You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three twenty three. When given an opportunity, deliver
excellence and never quit. Robert Rodriguez broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in
Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof
Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
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guys, today on the show, we have John Hess from filmmaker iq.
Now. I've been a fan of John's work for years. Filmmaker iq is
an amazing website with these remarkable mini documentaries that he puts up on YouTube,
and he's just shows you everything from how to make airpowered blub squibs, to
the history of the mock buster, the fundamental elements of film music, who's
in a movie credits, the science of deep focus and hyper focal distance,
I mean, the history of a Hollywood musical. He goes deep into each
topic he covers and they are so entertaining, so well produced, and I
just love what John has been doing over the years. He is definitely an
og in this space of helping filmmakers follow their dreams and make their movies.
So I just had an absolute ball talking to John on the show. I
can't wait to share this episode with you, So without any further ado,
please enjoy my conversation with John Hess. I like to welcome to the show
the legendary John Hess from Filmmaker IQ. Thank you John for being on the
show. Butta hi, thank you for having me. I appreciate it,
man. I mean, listen, I've been, like I was telling you
earlier, I am been a big fan of Filmmaker IQ and what you do.
You have a very unique voice and how you approach the filmmaking process and
the work that you do with film Maker IQ than anybody else in our space,
and I've been an admired from a distance for quite some times. You
are I'd like to call you. There's a few of you guys, but
like the Ogs, you're one of the ogs. Uh, one of the
original gangsters doing this because it started oh wait right, uh yeah, the
site started in no way I believe. Yeah, I guess so, and
I haven't really thought about that, but it was at the tail end of
the my space era. So if you want to put it all off of
that, oh I oh yeah. I made a lot of money on spa
space selling lay independent film I was. It was I was huge on my
Space. Huge MySpace was I mean if we were talking like a bunch of
old old guys sitting around talking about the old days. Yeah. Yeah.
My Space was kind of how I got into the whole discussing film online.
And it was the through the my Space film forums. That's really kind of
how IQ started. It was born there the longest or behind it, I
don't know if you want to get into it, but it basically was we
wanted. We were kind of kicked off of my Space. So we were
both my friend and I Dennis Was. We were both banned from my Space,
and he said, let's start our own site because we for the longest
time we didn't have moderate moderates moderators on the film forums. And then we've
been clamoring let's get some moderate because there's probably people in here spamming constantly.
Well, my friend Dennis Was would always post very interesting articles, but he
would bump the posts up to get him back the top. He would post
an article, but he would bump it up, and that was against the
rules, you know, the moderates, so they banned him. One of
the one of the more you know, important assets of the film forums banned
because he would bump up his old posts, and that's so he said,
and I fought for him, and I got banned as well, and the
hell with my Space and we went off to our own site well and and
arguably that worked out for you, okay, because not many people talk about
my space anymore? Is it still? I know it is still on,
It's still around, right for I guess there's some bands that use it,
you know, or some music and the music scene still kind of uses it.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it SoundCloud is probably bigger than that.
Yeah, I mean it's probably dead. And I think was it who who
bought a Fox? Fox paid like a billion for it back in the day.
Yeah, Tom Anderson had a nice little pay day because everybody's friend,
remember Tom, Tom? Tom. So, so before we get going,
man, how did you get into the business. How did you get into
the too? Loving what you do? Oh? Well, you know,
it's it's to say you love it, you know, it's it's it's complicated
to say you love what you do. I mean, I love it so
much and I'm willing to put up with all the crap that I preach.
You know. That's it's not that I love I love every single waking date
moment. I honestly I'm frustrated half the time. But I wouldn't do it
if I wasn't if I was that, if I didn't love it, I'd
be on something else. So I started off. I made I made little
videos, and I grew up. I was a class of two thousand,
so I grew up in the late nineties, and I made little videos for
my for my high school, we just is a budding, you know,
TV video production in class. And I started doing just little projects, advertising
on the morning announcements because we had close circuit television back in those days,
advertising the academic decathlon team. So I started making uh spoofs of things.
I made, like a like a silent film spoof. I made a Titanic,
which is really big back then spoof. I made a Mission Impossible spoof,
which is again another movie franchise from the late nineties. And I kind
of like I started fall in love with the whole process of just making moving
pictures. It's kind of that's if you've read if you heard Spielberg talk about
how he Scott started how when he was a kid he had had the little
eight emailimary camera, and he would shoot two trains running into each other,
and he learned he could just shoot it and watch it over and over again.
That's kind of the same way I got into into video making or filmmaking.
It's just I liked creating things in this watching them over and over again.
I kind of fell in love with that. But as a kid,
I always wanted to be in business. I've always because my father was international
engineering, so I was always involved with some sort of I always love the
air of business. So I went to school to be a business major,
and I found out I still like business, but I was like, I
still want to make videos. That's still what I want to do. So
about my second year of college, I said, hey, I'm gonna go
intern at. I want to see if I can make the marry the two
become a business and h and video maybe maybe like a producer and film.
So I found a small cable company that was out in Corona, California,
and they were doing commercials, like local local cable commercials. You know,
it's really bad cal Worthington kind of style. Sunday Sunday Sunday. Yeah,
oh yeah. So I interned there for like a year, like I just
just did it because and like I didn't even take class credit because I was
like, I don't want to do the paperwork for the credit. I just
wanted to be there and hang out and do like little these little movies,
not movies, little commercials. Did that for a year and uh, I
mean, I'm going more detail than I probably need to. But I did
that for a year, and then I was laid off by the company and
the people I worked with were laid off, and I kind of burned me
this like this little independent streak. Like, man, these guys I known
worked for the company for twenty five years, they built a family, they
depend on this job, and that the corporate culture comes in and just kind
of access them, and I'm like, I don't want to I don't want
to go work for the man. So I when I started to start doing
my own business, and that was about twenty years ago or eighteen years ago,
seventeen eighteen years ago. And what was that business? And what was
that business? Oh, what do you mean my own business? Video production?
Okay, so any like any kind of video production in fact I do,
That's primarily what I do. I mean, the film was narrative.
Filmmaking is something that I want to aspire too more. But right now I'm
actually doing a ton of video work for like I do. I do work
for cities and corporate corporate corporates that call me in to do like a like
a documentary about you know, their corporate culture or whatever they want to promote.
So so I ended up still using that business education of mine, the
business and marketing, but I make commercials and stuff like that. So filmmaker,
right you more was a side kind of like a side hustle for and
more of a labor of love for. Yeah, I mean, it's honestly
the labor of love kind of thing. It's I mean, I'd like to
kind of push it more towards an actual productive income generating stream. It's it
really is still more of a labor of love. And I don't know,
it's it's one of those things where I don't want to I don't want to
kill it by making it too much of a job necessarily, although I do
want to do something too, you know, I do want to actually make
it to be more of a job. I guess do you want to call
it that? I mean, I mean, yes, I'm being very candid,
honest, all the people breaking their spells about who I am and what
I do. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now
back to the show. Well, you know, there's a lot, there's
a lot of you know, and I've been doing this for five years and
I still I still say that I have the original filmmaking tutorial on YouTube.
It was in two thousand and five. I put a behind the scenes of
my short film that's still up there. So I was one of the first
to do that, but I never kept going with it. So a couple
other guys like film Riot and Ryan and those guys did it, and Rocket
Jump and those guys. But a lot of people think that they have a
different perception like I because of how good you do what you do. The
perception of what you do is like, oh, he's just you know,
this is this is amazing, and he's just killing it and he's just rolling
in it, and it's like and a lot of people and a lot of
people think that of me as well, like, oh, he must be
just killing I'm like, you know what I make, I make, I
do okay, I do okay. But but but I'm not Scrooge mcducking it
anytime. Yeah, exactly. You know, I even even I mean,
I made me even wrong. But like I think even someone like Martin Scorsese,
who is all in Prince Purpose is hugely successful, he still has trouble.
