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TSP Ep 124 Part 2: Interview of Writer and Director Steven Aripez
24 Plays5 months ago
In this second half of Tom and Steve's interview of writer director Steven Aripez, they discuss how Steven found his actors for his film The Director's Cut and the film festival Steven hosts in Temcula.
So come along with us as we learn a thing or two!
You can find Steven and all that he is doing here: https://www.instagram.com/aripezfilms/
And you can find his feature, The Director's Cut here: https://tubitv.com/movies/100019561/the-director-s-cut
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Transcript
The Role of Understanding Partners in Filmmaking
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's the one thing too is like way especially it's like you have to have an understanding partner because it's like I'm I stay up 24 hours every Friday just so we can do this shit, you know, like every you know, so Sorry All right, all right, man where I'm getting drunk so you'll have to the questions are gonna get a lot harder to understand
Motifs in Horror Films: Scissors vs. Knives
00:00:22
Speaker
and
00:00:22
Speaker
Well, I definitely want to start veering more into talking about director's cut and kind of like getting into that. Hold on, though. Yeah, I got to ask you, Stephen. So what's up with the scissors, man? Like, you know, I notice I don't want to spoil anything, but I notice in your projects, he used them.
00:00:43
Speaker
And you know, there's something extra interesting to them. I don't know if you've ever seen this movie. It's a French movie where like this woman wants this other woman's baby. Inside? Inside. And they use scissors to extract the baby. We'll just leave it at that. And man, it was like that gore horror craze. That's when that came out. And I got to admit, man,
00:01:12
Speaker
When the scissors come out, I turned away. You know, seeing those, it was just a little too extreme for me, but. Yeah. Yeah. What's up? What's up with scissors, man? What's up? You're just like, damn, that's, that's extra sharp. That's extra rough. You know, like fuck knives, man. Get that shit out of here. That's too clean.
00:01:32
Speaker
Well, to you, my love, I think it was just kind of like a practical thing. There would be scissors around, you know, because it's fashion and stuff like that. That makes a lot of sense. For that one, it was that. And then for the Rob the Robber, that was kind of like, oh, like.
00:01:49
Speaker
let's just bring scissors back because I did it into you. And it was the same exact scissors, wasn't it? It was a safe scissors. Yeah. I feel like a woman would have scissors in her room, you know? Women have scissors, that makes sense.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think people have scissors, but I feel like, I mean, I have scissors in my room. So I was like, why not? Like, I kind of was thinking a little bit of the last time
Exploring Short Films and Their Potential for Expansion
00:02:13
Speaker
I used them. I was like, Oh, it'd be cool to just, you know, use scissors again. I think because I was trying not to use a knife. I was like, Oh, let's do something else. And I was like, Oh, I like scissors. No, I think that's great, man. Honestly, I think that's really great. Because because in the scenes where the scissors come out, I was like, Oh, yeah, shit. That's like,
00:02:31
Speaker
That, you know, it's simple, but that's pretty creative because it. You don't see scissors. They can do the same damage, you know, exactly. And you don't see scissors that way. And then when you see them utilize like a knife, it's like, damn. Yeah. Yeah. Scissors are a little more extreme in a sense. You know, no, definitely, definitely, definitely. I mean.
00:02:51
Speaker
I mean, I'll never be able to top Lars von Trier in Antichrist, but, you know. I haven't seen it, but I can imagine. You haven't seen it? Yeah. No, I don't want to see Big Dick, uh, Willem Dafoe. No, they put a body double in. To make his dick smaller, right? Yeah, which is the funniest fucking thing. Give him a smaller dick. You've seen it, Tom? I've seen it, yeah. Yeah. I know. That's the best scissors used in a movie, ever.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty it's pretty extreme I was just like damn girl
00:03:24
Speaker
Men aren't that bad shit? Well, she says I want herself if I'm not mistaken. Oh, really? Oh, ooh. Okay. They're not used on him. Yeah, he has wild. If I remember right, he gets a stone smashed on his nuts or something. Yeah, yeah, and then he gets a nice little fucking hand job after that. Yeah, and it's like, and there's like- Except for it. And it's like, oh, there's some bloody cum in this movie. Check that off the bingo list.
00:03:50
Speaker
I can have a movie as wild, I can love it. Oh yeah. Wait, so did you tell us which was, okay, so you have four shorts on YouTube. Best Buds, Night Call, To Whom I Love, and Rob the Robber. So of those four, because I think Tom and I kind of know the ones we like the most. I know at least number one and number two. I'll say number two, probably Best Buds, because of where it went.
00:04:19
Speaker
And also, leaving into director's cuts with Lavelle Newman, right? He's great, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a lot of- He is great. He's got a lot of charisma and screen presence, I gotta admit. Like, he's a really great lead. Yeah, I love that guy, he's awesome. Yeah, he's got something special. So those are my two favorites, but what's your favorite of those four?
00:04:48
Speaker
You said Best Buds and which one? What was the two that you said? Best Buds and what? Rob the Robber. Rob the Robber? Yeah, those were like my favorites. Yeah, and I like Best Buds. I actually really like Best Buds a lot. I think I would have to be Rob the Robber and
00:05:09
Speaker
and probably to you, whom I love, the model one. Maybe because more of my experience was just really fun on that one, you know? I think that kind of plays to it, but I like Best Buds a lot. That was fun. Working with the... You know that the guy from Best Buds, the other guy, Tony, he's the guy in Director's Cut, right? Yeah. He is? Okay. Yeah, he's the brother.
00:05:34
Speaker
No, he's the he's the he's the father. Oh the dad. Sorry. Yes. He said father. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah We just aged him up for the movie. Really? Yeah, shit. You guys did an amazing job, dude
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, that was that Macy Rodriguez who did she did our makeup. She did really good subtle work on him to make him Yeah, no, I I did not connect those two at all. Wow I was like, oh you got some old fucker did to fill it for that to do that one Wow, damn. Well, I will say well for if we're going favorites what I like night call quite a bit I like night call because I like night call too and I kept thinking I
00:06:16
Speaker
he fucking ended it here motherfucker i wanted to see the the fucking struggle i wanted to see the snow film give me the fucking snow film like that i want to see these two characters execute that and how much they're gonna fuck it up so night calls a feature script i have that feature script and i think at the moment was
00:06:35
Speaker
was to film like a scene from it. It feels like a proof of concept there. Yeah, that's what it was basically. And even though I love that one, I feel like I fucking also fucked that up.
00:06:55
Speaker
I enjoy it too, but like a lot of people tell me they like that one the most So I guess I'm just fucking blind. Well, I got an actress and that's amazing Yeah, like and concept wise it's yeah, it's really great.
The Importance of Test Screenings and Editing
00:07:10
Speaker
I will say I mean it looks like it It's like it obviously looks like it's just shot in a garage obviously
00:07:15
Speaker
and it's like and I think if you like you could if you spice that up to like almost like maybe like a warehouse location or something like that yeah where it looks less like you know your neighbor's garage I think that is where and it's like it really just envelops you and like you know like you have like like lights over their heads like kind of like really upping the dramatics like maybe even just throw some fog in there you know and like a dildo or something but um but like also I really like the line where she's like um
00:07:45
Speaker
I mean, not to allude to things, but she's like, I haven't really done this. But if you guys force me to, I will cross that line, not to get spoilers away. And I was like, damn, that's really awesome. Cause it's like, Hey, I'm, I'm trying to be cool. I'm trying to be, I'm trying to give you a chance. You know, like that compassionate Bob boss, Bob boss, mom boss, you know? Yeah, she's supposed to be kind of like, like still early in the game of having power, you know?
00:08:15
Speaker
Super experience. Yeah. And that dude, I love that because I was like, damn, that's a really cool line. It adds a lot of a lot of character just within like one sentence, you know, adds a lot of backstory to that. And I can almost see that film kind of being like an anthology in a sense where it's like, and this is his day and it's like, and it's like following him until it leads up to this and then the aftermath.
00:08:39
Speaker
where it's the culmination of everything. Oh yeah, that's cool. And then the snuff films its own. And then that's like the culmination. All own story there and then the aftermath would be its own story too to wrap it up. Yeah, that'd be cool. That's kind of what I was at. You can bring us on as a creative producer. Let's do it, you know. I have that script, I've updated it but I haven't like gone back to it in a while. I've been kind of writing other things.
00:09:03
Speaker
But I do like that script. I do like that script. It's a fun script. It's very exploitation, neo-noir, you know? And that's right up my alley. I mean, that's... He just throwing some Lovecraft monsters in there and it's like, yeah, I'm just jerking off all day, you know? Yeah, because, you know, I'll admit watching your shorts, you know, like sometimes it's like, yeah, I gotta blow some smoke up their ass and like lie a little bit.
00:09:29
Speaker
But with your shorts, you know, there is definitely a lot of elements I liked a lot like in to you whom I love the end are the second to last shot where the guy is going down the runway. I really like that shot where he's coming down. I wish you would have.
