Ep. 99 - Self-Distributing a Profitable First Feature with Chris Peters

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In this episode, we chat with Chris Peters, co-founder of Crave Content, about his  journey from making backyard films with his brother-in-law David Lawrence to establishing a successful film production brand. 

Chris shares the creative development process of merging two short films into a feature-length narrative. We discuss the inventive strategies employed to tackle budget constraints, DIY post-production, and shooting an entire feature in 16 days. Chris describes the perseverance required to navigate the world of distribution, emphasizing FilmHub as a viable platform for indie creators. We think you'll enjoy hearing how he managed to turn a profit self-distributing his first feature film.

For more information about Chris, check out his website at Chrave.co

Check out his YouTube Video: Never expected our indie film to make this much on Tubi

You can watch the film here: https://www.chrave.co/mhr

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chris Peters, welcome to the Film and Family Podcast
and home of the FeatureFilmmaker Academy, so it's a
pleasure to have you on.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Thanks so much for having me.
I really appreciate theinvitation.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Awesome.
So, chris, remind me the nameof your partner at Crave Content
.
Where does the name Crave comefrom?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yes, Crave content.
Where does the name Crave comefrom?
Yes, so, my brother-in-law,actually David Lawrence.
He is my filmmaking partner incrime and we met when I was
about 15 or so and he hadstarted seeing my sister, who's
a few, six years older than me,so he's and then he, basically,

(00:44):
when we were just chatting,getting to know each other, when
he, when he was starting to seeher, he had the same interest
in making films and he said, he,he did that as a hobby as a
teenager and I was just gettinginto it for the first time, and,
um, so we chatted a lot aboutthat.
And then when I got a videocamera for christmas one year, I
told him, hey, I got a videocamera, and he goes year.
I told him, hey, I've got avideo camera, and he goes, oh

(01:05):
cool, let's make movies together.
So then he started comingaround on weekends and I thought
you would think to hang outwith my sister, but we ended up
making little movies in thebackyard and so we got the whole
family involved and otherfriends and then we kind of just
, you know it's what, 17 yearslater and we're still doing that
.
They're now married and havechildren, so everything worked

(01:28):
out brilliantly there.
So, um, uh, yeah, but um, his,because his name's dave and I'm
chris.
We basically just put our namestogether and created crave.
When we decided to make ourfirst feature film, we thought
that could be our name for ourbrand.
Um, because, because it justseemed appropriate and um, yeah,

(01:51):
so that's kind of that.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
That's that's kind of how how crave evolved, um kind
of by accident, but but a goodaccident yeah, you know, I think
we a lot of us at least, it's acommon story that we started
making stuff like just dumbstuff in high school with people
we got along with usually, andI think it's awesome that you

(02:13):
guys are still doing it, becausesometimes we move on or we go
to film school or we, you knowdifferent paths and it's like
those guys aren't necessarily,or those guys go.
None of my friends have stayedin film, right, that was just a
high go, you know.
None of my friends have stayedin film, right, that was just a
high school thing, you know.
But like the fact that you guysare like let's just keep a good
thing going is super awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
And they've had children now.
So I've got two nieces and theylove it too.
They get involved.
The older one was was anassistant on our feature film
for one for one day.
Um, she was only 10 years old,but we, we just wanted someone
literally to keep track of theshots, and she, she did that.
She had a great time, and thestudio where we filmed that day

(02:56):
they had a dog, so she had a dogto play with.
In between the boring partswhere we're setting up, because
we said it's going to be boring,sometimes there's a lot of
waiting around and you know,there's just it feels like just
nothing's happening.
So there was a dog there shewas playing tug-of-war with, so
and, yeah, she, she, she had agreat time.
So, um, they and they lovebeing in front of the camera as
well, um, so, yeah, that it's,it's a.

(03:18):
It's just it's funny that yourpodcast is called film and
family family.
Is that right?
Yeah, it's like.
So it's like I, I very muchrelate to that because it is a
family thing with us.
You know, my, my brother, getsinvolved as well.
Um, and, yeah, almost all myimmediate family have had some
kind of involvement with it.
It's just to some degree,whether behind or in front of

(03:39):
the camera.
So, yeah, they all love it.
Have so much fun.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
I think it's great that's awesome, you know, that's
so like the basic tenet.
Actually, there's two basictenets of this podcast, which is
, um, that people with familiesum can make movies.
So we'd love to maybe have daveon the podcast at some point
because, um, this idea ofresponsibility, of a, of a
marriage and a and children totake care of and pay for you

(04:06):
know, like to pay for their foodand everything Sometimes I mean
logistically that becomes verycomplicated, especially for
indie filmmakers.
But our whole tenet is likeit's possible.
It's possible to do this, andwe just saw so many of our
friends just like quit, theyjust couldn't keep it going in
school, and so the other side ofthis is just this idea they
just couldn't keep it going atschool.
And so the other side of thisis just this idea that, like,

(04:28):
anyone can make a feature film,including people with families.
But, just like that firstfeature, it's really hard, it's
really um takes a ton of faithto like just just do it.
You know it's like it's just somany question marks and you're
just stepping out into the dark,and so we really want to
encourage people to kind of, wejust know what a huge career
milestone that is and how youcan translate that eventually

(04:51):
into a real career.
You know doing this and so Ithink it's cool to hear that
like all of that from thebeginning is like just founded
and family and you guys had kidson set, know, and and
everything.
That's just really, really neat.
So I wanted to ask you a littlebit about morehouse road.
Yes, so so so did you guys makelike you see, you made videos

(05:14):
and fun little films and shortfilms, yeah, but did you guys,
when did you guys start to likesay, oh, we could do commercials
or we could start making moneywith this?
Was morehouse road your firstforay into let's make something
serious, or were you guysalready making commercials?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
uh, yeah, um it.
It was the first first and itwas the definitely the biggest
project we've ever done, that'sfor sure.
Up until then, we'd made a fewshort films, um, that were that
we.
We sort of started taking itseriously.
You know, there was a period ofwhen we were younger and doing
fun films in the backyard withfriends, family, but then I got

(05:52):
a job at a talent managementagency and I was sort of getting
to know the industry from awhole new point of view and I
had access to so manyprofessional actors and a lot of
them who had seen on stage orseen in other like self-tapes
and things and thought that wasso good but they weren't famous

(06:12):
and they just weren't gettingparts because it's the most
competitive profession in theworld, I don't know and I
thought, oh, it's like I couldmake something with these people
in it and it would be good.
It would be like.
So when the first, we made ashort film called Sinking Ships
in 2015.
It's a 20-minute film.
It's basically like a littlegritty drama involving domestic

(06:37):
violence and troubledrelationships, and it was sort
of our first attempt at makingsomething professional.
We had professional actors, abit more of a cast and a crew, a
schedule call sheets, you knowall that jazz, yeah and um, that
was our first sort of let's seeif we can do a good job in, and