He still has problems making the movie that he wants to make half the
time. You know, he's always complaining, like I can't get the money
to do this well, to be fair, To be fair, Marty's not
going after two or three hundred thousand dollars, just going after two hundred million
to make a movie that doesn't have a lot of market billets you have that
you know, you just hit on exactly how I feel about the situation.
Yeah, if he would just go for like a ten million dollars movie,
you know, get some people he's never worked with before, he could he
could get that money in an instant, Yeah, exactly. Like I mean,
there's there's different like Spike Lee, Woody Allen and those kind of I
mean, would he you know, regardless of his personal life as a filmmaker,
he did something that I don't think there is another filmmaker of his generation
did he made a movie a year for like thirty years, and he always
capped his budget because he knew his art, his films had a specific audience
that could generate a certain amount of money, and he would be able to
attract huge stars to come in and work scale for him because he was who
he was and he built that kind of system up for himself. And I
don't think. I mean, maybe Clint is another guy that I would throw
in that, but that's just a different that's a different generation, that's a
whole different in the world. Yeah, but that's what there was, even
Clint, Like you know he did that what was that last movie he did
with the bomber Chard Jewel, Yeah, Richard, I can't. I don't
think Richard Jewel costs one hundred and fifty. I don't think that cut.
No, No, it did cost one hundred and fifty because Clinton knows,
like you know, I'm gonna make a movie about Richard Jewel and it's called
Richard Jwel, Like the people like what who else in Hollywood in a studio
is making Richard Jewel with a shlubby lead actors Like I can put a slubby
guy on the front who who no one's knows who knows nose, like it's
not a face that people recognize. So but he's Clint, but he's smart,
Like there's a there's a there's a budget range that makes sense for that
movie. Marty still hasn't figured that out yet. No, you know,
that's it's funny that you're articulating like one, I feel like I was a
lone voice back when what's the movie that Martin Irishman did? Finished Irishman,
Like Irishman costs almost as much as Spider Man Homecoming, you know, like
how can you? And it's that's that should be like if people will will
that's because we spend too much money on comic book movies. Well there's a
bigger audience for the comic book movie, you know, the Spider Man.
So I don't know that that whole thing was. You could just smell the
marketing. That's business major. You can feel it, you know, coming
at you. No exactly, and if you look at I mean if you
look at someone like Nolan, who also you know, has a very expensive
palette, but his films are for a very broad audience. Even though like
Inception, it makes my head hurt, it makes everyone's head hurt, Like
thinking about the plotting in that film is it's pretty insane. But for whatever,
but he brings in action, he brings in start like he he understands
his art form very well, where Fincher has a little bit of that Scorsese
vibe to him, which is like, you know, I really I really
need one hundred and fifty million, but into like Fincher, we love you,
man, but we can't. Yeah. No, I love I love
the fact that we're talking about this if because it's you know, like so
much of what I see online is kind of like just give give these guys
two give marks would say two hundred million dollars because he deserves it. It's
like that's not how Yeah, that's not business. Put your money into it
first, if you had to put your put your dollar up and looks like,
so everyone we're talking about here, we're all talking about giants. So
Martin, you know, Marty and and Nolan and Fincher and all these kind
of they're just giants there. They live on Mount Hollywood. I call it
Mount Hollywood where where where they're the gods the Olympic, They the Greek gods
of of Hollywood, And we're just the peasants throwing up stones, and I'm
not throwing up stones at all, because I'm huge fans of all of them.
And believe me, if it was up to me, I would give
Marty five hundred million dollars because I would love to see what he does with
that. But the reality is, on a business standpoint, it makes no
sense. You have to you have to have if you're going to create a
product. And I know a lot of filmmakers out there going to go film's
not a product. I hate to tell you, it is. It is.
So if you're going to have a product, that product has to have
a cost, and there has to be an ROI return on investment. If
you want to do art films, you make that five million dollars or that
Woody Allen budget range film and do whatever the hell you want, like whatever
you want, because you'll make your money back because they're the ROI on a
film like that makes sense for a filmmaker of that caliber. But if not,
then no, Like look, Spielberg couldn't get Lincoln financed. You know
it's Steven Spielberg with Daniel de Lewis as a star, and didn't get financing
for for Lincoln, if Mark, if Steve, And then the reason why
he couldn't get that was because the roy essentially didn't look like, who's gonna
go see a movie about linking and like, how what's the budget range?
Is it gonna makes sense? And the way Spielberg was selling this movie Lincoln,
he was saying, this is going to be a courtroom dram about the
fourteenth Amendment. Right, Someone's in great marketing at all. That's that's like,
oh, yeah, that's summer blog. That's a popcorn movie right there,
right right. So even so someone was like one of the greatest filmmakers
of all time, one of the most successful filmmakers of all time, couldn't
get financing for a film. And it wasn't like he was asking for Marty
numbers because Marty, you know, it's Marty. Yeah. He was still
asking for you know, seventy eighty million, ninety million to make this kind
of period peace film. It took it had to go to India to get
the money, and they were just like they were just happy to be making
a movie with Spielberg. They like, here, here's a check. And
it worked out for him, And now Netflix is doing the same thing.
With Marty. I think he's they're doing this his next movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.
So, but they're that business model is different. Though Irishman made sense
in the Netflix ecosystem. Uh huh, it made it made all the sense
in the world to to spend one hundred and fifty hundred and eighty million dollars
in the Netflix ecosystem, in their Hollywood studio system. It makes absolutely no
sense. It's just not fine. It's just makes no sense. Would you
agree, Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't know
much. I don't know enough about the Netflix world. I mean, to
me, the Netflix streaming stuff is still so speculative. We did there,
no one knows exactly what the numbers are, and then they purposely hide that.
So I don't know. I mean, but I know that Netflix is
raising so much capital to make new properties, and part of me is like,
well, why can't I get a piece of that action? But yeah,
well, if you know, if we could go, we could go
down the Netflix a hole in a set for a second, which from what
I'm hearing about Netflix is I know for a fact that they're extremely in debt,
extremely in debt, because they've just they've had this kind of don't forget
they were not a studio. They're a Silicon valley startup. So they looked
they brought their entire business model as a Silicon valley startup, meaning spend a
lot of money, lose money for a long time to gain market share,
and then you'll be probably at the Amazon model, the Facebook model, every
big Airbnb model, all of those kind of models. Then it became a
studio afterwards, but you know, they're there. I don't know, man,
Everything's just like we were talking about earlier. Is like, it doesn't
from what outside, we look like we're Scrooge mcducking it. Netflix is the
same thing. I think a lot of people have a different perception of Netflix.
A's like, oh, they're just killing it. They're they're hurting,
they're hurting. I don't know if you know, I don't know if you
knew it or not, but this is not We're getting into a little bit
of tech geek stuff. Since the pandemic, Netflix has been extremely hurting because
more people are watching Netflix, so the load on their servers and the technology
and the cost of that has I think tripled. But there are no new
subscribers to can't to to offset that, so that's just exists. Now they're
just like, oh man, we've got this. Everyone's watching Netflix now.
Great. Unfortunately our business models not set up for that. We just want
a few people to be watching Netflix and pay for it, but don't watch
it. And that's that's what happened. So they actually started throttling. I
don't know if you know that. They started throttling the image quality just a
bit because if they drop it five percent, that could be millions of dollars
in service feeds. So that's that's what's that's that's one of the things.
Enough but I but enough. Yeah, I think you're right ye this thing
to think about it because yeah, like people, people who are losing their
jobs are not getting new Netflix subscriptions. We'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor. And now back to the show. No, and there
is an album, and there's also a critical level of critical mass where there
are no more subscribers that they can get. But yet they're going to have
to keep spending Irishman style money for projects to keep what they have because now
Disney's out and I want to actually want That brings me to another question.
