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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, episode number four zero one.
Speaker 2: In Hollywood. Breakfast means maybe we'll do business, Lunch means yes,
Speaker 2: and dinner means we're in bed.
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Speaker 1: when we really should be working on that next draft.
Speaker 1: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
Speaker 1: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
Speaker 1: screenplay bulletproof.
Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
Speaker 2: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host,
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Speaker 2: Now I have filmmakers that come up to me all
Speaker 2: the time and say, Alex, I can't afford a camera.
Speaker 2: I can't I can't shoot what I want to shoot
Speaker 2: because you know, these cameras are so expensive, and you
Speaker 2: know I can't afford an Alexa, I need a Red
Speaker 2: or I can't even afford a black Magic. It just
Speaker 2: doesn't I can't do it. And every time I always
Speaker 2: look at them, I said, you have the power to
Speaker 2: make your own film, probably in your pocket with your smartphone.
Speaker 2: You know, so many of us out there have either
Speaker 2: an iPhone or a Samsung or an Android or something
Speaker 2: that is more than capable of shooting an amazing film.
Speaker 2: And now Sean Baker with Tangerine really broke the mold
Speaker 2: on what can be done with the iPhone, and he
Speaker 2: was shooting with an iPhone I think five s back
Speaker 2: in the day, and nowadays with like the new iPhones
Speaker 2: and even like the Fillway phone I have, the Sixcess
Speaker 2: is more than capable of shooting an amazing short or
Speaker 2: even an amazing feature, depending on what kind of story
Speaker 2: you're trying to tell. If you guys have not seen
Speaker 2: Tangerine Sean Baker's Tangerine, please search it out for it.
Speaker 2: I'll put a link to it in the description, as
Speaker 2: well as our interview about how he did it in
Speaker 2: the show notes. But today's guest is kind of a
Speaker 2: revolutionary filmmaker man. His name is Jason van Jendrin, and
Speaker 2: Jason is an iPhone filmmaking fanatic. He actually threw away
Speaker 2: and gave away or sold all of his big high
Speaker 2: end gear, and he is a strictly an iPhone filmmaker.
Speaker 2: All his productions, all of his videos, he shoots strictly
Speaker 2: on iPhones and has built an insane business around it.
Speaker 2: And I'm not just talking about he's doing his own
Speaker 2: little private shorts. He does, you know, client based work
Speaker 2: shooting iPhones, and people always freak out about like why
Speaker 2: you just showing up with an iPhone. I'm like, just
Speaker 2: trust us, we know what we're doing. He actually teaches
Speaker 2: all around Australia, in the US, in Europe about filmmaking
Speaker 2: with iPhones. And I wanted to have him on the
Speaker 2: show because I wanted to prove again to you guys
Speaker 2: that you don't need all this big, heavy equipment. You
Speaker 2: don't need a Red, you don't need an Alexa, you
Speaker 2: don't even need a big black magic camera. You just
Speaker 2: need what's in your pocket. If you could afford the
Speaker 2: bigger cameras, great, but you don't need it, just so
Speaker 2: you know you can tell compelling stories without it. And
Speaker 2: his first short film he shot on iPhone has been
Speaker 2: played in hundreds of film festivals around the world and
Speaker 2: is one tens of thousands of dollars in film festival
Speaker 2: prizes and stuff. So he really is an inspiration to
Speaker 2: filmmakers around the world, and I so wanted to I
Speaker 2: really searched them out and I wanted him on the show.
Speaker 2: And I'm so blessed and humbled that he's on the
Speaker 2: show and he's going to be dropping. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: some serious knowledge bombs on how you make films with
Speaker 2: an iPhone. We talk about the gear of what you
Speaker 2: do to put around the iPhone to make it work
Speaker 2: even more like a cinematic tool, what apps he uses
Speaker 2: to shoot, twenty four p and all that good stuff. Audio, everything.
Speaker 2: We go into it deep and he has a great
Speaker 2: course on iPhone filmmaking that will hopefully be coming to
Speaker 2: IFHTV very very soon. I am working on it, guys,
Speaker 2: but it is a great course as well. He's taught,
Speaker 2: He's had ted talks about filmmaking with iPhones and other
Speaker 2: things in the business. He's just an inspiration in general. Now,
Speaker 2: if you guys want to see this video live and
Speaker 2: actually watch this interview, which was a great one, it's
Speaker 2: available on the Indie Film Hustle video podcast on IFHTV.
Speaker 2: Just go to Indie Film Hustle dot tv the chech
Speaker 2: it out and I'll put a link to that in
Speaker 2: the show notes as well. Without any further ado, please
Speaker 2: enjoy my conversation with Jason van gendron I'd like to
Speaker 2: welcome to the show Jason van gendron Man. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for being on the show.
Speaker 3: Brother Alex. It's amazing to finally meet you rather than
Speaker 3: just listening to you through the podcast. Channels finally get
Speaker 3: to see you and hear your voice one on one.
Speaker 3: It's fantastic nights.
Speaker 2: It's awesome man, and you are and we are having this.
Speaker 2: This is like an international call. So you are in Australia.
Speaker 2: What time is it over there right now?
Speaker 3: I know, Well it's almost coming up to half past
Speaker 3: ten in the morning for me here. Oh nice sunny morning.
Speaker 2: So you are in the future, so you can tell
Speaker 2: me what happens.
Speaker 3: I can tell you everything that happens. We're at least
Speaker 3: a good half day ahead of.
Speaker 2: You, exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for the only time Australia is considered
Speaker 3: to be ahead of anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2: So fair enough, fair enough, So thank you again for
Speaker 2: jumping on man. And you know, the reason I wanted
Speaker 2: to put you on is because you have a very
Speaker 2: unique set of skills that we have not had a
Speaker 2: guest on the show before, which is iPhone filmmaking or
Speaker 2: pocket filmmaking as you put it. So we're going to
Speaker 2: get deep into that. But first, how did you get
Speaker 2: into this crazy business we like to call the film industry.
Speaker 3: Well, my checked background really start in the world of advertising.
Speaker 3: So I was working as an art director in the
Speaker 3: advertising industry for about thirteen years and got really really
Speaker 3: tired of just making thirty second and forty five second
Speaker 3: stories for yeah, and just thought there must be another
Speaker 3: life beyond that. So basically I set up my own
Speaker 3: little business, a production business called Treehouse seventeen years ago,
Speaker 3: and from there we've gradually we started pretty much as
Speaker 3: an advertising branding agency. We started working more in television
Speaker 3: and video and online, and now it's one hundred percent
Speaker 3: of our business. We do a lot of branded content,
Speaker 3: so we do a lot of commercial content, We do
Speaker 3: a lot of social content for a lot of brands
Speaker 3: around the world, and in the spare time, I still
Speaker 3: make my own films and make a lot of training
Speaker 3: resources and have really as you said before, I've not
Speaker 3: that I've fallen in love with making things on smartphones,
Speaker 3: but smartphones really found me as a way of making content,
Speaker 3: and I was so surprised by what they could create
Speaker 3: as a tool that I started digging deeper and was
Speaker 3: just so pleasantly surprised by how deep we could take
Speaker 3: the technology and the level of what we could actually
Speaker 3: create with this new miniaturization of our cameras.
Speaker 2: It is, I mean, it is like the latest stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're they're really powerful cameras. I mean, they
Speaker 2: have some insane capabilities that literally around. It's sitting around
Speaker 2: in your pocket. But a lot of people just don't
Speaker 2: know what to do with it because you are not
Speaker 2: trained anywhere how to shoot with an iPhone's not in
Speaker 2: a film school, it's not generally in the mainstream. Everyone
Speaker 2: looks down upon it because oh, it's just an iPhone.
Speaker 2: But Sean Baker kind of taught us a little bit
Speaker 2: about that with his amazing film Tangerine. By the way,
Speaker 2: what did you think of Tangerine when you saw it?
Speaker 3: Incredible? I watched it in flight somewhere on the way
Speaker 3: to another festival, and yeah, I thought it was I mean,
Speaker 3: he shot it on iPhone five.
