BPS 418: Drugs, Sex and Higher Love with Slamdance Winner Hasan Oswald

Today on the show we have Slamdance Grand Jury winning filmmaker Hasan Oswald. Hasan's story is pretty inspiring. He did exactly what I preach all the time, he picked up a camera and began to tell his story. He made his first short film that was later tweeted by Stephen Fry, and the National Geographic came calling to work on their film Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS. 

He has since covered the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, drug trafficking, and homelessness in Philadelphia. He quickly established a unique ability to capture the human experience through "cinema verité."  His unfettered access to and intimacy with his characters creates a seamless veneer between the filmmaker and subject.

After getting much need experience in the field he decided it was time to tell larger stories. His first outing as a feature film director, Higher Love, won him the top award at the Slamdance Film Festival. To finance his film he pulled a page out of Robert Rodriguez's playbook and sold his blood plasma to finance his film.

Hasan's filmmaking journey is inspiring to say the least. He is using cinema to tell stories that will hopefully change the way people think. Higher Love is available on all major VOD platforms. His current project focuses on the Yazidi Genocide in Iraq.

Enjoy my conversation with Hasan Oswald.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four eighteen.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
The best education in film is to make one.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Stanley Cooper broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
when we really should be working on that next draft.
It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
screenplay bulletproof.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
on the kind of project you are and the goals
of the project you are. So we actually break down
by three categories micro budget, indie film, market and studio film.
There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's

(01:06):
used to reading tempole movies when your movie is going
to be done for one hundred thousand dollars. And we
wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our
readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, w MEE, NBC, HBO, Disney,
Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered

(01:27):
by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Now, Guys,
today on the show, we have filmmaker Hassan Osweld and
Hassan won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's slam
Dance Film Festival with his first feature film, Higher Love Now.

(01:50):
Hassan's story is extremely inspirational because he took a page
out of Robert Rodriguez's book Rebel Without a Crew and
sold his plays to help finance his film. It is
a very touching and gut wrenching film. So in this episode,
Hassan and I talk about how he made his film,

(02:12):
all the journeys and craziness that happened while he was
making his film, what it was like to win the
slam Dance Film Festival and get the Grand Jury Prize there,
and how the industry reacted to him winning that festival,
and how it helped him get his film out into
the world. So, without any further ado, please enjoy my

(02:34):
conversation with Hassan oswald I'd like to welcome to the show,
Hassan oswald Man. Thank you so much for being on
the show.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Brother of course, Alex, longtime fan. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Oh Man, thank you for being on the show.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
And you are the first filmmaker that I am interviewing
from not only the other side of the world.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
But can you tell the audience where you're at right now?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Sir?

Speaker 5 (02:55):
Sure, I'm in northern Iraq, the Kurdish region of Iraq, vacationing, vacation, vacationing.
It's really beautiful at time of year. It's one hundred
and five at sunrise, it's peak.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
It's awesome.

Speaker 5 (03:08):
No, I'm working on my next project and I've been
working on on and off for the last year, and it
came back in February for what was supposed to be
a three week wrap trip and going on four months
with really no end in sight. Is all the airports
are shut, all the borders are shut. So yeah, that's
where I'm calling from.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
You're like, you're basically trapped in a hotel bag Dad,
if you will, you can check it.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
You can check in, but you just can't check out.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
You can't check out.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
So before we get to your movie, it's your movie.
How did you enter the business?

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Man? How I got in?

Speaker 5 (03:43):
So I actually my film background is very I'm definitely
a new face in the business. I went to something,
I know if you've heard it as a Waldorf school, it's
kind of like Montessori based. Yeah, so I went to
Waller School in upstate New York, just right outside the city. Actually,

(04:06):
and you've actually you're not about to watch movies, no media.
So my whole childhood I watched very few movies. We
didn't have a TV in our house, and when we
finally got one, I remember I used to when my
parents were out, I used to watch TV and then
I'd put an ice pack on the TV because they
would come home and feel it to see if I'd

(04:26):
been watching TV. So that's that's how little exposure I
had to movies. So I wasn't this movie buff who
you know.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Had.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
A camera, his dad's camera and he learned how to
edit on TWVCR. That wasn't me, I remember, I was.
I was about to watch one movie a month, and
we used to go to this video store, giant video
that was before like Hollywood video.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
Mom and pop owned.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
Little place, and every time I'd go in there with
these big ideas and I'm going to watch this new movie,
and nine times out of ten I'd come home with
water World. And I have no idea why, but water
World was my was my go to and I just
absolutely loved it and I still and I still love it.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
So I didn't have any kind of a background in film.

Speaker 5 (05:11):
I would go to Costco and had all the TVs
lined up, and my mom would go shopping and I'd
get my TV in there. Uh, and I was So
it was really a precious, precious, fin finite resource for me.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
So I didn't have that background.

Speaker 5 (05:28):
And after I went to school at Villanova, studied creative
I was an English major, but studied creative writing and
had some journalism, uh journalism minor or concentration. And so
I always had an interest in storytelling. I wrote a
good bit of novel, novella, short story, that kind of stuff.

(05:50):
Never any screenwriting, but it's always fascinated with storytelling and
h when I graduated, I had no idea what I
was gonna do. I applied and was accepted to work
on a cat ranch in Australia.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
They still have these.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
You can still be a cowboy in Australia a million
cattle ranches.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
And then my visa got.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
Messed up, so kind of on a whim, I moved
to Thailand to become an English teacher. I just had
no idea what I wanted to do, and there goes,
Here's blair Witch time.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
So I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
So so for people living, yeah, for people listening, since
he's in Iraq, there are power sword surges or outages
every every yeah, so every few minutes. But everything is
on a jenny, so we won't lose his connection.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
But if you're watching, he will go blair Witch exactly.

Speaker 5 (06:37):
So only my favaits is lit off about every fifteen minutes.
So yes, So in Thailand I.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Went to be an English teacher.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
So I wanted to do this kind of European gap year.
I'd spent a lot of time abroad as a child,
and I wanted to do this kind of gap year
and find out what I was doing.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Really film, I still film was not a big part
of my life.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
I you know, I loved and loved love actually, like
up until.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
Then, I was certainly not watching, certainly.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Not watching old classics if it was in the theater,
if it was.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
You're not sitting there watching like Corosawa and Scorse who
who Who Away.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
So we as a teacher in Thailand, we would take
a lot of trips and I mean it was just
it was an incredible life. We lived there and we
had a GoPro and so we would film everything. And
this is right about the time where you could get
ten eighty on I think.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
I had an android.

Speaker 5 (07:46):
Uh so really in your pocket you had a bunch
of good resources for pretty cheap. And so all my
friends had these GoPros and cameras, and so we take trips,
weekend trips to Vietnam, bus trips to Lao, and we'd
just gathered to and then at the end we were like,
all right, what are we going to do with this?
And so I was like, all right, I think I
can do this on iMovie.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
I can do something. So I just I remember I
laid a track down.

