BPS 424: From Short to Feature The Filmmaker’s Journey with Michael G. Kehoe

On today’s episode, we welcome Michael G. Kehoe, a filmmaker who turned a whisper of an idea into the resounding voice of a feature film. From Brooklyn to Hollywood, from an eight-year-old boy watching his mother direct community theater to a director commanding his own set, Michael’s journey is one of persistence, heartbreak, and sheer creative will.In this profound conversation, Michael G. Kehoe shares the winding road of his career, one marked by passion and loss. A pact among friends, the bright lights of New York, and the uncertainty of Los Angeles formed the backdrop to his early years. But it was a personal tragedy—the untimely passing of two close friends—that set the stage for his first short film, Second Dance. With no roadmap but a fierce determination, he crafted a story that not only resonated but landed him in the heart of Sundance, proving that even the smallest project can open the biggest doors.The journey didn’t stop there.

Years later, inspired by his twin boys’ innocent bedtime fears, he penned a horror story that would eventually become The Hatred. Rather than waiting for a green light from the industry, he carved his own path. He created Hush, a short film that distilled the very essence of fear—the anticipation of the unknown. The reaction was immediate. Audiences jumped, festivals awarded, and industry heavyweights, including the producers behind Halloween, took notice. The lesson? The industry rewards those who show, not just tell.But success in Hollywood is rarely a straight road. Shooting The Hatred on a tight budget and an even tighter schedule meant adapting, improvising, and making every shot count. “Poverty breeds creativity,” Michael says, a testament to the resilience needed in independent filmmaking. Working with a largely female cast, he crafted a horror film that stood apart from the blood-soaked clichés, focusing instead on atmosphere, character, and tension. The result? A film that paid homage to the horror classics of the past while carving its own identity in the present.Of course, filmmaking is a collaborative art. Michael speaks of the relationships that make the journey worthwhile—the actors who return to work with him time and again, the cinematographers who bring his visions to life, and the producers who take a chance on passion over pedigree. “Surround yourself with people smarter than you,” he advises. A lesson as true for life as it is for film.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four twenty four.
Start writing no matter what. The water does not flow
until the faucet is turned on.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Louis Lemore 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 2 (00:37):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
host Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
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Speaker 2 (00:52):
Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
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(01:14):
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(01:36):
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullets.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
You know me and my guest. Today we go over
all of this stuff, whether it be networking and professionalism,
and we also go over one of my favorite topics, creativity.
This guest is also going to be at GeekFest Filmfest four.
It's funny because Bill Ostrov, who was on the podcast
only a few episodes ago, actually runs a geek Fest
film Fest four. That's very hard to say, by the

(02:03):
way I keep saying it. I keep think I'm gonna
mess it up, but no, but all kidding aside, Bill
actually runs that this competition, and he runs the film
fest as well. And Bill obviously for First Glance Films.
He was on the podcast only a few episodes ago
and we talked all about everything, and it's funny because Mike,
this guest this week, actually won the first Glance Film

(02:26):
Festival with his short Hush, and now he's going to
be on this film panel. So when you hear this podcast,
which is going up on February twelve, twenty seventeen, next week,
next Saturday, he'll actually be at this panel. He'll be
discussing indie film financing. He'll be discussing how you have
to use creativity to make your film, and he is

(02:48):
just a wealth of information. As you're about to hear.
He also was able to turn a short film, Hush,
into a feature length film which is going to be
called The Hatred or Alice the Hatred as the poster
says right now. And he even got the producers of
the Halloween franchise on board with it, which is unbelievable.
So we're going to talk about all of his journey.

(03:08):
We're going to talk about all of these wonderful, wonderful
things about hustling about all these things with guests Michael g. Keo. So,
you know, Mike, you know, you grew up, you know,
in Ithaca, and then you know, obviously you now live
in Los Angeles. So what was the journey that took
you from Ithaca out out to Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, I was actually born and raised in Brooklyn, New York,
and my mother was a was a theater director in
the local theater there, and I always I watched her
work and as she was, you know, involved, deeply involved
in the theater there for the community, I went, as

(03:52):
a little kid, eight years old, watched her at the
theater and directing actors and setting the plays up and
the sets. And then when we moved up to Ithaca,
I knew that this is what I wanted to do.
So I started pursuing that I'd gotten I played sports,
so I wasn't one of these guys that was ostracized

(04:12):
because he was either a nerd or a jock or
a freak. I also played guitar, so I was in
a band, and I got in the drama program. And
while I was in the drama program, I knew that
there was there was a path, some way to get
into the film industry. I didn't know what a producer was.
I didn't know, you know, I only knew that I
had to go out and at some point go to California,

(04:34):
go to Los Angeles and make movies. And what inspired.
What really lit the fire was I directed and played
McMurphy in a stage production of One Full of the
Cuckoo's Nest that myself and a couple of friends presented
to the Sports Booster Club to raise money for them,
and not knowing what a producer does, I built the

(04:58):
set and then I got all of the football players
to play the crazies in the in the play. And
that brought in so many people to see their sons,
you know, coming coming in this football star playing in
this play. And it was a soul that weekend for
three weekends, you know, the first time that's ever happened
in this small town at Termitsburg, New York. And that

(05:22):
lit the fire. And I went on to go to
the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and
then came home and decided this was it. I had
to take the shot and go to California.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
So, now, before you moved out to California and La specifically,
when you before you moved out there, did you actually,
you know, have like a place to stay and have
a job already lined up?

Speaker 3 (05:47):
No, I had nothing. In fact, I came out with
three other guys from school. We had made a plan
to to you know, to get out here, and I
had already been bartending, so I knew that I could
probably get a job once I got out here. And
in New York at the time, you know, you could
start parting at eighteen. In California was twenty one and

(06:08):
I had been. I was twenty one at that time.
So when I applied for a job, they said, how
many years experience? And I told him I've been doing
this since eighteen. They said, well, that's not I said, well,
that's why it is in New York. So I landed
a job and it was at this little place in
Studio City called Steveg's. And ironically, before I left, I

(06:28):
while I was there, there was a friend of mine
that I went to school with. His name was Jimmy Hayden,
and Jimmy Hayden was an actor. And I had another
friend named Michael Koogle and we were very good friends.
And I was bartending in Manhattan at a place called Aileen's.
And one night, when we had closed up, the three
of us made a pact and said we're going to

(06:50):
you know, when one of us gets in there, we're
going to pull the other two in so I had,
you know, left closed up shop, so to speak, with
my life in New York, moved to California, and then
I spoke to Jimmy on the phone about a year
or so later, and Jimmy had told me that Michael
Kuckle had died and it was he was depressed, and
it was you know, it was a long story for that.

