BPS 420: Out of Time and the Back to the Future DeLorean Documentary with Steve Concotelli

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

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four twenty
Tomorrow you will wish you had started today.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Mango Wilder 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. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. 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 it down by three categories,

(01:00):
micro budget, indie film, market and studio film. There's no
reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to
reading tempole movies when your movie is going to be
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Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.

(01:23):
So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. So, guys,
today we have on the show a very cool filmmaker
by the name of Steve Koncatelli. He directed a documentary
on one of my favorite movies of all time, of course,

(01:46):
called Back to the Future, and he rated a movie
about the restoration of the DeLorean. Now, anyone who's ever
watched Back to the Future knows how important the DeLorean is.
It is a one of the seminal hearts of pop
culture and it was dying in the back loot of Universal.
I saw it there when I did my tours back

(02:07):
in the day, and I was like, wow, it seems
so sad and it's just being tore up by the elements.
And he was able to get together with the producer
Bob Gail of Back to the Future, as well as
some amazing talented artists that work in mechanics who are
going to be able to put together and put back
together the DeLorean, and the movie is called Out of

(02:29):
Time Saving the DeLorean Time Machine. Now, I wanted to
have Steve on the show because I wanted to kind
of talk about we haven't had a lot of documentary
filmmakers on first of all, so I wanted to get
a few more of those on this year, as well
as to discuss the process of dealing with a big
studio with a huge IP, huge intellectual property for Universal,

(02:51):
and how he was able to get this whole thing going.
You know, he was starting doing the documentary without permission
and then finally got permission, and how he got it
onto a Blu Ray special edition anniversary and all this
kind of stuff, and how he was able to make
money with the film, how he's able to tour with
the movie, and different kind of distribution ideas that he

(03:11):
was able to implement because of the rabid fan base
of the film of the original trilogy. There's a lot
of knowledge bombs in this episode. So if you are
fans of Back to the Future, it's going to be
even be more so. And I think most people listening
has seen Back to the Future. If you have not
seen Back to the Future. For God's sakes, what's wrong
with you? Stop listening to this podcast right now and

(03:33):
go watch it on Netflix or Amazon or rent it
or do whatever. But you need to watch the Back
to the Future trilogy. But without any further ado, here
is my conversation with Steve Koncatelli. How are you doing, sir?

Speaker 3 (03:45):
I'm doing just fine. How are you, Alex?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you brother, Thank you man, Thanks so much for
being on the show. I'm a huge fan of your
movie Out of Time, and you know, I'm obviously a
huge fan of Back to the Future, and I thought
this would be a beautiful melding of not only geeking out,
because we are going to geek out in this episode
a bit, but also discovering how you made the movie
and went down the road and your Kickstarter, your distribution plan,

(04:11):
and I'll get to the nuts of bolts of actually
making the movie. But while we geek out a bit, So,
what gave you the idea of making Out of Time? Like,
how did you even wake up one morning go I'm
going to make a movie about restoring the DeLorean.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Well, it's interesting it started back in twenty eleven when
Universal Studios first announced that they were going to restore
the Screen News time Machine. And at the time, to
give a brief history, at the time, the Screen News
car had really started falling apart. You know, it had
been out at the Universal Studios backlot for thirty years.
It was not in great shape, and so Universal and

(04:47):
Bob Gail made the announcement that they were going to
restore it. And I was fortunate enough to be very
close friends with Joe Waltzer, who was the super fan
in charge of the restoration, and so here you had
this phenomenal year long restoration project that was going to
kick off, and you know, I said, well, is anybody
filming this? Is you know, is anybody going to turn

(05:08):
this into a movie? Because fans would love to see
the nuts and bolts of this restoration, And it turned
out nobody had any plans to do it, and so,
you know, I kept asking who's doing this, Who's doing
this and finally just kind of donned on me, like, ah, crap,
I guess it's going to be me then, right, And
so I took it upon myself to just start documenting
the entire restoration in the hopes of possibly turning it

(05:30):
into a film, which we then did.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
And now, how did you get Bob Gail and Universal
involved and actually get them to say, hey, you you're official,
we give you this stamp of approval.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
That was a very very long and nerve wracking process,
to be honest.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Well, yeah, because I.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
Didn't work for Universal Studios, and so you know, when
I started shooting it, it wasn't exactly you know, done
with official authorization.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
I'll say that much. It was done.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
I was part of the restoration team. I was documenting it,
and that was fine, but you know, turning it into
a film is something that was an entirely next level.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Like when you work with a studio, there's approvals.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
And IP and licensing and there's a lot of things
that back then I had no concept of.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
And they are not Back to the Future and the
Delore and it's fairly popular IP.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's among their most popular intellectual property. And
so we did it very slowly and very methodically, and
essentially what it boiled down to his Bob Gail. Now, now,
Bob is the co creator of the Back to the
Future trilogy. You know, he wrote them, produced them, and
he is the godfather even to this day of all
things back to the future. So if any product anything

(06:43):
back to the future, gets approved, it goes through him.
He's the authority. And luckily Bob was spearheading the restoration.
He was directly in charge of it. So as the
restoration progressed, I got a chance to meet Bob and
know Bob, and we put together. Halfway through the restoration,
we did like a little five minute here's what's going
on with the restoration update that Bob hosted, So I

(07:06):
shot footage of him and we got to know each
other and kind of test the waters to see what
kind of reaction you know, the restoration footage would get.
And but yeah, and then as we progressed and I
got further and further into filming, you know, it became
clearer like, look, I really need to get some official
endorsement from Universal because you know, by the time a

(07:28):
year long restoration was done and then say a year
of interviews, I was two years into a project. I
wasn't even sure I could produce legal and like, oh boy,
what are we going to do? So Bob sat me
down with Universal's licensing team their marketing teams to eventually
essentially make a pitch for me to say, look, he
knows what he's doing, he's been doing this a long time.

