goes nowhere nowhere and it just... We told you it was shit and it's shit. Haha, look it. We knew what we were talking about from the start. We've never been wrong. We didn't put any hope into this because we knew better. And that's what that's also one of the reasons why the the edit took so long. That's part of the reason. um is It took a lot to actually just build confidence in ourselves and who we are and what in the project and just just us really like just us as People creatives, whatever. I don't know if that's just you know shitty childhoods or or whatever like I'm not gonna like again I'm not gonna go diagnosing us
00:49:04
Speaker
But you know and you know when I'm talking with Adam, him he's just like, you know i've worked he's like, I've worked on a lot of things. I've worked with people that have gotten into festivals. He's like, nothing has been as good as what you guys have are shown us and would have given us. But if you give me another $1,000, I'll deliver all the time. The thing is, it's like that isn't what's happening. right It's not like, oh hey you know it's like we've got to, I mean, I don't think they'll listen to this, but we've got to steal.
00:49:30
Speaker
like Oh, we definite up even if they do listen, we gotta steal with them. For everything. They're amazing. It's incredible. like Even John just sending us that first pass he did, I was like, this first pass is my ultimate pass.
00:49:47
Speaker
like what he John did to correct, because John's working on our just the dialogue and making it sound good, like audible. But he was able to deliver with the audio, I was like,
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, this is about as good as I could ever get. And this is just him starting out. You know, like if he can refine that even an ounce more, it's already better than anything I can do. so So we're working on this work in progress to meet the deadline for Sundance. And you know, a lot of shit came up just family life and but Lack of sleep and not only that just a lot of shit came up like the XML not fucking transferring correctly Like there was a lot of just that I had to point out to you because it was like Tom I'm telling you man this there's edits here that don't look right and I'm at watching it and you're like Steven fuck you you don't know what you're talking about you stupid crazy bastard and the thing is to it's like no cocksucker and I'm like No, I don't, buddy. No, but the crazy thing too is it's like, this motherfucker caught like six frames. like yeah It's not like, it wasn't even every clip, it's like every 30th clip or every, I don't even know how often it happened. Honestly, it's more than that, because I felt that it was off. Yeah. I can't pinpoint, there were a few shots where I was like, no, I know for a fact, this is not correct.
00:51:17
Speaker
And those that was my evidence. But I was just like, man, this just feels so so much like dog shit. Like, how did it go for me being like, yeah, Tom, I feel like this is a real movie. I can watch it too.
00:51:31
Speaker
Dude, this, something's not right. So I think it's more than that. Yeah. You know, I just, it would literally be us looking frame by frame by frame, like, oh no, that, that shot's too framed. Cause I went and did that. And that's when I finally found it. Cause I, what I did was I put the videos on top of each other and then I put the opacity. And you drop the opacity so you could just mirror them. And then like when you would see like a ghost, it's essentially a ghost image. Yeah. And it was like every third clip was like,
00:52:01
Speaker
too slow or was starting differently? Really, it was that often. Yeah, and I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. So I was like, well, I guess all that work I did was for nothing. Yeah, which was a hard pill to slow, but like, but now so as we're getting closer to the deadline, it was already rough. And and then um I finally am like, OK, I need to work on this shit because I thought I was going to get through the audio real quick. And then I sat down and I worked on it on Thursday.
00:52:30
Speaker
And it's due on Sunday. Yeah. It was Monday night at midnight. Yeah. So it was due essentially Sunday at 11 59 PM right before Monday, midnight. And so I started on Thursday and I was like, you know what, Steven?
00:52:49
Speaker
They're always like, man, I wish I had more time. I always wish I had more time. It's like, you're gonna get like that again with dickheads. So you need to start Thursday and you need to work all night. So I worked all night. And this is going off for like two hours of sleep I've had for the past two days because Sophia woke up one day and she couldn't fall asleep. And then the another day um I just had insomnia because I was stressing out about it already.
00:53:17
Speaker
And then I had like, we had doctor's appointments for the baby on the way. So I literally only, I think over seven days I calculated I probably got at most six, 20 hours of sleep for 20 days or seven days. And I was staying up all night working on this film. Cause I knew we had to meet this deadline and I'm like, okay, I got to clean up that audio because Excuse all of the music, excuse all of the sound effects. If people can hear this film, I feel like they can appreciate it. That's where we shine is people hearing the film because then they can catch jokes, little nuggets that we leave in to allude to other side characters, all of that shit. So I'm working on it, cleaning it up. And I remember Saturday, Friday night, it's three, two in the morning.
00:54:13
Speaker
And this has never happened to me before, but two in the morning I'm working, I stopped to have dinner, which is pizza. And I'm like, okay, I'll get myself 30 minutes to have my lunch break. And then I'm going to get started again at 2.30 and continue working.
00:54:31
Speaker
So I had my pizza, I finished before the 30 minutes. And so I'm watching Paul Chian play magic. And I'm like, yeah, let me rest a little bit. I'll watch a couple games. If I go a little past 230, whatever, I'll give a shit. And I'm sitting there. And I always tell people I pass out. And when I say that, I just mean I went to sleep. And they're like, oh, you passed out? Are you okay? I'm like, no, no, no, I just meant a colloquial term I use that just means I fell asleep.
00:55:00
Speaker
But this is the first time I went from fully conscious awake watching it and then black. Like everything went black and I came to, because my hands were in so much pain because I was resting my head on my hands in a weird way, like bending my hand downward and resting my hand on my my head on my um on the face of my hand there. And it was in so much pain because I i fell asleep that way.
00:55:30
Speaker
And it was only 30 minutes and I got back to work and I'm, I'm trying to work and I was just like, Oh, I can't do this. I'm just so disoriented. And I had literally passed out. Like, I don't know what happened. I was fully awake and then all of a sudden black and I wake up 30 minutes later. That's all it was. And I'm just like, man, I can't fucking do this. I need sleep. So I go to sleep.
00:55:56
Speaker
And I get to work and I'm talking to you cause you were like, Steven, it needs to be done by midnight on Saturday so we can get it rendered and uploaded in time. And I'm just like, well, Tom saying it can get uploaded fast. Okay. And let me drag out every single hour I can bit by bit.
00:56:16
Speaker
And you were like, well, it's probably gonna take at least an hour and a half to render and then 30 minutes to upload. So that was my thought process of like, okay, two hours to render and upload it. I remember where I told you, you have to be done by nine. Yeah, by nine. And it was like, okay, nine's my deadline. And I was like, and as I got to closer to nine on Saturday, I was like, yeah, let me finish sooner.
00:56:43
Speaker
and get done sooner so that I can meet my deadlines. Because my plan was to work until 10, get it all done and uploaded by midnight. But I was like, no, I'm going to stop at nine and be a little sooner. And I went a little over and and and then I decided to render at 720 because my computers had issues with rendering. It's like, if this if my computer has any issues with rendering, we're not going to make it.
00:57:11
Speaker
and and And it rendered at 720, it took an hour and a half, exactly, a little less. Because it said, when i when I hit render on Premiere Pro, it said it would take an hour. And so, you know, I'm twiddling my thumbs like, fuck, fuck, fuck. And then I come back to the computer and it says, an hour and 20 minutes. I'm like, ah, fuck, it gave me extra minutes. And so I'm just twiddling my thumbs. I was watching a um ah movie And then I went back a little early and it was already done rendering. I was like, fuck yeah, I'm done rendering sooner. I was like, okay, I got that. I got a little more than 30 minutes to upload it and get it sent out to Sundance. And this is me working from Thursday to Sunday evening with like only a few hours of sleep. who Just been like, no, I'm going to work all night. I'm going to work all night. I'm going to work all night.
00:58:06
Speaker
And I put so much effort into to doing that. That's what hurts so much. And I meet that, that deadline of having 30 minutes to upload.
00:58:22
Speaker
And I put it on Vimeo. I dropped $250 to pay for Vimeo for the whole year. It's like, fuck it. I don't care. Give me data. I just need space to store this, you know, and I'm fucking around with Vimeo. And then I finally, it starts uploading and it's going so slow and I'm literally plugging in it through the hard line. Cause it's going slow and I'm internet testing and I'm only getting three megabytes a second upload time.
00:58:50
Speaker
And I'm like, fuck, it's not meeting the time. It's already 2.45 and I'm only at 10% upload. I'm like fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What do I do? What do I do? I'm not gonna make it. And so i go to I go to YouTube and at that point like I already knew.
00:59:04
Speaker
That point I already knew. Once I saw them upload speed, I was like, fuck, there's no way. But you know, it's just, you got to hope against hope. So I uploaded to YouTube. I'm like, maybe YouTube's faster. Maybe Vimeo, their servers are slow and and it's not uploading fast enough. And then YouTube tells me it's going to take two and a half hours to upload the 720 video. That's five gigabits. I'm just like, fuck, I only have 15 minutes.
