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BPS 430: Shooting Sharks in Your Living Room: The Art of DIY Filmmaking with Ron Bonk

July 31, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

Somewhere in the back alleys of the American dream, between the flicker of VHS static and the roar of midnight creature features, there exists a filmmaker with a toothy vision. On today’s episode, we welcome Ron Bonk, a self-taught indie film warrior who carved his way out of the antiquing business and into the bleeding heart of low-budget cinema.

Ron Bonk is a filmmaker and founder of SRS Cinema, best known for his cult horror-comedy “House Shark,” a film that quite literally brings the predator home.

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, we dive through the celluloid splinters of Ron’s journey, from borrowing camcorders at community college to orchestrating gore-laced dreamscapes in his own home. With the candor of a man who’s fought a hundred cinematic battles and still wakes up smiling, Ron recounts the moment he knew filmmaking wasn’t just a hobby—it was his spiritual vocation. He speaks of camcorders as if they were holy relics, and each low-budget shoot like a shamanic rite of passage. “I had to wear all the hats,” he admits, recalling 18-hour days of lighting, directing, and sometimes even serving the food. There’s a beautiful madness to that kind of devotion.

But what separates Ron from the common herd of content creators is his monk-like surrender to the calling. This is a man who would rather tell the story in his bones than chase distribution deals. When others sold out to weekend wedding shoots and corporate gigs, Ron stayed the course, even launching his own distribution company just to make sure his movies—and others like them—had a place to live. His filmmaking compass always pointed toward the misfit, the grotesque, the beautiful weird. “The idea was: how can I make something that’s mine, and still feed my kids?” he says, with a smile you can almost hear.

And then came “House Shark.” Born not in a boardroom or a script lab, but from the sound of ice cracking on his roof during a harsh Syracuse winter. Where some might see inconvenience, Ron saw inspiration. “Shark in a house,” he thought. And just like that, the impossible was made possible. The film is more than just a hilarious genre-bending monster romp—it’s a testament to what happens when you embrace your constraints and alchemize them into pure creative gold. He shot most of it in his own home, because he could control the space, the light, the chaos. The film became a sandbox of invention, a love letter to every filmmaker who ever asked, “What if?”

Ron’s journey also offers a cautionary tale cloaked in encouragement. He warns of the seductive pull of “safe” creative paths—weddings, commercials, and gigs that pay the rent but starve the soul. Yet he understands the temptation. “It’s easier said than done,” he acknowledges, “but you’ll blink and ten years have passed, and that movie you wanted to make is still sitting in your drawer.”

Throughout it all, there’s a recurring motif: the indie filmmaker as a sacred trickster. Whether telling the cops he’s shooting a student film or designing perks for an Indiegogo campaign that just barely breaks even, Ron adapts, survives, evolves. He speaks not just for himself, but for a whole tribe of underdog storytellers chasing celluloid ghosts across their living room floors.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:54
My next guest is a filmmaker and founder and the head of the distributor, SRS cinema, his latest film, house shark is an Amazon prom prime right now, yes, I said house shark with guest, Ron Bonk.

Ron Bonk 2:10
You know, I grew up liking making up stories and I come out with friends. Didn't have a, you know, a film camera or a video cameras before, you know, video before camcorders really came along, and had always thought, you know, like that'd be the dream to direct movies, but didn't really take it serious. You don't think it was feasible, basically. So, you know, went off to school for a variety of other things, but after doing it for a while, long story short, decided that, hey, you know, I took the wrong route. The thing I wanted to do was to make movies. Meanwhile, though I had already, you know, had a bunch of years in college, you know, didn't want to continue in college, wanted to, you know, didn't want to accumulate any more debt. And so started looking into what, you know, how I could do this. And in the process of being self trained, you know, learning about film and how expensive was to make a movie, and looking at a minimum of, like, $100,000 to, you know, to shoot anything on film according to, like, the best, you know, sources, which, obviously it's been done for cheaper, but that's what I was, you know, hearing, you know, pretty much caught across the board at the time. And then eventually came across the idea of shooting on, you know, camcorders, which would become more prevalent, and they're still pretty expensive, and, you know, not as user friendly, you know, as they would, they would come to be but they, you know, I think of the first one I got was 2500 $3,500 this as VHS camcorder. It was really, it was solid machine. Did a good job, but, but it, you know, created an option for me. Maybe it wasn't that much, he just been so long. Maybe it was like 1000 1500 but anyways, I got that and started making movies on video. And, you know, proceeded from there. I've only shot a little bit of stuff on film. Never anything that was released. Was a little bit in my college, you know, into my college years, when I decided to become a filmmaker, I took a few film classes, but for the most part, you know, went from the analog video to digital nowadays, shooting on HD, for, she kills in 4k for house shark.

Dave Bullis 4:26
So, when you were in college, Ron, you know, did you actually try to film on campus at all? Like, did you try to, like, grab any, any of the equipment from, like, the AV studio or anything, just try to film anything there?

Ron Bonk 4:37
No, what did happen is, I had, I mean, I guess a little bit what I had shot or I'd been to school for four years, and even had associates in accounting. I was working on a criminal justice degree when I decided to switch over to film. So I for I went to a fifth year of school, but it was just a community college. They had a TV and, well, basically a TV classes. There. So, you know, we were, I was using their camcorders and their VCRs, you know, they like high end decks. We've been shooting at some beta cam for the TV stuff, you know, like the studio stuff. But, you know, was able to borrow their camcorder to shoot on VHS off campus. But I also took, there was an that was a Monroe Community College in Rochester, but at Brockport nearby, I took a single film class each semester, and we're shooting on film for that. So they had Bolex 60 millimeter camera that we can borrow. But the two things I shot on film, they both, I think I shot them almost exclusive within the apartments I was renting at the time. So and then the stuff I shot with video, I remember doing some exterior stuff of like, the apartments, you know, I was renting, you know, run it, I think, a different one each, each semester. No, maybe it was one over both semesters. But now I didn't really get down into the school unless, you know, there was stuff we were doing for the TV classes around the school. So it was a very short period. Didn't they really do a lot there? I mean, I really didn't get out there with a camcorder until I was out of school, you know, working full time in the antique business and invested in the camcorder and I shot a like an instructional video, first rose down in Florida for half the year, and then once I got back and shot my first feature, and that's when I really, for the first time, got out and was being artistic with a camera, you know, on a regular basis.

Dave Bullis 6:37
So Ron, when you were made the change from accounting and it with a Criminal Justice background to, you know, wanting to do, wanting to just go into film, you know, where people like say, what do they say today? Ron, you're nuts. Or like Iran, what the hell you thinking?

Ron Bonk 6:52
More so back then, but, uh, nowadays, not so much. I mean, there's still, you know, for this area, there's still people be surprised, but Syracuse has grown that the film community has grown. And there's a there's, you know, it's not that uncommon for there to be a sizable production in the area, you know, a few times a year. So if I say, you know, I make movies, you know, I produce and distribute features, I don't get like, back when I started off, I'd always get like, oh, pornos, you know, like, now they're, they're low budget, you know, horror movies. And a lot of people weren't educated, or still aren't even educated, to the fact that you could shoot on a similar brand, you know, VHS cameras, and distribute those movies. You know, during the 80s, you know, late 80s and 90s, but nowadays, like I said, if I mention it, you know, it's still true with surprise, you know, maybe a little bit of skepticism, but most part it's, it's more like, oh yeah, cool. And then I'll usually get a follow up, but like, Are you part of this production that they might have read about recently? You know, an area or something like that,

Dave Bullis 8:00
That's where you should say the Hell yeah, I am. Because, like, what I used to fill in parks and stuff like that, like people would, you know, they see you with a camera whenever you and I'm not talking about like a DSLR, but I'm talking about, like, anything that looks like a camcorder, you know, like a bigger variety of the camcorders, whether it be mini TV or digital. People associate that with, like, professional grade cameras. As soon as they see that, it's like, oh my god, this, this guy must know what he's doing. But you know when they're talking to me a little bit, do they know that I'm a complete lunatic? So what happens? So when I, you know, when I'm out filming stuff, we don't matter what it was, people would stop and they'd say, Oh my God, you got Are you filming some kind of movie? And I would just say, Oh, hell yeah, man. You know, no matter what I know what I just think, yeah, man. Why not?

Ron Bonk 8:46
Yeah! We just, I just to the Yeah, you gotta almost be like a chameleon, you know, he serves. So I'll adjust to whatever the setting is. So if I'm just, you know, say I'm meeting someone in a casual setting, I'll be more clear about what I do. But if I'm out of the park and someone seems interested, I might be like, Yeah, I'm shooting a movie, you know. Or I'm shooting a documentary, or, Yes, I am part of this group, or, or, for years, I can get away with, like, Oh, it's a, it's a college film, you know, if cops are interested, you know, anything. So, so, yeah, you kind of, it's kind of like, you know, he's equated to the Ed Wood movie when he was trying to get the church to, you know, fund his production, and he would tell him whatever they needed to hear in order to get that money. It was basically tell people whatever you think they need to hear in order be able to keep shooting, you know,

Dave Bullis 9:39
Yeah, that's so true. And you know, that's one of the benefits of being in college or just out of college. You can always say, Hey, I'm just shooting a student film, and usually everyone's kind of cool with that, like, Oh no, you're a student. All right, we'll be a little more lenient on you or if you call a location up, you're like, hey, you know, I'm a senior in college. I need some help with this. You know, people are, you know, a little more willing to help. You know, you try to get it. You have to do. You should want to get away with that and use that card as much as you can.

Ron Bonk 10:20
Sure, yeah. I told my nephews, getting ready to, he's a finishing up his senior year, and, yeah, he's getting ready to, you know, he wants to gear up and do his first feature. It's called Blind cop two. And there's no blind cop one. This is called playing cop too. And I told him to use that as much as possible. And he was like, really want people like, you know, nephew, there's being professional and stuff. And I told them the same thing. Said, you know, you you tell people you doing a college, you know, your college student making a college, you know, project or working on a college, the assignment. And you know they're going to be more forgiving, more willing to work with you, more you know, willing let you get away with more, as opposed to being like, No, this is a professional feature. Then suddenly, you know, it could change anything. Like, okay, well, how much you gonna pay me to use my location or or whatever?

Dave Bullis 11:10
And he also has the built in excuse to of, I don't know. So somebody goes, Hey, you can't, you can't be filming blind cop to out here, and he can go, Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I'm just a student. It's such a great Get Out of Jail Free card.

Ron Bonk 11:24
Oh, yeah, definitely it works with the, you know, everywhere from like said building businesses to the police, you know, like, Hey, you got a permit, you know, do you have permission to go into there? Oh, I thought it was public area. I'm just a college student. Yeah. And then most time, you know, you can get away with it. So you can, you can take that risk and hope you know, hey, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna give it a try, get in out there as quick as I can, and get some cool production values.

Dave Bullis 11:53
Yeah, exactly right. And then you can always say you're shooting a documentary. So it's kind of like I'm just shooting this documentary. But you know, when you were in college and you were, you know, filming things in your apartment and just using the locations you had, you know, what point did you, you know, start to sex? I know you mentioned you were in the antiquing business, and you kind of, you know, bought the camera. So what point did you start really taking this seriously?

Ron Bonk 12:16
I mean, I was taking this seriously when I was, you know, in college, I hadn't yet determined that, you know, that last year college, I hadn't yet determined that I was going to start making movies at camcorders. I remember even talking to someone in college about shooting on camcorders, and they immediately, you know, like a fellow student, but they'd been taking it for a few more years. You know, they're actually in film class, and they're Oh, no, no, can't shoot on camcorders. So it pretty much dismissed it. But, I mean, I was, you know, looking at it. It's like, okay, how can I go out there and turn this into a living and also, you know, make the movies that I wanted to make, you know, because I could easily gone down the route of, you know, shooting pornos or shooting wedding videos every weekend, you know, and both potentially, have a lot of, you know, like, a good income in them. But they weren't, you know, something was true to my heart. So I wanted, I was like, How can I turn still living? And, you know, initially it was, I'm going to make some so amazing that, you know, Hollywood be paying me to sit down Syracuse, New York and make indie films that I wanted to, you know, with the stories I wanted to tell to, you know, reaching the point after the first one was done, being like, there's not really, you know, any distributor I want to give my movie to that I would trust, that I'd ever see another penny out. So I need to become a distributor too and release my own stuff and and that's how it's gone ever since, you know, I might license out parts of the movies or or certain media rights, or do my own initial release and then a wider release of someone else. But you know, I still will make my movies and then do the initial launch on my own. And lately, with the last couple of you know, pictures, the initial launch is at least paid for the production, you know, if not more.

Dave Bullis 14:12
You mentioned, you know, people who like shoot wedding videos every weekend. You know, I had a friend who used to do that where he he would do it part time. He called it, you know, he would just go shoot a couple things on the weekend, and he would always be like, hey, look, I'm gonna make a movie, this and that. And he never ended he ended up where the wedding video gave ended up becoming his full time job. And he was just every weekend he was shooting a new wedding, and he never actually made a movie. So it's very easy. It's good. You probably avoided that trap, because it's very easy to kind of get to kind of get, you know, sucked into that. You know what I mean?

Ron Bonk 14:44
Yeah, you can go right down that rabbit hole, and it's hard to turn away from that kind of money. And the, you know, the weddings are weekends. You know, that's usually ideal time to shoot if you're doing low budget, you know, features is, you know, people you have the, you know, usually you have weekends off, people you want. Work on the movies. Have weekends off, you know, so, you know, unless you're going to take, you know, you know, three or four weeks stretch off from weddings and just shoot a feature, and it seems like it's doable. It seems like it's something should be possible if you really want to make a feature. But it's like, you know, having a job, you know, and paying, you know, regular job, paying your bills every day. It's, it's easy to be like, well, I won't work on movies today because I need to, you know, all my bills aren't paid this month, or I want to be able to go on vacation, or my kids need new clothes, or whatever, you know. So it's, it's, it's easier said than done,

Dave Bullis 15:36
Yeah, yeah. Very true. And you know that, that's why, you know, and I'm glad you didn't go that route. And I also, you know, I had an option to go that route, and I was like hell with that. I made many, many mistakes in my life, Ron, but that's not one of them. So, you know, just to start with, you know, with your career, you know, just starting back, like your city of vampires, even to now, you know, making, you know, she kills and house shark, you know, what are some of the strategies that you've used, you know, when you're approaching about, you know, not about, you know, writing and producing these films,

Ron Bonk 16:09
Strategy let me think I mean most of the movies that I've made, I mean pretty much all of them, you know, start off with an idea that I liked for some reason, you know, within the story and said, Okay, I'm going to write this out. And is, you know, and there's been scripts that I've written that I've never made, and some I've always dreamed of, maybe didn't have the money. Some, you know, I wrote and just said, you know, you know, I wasn't into, or later, you know, I plan to come back to and decide I was no longer into, or want to tell that story. But if I finish the script and I really was happy with it, then I was like, Okay, this is the next thing I want to make. And then you would go through the process of making so there wasn't necessarily, I mean, nowadays, sometimes I look for the strategy as far as, like, the stuff I produce, where I go, okay, if I'm going to put money into this, I want it to sell, you know. So if it's a movie I'm producing from afar, then, you know, there has to, there has to be more of a financial basis behind it. If it's a movie I make for myself, then it's more of like, Hey, this is story I want to tell. And I don't care if it fits financially into anything. And you know, you're lucky when that stuff cross over. It doesn't always, but you know, sometimes you just rely on a movie to, you know, hopefully come out extra cool, and it builds its own fan base and does reasonably well, generates, you know, at least a modest profit. And I've been lucky with, you know, the last two she kills in house shark that they both were able to do that, you know, she kills with a Grindhouse movie. You know, when there had already been a lot of grind house type movies out there, so the market was pretty saturated. I'd made it a few years earlier. It would have had a lot more potential. Would have, you know, it would have been a bigger release than it was, but it's still, you know, people responded to it. Well, I had people who had fans of my work for years, but this was something vastly different than I'd done before. But they, you know, you know, the fans spread. You know, good words about it. And, you know, continues selling, continues to build and and was able to, you know, recoup before I went even into the wide release and how shark people loved the idea, and they happened to be the most marketable idea that I had come up with. But I'd always want to do a Jaws movie. So I wasn't doing it because I was like, oh, you know, this is gonna be a big money maker. I was doing it because it was a, you know, it was a story I wanted to tell, and it was definitely, you know, the most expensive movie that I directed myself. And I was lucky that the campaign basically made enough money back to cover the cost of making it. And then, thanks to some outside sales, I was able to cover the cost of running all the media. Because people don't realize when you do like an Indiegogo campaign, yeah, you might make say you got 20 I like 21,000 how sure can we do like 22,000 so, you know, with all their fees and stuff, yeah, the production was paid for, but then it was like another 10 grand. I think it was actually 12 grand. And all the stuff that had been made for the campaign, we end up doing, you know, full printed blu rays and DVDs, you know, fully replicated VHS, and all these extras that I kept adding a stretch goals, like stickers and pins and patches and stuff like that. And, you know, once I got all that done, stuff done that, the extra sales I had were like, Okay, I'm pretty much back to even so whatever didn't sell from the campaign, I keep selling this bonus money, and that was lucky enough to get it, like, into Walmart and stuff, and have it do well in wide release. But I mean, it came out in August of last year. And just a few weeks ago, I actually got my first check from the wide release. So I had like, this modest profit from, but then I finally got the first check from, like the Walmart deal and all the other sales around there, because all the money it cost to release it, and all the money to get into Walmart and stuff like that, basically ate up all my profits, you know, for like, half a year that I had come in distribution, so living off, you know, all the limited release I do, and all the stuff I do direct with fans, and any additional house shark sales and the other movies that I made and stuff like that. And then to finally see in so much it was eaten up, it was still worth it overall. But it's, it's just kind of diverged from your strategy question quite a bit. But that's kind of where it starts. You start with that initial strategy of, you know, the two fold approach is a movie I'm making for myself. Then I'm not worried about making something that sells as much, but I still try to make sure it'll sell. You know, I don't want to lose, you know, like, if how sure it cost me 21,000 I want to lose 21,000 on it. I was, matter of fact, I was sweating. So it's great to get all that money back and have a successful Indiegogo campaign pretty quick there. But if it's a movie that I'm producing, strictly as a producer to put money into it, letting the filmmaker reach his own vision, bring his own vision to life with some financial from me, then I go, Okay, this has to be something that sells for me if I'm going, you know, is almost guaranteed to be a good seller if I'm gonna put money into it.

Dave Bullis 21:48
Yeah, you know, I've actually done a few Indiegogo campaigns myself. And, you know, I did it, you know, before it became like a thing, like it became like the word Kickstarter, crowdfunding became, you know, part of the lexicon. And basically, I always told people like, you know, once you start, you know, making the perks, you know, that are part of your campaign, you know, you're starting to, you realizing this is a big you have to kind of add that in beforehand. You know, you have to actually start to calculate up all those numbers and add them into the budget, and then what you have, you know, what you need, what you really need all that, all that good stuff. And you know that that's something that you know. I'm glad you brought that up, because it's always a good reminder. You know about that, that that stuff, because it's so easy to forget. You know, you're, you're focused on making a movie, and you're like, oh shit. Now I gotta, you know, but see, Ron, that's where your accounting degree comes in handy.

Ron Bonk 22:37
Sure it does. It does help a little bit. It's been, it's been a long time since you have taken accounting classes, but you know, coming out of, you know, coming out of those and going almost right into business. You know, for myself, immediately, it helped. It made it easier for me to do at least my own bookkeeping. I won't do my own taxes. Professional Accountant handle that, because they're, they're up to date on the tax laws and all that sort of stuff. But it does help, you know, with the with the bookkeeping going, okay, is this something I can apply to the business? And how should it be applied?

Dave Bullis 23:11
That's true. Ron and I thought, they can get Al Capone. They can get anybody.

Speaker 1 23:15
Sure exactly.

Dave Bullis 23:17
So you mentioned, you know, some of the Grindhouse movies, and he mentioned the, you know, some of the over saturation of the market. And, you know, sometimes, you know, maybe the markets a little over saturated. What have you, you know, what are some of the Grindhouse moves that you saw, maybe, when you were releasing, you know, she kills, that you were kind of like, you know, maybe there's too many out there. Because, I mean, I remember when hobo with a shotgun came out. I was, you know, maybe machete, you know, I'm really glad to see movies like that. By the way, get, like, a wider release. I don't know how many, like, you know, kind of clones of those were came out, but did you start to see, like, a lot of movies, sort of, you know, in the space of where you were, like, or we're going, you know, in the Walmart space.

Ron Bonk 23:59
Well, I didn't expect she kills again to Walmart, and I didn't necessarily see too many of the Grindhouse movies in the Walmart stores, but I think when I was really saying she kills, Machete Kills had come out around the same time and hadn't done really well at the box office. But I mean, I'd seen so many low budget movies, at least using that look, even if they didn't really have the, you know, the they didn't, they weren't really trying to be grand house movies, but they liked that look, so they'd all the grain and scratch and stuff like that. But we're really capturing the spirit of those movies. And then I had also noticed a lot of movies that were trying to be grand house movies were really more like 80s, you know, horror movies or action movies using, like a 70s Grindhouse look by adding, again, like scratches and grains and stuff. And that's not really what did the Grindhouse movies look like. They were very unpolished. But I mean, what movies? I mean, you mentioned hobo with shotgun. That was a good example. You know. That was movie that was it done really well. Father's Day was another one that had that Grindhouse look, or at least esthetic that people were associating with it. But outside of those, and trying to think, what other ones I saw before that, I don't remember the low budget title to just remember seeing that book so much. So I don't know if that really helped that really answered your question.

Dave Bullis 25:21
Well, you know, you brought up some of the the what I've seen a lot of recently is they're kind of like the throwback to the 80s. Now, I love the 80s, you know, I love the 80s horror and, you know, I love all that stuff. But now, I think there's so many attempts by filmmakers nowadays to make something look like the 80s. You're starting to get this kind of over saturation of the market, you know, I mean, and I think we kind of capped out at Stranger Things. And I think, you know what I mean, I kind of think now it's starting to get a little, I want to say, repetitious.

Ron Bonk 25:54
It could be on its way out, for sure. I mean, I've noticed that, I think I saw, like, my first article on, like, 90s horror, you know, we're gaining, you know, in popularity. The thing with 80s horror, though, is it's one of the most, I think, iconic decades for horror. So if you make a cool horror movie that has, you know, awesome, you know, horror practical effects in a, you know, cool monster carries that just sort of vibe. You don't have to necessarily be like, Hey, let me throw, you know, like nods to video games or, you know, a video arcades, or the clothing, or whatever, you know, into that. But you could still, there's a lot of great horror movies that capture the 80s vibe without, you know, looking like they were made in the 80s. So, I mean, I think that's something that could never, you know, get old if it's if it's done right, but, but over doing the nostalgia can certainly, you know, burn itself out on any you know, before the 80s, the 70s, you know, movies, not just the grind house, but, you know, 70s horror in general was, you know, was the hot topic, you know. And then I see it was a little more prevalent a year or so ago, but it still comes up. People were shooting movies on camcorders, old camcorders to kind of capture that 90s, you know, shot him video. Feel for their movies. And as amazing you could shoot on a, you know, an old camcorder and come pretty close with just that alone, tick capture and that sort of vibe. But, uh, it's all revolving, you know, there'll be another, you know, 510, years. We people, you know, in low budget, and then eventually moving at the big budget, doing nods to 2000 horror movies. And then, you know, the 2010 horror movies. And then it'll come back to the 70s again. Or, you know, it's just these fads and rages hit. And sometimes it's, you know, based on the current status of of the world or the country. It could be politically motivated. It could be, could be anything, you know, if we're facing war, you know, we're facing climate change, you might see more and more horror movies about that, you know. But they're got a 70s or 80s or 90s, you know, setting to them?

Dave Bullis 28:24
Yeah, very. And I think you're gonna start seeing a lot of horror movies come out just about the political climate. And I'm not saying that like any particular party. I'm not saying but I'm saying is the kind of diverse of how diverse of diverse? No wait, how divisive the nation is right now. You know how that, that's what I'm trying to say. You know what I mean, just trying, you know that that I think is going to be, which is why I think when the first purge came out, I think that was, you want to talk about, you know, wish fulfillment. I think a lot of people, you know, not that they would, but maybe they kind of wish they could, you know, one night we just kill anybody. You know what I mean?

Ron Bonk 29:03
It's an extension. It's possible, you know? I mean, when you're when you're a director, actor, or you're working in the creative field, I think you had to be a little bit crazy, but, uh, but, I think a lot of horror filmmakers are more closer to activists, you know, than anything there lot of times are trying to make a statement against, you know, these things that anger them. You know, lack of gun control and mass shootings. You know the Trump government, the worries over climate control. You know the the abandonment of the arms treaty with Russia, you know, raising the risk of, you know, potential war again. And, you know, we used to have the nuclear war used to hang over. I grew up in the 70s, you know, and into the 80s, and the threat of nuclear war was always there, you know. And that's. You know, people, lot of young people, they don't realize, like, how heavily that hung over society. So yeah, and you're seeing it in this, you know, like the Jordan Peele horror movies you know, you know, addressing social issues, you know, back to the forefront. So, yeah, it does. It does reflect the time the movie apostle, I thought was really good movie. Hope I'm saying that right. I've heard other people pronounce it different. Looks like apostle to me, the one on Netflix, you know, addressed climate change, you know. So, so you have people again, I think, like said, the horror horror filmmakers are are very much trying to make a statement, as much as they're trying to tell you a story that you know is entertaining, it scares you or makes you laugh, whatever. But in the end, you know, a lot of them make you think you know.

Dave Bullis 31:00
And I mean, and you did one that's a very good, you know, horror movie genre that to kind of put, you know, political or cultural, you know, protest or examination. And that's the, you know, the knowledge is horror in general, but, but also the the zombie genre, the sub genre, sub genre of horror. And, I mean, you know, if you look at Romero's, you know, film first three zombie films are all brilliant. You did Empire State Of The Dead and, and, by the way, I want to say, you know, this is a great idea, because I, you know, I one of those guys right now, Ron, I had an ideal, an idea years ago, similar, where you take a bunch of different directors and you put them together. You know what? I mean, each one makes a segment. Yeah, but I think that's a brilliant idea, man, that you know, just

Ron Bonk 31:46
Yeah, we should have done a little better, because I would have done, you know, like a United States of the dead sort of movie, and then world of the dead or something, where, you know, and encourage more shorts from other filmmakers. And maybe one day I will, but I was, you know, I was seeing so many people taking shorts and putting together, and the shorts didn't really have a common theme among them, and just turning them into anthologies. And I thought, what a, you know, we need, you know, someone needs to do this with a with a wrap around. And I wasn't first movie, you know, producer, director ever to do that, by any means. I'm saying, you know, it was being done, you know, VHS, I think for the most part, was trying to tie all the stories together. But I want these to have a very direct theme. So when you put them all together, it felt like you're watching one movie, not a movie by a bunch of different filmmakers with a bunch of storylines. When each direction and felt, I want each story to kind of propel this, the reach, yeah, each individual short kind of propelled us to propel the story forward. So, and then, and then I saw what I had to work with. And from there, I was like, Okay, what's the wraparound story I can make? So, game set rules, which basically, for most part, followed the Romero zombie rules set up, but, you know, basically what's happened the timeline, what they couldn't, you know, go on to explore like it was early on in the zombie apocalypse. That couldn't make it seem like it was like, you know, deep into it, or far end of it, or whatever. And from there I was like, and I had the base idea I would do something like soldiers, you know, trying to keep order, and using those as cutaways. And it was a harder one to think of a, you know, a theme for because, I mean, all my movies do have like a subtext to them, almost, you know, straight across the board. But this was a harder one, because I wasn't he was only contributing us, you know, a small portion of the, you know, the full project, but just the idea of the, you know, the Battle of the classes that would kind of emerge between, you know, those, you know, basically the government, and the individual factions that would rise up. And, you know, we pretty much address one, but, but they're one of the other shorts kind of had, you know, its own, like roving gang in it. And you know, where this battle power might, you know, might lead to, or, or evolve into

Dave Bullis 34:04
Yeah and yeah. And that's great idea too, because you do see some of the shorts, I really don't have anything you know, that that kind of ties everything together.

Ron Bonk 34:15
Yeah. I mean, what the one sure, the girl in the apartment, you know, faced with the the you uh, the the monument decision what to do with her sister, who's died, and, you know, is turning into a zombie, was very isolated, even the one, you know, when they were taking refuge, you know, basically in the in the room, and find that the dead body in There, you know, very, very isolated, very, you know, small, you know, centered stories. You know, many ways those actually were a little easier to plot out, as opposed to the wider, you know, expansive type of plots. You know, some of the shorts, but it gave. A wide the guy gave a wide range of, basically, you know, situations that the populace was facing in the in the face will face as repeat facing in the threat of this emerging zombie virus in society falling apart.

Dave Bullis 35:21
And you know, when you released it, you know, did have the type of reception that you were hoping for,

Ron Bonk 35:27
Yeah. I mean, the reviews, for the most part, seem to be positive. You know, the fall, you know, everyone who worked on it, you know, from the directors down on, you know, the actors and so forth. You know, all seemed to enjoy it. I was overall, pretty happy with it. Some of the stuff with the shorts, you know, with they were the wrap around stuff I was shooting, it doesn't always come out the way you wanted to. You're, you know, tight on money, tight on time. I think that's the biggest one. Usually you're, you're stuck at you're tight on time. So you shoot one weekend and something's not quite working right, you don't have the option to go back and fix it. You kind of pretty much make the decision to fix it on set and hope it comes out. Okay. So it was, it was, it was a fun project to do. I enjoyed it wasn't, you know, one of the ones that was, as you know, close to my heart as the others, but I was pretty happy with it. And I'll usually start with that, because I you know, sometimes, you know, the audience might not like it as much as you did, but if you felt like you told the story you wanted to tell, you know that I'm still pretty satisfied with that, you know, so, but yeah, I mean, what I've people like you who have told me that they they really enjoy it, and I'm always glad to hear, you know, any movie that I've made resonates with the fans. You know, my first movie, city of vampires, I still think it came out horrible. And isn't that just because it's not the movie that I wanted to do, you know, because it's because I was falling apart along the way. My first movie, first feature, didn't try to take on way too much, and lack the skill to to shoot that movie, right? But I'll, I'll still get people who will tell me that they they love it, and I'll just look at it and be like, I don't, I don't know what you love about it, but I'm glad that you do. Because you know, I would feel bad that you went out there and bought this movie and watched it and were like, Oh, it's a piece of shit. I'm happy here that you went out bought it, hopefully you bought it and watched it and got enjoyment out of and continue to enjoyment out of it.

Dave Bullis 37:31
Well, yeah, I mean, and you're, you know, you're very welcome and for the you know, everything, and it's just, you know, I have a friend of mine who made a zombie film, and it did not hit with a zombie genre. And to him, I was like, Dude, I was like, that's, that's your key demographic, right there, man, if you fail to get that, yeah, forget it. You're done. Yeah.

Ron Bonk 37:49
I think if you're gonna go something specific as a zombie movie, then you do have to cater to the fans. Now you could, you could try to set them off balance and go in a different direction they've seen before, and usually most fans will appreciate that, but sometimes, you know, you got to be careful. Yeah, there's there's limits and but anyone who goes out there and really tries to do something different with a genre or sub genre, I applaud them, even if the fans didn't get it, even if I didn't like it. Personally, I always appreciate that they at least tried it, because at least it because at least it gets you thinking about your own work, you know.

Dave Bullis 38:24
Yeah, right, exactly. And, I mean, you know, especially making something like, specifically a zombie film, you know, you have to, there is a specific expectation of our audiences and you know, and that's, you know, and that's why I think they may be missed, but, but, you know, it is what it is. But if you

Ron Bonk 38:42
Go out and make a zombie movie, would say, No zombies or no, you know, brutal zombie killings. And yeah, you probably run the risk of like, there's certain things you gotta, you gotta put in there, you know. So if you don't do that, then yeah, you run the big risk of your audience just being like, oh, that sucked. I love zombie movies, and you didn't have, you know, one good zombie gutting or something, you know. So, yeah, I agree with you there.

Dave Bullis 39:08
I had a friend. This is a true story. I had a friend who pitched a zombie film that had no zombies in it, and I said,

Ron Bonk 39:17
What's the idea when? What's the zombie angle of it? Then if there's no zombies in it.

Dave Bullis 39:21
You hear them. So they're outside. You kind of hear them. They allude to them, but you never see one. And I said, is there at least as a kill anywhere he goes? No. There's no killing by the zombies. And I'm like, I don't think anyone's gonna, you know what I want to buy, but I don't think any producer is gonna be like, Yeah, that's great. I mean, maybe they'll save money on makeup, but, I mean, would they really want to invest in something like that? I mean, so it was, it was like a one location movie with zombies, like surrounding the place, so you're hearing them scratch,

Ron Bonk 39:51
Maybe as a short or something. I mean, I could see it being real spooky, like a bird box, you know, type of thing or something. But you. But, but, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's definitely a fine line. I'm not sure if it would work. but, but, but, I love the idea of, you know, audience, you know, filling in the blanks. And they've certainly seen of zombie movies that they could, you know, they could picture it, but, yeah, that's a, that's a fine line. You got to really be skilled if you're gonna pull that off and make it effective.

Dave Bullis 40:31
Yeah, it's, needless to say, he never made it. I think, I think it was going to be such a fine line to walk. I don't really the only person I think that could have pulled that off would have probably been somebody like George Romero, because, you know, he went, you know, full tilt the first three. Maybe he made Land of the Dead. Maybe he, you know, and the rest of those. Maybe that was the next evolution. I don't know. But, you know, I think

Ron Bonk 40:55
I was gonna say, take, like, a Hitchcock or something. I think because he, you know, it's you need. You definitely need a master of you need someone who's a master of not showing the monsters, someone playing with everything else, the sounds and and having the audience fill in the fill in the blank, building up the suspense and tension.

Dave Bullis 41:18
Yeah, yeah. I'd or maybe even somebody like Christopher Nolan, or something that somebody like that, just somebody to kind of, yeah, so, but, but, you know what? I just, you know, I know we're running out of time, but, you know, the one movie I wanted to talk about, which actually got us talking is, is house shark. You know, I saw the trailer was up to, like, what is it? Almost a million views now.

Ron Bonk 41:42
Yeah, past a million views, I think, like a week or so ago. It was right around the time I announced that it was getting close, and then suddenly it was over, like, really quick. So, yeah, that was, I mean, it was in part due the fact that movie web covered, it hosted and everything. But it was cool to have a trailer reach that milestone.

Dave Bullis 42:02
So and by congrats, by the way, that is huge. Thank you. So Ron like, Where was the impetus for how shark in writing it? You know, because I know you wrote, you wrote it, you produce and directed it. So you know, where was the impetus, or sort of that idea, to come up with this?

Ron Bonk 42:19
Well, I'd always, as I mentioned earlier, I think, as part of this conversation, I was saying how I'd always wanted to do a shark movie. I always says, like, I want to come up with the jaws sequel. That's a, you know, that is the awesome sequel, you know. I mean, I loved, I love all the jaws movies in cheesy ways. For three and four, I wouldn't put in my movies, but two definitely is one of, you know, I think is a underrated movie, but, but I was trying to come up with a plot like, how could I do, you know, bring, bring Jaws back, and make it very cool and, and even, you know, like, a year or so before I start working on how shark had thought, like, you know, we have a Lake Ontario near Me, which you can't see across. I was like, Man, I could shoot on Lake Ontario and make it look like an ocean. Try to come up with a simple idea, you know, that was still effective, that would could be done within a budget, you know, within my budget levels, and make, you know, a cool shark movie. And then it was actually during the winter time. And I tell this story all the time. It's not like a great story, but this is really how it came across. Is we had this had been freezing temperatures for like, a week or two straight, and all this ice had built up on the roof of the houses and and my house particularly, get these loud booming noises. So when I looked up, I found out it was like the ice actually cracking, you know, on the roof. And I made a comment online about it, and and some, you know, some of my fan friends on Facebook were making comments back, and we're joking back and forth. And eventually I made this joke of zombies on a nice zombies on a roof movie that was basically like there's a zombie invasion, but all the zombies, basically, I'll just live on, live on the roofs of your houses, so they weren't really much of a threat. But as soon as I said that, I came with that, I that popped in my head. Was house Shark. Shark in a house, you know? And, and it hit me right there. I remember, I texted my producer. I said I got the title for my next movie. It's Kyle's house, sure, in a house, but it's done like, you know, like a shark out in the water, you know, except it's within a house. I was like, holy cow, I could do my shark movie that I've wanted to do, and I can control the location, you know, which is a big it was a big deal, you know. You know, when we work this low budget and you lack funds to have places unlimited stretch at a time, or even necessary very long periods of time to be able to shoot it, look at it, cut it together real quick, okay, what's wrong and go back and fix it. You know, so and then, you know, in Syracuse. Every time I forget how crazy the weather can be here, because, you know, we'll have days that are super hot and no clouds, and so you're getting these heavy shadows. And it's so hard to shoot outside, you know, especially it comes around midday out here, you know, without fill lights and bounce lights. So you can't really just go on location shoot, you know, running gun, it quick. It takes a little bit more effort than that. You can't necessarily shoot in shadows. Everything's blown out and then, and then you'll have tons of rain for days, and then you'll have, you know, be super cold and snowy and heavy snow. And then when you want the snow, you know, we'll get, like, a crazy early thaw or series of warm days just all over the place. It's, you know, the weather is just a nightmare. So to be able to shoot inside a house and control it, you know, it was just so much was appealing about it, but I thought it was a fun idea. I completely ran originally was gonna be more like a kids movie. My son had always given me a hard time about not being able to watch any of my movies. And I was going to make a movie that was safe for him to watch, and it was going to be done very much in this, in the style of that, that Super Eight shore, like a Super Eight shore, but like the Super Eight short at the end of Super Eight that they showed, you know, very cheesy, you know, going for a lot of humor, completely playing off the idea of what it is. It's a shark in a house. I wasn't going to take it that serious, but I didn't shoot that first summer I was intending to and over the course of the next year of revisiting it, I made it more and more grown up, but it still maintained very much that sort of kid sense. I wanted it to feel like a movie I was making if I had had a film camera or camcorder back in the late 70s, early 80s and got all my friends around the neighborhood to come and help me make a shark movie, you know. So it started as that, and then just rolled from there.

Dave Bullis 46:52
So what did you actually, you know, decide that you, you know, to everything with all the production dates together and stuff like that. I mean, I imagine you kind of had to say, alright, I'm shooting this in my house. I can control location, but you know, I'm sorry, Ronnie, are you married? No, I'm not okay. So that actually that okay. That actually helps out. Then I was like, no, just thinking. I was like, I don't know if you are or not. And I was like, okay, because I can imagine that would have to that's a whole other conversation, you know, of being like, Well, I had to tell my wife that she couldn't come home.

Ron Bonk 47:24
Yeah, hopefully you're with someone who doesn't mind you doing that. And I mean, when I have, you know, been shooting and was dating someone or with somebody, I never really ran into many issues with that. For the most part, it was pretty clear early on, like, I love making movies and this is what I'm going to be doing. And, you know, most cases, they would actually be on set or trying to help out and that sort of stuff. So that hasn't been a big issue. But, and originally, I wasn't going to shoot it, you know, in my house, I was trying to find a house to shoot at, and eventually it just made sense. I was like, you know, if I shoot in my house, I don't have to pay for a location. We're all there. We literally get up, go downstairs, start shooting it, you know. So all that sort of stuff just kind of came together throughout the throughout the process. But I don't remember what year, you know, I don't remember a year I shot off on time I had I'd have to go, go and look. But I know, like said, the summer before, I was going to start shooting it, and things weren't coming together fast enough for me to feel like, okay, I'm comfortable shooting right now, so let me take a year off and just develop it some more and take some more time to get the things I need. And like I said, a lot just changed in that process. But once you do set a date, and eventually, somewhere along the way, I settled on doing like the three separate chunks of shooting. We shot in August, then we shot in March, and then we shot in August again. So shooting over the course of a year, which was fairly stressful, because you always worry about losing an actor or something along the way, the people I work with, you know, they are always trying to get their acting gigs, or there's a chance they can move so far away he can't get them, or whatever, you know. But if it allowed me to also make the movie a little more leisurely, it was a bigger project, as much bigger project than originally 10am I was gonna do it for a few $1,000 and that's always the plan, with every move I'm gonna make this cheap and quick for a few $1,000 and then as you play around with and work with and expand on it, you know, the budget keeps growing and growing, and the ideas grow and grow. And suddenly I went from having, you know, basically a very simple shark to a more elaborate shark, and more scenes added to the movie, and, and, and it was very much like almost being back on city. The Vampir is going, like, Okay, I have to do too much stuff on this, you know, I'm lighting it, and I had people help with the lighting, but I was still in charge of lighting, and when they weren't there, which, you know, people weren't always there, I still had to go out and move the light. So when you're. Setting up, the camera sent the shot, and you're like, Oh, these lights aren't perfect, and we're putting all the lights outside and shining them in, I'd have to go outside, go around, adjust them if I didn't have someone to check them on the inside for me, then I have come back in and recheck them. Or if someone I was sending outside was supposed to, you know, adjust and wasn't getting it right, you know, I'd be looking through the camera. I'm trying to, you know, tell them, you know where to adjust it to, and sometimes just not getting it you know, between that, it's just physically exhausting. Focus so much on the shots. You're not always focused on the acting. It just, yeah, I mean, you know, it's when you're doing these low budget movies, it's you wear a lot of different hats, and it's exhausting, but it's still fun. I mean, we had a great time in that set. And that's not the big reason to enjoy doing it.

Dave Bullis 47:33
Definitely, Ron. And then you finally get to that spot where you're like, What the hell? Why the hell did I start doing this?

Ron Bonk 49:56
It's always those first couple days I'm like, Oh, I made a horrible mistake. And you're like, I'm in way over my head. Let me just cancel this production regroup, and I'll, you know, restart. And, you know, another week or two. And then you just like, now I gotta push forward. And then you hit your, you know, you start hitting your stride, you know, three, four days in. And then suddenly, you know, everything is going smooth. And you write only stuff off quick, and you're going back and fixing some of the stuff you know you did wrong early on. And you and next, you know, it's all done, and then you fall into depression because you're not in a movie set anymore, you know,

Dave Bullis 51:47
Yeah, right. And you know, because when you're on the movie set, you're like, you're actually doing it. There's no thinking like, am I actually making something? No, because you are. You can feel it, you know what I mean?

Ron Bonk 51:56
Yeah, you're really kind of like living the dream at that point. You know, you you don't have to. I mean, most cases, I still do, like, a little work every morning, keep things going, but in most part, you're able to get away from your regular job being sad. You're laughing, you with your friends. You know, you're eating, you know, a good food all day. And it's, you know, it's just, it's like being on vacation, you know, except here with a van, you know, with a camcorder, and you tell people what to do, and then it gets all done, and then you're like, oh, shoot, I got to go back to sitting in front of my computer every day.

Dave Bullis 52:32
Exactly right? You're like, I need this high again. How the hell do I get there

Ron Bonk 52:36
again? And I need to make back all that money I just spent making more money to pay bills. So, yeah, just, it'd be great, you know, someone paid for the production and paid for you to then take the rest of your what are the chances,

Dave Bullis 52:54
right? Yeah, that's, that's when you're really living the dream, man, that's what you know. You've made it. You know, Rod, I know where we've we're almost at a time, you know, we've been talking for about an hour now, you know, so run just to, sort of, you know, just sort of put a period to end of this conversation. Do you have anything you'd like to just to say to kind of finalize everything,

Ron Bonk 53:17
if you're looking for, like, a last minute advice or something, I guess, just, I've done that so many times. You could definitely look up old interviews and stuff. But if you wanted to track me down and stuff, look, you know, SRS cinema calm is the website, you can definitely follow me on Facebook. It's probably where I'm most active, Instagram, too, and and if you, if you, if you, my personal profiles max out. It's tougher for me to, you know, friend quest everyone but the SRS cinema Facebook page is, you know, great spot to stay up to date on what I'm doing. There's also, like a house shark, and she kills individual pages and trying to what else a little bit on Twitter, but any of the social media places work and looks up see I release a lot of other movies from filmmakers all around the world. And so not only you supporting my little distribution company by picking up these movies and checking them out, you are also supporting these filmmakers, because, you know, the more stuff, if I do well with them, I can license more works from them. In some case, I can pay him to make movies. And you're helping other filmmakers, you know, sometimes hundreds of filmmakers, you know, live, live their little part of the dream too.

Dave Bullis 54:41
And, you know, and that's a very good point. Ron and everybody. I'm gonna link to everything Ron and I talked about in the show notes. I know how shark, hey, my pleasure, Ron. I know how shark is actually on Amazon Prime right now. I'm gonna make sure to link to that in the show notes as well. By the way, Ron, I don't know. Do your poster, but that's exactly what the poster should have been. That is on the money, because you know why it's intriguing. It explains the movie, and it stops people in their tracks. It goes, What the hell is that?

Ron Bonk 55:11
It does. Yeah, catch a lot of attention. I had to, I actually paid a lot of money for that work to get done, but I knew there was a chance of getting into Walmart, and it really needed killer to make it happen. So, yeah, so sometimes you just, you got to put it out there. But I try to apply it to the project. I think the project is, I always try to do the illustrated artwork for the limited edition release that we do. And I do a lot of those, you know, where it's only 50, 100 or 200 units, you know, sold directly from the site, pretty much exclusively. Sometimes I'll list them the leftovers on Amazon, and might move, you know, 510, more copies there, or something like that. But for the most part, you know, you get them from my site with Illustrator, because that's what the fans that are close to SRS like the best. But then we'll do the, what's called, like the real are, you know, with the actors, or, in case, I'll shark with the shark and the real house and stuff for the wide releases, because that's what the retailers like to have on their story, on their shelves and stuff. So, you know, you just, like I said, you apply a strategy to teach release, you know, depending on what you're doing with each release at the time,

Dave Bullis 56:17
Right! Yeah, you're always trying to, you know, get as much eyeballs as possible. And I think, whatever. Yeah. And again, this poster is, does exactly that. Because I remember, remember, years ago, I actually had a friend of mine who, when he went to, he went to, like, AFM, and all those different places, and he was talking about pitching, and he goes, Dave, there's one thing I learned. He's like, if you don't have a killer poster, that sums up the movie. And just one image, he's like, you're sunk, no matter what it is.

Ron Bonk 56:43
Yeah, you gotta start there, the title and the image. And then they, they want a good, you know, short synopsis, having a killer trailer, like a one minute like trailer just shows the, you know, the money shots from the movie. And then they might not even ever look at the movie. If they love your artwork, they love your trailer. You can be a red box you know. You could be potentially in Walmart or family video or Best Buy or whatever, based off of just that stuff you know. And also help if you know you have a genre that they like, like Walmart does real well with these sorts of movies where our red box, how shark hasn't got into red box probably never will, because red box like more serious horror, you know. So if you have a serious like a paranormal horror movie with killer artwork and a gray trailer, then you increase your chances of, you know, getting it out on red box.

Dave Bullis 57:38
Yeah, right. And again, you talk about all those different streaming platforms and what they're all going what they're all looking for and you know, but I guess, you know, we don't run, let's say that for the next conversation. When you know, whenever your next film comes out, you let me know we come back on and we'll, sounds good. We'll keep this conversation going Ron.

Ron Bonk 57:55
Sounds good. Thank you.

Dave Bullis 57:56
Ron Bonk, thank you so much, buddy.

Ron Bonk 58:28
Thank you.

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BPS 429: The Unfiltered History of Film Distribution with AFM Co-Founder with Michael Ryan

July 24, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

Michael Ryan started his career working in the TV industry for Sir Lew Grade’s UK company, ITC. In 1978 he formed J&M Entertainment with a colleague, a distribution sales agent for independent films. As J&M grew, it developed its business model to also take responsibility for financing new films & providing production finance.

In 1980 Ryan and J&M were founder members of the American Film Marketing Association (AFMA) – later to be renamed Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) – which was formed to provide an annual film market based in Los Angeles. Michael served two terms as Chairman of IFTA (2004-2008) and another three terms from 2015-2021.

In 2000, Ryan partnered with Guy Collins. Between them they have financed, sold and produced over 200 films, including The Wild Geese, The English Patient, The General, Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, The Osterman Weekend, the Highlander series, Planet 51 and more recently, at GFM Films with Fred Hedman, Toei Animations Harlock, Absolutely Anything starring Simon Pegg and Simon West-directed action thriller Stratton starring Dominic Cooper. On July 15, 2022, GFM’s Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, an independently financed and produced animated feature is based on Mel Brooks iconic Blazing Saddles that launched as a project by GFM Films at AFM in 2014, was released across 4,500 U.S. screens by Paramount.

Please enjoy my conversation with Michael Ryan.

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Alex Ferrari 0:14
I'd like to welcome to the show Michael Ryan, how you doing, Michael?

Michael Ryan 0:28
I'm good. Thank you. Yeah, very good.

Alex Ferrari 0:31
Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm excited to talk to you. You've lived a very interesting life in our business. You've done a bunch of different things. And and my very first question is How and why did you want to get into this business? How did you get into this? This insanity? That is the film industry?

Michael Ryan 0:48
Yeah. That's a very good question. I, I started working for a guy called Colonel David Stirling, who was the man who founded the SHS in the Second World War. So all of that stuff, I didn't have anything to do with that was just working as a little Junior making sales of TV programs and blah, blah, blah. Unbeknown to me, he had all sorts of places in hotspots around the world, which were all based in television stations. So basically, he was supplying private armies. So it was all quite interesting. I didn't I didn't join for that. I just joined because I liked the idea of being in television and radio. And then it kind of went from there. And somebody offered me a job I worked for Lord then served all great, who was a wonderful man and taught me a lot of what I get gathered for my knowledge. And I just loved it. And I went for it. He went from there into making movies and some really big movies. And I got the opportunity to travel the world and you know, do the Cannes Film Festival and all of that stuff, which which, which I loved, I have to say, as you said earlier, it was the golden age of independent film. And some of those independent filmmakers became the big major filmmakers that we have today. And I kind of got into it almost almost by accident, but knowing that I wanted to be in something where I had contact with people around the world and travel and all of that. So it kind of worked out that way. And then that that led to producing and financing movies, that cetera, which is basically the whole of my career, I suppose.

Alex Ferrari 2:30
So you were so when you're talking about the golden age of independent film, you're talking about the 70s 80s. And that kind of world?

Michael Ryan 2:38
Yeah, I mean, there was this period was there was this glorious period, where what if you want to see a film out of the cinema, but that soon became video, the invention of the VCR. And at that point, all of us guys that were packaging and making and selling TV programs and films, realized that there was a secondary and third and fourth value to these things. And that's when it became obvious that you could do anything because the money was enormous in those days. It was a brand new brand new invention and people that big video companies were competing like crazy, much, much bigger hunting area than than what we have today with VOD. And so you our value was in library, the value is in production and sales. And can at that point was just a money making machine. It was ridiculous.

Alex Ferrari 3:39
No, but I have a little bit of experience of the 80s in the sense of the distribution space because I worked in a video store. So I saw the product moving in, I saw what kind of movies were being made to my understanding at the beginning of the VHS revolution, just kind of like streaming as well, and kind of like DVD and everything else. The main major studios stayed away. They were very kind of they were kind of like, oh, no, I don't want to just do it. No, I can't do that. And because of that, it allowed companies like New World trauma, the full moon these kinds of be and of course can and these kinds of be movies, companies to come out and just own the VHS home video market. I mean, Canon was built. I mean, he was making I'm God. Those guys were making scene amounts of money with Ninja ninja movies, for God's sakes.

Michael Ryan 4:33
It would there were those days where it literally in those days, the cannon boys you could literally put a poster on a wall with nothing else. A couple of names a title, literally a poster, and you probably make enough sales during the Cannes Film Festival in less than two weeks to finance the movie. So you sold it on a poster. You ended up with a film

Alex Ferrari 4:57
From what I understood talking to some of those boys who worked with with cannon. During those days, like sometimes they would just put the name of the actors up. And they didn't have the actor.

Michael Ryan 5:11
Oh, no, that was the last thing they did. I mean, it really was cowboy time. But bless them, you know, they, they, they spawned a huge industry, they kept variety screen International, those industry magazines going, you know, you'd have a special issue, which would be 250 pages, and about 180 pages, that was canon advertising, each page, a different movie, most of them not made, probably most of them never got made. But it was a it was an extraordinary time. And out of all of that somehow came some really quality movies that were totally independently financed and would never have got made in a major company, which in those days, was the only way to make a movie. So you're right. They did stay away from it. So consequently, it became Gunfight at the OK Corral. You know, everybody was at it. Mario Kasara, Andy Vanja, making first blood, which made them into multimillionaires in one swoop. With Stallone. I mean, just extraordinary time.