(06:59):
and actually something we'd becomfortable showing people.
You know, I wouldn't dare showthe films we made when I was a
teenager right, they'reembarrassing to say the least.
Um, but yes, so we made thatfilm and it was.
It was it played at a couplelike local sort of film
screenings and things like that,but it's had so many.
We then put it on youtube andit's had like over 300,000, I

(07:22):
think maybe close to 400,000views and just like hundreds of
comments of people talking abouttheir own personal experiences
with that subject matter andjust sharing their life story.
Some of them and they're alllike just talking to each other
like a forum for like almost asupport group, and I thought, oh
my God, this was a little moviewe made in six days in just a

(07:45):
couple different locations witha group of good actors in our
hometown and where we live.
It's not a huge film, tv, heavycapital.
A lot of stuff happens here, butnot to the point where it
happens in in Australia.
It's mostly in the easternstates and we're in the west,
yeah, um, and, and it was here,it was reaching these audiences
around the world and peopletelling their stories, and we,

(08:07):
we loved that.
We thought, wow, that that's,it's, it's.
You can just get that audiencetoday like that, which wouldn't
have been possible, you know, 20, even 20 years ago with the
internet, wasn't what it is now.
Um, yeah, and so we we justsort of kept going on that path.
We made a couple other shortfilms.
We did a lot, a lot of branding, a few branding type videos,

(08:29):
because, mostly through word ofmouth, people who had businesses
that knew what we were doingand said, hey, how much for a
branding video.
And both we both worked in sortof you know, branding and
marketing ourselves.
I did a lot of marketing workfor the, the agency where I
worked, and Dave worked inadvertising agencies, so he was

(08:49):
very much in that realm as well.
And yeah, but branding videosand all that commercial, they're
good to do, I guess, to makemoney and if they come your way,
but ultimately narrativefilmmaking is where the passion
really was Right, so we wantedto keep going with that and then

(09:12):
basically it was around, Ithink 2019-ish.
I was like thinking I wonder ifI could have the ability to make
a feature film, like if I couldfirst of all write one, have a
story for one, and then I guessat that point we realised we'd
done so much just on our own.
We thought let's tackle thatand see where it goes.

(09:35):
And, yeah, you know, then wedid it.
So it was certainly a hugeproject that I'm glad I had the
years of practice, if you will,with the smaller projects to be
able to handle this.
I think attempting your firstfeature film if you haven't done

(09:56):
many shorts or much else isgoing to be like a recipe for
burnout, like instantly.
So once you have that kind ofexperience of okay, things don't
always go according to plan,things take longer, you have to
redo things, you know then thenit makes it easier to finally
attempt that that big, bigproject so what was your

(10:18):
experience on the feature?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
because, like you know, you're saying like it's a
recipe for burnout, but, like Iknow people who have done lots
of short films, they've donefilms with lots of money behind
them.
But then that first feature, Imean I know guys who are just
now releasing in theaters amovie that they had $16 million
behind and it's their firstfeature and they talked about it

(10:41):
I could tell in the Q&A abecause I went to the premiere.
Um, that I won't tell.
I won't say the name of thefilm, I don't know if they want
me to share some of their drama,but like, uh, it's in theaters
right now in america, you can gosee it.
Um, and uh, they said it wasjust such such a nightmare.
You know, like there were somany things where it was like I

(11:01):
mean they had to fire the cast aweek into shooting recast, like
I mean the millions of dollarsthey've got behind this movie
and stuff like that.
So, like with you, I mean, doyou feel like obviously the
shorts helped prepare you?
Do you feel like they preparedyou enough?
Or were there days when youwere like I'm in over my head?
This was a mistake?
All is lost, you know.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well it's funny you should mention that it was a 16
million dollar film.
And then you know it was anightmare, because you know
there's that saying more money,more problems.
I think because our film was sosmall in scale, like small
budget, small crew, local castwe I I knew that making a
feature film was going to be achallenge.
I knew it wasn't going to besomething you just sort of do in

(11:47):
a weekend and then it's done.
So I made sure when I was doingthe writing stage, I'm like
let's write something that weknow is doable.
Yeah, you know you're going totry and make it as quality as
you can, but you also can'twrite your first feature script
with, with not much money, andyou're just sort of starting and

(12:07):
have a scene where helicoptersare shooting at each other in
the sky and there's bad, youknow, and there's explosions and
people jumping off skyscrapers.
You know it's just ridiculousto think you can make your first
feature with all that big fancyhollywood stuff, unless you're
born into wealth or you.
You know someone in the in theindustry.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
You know as it is right, but um motion feature
film that you make by yourselfsix years in your basement or
something oh, exactly.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
And so this, this one , was like let's make a small, a
small project that's small inscale, that's got um, just
enough of a story and charactersand some interesting elements
to keep it going through.
And that was that there wasmore periods where I felt, oh,

(12:57):
this is too much, was sort ofbefore we started shooting, just
the general organising oflocations and making sure people
were available, you know,things like that.
That's kind of the, the hardpart, I would say, the actual
shoot days, because you're,you're kind of, you're there,
the work's kind of done, it'sjust a matter of okay, we're all

(13:17):
here, now let's get through the, the days, scenes and things
like that.
But all the sort of build up tothose days is kind of the part.
That's a bit, what have I gotmyself into?
But I tried to never let thatthought creep in of oh, this is
too much, what am I doing.
I'm just thinking now everyonehas you have to put yourself

(13:39):
through this if you want toachieve that end result.
You know, nothing worthachieving is going to come
easily.
Nor should it.
So you know, I just thought,not like we can get through,
we're going to do it, um, butyeah, of course you're going to
have days of like feeling just,oh my god, why?

(13:59):
Why am I putting myself?
But?
But yeah, otherwise, yeah, wekept it.
We kept it quite simple.
So I think that's the trickwith with this.
With this one was um was not totackle something that was
beyond our capabilities I thinkit's awesome.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
no, it sounds like you approached your uh, your
first feature with like theright ratio of ambition and
wisdom.
You know that that I mean thefact that you were feeling some
of that heat in pre-production Ithink is a good sign, because I
think sometimes, I thinksometimes ignorance is bliss and

(14:38):
we walk right into the fire,you know, and it's like, oh my
gosh, like then production isreally hard and that's probably
the wrong place for it.
But yeah, from my ownexperience, so okay, so
Morehouse Road talked to meabout, so you said like, oh, I
wanted to make a feature, butthen how did you, how much did
you and Dave work together onthe script?

(14:58):
And and how did you kind of Imean, it sounds like you, did
you really write this to be likebuilt around your resources or
did you just kind of, I mean,how did you approach that
basically?

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yeah, well, we I wrote the script most like by
myself, but I would always besending updates to Dave and we
would be sort of basically justhe'd say, what about this?
How about that?
This part doesn't really work.
What if you structured it thisway?
Uh, so there was that.
Then, of course, there was asort of a few weeks in between

(15:34):
periods of writing where you cansort of go back and go.
You know what, now that I'veslept on it, this part doesn't
work either and it just all thatum and we had like a cast and
crew, a cast script reading andwhere we could hear it out loud
and it's like oh, now that Ihear it, this doesn't work
either.
Um, but the actual story wasbased on um.