(07:12):
And then Jimmy had said to me, listen, I'm you know,
things are going well for me. I did a movie
with Robert de Niro called Once Upon a Time in America,
and I'm going to be on Broadway with Al Pacino
in a play called American Buffalo. And I said, I
got to see. He says, well, we're going to be
in in San Francisco, so you got to come. We'll
go out to dinner. I said, great. Well, about two

(07:34):
months later, Jimmy was dead of a heroin overdose. Because
the Bobby in the play was an attic. And I'm
not quite sure exactly how all of this had happened
or how it went down, but Jimmy was not really
a drug addict, you know, and he was an incredible
actor at the time. In fact, Mickey Rourke dedicated his

(07:57):
performance in popa Greenwich Village to Jimmy Aiden. So that
relationship between myself and those two young actors really set
an idea up for me that I had had about,
you know, creating a film. And I made my first
short film called Second Dance, and it was it was
basically about myself and my relationship with two guys. And

(08:21):
I was depressed when I came out here, not working,
not knowing what was going on, and I ended up
writing that short film that was about a guy who
was at the end of his rope and two of
his friends come back as angels to visit him, and
he's about to commit suicide and they convince him it's
not the thing to do. Well. That went on to

(08:42):
I Take Its Journey and ended up at Sun Dance.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
You know, that's absolutely incredible, you know, just to you know,
take a step back for a second. You know when
you said you had that packed with friends. You know,
if one person makes it, you know the other the
other the person makes is going to help the other
ones up. You know, that's that's actually something that you know,
I've heard of before too, where you know, friends or
or even if they went to the same college or
grew up in the same neighborhood, and you know they

(09:09):
sort of say, listen, if you know one of us
makes it, we're we're going to do our best to
help the others, whether that be through contacts or introductions
or you know, what have you. And we're also going
to tell you what is actually on the front line
of things. And you know, like I had a friend
of mine who was a screenwriter and he he you know,
he made it, and he always was telling his friends,
you know, this is how your script's got to look.
This is what it's going to be, because you gotta

(09:30):
get one shot with this uh to an introduction, and
you have to make it as good as possible.

Speaker 5 (09:36):
Yeah, you know, the to me, what what what has
to happen in your life is whatever relationships that you
have and whatever bond you have.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
You know, it's very important to continue that.

Speaker 6 (09:51):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Especially if it's going to be in a certain business,
whether you're in whether you're in a travel business, whether
you're in the restaurant business or anything like that, your
friends can actually help you, they can actually hurt you.
As well, depending on you know, how your friends are
with you and how that bond is. And I think
that having that support sometimes of a creative friend that's

(10:22):
along with you can elevate your career as well as
their own. And I truly believe that giving back, you know,
is also part of it. And I, you know, I
cherished the relationship that I had as though, you know,
but it was short lived because it was only a
couple of years in New York. And then when we
came out, you know, I didn't get to see them,

(10:45):
and when I heard about what had happened, it was
it kind of it was devastating, you know, knowing that
we had this plan to go out and do it,
but you can't, you know, you can't give up, and
they wouldn't want you to give up. So I just,
you know, I continued the journey.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
So I mean, and again, you know, when you were
talking about how both of your friends had passed, uh
you know, and and the one had died from a
from a heroin overdose, I mean that that is just
unbelievably at a left field because like you just said,
you know, he you know, he wasn't you know, into
that or never had had been a known drug addict
or anything like that, and you know it's just that

(11:23):
that's you know, that's just one of those things that
a left field and you know remind you know, it
just reminds me of a few things that that have
happened to other guests as well. You know, where that
where something you know, a friend of theirs has just
miss you know, just died and she has been clear
out of the blue, like you see him one day
and you know it's almost like they're gone the next.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, you know, look at the I guess, you know,
the seventies and eighties were really a time when people
were exploring and testing things out in their lives. And
since this character, I can't speculate. I can only you know,
I can only try to try to put things together
in a sense where possibly this happened, but I don't
want to, you know, say for sure. But you know,

(12:05):
when you play a character that's a heroin addict, you know,
most actors won't do the heroin. Some people may just
you know, may test it out and uh and it
becomes their demise. And Jimmy was a great guy, you know,
he he was a very talented actor. And I don't
you know, I don't know how it went down, or
who he was with or the crowd ian there. There's

(12:26):
there's articles about it, and people wrote things about who
he was with and how it was influenced. But I
think what you have to celebrate is their their lives
and and the work that they did, which was far
more important than that. You know, that downward spiral that
caused it, and Jimmy's work speaks for itself. You know,
it's a it was a remarkable career, you know, short lived,

(12:50):
much like James Dean, you know, and in fact, in fact,
they compared him to James Dean during that time, so
you know it, Uh, because of that relationship inspired me
to do that film that really opened the door for
me and go and and move on. So I believe
that they were you know, they were a part of it.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Yeah, and you use this as an inspiration to, you know,
to write and direct, and you're actually able to produce
Second Dance, you know, which was a short film of yours.
And you know, you also got one of my favorite
character actors by the way, in the film, Uh, Carmine
Felipe or Felipe.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, and Carmine.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Was every move every movie that at Carmine is in,
he is just you're You're just drawn to him. He's
like a magnet. It could because his performance and every
move I've ever seen of him, no matter whether it's
in Wayne's World or Beatle Juice, he's air you know,
or even in you know, in your film Second Dance.
He's just always you're just drawn to his performances.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Well, you know. The funny story about about him was
I was working on another movie in production, and I
while I was on set on location, who's walking down
the street eating Hollywood is Carmen? And and I knew
that I wanted to have someone in this short film.
Usually what people try to do is they try to
get one name, a big name or something like that,

(14:11):
to do a cameo to do in your film. And
I didn't want I didn't want it to be, you know,
to get al Pacino, you know, in in the in
the short film. I would have loved to have done that,
but I didn't see, you know, a spot for that,
to put it in there and take your attention away.
So when I talked to Carmen, Carmen is completely different.

(14:31):
Or was you know he passed away, but he was
completely different from the characters that he played on on film.
And we had a great discussion about acting, about life
in Hollywood and his journey as well. And I told
him the story that I just told you about, the
you know, the process in which Second Dance was made,

(14:52):
and he he he was drawn to the story and
he wanted to be a part of it. In fact,
after he the script, he had said to me, I
love it. I want to do this no matter what
I'll be there. Would you mind if I kind of, like,
you know, went off the script for a little bit,
and I said, look, as long as you stay on
the path of where we're heading to, you know, your

(15:14):
dialogue will be golden for me. Just make sure that
we stay within those confines of the story. And you know,
when you do a short film, especially when you're shooting
on film, because I shot that on thirty five millimeter,
you don't have a lot of luxury to do multiple takes.
And I think we did maybe maybe two or three

(15:35):
takes at the most of him. And I let him
go and I just said, go go with it, and
you know, he lit up the screen. He looks great
on film. He's engaged with the characters and he communicates
extremely well, and it's just he was a pleasure to
work with, you know, and.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
We talked too about that, you know, on the podcast too.
Is you know the dif between thirty five millimeters and digital,
you know, because you know the filmmakers who who've shot
on both, they've you know, that's the one thing they
like about digital is that they can do you know,
they can't afford that luxury of multiple takes because obviously,
you know, you know, it doesn't cost anything to you know,
put another file on an SD card or what have you.

(16:19):
But again, when you're working for thirty five millimeter, there's
there you know, every take literally literally does cost your.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Money without a doubt. In fact, you know, I cut
the movie on a movieola, and you know, people don't realize,
you know, the filmakers of today what even what a
movie ola is unless they googled it. And you know,
you have this tiny little screen that's like a three
by five screen and you put the film and the

(16:46):
sound through it, and that's what you're watching to get
your final product out there. And it's it's a big risk,
you know, it's a it's a it's a it's just
a chance that you're taking, you know, And we didn't
have We also didn't have video playback, so I stood
by camera and watched the performances there, hoping that my
my DP, my cinematographer would capture the essence of what

(17:09):
was in the script. And and he did. You know,
we we lit it. I love films that are are
dark in the sense of their lighting, and h doesn't
it doesn't look flat and just does it just exposes
just enough to bring you into that world. And Chris Moseley,
who's my DP, we had long discussions prior to that

(17:32):
about this process and knowing that we had to capture things.
I didn't care. I wanted to give it like a film,
nor look with color and go through that process. But
by by doing it on thirty five millimeter, I was
limited to the number of takes the time. And you know,
poverty breeds creativity, so we did what we could to

(17:56):
get the best performances on screen, and everybody from the
background to the you know, the main actor, they all
pulled it off. And and the proof is in the
putting for the film itself.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah, and you mentioned something too, uh that that is
thought provoking too. That I've mentioned to other guests and
we've talked about is the the relationship between the director
and the DP. Uh. You know, like today, you know,
people usually get monitors, you know, and they watch they
can see the exact framing. Uh, you know. But but
it used to be you had to trust your director's
cinematography with with everything because you you know, you didn't

(18:31):
get it, you didn't see what they were actually getting
if you know what I mean, they were they were
actually you had to trust them that they were getting
this correct shot, that everything looked good, and you and
and directors would stand and you know, watch the actual
actual character performance, the actual the actual actor performances right
then and there, but and not on a monitor, and
you know, and now nowadays, so that's that's what most
directors do, is that they have the actual monitor now

(18:53):
to see the performances as they're happening.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Well, you you know, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 7 (18:58):
And what what I try to do, and what I've
done on my films is communicate with my DP and
allow him to paint the picture.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
I give him a map of what we want to do.
I try to frame certain things, and he lights and
takes it from there. When I did Hush the short film,
my DP, John Connor, and I we worked for four
and a half months beforehand and had everything mapped out.
I did the storyboards, We looked at it at camera angles.

