Directing Movies at Age 8, Acting in The Flash, USC film school | Octavian Kaul - First Act Break

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 01 (00:00):
Welcome to the first Act Break podcast, the show
where we dive into the artbusiness and hustle breaking
into the film industry.
Today we

Speaker 00 (00:07):
have Octavian, who is a USC film director with a
long history of acting and filmdirecting.
Super excited to have you onthe show.
Happy to be here.
I love that you threw an actingon that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, that's actually goingto be the first thing we talk
about in today's episode.
Yeah.
I was in seventh grade and...

(00:27):
I was binging this show that

Speaker 01 (00:31):
I loved.
Wait, I watched that show whenI was in seventh grade.
The Flash.
Yeah, I watched it with my dad.
Oh, really?
Yeah, all of it.
So,

Speaker 00 (00:39):
okay, there's a character in there that I didn't
really think much of, but Inoticed, and it was a key part
of the story.
And then years later, I'm inclass with this man named
Octavian, who I look up, And hewas the actor for that
character, which blew my mind.

Speaker 01 (01:02):
So talk

Speaker 00 (01:02):
a little bit about your

Speaker 01 (01:03):
experience on The

Speaker 00 (01:05):
Flash.
And how did you...
Yeah, because I was the youngversion of the main villain in
season two.
They do like a flashback at theend of the season.
The whole scene is really dark.
It's basically a kid whowatches his dad die.
like come home from war andkill his mom and then get sent

(01:26):
to an orphanage and it's likethis scary gothic place and he
has a horrible childhood um yeahso i started acting when i was
uh like 12 or 13 years oldbecause i wanted to get on film
sets um because i knew i wantedto be a director and i wanted to
make movies but you know theydon't really let kids on set and

(01:48):
uh so i i Yeah, so I startedacting and I did just a few bit
kind of one episode TV partslike that and then a lot of
voiceover stuff.
So how did you like get intothis specific project?
It's for The Flash.
It was just an audition likeanything else pretty much.
I had never seen the show.
I watched it when before Iauditioned for it.

(02:09):
I watched it and then After Igot it, I watched kind of the
rest of it.
But I haven't seen it since, tobe honest.
Although, actually, I won't saythat.
I've heard season two was areal peak.
So that's on me.
How

Speaker 01 (02:22):
many seasons was it run for?

Speaker 00 (02:24):
Oh, God.
You might know better than me.
I thought it was seven, to behonest.
Seven?
Yeah, it went for a while.
I stopped watching after seasonthree or four, maybe.
Yeah, no, it was verysuccessful.
That

Speaker 01 (02:34):
was my introduction to DC, to be honest.
The Flash.
That was one of the first DCthings I watched.

Speaker 00 (02:39):
But, you know, I do know that...
Your history with film didn'tstart there because there's this
film called Kids vs.
Aliens.
Holy fuck.
Who told you about that?
Wait, can we swear on this oris this family friendly?
You can bleep it out.
Sorry about that.
Did I tell you about that?
I was doing research, you know.

(03:02):
Oh, it's probably somewhere inmy IMDB or something my parents
wrote.
Yeah, that was great.
to yeah grade two i uh secondgrade yeah in second grade wow
um for the americans in the roomi yeah i've got a group of like
friends together and the wholethe whole thing i mean i i loved

(03:24):
i started loving movies becauseof jurassic park and like super
eight and you know, I reallylike that kind of adventure type
movie, adventure sci-fi moviestarring kids or like something
like that.
And so I, yeah, that was myfirst little opus of, I think we
had a lot of ideas because wewould get together in class and

(03:45):
at recess and stuff to drawpictures and talk about it.
There was a whole story, butwhat it manifested as was about
10 minutes of camcorder footageof just kids screaming and
running around.
I love that.
Yeah, no, it's great.
I've still never topped it, Ithink.
I think

Speaker 01 (04:00):
you're probably the youngest person to direct a
movie that I know, really.
At second grade?
That's crazy.
Was it your first thing thatyou've ever made in terms of
film?

Speaker 00 (04:08):
Yeah, that was pretty much it.
I saw Jurassic Park when I wasfive or six years old, and And
there's the shot where theT-Rex...
it's his head comes through theroof of the jeep and the kids
are there and like holding it upand that was like i literally i
remember that exact moment inthe movie when i saw it for the
first time was me going like ohi want to make movies because i

(04:31):
saw like i saw kids and you werefive six years old yeah i think
yeah i was i think i was fivethat's awesome that is crazy
yeah because i saw like therewere kids with this giant
monster and it didn't a lot ofmy friends really like dinosaurs
after that movie but i just myhead went to like oh my god
that's like fake and they madethat that looks like so much fun
right and there's like There'skids kind of my age, a little

(04:51):
older, beginning to have so muchfun with these monsters.
I think when I was five, Ididn't even know something

Speaker 01 (04:57):
like a

Speaker 00 (04:57):
camcorder existed, or it could be something that I
could use to make short films

Speaker 01 (05:02):
on.

Speaker 00 (05:03):
Yeah, I mean, that was my parents.
My dad won a camcorder at workor something from some random
work contest, and he just gaveit to me.
And so I started filming.
I was in a bowling league as akid.
It was really, really cool.
I had a lisp, and I was in abowling league.
And so I started just filming.
filming me and my friendsbowling.
I think I still have thatfootage somewhere.

(05:25):
But I started doing that, andthen I was watching more movies.
So I've wanted to do film forlonger than I can even remember,
to be honest.
That's awesome.
Would you say Jurassic Park isthe main inspiration for you, or
is there something else that

Speaker 01 (05:42):
also pushed you to make more films?

Speaker 00 (05:44):
I mean, it's one that I always love.
I think I've changed a lot.
in the last 10 yearsespecially.
But yeah, it's always one thatI go back to for a lot of fun
and for inspiration on shotdesign, definitely.
I watched Jurassic Park beforeI storyboard every film that
I've ever done.

Speaker 01 (06:04):
that's incredible

Speaker 00 (06:06):
it doesn't even necessarily inform all of them
it's just it's such a beautifulmovie and it really gets me
jazzed to make movies still soyou do have like

Speaker 01 (06:13):
a spielberg kind of style

Speaker 00 (06:14):
i feel like a lot of people think that yeah no that
that is something that in thelast couple of films that i've
done for sure yeah i rememberfreshman year you made a stop
motion film which was the firststop motion film i saw the
cohort like do right and I doknow that I think you started
making stop-motion films whenyou were in India in 2011.
Yeah.

(06:34):
Tell me about that story.
So my parents...
My dad was already working inIndia, and he was kind of
traveling back and forth.
And my parents were reallyadventurous people, and they
were kind of tired of Vancouver,like the big city.
And so they...
They decided, screw it, let'sjust sell everything and move to
India for a year since he'sworking there already.

(06:56):
And then we'll just figure itout after.
Which I didn't register becauseI was an idiot child.
I didn't really know how crazythat was at the time.
It was just like, oh, cool,we're leaving.
But it was...
insane and so we spent a yearliving in India and yeah I made
a lot of stop motion stuffbecause that was when the iPad 2
came out and for all of youlistening the iPad 1 didn't have

(07:17):
a camera only the iPad 2 had acamera and I had an iPad 1
because my uncle gave me and mysister iPad 1s for Christmas
which was really nice and thenthe iPad 2 came out and we kind
of swapped them in for that andthat was around the same time
that we went to India and soThat's why, because now all of a
sudden I can make movies on theiPad, because I had an iPad 2,

(07:40):
and that was the last iPad Iever owned.
So that was really exciting,and so I would use iMovie and
stop motion software, but Ididn't really know...
I didn't understand whatediting was.
I still, for some reason, Iwould always pause movies...
When I was watching them, Iwould watch them on my iPad,
too.

(08:00):
And I would pause them right atcut points because I was...
I don't know why I thoughtthis.
I thought there was, like, aframe of black in between every
shot.
And if I paused it the righttime, I'd see where it changed
over.
No one told me that.
I just believed it for noreason.
And so I'd sit there for, like,half an hour sometimes just,
like, trying to pause it at theright time.
And when I was...

(08:21):
When I first, like, got oniMovie, I don't know what I
thought it did, but I...
didn't understand the conceptof editing so my sister and I we
made like a little like a harrypotter parody movie with our
dogs who we adopted in india andthen brought back to canada um
and we made this little likelike a it was called fluffy

(08:41):
potter i think and it was alittle harry potter parody that
was 25 minutes long and that wehad to rehearse like a play and
we did like 12 takes of itbecause 12 minutes in we'd screw
up and then be like fuck wehave to go back to the start and
then we spent an entire daydoing that finally got one that
worked showed my parents andthey were like, oh, I mean, why
don't you just do differentshots?

(09:02):
And I felt like a f***ingidiot.
And that's how I learned whatediting was, which was really
exciting.
And now you...
are one of the best editors Iknow, and you edit for a huge
YouTube channel, right?
Yeah, that's what I do forwork, is I edit for a YouTube
channel, which is really great.
It's the best gig ever.
It's so cool.
Wait, I do want to hear youtalk about that.

(09:23):
How did you get this YouTubeediting gig?
Yeah, I edit for a YouTubechannel called Pretty Much It,
which is a comedic commentaryYouTube channel.
They watch movies and recordcommentary tracks on it.
My boss, Eric, he watchesmovies with his comedian
friends, and they make jokes,and sort of make this audio

(09:43):
commentary track that i take andi cut down to like a 10 to 20
minute highlight reel of thefunniest moments in there some
of the funniest moments get cutbut their whole kind of business
is around selling thecommentary track they have a
patreon that they use uh and thehighlight videos what i do is
for youtube and it's kind of thepromotion for that oh nice and

(10:05):
yeah i got into it because i wasuh I just watched the channel
for like four or five years.
It was one of my favorites.
And then they put out a callfor editors.
Oh, wow.
And so, yeah, I got super luckybecause I wasn't even really
fishing for a job.
It just showed up and I waslike, this would be awesome.
So I put a lot of work in myapplication and made it really
good.
That's perfect timing.
How long have you been doing itfor?

(10:26):
I've been doing that for liketwo and a half years.
It was right in my gap yearbecause I took a gap year
between high school and college.
So it was right in my gap yearthat that happened, which is the
Absolute perfect timing.
I think I got that job and Igot into USC in the same month.
That's cool.
How does the pay work?
Do you get paid by video?
Yeah, so I'm an independentcontractor.