(15:56):
We made two short films backwhen we were younger and they
were both the backyard DIY, butthe initial stories were kind of
we thought had potential.
One of our short films wasabout a person who gets abducted
for an illegal like organharvesting operation, and then
the other one was about likekind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre

(16:19):
style crazy family in theoutback who lure in unsuspecting
victims and we sort of the waythey looked and, being that
we're in Western Australia,where we have so much locations
that are only just drivingdistance.
You know, we thought that thetwo stories put together could
maybe work together and haveit's a family that live remotely

(16:44):
but they're secretly doing thisillegal organ harvesting thing
for people who can afford it, um, to cheat death, basically.
So we, we sort of thought ofworking with that angle and then
once that sort of okay, we'vegot the, the uh, the villain and
the, the crooked operationgoing on, but how do our
characters sort of fall intothat?

(17:05):
And we sort of tell it from thepoint of view of someone who's
connected to someone, who's thenewest target in a way, and then
it's told from their point ofview, where they uncover it all
gradually throughout the filmand learn more about the stuff

(17:26):
that's going on and realisealmost when it's starting to get
too late, now she's in dangerand you know, as those thrillers
tend to do, it just gets worseand worse.
But yeah so, and then it justsort of evolved that way and
then it was just a matter ofokay, we need scenes from A, b
to C.
We've got to have a scene thatestablishes this moment, that

(17:47):
moment, um, something at thebeginning, where it sort of
shows you a bit of um backgroundon how do they actually get
information about these peoplewho have these rare blood types.
So we just sort of thought,let's, let's work with that.
And then it just sort of builtfrom there, and then it was just
a matter of putting scenestogether and making it make

(18:09):
sense in the screenplay.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it wasquite of a, it's quite a.
Uh, it was probably like anon-conventional sort of way of
writing a script, because it'ssort of we just sort of let
things evolve and then add andsubtract.
But yeah, I think sometimesthat's how you have to do it.
Um, but yeah, that's, that's,that's that what?

(18:31):
So I forgot what was the otherpart to your question.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Well, I don't think it sounds too untraditional or
anything.
I mean, like you're gonna hearthose debates in hollywood, like
they're the writers.
I start at a and I just figureout how to get to z, you know,
and I just I don't want to knowthe end, because then you can't
know the end.
You know it's like if I don't,you don't know it.
And then, like there's theother ones who were like, you
know, I outline everything indetail and then we've shuffled

(18:54):
the cards on the board untilit's a perfect outline.
It's just, and great movieshave come from both systems.
So it sounds like you guysreally spent your time and
diligence on on the script.
And you spent a long time onthe script Cause you you wrote
drafts, you guys worked it backand forth and you had readings.
Was it like a year?

Speaker 2 (19:16):
It was the actual first draft, took a few months
really, but then it was gettingit to the point where we were
ready to shoot was probably ayear or so it was.
It was getting it to the pointwhere we were ready to shoot was
probably a year or so it wasabout.
Well, as I said, 2019 is when Istarted the whole, I guess,
synopsis treatment and sort ofthinking how am I going to make

(19:37):
this work and what's a storythat can go with it, and then
basically build from there andthen over the next couple, I
guess, a couple of years, it wassort of, oh, let's figure this
out.
And then 2021 is when westarted shooting.
So, really, only a year, justover a year, was the sort of the

(20:01):
script stage, which I guess isquite short.
A lot of people spend years andyears and years writing one
script.
But, as I said, we were goingto keep it simple and small all
the way through.
We knew we didn't have theluxury of having someone a
professional you know go throughit all over again and change it
and fish it out and things likethat.

(20:23):
But so, yeah, it did.
Of course, scripts don't happenovernight, but you know,
considering how long it takes alot of scripts.
It was a bit shorter than Ithink.
I mean, I've never written afeature before, but yeah, the
first draft was very rough, likeyou know, where there's very
basic dialogue, very basic, justscene structures.

(20:45):
But then it just once we didthe cast reading and things just
don't sound right.
Then you change this again andthen you go, oh, actually, let's
get rid of that scene.
It just doesn't work, it's notflowing.
And then, yeah, then it's justa matter of polishing until you
get as close to a diamond as youcan, because I figured you

(21:07):
could keep going over and overagain.
I mean, this isn't perfect, thisisn't perfect, or actually this
part doesn't make sense either.
But I figured that you're goingto end up just never finishing
it, because nothing's.
I think perfection is such anillusion.
You'll never get there.
You just have to get as closeas you can.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, and output is so, like because so many people
tell me like I've heard a lot ofpeople, and even in school, say
like, don't, don't ever shootyour first screenplay, like the
first thing you ever wrote.
Don't shoot it because it'sgoing to be bad, you might as
well throw it away and write thenext thing.
And I'm always like no, shootit because that's how you're
going to mine everything thatyou need to learn.
You're going to have to dealwith that.
Oh, yeah.
You're going to have to dealwith that script in the editing

(21:46):
room and all the things that youread about.
You're either going to realizewhy they were right or why they
were wrong or what's working foryou, and you're going to
discover yourself as an actorreally fast when you have to
live with that script.
But like you, I think it wasjust.
You say that that was short,but our first feature we wrote
it in like weeks because it cametogether so fast.

(22:09):
That project we got, we pulledsome money together.
We wrote like a 40 page versionof it with like bullet point
scenes, like there were likefull scenes and then there was
like and then this happens, andthen there were like full scenes
and then this happened.
It wasn't even really a fullthing and then we barely had a
full script by the time we wereshooting.

(22:30):
No draft three, four, five,nothing, none of that.
But that was because of thenature of the project and we
knew we were going to have toshoot it and edit it almost like
a documentary with kidsinvolved and stuff.
But you know that's unique tous, our circumstances, I mean
Not like no one's ever done thatbefore, but that presented
strengths and huge weaknesses onboth sides of the equation,

(22:53):
because then our edit took threeyears because it was just
working.
That footage was basically likethe script, due diligence that
you did which we wish we haddone, you know, did which we
wish we had done, you know, andum.
So I just think that's it'scool to hear you know your guys'
experience Um, there's reallyno right way to do this, because

(23:14):
I think we're all just likegetting baptized and tons of
experience and knowledge and, um, and, and I think, huge
opportunities.
I think just making a moviepresents opportunities, you know
, and so I mean I'd love to hearmore about that.
So you talked about gettingthat script going.
You had some actors available,which I think is huge.
I love that.
You've already started with thetwo most important assets of

(23:37):
any film in my opinion, which isstory, and your cast Like just
casting some good people iswhere almost every indie feature
fails.
I feel like we're just like okay, like, oh, no, yeah, you could
and you get a solid story, thenit's like you've already won

(23:58):
like 80 of the battle.
Um, yeah, everything else is,you know, competent, um, so, so
what?
How did you guys logisticallypull these, pull these things
together?
Did you guys um sort of how didyou pull some money together,
if you don't mind sharing asmuch as you feel like?
And how did you um?
And then, how was post, I guess?

