EP 23 - Filmmaking in the Fast Lane with Anthony Natoli

Strap in for an unforgettable adventure between the music sheets and film reels, as we unravel the fascinating journey of Anthony Natoli, a melodious musician turned visionary filmmaker. Anthony offers an intimate look into his initial foray into music, its evolution into a fervor for filmmaking, the intriguing tales from his musical career, and unique insights into audio engineering and lighting. As the pandemic scripts a new chapter in the world of creativity, listen to Anthony's enlightening perspectives on the transformation of music and film industry, and the pressing need for artists to don a range of skill sets.

Join us as Anthony unfolds his unique approach to directing and filmmaking, revealing his philosophy of adapting to the project, situation, and the people he works alongside. His experience of directing different actors, extracting their unique contributions while navigating the ever-changing industry landscape due to digital advancements is a testament to his adaptability. The conversation takes a deeper turn as we explore the shift towards independent filmmaking and how digital technology has empowered filmmakers to produce larger scale films with limited resources.

As Anthony shares his exhilarating experience of filming a backyard concert, we touch upon the essence of rhythm, music and rapport in creating a high-budget feel. Finding a supportive tribe in the film industry and adaptability are highlighted as crucial attributes for success. In this constantly evolving era, Anthony's tips for aspiring filmmakers coupled with our discussion on fostering relationships and treating people with respect are key takeaways. Immerse yourself in this insightful conversation, brimming with wisdom, experiences, and tips, and see the world through the lens of a filmmaker who's been on both sides of the creative spectrum.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome to the Vision Maker podcast.
I'm your host, victor Miranda,here, and I have the pleasure to
be with today's guest, anthonyNatoli.
He's a director and filmmakerand, anthony, would you
introduce yourself to theaudience, give them a little
more of your background?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Sure, I'm a filmmaker .
I've been doing this for abetter part of a decade now.
I started off as a musician,producing music for the most of
my teens and my 20s and thenstarted getting into filmmaking,

(00:38):
and it seems like there's a lotof correlation between
filmmakers and people who usedto be musicians in my circle as
we figured out from you as well,so you're part of my group of
musicians that turned filmmaker.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, it's interesting that seemed to be
something that happened alsopretty exceptionally during the
pandemic.
I love audio engineer.
Friends I know now do a lot ofvideo work yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
I think in this day and age you kind of need to be
everything.
We don't have producers anddirectors.
In the same way that we used to15 years ago, you're sort of in
charge of your own destiny.
So if you're a musician- you gotto probably produce your own

(01:32):
records at this point.
If you are a filmmaker, youprobably got to produce your own
stuff.
If you're a musician, you'reprobably going to produce your
own content visual.
So it goes hand in hand, Ithink.
So I think we're starting tosee a bigger coagulation of
different mediums coming intothis chefs, people that are big

(01:57):
on TikTok or getting good withlighting, because they have to.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I mean I would love for you to expand actually
a little bit to our previousconversation earlier today.
I would love for you to diveinto your background actually as
a musician and how it kind ofled you into filmmaking and that
journey, those kinds of trendsthat you've seen.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah well, I've been playing guitar since I was about
four and I grew up in a verymusical household.
My uncle is a professionalguitar player.
We drove race cars.
We had always things on atrailer going somewhere to go
fast.
So music and racing were alwaysa big part of my life, and I

(02:45):
think how that connects tofilmmaking.
As a musician studying guitar,playing drums, recording you
tend to see that there's a lotof commonality between all of
those things.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
On parallels.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, a car engine wants to be happy, balanced,
needs a mixture of air and fuel,and it's the same thing with
cooking, Making something itneeds a certain combination of
stuff.
Music too much, too little ofanything could ruin a mix or
whatever.
But I grew up with mechanicsand musicians and artists in my

(03:29):
household, so I went down thepath being a musician.
I always raced go-karts anddirt bikes and race cars, but by
the time I was in high schoolor leaving high school, I should
say I was drag racing atEnglish Town Raceway Park in New
Jersey and I wound up becomingthe track champion there for the

(03:53):
high school division and that'spretty sick.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, it was Drive past cars at that age.
It was fun.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
It was definitely a blast.
But at the same exact time myband was doing very well and we
played a show at CBGB's onenight, got a lot of interest and
went up sign in the capitalrecords.
Right at the same time I wonthe championship and I also was
about to go to college.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
You must have felt on top of the world at that moment
.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I guess not really, because when I look back, I mean
I definitely felt good, it wasfun, but I was very conflicted
because I was like am I going tokeep drag racing?
Because I think I couldprobably take this further as a
musician.
I was like this is the paththat I really want to do.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
It was a very pivotal moment then for you.
Because you had on the surfaceit sounds like a lot of really
great accolades for anybody inany one of those singular fields
would be looking for, but tohave them across a couple of
directions is like you couldhave took one and ran with it in
several directions.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
So I could sense the tension.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah Well, I was a terrible student.
I was not an idiot, but I woulddo really well on tests.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
But I would never do my homework.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
I would go home and play guitar all night long.
My parents would think I wentto sleep.
I'm still working out of solofor Metallica.
Homework never made sense to me.
Yeah, I'm good at retaininginformation, for the most part.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
I mean, you show me a movie I can probably site back
Precisely.
So I didn't really want to go tocollege although I did.
I went to Nassau CommunityCollege for a little while, but
it really was very short lived.
I did go back because my band,we were recording, we were doing
trying to tour and stuff likethat.

(05:49):
But that was the same year,pretty much, that iTunes dropped
and the whole world imploded.
Nobody knew what to do withanything.
So we kind of got shelved asthe term goes where they weren't
sure what to do with us.
So we started producing musicand writing ghost writing for

(06:12):
other people, wound up doinglike a Delta Airlines commercial
for the holidays where we hadall these cups with water
different amounts of water inthere and we're using them as an
instrument.
So we did a lot of cool stuffthat was outside of our artistic
expression of ourselves, but itwas kind of not rewarding in my

(06:37):
monetarily.
To some degree it could berewarding.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
And you started to do the work of musicians but not
really doing the original artistside of things.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, and I think that kind of caught up with me
in my late twenties where I wasjust saying to myself I'm really
hating this and even though wewere getting cuts, we were
having huge songs in Korea andall these places and I was like
I'm feeling nothing from thisand that was a signal to me to

(07:07):
start something different.
And my filmmaking journeystarted right around then, where
I had started this song on aukulele and it was during the
winter and it just felt likedualistic, Like you think?
ukulele.
You think you're on an islandin Hawaii.
But I was writing a song forthe snow, because it was snowing

(07:27):
, it's pretty cool.
And about the same day or so, Igot my first iPhone and had the
slow-mo in it and I startedfilming the snow just for fun,
and I was like, wow, this isamazing.
Like I never really picked up acamera before that.
I mean not trying to doanything ever.

