Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four forty six.
Speaker 2: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
Speaker 2: breath and try again.
Speaker 1: Kat You Whitten broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in
Speaker 1: Hollywood 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. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
Speaker 3: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now.
Speaker 2: Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
Speaker 2: on the kind of project you are in the goals
Speaker 2: of the project you are, so we actually break it
Speaker 2: down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market, and
Speaker 2: studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
Speaker 2: reader that's used to reading tempole movies when your movie
Speaker 2: is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof script Coverage,
Speaker 2: our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, w MEE, NBC, HBO, Disney,
Speaker 2: Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
Speaker 2: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com.
Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 3: My guest new film Initiation, which he cod wrote. It's
Speaker 3: being distributed by Gravitas Ventures. We talk writing, working as
Speaker 3: a development executive, and so much more with guest Dan Benimore.
Speaker 3: Hey Dan, thanks love for coming on the show.
Speaker 4: My pleasure.
Speaker 3: So Dan, just to get started, you know, since you've
Speaker 3: listened to the show before, you know what the first
Speaker 3: question is going to be. And that question, Dan is,
Speaker 3: you know, how did you get your start in the
Speaker 3: film industry?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, for me, it's I mean,
Speaker 4: I guess the real definitive moment was I came out
Speaker 4: here to LA and I got an internship with a
Speaker 4: production company, and then I was doing Apple about six
Speaker 4: months and I pretty much you know, I ended up
Speaker 4: getting hired as an assistant and then I got promoted
Speaker 4: from there and eventually I became the head of development.
Speaker 4: So it was sort of I mean, really, I guess
Speaker 4: you broke it down, it would probably be when I
Speaker 4: just first got hired from an intern to actually being
Speaker 4: an assistant, and then it sort of snowball from there.
Speaker 3: Now does that still work in a similar way, you know,
Speaker 3: because you know things are always changing and with the
Speaker 3: changing face of distribution and everything, is it still that
Speaker 3: that that way where you think interns are used as
Speaker 3: sort of like that farm system where they can be
Speaker 3: brought up within an agency.
Speaker 4: My opinion on it, you know, was that because I
Speaker 4: was at a small company where basically, you know, the
Speaker 4: principles of the company were right there, like you know,
Speaker 4: you're dealing with them every day, and it wasn't you know.
Speaker 4: I think that sometimes if you go for an internship,
Speaker 4: you could get an internship with somewhere really cool, like
Speaker 4: you know, like say, for example, I got an internship
Speaker 4: with Lion Skate or something, right, so I'm a really
Speaker 4: big company like that, I would just be a guy,
Speaker 4: you know, one guy in this massive machine. I think
Speaker 4: in a scenario like that, it would bet a little
Speaker 4: bit harder to have the trajectory that I ended up
Speaker 4: having at a small company because in a smaller company
Speaker 4: you go act directly with the principles, They get to
Speaker 4: know you, and you know, it's a more it's so
Speaker 4: much more personal relationship, and so it's not I don't
Speaker 4: think it says when it's a bigger machine, you know,
Speaker 4: I think you might have a tougher time having any
Speaker 4: sort of you know, upward mobility like that.
Speaker 3: Now, So when you went in there was that was
Speaker 3: that your goal to be to be hired or did
Speaker 3: you maybe have another aspiration, uh, to you know, to
Speaker 3: or another goal to maybe work for another company, or
Speaker 3: or maybe you know, just goal on your own.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I had no particular aspiration. I mean
Speaker 4: I showed up here in LA with my buddy from
Speaker 4: film school, and we got an apartment in Hollywood and basically,
Speaker 4: you know, for the first week we went to the beach.
Speaker 4: But then after that I was like, all right, what
Speaker 4: are we going to do? So I figured it would
Speaker 4: be worthwhile to try to learn, just learn as much
Speaker 4: as I could, and so I actually had a couple
Speaker 4: I think I had like two or three different internships
Speaker 4: at the same time. And I just you know, I
Speaker 4: had no real particular goal. I mean, I I've always
Speaker 4: my endgame was always to be a writer. But you know,
Speaker 4: when I first got to LA, I just figured as
Speaker 4: much as I can learn, it's all positive. So I
Speaker 4: just kind of showed up and you know, and things
Speaker 4: things took the course they took.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, And and you know that that's great
Speaker 3: because you know, because I have had friends who have
Speaker 3: moved out and uh, you know, the thinks are the
Speaker 3: same thing. They're like they always felt guilty about not
Speaker 3: being outside because they're like, look, it's a beautiful day out,
Speaker 3: the beach is down the street. What the hell are
Speaker 3: you doing inside?
Speaker 4: You know? Yeah, yeah, for sure, man. I mean the
Speaker 4: longer you're here too, the less you go.
Speaker 3: Until until like somebody, like a relative or something comes right,
Speaker 3: and then you're like.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Uh So you know this, And since we're talking about
Speaker 3: this part of your career, I want to ask, you know,
Speaker 3: because some of the people that have been on I
Speaker 3: didn't get a chance to ask from this, but what
Speaker 3: are some of the skill sets that did you think
Speaker 3: that you had at this point that really helped you
Speaker 3: stand out? And really help them. Uh, you know, your
Speaker 3: bosses and your managers that that they you know, they
Speaker 3: they saw you, and they saw your skill set, and
Speaker 3: they they wanted to keep you. So do you you
Speaker 3: any like any of the skills off hand that that
Speaker 3: you think that really helped you, you know, get that promotion.
