Ep. 98 - The Domino Effect with Producer Daren Smith

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Join us as we chat with independent film producer, author, and creative entrepreneur Daren Smith to uncover the often-overlooked role producers play in bringing a story into existence. Daren discusses his collaborations with director Garrett Batty on indie films "Faith of Angels" and "The Carpenter" and how he navigates the complex world of theatrical releases.

Daren shares his journey from sound to screen, explaining how passion for theatrical distribution fuels a desire to create immersive experiences for audiences. The conversation touches on the essence of balancing artistry with commerce, as well as the significance of mentorship. Daren shares unique strategies independent producers employ to thrive in a competitive market while staying true to their creative visions.

With a keen eye on the financial success of indie films, Daren discusses innovative investment models, release strategies, and step-by-step career growth.

Learn more about Daren's Films and Check out his blog/podcast at: https://www.craftsmanfilms.co/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, Darren Smith, welcome to Film and Family.
We're super excited to have youon.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
This is cool how we met and Ithink, like the fact that you
guys wanted to speak to aproducer is always just very
flattering.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
So you know unsung heroes funny because I feel like
we've said this on the showmany times, but sometimes
there's this like film schoolculture of like I want to direct
and I need to find some victimto produce, you know, and.
And it's like really backwardsbecause in real world it's like
film producers are often theones who like, really nurture a

(00:38):
film into existence, and I'vejust always said film producing
is willing movies into existence.
That's what it is and and it uh.
And it also reminds me of thefact that there was a podcast
that I think is no more um,called the producer's guide.
I love this guy with Todd ToddGarner, todd Garner and I

(01:02):
listened to that.
I don't think he does episodesanymore, but that thing was a
treasure trove for me getting myfirst feature film produced
nice.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, he's awesome.
Yeah, I love that podcast it's.
He kind of goes in and out ofit depending on whether he's in
production or not, so yeah, Imean, and that's kind of us too.
That makes perfect sense we allhave that right.
When we're in production mode,it's like everything else stops
everything.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, it's.
A great sacrifice of filmmakingis that sometimes it's a little
, a little too all-consuming,and that's kind of what we also
talk about on the show is istrying to find some balance
there.
But um, so yeah, I mean, maybeI'll just introduce I introduced
um, so this is darren smith um,so, darren is a truly
independent film.

(01:48):
What am I saying?
I'm gonna edit that out umindie film producer, creative
entrepreneur, author of a bookthat is forthcoming called
blockbusters.
Yeah, um, provo, utah based,and um, uh, has worked on shows
like relative race, producedfour feature films and um

(02:11):
produced uh, the film that youmentioned in your bio on cape
town, south africa, was thatfreetown no, that was the
carpenter.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
So the carpenter comes out november 1st.
So just a few weeks as we'rerecording this.
And, uh, after we produced that, I did another movie with
Garrett Batty called Faith ofAngels, which is in theaters now
.
It came out September 13th andI think that's how we all
connected.
You guys were at the premieredown there in Atlanta, right?

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, so Garrett and one of the cast members did a
premiere and that was actuallyreally cool to go meet Garrett's
son.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
We already knew Cameron Arnett.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I knew Cameron Arnett , I knew Garrett we both did,
but it was fun to meet.
I mean, it was actually at Ziffway back in March that we
talked to Garrett and found outthat I said, where'd you get
that kid, the film he made him.
Yeah, he made him.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
The true producer, the talent, anyway it was.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
I was like actually really delighted to hear that he
used his son, because our firstfilm we used all three of our,
then three kids, um, now fiveyeah now five and uh.
So that was really fun and uh,not really actually, but but
ours were much smaller than thangarrett's son, who did such an
awesome job.

(03:38):
I was like that that kid's gotreal chops like he's.
He's really talented.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
So yeah, yeah.
So go see this in theatersfaith of angels.
How long is it running?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
As long as it runs, it's hard to know.
You know, garrett and I have apodcast where we've kind of been
documenting the whole processof releasing these two movies
out in the world.
So, selfish plug, trulyindependent podcast.
But yes, like we've beentalking a lot about how does
that work?
You know, and even just twoweeks ago we had a conversation
with a theater booker and theywere talking about how studios

(04:11):
kind of can dictate the terms.
They say look, you're going tohold this for at least two weeks
.
The, you know, the split is 6040 in the studio's favor, where
it's kind of opposite, that forindie filmmakers it's like this
the theaters are taking 55 or60%.
Sometimes you get 50-50, whichis really nice, but the studios
have a lot more leverage.

(04:31):
So if they've got a new moviecoming out and you're in an
eightplex and you're the fifthmovie, but there's five new big
releases coming out, they cansay, look, take this movie, or
we're not giving you the nextone.
And he even said they'll changethe terms on the next one.
This one might be 60-40,.
But then they come back and,because you didn't play ball,
they'll say the terms this timeare 70-30.

(04:52):
And they even have the pointwhere they can.
They'll send you the film,you'll book the film and then
they'll send you the terms.
So you don't even know whatyou're signing up for, as, like,
an independent theater.
So you don't even know whatyou're signing up for, as, like
an independent theater.
So, all that to say, we don'tknow how long our movie will be
in theaters.
I expect another couple ofweeks, but, um cause, every week
we're adding 10 or 12 newtheaters that hadn't played the

(05:14):
movie yet generally independenttheaters and then we lose, you
know, 10 to 50.
So we're trying to keep thedrop in the number of theaters,
you know, as low as possible,but it's, it's a constant weekly
struggle of calling everybodyand saying please keep our movie
, and here's why you should dothat, and et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
It's fascinating, yeah, so I wanted to ask about
something I've read from you isthat you have a strong um, I
don't know belief, uh, intheatrical release, and and so
could you explain some of yourthoughts behind that, and why?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
yeah, I'll zoom out just a bit for more context.
Like the, the thing that I'mworking towards right now as a
producer is a we that's why wecall it truly independent
podcast but a truly independent,profitable indie film ecosystem
, and those are a lot of wordsthat basically mean I think it
should be possible to makeprofitable indie films

(06:16):
consistently, as opposed to wowthat one really broke out and
nobody knows why.
Now, that's not to say that Ithink every movie ever produced
by every filmmaker ever isdeserving or good enough to be a
theatrical film, because I dothink that is kind of reserved
for the best of the best.

(06:37):
But if you have a film thatdeservedly should be in theaters
, there's an audience who wantsto see it and you're talking
tens of thousands of people whowant to see a movie and are
willing to spend 10 bucks on itthen how do you do that
profitably?
Because if you can do itprofitably this is what my
friend Carl Richard says profitequals permission.

(07:00):
And so, as indie filmmakers, wedon't have the billions of
dollars of investment fromshareholders that you know can
keep us afloat from year to yearand flop to flop, to where we
can keep producing films thataren't profitable.
We have to generate profit inorder to greenlight our next
movie, and so my whole thingright now, like that's the value

(07:22):
statement, like what I'm tryingto accomplish, but everything
that I'm doing as a producer isfiguring that out, because if I
can crack it and then share itwith everybody else, then guess
what?
We get a lot more originalindie movies in theaters that we
can go watch and support andthat make our lives better.
Like I want a future filledwith amazing indie films.
Um, so I think I probably evenforgot the original question.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
You might need to ask me well, well, that's kind of
what I'm after yeah, like what's, what's, what's your, what's
your desire for theatrical as aas a distribution?
Yeah, yeah I mean, I think youdid kind of answer that.
I don't know if there'sanything else you wanted to add
specifically to the because,like it's possible to make an
indie film that's theatrical or,sorry, that's profitable
through streaming, you know, butwhat's the value of theaters?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, to me, like I'm I maybe I'm an old soul, maybe
call me old fashioned, but likea movie is something that you
watch in a theater a big darkroom with a huge projector and
amazing sound, with a group offamily, friends and strangers.
And to me that's just what amovie is.
And so when I got intoproducing movies like that was

(08:29):
always the goal I never reallyset out to make made for TV
movies or like the movies thatwill just kind of make the
rounds at the different marketsand do international sales and
nobody ever watches it Right,and none of the things I'm about
to say are value statements.
Like it doesn't mean thattheatrical movies are good and
streaming movies are bad.

