June 3, 2025 • 25 mins
Indie Filmmaker
Filmmaker Ben Sottak takes us through his journey of making his first horror feature film "Hallowarrior" sharing the creative and financial realities of independent film making. Seven years after writing the first draft of his script, Ben finally brought his vision to life through private equity funding and state tax incentives. If you ever dreamed of making a feature film but wondered what it really takes? This is the episode for you!
Topics
0:00 Introduction
1:29 Ben Sotak's Path to Directing
3:39 Why Horror Is the Perfect Genre
5:18 Thinking of budget while writing
7:05 The process with actors
8:54 shooting out of sequence
10:50 length of pre-production
15:35 Financing and Distribution Strategy
19:02 Advice for Aspiring Filmmakers
24:23 The Rewards of Feature Filmmaking
Resources
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Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
There's all these sort of tax incentives.
You can make a movie for amillion dollars and then get 60%
of that budget back.
So you have a million dollarlooking movie.
After the incentives come back,was made for $400,000.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hi, welcome back to how Much Can I Make.
I'm Eravu Zeri, and today I'mjoined by filmmaker Ben Sotak,
who just finished shooting hisvery first feature film.
It is called Hollow Warrior, atake on Halloween.
I was introduced to Ben byRobin Feldman, a producer that
we featured on our February 11thepisode.
(00:37):
It's really a good episode.
Definitely check it out if youhaven't already.
Anyway, back to filmmaking.
Plenty of people dream aboutmaking movies.
It's sexy, it's nice, but veryfew actually do.
Only about two and a halfpercent of NYU grads go on to
make feature films, and thenumber is even smaller with UCLA
(00:58):
and Columbia.
So the fact that Ben hasactually reached this milestone
is a big deal.
So let's just dive right in andhear what it really takes to
start a career in film.
First of all, thank you fordoing it.
I was really looking forward toit.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Of course.
Sorry, I was a little hard totrack down.
No, it's fine, busy couple ofmonths, but I'm glad we were
able to connect.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, me too, and I'm really curious to hear your
story.
So why don't we start bytelling us how did you get into
filmmaking?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I went to NYU film school, knew I wanted to be a
filmmaker, wanted to be adirector.
Going in, made a bunch of shortfilms, as one does in film
school as director, but thosewere all sort of like student
films and then when I graduatedI needed to find a job, were all
sort of like student films andthen when I graduated I needed
to find a job and a friend ofmine recommended me to be a post
production assistant on on likea big studio comedy.
(01:50):
It was like an MGM barbershopmovie with Ice Cube and Nicki
Minaj, and he was like, do youwant to do this?
It's at the time, in 2015.
I think they're offering melike $750 a week, which, for I,
was like that's, I can live likea king.
It's like $500 after taxes,that was, but that was 2015.
(02:10):
And I was, you know, fresh outof college and living in East
Harlem.
So I started doing that.
All the like technical stuffthat I've learned over the last
couple years, from starting as apost PA and working my way up
to an apprentice editor andassistant editor, even though it
wasn't the path that I wantedto be on professionally, I still
wanted to direct.
It's actually really helping meout with my direction now.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So your dream is to be a director?
Yes, that's what you want to do.
So I looked, by the way, thecommercials on your website.
You directed them or justedited them?
Yes, you directed them.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Everything on my website I directed.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
How do you get gigs like this?
It's not that easy.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So it's very, very new and I didn't really I
considered myself a director anda filmmaker because that's what
you have to do for like thelast 10 years.
But it really wasn't until thelast three, four months that
I've actually gotten paid as one.
But essentially, you know, Ialways wanted to make a feature
film and I did finally, aftermany years.
We shot in in November and thenwe actually shot a little bit
(03:07):
of footage for it last week.
So now it's officially like andyou wrote it, I wrote it.
Yeah, I wrote the first draftseven years ago.
You know I've been lucky that,even though I've worked
professionally as an editor,even though you know, I've just
been sort of likeself-generating a lot of my
stuff, I've I've gottenrepresentation because of my and
because of my short films.
So my manager has been sendingmy stuff out over the years and
(03:28):
you know we've tried to get thismovie made for like seven years
and finally, just throughprivate equity, pulled it
together and made it happen thispast fall.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You're doing a horror film, right?
Yes, why did you choose thatgenre?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I love it At film school.
I went into film school lovingall types of movies but not
really having like a focus forthe types of films I wanted to
make Tried out comedies, triedout trying to do something a
little bit more dramatic.
Found out that I didn't reallyhave that interesting of a life
story or something thatinteresting to say, so I had to
kind of get creative with it.
And I think horror is like thegenre to be able to be creative
(04:04):
in for not that much money.
Like if you have talentedpeople and I'm lucky enough to
work with really talentedcinematographers and makeup and
production designers you don'tneed a lot of money.
I would say horror relative tosay like fantasy or sci-fi or
like historical epics the thingsthat we think of when we think
of like cinema and and thingsbeing epic.
(04:26):
I think horror is relativelyinexpensive because people in a
house, the house can look like ahouse and the people can look
like people, but then you spendthe money on one thing which is
like the monster.
You know you don't.
You don't need like a wholebunch of other crazy extras or
production design.
It is relatively inexpensivegenre to work in and really I
think it's like one of the onlygenres that is still expressive,
(04:48):
Like it's not.
It's not a literal genre.
You can make moonlight lookblue and cold, which is not what
moonlight looks like.
Blood can be bright red.
It's almost experimental inthat way.
It's almost like anexperimental painting.
So that's that's why I love it,and you don't have to spend
that much money for people to belike oh, that was a really cool
effect.
How did you explode that guy'shand?
And then you tell them likeit's just makeup artists with a
(05:10):
fire extinguisher, hose of bloodinto a fake hand and two people
on either side pulling Peopleare like, oh, that looks amazing
.
Like, yeah, it probably costslike $30 worth of materials at
Home Depot, but we hiredtalented people and they made it
look cool.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So when you wrote it were you constantly thinking oh
no, that would be too much moneyto shoot a scene like this.
And you change the scene.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I wasn't being too budget conscious when I wrote it
, but I was thinking like scalewise, what am I good at and what
can I do with my first feature?
The first third of the movie isjust this one actress alone, so
that already was a budget saver.
Most of it takes place in onehouse.