(24:20):
So the money question first,how did you manage getting the
logistics pulled together?

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Well, with budget for the film, there really wasn't
any.
I mean, it was self-financed.
Dave and I basically said weknow this is going to be an
expensive venture that is likelynot to pay off in the long run,
but we knew that it was aproject we really wanted to do.

(24:47):
I mean, people spend thousandsof dollars on going on holiday
and that's great, but you knowit's like that's money that you
you won't get back.
And then you've got theexperience.
So my attitude was well, I'mspending this money on a really
good experience which, even ifno one sees the film, I've got

(25:10):
it on a Blu-ray forever maybe.
And so I guess you know we saidokay, so we're going to have to
invest a bit.
So we spent, we both workedfull time and I owned a house at
the time which I put up forrent.
And then I started goingthrough the process of selling

(25:31):
the house because I was doing itby myself and the mortgage by
myself, so it was so just toughfinancially.
So I ended up selling the houseso that I could not have that
financial drain on myselfbecause I thought I want to make
a movie.
I don't want to.
I don't want to not make a filmbecause I got into the property

(25:53):
market, even though some peoplethink that might think that's
ridiculous, but yeah making amovie was more important for me
personally my, my, my, yeah,that your brain might want to
buy property, but my heart andsoul wanted to make a movie, um,
and so we basically just, uh,we bought a few bits of
equipment like a black blackmagic, 6k um, and then a bit of

(26:19):
sound equipment, and then webasically had a few people we
knew for crew, like who we'd metalong just through people, of
people and to do lighting, sound, and we basically were just
honest and said, hey, we don'thave much money.
We can afford to pay like areally small day rate so that
you can cover your basicexpenses and things like that,

(26:39):
but if the film goes on to makemoney, we'll pay you what you're
entitled to.
Were this like a big productionwith the union salaries and
things like that?
And so, luckily, a lot ofpeople in our case, you know
people want to get their resumesgoing and their so they think
it's a good opportunity for themto work on something to put on

(27:01):
their resume and put on theirshow reel, especially for the
actors and things like that.
And we had a much smaller crewthan a typical film would Some
days.
You know, there'd be just acutaway scene of two characters
running out of a hospital and itwould just be me and Dave.
He'd be holding the camera andI'd do the sound.
All in post-production ADRrecord their footsteps and

(27:24):
things like that.
And then, in terms of otherparts of production, we
basically just tried to geteverything as cheaply or as free
as possible.
We had a few locations we wereable to get without having to
pay anything.
There's at least a third of thefilm takes place at a country

(27:44):
cottage which was actually anAirbnb.
Who we talked to the host andshe was really cool and very
supportive of the project and sowe hired the house for the
weekend.
And another location which wasa hospital a simulation hospital
at a university was um cost,cost money.

(28:07):
So locations and equipment and afew and things like food all
the things you don't think aboutto feed your cast and crew um,
we're all, we're all where mostof the money went and, of course
, like the cast and crew thatwe're paying these small um
rates too.
So the post-production again,both Dave and I, we wore so many

(28:28):
hats throughout the whole thing.
I edited and did the sound andhe did the colour grading,
visual effects, and we workedtogether to.
So I would cut a scene, hewould grade the footage and I'd
send me the graded clips backand I'd relink them all so

(28:49):
they'd go into the new time syncup properly, and then that was
all very much a learningexperience as well.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
So did you guys use round trip through um final cut
and da vinci?
Was that what you guys did?

Speaker 2 (29:01):
yes, we used um, da Vinci and Final Cut together and
sometimes, uh, I think Davewould use Premiere for a few
visual effects.
Yeah, so, because, um, I know,post production for a lot of
indie films is where they spendso much money because of the
just the relentless hours andhours that goes into it.
But we were confident enoughthat we could do it ourselves

(29:24):
and we did.
We both had a lot of experience, like well, in that area.
So we and because we're workingfor free, we were able to
really cut corners where I guessa lot of some people don't, a
lot of people are writers,directors that don't know how to
edit or they want to do it amore traditional way.

(29:44):
They want to write a script,send it off to somewhere else
and someone else handles it, youknow, whereas we basically just
for every step of the way, wewere doing it ourselves, because
we knew we just wanted to makea feature film, we were going to
just make it happen.
And, yeah, we were both prettyconfident with our
post-production abilities.
I'd never done much soundediting before, just real basic

(30:06):
stuff.
So that was interesting, justto learn about levels and 5.1
and, uh, lots of adr and lots offoley, just things like opening
a side door and letting itclose and then them walking away
and touching their shirt, andso you've got to recreate the
touching of the shirt, otherwiseit looks fake.

(30:27):
And all these little times Ihave so much respect for Foley
artists and people that do sounddesign and sound editing
because it's like, oh my God,it's so tedious in microscopic
detail but you have to do it.
Yeah so yeah, but I actuallyhad fun doing it.
I thought it was fun, like, youknow, just recreating footsteps
and things like that, justbecause it's, you know, just do

(30:49):
it on the weekend when you gotspare time.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
So well and yeah, so we were able to just do so much
ourselves the fact that you didit, did all that is is shocking
to me honestly.
I think that, like you said,most of us as indie filmmakers
we pull the money so tight inproduction and then we get to
post and we realize, okay, likeif we want this to be really
done, well, we've got to juststart blowing money, you know,

(31:13):
basically, and your approach waslike all right, this is where
we can just hunker down and getit done right and do it
ourselves, and I think that'sreally, really, um, I think that
shows the right spirit.
I know that the guy um who madethe film thunder road, which was
a sundance darling severalyears back, um, he said when you

(31:33):
, when you're willing to doeverything yourself, you know
you're ready to make your firstfeature, um, which there's truth
and and debatableness to thatstatement, right, but like, yeah
, everything yourself, obviously, unless you're making like a
really interesting movie.
But but there are things likethis that that can do attitude
that like, okay, I'm just gonna,I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna

(31:54):
learn how to sound, mix a movieand and not letting the, the,
the imposter syndrome and theand the doubt just get to you
and you're just like, I canlearn this, I'm a capable human
being and I can just I can learna step at a time, like I think
that's really admirable well.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
I think, like when you make short films and content
videos and things like that,it's kind of you're always going
to hopefully attempt somethingthat you may not have attempted
before or attempted that youdidn't do so well before, and so
doing shorts and all thoseother videos was training to do
a feature, and then doing thefeature itself was a whole level

(32:34):
of like doing your masters.
It's like it's a whole otherlevel of training.
Like when I think this is goingto play, if this plays in a
theatre with 5.1, I want to makesure it's done, done
competently enough so that itfeels cinematic and you know.
And then you, you go through itall and I mean youtube is the
best.
You can just get a tutorial foranything.

