WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:08.800 You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting 2 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:13.679 podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof 3 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:18.199 Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three nineteen. It is a miracle every time you 4 00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:22.120 make a movie, and a bigger miracle if it turns out well. Mark 5 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:27.320 Forrester broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be 6 00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:32.320 working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the 7 00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:36.759 craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. 8 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:42.320 And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of 9 00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:46.840 the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now, 10 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:53.039 today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage 11 00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:58.640 services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are in 12 00:00:58.719 --> 00:01:02.000 the goals of the project do you are? So we actually break it down 13 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:06.159 by three categories, micro budget, indie film, market and studio film. 14 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:10.040 There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to reading tempole movies 15 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:12.400 when your movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars, and 16 00:01:12.439 --> 00:01:17.040 we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers have 17 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:21.920 worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, WM, NBC, HBO, Disney, 18 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:25.959 Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So 19 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:32.000 if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on 20 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:38.599 over to cover my screenplay dot Com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason 21 00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:44.799 buff. Today we're talking with the director of one of my absolute favorite films, 22 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:49.680 The Last Exorcism. Daniel Stam is with us today and I'm really excited 23 00:01:49.560 --> 00:01:53.079 for you guys to listen to what we talk about. I learned a whole 24 00:01:53.079 --> 00:01:57.640 lot and one of the biggest things I got out of this was Daniel's checklist 25 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:00.959 that he goes through. You know, he's known for being a very prepared 26 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:06.359 director, and he actually gave me his list, his checklist of things that 27 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:09.080 he makes he looks at before he directs a scene. All right, here 28 00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:13.719 is my interview with Daniel Stamm, and I think the best place to start 29 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:20.639 is going into win film really kind of affected you, like the films that 30 00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:23.280 you were that kind of convinced you that you wanted to do this for a 31 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:27.759 living when you were growing up. Well, my dirty secret as always, 32 00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:31.360 But I didn't start out wanting to make movies. I was a big role 33 00:02:31.400 --> 00:02:36.039 playing game nerd, a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and my teens and all 34 00:02:36.039 --> 00:02:38.159 that stuff, and I always thought, I have to find some kind of 35 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:43.280 job where I can keep playing Dungeons and Dragons basically and get paid for it. 36 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:46.800 So I wanted to be a writer. Okay, I was kind of 37 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:51.680 looking around in Germany for programs where I could study writing, because German parents 38 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:53.960 won't let you just do something if you don't get a diploma for it. 39 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:57.599 They don't take it seriously. So I knew I had to look for something 40 00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:00.120 where I could get a diploma and it would kind of being taken seriously. 41 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:04.120 So I always said I wanted to be a journalist, which was a complete 42 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:07.719 lie, because I wanted to write novels, you know, make stuff up. 43 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:09.479 That was always amazing to me, just the feeling that you could sit 44 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:14.719 down with a couple of people and make something up and suddenly it exists in 45 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:19.479 everyone's minds and you have this, you know, this godlike power of creativity. 46 00:03:19.639 --> 00:03:23.080 Was away mind blowing to me, and I think once once you've experienced 47 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:25.000 that, it kind of gets addictive. You know. There was never like 48 00:03:25.080 --> 00:03:29.039 a question that I could do anything else. So then I ended up at 49 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:32.800 a film academy in Germany in Ludwigsburg, which was kind of the most modern 50 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:38.919 film school in Germany. They are very renowned traditional old film schools in Germany, 51 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:43.560 the bim Vendors and fast Bender and all like the Werner Hertzarg all the 52 00:03:43.639 --> 00:03:46.199 old German grades went to. And then this film school opened up, and 53 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:52.240 it was very commercial, you know, it didn't didn't only support like making 54 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:54.599 movies that made commercials and made TV shows that made all that kind of stuff 55 00:03:54.639 --> 00:03:59.479 that the other schools frowned upon. And I studied screenwriting there and I was 56 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:03.120 there for four years and wrote my little screenplay and then I would give it 57 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:06.039 to a directing student, and that directing student would go off and make the 58 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:12.319 movie and it'd be horrendous, which you always always looking back now, they 59 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:14.800 were pretty brilliant. But of course, as a writer at the time, 60 00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:17.160 you're so stuck on what you have in your head that no matter what they'd 61 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:20.199 come back with, it's never what you imagine it like, you know, 62 00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:24.560 right, I should have given them some words, But they also always came 63 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:29.160 back with these amazing stories that were like adventure stories because there was always I 64 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:33.839 mean, everyone who's tried making a movie knows that they're always unsurmountable conflicts, 65 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:36.800 you know, and it's a it's a team sticking their head together and trying 66 00:04:36.839 --> 00:04:42.040 to figure it out. And the actresses are beautiful, and there's romance on 67 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:46.959 set. It's all that stuff that you're kind of yearned for, and you're 68 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:49.040 locked out of all of that as a screenwriter. And I always had the 69 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:55.759 feeling the storytelling process is kind of artificially cut in half because I've already figured 70 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:58.879 out the story of the characters in my head. All I need to do 71 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:02.519 is to communicate that to the actors and the cinematographer and the production designer and 72 00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:05.000 I can call myself a director. It was always weird to me that there 73 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:11.040 was some random person coming in halfway through the process taking over being the big 74 00:05:11.079 --> 00:05:14.600 shot that then gets half created for the movie. Right, So I thought 75 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:17.199 I can do that too. But then my friends at the German Film School, 76 00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:21.120 they weren't that taken with their directing program. So when I decided to 77 00:05:21.160 --> 00:05:25.240 start study directing, I knew I didn't want to do it there, even 78 00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:29.240 though it's a great school. But I came to Los Angeles and studied at 79 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:32.199 AFI, the American Film Institute here, and I was lucky. It's a 80 00:05:32.199 --> 00:05:36.439 crazy expensive school, which I had to learn that everything in the States is 81 00:05:36.759 --> 00:05:41.600 in Germany. You know, you got a film school, It's an application 82 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:44.759 process that's kind of tough to get through, but once you do get through 83 00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:46.439 it, you don't have to pay anything. And then af I suddenly it 84 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:50.160 was like a hundred thousand dollars something crazy, which I didn't have. So 85 00:05:50.199 --> 00:05:55.600 it took me a year and a half to raise the funds through scholarships from 86 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:59.480 different organizations and all that, which was kind of a job in itself. 87 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.879 And then I came here all bushy tailed and wide eyed to Hollywood, which 88 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:08.439 still kind of amazes me every time I take the exit ramp and it says 89 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:11.879 Hollywood, I'm I was like, oh man, I've been heard that never 90 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:15.800 wears up. And then I found out that the German Film Academy that I 91 00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:19.480 went to, they had sent a group to the American Film Institute before they 92 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:25.240 started the school. For a week to explore and to do research, and 93 00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:30.040 then they basically rebuild the American Film Institute in Germany, like the structure, 94 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:34.639 the curriculum, everything, the people they hired. Even it was weird because 95 00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:39.040 it was like I knew everything about the school and I'd never been there because 96 00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:42.519 it was a one to one copy of the whole thing. And then I 97 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:47.240 started directing short films there and kind of met my team there that I'm still 98 00:06:47.279 --> 00:06:51.879 working with. My cinematographer and my editor. We worked together there and it 99 00:06:51.959 --> 00:06:58.120 was kind of a great environment because the German Film School didn't have the language 100 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:01.839 barrier. Everyone that was studying there came either from Germany, Switzerland or Austria, 101 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:09.839 so there weren't very big differences in cultural approaches to narrative, to to 102 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:15.360 storytelling to filmmaking. But at AFI, my first group was a native American 103 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:23.839 writer or an Australian cinematographer, an Asian production designer, and a Indian editor 104 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:27.399 and we were making editor me as a German director, and we made a 105 00:07:27.439 --> 00:07:32.439 hip hop movie which none of us give anything about it. Of course, 106 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:36.759 that's of course, that's what you made exactly. It's cool because you suddenly 107 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:41.759 get challenged all the time, all these things that you kind of take for 108 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:45.720 granted and have never thought about, Like your editor will suddenly let a white 109 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:48.079 shot stand for two minutes and you kind of go crazy and you go like, 110 00:07:48.120 --> 00:07:50.319 we can't do that, and she said, why can't we do that? 111 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:55.279 And suddenly you have to search inside of yourself what your impulse is, 112 00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:59.120 where that's coming from, that you can't do that, Like everything every creative 113 00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:01.600 decision you said, we have to verbalize and discuss with the team. And 114 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:05.920 there are some fights that you win in some fights that you lose. And 115 00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:13.240 if I was very concerned with kind of d emphasizing the power of the director, 116 00:08:13.399 --> 00:08:16.680 which I think was really helpful that you weren't the big shot. You 117 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:20.480 didn't get to call all the shots. Like the first short film was initiated 118 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:22.839 by the writer, so the writer had all the power, which created complete 119 00:08:22.920 --> 00:08:28.839 chaos because obviously the writers were like in character, completely different from the directors, 120 00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:33.399 Like the directors normally are these kind of grandiose, confident people and the 121 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:37.759 writers really sweet, kind of smart but introverted people. So it kind of 122 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:41.639 put everything on its head and it was a really good process because you couldn't 123 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:46.039 just take something for granted and just pull the director card and do it. 124 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:52.480 And then yeah. Then then there was a seminar for the cinematographers, I 125 00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:56.399 think in second year where one of the teachers told the class a genius thing 126 00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:01.759 that changed my life, which is, tell your directors to shoot, shoot, 127 00:09:01.799 --> 00:09:07.679 shoot, shoot. Don't spend years fundraising, don't spend years developing, 128 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:11.559 because it's a trap. Like many of my friends that they are still fundraising, 129 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:16.000 they're still developing something and have been for ten years, and they never 130 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.440 shot a frame because they kind of missed that momentum and it's hard to get 131 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:24.679 that back out of nowhere. So my cinematographer called me every day and said, 132 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:26.960 are we shooting something yet? And I always said I don't have a 133 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:31.879 script. He said, it doesn't matter, Let's shoot something. And that's 134 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:37.519 exactly what we did. We kind of looked for a story that would support 135 00:09:37.639 --> 00:09:39.080 us not having any money, because no one had any money. You're coming 136 00:09:39.080 --> 00:09:43.360 out of film school, you're completely broke. Digital was this was in two 137 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:48.799 thousand four. Kind of you could shoot digital, but it was still kind 138 00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:52.519 of expensive. So another seven or a day, if I actually taught you 139 00:09:52.600 --> 00:09:56.960 to concentrate on what you have and build your project, your first project after 140 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:05.399 film school. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and 141 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:11.000 now back to the show around that rather than trying to achieve things that you 142 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:13.960 don't have. So if you know a great actor, you know, write 143 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:18.039 something for that actor. If you know a great location, build something about 144 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:20.960 that. If you have access to crazy advanced camera, you know, then 145 00:10:22.039 --> 00:10:24.200 construct something where you can show that up. And we were sitting down and 146 00:10:24.279 --> 00:10:28.799 we basically said, again, we have nothing something but what you have in 147 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:33.480 Los Angeles. Of course, which is a tragedy for them but great for 148 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:37.159 us, is you have so many good actors out of work then would do 149 00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:41.120 anything for no money, And if you can just find them and give them 150 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:46.799 something worthwhile to do, you don't really have to pay them. So we 151 00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:50.440 decided that we make a fake documentary, which at the time that was kind 152 00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:54.840 of before the whole fake documentary wave, like Great Player, which had been 153 00:10:54.840 --> 00:11:01.200 made five years earlier but had kind of not really spawned any any new movies 154 00:11:01.279 --> 00:11:03.720 yet. This was before paranormal activity and all that, and we thought, 155 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:07.279 if we shoot in that format, we don't have to lie at anything. 156 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:11.879 Ay, everything can look gritty and bad, and it doesn't matter because if 157 00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:16.639 it looks bad, that's just adding to the realism of it all. So 158 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:20.399 let's shoot in that style. We'll just get a video camera that one of 159 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:24.720 our actors had and we borrowed it from him, and then we came up 160 00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:30.320 with a story that there is a filmmaker, documentary filmmaker in film school and 161 00:11:30.399 --> 00:11:35.399 for his thesis project, he is finding a suicidal guy on Craigslist and basically 162 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:39.519 is following him through his last weekend. And then of course there are all 163 00:11:39.559 --> 00:11:45.159 kinds of complications there, becoming friends and the sound girl, he's falling in 164 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:48.000 love with a sound girl, and a kind of a kind of complications. 165 00:11:48.480 --> 00:11:50.240 Right, But we had four pages, you know, we didn't have a 166 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:54.799 script. And I was so traumatized from afi from the process of working with 167 00:11:54.840 --> 00:11:58.600 a screenwriter because me as a screenwriter myself, of course, we were bumping 168 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:03.120 heads all the time. So what why I wouldn't have shot anything for a 169 00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:07.919 decade, probably like everyone else, is that I was so exhausted and even 170 00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:11.399 the thought of getting together with the screenwriter again and writing something kind of sounded 171 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:16.039 crazy to me. So this this project that we went into with a four 172 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:20.799 page outline was kind of perfect, and then we improvised all the scenes with 173 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:24.320 the actors and made that movie. The downside was because we didn't have a 174 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:28.440 script, there was never it was never over, you know. We were 175 00:12:28.519 --> 00:12:33.440 kind of improvising scenes into the blue. If something didn't work, then we 176 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:37.799 would just shoot more scenes and shoot more material. And it took us three 177 00:12:37.879 --> 00:12:41.360 years to make the movie in the end, and of course, like the 178 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:46.120 tough thing is to support yourself while you're making your movie, and you're kind 179 00:12:46.120 --> 00:12:50.639 of phonetically single mindedly focused on making that movie, but at the same time 180 00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:52.159 you kind of have to eat and pay rent and all that stuff. So 181 00:12:52.200 --> 00:12:56.759 that was a tough time. But in the end, at some point it 182 00:12:56.600 --> 00:13:03.120 was it was done, and then we submitted it to AFI Fest, to 183 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:07.639 the festival at which we were always told if I graduates, don't get into 184 00:13:07.639 --> 00:13:11.120 a fifest because they don't want to be seen as kind of leaning towards their 185 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:15.279 own people and all that stuff. But somehow we got in and we won 186 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:18.120 the Audience Award, which was a big thing at the time because other films 187 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:22.120 that had won the Audience Award were like Hotel Ruanda and Life is Beautiful, 188 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:26.840 and all these kind of big movies and suddenly there was our small movie in 189 00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:30.240 between there that no one had ever heard of it. You have admitted it's 190 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:33.799 unnecessary death, right, it's a necessary death. Yeah, it's on Netflix 191 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:37.960 right now. Oh really? Oh great, Yeah, I've I've watched a 192 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:41.480 lot of them. I watched the some of the footage you put on YouTube. 