Speaker 4: You know, it was funny because I started and at
Speaker 4: the end, I was in charge of the interns. So
Speaker 4: I would, you know, I would kind of manage the interns.
Speaker 4: I would, you know, me and other people at the company,
Speaker 4: of course, but I think primarily I was part of
Speaker 4: my job, so I would kind of see, you know,
Speaker 4: you would give some interns, like you give them a script,
Speaker 4: and you know, there were times when I was really
Speaker 4: busy and I genuinely needed to have like a really
Speaker 4: in depth creative discussion about a script, and I didn't
Speaker 4: have time to read it. I would give it to
Speaker 4: an intern to read, and then I'd get up, you
Speaker 4: know and say, hey, do read that a script? What'd
Speaker 4: you think? And you really it was very noticeable, and
Speaker 4: it's actually interesting. So now a couple of years are
Speaker 4: passed since I was at that job, the guys that
Speaker 4: were my interns that I could tell had something extra,
Speaker 4: they've had continued success, like they've transitioned to other jobs
Speaker 4: where they've they you know, some of them would become
Speaker 4: produced filmmakers, some of them work at other companies now.
Speaker 4: And you know you can tell the guys who basically
Speaker 4: had confidence, they had opinion. That's pretty much what he
Speaker 4: blows down to. You know, if if I got up
Speaker 4: and I would ask him in turn, like hey, when
Speaker 4: do you think of that script? And he was just
Speaker 4: like yeah, all right, you know, like that that's a
Speaker 4: that's not really what you're looking for. You know, you're
Speaker 4: looking for somebody who has confident as an opinion and
Speaker 4: also is like has a strong opinion. You know, Like
Speaker 4: so if I like something and you know the intern
Speaker 4: that I'm checking in with him and he didn't like it,
Speaker 4: and and I say, well, you know, I thought, you know,
Speaker 4: I felt this work and that work, and he kind
Speaker 4: of backs off his opinion. I think that is also
Speaker 4: another thing that like, your opinion is your opinion, and
Speaker 4: it's important, in my opinion, to be strong in your
Speaker 4: convictions because once you waffle, he kind of lose credibility,
Speaker 4: you know, So stuff like that, I think, and then
Speaker 4: also just the basics, right, like just being responsible, like
Speaker 4: you're if you're giving a job to do, do it
Speaker 4: to the best of your ability, be on time, be
Speaker 4: pleasant to deal with. You know. It's that that type
Speaker 4: of stuff really important too.
Speaker 3: So would you ever sit down with a lot of
Speaker 3: these interns and go over things like this is how
Speaker 3: you read a screenplay and these are the things to
Speaker 3: look for.
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Would you do stuff like that?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, I mean when you would first bring them in,
Speaker 4: we'd usually try to get a coverage sample to show
Speaker 4: that they knew how to read a script basically, and
Speaker 4: you know, I mean we we had our own template
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, but that you know, typically if
Speaker 4: somebody is coming in to be an intern at a
Speaker 4: production company, we want them to have some reading experience
Speaker 4: because we don't want them starting from asslot the scratch,
Speaker 4: I mean, then they have no real place to have
Speaker 4: a strong care of opinion. So usually we try to
Speaker 4: find somebody who had some sort of background and reading
Speaker 4: scripts and maybe they you know, whatever that might be,
Speaker 4: and hopefully, you know, start from there.
Speaker 3: So was there ever a you know, a time when
Speaker 3: when you you know, you read a screenplay and maybe
Speaker 3: you loved it and you wanted to get a feel
Speaker 3: for all these interns, and maybe you gave it to
Speaker 3: them and there was a point where they said, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, hey, boss, we we rooted it like this,
Speaker 3: and then and then maybe you said like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 3: I loved it actually, and and was therever there was
Speaker 3: there ever a time like that?
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, I mean always, I mean that's but that's why. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what you need, uh, you know, readers for basically
Speaker 4: to kind of check you so you can get a sense,
Speaker 4: especially if it's something a little bit out there where
Speaker 4: you're like, you know, I think this is great, but
Speaker 4: it's pretty pretty weird. You know, you need a lot
Speaker 4: of times you need that extra voice to kind of
Speaker 4: you know, get a sense of how it's playing. So
Speaker 4: often in the situations like that, I would actually have
Speaker 4: more than one person read it. I'd have like five
Speaker 4: people read it, and then I'd be able to look
Speaker 4: at sort of the general response and and you know
Speaker 4: compare and see what was consistent and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's two Verger takeaways too, is uh, you know,
Speaker 3: one have confidence and to have an opinion.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
Speaker 3: You know, that's very important to mention Dan because I,
Speaker 3: you know, just through everyone listening, I you know, I
Speaker 3: think that's very important too in the general in the
Speaker 3: film industry is that you have to have your confidence
Speaker 3: and you have to have that opinion, which you know,
Speaker 3: if you're as a director, you need that. As a
Speaker 3: writer as you know, you need that point of view
Speaker 3: from where to tell your story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's and that you know, it's it's a funny
Speaker 4: thing because it comes back on you in so many
Speaker 4: different ways because if you project confidence and it's even
Speaker 4: on the page. You know, if you project confidence on
Speaker 4: the page, and you project confidence when you then later
Speaker 4: go into a development beating or whatever, you can kind
Speaker 4: of slay people. Like people want to buy into that confidence. Like,
Speaker 4: you know, somebody's sitting down to read script, if that
Speaker 4: first couple of pages is written with a really strong
Speaker 4: authorial voice, they'll kind of come with you, you know. And
Speaker 4: if you, as the writer have a really strong take
Speaker 4: on a story and feel really strongly about it and
Speaker 4: can back it up and and all that stuff, people
Speaker 4: you know kind of want to take that journey with you,
Speaker 4: and they want to trust your credibility. As a writer,
Speaker 4: So it's so important. Well, I think once you it's
Speaker 4: not to say that like, oh you know, don't be
Speaker 4: be inflexible, it's not about that, but it just you
Speaker 4: got to be confident in what you're doing because if
Speaker 4: you're not, and there's no ways, no one ever else
Speaker 4: will ever be confident and you you have to be
Speaker 4: confident yourself number one, and then other people can basically
Speaker 4: trust you. And you know, in our business it's so
Speaker 4: tough already that if you don't project that confidence, I
Speaker 4: think it makes it way tougher.
