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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four thirty three.
Speaker 1: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
Speaker 1: breath and try again. KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark,
Speaker 1: windowless room in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: When we really should be working on that next draft.
Speaker 2: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
Speaker 2: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
Speaker 2: screenplay bulletproof.
Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
Speaker 3: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
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Speaker 1: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 4: No, it's my pleasure, Gary, because you are a person
Speaker 4: who I've had, who I've had, who I've wanted to
Speaker 4: have on here for a while. You see, I'm already
Speaker 4: messing up Grey. You see that I've had to I
Speaker 4: wanted to have you on here for a while. And
Speaker 4: I know I say that a lot, but honestly, you
Speaker 4: and I have you know, talked briefly before via face
Speaker 4: Book and Twitter, and then there was like a gap
Speaker 4: and then we were talking briefly again. So you know,
Speaker 4: you're just a person who I met years ago, who
Speaker 4: I now get to have in this medium, and it's
Speaker 4: so good to actually reconnect and and you know, do
Speaker 4: something like this.
Speaker 3: I think it's just so cool, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, I appreciate again you inviting me, because Twitter,
Speaker 5: you know, years ago, was actually a great place to
Speaker 5: network and meet people, actually physically meet people after you
Speaker 5: connect online, and it's changed a little bit into more
Speaker 5: of like a news feed. So I appreciate the fact
Speaker 5: that you would follow up or you did keep in touch,
Speaker 5: because I think we did meet years ago when it
Speaker 5: kind of first started. And I've just seen you blow
Speaker 5: up and I have to kind of do a little
Speaker 5: side note here and say, your voice and your style
Speaker 5: reminds me of like an eighties DJ, back when I
Speaker 5: was like commuting to school. I'm kind of old, you know,
Speaker 5: so you know there was these like shock jock DJs,
Speaker 5: not that you do a lot of cussing and you know,
Speaker 5: all these weird kind of antics and stuff, but you
Speaker 5: have that voice that really draws you in and stuff,
Speaker 5: and so you know, I think this is a really
Speaker 5: cool thing that you're doing.
Speaker 3: Gary. That is a huge compliment because I love the eighties.
Speaker 4: It was the best era of all time and in
Speaker 4: the in the course of all human history, the eighties
Speaker 4: is still the best time to ever be alive, and
Speaker 4: I appreciate that so much.
Speaker 3: Now my ego is going to be out of control now, Gary.
Speaker 6: It is. It is.
Speaker 5: It'd be like just to feed you get one more time,
Speaker 5: Like you would be like one of the guys in
Speaker 5: rotation at WKRP.
Speaker 4: I'm like, hey, this is David Gay RP. And I'd
Speaker 4: have like a horn or something like, you know, like exactly,
Speaker 4: and you're like, man, this guy's either you think he's
Speaker 4: brilliant or or your dad would be driving and be like,
Speaker 4: what the hell is this clown doing on the radio?
Speaker 6: Exactly, Man, exactly.
Speaker 4: So Gary, you and I again because we met a
Speaker 4: few years ago, but you and I actually have a
Speaker 4: same sorry, a similar trajectory, a similar a similar career
Speaker 4: path because you actually started out in IT and and
Speaker 4: development and stuff like that, and then you moved to
Speaker 4: New York to become a filmmaker. And I want to
Speaker 4: ask about that, just the sort of stories at the beginning.
Speaker 4: So I assume went to college for maybe computer science
Speaker 4: or something similar. So at what point did were you
Speaker 4: draw into like the IT work? I mean, were you
Speaker 4: always a big IT guy growing up?
Speaker 5: Actually it was HR and not IT because I'm not
Speaker 5: really technical.
Speaker 6: I actually suck at that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: My brother was the engineer of the family, and I
Speaker 5: went and fell into psychology for a while and got
Speaker 5: a degree in psychology and did human resources for five years,
Speaker 5: and it just wasn't a creative world, you know, like
Speaker 5: HR is all about rules and regulations, hiring and firing,
Speaker 5: and it's just kind of a very depressing realm that
Speaker 5: you live in. And after five years, there was kind
Speaker 5: of some way offs going around where it made me
Speaker 5: kind of wake up from what I was doing what
Speaker 5: I really wanted to do. And I was very lucky
Speaker 5: having my wife answered me when I told her I
Speaker 5: wanted to make films for a living instead of what
Speaker 5: the hell are you talking about? Her? You know, there
Speaker 5: was nothing like that. She just said to me, Okay,
Speaker 5: so let's figure out how we're going to get you there.
Speaker 5: I mean, it was like the perfect response. And this
Speaker 5: was like mid two thousands and yeah. So we've been
Speaker 5: going at it for a long time and every film
Speaker 5: that I do just gets me closer to the goal.
Speaker 6: But I'm definitely not even close to where I want
Speaker 6: to be.
Speaker 5: But it was definitely something where I had a love
Speaker 5: for it growing up because my parents showed me all
Speaker 5: these types of movies from different genres into fin errors
Speaker 5: when I was a kid, and that stuck with me
Speaker 5: the whole time.
Speaker 6: Even when I went and.
Speaker 5: Studied psychology, I didn't realize there was film school. I
Speaker 5: didn't realize people made films for a living, and that
Speaker 5: was part of the issue. That's why I didn't go
Speaker 5: to film school. I studied something else. But thankfully, as
Speaker 5: you know, nowadays, you don't actually have to go to
Speaker 5: film school. You actually have to just go make films.
Speaker 5: And that's part of the process of learning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you know, everyone has a camera nowadays and
Speaker 4: even making practice films. And you know that's something that
Speaker 4: has been talked about in this podcast through a myriad
Speaker 4: of guests, is just that if even if you don't
Speaker 4: have access to me maybe like a red package or
Speaker 4: or like an a Sony was the Airflex package, you
Speaker 4: know you have even if you take your phone and
Speaker 4: do it like Mark Duplas says, and just make a
Speaker 4: movie in your backyard for a hundred bucks or whatever.
Speaker 4: It's all training to build you, to make you get
Speaker 4: better so you can do other things, to do more
Speaker 4: things to do. Incident, now instead of one hundred dollar budget,
Speaker 4: you got a two undred dollars budget, and then you
Speaker 4: just keep moving forward.
Speaker 6: Exactly, man, exactly.
Speaker 5: There's nothing more educational than going and like writing something,
Speaker 5: trying to translate it from the page to the screen
Speaker 5: by working with your crew, working with actors, trying to
Speaker 5: produce the damn thing, you know, and then you're trying
Speaker 5: to edit the footage to make it seem like you know,
Speaker 5: you had some type of you know, idea that was
Speaker 5: that made sense at the time. There's like I'm paraphrasing
Speaker 5: Woody Yellen when he says something like I have this
Speaker 5: perfect film idea in my head and then I slowly
Speaker 5: mess it up as I write it and direct it,
Speaker 5: and you know, all that defini when it comes out.
Speaker 5: So it's such a learning lesson to do every film.
Speaker 5: I'm still learning. And the funny thing is, you know,
Speaker 5: all my films, the feature films that've done, are out
Speaker 5: there and it's basically my film school.
Speaker 6: They're almost like student films if you think about it.
Speaker 4: You know, So you were talking about Woody Allen and
Speaker 4: that that's also a guy who you know, some of
Speaker 4: the things that he talks about and some of the
Speaker 4: pointed things that he says are just like you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's exactly what my problem is.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, that's what I was doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, just to take a
Speaker 4: step back, you know, I want to talk about just
Speaker 4: in your background you mentioned HR and see this is
Speaker 4: me Gary. When I see Silicon Valley, I'm immediately like,
Speaker 4: okay it guy coding, you.
Speaker 3: Know, something with computer science.
Speaker 4: But so you worked in the corporate world, and that
Speaker 4: that's where I was, you know, about what a year
Speaker 4: ago or so, I worked at a college and it
Speaker 4: was just like, you realize, you don't.
Speaker 3: Want to do it anymore.
Speaker 4: It's such a grind. So you moved down to New
Speaker 4: York to become a filmmaker. I mean, did you, I
Speaker 4: mean just to sort of to dig a little deeper
Speaker 4: into that. Did you have a plan that this was
Speaker 4: going to be it drive like a day that you
Speaker 4: sat and said, listen, I'm not going to work this
Speaker 4: job anymore beyond this day and I'm just going to
Speaker 4: go to New York and become a filmmaker.
Speaker 3: Or did you sort of just do it on a whim?
Speaker 6: It was kind of it was a loose plan.
Speaker 5: It was definitely My wife had friends and family out
Speaker 5: in New York, so we we were living in the
Speaker 5: BA area Silicon Valley, and we said, okay, New York
Speaker 5: or LA are probably the two most prominent places where
Speaker 5: we can get stuff down done in network and all
Speaker 5: that stuff. And she's from upstate New York, so a
Speaker 5: lot of her friends actually moved down into the city
Speaker 5: and had she worked for the hospitality industry, so she
Speaker 5: put out feelers to both New York and LA and
Speaker 5: I just said, okay, so wherever you land your job,
Speaker 5: that's Fate telling us that's where we need to go.
Speaker 5: And those are the people I'm supposed to meet because
Speaker 5: I had no connections, and it just figured, you know,
Speaker 5: I was just going to let you know, Fate play
Speaker 5: a hand and who I'm going to work with, and
Speaker 5: what kind of stories I'm going to tell, what kind
Speaker 5: of locations we're going to use, And it ended up
Speaker 5: being New York and it was an amazing experience. Again,
Speaker 5: the part of the plan was my wife was going
Speaker 5: to have the stable job while I was just starting fresh.
Speaker 5: We did cash out my four and one K, which
Speaker 5: wasn't much after go to Uncle Sam took taxes away,
Speaker 5: but we used that to make my first feature film.
Speaker 5: I saved up a little bit more and when we
Speaker 5: moved out there, I made contexts by doing some web
Speaker 5: commercials and doing some other smaller projects first to build
Speaker 5: up a network of people that saw my passion, saw
Speaker 5: what I was trying to do, knew there wasn't much
Speaker 5: money in it, but because of the story I written
Speaker 5: and the things that I wanted to do, they were
Speaker 5: in it for a little pay, knowing that we were
Speaker 5: going to try to make something that was going to
Speaker 5: get a lot of exposure for them.
Speaker 4: So when you made that first film, Gary, did you
Speaker 4: write for the budget? And no, Hey, listen, I can't
Speaker 4: make a huge action film.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I can't make a four million dollar action film or
Speaker 4: something like that. So did you write knowing this has
Speaker 4: to be a small, compacted film? Small not obviously, you know,
Speaker 4: it's professional and everything. I just met like small as
Speaker 4: in scope again because we're not right, We're not trying
Speaker 4: to make a four million dollar action film.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So yes and no.
