Screenwriters

Alex Ferrari 0:00
I'd like to welcome to the show Leroy Kincaide. How're you doing Leroy?

Leroy Kincaide 0:14
Hey, buddy. How's it going, mate you good?

Alex Ferrari 0:16
I'm good, man. I'm good. I noticed an accent. So you're definitely not from the States. Right Sir ?

Leroy Kincaide 0:21
Absolutely bloody not mate no from the UK from a little town called Maidstone in Kent. Oh, yeah, it's quite different from across the pond. But before we get going, Dude, I have to just say man, like big fan of the show. You got me through 2020 Not gonna lie. Every morning when I was making my breakfast. I was like, Yes, Alex Ferrari. Let's get that on. Yeah, dude, you're serving and protecting the, you know, the community of filmmakers that day. So

Alex Ferrari 0:31
I'm trying

Leroy Kincaide 0:34
Just keep doing what you're doing

Alex Ferrari 0:53
I truly, I truly appreciate that. Man. That means that means a lot. It means a lot. Man. I like I've said many times before, sometimes I just sit in front of this mic. And I don't know where this goes. It just goes out into the ether. And but people are listening. You know, it's hard. It's unlike a rockstar who could see the audience. I can't. So I don't know who's listening. So I love hearing stories like that. So a May 2020 was rough for everybody in 2021 Ain't that much easier? Yeah, we're still we're still definitely it's still not 2019. So take us back. Oh, 2015 Oh, the good old days. Yes. Gas wasn't seven, seven pounds a gallon like it is now. How much is gas over there? Now?

Leroy Kincaide 1:42
It's a lot. It's like, um, per liter. It's about one. So I've got diesel. It's like one pound 62. I think 160 falls there about

Alex Ferrari 1:56
That's a pound. So that's like to like 250. us something like that? Yeah, yeah, that's like super cheap. It's super cheap. By the way. That's super cheap. Like here? Oh, yeah. La, we got to around $6.50 per liter per nano per gallon. All you're doing leaders because you have the metric system because like the rest of the world, you have the metric system. We on the other hand, are still stuck on gallons. So okay, let's not get into a conversation of metric system. Let's move into filmmaking. So, you've got a hell of a story, man. was one of the reasons I wanted you on the show because you got a hell of a backstory. How did you get started in the entertainment business? And then how did that get into the film business?

Leroy Kincaide 2:42
So my, my background is very eclectic. Let's just say like, I've got a diverse space of repertoire of work. I started in the entertainment field. When I was 15. I was a professional wrestler, stuck to professional wrestling for quite a while. I'll wrestled probably up until the age of about maybe 30. And yeah, and then pretty much after that, I segwayed out of the game and just found a passion for acting and filmmaking. I had a great run while I was wrestler, had an awesome time I was in the process of potentially getting picked up by WWE had a match on SmackDown done all of that, but it just want to say it's like, you know, when you do something, you're too good to quit. But you don't love it. It was a bit like that.

Alex Ferrari 3:37
I feel it very much. So,

Leroy Kincaide 3:40
Dude, I love the industry for what it had. But I hated the business. I hated the business with a passion. Because it you know, it's like the film industry attracts a lot of interesting people. Some people can be predatory, some people not so predatory. Wrestling is no different. And it was that side of it. That for me just made it not so fun. You know, when you start realizing the magic trick is not really that magical. And you start looking beyond the veil of things, you start to realize that okay, you know, you're just a cog part of many other 100 different parts where when you grow up with the spectacle, what you see what you get different.

Alex Ferrari 4:22
Oh, no, I mean, I'm old school wrestling fan man back from the 80s like going to the WWF was kicking off and so I'm a huge I was a huge I saw the rock wrestle man. I saw Hogan wrestle. I mean, I was a big wrestling fan. From back in the day to man I was I watched WrestleMania one in New York when I lived in New York, so it was like going on in Madison Square Garden. I was living in Queens at the time, and I was watching Mr. T and Hogan. You know, taking that taking that Subway down. I saw the hole I still remember it so clearly. So I'm old era. Oh, yeah, dude, that's what that's when it was really created. That's when that's when a sports entertainer and started and that's the time when people didn't even talk about wrestling as being fake. Or not fake, but because it ain't fake, because trust me, I've seen wrestling it hurts. But yeah, pre predetermined outcomes and they're working as a team and all that kind of stuff. But back then you couldn't even say that it was like, No, it's a sport. Dude. The guy's wearing a turban, man. Come on. Like he's walking in wearing feathers. Like what? Come on. Seriously. You know, Coco, beware really? So do you throw it back? Oh, no. No, I can throw down I can throw down with my wrestling my wrestling trivia man back in the day. Oh, British Bulldogs. Dude, are you kidding? Man? Oh, yeah, dude, it was

Leroy Kincaide 5:40
Yeah, then back in the day. I mean, the rest of the the wrestling scene has obviously is, you know, some of the audience is changed a lot over the years. You know, the Attitude Era was the best era for me. Like that was where I was like, I want to live this sport and just dive right we're doing it like, I love it. Because you sacrifice your body so much in the industry, right? You come you come home and your back's aching. You've got like scratches all over your body and everything. And you don't do it for money you absolutely don't do for money because the industry unless you're at the top, you don't tend to get an awful lot of money. So I have a massive amount of respect toward the end guys out there throwing down on a nightly basis because you know, it's a lot on the body and a lot of broken marriages in that industry is you know, it's it's just Rachel Matic you know, I don't need to go into every detail but

Alex Ferrari 6:35
Yeah, it's the funny thing is that there's a lot of there's a lot of similarities between being an independent filmmaker and being an independent wrestler you know, because you know you are the product and and the different filmmakers trying to make the product but at the end of the day is trying to get seen trying to get noticed and there's a hell of a lot of abuse that comes along the way man you know you with wrestlers, it's physical, mental and so many other things that happen you know from every documentary I've ever seen especially going back to that go into that Jake the Snake documentary which was that connect that first time that you got to real behind the scenes of like oh my god like one of my heroes growing up is like living in a trailer park can't even like it's it really started to ring true like to this is the reality of what it is. And that's what I do on this show too with independent filmmakers like people lose their homes people's marriages break up if you're not smart about how you do it.

Leroy Kincaide 7:30
You've got it you've got to really like position yourself well to succeed I think the the biggest thing that happens in the industry is that people get caught up in the painkiller slash fast cars FAST Women in that scenario and right sure it's easy to burn out like that and unfortunately you know, if you're very heavily influenced by what people want to do, you'll end up just doing everything in anything and then before you know it you've got nothing because you mentioned Jake the Snake back in 2003 2004 was very fortunate I got an opportunity to meet Jake the Snake he come down to the wrestling school I was out and done like a seminar. And you know he's going through a rocky time at that time. But like

Alex Ferrari 8:14
This is pretty this is pretty this is pretty documentary. I was it oh three what it was it was that oh three? Oh, yeah. Very Oh, yeah. This is very before the documentary. Yeah.

Leroy Kincaide 8:25
Just before Yeah. So like, but what a wealth of knowledge man, like, you know, you see, you see as you say your stars like you know growing up and you see them as they end up and you're like, wow, what happened? And then you listen to their their genius ability to know how to communicate to an audience and cut promo like he was a king of promos, man. Like, he was the king of promos. And, yeah, it's just amazing to sort of see, you know, how far they can come and then how and how they can end up and it's a shame, you know, is a big shame. But, you know, the sport is the sport. And unfortunately, unfortunately, for some it's the way it is. So I think the key is about like playing with the cards the best way you can you tell?

Alex Ferrari 9:13
It's like the film business is the film business. And it is what it is and is the game the game changes monthly now, you know, everything's like what? When you start making a movie, the whole market is changed by the time you're finished making the movie. And that's something that we'll talk about yours because yours took a couple years, at least two or three years you said to to get going but you So you went from wrestling onto sets and working as an actor. You've been on many sets. What did you What is a nugget of a nugget, a golden nugget that you pulled out from? From being on all those sets that you brought into your directing and into your filmmaking career.

