Speaker 1: Oh it's showtime.
Speaker 2: People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas,
Speaker 3: pop popcorn, and no monsters.
Speaker 1: In the protection booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 4: Cut it off.
Speaker 5: Would you describe yourself as someone with an open mind
Speaker 5: to a point? I want you to look at that wall.
Speaker 5: Tell me what you see. I believe there is a
Speaker 5: small hole in the wall. This anomaly is your research subject.
Speaker 5: I need you to observe this hole, scrutinize it. If
Speaker 5: something abnormal occurs, it's you who will define and report it.
Speaker 6: None of you know what you're doing here.
Speaker 1: Hey, this is insane and dangerous.
Speaker 5: Nobody is going to abandon you here. It be a
Speaker 5: mental explore.
Speaker 7: Chart the neglected waters of your subconscious and then maybe,
Speaker 7: just maybe you'll figure it all out.
Speaker 5: You're absolutely perfect, Google Change together.
Speaker 6: Up.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White.
Speaker 2: On this special episode, I'm talking with Stephen McDonald LaBelle
Speaker 2: all about his twenty twenty four film Head Like a Hole,
Speaker 2: recently played at the Boston Underground Film Festival. Had a
Speaker 2: great time seeing it, and I imagine you will too
Speaker 2: kind of a slow burned black and white horror film
Speaker 2: has a lot of heart and a lot of entertainment.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you
Speaker 2: enjoyed the interview. Can you tell me how did you
Speaker 2: get involved in filmmaking?
Speaker 1: So it's a very long path. Both my parents are
Speaker 1: One of their best friends is Tibor Tacis, who directed
Speaker 1: The Gate, a Seminole Canadian satanic panic horror movie, and
Speaker 1: being quite proud out of their friend, they showed it
Speaker 1: to me at a very young age, and from that
Speaker 1: moment onward, I was a huge genre fan. I'd go
Speaker 1: to my local video store, the Club Internasty Nowlex at
Speaker 1: that point I lived in Quebec. I mean I would
Speaker 1: look at all the incredibly well designed covers for all
Speaker 1: these genre films of the era, and I just, like,
Speaker 1: you know, voraciously, just run through these. I was speed
Speaker 1: running as many horror movies as I could possibly get
Speaker 1: my hands on. And so I always loved genre film.
Speaker 1: But I always felt that filmmaking was something that was
Speaker 1: inaccessible to a certain degree. So I actually I went
Speaker 1: to school for health scientists. I have like a pre
Speaker 1: med degree and then had been in a corporate environment,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the basis for this movie a
Speaker 1: little bit, and being largely unhappy with that experience. But
Speaker 1: I was sat next to a wonderful coworker named Lisa
Speaker 1: Choi and her husband is a commercial director, and she
Speaker 1: was like, you love movies, Like, why don't you just
Speaker 1: like try this out? This is clearly not environment for you. You're
Speaker 1: incredibly unhappy right now, and I know it. So I
Speaker 1: went to I paid on this commercial and I was
Speaker 1: basically putting VFX track markers on a green screen that
Speaker 1: it was for like a wine commercial, and it was
Speaker 1: the most fun I ever had, and I at that
Speaker 1: point knew that this is the path that I wanted
Speaker 1: to go on. So it's been a very very long
Speaker 1: path from kind of like that point A to where
Speaker 1: I am now point B, and hopefully I have multiple
Speaker 1: points to go from here. But you know type of
Speaker 1: tala accidens.
Speaker 2: Well, tell me about some of those earlier films that
Speaker 2: you were making, some of the shorts that you did.
Speaker 1: I grew up pretty poor, so I've always been interested
Speaker 1: in exploring socioeconomics with what I'm working on. So I
Speaker 1: made an erotic thriller short called a Ruby, which is
Speaker 1: about an agrophobic woman who is kind of like in
Speaker 1: financial dire straits, much like the main character of this feature,
Speaker 1: I decides to become like a phone sex operator to
Speaker 1: both like explore herself but also just to be kind
Speaker 1: of like gainfully employed, and she quickly realizes that she
Speaker 1: likes this as like a vocation, but unfortunately her downstairs neighbor,
Speaker 1: who's completely enamored with her, kind of insinuates himself into
Speaker 1: that situation. I'd actually love to do a feature about it,
Speaker 1: but that again down the road. And I made another
Speaker 1: short called you Don't Want Me Here, which I've dubbed
Speaker 1: kind of like a gentrification horror movie, which is like
Speaker 1: Burnt Offerings in a sense that it's about a home
Speaker 1: that almost has like a biological haunting and it decays
Speaker 1: almost it's fed people to rejuvenate itself. So the owner
Speaker 1: kind of like lures in unhoused folks with the premise
Speaker 1: of like housing and then dispatches them to rejuvenate his home.