Speaker 5: Because my first feature film was called New York Lately,
Speaker 5: and at the time I was really inspired by Robert
Speaker 5: Altman and Pete t. Anderson and very a kaleidoscope of characters,
Speaker 5: you know, following multiple storylines like shortcuts and boogie nights.
Speaker 6: The thing was, I also picked.
Speaker 5: That type of project because I was asking at the
Speaker 5: time actors to work for no money. It would just
Speaker 5: be the wonderful meals, copy and credit. So what I
Speaker 5: wanted to do was have a lot of characters so
Speaker 5: that each actor was only committing three to four days
Speaker 5: of filming. It would still be a feature film, but
Speaker 5: you know, the majority of actors were only committing three
Speaker 5: to five days of their time and not like sixteen
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five days of no pay, because I really
Speaker 5: feel like shit if I was doing that. But this
Speaker 5: was something we were casting a lot of newcomers, a
Speaker 5: lot of people that hadn't had a lot of experience
Speaker 5: at the time.
Speaker 6: One of them actually is blown up.
Speaker 5: She's on You're the Worst is Kelvin donnaghue, and she
Speaker 5: was in a small role in my film at the time.
Speaker 6: She had some credits and she filmed for one day,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 5: So it was kind of just trying to be practical
Speaker 5: about asking for people's time and commitment, knowing you weren't
Speaker 5: paying to make a multiple storyline, a lot of actors
Speaker 5: and characters, and then just being inspired by the type
Speaker 5: of films at that time that I was digging. So
Speaker 5: I just wanted to kind of combine those two.
Speaker 4: So let me ask you this, Gary, did you ever
Speaker 4: when Heather got you know, was just got that a level,
Speaker 4: elite level, did you try to reach out to her
Speaker 4: and she say, who are you or something like that.
Speaker 5: Actually, no, you know, the funny thing was I moved
Speaker 5: to LA right, I think as she booked it, or
Speaker 5: was a little bit before she booked it. So she
Speaker 5: moved to LA before I did, about four years ago
Speaker 5: or something like that, and we connected for dinner and uh,
Speaker 5: you know, just cut up and then she booked it.
Speaker 6: And so you know, she.
Speaker 5: Definitely thanked me when I text her, like holy shit,
Speaker 5: congrats and stuff. And I mean, obviously he's busy now,
Speaker 5: so she won't write me back is often, but she
Speaker 5: definitely does respond.
Speaker 6: She's a very sweet girl.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know that's awesome. And uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I always make that joke with friends of mine if
Speaker 4: any of us ever, you know, won a contest or
Speaker 4: got distribution, it'd be like, immediately it all goes to
Speaker 4: your head.
Speaker 3: And become you know, like your ego just gets that
Speaker 3: so out of whack.
Speaker 4: And we all make that joke with each other that
Speaker 4: like as soon as one of us hits like, we're
Speaker 4: not going to know anybody anymore, You're just gonna be
Speaker 4: a big time with everybody.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: It's almost like you make it and you like buy
Speaker 5: a new phone and don't import your contact so you're like,
Speaker 5: you're like, who the hell is this now? Like you're
Speaker 5: not gonna you know, told you're gonna change your whole
Speaker 5: like click of people or something that'd be that would
Speaker 5: be actually pretty.
Speaker 4: Terrible, And you know that that's the dream, Gary, that's
Speaker 4: the dream. No, I'm just kidding. If everyone listening, I'm
Speaker 4: just making a joke. I don't want people writing me
Speaker 4: more hate mail. But but but walking aside, Gary, just
Speaker 4: to get back.
Speaker 3: To, you know, to your career.
Speaker 4: One thing that you taught me, and this was what
Speaker 4: you taught me a few years ago, which I've always
Speaker 4: kept with me, was when you're filming a movie and
Speaker 4: and you're the director and you're directing these actors and
Speaker 4: you're going through take and take and take. One thing
Speaker 4: you taught me that I always keep with me is
Speaker 4: each take you need to have a variation of something
Speaker 4: so that way, when you're editing, you have choices to
Speaker 4: go through. And as as you know pointed as that is.
Speaker 4: For some reason, when I was making my first films,
Speaker 4: I don't know why, I'd never thought of just even
Speaker 4: trying to do anything different, because like my early films,
Speaker 4: everything was like every everything was the same, Like every
Speaker 4: take was literally like exactly the same. And when you
Speaker 4: told me that, I was like, oh, yeah, that actually
Speaker 4: makes a lot of sense, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: And you make those adjustments. So so that's something Gary
Speaker 4: that you've taught me that I've kept with me is
Speaker 4: just you gotta you gotta have those choices when you're
Speaker 4: in the editing room.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Man, that's funny because that basically happened on my
Speaker 5: first short film. When I was sitting there reviewing the
Speaker 5: footage with my brother. He was like, dude, like every take,
Speaker 5: like all these takes are the same thing. You didn't
Speaker 5: deal with do anything else, So am I what are
Speaker 5: you trying to even choose? Except like if his hand,
Speaker 5: you know, happens to like randomly lift up at this
Speaker 5: line versus this other line, or whatever you know, but
Speaker 5: basically I hadn't on that first film, didn't tell me
Speaker 5: to do anything different because I was just looking for
Speaker 5: this single thing. I was so focused. I'm trying to
Speaker 5: get this one thing that you know, I didn't really
Speaker 5: ask them to play around. But I mean directors have
Speaker 5: different techniques. Some people like definitely have one single thing
Speaker 5: in mind and they're just trying to nail that one thing.
Speaker 5: And that's what it is. And I've heard other actors
Speaker 5: say that, you know, why do I want to play
Speaker 5: around with stuff? Like, just tell me what you want,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna nail it.
Speaker 6: So it's funny.
Speaker 5: It's like it's it's this kind of organic thing that
Speaker 5: you feel on set. You know what you want and
Speaker 5: you have to feel out how the actor and how
Speaker 5: the actor works and stuff. So it's it's it's really
Speaker 5: really a weird thing to work as a director because
Speaker 5: you actually don't get to do it a lot.
Speaker 6: Or not me, I don't get to do it a lot.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: You there's like years in between times when you're on set.
Speaker 5: You can do some smaller short projects or things like that.
Speaker 5: But when you think about it, the director, if you're fortunate,
Speaker 5: maybe you get to do two or three projects a year.
Speaker 5: If you're you know, if you're playing around a lot more,
Speaker 5: that's great. But if you're doing like really big projects
Speaker 5: with a lot of money, the opportunity to work with
Speaker 5: actors is not as much. When the you know, when
Speaker 5: the money's going, when the crew is there and everything's
Speaker 5: on the line, like there's not you don't get to
Speaker 5: do that very often. So it's not like you get
Speaker 5: a lot of practice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and very true.
Speaker 4: And you know that's why again we're talking about making
Speaker 4: movies yourself with you know, even just for practice, so
Speaker 4: that way when you do actually get up to the plate,
Speaker 4: you know, you're actually able to sort of make the most.
Speaker 3: Of every every single take and everything.
Speaker 4: And you know, as we sort of you know, talk
Speaker 4: about that, you know, these directing styles. One thing too,
Speaker 4: I forget who taught me this, but basically I think
Speaker 4: I think I maybe heard it from somebody. But he
Speaker 4: said what he would do is he would just let
Speaker 4: he would let the actors go the first take was
Speaker 4: with no direction. They would just go through the script
Speaker 4: and then he then he would slowly come back in
Speaker 4: and start making adjustments here or there. And you know,
Speaker 4: some people are you know maybe their their third take
Speaker 4: is always going to be their best for some weird reason,
Speaker 4: and then the other actor always has their best take
Speaker 4: is like the first take, you know, and just sort
Speaker 4: of working and knowing everybody sort of ticks like that
Speaker 4: or knowing that sort of thing. You know, that also
Speaker 4: helps repair, which is also why Gary, I've noticed a
Speaker 4: lot of directors always work with the same actors over
Speaker 4: and over again.
Speaker 5: Right, very true, very true. A part of the rehearsal process,
Speaker 5: if I'm lucky to get it, is finding out actors
Speaker 5: working style.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: Some people love to be told exactly what to do,
Speaker 5: like look here at this line and look there, and
Speaker 5: others want to be told what's my motivation? Like why
Speaker 5: am I doing this? I need to know and feel
Speaker 5: organically if you need me to go over here or
Speaker 5: do this, like tell me like my internal characters motivation
Speaker 5: or behaviors or thoughts to be.
Speaker 6: Able to do that.
Speaker 5: So you can always explore that working relationship in rehearsals
Speaker 5: if you have a luxury. But you're right, it is
Speaker 5: funny because as you start filming, you realize, damn this
Speaker 5: this one actress, Okay, her best takes or take one
Speaker 5: and two, and then it just starts to you know,
Speaker 5: fills a lot because she comes out of gates like boom,
Speaker 5: you know, right there. And then there's others where like,
Speaker 5: you know, we're not really going to get anything good
Speaker 5: until takes four, five, and six, because we've consistently seen that,
Speaker 5: and you start, you know, you know, switching up your
Speaker 5: shot lists because of that, which is hilarious. So, I mean,
Speaker 5: there's so so many different things going on set as
Speaker 5: a director. It's funny that you got to think about
Speaker 5: things like that. And I'm talking to you about this
Speaker 5: because not really, it doesn't get talked about a lot
Speaker 5: until you actually do it and you realize, oh, that's
Speaker 5: how it works, you know, although I see, like books
Speaker 5: don't tell you this kind of stuff a lot of
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's so true because you know, I have
Speaker 4: a ton of filmmaking books, and you know, as I've
Speaker 4: sort of read them through different eyes, you know, you
Speaker 4: read reading through the eyes of like a complete novice,
Speaker 4: you know, your complete needs, and then you really and
Speaker 4: then you realize some of these books they're written by
Speaker 4: people who've either never written or made a film, and
Speaker 4: it's a lot of theory or they made a film
Speaker 4: like thirty years ago and you're like, well, you know, okay,
Speaker 4: some of it's still pertinent, but some of it's just like,
Speaker 4: you know, hey, here's a great deal in a movieola
Speaker 4: and you're like, what the heck. So it's you know,
Speaker 4: it's just stuff like that, and you realize, well, damn,
Speaker 4: this book's out of date.
Speaker 3: And but but you know, that's why I wanted to
Speaker 3: start this podcast.
Speaker 4: Stuff like that, you know, really getting into the nitty
Speaker 4: of gritty of stuff that people can actually take away.
Speaker 4: And it's actually full on, you know, actual practical advice,
Speaker 4: no theory, it's just this is how it is, and
Speaker 4: this is what you can do when a situation like
Speaker 4: that arrives exactly.