(07:47):
Yeah, you know, I would film mydad's race car going down the
track.
You know I would pick up acamera if somebody needed a
photo of them.
But like I actually used tomake fun of photographers and
because I'd say, what are youdoing here pushing a button?
You know I'm over here playingevery note I can and not

(08:07):
thinking that it's thatimpressive until I started doing
it and I went.
I retract my statement.
This is extremely difficult.
How do they do that?
How are they drawing so muchemotion from a camera?
And that's where my journeyreally began and I produced some
music videos for a couple ofsongs that I wrote that I was

(08:29):
just learning.
I was like, oh, I'm just goingto put together something that
feels like winter, right, andproduce this song with my
friends.
It came out great and fromthere I decided I was going to
do one for each season of theyear and did that.
And during I kind of did thatbecause I had the script that I

(08:51):
wanted to make at some pointmaybe, but I didn't know if I
could.
I didn't know if I had thetalent, the ability.
So this was sort of my filmschool, was like all right, I'm
going to take this year andlearn on an iPhone how to make a
music video and see if I can doit.
And I jumped from that tomaking a feature length film and
the rest is history.

(09:13):
Now I'm doing, I can't stop.
I'm doing this stuffprofessionally all the time.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
So oh yeah, I've seen , I've seen, I've been keeping
up with you and you're doing nowmajor brand shoots and, like
you just got off of the WellsFargo commercial, yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I'm being chased by mascots in my sleep.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Oh, are you able to talk a little bit about that or
some of that experience?

Speaker 2 (09:42):
I could, I could talk to the experience of it, I
guess, because I don't want to,is that, was that?
I don't know if legal iswatching.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're definitely
keeping up with our podcast.
Yeah, who is it?

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, no, you know the commercial work is like it's
very fun.
It's.
It's interesting, you know,flying down to Georgia, florida,
south Carolina, doing thesecommercial spots for some
colleges and this company andit's it's amazingly fun work.

(10:16):
I know you've had James Moranoon here, who's my partner in
crime.
We do a lot of crazy stufftogether.
He helped me out with my filmand we're working on a sequel to
that film now together.
Amazing, and yeah, you knowit's, it's interesting to watch.
And I know you had Tom Flynn onhere.
There's also a buddy of mineand we all kind of grew into

(10:38):
this field at similar times anddifferent tangents.
But Actually I think we're allgonna be on a set next month
together, which is gonna be fun.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Oh, that's music video.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
So I'm excited for that.
You know, first time, all threeof our brains are on something
now, so I'm looking forward tothat Is it, keith Buckley thing.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, oh, man.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of every time I die.
So when he posted that you knowhe was looking for extras, I
was like yo.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Oh yeah, help.
Yeah, honestly that's because Iam.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
I very rarely do anything like that, but just
because it's Keith Buckley, Iwas like, yeah, I kind of want
to see this, I want to hear, Ijust want to hear it more than
anything.
I'm like I can't wait to hearwhat he's working on.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Oh man, there's no.
In a parallel universe we'reactually.
When I saw that too, I was likeabout to jump on it.
It would have been so crazy ifall of us were there.
Oh yeah, but we actually haveour next round of guests on that
that day too.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Okay, okay, but I have a shoot that morning, for I
shoot for the Ronald McDonaldhouse as well, I do their social
media.
That's just a great, a greatcharity.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
How'd you get connected with that?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
my wife.
She started volunteering thereabout over a decade ago and Drag
me to an event one night.
I was like you're gonna helpmove chairs, I don't care what
you're doing tonight, you'recoming and helping.
I was like all right, so I cameand I Move chairs and got to
know people and it was a greatexperience.

(12:18):
And then I really got tounderstand what Ronald McDonald
house is about.
Yeah, for those listeners whodon't know, it's an organization
that keeps families close tothe To their children while
they're in the hospital,fighting off whatever anything
from cancer to and they go up tolike 21 years old.

(12:39):
So it's just a greatOpportunity to help out people.
That really need it.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
So did they do it?
By providing resources, byproviding financial support or a
mix of it all?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, not not as much financial, but there they help
them with housing housingtransportation Transportation
which goes a long way, andespecially when they're right
next to the hospital, it's ahuge thing.
So we have a shoot coming upfor them where we do a family
interview every year and we telltheir story and James and I

(13:11):
usually, you know, partner up onthat because I'm usually
interviewing and yeah, whatever,and I kind of it's tough to do
everything yourself.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
So really nice thing about like working with
nonprofits.
We have the opportunity ofworking with a few out here,
right, and it's like Getting tokind of hear the stories and in
a lot of ways, I feel like youknow we're doing our part too,
because it's really it helps thenonprofit themselves Expand
their mission, because video issuch an important thing for
nonprofits too.
Yeah, because you know, it'slike I think a lot of people

(13:45):
give a flag to nonprofitsbecause they're constantly
asking for money, right, but Imean, at the same time, it's
like when you finally get toknow like what the missions are
and like the actual directimpacts and your capturing
stories, it's like then youunderstand what they're trying
to do and what they need.
From that, you know yeah, ahundred percent.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
I Worked there as a house manager for a while, so I
would check in families duringthe pandemic.
Check out families where youknow sometimes they're having
the best day of their life andthey're taking their baby home.
Hmm as I was just the worst dayof their life and I have to help
them, and it's not really themost dualistic thing I've ever

(14:29):
done, where one minute we couldbe smiling and happy and then
brought to your knees, you know,and it's important to share
those stories Because it allowspeople to see exactly what their
don't their money is goingtowards when they do round up.
You go to McDonald's.
They say, hey, you want to putyour 90 cents of change to the

(14:51):
Ronald McDonald house?
This is where it's going.
It's going to toilet paper andcoffee and tissues and whatever
it is that keeps the houserunning.
And so, as a filmmaker, this islike my favorite stuff to do
because, yeah, it it helps them,it helps the families, it helps

(15:11):
me as a person, you know, toknow that I'm doing my part in
this world with talent and giftsthat have been given to me.
Yeah, so very synergisticRelationship that I have.
And I just came on as avolunteer yeah, I wasn't even a
filmmaker yet and then I kind ofworked my way into that world

(15:32):
and they were like, hey, youwant to shoot this for us?

Speaker 1 (15:35):
and I was like, yeah, let's do it and it was great.
So, as a, as a filmmaker, now,what we just say is your
Philosophy when you approach aproject, like, if you're
especially as a director, assomeone who is the creative in
the process, like, what is yourphilosophy as far as tackling it

(15:56):
, be it the goals, who you'reshooting it for, and this and
that?

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, I guess my philosophy changes based off of
the project, understandably so.
Sometimes I Do a lot of prepwork, sometimes I do no prep
work, sometimes I give direction, sometimes I don't.
You know it's.
It's really dependent on thesituation.

(16:21):
Like I'm not really gonnadirect a Person to say something
that they don't want to say oror isn't true in an interview.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
You know, depend more on the people you're working
with.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
It does.
It has also to do with what theproject's about.
Like, if it's my project, ifI'm working on my movie, you're
my movie or something mydirection will be hey look, I
want you to give me what I want,yeah, and then you're gonna do
whatever you want and we'regonna see what happens.
Because I Don't believe in, Ithink directing is Is a two-part

(16:57):
process where you have to havean idea of what you want to get
and then you also have to betotally cool and understanding
that you're not gonna get thatand that there's stuff in the
ether that you wouldn't.
You didn't even know you wanted.
But if you're too, if you'reholding on too tight to
something that you want, youmight not get it and you also

(17:19):
might miss out on the greatthing that's on the in the eeth
and beyond.
You know I, whenever I work,like we just shot, we're working
on a sequel to my first film,and you know we were shooting up
at the race track and I hadthese two actors, jesse Lyons
and Joe Pantillo.