Speaker 1: I do have a feature script for that, and I'd
Speaker 1: love to do that as well, and I have like
Speaker 1: a few other projects as well, but I think that
Speaker 1: would go on forever if I just kind of like
Speaker 1: kept rambling about you mean, tell.
Speaker 2: Me about you're a writer. I'm head like a whole.
Speaker 1: My corrider is Mitchell Burrell, who is a longtime friend,
Speaker 1: and we discovered that we work creatively quite well together.
Speaker 1: There's like a level of like I don't want to
Speaker 1: see like brutal honesty because it we're never like mean
Speaker 1: to one another, but there's work quite sensitive towards what
Speaker 1: works and doesn't work. It doesn't work, and we will
Speaker 1: be very clear with one another but what that is.
Speaker 1: So we've been wanting to do something for a while.
Speaker 1: He produced the short that I had just mentioned, you
Speaker 1: don't want Me here, and we worked incredibly well together.
Speaker 1: We have almost different sides of the brain. He has
Speaker 1: like kind of like the assistant director structure, you know,
Speaker 1: keeping the train on the tracks kind of personality, and
Speaker 1: I have the weird ideas that he reigns in a
Speaker 1: touch to you know, make them palatable hopefully. So we
Speaker 1: kind of approached writing this in a similar way.
Speaker 8: Where he was kind of the the structure of the
Speaker 8: house and I was filling it with as much as possible,
Speaker 8: and then together we worked on ensuring that there was
Speaker 8: like a cohesive vibe to each room within the house
Speaker 8: that we're building for the script.
Speaker 1: I guess if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Well, tell me a little bit more about had like
Speaker 2: a whole as far as like, I mean, I think
Speaker 2: I know where the idea where it came from. You know,
Speaker 2: that corporate drudgery that you're talking about felt very very familiar.
Speaker 2: I think the black and white athetic works very well
Speaker 2: for that as well. But I mean, this is your
Speaker 2: first feature. That's got to be a major hurdle for
Speaker 2: you to jump.
Speaker 1: So I grew up listening to like punk and hardcore,
Speaker 1: and there is so much of what I appreciate about
Speaker 1: that was that people would just kind of like pick
Speaker 1: up their instruments and play. And it wasn't necessarily about
Speaker 1: the technical precision. It's more of just like an attitude
Speaker 1: and trying to like communicate like a message and make
Speaker 1: something that's like fun and engaging. The sad thing is
Speaker 1: it took me too long to kind of like extrapolate
Speaker 1: my love of that to filmmaking and to just say
Speaker 1: let's go and do this, Like I made this movie
Speaker 1: by myself, Like there was a location so hour course
Speaker 1: in myself and Mitch was therefore as many days as
Speaker 1: he could take off work to join for Otherwise, we
Speaker 1: had like one day with the prosthetics team. So I
Speaker 1: knew it was going to be a lot going into it,
Speaker 1: but also knew that I had to do it because
Speaker 1: it'll just be like another year until I say, why
Speaker 1: don't we try this again, or try to find funding,
Speaker 1: or you know, years turn into decades and I then
Speaker 1: I just have never made anything. So I took the
Speaker 1: plunge knowing that it was going to be a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of work, in an incredible amount of stress. My
Speaker 1: beard used to be black, it is now mostly gray.
Speaker 1: My hair has faded and now shaped my head, So
Speaker 1: there's a tremendous amount of stress that has like kind
Speaker 1: of gone along with it. But I knew I had
Speaker 1: to do it. I love that you brought up the
Speaker 1: black and white because that wasn't an idea that we
Speaker 1: had going into the movie at all. I found that
Speaker 1: in post production there's something about it being in color
Speaker 1: that wasn't working for me, And sometimes you just just
Speaker 1: have to trust your intuition and augment what you're working with.
