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TSP Ep 119 P1: Interview of Filmmaker Jake Borowski
37 Plays8 months ago
Tom and Steve interview filmmaker Jake Borowski. They discuss the life and career of Jake and the feature film he produced, Restraint, along with the avenues he and his team took to get their film out there outside of film festivals. They also discuss the Cream Colored Man and Dinosaurs!
So come along with us as we learn a thing or two!
If you would like to see Restraint you can find it here:
https://tubitv.com/movies/496290/restraint
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Special Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Everybody ready? Yeah, yes Okay, everyone. Welcome the Twin Shadows podcast the podcast about film filmmaking and filmmakers and today We have a very special guest with us We have Jake Borowski with us Jake. I want to introduce yourself real quick. Just say hi. Hello See just like that. Yep, and that's the end of the show That was easy We like easy around
Recent Movies and Inspirations
00:00:25
Speaker
here. So Jake what uh
00:00:27
Speaker
We like to start things off with the last films that we've watched. So what are the last movies that you remember watching? The other day, what did I watch? I guess the last real movie was Oppenheimer. Oh, okay. But the last Shutter movie was maybe Tenebrae.
00:00:54
Speaker
Oh, Tenderberry Argento? Yeah. Yeah, that one's really good. I was curious because I'd hear the soundtrack pop on on Spotify. And so I just I saw it and thought I'd give it a whirl. And yeah, that's a good one. This was on Shutter? Yeah. Yeah, I have my mentor, as I always call him. He's been watching a lot of Tubi and he said there's like a lot of old classic films on Tubi, like a lot of the Italian horror films.
00:01:22
Speaker
I guess from the 70s and earlier and then just like a bunch of hard to find like 50s, 40s, 30s horror films, etc. like pretty good and you can't see like a lot of the earlier films. He's naming all of these actors. I don't know what the fuck that is but...
00:01:39
Speaker
you know, if I had any education. So I heard, yeah, he was, he was like in the to be cool. So, uh, Argento go back to Argento. Are you an Argento fan or properly? Just it kind of, it's in on the, it's been on, he's been on the periphery and I just haven't really dove in much. Yeah. So it was an opportunity to do that, I guess. So Steven, what about you? What was the last time I movie you watched? Last movie I watched, uh,
00:02:07
Speaker
Oh, stand by me. I just decided it was on Netflix, wanted to watch something, so I put stand by me. I like that movie a lot, it's really good. And then after that, Arrival? Yeah, stand by me then Arrival, huh? Hey, it was all on Netflix. It's quite the show there.
00:02:28
Speaker
What about you? I watched Haunted Mansion, the new Disney movie. I have kids, so I don't have a choice. Well, I guess I do. It was okay. Yeah? It was okay. It was kind of a lot of, it suffers with a lot of movies, I think lately suffer from is like they're like bloated messes. It's like the runtime isn't used very well. And there's like a, I feel like they're trying to just cram a bunch of stuff in. So they didn't really get to utilize the ghost because they're just like focusing on the human characters.
00:02:58
Speaker
And I think the ghosts are kind of a cool story for Haunted Mansion. They only really explore the stories of two ghosts, or three ghosts. There's supposed to be like 999 of them, right? It's like, left a few out. Do you feel like it was too short or too long?
Thoughts on Disney's 'Haunted Mansion'
00:03:15
Speaker
It was too long. And if they should have, and it was like, a lot of the focus was like kind of all over the place, but the acting was good. Lakeith, Stanford is that thing?
00:03:27
Speaker
Lakeef, isn't it? He's from the desert. Yeah, I think he went to Victor. He did. Yeah. I think my brother went to school with him. Didn't you go to school with his brother? Yeah. So why don't you know Lakeef? He wasn't an ROTC, I don't know. What year did your brother graduate? Alex was... 07? Something like that. Okay. 07, 08. Yeah, I remember going to school with him. The desert's so small.
00:03:57
Speaker
It's a little too small. What year did you graduate then? 2002. Okay, I was 03. Okay. Yeah, so the two generations, the old and the young. I'm just kidding. The old and the new. Yeah, Haunted Mansion was okay. I probably won't watch it again. I think it was better than the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion that they did. You saw that too? I've seen that, yeah. I watched it in theaters when it came out. I love the Haunted Mansion ride. It's my favorite ride at Disneyland.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah, but that doesn't mean you might want to watch a movie of it. You know, you know, I'll watch anything. That's fair. I've seen blood diner. Blood diner? Yeah. Blood diner. I'm going to add that to my list. Blood diner? Yeah. Do you guys use cube? No. Cube? My friend, Lisette, told me about it the other day and I started adding movies to it.
00:04:46
Speaker
What is it? Give us like a little rundown. You know, someone's like, hey, check out this movie and you look for it. And they have, it's like, they have, they pull data from multiple sources. And then they'll, it'll show you all the platforms that it's on. Oh, that's really awesome. I remember we talked about trying to- We just still, I mean. What? Tubi.
00:05:15
Speaker
No, man. The best place to get movies is the Victorville swap meet. Really? Oh, yeah. It was last time I was there. It was, um, two DVDs for four bucks and two Blu-rays for like eight bucks, I think. Okay.
00:05:35
Speaker
But what movies? Just the bins, plastic bins, full of films and you dig through them and some of them are packaged. There's Tenebra, one of the DVDs. No, that was Shutter. Maybe. I don't know. They're Italian gallows. It's probably there. They usually got a nice variety and they run, you know, some of them are hit. They're hit and miss, but.
00:05:56
Speaker
I'd say a 5% failure rate. So you like having that physical connection with your films. So just having it all digital. I think it's cool because they're not, they always, the, um, the licensing agreements lapse and expire and change and you know, stuff changes. And I think people are catching onto that. Yeah.
00:06:19
Speaker
And it's nice, you know, I just, I've always wanted to like having a tangible version of something that I'm going to watch more than a couple of times. Well, so you have like a little library or a big library. Yeah. Do you pull from it and watch all the time? Occasionally. Occasionally. Cause I have mine.
00:06:36
Speaker
I never watch any more movies on there. Like, I'll be like, what am I gonna watch? I don't have anything to see. There's all the little DVDs behind me. Yeah, I have bins and bins
Physical vs. Digital Film Debate
00:06:45
Speaker
of DVDs. I should probably just go to the swap meet. Two for $4. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I remember when all the video stores were going down, I would just...
00:06:55
Speaker
buying like five, it was like five for $10 or something. Yeah, I think when the best buy went down, I grabbed a bunch of CDs and DVDs, especially like the music ones, because those were always so expensive. So if they're on sale, you could get them super cheap, you know?
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah, my big score, I remember Hollywood Video was closing down. I bought a bunch of DVDs and in one of the discs it was Metal Gear Solid 3. Oh no shit? Yeah. Wait, isn't that multiple discs? It's one disc, the PS2 one. Yeah. And I was like, well fuck yeah. Snake Eater, baby, for free. Yeah, that actually is right. Alright, not for free. I think the movie was like a...
00:07:33
Speaker
relative to Sahara or something like that, or whatever that movie was, if you guys remember that movie. That was Matthew McConaughey? Yeah, Matthew McConaughey. Hollywood video had a good selection.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, they did. They were a decent chain. They kind of killed our local stores. Oh, yeah. Village Video? Village Video had some good... Oh, you went to Village Video. When we were kids, that was where we'd stop off. Yeah, that's where we went a lot because we also lived right there. So it was like less than two miles, I think.