That was a budget saver.
And then, when the people doshow up, the rest of the cast is
only about eight people.
(05:51):
But we allocated the budget, Ithink, smartly on good actors
and then putting them in coolmakeup and giving them some cool
kills.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
But they're SAG actors.
That's not so cheap.
You have to pay them scaleright.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, you have to pay them scale and if you go
over time you can feel whenyou're.
You know you go over whateverthe allotted time is on set.
Everybody gets kind of stressedout because it's like every
minute is like that's money.
There's just so much chaos andlike the minute you show up to
set the clock starts ticking andthen you have 12 hours to shoot
.
In our movie it's all set inone night.
So movie it's all set in onenight.
(06:28):
So we were shooting overnightsso for a month and change we
would show up at 4 pm to workand leave at 5 am and go sleep
for a few hours and then comeback and do it again and you
just get there.
Just wasn't time to like sitaround and kind of ponder and be
like, yeah, what if you said itthis way?
Like you're under the gun andeverything's going wrong and
there's blizzards and like gearisn't working.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So you're like let's just shoot it, like if we shoot
anything it must feel great whenyou hear the actors say the
lines that you wrote, that cameout of your mind it definitely
is.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Feels even better when they um, improvise and come
up with better writing than Idid.
That also feels way better.
You're like yeah, because I getto take credit for that so what
was the process like?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
tell me you.
Send them the script.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
My lead actress, millie, who's is phenomenal and
she and I connected about theproject like five years ago she
liked the script.
Every year I would try and getthe movie made and we would get
a little bit closer, and thensomething would fall through and
it would be like, oh, maybenext year, but I would just keep
her in the loop.
I'd be like, hey, you know,just checking in, I think it's
(07:28):
gonna happen.
You know, here's the latestscript and she was very sweet
and went right back be like oh,I love the new script.
Keep me posted.
Finally, when we were about togo, she and I met up and you
know we didn't get to do arehearsal, but we'd at least met
in person ahead of time.
She showed me her script thatshe had broken down and I showed
her mine, and you know we justtalked a little bit about the
characters.
She's so talented and, likeshe's won a Tony, she comes from
(07:51):
theater, yes, yeah, from um.
She was Matilda on Broadway.
Yeah, she was just incrediblyprepared, which was really what
I needed so okay.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So you knew she came from theater, she got one, a
Tony, and all of that, so shemust be good.
But how did you know that theother people will be good?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
the second lead, ajani.
I had worked with them beforethey were in my short film.
I just knew that they had adifferent process than Millie.
Like Millie's very analyticaland and works with with her
acting coach and is reallytrained and like knows how to
break down a script and likeyou'd be like Millie, I need you
to sorry, I need you to juststart crying, like in this field
and it's cold and I should belike all right and just do it.
(08:28):
You know, ajani is like a moviestar and like somebody who you
point a camera at them and theylook incredible and like if it's
a different sort of process andit's sort of like more a
conversation thing of likegetting them to a place where
they feel comfortable opening up.
The other actors, aj andShannon I just seen their movies
.
They're a little older than meand they've worked on a bunch of
films, so I just kind of knewto trust them.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Since it's happening in over one night, do you shoot
in sequence?
No, that's very difficult.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It's totally difficult.
What saved us?
Yeah, it's one house one night.
Every scene has like, well,they carry this prop into this
room and they fire this crossbow, so then they can't use that
crossbow, so then they have likea knife in this room.
It was a continuity nightmare.
Fortunately, we had an amazingscript supervisor, a gentleman
named david b jacobs, who'sbrilliant.
He just kept me honest thewhole time, like we'd be
(09:17):
shooting a scene that we'dstarted like two weeks earlier,
and he was like you know, that'ssupposed to be over there and
this door was closed when shecame in and this prop is.
But he was the only reason thatthe movie actually like cuts
together.
And then you have stuff likethere's.
There's the continuity of props, continuity of makeup and
costume, and then there's theeyeline debate.
There's the concept of like theone 80 degree line where, like,
(09:39):
you have to have the eyelinesconsistent, of like where each
character is looking, otherwiseit gets confusing and like the
audience has a hard timefollowing and doing that.
We're like we'd shoot one partof a scene two weeks before and
then like the other part, butone of the actors had left, so
it's somebody just like readinglines.
It's a testament to the crewthat, like all the eye lines in
this movie are are on point.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
How many shooting days?
In total, 20.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
That's not bad, it sounds not bad.
And then it just you show up at4 pm and then it's like all of
a sudden 4 am and you're likewhere did 12 hours go?
And we've already pushed this,we've pushed the scene to the
next day because we couldn't getto it.
It's not bad, but it's.
I thought I had written apretty like easy first, not easy
, but like like I'd set myselfup for success with the first
(10:22):
feature.
But you know it's set in aftersort of civilization collapse,
so there's no running power, soit's nighttime, but all the
light has to be motivated bycandles.
So, like the house that we wereshooting in, we like you could
kind of see into every room ifyou flipped around.
So you had to reblock thingslike little things like that.
It's 20 days sounds like a lotof time, but it went very fast.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
The pre-production took how long?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I've been in pre-production on this movie for
like years in the pandemic likeshot a proof of concept a year
and a half before we were gonnamaybe possibly shoot it on film.
So like we did like a film test, I'm glad we didn't.
That would have been a fuckingnightmare.
It's been years of me locationscouts to pennsylvania to like
maryland, to like places that wedidn't even end up shooting and
(11:08):
storyboarding, talking with myDP trying to get the cast on
board.
It's like it's it's years andyou have to really love the
script and you have to reallylove doing this and that's why a
lot of people talk about by thewayside.
Yeah, exactly and even after wewrapped and I like I share this
anecdote all the time, but butlike we were basically like
putting up the crew at gradstudent dorms up in Syracuse
(11:32):
that's where everybody wasstaying and like the day or two
after we wrapped, there was avariety article, kind of like a
first look announcement,announcing the film and, like
you know, got so many texts andmessages on Instagram like, wow,
congrats, like must be so nice,blah, blah, blah.
I'm like wow, congrats, like itmust be so nice, blah, blah,
blah.
Even while that was happening,like me and my partner, emma
Jane, who produced it, like wewere just cleaning out rooms and
scrubbing toilets and like likethere was no rest.