I want to hear. I want to talk to you about, you know,
Disney Plus and the whole COVID situation and what happened. And you know,
Disney is already over sixty million as of this recording subscribers, which had
gotten less than a year. It's insane. Now they're doing Mulan, so
they're skipping theatrical. What do you think about that whole thirty dollars You've got
to be a member of Disney Plus to watch it. And it's an experiment.
It's literally they're doing a one hundred and fifty million dollars experiment, which
is what I was saying when everyone was talking about trolls too, like,
oh, Trolls two killed, and I'm like, dude, this Trolls two
was the first month of the quarantine. Everybody that there's kids at home,
nobody knew what to do. Of course they're going to spend twenty bucks controls
too, But I want to see a tent pole. Mulan is a tent
pole. What do you what do you what do you think is going to
happen with? What's your thoughts on it? Oh? That's a you know,
it's it's when I hate the cliche be interesting to see because it's like,
if you can say about everything, I think it will probably be it'll
probably do what this it's hard to say because we are in such a weird
time right now because we can't go to the movie theaters though, so theatrical
is not even an option for them. As far as as far as what
I think it's gonna I mean, I think it's an option. It's it's
an it's an extra experiment, but I'm not sure you can be repeated next
year when theaters do eventually open up again. Can you do that? Can
you see that same kind of success if people have the option to go back
theater and again. I know theater is also one of those topics that people
are feel It's very weird that every time I bring up theater like on social
media or theatrical on social media, there's a group of people that want to
see it die. I don't understand why you noticed that. I have.
I have noticed that people are like, it's and I've I've i'ven't said it,
I've said it many times and like I think I personally think that the
theatrical experience as we knew it In January twenty twenty will not return to that
level probably ever again. We will never have as many screens like that again,
because it was all going in a downward, slow, downward trajectory.
I mean, theatrical attendance and things. It's just what's happening, and regardless
if you love it or not. I think there'll always be a theatrical like
there's there's Broadway plays. There's always gonna be a movie theater. There's always
gonna be Imax, there's gonna be an experiment, an experience like that.
But it's never gonna die. People still want to go out and do that,
but the business model is going to change. So now Disney could just
go you know what, guys, We're just going to release this for three
weeks and then we're going to go straight to Disney Plus. And if you
don't like it, we'll just go straight to Disney Plus because we'll probably make
enough money to cover that. Well. I mean, I don't know if
you followed. The courts just have want to overturn that paramount decrease, so
which I'm I think, you know, people are you know, jumping overhead.
How can we do this? I think the paramount decrease are kind of
long and done because they were made a point when movies had no movies had
only radio as a competition because nineteen forty eight, you know, television was
fifties. So television came in and kind of beat the crap out of movies.
And now we've got internet streaming, which let's face it, most people
are probably doing instead of watching movies. So I think the time for a
business model shift is probably here. So, like what you're saying, as
far as Disney, maybe Disney ends up buying a bunch of theaters where they
become like Disney dine Egyptian here because no, no, they copy here.
Yeah that's Disney. So maybe that happens in like Saint Louis. Now they
have a you know, the Disney El Captain in Saint Luis or wherever Toledo,
you know, and then that's all they do is they show Disney movies.
And I'm not a parent, but imagine if you're if I was a
parent, Hey, okay, I take my kid to the Disney theater once
in a while. I mean it might be something that's worth worth pursuing.
And don't forget there will be a Disney store inside that Disney theater exactly.
I mean, and so for them, it's almost a lost leader to get
you in the door to watch the movie because they're gonna sell you on other
side. I mean, it's the truth and it's the only way. Like
I agree with you one hundred percent. I think that theaters someone's gonna buy
AMC before the years out, if not this year, end of next year
or sometime in early next year, someone's gonna buy. Amazon's already circling.
There's a lot of people with a lot of cash who can just come in
and buy it. And all of a sudden, you have how many screens
all around the country, so and there's and there's there's so many regal and
all these other things. They're hurting and they're they're they're going to be vulnerable
for purchase. I agree with you. There's only three major studios that have
the power to do anything like that, that have the financial power to do
that, which would be Disney, Warners and Universal. But but the big
unknowns Facebook, Cash, Google, Amazon, Apple, they have Apple has
four hundred billion cash. Yeah, just cash, No, I mean,
so that is but that's the key to this. It's it's this kind of
creating of this ecosystem. The Disney has been a I mean that's what Disney
does. Disney, that's I mean, their theme parks, their cruises,
their their Disney stores. It's it's what they do. So there's no doubt
that there's going to be a Disney chain. And it just makes all the
sense in the world. M hm and and that. And in that world
where we have the internet streaming, I don't see that as a bad thing
because it's not. I don't feel like it's stifling competition because it's not like
these indie movies are getting into those big chains anyway. So I don't know,
yeah exactly. I don't think you're absolutely right. I mean yeah,
MC, I mean, I mean, I mean, yes, some,
but not like really indie movies. The theatrical experience for independent film is almost
non existent unless you really are at the top one percent of all independent films,
whether either you've got a a taste maker like Sun Dance or South Buy
or an A twenty four or someone like that Neon, one of these guys
that can kind of come in and elevate, elevate the art house vibe.
And there are small movies that could do that and you have to really understand
how you do marketing and audience building and all that kind of stuff. But
for like the standard you know one hundred. Yeah, an they're also like
these independent wings and these major studios that because I mean, if you're if
you're Fox Adam or whatever, you know, Searchlight Studios or whatever, where
you can that that's where you would see some sort of uh, you know,
if you're partnering with a large studio for an independent I mean, I'm
not I'm kind of speaking out of my experience there. Yeah, but but
those kind of things have kind of fallen off to the wayst side that it's
not the early nineties anymore, where everybody like you know, Paramount Vantage and
Fox, search Light and you know, Focus Film like all of these small
little independent independence where the money's at. So of course they all made their
independent labels. But so do you think that so do you think the theatrical
experience would you agree that it is going to be different? Do you think
that it's going to be the Disney studios? You think, you know,
Imax is going to be a thing. Like how It's mean, I think
it was changing before January twenty and twenty. I mean I noticed my like,
I'm a big fan of the movie theater subscription model personally because I just
I like, for twenty bucks, I can go to movie theaters every weekend.
Count me in and maybe I'll buy an extra popcorn and the you know,
get the movies will will make a little more money off of me.
So I was already way on board with the subscription model, and then my
AMC just recently switched over to all the you know, the big the big
chairs and the more spaced out stuff. I'm like, yeah, this is
what I would. I'll pay extra to do this. So I mean,
we're no longer it's not that that that you know, sardines in a can
kind of situations. We used to squeeze everybody in the theater, and the
seats where like worse than you know, airline seats, or they were the
same as airline seats. But so I so I think that in that respect,
But then again it's there's a there's an old there's a theater that does
the secondhand when not second second run theater and whatever, yeah, dollar theater,
and they used to always do they do like Rocky horror every every three
or four months, and there's that there's a little bit of that. I'm
like, I don't want to see that go away, you know, I
want I want to be throwing popcorn at the screen and having just a crazy
time on in the theater. So, you know, maybe, but maybe
the dollar theaters models still kind of floats surround as a side. Doesn't mean
you can have more than one, you know, model out there. So,
yeah, it was changing, I think so. And I think with
with the reason the COVID discussion about how we have to separate the seats and
all that, it's gonna be quite different at least for at least for the
rest of this year. For I think, I think for the foreseeable future,
it's gonna Yeah, I think the next two or three years this is
gonna be not exactly what we're going through right now, but there'll be different
versions of this moving forward. I think COVID. I don't think it's going
to go away in the way. It's gonna be with us in one way,
shape or form. We're not eradicating it anytime in the year exactly.