(10:48):
I have a contract with them forcontinued projects.
And I get paid per video.
But obviously it differs.
If the video is...
Highlight reel of their likecommentary on one movie.
It's a certain amount of moneyversus if it's Several movies
that's obviously more footagemore to cut down So that's more

(11:08):
like a TV show season like wehave kind of different tiers of
payment How much is the averageyou think per video?
yeah I get paid like $550 forour normal videos are just on a
movie so that's kind of mynormal thing and then it's more
for TV shows but it kind ofdepends that's great that's such

(11:30):
a good gig it's fantastic yeahmy bosses are great the YouTube
channel is funny I can make myown hours it's a really really
good job I'm really lucky I juststumbled ass backwards

Speaker 01 (11:41):
that's like a top tier job I would think yeah it
seems like a lot of SCA peopleor film students that kind of
YouTube editing seems like to beum a gig for for a lot of
people to

Speaker 00 (11:53):
you know hone editing skills or just make some
extra cash yeah that's anothergreat part like for film it's
it's good to just like i'mediting all the time like every
day i'm gonna go home from thisand i'm working on a video
that's for this week um and soi'm pretty much every day i'm
editing which just helps keepthat muscle oh yeah for sure
yeah so it's good practice yeahyeah i didn't know you took a

(12:13):
gap year hold on yeah hold on soyou graduated high school in
2021 uh yeah Yeah, I graduatedhigh school in 2021, and my
whole back half of the highschool experience was completely
kind of demolished by COVID.
So I didn't really...
My high school experience endedin the middle of my junior
year, pretty much.

(12:34):
And then I just sort ofstumbled through the next year
or so of finishing out highschool.
And so then after that, I mean,it was post-COVID, and I didn't
really...
I don't like school that much.
The high school I went to wasgreat and the people were really

(12:54):
supportive and I'm proud to befrom there.
But just school as a concept,I've never been a big fan of.
And so I decided to take a gapyear.
I did apply to a couple ofplaces just to see, but my heart
was not in it and I didn't puta lot of work into it.
And yeah, so I decided to takea gap year and it was the
greatest decision ever.

(13:14):
I could have absolutely done.
Because it's...
If you have the ability to takea gap year, because not
everybody does, but if you havethe ability to take a gap year
and have a little bit ofexperience and go somewhere like
travel a little bit, which Iwas privileged enough to be able
to do, that it's like...
Right.
Right.
Right.
Into another year of highschool.

(13:47):
So I don't know.
For me personally, I thought itwas really great.
I drove across the U.S.
and traveled, like, backpackedaround Europe with my sister.
Dude, that's wonderful.
And that was the best partabout having that editing job is
I can be making money while I'mdoing all of that.
Exactly.
So for, like, my road trips andfor traveling around, because
I've done that a lot now,driving around the U.S., it's

(14:09):
great because I can...
like I spent not this pastsummer, but the one before I
spent the whole summer doinganother, like cross the U S
drive, like all the way around.
And, um, And it was great.
Like, I worked the whole timewhile I was driving and, like,
traveling the country.
And then by the time I gothome, like, I had a little bit
more money than I did when Ileft because, you know, I was
just paying off a trip as I wastraveling around.

(14:30):
That's so great.
Which isn't, like, the greatestprivilege of having that job
because that's something that Ilove to do is road trips and
driving and travel.

Speaker 01 (14:40):
Back to editing, though.
And I remember earlier youactually dropped the F word.
I do want to hear about thestory where you auditioned for
Strawman.

Speaker 00 (14:48):
No, I was very...
I was a good little kid, Ididn't swear, I didn't, I don't
know, I was very well behaved.
Not, my parents weren't verystrict about any of that.
But I don't know why, I just, Iwas very, very like, I did not
feel good about swearing, sayingbad words.
Now it's fun.
But I...
Yeah, so even in auditions andfor roles and stuff, it was

(15:13):
really tough.
I did not want to.
And so yeah, I was in a coupleof short films.
I did a lot of student shortfilms back when I was much
littler.
And yeah, there were some...
There were several curse words,and in various, like, auditions
and nonsense and stuff that Ihad.
Yeah.
That I had a problem with forsure, yeah.
And you said your dad convincedyou.

(15:35):
Yeah, no, I mean, that's thething, is that my parents,
they're not, like, they'vealways been, I don't know, they
didn't swear around us, but theywere never, like, strict about
it, really.
I mean, you know, with all ofthe...
kind of rebellious thingspeople do against their parents
like any they were very justsort of like matter of fact but
oh you know you'll probably dothis and this and that and and

(15:56):
and that's fine just you know besafe and let us know and um and
because of that i didn't likethere was no way to rebel
against them i never had adesire to because they weren't
like strict on me and so i justsort of did it i i my rebellion
was i guess not doing any ofthat stuff my unconscious lame
rebellion

Speaker 01 (16:14):
so that like

Speaker 00 (16:15):
It definitely shaped who you are today, right?
Yeah.
Because I know you're not hugeinto drinking or partying.
No, I still don't drink.
I barely go out.
Although that's more justbecause I don't drink.
It hits 1 a.m.
and I'm like, oh my god, I'vegot to go to bed.
But yeah, no, I still don'thave many vices.
I don't drink coffee.
I don't do drugs.

(16:36):
But it's not...
It's not something that Inecessarily...
I don't judge other people fordoing it.
It's just not something I'venever wanted for myself.
Who knows?
Maybe later.
Maybe later.
At

Speaker 01 (16:48):
the Cannes Film Festival Yacht Parties.
You know

Speaker 00 (16:51):
what, Giant?
When we're at the Cannes FilmFestival Yacht Parties, I will
have a sip of wine.
I will as well.
I think that's a good goal.
Actually, that's good.
It'll keep me...
That'll be my motivation, Iguess.
It'll mean something, not justgoing out.
I cannot drink...
Hold me to this.
I cannot drink until I win anOscar.
You applied to USC, right?

(17:13):
Yeah.
So, looking back, do youregret?
No, I don't.
I'm really hard on the school.
Because it's expensive.
But I'm pretty hard on theschool.
and I don't regret it at all Ireally you know it's what
everybody says about filmschools it's important to like
meet people and that's what youget out of it and that I

(17:36):
absolutely have gotten out of itI'm so happy to be here and
it's also been great justexperience having the college
experience I don't think that'ssomething that's necessarily a
USC specific thing I just thinkgoing to college has been really
good for me and at USC it'sbeen it's a great place to meet
people and to meet people infilm and There are cool

(17:56):
opportunities and cool...
There are really cool thingshappening at and around USC.
It's specifically thecurriculum and some of the
higher-ups that I have myproblems with that I'm not shy
about.

Speaker 01 (18:09):
On that note, talk a little bit about your 310
experience.
Because I do remember I was atthe screening where I think
Dan's film was also screening atthat point.
Was it P1?
Yeah, yeah.
I remember after yourscreening, you had a little
spiel about

Speaker 00 (18:23):
the whole process.
Well, I did do a speechabout...
It was about a couple ofthings.
It was simultaneously, I think,praising our cohort and also
kind of, you know,simultaneously bringing up some
of the disappointment in theprogram.
That is not only my ownfeeling.
It's something I've talked to,like, to be honest, most people.

(18:43):
students and also faculty notlike lower level or adjunct
faculty which that's a wholeother thing right now right they
have their own

Speaker 01 (18:52):
opinions about things

Speaker 00 (18:53):
yeah um because they haven't necessarily been paid
their worth um but yeah so thatwas i mean my 310 experience and
310 i don't know if if thereare non-usc people here three
there will be ctpr 310 is aclass that you take in your in
your third year um in the USCfilm production major, and it's

(19:16):
a class that is supposed to bekind of like a short film
production intensive.
Your cohort is split intotrios, and you make three short
films.
So everybody, you rotate roles.
Everybody directs one, producesand edits one, and is a
cinematographer on one.
The editing job has kind offloated between the producer and

(19:37):
the cinematographer.
I don't know where it's, Ithink they might have switched
it back.
I think they're switching itback, yeah.
But for directing, producing,and cinematography, you'll
always be rotating one per film.
So I directed first, and then Idid producing, and then I did
cinematography.
But it changes depending onwhen you direct.
And yeah, so it's kind ofnotorious for being a difficult

(20:01):
class and a really stressfulclass.
And that's one thing that I dokind of have a problem with.
For any incoming...
film production people at USC.
I think there's an attitudeabout it that I remember on like
admitted students day, likeorientation, they're telling
people that they were bringingstudents in who were in 310 and
talking, having them talk tonew, like at admitted students

(20:22):
day about like, oh my God, it'slike so difficult.
Like, like you're just, you'regoing to want to die.
I think someone did say that,like you're going to want to die
and it's the worst thing ever.
And I don't know, it sets thisexpectation of, of it being this
massive, difficult, stressful,awful thing.
And what it is in actuality ismaking three short films.
Now you have to deal with thesort of inner politics and rules

(20:47):
of USC, which changes it fromjust kind of an indie student
film vibe.
But it's not, like most of thepeople coming out of 310, with
the exception of people who hadlike especially difficult times
because of whatever, extenuatingcircumstances.
Most people got out of it andwere like, it wasn't as bad as

(21:08):
they described.
A lot of work, definitelystressful, but it's, I think,
throughout the years leading upto this one class, you get
people just constantly going onabout how it's the most
difficult thing and how bad it'sgoing to be for you.
And it's kind of like if you'reI don't know.
In my head, it's like if youwant to teach your kid to ride a

(21:30):
bike, and so from ages one toage eight, you're telling him
all about how when you ride abike, you're going to fall off,
you're going to skin your knee,it's going to hurt, and it's
going to be scary when ithappens.
And you're just telling himthat for the first eight years
of his life, and then you puthim on a bike and go, go! And...
what do you expect?
He's going to be scared out ofhis mind and then he's going to
fall and skin his knee and belike, oh my God.