Speaker 3: So what are some of the things that you notice,
Speaker 3: Like when we were talking about confidence on the page,
Speaker 3: you know, what are some of the things that usually
Speaker 3: jump out at you and you can usually say like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know that writer, he believes he or she believes
Speaker 3: in her own her own writing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's I think it's a lot
Speaker 4: of different things. I think I think one thing for
Speaker 4: sure would be starting out with a storytelling sort of
Speaker 4: approach where you're not you're not waiting for us, like
Speaker 4: you're the story's going and we're either coming with you
Speaker 4: or we're not. But you're not going to hang around
Speaker 4: and hold our hand you know, I think that that
Speaker 4: is something you'll definitely see in professional scripts, and it's
Speaker 4: a very noticeable difference from when you're reading a script
Speaker 4: maybe by a more beginning writer. You can tell the
Speaker 4: level of confidence in terms of a shorthand of communicating information,
Speaker 4: you know, where it's you and it's it's asking a
Speaker 4: lot of us as the audience that hey, you you
Speaker 4: got to keep up with me kind of thing. And
Speaker 4: I think that you when you when you read something
Speaker 4: like that, it actually sort of galvanizes you as a
Speaker 4: reader because you are suddenly empowered to like figure out
Speaker 4: what's going on and and it just makes it a
Speaker 4: more dynamic experience. The worst thing you can do is is,
Speaker 4: you know, have something where it's just spelling it out
Speaker 4: to you, you know, in every way, whether that dialogue
Speaker 4: or just the slowness of the presentation of information or
Speaker 4: presenting old ideas as if they are new ideas. You know,
Speaker 4: and there's there's you know, the audience now is so
Speaker 4: savage that it's really you know, there's a lot that
Speaker 4: can be done in shorthand, and if you're not using
Speaker 4: that shorthand, I think that's where you can kind of
Speaker 4: get into a scenario where it doesn't come across so
Speaker 4: the same level of confidence on the page.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do agree. The audience is very savvy now.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, sometimes I'm watching movies and I see,
Speaker 3: you know, cliches and and I'm always thinking to myself,
Speaker 3: you know, if they I wonder if if they're writer,
Speaker 3: the director, whoever it was. I'm We're always wondering, you know,
Speaker 3: why didn't they try something else? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Because you know, now, Dan, what I do with the movies.
Speaker 3: I'm always dissecting them in my head, not not even
Speaker 3: just you know, a piece of paper, but in my head,
Speaker 3: I'm always thinking to myself, you know, is this a setup?
Speaker 3: Is this is you know, what would the payoff be?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, I wonder what the inside the incident
Speaker 3: is going to be and when it finally comes there,
Speaker 3: you know you know what I mean. I mean, do
Speaker 3: you do the same thing? Do you said? You know
Speaker 3: when you watch movies? Now, are you just dissecting them
Speaker 3: and and sort rumors, trying to getting ahead of the
Speaker 3: story to see if you could, you know, predict what
Speaker 3: the writer was thinking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I'm pretty much ruined as an audience
Speaker 4: member at this point. I mean, I remember, I remember
Speaker 4: I used to when I was when I was in college.
Speaker 4: I would go my buddy and we would sneak, you know,
Speaker 4: we would both see one movie and then sneak around
Speaker 4: the theater and we would do that for like twelve hours,
Speaker 4: and we would see every movie that was in theater.