Speaker 5: Man, the funniest thing I definitely in the beginning of
Speaker 5: my career, like twelve ten, twelve years ago, I bought
Speaker 5: a lot of screenplaybooks. And obviously, when people are writing
Speaker 5: and they're reading these screen how to you know, how
Speaker 5: to write green plays? You just take the golden nuggets
Speaker 5: from each book. Obviously, not every book is the Bible.
Speaker 5: We have to follow to the te you know, but
Speaker 5: it's funny when you actually look at these authors, when
Speaker 5: you actually research. Like you said, you take a look
Speaker 5: at their actual filmography, like what have they done? And
Speaker 5: sometimes it's nothing or Okay, they've sold a lot of stuff,
Speaker 5: which is great, nothing has been made or some people
Speaker 5: like have sold one thing. So obviously they have some
Speaker 5: type of credentials, but they're not the only one that
Speaker 5: knows how to do it, which is you know, the
Speaker 5: funniest thing, because I had some people try to tell me, oh,
Speaker 5: your script doesn't follow Robert McKee. It's like, well, that's fine.
Speaker 5: You know, I don't want to follow Robert McKee's story.
Speaker 5: This script doesn't want to, you know, do his formula.
Speaker 5: There's they prescribe just to one book, which kind of
Speaker 5: drives me mad.
Speaker 3: You know, I have. I did the same thing.
Speaker 4: The first book I ever read was actually a screenplay
Speaker 4: formatting book. It was called the Screenwriners Bible, and I
Speaker 4: did read the story and you know, by McKee.
Speaker 1: Right back after a word from our sponsor and now
Speaker 1: back to the show.
Speaker 4: And you know, I've read all these different books and
Speaker 4: I think you you know, I'm in the same boat
Speaker 4: with you because I think a lot of the times
Speaker 4: there's so much theory going on that eventually you have
Speaker 4: to say, what can I use out of this book?
Speaker 4: It's kind of what Bruce Lee you always say, you know,
Speaker 4: you get rid of take what's useful, and get rid
Speaker 4: of the rest.
Speaker 3: And you're always you're always looking for that.
Speaker 4: You're always looking for like what is that one quote
Speaker 4: or golden nugget that I'm going to read? That's good,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go aha, I have an aha moment, and
Speaker 4: now my perception has changed and that has given me
Speaker 4: a new way of thinking to solve a problem or
Speaker 4: a dilemma or something like that. But you really, those
Speaker 4: books are really it's far few and far between because
Speaker 4: you're trying to, you know, constantly have all this theory
Speaker 4: and worry about all these formulas like oh, my gosh,
Speaker 4: does this scene have a positive or negative charge? You're like,
Speaker 4: what the hell does that even freaking mean? You know,
Speaker 4: you're you're have all this theory in these books and
Speaker 4: you sit there and you go, well, how do I
Speaker 4: actually implement that? You know, you can't be writing and
Speaker 4: go writing to a formula or writing to a template
Speaker 4: or writing to oh does this scene of a negative
Speaker 4: or positive charge? And eventually you start getting lost in
Speaker 4: your own head and then you never actually you get
Speaker 4: stuck an indecision and never actually do anything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's totally true, because you're right, you just start
Speaker 5: overthinking things. And part of the goal is just to
Speaker 5: finish a script. To me that I have so many
Speaker 5: people that have said, oh, I'm working on a script.
Speaker 5: I'm writing this, I'm writing that. I've gotten an idea.
Speaker 5: I always say, have you finished it? Have you finished
Speaker 5: a draft? Well, no, I haven't.
Speaker 6: It's like, man, you know, it's like you got to
Speaker 6: get over that hump.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of people that have this fear of
Speaker 5: just like actually finishing it and getting that feedback. And
Speaker 5: I call it the vomit draft. There's a million different
Speaker 5: names for the first draft. You just got to get
Speaker 5: it out there, done and give it to some trusted
Speaker 5: readers and just get that kind of feedback because again,
Speaker 5: almost like making a film, it's writing a script is
Speaker 5: a learning lesson because after you write it, you've learned
Speaker 5: so much. You have something on the page to analyze
Speaker 5: and dissect now and get some feedback and then rewrite.
Speaker 6: Because as they say, the cliche is writing is rewriting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, writing is rewriting definitely, because once you get that out.
Speaker 4: You have to think you can go back and figure
Speaker 4: out what actually things are. Oh, this is what this means.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of times too, that's where
Speaker 4: you get sort of caught up. I think a lot
Speaker 4: of times where writers get caught up. Honestly, Gary is
Speaker 4: input versus output. And here's what I mean by that.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times when writers are writing
Speaker 4: a script or maybe even on the filmmakers are making
Speaker 4: a short film or a feature length film, they're more
Speaker 4: focused on the output of what the movie is going
Speaker 4: to give. That meaning they're that all this movie is
Speaker 4: going to go to Sundance and we're gonna win and
Speaker 4: we're all going to become millionaires overnight.
Speaker 6: And I guilty.
Speaker 4: I think we've all had that, honestly, man, I think
Speaker 4: we've all had that where it's like, Hey, this short
Speaker 4: film this, I'm gonna put this up on YouTube or
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do this, and we're going to become, you know,
Speaker 4: overnight sensations and that's going to be our meal ticket.
Speaker 4: And I and I honestly think you have to have
Speaker 4: that attitude at some point because you have to have
Speaker 4: some kind of passion or in the game that you're
Speaker 4: going to be the best one, And I honestly I
Speaker 4: think that's actually a good thing. But I think the
Speaker 4: other part of it is it's like a double edged
Speaker 4: sword because then you become so focused on what it's
Speaker 4: going to give you that you're not focused on that
Speaker 4: input of actually making it a good movie.
Speaker 3: You're focused on the right parts of it.
Speaker 5: I totally agree it's a hard thing to balance. You definitely,
Speaker 5: you know you want to make a living at it,
Speaker 5: so you want that type of success, but it shouldn't
Speaker 5: be your driving goal when you're creating, because then you're
Speaker 5: kind of guessing what some other person wants when it
Speaker 5: should be your story. It should be what you want
Speaker 5: to tell and the byproduct of that. And as always
Speaker 5: you see that, especially at the film festivals and the
Speaker 5: festival darlings. Usually it's the more personal the story, it's
Speaker 5: actually the more accessible it is to an audience because
Speaker 5: they still relate to it because they see that struggle.
Speaker 5: Regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation and whatnot,
Speaker 5: they relate to that struggle, you know. So it's something
Speaker 5: where the more watered down and the more you're trying
Speaker 5: to guess, the more story by committee the film is
Speaker 5: and it's just becomes something that nobody really cares about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's universal themes that really could sort of you know,
Speaker 4: hit home. And also when I noticed when the movie
Speaker 4: does come with a story like hey this is my
Speaker 4: biopic or hey this is you know, something that's actually
Speaker 4: happened to me, and it's a you know, I mean
Speaker 4: I've had you know, different people who I actually had
Speaker 4: a Sundance Award when are on here, which was Morgan
Speaker 4: Jay Freeman. He's episode ninety nine. He was actually on here.
Speaker 4: He actually won Sundance I think in what ninety two
Speaker 4: or something, and he was explaining, you know how the
Speaker 4: whole thing sort of came together, and you know, it's
Speaker 4: you know, it was a movie about these kids in
Speaker 4: New York and a lot of people were like, hey,
Speaker 4: you know what that's it has a universal theme. Or
Speaker 4: you can grow up anywhere like this, and you know
Speaker 4: you'll feel some of that, you know, you'll feel some
Speaker 4: of that, some of those universal themes like ostracization, being
Speaker 4: a kid, you know, you know, stuff like that. And
Speaker 4: you know that's why it's not a bad thing to
Speaker 4: put any of that stuff in a screenplay.
Speaker 3: I you know, I was a part of a writers
Speaker 3: group one time, and people.
Speaker 4: Were actually saying, like, oh, why does everything have to
Speaker 4: have universal themes blah blah this or that. I'm like
Speaker 4: because it, you know, it's what draws people into your story.
Speaker 4: You know, feelings, regret and stuff like that. Everyone has those,
Speaker 4: and I think that that's a key element to sort
Speaker 4: of why some screenplays sell, get made, et cetera.
Speaker 5: You know, yeah, it's funny too, because there's there's not
Speaker 5: a formula at all. I mean, I made my most
Speaker 5: successful one to date was in festival Wise. Critically Wise
Speaker 5: was how do you write a Joe Sherman's on my musical?
Speaker 5: And it's about browdie musicians, about Broadway people aspiring for success,
Speaker 5: and some characters are people that haven't reached it and
Speaker 5: they almost have to give up their career and it's
Speaker 5: about you know, striving but not getting there ever. And
Speaker 5: even though it's about Broadway, it had so many people
Speaker 5: at the festival circuit come up to me and said, man,
Speaker 5: I just really up for this character or that character's me.
Speaker 5: Even they're not a dancer or a singer, but within
Speaker 5: their life they had some type of goal that they
Speaker 5: never reached. And they never got to get there, and
Speaker 5: they will never get there. And so it's again, like
Speaker 5: you said, a universal theme. It can be any topic
Speaker 5: or subject setting, but there's something there that people relate to.
Speaker 5: And that was powerful for me to learn from that
Speaker 5: film because I made other films that I thought were
Speaker 5: great and they you know, didn't turn out how I
Speaker 5: thought they were going to be. And you know, the
Speaker 5: festivals didn't really take to them. Audiences you know, some
Speaker 5: some liked it, some didn't. So it's just, you know,
Speaker 5: once you have that type of critical success, it's not
Speaker 5: like you can just copy and paste it to the
Speaker 5: next thing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: It's always it's such an organic, interesting process to try
Speaker 5: to just create something that people will respond to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the key.
Speaker 4: That's why I think a lot of times when people
Speaker 4: take these movies and they sort of they deconstruct them.
Speaker 4: They'll take like The Godfather or Raging Bowl or whatever,
Speaker 4: and they take it and they reverse engineer it and
Speaker 4: they go, how can I make that? Oh, well, you
Speaker 4: see this one scene here in Scarface where he kills
Speaker 4: the guy unexpectedly, Well, that that's what you that that's
Speaker 4: his hero's turning point. Blah, blah blah blah blah. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: you know, at first, you when you when you're reading
Speaker 4: screen when you're reading these screenwrining books, you're like, oh, wow, yeah,
Speaker 4: that that's a brilliant that's a brilliant thing to say.
Speaker 4: That's a brilliant analytical statement. But then as you sort
Speaker 4: of realize, well, but how does that work towards us,
Speaker 4: you know, well, maybe yeah, you might be able to say, hey,
Speaker 4: if someone's reading your screenplay, hey remember in Scarface when
Speaker 4: he did this thing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it might be cool here.