Alex Ferrari 6:17
Yeah, he did. They did Terminator two in the early 90s, as well. And Total Recall, the caracal boys and Mario that yeah, it was it was it was it was really the wild wild west. And of course, we can't speak about the 80s without a Ryan. I mean, they they were pumping out Oscar winning movies. And Robocop

Michael Ryan 6:37
I, we were doing a movie with called the hotel in New Hampshire, which is based on Jones book. And I went had to go to New York to meet Arthur Krim, who was old there. And he wanted the movie for North America. And I sat in a big boardroom, it was what it was, you know, I was a kid. And we were doing that. And he said, you know, have you got all these people you say you've got? And I said yes, I'm crossing my fingers under the table? And he said, Well, if you have, then I'm happy to go into business with you. And I said, Yes, we have. And he said, if you've got a moment, and we walked outside into the corridor instead young man, you're either very brave or very stupid. I hope it's the format.

Alex Ferrari 7:28
And that comment, I have to say, is exactly what the film industry is all about. If you're like a you're either very brave, or very stupid, yeah, to get into this business.

Michael Ryan 7:40
And sometimes you do those two in concert with one another, it works both ways. I sometimes still wonder whether Arthur Krim was right.

Alex Ferrari 7:49
So so so I always, always tell filmmakers about the 80s. Because I mean, I was a young man when the 80s. But it was just so much money flowing around in the 80s. And then in the 90s, when DVD showed up, that exploded in a way that it's hard to comprehend. Today as a filmmaker and independent filmmaker, how much money and how easy it was to make money using those formats internationally. And I always used to tell people, because I remember seeing these movies come into the video store in the 80s and early 90s. And literally in the 80s. And please correct me if I'm wrong. If you finished a film just finished it on 35. Yeah, it got a release of some sort, you made some sort of money with it?

Michael Ryan 8:40
Well, there was there was a plethora of, you know, they were video video based or DVD based companies. That's the way they finance themselves. And there were hundreds and hundreds of them. So you could always get a domestic release, you can always get a release in the major countries around the world. And those were the guys who eventually became so good at it. I mean, if they if they weren't very good at it, they went back to selling secondhand cars, which is what they did in the first place. Which is true. And because of that, because of the opportunity, there was some there was some really good companies structured during that period. And it was your right I mean, I, I suppose the reason I sold my company successfully, originally the original company was because we had a very big library, we're making some quite quality movies. And people were falling over themselves. You know, I'd, in the days before cellphones, we have screenings in can of whatever we're screening and people would literally leave the screening early and sprint down the closet to the carton hotel to try and get there before their competitor was ridiculous like the Gold Rush really was extraordinary time. Yeah, it was. We were very lucky to live through it and what I suppose To establish ourselves with it. And it really did work very well. We were, it was a it was a wonderful period. And it did spawn some really good companies, and some really original filmmakers. And you know, you, we all know if you've got a big playing field, there should be a good team coming out of it if you've got picking a few players. And it did, and it worked very well.

Alex Ferrari 10:24
Now, in the 90s, as we come up, I'm kind of going going through the history of from the basically the early 80s. To to where we are today. But in the 90s, there was this movement that happened that wasn't around in the 80s, which was in a big way, which was the the true independent filmmaking movement, which was more the Sundance movement that the Richard Linklater is the clerks, the Robert Rodriguez is of the world those kind of, you know, Spike Lee, those kinds of filmmakers that came out during that time. When I was talking to him, forgive me for dropping a name. When I was talking to Rick Linklater on the show, he was one of the first to come out the gate and the nice thing was 90 or 91. One slacker showed up. Yeah. And he said, when we released it, there was all of a sudden, a business infrastructure to support this kind of filmmaking, which was the VHS, world video store world, they needed product. Because it was there. I know, it's hard to believe now there's we are in a sea of product now. Because it was so cheap to make movies. Now, back then I still I tell people like I used to watch every week, what came out. But like I could literally watch all the releases of the week, which was maybe 345. It was a crazy week. And I would be able to watch every movie that got released in the United States, which was that money. So there was a lack of of that. So there was this infrastructure for that moment. And independent film, how did the markets work with these kinds of films, because they didn't, they weren't genre, some were. But you know, like the John Pearson's of the world, and obviously the Weinstein's and what they were doing. How did the markets work with with this new movement, the 90s kind of Sundance independent movement,

Michael Ryan 12:10
I think it was almost a reaction against the sort of rather crass approach to filmmaking.

Alex Ferrari 12:18
I mean, the Canon boys, the Canon boys, exactly.

Michael Ryan 12:21
And there was that kind of cheapness to it and shabbiness to it. And they were just making films that, as I say, just stick a title on the wall and you make it, there was no real content. And then people I mean, you know, we all talk about Harvey in in derogatory ways, but there was the positive side to him, and the Weinstein Company that Miramax before then, and they began to concentrate on quality, because they realized there was sustainable market out there for more small movies, because very little money with one or two actors, quality actors who weren't necessarily big marquee stars, and it became a business and it really was a business. And those people were able to make movies at a price. And they were sustainable movies that proper proper film buffs, like yourself in those days, would be able to go and see and, and enjoy. Um, so I think it I think it also spawned that it spawned Sundance, you know, I went to the first Sundance, I led to his, you know, place there in the center. Yeah, I did all of that stuff. And that that was spawned by all of all of those days, of course, Sundance concentrated on the quality and the uniqueness and the quirkiness, but it was all there to see. So, as I said earlier, you make enough movies, and some of them are going to be little nuggets. And that's how I started and people like Rodriguez and all of those guys, too, you know, and they all they all came out of that that pool, and establish themselves as a sort of shining example of how to do it, rather than do it in a crass way. And I think, really, it's established what we have today, which is a huge gulf between the big, massive movies that Marvel movies and things like that, that the tentpole movies that the majors make and some other companies, and that the Gulf in the middle is enormous and that that was created in those days, I think by all of the schlock that was being made. And then those little diamonds that came out of it, which people like Harvey Weinstein and others, Bob Shea, people kind of recognize that hang on, there's a bit quality here, this isn't going to disappear down that down the the DVD drain, we can make money out of this and it's sustainable, and it will carry on, and then it becomes worthwhile on the shelf of your company if it's part of your library. And in a way, that's what we did at my company and we had got three or 400 movies, but there was a there was a top 20 or 30 that anybody would kill to get ahold of. So you know it. It All of that huge Gold Rush formed the quality. And those guys benefited from it. I did too.

Alex Ferrari 15:09
Yeah. And then and then they'll and then also the opening of the international market, which was bringing over international films and I know the Weinstein's and Miramax did a fantastic job of feel bringing in like a life is beautiful and, and a lot of these directors that we really never heard of in the States and in the west and spotlighting them and spotlighting them in a way that that didn't exist before.

Michael Ryan 15:32
That's right. I mean, you have, you know, dresses like Chevrolet,

Alex Ferrari 15:35
Chris Losky

Michael Ryan 15:37
I guess last year, I mean, that the international marketplace opened up, and people realize it wasn't just to sell American independent movies, it was actually it was actually spurring those people in those France, Germany, wherever they were actually spurring them on to make more internationally acceptable movies, even though they were local stories. And I think that helps enormously the the marketplace that can the AFM the Venice, Toronto, all benefited by that. And you had this huge conglomerate of people turning up desperate to buy rights. And that became a market and that became a proper business. So film markets became not just as a cheap Film Festival, it became a proper sustainable business. And I think that's why the AFM was formed 40 years ago, but it was formed by all of the professionals in the movie industry thinking, we can't just rely on Cannes, and, and and Berlin and Venice, we've got to create something ourselves. And it was that then that made it work. And still does, you know, they all of those people, it's still a traveling circus, and they go to 345. Everyone, it really is a circuit for three, four or five of those events a year. And it still surprises me actually, in the days of doing things like this, that it still works, you know, I I mean, one particular person that likes human contact, and I think I can do a deal, or make a CO production far better if I'm sitting down opposite somebody than I can on a on a on a camera and a screen. And that still works, I think and that human equality, let's face it, we make films so that we can entertain as many people as possible. So in order to do that, you've got to have a team.

Alex Ferrari 17:30
So you and you were one of the cofounders of AFM. If I'm not mistaken.

Michael Ryan 17:33
I was indeed Yeah, we yeah, there were there. There are a few there are very few left. And it was just literally we realized that at a certain point in the year, which then happened to be February, March, we were thinking there's nothing there in the calendar was a big hole, we can make use of this. And there are about 10 or 15 of us that got together and we put up I think it was 25 $30,000 Each, which in those days was actually quite a lot of money. You got really, that's a lot of money. How do I do that? Anyway, we did it. A lot of us did it, a handful of us did it that created our founder enough money to make it work. And it worked very well. It's, you know, will it will it survive and prosper as it has done with the pandemic in the middle? I don't know. I mean, you know, people have discovered this, and they can use this as a tool very effectively. But I think people will still turn up to do what they do there.

Alex Ferrari 18:34
It's kind of like what happened with the film festivals like yeah, you can watch a movie on your screen. But there's a thing about a film festival that is, is it's very difficult to replicate on in a virtual world, at least at least until my generation dies off. Maybe the generations behind me won't won't understand it. But

Michael Ryan 18:55
I don't know. I mean, I still you're right. I mean it is it is a generational thing. And I still certainly are my friends, kids. Some of them, some of them like you and I are still becoming film buffs. So maybe, maybe there's hope. But there's still that sort of collective sense of seeing something special in a special place. And whether that's your local communal,

Alex Ferrari 19:18
Communal, and a communal, communal experience.

Michael Ryan 19:20
And it works for a lot of movies, especially Thriller Horror, comedy, but that collective experience really works. So I don't think that will disappear. What might disappear is is film festivals in in certain places that aren't going to work. You've got to be very special to have a film festival. People want to travel 1000s of miles to and spend loads of money. But if you're a producer, it's by far the best way to look to launch a movie if you're launching it to launch it to the world and press. That's one thing if you're launching it to sell it, that's a whole other exercise. But all of those things are possible at the right Festival at the right time. And if you get it right, you Got an I've done it hundreds of times you time it right? And that's in the love of the gods most of the time is not because you're so clever. It's Is it ready in time. And if it is ready in time, it's the right festival and you get the right reaction. Then it works and it still does work. And I think that will continue to work as a marketing tool. And it works the other way. I had a movie movie with Timothy Dalton and Valeria galena. It was a historical thing. And a very good director whose name now escapes me. And we got into Ken because it was a French co productions I think strangled, Geagea called to get in. And having voted no, we had a great screening. The I thought the movie played terribly. I was there. The following morning that in the press, the one of the reviewers very clever, he said, I thought it was strange in a strange point in the movie in the middle of the film, there was clapping until I realized that people were leaving the cinema with the sound of the seats doing that as they left. That was it. The film died that very morning, it died. And we there was no way back. So that's the gamble, isn't it? You know, it's a great opportunity. But if you get it wrong, Jesus, you're really screwed.

Alex Ferrari 21:24
And I think what you're saying is there's value in what you're saying in regards to festivals that are five, maybe 10. In the world that matter. Yeah, and the rest.

Michael Ryan 21:35
But what's happening now is, which is kind of encouraging, it kind of works alongside local production. And you know, Netflix, the streamers are getting involved in this, they're making films in, in in strange places where they want to launch their own service. So you're getting Portuguese language movies at the Berber Lucchino fast Oh, Film Festival. So that's that, that can work. And it can work in a in a, in a sales producer type way. And in that you identify if you make a small film, you get go to the right places within a 12 month period. And you can make sales and find distributors in each of those places. So as a kind of local exercise, it's still does work if you've got if you plan it properly, and you're lucky, it does work. And so I think that part of it will carry on, I think that's part of it and exercise MRTS size that that we can still use. And if you use it intelligently, it works.

Alex Ferrari 22:35
Now, I love to talk to you about the Netflix effect, because when streaming showed up, just like everything else that happens in our business, when VHS showed up, everyone's like that's a fad. When DVD shows up as a fad, when streaming showed up, they're like, Oh, this is never really going to take off. I mean, because if I remember logging into Netflix streaming, always horrible. Their movies were horrible. They had nothing there no licenses that nothing was it was atrocious. I'm like, How is this even going to go anywhere? I even did that? It was 2012 I think it was 2011 when it came out. But the impact is it I haven't seen an impact so massive on our industry. In a I mean, you could argue VHS was it was kind of like a VHS was an atomic bomb. Streaming was basically the new killer version of that 20 times Hiroshima kind of size seismic shift. And it has completely changed our business model. It is devalued the movie, because now before that, I always tell filmmakers this, I go look before our movies were worth 2499, then retail, then they were worth 399 for rental. And then when when t VOD showed up, okay, we still can get 999 and maybe 299. If your HD maybe 399. And there was still some value there. But now our movies, generally speaking, and we could talk about the details of it are worth less than a penny, per view. And before it used to be 399. So it's become almost unsustainable as a business in the independent world. Unless you go down bigger stars selling International, you have to become much better at your job where like we were talking in the 80s and 90s, a car salesman could come in and make a fortune and not really know anything about the business. Throw up a couple of ninjas, and we're ready to rock and yeah, it's just your thoughts.

Michael Ryan 24:39
I think you're right, I think but I think what the sort of secret ingredient if you like is is enormous public funding. Very clever people who have structured proper companies and that the car dealers and the VHS traders were as you said originally, you They were from nowhere. And in a way the majors shunned it because it wasn't a business that they understood or wanted to be in, it was rather tacky. Netflix and the others Amazon, whoever have made it into something massive, obviously. I mean, it is so huge. Nobody really understands it. I don't think I'm sure they do. But it's the money is utterly massive, it's mind boggling. And I think that's it, they've got a corporate structure that works. They've got banking and shareholders and investors that work. And it's become a BM off that, that it just carries on working. And I think it's kind of indestructible. It's very difficult, despite what they say, to sell a movie to Netflix. Because they, they, they want to own the world. And if you're doing what I do, which is CO production, etc, you you're you're putting together that jigsaw puzzle all the time. And there's a certain point in time when a Netflix comes in, it doesn't really work for them, because I'm gonna own the world and you say, Hang on, I've got France, Germany, Spain and Italy already in, I'm not going to kick them out because they're part of my structure. So it kind of doesn't work together. Occasionally we do big business with them on a North American deal or a U K deal or a part of Europe. And but generally it's very difficult to do that. And despite they're announcing that they're spending, you know, 25 30 billion on acquisitions, it's more, or buy that and will own it. And we'll take it off your hands guff, you know, and we'll maybe include you for a little share, which they don't. So that that, that'll carry on, I'm sure. And I'll keep making those movies, and some of them. Let's face it a bloody good. You know, we're at a time now where you're looking at the hide No,

Alex Ferrari 26:54
Stranger Stranger Things just that alone.

Michael Ryan 26:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, look at what's that that's done to the world. What was that what it did for Kate Bush,

Alex Ferrari 27:02
I was about to say, Kate Bush, I'm like, who was Kate by like, I heard of her. But now my kids are like, oh, I need to hear Kate Bush. I'm like, what? The we're in the upside down. Michael, where's the upside?

Michael Ryan 27:15
It is I mean, she, she I used to like her way back. I thought she wrote great, great music. And now she can't believe it. She's like, I don't remember. I'm a bloody grandmother for Christ's sake.

Alex Ferrari 27:27
I'm the hottest song in the world.

Michael Ryan 27:31
And by the way, it's a bloody good song.

Alex Ferrari 27:33
I just listened to it almost every day. The kids haven't played

Michael Ryan 27:37
In the background yet. I think Netflix will carry on it will change it. And only the biggest will survive because we're at a point now. I mean, early days, I suppose. But right now where people's own home economies are really struggling when you see what's happening in the UK and where people can't afford to heat their bloody homes. So the last thing in the world they're going to do is to have more subscriptions to more streaming platforms. So it's going to slim down to one or two, or three. That's all it's going to be everybody's going to have Disney as they've proved. Yeah, probably everybody's going to have Amazon and Netflix, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure about the rest. The rest will be specialized. I guess there's always that room.

Alex Ferrari 28:24
Yeah, like, I mean, HBO Max, now they bought the brand, and they're gonna combine it with Disney Channel and that discovery channel. So that's going to be a much bigger beast. Maybe like HBO might be in that mix. But everyone has prime. I mean, subprime is already there. Netflix is like Netflix. Netflix is Netflix. And you're right, Disney plus came out like a like a juggernaut. And if you have kids, disney plus is I mean, if you want Marvel, if you'd like Marvel, Star Wars, any of those other ways.

Michael Ryan 28:56
Like, imagine, if you said to your kids, you know, okay, I can't afford to go out and buy dinner. So it's either dinner, or Disney plus they

Alex Ferrari 29:07
Disney Disney plus now there's no question.

Michael Ryan 29:11
It's kind of sad, but I get it. I think that will carry on. But it's going to be interesting how I mean, we've seen how many people Netflix are laying off. You know, so if there is going to be a slimming down, I don't know how that works or how they then trim their production acquisitions budgets, or maybe they boost them? I don't know. I mean, it's my way of thinking if we are making a movie, and we're financing it, and they can buy the rights. That's a hell of a lot cheaper for them than spending they, you know, I find make a movie for 25 They're making a movie for 55. And that's just the way it is with the overhead they've got. So it makes sense to me that to carry on acquiring, I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I but it still does make business sense to me. And we still do do it. He's just that you can't rely on that. So what you can rely on is selling a few major territories with the talent, you've got the director, you've got the scripts, you've got whatever, it's always a story. And then at that point, you have the basis to go to a financier or bank and say, here's the collateral, we want to borrow a gap from you. here's the, here's the way we do it. Here's the jigsaw puzzle, that's still possible, thank God. And that's how most of the independent movies get made now. So that'll carry on, but I don't, I don't know which way we go. We, we still, why even today, we were talking to Netflix about a movie that they've just bought from us. And about, about changes in cost and all of that. So they're a good partner to have, let's face it, they got deep pockets. But it's very difficult. At the end of the day, I suppose what I've always lectured to people. And what I've always the thing I've drilled, tried to drill into people is it's all about quality, it's about the story. And if you make a good film, you make a good story, people are going to come and see it, aren't they? So I think I don't think that'll ever change. I think that this financing financing structures will change. And, you know, banks come in and out of the movie industry, like they go in and out of a supermarket. It's it's a strange business being a bank or a financial entity within the film industry, because you have to be you have to be a real expert. I mean, you know, I've, I've worked with banks, who, when they, when I've either sold my company, or they're out of the business, that you look at the bottom line that they've made, it's huge. And that's my movies. You know, they've made much more than me, but in a way they deserved it, because they've been financing it. So it still works. I mean, there are banks that are still wanting to be in it. Thank God.

Alex Ferrari 31:53
Well, let me ask you this, so and the elephant in the room in regards to what we're talking about, which is distribution in general. And I've talked heavily about, you know, distribution and protecting yourself from bad deals and all that stuff. I'm assuming in your day, you might have signed a bad deal here or there. You might have been taken advantage of I'm just guessing along your journey as a film producer and financier. So what I just love to ask you because you have this history in the business. And you know, you were there at the beginning of AFM and everything. The concept of Hollywood accounting, which is been talked about forever. And as before AFM I mean, they were doing Hollywood accounting back in the 30s. I think the second Chaplin showed up, they were doing

Michael Ryan 32:44
Off Charlie Chaplin,

Alex Ferrari 32:46
Right! Yes, why they started United Artists. That's why they started United Artists, because they got they got. So in your opinion, I mean, you're at a different level, you're dealing with, you're on a professional level, at a higher level you you have the context of different territories, you can sell and get paid. But for independent producers coming up in today's world, how are they expected to build a business that is sustainable, if they're constantly being taken advantage of, or just opportunities aren't as, as relevant as or open as they used to be?

Michael Ryan 33:17
It's very tough. I mean, reputation is one thing. Because if you're supplying product, and somebody tries to screw you, that you're not going to go back to that person, so that that's but that you have to build that that's a reputation you have to build. There's belonging to IFTA, which is the organization that organizes the American Film Market, they have a structure where they'll go out for you, and write letters to people and say, you don't do this, you're not going to be go, you'll be barred from the next American film, market, whatever, there are certain procedures that you can make. i It's very difficult, they're there. If you go through a bank, to finance your movie, they'll have a certain amount of power to because they will be borrowing against the contract that you've made with this particular person. I think it's all about background and knowledge, it research. It's very important to know who you're doing, who you're doing business with, and how they're doing. You know, if they're doing badly, are you going to go in and do a million dollar deal with them, because they're probably not going to pay you. So you've got it's all about knowledge and knowledge is that is the thing that takes you through the bad times. And I think it I think that really matters a lot. At the end of the day, if you're a little independent and you go out and making a film, you know nothing about anything and you don't use a sales agent, who then will do that job for you. It's really, really difficult. You might have some sound interference because there's a huge rainstorm going on there. Fair enough.

Alex Ferrari 34:50
No one here in England. I expect that sir.

Michael Ryan 34:52
Went from Sunday afternoon to pouring with rain and hail stones very nice. So I think it is Because I think there are certain procedures that you processes you can go through, and protections that you can give yourself. And a lot of that is choosing the right sales agent to work with. Because they'll have, you're a one time filmmaker, each film is made on its own, and you're not going to be churning them out or selling them, you know, five, six, every film market. So I think that's probably important. Just talking to the people that know how to do it, it will always happen, they'll always be a candidate that goes bankrupt without you knowing that it was never going to happen, it will be surprised to everybody, you know, city world, I mean, hello. Oh, yeah, it's it's a difficult business. But there are things that you can do, and most of it is talking to the right people. And I think if you're a first time, second time independent filmmaker, you have to go through a sales agent with a

Alex Ferrari 35:57
A good, a good a good reputation with the sales agents, because they can take you to,

Michael Ryan 36:02
Yeah, I mean, you get into trouble with, you're going to save that sales agent that just won't give you the money. And I know, lots of those occasions, you know, it's, it's a shame, and it's something that stains that our industry, but let's face it, every industry has their thieves. I mean, there's there, so you can go to Iftar. And say, I've approached this sales agent, what do you know about them, and they'll tell you, you know, so it's, it's using, all of the checks and balances are out there, you just got to use them. If you just go out there and sell your film, just sort of bits and pieces, it's gonna be a mess. So it's all about organization.

Alex Ferrari 36:47
Now, the other thing that I love about the way you're presenting your this conversation is that you look at movies as a business person, first, you're looking at it as a product, you it doesn't seem like you have emotion attached to your project, I'm sure you enjoy them, especially some of the the higher, you know, the bigger, acclaimed ones that you have as emotional. But at the end of the day, you still it's this product, and you're approaching it that way, where so many filmmakers walk into AFM or a Cannes or Venice, with emotion leading with a motion of their move, this is my baby. And nobody wants my baby. And then when the first shark shows up and go, Oh, I love you, oh, like someone likes me. And all of a sudden I'll sign whatever you want, and your movie is gone for 25 years.

Michael Ryan 37:32
That's exactly right. It's exactly you're exactly right. And when we're supposed to be there to look after those movies, we, if we foster those movies and take care of them, we hopefully will do the next one, the next one, the next one that I what I love to do. And we need people to be passionate about their product, I'm passionate about certain things that we do. At the end of the day, it has to be a sustainable business, if we're going to keep carrying on. And they've those people have to understand. If you're spending 500 $600 million on making your passion project, you aren't just going to make it for your mom and dad, you're going to make it tough for people to see it. And in order to get people to see it, you've got to get people to get it out there and give them the ability to see it. And that means selling it and selling your baby. And there might be things that you don't like, but they somebody like me might know better than them about how to market it. And you know, a lot of the time we do you know, it's like don't say that that's ridiculous. You know, here's, here's the way it should be sold. And no, I don't like that image. As I shut up.

Alex Ferrari 38:42
Let me put the poster that's going to sell this depth, which is which leads me to a great I was I was consulting a filmmaker the other day. And they had a film that was under 100,000. beautifully produced. Nice genre, not not nit not a very genre. So it was an action wasn't Zero has a little music in it. And it's kind of you know, did a little bit different, a little bit different. And they said, What do I do? How much do you think I can get for this in the marketplace? And I said, You're not gonna make any money. I had straight like straight I'm like, Look, you will not, you'll barely make if you make $1,000 I'll be impressed. And he's like, What do I do? And I go, okay, so this is what you need to do, because I got it since it's such a low budget. I think a VOD is a really great place for him to make some money, but he has no stars. So I said go out, find a star. Pay them 10,000 for the day, shoot them out in the day, get permission to put them on the thumbnail dabble them throughout the movie. So it doesn't look like he just shot him for two minutes and put them on the on the poster. Really make a part of the movie and do that and that's exactly what we're doing right now. We just locked in the actor. We're talking to the distributor who I know And we're packaging this whole thing. And that like if you have this guy in your chances of making money, there's no guarantees, but the chances of you actually see because now you have a face on that thumbnail. Yeah, that's passing through that you go, Oh, I love that guy. And, you know, unless you're Brad Pitt, and this is Brad Pitt, you know, because at the end of the day, unfortunately, where we are in today's world, it's all about the 16 by nine thumbnail flowing by in either TVOD, AVOD SVOD. It is so, so important. And filmmakers don't understand that. Would you agree with me?

Michael Ryan 40:37
Yeah, I would. Especially at that level. And remember, we have a small division called evolution pictures, and we concentrate on pictures around that level. And there always has to be a recognizable actor, otherwise it will not sell. The only way for you to sell it, if it's good is to go to film festivals and to spend money promoting it. That's going to cost you more than getting an Actor in for a few days. Right? It does pay it if you can do it. Well do it professionally. And with those sorts of movies, I think I understand the sort of maybe you're talking about it's fairly easy to do if you can get the right guy and it just gives a face to the campaign. And it works. I mean, you you can't do that. No, you know, I've got it. I've spent 7 million What do I do now? It's like, well, you're on your time?

Alex Ferrari 41:27
No, have you spent $7 million

Michael Ryan 41:31
Budget movies it gives you it gives you scope to be able to do that you can you can say to everybody, okay, stop, you know, we're gonna get this guy in. And we're going to fit him in here, here, here, here. And here. You know, your, your $7 million filmmaker was in early can't do that to my movie. But you can with this. And I think you're right, it does work. The only other way is to spend huge amounts of money on publicity.

Alex Ferrari 41:55
And even then you it's it's such an echo chamber right now that the studios are having problems show up getting awareness for their $200 million tentpole films. Yeah, that's why they that's why they buy pre IP that everybody knows, shows you like, you know, when Thor's coming out, because everybody knows Marvel, you know, the next Star Wars or the next Star Trek or the next Harry Potter? Because these are all IPs that we all know. So it becomes easier to market that. That's why something like Avatar that was done over a decade ago, was an anomaly, you know? Sure. Sure. A brand new $500 million brand new IP with no major, major stars in it. I mean, I mean, obviously Sigourney Weaver. And and Yeah, but that doesn't justify a $500 million dollar movie.

Michael Ryan 42:43
No, it's fine. It was still a pumped because the the actual techniques they were using were groundbreaking and nobody had ever thought. So would they do that? Again? Probably not. I mean, it, I can't see them spending that sort of money. Today, it just won't work on a new on a new IP.

Alex Ferrari 42:58
But like talking about the marketing, a lot of filmmakers are like, Oh, I have 30,000. I'm like, take that 30,000 Hire an actor that we all recognize. And that's your marketing budget, you've already invested in your marketing budget by hiring an actor that people recognize, because that's going to do more than $30,000 and Facebook ads, when you really don't know how to do Facebook ads?

Michael Ryan 43:20
No, you're absolutely right. And it will it will appeal to those distributors that distribute those sorts of movies. And the first question will be well, who's in it? And you know, if you ain't got the one person that they might be looking at, then you're dead. So you're right, is the ideal way to structure it. And if only they thought about it in the first week, they have, they've thought about it in time now,

Alex Ferrari 43:40
I knew there was this one movie I worked on when I was doing post production supervision where I was posting on a movie. And I was fascinated to see this that they had one what the main star who was not the star of the movie, but the face that we all know, right? And they shot him out in one day. And he they were in they were in a parking lot. So it was the way that he was like the informant or something and that the cops had to keep coming back to, to this to the garage to meet with them. So he was a beautiful structure. He was dabbled throughout the entire movie, so you don't feel gypped and then the rest of the movie, which was very well produced and very well shot with actors that we just don't know, go worked out great. And because his face is on the cover, sold. So like that easily. And that's what filmmakers don't understand. When I try to guess yell from the top of the top of the hill, please hire somebody that we recognize even my short films that I did as a director 10 years ago at Robert Forster in it. They had Lance Hendrickson in it. I had, you know other faces that people recognize that it gave something. And by the way, if you're trying to get into film festivals, film festivals, love having faces and stars. It is They're movies because they're in the asses and seats business.

Michael Ryan 45:03
Yeah, you got you got last last Fredrickson who said, who says, you know? Sure I'll come you know, and you say to say to the festival director, I can get him to come for three or four days. Great. You're in.

Alex Ferrari 45:15
Can you fly him out? Can you fly out? Put them up and last like, yeah, sure, I'll come out.

Michael Ryan 45:20
That's the way that's the way the business works. A lot of people don't understand that. It's that's a fairly simple structure. You get him to agree to go to the festival. He'll probably have a great time.

Alex Ferrari 45:30
Treat them like they'll treat them. Oh, like, royalty.

Michael Ryan 45:33
Yeah, he'll be he'll be treated like Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt, which doesn't always happen as we know it's it still works. And it's still it's still that tub thumping thing is back to the cannon boys. You know, they they did it all the time. And it worked every single time.

Alex Ferrari 45:47
You know, Michael Dukakis just showed up, and Chuck Norris just showed up.

Michael Ryan 45:53
There you go. I mean, we did it. Way back. Oh, God longterm. The first Highlander which we did, yeah. Yeah. Turned out to be a classic movie. But we, we what was so strange to me, because it was, you know, we had a Frenchman playing a Scotsman. And we and we had Sean Connery, a Scotsman playing a Spanish nobleman. But we we, we

Alex Ferrari 46:20
Michael, Michael, there could only be one. There's only could be one.

Michael Ryan 46:25
You see, you see how well that campaign worked. That we needed Connery and he was going on. Anyway, we agreed, and it was half a million dollars a day for five days for contouring. Yeah. Any any any days after that was a further half million. So we said, Okay, fine. And we did it. Obviously pre sold. The movie did very well. And during the shooting of the movie, there was a technical problem. And we needed him for two extra days. It was another million dollars.

Alex Ferrari 46:57
I mean, it's good money if you could get it.

Michael Ryan 46:59
But it, it worked. And you know, if we hadn't had him, it wouldn't have been half the film. It was, you know, and he's really worthwhile. And you know, the guy was great. And then he Sean Connery. She was Sean Connery. Exactly. And the out of that. I got a call from a Japanese advertising agency for some Suntory whisky. And they said, We want him as you know, in His Highness the costume, which had magnificent ties whiskey. So I went to him and said, you know, what do you think he said, I don't do adverts. Okay. So I went back and they said, Tell him it's a million dollars. And he said, No, no, no, don't get out of bed for that million dollars. Anyway, we this went on over a week. In the end, they in the end, they paid $5 million and and the the stipulation was they wouldn't speak. He wouldn't have to drink the whiskey. And the only place it could play was in Japan and Southeast Asia. And they said yes. And it must have worked because it's still playing the bloody ad every time. Every time I go to Japan. So kind of a guy like that. And he doesn't drink the whiskey. I guess for him, it was quite a nice experiment.

Alex Ferrari 48:23
Do you remember the remember? I don't know if you know this. This is just a side note. Do you remember the 80s Madonna was hired by Pepsi to promote? You remember that whole story where she she went on the set? And they're like, Okay, not drink the Pepsi and like, I'm not drinking with ABS. But we need you to drink the Pepsi. We hired you like, you hired me. But no one told me I had to drink it. And she they scrapped the whole thing and they still paid her like $10 million or five whatever it was. They didn't do it because they didn't do it because she wouldn't drink it. She was so we I mean, she I don't know why she did that. But she knew that she had that power and she just wielded it. And she just got paid. And they never because contractually it never said that she had to drink that Pepsi.

Michael Ryan 49:07
I'll hold on to how many lawyers got fired over that.

Alex Ferrari 49:11
Oh, lawyers and executives. Oh my god, are you kidding me? That whole thing was

Michael Ryan 49:16
I knew about the Pepsi thing. I didn't know that they canceled the whole thing because of that.

Alex Ferrari 49:20
I don't think I mean, they might have done something else later. But I know that spot was changed like you know, because I started off in commercials and that was legendary is one of those legendary stories. You're like,

Michael Ryan 49:30
She's probably she probably said I only drink Coca Cola.

Alex Ferrari 49:35
I only drink Coke. Now if you want to put the coke in the Pepsi can I'll do that for me. Imagine you imagine. So with the with AFM. I wanted I wanted to ask you now as you obviously one of the cofounders of and you've seen a change over the years, I mean in the in the glorious golden ages of the 80s when how many days was it was like 10 days or something like

Michael Ryan 49:58
That was like, was ridiculous. It was far too long.

Alex Ferrari 50:00
It was long and yeah, the money was flowing. Yeah, yeah,

Michael Ryan 50:04
You could do what you like. And you know, you'd stay in fancy hotels in Santa Monica or, you know, I'd stay in the Bel Air hotel, we ridiculous things to do. And now we've cut it down to I think it's, By five plus a building day or something like that, right? Exactly. Same dry down, is the right length, people will go home at the weekend, you know, it's just in the mid week period, it's much more much more doable. I think. Now, I've looked at the numbers. And there's a lot of people surprise me actually be thinking about the economic world at the moment. But it's building quite nicely. All the bigger companies have signed up for attending. So it might be, I think it would be a nice surprise, I think, you know, the Cannes Film Film Festival this year was wonderful, because it was like, going back to those those hay days of can, even though the money wasn't falling all over the place. But people were there and people were doing visits and people enjoying themselves. I think that's the thing. This is a hard business. to somewhere like Santa Monica, you'd quite like to get out and go and have a nice meal somewhere. And that's on the beach. Yeah, it's part of what we do. Otherwise, we'd do it in a boring exhibition center somewhere,

Alex Ferrari 51:24
All right, you'd be in Vegas somewhere or you'd be in some way,

Michael Ryan 51:27
And you'd lose all of the Hollywood niche about it, you know, just wouldn't, it just wouldn't be the same. And we find that a lot of the international clients will say, don't take it downtown. Don't Don't take it anywhere else. We go to Hollywood once, maybe twice a year. And if we want to go when we go to Hollywood, we you know, we want to go and see the people that we normally see plus go to the FM so that's where it's going to stay provided that,

Alex Ferrari 51:53
You know, the first year I went to AFM. It was so fascinating. I was I was there covering it for for the show. And it was before I did I started doing talks there and things and I just remember walking into the hotel, and I looked up and I saw a giant banner that was Mike Tyson versus Steven Seagal. And I said, oh, oh, I understand where I am now. And I'm like, Okay, this is and that's and then filmmakers come in expecting to see art and like, this is not art. You are not in an art place anymore. This is business 100% Business. Don't bring your art film here. Don't bring your backyard. You know, you know, personal film here. That's not where this is, you know, unless you've got Steven Seagal fighting Mike Tyson, in your personal drama. No one cares. No one cares.

Michael Ryan 52:51
Like I remember.

Alex Ferrari 52:52
Oh, yeah, they made it. Oh, no, that movie came out. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's even if it's yeah, I will talk about some stuff that he's that has enough stuff talking about him. And I thought, let's not, let's not let's just leave that as is. But look, but look at Mike Tyson, which is it's such an interesting guy. He's an actor, but he's one of the most famous human beings on the planet. And now he's like, I'm gonna do action movies.

Michael Ryan 53:17
You're gonna turn up for that? I mean, of course they will. They're fascinated by

Alex Ferrari 53:22
There was the movie. He was a bad guy fighting. Oh, God, I forgot the kung fu master from China. But he's a legendary actor. He's up there with Jackie Chan. And he fought Mike Tyson in a beautiful each choreographed fight sequence and I was just like, see, that's just it, just you know, there. That's the kind of movies you're going to find at AFM. You're not going to find these arthouse films, you may find some depending on the distributor that might be interested in that. But generally speaking, it's all about money, selling territories, making deals.

Michael Ryan 53:54
You're exactly right. And it's the deal making that people like me go for because I don't do you know, shark movies or whatever. I just don't do that. Not sure it made us for you, sir. I know Paul who pulls Paul who makes those movies and he makes a lot of money and he does a brilliant job and they're really funny. I can't do that. It's not me. So and you'll find and that's the problem with publicizing the AFM you know variety will go in and see all this stuff sharks and Mike Tyson's and Steven to girls. But it shouldn't be because there's a business there. And if you look around some if you look around the attendee companies, the people who are who are exhibiting their this have serious bloody companies they're so they're so so what what happens is that people will turn up and they'll buy those little bits and pieces, you know, the Sharknado is and everything but at the same time that they're they're there to do business with a 24 They're there to do business with the bigger companies that make quality movies. And that's still going on because when it when we formed it is the the the sort of 12 1314 companies that were the original investors and the original creators of it, were very classy companies, there was no schlock them. But the slot came in because they saw an opportunity. And it's still part of our business. And it's a legitimate part of the business. And I, I kind of cherish it, because I love those short movies that man, it's a great idea. And they've made, I don't know, six or seven or eight,

Alex Ferrari 55:29
I really was I saw like the priest, that was a velociraptor, the alligator that turned into like, I mean, it's just, it's, it's fun. Sharknado spawned an entire genre. It's these these films. And then there's the asylum boys who are are basically the the the children of the cannon boys there that

Michael Ryan 55:52
It's a good company. It's not it, but they're doing it really well. And nothing wrong with that. And as we said much earlier on, you've got enough of that stuff bubbling away. And there's bound to be the quality filmmakers coming out of it. Or you cherry pick those, you've got another business. So it does. I'm glad that the bigger GM and GM are coming, you know, they're all signing up now. And I'm really pleased because it means that it'll carry on and I, you know, we didn't build it to just have a little, you know, a little market that runs for a few years. There's a 40 odd years, and I think it will survive, and I think it will carry on. And I'm just pleased to see that quality companies are supporting it.

Alex Ferrari 56:33
So you'll get everything from asylum to a 24. And everything in between. And that's because that's filmmaking. I mean, there was Roger Roger Corman was around for quite some time. And he was making very interesting films, to say the least.

Michael Ryan 56:48
When I was first chairman of the ERV Iftar. Roger was on my board. And I'm thinking, hang on a minute. Roger Corman is on the board that I'm chairman. Oh, that's ridiculous. But he he was, I tell you, I could sit there and listen to those stories forever. The man

Alex Ferrari 57:05
Oh, my. Oh, my. And you want to talk about filmmakers?

Michael Ryan 57:08
Yes, spawned all of the guy that I know he really is the godfather. All of it is extraordinary man. Softly spoken really classy. You know, I found there was it was a big board at that point. It was about 20 people and they hang on his every word because he very quietly spoken. They sit and listen. rather different from Lloyd Kaufman.

Alex Ferrari 57:29
Or you read my mind. I was about to say Lloyd a little bit different approach, Lloyd. But you know, I've spoken to Lloyd on the show. And, and man, I tell you like he's an interesting guy, because he makes those kinds of trauma esque films. Yeah. But when you go back and watch like, Toxic Avenger, the first one that was shot on 35 released theatrically and had a social commentary to it.

Michael Ryan 57:54
Toxic Avenger was really, you know, it was a socially aware picture. Not Not that I really appreciated it because I had an office at the Carlton Hotel at that point. Now, during Ken Oh, God, he organized these bloody great big parades of all these monsters. And it was awful every day twice or three times a day. They'd stand in front of my

Alex Ferrari 58:22
But he made but he was able to do what it I mean, I love him. God bless him and he is able to do what he's able to do and, and you can't take anything away from from him.

Michael Ryan 58:35
He speaks God knows how many languages he speaks Cantonese.

Alex Ferrari 58:37
I mean, he's so smart. He's He's fascinating is an intellect. Yeah. That's what's so fascinating about someone like Lloyd it and like when I talked to him, I was like, yeah, he's like ivy league. You know, he has an Ivy League education. Oh, yeah. He's extremely intelligent. But yet, he's like, Lloyd. He plays this part. It's just fascinating to me.

Michael Ryan 59:00
It was in the same year. I think it was Yale. But same year as George Bush, right.

Alex Ferrari 59:07
He told me that yeah,

Michael Ryan 59:09
We kind of said don't tell anybody that.

Alex Ferrari 59:13
He was. He was he shot behind the scenes of Rocky. I didn't know that. He actually was there during the step scene, because there was the first time they were using the steadicam. And I'm in a big movie right before shining. And he was there shooting it. And then he's like, oh, yeah, MGM just called me up and they're doing some new release. And they were asking for my footage. So I had to go into the archives, and find all this footage I shot of, of that stuff. I was like, wow, I mean, like, what is going on? He kills me. No, he's fantastic. But Michael, listen, I'm going to ask you a few questions to ask all of my guests. Well, first of all, before we get to that, when is the AFM how can people sign up? Where do they go?

Michael Ryan 59:59
By can go to the AFM website. I think it's American film market.com. They can sign up there. It starts on the first of November for I think five days first and sixth. That's right. And it's very simple. And we've kept the price down it for individuals registering. If you're a producer, and you've got something interesting and you want to package it, that's a reason to go. You'll find people like me sitting there. And you know, why not come and say, Oh, by the way, I've got this thing. I might say not now. Thanks. But there's everybody you will want to see, from filmmakers, to bankers to equity investors that everybody's there. So it's up to you to take that opportunity. It's really not very expensive. If you join, if you pay your full entry price, you'll get access to over 100 panels and speeches and stuff like that. So you're, and that's really worth it just for that. I mean,

Alex Ferrari 1:01:02
I know I'm doing I'm doing some of the panels, it's so valuable. The stuff that

Michael Ryan 1:01:07
I think for anybody who wants to make a film has made a film is in the middle of making a film. Just go. And even if you're just soaking up the atmosphere of it there. It's just worth it. And yeah, I mean, there's so many people that you can see in in five or six days. So I think it's worth it and easy to buy a ticket.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:28
And it's so educational. Just even if you walk the halls and see what people are doing and selling and how they're marketing. It is such I always tell filmmakers who haven't gone to AFM, go to FM just take the day pass and walk around. And that alone will show you what the marketplace looks like before independent film in the world that we live in.

Michael Ryan 1:01:50
You're absolutely right. It just changes your whole focus. If you think you have your tunnel vision, making your movie don't do that. Go just go and see how this business really works, and how it's financed and how it sustains itself. And it is fascinating. And I the ticket price alone is worth it for the panels and discussions. And you can sit there all day learning stuff. I'd be like you I'm on a few Alex. And it you see the people that turn up something Wow. That's amazing. You know, they've got these panelists, and it's great, great people, the people as an independent filmmaker, you won't have access to as an individual, where you can sit there and listen to what they're saying. And I think it's great. It's, it's really valuable information.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:34
Now, I'm going to ask you those few questions. Ask all my guests. All right, what what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life,

Michael Ryan 1:02:44
I suppose it's a film film business centric, it's the time that you should say, Stop, whether it be in the middle of the process or whatever, you've come to a point where you're trying try and try and try and try. And the best thing to do is to say, You know what, let's stop right now. So one of the one of the finances might say, well, but we're going to lose 100,000, we said, well, if we carry on like this, we're going to lose 1.1 million. So is it best to stop here. And that took me a long time. And I've done it only thankfully, on two or maybe three occasions where you get to a point where you're pushing a square peg into a round hole, it's just not gonna work. All of the actors are saying, No, you're compromising in every single place, whether it be the production assistant, or the accountant or the designer, and the actors and you should just stop. Don't do it. That's that. It's a brave thing to do. It took me a long time to be able to do it.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:52
So being able to be brave enough to cut you know, cut the line and go. Yeah, very, very good advice. Now, you see here, three of your favorite films of all time.

Michael Ryan 1:04:06
I knew you're gonna say that. I think Cuckoo's Nest probably is usually in support of my list. Yeah. Second of in the it's probably. I mean, this is really crass. But it's probably Citizen Kane, simply because you can look at it and think that's perfect. And thirdly, I don't know, interesting. Very difficult to choose, isn't it? I think I think the shining is probably

Alex Ferrari 1:04:50
I literally have a cinematographer of the shining up behind me. I'm a huge, huge Goomer Yeah, that's a huge huge Kubrick fan. And that is um, masterpiece to say,

Michael Ryan 1:05:01
I mean, I, I just I think that's probably quite a good three.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:06
That's that's a solid three, sir. That's a solid three. And lastly, what advice would you give to a filmmaker starting out in the business today?

Michael Ryan 1:05:15
I think story is really the basis of everything that you're going to do. And if it's not, if it doesn't hang together as a good story that anybody you're pitching the story to would sit and listen, if you don't have that you're never gonna have an audience or watch it anyway. So why still? Why put yourself through all that misery? I think story is, is it and also there are two parts to it. One is the story in the first place in the very first place. And almost just behind that, Squeaks in just second is, what's the audience? Who are you making it for? And that's, I find, I mean, I do love film schools and stuff like that. And so many people don't ask themselves that question. Who's gonna see this? Right? And, and how many films have you watched thinking? Why the fuck did they make that? What's the point? Oh, my God, so many. What were they thinking? Who in Earth would want to go and see that I literally the first, the first sort of rounds of you know, when you do those speed dating things at film schools, and you have like 20 meetings in a day and this post I remember, I remember a couple of times when I was pitched. This the most of Picchu the story, but you don't know anything about it. There was one I went to the Galway Film Festival and I had to Swedish director, producer team. And it was basically the pitch was it's a it's a murder story. And it contains, it's about a brother and sister and it's incestuous relationship. Oh, good.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:07
Stuff. very marketable.

Michael Ryan 1:07:08
Okay, fine. Okay. Thanks. Next it. There are some very strange things.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:14
It's Chinatown. And it's not is what you're saying?

Michael Ryan 1:07:17
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you really have to struggle to find out what the hell it's all about, and why you would make it in the first place. So I think those two things are a story because they really have to do with that story. And secondly, what's the audience? I don't know why people don't want anybody wouldn't make something without figuring that out.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:37
Oh, that's a that's very simple. It's ego thing.

Michael Ryan 1:07:41
You know, it's fascinating to me, so it's gonna be fascinating to everybody.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:45
Yeah, I mean, look, even people like Spielberg, Scorsese. Coppola have fallen into that trap, where they think I can make a movie. And everyone's gonna love it, because I love it. And then you look at something like 1941. And you go, Oh,

Michael Ryan 1:08:02
1941 was the one I would cite as well,

Alex Ferrari 1:08:06
Right! I mean, Spielberg has a pretty flawless filmography, generally speaking, but 9041 was that he's like, I could do anything. I can even do comedy. Let's bring the biggest comedy star we're going to do this is gonna be great. And it's pointed a die on.

Michael Ryan 1:08:23
It was shocking. Did shock.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:25
And then and then then again, something like cats.

Michael Ryan 1:08:29
Oh, Christ, I reminded me it's the worst experience of my life. I and I was one of the my wife at the time was an investor in a Vita. So she got invited into all these different so I went to the very first premiere of cats onstage, not cats. The cats the musical, it was amazing. And then too many years later, get to go and see that movie. It was excruciating.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:04
Just really the best the best quote ever for cats, the best review, it's the worst thing to happen the cats to cats and dogs. And that was like the best. The best. There was a Twitter review and I was like, That is brilliant. And I was like, when something like cats comes along, and it doesn't come it comes once in a generation really? Where you have Oscar winners around all the money in the world. Everyone is just moving forward. And it comes out being so bad with so many good people in it and behind it. Yeah, it's not her. It's really it's the Heaven's Gate of

Michael Ryan 1:09:43
Exactly that.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:45
But I actually only saw 20 minutes I couldn't I couldn't pass the roach dancing scene, or the cat anus is flying around. I'm like, what, what is what is what is going on?

Michael Ryan 1:09:58
Have a look at anatomically at a cat, I mean the tails growing out of there ourselves. I mean, it's

Alex Ferrari 1:10:08
Did you see Did you see when the VFX weren't finished on Judi Dench, and like her her digital wristwatch, you could see her watch or something like that, because it didn't finish the V effects.

Michael Ryan 1:10:18
And Judi Dench curled up in a cat basket. I mean, really? Like,

Alex Ferrari 1:10:24
I can't I mean, it's I maybe one day, you know, I'll take some sort of substance and watch the entire thing. But I just can't I could I just like, I can't do this to myself. I'll watch. I'll go back and watch the room, which is arguably one of the worst films ever made. But yet, it's so bad. It's good.

Michael Ryan 1:10:43
Yeah, well, there are those but this was just scruciating the bed and I again, I went to the bloody premiere, so I couldn't leave.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:52
You were stuck there.

Michael Ryan 1:10:54
And it might go worse and worse.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:57
Michael, it has been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for coming on the show and thank you for all your your your championing of filmmakers and films over the course of your career and trying to help filmmakers make some money.

Michael Ryan 1:11:11
That's what we're all trying to do. You know, it's it's great to be in this business. It's great to have an artistic bent, but Christ you've got to make some money somewhere. I'm trying to I'm trying to help them do that

Alex Ferrari 1:11:23
As am i Sir, as am I thank you my friend.

Michael Ryan 1:11:27
Thanks a lot.

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BPS 428: The Art of Film Marketing: How to Make Your Movie Impossible to Ignore with Danielle Raiz

July 17, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

A blank canvas. A single frame. The quiet hum before a film breathes life into a screen. But what happens after the final cut? How does a filmmaker’s vision transcend the void and reach the hearts and minds of an audience? Today, we unravel this mystery with Danielle Raiz, a passionate advocate for creatives, whose work at Wix has been dedicated to empowering filmmakers and video creators.

In this boundless digital age, content creation has become more than just an art—it is a language, a currency, a revolution. Danielle Raiz reminds us that the modern filmmaker is no longer a mere artist but an entrepreneur, an architect of their own cinematic empire. She shares how filmmakers can harness websites, digital marketing, and audience engagement to elevate their craft beyond the screen. “You have to engage with your viewers even before you start filming,” she emphasizes. “You build your own website, create a teaser, and start talking to your fans. You share behind the scenes, updates, and teasers to create a buzz before your film is even out.”

A film, like a tree in the forest, may not make a sound if no one is there to hear it. Gone are the days when a filmmaker could rely solely on festivals and distributors. The power has shifted. Now, with tools like Wix, a filmmaker can craft their own digital home—a place where their work is presented with intention, where it is not merely another flickering light in the vast, crowded universe of content. The key is in visibility. “Your site is really your business card,” Danielle Raiz explains. “When people talk to you, they’ll Google your name. If they find a professional, beautiful online presence, it reflects on how they see your work.”

It is no longer enough to create; one must cultivate. Cultivate an audience, a brand, a presence. Marketing is not a necessary evil; it is an extension of the story itself. The best marketing does not feel like marketing at all—it is storytelling, an invitation, an experience. Danielle Raiz speaks of how major brands have already embraced this, turning advertisements into compelling short films. The lesson for filmmakers? Market your work as you would craft a scene—thoughtfully, purposefully, beautifully.

Yet, beyond the artistry of marketing lies a fundamental truth: control. “For a long time, video creators had to play by the rules of streaming platforms,” she says. “Now, everyone is chasing after great content creators. You have the power. You control the way your work is displayed, monetized, and shared. And that is an exciting time to be a filmmaker.”

We live in a time where technology shifts at the speed of thought. Virtual reality, interactive storytelling, live engagement—these are no longer distant dreams but tools at our fingertips. The game is no longer about who gets a seat at the table; it is about those who build their own table. And in this unfolding cinematic future, those who understand both art and strategy will rise.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 0:07
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 0:44
So on this episode of the podcast, again, we're going to be talking about marketing short films being used as actual commercials and so much more. As we talk all about this wonderful, wonderful world of filmmaking and video, we also talk about a lot of really cool projects as well, with guest, Danielle Raiz.

Danielle Raiz 3:15
So I started my career in consumer media startup, so I've always been about creating tools for creatives and for for all sorts of creatives, from you know, better ways to show these photography online and video online, and musicians and stuff like that. That came two weeks because we saw that there's a huge user base of the video creators that it didn't have the perfect tools for their needs. And at Wix, we're all about empowering users. And you know, different users have different needs. So we came, we came to this project in order to help video creators grow their business, and knowing that for a video creator, their content is their business. So it's all about, you know, better showcase, better distribution options, stuff like that.