Speaker 2: I think it was five s if I'm not missing,
Speaker 2: it was either four us. I think I might have
Speaker 2: even been fours, but it might have been five. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I own a six. I own a six ass
Speaker 2: I haven't jumped yet, so I think it was one
Speaker 2: or two back it was a while ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think again it was a trial blazing project
Speaker 3: and it was very brave, very adventurous, and again, with
Speaker 3: every great story, you're watching a film that sure you
Speaker 3: know it's been shot on a smartphone. Maybe that's how
Speaker 3: you come across Tangerina initially to watch it, but I
Speaker 3: think you know, a few minutes in you were totally
Speaker 3: swept into that story. And that's the great charm of
Speaker 3: any film, regardless of what we make it on, is
Speaker 3: all about creating that incredible story. And I think that's
Speaker 3: the voice we need to rise to the top through this.
Speaker 3: It's not so much about what camera we're filming on.
Speaker 3: It's about enabling ourselves to tell better stories in more ways.
Speaker 2: No without question. And I mean when I had Sean
Speaker 2: on the show to talk about that a while ago,
Speaker 2: and he actually told me, he's like, we played in
Speaker 2: Sundance and nobody knew that we shot it on iPhone.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: And now back to the show. Like after the first screening,
Speaker 2: at the very end, it set shot on an iPhone,
Speaker 2: and everybody just mind blew up.
Speaker 3: It was like it's saying And I think that that
Speaker 3: was an absolute stroke of brilliance on Sean's behalf, because
Speaker 3: a lot of people would have had the temptation of
Speaker 3: actually saying right up front, oh, yeah, but yeah, it's
Speaker 3: incredible the fact that he did that, Like I said,
Speaker 3: it's extremely brave, but you know, very credible film. It's
Speaker 3: deserved all the success it's it's enjoyed, and yeah, I
Speaker 3: think wonderful. A great example of exactly what we're talking
Speaker 3: about today, which is the fact that you know, people
Speaker 3: anywhere with a fantastic idea can actually realize their story
Speaker 3: in some capacity if they just rethink the tools that
Speaker 3: they have accessible to them now already, and certainly our
Speaker 3: smartphones are a fantastic way of upskilling our filmic ability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with our questions. So so from what I read
Speaker 2: about you, there was this like famous moment where you
Speaker 2: literally threw away your high end video camera or film camera.
Speaker 2: It was a video camera, I guess, and just said,
Speaker 2: screw it, I'm going iPhone all the way. What was
Speaker 2: that moment and what caused you to go down that road?
Speaker 3: You're going down the rabbit hole, now, Alexia, this is
Speaker 3: a crazy story. So this takes us all the way
Speaker 3: back to two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: What that was like? That was like, Yeah, this years decades, millions.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago, ten years ago. It's just crazy. And
Speaker 3: I think that we you know this is I think
Speaker 3: two years in on having cameras on smartphones right commercially so,
Speaker 3: so iPhone had only just released the year before. I'm
Speaker 3: not even sure if the two thousand and eight version
Speaker 3: of the iPhone could record video. But the camera that
Speaker 3: I had back then was a Nokia and ninety five,
Speaker 3: a little sliding smartphone, and I remember carrying this thing around,
Speaker 3: looking at it and wondering whether one day we'd actually
Speaker 3: end up telling stories on our smartphones, we could use
Speaker 3: them as actual camera tools. So I pretty much just
Speaker 3: walked around and with a couple of friends of mine,
Speaker 3: Shane Emmett and John Roy, who's this fantastic musical composer,
Speaker 3: I just we started talking. One day, I said, I'd
Speaker 3: love to make a film on a smartphone and see
Speaker 3: if we could actually ever get that into a film festival.
Speaker 3: And of course, sitting here in Australia, our aim was
Speaker 3: to try and get into an international film festival. So
Speaker 3: we had this concept of you know those magnetic poetry kits. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you can make it oh about something. Someone had something
Speaker 3: to it as they walked past the fridge. It's it's
Speaker 3: a cool little idea. So we thought, what if we
Speaker 3: could do that with a smartphone film, What if we
Speaker 3: could actually walk around the city. And so we walked
Speaker 3: around Sydney with this little Nokia and we just filmed
Speaker 3: words on science. So we were I guess, harvesting words
Speaker 3: from shopfronts and vans parked on the side of the street,
Speaker 3: from the sidewalk, from anywhere we could see signage and words.
Speaker 3: We'd start filming individual words. We had no concept of
Speaker 3: a script, storyboard, we had no budget, and we're working
Speaker 3: with a smartphone. That was it. Back in two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight. We ended up collecting twelve hundred words. I
Speaker 3: remember bluetoothing them one at a time from the phone
Speaker 3: to my mac.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was no way to look it up. There
Speaker 2: was no way to look it up back then.
Speaker 3: That's right, no way, absolutely no way. But still, you know,
Speaker 3: we were blitzed by that science, like, wow, we can
Speaker 3: actually wirelessly transmit this thing from a phone to a dice.
Speaker 2: It's fairly it's fairly insane. That technology is fairly it is.
Speaker 3: So we ended up with twelve hundred words and we
Speaker 3: decided to try and make a film out of that,
Speaker 3: and of course there was the complete one oh one
Speaker 3: way of do not try and make a short film
Speaker 3: this way. We had no concept of really what we
Speaker 3: were making film about. We had, like I said before,
Speaker 3: no script, no storyboard. So we we were we realized
Speaker 3: as we were capturing these words on street signs that
Speaker 3: we were very affected by homeless communities in the city
Speaker 3: and the fact that you know, you can walk down
Speaker 3: the street and you can walk past ten twenty homeless
Speaker 3: people a day and never looked them in the eye.
Speaker 3: They kind of become part of the furniture and the city,
Speaker 3: the landscape. Yeah, And so we decided we would try
Speaker 3: and make a project that I guess a story that
Speaker 3: spoke to that and questioned whether you know, there was
Speaker 3: another way we could connect with one another on that level.
Speaker 3: And so we wanted to make a film about homeless
Speaker 3: societies in cities and urban environs. And Shane and I
Speaker 3: we sat there looking at this list of twelve hundred
Speaker 3: words for three nights in a row and trying to
Speaker 3: find something, something to stitch together into a narrative, and
Speaker 3: nothing really happened. It was just like it was like
Speaker 3: going to the dentist three times in a row. It
Speaker 3: was honestly, we were sitting there, just nothing was coming
Speaker 3: to us. And then I remember one night we contacted
Speaker 3: John Roy, this composer friend of ours, and we said, look,
Speaker 3: we've got this idea of a film. We want to
Speaker 3: cut these things together, these words, We've got some shots
Speaker 3: of these incredible homeless people we've met along the way.
Speaker 3: We wanted to make a story about homeless societies in
Speaker 3: an urban environment and our sense of disconnect with that.
Speaker 3: We wanted like a piano score, but it has to
Speaker 3: be like plinky blank, so we can cut the words
Speaker 3: on certain notes. And I'm totally from a non musical background,
Speaker 3: so when I say plinky plank, that's pretty advanced to
Speaker 3: technical musical speak.
Speaker 2: From same here.
Speaker 3: But I know what I like, right, So I sent him.
Speaker 3: I sent him a page with twelve images on it
Speaker 3: from the chute, and he went away and composed this
Speaker 3: incredible three and a half minute piece which he almost
Speaker 3: threw away, and he fold me the next day said look,
Speaker 3: I've got one little piece of music, but I want
Speaker 3: to just fine tune it now. I said, no, no, no, John,
Speaker 3: send it through and he did, and Shane and I
Speaker 3: listened to it and just knew instantly it was the
Speaker 3: right piece of music for this film. You can hear
Speaker 3: the breath in the piano strings. It was incredible. And
Speaker 3: the film we made was called Mankind Is No Island.
Speaker 3: We ended up being inspired by the music. The words
Speaker 3: started leaping off the page once we heard the music.
Speaker 3: We started finding all of those connections. We put this together.
Speaker 3: We entered it into a film festival in New York
Speaker 3: called Troupfest New York and troup Fest at that stage
Speaker 3: was Australia's biggest short film festival. It attracted an annual
Speaker 3: live audience of between eighteen one hundred thousand people. I'm
Speaker 3: sure how much eighty to one hundred thousand for a
Speaker 3: short film festival. For a short film festival, This is
Speaker 3: right on a Sunday evening, on a Sunday summer's evening
Speaker 3: in Sydney.