193 00:13:41.639 --> 00:13:43.320 Oh yeah, yeah, those were the but I was trying to I 194 00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:46.279 was trying to watch it and yeah, that's great. Oh that must have 195 00:13:46.279 --> 00:13:52.960 been so weird to just watch the deleted scenes of something new approach. Um, 196 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:56.120 so let me talk a little bit about that. You know, Um, 197 00:13:56.200 --> 00:14:00.360 in terms of improvisation, how would you guys like say you're you're going 198 00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:03.080 out to shoot one day, how would you put that together? Well? 199 00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:07.759 I think that the main thing is to, in the beginning understand that it's 200 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:11.519 a completely different talent to have for an actor to be good at improvising than 201 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:16.399 to be good at making written lines come to life and appear fresh and as 202 00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:20.200 if they're being set for the first time. One of my actors put that 203 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:24.200 really well, that there is a different part of your brain that processes making 204 00:14:24.279 --> 00:14:31.399 up lines for the first time, rather than regurgitating lines, and that's something 205 00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:33.039 that a lot of producers, I later learned, don't really know about. 206 00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:37.799 Like if you're making an improve project, then you have to cast improve people. 207 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:41.720 Doesn't make any sense to give them a scene and lines and see if 208 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:45.759 they can make that come to life, because it won't help you in the 209 00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:48.919 moment at all. So I was very much focused on finding great improvisers. 210 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.960 And what you kind of get as a bonus is that you end up with 211 00:14:54.159 --> 00:14:58.759 very smart people because improvising takes a lot of brain power, and you have 212 00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:01.639 to be very fast, thinking on your feet, and you have to be 213 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:05.679 very high energy, which is really important. I didn't know that at the 214 00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:09.799 time, but you really are looking for someone who has a higher energy than 215 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:13.279 real life. Like if you take people that are very authentic, but they 216 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:18.879 all kind of are either normal life speed or slightly slower, it'll bore you 217 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:22.639 to death on camera and you kind of have to try to make up for 218 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:26.120 it and editing and all that kind of stuff, and it's hard. So 219 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:31.559 luckily I ended up with very eloquent, very smart people, and then we 220 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:35.240 kind of went out and I always gave them a paragraph and said, Okay, 221 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:37.480 this is the scene we're coming from. The great thing is that you 222 00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:43.320 can shoot in chronological order, which is huge, of course for the actors 223 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:46.000 to be able to kind of base their performance on the seeing you're just coming 224 00:15:46.039 --> 00:15:50.879 from, which you don't have a normal narrative movies because they're always scheduled by 225 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.840 location, and sometimes you shoot the climax the third act first and then go 226 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:56.360 back to the third act first, and then go back to the first act 227 00:15:56.679 --> 00:16:00.960 and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of rain pour always goes 228 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:03.919 to kind of reminding the actors where they are coming from and all that. 229 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:06.879 So that was easier for us because they knew where we were coming from. 230 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:10.679 But I would summarize it for them again and then kind of tell everyone what 231 00:16:10.759 --> 00:16:14.600 they are trying to achieve in this scene and not give them the outcome, 232 00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:18.799 and just kind of give them the intention that they're going into the scene with 233 00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:22.919 and really talk that up to them and sometimes take them aside and talk to 234 00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:26.720 them separately so that they don't overhear what the other person's objective is. And 235 00:16:26.759 --> 00:16:30.360 then we would just shoot and shoot and shoot them. Because it was video, 236 00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:33.120 we didn't have to care about how much material we were shooting, so 237 00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:37.159 the first take was always twenty minutes long, and then we did the second 238 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:41.679 take, and I kind of pointed out which the great moments were, and 239 00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:44.639 we boil it down to ten minutes, and then to five minutes, and 240 00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:47.360 then to two minutes, and then to one minute, and in the end 241 00:16:47.519 --> 00:16:51.759 we ended up cutting all these things together, and oftentimes we ended up with 242 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:53.919 the first take both parts of the first take, because it was kind of 243 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:57.399 the freshest, because it was the first time that they would come up with 244 00:16:57.399 --> 00:17:00.679 this stuff, and to kind of keep it as fresh as possible, I 245 00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:04.599 would always say new words, make up new words. Don't repeat stuff that 246 00:17:04.680 --> 00:17:07.359 you've said in the last take the way you said it in the last take. 247 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:11.039 Keep the ideas, but phrase it differently, try different things, try 248 00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:15.920 to surprise each other. And they were up for that, and they really 249 00:17:15.960 --> 00:17:18.920 loved each other, which was great because we spent as I said, three 250 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:22.160 years together kind of making up stuff together. And if there had been one 251 00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:26.559 bad apple in that group, I think it would have been really problematic. 252 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:29.680 But it was a really great group of four core group of four people. 253 00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:33.519 And then the only the team only consisted of those four people, and then 254 00:17:33.559 --> 00:17:38.319 my cinematographer and me I did sound. So altogether we were six people and 255 00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:44.079 by sure you were directing and doing sound. Yeah, that kind of worked. 256 00:17:44.079 --> 00:17:45.839 That wasn't the problem. That's like very do it yourself. We didn't 257 00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:51.880 have a single like location permit or anything. If necessary, we could cramp 258 00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:56.160 the entire team plus equipment into a car. If we didn't have a location, 259 00:17:56.200 --> 00:17:59.640 we would just shoot the scene in the car. It was like very 260 00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:03.039 fast. You know, every nothing took a big setup. It's really a 261 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:07.680 big relief if you don't have to make it pretty. You know, you 262 00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:10.119 don't have to light it pretty, you don't have to find a great location, 263 00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:15.000 but you go for realism. All that stuff, all the design stuff 264 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:17.519 is off your chest. You just have to. As a director, it's 265 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:21.720 hard, and as a cinematographer too, it's hard to let that go because 266 00:18:21.759 --> 00:18:26.720 it kind of it does something to your ego that in the beginning is very 267 00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:29.720 uncomfortable, But then after a couple of days you kind of switch to that. 268 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:33.759 My cinematographer, he's such a good cinematography. He's Hungarian and he would 269 00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:36.960 kind of if he could, he would shoot black and white, high contrast. 270 00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:41.359 You know, that's like a Vilmosh Sigmund disciple, and it was really 271 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:47.079 hard for him to switch to making it ugly, and he would frame things 272 00:18:47.079 --> 00:18:49.400 so perfectly that from every now and then while we were shooting I would have 273 00:18:49.400 --> 00:18:53.839 to bump into him so that the camera shake. And then after after a 274 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:56.200 week he came to me and I get it. Now, I get it. 275 00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:00.400 It started. The big breakthrough for him was that he started listening to 276 00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:03.960 the to the actors, which he wasn't used to because the cinematographers are so 277 00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:08.960 focused on the framing on the image that usually they don't listen to the actors. 278 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:11.920 But because he had to listen to the actors because if they were suddenly 279 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:15.759 pointing something out outside of frame, then he would have to pan over and 280 00:19:15.799 --> 00:19:18.960 show that. In the beginning, some actors were like, oh, look 281 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:22.079 over there, and the camera would stay on the actor and I would always 282 00:19:22.119 --> 00:19:26.559 have to tap him on the shoulder and pan over. And after he kind 283 00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:30.039 of totally switched to that, So that was great. So that would be 284 00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:34.119 my big advice. I think about making your first movie, don't I know 285 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:38.400 it's it's tempting to really let your creative juices flow and to write something in 286 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:42.839 the French Revolution or something in out of Space or something, but it will 287 00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:49.519 never get made. Like the Hollywood is so fear driven that no executive will 288 00:19:49.559 --> 00:19:52.359 give you that will give you money to make your first movie. That's the 289 00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:56.759 problem. You have to have made a movie to make your first movie, 290 00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:00.920 and short films don't count. That's the problem. We'll be right back after 291 00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:08.839 a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. I know 292 00:20:08.920 --> 00:20:12.319 that short films are great to kind of learn stuff for yourself, but it's 293 00:20:12.319 --> 00:20:18.480 a total illusion that you can show a great short film and someone will say 294 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:22.440 you are displaying such talent that now we're going to give you millions and millions 295 00:20:22.440 --> 00:20:25.240 to make your first feature. I think that was the case once, and 296 00:20:25.240 --> 00:20:29.720 there are a couple of famous examples where that might have happened. But that's 297 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:32.839 like one in a million to bet your career on that. It's kind of 298 00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:36.599 crazy. So I think what you do have to shoot for these days is 299 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:41.160 to make a feature, make it as independently as possible. If you are 300 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:44.519 waiting for someone else to give you the green light, I can promise you 301 00:20:44.599 --> 00:20:48.240 that you will never shoot like if you rely on someone else's money, you 302 00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:52.119 get all these all these stories where someone prepared and prepped and they were ready 303 00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:56.240 to shoot and then everything fell apart, Like almost every story ends like that. 304 00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:02.240 Yeah, it's really funny that you're saying that, because you're almost exactly 305 00:21:02.279 --> 00:21:06.200 describing the scenario that I went through. Because we had a screenplay and we 306 00:21:06.519 --> 00:21:08.440 had all these investors and all these things that were going on, and it 307 00:21:08.519 --> 00:21:11.759 completely you know, I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for everything to be 308 00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:15.839 perfect, and then it fell apart. You know. So now what we're 309 00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:18.680 doing is just taking the money that we have and we're going out and shooting 310 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:22.680 something, you know, just getting out and shooting and making something, you 311 00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:25.039 know what I mean. Yeah, and that's the hardest step, you know, 312 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:29.519 because I think filmmakers are kind of perfectionists by nature. So it's the 313 00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:33.519 impulse. So I think very common to wait for perfect conditions, but perfect 314 00:21:33.559 --> 00:21:37.279 conditions will never be there, and money will always go away. Like my 315 00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:41.160 whole first movie cost three thousand dollars altogether, Like everything was on. We 316 00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:47.720 we got used tapes and we taped over the dailies of Day after Tomorrow. 317 00:21:48.359 --> 00:21:52.839 We got and everyone brought their own lunch. I didn't have any money to 318 00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:55.839 do anything. I was sleeping on a friend's couch at times, like it 319 00:21:55.920 --> 00:22:00.000 was very very clear. I promised everyone no one will ever make a dime 320 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.839 from this, which changed everything because suddenly it's okay for everyone to work for 321 00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:07.359 free if they know that you also are putting in all the work and you 322 00:22:07.559 --> 00:22:11.799 swear to them that you will never make a dime from it, you know, 323 00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:15.279 like the Netflix money that we are we're giving away to charity because I 324 00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:19.759 have to keep up this promise that no one can ever make any money from 325 00:22:19.799 --> 00:22:22.400 this movie. And that helps. That freed everything up, and everyone kind 326 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:26.720 of contributed and brought their editing system and their camera and their sound equipment and 327 00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:30.519 the this and bad and it was kind of a really good time. But 328 00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:37.119 all that started with finding a story that you can shoot in a non pretty 329 00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:41.400 way, and how that really helped me later. I mean, I was 330 00:22:41.480 --> 00:22:45.480 lucky with all this stuff because what I learned what I didn't know coming out 331 00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:51.519 of film school, is that you have to do something that Hollywood, that 332 00:22:51.640 --> 00:22:55.359 is new and worthwhile to Hollywood, like the other things that no one in 333 00:22:55.359 --> 00:22:59.400 Hollywood will ever help you just out of the goodness of their heart. You 334 00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:03.079 have to get to a place somehow where you have something that they want, 335 00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:06.680 you know, and coming on a film school, of course, we always 336 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:10.960 thought we have to emulate Hollywood, Like the biggest thing to us was like 337 00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:14.160 getting a helicopter shot, Like if we could get a helicopter shot, then 338 00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:17.799 we'd made it, which is complete nonsense because the one thing that Hollywood has 339 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:21.519 is money. Like they can have all the all the helicopter shots that they 340 00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:22.839 want, it's not going to impress them. You know, if you have 341 00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:26.839 a great stunt, it's not going to impress them day. You have to 342 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:30.079 give them something where they go like, oh, we didn't have that before, 343 00:23:30.599 --> 00:23:33.440 and it's not so it can't be about money. That there was the 344 00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:38.559 big revelation afterwards that we luckily went the right direction out of dumb luck because 345 00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:45.119 we didn't have money. So we really focused on performances and getting very authentic 346 00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:48.960 moments and kind of making this heart wrenching drama thing. And because all that 347 00:23:49.160 --> 00:23:52.119 all that we had was time. There's always this kind of saying that you 348 00:23:52.200 --> 00:24:00.200 have to out of quality time and money you have, you can choose two. 349 00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:03.279 You can either get something great and make it cheaply, but it will 350 00:24:03.319 --> 00:24:06.880 take a long time, or you can make something great and it'll take forever, 351 00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:10.200 or it'll be fast but it won't be cheap, and all these things, 352 00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:11.599 and I think that is really true. So we didn't have money, 353 00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:15.079 but we had all the time in the world, and we wanted to make 354 00:24:15.119 --> 00:24:18.160 something great, so we kind of concentrated on that. And then when we 355 00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:22.359 had made the movie, it turned out that that's exactly what Hollywood was looking 356 00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:26.119 for at the time, because the fake documentary thing was just coming up and 357 00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:30.000 was becoming popular, and they were looking for someone to be able to work 358 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:33.640 in that medium and get great performances out of it. So that's how I 359 00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:37.599 got my first kind of studio job with the Lion State project that then became 360 00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:42.079 The Last Exorcism. Okay, did you was there the idea when you went 361 00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:45.720 out to shoot that it's like, since we're shooting video, let's just try 362 00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:51.079 if we shoot like, say an hour, let's try to have at least 363 00:24:51.240 --> 00:24:53.079 five minutes of that big goal that we can cut out. Or it was 364 00:24:53.119 --> 00:24:56.880 that kind of your process with I mean, back in those days, I 365 00:24:56.920 --> 00:25:00.680 think that shooting in video and you know, if you're shooting that in film, 366 00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:03.160 you have to kind of be like, Okay, we have to get 367 00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:07.200 it on this take. You know, you're not afforded that when when you're 368 00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:11.079 shooting video. It's a lot easier. It's it's huge for the creative process. 369 00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:15.000 Someone said that in an acting workshop at AFI, and it was amazing 370 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:19.119 that the most valuable words that you can ever say as a director is I 371 00:25:19.160 --> 00:25:22.920 don't know, let's try it. It might not work, which is exactly 372 00:25:22.920 --> 00:25:26.880 the opposite of what you think a director should do, because you always have 373 00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:29.920 the feeling the director has to have the vision, has to know exactly what 374 00:25:29.960 --> 00:25:32.920 they want, and they have to be able to communicate it to everyone, 375 00:25:32.920 --> 00:25:36.319 and then everyone is trying to hit that on the nails somehow. And if 376 00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:40.359 you do that, then that's a lot of pressure to put on all your 377 00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:42.880 creative collaborators because they have to kind of try to hit your vision exactly. 