Speaker 1: I posited, like, why don't we do black and white
Speaker 1: as a look for this movie. My partner Mitche is like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a great idea because it'll like
Speaker 1: eliminate a parcel of your audience. Potentially. There's people that
Speaker 1: just like won't watch black and white movies, and I
Speaker 1: was completely empathetic towards that, and I do think that
Speaker 1: some people won't check it out because of that, but
Speaker 1: also it makes so much more sense. So we kind
Speaker 1: of went back and forth talking about it for a
Speaker 1: little while, and then when he saw it as a
Speaker 1: black and white movie, when I gave him like a
Speaker 1: rough I know there's no color, but a color grade
Speaker 1: for the movie, He's like, Okay, no, this is perfect,
Speaker 1: and I can't see it as being not black and white.
Speaker 1: That be said, I was kind of afraid people would
Speaker 1: think it was like a pretentious decision a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it's absolutely not, because I'm the least pretentious person
Speaker 1: in the world. If anybody has known me, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: while at that criticism against me. It just made it
Speaker 1: feel otherworldly, like there's a certain kind of like junk
Speaker 1: fifties sci fi aspect to this that I think junk.
Speaker 1: I mean, like in the most nice way possible. I
Speaker 1: don't mean that derisively at all. That I think allows
Speaker 1: it to be understood in a similar context to a
Speaker 1: certain degree while still being its complete own thing. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you feel about that. Did I miss
Speaker 1: anything in my long winded response.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. I mean, it's just every
Speaker 2: movie gets made a different way, and I'm always curious
Speaker 2: as far as how that way gets done. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I love this whole DIY aesthetic where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I got the camera, let's go. That also presents its
Speaker 2: own challenges as far as all right, scheduling, like when
Speaker 2: it comes to your actors, like how do you find
Speaker 2: your actors and how do you deal with them? As
Speaker 2: far as is it one of these like Okay, we're
Speaker 2: shooting this weekend, make sure you you know, come by,
Speaker 2: but get your white shirt on.
Speaker 1: That's not too far away from what happened, to be
Speaker 1: completely honest. The major difference is a sweet shot in
Speaker 1: a week straight, like seven days in a row, and
Speaker 1: kind of a mistake because I think the second day,
Speaker 1: I haven't told anybody that, You're the first person I've
Speaker 1: told that. At the end of the second day, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, I made a mistake. I'm
Speaker 1: wasting everybody's time. This is off the rails and it's
Speaker 1: not going to work. I didn't tell Mitch this. I
Speaker 1: kept it to myself. I didn't want to burden anybody
Speaker 1: with my fear that this was going to be an
Speaker 1: absolute dumpster fire. But to get back to the actors,
Speaker 1: like Mitch, who is the producer, who plays a very
Speaker 1: like small role of a mostly silent, kind of like
Speaker 1: auditor of the situation that the characters have found themselves in.
Speaker 1: I knew he would be available, would be able to
Speaker 1: take off x amount of like vacation days to fulfill
Speaker 1: his role. James only needed who's the our cold open character.
Speaker 1: He plays the first researcher, even though it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the first, but in the context of the movies, the
Speaker 1: first researcher heed. I did that in like an hour
Speaker 1: in my spare time. And then we have Jeff McDonald
Speaker 1: took place Emerson, who's the kind of overlord, main boss
Speaker 1: of the job that the main character Asher has found
Speaker 1: himself in. He's from la So we did a casting
Speaker 1: call for that role, and we've gotten some traction from
Speaker 1: some good people in like Ontario, which would have been great.
Speaker 1: I would have stayed just having to pay for a
Speaker 1: plane ticket for somebody when we're have no money whatsoever
Speaker 1: to do this. But most of the individuals who responded
Speaker 1: could only do like I can only shore on the weekends,
Speaker 1: like basically what you had said, like, oh did you
Speaker 1: shoot some of the weekends, They couldn't do kind of
Speaker 1: like the format that we had wanted to shoot it in.
Speaker 1: And then Jeff was just the most As soon as
Speaker 1: he did a line read when we did our our
Speaker 1: interview with him, it was just hurt like it felt perfect.
