May 10, 2024 • 52 mins
Writer/Director Francis Galluppi joins the show to discuss his piece, The Last Stop in Yuma County.
While awaiting the next fuel truck at a middle-of-nowhere Arizona rest stop, a traveling young knife salesman is thrust into a high stakes hostage situation by the arrival of two similarly stranded bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained, ill-begotten fortune.
Starring Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Richard Brake, Nicholas Logan, Faizon Love, Michael Abbott Jr., Gene Jones, Robin Bartlett, Sierra McCormick, Ryan Masson, Connor Paolo, Alexandra Essoe, Sam Huntington, Jon Proudstar, Barbara Crampton, and more.
Production Design by Charlie Textor
Art Direction by Adam Gascho
Music by Matthew Compton
Cinematography by Mac Fisken
Edited, Written, and Directed by Francis Galluppi
While awaiting the next fuel truck at a middle-of-nowhere Arizona rest stop, a traveling young knife salesman is thrust into a high stakes hostage situation by the arrival of two similarly stranded bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained, ill-begotten fortune.
Starring Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Richard Brake, Nicholas Logan, Faizon Love, Michael Abbott Jr., Gene Jones, Robin Bartlett, Sierra McCormick, Ryan Masson, Connor Paolo, Alexandra Essoe, Sam Huntington, Jon Proudstar, Barbara Crampton, and more.
Production Design by Charlie Textor
Art Direction by Adam Gascho
Music by Matthew Compton
Cinematography by Mac Fisken
Edited, Written, and Directed by Francis Galluppi
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Recording in progress. All right,Ellis Sendema back another dish? How are
(00:42):
we doing out there? Good?Great, gray yand Ayyan wonderful as you
see on your screen your dial.However you're choosing to join us today,
I know the cast and crew appreciatesyou. Well, Go USA, Well,
Go USA presents the Last Stop inYuma County, the Last Stop in
Unconty, playing in select theaters allacross the US right now. Or if
(01:03):
you're you know, don't like todo the whole communal experience, even though
that upsets me. If you're alistener of the show, you know,
I want you to go out tothe theater. If you can't go to
the theater, if it's not aroundyou. It's also streaming on Fandango at
home right now in the Blu raysare on are available for pre order on
Amazon, Amazon right now, rightnow. This is why I don't edit
(01:25):
Gang. They need to see allmy perfections. But please go out to
the theater if it's close to you. If it was just out of my
driving ranges about six and a half. Otherwise I would have made the trip
because I was bummed that I didn'tget to experience this in the theater,
So for fuck's sake, go outsupport the theater. So what is last
stop? In you m a county? While awaiting the next field truck at
(01:49):
the middle of a middle of nowhereArizona rest stop, a traveling young knife
salesman is thrust into a high stakeshostage situation by the arrival of two stranded
bankrupts with no qualms about using crueltyor cold hard steel to protect their blood
stained, ill begotten fortune. Andthat is the fucking truth. Holy Richard
(02:09):
Brake and Nicholas Logan. This filmstars Jim Cummings, Jocelyn Donahue, Richard
Brake, Nicholas Logan, fi IsOn Love, Michael Abbot, Junior Sierra
McCormick, Ryan Mason, Jeane Jones, who I thought lost everything on a
coin toss apparently not. Robin Bartlett, John Proud, Star, Alexandra s
So, Sam Huntington, Barbara CramptonThe Resurgence of Barbara Crampton. I watched
(02:30):
two films in the last week anda half with her and Connor Paolo.
From the crew side of things,we have a production designed by Charlie Texter,
art, direction by Adam Goschow,music by Matthew Compton, which I
thought just added another layer to thisfilm. What else we got here?
Just when you have someone dueling asa cinematographer and a colorless colorist. I
(02:54):
don't think you know what kind ofdividends that pays Gang, but scoring the
hat trick at the end of theday. We h There's an editor,
writer, director, Francis Galuppi,And as most of you know, I
can't stand doing the show unless Ihave someone to talk to, or until
this show gives me dental Anyway,today I shan't be doing this alone.
(03:16):
Joining the Ellisinema podcast for the veryfirst time. Francis Galuppi, writer,
director, editor, How are youthere? Hey, how's it going?
Man? Thank you for having me. Thank you for you know, mentioning
the a lot of the crew andcass that's awesome, and for telling your
(03:37):
listeners to go watch it in atheater. That means a lot, man.
I mean, I think far toooften we get drawn to the stars
in the film, right, butpeople don't understand just how much goes in
on the backside of things. LikeI told you before we started rolling,
we got a lot of aspiring filmmakersthat listen to this show, and I
think as good as the cast is, the crew is is meeting their level
(04:00):
of execution on this and I justdidn't want that to go unnoticed. But
before we get started with the LastStop in You mccounty, I just wanted
to ask you, how are youjust you the person? Francis Well,
I'm doing great. I'm very tired, but it's all really great man.