(11:52):
It didn't feel like wow, you'vemade it.
It's like nope, it's still likethe same same nonsense as when
I was shooting my student films,but on just a bigger scale.
It like scratched an itch andnow I want to do it again.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Okay, so now you come to the editing.
Were there scenes that whileyou were shooting, you said oh,
I'll fix it in the editing?
You were compromising.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yes, not by choice.
There were definitely momentswhere it was like we're just
going to have to figure this outin post, but it wasn't because
of like laziness.
I can give you an example.
Okay, there's a scene in themovie where a character with a
lighter and an aerosol lightsanother character's head on fire
.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh my god, horror is right.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
We were planning to do it practically, meaning all
the actors playing thesecharacters who are getting
killed off are our professionalstunt actors, and we were going
to light this girl's head onfire.
For for real, it was as plannedout as we were able to get it
um.
You know it involves likecontacting the local fire
department, oh my god, with afire team that makes like a
(12:57):
special cream that goes on, thatmakes it safe.
And then, of course, theactress has, like she like, sent
her real and she's like I'vebeen lit on fire like 10 times
like her.
The first thing in the reel islike we're on 10 times Like her.
The first thing in the reel islike we're on fire, like all
these stunt people.
The first thing in the reel islike them being lit on fire.
They're crazy.
And we found out to like do itpractically, to do it the way
when it was gonna take likeeight hours for like one shot.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh no, that's impossible.
Just to do it all safely.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And, like me and my partner who's my producer, we
just kind of made the executivedecision of we can do this, we
can try and figure this out withVFX.
I basically shot it in a waythat was like we can either do
this well with VFX or we can cutaround it and it'll still be
effective and still have apayoff.
But that was.
You know, that wasdisappointing because I wanted
to safely light someone's headon fire.
(13:41):
It would have been spectacular.
But the decision was madebecause that was like our second
to last day and we were owed somuch coverage for the rest of
the movie.
We had so many like incompletescenes, little moments where
like, if we didn't get those themovie would literally, you know
, it would be like a cartoonwhere it's like insert shot here
because we just didn't get it.
So it was a compromise, but wasone that I I'm glad we made and
(14:06):
I'm I was thinking ahead tojust like, look, I can cut
around and compromise that, butlike I can't compromise like
elements of the story that arejust going to be like incomplete
, like we need to go shoot thatstuff and we can't waste eight
hours on one shot how long doyou think the editing will take?
for for independent films wherethere's no like set studio like
it needs to release this date.
It's general rule of thumb islike all of post-production, so
(14:28):
not just the edit but like vfxcolor, sound design, it's
usually like nine months to ayear after principal has wrapped
.
It takes a long fucking time.
This is not a long movie either, like gonna be like basically
an hour and a half, but but it'sso much a year, nine months to
wow.
I spent a look.
I spent I started cutting at7am this morning, emailed with
(14:52):
you once and then it was.
I looked at the clock and I waslike, oh, it's seven, like are
we still?
Are we still talking?
And I just been working on likethe opening, like title
sequence, but you want to takeyour time with it and I like
want to understand the footage.
I want to be able to, like whenI watch the final DCP of the
movie.
Never be like looking at melike this insert, do we have a
better, did we have a betterversion of it?
(15:12):
And I just didn't use it.
I want to know it inside andout and, like, even for a movie,
that's not that long.
It takes time to sit there andwatch and try things, not that
long.
It takes time to sit there andwatch and try things.
I'd like to at some pointscreen it before we've blocked
the cut so that people can belike, hey, this doesn't make
sense, this wasn't so beforeit's like too late and then
you're like well, yeah, thatwould be terrible.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
How did you get the money to produce a feature film?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Part of how we were able to get the budget that we
got and a lot of filmmakers dothis is by stacking like state
incentives.
So we shot new york state, weshot upstate and then we shot in
onondaga county and there's allthese sort of tax incentives.
You can make a movie for youhave to get the equity up front,
but you can make a movie for amillion dollars and then get 60
(15:55):
of that budget back.
So you have a million dollarlooking movie that you only
after the incentives come back,was made for $400,000.
Wow it helps mitigate your risk.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
How did you learn all of those ins and outs?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I have good producers who I work with, who, who, who
I like literally ate, like.
There came a point where I gotlike so frustrated, like a
toddler, when we were trying tolike put this together and I was
like, Can you explain this tome?
Like I'm four years old, likeslowly, what does this mean?
Go to the chalkboard, drop out.
And they were nice enough to dothat.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Robin told me that you got distribution.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
No, we have sales agents and they pre-sold a few
foreign territories for us.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
That's a success?
Yeah, no, it's.
I mean, and a lot of that wasbased on the strength of the
cast, but no, we don't havedistribution yet and we won't
until we start exhibiting thefilm.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Okay, that's what I want to know.
Where will you exhibit it?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Ideally we premiere at a festival.
It's not necessary because weare lucky enough, through my
representation at Cinetic, tohave both foreign and domestic
sales, so they could in theoryjust take it to market.
But it is important to me thatonce the film is complete, at
least try to screen at afestival, because I think it'd
be nice.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
You know it's a holiday movie, it's a Halloween
movie, so like ideally, if itdoes get a release, whether
that's VOD, ideally it would bereleased in October.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Around that time Will you get to see it on a big
screen or, because it was shotdigital, it will be streaming.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Movies shot digital do get theatrical releases.
We don't know what kind ofrelease it will get, but I will
get to see it on a big screenwhen you go in to do like the
color grading and the sound mix.
You watch it on like a bigmovie theater, calibrated screen
, which is great.
And then the part of why theyhave to like watch something on
(17:44):
a big which is the dreamfestival you want to get into I
don't want to say because Idon't want to jinx it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Okay, that's very smart, very small I'm
superstitious about it I'm thesame way.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Anyway, I would like to know what is the biggest
challenge for a director thebiggest challenge as a director
is appearing to be calm evenwhen nobody else is prepared and
we have the wrong prop crossbowor the wrong prop gun and like
the makeup effect isn't working,the actor doesn't know their
(18:18):
lines, everybody's complaining,there's a blizzard.
Robin, when I gave good advicewhen I was going into
pre-production that you know theattitude comes from the top
down, so she was like you haveto look calm, you have to look
confident.
I would say that's the biggestchallenge.