(08:50):
There have been plenty ofamazing streaming movies that
never saw a theater and that wasa business decision in most
regards.
But a lot of times it's becausethe filmmakers didn't pursue
theatrical and that was.
They had their own reasons forthat.
So, again, doesn't mean theatergood, streaming bad or direct
TV is bad.

(09:10):
But the way that I've kind oflooked at them over my career
and over my life is that thingsthat are meant for theaters are
more like art or on that side ofthe spectrum, whereas things
made for TV, made for streaming,feel more like commerce.
And so if you have thisspectrum between pure art on one

(09:33):
side and pure commerce on theother, I think most of us
filmmakers are somewhere in themiddle.
First movie I made definitelyfelt more like a vanity project
or an art project in that theyweren't really concerned with
the viability of it in themarketplace.
The movie sold to IFC Films atthe Toronto Film Festival and
did like a four-walled releasein one weekend and like 500

(09:56):
people saw it in theaters.
That wasn't the goal.
The goal was let's make a moviethat we're really proud of and
it's a great piece of art.
The cinematography is amazing,the acting is superb, the
writing is stellar, like it's areally great movie, but that
director hasn't made anothermovie, and that was three and a
half years ago, right.
So that's kind of what I'mtalking about here.
You have to find a balancebetween art and commerce to

(10:19):
where you get enough of the artto be fulfilled and feel like
you're doing your creative thingand still have the profit you
need from the commerce side ofthe spectrum in order to be able
to generate enough profit to doyour next movie.
So pure commerce is like you'recreating commodities for
marketplaces that are fillingslots, and to me that's not what

(10:41):
I got into this for.
I'm not interested in, you know, kind of the dump truck model
of let's move a whole bunch ofproduction into a movie and dump
it over here for this time slot.
It just feels like it's notdehumanizing but just kind of
robbing the art side of it forwhat it is.
So for me personally, as aproducer, I felt like I want to

(11:04):
produce movies that I can watchin a theater with my family,
friends and strangers, take mykids to and hopefully and if we
do a good job, we can get tensof thousands hopefully hundreds
of thousands of people to go,spend $10 a ticket and buy their
popcorn and coat and and have agreat time watching a movie.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
So can I back up a little bit?
I'm just curious how you gotinto producing in the first
place.
You know where did that lovecome from and I know a little
bit about what you're hoping toaccomplish now.
But how did you get there?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, a kind of a windy road.
So I started like my backgroundis in more music and sound.
I went to Brigham YoungUniversity on a saxophone
performance scholarship, of allthings, and I was a music major.
And then I, within a semesteror two, I realized, oh, the two
paths are either performingsaxophone or teaching saxophone,
and I don't want to do eitherof those for a living.

(11:59):
I just really like playing jazzsaxophone and they liked me
enough to give me a scholarshipRight.
So, um, in college I pivoted todoing music and are doing like
sound recording.
I worked at studio why, I didlive events and I really loved
doing sound and did myinternship with a guy named Mike
McDonough up in salt Lake.
He was, he did, forever strong.

(12:20):
He did a bunch of IMAX movies.
Um, so I was like an associateor assistant dialogue editor on
some of those films back in 2007, 2008 and loved it.
It's like, okay, I could dothis because all the other
people in school were going outand they wanted to start a
studio and start recording bandsand I was like, okay, well,
films will pay like tens ofthousands of dollars, whereas

(12:44):
bands have like tens of dollars.
I'm like, well, it seems likemore viable, and there were
really weren't any any otherstudios like there was Mike
McDonough and there, and then Iwas kind of like the next guy in
Utah, even though I had thislittle setup in my house that I
paid for with my Pell Grants.
You know, like that's how I gotstarted with my stuff and I did

(13:10):
about half a dozen movies asthe sole post-production sound
engineer.
And that's where I started.
I did a movie called CTU Provoand the writer, director,
producer, actor, visual effectsartist of that movie was Alan
Seawright, and we just lovedworking together and so we
partnered up and we started justkind of anytime I got a job, I
would say, do you need adirector, do you need an editor,
do you need a visual effectsguy?

(13:31):
And then he would get hired andvice versa.
He'd be like do you need music,do you need sound, do you need
anything like that?
And then I would get hired,right.
So we just kind of worked intandem and then we made it
official in like 2012, somewherearound there, and had this
video production company and wewrote a script together in 2009.
And I was just like I've neverdone this before.

(13:52):
This is so cool.
I love writing.
I love the idea of turningsomething I thought of into a
movie.
How do we do that?
And he goes.
Well, now that the script'sdone, we need a producer.
I was like, great, where do wefind one of those?
You know?
Like I really didn't know whateven a producer was.
And he's like well, honestly, Ithink you should do it.
I was like what, what do youmean?

(14:12):
And it turned out that he sawsomething in me that I didn't
realize until a few years lateris like I'm actually perfectly
suited for the job of theproducer.
Like my, I can split the linebetween left brain and right
brain, creative and logisticaland it just worked really nicely
.
So I started producing withinour little boutique film

(14:32):
production company.
We did a bunch of short filmsand documentaries and
industrials and the things weall do as commercial filmmakers.
And then when I left thatbusiness in 2017 is when I went
and started producing atRelative Race.
That was kind of my first indieproducer gig and I was like
this is awesome, I love thisshow, but I really want to be a
film producer.
And it was 2021.

(14:54):
I left the show at the end of2020 and was like that's this,
is it Like do or die time.
I need to produce a movie andluckily, I had been thinking
about that enough over theprevious 12 years that, like I'd
kind of set up the dominoesthat led to me being able to
produce with Amy Redford on hermovie in 2021.
So that's how I got there isthis kind of windy road, but it

(15:15):
was really a 12 year journey ofI want to be a producer, and not
just any producer.
I want to be a really goodproducer that can have an impact
on the movies I work on, theaudiences that see the movies,
the industry, like I don't knowwhy I thought big even back then
, but that's, that's what led tome being here now getting on
podcasts and writing books andtalking about this stuff, cause

(15:36):
I I love all aspects of theproducing job.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, I have so much respect for producers and for
producing itself, just because Idon't know.
I think that for some reason,our cohort had this just bad rap
around producing which was,like it's what people who are
either logistical andnon-artistic do, or it's just
the thing that you do.
If you didn't get picked todirect a capstone, it'd be what

(16:01):
you're saying I don't know, like, and so, like I don't know, and
I like, after being in school,I've like just realized now
producing is is what makes youmake movies or not make movies,
like if you can tolerate it orif you can find love and joy in
it, then you're just going tokeep doing it, and so, um, I
think it's awesome.