You know I all the things thatcame out of making this movie were just
(04:25):
so unexpected. You know, Ididn't really think any of this, any
one of these things was going tohappen. I just kind of set out
to make a movie with my friendsand then you know, didn't really think
about like is it going to getgood reviews? Is it going to set
me up for the next thing?And like, you know, it's just
(04:46):
it's done amazing things and today it'sbeen so today it comes out today.
So you know, I started writingthis script four and a half years ago
when my wife was pregnant with ourdaughter, and now two kids later,
it's finally out. You know,it's been four and a half years of
my life of like every day isthe last stop in You the County.
(05:08):
I'm doing something with the movie.Right, Like my daughter's first words are
like, man in my county.Like it's like it has been the longest
fucking journey, and so it's areally good feeling to have it just be
out in the world. You know. Well, then I do apologize because
(05:29):
I'm sure at this point you're like, all right, four and a half
years, I like, yeah,I know it was good. I know
it is good. Let's put thisbehind me. It's time to like move
on to another thing. Well,that's the weird thing, right, It's
like it's that's sort of making films. It's like you're constantly kind of going
back and forth between solidarity and thenlike complete chaos. So it's like you're
write and you're in you're just likeby yourself in your office, like kind
(05:54):
of prisoner to your own thoughts.And then like you get the movie made
and then all of a sudden youhave to be like a business guy,
Right, I got the money inhere, and it's this just chaotic thing,
and then you get to like dothe creative thing and like have those
conversations with your hods and actors andlike that's you know, a real treat.
And then and then you're back intosolidarity and and you're editing the thing
every day by yourself, prisoner toyour own thoughts, and then like and
(06:17):
then you do this, and thenyou have to talk about the movie and
like constantly and now, so I'mvery much every time I'm in that position,
like whatever position it is, I'mvery much looking forward to the next
stage. Like if I spend toomuch time by myself, I'm like,
I really need to talk to people, you know what I mean. And
right now I'm like, I justwant to go in the hole and start
(06:42):
writing. So it's very much whereI'm at right now. But it's also
I need to like really kind oftake like a breath and just feel like
this is incredible everything that's happening,and I kind of need to soak it
in and then get in my fuckinghole just right. Well, so let's
kind of talk about that whole becauseI was reading some of the press release
(07:03):
I tried so I went into thismovie. Something you should know about me,
Francis, I do not watch trailersto movies. I will get if
I'm in the movie theater and atrailer to a movie that I know I'm
going to see starts to play,I walk out that motherfucker and I just
come back in. So I knewnothing going into it. So when I
read some of the notes afterwards,I actually I found this The story of
(07:28):
how this script came to be,or at least where the idea came to
be pretty interesting, And like Isaid, the aspiring filmmakers, I was
just curious if you could share kindof when that idea popped in your head,
because I thought it was pretty sweet. Was it about touring like in
bands? And yes, that wasthe Yeah. Yeah, So like you
know, if you if you don'tmind, I'll just kind of go.
(07:49):
I mean, this whole journey ofgetting this movie made is pretty fucking insane,
and especially like if your listeners areaspiring filmmakers, you know, I
feel sort of like an obligation toshare this story to you know, give
some inspiration, you know. Soyeah, I my background is music.
(08:11):
I have always been obsessed with film, but I kind of started playing drums
at a really early age and thatwas my whole life. That's all I
knew. Was like I bought avan when I turned eighteen, I fucking
hit the road and toured and shittypunk bands, and that was that was
my life. You know. Iwas always obsessed with movies, but it
always seemed very, very unobtainable,Like it was just like, how do
(08:33):
you even break into this? AndI broke my wrist when I was like
twenty eight years old and couldn't playdrums. I was in a cast for
like six months, and so Ipicked up a T t I and I
came in TI and I made ashort film around the house with my wife
and I just didn't know what wewere doing, kind of learning stuff on
YouTube, didn't even have a story. It was kind of just like,
oh, this is a cool shot. That's a cool shot. And then
(08:54):
eventually pieced it together and made itshort. And then at that point I
was like, I think this iswhat I want to do. I think
I have to do this. Andit was a weird kind of I mean,
you're like almost thirty years old,you've been doing music your whole life,
and then telling your you know,your partner, like I think I
want to be a director. Shewas like, what the fuck are you
(09:16):
talking about? So so yeah,I kind of just like got so from
there, I started writing scripts basedon locations that we had free access to
because we had the money. SoI was just like I would get my
friends together for the first one wedid and it was like, no,
we knew what they were doing.We just went out to the desert and
(09:37):
I was like, Scott, you'regonna be our ac and Gabe you're going
to be a grip And they werelike, what the fuck is that?
And I'm like watch these YouTube videos. And we went out to the desert
and we just figured it out andwe made the short film. Luckily,
like and it's another side story,but I kind of like haphazardlif found my
cinematographer Mac Fiskin, who has shoteverything I've done, and he was there.