(19:30):
I had purchased something on my iPhone which was called
film Icpro to take video and snapshots of the set
and the actors in positions, so we had some sort
of framing for that. But I did discuss with John,
which we were pulling our hair out, and I said, look,

(19:52):
I don't want I don't want any lights in this movie.
It's at night, it's in indoors and interior shot. I said,
I don't want any lights at all. I just want
a flashlight.

Speaker 6 (20:04):
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and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
And John, you know, said how are we going to
do this? We shot with the Alexa, but we came
up with the plan and an idea that was sparked
in the preparation, and you use these little tricks to
create the scene and it worked perfectly. And if it

(20:34):
wasn't for that prep time and the discussions and the
relationship between myself and the DP, I don't think we
would have had what we had. And most filmmakers today
they just want to make a movie, to get out
there and make a movie. But if you don't have
if you don't have a good DP and great sound,
then you're traveling down a road where you're just like
everybody else and you're just gonna shoot on an iPhone

(20:55):
or something and it looks flat and there's no style
to it. But when you ate something and you have
a great relationship with your DP who shows a style,
it elevates you as a filmmaker. And I think that's
one of the things that's very very important to a
lot of filmmakers or for a lot of filmmakers. And
you see it in a lot of the in the

(21:16):
horror genre where the lighting and uh and the composition
is just done so well in most of those films.
And I think a lot of the successful filmmaker filmmakers
today started out in horror.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Yeah, that that is very true. And you know, that's
uh something that I've even talked about at the beginning
of the podcast when I had on David Heule from
a horror movie school. You know, a lot of successful
filmmakers actually did start in horror, and you know, like
like Sam Raimi always is the first one that comes
to mind, you know, because Sam Rami made Evil Dead
and then Evil Dead too, and then you know he

(21:53):
years later he went on to make Spider Man and
you know, now you know and you gets those big block,
big block but the.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
Movie right well, I mean James Cameron made Parana the Spawning. Yeah,
you know, there's just just I mean, you look at
the people who who started your career out, especially with
Roger Corman, and you know, it was Francis Coppola, there
was Martin Scorsese and all of these great filmmakers of

(22:20):
today actually gave got their start through that, you know,
that path that Corman set out to create. So you know,
I got to give a lot of credit to filmmakers
and producers like Roger Corman because he opened the door
for people they didn't have a lot of money to
make those movies. But I think that goes back to

(22:41):
saying that poverty breeds creativity. And when you're a filmmaker,
your creative side and you're those creative juices have to
flow and they have to flow with your VP as
well as your actors. And when it all comes together.
You know, this is uh, this is what filmmaking is.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah, I love that saying, by the way, poverty breeds creativity.
I like that, Mike. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
steal that.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
By the way, it's yours. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
So, so after you made Second Dance, you know, you
made some other films obviously between Second Dance and Hush,
you know Hush I want to get to but I
want to talk you to obviously about those films in between.
You know, after you film Second Dance, did you did
you take did you take it to any film festivals?
And where was that?

Speaker 2 (23:28):
How?

Speaker 3 (23:28):
You know?

Speaker 4 (23:28):
Did you parlay that into your next film, which was Dominion?

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Well, what I did was I submitted the I submitted
Second Dance to sun Dance, and I didn't make it
because it was it was too late. So I talked
to a friend of mine who's a producer, and he said, look,
let's get a screening. We'll get a screening. We'll get
a room over at TriStar over where Sony is now,
and we'll screen that and then that you know, you'll

(23:55):
bring some people in. Look at there maybe only thirty
people that show up, and we'll see happen. So I said, okay,
and now you know you have a thirty five millimeter
can that you're walking around with. This is your child.
So I brought that to Sony and I put word out.
You know, I had been in the movie business in
working in production, which my brother got me. I got

(24:15):
my brother into it and then he got me in
on that side. And we got a ninety nine seat
theater and I waited outside and five hundred people showed up,
including Keanu Reeves and because I had worked with him
on Speed and so now you know what do I do?
And I had to show the film five times because

(24:36):
there was only ninety nine seats. And when it was over,
the projectionist came to me and she said, and it
was a woman. And for the life of me, I
can't remember what her name was, but I'm actually searching
now to find out because we're about to screen the
next movie at Sony. And she said to me, Michael,
have you submitted this to Sundance? And I said yeah,

(24:57):
but it was too late. I didn't make it. She said, well,
why don't you leave it here, you know, for this weekend?
Because the gentleman that is a part of the shorts program.
He's in charge of the shorts program. He would be
here and I should show this to him. This deserves
to be in there. So I thought, oh my god,
I'm leaving my child here, you know, at Sony, you know,

(25:19):
over the week for the week. And I trusted her
and came home, you know. And about four or five
days later, I get a truck comes up with the
can film can drops it off for me to sign,
and it's over. I don't hear anything. Well, about two
and a half weeks later, I get a letter in
the mail says Sundance and I thought right away this

(25:40):
is a rejection letter. Just thanks for sending it in,
but no thanks. And I'm sitting on the front porch
with my dog and I opened the letter and sure
enough it says, on behalf of Robert Redford and the
Sundance Film Festival. You have made it to the festival.
So I jumped for joy for that and went to
the festival. It was I think it was at the

(26:02):
same time that Hoop Dreams was playing at that time,
and Matthew Modine was in a a short film and
went on a writer and so we were all interviewed
by Entertainment Tonight, UH for that, and I gotta I
gotta approached by another company. I had written an action,
a thriller that I just wanted to sell. I didn't

(26:23):
want to you know, I didn't wanna. I didn't want
to direct it. And they approached me and they said,
you know, there would be great if you who will
do this if you want to direct it? And uh,
the producer who helped me with the short ended up
producing that and we went on to do that feature. Uh.
The funny story was I had been working in production,
you know, at a craft service company, and I was

(26:44):
doing a movie called Airheads with Adam Sandler and uh,
you know, God Steve Mussemi and Ernie Hudson was in it.
And Ernie Hudson would get a couple of scripts, you know,
during the worst of the week. And what I did
was I took my script and I got the PA
who was bringing it to his trailer and I sneaked

(27:08):
it in there. And about two days later, Ernie called
me to his trailer and said, did you write this?
I said yeah. He says, I want to do it,
and I said, oh my god, it's great. So I
prism Entertainment at the time. We made a deal together.
It was a one point three million dollar movie and
Ernie was in, and we did a promo shots with
Ernie's face on the poster and got everything together. And

