BPS 449: From Setbacks to Festival Wins: The Filmmaking Path of Dawn Fields

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four forty nine.
Your dream doesn't have an expiration date. Take a deep
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
Room in Hollywood when we really should be working on
that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
to make your screenplay bulletproof.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.

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Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
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(01:12):
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(01:37):
Dave Bullis.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
Hey, everyone joining me today is Don Films. Down is
a Los Angeles based producer, writer, director, and owner of
the feature film production company Palm Street Films. She has
been She has over twenty years of experience working as
a producer, writer, director, assistant director, editor, and she has
a background at acquisitions and development. Down has raised over
one hundred thousand short films eclufiully through Indiagogo, and she's

(02:03):
also worked for such companies as Lucas Film, Twentieth Century Fox, TriStar, ABC, NBC,
Aaron Spelling Productions, and Morgan Creek.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Dan.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
How are you hey, Good morning, Dave, I'm great, How
are you pretty good? Thanks?

Speaker 4 (02:16):
It's actually stowing right here in PA.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Oh goodness, Okay, Well, it's cold here too, but everybody
just laughs at us when we complain about the cold
in La.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah. I think the high today is going to be
like seven or eight.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
No way, yeah, oh gosh, Okay, well I'm gonna stop
complaining then about how cold it is here.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
So don just to get it started, could you give
us a little bit about your background.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, sure, of course. I started in the film business
in Atlanta, Georgia in the early nineteen nineties when all
of the Hollywood companies were coming out to Georgia to
take advantage of the fact that it was a right
to work state, the fact that you know, people were
more cooperative, They actually got excited to give you their location,

(03:01):
and so there was a lot of good energy and
spirit going on there. So Georgia really attracted a lot
of big budget films that were coming through the South
in the early nineties. Excuse me, and I started out
as a production assistant. And it was funny because how
that happened was as my dad growing up, my dad
always told me I should be an actress. And so

(03:23):
there was a film called Love Postion Number nine, which
was in town shooting at the time. That's the film
that actually launched Sandra Bullock's career and was written and
directed by the wonderful Dale Lonner. It was actually his
directorial debut. He's a prolific writer that moved into directing.
But anyway, I signed up to be an extra on
that set and I was just it was my first

(03:46):
time on a film set, and I was just I
was hooked. I was just blown away, and I'm like,
this is amazing. And I realized very quickly that I
really didn't really want to be in front of the camera.
I wanted to be behind it. And so one of
the pas that was in charge of the extra I
was just really taken with, and I said, you know,
how did you get your job? This looks really fascinating
and he said, well, it's it literally is who you know.

(04:08):
And I turned to him and I said, well I
know you. And he literally got me my first job
in the business. And the first thing I got hired
to do was go to and Bancroft. And Bancroft played
Madame Ruth and my first assignment was to go to
her hotel room and read lines with her. And that
was really an amazing experience and she was a wonderful,

(04:31):
wonderful person. I'll never forget that. And then from there
I got assigned to extras casting, and I got a
lot of experience in the whole world of extrass casting,
which is a brutal job and I have mad respect
for the people who do that work. And then from
there I just kind of worked my way up. I
thought I wanted to be in the DGA as an AD.
I was working towards that and trying to get my days.

(04:53):
At the time, you had to have six hundred and
fifty days as a PA to qualify for the DGA,
So I was working on my days and I think
I got up to like three hundred and fifty days
on various films throughout the Southeast, including Young Indiana Jones
the TV show where I got the opportunity to work
with George Lucas. That was amazing. So I thought that
was the path I wanted to take. And then after

(05:14):
after I worked all this PA days, I started like
wanting more and to move up the ladder. So I
started being a first AD on some short form projects
like short films and music videos and commercials and industrials
and stuff like that, and I realized very quickly that
I couldn't be that close to the camera without wanting
to be involved in the creative decisions. So that's when
I moved into producing with you know, realizing that being

(05:37):
an ad wasn't necessarily the career path that I wanted
to take, but it was definitely something I enjoyed.

Speaker 5 (05:44):
So you know that that was absolutely amazing. You got
to you know, read lines of Dan Bancroft.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah, it was, and it's it's it was very hard
for me when I heard that she had passed. That
was tough. I know I didn't know where that well.
But still, whenever you meet someone and you kind of
share a bond with them, you feel like you know them,
and she was a wonderful, wonderful woman. That was That
was a tragedy for sure.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
Absolutely, I'm sorry, don't did I die? I cut you offten,
I'm sorry if I did.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
No, No, no, not at all.

Speaker 5 (06:10):
Okay, I I thought, uh, yeah, I'm sorry. I sometimes
have a tendency to do that just to interject no please.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
I like that because I don't want to feel like
I don't want you to feel like you can't get
a word in edgeviyes. I don't want to just talk
and talk and talk, but I tell you I could.
I have so many stories and I have so much
to say about this business. I could talk to for days,
So feel free to cut me off anytime.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Well, that's good. Stories are good because I, like I
always say, people wanted to for the guest, it's not.

Speaker 5 (06:35):
Me because I have a very nasily high, whiny voice,
and I like your voice.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 5 (06:41):
When I'm playing these podcasts back, I'm like, oh my goodness,
this is what I sound like.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Oh God, I'm the same way when I see myself
on camera. I can't stand it. So so anyways, so
once I started getting into producing, I realized very quickly
that there was no real money in Atlanta. You know,
you could work on because there was a lot of
films coming through, but you know, all the big shows
coming through Reunion and I had decided not to go

(07:05):
the DJA route and not to be a Union ad.
So I started kind of branching out on my own,
doing my own thing, and tried to raise some money
for a couple of feature ideas and a couple of scripts,
and then I just realized, Wow, there's just no there's
no film. At the time, there was no film business there,
and I don't think there still is a film business there.
I think it's still just a lot of movies coming
through and a lot of things being shot there. There's

(07:27):
certainly not the industry that there is out here where
all the agents and managers and distributing studio heads and
distribution companies and stuff like that. Atlanta still doesn't have
all that. But it's blowing up right now. There's like
a thousand things filming there. But so I realized very

(07:47):
quickly that Atlanta was not really where I needed to be.
So in two thousand and I literally I remember I
was walking my dog on a Tuesday, and I'd been
thinking about it for a long time, and I stopped
in my tracks and I just looked down at my
dog and I said, you know what, It's time. And
two weeks later I was gone, and I packed up
everything I owned in a U haul and I drove
out here with no job, no apartment. Had a few

(08:08):
connections friends that I knew to let me sleep on
their couch till I found a place. But I really
just took that leap of faith that I came out
here with nothing, and the first the first several years well,
I've had a lot, you know, I've been here fifteen
years now, and I would say seventy five percent of
that have been tough times. I mean, this is this
is a brutal industry, and for anybody who thinks that
it's not, maybe some people have it easy, but most

(08:30):
of us have to really struggle and fight for it.
And it's it's been a struggle almost every step of
the way. But I think that just speaks to how
badly you have to want something, because it's still something
that I want more than anything, and it always has been,
and so you just you figure out how to make
it work. So the first job that I had when

(08:50):
I moved out here was for a medium size so
I kind of on the small side distribution and production
company where it was a really interesting position they put
me in. I was the vice president of distribution and
I was the vice president of acquisitions. So that was
really cool because I got to go to all the
film festivals to scour finished films for us to acquire,

(09:13):
and I got to, you know, reach out to filmmakers
for finished films to see which ones we might want
to acquire for distribution. But I also got to go
to like pitch panels and meet with agents. I was
winding and dining agents a lot and looking for scripts
that our production arm could produce. So that was like
a really great experience, and quite honestly, they paid me

(09:33):
pretty well. It was a really nice base salary plus commission,
which was real. So it's really kind of a nice job.
But again I found myself like missing being in production.
You know. I was working in an office all day
and I was helping other people with their films, but
I wasn't being able to do my film. So that
even though that was a great job, it lasted about
three months.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
And then I left that job and decided I wanted
to do my own things. So I found a couple
of scripts that I really liked, was in development on
those for quite a while, and before I know it,
like several years had gone by and I hadn't still
hadn't produced anything. I was ad here and there just
for freelance and helping people here and there with their shoots,

(10:25):
but wasn't really doing what I wanted to do. So
I remember it was in twenty twelve, I believe late
twenty twelve, I finally just said, you know what, I've
had enough. I just want to make a movie. And
by this time I had acquired over five thousand friends

(10:46):
on Facebook. Well write at five thousand friends because they
cap it at that, but I had reached my five
thousand limit of friends on Facebook, which was an account
I created, like I had a friends and family account
when I first moved here. But my friends and family,
I think they got tired of me only talking about
film all the time, because that's all I talked about.
So about five years ago, maybe it's been more now.

(11:08):
I created a Facebook profile for myself just to interact
and engage with other filmmakers, and that just grew organically
out of my need and my desire to friend other
filmmakers and other film companies and just kind of keep
up to date on what everybody else was doing. I
was just fascinated. I simply wanted to know what everybody
else was doing, and that, in a crazy way, just

(11:33):
organically grew to the point where I now have almost
five thousand friends. I have to keep it limited so
I can add new people as I actually make friends,
not just connections. But actual friends and people I know,
so I have to kind of keep that limited. But
several years ago Facebook opened up subscribers and people could
follow you even on top of friending you, and really

(11:53):
quickly I had amassed over twelve four hundred people as
subscribers that are all in the film business. So little
did I know at the time how beneficial overall that
was going to be for me in my career, because
as we get into discussions a little bit later on
about crowdfunding and how I financed all my films, it's

(12:15):
almost exclusively come from that base of friends and followers.