Speaker 5 (08:10):
It was movie Play, which is gotta be the most overused.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Most sampled album in history.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Yes, and it was glorious. So it was that that
paradise song from.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
This the Beach it's in my head right now.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
I don't have the rights to it, and I can't
play it on the show, but I have it in
my head, sir.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
So The Beach, the film The Beach with Leo Uh,
that was the soundtrack, so that's why we used it.
And I remember I remember cutting to the music and
loving it, like I thought, this is really cool. I
mean it was trash footage, I mean trash, but we
liked it. It was we were creating something. So we

(08:56):
were just doing that on the side and teaching. I
still had no I had given up my journalism roots
as well. I was through and through an English teacher
I had.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
I fell in.

Speaker 5 (09:06):
I was teaching second grades in grade and I fell
in love with my class. So I thought I got
I applied and got accepted to Columbia to do my
master's in education. I was going to come back to
New York City and become an English teacher, and that
was my career. About a year and a half in,
we were set to renew our contracts and instead, my

(09:30):
friends and I we quit or didn't renew our contracts
and just traveled throughout the region. We tried to go
by train from Southeast Asia all the way to Europe,
so there's trains all the way up, and then we
took the Trans Siberian across and we recorded the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (09:59):
When I got back to your up, I had a
bunch of new footage.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
And I edited.

Speaker 5 (10:05):
We called it or I called it eighteen Countries in
eighteen minutes, and it was an eighteen minute.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
Video that went on Vimeo and it made the front page.

Speaker 5 (10:15):
Or a front page I think the travel front page
of Reddit ten thousand years, I think, which was I
can't imagine. I still can't imagine. I can see people
watched it, and it's still one of my favorite things
I've ever created. It was the first thing I ever created,
and just the feedback from that and the kind of
the creative process that went into it, I just I

(10:38):
fell in love with I guess then editing, and I
still had no idea how to shoot.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
But because I taught myself.

Speaker 5 (10:45):
Editing through YouTube tutorials, just books, podcasts, I.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
Could edit. I just couldn't shoot it all.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
But I knew I could teach myself to shoot, and
of course That's when I found rebble without a crew,
and I thought, oh wow.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
Like this can be done.

Speaker 5 (11:07):
And of course it was stupid travel videos, but those
travel videos turned into kind of my education, and so
I didn't go home when I got to Europe and
do my master's in education. I stayed in Barcelona and
started doing these freelance gigs totally fake it to you

(11:29):
make it. I remember, I connected. I remember I went
to different hostels and I'm still teaching part time at
an international school in Barcelona at this time to kind
of make ends meet. But I remember I went to
a hostel and I said, oh, I make these promo videos.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Can I do one for you?

Speaker 5 (11:46):
Because each hospital in Barcelona have got a party night
and I don't know, so they said, sure, just send
over your reel.

Speaker 4 (11:53):
I was like, my what.

Speaker 5 (11:55):
So I remember doing my first kind of franking cut off,
rip cut off of different people's videos on YouTube. Oh
I mean it was that will never see the later
day again. And so and then I did another kind
of similar thing to with. My friend had an apartment
complex he used to rent to students, and I remember

(12:17):
pulling my camera on a string across marble countertops.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
My pants my pan shot. So that was kind of
the genesis.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
Of of how I got into film.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
And that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, now that's a really that's a that's I always
loved hearing these stories because everyone has a different path
in and obviously you found your path in kind of
mirandered around literally continents. I'm trying to figure to find
this out. So let's get to your film, Higher Love.
Tell me about Higher Love and how it came about.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
Sure, so, I guess. Just kind of a brief synopsis.

Speaker 5 (12:56):
It follows a man named Darryl Gant in Camden, New Jersey.
Darryl's a factory man from Camden and his long term
girlfriend Nanny or Denitza. She is a heroin addict on
the streets of Camden, and how she pays for that
habit through various while she lives and works the streets,

(13:18):
and she becomes pregnant, and so the first half of
the film follows his obstacles, his.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
Journey while every morning he.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Leaves, she she leaves the house, runs away to Camden,
and it's his journey to find her over two years,
and then once the baby is born, a different journey begins.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
So it's on the surface, it's.

Speaker 5 (13:39):
This this search for the love of his life and
he as he tries to protect his unborn baby, but
also each obstacle that Darryl faces it it's kind of
an obstacle that a lot of these cities face. It's
not just Camden, it's you know, Flint, Michigan, Cleveland, these
post industrial cities that the American dream is kind of

(14:02):
crashed and burned in. So that's kind of what the
movie is about. And it came about kind of in
an interesting way. So if we backtrack a little bit,
I still was doing travel films, but they.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Were kind of turning into uh more more interview based
we're doing.

Speaker 5 (14:28):
I remember they're getting darker and the people were filming
these travel films for We're like, we don't want to
listen to this Sri Lankan lady about losing our family
and the tsunami, Like we will, yeah, we wanna, we
want to. We want to hear about the best beaches
in Sri Lanka. So, uh already the disconnect was beginning.
Uh So, at the end of filming that travel show,

(14:50):
it was my now ex girlfriend and I we both
both things were coming to an end. Uh So it
was time to do something different, and so at the
end of that travel show, I went to Lesbos, Greece,
where the refugee So that's where the Syrian refugees where
they kept drowning in the Mediterranean doing that crossing into

(15:13):
Europe and their rafts, and so I went there with
more skills than I had and better cameras, but still
very new. And this was kind of my first documentary
and I made I joined a rescue squad there, the
ones who pulled the rafts and the people from the
from the ocean.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
So I joined a rescue squad there and did a fifteen.

Speaker 5 (15:35):
Minute short and came back edited myself, colored it myself
figured out that color was a thing, So.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
Why didn't do that?

Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yeah, and I thought, all right, here we go, like,
I have a fifteen minute doc This is good.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
I don't know, seven hundred views. Maybe it was.

Speaker 5 (15:55):
It was that was going to be my big ticket
and I'm living, I'm out of money. I don't know
if this film thing is going to be you know,
if this is my way.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Right, But then you decided to go to do a
very not uplifting documentary in the streets of Camden.

Speaker 5 (16:17):
Right, So well, how that came Obroun was maybe a
month after this film's publish.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
The Refugee film was published.

Speaker 5 (16:24):
Stephen Fry tweets it, and then a few more Neil Gaiman, guy,
I mean the author tweets it, a few bigger names
tweets it, tweet it, and then I get, you know,
one hundred thousand views under its views. And from that
so National Geographics saw that I saw a tweet and

(16:46):
they call me and I'm living in Boulder at the
time with my with my girlfriend, and they so Goldcrests
Films was contracted by Nacchio, So they're making a film
for Naccio and the director Nick Quested and Sebastian you know,
they call me and or the assistant calls me and says, hey,
can you come do that?

Speaker 4 (17:05):
Can you the director would like to meet you? And
so I'm thinking, oh, great, this is an interview.

Speaker 5 (17:11):
So I get up, packed up, and then right before
I leave, I email them. I say, hey, just making
sure we're on for tomorrow and interviews in New York.
So we're on for tomorrow. No response, so I'm like,
all right.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
I gotta go.

Speaker 5 (17:23):
So I just fly to New York on miles get
out of the airport, go to the interview, go to
the interview spot, and I'm just thinking, like, I don't
think I have an interview, And so I go and
like five minutes before they respond to my email, they're like, yeah,
he's still planning on meeting you. And from there, within
a week we hit it off. And within a week

(17:44):
it was my first kind of film job ever. I
had ten thousand dollars taped to my chest heading across Turkey,
meeting with smugglers.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
I'm with the.