(17:39):
They're both comedians,essentially.
They're hilarious people andI'm like, okay, here's what I
need.
I wrote a script, you know, Ihad my script.
And then when we're standingthere.
I'm like these guys can't saythis.
They have to give me thisinformation in their own way,
because they're too, they're toogood, they're too funny to

(18:00):
chain them up that way.
So I said to him hey, look, Ineed you to say I need you to
get this point across, thispoint and this point, and if you
can help him by making surethat you pose this question and
pose that question, do it howyou want.
And Every take was different.
Now, some people would freakout if that was happening on
their set, but it's like you'regonna get something Spectacular

(18:23):
out of them because you'reletting them be free, you know.
Then there's other momentswhere I'm like, look, I really
need you to deliver this lineand not move your head and go
nice and slow, bring your voicedown here, because I'm telling
you it'll play good and that's,that's the, that's the.
The wide, the width ofdirecting is like there's.

(18:43):
Sometimes you really need totell the actor and say, like,
just trust me, I'm here with you, let's try it, let's try this
route and then there's the otherend where it's like I'm just
gonna throw the ball, see if youcan catch it.
And and I think they both work.
And then there's all thisMedium.
You know, there's all this playin the middle and I think, like
for interviews and stuff likethat To direct and coach people,

(19:05):
it's probably not a goodinterview.
Then you know it should be.
You know, I've done documentarywork too with that kind of
stuff and it's like I think thebest Documentaries are the one
where it's just super natural.
Super people are just authenticcells and relaxed and so, yeah,
I think, as it it's a we, it's aweird thing to say you're a
director on a Documentdocumentary, because I'm like

(19:28):
what are you directing?
Like, okay, I can understandartistic color direction camera
Sure.
Yeah, but like it's notdirector, like Steven
Spielberg's on the other side ofthis and Twittling his fingers
and the actors mimickingeverything.
I don't know if you ever sawthat in Indiana Jones.
Yeah but in the first one theguy didn't really know what to
do, I guess.
So Steven Spielberg's on theother side of him and he's like

(19:51):
just mirror everything I do, andhe's, you know then, and the
guy's just mirror and it looksthat's what's in the shot, and
it's amazing, you know.
So it's like that, that levelof directing, I never knew that.
Yeah, that's amazing.
I spent more time as a kidwatching the making of things
than Than the movie themselves,and I've always been like that.

(20:13):
I mean, as a kid I took apartmy guitars, I took apart my toys
.
Everything I was like what ismaking this happen.
You know and, yeah, I havealways been interested in beyond
the veil you know what'shappening around that curtain
Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, like who's pulling the the levers?

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, Pinocchio, How's he moving, you know yeah
where are these strings attachedto?
Right, and, and I think likethat's what's so fun about
filmmaking.
It's like there's so manydifferent avenues you can go
down.
I don't have a personalpreference on which one I like
more.
I mean, I like doingdocumentary kind of work, but

(20:58):
then when I'm done with it, I'mlike I want to Paint with my
eyes closed and just throw it onthe wall and see what happens.
Like there's this, I, I'm neverI'm.
I wouldn't say I have a niche,because I don't know.
I wouldn't even know what thatis.
Yeah, my thing is I like to workwith people.
I like to draw things out ofpeople that they perhaps

(21:19):
wouldn't have known.
They could you know, or or evenmyself, you know.
It's like, oh wow, we worktogether and now I'm able to
express myself in a way that Ididn't know I could.
Yeah, so I.
That's really where I Gravitatetowards you having a lot of
nice cameras up here, everything, a lot of nice lighting.

(21:39):
I Know almost nothing aboutthat, yet I've been doing this,
yeah, professionally, for yearsnow.
I am probably the best exampleof a person that's like that's
gonna tell you anyone can dothis, because I Still don't know
.
Like, thank God, I have anaudio engineering background

(22:01):
that I can like correlate a lotof this too.
But like shutter speed stops.
Like my James Morano, who wejust discussed before, like he
is oh he's like a technicalgenius man.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
He's a wizard, yes, I .

Speaker 2 (22:18):
I like you wizard.
I'll be like oh man, how do wedo that?
And he's like well, we can dothis.
I'm like how did you know wecould do that?
Yeah because he has that insaneability to understand the
technology at a high level.
Yeah, and I think where wherewe work well together is that I
don't, and it's almost like abeginner's mindset.

(22:40):
They talk about that being like, how, like a lot of great
people have always been students, women, masters sure, I never
want to be the master.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I'd rather be a student.
I read the dumbest person inthe room because I'm always
learning.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, I recently heard the rest of the statement.
But oh, jack of all trades,master of them, yes, still
always better than a master ofone.
So I my grandfather was acarpenter mechanic, my father
was a mechanic could do buildanything, my uncle same thing.

(23:17):
You know, like I come from along line of Jack of all trades.
Yeah, and people that can getit done and do a nice job, and
uncles, and you know, I Feellike I'm carrying that lineage
in a way, so Beautiful.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, I think it helps in filmmaking for me to be
able to to understand it enough, but not too much to stop me
from being creative with whichreminds me of something that,
like we even mentioned brieflybefore Because at first, so like
first off, like I relate somuch Because I feel very
similarly with my team in thesense that like I think my guys

(23:54):
on a technical sense, on acinematic sense, they they know
the D movies, the classic cinemamastery movies to watch, and
they know this and that and theydefinitely have a Keener ear
down to the floor about that andI know my fair share amount,
but like, nowhere near to thatlevel in the sense of like

(24:18):
someone who's like, like someonelike James or some of my guys,
in that sense Like I've neverseen.
There's certain like justregular classic Spielberg movies
or stuff like that I stillhaven't seen and different
things like that.
And I, you know I don't have ahave an audio background as well
, musician background, but I'vealways been the type to.

(24:38):
I Am a quick starter.
I can get basically thefoundation to get it really well
, yeah, and and then I can pushfrom there.
But I am more of of thecreative and higher level, like
I, like I rather put systemstogether and get like the people
who really know and likeEveryone you know, building

(25:00):
something up together in thatsense and I think I work well
with them in that sense becausethey keep me grounded as far as
limitations and possibilities.
But I also think that, like as acreative it, it keeps you
shackled free in the sense thatyou don't maybe necessarily know
all the ins and outs, but youalso aren't a hundred percent

(25:21):
fully aware of your limitationseither.
Yeah, so you'll, instinctively,may ask for things outside of
the limitations, and thensometimes someone comes to you
like you know that can't happenbecause of this, and this is
like well, why not, maybe if wetry, from this unorthodox angle
or this or that, let's figure itout.
And I think that that's a, it'sa very much a collaborative you

(25:45):
know, I think human species arelike that.
And Speaking about being injack-of-all-trades, you were
talking to me a lot about howyou were seeing the industry go,
like you know the fall of Rome,as you put it before.
But I love the parallel youmade to the music industry.
So you mentioned just earlierabout how iTunes and Napster

(26:07):
kind of made this quake acrossrecord labels and stuff like
that.
There's no one knew what to do.
We're going to.
Digital.
Cd sales became a thing of thepast, like overnight, you know,
and and that was the whole pointof a record deal was to get you
on printed material and thenyou were getting out there and

(26:27):
tours were secondary.
Tours are the way to promoteyour CDs.
So you made your money in CDsales and now it's completely
flipped nobody's tours anymore.
Yeah, or if anything.
Your streaming is to help youget the audience in the tour, so
you make some money on that.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
What do you have to tour when you can tour from your
living room and hit a millionpeople on?