00:08:05
Speaker
And then the Blockbuster was right there too. But that was a little too expensive. Blockbuster was expensive. It was like, well, Grandma, did we get our taxes back?
00:08:16
Speaker
Let's go get some video. Just look longingly as you pass it. Oh, I'll make it impossible. But yeah, oh, video stars, I miss them. Yeah, Jake, I wanted to ask you, because Steven got me a 16 millimeter print of child's play.
Early Filmmaking Experiences
00:08:30
Speaker
Oh, cool. But I don't have a projector, and I have no idea how to use it. And I know you're kind of probably the guy to come to. Do you have a 16 millimeter projector?
00:08:38
Speaker
I don't. I'd like to get one. There's a few prints. I tried to look on eBay for some things, but that's solid, man. You should get a projector. Find one. They're out there. I just don't even know. I'm like, what are you... I don't even know what to buy. A big flashlight and just run it through like a fucking... No, you can find a 16 millimeter projector. Yeah, because also, because going through eBay, that's where I got his gift through. And the one gift I wanted to get him, but...
00:09:09
Speaker
I forgot what happened. I think people just started last minute bidding like they do, but they had Superman going for like 350. Whoa, like a print. Superman. Yeah. So I was like, Oh shit, I'm going to get that for him. But it went to 350 then last minute bid and then it shot up to like 500. And I was like, well, you know, Tom's cool at all.
00:09:31
Speaker
It's something different. Have you gone to the new Beverly or the Beverly now? Just talking about around for a minute. Yeah. I just went, uh, last month for a triple feature. That was his first time. Yeah. It is like Mecca for film nerds. Even just seeing the print bounce off a screen and back into your eyes is such a huge like thing that I think we've been missing. Yeah. So why do you, what do you think the difference is that digital lacks?
00:10:00
Speaker
Um, fields versus, you know, mechanical frames, I think it's, I think 24 frames per second projected through. I mean, I think film mimics the way we see a lot more than digital sensors and displays. Yeah. You have like a flat array of pixels that are like,
00:10:24
Speaker
reacting to light in one hand. And then with film, you have millions of little pieces of silver reacting to light. And it's different. I mean, you guys understand. I mean, I think you understand that.
00:10:42
Speaker
When I go there now, it's so, you know, you go to the theater and watch a digital movie projected onto a screen and back at you, or like on a giant LEDs, you know, array, just firing straight into, you know, with no projector. And it's not the same. No, it isn't. And film also has a lot of imperfections and those imperfections do add layer to the actual image.
00:11:09
Speaker
right the scratches and spots and you know a little bit of dust in the air like that kind of comes through i remember we uh one of the movies that we watched was evil dead 2 at eden new beverly and i've never seen it like that i've seen that movie a hundred times probably and i've never seen that movie like that really like like just with all the
00:11:30
Speaker
little blemishes on there. And the print was, the print was really nice. And the sound, the sound is different too. Like the sound that comes through, I feel like it's a little different. Yeah. I loved it. It was, it really is like. Well, yeah. Cause the sounds encoded into the film strip, right? For that.
00:11:50
Speaker
So when it's scratchy, overuse, it'll degrade with the picture and get those little pops and scratches. Yeah, well, I've noticed the sound is more flat for those older films. It's just a more flat sound. I think some of them are mono. Okay, maybe that's why it's coming out that way. Probably, yeah. Because I saw Indiana Jones there, and yeah, the sound just found a little more flat.
00:12:14
Speaker
I was going to mention one of the cool things too, like you were talking about film and its physical properties, a scientist just figured out a way to extract sound from photos.
00:12:25
Speaker
What? Yeah. Like from negatives? Yeah, I guess from the photos they're able to shoot it with the laser and it extracts the sound that was happening during that. Wow. I don't know how much it is, you know, how much sound it can really extract. Does it just sound like a... I didn't hear it. Like a frame? But they were saying, depending on the length of the exposure, it captures more sound over that time. Wow, that's interesting. Yeah. So it's like, what the fuck?
00:12:51
Speaker
Not only silver capturing the light, but it's actually somehow capturing sound. I still don't even understand like the technology behind a lot of that. Like how in the hell does like thinking like records? How the fuck does that work? Anyone know? You know, like a needle, I go through like a well, it's kind of I've imagined it. Isn't it kind of like a Richter scale kind of where, you know, the audio goes through a wire to a needle or laser or something and it's just kind of like scratches into the record or into the vinyl. Sorry.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly it. And it's just magic to me. I'm too dumb to get it. Well, as far as I know, they still don't understand how silver necessarily reacts the way it does to produce an image. Because I think that's one of the only chemicals that are that light-sensitive. Because there's really not a lot of light-sensitive
00:13:43
Speaker
solutions you can apply to a plate to get an image. So I, well, that's what my instructor told me. He said, they're still, they still don't really understand the, had the science to how that happens. Like why it does it. Yeah. Exactly. Like why it reacts the way it does and produces this. So shit. The magic of real
00:14:06
Speaker
Well, to get back into magic. So, so Jake, what, uh, what got you started in your filmmaking, uh, like your life, your journey, where did it begin? What, what was little Jake doing with movies? Probably like had a, you know, we had a, we had video cameras where kids, so it was, we didn't have any, I mean, I grew up in the late eighties, nineties. So we had like eight millimeter tape. Yeah.
00:14:33
Speaker
So I'd go on vacation and shoot things and that kind of like was getting familiar with the camera. And then.
00:14:42
Speaker
I think in high school I started, I discovered that you could ask your teachers to make a movie instead of write a paper. Really? Yeah. So then I was like, Hey, can I make a little movie for this project instead? And I was like, yeah, sure. I did the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's way better than having to write it. Yeah. And then that kind of just carried me through college. Yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker
What were some of those movies like? Do you remember? There was like a, I think when I was a, maybe a sophomore, I did like a little very linear, like get a few shots on eight millimeter for a math project. I don't even remember what it was.
00:15:23
Speaker
the storyline exactly. I don't even know if I have it. And then when I was a junior, we did, we were supposed to read of mice and men and do a report. So a few of us got, or a friend had a high eight. It might've actually been digital eight, but I think it was high eight. And then he took it to Odyssey because they had an avid, like a tape to tape out, like a avid tape.
00:15:49
Speaker
NLE, he was able to put a little edit together for that. And we were just, you know, reenacting of Mice and Men highlights in the desert. It was pretty goofy. Did you kill Lenny? I was Lenny. Oh no.
00:16:09
Speaker
And I got shot with a paintball gun. That was our gun. That's perfect for the desert. And then I was like, George, what'd you do that for? And then I took out George and we completely rewrote the whole thing.
00:16:23
Speaker
That's the artistic adaptation. I remember I did a picture of Dorian Gray as a instead of a painting It was called still frame. It was a photograph that changed as he did fucked up stuff and And then at the end he stabbed the picture with a knife and it killed him. Well, yeah, I remember seeing that film Yeah, it's like it was 40. I made it exactly the length of class. So everyone would get So by the time it was done like class was over. Do you still have it? I do it's on YouTube. I
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then I think, uh,
00:16:58
Speaker
When I got my work, when I was able to get a work permit, I took a summer job and I used that to get a little mini DV, JVC camera. And that's when my parents had, I got an iMac. And so we had, we then had iMovie and a FireWire port. Oh, and mini DV. Yeah.
00:17:23
Speaker
Um, so did a couple just messing around and like we did a little war, a little war movie in the river. Um, and that was like maybe five or six minutes.