Speaker 5 (17:52):
Director, he's teaching me all these things, all these cameras,
and so this is my first documentary, real documentary appearance,
and I just I fell in love with it, and
I came back and I continued working for them and
learned a lot of great stuff. But after about a
year it was time to move on. And that's where

(18:13):
I knew that I wanted the whole time, I knew
that I would eventually if I was going to fail.
I was Gonnail big, So I knew I wanted to direct,
and my father's from Camden, New Jersey, where Hire Lovel
takes place.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
Got it and it was I had.

Speaker 5 (18:26):
No budget, I had sun saving some savings for my
time with on the Natio film. Camden's only a two
hour drive from New York because my family, my dad's family,
is all from there, they all still live in the
surrounding area. So I knew that all I was going
to have to pay for.

Speaker 4 (18:41):
Was gas money.

Speaker 5 (18:44):
I had a strong enough backing in editing and filming
and producing.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
That well, I didn't have a choice.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
I had to wear all all the hats. But I
knew that I could make this movie. And Camden kind
of had this throughout my life, just from my dad's
background there.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
I've kind of had this.

Speaker 5 (19:04):
Morbid curiosity with that city and cities like it, as
you mentioned, like the post industrial decline, the empty factories.
It's America's most dangerous city or one of them for
the last decade. So I thought, you know, this is
a story that needs to be told now.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
So what was the budget of this film? If you
don't want me.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
Asking, The budget was less than zero, okay, So to
start it was.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
I knew that a camera and a dream basically a camera.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
And a dream, So I knew I was going to
have to do everything to start, at least before I
could kind of show people that this was a project
worth investing in, This was a project worth joining.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
So I had some savings.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
As I mentioned, we'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor, and now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
But I would so there are still expenses, just food,
although my uncle was amazing with that.

Speaker 4 (20:08):
He's an associate producer on it in the film. He
took great care of me.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
But there's still food, there's still gas, there's still there's
a lot of stuff to go into it. And so
to make ends meet, there is a lot of tricks
that I used to start.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
I knew right away I could sell my blood.

Speaker 5 (20:26):
So I sold my blood plasma twice a week, fifty
bucks a pop.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
And that was more than enough to make ends meet,
to get going.

Speaker 5 (20:36):
And then and then I needed a drone, and then
I needed another lens, zoom lens, and then I needed
other things.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
So we would.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
It's it's not a lot of blood, but it's a
lot of blood.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
So we're out of blood. The blood he's literally bank.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
He literally sucked the blood out of me to make this.

Speaker 4 (21:00):
The foot out of me.

Speaker 5 (21:00):
Yes, So the next step was I figured out that
and I had nothing to edit. Four CA I made
the mistake of filming, and well it turned out fine,
but I couldn't edit four cam my laptop, so I
needed a new laptop. So what I would do was,
and this is frowned upon, but I would go to
Apple and I'd buy their best system and then i'd

(21:21):
edit for thirty days straight, twenty nine days straight, and
then I would return the system because there was no
reef stocking fee, there was no anything right, and so
that's how I was doing the edit. And then I
would the next thirty days when I didn't have an
editing system and I didn't want the local Apple store
to become wary, I would shoot that whole time the
next month.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
So what I would do, You go thirty on, thirty on.

Speaker 5 (21:45):
And then the next thirty on was for lenses. Do
the same thing for lenses, camera body steady cams at
best Buy twenty nine day rental for free.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
So that's how I was. That's how I had an
amazing kit. You know, top of the line stuff.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
Rented, and I know, you know it skirts the bounds
of ethicacy, but you know.

Speaker 6 (22:09):
Look, sometimes you've got to as a as a as
the as the the glorious AXLEFOLI once said, sometimes you've
got to fracture an occasional law, and.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Uh, you don't break it. It just kind of bended
a bit.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
And look, you are working within those guidelines. Look, when
you're starting out, you do what you gotta do to
make it happen. You're not the first person I've ever
heard that did the best buy deal. I'm sure people
listening now they're like, wait a minute, you could do
what a best Buy. I'm like, yes, you can go
to best Buy, buy the best camera you want and
use it for thirty days.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
I did not think about app Don't drop it, Yeah,
don't drop.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
It, don't scuff it. It's got to be it's got
to be pristine because they will check. But if you're good,
you've got a hell of a kid. I never thought
about Apple because I've never There was no Apple computers
when I was coming up anyway, not like that that
there was no Apple stores. Let's say, so that's interesting,

(23:09):
so that you would edit and what did you edit
in just out of here, like Final Cut or Vinci.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
Yeah, so I learned.

Speaker 5 (23:14):
I learned in Thailand on iMovie, and then I taught
myself Final Cut, Final Cut ten and then quickly moved
into Premiere because I remember I was back in the
studio one day and they were like, what are you
using Final Cut? I was like, what am I using
final Cut? I have no I still don't know what
I prefer what's better. But now, yeah, we did the
whole edit in in Premiere.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Okay, yeah, that's that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
So so you would you would edit one month, the
go shoot footage for another month, then go back and
buy another laptop and edit for the next thirty days.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
How long did you keep this up?

Speaker 4 (23:51):
Yeah? Too long?

Speaker 5 (23:53):
And we used to use different credit cards. We used
to use like I'd borrow my mom's credit card and
then and venmo her the money and then she when
she'd get the money, would turn on her account, and
then we'd use my uncle's credit It was.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
It was bad.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
So I mean I probably did that on an offer
about eight months.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Oh my god, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
So probably four rentals from each I like that.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
I like the rentals. I love that.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
I love that you've now just automatically just called it
a rental even though it is absolutely not a rental.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
But yes, yes, the zero budget rental geeses.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
No, well, I mean look like I said, sometimes you
gotta do what you gotta do to make it happen,
and and it's it's it.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
It worked, it worked. Did you keep any of it
ever or is it all gone?

Speaker 4 (24:46):
No?

Speaker 5 (24:46):
So, I mean we we eventually kept once we brought
on a little bit of money, we kept stuff that
I'm still using. And but it also, I mean it
really caught. I think having zero that zero budget kind
of made the movie what it was. We were going
to there are other we would go to. If you
go to eBay eBay YouTube, you can learn how to

(25:10):
make a one dollar two dollars a rig with PVC piping.
Oh yeah, and so we learned all that stuff too.
We would do buy all our stuff after market on eBay.
It would take you know, four weeks to get there
from from China, so we could never have anything that
we really needed.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
But so we use those tricks also.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
And then yeah, once we found out kind of our
go to kit essentials, we kept those.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
I got a laptop that could handle four K.

Speaker 5 (25:43):
And so while we were coming up, we were, you know,
playing with some ethical boundaries, but we eventually got on
the straight and narrow and did it the right way.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Look, I mean, I'm assuming you know who wanted to
hurt sog Is of course.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Okay, so you heard that story of him with the
with the.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Papers, Yeah, yeah, with forgrinks.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, he literally forged his papers to get when the
police came to where he was shooting. He forged papers
proving that he was able to shoot there.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
You do what you gotta do.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
You know, as long as you're not hurting anybody or
literally stealing literally stealing.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, you do what you gotta do.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yeah, And we did a lot of that stuff too.