(27:30):
then a couple of months, about a month or so
before shooting, Ernie came to me and said, Mike, I
feel bad, but Kathleen Kennedy called me and I'm going
to do this movie called Congo. He says, I won't
be able to do that movie. And I, you know,
of course I was disappointed, but you never want to
say screw you. You're supposed to do my movie. You
don't survive in this industry by being that way. And

(27:53):
I was so supportive of him, and I said, look,
go do that. You're gonna you're gonna do a lot
better than doing this movie for this little movie for me.
But we ended up getting Brad Johnson and and also, uh,
I don't know if you if you've seen the movie,
Brian James who was in a Blade Runner and forty
eight Hours, and a few a number of other actors

(28:16):
and you Richard Reeley who plays a character role and
that and then that went on. It was I think
it was on. It was on cable for a while,
and then I went off to do a couple of
other shorts that won some awards, and then I did
another feature called The Art of a Bullet with Leaife Garrett,
and you know, I people were laughing at me of

(28:39):
casting Leaife Garrett in this in the lead role, but
I have to tell you, Laife did such an amazing
job in this role. It was a dark kind of
a film, your detective thriller about a home invasion, and
he was he was spot on. And then of course
after the film he got in a little bit of

(28:59):
trouble and things kind of went sour for a while
for him. But it really worked, you know, it worked
out for the film itself, and you know, we got
a small distribution deal overseas for that. And then I
went on and started writing again, and that's when I
came up with this idea of finally doing a horror movie.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
So and just to stop and ask a question right here,
don't don't you think it's important for pretty much everybody,
whether you're an actor or director, to be writing your
own scripts, just just to even whether you're going to
shoot it yourself or even just to hand it to
somebody else and maybe say, hey, would you want to
make this?

Speaker 3 (29:42):
You know, I think I don't think any you know,
it's it's a great question because there's some incredible writers
out there, independent writers that haven't made it yet, and
they have some remarkable scripts, and they don't want to
be a director.

Speaker 6 (30:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
They don't even want to be a producer. They just
want to write. And so yes, I found it that
in the beginning stages of my career. When I first
moved out here, I bought myself a computer and I,
you know, not even knowing how to use it. The
only thing I wanted to learn was a screenwriting program.
And I had the first, you know, version of Final
Draft when it came out and started writing that because

(30:32):
a writer writes, and that's what I was trying to
do as well as make my film. But I think,
you know, if you as a filmmaker starting out, it
might be it might be wise to either write something
if you're able to write something that is is readable
and enjoyable for the for the reader and the audience.

(30:54):
But you may find a writer that's out there that
has written something that you may not be able to
pull off in your own writing skills. I mean, I'm
reading some scripts now that I would never be able
to do it, and I love and I you know,
I'm working on trying to acquire them. But you know
that it's a great question to ask. It's I just

(31:15):
think it's the individual of who wants to create something
and and uh and maybe sit with a writer and
create something or or do it yourself. Like you said,
I don't think there's any specific answer for that.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
Okay, you know, and it's it's always something I wanted
I always ask everybody because you know, some people are
always some people got very frustrated about, you know, not
having options. Some people want to their make their own opportunities.
But there's there's always a couple of key words, just
one single word that I always find on the podcast, Mike.
One of them is creativity. Another one is opportunities. And

(31:52):
I always sort of let you know, we can draw
so much from them because we're all just sort of
you know, we're always boiling things down to to sort
of that that one word that we can sort of use.
And you know, again, I like what your definition of creativity?
You know, poverty, you know, uh, poverty, poverty creates creativity
and and just you know self, That's why I wanted

(32:12):
to ask that question. But you know, so as we
continue on with you know, with with your whole journey,
you know again, you wanted to write a horror movie.
So where does sort of the impetus of the of
the idea, this sort of seed idea, where did that
come from? For the concept of the horror movie.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
Well, early on, I was inspired by thrillers, Hitchcock, things
like that. I'm I'm not very much into slasher films,
blood and gouts, torture or anything like that. And in
looking at the horror genre, the horror genre to me
is like thirty one flavors. You know, you have people

(32:53):
that like vampire movies, you have people that like zombie movies.
You have like people like paranormal movies or slash movies.
But when you make when you make a horror thriller,
you get the attention of all those across the board.
And that's what I wanted. I didn't want to make
a specific film for one specific audience. So I started

(33:15):
thinking about things and I have twin boys, and when
they were very very young, they used to say before
they went to bed, they used to say, Daddy, check
under the bed. Daddy checked the closet, Daddy, you know.
And I said, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. And
that inspired me to create this story of Hush. And
so when I got into it, I wanted to I

(33:37):
started writing the feature, which originally was called The Hatred,
and I took a scene out of that, which is
the scene, you know, the Hush, which we shot. And
I decided that I was going to go out and
try to try to shoot this as a short film
because years ago, in the eighties and nineties, a lot
of the stunt men that I knew were create sizzle

(34:00):
reels or you know, a reel that would explode. It
would actually promote the film itself, so kind of like
a teaser. And and I thought, you know, I'm going
to do this one scene. If there's attention for this,
it may give me a shot at the feature. And
I wanted to make more of a of an anticipation

(34:20):
of death rather than death itself, because you know, the
anticipation of death is worse than death itself. And if
you're watching something and it's what's behind the door. It's
the journey from the moment you hear the sound till
you get to the door. That journey in between is
the journey that raises the hair on the back of
your neck. And that's what I wanted. So I have

(34:45):
a very close friend of mine that we were young
when we were started out our careers very early. His
name is Tommy Harper, or is Tommy Harper, And we
decided that we were going to try to develop this now.
Tommy Harper started out as an ad and then wor
his way up and producing. And at the time, Tommy
had said to me, you know, do this, but you

(35:07):
really need a DP that understands horror. So I told
him about John Connor and John Carr and I had
been friends for many, many years. We worked on a
couple of films with Tony Scott and then we started talking.
This was eighteen years ago. We talked about making a
movie together and Tommy Harper said, no, no, no, you
know he's he doesn't know hard you look at these guys.

(35:28):
So Tommy went off and told me that he was
not going to be available because he was leaving town
to go work, to go produce a movie. And that movie,
that little movie was Star Wars The Force Awakens in London.
So I said, okay, well, I don't want to stop
you from working on this little movie. To go work
on that little movie. So Tommy went off to do that,

(35:48):
and while the cats away, the mice will play and
I got John Connor to shoot hush. And when in
the in the process of writing it and doing it,
as I said you before, we created this this formula
that we wanted to make for this movie. And when
we finished it, I had My editor is a guy

(36:11):
named Michael Trent, who's an incredible editor. Worked with Steven
Spielberg for many years and we have our kids went
to school together, so we had a relationship there and
I didn't expect him to want to be a part
of it. He read the script and he said, I'll
do it. I'll do it. And it was only five minutes.
But the footage that I gave him, I got to

(36:31):
give him credit for the for the entire cut, because
the only thing we did was extend one little piece
of the section of the movie. Other than that, what
you see is Michael Trent's cut. And then you know,
we started the journey with the short film on the
festival route, and I spent you know, filmmakers have to

(36:53):
understand you have to spend money to make money, and
you've got to get it out there, and you've got
to get it out to the right festivals. You know,
you want, I want to go to festivals that have screenings.
You want to go to festivals that are probably a
few years in the making, because there are you know,
there are some people that are sitting home that are
you know, typing out little certificates and emailing them to

(37:13):
you saying you won this festival when it really doesn't
mean anything. So you want the uh, you want the
acknowledgment from the audience as well as a respected film festival.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
Yeah, well, you know, and that's also something that I've
talked about too with other people in this podcast has
been you know what festivals are can actually do something
for you as well as you do you know, you're
giving a submission to them. Are these festivals valid?

Speaker 2 (37:42):
You know?