00:59:33
Speaker
And so I'm, I'm just panicking and I start uploading it directly to film freeway, which that's, which you submit Sundance to Sundance through. And it it was doing a lot better. It was giving me like a 0.0 number percentage. So like 0.01, 0.02 telling me how it's uploading and that's much faster. But at that point, it's only like five minutes left and it gets to like,
01:00:05
Speaker
3% of the video uploaded on FilmFreeway. And I'm looking at the clock and it's like 1158. And then I look over again and it's 1201.
01:00:18
Speaker
And then I was just like, fuck it. and ain't It ain't making it. It ain't making that deadline. And so I just turned off the computer. I went back to finishing the movie I was watching.
01:00:33
Speaker
And I just literally just poured myself straight an entire glass, like literally an entire glass that you would drink water from or soda from, just fill it up with ice and vodka. And I'm just drinking it. Cause we miss the deadline due to the upload speed taking too long. You know, it's so fucking crushed. Cause you know, I'm telling you, hey, Tom, we got this deadline to meet. We got to meet it.
01:01:01
Speaker
You're making the deadline in strides. You're like way ahead. You even worked on it again. Cause like you said, the XMLs weren't lining up. So you were like, well, we can't do it through DaVinci. I went through it through premiere and you still get it uploaded. And I'm there still like editing the dialogue, like, oh, that gets me an extra few hours. He's not done yet. I can work on it. Like I'm going to ride that fucking line. And then we get to that deadline and it's completely missed.
01:01:31
Speaker
and And for me, you know like like failing, you know like like this was a complete failure on my part. And with my ego, that don't happen often. you know There's always something I can blame, you know pass the blame, but this was like, no, dude, this was on you. You failed to meet this deadline.
01:02:01
Speaker
And what crushed me was that I failed you. That's what really like, ah just just so much guilt, you know, and just so disappointed. Cause like going into it, we literally called it the Sundance Cut.
01:02:21
Speaker
We were working on this Sundance cut of the film. We were calling it the Sundance cut. We talked to the audio team like, hey guys, we're gonna work on a so on submitting it to Sundance and South by Southwest. So, you know, shit happens. We might have actual deadlines we need to meet, like just putting it out there. And then to just completely fail and miss that deadline, it was like, and I keep going over it. It's like, well, you know,
01:02:51
Speaker
When I rushed the audio, I just kind of compressed it all into one single file and then worked on it altogether as one single file and did quick edits to it to balance it out roughly. And it was like, man, I could have done that so much sooner. But then I was thinking like, yeah, man, I still would have taken as much time as possible to finish this sentence to finish this as good as I wanted within the time I thought I had. And so I'm just, you know, even now I'm still trying not to beat myself up because it's like, look, dude, Steven,
01:03:23
Speaker
there's no way you would have made it because you always would have taken it up to that limit that you thought you had. And I was even panicking because I was trying to get it out an hour early because I looked it up. I was like, well, in Sundance's rules and regulations, it said 11.59 PM. It didn't say what time zone.
01:03:42
Speaker
Oh, their time zone's an hour ahead. So i looked up I looked up Sundance and it was like mountain time or whatever. And it's like, oh, that's an extra hour ahead. I was like, fuck, does that mean 11.59 PM? Mountain time? Pacific standard time or mountain time? Does that mean I actually lost an hour? I was like, well, if I lost an hour, we're fucked. There's no way I can do it. I i didn't anticipate that.
01:04:03
Speaker
And I was like, well, I'm just going to treat it as PST. And then I went over the rules again, and I actually found one that said, no, 11 59 PM Pacific standard time. And I was like, Oh yes, thank God. I got this fucking extra hour. I still have it. And then.
01:04:21
Speaker
I still missed it, you know? And and and it just, it it hurts so much. Cause I started telling people like, yeah, we're going to submit to Sundance. That's our goal. That's that's what we're aiming for. We're going to get this. And then just to completely miss it. It was just so deflating for me. So heartbreaking.
01:04:49
Speaker
i took I took a day off from work because I was so exhausted. Like, I i mean, I literally passed out at my computer, you know, and I was, I literally only had a few hours of sleep for like the past few days. I was like, fuck, I'm too exhausted to go to work. And then the next day I was like, I don't want to go to work because I'm just so fucking down. I just, I don't want to deal with people. I don't want to see with any see anyone. I don't want to talk to anybody. I just, I'm devastated.
01:05:20
Speaker
So I took an extra day off work because there's just emotionally just so defeated at that point. And I even contacted Sundance. I sent them a little email. Cause I, cause I went back and I was like, well, let me just check out Film Freeway. Like maybe some miracle they're still accepting movies. And then I see that they will accept movies, but you got to have a waiver code to get
Technical Challenges in Film Editing
01:05:45
Speaker
into the acceptance. So I contact Sundance, I send them an email. I'm like, Hey, I know it's probably not going to happen, but can I still submit? And they're like, we appreciate your email. Cause I sent a funny one.
01:05:57
Speaker
It was a good laugh, but it ain't gonna happen. You missed a dead light asshole. We got too many films. And I was like, yeah, okay. i yeah a lot I figured you guys would have too many films, but you know, you gotta take that chance. I mean, maybe the, I don't know, maybe. And so.
01:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, man, that that fucking hurts. And it's like, well, maybe next year. Because the thing with Sundance and their rules and regulations, a lot of these festivals, you can submit a film that's not actually done their year prior, but two years prior. So for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, they were accepting films from 2023. And for our film, they will still accept it up until 2026, if we have to go into that year to submit.
01:06:46
Speaker
But it was like, God damn it, man. i just It's Sundance to submit to. you know is like That's the big leagues, man. That's the biggest festival we could ever hope to get into in the US. There's other big film festivals. it was I was looking at Cannes. They're not accepting yet. It's too early as of right now.
01:07:10
Speaker
but it's like, they're not gonna accept us. Like at least Sundance, they have their midnight section of films where it's like- Can have something like that too. They do? Well, we can look into that. They do, yeah. But you know, it was like, and they're not gonna accept us because they're too hoity-toity for us. Well, Marianne has had films in Can, so I was like, well, maybe. Maybe, but you know, I i dismissed it. We'll have to look into that now.
01:07:40
Speaker
But it it was just so, such a defeat, you know, cause it was like, why didn't I try testing earlier to see how long it might take for me to upload it? I didn't because I assumed I would actually give the file to you and you would upload it and that would be solved. We knew that we wanted to submit it like a day early.
01:08:07
Speaker
You know, we like there's an excuse for why things weren't planned better by myself, but I still should have planned it better to meet this deadline. Yeah, because my render took 14 hours. So I thought you were going to deliver the file and I would end and that would drop it. that was but And you were even going over your deadline.
01:08:26
Speaker
And I was just like, OK, that's an excuse for me to even work longer. Yeah, because I had because I had to redo it because I wasn't catching the issue with the XML and I had to either. So my my role was to do the color. Because I had been fucking around with color for forever. Yeah, give me another beer, too. um So my role was to do the color.
01:08:50
Speaker
And I have been playing with DaVinci and doing the color because I don't know why, and this is something I gotta look into. Maybe I gotta look into, I don't know. ah This maybe gets a little technical, but the IPP2 files for the R3D only come in as log in Premiere.
01:09:11
Speaker
And I don't know why. I've tried everything I can think of. I've tried changing the settings. I've tried all kinds of shit with the source files to try and get the IPP2 to reflect the color, because to even go back again, Stephen kind of did a color correction in the color grade on all the R3D files using the Cinered program. So the Cinered program lets you play with the
01:09:41
Speaker
It lets you, you let you know, you can let you readjust the ISO, lets you do, it's essentially like you can do a color grade on the raw files and it will make an IPP2 that is separate from the log, um which is like the log is just to explain to people that don't know log, it's like a flat color profile that you want to use so that you essentially have the freedom to correct and grade however you want. If you shot with a lookup table or LUT ah before or you didn't use log or use some kind of different um color profile, you would essentially kind of be stuck with that. So if that had too much red, you would always have that too much red.
01:10:31
Speaker
So for whatever reason, Premiere only shows the log. It doesn't use the IPP2 on the, I don't know. So yeah, so essentially we don't know why Premiere isn't accepting the IPP2 for the grade that Steven did on the R3D. So I put everything into an XML and upload it into DaVinci.