(21:51):
And then he's going to starttelling everybody else that,
that, oh my God, Viking is soscary and you're going to fall
and it's going to be like, it'snot productive.
I think to just be going aroundsetting this.
Yeah.
Setting like an expectation ofthis horrible thing when it
doesn't have to be like that.
If we'd gone through our firstcouple of years and we the

(22:13):
reputation of 310 as a classwasn't a part of our experience
of it.
And we just went through withpeople just saying it's another
class.
It's a lot of work, anotherclass, but it's fine.
If that was what people hadbeen saying up to that point, I
think we would have gotten into310.
And people were scared when 310started, because why wouldn't

(22:34):
they be?
They've been told it's scaryfor years.
I don't think people would havebeen scared.
And I think by the end of it,they'd have the exact same
feeling of like, yeah, no, it'sjust...
lot of work and you know wetough through it we tough
through it and and so it's justit feels unnecessary and it
feels like i don't know you gothrough something that is a lot
of work and you put a lot ofwork into it so you want it to

(22:54):
be this big thing but

Speaker 01 (22:56):
it seems like it's the status quo for a minute
because 310 has been a classthat's been around since I want
to say maybe a decade or twodecades ago, maybe

Speaker 00 (23:05):
even longer.
Even longer.
George Lucas made it threetimes.
That's right.
So that's been like a

Speaker 01 (23:08):
thing in the whole USC curriculum.
But do you think they're goingto do anything to change that?
Or is that just going to be...
Because their argument is, oh,we're going to bring...
You're going to realize thatyou're not here to make just
your films.
You're here to also help othersmake films.
And that's the whole point ofputting you in a trio.
There might be friction when itcomes to creativity, but you

(23:30):
just have to power through it.
That seems to be almost...
their argument do you think isthere any i think

Speaker 00 (23:35):
the room for change i think the class is good is the
thing i honestly i don't knowthat i would make any changes to
the class part of it becauseall the difficulty that comes
out of the collaboration partand the being like forced with
people who maybe you wouldn'tnecessarily want to work with
right or even outside of thatjust people who you've never
worked with before and that's achallenge right i think that's a
great thing i think the classis good it's just the reputation

(23:57):
of the class that Even likestudents and teachers and
everybody seems to be like justsort of repeating and repeating.
That's the thing that I thinkit's just it just scares people.
And I don't know.
I think there's an attitudelike that about how scary
everything is about a lot offilmmaking at the school.
And so it's honestly a lot ofthe stuff I have a problem with.

(24:19):
There's some stuff in practicethat I do, but it's not really
the individual classes that I'mlike.
that I feel like need to beoverhauled as much I think maybe
their positioning in the fouryears of the film production
program should be moved aroundbut in general it's the culture
of it there's a kind of jadedattitude with not all it's a

(24:40):
sweeping generalization becauseeach class will be taught by an
individual teacher with theirown thoughts and we've all had
great teachers at school and Ihave teachers who I really
really love and who have beensuper supportive and have
fostered a good kind of cultureBut at the same time, I've
gotten the overarching feelingfrom just the school in general

(25:01):
that there's kind of constantdoomsday talk about the state of
filming in Los Angeles, AI,salaries, streaming services,
just jobs, like all of thisstuff worth talking about, worth
bringing up, absolutely.
But there's...
I don't know.
I think that...
for people who are just comingin and just starting a journey

(25:26):
in filmmaking, I don't thinkit's a, I don't think it's
helpful.
Cause a lot of people, like Ifortunately, I guess, knew that
I wanted to do this when I wasreally young and I've been doing
it for a long time and I've hadexperience on set and I've, you
know, but there are lots ofpeople who at the end of high

(25:47):
school were kind of figuring outwhat they wanted and discovered
that they wanted to do filmeven sometimes after their
senior year was done or insenior year.
And there's some great talentedpeople as well, but the problem
is I think they're being thrownin now with their first
experience of filmmaking beingfilm school and film school
being kind of a culture ofnegativity.

(26:08):
And I don't think that fostersa good attitude towards art.
So that's my kind of bigproblem.
I think that...
a ton of good stuff about theschool.
It's just in general, theculture of it is kind of
negative.

Speaker 01 (26:21):
So I guess going off of that, what are three things
you would change about USC'sfilm school's curriculum or
program or faculty or whatever?

Speaker 00 (26:29):
All right, Dean Daly, I'm speaking to you.
Yeah, so I think for the firstthing is that in our first
semester, we didn't do anyproduction classes.
which is ridiculous to me.
I think that the idea maybe wasto ease people into it, which I

(26:51):
think is useless because you'repaying a lot of money for a
full semester.
So like, if you want to geteased into all this stuff, then
take a gap year.
But it's, yeah, I think thefirst semester, I didn't really
know anybody.
We didn't meet until secondsemester.
And that was the same, like Ididn't meet a lot of people
until second semester becausethere weren't really any social

(27:12):
events where they got ustogether.
And there were no classes whereit was just us.
In your first semester, youtake Intro to Cinema, and a
class called Reality Starts Herethat's more of a mental health
class.
It's basically just about timemanagement.
And the history of that I won'tbring up here because I don't
know exactly how much of that.
I don't want to get sued.

(27:32):
But there's a reason they havethat class, which is good that
they have it, but that cancoexist with a production class.
Because in our second semester,we take...
a class called CTPR 285, andthat's the first kind of
beginner production class thatyou take.
It was a really great classbecause it was a lot about
creativity, and we had a greatteacher as well.

(27:56):
We did, yeah.
We had Ben Hansford, who Ilove.
He's amazing.
He's great.
And that was a great classbecause it was almost entirely
individual projects.
So it was like, you know,just...
The emphasis was on just makingstuff, whether it was good,
whether it was bad, whether youput a lot of effort into it or
no effort into it, just gettingsomething done.

(28:17):
And so people made really coolstuff.
Pretty much all of thescreenings were a ton of fun
because it was everybody justexpressing themselves.
It was really creative, and Ithink it was a good artistic
class.
And it also wasn't a hugeworkload either.
It was pretty low pressure, andso you could work as hard or as
you could just sort of like...

(28:38):
throw something together, andit wouldn't matter.
Which I've worked super hard onmy stuff, and you did too.
But yeah, it was just a reallygreat low pressure, high
creativity class that there's noreason that can't exist in
first semester.
Yeah, definitely.
Because then, what, you'reintro to cinema, your reality
starts here, and then you havethis class where we're all

(28:59):
meeting each other, becausethat's where I met everybody.
But the problem is you spendlike four months at the top of
the year...
not meeting anybody and notdoing film, which I think was a
lousy intro to the

Speaker 01 (29:12):
school.

Speaker 00 (29:13):
And so I think that's the main thing that I
would change.
And I would just advanceeverything.
I mean, this is obviously justmy opinion, because I'm more of
a fan of the intensive stuff,which I think partly was because
I took a gap year.
I took a gap year, and I hadthe fun that I wanted to have,
and then I was like, okay, nowI'm going to pay for film
school, and let's do this stuff.

(29:35):
And I know, like, I don't knowwhere I'm, like, in Vancouver,
which I'm from Vancouver Islandin Canada, but Vancouver has
some great film schools, and theVancouver Film School has a
program that I think it's like ayear or two years, and it's
really intense.
And you just get thrown into itwith this cohort of people, and
you're off to the racesimmediately, and you just work
really, really hard.

(29:56):
And so it's this condensed,really fast, really bonding and
educational experience, becauseyou're just working harder than
you might ever have to work inthe industry with this group of
people.
And we get there with...
310, the class.

(30:17):
But that's year three.
Year three of four were finallygetting intense.
I don't know.
It feels kind of like...
Yeah.
Yeah.
310 is great because you getinto a flow of just making

(30:52):
stuff.
Because you make one shortfilm, and as you're finishing
it, you're working on the nextone.
And so by the end of it, to behonest, I was feeling like, and
I've talked to people who alsowere feeling like, this is good,
I can roll right into P4,frankly, like a fourth film, and
then a fifth and a sixth.
I'm just like, I'm in it now, Iunderstand it.
Which I think is perfect, andit's exactly the mindset they
should get you in.
But then in this semester thatwe're in now, so this, like a

(31:16):
sixth semester, they just likecompletely ease off the gas and
and so it's not intense and it'snot as crazy and the semester
after that you get into thethesis films which is a whole
other problem and then you getinto more intense again but it
just it interrupts the momentumunnecessarily um I think you're

(31:36):
ambitious though.
I mean, that's true.
That's true.
I know I could have kept going.
I think I could have kept goingall the semester if we just had
three, 10 part two.
Yeah.
I am three, 10 part three, 10part two.
That's awesome though.
Do you feel like you sharesimilar

Speaker 01 (31:54):
opinions with a lot of the cohort or do you feel
like you have different kind of

Speaker 00 (31:57):
perspective on that?
I mean, I, yeah, I can't speakfor everybody obviously.
Like I've talked to a lot ofpeople who feel the same way.
I'm definitely more vocal aboutit.
it than most people are, but Ido think that a lot of people
feel the same way.
No, I think in terms of like, Ihave my solutions that I feel
will work for the school orwhatever.
I'm sure everybody has theirown stuff.
Um, and, and yeah, but overallit's really not like the school

(32:21):
has, it's all there.
It just can be reordered andrestructured in a way that's way
more, that's tighter and moreeducational and a little bit
more intense.
And that I think gets, getsmore across to

Speaker 01 (32:35):
students do you feel like you wanted more like
technical studies or more liketheoretical studies do you know
what i mean

Speaker 00 (32:41):
yeah i think well i think technical i'm a hands-on
this is also because i did saythis earlier and i should say i
don't like school I've never...
Classes and assignments andhomework is not something that
I've ever enjoyed.
So this is also a problem withme, to be clear.
This is my own issue.
I think a lot of people sharethat.
I feel like I might have aproblem with authority.

(33:03):
Who knows?
So that's also something.
If you really like school...
you'll probably, I know thereare some people who don't have
any problems with the program.
So it's all subjective, this ismy opinion.
I would like to hear about yourapplication process, actually.
How did you get into USC?
What made you choose USC?
And was it easy to write thoseessays?

(33:23):
What did you talk about?
Yeah, I only got into, well, Igot into two schools.
One was USC and one was UTAustin.
Go Longhorns.
I think that's their thing.
That's their thing.
And I appreciate them.
Matthew McConaughey teachesthere.
It's awesome.
Oh, that's right.
He's like an ad hoc professoror something.
Yeah, he fully teaches there.

(33:44):
UT Austin's really, they have agood campus.
Because I did my USCapplication on the UT Austin
campus.
What?
Okay, let's hear about that.
And so if anybody out there isapplying to film schools and
you're unsure, UT Austin is agood school.
They've got a good campus and agood program.
And that's where I probablywould have gone if I didn't get
into USC.
Yeah.

(34:04):
But I, yeah, so I was doing my,yeah, I just finished school.
And so that was when I did mylike drive around the country,
around the U.S., my first one.
And so I, yeah, I basically, Idon't know, I worked on a little

(34:24):
bit of the USC application.
I'd like filmed, I'd realizedthat I like had to make a short
film specifically for it.
And I filmed that, I think, thenight before I left.
And it was just, like, I justacted in it.
It was me in my room.
It was a more experimental filmthan I normally go for.