(07:49):
And you know, basically Bob gave me his official endorsement.
But even then, I don't think Universal was quite on
board until twenty fifteen. I mean that's three years that
I wasn't sure. And then that's when they asked me
to possibly put together something for the thirtieth anniversary Blu
Ray that came out, you know, and they said, can

(08:10):
you do you have enough footage that you can cut
together maybe a fifteen minute feature at I said, sure,
no problem, And I'm sure Universal Studios was afraid that,
you know, I was just gonna make them look terrible
because of the shape of the car. And then I
sent them a quick cut and they saw it and
as soon as they saw my movie, as soon as
they saw they're like, Okay, we totally get it. We're
totally on board because it's not about blame. It's not

(08:33):
about you know, all criticizing this part. It's not about
fans being you know, snipy at each other. It's about
celebrating this great car and everybody coming together to get
it restored. And yeah, once they saw all their fears
were going. They said, yep, we'll license this. You can
have access to everything you need. I got all the
proper permissions and all that stuff, and we were off

(08:54):
like a shot. But but it was I won't understate it.
It was three years of very nervous is this going
to happen? Because all it would have taken was one
phone call from Universal's legal apartment and boom, the whole
film would have been shut down. And this is, you know,
after two and a half years of my time. So
it was, it was. It was a tough, long road
that I'm sure a couple other indie filmmakers out there understand.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh yeah, I just fought them, yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
You know, and it it could have easily broken the
other way. And yeah, I had more than a few
sleepless nights, sleepless months about that, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
So Bob Gail was basically you were Donnie Brasco and
Bob Gail was al Pacino. Yeah, and he's just he's
he's fine, he's with me working out. So he got
you in the door. But it was your work that.

Speaker 4 (09:38):
Kept you in the door, correct, I mean, Bob, Yeah,
that's exactly what it was. He opened the door, and
he wouldn't have gone to bad for me if if
by then I hadn't already proven my myself as a professional,
you know, and and the story I was trying to tell,
And yeah, you know, once Universal saw it, they they
embraced it so definitely. But it took a lot of
convincing and a lot of baby steps.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
And boy, you could do a whole episode just down
the difficulty of trying to license intellectual property from a studio, because,
like I'm a fan, Like when I started this movie,
I truly had no idea of what it took to
make a movie. Like because I'm sure a lot of
your listeners are thinking, oh, you make a movie with
the time machine, you go and shoot your footage and
you own it, so you just go go and make

(10:32):
a movie.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
But it turns out not.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
To be the case because the car is owned by
DreamWorks or you know, a subset of Universal for the
intellectual property, and then Universal Studios owns the film rights,
and then you have to get approvals from you know,
the producers and any actors that appear in the footage,
and I had no concept of how to do any
of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Let me ask you a question, though, and this is
just and this is now we're getting into a little
bit of the weeds as far as legal and documentaries concerned.
But documentaries do have a lot more way than narrative
do in the sense that, like you know, I can
remember Fahrenheit nine to eleven, where you know, Michael Moore
was basically ripping apart the president at the time, George Bush,

(11:13):
and he was using him in his documentary and he
was he didn't get any obviously, didn't get any permission
for that. How does it work? Can't you just document
something and release it to a certain extent or not?

Speaker 4 (11:25):
Well, I bet if I wanted to put it on YouTube,
I probably could have gotten away with it. But I
wanted to release it and try to make money off
of it. And that's that's an entirely different ballpark, because
if you're trying to monetize somebody else's intellectual property, that's
that's a ligne you you have to have legal permission for.
And and to be honest, you know, like I was

(11:46):
getting to know, Bob and I have tremendous respect for Universal.
I wanted to do it the right way, you know.
I wanted Universal Studios to endorse the film and and
be a part of it and not fight against it.
And you know, I didn't want to just try to
release it as like a fan documentary. I wanted their
stamp of approval so that the world would know, like, look,

(12:07):
Universal has declared this the official time Machine documentary, and
you know it's it's quality content. And thankfully that's what happened.
And yeah, and the Blu Ray in twenty fifteen really
kind of jump started that because once, once I had
a little fifteen minute feature it on the official Blu ray,
I was an official part of the franchise and that
and that helped that. But I you know, it's still involved,

(12:30):
you know, licensing and paperwork and attorneys and title clearances,
you know, I mean even the title of my film,
which is out of Time, like the time Machine license plate,
even that was just like when I started, can I
use that? Is that owned by somebody? Does Universal own that?
Does the DMV own that?

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Who do? I have to ask?

Speaker 4 (12:48):
And you know, all these questions had to go down
this infinite rabbit hole of minutia to feel like, okay,
somebody Universal said it was okay, I use this, you know,
and it's just it's it's so far and the weeds
when you're producing these indie docks that it just it
boggles the mind. You spend like seventy five or eighty
percent of your time dealing with things that have nothing
to do with making your movie, as I'm sure you

(13:09):
can attest.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yes, absolutely, no, I was. I was working on a
show for Hulu and the characters that they add. The
director and the producers wanted to get some Universal characters
on some T shirts, like like that they Live Yeah,
and the Brider Frank Yeah exactly, because the whole show
was about the whole episode of that series was about

(13:30):
guys putting on glasses. So it was kind of like
a wink quick nud dudge and they got it, you know.
They It was fairly simple, honestly, to get a right
to get that they Live logo or whatever put on
a T shirt and you have to make it yourself,
has to be customed. You can't sell the T shirt,

(13:50):
but it was, but it did. There was some paperwork
and then there was some back and forth and they
wanted some other people to like, yeah, we kind of
owned that one, but it's also a quarter owed by
somebody else, exactly, so you might have to go somewhere else.
So exactly like you're talking about, like the Dolrian is
owned partly by dream Works or Spielberg at that point.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Right, Yeah, it's it's a subset of one of the conglomerates,
and somebody, you know, the appropriate person at the appropriate
subset company had to have an email that says, you know, yes,
we authorize this, you know. And again they don't know
who I am. I'm just a fan trying to make
a film and in studios, and rightfully so are very
leery about you know, a fan saying hey, I want
to make a movie about your movie. Let me use

(14:31):
your IP or your footage. Sure, and and so, yeah,
it's a I'll say this. If you're making a unique
documentary about something like unrelated, go for it. But to
make a feature doc about a very famous feature film
is among the most difficult and dumbest things you could
try to do.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Well, there was a movie The Shark, The Sharks Still
Sark is still working, You're still working, which was legendary
because it took forever for it to come out, like
they had interviews with Roy Schreider before he died, and
they had Spielberg, they had Dreyfist, they had everybody, and

(15:09):
Universal was like, I don't know, and this is where
everybody was like, when is this coming out? I remember that?
And finally it got released like on a thirtieth anniversary
or whatever, forty the anniversary of Yeah, release on a
DVD somewhere, and we finally got to see it, which
was a great doc.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
But what a same thing, same thing, but you were
a little bit better. Well I appreciate it, but I
think they they had the same thing too, where when
the anniversary of Jaws came around, the studio was looking
for content that tied into that, and here, you know,
these fans had essentially made this entire film for them, Like, oh,
why don't we just give them the okay to release that?