So, and there's always the other the question what's next after COVID. You
know what disease comes next that we all get. Well, there's there's murder,
hornets, earthquakes. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show explosions. I mean, there's just so
there's I'm sure there's a meteor. Honest way as we speak, everyone busts
out a Deep Impact and armageddon so we can figure out how do we deal
with it? Yeah, but there's it's coming. It's coming. The secrets,
the secrets, oil oil, oil drillers. That's how we get through.
The next train astronauts to drill Let's train drillers to be astronauts in five
days. Yes, this this makes all the sense of the world. But
hell, what a hell of a romp of a film. I love ARMYGD
It's a gilt pleasure. That's I mean, look, I look, I'll
watch Armageddon before I'll watch Deep Impact like I watched Deep Impact once. I've
seen Armageddon probably ten tomes in my life. So you know, uh,
what's the what was it? The every him painting? Did the whole thing
else say him? Oh yeah, that's that's a really good, good video,
just discussion about it. He gets so little respect for being kind of
just visually interesting. No, even though it's even though his storylines might be
stupid, but you gotta give it to him to a shot. I said
this, I've said this publicly before and I'll say it again. There's action
films before Michael Bay, and there's action films after Michael Bay. And the
same thing happened with Ridley Scott when Ridley's Tony Scott. When Tony Scott showed
up, there's action films before Tony, there's action shots films after Tony Bay.
Shift the visual medium Michael Bay. Everybody wanted to look hit their action
films to look like Michael Bay. They just did, and you could see
them. They just they copied the shots and they never got it right.
And you know, there's there's guys out there who will remain nameless, directors
who really really like we're on top of trying to exactly do what Michael Bay
did and all this kind of stuff, regardless you love him or hate him,
Like The Rock is still imparting my favorite Michael Bay some of all time,
and it still holds up. Its probably the best story. But we
love him or hate him, you've got to respect the visual prowess of what
he's been able to do. I mean, it's there is nobody in the
history of film that did what he's done. You know. Do I like
all his films? No, But visually I meant, oh yeah, the
one with them with Ryan Reynolds, Yeah, that wasn't bad. But you
could tell it's it's you could tell it's it's Michael, Like the second a
frame shows up, Oh yeah, that's I mean, there's a lot of
stupid stuff that you're looking at it like like, whoa, I never thought
you would do that in a frame. It's like, there's so much clever
visual stuff that's going on. It's yeah, sure it's wrapped in some some
kind of silliness from in my taste, but like I can appreciate the fact
that there's there's there's just so sit set pieces that are like this is very
creative, this is very ingenious. So yeah, I end up really liking
that. In that movie, yeah, I can't remember the name of it.
I was like six something six or something like that. That something six.
I was like the six ghosts, ghost guys out there doing what they
do. But go rou back to theaters real quick. I mean, I've
always said that theaters have had a combative relationship with their customer base for a
long I mean it's, first of all, the experience used to suck.
So it was this, It was sardine, sticky floors, stale popcorn.
And then they charge you inside forty five dollars for a coke, seventy five
dollars for a popcorn. Like it's like it's almost like it's almost like airport
costs. So and they never really cared a lot. But then slowly but
surely, as their number started to go down, they're like, oh,
wait a minute, we've got to create a better experience because we're not the
only show in town anymore. And that's when these seats started showing up and
bars like like the MC here in Burbank has like a bar and side of
it, and it's like, you know, special seatings, and the sound
got better. But it's like, you know, for a certain generation,
we all remember, and they're still abusive. I still think they're abusive and
pricing. It's so abusive and come on, give me a break. Yeah,
so they're still well, I was gonna say that the other day,
I was thinking about this and I didn't forgot to mention it. But yeah,
if you if if this Disney owned, I mean, Disney's not gonna
Disney's not gonna lower the price, I think, oh no, but they're
experienced. Look when you walk into Disneyland or Disney World, oh yeah,
you just my wife and I every time we drive into the parking lot to
one of those places, we just go let the beating begin, because you
are you're just being charged like twenty five dollars a park and you're boomboo like
and you're just and you're in there. But the experience they are offering you
a very high quality experience for the most part. So that's what you get.
But you don't get that with a standard movie theater. Like have you
ever been to the copy Tone? No? I haven't. I need to
go. So when I went to when I went to Elkapitan, I saw
Frozen there with my daughters, and they had like the Princess came out and
did like the pre show, and and there's this stuff. It was like,
you know, it's Disney everything, and next door there's a Disney store,
and it's like this whole experience and the price. Honestly, wasn't much
different than a normal movie theater. So I was like, okay, this
is this makes sense, this makes sense. Well, I think I think
the point I was trying to make was that I think if if let's say,
let's not pick these, let's play like Amazon or something owns a studio
or owns a theater, you might conceivably see a lowering of the costs of
like concessions, because traditionally the argument was that concessions is where the movie theater
makes money. Well, if the movie theater is owned by the studio,
then they're also making on the on the ticket price. Conceivably they can lower
the you know, popcorn being seven dollars very small, Maybe it's five dollars
very small because' and that's still abusive, and that's still abusive. But sure,
but it's three is two three dollars last Yeah, sure, yeah,
agreed. So there might be that might be a benefit that comes out of
it. I don't know. Well, it's a different business model. I
mean, since you're a business major. So if you look at the business
models of theaters, it's they get you know, fifty percent or you know,
forty percent or thirty percent depending on the big how big the movie is
in the week it's coming out, So you get a small percentage of the
box office. All their money is made at concessions, but if the studio
owns the space, then they get one hundred percent of royal of the sales
of the box office, and they get a little bit off of royalties off
of the concessions. But where they start making their money is off of ancillary
products. And so if there's a Warner Brothers style theater chain, then there'd
be all sorts of Warner Brothers and you could buy the poster of the movie,
you could buy all the merch for that movie that week, and it's
it's rotating in and out every week. And it makes sense. That's a
different business model than what we have currently, and it's gonna change. It's
just no I mean arc Light. You've been to arc Lights, I'm assuming
yeah. Yeah. So they have that little store on the side that has
like, you know, the movie memorabilia stuff and sometimes they would bring out
stuff, but it's kind of like almost not throw away, but it's not
themed out like a Warner Brothers or a Disney or even an Amazon theater would
have. Because and with Amazon's data on people's buying habits. They know what
products are going to be out there, and they're gonna have you just walk
in with your app, pick up the thing, and walk out, and
they charge your Amazon account. I mean that's oh boy. Well, they
have those stores that they convenient. They have those stores now. They have
the bookstore now like that the Amazon bookstore that you walk in. Not to
get sidetracked too much, but I'll just tell you a story about yesterday.
I was returning something from Amazon and I found out that Amazon has this Coals
thing where you go into Coals and you just drop off your product. And
I did that, and then the Coals said thanks for dropping off, here's
a twenty five percent coupon for Coals and also impress, I actually bought something.
I was like, I need some sandals, and I just bought them.
And I was like, this is this is such a brilliant idea because
it's a great service for me because I don't have to package, you don't
have to take it to ups I have to worry about that. And gets
me in their store and I got I got what I wanted. I needed
some sandals, so I finally got my sandals, and I got a coupon
for it. So for coals, and it's yeah, for coals, it's
a little bit, you know, a little bit more hassles and staff one
person staff to deal with it, and more foot traffic. And Amazon was
like, we need more, we need real estate, So we'll give you
traffic. You give us the real estate. It's a deal. It is,
it's it is fairly fairly brilliant. Now let's talk a little bit about
production film production. Yeah, what do you think it's gonna look like?
I mean, you're shooting now, Like, how how is it working?