Speaker 2: Is there nothing else to do in Sydney during that? Like,
Speaker 2: I don't know. That's mind blowing. Even Sundance doesn't get
Speaker 2: like that. Making Even Sundance doesn't even get that many people.
Speaker 3: That's crazy. It is like a rock concert for short filmmakers.
Speaker 3: So they had a version in New York and we
Speaker 3: decided to enter it into that. And that's where the
Speaker 3: whole story for us started. We end up getting selected
Speaker 3: flew across for the festival, we played the film, we
Speaker 3: won one people's choice as well, we got Best Film,
Speaker 3: and it just started this whole conversation rolling in a
Speaker 3: much bigger space. And we did lots of media interviews
Speaker 3: and lots of talks at other film festivals and universities
Speaker 3: and film colleges, and yeah, it just started this love
Speaker 3: of actually not being confined so much by the limitations
Speaker 3: in the gear we didn't have to tell stories, and
Speaker 3: actually looking at what we did have available to us
Speaker 3: and how we could appropriate it and appropriate the concepts
Speaker 3: that we're working on to be told with simpler tools,
Speaker 3: simpler camera tools.
Speaker 2: And that film cost you fifty seven dollars if I read.
Speaker 3: Correctly, fifty seven Australian dollars.
Speaker 2: Wow, so it's not even American dollars. So wow, that's
Speaker 2: not even Americans.
Speaker 3: So it would have been forty forty two or three
Speaker 3: American dollars to make.
Speaker 2: And then how much we end up how muching, how
Speaker 2: much prize.
Speaker 3: Money today so it's still actually going in festivals around
Speaker 3: the world. There's ten years on, it's still during the
Speaker 3: rounds and it managed to win over thirty three thousand
Speaker 3: dollars in prize money.
Speaker 2: That's insane. Oh my god, Like that is that is
Speaker 2: the hustle. That is the indie film hustle. Without question. Look,
Speaker 2: I thought I was rough because my first short film,
Speaker 2: I had it running in festivals probably like four or
Speaker 2: five years, and you're still going ten years in.
Speaker 3: That's in sen years. It's not competing anymore, but it's
Speaker 3: still it's beating invitations all the time to screen, and
Speaker 3: it's it's amazing. I just love those little projects you
Speaker 3: work on, those little experimental projects that end up surprising
Speaker 3: you as the creator as well as well as the audience.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, it's it's for us. It's
Speaker 3: the gift that keeps on giving. It's the film story
Speaker 3: that just keeps on traveling around the world finding you audiences.
Speaker 3: And I watch it every now and then. It still
Speaker 3: teaches me a little bit about what I'm doing. It's
Speaker 3: still it still has little little gems to give.
Speaker 2: You know. It's funny. I was because a lot of
Speaker 2: the people I worked, a lot of my collaborators worked
Speaker 2: on with that short film. They kept every time they
Speaker 2: would see that short film my film film come back up.
Speaker 2: They're like, isn't that horse dead? Like, didn't you kill that?
Speaker 2: Like that? You've you've ridden that horse as long as
Speaker 2: you can on anything since I'm like, I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I just I just you know, inject them with some adrenaline,
Speaker 2: picked the horse back up and just keep riding them
Speaker 2: until it keeps going. So hey, if it keeps going,
Speaker 2: why not, right, I mean, if people still want to
Speaker 2: see it, it's all good. And then what was your
Speaker 2: did you distribute that film? Did you actually put it
Speaker 2: somewhere to be watched or sold or is it strictly
Speaker 2: just off.
Speaker 3: Offline literally just just offline on festivals? It's it's it
Speaker 3: is online at the moment on the trop fest YouTube channel,
Speaker 3: so it's had a life there. It's had over a
Speaker 3: million views on there. Yeah, it's it's it's crazy. I mean,
Speaker 3: short film in Australia is a really strong, healthy medium
Speaker 3: for creatives coming out of colleges and film schools. It's
Speaker 3: something we really actively embrace.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
Speaker 2: and out back to the show.
Speaker 3: And I feel really fortunate that, you know, even in
Speaker 3: a little old Australia, we can actually say we've got
Speaker 3: a film festival that draws a live audience of eighty
Speaker 3: to one hundred thousand years. Just insane. And when filmmakers
Speaker 3: come from overseas, they've never experienced anything like that. They
Speaker 3: walk into this field and they see this sea of
Speaker 3: people and they think they're at some crazy concert. It's
Speaker 3: just an incredible experience.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're almost inspiring me to make a short film.
Speaker 2: I mean, I seriously, I got to send something over
Speaker 2: there because I just want to experience that. That sounds
Speaker 2: amazing for a filmmaker. Look, look, there's very few venues,
Speaker 2: very few things out there. Can you know Sundance Toronto.
Speaker 2: They don't bring in one hundred thousand eyeballs, you know,
Speaker 2: that's insane. That's like YouTube numbers, like you get one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: Of us that's it. Yeah, So if any filmmakers want
Speaker 3: to make a trip to Australia, try and try and
Speaker 3: make it around February when trop Fest screens in Australian
Speaker 3: come and experience into the festival, because as a filmmaker,
Speaker 3: it's just this energy of even just being in the audience,
Speaker 3: even if you don't have a film in the festival.
Speaker 3: Just being in that crowd and seeing eighty to one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand people react and respond at once that's to
Speaker 3: something they've seen in the screen is just mind blowing.
Speaker 3: It gives me chills for speaking about Yeah, because.
Speaker 2: It's nothing that no normal filmmakers don't get that, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, even the biggest blockbusters from Hollywood doesn't get
Speaker 2: that all in one. But you don't get an eighty
Speaker 2: to one hundred thousand people watching Avengers like it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: So it's that must be amazing. So let me ask
Speaker 2: you a few tips for making your iPhone more cinematic,
Speaker 2: because that is a because if you I mean, iPhones
Speaker 2: is like any other tool, you could use it portally,
Speaker 2: you can use it really well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So there's probably a couple of key things.
Speaker 3: One would be you need to obviously understand the strength
Speaker 3: and the limitations of your iPhone as a camera tool.
Speaker 3: It's got a tiny lens, it's got a tiny imaging chip. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the latest versions of the iPhone have stepped it up
Speaker 3: in quality again and they've got incredible you know, dynamic
Speaker 3: range now. So the things that I would say from
Speaker 3: the get go, you really need to focus on in
Speaker 3: accessorizing your phone with to make it a real cinematic
Speaker 3: capture tool would be First of all, there's an app
Speaker 3: called filmic Pro, which is the same app that Sean
Speaker 3: Baker filmed on as well film Tangerine onto. It gives
Speaker 3: you a complete manual control of all the camera inputs
Speaker 3: on your iPhone. So if you can imagine the kind
Speaker 3: of controls you have on a DSLR camera, you can
Speaker 3: have those on your iPhone with filmic Pro. So it's
Speaker 3: in vable. It's the number one selling manual camera app
Speaker 3: around the world, I believe, and it allows you to
Speaker 3: then work with a whole host of other accessories which
Speaker 3: you can obviously then put onto your phone to expand
Speaker 3: what it can see optically what it can hear. So yeah,
Speaker 3: filmic Pro, that'll be the first thing I'll tell people
Speaker 3: to do. Rush out, find that apput it on your
Speaker 3: phone and play with it.
Speaker 2: And it's pretty good.
Speaker 3: It's incredible, like mucho probably yeah, probably, I think it's
Speaker 3: around twenty something here in Australia, but yeah, it's look
Speaker 3: for Isn't it funny these days with apps we talk about,
Speaker 3: you know, paying anything for an app and whenever I
Speaker 3: go to a film college and I say, oh, you
Speaker 3: need to buy this app, and it's twenty dollars and
Speaker 3: they go like, why, that's crazy. I'm never paying twenty
Speaker 3: dollars for an app. But you know, you're expanding the
Speaker 3: functionality of your device so much. Everybody wants everything for free,
Speaker 3: it's insane.
Speaker 2: Tell me about it, brother, I know, yeah, I completely
Speaker 2: understand what you're.