(09:58):
He showed up and like realized nobodyknew what they were doing, so
he kind of like shepherded the wholething and like was like, uh,
this is how you do this,and so you do that. But anyway,
we did this short film and thenlike I did another short film called
the Gemini Project because my buddy hada cabin up in Oregon and got in
the tour van all you know,got packed it full of my buddies and
(10:18):
went out and really good by theway, I ended up watching that after
I got done with Last Stop andreally good, just wanted to say that,
oh cool, thanks man. Itwas funny at the time when I
made it, like you know,it was like during COVID or I was
right before we released it during COVIDand was just like, what the fuck
is this? Man? This isweird, Like nobody really got it.
(10:41):
And I was like, all right, well that was kind of a waste,
but I like it and uh butanyway, So my first short film,
how does Her Hell, went toa festival in Cincinnati and I flew
out there. It screened it's likeeight am at the first screen of the
day after the opening night party,and nobody showed up. Was like,
I wasted my money. But therewas this guy, James Place. I
(11:03):
know, I've talked about this alot, but like I think it's you
know, it's important to know.But so he saw the short and was
like, yo, I'll give youfifty grand for whatever you do next.
And I was like that's insane,Like I can make three movies for that.
Like literally, that's what I thought, you know, because I'm doing
the math with my short films.I'm like, all right, one thousand
dollars. I got twenty two minutesof screen time, you know what I
(11:26):
mean. Like, so I kindof did what I was comfortable with or
what I knew, which was Ifound the location for races in Palmdale,
and I went there and took abunch of pictures and drew an overhead and
then wrote a script specifically for thislocation. They're going back to what you
were saying about like what the catalystwas for that. I mean, really
(11:46):
it was the location first and foremost, because it was like I sort of
always gravitate towards period pieces because cellphone suck, and I saw this place
and I was like, cool,like this is I can I can craft
a story here. And I thinkthe catalyst for the story was I spent,
like I said I had mentioned,I spent a lot of time touring.
(12:07):
I would find myself like in themiddle of nowhere at these roadside diners,
and like you walk in and you'reit's fish out of water experience.
Everyone's looking at you like, uh, you don't belong here, you know,
and like especially when you're playing inpunk bands right like and so you
know, I just kind of Ijust remember that feeling and it was like,
(12:30):
oh, like does everyone here knowsomething? And like I'm late to
the party, and it really stuckwith me. So I think that was
like the catalyst. But anyway,so I wrote this script and I was
gonna make it for read like amicro budget version, and what I ended
up optioning the script to a companythat like was like, we're going to
(12:52):
make it for like five to sixmillion dollars and I was like, oh
my god, that's insane. Wheredo I sign? And so I optioned
the script and it was a shitshow. It was like it was the
name game of like, oh,we're going to get so and so and
this person and that, you know, and that's the only way we can
try to finance it, and likethey didn't really care about the story.
It was just like get a nameand we'll finance it. And like that's
(13:15):
was really disheartening. And on topof that, we just weren't having any
luck. Nobody wanted to sign onto a first time, you know,
the first time feature filmmaker, Likethat was just not happening. So as
soon as the option expired, Ipulled it and I was like, you
know what, fuck this, I'mjust I'd rather make this movie with my
friends like I've always done. SoI just started pretending like we had money
(13:37):
essentially, you know, like Iused shot designer for every single shot.
We just meticulously planned every single day. My cinematographer and I. I wrote
letters to this cast, like nobodyauditioned. It was all just personal letters
seeing how big of a fan Iwas and how I wrote this part for
them and blah blah blah, gotit. D's on board. You know,
(14:01):
people that I that I talked tothat were there for the right reasons.
They weren't there for a paycheck.They were there because they believed in
the story. And we basically wereready to go. It was like fucking
tell me when, and like,I'll but we didn't have any money.
So the guy who put in thedevelopment money, he had been messing around
with me for a few weeks,just saying like, oh fuck it,
(14:24):
dude, I'm just gonna sell myhouse and finance the whole thing. And
I was like, that's crazy,don't do that. You know, we'll
figure this out. And then Istarted thinking like maybe we won't. Maybe
nobody's gonna want to fucking finance thismovie. So I I said, hey,
I don't know if you're serious ornot, but if you are,
like, this is what it means. We can kind of nobody's going to
be telling us how to make thismovie. And he did. He sold
(14:46):
his house and I say that,yeah, and that's how really that Yeah,
So it was like as independent asyou get. And I and I
tell that story not to say,hey, find somebody who's gonna sell their
fucking house. Like that's it's notgonna happen, right, it's like one
in a billion. But like Ithink a lot of people just wait for
(15:07):
permission. And what when things reallystarted happening was when I just said,
fuck it, I'm just gonna startmaking a thing. Like because you're it's
independent film, you're not gonna getpaid to prep right, like and like
you you need to be committed todo that kind of stuff because you want
to, not because somebody's paying you. So like, just start making your
(15:28):
movie. Start shot listening sharp,start scouting, start like reaching out to
actors, start talking to like youknow, your hods. Put this thing
together. That shit doesn't cost money, you know, like maybe a cooler
and filled with some water bottles andlike that's it, you know, in
some gas like that's all it takesin your time, you know, and
(15:50):
thank god we did that because wedidn't have any time or money to make
this thing. So all that prepjust helped things move so much quicker.