I feel like I'm decent at that.
There's other parts ofdirecting that I'm pretty bad at
, but I am good at at leastappearing calm and
(18:38):
disassociating through theexperience until I get home and
I'm like pouring myself awhiskey and like what the fuck
just happened for the last 15hours on set.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
What advice would you give somebody who want to
become a filmmaker?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Do they have to go to school?
You definitely don't have to goto film school.
You definitely don't have topay to go to college.
You can make connections bygoing and working in the
industry and not going intostudent debt and going into debt
trying to fund your own films.
But I mean, this is likeannoying advice, but it is true,
like if you want to be afilmmaker you have to make films
(19:12):
.
With whatever resources,connections, crew, props you
have available.
For me, like working a day jobin editing and earning my health
care through, through that, andI was still always, whenever I
could, making films and theywere just getting better and
better.
You know whether it was likelittle spec commercials, short
(19:32):
films right.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So how many short films did you make before you
tackle the feature?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Probably like 15?
.
Wow, I mean, if you're countinglike music videos and right like
since I like wrote the scriptevery year that it didn't get
made, I was like this sucks,like this I should, we should
have made it this year.
But I'm actually like I'mgrateful that it took as long as
it did because, like in thattime I was just like honing my
craft.
It's been said before there'sno prodigies in filmmaking.
(20:00):
It's not an art form like whereyou can just be naturally
gifted like.
It just doesn't happen and youhave to make a bunch of bad to
mediocre to good films beforeyou start to realize, like, okay
, this is what works, this isthe mistakes I've made.
You got to start shooting stuffand to that end and this was
(20:21):
something that was in my headwhile we were shooting the
difference between somebody whosays they want to make a movie
and doesn't, and then StevenSpielberg or Paul Thomas
Anderson or even, just like me,joe Schmo, who, like made a film
is like there's going to be somany obstacles stacked against
you doing it, like permits andweather, and like acts of God
(20:44):
and actors who don't know theirlines and like all sorts of
crazy shit.
But the filmmakers that yourespect are the ones that like
had all that shit thrown at them.
Spielberg trying to like makejaws, and the shark was sinking
into the ocean oh, I didn't knowand yeah, it was a fucking
nightmare.
The people who are filmmakersjust kept shooting anyways and
and any.
There were so many days where,like the old me would have shown
(21:06):
up to set and like somethingdisastrous was happening and I
would have just been like let'sjust fucking go home.
But during the film I was likewe're still shooting something.
We got to get like at least oneof these scenes down and some
of the stuff that's in thecutter from those those days,
and I'm glad we just keptshooting.
Oh, here's another piece ofadvice.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I see a lot of filmmakers who say too much post
on social media like bigproject happening, watch this
page, and then nothing everhappens.
And I've almost done stuff likethat in the past.
But I've learned from like howthis industry works and how
difficult it is for things toget off the ground Like don't
talk about it until it's likehappening.
Like I didn't say anythingabout the movie because I was so
(21:45):
worried.
You know, we were going to dolike a press release in like the
weeks leading up to it and I'mlike what if something falls
through?
Because stuff always fallsthrough.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Right and then, like we don't talk about it, just go
do it.
Find good producers who aretype A and have that kind of
like mindset of how to run thislike a business, so that you can
go off and make your crazy art.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
That's a good advice.
What's the biggestmisconception about independent
filmmakers?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
That we're all pretentious, um, most are, but
some are like me who are justlike here to make a fun horror
movie.
Um, and that's that's ourcreative expression.
I'm not trying to win an oscar,but make something that people
think is cool, um, and that Ifind cool is that the genre you
want to stay in?
yeah, I want to always be makinghorror movies, but I don't only
(22:37):
want to be making horror movies.
It'd be cool to do somethingstill genre I don't see myself
making like manchester by thesea or something about like a
strange brothers in boston fallasleep while doing it exactly
like there would have to be,like an alien or you know sea
creature or something that showsup, uh.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So yeah, definitely want to stay in genre filmmaking
for the rest of my my time okay, before we go, I want to know
what advice would you have givenyourself before you went to
film school.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I think about this all the time.
I should have been moreambitious in film school and
been like, let's just take thisgear and try and shoot a feature
, even if it's bad.
One thing I really appreciateabout the NYU education they did
drill into you that you have totake this somewhat seriously
and it's a safety thing.
(23:26):
You're dealing with long hours,heavy and expensive equipment,
heavy and expensive lights.
If you're doing something withstunts or something with makeup,
that's like stuff that's goingon a human being's body you have
to take that seriously.
So that got drilled into myhead and I was very cautious and
I have been, have been verycautious and like if I'm going
to do something, I want to do itright.
That said, I would give myselfthe advice that you and all your
(23:48):
friends are like in college.
You have very little overheadnow, you know, trying to put
this movie together, even thoughI was hiring a bunch of my
friends like they're all late20s, early 30s, trying to like
make a living in filmmaking andyou have to pay these people
because it's weeks and months oftheir lives.
But if I had done that back infilm school, like would have
been free.
Yeah, you could buy yourfriend's pizza.
(24:08):
I probably would have made aterrible movie.
But I would say I would givemyself the advice to like just
go for it.
But that's also sort of what Idid at 31, just like on a
slightly bigger scale, when weshot this movie.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, it must feel good.
What is the biggest reward foryou?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's like twofold, like it's pretty cool to do it
with like people that you loveand like do it with your friends
.
They lift you up.
You lift them up because it's acollaborative medium, so like
we all sit around and like lookat the image and it's like you
shot this beautifully, you litthis beautifully, you production
design this.
The makeup looks so cool, thisacting is so great.
(24:47):
So it's cool like when it allgels and you can kind of see
like where everybody did theirbest.
For me, honestly, it's justlike the bragging rights to all
my other filmmaker friends whohaven't made a feature is to be
like yep shot the thing.
We'll see, we'll see how itgoes, we'll see if anybody likes
it.
But, um, it does feel like I'vecleared a a hurdle and of
course not everybody makes afeature film yeah, and and I'd
(25:08):
always said too like I just Icould really like see this one
in my head.
I really cared about thesecharacters and I'm still saying
it like if this is the only oneI get to make, it's, it's the
one I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
That's great, and I hope you make a lot more Well.