Speaker 4: And I can actually should and watched literally, I watched
Speaker 4: literally anything. But now you know, I'm such a that's
Speaker 4: an awful audience member. I'll find something, you know, like
Speaker 4: you quick something new on netflick two minutes if there's
Speaker 4: stuff in there that I just I'm watching it and
Speaker 4: I'm just like, ah, man, you know, I'll turn off,
Speaker 4: Like I'm I'd become such a terrifable audience member exactly
Speaker 4: because of what you're talking about, because we were in
Speaker 4: it so much that it's like you stop consuming it
Speaker 4: kind of as like a regular consumer. You become a
Speaker 4: lot more sort of like hypocritical when you're when you're
Speaker 4: watching stuf because they're always thinking about the design of
Speaker 4: it and and things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know what you mean, because sometimes you know,
Speaker 3: I watch movies, right even if you're a trailer now
Speaker 3: and uh, I'll say, let me guess what happens in
Speaker 3: this movie. And sometimes, you know, I'll stay out in
Speaker 3: front of my friends and they're like, how the hell
Speaker 3: do you would you get that from seeing this? And
Speaker 3: I'm just like, because I just you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: you see that stuff, you see those points, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like there was you know, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: this is obviously last part of the movie. I know
Speaker 3: this sounds a little bit redundant, but the first time
Speaker 3: I ever had not the first time, but the most
Speaker 3: time it sticks out in my mind was when Paul
Speaker 3: Blart malcov came out and I saw the trailer and
Speaker 3: a friend of mine went to always screening of it
Speaker 3: and I told him exactly what I think happens in
Speaker 3: the beat base based on the trailer, and he goes, wow,
Speaker 3: you're really good at this. And I know I now,
Speaker 3: granted obviously we don't go see Paul Blart Malkoff for
Speaker 3: the writing, but but you know that's I was just
Speaker 3: bring that up as a point of reference.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean in general, you know that goes back
Speaker 4: to the authorial conference thing, right, It's like, but soon
Speaker 4: when you're starting the story, the audience is ahead of
Speaker 4: you in the same way of what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Like if you set it up and they're they are
Speaker 4: going to be predicting a certain storyline. So you the creator,
Speaker 4: you got to kind of know that, and you're sort
Speaker 4: of knowing that you have to give them something that's
Speaker 4: at least a little bit different, because otherwise it's going
Speaker 4: to be exactly like what you're talking about. The audience
Speaker 4: is able to predict it like beat by beat, then
Speaker 4: you're screwed. I mean, that's really you know, then that's
Speaker 4: a really tough it's a tough place to get away
Speaker 4: from if you're in that scenario. So you got to
Speaker 4: figure some sort of wrinkle that makes it a little
Speaker 4: bit different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very true. And you know, I actually, you know,
Speaker 3: just as we talk about all this writing and everything else,
Speaker 3: I want to, you know, get get into your writing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So did you always you know, have the inclamation that
Speaker 3: you wanted to be a writer director?
Speaker 4: Well, no, so I have. I've directed one movie and
Speaker 4: some shorts, and then you know, for me, in the
Speaker 4: experience of directing my movie, which is called The Trade,
Speaker 4: pretty much told me that I would prefer to just
Speaker 4: be the writer, which you know, I enjoyed it, but
Speaker 4: it's just so all consuming. So I give a lot
Speaker 4: of credit to my cousin in Orange, who directed our
Speaker 4: movie Initiation. It's really an immersive thing that she kind
Speaker 4: of just you give up. You got to put a
Speaker 4: lot of yourself into it. So for me, I prefer
Speaker 4: being the writer. I mean, the experience that we had
Speaker 4: making this film, it's kind of like exactly what I
Speaker 4: love about the being of the writer is that I
Speaker 4: was able to come in and contribute to the story
Speaker 4: and then they went off and made the movie and
Speaker 4: I watched the movie. I mean that's you know, that's
Speaker 4: like so that's when it's cool being a writer, because
Speaker 4: it's literally like you wrote something on a piece of
Speaker 4: paper and then you get to see that it exists,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's pretty pretty neat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very true, you know, because I you know, I
Speaker 3: looked dry MDB. I did see you have the short
Speaker 3: then you you did direct Portrade, and you know, I
Speaker 3: wanted to, you know, just ask you know, what was
Speaker 3: the biggest difference that you found when you when you
Speaker 3: had to direct. I mean, was there any like, you know,
Speaker 3: challenges that you weren't anticipating or you know, did you
Speaker 3: just say, you know what, I prefer to be a writer.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that when you're gonna direct, I
Speaker 4: mean I very much. I love working with the actors.
Speaker 4: I think working with actors is so fun. And you know,
Speaker 4: if I ever end up directing again, it will be
Speaker 4: because of that. The part that I felt, you know,
Speaker 4: and you kind of have to be all in or
Speaker 4: not in at all. For me, that was the visual authentic.
Speaker 4: I had a really great uh cinematographer on my film Betrayed,
Speaker 4: and you know, he was really good about like basically
Speaker 4: checking me and being like, hey, that's not gonna look good.
Speaker 4: Let's do it like this. You know, when you're when
Speaker 4: you're promarier writer, you don't necessarily think in that and
Speaker 4: visual in the way that a director can to become
Speaker 4: the same tools. You know, if you're if you're someone
Speaker 4: who's confident directing stuff and your aspiration is absolutely to direct,
Speaker 4: then you're gonna be doing the same study that you
Speaker 4: and I do for a writing right where we we
Speaker 4: know it so in and out and we know all
Speaker 4: the tools and tricks and things like that. I think
Speaker 4: that you know, uh, and obviously you and you want
Speaker 4: you lean on your sematographer as a director, of course,
Speaker 4: but I just felt like for me, I enjoy sort
Speaker 4: of trying to master this one facet of it as
Speaker 4: opposed to like trying to I felt like it would
Speaker 4: be kind of a jack of all trade situation if
Speaker 4: I tried to do directing thing. As much as I
Speaker 4: like it, I don't. I don't have the same you know,
Speaker 4: energy with it as I do with the writing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know, when when I I haven't directed
Speaker 3: anything for like five years.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
Speaker 3: But you know, I find that it's not because I
Speaker 3: don't want to. It's just because I've learned Dan that
Speaker 3: the writing has to be not good, but great, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. Before you're going to do any projects.
Speaker 3: I've learned that it has to be you have to
Speaker 3: like you yourself whoever, you know, for everyone listening to this.