Like, yeah, I've been showingthis thing off. I know its video,
so I can kind of show itoff. But like this is sort
of like the prep that we mycetatographer and I did. We use shot
designers, so like it's just everysingle shot is meticulously planned right, and
(16:14):
it's like that makes things move.But we couldn't have done this movie in
twenty days if we didn't do that, you know, and you're never going
to get that much time to prep. So if you're like, oh man,
things are taking forever, this movie'snever gonna get it, we'll start
prepping, start doing things because it'sa lot easier to convince somebody to finance
your movie if you're already making themovie, right then people are like those
(16:37):
financiers are going to be like,I want to be a part of this.
This looks fun, it looks likeit's already a thing. But if
you're just like I don't know,man, like scripts, like I'll start
working when you pay me, Likegood luck. You know. I hope
you hear this, man. Ihope my audience, I hope you hear
this. Man. Sometimes go outand utilize the free stuff. Do you
hear what I'm saying? Just poundthe pavement for a little bit and you
(17:00):
don't know what's going to become ofit. Sorry, sometimes no, nor
I get on my soapbox too,man, because I'm passionate about it,
you know, and I like,I think, I think where you are
deprived of like good more independent cinema, and I think, like we need
to take those risks. You know. It's like nobody was going to finance
(17:22):
this movie if James didn't do whathe did. It's a period piece,
you know, like nobody. There'sso many times there's just like, you
know, this industry has a specificmandate and if it doesn't check those boxes,
it's just like a no. Andthat really sucks, dude. You
know, it's not like it usedto be so. But if you can
get people excited by starting to makeyour movie and like you said, just
(17:45):
you know, hit the payment,it's like you're gonna have a better shot.
Damn. I love that story.I really you're just kind of sitting
there, You're at a diner andyou're like, it's every way fucking are
they looking at me? No?Fuck? You know, would be a
good idea something that you having themusical background, and I'm going to kind
(18:07):
of rearrange some of the questions thatI had here because you tackled a couple
of them. But the score.So you being you know, coming from
a music background, how does thathow does that relationship with Matthew Matthew Compton
work? Are are you letting himgo? Or because you know you are
so in tuned, you know,you've done music until you said, what
(18:30):
twenty eight and then you kind ofpivoted like, I'm like technically still in
a band right now. But soit's like you're still in a band.
Like I'm interested. How does thatprocess look when you're sitting down with a
composer. Yeah, So, Imean I've scored all my shorts and I
was planning on scoring this one,and then my son was born and I
(18:53):
was like, okay, I needto spend time with the family. I
need to find a composer. SoI I forgot who I told this to,
Maybe it was Jim. I wasjust like, you know, it's
kind of unheard of to have,especially like you know, sort of well
known composers demo for like a firsttime filmmaker. But I was like,
(19:15):
fuck it, maybe if I justlike reach out and write a letter or
something and be like, hey,look, this is my baby, Like
I like, I'm a composer myself. Like it's hard to pick somebody,
right, can you just so what? I ended up having like eight different
composers demo two scenes in the movie. One of the scenes is a spoiler
and the other is the scene ofJim doing the whole nice sales pitch to
(19:37):
Jocelyn. And I heard Matthew MatthewCompton demo for it, and it was
just like immediately he understood that,he understood where to let the comedy breathe.
And he's a comedy guy, likehe did Palm Springs, he did
mcgruber like, but he's also likeit just he just nailed it. So
I mean, you can, youknow, I asked matt I'm pretty I
(20:00):
was very hands off with him.Like everything he sent me, it was
just like, this is fucking great, this is perfectly you know, like
keep going, my dude. Andthen you know, obviously at the end,
we sat down like we fine tunelittle things or I was like,
oh, can you like stretch thisor whatever? You know, But no,
dude, that's all Matt, LikeMatt fucking as the as the homies
call him Cornbread. He just he'she killed it, dude. He's so
(20:23):
damn talented, and I hope heis. I hope he wants to,
dude score all my movies because he'sincredible. And he's also a drummer,
so we speak like the same sortof language. You know, any drummers
out there know exactly what I'm talkingabout, well, and I got it.