You know, shooting with you know this COVID stuff. I mean for one
man crew are short, like two man crew is one thing, but like
for narrative TV show, like, I don't know how you move forward right
right now? At least I really I agree with you. I mean I
do one man too man things operations I do, and I work with corporate
clients of including school districts, and it just it's a lot. I mean,
I don't want to get I don't want to sound too too dangerously political,
I guess, but it's it's a lot about optics. It's about appearing
to look like you're doing. I mean, you get to wear the masks,
you stay here, do your social distancing, you to apply uh,
you know, apply the hand sanitizers and all that. But it really just
comes down to we just have to look like we're doing our jobs. And
unfortunately, with with with when you get to larger narratives, when you have
lots of groups of you know, hair, makeup and sets and all that,
and just thirty forty people crews, we'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor and now back to the show. It's hard to maintain those
optics. I mean you can. There's there's a whole movement about, you
know, getting so many people trained in you know, health and safety and
having that one person on set, And look, is that really gonna make
that much a difference? Is that you're just kind of it's just a cya
maneuver. I don't know, you know, I don't, I don't.
I don't see us really getting into like traditional and it's like, guess was
look, I don't know if you've you've probably been affected. But I think
I feel like a lot of the society in general husband had like overhanging depression.
All this Yeah, you know, it was like like Obama, like
Michelle Obama came out and she says she has low grade depression, and I
think it was said everyone, and I think what seth Meyer said, like
when you go low, I go high. I have high grade depression.
And it's it's very it's very true. Another there is. I mean,
I don't know why I do this, but I watched the news every day
and I just watched thirty minutes of it. It's just I know it's I
watched Network News and I just watch it just to just to find out what's
going on, just just to stay in form, because we've got kind of
got kind of gotta know what's going on. I mean, because I never
was a person who watched the news like I just I'm like, you know
what, if it's big enough, I'll hear about it, I'll find it
on my Facebook feed or someone will tell me about it. And now it's
just like things are changing so rapidly and craziness is happening on a daily basis
that you kind of have to stay for. And you know, I sit
there with with my wife, I just turned I'm like why why, why,
why why are we doing this? I don't under you know, we're
we're praying for that last segment, which is like how a puppy saved someone
with COVID Like it's it's it's like, that's we're praying for that one happy
moment at the end of the broadcast. Yeah, that's well, it's it's
the sort of pressing is I think, you know, I'm trying to if
I try to put together like a small production and I'm not I'm not throwing
lots of money at it. I'm just gonna, you know, put together
a little short film or something. I can't really foreseeably do that in the
next, you know, a few months, just because if I wanted to
cast it, it would be difficult because there's gonna be half of your cast
is probably na. Well, I'm not gonna or not even interested in working
in something right now. They don't want to be in anything, you know,
and I'm not going to be paying them a huge amounts of money.
This is more of like a for fun project. How can you It's hard
to justify it, and it's hard to even even look like you're doing I
don't know, watching and watching old movies and thinking like huh, I wish
we could hug people like that. It's a movie because you can't do any
of that stuff. So I don't know what's going to happen. Love scenes.
How can you do a love scene? No? How can you do
a fight like a like a like a like a fight fight close? No,
you can't do it. I mean it's I know. I mean someone
like Tyler Perry, who has an infrastructure that makes all the sense in the
world. He's popping out content like crazy, and he was. He's a
guy who creates content like he creates like like fifty episodes of a show in
like four weeks or something like that, Like it flows them amazing. He
just pumps it out. But he has a unique person because he has an
entire movie studio at his disposal, which he can quarantine, lock it down,
and everyone's in a bubble for the time and you could shoot that makes
sense, But no, we're not set up for that. Like that's never
been a thing. And that's in the studio world, let alone in the
indie world. I actually did a whole episode about COVID safety because I went
for a bike ride and I saw, of course, independent filmmakers on the
side of the road in my neighborhood shooting a short or some scenes that were
COVID related because the guys were dressed up in like, you know, has
Matt suits and stuff, and I'm just and they nobody was when they had
the has mat suit off but the head was off. They were all clunk
together in a small group talking, the actors were all talking, and then
the director in DP were setting something up over there and that nobody had masks
on, and I'm like this, this is so irresponsible, Like you can't.
You can't do it, Like I couldn't as a film director put my
cast or crew in harm's way right now with for a film, like it's
not worth it right now. It just doesn't make any sense to do something
like that. I can't good conscience send it further to I mean, look,
I may not if someone and I'm not saying I disagree, but I'm
saying, if you, even if you think it's not an issue, you
can't get other people to do it, you know what I mean. It's
it's like, so you're you're just unless you find like a bunch of people
that all agree that, oh we're going to take the risk. But that's
not fun. That's not the point of making films, right, So it's
I, yeah, we're all independent film. Independent film is going to have
a rough time for the next few years, and people are gonna have to
get very creative. You know, they're gonna if they are going to do
something, it's gonna be you know, kind of like what I did with
my last film, which was well last one I couldn't do now is because
going to Sundance and shooting at Sundance, which is something I can't do right
now. But it was a small crew. It was a three three man
crew was me, the DP and the sound guy and then my actors and
that was it, and I was running around. So you have to you
have to start getting creative and in the storytelling process on how to do it.
Like I've been hearing from the studios and people in the studios that they're
saying when you're writing, no crowds, don't put this in, don't put
that in anymore, no more love scenes. You don't like, figure out
another way to do it if we if we're going to continue to so I
think there's gonna be a COVID era in filmmaking where after we're done with everything
that's in the can. We're gonna start seeing films and television shows that are
going to be just like, oh that was in the COVID era. Yeah,
and it's gonna be like they can't kiss, they can't touch, It's
like this whole weird thing. But I think that's what's gonna happen. And
an independent film, I think, you know, I'm waiting for the next
great COVID era independent film, like the El Mariachi of this era. I
don't know what that will be. You know, that's gonna like take the
world by storm, like the paranormal like paranormal activity, perfect COVID movie,
like perfect COVID movie. Like you that's a problem, no, no,
no. But if they they've quarantined together, they're fine. Okay, so
again, but this small crew, very small amount. You know, if
you quarantine with somebody for two weeks and everyone's all, we're all good,
all right, great, let's let's go and we're all in a house and
it's very controlled. And that's the kind of films I think we're going to
be seeing coming out. Yeah. I I mean I always think about,
like what what will future generations look back and ask us, you know,
like, oh you lived through that, are was alike, It's it's gonna
be an interesting story to tell the grandkids. No, So I want to
go back real quick to Filmmakerrek you man, because I just I love what
you do with filmmaker you You've You've created some amazing I've mooted your stuff over
the years, as far as those little mini documentaries you make over like you
know a lens that the field of the one eight rule, like and then
all you know, all this color and the twenty eight frames and twenty four
frames a second, all this kind of stuff. How why do you do
it? Because it's a lot of work, dude. It's like I can
see, it's a ton You've got the little three D image that the three
D guys coming out setting all that, I mean to create a fifteen minute
video must take you forever. Well, the last video I did, started
at the beginning of the COVID thing, was that Fox video, The History
of William Fox, and ended being like forty three minutes long, and it
was a ton of research, just trying to go well, I mean,
why do I why why did? I mean? I think it's all it's
it's a it's a self expression kind of thing. I really enjoy. I
just really enjoy exploring the truth of a topic like that and kind of going
in depth into it because I don't. I feel like no one else is
really kind of tackling it the way that I do, which is just unrelenting
depths, just obscene, obscene depth of fifteen minutes on unfocused like or on
depth of field. I think fifteen minutes of that, and like it was
like, but it's so entertaining, and like you go into the history of
it and it's like the lenses and the breakdowns. That's great, and of
which I will get plenty of YouTube comments that will argue with me and tell
me I'm completely wrong because I have not done the research. Just like yeah,
but uh now you know it's also born I think I have. I
have an Internet form personality where I do like to go on on I unfortunately
read all the comments and I engage and don't do that. Don't do that.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's a habit. It's part of who
who I am. A lot of stuff drives sometimes the ideas for new content
was based on all that person made a mistake about that. So I want
to talk about that particular point, you know, but it's it's it's kind
of in that in that range. That's that's, you know, I want
to get to the point where I don't work, can no longer read comments
because there's too many of them. That's that's that's my goal. But until
then, I'm just I'm stuck arguing about twenty four frames a second every day.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, and the depth that you do
in these videos is pretty insane, and the research that goes into them is
insane. The production of them. And again, you've been doing this for
years now, over a decade, you know, you've been you've been doing
because some of these some of those little documentaries, the ones with the little
the little Dude, I call them the little Dudes. I don't know if
you haven't specifics, Yeah, the little three d dudes. They go back
sevent eight years. Yeah, that about eight years. That's when they start
doing the videos. Because we were when we first started, filmmaker Que was
more of an aggregator site, a blog site, and we do, like
what all the other bloggers do is just go out and try to find articles
and post them together and Just the funny thing is, if you do that
long enough, you kind of get a very good sense of what the blog
is sphere looks like, and you get kind of discussed by like I've seen
the same thing over again. We'll be right back after a wor from our
sponsor and now back to the show. So decide at that point, like
I should start making our own stuff instead of relying on to other people to
make stuff. So that's when the videos started happenings. And the first one
was like Dolly Zoom when I first explored that topic. But yeah, but
I think I think what it is is I've talked to some people about this,
but I feel like filmmakers have like all like eighty percent of filmmakers have
an expiration date of like say, I wouldn't say like three or four years.