Speaker 01 (34:39):
Which I have never seen, so...

Speaker 00 (34:41):
You know you have not.
Well, I'll have to show you atsome point.
Yes.
But, yeah, so it was...
But it was cool.
It had some cool, like, colors.
And I think it, you know, itworked for what it was supposed
to be.
And so I filmed that, and thenI did not edit it.
I just went off on my roadtrip.
And I didn't really...
I kept trying to work on it, myapplication.

(35:01):
But I was driving around.
I was seeing stuff.
It was exciting.
And I didn't really get a lotdone.
I did the Common App in NewYork when I was driving through
there.
But then finally it was likethe weekend before the deadline
for the application and I waspassing through Texas and so I
got a hotel in like basicallyright next to the UT Austin

(35:25):
campus.
And for two or three days Ilived, it was Thanksgiving I
think, American Thanksgiving.
I basically just wandered theempty campus, the empty UT
Austin campus, and went intojust random libraries and
buildings and stuff and justworked on my applications.
And yeah, so it was, I don'tknow, it was a mad dash.

(35:49):
My personal statement is, Ithink, what got me into the
school and my interview.
My personal statement, Ibasically, I don't know, I was
sitting there in one of the likekind of library, like a really
nice little library area on thecampus.
And yeah, I don't know.

(36:11):
I was just like thinking about,I'd been doing a lot of, I'd
watched a lot of videos aboutlike college admissions.
and about that process.
And it was just starting topiss me off.
Like just the way that they letpeople in and don't and what
they choose to value and whatthey don't.
And I was just thinking allabout like, I don't know, what
people do in high school andwhat they give up for a better

(36:32):
look on their application andhow sometimes that doesn't even
matter.
I was just getting myself riledup and I was just pissed.
And...
So again, take everything I'msaying on this whole podcast
with that in mind.
But I...
Yeah, so I...
just decided like USC has areally low acceptance rate.
Um, it's almost like a lotteryticket school to apply to.

(36:56):
And so I just thought like, I'mgoing to just have fun with the
application.
So I, I wrote a like very kindof like meta weird, like
thousand word personal statementthat like it changed fonts.
It changed into a, at one pointit switched into a screenplay
format and there was like aweird script about like, I, I
forget exactly what it was.
There was like a, I startedwriting a script about like me

(37:19):
on like the Jimmy Fallon showand he's like introducing me so
that's how I got into my likegot my little like resume items
in to personal statement as hewas introducing me with them but
then fake Jimmy Fallon my essaystarted freaking out because he
was a figment of you're thereader's imagination and the
moment you stop reading and stopthinking about him since he's
an imaginary character on a pagehe'll stop existing and he's

(37:40):
afraid of not existing anymoreand then we just cut back out to
like I just sort of went backto my normal essay then I like I
added like a little picture SoI got to see that.
Wow.
Wow.
I don't, I didn't like school,but I did get like, I got fine

(38:14):
grades.
I got kind of like a B plusaverage my entire life, even
through college.
I like B plus is my kind ofzone where I live.
Um, so it wasn't like, I, Idon't know.
My grades weren't necessarilylike helping me, but they
weren't like dragging me down.
Cause I know like people, causeI'm sure some people who might
watch this might be applying tothis.
schools.
And so, yeah, I applied test,like, test optional.

(38:36):
I didn't do the SAT or whateveryou have to do.
ACT, yeah.
ACT, okay.
Didn't do any of that.
And I didn't...
We didn't have AP classes at myhigh school, so I didn't do any
of those.
But I did do an IB Englishclass, and that was my one
little higher level class.
And then, yeah, I got, like, Bpluses, A minuses.

(38:59):
And so, yeah, then I...
The rest of the application, Idon't even really remember that
much, but I submitted that andthen I got an email once I was
back home from my trip.
Because I submitted that and Ikind of forgot about it.
I was just like, well, it'llhappen or it won't.
And so then I got an email froma professor at USC.

(39:24):
who is not here anymore,unfortunately.
But I got an email that waslike, oh, I saw your application
and I'd like to ask you a fewquestions about it and have an
interview with you.
That's awesome.
And did you guys do interviewsfor USC?
Yeah.
Okay, because from what Iheard, from what I've looked up,

(39:44):
they're supposed to last like20 minutes-ish, like 20 minutes
to half an hour.
And my experience, like I goton...
a call with this guy and I waslike nervous.
I was really scared.
I set up like a sheet by mywindow to like be diffusion from
the sun.
And so I got on, I got on thiscall and I, he and I just got
along really, really well.

(40:05):
Um, and I, the interview endedup lasting over an hour.
Like it was just cause it wasus like talking, shooting the
shit for like a lot of it.
Cause he asked me about whatI'd done.
And then I talked to him alittle bit about the school.
I think at some point I madethe college admission scandal
joke, which I just made like offthe don't because I've been
thinking about it because I'vebeen applying to the school and
I was like oh I shouldn't havesaid that but then he liked it

(40:28):
and he like went along with itso it just like he and I clicked
really well which that's theother thing about applying to
USC and getting in because Ithere's not really a doubt in my
mind that he's the reason I gotin like he fought for me after
that because he was interestedin that personal statement
that's what kind of caught himand that's the other thing is

(40:49):
it's like you can be totallysuited for it.
And just, you get a badinterviewee or the people
reading your application are notlike into it.
Cause that's the other thing isthat he emailed me and said
that he needed, like it was alast minute interview.
Cause he's like, I don't knowhow, like, I missed this, but I
was doing my second round ofreading the applications, and I

(41:10):
found yours.
So I don't even know what thehell that means.
But clearly, other people readthem, and someone else, I think,
read my application and justdidn't really care for it.
It was that specific guy whoread mine, connected with what I
did in the application,interviewed me, and he and I had
a good conversation.
So there is a lot you can do toset yourself up for success

(41:32):
when you're applying.
But at the same time, if youdon't get in, it's just, like...
Frankly, there's a part of luckto all of this that is, I
think, important to not, like...
be crushed by a rejection fromUSC.
Because that's the thing, I gotrejected from all the other
schools.
Because I didn't do a crazypersonal statement like that for
the rest of them.
Because USC's was the mostopen.

(41:53):
All the others had reallyspecific like font, whatever,
like really specific rules.
And USC was just write athousand words.
But I got rejected from LMU, orI think I got like waitlisted
everywhere.
I got rejected UCLA, I gotwaitlisted like NYU, LMU,
Chapman, wherever.
I only got into USC.
And again, there's an elementof luck to that and timing.

(42:18):
And I got rejected from USC thefirst, like when I didn't
really care about theapplication that much, but I did
apply to like a couple ofplaces.
USC was one of them and I gotrejected that first year and
then I applied again and I gotaccepted.
But you didn't take the gapyear because of that rejection.
No, not really.
I was kind of planning even ifI got in to try to like defer or
like do it.
The gap year was always kind ofa part of that plan.
That's awesome.
But yeah, no, so it's like...

(42:39):
It's definitely a nice littleego boost to get into a school
as exclusive as this and withsuch a reputation.
But it's also not getting in, Ithink...
I would hate to see someone becrushed and think that there's
something wrong with them orwhatever, that they can't
achieve what they want becausethey didn't get into USC.
Because so much of this isluck.

(43:02):
Absolutely.
So yeah, if you didn't getin...
It's fine.
Yeah.
Did you only apply to filmschools or, um, also other
programs that are like outsideof the film world?
I, I only applied to filmschools.
Cause again, I don't likeschool.
So I was like, I, if I'm goingto get, if I'm going to go to
film school, I'm going to go tolike a good film school and I'm

(43:22):
going to go to film school.
Yeah.
Um, cause that's the thing.
I, I also, while that wholeapplication process was
happening, I, um, USC was one ofthe last schools that I heard
from.
I think it might have been thelast school that I got a
decision from.
And so, like, I basicallythrough that spring was just

(43:45):
getting rejected, like, well,waitlisted or rejected from
everywhere.
Like, I remember as that washappening, I was just getting
kind of like waitlisted andwaitlisted and rejected.
And, you know, there were someschools that you know,
reputationally nowhere near USC.
And so I was like, oh, I'm notgoing to get into USC then.

(44:06):
And so I kind of written thatoff.
Um, and I was I started to kindof create this own world of
like you know what I don't needfilm school like screw this
here's what I'm gonna do when Idon't get like I'm not gonna get
in and that's fine and I'm justgonna I'm gonna go to LA and
whatever and I'm gonna like makemy own path and this is fine
and I just like over the weekscame up with this like world

(44:26):
that I was gonna live in withthis plan for the future and I
was feeling great about it I waslike I'm gonna go the indie
film route this is gonna befantastic cause I've already I'd
worked on like a bunch of likesome indie features and lots of
short films and stuff I was likethis is you know what This is
good.
I don't need school.
I like this plan.
I fell in love with thisimaginary future for myself.

(44:47):
And then I got into USC.
And that whole day was reallyexciting.
And I was stoked and superexcited.
And then the day after I gotinto USC, I was really sad.
And it wasn't because I was sadabout getting into USC, but it
was just like...
Oh, no, I'm definitely going togo here.
This is, like, a greatopportunity, and I'd be an idiot
not to.
But it's...
Now, I was kind of mourningthis whole other plan that I had

(45:08):
for myself and this, like,world that I'd, like, carved
out.
What was that plan?
It was really loose.