378 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:47.000 But if you say, guys, I don't really have a vision, let's 379 00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:51.039 just play an experiment and will come up with something together, then suddenly you 380 00:25:51.079 --> 00:25:55.440 take all the pressure away from them and you allow them to contribute. Everyone's 381 00:25:55.480 --> 00:25:57.559 waking up and is going like, oh my god, they want my input. 382 00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:00.920 They don't just want me to execute something that they have preconceived, but 383 00:26:02.039 --> 00:26:06.440 they actually want me to be involved in the creative process itself, and suddenly 384 00:26:06.440 --> 00:26:10.319 you get stuff that is not filtered through one mind. You know, if 385 00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:15.519 you are that kind of filmmaker that is kind of exerting that power and putting 386 00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:18.119 your vision on everyone, then that means that everything that ends up on screen 387 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:22.640 is filtered through your mind. And if you're a genius, that might be 388 00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:26.000 great, if you're a David Fincher or Orison Wells or whatever. But I'm 389 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:30.759 not, you know, and I know that, and so it's a big 390 00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:34.519 asset to me to get a group of people together that I think are funny 391 00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:41.079 and witty and brilliant and fast, and get all these anarchic ideas and these 392 00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:45.039 moments in the scenes together, and then be able to cut my scene together 393 00:26:45.319 --> 00:26:48.279 from all these moments that I didn't preconceive, but that were little gifts that 394 00:26:48.359 --> 00:26:52.279 came out during shooting. And they only came out because I gave them that 395 00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:56.759 freedom to just play and try stuff out. In Some stuff will be totally 396 00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.680 off and will not work at all, but that's fine because we're shooting on 397 00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:03.920 video and it's not that every second is golden because we're should shooting on film 398 00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:07.799 and every second costs so much money. But the video really allowed me to 399 00:27:07.880 --> 00:27:11.119 kind of open that up and stay, we have the whole day for these 400 00:27:11.160 --> 00:27:15.039 three scenes, let's just see what happens. And there was always there wasn't 401 00:27:15.079 --> 00:27:18.640 a single day when there weren't moments coming up that were completely surprising and a 402 00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:23.160 complete gift. And over three years, honestly, I never went home not 403 00:27:23.240 --> 00:27:27.319 being totally ecstatic about the day. And that's I think the only thing that 404 00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:32.480 can get you through this long shoot, you know, because that's the only 405 00:27:32.519 --> 00:27:33.880 payoff you have, is that if you lie in bed at night, you've 406 00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:38.079 got to I can't believe that moment happened today, That look between two people 407 00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:41.839 happened today, that line, that idea, that is that that, and 408 00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:45.200 it's just it's the most satisfying thing. And you never get that with a 409 00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:48.960 script because with a script, or you rarely get that with a script because 410 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:53.359 with a script you have a very preconceived idea of what the scene is going 411 00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:56.559 to be and how it's going to look. And most of the time, 412 00:27:56.640 --> 00:27:59.599 the best thing you can do is to kind of achieve that. It's rare 413 00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:03.160 that you suddenly see something come to life in front of you that is so 414 00:28:03.279 --> 00:28:07.240 much better than what you had imagined in your wildest dreams, in your in 415 00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:12.160 your mind. Can you you told a story that I heard before about your 416 00:28:12.319 --> 00:28:17.359 screening in Kosovo. I was wondering if you could to talk about that for 417 00:28:17.400 --> 00:28:18.559 just a second. Yeah, because it's really interesting. Yeah. No, 418 00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:22.359 that was crazy because we I was at a couse of a film film festival 419 00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:26.759 with my thesis film, and then they invited me back the year later to 420 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.000 be in the jury, or a couple of years later, I guess, 421 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:33.960 because I did bring a rough cut off Unnecessary Death and there were three people 422 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:40.039 in the jury and everyone was screening some feature film project of theirs and my 423 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:42.759 colleagues films. This sounds very arrogant, but I thought. I thought they 424 00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:48.279 were there. They were great, but they weren't necessarily mind blowing. But 425 00:28:48.440 --> 00:28:51.839 the audience went crazy standing ovations, and I was like, oh my god, 426 00:28:51.839 --> 00:28:56.119 this is the best audience ever. Can't wait an wait to show the 427 00:28:56.200 --> 00:28:59.920 rough cut of a necessary and it was something that my editor had put together. 428 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:03.200 It was a cut that I hadn't even seen, um, so I 429 00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:07.440 was excited to see it. And we're screening the movie, and the movie 430 00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:11.759 is over, and I'm getting ready for my standing ovation and for people to 431 00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:18.559 come up to give me an oscar, and there was complete silence, absolutely 432 00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:22.640 terrifying silence, and then there was like one person, which is the worst 433 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:26.319 silence would have been. I thought in the moment was the worst thing that 434 00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:29.640 could happen, But then I learned seconds later that's the second FoST thing that 435 00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:33.960 could happen, because then someone in the last row started clapping like this, 436 00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:37.559 which is like in a Western. You know, when you want it the 437 00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:41.440 slow class in a Western, when you want to show silence, you don't 438 00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:45.759 just have it silent, but you have like a kyote howl in the back. 439 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:49.559 There's like a cricket. And I didn't get it. I was so 440 00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:57.720 impressed and taken with my own creation up there. We'll be right back after 441 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:07.160 a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And the 442 00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:11.160 great thing about take documentaries also because everyone is contributing, you don't have to 443 00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.480 be a egomaniac to love the product because it's everyone's creative together. Yeah. 444 00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:21.680 So I was really amazed by the thing and couldn't wrap my mind around why 445 00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:23.920 no one was responding to it. I thought it was so powerful. And 446 00:30:23.960 --> 00:30:27.839 then I was walking down the steps to do the Q and A and I 447 00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:33.799 turned around and everyone was kind of moving in the audience, which was weird 448 00:30:33.799 --> 00:30:37.240 because normally for a Q and A, you just stay in your seats and 449 00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:40.640 you don't get up and you don't walk. But people were walking out or 450 00:30:40.759 --> 00:30:44.240 running around or whatever. And then I realized that there were people in the 451 00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:49.039 audience that had broken down and their friends were kind of gathering around them and 452 00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:52.119 pulling them back up to their feet, and we're talking to them whatever, 453 00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:56.519 whatever. And next to me was a girl that was rocking back and forth, 454 00:30:56.759 --> 00:31:00.119 and she had her hand in her face in her hands, and the 455 00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:04.079 tears were running down her forearms. And that's when I realized, wait a 456 00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:10.000 minute, they didn't understand that this wasn't a real documentary. I didn't announce 457 00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:14.559 that beforehand. I didn't mean to fool anyone. There just wasn't a situation 458 00:31:14.599 --> 00:31:17.839 where you kind of would have announced it. And they were reacting to it 459 00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:22.880 as if they had just seen this guy kill himself on camera. Because the 460 00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:27.039 character is a very lovable character. They were devastated by it and I was 461 00:31:27.240 --> 00:31:30.359 running around. It was the worst feeling because you had as if you had 462 00:31:30.440 --> 00:31:34.880 dropped this bomb on these people and they were seriously hurt. So I was 463 00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:40.839 running around trying to tell everyone that this is a fictional film, and they 464 00:31:40.880 --> 00:31:44.119 didn't get it when I would say, Matt the suicidal guy. So there 465 00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:48.200 was Matt was the suicidal guy, and Gilbert was the filmmaker that was following 466 00:31:48.279 --> 00:31:52.440 him. And I would tell someone who had broken down, Matt is an 467 00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:56.160 actor, and the first the first reply I got was like, does Gilbert 468 00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:02.480 know Gilbert's an actor? Like it was so. And then there was one 469 00:32:02.559 --> 00:32:07.440 girl, an American girls as you would imagine, that was attacking me. 470 00:32:07.519 --> 00:32:12.000 She was jumping at me and she grabbed me by the collar and she shook 471 00:32:12.039 --> 00:32:15.200 me. She was this tiny girl, but she was just in a Nanja 472 00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:19.440 mode or something, and she screamed at me, you're a murderer. You 473 00:32:19.480 --> 00:32:22.960 shouldn't be allowed to make movies. And then her friends dragged her off, 474 00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:28.240 and then that the organizer, the organizer of the festival came up to me 475 00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:30.720 and whispered in my ear and said, stay where you are, don't go 476 00:32:30.759 --> 00:32:36.359 outside. There is a mob gathering to deal with which is exactly the words 477 00:32:36.599 --> 00:32:39.240 you don't want to hear in Kosovo that had just been through a murderous war. 478 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.119 The last thing you want is a month that's gathering and it's bad when 479 00:32:44.119 --> 00:32:49.960 you're the worst thing in it was. It was devastating, and then I 480 00:32:50.039 --> 00:32:52.799 phoned my team, my editor and say, we gotta recut this movie. 481 00:32:52.839 --> 00:32:57.279 We've got to change the ending. People were devastated, and she said, 482 00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:00.799 well, isn't that what we were going for, which is true. It 483 00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:04.759 is a tragedy, so you kind of want to evoke these emotions. But 484 00:33:04.839 --> 00:33:07.759 it felt as if we were playing unfairly. And for the first time this 485 00:33:07.839 --> 00:33:13.400 whole sentence with there is responsibility in filmmaking, and you have to take responsibility 486 00:33:13.400 --> 00:33:15.960 in filmmaking. I understood what that was about. I'd never understood that. 487 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:21.920 Whenever people were talking about Oliver's Stone with natural born killers got people to kill 488 00:33:21.960 --> 00:33:24.400 other people. I always thought, well, that's a powerful movie if you 489 00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:28.480 can achieve that. You know, obviously the movie work. It's a tragedy 490 00:33:28.519 --> 00:33:31.759 for the people that die, but is it really up to the filmmaker to 491 00:33:31.880 --> 00:33:36.720 prevent that from happening? And after seeing that an action in Kosovo, it 492 00:33:36.839 --> 00:33:40.640 just wasn't fun. It wasn't a rewarding feeling of oh, look what we 493 00:33:40.640 --> 00:33:45.160 were able to do. We just never thought about the why. You know, 494 00:33:45.240 --> 00:33:50.720 we worked so hard on trying to affect an audience emotionally. Would you 495 00:33:50.759 --> 00:33:53.200 always do when you make a movie that I never stopped to think, well, 496 00:33:53.240 --> 00:33:58.359 why are we doing this to them? We just try to get them 497 00:33:58.519 --> 00:34:01.000 to feel bad. We don't give them anything in exchange, you know, 498 00:34:01.279 --> 00:34:05.279 And that was kind of an epiphany to me. And then we did recut 499 00:34:05.319 --> 00:34:08.920 the movie screened at south By Southwest and then screened at AFI Fest and won 500 00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:13.400 the audience, which I think we wouldn't have if we hadn't recut the movie. 501 00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:16.719 But it definitely was counterintuitive to say, our movie is that sounds very 502 00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:21.559 arrogant again, but our movie is too powerful for the audience to consume. 503 00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:23.519 We have to watter it down. But that's kind of exactly what we did, 504 00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:27.599 and I think was the right to see. That's really interesting, you 505 00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:31.639 know. Can you talk about when you say give them anything in exchange and 506 00:34:32.239 --> 00:34:36.039 you know that you went back and recut it, what did you recut and 507 00:34:36.079 --> 00:34:39.760 what was the what was really the difference between the version they saw in Kosovo, 508 00:34:39.800 --> 00:34:44.159 and the one that was all the big difference was the ending. We 509 00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:47.920 had shot two endings, one which was very straight, so just to spoil 510 00:34:47.960 --> 00:34:51.960 it all, spoil the whole movie. In the end, Nats the suicidal 511 00:34:52.039 --> 00:34:57.119 guy and Gilbert the filmmaker, they're going into garage together and Nat is gonna 512 00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:01.000 shoot himself and Gilbert is gonna film that. And one ending was we stay 513 00:35:01.039 --> 00:35:05.760 outside and we hear the shot, and then there's silence for a minute, 514 00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:09.119 and then Gilbert comes out and we see an inkling of mat on the floor 515 00:35:09.159 --> 00:35:13.400 and he has shot himself in the head. And you can see on Gilbert's 516 00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:16.480 face that what he just saw it was so nightmarish that he'll never never be 517 00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:21.960 able to forget that, and he kind of is paying the price for his 518 00:35:22.280 --> 00:35:24.639 ambition to become a great filmmaker or whatever. That was one ending which we 519 00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:29.280 showed hi Kosovo, which played it very straight. You know, there's this 520 00:35:29.360 --> 00:35:32.119 guy who is announcing he's going to kill himself and then he kills himself. 521 00:35:32.159 --> 00:35:35.800 You know the entire time what's going to happen, and you always kind of 522 00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:37.800 hope some miracle will happen, but guess what, the miracle doesn't happen, 523 00:35:38.039 --> 00:35:42.280 and that's it, and that was just devastating to people. The other ending 524 00:35:42.360 --> 00:35:45.920 that we had shot was that we stay outside of the garage. We hear 525 00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.320 the shot, and then there's a pause, and then we hear a second 526 00:35:49.320 --> 00:35:52.960 shot, and it takes us a moment to understand what was going on, 527 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.760 and someone runs to open the garage and both of them are on the floor, 528 00:35:55.840 --> 00:36:00.679 and it turns out that Matt has shot Gilbert before he shot himself because 529 00:36:00.719 --> 00:36:05.760 of the whole subplot with a sound girl who was Gilbert's ex girlfriend and Matt 530 00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:07.840 was in love with her, and Gilbert, who wanted Matt to kill himself, 531 00:36:08.840 --> 00:36:12.480 took the girl away from him to not give him a reason to live 532 00:36:12.519 --> 00:36:14.960 and all that kind of stuff. So he shot Gilbert, which was the 533 00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:20.360 much more Hollywood twist ending and played it much less straight and much less real, 534 00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:23.719 And it felt like that's exactly what people needed. They needed something that 535 00:36:23.880 --> 00:36:28.760 was kind of tipping it off and say it's all right, this is a 536 00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:32.280 movie. Here's a heightened reality. And also to punish Gilbert in a more 537 00:36:32.320 --> 00:36:37.280 conventional way for manipulating this guy that we've fallen in love with into suicide and 538 00:36:37.400 --> 00:36:43.440 now he paid the price by killing him himself by being killed. So that 539 00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:45.320 kind of seemed to work. I think that was the main thing, And 540 00:36:45.320 --> 00:36:50.760 I think in general it's always like you want to take something away from a 541 00:36:50.840 --> 00:36:53.679 story. I think that's the basis of storytelling, that we kind of communicate 542 00:36:53.760 --> 00:37:00.320 and insight into the world and into the human experience through a story and put 543 00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:05.039 your audience through different emotions and make them invested in the thing. But it's 544 00:37:05.079 --> 00:37:09.440 all with the implied promise that they will get something out of watching this for 545 00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:14.679 two hours that no one else knows. They will be let into a secret, 546 00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:17.599 you know, that they can take away into their life with, and 547 00:37:17.800 --> 00:37:22.880 we didn't really supply that secret. I had a feel I was basically saying, 548 00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:25.840 here's a movie that will make you miserable and teach you nothing, and 549 00:37:27.159 --> 00:37:30.400 that's responding to it. That was a problem at the time. Yeah, 550 00:37:30.440 --> 00:37:34.960 I think that's really, you know, interesting because with all the like horror 551 00:37:35.039 --> 00:37:37.840 movies, the whole concept of a horror movie is that you're going to watch 552 00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:42.400 something that's horrible. You know, that's something that's terrible, but there has 553 00:37:42.480 --> 00:37:45.599 to be some element of it that attracts people to it. That makes people 554 00:37:45.639 --> 00:37:50.440 want to experience that, right, you know, and gives them that like 555 00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:54.679 experience. One of the interesting things you said when you were working on The 556 00:37:54.760 --> 00:37:58.960 Last Exorcism, and I want to go to that in just a second. 