Dave Bullis 4:05
So, Danielle, when you're you know, obviously you see a ton of different things. What you know, with your position, you see a ton of different filmmakers. You see a ton of different videos. You know. What are you can you think of any off the top of your head right now that have just been like, Absolutely, like, astounding. And you're, you know, because you know, everything is digital. Now. We have so many tools at our disposal, it's almost overwhelming at times. But you know, you know. And sometimes you see projects and that just come out of left field, and they're just amazing. You know, have you run into any and you could think of the top of your head, you know, during your course of Wix

Danielle Raiz 4:40
Wix website, or in general, or just in general. So in general, I think that it's a really exciting time to be a video creator, because there are a lot of new ways now to create content which are really interesting. I see, for example, our users, you know, experimenting with 360 videos and VR and it's really. A whole new way to look at how you create content and how people engage with it. Also, if you look at the platforms that people are using, you know, Facebook, etc, so you get a lot of like live engagement. So it's really interesting to see, you know, how creators evolve, how they create content, in terms of how this landscape is changing over time. And so this is the one thing that I find really interesting. And I also think that there are a lot of tools in the last year, in the last couple of years, that are about giving Video Creators, you know, the power to control their careers. So up until now, you're kind of like you had a few video services, and you kind of had to play by their rules. And now that you have all the power, because everyone's chasing after all the great video creators out there, you can actually decide. You can actually control the way that you're displayed and the way that you're monetizing your content. And you have so many platforms to choose for from, which is amazing. So I think these are really exciting times.

Dave Bullis 6:05
Yeah, and you mentioned something that I usually talk about on this show, and that is, you have to sort of create your own, sort of what I call a stake in the ground. And basically what that is, is, you know, you have to get a website, and that is your stake so in the ground. And you know, mine is Dave bulls.com and basically that way, when you're actually out there and you're, you're making stuff, you can upload it to a website. And this is, I think, is key, because now I don't know it's just maybe, if it's just me, but whenever someone says, who you know, who's does, you know, creative work, or artistic work, and they say they don't have a website, I kind of go really like, you know what I mean? It just if it seems like it should be second nature at this point.

Danielle Raiz 6:42
Completely so I think this provincial artist, you know, your site is really your business card, and when you people talk to you, they'll just go to Google, they'll Google your name, and they need to find, like a professional, beautiful online presence, because it actually reflects on how they look at your work. So you really want to have control on how this is displayed, and, you know, Wix being Wix, we're really about, like, giving you all the tools so you don't have to think about how to create your website or how you know how to design it. We're just giving you everything, giving you all the tools that you need so you can just focus on your content and just put it, you know, in a beautiful template, and that could customize the entire thing and make it your own. So when people go to your site, you know, they feel they see your site and your logo and your brand, and you know, it's all you, and it doesn't really matter where the content is coming from.

Dave Bullis 7:31
Yeah, that's true, and especially now with video becoming what it is so important in marketing and advertising, you know, I mean, you know, for instance, you go into a lot of these video sites. And, you know, like, you know, Hulu voodoo, you know, YouTube, and you see the, what you see those ads before the video, and they're short films. They're no longer, just like people, you know, pitching you things. They're a literal short film, you know. And the product is, is what's being marketed, right? You know what I mean,

Danielle Raiz 8:01
Definitely. You know, businesses started realizing this video is really the most engaging way to connect people to their brand, to their brand, and to showcase their products. So they're actually the ads. As you said, they're becoming like little films that are incredible. You know, you've seen that. For example, I think the big fashion houses. Now they released to YouTube such incredible clips and short films that are all about, you know, showcasing a certain dress that they're selling or a certain collection. But it's like, it's like a film production, for sure. So this is totally something that is interesting.

Dave Bullis 8:37
So, so Danielle, you've had a few filmmakers come to you and come to Wix in general. And you sort of help them along. You know, I know, in talking with Vivian, you know you, she mentioned you have to an evening with Bucha and slate goods and NYC. And you know some of these. You know different projects. You know, when they come to you, what are some of the things that you sort of cover when you're when you're talking to them. Is there any sort of, like, do you have like, a sort of, like, a template, a check sheet that you go through, or is it sort of, you base it upon every different filmmaker for when, when they're gonna, you know, obviously, when they're coming to you with with advice for video and for websites, etc.

Danielle Raiz 9:17
Yeah. So the thing about slate, and the two examples that you gave slate goods and the and the evening with Bucha are two incredible, incredible examples of the platform. The thing is, we didn't reach out to them until after they actually created their website. Because the thing is, it's such a do it yourself platform. They didn't really need any help from us or any guidance for us. And they created two beautiful showcases. So slate New York, they're doing, they're selling Snickers and what they're working with nonprofits. So they use video on their website to connect people to the nonprofits that they work with to tell their stories, which really helps business. And you know, it's not like, it's not like the typical video creator, but it's someone that's realized. That video helps you sell. And it helped connect people to your brand and everything with Bucha. It just became one of my favorite stories, because the thing about that movie. It's a film that was, it's a documentary film that actually premiered in Venice festival, Venice Film Festival last year, and then slam dance and several other festivals. And the thing is that the director actually found a bunch of tapes of his mom, who was a journalist, like, I don't know how many decades ago, interviewing Charles Bucha, the writer, and it was so good, he decided to make a movie out of it, and he created this amazing documentary. And then he creates a website for it. And on the website, you know, you see, you can watch the trailer, you can see all the festivals that it's showcased in, and then you can, you know, contact him, and you have to press area and everything. So when you go there, you actually, you know, you hear the entire story behind film, and it's fascinating. So these are actually two great examples, you know, different uses for people who are either filmmakers or not, same filmmakers, adult realizing the power of video.

Dave Bullis 11:16
So then it's sort of, you know, take that a step further. Danielle, if you were to have somebody sort of come to you then, and a filmmaker and and he or she wanted to put their films, you know, use Wix to build a site, put some videos up, you know, you know, what? What advice would you give them? You know, obviously, because you mentioned you got to talk to the two filmmakers after their movies came out. But, you know, but if we, if you had the opportunity to talk people before those movies come out. You know what? What was would be some of the advice that you would give them?

Danielle Raiz 11:46
So I think the first thing I would say is, you know this, creating, creating movies and videos these days, it's not like a one way thing. So you have to engage with your viewers, and you have to do it even before you start filming. So you build your own website, you create a teaser, you put whatever content you have there, you start talking to your fans and engaging with them. You share behind the scenes and updates and teasers, and you really create a buzz about your film before it's even out there. And then once it's out there, so you revamp your website a little bit, and you make sure that the movie is available, you know, either for sale or even just a trailer if you want to do the festival run. But just keep, keep users like, keep your viewers engaged all the time. This is something that's really, really critical in my eyes. And then you know, if you add to it, like a director statement and interviews with your cast and exclusive content, and people really have like, they get a lot of your website. They really connect to your vision they need. They understand why you did what you did, and what you're trying to say. And I think this is, you know, what, just watching a video without all that context, you know, it's not as powerful as it can be. And the fact that you can engage with your fun defense in such way, the fact you can even, you know, send them updates, and, you know, even live stream from the set, you know, use whatever you have at the moment. You don't have to have the entire and film ready in order to start working. You have to start working on it a lot before it's done.

Dave Bullis 13:12
Yeah. And that's something I tell crowdfunders too, as well, is, you know, you have to sort of build that audience before you launch your crowdfunding campaign, because a lot of times, you know, they'll launch, and then they'll try to find their crowd that way, but you know what I mean? And then they, they sort of are trying to, they're sort of putting the cart before the horse, instead of actually saying, Let's build up an audience now and then, when we launch this thing, we'll be able to actually have an audience, and we'll actually have an audience that we can actually, you know, talk to once we launch this crowdfunding campaign. And it's the same way with the movie, you know, you want to build up an audience, and then by the time the movie comes out, you already, sort of, you already have that audience who said, Hey, Wilson, we've seen, you know, we've seen the poster, we've seen the trailer, and now we actually want to see the whole movie.

Danielle Raiz 13:57
Definitely, I totally agree with you on that, and I have to say that, for example, having a website for crowdfunders is really like, it's even essential, because it helps you appear a lot more professional than you you know you're not, you're not just another Kickstarter project. So you have your own, your own site with all the information there, with everything that you need. And we have actually had some users like that also about creating a buzz before. So one example that I can recall is the user that was he had a horror comedy for Valentine's Day. So what he did was it just, he sent out just a lot of teasers in social media. And by the way, social media, I'm sure you talk about it in your podcast all the time, how critical social media is for filmmakers, but he had a lot of social media buzz before the movie was out that, you know, it's going to be out in Valentine's Day. In Valentine's Day, it's going to be, you know, free to watch entire Valentine's Day, and then it's going to be paid per view. So he created a lot of buzz, and he released it on Valentine's Day, then it just started selling the next day. And all that buzz really, really helped. So, you know, you got. He got depressed, and he got all the social media and whatever. So it's, it was really a cool story,

Dave Bullis 15:07
Yeah, you know, it just to sort of piggyback on that story. Danielle, you know, one time I actually made a short film. It was one of those, you know, weekend film competitions where you have to make a film very, very quickly. And what I did was I actually used Wix to make a I wanted to make just a simple, one page website. I didn't want anything fancy. And I was like, I need something quick, because I don't want to sit here and, you know, do all this other stuff. So I actually used Wix, and I just made this one sheet of, oh, sorry, one page, and it just telling people what the movie is, and a couple little things here and there. And then the funniest thing was, I actually just put like at the bottom, like everything, like, here's where we're gonna be. And people actually responded to that, just that one page or like, because we didn't know what they said, Danielle, they said, Hey, we didn't have anywhere else to go. There was nowhere else to click on. There wasn't like, you know, all these different, you know, tabs the top. They said, You know, it was just very simple and self contained. And they said, you know, we you know, it seemed to get the point across a little better than if I had a different bunch of tabs to top. And you know, I just remembered that, you know, I've always taken that with me over the years. Because whenever I'm done, you know, thinking about making a different website or whatever, I'm always thinking, you know, I shouldn't make it too busy to give people too many options. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to have a page where it's like, watch this and then this and then that. You know what I mean. I want to make it so it's like, it's all sort of, it's like a path, like a linear path, if you know what I'm trying to say.

Danielle Raiz 16:34
So I take them through the journey. It makes a lot of sense. You know? You put what moldy you pull you put, for example, your most recent video on the top. You make sure they watch a recent thing, and you then, then add some, you know, either tabs or below the fold or whatever, with additional content for those who are interested in more. And you can connect between them. And you can split in, you know, categories and tag and keep people moving throughout the journey of your creation. It makes a lot of sense.

Dave Bullis 17:03
So, you know, as we sort of talk, you know, about content creation, you know, it seems like everyone's getting into that now, you know, I mean, all these different platforms are, you know, looking towards creating different content and stuff like that. And, you know, I wonder if, if it ever, I mean, I know this is, this is obviously, you this is kind of speculation. But I was, I would always wonder if different websites would be entertaining that even more like websites we don't even think about. You know what I mean, like, because, you know, if you look, the latest person I heard getting into, into con original content is voodoo, and that's owned by Walmart. So you got voodoo, you got Amazon, you got Netflix, YouTube, of course, does their thing and, and, you know, as I look out into the landscape, I wonder, you know what? What other websites and companies are going to start creating their own original content with shows and, and some of which, like we were discussing earlier, are going to just be commercials for things that are coming out. You know what I mean, like, you know, maybe, you know, like, different companies can focus on, you know, a new item or coming out. For instance, I knew a guy, he actually made a Star Wars short film to to promote these lightsabers that they had made. And they actually got, like, a got the actual license to make these lightsabers. And they actually, the trailer was just these two guys battling it out in a lightsaber fight, and they and that's how that was. Their whole marketing campaign.

Danielle Raiz 18:32
Sounds very cool. And yes, there are a lot of services. And you know, the thing is, and it's just, when you go to each of these services, you usually need to play by their rules, but then if you put everything on your own domain, so it's basically, we have the ability to showcase all the videos in one place. So if, for example, if what you're talking about right now, like, you could create some, you know, specific kind of content for Facebook, and then you could do something for YouTube or for female and you know, each platform has their own, you know their own style and their own, their own you know your intent of like, why you're doing what you're doing. You go to YouTube for the viral, and you go to vim because there's an amazing Creators community. And then you do like, live and viral and play, you know, things on a on Facebook, and then when you have all that content everywhere, it's kind of nice to have your own domain when you can showcase they're all in one place. So this is one thing that we put a lot of emphasis on. We know that creators just they have their content running around everywhere, and it's really hard to keep track. And you know, it looks different everywhere. And, you know, you keep using each of this platform for their own like each in their own advantage, but then you want, on your own side, to have the ability to control everything and to just say, Okay, this is all the things I created throughout all the platforms and everything, but this is mine. So this is one thing that we put a lot of emphasis on. And, you know, make it an easy to. Grab your videos from everywhere, and just say, Okay, this is, this is all Dave's work, you know, no matter where it's from, this is all day's work,

Dave Bullis 20:17
Yeah. And that's very true. And you know, there's, there's speaking of, you know, putting on, like, everything in our portfolio, you know, I wanted to ask, you know, what advice would you give about SEO? Because, you know, every No, Danielle, everyone talks now about, you know, if everyone does have a website, or if everyone does have a channel, you know, we, you know, how do you actually, how do people actually find it, other than, you know, word of mouth. So, you know, because, obviously, because you've seen all these different things, you know. What advice would you have for somebody to, sort of, you know, make sure that their SEO, their search engine optimization, is actually locked down and and so that way people can actually, if they are searching for maybe something like, you know, if they're searching for basketball or ping pong tables or something like that, that they can actually find your videos.

Danielle Raiz 21:01
So, actually, SEO is something that Wix put a lot of emphasis on. So we actually have tools that automate this entire process for you and help you make this, you know, the best you can find. Because, as we said in the beginning, when people will want to look things up, they'll just go to Google, and then they just real, you know, they go there and they say, Okay, I'll probably like, you know, whatever comes up on the first page, this is what it'll probably build click. I think the most important thing is just to make sure that you have a lot of information on everything that you add on your site. So you want to, you know, you want to fill in all the details of everything that you do. For example, if you're filmmaker and you have your know, your crew and your cast and the description and everything you want everything written down, because basically Google just looks, you know, for good solid content. And if it's good solid content, what you have there, and, you know, the favorite video, so that's even better. So you should be fine. And and also, you know, there are a lot of tools to optimize your SEO, which I think everyone should definitely use because this is something critical these days.

Dave Bullis 22:04
Yeah, it's, you know, was we talk about this podcast, you know, it's a war of eyeballs and ears now, because you know everyone, you know the playing field is even out a lot. You know, obviously, you know, hard work and talent still count. But you know, if everyone has a camera, you know you have to be, you have to be, you have to, especially, be able to stand out from the pack.

Danielle Raiz 22:24
Definitely.

Dave Bullis 22:25
So, you know, as we sort of, you know, go on with this conversation. Danielle, I wanted to ask, you know, when you're putting together a website, you know, what are some of the things that you usually tell people to make sure you focus on? I mean, is there any anything you know, you know, beyond, you know, obviously, since we're talking a lot about video, is there anything sort of beyond video that you make, that you tell filmmakers, you make sure to put this on your site so it looks, you know, it looks and feels and and it is a complete site.

Danielle Raiz 22:55
Yeah. So for filmmakers, what I would say, besides, you know, having all your content there with all, you know, the additional in front everything is connect, all the social channels that you have. You're probably using, you know, Facebook, Snapchat, whatever you want to use. Them all. You want to show all the buzz around your films and all the activity around it. You want to share updates and behind the scenes and stuff. I would probably do this in like, a production blog, which could be great for filmmakers, you know, to get people engaged with the movie, and then always have a press section, you know, make it easy. You want to get coverage for your film, even if it's, you know, not yet, like, not yet in production, but you want to get some coverage. You want to you want to get somebody make it really easy for media to find what they're looking for. So they have, like, a proper press section with all the media they need, with your context info, make it easy for them to help you, to help you get, you know, the coverage you want. Same goes for screenings. You know, there are so many apps and stuff you just, if you're already out there, just, you know, have all your laurels out and have all your screening dates and everything. So people know where to find you. And I think that's, that's the most important thing.

Dave Bullis 24:06
You know, I wanted to ask to Danielle, you know, I don't know if the answer to this question, so I figured I'd ask you it, are forums still a thing? You remember forums like, you know, back back in the day, you know, where people would actually have, you know, you know, where they could post different, you know, things. I mean, you know, I don't even know if that's a thing anymore, but, I mean, is it? I mean, do you do, do, you know, have you seen filmmakers or even other users, actually, you know, try to make, try to put forums into the website and maybe have any, any type of sort of engagement with it?

Danielle Raiz 24:37
So, yes, definitely. The thing about forums is that people, a lot of times, you know, forums is just another way to create a community around something. And if you're interesting enough, or you're doing something that's interesting to users enough, they'll come and they'll read and they'll engage in they'll also want to comment, which is, you know, makes perfect sense. So I do think forums are definitely something that you should have if you. Want ongoing engagement, but it needs to be interesting enough, so I would probably create a forum around something very specific, for example, your Star Wars example. So Star Wars fans are, like, hysterical, okay, and if you have a forum that's all about, you know, Star Wars fans and creating media around it, and things that would totally engage, you know, viewers coming to your site, help them stay longer, and help get them really connected to what you do. So it's just a strong way to create a community,

Dave Bullis 25:31
Okay, you know. And that's a good point, because I see, you know, I haven't been on forums in a while, and I've always wondered if that that was still, you know, a viable option. Because, again, you know, like we were just saying, there's so many options out there now. And I, you know, it's you know, you have so many different things to choose from. It's hard to sometimes, you know, wonder, you know, what do you mean? What if that tool that you, you've used before is ever is still going to be, you know, a good option if you know, I'm trying to say so, it's you know. But you know, as you sort of bring this back to video, you know, even with video, you know, some of the thing, you know, the tools that that I've used in the past, you know, you can use some of them still, and other ones, it's, it's just like you can't do it anymore. For instance, I used to, I had a mini DV cam that, you know, if I used it, now, I feel like I'm kind of, you know, shooting myself in the foot, because I'm giving myself an extra step, because you have to take the to take the DVD, the DV tape, out of the camera, you know. You have to, you know, digitize the footage so you can, so you can start editing it in something like Premiere or advid, you know. And it's just, you start to say, Well, wait a minute, I want I just shoot digital to begin with, and eliminate this whole process, you know, you know what I mean. It's just, it's just how things change anymore, so rapidly, you know, in the world we live in now,

Danielle Raiz 26:46
Definitely,

Dave Bullis 26:50
Sorry, I'm sorry, Daniel, I mean, interrupt you. I'm sorry.

Danielle Raiz 26:52
I'm with you.

Dave Bullis 26:55
Awesome. So, you know, and that's something I also wanted to ask, too, is, you know it you know, where do you see, you know, Wix going in the next couple of years, in terms of, you know, video and everything out and everything like that. I, you know, with everything, sort of, you know, we talked about all different things, you know, is there any place that you would you can see Wix going?

Danielle Raiz 27:18
Well, I'll tell you this thing, we're like, we're evolved. We're here to empower Video Creators. Okay, so as this industry evolves and as the technologies change, so we're going to evolve with that. And we want to provide, you know, easy access to all the tools you're already using. We want to help you, as we said, build a community around your content. So we're always going to find the most, the best and most innovative way to do that and and I think that this landscape of, you know, currently, we're talking about, you know, showcasing and distributing your content, which is something that has changed dramatically in the last couple of years. And if you look now, then you'll see that, for example, on demand, which is something that you know, talk to me like, 10 years ago, I wouldn't believe that someone would pay for video on demand. And today it's like, it's the most obvious thing that you can, you know, sell your content directly to fans. You can sell, you know, your you can sell your skills, you can sell tutorials, you can do so many things with it. So this is something that we could never imagined. And now this is so common, and this landscape keeps changing, so we're just gonna, we just plan to change with it.

Dave Bullis 28:29
Yeah, and, like we were just saying, you know, everything changes so rapidly now, and you have to, sort of, you know, be, be it, be ahead of the curve, and, and, you know, again, that's where I go back to with, you know, content creation, and you know, being able to get, be able to get your stuff out there to your fans directly, because, you know, that's what you know has happened with technology. You know, over the past even, let's just say, 10 years, you know, you've cut out the whole middle man, and now you're selling directly to your fans. You can make a whole, you know, a website, and you can and talk directly to people. And once those people find your website, you can start, you know, engaging with them. And, you know, hopefully make a fan for life. And then, you know, that's something, you know, I always wonder where the next iteration is going to be, but, but you know that that's what I mean by, you know, how everything has changed is, you know, maybe it'll be completely different than what we think it'll be, or maybe it'll, you know, versus it, you know, changing increments, if you know what I'm if you know what

Danielle Raiz 29:23
I mean, yeah, I think I'm pretty sure, you know, I'm pretty sure that things are going to change and like different, like levels. So the technology is changing dramatically all the time, and then the engagement levels that you have, and are changing all the time. So it also, it also affects the content that you're creating. So suddenly, you know you create like a live stream and you talk to people directly, or you create like a 360 movie, and you make you you make your viewers. You know they can select their next scene or where they're going with it. So there are so many things that are changing. Changing it once.

It's going to be very interesting to see where creators take this, because they think it's really the power is really in the creator's hands, on how they're going to take this amazing, you know, these amazing technologies and these amazing opportunities and create, like, ground breaking experiences. It's all about like, creating an experience, not just like now, once you know, many years ago, you would sit in the cinema, just watch a film and just go out, and now it's like a whole experience, experience you're getting into, and everything is getting a lot more interactive. So as time goes, it's going to be really interesting to see what creators do with it. And I think that they just like they'll be the ones to decide where this is going. You can have the most amazing technology out there, but if you don't get creators to create amazing things with it, amazing experiences with it there, it's not going to work.

Dave Bullis 30:58
That is a fantastic point. Danielle, that is absolutely fantastic. You know, Daniel, we've been talking for about 30 minutes, give or take. You know it just in closing, is there anything that we haven't got a chance to discuss, or that you want to discuss now, or maybe even something you wanted to sort of say, to put a period in this whole conversation

Danielle Raiz 31:18
And listen like, if we're talking about like Wix in general, or Wix video specifically. So the thing to remember is that we always have creators in mind. So it's always about, you know, having people that, giving people the ability to to have complete control over harder content is displayed, like you work so hard, you know, on your latest short film or whatever, you should be the one to decide how it's displayed, where it's displayed, how it is monetized. You should be able to sell it directly if you want to not rely on any other service. Should be able to do it on your own domain, like it's all about, you know, providing control and given the given the power back, I think, and this is something that we're doing. So we're fairly new service at the moment, and we keep evolving this and improving this over time. And I think we have amazing things, you know, coming soon, that I'm not even able to discuss, but I'm sure you will follow up or through this, and I'm sure we'll keep talking. And it's been a pleasure,

Dave Bullis 32:25
And you know, and obviously we're definitely gonna keep talking. Danielle, and I just wanted to say, I'm sorry, one last question was, where can people find you out Online?

Danielle Raiz 32:34
So you can find us at wix.com basically, you have a whole section for video creators with a lot of beautiful, stunning film templates and templates for video creators. And then you have the with video app and within the site, where you can have all the amazing features we talked about.

Dave Bullis 32:53
And do you have any like personal Twitter or anything you want to give out?

Danielle Raiz 32:58
Danielle, not really. I'm a LinkedIn kind of girl,

Dave Bullis 33:02
By the way I shot you a LinkedIn friend request, I'm great, so feel free to decline that at any time. No, I'm just kidding around. But you know, I'm really good. I just, I made sure to, I looked, I was looking for if you had any social media, like a Twitter or anything. And LinkedIn came up, and I was like, Oh, there she is. I'll send her a connection request.

Danielle Raiz 33:26
But I'm all about giving other people to stage. You know, I'm providing, still giving other people the stage. I'm a backstage

Dave Bullis 33:36
Well, Danielle, I want to say thank you so much, you know, for coming on.

Danielle Raiz 33:40
Thank you for having me, Dave.

Dave Bullis 33:42
You're very welcome. Take care Danielle, bye!

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BPS 427: From Pills to Pictures: Cynthia Hill’s Unlikely Path to Documentary Filmmaking

July 10, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

The rain falls without apology. The wind carries no judgment. And yet, in the heart of a storyteller, there stirs a quiet question: Why am I here? On today’s episode, we welcome Cynthia Hill, a documentarian whose journey from pharmacy school to the pulse of Southern cinema is anything but ordinary.

Cynthia Hill is a North Carolina-born filmmaker who transitioned from a career in pharmacy to creating critically acclaimed documentaries, capturing the soul of the South through patient storytelling and intimate character studies.

In this profound conversation, we have Cynthia Hill, who gently ushers us through her unexpected voyage from pill bottles to production studios. Growing up in rural Eastern North Carolina, her world was one of fields, tradition, and quiet ambition. Pharmacy was her ticket out. Yet the calling of story—the soft tug of human curiosity—proved louder than the ka-ching of a pharmacy register. It wasn’t film school that lit the match; it was her own desire to understand and document the unnoticed poetry of everyday life.

Her storytelling roots were homegrown—nurtured around dinner tables, drawn from the drawl of uncles spinning long-winded tales that never quite knew where to end. “Being Southern,” she reflects, “you’re never short of characters.” And maybe that’s the alchemy of it all—turning these small, almost invisible, moments into a mosaic of the human experience. Her style doesn’t demand attention; it beckons softly, waiting until you forget the camera is even there.

Cynthia’s entry into filmmaking began with a burning need to tell one story—about tobacco, about land, about legacy. The irony of a crop that both sustained and destroyed wasn’t lost on her. “Yes, it kills people,” she says, “but it also put a lot of us through college.” That kind of contradiction is where her documentaries thrive. She peels back the layers—not with force, but with presence—and lets the humanity breathe. Her lens doesn’t preach. It bears witness.

As the seasons changed, so did her subjects. From Southern farmers to Mexican guest workers, from the quiet dramas of the kitchen to the roaring engines of NASCAR, Hill always centers the people behind the spectacle. What drives her, still, is the question: Who are they when the world isn’t watching? That question led her to embed with Hendrick Motorsports, creating a docuseries that focused not on victory laps but on the tire changers, the engineers, the human grind behind the wheel. “We’re not doing sports coverage,” she says. “We’re telling stories about people.”

Her approach is delicate. She waits. She listens. She captures what other filmmakers might discard—the pause, the glance, the exhale after a hard truth. As she puts it: “The moment after the moment is usually the moment I’m after.” That’s where her art lives. Not in spectacle, but in subtlety.

Yet, as with all creators, success invites new questions. Cynthia now finds herself in unfamiliar territory—leading a team, managing people, and wrestling with the friction between art and business. “Is this still a passion,” she wonders aloud, “or is it just content?” That tension—the pull between soul work and sustainability—is what makes her journey so relatable to any artist trying to remain true while staying afloat.

“Show me, don’t tell me,” she says. And so she does. Every film is a quiet sermon in empathy, a reminder that even the ordinary can be extraordinary if we look closely enough.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:54
So on this week's episode of the podcast, my next guest is a filmmaker from North Carolina. Her TV series, a chef's life is now in its fifth season, the HBO documentary, private violence and PBS documentary tobacco money feeds my family are just two of the credits that under her belt. Her current project is an eight part Docu series, road to race day, which follows Hendrix motorsports, the most winning team in professional stock car history. And it's all going to be about this 2017 NASCAR season. And she also teamed up with Peter Berg film 45 to sell this thing to complex networks, which is unbelievable. We're going to talk all about how she did all that good stuff with guest Cynthia Hill.

Cynthia Hill 2:39
It's easy to access the equipment it's there's not that, that hurdle of it just being too expensive for people to access. I mean, you can shoot a film on your iPhone now, so if you really have a story to tell, you can pretty much tell it no matter what your your socio economic situation is, which means that there are a lot more people out there telling stories. Again, it's still trying to get the stories out there that I think probably is the biggest hurdle, not necessarily making it, but getting it out there to the masses still becomes a bit of a hurdle.

Dave Bullis 3:16
Yeah, yeah, very, very true. And that's something also we touch upon in the podcast. But you know, before you and I talk about, you know, distribution stuff like that, which I'm actually very interested in hearing your point of view with, I wanted to ask, you know, Cynthia, how you got involved in the film industry, you know. So the question I have to start with is, did you go to film school Cynthia?

Cynthia Hill 3:35
I did not go to film school. I went to pharmacy school. So, the natural, logical transition, or the next path from pharmacy school, is filmmaking, right? No, it's, you know, I grew up in a really remote area of eastern North Carolina, you know, agricultural based economy. And the thing that you would do if you went to college is you would for a woman in particular, as you would do nursing or teaching. So me, even going into pharmacy school was was kind of risky and and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. To be honest with you, I didn't have a particular calling, but I knew that the pharmacist in town made the most money, or seemed to make the most money, and so I thought that at least he had one of the biggest houses. So I thought, you know, if that's that was going to be my profession. And then when you look at the starting salaries of undergraduate degrees, especially when I was going and the late 80s, the pharmacist was number one. And so I just was ready to get out of a poor town and make some money. And so I was going to be a pharmacist, but that was not what was in store for me.

Dave Bullis 4:55
You mentioned about the link between pharmacist and filmmaker, and I was. And you know what? I can actually see it, you know, because I, you know, I've known some people who've gone in the in the med field, and they've gone right into filmmaking. I actually had a friend of mine who was a spinal surgeon, and he was and in the morning, before surgery, he sat at his kitchen table, and he was writing a TV pilot, and basically,

Cynthia Hill 5:23
Yeah, it's surprising that right brain, left brain kind of thing. And and the healthcare profession, I think, is more maybe artistic than we we know, or at least maybe some of the folks that are in it, maybe so I don't know, but for me, it was definitely a strange kind of diversion when it happened. But I wasn't, I wasn't necessarily the best pharmacy student. I wasn't necessarily engaged, but, you know, I, I was, you know, out there. I was looking for something, and I met these folks working on these, this TV show. They were traveling to Chapel Hill. I went to UNC Chapel Hill, and they were doing this accident reconstruction show. That was that type of show that was really popular in the early 90s, and it just seemed so fascinating, and way more fascinating than being in a pharmacy counting pills all day long. So I thought, you know, I'm gonna hang out with these people, and I ended up going out to LA because I made some good friends, and spending some time in LA, and I would just hang out with these people. And storytelling was not necessarily something that I thought that I was good at, because I was not a good writer. But if you're in the south, storytelling is just ingrained in you, because you hear your grandmama, your granddaddy, everybody tells stories, and so you're just it's just a part of who you are. And so I had this knack for telling stories that I did not know was there because I was just driven into math and science, because I was obviously good at those things, and I I found this whole world that really was intriguing. And I came back to pharmacy school the next year. And for every project I could possibly do, papers, presentations, I would make videos for it instead of actually doing the thing I was supposed to do. And for my rotation when I was working in different locations, like I had a retail rotation, and instead of doing a paper, which you were supposed to do, I made two commercials for the pharmacy for local cable. So I found my niche in pharmacy school in this really strange sort of way. And the dean of the pharmacy school pulled me aside and was like, Cynthia, you're not exactly the best pharmacy student, but you got something. You got some talent here, and I want to try to help you. And so he encouraged me to go to graduate school at Auburn University in the pharmacy administration department, which sounds like another kind of strange thing, but they had a production studio in the graduate school there, and any communications department would have salivated at the equipment that we had access to. But because we had access to pharmaceutical money, we had all this equipment, and they were doing this, this health education media, and they were one of the first schools, especially, you know, pharmacy school, that was getting into interactive health care. And so I found a surprising home there, and another sort of entree into deeper into the television world. And I did this study with prime time live in New York City, where we, as the pharmacy school, took the study component of medication dispensing errors, and we helped Prime Time Live do an undercover report on pharmacists making dispensing mistakes. And so I flew up to New York and spent a lot of time up there. And I became the undercover shopper, because I could control the medication. And I became a part of that study. And then after that, I was just really, completely, just spoiled. I was not going to end up in a pharmacy counting pills after that. So then I had to figure out how to become a filmmaker.

Dave Bullis 9:22
I was going to ask you, when you were the mystery shopper, if you had like, a hidden camera somewhere or something.

Cynthia Hill 9:27
I had somebody that was behind me with a camera I was mined and then my companion had a camera in his wig or in his hat, depending on what setup we were using that day. So it was this little girl from this rural town in eastern North Carolina. Was not in eastern North Carolina anymore. It was rather funny,

Dave Bullis 9:53
Because I imagine those, those hard copy or there's 2020, things where they would have those hidden cameras. And, you know, and again, that's sort of like now how everything's changed. You know, cameras have become so miniaturized. You know, you can have your phone out and that's a camera. You have these little spy cameras that I see sometimes online, because I imagine when you when you shot that was it? When was it one of those big, sort of, like mini TV cameras or something or something different?

Cynthia Hill 10:30
Well, it had a big pack, so he had a backpack, but the lens, like he was able to bring it up into his wig or his hat, so it was easier to hide, but it was definitely a much larger rig than what you would find today.

Dave Bullis 10:47
So, and you know, that's where I imagine there had to be a lot of, like, creativity, a lot of ingenuity to hide that, you know what I mean? So, yeah, for sure. So when you were talking about storytelling, I mean, just to sort of take a step back, I mean, you were talking about growing up and up and in the south and and you, and you were, you heard stories from, you know, your grandmother, what was some of the things that you like really stuck out with you like, in terms of story? I mean, was it, was it, maybe how the person was telling it, or maybe, what was it, some of the characters involved? I mean, because I imagine a lot of that is what really sort of molded your your way of storytelling that you for when you make your own projects.

Cynthia Hill 11:29
Yeah, it's definitely there are a lot of characters in the south, so I gravitate to eccentric personalities. I think too it's that's one thing that you know, being in the south, you're never short of somebody who's really interesting. You know, they're all around you. And I think to like my my grandma's brother, Uncle James, he was always good for stories, and they're always long and elaborate. And I think I maybe inherited a bit of that, and it takes you a while to get to the point, but they're always really good stories. And I have sort of this, this problem of ending stories. My first film that I made, one of the My Favorite compliments, I guess you could say is from Da Penny Baker. He said he was using in his classroom. But he's like, it's a really good film with all of its three endings. So it's like, yeah, I know what you're saying. So actually, ending something is difficult for me, you know, wrapping it up and coming to a close, you know, because there's always something else you can say that, you know, you get, helps make your point. So trying to get it all in there, as has been a challenge for me, and something that has taken me a while to to perfect, which I still haven't but, you know, being able to concisely tell a story without rambling on is a bit difficult for Southerners.

Dave Bullis 13:10
I think that's fine Cynthia. I mean, did you see Lord of the Rings Return of the King? I mean, that had a lot that had like seven different endings. You know that just No, I remember

Cynthia Hill 13:20
Being best of them with my endings, my multiple endings.

Dave Bullis 13:26
I remember being in the theater with that movie, and people were like, Oh, is that it? Oh, no, there's more. And then they kept getting up and down. I was, was like, either this, either, either there was something, this was a unique way of storytelling, or Peter Jackson was just trolling everybody, you know, but, but

Cynthia Hill 13:43
You know where he is in his career. I mean, he can keep going if he's got something else to say. So I think that that's kind of it too. You know, you have the luxury at certain at a certain point where you can keep telling the story you want to tell. But I didn't that with my first film, even though I thought I did. So,

Dave Bullis 14:04
Yeah. And I want to, you know, get into, into talking about all your films too. And I just want to touch one more thing about storytelling, you know, because I love hearing like all the different, unique point of views, everything about storytelling. And, you know, there was a movie that was out recently I didn't see, I think was maybe out a year or two ago called Blue Ruin. And the tagline really stuck out to me because I think it was, it was something along the lines of a southern revenge tale, or the Southern Gothic revenge tale. And I sort of kind of, you know, stuck with me because I started to see a couple of the articles, you know, about the the how the the southern revenge tale is kind of different and basically, you know, as we tell stories, you know, you know, you tell me it's story. I tell you a story. There's all different components of to them. And usually a story is to reveal a transformation, you know, usually there's, you know, something inside, you know, of the society, of the culture that the of ideals that they. True or ideals that they really value. So, you know, and it's different too, because, you know, for people, you know, I have a lot of listeners who aren't from America, and they still don't understand, you know, America is huge. I mean, this country is absolutely huge. And we have so many different, you know, different regions. You have the East Coast, you have the west coast of the Midwest. You have, you know, the northeast, you have this, you have the south. And I mean, all of these different ways of telling stories, and, you know, all these unique points of view. So, you know, Cynthia, when you take your you know movies out, do you notice that you know, you tell the you know different? Do you notice that maybe your stories have that, that sort of like unique vantage point, but it's something that sort of, there's like a parallel that can be drawn through all through all different types of regions and stuff like that.

Cynthia Hill 15:48
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've never really looked at it that way. I do feel very much like it is Southern. But what does southern mean? You know, I think for me and and when it comes to storytelling, it's about character. It's about character, and it's also about the small moments. And, you know, I, when I am in the field now, in working in the documentary medium, it's, you know, I don't necessarily have a set agenda, you know, you go out to if you've got something that you know you're making a, you know, a film about a certain topic, or or whatever, you've got some agenda, you kind of know what world you're entering. But I like to be fluid and wait for things to happen and for characters to reveal themselves, and moments that let the characters become human just happen and unfold. And so I spend a lot of time with nothing happening, waiting for those moments to happen. And a lot of what I say, especially when I work with new editors, is that what ends up on the screen with me a lot of the times are things that other I feel like other filmmakers, or maybe other editors, especially like in older kinds of TV dot formats, where that stuff would end up on the editing room floor, typically. But I like those moments that are subtle, that take the audience a little bit more time, take you know you've got to pay closer attention to them and those things that are going to build so that by the time I make my point, I have teased it out a long time, and so that it becomes even more meaningful to the audience by the time you see that revealed. And so that's what I'm doing when I'm in the field. A lot is just waiting for those moments. And when you're, you're with me, and I work with new folks in the field, they think I'm not doing anything because I look like I'm not doing anything, but I'm listening, and I'm I'm playing, paying close attention and waiting for that moment. And usually that moment happens when everybody kind of lets their guard down, or maybe, you know the moment after another moment is usually the moment that I'm after. So it's kind of, it's hard to explain, but when you add all all those things together, it just really helps with it helps with the really building who those characters are that you're with, and those narratives, because those small moments, I feel like are, they're really the important things that are happening.

Dave Bullis 18:31
Oh, and I see exactly what you mean to it's like a slow burn, you know. And rather than, sort of, like the fast paced, sort of MTV style of sort of editing or, you know. And honestly, I've seen, you know, that's good to have, because I don't ever want to see where filmmaking or anything becomes homogenized, where everybody shoots and edits and etc, the same way. And you know, just just as we get started, you're talking about your career, Cynthia, you know, you mentioned, how do you go from pharmacist to filmmaker? So, you know, what was, what was the step that you took? So that way you said, Look, I'm not going to do Pharm. To do pharmacy tech work anymore. I'm going to do filmmaking full time. So you know, what was that step that you took?

Cynthia Hill 19:10
Well, until this year, I still was employed by Walmart as a pharmacist, so I was canned unceremoniously. As of late, I'd only work two days. So it was it was coming, but it's I and just not that I have. I apologize up front, I have a tendency to answer the question that I want to answer. So I'm going to back step just a little bit pharmacy to me. Gave me permission to experiment. It gave me that solid foundation and that financial security that I needed to take risks. And so I knew I could always go and work as a pharmacist. So it allowed me to not go and have to work on other people's projects if I didn't want to, you know, I wasn't out there using that creative side of my brain to, you know, do ad work or, you know, do something that I that wasn't coming from inside of me in that medium, so I could devote all of that energy to working on what I wanted to work on. So that's what I've always done. And it's also, I mean, it's, it's been really great for me, because I have a very distinctive style. And you would, you know, when you see something that I work on, but the downfall is that I do create my stuff kind of in a vacuum, and I don't have a lot of mentors and stuff like that, because I've never worked for anybody else. I've always just done what I wanted to do. But when I first started out, you know, I I had this one story that was burning inside of me that I knew I had to tell, and that was the story of tobacco farming and growing up in the South and in this region of the country, tobacco was the one crop that small farmers and families could rely on. And yes, it kills people, but it also puts in a lot of us to college, and created opportunities that would not have otherwise existed, and also kept small farms intact in the south when when it was no longer possible or viable with other commodities. So I had this, this, this strange relationship with this crop that, you know, kills people, but also something that I had a lot of fondness for. You know, it was a lot of memories with the family working, and it was very much a family kind of business and operation where we would, we would help each other, you know, harvest the crop every summer. And that's what I did up until I went to college. And so I knew that that was a story I wanted to tell, because I could see the demise of that small family farm happening in front of my eyes, and I had to tell that story. And so when I first started out, it was like, I'm just going to tell this story. I didn't consider myself an artist or a filmmaker. I just knew I was going to do that. So I was going to raise $10,000 and film for one season, and that was going to be my film. But instead, I filmed for over three years and raised over $100,000 and it took me another two years to edit the film, to make my first film, and I still couldn't call myself a filmmaker. After that, I didn't have enough confidence in myself, but that became, began my path, and each time I start a film, I swear I'm going to make it in less than five years, but I still have a hard time making a film in less than five years, so maybe one day.

Dave Bullis 23:12
Well, so let me ask you Cynthia, when you decided to raise that money, you know that that's sort of like the million dollar question, no pun intended for a lot of filmmakers is they always say, you know, what steps do you go to raise funds? Some people say it's crowdfunding. Some people say it's private equity. So you know, what methods did you use to, sort of, you know, raise these funds to help make your documentary?

Cynthia Hill 23:36
Yeah, for this one, it was all foundation money. And the first two grant proposals I sent out were funded, which is completely 100% unheard of. I had already shot some so I had something to show. You know, so I was I was able to show proof of concept and what I was trying to do. But if I had not have had that kind of success out of the gate, I probably wouldn't have continued, because it would have been just too depressing. But then, after those first two, I probably the, probably the next 25 were not funded. So, you know, it was really one of those things where it's it's so difficult, and there's no magic answer to it, you know, there's one of those. If it's a social issue. Film, no, you can try the foundation route. If it's, you know, you can try the crowdfunding route. And I've done that twice now, and I never want to do that again. It says it's a special kind of torture. Crowdfunding, or at least the process of actually during the campaign, is torture, and then it's even more torture when you have to fulfill all this bullshit that you've promised people during your crowdfunding campaign, you actually have to make good on all these promises. Is. So it's really, you know, there's no magic answer. The equity thing, I still have a hard time with that. I've had this one really amazing woman who's been trying to give me money for this project that I'm currently working on. And I don't, I don't know how I feel about that, because, you know, once you have somebody that's invested in you, then it's like you feel like you got to make money. And two, you feel like you got somebody looking over your shoulder. And so I'm contemplating that now, you know, I'm to a point in my career that I need to be able to do that. You know, this last project that where the I have a development deal with HBO and some development money from Sundance for it, but I need to be able to have some additional funds in place before I can go back to try to show what the project really is. And so what do I do in the meantime? Because it's not really a social issue film that I can go out and do the foundation route again. So I'm sitting here thinking, I really need to call that lady back and take her money. Like, it's hard, yeah, this whole legal thing with, you know, sailing securities, bloody blah, blah, blah, but yeah, it's, you know, I feel like I've got to grow up and you know, this is, this is my business now, this is, this is how I make a living. It. I am to that point where I actually can say that, and I have a lot of folks that now work with me or for me. And, you know, I've got to also be mindful of, you know, their, their well being too, not just my own.

Dave Bullis 26:40
Yeah, it is tricky. I mean, you know, that's something we talk a lot about on this podcast, is, you know, the whole legal aspect of taking people's money, you know, private equity, crowdfunding, all those different routes and, you know, and I've heard everything from, hey, we did it for free. By, I mean, that's what I did, too, you know, I didn't go to film school. My first student film was me making a feature film. And we borrowed every set, everything, everything was all borrowed. You know, don't, you know, a friend of mine had a house we could shoot in, and we've had that all the way to, you know, very expensive movies on here. So, you know, it's just always interesting to hear, you know, everything, you know, all those two extremes and everything in between. And you know, as we talk more about making documentaries and everything else, making it into a living is something special Cynthia, because that takes a lot of hard work. Takes a lot of talent. It takes a lot of patience, and a lot of times filmmakers maybe make one film or two, and they get kind of burned out from the whole process.

Cynthia Hill 27:41
Well, this is true, you know. And I think I'm struggling with that right now, you know, is it a business, or is it still a passion, you know? So trying to straddle still wanting to do this work, because it's something that, you know, burns inside of me, versus, like, just making content because I've got a lot of mouths to feed, and I don't want to be in that place, you know. And it's new for me to manage people, you know, because I I have finally accepted that I'm an artist that comes with artist tendencies, which means that I'm not great at necessarily managing people and so. But you know, when you have this kind of operation, where we have right now, where this past year, we produced an eight part series that were hour long, each was an hour long, so eight hours of that, and then another 10 part half hour series. We're producing a lot of content, and it takes a lot of people to pull that off. And you know, we're doing this in a part of the country that doesn't have the infrastructure, and, you know, the the depth of talent and stuff. So no, we're training our own where we are making it work even when the odds are completely against us. And that, in and of itself, to me, is something that I'm really proud of and proud of the team that we have in place for that. But then how do you keep that going? You know how much of inside of me has to come out to keep that, that those creative juices going because so far that those stories are all coming from me, you know, like, just the creative part of it, you know, putting it together, and that is really that's hard to keep that going and to feel that burden of that, and then, like, is that really what I want to do moving forward? Or do I want to, like, quit all that and go back and, you know, make a narrative film, which I've been contemplating for a long time. So, you know, it's, I'm struggling a bit. I don't know if it's midlife bullshit mess, but Yeah, you know, you the success is great, but it's also like, Is this really what I want? And you are we? Are we happy? Lord, I'm in therapy.

Dave Bullis 30:18
Yeah, this podcast is like therapy for a lot of people, myself included, but no, I'm just joking, Cynthia, but no, it's, this is what it is. It's a discussion, you know. And that's, you know, some of the things that we discuss in this podcast is stuff you don't hear other, you know, any other place. And what I mean by that is, you know, the things that that affect filmmakers, things that they go through, stuff like that. You know, too many podcasts, too many articles they paint either a rosy picture or they paint this very bleak picture. And it's really, you know, it's not really one of the other, it's usually in between, you know, the ones that paint the rosy picture like, oh, yeah, I submitted the Sundance, and we wanted 10 billion and then we're all rich now, and the and the and the bleak picture is like, Oh, I try to submit the Sundance. That's all bullshit. I couldn't get any other film festival. There was a little bullshit, and I threw up on YouTube, and nobody watched it. And now I'm, you know, 100 grand in the hole, and I hate my life, and, you know, so it's kind of like, you know, trying to find this happy medium. Because I, believe me, I you know, when I started doing this, even before I started doing this podcast, I met so many different people doing so many different things on so many different film sets, and I heard so many different stories about successes and failures, successes and failures. And that's why I wanted to do this podcast, you know, because it's I've noticed a common thread among a lot of filmmakers. That's why I started this podcast. So, you know, when you made your tobacco documentary about, you know, obviously it's focused on the south, you know. But you kept going, and you turned into other projects, you know. So after, if you're the documentary aired, you know, and was completed, you know what? You know, what? What was your next step in continuing your filmography?

Cynthia Hill 31:59
Well, I was helping work on another film at the same time some other film makers here in Durham. And so it's I was, that was February one, which was about the Greensboro lunch camera sit in so I was able to see a little bit about, you know, what else could be opportunities. And then this story came along as I was finishing up the tobacco film that was about the farm workers that were coming from Mexico. And Dave, can we start that over again? Because I feel like the February one thing is kind of like left field.

Dave Bullis 32:39
Sure, absolutely.

Cynthia Hill 32:41
Yeah, I just tell about the tobacco. I mean, ask me the question again.

Dave Bullis 32:46
Sure, sure, no problem. So, you know, you kept on going. So you know, after you made your tobacco documentary, you know, what was the next step you you you made to continue your filmography.

Cynthia Hill 33:00
Well, when I was finishing up tobacco money fees my family, the one of the farmers that I had been profiling was getting farm workers from Mexico in this guest worker program. And he got farm workers that were being bussed directly from Mexico straight to his farm. They would open the door from the bus and they would get out on his farm in North Carolina. And I was like, whoa. What the hell is that? You know we when I was growing up, I remember when we had the first Mexicans that showed up in our community to harvest cucumbers, and that was the first time we locked our doors because the Mexicans were in town. And so there's this thing with we don't want foreigners in our communities doing our work is taking our work and but then we are actively bussing folks in to do the work that we don't want to do. And I thought, Oh, my goodness, this is so fascinating. And so then I spent the next two years filming a story of these farm workers that were coming from Mexico in this guest worker program, I was able to find a farm in North Carolina that would let me film. And that, in and of itself, was a huge hurdle, because there was so much suspicion about this program and folks trying to do this gotcha kind of filmmaking at the time and still to this day. And so getting a farmer comfortable with us being there to do a do a story about farm workers was really, was not an easy feat. But when we finally latched on to this one guy who was willing to do to. Willing to let us stay on his farm. It was so eye opening to spend a whole season with this one farm worker. Well, we several, but we ended up going back home with two of them, and we took that bus ride back home to Mexico on bus after bus to the back of a pickup truck to get to his home, back in his village in Durango, Mexico. And you know, it's not that they, you know, especially for this guest worker program, they're not trying to move to to the US. You know, they were here to make money to bring back home. And now I'd always hear these things about the excuses for the horrible living conditions that the farm workers had to live in, about how so much better than what they got back in Mexico. And that how we're, you know, we're doing them such a favor. But then when we got back to his home in Mexico, he lived in this beautiful villa that it was very modest, but had a lot of outdoor space, and it was on the side. You could see his cows off in the horizon. And it's just like these are people who want to support their family, just like these farmers want to support their families, and it was important for me to, after telling the farmer story, to also tell that farm worker story. And I couldn't not do that. You know, I felt like it was a disservice just to tell the farmer story without completing that that story. So that was my second film.

Dave Bullis 36:42
So when you released that, that film, you sort of back to back with you told the farmers, you know, the farmers story, you tell the the workers story, you know, how was that? Did that change any perceptions?

Cynthia Hill 36:56
You hope that it does. I mean, I think that the folks that that saw it. You know, that's really the key, is, like getting folks to watch stuff. And I think the one of the main accomplishments for me in that with that film was that we had this one screening where we had farm workers and farmers in the room at the same time watching the film at the same time. And it was, it was kind of funny, like there would be moments where they would laugh at the same things, and they could see the humanity in each other. And to me, that's what it was about, you know, trying to bridge that gap. And I feel like I do that quite a bit, is trying to bridge that gap of understanding. And, you know, I'm not, I don't consider myself an activist filmmaker, per se, but I do tend to tackle topics that are important, and at least I like to, but I like to do it with story and really about understanding the, you know, the human condition. And, you know, really getting into characters and understanding the plight and trying to walk in their shoes for a little bit,

Dave Bullis 38:10
Yeah, and I think that's something that, you know, a lot of filmmakers have sort of missed, not only filmmakers, but we, you know, producers and TV show runners. And, you know, you tune in, because you want to see characters. You know, you see these characters in these sort of predicaments, and in, you know, a couple episodes ago, I interviewed Rhonda shear, and Rhonda shear was, you know, on you the host of USA is up all night. And, you know, something I spoke to her about was to into in today's sort of, you know, entertainment environment, a lot of the people, when they start putting money into things, whether it be a TV show, you know, everything becomes very mechanical. Now, everything has an algorithm. Oh, well, hey, you know, you say this script and don't deviate from the script. And I think it really takes away a lot of character, and it's more about like situations, if you know what I mean. So let's and I think with documentaries especially, you have to have those characters. I just wanted to touch on that topic, because it's so important anymore, you know, just finding films that have characters in them that you know people can relate to.

Cynthia Hill 39:11
Yeah, I think that's that's important. You know, you can have somebody telling you all day long that about this person's plight, or you can interview them about their their own plight, and they can tell you certain things, but if you're with them and you experience it with them, I think that's a whole other level of understanding. And that, to me, was, was what was important about, you know, making the guest worker film was that, you know, I did not understand it. You know, I drive by a field and I see people picking my produce, but I go to the grocery store and I buy it, you know, and I'm not really thinking about them when I'm I'm going to Whole Foods and and buying my $5 piece of lettuce you know, so it's was important for me to give them, not just the face, but to also tell part of that their story, and let them tell their own story, not, you know, through interview, but to witness it with them, need to be a true witness of of that, that experience. And I that's, that's the kind of filmmaking that I like. It's what I like to watch. You know, heavily interview driven kinds of films don't usually do it for me. Every now and then. I'll see when I'm like, Okay, I take it back. I'm okay with interviews, but typically that's not what I want. I have this thing where I say, show me. Don't tell me. You can tell me all day long, but if I see it and I feel it and I'm witnessing it, it's going to have so much more impact on me. And I feel like that's what it is for an audience, too.