It's like, I think three or four years it takes to learn everything
about filmmaking and it's still that fun like exciting, Oh I could learn about
this camera, this new camera's coming out. So about three or four years
you absorb all this information and then after that you either if you love it,
you continue on you and you pursue like story and you pursue the creation
of actual and you just said a product. You know, you get over
the oh this is exciting word learning thing, and then the other segment of
the population just loses interest and they disappear. So I feel like a lot
of what the growth and the Internet is capturing that first like three or four
years of people that are just starting to learn this stuff. And Uh,
what's scary about that is there's so much marketing. There's so much like the
manufacturers are shoving down marketing informations down your throat, like like like I'm I'm
gonna pick on them. Black Magic just came. You were going to say,
well, there's twelfth K camera and they're saying it's revolutionary. It doesn't
have a Bayer system, And I'm sitting back your thinking the Beyer system is
a good thing. People. There's people online saying the Beyer system sucks now
because this new marketing is coming down and slapping them with this new we got
this new system of camera. So I don't know where I'm going with all
of them. Well, I mean, but it started with Red. Red
was the one that first came out with four K and just like exploded.
I remember at an AD when it was a box. It was a box,
and they're like, just give us ten thousand dollars and you will get
a camera one day. And like that was insane and they sold, like
whenever, five hundred cameras that during an av at that time. And they
changed the game. Red changed the game, love him or hate him.
They changed the game. Arie took a while to catch up, and now
people argue all the time, Ari's better than Red, Sony's better than Arie,
and black Magic is now. You know, black Magic was like another
redheaded stepchild for a long time, and now they've kind of come into their
own as a real player in the camera game, you know. And I've
always said personal, I'm a big I love black Magic. I've had I've
shot black Magic. I shot both my features on him, and I love
black Magic cameras and Da Vinci I edit Unresolved, and you know, I
drank the kool aid because I feel because I feel that they have the best
bang for the buck. I think out of all the cinematic cameras, I
think they have the best bang for the buck. And I did some tests
once and I shot an Airy down the middle, an Aery Alexa down the
middle and I shot the four point six K black Magic down the middle,
and I put them up, and I brought in some filmmakers and some dps.
I'm like, which is which? And none of the ten times they
can they cannot tell the difference because the black Magic image it lit the same,
everything was the same, SAM lenses and everything. The image is equivalent.
It's not you can. And I know a lot of people are going
to be like, no, what he was saying, I'm like, no,
listen, calm the hell down. Where the cost? The reason why
the Alexa costs so much more is when you start going three or four stops,
under five stops, it falls apart. The black Magic falls apart.
But if you shoot it like you're supposed to shoot it, it's pretty damn
good. And the cost versus like eighty eighty thousand versus this a really easy
workflow versus a fairly intense workflow in post. All of all of that just
got to kind of look and now the twelveth K, what does how much
it costs? Ten thousand? Ten thousand dollars? Yeah, I I you
know, I'm not good. I'm fine with I have a four point six
I'm good. It's yeah, like it's an interesting camera. The thing is,
I've seen a lot of people jump on board with it, and it's
just I don't feel like the existence of a twelve K camera does not invalidate
your four point six, right, you know, But it feels like a
lot of people are are thinking that and and it's marketing. It's not.
And look, Grant Petty's he's he did a good job on his video,
but I think it's the it's the next layer. It's the people that talk
about what he said that are kind of overhyping it. And uh, that's
that's what That's what bugs me about kind of marketing. And that's kind of
what I've trying to do with my videos, a little business, trying to
get down to the fundamentals, get down to the understanding of how what does
what does it mean when they say Bayer system, Bayer pattern, you know,
uh, what does that mean? And then kind of cut through some
of that marketing hype that you're just constantly inundated with. And that's going back
That's kind of what I'm trying to do with some of these videos. So
like, yeah, when Black when Black Magic came out with the four K,
the little Mini Pocket four K. Then that everybody was like, oh
my god, oh my god, my god, we got it's a Pocket
four K. And then like five months la, four months later, the
sixth K comes out and I'm like, are you kidding me? Guys?
Are you? Are you ev and kidding me? Really? Yeah? Like
can you can you stop it? CanYa? Can you just not? And
I know the black Magic guys. I've worked with black Magic. I yell
at him all the time. I'll go like, dude, dude, seriously,
man, like, give us a year, give us like some time
to like enjoy what we have, Like I'll give you a better one.
I have the Adam Mini, which I bought like earlier, well I think
earlier this year. They came with an Adam Mini Pro, which I bought
because I like because I need that multicam view, which is what it added
to the system. And then a month later, like the week I got
it, after being on back order for a month, they announced the Adam
Mini Pro ISO, which can record all all your camera streams at the same
time. So it's like literally a month after I got this thing, a
brand new one came out and I'm looking at it like, ah, that's
a great feature to have. Do I need it? Not really, but
man, I wish I had that option. That's the thing is that you
have to get used to the fact, like, hey, you know what
I can I need to stop buying technology and make stuff with the stuff I
have had purchased. That's that's what I need to do. Well, I
think, and I think a lot of filmmakers use technology as an excuse not
to actually get into the arena. Well, yeah, that's so true.
I mean, so many filmmakers just like, oh, I can't shoot it
because I need this camera. Oh I can't shoot it because I need that
camera. What I would I argue when people argue with me about twenty four
frames a second and people say that they want a high frame rate movies,
I always say, go out there and shoot them yourself, like you be
the change you you you go out And then every single time they always tell
me I can't because I don't have any of this. I don't have any
equipment, I don't have any castrower. So it's always it's always an excuse
to get out of making something. Well listen, man, I mean I've
been I've been a filmmaker for twenty odd twenty five years plus, and I
understand the excuse demon because it's fear. We're fearful of putting ourselves out there,
We're fearful of creating art and oh my god, no one's gonna like
it, the comments, holy cow, all of that kind of stuff,
and and not to mention the pressure of if it's you know, the cost
and people you're working with, and can I really do it and all of
the there's so many doubts and fears that we as filmmakers have that we find
whatever excuse. Look, the same thing happens with screenwriters that's like, oh,
I'll write tomorrow, or it's it's like there's fear. As an artist
in general, there's always fear, and gear is the one of the easiest
things you can say, like oh I don't have this camera, I don't
have that camera, or I don't have this lighting. Oh I need that
location, or I can't make this script without three million, like I can't.