Speaker 3 (15:47):
You know?

Speaker 4 (15:47):
And my situation on Out of Time was kind of similar,
where back in twenty eleven, when the restoration started and
I started shooting footage, I was already thinking, look, in
three years, they're probably going to do a thirty anniversary release,
and then they're going to want some of this content, right,
And sure enough. You know, in twenty fifteen, Universal called, hey,

(16:08):
we're thinking about a Blu Ray. Do you have something?
And I'm like, I got you covered. Do you believe
me I've got.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
I'm looking at your Blu Ray as we speak, sir. Yeah,
So I've got that thirty of that aniversary.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah, and I have a nice little out of time
featurette on there, which you know, as a fan is
to think that's something that I did completely by myself,
like my own time, with my own crappy camera, editing
it on my own crappy home edit system. Is on
the official Back to the Future Blu Ray, like behind
Doc Brown. Is mind boggling. I still can't believe it,

(16:41):
but it happened.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Now, you you also started a Kickstarter campaign and you
you launched the kick cards that camp, which was fairly successful.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
It was very successful.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Actually, now, how did you prep and launch the Kickstarter campaign?
Because I've had I mean, I did my own crowdfunding
campaign for my feature film, and but you know this
is it could be a beast, but you also you
also had a wonderful audience to tap into. So how
did you prep it and launch it?

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Well, Kickstarter is its own separate nightmare.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
I'll just start by that, all right, Kickstarter for all.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
The people who think, look at all that free money. Now,
if I had simply gone.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
To work every day and worked at my regular job,
I would have made far more money. That's the simple truth, amen.
And Kickstarter is a nightmare. And even like your worst
fear with Kickstarter is that you won't succeed, your second
worst fear is that you do succeed.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
You know why is that?

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Well, because if.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
You're wildly successful, suddenly, you know, like I found myself
with six hundred bosses all demanding like when is this
going to be done? You know, when are what are
you doing? What's going on? And it was like having
six six hundred managers emailing me all the time asking questions,
and the vast majority were great, but you do get
some squeaky wheels. And I was very, very sent because

(18:00):
first I wanted to have a good Kickstarter, but second
is that I didn't want anybody bad mouthing me to
Universal Studios because whether whether I accepted it or not,
by having this film and Bob Gail was in my
Kickstarter video, so by having his endorsement, I whether I
like it or not. Represent Back to the Future. I

(18:21):
represent the franchise and I represent the studio, and I
took all that very seriously. So every time I would
answer a question or deal with the public, I did
it professionally, straightforward, in the most kind of corporate appeasing
way that I could, because the last thing I wanted
to do was to have, you know, Bob get some
angry email from a fan, who is, who's this Steve

(18:41):
guy and what's he doing and he's ruining Back to
the Future Like that would have been the death of
my film, right, But to backtrack and in terms.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Of what we did, we set the bar.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
Our goal for the film was twenty five thousand dollars,
which I thought was pretty reasonable and I didn't think
we'd hit it. And Joe Walser, who is the head
of the restoration and he's the main guy in the film,
he was very involved in. One thing Joe does, aside
from making time machines, is he's a master at marketing.
And he said, Steve, we're going to blow the doors
off it. And I didn't believe him, and he goes,

(19:14):
trust me. Within twenty four hours we hit our twenty
five thousand dollars like one, and then I think we
ended around seventy five thousand, which was three times our goal,
which is great but nervous, and the way we prepped
for it was I would say not enough, but it's
not exactly true. I benefited because during the entire restoration,

(19:36):
Joe had set up a Facebook page for the Time
Machine restoration team, and it was for fans to kind
of track the progress. And Joe was very tied into
all the Back to the Future online Facebook pages, the
big ones, all of them, so he already had access
to a very large, very rabid Back to the Future audience.
And that was the reason my kickstarter was successful. If

(19:58):
I had tried building it from scratch, it would have
taken a year, you know, just to try to get
up to speed and building word of mouth.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,

Speaker 4 (20:14):
But Joe had been cultivating this because of the restoration
for two years, and we had been putting videos online,
you know. So his own Facebook page had what seventy
five thousand people, and then the other Back of the
Future pages had millions. So once we decided to launch
our Kickstarter, he posted everywhere on all the Facebook pages
for back Future, check this out.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
It's official.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
And then when people clicked on our Kickstarter, there was
Bob Gail sitting right next to me in my Kickstarter video,
and Bob is essentially saying, you can trust this guy.
He's going to finish this project. You can trust your
money with him. And that put a lot of people
over the top, because you know, fan docs are a
dime a dozen, it's for anybody to do it. But

(20:57):
to have the creator sitting there next to me endorsing
me gave my huge Yeah, it gave it a lot
of credibility. And then the other thing we did that
was excellent is we had fantastic Kickstarter giveaways, like like tiers,
tiers that nobody else had, and the most popular one
was we made small five x seven tes desktop display

(21:19):
shadow boxes with pieces that were taken out of the
time Machine that were too damaged to put back in,
so we turned them into collectible display cases that were
with a CoA signed by Bob Gail and Joe Waltzer.
So essentially you could own legally a piece of the
time Machine for.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Real, And what was the cost of that Just Curious.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
Way too low we priced them. We priced them at
like two hundred bucks. I would have bought that, and
they sold out in like fifteen minutes. And then we
did a second round of them. Like I think I
could have charged four hundred dollars for those suckers.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
I had no idea. You could have easy depending on
what it is, you could have probably five hundred to
one thousand a pop.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
And yeah, all day.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
Yeah we could have you know, retros Hindsights twenty twenty,
but we you know, again, it wasn't about trying to
you know, rake them over the coals. It was just
to get those out and stuff. And they were wildly popular.
We had a really cool poster. I had some artwork
that I had taken of the finished car. But we
had stuff that wasn't just like just the movie. It

(22:18):
was real back to the future like official type stuff.
And it just just blew the doors off. So it
was you know, and then at the end of the
Kickstarter I'm sitting there thinking, oh God, now I have
to fulfill all this nightmare stuff, which and I've filled
everything myself, right, Like I didn't have a fulfillment company.
I boxed and shipped, you know, six hundred individual items

(22:39):
to our backers across the world.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
That's an education in itself.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
And believe me, while you're sitting there boxing up like
out of time license plates at two in the morning,
you're thinking to yourself, Man, I should have just gone
to work.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
I should have just gone to work. Got a mateck
said to do it as nonsense. I had a leading.
It's just and I know we all go through that.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Every indie filmmaker has that same story about just like
how much of a nightmare it is. And it's like
a boot camp brotherhood in that regard.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
No, there's no question it is. It is fairly brutal,
and at your level, I can only imagine. And again,
you had such a responsibility because you were representing Back
to the Future, so exactly. It's not like another little
indie movie that no one had heard of, like you're
you're doing an official.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Doc and not just that.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
But I couldn't pull the plug, like you know, I
wanted to quit the film about a dozen times over
you know, the years, just because it was exhausting and
too much work and just a drain. But you can't,
you know, because I am representing this giant franchise, and
I have to represent the best of what it is.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
How long did it take you from start to finish?