Speaker 4: Maybe I don't know, but I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 4: but to write using that whole idea, I don't know
Speaker 4: if that's that's that holds a lot of weight to it.
Speaker 4: You know, you want to you don't want to be
Speaker 4: ripping off movies. I actually had a friend of mine
Speaker 4: who was in a screen running competition, but he was
Speaker 4: a judge, and he literally said he would read these
Speaker 4: screenplays and he said, Okay, this is a scene from
Speaker 4: The Godfather, this is a scene from uh, you know,
Speaker 4: uh Casino, stuff like that, And he realize they're just
Speaker 4: copying these movies because you know, that's what they like,
Speaker 4: and they're trying to make a version of that.
Speaker 6: Right, that's true.
Speaker 5: But you know what, Dave, I think every script needs
Speaker 5: the line. You know, first you get the power. Once
Speaker 5: you get the power, and you get the women, like
Speaker 5: everyone needs that. I just kidding, but yeah, no, I
Speaker 5: mean it's so true though, like you can't you can't.
Speaker 6: Just like I said, copy and paste things.
Speaker 5: They can definitely be inspired by stuff, but you know,
Speaker 5: you can be influenced by things. But to try to
Speaker 5: just say it worked there, it's a moment I can
Speaker 5: think that that I think will just work here because
Speaker 5: it worked there. That's that's a little hard to kind
Speaker 5: of like force it in. So you know, it's something
Speaker 5: where it's it's a learning lesson. Again, I think people
Speaker 5: definitely once they finish that script and get that feedback,
Speaker 5: you can tell when something's you know, authentic and.
Speaker 6: Should be there.
Speaker 5: Whereas people be like, this feels like it's from a
Speaker 5: left field because it was doing this and all of
Speaker 5: a sudden put this scene in here, and it totally
Speaker 5: doesn't make sense, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, I do agree that that line
Speaker 4: should be in every movie, by the way, and that
Speaker 4: that should be I take that back, It should be
Speaker 4: in every movie, and uh that that that is uh
Speaker 4: you know that is something that that it just lets
Speaker 4: you know who the guy is. You know who let
Speaker 4: who the guy is, and they wants the women in
Speaker 4: the power and and everything. So, you know, guys, as
Speaker 4: we're talking sort of too about you know, making writing
Speaker 4: screenplays and and actually all these sort of fine points
Speaker 4: about directing, I wanted to ask about your second feature
Speaker 4: film because after you made your first feature, or after
Speaker 4: you made your first film in New York, you know, where,
Speaker 4: at what point did you start wanting to make your
Speaker 4: second one. You were already like, look, I'm gonna use
Speaker 4: this momentum and push this right into my second film,
Speaker 4: which was I think, uh it was Dying of the Dead,
Speaker 4: right or.
Speaker 6: It's actually I got lucky.
Speaker 5: I got hired to make a horror movie called Dismal
Speaker 5: by some producers who were based in North Carolina, and
Speaker 5: we went to shoot in Georgia.
Speaker 6: So that was just a director for hire.
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Speaker 5: And I wanted to gain that experience of working with
Speaker 5: somebody else's script, working with a producer, working on location.
Speaker 5: So I was out in Georgia for like I think
Speaker 5: five or six weeks. So it's something I, you know,
Speaker 5: got very lucky with and I was really excited because
Speaker 5: I started looking like Woody Allen or you know, Steven Soderberg,
Speaker 5: like I was pumping out like wow, this this year,
Speaker 5: I got two movies coming out. And then the next
Speaker 5: year I had What's Up Lovely, which I was doing
Speaker 5: on my own, and I made it for like two
Speaker 5: thousand dollars, So I had three movies coming out in
Speaker 5: two years. So I was like, this is cool. This
Speaker 5: is something I'm going to keep doing because that's it
Speaker 5: feels so easy, you know, like.
Speaker 6: Movie the Year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is a great pace. Obviously it doesn't doesn't
Speaker 5: work like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so sorry.
Speaker 4: Eventually the break starts a slam and you're like, oh man,
Speaker 4: you know, and I think we've all been there too,
Speaker 4: where you're like, well, what the hell's next and you
Speaker 4: just want to make something, you know, like I'll make anything.
Speaker 3: Let's just do this thing.
Speaker 4: Uh So I but I but I what I meant
Speaker 4: to say was death of the dead. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 4: call it dying of the dead, but death of the day.
Speaker 4: So I'm starting to like all you know, all the
Speaker 4: ramerror movies are coming into no but I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4: But uh, but when you actually so, when you started
Speaker 4: to actually go back and make your own films, you know,
Speaker 4: at what point were you just like, you know, I
Speaker 4: want to go back to.
Speaker 3: Making my own stuff.
Speaker 4: I mean, you did say you got a director for hire,
Speaker 4: gig and you got to work with somebody else's script.
Speaker 4: But at what point were you like, you know, I
Speaker 4: want to go back to just you know, doing some
Speaker 4: more of my own, my own material.
Speaker 5: You know, at that time, I was really really inspired
Speaker 5: by Steven Soderberg and his body of work at you know,
Speaker 5: his commercial peak was I think got the late nineties,
Speaker 5: mid two thousands, where he was doing we were saying,
Speaker 5: we were calling it the one for one for me,
Speaker 5: one for them, one for them, one for me. So
Speaker 5: he was doing you know, Aaron Brockovich for the studio,
Speaker 5: but then he'd go and make the or he make
Speaker 5: Out of Sight for the CEO. Then he'd go and
Speaker 5: make some gosh full as a full frontal I think
Speaker 5: it was called. So he'd make you know, smaller independent films,
Speaker 5: experimental stuff like The Girlfriend and Experience. I was in
Speaker 5: love with him doing smaller films that were taking risks
Speaker 5: and doing different type of storytelling, and then he'd makes
Speaker 5: something for the studio, And obviously I was doing on
Speaker 5: a way lower budget, way lower scale and scope, but
Speaker 5: that was kind of like my idol at the time,
Speaker 5: just like, you know, if I can sustain this thing
Speaker 5: where I'm going to make something for myself and then
Speaker 5: go get hired to do something and take some of
Speaker 5: that money and you know, funnel it back into mind
Speaker 5: to make another film for myself, like this could be
Speaker 5: kind of cool. And that's what I was trying to
Speaker 5: do in my early early career with the first I
Speaker 5: think four films or so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know Steven Soderberg, He's always up to something,
Speaker 4: and it's always really cool to see directors like that.
Speaker 4: I have a friend of mine he loves Richard link
Speaker 4: Letter because Richard just does whatever he wants. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you watch the same thing exactly, because if you
Speaker 4: watched uh, his latest one, which I think is called
Speaker 4: Everyone Loves Some or Everyone Wants Some, Uh, that one
Speaker 4: that was that last year. I had a friend of
Speaker 4: mine who watched it and was like, Dave, is there
Speaker 4: a plot to this movie? And I said, I said, well, no,
Speaker 4: it's Richard Linkletter. It's just you know, it is what
Speaker 4: it is, and uh, you know, it's it's I knew
Speaker 4: what to expect going in there, you know. And and
Speaker 4: that's sort of why I think everybody wants to have
Speaker 4: now the director's career who everyone wants to have is
Speaker 4: of course Damien Chase, because you know he did he
Speaker 4: did uh.
Speaker 3: Lot of Land and then he did with all that
Speaker 3: whip whiplash.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah I could I just blanked down in that name.
Speaker 4: But uh but yeah, but you know, and that's sort
Speaker 4: of the thing is. You know, again, I think a
Speaker 4: lot of people are are focused on that, on that output,
Speaker 4: because again you're the saying, well, Damien now can pretty
Speaker 4: much do whatever he wants.
Speaker 3: He used to be Tarantino.
Speaker 4: Everyone wanted his career because and and that's where I'm
Speaker 4: guilty at Gary. I still want his career just because
Speaker 4: he came out of no where working at a video store.
Speaker 4: That's what I love is that he didn't go to
Speaker 4: film score or anything else.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, man, I mean that's I remember you on
Speaker 5: your other podcast you mentioned that you worked I think
Speaker 5: at a video store. I worked at a Blockbuster up
Speaker 5: in Seattle for a summer one summer while I was
Speaker 5: in school, and it was awesome.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 5: And again I didn't go to film school either, and
Speaker 5: so it's something where just watching films, absorbing them and
Speaker 5: then again is more about the actual making of them.
Speaker 6: Is the education you need. Film school was amazing, don't
Speaker 6: get me wrong.
Speaker 5: If I had the chance that the networking opportunity is amazing.
Speaker 5: The people, the connections to get, the alumni connections you
Speaker 5: get once you start entering the industry are totally totally amazing.
Speaker 6: And that's something I wish i'd done.
Speaker 5: But I met so many people that have gone to
Speaker 5: film school or no people that have gone, and they say, oh,
Speaker 5: well they you know, they don't really they don't really
Speaker 5: make movies though they don't really know how to like
Speaker 5: direct movies. They've done some shorts, but they've never done
Speaker 5: a feature or whatever. So it's you know, it's still
Speaker 5: a live sword. But it's something I think everyone was
Speaker 5: living that dream when you wanted to be Tarantino or
Speaker 5: Rubber rigaz back in the nineties, and like you said,
Speaker 5: Dame Gazelle, now it's there's so many that's a good thing,
Speaker 5: like you have idols to aspire to be, which is,
Speaker 5: you know, keeps your fire going.
Speaker 4: So when you worked at that Blockbuster in Seattle, do
Speaker 4: you have any funny stories, Gary, any funny customer stories any?
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, uh yeah. The best one I remember was
Speaker 5: we had a tape, you know, the dropbox, the overnight dropbox.
Speaker 5: So we come in the morning shift, we go through
Speaker 5: the bin, empty the drop box, and you always have
Speaker 5: to do the check. So like it says back lash
Speaker 5: the Mohicans, you have to open up the case and
Speaker 5: make sure it's last Mohicans in there, you know. So
Speaker 5: we're going through the check to make sure for the
Speaker 5: tapes are correct. And I open up the case and
Speaker 5: the title is just let's say lash the Mohicans. I
Speaker 5: can't remember exactly what was, but it was wasn't that tape.
Speaker 5: All it had was this label that said X handwritten X.
Speaker 5: I'm like, what's this?
Speaker 6: You know what? I'm not sure what this is?
Speaker 5: A wet better check to see what it's I have
Speaker 5: a feeling what it might be. The store is not opening.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna put it on the overhead monitors just to see.
Speaker 5: And it was full on fucking like it was a
Speaker 5: total porn and someone had purn the wrong tape. And
Speaker 5: it was funny because we had to look up the customer.