00:09:47
Speaker
film the entire shirt? What is it called? They kept calling it like a specific- Oh, the Spadazzi? Spadazzi. Spadazzi. I'm like, what the fuck's a Spadazzi? I never heard of that shit. I would have liked to see the Spadazzi in its entirety.
00:10:00
Speaker
But, you know, when he's going down the runway, I was like, damn, instead of him walking down, it would have been cool to like put him on a track set and just have him glide down. So it's like a little bit ethereal, like he's just gliding down it. I was like, damn. But, you know, like I was getting into it, you know, like when I started like, oh, let me add that. Yeah. What if they did that? What if they could do that? You know, that's what I start to get really excited watching a film.
00:10:26
Speaker
And with directors, that's great. That's great that you can see and be like, oh, maybe it would have worked better this way. And I love doing that too. And I agree, it probably would have worked better that way too. Just play it up. Once you go overboard, just fucking go for it. You know what I'm saying?
00:10:46
Speaker
There were elements in like directors covers like all what about this part like with the rebar just like oh man let's fucking double down on rebar and let's not to say that's that's a better thing to do cuz maybe it's not if you gotta leave it a little light, but it was like fuck man play the rebar up more you know i know i honestly i was telling tom that like
00:11:07
Speaker
I've had four screenings of directors kinda like in a theater with people, with strangers and stuff. That rebar line fucking kills every time. It blows my mind, because I honestly didn't think it was gonna be that way. It's just a throwaway thing for you, right?
00:11:22
Speaker
It wasn't super throwaway. I thought it was funny, but I was like, I don't know if we're going to think this is really funny. And anybody that I've shown, the first thing they did is like that fucking rebar line. I literally got friends that have text. That's like the first thing they comment on. It's like, I love that. It's fucking rebar.
00:11:44
Speaker
Most of the people really liked that line. And I'm like, dang, I was like, I should have fucking evolved that more in the script. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, that's the hindsight too, because it's like, because I bet you have no idea, right? I'm sure you guys were busting up on set when he when he when he delivers that. I mean, I mean, I can only imagine like, it's probably hard for the actor not to break. Maybe they're super professional and, you know, they didn't do it. But like, fuck, I was I would have broke behind behind the camera.
00:12:14
Speaker
Here's the other thing I'll give I'll give his Tony his name's Tony Amos I give him credit cuz he I had the whole thing that he was into that fetish of like You know concrete awesome, but he had the rebar like That's fucking genius rebar like it was his idea. Well, I don't know just the whole just the whole thing So the whole setup the whole setup all set up for it pays off. You think I'm fucking blind
00:12:46
Speaker
Wait, so you said you showed this four times to audiences, essentially for test screenings in a sense. What was that like? So like one of them, I think two of them were like test screens and then the other two were like film festivals.
00:13:06
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah. So, um, but, uh, but yeah, it was, it was great. It was fucking nerve-wracking. I mean, I wanted to fucking puke, you know, because I think it's, it's just a very, it was very hard to watch your movie. You know, it's just hard to watch your movie with an audience that are like strangers, you know, even with people that I know it's hard. I got to tell you, like once our features out there for an audience to watch, I don't think I'm going to sit there and with the audience.
00:13:35
Speaker
I'm not, I'm going to leave the room and then I'll, I'll show up after if they want a Q and a or if they, you know, I'm not gonna, I don't think I'm gonna, I know for a fact, I don't plan to actually.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, with an audience. I don't think I can it honestly probably easier to stand naked in front of them like here I am. What else do you want to laugh at? But it's but it's so it's so invaluable, right? Because you learn you learn what what is working and what doesn't work.
00:14:08
Speaker
Um, because you had, you know what you like, but then once it's out there and like, once you like get the feel of what the vibe is, cause I feel like there's such a different experience watching a film with a crowd. Oh yeah. Oh definitely. Like there is an energy. Um, like, I don't know if you, have you ever been in the new Bev?
00:14:26
Speaker
I have, yeah, I love the New Beverly. Yeah, and I feel like when you go to the New Beverly, it's like, if you're a film lover, it's like Mecca, right? It's like, you have to go at least once. Do a pilgrimage. Yeah, you have to pilgrimage. I mean, for us, luckily, it's not that far. It's not like we got to travel states or anything. Maybe it's an hour if your traffic sucks or hour and a half.
00:14:51
Speaker
And once you're like, everyone there is vibing. Like I saw Evil Dead 2 at the new Bev. And I was like, and it's like, I've seen that movie a thousand times probably, maybe not a thousand, that's a lot. I've seen the movie a lot, at least more than 10 times to keep the number in a little more rational.
00:15:13
Speaker
But watching that it was like watching it brand fucking new. It was like well, I was like, oh my god It's a whole like people are laughing at parts and you're just like feeling the vibe. I remember Steven Took me to see Mandy In theaters for my birthday. Have you seen Mandy Steven? I have I love it. Yeah, I remember we went saw in theaters And it was the theater was packed And it was like, you know
00:15:43
Speaker
every like the audience was just like we were just
00:15:48
Speaker
all like in sync. It's like we're all like Vulcan mind melding or something. Like when Cheddar Goblin is on screen, like everyone's just like giggling and laughing. You were fucking stoned to the fucking outer space. You wouldn't know if it was mind melding, dude. That's true. I felt the chainsaw like in my fucking like in my colon or whatever. Like I was just like here. Like, all right, do you like that? That was like that was awesome. That was a great experience. Oh, yeah. And he's great. Yeah. But.
00:16:15
Speaker
to bring it back around. We're getting on track. Sorry. Let's get back on track. It's all right. I like these. So so you show the film to people. You have a couple test screenings and then of course you do film festivals. I do want to talk about like director's cut when it finished. But. How valuable was it for an audience to see and then.
00:16:43
Speaker
Like then, especially for the test screen, do you go back to the edit and then redo everything or like, cause by that point you're kind of done. So like, how does all of that work out? So basically when I, when I did the test screens, I, I kinda already was thinking of cutting stuff out, but I was like, all right, I'm going to just leave it the long version. Cause I know this is what I'm going for a test screening. You know, I'm trying to get like audience reactions and let me know. Um,
00:17:12
Speaker
And from reading the reactions, I was like, okay, yeah, some of the stuff that I was thinking to cut down or cut out, like scenes to cut out was like, I was on the right, I had the right idea, you know? So it really helped a lot to me. I cut it down by like,
00:17:29
Speaker
like a little over three minutes, you know, less than the original cut. Even though that three minutes doesn't seem a lot, but it actually really helps to flow the movie, you know.
Balancing Creative Vision with Audience Expectations
00:17:41
Speaker
It really, like the scene at the dinner table was longer, a lot longer. I cut that down like half, you know. And there were just other scenes that I was just trimming up, cutting out fat, you know, that I think really kind of helps the
00:17:55
Speaker
the flow of the movie better, you know? So I didn't do like any big rearranging scenes, like this is in the beginning, now this is the band. It was a lot of trimming fat and some cases cutting out like big sections of the scene, you know? And be like, this is not needed. Absolutely. I think that's invaluable because like you said, you know, you might think three minutes, like what's three minutes? But three minutes is a fucking lifetime for a drag.
00:18:26
Speaker
Like if three, like three minutes can feel like three minutes can feel like 30 minutes if the scene isn't working or if it's just too much. Like I feel like, you know, it's like when you watch like 2001, it's like
00:18:42
Speaker
Like I understand like you're kind of watching it for the experience and to kind of envelop it to the music. Like it's kind of like you're just like, okay, you're feeling like the blue Danube and it's like you're watching like the ship like fuck the other ship and you're like, okay, cool. Sex and space and stuff. Cool. But then it's like.
00:18:58
Speaker
That's like 2001's all about, dude. That shit's fucking each other, dude. Really? Yeah. I never caught that. That makes a lot of sense with the big space movie. I'm gonna have to rewatch it. Yeah, well. Who the fuck in who it is? This ship looks like a giant dick going into a vagina. Stanley Kubrick's fucking all of us. Oh, okay. If you guys like Stanley Kubrick, here's a recontextualization that might blow your mind. Every single Stanley Kubrick movie is about sex. That's fair. Even Path of Glory?
00:19:24
Speaker
Especially no French the French people, you know, they just love fucking No, but yeah, I mean look sex is big in his filmography for sure. Yeah. Yeah Definitely, but like I was but to bring it back to my what I was trying to say is like if those scenes were just a little bit too long I mean there are I think a lot of film make a lot of average moviegoers would be like that's those things are too long they you just like it's like okay weekend I wouldn't show to an average
00:19:53
Speaker
But then it's like person. But then when you watch like a scene where it's like just a lot of people talking.