Speaker 3: Saying, totally fatally. So filmy Pro is the bedrock. That's
Speaker 3: that's the thing I would start with. And of course
Speaker 3: it's available in an Android version as well, so if
Speaker 3: you're not on iPhone, if you got something else you can,
Speaker 3: you can run filmic Pro. It's amazing. The other thing
Speaker 3: that that is a real game changer with iphon we
Speaker 3: call it iphonography, is trademark is the ability to add
Speaker 3: accessory lenses. Now, so a lot of people away they've
Speaker 3: heard of lens clips like olo clip or moment lenses
Speaker 3: and things like that, which have their own sort of
Speaker 3: fastening system onto your phone. B script make an incredible
Speaker 3: cage system for your iPhone or for any smartphone, and
Speaker 3: have a device called a dof too, which is a
Speaker 3: depth of field converter and Essentially, it's a barrel which
Speaker 3: attaches to their b script camera cage which you put
Speaker 3: your phone in, and it allows you to then accessorize
Speaker 3: your iPhone with any number of different DSLR lenses or
Speaker 3: CINY lenses.
Speaker 2: Is it worth it because that's a lot of glass
Speaker 2: going through like a lot of glass, So is it
Speaker 2: going to degrade the image a bunch or is it
Speaker 2: worth it?
Speaker 3: It's definitely worth it if you want to work with
Speaker 3: nashallow depth of field. It's really, at the moment the
Speaker 3: only real way we can do it until computational imaging
Speaker 3: sort of steps it up another couple of notches and
Speaker 3: we can get the effect of what we see in
Speaker 3: portrait still mode now on our phones. But you know,
Speaker 3: when we can get that in video mode, then that
Speaker 3: kind of is another conversation again. But in the meantime,
Speaker 3: if you do love that beautiful cinematic look of layering
Speaker 3: the focus in your vision, you need something like a
Speaker 3: depth of field converter to actually attach accessory lenses to
Speaker 3: your smartphone and look at this great It does cut
Speaker 3: back the light input a little bit because essentially what
Speaker 3: you're telling the lens to do is to focus on
Speaker 3: another focusing screen inside the depth of field converter. And
Speaker 3: that sounds all very technical, but in the end of
Speaker 3: the day, it allows your iPhone to be able to
Speaker 3: see through any lens pretty much you can put in
Speaker 3: front of it. And we've seen things captured. We've certainly
Speaker 3: captured things ourselves here commercially through lenses that people never
Speaker 3: ever guess have been attached to a phone. They just
Speaker 3: they wouldn't think it's been filmed on a smartphone.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you and I are similar vintages
Speaker 2: as far as our age is concerned. So you might
Speaker 2: remember this camera. Do you remember the DVX one hundred
Speaker 2: day Panasonic? Yes, wonderful, wonderful, wasn't that with the most
Speaker 2: beautiful camera ever. It was the first twenty four ft
Speaker 2: the first twenty four p camera, and it had a
Speaker 2: stock lens on it was alike. It was a beautiful
Speaker 2: lock lens, but then you couldn't get that depth. So
Speaker 2: you had the thirty five millimeter adapter and then you
Speaker 2: could put on those things, but then you would automatically
Speaker 2: lose like a stop or two, so you had to
Speaker 2: like pump, so similar in that way, and I think it.
Speaker 3: Had like a glass didn't have like a glass the mirror.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this something I did a movie once that because
Speaker 2: I shot my film on the DVX and I had
Speaker 2: the adapt I had a screwing adapter, not the thirty five,
Speaker 2: but a screwing to get the white hand, just to
Speaker 2: get the Sorry everybody, we're geeking out old school now, ye,
Speaker 2: But but I had a film that came in. It
Speaker 2: was a million dollar feature film that they shot on
Speaker 2: the DVX. I don't know why, but they did. This
Speaker 2: is back years years ago, and they never attached the
Speaker 2: adopter properly, and in the top corner you would see
Speaker 2: the mirror like the little little circle like flickering the
Speaker 2: whole movie, all the footage. I'm like it was the
Speaker 2: first time DP. But that's a whole other story for
Speaker 2: a whole other movie podcast. But that was that was
Speaker 2: the technology we were dealing with. But the reason I
Speaker 2: brought that up is because it did drop a lot
Speaker 2: of a drop stop. So I'm assuming that this is similar.
Speaker 2: That you've got to pump.
Speaker 3: More light in more light and that's that is an
Speaker 3: absolutely given with with all smilephones and any small lens camera,
Speaker 3: we need to you know, smaller sensors need more light,
Speaker 3: so we need to work with more light when we're shooting.
Speaker 3: Although you know, having said that, the new ten S,
Speaker 3: you know the dynamic range and that is incredible. We
Speaker 3: took that out for a camera test a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago to film festival here in Australia, just comparing
Speaker 3: the ten to the ten S in nighttime tests and
Speaker 3: the amount of extra latitude and exposure was insane. It's
Speaker 3: it's like thirty to more light coming in in low
Speaker 3: light situations. Now are you which is incredible?
Speaker 2: Are you finding more filmmakers using this as a serious
Speaker 2: like a serious package, because I don't see I mean
Speaker 2: other than Sean Baker, and there's a handful of other
Speaker 2: you know, outliers and yourself obviously, but are there have
Speaker 2: you seen have you run across other filmmakers who are
Speaker 2: doing serious work with iPhones?
Speaker 3: We have. We've actually started to see the explosion of
Speaker 3: smartphone film festivals really started taking on. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So earlier this year I was at one in San
Speaker 3: Diego run by Susan Bateello amazing smartphone film fest went
Speaker 3: to one in Zurich, the Memo Film Festival here in
Speaker 3: Australia with SF three Smartphone Flick fest. Now these these
Speaker 3: are getting big support. It played at the Opera House
Speaker 3: in Sydney. I mean, that's how much tension these festivals
Speaker 3: are getting. People are rocking up at the Opera House,
Speaker 3: the Laymark Building here in Australia to watch films all
Speaker 3: creating a smartphone and people are really starting to push
Speaker 3: the boundaries. It's not just people picking these up and
Speaker 3: a weekend hack, someone just having a go at the
Speaker 3: first time at storytelling. We're seeing real capable storytellers picking
Speaker 3: up their smartphones and really experiment ending with the media
Speaker 3: and pushing the envelope as to what it can do
Speaker 3: as a camera tool. And of course these days too,
Speaker 3: we can we can accessorize with any microphone we can.
Speaker 3: We can put wireless microphones on our smartphones and capture
Speaker 3: dialogue from a distance without being connected with leads. We
Speaker 3: can do all that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to actually ask you how do
Speaker 2: you record professional sound, because a lot of people will
Speaker 2: just pick up and go action and we're like, no,
Speaker 2: that's not going to work real.
Speaker 3: Well, well, we we work with all the full range
Speaker 3: of pro microphones we've used in any other other kind
Speaker 3: of production we can still work with with our smartphones
Speaker 3: as well, or you're obviously still have the choice of
Speaker 3: recording your audio separately and syncing it in post. We
Speaker 3: generally do both. We record into the camera as well
Speaker 3: as have back up audio too. We can never enough
Speaker 3: backups of audio.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, accessory microphones are definitely out there.
Speaker 3: For literally, for less than one hundred dollars, you can
Speaker 3: buy a really incredible quality microphone to improve the quality
Speaker 3: of the sounding a smartphone three hundred percent, and it's
Speaker 3: a no brain. And we see people actually starting to
Speaker 3: accessorize with a couple of hundred dollars worth of equipment,
Speaker 3: and they see the leap in quality that they're achieving,
Speaker 3: they just get the bargain and they want to get
Speaker 3: more and more and more. And the amount of times
Speaker 3: I've been on red carpets at film festivals and I
Speaker 3: pull out in a little smartphone rig and I'm just
Speaker 3: doing some little voxpops with someone or someone I've met
Speaker 3: that I want to ask a question to, and I
Speaker 3: get one or two questions out and then instantly it's finished.
Speaker 3: All the producers and directors just start coming over. They're
Speaker 3: taking photos of the phone rig They want to know
Speaker 3: what it is, how do you shoot with it? Where
Speaker 3: do I get it? Like? It still seems to be
Speaker 3: such a new conversation. But the more that people are
Speaker 3: seeing it, the more they're getting exposed to it, the
Speaker 3: more they're understanding that there's a place in their production
Speaker 3: kit for a smartphone, a broadcast smartphone kit.