Speaker 5: We had to make that embarrassing call and as soon
Speaker 5: as we called, as soon as we called was hey,
Speaker 5: this is a blockbuster. The customer that said, oh, you
Speaker 5: got the porn, didn't you, Like he knew somehow he knew.
Speaker 5: And so that was I think probably the weirdest, funniest story,
Speaker 5: because I mean, who the hell re turns a porno?
Speaker 6: It's a blockbuster. It's just crazy.
Speaker 3: It's just called X.
Speaker 5: And yeah they label it X. I mean what that
Speaker 5: at least name it like you know, DeBie does Dallas
Speaker 5: or like like title unless in his house, you think
Speaker 5: his pomographs like x X one, X two, x three,
Speaker 5: and he has like a database because he doesn't want
Speaker 5: his wife to know there was like porn. So he's
Speaker 5: got like you know, some secret you know, filing system
Speaker 5: or something.
Speaker 3: He's hiding it away.
Speaker 5: And it's weird, you know, but they're they're all late,
Speaker 5: you know, they're all displayed nicely on the shelf. But
Speaker 5: the wife thinks, like, oh, it's like X man or
Speaker 5: something like who knows. But then there's something else totally.
Speaker 4: There could be a movie in there to Gary, like
Speaker 4: some guy returns the tape and the Blockbuster employees like
Speaker 4: watch this and the like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 4: like a smut film, and then the guy comes after them.
Speaker 3: There's almost like a movie in there.
Speaker 5: That's like, I love Brian de Palmer blowout or let's
Speaker 5: like blow up. That's like, that's totally dude, that's like
Speaker 5: and you could set it in the eighties because like
Speaker 5: they don't have video stories anymore, video stories anymore.
Speaker 6: It's like eighties or nineties. Dude, I think you got
Speaker 6: a film.
Speaker 4: Yeah we should. We should write that together, man.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, okay, so dark comedy or a suspense thriller.
Speaker 4: Oh you know what, I think dark comedies work better
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 3: But it could be a cool suspense thriller to throw.
Speaker 4: It back, you know, just almost like that Brian de
Speaker 4: Palma style kind of like uh, you know sisters.
Speaker 5: Hmm, wow, that'd be really dark. But I would love
Speaker 5: a female lead. That'd be cool if if she's the
Speaker 5: one that finds it and then you know, this guy
Speaker 5: starts trying to like you said, trying to get that
Speaker 5: tape back or.
Speaker 6: That's interesting that's that's uh pretty cool man.
Speaker 4: By the way, everyone listening to this, that's guyranized now
Speaker 4: trademark licensed you and not gonna be in the theater,
Speaker 4: just like eating popcorn for a preview some of the
Speaker 4: new Tarantino Manson Family Murder movie, and you're gonna see
Speaker 4: that's gonna be a trailer. This idea, like, wait a minute,
Speaker 4: that was that podcast I did with Dave That was
Speaker 4: our idea.
Speaker 6: Right from Paramount Studios X.
Speaker 4: She was a lonely videos to We're block but and
Speaker 4: then it changed yeah right, uh yeah it'd be but
Speaker 4: it would be you know that that would be a
Speaker 4: fun idea to do because I know a lot of
Speaker 4: times Kevin Smith, you can't say this is a pot
Speaker 4: but I have Kevin Smith podcast fing in front of me,
Speaker 4: and he always uses his podcast as sort of like
Speaker 4: a way to sort of get new movie ideas and
Speaker 4: stuff like that. I think it's great because I think
Speaker 4: podcasting is such a really cool tool. Some people make
Speaker 4: books out of it, like Tim Ferriss and James Autacher
Speaker 4: and stuff like that. And I really Kevin's idea though,
Speaker 4: just using it to sort of facilitate, you know, making
Speaker 4: new movies and stuff like that, or.
Speaker 3: You know, or what have you. I think it's just
Speaker 3: really cool as a creative outlet, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, that is really cool. I didn't realize he
Speaker 6: did that.
Speaker 5: It's I think if you have an audience, podcasting could
Speaker 5: be amazing, you know, because it is the way to
Speaker 5: directly talk with them instead of having to like write
Speaker 5: tweets or like a long Facebook post. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: definitely something where it's a lot more you get to
Speaker 5: like express yourself a lot more quickly and something, like
Speaker 5: you said, organically instead of having a proofread writing and
Speaker 5: then just sharing with your audience and then getting feedback
Speaker 5: that way.
Speaker 6: That's that's interesting. Man.
Speaker 5: It's something again, if you had a pretty good listening
Speaker 5: audience says something that really could work.
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Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
Speaker 6: You know, and he has he has huge audience. I mean,
Speaker 6: he has a huge audience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he does.
Speaker 4: And you know, I actually have have had it on
Speaker 4: the Thornton Brothers and they had a really cool idea
Speaker 4: for a film that's centered around a podcast, and basically
Speaker 4: it's about a guy who's in his basement and he's
Speaker 4: this real far right radical guy and he has this
Speaker 4: podcast that he uses to sort of just through all
Speaker 4: this venom and hate to out in the world. And
Speaker 4: then one day a listener comes to silence him. And
Speaker 4: it's a really really cool it's called Cactus Jack, and
Speaker 4: I can't wait to see them do it, and I really,
Speaker 4: you know, just hope that that they keep pushing forward
Speaker 4: with it.
Speaker 5: Now, did they they pitched it on the show to
Speaker 5: you or they were already working on it and they
Speaker 5: just kind of told you this is what we're doing.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they were already working on it and they
Speaker 4: pitched it.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, yeah, that's cool. I mean it sounds like
Speaker 5: a what like a one location type of thing. It's
Speaker 5: like a smaller budget to be able to just or
Speaker 5: is it like a huge scope tech movie.
Speaker 4: It's just one one location, almost like Don't Breathe, which
Speaker 4: I think is awesome and I'm like, guys, keep going
Speaker 4: with that idea, man.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny because they totally reminded me and it's
Speaker 5: totally not the same film, but just pump up the
Speaker 5: volume with Christian Slater from the eighties and he wasn't
Speaker 5: even like a far right guy in that movie, but
Speaker 5: he was just this underground college DJ. But they just
Speaker 5: kind of see that setting just like if they can
Speaker 5: get an actor to be you know, a charismatic as
Speaker 5: Christian Slater from back then, or if it's a female.
Speaker 5: Who knows if they're actually thinking it's gonna be a female.
Speaker 5: But I mean, yeah, whoever's playing that DJ better be
Speaker 5: fucking charismatic because they're gonna be carrying that movie a lot.
Speaker 6: That's that's really cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they actually did some test screen and he's actually
Speaker 4: like real, real interesting. And by the way, I apologize
Speaker 4: for for going off topic and I'm talking about other
Speaker 4: people's movies.
Speaker 6: Sorry, no, man, No, that's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 3: So let's talk more about Kevin Smith.
Speaker 4: Oh but yeah, but you mentioned one of your movies,
Speaker 4: by the way, that you crowdfunded, which was how do
Speaker 4: you write a Joe Shechrmer Song?
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker 4: You know, you successfully crowdfunded a large portion of I
Speaker 4: believe there was going to be an orchestra as part
Speaker 4: of like of one of the extended goals I believe,
Speaker 4: So I wanted to ask Gary, you know, where did
Speaker 4: the impetus for the idea come from to actually make
Speaker 4: this film, you know, and really, how did you go about,
Speaker 4: you know, actually actually making it.
Speaker 5: So I've always loved musicals growing up. My parents showed
Speaker 5: them to me, and it was something that I always
Speaker 5: just enjoyed, Like I did not have a problem with
Speaker 5: people just breaking in a song and dance, and they
Speaker 5: showed me like Singing in the Rain, the Music Man,
Speaker 5: My Fair Lady, and I loved them. And then I
Speaker 5: discovered Westside Story, which is a little bit darker, but
Speaker 5: they still broke out into song and dance, and I
Speaker 5: was like, this is awesome. You know, musical is one
Speaker 5: of my favorite genres. And then I discovered all that
Speaker 5: jazz and I was like, wow, this blew my mind,
Speaker 5: like the editing style and the the way the songs
Speaker 5: were incorporated into the film versus them breaking out into
Speaker 5: song and dance, like you know, that's a totally different
Speaker 5: type of musical. And then Once came out and I
Speaker 5: was like, man, okay, so this is like low key,
Speaker 5: smaller film but amazing songs, you know, but shot for
Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So I was like okay,
Speaker 5: Like I love musicals. I don't think we make enough
Speaker 5: of them, and I wanted to do something for modern
Speaker 5: audiences which kind of blended both the spectacle and being realistic.
Speaker 5: So I wanted to write a story that kind of
Speaker 5: was grounded in reality but still had some amazing songs.
Speaker 5: But I never had the song. So I just had
Speaker 5: that idea for years until after I moved to New
Speaker 5: York again. I was there for a few years and
Speaker 5: networked and made a few films. And Mark Deconso, one
Speaker 5: of my lead actors from New York Lately, had a
Speaker 5: friend named Joe Sherman, and he said, dude, I want
Speaker 5: to show you something. We were let's see, trying to
Speaker 5: think North Carolina. We were in North Carolina at the
Speaker 5: Charlotte Film Festival and I was in Mark Schrroman. He
Speaker 5: pulls out his laptop because I want to show you something.
Speaker 5: It's like, dude, Mark, I don't want to watch poem
Speaker 5: right now? Know where at a festival it's all good?
Speaker 5: And he's like, no, no, no. This guy named Joe
Speaker 5: Sherman he writes music and it's awesome. And he showed
Speaker 5: me some songs and I was like, is this guy
Speaker 5: for real? Like is he already signed. Is he doing
Speaker 5: Broadway movie Broadway shows? He's like no, he just moved
Speaker 5: from Minnesota and he's just you know, fresh off the
Speaker 5: boat and he's like trying to make his way in
Speaker 5: New York.
Speaker 6: And I was like, I got to meet this guy,
Speaker 6: and we did.
Speaker 5: We talked, and I told him about my initial idea
Speaker 5: about aspiring artists that are anonymous in New York. There's
Speaker 5: so many, you know, amazingly talented singers and dancers in
Speaker 5: New York, but they're your waiter, they're your server, they're
Speaker 5: your bartender, you know, and you'll never know that they're
Speaker 5: actually talented. That was the first spark of the idea
Speaker 5: of the film, to be like, I want to show
Speaker 5: what these people do and the struggles they go through
Speaker 5: and the fact that you'll never know because they'll never
Speaker 5: make it. And that evolved a little bit after, but
Speaker 5: that was the beginning. And with his songs incorporated and
Speaker 5: just starting to do a few drafts and just you know,
Speaker 5: honing in the story.
Speaker 6: That's how it became the movie that it is.