Leroy Kincaide 9:53
I'm in let's see, I would say the biggest takeaway. I can Use for for the audience's sake is to model patience. I think patience is something that we, we tend to lack a lot of in today's society. But moreover, like, when you're on set, you know, you call times that, like, you know, I was just doing some work on gangs in London, just doing a bit of stunt work on that. So you know, your call time is radically early two hours journey. You sit there all day, and you're not used, for example, oh, yeah, it's like, you could go, Oh, my God, I've had a bad day, blah, blah, blah. Or you just embrace the fact that you're working in one of the key industries that you want to be a part of, and embrace that. So moving from all areas that I've had experience with answered, like making films and stuff like that. The key is just to model patients. And to know that, like, there's a process for everything that you got to do. And, you know, just I think with patience, also comes the ability to, to make crucial decisions without emotion, coming to involved in it, because I think that's it's a very emotional game if you get too connected to make sure that his knees and emotion as the player a certain part.

Alex Ferrari 11:19
Yeah, I think some of the best advice I ever got was from Richard Linkletter, who said, well, however long do you think is going to take? It's going to be twice as long, it's gonna be twice as hard. And that's some of the best advice I've ever heard in the film business. And also don't be a dick. That's the other. That's like the best piece of dope. Don't be a dick. It's so true, isn't it? Isn't that true, though? Isn't that true? Don't be dick

Leroy Kincaide 11:44
The thing is people not saying it's a bad apple. Look, let's not kid ourselves. We all have a bad day. We all everybody day, yes. But the key is about how you don't allow your day to affect you, but beyond you others, and try your best to actually be someone that people want to mix it up and collaborate with. You know, in this world, we have an eclectic mix of everybody, which is important, because don't want everyone the same. So some people you naturally won't shoot the breeze so frequently with, but the key is like, you're all there to share the journey, right? And the process so just always get your pickaxes up, get your shovels and just dig, go for gold man.

Alex Ferrari 12:30
Cut wood carry water cut wood carry water

Leroy Kincaide 12:35
Amen.

Alex Ferrari 12:37
No, I just real quick, I wanted to kind of go back a little bit to your wrestling time. Is there anything from those 15 years working in that side of the entertainment business? Any lessons that you brought into your filmmaking as well?

Leroy Kincaide 12:54
Yeah, I would say it would be the, the discipline, the the, the the process of realizing that like, you know, when you start out wanting to do a certain the same wrestling, you'd want to do a certain move, you'd not do it right the first time, the 10th time, you're still not doing it right, the 20th time, the 30th time, maybe by the 14th time, you might have suffered something. And the repetition in the repetition is the thing that I find most effective in the film industry where I translate the whole book. So the way I look at that is being highly obsessed with what ever process I'm going through. And I repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat to a level that we're probably most people probably wouldn't want to keep going. But I think at the point when you feel like just there's enough, no, you've got more in the tank, keep going. The discipline that I find from wrestling that I pull into this industry, just it's paid, paid off hugely, because it meant at times where I could have dropped the ball there times where I could have maybe gone I don't know if I can quite do it. I know whether it's a good day, a bad day where I've got a cold, whether it's night, whether it's morning, I got to get up, I got to make stuff happen. And they said it needs to be done. Or the grade needs to be done. Or this script needs to be finished. It's just so easy to to let yourself off. And I try to not like ever do that. Like I do my absolute best to continue to just keep pushing the needle as hard as possible. Especially especially in in the film industry because the thing there's not it's not an easy way to make something happen. Right? It's always tough

Alex Ferrari 14:51
For every for everybody man for even at the event at the highest levels. Those guys are still struggling to get some things made. You know, you know I and I've gotten to talk to a lot of men I hear off air I like so what's your next project? Man? I can't get financed. I'm like you can't you got an Oscar How can you not get fine is in the like, he's the kind of movie I want to tell on the budget I need and this and that. It's it's it's different, obviously, than getting your first film off the ground, but it's still a struggle no matter who you are. Yeah, yeah.

Leroy Kincaide 15:17
It's always like, as I say, like, each new level brings a new devil, right?

Alex Ferrari 15:22
Oh, that's good. Say that again, say that again? Say that again? I like that one. So

Leroy Kincaide 15:25
Each new level brings a new devil.

Alex Ferrari 15:28
I'm gonna steal that one brother. That's good.

Leroy Kincaide 15:32
You know, nothing's ever really stolen.

Alex Ferrari 15:35
Yes, we're paying that will pay I'll pay for it, sir.

Leroy Kincaide 15:40
No credit is paid on. Yeah, with the new levels thing and new devils is basically like, you know, the more money you get, the more responsibilities are gonna come in the money. You know what I mean? It's like, at this level, you know, I've just made the debut horror. It's like, get fabulous. You know, we've just gone out there, and we've just made it happen. Sweet. Let's say the next film, we get a ton of investment in. Yeah, that's great. Now we've got responsibility. Not that we haven't already. But we now got a responsibility to make sure that that person that trust, us, gets it back. And then the higher the budget, the more people and I could just, you know, if there was 100 million budget thrown my way. You know, what, I think I need a stiff coffee, double espresso.

Alex Ferrari 16:35
Every, every 15 minutes on the set.

Leroy Kincaide 16:40
Process The weight of how, how much that is not just about my creativity, that's like, someone's trusting me with that. Like, that's a lot man. Like, and that's a responsibility not many of us are gonna ever feel the weight of so I think we can call stones, you know, people that have done whatever and whatnot. But it's like until we're there. You know, it's, we got to realize each level with its new Devil is a process.

Alex Ferrari 17:09
Oh, there's no question. And I've said that to so many people. I'm like, I can't even imagine what it's like to be James Cameron. Like, I mean, like, I can't even comprehend what he did with avatar. You know, the first Avatar, I can't comprehend what he did had to deal with, with that. davek being the biggest movie of all time, at that moment. You know, like, that kind of pressure and also trying to be creative. And also trying to deal with the politics and also trying to do it like it. I can't I Yeah, man. I, you if you see directors, they age, like presidents. Yeah, you know, it's like they because there's a lot of stress until unless you're like, unless you're like, like Ridley Scott, who can bust out like four gladiators a year. And he'd be like, I'm good. Like, he's just that guy. But because he's been doing it. Jesus, man. I think he's spent more time on set than he has outside of set in his lifetime. More like more likely.

Leroy Kincaide 18:10
Yeah, I think they were back in the mix of doing a new Gladiator.

Alex Ferrari 18:14
Yes, they are. Yeah, they're doing they're doing the the sequel to the sequel, The Gladiator. I mean, he just busted out what? That new one, the last tool and the house of Gucci and now he's doing another like he, he does and he's like 81 or something like that.

Leroy Kincaide 18:30
We don't know his age, but

Alex Ferrari 18:31
He's like, he's just he just but most prolific one of the most prolific directors of his of his generation. He just works Nevers, but I think that's the commercial side of it. He was because he didn't make his first feature to lose 40 Did you know that he didn't make his first feature to lose 40 That's when he made his first feature. But before that, he had 20 years of a million commercials and music videos.

Leroy Kincaide 18:56
But he posts so much like, I remember watching like, I think on YouTube, there's like a kook optics I've got like, yeah, behind the scenes there. Sure. And they were talking it was one of the cinematographers were talking about how we got lots of his inspiration from doing commercials for Blade Runner, and all of that because he got a lot of time to experiment in that space. And I think that's like phenomenal.

Alex Ferrari 19:22
Oh, no, no commercial because some of the best directors in history have come out of commercials but Ridley and Tony were the first do that really. They broke down that that was before Fincher and before Spike Jones and Fuqua and all those you know Michael Bay and those guys that came out afterwards but alright, we want to see we just get out there apologize. So tell me about your film and the last right how tell me the horrific story of how this thing got

Leroy Kincaide 19:51
You know, what did I have to do? Literally everything

Alex Ferrari 19:54
Who did you kill? Who did you kill? Where are the bodies buried?