Speaker 01 (45:15):
Okay, I would love to

Speaker 00 (45:16):
hear it.
I mean, it was really just,like...
For anyone that didn't get intoUSC and wanted to follow
Octavian's indie film...
No, I mean, it's just, like,there are a lot of ways...
everywhere not just los angeleslos angeles is obviously
hollywood land so it's a goodplace to go for film um
especially if you want to dostudio film work but um there

(45:39):
are lots of ways to meet peopleand get on sets i mean everybody
who's making films needs peopleespecially like in indie film
um So my plan, I was going to godown and go to Santa Monica
Community College or CityCollege or whatever.
So yeah, I was going to do acommunity college thing, just

(45:59):
meet some people through that,and then just go through
independent film societies andmeet people through Film
Independent, Secret Movie Club.
There are others that I'mcompletely...
All the festivals too, right?
Yeah, and the festival circuit,which I've been on...
a couple of times and I've beenon since which I love and I

(46:19):
meet people every time I gothrough film festivals I've met
some really close good friendsat film festivals who are like
the coolest people ever and umAnd so that was my plan.
I was going to do filmfestivals.
I was just going to make my ownstuff and I was going to meet
people through these like filmsocieties.
Um, cause that's what I'd doneback home as well as through a
film of film society in Victoriacalled Cinevic.
That is a great, if anyone's onVancouver Island, British

(46:42):
Columbia, Canada, um, it's thisfantastic, like independent
filmmaking society that doublesas kind of a rental house for
equipment that really good ratesfor members on various
equipment and also workshops forfilmmaking and also networking.
Yeah.
that is my plan actually I'mgoing to live in a van because I

(47:24):
love driving I love drivingaround I should say houseless I
guess I'm going to drive in justlike drive around the US drive
around Canada travel a littlebit because hopefully I'll still
have this great job that I haveright now and I can do that
maybe pick up some more editingwork yeah immediately post grad

(47:46):
that's my plan so far because Idon't want to I don't think it's
necessary to rush a filmcareer.
I think that that can reallykill your love for it.
It's just my opinion.
But I...
I don't know.
We're not athletes.
Like, it's not something where,you know, you hit age 29 and
all of a sudden it's like, youjust can't do this anymore.

(48:08):
People are directing movies atage, like, 90.
You know, Clint Eastwood'sdirecting movies still.
He's, what, 89, 90?
Yeah, yeah.
And it's...
Like, I'm in this for the longhaul, obviously, and so I don't,
I don't know, I don't need tobe some super success at age 23.
It's not, like, a priority forme because, in general, what

(48:31):
I've been told by every single,like, we're adults, but every
single adult in my life, everysingle, like, person, basically,
is to have fun now, do stuffnow, like, get, like, live,
right?
but and and go crazy and traveland do stuff before you know
you have responsibilities andand you start to build a career

(48:52):
and that is more responsibilityand if you want to have a family
that's more responsibility yeahand those are beautiful
wonderful things that i want todo but at the same time i want
to be able to to live in my vanand just drive around and do
whatever and it's like i want togo somewhere i can just go

Speaker 01 (49:07):
yeah

Speaker 00 (49:08):
um so that's just for like a year or so that's my
plan right now i i'm trying toemphasize life experience I used
to care a lot more about careerwhen I was in like high school
and and you know I just the thelonger I'm alive the more I just
want to be an artist

Speaker 01 (49:25):
yeah

Speaker 00 (49:26):
that's beautiful and you have a van already right I
have a I have a little minivanthat I've done all my driving in
I'm gonna have to I'm savingI'm gonna be saving up over the
next like year and a half ish Imean Yeah, not quite an RV, but
I definitely want, like...
I mean, the ideal is a sprintervan, but those are expensive,
so...
I love those things.
Yeah, no, so I definitely...

(49:47):
My dad and I build lots ofstuff together, and I want to
build out a van.
You know, if you didn't go toUSC for a year, you'd get a
sprinter van.
Yeah, keep that in mind aswell, actually.
How expensive this place is,yeah.
I, um...
But, yeah, no, so that will bevery fun.

(50:10):
You know, from what I've heardyou speak, like, you have a lot
of experience, like, makingfilms, like, already, you know,
coming in from, like, age eightuntil now, you know, you've been
making films for, what, like,almost 15 years, right?
Is

Speaker 01 (50:25):
that crazy?

Speaker 00 (50:27):
Yeah, I mean, I guess.
I will say, like, I got seriousabout it and, like, making
short films and not just sort offilming around, like dicking
around with a camera.
I really started making stuffwhen I was like, Yeah, when I
was like 13, like 12, 13.
That was when I really like, Ihad a YouTube channel, as we all

(50:49):
do.
And yeah, so I would do likedaily, I would do like two
videos a day for like months atone point, like comedy sketches.
I was on that grind.
They were terrible, but it waslike a great, you know, that's
when I really started making alot of stuff.
And then after that, I waslike, I want to make short
films.
And I started getting seriousabout that.
So it hasn't quite been thatlong, but I've known that I

(51:11):
wanted to make film.
I just didn't quite understandwhat that meant until you know,
a little bit later.

Speaker 01 (51:17):
I was wondering, though, in what ways has acting
informed your filmmaking?
Because you're in The Flash andyou're on sets a lot as, you
know, talent.
That's kind of the other sideof filmmaking is working with
actors and being behind a cameraversus in front of a camera.
So I was wondering how thataffected, you know, your
sensibilities or the way youwork.

Speaker 00 (51:36):
Yeah, no, I love acting.
It's a lot of fun.
And I think it definitelyhelps...
I don't know.
I know what I like and don'tlike from a director when I'm
acting, which helps a lot.
Like, that's, I think, why it'sso good to act a little bit if
you're directing is so that youcan have the experience of,
like, I don't know, somedirector telling you something

(51:57):
and being like, I don't needthat right now.
I get it.
What's, like, one example?
Well, it's just when people geta little bit too, like...
I don't know.
As a director, I guess there'skind of an instinct to
over-explain sometimes thatI've, you know, fallen into that
trap all the time.
Same here.
Yeah.
But it's, um, and that's onething when you're acting, it's
like, no, I've done the work.
I know, I know, I know.
Or like, you know, you, you'rekind of screw up a take and you

(52:20):
know that you screwed it up andyou're like, okay, well just let
me do another one.
And then there, you know,director comes in and starts
talking about like, Hey, solet's do it.
It's like, no, no, I know, Iknow, I know.
It's like the worst thing ever.
Um, so yeah I think that's likefor me but I also as an actor I
like to get notes I like togive options and I don't know it
makes me uncomfortable when Ido like one take and then the

(52:41):
director is like yeah good it'slike well hey whoa I'm not that
good like let's calm down sothat's definitely a couple of
things but just in general it'snice to know what it feels like
and yeah

Speaker 01 (52:55):
would you want to direct a feature anytime soon?

Speaker 00 (52:59):
I don't know.
I've been writing featuresrecently, which is really nice.
I've been doing a lot ofwriting recently.
I love to write.
And so maybe just the rightstory would have to come along.
I really do love indie films.
I wish I watched more of them.
But I really enjoy movies thathave a little bit of a budget,

(53:24):
but are more in the $200,000,$300,000 budget range.
I watched Shiva Baby recently,which is a great movie.
Emma Seligman is great.
Canadian director.
Canadian.
This is really awesome.

Speaker 01 (53:38):
There's a lot of good Canadian directors.

Speaker 00 (53:39):
There are.
Megan Park is another fantasticnew.
Yeah, and The Fallout.
Also Canadian.
Yeah, there are some goodCanadian filmmakers.
Denis Villeneuve.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
He's one of our best.
He's the guy.
Yeah.
Um, no, Canada's, Canada'staking a lot of creative people.
A lot of, um,

Speaker 01 (54:00):
production is actually happening

Speaker 00 (54:02):
in places in Canada, right?
Oh yeah, definitely.
I mean, Toronto is a big placeto film and Vancouver is a huge
place to film.
I mean, that's, so yeah, all ofthose like DC shows, a lot of
TV, honestly, for the past like40 years, Vancouver has been a
big place to film in.
Um, cause why wouldn't you wantto film there?
I mean, it's a great, it's,it's a pretty friendly place.
Um, Vancouver gets a little bitof, but it's a great city and

(54:25):
it's got great crews and greatfacilities.
And if you go there, I mean,the currency right now, I won't
get political, but the currencyis a bad, it's bad for Canadians
right now, like coming into theUS.
But if you take an Americanfilm budget over to Canada, like
you end up with, I think it'sone, like $1.40 Canadian budget

(54:50):
for every dollar US.
So like, if you take a milliondollar budget from America into
Canada, you're talking aboutlike a million, 400,000.
Yeah.
And so, and there's taxcredits.
So like there's, it's a great,it just makes sense.
Yeah, it really does.
And it's a beautiful lookingplace.
And it also Vancouver doublesas anything.
Anytime you see Seattle, it'sVancouver.
Um, it just, it looks like acity.
It can, it can be Chicago, notquite New York, but it can be

(55:13):
kind of any just metropolitanarea.
Vancouver is fantastic.
Yeah.
And, um, And yeah, so a lot offilms in Canada, I definitely
like, I, I didn't go to schoolin Canada and in Vancouver, not
because it wasn't like a greatplace to be for film.
It's just, I, you know, Ididn't want to go so close to

(55:33):
home and just, I know thatalready.
And I kind of wanted to comedown here.
I mean, you're, you got thatadventurous gene in you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's for my parents for sure.
Um, but I did want to ask youabout, um, back to the IMDb
stuff.
Yeah.
in there it says the policeshowed up during the filming of
attack of the scarecrow yeah wehad a c-stand uh we needed to

(55:57):
get a light for moonlight up andi had it was like one of those
big aperture lights um like abig sort of older aperture light
uh and we needed to get it upas high in the sky as possible
and so we set it up on a c-standfully extended which is bad But
that wasn't the worst of it.
Fully extended, then we tookthe C-stand, put it on top of my

(56:18):
car, like on the roof of mycar, and just kind of strapped
it in.
Oh my god, yeah.
And that wasn't for the wholeshoot, that was for a specific
shot, but it was...
It wasn't dangerous in thesense that there was nobody in
the vicinity to get crushed ifit fell, but it was certainly
dangerous for the equipment.
We were safe about it, but itlike...
Yeah, so people did show up andask about it.

(56:39):
But I don't know.
There's a better attitude aboutthat back home.
Because I'm not from Vancouver.
I was born there, but I live onVancouver Island, which is a
much more rural area.
And not a lot of stuff filmsthere.
All the Hallmark stuff filmsthere.
If you see a Hallmark Christmasmovie, it was shot in Victoria,
basically, or the surroundingarea.

(57:00):
But not a ton of stuff isfilming Vancouver Island.
And so it's really great forindie film and for...
my purposes and all that.
Cause people are just curious.
No, nobody's jaded from it.
You, you know, if you go intoa, I don't know, like I, if we
went to like a restaurant andneeded a restaurant for a short
film.
And so I, you just knock doorsand you're like, Hey, we're

(57:22):
filming a like short film and ithelps them like young.
It's like a student thing.
And, um, and everyone's reallylike the attitude in general is
really good.
It's like, Oh my God, you'remaking a movie.
That's so cool.
And, um, and it's, uh, yeah.
So, um, It's been really great.
I mean, for yeah, Attack of theKiller Scarecrow is a Halloween
short film.
That is exactly what it soundslike.