I want to thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Well, thank you for having me All right, of course,
thank you.
All right, have a good evening.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You too.
Bye-bye, okay.
That's a wrap for today.
If you have a comment orquestion or would like us to
cover a certain job, please letus know.
Visit our website athowmuchcanimakeinfo.
We would love to hear from you.
And, on your way out, don'tforget to subscribe and share
this episode with anyone who iscurious about their next job.
(25:52):
See you next time.
There's all these sort of tax incentives.
You can make a movie for amillion dollars and then get 60%
of that budget back.
So you have a million dollarlooking movie.
After the incentives come back,was made for $400,000.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hi, welcome back to how Much Can I Make.
I'm Eravu Zeri, and today I'mjoined by filmmaker Ben Sotak,
who just finished shooting hisvery first feature film.
It is called Hollow Warrior, atake on Halloween.
I was introduced to Ben byRobin Feldman, a producer that
we featured on our February 11thepisode.
(00:37):
It's really a good episode.
Definitely check it out if youhaven't already.
Anyway, back to filmmaking.
Plenty of people dream aboutmaking movies.
It's sexy, it's nice, but veryfew actually do.
Only about two and a halfpercent of NYU grads go on to
make feature films, and thenumber is even smaller with UCLA
(00:58):
and Columbia.
So the fact that Ben hasactually reached this milestone
is a big deal.
So let's just dive right in andhear what it really takes to
start a career in film.
First of all, thank you fordoing it.
I was really looking forward toit.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Of course.
Sorry, I was a little hard totrack down.
No, it's fine, busy couple ofmonths, but I'm glad we were
able to connect.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, me too, and I'm really curious to hear your
story.
So why don't we start bytelling us how did you get into
filmmaking?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I went to NYU film school, knew I wanted to be a
filmmaker, wanted to be adirector.
Going in, made a bunch of shortfilms, as one does in film
school as director, but thosewere all sort of like student
films and then when I graduatedI needed to find a job, were all
sort of like student films andthen when I graduated I needed
to find a job and a friend ofmine recommended me to be a post
production assistant on on likea big studio comedy.
(01:50):
It was like an MGM barbershopmovie with Ice Cube and Nicki
Minaj, and he was like, do youwant to do this?
It's at the time, in 2015.
I think they're offering melike $750 a week, which, for I,
was like that's, I can live likea king.
It's like $500 after taxes,that was, but that was 2015.
(02:10):
And I was, you know, fresh outof college and living in East
Harlem.
So I started doing that.
All the like technical stuffthat I've learned over the last
couple years, from starting as apost PA and working my way up
to an apprentice editor andassistant editor, even though it
wasn't the path that I wantedto be on professionally, I still
wanted to direct.
It's actually really helping meout with my direction now.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So your dream is to be a director?
Yes, that's what you want to do.
So I looked, by the way, thecommercials on your website.
You directed them or justedited them?
Yes, you directed them.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Everything on my website I directed.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
How do you get gigs like this?
It's not that easy.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So it's very, very new and I didn't really I
considered myself a director anda filmmaker because that's what
you have to do for like thelast 10 years.
But it really wasn't until thelast three, four months that
I've actually gotten paid as one.
But essentially, you know, Ialways wanted to make a feature
film and I did finally, aftermany years.
We shot in in November and thenwe actually shot a little bit
(03:07):
of footage for it last week.
So now it's officially like andyou wrote it, I wrote it.
Yeah, I wrote the first draftseven years ago.
You know I've been lucky that,even though I've worked
professionally as an editor,even though you know, I've just
been sort of likeself-generating a lot of my
stuff, I've I've gottenrepresentation because of my and
because of my short films.
So my manager has been sendingmy stuff out over the years and
(03:28):
you know we've tried to get thismovie made for like seven years
and finally, just throughprivate equity, pulled it
together and made it happen thispast fall.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You're doing a horror film, right?
Yes, why did you choose thatgenre?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I love it At film school.
I went into film school lovingall types of movies but not
really having like a focus forthe types of films I wanted to
make Tried out comedies, triedout trying to do something a
little bit more dramatic.
Found out that I didn't reallyhave that interesting of a life
story or something thatinteresting to say, so I had to
kind of get creative with it.
And I think horror is like thegenre to be able to be creative
(04:04):
in for not that much money.
Like if you have talentedpeople and I'm lucky enough to
work with really talentedcinematographers and makeup and
production designers you don'tneed a lot of money.
I would say horror relative tosay like fantasy or sci-fi or
like historical epics the thingsthat we think of when we think
of like cinema and and thingsbeing epic.
(04:26):
I think horror is relativelyinexpensive because people in a
house, the house can look like ahouse and the people can look
like people, but then you spendthe money on one thing which is
like the monster.
You know you don't.
You don't need like a wholebunch of other crazy extras or
production design.
It is relatively inexpensivegenre to work in and really I
think it's like one of the onlygenres that is still expressive,
(04:48):
Like it's not.
It's not a literal genre.
You can make moonlight lookblue and cold, which is not what
moonlight looks like.
Blood can be bright red.
It's almost experimental inthat way.
It's almost like anexperimental painting.
So that's that's why I love it,and you don't have to spend
that much money for people to belike oh, that was a really cool
effect.
How did you explode that guy'shand?
And then you tell them likeit's just makeup artists with a
(05:10):
fire extinguisher, hose of bloodinto a fake hand and two people
on either side pulling Peopleare like, oh, that looks amazing
.
Like, yeah, it probably costslike $30 worth of materials at
Home Depot, but we hiredtalented people and they made it
look cool.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So when you wrote it were you constantly thinking oh
no, that would be too much moneyto shoot a scene like this.
And you change the scene.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I wasn't being too budget conscious when I wrote it
, but I was thinking like scalewise, what am I good at and what
can I do with my first feature?
The first third of the movie isjust this one actress alone, so
that already was a budget saver.
Most of it takes place in onehouse.
That was a budget saver.
And then, when the people doshow up, the rest of the cast is
only about eight people.
(05:51):
But we allocated the budget, Ithink, smartly on good actors
and then putting them in coolmakeup and giving them some cool
kills.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
But they're SAG actors.
That's not so cheap.
You have to pay them scaleright.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, you have to pay them scale and if you go
over time you can feel whenyou're.
You know you go over whateverthe allotted time is on set.