Speaker 4: And you see, that's sort of how those ideas are
Speaker 4: a ferment, you know, those ideas sort have come out
Speaker 4: of nowhere, you know, And it's just it's just amazing
Speaker 4: how even the simple thing that someone showing you a
Speaker 4: video can just open up a whole new sea of
Speaker 4: things and the whole new sea of ideas and possibilities.
Speaker 5: Right man, I have like, literally right now, fifteen different ideas,
Speaker 5: and back then, you know, I was tuning around with
Speaker 5: like three or four. But the thing that always happens
Speaker 5: is I meet somebody, or I find a location, or
Speaker 5: something happens where all of a sudden, that idea of
Speaker 5: bubbles to the top. So, for among us, the film
Speaker 5: that's coming out, the horror movie coming out August eighth,
Speaker 5: gotta plug it.
Speaker 6: That film.
Speaker 5: I had always wanted to do a horror movie, but
Speaker 5: you know, didn't think about it other than that, I
Speaker 5: just want to make something scary. And again, Mark Deconso,
Speaker 5: my usual guy, the actors that my family has a
Speaker 5: lake house up in Maine. We could totally shoot for
Speaker 5: next to nothing as long as we just you know,
Speaker 5: we can stay there and just make sure we don't
Speaker 5: screw up the house or anything. And then you know,
Speaker 5: and I was like, okay, you can't blow it up. Okay,
Speaker 5: we won't blow it up, but we'll make it a
Speaker 5: haunted house, but I want to twist the conventions and
Speaker 5: play with the genre so it doesn't feel like paint
Speaker 5: by numbers type of movie. But that's you know again,
Speaker 5: like that's why that movie came about, That's why we
Speaker 5: shot that one next. So there's always something that comes
Speaker 5: into play that brings the project to the to the surface.
Speaker 4: So you can't blow up the house, you can't. You
Speaker 4: can't go through the walls, you can't you know, put
Speaker 4: blood everywhere, away all your fun Gary.
Speaker 6: I know, man, I know.
Speaker 5: So then we just wrote a you know, one room
Speaker 5: talkie movie with white walls behind it and shot on
Speaker 5: hi aid VHS and no, just kidding, no, I mean
Speaker 5: we definitely that was That's the part of the fun.
Speaker 5: It's like, okay, so there's a little bit of you know, constraints,
Speaker 5: so how are you going to be creative around that?
Speaker 6: And that's what how the film became what it is.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny, and I do want to ask
Speaker 4: you about the about the film again in just one second.
Speaker 4: I want to a little anecdote about filming in a
Speaker 4: friend's house, a friend of mine, A friend of mine.
Speaker 4: When I did my student film, which was my first
Speaker 4: ever film. I actually he said, hey, we can film
Speaker 4: my grandparents' house. He goes, they're away. They have like
Speaker 4: three houses and this is the one house that they're
Speaker 4: not going to use and they're not using for the
Speaker 4: time for a long while, and we can film there.
Speaker 4: The first day of filming, we accidentally knocked the entire
Speaker 4: door off the hinges. And because this guy had to
Speaker 4: burst into a room, right, so rather than rather what
Speaker 4: happens is the door. I've never seen a bathroom like this.
Speaker 4: The door hits into the sink. There's no stopper or whatever.
Speaker 4: So he bursts in the room and he hits the door,
Speaker 4: gets the sink and literally the door comes off in
Speaker 4: his hand like he's now holding the door like it's
Speaker 4: like a prop, and he's like what. The guy goes,
Speaker 4: what the fuck did you just do? And now we're
Speaker 4: like we're trying, and we're trying to actually figure this out.
Speaker 4: So then it becomes the idea of do we call
Speaker 4: a carpenter or do we try to fix it ourselves?
Speaker 4: And it's almost like a sitcom. It's almost like a
Speaker 4: bad eighties sitcom where it's like, oh, great, now we
Speaker 4: got to fix this.
Speaker 3: Door, and as we fix the door, something else has
Speaker 3: to break.
Speaker 4: But we ended up on the guy's dad was actually
Speaker 4: had a carpenter friend. He came in and he actually
Speaker 4: fixed the door for us at a later time.
Speaker 5: It was just.
Speaker 3: It just it was just the incident itself.
Speaker 5: That's so two things come to mind with that story.
Speaker 5: So number one, hopefully you use that take in the
Speaker 5: film like that made it into the movie. Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 5: And two, you could totally tell you guys are film
Speaker 5: nerds versus like sex freaks, because like risky business, like
Speaker 5: if someone's house was empty, like party, but you guys
Speaker 5: said let's make a movie.
Speaker 6: You guys were film nerds, which is great, kudos to that.
Speaker 4: Exactly, a couple of guys fill the house to themselves,
Speaker 4: time to make a movie, right.
Speaker 5: Right, That's the first thing that comes to my mind.
Speaker 4: It's funny too, because that same guy his grandparents let
Speaker 4: us use their beach house.
Speaker 3: This is I'm sorry, I'm sorry to keep holding these.
Speaker 6: Stories, but this is great. This is great.
Speaker 4: He said, Hey, my great parents let us go, let
Speaker 4: us use their beach house. So you know, of course, hey,
Speaker 4: let's let's bring down some beer. Let's bring down some stuff. Well,
Speaker 4: he when we get there, he says, oh, there's only
Speaker 4: one rule, and and I said what's that? He goes,
Speaker 4: there can be no girls here, and I and I said,
Speaker 4: why is that? He goes, Well, if if somebody were
Speaker 4: to come in, he goes, like from my family, he goes.
Speaker 4: And then if they told my grandparents they would get
Speaker 4: upset because they're very old fashioned and and this and that.
Speaker 4: So I said, well we can, we can make another
Speaker 4: movie while we're in here, and he stared daggers into
Speaker 4: me and he goes, he goes, I'd rather just have.
Speaker 3: A party nice.
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Speaker 1: And now back to the show.
Speaker 4: Because this guy was I think a little burned out
Speaker 4: of movie the first one. But uh, but no, it
Speaker 4: was just hilarious and uh and that that was We
Speaker 4: ended up just actually driving to a c anyway because
Speaker 4: he's right by he was, so we ended up I
Speaker 4: ended up winning like two hundred bucks at a slot
Speaker 4: machine that night. But but that's all. But to get
Speaker 4: back to your your actual filmography, and your latest film
Speaker 4: is actually droughout the August the eighth, So if you could,
Speaker 4: you know, could you just give us a you know,
Speaker 4: a sort of a summary of the film, and give
Speaker 4: us a log line, and and you know, just a
Speaker 4: little more, any more information you give us about the film.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So among us is it's a supernatural thriller, horror thriller.
Speaker 5: It's about two it's a married couple of two characters. Mainly,
Speaker 5: it's a very character driven story about My original idea
Speaker 5: was to st the movie off with people just leaving
Speaker 5: the house already, because with most horror movies, you always
Speaker 5: ask if the house is haunted, why don't you just leave?
Speaker 5: So this one we already address it. They leave the
Speaker 5: house and they get into a car accident, the husband
Speaker 5: gets paralyzed, and we flash forward a few months and
Speaker 5: they're struggling with their marriage now that they're living in
Speaker 5: an isolated area, hoping they've escaped whatever was haunting them.
Speaker 6: They've lost their child.
Speaker 5: They're a broken family, and the story is really about
Speaker 5: trying to move on and trying to still stay together
Speaker 5: and still love each other amongst all this tragedy, and
Speaker 5: there's a haunting still. So it's something where I try
Speaker 5: to make something a little bit different but still play
Speaker 5: with a lot of stuff where there's you know, some
Speaker 5: scares and some suspense, but there's definitely more there, and
Speaker 5: I don't want to talk about the other, you know,
Speaker 5: elements that I put in there other than that I
Speaker 5: love to I channeled Brian to Palma, Little John Carpenter.
Speaker 5: But also I had films when I was writing and
Speaker 5: making it that I showed the actor and my DP
Speaker 5: that I wanted to kind of feel in term, I
Speaker 5: wanted our film to feel like in terms of the tones,
Speaker 5: so it'd be like eyes White shut that marriage, you know,
Speaker 5: think about that marriage that they had, The Gray with
Speaker 5: Leam Nice and Jel Carnahan's The Gray, Uh, three Colors
Speaker 5: Blue was another one, Insidious, the Descent, Rust and Bone.
Speaker 5: So these were the ones that I kind of told
Speaker 5: people like, these are the films that show people that
Speaker 5: are struggling and you really care for them. And that's
Speaker 5: the kind of movie that I really wanted to make.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I love those those movies by the way
Speaker 4: that you mentioned, because because those movies, you know, are
Speaker 4: those sort of movies where it's more about the character
Speaker 4: and more about you know, using the location you have rather.
Speaker 3: Than again exactly, rather than again exactly.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, Gary, Oh no, I just said, yeah, I'm
Speaker 6: agreeing with you.
Speaker 4: Sorry I thought I kept cutting you off. I'm sorry
Speaker 4: about that. No, so because sometimes you know, actually cut
Speaker 4: people off. I'm sorry about that, but I always like, whoop. Sorry,
Speaker 4: I didn't mean to step on your line. But but
Speaker 4: what happens is, you know, movies like that are really cool.
Speaker 4: What I mean, like The Gray for instance, I remember
Speaker 4: the selling point for me was they had a production
Speaker 4: still or maybe it was maybe it was just a
Speaker 4: quick video and Liam Neeson had those broken mini bottles
Speaker 4: on his hands, ready to fight those wolves, and I went, well,
Speaker 4: this movie is gonna be great. I mean, how can
Speaker 4: you go wrong about that?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 5: It's yeah, that movie is amazing. I was one of
Speaker 5: my favorite movies that year. I mean, the performances and again,
Speaker 5: just the kind of movies that I love is like
Speaker 5: you really get to know the characters to care about them,
Speaker 5: and then the shit goes down, you know.
Speaker 6: And that's something I analyzed.
Speaker 5: And this is how we're talking about scripts, Like I
Speaker 5: didn't analyze the script of the Exorcists, but I watched
Speaker 5: it and I remember it was about forty minutes into
Speaker 5: the running time before anything really you know, spooky happened.
Speaker 5: So it's forty minutes of character development. And I was
Speaker 5: lucky enough to talk to William Freakinet. He did a
Speaker 5: book signing, and this was in Brooklyn. We just had
Speaker 5: watched Sorcerer and he had an autobiography out and after
Speaker 5: the screening I got gone to sign it and I
Speaker 5: just said, hey, mister, I said Billy.
Speaker 6: No, I didn't say Billy. I said, mister freaking.