Leroy Kincaide 19:58
In the back garden, just thank you. Thank you know so like the one the last right come about that Well, I think it film first the film is, let's say it's a mixture between Exorcism of Emily Rose meets Amityville Horror focuses around three elements sleep paralysis and night terrors. demonic possession, and shadow figures like Daddy, that's where the heart of the story is birthed from. inspired by true events, not story, true events, some of the events that have inspired that story I had personal experience with. So, you know, I used to get a lot of night terrors and sleep paralysis stuff when I was a kid, very interesting story, I won't go into massive, massive detail. But yeah, some things that affected aspects of my sleep right up until later years being like, you know, nearly 20. And I drew a lot of my inspiration for the piece around the subject matter itself. And then I just wanted to, like, serve it the best way I could, by telling a story that needed to be told, without all the smoke and mirrors stuff, you know, there was no budget to, to make it like, you know, with heavy CGI, and all of that. And so it was a case of doing the absolute best at telling the story without, you know, without any all the bells and whistles and giving it key execution. And that was really what we did. So we started in 2018, start beginning the script 2018 and filmed in 2019. There was a little story there that was due to shoot in March of 2019. So we we just secured the beautiful house that we went to shooting. So it's like yeah, let's get this house paid for the house. You know what they'll get money we had we booked the house for a month. And then just in between that I was doing door work. So as a part time doormen. So I was working in nightclubs and stuff like that. And this big fight erupted, pretty brutal, was punched in the eye with a key horrible stuff. And I put my arm out and told my bicep just before due to film. This was literally like the 20th of January. And I was about five, four weeks out from filming. So being, you know, on the indie side of it, where we had to literally do 1,000,001 jobs ourselves, as the DP as the director as the writer, and yet, everything. It's like, I knew what that meant. That meant we wasn't going to be able to shoot at the day would book the household. So we run the risk of losing like all of the all of what we put down as a deposit and everything. So luckily, we were able to work that out. So we pushed filming back until September. And then yeah, 2020 where you got me through was pretty much the edit. It was lots of editing, lots of cutting backwards and forwards collide a lot more time. Everyone had time.

Alex Ferrari 23:12
You got to perfect it. So you financed us, right?

Leroy Kincaide 23:16
Yes, yes.

Alex Ferrari 23:17
So. So do you mind talk? Do you? Are you allowed to talk about the budget?

Leroy Kincaide 23:22
Oh, yeah, we were quite cool to talk about is not

Alex Ferrari 23:26
Okay, so what was it? What was the budget of this film? Because it looks fantastic.

Leroy Kincaide 23:29
So the budget for the film was 27,000

Alex Ferrari 23:35
Pounds. So yeah, she's looking at like, $40,000 I'm like that probably 35 or $40,000. That's, that's pretty good. I mean, I believe it looks really good for that price. No, no, it No, it does look good. Look, I get I get hit up all the time if people want to be on the show. And the first thing I do is I check the trailer. And if the trailer doesn't like I can't man, I'm sorry. I can't, like I can't, I gotta, there's gotta be you gotta be at a certain level man. And I could smell it really quickly. But I saw that was a really nice, polished piece. It looked good. And then I was even more impressed when I found out that you did the majority of the hats and, you know, speaking from someone who does the majority of the things on my films, you know, I do I do the same thing. So hustle recognizes hustle. So how how did you handle all of those hats?

Leroy Kincaide 24:28
By you know, like, by not over complicating the wheelhouse, right? I guess you could say like if I if I look back through through my years and the backstory is important, because we all learn a different way, right? Like we can all retain information a certain way. Some people are like, proactive learners, they go out and do things make it work, but they use this in the classroom, or they're great in the classroom, but awful at putting things into practice. I was the first one. So I learned very well By doing stuff, I wasn't the best academically sitting in a room. So because of my abstract obsessive nature being, shall we say a tad off of the radar with high functioning autism and all that, not that that's a bad thing. What it allows me to do is process a high amount of information, and not see it as multiple things and see it as one thing. So what I do is, I don't see all the jobs as multiple jobs, I see them as part of the process to get the feel mate.

Alex Ferrari 25:34
To perspective is this perspective difference?

Leroy Kincaide 25:37
It absolutely feels like, if you talk about it, if I talk about it, and go, Okay, well, I had to learn about the writing. And then you learn about the writing into, you know, three act structure, and then you learn about character development, and you're this character work and all that, that's your script, and then you look at the lenses, and then you look at camera, and then you look at it, before you know it, there's like 20,000 Different things they're looking at. And if you put them all down on paper and said, You got to learn all of this in a matter of whatever your mind would just go. I can't How can you retain all that, but because over time, and I mean, this is over a gradual process of time, mind you, it's not like, you know, three years, I just said, I want to make a film. You know, I've been doing other bits before that other shorts, before that. The information has been just gradual. So what I've been able to do is fine tune the direction that I want to go in as a filmmaker, because that that helps, you know, knowing the, the direction I want to go creatively and as a an artist, but also as someone who's wants to be in the business as a business player, not just someone who's like, Oh, I've got to paint pretty pictures. Like, yeah, I want to paint pretty pictures, but it's no good if you film doesn't correlate in the right way. You know, so it's about realizing that telling the story comes from a few places, you know, as you know, is the story you write the story you read it and the story that you know, it's really so that it so for me, it was more about like, what am I serving as a story? Can I serve it to the best of my ability throw myself at all areas? Because we didn't have the money to throw it? All the areas? You know, we had like what? 30 I think it was like 36 days shoot.

Alex Ferrari 27:35
Oh, wow. Maybe you shot 36 days? On a on a $40,000 budget? How the hell did you do the bombing people were on your crew.

Leroy Kincaide 27:47
My producer, Chloe, you know, she was like wearing a gazillion hearts as well. Sure she was born wardrobe and Okay, prepping the food and that there was a sound guy who was with us the duration. And maybe on on most of the days we had a makeup artist, only one. But there were days where we didn't have any. And then other than that, it was all me like so. I

Alex Ferrari 28:16
You rigged all the light you rigged all the lights you set everything up yourself. You didn't know you had no gaff you had no, no grips. None of that stuff. You just figured it all out yourself. Well, man, that's even. That's even more impressive looking at the trailer, because you look at that film, it looks polished as hell, man. It does. It has a very good look to it. And it looks polished and doesn't look like it does not look in the least like you shot it for 40 grand and had three four people on set. I mean, it's I mean, it is a one location. It's basically a one location movie, right

Leroy Kincaide 28:51
14

Alex Ferrari 28:52
14 locations, you know, but most of it takes place in the house. Right?

Leroy Kincaide 28:57
Most of it takes place in the house.

Alex Ferrari 28:59
But you ran you ran around you ran around outside of the house as well in other locations.

Leroy Kincaide 29:05
Oh, no. So what we did, we had to have one block during the house process, which, you know, that that, you know, that was a process in itself because it was balancing night and day and a lot of the film took place at night. And there were some night and day shoots where you know, people got like no sleep. But ultimately, once we got the block of the house done, that was the main bulk of the film. And then there were other bits where we had to go to like church a couple of times. It was like two churches. It was like a another like monastery sort of place which we used where there's like an interview type of deal going on there or meeting so yeah, it was a variety of different locations to try and even though it takes place in one location, it was about trying to make it feel like it had more scope around it. Like it's a world there as opposed to just a house like you know So yeah, so there was a lot of legwork by all parties involved. But yeah, we we most we had four crew on a day.

Alex Ferrari 30:11
God bless, bro that that is that is impressive man because I know what it feels like shooting I shot my first feature in eight days for like you know a few 1000 bones and and I was I did most of everything and I had the most three four people on set. And mind you guys was a comedy not a horror, but it's still yours came out looking really really nice man. So congrats on that bro.

Leroy Kincaide 30:34
Are you talking about

Alex Ferrari 30:37
No, no, no, I'm talking about this is Meg.

Leroy Kincaide 30:40
Oh, this is Meg.

Alex Ferrari 30:41
This is Meg was my Yeah, this is Meg was my first feature which I shot for five grand over the course of eight days in LA and we just shot up a bunch of people's houses we shot it, I think in I think eight total days. And I shot I that was when I D peed myself because I was like what the hell I want to I want to shoot it. And it was my first feature. And we got it. We sold it to Hulu and we sold internationally. And we had some we had some faces and some you know some stars, not say stars but faces that people recognize. And it did very well. Ego and desire was a whole other code that was that was just me running around for three to four days with me and my sound guy, my camera man and my DP and that's it. So it was like three people running around Sundance stealing the entire movie.