(16:21):
Um, I also think it'sinteresting that even in your
own self-written bio, you talkabout your passion for creating
opportunities for other creators, and I think that that is, um,
what am I trying to say?
That is congruent with thedefinition of producer in my
mind, and I wonder if you couldspeak to that a little.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah, I'm I.
I probably need to spend moretime thinking about where that
came from, but the idea of itwas hard.
For me.
To become a producer, it tookme 12 years.
I didn't have mentors, I didn'tlive in LA.
I focused a lot during thoseyears on like why am I not being
picked?
And why are people calling meand asking me to work on their

(17:01):
stuff?
And you know, I'd go to AFM andI'd go to film festivals and
I'd meet all these people andthen be like well, why isn't
that turning into jobs?
And I was really on the side ofbeing really needy and it's not
a good look for one Like.
That's part of the problem, Ithink, is when you show up needy
or you're pitching on the firstdate, it's like you're doing it

(17:22):
wrong.
But there was just this senseof, oh my gosh, I finally
reached the point that I'd beentrying to reach for over a
decade and it's just kind ofpart of my mentality of like
okay, now I need to make surethat I'm clearing the path so
it's easier for those that arecoming behind.
Not that there are people thatare less good than me, but you

(17:45):
know, there's someone who's 25,who just got out of college and
just got out of a job and going.
I really wish I could beproducing instead of doing
whatever I have been doing.
What's the path for them looklike?
And especially when you startlooking at the industry at large
and thinking about minoritiesthat lack representation in

(18:05):
Hollywood, you know you'retalking about female filmmakers
and BIPOC filmmakers and LGBTQfilmmakers and indigenous
filmmakers and like all thedifferent groups that have it so
much harder.
I'm sitting here complaining.
It took me 12 years.
There's people who've beentrying for 25 and haven't had a
single break, and so if there'ssomething I can do to make it

(18:26):
easier for others, then I feelobligated to do that.
Not in a negative way, not in aoh gosh, I gotta do this too,
but like it's just somethinginternal that I feel extremely
compelled and maybe it's kind ofa higher calling type thing of.
This is the work I'm meant todo not just produce movies but

(18:47):
make it possible for others todo the same, and so it's just
been part of the entire timeI've been blogging for over a
decade.
I write about film, I writeabout creative entrepreneurship,
so it kind of expands out fromjust filmmakers to what about
all artists and creative people.
How do you do this work for aliving?

(19:07):
How do you get profitable?
Again, that word comes up tothe point where you can do it on
your own terms, and for somepeople that means being able to
do a short film once a yearoutside of their day job, and
for other people it means havinga meaningful income let's call
it six figures from filmmakingso they can pursue their dream

(19:28):
and the projects that they wantto do, that they feel compelled
to make.
So I'm not at the point whereI'm saying, yeah, I'm going to
invest my own money into otherfilmmakers.
I hope to be there at somepoint, but for now what I can do
is share the process, share thejourney, share the lessons that
I'm learning along the way, inhopes that it helps other people
to avoid some of the misstepsand have it take shorter than 12

(19:52):
years for them.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, I love that.
That's actually reallycongruent with this.
Podcast is part of the film andfamily foundation, which is our
nonprofit.
It's specifically focused oncreating a clear pathway for
anyone who wants to tell a storyto be able to do that and
hearing giving more voice to thevoiceless, especially parents
who feel.
I mean, that's just personal,for us it's like.

(20:15):
I remember being a mom with kids, like how am I going to
possibly make a movie and be amom Like I just thought I always
could, but I never realized thelogistical difficulties that
would be in place for that, andso it's kind of the same thing
you described.
Where I look back, I see peoplein the situation that I was in

(20:36):
and I want to help them have aneasier time or share what I've
learned.
So that's kind of where thispodcast even came from.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
But yeah, and I also think email and in other ways,
like I think as producers wecan't do everything, anything
else but give peopleopportunities.
Because it's like, yeah, youpull this package together, you
create this film, you pullresources and money together and
then all of a sudden, cast andcrew you have to start bringing
people on.
And I think that when you'remaking films like what we're all

(21:07):
trying to make it seems likewe're trying to make films, at
least, that we feel are verymeaningful.
Well, there are a lot of peopleout there making films that are
just jobs and they don't care,like you said about.
It's like pure commerce andsometimes it's like, okay, um,
I'll try not to throw anyoneunder the bus, but I mean, like
anna's been on these sets where,like she's like no one here
actually cares, like literallythe dp does not care, like the

(21:29):
director, this is a job, likethey were all hired to be here
and there's endless resourcesbecause it's a big studio film
or tv show, but like no onereally cares.
They're just here to get thebest food, the best paycheck and
the most comfort possible whilegetting through this thing.
And then like, when I get tohire someone, even though we
don't always have as muchplentiful resources to give

(21:52):
people.
They get excited because it'slike well, I get to actually
like let my vfx friend or mysound friend or my editor friend
or whatever get to work on oract in something that we all
feel really passionate about andthey get to make a living, at
least for a few days, weeks,months doing this thing.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Um, that has been part of the joy of producing for
us yeah, that's like reallyexciting for me.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
It's like today you get to work on the film.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
That's something we all care about, so yeah, one of
the things I feel reallypassionate about as a producer
and part of our role, is thatit's really to protect the
creative space for all of theseindividual creators.
Right, you have actors, youhave a director, you have a
writer, you have key crewmembers that are actual.

(22:40):
You know artists, people thatare designing sets, designing
costumes, designing the lighting, designing the set, and if they
come into a set or a locationthat's fraught with yelling and
tension and you know there'sissues behind the scenes from
the producers, or about payment,or about logistics, or they

(23:03):
just had a extremely long daythat they weren't compensated or
fed for.
You know, all those things cancreate strain on their ability
to do their creative work and tome, like one of the things
that's just paramount as aproducer, is protecting that
creative space so that they cando their best work.
And if I can take everylogistical thing off the plate

(23:25):
of the director, who, withGarrett, he's also a producer on
these movies, but I don't wanthim thinking at all about
producing stuff.
I don't want him thinkinglogistics or the day ahead, or
finances or any of that stuff.
I want them to be purely ableto sit with the actor and be in
that creative space and createsomething, because, as you know,
you get one shot, sometimesmaybe it's two takes or five

(23:46):
takes, but you're definitely notspending half a day on one
scene on these little indiemovies when we have an 18 day
schedule.
So how can I create anenvironment where people can do
their best creative work in areally safe, supportive space?
And the thing I love hearing themost from crew is like I I've

(24:07):
never been on a set like thisand they talk about how it's
peaceful and it's joyful andthey're able to create and feel
like they're doing their bestwork and that they needed this
because it renewed the sense ofcreativity and desire and love
that they have for this industryand these movies that they kind

(24:29):
of lost, because, again, not tosay that the commerce movies
are bad, but when you'recreating commodities it's just a
job, like you said, andsometimes it's just like let's
do this one and then we'll doanother one, then we'll do
another one.
And to be able to have someonecome away from an experience
working together for a fewmonths going, that was special
and I needed that and I'm betterfor it, like that again speaks

(24:52):
to kind of the ethos of why I dothis stuff, like if I can have
an impact on an individual andeither their faith is renewed,
whether it be in God or in film,like either one counts.
I think you know we're able tohave an impact on people's lives
.
Like that's pretty amazing.
I don't know a lot of jobswhere you get to do that, and so

(25:13):
I think you're right.
It speaks to like, what side ofthe spectrum are you on?
There's another one of like arewe just doing this for the
paycheck?
Are we doing this because welove it?
And, thinking from the producerside, what kind of experience
do we want to create for people?
And we really are crafting thatwith every single day, every
single interaction, the way wefeed people, the way we treat

(25:35):
people, the schedule that we putthem through, and and all of
those things come together tomake it the experience that they
have.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Yeah, makes it sound like such a a caretaker role,
you know, like providing like afather would provide, in a way
where you're not just providinglike here's what you need to
live and here's the money youknow, but also a space where
people feel comfortable.
And I think that being aproducer can lead to focusing on
a product.
You know that end product andso I love that you take that