00:17:37
Speaker
They just started making little shorts and stuff because there was this I was in theater and then we were at at the time we were driving out to Silverado for shows because Victor didn't have a theater and Jason L. Wright was like, hey, this guy Gerald's got a film festival. You should make something put it on the film festival. I was like, all right.
00:17:57
Speaker
So I was talking to my friend, Christie, who also went to Silverado about him because she still keeps in contact. I said, yeah, Jason Allright probably helped me start my film career besides, you know, Jen Nocera doing theater. I mean, theater got me into the other theater and then he was like, hey, you should try film.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's like, I'll do that actually. Oh, that's pretty cool. So then what it wasn't really film, it was tape. Yeah. You know, what did you go to college for then? What was the, um, I just did like a basic liberal arts thing at VVC to get my transfers stuff
Film Studies and Cultural Context
00:18:37
Speaker
done. And then I transferred to UCR. Oh, nice.
00:18:40
Speaker
And they had a film program there at the time that a guy I used to work with, Rajan Shandil, he actually started it because he was on independent study and they didn't have anything. So he kind of made up a film program for himself. And then they turned it into like a formal thing for a few years. And then the last I looked, it got split up between the art department and the humanities. So humanities does like a,
00:19:07
Speaker
cultural thing, which is kind of more of what I did there, which was like, look at different countries that have like film grants and publicly subsidize films in different regions and just watch them and break them down and, you know, consider the socioeconomic influences of them. And so did you guys watch close up?
00:19:34
Speaker
What's that? It's the Iranian film about the guy that makes a movie. No, no, no, no. Actually you would probably dig it. Close up. Yeah. Um, here's, you're gonna have to add probably a lot. That's cool, man. Just from that description of what you would study. So I was like, huh? I literally just jumped, just go bang, bang, boom, boom. Jumped close up, jumped right into my mind when he was talking about that. So 2012 or 96? 96. Yeah. Okay.
00:20:01
Speaker
Cool. Yeah, it's a film that wasn't made in Iran and it's about a guy that pretends to be a filmmaker but actually ends up making a movie. Sick. Yeah, you'll actually have to let us know what you think because it's a trip. It's a fucking trip. It's really interesting.
00:20:15
Speaker
I'll check it out. It was mostly, um, we did German cinema from like post-war up to like the nineties maybe. And then, um, Southeast Asian cinema, Chinese, Vietnamese. Okay. So that was the focus. What, what countries kind of stood out to you as like.
00:20:33
Speaker
This is where it's at. I was really impressed with how Latin American countries, indigenous tribes in Central and South America and the Mexican film industry kind of just sort of evolved itself into a thing. They tell very personal stories.
00:20:56
Speaker
And it's, it's kind of a mix of like public funding and private funding, but I'm not sure what it's like now. But I just, I really like, you know, Latin American cinema. So that was, that was a big one. And then the Chinese, you know, movies that came out of China during the like
00:21:23
Speaker
the, um, like the post-war to like, I guess the eighties and nineties periods, like that period of time. Yeah. They're all, it's the same thing, you know, they're very like, they're very human centric and story and the stories are really compelling and they're different from a lot of what we had, I think that was commercially driven. And, but the, you know, the, the,
00:21:54
Speaker
Like the 70s, I think, once you got out of the studio, the rigidity of like the studio system, things started loosening up and getting kind of cool. Oh, yeah. So was China so heavy in propaganda back then as they seem to be now? Um, because back then there was one, uh, what was the one that we watched? It was, um, farewell, my concubine. Oh, I've heard. Hey, they just re-released it in theaters. Yeah. It's like the 30th or 20th anniversary.
00:22:25
Speaker
I think that one got kind of, the dude made it got kind of in trouble just cause it was like pretty, the theme, they weren't really happy with a lot of the themes that were in it. But I could be wrong, but that one was like, that's a really good movie. And it's long, it's, you see a whole journey of a person through their life. I like those kinds of films where you see like a journey of a person through their life.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah. Like over like a long timeframe or just a snapshot or a vignette. Like a full like long timeframe. Did you ever see In the Mood for Love? No. No? I love that movie. Yep. You're going to the list. Going to the list. That's, that's a good one. Yeah. That one. Yeah. Some of the best just directing and cinematography and one of the best soundtracks ever, I would say. Yeah. That's a, that's the one that, uh, everything, everyone all at once ripped off, right?
00:23:18
Speaker
Yes, actually. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was a strong, uh, influence. Sorry. F stories or whatever. Hong Kong. Yeah. It's on the, it's on the criterion list. Oh, Wong Kar Wai. I like that dude. Cool. Yeah. I'll check it out. Yeah. It's on the list. Yeah. Yeah. I know.
00:23:36
Speaker
That's why I'm excited for you to see it because I know you'll love it. Yeah, we got to get through that list. I still want to see Paris, Texas so bad. Oh, yeah. I always heard about that. Have you seen that one? No. No, I saw you there. That's on the list. But yeah, I mean, you always hear about it. Paris, Texas, Paris, Texas. Well, I love it. I love Harry Dean Stanton and much his name's also in it too, right?
00:23:57
Speaker
Oh, god. Is that Linklater? No. No, it's... No, I'm thinking of his first one. Slackers? Slackers. Who did Paris, Texas? I don't know off the top of my head. But yeah, Dean Stockwell is also in it, I believe. Oh, really? And like those two together. Like those are just like two of my favorites. Like they just like in... Like, Harry Dean Stanton's in like a lot of really good fucking movies. Like Repo Man. You've seen Repo Man? Mm-hmm. Okay, good. That's a good one.
00:24:28
Speaker
It is really good. Yeah. So let's see. So you went to then you graduated from college. Did you graduate and get your film degree or did you? I mean, it was a degree. Yeah. Okay. It's somewhere. And so then what happens after that?
00:24:44
Speaker
Do you, what's your ambition at that point? Are you like, I want to be a director. I think I want to actually, we just wanted to learn everything. Cause I was, I said I had started editing and like just a operating camera. And, um, I would do PA, I would get on cause, um,
00:25:06
Speaker
We had the Inland Empire Film Commission in Riverside. And so productions would come out here to film in like the desert and El Mirage and stuff. And there was a film in Hesperia called Neighborhood Watch. I think it was 35 millimeter, but I got on there as a PA for a few days.
00:25:29
Speaker
I got on Jarhead for like a day or two. I was on Jarhead. Yeah? Yeah. Were you an extra? Oh yeah, I was a Marine. That was cool, right? Yeah, I did it for like a week. Sick. Yeah, and I even got put into the, they call it like the stay program or something, which is actual a Marine term, but it was for the extras who were gonna be on camera, but I got booted and they put me in a, what do you call physical, what do they call it? Physical exercise?
00:25:56
Speaker
Oh, PT? Yeah, they put me in PT. So we were doing jumping jacks for like six hours. That's wild. I had to drag some cars that came around the corner. Oh, really? In the parade ground scene. Yeah. And then that night we did something at the theater.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, I was there too. I got to meet Jake Gyllenhaal a little bit there. Okay. Yeah. We sat, he had, he sat at our table for dinner. He was cool. Just bullshitted. Oh yeah. That's cool. I thought he was really annoying. You didn't invite him to be on dickhead, buddy? Nah. I don't think I said a single word when I was there, man. I didn't talk to nobody. That's why you got passed up. Yeah. That's why you're doing jumping jacks. You're supposed to kiss some ass, bro. That's true.