Speaker 2: Now, let me ask you, because there is a stigma
Speaker 2: around shooting with an iPhone. I mean, Sean Baker definitely
Speaker 2: broke that down a bunch, but everybody, I mean, I've
Speaker 2: talked to people, professionals, you know, snoody let's call them
Speaker 2: snoody la guys who's like, that's not a real cinema phone.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's this or that. And you know what,
Speaker 2: you can't compete an iPhone's not gonna compete with Alexa.
Speaker 2: It's just not going to period, It's never going to.
Speaker 2: But it will put the power of it of being
Speaker 2: able to tell a story in the hands of someone
Speaker 2: who can't maybe afford or get access to an Alexa. Now,
Speaker 2: how do you because I know a lot of people
Speaker 2: listening right now. Their egos are are full right now,
Speaker 2: people listening, I promise you, I promise you, someone out
Speaker 2: there is going this is ridiculous. I would never I'm
Speaker 2: a serious exactly like, I'm a serious cinematic cinephile. I'm
Speaker 2: a filmmaker. I don't I don't shoot with an iPhone.
Speaker 2: That's what's in my can I talk on that text
Speaker 2: on that. But what do you say to people like that?
Speaker 2: Because I mean, I'm always about like, whatever is the
Speaker 2: best tool for you know, I shot my last film
Speaker 2: on a pocket camera, So it's just like, what's the
Speaker 2: proper tool. It's not perfect for everything. If you're going
Speaker 2: to shoot a half million dollar movie, iPhone may not
Speaker 2: be the right tool for it. But if you're doing shorts,
Speaker 2: are you doing a smaller micro budget feature and you
Speaker 2: could get a lot of bang for your buck. So
Speaker 2: what do you say to people like that who have that?
Speaker 2: And I'm sure you've run into them.
Speaker 3: I'm positively all the time, all the time, and they're
Speaker 3: my favorite people to convert when I go to a
Speaker 3: festival and the I mean, some of my peers I
Speaker 3: work with in the industry here, I'm still saying I've
Speaker 3: got rocks in my head, but when I show them
Speaker 3: what's possible with the equipment, they quickly change their mind.
Speaker 3: And I think, as you said, there is a definite
Speaker 3: stigma associated with not having a large camera in your
Speaker 3: hands when you're going to film a serious project. But
Speaker 3: we can turn that stigma around too. I think that
Speaker 3: stigma is something that's been a bit of a stain
Speaker 3: on the industry as a whole for a long time.
Speaker 3: A lot of people feel that they there hasn't been
Speaker 3: room for them, there hasn't been an inclusion there because
Speaker 3: they don't have access to that red epic or they
Speaker 3: don't have the means of able to them to tool
Speaker 3: up with what's considered to be a proper cinematic camera
Speaker 3: or a broadcast camera, and they've not gone into storytelling or
Speaker 3: filmmaking because of that. And I think that's a great shame,
Speaker 3: because I've met some incredible riders. I've met some incredible
Speaker 3: producers and want to be cinematographers that have incredible ideas
Speaker 3: that just have put them on ice for three, four
Speaker 3: or five years, and they may never make them because
Speaker 3: they just don't think those things are available to them.
Speaker 3: So The great joy here is actually saying we can
Speaker 3: turn that stigma around, actually say that stigma is probably
Speaker 3: one of the strengths of smartphone cinematography, and that you
Speaker 3: can actually be a story teller anywhere, anytime with that
Speaker 3: thing that's in your pocket, and no one's going to
Speaker 3: question you. You can be a one person production team.
Speaker 3: You can be operating very frugally. You could be in
Speaker 3: the middle of Times Square filming this incredible shot, but
Speaker 3: nobody knows whether you're filming it just for a social
Speaker 3: feed or whether you're actually making something it's going to
Speaker 3: screen at Sundance. You're never going to get a tap
Speaker 3: on the shoulder by the security guards or the local
Speaker 3: administration asking you for your film permits. You're never going
Speaker 3: You see what I'm saying. You can really fly under
Speaker 3: the radar with a small camera like a smartphone, and
Speaker 3: even when it's accessorized with some lenses and audio. We've
Speaker 3: never ever been kicked out of an area, We've never
Speaker 3: been stopped from filming, We've never been considered a serious crew.
Speaker 3: And that's part of what I love. We can actually
Speaker 3: travel around, we can get these incredible stories, we can
Speaker 3: capture this incredible footage and we're never hindered in our way,
Speaker 3: and it's such an enabler for us in capturing story.
Speaker 3: I love it. For me, that's what I love doing.
Speaker 3: I'm a documentary filmmaker. So for me being able to
Speaker 3: run around like a ninja and capture and create story
Speaker 3: and not be burdened by the process or the people
Speaker 3: around me or the environment that I'm filming in is
Speaker 3: a wonderful joy and it's something that's been allowed me
Speaker 3: to actually make stories I couldn't make any other way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I think it was a lot like the
Speaker 2: when the DSLRs first came out, people were making, you know,
Speaker 2: like Michael Polish's film for Lovers Only or things like that,
Speaker 2: where they literally went to Paris and shot everywhere in restaurants,
Speaker 2: every because it was it was a people thought they
Speaker 2: were taking pictures. The technology was so new, and now
Speaker 2: similar things with the iPhones, like, no one, they're not
Speaker 2: professionals obviously there. They don't know what they're doing, obviously,
Speaker 2: so let's not bother them. You know. I even ran
Speaker 2: across that with the pocket you know, like with my
Speaker 2: pocket camera. People were like, what are you doing? I'm oh,
Speaker 2: I'm shooting them a feature like what like it's it's
Speaker 2: mind bloying, but you could sneak in with those kind
Speaker 2: of cameras. And the iPhone is the ultimate of that
Speaker 2: because everybody knows that camera. I mean, you know that device,
Speaker 2: so you never you'll never get caught with it.
Speaker 3: And do you feel like it's happened all through the chain? Sorry,
Speaker 3: I was just I said, it's happened all through the
Speaker 3: chain of evolution in camera craft. If we look back
Speaker 3: to you know, the very begin with film cameras, actual
Speaker 3: film cameras. When the digital video camera revolution came along,
Speaker 3: the film industry, the film camera industry, all as traditional
Speaker 3: cinematographers did not rate the digital camera setups. They never
Speaker 3: thought they were going to have a long lasting place
Speaker 3: in the industry. And of course history tells us otherwise.
Speaker 3: When you know, the first DSLR came out, I think
Speaker 3: in two thousand and seven or eight, actually film video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember the five D came out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when that first one came
Speaker 3: out with the record capacity for video, the digital video
Speaker 3: camera market said, that's not a proper camera, that's not
Speaker 3: how we going to record video. Of course, you know,
Speaker 3: everybody denied that that was actually going to make any
Speaker 3: kind of inroads in our industry. And now we're sitting
Speaker 3: at that other chapter. We've got the further miniaturization of
Speaker 3: our craft. We've got smartphones, we've got action cameras, adventure cameras,
Speaker 3: we've got all sorts, we've got wearable cameras coming next.
Speaker 3: You know, we've got so many things that are new
Speaker 3: to the industry. And of course everyone shooting on a
Speaker 3: DSLR or a digital video camera or anything else is
Speaker 3: going No, that's definitely not a serious camera. History will
Speaker 3: prove that different. And again it's not about saying, you know,
Speaker 3: smartphone cameras are going to overtake the industry and you
Speaker 3: know every other kind of camera is going to discribe.
Speaker 3: Of course, that's not going to happen now. But what
Speaker 3: we do need to be aware of is the fact that,
Speaker 3: you know, for some of those productions, there's some elements
Speaker 3: of your production, maybe a smartphone camera is actually going
Speaker 3: to be able to capture that scene or tell that
Speaker 3: story better than something else you're already have in your kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with our question, no, no, absolutely, with our question,
Speaker 2: and you could sneak into places with that small camera
Speaker 2: and get shots. I do actually know of a few
Speaker 2: filmmaking dps who are on network shows who will we'll
Speaker 2: do a little and they'll intercut and if it's a
Speaker 2: quick little action thing or something like that, you know,
Speaker 2: it works, It really works.