(26:06):
approach to not just create anend product but an experience
along the way that will bleedinto the end product.
It will affect the quality ofwork that you're able to create.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, I mean we definitely can relate to that.
On our first film, which Iproduced, um was super stressful
because, you know, some of thatwas most of that was just
ignorance, you know, and soyou're learning how to do the
job and so, um, that's somethingthat we I think we've taken
away from.
That experience is like wereally want to do what you've

(26:39):
described.
Essentially, it's like how dowe really take full
responsibility over creating anenvironment that is like
everyone walks away saying thatactually built me up, whereas,
like, the stress from the firstmovie felt like it took time off
the end of our lives Like, tooktime off the end of our lives.
Like like we're going to diesoon because we made that movie
Like and and so yeah, I totallyrelate to what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
It just felt like scarcity the whole time, you
know, like not enough time orresources or mental space, or
emotional.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
No bandwidth yeah, nothing yeah.
But, so I wanted to ask you alittle bit about, um, uh, yeah.
So I wanted to ask you a littlebit about these two films, both
directed by Garrett Batty, bothcoming out this calendar year,
right, yeah, within two monthsof each other.

(27:30):
Yeah, so like that's like aweird, like Schindler's List,
jurassic Park kind of asituation.
Like how did, how did thathappen?
Now, sometimes there's biggermovies with more VFX and they
kind of run forever.
That happen.
Now, sometimes there's biggermovies with more vfx and they
kind of run forever, and then,like the indie film by the same
director comes out the same year, right, like, uh, the guy did
top gun had.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Like uh, we're about to do that like two movies.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, it happens sometimes.
But I'm wondering is like,what's created these two films
back to back with the samedirector?
Um, how did that come to cometo pass?

Speaker 2 (27:53):
yeah, I mean, I keep it simple actually because it
just was a matter of the delaywith the release of the
Carpenter.
So we shot the Carpenter inCape Town, south Africa, in 2022
.
And a year later we filmedFaith of Angels in Utah in
August September of 2023.
And then Faith of Angels cameout September 13th 2024, and

(28:14):
Carpenter comes out November 1st2024.
So it literally was just afunction of the executive
producers.
The family that funded andreally executive produced the
Carpenter just kind of sat on itfor a year, year and a half,
and said you know, the initialreason for producing that movie
was kind of a family legacyproject which, you know, on a

(28:34):
more than million dollar budget.
You're thinking, wow, that'd benice, right?
But yeah, it would be nice tohave the kind of resources to
have your two sons be the twolead actors in a movie and have
it shot internationally withthis incredible crew and this
extremely talented writer,director Garrett Batty, like
that.
We'd all love those kind ofresources.
But because of the nature ofhow the film was financed and

(28:56):
how it came to be, they reallyhad control over how the movie
was going to be released and ifit ever was going to be released
.
Because as soon as the moviewas edited and finished and
delivered and they were able towatch it at a theater with their
family and friends, they kindof felt like we did it, that's
all we wanted out of this.
Um, it wasn't about financialreturns, it wasn't about
national release or awards oranything like that.

(29:17):
But just recently and earlierthis year 2024, they're like you
know what we want to do?
A national release.
We want to do it.
Well, we're going to investmore money into this to make it
really hit.
You know, we've got bigpartnerships with, like UFC and
we've got a lot of marketingdollars that we can put behind
the release of the Carpenter.
And it's releasing on 600screens opening weekend.

(29:38):
So it's got a chance to breakthe top 10.
It's got a chance to domultiple millions of dollars in
box office and I'm trying harderto refer to number of people
seeing the movie as opposed tobox office.
So you know what if 500,000people see this movie?
What if a million people seethis movie?
That's transformational.
It's a faith-based film wrappedinside of a Rocky slash, mma,

(30:04):
parkour, chase action movie Likethat's never been done before.
I think it's going to reach alot of people and it's going to
impact a lot of people.
So it was just a function ofthey held onto it.
They didn't know if they wantedto release it, and then they
decided they did.
So.
Here we are.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Fascinating.
That's fascinating.
Well, that sounds like someinteresting conversations we
could delve into in regards tojust how that, how that went.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
But yeah, I kind of do want to get into some nitty
gritty as far as your approachto producing.
I know Kent has mentioned alittle bit to me that you've
written articles.
I I'll just start with what weusually do and then maybe share
what what you do that differsfrom that.
Um, we've worked primarilythrough private equity investors

(30:47):
and just done low budget indiefilms that way.
But we do people just you knowthat we know by ownership in the
film and then they get a returnup to 120.
And then we do a pro rata splitbased on ownership and that's
kind of the model that we teach.
But yeah, I'd be curious to hearlike it sounds like you

(31:10):
definitely have more resourcesthan we do in the films that
you're making and I'm curioushow you learned that, what your
process has become over time.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, it's very similar as far as that's a
pretty standard way of doingindie films right.
It's usually straight equity.
Sometimes you can get a taxincentive or even a minimum
guarantee.
But most producers, mostfilmmakers, aren't thinking
about that at the indie level.
So I'm trying to break the molda little bit and help shift
some mindsets around.

(31:40):
Hey, think about the outcomethat you want first.
So for me it's very outcomefocused and going.
What is this movie?
What's the intended audience?
How much does it stand to make?
If it does well in theaters andin streaming and DVD and all
the VOD flavors, can we make $5million on this realistically,

(32:00):
not just pie in the sky?
Let's throw some numbers in abusiness plan and say here's our
projections.
That doesn't mean anything.
But can I show multiplecomparable films that have done
something like that and takekind of an average and be even
conservative on my numbers?
So I look, I start there and Igo okay, here's the genre,
here's the actors we're thinkingabout, here's the writer,
director and their track record.

(32:21):
What's the possible outcome,best possible outcome, for this
movie?
And so a lot of that is liketalking to distributors before,
which is like how do you even dothat, like you call them up,
like you call party distributionor you call you know any other
indie film distributor and justgo on box office, mojo or imdb
pro and look at all the moviesthat were released this year and

(32:43):
there's going to be five or tenindie, indie distributors that
have a need for movies, likethey need more movies on their
slate, as opposed to lions, gateand sony and all these other
big majors and mini majors whoare every, every filmmaker wants
to release their movie throughthem.
So they have too much demand.
And so you talk to adistributor, maybe call a

(33:05):
foreign sales agent, maybe calla digital sales agent, say hey,
tell me about the marketplace,tell me about this genre.
What do I need to do to makethis really viable in the
marketplace?
So don't be so calculated thatit turns into a cookie cutter
commerce movie, but use the dataand the realities of the
marketplace to inform the kindof movie you're going to make.

(33:25):
And then that gives you somenice creative constraints so you
can go okay, in order for thismovie to get to let's call it,
$5 million in net revenue moneyback to the producer that he or
she can pay off the negativecost plus the 20%, plus splits,
and have some profit to make thenext movie.
Because, again, that's the goalhave profit to make the next

(33:46):
movie.
So, okay, well, we probablycan't spend $3 million on this
movie.
So that's not a realisticbudget.
What is well?
What if it's a million?
Okay, that's doable.
Okay, well, what if we reallycut it and made it 400,000?
Well, now, all of a sudden, whatyou're doing is you're cutting
out the opportunity to have amarketing budget, the

(34:06):
opportunity to have actors withfollowings who can activate
those audiences and say, hey,I've got a million followers
that know my movies, I can getthem out to the theaters.
Well, you can't get people likethat because you don't have the
budget.
So you've got to find thatsweet spot of you know what's
the budget that makes the mostsense for the outcome that we're
looking at?