Speaker 4 (37:43):
If you because I went way back when I had
a script running consultant on who who actually said he
had a client and she and she ended up winning
like fifteen different screen running competitions but the downside was Mike,
none of them were like the big name festival competitions.
They were, you know, of the smaller competitions. And he said, literally,

(38:03):
the only way she got more work after winning all
these competitions was that she had a deep network and
that one person got her into somewhere else to do it,
to do a writing gig. But you know, and it
just goes back to you know, we were talking about
about networking and you know, things like that, but you know,
just to talk about you know again with with hush,
you know, making sure you know, the audience responded to

(38:25):
it as well as as the as the festival circuit.
You know, when when will you when did you sort
of you know, know that you had you know, I
guess the term would be hit. You know, when did
you know that you had something here that you know,
you sort of got lightning in a bottle.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
With this, well, another great question. You know, I'm extremely
hard on myself. It's hard for me to sit in
the theater to watch the movie that I made because
you know, I want to please the audience and I
want to go out and sometimes you never know, you know,
what's going to happen, and their reaction if it's positive
or negative. So when we finished it, I showed it

(39:03):
to a few people, and the reaction from them jumping
out of their seat. I knew that there was something there.
I didn't know if they were being honest with me.
But as I started testing it with people, I got
the same feelings. So I said, Okay, you know what
I'm gonna I'm going to put it out into this festival.
And the very first festival we won eight awards and

(39:24):
I thought, okay, well maybe this is maybe this is it.
And we started applying. I spent a lot of money,
you know, putting it out to film festivals. We got
on film Freeway and we started hitting it and I,
you know, I couldn't We couldn't get into some of
the bigger festivals at the time because of the timing

(39:45):
of it. But as it started going out, and like
you had said, which I think is so important, you
have to build a network, a following that you get
in there. And since we now have social network, you right.

Speaker 6 (40:00):
Back after a word from our sponsor and now back
to the show, you.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Can actually go out and let people know what you're doing,
and in doing that, people will start to gain a
little interest and see what you're doing. And as you're
starting to hit that market and festival after festival, and
you're announcing it because you have to be your own publicist,
people will be interested in say well, I want to
see this film now because it's one ten, twelve, fourteen awards.

(40:31):
And not until we were selected at the Catalina Film
Festival and my good friend Ivana Cadaver said to me,
I couldn't make it to the festival because I was
actually going to be working on this other movie. And
I said, I'm not going to be able to make it.

(40:52):
She said, I'll go in place. And then she called
me and said to me, do you know that Wes
Craven actually chose your film. It was before he died.
It was one of the films that he said, this
deserves to be in the festival, deserves to be a feature.
So I think f Gary Gray made the announcement or
whatever at the festival itself, and Robert England was there

(41:12):
and we won an award there, the Wes Craven Award,
which was you know, a great feather in my cap
for the movie. And as that went out and I
built this following on social network. It was Twitter and
Instagram and Facebook. You know, people started seeing what was happening.
And I put it out and gave it to a

(41:36):
producer by the name of Malika Cott. And Malick is
responsible for the Halloween franchise, and you know, I was.
I had sent it over to Blumhouse. I sent it
over to a couple of other places, Sony and some
other places, and Malick called me and said, I've been
sent a lot of scripts. I really like this. I
want to sit down with you with this. And Malick's

(41:57):
kind of a hands on producer, and we we developed
the story and continued with the events that occur within
the script and the characters and taking some things out
and putting other things in, and we got financed and
we were set to go into production. It took a
while from the time that the I think the film was.

(42:22):
The short film went out in the latter part of
twenty fourteen, and we shot the film in two thousand.
It was twenty sixteen when we shot. I think it
was twenty sixteen. I can't remember what happened yesterday, but
you know, we yeah, it was a spring of twenty sixteen,

(42:46):
and that is what happened there. Once again this comes
into mind about poverty breeding creativity. You know, we had
a limited time to shoot. I think we had like
an eighteen or nineteen days schedule, but we were just
one hundred million dollars and it wasn't a lot of money,
you know, for what we wanted to do, because we

(43:08):
had big expectations of trying to put the best up
on screen, and we were hit by the Union, so
we had to go union. So we lost a number
of days for that and a good amount of money
from the budget. So I didn't want, you know, losing
two days is a lot. And we were like we
were shooting I think thirty five setups a day, which

(43:29):
is you know, remarkable for a feature. And I got
to give credit to my crew and my cast because
they were with me. And I remember working with Tony
Scott and Tony Scott getting up there and lifting up
you know, boxes and moving and getting the team to move, go,
go go, and that's what they did. And so we went.
We were prepared in one seat in one part of

(43:51):
this house we shot in and made people aware of
what was going on so we would be able to
go from there to the next spot, and Malik did
a great job of, you know, guiding it through and
creating a world for us to uh, you know, to
have an opportunity. We had a great line producer by
the name of Sean Gory, and of course my my
d P John Connor, who is so so incredibly talented.

(44:17):
In fact, John went on to shoot Meet the Blocks
and a couple of other movies, Taylor Laufner movie that
I can't remember the name of it right now, but
John got signed by an agency right away after that,
and we you know, it was a let me just
say this, it was a battle for me because you

(44:39):
you have one idea and one path that you think
that this film is going to go on, and then
of course it takes a different path because of the
roadblocks that you have. And I look at the film
now and is it the movie they originally wanted to
go out and make. Probably not, But however, now it's
it's a It's a movie that I'm very proud of.

(44:59):
It's kind of it's an homage to the seventies and
eighties with no blood, no guts, no sex, no stupid women.
And we have ninety five percent female cast, so I
think we we I think we ended up hitting the
mark on what we did.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
But by the way, I wanted to mention Mike, we
actually have a mutual friend who actually worked on Alice
the Hatred and who did the makeup effects, the makeup
effects sculptor, and that was Hiroshi Kittgi and Heroshi's actually
been on this podcast as well.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Oh wow, oh yeah, well you know the world right, yeah, exactly.
I mean this is this is a great story as well.
I was working on a movie called Last Samurai. I
was in New Zealand, the Tom Cruise movie, and we
had gone to Japan and we were six, i think
five months into New Zealand and the the transportation coordinator.

(46:01):
His name is Vic Kucha. His daughter was his name.
Her name is Austin Kucha. I think she was like
ten or eleven years old at the time. And I was,
you know, we were prepping. So I was driving out
on one of those Honda you know, I don't I
forget what they call them. They're like the four wheel
go karts, so to speak, but they're motorized, you know.
And I'm driving her out and she's sitting with me,

(46:24):
and I just said to her, I said, what do
you want to do when you get older? She said,
I want to do special effects makeup. And I said
really and she said yeah. I said, well, if I
ever make a movie, you know I'm going to I'm
going to bring you on there now, never thinking anything
would happen. Years later, I'm doing Hush and Austin has
created blood rugs. I don't know if you know what

(46:46):
that is, but when you watch CSI and you see
an actor dead laying on the floor in a pool
of blood, they have this rug that they peel up
and they lay down so you don't ruin the floor
in a location, and they could put splatters on the
wall which is which feel off and goes back on,
so you never have to worry about, you know, continuity,
you know, somebody stepping into it because it doesn't change.