Speaker 5 (12:21):
So you know that that's absolutely amazing, And you know,
really quickly, I just wanted to ask you, how do
you decide who to delete on that five thousand friends?
You know, because I'm coming to that cap too, when
I'm just like, well, who gets cut here?

Speaker 4 (12:34):
How do you make that decision?

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah? Well, you know, when I first started friending people
way back in the early day, I would friend anybody
from anywhere. I actually had friended a whole bunch of
you know, back then you could go in and do
a search for terms like film, movie, film industry, those
kind of I was putting in terms like that, and
all these suggestions were coming up, and I just frended

(12:59):
an and liked all of them. And a huge handful
of them were foreign, and some of them were in
foreign languages, even that I couldn't understand. But at the time,
I was just like reached out to everybody. Once I
started getting close to my five thousand, that's the first
thing I went in and did as I went in
and started eliminating those companies and those people that were
foreign where I couldn't even understand what they were saying.

(13:22):
But now it's actually become quite a problem because every
film I work on, I meet, you know, ten twenty
thirty new people, and I want a friend all of them.
And as I go through you know, various pre production
and development and castings and all that kind of stuff,
I'm always meeting new people. So I've had to go
through many times and just make the tough decision of

(13:43):
who to cut. And Facebook doesn't make it easy, unfortunately.
I wish that there was a really simple way to
just go in and delete, like people who haven't been
active in six months to a year, because there's a
lot of accounts that people create that they don't ever
do anything with But they don't really make it that easy.
But I can tell you this, if you have a well,

(14:08):
there's a couple of ways you can do it. If
you go to let me just pull my microphone over
here in my other computer. If you go to your
profile on Facebook and you click on the friends tab,
there's a couple of categories there. You can bring up

(14:28):
your friends, if you'll notice, you can bring up recently added,
you can bring up work friends, college friends, high school,
current city. There's a couple of other followers following. There's
several selections there. It will group them by that. And
Facebook's algorithms are such that the people you interact with
most are going to come up first and that everybody
else comes up after. So you could conceivably go into

(14:50):
any one of those categories, or just look at your
friends group as a whole and just scroll all the
way down to the end. Now that's going to take
you about fifteen minutes pile away if you have five
thousand friends. But you can scroll all the way down,
and you know, you have to look at the people
too and make sure. But for the most part, the
lesser active people are going to be down at the bottom,
and then you can click on each one of those

(15:11):
decide if you want a friend them or not for
unfriend them.

Speaker 5 (15:15):
You know that's interesting because you know, Twitter makes it
a lot easier because you can use different programs like
manage filter or f fliitter I think it's called. And
then you know, you can actually just see who's been
in active for you know, three months, four months, et cetera,
and you can follow those people.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Don't we all wish Facebook would do that. I you know, Facebook,
I don't think want you to unfollow people is probably
their whole thing. But yeah, I wish it were that easy.
But you know, I I think that you shouldn't be
friending people you don't know anyway. But but the truth is,
it's kind of ridiculous that Facebook limits people to five thousand.

(15:52):
That's never made any sense to me how they want
to control how many friends I have.

Speaker 5 (15:56):
Yeah, what I've been doing is with close to my
foes thousand friends. A little bit, I've started to realize,
like I think a lot of friends from high school
probably like I don't.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
Talk to most of them anyway. I mean most of
them found me.

Speaker 5 (16:09):
Like I, like you just said, I usually only request
people that I know or have met at a networking
party or have met somewhere else, and then I'll from
acrost them or you know, et cetera. But you know
a lot of and also, you know, I think some
people too, like you just said with oh, you talk
about his film, like all I talk about his film too.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
My my social.

Speaker 5 (16:27):
Media sites are very rarely anything political or religious or
anything like that. So usually it's all film stuff because
that's all I want to talk about. You know, I
don't want to talk about politics religion online, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah, I know, And that's there's you know, you and
I could be fast friends. That's one of the things
that ties James that I together. James Papaiden is a
really good friend of mine. He actually started working for
me in my production office a couple of years ago
as an intern and slowly has now made his way
up to helping me produce stuff. He's a producer now
and he's actually in the next month or so, in

(16:59):
the in the month apart March, I believe it's going
to direct for the first time. So and that's kind
of what we have in common. And I don't I
don't think anybody else outside the business could stand being
around the two of us pretend, you know, for any
length of time, because it's all we talk about.

Speaker 5 (17:14):
Yeah, I know, which mean it's all my friends talk
about too, is you know, we talk about a lot
of film stuff, and you know, screenwriting.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
Writers' groups, this and that. You know, it's just uh
that way, you know, you're getting self into.

Speaker 5 (17:25):
So so everyone, if you subscribe to Dawn on Facebook,
that's all you're going to hear is about film stuff,
which that's true, which I think is a great thing.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
By the way.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
However, however, I will say though that the more I
started engaging with my filmmaker friends on Facebook, the less
I started interacting with my friends and family. I'm sad
to say, I don't even use my friends and family
account anymore. So what you'll find on my on my
Facebook account now is it's kind of a mix. I
do talk about, you know, the foods I like to

(17:54):
cook and the things I like to do for fun
and I do, and my opinions on things. So it
it has kind of become a hybrid because you know,
I do so many crowdfunding campaigns and I do so
many things like seminars now. I'm doing seminars now, and
I have a script contest. I don't want people to
think I'm just trying to like be a business and
shove all my business stuff in their face. So, you know,

(18:17):
I just that's my my only account now, and that's
where I share really my it's really become my personal
and my professional profile because I'm because I'm on it
all the time. I just I don't have time to
go back to my friends and family Moore. It's very
sad they all miss me, but I keep you know,
most of them are friends on my face you know,

(18:37):
my filmmaker Facebook as well, so I always tell them
if they want to know what's going on with me,
to you know, click on that one and join that one.

Speaker 5 (18:44):
And most of them have, so yeah, that's it's a
good way to keep in contact too, is I mean, honestly,
I tried to have multiple facebooks and that that wasn't
gonna that that just I was like, mine, this is
a lot of work. So what I did was if
everyone was keeping contact with me, like you know what
I mean, Like I usually just post stuff like what
I'm doing, this is what I'm up to, and there
that's it, you know, and we've caught up.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
So yeah, I just want usually post everything I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
So but are there Yeah, and there is something to
be said for you know, your friends and family you
should be hanging out with and calling on the phone, so,
you know. So so I tell my friends and family,
I'm like, hey, if you miss me, pick up the
phone and call me. You don't have to go to
Facebook to see what I'm doing, you know.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
And just you know, speaking of you know, what you're doing,
you know, just to talk about, you know, all your projects.
I really want to, you know, because you have a
lot of really interesting film projects here.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
You know. You started Palm Street Films in what year?

Speaker 3 (19:38):
I believe I started it in twenty ten. I had
had another production company before that called Glass Mountain Entertainment,
but we never really had any projects that we ran
through there or had anything really happen with it. We
were more in just development on things. So I don't
even remember why I ended up closing that when and
changing the name, but I did.

Speaker 2 (19:59):

Speaker 3 (20:08):
I guess just rebranding remarketing wasn't sure I loved the name,
so rebranded and launched a new company. I believe in
twenty ten that's when we started that.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
So, you know, then, could you talk about, you know,
your first project with the Palm Street Films, which is
Bonds and Lace.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Actually, Dave, I will, I'm going to actually go more
old school than that. The actual there were actually three
documentaries that I had in development and in production. Actually
some of them are as much as eighty percent shot.
That that were the first things that I did through
the company, but one we ran out of money for

(20:49):
the documentaries, which is one thing. But then I just
started realizing that documentaries it's a whole different style of filmmaking.
It's a whole different set of roles. It's completely differ
and it's really truly apples and oranges from narrative filmmaking.
And as much as I had these personal stories that
I really wanted to tell, I just kept being gravitated
back towards narrative. And so I still want to finish

(21:12):
those documentaries someday. I haven't shelled them, but it's taking
some time to figure out how to get those on autopology.
I would love to hire a documentary person into my
company once we actually have some funds to do that
with and and have them help me finish those out.
But the actual first project that we ran through Palm
Street Films was Zombie Elves. Oh that's right, yeah, uh again.

(21:36):
It came at a time where I'm like, I just
want to shoot something. I'm tired of all this talk.
I want to make a movie. And I started, you know,
started thinking about what could I do that I would
enjoy that would also be profitable, because for the last
few years, I've also really tried to focus on how
do I make a living at this business? How do
I not only pay my bills, but hopefully someday make
enough money to have a savings account set aside, to

(21:58):
have a retirement plan, to have little next egg, those
some financial security, those kinds of things. So Zombiells was
really my attempt at creating a project that I thought
would really succeed financially. And zombies were really hot at
the time, and you just can't go wrong with the
marketing power of Christmas, and so I thought, you know,

(22:20):
what would happen if you created a situation where there
was a zombie outbreak on the North Pole and everybody
just went crazy over the idea and they laughed and
they thought it was hysterical. And we just had so
much fun developing that project. And we did actually get
a script written. The script kind of went in a
direction that was not right. We sent it out for

(22:42):
some feedback and people just really didn't enjoy it. I
don't think I think we went too much zombie and
not enough Christmas, and people really wanted that there needed
to be some Christmas spirit in there. There needed to
be a lesson learned, there needed to be some magic
of Christmas. We kind of didn't put any of that
stuff in there, and it turned out that it wasn't
very satisfying for audiences. But Zombiell's was actually my first

(23:04):
crowdfunding campaign, and I made a ton of mistakes on
that campaign. That's that's part of where I start my
seminars now is talking about Zombie Elves, and that's that's
really the campaign that I learned all my lessons on.