(34:27):
And if it's adirect-to-streaming movie, maybe
your total net revenue is $2million, because that's all
there is.
It's a single sale from aNetflix or a Hulu or someone
like that and they're going topick it up for $2 million.
Well, you probably shouldn'tspend $2 million to make it, or
else there's no profit, right?
So I really focus first onoutcome and reverse engineering

(34:49):
the strategy that we're going touse for the movie, and then I
think your next step is reallydeveloping something and
packaging something that'svaluable to your first audience,
which is your investors.
So you got to think of it interms of okay for this audience.
What's the pitch?
It's very different than themovie trailer, which is the
pitch for general audiences tobuy a $10 ticket to see the

(35:10):
movie.
What's the pitch for faith ofangels?
What does that look like?
And this is a fun story becausethis literally happened with
Faith of Angels Garrett hadgiven me the script right at the
end of the Carpenter.
So this is a year before weproduced Faith of Angels.
He said look, I got thiscompany.
They want to get into producingmovies.
They've been just doing TV anddirect to streaming kind of

(35:31):
shows.
They want to get intotheatrical movies and they want
Garrett to be the first one.
I was like that's awesome.
What's the budget?
And he said 300K.
I was like no, sorry, likeyou're Garrett Batty, you just
did a multimillion thing for BYU.
You've done big multimillionthings for the church.
Your last two movies have beenmultimillion dollars.
Like why would you go back anddo another 300K thing?

(35:52):
He's like well, that's, this isa movie I'm I'm passionate
about, but like also, this ishow much there is.
I was like I don't believe that.
I'm sorry.
Like let me read the script,let me let me take a look and
see what I can do.
And I came back and I said,dude, this is like a million and
a half budget movie.
Like that's the budget.
The movie wants to be um,because there's 40 speaking
roles in eight locations andlike you're, this is a 25 day

(36:16):
shoot, what are you talkingabout?
300 K.
So we went back and he's likelook, just just try to get it as
low as you can.
I said, okay.
So I got it down to like 400 K,with the caveat of you should
not do this.
Like here's a budget at 400 K,please don't do this.
And the company actually wantedto move forward.

(36:37):
And we were moving forward.
We had a DP, we were locationscouting, we were trying to
shoot it in like September,october of 2023, 2022, a month
after we landed from Cape Towndoing the Carpenter.
And the company pulled the dealthe day they were supposed to
send the initial money and I'mactually grateful that happened,

(36:57):
because they wouldn't.
They showed that they weren'tgreat partners for that movie,
but they also showed that thismovie deserves better.
And so we he went back to thedrawing board and said, okay,
I'm going to try to raise500,000 for this movie.
And I didn't really know he wasgoing out and raising money.
I kind of went and starteddoing my own thing and he came
back.
It was like March or April of2024 or 2023.

(37:20):
And he goes hey, let's talkabout this movie.
At the time it was calledangels in the mind.
It's like, let's talk aboutangels, like great.
So we went to lunch and he tellsme I got 150 K from this
investor that I met against a500 K budget and I I'm really
stuck.
I don't know where to raise theother 350, said Garrett.
First of all, you picked thewrong lunch place.

(37:40):
This place is terrible.
Let's eat better lunches in thefuture.
But also I sat down with myiPad and I said, look, the
problem is you pitched acreative project to an investor
and you're speaking German whenhe's speaking English, like
there's there, you're notspeaking the same language.
So we redid the entire pitch.

(38:03):
I said, look, you're going togo back to this guy.
You're going to pitch him amillion dollar investment, and
this is why it makes more sensethan one hundred fifty thousand
dollars, because at one hundredfifty you're giving your money
away.
And he felt that, which is whyhe limited his losses to 150
grand.
He's like, yeah, I'm just goingto throw 150 into this project
and never see it again.
At a million there's a chanceof getting an actual return.

(38:24):
And we talked about return oninvestment.
We talked about what's capableas far as actors and their
return on investment, how theyimpact the bottom line of the
movie.
We can actually put it intheaters, we could have a
marketing budget, we could doall these things and there's a
good chance of a three to five Xreturn on his money.
So he goes back to the guy thenext week, has lunch with him

(38:46):
again and the guy loves thepitch, calls his accountant, it
says hey, what's the taximplication of sending a million
dollars for this movie?
And two days later we had amillion in our bank account and
a green light to make the movie.
So I think the biggest thingthat filmmakers get wrong is
they go out and they pitch apassion project.
They pitch a creative project.

(39:07):
I'm so passionate about this.
I love this story.
Here's my background.
Here's why I'm the right personto make this movie.
None of that matters toinvestors.
They care about numbers.
They care about the hardrealities of how much am I
putting in and how are you gonnaget me more on the way out?
Right, how do I put a dollar inand get five out?
If you can do that, you can getyour money for your movie.
So when you say we have biggerresource, like, yeah, well, we

(39:30):
also made pitches that had thepotential of returning money to
investors, and that's why wewere able to raise that money.
So that's a big shift thatfilmmakers need to make.
Now I've been talking for awhile so I'll pause because I
can keep going for hours.
But like those two things willmake such a huge difference on
your trajectory for your filmcareer If you can think outcome

(39:53):
first and then kind of reverseengineer the project that fits
that outcome and then reallylearn how to pitch in a language
that an investor understandsand speaks, as opposed to doing
a creative passion pitch.
It really needs to be about thenumbers, about the business,
about the marketplace, about thestrategy of here's how I'm
going to be a good steward ofyour money.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, yeah, you know that makes a lot of sense
because I've often thought, like, like micro budgets can make
their money back because it'sjust such a low benchmark.
But then, like that 600,000range is probably the hardest
because it's just not enough toget cast that's really going to
bring it.
You don't qualify for as manytax incentives Like, there's
just so many things that likethat money just can't go as far.

(40:36):
But then once you break amillion like we're in Georgia
it's like that takes you into a30% tax credit bracket and it
immediately puts you like over amillion, puts you in a position
to start casting people.
Like who you cast in faith ofangels, which was a I thought it
was super smart casting, cast,well-casted film and everyone in
that film did great um and soanyway.

(40:59):
So yeah, I what you're sayingmakes good sense, even though
sometimes our impetus to make itprofitable just includes the
logic of, like I'm gonna drivethe budget as low as it can go
so that it's easier to crossthat threshold, when in
actuality sometimes thatactually makes it harder.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
So and I think that's probably a point you have to
work towards.
I think beginner filmmakersprobably can't get those kinds
of investments and probablyshouldn't, because they don't
know what they're doing enoughyet to really earn the money
back.
And so I think starting withmicro budget films and
eventually transitioning into abigger budget where you can say,

(41:36):
look, this is going to be moreprofitable, more worth it Makes
a lot of sense to me.
I don't know if you feel thatway.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, no it's 100% how I think about it.
There's this thing called thedomino theory.
I don't know if you've heard ofit, but if you search domino
theory on YouTube, there's thisgreat video of this guy with
like curly hair.
He's kind of a pudgy mathscience teacher at a high school
and he's visualizing the dominotheory for you.
So the domino theory is that adomino can knock down a bigger

(42:03):
domino that's up to one and ahalf times its size.
And so he starts with this fivemillimeter domino and he places
it down at the beginning ofthis row of 13 dominoes that get
bigger by 1.5 times.
And the 13th domino is like sixfeet tall and over a hundred
pounds and it shows he likedinks over the five millimeter
domino, which knocks over aseven and a half millimeter

(42:25):
domino, which knocks over etcetera, et cetera, et cetera,
until the number 13.
And so a lot of filmmakers willcome and look at.
Okay, I mean the amount of timesthat I met people at like AFM,
the American film market, and Isaid tell me about your movie,
what are you working on?
They're like oh, it's like athree to $5 million indie.
That doesn't mean anything.
First, it shows me that youdon't know what you're talking

(42:46):
about, because 3 million and 5million are two widely different
budgets.
Um, and throwing out a numberlike three to five just means I
want as much money as possibleto make my movie, and that's not
a pitch, that's.
That's that screams.
I don't know what I'm talkingabout.
Don't give me money, becauseI'm going to burn it Right.
So instead, look at the dominotheory and go.