(32:55):
Um, so I was like what, what'sup?
And then I was watching tons oftips on 5.1 and layering and
you know Foley and just the bestway to record so it doesn't
sound echoey.
So I had a bedroom with, youknow, thick blankets and
cushions on the wall so that Icould redo the ADR and not have

(33:16):
that bounce.
You know all things that Iwouldn't have thought known to
do really well before and justthought, okay, let's just do
this and see if we can pull itoff you know so a lot of it was,
yeah, that ignorance as well.
Like I'm sure I can do it.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Let's just do it and see what happens, you know, yeah
but that's going to serve youfor the rest of your life.
Even if you're working withlike skywalker sound on your
next movie doing like an atmos,these guys who are, like life
dedicated to sound design andand it's a team of 50 guys, you
know, it's like you know you'restill going to be able to
approach that and be like I cantalk with you enough to help you

(33:51):
, I mean, and so I mean and youknow what.
I just don't think even some ofour favorite movies, some of
the best movies that are outthere with loads of resources,
still resort to that kind ofstuff where they're like, uh,
okay, we need to get something.
They're gonna grab a littleblack magic pocket and go pick
it up in the room next door andpick up a little pickup shot, or
they're gonna.

(34:12):
I saw the scenes on a film thathad nationwide um uh, theatrical
distribution, big theatricaldistribution.
It was an indie film and theyshot it in africa and I saw like
behind the scenes photos oftheir adr sessions where they
had like four mattresses stackedtogether in a little room in
like south africa somewhere andthey'd stuck a little boom mic

(34:35):
into the mattress box thatthey'd created and they had
their actress in there likerecording her adr, like, and
it's like that's not an ADRfacility obviously, and so you
have to resort to that stuff allthe time.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
It's just oh yeah, you have to do it and you can't
be like too.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Like, oh, but that's not the right way.
Like, so I don't know.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
I think so many.
I see so many indie filmmakersthat are so caught up, and it's
that kind of ego I think of.
I have to do this the way theindustry and the professionals
do it, because if, if I don't,then I'm just looking like an
amateur and they end up sort ofreally um bare, just going down

(35:17):
this, this dark, sort of likeintense, you know, in a struggle
of oh no, I've got to do itthis way.
And then when they can'tachieve it, that just eats them
up and I'm like, just do it theway you can Like, if you have to
do it, that DIY style, just tobe able to put, you know,
there's always the next time,there's always the next project.

(35:38):
And it's funny when people whohave a tiny budget to make a
feature film, they take it soseriously, like they're making
the next Star Wars and I thinkwith a big studio behind them,
it's like why put that pressureon yourself?
You know, just make somethingthat's within your reach today
that you can pull off, you know,and who cares if it's not 100%

(36:02):
perfect?
You know, there's always noone's going to make their best
film on their first go.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
then I would hope anyway, right, right, well, and
that, just, you know, reminds meof, um, that little moment in
disaster artist where he says,hey, look at that set for the
for the alleyway.
It looks just like the actualalleyway.
And he's like, yeah, isn't itgreat?
Why didn't we just shoot it inthe actual alleyway?
Cause this is a Hollywood movie, you know.

(36:29):
It's like, it's that mentalityof like I have to do it the cool
way, you know, and so, yeah, no, I love that mentality.
I mean, even you look at like Idon't know if you're familiar

(36:49):
with David sandberg's youtubechannel, pony smashers, yeah,
yeah, and he goes into theeverything you've gone into in
terms of like this, the postsound, where he just goes into
huge detail on like how heacquires all these sounds with
his little mic around his houseand and he builds library and
mixes it for hours and hours andhours on these little short
films he makes with his wife andit's incredible how sound
effects can come from simplethings like what one?

Speaker 2 (37:05):
one of my favorite films of all time, the exorcist
um.
The famous scene of the headturning um around the 180
degrees, is even the you know,warner brothers big million
dollar film.
That'd be one of their biggestfilms at the time and the big
one of the biggest films of alltime.
That was the sound of, like apickle jar, that there was a

(37:26):
certain brand with this certaintension in the jar that just had
this real sound to it when youopened it.
That they said I think thatwould be great for the sound of
a head turning around because ithad this almost real, just
gritty sound to it.
And I'm thinking this is aprofessional and they're getting
a jar of whatever pickles.

(37:48):
This was to create that sound.
And I thought even the bigmovies use, you know, basic,
just household items to createthese little effects.
And you know so nowadays peopleyou would think create that
with ai or something.
But you don't really have to.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
You can get the authentic thing from your, from
your house, if you wanted tofrom your pantry, apparently,
you know I yeah, I'm 100 there,so I think that's super awesome.
Um, well, I want to transitionand ask you a little bit about,
basically, really quick.
I want to talk aboutdistribution because I think
that's that's something that isreally exciting about your story

(38:30):
and, and I think it's somethingthat I think a lot of the
people we talk to, a lot of ourlisteners, a lot of members of
the Future Filmmaker Academythat we do, are worried about,
which is like do I get enoughmoney?
How do I make it?
There's a lot of self-doubtthat goes into making a film and

(38:52):
you have to get over all that.
And so now it comes to thedistribution part, which is like
, oh, no indie film ever makesmoney, et cetera, et cetera, and
so like, were you guys reallylike hopeful to turn a profit?
Were you in this more for theexperience?
It sounds like you had a goodattitude in terms of like, this
doesn't have to be the Mona LisaI'm not, you know, this is our
first film but but what wereyour expectations?

(39:13):
And then talk to me a littlebit about how you distributed it
and what were your results.
Were?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah, well, expectations, as I said, we just
.
I just thought I really wantedjust to make a feature.
I wanted to be able to say I'vedone it and have it out there.
And I thought, you know, if itgets seen by very little people,
if it goes out there and no onewatches it and it ends up just
on YouTube in a few years forpeople who just somehow discover

(39:43):
it, you know, that was fine aslong as I can sort of tick that
off my bucket list if you will.
But, yeah, so I didn't.
And so I thought, you know,that's why we kept it so small
and simple, so that we knew wecould finish it and could
hopefully play it somewhere foran audience, maybe get some kind

(40:04):
of streaming going and thenjust sort of, that's it as far
as we were concerned.
Mission accomplished.
You know, sure it would havebeen great to make money with it
, and especially since our castand crew were entitled to be
compensated, so that would havebeen good enough had that been
the case compensated, um, sothat would have been good enough

(40:26):
had that have been the case.
And so, um, we, we haddistribution.
We hadn't really thought ofapproaching, uh, you know,
distribution companies initially.
But even before we released, wereleased anything, even before
we released a trailer, we had animdb page and we had
distributors discovering usthrough imdb, reaching out

(40:46):
interested in taking a look, andand they talked about how they
can get it on to be amazon,itunes and all these things.
And I thought, okay, and aroundthe same time, um uh, we were
listening to a lot of podcastswith um alex ferrari, yeah, and

(41:08):
um jay horton, and there'sanother one who was like there
was like film courage, is thatone?
Is that am?