Leroy Kincaide 31:25
It was very interesting the way you picked stuff up. I was assuming I was thinking, I'm sure did you have permits, they do permits, permits

Alex Ferrari 31:36
Permits. I just told the entire movie even went to Sundance headquarters and shot two scenes there. Yeah, we just we were just fearless man, it was just and it was so scary. Because honestly, I got on the airplane. And I didn't know if I had a movie, because I didn't have time to watch the film because we you know, we only shot we shot a total 36 hours for the entire feature. So production time was 36 hours. And there's just no time to sit there. And I mean, I saw that we transferred files but I didn't like look at dailies. So I did I really have no idea if I could fit if it was gonna be a really, really long short, or is this gonna be a feature? And I was like, I just need to make it 70 minutes. That's all I care about. I just needed 70 minutes, and we made it to 73 minutes. And I think we used 98% Of all the footage we shot. But oh yeah, it was just like, it was such a crazy experiment. It was an experiment. You know, it was just like, hey, let's see what happens. And don't forget, I was also shooting interviews at the time too. So I was like, making the movie on a side hustle. While I was actually interviewed people for the show

Leroy Kincaide 32:43
It should be more like about how you made that happen because like as someone that you know if you're doing a DP stuff as well.

Alex Ferrari 32:49
No, that was Yeah, that one I didn't DP actually smart enough to bring my DP with me. So ah, I'm so it was me my DP who was also my camera op with my gear and my lenses and you know, we talked about how I wanted everything to look and everything like that we shot it with a pen, it was the Blackmagic tennety P pocket cameras I wanted that 16 sensor and I had an amazing sound guy that was a three and then I had one friend who would just come and do whatever so we had four people crew running around with three talent seven is running around the entire dance asserting stuff it was it was insane. It was a different world when people could actually go on a bus without a mask on and there were crowds and all that all this stuff and was it the crowd

Leroy Kincaide 33:35
Ohh man what a time to have been alive right?

Alex Ferrari 33:38
Time to be alive. Jesus,

Leroy Kincaide 33:42
You would just think it was like let's literally like a couple of years ago.

Alex Ferrari 33:46
It was it was it was two three years ago when we shot it Yeah, we shot it in 2018 I released them in 2020 in January of 2020 right around Sundance time and we actually premiered it rain dance we will premiered it rain dance.

Leroy Kincaide 34:00
I was just gonna say we I was gonna go down there that year for 24 Rain dance but obviously you know obviously lock downs and stuff happened but rang dance like yeah, so they permeate that I study ocean dude.

Alex Ferrari 34:15
Yeah, it was a big that was a big festival for so it's a great great festival, the world premiere at and the only festival honestly that didn't have a stick up there but about a film about Sundance because I didn't realize how if you've seen the movie, you'll understand it is a perfect film festival movie. It literally is as perfect for film festival crowd as you can get. And film festivals just had a real big stick about promoting Sundance. And like because you don't want your audience sitting. Watching a movie about another festival that's much cooler than what your ads and I didn't consider that when I made the film. I thought it was gonna be like a Gangbuster across like, Oh, it's just gonna get the can. This is getting into Toronto. This is gonna get to South by this. Nope. You Nothing man I got rejected,

Leroy Kincaide 35:01
Like access denied

Alex Ferrari 35:03
Access, oh, no Access denied. But I always tell the story that Sundance normally when you send something to Sundance, you know, he's in that Vimeo link. And you see, like, it's it gets seen two three times, you know, like, you know, a couple, a couple of screeners will watch it. And you know, if it gets up a little bit, you might have four or five people watch the movie at 60 views. They just got passed through. Everybody watched it, because everyone's like, someone shot a movie at Sundance. Do you want to see this? Like, it was like, it was like this whole thing. And I've actually met is so funny. I won't say who it is. But I've met other programmers at that are big at big festivals. And then they'll go, Oh, you're Alex. Yeah. I've seen your movie. I was like, really? Like a 20? Shot of Sundance. Right? Yeah, we saw it. So it's like this cult little thing that goes on the ground now, but anyone listening? If you haven't seen ego and desire, please go, go go watch it. Because it's so it's, if you're, if you're a filmmaker, man, it's built for filmmakers. Now I have to ask you, man, so Alright, so we all have that day as directors on set, that the world is coming down crashing around us that everything's going wrong. And oh, my god, how am I going to get out of this? What was that day for you? And how did you overcome that obstacle?

Leroy Kincaide 36:22
Um, right. Now, I really wish I could say that that happened.

Alex Ferrari 36:30
It didn't say it was perfectly perfectly run through everything was smooth all the way through,

Leroy Kincaide 36:35
Outside of a day getting rained off, which was an evening, so we chop in the day in house. And then it was an evening, we just do tissue. But because it was raining, I was like, well, we'll just move it to another day. I wish I had a more dramatic story than that. Let me try and think of something. I mean, like, you know, the thing that I think is the most difficult thing in the process is being consistent. You know, if you're shooting, what play six nights, stay six days shoots and stuff. It's like, the persistent, like repetition of it is quite hard. Like I think that's, that's a tough thing, I'd say, in terms of an actual day and never really had a bad thing. Oh, boy, actually, oh,

Alex Ferrari 37:27
There it is. There it is. I was when I was I was waiting, I was waiting, I was like, wait a minute,

Leroy Kincaide 37:33
Swami. I'm not gonna I want I want, you know, I wanna throw anyone under the bus or anything. But there was one specific night, you know, I'm very, more to say, quite hands on director, I believe in allowing a lot of room for people to play and have fun. I think that's part of the process. In all areas, not just on screen, I think, you know, with crew, like, you know, allowing room for people to work and develop, because, hey, we're all in this process together. Let's make it work. There were just one of our team players on the crew side, who wasn't quite getting across what we needed. And what I would say, Anthony, this is a good point, actually. What I would say would be to stop the process of processing thinking, when you sense somebody is not right, as you get going. Now, you have interviews with people, right? You get people on board, you get people in the mix, you hope everyone's gonna stick by the word, and do what they say. Because that's why you employ them to get them in the mix. You're like, look, we got natural budget. It's gonna be a crazy ride, we want to do a fabulous thing with this project. You want to you want in like, you know, it's your first film, it's our first film, whatever, like this, just have fun. There was one of the people that we got working with over time, it did more to say, she probably should have left the project in the first week. But you know, you're trying to manage a budget and you keep people on board as long as possible. There was a point where we almost didn't get the main part one of the main aspects of the movie because of this individual, not quite being not not up to task, the attitude just wasn't, wasn't right. And, you know, you know, I, I try, you know, I want to come around and give hugs and love and rainbows and unicorns, but sometimes it unfortunately just doesn't work and that managing a person at four in the morning after a long slog of I was in that it can be quite taxing. So I think that was a tough, a tough thing. And the way I managed that is with empathy. You know, you have to, you have to remember that, like, you know, people were there away from their family and their loved ones, and I'm whatever. And I understand that. And I think it's not about, you know, being a lion and trying to bite people's heads off. It's about just being okay. You know, it is hard to not take it personal, though.

Alex Ferrari 40:32
I was a direct as a director, absolutely. I understand that point. Yeah, easily.

Leroy Kincaide 40:36
You know, when you're when you're trying to create something, and someone is trying to project to you what you need to do versus no, this is what I want, not what I need you to do for me, I just need this and all. So that managing those things, in that moment in time, probably, I would say was the toughest bit. If I'm honest, it wasn't like, you know, an actor didn't show up, or, you know, we rushed the location.

Alex Ferrari 41:08
But that's actually more that's, I think that's even more devastating than, you know, an extra not showing up sometimes. Because that's a one off thing where this is a continuous. It's a continuous burn, if it's not handled properly.