Speaker 5 (23:19):
You know, I remember Zombie Elves. I actually donated and
I still have that T shirt.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Well, here's the thing that's so funny. It's like, we
we were so excited about the marketing power of this
film that long before we even thought about crowdfunding. We
wanted to set up merchandise because everybody was telling me
that horror films love their merch right, and so we
were like, okay, great, well, let's do these T shirts,
and let's do this calendar, and let's do bumper stickers,
and let's do all this merchandise that the horror films

(23:45):
are And I started. I created a Facebook account just
to start interacting and engaging with horror fans, and I
got up to five thousand friends instantly on that. There's
a just a there's a huge following database of horror
fans on Facebook and Twitter. I mean, it's a huge
culture of horror fans out there. So we had started
creating all that merchandise before we even decided to do crowdfunding.

(24:07):
So that's part of the reason we were like, look,
we have all this merchandise we're creating. Crowdfunding makes sense
because we can offer all those things as parks. And
some of the stuff wasn't finished yet. We hadn't finished
the calendar yet, we were working on it. Some of
the we had done one T shirt but wanted to
do more, so it just kind of made sense. So
we had budgeted the film at six hundred thousand dollars,

(24:28):
and we decided that if we could raise like forty
thousand dollars in development money, that would, you know, get
me through the six months or so that I needed
to pay a writer, get a script written, you know,
start tackling the very difficult task of casting, because there's
the question of a movie like this, do you use
little people, do you use small actors, do you use children,

(24:49):
do use cgi? It's like how do you make how
do you make the story happen? And at the time,
I was a producer, not a director, so I didn't
really have a terribly clear vision for it yet. I
knew marketing wise I wanted it to be, and from
a producer's standpoint, I knew what it needed to accomplish,
but I didn't really have those director skills yet, so
I still wasn't sure really what the film was going

(25:10):
to be. So we did. We made the number one
mistake that people make in crowdfunding, which is they feel
like if they put it out there, they will come,
and that's really not true unless you take years and
years to try to make that happen. But the reality
of it is for a campaign to raise that much money,
we were looking for forty thousand dollars. For that much money,

(25:32):
you have to have an existing fan base. You have
to because thirty days or forty five days, or how
many ever long days you can run an Indiegogo campaign
or a crowdfunding campaign. You don't have time to all
of a sudden whip up ten thousand fans or a
million fans. You have to do all that in advance.
You have to have an existing fan base to already

(25:53):
go out and say to those people, Hey, here's what
I'm doing. You've loved my work before, you love me,
now fund this project. I was under the bad assumption
that if we put it out there, the horror fans
would just glom all in and all of a sudden
we'd get all this money. And that absolutely didn't happen.
Do my friends and family and Facebook followers and fans.

(26:14):
I did manage to raise about four thousand dollars, and
since we already had the merchandise anyway, I had two choices.
I'm like, you know, when we didn't hit our goal,
we're comp anywhere close to it. I'm like, well, I
can refund everybody's money and back to absolutely zero, or
I can use that money to go ahead and fulfill
the perks anyway and at least give everybody their perks,

(26:35):
because we do still plan on making that film. It's
a very difficult film that's taking a long time to
figure out how to make that film be what it
needs to be. But it is definitely not shelved. It's
very much alive and well, and we do plan on
making that movie. And now that I'm directing, I'm actually
very very excited about the opportunity to direct it. So
that's a whole nother development that's happened just in the

(26:56):
last two years that wasn't in place there. But I'm
so glad you got your and your calendar, and I
hope you enjoy it. Hang on to it because it
may be worth something someday.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
Oh yeah, I definitely keep well hold on to that.

Speaker 5 (27:07):
I actually took a picture of that and shared it
on some social media sites and people were like, hey,
what movie is this?

Speaker 4 (27:13):
Where can I get this at?

Speaker 3 (27:14):
I know?

Speaker 5 (27:15):
And it was you know, I was like, Hey, check
out this campaign. That's where I got it from.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
It's a great idea, it's it's going to be you know,
I always tell people, the more I talk to people
in Hollywood, the more I find out it's the kind
of movie that everybody wants to see, but nobody wants
to make because it's difficult. You know, you have to
build that world, you have to create a set, you
have to build the north Pole, you have to vision
it because you know you can have it be a
different North Pole than we've seen before, which is my

(27:41):
vision for it. You know, like I said, there's a
lot of options in casting. None of them are cheap.
By the way, all three of those options that I listed,
little people, children, cgi none of those are cheap. And
you know, everybody wants to make Zombielles for two hundred
thousand dollars and put it out on the market and

(28:03):
then just see if it becomes this cult classic. You
can't make that film for two hundred thousand dollars. And
so it's been a bit of a struggle. But the
biggest challenge for me is what is the film? Is
it kind of a dark family film like Gremlins. Is
it funny and over the top like a Sean of

(28:25):
the Dead. Is it violent and gruesome but kind of
can't be like a you know, leprechun wasn't that gruesome?
But is it kind of a Leprechaun kind of thing
where you have kind of the comedic element of these
small individuals, you know, because that's kind of funny in itself, really,
you know. Or do you just take it really seriously

(28:45):
and treat it like just this all out zombie survival story,
which is what we did in the first draft, and
that didn't really resonate with people. So the biggest challenge
for me with this film is really just trying to
figure out almost what genre to put it in, but
more specifically, what do you want it to be to
the audience? A comedy, a slasher film, you know, what

(29:09):
is it? That's That's where I'm hung up right now,
and I'm getting really close to making that decision. But
the choice I'm about to make is not cheap, and
so that is its own problem.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
If you ever want someone who bounced ideas off of Dawn,
please feel free to always contact me.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Oh sure, absolutely, I would love that.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
You know, I'm finishing out my last two short films
now that are in post and the than then we
are moving into what are we going to do? For
our first feature. I don't know Zombiellees is going to
be the first feature because it is difficult and expensive
and complicated, but it will definitely be the second. I
might do a smaller character piece first, but it's it's
definitely on the list and it's definitely going to happen.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Excellent, and yes, so please keep me informed of what's
going on, you.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
Know, I. You know, I again, I think it's a
great idea, and honestly, I think, you know, the marketing
in that is so many different creative ways to market
that film.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor

Speaker 3 (30:10):
It's almost a no brainer, really, I mean, it almost is.
And the reason I love the idea of it right
from the beginnings because we initially we were going to
do it for that two hundred thousand dollars level and
just you know, we because we were thinking, you know,
even if this sucks, even if this is like the
worst film ever made, it's still going to be a
cult classic. You know, there's you almost can't fail with it.
And there was a movie called Banks Killing. Yes I've

(30:32):
seen that, you know, kind of like that. I mean,
they just went in so tongue in cheeks, so campy,
low production value. But those guys were just having fun
and you know, kind of poking fun at the genres
and all that kind of stuff, and it blew up
and it did really well and they ended up doing
a second movie. So but but I have now that
my tastes have evolved, and I I don't think I

(30:53):
was ever really comfortable going that route with that film
because that's not my style as a producer or director.
My style is high production value, high quality. That was
never really resonating with me to make the film that way.

Speaker 5 (31:06):
Yeah, I did. You did mention Seoran on the Dead,
and I think that was that is probably the best
way to go, h because when I heard the concept
of the movie, I mean, even something so much short
on the Dead would be hilarious.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Well it would, But honestly, the you know, the difficult
part is is I've had the honor of working with
several little people throughout this process. We did some castings.
We we actually in our Indiegogo video needed someone. We
did some zombie walks where we had uh, you know,
some people dressed up as zombie elves and that was
really funny. And people love that, and it took a

(31:39):
lot of pictures. But I have a huge amount of
respect for them, and I just want to be very
careful in this film that we're not poking fun at them.
You know. It's like, I want the care if we
do go with little people as the Elves, I want
to treat them with the utmost respect and I want
them to be serious characters and have serious story lines

(32:00):
and character arcs and emotional conflicts and interactions with each other.
And so it's you know, it's like I I teeter
back and forth on how funny do I really want
it to be? There's some you know what I'm saying.
It's like it's it's it's a challenge. It's a real challenge. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
Yeah, I definitely know what you mean.

Speaker 5 (32:22):
And you know, you're always you know, wanting to know
that you don't actually make fun of them, but you know,
I honestly I think you would. You would hit the
perfect mix of you know, humor and horror and you know,
without going over the top. But then again, you know, again,
if you ever want to, you know, outside these if
someone please let me.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Know absolutely, And I appreciate that. And as I've gotten
more comfortable in my director's hat. I've I've realized that
almost the thing that almost all my films have in
common is an emotional intimacy. And I think, well, except
for one comedy that I did that really was just
kind of a straight out comedy, but all the other

(33:00):
films really have really a very intense emotional thread to them.
So I think a lot of people would question if
I'm the right person to do zombielles, and I would
say I absolutely am, because I because I would bring
that to the table.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
Yeah, I know, I know what you mean about you.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
Sometimes the comedies can just be comedies, because I've done
that too. Like I made a short film one time
and it was literally, i'm sorry, a feature film and
it was literally just you know, uh going over the
top every each every time, and it was it was
what I used as a student film, and literally that's
what I used to you know, to cut my own
teeth on.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
And it was just, you know, if you weren't in
on the joke, let's say it on.

Speaker 5 (33:41):
People just like either thought this was so ridiculous, so
we glad you got it, or like some people were
like I don't get this at all.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
Dave, and I'm like, you know, I completely understand.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
You know, well, I learned really on when I was
in development at that company I was telling you about
I would get I would come across some comedy scripts
that I just thought were goald that I loved, and
I would send them out to some agents who specialized
in comedy, and they just wouldn't get it. They wouldn't
think it was funny. So I learned really early on
that what they say is true comedy is subjective.