01:10:53
Speaker
And I was, and in DaVinci, all the footage looks great. It's pretty much color corrected. And I just kind of went in and I was making adjustments. And then I sent that to Steven and he sent me notes and I went and did the notes. And then he said, the edits off. And I was like, what? like No, it's not, you fucking asshole. I'm like, I spent hours. You anal cocksucker. I looked at it. I spent hours and I was doing, I did a i did like multiple renders and then I was doing a,
01:11:23
Speaker
I did a lot of of of stuff, like I'd run it through Topaz to make, to clean up all of the extra noise and add in the AI noise, which is like, I think looks a lot better.
01:11:35
Speaker
And it just, none of that work ended up being anything. So I had to essentially start over. um And so I just recolored the whole film in Premiere, which just, the program just, it doesn't have like the same kind of robustness and tools that Resolve has. And that also it's like, I have to color everything from log. So I have to color correct matching it with what Steven did. So I just made lots of off the,
01:12:05
Speaker
already corrected R3Ds and uploaded those and then colored correct and then color-graded from there, um which is just more time-consuming, which wasn't really a big issue. um Just we didn't get it done. I just like it with you, buddy. Thank you, buddy. i have ah Thank you. but and then And then I dropped it into the the topaz and i I had the render ready. And and yeah and you know it was And then it was like, the thing too is like, the so I render in Premiere, which is like a six gigabyte 4K file compressed into the H264.
01:12:55
Speaker
And then I drop, which is the compression codec, which is like kind of like a faster compression version. like it's like It's not lossless, but it's acceptable.
01:13:06
Speaker
for like file size. And then I throw it into Topaz, which makes it 110 gigs. yeah And it makes it looks real nice. like right like kind of like It's like a nice way to finish the file in a sense. um And yeah, I did a bunch of settings and testing to make sure that I got that looking right.
01:13:27
Speaker
so that because all the shots that were essentially underexposed, it cleans up. It cleans up all the, all the noise, all the excess noise. um And then it makes that so like that all the shots match a little bit better. So like I did that and then, you know, I render it off and ah it's just so hard cause I was thinking about it's like, cause I'm like doing the color And I'm mostly, I'm really just going off a lot of the reference that you've already done. Cause like when we were talking about like hiring someone to do the color grade and we had a couple of people on it, we had like narrowed it down to like two people and they just like weren't really, it didn't really, I guess what I was hoping for was like some kind of like big wow, like from yeah from the colorist like, whoa, shit, you like did something completely,
01:14:25
Speaker
I couldn't imagine, like it was like giving it to Benny. Yeah. And it was like, oh, you did something that we already done, but worse. Yeah. I'm not gonna pay you $3,000 for that. Yeah. And then I, so I was just like, dude, we you already did this. Like you already did, like Steven already get fucking color corrected it. Like all the R3Ds are color corrected, like in using the center red program.
01:14:51
Speaker
And then I went into like in the technical in depth, I'm like, but IPP two and all that means. And so like, yeah, and, you know, I'm pretty happy with how it looks. I think, it I mean, I can obviously I think be refined more cause I don't really know what I'm doing. um Like I have no idea like what a lot of this stuff mean. Like I don't understand color science. I don't understand any of this shit. I'm just like, well, it looks nice.
01:15:18
Speaker
It looks nice enough for me. i mean and I'm a pretty easy critic. That's i think that's why i I said, if you're happy, I'm happy because I know your level of taste is like above mine. and i just I don't know if I'd say that. I'd just say I'm more picky. Because i'm like I just want that shit black and white. but Because I think black and white covers up a lot of the mistakes that we have for the lighting and color.
01:15:46
Speaker
um But yeah, and like i wasn't like when you I knew we weren't gonna get in. like When you were coming over to pick up the drive, I was like, eh, we're not doing it. and Really? I wish you would have told me, man. I knew, ah i was a I was like, oh yeah, it's going to be too it's too tight. You had like four hours or something and I was like, if everything goes perfect, we'll get in. And and I was just like, we're not that lucky.
01:16:16
Speaker
Um, cause I, cause that means that like you dropped in the 110 gigabyte file that synced in perfectly, which I knew it synced cause I, you rendered it down though, right? No, this, I gave you the hundred. Oh, well then I, it rendered pretty fast for.
01:16:34
Speaker
It only took that hour and a half. it's technical It's technically smaller, if you think about it. Because it's not going through effects. It's just a video, right? Yeah, because if you think about it, the project file that we have is like terabytes big of those video files, because they're all in their own separate, like, eight, 10 raw format. raw format Like a hundred gigabyte timeline is way smaller than the actual timeline that we have for the video, if you think about it. And then I was like, okay, yeah, yeah it will probably render a little bit faster this way, since it's kind of already rendered down into a single video file. um So like I said, you gave you two hours. I was like, you need two hours to finish. Like once you're done with the audio stuff, you have two hours essentially.
01:17:26
Speaker
um But then I was kind of thinking like, man, that's tight. We're going tight. um And I was like, yeah you know, and it's like if we don't make Sundance, I honestly would be happy. Like if we got in the Sundance, of course, it'd be fucking like I said, it would probably even be bad. It would probably be bad for us in the long run because it would just.
01:17:52
Speaker
I don't know, um I do worry about the ego. Well, it literally could be bad if we did submit, because in Sundance's guidelines, it says, we'll take resubmission. So if you resubmitted it one year, got denied, and you resubmit the next year, it said in their guidelines, it had to be drastically different. And that's up to them to decide yeah which what that means.
01:18:18
Speaker
yeah And if it's not enough of a difference, we'll reject you, we'll keep the money you put in, let alone if we actually got accepted. um But you know, we were just so stuck on it.
01:18:33
Speaker
And what Sundance represents, like I was even telling Karen, who's not from the US, like, yeah, we're going to try for Sundance. She's like, yeah, I know what Sundance is. Oh yeah. I've heard of that. And it's like. I told Katie and Jake and they were just like, eat I didn't think you guys were going to try for that. Like. It was like, what do you think we're doing? And you know, and I was even talking about, I was like, if we're not trying for Sundance and all of this shit, what are we doing this for?
01:18:59
Speaker
if, you know, not to disparage any smaller festivals, but if we're just trying for Joe Schmo festival. Green Jack. You know, like, what are we doing? what It didn't need to take 10 years. You know, so like Sundance just represented so much for me. And to get it at that time, because, you know, like when it was like, yeah, let's make Sundance, like,
01:19:26
Speaker
There was a positivity between both of us. It was like, fuck yeah, man, Sundance, like hell yeah, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's just a rite of passage. It's like a rite of passage. But to me, like when we were getting closer, I was just like, damn, we really, we didn't do it right. Like, we needed to have the link ready be when we decided to go in.
01:19:48
Speaker
um Yeah, well yeah and even just like but we were close because we had the temp audio cut which was pretty damn good yeah, and we could have submitted that but it's like I Don't know if that cuts gonna get in cuz you know like when we listen to it We're writing the volume control to make it like loud on the car quiet loud on the quiet parts and quiet on the loud parts You know we have to ride that because it's just so out of whack But Yeah, man, I'm sorry. No, dude. Like I said, like I told you, I didn't i i didn't write ah no worries, buddy, just to say no worries. I really am like... Yeah, but you know, I was thinking like... It's not our only shot. You went to bed early and I told you, I was like, hey man, I'll let you know when it's in.
01:20:38
Speaker
Yeah. And I thought I was going to get it in in the amount of time, but my upload speed on my internet was only three megabytes. I was hoping for five at minimum, usually like twenties, kind of a normal upload speed for internet providers. And I know this, you know, I fucking know spectrum sucks at my house and my upload speed suck, you know, and it was like, fuck, why didn't I?
01:21:04
Speaker
Like I should have done a practice run of uploading it to Vimeo to see how long it takes to get a really good idea like of how much time I really have. Yeah.
01:21:15
Speaker
And I even rendered it at a lower so ah lower resolution i and rendered it at 720 knowing that like, okay, 1080 is going to take too long and it might crash. Let me do it at 720 because I know that can go fast because I did a dry run because the, uh,
01:21:30
Speaker
With Audition, are if when you're working in the Premiere Suite, you can take a Premiere Pro project, which I've found to be better, and you can drop it into Adobe Audition, and it just drops the whole thing in there with all your tracks laid out audio-wise, and then it leaves you the video file.
01:21:48
Speaker
My video file didn't sync up. It was all fucked up and it was corrupted or something. It just wasn't working. So I couldn't look at it visually, which I needed to do to make sure everything's in sync, right? So I rendered out a version of it without any audio.
01:22:04
Speaker
at 720 because it because also if you look at it on audition it can't render the video file so you can't see it at high fidelity so you'll always see like a very like low resolution version of it but that doesn't matter because i'm just doing audio i just need to see like okay the person took a step here i need to make sure that footstep is lining up with the actual step that you see visually seen So I did a 720 version of a render of it without any audio. And that took like an hour or so. it it It was real fast.