Dave Bullis 41:05
Yeah, you're experiencing with it. I really like that. Because, you know, again, you know, when, when people try to to sort of force the sort of force the issue, or even make, you know, you know, these, these sit down interview car, you know, TV shows or movies, they're taking away the character. They're sort of just trying to sort of make everything happen, you know, along these sort of beats. And again, you know that that's why, yeah, you know,

Cynthia Hill 41:29
Tearing it down to, you know, just the that topic or that issue, and trying to hit that home and and I spend a lot more time kind of being around the bush, hoping that people see my subtle hints at what the issue is, you know. So I think that there's room for both kinds of storytelling. It just as I prefer the kind that doesn't meet you over the head, you know, I prefer the kind that takes me on a journey and lets me decide for myself. And that's, that's the kind of filmmaking I want to do is I want to take the viewer on a journey and let them decide for themselves. Obviously, I have a point of view, and so as I am laying out the scenes and showing the audience that the moments that I choose I am, you know, obviously have a certain point of view, that's that they're watching. But I do try to be very subtle in it, you know, even if it's issue oriented, and let the viewer decide for themselves, because I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, half the time

Dave Bullis 42:35
You know, I noticed on the clock where we're we're starting to get a little pressed for time. So I wanted to make sure I asked you, What about one project, which is actually how we started talking, which is your, your actual, your eight part series on, on NASCAR motorsports. So I wanted to ask, you know, how did you get involved? You know, with the with the with the project?

Cynthia Hill 42:55
Well, I have this short list of southern things that I would love to one day be able to film, you know, it's I try to, to stay in my region, even if it's not necessarily southern like my filmmaking. I feel like my backyard is just as interesting as getting on a plane and going somewhere else. So also, I feel like I have permission to film once here too. You know, I don't feel like I'm an interloper and and going in and trying to tell somebody else's story. So, you know, I try to stay based here in the south, and so NASCAR has been on that list of things that I would love to do, and for no other reason, that it's something that I grew up with. It was very much a part of my family, my granddad was a huge Richard Petty fan, and so every Sunday, we're watching a race, whether we wanted to or not. And so I, you know, I wasn't a NASCAR fan, growing when I got when I became an adult, but it still fascinated me, and also how people from outside of the South perceived it, and perceived the fan base and the sport itself like it's not really a sport. And there's lots of things people say about stock car racing. And so if you're gonna, you know, I like to mire myself in stuff that has a bit of controversy, I feel like sometimes, and this was kind of one of those things, but I wasn't in it for the controversy. I just was wanting just to see that world from the inside. And we just had the opportunity to approach Hendrick Motorsports with the idea of coming in and doing, you know, an inside look at it. And they are really the the giants in the sport you know, they have driving for them, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, Jimmy Johnson, who just won the championship last year, Casey Kane, and also chase Elliot, who's Bill Elliot's son, and he was getting into jeff gordon's car post Jeff Gordon had just. Retired, and so we wanted to enter the world with Chase, because he was, he was new to the team, and he just turned 20, and we thought it would be a really interesting perspective starting the series with a newbie, and especially one with that kind of pedigree. And surprisingly, Hendrick agreed, and after the fact, I found out that they get pitched a lot and never say yes, so I feel really honored that they said yes, but I think it was because I'm from the south. My ideas of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to tell were not any kind of again, gotcha thing. I just wanted to just go in. I wanted to embed my team into their team and really see what it was like to be, you know, in NASCAR and, you know, race every weekend. So, I mean, that's what we did. We we filmed with them for six months, and we filmed with all the drivers, not just chase. They opened the doors and said, Hey, you want to film these other drivers too? And we're like, Oh, yeah. So it was, it was a, an amazing experience. You know, the unfortunate thing is, my ears are still ringing because it's so loud and but it's, it was. I hate this word, and I hate to even say it, but it was truly unprecedented. The access that they gave us, know they they allowed us inside their facilities. NASCAR allowed us the film at the race tracks with basically what we not really telling us, you know, don't go there. Don't go there. And there are a few places we couldn't go, but really, we had the access that I didn't know that we could have, and we had an amazing working relationship with NASCAR and ask our productions where we knew that we would be able to get access to the race footage. So we weren't always focused on trying to film the race, but we were, you know, we were turning we would focus on the teens so that we could really see what the inner workings are like, and when something happens on the track, what's the reaction of the team, and, you know, what's the build up to to the race? And so it, you know, the race. Races were important, but they just became just more of a dramatic narrative tool for me to be able to understand the pressure. So the outcome of the race was less important, because, you know, we're not doing race coverage, not sports coverage TV, we're really telling stories about people, and, you know, that's what we do. And so, you know, we focused on, you know, again, on the characters and those small moments. And I think what we were able to accomplish is pretty unique, especially for that sport. I don't think you ever see it really presented that way.

Dave Bullis 47:51
Yeah, I was going to ask too, if they actually got pitched a lot, because I can, I can imagine, the answer would have been Yes, you know, just because you know, whenever you're in that position, whenever you're like, the leader, or, you know, you're involved in the a level, you know, kind of like, you know, how in the NFL, every team just gets pitched unbelievably amount, you know, hey, do the you know, could we do a documentary? Hey, could we do this? You know, hey, could you help out this charity? So that's why, you know, I think you did have that unique sort of way to sort of get your foot in the door by saying, I'm from the south and, you know, and I'm sure they wanted to see your other two, your other documentaries, before they said, Yes, you know,

Cynthia Hill 48:31
Yeah. And it was really nice. We got to the meeting, and the head of the marketing team, he had already seen my last film that was on HBO, and was a huge fan of the television series that I direct called a chef's life. And so he already knew my style, and he saw how our team operated, and felt really comfortable with what we were presenting and the ideas that we came to the table and he, he, he knew that what I said when I was in that meeting was true. You know, that I was not, you know, I wasn't trying to get in to do another kind of story, because the body of work that we came in with showed what we were trying to do. And, you know, it did open those doors. And so it does prove that eventually things do get a little easier. Other things don't, but that door opening definitely was much easier than I had anticipated. And that was nice, you know, that that came at a time in my career where, you know, I've been making films for 20 years now, and so it's nice to finally say, hey, you know, it does work out sometimes,

Dave Bullis 49:48
Yeah, and I think, you know, you're it did get easier, because, you know, people can you start to build a portfolio, and you start to build a reputation, and I think, and that is key, you know, something I always say here on the podcast is your net worth, is your network, your network is your net worth. And basically, you know, you were able to open those doors because of your network, and it's all about, you know, being professional. You know, doing good work. You know, not being crazy. You know, not being you know, because sometimes, you know, people get their foot in the door and they shoot themselves in the foot. You know, it's almost comical, because a lot of filmmakers, you know, they get themselves in the in the door, and then they just start, you know, immediately, start making all these mistakes. And, you know, it just, it really compounds, you know. And that's why you really want to make sure. Because, I mean, now after you've done this, I mean, it's like, you know, hey, hey, Cynthia, what was your last project? Oh, hey, I work with Hendrik motor sports. And, you know, we did this and this and this. And, you know, I mean, that that's just, that's huge, you know, that's absolutely huge.

Cynthia Hill 50:54
We filmed with, with Dale Jr, who everybody told me that he would never wear wireless mic. And we, you know, sometimes he would agree, you know, so we spent really nice time with him. And you know that, to me, is is meaningful to be able to develop those kinds of relationships and and it is important, you know, the downside to being in North Carolina is that my network is not extensive. I joke that I have a lot of pig farmers in my network, which they're really important, and I appreciate them, but it's, um, you know, it's, it's difficult because we are here, but you know, the benefits are that I do have an extensive network here, And the folks here do trust do trust me and and trust the team that we have in place. And so when we show up, that does mean a lot,

Dave Bullis 51:49
Yeah, and you know, again, you you, you never know what door is going to open, you know. And again, I like how you mentioned, again, where you were, because, you know, every everything's different. Again, everything has changed, which sort of, you know, brings us back to full circle, which I was, which was what, you know, we open up the podcast with, you could be a filmmaker now, you know, across America, and it's, it's opened a lot of doors. Cynthia, I know we've actually just run out of time. So where can people find you out online, Cynthia?

Cynthia Hill 52:18
You mean me, or just my company name is Markay Media, m, a, r, k, a, y, media.com and the road to race day, which is the NASCAR series, was just released on the complex, next complex networks platform, go 90, and so it's currently streaming the next the last episode is premiering tomorrow, so all the episodes will be up after tomorrow. And my other films are somewhat harder to find private violence, which was the last film with HBO. That one I think you can find on Amazon and Hulu, and a chef's life is on PBS. Season Five is premiering in October, so that one's still going strong,

Dave Bullis 53:14
Yeah. So we got to talking Cynthia, and we ran out of time with because I was going to talk, I had notes to talk about, you know, all of your all of your work, and, you know, we just, you know, one of those things right out of time, but, but I'm going to link to everything in the show notes. Everyone at Dave bulls.com Twitter at Dave underscore Bullis, and I link to all of Cynthia social media as well so you could follow her and see all the really cool stuff that she's up to.

Cynthia Hill 53:40
Thanks, Dave. I really appreciate it.

Dave Bullis 53:43
Oh, my pleasure, Cynthia. And if you ever want to come back sometime, we can talk, you know, more about your next projects, and you know. And then the other projects we didn't get a chance to talk about, let me know, you know. And you know, I love to have you back on

Cynthia Hill 53:53
Happy to it's fun. It is kind of like therapy. And maybe just listen to that, because I, I, I, I have a tendency not to be PC, so maybe listen to the guest worker stuff, just to make sure I didn't say something too offensive. Because sometimes I say things that I don't know are offensive, and they become offensive without me knowing it so

Dave Bullis 54:17
Yeah, it's all good. Cynthia, everything's offensive nowadays.

Cynthia Hill 54:24
That's true, it can be, but, you know, I think it's like, for me, it's, it's, you know, I, I, we work really hard to be inclusive. And the team I have in place, you know, we've, we've built a diverse team, and we work with a lot of women too, and so we spend a lot of time trying to tell stories that have meaning, and beyond just you know the meaning of my demographic. So we try.

Dave Bullis 54:57
No, and I think you do very well. I. I honestly, and that's why I wanted to have you on this podcast. And again, I want to link to everything of yours in the show notes. And you know people can check out your work, and you know I want to see and obviously I hope you continue to move forward with this and and you continue to to build that filmography.

Cynthia Hill 55:17
Thank you. I appreciate it. I hope so, hopefully I won't burn out.

Dave Bullis 55:21
Don't go back to pharmacy. That's what I'm that's the message of this whole podcast, is, don't go back to pharmacy.

Cynthia Hill 55:26
I don't know if I can anymore. I lost my job. That's all right. I needed it. I needed that. Kick in the butt.

Dave Bullis 55:34
Yeah? Exactly, right. It's, it's like the old Roman army, when they got to a new country, they'd burn their boats.

Cynthia Hill 55:41
Yeah, this is it you gotta Yeah. There's no Yeah, yeah. We're swimming.

Dave Bullis 55:49
Cynthia. Cynthia Hill, I want to say thank you so much for coming on, and I do wish you the best of luck.

Cynthia Hill 55:55
Thank you. Thanks so much, Dave.

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BPS 426: Breaking the Rules: Crafting Powerful Films Without Hollywood Money with Shawn Whitney

July 3, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

Sometimes, the fire of creativity is struck not by lightning but by the slow, smoldering ache of dissatisfaction. And in today’s soul-stirring conversation, we welcome Shawn Whitney, a filmmaker who found cinema not in the corridors of academia, but in the quiet rebellion of self-taught screenwriting and micro-budget filmmaking. Shawn Whitney is a screenwriter, director, and founder of Micro Budget Film Lab who empowers indie creators to tell powerful stories on shoestring budgets.

Our journey with Shawn begins not in childhood fantasies of movie stardom, but in the dense woods of Brechtian theater and the quiet study of old black-and-white films. His path wandered, as many worthwhile ones do, through rejection, basement solitude, and heartbreak—until something within him demanded not just expression but transmutation. Shawn didn’t study film in college. Instead, he emerged from the theater world and fell into filmmaking after a failed workshop production left him broke and dispirited. Yet that fall became his rise. As he said, “I just started writing screenplays and learning the craft in the quiet shadows.”

There’s something beautiful in learning the art of story not from glamorous sets or high-priced workshops but from the bones of failed experiments and the echoes of dialogue bouncing around your own mind. Shawn described his education not with fanfare but humility—referencing Sid Field, Blake Snyder, and the ever-controversial Save the Cat—tools that became his spiritual guides, not rigid masters. And with every script, he refined a method. Not the method, mind you. A method. “You just need a method. You can’t just be anarchy,” he mused.

But perhaps what struck me most was Shawn’s philosophy that screenwriting is not just structure—it’s an argument about what makes life meaningful. Films, he insists, must be animated not by market trends, but by inner turmoil, by the strange flickering passions of the human heart. “It can’t just be about chopping up zombies. Your characters must go through an inner transformation.” That idea—that a film is a living question—sets Shawn apart in a world often obsessed with following the formula instead of feeling the pulse.

Shawn’s micro-budget films—“A Brand New You” and “F*cking My Way Back Home”—aren’t just titles that stick. They are rebellious acts of filmmaking born from limited means and limitless creativity. His stories unfold not in sprawling CGI landscapes, but in human longing, funny sadness, and philosophical absurdity. One film follows a man trying to clone his dead wife in the living room. Another explores redemption from the passenger seat of a towed Cutlass Supreme. With a budget of $7,000 and a borrowed tow truck, Shawn pulled off scenes that feel bigger than most tentpole blockbusters.

But filmmaking, for Shawn, isn’t just about his own expression. Through Micro Budget Film Lab, he’s become a teacher, a mentor, and a kind of mad scientist in the alchemical lab of storytelling. His passion is not merely to direct, but to help others break free from the gatekeeping systems that keep fresh stories from being told. “We need a micro budget movement,” he declared, envisioning a cinematic rebellion where filmmakers use what they have to tell stories no one else dares to.

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Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:54
My guest this week runs micro budget film lab. He has directed two micro budget features and is in pre production for a third with guest, Shawn Whitney. Hey Shawn, thanks a lot for coming on the show.

Shawn Whitney 2:08
Thanks. Thanks very much for having me Dave. I really appreciate it.

Dave Bullis 2:10
Oh, you know, my pleasure, Shawn, you know, I've seen everything you've been doing with the micro budget film lab and all the great things that you're doing over there. But before I even, you know, we start talking about all the things you do there. I wanted to talk, you know, about your career and about, you know, getting started. So, you know, we're growing up. Shawn, did you always, you know, have this, you know, this hobby of film, or this love affair with film and and, you know, did you make films growing up as a kid?

Shawn Whitney 2:35
No, no. Short answer, no, no. I mean, I always was. I've thought of myself as a writer since I was probably 10 or nine years old. But, you know, there was no, we didn't have any video cameras or anything like that, like it just, we just didn't have them, so they wasn't really around. I watched a lot of old movies. You know, it was back in the days, first before cable and then cable and so, you know, we would get like, channel 29 from Buffalo, and we would watch, you know, bad movies, or not bad movies, but old movies from the 50s and 60s. But it wasn't really until much later that I decided to pursue film, actually.

Dave Bullis 3:16
So did you end up going to college for film?

Shawn Whitney 3:20
No, no, I so I went to I went to University in Toronto, at the York University, and I did a liberal arts degree in humanities, kind of cultural studies, and then I did a master's in interdisciplinary studies that was focused on writing for the theater. And I'd started a small theater company that was doing like Brechtian musical theater. And we did a bunch of really great productions. And, you know, I wrote stuff, and I was doing that, and then, but then I went, decided to make a turn towards film, really, in about the year 2003 I guess. And at that point, I just began writing, you know, I'd done, I tried to do, actually, a theater production, I did, like a workshop production, and it went really badly, and I lost a lot of money, and I was really depressed, so I kind of hit, hid in my basement for about three years, and just started writing screenplays and just sort of learning how to write screenplays on my own. And then, I guess, three or four years, and then I ended up getting accepted into the Canadian film center, which is kind of like the American Film Institute, Institute. And that was my kind of, you know, my formal, the formal, official part of my education was that residency there

Dave Bullis 4:35
You mentioned writing your own screenplays and sort of teaching yourself how to write screenplays. You know, that's sort of something I did a few years ago, you know. And I think that helps out a lot. And what I want to ask is, you know, was there any particular books or even scripts or even movies that you sort of use to sort of pick apart, you know, and how to, sort of teaching yourself how to write?

Shawn Whitney 4:57
Yeah, there was a few books. I mean, Sid Field, I think was maybe the first book screenplay that I that I read, and that kind of opened my eyes to, you know, structure and all that kind of stuff. And then I read another book by Epstein called crafty screenwriting, which was really good. And then the most recently I read, a few years ago now, I read save the cat by Blake Snyder, and that was, I know, it gets, it gets, you know, a lot of bad people go on about it now, because it has become kind of the dominant model in Hollywood, in many ways. But it's, I still think that it's a really powerful machinery that you can use, you can bend it to kind of more unconventional structures, but it was really useful for me in terms of creating a kind of method to approach the screenwriting process.

Dave Bullis 5:49
Yeah, I have noticed that save the cat has gotten a lot of flack. I mean, I think if you're at the top of any field and you know, I think save the cat has sort of gotten to the upper echelon now, because, I mean, well, Sid Field has passed, and so has the person who made say the cat has passed. But I mean, I still think that it's been able, it's been it's been sort of passed on through his through his program, and I think now, when you're at the top field, when you're at the top of any field, I think you're gonna get flack for a lot of things.

Shawn Whitney 6:20
Yeah, totally, I mean, and it's partly, it's because of the way that Hollywood approached the whole process of storytelling. I mean, it really is the kind of formula that's in save the cat is used constantly, like you can watch a movie and time, it's kind of just the same cat structure and and I think people get because of that, and because a lot of Hollywood movies are pretty, you know, they're pretty empty, sort of commercial properties that are really, you know, not about, they're not about art, they're about they're a product, right? And I think people confuse the power of the story structure with the vacancy of the content. And I think that's where a lot of that comes from. It's like, you know, Hollywood movies are kind of empty, or not all of them, but a lot of them are empty, and it's because they all follow this model. And I, and I think it's, it's a little bit of a misrepresentation,

Dave Bullis 7:10
Yeah, and, you know, I know you can't see this because it's a podcast, but I have a huge screenwriting book library right next to me, to my left, and I sort of did what you did, you know, I wanted to figure out, you know, screenwriting, the nuts and bolts and getting down to the absolute, you know, sort of atoms of it, and figure out, you know, what makes a great screenwriter, what makes a great screenplay. And I sort of just, you know, would buy these books piece by piece. Some of them you could buy, I mean, for pennies on the dollar and Amazon. Others, you know, they just came out, and they're still full price. But, you know, there's a lot. There are some that really speak to to me, and there's others that I read. And I'm just like, I don't know, maybe, maybe this is lost, because, you know, I'm sure it happened to you too, Sean, where you have people recommend books to you, like screenwriting books, for instance, and you read them, and you're just like, what was the big deal about this you know?

Shawn Whitney 7:59
Yeah, yeah, totally. And a lot of them end up, I don't know, after, after a while, if you read a few of them, it's like, okay, this is, I'm kind of reading the same thing again. And at a certain point, you need to just get a method that you're going to use and then apply it, and then learn from it and find it, find ways to advance upon it. You know, I don't think there's any absolutely perfect or the right method, exactly. But you just need a method. You can't just be It can't just be anarchy.

Dave Bullis 8:25
Yes, absolutely. I think a method is key, finding your routine also, which I guess, is another way saying method, but, you know, finding your routine and making sure, you know, okay, well, 11 o'clock today, or maybe a little earlier, or maybe I'm gonna get up at two, you know, an hour early today, and I'm just gonna write, you know, I'm just gonna write for, you know, 45 minutes to half an hour. And you and you're absolutely right, you know, finding that process is key, because, like you just said, when I would read some of these books, I would I felt like I was reading the same thing, same things, over and over again. And I'm just like, I didn't just read this book, like, with a different cover and my different author, but, I mean, but that's bound to happen. You know, once you start, you know, getting to a certain point, you're gonna start seeing all that same information, just basically, you know, used again or maybe presented in a different way.

Shawn Whitney 9:11
Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, there's only so many ways, in a sense, to tell a story. And if you're telling a three act story, or a story that has a beginning, middle and end, anyway, there's only so many ways to do it. And, you know, the interesting thing because I read a lot of scripts in my development job, and I read tons of scripts, and what you see mostly is that is not, I mean, you do see scripts that come in that are kind of, you know, soulless machines. But mostly what you see from screenwriters who aren't established is that they just don't have the structure. They don't know how to tell a story that keeps moving forward. And you you really need that. And so to go back to what you're saying is so it feels repetitive on the one hand, and it is repetitive in a lot of ways, but it also is like people need to learn this, because otherwise they can't tell a story.

Dave Bullis 10:10
And you touched on something through Sean, you know, you said the that some of the scripts that come in are like a soulless machine, you know, I know you can't go into specifics, or, you know, anything like that, but is there anything, any sort of thing that that that writer might be doing wrong, whether it be structure, or is it because they don't have a voice that makes it sort of like that soulless machine?

Shawn Whitney 10:30
Well, what it is, is that people write to the market, and because, you know, people want to make a living, and so they think, Okay, well, you know, like, for a while, we were getting all these found footage scripts, for instance, which you know were the rage, and they would come in, and people would follow the beats, you know, would like, x would happen on page 12 and Y would happen on page 23 or whatever. But what was lacking in them was that they were just, you know, it's like, it's like watching a plumber fix your pipes. It's necessary work, you know, but it's not interesting. Besides, for you, because, you know, your toilets overflowing, but for most people, it's not going to be that, that interesting. And so what I find lacking is a kind of, some kind of universal, universality to it. So you need to have, for instance, your characters. It can't just be about, you know, chopping up zombies or aliens or whatever. They have to be going through an inner turmoil, because really, what stories are about is they're an argument, you know, about what makes the good life, and you're making an argument, and if you're not making an argument, and if it's not being felt through your character, then it just feels like watching a plumber fix a pipe or watching somebody build a house. It's kind of interesting to see the structure of it, but it's not emotionally moving.

Dave Bullis 11:41
Yeah, I just took a webinar. Was a free webinar, but by Doug Richardson, who did wrote, who wrote, Die Hard 2 and he actually was saying, you know, that whole thing about an argument, and his, his whole thing was, hey, structure is an argument. You know, how you structure your film should be an argument for your whole movie. And you know that actually really stuck with me. And it No, just great that you hear, I'm just hearing you, you know, say something similar about your characters and argument as well, which, again, is I agree with 100% as something I've learned with screenwriting is that and that, you know, you we, we sort of when we were making characters. I think sometimes screenwriters have a tendency to write themselves, just like you said. You know, we put ourselves as the main character, and I think that sort of ends up hurting us, because the main character ends up becoming almost like an A shell, and everybody else is sort of, you know, having all the having, sort of, you know, like the witty banter, or maybe they, they're actually the ones that are actually going through a transformation. And the main character just, sort of, you know, is just sort of there, going from, you know, basically just going basically just going through the motions,

Shawn Whitney 12:44
Yeah, yeah, totally. And, I mean, it can be you, but it has to be you in a universal way. It has to be universal, you you know, like you have to, you know, there's things about your life. You know, there was a film, a micro budget film that I talk about a lot called bell flower from a few years ago, think 2011 that was shot for like 17 grand, and it did really well. I think it went to Sundance at to Sundance. Actually, it went to Sundance. It got distribution with oscilloscope. It's a great movie, and it's about his breakup. So it's a very, in some ways, a personal film, but he took his breakup and he turned it into a kind of universal, crazy story about young male rage and representations of violence and stuff that's a lot of fun to watch and has has universal value to it, because he what he does is all the parts, the soul of it all fits together. So the characters are characters journey fits with the theme of the movie, and the theme of the movie fits with the visual styling of the movie, and with the visual elements in the movie. And that all fits with what's happening with the the secondary characters and so on. So it works together as a as a machine, but a machine in the good sense that machine in the sort of emotional, emotional sense that all the parts are firing, all the pistons are firing.

Dave Bullis 13:53
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It kind of reminds me also of sort of Mad Max, you know, Mad Max Fury road, I know what we're talking about, now, you know, with, because, with the main character, but a Mad Max. So he never really changes, you know, but, but that, again, is the whole point of Mad Max, is that he Max is never actually the main character name any of his movies, you know. He's just go, he's helping everybody else out as they're going on their adventures. And I think, but going into those even, well, that made me probably that may be probably starting the second one, but in road warrior. But even, even, you know, road warrior, then you have beyond thought of dome, and then you have the newest one, Ferrari road you kind of see that formula at work, and it actually works, like we were just saying, it actually works for that. But anywhere else, you kind of be like, Well, what the hell is going on here? You know, it's not complimenting itself, if you know what I mean?

Shawn Whitney 14:38
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that the model, the Mad Max model, is also the model for noir, you know, like noir fiction and noir films is about this cynical, scarred human in the world who is giving us an entry into the world to see the journey of other people and we become where the sort of cynical we're the sort of bring brought in to in the same. Way, in the same state as that person, and then we're learning through that process, the argument about that world and what's valuable, you know,

Dave Bullis 15:07
Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point. Kind of reminds me of Chinatown in a way. You know, Jack Nicholson, you know, at the whole end, he was very, very sort of scarred, and by the end, you know, I don't know if he really changed, but, but the whole, but, the whole venture was absolutely amazing.

Shawn Whitney 15:26
No, absolutely

Dave Bullis 15:27
So, you know, as we talked more about, you know, your career, Sean, you know, you obviously knew you taught yourself how to write screenplays. And, you know, so where was it, where you actually started to sit down and actually you made your own film?

Shawn Whitney 15:41
So I had after, I actually, shortly before, I went to the film center. And then after I went to the film center, I made a few shorts, and kind of, you know, I'd read, I read a few things about, you know, how to shoot, not cross the line, you know, coverage, that kind of thing. And then I sort of shot some, some shorts that were, you know, from moderate to bad and but it was really fun, and I loved it. And I learned a lot as both as a filmmaker and as a writer, because I learned, okay, well, that doesn't work. You know that, you know, a block of dialog that long isn't gonna work, saying it this way isn't gonna work, like you just you you see it being played out. And so it's an extremely useful experience, even from the point of view of being a screenwriter. And then, you know, and then when I came out of Canadian film center, and, well, a bunch of stuff happened. I had a script options with, like, an Oscar nominated producer, and it all looked, you know, great. And, you know, I was counting the money and thinking my career was about to take off. How could things go wrong? And that was 2008 and then at the bottom fell out of the financial market, and in subsequently, all the money dried up for indie films, and Hollywood's reverted to just, you know, retreads and remakes and tent pole pictures. And so while I got a job out of that in development that I still have, I my career as a filmmaker and as a screenwriter kind of came to a halt, and so after a number of years of having done that, I just was, like, one day, sitting in my office with my wife, feeling frustrated because I was reading a script that I that I thought was kind of bad, but was, you know, was financed because it had some a list cast, and I turned to my wife, and I'm like, This is ridiculous, like we're helping, you know, she's a wedding photographer, so she helps people realize their dreams, in her way. And I was doing it with, you know, story editing, and I said, you know, why don't, why aren't we? Why are we just the bridesmaids, you know, why don't we make our movie? And and so we decided at that point, then we just started talking about a story. And then it happened,

Dave Bullis 17:42
Yeah, the the bottom fell out in 2008 for man, for so many people. I mean, I was so tragic. And, you know, I know other people as well who've had, who had things in development and 2008 hit. And, my God, I mean, and here we are in 2016 and we're still recovering from that here in America, but, but, yeah, you know, and the shocks were sort of felt well wide, but, you know, you you able to regain, you know your composure, you know, regain, you know your motivation, and you know, so, so what was, what the ended up did, your first movie ended up being.

Shawn Whitney 18:20
It ended up being, I mean, it's a con. It's like a sci fi comedy called a brand new you about a widower who can't get over the death of his wife, and so he moves into this house, and after trying to failing at committing suicide, he convinces his landlord and his roommate to help him try to clone her in the living room. Because his landlord, it turns out, is this disgraced biochemist, and so it's about him trying to kind of recreate this moment that is lost. But it's a comedy, so it's funny, but funny sad, I guess

Dave Bullis 18:50
So is that available to watch online or through VOD or anything?

Shawn Whitney 18:55
No, we're we got a sales agent, and we've been going through the hell that is known as deliverables. And we just sent off for the second time for you have to get a, you have to get a quality control report before your film, like we've done all the the rest of the stuff, I think, I hope to God, and then we needed to make this quality control report. And so it goes, you know, you send it in. Cost, you like, 1500 bucks for, you know, four passes to cover your video and all your your audio tracks, and they send you a report, and if there's any problems in there, you know, and it can be any kinds of thing, and then it comes back to you, and then you have to fix those, and then you have to send it back. So we got that back and send it to our audio editor and our editor, our picture editor and and so we've, we've just sent it off for the second QC report, and I'm hoping that it's good enough.

Dave Bullis 19:44
Yeah, those deliverables, Shawn, the more you know, I didn't know too much about deliverables to a few years ago, and then I found out all that is in that is involved with deliverables. And even when talking with, you know, my friend, Jason Brubaker at the stripper, you know, just getting involved with those deliverable deliverables, you end up it's like a like, you said, it's like, what did you call a living hell? I, I think that's pretty accurate.

Shawn Whitney 20:18
But yeah, yeah, it's totally brutal.

Dave Bullis 20:20
So, you know, so right after you finished your first movie, and again, you know, that was a micro budget film, and you know, you made your second film, which, by the way, I love the name of this, of this film, by the way, fucking my way back home, that is a very, a very good title, by the way. And also, it's very eye catching. So even if I didn't know what it was, even if I didn't know what it was about, I could just imagine what that what that is about, but, but, you know, so where was the impetus to make your second film? I mean, did you already have this script, you know, written while you did your first one, or did you sort of just, you know, have a lot of motivation to sort of make this script?

Shawn Whitney 21:00
No, we were, well, we'd, we'd done the kind of the festival thing with the first one, and gone, gone to a few festivals, and won some awards. And we were like, What are we gonna do next? And so we, you know, I had some other scripts that we wanted to do, but they were bigger. They were like, you know, at least $100,000 kind of thing. And, and we're just, we're not in a position to make $100,000 movie, unfortunately, at the moment. And so we, you know, my production partners, there's four of us in the company, and we said, we know, what are we going to do next? And I had this story that I developed with another writer years earlier that he and I were going to shoot together, a wonderful writer named Rhys Carruthers, and but it just never happened. We both kind of gotten busy with our own things. And so I spoke to him, and I said, Hey, dude, can I take our story and write it up as a script so we can shoot it? And he was like, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I then I wrote it up, and we started editing, you know, getting notes back and forth. And, you know, I don't know how many months later, eight months later, maybe nine months later. Then we shot the movie.

Dave Bullis 22:04
So when you shot the movie, did you have a slightly bigger budget than when, when? Then with your first movie?

Shawn Whitney 22:10
No, you know, the irony is, we learned a lot from the first movie. You know, we made mistakes that cost us money, and we got better at improv, improvising. And so the first film cost us, I think, 22,000 or something, and the second movie, we shot for 7000 but it's actually more complicated, and there's more locations, and we a lot of it takes place in a car going around the city. So we had to tow the car, because our driver, like he plays the driver in the in the film, is, is like, maybe the worst driver on the planet. So the idea of him acting while driving this like 1974 Supreme was was a horrifying thought. So we had to, like, tow the car around.

Dave Bullis 22:51
So when you had to tow the car around the I guess the biggest, then the biggest part of production budget, then, was obviously a tow truck, a driver in the tow truck, you obviously had to get, like, a, some kind of, I guess you had a route that you wanted to go, you know, again, I'm just, I'm just thinking with the producers hat right now, Shawn, what was,

Shawn Whitney 23:08
Yeah, yeah, no. Well, you know, we went, so our Plan A was okay. So Plan A was we thought, you know, we had a connection with the post production house, and maybe he could get us a deal with a, you know, rental house whites in Toronto. And he contacted them for us, and they got back, and they were like, oh, yeah, you can get a, you know, you know, a tow vehicle, but it's like, $10,000 a day, plus you need to get cops, right. You need to have off duty, you know, paid, paid duty officers. And we're like, well, it's more than our budget. So we tried U haul, and we did a taxi, we did a test shoot with a U haul trailer, pulling it around and so on. And that seemed like the way we were going to go, but that was going to be, I think, about 1000 bucks with insurance, and that still seemed high. So what we ended up doing was a guy who owns a cafe around the corner from my house had a tow truck and, well, he had a car. First of all, he had this Cutlass Supreme. And I was like, Hey, man, can I rent your car for the shoot? Your car is, like, this big, ugly beast, and it's a beautiful sky blue color, and I really want to use it, because it really looked good. And he was like, yeah, yeah, totally. And we told him we were going to tow it. And he was like, Oh, hey, do you want to you want to rent my, my, my pickup truck, like these little Toyota pickup truck, like, Yeah, sure. So we rented it off him for a few $100 and then we went on Craigslist, and we found somebody who rented, like a car tow trailer, and we rented it for two weeks for, I think, $300 so in total, you know, car tow vehicle and trailer was like, 800 bucks. 700 bucks.

Dave Bullis 24:43
Wow, that, you know, again, that's amazing how you know, just by just sort of putting on your producer hat, you can actually, you know, get that down further and further and further and again, I imagine also you're going to have insurance, because I could just imagine, you know, towing a car around. But. Yeah, so it was insurance included in that $800 or $900 cost?

Shawn Whitney 25:04
Yeah, we got it. We got production insurance, and that was more that was for the entire production. And I think it was about 900 bucks maybe to cover the whole thing. And it was a bit dodgy, like we told them. They were like, you know, we have this car, and we'll be towing it to locations and then putting it off the trailer and shooting it in locations. And so they, you know, if they found out we were shooting with people in the vehicle, towing it around, we probably wouldn't have been covered, so we would have had to evacuate everybody from the car if we got into accident. But luckily, we didn't. And there was no, there was no insurance claims were made.

Dave Bullis 25:38
Excellent. You know, it's always going every and whenever. You never have to make an insurance claim, right? So, yes. So now, Sean with sort of finishing the film, is it? Is it on VOD yet? Or are you putting that together right now?

Shawn Whitney 25:54
Yeah, we just got picture lock like last week, and so we've sent it off to the composer. We've sent it off to the audio mixer to begin that process, and we've sent it off to the colorist.

Dave Bullis 26:08
So now, now, so, so now that that picture is locked. Now, now, again, I'm cheating, because I have your whole info in front of me. I know you made a third movie, so we get a third movie that's actually in development right now, correct?

Shawn Whitney 26:23
Yes, yeah, yeah. There's a, we have a, we have a script that's written that's, I think, a second draft at this point that we're hoping to do a little, little higher budget, if we can raise the cash, or, I guess, you know, figure out the, whatever the equivalent is of, you know, a tow trailer for for our, our spaceship, because it all takes place inside a spaceship.

Dave Bullis 26:43
And that's called the century of redemption, right?

Shawn Whitney 26:46
Century of redemption, yeah, yeah.

Dave Bullis 26:48
So obviously you're going to shoot that next year. And you know, again, I wish you the best with shooting that. And so what I wanted to ask about was obviously your micro budget film lab, you know, you know, you sort of started this, and what was sort of the impetus to actually start micro budget film lab?

Shawn Whitney 27:08
Well, when we shot the first film, I mean, finding information was, it was really dispersed, you know, we could find an article here, an article there, and get, you know, pull some tips here and there. But a lot of it was really learning on the fly, which added added stress to the whole process. So and, you know, we were borrowing money and, you know, figuring out how to finance it and all that stuff that we had to kind of build the machine from scratch, as it were. And so my thinking was that it would be great for because there are so many people out there who want to make a micro budget, or who budget or who want to make a feature and are just waiting. They're doing like I did, you know, they're waiting for years, and, you know, submitting to contests and spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on contests. And, you know, sometimes contests don't even send you the results and never mind notes. And I was like, you know, people need to have that resource, and so I want to be that resource, and I wanted it to be different than, you know, no film school, which is a great site, but as you know, it has a lot of gear focus. And I'm, you know, because of my background coming in from the point of view of story and from screenwriting, I was kind of more interested in the esthetics and the story construction side, and how to do things differently and how to create a kind of shared esthetic, like, I mean, I wrote a post a little while ago called about, you know, we need a micro budget movement, and I've been thinking about that a lot, and the need to, kind of for us as micro budget filmmakers, to move beyond simply, you know, atomized individuals all struggling to make our films. And I'm happy to help people out on that basis, just like the technical side of how to make a movie, but also, you know, where there have been successes in the past with people outside of the system. They've generally been coming from people who exist as a movement. You know, you look at dogma 95 or mumblecore, or the neorealists or the French New Wave, and they part of their marketing buzz and part of their power comes from this esthetic challenge to the dominant storytelling models and cinematic models. And so I wanted to kind of create a space where that kind of could gestate, and that's what, that's kind of where the name lab came from. It was like a laboratory for for film movements, we can

Dave Bullis 29:22
We can do a lot of like experimentation, right? Yeah, yeah, like, sort of mixing chemicals, like a mad scientist,

Shawn Whitney 29:28
Yeah, yeah, making drugs.

Dave Bullis 29:31
But we know, but experimentation film, I think that's what allows, you know, with making micro budgets, and you know, even, even when I, you know, made my own student film, it allowed for more experimentation. Because obviously, number one, we had no clue what the hell we were doing. And I mean, me personally, I had no clue what I was doing when I was making my student film. Two, the budget was like the change, you know, people have in their pockets. And three, I had no weird answer to so any, any weird, wacky thing we did, you know, is it funny? Okay, let's put it. Let's put it in there. But, you know, with micro budgets, you know, you know this is it's always, you know, encouraged to for experimentation. Because, I mean, you know, Sean, if you had a couple million dollar budget, and you had people are reporting to every day, you know, you try to do something out of the norm, and they're gonna say, What the fuck are you doing?

Shawn Whitney 30:31
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally, yeah. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of there's a lot at stake. When you've got a million or 10 million or $100 million you know, they they want you to do what works and what works is what worked last year or the year before, and so they just want to repeat the same thing, because it's a formula that makes money. But that, that formula that works for Hollywood for ten million movies or $100 million movies doesn't work for micro budgets, because they just look like cheap knockoffs, right? Yeah, and they look like, and they look like, they look like cheap knockoffs. But more than that, they ex all the flaws of Hollywood can be are kind of hidden by the the the money that's poured into the great effects and the great sound and the great light, and, you know, these awesome actors who are loved and so people forgive them, you know, any errors or whatever, all that stuff allows Hollywood to kind of smooth out the problems in their in their in their storytelling, and, you know, the the conventionality of their their cinematics, technique or whatever, you don't have that in a micro budget. So you you get none of the good of Hollywood, of the all that that money, and you get all of the bad when you're trying to just replicate a Hollywood formula film on like, you know what? They see their budget for their coffee cups.

Dave Bullis 31:45
So true. Shawn, you know? And again, yeah, you know, if you try, yeah, you're right. If you try to, try to emulate that, you're just going to end up, you know, shooting yourself in the face. And that's something that I found as well, you know, I tried to emulate, uh, different action movies, so, you know, with my second and third student films. And I'm like, holy crap. I don't have the time, the budget, the resources to do all this stuff, so I can't make, you know, a whole scene about gunplay, or, you know, I can't blow up this whole building even with, you know, Red Giant effects, you know. And it sort of reminds me also of there was this panel of discussion was watching on TCM, and one of the guys who host TCM said he actually loved the era of the 50s and 60s with movie making, because they didn't have a budget to blow up buildings or anything, so they had to focus on the story. And to me, that's where we are again is, I think, a hallmark of a filmmaker nowadays is you have to make a micro budget film set in one to three locations, very minimal, and the story and the concept have to be, what, what is your main selling point of this whole thing?

Shawn Whitney 32:50
Yeah, I mean, I don't know about, you know, I there's some dog move films that I really love, like celebration I really love. And, you know, they had their bow of chastity, or whatever that was very, very strict, and most of them ended up breaking it. And I don't know about all of the rules in terms of restrictions about what you can and can't do, because there's, you know, there's a film monsters by Gareth Edwards, who went on to do Godzilla. And Godzilla apparently, sucks. I've never seen it, but, you know, they've got bad reviews and so on. And monsters did really well. And monsters did really well, I think because kind of move what you're you're saying about story, because it was a, it was a really fresh not to monster movie. But it's not about the monsters. The monsters are just the backdrop to this road movie and this relationship between these two people in a structure that's not, it's it's much more open and and alive than than really tight, tightly bound Hollywood structures where, you know, there's a monster and they kill people one at a time in the woods and so on. And it wasn't that. And so he used, you know, there's a lot of effects in that, but he shot it for like, 15,000 bucks. And then he just happens to be this, you know, special effects wizard who has worked for years for the BBC, doing, you know, crazy compositing and all this incredible stuff. So he had those, he had that talent. And so, you know, kudos to him to bring that talent. But then, you know, where he couldn't, he couldn't do the kind of practical effects that that you can do with Hollywood. So his his shooting was, was this story, this really simple, beautiful, little story about this relationship between these people, and that's what gave the movie its power. The the monsters was, you know, sometimes kind of was neat or whatever, but that's, you know, when he got to Godzilla, then he could, then he didn't have to think about story so much. And so he ended up with a much weaker picture than monsters, which was made for, again, like the coffee cup budget for Godzilla. And, you know, I don't know what he's doing next, but that, that point that you make about story being so important and breaking with the the conventions of what Hollywood does with stories, and really allowing yourself to, you know, to take advantage of the freedom that you have as a as a filmmaker, because you don't have that 100 million dollar weight hanging over your head that you have to recoup,

Dave Bullis 34:58
Yeah, and it's, I was always. Reading something about this as well, where a lot of studios now are looking at, you know, the the micro budget film, the micro budget film world, the independent film world. And they're taking directors who maybe made a movie for a million or less, and all of a sudden they're make, giving them all this, you know, all this money to sort of make these, these franchises. For instance, Josh Trank with Fantastic Four prior to that, he made Chronicle for, I think, what, $3 million and, you know, I've seen stuff like that. And I think also, I don't know how well that's transferred over, though, I think that I don't know if the studios are rushing because they're so desperate for a hit to sort of prop up the other properties. Or if maybe, you know, these, these independent directors, maybe aren't there yet. If you know what I mean?

Shawn Whitney 35:45
I think it's more, I mean, they're trying to I think there's two things. I think that often, as as artists, often we don't know what makes us special. Or, you know, our artists, artistic production special. You know, we're not super self critical all the time, and so we don't know how to necessarily replicate it. And when we're put in a new situation where suddenly you've got 10 or 100 or whatever million dollars you're you're in a new situation. And so you're not you have, you know, before there was all kinds of pressures on you that forced you to be the kind of artist that you were, and now there's different pressures on you that are changing you in a different direction. So there's, there's, there's that, but there's also Hollywood is, isn't interested in what is magical about the really small budget movies. What they're interested in is the buzz and they are the cache and the, you know, the edginess of them, but they, those are just words for them, and they don't really know how to capture because, again, they're they're thinking about, it's 100 million bucks that they just invest in. Just invested, and they need to recoup that. And so they need to take all the edges off, because you want to appeal to, you know, you know, it's like I had a meeting with a sales agent on a completely different project A while back, and the first question they asked me about the project was, who's your white male lead? And it was sort of eye opening to me, you know? And this guy was probably a nice guy, whatever. And whatever, and, you know, probably not a racist, but he, he is speaking about how the market, the superstitions of the market, conceive of it, because they're like, well, black guys and women and, you know, lesbians and gays don't sell in China or they don't sell in Africa. So we need somebody who's like the universal icon, or avatar for money making, and that is the white male dude between the ages of 35 and 50. And so that's the kind of the way that they think about it. And so even when you get an edgy director up there, you know, like Gareth Edwards doing Godzilla, now they're trying to fit it into the money making mold that they know, and it has to fit into that. And so even, you know, you know, you go into, it's like the old joke, right? Oh, I joined the government to change it from within. And then instead of changing the system, the system changes you and I think that's what happens,

Dave Bullis 37:56
Yeah, it's, it's very true. And you know, you know, as we were talking about, you know, budgets. You know you have currently, you know, micro budget, you know, film lab, fun competition, which I think is amazing. So could you go into a little detail about that?

Shawn Whitney 38:11
Yeah, you know, I was, what I wanted to do was to create a screenwriting coaching program. Because, I think often people, you know, because there is so much emphasis on gear, because gear has become so cheap and made it so possible to make micro budget films now, whether it's camera gear or sound gear or whatever, and people get so hung up on gear, and they become gear heads. And, you know, people talking about, oh, the latest RED camera and black magic. And, you know, blah, blah, blah. And they and the scripts I read are, and, you know, I read about 150 scripts a year, like, I've read well over 1000 scripts in the last eight years, and I'm telling you, most of them are, are very weak and not developed. And it's kind of part of my my argument to my my community, is you need to develop your script. So I was like, How can I motivate people to develop good, you know, edgy, fresh scripts, and get them to focus on that so that they can make some great pictures and, like, really go deep in terms of the stories that exist inside themselves. So I thought, well, I'm going to do a screenwriting thing, but how can I get people interested? So I decided to come up with this screenwriting coaching intensive that would last over a period of three months, and I would work with a, you know, a relatively small group of people to go through each stage of the screenwriting process, from how to come up with a story for a micro budget, how to create a log line, how to create a story structure, developing characters, theme, all that stuff, right through to revising, how to revise your script with a micro budget in mind, and then have this and provide feedback the whole time, and then at the end, have this potential award. So that you know, of the first 10 scripts that are submitted at the end of this process, I would give like a full story edit of their scripts, which is what I do professionally. And I would, you know, meet with them over Skype. And then the best script of those 10 I would give them an, you know, I would invest $2,500 into making their movie. And so that's kind of how it was born.

Dave Bullis 40:19
And I also, like, you're doing the video question and answer section, because I imagine, as soon as you announced the competition, this flurry of questions came in. And I'm sure, and it's a great idea, by the way that you're doing it through video, because video is, you know, it's always, obviously, it's a great promotional tool. And I think also a lot of times, people, more, especially filmmakers, more adapt to watching a video tutorial or explanation, if you will, than just, you know, reading sort of like a blog post,

Shawn Whitney 40:51
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I try to mix it up a little bit, and do do a bit of both, but yeah, and it's kind of nice to do, you know, like with the FAQs that I've done, I can just, you know, I get tons of you know, questions, and I, you know, went through them and found some of the most common ones. And then I could just go up on my roof. You know, there's a terrace in our apartment, so I went up on the terrace and and just sat there with my coffee. And, you know, could just talk into, you know, my selfie stick that I put an elastic band on to hold it to a chair, and I could just talk to it and answer the question, like, like, we're sitting down having a coffee.

Dave Bullis 41:27
Yeah, it did feel that way as well. And so obviously, just to sort of answer a few of those questions, I know you already answered them, but just, you know, for, obviously, for the listeners, you know, like, I guess the one would be, you know, who actually owns the script? At the end of all this,

Shawn Whitney 41:43
The writer slash filmmaker owns the script. The only deal is for the money. The only conditions, I guess, is that it's an investment. So there'll be an investors contract, and if the film makes money, then you have to pay back. You have to pay back the money, you know, and which seems reasonable. And I want people to take some responsibility for the process of, you know, their their contributors, to their to their film. And then that money, it won't come back to me. I'll put it into another fund so that I can grow a fund to ultimately supply, you know, help other, other people in the same, in the same corner sort of way. And then the second thing is that the money will be released on the first day of principal photography. So you actually don't just write a script and get the money. You actually have to go into the proper pre production. And I'll work with people through the pre production process to help them get the show on the road and on the first day of principal photography, that cash will be released from them from escrow.

Dave Bullis 42:39
And I think that's an amazing idea, Shawn and so, for So, for people listening, who might be interested in work, where could they enter, you know, this fun competition?

Shawn Whitney 42:49
Well, it hasn't. The doors haven't opened yet. I've been taking because I got tons of feedback from people and what they felt should be in the program and so on. And so I'm going to open the doors to that. And as I say, it's not, it's not going to be to tons of people, because, because I'm giving feedback, I can only deal with so many people before I would, you know, have to start taking amphetamines and stay up all night. So that'll happen on not this coming Monday, but the following Tuesday. So a week Tuesday, I'll open the doors on that.

Dave Bullis 43:24
And is that for people just in Canada, or people in the US and UK?

Shawn Whitney 43:30
It's people internationally. You know, one of the cool things, you know, I've been promoting the Facebook page and the website and so on through Facebook, which is, you know, in terms of, you know, micro budget film marketing. Facebook is actually has a really user friendly, very powerful interface. But I've been, I was marketing, and I was marketing it primarily to the United States and Canada, because that's, you know, where I'm from. And by accident, I think I selected worldwide. And so it ended up promoting this thing, one of these posts out internationally, and I started getting, I'm like, why am I getting all these people with names, like Indian names? It was like, all of a sudden, like, literally, like, dozens of people contacting me from from India. And I realized I'd made this mistake. And it was awesome, because it's, I'm meeting these filmmakers from India. Like, I just interviewed a filmmaker last week, who did a micro budget film called D major, which is a beautiful film, and has gotten, is getting looks like it's getting distribution on the India's version of Netflix, and it's got him, you know, a producer is coming on board for his next film anyway. And it was a fascinating interview, just to hear how, in Kolkata, he made a movie for $3,000 and how they did it. And, you know, they didn't have a slider, so they put a camera on the sweater, and they pulled it across the table and this kind of stuff. But anyway, that's a long detour to say that the program is open internationally.

Dave Bullis 44:50
The reason I ask is because obviously America is my US is my biggest market, followed by the UK, followed by China, then Australia. Then Canada. So I just obviously, just wanted to make sure, yeah.

Shawn Whitney 45:05
So yeah, Chinese filmmakers are more than welcome as well, obviously, as Americans and Brits.

Dave Bullis 45:12
Excellent. And I was shocked, as everyone else, when I heard that China was my third biggest market. I looked at my numbers, I'm like, wow. Okay, but bigger bigger than, Yeah, seriously, who knew bigger than, bigger than the Australia and Canada. Wow. And, you know, So Sean, you know, I know we touched on this briefly, but, you know, sort of, you know, in closing, I wanted to ask, you know, what is there anything else that you're working on that we should know about?

Shawn Whitney 45:41
Well, I mean, in terms of my film, it's, it's the, you know, when you mentioned century of redemption, which is a space kind of, there's a sci fi, but all takes place in one location, though a fairly elaborate location. And then, I mean, I am on, I'm on a, I'm a senior programmer at the Victoria Texas indie film festival, which is a wonderful film festival just outside of Houston and and, I mean, I'm working on stuff all the time with this company I work for in Canada media biz, and I've been with them as an executive story consultant for about eight years, doing both story editing and also developing original content. So I have, I have some TV series that are in development that I'm pretty stoked about, and hoping something happens with them, but, you know, I'm at the point now, you know, if you've been in the film industry anytime at all, you know, you know, producers come to you and they're like, super excited about your project, and you get all excited and it's gonna happen, and then, then they don't happen. And so I'm, I'm, I still retain a small glimmer of hope in my heart, but part of me is always like, yeah, you know, I can't get, I can't get excited about maybe the mainstream stuff any longer, because it just so hard. It's so hard to get stuff off the ground. Things crash and burn all the time.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. Sean, I just was having this conversation the other day. It is so hard to get things without with, you know, even a pretty sizable budget off the ground, you know. And people who listen to this podcast on a frequent basis know that I talk about that a lot. I talk about my own projects and things that have just crashed and burned, and things that never really got off, and things that got off and still had a lot of problems on takeoff, but, but so, you know, in closing, Sean, is there anything we didn't talk about that maybe wanted to discuss, or any sort of final thoughts to sort of put a period at the end of this whole conversation.

Well, I think the main thing, and the main inspiration from micro budget film lab is, you know, following on from what we were just saying about everything's crashing and burning. And, you know, I looked up was reading some stuff on the the spec screenplay market recently, and the, something like 100,000 scripts are registered every year with the Writers Guild of America, and this year, less than 100 were purchased by the studios and the indie majors. And it can look really depressing, and you can sit around sending query letters forever, and it's just important that people know that you don't have to do that, and that there you can make a great movie, you know. And there are some awesome movies people, I think, forget, you know, the French New Wave breathless was a micro budget. It was under $100,000 and you know, some of these great movies for lovers, only made by the Polish brothers, was shot for like, zero and made $500,000 and but more than that, it was, you know, they made a really cool romantic movie. And so you can make really good stuff for not, not a lot of money. And so you shouldn't feel like you have to wait around for some benevolent producer to sort of land in your lap and do it for you, or some dentist with, you know, more money than than he knows what to do with, to invest in your film. You can, you can do it with, with a relatively small amount of money.