Speaker 5 (34:07):
Oh absolutely, you know. I was actually just talking to
Steve Kaplan today. Steve Kaplan, you know, uh, he does
his comedy excuse me Kaplincomedy dot com and he is
all about you know, these seminars and he also has
his own book. His book is probably the best book
on comedy I've ever read, and it opened my eyes
to what people find funny. How come I find something

(34:29):
funny but you don't. It's kind of like that dress.
Everyone saw a line. Some people saw golden.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, what code did you see?

Speaker 4 (34:37):
I saw golden white?

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah? Me too, me too. That's kind of crazy, but uh.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
But yeah, I'm sorry not to segue too far before.

Speaker 5 (34:50):
Ye, So dresses and everything, Yeah, I was actually gonna
go into color theory too, and that's why I was like,
let me stop myself, because so, you know, but yea,
if you ever get a chance to, I highly recommend
his book. And his name was, again is Steve Kaplan,
and he's actually been on the podcast and he is
absolutely phenomenal.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
At this stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
So great.

Speaker 5 (35:10):
So okay, so after Zombie Els, after you knew, you know,
at that point in time, you know, you didn't have
the you know, the right amount of resources to make that.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
You know, what project did you move on to after that?

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Well? It was interesting because I had built enough of
a following on Facebook at this point where I'm like,
you know what, I know a bunch of writers. Let
me just see if I can find a ten page
script or less, something that's easy to shoot that we
can just do over a weekend for very little money.
And let's just do that. So I put out a
call on my Facebook for scripts and I got over
three hundred responses. Wow, and yeah, it was incredible, And

(35:45):
so we narrowed that down to the top fifteen and
we announced that on Facebook, and then we got it
to the top ten and announced that in the top
five and then the top three, and everybody was so
excited every time, you know, we made the announcement of
who had made the cut, and the final three scripts.
I kind of liked all of them, so I sent
them out to about a dozen friends of mine and
colleagues who I trusted, and hands down, the winning script

(36:07):
was a script called Fragment. And this was a short
script written by a UK writer named Carly Street. And
I can't really say what the script is about because
there's a there's a twist in it to this day
that I still don't like to give away. But it
was this very powerful script. You think it's one thing.
You think it's like this horror film and this kind
of torture porn kind of movie, and then in the

(36:28):
end you kind of realize it's something completely different. And
but Carly's script took place over like five different locations,
one of them being a grocery store, one of them
being a hospital, and a lot in many parts of
the hospital not just a room, but a room in
a hallway and a bathroom. So we'd have to have
like a bit like a real hospital, not just a

(36:50):
one room set. And anybody in LA knows that those
are not expensive and not easy to get. So I'm like, well,
how am I going to do this? So I put
my producer had on and I said, Carly, what do
you think about? You know? She she had won one
hundred and fifty dollars cash for the script and that
we were going to make it, so it was a
pretty good deal for her. So we own the script

(37:11):
at that point, and I said, Carly, what do you
think about? Do you mind if I go in and
just kind of make it all happen. I'd asked her
to do it initially. I said, you know, do you
think you could go in and make this all happen
in one location? And she said, yeah, yeah, I'll do that.
So she went in and she did a great job,
but it's still there were still some other locations in there.
It still wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. So

(37:32):
I said to her, I'm like, you know, do you
mind if I go in and take a stab at it?
Because I think I know what I want? And she
said she said, yeah, yeah, absolutely, no problem please. And
I think this is the first time I started thinking
like a director, and I didn't even know it yet
because I was still just producing at the time. But
I went in and something I chanced, I channeled something.

(37:52):
I don't know what came over me, but I just
really started resonating with the story, and I went in
and I made the whole thing happen inside the house.
And once I started sending that script out to people
for feedback, it was just overwhelming. People were like, Oh
my god, Oh my god. And I'm like, you know what, guys,
We're onto something here. This isn't this little, no budget,

(38:14):
two day weekend script with a bunch of volunteers. This
is like a really powerful film now. And it kept
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Maybe too big honestly
in hindsight, but it just took on this massive life
of its own. And then we started thinking, well, what
actors can we get in this. We started sending the
script out to some agents, and some big agents actually,
and the response was unbelievable. There was all these actors

(38:36):
that were dying to do it for free and they
wanted to be a part of it. And there was
even an agent at the Abrams agency that told me
it was the most powerful short script she'd ever read.
And so we just started going, Oh my god, we're
really onto something here, and we changed the title of
the script to Shattered Love. So this is the story
of how Shattered Love got started. So we we realized

(39:01):
pretty quickly that we needed some money to keep this going,
to make this happen. So I took everything I had learned,
because the other thing I learned from Zombie Elves is
I did not factor in the ship the shipping and
handling and postage for all those perks. I sent out
each one of those envelopes that had a calendar and

(39:22):
a T shirt, and it cost three dollars and fifty
cents to ship. And that was in addition to the envelopes,
the labels, the time, the cost of putting it all together,
the cost of manufacturing the shirts, getting the calendars printed.
I mean, it took the whole four thousand dollars that
I raised just to get all those perks fulfilled. So
when I did the next campaign, that was the lesson

(39:43):
I learned with that is, no more physical perks from
now on, I'm only going to give like digital perks
and things that don't have to be manufactured or shipps.
That was a really that was a second big lesson.
The first is have a fan base.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
First, we'll be right back after a wh from our sponsor,

Speaker 3 (40:07):
And the second is limit the stuff you're actually manufacturing
and shipping out because the cost of that will be
thirty percent of what you're trying to raise. So what
I did is, I'm like, well, what do we have
asset wise? I'm like, we have a really powerful script.
So I created an Indigogo campaign for two weeks, and

(40:28):
I didn't have a director, I didn't have any actors
attached yet. All I did was scan those script pages
and post them as images on the Indigogo wall. And
I because I didn't want people to have to click
on a link. I wanted to just be able to
read the script as soon as they landed on the
campaign page. And in two weeks I had raised over
five thousand dollars just based on the strength of the script.

(40:50):
And the script, by the way, was only seven pages.
So that was our first funding campaign. Then we got
some actors attached, we got a direct attached. We ran
a second two week campaign and raised another five thousand
dollars and then but from that from that point on,
everything started growing. We wanted the best DP. We wanted
the best location, we wanted insurance, we wanted to be

(41:12):
able to pay people, We wanted all this kind of stuff.
Next thing we know, we have a sixty thousand dollar budget,
and I think, in hindsight, honestly, it just got too
big for its own bredches. It just kept getting bigger
and bigger and bigger, and honestly, I think the film
itself probably would have been better off in the long

(41:32):
run if we had just done it really small and
simple with unknown actors right from the start. It certainly
would have saved us from the calamity that that happened
shortly afterwards. But anyway, so we had we had, we'd
cast some name actors that we ended up not really being,
not really resonating with. Through the course of the rehearsal

(41:54):
process and some other processes that we went down, we
decided that we kind of weren't happy with the direction
that the film was going in. I wasn't happy with
the director. I had gone through three directors at this point,
and all of them had disappointed me, had tried to
change the script. The one thing we knew was solid
was that damn script, and they kept trying to change it,

(42:15):
and that was a huge sticking point with me. So
we just kind of stopped the whole process. Let all
the directors go, let all the actors go. I'm like,
this isn't working well. We kept one of the actors.
We kept the female lead actor because she was we
always really liked her a lot. So we shut everything down.

(42:36):
We regrouped, and my team kept telling me. They're like,
don you're not happy with these directors for a reason.
We think you need to direct it. And I'm like, no,
I gave up directing a long time ago. I didn't
do so well my first time out. I realized I
was a better producer than I am a director. It's like,
I don't know if I want to go down that
road again. But they're like, no, no, you have a
vision for this. You have to do it. So I
stepped up as director. We hired some unknown actors, cast

(43:00):
some unknown actors. We raised about by this time, including
the money we had already raised plus the new batch
of money to shoot on. We had raised about fifty
thousand dollars. So we rented a stage, we got our
actors involved, we set everything up. I was so excited.
I told everybody I'm like, guys, I'm an inexperienced director.
I need a lot of support around me. I'm telling

(43:20):
you right now, I don't really know what I'm doing.
You guys have to help me through this process. Well, unfortunately,
I made some unfortunate decisions with the people that I hired,
and the film shut down a day and a half
after shooting. It was a three day shoot. It shut
down at lunch on day two. The biggest problem being

(43:41):
the art department really screwed up and they could never
get They started late day one, they never got caught up,
and literally by day two we had no rooms that
were dressed and ready to shoot in. And I didn't
have enough experience as a director to deal with that
and to figure out how to make that work. So
it was really an unfortunate situation. I found out afterwards

(44:04):
that the art department had been on two different shows
at the same time, and the six days of prep
that we had agreed to got done in the twenty
four hours prior to my shoot. They tried to cramp
six days of prep into literally twenty four hours around
the clock before our seven o'clock am call time, And
you can imagine the art department. Van didn't even show

(44:25):
up to the set, so it was just I don't know,
It's like a comedy of errors. It was like, oh
my god, I'm like, how are all these tragic, horrible
things happening to this beautiful script? I was like, how
is this possible? And about sixteen thousand of that money
had been crowdfunded. It was people who donated, and so
I was heartbroken. I didn't know what to do because

(44:47):
and tens of thousands of that was money that I borrowed,
that I put in that I had to pay back personally.
So it was heartbreaking. It was absolutely the most devastating
thing that's ever had happened to me. And I blamed
everybody else at first because I was angry and I
was upset at the financial loss and the fact that

(45:08):
my film had gone through that. And I went to
a deep dark place for about three months. I curled
up into a ball and I went to a really
dark place, and I finally started accepting my responsibility as
the director. Because the thing is the thing about directing
that people don't understand. It's want. It's a very vulnerable position,