(47:07):
And Austin did the makeup on Hush and ended up
coming on the feature as well. So this is another
thing of how small this little world of Hollywood is,
you know, and it's to me, it's a great little world.
And you know, when I hear people say, oh, that's
so Hollywood. That person so Hollywood. To me, there's there's Broadway,

(47:27):
there's Off Broadway, and there's off off Broadway. In Hollywood,
there's Hollywood, there's off Hollywood or Hollywood, independent Hollywood, and
then despert Hollywood and desperate Hollywood are those people that
talk about doing it, never do it, and say they
have money, but never you know, never doing that. And
I believe me, I've been dealing with that in fact
right now on an independent movie. People who are saying, yeah,

(47:49):
they have money and they know somebody who knows somebody
who knows somebody. And to me, that's desperate. So you know,
give credit to the people that are actually doing things
and making it happen. There's so many wonderful filmmakers out
here that I always try to support at festivals and
and try to see what they're doing, and always, you know,

(48:11):
have whatever advice that I could give from my journey
and my adventure, I always try to help others with it.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
Yeah, I like that term desperate Hollywood, Mike, because you know,
I've encountered that myself, and whenever I'm reading a you know,
like someone's autobiography, they've had that as well. Particularly. The
first person that comes to mind is Quentin Tarantino when
he was trying to get money for Natural Born Killers,
which was actually one of his first screenplays. He actually

(48:42):
met these two bodybuilders who were trying to is They said, well,
we have all this money and this and that, and
they didn't have anything. When he when he wrote Reservoir Dogs,
somebody else tried to said, oh, you know, I can
get you the money, but you got to make my
girlfriend has to be mister blonde, the mister blond character, yes,
and put it as a woman. And you know, you know,

(49:03):
all these people were just blowing smoke. You know, they
didn't really have any.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Money at all. Yeah, that's you know, that's what filmmakers
run into. There's always somebody that says, I got to
have my girlfriend in there and we can't tell my wife,
you know, or I've got to do this and I've
got to do that, and you've got to do this
for me. But you know, I think every filmmaker needs
to stay on track, you know, for for what they want,
because ultimately it's it's their assets on the line and

(49:28):
no one else's. And if you end up when the
term is selling out, it's selling out to say well
I'm going to do this just to get money, you know,
don't go out to make a movie just to make
a movie. I mean, you wouldn't go out and have
a child just have a child, you know, you want
to make sure that you could support that child and
nurture it and grow, just like you would with the film.
And so I think that that's the attitude that a

(49:50):
lot of successful filmmakers have, is to create a world
and and try to get it not only you know,
from the page to the camera, to the audience.

Speaker 6 (50:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
And you know, it's it's remarkable. Sometimes I hear these
people that are just going out and I see some
of the films that they shoot. It looks flat, the
acting's not that great, and where they put it out
it goes nowhere. And they say, well, I'm gonna have
a life on YouTube. Well that's great, But if you really,
if you want to be a filmmaker, you know, put
your heart and soul into it, and surround yourself. To me,

(50:33):
this is the most important thing. Surround yourself with people
who are smarter than you, because you don't. It's good
to know a little bit about everything, but get somebody
that can actually do the job of you know, your
sound guy. For instance, Tom Curley, who won the Academy
Award for Whiplash, was my my sound mixer on the

(50:55):
movie that we did, The Hatred, and Tom is from
upstate New York, so we had that in com And
I had worked with Jeff Wexler, whose dad is Haskell Wexler,
when I did a little short film that won it
at Comic Con years ago. And to me, you really
have to have great sound for a film. People will
say and well, you know, we'll do it in post.
I hate that line that we're going to fix it

(51:17):
in post. If you don't fix it on the set,
you're gonna have problems later on, you know. So you
put your heart and soul in it and you get
people that are smarter than you, because that's going to
pave the road to success for people who dedicate their
their heart and mind to it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
I also don't like that whole attitude of you know,
let's just fix it and post. You know, I think
you know when you're almost like when if you were
to interview a lot of student filmmakers, I think a
lot of them have that attitude, and unfortunately, some people,
some people don't lose that attitude. And I've been on
film sets too where you know, I mean, hell, I'll
ad minute, Mike, I've been guilty of that too, and

(51:56):
you know that was a few years ago obviously, but
when I now, you know, when i'm whenever, I'm you know, uh,
it's been a while since I've been on set. I
shouldn't have mentioned that, but but it's been a while,
so I've been on set, uh, you know, as I've
run a film podcast. But uh, basically, you know, I
realize now you have to do it right, you know,
right when you're right then and there, and uh, you know,

(52:17):
sometimes you need a little more time. But it always
sort of comes down to that production management triangle. Right,
you can have it good, you could have it, you
could have you know, there's there's equality the speed and
the time, so uh, you know, you you can have
it fast and slow, it'll be good. You know, all
all that stuff, and you got to sort of all
sort of manage that where you're on.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Set, well, you know, and that's why that's why preparing
is the you know, is ninety percent of the job
because then everything runs smoothly after that. And have in
mind that you are going to you are going to
come into you know, some changes. You know, filmmakers don't
Some filmmakers early on don't realize that. You know, when
you're recording sound on set, you also have to have

(52:58):
room tone that you're going to chord so you can
use later on in case there's this, you know, there's
a change in dialogue where you have to shoot something
later on. Getting that room tone puts you back into
that's that that set. And and if you watch a
movie that has crappy sound, it takes you out of it.

(53:18):
If you watch a movie there's an okay picture and
great sound, you know, you're you're you're still engaged, you're
still involved. But sound is so important and so engaging
for the film that most people don't they don't consider
it to be that important. And uh, it's something that
they say they'll always fix later. And I disagree with

(53:38):
it whole artedly.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Yeah, same here, same here, Mike, And uh, it is
very important. Something I learned from Kelly Baker. Kelly's been
on the show as well, and he's the sound mixer
for Gus van zandt and uh, yeah, and he's always mentioned,
you know, uh about the importance of sound and and
and everything. And then he really is is a person
that really sort of drove that home for me. And

(54:02):
you know, even when I watch movies now, I'm always watching,
you know, I'm always listening now for how the sound
compliments the the video part, the actual you know what
will what we can see.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Yeah, without without a doubt. I mean, it's it's it's
almost a character in the in the film itself, you know.
I I wrote and Tommy Harper is responsible for making
this deal. I wrote a sci fi film. It's kind
of like in the same vein as Alien and the Thing,
and I wanted to set it in uh In in Iceland,

(54:33):
on this Air Force base that my father was actually
stationed at in the fifties, and I, uh, you know,
presented it to them and they picked it up and
they flew me out there for uh for scouting and
which we're going to shoot this thing uh in this
this fall lake fall in Iceland. And one of the
things when I went on one of the experiences that

(54:55):
I had when I was on the location, we went
inside the old base that's been shut down since two
thousand and I believe two thousand and eight. It was
an American base and they had you know, in Iceland,
their power is two twenty and ours is one ten,
so there was one ten. But they had pulled everything out.
And so this this particular facility had these walls that

(55:21):
were like probably a foot thick, and when I went
in there, it hadn't been touched since two thousand and
I think eleven, and there was no dust on the
walls or anything. But the sound in there, I started,
I started smiling because every little thing, if you dropped
the coin, it had this incredible sound because everything was

(55:43):
completely silent because of the thickness of the walls. And
I just knew that this was going to be something
that came, you know, along with the film that was
going to elevate the film. So having a great sound
man and having a great location for that sound is
just equally as important, you know, for the success in
the film. You don't want to shoot near an airport

(56:04):
and have a you know, have a dramatic scene that's
an emotional scene with two people talking, So you just
have to you know, you have to really pull it
off in such a way and do that research. So
I look forward to, you know, to creating that movie
as well. It's titled Kevilovic with a company called True
North that is is in Iceland. Kristin Thornson who's the

(56:27):
producer for that. They actually they started out as a
production facility company and they they did Walter Meeting, they
did Star Wars, they did some of the some of
the Star Treks. And there's a great story of how
that came about with that meeting because Tommy Harper introduced
me to Kristin at a meeting and Tali had asked