Speaker 3: If you're writing something, you and yourself have to get
Speaker 3: so excited about it, you're like, how the hell is
Speaker 3: this not a movie made? Or Freddie if Nook, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, And you have to be so
Speaker 3: And that's something that I've learned. So what I've I've
Speaker 3: been doing. Is I took one step forward to take two.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I took one step back to take two
Speaker 3: steps forward. And basically what I mean by that is
Speaker 3: I just wanted to make sure that I got better
Speaker 3: at things. And during this whole five year period, I've
Speaker 3: actually produced stuff. I've actually had a graphic novel get made,
Speaker 3: you know, stuff like that. And but but it's really,
Speaker 3: you know, it comes back to, you know, making sure
Speaker 3: that writing is phenomenal and you when you when you
Speaker 3: talk about writing, you know, I can you know, I
Speaker 3: can hear you get excited about it in your voice,
Speaker 3: and that's good exactly. You need that, right, So I
Speaker 3: wanted to ask you, Dan, when whenever you're writing, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, like, is there any things that
Speaker 3: you keep in mind to you know, make sure that
Speaker 3: you're always sort of going forward if you know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a million things. I mean. That's the part
Speaker 4: that kind of it kind of sucks about the more
Speaker 4: you learn about it, right because I mean when when
Speaker 4: when I started, you know, you would it was a
Speaker 4: little bit more free because you were just like, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: you know, it's once you learn so much about it,
Speaker 4: then there's so many different things that you got to
Speaker 4: be thinking about, and so it actually makes you know
Speaker 4: once you actually get on the page, I'm good. But
Speaker 4: the planning, the planning stage, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 4: that you have to be thinking about, and it helps
Speaker 4: to just do it a million times. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: very grateful for the time that I was a development
Speaker 4: executive because I basically you know develop, uh, I mean
Speaker 4: dozens of scripts and we made a bunch of the
Speaker 4: movie too, so I really got to see the whole
Speaker 4: process many times. And so that that helps because you
Speaker 4: sort of get almost like a muscle memory for it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you've got so much stuff you have to
Speaker 4: think about. You got you know, theme and character and
Speaker 4: dialogue and arc and structure and mood, and it's, uh, yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a lot to kind of manage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, one thing I've learned, and you know,
Speaker 3: like you said, you the more you learn, the more,
Speaker 3: uh you know, the more the more you do, the
Speaker 3: more you learn, the more you learn, you know, you
Speaker 3: realize how complex this gets. And you know, I've read
Speaker 3: every screenwriting book on the market. I literally you know,
Speaker 3: you can't see it because it's the podcast, but I
Speaker 3: have every screenwriting book out there, and I've read it
Speaker 3: from cover to cover. H you know, I've done what
Speaker 3: everybody else does. You start with screenplay by Sidfield and
Speaker 3: you work up to save the Cat. Then you get
Speaker 3: story by the Key, you know, any sort of and
Speaker 3: then you sort of branch off from there if you
Speaker 3: read the Three Works, because you know, everyone sort of
Speaker 3: talks about it. But one thing I've learned over the
Speaker 3: years is that everything comes back to character, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, like everything, you know, when we talk
Speaker 3: about scenes, when we talk about favorite parts of a movie,
Speaker 3: when we talk about this or that, it always stems
Speaker 3: from a character.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's very true. Yeah, I mean I would
Speaker 4: always say when we would you know, when I was
Speaker 4: a I'm executive and we try to put a movie together,
Speaker 4: it was pretty in every ready we made that actually
Speaker 4: ended up getting made, there was always a moment where
Speaker 4: we would attack somebody that was meaningful, whether that was
Speaker 4: an actor or director or whatever, and that person when
Speaker 4: they would come in, it wasn't like they said, you
Speaker 4: know why I'm doing this movie because I love the
Speaker 4: you know the midpoint, Like no nobody ever said that.
Speaker 4: It was always about whatever the emotion was of it
Speaker 4: or whatever the character thing was that we were doing.
Speaker 4: That was what they would key in on and say, man,
Speaker 4: you know, I really meant something to me and I
Speaker 4: got company out of that. So yeah, nobody, it's it's
Speaker 4: all you know, the plot is informed by the character,
Speaker 4: and then they have to they have to not only
Speaker 4: coke this, but actually sort of be intrinsic to each other.
Speaker 4: Like the the best movies are movies where the plot
Speaker 4: has to happen because of the character. Like those two.
Speaker 4: They can't exist out plot of each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's very true. And I think the
Speaker 3: mistake a lot of writers make and and I've made
Speaker 3: this mistake, you know, more times than I can count, is,
Speaker 3: you know, developing a plot and trying to plunk characters
Speaker 3: insaid plot, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think.
Speaker 3: When when you yeah, when you try to reverse that,
Speaker 3: when you try to reverse engineer or something like that,
Speaker 3: I think that's where you sort of get stuck. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you know, when you know your new movie initiation, uh,
Speaker 3: it's it's being you know, distributed by Gravitas Ventures. Congratulations,
Speaker 3: by the way, that's freaking huge.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, we're we're we're very excited, you know, and
Speaker 4: we're very proud of the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that that is, you know, absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 3: And I wanted to ask, you know, where, so where
Speaker 3: did your idea come from for the film? You know,
Speaker 3: did was this an idea that came to you or
Speaker 3: was this just something that you know that that you've
Speaker 3: been sort of working on for years?