01:22:40
Speaker
so So I thought i i i thought i ah just thought I could do it in time. and and with more planning and better, just better planning, you know? And and and there's no excuse for that. It's just like, yeah, you should have just known how much time I had. I should i should ah i should have figured that out. And and it's Sundance, you know? and And yeah, we could do it next year. And by next year, we'll actually probably be done with the film and we can actually submit just the whole film and be like, this is not a work in progress, this is the film.
01:23:16
Speaker
And then there's like give and takes to work in progress is like, okay, if we submit a work in progress, maybe their imagination will fill in the gaps and be like, oh, you want Rosemary Baby song here. You want Twin Peaks theme song here. You want Halloween. you know and And maybe that'll help us or maybe it won't. I don't know. I don't know the thought process of the reviewer. I will say the work in progress is interesting in the sense that I guess what really matters is you just get in. Yeah, you just submit. um And all that happens is they say no. Yeah, like I was thinking like, well, if we get in on Rosemary's Baby and like Halloween and and like some of this shit, I was like, are they gonna watch the movie? Just be like, what the fuck did we let in? What happened? ah We met Jurassic Cut the recent bit, you know, like, but then I was also thinking like, I don't think that even matters. It's not like,
01:24:14
Speaker
Like they're not going to rewatch it once we submit the finished cut. I mean, before we even discussed really like before we decided to submit. You and I both agreed we probably wouldn't make Sundance. That's a pipe dream. There's no way we're getting to Sundance. I told you, well, Tom, Sundance, VHS did premiere at Sundance. That's where they got their star. And you're like, and I was like, and look it, it was VHS. And you're like, yeah, but a lot of those directors were already well established, Steven. It's not just Ty West.
01:24:47
Speaker
who worked on that film. There was a lot of other directors. Let me look it up real quick. I'll show you. Who are known at the time. Like, it's not just this, you know, film that got it. It's not clerks. No. You know, VHS isn't just clerks. That's not Sundance anymore. Sundance isn't just accepting clerks.
01:25:09
Speaker
And so, but you know, there was still that dream that we could do it. and And and i'm I'm okay, like if we met the deadlines and we got denied, I'm okay with us getting denied. But I wanted to give us that chance now. yeah And we did not meet that. And it was just it it's been so,
01:25:38
Speaker
it's just been heartbreaking. Cause that only, that just fell strictly on me. You know? Like if I had the audio done by the time you had your render done, we make that deadline. Even with my slow ass internet. Oh yeah. It gets uploaded within more than enough time to meet the deadline. And that's what hurts a lot. Cause it was like, fuck man. I let you down.
01:26:08
Speaker
You met the requirement, the deadline that was asked. You met it. I didn't. And because I didn't, you don't get seen. Even though we already knew, we assumed we're not getting into the Sundance, because it's fucking Sundance, and they have Kristen Stewart as a lead in their midnight special premiere. yeah But still, you know?
01:26:39
Speaker
And for me,
Identity and Recognition for Indie Filmmakers
01:26:40
Speaker
like South by Southwest is a film festival I want us to get into. Like that would be my dream. It's not Sundance, but still Sundance has the reputation of a film festival, right? It's like, damn, you got into Sundance, that you're you're good. so So to not meet that deadline was just so heartbreaking.
01:27:08
Speaker
And now we have South by Southwest coming up. You said it's October 2nd. Yeah. It doesn't matter. I've planned to be done, but with the audio by this weekend, um, I'm pretty much already done anyways. I just got to do literally seven files worth of dialogue cleanup for the sound and then everything else is good enough, but I just want to get it better. I just want to refine it more from here.
01:27:32
Speaker
So i I can do it this weekend. I'll do an all nighter if I have to. I shouldn't meet too, but if I have to, I will. I just need maybe like a good 10, 12 hours to work on it. But.
01:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, man, that was just just just such a hard pill to swallow, man. I literally just drank that glass of vodka. I had to water it down because it was straight vodka and that was a little too hard to drink. I thought of Winston Churchill, adding water to my drink so I could drink it. And I fucking cried, man. I i fucking cried at one point. And I was watching,
01:28:14
Speaker
Hide or Die, that film from, ah Oh, Run, Hide. Ben Shapiro's company. Yeah. And they had like a little emotional scene and I was getting all teared up by that. I was like, fuck man, I can't handle this right now, man. It's it's just hitting extra hard right now. and
01:28:33
Speaker
I mean, you know I thank God for my family because because Karen cheered me up, but it kept me from getting into a really dark depression. And also just knowing some South by Southwest is coming up because it was like, shut the fuck up. You need to get back to work. And I've been working on it since, not as much as I should, but certainly getting back on it. Well, I think because one thing too, buddy, is while we want it as good as it can get,
01:29:03
Speaker
It's like, it is good as it's a work in a prague it's a work in progress. Yeah, but but I mean, i was I was watching what I was, I was listening to what I was doing. I was like, I'm fucking getting it. Like, I want to show you the sound, but you'd have to watch the whole movie. It sounds good. It sounds really good. Like you can hear all the dialogue clearly, all the sounds balanced out. Like you can watch it straight through and probably not have to ride the volume control on the remote.
01:29:32
Speaker
It's sounding good. That's why I was tried spending so much time to get it there for the viewer. And it was like, and I was even telling myself, I was like, Steven, it doesn't matter if you get the last 30 minutes, just get the first 20 minutes good. Because if they're sold in the first 20 minutes, you're probably already good. Yes. All you need is that first 20 minutes. I was like, no, no, no, I gotta get it perfect. I gotta get it perfect. ya You know, my fucking stupid anal self.
01:30:03
Speaker
And it's just, it's just, fuck, man. Just fuck, like, like, yeah, sure. Like, if were if we're trying to submit to Sundance this time next year, like, then we fucking probably already failed. Yes. You know? Yeah. Like, if the work in progress wasn't good enough now, it's not gonna be a revolutionary cut after that, like getting rid of all the, like adding, it like getting the best VFX ever to make all the blemishes disappear and make it all like more intense, getting fucking better music than Rosemary's Baby. Like that's not gonna matter. Like if if you if if you fail now, then you weren't good enough to make it from the start. If the work in progress sucks now, it wasn't good enough from the start.
01:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's because ah part of it is we're using the fucking best music. That's some of the best music. Ever been created for horror films. Yes. Literally, Rosemary's Baby, Twin Peaks theme song, Halloween.
01:31:13
Speaker
But it doesn't get better than that fucking shit. This movie's a Halloween ripoff, you know? We even make a joke. yeah What are you, so Michael Myers, motherfucker? We knew what we were doing from the start. yes we It ain't getting better than that. That was the plan, yes. You know, any lacking has nothing to do with sound, coloring, or VFX. Any lacking has to do with story and... Edit. And edit, but also just the filming and the directing and everything else. All the things we cannot fix anymore because we're 10 years past that. Yes. Nine years past it, whatever.
01:31:54
Speaker
and And so it's like, you know, people are like, well, you can submit next year. Like Karen told me that I was like. It's just. This was that chance.
01:32:06
Speaker
This was that lotto ticket. You know, this was being ah Charlie trying to get that golden ticket. This was, this is it for Sundance, you know? and
01:32:20
Speaker
and i And yeah, sure, we're probably gonna get rejected by Sundance. like I would be like 70% sure. 70% sure. 90% sure, 95% sure. Yeah, I was like- We're gonna get rejected by Sundance, because I don't think that's our crowd. I think our crowd could it be South by Southwest if we're lucky.
01:32:38
Speaker
If we're lucky. If we're lucky. And that's a tall ask. yes i think we I don't even think we get into sundant or South by Southwest. I really think Screamfest, Slamdance is probably where we can shine.
01:32:53
Speaker
Respectable film festivals. Like I said, I think where we where we are is the fantastic fest, the beyond fest. That's that's where we exist. I mean, I don't think we're we're good enough for Tribeca. I don't think we're good enough for Cannes. I don't think we're good enough for for Sundance.
01:33:12
Speaker
can or I already mentioned Cannes. But, you know, all like the big Venice, venice you like we're we're we're not for them. No, we're for the alternative people. We're an alternative, we're a punk film. You know, like we're punk music, we're punk film. That's where we exist and those fuckers aren't punk. No, the closest we could hope for is South by Southwest, maybe Tribeca, because they seem kind of accepting of things like that.
01:33:44
Speaker
The thing, too, is it's like... We're we're we're second. i think You know, there's the top tier film festivals, and then we're the second, which not to disrespect them at all or anything, but actually to promote them, because they're probably where the real indie filmmakers thrive, is those films. It's like, no, those are the films those are film festivals that pay attention. Fuck Sundance. That's basically... Oscars 2.0, you know, that's like fucking, you know, Billie Eilish is directing a film for Sundance, you know, and it's getting all these stars in their films. You know, this is essentially Hollywood, just not enough cred, but we're going to get these Hollywood films in there. And then this is going to be the marketing to get these Hollywood films that aren't quite marketable for mainstream to then be seen.