Speaker 5 (26:25):
I mean, Werner Vanner was one of my original inspirations,
So yeah, we copied a lot of that stuff with
just fake it to you make it. And if they're
going to assume something going into a shoot, you know,
I guess I didn't tell him I was with HBO.
But if they're gonna call me the HBO boys, I
didn't say it, someone else said it. So like we

(26:45):
we faked it till we made it with a lot
of those tricks.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Did you have an HBO shirt? Answer?

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Is that.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Per Se?

Speaker 2 (26:54):
That HBO hat that you bought it that the souvenir
shopped in downtown Manhattan.

Speaker 5 (27:00):
Yeah, not per Se yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Look look, I mean, look, I can tell you stories
and stuff I did and when I was coming up.
I mean, I think I've told this story on this
show before. But when my first edit reel was based
off of raw footage that I got from a from
a European group of filmmakers that came into my commercial
house that I was in Miami, and I grabbed all
their footage and I re edited. This was insane, like

(27:26):
million dollar budget footage. Re edited it all slapped the
Nike Nike logo at the end of it, and I
cut together five or six reels and then I quit
and I went out with that reel and people were
like they assumed that I was that guy. When they asked,
I would go, no, no, no, that's just a spec spot.
But if they didn't ask, there.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
You go yes exactly.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
You know, it's if you assume that's up to you,
you know, it's uh, like I always say, asked for forgiveness,
not for.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
Permission, yes, shoot, shoot first, ask later.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yes, as my entire in my entire last film.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
Was exactly yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
All right.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
So all right, so you've sold plasma, you have you
have skirted the line of of the return policies over
at Apple and Best Buy for eight months, and and
then you've gotten you finally got some money together. And
then how did you remember you saying to me that
you kind of Mariachid camed in a little bit in

(28:29):
the sense that you became very well known in the area.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you
kind of started having almost free reigned in that in
that town.

Speaker 5 (28:40):
Yeah, So, I think having no money helped us in
a bunch of ways. Like, for example, I mentioned that
we didn't have a zoo, I didn't have a zoom lens.
I was filming everything with a fixed lens, and so
there are some really great shots where we wouldn't have gotten.
And I had this incredible access to my characters, and
I would be that I had to be. I was

(29:01):
a foot away from them, and it lends this kind
of like raw, this pure veritale almost that I wouldn't
have gotten if I could afford a zoom lens.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
I had to go in within a foot of all
my characters.

Speaker 5 (29:13):
And I think that kind of was the case in
one way or another with a lot of these things.
I didn't have a producer, I didn't have anybody. So
I had to go to Camden, which is, you know,
it's one of the most dangerous cities in America, and
I was terrified, and I had to go knock on
doors and meet these characters where they were. So I

(29:34):
would go, you know, I'd start out, I'd go to town
meetings and kind of find out who the town leaders
were and the different advocacy groups, and then I would
branch out to I would go knock on.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
The doors of.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
Where known drug houses, but I would be with one
of those town advocates, so they would kind of give
me an ounce of credibility.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. It's like Donny Braska.
They were Donny brascoing you like, he's a good guy.

Speaker 5 (30:13):
That's fine, he's a good guy exactly, he's the HBO guy.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
Yeah, trust him, got the sure.

Speaker 5 (30:22):
So they, I mean, they really appreciated that Camden has
been a drive by, yesid drive by city, but also
a drive past the city, a flyover city. One of
the first titles for our film, actually for a long
time it was titled below the Brine. It's it's after

(30:42):
a poem by Walt Whitman, who's actually from Camden, and
it's about this world that exists below the brine, below
the surface of the ocean that nobody ever sees. But
there's life down there, there's heartbreak down there's society down there,
and that's Camden.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
They you know, they build.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
The retaining Walldon Highway so you can't see into it.
No one goes into this place. No one talks to
these people and learns their stories. So when I was
knocking on doors just because I had to, I didn't have.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
A producer, they really appreciated that. And so like, how
did you?

Speaker 3 (31:15):
How did you?

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Because I mean from watching portions of the film, like
they're doing not only illegal things that you and but
they're allowing you to come in film this some of
it's extremely personal and yeah, I mean there's characters who
are high on screen. There are characters who are pregnant
and high, and there's there's so many like how did

(31:38):
you get them to agree to do this?

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Like what what.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Was in it for them for them to be able
to allow such access to their lives?

Speaker 5 (31:47):
Yeah, and yeah, A portion of why they did that
always comes down to an aspect of the people want
to be on TV. You know, the second camera turns on,
no matter what any one says, it changes the dynamic.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
However, I think.

Speaker 5 (32:03):
Because I went and met them where they were, talked
to them first, and really I didn't just come in
for a weekend and film a bunch.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
Of people shooting up.

Speaker 5 (32:12):
I knew them became really entrenched in their lives night
after night, day after day. They respected that I wanted
to and this is how I approached it. I wanted
to tell their story, the story of Camden, the story
of this opioid epidemic. I wanted them to tell it,
so I wanted to see it through their eyes.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
And they right away kind of were open to that.

Speaker 5 (32:38):
And one of the first scenes in the motel, where
our pregnant character is injecting, was my first kind of
realization of what trust and what access they had given me,
and that carried for the next year and a half.
And after that motel scene, I received a very angry

(32:58):
phone call from who turned out to be the protagonist
of the film, Darryl, about filming with his pregnant drug
addicted wife long term girlfriend, and he.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
Was very angry. He said meet me the next day.

Speaker 5 (33:10):
I thought the film's over, maybe in my life is over.
And he basically just he pulled up. He said, listen,
let me tell you my side of the story. And
so that's where we learned his side of the story.
Every morning he wakes up, he goes to search for Nannie.
He's trying to save his unborn child. And so when
he said, let me tell you my side of the story,
I think that's why I was so embraced by Camden Nights,

(33:33):
because nobody's given these cities a second look.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
No one's you know, no one, no one ever.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
Stops to say, oh, you're living on the streets in
on Heroin Highway as they call it, in America's most
dangerous on one of America's most dangerous cities.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
You know, how did you get here? What went wrong?
People think? You know? Who is right?

Speaker 5 (34:00):
Mind says I want to give up everything, lose my kids,
my house, my car. I want to give that all
up and live in a gutter for fifteen ten years.
If I'm lucky. No one stopped to ask the question
of how they got there. They just treat them, you know,
as animals almost, And so that trust was kind of

(34:24):
achieved right from the beginning of me even coming into
their doorstep, and then they just gave me the permission
almost to give the means the agency to tell their
own story.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
That's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
You're right, these stories are a little too few and
far between, and a lot of the stuff that's going
on right now back here in the States that you
have been safely in Iraq avoiding, which is Corona and
what's going on with the death of George Floyd. I
think that's one of the reasons why these there is

(35:02):
such uprising here now. It's because it's because of stories
like this that that these these people have been handicapped
from the moment they were you know, they were evicted
from their womb, their mother's womb. Yes, yes, you know,
there's no doubt about it. And these stories are so
so important and that's why it's so much more beautiful

(35:24):
on the way how you did it, which like if
you told me like, yeah, yeah, we had like two
three hundred thousand, we had an Alexa, we shot with
cook lenses, we had a full rig.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
It wouldn't You can't make this movie like that. You
need to You need to go to Best Buy an
Apple and do what you did.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
It goes the whole story. Now, now this is your
first feature, right, this was your first feature.