Speaker 4: So this this is actually something that you know, my
Speaker 4: cousin Orn he had the initial idea. He had a script,
Speaker 4: and he basically, you know, we being cousins, we both
Speaker 4: live in LA I would always come hang with him,
Speaker 4: and you know, he mentioned he was working on this
Speaker 4: and at one point he you know, he I talked
Speaker 4: about working on it together. And so basically I came
Speaker 4: in and I co wrote it. I I you know,
Speaker 4: we we ended up writing, revising that script and and
Speaker 4: uh working on it together through to the end. And
Speaker 4: and he directed the film and edited it and produced it.
Speaker 4: And so I this was a situation where basically I
Speaker 4: came in where there was already a product that existed,
Speaker 4: and I just gave my sort of creative energy to it.
Speaker 4: And I think that we both kind of compliment to
Speaker 4: each other in that process, and you know that was
Speaker 4: that was the process played out on this one.
Speaker 3: So for those for those listening who aren't familiar with
Speaker 3: the film, could you give us a brief exclamation about
Speaker 3: the film then?
Speaker 4: Yeah. So it's basically a group of strangers are kidnapped
Speaker 4: and they're taken to this kind of my serious house
Speaker 4: and they basically come to realize that they've been kidnapped
Speaker 4: to take place in an initiation ritual for a cult.
Speaker 4: And to be initiated into this cult, you have to
Speaker 4: fight somebody to the death. And so these people that
Speaker 4: are complete strangers to each other, they're just random people
Speaker 4: and they're thrown into this insane situation and they have
Speaker 4: to try to figure out a way to survive. And
Speaker 4: that's what the movie is about.
Speaker 3: Very cool, and it's actually cool that it's coming out
Speaker 3: right around this time, you know, this full Halloween time,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It sounds like the movie
Speaker 3: that's wrapped out Alleyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's well, what's what's been
Speaker 4: cool about it is that it sort of it towes
Speaker 4: the line between action and horror. So, you know, we've
Speaker 4: been we've been really happy to see that a lot
Speaker 4: of horror websites have reviewed the film and given us
Speaker 4: nice notices because I think that it it's something that's
Speaker 4: a pun movie for people that like horror movies, but
Speaker 4: it's also a fun movie for you know, an action
Speaker 4: fan thriller type of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is very cool. And you know because I mean,
Speaker 3: whenever you can see the horror you know, horror sites,
Speaker 3: whenever they can get excited about something, you know, it's
Speaker 3: always awesome because like we were talking about, with all
Speaker 3: the films you know that we've seen and you know,
Speaker 3: being able to sort of you know, spot the story.
Speaker 3: You know, they've seen ton of horror films, so you know,
Speaker 3: when you can get them on board of something, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, it's like, okay, great, now you
Speaker 3: got something you know it could have if they like it.
Speaker 3: I mean, what what's the general public going to think?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Right? Yeah, nol, And we've been I mean we've you know,
Speaker 4: we have shown the film to a lot of people
Speaker 4: at this point, and you know enough people where it's
Speaker 4: it's a funny thing your relationship with your own work, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, anytime you show us something to somebody that
Speaker 4: knows you. You're kind of like, well, you know, they
Speaker 4: might they might just tell me to be nice. So
Speaker 4: they thought, like, but we we've shown it to so
Speaker 4: many people, and then obviously I think we have you know,
Speaker 4: on IMDb there's some some reviews linked and uh and
Speaker 4: you know, Bloody discussed and gave us my review. And
Speaker 4: we know these people that have no reason to tell
Speaker 4: out one way or the other. Right, So when when
Speaker 4: somebody that has no relationship to you tells you they
Speaker 4: got something out of your work, then that that's uh,
Speaker 4: that's big because then you figure, Okay, well maybe you know,
Speaker 4: maybe it does work, you know, And and this is
Speaker 4: a sort of more objective for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I see that on the
Speaker 3: IMDb page. It's up on Amazon Video right now. Is
Speaker 3: there is there any other places that that people could
Speaker 3: find the movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all over. It's on It's on iTunes, on Amazon,
Speaker 4: It's on PlayStation, it's on it's on a lot of
Speaker 4: cable on demand providers. I was in I was home
Speaker 4: in Baltimore, and I I saw it on my parents,
Speaker 4: you know, cable at their house. It's on Blue Doo,
Speaker 4: It's it's on the majority of video on demand providers.
Speaker 3: And I will link to that everyone in the show notes.
Speaker 3: I will make sure to links all those places that
Speaker 3: you can check out the initiation. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 3: wanted to ask, you know, also about the initiation. You know, Dan,
Speaker 3: what's what's one thing you wanted you able to take
Speaker 3: away from the film? I mean, did you I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, did you want to have people leave going
Speaker 3: you know, damn that was intense? Or was there any
Speaker 3: other sort of theme that you wanted people to walk
Speaker 3: away from that walk away from?
Speaker 4: A friend of mine just watched it, and that was
Speaker 4: pretty much what he emailed me, he said, and that
Speaker 4: was intent the the you know what was cool about
Speaker 4: it for me was that I think we succeeded. It's
Speaker 4: something that I'm always trying to do, which is aked
Speaker 4: with the genre movie and basically invest it with a
Speaker 4: real meaning.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
Speaker 4: Meaning that it's not just kind of an empty genre
Speaker 4: exercise that's actually it has a message and a point
Speaker 4: to it that is emotional, that is you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: this will be basically about the idea that no matter
Speaker 4: what situation, you're kind of put into if you have
Speaker 4: this sort of inner strength to defeat it, then no
Speaker 4: one there's nothing anyone can do to you. And you know,
Speaker 4: we sort of explore that in a lot of different
Speaker 4: ways than the film, but it was something that, you know,
Speaker 4: meant something to me, and I think that it gives
Speaker 4: the film a weight that you know, if we sort
Speaker 4: of just relied on all the genre stuff, it wouldn't
Speaker 4: have that same weight to it. So that that was
Speaker 4: the thing to me that I was most satisfied with.