(43:08):
Where am I at now?
You know you might be at thefive millimeter domino.
The very first thing it's amicro budget, it's a free, it's
a short film that you and yourfriends are going to do on the
weekend.
Maybe you know, like my kidshave done those, they've done
stop motion things, they've donemovies with friends with our
iPhones and they edited it onthe phones.
You know, like that's the fivemillimeter domino.

(43:30):
But what are they able to donext?
Like the next time they canactually write a script and
invite some people who wereactors in their school play, and
we can provide some pizza onthe weekend when they're filming
, right, and now it's the sevenand a half millimeter domino, or
maybe that's the one inchdomino, and then you're looking
down the line and going okay,maybe that 13th domino is the

(43:51):
$10 million indie film that'sfinanced by Focus Features or
Lionsgate or whatever.
But you can't start therebecause you don't have enough
momentum to knock down that nextdomino.
That's one and a half timesyour size.
So you kind of have toself-assess where am I now?
And then line up the rest ofthe dominoes, keeping that $3 to

(44:13):
$5 million or that $10 millionbudget in mind and going okay,
now I'm going to do this shortfilm because I know that it's
good, I know it can be good, Iknow I've got a good team, I'm
going to put it into thesefestivals and it's going to get
a lot of doors opened.
For me that means I can hit thenext domino.
And then I'm only five dominoesaway.
Of the million dollar movieOkay, is a way of the million

(44:33):
dollar movie, okay.
So the next short film has alittle bigger budget, has a name
or two, and it gets into abigger, prestigious, more
prestigious festival and itopens even more doors.
Okay, well, now maybe you'resecond unit directing or you're
assistant directing on a biggermovie, because you've shown, and
to me, the idea of the dominotheory and the momentum is

(44:54):
basically saying what's thevalue you can create now and
doing it so that you can showpeople.
Here's what I just did.
So I'm ready for something oneand a half times my size.
So to get practical just for asecond is like on the first two
movies I did.
I was literally just posting apicture every single day from
set because I wanted everyone inmy network of filmmakers to see

(45:17):
, wow, he's got so-and-so in hismovie.
Wow, look at that camera.
Wow, that's a crew of like 40people.
That's amazing.
And I'm showing the subtextthere is.
Look at the value that I'mmanaging and creating right now.
And then the same thing for thenext movie.
And that second movie is whatgot Garrett to call me to
produce the Carpenter.
He's like, calls me up I'dknown Garrett for 10 years but

(45:39):
we never worked together and hesays, hey, you've been doing a
lot of movies.
He's basically saying wow,you've been knocking over some
good dominoes.
Do you want to knock over abigger one?
This is a multimillion dollarmovie that's going to shoot
internationally.
Well, I couldn't have done thaton the first movie, but I could
because I had shown on socialmedia of all places.
Look at the dominoes that arefalling over and how big they

(46:00):
are.
I'm ready for the next domino,so that's how you can
practically implement thatdomino theory to go okay, this
is where I'm at.
This is where I want to be.
Whoa, I actually have fivedominoes in the way, so I'm
going to knock each one of thosedown, instead of complaining
why I can't knock over a 13 orthe number 13 domino with a five
millimeter starting one, yeah,yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
And I think we get in our heads because we look at
that six foot tall, 150 pounddomino or whatever you know like
that, that huge thing, and wego I just don't have the network
, I just don't have, I justwasn't born in LA with all these
family connections, or like Iwasn't born into old money or
whatever, and like we get reallysort of self-victimizing.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
And I remember, after coming home from being abroad
for a couple of years on achurch service mission, mission,
sitting in a department storewith my parents and feeling sort
of that overwhelm of like thiscareer, you know, like this,
like vacuum of purpose, afterbeing like a servant for two
years and now you just suddenlyhave, like author, a new life

(47:06):
for yourself, and just receivingthis really strong thought of I
can learn to do anything if Istart at the first step, go step
by step and don't skip steps.
And that has stayed in my mindfor years.
And yet it's still hard toremember and do sometimes
because you just so quickly lookat someone else, what domino

(47:28):
they're knocking down and say,why am I not knocking that
domino down?
I love that visualization of it.
That's really helpful.
Yeah, it's a great, great andit's something and it's
something we see our membersdoing all the time.
They're like okay, our, myfirst film is a I need 150 000.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
We have a feature filmmaker academy where we teach
filmmakers.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah teach first, first time feature filmmakers
and we're walking them throughthat first feature and they go
150k and we go, but you've nevermade a short like you've never
made let's start.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
Maybe anything, and now?

Speaker 1 (47:57):
some people have.
Maybe they bring like a strongcommercial background or
something and it's like, yeah,do that like.
But for some people, even 150kis like that you're gonna break
your shoulder running againstthat domino, you know.
It's like, yeah, well, and evenfor our peers from film school.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
I feel like we've watched the ones who are just
willing to make something withwhat they have, the resources
available, are making things andknocking down dominoes, and
they're progressing.
And those who are stuck on thatfirst leap and they're just
like I just got to make thismovie, I've got to have a few
million.
I'm just trying to talk toenough people Like it doesn't go
anywhere.
It just you just sit therewaiting to make the jump because

(48:35):
it's too big of a jump, insteadof taking some small steps
forward.
So yeah, I really appreciatethat.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Yeah, I mean, I spent nine years in a video
production company beating ourheads against the behemoth
domino going why can't we getour $2 million movie made?
Well, we'd never even done ashort together.
You know, it was just like duhin hindsight, duh yeah we all do
.
But people, especially investors, are going to look at what
dominoes have you knocked overbefore this one?
Because they know whether or notthey know it's the domino

(49:06):
theory like they know what we'retalking about which is they can
see the investment amount andgo okay, a million bucks is a
big domino.
How are you going to knock thatover to where it turns into two
and a half right, or one and ahalf, whatever the math works
out to be?
It's like how are we going toget a return on this thing?
And if you've never knockedover a $10,000 domino or a
$100,000 domino or a $500,000domino, they're looking at you

(49:30):
like, no, you're just going topound your head against this
thing and spend a lot of timeand money and energy and you're
not going to make a single dent.
It's not going to budge an inch, and that's why you get a lot
of no's.
So, yeah, it's.
It's an important lesson tolearn, that one that I wish that
I had learned a lot earlier,but that can dramatically help

(49:52):
you start making more progress,because you go, oh, where am I
at now and what's the realisticthing I can knock over next?
Yeah, I love that.
That's great.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
So, jumping back to where you are right now, for you
, do you spend time Like how doyou decide which projects to
take on?
Is it you and Garrett all thetime?
Are there other people you workwith, or are you looking for
filmmakers?
Are you just having a wholelist and picking from your list,
or what does that day to daylook like for you?