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, you know, like what do you need the big company
for?
Anymore you don't.
Yeah and I want you kind of torevisit that and see and talk
about how you're seeing theparallel in the filmmaking world
.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah Well, I'm no expert, I'm not an industry
person, so whatever I say can betaken at face value, of course.
But of we, I grew up in aMoment in time where you can go
to Staples and buy Acid musicpro, which was, like you know,

(27:20):
early pro tools, q base, kind ofstuff that you can just go and
Buy and start recording yourself, and I started on a task cam
for track tape thing, you knowand Figured, oh man, I could
bounce, I could do all this on acomputer now and Was really
part of that revolution of DIYhome Producers and we were

(27:46):
writing and producing andrecording our own records and
essentially got a record dealbecause we were doing that.
We did that at a time where itwas just before iTunes Taking
back Sunday kind of just brokeright ahead of us and they were
like the last Band to sign likea big deal and like take it all

(28:06):
the way.
Yeah, I don't think anybodykind of did that after them,
because the world changed, itimploded.
They're really at the tell endof that boom in music at that
time and once we signed tocapital records, it was right
around that same time and Iwatched the whole world Crumbled
because they were like, oh mygod, how we're gonna sell albums
.
People could just buy one songand they were worried about

(28:29):
money.
They weren't worried aboutartists and they didn't know how
to like wield it as an artist'stool.
Because it wasn't about that.
It was about making money.
And I've never got into this tomake money.
I wasn't Like a kid that waslike I want to be rich and
famous.
I was like I just want to makemusic.
I want to be able to make musicwhenever I want that.

(28:50):
I don't care if I make, youknow just enough to be able to
do that in my life.
I don't need more If I get more, correct, you know that was
that wasn't the thing.
Yeah, and so I took a you knowbackseat with my band and said,
okay, let's, let's start writingand producing for other people
and Seeing how that goes.

(29:11):
But we watched the industry likestudios were closing and what
was happening was people weretaking the power back.
I mean, look at today.
It's amazing that you canproduce and record a song on
your iPhone and it could be onthe radio.
It could be all over the world.
It doesn't?
Yeah, it doesn't take.
It doesn't take a lot.
And the biggest lesson Ilearned in my life is that the

(29:35):
it's not the tools that you have.
You know, it's what you do withthose tools.
You know if, if you wind upfiguring out how the iPhone
Microphone really works andwhere it works best, you could
record a beautiful guitar Trackon your phone in your living
room and that could be part ofthe record.
If I had that when I was 14, Iwould have been doing that.

(29:59):
I would have been recordingsongs on my iPhone because I
really didn't have a lot.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
You know, A good example is like Billy Eilish
sure did her whole first recordlook at Bonnie very.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
You know, yeah, one SM 57 and you know a cabin and
Great songs and that's the key.
It's like it's not about whatyou About the gear.
Yeah, it's what your output is,it's what's coming out of the
speakers, it's what's coming offthe screen that really counts.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
And now you got streaming, disrupting the
filmmaking industry.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
You could put your movie on YouTube and get a
million people watching it.
Could you have done that 20years ago?
No, yeah.
And so what you're seeing todayfrom the movie industry is
Exactly that.
People are freaking out because, unfortunately, their jobs are
gonna be taken away from them.
I've been going to McDonald'sover the last few years and
dealing with no cashiers,because I have to.

(30:56):
I could do it on my phone.
I could walk up to the counterand push a couple buttons and my
order goes in.
That's part of the reality oflife.
It's not me being, like youknow, negative about it, it's
just the reality.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Well, it's like.
It's like you said.
It's not that the industry isevaporating, but it's shifting.
It's shifting to us.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yes we're able to now and Again.
Another example that I canprove is someone like me can
pick up their iPhone and shoot afeature-length film.
We did 20.
We got 24 nominations and 14wins in the festival circuit
last year.
I Would have been happy tomaybe get accepted to one yeah,
but I didn't go and do this forthat.

(31:37):
I just did it because it feltlike the right thing to do with
what I made.
Yeah, but it's amazing to Standback and go Wow.
We were able to achieve so muchwith very little.
My movie cost $5,000 to bank tomake.
Really, you know friends,family that's who we made it

(31:57):
with, you know and favors calledSunday, sunday, sunday correct.
Sunday, sunday, sunday, and it'sa culmination of kind of
everything.
I scored the film, I Wrote allthe music.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Oh, you did all the music, yep, oh, so is that like
some, some stuff from your band,or it's just all Original stuff
, all original stuff that I'dmake for a soundtrack man.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Thanks, man.
I it was a lot of fun.
It was actually one of the mostexciting Aspects of it for me,
because I was like I alwayswanted to score a film and I
don't think anybody's just gonnagive me that chance without
ever doing it.
So I was like I'm just gonnamake my own movie and score it.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Well, I will say too it's like for people who haven't
had a chance to check it out,is that I?
Actually, even though I knew itwas on an iPhone originally, I
completely forgot going into thefilm and no, it's great because
, like I Actually didn't think,I was thinking like, okay, oh,

(32:58):
maybe he had some classic I knowJames is super into the classic
lenses and the classic filmmaking year.
This looks like a super 35 insome points.
It looks like they got a coupledifferent style old style
cameras going on from time totime, outside of the drone shots
, of course, and controllingwith an iPhone.
So yeah, but it had a great look.