Leroy Kincaide 41:21
Yeah, yeah. And it's like the, you know, one of the things, especially in the indie, indie scene, right, is when you don't have a lot of budget to just, okay, thank you very much. Thanks for your time ended today, we'll get someone else in whatever. When you don't have the budget to really play in that ballpark. You You've got to remember, like, you've now run the risk. If the longer you keep said people in the mix, you run the risk of derailing what you're trying to do that. And that's one of the things that like, you know, because I believe for me, I like to, as I say, I like to give hugs, love, and all of that, because it's a tough process this thing. But there comes a point where you, you have to ask yourself, like, what is everybody here to do? You know, if if you are all here to tell your story, to get your film across the line? Because it's tough. Lots of days, lots of hours, and all of that. How do you work this situation to make it the best outcome for all. Now, sometimes you have to make a tough decision to do that. Because if you don't, what happens is you end up looking back in the edit, go in, I wish I'd done this, I wish I'd done that we shouldn't have done this, we shouldn't have done that. And I don't know as a as a filmmaker, I and a director, I can't allow myself that much leeway to sit down in the edit and go, Ah, I wish I just said this not gonna do it.

Alex Ferrari 43:03
No. And I think that's a lesson that you learn. I think that's a lesson that you learn as you get older. I mean, even though this was your first feature, you'd been around the block a couple times already, by the time you made your first as a human being, you bet. And so just but and also just bumping around and in, in wrestling and also as an actor. So this wasn't your first barbecue per se. So you've had some experience, but when you're younger, you don't want to ruffle feathers. It's about you know, ego sometimes and you don't want to, you know, you don't want to start fighting and so you let certain things go. But when you get into the Edit, you're just like, dammit, I wish I would have gotten that. Dammit. If I did not have to cut around. This is not exactly what my vision was. That's the lesson you start learning early on as a director. And look, I just had it happen a few years ago, when I was on I was on a show that I was doing and I won't throw them under the bus either. But there was a key crew member. We had to shoot. I shot 96 pages in four days. And it was it was a show an eight episode show. And we never went over we shot 10 hour 10 hour things 10 or 12 hours I forgot what it was, but we never went over and not one day. And this guy was giving me problems day one, and he was just giving me attitude. And I And the funny thing was, it was my production company. Like my producer hired him. My producer hired him. So I was literally paying his bills. And he and he had no he had no issue he like he he was just giving me attitude, like within the first day. And I just turned on my DP I was like, Oh, this isn't gonna work. We're gonna have to have a conversation. So I pulled them aside and he's like, Look, man, either get on get on board or get out of the way. Because I can do this without you, bro. I've done I've done I've been doing this 25 years. I don't need your position. I'll handle whatever you're doing. So either get on the board or get the hell out of the way. And it was a very smooth thing. Well after that it was very calm relaxed. Yes, sir. No, sir. But you know, sometimes there are those old it was he was a little bit older than me and had no idea not that I'm anybody but had no idea what experience I had. He just saw some guy show up and like Who the hell's this guy. And sometimes you've got to, you've got to show some teeth. Unfortunately, you've got to because it's your responsibility as a director to tell the story. It's in your hands. And if you don't fight for the story, nobody else will see it. And as a ODP friend of mine used to say you're surrounded by assassins. So like, there's constant things happening all around you all the time. And I use that term constantly is like, oh, surrounded by assassins? Because it's, it's like, oh, this is not working, or that didn't work or I can't get I can't get the dolly track fast enough. Or I got it set this line up again. I gotta make it turn around. It's 1000 things. But yeah, that turns surrounded by assassins is very, very apropos.

Leroy Kincaide 46:07
I like it, I like it,

Alex Ferrari 46:08
You can steal that one. And you can steal that one. Even Trade, it'll be an even trade. Yeah,

Leroy Kincaide 46:14
I'll put your name just underneath it like the quote, you know, surrounded by assassins? Yeah, I think I do think though, when I when I listened to the Savannah, you know, I'm some of the like the put my ear to the floor and listen to what the consensus in how things are, and what's moving and what's going around. I think it's definitely a subject that I believe a lot of people would talk more about, but they treat it very much like taboo, in terms of dealing with problematic characters, because unfortunately, you are right, the surrounded by assassins analogy is very, very crucial. Because, you know, everybody is making a movie with you. Or they're making their movie in your film. And the it's very easy to see what's going on. As all this is all smoke and mirrors. And it's all wonderful when lovely and dandy, but sometimes, you know, if if you don't address the key things that need to be stared managed, you know, there was a couple of other situations as well. Some stuff happened in post where other people you bring to the party to share a slice of the cake. And not everybody shares what you see. Oh, yeah. And I'm very pleased to have come out this side of it and very much stuck to my guns on everything, like I believe I will, I will always accept a new idea. I'll always accept the possibility of a new idea. But if it doesn't improve the direction and where I'm going, I don't want it. Like, I'm happy to say that because I think, you know, we have all got our own story that has got us to this point in time in life and stuff like that. And it it's not for me to know what Alex Ferrari should do to be better. It's like, if I can't give you what you need, then I shouldn't it's not my job to tell you what you need to do, because I want you to do it. Right. You know, and, and unfortunately, we get this word. There's a word that goes around the collaboration word. People say you're not collaborative, when the All they're doing is projecting what they want you to do. And right, that's not collaboration. To me, that's not collaboration, right?

Alex Ferrari 48:38
It's also not professional, you know, the professional, you know, when you're working with I mean, I mean, we could throw around big names like Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg. And they, they actually have collaborators, who they've worked with on many projects and things like that, but they're actually collaborators, but they understand that the end of the day, it's even a release call, like, no one's gonna tell. And obviously, they walk in with the mountain of, of reputation that they've built over their careers. But when you look at George Lucas or James Cameron, who both no offense to the British, the British cruise, but gave George Lucas a hell of a time on Star Wars and gave James Cameron a hell of a time on aliens, and they both shot over a pinewood. And it was they just didn't, they just didn't believe in what this guy was these guys were doing and they just, they were making their own movie. And they had to like it had to fire the first ad. Like if you just watched on Netflix, they just released the movies that made us and I saw the whole aliens one and you just hear the stories and like, the first ad was like this British guy and he was like a legend is the first ad and the crew loved him but no one cared about this. James Cameron guy who did this little movie called Terminator who had not it yet in England, so no one had ever even seen what he done. Oh, it's a whole story. But anyway, but yeah, but they fought through it. They fought through it and were able to To create, you know, two of the greatest, you know, sci fi films in history, you know, but that's the, but that's the case of who they are. As filmmakers, you know, and they had to fight to get that thing I have to ask you, did you have tea time? Is that a thing? Or is that just really? Was there a time? What is their tea time on set? Stop? Do you like stop production in England? For at like, oh, it's one o'clock. God stop tea time. Is that a thing?

Leroy Kincaide 50:28
I would like to say that's not really a thing. But I think that's more of a thing that we probably as Brits, like, admit, for sure. Like, you know, slight like, sure. Sure. It's, it's like a sacred practice here. Like, you know, lunch has to be lunch, like, we you know, it's got to be the right lunch. It can't be like, any sort of lunch. It's got to be the right lunch. And what I mean by that is like, yeah, we've got working lunches and stuff. Sure, sure, you know, in the game and stuff like that. But ultimately, we all as Brits, I believe, do like the solid one hour lunch. Without fail every day, we can get that most people are cool.

Alex Ferrari 51:09
But there is a break for Tito. There's a little tea time break somewhere along. So it was so funny. It's so funny, because I come from Miami. And that's why I started my production career. And I'm Cuban. So I was raised on Cuban coffee. If you're ever in a production, a true production in Miami wood that is based from Miami, you're gonna see a little old man, or a little old woman. Come around with a tray full of thimbles there thimbles of coffee. And you're going to look at and go, Wow, that's such a cute little coffee. Maybe I should have five or six of them. No, you should pick one. And hold on tight. But that's the thing and everyone stops for the Cuban coffee. Everyone can. That's a Miami production thing. It does happen all the time. But if it's a true Miami production, they they bring that around and I love Mike man when I'm on set, man, I got a little man comes out. And he's like, making it like in the back on like on a hot lead. Not a hot stove. But uh, you know, I'm talking about the electrical stove or something like that, like, yeah, yeah. And he's just like mixing it in like a can and stuff. And like, ah, ah, the best man. There's the

Leroy Kincaide 52:16
There's nothing like coffee like so one of the one of the rules I made sure we had in our house was like coffee was on top. 24/7 If you want a coffee, there's an espresso machine and a Tassimo machine. Don't make yourself one. Absolutely. Because I think like, you know, in the house, it was very, like, a communal area. Sure, sure. When we shot the film. So, you know, we sort of like said, you know, all the policy here, guys, whenever you want a coffee, it was you know, it wasn't like, we put it way out of the way. And you can only have it between the hours of one and two and don't taking too many. There was just like we just, I believe very much so in like being able to look after your your people that they're No, it's just it's bothering.