(45:30):
and too you're responsible for everything that goes up on
the screen, whether it was your fault or not. Other
people can make mistakes and not do their jobs, but
it's still your fault. Now, the good news is that
if it does go well, you also get most of
the glory, so it's kind of good news bad news.
But on that particular film, I think people particularly pointed

(45:51):
the finger at me, and that was really tough, and
I thought about leaving the business. I had convinced myself
that I wasn't right for this industry and I was
about to pick up everything I owned and moved to
LA and move out of LA and just go do
something else for a living. And that lasted about thirty
six hours. And then something clicked in me, something kicked out,

(46:15):
and I don't know, the warrior in me stood up.
I picked myself up, I dust myself off, and I said,
and I said, you know what, I'm not going down
that way. This is what I want to do. It's
what I've always want to do. There's nothing else I
want to do, and I've got to figure out how
to make this work. And so I went on this tear.
I went on this mission to direct as many films
as I could possibly get my hands on. So that

(46:36):
I would have enough experience to be able to handle
something like that better in the future, because mistakes always happen,
things always go wrong on a film set, and I
just clearly I just wasn't simply wasn't ready to handle it.
I wasn't prepared, didn't have the experience. So I and

(46:57):
I felt, you know, I felt an obligation to all
the owners who had donated to that film. I mean,
I could have just shut it down and not moved
on and said, Okay, guys, you know it's too bad.
This mistake happened. We had some people that screwed up,
I screwed up, are bad my mistake. You know that
We're going to accept that loss and move on. But
that's not who I am, and that's not what I'm

(47:17):
made of. I'm like, I'm going to get this movie
made if it kills me. Literally. I said that, and
I still do this day. Mean it. I meant it
when I said that.

Speaker 5 (47:28):
So when you actually got with the art department, you've
actually found that out.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
Did they actually admit it right away?

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Oh yeah?

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Okay, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
I had no idea actually, and I kind of wish
he hadn't told me, because when he told me, I
went ballistic. I was, Oh my god, I've never been
so angry and so upset in my life this one.
You know, he admitted it.

Speaker 5 (47:50):
Wow, I mean that is you know, uh, you know,
one of the pretty bad story because you know, uh,
some of other people have been on to where they've
had you share their war stories as well, and you know,
it is all about, you know, putting together that team.
And sometimes you do hire people who just they project

(48:13):
themselves as one way and then you find out they're
either lying or they just you know, or just maybe
a sociopath.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
Well here's what I've come to realize with a little
bit of hindsight. This is a tough business and the
economy is really bad, and they really all they're guilty of.
And I hate to sound like I'm condoning it or
even forgiving it. I guess I have forgiven it at
this point. But in this industry it's called double dipping.
And what he had done was the show he was

(48:44):
working on prior to that ran long and I think
he truly, honestly, I think he was coming from a
good place. I think he had he wanted to be
loyal to them and finish out that job. But he
also wanted to be loyal to me and not quit
or leave me hanging. But I honestly think he thought
he could do it in twenty four hours. But to
some extent, that was disrespectful to me and my project

(49:06):
to think that you could cram six days of prep.
You know, we decided and agreed on six days of
prep for a reason. It was a big show. It
was a huge art department show. We were working on
a set and everything had to be built and set
dressed from scratch. It was a huge job, and he
had four people on his team to make that happen
on the day. But it just I don't know's I'm

(49:32):
trying to try to understand the situation. In hindsight, he
really should have just told me his job got extended
and that I should hire somebody else. In hindsight, that's
what it should have happened. But you know, he was
trying to satisfy me, to try to satisfy the other
production he was working on, and unfortunately for him, it
just it didn't work out.

Speaker 2 (49:52):

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Now, was he the only reason the show was troubled,
Absolutely not. There were other problems. There were other issues
that the show didn't shut down because of that. I
wasn't doing a very good job as director because I
was rattled by the whole art department thing. We had
to We had a very specific shooting schedule that we
had to do so the art department could keep up
because it was very ambitious, and when when an art

(50:25):
department arrived on the set that morning with no van,
it screwed up the whole schedule, and that threw me
off my game, and I was just flustered and rattled
the whole time. So would the film have probably turned
out poorly and had to have been reshot anyway? Probably,
I can honestly say it probably would have, but at
least we would have finished it and maybe something would

(50:46):
have been salvageable. But the way it went down, it
shut down because there was there were no rooms available
to shoot.

Speaker 5 (50:55):
So you know, when you went onto your next project,
did you ever even any of the same crew.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
Was there a completely new cast and crew?

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Well?

Speaker 3 (51:09):
No, it was a completely different. I mean, I have
my core people, I hit Ya James and Debbie Rankin
Uh they they've stayed with me as part of my
core team. But no, not. And there's a couple of
crew people that I enjoyed working with. It wasn't their
fault that I have worked with since, but no, for
the most part. Two nine was our next film after that,
and that was a whole different cast and crew.

Speaker 5 (51:31):
You touched on something too, with the experienced director. You know,
I actually think it's good that you said that, because
I think it's you know, there was only once told
me when I first started that you know, the director
is the only person on set who doesn't need to
have any experience, and they sign that the centhotographer's got
to know how to do all his his or her work,
the actors, everybody else, but really the director doesn't have

(51:54):
to have a certain x amount of experience. And you know,
I think that it's good in a way because when
you actually mentioned that, like I need support, I think
it really at least you're up and honest with the
crew and that way, at least you know you're on
the same page there, so you know, they're not too
many expectations.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
Well, it's it's not so much that I was afraid
of expectations it's just I literally needed the help. It's
you know, it's like, honestly, it's like, I you know,
I've never I haven't done this in twenty years. And
you know, I know the importance of a good DP
and I know the importance of a good production designer.
Those are the two people that you lean on the most.
And unfortunately, in this situation, you know, those things didn't

(52:36):
work out so well. You know, it's unfortunate, and I
went to a really bad place and I almost didn't
recover from it quite honestly. But it's interesting how something
deep inside once it's funny, once I made my peace
with that, and you know, I debated and debated. Once
I made my peace with it and decided I was
going to leave LA and where am I? What city

(52:57):
am I going to move to? And what job am
I going to do? Now? Once I made my peace
with it and kind of decided that's what I was
going to do, that's when that little thing, that little
warrior deep inside me finally was allowed to come back
up and say, oh no, you're not going down like that.
But it wasn't time I made my peace with it.
That my true desires and my true nature kicked in,

(53:18):
and I wonder if some people don't wait long enough,
if that doesn't happen for them soon enough, and then
they end up giving up on something and moving on
to something that they're not happy with. It makes me wonder.
But it took me about thirty six hours before that
little warrior stood up and said, huh huh. That's not
gonna be your that's not gonna be your history, that's
not going to be your bio.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Yeah, you know, you made a good point there.

Speaker 5 (53:41):
I was this in a seminary ES today with Corey Mandel.
He was just on the podcast too, and he actually
mentioned about this where if you have like a mine's theater,
and he said, you know, there's all sorts of people
in the audience, and he said the people in the
front row are the ones who are really controlling the show.
And he said, you know, if you have too much negativity,

(54:02):
and he goes to this whole thing and in this books,
but he says, you go too much negativity and there's
people always in the front row, that's where you start
getting all these doubts, and that's where you start getting
all these you know, you can't do this. You can't
do that, and basically, you know, and part of it is,
you know, uh, you know, not only just our self
doubts and self sabotage, but it's just you know, almost

(54:23):
like our body's natural way to react sometimes it is
almost like a fear, a fear response. Yeah, so you know,
and he says, you know, these things all tie in together.
H And which is why you know, sometimes we're writing,
you're saying, oh, this sucks, and we just sometimes somebody
would never come back. I mean, I've known screenwriters who
they started writing the script and they started before me

(54:44):
and I you know, run into them nowadays and it's
just they I'm not in it anymore. I'm you know,
doing whatever now. As you know, I always find that
kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
M Yeah, you know, and I, like I said, it
makes me question do people wait long enough sometimes for
that warrior to kick in or they just give up?
I know maybe some people don't have it. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (55:07):
So, you know, so after you know, Shattered Love and
you finally were to pull yourself together, you know, what
project did you work on after that?

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Well? I was determined at that point to prove that
the film didn't shut down because of me. Would it
have been poorly directed, probably because I didn't know what
I was doing and I didn't have the right support
around me. But I really wanted to prove that I
have twenty years of experience in this business. I've worked
on big budget movie sets. I know my shit. I
was trained by some of the best ads in this country.