Dave Bullis 48:39
Yeah, you know that that's something I've been talking to Shawn about, you know, in a lot of my intros, about talking about this whole, you know, don't wait around, you know, figure out what you have at your disposal location wise. You know, what I call the resource list. You know, locations, actors and like, sort of like props. So if you can make those lists, and you can sort of brainstorm and sort of reverse engineer a script, because that way you're not, you know, if I, if I know my, my uncle owns an abandoned house somewhere. How could I use that for a film, you know? Or even if I use my own living room? I had a friend of mine who shot a film of his in his own living room, and he later regretted it, but because he wanted to do all this blood stuff, and he did it all, but then he said, Look, that smell got in the house. And so if you So, there's a tip, you're gonna use blood a lot, you know, a lot of blood. Maybe not. Don't do that in your own living room. But, yeah, but yeah, you know. And I think again, you know, Jason Brubaker calls it backyard Indy. I think again, this is going to be the Hallmark Sean, where you have to be able to sort of make a film in a very minimal location, with with very minimal locations, actors, props and beat and be able to to tell the best story you can. And I think that's going to sort of be like the Hallmark now, with how you know, you can sort of, you know, build your career from that

Shawn Whitney 49:56
Yeah, no, I think that's totally true. And I think that, you know, make a list of your resources is really important, and extend that list, not just to, you know, cool stuff that you have lying around and cool locations that you have, but also to your skills and the skills and the skills of people around you know, if you're like Gareth Edwards and you can do great compositing and great, you know, visual, you know, VFX on your computer, that's a resource also. Or if you can, you know, blackmail your brother in law to do it for you, whatever it happens to be, that's, that's a resource that you should, you should, you know, you should make the movie that you can, not the movie that you want, because it's, you know, what you've been told is the right kind of movie. Yeah

Dave Bullis 50:44
I definitely agree. So Shawn, where can people find you out online?

Shawn Whitney 50:48
They can go to our Facebook page. They can just, I'm sure, search on Facebook to micro budget film lab, or our website is microbudgetfilmlab.com and they can find us there.

Dave Bullis 51:01
Are you on Twitter or Facebook? Well, I'm sorry you already said Facebook. So you're on Twitter or anything else.

Shawn Whitney 51:06
I'm on Twitter. A little bit Twitter I've never really gotten into we do. I do have a YouTube channel that I'm slowly adding material to, but those the primary locations at this point are Facebook and the website.

Dave Bullis 51:22
Shawn Whitney, I want to say thank you very much for coming on, sir.

Shawn Whitney 51:26
Thank you very much for having me. It's been great talking to you.

Dave Bullis 51:28
Oh, it's been great talking to you as well. And I wish the best of luck with everything.

Shawn Whitney 51:32
Thank you. You too. Good luck in China.

Dave Bullis 51:37
Thank you very much, Shawn. I'll talk to you soon, buddy.

Shawn Whitney 51:40
Okay, take care.

Dave Bullis 51:40
Bye! Bye!

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BPS 425: The Power of the Cut: Storytelling Secrets from Michael Trent

June 26, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

A film editor’s job is much like the work of a sculptor. You take a massive block of material—raw footage—and with a series of delicate, precise cuts, you shape it into something cohesive, something meaningful. In today’s episode, we welcome Michael Trent, a master of cinematic storytelling who has spent his career assembling some of Hollywood’s most unforgettable films. From the war-torn beaches of Saving Private Ryan to the eerie corridors of The Hatred, his work is the unseen hand that guides an audience’s emotions, turning chaos into art.

For Michael Trent, the journey into the editing room began long before he ever set foot in Hollywood. His father, a sound editor in England, introduced him to the craft at an early age. “I was using a Moviola by the time I was ten,” he recalls, describing the tactile magic of celluloid film. But talent alone wasn’t enough to break into the industry—his leap from England to Hollywood in 1994 was an act of faith, a cold call to the right person at the right time, proving that the universe often conspires in favor of those who dare.

Editing is not merely about cutting and pasting scenes together. It is about rhythm, about knowing when to hold a shot and when to move on. It is the balance between subtlety and impact, between quiet tension and explosive release. “I think a lot of editors cut too much,” Michael Trent shares. “You have to feel the emotion of a scene and let it breathe.” His work on The Hatred is a testament to this philosophy, particularly in its ability to sustain suspense, making audiences feel the presence of something sinister lurking just beyond the frame.

One of the most fascinating aspects of his career was working alongside Steven Spielberg. Editing Saving Private Ryan meant moving between locations, from an Irish field to an aerospace museum in England, adapting to whatever environment was necessary. But beyond the logistics, Spielberg’s ability to visualize an edit in his head was what amazed Michael Trent the most. “He called in from Japan with an edit suggestion, and when we made the change, it worked perfectly. It was as if he had a video camera inside his mind.”

Horror editing, in particular, demands a unique approach. Timing becomes everything—not just in the obvious jump scares, but in the slow-building unease that keeps an audience gripping their seats. A shadow lingering a second too long, a door creaking open just slightly out of sync—these are the choices that make a horror film work. “There’s a scene in The Hatred where Alice walks toward the cellar,” Michael Trent explains. “We held the shot longer than usual, just to build that sense of dread.”

To be an editor is to be both an artist and a storyteller, sculpting not with clay or paint, but with time itself. The true test of an editor’s skill lies not in what they add, but in what they take away. Sometimes, entire scenes—ones that took days to shoot—must be discarded for the sake of pacing and narrative flow. “You have to be ruthless,” Michael Trent says. “If it doesn’t serve the story, it has to go.”

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 1:29
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Michael Trent 1:35
Well, initially, it's a family involvement. I mean, my father was a sound editor in England. He's now retired, so editing has been something that I grew up with, going to work with my dad. I've even got pictures of me back in the late 1970s with with single single stripe and film in my hands. So it was really my father that got me involved. But I also did go to a film school in England, a very small, relatively unknown one, but it was, it was still a film course that I did in England, but essentially it was a family connection.

Dave Bullis 2:13
So, so you were basically born into it. So it was almost like was in your blood to get into the film industry

Michael Trent 2:20
In lots of ways. Yeah. I mean, it really was. It was something that we grew up with on a, on a, you know, really a day to day basis.

Dave Bullis 2:28
So let me ask you, this, is there a difference, or of any kind, whether major or minor, between the the sort of the English film industry and the American film industry?

Michael Trent 2:41
If there is, I'm not sure that I'm really aware of it. When I was in England, I worked on lots of American films anyway, or at least what they were financed from the United States. So I couldn't really tell the difference. I mean, there's certainly larger budgets in the United States, and I did work on some English films that were over smaller budgets. But no, as far as the, as far as my work experience is concerned, that there wasn't really a difference, or isn't really a difference.

Dave Bullis 3:16
So, so when did you first, you know, decide, I mean, when you were editing, actually, let me ask you this, when you were, when you're going back into editing, and you were actually, you know, as you were sort of born into this, did you have, like, a movie, Ola, at home, or anything else, where you were just sort of cutting your own films together, or maybe even a Super Eight camera?

Michael Trent 3:31
Well, no, we didn't have a movie Ola, though they were quite big, big machines, but I did get used to using a movie Ola from the age of about, I would say, 10 years old. My father would bring us into work and and I would get to use the machinery and that and and steam Becks and flatbed chems. But we didn't have any equipment at home. No.

Dave Bullis 3:57
So, Michael, when did you make the trip then, from from England to over here to America

Michael Trent 4:03
In 1994

Dave Bullis 4:05
So when you came over, did you already have like, a few gigs lined up and like movies to edit?

Michael Trent 4:11
No, no, not at all. I was on a movie that started in England, and it was a, it was a picture called we're back a dinosaur story. And I was a sound assistant on that movie, and we were mixing at Twickenham studios in England, and the executive producer on the movie was Steven Spielberg, and he saw the mix from Twickenham and wanted some changes, and decided that it would be better to bring the movie from England to the United States to do the final mix at Universal. Actually, we ended up at Todd ao. But actually, it's the other way around. We ended up at Universal. That's how I initially came here. Yeah, that was all in that was in 1990 Three. And then I met a girl, in fact, on that movie, and then went back to England. In the meantime, we did the long distance relationship thing. And then I moved here completely in September of 94 but at that time, I had no gigs lined up when I arrived here, I really cold called British editors that I'd known in England, about five of them, and luckily for me, one of them came back, actually, with a job offer. So finding work was initially was was as a relatively easy for me, just because this, this particular editor picked me up and gave me a job.

Dave Bullis 5:46
So at that point he knew you, so you didn't have to, like, show him a real or anything, right? He so he actually knew you from before.

Michael Trent 5:53
Yeah, I knew I knew him from England, and he was British editor that would worked in England, and then was working here. He was working on a picture, picture called Rob Roy for Michael Caine Jones. The editor was Peter hones. And I say I knew him from England, and he was one of the people I called, and he just happened to have an opening at that particular time.

Dave Bullis 6:13
So just to sort of follow up on that question, and just to sort of you know if you're ever going, because I actually have some friends of mine who've actually gone from country to country, to country. I think that's a really incredible feat. Because if you go to a another, even if you're in England, let's say, and you go from maybe Manchester to London, you know, you're depending upon the size of the network you might have, you know, no nobody you know, have to actually hit your foot in the door through reels. You know, you're basically starting over from scratch, you know, and then going from a different country to another country. I mean, you really either have to a have a deep network, or you have to be able to just sort of, you know, get your foot in the door to a lot of places. And I actually know a couple of people, Michael, who actually moving from, like, different places, like Australia to England, because they want to actually get into the into the British film industry. Film industry. So it's just kind of, I always kind of find it, you know, fascinating, because just to be able to do that, either have to one of the, one of those two things, have a deep network, or be able to just knock on 10,000 doors to get one, yes,

Michael Trent 7:14
Yeah. Well, that, that's right. I mean, you know, when I look back on it, it was a crazy thing to do, but I was young at the time, and it it didn't feel scary at the time. It was just something I wanted to do, and for some reason, I felt that it would work out, and to one extent or another, it has. So I feel very lucky,

Dave Bullis 7:38
You know, don't you and you touched on something too. Don't you feel when you're younger? Maybe, you know, when you're first starting out in film, anything's possible, you know, like, anything you don't mean, like you could, it just feels that everything's just gonna come together, where you're in a project, or what have you just, Yo, you know what I you know, damn, the people who naysayers and I don't have a lot of budget, I don't have a lot of budget. I don't have a lot of budget. I don't have a lot of, you know, whatever, but we're just gonna go do something. You know what I mean? Because I mean honestly, like, I'm 32 right now, and when I was first starting out, I would actually go out and shoot a hell of a lot more than I do now. You know what has a similar effect happened to you?

Michael Trent 8:17
I think that it was definitely my experience was I didn't really consider the possibility of failing, and that wasn't any kind of not meant in an arrogant way. It's just that I just felt that it would work out. It was something that I really wanted to do to move to the United States and work in film editing, and it was just something that I felt would work out. And I wasn't. I wasn't scared about it, as I say, probably foolishly looking back, but I felt it was, it was just something that would, would just happen. There is definitely a sort of a fatalist element to it. I guess I just didn't consider what would happen if I failed.

Dave Bullis 9:09
Yeah, you take quitting and failing off the table, right? And basically you're like, you don't give yourself a choice. You just say, say to yourself, listen, this is the, you know, I have one option, and this is it. I have to do, go do this.

Michael Trent 9:22
This is what we're doing. That's, that's basically, was, this is what I'm doing, yeah, and there was no considering anything else. So it was just, I mean, there's been periods of unemployment in the interim where things have not, you know, always been easy. But initially, the somebody was looking after me for sure, and it was Peter hones. There's no doubt about that.

Dave Bullis 9:56
So after that one editing job that we were just discussing after that. Was over. You know, what did you do to go out and to try to find, like, more assignments and more movies

Michael Trent 10:06
After, after Rob Roy, yes, yeah, I was actually Peter hones had another movie which we went straight on to, so I didn't have to do any knocking on doors. We went straight, almost straight, onto a movie called Eye for an eye that John Schlesinger directed, and again, he picked me up as an assistant editor on that movie. So we all moved on as a crew. It wasn't immediate, but it was within a within a month or two. So we all moved on as a crew.

Dave Bullis 10:40
So and then, then, basically, did you keep like moving along with Peter as you, as you from project to project,

Michael Trent 10:46
We did. We did Rob Roy, I for an eye, then we did, I think, then the the next one we did was LA Confidential in in 1996 so those, actually, those three movies that I moved along with Peter. He hired me on three, three movies, and then I went elsewhere after that.

Dave Bullis 11:10
So after you went, you know, I actually am looking at your IMDB right now, and I have to ask, you know, you were the assistant editor on Saving Private Ryan, you know, getting to work with Spielberg and seeing some of you know of the footage they first shot and everything like that. You know, what was it like to actually work on Saving Private Ryan?

Michael Trent 11:28
Oh, well, that was. It was an incredible experience from lots of points of view. First of all, we knew, I'd read the script, so I knew it was going to be an amazing script, an amazing movie, but from a personal point of view, it was an amazing experience. We went from I'd worked on Amistad before that, and we went straight into Saving Private Ryan, but from say, a personal experience point of view, we went from here to Ireland. Took all the equipment with us, and we were editing in a field in Ireland. And then that was for the first three weeks of the for the shooting the opening sequence on the beaches. And then after three weeks, we moved to Hatfield in England, to a facility there, which was an old Aerospace Museum, and the set was built on the on the airfield. So, I mean, everything about that movie was amazing at the time, and we knew it at the time, and we were very excited to work, work on the show.

Dave Bullis 12:36
Did you ever get to actually meet Steven at any point?

Michael Trent 12:40
Yeah, many times. I mean, he would come to editing, usually at lunchtime, and we would be ready for him. We knew it was all set up beforehand. So yeah, I'd be in the room with Spielberg, and he'd be running on the Chem and selecting dailies. So I met him on many occasions. Yeah,

Dave Bullis 12:57
And I mean that obviously one of the most influential directors of all time. I mean, it was just, you know, and again, I the reason I bring that up is because of that he is just, you know, one of the most influential directors of all time. And you work with them afterwards on AI, which is a interesting project I wanted to ask about too. But so, so what was some of the things you took away from working with Spielberg? Was there anything he told you? Was there anything he told you, anything that, maybe you know, that he said that you just sort of like, oh, you know, that's, uh, you know, you know, when you work with people at that level, it's sort of like, you know what I mean, it's, you're looking for something like an a, uh, almost like a quote or or something that have that epiphany, that Aha, moment. Is there anything he sort of said to you that just sort of still sticks with you?

Michael Trent 13:43
No, I mean, I don't really remember anything that that he said. I mean, it was just an observation of somebody that can work, that just has such amazing ideas that can seemingly be manufactured out of nothing. There's one particular story I talk about, and we were on Minority Report, and we had been editing for a while, and Spielberg was away, I think he was in Japan, and he called into the editing room with a note of a picture change to make. And it was not just straightforward. It was fairly complex. It involved three four shots. And he said, I believe it will work better. And remember, he's in a remote location, he's in Japan, and we make the change on the Chem and, well, not unbelievably, because he's Steven Spielberg, but the change worked exactly the way he said it would. And it just said to me that he had some kind of video camera in his head that was able to actually run the footage back and then make editing changes in his own head. And I suppose from that point of view, I was thinking about. Yeah, you can imagining the edit is, is something that I try and do and and that was something that he did, and I suppose that's something that I try, and I try and utilize in my career today, that's a, that's the best way I can answer that question.

Dave Bullis 15:26
And sure, Michael and I wanted to just ask, you know, a follow up in editing as a whole. Are you ever given the script, you know, along with the footage, or are you just given, like, the Script, Script supervisors, notes, so to speak, when you're when you're actually editing films.

Michael Trent 15:41
Now I have this. I have the the line script each day, the live, the pages that were shot the day before come in, and they're marked up from the script supervisor, and I work with the script as I edit.

Dave Bullis 15:54
Okay. I always, you know, like to hear how different people work. And, you know, I've always wondered that, because I know I was just reading about how sometimes, you know, scripts are so carefully guarded. And you know what I mean, and it's just sometimes the editor, the editors, you know, they'll just get, you know, notes like that. Or sometimes they'll actually be given the full script so they can actually just go, you know, read through it. And I've worked with different line producers too, who sometimes say, Look, I get the script. I don't even read it, Dave, because I just, I just see different things like, you know, are pulled out of it, and you know what I mean, and they just go from there. So, so when you were working with, you know, Spielberg, you worked with them again on AI, and I believe that that film was started by Kubrick, right, and then it was finished by Spielberg.

Michael Trent 16:36
That's my understanding. I wasn't really involved in, the Kubrick end of it, I understand that Spielberg and Kubrick had had a conversation over a number of years about the making of AI, but I wasn't involved in the details of how that came about. I do remember that we had some footage that Kubrick had shot, and it was footage of of ocean waves, and it was going to be used as an element in the in the submerged Manhattan sequence. But as far as the the transition of the director, being Kubrick to Spielberg, I wasn't really involved in that

Dave Bullis 17:17
I see, and because I was just always fascinated. Because, you know, I heard so much about that movie, and you know that it was started by Kubrick and then had to be finished by Spielberg and and everything else. And, you know, I actually saw it in a in a film class I took in college, and I actually liked it a lot more than other people did. Because some people felt it would felt like two different movies coming together, when I always said that's probably what it was, because it was with Kubrick and Spielberg. But again, I just wanted to ask about that, because, again, you know, you that was a follow up to Spielberg. So just to sort of, you know, take this in, into your career trajectory, you know, when you actually went from an assistant editor to the actual editor, you know, you worked on some pretty cool projects. And I want to talk about, you know, just how you became the editor. So what point did you realize that you were ready just to take on all the editing responsibilities and be sort of be like that guy, so to speak. You know, when did you realize that you were, you were finally ready to do all that?

Michael Trent 18:18
I well, it was in, it was in 2004 when we finished the terminal. And what happened? I mean, you touched on it a little bit earlier. When you move countries, you have to restart your career. And that was definitely my experience, as much as I was lucky to be picked up by Peter hones it. I had to spread out my, you know, find new contacts. So essentially, I did have to restart my career. And even, even when I went with in with the Spielberg's editing crew, you know, they didn't know me and and I really had to sort of prove myself. So if I'd done, you know, eight years in England, and I did another 10 years, eight or 10 years here, I really felt, after that amount of time, I was ready. I mean, usually, if I stayed in England, maybe I would have made the jump sooner. But because I really felt I had to restart my career in the United States, I was I was ready, probably sooner than 2004 at the end of the terminal. Few things happened is that I moved up within the ranks of that editing room. One of the assistants who'd been with Michael Khan before me, moved on to edit himself. So I was able to to move up into a into the first assistant position. And I felt that I did the terminal and Munich as as the first as as well, actually one of the first assistants. So at that point, I had gone as. Far as I was going to go in that editing room. And I felt, again, maybe fatalist. I felt that I could do it. And again, I just decided that was what I was going to do. But in actual facts, it was, it was, I did finish the terminal. I went and cut a picture, and then I was out of work for a while, and they offered me to come back on Munich, which I did, and then I've been editing ever since then, on my own.

Dave Bullis 20:29
So when you went out on your own, you know, did you have a reel with you and say to different projects, did you say, Listen, I can I am, you know, ready to be the editor now? I mean, so. And also, at that point, did you have like, a lot of your own tools, meaning, you know, at your house, do you have, like, your own editing bay set up and and you can work that way?

Michael Trent 20:50
I have done, I sometimes have had I cut on my laptop, which is, you know, I'm talking to on my laptop right now. I have editing software on my laptop. I don't always like to do it, because I like the separation between home and work, but I do have some equipment at home from time to time. But to go back to your your previous question, first part of your question, I cut a couple of short films, and one of them, I cut on film, and then one of them, I cut on a laptop using software called FileMaker Pro, and that I used those movies as a calling card, and they helped me get editing jobs. They certainly helped me get my first feature length movie, which was a picture called My Bollywood bride, or also known as my far away bride, but I don't have an editing set up in my house, no.

Dave Bullis 21:52
So actually, that is a question I want to ask you, too. Michael is about actual editing. You know, when you're actually on a film set or you're actually in the editing lab, you know, working on this. You know, 99% of the films now are all digital. They're shot, you know, with, you know, probably one of, you know, 20 cameras. But you know what I mean, but like, versions of cameras, but they're all, they're all digital. You know, you're getting either different cards, or you're getting hard drives, you're getting something. So what do you edit on now, is there, like, a specific editing software, like Avid premiere, that you actually added on?

Michael Trent 22:25
Yes, Avid Media Composer. I've used, as I say, I've used Final Cut Pro, but not for a long time, but I've used premiere very minimally, although I'd like to use it more, but my main tool is Avid Media Composer.

Dave Bullis 22:40
And why is, is because I've heard other people using Avid. I'm like a premier guy. I actually just downloaded avid free. I don't know if you know this job, but avid just released a complete 100% legit free editing software called Avid Media Composer free. And it's sort of like a light version of Media Composer, the pro grade version. And I'm just, you know, I get in there and play around a little bit. It's, I'm so used to premiere that it's a little there's obviously a learning curve. But you know what makes average like, basically, what, what most pro editors want to use?

Michael Trent 23:12
Well, that's a tough question. I don't, I mean, I use it because it's always been the system that's been available. I'm not sure that the tool, I mean, I've used, I've done the opposite to you. I've actually downloaded the free version of Premiere, so I played around with Premier in that sense. But the most honest answer is that I use added Media Composer because it's, it's what's been available to me, and that's made me get used to it, and that now that that's the reason I'm the most comfortable with the with that system, it's just that's the one that was presented to me.

Dave Bullis 23:52
You know, when I was actually teaching editing courses at a college, which is a whole nother story, by the way, Michael, how I got into that we had, actually, we had a meeting because one professor wanted me to put in Vegas studios. The other professor wanted Avid Media Composer, the other professor wanted just Windows Movie Maker, and then I won a premiere. So it's kind of like, well, how do you please everybody, right? And so the answer was, we ended up just going with Premiere. And when Windows Movie Makers free anyway, so, and I think somebody else wanted Final Cut. I think this is what it was. So basically, you know, the one professor came to me and she goes, Oh, I've worked in different productions and this and that, and she, she was getting info from other editors. She wasn't actually an editor. Actually, I was the only person that's ever actually edited a movie in the whole room, which was actually which was actually kind of funny, but everybody else just heard things like, Oh, this is what this guy used, and this is what that guy used. So she was on productions, and she was like, Well, I heard from my guy that they only use advid, and that's that, and that you shouldn't be using anything else. And I always like to ask, because I always go back to that, because it was actually kind of funny. Me how we're all in a room and we're all just sort of having a pissing contest on which editing software to use, right? So it's good. I always, that's why I always ask that question. And whenever the students, when I actually whatever, whenever I would teach, they would go out into the field, most of them would find that people, did you still use avid and then. But I always said, you know, don't worry about an actual software worry about the principles of editing.

Michael Trent 25:25
Well, that's, that's, that's absolutely correct, and that's the reason I stick with it with Avid although, say, I'm certainly not against trying out premiere. It's just that I want to concentrate on the storytelling aspect of editing, rather than the sort of, how do you make a dissolve, which button do you push? There was a learning curve in the transition from editing on film to electronic editing for me. And I spent, you know, a while getting used to working with the AVID so once I was used to it, it's sort of, it's the devil, you know. And as I say, just I want to concentrate on the storytelling aspect, right? Storytelling aspect rather than the actual software.

Dave Bullis 26:04
Yeah, I completely agree 100% it's all about the story and telling the best story possible. And I wanted to talk to you also, just, you know about the hatred, obviously, you know, I've been interviewing everybody in the cast and crew of this movie. I actually talked to a friend of yours, Thomas Fleming, Oh, yeah. And Thomas was like, oh, make sure you talk to Michael Trent. That guy's amazing. And I was like, You know what? He's actually next on the list for me to talk to. So here we are. But I wanted to ask about the hatred and about, you know, editing that. You know, editing that. So, you know, how did you go about, you know, getting the gig on this movie.

Michael Trent 26:44
Well, it was a situation where I was I knew the director, the director and I met at elementary school, not to say that we met when we were 8, 9, 10, 11, our sons went to the same elementary school here in Studio City and in in, well, certainly the Studio City area, whenever you meet parents, says there's lots of people that are involved in the film industry. And Mike and I were just talking, just standing around, and, you know, we ask each other what we did, and that was a number of years ago. So I met Mike through our sons at school, and had talked for, well, probably a couple of years about filmmaking, and then he asked me to edit the short film of the hatred, which was called Hush. And then we had a certain amount of success with that, and he asked me to edit the feature after that, so I didn't actually have to go out and get the job in this particular instance, because I already knew the director.

Dave Bullis 27:59
And, yeah, Mikey Kehoe, he's, he's everywhere, right? I mean, by the way, do you know that the trailer for the film has over 10 million views?

Michael Trent 28:07
I did hear that I got Mike. I didn't know it was as much as 10 million, but Mike Kehoe called me the other day and said we were up to 7.4 million views. So that's just incredible, that we're at 10 million views. Yeah,

Dave Bullis 28:20
it's, I actually saw it go over, I think either on Friday night or last night, which is Saturday. I I saw it roll over to 10 million. And I was like, my god, this is, you know, this is like a juggernaut. So I wanted to ask, you know, Mike, did you? Did you edit the trailer as well?

Michael Trent 28:37
No, I edited a version of the trailer, but I believe the trailer was made at through Lionsgate. I believe that's correct. But no, I wasn't involved in editing of the trailer.

Dave Bullis 28:52
Okay, I know sometimes the editors don't. Actually, there's a whole different trailer editor. And I just wanted to ask, you know, but so, you know, it's amazing that's over 10 million views. And, you know, obviously, when, when this comes out on September the 12th, you know, I'm actually, you know, interested to see, you know how you know, you know how you know, everyone responds. And you know, because, again, like Mike and I were saying, he wishes the movie was coming out, you know, this weekend, because he's like, you know, all these things are happening. And he goes, now we have a, we have a whole nother month or so before it's actually out. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Mike, I wanted to ask you about editing the hatred when you're actually editing a horror film like this. Do you find that it there's a lot more of I mean, obviously timing is everything, right? So is there more of a timing when you're doing something like the hatred with horror, rather than maybe something more like, I guess, comedic, like, like gem in the holograms, which you also edited. You know? I mean, obviously they're, they're two. Very different films. So, so obviously, is there a lot of like, what are some of the nuances that you have to sort of go through when you're editing two for two different films, just like that, just as an example?

Michael Trent 30:10
Yeah, there's definitely a difference. I mean, without with a movie like The hatred especially, I mean the opening of the movie? Well, the opening of the movie was, I edited with a certain amount of suspense. When we introduced the girls, I edited it, let's say more of a normal movie. But when the the the entity starts to take over, the take over the take over the House. But basically you edit, to put it simply, to try and build tension and suspense the shots, I just keep the shots longer and hold on things a little bit more than I would certainly with a in an action movie or with a with a comedy. Obviously, comedy is very much tied up with timing as well. But if I was to put give you the broad strokes is I generally hold the shots longer to try and build tension and suspense with a horror movie.

Dave Bullis 31:14
So do you sometimes think that? You know, and when I was getting into editing, I made the mistake of cutting too much, and there was actually a professional editor who once told me, she said, Dave, when you cut too much, like you're doing right now, it gets a sense like there's a fight back and forth, like a power struggle. And I started because when I was at when what I was doing was I was cutting on the dialog, so as soon as you were done speaking, cut, go to the other person, and it was like, You know what I mean, like it was, and she goes, you see how that feels? Like I almost like an argument. And I said, Yeah, I get that. Now. I totally get that. And you know that that's some of the things that I picked up too over the years. That's why I imagine. You know, when you're when you're doing horror, you have to hold on to those shots just a little bit more, hold on to those edits, just a little bit more, because you are trying to build that, that tension, suspense.

Michael Trent 32:01
That's it. That's absolutely right. I mean, there was one particular instance in the in the in the hatred, and it's where Alice walks across the room before she's about to go down into the into the cellar. And we started that shot and kept it long. It was just so she could do the whole walk across. She goes past a a wall in in the room, but we kept the the whole length of the shot, and then also down the stairs. The whole piece was kept almost at full length. And it's for that exact reason. It was it, you know, just to build, to build that suspense. But definitely, I mean, another example I can, I can think of, is this was in another movie, I think, but it was a similar kind of genre, but a shadow appears on the wall, and rather than cut when she walks through the door, you start on the where the shadow first appears on the wall, and hold that shot all the way through to when the character walks through the door, and again, with the hope and the aim of creating suspense.

Dave Bullis 32:59
So what are some of like the one of the final things that you hope just to talk about the hatred, just to sort of like, come full circle, you know, what are some of the things that you you hope people take away from the hatred after they got to after a viewing of the movie?

Michael Trent 33:12
Well, I hope they, I hope they're scared, and I hope they talk about the movie afterwards. If they, if, if we put them, the audience, on the audience, on the edge of their seat, then I believe that we've done our jobs, as long as it's, you know, they they enjoy the movie for those reasons, say, and get scared then, then I'll be very happy.

Dave Bullis 33:38
So, you know, Mike just, sort of just continuing to talk about editing, you know, what are some of the tips or principles that you've learned over the years, you know, that you would, you could, you know, just sort of give the listeners who are maybe starting to edit their movies or or maybe just to something that, you know, they could use if they're trying to edit their own movie.

Michael Trent 34:00
It's a good question. I think it probably goes largely, goes back to what we were just talking about. Is that you want to say, first of all, read this, read the scripts, or read the scene, and then decide what the emotion of the scene is. If the the emotion of the scene is a fight, then you would edit, just as you described, you know, cutting very quickly on the dialog lines, or even on the dialog to give the impression that one person is cutting the other person off. If it's a romantic scene, again, you you'd roll those shots out a little bit longer to to create that, that romantic atmosphere. Comedy probably speaks for itself is you've got to cut the right reaction after the right amount of time, after the punchline, and hold on the punchline for the right amount of time. I think that these are the things that I've learned the most. Because I think that a lot of editors. Might have that tendency, as you just described, to cut too much. The other thing that you might I often think about is, is cutting to reaction shots, and what is that person thinking? What is the opposing person thinking as that dialog line is being spoken, and is it, is it relevant to cut to their reaction? And I think it's all about generating the emotion that's intended by the writer, you know, that's written down. So I try and emulate what was originally imagined by the writer.

Dave Bullis 35:42
And you're always, you know, also talk about reading the script and about, you know, finding the essence of that scene. You know, what's the scene really about? You know, I've you hear that a lot, too, in writing, and you realize just how closely involved editing and writing are, because, you know, you're trying to build that same atmosphere. And now you're doing it with the actual footage, while writers, you know, you're doing it and trying to get people to imagine this in their head, you know, trying to get, like, this little this, these images, and how everything would pan out in their head. So, you know, they're, they're very closely related. And, you know, finding that core of the senior what's the scene really about? You know, maybe it's not really about a fight, that's just the after. That's really the, the sort of causation from the actual, you know, I guess I want to say core of the core of the problem, if you, if you will,

Michael Trent 36:29
That's, that's, that's correct. I think that you do work very, very, very much with the sort of the writers intention in mind, or at least my interpretation of what the writer's intention was, and I edit with that in mind, for sure.

Dave Bullis 36:50
Yeah, and you know, that's something to When, when, whenever you're editing anything, I think you have to ask yourself those questions. You know, you have to ask yourself those you know, why are we even? Why is this scene even in here? You know, obviously, because somebody once told me about it, about, you could tell the difference between a good editor a great editor by how, how ruthless I'll cut stuff. And there was this. There was this one time a friend of mine was on, was telling me that it took them two days to get this scene right. And the editor said to them, Look, you got to cut it. And my friend said, who was the director? He goes, but it took us two days to shoot this stupid thing. And the editor said, Yeah, but it has, it adds absolutely nothing to the movie. Mm, hmm.

Michael Trent 37:33
I think that that's that. That's That's absolutely right. I think that as an editor, you also have to look at the edit with the big picture in mind. You you maybe edit a character, but then also edit that character with the whole story arc of the movie in mind. So if there's something that's going to pay off later and and there's a look maybe that you can hold on to, not to tele necessarily, telegraph to the audience, but it could be something that say, you hold on a shot earlier in the movie, which then pays off later. But I think that definitely you have to edit with the whole movie in mind. Yeah, that's very true. And that also that includes that if a scene is not giving anything to the movie, even if it took two days to start, then you have to, you have to cut the scene and and and be ruthless about it. If, in the big picture, that's, that's what's best for the movie.

Dave Bullis 38:33
You know, I always watched Deleted Scenes off of some of my favorite movies on like blu ray or DVD, and when I watch them, I can go, oh, you know what? Now I see why it's a deleted scene, because literally, it added nothing to the movie. It added absolutely nothing. And if you actually put it in there, what if, you know, drug it down, yeah, because you don't want people in the theaters be checking their watches going, Oh my God, when is this thing going to be over?

Michael Trent 38:55
That's exactly right. And that's, that's, you know, that's the hope that we can judge what those scenes are and and take them out for the good of the movie.

Dave Bullis 39:06
Yeah. And very true. And that's where you want to make sure the movie just sort of flows all together. And I think that's what we're all going for, you know, even when we're writing a script or, you know, I'm actually, you know, we're all trying to make sure that we're a servicing the film as a whole, rather than anyone's, you know, ego, so to speak, and to, you know, always making sure that the movie is just flowing together and not to just to just disjointed. If I could actually talk, I would actually help disjointed. So Michael, we've been talking for about, you know, 35 minutes now. So in just in parting, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get a chance to or maybe just sort of any final thoughts to put a period at the end of this whole conversation.

Michael Trent 39:58
Only that. Uh. You know, I've been, I've been doing this, this job, for a number of years, probably more than than I care to remember. But it's a I love the job to be, to be an editor is, is really, for me, a satisfying profession. And as the cliche goes, if you enjoy what you do, then you never work a day in your life. And that, for me, about editing is absolutely true. It's it's a passion of mine and something that I enjoy every day. If that's something I can offer up as a not that it's always easy. There's periods of unemployment, but if you, if you stick at it, then it's a very satisfying career.

Dave Bullis 40:48
Yeah. And that's, you know, a good way to sort of put it, any a period at the end of this conversation, is you have to do what you like. You have to do what you love again. If I could talk Michael would actually be helpful, but, but, yeah, you have to do what you love. And you know that that's key to life. You know, I, you know, myself included, sometimes I've just done things or work jobs that you just hate. You're like, What the hell am I doing to myself here? So you have to, you have to really love this business to to make sure you're actually, you know, you want to do it. And there's a lot of tests in the way that actually make sure you're like, do you sure you want to do this? Yeah, so, Michael, where people find you out online?

Michael Trent 41:26
I'm sorry, what was that?

Dave Bullis 41:27
Where can people find you out online?

Michael Trent 41:29
Well, I have my IMDB page. I have a Vimeo page also, really just Michael Trent, film editor, Google that and a bunch of my stuff comes up. My LinkedIn page, my IMDB page, the name of my agent, and my Vimeo page also come up. But yeah, Google, Google my name and film editor, and that's my online presence.

Dave Bullis 42:00
And I will link to all of that. Everyone in the show notes at davebullis.com Twitter, it's at dave_bullis, and the podcast is at dbpodcast. Michael Trent, I want to say thank you so much for coming on. And you know, I'm looking forward to The Hatred.

Michael Trent 42:15
Great and thank you for having me.

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BPS 424: From Short to Feature The Filmmaker’s Journey with Michael G. Kehoe

June 19, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

On today’s episode, we welcome Michael G. Kehoe, a filmmaker who turned a whisper of an idea into the resounding voice of a feature film. From Brooklyn to Hollywood, from an eight-year-old boy watching his mother direct community theater to a director commanding his own set, Michael’s journey is one of persistence, heartbreak, and sheer creative will.

In this profound conversation, Michael G. Kehoe shares the winding road of his career, one marked by passion and loss. A pact among friends, the bright lights of New York, and the uncertainty of Los Angeles formed the backdrop to his early years. But it was a personal tragedy—the untimely passing of two close friends—that set the stage for his first short film, Second Dance. With no roadmap but a fierce determination, he crafted a story that not only resonated but landed him in the heart of Sundance, proving that even the smallest project can open the biggest doors.

The journey didn’t stop there. Years later, inspired by his twin boys’ innocent bedtime fears, he penned a horror story that would eventually become The Hatred. Rather than waiting for a green light from the industry, he carved his own path. He created Hush, a short film that distilled the very essence of fear—the anticipation of the unknown. The reaction was immediate. Audiences jumped, festivals awarded, and industry heavyweights, including the producers behind Halloween, took notice. The lesson? The industry rewards those who show, not just tell.

But success in Hollywood is rarely a straight road. Shooting The Hatred on a tight budget and an even tighter schedule meant adapting, improvising, and making every shot count. “Poverty breeds creativity,” Michael says, a testament to the resilience needed in independent filmmaking. Working with a largely female cast, he crafted a horror film that stood apart from the blood-soaked clichés, focusing instead on atmosphere, character, and tension. The result? A film that paid homage to the horror classics of the past while carving its own identity in the present.

Of course, filmmaking is a collaborative art. Michael speaks of the relationships that make the journey worthwhile—the actors who return to work with him time and again, the cinematographers who bring his visions to life, and the producers who take a chance on passion over pedigree. “Surround yourself with people smarter than you,” he advises. A lesson as true for life as it is for film.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 0:24
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:24
You know me and my guest today, we go over all of this stuff, whether it be networking and professionalism, and we also go over one of my favorite topics, creativity. My this guest is also going to be at Geek fest Film Fest four. It's funny because Bill Ostrov, who was on the podcast only a few episodes ago, actually runs Geekfest Film Fest four. That's very hard to say, by the way. I keep saying it. I keep thinking I'm gonna mess it up. But no but all kidding aside, Bill actually runs that that this competition, and he runs the Film Fest as well. And Bill obviously for first glance films. He was on the podcast only a few episodes ago, and we talked all about everything. And it's funny because Mike, this guest this week, actually won the first glance Film Festival with his short Hush, and now he's gonna be on this film panel. So when you hear this podcast, which is going up on February 12, 2017, next week, next Saturday, he'll actually be at this panel. He'll be discussing indie film financing. He'll be discussing how you have to use creativity to make your film. And he is just a wealth of information, as you're about to hear. He also was able to turn a short film hush into a feature length film, which is going to be called the hatred, or Alice the hatred, as the poster says right now. And he even got the producers of the Halloween franchise on board with it, which is unbelievable. So we're gonna talk about all of his journey. We're gonna talk about all of these wonderful, wonderful things, about hustling, about all these things with guest Michael G. Kehoe so, you know, Mike, you grew up, you know, in Ithaca, and then you, you know, obviously, you now live in Los Angeles. So what was the journey that took you from Ithaca, out out to Los Angeles?

Michael G. Kehoe 3:45
Well, I was actually born and raised in in Brooklyn, New York. And my mother was a, was a theater director in the local theater there. And I always, I watched her work, and as she was, you know, involved, deeply involved in the theater there for the community. I went as a little kid, eight years old, watched her at the theater and directing actors and setting the plays up and the sets. And then when we moved up to Ithaca, I knew that this is what I wanted to do. So I started pursuing that I gotten. I played sports, so I wasn't one of these guys that was ostracized because he was either a nerd or a jock or a freak. I also played guitar, so I was in a band, and I got in the drama program. And while I was in the drama program, I knew that there was, there was a path, some way, to get into the film industry. I didn't know what a producer was. I didn't know, you know, I only knew that I had to go out and at some point, go to California, go to Los Angeles and and make movies. And what inspired, what really lit the fire was I directed and played McMurphy in a stage production. Of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that myself and a couple of friends presented to the sports Booster Club to raise money for them. And not knowing what a producer does, I built the set, and then I got all of the the football players to play, the crazies in the in the play, and that brought in so many people to see their sons, you know, coming, coming in, this football star playing in this play. And it was a sold out weekend for three weekends, you know, the first time that that's ever happened in this small town of Trumansburg, New York. And that lit the fire. And I went on to go to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and then came home and decided this was it. I had to take the shot and go to California.

Dave Bullis 5:49
So now, before you moved out to California and LA, specifically, when you, before you moved out there, did you actually, you know, have, like, a place to stay and have a job already lined up?

Michael G. Kehoe 6:01
No, I had nothing. In fact, I came out with three other guys from school. We had made a plan to to, you know, to get out here, and I had already been bartending, so I knew that I could probably get a job once I got out here and in New York at the time, you know, you could, you could start bar thing at 18 in California, was 21 and I had been I was 21 at the time. So when I applied for a job, they said, how many years experience? And I told them, I since 18. They say, well, that's not I said, Well, that's what it is in New York. So I landed a job, and it was at this little place in Studio City called steep Geez. And ironically, before I let when I while I was there, there was a friend of mine that I went to school with. His name was Jimmy Hayden, and Jimmy Hayden was an actor, and I had another friend named Michael Kuchel. And we were, we were very good friends, and I was bartending in Manhattan at a place called eileens, and one night, when we had closed up, the three of us made a pact and said, We're gonna, you know, when one of us gets in there, we're gonna pull the other two in. So I had, you know, left closed up shop, so to speak with my life in New York and moved to California, and then I spoke to Jimmy on the phone about a year or so later, and Jimmy had told me that Michael Kuchel had died, and it was, he was depressed, and it was, you know, it was a long story for that. And then Jimmy had said to me, Listen, I'm, you know, things are going well for me. I did a movie with Robert De Niro called Once upon a time in America, and I'm going to be on Broadway with Al Pacino in a play called American Buffalo. And I said, I got to see he says, Well, we're going to be in certain in San Francisco, so you got to come. We'll go out to dinner. I said, Great. Well, about two months later, Jimmy was dead of a heroin overdose because the character Bobby in the play was an addict. And I'm not quite sure exactly how all of this had happened or how it went down. But Jimmy was not really a drug addict, you know, and he was an incredible actor at the time. In fact, Mickey Rourke dedicated his performance in Pope Greenwich Village to Jimmy Aiden. So that relationship between myself and those two young actors really set an idea up for me that I had had about, you know, creating film. And I made my first short film called second dance, and it was, it was basically about myself and and my relationship with two guys. And I was depressed when I came out here, not working, not knowing what was going on. And I ended up writing that short film that was about a guy who was at the end of his rope, and two of his friends come back as angels to visit him, and he's about to commit suicide, and they convince him it's not the thing to do. Well, that went on to I take its journey, and ended up at Sundance.

Dave Bullis 9:00
You know, that's absolutely incredible. You know, just to, you know, take a step back for a second. You know, when you said you have that pact with friends, you know, if one person makes it, you know, the other, the other, the person makes, is gonna help the other ones up. You know, that's, that's actually something that, you know, I've heard of before, too, where, you know, friends, or even if they went to the same college or grew up in the same neighborhood, and, you know, they sort of say, Listen, if you know, one of us makes it, we're going to do our best to help the others, whether that be through contacts or introductions or, you know, what have you. And we're also going to tell you what is actually on the front line of things. And you know, like, I had a friend of mine who was a screenwriter, and he, you know, he made it, and he always was telling his friends, you know, this is how your scripts got to look. This is what it's got to be. Because you got to get one shot with this through an introduction, and you have to make it as good as possible.

Michael G. Kehoe 9:50
Yeah, you know the to me, what, what? What has to happen in your life is whatever relationships that you. Have, and whatever bond you have, you know it's very important to continue that especially if it's going to be in a certain business, whether you're in whether you're in a travel business, whether you're in the restaurant business or anything like that. Your friends can actually help you. They can actually hurt you as well, depending on you know, how your friends are with you and how that bond is. And I think that having that support, sometimes of a creative friend that's along with you can elevate your career as well as their own. And I truly believe that giving back, you know, is also part of it. And I, you know, I cherish the relationship that I had, as though, you know, but it was short lived, because it was only a couple of years in New York, and then when we came out, you know, I didn't get to see them, and when I heard about it, what had happened. It was it kind of, it was devastating, you know, knowing that we had this plan to go out and do it, but you can't, you know, you can't give up, and they wouldn't want you to give up. So I just, you know, I continued the journey.

Dave Bullis 11:15
So, I mean, and again, you know, when you were talking about how both of your friends had passed, you know, and the one had died from from a heroin overdose. I mean, that that is just unbelievable out of left field, because, like you just said, you know, he, you know, he wasn't, you know, into that, or never had, had no, been a known drug addict or anything like that. And, you know, it's just that's, you know, that's just one of those things at a left field. And, you know, remind, you know, it just reminds me of a few things that that have happened to other guests as well. You know, where they were, something, you know, a friend of theirs has just missed, you know, just died, and she's been clear out of the blue, like you see him one day, and, you know, it's almost like they're gone the next,

Michael G. Kehoe 11:56
Yeah, you know, look at the I guess. You know, the 70s and 80s were really a time when people were exploring and testing things out in their lives. And since this character, I can't speculate. I can all you know, I can only try to try to put things together in a sense where possibly this happened. But I don't want to, you know, say for sure. But you know, when you play a character that's a heroin addict. You know, most actors won't do the heroin. Some people may just, you know, may test it out and and it becomes their demise. And Jimmy was a great guy, you know, he, he was a very talented actor. And I don't, you know, I don't know how it went down, or who he was with, or the crowd. You know, there's, articles about it, and people wrote things about who he was with and how it was influenced. But I think what you have to celebrate is their lives and the work that they did, which was far more important than that. You know, that downward spiral that caused it, and Jimmy's work speaks for itself. You know, it's, it was a remarkable career, you know, short lived, much like James Dean, you know. And in fact, in fact, they compared him to James Dean during that time. So, you know, it because of that relationship, it inspired me to do that film that really opened the door for me and go and move on. So I believe that they were, you know, they were part of it,

Dave Bullis 13:22
Yeah. And you use this as inspiration to, you know, to write and direct. And you were actually able to produce second dance, you know, which was a short film of yours. And, you know, you also got one of my favorite character actors, by the way, in the film, Carmine Felipe, or Philippe. Yeah, Carmine was every move, every move that Carmine is in, he is just, you're you're just drawn to him. He's like a magnet. He it could because his performance I and every move I've ever seen of him, no matter whether it's in Wayne's World or Beetlejuice. He's era, you know, or even in, you know, in your film secondhand, he's just always you're just drawn to his performances.

Michael G. Kehoe 14:03
Well, you know, the funny story about about him was, I was working on another movie in production, and I, while I was on set on location, who's walking down the street in Hollywood is Carmen and and I knew that I wanted to have someone in this short film. Usually, what people try to do is they try to get one name, a big name, or something like that, to do a cameo, to do in your film. And I didn't want, I didn't want it to be, you know, to get Al Pacino, you know, in in the in the short film. I would have loved to have done that, but I didn't see, you know, a spot for that, to put it in there and take your attention away. So when I talked to Carmen, Carmen is completely different, or was, you know, he passed away, but he was completely different from the characters that he played on on film. And we had a great discussion about acting, about life in Hollywood, and his journey as well. And I. Told him the story that I just told you about the, you know, the process in which second dance was made. And he, he, he was drawn to the story, and he wanted to be a part of it. In fact, after he read the script, he had said to me, I love it. I want to do this no matter what, I'll be there. Would you mind if I, kind of, like, you know, went off the script for a little bit, and I said, look, as long as you stay on the path of where we're heading to, you know, your dialog will be golden for me. Just make sure that we stay within those confines of the story. And you know, when you do a short film, especially when you're shooting on film, because I shot that on 35 millimeter, you don't have a lot of luxury to do multiple takes. And I think we did maybe, maybe two or three takes at the most of him. And I let him go, and I just said, go, go with it. And, you know, he lit up the screen. He looks great on film. He's engaged with the characters, and he communicates extremely well. And it's just he was a pleasure to work with,

Dave Bullis 16:08
You know. And we talked to about that, you know, on the podcast too, is, you know, the difference between 35 millimeter and digital, you know, because, you know, the filmmakers who who've shot on both, they've, you know, that's the one thing they like about digital is that they can do, you know, they can't afford that luxury of multiple takes, because obviously, you know, you know, it doesn't cost anything to, you know, put another file on an SD card or what have you. But again, when you're working for 35 millimeter, there's there, you know, every take, literally, literally does cost you money,

Michael G. Kehoe 16:39
Without a doubt. In fact, you know, I cut the movie on a movie Ola. And, you know, people don't realize, you know, the film thinkers of today what even what a movie Ola is, unless they Googled it. And you know, you have this tiny little screen that's like a three by five screen, and you put the film and the sound through it, and that's what you're watching to get your final product out there. And it's a big risk, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's just a chance that you're taking, you know? And we didn't have, we also didn't have video playback. So I stood by camera and watched the performances there, hoping that my, my DP, my cinematographer, would capture the essence of what was in the script and and he did, you know, we, we literally, I love films that are dark in the sense of their lighting, and doesn't, doesn't look flat, and just does it, just exposes, just enough To bring you into that world. And Chris Mosley, who's my DP, we had long discussions prior to that about the this process and knowing that we had to capture things, I didn't care. I wanted to give it like a film noir look with color and and go through that process. But by by doing it on 35 millimeter, I was limited to the number of takes the time. And, you know, poverty breeds creativity, so we did what we could to get the best performances on screen, and everybody, from the background to, you know, the main actor, they all pulled it off. And the proof is in the pudding for the film itself.

Dave Bullis 18:21
Yeah, and you mentioned something to that is thought provoking, to that I've mentioned other guests, and we've talked about is the, the relationship between the director and the DP, you know, like today, you know, people usually get monitors, you know, and they watch, they can see the exact framing, you know. But, but it used to be you had to trust your director cinematography, with with everything, because, you know, you didn't get it. You didn't see what they were actually getting. If you know what I mean, they were, they were actually, you had to trust them, that they were getting this correct shot, that everything looked good. And you and directors would stand, you know, watch the actual, actual character performance, the actual, the actual actor performances, right then and there, but, and not on a monitor and, you know, and now nowadays, so that's, that's what most directors do, is that they have the actual monitor now to see the performances as they're happening.

Michael G. Kehoe 19:09
Well, you know, you're absolutely right. And what I, what I try to do, and what I've done on my films, is communicate with my DP and allow him to paint the picture. I give him a map of what we want to do. I try to frame certain things, and he lights and takes it from there, when I did hush the short film, my DP, John Connor and I, we worked for four and a half months beforehand and had everything mapped out. I did the storyboards. We looked at camera angles. I had purchased something on my iPhone, which was called Filmic Pro, to take video and snapshots of the set and the actors in position. So we had some sort of framing for that. But I did discuss with John, which we were, we were pulling our hair out, and I said, Look, I don't want, I don't want any lights in this movie. It's at night. It's in indoors and interior shots. I said, I don't want any lights at all. I just want a flashlight. And John, you know, said, How are we going to do this? We shot with the Alexa, but we came up with a plan and an idea that was sparked in the preparation. And you use these little tricks to create the scene, and it worked perfectly. And if it wasn't for that prep time and the discussions and the relationship between myself and the DP, I don't think we would have had what we had. And most filmmakers today, they just want to make a movie, to get out there and make a movie. But if you don't have, if you don't have a good dp and great sound, then you're traveling down a road where you're just like everybody else, and you're just going to shoot on an iPhone or something, and it looks flat and there's no style to it. But when you create something and you have a great relationship with your DP, who shows a style, it elevates you as a filmmaker. And I think that's one of the things that's very, very important to a lot of filmmakers, or for a lot of film filmmakers. And you see it in a lot of the in the horror genre, where the lighting and and the composition is just done so well in most of those films. And I think a lot of the successful film, like filmmakers today started out in in horror.

Dave Bullis 21:46
Yeah, that is very true. And you know, that's something that I've even talked about at the beginning of the podcast when I had on David huel from a horror movie school. You know, a lot of successful filmmakers actually did start in horror. And you know, like, like Sam Raimi always is the first one that comes to mind, you know, because Sam Raimi made Evil Dead, and then Evil Dead too. And then, you know, he sure, years later, he went on to make spider man. And, you know, now, you know, he gets those big Bucha, big blockbuster movies,

Michael G. Kehoe 22:15
Right! Well, I mean, James Cameron made Piranha the Spawning, yeah, you know, there's just, I mean, you look at the people who who started their career out, especially with Roger Corman, and you know, it was Francis Coppola, there was Martin Scorsese. And all of these great filmmakers of today actually gave got their start through that. You know, that path that Corman set out to create. So, you know, I got to give a lot of credit to to filmmakers and producers like Roger Corman, because he opened the door for people they didn't have a lot of money to make those movies. But I think that goes back to saying that poverty breeds creativity. And when you're a filmmaker, your creative side, and your those creative juices have to flow, and they have to flow with your VP as well as your actors. And when it all comes together, you know, this is, this is what filmmaking is.

Dave Bullis 23:12
Yeah, I love that saying, by the way, poverty breeds creativity. I like that, Mike. I might have to steal that, by the way, it's yours, yeah. So, So, Mike, after you made second dance, you know, you made some other films, obviously, between second dance and hush, you know, hush I want to get to, but I want to talk, you know, obviously, about those films in between. You know, after you film second dance, did you, did you take, did you take it to any film festivals, and where was that? How, you know, did you parlay that into your next film, which was dominion?