Everybody gets kind of stressedout because it's like every
minute is like that's money.
There's just so much chaos andlike the minute you show up to
set the clock starts ticking andthen you have 12 hours to shoot
.
In our movie it's all set inone night.
So movie it's all set in onenight.
(06:28):
So we were shooting overnightsso for a month and change we
would show up at 4 pm to workand leave at 5 am and go sleep
for a few hours and then comeback and do it again and you
just get there.
Just wasn't time to like sitaround and kind of ponder and be
like, yeah, what if you said itthis way?
Like you're under the gun andeverything's going wrong and
there's blizzards and like gearisn't working.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So you're like let's just shoot it, like if we shoot
anything it must feel great whenyou hear the actors say the
lines that you wrote, that cameout of your mind it definitely
is.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Feels even better when they um, improvise and come
up with better writing than Idid.
That also feels way better.
You're like yeah, because I getto take credit for that so what
was the process like?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
tell me you.
Send them the script.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
My lead actress, millie, who's is phenomenal and
she and I connected about theproject like five years ago she
liked the script.
Every year I would try and getthe movie made and we would get
a little bit closer, and thensomething would fall through and
it would be like, oh, maybenext year, but I would just keep
her in the loop.
I'd be like, hey, you know,just checking in, I think it's
(07:28):
gonna happen.
You know, here's the latestscript and she was very sweet
and went right back be like oh,I love the new script.
Keep me posted.
Finally, when we were about togo, she and I met up and you
know we didn't get to do arehearsal, but we'd at least met
in person ahead of time.
She showed me her script thatshe had broken down and I showed
her mine, and you know we justtalked a little bit about the
characters.
She's so talented and, likeshe's won a Tony, she comes from
(07:51):
theater, yes, yeah, from um.
She was Matilda on Broadway.
Yeah, she was just incrediblyprepared, which was really what
I needed so okay.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So you knew she came from theater, she got one, a
Tony, and all of that, so shemust be good.
But how did you know that theother people will be good?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
the second lead, ajani.
I had worked with them beforethey were in my short film.
I just knew that they had adifferent process than Millie.
Like Millie's very analyticaland and works with with her
acting coach and is reallytrained and like knows how to
break down a script and likeyou'd be like Millie, I need you
to sorry, I need you to juststart crying, like in this field
and it's cold and I should belike all right and just do it.
(08:28):
You know, ajani is like a moviestar and like somebody who you
point a camera at them and theylook incredible and like if it's
a different sort of process andit's sort of like more a
conversation thing of likegetting them to a place where
they feel comfortable opening up.
The other actors, aj andShannon I just seen their movies
.
They're a little older than meand they've worked on a bunch of
films, so I just kind of knewto trust them.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Since it's happening in over one night, do you shoot
in sequence?
No, that's very difficult.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It's totally difficult.
What saved us?
Yeah, it's one house one night.
Every scene has like, well,they carry this prop into this
room and they fire this crossbow, so then they can't use that
crossbow, so then they have likea knife in this room.
It was a continuity nightmare.
Fortunately, we had an amazingscript supervisor, a gentleman
named david b jacobs, who'sbrilliant.
He just kept me honest thewhole time, like we'd be
(09:17):
shooting a scene that we'dstarted like two weeks earlier,
and he was like you know, that'ssupposed to be over there and
this door was closed when shecame in and this prop is.
But he was the only reason thatthe movie actually like cuts
together.
And then you have stuff likethere's.
There's the continuity of props, continuity of makeup and
costume, and then there's theeyeline debate.
There's the concept of like theone 80 degree line where, like,
(09:39):
you have to have the eyelinesconsistent, of like where each
character is looking, otherwiseit gets confusing and like the
audience has a hard timefollowing and doing that.
We're like we'd shoot one partof a scene two weeks before and
then like the other part, butone of the actors had left, so
it's somebody just like readinglines.
It's a testament to the crewthat, like all the eye lines in
this movie are are on point.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
How many shooting days?
In total, 20.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
That's not bad, it sounds not bad.
And then it just you show up at4 pm and then it's like all of
a sudden 4 am and you're likewhere did 12 hours go?
And we've already pushed this,we've pushed the scene to the
next day because we couldn't getto it.
It's not bad, but it's.
I thought I had written apretty like easy first, not easy
, but like like I'd set myselfup for success with the first
(10:22):
feature.
But you know it's set in aftersort of civilization collapse,
so there's no running power, soit's nighttime, but all the
light has to be motivated bycandles.
So, like the house that we wereshooting in, we like you could
kind of see into every room ifyou flipped around.
So you had to reblock thingslike little things like that.
It's 20 days sounds like a lotof time, but it went very fast.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
The pre-production took how long?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I've been in pre-production on this movie for
like years in the pandemic likeshot a proof of concept a year
and a half before we were gonnamaybe possibly shoot it on film.
So like we did like a film test, I'm glad we didn't.
That would have been a fuckingnightmare.
It's been years of me locationscouts to pennsylvania to like
maryland, to like places that wedidn't even end up shooting and
(11:08):
storyboarding, talking with myDP trying to get the cast on
board.
It's like it's it's years andyou have to really love the
script and you have to reallylove doing this and that's why a
lot of people talk about by thewayside.
Yeah, exactly and even after wewrapped and I like I share this
anecdote all the time, but butlike we were basically like
putting up the crew at gradstudent dorms up in Syracuse
(11:32):
that's where everybody wasstaying and like the day or two
after we wrapped, there was avariety article, kind of like a
first look announcement,announcing the film and, like
you know, got so many texts andmessages on Instagram like, wow,
congrats, like must be so nice,blah, blah, blah.
I'm like wow, congrats, like itmust be so nice, blah, blah,
blah.
Even while that was happening,like me and my partner, emma
Jane, who produced it, like wewere just cleaning out rooms and
scrubbing toilets and like likethere was no rest.
(11:52):
It didn't feel like wow, you'vemade it.
It's like nope, it's still likethe same same nonsense as when
I was shooting my student films,but on just a bigger scale.
It like scratched an itch andnow I want to do it again.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Okay, so now you come to the editing.
Were there scenes that whileyou were shooting, you said oh,
I'll fix it in the editing?
You were compromising.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yes, not by choice.