Speaker 3: Away. A couple of weeks ago, Alex I actually was
Speaker 3: a guest at one of our major television networks here
Speaker 3: in Australia. There was two hundred and forty of their
Speaker 3: executives gathered around in one of their big studios. They
Speaker 3: have one of these get togethers every three months and
Speaker 3: they have guest speakers from all sides of the film
Speaker 3: and television industry coming and address them once every quarter.
Speaker 3: I came in to talk to them about what smartphones
Speaker 3: are going to do, what space is there for smartphones
Speaker 3: in the broadcast television world. And I would have thought
Speaker 3: that would have been a really hostile audience going in
Speaker 3: and speaking to all those executives and EP network producers
Speaker 3: and series producers, and they loved it. They were totally
Speaker 3: on board. They loved opening their minds to what they
Speaker 3: could do. And of course, you know we'd be having
Speaker 3: dops working on TV series coming up to us afterwards saying,
Speaker 3: you know, we've been filming with the same cameras for
Speaker 3: twenty years and we're not allowed to upgrade our cameras
Speaker 3: because of budget, but we could afford two or three
Speaker 3: of these kits to accessorize what we're doing in our action.
Speaker 3: And so they're seeing the opportunity for it, and there's
Speaker 3: definitely space for it in the industry. And when people
Speaker 3: start seeing some you know, in the coming years, you
Speaker 3: will see some more feature films. We'll see definitely see
Speaker 3: a lot more documentaries coming out that have been created
Speaker 3: on smartphones, and I think that'll help really change, be
Speaker 3: a catalyst of change for that conversation. And you know,
Speaker 3: you can buy a one hundred and twenty dollars anamorphic
Speaker 3: lens to put on the front of your phone and
Speaker 3: capture a beautiful animalphic picture. Right with anamorphic lensmears the
Speaker 3: whole thing. You know, it's and it fits in your pocket.
Speaker 3: It's it is insane, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you feel like it's I mean, the
Speaker 2: iPhone revolution or the smartphone revolution is kind of similar
Speaker 2: to what happened with the DSLRs. Like people were like
Speaker 2: only like the first early adopters would go in and
Speaker 2: start playing and toying and making little films with it
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. We'll be right back
Speaker 2: after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
Speaker 2: the show. And now I feel that that's what's happening
Speaker 2: with iPhone technology and with with smartphone.
Speaker 3: Technology completely completely. In fact, we've you know, so we
Speaker 3: run a production agency here in Australia and we earlier
Speaker 3: this year became the first production house in Australia to
Speaker 3: actually downscale our tools, so we now actually shoot all
Speaker 3: of our television commercials and all of our brand content
Speaker 3: for big brands exclusively on iPhones. We do it all
Speaker 3: on iPhones with accessory lenses, accessory microphones. Everything we produce
Speaker 3: out of our production agency is all sourced on a phone.
Speaker 2: Now, how how is it when you show up to
Speaker 2: set and you're bust open the iPhone like fantastic?
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: No, no, but like other people, like other people like
Speaker 2: what are the what does the other people say? I
Speaker 2: have to believe that, Like you show up and there's
Speaker 2: a crew and they're like, no, seriously, what are we
Speaker 2: shooting on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, instead of twenty people, there's five people. And then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, it's like, yeah, but you guys
Speaker 3: aren't seriously, you're just doing the social stuff right, No,
Speaker 3: we're actually doing the broadcast stuff today. And look, it's
Speaker 3: amazing because it opens so many conversations. When we're filming talent,
Speaker 3: they love it because it's a completely different way of
Speaker 3: working and they find they're more in the moment rather
Speaker 3: than the process of the filmmaking process, so that it's
Speaker 3: a bit of liberator for talent as well. And definitely,
Speaker 3: you know, when we're doing documentary interviews, there's nothing like
Speaker 3: putting an unassuming camera set up in front of the
Speaker 3: documentary subject and getting them to open up. We have
Speaker 3: been able to get so many more incredibly deep conversations
Speaker 3: going through using smartphones as camera capture tools as opposed
Speaker 3: to traditional camera setups for people that aren't used to
Speaker 3: being in front of the camera. It is an incredible
Speaker 3: enabler and absolutely, without a doubt, we've made stories that
Speaker 3: wouldn't have ever made it to air if it wasn't
Speaker 3: for the iPhone as ature capture tool.
Speaker 2: Now, and you said you touched on something, I would
Speaker 2: love to kind of dig deep, a little deeper into
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously in the documentary world, You're right because
Speaker 2: if you know, obviously documentaries you want people to open up.
Speaker 2: And when they see this alexa a red rig which
Speaker 2: tend to be huge. Sometimes it could be over into
Speaker 2: especially intimidating for people who are not versed in our world.
Speaker 2: But when you you know, you're like, okay, we're just
Speaker 2: gonna shoot this on, just open up, it's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I have to believe is a lot better
Speaker 2: on a documentary standpoint. But also just as actors, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a freedom and a speed that you can move
Speaker 2: with these rigs. You know, even with my experience with
Speaker 2: shooting with the small camera, I was able to move
Speaker 2: so quickly and the actors were just like on, like,
Speaker 2: there's no going back to the trailer for an hour
Speaker 2: while we reset. Now we're going and there's an energy
Speaker 2: to it. So what would I'd love to talk to
Speaker 2: you about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. We find exactly the same. It's you know,
Speaker 3: it's so much faster to do. Scene transitions to lighting,
Speaker 3: setups are simpler. Everything is a lot more simpler, and
Speaker 3: so we find we have more ability to block through
Speaker 3: a scene, we have more ability to work through the
Speaker 3: dialogue the transactions. We see a lot more scope, a
Speaker 3: lot more experimentation with what we're capturing as opposed to
Speaker 3: being extremely didactic about what we're wanting to shoot. And
Speaker 3: we call it lean forward filmmaking. We think it's really
Speaker 3: this sense of stepping on set and we actually have
Speaker 3: the camera in hand, ready to go, and we let
Speaker 3: the camera almost show and guide for us what could
Speaker 3: be a good flow for the camera movement, what could
Speaker 3: be good coverage in the scene. It's quite different to
Speaker 3: actually sitting there and first of all overly pre producing
Speaker 3: how we're going to actually capture that scene, how we're
Speaker 3: going to lends it, how we're going to light it,
Speaker 3: how all that sort of thing. We find there's just
Speaker 3: this there's almost like an organic nature to the production,
Speaker 3: which is really nice, and particularly I think for people
Speaker 3: that are not really versed with working with larger crews,
Speaker 3: that are relatively new to working with other people. I
Speaker 3: think anything you can do to help keep your crew small,
Speaker 3: to keep your equipment tight over to be able to
Speaker 3: keep you more flexibility in your shoot day, and then
Speaker 3: you call sheet I think all that stuff's all a positive.
Speaker 3: So it's a great way to actually really give yourself,
Speaker 3: many more options and what you probably would do with
Speaker 3: it with a traditional camera setup.
Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, and I think
Speaker 2: this is I think we could both agree on this.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really matter what the hell you shoot on
Speaker 2: is what's the story, and that's what people get. So
Speaker 2: and so, I mean, I did full podcast about stop
Speaker 2: obsessing about gear. No one gives a rap, like they
Speaker 2: really don't. Only guys like you and me will go
Speaker 2: so what you shoot on? Like really, but like people
Speaker 2: watching a film on Netflix doesn't care if they shot
Speaker 2: on Alexa, on Red, on Black Magic, on an iPhone.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter. But people, I think, and you might,
Speaker 2: you know, you might. I'd love to hear what you
Speaker 2: think about it. But I think a lot of times
Speaker 2: filmmakers use that as an excuse not to actually be
Speaker 2: filmmakers because they're high behind it.
Speaker 3: I totally agree, And I think you and I have
Speaker 3: both gone to the exact same networking opportunities at festivals
Speaker 3: where you step into a room of fellow creatives filmmakers,
Speaker 3: you meet one another and it's nobody talks about the
Speaker 3: project they're working on. They say, I've just been shooting
Speaker 3: something on X y Z you know, they're straight away,
Speaker 3: they're end of the gear. That's straight away. It's all
Speaker 3: about the box. And I'm sure if you go to,
Speaker 3: you know, a great restaurant and go and have a
Speaker 3: chat to some chefs, they're not talking about what brand
Speaker 3: knife they've been chopping vegetables and fish with that night.