00:26:43
Speaker
Oh man. So I know you, uh, well, this probably might be jumping forward. And was it, it's called restrained. I'm sorry. Um, so I know you produced that. So what kind of happened with all that? Cause it, that has, that was a pretty cool movie. Yeah. Did you watch it? Yeah, I have seen it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. With, uh, Dana Ashbrook. Yeah. Uh, I remember when you, cause you were posting a lot about it when you guys were filming on it. So I remember I like tried to get it as soon as I could. Okay.
00:27:13
Speaker
No, it was, we just were like, uh, they had the script and I was fortunate to be on a great team of really competent people. Yeah. Um, but we kind of just divvied up responsibilities and Adam directed it and wrote it and just kind of pieced it together. We wanted to shoot up here because, you know, it's cheaper to shoot up here, I think.
00:27:39
Speaker
And we rented a house in Apple Valley and kind of doubled as our HQ, our production office slash hotel slash. That's the Mindy filming right there. Yeah, it was tight. And I was still work, you know, working at the school full time. So it was a lot of driving back and forth for a few weeks. And then we'd shoot, you know, full days. And when was this?
00:28:08
Speaker
2014 ish. Yeah, it's been a minute. Yeah.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah. I need to rewatch it again. It was pretty cool. Cool. You should check it out. I've noticed that just from the, you know, comments and people who've actually seen it, you know, it's very much like it has its audience. But then I think what happens is a lot of people who expect what, you know, end up watching it. Maybe there's probably a percentage that expects something else and then don't get that. And they're like, what the fuck? This movie sucked.
00:28:45
Speaker
So do you get like a built-in audience because you have Dana in the movie? Cause of like all the twin peaks and everything?
Film Distribution Challenges
00:28:51
Speaker
I don't know. I've tried to, that whole, the whole, you know, just distributing that has been a very eye-opening learning experience.
00:29:01
Speaker
And I would like to be able to see a lot of the data that is produced by different platforms and track it and kind of see where things are coming from. Cause there's a way to do it, but they don't want, you know, nobody wants to give that up or share it or anything if they don't have to.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. So then where can you find it then? So it's on streaming. It's on prime. Yeah, it's on prime. It's on YouTube now, actually, for ad supported video on demand. It's on Tubi. Oh, it's a Tubi. iTunes, Google Play. Tubi wasn't even around when it was released. No, that was a new one. It might be on Voodoo. Oh, okay. Voodoo has some good stuff.
00:29:45
Speaker
Is that one ad supported? Is that an ad thing? It's been a while. Tubi's an ad thing, right? Tubi is. Tubi is, yeah. Tubi, apparently, somehow, I was able to get a spreadsheet of the first quarter that it ran in the United States. Oh, wow. And I was able to see that ad supported video on demand is pretty much like you're going to get... That's where the bulk of the views come from.
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah. And then, uh, rentals and downloads. Oh, that's where another bulk comes from. That's like the second. And then after that is like physical media. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So then I don't know if you mind sharing it because, you know, eventually we'll be heading into the distribution element. What are some of the things you ran into that were unexpected and just kind of what was that experience like in general?
00:30:40
Speaker
Well, we had kind of a plan ABC type of thing. And plan A was like, let's maybe look into self distribution. But at the time there weren't a lot of, there wasn't really like a solid aggregator that would, that was like doing it. Yeah. Which is an aggregator. You'll basically pay them a setup fee and get all the files, all your files together and everything.
00:31:10
Speaker
And then they make calls to iTunes, Google Play, Voodoo, and Tubi, I think, or Amazon. Because Amazon used to have a program where, as a filmmaker, you could just submit directly to them and set it up that way. But I think they got so much shit content that they were like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, they had to stop that. You have to call some rules, go through these gatekeepers.
00:31:41
Speaker
So, you know, we couldn't, we weren't really in a spot to where we could self distribute reliably. Cause it was kind of just a guest guessing game. Yeah. So we got a sales agent and then they did the whole take it to markets, try to sell off territories. Oh yeah. Which I mean, it made enough back to pay for that, like paying. Yeah. Yeah. To get itself. But.
00:32:11
Speaker
You know, I think that was its own learning process. Okay.
00:32:18
Speaker
Did you ever enter the festival, Marcus? Was that ever a consideration? It went to a few. It went to Buffalo International and then some online, some weird online ones. But it was never like the main avenue. So then the main choice was always that self-distribution. I mean, that's originally what I had wanted to do. And we never sold every, you know, we didn't sell all every territory. So there's some like, um,
00:32:46
Speaker
South America and Latin America. I thought you liked the Latin America. Those are, those are available. So, um, you know, we, once the two year period of having a sales agent expired, we started looking into it and found a company called Bitmax. And so I've been kind of working on them on getting deliverables. The most recent one was doing the captions because, you know, they want to have their own captions file. And so instead of paying for it, I was like, well, I'll just figure out how to do it.
00:33:17
Speaker
And so that's been a little bit of trial and error, but they were pretty cool because it was mainly just, you know, give us a ProRes file with some, you know, if it's stereo fine, they'll up mix it to five one if they need to, but they can basically peel off everything they need from a ProRes file for the most part. And it's a flat fee. So you pay a flat fee and then,
00:33:44
Speaker
an annual maintenance fee once it's up and they let you keep everything and it ends up you know the maintenance fee ends up being like maybe a couple hundred bucks a year and so the deal is pretty it seems pretty good but it's still kind of like we still got to just get it to where they have because the problem is
00:34:05
Speaker
Um, because the rights were all split up the way they were, it makes it hard to get onto prime because the first person to put it on prime, um, because, uh, kind of, it's, I think it's changed because I've seen movies where like, um,
00:34:23
Speaker
There's multiple versions of the same movie on prime now and like one of them you can't get access to, but one of them you can. Oh, so I'm guessing that like one of them is maybe a different territory that isn't available. Yeah. Or was, and then one of them's like North America, but.
00:34:41
Speaker
Because you split up like that it may it was making it kind of hard to be like how do we do this exactly so we've been working with them to figure that out and the conclusion will be that it should be available in.
00:34:59
Speaker
Once it's, once the English captions are good and then those are translated, every platform that didn't get sold should be able to have it. And then that, and you know, they let you keep everything after that. So, and you get access to all the data, you know, all the data that these platforms produce. And that's really, I think the important thing. So not having that is kind of,
00:35:22
Speaker
Lame. Yeah. So then that's a huge element then is to maintain those rights, right? I think so, yeah. I think the best way to do it is just like, treat it like a coffee shop. Work the cost of paying an aggregator to get it onto a base.
00:35:43
Speaker
Cause we have the platforms now and there's a way to get on there. Yeah. And you don't want to give up your rights to have access to your audience and you know, information about what your movie's doing and how it's doing. Yeah. It just doesn't make any sense. And then if you can keep all your global rights, you basically have like a, a, a functional worldwide business.
00:36:08
Speaker
that, um, you can at least get, get on the ground and move, get it moving, you know, get it sold, get it up there. Maybe buy some YouTube ads or some Instagram ads just to prime the pump a little. Um, and just see how it works organically. Just learn, you know,
00:36:27
Speaker
how people, who's buying it, where they're buying it, you know. But without any of that data, you can't find. You can't do anything, yeah. My parents had a good idea. They're like, why don't you run some ads to restraint? I was like, cause I would not be able to see how they do. Like I couldn't, I couldn't see what they do until we have, you know, access like to all of South America and I can run ads to South America and see, well, how does it do in South America?