(55:36):
I know how movies work, and I know how a
film set works, and I know how to get a
movie made. So I just I just became hell bent
on proving to people that that I was capable and
I was I was able to do this. So I
was inspired by a workshop that I took one day

(55:57):
to write a script called two O nine and two
O nine was a very simple story two guys in
a hotel room. And my theory was, what's the worst
thing that could happen between two dudes in a hotel
room who have come together for some very dramatic reason.
And I came up with this story about a childhood
friend who had ten years prior accidentally murdered his best

(56:18):
friend's little sister and he's come back ten years later
to confess. And so we cast our actors. We raised
about seventy nine hundred dollars on Indiegogo for that one,
and that one reached. That one exceeded its goal. We
made our goal on that one, and we had a
set built and we were all ready to go, and

(56:38):
we shot it, and you know, there were some issues still.
I was still trying to figure out how to work
properly with the DP, how to communicate, how to get
my vision across, how to command and control a crew.
And by the way, I do not agree with the
statement that a director has to be the least experienced
person on the set. That has not been my experience whatsoever.
Mine has been the opposite. My experience has been the

(56:59):
director absolutely has to know every single thing that needs
to happen, and they need to know how to tell
the crew to do it, and how to express their
vision and how to communicate that vision so that everyone
could execute it. That's been my experience, and I still
hadn't really gotten very good at that, So there were
some struggles on two on nine. It didn't really turn
out the way I wanted. The story I think was

(57:21):
still smaller and more contained than I had hoped, and
it just wasn't the pe It wasn't the redemption piece
that I wanted it to be, and I was very
much seeking redemption at this point. I was hell bent
on redemption. At this point it meant everything to me.
I was determined to build up a good director's reel

(57:42):
to prove myself. So James and I had many, many
conversations about do we attempt it again and what do
we do? Do we just let it go and move on?
And at the end of the day, we both agreed
that the kernel of the two on nine story was
good enough where if we embellished it more and really
took that little seed of an idea and really fleshed

(58:04):
it out, it could be like this really moving, impactful film.
And so we made the decision, even as tough as
it was, to rewrite, not rewrite, but to embellish the script,
make it longer, build more character arc, more character background,
more character history, really tell that whole complete story, not
just a moment in time, but build this whole story

(58:27):
and raise the money again and shoot it properly. So
that's what we did, and two o nine became Found
and I'm extremely proud of Found. We just submitted it
a couple months ago to the twenty fifteen Idlewild International
Festival of Cinema. It was the first and only festival

(58:50):
that we had submitted to at the time. It was
my first time in competition as a director, and I'm
thrilled to say that we won Best Short Film, a
Best Director award, and we were nominated for Best Cinematography
and Best Score.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
Oh wow, congratulations, thank you.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
And it changed everything. I mean, that redemption that I
was looking for and that success that I was hoping
would launch me and kind of make me relevant and
make people take notice. That film did that, and that
was exactly what I wanted it to do. I wanted
a I wanted a film to do that, and if
it wasn't going to be that film, I'd have to
just put all my efforts into the next film and
make that film the film that did that. But fortunately

(59:28):
for us, the very next film that we launched after
Shattered Love, shut Down ended up even though we went
through a lot of trials and tribulations and quite a
bit of expense with it ended up being a huge,
phenomenal success. And yeah, it's just it's blown me away.
It's exceeded all my expectations and it's finally giving me
a little bit of sense of confidence that I can

(59:50):
do this, even though I know I still have so
much to learn.

Speaker 2 (59:54):

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
So when did you actually make fragil Store with Lance Hendrickson?

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Okay, So what it happened was when so so we
had done Because here's there was a time where I'm like,
oh my god, this is like crazy. You know, Shattered
Love didn't work out, and then two nine wasn't the
film I wanted it to be. It's like, oh my god,
It's like, do I really even need to be doing

(01:00:30):
this kind of work? But what I realize now is
is I'm a fighter and I'm a survivor, and I
will do whatever it takes to make my films the
absolute best movies that they can be. It's not about me. Hey,
it's a little ego driven. I think everything in this
business is. But I really I'm hell bent with every
project I work on to make it the best film

(01:00:52):
it could possibly be. And we never intended on not
shooting Shattered Love reshooting Shattered Love. I just needed to
put some time and distance between me and that project.
You know, I needed to clear out all the negativity
I needed to build up my skills. So basically what
I did is I spent the next year and a
half after Shattered Love shut down, I spent the next
year and a half directing as many films as I

(01:01:13):
could to get ready to reshoot Shattered Love. It was
all about everything I did, every step of the way,
was one hundred percent designed to put me in a
position where by the time we were ready to reshoot
that film, I was ready and I was going to
make it a good film. And I was fortunate enough
during the whole time that we were doing two oh
nine and found during that whole time several other opportunities

(01:01:37):
had come up. There were some volunteer groups like the
All Women Sent a ladies group. I got the chance
to direct a film for them, and that was Bonds
and Lace that you mentioned before. That was done for
no money, all volunteer group. That was a script I
wrote and directed, co wrote with Lucy Delott that film.
You know, it was okay, it turned out okay. We
did it all on a day. It was a huge

(01:01:58):
lay of this vicious project all in one day with
no money. But I'm still very, very proud of it.
And then there's another group of all independent filmmakers that
I actually organized and created called the Los Angeles Film Collective,
and I did one short through that group called Better
with Friends. That was another one that was done for
no money, all volunteer. So I got the opportunity along

(01:02:19):
the way to do some other projects. And then there
was a specific lull where nothing was going on where
James and I are like, ah, we just want I
just want to direct again. I way she might shoot something,
and so we wrote and created Touch and Touch was
literally conceived and shot in like three weeks time. And
while I still felt like I made some mistakes on

(01:02:40):
that one, I wasn't quite where I wanted to be directorially,
the film still turned out extremely well. I'm very proud
of it. It got huge response online. That film actually had
its world premiere dances with Films this past year and
that was a huge success. So very proud of that one. So,
you know, I was just my problem is I love directing.

(01:03:01):
Now that I've started doing it, and now that I've
got a little bit of confidence in myself, I just
love directing and I want to move on to the
next one before I've even finished the first one, it's like,
what's next, What's next? I want to drag something else.
Get me on set, Get me on set. So that's
caused a little bit of a problem actually, and that
we shot way too many films back to back and
then they got bottlenecked and posts and we're actually still
dealing with that a little bit now. But getting found

(01:03:23):
out the door was a huge accomplishment and that was,
I guess, a huge catalyst to moving forward with everything else.
But to answer your question, there were all these other projects,
including a short film that I really wanted to do,
but I felt like Shattered Love was still had to
get done and it was still there, and I realized
that part of the problem was there were some casting

(01:03:46):
decisions that we made when we used those unknown actors
that when I looked at the dailies of the stuff
that we did shoot before we shut down, it just
wasn't working for me. There were some physical resemblances that
were supposed to have and one of the characters that
wasn't really quite there. We were trying to work around
it with some makeup and effects and stuff like that,
but contact lenses things like that, trying to pull some tricks,

(01:04:09):
but it just wasn't really working for me, and I
was having a hard time imagining raising another fifty thousand
dollars for this project, relaunching this whole thing after the
massive loss that we took on the first one for actors,
I wasn't absolutely thrilled about, and I realized that that
was holding me back and it was paralyzing me, and
it was keeping me from moving forward with the project.

(01:04:31):
So again James and I much debate. We had many,
many discussions about it. I had become friends with these people,
I was loyal to them, I love them to death.
But it just came down to I had to do
what I had to do that was best for the film.
So I made the calls. I pick up the phone
and I told the actors, much to their heartbreak. Unfortunately,

(01:04:52):
this was so tough to make this call that we
were going to recast them. And at this point I'm
feeling like such a loser. I'm like, oh my god,
I've had to recast all these acts. There's wanted the
film shut down. I fired three directors. It's like, oh
my god, this is such a mess. But it's amazing
because once I hung up the phone. From those phone calls,
that little warrior jumped back up again, and I made

(01:05:15):
those calls the end of August, and by the end
of September we were shooting. That's how fast it happened,
because once I was unburdened from the things that were
really kind of holding me back, I was like a
locomotive and everything just went on hyper speed. And so
while I initially wanted to use unknown actors for this film,

(01:05:36):
I started thinking, at this point, it's like, you know what,
We've invested so much money in this film at this point,
it's like, we need an actor, we need a name
at this point to just really you know, give the
film some credibility, to kind of raise the bar. It's like,
you know, it just felt like the right thing to do.
And as we were researching actors in that age range,

(01:05:57):
Lance Hendrickson came across our radar and as soon as
I looked him up, I mean, I knew who he was,
of course, but I hadn't like, as soon as I
looked him up, like what he looks like now, I
was like, that's it. That's the character. That's Norman. And
I'm like, there's an We were still talking about some

(01:06:17):
other names, but I'm like, no, nobody else makes sense,
Nobody on this planet makes sense. But Lance Henrickson. He's
our guy. He's the one, and he's and I literally
told my people, if we don't get Lance, we're not
doing the film. And so we picked up the phone
and we called his manager and she loved the script.
And it was a tough negotiation because you know, these

(01:06:40):
guys don't work for free and they very rarely do
short films, so it was a tough negotiation and we
ended up not being able to negotiate. I tried and
tried and tried, but you know, basically, at the bottom,
at the end of the day, you have to give
them what they asked for, and we did. And you know,
the other thing that we had to do as a payer,
which is very typical, and that was very stressful on me,

(01:07:03):
but in a way, that's what helped it happened so fast.
It's because once we had to lock into a shoot date,
you know, paying his fee and being locked into a
shoot date. That'll motivate you. I'm telling you right now,
if you're having trouble get in the film, made just
lock yourself into a pay or play date with the
big actor and you'll get your film made. And that's

(01:07:27):
what happened. So, you know, thirty days later we were
on set and we were shooting, and Lance Hendrickson is
so amazing. It was my first time working with the
name actor, and he was He's so passionate, he's so dedicated,
he's so talented, and also just a beautiful spirit and
a beautiful person, and everybody on set just fell in

(01:07:49):
love with him. And the girls were all like these
you know, crushes on it, and they're like, you know,
it was just like it was. It was wonderful and
the chemistry between him and our actors with other actors
was amazing. And unfortunately, because of the rate we had
to pay, we could only have him for two days,

(01:08:10):
and the film was never scheduled for less than three,
and we even wanted four at one point to shoot it.
So I unfortunately had to go back and shave back
the script a little bit, make it a little bit
more lean, and so that we could so that the
scenes we did shoot in two days weren't really compromised.
But I have to I'll be the first to admit,
you know, we we were pushing it to shoot this

(01:08:32):
film in two days. So you know, I think there's
a few things that got sacrificed along the way story wise,
but I think to have Lance Hendrickson in our film
and to still have the film tell the story, the
amazing story that we were trying to tell, it was
completely worth it. And so that film that shot the
end of September and we're currently in plus production.