557 00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:01.960 It's just that a documentary format doesn't give the audience a place to hide, 558 00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:07.119 right, And I thought that was really interesting. It's like you have more 559 00:38:07.159 --> 00:38:13.199 power doing that well because you have the first person narrative. People are looking 560 00:38:13.280 --> 00:38:16.239 right into camera, and the cinematographer is a character in the film. He's 561 00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:21.599 not kind of this invisible floating camera, but there is a direct proxy for 562 00:38:21.679 --> 00:38:25.039 you as an audience member in the movie. And if there's danger coming towards 563 00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:30.400 the camera, it's coming towards you, and it's you're kind of aware that 564 00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:35.719 there's danger coming from three hundred and sixty degrees. With a narrative conventional movie, 565 00:38:35.719 --> 00:38:39.079 you can always kind of count on them showing you what you need to 566 00:38:39.119 --> 00:38:43.159 see. Like if there's something that's important for you as the audience member to 567 00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:45.159 see and not to miss, they will make sure that they cut to that 568 00:38:45.400 --> 00:38:49.960 close up or that insert or whatever. And that kind of gives you a 569 00:38:49.960 --> 00:38:54.719 certain safety because you're being taken by the hand and guided through this story by 570 00:38:54.840 --> 00:38:59.719 someone who already knows the path of the story. But with the fake documentary, 571 00:39:00.039 --> 00:39:02.079 it's all about the stuff that you miss and that you don't see, 572 00:39:02.559 --> 00:39:07.039 so that you keep the audience on their toes about you know what, we 573 00:39:07.119 --> 00:39:09.039 might be showing you this side of the room right now, but that doesn't 574 00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:13.840 mean something can jump out behind you at any moment, because, you know 575 00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:15.519 what, we don't really know what's going to happen, and this we don't 576 00:39:15.519 --> 00:39:20.119 really know what's going to happen. I think it's a very important a component 577 00:39:20.280 --> 00:39:23.760 in an effect documentary, especially in horror, right, And you see that 578 00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:27.960 a lot with I mean, you know, Spielberg used that in Saving Private 579 00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:30.119 Ryan, the idea of you know, and you see that in a lot 580 00:39:30.119 --> 00:39:34.840 of films that you'll have a scene that's all handheld and shot like a documentary, 581 00:39:34.840 --> 00:39:37.360 even though it's in a traditional narrative film, right, you know, 582 00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:42.320 just to give people that feeling of uneasiness and that at any minute something could 583 00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:45.480 kind of you know, affect your your point of view or whatever. Yeah. 584 00:39:45.559 --> 00:39:52.639 I think the other component is that moving moving images just stimulate the viewer 585 00:39:52.679 --> 00:40:00.599 and kind of and put an energy. We'll be right back after a word 586 00:40:00.599 --> 00:40:08.960 from our sponsor, and now back to the show into the thing that the 587 00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:13.760 brain has to process. So you are there's just more happening on a very 588 00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:17.000 simple, simple way. And if you have a locked off shot from a 589 00:40:17.039 --> 00:40:22.559 tripod, whatever is moving is just the object in the frame. But ninety 590 00:40:22.599 --> 00:40:28.280 percent of what you're seeing on screen doesn't move, whereas as soon as you 591 00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:31.760 go handheld, that means every single piece of grain it would have been in 592 00:40:32.159 --> 00:40:37.079 film world, but now pixel moves at any split second. So I think 593 00:40:37.519 --> 00:40:43.360 there is something that is just kind of overwhelming to the brain and that really 594 00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:46.599 kind of pumps up the adrenaline just by the virtue of going handheld. And 595 00:40:46.679 --> 00:40:51.639 the other thing that I've found out about handheld that was amazing to me, 596 00:40:51.679 --> 00:40:53.840 and I still don't have an explanation for it, was when I was watching 597 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:59.519 Lars Fontriers the Idiots. He has everything is handheld, and the performances are 598 00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:02.679 a maze, and then for some reason there's some scene in the woods that's 599 00:41:02.760 --> 00:41:07.239 like a minute long where he suddenly is static on a tripod and suddenly the 600 00:41:07.320 --> 00:41:15.599 performances suck, and I realized that handheld for some reason really helps out your 601 00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:21.440 performances, like everything gets better if you go handheld. Maybe that is because 602 00:41:21.480 --> 00:41:27.519 the audience can't focus on every single twitch in a face at any moment. 603 00:41:27.559 --> 00:41:30.079 Like if there is a stale performance, probably if you have Meryl Streep and 604 00:41:30.119 --> 00:41:34.320 Any Adams and John Malkovich, you're fine. You probably don't have to go 605 00:41:34.360 --> 00:41:37.960 handheld. But if you, if you have performances that are on the on 606 00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:45.480 the staler side, going handheld suddenly gives that whole thing a vital effect that 607 00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:47.480 you otherwise wouldn't get. I don't know what it is, but I swear 608 00:41:47.519 --> 00:41:51.280 as soon as you try it out, you'll see that your performances kept much 609 00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:54.719 better in handheld. Yeah, definitely, I think that. You know, 610 00:41:55.199 --> 00:42:00.559 it's also the concept that you're capturing something that's really happening in the Camera's not 611 00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:04.199 like the camera's not ahead of the action, right, you know, the 612 00:42:04.239 --> 00:42:07.760 camera's following the action and seeing things, you know, all of a sudden, 613 00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:10.320 And you see this a lot in The Last Exorcism that you know, 614 00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:15.679 as they're moving through a scene, it's like the camera is like it'll go 615 00:42:15.719 --> 00:42:17.360 over and capture something and you're like, oh, did I just see that 616 00:42:17.519 --> 00:42:21.280 or what was that? You know what I mean. It's like it adds 617 00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:24.280 a lot more dynamic feel to it. That's really hard to simulate for the 618 00:42:24.280 --> 00:42:30.519 cinematographer if you're on take twenty and you've walked through for him to kind of 619 00:42:30.639 --> 00:42:34.559 pretend he's very surprised by what just came into frame. It's kind of an 620 00:42:34.639 --> 00:42:37.360 art form in itsself. Okay, well, why don't we jump into that. 621 00:42:37.400 --> 00:42:44.679 Can we talk for a little bit about how the Last Exorcism started, 622 00:42:44.719 --> 00:42:49.719 how you got involved, meeting with Eli Roth, all of that story. 623 00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:54.199 So I had made Last Exorcism, and Last Exorcism had one the audience necessary 624 00:42:54.199 --> 00:42:59.559 death and the Audience Award which changes everything. Or that will be my next 625 00:42:59.559 --> 00:43:04.679 piece of advice for the starting filmmaker. Make that feature and then try to 626 00:43:04.679 --> 00:43:08.360 get it into festivals because Hollywood, like very few people in Hollywood I think, 627 00:43:08.400 --> 00:43:14.519 have taste and rely on their own It's true. It's really crazy, 628 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:20.719 Like I get scripts from studios that are so bad that you go like who, 629 00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:24.119 not only who wrote this, but which executive read it and said that's 630 00:43:24.119 --> 00:43:28.079 a good idea, let's make this movie. And that's ninety percent of old 631 00:43:28.119 --> 00:43:30.800 scripts. And it's I think it's really rare. There's a handful of people 632 00:43:31.199 --> 00:43:36.719 in Hollywood that trust their own opinion and what they will what the other people 633 00:43:36.760 --> 00:43:42.480 will rely on is other gatekeepers that at some point put a stamp of approval 634 00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:46.280 on the project. And film festivals, big film festivals with a good reputation 635 00:43:47.159 --> 00:43:52.719 do that. Like if you screen a can or itself by Southwest Sundance or 636 00:43:52.800 --> 00:43:58.960 AFI Fest or LA Film Festival or something bigger and you screen there, that's 637 00:43:58.960 --> 00:44:01.960 already great. If you win an audience award there or a jury award there, 638 00:44:02.400 --> 00:44:07.719 suddenly people will take your movie seriously and they will think the movie is 639 00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:12.519 great, even maybe if it isn't, but they don't really dare to have 640 00:44:12.559 --> 00:44:15.840 their own experience. So suddenly after the audience award, there were a lot 641 00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:22.880 of agents and managers that wanted to meet. And I learned that because it's 642 00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:28.480 always like everyone always wants an agent and thinks their career will really hit off, 643 00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:31.639 hit it off when they have an agent, which is nonsense. And 644 00:44:31.719 --> 00:44:36.360 also an agent will never want you, like an agent that you have to 645 00:44:36.400 --> 00:44:40.480 approach will never want you. You have to make something again that that agent 646 00:44:40.920 --> 00:44:45.800 finds desirable and he wants you. So this whole knocking on people's doores that 647 00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:50.679 people are always trying is not going to work. But you have to kind 648 00:44:50.679 --> 00:44:53.679 of get the approval of the stamp of approval from some festival if possible, 649 00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:58.880 and then they will knock on your doors anyway. So I did the rounds 650 00:44:58.880 --> 00:45:04.000 with the agents and found an agent, and we were looking at different scripts 651 00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:07.599 and couldn't find anything. And then I had the feeling I had done a 652 00:45:07.719 --> 00:45:12.920 necessary death, and I had this feeling, I really want Jacob Foreman to 653 00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:16.639 see this movie. Jacob Foreman was a screenwriter in my year who wrote All 654 00:45:16.679 --> 00:45:20.800 the Boys Love Nandy Lane and was a really good guy, but we never 655 00:45:21.039 --> 00:45:23.199 never had that much to do with each other at Afi and I don't know 656 00:45:23.239 --> 00:45:28.199 where this feeling came from that I wanted him to see the movie, but 657 00:45:28.239 --> 00:45:30.519 it was just a really strong feeling. So I emailed him instead, I 658 00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:32.239 made this movie. Can I send it to you? And he said, 659 00:45:32.239 --> 00:45:35.519 sure, send it to me. I send it to him. I don't 660 00:45:35.519 --> 00:45:38.480 think he liked it much because he never recommented on it. But what happened, 661 00:45:38.719 --> 00:45:43.840 like a week or two later, was that he was writing a screenplay 662 00:45:43.920 --> 00:45:49.320 for a production company called Strike Entertainment, and they had had two directors, 663 00:45:49.400 --> 00:45:54.920 Hugbudco and Andrew Gerland, on this movie called Cotton, which was an exorcism 664 00:45:54.920 --> 00:46:00.039 movie, a fake documentary exorcism movie, and the two directors the project because 665 00:46:00.039 --> 00:46:05.079 they had another project with will Will Ferrell at the same time called The Virginity 666 00:46:05.159 --> 00:46:07.639 Hit, and they had to decide which one to make, and they were 667 00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:12.400 under obligation with Sony to make The Virginity It. So suddenly this project didn't 668 00:46:12.440 --> 00:46:16.599 have directors, and Jacob in during a lunch break or something, overheard two 669 00:46:16.639 --> 00:46:21.119 producers say, Man, we lost our directors. Where are we going to 670 00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:28.239 find someone who can do a fake documentary horror? Jacob had necessary in his 671 00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:31.880 bag, you know which. I don't believe in fate or the supernatural or 672 00:46:31.880 --> 00:46:36.480 anything like that, but I have no explanation for how that okay, and 673 00:46:36.599 --> 00:46:39.400 he gave them the movie and they watched it, and it obviously wasn't a 674 00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:44.280 horror movie, but it was exactly the format that they wanted. And so 675 00:46:44.320 --> 00:46:47.320 they called me the next day and sent me the script and wanted to meet. 676 00:46:47.880 --> 00:46:52.159 And the script was I think I can say it now all these years 677 00:46:52.280 --> 00:46:58.760 later, was horrendous, horrendous, And it was also wasn't written towards a 678 00:46:58.760 --> 00:47:01.840 fake documentary, because a fake documentary, if you really want to sell it 679 00:47:01.880 --> 00:47:07.159 as real, then you can't have something spectacular happen in every single scene because 680 00:47:07.280 --> 00:47:10.880 the audience will figure out after two scenes that this is obviously you're not a 681 00:47:10.920 --> 00:47:15.119 real documentary. Like in a real documentary if you catch one amazing moment on 682 00:47:15.199 --> 00:47:20.719 camera and people structure a whole documentary around that. You know. So this 683 00:47:20.920 --> 00:47:23.599 script kind of had some action sequence with people flying through the air and every 684 00:47:23.639 --> 00:47:28.000 scene and just didn't work. I went and I had no interest in making 685 00:47:28.039 --> 00:47:31.519 the movie, and I went into the into the meeting. If I had 686 00:47:31.559 --> 00:47:34.639 wanted to make the movie, I think I would have been really, really 687 00:47:34.679 --> 00:47:38.320 nervous. But because I basically just came there to say, your script sucks, 688 00:47:38.360 --> 00:47:42.320 I'm not going to do it, I wasn't nervous at all. So 689 00:47:42.360 --> 00:47:46.079 I told them that very bluntly, no diplomacy involved. And I learned then 690 00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:52.360 that there's nothing sexier to Hollywood executives than you not wanting to do their project, 691 00:47:52.760 --> 00:47:58.760 because they always they're not stupid. They know that the script that they 692 00:47:58.800 --> 00:48:01.719 have out there is not brilliant and needs work, as they always call it, 693 00:48:01.800 --> 00:48:07.039 needs a polish, but polish always means complete rewrite, and they kind 694 00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:10.280 of know that. And then they invite all these directors, like ten twenty 695 00:48:10.320 --> 00:48:15.039 directors to come in, and nineteen of those directors say this is brilliant. 696 00:48:15.119 --> 00:48:17.559 I want to do this. I'm the right guy for this. And there 697 00:48:17.639 --> 00:48:21.639 is one guy who comes in and says the script doesn't work. I don't 698 00:48:21.679 --> 00:48:24.559 want to do it. Then suddenly they want the one guy that didn't want 699 00:48:24.559 --> 00:48:28.719 to do it. I had that that people for other projects that they called 700 00:48:28.800 --> 00:48:30.960 and said, we've shown it to ten directors, nine of them love it. 701 00:48:31.320 --> 00:48:34.480 You didn't want to do it, could you come in for a second 702 00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:37.039 meeting? I said, well, go with one of the people. I 703 00:48:37.159 --> 00:48:40.239 want to do it, but they want to hear that you have ideas how 704 00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:45.119 to make it better another and I basically came out of that meeting with them 705 00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:49.559 saying, you can do with the script whatever you want, you can hire 706 00:48:49.559 --> 00:48:52.440 your own writer, you can completely rewrite it. We'll give you one and 707 00:48:52.440 --> 00:48:55.280 a half million dollars do it. And that was exactly what I needed to 708 00:48:55.320 --> 00:48:59.239 hear, because then I brought a writer on board that I love. That's 709 00:48:59.239 --> 00:49:05.159 a genius who completely rewrote the movie within four days or something. And then 710 00:49:05.599 --> 00:49:07.960 yeah, Eli was attached. I didn't talk to him in the beginning. 711 00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:10.079 I think a couple of weeks later we had a call scheduled, and now 712 00:49:10.119 --> 00:49:15.559 I was nervous because I suddenly was talking to like the horror legend Eli Roth. 713 00:49:15.599 --> 00:49:17.880 I think he was on the inglorious Bustard set in his trailer and had 714 00:49:17.920 --> 00:49:22.920 just seen a necessary death and was super nice and super complimentary and stuff. 715 00:49:23.440 --> 00:49:28.239 And then we went to make the movie and they let me bring on my 716 00:49:28.360 --> 00:49:31.360 cinematographer, my editor, and there was a little bit of a struggle. 717 00:49:31.639 --> 00:49:36.119 What I mentioned before that they because they had never made a fact documentary, 718 00:49:36.159 --> 00:49:39.280 they didn't couldn't quite wrap their head around the improv thing. Like they said, 719 00:49:39.320 --> 00:49:45.239 we need to see casting tapes, and we can only judge casting tapes 720 00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:51.000 auditions if we see actors that are doing the same scripted scene and then we 721 00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:52.920 can compare the quality. And I said, well, that's completely useless, 722 00:49:53.159 --> 00:49:55.960 because even as it's a great scene and written, it's not going to help 723 00:49:55.960 --> 00:49:58.960 you in an improv. They said, we have to do it anyway. 724 00:50:00.480 --> 00:50:07.519 We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to 725 00:50:07.559 --> 00:50:12.440 the show. So I always had to make the actors read the scene. 726 00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.119 And for I knew it wasn't going to make a difference, but for the 727 00:50:15.199 --> 00:50:21.239 producers it was important. And then we went off to Louisiana to New Orleans 728 00:50:21.239 --> 00:50:23.360 to shoot the movie. And the great thing was that this company, Strike 729 00:50:23.480 --> 00:50:29.679 Entertainment, had made all these hundred million dollar movies with Brett Pitt and Robert 730 00:50:29.719 --> 00:50:34.280 Redford and whatever whatever, and they had never made a movie under eighty million 731 00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:37.440 dollars, so they had no idea what to do with our little one point 732 00:50:37.440 --> 00:50:39.840 five million dollar movie. So they didn't take it seriously. They meant it 733 00:50:39.880 --> 00:50:44.000 when they said do whatever you want, they meant that. They completely stayed 734 00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:46.880 out of it. So the conditions were very close to what we had a 735 00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:51.960 necessary death where a couple of more people, obviously, and the unions required 736 00:50:52.039 --> 00:50:53.960 us to have all these people. But there was a whole camera team that 737 00:50:54.000 --> 00:51:00.320 we never needed that was just coming in eating donuts and home and I wanted 738 00:51:00.360 --> 00:51:06.239 that because I wanted to recreate that intimacy. There was the big strength of 739 00:51:06.280 --> 00:51:09.119 working in that format that you don't have fifty people staring at the actors and 740 00:51:09.159 --> 00:51:15.320 that you don't, for example, have to use the slate, because it 741 00:51:15.360 --> 00:51:20.440 turned out to me that clapping the slate and going a scene fourteen, go 742 00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:25.320 action basically communicates to the actors, now create artifice. Now try to be 743 00:51:25.400 --> 00:51:30.760 someone you are not. You know, So I always try to avoid slating, 744 00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:34.320 or we would slate in the other room quietly, secretly, and then 745 00:51:34.400 --> 00:51:37.599 cut over with the camera because I didn't want them to act. I basically 746 00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:43.280 wanted them to be themselves and put themselves into the situation. And we never 747 00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:46.039 showed the script to the actors. With Last Exorcism, we had a script 748 00:51:46.079 --> 00:51:50.480 all written now, which we needed for the investors and for the production company 749 00:51:50.519 --> 00:51:52.920 and all that kind of stuff. But it was like my best hidden secret 750 00:51:53.519 --> 00:51:58.039 was this script. I knew if I ever showed that to the actors it 751 00:51:58.039 --> 00:52:01.239 would be impossible to get that out of their heads again and make them created 752 00:52:01.440 --> 00:52:05.639 from scratch and come up with all these fresh moments, because they would just 753 00:52:05.639 --> 00:52:09.400 try to reproduce the script. And it's amazing if you watch the movie and 754 00:52:09.519 --> 00:52:14.360 read the script, how close the two are. I think no one would 755 00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:17.000 believe me if someone who had read the script and seen the movie. Would 756 00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:21.920 not never believe that the actors never saw the script. But I think it's 757 00:52:21.920 --> 00:52:24.920 the same technique. You tell them what motivation they go into the scene with, 758 00:52:25.519 --> 00:52:29.480 which is actually very similar to what you do with a movie that has 759 00:52:29.480 --> 00:52:30.800 a script. You know, you talk to the actors about where they are 760 00:52:30.840 --> 00:52:35.320 coming from and where they want to go, and then let them go and 761 00:52:35.400 --> 00:52:37.679 kind of see how that goes. And that's how we did Last Exercism. 