Speaker 5: What advice do you have for me if I'm going
Speaker 5: to go shoot a horror movie in a few a
Speaker 5: few weeks actually, And do you have any advice? Just
Speaker 5: simple advice? And he just said, no bullshit scares, make
Speaker 5: us care, and that's exactly what I aim to do.
Speaker 4: So and using that advice, that's when he says, no
Speaker 4: bullshit scares. Using that advice, does he mean like none
Speaker 4: of the sort of stuff where like, you know, a
Speaker 4: scare happens or or and it's like turns out to
Speaker 4: just be a false Uh you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean? Like the person sort of looks
Speaker 3: behind the curtain and there's nothing there. And then I.
Speaker 5: Remember, because the Exorcist had a moment when you know,
Speaker 5: the mother goes up to the attic and there's a
Speaker 5: big candle and then a flame and she's scared because
Speaker 5: the caretaker's up there.
Speaker 6: So that's like the genuine thing because that happened.
Speaker 5: I think it's the one where the hand comes off
Speaker 5: and touches you, you know, when they're like, I'm trying
Speaker 5: to think of what movies that did, but like a
Speaker 5: character's looking around a spooky house and then a hair
Speaker 5: I mean, a hand comes from off frame and then
Speaker 5: touches the shoulder and then the music is jacked by
Speaker 5: like you know, ten times louder now and just just
Speaker 5: to give you that scare versus like a scare that's earned,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: Yes, And there's actually a really good, uh sort of
Speaker 4: movie school if you will, about that where if you
Speaker 4: look a up the First Halloween where Donald Pleasants is
Speaker 4: sitting outside Michael Myers's house and those kids go up
Speaker 4: there and they're like, hey, knock on the door, and
Speaker 4: Donald's Pleasants as doctor Loomis goes, hey, Mike, you know,
Speaker 4: get out of here, your motherfucker your little shit. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and the kids freak out and they run away. Well,
Speaker 4: Donald Pleasants all proud of himself. Well, the sheriff grabs
Speaker 4: his shoulder real quick. But there's no music whatsoever.
Speaker 3: There's none.
Speaker 4: It's just it's just Loomis going, Oh my god, Jesus,
Speaker 4: you could be Michael Myers, you know, And it's just
Speaker 4: that that right there. And I realized I'd never even
Speaker 4: thought of it, and so I watched it again. I'm like, man,
Speaker 4: there is no musical cue there, and it's brilliant. It's
Speaker 4: almost like that guy John Carpenter knows what he's doing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 5: He might have something. He might go places. No, but like, yeah,
Speaker 5: Halloween is an amazing felm. And I think there's another
Speaker 5: scene where Jamie Lee Curtis. Lorie is walking in the
Speaker 5: daytime and she's walking home from school and I think
Speaker 5: she's staring at the house. And as she's staring at
Speaker 5: the house, she bumps into somebody and again I don't
Speaker 5: believe there's like a music cue there, but it starts
Speaker 5: the shit out of you.
Speaker 6: And it's exactly, you know the point.
Speaker 5: Like, so we have something in my movie where I
Speaker 5: totally didn't purposely try to make it a jump scare,
Speaker 5: but there's a moment like some character says something to
Speaker 5: someone who's back is turned and I didn't put in
Speaker 5: a cue. I didn't put in like a dude to
Speaker 5: try to like just make people jump, because it's not earned.
Speaker 5: That's like the jolt, that's like a startling moment versus
Speaker 5: like a truly truly terrifying moment where you're startled because
Speaker 5: it's actually happening to that character in that scene, not
Speaker 5: because the score is making it happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, because I think that. And that's the
Speaker 4: the main problem I have a lot of modern horror
Speaker 4: movies too, is is there's no real there's no real
Speaker 4: idea of there's a real core, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's it just feels like it's sort of put together,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And it's just I actually
Speaker 4: it's the problem. I have a lot of movies lately.
Speaker 4: But but I digress. I mean, I trust me. I
Speaker 4: watched so many movies, Gary and I have a twenty
Speaker 4: minute role. If you can't droll me in with the
Speaker 4: first twenty minutes, I turn it off. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: done with that. But I just feel sometimes that there's
Speaker 4: not a lot of there's there's a there's too much money,
Speaker 4: not a create not enough creativity, or maybe there's there's
Speaker 4: too much focus on the output and enough on the input, you.
Speaker 5: Know, m yeah, I mean, thankfully there's a resurgence of
Speaker 5: solid horror movies lately, but like you said, I mean
Speaker 5: for every solid horror movie, there's like ten that copy
Speaker 5: it or copied the one that came before it that
Speaker 5: was a hit, and they don't really know what they're doing.
Speaker 6: They're just trying to copy the formula.
Speaker 5: And that's that's when it just becomes stale or you
Speaker 5: know something where you're like this, this, this has no
Speaker 5: this had no reason to be made except for money
Speaker 5: because obviously, like people really didn't care about it.
Speaker 4: But so, you know, you with your new movie among
Speaker 4: Us coming out on August the eighth, you know where
Speaker 4: that can people view that at?
Speaker 5: It is actually available on every major cable provider, which
Speaker 5: is amazing. This is my first time my film is
Speaker 5: going to be this wide to basically be on demand.
Speaker 5: So if you're at home on August eighth, you can
Speaker 5: just turn on your cable provider and among Us will
Speaker 5: be there. You can also get it on iTunes, Amazon, Google, YouTube,
Speaker 5: like all those kind of streaming kind of services view
Speaker 5: d services you can get and it also is available
Speaker 5: on DVD and Blu Ray on Amazon dot Com, and
Speaker 5: the DVD and Blu Ray have some bonus features, so
Speaker 5: it has a deleted scene, alternate ending, and some bloopers
Speaker 5: so you get some fun stuff that way.
Speaker 6: I love physical media. I still collect physical media.
Speaker 5: I know I'm old school, but I wanted to make
Speaker 5: sure our distributors, Gravitas put some bonus features on if
Speaker 5: they're going to put out physical meaning, I think you
Speaker 5: got to put something not.
Speaker 6: You can't put out bare bone stuff.
Speaker 5: You got to put something fun for people to be
Speaker 5: able to want to collect it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Gravitas is awesome, by the way. I mean,
Speaker 4: congratulations on everything, Gary, I mean, you know, just just
Speaker 4: for meeting you a few years ago, I mean, you
Speaker 4: have just exploded it. I'm like, man, he's Twitter verified,
Speaker 4: he's got a wiki page.
Speaker 5: I mean, man, well, yeah, I mean if that's if
Speaker 5: that's success, then sure I'll take it. But you know, obviously,
Speaker 5: for me, the funniest thing is like, if there's what
Speaker 5: you're never satisfied where you're at, because man, ten years ago,
Speaker 5: I would have loved to be here now where I'm
Speaker 5: sitting being like, man, okay, a film with distribution. It's
Speaker 5: awesome because you know, when I first started, the first
Speaker 5: two or two films I made when in terms of
Speaker 5: distribution didn't get picked up. And so now I'm like,
Speaker 5: I have distribution.
Speaker 6: This is great.
Speaker 5: They actually gave me a sweet deal. We're making money.
Speaker 5: This is awesome. But now obviously I want want something bigger.
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Speaker 5: I want something a little bit more, and that's the
Speaker 5: thing that drives me to keep going.
Speaker 6: So thank you again.
Speaker 5: I didn't I totally don't mean like not to sound
Speaker 5: like I that I'm not very appreciative. Like, I totally
Speaker 5: love the fact of where I'm at, but it's just
Speaker 5: there's so much more to do and so much things
Speaker 5: to create that I just want so much more, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I completely understand, Gary, true, Trust, I completely understand.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: You know, there's nothing wrong against universal theme. There's nothing
Speaker 4: wrong with want of a better life for yourself.
Speaker 6: Right, that's true, man, that's very true.
Speaker 5: But yeah, the funniest thing is that I was shocked
Speaker 5: about the Wikipedia page. I have no clue who created it.
Speaker 5: I was really shocked about that piece. I mean, I
Speaker 5: still don't know. Sometimes I see it being updated and
Speaker 5: I'm like, wow, I don't know. I don't know who
Speaker 5: was doing this. This is funny.
Speaker 6: See, I expect ahead.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, see, you're you've got this fan
Speaker 4: base you've been developing and and and they're doing it,
Speaker 4: you know, and uh they're they're they're holding the Gary
Speaker 4: King or they could think you're that guy from that
Speaker 4: World's End with That's so I'm page.
Speaker 6: That's the page.
Speaker 5: I think that's the page they're actually they thought they
Speaker 5: were doing and then it turned out to be me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's pretty much.
Speaker 4: When I saw that movie, I was like, Oh, Gary King,
Speaker 4: I know that guy.
Speaker 5: That was part of the fun of that movie because uh,
Speaker 5: my friends said when they were watching they would giggle
Speaker 5: every time. Not I mean the movie's funny, but they're
Speaker 5: like it was the extra funny factor because they'd be
Speaker 5: like Gary King and it's like they just think of
Speaker 5: me it started giggling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh again, that that's all.
Speaker 4: I got another layer of enjoyment out of that movie too,
Speaker 4: just because by the way, Gary. Speaking of which, uh,
Speaker 4: some Twitter questions came in do you have a few
Speaker 4: minutes just to answer maybe one or two questions. I yes,
Speaker 4: So this question came in. I'm sorry, let me go
Speaker 4: grab my phone. I know this is not good for
Speaker 4: an audio podcast. As I grabbed my phone, I know
Speaker 4: everyone's like, oh right. So this one came in and
Speaker 4: it said, I demand to know what Carrie's favorite records
Speaker 4: are to write to? All caps. This is the most
Speaker 4: important question. So Gary, Gary, what are your favorite records
Speaker 4: to write to?
Speaker 6: Jesus Man? Oh god.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it's it definitely varies from script to script.
Speaker 6: Obviously.
Speaker 5: When you know you're writing a certain genre, you kind
Speaker 5: of pick and make create a playlist for your stuff.
Speaker 5: So I actually did a music drama that's done and
Speaker 5: we're in development almost, you know, hoping to shoot soon.
Speaker 5: It's being shopped around. It's kind of a road trip
Speaker 5: movie about a singer songwriter. So I pulled up Man,
Speaker 5: I made a playlist of these random people, you know,
Speaker 5: the beauty of Spotify. And I'm not being sponsored by
Speaker 5: Spotify here, but I mean I can pull up the
Speaker 5: playlist right now, since sitting in my computer, I can
Speaker 5: just I'll name a few artists from that playlist that
Speaker 5: I that I had.
Speaker 6: So you went to your phone. I'm going to my laptop.
Speaker 6: Let's see here.
Speaker 4: By the way, I actually just submitted to have this
Speaker 4: podcast on Spotify. So if you, if you are endorsed
Speaker 4: by them, Gary, please put in a good word for us.