I think it also pays dividends interms of beats for the story not
(20:45):
to get cliche and you know,top forty hits. But being able to
he doesn't you you don't need,like you said, you can kind of
be hands off because he's already theway that you're writing the script, which
probably subconsciously there's you know, there'smusic coursing through your veins, you know,
right, and that script and thatdude, that probably makes it so
much easier for you to, youknow, kind of just relax a little
(21:07):
bit. But yeah, I gotthe fact that you mentioned the whole comedy
once I saw he did Pop Star, Never Stop Popping and Palm Springs mcgruber
and I'm just sitting here going Idon't want to say it's a complete deviation
from what he's because, like yousaid, he does hit those moments of
comedy really well. But I alsothought he does a goddamn good job of
(21:29):
building tension as well. Totally.Yeah, now, he absolutely nailed it.
It's funny, you know. PalmSprings was also shot at four Aces
where we shot, and I wasin the studio like when we were kind
of wrapping things up, and hewas like, man, I'm pretty sure
I ate out the Steiner before AndI was like, no, you've scored
a movie that was shot at thisthing before. But yeah, dude,
(21:53):
he I don't know. I can'tsay I have great things about Matt Compton.
He's he's incredibly talented, and uhyeah, there was one other thing
I was gonna mention about him.Oh the knife sales. I don't know
if you heard that. Did youwatch the credits at the end, Yes,
yes, I did so. TheOdachi knife had I wrote Originally I
really wanted to like film an infomercialand I had a particular actor in mine.
(22:18):
I was like, oh, wegotta god to him, it'd be
so great this post credit sequence.And then we just didn't have money.
So I wrote the copy. Isent it to Matt and he totally got
it, like right away. That'sthe thing. It's like he just I
didn't have to explain anything. Ijust did a little voice memo, and
then like maybe a couple hours later, he sent me exactly what you hear
in the movie, and that's hisvoice pitched down, and it's just like
(22:41):
I was like, yeah, done, it's in the movie. Like he's
fantastic. Yeah, all right,Let's let's talk a little bit about the
look of the film. I thoughtit again, top notch, like it
is razor sharp. The look ofthis film. I thought Mac killed it
(23:02):
from almost even even the choice ofsome of the shots for particular instances.
Again no spoilers here, but Ithought that we did a lot of things
that we were familiar with, butit was different, Like this whole movie
kind of feels that way to me, where it's like, ah, I
kinda and I'm gonna blow smoke upyour ass once we get at the end
(23:22):
here. But I'll just say thatthere was moments where I'm like, this
is elevated, Like this is likethey took like what we may see in
say, you know, the lastten fifteen years of film, but we
tweaked it just enough to make itpitch perfect. Like I don't want to
go shot for shot, but Iguess I kind of want to know again
kind of the partnership with Matthew,how does that look? And you already
(23:44):
kind of touched on it in termsof, you know, the constant pre
planning, And that was one ofmy questions, like are you kind of
because I know when I'm writing ascript, like I'm nauseating with my storyboards,
man, Like I just I kindof go along and it's all done
in advance. And you know,for those of you listening, I hope
you understood what he was saying aboutthe whole pre planning thing. You don't
(24:06):
have a whole lot of time tobe fucking around on set once you get
everybody involved, So I guess,you know, what does that look?
What does that relationship look like withyou? Like, because you know you're
kind of coming in to the filmworld and he's tried and true. How
does that look? Yeah, soI'll answer that in the question like two
(24:30):
parts, one talking about the likethe actual shots, and then I'll try
to talk about the nerdy shit withlike lighting and everything. But so how
what I typically do is all allshotless the whole movie. And then I
translate my shotless into shot designer.And then Mac and I will get on
a zoom and we will talk aboutthere's like at least seventy scenes or something
(24:51):
we broke it out into and wewill spend every single day talking about one
scene and we'll talk about one shotfor hours. Like he is that level,
like I'm neurotic and fucking crazy,and he like is on board for
it, like he's down to putthe time in. So and then once
we get through the entire movie,we go back to the very beginning we
(25:11):
start over again. Because by thetime you get to the end, you've
created like your visual language, right, and then you get to the beginning
again, you're like, oh,that doesn't fit and the thing that we've
made, you know, you sortof just like slowly start to understand what
the visual language is. Like youset rules and you're like, oh,
we're not gonna do steady cam inside, and you set all these bullshit rules
right, which is always helpful,but like it it's crazy that when you
(25:34):
get to the end and you goback to the beginning, like you slowly
start to see through every scene howit evolved. So we do that and
I will continue to do that onevery project, and yeah, a lot
of the times, you know,it's like I really love committing to those
(25:55):
like two shots and winners and findingintricate ways to like tell a story.