(33:21):
The story is great.
I learned so much about dragracing and dude, the cars are
beautiful.
You had um, I guess that'sgreat.
But, like you said, you comefrom that background, you grew
up in that community and it was.
It was just well done.
And to see that it's like, yeah, you did that with five grand,

(33:43):
a couple years in your belt andsome good friends and family.
And then the interesting thingsee, looking at the at the
behind the scenes, that Somehowthe whole movie was exclusively
filmed on Sundays, uninvertedlyyeah, for the most part.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Not everything, but like a good percentage.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Percent of it was pretty much.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
It wasn't on on purpose, it was just that
everybody was available onSundays usually and drag racing
takes place on Sunday.
That's why the back in the daythere used to be a commercial on
the radio all over the countrythe.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Sunday.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Sunday, Sunday.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
I remember hearing it .
I remember that like it waslike in grain of my head.
When I hear it I always thoughtit was like wrestling, or yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well, they use it for like monster trucks and monster
trucks and stuff like that,like I just remember the generic
Sunday, sunday, sunday.
I mean that was the easiest partof the movie because If you
watch the making of, I kind ofgo into it a little more in
depth.
But I got I before I even hadan idea of making a movie I
dreamt I had.
I lose a dream often, likewhere I'm in control of my sleep

(34:47):
and I'm where I'm just dreamingand.
And I had this dream where Iwas in a theater Watching my
movie that I made with myselfand myself was like walking me
through it and I woke up.
I was like that was prettyawesome and I wrote it all down,
but I had never really pickedup a camera.
This was that movie andessentially, yeah, I became that
.
But the one thing that, like Iwoke up and knew is like at the

(35:12):
end of the movie they went whatit's Sunday?
Sunday.
Sunday I was like that's thename in the movie.
That was the easiest thing toget because I was like what a
perfect name.
You know, and the type ofracing that's in this movie it's
not like Fast and the Furious,where it's like kind of absurd.
You know, tasting somethingextremely authentic is like it's

(35:34):
kind of hard to do, you know,with film, because a lot of
times it's over exaggerated.
And not to say that we didn'tdo that a little bit.
But coming from a drag racingbackground, like this is a type
of racing that anybody can do.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
You can take out your Honda Civic and go win it was
amazing to see that, thatparticular part of it.
I would have never really knownthat, but like seeing that it
really revolved around a levelof control and consistency
between machine and person, yes,and and Really like go to show,

(36:11):
it really did not matter whatyou came in with, but can you
stay by your word?
Essentially it's this is thetest, this is the number right,
and I suggest watching.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
That's the film itself, was exactly the parallel
, because the test was we havethe slowest car on the track?
Well, we have the slowestcamera, we have the littlest
thing.
I mean there are people outthere that are raising $500,000
to make a movie and they'rerenting a red and they're doing

(36:45):
and I'm like I'm like no offense, but like, do you think you
should be doing that for yourfirst film?
I Do what you want.
I'm not knocking anybody, I'mjust asking you to ask yourself
a question.
It's like can you get it donewith this?
Yeah, can you squeeze all thejuice out of this lemon, because

(37:06):
I tell you what it's prettysweet when you really get this
dialed in right.
We used filmic pro, which,which is an app that turns your
phone into a DSLR, essentiallygives you full control.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Unbelievable car camera features on the phone.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
We went to London, james and I, and we were in the
International Motor Awards overthere in and, which is like a
film festival for cars.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Oh, they had them.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
That must have been sick.
Oh, it was amazing.
It was one of the bestfestivals you guys were
nominated were nominated forbest independent film.
Which I couldn't believe andwe're sitting next to Ferrari
and Porsche and Lamborghini andthey all have horses in the race
and we're sitting there like aBunch of bums from Long Island,

(37:54):
new York, going why are we here?
This is crazy.
And they played our trailer andyou know they're playing the
category and they defend.
The trailer finishes.
And it's a shot on my phone.
You should have heard the place.
They were like it was amazingand we didn't win.
But just to be in the circle inthe arena.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Was amazing players.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Oh, with big players.
And what really happened was wewent back to the hotel after
that and we were like what if wehad one more shot at this?
We just saw what's out there.
Can we, can we, can we beatthese guys?
And now we're making a sequel.
And now we're taking the iPhonea little bit to the next level.

(38:36):
Could I shoot it on a blackmagic, which I shoot with all
the time?
Absolutely yeah, but that's,there's still meat on the bone.
You know, a friend of mine saidto me like why are you making
another iPhone movie?
You just did that.
You hit a home run and I saidto him well, the home runs
different than at a grand slam.
I want to bring everybody.
I want, I want to hit everynote that I missed.

(38:57):
The last time it took us fiveyears.
The last time I was learning, Inever made anything like that
in my life.
I went from three-minute musicvideos to a feature length film
hour and 50 minutes.
It's a big jump, oh yeah.
And so after that I said, ohwell, let's I.
I always equate it to likeplaying guitar.
You know, you pick up a guitar,somebody shows you a C chord

(39:20):
and you take a strum right, itmight not come out great.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
You might get it.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
But that's what the first movie was, was just the
first drum.
So it's like I kind of want tosee if I can get a little more
Music out of it, you know, andsqueeze it a little bit better
and get some more notes out ofthere, and so that's what this
whole thing is about.
It's like just showing ourgrowth as filmmakers and that it
doesn't matter what you'reshooting it on, it matters what

(39:47):
you're shooting, and I think thestory is good.
So I'm really excited for forus to share that when we Cross
that bridge.
You know it's coming out prettygreat.
We got all these vintage lenses.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, you guys already in middle production of
the sequel.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, we're probably like More than halfway done
filming Awesome, which isexciting.
We spent the whole summerpretty much going back and forth
to the drag strip doing allthat stuff and Now we're picking
up the last pieces of thepuzzle and then, hopefully
through the winter, startediting it up and getting it all
.
I already started doing thescore for it, because the first

(40:24):
movie there's no car after 1975in it, yeah, and so that's to
give it a period piece.
Yeah, you know and then so,rather than go to 1976 to keep
continue the story, I said, well, I'm gonna jump.
10 years later, 1985, it givesus new music, new cool cars,
cool neon, looks that we can gofor.

(40:46):
That's kind of gonna.
So it's almost like a Way tolike test ourselves as
filmmakers and we're trying tomake it feel like a movie that
was made in the 80s that maybeyou missed.
Yeah.
So that's kind of the yeah, theidea there and as independence
it like.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
It really goes to that point of how, like, really,
hollywood, the film industry isgoing from these big production
companies to smaller ones, yeah, these small teams similar to
ours that are now the we'reworking with the bigger brands
and this, and that, like you,you and you and James are

(41:21):
essentially a team and you guysare now, you know, doing these
different high-level brands,commercials and stuff, because
the technology is there, theresources is there and there's
no need for Overinflated thingsas far as those things.
I guess there is an occasionalneed for a big set or something

(41:41):
else, depending on what you'retrying to do, but it's
definitely like a shift.
It's a major shift from, like,these huge and mega production
houses and and as a shows islike being able to do a festival
worthy film, you know, on aminimal, minimal budget, you
know, and being able to work onit.
I think you guys made a greatexample of that well to your

(42:04):
point.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
You know a lot of people don't like people like
James and I because we cut thelegs out of some office, so many
people that are basicallyspending a client's money.
I mean, I'm not gonna namenames or anything like that, but
I can't tell you how many timesJames and I have come into a

(42:26):
situation and they told us aboutlast year's project that they
did, how much money it costswhat they did.
And then they see what weproduce and they go how does
this look better?
And you guys showed up withbackpacks and I go it.
The world is the world as youknow.

(42:48):
It is over that.
You can't play by yesterday'sbook because it's already
obsolete.
People like us are coming in andundercutting huge jobs because
the speed in which we canachieve the black magic Camera
which I, james and I both shooton yeah, 2400 bucks, it's not

(43:10):
not a small pen, not a smallamount of money, but for the
what you're getting out of it,for a cinema camera, putting a
couple of good lenses on it,shooting raw, you don't need a
lot to come home with somethingthat feels big budget, and
that's the key is being, andalso you're able to work faster,
thus keeping time down leadingless crew.