There were definitely momentswhere it was like we're just
going to have to figure this outin post, but it wasn't because
of like laziness.
I can give you an example.
Okay, there's a scene in themovie where a character with a
lighter and an aerosol lightsanother character's head on fire
.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh my god, horror is right.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
We were planning to do it practically, meaning all
the actors playing thesecharacters who are getting
killed off are our professionalstunt actors, and we were going
to light this girl's head onfire.
For for real, it was as plannedout as we were able to get it
um.
You know it involves likecontacting the local fire
department, oh my god, with afire team that makes like a
(12:57):
special cream that goes on, thatmakes it safe.
And then, of course, theactress has, like she like, sent
her real and she's like I'vebeen lit on fire like 10 times
like her.
The first thing in the reel islike we're on 10 times Like her.
The first thing in the reel islike we're on fire, like all
these stunt people.
The first thing in the reel islike them being lit on fire.
They're crazy.
And we found out to like do itpractically, to do it the way
when it was gonna take likeeight hours for like one shot.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh no, that's impossible.
Just to do it all safely.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And, like me and my partner who's my producer, we
just kind of made the executivedecision of we can do this, we
can try and figure this out withVFX.
I basically shot it in a waythat was like we can either do
this well with VFX or we can cutaround it and it'll still be
effective and still have apayoff.
But that was.
You know, that wasdisappointing because I wanted
to safely light someone's headon fire.
(13:41):
It would have been spectacular.
But the decision was madebecause that was like our second
to last day and we were owed somuch coverage for the rest of
the movie.
We had so many like incompletescenes, little moments where
like, if we didn't get those themovie would literally, you know
, it would be like a cartoonwhere it's like insert shot here
because we just didn't get it.
So it was a compromise, but wasone that I I'm glad we made and
(14:06):
I'm I was thinking ahead tojust like, look, I can cut
around and compromise that, butlike I can't compromise like
elements of the story that arejust going to be like incomplete
, like we need to go shoot thatstuff and we can't waste eight
hours on one shot how long doyou think the editing will take?
for for independent films wherethere's no like set studio like
it needs to release this date.
It's general rule of thumb islike all of post-production, so
(14:28):
not just the edit but like vfxcolor, sound design, it's
usually like nine months to ayear after principal has wrapped
.
It takes a long fucking time.
This is not a long movie either, like gonna be like basically
an hour and a half, but but it'sso much a year, nine months to
wow.
I spent a look.
I spent I started cutting at7am this morning, emailed with
(14:52):
you once and then it was.
I looked at the clock and I waslike, oh, it's seven, like are
we still?
Are we still talking?
And I just been working on likethe opening, like title
sequence, but you want to takeyour time with it and I like
want to understand the footage.
I want to be able to, like whenI watch the final DCP of the
movie.
Never be like looking at melike this insert, do we have a
better, did we have a betterversion of it?
(15:12):
And I just didn't use it.
I want to know it inside andout and, like, even for a movie,
that's not that long.
It takes time to sit there andwatch and try things, not that
long.
It takes time to sit there andwatch and try things.
I'd like to at some pointscreen it before we've blocked
the cut so that people can belike, hey, this doesn't make
sense, this wasn't so beforeit's like too late and then
you're like well, yeah, thatwould be terrible.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
How did you get the money to produce a feature film?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Part of how we were able to get the budget that we
got and a lot of filmmakers dothis is by stacking like state
incentives.
So we shot new york state, weshot upstate and then we shot in
onondaga county and there's allthese sort of tax incentives.
You can make a movie for youhave to get the equity up front,
but you can make a movie for amillion dollars and then get 60
(15:55):
of that budget back.
So you have a million dollarlooking movie that you only
after the incentives come back,was made for $400,000.
Wow it helps mitigate your risk.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
How did you learn all of those ins and outs?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I have good producers who I work with, who, who, who
I like literally ate, like.
There came a point where I gotlike so frustrated, like a
toddler, when we were trying tolike put this together and I was
like, Can you explain this tome?
Like I'm four years old, likeslowly, what does this mean?
Go to the chalkboard, drop out.
And they were nice enough to dothat.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Robin told me that you got distribution.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
No, we have sales agents and they pre-sold a few
foreign territories for us.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
That's a success?
Yeah, no, it's.
I mean, and a lot of that wasbased on the strength of the
cast, but no, we don't havedistribution yet and we won't
until we start exhibiting thefilm.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Okay, that's what I want to know.
Where will you exhibit it?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Ideally we premiere at a festival.
It's not necessary because weare lucky enough, through my
representation at Cinetic, tohave both foreign and domestic
sales, so they could in theoryjust take it to market.
But it is important to me thatonce the film is complete, at
least try to screen at afestival, because I think it'd
be nice.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
You know it's a holiday movie, it's a Halloween
movie, so like ideally, if itdoes get a release, whether
that's VOD, ideally it would bereleased in October.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Around that time Will you get to see it on a big
screen or, because it was shotdigital, it will be streaming.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Movies shot digital do get theatrical releases.
We don't know what kind ofrelease it will get, but I will
get to see it on a big screenwhen you go in to do like the
color grading and the sound mix.
You watch it on like a bigmovie theater, calibrated screen
, which is great.
And then the part of why theyhave to like watch something on
(17:44):
a big which is the dreamfestival you want to get into I
don't want to say because Idon't want to jinx it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Okay, that's very smart, very small I'm
superstitious about it I'm thesame way.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Anyway, I would like to know what is the biggest
challenge for a director thebiggest challenge as a director
is appearing to be calm evenwhen nobody else is prepared and
we have the wrong prop crossbowor the wrong prop gun and like
the makeup effect isn't working,the actor doesn't know their
(18:18):
lines, everybody's complaining,there's a blizzard.
Robin, when I gave good advicewhen I was going into
pre-production that you know theattitude comes from the top
down, so she was like you haveto look calm, you have to look
confident.
I would say that's the biggestchallenge.
I feel like I'm decent at that.
There's other parts ofdirecting that I'm pretty bad at
, but I am good at at leastappearing calm and
(18:38):
disassociating through theexperience until I get home and
I'm like pouring myself awhiskey and like what the fuck
just happened for the last 15hours on set.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
What advice would you give somebody who want to
become a filmmaker?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Do they have to go to school?
You definitely don't have to goto film school.