I just I can't not to say I'm not gonna go write a script
that can make for ten thousand, but this script I can't make, So
I'm going to just sit around for three years chasing money for it, and
that makes me feel like I'm a filmmaker. But you're really not a filmmaker.
You're just a guy or a girl chasing money that will more unlikely never
happen. And I played that game for twenty years. Twenty years I played
that game. So I turned forty and I was attached to another big project
with a big producer and screenwriter, and the project fell apart again, and
I said, I'm forty, I can't do this anymore. So thirty days
later, I was shooting my first feature with a black Magic send. I'm
a two point five K Why because I had it and I didn't even hire
a DP. I lit the damn thing myself and I never really dpted before.
I was a callerist for ten years, so I felt that I could
get it. I just gave me it down the middle. I'll fix in
a post and I did. You're inspiring me, Alex, But I did.
But that's this story. But the thing is that I didn't. I
made it because I was already in with indie film hustle at that time,
so I felt very comfortable for whatever it was, something psychological, but I
just felt, oh, I have indie film husse I can go back to
like I have my I have my tribe. So if it doesn't work out,
no big deal, because I don't know about you. But in my
mind when I made my first feature, it was going to be Reservoir Dogs.
I mean, I don't know about you, but it was gonna be
Reservoir Dogs. It was gonna be Mariagi, it was gonna be Clerks,
it was going to be one of these big independent films that explode out of
the gate. So that pressure that I put on myself stifled me for twenty
years. And of course I was fearful, and of course I was chasing
every other dream and every other little project and everything else because I was scared
to actually go do it. We'll be right back after a word from our
sponsor, and now back to the show. Whereas when I finally just said,
you know what, screw it, I'm gonna just go out and shoot
it. Thirty days later, we shot with a scriptment which was, you
know, eight page outline with a bunch of stand up comics and improvisers,
and we shot around our shot at all their apartments and around LA and we
shot the whole damn thing in eight days, I went up to the Hollywood
Sign and stole it. Which, by the way, anyone wanting to shoot
on the Hollywood Sign, this is this is a little tip if you just
want to, because if you want to get permits and stuff, it becomes
a pain in the ass. But oh yeah. So I was like,
I'm just gonna steal it, and like halfway and we were really so I
was scared. I'm like, oh my god, what did we get to
this? The Hollywood Sign? Oh my god. Halfway up while I'm lugging
the gear up with my actress. My actress is walking in front of me
and I've got all this gear, I'm lugging up, and I said,
no one's coming, No one cares. No one kid Like, if someone
called them, hey, someone's illegally shooting, by the they're not helicoptering somebody
in. By the time they get up there, I'm done with my shot.
So I just realized, I'm like, okay, fine, I don't
I could just shoot, and we shot and it was all these cool images
and stuff that we got up there. But I didn't give my mind a
moment to stop itself because it was afraid and I just did it and I
was done, and I got it out there and and it sold to Hulu
and we sold internationally and we did very well with it. And it was
cost like five grand to make and it was great, But that was I
had to It took me twenty years to get there because of the fear.
And I think gear was one of the all band I need a red,
I can't, I need, I need a red. I can't I need
I need, I need a techno. How can I not shoot without a
techno? I mean, have you ever shot? Have you ever shot with
a techno? By the way, no, I have seen him, but
I never touched. I was shooting a music video and I had a techno
the entire day, first time I ever had one. Oh my god,
It's so amazing. Yeah, it's just it lived on the tech all day,
just like I just like, I can't, I can't. I can't
shoot without a Mini Techo everywhere I go. It was so amazing to have
that thing. I was just like, oh, I get why James Cameron
has like twenty of these on the set just in case. But but anyway,
so that's the that's the fear thing. So I think as we're kind
of talking about gear fear, fear of gear, but I think it's also
the fear of actually materializing your idea. Because as long as it's an idea
in your head, it's brilliant, it's perfect. You know, the movie
in your head is is Oscar winning. You put it on paper and then
you start realizing, oh crap, it's maybe it's not that good, and
then you start shooting, oh maybe yeah, or you see it, Oh
crap, this isn't really as good as I thought, what's gonna be?
It's the fear. No, it's scary, man, it's scary being a
filmmaker and doing all that. But you know, anyone listening out there,
I hope they don't get caught up that because tomorrow you'll wake up and you'll
be, you know, seventy, and you'll be still chasing that that that
that Hollywood dream that Hollywood sells you. That is bogus. It's the sizzle.
There's no steak behind it, and you kind of just gotta go out
and do it. Like my second film, I shot with the pocket camera
ten EIGHTYP, the first generation pocket camera. I shot the whole movie on
that. People thought where I was crazy. That was crazy to shoot a
whole film on that. I'm like, no, I love the look of
it. It looks great. And it was a ten ADP camera right,
blew it up to two K for for my DCP, screened it at the
Chinese Theater. It's one of the best things I've ever shot in my life.
It was beautiful least shots. I was like, I can't I was.
I was scared to death because on my my, my fifty five inch
you know, a color grading monitor, it looked great. I'm like,
yeah, but this is a projection and like, I don't know. And
the first time I saw it was at the Chinese Theater projected theatrically, I
was like, holy cow, it holds like I thought it was gonna get
pigs like it held so beautifully. So I don't want to hear excuses from
people like oh, this and that, and if you want to go to
Tangerine with the iPhone and just worry about your story, people will forgive the
image quality and don't get caught up in like you're dude, you're not deacons.
Like you're not deacons anyone listening. You're not Roger Deacons. You're not
going to make something look like Roger Deacons. I'm sorry, it's because there's
one Roger Deacons. You're not gonna be Fincher, You're not gonna be Nolan,
You're not going to be Spielberg, because that's what they do, and
it took them years of not decades, to get to where they are.
Be yourself and be the best version of yourself that you can be, and
that's all we could ever do as a filmmaker. That's a fantastic message.
Now, Deacons doesn't work alone. He's got you know, script or set
dressers. He's got you know, location scouts and all the basically all the
all the resources at his exposal exposed exposal. Yeah, I was gonna say
that this might sound narcissistic, but if if, if it was between me
and Sebe and Spielberg and s Fiel Spielberg was given like fifteen minutes to work
a scene and shoot it, and I was given eight hours to shoot the
scene, and I had the same people that Steven Spielberg has. I think
I would probably hold up at least I would. I wouldn't I wouldn't embarrass
myself. I think you get something competent up there. Yeah, it'd be
something there. Yeah, I agree, I agree. I mean, I
know what you're saying. You're not saying that you're Steven Spielberg, nor that
you can compete at that level because he's Steven Spielberg. No one can't exactly.
But if you use the same crew, the same resources, chances are
your stuff is going to look It would be more it be Steven Spielberg,
but it would still be okay. I mean it's especially given a time time
difference that I had. If I had a lot more time than Steven Spielberg,
I might pull off something, you know, something that looks really good.
Like you know, something that looks really good. And then before before
we go, man, I gotta ask you cats. Oh okay, cats,
I mean, come on, let's let's yeah, let's talk about cats
for a second, because you wrote it. You did a video about that
you like cats, and I've about cats publicly many times. Okay, And
I generally don't like to bash other filmmakers on the show, and I'm not
bashing the filmmaker. That something happened. In my opinion, I don't know
what it was, because it was such a perfect storm that you will never
see in your lifetime again, because you had Spielberg producing, you had an
Oscar winner directing it, you had based on one of the biggest Broadway shows
of all time with the biggest music stars of all time. Some Oscar like
were throwing Oscar winners around like it was water on that set to and everyone
drank the kool aid, like everyone said, this is going to be huge.