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
Awesome.

Speaker 5 (01:08:53):
And you know, excuse me, you know, it's great that
you were able to get Lance Hendrickson.

Speaker 4 (01:08:59):
I've heard nothing to make things about him from people
who've worked with him.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
He's unbelievable. He really is an amazing person and we
were totally blessed that he agreed to do our script.
We really feel very fortunate.

Speaker 5 (01:09:12):
So you know, just you know, and again, you know,
congratulations and everything with found and I'm glad you know
you're able to get you know, your redemption, and you're
able to you know, actually prove to yourself you can
do this, and you know, you know, forget those negative
voices that we all face sometimes.

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
So you know, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
Recently you've started your own fund, your own short film seminar,
and this is what I want to talk to you about.
With terms of crowdfunding. You know, I saw you actually,
you know, did a live event of this, so.

Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
Meaning in person.

Speaker 5 (01:09:44):
So if you could just give us like a brief
synopsis of we know what you go over and things.

Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
Of that nature.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Well, yeah, teaching has always been something that's been a
goal of mine because I really truly enjoy enjoy it
and I find it extremely rewarding.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
And ever since I've moved to LA, as you've heard
from my history, I haven't really gotten the credentials, you know,
to teach and to justify charging people for seminar, you
have to have a certain amount of credentials, and that's
what I was working towards and trying to build up
this past decade. And it was just a real struggle. Finally,
with Found being made and winning awards and doing as

(01:10:30):
well as it did. Plus the fact that I've crowdfunded
now eight short film projects actually a I actually eight
of them we crowdfunded, I feel like I have some
knowledge now and some credentials to speak knowledgeably about that
particular subject. So I'm very clear about I'm only teaching

(01:10:52):
raising money for short films because I have not raised
money for a feature, and I think that is different
if you're trying to raise more than like fifty sixty
thousand dollars. And I've never used any other platform other
than Indigogo, So in my classes, I'm very specific and
in my marketing, I'm very specific to tell people this
is a specific class on how to raise money for
a short film on Indiegogo, and the amounts of money

(01:11:14):
that I feel like I can specialize in helping people
raise is between five thousand and ten thousand dollars. That's
a real sweet spot with me. I feel like I
could raise that much money for film like every time.
Where I've gotten into trouble, and I'm also very honest
about this in my seminars. Where I've gotten into trouble
personally is trying to raise money in the amounts of
thirty thousand or more. I've raised up to twenty five thousand,

(01:11:36):
but not in one single campaign. That's where I have
a sore spot. And I think part of this is
because it's for a short. Although there have been several
people who have raised more than fifty thousand dollars for
their shorts, and I can speak to that, and I
can tell them what I think they need to do
in order to make that happen. But it's a different
process because there's raising money inside your circle and then

(01:11:58):
there's raise money outside your circle. And to hit those
high numbers of twenty thirty, forty thousand or more, you
have to go outside your circle. You have to keep
communities and organizations, and you have to get press and
publicity and marketing, and that's like a whole nother animal.
But I can't but I can't speak to that. I
do understand that. I've just never actually done that. And

(01:12:20):
the two campaigns that we did try to run that
were thirty thousand or more, there were various reasons those
campaigns didn't succeed. But what I like to do in
the seminars, I use those as an exam as examples
to show what does not work, because I because it
didn't work for us, and I know exactly why it
didn't work. So I think sometimes you can learn from
people of what to do, but I think you can
also learn from what not to do. Like I could

(01:12:41):
tell people all day long with my experience with Shattered Love,
I'll tell you what not to do.

Speaker 5 (01:12:47):
You know, so Dan, now let you you know you've
had some of these live seminars. Are you playing on
you know, having any online seminars for people who couldn't
make it out in LA.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
Yeah, it's really funny. When I posted the first live
one on Facebook, I was like, oh, yeah, hopefully all
these people in my area will come. But what happened
was everybody started sending me emails and messages going I
don't live in LA, but I really want to take
this class, and so I'm like, maybe I need to
do an online version, and everybody was like, yeah, yeah,
I do an online version. So I'm like, okay, well
that might actually even be more popular because a lot

(01:13:18):
of my followers aren't in LA. So I've been working
real hard on an online version, and I'm actually launching tonight,
as a matter of fact, my very first webinar, it's
Secrets to Funding your Short Film on indiegog and it's
going to be tonight from six thirty to eight thirty

(01:13:38):
Pacific Standard time, so that's Los Angeles time, six thirty
to eight thirty live live webinar that you can sign
up for and interact and ask questions and all that
a kind of stuff and I will be that's posted
on my wall and on my on my website.

Speaker 4 (01:13:55):
Okay, excellent, And you know I'll make sure to look
they're that in show notes as well.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
Yeah, that would be La film Seminars dot com. You
can register there or Palm Street Films dot com. You
can register there as well.

Speaker 5 (01:14:05):
Awesome, cool, Okay, yeah, I'll make sure linked is in
the show notes by the way.

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
Oh, that'd be great.

Speaker 5 (01:14:13):
And you know, speaking of uh, you know, you know
pump Films by the way, you know, is there you know,
just to get to your short script competition? I know
you this is you've held us for a couple of
different excuse me, held us for a couple of years,
you know, is uh is there an impetus to you
know why you started this? I mean, I know you
kind of touched on that earlier, but is there you know,

(01:14:34):
have you really sort of evolved this meaning like is
there like you know, uh, any other reasons that why
you may have do these competitions?

Speaker 4 (01:14:42):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
Yeah, absolutely. There's a very specific history with these. The
first script the first script contest we're calling the one
with with that callarly one with fragments and Shattered Love
where I just put out a call on my Facebook
that's we're calling that our first Palm Street Films contest. Uh.
Later that year, we got access to a series of
standing sets in Orange County where it's a stage where

(01:15:04):
they built a couple of standing sets. A standing set
is like a pre built living room or hospital room,
or it's a set. Everybody knows what a film set is.
It's like it's pre built sets that all exist in
one space, and it's a series of them, like all
spread out throughout the space. And we were given access
to use one of the standing set space where they

(01:15:25):
had a house, the house where we actually shot Shattered Love.
Actually it's the same stage. They had a house, they
had a jail cell, they had an executive boardroom at
the time, they had a hospital set, and they had
even an airplane things. It's called Silver Dream Factory in
Orange County. If you haven't heard about it, it's fantastic.
It is within the sixty mile zone thirty mile zone.

(01:15:46):
Sorry ask for rolling Kanamar. He's a good friend of mine.
He's treated us very well every time we've shot there.
But we had access to the stage and we wanted
to shoot something last minute. So I put another call
out to my Facebook, you know, no submission and fee,
nothing like that, just because of an informal call for scripts,
and we told people we needed like a five page script,

(01:16:06):
something we could shoot in one day that's set in
one of these locations, and we listed all the locations
and John Whetstone was one of my Facebook followers who
sat down and actually found this really brilliant way to
utilize two of the sets. And that was the Interrogation.
And so Shattered Love was the first script contest and

(01:16:29):
that film got made eventually into a film starring Lance Henrickson.
And then the second contest was the Interrogation, which ended
up getting made and actually in my seminars, both live
and online, I show the Interrogation, even though we never
actually released it publicly online. That one's still because Virgin
Produced is still considering showing that on their airlines, so

(01:16:51):
we haven't. And that's a deal that we got through
Dances with Films because the Interrogation had premiered at Santa
Barbara in International Film Festival. That was its world premiere,
and then it had its La premier Dances with Films,
and through Dances with Films is how we made the
connection with Virgin Produced. So we're still waiting to hear
about that, So we haven't released that officially, but I
do show that film in my seminars, which is really great.
People love seeing that. I also in my seminars I

(01:17:13):
show the original ZOMBIELLS campaign video, which a lot of
people thought was like at the time, it was like
people thought it was like, oh, that's a great hook,
that's a really cute video. There's been a whole lot
of really great video since then that have kind of
eclipsed that. People do some really great and wonderful and
creative things with their campaign videos these days, but we
still thought it was kind of a fun little thing,

(01:17:36):
so I show that in the seminar. But and then
last year we were starting to think about our first
feature film and what we were going to do. So
last year was the first time we decided to launch
an official script contest where there was a submission fee
and a cash prize, a significant cash prize. So we

(01:17:57):
launched a contest, charged a submission fee. We got just
under one hundred submissions total. So the good news about
this festival is you're not competing with thousands of other scripts.
So I really encourage anybody listening to this if you
have a short film and we open it up to both.
This year we did short films and feature film scripts,
so I really encourage you. We're about to launch the

(01:18:18):
fourth annual FALM Street Films Contest. You guys should really
enter your scripts because you're not going against thousands of
other scripts. You may not even be going against hundreds
of other scripts because we're a very small, intimate kind
of in you know, contest. But the prize is five
hundred dollars for winning short and one thousand dollars for
winning feature. So that's that's pretty groovy. Also, and this

(01:18:44):
is announcement I just made last last week. We've decided
the winning short film script from last year was a
really wonderful script called five Days in Calcutta, which was
written by Fred Perry. That script not only won our contest,
but I didn't realize this, so after we had awarded,
it has also won like a dozen other short film
script contests. That's how good it is. It won Houston

(01:19:06):
Comedy Fest and it also won DC Shorts. And we
love that script and we love Fred, and so we've
decided that we're gonna produce that one and I'm directing.
So every single script contest that we've had, the films
have gotten made. That is huge. That's to some people

(01:19:27):
that's more important than a cash prize. But this year,
as in last year, we're offering a cash prize and
the chance for your film to get produced. But this
year I'm specifically looking for features because I'm looking I'm
looking to direct my first feature.