Michael G. Kehoe 23:46
Well, what I did was I submitted the I submitted second dance to Sundance, and I didn't make it because it was, it was too late. So I talked to a friend of mine who's a producer, and he said, Look, let's get a screening. We'll get a screening. We'll get a room over at Tristar, over where Sony is now, and we'll screen that, and then that, you know, you'll bring some people in. Look, there may be only 30 people that show up, and we'll see what happens. So I said, Okay, and now, you know, you you have a 35 millimeter can that you walking around with. This is your child. So I brought that to Sony, and I put word out. You know, I had been in the movie business, in working in production which my brother got me. I got my brother into it, and then he got me on the in, on that side, and we got a 99 seat theater, and I waited outside, and 500 people showed up, including Keanu Reeves, and because I had worked with him on speed. And so now you know, what do I do? And I had to show the film five times because there's only 99 seats. And when it was over, the projectionist came to me and she said, and it was a woman, and for the life of me, I can't remember what her name was, but. I'm actually searching now to find out, because we're about to screen the next movie at Sony. And she said to me, Michael, Have you submitted this to Sundance? And I said, Yeah, but it was too late. I didn't make it. She said, Well, why don't you leave it here, you know, for this weekend, because I the gentleman that is part of the shorts program. He's in charge of the shorts program. He would be here, and I should show this to him. This deserves to be in there. So I thought, Oh, my God, I'm leaving my child here, you know, at Sony, you know, over the week for the week, and I trusted her, and came home, you know, and about four or five days later, I get a truck comes up with the can film can, drops it off for me to sign, and I figure it's over. I don't hear anything. Well, about two and a half weeks later, I get a letter in the mail says Sundance. And I thought right away, this is a rejection letter, just thanks for sending it in, but no thanks, and I'm sitting on the front porch with my dog, and I open the letter, and sure enough, it says, on behalf of Robert Redford and the Sundance Film Festival, you have made it to the festival. So I jumped for joy for that, and went to went to the festival. It was, I think it was at the same time that Hoop Dreams was playing at that time, and Matthew Modine was in a short film, and Winona Ryder, and so we were all interviewed by Entertainment Tonight for that. And I got a, I got approached by another company. I had written a an action, a thriller, that I just wanted to sell. I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to, I didn't want to direct it. And they approached me and they said, you know, this would be great if you will do this, if you want to direct it. And the producer who helped me with the short ended up producing that, and we went on to do that feature. The funny story was, I had been working in production, you know, at a craft service company, and I was doing a movie called Airheads with Adam Sandler and, you know, Steve Buscemi, and Ernie Hudson was in it. And Ernie Hudson would get a couple of scripts, you know, during the course of the week. And what I did was I took my script and I got the PA who was bringing it to his his trailer, and I sneaked it in there. And about two days later, Ernie called me to his trailer and said, Did you write this? I said, Yeah. He says, I want to do it. And I said, Oh my God, it's great. So I prism at prism entertainment at the time, we made a deal together. It was a $1.3 million movie, and Ernie was in and we did a promo shots with Ernie space on the poster, and got everything together. And then a couple of months, about a month or so before shooting, Ernie came to me and said, Mike, I feel bad, but Kathleen Kennedy called me and I'm going to do this movie called Congo. And he says, I won't be able to do that movie. And I, you know, of course, I was disappointed, but you never want to say, Screw you. You're supposed to do my movie that you don't survive in this industry by being that way. And I was so supportive of it. And I said, Look, go do that. You're gonna, you're gonna do a lot better than doing this movie for this little movie for me. But we ended up getting Brad Johnson and and also, I don't know if you, if you've seen the movie Brian James, who was in Blade Runner, and 48 hours, and a number of other actors, and in Richard, really, who plays a character role in that. And then that went on was, I think it was on. It was on cable for a while, and then I went off to do a couple of other shorts that won some awards, and then I did another feature called The Art of a bullet with Lafe Garret. And, you know, I people were laughing at me of casting lace Garrett in this in the lead role, but I have to tell you, Lafe did such an amazing job in this role. It was a dark, kind of a film noir, detective thriller about a home invasion. And he was, he was spot on. And then, of course, after the film, he got in a little bit of trouble, and things kind of went sour for a while for him. But it really worked, you know, it worked out for the film itself. And, you know, we got a small distribution deal overseas for that, and then I went on and started writing again, and that's when I came up with this idea of finally doing a horror movie.

Dave Bullis 29:35
So, and just to stop and ask a question right here, don't you think it's important for for pretty much everybody, whether you're an actor or director, to be writing your own scripts, just just to even if, whether you're going to shoot yourself, or even just to hand it to somebody else and maybe say, Hey, would you want to make this?

Michael G. Kehoe 30:06
You know? I think, I don't think any, you know, it's, it's a great question, because there's some incredible writers out there, independent writers that haven't made it yet, and they have some remarkable scripts, and they don't want to be a director, they don't even want to be a producer, they just want to write. And so yes, I found it that in the beginning stages of my career, when I first moved out here, I bought myself a computer, and I, you know, not even knowing how to use it, the only thing I wanted to learn was a screenwriting program, and I had the first, you know, version of Final Draft when it came out and started writing that, because a writer writes, and that's what I was trying to do, as well as make my film. But I think you know, if you as a filmmaker starting out, it might be, it might be wise to either write something, if you're able to write something that is is readable and enjoyable for the for the reader and the audience, but you may find a writer that's out there that has written something that that you may not be able to pull off in your own writing skills. I mean, I'm reading some scripts now that I would never be able to do, and I love and I, you know, I'm working on trying to to acquire them, but you know that it's a great question to ask. It's, I just think it's the individual of who wants to create something and, and maybe sit with a writer and create something or, or do it yourself, like you said. I don't think there's any specific answer for that.

Dave Bullis 31:43
Okay, you know. And it's always something when I always ask everybody, because, you know, some people are always, some people got very frustrated about, you know, not having options. Some people wanted their make their own opportunities. There's, there's always a couple of key words, just one single word that I always find on the podcast, Mike, one of them is creativity. Another one is opportunities. And I always sort of let you know we can draw so much from them, because we're all just sort, you know, we're always boiling things down to sort of that, that one word that we can sort of use. And you know, again, I like what your definition of creativity? You know poverty. You know poverty. Poverty creates creativity and and just, you know, self, that's why I wanted to ask that question. But, you know, so as we continue on with, you know, with, with your whole journey, you know, again, you wanted to write a horror movie. So where did sort of the impetus to of the of the idea, this sort of seed idea, where did that come from for the concept of the horror movie?

Michael G. Kehoe 32:44
Well, yeah, early on, I was inspired by thrillers, Hitchcock things like that. I'm not very much into slasher films, blood and guts, torture, or anything like that. And looking at the the horror genre. The horror genre, to me, is like 31 flavors. You know, you have people that like vampire movies, you have people that like zombie movies. You have like people like paranormal movies or slasher movies. But when you make, when you make a horror thriller, you get the attention of all those across the board. And that's what I wanted. I didn't want to make a specific film for one specific audience, so I started thinking about things. And I have twin boys, and when they were very, very young, they used to say, before they went to bed, they used to say, Daddy, check under the bed. Daddy, check the closet, Daddy, you know. And I said, there's nothing there, there's nothing there. And that inspired me to create this story of Hush. And so when I got into it, I wanted to, I started writing the feature, which originally was called the hatred, and I took a scene out of that, which is the scene, you know, the hush, which we shot, and I decided that I was going to go out and try to try to shoot this as a short film. Because years ago, in the 80s and 90s, a lot of the stunt men that I knew were creating sizzle reels, or, you know, a reel that would expose it, would actually promote the film itself. So kind of like a teaser and, and I thought, you know, I'm going to do this one scene, if there's attention for this, it may give me a shot at at the feature. And I wanted to make more of a of an anticipation of death, rather than death itself. Because, you know, the anticipation of death is worse than death itself. And if you're watching something and it's what's behind the door, it's the journey from the moment you hear the sound till you get to the door. That journey in between is the journey that raises the hair on the back of your neck, and that's what I wanted. So I have a very close friend of mine that we were. We were started out our careers very early. His name is Tommy Harper, or is Tommy Harper, and we decided that we were going to, you know, try to develop this. Now, Tommy Harper started out as an ad and then worked his way up in producing. And at the time, Tommy had said to me, you know, do this, but you really need a DP that understands horror. So I told him about John Connor. John Connor and I had been friends for many, many years. We worked on a couple of films with Tony Scott, and then we started talking. This was 18 years ago. We talked about making a movie together, and Tommy Harper said, no, no, no, you know he's that. He doesn't know horror. You look at these guys. So Tommy went off told me that he was not going to be available because he was leaving town to go work, to go produce a movie. And that movie, that little movie, was Star Wars, The Force Awakens in London. So I said, Okay, well, I don't want to stop you from working on this little movie, to go work on that little movie. So Tommy went off to do that, and while the cats away, the mice will play. And I got John Connor to shoot Hush. And when in the in the process of writing it and doing it, as I said to you, before we created this, this formula that we wanted to make for this movie. And when we finished it, I had my editors, a guy named Michael Trent, who's an incredible editor, worked with Steven Spielberg for many years, and we have our kids went to school together, so we had a relationship there, and I didn't expect him to want to be a part of it. He read the script and he said, I'll do it. I'll do it. And it was only five minutes. But the the footage that I gave him, I got to give him credit for the for the entire cut, because the only thing we did was extend one little piece of the section of the movie. Other than that, what you see is Michael Trent's cut. And then, you know, we started the journey with the short film on the festival route. And I spent, you know, filming. Filmmakers have to understand, you have to spend money to make money, and you've got to get it out there, and you got to get it out to the right festivals. You know, you want, want to go to festivals that have screenings. You want to go to festivals that are probably a few years in the making, because there are, you know, there's some people that are sitting home that are, you know, typing out little certificates and emailing them to you saying you won this festival, when it really doesn't mean anything. So you want the, you want the acknowledgement from the audience as well as a respected Film Festival,

Dave Bullis 37:39
Yeah, you know, that's also something that I've talked about too with other people in this podcast has been, you know what festivals are? Can actually do something for you as well as you, you know you're giving a submission to them. Are these festivals valid? You know, if you because I went way back when I had a script running consultant on who, uh, who actually said he had a client and she and she ended up winning like, 15 different screenwriting competitions. But the downside was Mike, none of them were, like the big name festival competitions. They were, you know, the smaller competitions. And he said, literally, the only way she got more work after winning all these competitions was that she had a deep network, and that one person got her into somewhere else to do it, to do a writing gig. But, you know, and it just goes back to, we were talking about networking, and, you know, things like that. But, you know, just to talk about, you know, again, with, with Hush, you know, making sure, you know, the audience responded to it, as well as, as the as the festival circuit, you know, when, when were you? When did you, sort of, you know, know that you had, you know, I guess the term would be hit, you know, when did you know that you had something here that, you know, you sort of got Lightning in a Bottle with this?

Michael G. Kehoe 38:56
Well, another great question, you know, I'm extremely hard on myself. It's hard for me to sit in the theater to watch the movie that I made, because, you know, I want to please the audience and I want to go out, and sometimes you never know. You know what's going to happen, and their reaction, if it's positive or negative. So when we finished it, I showed it to a few people, and the reaction from them jumping out of their seat, I knew that there was something there. I didn't know if they were being honest with me, but as I started testing it with people, I got the same feeling. So I said, Okay, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna put it out into this festival. And the very first festival, we won eight awards. And I thought, Okay, well, maybe this is maybe this is it. And we started applying. I spent a lot of money, you know, putting it out to to film festivals. We got on Film Freeway, and we started hitting it. And I you know, could, we couldn't get into some of the bigger festivals at the time because of the timing of it, but as it started going out, and like you had said, which I think is so important, you have to build a network, a following that you get in there. And since we now have social network, you can actually go out and let people know what you're doing, and in doing that, people will start to gain a little interest and see what you're doing. And as you're starting to hit that market and festival after Festival, and you're announcing it, because you have to be your own publicist, people will be interested in say, Well, I want to see this film now, because it's won 10, 1214, awards, and not until we were selected at the Catalina Film Festival, and my good friend Ivana cadaver said to me, I couldn't make it to the festival because I was actually going to be working on this other movie. And I said, I'm not going to be able to make it. She said, I'll go in place. And then she called me and said to me, do you know that Wes Craven actually chose your film? It was before he died. It was one of the films that he said, This deserves to be in the festival. Deserves to be a feature. So I think F Gary Gray made the announcement, or whatever at the at the festival itself, and Robert England was there, and we won an award there, the Wes Craven Award, which was, you know, a great feather in my cap for the movie. And as that went out, and I built this following on social network. It was Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. You know, people started seeing what was happening, and I put it out and gave it to a producer by the name of Malika cot. And Malik is responsible for the Halloween franchise. And, you know, I was, I had sent it over to Blumhouse. I sent it over to a couple of other places, Sony and and some other places. And Malik called me and said, not been sent a lot of scripts. I really like this. I want to sit down with you with this, and Malik's kind of a hands on producer, and we sat and we developed the story and and continued with the events that occur within the script and the characters and taking some things out, putting other things in. And we got financed, and we were set to go into production. It took a while from the time that the I think the film was the short film went out in the latter part of 2014 and we shot the film in 2000 it was 2016 when we shot, I think was 2016 I can't remember what happened yesterday, but, you know, we Yeah, it was, it was a, it was a spring of 2016 and that what happened there once again, this, this comes into mind about poverty, breeding, breeding, creativity. You know, we had a limited time to shoot. I think we had, like, a an 18 or 19 day schedule, but we were just under a million dollars, and wasn't a lot of money, you know, for what we wanted to do, because we have big expectations of trying to put the best up on screen, and we are hit by the union, so we had to go union. So we lost a number of days for that, and it's a good amount of money from the budget. So I didn't want you know losing two days is a lot. And we were like, we were shooting, I think, 35 setups a day, which is, you know, remarkable for a feature. And I got to give credit to my crew and my cast, because they were with me. And I remember working with Tony Scott, and Tony Scott getting up there and lifting up, you know, boxes and moving and getting the team to move, go, go, go. And that's what they did. And so we went, we were prepared in one seat in one part of this house. We shot in and made people aware of what was going on so we would be able to go from there to the next spot. And Malik did a great job of, you know, guiding it through and creating a world for us to, you know, to have an opportunity. We had a great line producer by the name of Sean gory and, of course, my, my DP, John Connor, who is so is so incredibly talented. In fact, John went on to shoot meet the blacks and a couple of other movies. Taylor walk in the movie that I I can't remember the name of it right now, but John got signed by an agency right away after that. And we, you know, it was a, let me just say this, it was a battle for me, because you, you have one idea and one path that you think that this film is going to go on, and then, of course, it takes a different path, because. Because of the roadblocks that you have. And I look at the film now, and is it the movie they originally wanted to go out and make? Probably not, but however, now it's, it's, it's a movie that I'm very proud of. It's kind of a, it's an homage to the 70s and 80s with no blood, no guts, no sex, no stupid women, and we have 95% female cast. So I think we, I think we ended up hitting the mark on what we did.

Dave Bullis 45:33
But by the way, I wanted to mention Mike. We actually have a mutual friend who actually worked on Alice the hatred and who did the makeup effects? The makeup effects sculptor, and that was Hiroshi kitagi. And Hiroshi has actually been on this podcast as well.

Michael G. Kehoe 45:49
Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, right, yeah, exactly. I mean, this is, this is a great story as well. I was working in on a movie called Last Samurai. I was in New Zealand, a Tom Cruise movie, and we had gone to Japan, and we would sick, I think, five months in into New Zealand. And the the transportation coordinator, whose name is Vic Kucha, his daughter was his name. Her name is Austin Kucha. I think she was like, 10 or 11 years old at the time, and I was, you know, we were prepping, so I was driving out on one of those Honda you know, I don't forget what they call them. They're like the four wheel go karts, so to speak, but they're motorized, you know. And I'm driving her out, and she's sitting with me, and I just said to her, I said, What do you want to do when you get older. She said, I want to do special effects makeup. And I said, really? And she said, yeah. I said, Well, if I ever make a movie, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring you on there. Now, never thinking anything would happen years later. I'm doing Hush. And Austin has created blood drugs. I don't know if you know what that is, but when you watch CSI, and you see an actor dead laying on the floor in a pool of blood, they have this rug that they peel up and they lay down, so you don't ruin the floor in a location. And they could put splatters on the wall, which is which peels off and goes back on, so you never have to worry about, you know, continuity. You know somebody stepping into it, because it doesn't change. And Austin did the makeup on Hush, and ended up coming on the feature as well. So this is another thing of how small this little world of Hollywood is, you know, and it's, to me, it's a great little world. And you know, when I hear people say, Oh, that's so Hollywood. That person so Hollywood. To me, there's there's Broadway, there's off Broadway, and there's Off, off Broadway. In Hollywood, there's Hollywood, there's off Hollywood, or Hollywood, independent Hollywood, and then desperate Hollywood. And desperate Hollywood are those people that talk about doing it, never do it, and say they have money, but never, no, never do that. I, believe me, I've been dealing with that, in fact, right now on an independent movie, people who are saying, yeah, they have money and they know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, and to me, that's desperate. So, you know, give credit to the people that are actually doing things and making it happen. There's so many wonderful filmmakers out here that I always try to support at festivals and try to see what they they're doing. And always, you know, have whatever advice that I could give from my my journey and my adventure. I always try to help others with it.

Dave Bullis 48:35
Yeah, I like that term desperate Hollywood Mike, because, you know, I've encountered that myself. And whenever I'm reading a, you know, like someone's autobiography, they've had that as well. Particularly the first person that comes to mind is Quentin Tarantino, when he was trying to get money for Natural Born Killers, which was actually one of his first screenplays, he actually met these two bodybuilders who were trying to is, they said, Well, we have all this money and this and that. And they, they didn't have anything when he, when he wrote Reservoir Dogs, somebody else tried it said, oh, you know, I can get you the money, but you got to make my girlfriend has to be Mr. Blonde, the Mr. Blonde character, yes, put it in, put it as a woman and, and, you know, he, you know, all these people were just blowing smoke, you know, they didn't have any money at all.

Michael G. Kehoe 49:19
Yeah, that's, you know, that's what filmmakers run into. There's always somebody that says, I gotta have my girlfriend in there, and we can't tell my wife, you know, or I've got to do this, and I've got to do that, and you've got to do this for me. But, you know, I think every filmmaker needs to stay on track, you know, for for what they want, because ultimately, it's, their ass that's on the line, and no one else's. And if you end up when the term's selling out, it's selling out to say, well, I'm going to do this just to get money. You know, don't go out to make a movie, just to make a movie. I mean, you wouldn't go out and have a child, just have a child. You know, you want to make sure that you can support that child and nurture it and grow just like you would with a cell. And so I think that that's the attitude that a lot of successful filmmakers have, is to create a world and and try to get it not only, you know, from the page to the camera to the audience, and you know, it's, it's remarkable. Sometimes I I hear these people that are just going out, and I see some of the films that they shoot, it looks flat. The acting is not that great, and and where they put it out, it goes nowhere. And they say, Well, I'm gonna have a life on YouTube. Well, that's great. But if you really, if you want to be a filmmaker, you know, put your heart and soul into it and surround yourself. To me, this is the most important thing, surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, because you don't. It's good to know a little bit about everything, but get somebody that can actually do the job of you know, your sound guy, for instance, Tom Curley, who won the Academy Award for whiplash, was my my sound mixer on the movie that we did the hatred. And Tom is from upstate New York, so we had that in common. I had worked with Jeff Wexler, whose dad is Haskell Wexler, when I did a little short film that won it at Comic Con years ago. And to me, you really have to have great sound for a film. People will say, Well, you know, we'll do it in post. I hate that line that we're going to fix it in post. If you don't fix it on the set, you're gonna have problems later on, you know. So you put your heart and soul in it, and you you get people that are are smarter than you, because that's going to pave the road to success for people who dedicate their their heart and mind to it.

Dave Bullis 51:48
Yeah, I also don't like that whole attitude of, you know, let's just fix it in post. You know, I think you know when you're almost like when, if you've were to interview a lot of student filmmakers, I think a lot of them have that attitude, and unfortunately, some people, so some people don't lose that attitude. And I've been on film sets too, where, I mean, hell, I'll admit it, Mike, I've been guilty of that too. And you know, that was a few years ago, obviously. But you know when I now, you know when I'm whenever I'm, you know, it's been a while since I've been on set. I shouldn't have mentioned that, but, but it's been a while I've been on set, you know, as I run a film podcast, but, uh, basically, you know, I realize now you have to do it right, you know, right when you're right, then and there. And, you know, sometimes you need a little more time, but it always sort of comes down to that production management triangle, right? You can have it good, you could have it you could, you know, there's, there's the quality, the speed and the time. So you can have it fast and slow, but it'll be good, you know, all that stuff, and you got to sort of all, sort of manage that, where you're on set,

Michael G. Kehoe 52:51
Well, you know? And that's why, that's why preparing is the, you know, is 90% of the job, because then everything runs smoothly after that. And have in mind that you are going to, you are going to come into, you know, some changes. You know, filmmakers don't some filmmakers, early on don't realize that. You know, when you're recording sound on set, you also have to have room tone that you're going to record so you can use later on, in case there's, you know, there's a change in dialog, or you have to shoot something later on, getting that rune tone puts you back into that that that set and and if you watch a movie that has crappy sound, it takes you out of it. If you watch a movie that has an okay picture and great sound, you know, you're you're you're still engaged, you're still involved. But sound is so important and so engaging for the film that most people don't they don't consider it to be that important, and it's something that they say they'll always fix later. And I disagree with it wholeheartedly.

Dave Bullis 53:54
Yeah. Same here. Same here, Mike, and it is very important, something I learned from Kelly Baker. Kelly's been on the show as well, and he's the sound mixer for Gus Van Zant. And yeah, he and he's always mentioned, you know, about the importance of sound and everything, and he really is the person that really sort of drove that home for me. And you know, even when I watch movies now, I'm always watching, I know, I'm always listening now for how the sound compliments the the video part, the actual, you know, what will be, what we can see,

Michael G. Kehoe 54:24
Yeah, without, without a doubt. I mean, it's almost a character in in the film itself. You know, I wrote, and Tommy Harper is responsible for making this deal. I wrote a sci fi film. It's kind of like, in the same vein as alien and the thing, and I wanted to set it in in in Iceland, on this air force base that my father was actually stationed at in the 50s. And I, you know, presented to them, and they picked it up, and they flew me out there for a. Scouting and which we're going to shoot this thing in this this fall, late fall, in Iceland. And one of the things when I went up, one of the experiences that I had when I was on the location, we went inside the old base that's been shut down since 2000 and I believe 2008 it was an American base. And they had, you know, in Iceland, their power is 220 and ours is 110 so there was 110 but they had pulled everything out. And so this, this particular facility, had these walls that were like, oh, probably a foot thick. And when I went in there, it hadn't been touched since 2000 I think 11, and there was no dust on the on the walls or anything, but the sound in there. I started. I started smiling, because every little thing, if you dropped a coin, it had this incredible sound, because everything was completely silent because of the thickness of the walls. And I just knew that this was going to be something that came, you know, along with the film, that was going to elevate the film. So having a great sound man and having a great location for that sound is just equally as important, you know, for the success in the film. You don't want to shoot near an airport and have a, you know, have a dramatic scene that's an emotional scene with two people talking. So you just have to, you know, you have to really pull it off in such a way and do that research. So I look forward to, you know, to creating that movie as well. It's titled kebabic with a company called True North that is, is in Iceland, Kristen Thornton, who's the producer for that? They actually started out as a production facility company, and they they did Walter meetings, they did Star Wars, they did some of the, some of the Star Treks. And there's a great story of how that came about with that meeting, because Tommy Harper introduced me to Kristen Adam, had a meeting, and Tally had asked me if I had any I, you know, scripts that were kind of sci fi. And I said I had an idea, but I didn't have a script. And when we got to the meeting, Tommy said, Mike's got a great script. So sci fi tell him. And I just sat there, you know, stuttering, and then pitched the story. He said, You got to give this to me so I can read it on the way home. And I said, Well, I just have to finish the last 25 pages. And then went home and wrote the thing in a month and sent it out to him. And that's how that, that whole deal, started. So it's been a good journey so far.

Dave Bullis 57:36
Yeah, man, that's really cool. Mike, I was actually going to ask you, you know, I know the hatred it has, you know, completed has been released yet. But I was going to ask you, you know, what's your, what's the next project coming up and, but so you read my mind on that one Mike?

Michael G. Kehoe 57:50
Well, that's, that's actually not my next, that's not my next one. I mean, I wrote, I just finished writing, you know, as soon as, as soon as, as soon as I finished the hatred, you know, we went into post. I was, you know, running out of money, and I got a phone call from a good friend of mine who said, Hey, I need you. I know you worked on Mission Impossible in Dubai, and you oversaw some things. I'd like you to come on this movie and do it. And I said, I said, what? You know, where is it? Where are you? And he said, Budapest. And I said, Yeah, I'm there. And I went out there to work on this little movie called Blade Runner 2049, and had a great experience there. I met some incredible filmmakers from all parts of Europe and Germany and Budapest. And Budapest is an incredible place to shoot films, and it can double for like England and France and Russia and Romania all these other places. So while I was there, I got inspired again for another horror movie and a horror thriller, and I started writing. And as soon as I got back home, I got into it, and on the weekends, while I was working there, I just kept writing and writing and writing. And so I came back completed the script, and I'm pushing that now to be done, to shoot it this summer before, Kevin, I just think that, you know, this is something that I want to do and try to get out. We're going to try to approach a couple of companies that I built relationships with, you know that are out there, so hopefully that'll be the next thing. It's called among the damned.

Dave Bullis 59:32
Then again, it's good thing. I asked that because i thought i i, because I wanted to make sure we I knew exactly what you were doing next. Because, again, I think the story of hush and the hatred is fantastic, Mike, and I think, you know, if there's one thing that people can take away just from this interview, it's just that, you know, you've been out there hustling, You know, you didn't wait for an opportunity. You were always out there. You know, number one, you know knowing your craft, like you were saying, you know, knowing you know how to do your job to the best of your abilities, and knowing you know, knowing it inside and out, and also always being, you know, being a being professional like you said. You didn't say to that person, hey, you know you're supposed to do my movie blah, blah, you know, being professional and being flexible at all times, you know, to how things change in the movie business, because they do. They do change all the time. And you know, and obviously always making sure you have opportunities, you know, again, just by hustling.

Michael G. Kehoe 1:00:41
Well, you know, a lot of my friends you know are pretty amazed, because I never give up, you know, and that's the one thing that I think that was instilled upon me from my parents. But I got to give credit to the people like yourself because of your support for this. And I think what's important for people to follow you and do that is this whole journey that the you know, filmmakers like myself go on, you know, you give this opportunity for other people to hear it, to inspire them, and it's because of people like you who really have a force in this industry to help people get along. Because this is what lights a fire in someone when they're sitting in their in their little apartment, they're listening to this, and they find out, hey, this is something I want to do. I can relate to that it's not just because of the filmmaker saying that. It's that person who's putting it out there, and your love for films and your love for this industry, and what you can do to connect that and you being a filmmaker yourself, to go out there. I just think that this is, this is something that's important and also needs to be addressed for people to follow you and and see the different layers that it takes to make a movie. And so I thank you for for your job and what you do, because without know about some of us,

Dave Bullis 1:02:03
Well, you know, and I thank you very much for saying that, Mike, you know, the whole impetus for me creating this was, you know, there's a couple reasons why. The main reason was, you know, I, you know, for people who listen this podcast since episode one, you know, almost three years ago. Now, I almost I started this podcast. Oh, my God, it's been three years, but, but people who've listened to this since, since episode one, they know I started this podcast for one, the number one reason was I got passed over for a promotion that was rightfully mine and my former day job. And two, I, you know, I've always liked the concept of podcasting, and I always liked the idea of doing something like this, and it was just hard to get, you know, people to get together. When I used to the podcast podcast, because I did it with a group of people. But now I just do it myself in my office, and I get to interview really cool people like yourself Mike.

Michael G. Kehoe 1:02:59
Well, listen, like I said, you give us an opportunity. I'm really excited about getting the hatred out there, because the cast, when you see the women in this cast, you know, have done an amazing job, the acting is spot on. I am so fortunate to have actresses that are just so talented. And some of them, you some of them, you know, I mean, in particular, Amanda Wiss, who is in a nightmare on street in Silverado, to some of the other actresses that haven't been out there that much, but they've, they've done some incredible work. And I don't want to you know if I, if I mentioned and I mentioned Amanda, but if I start mentioning one and I don't mention the others, I'll feel kind of guilty. But when the when you go and see this movie, just I want people to to watch the performances of these actresses, because it's, it's their movie as well, and they pull it off so well that it makes the film. It really makes the film. And that's, that's one of the great things of having, you know, an opportunity to work with great actors and actresses, I will say that, you know. And this is kind of, kind of, you know, showing off. But David Naughton is in our film, who played the lead in American Royal from London. And the wonderful thing about having David and Amanda is they only worked one day, and I became friends with them, friends with Amanda prior to that, but creating a relationship with actors and as friends, and knowing that you can put them in their movies and they can pull it off, is the same thing that Scorsese does with De Niro. And I'm not saying I'm not putting myself in the same category as Scorsese, by any means, but I think that having a relationship with incredibly talented actors is so important that you can rely on them just a phone call and say, I need you and they're going to be there to play in your sandbox.

Dave Bullis 1:04:56
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, you know, and that is something to ever. Relationship with certain actresses and actors and and being able to develop, you know, that that's something to make. When I used to watch movies, I used to sometimes wonder why certain directors would always work with the same actors and the same and sometimes they're the same crew. And now I get it. I believe me having, you know, made it, made movies, made short films. You know, I get it now because you get used to working in a certain style, and, you know, if I hire the same person, it's a certain style, if it's my style. And that's why we work, you know, and then we are the combination, the sort of synergy of what we do together helps us both out. You know, that's why, you know, Tim Burton always works with Johnny Depp. That's why, you know, like you said, Scorsese works, always works with Robert De Niro. And you go down the list, you know, Quentin Tarantino always works with Samuel Jackson and now Christoph Voss, it's just they bring out the best in each other.

Michael G. Kehoe 1:05:49
Well, you know, when I did second dance at the last minute, I cast a friend of mine who's a bartender. That's a great actor. His name is Brad Wilson, and he gave such a such an incredible performance, and was so dedicated, he didn't have the script until that morning, and he gave 100% to this, to the script. I put him in two other films after that, and you know, he's just a chameleon. He's He's a great actor, and I think that I'm fortunate to have somebody like that in my back pocket, where I could pick up the phone and call him up and say, Hey, Brad, I need you to do this. I have the same relationship with Jack McGee. If you know Jack McGee is Jack McGee was the father in the fighter. He was in a TV series called God the fire. The Fire TV series, it's gonna kill me that I can remember not rescue me, it was rescue me. I think it was,

Dave Bullis 1:06:44
I was actually gonna say that,

Michael G. Kehoe 1:06:46
Yeah, and Jack has been a friend. He's been in a few few films of mine. And I just, you know, I we're friends. I just call him up, and he always says to me, Kia, what are you doing? What's going on? Am I going to work with you? And having a talented actor that likes that's like, that, that supports you is worth its weight in gold, and so I really want to express to other actors create relationships. Don't you know? It's great to know about camera and there was a, there was a, there's a great statement that was made, I believe it was Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon at the Academy Awards, and when they were giving an award out to directors, they said, there are directors that know everything about the human element and nothing about camera. There are directors that know everything about camera and nothing about the human element. And I think that it's important to know about both. So when you get on on the set and you're talking to an actor, you need to speak their language in order to get the performance that you want. When you talk to your DP, you need to speak their language to get to capture those moments. And I'll never forget, I was working with a stunt man who was a director years ago, and there's a lot of very talented stunt directors that are now becoming great filmmakers, but this guy in particular, I'll never forget what he said. He says, let's hurry up with this dialog so we can go flip the car. And I think when you have that attitude, you miss the essence of what filmmaking is all about, and how to bring out a great story. So create a relationship with actors and and learn their language. You know, if you have to sit through acting classes or whatever and watch them create, that's important?

Dave Bullis 1:08:32
Yeah, it's when someone says something like that, you know, like, Let's race through these lines so we can flip the car. You know, it's they don't realize that you have to sort of earn those things. And what I mean by earning the car crash or earning the, you know, the kill in a slasher movie, because you have to build up these characters, so we actually care about what happens to them. So if they do are in a car accident, or do flip their car, or what have you, we as the audience are actually invested in their in their journey. And these aren't just sort of moments that are happening for the sake of them happening, but they're actually happening for a reason in the site inside this story,

Michael G. Kehoe 1:09:05
Yeah. I mean, look exactly and story, it's all about the story. There's some incredible stunt men. And the stunt men of today, you know, that are extremely talented, are like scientists, because they measure out things, they want to make sure it's there. And they're also great actors. I have some some friends of mine that are great stuntmen, that are incredible actors, and they pay attention to story. So I think a lot of has changed over the years, and and the business is evolving. And so we learn every day. I mean, I don't I don't know it all. I'm learning every day. I learn something new about the business. And you know how it changed from film to digital, and how all this process that you go through in this journey teaches you something about about, you know, how the process is, how the business is, but one thing that remains the same is telling a story, and that's what's most important.

Dave Bullis 1:10:07
Yeah, the story is always, always the most important element in all this, because, you know, the cinematography, we tell a story and everything you know, like you know, we've been talking for, you know, for about an, you know, about an hour five, I guess you know. So just in closing, is there anything we didn't talk about that maybe you wanted to or is there anything or maybe it was something you just wanted to say to sort of put a period at the end of this whole conversation.

Michael G. Kehoe 1:10:31
Well, I mean, listen, listen, I would love to to stay in touch with you and and do another one of these anytime you want. I am speaking at the geek Fest in Long Beach on the 18th with Ivana cadaver Amanda Wiss and Jessica Cameron. So, you know, I think I just, you know, I just, I want to make sure that that filmmakers, you know, take the right path and and we can all help each other. You know, in this business, I think that's one of the great things about how we, you know, if someone does a poor job, you don't want to tear them apart and knock them down. You just want to support them and help them get to the next, the next level. So I'm, you know, I want to, I want to continue my relationship with you and get the word out and share the things that I do with with the audience.

Dave Bullis 1:11:20
And I will link to, you know, Michael's appearance at Geekfest. I'm going to link to anything in the show notes where people can check that out, because I know, like you were, we were saying you are doing a panel, you know, with Jesse Cameron, and you're and I want to make sure that. And again, you know, as we talk about Geekfest, we were both friends with Bill Ostrov as well. We have a lot of mutual friends. Mike, yeah, and I want to stay in contact with you as well. And for everyone who's interested in checking out all of Michael's work and also checking out you know him, him at this panel convention, I'm gonna put that in the show notes. And Michael, do you have any websites that you want to give out to anyone?

Michael G. Kehoe 1:11:59
Well, you know, I mean, you can follow me on Instagram, which is M, I, K, E, H O E, dot, LL11, one, and, or, I'm sorry, it's M, I, K, E, H, O, E, 1, 1, on Instagram and Twitter is at Mikey Kehoe. And, you know, we have a Facebook page which is called Alice the hatred, which is slowly getting attention, and would people go out? You know, we've had a number of titles for that, so it's now called the hatred, I believe, unless there's some changes. So those sites, yeah, follow me on it, because I'll be posting some information and and obviously the journeys and things that I'm doing. So hopefully I can give a boost up to someone else.

Dave Bullis 1:12:45
And that is, that is fantastic, Mike, and I always like that attitude about, you know, helping each other out. I think that's what it's really about, is helping each other out. It too many, you meet too many filmmakers who become, you know, either they're closed, guarded or jaded from from even from the onset sometimes, and they're just like, No, no. It's all about, you know. And it's just, you know, they don't want to, and I've seen them burn out as well. And I could do a whole podcast about that, you know. But it's always great to meet people like you, Mike, in this in this industry, who are really talented, but they also are so willing to help out others. It's just, you know, it's just phenomenal.

Michael G. Kehoe 1:13:23
Well, you know, I think, I think, you know, there are great, great companies out there that are giving filmmakers an opportunity. One that comes to mind right away is Blumhouse. And Blumhouse has, you know, a number of divisions, Blumhouse, tilt, blumhouse.com and the films that they make, especially in the horror genre, they allow their filmmakers to make their movie. And I am, I am so drawn to that company that that's the attitude that I have about wanting to help people and wanting to go out, that if you're ever, if you're if you're a writer or, you know, a filmmaker that's creating, you know, something in that genre, and mind you, they're do also doing, they did Benji, which is the old dog movie, you know, from from the 80s, and they did whiplash in a number of films. That, to me, is, is what it's all about. That company really puts themselves out there to to give a shot to people. So hopefully we'll all, we'll all be doing that.

Dave Bullis 1:14:20
Yeah, Blumhouse is fantastic. You know, I'm always interested to see what they're up to, and it they're just great. And, yeah, you know, yeah, there's not enough I could say about them and what they're what they're up to. And, you know, Mike, I want to say, you know, thank you for coming on everyone. You could always find me. Dave bulls.com Again, everything Michael and I talked about on the show when I put in the show notes at Dave bulls.com Twitter, it's at Dave underscore Bullis, Michael, I want to say thank you so much for coming on,

Michael G. Kehoe 1:14:50
Dave. Keep the dream alive.

Dave Bullis 1:14:52
I'm going to do my best buddy, and I wish you the best of luck with everything. And you know what, anytime you want to come back on, you let me know, and we're gonna make it work. And I'm gonna, I want to, definitely want to have you back on

Michael G. Kehoe 1:15:05
Great my friend. Take care!

Dave Bullis 1:15:07
Take care. My friend, Bye, bye.

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BPS 423: From Instagram Mysteries to Indie Horror The Bold Experiments of Joe Kowalski

June 12, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

When the winds of curiosity rustle the mind and stir the soul, they often bring with them storytellers—those rare beings who don’t just recount events but breathe life into them. On today’s episode, we welcome Joe Kowalski, a young filmmaker from Cleveland whose creative spirit dances between shadows and light, weaving stories through film, mystery, and innovation.

Joe Kowalski is a filmmaker, game designer, and storyteller whose projects explore new ways to experience narrative across media.

In this profound conversation, we journey through Joe’s unique endeavor—a Stephen King “Dollar Baby” short film adaptation titled I Am the Doorway. What begins as a seemingly simple homage to the horror maestro evolves into a lesson in humility, time management, and artistic vision. Joe’s choice of story, influenced by a girlfriend and the limitations of a shoestring budget, was no accident. It was a study in resourcefulness—making the most of what one has while honoring a source of immense creative power. “You have to know what you can realistically accomplish,” Joe said. And that, my friends, is wisdom beyond years.

Joe didn’t stop at simply retelling a tale. He reframed the horror classic into a new cinematic experience, wrapping Stephen King’s suspense within a short film festival format. This wasn’t about profit or prestige—it was about community, experimentation, and delivering value to the audience. His respect for the time and effort of collaborators is unwavering: “That’s the biggest thing they can give you,” he mused. And in a world obsessed with the bottom line, such reverence is sacred.

But his imagination doesn’t remain tethered to the screen. Joe designed an interactive Instagram murder mystery game—an elegant rebellion against linear storytelling. Through a labyrinth of tags and grids, players navigate a digital whodunit, one clue at a time. Each piece of the game reveals not just a path to the culprit, but a deeper truth about human curiosity and our hunger for connection. It’s a digital scavenger hunt of intention, ingenuity, and play. A new mythology told in swipes and likes.

Lest one believe that his path has been frictionless, Joe admits to the chaos of low-budget production, the stress of festivals, and the heartbreak of seeing good work shelved for lack of fit. Still, he views each project as a sculptor views stone—not yet perfect, but perfecting. His year-long film PRISM is another feather in this vibrant cap—a color-coded exploration of identity and emotional entanglement told through color-isolated cinematography. Here is a man who does not merely shoot films; he paints them.

Throughout the conversation, what resounds most is Joe’s blend of youthful energy and ancient patience. He reveres the creative process, yet he’s unafraid to let go when the time calls for it. Whether planning podcasts with friends or studying the rise of VR storytelling, Joe doesn’t merely chase the next trend—he studies its rhythm, its heartbeat, and asks how it might elevate human experience. “You have to care about the story even when you don’t feel like caring about it,” he says—and that is the quiet devotion of an artist in bloom.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 1:50
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:55
On this episode, we have a Cleveland, Ohio based filmmaker who recently made I am the doorway, a Stephen King Dollar Baby short film, and he's hitting the film festival circuit with another film of his called PRISM, with guest Joe Kowalski. No problem. And remember, the first time you were here, I butchered your last name and I called you something completely different. I don't remember what it was, and I compared it to a deal the team when John Travolta called, you know, again, he called her a delta,

Joe Kowalski 2:24
Right! I do remember this.

Dave Bullis 2:29
Yeah, it was, I was like, What the hell happened there? I was like, I knew his last name, and I called you something else. I was like, Wait, what the hell did I just do there? So I understand how John Travolta feels, but, but, but, but, since you've been on here, Joe, I think you were episode 84 I want to say, so that was actually, you know what, Joe, we're getting close to over 100 episodes ago, because I'm up to, like, one, yeah, right. It's like 160 whatever I'm up to now. And, you know, it's just, you know, it's almost 100 episodes ago. We're like, we're like, less than 20 away. And so, you know, Joe, I wanted to reconnect with you, because you're always up to something really cool. And I wanted to ask about a couple of things, you know, and as we sort of get rolling on this so, you know, since we've last talked, you've done, one, you've done $1 Baby Stephen King short film. Two, you've graduated from college, and three, you have started an Instagram murder mystery type interactive game. So I'm probably missed a couple other things. So I wanted to ask about all that, all that stuff, because I think it's awesome, and particularly about your Stephen King short story, the Dollar Baby. For those listeners, I've touched on this too. I had, I actually got $1 Baby done once. And I'll tell just real quick. I don't want to eat up all the time. Joe with talking about me, I'm trying to talk to you about your stuff, but you know, I actually did the Dollar Baby too, and I did in the death room. We actually shot an Eastern State Penitentiary here in Philadelphia. I got us a location for a pretty discounted rate. They wouldn't, they they also just let us skip down on the insurance bond. We actually had one, but it wasn't, wasn't the one that they usually recommend. It was, or ask for. It was a was a lower one that allowed us to, sort of, you know, make the production a little cheaper. We shot for that in that in there for like, a day. We shot at Ridley Creek State Park, here, right down the street from me, for here in media, and we kind of like put all this together, and at the end of it all the the editor just lost all the footage. And when about it, they were like, they were like, are you gonna sue that guy? And I said, he's a lunatic, as he came recommended to me by somebody, right? And we, were working with him, and he just kept sitting on the footage. I was like, What do you because he, you know, what happened with Joe? He had a Facebook addiction, and he would just scroll on Facebook rather than doing and I kept saying, I'm like, Just give me the footage back and I'll go to somewhere else. Well, finally, he got it together and we were gonna make all these adjustments. We were so close to having the final product done. And then he sends me this message that his Mac was dying. And I said, Look, I hope you pay for it. And then he's like, Oh, well, I don't know what I'm gonna do about this and blah, blah, this or that. And basically, that was the end of it. And he said that although his Mac finally died, and all the footage went with it, and I couldn't get a hold of him, you know, a lot of crazy editors out there. So honestly, here's my advice. Anyone listening to this, always have a backup of your footage, because my DP just gave him. My DP just gave him the actual fucking hard drive with everything on it, and said, Here you go, edit the footage. And I was like, Dude, I go. I can't believe you did that without giving it to me first and letting me copy all this crap, but, but, that was my Dollar Baby adventure. It's another horror story that I have about filmmaking, Joe. It's somebody else pointed out. They're like, Dave, all your stories are all end in, like, heartbreak and, and, you know, down on March, stuff like that. And I go, Yeah, it's the truth, man, because I have so many crazy people, but, uh, but, but, no, but, I want to hear about your experience. Joe, you know, how did you pick the story that you picked? You know, What story did you actually pick? You know, how did you shoot all this? How did you shoot everything? You know, being as it's, you know, it's very limited to being what you can do, because obviously you can't get investors for it, stuff like that. So you have to kind of work in a very shoestring budget, unless you have a ton of money, you know what I mean. But I want to hear all this about, all about this jokes. I'm fascinated. So What story did you pick from, from the Dollar Baby collection?

Joe Kowalski 6:32
And just to, just to clarify for the audience, the Dollar Baby setup is something that Stephen King has done whereby he has a select number of his short stories, a lot of older ones in the 70s and early 80s that are available to use, as long as you pay $1 to him. So there's probably about maybe 20 short stories on the list. And it's really cool, because people like me who don't have huge budgets and stuff, can technically make even King film without having to pay ridiculous sums of money. So I had chosen I am the doorway. This kind of came about because the girl I was dating at the time was a huge Stephen King fan, and she had heard of this before, and I had heard of it before, and we were putting together a film called PRISM that I that I released last year, that was a half an hour film. And we were thinking like, Well, half an hour is kind of short to bring in a whole audience and stuff. So we ended up doing is we kind of made a film festival event, and we featured some other short films from around the world in this theater in Cleveland. And I am the doorway, which is the one we ended up going with, was one of those we it was kind of another way to kind of make the ticket worth it for people you know and and kind of give them a full experience. So it was chosen by the girl I was dating at the time. We went through a whole bunch of them, though, and we read a bunch of them. We were trying to figure out, like, what is something that we could do having almost no budget and having only about a month's worth of time before this big event. And what we did was choose that one, because a lot of what the supernaturalness, as you see in a lot of Stephen King short stories, was kind of taking place off screen, and you were seeing more the results of what was happening, because you get this astronaut who comes back to Earth and starts getting these eyes that pop up on his body. And we kind of created a framework story where we had these two guys talking in a bar about this whole situation and and they kind of tie into the story. So it was, it was kind of cool doing that, because typically, I'm used to starting stories from scratch and building upon those and and working upon that with friends, but it was really interesting to take someone else's work, especially someone as you know, prolific as Stephen King, and try to adapt that To like a 10 minute short film.

Dave Bullis 9:22
Yeah, you see, I just as a filmmaker standpoint, I'm sorry, as a filmmaker standpoint, I just kind of think, even just trying to do something like that, Joe, we have an astro come back down to earth. I mean, it just sounds expensive. We're just wearing my producer hat, you know, even with doing with with death room, you know, I had that whole prisons, you know, a location, and even just paying for that, I was like, you know, what they're gonna charge us, you know, whatever they charge us. It was, you know, I think probably a grand or something, even for that day, even back then, I was like, Jesus Christ, a grand. And, you know, we got to make sure everything's set, so many problems that you know or and ended up being my fault because I to do this. I listened to too many people, and that was my fault for doing it. I've learned a lot of things on each and every project. That project was me listening to too many people, and I tried to sort of do everything that everyone was recommending. And I just, I, you know, we had, we had too much time being wasted, and there was a lot of production issues that could have been ironed out if I had not listened to all those people. If you know what I'm trying to say, like I that didn't even need to be there, that we could have just went. We went, we went, you know what? We don't even need this fucking thing. Fuck it, and let's just get rid of it. You know?

Joe Kowalski 10:46
Yeah, and I've worked with directors who have skewed one way or the other, and, and some of them are very well meaning, but yeah, you do have some people who will literally waste all the time on set. They see it just like, like, a party, you know? They got all their friends together. They're gonna, oh, wouldn't be cool if we did this and they take an hour. Oh, we gotta find a rope and takes another hour. Let's, let's just eat. We're gonna eat people like that. And then you do have the people who are like so anal about trying to, this is my masterpiece, you know, I gotta get every single detail right. Oh, more of a tiny little smirk in that performance and stuff. And so, one thing that I've learned over the years, and I'm trying, to always get better at, is finding the balance between like, I want this set to be enjoyable. I want people to be having a good time and not feel like they're miserable doing this, but at the same time, we also do have to keep, like, a tight schedule on this. And I there are some things I do want to be kind of specific about, and that I'm very certain that I went but I also have to know when it when to compromise on that, like if it's not going to work out, find another way around. If someone has a great suggestion, be willing and open to all suggestions if they're going to make the story better or help move things along better for everybody. So it is a really hard balance. It is very tough. So I can understand falling into that trap entirely, because I've been there before.

Dave Bullis 12:10
Yeah, it was funny too, because, well, funny now, but, but it was just because, you know, somebody was, who was a worked at, at a film festival, contacted me, and he, he actually was a local Philly guy, and we met, and I'll never forget this. I forget his name, but I never forget where we met. We actually met, and he asked me to meet up with him at the at the Philly anarchist paper headquarters. And I said, first off, I didn't even know Phil Yeah, I didn't even know Philadelphia had an anarchist newspaper. I didn't even know when anarchist newspaper was a thing we walk in, Joe, and I'm not kidding you, there's a big sign on the wall that says, Please no drug use allowed or sorry, please do not use drugs while on the premises. And in parentheses, yes, this includes weed and parentheses. And I, and I'm just laughing, going, you have to put a board up like that. Like, what the fuck is going on in here? Oh, man, I started talking to this guy. And as this guy was talking and, I mean, I'm sure he met, well, like, I'm like, first off, the neighborhood was terrible, and I'm sitting there going, Why the hell are we even like, Why? Why did I have to meet for them? This is another thing, Joe that always kind of like grinds my gears. People always ask to meet me in person, or they want to meet up for coffee or something. I go, why? Why don't we just do a Skype message? Or, why don't you just shoot me an email? Why do we have to meet face to face? Like, I don't get it, like, honestly, I gotta waste my time, get put gas in my car, drive up all the way into the city or wherever the hell you are, and then we gotta meet. And it never, nothing ever gets resolved, because we just go back and forth. And it's the same thing with that Stephen King Guy. We could have done that over a Skype interview with Sharon screen share and had the same exact thing. And we both could have just been in the comfort of our own homes. It just, you know what I mean? It just, I just, I'm not saying I'm like, gonna become some obese shut in or anything like that, like the mom from Gilbert Grape, but, but, but, well, I'm getting there, though, Joe. But, like, to me, if you're gonna meet somebody, you should have a clear objective, because everyone's I'm at the point in my life now where I just think time is money now, and I'm always, you know, when I was I mean, how old are you Joe, 24?

Joe Kowalski 14:19
I'm only 22 I'm a baby,

Dave Bullis 14:23
22 years young, and I'm sorry, and I'm cursing up a storm at you, sir. But okay, so you're 22 so I'm 10 years older than you are, and so basically I'm at the point now Joe, where, like, I've become, like, That guy I always didn't want to be where I'm just like, you know, everything's time is money, you know. But when I was when I was your age, Joe, again, I'm sounding old as shit right now, when I was your age, Joe, I actually, I would go out and I would go on random film sets, I would meet new people, and I would just, you know what, I'm just gonna treat everything like an adventure. I'm gonna treat everything like a learning experience, and I'm just gonna go out there and. Going to see whatever happens. And when I made my Stephen King Dollar Baby, I think I was 24 or 25 and then I used that experience to parlay that into making a TV pilot, which I won't go into because, you know, listeners of this show know that story inside and out, but with with the whole with that, what I did there was, I was always looking at everything as like a learning experience. And when, you know, meeting all these different people on the course of actually making this Stephen King Dollar Baby, I've met so many interesting people for both good and bad. But like, you know, I think, as a filmmaker, when you're that age, you know, 22 23 24 you know, you have to go out there and see all these, you know, make all these mistakes, and then when you're like, 28 29 that's kind of like you're, you're starting to be getting your prime. That's the age Quentin Tarantino make Reservoir Dogs. I think that was the age when, when Rodriguez made Rebel Without a crew, El Mariachi. I'm not sure. Though, that's the age where Damien Chazz made whiplash, and I, you know what I mean, so right? I kind of look at those experiences as kind of molding me, because that's what I'm sure that's the whole point of what I'm trying to say here is, you know, and you know, treating this as knowing the when these opportunities come down, knowing what is going to be a good opportunity and what's gonna just be a waste of your time. It's almost like doing me like, when somebody like, when a producer comes to you and says, Hey, listen, I got this. You know, a producer, quote, unquote, comes to you and says, Hey, listen, Joe, I gotta, I got this, you know, whole, whole TV pilot ready to roll. I need someone to direct it. Would you want to direct it? And in your at first, you're like, Okay, I'll talk to you about it. And you start to meet, and you go, Oh, crap, there's so many holes in this. It's unbelievable. You know what I mean? You start, you start seeing between the lines, if you know what I'm trying to say,

Joe Kowalski 16:49
Right! I think a big part of it too, is that I think time is the most important thing for everybody on set, not just because of how the schedule is and everything, but ultimately, especially on an independent film, and you don't have the ability to pay people, that's the biggest thing they're giving you, and that's the biggest thing they can give you, is just that time to be there and help make your thing come to life. And so I just find it so incredibly disrespectful when people don't value that time and don't take into account that, you know, these people don't have to be there. They're not, you know, they're not being paid to be there or anything. They don't have any obligation to you, other than the sense that maybe they care about this project too, or maybe they want to see you succeed. So I definitely don't, you mean when it comes to a lot of the points that you've made. And I I just, I try to respect that time, and I want people to get a full experience out of it. So like, like I said when I was trying to put together this festival event, I wanted to make sure that if people were going to come and and we didn't have a set price, but we just were kind of taking donations in general, but people are going to come and donate money. I want them to come out seeing like, an hour and 15 minutes of really top notch short films and and it's tough when you have friends who come up and say, Hey, can you include my film in this? And I go, I don't think I can. It doesn't quite meet the expectations of what we're trying to do with this. It's tough to be able to do that, and to be able to say like, you know, and I, I think you worked hard on this, but you know, deep down, you know that it's not quite the quality that you want, and it's a hard thing to do that, because you want to make everyone happen. You want to have all those contexts. But you're right. You do have to start getting more selective about how you spend your time and and what you choose to work on, right?