Speaker 1: There wasn't anything that I wanted to change. He came
Speaker 1: from stage acting, so I knew that there's this movie's
Speaker 1: like wal to wall dialogue, which you know, is a
Speaker 1: testament to his ability to be able to contain or
Speaker 1: his ability to memorize so much dialogue and just be
Speaker 1: able to deliver in the short, truncated shooting period that
Speaker 1: we had with him. And then we of course have
Speaker 1: Eric Hansen, who plays Sam, who's the kind of the
Speaker 1: facilities manager, which is a funny title for somebody who
Speaker 1: was taking care of a bungalow with an ominous a
Speaker 1: hole in the basement that needs to be measured he
Speaker 1: was able to kind of like take as much time
Speaker 1: off as as were required for shooting. So it was
Speaker 1: just basically a lot of friends getting together to make
Speaker 1: this thing who had the flexibility to do so. And
Speaker 1: then Jeff MacDonald who flew out for and just stayed
Speaker 1: with me while we're shooting. This is a situation where
Speaker 1: we didn't have pas, so everybody was like it was
Speaker 1: just so people at the self drift to set normally,
Speaker 1: say like in Jeff's case, a huge in a normal movie,
Speaker 1: they would shoot their scenes, then go go off and
Speaker 1: go back, but like nobody could drive him, so we
Speaker 1: would just have to like hang out at the house
Speaker 1: while we're shooting the rest of the material that we've
Speaker 1: scheduled for the day, which, you know, hats off. Thank
Speaker 1: you for not being super frustrated, Jeff mccald, if you
Speaker 1: listen to this, its very very kind of you two
Speaker 1: not make us feel like we were stupid. And I
Speaker 1: work professionally as like an editor, so I know pretty
Speaker 1: well what can cut together. So it just allowed us
Speaker 1: to move at such a quick clip that you don't
Speaker 1: really get to do with more traditional types of productions.
Speaker 1: I guess you.
Speaker 2: Talked about that moment on the second day where you
Speaker 2: just thought, you know, this is going to be a disaster.
Speaker 2: How do you get past that.
Speaker 1: We had so much invested in it? Like, this movie
Speaker 1: is made for thirteen thousand Canadian ten thousand American, with
Speaker 1: a big portion of that being our post production audio,
Speaker 1: which is a very expensive endeavor. So the actual making
Speaker 1: of this movie was way less than that it would
Speaker 1: have been, like say, we made the movie itself for
Speaker 1: like seven thousand a US. But like, I'm not a
Speaker 1: well off person, like to Mitch, I don't want to
Speaker 1: see to his financial situation, but like it's a lot
Speaker 1: of money for us, and I couldn't let and I
Speaker 1: still suffer from imposter syndrome, as you can imagine. I
Speaker 1: think most creative people think that they don't deserve any
Speaker 1: attention that they get, and taking compliments is like quite
Speaker 1: a difficult thing for a lot of folks. So you
Speaker 1: kind of just have to like swallow that feeling a
Speaker 1: little bit and keep going forward and understand and try
Speaker 1: to take like all the negative moments that can occur
Speaker 1: on set in Stride, for example, Thankfully nobody's come out
Speaker 1: saying they've noticed this yet, but our final sequence in
Speaker 1: our movie, keeping it spoiler free, but it relies on
Speaker 1: a prosthetics team coming in to do work on our
Speaker 1: It was our last day of shooting, knowing that it
Speaker 1: was going to be a tremendous mess, so we don't
Speaker 1: want to have to clean it up and then be
Speaker 1: shooting in there the next day. It would just have
Speaker 1: been too much work. They canceled on us the night
Speaker 1: before we're supposed to shoot, and we have Jeff McDonald
Speaker 1: who's going to be flying back after this that we
Speaker 1: can't fly back for his scene, and he's a crucial
Speaker 1: component of this final scene. At that moment, I basically
Speaker 1: just took I asked everybody, I'm like, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: fifty minutes to myself. I'm just going to go and
Speaker 1: think about what's just happened and decide what to do.
Speaker 1: And it dramatically changed what our final sequence is going
Speaker 1: to be because the prosthetics could now have no overlap
Speaker 1: with Jeff McDonald's character in this sequence. So all of
Speaker 1: my ideas were essentially gone, and I just had to
Speaker 1: reinterpret the final scene in a different way, and we
Speaker 1: ended up shooting that's the other portion of that sequence
Speaker 1: A year heart so that the final sequence has a
Speaker 1: year's shooting gap in between it. Because they at first
Speaker 1: the company had offered a very like like it was
Speaker 1: a very like I don't understand why anybody would lie
Speaker 1: about these kind of circumstances. But they're like, oh, my
Speaker 1: father had passed away and I I can't come to set.