Speaker 1 (41:15):
I getting that courage is a youtube channel,
yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Indie filmmaking, yeah, and then and there's like
interviews with people whoself-distribute, and and then I
thought, and then, of course,through all those sources,
filmhub kept popping up and wethought, hey, filmhub could be
like what you do if you don'tget a distribution deal.
But we did the other way around.
It was sort of our first pointof call, because what really

(41:39):
could a lot of thesedistributors reaching out to us,
what could they have done thatwe couldn't do ourselves on
FilmHub?
I thought we'd already done somuch by ourselves, writing,
producing, post-production.
Why couldn't we self-distributeat this point?
Why hand it over to someoneelse at this final stage of the
game?
And I thought, you know all theassets, all the technical

(42:01):
difficulties.
I thought, if we can figure outeverything else up until now,
we can figure that out too.
Subtitles, you know, gettingall your assets.
And the more we looked into it,the more we liked it and how it
was very you know.
Just basically, there was 20%that they get and then 80% to
you.
And we thought, okay, that'swhereas the contracts that some

(42:21):
of these distributors weresending us, that we were because
whereas the contracts that someof these distributors were
sending us, because we were sortof talking to them, we were
entertaining the idea, but thecontracts were just full of just
pages of legal, just likereading it, like trying to
understand another language, youknow, it's like what on earth.
And the biggest thing was inone contract where it said we
own the rights for allterritories.

(42:41):
And then it had, like inquotations, the whole universe,
and we thought that washilarious.
We thought so, basically, thestreaming service on Mars, they
own the rights.
And basically we just Googledthe names of these companies and
sure enough that there was likepeople saying beware, stay away
, run like run for the hills, doengage, you know.

(43:05):
And then more and more, and thenI joined a lot of groups on
facebook that were like um, whowere with all these groups of
indie filmmakers who were goingdown distribution paths and
sharing experiences and sharingpeople, and I thought this a lot
.
A few of the companies thatwere reaching out to us were
popping up in these groups andwe thought, okay, maybe we won't

(43:29):
go down that path.
And so we thought, well, let'sgive FilmHub a try, because it
just seemed very clear and a lotof people had a lot of good
experiences with them and wethought, if it doesn't make any
money, then at least if itdoesn't make any money, then you
know, at least if it doesn'tget picked up by any streamings
or whatever, at least it's sortof we tried and whatever, at the

(43:52):
end of the day we can make ourown Blu-rays, put it on our
website somewhere if we want todo really self-distribute.
But yeah, so we just said let'sdo that.
And at the end of the day thiswas a very small budget, indie,
western Australian outbackproduction.
The actors I've got I thinkthey're all terrific but they're

(44:15):
not huge names.
So it's not like you've got abig star in your film that's
going to draw a crowd where youkind of have a bit of bargaining
power when you go to thefestivals and you can go and
have meetings with some of thebig players because your film's
got a name in it.
But you know that wasn't thecase with ours and that's not

(44:36):
the case with a lot of thesesmall films with actors who are
carrying the film, you know,with actors who are carrying the
film, you know.
So we knew that it was going tobe pretty difficult to try and
get you know A24 to buy it orsomething like that.
You know it was going to be along shot.

(44:57):
So I figured we've always beenthat kind of DIY underdogs.
Why not just do all thatourselves, do our own marketing?
We both had experience inmarketing already about Facebook
trailers of DIY underdogs.
Why not just do all thatourselves, do our own marketing?
We both had experience inmarketing already about Facebook
trailers and things like thatadvertising and reaching a
demographic, all those littletechnical things.
So we thought if we did get iton FilmHub and get it on a

(45:19):
couple of places like Tubi orAmazon, then we can just do our
own advertising and see whathappens.
And so we just decided thatthat was for this film, our
first one.
It was the best option and Ithink the reason a lot of indie
filmmakers end up going to thatdistribution deal is because

(45:39):
again, I boil it down to a bitof ego they think they have to
get a deal with a, with acompany that's that looks on
paper and on on line looksamazing, and they can go oh, my
film got picked up by such andsuch yeah, I've got a big deal,
got a big contract coming in.
It's more of like a look what Idid, look what I've got, I've

(46:00):
got, and I just think that okay,good, that's great, but are you
actually going to be?
Is it actually going to benefityou long term?
Right?

Speaker 1 (46:08):
and so you know, that might go both ways, depending
on the sorry, that might go bothways depending on the contract
and depending on the distributor, right, like in some cases it's
very favorable, like you know.
But in yes, like you're saying,you do have to have a lot of
honesty with yourself.
Like wait, is this really athing in the long run?

Speaker 2 (46:27):
So yeah, yeah, I've seen people brag about their
distribution deal and their filmwas like shot on an iPhone in
one location with first-timeactors.
And I think I'm sure there's anaudience for those films,
because sometimes I watch thosefun films on like Tubi or
whatever because they're act,first-time actors and I think
I'm sure there's an audience forthose films, because sometimes
I watch those fun films on liketubi or whatever because they're

(46:47):
like, they're just fun to watch.
I find a lot of those sort ofsmall sort of real, like home,
almost home movie style, but, um, I think they a lot of people
sort of they just think theyhave to make it so quickly and
get that deal so quickly.
And you know I I don't ever seeit making a big difference as
opposed to doing the, the routeof doing it yourself.

(47:10):
Um, if, if at all like I thinkin our case, we thought, if, if
the best these companies wereoffering were things we could
already do through film hub well, we know how to cut trailers
and do advertising ourselves whygive them essentially all of
our profits just so they can dowhat we can already do ourselves
?
And again, I think if they cameforth and said, hey, we'll buy

(47:36):
this movie for X amount, get itin theatres around the world
because we think it's got somuch potential.
Then, of course, like you know,there are going to be deals
that are too good to resist,right.
But I think a lot you, as yousaid, you have to be honest with
yourself is is is my tenthousand dollar movie that was
shot in 16 days with mostlyunknown actors, gonna actually

(48:01):
go the distance, right, sure,you might be that one off
anomaly, that where that doeshappen, like paranormal activity
or blair witch project, butthey are like lottery.
They are just one of hundredsof thousands that didn't.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
So and those were made in totally different
economies than today is a rightnow like there's.
Yeah, you can't just assumethat you have so much in in like
inherent talent and and golden.
You know.
I guess that you can just likemake an offer it to these people
who are all going to be eagerto pay top dollar when really

(48:36):
exactly.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
I think you have to have that honesty, yeah, with
yourself, like you're allowed tobe proud of your work and
you're allowed to to to be, youknow, to put it out there and be
proud to promote yourself inyour film.
But you also have to berealistic with yourself and say,
and really have those hardconversations with yourself,
like you know, is is, am I justkidding myself, holding out for

(49:01):
that offer, that's almost,that's probably too good.
I know people that literallymake films and go through
post-production and then justdon't release their films
because they're waiting for anoffer too good to be true,
interesting, and I think that'sjust, that's just I.
I think that's ludicrous.
You know they could have gonedown the same path we did and

(49:21):
made back their money by now.
Right, but it's just this.
A lot of the time it's that egoor that almost delusion.
I don't want to sound, you know, negative, but there's a lot of
delusion with people who reallyjust hold out.
They're just so convinced that,no, this is going to be the one
, I'm not going to go down thatpath, I'm going to wait till the

(49:48):
Netflix or Warner brothers comecalling.
And it's like you know, you,you don't have that kind of
bargaining power.
Yet you know, work towards that.
By all means, set those goals.
But you got to also berealistic and when I worked in
talent management for 10 years,that's where I learned those.
You have to be realistic withyourself.
You can't set these unrealisticgoals.
Yeah, you can set goals, thoseyou have to be realistic with
yourself.
You can't set these unrealisticgoals.
Yeah, you can set goals, butyou have to be prepared to work
hard and take the blows with thepunches, sort of thing and

(50:11):
start at step one.
You know, start at step one andeveryone wants to start at step
12.
Yeah, oh my god, yeah, theyjust.
No one really understands thatconcept of just that.
Everyone sees these sort ofovernight success stories.
Well, there's no such thing asan overnight success story,
anyone that claims to be.
It's just everyone had workedhard to get to where they are.