Speaker 4 (23:46):
Well, for a little over four years, which at the
time I thought that was forever. And then I and
then as I met other indie filmmakers, I realized that's
on the short end of indie doc filmmaking time.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, doc could go for a while.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:02):
I've got friends who've been making docs for seven, eight,
nine years and they're still not done. So I four
years felt like a long time, but I'm you know,
it was actually about right on par with most and
considering how much I did by myself, that was you know,
I think that was a pretty decent schedule.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Now, and you do come from an editing and post
production background, Yeah, now, you couldn't. You wouldn't have been
able to make this movie unless you were the editor.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
I've been a professional, like television editor in Los Angeles
for about twelve years now, so you know, I knew
that I needed to edit it, not just for myself,
but because I had over what one hundred and twenty
hours of footage and it would have been too hard
for anybody else to get up to speed and where
the stuff was.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, you were shooting it as well.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, because I shot it, and so I knew kind
of where stuff was. I knew how how the restoration progressed.
And then I shot all the interviews, and then I
went through and logged all the interviews, so I knew
where all the sound bites were. And I know several
other friends who are top notched professional editors, but it
would have taken them weeks just to try to get
up to speed to find anything. And then, you know,

(25:07):
after working twelve hours at their day job, the last
thing they want to do is come home and try
to cut my film, you know. And I couldn't have
afforded any of them, even if they wanted to, So
it just it fell on me.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Now, can you explain to the audience. And this is
something I preach about a lot, about tapping into an
existing fan base when you're making a project, because it's
so invaluable. I mean, you know, yes, and a lot
of people like, oh, he's making something for Back to
the Future. That's Monsters fan base. I'm like, yes, But
the concept is still the same, is if you you

(25:39):
went out to create a product that was going to
be sold to a audience, and you knew what that
audience wants, and you gave that audience what they wanted.
And it's that concept can go from narrative to documentary.
But can you explain the power.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
Of that well, I think it would be hard to
make a documentary if you didn't all already have identify
your fan base and who you're trying to appeal to.
I mean, you're right, Back to the Future has a
gigantic fan base, and not just that, but sci fi
fans tend to be very technically adept. You know, they're
they're online, they consume digital media, they like Blu rays

(26:17):
over DBDs, they are digital download and streaming, so they're
very active online and that's definitely the Back of the
Future fan base, and you know, trying to tap into
that is is essential. I don't know if I could
have made the movie without it. But even then, even
with the gigantic fan base that they have, it's still
difficult because my film from the outside is it's a

(26:38):
niche film. It's a film about a car where the
car and the argument restoration.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah is arguably it's the car.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
Yeah, the car, and you know, a lot of people.
You hear that, you're like, oh, it's a you know,
it's like an episode of Monster Garage where they're they're
wrenching out a car for an hour. It's just like, well, no,
you know, and to try to explain what it isn't like, oh,
is it you know, is it a documentary about you know,
behind the scenes of the filmmaking. No, that's that's that's
not what this is. This is about the history and

(27:05):
restoration of this screen used time machine. And so you know,
like you know, every even that cuts back on the
potential audience within back to the future that you can
apply to, and yeah, you want to make your audience
as big as possible. And you know, thankfully they had
a very big fan base, but trying to build it
from scratch, I I don't know if I could have
done it well.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Then also, I mean you're right, because you you know,
like perfect example. I always use this example the Vegan
a Vegan Chef movie. Yeah, you know you yeah, it's
like you're like, these people are interested in cooking, Like, well, no,
it's it's cooking and people are interested in cooking, but
it's vegan cooking. And now within vegan cooking, there's raw
vegan cooking. Correct, there's vegetarian, there's paleo, there's all sorts

(27:50):
of other subgenres of the larger cooking. So same thing
goes with here. There's a Back to the Future fan,
and then there are fans of like of the Deloreate
and would like to see that, so that it is big,
but it's still a smaller sub subset of.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
That's the fame exactly, exactly, yeah, And that's you know,
when you're making this film, you have no idea how
big or how small that subset's going to be. And
that's and that's one of the biggest risks of indie
filmmaking is when you take on a passion project, you
know you're you're in it to the end, and it
could fly and it could flop and you just kind
of have to ride it out and whatever happens happens.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Now when you when you finished the movie, so the
movie's done, now, how did you market? Thank goodness, thank god,
it's over.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
It's over.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Who I've gave I've given birth, I'm done. Did you
distribute the film yourself? Did you market the film yourself
or did you have universal help you how did that
help process? Go?

Speaker 4 (28:43):
Universal didn't help market the film itself because and this
is again is the legality of a major studio. I
had licensed footage, but my film wasn't an official Universal
Studios film. The feature read on the thirtieth anniversary Blu
Ray was. But when it came time and I made
my feature length standalone version of the film, you know,

(29:05):
they were hesitant to promote it because oh, it's not
one of our films and blah blah blah. They did
give me some shout outs on their Facebook page, which
was great, But in terms of marketing, actually a lot
of that was once again Joe Walser. It was him
motivating and kind of you know, gathering the troops on
the Facebook pages and other social media platforms to get

(29:26):
the word out to all the big back to the
Future Facebook pages and user groups. And I did some
discussion on the prop Replica forum. You know those guys
they love props.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
So that's a whole that's a whole other subgenre too,
like yeah, this is the ultimate, this is the ultimate prop.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
But but in terms of distribution, I actually have a
domestic distribution company for North America, and so I handed
over the actual you know, creation and distribution and getting
on all the streaming services they handled that.