Alex Ferrari 53:04
And that's such a small thing. But go such a long way. Like if you're on set and it's the 11th hour. And I gotta like beg for a cup of coffee. It's a it's not a good thing. Like I gotta make a run to Starbucks. Like that shouldn't be a thing. I mean, maybe an extra thing. But if you just want to grab a quick coffee or quick something to keep you going. Feed them well. Make sure there's always coffee. Try not to do have you heard of the spinning that's spinning wheels of death for lunch or dinner? Have you heard of spinning wheels of death? No. That's pizza. That's pizza. So that's good. Spinning wheels of death as as my old salty DP used to call? Are you not giving a spinning wheels of death? Are you Please don't. Please don't do that. Because Because pizza will just bring you it just slows everything down. It's quick, it's cheap, but you will pay for it. In the long run.

Leroy Kincaide 53:56
Yeah. I mean, like we for most of the nights because obviously we we were pretty much on average. I mean shooting night shoots, right? We were literally we pretty much all became nocturnal. So we didn't really actually get to bed much before six to 9am on people. A couple of you know, the legendary crew. You know, Jonathan Ito he was our sound guy. He was traveling up from London to Ken so he would come down and he'd like you know, you'd get down for like five maybe 6pm You'd have his nice coffee and have his token coffee as he would always do but then by the time he was finished, he would have to drive another hour and a half back God bless like six six in the morning and he hit this guy this guy was like one of our like bedrocks short sound sound of your of the production because I think for me, I absolutely worship sound I think It's jumping.

Alex Ferrari 55:02
Look, look when I was making one desire, man, people were like, how the hell did you get that sound like, it sounds like it sounds amazing. I go, it's all a mixture between my location sound guy and my post sound guy. And both of them working together made that movie sound much better than it ever had any business of sounding. And it gave me gave the whole movie a production boost of value production value boost. It's so so so important.

Leroy Kincaide 55:29
Yeah, yeah. I mean, one of my, one of my, he was the key person, and we got involved first. So he was our first team player. And, and I said to him, I said, you know, like, we're going to be working very closely, because, you know, I'm DP in it and stuff. But one of the things I said to him, I was like, Look, you are like, pretty much like God on the set, in terms of, if you need more time to set up that thing to get the sound right. We're going to take the time, and we're going to set that up how you need it, because he was on his own. So he didn't have a mixer or whatever he was mixing and doing all this stuff.

Alex Ferrari 56:05
Just mix it and hold it up. Oh, yeah, do this and say, Oh, no, dude. These guys are ridiculous. I have no idea how they pull that stuff off, man. It's, it's amazing. To me,

Leroy Kincaide 56:15
I'll be like, Oh, dammit, we got a boom in shop. But the shop is great.

Alex Ferrari 56:21
We'll fix it. We'll fix We'll fix that out and post. Are you kidding me? We'll, we'll fix it and go clean that up. I always have a rule. Man, I always have a rule. If I'm on set only I'm the only person that can say we can fix it on post. Because I'll be the one fixing it in post. No one else has a lot to say we'll fix it in post because that they have no understanding of what it actually takes to fix that post.

Leroy Kincaide 56:42
Oh, my. Yeah, it is one of the one of the main scenes in the movie, where we've got the main light exorcism thing going on. Lots of action going down. Lovely. Lovely. So I've set the light up. So I've tried to make this light feel like there's some ambient moon light kicking through the room, but it's just like the screen hazy sort of thing. I was like, yep, sweet placed it there. I've got no choice to think about is it bouncing off of the bloody bed is it bouncing off of here. You know, because of the the time in the evening. I just had to get it up. I literally just we should be true. The trigger piece gets opposed. And I can see the light on one part of the bed. The rest of the frame looks cool. But it's on this one particular bit. Every single angle every frame. And I'm like, does this mean I've got to rotoscoped the entire piece. Two and a half weeks later. Yes. I had to literally cut out a light. And I'm very glad I did it. But oh boy is like pulling teeth.

Alex Ferrari 57:50
Amen. It's a lesson you will I promise you won't do that again. I promise. No. That's when you when you get bit once you learn. You're like yeah, well that's that's put it in the back. That's not gonna happen again. Now, you another part of your story, man that's really remarkable is that you landed a major, you know, somewhat say legendary distribution company for indies. Samuel Goldwyn here in the States. How the hell did you land Samuel Goldwyn as a distributor for release of a film? That's from the UK with no stars. In a genre, that's, let's you know, call it what it is. There's a million in one horror movies out there. So how the hell did you land that man?

Leroy Kincaide 58:37
Um, I don't have any

Alex Ferrari 58:42
Idea how it happened.

Leroy Kincaide 58:44
Words gonna say we did this. And we did that. And we did this. And we did that. But however, what I can say, is the things that led up to that opportunity being able to exist. One of the things I would definitely yeah, I'll put this out for people is that like, I was quite naive at the start of it. When we got out, you know, somebody's golden in his company wants to buy your movie and stuff in our kindness. Cool. Right? And I'm like, I feel like I've heard the name before, but I'm not too sure. Anyway, he had this deal sitting around for like, a week, right? And I remember I was talking to him. And then I said, yeah, we've got this company who's quite interested in our film, you know, because we had a lot of nose weird. We had so many knows so many critique so many different things, because everybody's got their idea and what they think, are you moving right? So we would like you know, we got this deal. It seems quite cool. It's in America. America was our main territory that we wanted to really hit. And I sent them an analysis company that said, Oh, Sam Goldwyn, is so what Metro Metro Goldwyn Mayer think Metro goblin. Yeah, yeah, MGM. MGM was that night Yeah, literally, like, for a week, I reset with this name loosely in my head, thinking I'd heard of it. And then I researched it. I was like, what an idiot? And I realized it was the part of Yeah. Yeah, the the legend that he was of these period of time, you know, and the legacy that that company represents was just like, I was very taken back, I'm not gonna lie, I was like, you know, his little old me from a little modest village, you know, don't come from any specific background, and in my family of filmmakers, you know, getting our movie with very little resources available, right from the ballpark, my French part for my big ton of hard work and just effort put in, you know, got our film there. And I did ask myself this question, I was like, what is what has led to this point in time for us to get this movie? With a company like that? And, you know, to answer your question, I think one of the things that, I believe, is the biggest thing was that I never lost sight of the vision that I had for the film, throughout the entire process. This meant that there were times of conflict, and when there were times of uncertainty, and there were times of doubt, you know, it was this reminded me of that first time, well, there's always a first time for something, right. So when you've cut your film, that feeling you feel what the first time you know, it's together is a feeling. The feeling when you first hold your script, from being on a computer to being in physical form, is a feeling. And it's remembering that was the thing that I think, ultimately paid the way forward. Because there were times where we was questioning, you know, do we cut more of the film out? Do we not have enough of this? Do we know, you know, all this down? And you have to get to the stage where you have to believe what your intuition is guiding you to do? You know, not necessarily the feeling side of oneself, but like, your actual intuition, your gut, the gut, the stomach, yeah. Yeah. And let that take you to where it's going to go. The one rule I set to myself is high execution value. That was it. Like, I was, like, I want to shoot it the best way I can, with the most I've got. So making that work in pre production was the key was like finding the right camera finding a lens package or lenses, I could get working with any diffusion, if I used any, really realizing that I had to research my ass off to be able to figure out the best way to communicate my message as a as a director. And then the rest, I would just say, you know, slowly took its way forward. And you know, we we spoke to a different people, some sales agents when we went with moving forward. We just ended up with Samuel Goldwyn, and that sort of really, I don't have any

Alex Ferrari 1:03:19
right place, right time. Right product. That's the way it looks. A year earlier. Maybe now a year from now, maybe no, but right now, it hit I call it the the El Mariachi factor, which is Robert hit at the right place, right time, right product, you know, a couple years after a couple years before, who knows, but that moment in time, all the stars aligned. And sometimes, a lot of times filmmakers don't understand that there is a tremendous amount of luck that is involved in what we do. But you need to help that luck along meaning you've got to be prepared for it when it shows up. Because if you just sat around going, think I'm gonna make a movie one day, I got this idea. It's never gonna happen. But you did it and didn't then these opportunities present themselves the universe does conspire to help you man. It I truly do believe that.