(57:44):
And it takes place in a cornmaze.
And we literally like I, wejust showed up, I emailed back
and forth with a guy who whosefamily owns a corn maze that
goes up every year.
Well, I didn't know him at all.
I'd never even been to the cornmaze or anything.
And it's the Sandwichton CornMaze.

(58:05):
It's October and you're inSandwichton.
And it's this just wonderfulfamily.
And it was like, I asked like,hey, can we film for two
weekends, basically like in yourbackyard at your corn maze?
And he was just like, oh myGod, yeah, that sounds amazing.
Like, can we help?
Like, do you need food?
We can bring you some like...
Let's run power.

(58:25):
Like, how's it going?
They were the sweetest, nicestpeople ever.
And it's really, there's agreat community feeling to where
I'm from that I really, reallylove.
And that I appreciate even morenow that I'm here in a big
city.
Yeah.
It's not like LA.
It's not even really in LA.
It's a city thing, kind of.
Right.
Is it a little different herethan

Speaker 01 (58:46):
back home?

Speaker 00 (58:46):
Yeah, well, nobody, I mean, LA is weird.
Nobody responds to your emails.
Like, nobody calls you back.
Everyone is really, like,cynical.
The cynicism I have a problemwith, like what I talked about
with the school, that's apersonal thing for me.
I don't know.
I don't love...
When it comes to justfilmmaking as a concept, as an

(59:09):
idea, and as something that youdo for your life, I don't like
cynicism around it at all.
What's the point?
If we're going to be cynicalabout being artists and about
being filmmakers, let's wrap itup and go home.
Why are you doing this?
Not to say that there aren'tmoments of cynicism.
Everybody's human.
I get pissed and sad and scaredand all that.

(59:31):
I can fall into that for...
all of this, but just ingeneral, I don't know.
I would rather be optimisticabout it.
But then again, I don't thinkabout it as much as a career as
I used to.
I mean, I love that.
You know, I think optimism isalways the

Speaker 01 (59:52):
way to go.
When approaching life, youknow, things go wrong all the
time, but when you approach itwith a more positive mindset,
things tend to turn aroundbetter.
And, you know, I do want totalk a little bit about your
film, Wormies, because that'sthe big, you know, monster

Speaker 00 (01:00:08):
movie.
That's my recent, like, bigone, yeah.

Speaker 01 (01:00:10):
Yeah, I want to hear your story on how you came up
with the idea and how you madeit and the aftermath of

Speaker 00 (01:00:16):
it.
Yeah, so Wormies is a 20...
Yeah, 20-minute long...
Well, 19-minute, 55-second longfor festivals.
It's under 20 minutes so I canget in there.
But it's a 20-minute long 80sset monster adventure short
film.
It's kind of inspired bySpielberg stuff, by Gremlins and

(01:00:37):
Poltergeist and a little bit ofJurassic Park and Gremlins 2,
weirdly.
And yeah, so it's...
it was this big big projectthat I wrote it in when I was
like 15 years old because I washaving like a writer's block
sort of month and my mom told meshe was like just write like if

(01:01:00):
we could make anything youwanted to make and it didn't
like budget didn't matter andpracticality didn't matter what
would you want to make right nowjust write that and so then I
wrote kind of the first draft ofthis short film and so like we
couldn't make it at that pointand But then I made Attack of
the Killer Scarecrow, and thatwas an 11-minute short film,

(01:01:23):
which was way longer.
I'd done four or five-minutestuff, and that was pretty much
it.
And so that was a big step upfor me, because it was a bigger
shoot, bigger crew.
And I'm still proud of thatshort film.
It's a fun watch aroundHalloween time.
I like it.
But it kind of proved to me itwas a longer shoot, longer
movie, bigger everything.
And I finished that movie andit went pretty well.

(01:01:45):
And I'm never happy withanything.
I mean, like I finished it andI thought it sucked, but we got
through the experience and I waslike kind of proud of what we'd
done.
And I was like, you know what?
I feel like I can make thisnow, uh, this script that I've
had.
And so I think, yeah, I waslike 16 then.
And that's when I started likereally seriously working on it.

(01:02:05):
And so then I was going to, Iwas planning like, okay, We're
going to do all this stuff andthen we're going to film it in
March of 2020.
And that didn't work out forobvious reasons.
Like we were really on our wayand then...
The worst time.
And then, yeah, just everythingshut down.
And so it was just kind ofsitting there.

(01:02:26):
But the problem was I wasreally stuck on it.
I got really into...
Like we were in pre-production.
We started building thismechanical worm creature.
I can send you stuff that youcan maybe cut in with this for
what we've been building.
Definitely.

Unknown (01:02:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 00 (01:02:41):
And so we were fully working on it.
I'd been revising the script abunch.
We were looking for props andlocations.
And so by the time COVID hit, Iwas stuck on that.
I could not...
I was trying to get my mind offof it.
Like, oh, do another short filmthat I can do during COVID or
do other stuff.
And I could not.
And so finally, in February of2021, yeah, I...

(01:03:09):
We filmed it startingValentine's Day, starting
February 14th, and goingthrough...
I think when all is said anddone, and this isn't something
that anyone should ever do for ashort film, but I think we had
17 shooting days.
Oh my god.
Which is stupid.
God, there's a bug.

(01:03:31):
Oh, I think I got it.
You did get it.
Jesus.
But yeah, so we shot way toolong.
We had like a full two weeks ofproduction, just like back to
back, just constant filming.
We would take a day off everylike four days of shooting, but
we'd be right back at it.
So it was like two full weeksand then a couple of days
outside of that.
Which not practical for anyreason and not...

(01:03:55):
it shouldn't be necessary forany kind of short film.
I could make that short wayquicker now, but it was a great
experience for like in thefuture, making a feature film or
something like that.
Cause the, the stamina of thatkind of shoot is something that
like, even like three 10 doesn'teven compare to it.
Like it, the having to keepgoing after like 10 consecutive

(01:04:18):
days of filming was so much,especially on like a student,
like well it wasn't even astudent film i worked with a lot
of adults on that but we had alot of great people who like
volunteered and it was acommunity effort for the
victoria filmmaking communitywhich was really really nice and
um but yeah by day like four iwe'd been filming a ton and i

(01:04:44):
watched the footage on the dayoff and i i was not feeling good
about it and i was like this isnot what the movie that i
wanted to make things It'sunnecessary to get into
specifics, really.
But it was just like thingsaren't working out in general
for what I wanted.
But you can't stop.
It's all just a moving thing.
And so I...
Honestly, for that shoot, a lotof the days, things just didn't

(01:05:06):
go the way I'd like to plan.
I was having troublecommunicating exactly what I
wanted.
And I would film...
We'd film a 12-hour day.
And then I would go home, crymy eyes out, then be like,
okay...
back into it and then the nextday would just like do it all
over again but it like it wasgood i never broke on set or

(01:05:27):
even like i once i was in thecar driving home that's one um
which i think was a good thingbut i i was devastated because
it's this thing that i've beenworking on for years at that
point it honestly it felt kindof like a first feature
filmmaking experience justbecause of how long it took to
make it and even the shootingschedule felt so long so it kind
of It was initially going tojust be a big short film project

(01:05:49):
that probably would have takena year.
But then, by that point, it hadbeen maybe two years of working
on this one film, and I'mfinally filming it, and it's not
what I want it to be, and itwas devastating.
And so we got to the end of theproduction.
The cast and crew were sowonderful, and everybody

(01:06:10):
volunteered their time.
That was something I reallyfelt good about, just the people
on it.
But we got to the end of it,and I looked at the footage, and
I just hated it.
Like, I went through thedailies, I tried to cut it
together, and then for the nextbasically like a year and a

(01:06:31):
half-ish, I would...
spend a week working reallyhard on it, trying to edit it.
And then I would get sodepressed from looking at the
footage and feeling like such afailure that I would just stop.
And I couldn't look at itanymore because it made me so
genuinely depressed.
And then I would just leave itfor months.
And then I'd come back to itbecause it would start stressing
me out.
Like, I still haven't finishedthis.
And I'd go back to it and I'dstart working on it.

(01:06:52):
And I'd just be like, thissucks.
And that just kept going untilI was at USC, until the very end
of my first semester.
I woke up literally in a coldsweat from stress having not
finished it.
like I woke up and I was likeoh shit I like need to finish
this movie it's still like hereit's still in my head and it's

(01:07:13):
like screwing with me and so Ium yeah so that's when I just
really like powered through itand just worked really hard to
get it done uh over sort of thenext few months after that um
and by that point I kind ofcompleted the full cycle of
grief you do on a film when youhate it and I um It got to the

(01:07:35):
point where I'd filmed it solong ago that I had just enough
distance to be like, okay, thisis fine.
I'm just going to finish it anddo the best I can with it and
really try to make it good.
And then it started to reallyhelp when the finishing touches
started to get added onto it.
Like when I started workingwith the composer of that film,

(01:07:56):
Jared Richardson, who he'sfrom...
He's from home.
He's from Canada.
And he's excellent.
And so the score of that shortfilm, what I wanted was this
Jerry Goldsmith type of sound.
And he got it immediately.
And once I started gettingmusic cues back, that's when I
started to get excited about itagain.

(01:08:17):
It was this really greatfeeling of like, wait, this
feels right.
This feels really good.
And so...
that I kind of started feelinga little bit better about it I
was like okay you know what thisis fine I'm gonna get it
finished and it'll be like it'llbe done finally I can send it
to the cast and crew those poorpeople who've been waiting for
years to see it and um and yeahso I got it done I think it

(01:08:40):
might have been like March 31stbecause it was I got it done for
like a film festival deadlineum and so I think it was March
31st or April 1st one of thosethat I submitted it to
festivals, uh, which felt great.
It just, it was a big relief, abig weight off my shoulders.
Um, and then after that, it hada pretty good life at film

(01:09:01):
festivals.
And I did, I, I got to kind ofslightly tour around the U S a
little bit with it, like went toChicago and went to like
Portland and like a couple ofplaces in California.
And yeah, it was a great, itwas really fun.
The last half of 2021 or 2021,Wait, what year is it?
2022 maybe?
Yeah.
The last, my second semesterhere at USC, I was like bringing

(01:09:25):
that around to film festivals alot.
Like, yeah, I went to Orlandoand there's like a lot of fun
film festivals and people I gotto meet and places I got to go.
And people generally, like itworks for a horror film audience
because it's a very like kindof classic 80s monster movie
type of feeling.
And interestingly enough, Ithink a lot of the ways that I

(01:09:45):
failed on it were...
maybe way like failings thatare kind of common in that type
of movie um and so it almostworked as like it was cheesier
than i wanted it to be but as acheesy 80s movie it works um and
so now i'm able to like kind oflook back at it and be you know
that's still there's so muchdifferent that i wanted it to be

(01:10:09):
but um I can look back at itand be, like, proud of what it
is.
And definitely proud of makingit.
I mean, the experience ofmaking it, frankly, was film
school for me.
Like, that was my film school.
And this is my industry school.
And that was my, like, filmschool for directing.
So it was a really greatexperience, but it was also
deeply, deeply sad and scary andexciting and happy and

(01:10:32):
horrible.