Speaker 5 (35:47):
Yeah, it's my first feature. It's only the second on
my second credit. So I worked on that National Geographic film.
So I was really I'm still, of course learning everything
as I go. But that was my film school that year,
a year and half in Camden.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
That was my film school.

Speaker 5 (36:06):
You'll see, I mean, if you look at our Instagram,
you'll see some funny things of a first time director.
But also there's so many stories of I had no
idea what was what I was.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
Doing at the beginning.

Speaker 5 (36:16):
Especially you'll notice things in the film if you watch
it with a close eye that I can point out
after you watch it it's a first time filmmaker if
But we did do an amazing They did an amazing
job of saving a lot in post and it looks incredible.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
But there's some funny things that I learned the hard way.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
But did you But the question is did you wear
a director hat or a director T shirt?

Speaker 4 (36:39):
No? I just carried the chair around and just.

Speaker 5 (36:42):
You know, like that that gift where the guy just
unfolds the chair and straight stairs everywhere went.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
I had my director's chair on.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I always make a joke because when I was first
coming up, I had the director hat and a director
t shirt on, because that's what just a pompous film.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Student would do.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
So anytime I see a director walk on set with
a director shirt on, I'm like, oh God, oh no,
this is not going well.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
This is not going to go well.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
And every single time that's ever happened, I've never been disappointed.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Let's just put it that way.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
So you submit your films all these film festivals, right,
and not only did you get it into slam Dance,
but you also got some interest from south By this
of this last year. So can you tell me what
happened between slam Dance and south By? And then how
did it actually? How did it all work out?

Speaker 4 (37:35):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (37:36):
So we we really I'm not the only young filmmaker
on this team. It's really an inexperienced team of four
people probably still is.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Which I love. And now we're actually really good.

Speaker 5 (37:49):
So we really didn't really even though what we were
doing going to festival season either.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
So we got into.

Speaker 5 (37:58):
Slam Dance that was our first Well, first we got
rejected by Sundance obviously, and then I yes, exactly. It
was our first uh uh, you.

Speaker 4 (38:09):
Know, welcome to the Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (38:13):
And then we got into slam By, which we were
really blown away. And for those we were unfamiliar, I
was unfamiliar. But it happens the same exact week, the
same time as Sundance. So actually, if you say it
fast enough, uh yeah. And honestly, a lot of people
think so we post on social media and a lot

(38:35):
of my university friends, Uh, they just assume I wants Sundance,
and there's no I'm not gonna correct them again.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
It's yeah, we're who want Sundance.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
So we got into slam Dance and it was just
it was an incredible, incredible week, but we had so
Sundance slam Dance. Uh. Deadline to accept was right around
the same time that south By their deadline was for
their notification deadline was and in our minds, my mind

(39:11):
at least, I would lean toward not anymore, of course,
but I was going to lean toward our premiere at
south By just it has the big name and just
as the first time filmmaker, I just was going by
the name.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
So there was disagreement within the group.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
Eventually we decided we're going to premiere at slam Dance.
We ended up not getting into south By. So we're
at these parties and everything, and we're retelling the story and.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
How we chose to premiere at slam Dance. And it
turned out that.

Speaker 5 (39:47):
Through various programmers, I guess and I'm not one hundred
percent sure on this.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
But the rumors on the street, the rumors on the street, the.

Speaker 5 (39:55):
Rumors on the street that south By does not take
kindly to slam Dance.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
Show, especially if you're wanting to choose between the two.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
And we had gotten kind of a cryptic.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
Email from south By that before we got the rejection email,
and so they knew we were choosing between the two.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (40:27):
And we chose slam Dance and didn't end up being
accepted to south By, which turned out.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
So we won Grandeur a slam Dance. So it's amazing
the best choice. Uh.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
And then a week after we come home, COVID hits
and south By is the first one to go.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
So it really was the right the right decision.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
Yeah, it all worked out at the end.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Now what was your what was your Sundance slash slam
dance Park City experience?

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Like because you were you were like a fresh sh
off the boat.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
This is your first movie, You've never been your first
film festival.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
If I'm not mistaken, right like this is yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
I didn't even, I couldn't even.

Speaker 5 (41:10):
I wasn't exactly sure what I knew what a film
festival was. Obviously, I thought of it more as like
a market. And then my only background is the Entourage
episode which I watched, you know again, right before I left, right,
and I'm this, I'm a director, I'm going to a
major film festival. I'm picturing a lot of Entourage stuff.

(41:31):
And there was a lot of Entourage stuff. I mean,
we amazing parties. Yeah, we had a great PR team
that hooked us up. We went to like the Scenetic party.
We went to the HBO HBO party.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
Of course, obviously because you're Thebo guys.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
So we had a great time. It was you know,
the hot tubs, the late nights. It was amazing.

Speaker 5 (41:50):
But then there was also the side, So that was
the Entourage side. And then your film comes to mind
at the corner of ego and desire. So these for
those unfamiliar, you shouldn't be. It's a great movie, go
watch it. But it's three young filmmakers go to Sundance
to try to pitch their film and everything kind of

(42:11):
falls apart.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
And so we had a lot of those moments too.

Speaker 5 (42:15):
We you know, we're just first time everything, and I
didn't and I just didn't know anything.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
So there's a lot of mistakes made. You know, what's
a sales agent? You need one.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
We went in very very green, exciting, but dumb, excited
and greed. So it was a brilliant mix of the
entrage episode and your film and your film you no.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
And I mean I've been there, as you know if
I've been at slam and Sundance many many times over
the years, and slam Dance is an experience, and I
love slam Dance as you can see. I have my
I represent the Slam Dance shirt all the time. I
do love them.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
I always found myself even though.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
I was rejected from slam Dance, and I'll call them
out all the time because Dan co owner, co founder
was in it and I still got reached Dan. Yeah,
but to be fair, I think I said the word
sun Dance like fifty thousand times in the movie, so
they probably didn't want to promote Sundance so much.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
You should have gone with slam dance.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
We were talking about that earlier, were like, you know,
maybe I would have just said slam dance, slam dance,
slam dance. Oh, they would have accepted it in a heartbeat.
But of course we always go for the for the
girl that.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
Doesn't want us.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yes, the hot girl that teases us constantly, that is
that's the relationship with ninety nine point nine percent of
every filmmaker ever, independent filmmaker ever.

Speaker 5 (43:37):
And then we keep saying that, so south By was
the hot girl that didn't want us, and then it
got canceled. So every time we don't get one and
we're like, well, that hot girl is about to go
down because it's gonna get canceled, and it keeps happening.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
So yeah, yeah, God knows what's going to happen in
the future. You know, I'm still in the in the
camp of I don't think Sundance is going to happen
in twenty twenty one in not the same way. I can't,
you know, I can't even imagine it happening. But we'll see,
but you won, so you won South.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Excuse me, you you you excuse me. You want slam dance.
You won the jury. The grand jury prices slam dance.
So that's a big that's a big.

Speaker 5 (44:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
We were just uh, it was really just a dream.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
It was I'll never forget when they call her name
like it was. I mean, i blacked out just from
the adrenaline. I'm not even sure what I ran out there.
I'll never look at what what that acceptance speech was.
I'll tell you that Alex was not good.