Leroy Kincaide 1:04:15
Absolutely. I mean, there's a definition of luck that I like to work with sometimes, and that is when preparation meets opportunity. Absolutely. You have to, you have to prepare yourself, like Whenever someone's gonna make a film, right? And you're going to set off on this journey. You don't know it's going to take six months or a year or two years or four years or however many years that you say you aim to get it done in this time. And if it works in that timeframe, because you got around for it because of certain things fabulous. We didn't predict 2020 was going to give us COVID We literally all shift of everything we had planned Literally every plan gone, eradicated as it was for everybody. Right? So it meant that we had to, you know, reverse engineer the end goal. Adapt, you know, be, you know, the element of Darwinism, the one who's most adaptable to change is going to be the one that can maybe last the longest, you have to learn to adapt and work these obstacles the best way, because I don't really see problems, more than I see solutions. Solutions are the key.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:32
Yeah, and as in, as I always, if you've heard the show, you know, I always like using the analogy of getting punched in the face, and that we all get punched in, we all get punched in the face in this business, and I don't care who you are, it's just as you go down the line a little bit, you pick up a couple more like that. First, I'm sure your first wrestling match is a lot different than your last. As far as how you took, here's how you how you took a fall. You know, how you all these kinds of how you took a role, how you did all this kind of stuff. As you get older, you start learning how to duck those punches, sometimes you can, you know, move a little bit, but you're going to get punches thrown at you. And it's about adjusting. It's about pivoting. It's about letting those things slide by you. And we all took a huge punch in 2020. And a lot of people didn't recover in there out of the game. And that's what I tried to do with this show is try to let everybody know, don't walk into this. Don't walk into the ring going. Wow, this is a cool place. Who's is that Mike Tyson? What? Why is he coming towards me? I don't. That's what but that's you laugh. But that's filmmakers. Man, I did it too. I was there, I got pushed out a bunch of times.

Leroy Kincaide 1:06:40
But you know that that's the this is the thing. This is why I mentioned the thing about earlier on about having a little butting of heads between myself and someone else just not seeing the right thing in Division. Sure. This is the stuff that if we can't work our way through the bad days, because you can't help but take certain elements personal because you they feel personal. Because you've got people involved, you're working on stuff, you want to go into business with the best interest and someone takes advantage. Unfortunately, the world is filled with people who just see opportunity, and they don't care about you. They just care about what they want. Of course, when you know, when you realize that, like you know, life is really what you make it but beyond what you make it. It's like giving bloody hell for trying to do the thing that you love to do. And who's who can say you can't make it happen. Who's to say you can't do these things? Because you know, we've all heard these stories of people that said, oh, you can't do this. I've even got one of those myself.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:47
What you mean? You mean, somebody told you you couldn't make a film? Shocking.

Leroy Kincaide 1:07:52
Shocking. I heard that my and I was just like, Yeah, but for you, you can't do that. Let me figure it out. And if I fail, I'd like to fail forwards on my terms, not someone else. Amen. Preach, I think. And, and that's the thing that like, the toughest thing with the filmmaking aspect of it is like that, we just got to know that there's a process and a price of entry. And that price of entry could be you make a film and it goes nowhere. It could be you lose a load of money, but then you make some money to make a new film. I don't know what everyone's process is going to be. But everybody's got their process myself. I had to ruin my arm to position myself mentally as a DP. Because that was that was the block of time where I feel I got the most in a three, four month period when when I was off work and off everything because of my injury or mom, that that block of time there had I'd not had that. We definitely wouldn't be having this conversation.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:58
You learn you had the time to educate yourself and test things and do things?

Leroy Kincaide 1:09:03
Dude Yeah, that that time there was in valuable.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:07
So I so I want to I just want to put I just wanted to put a spotlight on this because so many people don't understand this. When you had your house booked, everything was going you were like, I'm gonna go shoot this. And then this accident happens to your arm, which knocks you out for three or four months and pushes everything and changes everything the way you had it planned. When you look back, it was the best thing that could have happened to you in order to make this film as successful as it was but at the moment that that thing happened to you. All you could think about was the bad thing to happen. But I always come to believe that even when bad things happen in your journey, most of the time, if not all the time. When you look back you like you know it was probably good thing that that happened, you know might have shot you know, I needed this. I needed this happen to happen and if I didn't have that this wouldn't have happened. Like with me, I mean, you probably heard the story of me working with that mobster. And doing that movie, you know, almost making the $20 million movie with the mobster and stuff that was the worst time of my entire life. It's just it was devastated me. But looking back, I'm like, that's the that's the thing that made me. That's the shrapnel that is the voice on the microphone.

Leroy Kincaide 1:10:21
Absolutely. I mean, you know, these are character defining moments. Because, you know, when we've, if I go back when when I hurt my arm, I remember my first thought, my first thought was, it wasn't the fact that my bicep wasn't in its right place. Because that the shock of that happened, and that was gone. What was left after that fact, within the five minute window, while there was still the fight and stuff going on, and I was still sort of trying to figure it out, what was going on in the crowd of people was actually I was like, I'm no longer going to be able to hold this camera. And for me, it was more it is funny, but like, for me, it was like a life or death situation because I was like, this is my opportunity to, to build something that potentially can change the trajectory of or start the trajectory of change for the rest of my life. Now, it sounds quite ambitious, quite bolshie to say it, but I feel very much like, purpose is in me creating the film. So because I'm so connected, or was so connected, the injury wasn't the problem. It was like, Nah, I'm not gonna hold the camera, we're gonna lose the location, we were literally, we had the casting for the lead actress the day after, not, not any month. So whatever. After the following day, I had to go after being a hospital till five, or whatever I am, I had to go to the casting to cast our lead actress. And then I had to say to you, I'm really sorry, we've booked you to try and do this, if you're still available. Just let you know, we're gonna have to shoot in September, tore my bicep, and it's black and blues.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:18
So it's so it's so funny that you say that because I just had someone on the show, as of this recording hasn't come out yet. But it will come out in a couple next week, where their first thought they lost their house. They have seven kids. And they lost their house because they mortgaged it to make a movie that failed. And the only thought in his mind was like, oh my god, I'm never going to be able to make another movie again. Not that I've lost my house not like how am I going to provide for my family? The first thought that came to his mind was I'm never going to be able to do this again. And I call that the beautiful insanity. Because that is what we are. We're insane. But there's a beauty behind our insanity because we as filmmakers don't think clearly. Because because we're insane. We're insane. The whole process is insane. From the the indie filmmaker trying to make their first movie all the way to a $200 million blockbuster director or an Oscar winning director. There's an insanity to what we do. And you have to have that spark of insanity to be able to do what we do. But sometimes it goes too far. And that's when marriages or break up and families break up and I mean you desolate I've talked to homeless filmmakers before they got homeless afterwards. It's it's it this is not a game. But, but unfortunately, like I've said before, once you get bitten by that bug, it's with you. You can never get rid of it ever. You can't. It'll go dormant for 30 years, man, but it will pop its head up. Like when you're 65 and you're retired after being a doctor for 30 years and that's the safe route and you're like but you want I really want to do I really want to direct like like you like you're like I've wrestled address I've ever had to wrestle but what I really want to do is direct there is an insanity there to that process. And it's it's a beautiful insanity.