You definitely don't have topay to go to college.
You can make connections bygoing and working in the
industry and not going intostudent debt and going into debt
trying to fund your own films.
But I mean, this is likeannoying advice, but it is true,
like if you want to be afilmmaker you have to make films
(19:12):
.
With whatever resources,connections, crew, props you
have available.
For me, like working a day jobin editing and earning my health
care through, through that, andI was still always, whenever I
could, making films and theywere just getting better and
better.
You know whether it was likelittle spec commercials, short
(19:32):
films right.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So how many short films did you make before you
tackle the feature?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Probably like 15?
.
Wow, I mean, if you're countinglike music videos and right like
since I like wrote the scriptevery year that it didn't get
made, I was like this sucks,like this I should, we should
have made it this year.
But I'm actually like I'mgrateful that it took as long as
it did because, like in thattime I was just like honing my
craft.
It's been said before there'sno prodigies in filmmaking.
(20:00):
It's not an art form like whereyou can just be naturally
gifted like.
It just doesn't happen and youhave to make a bunch of bad to
mediocre to good films beforeyou start to realize, like, okay
, this is what works, this isthe mistakes I've made.
You got to start shooting stuffand to that end and this was
(20:21):
something that was in my headwhile we were shooting the
difference between somebody whosays they want to make a movie
and doesn't, and then StevenSpielberg or Paul Thomas
Anderson or even, just like me,joe Schmo, who, like made a film
is like there's going to be somany obstacles stacked against
you doing it, like permits andweather, and like acts of God
(20:44):
and actors who don't know theirlines and like all sorts of
crazy shit.
But the filmmakers that yourespect are the ones that like
had all that shit thrown at them.
Spielberg trying to like makejaws, and the shark was sinking
into the ocean oh, I didn't knowand yeah, it was a fucking
nightmare.
The people who are filmmakersjust kept shooting anyways and
and any.
There were so many days where,like the old me would have shown
(21:06):
up to set and like somethingdisastrous was happening and I
would have just been like let'sjust fucking go home.
But during the film I was likewe're still shooting something.
We got to get like at least oneof these scenes down and some
of the stuff that's in thecutter from those those days,
and I'm glad we just keptshooting.
Oh, here's another piece ofadvice.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I see a lot of filmmakers who say too much post
on social media like bigproject happening, watch this
page, and then nothing everhappens.
And I've almost done stuff likethat in the past.
But I've learned from like howthis industry works and how
difficult it is for things toget off the ground Like don't
talk about it until it's likehappening.
Like I didn't say anythingabout the movie because I was so
(21:45):
worried.
You know, we were going to dolike a press release in like the
weeks leading up to it and I'mlike what if something falls
through?
Because stuff always fallsthrough.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Right and then, like we don't talk about it, just go
do it.
Find good producers who aretype A and have that kind of
like mindset of how to run thislike a business, so that you can
go off and make your crazy art.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
That's a good advice.
What's the biggestmisconception about independent
filmmakers?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
That we're all pretentious, um, most are, but
some are like me who are justlike here to make a fun horror
movie.
Um, and that's that's ourcreative expression.
I'm not trying to win an oscar,but make something that people
think is cool, um, and that Ifind cool is that the genre you
want to stay in?
yeah, I want to always be makinghorror movies, but I don't only
(22:37):
want to be making horror movies.
It'd be cool to do somethingstill genre I don't see myself
making like manchester by thesea or something about like a
strange brothers in boston fallasleep while doing it exactly
like there would have to be,like an alien or you know sea
creature or something that showsup, uh.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So yeah, definitely want to stay in genre filmmaking
for the rest of my my time okay, before we go, I want to know
what advice would you have givenyourself before you went to
film school.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I think about this all the time.
I should have been moreambitious in film school and
been like, let's just take thisgear and try and shoot a feature
, even if it's bad.
One thing I really appreciateabout the NYU education they did
drill into you that you have totake this somewhat seriously
and it's a safety thing.
(23:26):
You're dealing with long hours,heavy and expensive equipment,
heavy and expensive lights.
If you're doing something withstunts or something with makeup,
that's like stuff that's goingon a human being's body you have
to take that seriously.
So that got drilled into myhead and I was very cautious and
I have been, have been verycautious and like if I'm going
to do something, I want to do itright.
That said, I would give myselfthe advice that you and all your
(23:48):
friends are like in college.
You have very little overheadnow, you know, trying to put
this movie together, even thoughI was hiring a bunch of my
friends like they're all late20s, early 30s, trying to like
make a living in filmmaking andyou have to pay these people
because it's weeks and months oftheir lives.
But if I had done that back infilm school, like would have
been free.
Yeah, you could buy yourfriend's pizza.
(24:08):
I probably would have made aterrible movie.
But I would say I would givemyself the advice to like just
go for it.
But that's also sort of what Idid at 31, just like on a
slightly bigger scale, when weshot this movie.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, it must feel good.
What is the biggest reward foryou?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's like twofold, like it's pretty cool to do it
with like people that you loveand like do it with your friends
.
They lift you up.
You lift them up because it's acollaborative medium, so like
we all sit around and like lookat the image and it's like you
shot this beautifully, you litthis beautifully, you production
design this.
The makeup looks so cool, thisacting is so great.
(24:47):
So it's cool like when it allgels and you can kind of see
like where everybody did theirbest.
For me, honestly, it's justlike the bragging rights to all
my other filmmaker friends whohaven't made a feature is to be
like yep shot the thing.
We'll see, we'll see how itgoes, we'll see if anybody likes
it.
But, um, it does feel like I'vecleared a a hurdle and of
course not everybody makes afeature film yeah, and and I'd
(25:08):
always said too like I just Icould really like see this one
in my head.
I really cared about thesecharacters and I'm still saying
it like if this is the only oneI get to make, it's, it's the
one I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
That's great, and I hope you make a lot more Well.
I want to thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Well, thank you for having me All right, of course,
thank you.
All right, have a good evening.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You too.
Bye-bye, okay.
That's a wrap for today.
If you have a comment orquestion or would like us to
cover a certain job, please letus know.
Visit our website athowmuchcanimakeinfo.
We would love to hear from you.
And, on your way out, don'tforget to subscribe and share
this episode with anyone who iscurious about their next job.
(25:52):
See you next time.
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