01:34:39
Speaker
you know, just kind of that undercurrent of Hollywood films. Well, Sundance is kind of like the insider test screening. Yeah. Because a lot of those films that go there, it's like, are these films going to be in theaters? No, but they're made by like legit no filmmakers, you know, like yes this season's professionals. This is the underground of literally Hollywood, like the best of the best.
01:35:06
Speaker
You gotta be more Indian, bro. That's where I was looking at our Native American. There was like a special selection for Native Americans. I know, and I was like, shit, should we select that? Because it's like, my 23andMe said I'm 63 percent Native, but but I don't apply to a tribe. But my 23andMe said I am Native. I know, I was thinking, I was like, there dude, this motherfucker's name is Tejas, dude. That's so funny, dude, because I was i was like,
01:35:30
Speaker
Shit, should I select the native ah little checkbox? It's so funny because, you know, people are always complaining. And then even with you, but hold on, even with you, I was like, fuck, Tom, you're so you're Syrian, right? Yeah. Fucking, like, go off of that, man. Let's play into that shit. Like, don't say you're white, say you're Syrian. I was just like, dude.
01:35:52
Speaker
I don't want to be like all this shit and then we show up and it's like, you know, like we're gay trans, like, you know, Native Americans, like two-spirit like people. And it's just like, what's up? And it's like, we show up and it's just us. Like, what the fuck? exactly So, but man, I was just.
01:36:11
Speaker
i because I thought about it. I was like, dude, I do like. Oh, I thought about it too when I saw your site because I did correct some of them because you put like not applicable for education. And I put some college, you know, maybe that'll help. Like he couldn't afford college, but some college, you know, I don't know. Does that give us some more points? I was like, I don't fucking know. I guess this matters. Like, of course it matters. It's looking to be like, oh, this guy's got a master's degree in film.
01:36:40
Speaker
Let's put his movie up here. He knows what he's doing. I'm like, no one fucking gives a shit about this. But yeah, that that one. So that's where we're at. We had the Sundance cut. And we didn't make Sundance.
01:36:58
Speaker
And now we're trying for South by Southwest in the next couple of days. We will make that without a doubt. Yeah. literally the audio cut I put on the drive can suffice. I'm just trying to get it better. So that's not going to be an issue of making it. But even with Sundance, like, because it went past 12 and you could still click the submit and pay and everything. And I was like, fuck, maybe I should pay for this. And I was like, well, I read the rules and regulations and said,
01:37:27
Speaker
Yeah, we'll just keep your money and we won't refund you anything. I was like, fuck, I know I've already missed the deadline. Do I really want to pay $130 for them to just keep the money? Like I want to donate $130 a Sunday. Yeah, exactly. You know, it like right now financially for me with the family, $130 is. It's a big deal. It's not possible. I mean, we're, we're fucking broke. Fucking flat broke right now.
01:38:00
Speaker
And it was just, yeah, that's one of the things too. I was just like, well, Sundance is like, it's like, it's the right of passage, but I'm also like, I just, let's just be realistic. Like, let's just, if we're not ready, let's, we're not ready. Like, well, not only that, but it's also like, well, Sundance isn't where it's at because it's just Hollywood. It's an extension of Hollywood that those films aren't just marketable enough. Right.
01:38:30
Speaker
yeah Kristen Stewart as your lead for Love Lies Bleeding made by promising young director who paid all of their people. if It's not a place where clerks anymore. No.
01:38:47
Speaker
gets accepted. it's It's not that festival anymore. It hasn't been that for two decades. It hasn't been that since the 2000s. And a lot of people have criticized that with Sundance, where it's like, dude, this isn't for indie films. This isn't a place for films to be discovered. It's not that anymore. It's Comic-Con. And that's where like the, ah that's why for me, it's always been like the Fantastic Fest, the Beyond Fest, because that's where the films are being discovered. Yeah, that's where it's like to be.
01:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. You know, like, you want to see some real films go down the 2B rabbit hole, man. You'll find some real fucking films where you'll be like, what? There's black ninjas jumping out of somewhere and he's killing his dad and then he's going back to the future. It is like the weirdest shit you see, but it's like, this is fucking amazing. Yeah. I got to pee. Hold on. Keep talking. And, and you're not seeing that at Sundance.
01:39:44
Speaker
You know, because Sundance has just become so big and so bloated for these expertly done films. And Dickhead, I mean, come on, our film's called Dickhead. It's not an expertly done film. It's rough. We know it's rough. It has its issues. Clerks is rough, but it's rough in the best ways possible.
01:40:16
Speaker
And we can only hope
Sundance's Changing Landscape
01:40:17
Speaker
to be Clerks at our but are most extreme. I mean, you know, as far as like an indie film goes, like Clerks is literally one of the best, is possibly the best ever. We're not that,
01:40:36
Speaker
but it's still Sundance. There's that legacy to it. You know, it's literally winning the lotto. to be in that kind of festival, to be in one of those mainstream big festivals.
01:40:54
Speaker
you know and And those of you who play the lotto, do you really expect to win? Not really, but also yes. And
01:41:08
Speaker
You know, to get to the, I don't know when how the lotto goes. I don't play the lotto. I suck at gambling and winning anything obviously, as you can tell, but you know, like it was just that chance that, that miracle chance to give it That's a problem with really American dude. We got the underdog in our heart. Yeah. And that underdog story where you can succeed, where, you know, anyone can become a rich millionaire. We believe in that American ideal that anyone can succeed if you just try hard enough. And that's what Sundance represented, you know? And then again, like for you, man, it was just like,
01:42:00
Speaker
I don't mind reap being rejected by Sundance. I really don't. But I wanna be rejected by Sundance. I don't want it to be like, oh, you didn't make the deadline. I'm sorry. You don't even get to try. It's like, please, let me show you how much I suck. That's why I'm, well, one of the reasons too is like, because of all the things we've said is like, we have a lot of other things to waste our money on.
01:42:30
Speaker
We got South by Southwest. That's 85 bucks, I think. you know We have all these other festivals that we can we can throw the film at. and Of course, of course. It's it's not that big of a deal. No, of course. it's i mean it's just and it yeah when i was because I remember I was thinking, because when you had to come pick up the drive, I was like, oh man, we're not going to do it.
01:42:53
Speaker
I knew I just something about I just wish you would have told me that because I just I don't know man. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Well, I didn't know exactly where you were because I was kind of just like I wanted to just kind of let you just do your thing. I didn't want to keep bugging you about it. And I just kept thinking, you know, I don't think we're going to do it. And I was like, but I'm OK with it because.
01:43:16
Speaker
I honestly don't think that it's just the right, it's not the right thing for us. but i'm we Do we do it? You do it because you have to. it's like Like I said, it's a rite of passage. But like, I'm not gonna fill any
01:43:32
Speaker
less like if Sundance or South by Southwest is like, yeah, you guys are in. You don't think I'm gonna like, I'm not gonna I'm gonna slam my head through the wall, dude, I'm gonna have to find out how to figure out fixed holes in drywall like, like if we get into a South by Southwest, No, if we get into Fantastic Fest, if we get into anything that has a name where I've heard of a movie that's come out of it. But that's what I'm saying is like, for me, South by Southwest is the festival I want us to try for. No, I don't really care about Sundance. It's like that South by Southwest for me is the festival.
01:44:11
Speaker
that I would love to get into. that That's my festival I want us to try for. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're going to be Green Jack, Big Bear, dude. But, you know, just Sundance has that i don't know your legacy attached to it, you know? It it does. But the thing is, it's like it's it's like it's living off that legacy. It's kind of ah it's a legacy in the sense that it's old and dying. It's not for... It's not for us. No.
01:44:42
Speaker
Still, still that legacy is still there. I think the thing was, if there was a, the thing for Sundance for me and- Did Slacker premiere at Sundance? Do you know? liber and I No, I don't have an idea. Probably not. Let's see. Probably. Link ladder's amazing. I saw Hitman.
01:45:07
Speaker
And I was like, God damn it, Link c Ladder. You're just a master filmmaker. I love you so much. I love you. I did not premiere at Sundance. What did it premiere? It didn't go to a festival. All right. If Link Ladder could do it, so can we.
01:45:27
Speaker
We're going to make before sundown, it premiered in Austin and Orion classics acquired slacker for nationwide distribution. And it was modified for a 35 millimeter and released in 1991, a year after its premiere.