Speaker 2 (30:01):

Speaker 4 (30:11):
And again that's a whole other subject, is you know, distribution,
you distriber versus going with an actual domestic distributed So
let's if you I'm still walking through that for international.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
So let me let me ask you a question then
and you can say I don't want to talk about it,
or you can answer it. Do you think that? Because
if you would have come to me, and I would
have been consulting you on this project, and you would
have come to me, like Alex, I have this movie
it's about Back to the future, about the machine time machine,
what do you think I should do? Should I try
to self distribute this or should I go through a

(30:44):
distributor for domestic? And I would have told you one
hundred and ten percent to go self distribution purely because
you had such a fan base that would have turned
up for this, because of the for international is different international, absolutely,
but for self distribute for domestic, which is what I
did you know, and I had nowhere near the fan

(31:06):
base of Back through the Future, and have been fairly
successful with it. I think you could have done a Gangbusters.
So I'm curious on why you chose that route because
it was what year was it when you finally released this?

Speaker 4 (31:20):
The feature came out last year twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
So so distribuer was around. Self distribution was a thing?

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, oh that thing. I looked into it.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
So what was the reasoning behind you choosing a traditional
distributor versus a self distribution outlet? And also, do you
I'm not sure if you want to answer this, Are
you happy with your choice?

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Fair enough?

Speaker 4 (31:38):
Well, I won't mention my distributor by name, but you know,
at the time of my thinking was this is that
because of the subject matter it was you know, car based,
and it was kind of the way I produced it
was kind of modular. I have a TV background. I
was really hoping to also get it on television and
to do that, the distributor I went with had a

(32:02):
very solid reputation for indie docks, high profile indie docks.
I vetted them because I've heard horror stories about but
yet terrible, so believe me, I did my work. I
vetted them against several people in industry, people I trusted
to make sure that they had an actual reputation and
then but I wanted to try to get them on
television rights because I felt it was a great property

(32:24):
for like, you know, the Back to the Future trilogy
screenings on TBS. Okay, here's an extra hour of awesome
content that ties in sure, And I didn't really have
the method to do that myself. That was the next
level up of distribution beyond me sure, and I needed
help for that. And to be honest, I had done
so much of this film by myself that I was

(32:44):
ready to ask for some help, like, you know, like
I didn't so much. I dropped the ball on so
much because I was doing it by myself and details
missed that I didn't want to screw up my distribution.
So I was, look, I want to hand it off
to a group of professionals who know how to get
the marketing out there, the messaging, who know the easiest
way to get these produced for the cheapest way.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
And it was just you know it, it had.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
Everything I was looking for at the time, and so
that's what I went with. I mean, you know, now,
would I choose different? Yeah, It's it's been about a
wash I distriber. I have friends who've done distriber. I
hear decent things, and I would certainly consider them next
time around. But for this one, it just seemed like
the best way to go for the situation I was in.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
And then you're now doing and now you went through
somebody else for an international Ah.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
Actually I just went around and around. I had a
company in LA that wanted to distribute internationally, and then
my domestic distributors like, great, you know, go sign up,
it'll be awesome. And then they gave me their what
they were looking for, and what they wanted was outrageous expenses.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Just outrageous, that's what you mean.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
As far as like you know how much it goes
through their.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
Cans and yeah, yeah, like their caps were just were
like more than I would ever make ever, And I'm
just like no, So now you know, now I'm actually
looking at you know, I was on the phone with
the stripper just like a couple of weeks ago in
terms of do I want to do that or or
for international? Can I just put it on Vimeo, which
I could do by myself. And I'm going around around

(34:11):
with all that stuff right now.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Still right, well, when we get off. When we get
off this interview, I'll talk to you a little bit
about that if I Yeah, so can you. So did
you tour at all with this film? Did you like
go to conventions? Did you do anything like that?

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yeah? I did.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
Actually, I went to a couple of the comic conventions
where we screened the film, and then I gave a
couple of Q and as I went to San Jose
Comic Con, Philly Comic Con. I went to Salt Lake
Comic Con a couple of weeks ago, and then I
actually I went to DeLorean DCS, which is the DeLorean
convention that they have every two years.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
I went and.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
Spoke there and showed the film. So not like a
full fledged tour, but but enough and enough that I'm
tired of flying all over.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Talking about it. But yeah, and that was great.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
Like the convention stuff is is fun, and especially when
Back to the Future had a large representation at all
those conventions I went to, Like I went to the
ones that Chris Lloyd was at, that Michael J. Fox
was at, so there was already just a huge Back
to the Future fan base there and that's why I
selected those.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Now, did you sell anything there? While you were there
or was I okay?

Speaker 3 (35:20):
No.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
I whenever I went, I always had a table and
I would sell some copies, and you know, some days
were more successful than others. You know, most of the
time you sit there like, you know, the guy at
the table with twenty copies of his movie.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
He's trying to peddle, you know.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Like I've been there many times. It's it's brutal.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, you know, you're you're that guy.

Speaker 4 (35:39):
But but I always tried to at least hedge my bets.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
You know.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
So Terry and Oliver Holler, they they drive around the
country and their they're Back to the Future time Machine
raising money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and they're
they're very well known, and they're at all the conventions.
So if I was at a convention with them, I
would try to get a table close to them because
there will be all the fans around the car, you know.
And and I tried to parlay as much as I could.

(36:07):
But even then, you know, it's it's still hard. And
and breaking through and letting people know what my film
was was always the biggest hurdle, just.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Like what is this film? What is it about?

Speaker 4 (36:17):
You know, And that's you know, I could I could
list a thousand things that I did wrong on this film,
and you know, and cutting through the clutter and having
a you know, a clear title, and and letting fans
clearly know what your film is about. It got a
little muddy in there. And I'm even now, I'm still
trying to what is what's your movie about?

Speaker 3 (36:34):
I I've never heard of it?

Speaker 2 (36:35):
What is it? Right?

Speaker 3 (36:36):
It happens?