There's you know, I'm always thinkingabout, well, if if we turn
off the audio and the audience waswatching the scene, what emotion does it
evoke? And if like that's That'swhere I'm always coming from, is like,
of course, what is the optimalway to build tension? And that's
like, well, just watch Hitchcock. But you want to, like if
(26:18):
you want to convey an emotion,like there's a thousand there's a thousand different
places to put in the camera.But like I always think, yeah,
you turn off the audio, where'sthe camera need to be to tell this
story with no audio? And Ithink about that a lot. And then
in terms of like the technical sideto this, like we use shot designer
or sorry shot what is it calledshot deck and where it is like a
(26:44):
bunch of screen grabs from movies andwe will create a deck and we'll talk
about like, you know, theratio of shadows side and this, and
then we watch a bunch of moviesand like we just have really long conversations
about what the lighting is and whatwe're going for. And then we got
lucky because we borrowed this camera fromthis camera package from my friend Chris,
so we got to go out tothe location and shoot stuff, test out
(27:06):
different filters, create a lot thatwe used on set. So every time
we were looking at dailies, itwas like, you know, we were
looking at something that was like percentcolored and making adjustments and uh, we
got to shoot on these these lenses. They're they're basically the first iteration of
(27:29):
the super speeds. They're called bspeeds. They shot Taxi Driver on them
and it's really cool, like theyhave triangular boca and they have just a
lot of character. So that wasfun. And then you know, I
like, as much as I lovethe look of film, it's such a
I'm gonna get fucking, you know, ridiculed for this, but it's such
a pain in the ass to workwith especially when you don't have a lot
(27:52):
of money, you know what Imean. And one day I'd love to
shoot on film, but it's justnot worth it right now when you're dealing
with like when you have a limitedtime, limited money, and there's tools
out there now that like you canemulate film almost almost seamlessly. I should,
dare I say? And you know, it's been crazy hate mail from
(28:15):
cinophiles filling up right now. Thismotherfucker whatever, dude. I mean,
like I've it's crazy when you talkto people and they're like, oh,
yeah, I spent like thirty thousanddollars on a short film because we shot
on film. Like what that's crazy, dude? Uh, Like I get
it, Like I love film isdope. I hope it never like we're
(28:37):
always using film, but like I'mnot Christopher Nolan, you know, like
I don't have that type of money, and like I honestly do. I've
had a lot of friends that likelove they are very much film officionados,
and they've watched Last Up and theywere like, oh, would stock the
way would you shoot on your shoton film? And I'm like, it's
(29:00):
all digital, dude, you know, we just you you know, the
elation and the gate weave and thegrain and this and that, and like
you get to a place that's prettyfucking convincing, you know. Man,
I was about ready to say ittoo, but I try so hard to
refrain from top forty comments. Ireally wasn'tna Like I'm telling you what,
man, it looks like you shotit. Ah, but I hate like
cause like I don't know if youyou spend enough time around that, you
(29:22):
know, right, but like Idon't know, Like to me, why
don't we switch the narrative. Lookat how fucking good the execution was digitally,
like instead of it like being oh, well, you didn't shout this
on film, No, Like Ishot it digitally and this is still what
it looked like. This is stillwhat you can achieve, Like yeah,
just and look and we shot Imean, the hill that I really was
(29:44):
gonna die on was like we shoteverything practical, like all the all the
V effect stuff, like you know, it was all squibs, like we
blew that fucking tankrupt but the end, like you know, everything was practical,
dude, even the TV when they'rewatching their rifle. Man, like
that was practical. And that's noteasy it was like it took a whole
room of equipment to get like youknow, the frame rate right right and
(30:04):
all that stuff. But I meanthere was like eighty three the effect shots,
I think, but it was alljust removal. Like there was a
giant warehouse outside of the diner thatyou know, we had to take out
of every single exterior shot. Shewas a fucking nightmare. But yeah,
man, I mean I don't wantto go out in here and say like
(30:25):
I don't love of course I lovefilm, of course I do. Of
course I would love to shoot onfilm, which is like we don't have
the team and like the fucking manpowerto do that. And you like,
I know there's a lot of peoplethat are like, oh, but when
you're shooting on film, like thingsmove so much quicker, And I actually
agree with that to a point,Like I've you know, I've aded a
lot of stuff that there's like musicvideos that we've shot on film, and
(30:48):
like there is something where it's like, yeah, when that fucking thing's rolling,
dude, you go you don't fuckaround, you know, And I
totally get that, but yeah,this was such a like quick shoot.
It's just may I may I bepetty but endearing for one moment, go
for it. If you would haveused CG for keep it spoiler free for
(31:15):
the violence in this yeah, yeah, I would have canceled the interview.
I'm not I'm not. I'm noteven kidding you, Like it has gotten
to the point now and I'm notgoing to name any names. I tried
to be is use the least amountof negativity as possible. But I'll just
say, very recently I have seenmaybe you'll know what I'm talking about.
Maybe you won't, but between CGbloodholes, I'm out, like it takes
(31:37):
me out of the movie. ButI just saw film recently. Maybe you
have seen the same one too,where we are now doing CG hand to
hand combat and combat and we're nottalking about Marvel movies and bro. When
I saw that, I just waslike, what are we doing, dude?