01:45:47
Speaker
i Like I said, times are so different. like we were We've been talking about it. like you know We were like
Balancing Quality with Expectations
01:45:52
Speaker
talking about alien and psycho. and you know we've taught it's like film It's not like that anymore.
01:45:59
Speaker
like the there There really aren't clerks anymore. No. That's what I was saying. like Clerks is It was maybe the greatest ending film ever made, like, and that's what we're hoping for, you know, like, literally what Kevin Smith accomplished with Clerks is probably the greatest story for that sized budget. It really is. It really is. I mean, you're talking about a guy that sold all his comic books, maxed out all his credit cards, spent $40,000 to make a little movie called Clerks.
01:46:38
Speaker
and ah deny if you I don't know if you know the whole story, but it didn't even just start at Sundance. It played in a theater in New Jersey and in New York City. No one went. And like one guy went. And he was with attached to Sundance, right? I think he was either attached to Sundance or he was like a columnist or something. Like he it was like his job to go and see these weird movies. Yeah. And he wrote a little article and then he was like, hey, this might be something. And then the film, that's how the film got into Sundance and Harvey Weinstein watched it.
01:47:12
Speaker
Oh it fucks in Sunday. Dude, I'm out. That's what I'm saying, dude. Like, it's a different world, man. I'm out, dude. I'm fucks, I did. Like, no, but honestly, Tom, you know, and I wanted to say this to you. I want to say this to you in all honesty. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. I've never failed quite like this. You know, I've been a failure my whole life in ah in ah in a sense, but I had the arrogance.
01:47:43
Speaker
to to always excuse it.
01:47:49
Speaker
But this this was a failure on my part, regardless. but you know like Again, like you know yeah, I was 99% sure Dickhead ain't gonna make Sundance. It it just, Dickhead isn't that film.
01:48:12
Speaker
But to just let you down before it even gets that opportunity to be rejected, it's just like, fuck. Well, I'll tell you about it. You know, at least we could share some good whiskey and be like, eh, fuck Sunday. Those cocksickers don't know good movies. It's all about the big names. Fuck them. You know, like I'd rather be having that drink than be like, damn, we didn't make the deadline. The stupid ass deadline. Well, I mean,
01:48:42
Speaker
I would rather have waited.
01:48:48
Speaker
The thing is, the film's still not done. And if like if somehow if some crazy miracle and we got into Sundance, we would have had like two months to finish the movie. We would have had until- January- February? Like 14th. Really? Yes.
01:49:11
Speaker
a Or, hey man, I got 10,000 left on my credit card. I don't even know. I mean, I think there's just a lot of work we gotta do. Like, credits, getting everyone's name. I'll get that done in a day. If we can accept it in the Sundance, man. I'm gonna just give you a little baggie of coke. I'm getting through it.
01:49:39
Speaker
Let's see. When does Sundance start? Let's see. Sundance start. I don't think so. January 23rd is when it starts. We would have until January 23rd to finish the film. Yeah, that's not a lot of time. It is September. I mean, that's. and It's the end of September. Yeah, that's three months less.
01:50:04
Speaker
We have okay so three months. October, November, December. If we weren't done by January, there's like no hope. Well, they were going to contact us with the liaison to tell us when we have to finish. Yeah, I think South by Southwest is February offhand. And then they said two weeks before the festival. Yeah.
01:50:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I know. I know it's stupid. and But it it was just, i know it's it's what it represents. It's it's what Sundance represents to filmmaking. I totally understand, but it's like... I know, don't beat myself up, but... It's like, dude, we we so got you know we still got a long journey to go. Yeah, we do a lot of money to spend on applications. Well, at least we'll get early bird applications from here on out, outside of South by Southwest. Yeah.
01:51:00
Speaker
um because we have that work in progress. We'll have a work in progress cut done early. Pretty much once that work in progress done is cut, we shouldn't have to touch that and then we can just- And we'll have it at 2K as we intend for it to be seen. Yes. Which would be 720 in the theater, which is fine by me. Jesus Christ, the less fidelity, the better. But yeah, man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry on that one.
01:51:31
Speaker
Oh man. You know, just too much magic and too much masturbation in the meantime, you know. You know, I, don't know. I, cause I, I'm a, I'm scared of like doing the work in progress cut in a sense. What? Okay. So, so let me tell you this with the podcast, we'll continue on. So I see it.
01:51:58
Speaker
You know, there's two ways you can look at the work in progress cut because again, this goes to the giving it to your client. Unfinished version. You want to give the finished version to the client because you want them to see that it's best. But then there's also the work in progress version where they get an idea and then they can use their imagination to fill in the gaps, right? Like.
01:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, we're not gonna have Rosemary's Baby. we We don't have the rights for that. We don't have the rights for, uh, A Wicked Game at the end from Hulu, Hi-Fi, hula hula hoop. We don't have, uh, cop, uh, the rights for Halloween. We probably couldn't even get that because it's probably impossible to get. So we can't drop that music in.
01:52:51
Speaker
but maybe their imagination can fill in the gap like, okay, we know what you're going for. So, hey, you know, let's take this chance. Or is it better? or What do you think? Like, how how do you lean? Like, is it better to have the finished version where it's like, okay, this is what it is? Or the unfinished version where, okay, this is what it is, but there's still that potential for it to be better? I guess,
01:53:17
Speaker
the way I think about it. And I just, I kind of just changed my mind, weirdly enough, just in the last like 30 seconds. Because I was thinking, like, no matter what the temp score or whatever is,
01:53:35
Speaker
There ain't like no music for five minutes. yes Like as if they, like if someone gets at least past that and they're like, okay. Yeah, that openings hard to get through. If someone gets, if someone gets through the opening, I think we have them. Yeah. Like as long as someone gets to like post title screen. Yeah, we got a slow buildup for that, huh?
01:54:00
Speaker
Like we, like because we were like, we're going to do this buildup like we always wanted to do. It's slow, huh? It's slow. Yeah. Compared to the rest of the film, which I don't mind. I like it. I love it. It has to be that way. And I wish more of the film was slow. It's just the whole movie just ramps up. but but but but but but but but bla Just faster, faster, faster, faster, faster. Yeah. the mo what The the beautiful thing about the garage murder,
01:54:28
Speaker
is it's like the movie just builds up, builds up, builds up, builds up. And then like everyone just fucking dies. And then people just die like not stop. Like and they don't just, as soon as the like, as soon as people start dying, they just don't fucking stop dying. Yeah. Like we don't, there's not, there's a death. There's the establishing and then. There's nothing. And don't stop. Yeah. As soon as that hammer hits. Well really, onces once Jennifer gets attacked, right?
01:54:56
Speaker
It really... Well, it slows down again. and we kind of She gets attacked and then we kind of like reset a little bit for her to kind of like... We get that building of her character with but Kevin. But Michael Barrett carries us a lot, I think. And other characters like him where they just deliver this overtopness that just kind of ramps and ramps and ramps and ramps and ramps. But then it's like Tom enters the garage.
01:55:26
Speaker
And then ah it's like we're shooting, it's like we did a line of coke. Because Tom Emmer is the garage, he murdered, there's not. There's a little bit of dialogue after that where he's waking Jennifer up and she's like, he's like, Oh, you know, you gotta get you out of here. Like, I don't know what's going on, but I gotta get you out of here. Cause he's like starting to get, you know, he's getting nervous cause he date raped her or whatever. Yeah. And the thing is too, that I love that since we cut out Kevin ah in the rest of the party is that we kind of let the audience decide what Kevin is doing in the meantime.
01:56:05
Speaker
Instead of explicitly showing them what's happening. Cause he said, Oh, you know, I'll lock the door and I'll leave the room. But she passes out. He could just go be in there doing things to her. We don't know. The thing is no one knows. You fill in the gaps. Yeah. Yeah. You fill in the gaps. We let the audience do a lot of the. We know, but the audience wouldn't. That's interesting. That's an interesting perspective.
01:56:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because I wonder what, I wonder what, I wonder what an audience who doesn't know any better would think. I mean, we've heard it from like Adam and Pat where it's like, they just get completely different interpretations. Yeah. They were like, we thought it was a mystery. It's like, don't even know fucking mystery. It's pretty fucking clear who the killer is. But to hear them say that, I was like, I never,
01:57:03
Speaker
Thought of it being like like scream like, who's the slasher? You know, like ah like at that twist. No, we tell you from the very first minute of the film. Yeah, we don't fail on that. Because the whole thing is like, we're like a reverse, we're like anti-slasher. Which I love. I love that it's like anti-slasher. How so? what what What do you mean by anti-slasher? He sucks! What do you mean by anti-slasher though?