Leroy Kincaide 1:14:17
It's very beautiful. It's also weirdly very It's like being tortured as well. Because Because like I think that the you see this is the issue of creativity right? And now I'm someone who believe very much in creativity is very spiritual in the way that we connect to a vision an idea and we channel it from another Sure Sure sure. Astral plane or whatever. Now, when you have foresight to be able to see your vision you have to deal with the world doesn't see anything close to ever seen what you see that only way you can get that is you have to make it, you have to bring it out your head. Even when you're in process filming, you can show a little rush from the day. But it's not the movie because it's not edited. So the process of this is just in any art form, actually, or any form of creativity where you have to build a vision in your mind, to project it to the world, to give it to the world. To conceive something that nobody else sees, live with it day in, day out, month in, month out year in year out, and still have no one see, it is like absolute torture until you birth that little beauty. And once you've done it, the work is done. Next at a new level a new devil right. But while you're in that creative process, I gotta say like, it's a blessing and a curse, being creative. Because you're never at peace, you're always thinking of new ideas, feeling created creative vibes coming to you wanting a new idea. And our key is almost like being like a radio and tune into the frequency that we need to stay focused on. Because otherwise we're like a dog in front headlights. Right? We just

Alex Ferrari 1:16:13
Shiny lights. Yeah, shiny. Yeah, it's all shiny squirrel, and you just turn it you're like what's going on over there? No, you're absolutely right. And in, you're right, there is no peace, because we have 1000 ideas that 1000 times a second coming in. And we know that we unlike let's see musicians or painters who can go out and paint something in, you know, or go out and write a song, or play a song. That's a lot easier. timewise not craft wise, but timewise than making a film because film is arguably the most complicated art form on the planet. Because you've got to gather so many people you got to it, there's so many other disciplines other than the artistry, you know, the politics of it, the politics of it, the psychology of it, the business side of it, there's so many elements, it really does bring the whole package together of all the Arts and Business and the worst and the best of humanity comfortable from set. I mean, it's there's no question. So it is it is a it is a beautiful insanity that we live my friend. Now where can people where can people see the film?

Leroy Kincaide 1:17:21
So the film, the moment is, by the time that this is all out? It should be on iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Google and a few other places that are not too familiar with in the States. But yeah, but it's on all the major platforms out there in the States. And we've got a UK deal coming soon. But I'm not too sure when that's coming out in the UK. But yeah, very cool, man. We just get told like this is where it's going. This is what's going on. Fabulous.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:49
As long as as long as the check shows up, brother and clears. That's all that matters.

Leroy Kincaide 1:17:56
You see, that's the bad news today. It's like here because you up. So you've had some beautifully interwoven stories where other filmmakers God bless them have come on and poured their heart out, like by getting stung, and completely ripped off. And it's like, it does make you feel very much like, damn, like, is it even possible to get a film out legitimately anymore without being taken advantage of, you know, it's such a, an area where there's so much mystique and so much like confusion, because us as artists and business, we know we're business entrepreneurs as well, we're building a business, but you know, when you finished your IP, you put it out, and then everyone wants to take that slice of the cake. leave you with, you know, cut the crumbs on the plate. But ultimately, it's like, when you hear of all these stories, I think it can almost like derail you from just aiming to just tell the story. But at the same time, I think be mindful of that there are individuals that do try to take advantage. You know, we had, we had one guy before we signed with anybody. He was contacting us from a random random email, pretending to be some Hollywood producer, right? So the film had just, like started doing around. We was like promoting it on like online and stuff. We just completed the movie, so no one had really seen and this guy had came out of the woodwork and was like, oh, you know, I'd like to take a look at your film. We've got loads of sales agents and people want to look at your movie, blah, blah, blah. And then we found out that this guy had been moonlighting as someone and actually been trying to sell our movie without us even talking to him. He was like, speaking to all these other production companies and distributors and whatnot about our films and he's repping our film. And it was just like

Alex Ferrari 1:20:05
All the time. I've heard that story. It's horrible. It's you know, it Look man, look, don't get me started, you know how I feel about predatory distributors while mentioned IV, you know, that's a key I will I mean, I will go off. It's one of my missions in life. It's one of my missions in life to help filmmakers as much as I can in that department. But the atrocities that I've heard of it's shocking and things that I even haven't even hit the air. Never been on the show, things I hear about in private, are maddening to the to the point where you're just like, I can't even believe this is legal. And it isn't most of the time. But yeah, I've heard people like, and then like, let's say a production company bought your movie, did he have the masters? He didn't have the Masters, right?

Leroy Kincaide 1:20:52
This guy, this guy didn't have, he didn't even

Alex Ferrari 1:20:54
It have a trailer. Right? So this guy was, so this guy was literally going to scam a production company, or another distribution outlet by saying aye, this, get the money and then say, oh, and then you're going to get in trouble. Because they're going to call you and go, Hey, where's our movie? I'm like, What are you talking about? Like, I've never even heard of, I've never heard of that. Do you see that kind of, there's just so much of that in on that side of the business. It's it's not for the faint of heart, man, this whole thing is not for the faint of heart, unfortunately. And it is my job to let everybody know that they are walking into a ring and there are going to be punches thrown at them. And and sometimes there's some MMA guys in there too. So that's even rougher. I'm gonna ask you a few questions asked all my guests are, what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Leroy Kincaide 1:20:58
Listen, this thing, longest learn. Ultimately, I would say the lesson that has taken the longest to learn, truthfully, is to trust in my first intuitive nudge to do what I feel I should do. I think we second guess ourselves to the point of where we end up getting confused as people is general. And one of the things that I feel that this took me the longest to trust was what makes me think I could do said thing about doing said thing before, you know, this is a question we ultimately all face. But you somebody who's got have a first time, every time right? Sometimes first, whichever way you look at it. So realizing that I think once once I learn how to, you know, trust in it, let go of any doubt, and just run with it. You know, the last right is the the child of trusting that intuition. So I'd say if anybody's listening and would get something from it, like, you know, just, they could take from this, I would say just trust your intuition. And you know, don't never second guess yourself, like, you know, you get one life and you've got to take take the best swing you can, right, perhaps,

Alex Ferrari 1:23:17
Amen. Well, I appreciate I appreciate that, because that's something that's taken me a long, long time to, to hone is listening to the gut. Because there's something inside, I don't know what it is. But it's something that that tells you certain things. And if you can, if you can tune into that, you're gonna do a lot better than when you don't, don't let your head don't let your head get involved.

Leroy Kincaide 1:23:40
It's quite crazy, too. Because, you know, like, some some of my work that I've done aside from this is I've done a little bit of like, I want to say life coaching, but I've looked at a lot of like thinking into different results and altering shirt mindsets, right. And the mindset is the real thing. This is the thing where people become their self, or they die as a result before they're even dead. What do I mean by that is, you know, we create self sabotaging activities by default, because a lot of time we're born into a family system, environmental system, Gao system or whatever. And we have to break the cycle when ourself to realize the potential. Now, everybody's got potential. Everybody's got the ability to, I don't want to say be at whatever they want to be, because that's a bit too like, you know, sunshine and rainbows stuff, but ultimately, like, we can really exceed in potential but where we stop is because it myself, I talk to myself, because I'm not brought up in a environment where, you know, maybe having money was the thing, or maybe being a filmmaker was the thing. The thing that you look for is the thing that you resonate mostly with because it's, it's in you by default, right? So how do you break that, you have to break it by going against what your head usually tells you to do, oh, you want to do something creative, or what makes you think you can do that? In your head, you get that voice, just like well, and it's your, you're continuously fighting this inner battle. And you can conquer and harness the fact that whatever is going on inside your mind usually is something that's projected to you through years and years and years and years of conditioning. When you undo all that the potential for what you can be is endless. And that's one of the things that like, is the biggest thing that over life I feel that has really enabled me to trust in my intuition and to trust in my abilities. Actually, I get myself out of my own way. You know,

Alex Ferrari 1:25:56
That I'm gonna tell you that I'm gonna I'm gonna leave it at that man. That's a great way to end the conversation. But that was beautiful. So I wish you nothing but the best man continued success with your film. Thank you for being being so honest and forthcoming with your story. And hopefully, it this this conversation will inspire a few people out there. So thank you again for that. I appreciate it, man.

Leroy Kincaide 1:26:20
No worries, man. Thank you for having me.