Dave Bullis 18:42
Yeah, you know, somebody once told me, Joe, that life is is all about creating a bubble around yourself and you, and you start to understand what you like and don't like inside of that bubble, and anything and everybody that's not within that confines, you push out of that bubble. And basically that's, you know what I mean. And I started to realize that over the years, and when I, when I meet people, and it's just like, hey, you know, because I, because I do this podcast, and I'll get an email, probably, maybe once, I don't, maybe once a week, saying, Hey, Dave, would you ever, you know, if you're ever up in New Jersey or in New York, or you want to come in Philly or whatever, why don't you come and we'll have coffee or whatever? And I just go, You know what? I just don't know, why? Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't want to sound like a jerk. I don't want to sound like a jerk. I really don't like, I don't want to be like, Oh, I'm Dave bulls, but no, I'm just like, you know, why would you want to talk to me? Like, what, you know what I mean? And it's just like, I want, I want to make sure that we're each getting something out of it. And it's not just going to be, you know, turning to a pitch meeting, which, by the way, Joe has happened. I've had people meet me and they go, they're just like, hey, yeah. And there's like, Hey, Dave, you know, would you want to join this project? And I go, No, like, when they he was heartbroken. He goes, he looks at me, he goes, why not? And I go, Well, it's and it's like you were just saying you you try to, you know, you want to see people succeed, but you just want to. You know, you want to say, Well, it's because it's not going to work, dude. There's so many holes in this, in production, like, Hey, can we can we shoot a and you and I talked about this before, about shooting period pieces on a budget, like, hey, I want to shoot a civil war. I want to shoot a Civil War period piece with 500 bucks. Oh, okay, good luck. You know,

Joe Kowalski 20:34
I know what. I mean, yeah, absolutely. And you get the you get a lot of that too, and, and, you know what, if they do have a substantial amount of money, then those things are realistic, but otherwise I that's a big part of it too, is knowing what realistically can accomplish. And that's something I always try to take into mind when I when I write, the projects that I do, is I know the resources I have to work with primarily. I know the people I have to work with primarily, and and be smart about how you do it, because people will be so much more impressed if you make a really good film within your limits than if you try to reach too far. And that doesn't say that doesn't mean you shouldn't challenge yourself, and that doesn't mean that you know you might throw in something that might that might be a little more expensive, it might be a little bit more complicated, that you're going to have to figure out. You got to give yourself those challenges, but at the same time, don't, like you said, try to make like, a period piece of like this crazy futuristic sci fi, when you know that realistically, if you try to do that, you're only going to get like 20% of the way there, and people are just going to see it as a little silly,

Dave Bullis 21:44
Yeah and it's just going to be, you know, if you want to do, yeah, do all that stuff. And, you know, hey, do you have somebody that knows or rents period piece costumes? Because five, you know, even if I bumped up to $5,000 budget, like, you're going to eat through that in no time. Just, just the setting up the world, and it is gonna, and you're right, it's gonna end up looking just silly, you know, and it's just gonna end up looking, just look crazy. I'll give you another example, and then we'll get back to what you were talking about. Again. I don't wanna, I wanted to talk about your stuff, but like, you know, I had a guy before come to me, and he wanted to shoot a zombie film for, like, I think he said, like, 500 bucks. And I said, you know, it's possible. Because I said, if you look at Colin, and I actually had the director and writer, Mark V Prince, on this podcast, and we talked about how he did it for 50 bucks or and really did he shot for 50 bucks, shot a full length zombie feature called Colin, which is actually really freaking cool. And basically, with Colin, it's a he get this guy gets bit by zombie in the beginning of the film, and he becomes a zombie, and for the rest of the film, you follow this shambling zombie throughout the rest of the film. It's actually really cool. And in fact, the fact that he shot it, yeah, honestly, it was a phenomenal idea, and the fact that he got it, did it for 50 bucks. Makes even better, because I told him, I said it, Mark, if you had shot this for, like, let's just say somebody gave you a million dollars. I said you would have shot yourself in the foot. And you know what I mean, because you would have been like, holy shit. Now we can have a building explode, you know what I mean? And I think that's sometimes, you know, as again, we were talking about, you know, you got to weigh your opportunities, but, but Mark, you know, he was able to do whatever he wanted because he, you know, obviously 50 bucks is 50 bucks, but, um, but anyways. But, you know, as we talk about that, that guy was someone with a zombie feature. He wanted to shoot it for 500 bucks. And he basically was, was, like, real adamant about shooting this thing. And Joe, I am not kidding around with you. He wanted to shoot it in at three o'clock in the morning. He wanted to shoot this one scene at three o'clock in the morning, and I'm looking on Google Maps, and I said, What's this building right across the street from where we're gonna film? He goes, Oh, that's the police station. I said, are we gonna have permits? He goes, No, no. This is all gonna be guerrilla stuff. I said, so we're gonna run across from the police station with the army of zombies, and you don't think anyone's gonna say anything. And he looks at me, he goes, No, do you think they will? I go, Yeah, dude, I think the police are gonna look out their window and go, Hey, here's somebody filming without a permit. Yeah, oh, boy. So yeah, it's stuff like that, man. But you know, as as we go back to talking about your stuff, Joe, so what were some of the biggest production issues you had on making your dollar baby? I mean, did you start a crowdfunding campaign for it?

Joe Kowalski 24:28
No, like I said, this was kind of more of a side thing that we could show off for the festival. So we actually shot pretty much most of it all in one weekend. And one of the locations was a restaurant that I do some media work for that I got permission, then we filmed at a beach that was public, you know, just public property, and, yeah, it was just a lot of like, again, like using your resources and saying. Here I have this. So why don't I throw this in here, you know, and working with it and making it work within the stories context, a far bigger project was the film prism that I mentioned that we were kind of showcasing around this whole festival event. And that was that film basically took a year from the first first typing it to actually showing it off. And I could talk a little bit about that, if you'd like me to at all.

Dave Bullis 25:33
Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Kowalski 25:35
Basically, the movie is about six people from two different families, and each character is represented by a separate color. So that while the most the film you see is in black and white, when that character is on screen, you see their color pop out of the black and white. So like, if you remember, like, in Schindler's List, there's like, the girl red dress and and that photo effect comes up a lot, you know, you see, like, yellow highlights come out of a, you know, a picture of somebody or something like that. We basically did that with the whole movie. So like, when you our character Green was on screen, his shirt would come out because he was wearing green. But also the trees in the background, you would see them. And that was a very interesting challenge, from a storytelling standpoint, from a technical standpoint, because all that, I think if you're going to do something like that, each of the colors have to have a meaning to them. So that was something we were very certain about. And also the story kind of weaves in and out of these characters lives and how they relate to each other. And this person's cheating on this person, and this person's it has a crush on this person and and one thing I really had to learn from this film was really to just outline everything. And that's not something I'm very used to doing. I kind of like diving in and then just seeing where it goes. And sometimes that works, but it's a lot of work after the fact to try to make that into something cohesive, but particularly in relation to the families, we had to, like, sit down and write out a family tree and and figure out the relation of each character to the other. And that was something that was kind of difficult, because then we would say, well, this doesn't really work, because this character wouldn't interact with this person. It was a very unusual process for this whole movie, and we aren't really able to show it off yet because we're trying to get in some film festivals, and we haven't had any luck yet, but we're gonna keep trying. But the trailer is online, if anyone wants to check it out, if you look up like prism 2016 or prism short film 2016 or even on my channel, Pogie Joe, that's P, O, G, I, E, Joe. There's a couple trailers on there, so you can kind of get an idea of what I'm talking about with this color thing.

Dave Bullis 27:54
You know, Joe, I actually have some film festivals. I would recommend that you entered into number one being the Delco Film Festival. I think they that would be a good film festival for you to enter it into. That's actually right by my house as well. But if you'd like, I can actually introduce you. I can actually introduce you to the guy who runs it.

Joe Kowalski 28:12
Oh, that'd be, that would be amazing. And you know, if I was ever in that area, we could meet up and have some coffee. And I have this great pitch I want to sell you.

Dave Bullis 28:20
Yeah, yeah, no, go, Joe, no way. No, no, I'm just kidding. Yeah, no, I would see like, like, somebody that I've actually met and talked to. I would be down for that. And the funny the founders Chris Pier miniko, and he's actually been on the podcast before. And Chris is, Chris is a very good guy, and before we got on the podcast, he said to me, he's like, please try not to curse too much, because I'm going to recommend this to my students, and don't tell any weird stories. And I go, that's all I have in life. Is weird stories and cursing. That's it. It's like, you take that away from me. I'm not I'm nothing anymore, right? You're a show. But, yeah, exactly. I'm just, like, a shell of a man. I'm not even, I'm not even my George Costanza self, but I will introduce you to him, and right after this podcast, and I'm sure Chris would love to talk to you about having that film there. And you know, so as you may know, your dollar baby too, because I'll link to everything in the show notes as well everybody. I'll link to the Delco Film Festival and every and Joe's channel and everything else. But when you're talking about, you know, your dollar baby, and you actually just, you shot it into a weekend, did you have any, like, real huge production issues come up that that, like, anything like we were talking about, or anything like, completely unexpected, like, hey, it rained on a Sunday when we thought it was going to be clear skies, anything like that.

Joe Kowalski 29:40
Um, actually, that was surprisingly straightforward. We were actually kind of marveling that it came out as well as it did. And the nice part about it is that the people we cast in it were people that we were considering for the other film prism that were really good, but they just didn't quite fit the parts we were looking for. So we're like, what's a. Capacity that we can use these people we were able to get four of these actors who were really, really good that I still wanted to work with into this film, and, you know, get to spend a couple days filming with them. And the thing about that, it was just basically a skeleton crew of me, my and my, my girlfriend at the time, and so I guess we didn't really have to worry too much about other casting crew members. It wasn't like the other film where we had, like a full cast and everything. It was kind of just us just going at it. And it was, it was almost a fun relief side project after having that massive project, like I said, kind of churning into that for a year. So actually, I'm really, really glad I did the Dollar Baby, because it was just such a nice, like, on what's the word I'm looking for? It wasn't, it wasn't a high level stress thing. It was something that we, we planned out and really just kind of had fun doing.

Dave Bullis 31:12
And, you know, that's something to, you know, I talked to Alex Ferrari about, Indie Film Hustle, and we were talking about that as well where, you know, at some points, and I mean, you you, and it's good that you learn at the age of 22 sometimes when you're making something, you just get this obsession with it, like everything has to be perfect. And then you start, you know, and everything that stress starts to get on you. And then you, by the end of it, you're like, I just can't wait to get this thing done, and I'll never talk about it again. And you're like, and honestly, that's what happened to me in my short, my student film. I By the end Joe, I was like, I just want to get these last shots I'm going to do the last day I was doing my short, my student film, I actually said I everybody. I said, we're doing one take of everything, that's it, and then I'm and then we're just going to call it a day. And everybody was just burned out from it. So we ended up doing more than one take on a lot of stuff. But still, it ended up and we're like, look, that's it. We're done. I don't want to talk about this ever again, but it's, you know, and then you want to do something fun where you just can have fun while you're actually shooting. Because, you know, at the end of the day, this is supposed to be fun, right?

Joe Kowalski 32:15
Yeah, yeah. And that's why I think you really, really have to care about the story you're telling with a big, long term production, because it is very easy to get tired of it, but you have to know deep down that when you finish it, it's going to be so rewarding, because it's a story you really care about. And in a way, you never quite leave it, because even after you show it, at least in my case, we did like crowdfunding, so you still have to go in and, you know, make the DVDs and the blu rays and the bonus material, and you still have to promote it for film festivals if you're trying to get into that whole realm and, and, and then you have to try to get the movie to various people and who didn't get chance to see it, and, and you forever are always kind of attached to it and and Pushing it and trying to get it out to people. So that's the thing. I think that's really important, and that's why I try to come up with good stories that are that I can care about even when I don't feel like caring about them.

Dave Bullis 33:18
Yeah, it is, you know, and when you're trying to have, you know, just a good time with this stuff. And you know, you want to be able to see, you know, have fun while you're making it. And then you see it up on the screen and something everyone can be proud of. And you because, you know, you all did your best. And you it's that feeling you get, you know, you okay, we've, you know, it was, it was a little tough. It was a little frustrating. We're all tired, but we all did our best. And now the the proofs in the pudding. Now it's all up on up on up on screen there. And, you know, some days you watch it and you like, oh, man, there's a mistake. There's another mistake, yeah. And, you know, and sort of, you know that, you know what I mean, like that, that that sort of seeps in after a while too. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think some of the best filmmaking advice is by Mark Duplass, where he said, literally, every weekend, go out and for 100 bucks, make a short film with your friends. He said, don't spend more than 100 bucks, and it'll teach you more about filmmaking. Then, then, then anything else could because you're actually out there doing it, and you're actually out there, actually making stuff. And you can, you know, and if you don't, and honestly, if it sucks, hey, we spent 100 bucks, if it's good you put up on YouTube.

Joe Kowalski 34:23
Yeah, absolutely. And, and that's one thing I'm really grateful for with things like YouTube, is because since I've been doing it for seven years now, fairly regularly, it is that kind of experience where I always am trying new things and and making cool stuff with friends and and you're right, like, you know, even if you're not even spending that much money, you're still getting the experience you're you're making something that can be a sort of time capsule. Like, I remember when I was hanging out with that friend in Cleveland, you know, years, years later. And I think, honestly, I think. That's how I got to where I am. It's not like I'm I'm not trying to brag or anything. I'm not saying that I'm, like, at the top of the top, or anything like that. But I think I've done more than a lot of peers my age because of that experience, and because I've always been interested in creating things, and I can't stop,

Dave Bullis 35:18
Yeah, yeah, exactly, you know. And you know you, I think artists more than anybody else, obviously, because they have this desire to create. It's like this desire, this innate desire, you're kind of born with, and you have this desire to create. And sometimes you're when you're younger, you don't really know what it is. You just kind of do it. You know what I mean, whether it be like an arts and crafts or something like that. And then some people pick up a video camera if they're, if they're, you know, if they that's what they're, if their adolescence is filled with, if their parents had a video camera. And you, you sort of, you know, you start doing all this stuff. And, I mean, you know, because you're born with this life, and it's almost like this feeling of, we have to create something of value at all times. And it's something I feel too. And it's almost like this feeling of, okay, I'm here now. What should I do? Well, you know, and if you're an artist, you say, Well, I'm gonna create some more. I got this desire to create. And, you know, maybe other people are like chefs, and they just want to make, make food. And that's that sort of desire to create. And you know, when we start putting all these projects out there. And you know, you've been doing YouTube for seven years, I think that's phenomenal, honestly, Joe, I hope you keep doing it. Because honestly, I you know you're obviously, I know you're getting better. You're getting better and better and better. And also because I just think it's a great outlet too. Because again, like we were just saying, if you make a film for 100 bucks, and if you don't like at the end of the day, hey, look, I spent 100 bucks. But if you do like it, hey, put it on, up on YouTube, and who knows what could happen.

Joe Kowalski 36:49
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there's, there's, I think there's a lot of merit you were saying about having those, those projects that are just something fun. And one thing for me too, besides just the YouTube stuff, is also our podcast, which, which you've actually been on once before, and we're not, that's right, yeah, have Yeah, we're not as far along as you are, but we're getting pretty close to 70 episodes. And that's like a fun thing where, like, just me and a few of my friends can get together once a week and just have a good time. And it's not something, you know, I'll have it edited in a couple hours, and you still have to post it and promote it a little bit, get sponsors occasionally and stuff like that. But at the same time, when we're just sitting there recording it, it's just an hour where we can just just have a good time and talk whether it be about deep things or maybe it's just goofy, light hearted stuff. But that's been a really cool project to collaborate with my friends on, because it is that little kind of low stress relieving kind of project.

Dave Bullis 38:00
Yeah, it's, you know, the podcast is fun. You know, that's why I do my podcast. I actually made a promise to myself. I said, the day it stops becoming fun, I'm gonna stop doing it. I've broken that promise a few times. But, you know, I was listening, I was listening to Tim Ferriss one time, and he said, the whole idea, the whole concept of his podcast, was, he goes, I just want to edit it myself, but I want to make editing no more than 10 minutes. He goes, if I had to sit here and edit out stuff, he goes, I hate doing that. He goes, I think it's pointless. He goes. I just want to have a conversation and put it up online. And, I mean, look at his fan base. It's unfreaking believable. And you know that that's kind of like, what I wanted to was, you know, just having, not having to sit here for, you know, four hours a night going, Okay, let me edit this podcast and do all this stuff. I mean, I do do some editing to it, but I try to keep it as pure with the conversation as possible. Most of my editing involves like, I'm gonna boost your maybe I'll boost your audio a little bit, or maybe I'll put like, a de Hiser effect in there, just to sort of take out any sort of like that, that static noise, or D Hummer, something like that, you know. But, yeah, I mean, a podcast is a really cool way just to, sort of, you know, just it's another form of media, because the the the gatekeepers are all non existent. Because, I mean, literally, you can create a podcast with your phone now and upload it to like something like podbean.

Joe Kowalski 39:20
Yeah, absolutely. And I already had all the equipment I needed to to make something like this, because I already have a bunch of audio and video equipment from doing all the other work that I do. So it wasn't like I needed to go out and get some special stuff. I mean, eventually we did get, like, a nicer microphone, and, you know, we'd like to eventually save up to do more live shows, to kind of have the equipment to do that. But, I mean, most of the stuff was already there. All we needed was each other and an idea. So I totally see the appeal and and while I edit it in like 10 minutes, I do take out some things. And you. You know, we bleep out a couple words and stuff like that.

For the most part. It's, it is a pretty low stress project compared to a lot of other things that that I'm trying to do.

Dave Bullis 40:22
And, you know, actually, it's something else I want to talk about too, is, you know, what else are you trying to do? Because I know you did the Instagram murder mystery game. So I want to hear about this because, like, you know, I purposely don't know anything about it, because I wanted to actually talk to you about it. So, like, what is it like a game? It's a game that anybody can play, right?

Joe Kowalski 40:39
Yeah, yeah. As long as long as you have an Instagram account, you should be able to play it. And this is actually I was trying to make a capstone for an interactive media class that I was taking before I graduated this past semester. And you know, a lot of people were doing a lot of cool stuff with, like VR and with like, some interactive videos, but I was trying to think of something that I hadn't tried before, because I had done a little bit of both those things. And I was thinking a lot about how people use Instagram sometimes to create these picture grids of sorts. You know, if you upload the pictures in the right order, all of a sudden, if you go to that person's page, you know, one big picture can be made out of, like, nine pictures. And I just thought that was really cool. So I was wondering, like, Could you do something with that, like, how do you, how do you make something that feels self contained, you know, not like, it's like, like, it's like, you're inside this little experience through Instagram. And so what I did is I used those kind of picture grids, and I used the tagging system, whereas, like, if you, if you tap on a picture, it will come up with, like, a tag and that person's account. So I between those two features. Again, Instagram isn't designed for something like this. But I kind of, yeah, created a game of sorts. And if you go to the account murder mystery game, all one word, people can check that out. I mean, you start out with, like a map of Cleveland, and then if you go to the individual pictures, there are those tags where you can go to other parts of Cleveland and look for clues, and then you get the testimony from all these different characters. And you, if you tap on more of the pictures within those accounts, you can sometimes see these fake characters accounts and just little clues that are hidden throughout. And like I said, the whole idea is that you're trying to solve this, this murder mystery of this, this girl who was killed. So it was a very unusual project, because it's, it's not a linear thing where you just set out like, Okay, I have this scene and I have this scene, but at the same time, I was utilizing a lot of things I had learned from doing video and filmmaking and stuff like that. Whereas, you know, if you set up a schedule a meeting with this person at this time, we're going to record video of them. We're gonna stage a bunch of pictures with them, and then later on, we're moving to this person and and planning it out like that made it a much less scarier process, because I got way in over my head. One of the things I faced too was that for every new Instagram account, you have to have an email address attached to it. So I was just making all these Gmail accounts that were associating with all the different accounts. But then Gmail was like, Hey, you can't make that many accounts. And I was like, okay, so then I went to Yahoo, and I started making all these big Yahoo accounts to try to make more Instagram accounts. And Yahoo was like, Hey, you can't make that many Yahoo accounts, so I ended up going to like seven different email servers to try to create all these fake email accounts. I could make all these different Instagram accounts, which is just yet another way that proves that Instagram wasn't really designed to work like that. You know,

Dave Bullis 43:59
Yeah, definitely, you know, Instagram is cool and all, but there's a lot of things that are like limiting with it. I know they want to make like, for instance, the mobile uploading, you know, I tried to like post things. I can post things to my desktop, but you know what I mean? And sometimes they make it so difficult to just post, you know, stuff like that. But because I, hey, I want to take a photo, and I want to do some stuff to it, then put it then put it to Instagram. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I understand completely. Were you?

Joe Kowalski 44:28
Oh, no, I'm sorry. It's a little bit of a lag. So that's that leads to some of it. I was just gonna say I did run into that problem a lot too, especially given that I have a very cheap phone that doesn't have a whole lot of memory, so anytime I had to, like, download all these pictures, or, God forbid, when I had to download the actual video clips, it would take up so much room on my phone that I would have to, like, delete a bunch of apps on my phone, download the pictures and footage, upload them to this Instagram account, and then re download my apps again.

Dave Bullis 45:03
It's, I mean, I know there was a slight lag on your side. I don't know, you know, I think I might be just our recording host, Skype, but, but with your phone and you had to do back up all that stuff. I've been there before I used to have, like, I bought, when the I bought one of the smart, first smartphones that came out, called the LG revolution, Joe was one of the worst freaking fans I've ever had. It was so I bought it into 2006 or seven. It was little, literally garbage. And I kept having to, like, back up on every everything else I would try to, you know, it was so I've been there, man, but, um, but no, I so it's so, if somebody wanted to, like, solve the murder mystery, Joe. So if I had an Instagram account, let's just say, right now I say I want to check out Joe's murder mystery game. I went to that Insta. I have an Instagram account. I went to your Instagram account. So we're, how do I how would I go about, like, solving my first clue to see, you know, to seeing who, you know, obviously, we find out who was murdered. How do we go about, you know, sort of doing this? Or do you provide any clues? Or are they supposed to, sort of have to solve it themselves?

Joe Kowalski 46:09
It's very much on the on the user's own volition, that they have to find the clues. But there are a lot of clues sprinkled throughout, but there's a lot of red herrings throughout and dead ends. And basically when most of the accounts start with murder mystery and then end with a word. So like when you're at the beach, it's murder mystery beach, and when you're downtown, it's murder mystery downtown. So to figure out if they solve right, you have to go to an account that starts with murder mystery and ends with the the murder weapon used to kill the victim. So and then on that page, you get to, kind of see if you were right, and you get a little, kind of set of pictures and a little video clip, kind of explaining how that went down. So if you look around and you go to all these different accounts, you'll you should be able to find out what the murder weapon was, and not everyone I've shown it to has figured it out. Some people needed a little extra help, but I did have quite a few people who were able to get to the end successfully. So that was the one thing I was nervous about. Like, did I make this too hard? Like, are people going to be able to figure this out? But there are, there are some people who were able to get to the end.

Dave Bullis 47:22
So without done, Joe, just, just to sort of ask, when you get to the end, is there any sort of like, like, I don't want to say prize, but is there anything that, like, a little trophy, or something that, like, people would like, you know what I mean, like they could sort of bragging rights. Or, you know what I mean, is there anything at the end where people know it's the end, and is there any type of like prize, so to speak, as I'm trying tosay,

Joe Kowalski 47:43
Um, not so much, any external prize. But like I said, when you when you get to the account, when you solve it, there is, like a set of pictures and like a video clip that kind of explained how, exactly how it happened. You get to see how that how the murder happened. And I that's, that's, that's pretty much it.

Dave Bullis 48:07
No, I just wanted to ask, you know, I imagine would be like, you know, cool bragging rights in it. And it is a really cool idea. So I'm glad, you know, honestly, using social media that way, where, you know, it's very creative, and, you know, it's a lot of interactivity, which I which, you know, I think is becoming big now, especially with, you know, stuff like advances in VR and stuff like that,

Joe Kowalski 48:28
Yeah, and that's the thing, is that all these interactive methods are constantly evolving. You're never going to have the same technology used, you know, even two or three years later, I went to the Cleveland Film Festival this year, which is a pretty, pretty big festival, for those who don't know anything about it, and they I went to a whole VR demonstration. And I've always kind of had a cattle interest in VR. I've gone to some meetings where I've got to try out the Oculus and and some of the other more elaborate ones where you get, like, the full body experience, which is really, really, really cool. And I, and I really believe, especially, that virtual reality is going to continue to be a bigger and bigger factor in our lives. I think, not only in terms of gaming, but in terms of of how we learn and things used in schools and and how we promote ideas, and it's can be such an immersive experience. But, yeah, some of these films at the Cleveland Film Festival, it's really interesting to see how they used virtual reality, because I think some of them nailed it really well. And some of them were like, you know, like, there was, I saw this documentary where they took you to an area where malaria was really active, and it was about this family trying to move to a new area where they could have tents that had mosquito nets on them and being and like seeing and be able to look around in these environments really, really connected you with this family in a way that I don't think I would have felt quite as strongly if it was just a regular 2d image that I was watching. And of course, at the end, it was for an organization where you could donate to help these families. And that was like a really exciting use of VR that I think that could be really useful in the future. But then I also watched another one where the whole idea was that you died and you got, like, buried. And that sounds really cool in theory, but it was not done in a way that I felt was, like it just felt really gimmicky, like it was telling, like, a really compelling story. I think it would be more interesting, but it was kind of grainy, and it was to the factor that, like, I think within two or three years, the technology is going to make something like that a little less likely to hold up than this really engaging documentary. And I also got to see too, there's a short film called Pearl that was nominated for an Academy Award, and it was a really big deal because it was the first virtual reality project to be nominated for an Academy Award. And that was another one like it was, yeah, maybe the technology will evolve. And it this, this short film won't be as immersive or as as high tech as it is right now, but it was such an endearing story that I think, I think it will hold up. It was about this, this father and daughter playing music together and traveling in the same band across across the country, and it was, it was just very, very touching. So I think, I think the more and more people use this kind of technology, and the more it evolves, I think we'll keep finding what works and what doesn't and what will hold up and what won't.

Dave Bullis 51:57
Yeah, you know, you touched on something there that I feel about, about, about VR, and sometimes I just feel that they're using it as sort of like a gimmick, where it's like, it's not really about a story, it's about, like, it's an exp, it's a pure experience. It's almost like a roller coaster. Yeah, you get on the roller coaster and you're not being you're not asking to be told a story. It's just like, here's an experience. And if, and if that, honestly, if that's what somebody wants to do. Hey, more power tone. Because, you know, I think, you know, you can't really tell somebody, you know, if that's what experience that you want to have. Hey, man, you know, go for it. But like, as far as storytelling goes, I think VR is gonna fall short. I just, I just don't think see it actually, where people are gonna sit there, honestly, Joe, if, like, maybe two hours, maybe four hours, even with, like, a video game. I'm talking about video games right now, worth like, if I had a video game with the VR headset on, with a controller in my hand, and it was like a first person shooter, and I'm, you know, zombies are coming in, I honestly can't see anybody. I can't see like, a main portion of the population anywhere in the world wanting to do that for more than, like, 20 minutes. I honestly, man, I think VR has a lot of lot of things it's going to share with 3d I think where VR is going to come into play. And I mentioned this with Jamie Buckner, who was on the podcast three episodes ago, as we were talking about this as well. I think the big thing with VR is is going to be education. Because yeah, because I actually used to work in higher ed, and I got to see a lot of different stuff. And I think one of the big things is going to be, is going to be like you, your textbook isn't going to be an actual book anymore. It's going to be almost like a tablet that, you know, when you're learning about the human body, you're going to, well, now we're gonna kind of get an AR, but, but the there's just gonna be an image of, like, Hey, we're studying the human brain, and then image of the human brain will come up out of this tablet, and, yeah, to actually interact with it, and touch and touch, okay, well, this is, this is your cerebellum, and this is gonna be your, you know, frontal cortex and stuff like that. And you're and you're like, oh, okay, that's where this is in the brain and shit like that. And I think that's where I think VR is going to be very huge. By the way, you want to hear something really cool that I was shown in higher ed, and it never got to I've never seen it anywhere, and I don't think, I don't think it's ever going to be approved. They had a special paint that had nanotechnology in it that actually blocked cell phones. So, like, you were like, Yeah, and actually, except for to dial 911, that was the only thing that it allowed. I never heard anything about it since I honestly passed, because I good, because probably, there's probably gonna be some issue where, like, it probably what. Well, they said it did it block nine. It didn't block 911, but they probably ended up did blocking 911, or something. And I couldn't and I couldn't figure out how to get it passed or, or maybe some, you know what I mean, because, because, if something ever did happen at a school, God forbid, you would sit there and say, Oh, well, they didn't have their cell phones because, then, because of the pain on the walls, yeah, so you don't want to be, you know, a. You don't want to be in that situation and then be like, well, the pain in the walls, you know, stop them. But, but, yeah, I but, but it's a cool idea, though. I mean, honestly, it sounds like a really good idea, but, but I get why it wouldn't be too mainstream, and maybe, maybe they're gonna roll it out later on. Maybe it's one of those things that takes a few years to come out, but, but, but, yeah, that's where I see VR going, as far as VR and movies go. I just don't think it's ever gonna happen. I honestly, I think we're at the point now where, I mean, there's a video game that's out right now that somebody was telling me, like, Hey, Dave, look at this. You could make a movie out of this someday. And I took a look at it, and I said, this thing is so far from a movie, I don't even know where to begin. And it was, it was this big war game where you could have these two armies battle into each other. And I said there's no, there's no detail to the characters. Every character has the same exact stabbing motion. I said it's really cool in scope. But I mean in in when you actually get down to it, it's not really, it's impressive from a coding standpoint, but from a movie standpoint, I said this would be, you know, people would tune out after a minute. You know, there's no story to it. There's no, there's no there's nothing that that's being told and you know that that's again, when we when we're differentiating between a story and an experience.

Joe Kowalski 56:15
Yeah, I think, um, I think there's a way they could still coexist, though, because I do kind of agree with you. I don't think it's going to take over movies, that all movie theaters are going to be VR experiences or anything, because I think it does offer a different thing. And the thing I'm starting to notice is that when you're directing a VR film, you direct it more like a stage show or like a play, because you with a movie, you have the choice of like. I'm going to put the pic to the camera here, and this is what the the audience sees. Whereas, like, with with a VR film, you have to think more of like, what do I what do I want to lead the audience toward? Like? If I want to look over this way, I'll have something flashy over here, you know? Or if I I'll have them follow this character as they walk across the way, and it presents an interesting challenge that I think doesn't replace movies, but could be a very interesting thing in and of itself. And I have to say, when it comes to gaming and stuff, there was a really cool game I tried at one of these VR demonstrations where you were on top of Castle and you had to knock over these little Minecraft like figures from getting into your fort. And I have to say, after, after about a minute of being there with this bow and arrow on top of this, this tower, you know, shooting at these little guys trying to get into your castle, not only do you, first of all, forget that you're pressing a button that's in your hand to unleash this bow and arrow, you kind of forget that you're not in this environment and and I think that's the thing where I don't know if I entirely agree that I don't, I don't think it will take I take over. Game may be the only thing available, but it was such an incredible experience for me to do this that if I think, if it's cheap enough, and I think it gets, it gets into enough hands, I can't see a future where this isn't a huge part of gaming personally,

Dave Bullis 58:12
Yeah, I, you know, I think it goes back to how people want to play their games. I know a lot of people want to like stream and it, you know, and they can wear their viewer headset and stream at the same time. I mean, like, for example, PewDiePie, if he were to do something like that, you know? I think also it depends upon sometimes, honestly, Joe, I feel like I'm staring at a screen every second of my day. Some days, which I probably am, I'm staring at either a laptop. I have four different laptops I have to use. I have two, two cell phones. And I'm just like, when I drive, I also have a an onboard computer that's my GPS, and also collect cell phone stuff for me. And it's just like, you know, I just, I don't have to look at that, but like, driving is probably the only time left. I'm not staring at a screen. And I'm just, you know, do I really want to do? I really want to, you know, just keep staring at a screen that's now gonna be like, two inches from my face. You know, I actually played, when I played that Batman game, it was actually for for PS four. It was actually really cool to look around the Bat Cave and everything like that. And, you know, take a look at this or that. And, and my friend had that exercise bike thing where you can put the VR headset on, and you can, you know you're in the Alps or whatever, really cool. But I just wonder if it's something where you're going to want to use it every day for the most and I know there's people out there who would use it every day, but for other people, I wonder if it's just something that would what I'm trying to say is I wonder if VR would end up just becoming a real niche market, almost like 3d became what I think 4k blu rays might become, because I hear 4k blu rays, and I honestly, you know, I mean, how many people if I, if I gave them, and, you know, a screen, I said, pick up the 4k version. Could actually find it if it was the same TV with the same players with, you know what I mean? Yeah, and it's just, Because, I mean, if it's not shot in 4k I mean, it's not going to look like 4k I mean, honestly, mad, Max Fury, road shot in 2k I see a 4k release of it, and I'm like, Why? Because it's not even, was even shot in 4k I mean, I know they could do upscaling and stuff like that, but I mean, really, you know what I mean? Like, I think a lot of this stuff's gonna end up becoming a niche sort of market, if that's just my prediction.

Joe Kowalski 1:00:36
Oh, VR will definitely have to cross that hurdle. Very similar to what you said, like 3d where I think one of the big reasons 3d didn't catch on as big as it did in a home market, is because of the glasses situation, you know, if you wanted to get together, because, like, I saw like, demonstrations of like, 3d sports games, and those are really cool. It just looked like these little tiny people, literally on your screen, running around. But, you know, like, if someone's trying to get together a group of friends and watch a like a like a basketball game or a football game or something like that, I highly doubt they're going to want to put on a bunch of glasses and fiddle with that. Now, let's get the settings right and stuff. So I think you're right to a certain degree. I think if VR wants to not just become that little niche thing, they're gonna have to find a way to, A, make it more financially available to everybody, and B, find a way that maybe they won't have to have these big, clunky headsets on the entire time, and make it more of a maybe a more integrated experience where it's it seemed like less hassle. You know.

Dave Bullis 1:01:38
Yes, that is, that is exactly right. Man, with those 3d glasses, I had a friend of mine who actually bought actually bought a 3d TV, and he bought four pairs of glasses. He bought it on one Black Friday. He had, you know, we went over there, we put on the glasses. We watched avatar, well, it's really cool. And I was like, you know, but after, and I'm like, you know, by the end, I'm less like, I'd rather just watch a regular 2d movie. Like, I honestly, man, I'm old school in that method where I'm just like, I'd rather watch an 80s horror slasher like Jason. Jason for the Friday 13th part three. He tried, they tried to make that 3d and I was like, Yeah, it's cool. And everything where, you know, the arrows are coming at you, the with the one shot and this and that another thing. But I'm like, at the end, you know, somebody once told me, good 3d goes in, bad, 3d comes out. So if you're constantly, like, dodging stuff that's, you know, okay, that's almost like a wake up to the audience, or that's like a cool effect, or whatever. But good 3d like Avatar was, it goes in and you can actually just see as far as you can, actually, as the eye can see, literally, because it's just an immersive world back there. You know what I mean? And, and, you know, that's one of the things why I actually did like Avatar. I actually was dating a girl at the time. I went to go see it, and she goes, That was terrible. That was terrible. I was like. I was like, shut up. What do you know about Shut up. What do you know about movies? I said, I'll tell you if it's good or not. No, I'm just kidding around. But, but, but, but, she said she didn't like it. We were just talking about it, and I was like, you know, I'm a sucker for James Cameron, but, but just to get back, we were talking about, you know, with, with all this stuff, you know, I just think, yeah, having people having to put on, like, headsets and stuff like that, it, it becomes like a, almost like a, like, you know, because some people are gonna say, oh, Greg, I put on this headset again. Or I gotta put it away, and you gotta find it again. Or it's just like something, like, they misplace it, they may or, you know what? I mean, it's just more things that are the moving parts to a situation. You know what I mean?

Joe Kowalski 1:03:25
Yeah, I think it's a very akin to something. I mean, it could go either way. Because, I mean, look at something like a, like a computer tablet, right? Like, like, when the iPad came out, people were scoffing because people been trying to pitch tablets for years. I mean, there have been, there have been tablets that came out in the 90s, and it just never connected with the public. You know, it just wasn't. They were too pricey, they were too clunky. But Apple managed to make something that people wanted and found a usage for. They brought back an old idea and made it in a way that was consumable, and made it in a way that people really, really liked. So, yeah, I completely agree, I think, with VR. And I think there are, I agree that there are some good uses of 3d but I don't think there was enough of a of a of a difference, like, um, I think one movie that used it really well that I saw in 3d was Pixar. Is up because, like, at the beginning of the film, the 3d was very flat, because you're living in his life where he's cooped up and and he's just this old guy, this widower and, and he's lonely. And then, like, when he's out there in the middle of South America, like, gets really deep, and he's up in the clouds, and it feels big and vast. So I think people are gonna have to use VR like that, you know, like I said, don't just tell a story about, look, you're dying and now you're in a coffin. Like, take the gimmick out of it and really focus on the exciting storytelling potential of this medium and what can be done with it, and, and, and that doesn't mean you have to play it safe, but, but be smart about how you use. It and use it in a way that that people connect to,

Dave Bullis 1:05:05
Yeah, exactly right, Joe, it always comes back to the story. It always comes back to, you know, what kind of story are you telling and what kind of emotional core are we going with here? You know what I mean? Because character, because people have to care about these characters. They have to be, you know, not sympathetic, but empathetic. We have to empathize with them and you know, and with the story you're telling. You know, it's just we have to become hooked. And that's why I always get pissed off Joe and people say you got to hook them in the first 10 pages. No, you have to hook them the whole freaking story, not the first 10 pages. Maybe the reader, maybe the maybe some reader, the gatekeeper, has to hook for the first 10 pages, for he or she passes. But for when I gather most, most gatekeepers, who are script readers, who have to read those scripts. They have to read everything cover to cover. They can't read the first 10 pages and say, CF, you know, forget this and and you know what I mean. And they have to read, report it, about it. Afterwards. They through their weekend reads and as well. And from what I gather, they have to read every script cover to cover. So you have to hook them the whole script. And you know, you have to hook them the whole whole time, no matter what you're doing. And you know, as you talk about the experiences that too, has a hook to it. You know, even if you ride a roller coaster, there has to be something special about it that sets it apart, whether you put all the extra loops in, whether twists and turns, whether you sit down like the Superman roller coaster, all that good stuff. And, yeah, I mean, you know, so, yeah, you know, everything has to have, you know, it's its speciality. It's, you know, what makes it special? And, you know, because Joe, I mean, we, you know, we've been talking for about over an hour now, and I want to ask, you know, Joe, is there anything we could talk about that you wanted to discuss now, or anything you wanted to say to put a period the end of this whole conversation?

Joe Kowalski 1:06:44
No, I guess just as a whole, like it's, it's really good to talk about this kind of stuff with people who who share your interests and and also care about creating. And I think it's important to to connect with with people who are doing stuff similar to us. And I think you just, you do that so wonderfully on your show and and you create this conversation, because there are all these people out there who are making such cool stuff, and it's so cool that you bring a light to those things. And I just want to thank you for for creating that conversation.

Dave Bullis 1:07:23
Oh, thank you so much, Joe. I try my best. I, you know, with this podcast and everything like that. And one of the reasons I started this was because I wanted to actually talk to filmmakers out there. And I got to meet Greenough, great people like you. I've got to, you know, I honestly got to meet so many great people. And I just look at it as, like, this is the tip of the iceberg, and I actually want to keep, just keep moving forward with this and in a lot of different ways, and, you know, and start doing a couple more things. And people, people actually, you know, not to segue too far away. But somebody once said to me, what are you working on now? You know, you haven't worked on anything in probably a few years, and honestly, it's, it's, I've been taking a step back, to take Stu to take two steps forward. And, you know, that's something I'm working on now, is I'm working on a ton of stuff, and a lot of cool podcasting stuff as well, that that I've been talking a few people about. And hopefully, you know, I'm gonna hope, hopefully, do a bunch of stuff with that soon and, but I also got other, a couple other things planned, but, but, yo, Joe, thank you so much, you know for coming on and work. Where can people find you out online?

Speaker 1 1:08:24
If you go to pogiejoe.com P, O, G, I, E, joe.com you can see all the things that I've talked about. We have our prism trailer on there. There's, I think I just put a thing about the murder mystery game. There's links to our podcast. And we're on all different kinds of podcasting apps and sources and everything. My YouTube stuff is on there, so if you want to see any of this stuff I've mentioned at all during the show, that's probably the best place to go.

Dave Bullis 1:08:54
And I will link to all that in the show notes. Everyone Joe does some really, really cool stuff. And I like that nickname too, poji Joe. And, you know, and, and he does some really cool stuff, and I'm gonna link to that all in the show notes. Joe Kowalski, poji Joe, I want to say thank you so much for coming on my friend.

Joe Kowalski 1:09:14
Hey, thank you so much. It's always a joy to talk to you.

Dave Bullis 1:09:19
Oh, thank you. And, you know, I appreciate at least one person wants to talk to me, but, but, but, thank you so much, Joe. No, it's really great. And honestly, man, I can't wait to see what you're gonna do next. And I also will introduce you to that guy who runs that film festival right now. I will shoot, I will make a Facebook message introduction and get you two talking.

Joe Kowalski 1:09:38
Thank you. That would be brilliant. I would really like to talk to him.

Dave Bullis 1:09:42
Sure, no problem, Joe. Joe, have a great day, and I will talk to you very soon my friend.

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BPS 422: The Unscripted Journey of Steven Bernstein From Cinematographer to Storyteller

June 5, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

What if the greatest stories of our lives are the ones we never meant to write? On today’s episode, we welcome Steven Bernstein, a man whose journey through the world of cinema has been anything but predictable. A writer at heart, a cinematographer by accident, and a director by destiny, his career is a living testament to the art of surrendering to the unknown. From his early days at the BBC to the sets of Hollywood blockbusters, his story unfolds like an unplanned masterpiece—one that ultimately brought him full circle, back to the thing he always loved: writing.

In this profound conversation, Steven Bernstein recounts his journey from philosophy student to award-winning cinematographer, where his love of storytelling found an unexpected home behind the lens. He speaks of the curious ways life moves us, sometimes against our best-laid plans. “You tend to go with those things that are providing you income,” he muses, reflecting on how a passion for writing gave way to cinematography, leading him to films like Monster, Like Water for Chocolate, and Scary Movie 2. Yet, even as he shaped light and shadow for some of cinema’s most striking images, the writer within him never faded.

There is an undeniable poetry in the way Bernstein describes his work. He doesn’t just shoot a film; he composes it, layering meaning through framing, movement, and light. Every choice—a dolly push, a backlight, an asymmetrical composition—whispers something to the audience. It’s a language beyond words, one that he speaks fluently. “Everything to do with film is a language,” he explains. “And like any language, it’s made up of two parts: that which we present and that which we mean.”

His journey back to writing was not an easy one. After years of crafting imagery for others, he took a leap into directing his own films, starting with Decoding Annie Parker. It was a lesson in risk and resilience. At one point, he spent five years in poverty, refusing to return to the safety of cinematography. “If you hold out for the dream, maybe you achieve it,” he says. It is a stark reminder that the artist’s path is often one of sacrifice, but those who persist find themselves richer in ways beyond money.

Yet, Bernstein also understands the tension between art and commerce. Filmmaking is an expensive endeavor, and investors want guarantees. He describes the struggle of balancing creative vision with financial expectations, a dance between inspiration and limitation. And yet, some of the greatest filmmakers—Terry Malick, the Coen Brothers, Charlie Kaufman—have defied convention, proving that the most resonant stories often break the rules.

The conversation moves to the nature of collaboration, the unspoken alchemy that happens on a film set when everyone is in sync. He recalls moments from Monster, where the crew, sensing the gravity of a scene, chose to remain completely silent, whispering only when necessary. It was an unspoken agreement, an offering to the art being created. “It was one of the most magical moments I remember in any film I’ve ever worked on,” he recalls. It is a glimpse into the rare, sacred spaces where true storytelling happens—not in the scripts, but in the spaces between them.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 0:07
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 0:38
I have my next guest, he has been the director of cinematography for such films as monster directed by Patty Jenkins, who just directed Wonder Woman, Kicking and Screaming, directed by Noah Baumbach, and Like Water for Chocolate, he's also been the director of cinematography for comedies like the Water Boy, Half Baked, Scary Movie 2, White Chicks. And he's on action films like Swat. And he also wrote a film a textbook called film production. And his latest films decoding Annie Parker and dominion have included actors like Aaron Paul, John Malkovich, Helen Hunt, just to name a few. And currently, he's actually teaching some really cool online and offline seminars, which, again, I'll link to in the show notes. We're gonna talk about a lot of really cool stuff on this podcast episode with guest Steven Bernstein. So Steven, just to get started, you know, you've done a lot of really amazing work. You've done a lot of work as a cinematographer, you know, starting in, you know, the the late 80s, and you've done all these wonderful projects. And I wanted to ask how you got to that point. I mean, that's sort of the, the impetus to a lot of interviews, and a lot of, you know, people who've, who've been able to really ascend up that, that proverbial ladder is, you know, how did you get to that point? So what I want to ask you, Steve is, did you just to sort of start this off? Did you go to film school, you know, to be a cinematographer, or did you do have a or did you have a completely different sort of entry way into this industry?

Steven Bernstein 2:15
A completely different entry way. I had wanted to be a writer and read or majored in a philosophy at university. When I came out, there were various job opportunities of different types, one of which was at the BBC training program, which I enrolled in and studied there as a writer, director, researcher, and worked in long form documentary, great because it allowed me to travel a great deal, which was an interest of mine then and I Got to go to China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Vietnam, South America, South Africa during apartheid, what was then Rhodesia, later became Zimbabwe. So a lot of adventures, a lot of really interesting shoots, and some great experiences, but not really that satisfying, and not as it turned out, my calling, I came back to London and continued working at the BBC. About the time that music videos became of interest, the first few music videos would be produced, and I got to shoot a few of those, and soon I was in demand, not as a director or as a writer, but as a what was called, then a lighting cameraman, a cinematographer, and shot a lot of really interesting music videos for some really, then very big bands in the in the 80s, Eurythmics and so. On, and that led to interest from others, and got into commercials. Worked with the great Tony Kaye, did some really important commercials with him, some of which won the Cong, Golden Lion da D award, and then I was kind of on the map. Still, my intention always had been to be a writer. So it's funny the way life works in that you tend to go with those things that are providing you income. Inevitably, you can have good intentions, but overheads, life expenses being what they are, you do what you have to do. So I was shooting, enjoying it, particularly the music videos and the commercials, but I was still writing plays, films, short films, some of which appeared on Channel Four in the UK. Some got on the stage in London, but really nothing that provided me any sort of success. And then along came Like Water for Chocolate, my friend Gabrielle barista, and had been offered the work completing that movie, which had run into a little bit of trouble, and he couldn't do it. So they asked me to go to Mexico and finish the film, which I did. It's a big hit in America, the highest foreign highest grossing foreign language film of all time to date. And I then came to America to see if there was work to be had here. And that led to all those studio films, those comedies with Adam Sandler, with the weigh ins and so on. And that in turn led to my meeting now the great Noah Baumbach, and starting an independent films in America. And that in turn led to Monster. So I've tried to compress what is now seeming a very long career into a very short period of time, but a happy series of accidents, doing what I never intended to do, ending up at a place I never intended to come to, and somehow working my way back towards my first intention.

Dave Bullis 7:04
Yeah, you know. And it's funny how it all sort of comes forth full circle, right? You start off with one intention, you have. You find yourself in all these new situations, but you took advantage of those situations, and, you know, you turn them all into opportunities. And now you're, you know, and now we're going, you're going back to writing. And I think there's something poetic in that, because I think as when we as filmmakers and and whether we're writers or directors, when we start our careers, you know, we have an idea of what it's going to be. And usually everyone has an idea that it's going to be. You know, you're going to make a movie at 22 you're going to win Sundance, you're going to make a million dollars, and then you're gonna move to Hollywood. And, you know, Steve, it doesn't really work out that way. It's a lot of zig zags towards that sort of path. And, you know, and it's just a that's why I do this podcast, because there's so many interesting stories like yours, where it's not just one way. In fact, with all these episodes of so many different ways of doing things, but, but the point I'm trying to make is, you know that that's the thing about the intention that we have, and how life sort of throws out all these obstacles, and how we respond to them, and how we you how we respond to them really dictates, you know, what course our life is going to go on.

Steven Bernstein 8:19
I think you're absolutely right, and it goes to great complexity that life offers us, which is, do we earn $1 do we do what makes us the maximum amount of profit all the time, or do we hold on to an individual dream and simply wait it out? It's very interesting, because I've done both. When I started, I made no apology to say that was kind of an opportunist. I was taking what was offered to me. And look, it was a fun ride. I got to, again, travel a lot, both first at the BBC and then doing music videos. I got to meet really interesting people, particularly in the 80s, and the bands we were dealing with and the concerts we were doing and the videos we were doing, all very, very exciting, but really it was the work that was offered, and I took advantage of that later when I went to make my first film at Decoding Annie Parker, I had seen other people try to make that same transition to director, and they tried to keep their day job as it were, and none of them succeeded. So I resolved that I would give up everything to do with cinematography. I would give up anything to do that didn't directly point me towards directing, and that's what I did. And sadly, decoding did not happen quickly. We were promised money, that money went away. We were promised other money. That money went away, and I spent nearly five years unemployed and went through all my savings and most of my possessions, and was in abject poverty on the day we finally got funded, and then went to shooting. So both courses interesting, I think ultimately, the latter one more painful. You sacrifice a great deal, but if you hold out for the dream, maybe you achieve it.

Dave Bullis 10:22
Yeah, and, you know, holding out for the dream. It's kind of like Sid Hague, you know, he, people once asked him about his acting career, and he had actually given up. He actually, you know, sort of went away for a long while, because he said every, every role that he was offered was basically he became in as a man with a gun. He came into the door holding a gun, or he came in, you know, he's already in the room with the gun. And what happened was he came back because, you know, he actually liked it and, and finally, he said, You know, I realize now he's in movies with Tarantino and Robert and Rob Zombie. And he said, You know, it's like Winston Churchill said, never quit. Never quit, never quit.