00:19:59
Speaker
It you kind of like it starts to feel really long because you're like, where's the point? Right. It's like it's like it's like it's sometimes it's fun to have the bullshit in there. Yeah. But then it's like you got to find that like that perfect balance of bullshit, like because I know like as filmmakers, especially like we like to we you know, we live where like it's like that post Tarantino, Kevin Smith. Oh, yeah. Richard Linklater.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, definitely where it's like, you know what? We love the fucking to do the big dialogue scenes, the big talking scenes. You know, it's not like it was in the 60s and the 70s where you just have like Steve McQueen like saying like three words, the whole movie. It's still films just aren't like that anymore. And audiences don't really react.
00:20:50
Speaker
like they used to do that and also it's just like our style and a lot of our a lot of the most like new new or modern filmmakers just don't have that style right like we've been infected by like the josh weedens and and like those kind of filmmakers and those writers mostly it's the writers right it's like they just yeah dialogue is like is key now and you just gotta ride that fine line because when people are just talking too much nonsense or like
00:21:17
Speaker
uh when you're going off on a fun tangent for too long it's like you're you're like you you delve into the realm of self-indulgence and like and then there are some people that really dig that like the people that like your target audience probably really digs it yeah right like i could yeah i could watch listen to like you know the scene where everyone's sitting around smoking weed
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, I could watch that longer for me because I'm like, I'm digging it. I'm like, I'm vibing with the characters. This is cool. I'm digging it. But I can tell like there's probably like an average audience score where it's like, all right, let's find it. Like, let's get to the next beat of the story. Let's get to the next point. Yeah. Yeah, let's get no, that was definitely one of that was definitely one of the scenes that I was like.
00:22:00
Speaker
It had a really good reaction every time I've seen it with the audience. That scene, everyone tells me that's their favorite scene in the movie. Most of the people, I would say, say that's their favorite scene. That's my favorite scene in the whole movie. But yeah, it was definitely longer. I cut it down for sure. That was one of the scenes that had a lot of trimming. And it's probably still too long. Who knows?
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely longer. Yeah, it's really tough to know because like it's like we were saying with killing your darlings. It's like, but I love it. Right? It's like, yeah, it's like I put it I wrote it in the script. I wrote it in the script for a reason because I enjoy it and
00:22:40
Speaker
I find value in what they're talking about, what they're saying. Like to me, like this is how I talk. This is funny. This is interesting. But then when you're like, when like, you know, like Joe Schmoe is watching it and he's just like, oh, well, you might like it. It gets to the fucking action, you know? Yeah. But who's the who's the fucking killer? Like, what's going on with this? They need to tell me who the killer is. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, true. It's one of those things that's kind of give and take, you know, it's like,
00:23:09
Speaker
You know at the end of the day. I always kind of resort back to like I'm an audience member too You know and I'm like I try to take account to I try to be objective as much as I can but at the end of the day I always try to be like you know at the end of day I'm making the movie for me, and I know that's like a common thing that's said mm-hmm, but I do try to
00:23:34
Speaker
mix that mentality of like it's on the audience and also but like I know that I'm not the only one that I want to see this film so it's a it's a balance you know but I always want to make sure my percentage of it entertaining me is higher than entertaining people that I don't know you know the stranger
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, you have to be careful not to compromise. Do what it is that you loved about it. Stephen said your vision, because then once you start to compromise too much, like because I remember we we had cut away a little too much for a bit. And then I think we had chopped off like almost 12 minutes of the movie. Like we had like have a rough cut and then we cut like almost like 12 minutes away. Thankfully. And then we were like it was like, OK,
00:24:21
Speaker
We probably needed to cut like eight of those minutes, but then we put back in like those four minutes and we added like 20 minutes. Yeah. And then we were like, wait a minute, like this is working, this is working, this is working. And it's like, oh, you know what? No, like you don't have to beat yourself up so much because it's like you enjoy it. We enjoy these scenes like we we we wrote them in for a purpose. There's a purpose behind why this is in the movie. If you just have a purposeless scene just because it's cool or whatever, that can work. But you have to
00:24:50
Speaker
leverage that with the runtime of the film and understanding the flow. You also gotta earn it. You have to earn it. Yes. You have to earn the cool, I feel, right? If you're just adding a scene because it's cool. I mean, we definitely have a scene in our film where it's like... Numerous. A few, yeah, where it's like, okay, we're just doing this because it's like... This is pretty fucking... If this works, it's awesome.
00:25:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a big if, but you know what I'm saying. Reality was very cruel. But you know what? I mean, at the end of the day, I think you're right because I think it's more about you need to find the audience for
00:25:32
Speaker
that like that takes that type of stuff you know that's the hard part that's always someone who really likes that has at least likes your taste it's really trying to find that. Those audience members that's the hardest part i think is getting that that exposure and getting people to watch it so you can get the actual real accurate number of like who's into it you know.
00:25:52
Speaker
But yeah, it is a fine line. It's a balance. It's trying to figure out, is this too much? You know, when to cut down. It's, you know, it's a never ending battle, but at some point you just gotta, you know, you gotta just like make a decision and be like, oh, fuck it. This is, this is what I want. And then the day you got to get what you want, you know, even though it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. Well, leading into that and what we've been talking about.
Deep Dive into 'Director's Cut'
00:26:16
Speaker
So direct the director's cut.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's the other thing when I originally wrote the movie and I I looked up there wasn't that many directors cuts Well, there's a lot now man And now when i'm like i'm looking out too i'm like am I the one with the word the or all the other ones are just direct Yeah, no, I got pissed off because I typed in uh directors cut and I got all these other movies I'm like god damn it. No, I need the directors cut it. I got all the same movies like god damn it 2024
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, but uh, so what's his name teller pen teller? Yeah, I was like you want me to watch the pen and teller movie you fuck you dirty fuck So Steven yeah Alice what is this film about? What's it about yeah, come on tell us tell us about director It's about a guy who's
00:27:13
Speaker
who's trying to figure out who he is. That's what it's about. I view it as a coming of age slasher movie. Oh, I love that. So that's where I was coming from. It's a guy who has an identity crisis. And that's what it's about. It's someone who's trying to figure out who they really are. Can you give us a little bit of a synopsis to the story and whatnot?
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, so it's the lead character. His name's Terrence. He owns a video store, like a mom and pop video store that's also a water store. Which I loved it. I fucking loved that. Brilliant.
00:27:52
Speaker
I love that because I was because when I was watching, I was like, what the fuck are all those water bottles? Like, what the fuck is this set? Yeah. But then when they explained, I'm like, oh, damn it, I love it. I got to add, was that was that planned in the script or was that like the location? It was supposed to be a water store. Because it was so I love that.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, so the guy that owns the store, his name's Marcelo, great, great guy. But he had another location that was just the video store. I was like, Oh, dude, like, let me use your store. I got really friendly, you know, I would go there to rent movies and stuff. And he was like, Yeah, you can film here for like, cheap as fuck. I was like, All right, cool. Literally, I'm like, I'm like, Okay, I'm, I got the script done. I'm getting all the team together.
00:28:42
Speaker
It's like, this is the end of 2020. And then 2021 hits, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna film this in 2021, like first, like before spring. And then I go in there one day to this fucking store, video store, and it's like half empty. I'm like, what's going on, dude? He's like, oh yeah, I'm like moving to a new spot. And it's a water store now. And I was like, what the fuck? You told me I can film here. And he's like,
00:29:07
Speaker
He's like no my movies are still gonna be there, but it's a water store plus That's a happy accident because it is so fucking sweet like I remember I was watching it and then you have the line where it's like Well, you know the video stars just don't make money. So I sell water Worked out in the end because it's very like accurate to real
00:29:33
Speaker
It's fucking real, dude. It's very real. It's a real story. It's still up and running. The only thing I would have wished is that there were some, like, he was like, man, I wish I would have had some customers that weren't just coming in for water. He just got a line out the door, like, for people coming in to get water. I never. There's no one there that actually read videos. I still had more water in the movie, I agree. No, but one of the best lines is like, hey, I could get you some water.
00:29:58
Speaker
What kind of water you want? I got, I got middle water, distilled water. What kind of water you want? Yeah, dude, I was just like, dude, it was so, it's like so cool because that's where I get like the Clerks vibes. Yeah. Because it's like, it's like, it's just like these dudes hanging out in like a store.
00:30:15
Speaker
essentially for most of the film. It's a it's essentially like a one location film with like yeah with uh side with the sides uh and flashbacks and and uh which which provide a lot of relief to from the one location you know like yeah yeah like in clerks you know there's a relief from getting away from the liquor store or the gas station
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah, what is it? Is it a gas station? It's a convenience market. So it's nice to provide that relief away from that one location because it just adds that extra
00:30:51
Speaker
I don't know, it just makes it feel bigger, like when you have, what's Lavelle's name in the film? Terrence. Terrence, when you see him like drunk at his house, you know, they're talking to him about the paranormal project they want to start shooting, like just seeing him all drunk.