Like what? Yeah, you know, I talk about film and stuff
that like, and that's it's like, Oh, it's getting in a place
(31:59):
where it's really good. It's Vincent'sCG. No, like unless you're doing
Plant of the Apes or some shit, you know, like like that works
right, but no, dude,Like squibs exist and they look fucking awesome
and like, you know, they'recheaper to do squibs and like get it
right in post. And that wasreally the hill that I was gonna die
(32:19):
on, dude. Like I therewas many times where I was just like,
no, you're wrong, it's gottabe we are doing everything practical,
and like you know, and wedid everything's We used blanks for all the
guns too, and like this waspost RUSS, so it was you know,
it was it was weird. Butlike also we were a libit production.
(32:42):
Like nobody we didn't rush anything.Like we were very very safe about
everything. You know, I wantedeveryone to feel safe and and and so
we really took our time and allocatedthe time during the day to make sure
anytime there was a blank being fired. It was like we took our fucking
time and and and I mean,honestly, that's one thing that I will
(33:02):
say. I I totally agree withUH having everything practical. I do think
though there's really not a difference betweena CG muzzle flash and a real muscle
flash. I think they look prettymuch identical. The only time you missed
the mark is when people forget tolike add like the highlight on the actual
(33:23):
gun which happens. You know.The biggest thing is for me is just
performance, Like it's just performance,you know, the actor really you really
feel it, you know. Butsometimes actually a lot of the times,
I mean, have you shot,have you used blanks onset before? I
have not, But I do haveone rule, keep it dark, keep
(33:44):
it quick if you're going to dothe c Yeah, but a muscle flash
looks perfect, like it's it's it'sone frame. It's one fucking frame.
There's no difference whatsoever. And thecrazy thing about is when you use blanks,
half the time you're missing it becauseit happens in between the twenty four
frames, so that we'll be like, oh my god, it was a
great muscle flash, and then youwatch playback and you're like, it's not
(34:06):
there. And that happened a lot. So for me, yeah, I
mean, look, it's a lotsafer to do CG muzzle flashes, but
for me, it's just the performanceis better. Man. I had a
feeling that you were going to bea good egg. And I still have
so many questions for you, butI know im no, no, no,
(34:28):
no, I got time. I'mall right. All right, Hey
Sam, you heard it. Iknow you're I know you're there, You're
you're lurking there, Sam, I'mjust playing with you, so wing and
and here's the thing, I won'tkeep you much longer than the allotted times.
But there was all right cool characteractors. Yes, somehow we're able
(34:51):
to get what I would consider ablend of new faces kind of. I
don't want to say all of themare leading the charge into new new ways
character actors. But what I thinkI was just shocked and loved and all
all these positive emotions that you somehowgot the new wave and a couple old
wave legends. I mean between Geneand Richard, you know, like who
(35:15):
are about his character actor? AndI might I don't want to say,
I don't want to put this asscripture, but Richard Brake in terms of
acting and spectrum, may have myfavorite moment in this film. And I
can say it to you because it'snot gonna mean shot. Yes, yeah,
Like it came like like I'm sittingthere, like I'm in, like
(35:37):
right, I'm leaning, I'm leaningin listening to him, and then he
says that, my god, damnit, all right, it's all one
shot too. Man. That wasa fucking pain and asked, yeah,
I've ever assume we're doing that shot. He we didn't want to take any
(35:58):
his friend, You're you're not gonnabe on for all that juicy stuff.
And I was like, no,no, no, this when you're saying
all that, it's like it's kindof about Charlotte and and he goes,
ah, you fucking cunt, andthen he was so mad. And then
after he watched the Daily was like, A, you were right, you
were all right. But honestly,rich is like the sweetest guy ever,
(36:19):
and he is just so damn professionaland so good and like, yeah,
he scared the shit out of usduring that take, Like I didn't know
he was going to go that,and I was, oh Jesus Christ,
like well, I looked around andeverybody jumped, and he was actually the
first person to sign on, youknow. I yeah, So I might
(36:39):
have skipped over that when I wastelling you the whole story, but I
you know, when James gave thedevelopment money, he had a loose connection
with Richard Brake because he's like buddieswith Rob Zombie and I had known rich
and and so I wrote Bow withrich in mind, thinking like, oh,
you know, that's how actually couldmaybe happen because we have that connection
(37:01):
there, and he did. Heread it and he called me and was
like, I'm in and we talkedfor hours, and every like every couple
months or every few months, heI would just call him and be like,
oh, this is where we're at. I mean that went on to
like three years, like and everytime he was like, I'm in,
I'm game, just like whatever itis, tell me when I'll be there,
(37:23):
and he was. He stuck tohis word, and I'm so so
thankful that he did, because like, really he is. He's such a
crucial part of this movie. Iam going to ruffle some feathers here because
I like ruffling the Hohore crowds feathersbecause I think they're very toxic. This
(37:43):
may be Richard's one of my favoriteroles of his and arguably his most polished,
and it happened in your film,and I just I need that.