Speaker 1: I was like, I completely understand, don't worry about it,
Speaker 1: we'll figure it out. We then a reschedule with the
Speaker 1: same provider. And this is a paid roll, by the way, Like,
Speaker 1: this isn't somebody who's coming out and doing it for free.
Speaker 1: This is a Our budget was dedicated towards this. We
Speaker 1: rescheduled a day and confirmed that this was going to
Speaker 1: work with them, and they said yes, and then they
Speaker 1: canceled again. We shot in September. The makeup date I
Speaker 1: think was in May, and then we had to find
Speaker 1: a company that would agree to do it, and we
Speaker 1: ended up shooting it in September of the following year. Essentially,
Speaker 1: the fact that it cuts together is just like wild
Speaker 1: to be, but like that's an example of kind of
Speaker 1: how hard it is to do things on your own
Speaker 1: and trying to roll with the situations that are constantly
Speaker 1: you know, coming at you, I suppose.
Speaker 2: So what are you doing in the meantime between that year,
Speaker 2: Is that when you're doing most of your post production.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had started editing the film and was putting
Speaker 1: everything together and just like desperately trying to like coul
Speaker 1: jewel somebody into doing the prosthetics for it. We'd been
Speaker 1: talking to somebody, but they kept They're more involved with
Speaker 1: like actual like union film productions and things of that sort,
Speaker 1: so they're quite busy. They're like, we can maybe do
Speaker 1: time here, And whenever I it would get towards that
Speaker 1: timeframe and I'd try to schedule something with them, it
Speaker 1: would just be radio silence. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like wasted time trying to figure out if they would come.
Speaker 1: And then we found this other company called Locked in
Speaker 1: the Cellar, which is a local company, and agreed to
Speaker 1: do it, and we're happy to do it for the
Speaker 1: budget that we had. I tried to do it a
Speaker 1: smart way because the prosthetics that were required. I smartly
Speaker 1: tried to reduce the application areas creatively, and I think
Speaker 1: people once they watched the movie will kind of understand
Speaker 1: what I mean by that. But they were absolutely wonderful
Speaker 1: to deal with and kind of made all the awful
Speaker 1: feelings associated with trying to get this sequence finished go
Speaker 1: away in that moment and it just kind of worked out.
Speaker 2: Would it be accurate to say that some of those
Speaker 2: short films that you had made helped prepare you for
Speaker 2: this feature and just overcoming some of those weird adversities.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. So I mean understanding like coverage, and
Speaker 1: my editing work also helped me prepare for that as well,
Speaker 1: but like understanding like what I need from a scene
Speaker 1: to shoot at the bare minimum, because like, when you're
Speaker 1: shooting with such a narrow time frame, you don't have
Speaker 1: time to get as much coverage as as you would like.
Speaker 1: You know, it's going to be what's our creative looking
Speaker 1: medium shot and what are our close ups? And you
Speaker 1: don't get too much in between those coverage points, sadly,
Speaker 1: but you just make it work and hopefully with our
Speaker 1: limited coverage it doesn't appear limited. That's the goal anyways.
Speaker 1: So that's your call, I suppose as well, if you're
Speaker 1: like kind of shows a little bit.
Speaker 2: I thought it looked fantastic and I never would have
Speaker 2: known that there was a year gap in some of
Speaker 2: those shots, but that you have at the end of
Speaker 2: this it looks completely cut together, very very naturally.
Speaker 1: When it came together, I just felt like such a
Speaker 1: a sense of relief. And when we were going to
Speaker 1: this might be jumping ahead, but going to like Boston
Speaker 1: Underground Film Festival was such an absolute dream. Like when
Speaker 1: I got the email that they had accepted us, you
Speaker 1: n actually think like, oh, this is an accident. So
Speaker 1: to that did I guess? This is an incorrect email,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna get a email that says, sincere, apologies,
Speaker 1: we did not mean to include you, but it was
Speaker 1: a real request, which is insane for me, a problematic language.
Speaker 1: I apologized, but like it just felt like surreal to
Speaker 1: be included in such a great festival, and then to
Speaker 1: see the other films programmed, you kind of feel like
Speaker 1: the little kid looking up at the grown up movies
Speaker 1: to a stander green because they have budgets and they
Speaker 1: look great, and you know, you have Nicholas Cage in
Speaker 1: The Surfer, you have Ethan Embery and Alan the Wolf.