00:31:11
Speaker
Showing the party did that just just a little flashback to take us out and show us this much bigger world that feels more fleshed out and everything. I love that a lot of it was like me feeling like what could i have done differently in clark's you know to give more like.
00:31:28
Speaker
of uh energy and I was like yeah maybe should have like flashbacks or something like that you know cutaways you know yeah yeah I loved it because yeah they yeah Clerks has a few but uh I was just like it was perfect because just
00:31:43
Speaker
just before you start to like kind of get tired of like essentially what you're just saying in a video store. But then it's like, no, we cut to this like all black background and they're just kind of chilling. And then it cuts outside and then we get the flashback and then we get the cut to, I don't want to say spoilers, but the woman's house, the director's cut house.
00:32:09
Speaker
And you're like, yeah, man, like, OK, this is like it's just like nice pacing. Like you're breaking up the like the story enough to kind of like allow.
00:32:22
Speaker
the, the, yeah, you're allowing the location to flow. Uh, and then like, and then you use like every, every little inch of that store too. And if I can interject like halfway through the film, Tom's like, what the fuck? Like he's showing this character this way. And I was like, buddy, just give it a chance. You'll see, you'll see why the character is appearing like a dick. It's going to make sense in a few scenes later. I was just like, Dan, that's bull to make you kind of hate this guy. Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:32:52
Speaker
Don't make us fucking hate this person yet. It was like just give it a chance Just give it a few more a few more minutes man. It'll it'll make up for it Yeah, cuz I was like you guys predict that. Did you guys predict the ending layer what the thing was or no? I did not I did not foresee Yeah, I didn't predict at all I didn't predict at all and then of course with the way the ending when I was like, oh, okay, I
00:33:19
Speaker
I thought there was a certain point where I just sat back. I was like, OK, you're going to take me wherever you're going to take me. And I'm just going to sit back and shut up at this point. I'm not for sure it was going to be close to what it was, but I wasn't expecting what happened.
00:33:34
Speaker
I was I thought I'm trying I'm really dancing around not spoiling anything but I mean you could say spoilers I guess okay give a spoilers ahead or spoilers ahead everyone but is it okay if we get into spoilers now yeah yes I mean yeah I knew for sure the director's chick there was something there I knew I thought she was gonna be think I thought I was like oh she's gonna be the killer but it's gonna turn something is gonna turn it like where they're trapped in the in the store with her
00:34:02
Speaker
But you're also leading up to that. You're leading up to that the whole time. And then you're like, and I think that's what you're playing on. It's like, that's where we're going. And then, yeah, that's where the 180 comes. And then it goes off the rails at some point. And then it's like, and you're like, and that's when your jaw just kind of hits the floor and you're like.
00:34:19
Speaker
Oh, this is for Bobby desert. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was like, oh, even before that man, just where she's like, I fucked your father. He had that big dog. And I was like, I know. I was like, I wish I had like a fucking cutaway sex scene or something. I was like, you is like, okay. I mean, I don't know. Yeah.
00:34:40
Speaker
I was like this guy's got balls dude like this is like you would not like see this like this was like this is where I was like okay and then you cut to the flashback and I was like okay I'm with you I'm with you yeah um yeah yeah I absolutely was a bit floored by that twist where it was the dad the whole time because I was like okay I thought for sure
00:35:10
Speaker
that the brother had been killed by the by. Well, you know, I'll admit, like, at first, I didn't really understand because because the female costar, she says Greg. And I was like, well, who the fuck's Greg? You know, she's like, he's dead. And I was like, what the fuck? And it never really clicked that that was his brother.
00:35:30
Speaker
No. Yeah, that part didn't really click for me. But then when I saw the trailer, I was like, oh, OK, now now I see the link here. Yeah, that made a little more sense for me. Because I thought for sure I thought you were going to kind of do a joke on the fact I thought the cop because he wanted to be a cop, right? The brother wanted to be a cop. Greg wants to be a cop. I thought for sure you could be like he's going to get shot by a cop.
00:35:56
Speaker
Try while investigating the crime where cops gonna be like what you doing at the crime scene And I thought okay and then because you know, they you kind of have that whole line in there about like, you know Not all cops are bad and yeah, and it's like not cops are pretty. Yeah, and even the dance like yeah Okay, sure. There's not all bad cops by percentages, but they're all fucking pigs man. I
00:36:19
Speaker
I just thought it would be funny that a serial killer is like, you know, hey, don't be a fucking cop, all right? You're my son. Yeah, not a cop, man. You want to be an IT guy? He doesn't give a shit about rights or anything. He's like, hey, don't catch me. And I kind of love that there's like this big, just middle finger where it's like, there's just, there's a few lines where it's like, you know, great detectives don't believe in coincidences. And then like the whole movie is a coincidence, right? That she kind of stumbles upon him.
00:36:47
Speaker
Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, because it's like, you know, he's into movies and he has a video store and she's a writer that comes into the video store. Yeah, that's a great point. And it's like, there's like this whole thing where it's like, you know, like, you know, detectives don't believe in coincidences and all this and it's like, then there's just like this.
00:37:02
Speaker
Big ass coincidence that like shuts the whole movie off and I was like chef kiss man, you know chef kiss I don't know if that was planned but I was like man. I'll help you. I'll help you sell this shit. Well Honestly honestly a lot like that's just a subconscious thing and now you're blowing my mind I'm like, you're right. It's kind of like a coincidence Yeah, but even even that midway point where you know You see the lead act like a total asshole with his baby mama and it's like damn coming off so strong is like oh
00:37:32
Speaker
Oh, okay, well, he's coming off as a big dickhead here, maybe some shit's gonna go down, I don't know. And then, of course, it pays off, you know, like, pretty quickly too, like... Like, it makes you understand why that reaction was pivotal to then express what's gonna come later, you know? It's a nice foreshadowing to that because it does turn you off to him.
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I was gonna say I definitely wanted to show that he's got another side to him, you know? And give him a scene where he can show that, oh shit, this guy's not so fucking pawhead mellow guy, you know? And that's super vital. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because you're going into it, he's like this charismatic dude, you know? It's like he's romancing the girl, you know? He's like this cool dude, and then you see that, you're like, whoa, what the fuck?
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah. That's not the person I've been seeing this whole time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, I needed to give him something or not. It was just going to be too much of a fucking.
00:38:35
Speaker
like 180 that's not earned, you know, that he doesn't have any. You're like, I can't see him show any of those characteristics or anything like that. But I was trying to put stuff in there, you know, especially like kind of like, you know, kind of put the slasher POV in there through his perspective, like little visual thing cues like that, like when she enters, like it's a lot of POV from him.
00:38:59
Speaker
I was just kind of like riffing off the whole, you know, the slasher POV. He's that was like the visual cue that he was going to be what he is at the end of the movie, you know? Yeah, you do set up beautifully. Let me interject. Yes, even you got to see that you got to see a movie called Peeping Tom.
00:39:17
Speaker
I love it. I love it. You've seen it? Yeah, I love it. Oh, dude. 1960. Dude, great. I thought about using that in the reanimator scene, but I don't know why I did it. You should have mentioned Peeping Tom, man. Yeah, I was thinking about it. I think because that's a director team. I can't remember their name. They're the ones who did the red shoes. They did the red shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got black. I forgot about the guy. I want to say it's like Heisenberg or something. They got blacklisted after Peeping Tom.
00:39:46
Speaker
That destroyed their career. Yeah. Tell them what that film was. It's sad. It's sad because like... Because that movie is fucking amazing. Have you seen The Red Shoes? I know the hips got blown up. Have you seen Red Shoes?
00:39:59
Speaker
I've never seen Red Shoes. I want to. It's on my watch list, but it looks amazing from the scenes that I've seen, like the images. It looks like the beautiful type color. You got to see it because you see Red Shoes and then it's like, wait, those guys made Peeping Tom? Like what the fuck? Tom is so good. I think Peeping Tom is even better than Psycho to a degree because it's like, that movie is so fucking good. And then like,
00:40:24
Speaker
The, I love, uh, the tripod, uh, like, oh, that was a weapon. That was a weapon. The weapon is like his, one of the legs of the tripod has like a knife at the end of it. And like, he's taking pictures while he's like killing people. And I just remember watching that and I was like,
00:40:40
Speaker
This is 1960. Fuck it. Fuck. This is so damn good. They laid that groundwork. That's what I love about watching old movies too. You watch a film like that and you're like, it's so fucking fresh. It feels so fresh.
00:40:56
Speaker
I know. I need to go pick up my criteria version of it, dude. I want to buy that shit. I haven't gone to go pick it up at the Barnes and Noble, but I'm going to. Let me give you more kudos because I want to say you did this beautiful thing when you show there's a tight on her neck as she's chugging the water and then of course, spoilers, he chokes her to death.