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Now? Did you did you get to meet and meet
Bob Zamechis at all? I don't remember he was in
the dock or not.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
Now Bob's Amechus was not in the dock. I met
Bob very briefly once a few months ago at at
a back to the Future an unrelated thing. But the
only people I've met I know Bob Gaile very well.
I met Claudia Wells, who was Jennifer Parker. I know
her pretty well. I met Chris Lloyd. I met him
a few times. Tom Wilson never met Michael J. Fox though,

(37:06):
because he was he was never at the same conventions
that I was at. But you know, like it's if
there's ever a Back to the Future thing in Los
Angeles and they're all there. I'm sure I will be
there and get a chance to meet them. I mean,
it's it's it's cool. But again, like you're in it
for so long, after a while you're like, yeah, it's cool,
but I'm okay sitting this one out, you know, No,

(37:27):
I like.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, after you're on the same project for years and
years and years, because for you, it's not just a
year that the movie's been out. You've been on this
half a decade.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, easy, yeah, And it's just and
even now, you know, we're still promoting it, and Back
to the Future still continues to be popular, and they're
always talking about, you know, putting up fan events in
the upcoming years. You know, they did a huge thirtieth
Back to the Future fan event in twenty fifteen. I
don't know if you were part of that at all

(37:57):
or if you went to it, if not, if he
missed it. Oh, it was put on by Joe Waltzer,
like the same guy who did the restoration. Of course,
he's the one to put on this massive, like five
day Back to the Future super fan event. And so like,
you know, we were out at the Point d Hills
Mall where they had a big, like they had a
big Twin Pines mall sign built and put in the
same place, and they had docks truck and you get

(38:19):
pictures in front of it. I mean it was it
was like fan insanity.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
That's like as like that's like mecca for Back to
It was like going to that mall. Yeah, and it's
still there.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
Oh yeah, the mall is still there. And not only that,
but they they screened the movie in the mall, like
in the parking lot there. And then of course when
they have the scene you know with the terrorists, they
did they reenacted it live in sync. So Marty drives
the to the Doreans, driving around the crowd and the
vw' is chasing around and there's a thousand fans just screaming.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Their heads off.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
It's just like like this is just insanity, you know,
like it's so surreal you can't even believe it's actually happening.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
That's that that must be just being sick.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, it was mind blowing. And yeah, like ten year
old me like growing up in the Midwest and seeing
back to the Future on the screen, like if he
saw that, he'd be like, well done, old Steve, well done.
Like that that was a dream come true.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Now, did you did I know, you've talked to Bob
a lot and you've been involved with Bob a lot.
Did you discover any inside stories about the making of
Back to.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
The Future you could share, you know? Oddly enough, No,
I really, I really didn't.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
And actually, at the same time, Cassine Gaines put out
a book which was like, we don't need roads. I
think it was called The Back of the Future History,
which had all those stories.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
So I just read his book. Oh oh, these are
the stories I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (39:39):
But with Bob, you know, I honestly I tread pretty lightly.
I when I'm around him, I try to be very
cautious of his time, and I try to be very
respectful because he's he's still working.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
He's still a very busy guy.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
You know, he's got a thousand things to do, and
you know, I try to be cautious and I try
not to. I try not to do the fan stuff.

Speaker 2 (40:03):

Speaker 3 (40:12):
You know you know what I mean by that, Like, yeah, I've.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Been around like celebrities of fans, and imagine when you're
working with a person you idolize, or you're working with
someone you have a tremendous amount of respect and you
just want to kind of geek out to. Yeah, it's tough.
And trust me, I've been in I've been in a
room with huge celebrities, movies that I want to that
I've you grew up with, and I just want to

(40:35):
go take a picture of you can come out. I
just want to take a picture. Can you sign this
for me? Like, but you can't because you're a professional.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
Yeah, you know, and I crossed over from that fandom
into professional you know, back to the future filmmaker dumb
and and you know, you don't want to He gets
the fan stuff all the time of the conventions, and
that's great and he loves it. But when I'm around him,
I I want to be the professional. And and you know,
every time I would contact him, it's because I needed
help with something.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
You know, Bob, what do I do? You know, the
Universal is not calling me back. What should I do
about this? And you know, it's mostly like I'm in trouble, Bob.
What am I going to do?

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Right? As opposed to so, Bob, how was it on
the first day of shooting again. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Now, I like every now and then he'd be telling
those stories while people were in the room, and I
would listen. But I never really really went down that road.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
You know.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
One thing I did say to him, though, is when
I was in production on it, and I was pretty
far along, I said, you know, Bob, making this film
is it's the hardest thing I've ever done. I had
no idea just how insanely hard it would be. And
he shakes his head, he goes, yeah, you know, like nobody,
nobody understands how hard it is to produce a film,
and and you know, Back to the Future was a
terribly difficult film to produce, especially with Eric Stoltz, and

(41:46):
they'd reshoot a bunch of it. Like I put myself
in his shoes, being what, you know, like a thirty
two year old producer with this giant film and millions
of dollars bleeding out, and like, you're never going to
make another movie again if this bombs, like the pressure
he must have been under, you know, And I think.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
About Bob's the Bobbs as they call them.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I kind of think about that
and empathize about that, because you know, my film is
not even on the same level, but it's still stressful
and hard. And I think that's why Bob and I
kind of got along, because he understands that what being
a producer is and the sacrifice and the troubleshooting and
just the misery that that's involved with it because he's

(42:22):
done it.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
It is the misery, it really is. And for people
who don't know that are listening, if you watch Back
to the Future, that Michael J. Fox was not the
original Marty McFly, it was Eric stolt and they.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Shot what like a third of it, I think third.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Of the movie with Eric Stoltz, and you see some
of that in the behind the scenes and the blu ray,
and you just that the call had to be made
that someone that Roberts de Machis had to go to
Spielberg and go, look, yeah, we got to recast, and like, oh,
can you imagine No, I can't imagine that conversation at all,

(42:59):
just just like you know, the heartache or even like
when you're when they're shooting with Eric stolts you know,
great actor, but just imagine looking at your daily is
just going to yourself fudge.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
This movie's gotta be bad.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
This is not. He's just he's great, but he's not
good for this.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
And just just imagine that that that sinking feeling, you know,
of like are we ever going to work in this
town again? I I have nothing but tremendous empathy for
them as producers now, and you know, all of us
who have been indie producers, because it's so it's such
a hard damn job that you can't even begin to
describe how hard it is.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, when we're in we're indie guys, so it's it's
a bit difference. We do have pressures, but I cannot
imagine the pressures of millions of dollars.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
It's just on top of you in a studio and
and a concept like Back to the Future, which was
it was a pretty out there concept.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Yeah, it was question Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
But again, what's what's great about Bob is again he's
very producery, where you know, I'm like, Bob, I'm making
this film, and his opinion just kind of like, you
know what, go for it, give it a shot, give
it a try. And that's such a producer thing to say,
you know, just throw it up against the wall and
see what sticks. You know, don't edit yourself, don't stop
yourself from trying it. Just go and try it and
see what happens.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Now, why do you think Back to the Future is
such a classic and has touched so many people.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
See, you're you're getting into fandom now, I told you,
I know, I know, But it's I think everybody listening
who's a fan knows it all knows the answer to
that already. And it's just because it's it's a timeless story.
It's it's a sci fi movie, it's a romance, it's
an action movie. You know, it's an uh, it's all