(50:34):
They had to go through so muchrejection, you know?
I mean, I guess yes, there areovernight in terms of people who
go viral on TikTok and gettheir brand deals and five
minutes of fame.
But you know, if you're makingmovies or you're wanting to be
an actor in Hollywood films,it's usually a bit of a
different story than just goingviral and being famous for five

(50:56):
minutes, you know.
So it's certainly a a marathonor not a sprint, is that?
Is that the same?

Speaker 1 (51:05):
so talk to me about, about film hub.
So with the um, you're onsocial media marketing, you're
on facebook marketing and you'reon advertising yeah, trailers.
And then how did you manage?
Um, um, really quick, did youso?
Did you guys end up having togo the route of it?
So I know most distributorswill require, like, eno
insurance?
Um, did you guys end up havingto kind of go through more of

(51:29):
that legal stuff, or did youbypass that when you went to
FilmHub?

Speaker 2 (51:33):
FilmHub was pretty straightforward.
There was, you know, you enter alot of details with, you know,
tax, but being that we're inanother country to FilmHub,
there's a bit of like.
It's sometimes that kind of gota bit tricky knowing which sort
of area to tick because we'reclaiming to be making money in

(51:55):
other countries and a bit ofthat sort of technical stuff got
a bit tricky, but not too muchin the sense of legal issues and
insurances, but not too much inthe sense of legal issues and
insurances.
It was, you know, once the filmwent through submission and
passed QR and all those thingsQC, I should say sorry, quality

(52:17):
control and so you know, itbasically goes from there.
And then we saw that we'd madeso much money but we couldn't
access it straight away becausewe hadn't done the form properly
and we had to tick a differentbox because you know, and then
it says this is how much youearn.
This is film hubs take.

(52:38):
We have to pay the Australiangovernment this much because
you're Australian citizens, youknow, and then you end up still
making a decent percentage onceit's all said and done.
Yeah, and so it was.
Certainly.
As I said, we made back ourbudget in about six months and

(53:01):
then started making profits andwere able to pay out the cast
and crew, who all worked fordeferred fees.
So, as I said, I don't know, Ican't, I'll never know if the
same would have happened had wehave gone down that typical
distribution path, because I'dread so many stories of people
who went down those paths anddidn't get their money so I
thought, well, that could havebeen.

(53:21):
Also, there are people who goon FilmHub whose movies don't
make back their money so soon.
So I sometimes say I don't knowwhat we did specifically
differently.
I don't know if we could havejust it could have been a fluke,
I don't know.
It could have just been theright place, right time.
But there's also.
But we also put in everythingwe had.

(53:42):
We made sure we had all of ourtrailers ready to go.
We put in a couple thousanddollars just to pay for
Instagram and Facebook sponsoredads in targeted areas of the
world where we felt this woulddo the best.
And yeah so.
But that first month it was onTubi.

(54:03):
Most of it made like $12,000 USin that first month it was on
Tubi.
It made most of its money likemade like $12,000 US in that
first month, so that was likepretty, pretty crazy.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
That was your take, or was that gross?

Speaker 2 (54:18):
That was before, before all the fees would come
out, but still I think it wasthat much.
I did a second youtube videowhen, because we started doing
youtube about all of our umexperience with all this and the
second one that I did, dave'sdone a couple um I do go into
specific numbers of what wespent, what we made for the

(54:40):
months that we spent x amount onon um.
You know we would spend thismuch during october and we made
this much in october, you know.
So um I have I have the exactnumbers and data on in that
video.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
If, if anyone wants to know more about our marketing
sort of strategy yeah, and andsend me the link and we'll put
that in the uh, the description,because I think that there are
many listeners who would love toto look at that and I found it
super awesome to watch and getthe briefing on that, and so I
think that I think what's niceis that you say maybe it was a

(55:14):
fluke, and that's humble to say,and I get it.
There's some aspect of thatright, there's too many
variables for any of us to beable to say this is exactly what
caused it to work or not, youknow.
But but at the same time, likeyou can't say that as much,
because you guys did have allthe power over advertising.
You didn't have a distributordoing that for you.

(55:36):
You were taking way more of acut than you would have with a
distributor.
So you knew the efforts thatyou put in.
Like you, like you know, we cutall our trailers.
We, we did our due diligence.
We, we did.
You guys did reallyself-distribute, whereas I think
some people they throw it up onfilm hub and then they go all
right, like here, we go waitingfor the money come in, you know,

(55:59):
and it's like no, it doesn'tjust come in.
Like you, you actually have tofunnel an audience into that
movie and then hopefully, ifit's, if it's good, if it's
getting good, like you know,good user reviews.
I'm not sure how user reviewswork on anything, but, like you
know, amazon, they have userscan leave reviews and I mean, if
it's doing well and if it'sgetting some word of mouth, then
those dollars go a littlefarther and and then you can

(56:22):
kind of snowball it until youmake all your money back and you
start actually collectingprofits on top of it.
I think that what you've done,be it self-funded, indie,
scrappy first-time feature, andthe big mantra is 2% or less of
indie features make their moneyback.

(56:42):
So it's really an astonishingaccomplishment in my opinion.
Indie features make their moneyback.
So it's really an astonishingaccomplishment in my opinion.
And and to have done it totallyself-distributed, um, I think,
just shows that.
First of all, I'm not sure ifthat statistic is correct.
I just hear that alwaysfloating around on youtube, so
people say that right, but like,I think it's actually totally
possible.
Um, what would you describe as?

(57:02):
Like maybe some of the othervalue that you've gotten,
totally outside of the financialof this, of this experience of
making this film?