00:41:19
Speaker
and it's yeah and it's like okay yes i love that you set that you set this up and it's like that's something that you know it's like the check offs gun like like i think you never you can't do that unless you're gonna pay it off because when yeah because when you're watching the movie you're like
00:41:37
Speaker
That's like a really weird scene, right? You're just like watching this girl's neck and it's so tight that it almost makes her neck look elongated. And you're like, it's kind of like an awkward angle. It's kind of interesting. Like, what the fuck? And then you watch it later and you're like, okay, man, I'll get you.
00:41:55
Speaker
I see what you did. Yeah, and then you're like, yeah, sexy. Yeah, I like it. And then, you know, and it's like, it's very good. But yeah, like, I love I love that. And I wanted to I don't know, I can't remember the actress's name, but the roommate, I felt like she kind of stole the show. Yeah. Oh, her name's Danny Atlas. That's her real name. But Gabby, the character Gabby. Yes, Gabby in the film. I was just like, she's in love with him, right?
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of like we kind of we kind of like That's kind of something I give credit to her like I kind of like didn't play that off in the script too much But when we talked about we're like, yeah, let's let's make it like
00:42:37
Speaker
you know, she brought it up like, yeah, let's go with that. Let's go there. She's very, she's secretly in love with him, you know? Yeah, because it makes the story a beautiful tragedy. Especially the end when you when you see them all happy. And she's just there working at the video store, just giving him that look like you fucker. Yeah, but I love you. I'll stay here. Yeah, like, you know what I did for you? Like, and it's so cool because that's where I think I thought that's why Stephen was saying there's parallels to dickhead because
00:43:07
Speaker
We have that's kind of like the setup for dickhead is it's like an unrequited love story. Oh, nice. And it's like the whole time. It's like it's like this guy like going doing everything to like for this girl. And she's just like, we're friends. I don't like you. I don't love you. I'm not going to fuck you because you tried to save my life. And no spoilers, you know.
00:43:28
Speaker
We'll probably send you the cut to watch, Steven, so you could shit on it for us. Oh, dude, that'd be awesome. No, no, I want to watch it cut, dude. That'd be awesome. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. I got to say, because I was just, I love the movie. I was a big fan of it. Nice. Appreciate it. One thing that I wanted to also bring up is
00:43:50
Speaker
more of like the behind the scenes kind of thing. You talked about how you edited it. Was that the plan the whole time? Were you looking to have an editor? Is that something that you're interested in? And then for post, because that's kind of where we're in. So I'm interested like doing the sound mix and finding the score. How did that kind of come about? Yeah, so I was always going to edit the
00:44:14
Speaker
The movie I did that was just like less money to spend, you know, yeah So I was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna edit it Not like I'm against using an editor But I think just like, you know, I like to edit actually it's kind of something I used to not like and then I grew to liking And now I'm kind of like it's it's gonna be kind of hard to let someone else edit my movie I'm not against it but I but I would I feel like I I feel like there's probably other people that are more quicker and efficient like getting it assembled
00:44:45
Speaker
I feel like I maybe take a little bit too much time assembling the footage. But yeah, that was fun. I love editing and got another alcohol sitting in my head. What was the other part of the question?
00:44:57
Speaker
The the the sound mix the final sound the mixing the score like like these guys out of LA called polar sound and They've kind of been doing my sound mixes for a while. They're great dudes this guy Jordan and Braden But yeah, they're the ones that I found I found them on up work. Oh, you guys heard of that Yeah, I found them up work. That's why I found my sound my sound because I'm like what I need to find a second
00:45:27
Speaker
It's like when you look for people to, you could either be someone looking for a job or someone, you can be looking for someone to hire. So I kind of put on a post on that site and I actually had quite a few responses. Some of them were just too expensive and I was like, damn, but I'm like, I can't, I need someone who's at least good, you know? Like, nothing, I was gonna do some shit sound for them.
00:45:54
Speaker
Found them and they did it and like they gave me examples, of course. So I'm like, okay, this sounds good Okay, I could I could work with this they can do it And yeah, and they actually did the first one. I actually met him on the one that that no one's ever gonna see Time in the berbs. Yeah, that's why I got it and linked with them, you know Linked up with them and then you know, I remember them for directors kind I was like, okay, I'm gonna hit them up again and I'm gonna give them better sound
00:46:24
Speaker
And they were like, this is much better. Thank you. Yeah. I use one mic for that other one, the whole thing, dude. It was like, they were like, uh, we could do it, I guess. Yeah. Cause that's one thing we're worried about. It's cause like, it's like, man, sound is like, it's like, it's so vital.
00:46:44
Speaker
Like if you have bad sound, you can't sit through a feature with bad sound. You just can't. It's so grating on your head. You just can't do it. And that's when I was like, man, I'm not worried about the expense of it. Because that's something Steve and I have been talking about. Because we're pretty much self-funded. Yeah. And it was just like...
00:47:05
Speaker
There's a feature film, right? It's like, you're probably, I don't know what you spent, but I was thinking, I was like, man, are we, what are we budgeting for this?
The Art of Sound Design in Film Production
00:47:14
Speaker
Like we're, cause we're getting close to where it's like, we need to start sending off the mixes, like to get that ready. I'm like, fuck scary. Cause I know we can't do it.
00:47:23
Speaker
at a professional level. It took us so long to just get good at editing. I don't want to take another 10 years getting good at sound. No, I agree. Sound is boring language to me. I get it, but it's also one of those things that I don't see myself being like, that's not my thing, being the sound mixer. It's very tedious. Editing is tedious, but compared to sound mixing, I feel like that's way more tedious.
00:47:50
Speaker
Yeah, but it's important. It's vital to the film's success or to people to even watch the movie. If you have bad sound, it immediately takes you out of the movie, you know? I think it's the number one thing that really separates films that will be something and then films that just fall flat. When people are like, oh, watch my short, watch my short, and I'm just like, dude, there's just noise.
00:48:17
Speaker
Yeah it was that fucking background noise that yeah cutting it out yeah and i'm like and you're all your actors just sound hollow like. There's no warmth to their delivery like i mean i think bad sound could kill a can kill a good performance bad sound yeah like not having like a room.
00:48:37
Speaker
like the warmth of a room or like a like like making it feel like it's like that just kills it like it just kills it like yeah yeah yeah cuz sometimes when we're editing I'm just like god damn like it's so hard to like determine if like the cuts okay because like jumping from one shot to another and when the audio is so different
00:48:59
Speaker
It's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, take you out. You're like, what the fuck? Like, Jesus Christ, is this working? I don't like it. And then you kind of you kind of like match the levels a little bit and you're like, OK, OK, it's just a sound. Chill out. Yeah. Hopefully it can be fixed. Hopefully it can be fixed. I mean, you're you're you're it's a big ask, but it's just like, yeah, you know.
00:49:21
Speaker
Hey, let me I gotta go break the seal real quick. I'll be right back. All right. Yeah, cool. Yeah Good timing buddy. Good timing All right, so let's see You're gonna see what we've actually talked about Oh Financing we didn't talk about that. Oh, uh, I
00:49:46
Speaker
It sounds like he pays his people, so. I think that's good. Talking about that, like paying people. We talked about post. That could, I mean, it could be an interesting people to talk to, because audio people too. For us, I mean, maybe that might be on the level. Because I don't know, like, that's the thing I'm worried about really the most for post. Because like, even like color, I'm like, I know we could probably do it.
00:50:15
Speaker
I'm thinking we're going to do it. Just because I think that might save us, like, five grand. And Foley. I think we're going to do Foley. I think we almost have got our Foley. No, no, no, that shit is bad. No. Because we've got to record our own Foley, man. Is that or we just got to get better matches? Well, if you can find better matches, but right now it's just it ain't working. Well, no, yeah, it's because it's just it's placeholder, right? Yeah.
00:50:45
Speaker
But yeah, cause I think, I think, you know, there's, there's like stuff that has very distinct, but there's also just stuff like the squeaky floor stuff. Like that works so well. No, there's, there's a lot of things that work well, but yeah. Cause I'm just like, I remember when I dropped that in and I kind of lined it up and I was like, holy shit. I guess just like, holy shit. Like that's one element. Yeah. I know. It's just, but I'm thinking like, you know what we can,
00:51:14
Speaker
That we could. Because also it depends how deep you want to go into a fully like. Do you want close wrestling? I think, well, it depends on the scene, of course. It depends on us. Like how much, how focused do we want to be on an actual soundscape? Yeah. Do you want, do you want close wrestling? Do you want to have reverb with that shit? Do you want to have clocks in the background? Like how much of that.
00:51:44
Speaker
All right. Hope the seal is doing well. OK, so yeah, great.
00:51:49
Speaker
Well, all right, let's get into the the nitty gritty financing for directors cut. It sounds like you do pay your actors and crew or is that more volunteer? How does that kind of work out for you? Because when we did ours, we didn't pay anyone. It was all just the goodwill of everybody helping us, you know, but then post all of this, it's like, shit, we really need to pay people. If we can, we need to.