Speaker 3: They're talking about something totally different. You know, when we
Speaker 3: think about, you know, incredible performers on stage, the first
Speaker 3: thing they don't credit their success with is the brand
Speaker 3: of the microphone that they're singing into or the PA system.
Speaker 3: You know. But somehow in the filmmaking industry, we're still
Speaker 3: very caught up in the fact that it's all about
Speaker 3: boxes and lenses.
Speaker 2: It's it's the marketing. Beyond that, it's the marketing of
Speaker 2: the companies. Though the companies want you to continue to
Speaker 2: buy new lenses, buy new cameras, buying new everything. So
Speaker 2: it's again, you hear it from the beginning of your career,
Speaker 2: so you get caught up in it. I've kind of
Speaker 2: let go of that now, I'm like, what's the right
Speaker 2: tool for the job?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, totally. And it's become almost like a skin.
Speaker 3: I feel, It's like something you said before, like we
Speaker 3: wrap it over ourselves like a mask, and that's we're
Speaker 3: talking about the equipment of the gear seems to be
Speaker 3: an easier thing to do than actually opening up about
Speaker 3: what we're trying to say with what we're capturing. And
Speaker 3: I think as soon as we can start changing those conversations,
Speaker 3: it's actually alex the same reason why I never go
Speaker 3: in and introduce myself as a filmmaker anymore. As of
Speaker 3: earlier this year, I now call myself a film breaker
Speaker 3: because I feel the way I make films is at
Speaker 3: odds with what the industry perception of normal is, and
Speaker 3: so I think I tend to break a lot of
Speaker 3: rules when I make my films rather than making them.
Speaker 3: So when I say I'm a filmmaker and I step
Speaker 3: in that same environment, what's the first question you think
Speaker 3: someone asks you when you say you're a filmmaker? What's
Speaker 3: the next thing that comes out of them.
Speaker 2: Out, Oh, what are you shooting on?
Speaker 3: Well? What films have you made that I know?
Speaker 2: Well, there's that chance, Yeah it's not a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's probably not a lot that I've made that
Speaker 3: that most people would have seen.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: Let myself as a film breaker that introduces a conversation
Speaker 3: rather than stopping it with, you know, a period in
Speaker 3: the conversation. It's just it's a way of enabling people
Speaker 3: to understand that there's more than one way to make
Speaker 3: a film come alive.
Speaker 2: I always tell people that, you know, if you give
Speaker 2: a canvas and paint and brush to Basquiacht Warhol and pollen,
Speaker 2: you're gonna get paint on a canvas. But how you
Speaker 2: get it is up to them, and it really doesn't
Speaker 2: matter the style that you make it. Like I know,
Speaker 2: I've worked with filmmakers who and I've also talked to
Speaker 2: filmmakers who are completely improv films like I've done. My
Speaker 2: last two films were fairly you know, structures, outlines and
Speaker 2: film and you know, and and and that's the first
Speaker 2: time I ever did that. Before that, it was more
Speaker 2: structured and storyboards and pre viz and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. But there's millions of different ways to tell
Speaker 2: the story. But at the end of the day, and
Speaker 2: I think this is where filmmakers get so just miss
Speaker 2: the mark. It is about what story you're trying to tell?
Speaker 2: How are you trying to impact the world in one way?
Speaker 2: Shape or form, whatever your what's your what's your take
Speaker 2: on it? What is your perspective?
Speaker 3: Exactly? What's your voice? What's a lot of people get
Speaker 3: lost in that. Yeah, they forget that. Really, the perfecting
Speaker 3: their craft is not about learning how to use more boxes.
Speaker 3: It's really about learning how to really define their voice
Speaker 3: and their style as a storyteller and embracing that and
Speaker 3: feeling comfortable in their skin, actually owning their style of
Speaker 3: production and what they bring to the films that they
Speaker 3: want to release the market. Actually, and I think that's
Speaker 3: that's actually a really good point. People really need to
Speaker 3: focus more on their voice and what they want to say,
Speaker 3: is opposed to experimenting with fourteen different up the camera
Speaker 3: setups before they feel they've made a serious film.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the other thing is that, like, well
Speaker 2: that movie was shot, you know, this Oscar winning movie
Speaker 2: was shot on Alexa. So if I shoot a movie
Speaker 2: with Alexa, then my chances are so much better to
Speaker 2: get an Oscar. Like that's isn't that the mentality? Like seriously, oh,
Speaker 2: I have to get a red because that's what like
Speaker 2: The Avengers were shot on. So I want a two
Speaker 2: hundred million dollar budgets I guess I have to sit
Speaker 2: in the red it's it's it's nutty. It really is nutty.
Speaker 2: I hope we've.
Speaker 3: Changed if we only felt comfortable stepping out on the
Speaker 3: road and driving a car, if we could have a
Speaker 3: three hundred thousand dollars vehicle. I mean, we can still
Speaker 3: drive in a two thousand dollar bomb. But you know,
Speaker 3: it's we're still get It still gets us to a
Speaker 3: to B hopefully, but it's fine to aspire towards those
Speaker 3: those other lofty cameras and setups.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
Speaker 3: But the main thing is, I think what people who
Speaker 3: think about it is, if I'm a great story teller,
Speaker 3: if I've got an idea for telling a story, what
Speaker 3: can a resource around me that will help enable me
Speaker 3: to tell that story right, rather than give myself more
Speaker 3: excuses and delays and procrastinating about actually starting making that film.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I hope today's conversation Jason has has woken
Speaker 2: a few people up, has inspired a few people to
Speaker 2: pick up the thing in their pocket and go tell
Speaker 2: the story. Experiment learn. I mean, there is no film development,
Speaker 2: There is no huge amounts of media that you have
Speaker 2: to buy and trans I mean, it's if you want
Speaker 2: to tell a story, there is no excuse, and that's
Speaker 2: what I and that's what I hope this conversation, this
Speaker 2: interview has helped a few people today, So thank you
Speaker 2: for dropping the knowledge bombs. I'm going to ask a
Speaker 2: few questions that I ask all of my guests. What
Speaker 2: advice would you give a filmmaker wanting to break into
Speaker 2: the business today, I.
Speaker 3: Would say, you are your project's best advocate, So never
Speaker 3: ever give up on it. If you give up on
Speaker 3: your project, if you waiver, if you lose the love,
Speaker 3: nobody else is going to have the love for your
Speaker 3: project like you do. So you need to be the
Speaker 3: absolute champion for your project and never ever lose sight
Speaker 3: of that. I think I see a lot of people
Speaker 3: with an idea that as soon as they start shopping
Speaker 3: it around or they start asking for opinions, they feel
Speaker 3: that it's probably less a lesser thing than what they
Speaker 3: started out with, and they park it off to the side,
Speaker 3: and then they lose the love for it. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you need to be your project's best advocate, So never
Speaker 3: stop selling the concept of what you want to make
Speaker 3: if you believe in it with all your heart, if
Speaker 3: you feel it's a thing you really want to make,
Speaker 3: it's your sole responsibility with the champion for it. You
Speaker 3: need to pull everybody else on board, and you need
Speaker 3: to fly the flag all the time.
Speaker 2: And I think you have to be free of the
Speaker 2: good opinion about others in many ways.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. In fact, you know, seeking the advice and opinions
Speaker 3: of people around you that aren't your friends and family
Speaker 3: is probably the other thing I would say is making
Speaker 3: sure you get some good independent reviews of your work.
Speaker 3: And it'll hurt the first time someone comes back to
Speaker 3: you and tears it to shreds. It's a horrible experience.
Speaker 3: But if you sit in it for two or three
Speaker 3: days and look at your work again with that in
Speaker 3: your mind, hopefully you can learn from the process. And
Speaker 3: certainly that's probably how I've grown as a filmmaker a storyteller,
Speaker 3: is by exposing my work to people that I really respect,
Speaker 3: that don't have a personal association with me, that feel
Speaker 3: honest enough to actually really be honest about a project
Speaker 3: when I show that to them, and to take on board,
Speaker 3: to listen to their conversation with fresh ears and eyes.