(43:33):
So does that hurt the industry?
In a way, yes and no, becausepeople are losing their jobs,
because there's no need for thatmany people on a film set
anymore, perhaps, but then morepeople can go out there and work
on their own.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
You can go, essentially, and buy a camera
and pick up your own clients andThen some way, in a different
way, in some ways you can makeeven more.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, I mean I, I do editing work.
People just send me stuff nowbecause I'm as a musician I
think that's my biggest thing islike I understand right where
the downbeat is yes, maybe wewant to understand rhythm.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
We want to be after it.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, I understand music.
So also when I'm shooting,especially like taking back
Sunday, I do a lot of work forthem.
I know those songs Like theback of my hand because I've
been, I grew up with it, butalso I've been shooting them so
long so I know when Adam's gonnaspin, I know when he's gonna
flip the mic like, and I knowwhen to track it.
So when you, when you build arapport with something and then

(44:33):
you really get to know it, youstreamline all the processes.
I'm editing as I'm shooting.
I know I'm gonna edit it.
So I already know what I wantto shoot and I James is the same
way.
We're editing.
While we're shooting we're like, hmm, let's just do that again,
because you would that in yourmind, face yeah.
Yeah, and I, and, and whenyou're in this day and age, like

(44:53):
what we're talking aboutearlier, it's like gotta have
all those faculties.
You got to be able to editcolor sound.
You got to have it all becauseVery soon you'll see like it's
gonna be less and less whereit's like you send it out to a
colorist, you send it out to asound.
Good, it's just, it's the waythe world's going.
Go to be an H, you can go andbuy a whole kit with everything

(45:14):
you need to start making filmsand it's actually pretty good,
you know.
Same thing with guitar, youknow.
Or recording.
You can go on Musicians friend,in order of a bunch of mics and
a little mixer and all that youneed and use your DAW and
produce a full record andSomething that sounds like maybe
, if you're good enough, if youreally have tuned ears and an

(45:35):
ability to write good music,make a record that holds up.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
So pretty much you know.
Find your, find your tribe, insense, find your small team,
like you know, you get that.
That's solid editor, a solidshooter, sure, it's.
Maybe one guy's the creativeone guy.
You know you want to play toyour strength, yeah, and then
find people who fill in yourweaknesses.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Don't get me wrong.
I don't think I'm good atanything in particular.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
I'm good at like a lot of things.
My biggest strength, like Isaid, is Watching the whole play
.
I like, I like being the coach,encouraging the players to play
their hardest.
That's kind of my favoritething about this aspect of
creativity filmmaking.
If you asked me to shootsomething, I could do it, but

(46:25):
I'd rather James shoot it,because he's the best.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Yeah, that's it, you play to the strengths You're
watching everything unfold.
You're keeping tabs Totally.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
We mixed, we did a music video for this band, the
Sleeping.
They're from Long Island.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Yeah no, sleeping's a great band.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
They haven't been with this lineup for a long time
.
I was a big fan.
They were kind of coming upwhen we did too my band, and
just out of the blue, without aphone call, they were like we
had this guy.
He dropped out.
He was supposed to direct it.
Can you shoot this videotomorrow?
Essentially, james and I werelike let's go, and we shot this

(47:04):
music video in like 24 hours,edited, cut it and we edited
together in like four and a halfhours and when we sent it to
the band, colored everything, nonotes.
I've never in my life had thatin mind.
It was like that moment for meof realizing like, oh, we've

(47:25):
crossed the threshold, like nowwe are well, at least for me I'm
not going to speak for James,but like I'm at a point where I
believe in what I'm doing, thatlike I trust my taste.
If I do something, it's allpurpose, you know.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
And these guys got affirmation, you know like, from
a client like.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
A band like that that I respect so much at going.
We have no notes.
It was perfect.
I'm like I felt that way, but Ican't believe you did yeah, and
it was such an affirmation forme.
And again, we threw it togetherin like a day.
It was literally like nothought to it.
It was just like we're justgoing to go and paint and see

(48:05):
what we draw, and see what weput on the canvas.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
That's so cool.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
And we literally did that.
We had Doug in a pool, a littlepool, and we don't paint over
his head in slow motion.
So great and we sped the musicup so he was singing in regular
speed, but it was coming out intime in slow motion, and then
the paint was dripping down hisface in slow motion.

(48:29):
And then at the very end of theedit, I was like James start
zooming in on him and turn himupside down and reverse it and
so he starts flipping and allthe paint's dripping and it was
just like a crazy wacky thing.
That wound up being like that'sthe dopest thing I've ever seen
, and the band flipped.
They loved it.

(48:50):
And so for me, what my favoriteaspect of this is that whole
thing of just throw paint on thewall and see what sticks.
Like you could plan all day.
You make plans and God laughs100%.
That's my thing, that's mymantra out there.
So be prepared for him to laughas much as you're prepared for

(49:12):
you to get what you want.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
I truly believe that life, more than anything to make
it in life, it's all aboutadaptability.
How good are you at pivoting?
How good are you, like afootball player, making down the
field?
How good are you making splitsecond decisions to dodge these
tackles of life?
And life is like thatconstantly.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
I was on the road with John Nolan playing guitar
for him.
We were out in the middle ofnowhere and we're on the road
trying to get to this gig Ithink in Denver and I had been
shooting just for fun, like forwhatever, just to put a little
tour of the dock.
And we're coming down thehighway and we come to a dead

(49:58):
stop for like 10, 15 minutes, tothe point everybody's getting
out of their cars, the cartrouble, or traffic no traffic.
And we're in the middle of thedesert and I'm like this is
crazy.
And the sun setting, I'm likewe're never going to make it.
And so I was like John grab theguitar and he had this song
about going home and wanting toget home and I was like let's

(50:20):
record you playing this.
The traffic was miles, youcould see it.
And I put him right in thecenter of the road with all the
cars and he performed the songand then throughout the rest of
the time I kept filming him inall these different locations
playing the song and it came outamazing.
We did.
This music video Turns out atruck full of spaghettios
flipped over and burnt.

(50:41):
We could smell it all the wayfrom there, oh my goodness.
But it was like uh-ohspaghettios.
We made a music video and youturned an obstacle into an
opportunity.
When are you going to get toshut down a road with miles of
traffic and the sunset?