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Cause we had some friends who, and just hearing you talk about that aggregator, we had some friends who got their film bought up by a company, but for that company, they took all rights from them for the next eight years. And how much did they get all their budget back? I don't know if they want to say, but they only got 2000. Yeah. Fuck that. That's bullshit. And I don't even know how much they cost to even set up the fees and all of that. Cause they put money into that. Dude, it's like, it's less than $2,000.
00:37:26
Speaker
Yeah. And you get to keep all your rights and it's just working that cost. And annually, the maintenance should be pretty low. I don't know about other companies that are doing the same thing, but I would find someone that
00:37:41
Speaker
just over time, the cost is reasonable and you're gonna have a setup fee and you're probably gonna have to pay for them to generate their own captions. Because those are getting very strict. The captions? Yeah, there's a lot of nuance to them and they have to be able to be formatted in a way to where they can derive other languages off of and stuff. Oh, okay, I see.
00:38:10
Speaker
It's a little tricky. I just make a text file and then code it to the movie. No, not that easy. It was interesting, but I think the next go around, I would just budget the I think it was 750 just for them to also make a caption file off of all that.
00:38:27
Speaker
So you're saying it's worth to just pay it off. Totally. If you can afford it. Okay. Cause you get to hold on to the rights. And then the other thing too is I would have, I think that if I were to do it again and have that experience of holding onto the rights, going through an aggregate or getting it, just getting it out there, maybe do, I mean, festivals are cool, but it's like,
00:38:47
Speaker
There's only a few that really require, you know, big ones that are like, you cannot have it sold because they have their own markets and stuff. Yeah. Or they have buyers there, but it's like, just put it online and then submit to festivals. If they want it, they want it. If they don't cares.
00:39:04
Speaker
but at least people have access to it and they can give you money to watch it and you can see where they're watching it and what they're watching it on. Yeah. That shit's valuable. And then I think you have a lot, you have a lot more ground to stand on at that point to then like try to sell off rights, peel off rights.
00:39:28
Speaker
Because their distributors are looking to get that shit at a discount, package a bunch of movies together and then make their money that way. And I think their whole business model is to just sell the whole thing short. Yeah.
00:39:46
Speaker
so that they can make something by just existing as a middleman. And it's like, just get rid of them. I mean, they have a, I think they have a purpose, but in a lot of, in other situations, but if you're just like making a movie and you want to get it out there, just do it yourself. We're there, we're there. That's a good point too. And he says, they're just packaging movies. Cause like our buddy is, it's probably a lot like they really focused on that one movie. It's probably like, here's like a collection of these films by it at this rate.
00:40:15
Speaker
Yeah, they're like ad buyers. They're the ad buyers and distributors, I think are very similar, where they're just like, you know, get a bunch of stuff together that I can put here. Yeah. And in that process, you make a little bit of money. Yeah, because at that point, it's just content to fill in that right, that ad.
00:40:36
Speaker
Huh. Yeah. There's a lot to think about. Yeah. If you want help, if you want to like work out some things, let me know. Cause I would love to just kind of dig into that more. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely. Once we get there, we're getting close. Like we're getting close and I know we probably should be starting on that stuff soon so that there's like a presence. When it's finished, just wait till when you have a finished thing and you're like, all right, it's done. Then then worry about it. Yeah. Save yourself the heartache.
00:41:08
Speaker
That's fair. That's fair. It will probably be pretty painful. Yeah. I mean, it's just, I mean, we're looking at posts now and just trying to find. Just get there. Yeah. Once you get, once you have the locked cut and you're like, this is good. We're happy. It's done.
00:41:25
Speaker
Like you'll free up so much mental, so many mental resources, just an emotional, just to like do all that other stuff that it'll be fun. And that's what we've been saying. It's like, I can't wait till someone's coloring this. It's not us or composing. It's a horror film. It's a horror film. Yeah. Called Dickhead. Are you cutting it on premiere?
00:41:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we have a pretty solid cut right now. There's only really like three scenes to lock up. And then fine tune it a little bit. And then yeah. Getting close. We can see the finish line. Oh, yeah.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah, which we couldn't, you know, we've been trying to say for a long time. So, uh, after, well, we kind of jumped into restraint and then, so, but after college, like what kind of roles did you want to do? Did you want to do producing? I know you talked about photography, but like directing, do you like to write? Like, how does that kind of, how does that go for you?
Editing and Production Journey
00:42:25
Speaker
It was kind of like, I just wanted, I was doing a lot of, I was doing editing, lots of editing.
00:42:34
Speaker
We were shooting local commercials and then there were just different projects I'd pop on and I think it was just, I was realizing there's so much content. That's about the time that just different types of content started popping up everywhere that I kind of just wanted to learn. I wanted to just focus on.
00:42:53
Speaker
capturing image and sound and cutting it together and delivering it as something and just get that muscle working. Because I felt like I couldn't really direct or write until I had like a solid understanding of the whole production process. So I kind of just jumped around a lot.
00:43:14
Speaker
did a lot of crappy digital effects on shorts, sky replacements, things like that. Oh, good. We need some sky replacements. So then would you mostly focus in the post realm then? Yeah.
00:43:34
Speaker
There was, uh, you know, some shorts, I think it was 2006 or seven, maybe when I graduated. And then I had a friend who wrote a short and we went out in Lucerne and shot that. That eventually got released somewhere, I think, but it was, it was like a 40 minute short.
00:43:55
Speaker
And I got operated camera on that. That was fun, but then just mostly editing. I did like a lot of marketing at one point, like print and add stuff, just making ads. And then, um, around 20 11 ish, there was, uh, for my friend's brother was, um, directing a feature down in
00:44:26
Speaker
like Moreno Valley area. And he needed a DP. So he just went down and did like a second unit thing and shot a couple of days. And then they wanted to do this Western series and got some money for that. So we shot a bunch of episodes of that just on digital cameras.
00:44:50
Speaker
And I added a couple of them, but then I had a friend at it. And that's when I started getting into like working with someone else editing what I'm shooting. Yeah. And then about that same time I started working for Stan Winston school. And then that's kind of where I've been. So how did that come about? Um, I was doing effects on my friend, Frank, it belittos short films and tell he and, uh, Zeke Zabrowski.
00:45:17
Speaker
He made a series called End Teller where tellers out in the desert and during a zombie apocalypse and he's just kind of like waxing poetic on the days and shooting zombies and stuff and the trip teaching them magic. And so they were going to film a course with him one day and he's like, Hey, you want to come and hang out while Stan and some guys are here? And I didn't know what that meant. So I was like, sure.
00:45:44
Speaker
And so I was just there kind of like noodling on the computer and the guy that they had hired to operate camera didn't show up. So I was like, I'll shoot, I'll operate for you. So I did that for a day. And then they were like, Hey, you want to come back tomorrow? Sure.
00:46:01
Speaker
So we did that off and on a couple of times a month for a while. And then at one point they needed help with post and some other things. Okay, cool. So then you're doing editing and camera operating for them still?
00:46:20
Speaker
Um, well right now we have, uh, like we hire camera operators. So I have other people to operate. I still operate the overhead jib camera with Eric and we all just kind of like, we're watching and making adjustments as we go, but there's now two dedicated camera operators doing like inserts and we have an overhead and a master.
00:46:46
Speaker
And it's usually pretty much the same setup. There's times like this year we've been filming at Fonco Studios. It's going to end up being, I think, four parts of a miniature build to completion. And then about a year or two ago, we hired another editor and then I trained him to cut a course from start to finish.