Speaker 01 (01:10:34):
After this experience and, like, so many
other filmmaking experiences,what would be one piece of
advice you would give

Speaker 00 (01:10:40):
your high school or freshman year self?
Oh, man.
I guess...
You know, it's tough because,like, all of the lessons that I
learned on it kind of needed tobe learned through doing it and
through screwing up practically.
I would say...
don't film for 14 days in arow.
That would be, like, you don'tneed to do that.

(01:11:01):
But then again, even that was atotal screw-up, and I'd never
do it again for a short film.
But now I've had thatexperience of directing for that
long in such a stressfulenvironment.
So that was also a good thing,I guess.
Advice in general, it's themost boring advice ever, but
it's just, like, keep makingstuff.
Which I, frankly...
have a tough time with even nowso it's less of advice for my

(01:11:25):
past self and more of advice forme right this second because I
think I get really preciousabout stuff I don't know there's
this like I guess there's likean ego about it and this feeling
of I don't want my reputationto suffer from having made
something bad and so when I makesomething it has to be better
than the last thing I did and ithas to be great and it doesn't

(01:11:47):
and I know that but there'sstill like this feeling of you
know needing to always befantastic.
The stuff you make to beimportant and to be impressive.
And so you can only ever makesomething with that mindset
where you put a ton of hours andwork and whatever and spend
half a year on.
And sometimes it's good to justdo a 48-hour film festival or

(01:12:11):
to get like a reel of Super 8film and just sort of shoot it
and make a cute little short onthat or to, you know, to just do
an exercise.
And that's something that filmschool is good for.
And that's a great part of thiswhole thing.
There are certain classes, likethe 285, 290 is a class.

(01:12:32):
And then 310, although 310 ismore of a practical class and
less of like a you making stuffjust for making stuff.
But 285 and 290 are two classesthat I loved and I think
they're really great.
I agree.
You

Speaker 01 (01:12:44):
have some great stuff on there.

Speaker 00 (01:12:46):
You really put a lot of effort into this.
I put a lot of effort into my290 stuff specifically.
You know what, that was onewhere I really...
I just kept getting more andmore ambitious with it after
every project.
And that was one where I didreally have the mindset of my
next one has to be, like, waycooler than the last one.
And that honestly kind ofworked in my favor in that
class.

(01:13:06):
But, yeah, I worked really hardon 290's stuff.
But you have to.
I mean, if you're at filmschool and you're just, like,
slacking off on the films, Idon't know.
Like, what's the point of that?
What are we doing?
Yeah, exactly.
Oh,

Speaker 01 (01:13:20):
I love that.
And you speak a lot about yourlove for writing, actually.
What is your process of justbeing consistent with writing
and how to get a feature out?
Because not many people have,at

Speaker 00 (01:13:33):
our level, been able to write whole feature films,
right?
Yeah, I definitely...
Because a good distinction isthat I've not written good
feature films.
But I have completed drafts ofscripts, which is what I've been
working on right now.
I would never claim to, I don'tknow, be an expert on...
Writing in the storytellingsense.
I'm definitely like gettingbetter and I write a lot and so

(01:13:55):
I you know I feel like I amgetting better at it, but we're
all still kind of in thatlearning stage right now and I
Yeah, so for getting it donebecause that was the thing that
I was having a problem with Iwas trying to like overcome I
think it the way that I did itis With by doing three pages a
day minimum three pages a day.

(01:14:15):
Sometimes I would do more andBut the first feature film that
I wrote that I'm actually I'mright now rewriting because you
know what that I do think thatone's good.
I take it back.
That one is one that I Ireally, really love the story
for it.
And and so I like had the ideaand I knew that I wanted to make

(01:14:35):
it.
And so I and I knew that itwould be a good feature script
to start with for my first onebecause it is like kind of
structured and I'm sure all ofus have ideas.
You learn about storystructure, and you're like,
screw this, I'm going to dosomething crazy and abstract.
And actually, the protagonistis the antagonist, and we learn

(01:14:56):
three quarters of the waythrough the film, and then the
protagonist changes to thisother character.
And those are great.
But for my first feature, Iknew that I wanted a story that
would fit kind of into storystructure, so I wouldn't be
trying to reinvent the wheelbefore I could...
make the wheel yeah um and soit was a story that i loved and

(01:15:18):
it also generally not completelybut it kind of generally worked
for a beginning middle end andi had a protagonist all the way
through and um and so i yeah soi started by outlining i spent
like a month just figuring outmy outline wasn't really a, it's
not a beat sheet, which I'lltalk about a little bit later

(01:15:40):
because that doesn't work forme.
But it could work for you.
It's a, my version of it wasjust this kind of, like I would
draw out a line and then I wouldput sort of like spokes on the
line and I would just draw like,okay, this happens here.
And I mean, I'm sure likepeople's, Coming up with ideas,
it's like different foreverybody.
But I think in general, youknow, you have an idea that you

(01:16:01):
like, or maybe you come up like,oh, this would be a really cool
shot or a cool character.
And then you, I don't know,whenever I've been inspired like
that, it's been followed bylike a two week period of just,
I'm going grocery shopping.
I'm like, oh, and then therecould be a scene where this
happens, then blah, blah, blah.
And I had some of those writtendown.
So I just started writing.
And this is a great thing to dooff the bat, I think, because

(01:16:22):
it just makes you feel good.
I started out by just, like,taking all those scene ideas,
and I looked at my line, kind oflike I'm a detective with one
of those, like, sort of clueboards.
And I was just like, okay, thisscene probably belongs around
here.
And then this one belongsaround here.
And then whatever.
And so then I, like, knew how Iwanted to end it.
So I was like, okay, theending's here.
And I knew what my midpointwas.
I was like, okay, that's there.
And all of a sudden I was like,wait, this is, you know, I know

(01:16:43):
where I'm kind of at.
So then I spent a few weeks...
Just sort of plotting outmostly character arcs.
The plot isn't something that Iwanted to plot out.
But the character, I wanted toknow exactly where they went and
the change they went through.
I did a lot of character work,basically.
And as I was doing that, youcome up with more ideas for

(01:17:06):
scenes.
Because you're like, okay, thischaracter is this way.
And so, wait, that would be aninteresting thing, blah, blah,
blah.
And so that whole time, I amadding some more cards.
And eventually, I ended upwith...
I knew exactly what mycharacter arc was going to be.
And I had a healthy number ofscenes.
Basically, every 10 or sopages, I kind of knew my

(01:17:26):
checkpoints, almost.
I didn't have any of thefill-in-the-blanks.
I know he ends up here, andbefore that, he's here.
I don't know what happens inthere.
But then I just startedwriting.
Because I think...
And again, this is differentfor everybody.
For me...
I think when I'm outliningstuff, I'm thinking through it,

(01:17:49):
which can be necessary for likethe logic of a story.
But when you're just writing,I'm like feeling it.
And so I thought through asmuch as I needed to before
writing, but not like a thingmore so that when I started
writing, there was a sense offreedom of like anything could
happen in the script.
I know where it's going and Iknow some things I want to

(01:18:10):
happen.
But so I started writing it,and it was three pages a day.
And the important thing for me,because I know myself, and I
know that if I were to fall offfor a day, I would stop.
And so if I gave myself, oh,I'll just do a cheat day, a
break day, I would probably justnever get back to it.
And so I didn't let myself missa single day.

(01:18:33):
It was basically before I go tobed, I have to have written
three pages.
So a lot of the time, I waswriting...
like in bed.
It was like, oh my God, I wantto go to bed so bad.
I've had like a busy day, but Ican't go to sleep until I
finish this.
And so I started writing itthree pages at a time.
And then I went on my secondroad trip across the US.

(01:18:55):
And so I was writing the filmwhile I was driving around.
So that was the other thingtoo, is a lot of the time I
would be writing it in a Walmartparking lot in an air mattress
in the back of my minivan.
And I'd be like, okay, Ifinally set up for bed.
It's two in the morning.
I need to go to bed, but I haveto write my pages.
And so it was a really excitingthing because as I was writing,

(01:19:18):
I was not...
holding myself to it beinggood.
I was actually, I was like,this is going to be a bad
script.
So screw it.
I'm not even going to thinkabout quality.
I was just trying to have themost fun I could possibly have
while writing.
And so, well, it would be like,okay, I introduced a character
and I put them in like a trickysituation.
And then I've, you know, I'vehit like four pages or whatever.

(01:19:38):
I'm going to go to bed.
I'm like, man, what are theygoing to do?
I don't even know.
How are they going to get outof this one?
And I just go to bed and Iwould wake up and, you know, as
I was driving and as I was doingstuff, I would just be thinking
all day about like, man, what'sgoing to happen next?
Who is this person I justintroduced?
I don't even know.
And sometimes I'd come up withideas throughout the day.
Sometimes I wouldn't.
I'd just sit down and be like,what's the most fun I could have

(01:20:01):
right now in this moment withthis character or with this
situation?
And I just followed that.
I just went as fun as I could.
And so what happened is...
I basically spent two monthshaving the time of my life
writing this thing.
Basically every day, it waslike I was watching like a
serial or something and I was,you know, it ends on a
cliffhanger or something.
I was like, Oh my God, what's,what are they going to do?
Um, and then there's of coursethe thing of like, as you know,

(01:20:24):
I have a scene that I reallywant for the middle.
And as I was getting closer toit, I was like, Oh my God, this
is so exciting.
It's going to happen soon.
Um, and so I, I kind of wrotemy script as if I was just
experiencing it as an audience.
Um, and yeah, and it was thebest writing experience my life
because it was just fun i wasn'tthinking about it being good i

(01:20:45):
wasn't thinking about like itgetting produced i like i wasn't
thinking about anything it wasjust purely story and like what
i was enjoying um and so becauseof that i got really into the
characters and i got like reallyinto the story almost like as
an audience member equally to asa writer and so then by the end
like there was a character thati like killed off at the end
and i i've never experienced itsounds it's so pretentious to

(01:21:08):
say but it's true i was likereally sad like i started
tearing up as i was writing thecharacter dying which i had
never happened before but it'sbecause i was just like
experience you know i felt likei'd just been spending the last
month with this character havinga fun time and like you know
doing fun stuff with them andthen now they're dying it felt
like an audience's perspectiveon a character death and not

(01:21:30):
just like a writer's plotting itand so you know i i wrote that
all the way to the end and imean i remember the very last
day um I was just so excitedabout...
Because my ending, I'd knownthe whole time.
And I was like, finally, we'rehere.
It's this big set piece.
I was really excited about it.
And so I got to the end, and Iwrote 20 pages in a few hours.