Speaker 3: After a few days, when the pain is settled and
Speaker 3: you can look at your work and actually learn from
Speaker 3: it and grow as a storyteller. Is really important.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now, can you tell me the book that had
Speaker 2: the biggest impact on your life or career.
Speaker 3: The book that the biggest impact in my life for Korea.
Speaker 3: I'm going to probably be a little controversial here and
Speaker 3: say it's going to be a book with no words, OK,
Speaker 3: And I'm going to give you a book called The
Speaker 3: Arrival by Sean Tan. And I don't know if you've
Speaker 3: heard of that. He's a graphic novelist based in the
Speaker 3: Western side of Australia. He won an Academy Award for
Speaker 3: an animation called The Lost Thing I Believe a few
Speaker 3: years ago. And he Yeah, this graphical novel called The
Speaker 3: Arrival is an incredible story about what it likes, what
Speaker 3: it's like to feel to walk in the shoes of
Speaker 3: being an immigrant in a new country. But it's completely
Speaker 3: told through incredible illustrations, no words needed. It invents its
Speaker 3: own language through the book when you read it. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: The Arrival by Sean Tan. Definitely check that out. It's incredible,
Speaker 3: It's like a storyboard, incredible storyboard awesome.
Speaker 2: Now, what lesson took you the longest to learn, whether
Speaker 2: the film industry or in life.
Speaker 3: The lesson that took me the longest to learn would
Speaker 3: have to be to never stop making. Whether you feel
Speaker 3: you're a success or a failure, whether you feel you're
Speaker 3: inspired or not, there is no replacement for making and
Speaker 3: keeping your tool sharp and keeping your skills sharp. And
Speaker 3: I think always staying in the game, always going out,
Speaker 3: finding story, listening, making story all the time. Always refine
Speaker 3: your skills and keep going. Don't give yourself a year
Speaker 3: off from filmmaking. You need to keep making. Wherever you are,
Speaker 3: whatever you're doing, you need to keep making. Whatever that
Speaker 3: story is that's in front of you, keep making it.
Speaker 2: And three of your favorite films of all time.
Speaker 3: Three of my favorite films of all time. I'm going
Speaker 3: to keep it to documentary because that's probably my passion.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: The first one I would say would be, uh, Blackfish,
Speaker 3: probably one of my old Yeah, that's a crazy story.
Speaker 3: Kill a while, incredible what well killed it?
Speaker 2: It killed an entire company? I mean yeah, absolutely, I
Speaker 2: mean we're here, I'm here in La so I saw
Speaker 2: I saw what had happened, like I went to see
Speaker 2: World like with my family. Girls wanted to go. I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't really want to go. Let's that
Speaker 2: support it or we're gonna go once and that's it. Man,
Speaker 2: they changed everything. It was pretty remarkable that one movie
Speaker 2: knocked down a multi million dollar corporation.
Speaker 3: It's pretty amazing completely and if you want inspiration as
Speaker 3: a documentary filmmaker, there is no greater inspiration than something
Speaker 3: like that when you see the cause and effect of
Speaker 3: the film, like, that's incredible. The second film I would
Speaker 3: probably pick is Searching for Sugarman.
Speaker 2: Or what I wondered film. Oh god, I love that movie.
Speaker 3: It was so loved and sorry, go ahead, I just said.
Speaker 3: Large chunks of it were actually filmed on iPhone.
Speaker 2: Really, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yes, I looked it up. Large chunks of the the
Speaker 3: recreated historical footage I think was filmed with a eight
Speaker 3: millimeter film app on a smartphone.
Speaker 2: That's because he was doing that. It's sad that he
Speaker 2: passed away, but I remember the filmmaker. He did it
Speaker 2: almost all by himself, like he was editing for like
Speaker 2: two or three years, and and then he got the Oscar,
Speaker 2: which is just like, oh my god, what I saw.
Speaker 3: I mean, that is the ultimate indie film. Hustle searching
Speaker 3: for sugar and this this guy made it happen. An
Speaker 3: incredible story made with with with really sparse resources. Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2: What was that other one that just came out a
Speaker 2: few years ago? Was it The Walk Walk the line
Speaker 2: about what you don't want to talking about? The one
Speaker 2: that the guy acrossed the twin Towers?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes yeah.
Speaker 2: Type yeah yeah yeah, something like that. What an amazing documentary.
Speaker 2: I fell in love with that guy. He's crazy. I
Speaker 2: love him. All right, I'm sorry I was in the.
Speaker 3: Third I got a third one for you. I got
Speaker 3: a third one for you. And that's a filmmaker called
Speaker 3: Brian Hertzlinger and his documentary was My Date with Drew,
Speaker 3: came out in.
Speaker 2: Yes, I remember that. I've seen that movie.
Speaker 3: That one. Yeah, he was about making it.
Speaker 2: When the stalker laws were a little less back then, apparently.
Speaker 2: But he wanted to he wanted to make he wanted
Speaker 2: a date with Drew Barrymore, and he made a old
Speaker 2: dock you merry about.
Speaker 3: It in thirty days incredibly just the ultimate challenge, you know,
Speaker 3: can you make a film in thirty days. He didn't
Speaker 3: even own a camera. That was an incredible thing. He
Speaker 3: and his two friends had to go and beg borrow
Speaker 3: and steal a camera on a credit card, which I
Speaker 3: had to be able to get a refund on within
Speaker 3: thirty days. That was a premise to making their film,
Speaker 3: Window to make thirty days to go and find a
Speaker 3: date with Drew Barrymore. And I think Rotten Tomatoes actually
Speaker 3: called it the Love It or Hate Its Stalkerazzi like
Speaker 3: it was like I said, you probably could not make
Speaker 3: that film in twenty eighteen, but back in two thousand
Speaker 3: and four, it was just it's one of those heartwarm,
Speaker 3: I mean, very simply made films. The aesthetics in it
Speaker 3: are a very pure, very basic, but a super sweet story.
Speaker 3: And as a documentary filmmakers, so much hope in there
Speaker 3: for making story with minimal means.
Speaker 2: So that was awesome. Ask great choices, my friend, Great choices. Now,
Speaker 2: where can people find you in the work you do?
Speaker 3: Look? Probably the best place would be on Facebook to
Speaker 3: look up film breaker FI L M br E a
Speaker 3: k E. That's the page where I've been sharing most
Speaker 3: of my knowledge, bombs and work of late. We've got
Speaker 3: a few influences on there contributing. Basically, it's a space
Speaker 3: where people who want to learn how to make films
Speaker 3: with their smartphones can be tooled up, can be inspired.
Speaker 3: And we set that up in March this year with
Speaker 3: an aim of finding ten thousand people around the world
Speaker 3: that had a similar mindset, and we're now up to
Speaker 3: just over thirty thousand. So yeah, a film breaker on
Speaker 3: Facebook is definitely the place to connect to stay in
Speaker 3: touch with got making and yeah, check out our what
Speaker 3: awesome man.
Speaker 2: Thank you Jason again so much. This has been an
Speaker 2: amazing interview, amazing conversation, and I really do hope it
Speaker 2: inspires people out there in the tribe and whoever is
Speaker 2: listening to this to get out there and just go
Speaker 2: tell their story. Man, it doesn't matter what you could.
Speaker 2: You have the power in your.
Speaker 3: Hands and play Alex wonderful being in the show. Thanks
Speaker 3: so much for the opportunity and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I want to thank Jason again for being on this show.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Thank you for those knowledge bombs. Jason, and guys, I'm
Speaker 2: telling you it is in the power of your hands.
Speaker 2: Don't let the lack of big movie gear stop you.
Speaker 2: You can make your movie, you can make your short,
Speaker 2: you can make your feature, you can make your series
Speaker 2: with an iPhone, with an Android phone. They are so
Speaker 2: so so powerful. I would have killed to have something
Speaker 2: like this when I was coming up in the business,
Speaker 2: to just even practice with, let alone to take it
Speaker 2: to the next level and actually shoot professional projects with
Speaker 2: So thanks again Jason for the inspiration. If you want
Speaker 2: to get links to Jason's work what he's doing, as
Speaker 2: well as links to the movie Tangerine and our interview
Speaker 2: with Sean Baker, and also a link to the video
Speaker 2: podcast of this, head over to Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv. Forward
Speaker 2: slash for zero one. Thank you so much for listening, guys,
Speaker 2: as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.