00:47:15
Speaker
Yesterday was the first time we've been on or yesterday and the day before were the first times we've been on set where someone else can switch and other people are operating mostly. And so now I'm on a laptop watching and taking time code notes of like, cut this, this is a cool, this would be a cool ad. You know, this might be cool, a cool line for the trailer. Yeah.
00:47:40
Speaker
So getting more into that, like making little social contents and add contents and then just making sure the things get finished. There's a whole process now where, you know, they'll take the line. We'll take the line cut from YouTube. Um, Andrew will sync up all the cameras in resolve and then we'll transfer the edit points from the line cut into that multicam clip. So that'll give him like a starting point and then we'll just go through and like start chopping it up into chapters.
00:48:09
Speaker
Oh, wow. And he'll send it to me. I'll make notes. I'll send him the notes. He'll do them. We'll upload them for QC. You know, there will be a last round of notes. And make those changes, swap them out, get everything together and launch it. So what exactly is Stan Winston? He's a special effects artist terminator. He was. Yeah, he was a special effects creature creator character.
00:48:37
Speaker
So then what is, what is the company doing? Just other specialists named after him. And it's, uh, basically working with, um, the, a lot of the artists that worked with him and new artists who do special practical effects. Okay. So it's a lot of painting and sculpting up at making some filmmaking.
00:49:04
Speaker
Um, there's probably two, I think we're at, uh, a little over 240, 240 courses. Oh, wow. And about a thousand hours now. Oh, wow. That's cool. Yeah. And it's just real time, you know, process. Yeah. Just here's your tools and materials and here's what we're going to do and let's get to it.
00:49:27
Speaker
And so then the focus is definitely then only strictly practicals? Uh, not strictly. There's, we have some digital courses. We have some ZBrush courses and, um, the, the one we just did was as a makeup apply makeup, but, um, with some, a mixture of appliances, like, um, well, actually this was,
00:49:56
Speaker
This was all silicone mostly. Silicone and urethane. But there was just a quick overview of here's this on Terminator 3 and here's the green screen part. And here's how you hybridize this practical effect with a digital plate type of thing. There's a few other instances. There's just in the manufacturing processes. We did one last year with a,
00:50:25
Speaker
It was based on the T-Rex eye, taught by the guy who made the T-Rex eyes. And what he was doing was wanting to basically create an eye process based off of that, then incorporated 3D printing. So he worked with an artist, I think it was in ZBrush.
00:50:48
Speaker
to sculpt like a piece of the eye, 3D print it and then paint and coat it. And it's kind of the same sort of style of T-Rex eye. So there's hybridizing the manufacturing process and then hybridizing the picture itself.
00:51:12
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So is there ever a worry because like, uh, practicals, you know, they're not nearly used, not used nearly as much. I think that I don't know what that, I mean, I don't even know what the, at this point, I don't know what that, what pool of data that's that would even be based on. Okay. Or if it's even, I mean, because practical effects if planned properly are a lot cheaper than any digital effect. And I think a lot of,
00:51:43
Speaker
movies that are overly reliant on digital effects probably have tax credit obligations to hire digital artists and stuff them into a building and make them work on something.
Practical Effects vs. Digital Effects
00:51:58
Speaker
And so they're basically making money on the backend off of that process in that sort of roundabout way versus like,
00:52:08
Speaker
We literally just need to get these shots. Let's get them cheap, you know, as cost-effective as we can, but also visually, you know, visually cool. Yeah. Um, I think that there's the way that like Jurassic Park did it and the abyss.
00:52:26
Speaker
and the mummy. And in movies like that, where they would kind of mix the two, like you'd have some digital, but you were basically shooting on film, shooting practical effects on film, printing a digital plate to film, compositing that onto a scan of a negative and outputting that as the final shot was like,
00:52:50
Speaker
That was special. I think those are special images. And I don't think you can achieve that digitally at this point. I mean, I think a lot of heavy digital movies are more like video game cinematics at this point. And it's cool, but it's a different thing. It's a hyper real thing. Yeah, there's just that uncanny valley that's hard to get over.
00:53:19
Speaker
Well, even just the scale of so much of those digital effects, you know, like, um, I saw transformers not too long ago, the beast one. Yeah. And I mean, if you saw it practically, it'd be like mind blowing, you know, but to see it in digital, it's just, you get bored. There's just so much going on in the screen, you know, and it's just overwhelming and it loses its impact. You know, it just, it just loses any weight it actually has because of the oversaturation of all of that use.
00:53:49
Speaker
Do you feel like you're used to it in a sort of way? No, I don't think I'm used to it because it always- It's just not effective or something? It just elicits a response from me every time I see it. Either I get a headache or I'm like, oh, whoa, there's a lot going on here. I've been having the opposite reaction of use to it. It's been looking worse and worse recently. I don't know if that has to do with- But don't you always notice it though? That's what I'm saying. I always notice it and yeah, it's just,
00:54:16
Speaker
Cause yeah, I saw that, I saw the new, that new Transformers and it was, I thought it was horribly ugly. I thought it was one of the, I mean, Bumblebee, I thought looked way better. And I'm not sure what, I mean, I know there's different, different, you know, in times and technology, but like, I was like, it just looked, I thought it looked terrible. I was not a fan. Did you see any of like, I haven't seen them, but have you seen the spider verse ones that are kind of like a mix of different things? Yeah, I've seen the first one. Those seem like they were getting pretty,
00:54:46
Speaker
I'd like to check it out just because the way people describe them, but I think they're good. Like a cool way to deal on Spider-Man. Yeah. Then you'll, yeah, then it's good. Cool. Do you like Nick Cage?
00:54:57
Speaker
Yeah, check it out. Put it on the list. Yeah, I would say the second one's more interesting than the first, as far as that goes, because they mix it up even more. They push further, because it's the multiverse, so everything exists in the multiverse. And as an art piece, it's a little more interesting, but sometimes it's just too hard to read, because again, there's just too much going on the screen. And it's like they needed to dial it back.
00:55:26
Speaker
so that you could focus on what you need to see because there's just so many competing elements within the frame that the eye just doesn't get to focus on what it needs to. So I think it suffers that. But it is interesting to see certainly how they mix it up. I mean, they have Lego Spider-Man.
00:55:45
Speaker
And then they have drawing ones for the punk Spider-Man. It's more like a drawing sketching of some sort. So you get to see, it feels like different mediums mixed in there. So that's always interesting. But yeah, it was just too much going on in the screen. It's kind of like, eh.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah, they do, they employ a lot of cool tricks. And in the first one, I remember some characters move at different frames per second, depending on their animation style. I think even the film is filmed at a different frame rate. Yeah, so depending on the art style, the character. Like the animation. They'll be animated at different frames. Like the olders will like be animated at like, I think it was like 12 frames per second or something like that. Okay. And so that was pretty, it was interesting, but it's also kind of like, you have to really be kind of paying attention to notice. I bet that kind of went over a lot of people's heads.
00:56:32
Speaker
But then it's like the details are there also like a compliment to them because they don't want that to be noticed. Right. Yeah. Within the context of that. But yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. I you know, it's funny because we're talking about the practicals versus digital because we were watching our are we working on our edit the other day.
00:56:52
Speaker
And I was high as a kite and drunk. So, you know, it made everything feel a lot better. Gives you more radical ideas. But just seeing it, because initially from the onset of this, I always felt like, you know, we're going to have the practical effects going like a bloody hand along the wall. That's always going to be there. And then we can just add to it with digital effects to make it a little more.