(44:41):
these different movies combined into one. And every every line
of the script is perfect, and it's tight, and it
just propels the story forward every single second, you know,
not a not a second wasted on screen. And and
you know, even when I saw it and I was
too young to understand the going back and visiting your
parents stuff like that time machine man, just like, still

(45:03):
to this day when I see those scenes, like my
heart still skips a beat, and I've sat in that
car hundreds of times and like I still like get
you know, I feel my pulse race just because of
how cool it is. And you know, my wife teases
me and just like, how can you even sit and
watch this movie after all the times you've seen it
making your film, And I'm like, cause it's still excites me.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
It is, it is for me. It's I remember I
remember going to see it in nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yeah, me too.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
I remember going to the theater seeing it and my
mind being absolutely blown. You know. That was that there
was that wonderful, wonderful time in the eighties that so
many great movies were made, like eighty from eighty one,
It's just so many great movies. Eighty five. Summer of
eighty five was amazing, Summer of eighty four.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
Yeah, you're talking my language now, Like I was. I
was ten when Back to the Future came out, so
I was just a little on the young side, but
I was still in that sweet spot for all those awesome,
awesome eighties movies.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
I mean between Ghostbusters.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Oh, Readers, Grandma, Back the Future, Gains and then Goonies.
But here's another one that it's one of my Joe Walser,
it's one of our favorites and nobody ever talks about it.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Explorers.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Oh it's amazing.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Flors like so many people don't know Explorers at all,
and yet that's one of my favorite quintessential eighties teenager
you know films.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
I love everything about that.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I would also throw Flight of the Navigator in there, yes,
and I don't get it. And I would also throw
in Monster.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Squad, Yeah, Monster Squad, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Toss those guys into them, because those are also lesser
known because the Goonies took you know, took over. Yeah,
but now we're geeking out in the eighties movies, and
we could I could talk about eighties a whole episode
on that.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
What's funny is actually, in a way, Goonies kind of
kicked off my whole out of time movie in a
way I owe it to Goonies. Why And I'll tell
that story real quick. In twenty ten, before I knew
anybody like actually it was before that, but I I
had put together a parody trailer, you know, when the
mass were really popular. Well, I did a mashup. I
did a mashup of Goonies of the Goonies meets Pirates

(47:05):
of the Caribbean. Okay, And I'm a professional editor, So
what I did was I took both films professionally digitize
them and cut together like a professional trailer, not you
know not, and it looked it looked real and it
was called Goonies of the Caribbean. And when you watch
the trailer, it has a plot like the goonies discover,
you know, the ship and then the pirates come out.

(47:26):
And it was this whole thing and it was really
well done and it was popular online. And in fact,
I got an email from Dick Donner one day telling
me how much he liked my trailer. And he's just like,
and remember, goonies never say die. And I'm just like,
Dick donnerd just make me a goonie.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
I'm like, I'm calling it. I'm calling it, Like yeah,
he did. But that story aside.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
One day I get an email from a guy who's
just like, hey, you'd like goonies. I'm like, yeah, go
check this out. And he sent me a photo of
Corey Feldman as an adult sitting in a time machine
and I said, who are you and where is that
and he goes, my name's Joe Waltzer. It's my time machine.
And I'm like, I've got to meet you. And then
like two days later, I was at his condo checking
out his time Machine and we've been friends ever since.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
And then Joe I've heard that before.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
I was at a fondo checking out.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
Yeah Machine, and Joe ended up as the head of
the restoration. But that's how I met is because Joe
saw my Goonies Pirates trailer online and emailed me about it,
tell me how much he liked it, and that started
this whole weird adventure. So the Goonies, the Goonies are
at the core of everything.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
You've got an email from Dick Donner.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
He did it was it was amazing.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
I like, I couldn't believe it, Like, you know, like, oh,
you're always afraid that they're going to say thank you,
take that down right now, or we'll sue you, you know,
like something like that. But he he said it just
tickled his fancy and he really liked it. So I'm
just like, boy, I'm framing that one.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
I still smile thinking about that one.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
So I'm going to ask you a few questions. I
asked all of my guests, what advice would you give
a filmmaker wanting to break into the business today.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Boy, I don't know, because I feel like I'm still
trying to break into the business. To be honest, like,
I don't like you should go ask a successful multi
millionaire film producer that question, because if I knew the answer,
I'd be doing it.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah, but you've been doing You've been in the business
for ten fifteen years now. Yeah, you're a little you're
a little head of the film students. So I have
vice for that.

Speaker 4 (49:21):
I do have an answer if if there's one field
that you want to do, whether it's writing for scripted TV,
writing features, you know, or whatever you want to do
in college, intern at the company you want to internet
in college, if you that will set you on the
right foot for everything else that follows. So if you
get an internship with you know, like say NBC Universal

(49:45):
or around one of your favorite TV shows, as an intern,
you get to sit in the writer's room, you get
to meet the people, you get to know how things work,
and then they'll be more inclined to hire you as
a PA. And once you're a PA, they'll be more
inclined out to hire you because you know all the
ropes already.

Speaker 2 (50:00):

Speaker 4 (50:10):
If you get you can get into the place you
want to work early as an intern, do it, and
that will set you on the right path.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
That's a great advice. That's exactly what I did in college.
I worked at Universal in Florida.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
Oh there you go.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Yeah, so I was working on the back lot all
throughout my I actually skipped in school to work for free.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
It was all that would be awesome.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
Yeah. I I interned out here for a few companies,
So I did it. But they were feature companies and
I just didn't end up doing features. So but yeah,
great experience and that that will help more than anything else.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Now, can you tell me what book had the biggest
impact on your life or career.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
I wasn't prepared for these questions.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
I know you were. No, do you have anything on
the top of your head?