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Well, I think it's it definitely.
Once it's all said and done andyou, you know you go to the
premiere and you see yourfinished film up there on screen
, it's kind of that gives youthat sense of I did, that I can
do anything now.
So if I can manage to see thatthrough to the end, then nothing

(57:34):
will be as well, not nothing,but other challenges in life or
other projects I undertake maynot be as daunting as they may
have would have been perceivedoriginally had I've not gone
through that experience first.
And I guess, in a way, as Isaid, I sold my house when I was

(57:55):
going through the production.
When I built my house, I hadthat same attitude.
I was sort of did it by.
I was working full-time in anagency and I got into the
property market, did a home andland package in a new suburb and
I was, you know, when I had toget all the backyard and
everything done.
That kind of gave me that nowI've done this, I can do

(58:17):
anything sort of thing.
I managed to see through thisseemingly impossible task.
So when I did the house Ithought making a feature film
will be easy compared to buyinga house.
So it'll be and it was, it was,it was.
I wouldn't say it was easy, butit was a different kind of
challenge.
But then during that I sort ofgives you that sense of I can do

(58:39):
it again.
I can maybe even do a bitbetter next time.
I would hope that the next filmdoes a little bit better still
and the one after that betterstill.
Eventually you might want tohave much bigger budgets, have
named actors, eventually getthat really amazing deal.
But when you sort of canachieve that first sort of

(59:00):
hurdle, you think, well, hey, ifI can get that done, I can do
that next project and then oneafter that dream project.
It might not happen right now,it might be another 30 years
away, but you know who's to sayit's impossible.
This seemed like it wasimpossible, but I still managed
to see it through.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Yeah, so well, and you did it.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
It sort of gives you that I think it's yeah sense of,
and I think that's the samewith any project, like even the
short films.
When they were done, it waslike, okay, well, I've done that
, now I'm ready to tacklesomething bigger and yeah so.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
So you said you know, maybe you know I've done that I
can do it again or I can do itbetter.
So what is the next film?
Is there a next film?

Speaker 2 (59:43):
there is kind of two in very early stages.
There was one that I wasstarting to.
It's another thriller, but thisone's more of a uh, spirit
ghost sort of ghost story, um,as opposed to the more house
road, which is more of amurderer for profit type

(01:00:07):
storyline.
But the next one would be moresort of close to like that kind
of sinister ghostly vibe.
But that's an early script,very early sort of not even a
script, but just early synopsisand things like that.
But another one that we've onlyjust started thinking about
tackling was the film we made in2015 about domestic violence

(01:00:30):
has done so well with reachingan audience and having people
discuss.
We like the idea of shootingnew scenes and adding it in and
having a longer version of thatfilm so that we can hopefully
get it on Tubi or otherstreaming services, because
where it is now it's on YouTubeand it's not allowed to be

(01:00:53):
monetised even though it's hadso many views because of the
subject matter.
So we thought, what if we canmake it a bit longer and
hopefully do something with it?
That's cool, yeah, but we'llsee.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
That's that's again early script days as well, so
nothing immediately, but thereare ideas in the works well, and
that was one other question Iwanted to ask you really quick
before I ask you your finalquestion, because we only have a
couple minutes left.
What?
How did you shoot this?
Did you so you said you shot itin 16 days?
Were those consecutive days?
Were those weekends?
How did you shoot this?
Did you so you said you shot itin 16 days?
Were those consecutive days?
Were those weekends?
How did you piecemeal theschedule?

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
uh, there were mostly um, they weren't consecutive,
oh, a couple of them were, butmostly weekends and the and a
few weekdays where we were justorganized to get out because we
had our job, we had to get thetime off, work and things like
that, but we would some.
The biggest one was like threedays in a row at the cottage

(01:01:51):
because we had to book theairbnb and you do everything we
needed to do at that location inthose three days and then we
would sort of try and workaround and because we had our
jobs to do as well.
Yeah, so it was over about two,two months.
We had 16 days scattered acrosstwo months and sometimes they
were close together, butotherwise there was sometimes a

(01:02:13):
bit of gap, which was good in away, because the actors had so
much dialogue to learn.
I guess it gave them more timeto do the dialogue for the next
scene.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Well for everyone for a couple days.
Reprep and decompress yeah, Ithink.
I think that's the way to makeit Get their hair cut a bit.
Because their hair would grow,things like that, that's true,
you know, I think that if youwant to just really reduce costs
on any movie, that's the way todo it.
I mean, that's how Chris Nolandid.
His first feature was allweekend shoots.
It was, you know, they had dayjobs and I I I think that, yeah,

(01:02:44):
if you ever have an opportunityto make a feature that way,
it's definitely going to reducethe cost by probably like 70% or
something.
Like it's just just just pullall those resources in and then
just like expand it all intothat one huge chunk of time is
it's that's intense, it'sintense, it's hard on, it's hard
on everybody, and so I meanit's totally possible.

(01:03:04):
When it's intense, it's hard on, it's hard on everybody, and so
I mean it's totally possible.
It's the right thing to do forcertain projects.
But I think that was.
I mean I would say it was wise.
But sometimes you're like it'sjust what we had to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
You know it's like it's not, that was just life
yeah, we it was a case of thattoo had to do.
Plus, the locations were notalways available at certain
times of the year.
The hospital we had a hospitalwhich was, um only available
when there was no studentactivity at the university, so
we had to shoot that.
Our lead actress, hannah, whowas in whose character, goes to

(01:03:38):
hospital about three quartersinto the film.
She had to shoot those scenesfirst because that was the only
time we could get that location.
So her character hadexperienced all the horror and
and and craziness by the timeshe gets to that scene but it
was the first time she had actedon set was in the hospital

(01:04:01):
where she had her character.
She had to have already livedit in her head to act it out and
then later, a couple monthslater, shoot the scenes that led
her to hospital off the top ofyour head um, what are your
three favorite movies right now?

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
and, uh, it doesn't really matter, but they're like
the three, you know, just thethree favorite movies that come
to your mind.
And then, what are youlistening to right now?

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
after that, oh, three favorite films, oh god it's.
I really find it hard to answerthat.
I mean I love so many, just allgenres, all eras.
I like old films, new films, asI said before.
The exorcist, that's a hugeinspiration to me.
Um, scream was also a hugeinspiration to me, the first

(01:04:56):
scream film, um, but I also loveum comic book films, dc and
like.
So I love like the batman,joker, oh that's.
I'm going more than three, butyou know it's okay.
The Dark Knight, it's hard topick, but yeah, I would say
Joker, I think is one of thebest films in recent years, I

(01:05:18):
think, in my opinion.
Yeah, that, I see, that I sawat the cinemas, yeah, that's
awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
And what are you listening to?
Music, wise?
What's on your?
What's on your?
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
you know, it's funny whenever I write, um, whenever I
write scripts and I'm startingto write something now, I'm
always listening to like scoresfrom movies, cause I find it
gets you in the cinematicheadspace and like thing you
know, um, hans Zimmer and allthose classic composers, john
Williams, all those, and if it'ssomething that like, for
example, when I was writingMorehouse Road, I'd listen to

(01:05:50):
all the horror things because itwas a thriller.
So I was listening to, you know, the Halloween score and all
the famous scores from thrillers.
Yeah, but right now the scriptI'm working on is more of a
drama, and so I'm listening tolike the the scores from the
more dramatic films.
But, yeah, I, I, I listenedagain.

(01:06:14):
I listened to all the genresand things like that.
I'm not very good at pickingjust one thing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
That's good.
Well, before we get kicked off,thanks so much, Chris, for
being on the show and show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Thanks so much for having me.
I had a great time and reallyappreciate you having me on.