00:57:12
Speaker
I don't know. Color graded or something? Not color graded, but just more striking, but more just prominent within the scene, you know? Because they look very lackluster. Augmented a little more? Yeah, like maybe dripping, not dripping blood necessarily, but just accentuating it all. But then watching it, I was kind of like, man, maybe we just say fuck it to that. I mean, I think there's some areas where we do need some digital, like police lights. I think we should have that.
00:57:43
Speaker
But there was just a certain charm to the practical effect in respect to us and our film. It's a low budget film, you watch it, you're like, yeah, these guys definitely had no money, didn't know what they were doing, but they tried. And so there's charm in that, like with the evil dead, right? It has its issues, but you appreciate it for what they're trying to accomplish and do and what they achieve.
00:58:09
Speaker
not to say we're anything like that whatsoever, not at all. There's like three movies you don't compare yourself to. Clerks then. But when you see these independent productions where you know they had no money and they kind of just had a camera and ran with it, there's a certain charm in films like that.
00:58:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. But I watch a lot of them on Fubi. Film lover. Yeah. No, because they're always adding like bad digital effects and everything, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a point where I think it's kind of like, man, either they didn't sell the practical effect or the whole time they had a friend that was like, I know Photoshop. Yeah. And honestly, probably,
00:58:51
Speaker
Seven times out of 10, you'd be better off just trying to figure out a practical solution, especially in the area that Tom and I are in. I don't know why I brought that up. I just want to make that as a tangent. Practical effects are like pizza and sex. Even bad pizza and sex is good. Yeah, dude.
00:59:10
Speaker
It's got an audience. Someone will find it and they'll watch it. I was kind of curious to get your input on this. I was thinking about how markets and everything today, everything is so niche. Like there are just people that just like Italian gala movies. There are people that just watch like David Lynch, Twin Peaks movie, like over and over again. Right. And so how do you kind of approach those markets when trying to break into those niches are like, if you, how do you like try to pull those people in?
00:59:39
Speaker
That's probably a strategy.
00:59:43
Speaker
I think you could probably just make whatever the fuck you want. And then, but also be like, I'm going to make this action movie for X amount of dollars and it's going to have some blood and you know, it's going to have this sort of general storyline and it might like fit sort of like a template in a way that maybe could be pieced together from what, you know, looking at like a niche or a market like you're talking about.
01:00:12
Speaker
I think there's a lot of ways to go about it. I talked to a sales agent at our cigar meetup at one point. He was just hanging out there and he just happened to be there. But I was just picking his brain for hours. And he had been in production and then got into sales and then eventually was like, well, these are the kinds of movies that are selling at markets. And he'd learned from them.
01:00:39
Speaker
and kind of went through different ones. And he showed us, you know, it was me and a couple others. And he showed us some examples of things that he had sold at what price point and stuff and the storylines. And I still need to check some of them out, but I wrote them down. But I think that's a way you can go. Is that a way you would go?
01:00:58
Speaker
I don't know. I'd like to go to the AFM just to see what it's like and see what's there and how, you know, how that all works just for knowledge purposes. But I'm still, I really like just like, you know, like with restraint, it was really the script. It was like, yeah, this is, this can be shot for, you know, a low amount of money in one location, mostly. Yeah. And the story is pretty good.
01:01:27
Speaker
you know, and it's kind of scary. And I want to see what happens to the end, but it's not like 20 other things that are on a, I mean, it could, there's, there's films that are like it, but they're not like, it wasn't a thing where we could say, Oh, this fits into this mold. Yeah. Let's just do that. It was, it kind of stood on its own and a lot of what it stands on its own, I think, but,
01:01:56
Speaker
It's also, you know, character driven in one location and it shares a lot of similarities to other films in a way to where you could make, you could probably break it down and classify it in that way. So what kind of, do you have a, what kind of stories do you like to tell? Do you have, do you have like a story in mind or something that you want to do for yourself?
Exploration of Folk Horror
01:02:15
Speaker
I've been way into folk horror lately. Okay. So I'm kind of exploring the idea. Don't torture the duckling.
01:02:22
Speaker
I've never heard of that. Add it to the list. Add that to the list. That's a film? Yeah. It's a good one.
01:02:31
Speaker
But I have a folk horror list I've been chipping away at. Yeah, I got when they released that when shutter would release that big folk horror documentary I just devoured every single one that they had on there and then I just was like I need every folklore movie ever made and I like Let's scare Jessica to death, you know stuff like that. I was on there. I don't think I've seen that one. Yeah, that was a good one. I just I can just devour like once I get into like a
01:02:58
Speaker
Like a genre or a theme, I can just devour movies like nonstop. And what exactly is full core? Full core. So you have like the perfect example would be like The Wicker Man. Right. It's like a folksy kind of tale, but then there's horror elements added. Right. Normally like a small village, mythological creatures, you know, urban legends, that kind of thing. So dealing with the creatures from all of those and.
01:03:24
Speaker
It usually involves a small town. It usually involves some kind of community or like usually involves the woods. Yeah. Yeah. There's like an intersection of like rural sensibilities and like, um, like modern sensibility. Usually the protagonists who don't know any better, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the wicker man's like a perfect example of full core. The original wicker man. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. It's a good one.
01:03:53
Speaker
There is one that came out not too long ago. I don't know if it's any good or not, but I watched it. It's an Irish film with fairies and the fairies start like, oh, they're trying to take their baby or something. Don't knock or? Yeah, it came out not long ago. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I don't know if it's good. I know it was interesting. I was like, oh, fairies. I mean, I just play magic and Disney, you know, the fairies weren't too terrified. Yeah. Don't knock twice. That's probably it. Yeah.
01:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, 2017. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's so you know, it was a good one. It's the Norse one. It has like Norse myth, Loki son. Where they go into the that's kind of a spoiler. They go into the woods because a friend's murdered ritual. Yes, the ritual. Yeah, that's on Netflix. That's a good one. I love the ritual. That was really solid.
01:04:47
Speaker
I've been way interested in like, uh, the desert, you know, and I love the desert and I love shooting the desert on film. Cause I think it's, that's, I like that a lot. And I think that there's a lot of opportunity for untold folk, folksy tales of desert. I like the Jackarilla jogger, right? Jackarilla jogger. What the fuck is that? He's the jogger on Jackarilla. Really?
01:05:17
Speaker
He scares cars, he got ran over one day jogging. That's up off, that's like Mariana's area, right? Yeah, yeah, it's somewhere out there. And then you told me the rakes, and then you never remembered what I... Maybe you were making it up or something, a right? Probably was. You said they could people walk around with long nails in the desert. Oh, I was just fucking with you. I never heard that before.
01:05:42
Speaker
That sounds like the cream-colored man. Have you heard the cream-colored man? No. Tell us. I'm getting high. Sorry. I've been, as I was like, form a question. I was like, Rake, let's go. What are you talking about? Rake and leaves. No, dig up. Look into the cream-colored man. Okay. Look into it. You're not going to tell us? There's pieces. It's the essential, essentially it's a
01:06:06
Speaker
It's like a large skinny person who's pale. And I've heard for instance, around like between Apple Valley and Lucerne on highway 18. I'm getting scared. Like he'll, you'll, you'll be driving and then you'll like see the silhouette just walk over from Lucerne from the dry lake bed. Oh really? I think it's rabbit dry lake bed. Yeah.