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Nope, I don't.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
I will give a shout out.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
I one book that pops to mind that I really
really enjoyed is Rubble.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
Without a Crew.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Yeah, of course Roberts.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
But yeah, I mean that's just that's such a filmmaker
go to because any any book that details the horrible
struggles of any other filmmaker I want to read. I mean, like,
I want to know that every other filmmaker is having
just as much of a miserable time as I did,
you know what, And that's comforting.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
I don't say that to be mean.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
I say that as terms of comfort because because making
films is hard, and it's even successful, people struggle with it.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
And I like knowing that.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
You don't want to hear from somebody you know, I
had a great time. It was easy.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
No, No, because because odds are they're lying or they
just had some kind of coep credit where they just
show up once a week and walked around the set
and home like no, you weren't involved, you didn't do it. No, No,
it's just like yeah, like I want to know the
real stories. And again, in making this film, one of
the great things is that at the conventions I get
to meet a lot of the other indie filmmakers and

(51:59):
we all have this aim stories about how hard it
is and the studios and this and that, and it's
just and you realize that when things go wrong, it's
not that it's not that you're doing things wrong. That's
simply part of the process. Like that's making a film.
You're If things aren't going wrong, you're not making a film, right, exactly.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
That's a great tag. That's a great.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Quote, sir, I feel free to use it.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
That's a great quote. Now, what is the lesson that
took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
business or in life.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (52:29):
In this film, it's uh, don't try to do everything yourself.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
That alone was the biggest mistake and the biggest hurdle
that I I kind of essentially threw up in front
of myself, was I took I took on way too
much of this project by myself. And I like I
wrote the film, I produced it, I shot it, I
directed it, and I cut it. And I did all
the graphics. I ran the Kickstarter, I designed the web page,

(52:56):
I designed the DVD sleeve like I I cut the trail,
I cut all the bonus features, like I literally. And
I say that not as a source of pride, but
more of a source of embarrassment that that I didn't
bring in more people. But you know, at the time,
this stuff takes a lot of time, and people people
want to be paid, and I didn't have the money

(53:16):
to pay people. And and when you and then if
they do it on their own time, it would have
taken another three years to get done because they you know,
cut for twenty minutes here or an hour here, and
I was I was on a deadline. So I ended
up doing way too much by myself, and details were
constantly kind of falling through the craps or falling through
the cracks and dropping and and it was just you

(53:37):
know the nature of trying to do too much as
an individual. And I Yeah, having a team of like
two or three people who are all equally dedicated, who
all have an equal share in it, that will all
support each other and not have anybody bail, I think
is critical and makes things a lot easier because you
can hand stuff off if you need to.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Now, what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Ah, let's see.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
I would but well, actually I would say on the
top of the list, i'd put It's a Wonderful Life,
which which is not unlike Back to the Future. You know,
it's it's it's seeing what happens life without you, you know,
and a different path, and there's a little bit of
time travel and mystery in there. So I would say that,
and then yeah, back to the Future definitely number two.
I would put Ghostbusters at number three. I would put

(54:25):
you know, the Star Wars, you know the original trilogy, somewhere,
you know four Raiders, five, and then you just start
getting into all the other, you know, awesome eighties movies.
It's simply a list of eighties I totally admit it.
You know, it's yeah, I put Explorers up there. You know,
even though the Alien third act is really weird and goofy,

(54:45):
you know, a little clownish, but I still I still
love it. Yeah, I you can definitely tell that I
grew up completely within the eighties, and that's you know,
they're they're my favorite films.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
And that's why you must love Stranger Things.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
You know what I do.

Speaker 4 (55:00):
I haven't finished second season, don't spoil it, but yeah,
I'm savoring this one. I'm savoring it going slow. Yeah,
I love It's funny because when I watch Stranger Things,
I think to myself, none of us made proton packs
that look that.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Good in the eighties.

Speaker 4 (55:15):
Like that's my eyes, Like we get cardboard boxes. None
of ours look that good.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
I actually I was I dressed up. I think I
think it was the six I think it was eighty five. Actually,
I think it was eighty five. I dressed up and
we did a whole show on my school and I
was one of the Ghostbusters, and yeah it did not
look that.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
Good, No, But it's so funny because all of my friends,
like obviously, since I made a movie about the restoration
of the time Machine, I have come to know a
lot of very very good fan prop makers, including all
the Ghostbuster guys, all the Back to the Future guys,
all the Aliens guys, and so like, you know, they're
proton packs and stuff now are screen accurate and like

(55:56):
they have the full size ecdos like in their yard,
Like that's how big my fans my friends are. But like, yeah,
seeing like all of us have pictures of us in
the eighties dressed just like those kids, Like, oh my god,
I almost have that photo me and my dressed like
Ghostbusters in the eighties.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
That's insane.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
And that is the genius of the Duffer brothers.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
Yeah, that's oh my god. Yeah, they they got everything
right on that one, you know. But again, I would
love to know the story of how hard it was
them to try to get the series made anywhere else.
Those are the great stories of you know, how Back
to Feature was rejected by everybody, how Jaws almost didn't
get made because they went you know, over budget, over time.
The stories behind your favorite films of how they were

(56:37):
disasters are the stories I love the most.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Absolutely. Now where can people find you and find information
about you, your work and also the movie the movie?

Speaker 3 (56:47):
They can go to my website.

Speaker 4 (56:48):
It's out of timemovie dot com and out of time
is spelled like the license plate. It's out a time,
out of timemovie dot com. The movie is currently available
on iTunes, Hulu, Vimeo, and it's also available on Blu
ray and DVD U and we ship worldwide and it's
all all the links are available through the website. And

(57:10):
if they want to email me, if they want to
criticize my film, you know, tell me that my filmmaking
isn't that hard and that I'm wrong, or that Explorers
isn't awesome, they can contact me to the website because,
as I said before, I run the website because I
literally do everything related to the film.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
It comes straight to me. It's not some big team
of people, although I wish it were.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Steve Man, thank you so much for taking the time
out to do this. Man, it's been an absolute pleasure
keeecking out with you. And also talking talking shop with
you man.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Absolutely, and hey, I just want to say, keep up
the good work. I love the podcasts, I love hearing
other indie filmmakers' stories, and thank you for doing this.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Oh brother, thank you man. I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Man.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
It was great talking about Back to the Future a
lot and having Steve on the show and really just
discovering his whole journey of how he was able to
put this this kind of crazy film together. So Steeve,
thank you again so much for being on the show.
And if you guys want links to anything we discussed
in this episode, just head over to Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.
Forward slash for twenty Thank you so much for listening, guys.

(58:11):
As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
to you soon.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
dot tv.

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