Speaker 3: You know, just as a side note, you know, a
Speaker 3: screenwriting professor once told me a great piece of scream
Speaker 3: writing advice, and that was when you're sitting down to
Speaker 3: you know, brainstorm a concept or whatever for for your movie.
Speaker 3: He said, this is a question you asked yourself, what
Speaker 3: do you want audiences to leave? What do you want
Speaker 3: audiences when they leave to take away from this movie?
Speaker 3: Do you want them to say, oh my god, that
Speaker 3: was hilarious? We know, And he's like that helps guide
Speaker 3: you throughout the process when you're making the movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know you got to
Speaker 4: you gotta do it for a reason. There's just too much.
Speaker 4: There's too much stuff out there, all this it tasts
Speaker 4: too long, it's too much of a pain in the
Speaker 4: ass if you're not doing it out of some strong
Speaker 4: impulse of And it doesn't necessarily always have to be heavy,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, we're like right now we my
Speaker 4: cousin and I are talking about doing another film together,
Speaker 4: and we're we're talking about doing one. It's a little
Speaker 4: bit more sort of light at least in the tone.
Speaker 4: And you know that that can be fine too, But
Speaker 4: it's just whatever that impulse is that you have that
Speaker 4: makes it interesting and exciting for you. You know, you
Speaker 4: got to really feel strongly about that and kind of
Speaker 4: and and key on that throughout the whole thing, you know,
Speaker 4: because that's what you want the person who watches it
Speaker 4: to have that thing feeling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's exactly right. And uh, you know, I
Speaker 3: I think, you know, when we can finally convey that,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like I think, uh, you're like,
Speaker 3: for instance, Quentin Tarantino, whenever he writes I'm thinking, that's
Speaker 3: the same thing that people pull away from, is the
Speaker 3: same mood he's in, you know what I mean, Particularly like,
Speaker 3: heyful late, I have I have a you know, that's
Speaker 3: sort of like a it was the same, but it
Speaker 3: was different for him. And I sort of think that,
Speaker 3: you know, you could sort of pull away what he's
Speaker 3: what you know, what he puts into the script, if
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And and you know, I
Speaker 3: wanted to ask, you know, Dan, as we know we
Speaker 3: were talking about your your your future projects. I wanted
Speaker 3: just to ask, you know, what does a typical writing
Speaker 3: day for you look like?
Speaker 4: Man if I can just get some time, it's really
Speaker 4: time is the most important thing. I mean, I I'm
Speaker 4: not for me. It's not like I'll write anywhere. I'll
Speaker 4: write it at any time. I don't need to like,
Speaker 4: you know, consult the muse or anything like. I can
Speaker 4: just down it and bank some stuff out. But I
Speaker 4: think that I have a tough time. I'm sort of
Speaker 4: an impatient person, which I think is probably a pretty
Speaker 4: important part of any fixed out that I have had
Speaker 4: or will have is down you know. I'm just I'm
Speaker 4: not patient to like just let things come as they may.
Speaker 4: Like I want to get stuff done, and you know,
Speaker 4: kind of that's always my ethos. So when I the
Speaker 4: planning part of it, that's the part that takes forever,
Speaker 4: like I'll do research, you know, on initiation. I did
Speaker 4: research into military stuff on other projects I've written, you know,
Speaker 4: I'll read like three books about it. But once it's
Speaker 4: time to write and I actually have figured out the story,
Speaker 4: I'm so I have such a burning desire to just
Speaker 4: get it out of me and get it onto the page.
Speaker 4: It's almost to the point where like I feel like
Speaker 4: I'm going to lose it if I don't that it
Speaker 4: comes very fast, you know, and I almost, I almost
Speaker 4: will consciously try to set aside, you know, just a
Speaker 4: couple of days or whatever where I know it's going
Speaker 4: to just be kind of flowing out of me and
Speaker 4: uh and just be able to kind of bang pages out,
Speaker 4: because you know, that's I don't. I don't, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just a difference in process. Right for me, The
Speaker 4: real cracking of the story comes in the planning. The
Speaker 4: actual writing is just putting the planning on a piece
Speaker 4: of paper. So the writing itself is the fun part.
Speaker 4: The hard part of the is coming up with the
Speaker 4: actual story.
Speaker 3: Yes, I could not agree more. That's something that I
Speaker 3: found too, is that, you know, uh, because once I
Speaker 3: have an outline or a treatment or anything, you know,
Speaker 3: what I mean, like any even if it's a piece
Speaker 3: of paper with some ideas, you know, scribble down on
Speaker 3: it that looks like the journal from seven you know,
Speaker 3: just something, I know where I'm going, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? And you know the biggest part that was
Speaker 3: always you know where the plot is going. But then
Speaker 3: I've realized always comes back to where the characters start,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So you know when the
Speaker 3: when the when the script starts is where the movie starts.
Speaker 3: So then where do we find our characters when the
Speaker 3: script starts?
Speaker 4: You know, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Or do they have something? Do they not have something?