Speaker 1 (50:57):
When are you ever going to get the perfect chance
to say uh-oh, spaghettios.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
I got it I could retire now.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
I don't think anyone would get that.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Yeah, I mean it worked out really well, but
that's an example of making themost out of what you've given.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
And I love like.
For me personally, I think it'sso sick that you get to work
with a band like Taking BackSunday, especially like us being
from Long Island.
They're like essentially LongIsland heroes.
They really are the most recentmega band to really make it
break out of the islandrealistically.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
It's fun to say you know they're friends now.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Because it's like.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
I grew up not too far away from them and I was on
tour with a band called Gabrielthe Marine and they were.
They had opened with John or onhis solo stuff, so they took
him out, them out with TakingBack Sunday and the first time I
met John we were hanging outand he's like we're in New

(51:57):
Orleans.
He's like you want to go to theoldest bar in the country, I'll
buy a beer.
I was like hell, yeah, let's go.
And talked to him all night,had a great conversation, and
then one thing led to another.
I hit him up like a few monthslater.
I was like hey, I'm scoring,I'm doing the song for a movie.
You want in on it?
You want to work with me?
He's like yeah, let's do it.
That's sick and the first thingwe ever did came out awesome,

(52:18):
and then he would ask me to playguitar with him, and then music
video and then Taking BackSunday.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
And it's like it always goes back to just how you
treat people.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
You got to be cool.
That's the thing about workingin this industry.
I don't care what you're doing.
We did this big commercialshoot, James and I.
We were with a group of people.
By the end of it, I missed them.
We had a good time.
We had fun, we were all normalpeople to one another, we

(52:48):
respected each other's abilitiesand craft and we also had to
hang out together for like twoweeks.
And it's the same thing in aband where it's like you may not
be the best guitar player inthe world, but you might be the
best guitar player for thisproject because you can hang
with these people, you can spendtime with them, not make

(53:10):
anybody feel uncomfortable, andproduce what needs to be done,
and that's honestly moreimportant than how good you are
at anything.
It's what you're bringing to thetable on a personal level.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah, do you follow through on your commitment?
Of course, the job you're therefor.
But, more importantly, how doyou make everyone else feel?
Because, at the end of the day,you can give them an amazing
product.
But if everyone just hated thefeeling they had being around
you, that's probably the lastYou'll get your money, but
that's probably the last timethey'll ever call you Totally.
But if you give them a product,maybe it's not the best thing

(53:45):
in the world, but it's good.
You follow through on yourcommitment.
But they felt amazing aroundyou.
They felt like they could havespent all the time in the world
with you.
I guarantee you you're probablygoing to get a call back every
time because it's like, hey, Ilove spending time with you.
You gave me what I wanted, whatI asked for, and you just made
the process feel good, easy andit works both ways.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
There's plenty of people I worked with where I'm
like.
I will never work with thatperson again.
I don't care if they call.
I don't care how much?
Money you've.
I've done it plenty of timesbecause it's like why am I
chasing you down for what youowe me?
I delivered.
Or man, you made my life hellfor no reason.

(54:31):
Just because James and I alwaysmake a joke.
It's like everybody's got totouch it.
If you just painted your carand put the first coat of wax on
it, somebody wants to come overand put their finger on it.
I don't care what it is, andthat's just.
It's the same thing with filmproduction.
The bass player wants his basslouder.

(54:51):
The person at the top CFO,wants more yellow in it.
That's like the why am I.
Somebody's got to touch it, Eventhough it's everybody's happy
it's working.
They got to touch it, which Iget, and it's fine.
But when it goes too far iswhen I'm like I'm out, I don't

(55:12):
need to deal with this anymore.
I got other people thatappreciate and work work in a
productive manner that I want towork in.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
It's so true.
It's like because when you'relike this close to something,
you also, at the same time, youdon't see what is happening
around it and what it's going tobe.
Totally, you're like.
It's like the common examplefor us, at least in the
filmmaking world, is raw footageversus delivered footage, which

(55:46):
a lot of clients struggle withBecause it's a new concept for
them.
Understandably so, but toreally get the best outcome, you
need things to be very raw inthe beginning.
But if sometimes they strugglelike, oh, they want to see it
immediately, every step of theway, and so it's like you're
this close to it, you reallylose.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
I don't deliver anything without a LUT on it.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Oh yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
I refuse.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
I don't care, I don't .
Let them look at the monitorunless the LUT's turned on the
monitor.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
No, it's like recording too, like sometimes
you know somebody hears a guitarsoloed and they're like, oh my
god, sounds terrible.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Oh, yeah, yeah but that's not.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
It's doing a purpose.
It's serving a purpose withinthe mix and you know you can't
change it because then you takeit out and there's some
lackluster thing there.
And I think in the corporateworld it's even worse because
these people don't understandthat they're pulling out pillars
that are actually holding upthis whole thing by tapping,

(56:50):
having to touch it.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
The most recent thing I did when my band were
currently recording a record andI was like we lay our tracks
down and then you don't touch ituntil you hear the rough mix.
Right, like you're laid down,you will trust the process.
You know, just make sure youperform it well, but after that
doesn't exist.
Yeah, do we get to the roughmix and then we can start going

(57:15):
on to mixing decisions and wecan revisit things, but nothing
sounds going to sound right andI don't want any perfectionism
happening before there'sanything that actually needs to
be corrected.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, I mean, I've heard stories, and I've
experienced it myself, where bigbands are recording.
They do a scratch where thewhole band plays and then the
bass player goes in andrerecords his bass because when
he heard it soloed it didn'tsound great and he made a
mistake and then everybody hatedit.
And then they solo up that,bring that bass back in from

(57:49):
initially and they're like itcan't move.
Now it's part of the and Ithink imperfection is such an
important part of filmmaking.
When you watch any great movie,like working on a period piece
you're always concerned ohthere's a satellite dish back
there or that cars from 1991.

(58:10):
Yeah, I've watched so manymovies that like I was watching
Rudy and I think it's like 1965.
And I'm watching it and I see aToyota Tercel drive in the
background and I'm like if itcan happen there, it's okay if
it happens in my movie.
And when you have those littlemoments, actually I think it
makes it more honest, better.
I think Ford vs Ferrari as faras car movies really crushed it,

(58:34):
oh yeah.
Perfect, I thought I was I wouldactually say this is a perfect
car film.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Fantastic, fantastic movie, fantastic actors,
fantastic.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Everything.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
But I even heard the Game of Thrones thing.
They had that Starbucks cupRight One of the scenes.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Hey, it happens.
So I think you have to be able,as much as you are about
getting what you want, you haveto be able to let go, so key.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, and I was just.
It's like when those thingshappen and you don't notice it
till it's out there, it's likeunderstand, you did your part
and if it doesn't hurt amulti-million dollar project,
it's not going to hurt youTotally.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
You're going to see the strings on the puppets.
It's just going to wind uphappening.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
And especially if the creative is there, people
aren't going to be taken outnecessarily.
I would say when I was watchingyour film, even though you guys
only established the time, itfelt very cohesive.
It felt like the period, theway you filmed and everything.
And you guys didn't have a bigbudget and I love hearing in the

(59:39):
behind the scenes that you guyshad so many friends parking
your cars on the neighborhood.
They gave a little bit more ofan ambiance.
I didn't even notice that untilyou mentioned it and I started
thinking back to it and I'm like, oh snap, because the whole
time everything felt cohesiveand everything.
Because everything feltcohesive and it didn't take me

(01:00:02):
out in that sense.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Well, that's a conscious effort there.
You know, it's like you don'trealize that in that one scene,
where it's not really a bigpivotal scene of the movie, but
for some reason there'ssomething magical about this
gold nova pulling up and in thedriveways of all the other
houses because my grandma'sneighbors were cool, we parked a

(01:00:26):
Buick over there and the viewerdoesn't understand, maybe not
get it, but I'm like you don'tunderstand.
This shot mentally puts yourbrain in 1975 and it didn't take
too much.
It took three, four cars andavoiding as much as you possibly
could that would take you outof it.