Steven Bernstein 11:00
I think that's absolutely right. And there's a great example of this that we know I mean Patty Jenkins, a dear friend of mine. Patty was the director of Monster, which I shot. The story is interesting both how our relationship began and how Patty built her career. I was shooting the big second unit on SWAT, 21 cameras, tons of effects. We're spending millions of dollars blowing up the front of the library in Los Angeles, crashing planes, shooting rockets into cars. It was everything I thought I dreamt of when I was a young cinematographer. And then after four months of that, I got a call from Clark Peterson, the producer of monster, and known for years the film was in some trouble in Florida, and he asked if I would read the script, speak to the first time director, and consider leaving SWAT and coming to Florida to shoot monster, and I read the script. I thought was great. I spoke to patty on the phone, and was struck by her intelligence, her sensitivity, her command of the subject matter and of herself. I just sensed that she would be a great leader. And agreed, and came down at 1/20 of what I was getting paid on SWAT arrived in Florida to this tiny little film that was underfunded, under equipped and in real trouble, and we began working together. And for me, it was a epiphany, because I saw people of absolute and genuine integrity, completely believing in the art they were undertaking to create. And Charlize was self sacrificing, and the role was agonizing and difficult for her, but she pushed through, as did patty and then, of course, monster, when we finished it, no one would buy it, which a lot of people don't know, Blockbuster would be the only people that would put forward a not very good offer, which was taken with the proviso the film would get a very limited theatrical release. And amazing to them, and I guess to kind of everybody, the film got spectacular reviews in the papers. Patty ended up along with Charlize on Charlie Rose, and then we went to Berlin, where Charlize won the Silver Lion, then a Silver Bear rather than the Golden Globe, then the Oscar, of course, and the rest is kind of legend. Right after that, Patty was offered pretty much everything from studios, and you or I, or I don't mean to speak for you, let's say someone like me would have taken that opportunity work on a studio, be paid a million or 2 million. I know what she's offered, but a lot. But Patty had a vision of what she wanted to do, and remarkably, and this goes to her character. She said, No, these aren't the films that I want to do. She wanted to a film about Chuck Yeager. She had some other projects that were interesting to her, and she was going to hold out, as I did on my film, for what she was waiting for and what she believed she'd be adept at doing and achieving. And waited and waited. Did some television pilots, very successful ones, the killing which she did a great job on. And then along came a Wonder Woman. And Patty said, yeah, here's a strong woman with a voice that I find interesting, a subject matter that I've always liked. I'm gonna make this film. And what did it do this weekend? I mean, it was spectacular. And it's not just the box office revenue we generated, look at the reviews it's getting. So that's Patty's remarkable. And I think in structural and structural journey,

Dave Bullis 14:54
You know, I once met Kane Hotter, and Kane actually said the best. Actor. Actress that he ever worked with was Charlize Theron, and he said she was, not only is she was she very nice to everybody, with no airs whatsoever, but he said when Nick time came, she was absolutely amazing every single take, every single day. He's like, she never did a bad take, not one time. And when you see something like Monster, it's, you know, because Charlize is a beautiful woman, and then, you know, She transformed herself with all the makeup, and she really became that role. You know, I had on a couple different acting coaches, and they said that was the secret of acting, is that you don't act like like you're a person. You are that person.

Steven Bernstein 15:41
I think that's spot on. And, you know, look, I have the remarkable distinction of being the one cinematographer that managed to make Charlize Theron look bad. So it's very, very special. And I'm very proud of myself, and Charlize was very proud of me, but she and I worked very hard on making her look bad. One that goes to her great courage. Because, look, an actress's beauty is in part, her commodity in Hollywood. And the fact that Charlize, like Patty before her, had such an integrity of vision that she was willing to sacrifice her commodity value from the pursuit of art goes to the person that she is. And secondly, you're absolutely right about the quality of Charlize performance, and she does this strange hybrid of method acting and more classical approaches. She knows the material. She's always off page. She gets it completely. She intellectually understands and engaged is with the topic and knows her character and the character's arc, but in the moment, she is a method actor, she is completely engaged. And as your acting coach, a person that you interviewed, said she became that character, we believe she was that person completely. You know, there's a remarkable thing that happened on Monster one day where there was a key moment when Christina Ricci and Charlie, Sarah, and the two characters were saying goodbye to each other at a train station, and they both had worked their way into this emotional high, this there was a sense of intensity. And if you know film sets, as I'm sure you do the crews, you know, just carry on eating their sandwiches and lying down their track and doing what crews do. But something remarkable happened this day, and the crew just sensed that they wanted to support Christina and Charlize and what they were pursuing. So the crew decided unilaterally not to speak that day, and the crew was communicating with each other with hand signals and with pointing and occasionally a whispered word, but it was dead quiet on that set for the entire sequence, and it was one of the most magical moments I remember in any film I've ever worked on This sense of synergy of all of us working together to support what we felt was the achievement of great art. And I think it facilitated those two performances in that remarkable film.

Dave Bullis 18:13
I mean, and see stories like that are just so interesting to hear. You know, just working with different actors over the years and seeing all the different methods and different approaches. And it's very interesting to see to the crew, you know, responding in that method of recruit, responding and being very, very receptive, and helping Charlize and Christina Ricci and doing something like that. It's just very interesting to me when, because, because you mean, you've been, you've seen a lot of sets, Steve, where the crew ends up in the crew and the cast, they end up becoming like a family, because you're spending, you know, days into weeks, into months, making this film. And it almost becomes like a child for everybody, you know, and and everyone's a team player, and they all want to see, you know, what's best for this project that they've worked for so long on.

Steven Bernstein 19:00
I think you're exactly right. And this is the thing I think that's most attractive about film, is you do acquire a family for a few months, or a few weeks, or one of the films I did in India for a year, where you're all under great pressure, but you're all mutually dependent on each other, and you're isolated from the rest of the world, and you feel somehow special, not special, as in entitled, but that somehow the way you are mediating the world is different from the way you mediate the world in the civilian or Non film world. So the camaraderie and friendships that are built on film sets, to me, are still singular, and my closest friends all come from film and the most intense experiences in my life, generally have occurred on film sets. And I must tell you, there's never been a film that I've worked on. However bad the film may have been where it wasn't, followed, at least for me, by a profound depression that would last days or weeks. And I think I speak for virtually all film crews and actors. When you walk away from your family and just say, Okay, this films done. I'm going back home. Now, home doesn't seem like home. The set was home. And there's a peculiar transition stage, which some people never get over.

Dave Bullis 20:35
You know, you're absolutely right, Steve, I've been on a lot of sets like that where it's almost, you know, it's, I don't want to use this expression, but I will. It's almost like a high. It's almost like this, this feeling, this energy, actually, energy is a better word than it's his energy that you feel. And, you know, you just sort of whenever, especially when everybody is is gelling together, and everyone's there and they're professional, and they're all working together. It's that, you know, you get that feeling and you want to, you know. And when you leave and the project's over, you sort of go home and you're like, What am I going to do now? I guess I better watch Netflix and order pizza, right? It's like, but you want that feeling again, so much.

Steven Bernstein 21:15
No, absolutely right, to the point where it's like, maybe high is better because you're like an addict. You'll be walking down the street and you'll you'll see another film shooting. You sort of wander over thinking that you might be able to pick up on some of that energy. Maybe they'll invite you to lunch, but it's a it's something that you that you absolutely miss when you're not doing it. And listen, that's one of the problems I have when I moved from cinematographer to writer, director and producers. That when I was a cinematographer, I would be doing sometimes two features, sometimes even three a year. I'd be working all the time, and I'd be on those film sets with my, with my friends, with my with my film friend family. When you're a director, when you're a writer, in particular, you're locked in a room, you know, with a computer or with a fountain pen and no friends at all, just writing and writing and writing, and it's not as much fun. I'm down with Dorothy Parker, who said, I love having written. I hate writing. Well, that's, that's kind of my view. I'm very proud of my last script in particular dominion, the one with John Malkovich, and I'm very proud of decoding and Parker and the next one coming up. But still, the process of creating those stories, those scripts, very, very hard and very lonely.

Dave Bullis 22:37
It is a very lonely process. And you know, I wanted to ask Steve, you know, when you've, you know, worked all these years as an accomplished cinematographer, and you, and you go back to your first love, which was writing. As odd as this question sounds, was there any skills that translated? Because I think there was. And here's the one I one skill I think that really translated well. Was you, you will obviously lensing all these wonderful films and like, like Monster. You know, how that you, you know, have, you have that image in your mind. You have that, that sort of mind's eye where you're saying, okay, I can imagine, you know, we're opening up on this mountain range, or, I imagine we're opening up on this sort of dark night, and we can barely see. I imagine that helps a lot with your exposition when you're writing scripts. Because when you're writing, you know, this, these action lines, I imagine they're, they're very, very well told, because obviously you know exactly what it's gonna look like. Because, hey, you're a cinematographer, you know, and you can bring all those years of imagery and seeing all these different things to your script. Am I right or am I? Am I completely off a Steve,

Steven Bernstein 23:46
No, you're spot on. And go to the very essence of my philosophy and understanding of film. What I discovered both from first my reading when I was a student of philosophy, and then later as a writer than as a cinematographer, is that everything to do with film is a language, and we have to understand what a language is. A Language is inevitably made up of two parts, that which we intend to mean and that which we present to create that meaning, or what I think the philosophers called the signifier, that which the audience sees, and the signified that which we mean, the idea that we're trying to present. As a cinematographer, you realize that when you compose a shot in a particular way, you can create a certain feeling in an audience. You can even suggest an idea. When you push a camera forward on a dolly, for example, into a face you're saying to an audience, hey, what this character is about to say or do is important. That's not in a script, but the camera movement is the signifier. The idea of importance is the signified. And then I began analyzing everything I did as a cinematographer, and. As a language. If I light with a backlight, that's the signifier. It's backlight signified mystery or uncertainty, an asymmetrical composition that is the signifier. The signified, possibly a character who's alienated, or a film like wait until dark, a character who's at at risk to edit a shot where you do an extreme close up, then go to a very wide shot where David Lean might have done you're saying, Oh, here's a person in a small little landscape. That's the signifier. The signifier is the insignificance of the human condition, perhaps, or the weakness of that individual at that moment. So when I realize all those things, I realize that everything I put in a written script is again a matter of what I signify and what it means, how it is indicated, and ultimately, what I'm trying to convey to an audience. But I also realized that not everything can be done with the spoken word, that sometimes the most powerful, although the most engratic elements, are not written but implied with the the photographic image. So as I write, I'm always thinking, is it better for the character to say this, or is it better to have the character say very little and imply something simply with a composition or a camera movement, or perhaps with the music or with the rhythm of the editing. If I begin to look at film as I suggest, everybody does, as a series of integrated languages, each with their own set of signifiers and each signifying different things, then I don't feel an obligation to put everything into a dialog, and the dialog can become more economical and more real, and the medium as a whole, integrating all these different processes becomes more effective. Does that make sense?

Dave Bullis 26:50
Oh, it makes perfect sense. You know, as you were describing, you know, your process, I was reminded of, there will be blood and There Will Be Blood the first 20 minutes, you know, there's no, there's no dialog whatsoever. It's a lot of of imagery. It's a lot of, you know, we see Daniel Plainview as he's coming down into that, into that pit, looking for gold. He doesn't find gold. However, he finds oil. And that becomes, he becomes that oil baron, oil tycoon, sociopathic businessman. But that first 20 minutes, there's absolutely no dialog. And when I first saw that movie, I was like, wow, this is a really bold choice. Because, I mean, I imagine the pitch meeting for that you say, if you're a pitch meeting on the first 20 minutes, there's no dialog whatsoever, you know, it's just kind of, you know it, but, but, you know, once you start getting into the movie, it's, I mean, I thought it was absolutely phenomenal. And, I mean, the only reason it lost best picture was because it was up against the No Country for Old Men. And, you know, I which is another movie, very heavy in imagery. Have you? Have you seen either those movies Steven?

Steven Bernstein 27:56
I've seen them both, and loved them both. And I would throw into that mix Terry malix films, Days of Heaven, which was the film, I think that inspired me more than any other to be a cinematographer. You know, malex characters relationship to nature and nature being indifferent. And again, the visceral effect that nature's power, sublime majesty and indifference to us as as living, breathing souls, is important. So in a terry Malik film, all the time, he's cutting away to shots of nature. Again, as you say, a pitch meeting or a description to some investor, you're saying, well, a lot of these shots won't have any obvious meaning or won't advance the story to the next plot point, but it'll be laden with meaning. It will make us understand how indifferent nature and a god or an absent God is to us, and how that should make us potentially feel. And he does that almost exclusively in Days of Heaven, with images, not with dialog, he's combining languages. My feeling is that as a writer and as a director, you don't write your film in spoken language exclusively. You write your film in five different languages like a very skilled linguist, and you combine those together to create meanings and choosing which language to use based on which is most effective and which goes to your audiences sensibilities.

Dave Bullis 29:29
You know, that's very true because, you know, as I've been, because I my first love is writing as well, and when, when I'm writing a screenplay, there's so many different pairs of eyes to sort of look at it through, you know, there's an editor's eyes, there's, there's, you know, the director's eyes. Sometimes you're thinking even in terms of being a producer, you know what I mean, and you're and you you're thinking of all these different of different ways and then, but when you're adding all these layers into your actual writing, you know, you're really, you know, because you're trying to sort of hook the reader, as they say, you know, hook the reader in the first couple of pages, but you have to hook them throughout the whole story. You're trying to always, you know, keep that tension in there. You're trying to figure you're sort of, you know, wearing a lot of different hats. You're doing a lot of different things at the micro and the macro levels.

Steven Bernstein 30:24
You're right, and it's very, very hard, particularly we start talking about producing, because, you know, the person or persons who may determine whether your film gets made may have never made a film, and may have no understanding of cinematic language, of what composition does camera movement. May not have seen a terry Malik film, may not have seen Paul Thomas Anderson film, may not have seen a Coen Brothers film. They may have read McKees book on story and take that template and apply it to your script. And if your script does not use that template. They may feel that your script is a failed one, and this is difficult for all writers and all artists to determine. Do you do what the orthodoxy in our film community suggests, or go giving you a better chance of getting your film made. Or do you protect your singular vision? Be it part of that orthodoxy or not, in the belief that you know better how best to express the ideas you hope to express. It's it's interesting because unlike other art forms, ours is so very expensive that there is a inhibiting element, and that's the one of finance people backing a film want to know their investment is safe, and therefore are looking for absolute metrics to determine what will make your film a good investment for them. They're not interested in your ideas about how to engage an audience viscerally with a composition. They want to know that if the rules of which they may be aware are applied, does that mean your film will succeed, and if it will, will they make more money? And that's a very difficult way to approach filmmaking.

Dave Bullis 32:20
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. A friend of mine, you know, we he and I were just discussing this as well, because, you know, he was a part of a film. The film was already, everything was casted, they were about to shoot, and then suddenly it just all went away. And he said, Dave, it's happened too many times in my career to count. And he says, it just, you know, it happens sometimes where, you know, the money goes away, and then there's been other times where he's been pitching a project for for years and years and years, and it's finally, you get a financier, and you can, you're able to finally find that money. I had seen obvious on this podcast, and he was discussing how he found the money for Dallas Buyers Club. And, you know, it was just one of those things where he had a connection from years ago who was willing to help him out, out of a bind. And it was, you know, one of those cases where your network really is your net worth,

Steven Bernstein 33:11
No question. I mean, you've got to build relationships and contacts, and then you've got to convince people to give you their money to make your film. And again, there's a natural conservative factor in all that, and that they don't want you to take a lot of risk, because they don't know that that will generate money for them necessarily. I mean, we all want the investor who says, just go ahead and make what you believe. But those are rare. Most investors want to get involved and say, Okay, we're giving you this money. What's our best way of guaranteeing this? Are you definitely going to have three acts, and are your plot points going to come on the right pages and all the rest of it? And again, that may or may not be the best way to write a script, but that's what they want, because that's what they've been told is the way to success, and that, as I say, could be very inhibiting for a writer, for creative artists. I'm sure that Terry may like doesn't work to that template, you know, I'm sure Charlie Kaufman doesn't work that template. I'm pretty sure that the Coen brothers don't, and they're some of the most successful, important filmmakers we have working. So these are some of the tough decisions that filmmakers have to make, particularly when you go to finance your film, because you want that money, but you also want to make a great movie.

Dave Bullis 34:26
Yeah, you know, absolutely. And I, you know when we when as because writing is my first love as well. And when we're writing these scripts, sometimes there's a tendency to write with that producers hat, because you're wondering, oh, would this be able to be, you know, will this be too much money? Will I be able to even obtain this, you know, stuff, you know, and that's sort of as I find writing the first dress, we have to kind of sort of brush that aside and just sort of focus on just telling the best single story possible that we can tell. And then later on, when you're maybe doing rewrites, or you're in different meetings, and you can sort of take things out and maybe add things in, you. Yeah, and then sort of, you know, the story sort of evolves, and it kind of ties in with what we were talking about before, where, you know, we set off in the beginning with these expectations that's going to go into a straight line, and then suddenly it's zig zagging all over the map and, and we're, you know, we're, you know, finding these obstacles. And we're, we're trying to turn these obstacles into either they can either set us back, or we can move forward with them.

Steven Bernstein 35:22
You make a great point. And I always try to write my first draft in seven days or less. And there's a reason for that. I call it a slot draft, not a first draft, because what I want to do is write so quickly that I don't have time to think so. First, there's the idea of just an intuitive understanding of character. But also I find that I write to know what I think that if I try to outline before I begin writing, the ideas are only are only notional. I really don't know my characters. I don't know my story that Well, I think I do, and I can try to plot it out, and I can draw all sorts of diagrams and put all sorts of index cards up, but it's not really fully realized. Then, if I take a different approach and simply start writing and say, I'm gonna write 120 pages in seven days, what I discover is that by the time I get to that last page, I have developed an understanding of character. I have developed an understanding of what the narrative should be, and I might even understand some of the subtexts. Then I go back and I begin the real process of writing, which is rewriting, but I couldn't have done that if I tried to make that first draft perfect, and you talked about wearing your producers hat. I think it's essential. I think you made a very good point that when you're writing, you're thinking of nothing except those characters. I don't care how long a dialog scene goes on for, or how outrageous what the characters say are or off, or if they begin in a Proustian fashion, talking about things that have nothing to do with the story at all. Because, in fact, that's what people do in real life, is talk about things that don't necessarily have to do with the advancement of their individual plot. And then when you write that version, that slop version, and look at it, to me, it is the door to all things, you come to an understanding of everything that's important about your film, and then you can put those things, those things in when you go back to rewrite. It's a crazy way of writing, but it works very well for me.

Dave Bullis 37:30
Well, you know, I actually think that's a very good way of writing, because even when I have, you know, started writing stuff in the past, and even now, sometimes when I sit down to start writing, one of two things happens. Number one is you get distracted very easily. I think as this happens to everybody, where you know your phone chimes, or somebody at your door, your friend calls you and says, Hey, Steve, can you help me move? I have to, you know, you take me to the airport. And the second thing is, you have paralysis through analysis where you're sitting at your desk, or wherever you're writing, and suddenly you're just kind of like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if, and you start brainstorming, and you're just, basically, you're just spinning your wheel, so to speak.

Steven Bernstein 38:13
No, exactly, right? And I think this is to me, it was a breakthrough. You know, I was so concerned with failing that I was preventing myself from succeeding. So when I was convinced ultimately that I should write badly, I sat down and wrote the worst script I possibly could, and when I was finished, it was truly terrible, but it pointed the way to a much better script, a script that was so good, this is what I did with dominion, that when I sent it to John Malkovich, he signed up immediately, and it was a low budget film. But John loved the writing of that script, because the dialog seemed so natural and so imaginative to him. If I had written dominion to an outline, my characters would have been speaking to deliver the next plot point, to get to the next subject, to keep the story moving along as it had been outlined. But the way I wrote to many was I simply had my characters talk about things that were important to them, and then went back on the next draft and then imposed a form on that and it was much more natural. The writing was much better, and it's a system that simply works. I say to all writers, and I have a lot of systems that work with me. Don't try to be perfect on the first draft, or don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Simply write as quickly as you possibly can, and then discover what you always meant to say and never realized it.

Dave Bullis 39:47
You know, I like that approach, Steve, where, you know, you gave yourself permission to fail, and you basically said, I'm gonna write the worst possible thing. You know, I was talking to another friend, a colleague of mine Jason Brubaker, And he had a theory about, you know, guys who always talk about making a film. They always, you know, and you've met guys like this, too, Steve, where they're always saying things like, Oh, I have this great idea for a film, you know me and my buddies, blah, blah, blah, but they never actually make it. And the and his theory, Jason's theory, was that the reason they don't make it is because if it does suck, if it is bad, it's a reflection of them as an artist, and it kind of encompasses their entire career in sort of one foul swoop. So if they do write a bad screenplay or make one bad movie. Well, you suck. You're never going to make anything. Do you know what I mean Steve?

Steven Bernstein 40:45
I know exactly what you mean. And I take just the majority of people, not just in film, but in life, most people would rather talk about something than do it. Most people rather criticize others than do it. Those who criticize and don't do are always safe because they can't possibly fail, and can always make clear how superior they are, because they can criticize that which you did look I, when I made dominion, a lot of people said, Oh, well, Stephen, you had trouble finishing it. There was some money issues, etc, all of which were true and those were resolved. But the thing is, I did it. Had I simply not done it and watched others, I don't know if I would have the sense of self that I have. I'm proud of what I've done. I've done it because I've taken risks. But you go to a very important point. If you want to make films, you have to make films, and if you're going to do that, it means you're going to take risks. It means people are going to criticize and ridicule you, and you may even fail. But I'd much rather do and fail than observe and criticize others.

Dave Bullis 41:56
Yeah, and that is beautiful, Steve, because honestly, that is so true. You know, I think we all have somebody in our lives, or we've known somebody that like that in our lives, where they don't want to actually do anything. They may talk a big game, or they constantly criticize what other people are doing and kind of like downplay it in that sort of condescending, sort of very almost like jaded type of attitude where they're like, Oh yeah, that you're gonna make a movie this weekend. That's cool. You know what I mean? They just like they and people like that. You know they never do anything. They're always just sort of criticizing others from the comfort of their couch. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

Steven Bernstein 42:36
I completely know what you mean. And I look I pay tribute to anyone who takes a risk in their life of any kind. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't sometimes be safe, but you only, I think, have one life. You only have a few opportunities, and when they're presented to you, seize them. I know when we started decoding any Parker, we had spent a long time raising them on it, and I got a little bit of money from India, some from Canada. I was very lucky, and got the tax credit in California. And we were very, very close, within, like, $100,000 what we needed. And the producers all got the phone with each other, and we had to decide what to do. And at that point, Helen, haunted read the script and loved it, and had signed up for a very reasonable sum of money. We had Samantha Morton Helen, of course, won an Oscar. Samantha been nominated for two I had met Aaron Paul, and we had become fast friends. And Aaron Paul, who was at the height of his fame with Breaking Bad, had agreed to do it. Corey Stahl and I had gotten close as he had read the script, and we talked about the evolution of the characters, Rashida Jones, Bradley, Whitford, just this incredible cast we put together. And we were on the phone considering whether we should pull the plug because we didn't have quite enough money, and I ultimately decided that we would go ahead, and I realized it was a huge risk, and we nearly had to shut down. I think we did shut down for a day at the end of a week, and then we went and raised more money, and we managed to finish the film. Went on to win the Sloan award. The Hamptons had won Best Actress for Samantha Morton at Seattle, won the Milan Film Festival, two or three awards there, raised a couple of million dollars for charities, etc. We pulled it off, but there was a moment in that process where we had to decide whether to play it safe or to take a considerable risk. And I think those moments come often in film, because I think it was Hitchcock that once said that drama is life with the boring bits taken out. I would suggest that filmmaking is life with the com bits taken out. So it's a constant state of risk and near hysteria and certain failure. And from that you extract, hopefully. Be a film and a bit of a life.

Dave Bullis 45:03
And, you know, as we talk about your projects, you know, I wanted to ask, you know, when you started to actually go from that cinematographers sort of chair, so to speak, to being a director, you know, what were some of the things that you've picked up? I mean, because you've, you've had a lot of really cool directors, like Patty being the first example I can think of, you know, what were some of the things that you saw these directors were doing when they were talking to actors, or maybe even talking to you as a cinematographer, you know, and talking about, you know, a shot list. And here, and hey, Steven, here's my storyboard, you know, what are some of the the great things that they have done over the years that you sort of took into your projects.

Steven Bernstein 45:42
Well, it wasn't just pat, it was Jon Favreau. I worked with a couple of times, Jon and I are friends. Noah Baumbach, of course, I did three films with Noah Baumbach, which was fantastic. So I had an opportunity to work with lots of Taylor Hackford, of course, I mean, lots of other great directors, and I took something of value from each of them, certainly always grateful to my training at the BBC and always grateful to all my stage actors and what I learned there. But I learned, as I observed, about different management systems, different leadership methodologies and different ways of working with actors and with with crews. Noah and I, before we did both kicking and screaming and Mr. Jealousy and Highball, spent a lot of time prepping we were in Noah's place in in Greenwich Village, and we would go through the entire script, scene by scene, shot by shot, determining not only what we plan to shoot, but why we're shooting, what what the camera would mean. Going back to what I was saying before, about signifier and signified, again, wide shot or closed shot, Noah would show me clips from movies that he liked and said, this is very important to me, could we infuse this sequence with the same feeling from this film? I remember on Mr. Jealousy, he'd been much influenced by the French Nouvelle Vague, so we were using those kind of circular fade outs, and even the music that he chose was very much in that style. But also compositionally, the way the camera moved and the way I lit, it all had to be in the style of the Nouvelle dog. So that was exciting. That's what's so great about a collaborator like Noah, is that he had a very clearly determined vision of not only what his characters were, but stylistically, what he wanted to do. And that would be a great starting place for me to then run with some of my own ideas. I bring him books from painters or from designers or from other filmmakers, photographers for that period. So what about this? What if we did this, like this and so on, and we would integrate some of my ideas into his vision? Patty, I think I told you about her focus very much on actors. How Patty, at the end of every performance, rather than speaking to any of the crew, would drop the headphones and make a beeline directly for the actor. It doesn't matter what anyone else had to say to her. Her first point of contact after a take was those actors to tell them that they had been observed, that they're being protected, that someone is listening. Because that's what actors want most of all, is to know the actor be an experienced director or an experienced director. Those actors want to know that there's someone watching, protecting them, creating a rarefied, safe environment where someone's making sure that their performance is okay, and we'll tell them honestly if it isn't. And Patty really did that to a great degree. Jon Favreau, it was the atmosphere on set. It's kind of like he felt strongly that what happens on set somehow appears on screen. So his sets were fun and light, full of energy, full of comedy, and very, very gentle hand that everyone felt protected and facilitated, and again, that lent itself to what appeared on screen. Taylor Hackford, very, very well prepared and would cover things from every possible angle, knowing that whatever he planned, he knew that he might alter it in the cutting room, and wanted to make sure that he had plenty of material to cut that with. So for me, 30 years of observing some of the best directors in the world was a wonderful education for me, and it informs everything I do now. But was even better educationally, was watching some truly terrible directors get it wrong. And I got to watch that as well, and I'm not going to mention their names, but it helped me to know what not to do. So to accumulate all that knowledge and to be able to walk onto the first feature that I directed knowing what these great directors had done and what the bad directors had done, and what I should or shouldn't do was a huge help to me. It, it still is.

Dave Bullis 50:29
And you, you mentioned this too, Steven, you have 30 years of experience, you know, you you have, you know, started out as a writer. You became this accomplished cinematographer. You've won this just plethora of awards. You got to see all these great, sort of, you know, all these great directors, and all the things that they, they did, right and, and sort of put this all together for your own projects. But I know now you're, you're also doing some seminars, which, you know, you're, you know, gonna, gonna impart all this knowledge, which I think is phenomenal. So could you just, you know, talk a little bit about some of the seminars you have coming up?

Steven Bernstein 51:02
Absolutely, for years, really starting back to right about the time of that the BBC, I began teaching if somebody was a writer and wanted to know something about cinematography, because I had done both those things I was uniquely able to explain and a plain language for a writer or director what a cinematographer does, and then later, when I began directing, I could go into great detail to people about what each below the line crew member did. And when I was producing, I could explain to the investors why we needed money for different things, what the post production crew would be doing, what the on set crew would be doing, why we needed as many makeup people as we needed, and so on. So I was always teaching, and sometimes formally, I taught at the International Film School. In London, I had a film school of my own, and in the UK, in London, I set a film school up in New Brunswick in Canada. I've taught at universities including USC here and others all around the country, and I wrote a book about film production that covers all these things. And then finally, I just thought, you know, I should formalize this and make it available to a lot more people than I've made it available to in the past. So we're taking right now six of my most popular lectures, one on making the independent film, how you actually put together an independent film, how you find the money, how you use that money to shoot the film, how you take it through posts and get into sales and distribution? Another one about for stills photographers, because so many stills photographers have come to me and saying, hey, I want to be a cinematographer. I bought this camera. I've done stills work, but how is cinematography different from photography, and particularly with lighting? So I've done that so many directors and producers want to know about cinematography, how it works, so I I've running a course on cinematography for non cinematographers. And so many actors I've worked with, both on stage and on screen, feel uncomfortable when they first step onto a film set, and I wanted to run a seminar so that actors would know what it's like to come onto a film set, and what the assistant directors do, what the the first assistant directors do, what the the director wants, what the cinematographer wants. So, so all those things very useful for them. And then going back to something you and I talked about a lot in this, in this, in this discussion, is I wanted very much to run a course for writers so they would understand the technical aspects of filmmaking, and they could employ that in their writing to make them better screenwriters. So yeah, we set that up. We've got a website called somebody studios.com you can see all the seminars there. People can sign up, I think that they from the time they sign up, they've got a month to watch the individual seminar they've selected, or they can sign up for multiple ones. And the course has been very successful in the past. Not only do I teach the course, but then afterwards, I have a Q and A and we keep the lines open, and we make sure people have access to me in the future for advice. I want to help others, as I've been helped over all these many years, and I really very much looking forward to it, July the 15th. We go live with everything. So we're getting very close to that date. So I hope people go to the website, pick something out for themselves, and see what they might be able to learn.

Dave Bullis 54:53
And I will also link to link to the your seminars in the show notes, you know, as well as any other. Site you have Steven, and it's just great too, because it's something that I've learned over the years. Whenever I want to take a seminar or a webinar or read a book or a filmmaking book, one thing I always my one sort of barrier to entry to reading it or buying it is the person has had to have some kind of experience. I think you've also seen it, Stephen, where you sort of see a book in the in maybe in a Barnes and Nobles, or on Amazon, and you see that they're, you know, the person that wrote it has never written a screenplay or never actually made it, made a film. And you say to yourself, well, what would they possibly know about something that they've never done? It's, a lot like me teaching you how to build a car and then saying, Well, I'm not a mechanic, nor have I ever designed one. I see you. You've actually, you've been there, you know, you've done that. You've done it many, many times over 30 years. And you know, and again, that's why I was blown away by having you on this podcast. Because you know, you've, you've done I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you, Steven half baked, I remember watching that movie on repeat over and over again, you know, growing up, because it was just absolutely hilarious. I mean, you've been able to sort of go in and out of, you know, comedy with half baked in Scary Movie two into Monster, which is more of a of a, not only as a drama, but it's also a personal introspective of the of these two women. Who are, you know, who are, you know, literal and figurative monsters, and then, you know, you now, you're doing your own projects, so it's always good to learn from somebody who's actually has gone out there and done it.

Steven Bernstein 56:33
Well, thank you. And I have done a lot of different things. I'm a producer now, a director, a writer, cinematographer. It's not to always been easy, but it's interesting. When you get to farther down the road, you realize how each of these things informs the other. I'm a better producer because I was a cinematographer. I'm a better director because I'm a writer and a cinematographer. And it's not just the films that have been made. I guess, in the last 18 months, I've been commissioned to write five other major feature films. It's been a very, very busy period for us. We have a TV series that's an advanced stage of development. And the reason I am now writing so quickly and so efficiently is that I'm borrowing from my other experiences as a producer, as a cinematographer, as a director, and I realize what I need to write and what I don't I understand what will work best and what works most efficiently, and it's a help. So look, if I can help others understand all these things based on my experience, I'm more than happy to impart it to them.

Dave Bullis 57:41
And you know, Steven, I know we're just about out of time. I want to again, say thank you so much for coming on and imparting your wisdom here for the past hour. And just in closing, where can people find you out online? You have any other social media links, and also you may, and just to give that seminar link again,

Steven Bernstein 57:57
Well, it's the key one to go to, and this links to pretty much everything to do with me is somebodystudios.com you can also find me, Steven Bernstein, writer, director online, and there's usually links to our courses or what's going on in my life there. Steve Bernstein, director, writer on Instagram as well. And of course, I say somebodystudios.com is pretty much available on all social media platforms, so we really hope that people might join us. Thanks

Dave Bullis 58:30
And everyone I will link to that in our show notes on the Dave bulls podcast. It's at davebullis.com Twitter, you can find me at dave_bullis. Steven Bernstein, I want to say thank you so much for coming on, sir.

Steven Bernstein 58:43
My very great pleasure. Was a great talk. Thank you so much.

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BPS 421: Behind the Scenes of Sharknado: Turning Sci-Fi Madness into Storytelling Gold with Andrew Shaffer

May 29, 2025 by Bulletproof Screenwriting

The mind is a curious trickster, delighting in dreams where logic pirouettes in absurdity. In today’s extraordinary episode, we welcome Andrew Shaffer, a humorist and New York Times bestselling author whose wit slices through the storms of reality with a twinkle in his eye and a chainsaw in hand.

From the earliest pages of his life, Andrew Shaffer was destined to dance with the ridiculous and sublime. As a child, he devoured horror and science fiction with a ravenous appetite, only to find himself drawn back to these imaginative playgrounds after a detour through the hallowed halls of literary fiction. His journey led him, almost inevitably, to the playful chaos of “How to Survive a Sharknado,” a manual for the absurd that demands both laughter and preparation.

In the dance of ideas, Andrew revealed how the birth of the Sharknado survival guide was as spontaneous as a tornado filled with teeth. Inspired by the original cult film, he offered his humorous talents when Random House and SyFy decided to create a companion book. Imagine being tasked with making flying sharks scientifically plausible; as he put it, “I had to talk to a marine biologist and ask, not could this happen, but how it might happen.” It is in such delightfully impossible questions that the spirit of creativity is set loose.

Throughout the conversation, there was a beautiful lightness, the kind one finds when nonsense is taken seriously. Andrew’s research involved binge-watching over 30 sci-fi films—some genuine, some fabricated solely for the book—to weave an interconnected universe of mayhem. When asked how one might survive a Sharknado, he smiled into the void and said, “The answer in the book is simple: Stand and fight. Grab a chainsaw.” It is a lesson not just for storms of sharks, but for all the monstrous whirlwinds that life throws at us.

Yet beneath the chuckles and chainsaws, Andrew’s words echoed a deeper wisdom. Too much meta-awareness, he warned, robs a story of its soul. “If everybody’s in on the joke,” he said, “then the joke itself isn’t that funny anymore.” Ah, but isn’t that true of life itself? When we cling too tightly to cleverness, we risk missing the raw wonder that makes each absurdity luminous.

Perhaps the most chilling revelation of the day was the invincibility of the ghost shark, a creature birthed from sci-fi chaos. Manifesting from toilets, swimming pools, and even water bottles, it served as a reminder: some forces cannot be outrun; they must be met with courage, humor, and an open heart.

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Episode Transcript

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Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:53
This is a very important podcast, because we're going to teach you in this episode to how to survive a Sharknado. Now, Sharknado three is going to air on the Sci Fi Channel on July the 22nd this is going up the day before, but if you're a subscriber, it's going up about one to two days early, so you can get even even quicker preparation for battling this Sharknado. I know you're all very interested, so I'm gonna get right into it. And without further ado, here's the interview with Andrew Schaefer, author of How to Survive a Sharknado. Joining me today is Andrew Shaffer. Andrew is a humorist and New York Times best selling author who works include the great philosophers who failed at love the Goodreads choice semi finalists, 50 shames of Earl Grey's, oh, great tea. And sci fi is how to survive a sharknado and other natural, unnatural disasters. Uh, Andrew, how are you doing today, sir?

Andrew Shaffer 2:51
I'm awake. It's about 3pm here on the west coast.

Dave Bullis 2:58
So, very cool. Um, so could you just give us a little bit about your background, and you know how you got started as an author?

Andrew Shaffer 3:05
How I got started as an author? I've always sort of been, I was always into reading as a child, and I sort of thought that the natural thing then was to start writing, and I didn't, I don't think I realized early on that not everybody who, who reads books, you know, gets the inclination to also write them. It just felt like a very natural progression to me. But early on, as a child, I was very much into horror and science fiction, any type of mystery, any type of genre fiction, was really what I sort of devoured at the time. Then I took a little detour in terms of I went to college, where I studied at at the University of Iowa with with writers workshop students there, which is a very it's much more of a literary fiction sort of training. And I got into that for a little bit a while, but I found myself sort of gravitating more back towards genre fiction, young adult, just stuff that that that was sort of more entertaining, I thought. And that's kind of where I find myself right now. Is going from maybe sort of more of a literary non fiction books, moving more into genre, stuff like the How to Survive a Sharkndo,

Dave Bullis 4:37
Yeah, very cool. And that's a very important book, because we all know sharknados can happen. So I wanted to ask you, how did you actually pitch this book? I mean, did you actually pitch it to sci fi as as like you? Because I know in the book, you cover other of their movies too,

Andrew Shaffer 4:58
Yeah. I mean, the great thing about this play. So I watched Sharknado, the first movie, and I let my agent know I was like, if you know, if there's, like, a novelization or something, I'd love to do that. Of course, there wasn't with the first movie, but then she heard that Random House and the Sci Fi Channel were looking to do something with the second movie, some type of tie in. And they had the idea to do a survival guide, sort of like the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. And it was something that I did a so I don't think, I don't think originally, you know, they thought, really thought of me, because I wasn't writing any type of genre stuff at the time. I just had parody come out, though, 50 shames of Earl gray. So they kind of said, well, you kind of do the humor writing. And I did a sample for it. They ended up liking it, and asked me to write the book then. So it came together pretty fast. I had to watch about, I don't know it was like 30 or 40 different sci fi movies to to actually write the book and sort of ties them all together, sort of in one universe.

Dave Bullis 6:10
Okay, excellent. So you know when, when you did actually pitch to sci fi? Were they really open to using all their other movies as well?

Andrew Shaffer 6:18
We had a list to go off of. I mean, I had some that I wanted to use that we weren't able to but they had a list of, you know, somewhere, probably about 50 or 60, that they had licensing that we could work with. And then there was just so much that we're off limits. So it was basically I had to go with what they gave me, and then sort of narrow it down from there. And then we actually ended up creating a bunch for the for the guidebook. So there's about 10 or 12 in there. I think that that are actually unique and original to the book.

Dave Bullis 6:51
And what's cool is because if you haven't seen all the sci fi movies, you can actually go through and try to figure out which ones are created and which ones are actually real movies?

Andrew Shaffer 7:02
Yeah, that's, that's the funny thing. I've had some people pick up the book and go, How did you come up with some of this crap? I'm like, I didn't. It's just, you know, you can actually go. They're like, there should be a movie about this. And I'm like, well, guess what? You know, you you can go see a Corona conda movie. And it's pretty amazing.

Dave Bullis 7:24
So could you elaborate, you know, on some of the monsters that you wanted to use, but you couldn't?

Andrew Shaffer 7:32
I don't, I don't even really remember exactly which ones we couldn't use offside my head, but I know that, you know, there were, we had to sort of narrow it down to, to what, what was sort of, we didn't want to have, like, like 30 different shark based ones, you know. So there were some, but we used use most of the, the big Sci Fi Channel movies that that they've done that were kind of hits, like shark to pus and coronaconda and stuff, even stone eight. Oh, so it was, so it was, it there wasn't really a lot that was left on the cutting room floor I'd say,

Dave Bullis 8:16
Okay, interesting. So, you know, so when you're you're writing this book, and you're piecing this all together. Did you actually watch each individual movie and sort of make a list and make a lot of notes on each

Andrew Shaffer 8:27
Oh my gosh, yeah, I had to watch every, every movie that we included 3,4,5, times to really pick up everything that was going on and kind of look at different angles and stuff so, so it was, really, I approached it sort of like I did my non fiction books, which was just a lot of research, and then I had to try to figure out scientific explanations for how some of this stuff happened in the real world. And, you know, they're that's not something they're thinking about really. When they're making the movie, they're thinking, make something entertaining, but to write it down in a book, I was like, I need to come up with reasons why, you know, sharks can survive when flying around inside of a tornado. You know, how, what? How do I make that sort of believable? And so I, like, talked to like a marine biologist for that. And I was like, How did you know, is this, you know, not, could this happen, but, but what's a logical way to make this, you know, happen?

Dave Bullis 9:30
So when you, when you interviewed that marine biologist, did he or she know what Sharknado was before you talked to them?

Andrew Shaffer 9:37
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. The biologist spoke to she was a, she was a huge fan of these sci fi movies, actually, and and was, you know, really thrilled to answer my questions and stuff. She's like, she's like, we really love them. They're, you know, they're, I don't want to say, use the word terrible. I forget what. Word she used. But I mean, they're just, they're just entertaining. You can turn your mind off while watching them. And you don't have to worry about the scientific stuff behind it. They said this just, just for pure, you know, entertainment value,

Dave Bullis 10:22
You know, I was just, you know, when you brought that up, I was actually wondering, you know, if, if she hadn't heard of that, and you just went, you know, you know, could a shark and a tornado come together, and she would have been like, could you get this crazy man out of my office, please?

Andrew Shaffer 10:36
I know. I know. Yeah, so, yeah. So, some of that stuff we you know, was, was a lot of fun to sort of research, you know. And then there's other stuff. I mean, I think there was one movie that I watched that I watched it probably 10 times, and I couldn't figure out anyway, not only to make the science work in real life, but I couldn't figure out how the science worked in the movie. I was like, this movie doesn't really make much sense. And I was like, probably gonna cut this one out of the pocket.

Dave Bullis 11:07
So, you know, you know, you, you know, you wrote this book during the and it coincided with the release of Sharknado two. So, you know. So now, with Sharknado three coming out, you know, I wanted to ask you, what are some of your expectations about Sharknado three?

Andrew Shaffer 11:26
You know, I really didn't have any expectations even for the second Sharknado, because I hadn't, hadn't seen it at a time, or read the script or anything. So the second one itself was kind of a surprise. I kind of, you know, had an idea of that it would kind of be a little bit more meta than the first one, and it was. And so the third one I, you know, I was, I'm kind of hoping it goes a little bit back to basics, but which is, you know, really taking the concept as seriously as possible. I think it's something that, once it gets to meta, it becomes, if everybody's in on the joke, you know, then then the joke itself isn't that funny anymore. So I kind of like see a little more serious but, but I don't really know what direction they're going to take it. Yeah, I want to say a more personal Sharknado film. Maybe that's where you have to reboot the franchise.

Dave Bullis 12:31
Yeah, I really want to see a more like David Lynch a Sharknado film, you know. But, but yeah, you know. I completely agree with you on that point. I, you know, I also noticed that in the second one there was a lot more celebrity cameos. Like, pretty much, you know what I mean. Like, every time they went somewhere, there's a new celebrity. I hear now, there's, like, even more celebrities in Sharknado three.

Andrew Shaffer 12:57
Oh yeah, it's everybody wants it wants to, you know, be in on it, be in on the joke. And I think, you know, I don't know if it's a situation where the celebrities are just contacting them and say, I'll work for no money or something, and they're like, how can we refuse that? You know, they really can't say, you know, if David Hasselhoff wants to be in your movie or something, they for no money. It really can't say no to that. It's not like they're courting these celebrities. I don't think so. I mean, yeah, I think it's just gonna have, it's definitely gonna have more celebrity cameos. If you tried to play a celebrity cameo with drinking game or something with Sharknado two, you would have died. I mean, there were so many that are coming so fast, you didn't even know, you know, you couldn't even tell who was an actor, who was a celebrity. You know, it was, it was it came pretty fast and furious.

Dave Bullis 13:52
It did. And I think you're right too. I think there might have been called people who who attempted to do a drinking game, and the results probably weren't so well for them. So you're jumping back to your book, you know, in the chapter, you have an entire, you know, chapter, obviously, just to Sharknado. So, you know, I have to ask the question is, you know, how do you survive a sharknado?

Andrew Shaffer 14:18
How do you survive a sharknado, a lot of people said, just don't watch it. But I mean, I mean, the simple answer of, you know, how do you survive a Sharknado is, as some people think, Oh, well, I survived. I survived by, you know, going to the basement, same way I'd survive a tornado, which really doesn't work because a lot of times during a sharknado, you also have associated flooding with that. The only way to really escape it is to just drive as fast as possible out of town, which, if you're in LA or someplace else where there's going to be a bunch of traffic jams or something, that's just not going to be part. Possible. So, yeah, there's, there's really no good answer that you know. The answer in the book is, you know, Stand and fight. You know, grab a chainsaw, grab whatever you can instead, you know, and and fight back when these things fly at you. So, you know, but I, but personally, I'm, I'm not, like, a survivalist or anything. I mean, I had to research survival stuff for the book. But I don't, you know, I'm so bad about falling in real life, you know, I'm like, I don't have, like, a natural disaster kit. I don't have, you know, three pallets of bald water stored up here, which I probably should, after reading that New Yorker article on earthquakes on the Pacific Northwest this week. So,

Dave Bullis 15:51
Yeah, I read that same article. Apparently, in 50 years, Seattle is just going to be nothing.

Andrew Shaffer 15:57
Yeah, yeah, Seattle is going to get the worst of it. I think Portland, where I'm at is, you know, it's, there's gonna be some, some stuff fall off the wall or something. I don't know. It's not that. It's not gonna be too bad in Portland. I don't think,

Dave Bullis 16:12
Yeah, and just case anybody doesn't know what Andrew and I are talking about, I'll link to that in the show notes so you can read up on that. And then, you know, get scared to death. Be like, Oh my god. So, you know, Andrew, I've had some some fan questions come in, if you don't mind answering a few Sure. So the first question I received was, Andrew, what was the most unstoppable monster that you researched for the book?

Andrew Shaffer 16:39
The most unstoppable monster was the ghost shark, because there's just really no good way to stop a ghost like, like, there was actually a movie too, with, with the guy from bowl, from Night Court. I was in this movie, and it this shark appeared, manifested anywhere there was water. So it was in a swimming pool. One came out of a toilet, another came out of a bottle of water, and there was no way to get away from it anywhere you went. I was just like and it never got full of eating people. So it just went around and around us, eating people and stuff. And I'm like, how do you stop this thing? And I'm trying to think of, you know, there you basically, it's, you have to do some elaborate ghost trapping or something. But, but really it was like, it was like, on, on, on, you know, on a one to one level, you know, an individual level. There was nothing you could do to stop it besides find the, the whatever talisman it was in the movie. So, yeah, it goes straight, pretty frightening stuff.

Dave Bullis 17:59
Now, see, I'll check that movie out because I had no, no idea that was actually a real movie.

Andrew Shaffer 18:04
Oh, my God, it is amazing. Just, just the number of number. There's, there's this amazing bikini Car Wash scene where, where the ghost shark materializes out of a bucket of water. It's, it's just crazy.

Dave Bullis 18:26
So, you know, a follow up question is, Andrew, are you playing on writing a sequel to the book?

Andrew Shaffer 18:34
No, no. And basically, I think, you know, I don't know what else I could say about sharknados, or actually, about most paranormal threats or supernatural stuff like that, but, but I am working on another book that will hopefully be sort of along the similar lines as far as horror goes.

Dave Bullis 19:01
Oh, very cool. Could you tell us a little bit about it, or you want to keep it hush hush?

Andrew Shaffer 19:06
It's like super hush hush, right now.

Dave Bullis 19:08
Okay, so All right, then our on to the next question. We had come in from Michelle the trainer, who was a big fan of the show. Is Andrew a scuba diver, conservationist? Or so? I'm sorry, that was the first part of the question. Sorry, I was just reading a reading, reading. So are you a scuba diver? Andrew?

Andrew Shaffer 19:30
No, I'm not. No, no, I've never gone scuba diving.

Dave Bullis 19:33
And the second part of that was any plans for sharktopus?

Andrew Shaffer 19:40
Well, like survival for the sharktopus. Yeah. So the shark to pus is in the book, but in terms of this year's new movie coming out, Sharktopus versus Whale Wolf, which is the third sharktopus movie, And which are which? Again, if you haven't seen the Sharktopus movies, those are phenomenally entertaining as well, but in terms of how to survive a Sharktopus again, it was like, I started to write some some of these, and I was like, the best thing you can do is just to to move as far away from the coast as possible. Because a lot of these threats in the book that I wrote about were all like, sort of water based threats. And I'm like, unless you like, live in Florida or LA or something, or along the coast, you're fine, but then you get inland, and then I said, then you find yourself in Nebraska. And I mean, I don't you, I don't know. So,

Dave Bullis 20:55
So the next question that came in was, if Andrew was going to create his own sci fi monster. What kind of monster would he create?

Andrew Shaffer 21:05
Well, I think that what kind of monster I would create. I had an idea for one that was not used in the book, and it was called a wolf Blizzard, which was a pun on the CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, and it was just a blizzard of wolves. And that actually got rejected for the book, because they were like, it's, it's the pun is too far. Like it's, they're like, there's like an there's like a line that we would never go past, and you just passed it. And I was like, oh my god, I can't believe I found the line where you will not cross so, but I would still like to I was like. I was like, I'm gonna go write this script.

Dave Bullis 21:55
So for all the aspiring writers listening to this, Andrew has just shown you the line in the sand that Sci Fi Channel will not cross.

Andrew Shaffer 22:04
Yes, yes.

Dave Bullis 22:08
So Andrew, I wanted to ask right now, you know, what are your future plans on publishing? I know there's a project that's very hush hush, but is there any other projects you're working on, or anything else you could tell us about right now?

Andrew Shaffer 22:20
Yeah, I'm also working on a on a young adult novel that that's something I've been working on for a while. I've got a few things that are like in the pipeline, but it's just like, you get a fun, you know, find the right sort of place for them, at a publisher, or either self publish it or whatever, and just got to wait for sort of the stars to align. And until that happens, I don't have any good news to announce. It's kind of boring, like it's something my mom calls me all the time and says, Oh, when's your next book coming out? And I'm like, I don't know. You'll be the first one to know. Don't worry.

Dave Bullis 23:01
So Andrew, I wanted to ask you too, you know, your book, Sharknado, was on sale. Is it still on sale right now?

Andrew Shaffer 23:09
Yeah, as of today, it is for us for like, $1.90 book. I don't know how long the sale is going to last, though.

Dave Bullis 23:15
Okay, so when this is up, you know, hopefully I will link to Andrews book in the show notes, hopefully it'll, if it's not on sale, it's still a relatively good buy. And I guarantee you it's, it is, you know, it's entertaining. It's hilarious. And, like, Look at me. I've learned a lot about the Sci Fi Channel movies because I'm, you know, I've known about ghost shark today.

Andrew Shaffer 23:36
Yeah, it's a value at any price, you know. And the book is like 40 megabytes because it has a bunch of drawings in it. So, you know, that's about 20 times the size of another file, download for a regular prose book. So, I mean, you know, that's what a deal, right? Yeah?

Dave Bullis 23:56
Because when I was flipping through it, I went to, obviously, I went to the Sharknado chapter. And greeting me is a, you know, a black and white hand drawn picture of a shark. Nano, right,

Andrew Shaffer 24:07
Right, right. I mean, and the book's got recipes, you know, excerpts from classic literature that I have completely trashed, such as Moby Dick. So, yeah, it's got a lot of stuff in there.

Dave Bullis 24:24
It's got something for everybody. So, you know, in Andrew, in closing, you know, is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you wanted to mention, or any, any, you know, closing thoughts or final thoughts?

Andrew Shaffer 24:38
No, my mind is, my mind is completely blank I do in like this meditation class right now. So I'm learning to sort of wipe away all thoughts in my mind. You know, normally I would have 100 things to talk about right now, but right now it's just like it's, I'm I'm learning to zone out and go blank.

Dave Bullis 24:59
All right. Andrew, where do you find you at online?

Andrew Shaffer 25:03
Oh, my goodness, anywhere. Twitter, Facebook, Google, you know, all someone has to do is Google my name. Andrew Shaffer, S, H, A, F, F, E, R, as long as they spell it right, they can find me, you know, which is, you know, kind of disturbing, but I'm all over the place,

Dave Bullis 25:25
And I'll make sure to to link to all that in the show notes too. I'll link to your website and your Twitter.

Andrew Shaffer 25:31
You don't you don't have to just make them work for it. Work for it. Okay?

Dave Bullis 25:35
I will not link to Andrew's info in the show notes, so you will have to work for it, then it'll be the first time. But I will not, I promise you, I will not link to that in the show notes. But Andrew, want to say thank you very much for coming on again everyone. It's how to survive a sharknado and other unnatural disasters that it's I will link to the, I will link to this and the show notes, but it's right to the Kindle version. And is there a physical version of this book too Andrew?

Andrew Shaffer 26:03
There is. There is because, you know, once, once a sharknado or some other type of disaster hits, you need the physical version. You know, you can be able to charge your phone or whatnot. So, you know, I always advise people to get the e book and the physical version and just being on the safe side.

Dave Bullis 26:22
See, that's why you're the publisher, because that's that. That is forethought, my friend, yes, yes, you won't have That's right. So, you know, the physical the the ebook I have, you know, if it does, the power goes out, I won't be able to find it. So honestly, look into the physical version now too. Yeah. So Andrew, I want to say thank you so much for coming on everyone. The book is how to survive a sharknado. Andrew, thanks again for coming on and again. Feel free to, you know, drop me an email anytime, and I'd love to have you back sometime.

Andrew Shaffer 26:52
Yeah, great time chatting with you, Dave.

Dave Bullis 26:54
Oh, you too, my friend. Take care everyone.

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