Speaker 3: You know, what's their desire?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: You know, what's what's their intention? With's their obstacle?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: So Dan, I mean look going down on average, how often,
Speaker 3: I mean, how many hours a day do you write?
Speaker 3: I mean, is it like sometimes like a thirty minutes,
Speaker 3: then sometimes maybe it's like two hours.
Speaker 4: I think that on a day when I actually can
Speaker 4: really you know why, I have nothing going, I can
Speaker 4: really just hit and focus on writing, I'll usually I
Speaker 4: think after like three or four hours, you got to
Speaker 4: stop and I've done it. I've I've had times were
Speaker 4: off Fitt, and I'll write for like, you know, I'll
Speaker 4: write the whole day. But I think, as a general rule,
Speaker 4: unless it's something where I've gone insane or I have
Speaker 4: to you know, I think that three or four hours
Speaker 4: of a focus writing, after that it t has to
Speaker 4: become diminishing return just your brain kind of. It takes
Speaker 4: a certain sort of brain muscle, I think to come
Speaker 4: up with this stuff, and after a while you start
Speaker 4: like you don't have that theme because you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's sort of what we were talking about before, Like
Speaker 4: each scene that you write, you really got to sit
Speaker 4: and think about it and think about like, Okay, you know,
Speaker 4: here's the regular version of this scene. Why is this
Speaker 4: scene going to be somewhat cooler than the regular version?
Speaker 4: Like how can I make it different? How can I
Speaker 4: make a different not just in what happens, but in
Speaker 4: how the characters interact with each other, with the visual
Speaker 4: thing that I'm doing in this scene, with the reversal
Speaker 4: in this scene. So it's so much like mental effort
Speaker 4: to go into it that I think after three or
Speaker 4: four hours I got to stop. So for me, a
Speaker 4: good three or four hours of writing and then maybe
Speaker 4: some research. You know, in the afternoon or a lot
Speaker 4: of prep for the next day, you know, like okay
Speaker 4: and tomorrow. I know, I got to write these thenes
Speaker 4: just kind of what I'm thinking, and I at least
Speaker 4: have a little bit of a roadmap of the actual
Speaker 4: precise execution, and then you can kind of flow into
Speaker 4: the next day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of like which I think Stephen King
Speaker 3: maybe said that. He said basically, he he ends on
Speaker 3: a high note that way, and the next thing he
Speaker 3: comes in, he knows exactly where he's gonna go, and
Speaker 3: he keeps that flow going on every day.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I tend to do that as well.
Speaker 3: Great mindset go alike. Uh, you know, and that and
Speaker 3: that's great advice by the way. So you know, Dan,
Speaker 3: in closing, you know, is there maybe anything that we
Speaker 3: can talk about that you wanted to or any sort
Speaker 3: of parting thoughts you want to want to add to
Speaker 3: this conversation.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, you know, I think the thing that's
Speaker 4: cool to me about this project specifically, and I think
Speaker 4: is relevant to what we're talking about and probably to
Speaker 4: a lot of people listen to your podcast to you know,
Speaker 4: this is something that any of us could do. You
Speaker 4: could you you could have made this movie. You know,
Speaker 4: anybody listening to this could have made this movie. It's
Speaker 4: a movie that we made for a low budget. But
Speaker 4: you know, one of the reasons that it's been so
Speaker 4: cool getting some nice reviews from some herts cycles that
Speaker 4: they basically said, yeah, it's a low budget movie, but
Speaker 4: the sort of ingenuity and the effort that went into
Speaker 4: it and that that made it it didn't. It doesn't
Speaker 4: feel a little budge it, you know, like it's not
Speaker 4: It's the point being that there's nothing stopping any of us.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to make in a movie, and not
Speaker 4: just a movie that we sort of is enabled gaming
Speaker 4: for our own edification, but a movie that anybody can
Speaker 4: sit down and watch and enjoy at a real movie,
Speaker 4: you know, even if you have to do it for
Speaker 4: a low budget. You know, and I think that this
Speaker 4: is sort of to me a good case study of
Speaker 4: that that we actually went made this movie, got it
Speaker 4: distributed by a very legitimate distributor. It's out everywhere, you know,
Speaker 4: and you know, we we've got a lot of nice
Speaker 4: responses to the movie. So we do think that the
Speaker 4: movie works, and you know, we we just look forward
Speaker 4: to hopefully having people discovered, you know, and and maybe
Speaker 4: we can go make another one.
Speaker 3: You know, and that's that's phenomenal and uh, you know, honestly, Dan,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make sure check out the The initiat I
Speaker 3: will everyone, I will link that in the show notes. Dan,
Speaker 3: where can we find you out online?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, just stuck with the movie. I'm
Speaker 4: not I'm like the worst person ever for all this.
Speaker 4: I don't have a Twitter or I'm not a social
Speaker 4: media dude. But The Initiation movie we have a website
Speaker 4: with Facebook page, and obviously it's on iTunes, it's on Amazon,
Speaker 4: it's all these other platforms.
Speaker 3: Dan, I want to say thank you very much.
Speaker 4: For coming on my pleasure, good conversation, Oh my pleasure, sir,
Speaker 4: Take care, take care anyway, I want.
Speaker 2: To thank Dave so much for doing such a great
Speaker 2: job on this episode. If you want to get links
Speaker 2: to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over
Speaker 2: to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv for it. Slash,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening to guys. As always,
Speaker 2: keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof screenwriting,
Speaker 1: dot tv,