01:57:31
Speaker
The only reason he kills anybody is because we have to give him a body count to make him legitimate. Well, also it's just circumstance, right? Yes. Like he's not necessarily trying to kill anyone. He's just like, well, I'm in this situation. The best way out is better. Cause we, there was a s slight opportunity where it's like Tom doesn't really kill anybody. Could you imagine? it That would be cool. Like,
01:57:59
Speaker
And then the only time he actually kills anybody, he only kills Karen. There's a chant. There was an opportunity there where it's like, yeah that would have been interesting. Or he only kills his sit and like, and then he doesn't kill anybody else. He just, he looks like the slasher. He pretends to be the slasher. I mean, but then, you know, like it doesn't really work because we haven't killed Michael Barrett. Well, depending on the way we wrote it, yeah that could have been really.
01:58:20
Speaker
Wow, that would yeah, that would have been really cool. It's like he actually didn't kill anybody else, right? Total anti-slasher. He's the... It's just alluded to, right? And then you're assuming he kills him, but it's like, he didn't kill anyone. Yeah. These people are all fired. Wow, that would have been really cool. Well, too late for that. well We'll tuck that away into the... Too late for that one. For the dickening, perhaps. Dicket to the dickening. Shit. Yeah, that would have been really cool. It really... Damn, that would have been... That would have been really great. That would have been a mindfuck. Yes. That would have been the whole, like, subverting expectations. Yeah, but that that requires a completely different writing of the script. The thing that I like, too, is, like... What I like a lot is...
01:59:13
Speaker
It's like you know the story and tell you don't know what's gonna happen. It's like everything kind of plays like a standard Halloween movie. Until it doesn't, yeah. This guy looks like Michael Myers, but then he gets his ass beat. Yeah. Like he Jennifer beats his ass twice. Twice? Yeah.
01:59:37
Speaker
And the whole scene where he pulls her in back into the room, like she she knows she hits him in the chest and kicks him off the bed, and then he pulls her into the room and she beats his ass offscreen, because we're not like, oh,
Future of Indie Filmmaking and Aspirations
01:59:51
Speaker
what's going to happen? right like That's a whole like yeah all sound play. And then she gets out, and then she hides, and then he finds her, and he beats she then she beats his ass again. And then she gets away, and he it's like,
02:00:06
Speaker
We're supposed to be afraid of this guy? He's got his ass beat twice, you know? Like, he made me eat that scary. And then he fucking murders, like, everybody. And it's like, oh, okay, he's kind of scary again. Like, he fucking murders everybody. And he, like, fucking just rapes Audra. Like, I don't care what anyone says. It's fucking disturbing how what we did with Audra. And it was oh no it's so intentional because we had to establish what Tom could be. No, the Audra scene is...
02:00:36
Speaker
even still to this day when I was working on the audio, I was like, yep, that's fucking still got it. And that's, and it's so important because that's how we make prove that he's a threat of any scenes. Like when we filmed out that that day, we knew it was like, damn, this we went somewhere.
02:01:03
Speaker
I know, I was trying to go further in which I'm kind of glad we didn't, it might've been too much. Well, you did. Cause I was against a lot of what you were suggesting. I was like, Tom, that's too much, man. Like what the fuck? like Oh yeah, he was gonna like, I wanted him to like pull her dress off and like- This is just like a kill scene, like your fingers and mouths and shit. And certainly when we filmed it, it was it was a very difficult day. And then even still in the edit,
02:01:32
Speaker
um It just kind of captures, it captures you. It brings the focus back and it's just like, ugh, this is really uncomfortable. And that's what I want. And then just to feel that even in the edit is like. Yeah, and it's still felt. That means it's effective. Yeah, yeah, really. I mean, it's just, it's a, it's a, it's a more powerful scene than maybe we ever deserved, you know?
02:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, because the reason why I wanted to do it was like... Well, because you're a pervert. Well, that's one. You're a sex pervert. But the main thing is I wanted to prove that Tom is a threat. Yeah. what Because he just murdered everybody, but it's also like, okay, he can kill people.
02:02:27
Speaker
Like, but how bad? But it's like, we don't, it's all off screen because we couldn't really kill people very well. No, we couldn't. So everything is very much like, it's like Jaws, you don't see it, right? We're smart. And it's like, oh, but then then you see it. Yeah. We give you a hint. A hint, yeah. We give give you a hint that, nah, this motherfucker's bad. Yeah, it's not just bad, he's evil.
02:02:56
Speaker
Yeah. And then we turn it and make it worse with how things turn around with Richard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's like if, if Audra's death is the exclamation point, Richard's actions are a nuke. So let me ask you for submitting. I always say that shit. Let me ask you. So we're submitting to South by Southwest. What do you think our odds are?
02:03:27
Speaker
90% to not get in. Yeah. No, 99% to not get in, 1% to get in, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think that's necessarily like a slide on the film or anything like that. No, it's just the quality of films that get into Sunday or into any big festival. That's the issue that I have is like,
02:03:51
Speaker
We're going against people that spent a hundred times more money than we did, casted people that are known. And it's like, oh, well, you know, like you should be able to do it without, with no-name actors. Um, no. No, that's not real life. Guess what? As soon as someone sees like, even if we had like Eric Roberts in our movie. Could you imagine if he had Timothy Chalamet as, uh, uh, Richard? Tom. Or Tom.
02:04:16
Speaker
Dude, that we are. And then we just use we wanted its the whole time after that. We would have already had distribution. Yeah. Like we would have distribution before the movie was finished. Yeah. Like that's how that's we're in a we're we're playing in the sandbox.
02:04:32
Speaker
Right, like we're like the kids in the sandbox while like the other kids are like no no no building a nuke. We're the kids playing in the kitty litter thinking it's a sad box. yeah And then there's motherfuckers actually in the sad box. Like when you were like, oh, we're like tier two, I'm like, tier two is like $10 million. dollars And yeah, but I think we can compete with that. I don't think we,
02:05:02
Speaker
I think we can compete. It's just quality. It's not even quality. Well, cause they got like lighting and shit. You know what I'm saying? But I think we have nice looking scenes too. Like we have like legit nice looking scenes. Are you talking about the flat lighting, which is an issue? No, we have, yes. And I'm like, I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to change it. It's just, it might just be what it is. I mean, we can adjust some of it with like vignetting to kind of draw focus away from it.
02:05:31
Speaker
But at the end of the day, it's like, eh. It is what it is. Because I've tried. There's only so many tricks. Like I said, that's why I was kind of leaning towards the black and white because I was just like, well, there is no flat lighting in black and white. You can adjust the shadows and the grayscale to kind of fill in for that. Yeah, which is so funny because I did one of the party scenes in black and white. Ooh, that looks so good.
02:05:59
Speaker
I got that black and white looking good. And then I see that color and I was like, why don't you look the same? Oh, I know. Why don't you look the same? I know. Come on, man. Black and white was so good.
02:06:11
Speaker
I tried a lot of stuff and I like and then i was like, mean let me just, let me just, well, when we did that really, cause we got a really cool shot of Tom transitioning into Richard, right? like And that was discovered much later. God, that's probably the best shot in the whole film. Cause it's so fucking cool. You know what saying I'm talking about, right? When Tom gets to the party. That's such a good, good, good, good shot. God damn, that's a good shot.
02:06:42
Speaker
And it looks so good in black and white. But in color, you know, you just you just lose so much. a color I mean, the color is a different beast. But we can't do black and white because every independent low budget film does black and white. Not really anymore.
02:07:04
Speaker
The reason why, but you know the only i think there i think therere I think there is something to be discovered in the color. I just don't think we have the skill sets to accomplish it. Like someone who would be a professional colorist. Now, I don't know if we can afford someone who can achieve that. I mean, honestly, where I'm at right now, if it looks best in black and white, I'd hate it.
02:07:36
Speaker
But if it looks best, I'll go for it. um But i I think, I imagine there's there's something there in the color that we just don't know how to achieve. My thing is, and this is why, i it's like why are we cut um does the Lexi scene with Jennifer and the Bo scene.
02:08:07
Speaker
The color just balances the ah bad less and our it balances the good more in our favor because the flat lighting goes away. now The bad cinematography goes away because it looks better. if it goes away It looks better. I think it's less noticeable.
02:08:27
Speaker
and My thing is like, you're right. It's kind of cliche. Oh, it is. For for low budget films. For low budget films to go black and white, but there's a reason for that. Yeah, because they can't light. They can't light. They can't light like ah someone that has money lights. And I was thinking about it. They can't be a blood lace, black lace and. Yeah. I can't remember what it's called now. Black lace and blood and guts, whatever.
02:09:01
Speaker
Blood and Black Lace, the yeah Mario Baba film. And it's like, I heard Mario Baba is like the best of the Giallo. Yeah, he probably is. Because because I mean, I saw Suspiria and I was just like, no, I love Suspiria. The original?