Speaker 1: The Ugly Stepsister is such a great movie. I absolutely
Speaker 1: love it. I went to that festival as a fan
Speaker 1: as well and watched as much as I could while
Speaker 1: I was there. Because you know I'm such a big
Speaker 1: genre fan, I've lost the threat of your question. I apologize.
Speaker 2: I was asking you as far as overcoming adversity. Did
Speaker 2: you have the luxury while you were doing the post
Speaker 2: production of being able to show this to other people
Speaker 2: and get feedback or did you just because you are
Speaker 2: an editor, do you just know this is how it
Speaker 2: needs to be? And plus I don't imagine you had
Speaker 2: too much room to change anything.
Speaker 1: No, so we didn't have an ability to like reshoot things.
Speaker 1: I mean, we technically could have, but I was I
Speaker 1: didn't feel that was necessary. To be honest, I was
Speaker 1: mostly happy with the performances and I figured I thought
Speaker 1: we had gotten the best of what we could have gotten,
Speaker 1: So I didn't feel a need to cut together this
Speaker 1: thing within an inch of its life. In terms of feedback,
Speaker 1: we kind of just like operated as a team as well,
Speaker 1: Like the production team existed as like the post production
Speaker 1: sounding board as well, So I would send to them
Speaker 1: rough cuts are seen assemblies, and just like ask for
Speaker 1: general thoughts. And it did impact the editor a little bit,
Speaker 1: like there are some moments that were cut back for
Speaker 1: comedic effect. Is what I would say. I removed certain
Speaker 1: lines that I thought were like vis digital for the
Speaker 1: scene and replace them with a look. And Asher's case,
Speaker 1: a lot of his main character is kind of just
Speaker 1: observing the absurdity of the situation that he's found himself in.
Speaker 1: And I've thought that there was like a few lines
Speaker 1: of dialogue that were like unnecessary and a good look
Speaker 1: will suffice. So there there was. I didn't send it
Speaker 1: out to a lot of folks. It was pretty much
Speaker 1: contained to within our bubble, and then the just trusted
Speaker 1: my own intuition. And then there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that kind of appreciates like a bit of like a
Speaker 1: shaggy or movie. I know some people will say, oh,
Speaker 1: pacing issues, but I do feel like there's something to
Speaker 1: a kind of like more handmade movie. As we're on
Speaker 1: the like precipice of AI slop being fed to us,
Speaker 1: it's kind of nice to have something that's like obviously
Speaker 1: has a scar or a blemish. You know, it just
Speaker 1: looks handmade to a certain degree, but hopefully not amateurish.
Speaker 1: That's the goal anyways, and people kind of like appreciate
Speaker 1: it or that almost to a certain degree. So I
Speaker 1: guess the answer would be, I use a lot of
Speaker 1: the tools I had in my editing toolkit, and then
Speaker 1: also gave myself the grace to allow things to maybe
Speaker 1: breathe a little bit more than I would have otherwise.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, makes total sense. And yeah, when it
Speaker 2: comes to the pacing, I mean, you have to have
Speaker 2: that real balance to make it that that drudgery, that
Speaker 2: everyday drudgery. But yet things are happening slowly and just building, building, building,
Speaker 2: and I think you really accomplish.
Speaker 1: That, Thank you so much. One of the major challenges
Speaker 1: was that this isn't a movie about resistance, so Steve's
Speaker 1: character Asher isn't active, which most screamers are, Like, what's
Speaker 1: the how is the character activating in this scene? What
Speaker 1: are they doing? The audience is to see them like
Speaker 1: activating all the time, you know, pushing the story forward.
Speaker 1: And I wanted most of the movie to happen to him.
Speaker 1: And at a certain point he's being paid well and
Speaker 1: taking up residence in a home so he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to pay rent. He's more than well off at a
Speaker 1: certain point and could leave, but chooses to stay because
Speaker 1: it's comfortable. He's a very inactive character. And I wanted
Speaker 1: it to still feel somehow exciting to the audience, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was a quite a hurdle to get over.