Speaker 6: Right, Okay, So I had.
Speaker 5: Let's see, so I had some Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell,
Speaker 5: Marvin Gaye, Beach Boys, let's see, Iggy Pop, Ario Speedwagon,
Speaker 5: Joe Cocker, The The Who, Future Islands. Well, and let's
Speaker 5: tell this this reader, I'm not this reader, this listener.
Speaker 5: I will share my playlist with you. If he tweets me,
Speaker 5: I can. I can always send this off to him,
Speaker 5: like I can make it public. But not.
Speaker 6: But yeah, no, it's it was. It's definitely like it's
Speaker 6: a it's a road trip movie.
Speaker 5: It's it's a singer songwriter and she meets a guy
Speaker 5: who plays like the blues, and so it's all these
Speaker 5: different styles that are going through and she's remembering her
Speaker 5: father had passed away and he loved, you know, older
Speaker 5: kind of music like the Beach Boys and stuff. So
Speaker 5: it's like a mishmash of all these types of musical styles.
Speaker 5: So it celebrates various types of artists and genres as
Speaker 5: as this movie goes along. So I'm really happy about
Speaker 5: it and I can't wait to make it.
Speaker 4: The guy did actually tweet both of us, so it's
Speaker 4: Dave muhalland so.
Speaker 3: You can see you'll see the sweet at.
Speaker 6: Your timeline, right nice?
Speaker 3: Okay, So, and the second question that.
Speaker 4: Came in Gary was was I'm sorry I put my
Speaker 4: phone down, but I know the gist of it was
Speaker 4: basically was basically, you know, where if if you could
Speaker 4: give any advice for a person to start making a film,
Speaker 4: where would it be.
Speaker 3: What would it be? I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: And the first time, first time ever, it's like.
Speaker 3: A first time filmmaker.
Speaker 6: I would It's funny because I remember.
Speaker 5: So there's piece of advice that Allman says is basically,
Speaker 5: don't take any advice. And he's a maverick and he's
Speaker 5: one of those guys who didn't take any advice and
Speaker 5: you just is his own thing. So that's that's, you know,
Speaker 5: one thing that you can say. What the other one
Speaker 5: is for me is just not to give up. Definitely
Speaker 5: see it through to the end, because once you do,
Speaker 5: you'll either know if you love it and if you're bitten.
Speaker 5: By the bug to want to make more, or if
Speaker 5: you've had enough and think, okay, I did that and
Speaker 5: I'm going to try something else now.
Speaker 6: Because filmmaking is not easy.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of work into it, a lot of
Speaker 5: different people that come into play. I was very fortunate
Speaker 5: to meet people early on in my career that believed
Speaker 5: in me and wanted to work with me for very
Speaker 5: little money. And I know the do Plos brothers say
Speaker 5: this too, where they say, you know, if you're making
Speaker 5: a movie and people you're paying people one hundred a
Speaker 5: day just to be there, but you know others are
Speaker 5: asking for more. Those aren't the people you want to
Speaker 5: work with. And you're starting out because you want people
Speaker 5: there for you for the story, not from the money.
Speaker 5: Because at that stage, at that level, everyone's there trying
Speaker 5: to make something great, trying to elevate their careers. So
Speaker 5: it's something Just do it, do it for the love,
Speaker 5: and then do it again.
Speaker 3: And that is excellent advice.
Speaker 4: Gary, don't take any advice, no, but right.
Speaker 5: So whatever I just said, just do it and then
Speaker 5: just go do what go do what you want.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and seriously and getting together and this is not
Speaker 4: to not to keep you for too long. I'm sorry, Gary,
Speaker 4: I know we're going over, but I just wanted to
Speaker 4: mention one thing that I've been listening. I listened to
Speaker 4: a lot of podcasts on my drive to and from work,
Speaker 4: and I also listened to a lot of books.
Speaker 3: On audible, uh via audible.
Speaker 4: And one thing I've noticed is, you know, building that mastermine,
Speaker 4: building a crew around you, you know what I mean
Speaker 4: of people who are not only supportive, but also we're
Speaker 4: striving to make you better and also bring you opportunities
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, and and uh and it's and
Speaker 4: it's a mutual beneficial thing. You know, it's not just
Speaker 4: all them giving to you. But I think just you know, uh,
Speaker 4: building that finding those people is like a skilling of itself,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, like finding a producer who
Speaker 4: just would work with you, almost like finding like your
Speaker 4: your Frank Marshall, or finding like your Lawrence Bender, something
Speaker 4: like that, you know what I mean. And people have
Speaker 4: asked me to because you know I do so like
Speaker 4: I'm I'm okay, this is the only time where I'm
Speaker 4: gonna get a little cocky.
Speaker 3: Gary. I'm not a very cocky guy. I am.
Speaker 4: Actually I'm not gonna just just make stuff up. I'm
Speaker 4: actually very good at networking and producing stuff. I I
Speaker 4: that is the only time I've ever gonna I've realized
Speaker 4: I'm It's just like a natural thing for me to do.
Speaker 4: And I'm always meeting new people and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: and that.
Speaker 5: That's gonna be your sound bite to promote this show,
Speaker 5: by the way, You're just gonna use that piece there.
Speaker 4: Like like who is this guy again? Why do I
Speaker 4: Why am I listening to this show? But that that's
Speaker 4: actually where I'm really good at. And I and honestly,
Speaker 4: when I when I've been able, when I've been asked
Speaker 4: to do other people's movies, I'm always like, I don't
Speaker 4: want to fucking do that. I don't want to make
Speaker 4: it anybody else's movie. I want to make my own movies,
Speaker 4: you know. And it's just kind of you kind of
Speaker 4: wonder where to draw that line though, because that's what
Speaker 4: I've been wondering in the in the in the the
Speaker 4: past couple of years, because I've I've turned down so
Speaker 4: many movies have an offered me come on as a
Speaker 4: producer because I'm just like, well, there's no money, it's
Speaker 4: just well, you know what i mean.
Speaker 3: And it's probably good for both of us.
Speaker 4: I turn it down because you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like I was just looking for money from this one
Speaker 4: project or I might you know what I mean, And
Speaker 4: it's not what I really want to do, So my
Speaker 4: heart's not into it, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 4: I think it's good for everybody if if me saying no.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I mean, a great producer is hard to find.
Speaker 5: I produced myself out of necessity, not because I love it,
Speaker 5: but finding a producer that loves it is rare, and
Speaker 5: if they're good at it, you got.
Speaker 6: To hold on to them.
Speaker 5: And that's why I'm sure, Like you said, Lawrence Bender
Speaker 5: work with Tarantino for like three or four films, and
Speaker 5: all these other people, if they partner up, they partner
Speaker 5: up for a very very long time. And it's something
Speaker 5: my wife does very well, and she does for my
Speaker 5: films only because like you, you know, it's like I
Speaker 5: believe in these projects. I don't want to be hired
Speaker 5: to do something just to do it. So it's something
Speaker 5: where it's such a hard skill and it's such a
Speaker 5: it's not only hard, but it's something it's very delicate.
Speaker 5: Like you said, you have to be very good at
Speaker 5: what you do to get things done right away. And
Speaker 5: it's it's again if I might be giving you a
Speaker 5: call later about producing, but now I'm just kidding you. Definitely.
Speaker 5: The cool thing is as a filmmaker for yourself too,
Speaker 5: you know what it takes to produce something, so as
Speaker 5: you're writing it or as you're directing it, you can
Speaker 5: wear both hats to know what you can demand of
Speaker 5: the crew or of yourself based on what you have
Speaker 5: with the with the project.
Speaker 6: And if that's a.
Speaker 5: Really great skill, like that's what I'm proud of as
Speaker 5: a director, having produced, I know when to ask for
Speaker 5: things and when not to ask for things based on
Speaker 5: what's going on.
Speaker 6: And the producers really, you know, appreciate that.
Speaker 4: Anytime you want to call me Gary to talk about producing,
Speaker 4: let's do it, man.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 5: All right, sounds good.
Speaker 4: I was just telling the story the other day about
Speaker 4: how I got a bunch of different locations for free,
Speaker 4: and people were like, how the hell did you do that?
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
Speaker 3: And I said, well, it's a funny story.
Speaker 4: So but but you know, it's just you know, I've
Speaker 4: been doing a lot of writing for the past couple
Speaker 4: of years, and I hope to actually enter some scripts
Speaker 4: into slam Dance this year, you know, just to sort
Speaker 4: of get that juice back. And that's when the main
Speaker 4: reason I created this podcast was not only just to
Speaker 4: do something creative, but I get to meet all some
Speaker 4: people and I mean it's just been all positives you
Speaker 4: know about this podcast, and it's just you know, it's
Speaker 4: it's just awesome, man, and Gary, I just want to
Speaker 4: say thank you so much for coming on, and uh,
Speaker 4: before we go, I just want to have one more question,
Speaker 4: that is where can people find you out online?
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: First of all, you know, this conversation went really really quickly,
Speaker 5: so I enjoyed myself a lot, and they can find
Speaker 5: me at the best place is g r king dot com.
Speaker 5: It's g r k I n G dot com. I
Speaker 5: believe there's links to my Facebook, to my Twitter there,
Speaker 5: and there's information to all my films where you can
Speaker 5: find them. So New York Lately, What's up, Lovely? And
Speaker 5: how do you write a Joe Sherman song? You can
Speaker 5: see a little bit of information about them, as well
Speaker 5: as links to Amazon Prime where you can watch them
Speaker 5: for free and you can find out information about, among us,
Speaker 5: my latest horror movie coming out, where I would love
Speaker 5: for you guys to check out and appreciate the support.
Speaker 3: Gary, I want to say thank you.
Speaker 5: You have to add one link to X the project
Speaker 5: the working title also just X handwritten X.
Speaker 4: And yeah, by the way, was X Was it a
Speaker 4: VHS tape or was it a DV day?
Speaker 3: I'm hooked. That's it. Let let's hitch this tomorrow.
Speaker 6: Right, I'll make some calls, we'll get to the meeting.
Speaker 4: Seriously, let's do it, man, Let's do it. Yeah, what's
Speaker 4: stopping this?
Speaker 5: Nice?
Speaker 6: Nice?
Speaker 2: Gary R.
Speaker 3: King. I want to say thank you so much for
Speaker 3: coming on.
Speaker 5: Buddy, Dave, Dave b Thank you sir, and hope to
Speaker 5: come back again sometime and definitely we'll be talking soon too.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
Speaker 1: a great job on this episode. If you want to
Speaker 1: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot
Speaker 1: TV Forward slash for thirty three. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening to guys. As always, keep on writing, no
Speaker 1: matter what, I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
Speaker 2: dot tv.