(56:49):
me if I had any you know, scripts that were
kind of sci fi, and I said I had an idea,
but I didn't have a script. And when we got
to the meeting, Tommy said, Mike's got a great script
sci Fi. Tell him and I just sat there, you know, stuttering,
and then pitched the story and he said, you got
to give this to me so I can read it
on the way home. And I said, well, I just

(57:09):
have to finish the last twenty five pages, and then
went home and wrote the thing in a month and
sent it out to him, and that's how that that
whole deal started. So it's been a good journey so far.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
Yeah, I mean, that's really cool. Mike, I was actually
going to ask you, you know, I know The Hatred
it has been you know, completed, it has been released yet.
But I was going to ask you, you know, what's
your what's the next project coming up? And but so
you read my mind on that one, Mike.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Well, that's that's actually not my next that's not my
next one. I mean I wrote, I just finished writing,
you know, as soon as as soon as as soon
as I finished The Hatred, you know, we went in
to post. I was, you know, I was running out
of money, and I got a phone call from a
good friend of mine who said, hey, I need you.
I know you worked on Mission Impossible in Dubai and

(57:59):
you oversaw some things. I'd like you to come on
this movie and do it. And I said, I said,
you know, where is it? Where are you? And you
said Budapest And I said, yeah, I'm there. And I
went out there to work on this little movie called
Blade Runner twenty forty nine and had a great experience there.
I met some incredible filmmakers from all parts of Europe

(58:22):
and Germany and Budapest, and Budapest is an incredible place
to shoot helms and it can double for like England
and France and Russia and Romania all these other places.
So while I was there, I got inspired again for
another horror movie and a horror thriller, and I started writing,

(58:45):
and as soon as I got back home, I got
into it. And on the weekends while I was working there,
I just kept writing and writing and writing, and so
I came back completed the script and I'm pushing that
now to be done to shoot it this summer before Kevlvick.
I just think that, you know, this is something that
I want to do and try to get out. We're

(59:06):
going to try to approach a couple of companies that
I built relationships with, you know, that are out there,
so hopefully that'll be the next thing. It's called Among
the Damned.

Speaker 4 (59:19):
And then again, it's good. It's good thing. I asked
that because I thought, I uh, I got because I
wanted to make sure I knew exactly what you were
doing next. Because again I think the story of Hush
and the Hatred is fantastic, Mike, And I think, you know,
if there's one thing that that people can take away,
you know, just from this interview, it's just that you know,
you've been out there hustling. You know, you didn't wait

(59:41):
for an opportunity. Uh, you were always out there, you know,
uh number one, you know, uh knowing your craft like
you were saying, you know, knowing uh, you know, how
to do your job to the best of your abilities
and knowing it, you know, knowing it inside and out.
And also always be you know, being professional.

Speaker 6 (59:59):
Well be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Like you said, you didn't say to that person, Hey,
you know you're supposed to do my movie blah blah,
you know, being professional and being flexible at all times,
you know, to to how things change in the movie business,
because they do. They do change all the time, and
you know, and obviously always making sure you have opportunities,
you know, again just by hustling.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
Well, you know a lot of my friends, you know,
are pretty amazed because I never give up, you know,
and that's the one thing that I and I think
that was instilled upon me from my parents. But I
got to give credit to the people like yourself because
of your support for this, and I think what's important
for people to follow you and do that is this
whole journey that the you know, filmmakers let myself go on.

(01:00:51):
You know, you give this opportunity for other people to
hear it to inspire them. And it's because of people
like you who really have a force in this industry
to help people get along, because this is what lights
a fire and someone when they're sitting in there in
their little apartment and they're listening to this and they
find out, hey, this is something I want to do,

(01:01:13):
I can relate to that. It's not just because of
the filmmaker saying that. It's that person who's putting it
out there and your love for films and your love
for this industry and what you can do to connect that,
and you being a filmmaker yourself to go out there.
I just think that this is something that's important and
also needs to be addressed for people to follow you

(01:01:34):
and see the different layers that it takes to make
a movie. And I thank you for your job and
what you do because without we know about.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
Some of us well, you know, and I thank you
very much for saying that. Mike. You know, the whole
impetis for me creating this was you know, there are
a couple of reasons why. The main reason was, you know,
I I you know, for people who listen to listen
to podcast since episode one, uh, you know, almost three
years ago. Now, I almost I started this podcast. Oh

(01:02:09):
my god, it's been three years. But for people who've
listened to this since since episode one, the you know,
I started this podcast for one of the number one
reason was I got passed over for a promotion that
was rightfully mine at my former day job. And two,
I you know, I've always liked the concept of podcasting,
and I always liked the idea of doing something like this,

(01:02:31):
and it was just hard to get, you know, people
to get together when I used to do podcast podcasting
because I did it with a group of people. But
now I just do it myself in my office and
I get to interview really cool people like yourself, Mike.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Well listen. Like I said, you give us an opportunity.
I'm really excited about getting the Hatred out there because
the cast, when you see the women in this cast,
you know, have done an amazing job. The acting is
spot on. I am so fortunate to have actresses that

(01:03:07):
are just so talented, and some of them you some
of them, you know, I mean, in particular Amanda Wiss,
who is in a Nightmare on Elm Street and Silverado
to some of the other actresses that haven't been out
there that much, but they've they've done some incredible work.
And I don't want to, you know, if I if

(01:03:27):
I mentioned and I mentioned Amanda, but if I start
mentioning one and I don't mention the others, I'll feel
kind of guilty. But when the when you go and
see this movie, just I want people to to watch
the performances of these actresses because it's it's their movie
as well, and they put it off so well that
it makes the film. It really makes the film. And

(01:03:49):
that's that's one of the great things of having, you know,
an opportunity to work with great actress and actresses. I
will say that, you know, and this is kind of
kind of, you know, showing off, but David Notughton is
in our film, who played the lead in American Railway
from London. And the wonderful thing about having David and
Amanda is they only worked one day and I became

(01:04:10):
friends with them, friends with Amanda prior to that. But
creating a relationship with actors and as friends and knowing
that you can put them in their movies and they
can pull it off. Is the same thing that Scorsese
does with during de Niro. And I'm not saying I'm
not putting myself in the same category as Scorsese by
any means, but I think that having a relationship with

(01:04:33):
incredibly talented actors is so important that you can rely
on them. It's just a phone call and say I
need you, and they're going to be there to play
in your sandbox.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Yeah. I couldn't agree more, you know, And that is
something to you have a relationship with certain actresses and
actors and being able to develop, you know, that's something
too much. When I used to watch movies, I used
to sometimes wonder why certain directors would always work with
the same actors and the same and sometimes they're the
same crew. And now I get it, I believe having
you know, made movies, made short films. You know, I

(01:05:06):
get it now because you get used to working in
a certain style and you know, if I hire the
same person, it's a certain style, if it's my style,
and that's why we works, you know, and then we
are the combination. The sort of synergy of what we
do together helps us both out, you know, That's why
you know, Tim Burton always works with Johnny Depp. That's why,
you know, like you said, Scorsese works always works with

(01:05:26):
Robert de Niro, and you go down the list. You know,
Quentin Tarantino always works with Samuel L. Jackson and now
Christoph Walse It's just they start to bring out the
best in each other.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
Well, you know, when I did Second Dance, at the
last minute, I cast a friend of mine who's a bartender,
that's a great Actor's name is Brad Wilson. And he
gave such a such an incredible performance and was so dedicated.
He didn't have the script until that morning, and he
gave one hundred percent to this, to this script. I
put him in two other films after that, and you know,