762 00:52:37.199 --> 00:52:44.119 And then we came back from this experience that was just really great and started 763 00:52:44.239 --> 00:52:50.440 editing and suddenly everyone was very involved. Suddenly we had a lot of producers 764 00:52:50.440 --> 00:52:57.320 in the editing room. That helps. And the ending, like if you've 765 00:52:57.320 --> 00:53:00.840 seen Last Exorcism, the thing that was great about the original script was the 766 00:53:00.920 --> 00:53:05.039 ending, and that was like the one thing that I was excited about, 767 00:53:05.119 --> 00:53:07.480 which was this only makes sense if you've seen a lot of exism, But 768 00:53:07.559 --> 00:53:12.280 the original ending was they go into the forest, they see a shadow, 769 00:53:12.400 --> 00:53:15.320 they hear the noises of the demon, and they run and they don't get 770 00:53:15.400 --> 00:53:22.559 killed, and they they reappear a week later and Cotton our Excesses now has 771 00:53:22.559 --> 00:53:27.079 a full church with hundreds of people, and he's a celebrity and he gets 772 00:53:27.119 --> 00:53:30.519 his own TV show and he's, you know, he's a star because he 773 00:53:30.639 --> 00:53:35.760 has he has gotten a demon or as close as possible on video, and 774 00:53:35.840 --> 00:53:38.559 he's basically marketing that. And what was so smart about it is that the 775 00:53:38.599 --> 00:53:46.599 whole movie he tells us what a successful evangelical preacher needs. He needs a 776 00:53:46.639 --> 00:53:52.559 hook, you know, which is the demon on video. And everything Cotton 777 00:53:52.639 --> 00:53:57.280 does in his little frauds is based on sound, and it's based on lighting 778 00:53:57.280 --> 00:54:00.000 and all that kind of stuff, and basically, in the end, it's 779 00:54:00.039 --> 00:54:02.360 just the huge version of that. So I wanted the audience to leave the 780 00:54:02.440 --> 00:54:07.119 movie as split as they had come in, with the believers saying, no, 781 00:54:07.239 --> 00:54:10.480 I saw a demon, and with these the cynics the atheists saying, 782 00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:15.440 oh, it's just it was basically a big pr video and this Exorcist used 783 00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:20.639 us and showed us this stuff for a financial game. And I thought that 784 00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:22.199 was the smartest thing that you come out of a movie. And you don't 785 00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:25.320 even know if you just saw a horror movie or if you just saw a 786 00:54:25.400 --> 00:54:30.679 drama about a preacher that has a great marketing idea, you know that it 787 00:54:30.800 --> 00:54:34.199 was our most expensive scene because it needed green screen for the demon, and 788 00:54:34.239 --> 00:54:37.800 it needed all these extras and the location of the church and all that stuff, 789 00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:42.360 and then we cut it together and it didn't work. Like I showed 790 00:54:42.360 --> 00:54:45.079 it to ten friends, and out of those ten friends, one friend thought 791 00:54:45.079 --> 00:54:49.679 it was the greatest ending he'd ever seen, and nine friends were completely confused 792 00:54:50.239 --> 00:54:53.119 and said, we don't know what just happened. And I learned that you 793 00:54:53.239 --> 00:54:59.440 can ask a question and not answer it in a movie, but it has 794 00:54:59.480 --> 00:55:01.639 to be clear that you're asking the question. And with our ending, it 795 00:55:01.679 --> 00:55:07.119 wasn't even clear that we wanted the audience to wonder about whether this was fake 796 00:55:07.239 --> 00:55:09.920 or not. They didn't even know what the question was, and we couldn't. 797 00:55:09.960 --> 00:55:13.800 We couldn't make it work. And that of course I had had my 798 00:55:13.840 --> 00:55:17.800 shot, and now it was opened up to the group. So every producer, 799 00:55:17.920 --> 00:55:22.119 every cousin of a producer, or the you know, the cleaning lady 800 00:55:22.199 --> 00:55:27.800 of a producer, suddenly had ideas about the ending. And then we ended 801 00:55:27.880 --> 00:55:30.519 up with one that I don't think does justice to the rest of the movie, 802 00:55:31.119 --> 00:55:34.400 but it was the best out of the bunch, and to this day 803 00:55:34.480 --> 00:55:38.559 I don't have a better idea. And I lie awake at night for having 804 00:55:38.559 --> 00:55:43.159 screwed up the ending, especially because there was a thing to go in with. 805 00:55:44.239 --> 00:55:46.480 But I guess you'll never get that second chance. It'll always be like 806 00:55:46.519 --> 00:55:52.199 that. Well, it's really difficult to especially when you're doing a movie like 807 00:55:52.199 --> 00:55:57.880 that. I don't know, there's very few movies that have like completely satisfying 808 00:55:58.039 --> 00:56:00.719 ending. When it comes to like kind of putting together a mystery, what's 809 00:56:00.760 --> 00:56:04.320 going on? They eventually figured it out, and then the endings never quite 810 00:56:04.519 --> 00:56:07.480 like The build is a lot more important, you know. That's what keeps 811 00:56:07.480 --> 00:56:09.519 you going through it. It's so weird though, I totally agree, but 812 00:56:09.960 --> 00:56:14.360 you work towards that ending most of the time. You have that ending before 813 00:56:14.400 --> 00:56:17.480 you have anything else, and then you build the entire movie to towards that 814 00:56:17.559 --> 00:56:21.599 ending. Like in screenwriting, you know that as a screenwriter you need to 815 00:56:21.639 --> 00:56:23.679 know where you're going. So the ending is, you know, the big 816 00:56:23.719 --> 00:56:28.199 payoff that you are working towards and can't wait to show to the audience. 817 00:56:28.400 --> 00:56:30.719 And then the outcome, for some reasons exactly what you're describing that it's always 818 00:56:31.119 --> 00:56:35.880 weaker than it needs to be because there's all this expectation on it after the 819 00:56:35.920 --> 00:56:39.239 two hour build up and then to pay that office really hard. You almost 820 00:56:39.239 --> 00:56:44.960 need like Fincher's head in the box in seven or in Fight Club. He's 821 00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:47.559 good with the endings that kind of pull the rut right under. But it's 822 00:56:47.639 --> 00:56:53.719 rare, It's true. Right now, I got so into listening to you, 823 00:56:54.079 --> 00:56:59.239 I was thinking about my next question. How did you in terms of 824 00:56:59.239 --> 00:57:01.719 finding like a bell and the actors? How was that process? Well? 825 00:57:01.719 --> 00:57:07.840 That was It was equally hard because our casting director had no idea how to 826 00:57:07.880 --> 00:57:10.719 do the improv thing and didn't believe in it and didn't really take the project 827 00:57:10.800 --> 00:57:15.159 that seriously, which was kind of hard to overcome. And she thought I 828 00:57:15.199 --> 00:57:17.400 was a complete dilettant and didn't know what I was doing, which he didn't 829 00:57:17.559 --> 00:57:21.599 tell me to my face. But there was a friend, an actor who 830 00:57:21.679 --> 00:57:23.360 was a friend of mine, which she didn't know, and he was auditioning 831 00:57:23.480 --> 00:57:28.880 and she was pitching to him about me not knowing what I wanted, which 832 00:57:28.920 --> 00:57:30.920 is exactly true. I didn't know what I want. But that was the 833 00:57:30.920 --> 00:57:32.320 point, you know, It was the point to keep it open and keep 834 00:57:32.360 --> 00:57:37.840 it free and whatever. Yeah, we just I just did improv with the 835 00:57:37.880 --> 00:57:42.199 actors, which I still do now with projects that have a script even if 836 00:57:42.199 --> 00:57:45.880 I know they're only going to to do scripted lines, because it very quickly 837 00:57:45.960 --> 00:57:52.239 tells you something about the energy and the IQ of the actor if they have 838 00:57:52.400 --> 00:57:55.920 to come up with their own moments, you know. And it's something I 839 00:57:55.960 --> 00:58:00.360 did an internship with a casting director called Mally Finn, who cast all of 840 00:58:00.639 --> 00:58:07.599 Cameron, Oh Sure, Yeah, Titanic and Terminator our Aswer and she said, 841 00:58:07.239 --> 00:58:13.440 always cast actors not just for how they're acting, but for who they 842 00:58:13.519 --> 00:58:17.000 really are, because when it gets to it and they are tired and you 843 00:58:17.039 --> 00:58:20.840 don't have time and you have to rely on them to get you out of 844 00:58:20.840 --> 00:58:24.519 that situation, they will always revert to who they really are at their core, 845 00:58:25.119 --> 00:58:30.000 which is completely true, but that also means you have to invest in 846 00:58:30.039 --> 00:58:32.199 that during the audition. So what I did is I said in the waiting 847 00:58:32.280 --> 00:58:37.199 room and I pretended to be an actor waiting to go in, and I 848 00:58:37.280 --> 00:58:42.599 was just chatting up the actors that were And it's a really interesting moment because 849 00:58:42.920 --> 00:58:45.639 it's stressful for an actor. They're nervous, they're trying to prepare, and 850 00:58:45.679 --> 00:58:49.840 there's a guy next to them that won't shut up and tries to involve them 851 00:58:49.880 --> 00:58:53.719 in some conversation and how they react to that tells you a lot about who 852 00:58:53.719 --> 00:58:58.039 they are. You know, as soon as they know that you're the director, 853 00:58:58.079 --> 00:59:00.960 they'll be on their best behavior. And you don't really ever have the 854 00:59:01.039 --> 00:59:05.400 chance to get to know them for real until you start shooting. So it 855 00:59:05.440 --> 00:59:08.400 was important to me to kind of have that moment, and with Ashley especially, 856 00:59:08.440 --> 00:59:12.880 like she was so sweet and so supportive, and I think she thought 857 00:59:12.920 --> 00:59:15.400 that I was nervous, so she was trying to calm me down because she 858 00:59:16.920 --> 00:59:21.320 and it was great. And then she was only the second girl that we 859 00:59:21.360 --> 00:59:23.760 saw for that role, and she just killed it. Like it was so 860 00:59:23.800 --> 00:59:28.119 scary to be in the room with her because we improvised the exorcism. We 861 00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:34.880 kind of I think in auditions you always try to see, hopefully your script 862 00:59:34.920 --> 00:59:37.880 has a certain kind of character development and show at least two sides to a 863 00:59:37.960 --> 00:59:40.920 character. One is the starting point and one is the endpoint. So I 864 00:59:40.960 --> 00:59:45.920 think it's smart in auditions to kind of have at least two scenes one scene 865 00:59:45.400 --> 00:59:52.960 each that showcases what you're looking for. We'll be right back after a word 866 00:59:52.000 --> 01:00:00.119 from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And if there is 867 01:00:00.199 --> 01:00:04.519 no scene in the script that does that. I think it's worth it to 868 01:00:04.679 --> 01:00:07.199 just write a script, write a scene for the audition that will never show 869 01:00:07.239 --> 01:00:12.360 up in the movie, but just very clearly focuses to see that one side 870 01:00:12.360 --> 01:00:15.320 from the actor, because you need to see the range. And then the 871 01:00:15.400 --> 01:00:19.639 other thing that I always do is like, no matter how great the first 872 01:00:19.760 --> 01:00:22.360 take is in the audition, sometimes people come in and they just nail it. 873 01:00:22.880 --> 01:00:25.960 You always want to do a second take and change something. And that 874 01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:29.840 can be completely random, again, has nothing to do with the character or 875 01:00:29.880 --> 01:00:32.440 the script. Like sometimes I say, now do it as a five year 876 01:00:32.440 --> 01:00:36.760 old child. Now do it as if you are on the electric chair. 877 01:00:36.840 --> 01:00:39.639 Now, completely made up stuff, but it tells you something super important, 878 01:00:39.639 --> 01:00:45.840 and that is how well can an actor adjust to suggestions to direction, you 879 01:00:45.880 --> 01:00:50.719 know. And it's something I learned that the hardware during during my thesis film 880 01:00:50.880 --> 01:00:53.920 that someone came in and was just amazing, and then on set she just 881 01:00:54.119 --> 01:00:58.519 couldn't get there. And it turned out that the night before the audition her 882 01:00:58.599 --> 01:01:01.079 boyfriend had split up with her and she was just so miserable, and the 883 01:01:01.119 --> 01:01:05.960 part was about a miserable drug editor and she was tired, and she just 884 01:01:06.000 --> 01:01:08.199 that wasn't acting. She was just so great because that really happened to her, 885 01:01:08.280 --> 01:01:12.719 and then on set she couldn't reproduce that. So since then, I've 886 01:01:12.719 --> 01:01:16.719 always tried to make sure that you can only really judge how great an actress 887 01:01:17.119 --> 01:01:21.239 if you asked them to do different things with the same material, with the 888 01:01:21.320 --> 01:01:27.559 same lines and see if that's if that's what you're going for. Yeah, 889 01:01:27.599 --> 01:01:30.360 So that's how we found Ashley. And then The Exorcist was much harder. 890 01:01:30.400 --> 01:01:35.800 We saw hundreds of people and we asked them to make up a sermon on 891 01:01:35.840 --> 01:01:40.360 the spot, and Patrick Fabian came in and he gave this eight minute long, 892 01:01:40.880 --> 01:01:47.360 perfect immaculate service and was preaching for eight minutes, and he talked so 893 01:01:47.440 --> 01:01:52.639 fast that I couldn't follow it, you know, I couldn't. It was 894 01:01:52.639 --> 01:01:55.360 actually saying, but there was this energy that he had that just made me 895 01:01:55.400 --> 01:01:59.760 want to kind of go up, stand up and cheer. And that's what 896 01:02:00.239 --> 01:02:05.199 in us Exorcism the banana bread scene comes from. Yeah, that was great. 897 01:02:05.760 --> 01:02:08.920 So basically that the Exorcist that the Exorcist says, I can sell them 898 01:02:08.960 --> 01:02:13.920 anything. I could preach about a banana bread recipe and they would see Hallelujah, 899 01:02:13.920 --> 01:02:15.559 and they wouldn't notice, and they make a bet and he does it. 900 01:02:15.639 --> 01:02:21.480 That came from the audition scene because Patrick Fabian our Exorcist did exactly that. 901 01:02:21.599 --> 01:02:24.920 Like he could have talked about anything and the energy still would have kind 902 01:02:24.960 --> 01:02:30.199 of been transmitted to the audience the way it was, right, was it 903 01:02:30.239 --> 01:02:32.920 always part of the story that he was, you know, kind of faking 904 01:02:32.960 --> 01:02:37.360 it and he was like just kind of pulling something. Because I read something 905 01:02:37.400 --> 01:02:42.639 about how it was influenced by that documentary, Yeah, mar Joe, Yeah, 906 01:02:42.639 --> 01:02:45.159 and I just recently watched that and it's like it's amazing how how much 907 01:02:45.199 --> 01:02:50.880 power comes from watching him in that documentary, and there's there's kind of a 908 01:02:50.880 --> 01:02:53.280 similar feel right right that. Yeah, I think that that's what the I 909 01:02:53.320 --> 01:02:55.760 mean, that was the script that I originally got, and I think that 910 01:02:55.880 --> 01:03:00.480 was the core idea to the original script was to watch someone who is not 911 01:03:00.599 --> 01:03:05.840 a convinced believer in Exorcist but doesn't even believe in God and it's just kind 912 01:03:05.880 --> 01:03:08.960 of a fraud. But at the same time, and that's always I think 913 01:03:09.159 --> 01:03:14.239 important in characters that there is a butt in there. He is a criminal 914 01:03:14.280 --> 01:03:22.519 and he's playing with people's tragedies, but he is so charming that you can't 915 01:03:22.559 --> 01:03:25.199 hold it against him. And he's also his argument is I'm doing this. 916 01:03:25.639 --> 01:03:29.639 If they believe in it and it helps them, then great. It doesn't 917 01:03:29.639 --> 01:03:32.679 have to be real kind of a thing. So I think this duality between 918 01:03:32.760 --> 01:03:39.079 the chirogueness and the crime criminal part of him and the charm is something that 919 01:03:39.159 --> 01:03:43.880 really made that character and that's what we were looking for in the actor too. 920 01:03:43.960 --> 01:03:46.440 And it's funny to now see Patrick in the different roles because he's been 921 01:03:46.559 --> 01:03:52.039 so many TV roles and he's always cast for exactly that person, for someone 922 01:03:53.119 --> 01:03:57.880 you know you can't completely trust him. He's a little bit too smooth and 923 01:03:57.920 --> 01:04:00.320 stuff, but he gets away with it because he's just very charming. So 924 01:04:00.400 --> 01:04:05.800 you build on that. Right now, it seems like what you're trying to 925 01:04:05.840 --> 01:04:12.199 do and do very successfully in the beginning is you know, it's very light. 926 01:04:12.280 --> 01:04:15.400 There's a lot of really kind of comic moments, but there is a 927 01:04:15.440 --> 01:04:19.239 little bit of a dark kind of like, um, you know, when 928 01:04:19.239 --> 01:04:23.639 they bring out the book, when they start talking about real exorcisms, it's 929 01:04:23.639 --> 01:04:28.400 almost like the audience should start getting concerned, even though he's not concerned, 930 01:04:28.519 --> 01:04:30.960 like yeah, you know what I mean. It's such a good observation. 931 01:04:30.320 --> 01:04:34.199 Yeah, I think humor is like such a good weapon because you want to 932 01:04:34.960 --> 01:04:40.360 in any movie you want to you want to create identification between the audience and 933 01:04:40.400 --> 01:04:43.800 your protagonist. In the first act. You want them to like him, 934 01:04:43.920 --> 01:04:48.199 to want him, they want they should want him to achieve what he's trying 935 01:04:48.199 --> 01:04:51.639 to achieve, so that you kind of suffer with them and you enjoy stuff 936 01:04:51.679 --> 01:04:56.920 with them if it goes well. And humor is a really good tool for 937 01:04:56.960 --> 01:05:01.639 that, Like if someone is funny, you immediately like so, especially in 938 01:05:01.639 --> 01:05:04.760 the horror movie where if you know you want to go horrific in the third 939 01:05:04.760 --> 01:05:09.840 act, you need to get the audience to care about that character. Otherwise 940 01:05:09.840 --> 01:05:14.480 it's not horrific because it's just some random people getting beheaded. Then no one 941 01:05:14.519 --> 01:05:19.440 really cares. So I know that it's tricky to do terrifying and funny at 942 01:05:19.440 --> 01:05:23.280 the same time, so I try to stay away from that. But I 943 01:05:23.400 --> 01:05:26.400 try to be exactly what you were saying light in the beginning and kind of 944 01:05:26.480 --> 01:05:30.559 draw the audience in through humor and fall in love with this character, and 945 01:05:30.639 --> 01:05:32.960 then we can go horrific later. But that's exactly what you're saying is so 946 01:05:33.039 --> 01:05:38.079 great that it would be great if there was kind of what you call dramatic 947 01:05:38.079 --> 01:05:42.599 irony, that the audience already has an uneasy feeling, and that you know, 948 01:05:42.639 --> 01:05:46.360 the feeling that the character is walking into a trap and he doesn't know 949 01:05:46.400 --> 01:05:48.760 it, but we know it, but we like him by now so much 950 01:05:48.920 --> 01:05:51.760 that we fear for him. I think that's a great place if you have 951 01:05:51.800 --> 01:05:57.800 the audience there at the beginning of a horror movie, you're golden, right, 952 01:05:58.079 --> 01:06:00.440 Well, you see that a lot with like Jaws and things like that. 953 01:06:00.440 --> 01:06:02.639 That's like all the characters are kind of unaware of stuff, but the 954 01:06:02.719 --> 01:06:05.760 way things are coming together, the audience is kind of like sitting there trying 955 01:06:05.800 --> 01:06:10.079 to hit the brakes, like no, no, no, no, no, 956 01:06:10.239 --> 01:06:13.239 come on, let's let's slow down. Don't don't just run in there 957 01:06:13.280 --> 01:06:15.079 with the you know, even though he's doing all these you know, really 958 01:06:15.119 --> 01:06:18.719 kind of funny things with the cross and the sounds and you know, and 959 01:06:18.800 --> 01:06:24.400 you see the father and the way he's acting, is there like a can 960 01:06:24.440 --> 01:06:27.960 you talk a little bit about getting into the second act and ways to you 961 01:06:27.960 --> 01:06:30.400 know, one of the things that I was doing is I always try to, 962 01:06:30.920 --> 01:06:33.679 you know, I'm working on a screenplay that's not even a screenplay, 963 01:06:33.760 --> 01:06:38.800 but just a story that's got the documentary vibe to it. And what I 964 01:06:38.840 --> 01:06:42.840 did when I was watching The Last Exorcism was just kind of watched minute by 965 01:06:42.880 --> 01:06:45.559 minute what was happening. And things happen so fast. In the beginning, 966 01:06:45.599 --> 01:06:49.039 you get so much story, you know, like, what's going on? 967 01:06:49.119 --> 01:06:53.320 Who this character is, what's going on? You know. And by the 968 01:06:53.360 --> 01:06:57.880 time he's leaving for I believe it was Georgia, right, New Orleans, 969 01:06:58.239 --> 01:07:02.360 Louisiana. Yeah, Louisian so um, I should know that. He uh, 970 01:07:02.920 --> 01:07:05.960 Like it's it's only like ten minutes into the movie, you know, 971 01:07:06.400 --> 01:07:09.199 Yeah, that's I mean, or something like yours. I mean, you 972 01:07:09.199 --> 01:07:12.079 want to keep that's that's the problem. You want to keep your first act 973 01:07:12.360 --> 01:07:15.639 as short as possible because people want to get to the meat of the story. 974 01:07:15.679 --> 01:07:19.639 But at the same time, you want to create that that identification. 975 01:07:19.679 --> 01:07:23.760 If you don't have that and you leave into the second act without that in 976 01:07:23.760 --> 01:07:28.039 your pocket, you're screwed. Um. But a lot of that obviously is 977 01:07:28.199 --> 01:07:31.199 editing too. It's amazing, Like my editor and I we love each other. 978 01:07:31.280 --> 01:07:35.400 She was like the priest during my wedding and all that. It's the 979 01:07:35.400 --> 01:07:40.760 greatest, But man, do we scream at each other during editing And it's 980 01:07:40.840 --> 01:07:45.800 ninety percent is because she wants to cut stuff out to create momentum, and 981 01:07:45.920 --> 01:07:50.760 I am trying to save moments and save scenes because I've worked so hard achieving 982 01:07:50.760 --> 01:07:55.880 those, getting that moment on camera, and and and she's just throwing it 983 01:07:55.880 --> 01:07:58.360 out and I take it personally it's it's it's as if she's, you know, 984 01:07:58.400 --> 01:08:00.519 cutting a leg of my kid or some thing. But it always and 985 01:08:00.599 --> 01:08:05.000 no matter how much I scream and kick and whatever, she always turns out 986 01:08:05.039 --> 01:08:10.760 to be right. It's always always we always end up with the fast version. 987 01:08:11.199 --> 01:08:14.280 And that is That's something I had to learn. That is actually a 988 01:08:14.320 --> 01:08:18.640 compliment to your filmmaking, because it means you've tried to create two hundred meaningful 989 01:08:18.960 --> 01:08:24.520 moments throughout the movie. And if you were successful at creating those two hundred 990 01:08:24.600 --> 01:08:28.680 meaningful, clear, and emotional moments, then you don't need two hundred of 991 01:08:28.720 --> 01:08:31.760 them. Then twenty of them are probably enough to tell the story. You 992 01:08:31.800 --> 01:08:36.720 know, and wanting all those two hundred moments in the movie is just coming 993 01:08:36.720 --> 01:08:41.960 out of your insecurity as a filmmaker and your vanity and your pride that you've 994 01:08:42.159 --> 01:08:45.359 created these moments. That actually what I should have heard when she said we 995 01:08:45.399 --> 01:08:49.760 don't need that moment is trust the other moments that you've created that are in 996 01:08:49.760 --> 01:08:54.640 the movie that they are strong enough to carry this moment. You know, 997 01:08:54.840 --> 01:09:00.439 It's the same with screen time, like actors are always we shoot this stuff 998 01:09:00.479 --> 01:09:03.119 like it's a good example, the sermon with the banana bread that cottoned it. 999 01:09:03.319 --> 01:09:08.439 We shot that for a day and the sermon was forty five minutes long. 1000 01:09:08.680 --> 01:09:11.560 So of course Patrick Fabian watches the movie and goes like, oh, 1001 01:09:11.600 --> 01:09:16.359 here, come by at least twenty minutes of su and then he's devastated when 1002 01:09:16.399 --> 01:09:20.319 it's only forty five seconds of that in the movie. But how he should 1003 01:09:20.399 --> 01:09:25.720 see that is that those forty five seconds communicate everything we need to know about 1004 01:09:25.720 --> 01:09:28.479 the character because he is so great in that scene. And that's exactly what 1005 01:09:28.520 --> 01:09:31.960 you're saying, we get so much information on that character that we don't need 1006 01:09:32.000 --> 01:09:35.359 the twenty minutes. The forty five seconds are completely okay. And it's the 1007 01:09:35.399 --> 01:09:39.640 same in editing. So I think when you're saying the first act is so 1008 01:09:39.880 --> 01:09:44.520 fast, it probably in the director's cut was forty five minutes long and unbearable. 