Speaker 1: But as we were putting together the movie, I was like,
Speaker 1: I think this works. Whether or not it ultimately works
Speaker 1: will be the audience's decision, so we'll see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it totally works. It reminded me of
Speaker 2: some of the best parts of like Lost or I
Speaker 2: haven't watched Severance, but just from what the feel of
Speaker 2: Severance I get, but especially that whole theme and Lost
Speaker 2: of Desmond with the numbers that he has to punch
Speaker 2: in and he has no idea what is going on
Speaker 2: with that, but he has to do, and then it
Speaker 2: has to be done at the same time every day,
Speaker 2: and just that type of what is this as well
Speaker 2: as the of that kind of thing. I think that
Speaker 2: really comes out and head like a hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Severn's came out I think either before or after
Speaker 1: we shot. The scripts finished and we shot, and then
Speaker 1: the season came out, and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: exactly the vibe of like what I would look for
Speaker 1: in a TV show. I haven't watched the second season yet,
Speaker 1: so its spoiler free, but I'm looking forward to checking
Speaker 1: it out and it felt perfect. Also as a huge
Speaker 1: fan of Loss as well, I love just a like
Speaker 1: compelling mystery that we can explore with a story that
Speaker 1: doesn't ultimately answer everything, and it has like more thematic
Speaker 1: importance than it does strict like narrative importance. I would
Speaker 1: say almost, so, I mean that could potentially frustrate some viewers,
Speaker 1: but I do think that it's messaging. I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm a subtle person. I think I said during our
Speaker 1: Q and a for the movie at Boston that it's
Speaker 1: about as subtle as a sledgehammer. A lot of the
Speaker 1: themes in the movie, which also could potentially turn off
Speaker 1: some viewers, but I do think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different interpretations with how people interact with capitalism in general.
Speaker 1: I saw on a review recently that Samoo was comparing
Speaker 1: it to the environmental impact of working like you wish
Speaker 1: that you can kind of like work and exist with
Speaker 1: doing as little damage to the world as possible. I
Speaker 1: was like, that's such a wonderful like take. In reading
Speaker 1: of the movie. That wasn't my intention whatsoever. It was
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, but not like in an ecological sense,
Speaker 1: and just to see people reacting to it intelligently with
Speaker 1: their own readings has been so reaffirming, and it's made
Speaker 1: me feel like I didn't engage in folly for a
Speaker 1: year through my life. Putting this together was.
Speaker 2: The boss soll Underground Film Festival was that the first
Speaker 2: time you get to see this with an audience.
Speaker 1: No, So we premiered at Another Hole in the Head
Speaker 1: at a prop really titled film festival. It's out in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Yeah, I had submitted there just before they're
Speaker 1: submissions had ended. When we just received our sound mix
Speaker 1: and I got an EML back like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I love your movie. Can you can we play it?
Speaker 1: But I was like, yeah, of course he didn't realize
Speaker 1: it was a world premiere, so I think he might
Speaker 1: have like programmed it up in the festival. We ended
Speaker 1: up closing the festival, which is very very cool, But
Speaker 1: we ended up winning the staff favorite Feature out of
Speaker 1: that festival, which is very very kind of Georgian's team.
Speaker 1: And that was I think December of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and then we had submitted to an assortment of like
Speaker 1: our spring festivals, and so Boston became our East Coast premiere.
Speaker 2: So what is the next festival for this.
Speaker 1: It's part of Panicfest in Kansas City. It's one of
Speaker 1: the virtual screenings, so I think those are accessible April
Speaker 1: third to the sixth, if I'm correct. We're going to
Speaker 1: be at Salem horror Fest Saturday, May third at four
Speaker 1: thirty pm. We're really looking forward to that festival because
Speaker 1: great programming, great great folks. They came to Boston and
Speaker 1: introed my movie there, which I love, like two film
Speaker 1: communities kind of like high fiving. It feels like so
Speaker 1: like warm and welcoming. From my perspective, I have to say,
Speaker 1: like the Boston crowd is is truly like there's something
Speaker 1: in the water. It's like the nicest folks with like
Speaker 1: the most unique like perspective. The response that the crowd
Speaker 1: gave to this film was, you know what, with humor,
Speaker 1: you're always wondering, like, oh, what's my success rate going
Speaker 1: to be with like this crowd? And it was like
Speaker 1: near one hundred percent, Like it was very reaffirming, you're
Speaker 1: very kind.
Speaker 2: Oh that's wonderful as it should be because I know
Speaker 2: I definitely, you know, clicked with this movie and I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure at first the black and white might have
Speaker 2: scared me off a little bit, but no, totally didn't.