01:06:31
Speaker
I've heard one story of him like walking over highway 18 over a rabbit dry lake bed. Wow. In the middle of the night. We got to make a cream colored man. You know, I actually wanted to do that a while back, just dressed in like a bodysuit that was cream colored. Walk around it outside of the night. Yeah, and hide in the desert like at three in the morning. And then when there's an unsuspecting driver, just kind of like be off to the side. You didn't even hear any extensions. Yeah. And then just run and hide. Well, you know, I don't I can't, uh,
01:07:01
Speaker
count for the validity of this, but I know friends have had dinosaur sightings.
01:07:06
Speaker
In the desert. I can't say it's real or not, but there have been signs. Like 395 out by George. Yeah. Oh, okay. That they've been driving late at night. Like what kind of dinosaurs? Like velociraptors. Like person size. Yeah. And I'm like, could it be a coyote or a large dog? They're like, no, man, it's not velociraptor. Brandon told me that story.
01:07:34
Speaker
Have you heard the Yakaman? No, Yakaman. Yakaman goes back to the Takits Indians or natives in like Palm Desert area. Yeah. And it's kind of like a desert Bigfoot that has red or blue eyes. And there's sightings from all the way from there to
01:07:57
Speaker
like Antelope Valley. I think that's just Tom when he gets fucking blasted. He's like, aww. That's a good shave. I mean, that's a far way to travel, man. You know, I think I'd lose some weight running all that distance, but they ain't working. But there's been sightings at the Mitsubishi plant on the way to Big Bear off Highway 18. Oh, yeah, dude. That's where they keep all their fucking little children slaves, right? They're fucking working the mines and shit.
01:08:25
Speaker
Adam is certain. Adam Michibichi. It's like fucking Wonka out there. You never see it actually operating. I know people who have worked out there. I've never seen anyone go in. I've never seen anyone go out. You just go into the giant dome and never return.
01:08:48
Speaker
Like Jesus Christ. Hey, would the Blair Witch Project count as a... Yeah. Oh yeah. Because even though that's fake, but that would still qualify. Blair Witch is absolutely full core. Witches? Nah, witches, man, that counts. I was going to say witches are probably 90% of full core, maybe. There's a lot of them, you know. Yeah, a lot of witches. A lot of witches.
01:09:08
Speaker
Um, but the younger man's kind of like a, uh, like, uh, there's a lot of tales and there's, it's a giant, it's supposed to be kind of more of like a Bigfoot and different variations of a Bigfoot. There's some sightings at Edwards. There's old, uh, based newsletters that talk about it. Oh, really? Yeah. That's pretty cool. That's pretty far out there too. Mm-hmm.
01:09:29
Speaker
Because I've always been and I know I probably tell every guest this so it probably gets annoying but I want to do an anthology movie set around the desert and like and The interludes between the films takes place at the Barstow Drive-in Which is where we're holding the festival and like weird shit is happening at the drive-in while we're holding the festival That's fun. And then we show our and we show the films and then that cuts into the movie. That place is still going right? Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I
01:09:54
Speaker
Yeah. And so, you know, I was always trying to invite people because it's like there's an interesting community of filmmakers out here. And I think we could do something like anthology wise.
01:10:04
Speaker
Yeah, man, for sure. Yeah. And I, I'm like, duck a man, man. I'm ready. A bunch of yucca trees. It was just a yucca tree. I like, I mean, I like it. There's, it's, and the whole idea is that, you know, they're, they're kind of the protectors of the ecology aspect of. Yeah. Maybe they are trees during the day and then they turn into yucca men at night.
01:10:29
Speaker
Oh, there you go. Yeah. This is summer. Like hens. Yeah. It's basically hens. Yeah. And it could be like a big... That anthropomorphize a little differently. Yeah. It could be like a big tree person. You know, instead of tree beard, it's yuck a beard. Yeah, but the desert is really interesting. And I don't think people really capture the desert. You kind of have to live here. You know, it is a unique place. But yeah, there's really just... It feels like there's a lot to tap into out here.
01:10:57
Speaker
Something I have noticed with film is that when you, you know, you take a digital camera out and you set it to daylight and you film whatever, you know, it has a look. Yeah. But if you take like tungsten film out and daylight film, then you shoot different times of the day on different stocks and then you look at them.
01:11:18
Speaker
I think there's nuances in terms of like the color temperature of shadows of the mountains and the temperature of the highlights of the sun setting and things that, you know, tungsten film will tell you, well, this is what it looks like on tungsten film and daylight will tell you what it looks like on daylight film.
01:11:39
Speaker
Yeah. And if I, I haven't like done a side by side, but I think if you were to shoot it digitally and then, and then kind of try to match white balance, it would be kind of, there'd be so much nuance to try to even get close to that, that it's not as cut and dry as like, let's just set it to this.
The Beauty of Film and Sunsets
01:12:00
Speaker
Cause you know, I think tungsten film, especially if you shoot it during, you know,
01:12:06
Speaker
golden hour or a little before even, or even just, you know, late afternoon. You see the, you know, the rich blues and the shadows and then the sun is like really warm and things look, the colors are different. And like daylight film at sunset, there is a music video I shot on 16 millimeter on Bell Mountain. And it happened over the course of the afternoon to sunset.
01:12:31
Speaker
And just the way the sky changes and the colors in the sky and the gradients, you know, they're so complex. It's really difficult to have captured that on digital. It would have been difficult to capture that on digital, I think. Well, like Forrest Gump said, the most beautiful thing he saw in the deserts were the sunrises and sunsets. Got a lot of those and they're very, very beautiful. But it's true, right? Like, I mean, our sunsets, man. Sunsets, I'll just go out there and like, God damn.
01:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, especially when we get some good puffy clouds. Yeah, it's like bouncing off of them everywhere. I know. I'm like, I don't know. No wonder there's so many car accidents. I'm always just like.
01:13:20
Speaker
I'm going to find out when I crash and go to right now.
The Yucca Man Film Pitch
01:13:24
Speaker
I'm going straight to hell. So, you know, I think it can be a long ride. I got my pitch for Yucca man.
01:13:31
Speaker
Oh, he already wrote a film. It'll give you a little highlight of what's to come in the script. All right. So a group of hippies go out into the like Antelope Valley or like the Mojave Reserve looking for like peyote kind of plants. Is there peyote out there? I don't think there is. Is there peyote? I don't know, but we can, you know, pretend we don't know. Sure, yeah, yeah. OK, we'll find. We'll find what's way north. What if the Yucca produces?
01:13:58
Speaker
Okay. So, and then they end up finding like a sacred spot and they all do it. And they have an orgy, which is unintentionally the summoning. Oh, that's like some, uh, Alistair Crowley shit right there. And so they have this huge orgy on all high on like peyote or, you know, ayahuasca or something. And then so that awakens the Yucca man. And he's like, he just kills all the white people in the group.
01:14:28
Speaker
And that's the end. That's like a blood quantum. Yeah. Blood quantum in the desert. Yeah. There you go. Nice. Oh no, that was Elrond Hubbard. That was Elrond Hubbard and Jack Parsons that went out in the desert and did weird sex stuff. Yeah. See, we're just not a part of any of the cool stuff, man. I know. We don't have any cool sex stuff. No. That's a real shame. That's all right.
01:14:57
Speaker
You guys are all right. Don't worry about it. He's out there having his cool sex stuff in the desert. He doesn't want to invite us. Well, I didn't say that. I just was reassuring you. So, yeah, there's my yucca man pitch. Yeah, that was great. Hey, dude, stories like that. Fuck it. Sounds like fun. Oh, yeah. You guys want to do a pause? Sure, man. I'll go outside. Yeah.