1009 01:09:45.399 --> 01:09:48.319 And then my editor. The good thing is that I have a very 1010 01:09:48.319 --> 01:09:53.039 bad memory, and whenever she wants to get something through, she just cuts 1011 01:09:53.079 --> 01:09:57.840 it out and sees if I notice it or not. We'll be right back 1012 01:09:57.960 --> 01:10:05.239 after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And 1013 01:10:05.640 --> 01:10:09.720 right if she shows me something in a week, I don't even notice that 1014 01:10:09.720 --> 01:10:14.079 that stuff is gone. So we always end up with the tightest version. 1015 01:10:14.119 --> 01:10:16.800 I think that's something for every filmmaker. With me, it was a long 1016 01:10:16.880 --> 01:10:21.920 learning process. So if you could start with the knowledge that you almost can't 1017 01:10:21.960 --> 01:10:28.239 cut something too fast and too tight, because the audience is so quickly bored 1018 01:10:28.600 --> 01:10:32.600 that you if you're precious about your stuff and you want to stick to the 1019 01:10:32.760 --> 01:10:38.279 script, and even though the editing rhythm suggests something different to you, you're 1020 01:10:38.319 --> 01:10:43.359 dead in the water if you don't answer that all well, it's always an 1021 01:10:43.399 --> 01:10:47.039 interesting contrast because, of course, later once you get into the more frightening 1022 01:10:47.079 --> 01:10:53.279 scenes, the whole concept of anticipation and that something is going to happen, 1023 01:10:53.760 --> 01:10:56.680 you know, then it's just like the scenes go on forever, you know, 1024 01:10:56.720 --> 01:10:59.640 and everybody's just like waiting for something to happen. Yeah, it's such 1025 01:10:59.680 --> 01:11:02.520 a care full balance because the other thing, and that completely contradicts what I 1026 01:11:02.560 --> 01:11:09.239 just said about cutting a first But in some editing book I think it was 1027 01:11:09.279 --> 01:11:14.760 Walter Merge or something, they wrote that the audience doesn't feel speed. The 1028 01:11:14.760 --> 01:11:17.640 only thing that they feel is acceleration, which is I think so true. 1029 01:11:17.840 --> 01:11:21.319 So if you start with a very fast first act, and then you have 1030 01:11:21.359 --> 01:11:25.439 a very fast second act, and then you have a very fast third act, 1031 01:11:25.760 --> 01:11:29.680 the whole thing will just seem like in one gear. It won't necessarily 1032 01:11:29.720 --> 01:11:32.720 feel fast. But if you have a second act that is slightly faster than 1033 01:11:32.760 --> 01:11:36.239 the first and a third act that is slightly faster than a second, then 1034 01:11:36.279 --> 01:11:40.359 they will suddenly say, wow, that movie is really fast, even though 1035 01:11:40.399 --> 01:11:44.079 in general it wasn't. But it accelerated, and that is something that an 1036 01:11:44.119 --> 01:11:45.960 audience has a feeling for. And of course the other way around two what 1037 01:11:46.000 --> 01:11:50.119 you're talking about, if you slow down, it's suddenly unbearable because we've gotten 1038 01:11:50.239 --> 01:11:57.239 used to a certain speed, and suddenly, deliberately you stretch a moment you 1039 01:11:57.279 --> 01:12:00.640 know that really does something to the audience is psyche. But such a balancing 1040 01:12:00.640 --> 01:12:04.680 act. And that's why this whole wisdom of there, what's the saying there 1041 01:12:04.720 --> 01:12:08.000 are three movies, one that you write, one that you shoot, and 1042 01:12:08.039 --> 01:12:11.119 one that you edit, and that's the final move. I think that is 1043 01:12:11.119 --> 01:12:15.720 really true. And the more you can subscribe to that and let go of 1044 01:12:15.920 --> 01:12:19.359 all the preconceived notions that you had during writing, and then even harder of 1045 01:12:19.640 --> 01:12:24.239 how hard it was to get that crane shot in that scene, and that 1046 01:12:24.840 --> 01:12:27.960 you know that day that actor was in a bad mood and has still got 1047 01:12:27.960 --> 01:12:30.520 a great performance out of him. None of it matters. The only thing 1048 01:12:30.520 --> 01:12:33.159 that matters is what ends up in the editing room. My editor makes a 1049 01:12:33.239 --> 01:12:36.800 point out of never coming to set and not getting to know the actors, 1050 01:12:38.199 --> 01:12:41.960 because she says she doesn't want to be influenced by the reality of it all 1051 01:12:42.039 --> 01:12:44.920 because the audience is not going to know that. The audience is not going 1052 01:12:44.960 --> 01:12:46.840 to know the location, know the actors, know that, whatever. But 1053 01:12:46.920 --> 01:12:51.239 she just wants to work with what actually materializes on the screen. And I 1054 01:12:51.239 --> 01:12:56.760 think that's a really really good approach. Right. Another thing I think that's 1055 01:12:56.760 --> 01:13:00.359 really interesting with the documentary approach is that you can, and I mean, 1056 01:13:00.399 --> 01:13:03.520 you can do this with a regular narrative, but the idea that characters are 1057 01:13:03.600 --> 01:13:08.880 lying and that you're finding out the truth behind things, it just it seems 1058 01:13:08.920 --> 01:13:13.039 a little more realistic when you're seeing like characters, Like when you're talking, 1059 01:13:13.079 --> 01:13:15.680 the two characters are talking, they find out the girl is pregnant, so 1060 01:13:16.319 --> 01:13:18.960 they have their conversation, and then they talk to the dad, and the 1061 01:13:19.039 --> 01:13:23.960 dads saying stuff and you know, you feel like he's lying or this person 1062 01:13:24.039 --> 01:13:27.239 is saying something and you're trying to get to the truth with that. Yeah, 1063 01:13:28.840 --> 01:13:31.039 one thing that's always intriguing to me is the whole idea that once you 1064 01:13:31.079 --> 01:13:34.239 get into the second act, you know, or even the second part of 1065 01:13:34.239 --> 01:13:39.479 the second act, that the the energy kind of dies in a lot of 1066 01:13:39.479 --> 01:13:41.800 stories, and that's where most movies kind of start to you know, you 1067 01:13:41.880 --> 01:13:45.920 start to like kind of wander around the theater. Do you have any any 1068 01:13:47.520 --> 01:13:50.840 advice on that or anything that you can talk about in terms of the way 1069 01:13:50.920 --> 01:13:55.439 you tell a story, you know, like structure it together so that it 1070 01:13:55.479 --> 01:13:59.079 doesn't fall apart during that area. It's it's hard, obviously because the second 1071 01:13:59.279 --> 01:14:03.800 I mean, once thing that happened we learned the Sitfield three act structure originally, 1072 01:14:03.840 --> 01:14:08.760 and I think what people always were bumping up against was the second act 1073 01:14:08.840 --> 01:14:11.960 is too low at two, too long, and it kind of there's a 1074 01:14:12.640 --> 01:14:16.159 drop in the middle. And then Sitfield very smartly invented the midpoint, which 1075 01:14:16.279 --> 01:14:18.800 is like you have a turning point from the first actor to the second act, 1076 01:14:18.880 --> 01:14:21.239 of the turning point from the second act to the third act. And 1077 01:14:21.319 --> 01:14:26.600 now he basically introduced another turning point, which he called the midpoint where everything 1078 01:14:26.720 --> 01:14:29.920 shifts in the story. I think that's a big help. And then you 1079 01:14:30.079 --> 01:14:33.840 just have to you have to keep having ideas. I always have the problem 1080 01:14:33.880 --> 01:14:41.000 with scripts that I'm getting that I have the feeling writers are inventing and having 1081 01:14:41.039 --> 01:14:45.439 ideas into the second act. If I'm lucky, until the end of the 1082 01:14:45.479 --> 01:14:49.439 second act, and then it's oh, then there's violence, and then there 1083 01:14:49.520 --> 01:14:54.880 is people throwing each other from buildings and shooting and car chases, and it's 1084 01:14:54.880 --> 01:14:59.079 almost as if they start stop writing and just say and then third act generic 1085 01:14:59.119 --> 01:15:02.159 third act action. And I'm always saying, because it's hard to tell your 1086 01:15:02.159 --> 01:15:05.239 agents what you're looking for, I'm always saying, if you can find me 1087 01:15:05.279 --> 01:15:10.560 a third act that is not based on physical violence, on generic physics, 1088 01:15:10.600 --> 01:15:13.880 and that's hard, especially in horror movies and slasher movies, because it's always 1089 01:15:13.920 --> 01:15:16.760 like the big confrontation in the third act. But if you can find me 1090 01:15:16.800 --> 01:15:20.680 a script that has a confrontation in the third act that is not based on 1091 01:15:21.039 --> 01:15:26.920 who is drawing his knife first and stating the other person first, then I 1092 01:15:26.960 --> 01:15:30.279 want to read that. And that has to do with the other thing we 1093 01:15:30.279 --> 01:15:33.520 were talking about earlier, that if you want to give the audience something to 1094 01:15:33.560 --> 01:15:39.520 take away and some kind of a little bit of a piece of knowledge that 1095 01:15:39.600 --> 01:15:42.239 they didn't have coming in, Like, how is that gonna work? What 1096 01:15:42.279 --> 01:15:45.640 are they going to learn out of someone drawing pulling out their knife sooner than 1097 01:15:45.720 --> 01:15:49.000 the other person. That's not really something, you know, the story doesn't 1098 01:15:49.039 --> 01:15:54.520 resolve in a way that is teaching the audience something about life other than always 1099 01:15:54.520 --> 01:15:59.600 be armed and always draw your weapon. So that's that's the main thing I'm 1100 01:15:59.640 --> 01:16:02.079 looking for, And I have the feeling if there is a strong third act, 1101 01:16:02.920 --> 01:16:08.520 like something that still has ideas, then the chance that the second act 1102 01:16:08.560 --> 01:16:13.359 that's leading up to that is strong and not generic and doesn't slump is much 1103 01:16:13.399 --> 01:16:17.319 bigger than if the second act is leading towards a generic third act. But 1104 01:16:17.359 --> 01:16:20.960 it's it's tough. You really kind of have to You can't ever be lazy 1105 01:16:21.199 --> 01:16:27.800 and you can't ever go to like the common places and have things play out, 1106 01:16:27.880 --> 01:16:30.680 especially if you're working with the three X structure, because the audience is 1107 01:16:30.720 --> 01:16:34.720 so savvy that you really kind of have to continue giving them something, So 1108 01:16:34.840 --> 01:16:42.039 don't start shooting before your script does that. What really helps is telling your 1109 01:16:42.159 --> 01:16:47.479 script to someone like I did that with Last excessis without knowing that every actor 1110 01:16:48.800 --> 01:16:51.840 that came in in the beginning because they hadn't read the script, I told 1111 01:16:51.880 --> 01:16:57.800 them the entire story of the script and watching them by after you've said it 1112 01:16:57.840 --> 01:17:00.399 so many times, it's kind of an automatic thing. You don't and think 1113 01:17:00.439 --> 01:17:04.840 about it anymore. So you can have the mental resource to really watch the 1114 01:17:04.920 --> 01:17:11.319 listener react and you can tell exactly where they are engaged and where you're losing 1115 01:17:11.359 --> 01:17:14.439 them, like I always lost them at the end. I should have known 1116 01:17:14.479 --> 01:17:18.319 that there was always there was always a slump in the third act, looking 1117 01:17:18.319 --> 01:17:20.399 back at it now that I should have reacted to it. We should have 1118 01:17:20.399 --> 01:17:24.920 rewritten it. But it's really like, you have to tough. You have 1119 01:17:24.920 --> 01:17:28.800 to be tough with yourself in that moment, and it hurts because you don't 1120 01:17:28.840 --> 01:17:30.319 want to see. You don't want to acknowledge that you're losing them. You 1121 01:17:30.359 --> 01:17:33.439 don't want to have to rethink something. But if you don't do it there, 1122 01:17:33.840 --> 01:17:36.319 then the problem is just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. 1123 01:17:36.560 --> 01:17:41.760 So I guess you have to keep inventing the story until you can tell it 1124 01:17:42.079 --> 01:17:45.000 in a way that keeps the reader engaged the entire time. And you can 1125 01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:50.239 tell by oh, like you, you hear a lot of people telling you 1126 01:17:50.319 --> 01:17:55.720 their story like this. So there is a student that falls in love with 1127 01:17:55.760 --> 01:17:59.479 this girl and in the end it turns out she was a guy all along. 1128 01:18:00.399 --> 01:18:01.079 And if you kind of go like, wait, okay, you told 1129 01:18:01.079 --> 01:18:03.960 me the first act, you told me the third act, what's the second 1130 01:18:04.000 --> 01:18:06.760 act? And you can kind of tell that the second act has gone to 1131 01:18:06.800 --> 01:18:12.840 slump because in the three sentence of the elevator pitch version, it doesn't even 1132 01:18:12.880 --> 01:18:15.399 come into play, you know. So I guess you have to keep working 1133 01:18:15.479 --> 01:18:19.960 on your overall story until you can tell it in a way where you don't 1134 01:18:20.000 --> 01:18:23.680 lose the audience ever. And then I think you know that you have a 1135 01:18:23.720 --> 01:18:28.920 second act that will hold up. Do you when you're writing, do you 1136 01:18:29.600 --> 01:18:33.479 try to write lots of notes and get everything out, and I mean do 1137 01:18:33.520 --> 01:18:38.680 a lot of the work, basically have the whole story there before you actually 1138 01:18:38.720 --> 01:18:42.760 begin the screenwriting process. Yeah, I'd be snobbish to talk about it because 1139 01:18:42.800 --> 01:18:47.119 I haven't written a screenplay by myself since Films twelve years ago. But okay, 1140 01:18:47.159 --> 01:18:50.039 I am writing. I mean they were always talking. I think that's 1141 01:18:50.119 --> 01:18:54.000 very true about the inner critic that gets in the way, and we had 1142 01:18:54.039 --> 01:18:57.479 that very strong. We had a great screenwriting teacher and she taught us all 1143 01:18:57.520 --> 01:19:01.640 the techniques, and the result us that we were a class of great script 1144 01:19:01.720 --> 01:19:05.079 doctors. We always knew what was wrong with stuff, but none of us 1145 01:19:05.159 --> 01:19:10.279 ever wrote anything again because what we wrote would never hold up to our expectation. 1146 01:19:10.439 --> 01:19:14.520 Yeah, So to get this critic out of the way, the only 1147 01:19:14.520 --> 01:19:17.079 technique that I've ever heard about that does that is to have a notepad for 1148 01:19:17.159 --> 01:19:21.039 the critic and just write everything down, you know, give him, give 1149 01:19:21.119 --> 01:19:25.840 him the space to be heard, so that he doesn't get in the way 1150 01:19:25.880 --> 01:19:30.319 anymore. But then it tends to those notes later. Don't let them get 1151 01:19:30.359 --> 01:19:33.680 into the way of the initial brainstorming flow when you're writing something, and that 1152 01:19:33.800 --> 01:19:39.840 really kind of works. And yeah, I do that religiously. I don't 1153 01:19:39.880 --> 01:19:43.319 start writing anything before. I don't have an exact structure. I have the 1154 01:19:44.000 --> 01:19:48.880 turning points. I'm very much going by Christopher Campbell's Hero's Journey, which I 1155 01:19:48.880 --> 01:19:55.159 think is an amazing book, Joseph Campbell's Here This Journey, which then Christopher 1156 01:19:55.199 --> 01:20:01.159 Vogler wrote into a book called The Writer's Journey. We'll be right back after 1157 01:20:01.199 --> 01:20:10.199 a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show, which, 1158 01:20:10.319 --> 01:20:13.479 yeah, which is absolutely I think, absolute genius. And of course there's 1159 01:20:13.479 --> 01:20:15.039 a lot of controversy. Is it to formulaic, is it too whatever? 1160 01:20:15.119 --> 01:20:20.520 Whatever, But just to be aware of those principles of those archetypes I think 1161 01:20:20.560 --> 01:20:25.720 helps you hugely in structuring it. And that's what you're talking about about the 1162 01:20:25.760 --> 01:20:30.680 slump in the second act. That also helps you to avoid that. Yeah, 1163 01:20:30.720 --> 01:20:31.479 I mean, I think a lot of stuff. Vogeler is one of 1164 01:20:31.520 --> 01:20:34.159 my favorite books, and you know, one of the things that it helps 1165 01:20:34.199 --> 01:20:38.720 me with is when I'm writing, when I'm in the middle of a story, 1166 01:20:39.239 --> 01:20:41.880 you know, if you go back, I never read I never went 1167 01:20:41.920 --> 01:20:45.640 through the process of reading all those books before I started writing. You know, 1168 01:20:45.680 --> 01:20:47.319 it was funny because I was already writing and then I was like, 1169 01:20:47.319 --> 01:20:50.000 oh, well, this looks like an interesting book, and I would read 1170 01:20:50.079 --> 01:20:55.520 that, or you know, even McKee's story or you know, Save the 1171 01:20:55.560 --> 01:20:58.239 Cat, all these other books that are you know, kind of the canon 1172 01:20:58.279 --> 01:21:01.079 of screenwriting books, and it's that you learned screenwriting from them, but you 1173 01:21:01.119 --> 01:21:04.640 can it kind of jump starts your thought process of oh, okay, you 1174 01:21:04.680 --> 01:21:09.000 know, if you're if you're listening to Vogeler, he's got all these different 1175 01:21:09.560 --> 01:21:13.640 archetypes, you know, all these different characters that have played a role traditionally 1176 01:21:13.640 --> 01:21:15.640 in stories, and you can say, oh, well, this character is 1177 01:21:15.680 --> 01:21:18.000 kind of the gatekeeper or whatever, you know, and it just kind of 1178 01:21:18.319 --> 01:21:21.680 it helps you jump start that kind of like creative process. So I totally 1179 01:21:21.720 --> 01:21:27.319 agree. I think it's about getting you to ask the right questions. And 1180 01:21:27.520 --> 01:21:30.720 that's where the formulate thing. I don't care that it's formulate because I don't 1181 01:21:30.760 --> 01:21:34.199 have to have everything come into play if I don't want it. But it 1182 01:21:34.239 --> 01:21:38.720 can't hurt to ask yourself the question, you know, do I need that? 1183 01:21:38.800 --> 01:21:41.399 In that turning point here, if the answer is no, then fine, 1184 01:21:41.439 --> 01:21:45.760 but at least you didn't miss asking yourself the question. And I by 1185 01:21:45.840 --> 01:21:50.359 now I've even put together like a questionnaire with thirty six question questions then asking 1186 01:21:50.359 --> 01:21:56.600 myself for every scene, because so much energy goes into remembering the questions that 1187 01:21:56.960 --> 01:22:00.760 if I have that written down once, it's different for every story. Obviously 1188 01:22:00.800 --> 01:22:02.319 the answer, but the questions are always the same, like what are you 1189 01:22:02.680 --> 01:22:06.119 what are you trying to make the audience feel? How is what is lighting 1190 01:22:06.159 --> 01:22:10.600 communicating? What is bumba bumba bum all these what's the subtext? What's the 1191 01:22:10.640 --> 01:22:15.640 obstacle, what's the objective? There's always stuff that what are the stakes? 1192 01:22:15.039 --> 01:22:20.199 There's always stuff that will contribute tension to a scene, And it really helps 1193 01:22:20.199 --> 01:22:25.000 me to not have to start from scratch every single time and then go like, 1194 01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:28.319 oh, yeah, right, the obstacles. But I have one questionnaire 1195 01:22:28.359 --> 01:22:30.520 that clearly says what are the obstacles and then it gets me to think about 1196 01:22:30.520 --> 01:22:34.640 it. And that's basically what all these screenwriting techniques do for me. They 1197 01:22:34.680 --> 01:22:39.800 get you to ask the right questions. So that's huge. You actually have 1198 01:22:40.039 --> 01:22:42.439 that document, I do, Yeah, I can, you can post it. 1199 01:22:42.439 --> 01:22:45.000 I can humility, Oh yeah, that would know, I would absolutely 1200 01:22:45.000 --> 01:22:48.359 love to just that's you know, that's that's really helpful because whenever you're you 1201 01:22:48.399 --> 01:22:51.520 know, you know, I haven't directed a feature, but I mean the 1202 01:22:51.880 --> 01:22:56.359 idea of, you know, having something to make sure you always have to 1203 01:22:56.399 --> 01:22:59.079 like kind of get your head in the game and be like, okay, 1204 01:22:59.119 --> 01:23:00.560 am I sure that all the things are happening because you don't want to go 1205 01:23:00.560 --> 01:23:02.840 back later, be like, this could have been much better if I just 1206 01:23:02.880 --> 01:23:06.199 accepted remember that they maybe they're fighting a little in this scene, or maybe 1207 01:23:06.239 --> 01:23:10.600 there's like you know, there can be more tension with this or that, 1208 01:23:10.680 --> 01:23:15.640 right, Okay, So I wanted to um ah, I don't want to 1209 01:23:15.640 --> 01:23:21.439 make sure I'm not missing anything about The Last Exorcism. Um it's one of 1210 01:23:21.479 --> 01:23:26.199 my I really it's it's like one of my favorite horror films of all time. 1211 01:23:26.640 --> 01:23:30.199 Thank you so much. I can't hear that a lot because a lot 1212 01:23:30.239 --> 01:23:34.119 of the real horror audience hated the movie with a passion, really, which 1213 01:23:34.119 --> 01:23:38.680 I see. The thing that you always have to take into consideration is that 1214 01:23:38.720 --> 01:23:42.119 we are rarely seeing a movie cold, right. We're always going in. 1215 01:23:42.159 --> 01:23:45.720 We've seen a trailer, we know that, and that and that about it, 1216 01:23:45.960 --> 01:23:49.039 and that's that's actually an interesting story when I like, when Lionskate bought 1217 01:23:49.079 --> 01:23:54.640 it, they were counting something on their fingers and I was like, what 1218 01:23:54.680 --> 01:23:58.079 are they counting? And turned out their counting while they're watching the movie. 1219 01:23:58.359 --> 01:24:02.399 They're counting trailer more moments and when you know, So, when they were 1220 01:24:02.439 --> 01:24:05.399 deciding whether to buy the movie or not, they wanted to make sure that 1221 01:24:05.399 --> 01:24:10.680 there are seven trailer movies, the trailer moments in the movie that they can 1222 01:24:10.720 --> 01:24:14.439 cut a trailer from. And once they reached that, they were like, 1223 01:24:14.479 --> 01:24:16.439 We're okay, We're going to buy the movie. So that is something that 1224 01:24:16.439 --> 01:24:20.479 I'm now keeping in mind when I'm writing or thinking of the story. Because 1225 01:24:20.520 --> 01:24:25.800 if if you have six trailer moments that you are fine with giving away in 1226 01:24:25.800 --> 01:24:30.000 the trailer, but one the last one is a major revelationtion you know, 1227 01:24:30.039 --> 01:24:32.760 of a character that turns out to be the bad guy or of you know 1228 01:24:32.840 --> 01:24:36.600 something, then the marketing department won't care. They will cut it into the 1229 01:24:36.640 --> 01:24:40.399 trailer and you can argue all you want, you have no power over the 1230 01:24:40.880 --> 01:24:45.640 anymore. They will give away your best kept secret. And with Last Exorcism, 1231 01:24:45.680 --> 01:24:49.680 it was kind of similar in that the whole movie is basically based on 1232 01:24:49.680 --> 01:24:55.479 the question is this girl crazy or if she possessed? And you only get 1233 01:24:55.520 --> 01:24:58.960 the answer at the very last minute in the movie. You're waiting for that 1234 01:24:59.680 --> 01:25:03.680 for an nineteen minutes. But what Lionsgate did to create a great trailer was 1235 01:25:03.800 --> 01:25:09.439 they took a shot of the girl crawling away from the camera. They played 1236 01:25:09.479 --> 01:25:13.840 it backwards, so now she's crawling towards the camera. Then they flopped it 1237 01:25:13.920 --> 01:25:15.880 so now it's upside down. They put a silhouette in it that it looks 1238 01:25:15.920 --> 01:25:20.920 like she's in the in the light of a flashlight, and now it looks 1239 01:25:20.960 --> 01:25:27.159 like she's crawling towards camera on the ceiling, which which is a great shot, 1240 01:25:27.439 --> 01:25:30.159 you know, And people are complaining afterwards, like where is that great 1241 01:25:30.199 --> 01:25:31.479 shot in the movie, But it was in the movie. It was just 1242 01:25:31.800 --> 01:25:35.720 backwards and on the floor. But it also gives away after eighteen seconds in 1243 01:25:35.760 --> 01:25:40.640 the trailer that the movie that the girl is possessed, because otherwise she couldn't 1244 01:25:40.680 --> 01:25:44.640 climb on the ceiling. And we were so careful not to have her do 1245 01:25:44.720 --> 01:25:47.359 anything in the movie that a crazy girl couldn't do. Like in our movie, 1246 01:25:47.359 --> 01:25:50.239 she didn't levitate, she didn't spin her head, she didn't, you 1247 01:25:50.279 --> 01:25:54.600 know, whatever, whatever, because we needed to keep that question alive. 