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Yeah, so this gets into.
What am I doing next, which isI've done four movies and on
each one I've kind of felt likeI wish I had some control over
that aspect because I would havedone it differently, and that I
hope that that's not an egostatement, I hope it's a service
statement of like oh, I feellike I could have done more

(50:42):
there or I could have had animpact there, and I didn't have
the ability or the title or theauthority to do something about
that.
And so what I'm doing next isI'm actually raising a fund to
do the next five movies, whichsolves a few problems.
Number one is the consistencyof project to project.
Right, the hardest thing aftera really great project like

(51:05):
Faith of Angels is all the castand crew that you've just worked
with and you love and you'vebeen in the trenches together.
They go oh man, this wasamazing, what's next?
And I go I don't know Right,because the cycle we get into as
indie filmmakers is well, wemade that one.
Now I got to go raise money forthe next one and you know the
that's been a year since I'vebeen on set because we did faith

(51:27):
of angels and then we got into,you know, festival time, and
now we get.
We've been working really hardon the distribution for this
movie and I've been reallyheavily involved.
So I'm like, okay, if I can fixthe consistency and the
frequency problem, then thatkeeps everybody employed.
It keeps me employed, I cantell people what's next, I can
say, yeah, I want you back.
I can have consistency betweenthe crews, which means the

(51:49):
movies are going to beconsistently good.
It's not a guess.
Every time with well, I'venever worked with this
production designer before, I'venever worked with this DB
before it's like, no, we knowthat this model works and this
group works and we can generatereally high quality films at a
lower budget.
And then it also allows me tomake sure that I'm producing the
kind of movies that I want toput out in the world.

(52:11):
So I feel like I'm at the pointwhere I can have an impact on
choosing the projects, asopposed to receiving a call and
a request to come produce forsomeone else and then judging
the project and going, yeah,that sounds amazing.
That's how the last two projectshappened with Garrett, where
it's just like, yeah, I loveworking with you and I love
these projects and they soundawesome and it's a great

(52:32):
opportunity, whereas you knowgoing forward like yeah, it's
kind great opportunity, whereasyou know going forward like,
yeah, it's kind of kind ofthinking about what is what do
the studios do without, you know, bringing in all of the greed
and the corporate crap?
And uh, you know, the idea ofshutting the industry down to
kind of stick it to the peopleyou work with, like all of that

(52:54):
ethos is definitely not comingwith me.
But, man, they figured out abunch of stuff which is like, if
we do everything in house, wemake more money.
Right, we're not.
We're not sharing our moneywith the distributor, we're not
sharing it with a marketingcompany, we're not sharing it
with investors.
There's more profit to be hadif they take on all the
responsibility.
So it's like, okay, if I canraise $10 million to do five

(53:17):
movies, well, I have the budget.
I'm raising the marketingupfront instead of having to
re-raise or do a secondary raisefrom existing or new investors
to put the movie out in theaters, and so that's what's next for
me.
And so it's yes, garrettdefinitely has one of the movies
in the fund.
I want to do another movie withhim.
He's got projects that he'sworking on, and so it's yes,

(53:37):
garrett definitely has one ofthe movies in the in the fund.
I want to do another movie withhim.
Um, he's got projects that he'sworking on and if he does
another one and calls me, I'llprobably say yes, um, I'll.
I'll need to figure out how toget the fund involved so I can
justify working on it.
But you know, that's fine too,um, but the thing that I'm like,
I'm really excited about that,but some other things not to
like pitch everybody here onwhat it is.
But I just think it might beinsightful for them to hear how

(53:59):
I'm setting it up, because witheach movie, I'm setting aside a
hundred thousand dollars fordevelopment, which is not a
thing that indie movies reallydo.
It's like we get the money andwe go right into pre-production
and get as fast as possible,which robs the movie of the
opportunity to be better beforeit's shot.
Right, I want to storyboard thewhole thing and create an

(54:19):
animatic and edit the wholething and like do the Pixar
model of let's, let's watch thismovie and get a brain trust and
get feedback and make it betterand make sure that joke lands
and make sure the timing makessense and we can get a sense of
what the scope of the movie is,what kind of locations and sets
we need, what kind of lenses weneed to shoot with.
Like, all those things comeinto play at such a less

(54:42):
expensive and less riskysituation.
Right, it's a director and astoryboard artist and an editor.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Like, sacrifice so much quality.
If you don't like, it's goingto sure up your investment.
Not only to do the hedge fundapproach.
Where you have have.
You could afford to have one ortwo fail if you had to and the
other ones are really successful.
But also it's just like, whynot invest?
A little bit up front in havingthe quality be that much better
and that blows my mind.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
How, like, especially in indie films why do we talk
like it's a three rung ladder,like there's pre-production,
production and post production,and we never talk about
development?
And I'm like I'm totally therewith you where I'm like
development is my favorite part,like writing the script is
development.
That is not pre-production.
And when you make it a part ofpre-production, you were like

(55:29):
shooting your foot off, likeyou're like it's bad.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
So it's so hard to be doing rewrites in
pre-production becauseeveryone's going off the pages
that are supposed to be lockedby now.
Right, so that's six months fora director to work.
Or I'm working with writerdirectors, cause I feel like
that's a cleaner journey fromthe the inception of the project
through the edit.
Right, if you can work withwriter directors.

(55:55):
So that's what I'm targetingfor this first fund.
But, like, six months withsomebody A, they're not stressed
because they're not thinkingabout where's money coming from
next month.
You're saying I got you for sixmonths, at least part-time, and
then another six months ofpre-production, production and
post.
Right, so like, if I canbasically guarantee a year, like

(56:16):
a six figure salary for someonefor a year, that's pretty
compelling, right, it helps meget really high quality people
there.
And then the other thing thatI'm really excited about is
we're setting aside 50,000 to doa short film along with every
single film that we produce, andit'll be very similar to what
Pixar and Disney do.
It's a short film that plays infront of the movie.
So it's an opportunity for upand coming filmmakers who

(56:39):
haven't had a chance to workwith maybe that level of
experienced filmmakers to saylook, we're going to take the
key crew members from the movieand they're your crew.
Oh, wow you can bring yourfriends and they'll be trained
by them and work alongside them,your friends and they'll be
trained by them and workalongside them.
But you have a key person inevery single department so that
all of a sudden we're makingreally good short films that

(57:00):
could go to festivals, thatcould win awards, that could get
notoriety.
So that benefits everybody.
But also, I mean think aboutthe really deserving short films
that you've seen at some of thefestivals you guys have been at
and go, man, how did they, howdid they get to the next step?
Well, this is a way, right, Ican say look, I'm a handpicking
out of a hundred shorts that Isaw at a festival.

(57:21):
Like, I, I think those guys needa chance and those girls need a
chance.
I'm like let's bring them in.
Let's say we're, we've got you,you're going to get a little
salary.
All of our keys are going todonate a week or two of their
time because we've built thatinto their contract for the film
.
So they're contractually onboard and we're only going to
work with people who want to bethere anyway.

(57:41):
So like, but, man, you get towork with really great,
experienced people that havebeen doing this for 20, 25 years
and bring that experience to afirst time filmmaker and their
short film.
That sounds really exciting andagain it speaks to we have to
make sure that we're clearingthe path that we're walking for
those that are coming behind.
So if I can devote 50K, that'sa pretty meaty short film that

(58:07):
can do great things and open alot of doors.
And then, wow, now you've gotsomeone who's got some notoriety
and some awareness and go, wow,maybe you should be doing a
film next.
Well, now we've got a spot inthe next fund for one of those
filmmakers.
Right, there's so many coolagain domino effects that are at
play doing it that way.