Speaker 2: Just kidding. I have no problem with black and white,
Speaker 2: of course, but yeah, no, that was It really clicked
Speaker 2: with me, and I'm glad that it clicked with the
Speaker 2: audience as well. That's fantastic. I know, like you know,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be playing festivals hopefully for a while. Here.
Speaker 2: Is there a good place for people to keep up
Speaker 2: on that schedule and see if it's coming near them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it doesn't have a web presence right now,
Speaker 1: but I have my personal Instagram which is Stefan Gallian,
Speaker 1: which is my first name, Stefan and the suffix of
Speaker 1: Evan Galian slam together. Any nerds out there will hopefully
Speaker 1: understand what that is. And then I also have Terminal
Speaker 1: Burrower of Films, which is my brand on Instagram for
Speaker 1: that as well. That will communicate future screenings. Otherwise, I
Speaker 1: looked at the Skies. I suppose we do have distribution
Speaker 1: for us in Canada, so we will be out in
Speaker 1: early likely early twenty twenty six because we have festivals
Speaker 1: up until this year. I would love to release on
Speaker 1: Christmas if we could have, but I mean I might
Speaker 1: be too ambitious. I thought that would have been like
Speaker 1: very very funny. But we will have like a like
Speaker 1: the usual digital rental period, then you know, the Amazon
Speaker 1: streaming service, so this is and then end up where
Speaker 1: all wonderful movies go to be.
Speaker 2: I love Doobie to Be's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yes, we will have a physical release. I like, I
Speaker 1: was very clear with what we're doing our contract negotiations.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we need to have a physical release, so
Speaker 1: that will for sure be around for folks who enjoyed
Speaker 1: the movie.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned a couple of scripts that you already
Speaker 2: have ready. Do you have anything that you're going to
Speaker 2: start working on soon?
Speaker 1: Yes? So I made a short called PK, which is
Speaker 1: about a parapsychologist investigating the veracity of somebody's claims that
Speaker 1: they have telekinesis a very like My Dinner with Entering
Speaker 1: and Hell is kind of the vibe that I was
Speaker 1: going for with that. So I'm making a feature script
Speaker 1: that is like very very different from that because I
Speaker 1: filmed that in like a day and put it out.
Speaker 1: I mean like did all of it and I think
Speaker 1: like three days and put it out was like a
Speaker 1: Halloween short. So it's like very very unpolished and not
Speaker 1: to It's not as expansive expansive as I would have
Speaker 1: liked it to have been. But I'm going to be
Speaker 1: doing a feature about a similar premise done in a
Speaker 1: pseudo documentary fashion because I'm a huge fan of like
Speaker 1: Punishment Park, like the Peter Watkins movie, like Lake Mungo,
Speaker 1: like Blair Witch a two certain degree is presented as
Speaker 1: a documentary until it becomes their edited footage of them
Speaker 1: in the woods. But I think imagine a bit more
Speaker 1: of like the interstitial institu interviews incorporated. That's kind of
Speaker 1: the format that it would be very similar tone, hopefully
Speaker 1: very very funny and also very very creepy as well.
Speaker 1: But it deals with like parasocial relationships and parapsychology, is
Speaker 1: what it been. That's my go to explanation for the project.
Speaker 2: That sounds great. I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 1: I do have a bunch of scripts. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: really want to direct originally, I just wanted to write.
Speaker 1: So I've been writing since, like I I was like
Speaker 1: twenty five scrip So I have like literally a I
Speaker 1: don't want to say a drawer full because they exist
Speaker 1: on a hard drive. But you kind of know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we don't put things in drawers anymore. I
Speaker 2: think we just put them, put them in the cloud,
Speaker 2: or put them someplace where hopefully we can find them
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 1: The digital ether. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, Stefan, thank you so much for your time. This
Speaker 2: is so great connecting with you and talking with too.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. Like,
Speaker 1: when you make a no budget movie, you kind of
Speaker 1: like you're curious as to like where it will go
Speaker 1: and like if anybody will care or if anybody will
Speaker 1: take the time to amplify your voice. So you taking
Speaker 1: the time to do this means like the world and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 6: To give them money.
Speaker 4: List an airport does not bondor their activity.
Speaker 6: A same s.
Speaker 3: Stop stop stop.
Speaker 6: About out.
Speaker 5: Out out the.
Speaker 6: Spout out.
Speaker 3: Stout stout
Speaker 6: Stout bottotpot