1248 01:25:55.199 --> 01:25:58.359 But of course I should have. If I had known that lions Gate is 1249 01:25:58.359 --> 01:26:01.159 gonna put the answer to the trailer, I would have structured that differently, 1250 01:26:01.159 --> 01:26:04.319 because now we had an audience that had gone to see the movie because of 1251 01:26:04.319 --> 01:26:09.520 the trailer, but was always nineteen minutes ahead of the movie. So it 1252 01:26:09.600 --> 01:26:13.880 must have been a really boring experience for them to watch the movie because the 1253 01:26:13.920 --> 01:26:16.439 main spine of it just completely fell apart. So I don't I don't get 1254 01:26:16.479 --> 01:26:20.119 a lot of people that, like, most of the people that really loved 1255 01:26:20.119 --> 01:26:26.520 The Lost Exorcism are not horror people necessarily. They're kind of like I get 1256 01:26:26.520 --> 01:26:28.760 that a lot, where it's like, normally I don't like horror, but 1257 01:26:28.840 --> 01:26:31.920 I really loved The Lost Exorcism. Yeah, Now rarely do I get I 1258 01:26:31.960 --> 01:26:39.079 love horror and I loved The Lost Exorcis's that's really surprising, because you know, 1259 01:26:39.279 --> 01:26:42.000 I think it's one of the most effective horror movies that I've seen. 1260 01:26:42.479 --> 01:26:45.319 You know, and I watch a lot of movies, and I really have 1261 01:26:45.359 --> 01:26:49.800 gotten to the point now with Netflix where I'll put something on and I'll give 1262 01:26:49.840 --> 01:26:53.960 it about five minutes, you know, and if it doesn't pull me in, 1263 01:26:54.039 --> 01:26:57.920 because there's so many bad horror movies now it's just like the now that 1264 01:26:58.039 --> 01:27:02.880 the digital revolution and everybody's got cameras, and I mean, it seems like 1265 01:27:02.880 --> 01:27:06.840 everybody's shooting horror movies, but there's a lot of people that really shouldn't be 1266 01:27:06.920 --> 01:27:10.760 the care that are making them, you know. But it tells you a 1267 01:27:10.800 --> 01:27:14.720 lot about because we were talking about the fast first act. You know, 1268 01:27:14.920 --> 01:27:17.359 if you give the movie five minutes, that used to be like the titled 1269 01:27:17.359 --> 01:27:21.359 sequence wasn't even over after five minutes. And now now there's so it's so 1270 01:27:21.399 --> 01:27:26.359 easy to kind of click the next movie that as a filmmaker, you just 1271 01:27:26.399 --> 01:27:29.359 have to be aware of that end give the audience something like I was. 1272 01:27:29.439 --> 01:27:32.119 I was when I was on that jury in Kosovo. There was all these 1273 01:27:32.159 --> 01:27:35.560 short films. I had to watch eight hours of short films, and there 1274 01:27:35.640 --> 01:27:40.920 was this beautiful movie about two monks in the snow, you know, and 1275 01:27:41.000 --> 01:27:44.560 I fell asleep immediately. I was like, if you just if you don't 1276 01:27:44.640 --> 01:27:48.600 start with an explosion or a rape or something crazy, right that wakes me 1277 01:27:48.680 --> 01:27:51.960 up and goes like watch this, you know, then you're you're kind of 1278 01:27:51.960 --> 01:27:58.640 screwed for sure. I think with the with the horror, I think the 1279 01:27:58.760 --> 01:28:04.159 next six assful horror filmmaker is the one that can figure out the next step 1280 01:28:04.199 --> 01:28:09.960 after the fake documentary, because I love fake documentary. I think there's real 1281 01:28:10.000 --> 01:28:15.000 strength in the format. But I think that people are tired of the conceit 1282 01:28:15.039 --> 01:28:19.359 and for gimmick, and there is a certain cheapness that comes with them, 1283 01:28:19.399 --> 01:28:23.000 you know, and people, I think want the next thing. And I 1284 01:28:23.039 --> 01:28:28.680 think if whoever it is, can take the strengths of that movie but roll 1285 01:28:28.720 --> 01:28:32.560 it of that style, but roll it into a conventional movie, then you'd 1286 01:28:32.560 --> 01:28:36.720 really have something like it's not a horror movie, but Blue Valentine's that the 1287 01:28:36.800 --> 01:28:41.479 Ryan Gosling Michelle Williams, Oh, yeah, yeah, they. I think 1288 01:28:41.680 --> 01:28:45.479 we're very close to that where they you can tell that the performances are so 1289 01:28:45.600 --> 01:28:49.319 fresh that I bet anything that they are not following any script, that they're 1290 01:28:49.600 --> 01:28:55.000 improvising the whole thing. And yet it's not the fake documentary conceit. It's 1291 01:28:55.000 --> 01:28:57.560 not like, oh, here's a documentary crew, here's a filmmaker, blah 1292 01:28:57.560 --> 01:29:00.600 blah blah, And that's kind of I think the beginning of an approach where 1293 01:29:00.600 --> 01:29:04.640 someone takes the strengths of both mediums and put them together. And in terms 1294 01:29:04.680 --> 01:29:10.840 of a look, it's so bizarre because it used to be that film was 1295 01:29:11.159 --> 01:29:15.199 so slow that you had to artificially light it. Right now video cameras and 1296 01:29:15.239 --> 01:29:19.399 film are so fast that you really wouldn't have to light anything. We've just 1297 01:29:19.640 --> 01:29:27.199 become so accustomed to the artificial, artificially lit look that when it's not artificially 1298 01:29:27.439 --> 01:29:30.079 it kind of stands out. But maybe it's time to get back to that 1299 01:29:30.159 --> 01:29:33.800 and to say we don't have just because we don't want to light something and 1300 01:29:33.840 --> 01:29:38.520 we want to shoot available light. That doesn't mean that we suddenly need to 1301 01:29:38.560 --> 01:29:42.479 have the documentary the fake documentary format. But we can also do that in 1302 01:29:42.520 --> 01:29:47.039 a conventionally narrative movie. Right. So yeah, the thing that we're trying 1303 01:29:47.039 --> 01:29:49.920 to do is well, that I'm trying to do is, you know, 1304 01:29:49.960 --> 01:29:55.319 I put something together that was kind of, you know, similar to you 1305 01:29:55.359 --> 01:30:00.479 know, The Last Exorcism, and you know, the documentary format. We'll 1306 01:30:00.479 --> 01:30:06.680 be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. 1307 01:30:09.359 --> 01:30:13.920 But I come from a background of documentaries, so I love documentaries by 1308 01:30:14.039 --> 01:30:17.520 Errol Morris and a lot of these HBO you know, the true crime things 1309 01:30:17.520 --> 01:30:20.279 and everything, And so the idea was to say, okay, can we 1310 01:30:20.319 --> 01:30:24.800 go can we do it? Have elements of that, you know, handheld 1311 01:30:24.840 --> 01:30:27.640 camera and going into stuff, but also have more of like you know, 1312 01:30:27.760 --> 01:30:31.359 Errol Morris films all these beautiful scenes that are very cinematic as well. You 1313 01:30:31.399 --> 01:30:33.560 know, so we're going to kind of see if that works. Because you 1314 01:30:33.560 --> 01:30:36.359 know, I totally agree with you. You know, it's like you get 1315 01:30:36.760 --> 01:30:41.960 a couple of hits, you know. The Last Exorcism rerec was also a 1316 01:30:42.000 --> 01:30:45.960 really good example, I think. And then it's like people when I would 1317 01:30:45.960 --> 01:30:47.039 tell them about what I was doing, the first thing out of their mouth 1318 01:30:47.079 --> 01:30:49.800 would be like, oh, it's found footage, and I'm like, no, 1319 01:30:49.880 --> 01:30:51.720 it's not really. But they're like, uh, you know, we're 1320 01:30:51.960 --> 01:30:56.079 done with that, so they won't even let you in the door anymore. 1321 01:30:56.079 --> 01:30:59.039 So it's like, okay, well, let me let me go back to 1322 01:30:59.159 --> 01:31:02.159 my thinking, back to the drawing forget it. Yeah, maybe you are 1323 01:31:02.359 --> 01:31:08.880 that next filmmaker that will break out. It's the time is definitely right for 1324 01:31:08.960 --> 01:31:12.520 the next idea to come along, just like paranormal or like Blair, which 1325 01:31:12.560 --> 01:31:15.279 and then Paranormal Activity. You know, they really hit the timing with with 1326 01:31:15.720 --> 01:31:20.359 the fake documentary. I think if I were to make my first movie right 1327 01:31:20.399 --> 01:31:24.680 now, I would really try to not make I know that it's tempting to 1328 01:31:24.680 --> 01:31:28.479 do the fake documentary thing because it's cheap. But again, exactly what you 1329 01:31:28.520 --> 01:31:30.880 were saying. People already kind of roll their eyes and are tired of it 1330 01:31:30.880 --> 01:31:33.960 and won't even give it a chance. So if you can figure out any 1331 01:31:34.039 --> 01:31:41.359 alternative, it's probably worth experiment. M One other thing I also noticed is 1332 01:31:41.359 --> 01:31:45.000 the use of music in the Last Exorcism, which is kind of breaking away 1333 01:31:45.000 --> 01:31:51.239 from the documentary format because you do incorporate a soundtrack, right, So I 1334 01:31:51.319 --> 01:31:55.520 was just curious. It's just I think, I think score is such a 1335 01:31:55.600 --> 01:32:00.960 powerful tool in horror filmmaking, and you kind of have to obviously find your 1336 01:32:00.079 --> 01:32:05.800 balance of realism in the whole thing. I mean, people were complaining, 1337 01:32:06.039 --> 01:32:10.880 it's amazing with the internet right now, how many complaints you have to you 1338 01:32:10.920 --> 01:32:15.319 know, have to deal with um. Of course, people were like, 1339 01:32:15.439 --> 01:32:19.600 very oh, this is obviously shot, it's two with two cameras or it's 1340 01:32:19.760 --> 01:32:24.199 you know, different scenes because they cut that together and that together, so 1341 01:32:24.239 --> 01:32:26.600 then you kind of and it's true, So then you kind of have to 1342 01:32:26.640 --> 01:32:30.680 weigh is that complain worth or would it have been worth? But to not 1343 01:32:30.840 --> 01:32:35.399 have shot reverse shot in your movie just for that, I can never say 1344 01:32:35.439 --> 01:32:42.199 the word very similitude. There is for that, for the authenticity or or 1345 01:32:42.279 --> 01:32:45.520 not, And you kind of weigh your your tools and what you're going to 1346 01:32:45.680 --> 01:32:49.079 use. And with score, it was pretty clear to me that the effect 1347 01:32:49.159 --> 01:32:57.479 that score has to me way outweighs the artifice of having score on the movie. 1348 01:32:57.640 --> 01:33:00.920 Plus a lot of documentaries these days, if you look at Nick Broomfield 1349 01:33:01.039 --> 01:33:05.600 stuff, or a lot of like modern documentaries, very very heavily youth music, 1350 01:33:05.720 --> 01:33:11.159 you score. So that was never a problem really for me. Okay, 1351 01:33:12.279 --> 01:33:18.279 so let's move into is there any are there any stories about the the 1352 01:33:18.479 --> 01:33:23.439 life after you made it, or you know, is there any insight in 1353 01:33:23.520 --> 01:33:25.840 terms of I mean, did you go to festivals or was it just a 1354 01:33:25.880 --> 01:33:30.560 straight sell to lions Gate? Yeah? In terms of distribution, yeah, 1355 01:33:30.640 --> 01:33:32.279 I mean I didn't have anything to do with it. It's amazing how much 1356 01:33:32.279 --> 01:33:38.760 a filmmaker you don't have once you deliver your cut, there's really nothing. 1357 01:33:38.800 --> 01:33:43.920 You're never being consulted again with especially here they did a very smart thing, 1358 01:33:43.920 --> 01:33:47.359 and Eli is a great salesman, and he went around to different studios and 1359 01:33:47.560 --> 01:33:54.239 showed that the movie true different studios at exactly the same time and let them 1360 01:33:54.279 --> 01:33:58.039 know that other studios are watching it as well. To get him bidding war 1361 01:33:58.239 --> 01:34:03.399 started and that's exactly what happened everyone, which was amazing to me. Everyone 1362 01:34:03.479 --> 01:34:08.680 wanted the movie except for Fox, but the Wine scenes wanted a universal, 1363 01:34:08.720 --> 01:34:11.479 wanted it a line scale, and blah blahla. And then in the end, 1364 01:34:11.479 --> 01:34:15.600 it just came out to who is willing to commit to the most p 1365 01:34:15.760 --> 01:34:20.680 and A, which is what is a prince in advertising? So how many 1366 01:34:21.439 --> 01:34:25.840 and how many theaters are you going to screen and how much money is going 1367 01:34:25.840 --> 01:34:31.399 to be invested into advertising? And Linscape committed to sixteen million dollars in p 1368 01:34:31.560 --> 01:34:34.279 and A, which is kind of amazing for a movie that was made on 1369 01:34:34.279 --> 01:34:39.960 a budget of one point five million dollars, and that was the highest that 1370 01:34:40.000 --> 01:34:42.960 there was. And they committed to like almost three thousand screens, which is 1371 01:34:43.039 --> 01:34:47.479 huge, or two thousand thousands of screens. And what then happened, which 1372 01:34:47.479 --> 01:34:53.079 is kind of amazing. I never knew about this, they showed the trailer 1373 01:34:53.800 --> 01:35:00.960 in theaters and they kind of the process is that you buy basically advertising time 1374 01:35:00.000 --> 01:35:04.840 in front of another movie, right, so you are completely gambling whether that 1375 01:35:04.960 --> 01:35:09.520 movie that your trailer is cut in front of is going to be huge success 1376 01:35:09.720 --> 01:35:12.720 and millions of people will see it, or it's a complete flop and no 1377 01:35:12.760 --> 01:35:15.600 one will ever see it. And we had we kind of had both. 1378 01:35:15.640 --> 01:35:20.039 We had the movie in front of Splice, which I thought was a great 1379 01:35:20.079 --> 01:35:24.760 movie, science fiction movie, but also a complete flop that no one ever 1380 01:35:24.800 --> 01:35:28.239 saw, so that was kind of prantly ways. But then we also had 1381 01:35:28.279 --> 01:35:31.119 the trailer in front of Inception, which obviously was a huge blockbuster, so 1382 01:35:31.199 --> 01:35:38.239 that helped it. And then what's happening is that the studio is working with 1383 01:35:38.279 --> 01:35:45.199 a company that is basically sending out spies all over the country into movie theaters, 1384 01:35:45.520 --> 01:35:47.760 and they have a questionnaire and they all they are doing is that they 1385 01:35:47.840 --> 01:35:53.760 write down people's reactions to the trailer, and they write down quotes like they 1386 01:35:53.760 --> 01:35:58.199 sit behind you as I saw the questionnaires afterwards, and they would write a 1387 01:35:58.439 --> 01:36:03.319 boy eighteen look up from his popcorn and says to his girlfriend, we gotta 1388 01:36:03.399 --> 01:36:09.680 go see that, and pervaded. They write down how many people are watching 1389 01:36:09.720 --> 01:36:12.560 the screen when the trailer is playing, how many people are going to the 1390 01:36:12.600 --> 01:36:15.960 bathroom, how many people are not interested, how many people are all that 1391 01:36:15.079 --> 01:36:19.359 kind of stuff, and then they that gets translated into a score, so 1392 01:36:19.399 --> 01:36:26.039 the studio knows how well a trailer played. And we were playing like. 1393 01:36:26.079 --> 01:36:31.760 Our release date was against Pirana three D, which was turned out to be 1394 01:36:31.800 --> 01:36:36.600 an amazing movie. Alex Alexaja amazing, but they had problems with the trailer 1395 01:36:38.000 --> 01:36:43.479 because they didn't have their digital Piranhas ready by the time that the trailer was 1396 01:36:43.520 --> 01:36:46.800 cut, so they put in some kind of weird bead artificial Piranhas, so 1397 01:36:46.880 --> 01:36:51.600 the trailer looked crap. So our score was a lot higher with our trailer 1398 01:36:51.640 --> 01:36:58.680 than Piranhas score was, which was important because you tried to avoid having two 1399 01:36:58.840 --> 01:37:02.560 movies off the same genre opened the same weekend because you're just cannibalizing your audience, 1400 01:37:02.680 --> 01:37:05.680 right. If you were the only horror movie on a weekend, that 1401 01:37:05.720 --> 01:37:10.000 means you get hundred percent of the horror movie audience rather than having to split 1402 01:37:10.079 --> 01:37:13.279 it with the other one. So it was kind of this. It was 1403 01:37:13.279 --> 01:37:17.399 always clear that Last Exorcism and Pirana would not end up actually opening on the 1404 01:37:17.439 --> 01:37:21.520 same weekend, but none of the two studios Dimension at lions Gate was budging. 1405 01:37:21.560 --> 01:37:27.119 It was like this game of Chicken that we're not moving, We're not 1406 01:37:27.159 --> 01:37:30.640 moving. And then when the trailer scores came out, it was clear that 1407 01:37:30.800 --> 01:37:33.520 the DM Dimension was going to move, and that gave Lines get such a 1408 01:37:33.520 --> 01:37:41.880 big boost in confidence. I guess about the movie that they suddenly increase the 1409 01:37:41.960 --> 01:37:45.520 p and A from sixteen million dollars to twenty four million dollars, which just 1410 01:37:45.600 --> 01:37:49.079 means a lot of presents and TV spots and a lot of presents and posters 1411 01:37:49.079 --> 01:37:51.359 and a lot of you know that kind of stuff, And I think that 1412 01:37:51.560 --> 01:37:58.399 really catapulted the thing then too well not it was like number one on Friday, 1413 01:37:58.520 --> 01:38:01.920 and it was number one on Saturday, but then the movie takers like 1414 01:38:02.039 --> 01:38:08.319 overtook it on Sunday by hundred thousand dollars or something. But that doesn't really 1415 01:38:08.319 --> 01:38:14.039 matter because everyone is looking which movie is winning the weekend on Friday. By 1416 01:38:14.079 --> 01:38:16.399 the time, they don't rarely check in again on Monday and go like, 1417 01:38:16.399 --> 01:38:19.399 okay, who actually won the weekend? So we were in everyone's eyes. 1418 01:38:19.520 --> 01:38:25.359 We had this number one movie, and because it was a French French like 1419 01:38:25.439 --> 01:38:29.000 the French finance, it was French money, so it was officially a French 1420 01:38:29.079 --> 01:38:32.199 movie. And in France you don't go by opening weekend, whether you won 1421 01:38:32.239 --> 01:38:35.399 the weekend or not, but you go by opening Friday. So to this 1422 01:38:35.520 --> 01:38:41.399 day, France would say Last Exorcism was the number one movie in the country, 1423 01:38:41.399 --> 01:38:44.920 when that's actually not true. But there is a lot of there's a 1424 01:38:44.920 --> 01:38:47.640 lot of pr obviously coming from you have the number one movie in the country 1425 01:38:47.680 --> 01:38:54.720 because you sell the movie worldwide, but the entire world waits until the US 1426 01:38:54.840 --> 01:38:59.359 has opened the movie, Like France wouldn't suddenly go before the US or Czechoslovakia, 1427 01:38:59.439 --> 01:39:02.199 Australia, China, and they're looking at the numbers, and depending on 1428 01:39:02.239 --> 01:39:06.840 the numbers, they will decide how many screens to show it, on how 1429 01:39:06.920 --> 01:39:12.840 much p and A to do in their own territories. And if you have 1430 01:39:12.880 --> 01:39:15.680 a blockbuster in the US, that means that suddenly the entire world pumps a 1431 01:39:15.720 --> 01:39:18.800 lot of money into your movie and you suddenly have a world wide whereas if 1432 01:39:18.840 --> 01:39:23.640 you bomb in the US, you can have the greatest movie in the world. 1433 01:39:23.680 --> 01:39:28.720 But it would be very rare that foreign territories have the confidence to go 1434 01:39:28.880 --> 01:39:32.399 for a big release even though you're bombed in the US. So that's how 1435 01:39:32.479 --> 01:39:38.960 we suddenly became this kind of seventy million dollars worldwide thing on a budget of 1436 01:39:39.000 --> 01:39:44.239 one point five which sounds great, but obviously if you pump twenty twenty four 1437 01:39:44.279 --> 01:39:48.079 million dollars into something, you could market anything, you know, But that 1438 01:39:48.159 --> 01:39:53.399 was kind of great. And because it's unfortunately true that all Hollywood ever looks 1439 01:39:53.399 --> 01:39:58.439 at is your last movie and how successful your last movie was, We'll be 1440 01:39:58.560 --> 01:40:04.560 right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show, 1441 01:40:06.239 --> 01:40:11.039 and they go, for some reason, they rate success by box office, 1442 01:40:11.119 --> 01:40:13.880 which is like such a crap, because I had nothing to do with 1443 01:40:13.920 --> 01:40:16.359 the marketing. You know, the movie could be horrible, and there was 1444 01:40:16.439 --> 01:40:20.319 great marketing and it was a great box office success that I then get hired 1445 01:40:20.399 --> 01:40:24.399 for the next movie because they think I'm a great director because the movie did 1446 01:40:24.399 --> 01:40:26.880 well. Kind of doesn't make sense and the other way around. I can 1447 01:40:26.920 --> 01:40:30.800 have the greatest movie if you look at Steve Jobs This Weekend, which is 1448 01:40:30.159 --> 01:40:34.800 an amazing movie with amazing Oscar Willing winning talent. But Tony flopped at the 1449 01:40:34.840 --> 01:40:41.439 Weekend. If you just judge Danny Boyle by the box office income, then 1450 01:40:41.479 --> 01:40:45.039 I guess he's a bad filmmaker now or something. So's it's bizarre, but 1451 01:40:45.079 --> 01:40:49.000 it kind of opened a lot of doors for me afterwards and got me to 1452 01:40:49.239 --> 01:40:54.119 did you go back to Germany and what kind of get to promote there? 1453 01:40:54.239 --> 01:40:58.600 Yeah? I did. But Last Exorcis was a huge flop in Germany, 1454 01:40:58.960 --> 01:41:01.840 and not really that it wasn't even a big release. It's very weird like 1455 01:41:01.840 --> 01:41:05.600 which it was huge in France, huge in Italy, completely flopped in Spain, 1456 01:41:05.720 --> 01:41:12.039 completely went up against Harry Potter completely Germany. My friends hadn't even heard 1457 01:41:12.039 --> 01:41:15.560 of it, so that was a little bit. What did you tell them? 1458 01:41:15.640 --> 01:41:18.640 You say, I'm a big filmmaker. Well, that's why I'm really 1459 01:41:18.680 --> 01:41:21.720 famous. It's like, yeah, yeah, that's why Facebook is so important, 1460 01:41:21.760 --> 01:41:28.800 so that everyone else was a successful filmmaker. Yeah. And then I 1461 01:41:28.840 --> 01:41:31.239 made my next movie called Thirteen Cents, that I'm really proud of and there 1462 01:41:31.279 --> 01:41:34.279 was a lot of fun to make and that I would argue is as good 1463 01:41:34.319 --> 01:41:39.800 as The Last Exorcism. But it made nine thousand dollars at the box office. 