(58:27):
So those are the things thatI'm doing next.
That's what's really excitingto me and I hope it all aligns
with what I was saying earlierand what I'm trying to build
here.
This truly independent, meaningnon-dependent on Hollywood, is
all that independent means.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
It doesn't mean alone , it means non-dependent on
everyone else, like being ableto take control of my own career
and my own future in thisindustry, but also make it
easier for others to do the same.
Yeah, yeah, amen, love all thatuh.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Future in this industry but also make it easier
for others to do the same.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Yeah, yeah, amen.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Well, I'm sure we could go on yeah, or never did
you have any last burningquestions yes, there's one last
burning question, which isdarren what are like three
movies that you love right now?
I won't ask you what yourfavorite movies are.
You can include what you mightthink is a favorite movie, but I
know no one can narrow thatdown.
So I just say what are threemovies that you love right now?

Speaker 2 (59:28):
What comes out of your heart and mind.
That's a hard one, man.
So I mean behind me I don'tknow if this is a video podcast
or not, but I have three postersthat are the Cornetto trilogy,
so Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg'smovies and Nick Frost I should
include him in that, but theydid what they call the Cornetto
trilogies three movies Shaun ofthe Dead, hot Fuzz and World's
End.
I just love those movies.
I love Edgar Wright he'sprobably it's probably the

(59:49):
reason that I'm a producer isHot Fuzz, cause I saw it so many
times and just fell in lovewith every in and out of how
that movie came to be.
And then, when you expanded thatI watched Shaun of the Dead
second after I watched hot fuzz,I was like, oh my gosh, they
did the thing.
They like this.
Is it I can do that?

(01:00:09):
Like this is possible.
And they, they were.
So they had such great likebehind the scenes and little
vignettes about how the moviescame to be and the budgets they
were at and I was just like thisis possible.
It just it took it from mebeing a movie goer to like I
think I could actually makemovies, um, potentially even for
a living.
Like this sounds amazing.
Um, so that really happened ataround the same time as Alan

(01:00:34):
saying should be a producer.
Uh, he was the one whointroduced me to simon pegg and
and edgar wright and nick frost.
Um, but out right now, gosh, Idon't know.
Like I loved shogun.
It's not a movie, but it's a tvshow, right?
now just you know, you know andjust the craft of that really
spoke to like, oh, there's stilleverybody talks about what

(01:00:57):
Hollywood does and doesn't wantand what is and isn't successful
and I'm like, ok, sorry, butlike a period drama set in Japan
that is 80 percent subtitled,like no who, who?
Who said that would be the mostwinning Emmy award winning show
in history?
Like, but there were peoplethat took chances and people

(01:01:20):
that really just brought all oftheir craft to the table, like
it's perfect.
The sets, the costumes, thedialogue, the everything about
it is just executed at such ahigh level.
And that's what I aspire to,and I don't think you have to
have the biggest budgets or thebiggest networks or the biggest
studios backing you in order todo that.
If you say this is what thegoal is, this is the outcome, to

(01:01:43):
make something extremely highlevel of craft, then that's
great and you can pursue that.
And guess what?
I think the audiences resonatemore with that than you know.
You look at movies that havespent more than that recently in
the box office and go well, theaudience didn't want that.
So it's not about how muchmoney you spend.

(01:02:04):
It's about what are you makingand what are you trying to
accomplish.
What are you trying to say?
You know, and I think, goingback to the idea of commerce
versus art, I think my personalbelief in the way I'm kind of
pursuing my career is, if Ipursue the art at a level of

(01:02:25):
craft which is why I called mybusiness Craftsman Films Like if
craft is front and center, thecommerce will work out as long
as you're being responsible withthe budgets and et cetera, et
cetera, et cetera.
But like if it's all commercefirst and the craft is second, I
don't think it works as well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Yeah, I didn't answer your question.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
But, like the Cornetto trilogy is my go-to
answer for my favorite films, Ithink they exude a high level of
craft and a high level of funand you can sense that they
enjoyed making that movie and I,oh, I think every movie has
that non-communicated thing thatwe get just because art is a

(01:03:07):
language.
And if someone puts forth artlike shogun, you can feel like
you can sense that people wereagonizingly working over every
detail of that movie and itcomes through.
You can feel like you can sensethat people were agonizingly
working over every detail ofthat movie and it comes through.
You can feel how much fun theyhad working on the Cornetto
trilogy.
I hope you can feel, watchingFaith of Angels, that there were
a lot of people at variousstages of their faith, various

(01:03:31):
places with their faith, thatcame together with faith to make
a movie that shouldn't havebeen possible on the budget when
time we had.
Yeah, and I I hope that that'sin there.
I've never spoken about thatbut like I think people can feel
that and that's part of whatresonates about the movie, they
go wow, that was special.
So there you go.
Yeah, no.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
I love that One.
There you go, yeah, no, I lovethat.
One of one of our favoritefilms is um, anna's particular
has a particular love of La LaLand and, um, we both love that
film.
There's this, there's thisfeeling that like the dollars
they put into that movie werejust barely enough, like they
really overextended themselves,not because they were being
irresponsible with like theyshould have raised more money,

(01:04:13):
but just like let's swing for it, let's make the best thing we
can.
And you could feel like itwasn't like this perfect, like
like no mistakes movie.
It was like they they justbarely pulled off, like an
impossible thing, and you watchit and you feel like you're
about to fall off the edge.
It's ripping at the seams alittle bit, but it's the passion
, but it's still holding ittogether, yeah, and so like, but

(01:04:35):
it gives it almost this likethrilling aspect, like it.
It's imbued with, with thatquality of like.
This is what it must felt liketo want to make the film, you
know.
So I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
It's awesome, yeah, well, thanks so much, darren,
for, of course, thanks forhaving me one more thing if
people want to follow I knowyou're doing lots of things, you
have movies, you of things, youhave movies.
You have your book, you havethe podcast, you have your
production company Is there oneplace to go to follow more of
what you're doing?

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yeah, I do do a lot of things, which is fun.
It's one of my weaknesses.
I'm trying to do fewer things.
If you go to craftsmanfilmscocraftsmanfilmsco yeah, I have a
blog.
There's a link to the podcast,there's a link to the book.
There's all the things there.
There's even a link.
If people want to quote,unquote, pick my brain, you can
do that not for free, but youcan do that.

(01:05:23):
It's so hard at this point, Ihave a lot of people asking to
go to lunch or pick my brain andhop on a zoom and it's like I
have a blog.
I have all the resources here.
There's 20 hours of stuff youcan dive into with the podcast
alone, like.
But for people that are lookingfor specific help on a current
project, I can help with that aswell.
And then I I'm spending most ofmy time on LinkedIn right now.

(01:05:44):
I feel like for my.
We talked about differentaudiences at different times.
The audience I'm building andspeaking to right now is
investors and potentialexecutive producers for my fund,
so I'm devoting all of my timeand energy on social media there
.
I'm not on any of the metaplatforms right now, so if you
find me on Insta, I have aprofile but I'm not going to be

(01:06:05):
on there.
So I'd say LinkedIn and andpodcast, truly independent, and
my blog, craftsmanfilmsco.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
I will.
I will acknowledge the treasuretrove of value that's on
craftsman films dot co, becauseI'm already like, um, I feel
like I have a tall stack ofreading to do, because I feel,
like all of your blog titles, Iwas like, oh darren's asking all
the right questions like it'slike I'm, I would like to dive
into your literature.
So and I have, and that's why wewere super excited to have you

(01:06:34):
on on the podcast, becausebecause you're, you're diving in
and you're knocking down thedominoes that that we are all
aware of and are trying to learnhow to, how to tackle.
So thank you so much, darren.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Thank you.
That means a lot.
The idea of the things I'mmaking resonating with the
audience that it's intended foris, like doesn't get better than
that.
So thanks for saying that.