02:09:23
Speaker
Yeah. I love the remake. I like both. I love both. But ah but with Argento, I've been very underwhelmed. Did you see Tenet, bro? Because I think that's my favorite of his. No. You should watch it. It's really good. No, I am sure. I mean, Argento, I mean, like Master Filmmaker. Anyways. But yeah, because like i the thing was, it's like I never really and I've never tried to push it too hard because I know you hate it.
02:09:54
Speaker
But i ever since we did that first black and white cut, i i've I've been in love with it because I just never felt like- Well, we just we just need someone who knows how to push and pull correctly. And and we haven't had that. you know I mean, at best I can color correct, but anything other than that, because I even told you, you know you're like, I hate the yellow, it's too yellow.
02:10:23
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, you can make, you can balance that out to be less yellow. We can color correct the temperature um colors, but you know, then Mary Ann gets washed out and her red lipstick's just too much in my opinion.
02:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, I like the yellow because it's also natural, you know, like not every light is going to be, no you know, there's just some scenes where I'm like, did we wash the walls and piss? Like, holy shit. No. Yeah. Like when he's entering the, when Tom's entering the party, it's just like, Oh God, this looks so bad. But that's why I always use that as like the.
02:11:02
Speaker
then cut the shot to use. Cause it's like, if you can make this look good, then you can make the whole film look good. Cause this is, this is bad. Cause I tried, I tried like doing like suffered the desaturation. I tried making it more blue to kind of like counteract the yellow, but then it kind of fucks with everything else. yeah like It looks weird, right? I would, it's like, the problem is, is like,
02:11:27
Speaker
that color stands, it's like to make it to make it look normal, it makes all the other things look worse. But what if you balanced everything out that way? It would just take more time to like- No, i I know that, but like, you know, in your head, you you can imagine how that, how would you feel about that? I think that it just is weird, I don't know.
02:11:51
Speaker
from what i've been From what I've tested with, like I think you'd have to go like almost too extreme to where it's like we have to fully commit to how radically different it would be. Well, we're going to have to fully commit to something, right? Yeah. Even the yellow we got to fully commit to because
02:12:13
Speaker
It looks bad, like you said, it it fucking looks bad and we have to fully commit to that. We have to embrace something at some point. Because that's why I was like, there's got to be either someone that knows a lot more than me can do it or I i will just accept it. Cause like some of the stuff I was just like, I don't know how to do it. I just don't like, I got it as good as I can get it. But well why do you think I stuck to the coloring, the color correction? Cause it was like,
02:12:42
Speaker
I can't pull out colors and not make other colors fit. You know, like you push and pull in a certain direction and then everything else falls off. It looks bad.
02:12:56
Speaker
and it's like If I push and pull too much in this direction, I'm making this look bad. And if I go in the other direction, I'm making something else look bad. there ah Especially in the party.
02:13:10
Speaker
That's probably the worst, huh? There's a shot that I think is even worse than... But that whole second the whole second act, all of that lighting, it's just... And not to discount what we shot on that day, but just...
02:13:28
Speaker
It's fucking rough, man. It's fucking rough. Yeah, it's rough. You know, like, it's bad. It's bad and it was shot bad. And because it was shot bad. But it's crucial. But what I'm saying is like, there's gonna have to be a compromise made at some point, I think.
02:13:51
Speaker
Yeah, because I don't know. I don't know. so the To me, the biggest offender, it's not even when he comes home because I i think if you bump up the orange, it kind of bounces a little bit better. The orange and what? And when Tom is walking in. Oh, really? I think I played with that, like bumping up the orange. I'd have to look at it again. and know I never thought of orange.
02:14:11
Speaker
Um, cause I try, I was leaning towards orange more just cause I was like Halloween orange. We can do it. We could just say everything is more fall. How did that feel though? It's in the cut. I didn't see the cut dude. I just dropped the audio. I was like, okay, this shit's insane. Just watching none of that. I just say, just look at that. Cause I made everything more orange. Um, why I love the font you used.
02:14:37
Speaker
yeah I was like, okay, he picked a better font, thank God. And I love the orange font out there, okay. Well, I was just thinking like, why don't we just play into the the season and just- We have to, because we have to remind people, it is actually Halloween. I made everything more orange. I made everything a little bit more orange. Like if I could bump up, because it one, Marianne looks way better with red and the orange.
02:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, she she really needs the help. Like, because I wanted to initially go more cooler with like a bluer. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like like a lighter tone. But if you go if you go cool, she just washes out, right? Not only her. Almost all the people, like the skin tones just wash away. Like, yeah we needed some darkies. Oh, Jesus Christ. Some darkies, huh? I didn't mean that. I didn't count, huh? Your reflection, mate.
02:15:34
Speaker
But yeah you know, i was I was playing with it and I was just like playing with the colors and it's just like, fuck dude, we can't go more blue because everyone just like the white balance or something like the color temperature is just, it just gets so thrown off when we go more blue. It's so bad.
02:15:52
Speaker
And I don't know enough to like fix it. cause i And then ah when I started fucking around with it and really going pushing with the orange and pushing with the the red a little bit and just kind of like using that side of the color dial. Cause like you got the red and orange or like on the same side. I'm just kind of dragging it that way. I was like, you you add like, you can't go too far. You get this like almost like pseudo sepia tone and That's, that's too far. We can't go, we can't do that. Like we can't go too sepia tone. That's real dangerous.
02:16:38
Speaker
And, uh, cause yeah, you cause if you go to blue, you just wash, you just wash everything out. And the thing too is like, I kind of wanted to go cooler cause I was like, Oh, you know, that's kind of nice. But when you go, but you can't go too orange because then you almost get like almost like a sepia tone. You start making shit Brown. Yeah. And it's like, Oh, that's not good. You know, this is our longest podcast. We're almost hitting five hours. Oh, maybe we should wrap it up. Well,
02:17:08
Speaker
Sure, let's wrap it up. But. OK, Sundance is a failure. And I'm sorry. Amen. But what do you what do you see for the future of this? And what are your hopes as far as film festivals?
02:17:34
Speaker
Like it's South by Southwest. I mean, I know it's probably a shot in the dark, but it's, well, the thing is at all,
02:17:48
Speaker
it's tough to say that what's worth it or not. It's cool to try. And I am all about that because I'm, I'm willing to just kind of put it out there to see what happens. I don't really have an expectation of getting in the South by Southwest. Well, then what's your expectation for us to get into? Like realistically, I don't, I mean, I know you say scream fest and all that shit and fantasy, Fantasia. and Yeah. But literally what, what is your,
02:18:25
Speaker
expectation for a dickhead getting its premiere at. Premier, mind you.
02:18:38
Speaker
i I I screamfest LA, I think is, I think it's more than reasonable that we get into that. um How big is screamfest LA?
02:18:54
Speaker
I think that's like, if there are, if we're going tiers, it's probably like fourth tier. What's third tier? Third tier to me it would be like,
02:19:07
Speaker
hmm. So let's, let me go from the top. One and one is like, we're going to go Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, and Venice.
02:19:23
Speaker
and South by Southwest are like first tier. You get into those, good things are gonna happen most likely. Second tier would be like your fantastic fest, your um yeah ah the bigger city festivals like Venice,
02:19:43
Speaker
Boston, like Boston International, or Boston Film Festival, like those bigger ah Austin Film Festival. um Those ones would probably be like tier two, tier three would probably be like Beyond Fest.
02:19:59
Speaker
um That's what we went to see, right? Yes. You think we're worse than that werewolf movie or whatever that Remember that film we saw with the girl? like No, I think we're better than that movie. But that guy, that movie was directed by Neil Marshall, who did ah Dog Soldiers.
02:20:19
Speaker
um He did. ah Did he do? No, he didn't do. I was going to say um the Tunnel movie. No. ah The Descent? Yeah.
02:20:35
Speaker
Yes, he did. Okay, yeah. Yeah, he did a Hellboy movie. Oh, shit. Centurion with, ah what's his face? Michael Fassbender. Shit. Then he made that witch movie and that movie sucked.
02:20:53
Speaker
That's what we saw. Psycho Gorman like premiered there at Beyond Fest. That little girl. Yeah, i think I think there's a chance Dickhead makes it into like a Beyond Fest. Yeah. And if it made it there, I'd be so thrilled.
02:21:10
Speaker
Like, as long as we can make it into like, like a festival where movies that I know of, I've known of. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, Kasisha has a film coming out in the Austin film festival. Oh, really? That's her next film. That's coming out there. Wow. And like, Wounded Font, I think was like, it might've even premiered in like, Tribeca or something. Well, man, I'll, I'll see you on Tubi.
02:21:36
Speaker
Maybe I'll see you on Mubi. Yeah. Let's get on Mubi. Cut.