(01:21:52):
I was just so excited about it.
And I knew what I wanted.
And I finished it, and it was122 pages of a screenplay.
And then I put it away, and Idid not look at it for a year.
That's the thing.
I made it not about...
writing necessarily it was justabout like me having a good

(01:22:13):
time and like telling a story tomyself basically yeah i love
what you said about like justincorporating the funness into
it you know

Speaker 01 (01:22:20):
because if you're not having fun you're not gonna
hit 122 pages you know you mightand it would take way longer
and you're like you won't get asmuch out of it so i love using
the the fun is to like driveyour

Speaker 00 (01:22:33):
you know writing process and that's great you
know yeah yeah i mean if you'renot having fun with your own
story then like right what isthe audience gonna get out of it
i don't know exactly i um andnot all movies are supposed to
be fun necessarily but whateveryou're trying to get across like
if you're not feeling it you'regonna be invested for sure but
at the same time I think andthis is another slight dig at

(01:22:54):
USC sorry again but I thinkthere's an attitude and this
isn't a purely USC problem thisis kind of a screenwriting guru
problem or teaching problem whenyou take a screenwriting class
or even like watch screenwritingscreenwriters or screenwriting
teachers on videos In general,there's an attitude about, like,

(01:23:14):
here's how you write.
Here's what you do.
And there's really specificstuff about...
You know, the structure issuper specific.
This has to happen on page 12.
You start by outlining, and youdo a general outline, you do a
skeleton outline, and then yougo in scene by scene, you do
that, and then you do this, andthen you do that.
And there's a great videothat's a...

(01:23:37):
I'll just send it to you.
It's a compilation...
of interviews with some of themost famous screenwriters
working today.
A lot of them are writers,directors, but it's like, uh,
Quentin Tarantino, Alex Garland,Greta Gerwig, Ryan Johnson,
whatever, like big writers whoare working right now.
And all of them are talkingabout how they outline.

(01:23:57):
Um, and the, the thing that,will strike you when you watch
it is that every single one ofthem has a completely different
process like genuinely likewhatever quentin tarantino
outlines to the middle then hedoesn't anymore um ryan johnson
needs to know exactly whathappens uh i think alex garland
has just like beats and then hefills in the blank like

(01:24:18):
everyone's totally differentbecause there's no way to write
right and so in general becauseyeah it's it that's something
that a problem i've had with USCand like our screenwriting
classes, but it's also to befair to them It's it's just a
problem in general with peoplewho claim to know how to be a
screenwriter.
Yeah So I think the big thingthat I learned with writing my

(01:24:40):
first feature was what workedfor me Like I I guarantee you
most people if they tried to doit exactly how I just described
me doing it probably wouldn'tlike it that much because
everyone needs to writedifferently like There's no one
way to do it.
So I think that's the mostimportant thing is to figure out
what works for you specificallyand to not hold yourself to
some standard of some otherperson.
Yeah.

(01:25:01):
How would you suggest someonefind what works

Speaker 01 (01:25:04):
for them?

Speaker 00 (01:25:05):
Just keep writing?
I think just trying stuff untilit feels right, which it sucks
because that takes a lot ofeffort and it's not some easy
way to do it.
But listen to interviews withwriters about what they do.
And try some of that stuff out.
Because before, I tried towrite features and just writing
in general.
I tried the specific outliningstuff, and then I tried just

(01:25:28):
general, whatever.
I tried a lot of stuff, andthen finally, just on that
feature, that was just whatworked, and it was working.
And I was like, wait, this isgood.
This is what I want.
But I think just trial anderror, and don't stress out too
much about it.
You can pick and choose whatyou like from...
But, you know, try outlining,be like, I really, really like
doing the skeleton outline, butI don't really like doing the

(01:25:49):
beats.
Or conversely, like, I reallylike doing this, but I want to
get more specific with theoutline before I jump in or, you
know.

Speaker 01 (01:25:55):
One thing I found really helpful, and I'm not
sure, I think most people don'tdo this, maybe some, but I use
like the record function on myphone or not record, but like
voice to text.
And for like, I time myself forlike 20, 30 minutes and I don't
stop.
talking about the story so i goso here's you know this
character does this and that ohand maybe that doesn't happen

(01:26:18):
maybe we do this and i compileit into one giant messy
paragraph and condense it intosome kind of story and then
right from there i found it tobe really helpful and i it
sounds strange but it works forme and i just kept doing it so i
think it really is just aboutyou know um having like a
personal way in and and getwords onto the page so

Speaker 00 (01:26:39):
yeah no totally like i yeah absolutely

Speaker 01 (01:26:40):
Octavian so after film school you're going to go
on that road trip what are threethings you're going to bring
with you on that road trip thatyou

Speaker 00 (01:26:47):
can't live without okay the teddy bear that I bring
with me everywhere that I'vehad since I was a little kid I'm
trying to think of like a goodbook what would be a book you'd
want to bring I mean I giftedyou Pet Sematary because that's
my favorite yeah and it's Imight take that one but you know
what it's funny I have beenthinking about this a lot what
I'm going to take with mebecause it is kind of like I do
have things um So, I mean, Iguess...

(01:27:10):
I gotta take my camera...
What camera do you use, by theway?
Right now, I have a Canon R5C.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, which I don't havesignalizers for.
On the equipment end, I havesome lighting stuff here.
I don't have a lot of camerastuff here right now, which I
should probably change.
But I did, you know, I recentlygot a Bolex 16mm film camera,

(01:27:35):
and I need to make sure itworks.
Like, all the mechanisms andeverything I've, like, checked
out works well, so I think itdoes.
But I have to run some filmthrough it and get it developed
and see what happens but yeah Ireally want to be shooting on
film soon because it looks likeso much fun it also looks great
it looks great just sittingthere on like in my room because

(01:27:57):
I was just like watching forone on eBay for like a year and
then finally one popped up itwas like $100 and I was like I'm
getting it yeah so you knowwhat I'll say that one teddy
bear my bolex camera and thenI'm going to go with The
Canadian flag that I have on mywall.
Oh, yes.

(01:28:17):
Yeah.
So where are you going to takethis van?
Are you just around the Statesor are you driving around to
other countries?
So that's the thing.
It's really an embarrassmentfor me personally.
I've been to every single statein the contiguous U.S.
And I have not...
even gotten close to going toall the provinces and

(01:28:38):
territories of Canada which isreally awful of me but it's
bigger and there's not as muchin between the cities so I'm
going to do some Canadaexploration and then I'll drive
around the US a bunch andhopefully by that point Our
cohort will be kind of spreadaround probably the coasts.
I'm sure some people are goingto pop over to New York.

(01:29:00):
Yeah.
And I can kind of bouncebetween and say hi to people and
go on little trips with peopleand have a good time.
That would be sick.
How long do you plan on doingthis?
You know, I have no idea.
A year at least and probablytwo years max.
It's not something Inecessarily want to like...
do forever um but yeah ideallyi can just be driving around

(01:29:22):
just making films and doing filmfestivals and um and yeah my
priority right now is i'mbecoming a better like artist i
want to be a great artisteventually um and that's that so
that's the thing that i'mreally trying to put my focus on
because i think the careerstuff i mean it's its own animal
obviously but um it's itmatters less to me in terms of

(01:29:44):
like what i want for my life asopposed to like being good at
storytelling and telling reallygreat stories.

Speaker 01 (01:29:53):
So what would be three advice you'd give our
listeners who wants to be betterartists and tell better
stories?

Speaker 00 (01:29:59):
So I would say like, listen to yourself.
Cause I think there's aninstinct to listen to other
people telling you again, thisis how you write.
This is how you make movies.
This is how you build a career.
This is how you do all thisstuff.
And no one really knows eventhe successful people don't
know.
I couldn't tell somebody how toget into USC today because a
big part of it's luck.
In a similar way that a lot ofpeople who have made it, quote

(01:30:21):
unquote, probably maybe couldn'tdo it again just because you
have to be there at the righttime and be doing the right
stuff.
Now, there are super talentedpeople who I'm sure would rise
to the top no matter what.
But the path of getting there,you can't be instructed to it
because it's not something thatanybody knows.
And the people who say thatthey know it, I think are
bullshit.
So in general...

(01:30:41):
pay attention to what you likeand what you want to do and, and
understand and try to enjoythat there is no road to where
you're trying to get to.
It's kind of a big open oceanand you're sailing.
Um, so go with the wind, gowhere you want to go.
Um, and, and just try to enjoyit above all.
Cause I mean, if you just rushthrough all of it and do, you

(01:31:05):
know, and you hate it and youstress yourself out and you burn
yourself out, um, And, youknow, you don't want to hit 26
and hate film and be all jaded.
We're in this because we loveit.
And so keep loving it.
Do whatever it takes to stay inlove.
So that's what I'll say.
That's my advice.

(01:31:26):
That's

Speaker 01 (01:31:26):
beautiful.
Great.
Well, thank you so much forcoming on our podcast today.

Speaker 00 (01:31:30):
Thank you for having me.
I feel like I probably will begetting in trouble with USC
after this.
Maybe they'll change theirpolicies.
I'm sure Carol's watching.
Is she still around, actually?
I

Speaker 01 (01:31:41):
think she's leaving soon.

Speaker 00 (01:31:42):
I think so.
Well, good luck to you, Carol,and to whoever's next.
Please don't get me whacked.

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Directing Movies at Age 8, Acting in The Flash, USC film school | Octavian Kaul

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Directing Movies at Age 8, Acting in The Flash, USC film school | Octavian Kaul