Speaker 4 (44:31):
It was it was.

Speaker 5 (44:34):
Ft mouth, it was bad, but it was Yeah, it
was just it was a dream contrue Uh, win that
and then we So that was our first festival to
you know, the first festival, one of the first festivals
of the year, and.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
So from that we got waiver.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
Waivers to you know, maybe everywhere, and it was so
strange being contacted to show your film.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
So we just we just this weekend we did.

Speaker 5 (45:02):
Our European premiere at Crackout in Poland, which is an
amazing festival. Yeah, and we were I think one or
if not the only North American film selected for competition.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Uh. And it was online, which was a new experience.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
But so that was right off of we actually got
the news about krackout right after the Grand Jury win.
And then also we were accepted this past week. Uh sorry,
we were in this past week in Brooklyn where we
won Best New Director and Spirit Award for for a
documentary feature. And so that Grand Jury win just yeah,

(45:39):
that snowball into everything. And we have a bunch of
festivals coming up that are either going to go online
or be canceled.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
So I want, so I want to clear exactly who
knows what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
So I want, I want to be real clear.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
So I want to bring this and you've been listening
to my podcast now for a while and everyone who's
listening automatically, but he won slam Dance, like he won
the Grand Jury Prize at slam Dance. So so when
the when the trucks of money came, did they just
did they unload by the palette or did they just

(46:12):
dump it all on your front yard?

Speaker 3 (46:13):
How does that work?

Speaker 5 (46:16):
They just they delivered it in their hands a little bit.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Oh a little, little by little.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
Just like a little fourteen the fourteen quarters.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
The fourteen the fourteenth quarters that they gave you.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
I want I want people to just understand that just
because you win the grand Jury prize at a major
festival like Slam Dance, it does not mean that you
automatically get checks.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
It's not nineteen ninety four anymore.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
No, uh.

Speaker 5 (46:40):
And we had that kind of uh lotto ticket dream,
and I will stick by that. It is important to
have a dream that dreams, but it's also it's also
important and I'm so happy I didn't have any money,
so I actually had to build up technical skills along
the way while maintaining that lot of ticket dream. So yeah,

(47:00):
when when we won Grand Jury, I thought, you know,
here comes HBO again again, here comes uh, here comes
the big.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Deal like Netflix, Netflix, and we did.

Speaker 5 (47:11):
Yeah, and we got all those calls and uh, it's
a lot less money than you would think, a lot
less money to any deal, any offer that.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
You would think.

Speaker 5 (47:24):
There's no truckloads of money coming, and we found that
out pretty quickly.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
However, I will say that.

Speaker 5 (47:33):
It not only did it open up doors further festivals,
which is really really important for a young team such
as ours.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
And I know festivals. I learned this the hard ware festivals.

Speaker 5 (47:45):
You know, they don't we can win the grand jury,
and still that's not going to move the needle on
a higher. You can win three grand juries, it's not
gonna move the needle on a higher. It doesn't make
sense like people like your movie, but it's not gonna
move the needle on your your your distribution. So festivals
really aren't gonna do much for that. We found that out,
but it really did. These festivals are great for myself

(48:08):
and the team. Even so, I'm in Iraq filming now
and we have some really big names attached to this film.
This is my second film I'm directing, and that's all
from i'd say ninety from these festival wins. It lends credibility,
so no, they were not. We're gonna be lucky, in

(48:30):
all honesty right now to break even even though our
budget was so so we kept it so low and
down the road.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
Hopefully we're turning it. We're working on.

Speaker 5 (48:40):
A narrative version as well, so hopefully that will drive
interest that way as well. But it pays off in
ways such as now I'm over here filming, as I
like to call it, my real directorial debut, since I
actually know what I'm doing now and I couldn't have
done that. I couldn't have attached these names to it

(49:02):
without that grand jury wind.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Yeah, and that's that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Filmmakers need to understand that the film festivals, especially if
you're a new filmmaker.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Oh, my film festivals are the best. Like, yeah, you
gotta go and do the red carpet and do the
parties and meet other people. It's amazing. It's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Take you know, go to those seminars, go to those workshops,
you know, meet people, network, it's great for all that.
Obviously that's been put on hold right now for the
next foreseeable future because of COVID, but when it comes back,
it's still a wonderful experience to go through. But I
am just constantly beating my audience over the head that

(49:38):
it is not nineteen ninety four anymore. This is not
what it was. They don't have the same kind of
poll as they did before, so, but they do have
a place in the ecosystem without question. And I would
have killed to go through your experience, Like I've never
gone through that experience. Like come, I've been to hundreds
of festivals and won wards and all that kind of stuff,
but I've never won a grand jury prize at slam

(49:58):
d Ask nor have ever been.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Yeah, at slam Dance.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show, or it's accepted into
slam Dance. But that's amazing, dude, that's an amazing story
and I'm glad that that you did it the way
you did it. And you're trying to get this story

(50:23):
told and get it out there, and it's not over yet.
The story is still continue. You still got to figure
out how you're going to make money back with this.
With hype of distribution deal you're going to finally land
on if you're going to self distribute. There's a lot
of different avenues you can go down.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yep. So yeah, definitely, it's Yeah, it's exciting.

Speaker 5 (50:39):
It's still very exciting, and mistakes still will be made,
but at least there is going to be we have
more people on the team who know what they're doing,
a celld agent, good pr good good everything, so mistakes
will be made and it's it's still a learning curve.
But yeah, it was definitely a great experience.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Awesome, man. I'm gonna ask you a few questions.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
All the guests, what advice would you give a filmmaker
wanting to break into the business today. Obviously, go to
Best Buy an Apple and do your trick.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
But besides that, Yeah, so I guess for advice for
someone who did it like myself with no zero film
background besides water World.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Uh and uh as an English teacher.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
By the way, side note, I did have the screenwriter
of water World on the show, but we never he
had done a documentary. I had never talked to him
about water World once.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
But I found out later a failure. It's a complete failure.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
I have to I have to get him back Peter.
I have to get Peter back on just to talk
about water World. But yes, I found out later after
I interviewed him because we were just focused on his
documentary that I did. But yes, so water World is
like your godfather. It's kind of like your Star Wars.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
It is my godfather.

Speaker 5 (51:51):
Yes, So I guess advice for a real, real new
I was an English teacher, so I had my baseline
was zero.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
So for someone and you can.

Speaker 5 (52:02):
Right now as a brand new filmmaker, I mean you
can buy amazing four K, you know, five D or
a seven S. You know, you can get those bodies
for how to use for a thousand right now, even
if you don't want to do the return trick, you
can film four K amazing four K in your cell

(52:23):
phone as everyone knows so.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
To look like a Panasonic GH four. You can get
that used for like four and fifty.

Speaker 5 (52:30):
Bucks yep, yep, And then you can also learn how
to You can learn everything. And so not only did
I learn the three different editing software is just on YouTube.
But still when I have a problem, you know, I
was trying to figure out how to pin a graphic
in Premiere the other day, and I just googled those

(52:53):
words how to pin da da da in Premiere, and
there's fifty tutorials how to do it. So really all
the resources are right there.