1464 01:41:40.119 --> 01:41:44.760 It was screening on twenty two screens, which again has nothing to do 1465 01:41:44.880 --> 01:41:47.880 with the movie. It's just that Dimension. It was a Dimension movie, 1466 01:41:47.880 --> 01:41:51.000 and Dimension hasn't had a hit in a long time, so they just don't 1467 01:41:51.039 --> 01:41:55.159 have the money. Even if they wanted, they couldn't pump twenty four million 1468 01:41:55.159 --> 01:41:59.439 dollars into marketing the movie. So if you're working with Dimension, you kind 1469 01:41:59.479 --> 01:42:03.359 of know that you're probably not going to go theatrical until you're unless you're like 1470 01:42:03.439 --> 01:42:10.119 Screen five or scary movie or something. And then suddenly my career is judged 1471 01:42:10.239 --> 01:42:15.159 by my last box office, which is nine thousand dollars. So all the 1472 01:42:15.239 --> 01:42:18.359 cachet that you have after the seventy million dollar movie is kind of out the 1473 01:42:18.399 --> 01:42:21.640 window. And it's not you know, it's not your fault, but there's 1474 01:42:21.720 --> 01:42:25.560 nothing you can do against that. You kind of live and die with your 1475 01:42:25.640 --> 01:42:29.279 movie and you're health responsible even for stuff that you had no influence over. 1476 01:42:30.279 --> 01:42:34.079 Well, how how was that because that was you know, looking at your 1477 01:42:34.079 --> 01:42:40.479 career, that was the first straight up narrative, you know, not handheld 1478 01:42:41.359 --> 01:42:44.720 um film. You know, how how was that different? How did you 1479 01:42:44.760 --> 01:42:46.319 approach because one of the things that I was, you know, I do 1480 01:42:46.359 --> 01:42:51.840 a lot of research and the actors were talking about how well prepared you were? 1481 01:42:53.520 --> 01:42:56.119 You know, well that is I would say that is the questionnaire that 1482 01:42:56.199 --> 01:43:00.199 we were talking about. Like me, because I always like I get star 1483 01:43:00.279 --> 01:43:04.600 struck and I get nervous, like suddenly working with a Ron Perlman would completely 1484 01:43:04.760 --> 01:43:09.920 terrify me. And the only or with Routina Wesley, who I had such 1485 01:43:09.920 --> 01:43:12.720 a crush on, which she was on True Blood and to suddenly heap in 1486 01:43:12.800 --> 01:43:17.000 person, And the only thing that protects me from completely hiding in my shell 1487 01:43:17.880 --> 01:43:23.079 is that I know that I am going to be more versed in the story 1488 01:43:23.399 --> 01:43:28.199 than they are. Right, I've said over the script for years. I 1489 01:43:28.319 --> 01:43:31.279 know every line I wrote. Some of those lines. I know why they're 1490 01:43:31.319 --> 01:43:34.800 in there. There isn't a single question that they can ask me that I 1491 01:43:34.880 --> 01:43:38.560 don't know the answer too. I'm not always going to give them the answer, 1492 01:43:38.600 --> 01:43:41.960 because sometimes you kind of want them to experiment a try and whatever. 1493 01:43:42.800 --> 01:43:45.800 But the only level of security that I get comes from my knowledge of the 1494 01:43:45.880 --> 01:43:48.960 script. So I guess that's what they're talking about when they say I'm so 1495 01:43:49.079 --> 01:43:54.119 prepared. I always want to have one version that I know I could fall 1496 01:43:54.159 --> 01:43:58.680 back on this scene if there's no idea on the day and I completely draw 1497 01:43:58.720 --> 01:44:00.600 a blank, which you always to do. There's are one or two days 1498 01:44:00.840 --> 01:44:04.800 in every shoot where you just for some reason freeze and don't have any answers, 1499 01:44:05.039 --> 01:44:08.880 and then it's good to be able to fall back on something that you've 1500 01:44:08.880 --> 01:44:12.520 figured out beforehand and kind of go off of that. And Yeah, it 1501 01:44:12.560 --> 01:44:16.439 was important to me to not be pigeonholed into the fake documentary corner, which 1502 01:44:16.479 --> 01:44:20.199 happens pretty quickly. And because in all meetings that I had, people were 1503 01:44:20.199 --> 01:44:25.279 always asking me the same thing, which is can you shoot conventionally? Now? 1504 01:44:25.279 --> 01:44:28.079 I was always like, well, that's what I studied in film school 1505 01:44:28.119 --> 01:44:31.319 for years. Just because I've made two fake documentary films, like they're the 1506 01:44:31.359 --> 01:44:36.760 exception. It's not that the narrative standard movie is the exception to what I 1507 01:44:36.840 --> 01:44:41.279 do, but the fake documentary. So I kind of had to prove that 1508 01:44:41.439 --> 01:44:45.279 to people. I think that was important to me, that it's not a 1509 01:44:45.279 --> 01:44:48.560 fake documentary movie. But if you notice, there isn't a single locked off 1510 01:44:48.600 --> 01:44:54.439 shot in thirteen Cents, it's all handheld. It's much much more stable than 1511 01:44:54.520 --> 01:44:59.359 last Exorcism because the character itself is not supposed to have a character but it's 1512 01:44:59.399 --> 01:45:04.079 all hand which goes back to the whole helping the performances and injecting the energy, 1513 01:45:04.319 --> 01:45:08.359 right, I mean it's not what I mean is yeah, it's not 1514 01:45:08.439 --> 01:45:11.399 like a shaky camera though, but it is right right. You know. 1515 01:45:12.600 --> 01:45:16.279 Um, what was the hardest part about changing formats and going into like a 1516 01:45:16.359 --> 01:45:23.039 purely narrative and you know, multicam kind of shot the film with that well, 1517 01:45:23.159 --> 01:45:25.319 or in general, what's the hardest part of like making a film? 1518 01:45:25.520 --> 01:45:28.720 What's kind of the part that you dread. I dread them all. I'm 1519 01:45:28.840 --> 01:45:32.199 terrified of every single step of it. And then every time, every time 1520 01:45:32.239 --> 01:45:34.560 after that step is done, I'm always like, oh that was kind of 1521 01:45:34.600 --> 01:45:36.640 pleasant. I don't know why I was so afraid of this, But the 1522 01:45:36.720 --> 01:45:42.079 next part is really going to suck. And then with every absolutely everything. 1523 01:45:42.279 --> 01:45:45.319 When I'm writing, I think writing is the most terrible. When I'm casting, 1524 01:45:45.359 --> 01:45:46.640 I'm like, oh my god, we'll never find our people. When 1525 01:45:46.680 --> 01:45:51.680 I'm blocking, it's it's it's a stressful thing if you're not not made for 1526 01:45:51.800 --> 01:45:56.399 that. I don't think character was I'm necessarily made. I'm more of a 1527 01:45:56.479 --> 01:46:00.039 writer soul than a director soul. I'm very introverted and and don't really I'm 1528 01:46:00.079 --> 01:46:03.640 not a leader person that goes like everyone look at me, I have the 1529 01:46:03.720 --> 01:46:09.239 solution and follow me kind of a thing. So it sucks. Directing sucks 1530 01:46:09.279 --> 01:46:13.760 a lot of energy every minute of it, just being social and being in 1531 01:46:13.840 --> 01:46:18.680 exchange with so many people for weeks. It's just I'm dead after a movie, 1532 01:46:18.680 --> 01:46:25.720 So that's kind of hard. The perfectionism is definitely hard because you have 1533 01:46:26.439 --> 01:46:30.199 with the standard movie, because you have a very clear idea of what you 1534 01:46:30.279 --> 01:46:33.039 wanted to be, and because it never is, you're always slightly frustrated and 1535 01:46:33.039 --> 01:46:38.199 you have to work against that frustration, whereas with the fake documentary is the 1536 01:46:38.239 --> 01:46:42.840 opposite. It didn't have a very clear idea of what the outcome was going 1537 01:46:42.840 --> 01:46:45.359 to be, but you get all these gifts along the way, so you're 1538 01:46:45.359 --> 01:46:47.800 always in a state of euphoria. So it's very different. Like one is 1539 01:46:47.800 --> 01:46:53.319 a very dark place. But even with Last Exorcism, I'm so tense when 1540 01:46:53.319 --> 01:46:57.039 I'm shooting that I can't and really enjoy it. If I look back at 1541 01:46:57.039 --> 01:47:00.720 the Last Exorcism time, which was the greatest time. It's great cast. 1542 01:47:00.720 --> 01:47:03.279 Ashley Bell could not be a lovelier and more talent person. I had my 1543 01:47:03.319 --> 01:47:06.319 friends around me and my cinematographer, my editor. It could not have been 1544 01:47:06.359 --> 01:47:10.560 a better time. And after it was done, I was like, why 1545 01:47:10.640 --> 01:47:15.920 didn't I enjoy that more? And it is because you're always anxious because they're 1546 01:47:15.960 --> 01:47:19.840 always expecting the next day to kind of go down in flames somehow, or 1547 01:47:19.880 --> 01:47:25.159 in me at least I do. I'm kind of a defensive pessimist, but 1548 01:47:25.520 --> 01:47:29.600 I'm always expecting doom around the next quarner. So that's maybe the hardest, 1549 01:47:29.720 --> 01:47:32.079 hardest thing with the standard format, and that you have to block. I 1550 01:47:32.079 --> 01:47:34.800 mean, there's so much you don't have to do in a fact documentary. 1551 01:47:34.800 --> 01:47:39.560 You don't tell the actors where they had to stand when they say what line, 1552 01:47:39.680 --> 01:47:43.720 you know, and that really helps and it saves you a lot of 1553 01:47:43.760 --> 01:47:46.239 time because you can't count on the camera following the movement of the actors. 1554 01:47:46.279 --> 01:47:49.119 Because you don't have to light anything, you can pan and go wherever you 1555 01:47:49.159 --> 01:47:59.319 want, and it's just much more restrictive in a standard format. Now, 1556 01:47:59.359 --> 01:48:03.840 do you want films while you're I mean, the obvious question is, and 1557 01:48:03.960 --> 01:48:10.479 I know that you've you answered this previously about movies like The Exorcism or movies 1558 01:48:10.520 --> 01:48:14.880 that are kind of in a similar genre. Do you try to watch movies 1559 01:48:14.920 --> 01:48:18.319 that are kind of in the same genre that of the one that you're making, 1560 01:48:18.479 --> 01:48:21.840 or do you try to stay Like with us Exorcism, it was important 1561 01:48:21.880 --> 01:48:28.000 because we knew that we were up against a classic, the Exorcist, that 1562 01:48:28.039 --> 01:48:30.560 no one has ever gone to top, and if we were trying to top 1563 01:48:30.600 --> 01:48:33.760 it, we just failed. So the only the only way for us was 1564 01:48:33.800 --> 01:48:38.920 to stay away from everything that the Exorcist did, like the levitation and the 1565 01:48:39.039 --> 01:48:44.319 crawling down the stairs backwards and this whole sexual stuff, and go for something 1566 01:48:44.359 --> 01:48:46.520 completely different and get out of the way of the Exorcist. And because of 1567 01:48:46.600 --> 01:48:50.640 that, it was important to watch that The Exorcist and know it in and 1568 01:48:50.720 --> 01:48:56.720 out, and also watch recent movies like The Exorcism of Emily Rose, because 1569 01:48:56.720 --> 01:49:00.119 you also wanted to stay clear out of stuff that they did. And there 1570 01:49:00.199 --> 01:49:04.640 was there was a scene that I loved in Last Exorcism that was so creepy, 1571 01:49:04.960 --> 01:49:10.079 and then someone gave me a copy of Paranormal Activity before that came out, 1572 01:49:10.680 --> 01:49:13.960 were editing Last Exercism, and it was exactly the same scene. It's 1573 01:49:14.000 --> 01:49:17.159 that scene where the girl stands up and just stares at her boyfriend sleeping, 1574 01:49:17.560 --> 01:49:20.439 and then it's kind of the clock going forward to little bit and you know, 1575 01:49:20.520 --> 01:49:24.760 she stands there for a hour, And we had the same without the 1576 01:49:24.760 --> 01:49:27.399 clock, obviously, but we had the same with the sun going up and 1577 01:49:27.439 --> 01:49:31.640 sun going down of our girls standing there staring at the exorcist who is asleep. 1578 01:49:31.920 --> 01:49:34.880 And we had to cut that scene out because I know we would have 1579 01:49:34.960 --> 01:49:40.159 been accused of copying that scene even though I hadn't seen it when we shot 1580 01:49:40.239 --> 01:49:43.840 it or wrote it. But yeah, you kind of have to be aware 1581 01:49:43.960 --> 01:49:46.039 of what the movies are that are going to be compared to, like my 1582 01:49:46.119 --> 01:49:49.520 next movie that I'm working on right now as a home invasion movie. So 1583 01:49:49.640 --> 01:49:56.199 I've watched you know, The Strangers and You Were Next, and all those 1584 01:49:56.239 --> 01:50:00.359 movies that came out recently, or that classics the genre, the wreck Back 1585 01:50:00.399 --> 01:50:03.960 and Wrap too. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, 1586 01:50:08.520 --> 01:50:12.960 and now back to the show, and you can know the men. You 1587 01:50:12.960 --> 01:50:17.880 can also it helps to just pull freeze frames from stuff that you like, 1588 01:50:18.079 --> 01:50:23.000 the look that you like that doesn't have to be home invasion movies necessarily. 1589 01:50:23.000 --> 01:50:27.680 Like I've told a lot of Blade Runner references that obviously it couldn't be more 1590 01:50:27.720 --> 01:50:30.439 different from story Bus, but I really like the look, and it really 1591 01:50:30.439 --> 01:50:34.279 helps if you can show people what you like and what you don't like. 1592 01:50:34.319 --> 01:50:36.920 With my cinematographer, I don't have to do that anymore as much because we've 1593 01:50:36.920 --> 01:50:40.880 made so many I mean, done many movies together. But we've known each 1594 01:50:40.880 --> 01:50:44.600 other for fifteen years and my taste hasn't changed that his taste hasn't changed, 1595 01:50:44.640 --> 01:50:47.760 so we don't have to re educate each other every single time we worked together. 1596 01:50:47.960 --> 01:50:51.800 But it definitely helps for everyone else, and for the producers that always 1597 01:50:51.800 --> 01:50:56.039 ask how are you going to shoot this? Which is such a weird question, 1598 01:50:56.119 --> 01:50:58.840 how am I going to shoot it? But I don't even know what 1599 01:50:58.840 --> 01:51:02.479 they're talking about. I guess they need what is the color spectrum? Or 1600 01:51:02.560 --> 01:51:05.159 are you going to use long lenses or not? Or are you going to 1601 01:51:05.199 --> 01:51:11.640 move the camera? And I mean a lot of directing is pretending that you 1602 01:51:11.680 --> 01:51:15.119 have answers that you actually don't have. It really is like every every meeting 1603 01:51:15.159 --> 01:51:18.960 that I have, the truth would be I have no idea. Look to 1604 01:51:19.000 --> 01:51:23.760 every question, how what do you whom? Do you want a cast? 1605 01:51:23.760 --> 01:51:26.119 Would I have no idea? I'm not there yet. We're still in the 1606 01:51:26.199 --> 01:51:30.000 story, but you need to give them answers because they want to feel that 1607 01:51:30.039 --> 01:51:33.159 you're in complete control, which everyone knows is a lie. But because everyone 1608 01:51:33.359 --> 01:51:38.399 is lying, every director that's auditioning for a movie is coming up with all 1609 01:51:38.439 --> 01:51:42.359 these, you know, completely made up things that they throw out as soon 1610 01:51:42.399 --> 01:51:45.319 as they start making the movie. But you first have to walk in with 1611 01:51:45.359 --> 01:51:48.319 the concept. So it really helps to have a visual presentation together and to 1612 01:51:48.399 --> 01:51:53.760 have a starting point for the work you're going to be doing. Well. 1613 01:51:53.800 --> 01:51:56.760 I've got one final question for you. I really appreciate you, know, 1614 01:51:56.760 --> 01:52:00.960 all the time that you've given us. If you could go back in time 1615 01:52:00.000 --> 01:52:04.640 and give yourself advice, give a younger version of yourself advice, what would 1616 01:52:04.640 --> 01:52:10.279 you tell yourself, Well, I lucked into it. I would tell myself 1617 01:52:10.319 --> 01:52:15.359 to fucking hell enjoy it, because there's nothing wrong with enjoying it. It's 1618 01:52:15.399 --> 01:52:17.840 not suddenly gone at derail just because you enjoy it. You know, you 1619 01:52:17.840 --> 01:52:20.800 don't have to live in fear day. But I know exactly on the next 1620 01:52:20.800 --> 01:52:24.680 movie, I'll be in fear again. And maybe that's just my amo. 1621 01:52:24.960 --> 01:52:28.319 I think it's getting better from movie to movie, it's probably not something I 1622 01:52:28.359 --> 01:52:30.680 can just tell my younger self and he would do it. But I lucked 1623 01:52:30.720 --> 01:52:36.439 out with a lot of things that did happen with me. But I would 1624 01:52:36.479 --> 01:52:40.920 tell and that I've basically gone through that why we were talking. I would 1625 01:52:40.960 --> 01:52:44.600 tell younger people not to look for the green light, wait for the green 1626 01:52:44.640 --> 01:52:49.439 light, to write something for the resources that they have, to not be 1627 01:52:49.600 --> 01:52:54.000 perfectionist and wait for the right moment because it'll never come, And to not 1628 01:52:54.079 --> 01:52:58.880 try to impress Hollywood with stuff that is money related, because they have all 1629 01:52:58.920 --> 01:53:03.359 the money the world. I think those things. That's actually, at least 1630 01:53:03.359 --> 01:53:09.239 what I'm trying to tell everyone from my old roommates who I watched wait and 1631 01:53:09.319 --> 01:53:13.520 developed for five years and the script was never quite ready and maybe someone optioned 1632 01:53:13.560 --> 01:53:16.560 it and maybe they'll get an agent until they walked out of the door with 1633 01:53:16.600 --> 01:53:19.239 the script and said, fuck it, I'm going to shoot this myself, 1634 01:53:19.239 --> 01:53:21.560 and I'm going to shoot it now. I always thought it was never going 1635 01:53:21.600 --> 01:53:26.079 to happen, and so I think you have to get to that point. 1636 01:53:26.079 --> 01:53:30.960 And if you look at people how people that are working in the film industry, 1637 01:53:30.000 --> 01:53:32.920 how they started, most of them have exactly that story. If it's 1638 01:53:32.920 --> 01:53:38.039 all in Pelly with paranormal activity, who just shot it for fifteen thousand dollars 1639 01:53:38.039 --> 01:53:42.920 in his apartment with two friends or whomever. Like, the first efforts are 1640 01:53:43.000 --> 01:53:48.439 always or almost always independent efforts that they didn't need anyone's approval for, because 1641 01:53:48.479 --> 01:53:53.119 no one is going to bet on you until you've proven that you can do 1642 01:53:53.119 --> 01:53:56.760 it. Short films are not proving it to them anymore, So it has 1643 01:53:56.760 --> 01:53:59.800 to be a feature. So you do have to make a feature on your 1644 01:53:59.800 --> 01:54:02.760 own and then just pray that you get into festivals and get noticed someone. 1645 01:54:04.000 --> 01:54:08.079 Yeah, I think that's you know. I did an interview with Brian Judovich 1646 01:54:09.520 --> 01:54:12.920 and that that was one of the key things that he said during that interview 1647 01:54:13.000 --> 01:54:15.920 was that, you know, when they're putting together projects that they're not one 1648 01:54:15.960 --> 01:54:18.800 of these gigantic studios. They find different elements and it's like, okay, 1649 01:54:18.840 --> 01:54:23.640 what can we let's build a story out of what we already have versus you 1650 01:54:23.680 --> 01:54:26.119 know. What I would do when I, you know, was just a 1651 01:54:26.239 --> 01:54:28.960 writer, was I would sit down and I would just say, Okay, 1652 01:54:28.960 --> 01:54:30.479 what can I imagine? You know, and I put stuff together. And 1653 01:54:30.800 --> 01:54:32.880 there was a part of me that would try to you know, okay, 1654 01:54:32.960 --> 01:54:36.079 well I don't want to have that spaceship blow up, you know. I 1655 01:54:36.239 --> 01:54:40.039 try to make it small enough so a production company would look at it, 1656 01:54:40.079 --> 01:54:43.479 But I was never writing it from what do I have right here around me 1657 01:54:43.520 --> 01:54:45.279 that we could actually film and just you know, make something really quick. 1658 01:54:45.319 --> 01:54:49.279 So I think that's well, it's really important because you think it'll be easier 1659 01:54:49.359 --> 01:54:53.640 if you have more freedom and if you can write whatever you want, that 1660 01:54:53.680 --> 01:54:57.439 you're not restricted by reality. But I think it's the opposite, like with 1661 01:54:57.520 --> 01:55:01.560 me at itast with necessary death. Sorry came very quickly because I had all 1662 01:55:01.560 --> 01:55:04.399 these restrictions, and I didn't look in outer space, and I didn't look 1663 01:55:04.439 --> 01:55:08.520 to the French Revolution, to whatever. But it was very clear it has 1664 01:55:08.560 --> 01:55:12.159 to be something that takes place in my kitchen, you know, and that 1665 01:55:12.760 --> 01:55:15.640 suddenly gives you a better framework for stuff, and that that helps. For 1666 01:55:15.720 --> 01:55:19.640 sure. I wouldn't even because you said you were writing something smaller so that 1667 01:55:19.680 --> 01:55:24.439 a production company will like it. I would even urge people to go one 1668 01:55:24.479 --> 01:55:30.239 step more radical and write something that they can do without a production company, 1669 01:55:30.279 --> 01:55:34.680 because even production companies are are not most of it will fall apart or they 1670 01:55:34.800 --> 01:55:38.520 never got to make it and you're tied up in that stuff. If you 1671 01:55:38.640 --> 01:55:44.479 really you need the persistence and the energy to emerge with something that you've made 1672 01:55:44.479 --> 01:55:48.359 without the help of a production company, I think, and there are probably 1673 01:55:48.399 --> 01:55:53.920 a lot of examples that would prove me wrong. But I also I don't 1674 01:55:53.920 --> 01:55:58.399 know anyone who actually relied on a production company and then got a movie made. 1675 01:55:58.640 --> 01:56:02.520 I just don't. I know the people that have gone the other direction 1676 01:56:02.560 --> 01:56:06.279 and shot their own thing and then one festivals and my wife is shooting something 1677 01:56:06.279 --> 01:56:10.920 with our best friend right now. They've made a movie that was huge and 1678 01:56:11.159 --> 01:56:14.479 was made for ten thousand dollars or something. There's just the thing is that 1679 01:56:14.520 --> 01:56:18.159 there's no excuse anymore today. I understand that there were times when you needed 1680 01:56:18.199 --> 01:56:24.520 that kind of money because the ever costed quarter million dollars and the camera shot 1681 01:56:24.560 --> 01:56:28.439 thirty five millimeter film and whatever, and you needed that support. The great 1682 01:56:28.479 --> 01:56:32.000 thing is today you need talent on your side, but you don't need the 1683 01:56:32.039 --> 01:56:36.359 support anymore. And that's a really big chance that we should take. I 1684 01:56:36.439 --> 01:56:41.920 think, Well, Daniel, I really appreciate you coming on the show. 1685 01:56:41.960 --> 01:56:45.319 I mean, this has been an amazing episode where at like two hours now 1686 01:56:45.359 --> 01:56:49.239 it was really really fun. Thanks Jason. I want to thank Jason so 1687 01:56:49.359 --> 01:56:53.159 much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to 1688 01:56:53.159 --> 01:56:55.880 get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the 1689 01:56:55.880 --> 01:57:00.399 show notes at Bulletproof screen Writing that TV forward slash three nineteen. Thank you 1690 01:57:00.399 --> 01:57:02.760 so much for listening. Guys, As always, keep on writing no matter 1691 01:57:02.840 --> 01:57:06.760 what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting 1692 01:57:06.800 --> 01:57:10.800 podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.