00:52:18
Speaker
No, I mean, if you're going to be able to spend money, it's definitely posts. I would prefer posts, you know?
Financial Aspects of Indie Filmmaking
00:52:27
Speaker
But I've been working with most of them, most of the actors and stuff like that. And I was bringing actors that I hadn't worked with before. So I was like,
00:52:37
Speaker
For this one, I was like I make sure everybody got paid something, you know, it wasn't anything amazing But they got paid for each day all the actors What about yeah, it was low budget, you know, yeah, but they got paid everybody got paid crew to
00:52:53
Speaker
The only people that didn't get paid was me, of course, the cinematographer, the guy who did the sound recording, one of the sound recorders because he's also one of the producers.
00:53:09
Speaker
That's smart and my costume person They're getting all whatever I can make from you know, my streaming. They're gonna get money through that That was like kind of the deal But everybody else got paid up front and that's it, you know
00:53:24
Speaker
So does that take a lot of stress off like, hey, I pay to you, now whatever this makes, it's gonna make and that's all me? Does that kinda like take any? Definitely, yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. It's like, hey, they all sign contracts and stuff like that, like this is what you're getting, this is it. Yeah, I'm only gonna make money, whatever it makes off streaming and stuff like that, you know?
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah. So right now, I'm in the promoting game that's promoted and getting people to watch it, getting people to talk about it. I've emailed certain people. I've gone the influencer route of people who do movie reviews. I've reached out to a couple and a decent amount have reached back and said, yeah, we're going to watch your movie and review it on our channel. I'm like, okay, cool.
00:54:16
Speaker
So I'm just waiting for those to give it some more exposure, you know, because that's really I don't really have I kind of just shot it to just make the movie. The budget was kind of like, let's just make the movie. I'll worry about marketing later, you know, yeah and stuff like that. But.
00:54:32
Speaker
So yeah, I've just kind of been reaching out to people who have a following or anybody who wants to, you know, promote it or give it exposure. I'm like, let's fucking do it. Yes. I'm kind of on the marketing campaign right now just talking to people and I've gotten a good positive reaction. So that's that's nice. But yeah, so I my goal is just to my goal with this movie was always to obviously I wanted to make my money back and then so
00:54:58
Speaker
but also to like show people like, I can make a movie, you know, give me more money so I can make, this was like an audition basically. So hopefully when I try to make my next movie, which is gonna be bigger, they know I made a movie already and hopefully they're like, okay, yeah, let's give them a shot to make something with more money involved, you know?
00:55:19
Speaker
Well, we'll definitely bring about like eight more views to your, to your stream. I'll take any views. Well, you got two from us. So that means you're going to get six more. Awesome. I love it. I appreciate it, dude. Honestly, it's, it's, it's, it's tough. You know, I'll take anything I can get. Definitely. And, and that's one thing too is like, and that's kind of like,
00:55:47
Speaker
part of the podcast and why we like to bring on filmmakers is to kind of just build that network because now when you start your next project, you're like, hey, let me just like message those guys and see if they can help it all. Cause like we built up like a little bit of a studio, like we have a red camera, we got,
00:56:04
Speaker
Like we got audio and you know, we got shit. Like, you know, we're like slowly building out like a studio to as a sense to like build like this network, this community of filmmakers because pretty much like we found like finding people that are dedicated and wanting to do this, it changes everything. Like when we did our film, it was like begging our friends to try and help us. And they were all,
00:56:33
Speaker
lovely and came and helped immensely. But I was like, this isn't what they wanted to do. It was they were just like doing this as a favor to us. You know, like we didn't like our set designer and person like they're not a carpenter. They weren't doing that. Like that's not like their life. Like, you know, I saw like life insurance or something like that wasn't like their thing. Like, you know, and then, you know, they built a set for us or they we helped everyone pitched in to build the set because we built like a set bathroom in a garage. And
00:57:01
Speaker
We did stuff like that and it was just like, but then when you find someone that's like really into it and they're dedicated, it's like, oh man, you're the burden. The burden is just like, oh, I can breathe a little because like, I know like this person is like, they want to be better at this because this is what they love. And it's like, oh, this is cool.
00:57:26
Speaker
And so like, you know, we're like, you know, we're like offering ourselves out there because it's like, you know, you scratch our back, we'll scratch your back, you know, like everyone gets a good back scratch. You know what I mean? Like, all right. Who doesn't like a good back scratch? Right, buddy? Oh, yeah, buddy. I mean, I know I have a good back scratch. I pay some good money for a back scratch. You know what I mean?
00:57:46
Speaker
No, I totally agree. It took me a while to find my group of people who actually wanted to do movies. I had a lot of people that I collaborated, but it was kind of like they weren't too serious about it. So they kind of eventually dipped out after I kept going with other projects. They weren't into it anymore. I'm like, okay, that's fair. Yeah, because it's a lot.
00:58:11
Speaker
Yeah, it is a lie. If they're not into it, it's going to eventually get dragged out for them and they're going to be like, I don't want to do this somewhere unless you're going to be paying me like big bucks or something like that. Yeah, they're going to get burned out. Yeah, they're going to get burned out. But luckily, I found a community out here. I have some people that I collab with in LA, but also a good amount of people that live in my area, which is like, there's a lot of filmmakers out here, you got to find them. Wherever you're at, there's always some
00:58:41
Speaker
There's always a group of people that are into the similar things, and the hard part is just locating them and finding them out, finding who they are. So luckily, and we did a lot over here in where I live, a lot of reaching out and getting a collective coming, going on with the people who want to do filmmaking and stuff like that. Me and four other people who were involved in Director's Cut, we started a film festival down here in Temecula.
00:59:10
Speaker
Oh, shit. This year is the second year. Last year, it went great, way better than we expected. We got a lot of people going there. It's mostly short films, but we played a few features. But this year, it's pretty much only short films. But yeah, we got a local theater here that we're playing the festival at. What's the festival? There used to be a festival down here in Temecula, but it shut down in 2014, so we brought it back to life.
00:59:38
Speaker
Okay. And yeah, it's bringing out a lot of people, a lot of filmmakers. Shout it out. What's the festival? It's called the Temecula Valley Film Festival. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:59:50
Speaker
Yeah, so if you got a short or something submit dude, it'd be great But we got we got a lot of submissions and stuff like that so it's cool, you know It's a cool like passion project that me and the other people the other other co-founder. I'm basically the film programmer and
01:00:08
Speaker
Yeah. It's in October. It's going to be October 11th and October 12th. You guys should come down, dude. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'd be definitely definitely. Yeah. You guys should come down and fucking check it out. We had a lot of dope films last year. We had a film with Coleman Domingo in it and stuff like that, playing at the festival. Kevin Bacon was in one of the movies, Alyssa Milano.
01:00:33
Speaker
The goal is to, you know, it's been a lot of me scouting because like when you're a new festival, you're not going to get all the great, you know, film submitted to you. And so I've been doing a lot of a lot of scouting, a lot of hard work, you know, just getting people to submit and, you know.
01:00:49
Speaker
We're definitely ahead of the game this year than last year, because last year was very quick and short, but we got it done, and it was a great turnout. And the community's like, hey, we can't wait for the next year. So that's cool about it. That's awesome. So yeah, October 11th and 12th, man, you guys should definitely come out, dude. I'll copy some passes to watch the films, dude. All right. Yeah, we're done, man. Awesome.
01:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, people and we're working on something right now with our buddy. He's actually probably asleep in the other room right now. But I mean, we might be able to submit a few things, but that's awesome because I know like something might one of my dream projects is through the podcast is I want to do an anthology with other directors like directors together and do an anthology. And the kind of the setup is it's a film festival.
01:01:36
Speaker
where you cut to the films, but there's something happening in between the films throughout the film festival. And that's kind of the through line through the anthology. And it's almost like maybe like a mockumentary style where we're building up the drama of the film festival to kind of help sell that while showing shorts from the different directors.
01:02:01
Speaker
And I was like, that's kind of always been like a dream for me to do because it's like, I think it's so much easier to put together an anthology package as like a feature.
01:02:15
Speaker
And then it's also just like, hey, if we all just get together and workshop this and everyone's like, hey, we'll workshop the scripts and the crews and the scheduling all together. It's like, you know, we'll just be this village making like VHS, like the VHS films, like the ABC, ABCs of Death, like or whatever the fuck that is, like the holiday, that holiday anthology. You know, there's a million of them. There's a million of them. But like, they're so fun.
01:02:42
Speaker
Like, and I love those. And it's like, if you could just find like five or six filmmakers to kind of contribute and all work together, it's like, you can lower the cost of things. And like, it's like, we all use the same crews. Like we can get like a solid DP or a few DPs to come in and kind of collaborate. And, you know, it's like, oh, I'm not great at editing. Well, it's like, well, this guy's good at editing. Let's all work together and kind of figure things out. And it's just like, because it's like, it really does take like, you know, it's like, like raising a kid. It's like, he takes a village.