Speaker 4 (53:04):
The gear for the.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
First time is available. So if you're a brand new filmmaker,
just kind of.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
Do what I did.

Speaker 5 (53:11):
Just get a camera and go do it. Now, keep
your expensive expence as low, so choose a story. Everyone
wants to tell a story that you know really really
moves them, but meet in the middle. Do one that
you care about that's also doable. So I, you know,
I stayed with family, I could drive to and from Camden.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
So yeah, I would say just kind of go do it, and.

Speaker 5 (53:41):
There is this kind of I don't know how to
say it not there's a hierarchy in film and a
lot of the older generation, especially if you get into
these editing houses that have been around for a while,
they're gonna want you to pay your dues.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
And I ran in that a lot. I was told after.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
I guess two months that I had to pay my
dues before and I quote, I was allowed to sit
at the big boys table who said this like, sorry,
this was the job I was working.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
I won't say names, but.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
Basically, you're getting to you're you're getting way ahead of
your pay grade with your I was bringing story ideas.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
I was I.

Speaker 5 (54:30):
Wanted to really go, go go, and I was in
my in uh in reality, I was, you know, assistant
to the assistant to the assistant editor coffee coffee getter.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
So I was basically told to go and I had skilled,
I had, I really knew what I was doing.

Speaker 5 (54:50):
So I was told and I quote, uh, you're not
you can't say at the big boys table yet. So
I've kind of carried that with me forever. I think
that this pay your dues thing is nonsense. I think
you can go do it. You if you can. If
you don't have that thousand dollars, that five hundred dollars

(55:12):
to get the camera, go do that.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Go sell your plasma. You go sell plasma, say.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
About your blood plasma. If you really want to learn,
you can learn on YouTube. So there's kind of.

Speaker 4 (55:22):
Not that many excuses why you can't go do it.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
And I want to just add something to that. That's excellent.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
I agree that there is the old system of you
have to pay your dues in order to play that game.
If you want to play that game, you've got to
pay your dues. If you want to play in those
in other people's sandboxes. Yeah, but then what you did
is you still paid your dues, but you paid your
dues in your own sandbox, creating it on your own
project and learning along the way yourself. So you, no

(55:50):
matter what, you're going to have to pay your dues
one way, shape or form. But I would much rather
learn it in my own world that I control and
I have all the power in and it's my own
big boy table, then playing in someone else's sandbox.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
At the beginning.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, and I.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Read a great quote somewhere it said film scorer. Sorry,
film school has never been more expensive, and film gear,
film gear has never been cheaper.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
So use that. And the reason these kind of.

Speaker 5 (56:24):
Pay your dues hierarchies are starting to shake is because
anyone can kind of go out and make a film
right now. I just went out and made a film,
So I understand that they kind of want to hold
on to this control they have. But as you said,
go play in your own sandbox and make that sandbox
something and you can be at the big boys table

(56:46):
after not that much not that much time.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
I mean you won, you won the Grand Jury Prizes,
sime Dance with your very first film, sir. So, I mean,
if that's not the big boy table, I know there's
guys and gals who've been working fifteen to twenty years
who've never gotten that opportunity. So yeah, there's something to
be said about that. Now, what is the lesson that
took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
business or in life.

Speaker 5 (57:11):
Oh yeah, I guess, and I'm still definitely definitely learning,
especially during this lockdown. There is a lot of time
to do a lot of stuff. You don't waste that time.
I so when I was wrapping up my time at

(57:32):
this post house, I knew I wanted to go and
direct something. But also at the same time, I was,
you know, physically addicted to every app on my phone.
I went out three times a week in Manhattan. I
just wasted time. I was buried in things that weren't
going to benefit this dream I had to direct.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
And I realized.

Speaker 5 (57:54):
I realized that, and so I moved out of my
Harlem apartment Airbn beat it because somehow you can make
a lot of money doing that, move back in with
my parents, and I remember the first few times, and
this is that age. So I'm thirty one now, so
I guess two or three years ago I was too
old to be living back with my parents. But I

(58:15):
knew that I had to fund I had to save
up a little money to go do this.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
When I eventually left the post house.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
So and I remember when guests would come over, family friends,
i'd you know, not come out because I was so
embarrassed you.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
Back at home. But I kind of retreated from everything.
I gave up.

Speaker 5 (58:34):
I gave up actually alcohol and partying for a year.
I deleted all the apps in my phone, barely ever
use my phone.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
And that might not sound like a lot, but.

Speaker 5 (58:45):
You'll be surprised if you look at that screen time thing,
how much time you waste. So I had so much
time to dedicate toward screenwriting books, every movie that I
missed out of watching because I wasn't allowed to have
a TV, and I can now watch them with a
critical eye, and I could. I mean, I just learn

(59:08):
podcasts like yours, all the no film school type websites.
I just absorbed everything, everything, everything, and within not too
long I had enough skills to head to Camden. So
I guess, and I'm still learning it. And this, this

(59:29):
lockdown has made it extra The issue is even more
magnified because there just is so much time on my hands.

Speaker 4 (59:37):
Lockdown in Iraq, but that's.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
The name of your next two move, Lockdown in Iraq.

Speaker 5 (59:43):
Yeah, So I guess the lesson is that there is
enough time to make this happen. Whatever that dream, that
end goal is for you, there is enough time in
the day to.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Make that happen. There are going to be some sacrifices.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Are a word from our sponsor, and now back to
the show.

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
But if you're as long as you're not wasting time.
There is time to get this stuff done now.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
And last question, what are the three favorite films of
your of all time?

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
Besides water World? Obviously is one?

Speaker 5 (01:00:19):
So oh yeah, water World's one A and one B.

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Let's see three favorite movies of all time.

Speaker 5 (01:00:29):
Okay, there's a Swedish movie called Let the Right One In? Yes,
pre movie, yes, oh it is absolutely. I don't like
I don't like vampire movies. I don't like horror. Do
not watch the trailer if you want to watch this movie,
because you'll never You'll never turn it on. Uh, the
trailer is nothing like the movie. But yeah, Let the
Right One In is definitely top three. And also, don't

(01:00:52):
watch the American version. It's good, but not nearly as
good as the Swedish version. Let's see the Lives of others.
The German film Fantastic Film District nine.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
That really I love the idea.

Speaker 5 (01:01:12):
So I love documentary obviously, but I'm actually starting to
move into narrative. I mentioned I wrote a screenplay for
Higher Love, and that's moving forward, and so I really
love the idea of mocumentary, bridging the gap between what's
what's narrative, what's documentary?

Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
And so.

Speaker 5 (01:01:31):
Yet District nine is definitely definitely up there for me,
and I guess a close close fourth.

Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
You were never really here is great.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
I just saw that with Phoenix, really dark film.

Speaker 4 (01:01:49):
Yeah, so that's a that's a top four for your
top three.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
And I forgot one other question I have to ask
you because you're such a water World fan. Have you
been to the water World ride at Universal?

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
No?

Speaker 5 (01:02:00):
And I actually was this is gonna sound I remember
when I was talking about don't waste time and you'll
have a lot of time. I was wasting a lot
of time the other day and was researching water World
because I mean, it's actually you know it, it deserves
a laugh or two at its expense. But there's a
lot of people who really do deep dives on the
internet about this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Oh, don't don't question, no question. Yeah, I mean it
just let's be clear real quick about water World. And
this is a topic I haven't talked about in all
of my episodes that never water World has never come up.