(01:05:59):
he's just a million he's he's a great actor. And
I think that I'm fortunate to have somebody like that
in my back pocket. Or I can pick up the
phone and call him up and say, hey, Brad, I
need you to do this. I have the same relationship
with Jack McGee. If you know Jack McGee is Jack
McGee was the Father and the Fighter. He was in
a TV series called Uh God, He's the Fire. The

(01:06:22):
Fire TV series it's gonna kill me that I can't
remember not rescuing the rescue me.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
I think it was that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Yeah. And and Jack has been a friend. He's been
in a few few films of mine, and I just
you know, I we're friends. I just call him up
and he always says to me, Keia, what are you doing?
What's going on? Am I going to work with you?
And having a talented actor that likes that's like that,
that supports you is worth its weight in gold. And

(01:06:55):
so I really want to express to other actors create relationships,
don't you know? It's great to know about camera. And
there's a great statement that was made. I believe it
was Walter Mathou and Jack Lemon at the Academy Awards
and when they were giving an award out to directors,

(01:07:15):
they said, there are directors that know everything about the
human element and nothing about camera. There are directors that
know everything about camera and nothing about the human element.
And I think that it's important to know about both.
So when you get on the set and you're talking
to an actor, you need to speak their language in

(01:07:35):
order to get the performance that you want. When you
talk to your DP, you need to speak their language.
To get to capture those moments. And I'll never forget.
I was working with a stunt man who was a
director years ago. And there's a lot of very talented
stunt directors that are now becoming great filmmakers, but this guy,
in particular, I'll never forget what he said. He says,

(01:07:55):
let's hurry up with this dialogue so we can go
flip the car. And I think when you have that attitude,
you miss the essence of what filmmaking is all about
and how to bring out a great story. So create
a relationship with actors and uh and learn their language,
you know, if you have to sit through acting classes
or whatever and watch them create. That's important.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
Yeah, it's when when someone says something like that, you know,
like let's race through these lines so we can flip
the car. You know, it's they don't realize that you
have to sort of earn those things. And what I
mean by earning the car crash or earning the you know,
the kill and a slasher movie, because you have to
build up these characters so we actually care about what
happens to them. So if they do are in a
car accident, or do flip their car or what have you.

(01:08:40):
We as the audience are actually invested in their in
their journey, and these aren't just sort of moments that
are happening for the sake of them happening, but they're
actually happening for a reason in the inside the story.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Yeah, I mean, look exactly and story. It's all about
the story. There's some incredible stuntment and the stuntment of today,
you know that are are extremely talented, are like scientists
because they measure out things. They want to make sure
it's there. And they're also great actors. I have some
some friends of mine that are great stunt men, that
are incredible actors, and they pay attention to the story.

(01:09:14):
So I think a lot of it has changed over
the years, and and the business is evolving, and so
we learn every day. I mean I don't I don't
know it all. I'm learning every day. I learned something
new about the business. And uh, you know how it
changed from film to digital and how all this process
that you go through in this journey teaches you something
about about you know, how the process is, how the

(01:09:37):
business is. But one thing that remains the same is
telling a story. And that's what's most important.

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
Yeah, the story is always always the most important element
in all this, uh, because you know, the sympotography, we
tell a story and everything. You know, Mike, you know,
we've been talking for you know, for about an you know,
about an hour five.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
So just in closing, is there anything we didn't talk
about that maybe you wanted to or is there anything
or maybe something you just wanted to say this sort
of put period at the end as whole conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
Well, I mean, listen, listen. I would love to to
stay in touch with you and uh and do another
one of these anytime you want. I am speaking at
the geek Fest in Long Beach on the eighteenth with
Ivana Caadaver, Amanda Wiz and Jessica Cameron. So you know,
I think I just you know, I just I want
to make sure that that filmmakers, you know, take the

(01:10:41):
right path and uh, and we can all help each other,
you know, in this business. I think that's one of
the great things about how we you know, if someone
does a poor job, you don't want to tear them
apart and knock them down. You just want to support
them and help them get to the next the next level.
So I'm you know, I want to I want to
continue my relationship with you and get the word out

(01:11:02):
and share the things that I do with with the audience.

Speaker 4 (01:11:06):
And I will link to uh, you know, Michael's appearance
at geek Fest. I'm going to link to the anything
in the show notes where people can check that out
because I know, like you were, we were saying, you
are doing a panel, uh you know with Jesse Cameron
and your and I want to make sure that and
again you know, as you talked about geek Fester, we
were both friends with Bill Ostrov as well. We have

(01:11:27):
a lot of mutual friends, Mike, we have uh yeah,
so and I and I want to stay in contact
with you as well. And for everyone who's interested in
checking out all of Michael's work and also checking out
you know him at this panel convention, I'm going to
put that in the show notes. And Michael, do you
have any websites that you want to give out to anybody?

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Well, you know, I mean you can follow me on Instagram,
which is m I K E H O E dot
one one And uh, I'm sorry It's m I k
e h O E one one on Instagram and Twitter
is at mikey Keiho. And you know, we have a
Facebook page which is called Alice the Hatred, which is

(01:12:09):
slowly getting attention and people go out. You know, we've
had a number of titles for that, so it's now
called The Hatred, I believe, unless there's some changes. So uh,
those sites, yeah, follow me on it because I'll be
posting some information and obviously the journeys and things that
I'm doing, so hopefully I can give a boost up

(01:12:29):
to someone else.

Speaker 4 (01:12:31):
And that is that is fantastic, Mike, and I always
like that attitude about, you know, helping each other out.
I think that's what it's really about, is helping each
other out. Too many you meet too many filmmakers who
become you know, either they're close guarded or jaded from
from even from the on set sometimes and they're just like,
you know, no, it's all about you know, and it's
just you know, they don't want to and I've seen

(01:12:53):
him burn out as well. And I could do a
whole podcast about that, you know, but it's always great
to me. You people like you, Mike in this in
this industry who are very talented, but they also are
are so willing to help out others. It's just, you know,
it's just phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
Well, you know what I think. I think, you know,
there are great, great companies out there that are giving
filmmakers an opportunity. One that comes to mind right away
is Blumhouse, and Blumhouse has you know, a number of divisions, Blumhouse, Tilt, Plump,
Plumhouse dot Com. And the films that they make, especially
in the horror genre, they allow their filmmakers to make
their movie. And I am I am so drawn to

(01:13:33):
that company that that's the attitude that I have about
wanting to help people and wanting to go out that
if you were ever if you're if you're a writer
or you know a filmmaker that's creating, uh, you know,
something in that genre. And mind you they're they're also
doing They did Benji, which is the old dog movie
you know from from the eighties, and they did Whiplash.

(01:13:54):
And the number of films that, to me is is
what it's all about. That company really put themselves out
there to give a shot to people. So hopefully we'll
all we'll all be.

Speaker 4 (01:14:05):
Doing that yeah, Blumhouse is fantastic. Uh, you know, I'm
always interested to see what they're up to, and uh,
they're just great and I'm you know, yeah, there's not
enough I could say about them and what they're what
they're up to, and uh, you know, Mike, I want
to say, you know, thank you for coming on. Everyone.
You can always find me Dave Bulls dot com. Again

(01:14:26):
everything Michael and I talked about on the show. When
I put in the show notes at Dave Bulls dot
com Twitter, it's at Dave Underscore bullis Michael. I want
to say thank you so much for.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
Coming on, Dave, keep the dream alive.

Speaker 4 (01:14:39):
I'm gonna do my best, buddy, and I wish you
the best luck with everything. And you know what, anytime
you want to come back on, you let me know
and we'll we'll we're gonna make it work and I'm
gonna I want to definitely want to have you back on.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
Great my friend, Take care.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
Take care of my friend. Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot TV
Forward Slash four twenty four. Thank you so much for
listening to guys as always, keep on writing no matter what.
I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
dot tv.