01:03:10
Speaker
And it's like, you know, like, and then like getting in the film, especially like on our level where it's like, none of us are making money doing this. Right. Yeah. In fact, we're all going into huge amounts of debt doing this. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, so like, let's just leverage each other to grow this thing that we all love, because it's like, it doesn't matter what happens. I'm going to be making movies until I'm in the grave, which, you know, might be like six days from now, but
01:03:37
Speaker
You know, I guess a lot of drugs. Yeah. Well, I haven't got any drugs today. No, that's the right mentality, though. I mean, honestly, that's the mentality I have. You know, I'm always going to make sure I provide for my family however I can, but I'm never going to stop. That's I'm never going to stop writing and trying to make movies. That's like that's like I don't see that unless I physically can't do it.
Building a Supportive Indie Film Community
01:04:02
Speaker
I will be doing it, you know.
01:04:04
Speaker
That's beautiful, man. Yeah. And that's what we love to hear. And that's why I was like, I knew that I knew this. I knew Stephen was going to be like, I just, you know, just get this feeling about people, you know, it's like, all right, this guy's cool. I got it. He gets us. He gets it. And so, yeah, buddy, where did you want to go next?
01:04:22
Speaker
Well, I did want to ask, so you asked a lot of friends and just people you've made films with for like the director's cut. And then watching the shorts that you had on YouTube, you have a lot of the same actors. So where did that come about? Like, I kind of thought maybe you were an actor and then you met all of these other actors in acting school and then it was like, hey, let's make our own stuff, you know, because you see them reappear.
01:04:49
Speaker
So, so how did you get into that? How did you find these people? Because they're really good. I mean, like, there's just some standout actors that you have that just have a lot of that charisma and really do stand out. Yeah, so with Lavelle, the lead for Director's Cut, I used to work with me at the day job and
01:05:09
Speaker
He was super quiet. I wouldn't even guess he was an actor. One day he tells me, he's going to Chapman University for screenwriting and acting. I was like, what? That guy doesn't say anything to anybody. He's so quiet. I'm like, okay. You never know. I'm not into his style or whatever, the acting. One day I hit him up or at work,
01:05:36
Speaker
approach them and we got to talking. He's like, yeah, check out my reel and stuff. And I was like, oh, dang, he's actually got talent, I think. And I was like, cool, cool. Why didn't you tell me this like two years ago? So that's how he got involved.
01:05:54
Speaker
I just took note of him and I was like, oh, he's good. Then we made Best Buds and then I wrote the role for Terrence for him. He was just someone I had in mind. Yeah, no, he was great, dude. Yeah, no, I think he killed it. Literally. He's got to be the guy and thankfully he was down to do it. He was also having a kid when we were about to start filming or he just had a kid. I don't remember exactly.
01:06:21
Speaker
I wonder why he was spitting so much in that fucking scene, you know? So that's how with him and like I said, the girl Danny Gabby, I met her through a mutual friend. She was in the film that's ever gonna be released. That's a great title, by the way. Well, we're gonna watch it, dude. You're gonna get at least two views. Two more views on that shit.
01:06:50
Speaker
Yeah, maybe one day I'll set it to you guys. Oh, I thought I thought we could just look it up on Ven me or No, you can't you can't see it. Oh Yeah, you gotta set it to us man. You gotta listen Yeah, no people love it. We'll love it. No, you gotta set it to us man for it. Okay, I'll shoot you guys a link
01:07:12
Speaker
But yeah, she was in that one and I met her through a mutual friend and we just kind of hit it off. And I was like, I kind of, I also wrote the role for, I kind of basically was like, okay, I'm going to use my resources for Directors Cut and start using people that I know and not trying to like,
01:07:28
Speaker
make it simpler for me to get my, to make this film. Yeah, that's smart. Yeah, that's smart. That's genius. I was like, okay, I'm writing that for her. And then like I said, the guy who played Jason, John Patrick Davis, he was in my college class, my cinema classes. We hit it off, you know, and he was an actor. And I made a lot of shitty films with him, you know, before he made anything, in my opinion, worth value. So I was like, he's going to be in this movie. So I'm writing for sure a good,
01:07:57
Speaker
a character for him, you know? And then when I reconnected with my buddy that I was friends with when I was like in elementary school, Stranton, the other guy. Yeah, he was really good, man. Yeah, he, I was like, oh, dang, like, well, I know I'm cool with him. I know I like him. And all he has to do, like, let me, let me hope he's not like a shitty actor, you know? No, no, he's good. And it's funny, because when we were younger, I would tell him, like, you should be, you should be an actor, you know? Oh, so you inspired him.
01:08:26
Speaker
Don't know if I did but I would we would tell him like meet not just me but other than neighborhood kids would tell my gear We were good at like doing impersonations or outgoing, you know Mm-hmm, but I didn't think it was gonna come of it cuz like it didn't seem like he was going on that route And then one day, you know, I see him on Instagram and that's what he's doing, you know, I'm like, oh dude, let's uh, let's collab so I wanted him to be in the movie so we can collab on something and
01:08:50
Speaker
And then the girl who, the film director, the female, the one who gives them the director's cut, Alicia, she is, I cast her through like a casting call. Like she, I never worked with her before. I found her on, was it backstage casting? Oh yeah, backstage.
01:09:09
Speaker
Found her she did she did an audition. I'm such an asshole. I give her a fuck, you know, you give sides I give her like a that whole scene the whole opening scene. Oh Yeah, he did an audition and this is like kind of my I guess my inexperience, you know, like I didn't know you're supposed to give like three pages max dude We didn't even know you're supposed to give sides to actors for casting calls because when we did our casting calls were like
01:09:35
Speaker
What what the fuck are sides? Yeah, bring a monologue. We were like just bring a monologue and start acting for us We didn't know we were actually we didn't know you were supposed to provide sides and we didn't know that what sides were yeah, so We just told actors just bring a monologue perform it for us and then we'll go from there and we auditioned hundreds of people Literally hundreds. Yeah like
01:10:00
Speaker
We had no idea what sites were and then what was it for the callbacks? The callbacks, we had talked to some of the actors and they educated us, which was great because it was like- Oh, sites are a thing? You actually got to read lines from the film? Oh, okay. We're going to come up with that. That's funny. We wrote separate monologues for that.
01:10:28
Speaker
For them to act that we wrote backstory monologues for every character. And it was like this is the introduction to your character and then so it was kind of like this would kind of give us a vibe on to what how the characters behave.
01:10:42
Speaker
Cause without actually, cause we were like, we don't want to stand up and see the script. Like the fuck? They're gonna steal our script and they're gonna make money off of this. And I was like, God, we knew nothing, man. But honestly, writing those backstories were very fucking helpful actually. So like we stumbled into a lot of, of like niceness.
The Journey from Short Films to Feature Films
01:11:03
Speaker
And then also we were just saved by like meeting some people that were just so generous with their time and just like introducing us to people.
01:11:11
Speaker
And I was just like, really? Like, you guys like our shit? Like, for real? Like, you really, you read the script? Like, you're down for this? You're gonna do this for free? Yeah. Like, we have literally like a guy jerks off on his sister. Like, it's fucking wild. And people are always hungry, you know, to get to make movies, I feel like. And I think too, it's like once you, when you come with like, oh, we're doing a feature. I think that's kind of where
01:11:42
Speaker
the line. It's like, yeah, I think a lot of lucrative for people to like take that leap with you. Cause I'm always on Reddit. I'm on the filmmakers read and I'm always reading like those kinds of subreddits and just people talking about it and they're like, Oh, I'm so excited to do this short. And I'm just like, you know what? But like, why don't you just do the feature? Like just do the extra, do the extra, go the extra mile because one, you're going to get more support just on the fact that you're doing a bigger project.
Launching a Filmmaking Podcast
01:12:10
Speaker
Like sometime I see people putting like thousands of dollars into shorts. And I'm like, that's cool. It's a good learning experience. But I'm like, add five more grand and you can do a whole feature like and and like, dude, and people will jump out of a fucking window for you because it's a feature. And it's like, and that's why. And then that's when Steve and I were like, hey, we got to do podcasts. We got to talk about this shit.
01:12:33
Speaker
We can get people to talk to us about this shit and teach us. Yeah, like listening to you, you know, you're not just telling this for our audience You're also educating us. That's why we're asking you these questions. It's like yeah, please tell us No, I appreciate it. No, I like we appreciate it because we both get something out of it You know, I think exactly talking about hearing your guys's experience, you know It's nice to hear it because it's also like oh, I'm not alone, you know, you're definitely not alone. Yeah
01:13:01
Speaker
You're not alone, but it's always reassuring when you're actually hearing someone else tell you. Then you just get the drive. After this, I'm just like, I just want to fucking work. I just want to go. Let's go, man. You get that motivation again. You get re-sparked, as I say. You just get like, oh fuck, I'm fucking ready to fucking... I'm writing 20 pages tonight.