Speaker 5 (01:19:39):
So basically it kind of ties with my next question,
which is, you know what is your next project you have?

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
Uh, well, I'm in post production on Fragile Storm right
now and one other short film that we did early
this year that's a small, smaller film. We're trying to
get those two things wrapped out in post and then
we're gonna shoot. Once that's done, we're gonna shoot five
days in Calcutta.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
And we hope to do that in the summer. It
depends on how long it takes to actually get Fragglestorm finished.
There's a lot that still needs to be done on
that and we want to focus on that exclusively before
we move on to anything else. But Five Days in
Calcutta is up next, and then, like I said, after that,
I'm looking to jump into my first feature, and then
after that, I want to do Zombiells. So that's kind
of the I guess two year plan.

Speaker 5 (01:20:34):
And you know, I really wish you the best with
Zombie Ells and everything else too. I think, I think,
honestly doing I think Zombie Elves when you go we
revisit that you're going to have a whole new no
pun intended, a whole new life to it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
Yeah. Well, because I look at you know, since I
started directing two years ago, I look at everything differently.
I look colors seem different, people seem different, I see
movies differently. I have literally a whole new perspective, not
on not only on life but or not only in
the film business, I guess, but also on life. But
I see movies differently now, I see them in my head,

(01:21:09):
and I form visions more quickly, and I and everything
comes to me more quickly, and I'm super excited about
all the visual possibilities of Zombie Elves.

Speaker 4 (01:21:21):
Yeah, and also also meant to us, you know, just
the market is changing too, and you know, I just
think there's gonna be even more opportunities. I mean, because
you know, when you first started that, I don't think
Amazon Studios was around. They weren't looking for new stuff.
But now if you look at it, everyone's looking for
new material.

Speaker 5 (01:21:39):
I mean, I mean, I as I was talking to
you know, Richard Botto from say thirty two, he has
you know, he never going back and forth vish with
all of the new content. Uh stress streams out there
that are just looking for that that need content.

Speaker 4 (01:21:53):
So honestly, I think.

Speaker 5 (01:21:54):
You will have you know, more of a of an
opportunity with zombie Elves.

Speaker 3 (01:21:58):
Yeah, I think so too excited. And you know, it's
just that film has so much potential on so many levels.
But it's also an awesome responsibility because you know, you
have to be loyal and true to Christmas, you have
to be low and true to zombie fans. It's it's
quite you know, it's a bit daunting, to be honest
with you, But I am excited for the challenge. And
we were even for a time we were even thinking

(01:22:20):
about doing it in three D. But I'm not sure
if that makes sense. These days, it doesn't seem like
three D is taken off the way people had hoped
it would.

Speaker 5 (01:22:27):
Yet it just seems to be in certain movies that
three D is accepted. Obviously, anything that James Cameron does
and a few things here and there.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
But yeah, three D.

Speaker 5 (01:22:37):
I don't think even the three D TVs that they released,
I haven't seen much for them.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Oh gosh. I got a three D TV for Christmas
three years ago and I watched maybe five movies on it,
and now it's collecting dust. It's like, you know, and
it's a great experience. I love stuff in three D.
I'm a total fan. But it's just you know, putting
on the glasses and charge them up. You know. I
had one of those systems and it just, you know,

(01:23:03):
it just I don't know, it's just not the experience
that that I think people were hoping for. And finding
content in three D that you could buy for your
home system was a huge challenge at the time, you know,
like three years ago when I got it, you couldn't
buy anything for less than fifty bucks. M that's true,
there was and there was very little content available in
the stores, and that became really frustrating.

Speaker 5 (01:23:26):
Yeah, and a lot of the stores too, were even
getting rid of their blue rays. I mean it's just
you know, if you go like a best Buy, they sort.

Speaker 4 (01:23:32):
Of consolidated, they've bumped out all the DVDs, and.

Speaker 5 (01:23:35):
Now you know that's that whole entire area is getting
smaller and smaller basically, right, Yeah, no good. I was
gonna say, basically, they want you to go online or
they issued you're to buy a digital copy. But I'm sorry,
what were we going to say?

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
No? I just remember a couple of years ago, I
bought a Blu ray burner and I went out to
like Office Max and Best Buy. In all these places,
I couldn't even find like blank Blu rays.

Speaker 4 (01:23:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:23:57):
It was like, what's happening to the Blu ray market?

Speaker 5 (01:23:59):
And why?

Speaker 3 (01:23:59):
Yeah, yeah a special order? I'm online. You can't even
just walk into a store and buy blank Blu rays
like really.

Speaker 5 (01:24:06):
Yeah, it's uh, I mean it really depends too. I've
noticed unlike the area and whatever they seem to stock.
But I even had trouble getting black blue rays before.
I actually had to order them from online from somewhere
I think maybe the Amazon I heard them from.

Speaker 3 (01:24:21):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:24:22):
Yeah, so, uh, you know, don We've we've been talking
probably close to two hours now.

Speaker 3 (01:24:28):
I told you I'm a talker, So what I might
have doing.

Speaker 4 (01:24:33):
Is I might end up splitting this into I'm not
sure yet.

Speaker 5 (01:24:35):
I'm gonna When I put these together off, I can,
you know, have a better picture of everything. But just
you know, in closing, is there any anything you want
to discuss that we haven't touched on.

Speaker 3 (01:24:45):
There's a thousand things I could talk about that. I
have so many stories. I have so many thoughts on
this business, so much in my head I want to
share with people. You know, I could go on for days,
but you know, just to just to give people some
ideas about the script content. I believe we're gonna launch
that sometime this month, sometime in March. And if you

(01:25:06):
follow me on Facebook, it's Facebook dot com forward Slash
Downfield's producer. I tag that name when I was producing.
I wish I could change it to director. But if
you just follow me on that, you'll see all the announcements. Also,
if you go to Palm Street Films dot com and
join our mailing list, there's a subscribe button there where

(01:25:27):
you can join our mailing list. You'll also be notified.
But we're hoping to launch that in March, and we're
super excited. I'm hoping that my next feature film or
my first feature film is in that group of submissions.

Speaker 4 (01:25:39):
Awesome.

Speaker 5 (01:25:41):
So again, everyone, I will link to Dawn's all of
Dawn's websites that she's discussed in the show notes. So again,
if you're a screenwriter and you want to you know,
have an opportunity to you know, have something produced, check
out Dawn's new opportunities. I mean, you hear the the
contest sounds amazing and you know, like I was just
saying on about all the different you know, conscience content streams,

(01:26:02):
I mean, this is another opportunity for people now, and
it's just it's amazing. With everything else, I mean, everything's
coming up to allt once you know, you got the
Nicole Fellowship coming up, and you got i mean Stripped
to Palus I think is coming up. I mean there's
just so many you know. So Dawn, thank you very
much for coming on.

Speaker 3 (01:26:17):
Thank you, Dave. This was awesome. I really enjoyed it.
You're you're an awesome host. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:26:22):
Oh, thank you very much. Ay T. I'm gonna come
back on.

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
Let me know, you know, I feel like with all
the trials and tribulations that I've been through. I always
like to say from one of my favorite movies, Galaxy Quests,
never give up, never surrender, because this business is hard
and it will tear you down if you let it.
But if you want it badly enough and if you

(01:26:44):
work hard enough, you can accomplish any filmmaking dream that
you want to accomplish, and you can be anything that
you want to be. And it's funny now that people
are telling me that I'm an inspiration. I always felt like,
oh my god, I'm doing everything wrong and I'm making
all these mistakes and nothing's going on right. But things
never go right in this business. It's the nature of it.

(01:27:04):
And whether you succeed or fail is going to be
determined not by how many failures you have, but how
many times you pick yourself up and make it right.

Speaker 4 (01:27:14):
And then you know that that's a great piece of
advice on.

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
And that's what I always try to do. I just
try to keep push them forward and try to do
the right thing as often as I can, and do
the right thing for my films and never give up.

Speaker 5 (01:27:28):
And that that's that's amazing, you know. There there have
been other people in the podcast too, who have you
know mentioned that, uh, you know, it's it is something
we have to just keep going. And you know, once
you you know you've done a project, just try to
move on to the next one, you know, and the
you know, if some of the other stories that I've
heard too, in yours included, I mean, even if some

(01:27:48):
people can use these stories to avoid these pitfalls and
sort of learn from everybody else's experience, I think, you know,
they would be it would behoove them to actually, you know,
make a game plan, actually listen to these these podcasts
and stories like yours and something like you know, Kelly
Baker's and piece together.

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
You know, how could I avoid.

Speaker 5 (01:28:06):
The same the same the same instances, the same scenarios
playing out, you know, and the steps they could do
to prevent those.

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
Yeah, it's it's a tough business. It'll tear you down,
it really will. And I feel like if I can,
if I can direct, anybody can direct. Because it does
not come easy to me, does not come naturally to me.
I've had to learn it. I've had to practice it,
I had to hone my craft, and I still feel
like I maybe twenty five percent there. I have not
done my best work yet.

Speaker 5 (01:28:35):
And you know, and I wish you the best because
I mean, you know that that's we're always looking to improve,
we're always looking to evolve, So you know, again, Donn,
I wish you the best with everything.

Speaker 3 (01:28:44):
Thank you so much, Dave. I really enjoyed this. Thank
you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
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 Fullproof Screenwriting dot tv.
For it slash for forty nine. Thank you so much
for listening to guy as always, keep on writing no
matter what. I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
dot tv.

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BPS 449: From Setbacks to Festival Wins: The Filmmaking Path of Dawn Fields

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