Speaker 5 (01:02:31):
But water World is honestly, yes, you absolutely can laugh
at it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
There's definitely things you can laugh about it without question.
But it was a fairly successful film.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
It is done.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
It did really actually did well box office wise. It
launched two rides at both Universal Parks. It has a
lot of merch that it's sold like quietly, It's it's
not cats.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Let's just put it that way.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
It's not as bad as like cats, you know, it's
or anything like that. It's it's not Showgirls, because Showgirls
is a perfect film obviously, but yeah, but but so
people might make fun of it. But it's not as
you know, it's not as a cologne. It's not as
bad as The Postman. Now, if you watch The Postman,

(01:03:22):
that is a horrendous piece of film.

Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
Right, And it's certain wi World certainly did well at
my local videos rental.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Story, Oh yes, rented like crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:03:34):
And I also, I mean, I I think everyone carries
this kind of For example, I don't think six months ago,
a year, I would be on a podcast admitting to h.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
Loving water World or I guess basically, I.

Speaker 5 (01:03:53):
Think everyone carries this kind of imposter syndrome that they
feel like they don't belong. And I certainly felt and
feel to an extent that I don't belong. And I
think it's natural for all humans in that way, but
especially in the film industry.

Speaker 4 (01:04:07):
Especially in artistic endeavors.

Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
And so while we're laughing about water World, I don't
think I would have talked about it that.

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
I loved it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:15):
I would have made up something, you know, to make
me sound like I knew what I was talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
I don't seven Samurai seven, Samurai taxi.

Speaker 5 (01:04:25):
Driver, taxi driver this, you know, these black and white casablanca.

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
I just you know, I would have gone that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
Route because I think this imposter syndrome is is really real,
and it still.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
Is really real for me.

Speaker 5 (01:04:39):
But I think that no one, really everyone's got it.
You just got to kind of remember that. Uh you
got to remember that not only in this kind of
gorilla indie filmmaking, especially documentary filmmaking, where you know, I.

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Really didn't belong. So I guess now I've along a
little more than that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
But it look like at the end of the day,
we all have that imposter syndrome. I think we all
have it at a certain level, different levels of it.
I mean, I even you know, speaking to some of
these big giant directors and writers, they have it, you know,
and they have billion dollar movies behind them and they
still have it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
So it's in all of us.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
But I think as you get older, you start becoming
a little bit more comfortable in your skin. So I
have no problem saying that The Room is a fantastic
film and I would watch it, not by myself, ever,
but with a group of people.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
That Showgirls is.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Great again not I could probably watch show Girls by
itself because it's it transcends how good it is. There's
a new documentary out about it, by the way, I
don't know if you know that there's a Showgirls documentary
that they just broke down what Showgirls is. And I'm like,
I still haven't seen Cats, but I'm actually dying to

(01:05:57):
watch it because and something is that bad it will
eventually transcend itself.

Speaker 5 (01:06:06):
Yes, it's a more bid curiosity for the same reason
I went to Camden.

Speaker 4 (01:06:12):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
Cats and Canada. We can't connect those two. I don't
know how we connect those two. But you haven't. So
you haven't gone to the water World ride yet?

Speaker 5 (01:06:21):
No, So yes, I have not gone to the water
World ride yet. And I actually just assumed what I
was saying. I was doing a deep dive, and before that,
I just assumed, why would that still be open?

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Oh it's everywhere, of course, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
It's still open. Yeah, so that's definitely on the on
the bucket list.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
I saw it in LA and I saw it at
Florida when I was in Orlando back in the day
as well, so it's still there. It's actually a fantastic show.
I have to say, it's a fantastic show.

Speaker 5 (01:06:48):
You.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
I think you will enjoy it even more than most.

Speaker 4 (01:06:53):
Definitely for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
And then where can people find you find about more
of a Higher Love and what your other project's going
to be.

Speaker 5 (01:07:00):
Yeah, sure, so I guess the best way to find
So for Higher Love, that's the feature documentary. It's Higher
Love Film on Instagram, and then higherlovefilm dot com we
post all of our screenings. We have a bunch of
festivals coming up the next yeah six months at least

(01:07:21):
a bunch of festivals that will be online, which actually
makes it more accessible for a lot of viewers around
the world. So yeah, Hire Love Film the website and
the Instagram, and then if you just go to the Instagram,
you can under the info that's you can find me
under the director Hassan O that's my Instagram handle. And
then for the film I'm working on now, that'll be

(01:07:42):
it's just briefly it follows a certain sect of the
Iraqi population is Yazdi. It's an ancient religion and there's
still after so Isis was brutal to everyone in the
region in two thousand, during their reign of terror around

(01:08:03):
twenty fourteen, but especially brutal to this sect of Uzds, and.

Speaker 4 (01:08:09):
They took.

Speaker 5 (01:08:11):
Three to six thousand of them as slaves, and two
to three thousand of those are still missing and in
ice ices captivity and no one's really doing anything.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
So I've embedded with.

Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
A group of rescuers and smugglers trying to get those
those mostly women and children back, and because of the
sensitivity of the material, we cannot as of yet put
anything social media wise, but we are approaching that point

(01:08:45):
where we can so well. Definitely if you follow the
other page, the Higher Love page, or my personal Instagram,
which I'd love I'd love to I love connecting with
fellow filmmakers, especially.

Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
Members of the tribe.

Speaker 5 (01:08:58):
I'd love to start dialogues on my first on Instagram page.
So yeah, we'll update that with my current project as well.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Hassan Man, it has been an adventure talking to you.
It's been a very inspiring story. I'd love hearing these
kind of stories, man, I really really do, because anytime
I hear someone hustling and hustling without any understanding of
what they were doing, it's even better. And that you
at the end of that it wasn't a disaster and

(01:09:28):
you actually created a fantastic film is a rarity.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
So what you have done is no small feet, my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Seriously, So congratulations on all your success, and that stay safe
in Iraq until you get back here, because here in
the States we're much safer than it is in Iraq.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
Obviously we're good in COVID. There are no riots. That's
all fake news. Don't worry.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

Speaker 5 (01:09:59):
And now to the show, right, I'll bide my time
to get back, don't worry. And also else, I wanted
to thank you not only for having me on, but
just what you do is incredible.

Speaker 4 (01:10:11):
I don't think thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:10:13):
I don't know if I'm here without your podcast coming
on seen in twenty fifteen, which is the same time
I came onto the scene. And you know, there's great,
great resources out there, of which you know you're one
of the best. So I'm proud to call myself one
of the tribe, and I don't think this, this hustle
would have would have happened without Indie hustle.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
Thank you. I truly appreciate that, and I'll pay you
later for that. So thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:10:39):
All right, sounds good out.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
I want to thank Hassan for coming on the show
and just sharing his story on his new film Higher
Love and hopefully inspiring a few members of the tribe
out there to go out and make their own film.

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
If you want to get links to anything we spoke
about in this episode, head over to the show notes
Bulletproof Screenwriting dot TV. Forward slash for eighteen. Thank you
so much for listening to guys, as always, keep on
writing no matter what.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
Screenwriting dot tv.