01:13:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, dude, like, seriously, like, you know, I just saw this link on LinkedIn for your film. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna check it out. And I was like, damn, Tom, check it out. You know, to just see it, maybe we make fun of it, feel better about ourselves. And then immediately, I'm like, damn, we should get him on the podcast. And Tom's like, yeah, I already messaged him. And he's gonna be honest, like, oh, shit.
01:13:51
Speaker
you know, and that's the beauty of it, you know, just finding kindred spirits, you know, out there. Just try to, all of us just try to make our own films and try to make it happen in the little way we can, you know, like, I mean, it's such a struggle. It's... No one understands the difficulty, like,
Challenges of Balancing Filmmaking and Life
01:14:13
Speaker
I mean, hearing you film this in eight days and shit, that's mind blowing. I think ours was 31 days. Yeah, ours was 31 days of weekends. Every weekend for probably about six months. Yeah. And then just to see you guys coming out with your stuff and seeing how good it is, it's just...
01:14:38
Speaker
Yeah, man, it just reinvigorates us and gives us that motivation to keep on going, like for reals. No, no, I mean, I'm glad. I mean, like hearing you guys do that. I mean, like I said, I did that that one that I didn't that no one's going to, you know, I'll send it to you guys. Okay.
01:14:56
Speaker
But I did that one like I was doing that on weekends but you know fucking I I was gonna finish it in three months I thought but it ended up being like almost two years before I finished that one, you know Well, yeah, you know and but then hearing you like yeah, man, it took two years That was such a long time. We're like fuck man. We're we're looking at ten years on ours, but Well, yeah, we have some horror stories to just trying to hire out but you know, you just you just got to keep I
01:15:23
Speaker
going with it, you know, you gotta just believe in what you're doing, you gotta be that advocate for yourself and just keep pushing to make it come out. And that's difficult, that can be difficult because there's times where you're just like, ah, fuck, man, like, this is costing me so much money, costing me so much time, it's taking me away from my family. Like, you know, that's a tall ass, like, especially when you got a family, you know, and you see how it takes away from that.
Persistence in Filmmaking: Lessons from Seth Rogen
01:15:53
Speaker
Oh, definitely. But there's that hope that it's going to work and that.
01:15:59
Speaker
It'll make your family have a better life. You know, that's kind of the hope, right? No, that's part of the reason that you're still doing it because you're trying to please yourself because you want to be happy with what you do for a living, you know? And obviously for you guys, it's filmmaking and myself too. I know, I don't need anybody to tell me, you know, like I know what my
01:16:26
Speaker
What at least what I believe is my calling is making movies, you know, that's beautiful about it I'm sure that's how you guys feel about it. That's beautiful. So it's like it's it is tough, you know, it's it's a fucking it's a grind dude and the people that don't
01:16:40
Speaker
The best advice is the simplest advice. It's so simple. I'm sure plenty of people have said this over time, but I saw a clip of Seth Rogen, like a clip and he was just so real about it.
01:17:01
Speaker
If you quit, you're not gonna make it. But if you don't quit, you might just make it, you know, you might make it. It's that simple. And I'm on the ladder, I'm on the camp of like, I can't quit, you know, I'm gonna keep going until something lands, you know. And that's just the way my DNA is, you know, that's how I'm wired, you know, so.
The DIY Editing Experience
01:17:24
Speaker
I mean, trust me, I wish I would have made it five years ago. I've been in the door five years ago. Trust us, we understand. When I did that first movie. Yeah, we understand, man. We understand. I have a cool little tangent about this. We were cycling through editors and we were just burning money trying to get an editor to figure out our film.
01:17:48
Speaker
Yeah, which we wanted to do because we wanted someone who didn't know the film to kind of come in. Yeah, fresh eyes and then rebuild it, you know, to see what we had and recontextualize everything with fresh eyes and then show us the little gold nuggets we had. That was a hope.
01:18:11
Speaker
But they found just the shit and they just kept sewing us the shit and it was like, wow, did we really just do garbage? Like, is this just really the worst thing ever? Should we just like jump off a bridge? And then there was a point where it was just like, you know what?
01:18:25
Speaker
Let's just do it. And we both took some time off and we got a cabin up in Big Bear. And we've set up a projector and we had this big ass projector on the wall. We didn't just have gay sex. No. And whichever one was just like, oh, you guys are just going to go up there, you're going to get drunk and you're going to like just get fucking high and you're just going to like not do any work. You're just going to park.
01:18:47
Speaker
Yeah. We were going to broke back that shit.
Dreams and Aspirations in Filmmaking
01:18:49
Speaker
Yeah. But what actually happened was we did a whole cut of the film from scene one to end of the movie in that weekend or those three days or four days, whatever it was. And we just worked all day. And I just remember when we were driving back, there was this surreal feeling I had where I was like, this could just be our lives.
01:19:12
Speaker
because his butthole got touched a lot. Yeah. And I just kept thinking like this could be our life. Yeah. Like making like this could be what we get paid to do all the time. And it was just so the feeling was just so kind of like euphoric. Yeah. Imagine just getting paid to get my ass touched all day. No, I was kidding.
01:19:36
Speaker
But no, but just to create and tell stories and just work on them all the day. And then I'm like, and I think there are people that that's just their job.
01:19:47
Speaker
Yeah. And that's just their life. Their life is just their storytellers. Like, you know, I'm not Denis Villeneuve or, you know, we talked about Furiosa. I'm not George Miller. George Miller. I'm not, you know, or, you know, Michael Fassbender or just whatever the fuck you want to be. Like, you know, whoever. We're not these guys, but like they are living that life. And it's like, I don't need to be famous. I don't need to. If I do know who Joe Bezos is?
01:20:18
Speaker
Yeah. Jeff Bezos? Joe Bezos. He has a dick spaceship. Joe Bezos. He's the guy that made that Santa movie.
01:20:26
Speaker
The robot Santa Terminator movie. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he made VFW and he made Bliss. I think it was another film that he made. Oh, yeah. I've heard of Bliss. No. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's like Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. Oh, yeah. And there's like this like level of filmmaker where it's like they're only really kind of famous to people that are like into like nerdy indie films.
01:20:54
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm like, that's what I want to be. I don't need to be famous. I don't need to be walking red carpets. I just want to be like, okay, this is our next movie. It's going out. We got paid to make it. And like, and then like, we had Lucky McKee. Do you know who Lucky McKee is? He directed May, The Woman. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know. I know May. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had him on the movie as well. Yeah.
01:21:16
Speaker
Yeah, we had him on the podcast. Oh, nice. And we were talking with him and he was just like, you know, like he's like sometimes it's really rough because like filmmaking is so it's like not really like a stable form of income. Like when he's when he when he's not working, he's not getting paid. But when he's working, he makes enough money to like support his family because he's got kids like us and you know, he's got a wife and a family and it's like,
01:21:43
Speaker
But he's making movies and he's working with great, I mean, he's worked with Bruce Campbell. He's worked with, you know, great actors. I mean, he's worked with some great and fantastic actors like that. That's like the life like that. If someone was like, if you could go back in time, it's like, I don't want to be rich. I don't want to be that. I just want to make fucking movies.
01:22:05
Speaker
You just want to make a living making movies. You want to make a living. It doesn't mean you have to be like fucking, you know, Steven Spielberg level of money, you know? Yeah. I want to be like, no, my day job is making movies. Yeah. And it's like, sure, it's like might be annoying to explain to people like, no, I'm not Steven Spielberg. You know, there's like that perception that like, if you make money making movies that you're like this rich asshole living in Hollywood. Yeah. But I'm like, no, I could live.
01:22:34
Speaker
I just want to make a living make telling stories uh through filmmaking because it's it's a beautiful art form and it's and yeah, like if you could support yourself and your family just doing this like you don't need all the Lamborghinis and big households like if you could just get Just enough money To make this happen, you know, I just keep my corolla, you know, fuck. I mean, it's just like
01:23:00
Speaker
Like I said, it was like that weekend, right? It was like that epiphany where I was like, this could be our lives. And it's like, that's so beautiful, man. That's why you're still going at it because you have that feeling of like, damn, this is the fucking life. I've had the taste. A lot of people would be like, what kind of fucking life that is. But to us, that's the fucking life. I'm like, you don't get it.
01:23:28
Speaker
I don't want to wake up at four in the morning and drive down to LA, you know, like every day. Like this is like, that's like nine to five. That's fucking torture. Like this is literally torture. It's like if, if I died and there was a hell and I went there, it would just be like waking up tomorrow, like without making movies, right? Like that, like I'm already there, man. You know, shit. Like every now and then there's like some donut and sex. So it's like, okay. But like, you know, fuck.
01:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, no, I feel you, man. Sorry. The tequila's taking over, yeah. No, it's so true, though.