This is a great idea that doesn't happen. You know, you get
the room every once in a while, like you'll get the room, You'll
get a show Girls, you'll get a Trolls too, You'll get something that's
so bad that it transcends being good. I'm still not at the point where
Cats transcends to being good. I got through twenty minutes of it and I
just said, oh my god, this is so bad. I can't keep
going. Maybe with a group of people I can watch it again, but
I'm the rum I could watch again and again, but I can't watch Cats.
Well. I think with Cats, what I think what's to me is
I enjoyed. I really liked basically, the garishness of it is part of
it. The first twint Missus when he has when he had a Jenny any
dots sequence when you have the kids and the cockroaches, Oh, that is
a bridge too far. That's I mean, that's what I think. That's
the worst part of the movie. I get it gets better, It gets
better, I guess totally. It is totally like once you get past that,
once you get past the dancing cock roaches, but the children faces,
child's faces. But that's the thing I want. I just want to impress
upon everyone listening is that this was a universal movie with Spielberg producing it,
Like, with one hundred million dollars behind it. This doesn't happen. These
studios don't take risks like this. But on pick but on paper, this
was a sure hit, fire hit like this was a hit on paper.
It had it checked every single box off. The one thing it did not
check off was the cat anuses that were in it and the unfinished hands and
visual effects that they released it. It was a god i't even notice the
hands part. But I think what I what I appreciate was it was cats
though is it? It does offer It adds something to the musical genre that
has been missing in a long for a long time, and that's actually having
some people involved that are and again I'm looking past the effects, which I
think I just kind of got. It's like a hot tub, you kind
of get used to it after a while. Immediately that was great. It's
a great analogy like after what's it's really hot when you get in, but
after a while, just like it just waves over the ocean. But yeah,
I think and I think you got like all these a lot of the
role a lot of the more major roles of and again, like I got
this is an admission that I am a big Cats fan before the movie came
out, so I know I knew the there's not a story, it's it's
a collection of songs. It's really what it is. It's it's based on
poems by DS Elliott, So I I mean, I have that background of
it, so I understand. I knew the characterizations. But you have a
lot of people that are that are in the musical genre that don't because the
musical genre for a long time has been plagued by the fact that you have
to have the paper. The paper has to say, you know, we
have this star and it's gonna bring this much box off this star, this
star. And the problem with you know that is Johnny Depp, for example,
when Sweeney Todd, he's not really a good singer, not for that
particular role. That's the problem. So what Cats did, which was kind
of unique, was that they got a lot of people in the leads that
aren't household names, that are that are from like the Royal Ballet Company.
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
the show, which was like, wow, we're actually bringing in people that
are good artists. Now we covered them, but in those sets brought in
some good, some good. If you actually, if you were to only
watch one segment and not and just trying to ignore the rest of it,
if you watch the skimball shanks, the railway cat and this is this is
this is not absurd. Now if you watch just that segment and you can
it's it's actually very good, because it's probably the best segment in the entire
film. It's not it's not like disturbing, there's no children on cockroaches,
but it's actually actually see some very very high level dancing on display. It's
something you don't actually see in movies. So I'll give I'll give the filmmaker
credit for that. It's It's lit beautifully. The dancing is great, the
singing is fantastic. The songs are the song they're great. You know what
A Genna's Little Cat, whatever the hell that thing is called. I don't
vangelical Cat. The first eight minutes of the movie is just one long ass
song. And my wife looked at me. She's like, is this gonna
stop anytime soon? I'm like, no, it's not. It's not.
And the best review I've ever heard for a movie was for Cats, and
it's one sentences just so perfect. Cats is the worst thing that happened to
cats since Dogs. It's just absolutely But it's been bashed enough in the press.
But I just wanted to hear your point of view, So I appreciate
that anyone out there please watch Cats. Let's know what you think below.
It helps if you'd go into it, maybe a little. Oh no,
I'm halfway like in those first twenty minutes, I'm like, man, if
I don't, I don't drink, ground will smoke. I've never done drugs,
but I'm like, if I was high, this would be much better,
Like I could if you're if you're tripping again, I have never tripped,
but if if I could only imagine, like if I was tripping this,
this movie would blow my mind. It is. It is one of
those in the mood movies. Again. The thing is, I'm also a
huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who's uh obviously wrote cats. But Andrew
low Webber in his earlier years, you have to realize the guy was there
was some weird stuff he put out. Really weird is in that category in
that cat agory. Hey, I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions to
ask all my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break
into the business today. Oh my lord, h I could be very,
very facetious and say quit, just just run away. Just run away,
because if you follow that advice, then you probably made a good decision.
If you said no, John, you're an idiot. I don't want to
listen to you, and you probably have the right mindset for sticking it out
in this business because it is it is hard, I think, but it
would be less facetious, I think is to to really understand what you're trying
to put out there. I think a lot of people get so so narrow,
so they put the blinders on they think about their project, their movie,
and they think it's it is so perfect for everybody, and everyone will
love my movie because I'm the one that made it. And actually had somebody
send me a question the other day. He asked me, what does what
do they mean by target audience? And I had to ask myself, like,
how how do you not understand what your targeting? So I just kind
of went through went through with him, was like, who do is your
movie appeal to? Who do you think would want to see your movie?
And I think that's if any advice, maybe it's just to understand not only
like what what are you making your movie? Uh necessarily for who you're making
the movie, but or how how does it the how does it fit in
the larger world? You know? And uh and and also realized too that
you don't necessarily make movies for uh, for the entire world sometimes a lot
of times you make a movie for yourself first, but also realize that fact
that you know, try to tie that into I mean, I try that
and make make the movie for yourself, but also realize that how how does
that how to appeal to other people? If that makes sense, it makes
understand who your audience is basically and and try to create something for that audience
is a good piece of advice. Yeah, And I think again, the
audience could be you too. I mean, you are in the audience.
You are you are the first audience. So if it doesn't appeal to you,
then obviously it's not. I mean, if it doesn't appeal to you're
gonna have troubles appealing it to somebody else. And and three of your favorite
films of all time? Oh, that's Doctor Strangelove is probably one of my
favorites of all time. I'm not gonna go cats by what you may think.
It's not even near top ten. I'm trying to think of the Doctor
Strangelove is absolutely my favorite. Oh I love something like it hot. Yeah,
I just like I was to pick another one that it's kind of a
more of a smaller one. This is kind of what really inspired me to
be a filmmaker. Is a movie called The Big Cahuna. Yeah, I
remember I remember this. Kevin Spacey yep, Any de Vito and the guy
that played the one of the vampires on Twilight. We all went on to
what's name you know he's talking about? Yeah, and it's it's a it's
a it's a great little movie from the night late nineties. It's about these
three salesmen that get together and they're trying to land the big Ahuna, and
it's entirely driven by conversation and entirely place. It takes place in a single
room, and it is some of the best performances I've ever seen on film.
So that's that's I think that's one of my favorites. Very cool.
I'm not that out there now. Where and where can people find you?
Oh uh, filmmaker iq dot com I need to I'm I am reading the
website eventually, It's it's a long process. But if you really want to
find me YouTube dot com, slash, I think filmmaker i q is just
look up filmmaker iq. You can can chase me around on Facebook. I
mean I post more like person stuff on Facebook. But between those two that's
really where you're going to see most of my face. And obviously on this
podcast, John, I really appreciate it you coming on the show man.
We could talk for probably another two three hours just keeping just geeking out alone
on cats. But but I really appreciate what you do, man, and
all the education you put out there for filmmakers out there, So thank you
for doing what you do. My friend, Oh, thank you for having
me. I want to thank John for coming on the show and dropping his
filmmaker IQ on the Tribe today. Thank you so so much. John.
If you want to get links to anything we spoke about it in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Ford Slash
three twenty three. Thank you so much for listening. Guys, As always,
keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks
for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.