(01:00:47):
And when I talk to youngfilmmakers I'm like you got to
make something you think youcould do.
I know cars, I know car culture.
Am I the best mechanic?
Hell, no.
But I do know enough that I canget the viewer to actually feel
like they're tasting somethingauthentic when they're watching
my film.

(01:01:07):
And I think that's what youhave to do.
If you grew up and your parentsworked in a bowling alley, make
a movie about bowling.
If you have access to aconvenience store or whatever,
just do that.
You have to make something thatyou think you can deliver.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
So the last thing I want to hear from you right
before we wrap up is I just wantto hear a little bit of also
the story behind this backyard.
Taking back Sunday concert thathappened recently that blew up
on social media and everything,because no one year was
happening.
And then I come to find thatyou and James are behind filming

(01:01:49):
that.
It was for a music video, right, or?

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
So just a little bit about how that came about and
how that actual experience wasdoing something like that and
prompt to kind of a littlebackyard fest and then yeah,
Taking back Sunday is like astaple around these parts, for
people of our age for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
And I was called a few weeks before, two weeks
before the shoot, and they'relooking for a location.
I was like, oh okay, I'm notreally sure, let me dig around a
little bit.
It was kind of like everythingwas changing around them and

(01:02:30):
they wanted to have behind thescenes stuff.
And so they call me and we'relike listen, can you make sure
to get the making of this?
Essentially, I was like yeah.
And I was brought James with meand while we were there we were
kind of confused because it waskind of up in the air what was
happening almost the whole time.

(01:02:52):
We weren't sure if the cops weregoing to show up and shut it
down.
So I just told James.
I was like, listen, shooteverything.
Like just shoot your own musicvideo, forget what's happening,
just do your thing, I'll do mything, these guys will do their
thing and we'll see what we get,because the cops could show up
and we might need to stitch thistogether with every little bit

(01:03:14):
they got, or we'll get it all in, who knows.
It wound up working outperfectly.
We did the shoot at a house inLindenhurst and I was on
vacation.
I was out in the Hamptons withmy wife for like a couple of
days on, just like a taking acouple of day breather, which we
haven't done in a while.

(01:03:35):
And of course, this landed onthat weekend.
So I told my wife, I said,listen, I'm going to bring my
camera and stuff.
I'm going to leave thatafternoon.
I'll come back at night time.
And I left there and left theshoot, came back to the Hamptons

(01:03:56):
, woke up the next day and mywife goes you're on a video that
has like five million plays onBarstool.
I see myself on them.
I didn't even I had no cluewhat was going to happen.
I was just showing up to helpand to be a part of it and do my
part, and it came out great.

(01:04:18):
I mean like they used a bunchof our footage in there and it
was just such a cool experienceto be in one of those backyard
shows.
It felt very old school.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
It felt so punk.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Yeah, it was very punk rock and those guys are the
best.
I really enjoy spending timewith them.
I did said summer fest withthem this year.
I went out on tour with themfor a little bit and got a bunch
of social media stuff and Iguess the biggest thing I'll say
from that is like what we weretalking about before is like you

(01:04:54):
got to be somebody that you canhang with.
I've sat there and talked withthese guys for hours and hours
and hours about everything otherthan music and filmmaking.
You have to have more than whatcamera and lens you're shooting
on to bring to the table witheverything, and I think that's a
big part of it.

(01:05:15):
When you're getting brought inon these things.
It's like you have to have morethan what you're being hired to
bring in.
And yeah, we had a blast, itwas just so much fun, man,
fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Yeah, dude, that is so cool and I feel like we can
just keep talking and talking.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
We'll have to do it again.
Yeah, I'll interview you nexttime.
That'll be good, that'll begood.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
I think the last thing I want to hear is like now
, for people who may be watchingthis just getting started Is
there any particular thing fromyour experience going into
filmmaking and everything that ayoung filmmaker should know, or
should keep in mind, thingsthat you wish she knew when you
were starting the long list?
Well, pick one that reallysticks out to you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
I'll say the one that sticks out to me the most is I
wish I had lav mics.
When I first started, when Ifirst started making my movie, I
kind of had this stupid ideawe're going to make it like the
Godfather, we're going to have aboom mic and that's it.
And worst mistake in my life,but that's my.

(01:06:25):
I had an idea and I should havebeen more open, because
somebody had mentioned me, likewhat about lav mics?
And I didn't do it and that'swhat we're doing this time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
I'm glad you mentioned that, because that was
probably, like my only note.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Oh, dude, it was a nightmare and you know what
happened was not to make a longstory longer, but I had edited
so much of the movie and it waspretty good and I was driving
home from work one day in thedart and I'd made a left turn
and the door of the dart openedand my computer went flying out
and had to recover the harddrive, like everything was on

(01:07:01):
there.
Thank God we were able to, butit actually threw the whole
thing off kilter and it was oneof those things at the end where
I was just like I must havebeen questioning life at that
moment.
Yes sir, yes sir, but you knowwe live and we learn, and you
know.
I guess the other thing is justlisten to those who've come

(01:07:21):
before you.
You know, have mentors, findpeople do things for free.
Free is not a bad thing.
Music freedom is like adifferent thing.
You know, when you helpsomebody else out, it's going to
come back to you.
You're also building yourresume.
So do things for free, Learnyour craft.
Pick up a friend that needs amusic video, Do it for them.

(01:07:41):
Like learn before you decideyou're going to just go make a
feature film like Star Wars.
It's probably not going tohappen, so test the waters first
, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
Yeah, I heard it once before.
As soon as you're only going tosucceed after you get past the
suck, so get to the suck part asfast as possible and get
through it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
It always sucks because you look back and go.
I could have done that better,yeah, but you're going to get
through it so you can get to theactual success 100%.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Well, thank you so much for coming down.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Thanks for having me being on today.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Now for people who want to follow you.
People maybe want to check outSunday, sunday, sunday and check
out where the sequel is goingto be.
How should people keep track?
You know?
How should people follow you?

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Obi-Wan Natoli.
That's my handle on FacebookInstagram.
You can, my name is AnthonyNatoli, if it makes it any
easier.
But Sunday, sundaySundayfilmcom.
That's where we have copies ofthe movie you can purchase to
support the film and support thesequel.
Not sure when the sequel isgoing to be done yet, but on my

(01:08:49):
YouTube page we have the makingof and a bunch of other little
clips and stuff that you cancheck out, get a taste of what
the movie's about, check out thetrailer and yeah let me know
what you think.
If anybody out there needs helpor questions, I always answer.
So we're here to teach, we'rehere to pass along information,

(01:09:10):
so open door 100%.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Well, thank you so much and, as always, you can
find us at Vision Maker Podcastto keep track with all the
episodes and keep track with ourother adventures at Over at
Vision Maker Productions.
And again, thank you so muchand catch you all later.
Please make sure to subscribe.