I need the record to show.I think I think rich himself would agree
with you. Okay, yeah,Savior DMS, Yeah, I mean ask
(38:04):
him, but I mean he's toldme so, so like you know,
uh, yeah, we were richand I had a really cool thing to
happen. When I spoke to himyears ago, four years ago, now,
like we had, I had thiswhole backstory about Bo being like this
blue collared worker and like in overhis head and blah blah blah. You
know, I didn't want Rich.I wanted Rich to like have do something
(38:27):
else besides like what we've seen Richdo so so cool. So that was
sort of the idea we talked about. And then once we were actually making
the thing, we did at tableread and he was in the UK,
so he wasn't there. But theone thing I learned from that tailor Read
(38:49):
is like I got home and Iwas like, this doesn't work with that.
I write backstories for everybody. Iwrote bios for all the actors,
and I was like, that doesn'twork. He needs to be fucking terrifying.
He needs to be like calm,collected terrifying. And anyway, so
I texted him and I was like, Rich, I need to talk to
you about something. Do you havetime to chu up on a call?
Today? Said now, I needto talk to you about something. I
(39:09):
was like, oh fuck, Likeyeah, so we call. He's like,
you go go first, you gofirst, and I was like,
look, man, and I justtold him. I was like, I
think you need to be terrifying.Blah bla blah, I'm so sorry.
I thought he was gonna be like, ah, I've done that before and
blah blah. You know, andhe was like, mate, I had
(39:29):
the same exact thought. You andI are on the same wavelength. And
from that point on there was justthis level of trust, like we were
sort of just really really in sync. So, like, I think,
I don't know if that wouldn't havehappened. I don't know if he would
have trusted me enough to like gothis as like as mellow as he did
(39:50):
in this role. You know,I think he was a little nervous about
going, like, you know,underplaying it. I know. I mean
too, man, I think hehe's phenomenal. Every time I see him
in this movie, I'm just likeJesus christ Man. He's a powerhouse.
But yeah, anyway, so Ijust had such a great collaboration with Rich
and I really hope to work athim again. He's incredible. Well,
(40:15):
and you got you also have Jimin this which shit, I even screamed.
I rented out a vintage theater.I'm in Toledo. Toledo, Ohio,
rented out a vintage theater showed TheWolf of Snow Hollow because I thought
it was such a really inresting Peace. And now I'm seeing him pop up
more and more. And I havebeen thinking that for years now. You
(40:37):
know what I'm saying, like,why aren't we seeing more of Jim or
even Jocelyn. You know, Ijust reviewed a movie with Nicholas Red right
hand from the Nelms brother. Ijust talked about like these people that are
now kind of coming to the forefront, and I'm here to see it.
Yeah. Man, I saw NickLogan and I care a lot. And
(40:59):
I think when I was writing thescript for Last Time, and I had
never seen Nick before, and Iremember I remember turning to my wife and
I was like, holy shit,that's that's Travis. And it's funny.
He just was over for dinner theother night and he pulled out or he
found the letter that I sent him, and it was it was just that
I was like, hey, man, like I saw you, and I
care a lot. Like I wrotethe script, I think he'd be perfect
(41:21):
for this character. And it wasreally funny because when we talked, we
talked for like guy like three hourson a zoom and he was just like,
look, dude, I'll be honest, man, I don't really like
this part. I've played this before. I'm not really into it, but
you seem cool enough. I'll doit whatever, dude, but I think
I'd rather play like whatever. Iforgot who he wanted to play. And
it was so fucking awesome because likethe last day he was like, Buddy,
(41:45):
like, I know, I remember, I know what I said about
not wanting to play this character,but I think it's my favorite character I've
ever played. And it was reallyartworming. And it's funny because Nick has
totally like adapted the character like intohis everyday life, like motherfucker where he
like crops all of his T shirtsand cuts off the sleeves. Now it's
(42:06):
just like his style and it is. I spent two weeks with them in
Spain for stitches, and like everyday he's just wearing like the fucking crop
top cutup. So he's the Yeah, he's one of my best friends.
Now he's awesome. I turned tomy chick and I was like, hey,
for my birthday, HiT's right aroundthe corner. If you could get
me a big Foot for President Tshirt. That would be fantastic. That's
(42:27):
actually James, the guy who financedthe movie. That's he owns a clothing
company and that was his shirt.And I wrote that into the script when
I was writing, because I waslike, oh, I've got I'm gonna
write a Boogeyman shirt into the script. This will get him super excited.
And now that the movie's out,I'm like, he's out. He doesn't
have any stock at that. I'mlike, James, make more boogie or
make more big Foot shirts. Peopleare gonna want it, you know.
(42:49):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm sure he'llprint some more. Yeah, So I
am gonna I am gonna buy bythe by the timeline. But I do
have some shit that I want totell you, So in closing, just
a couple of things, sir.One thing, I wanted to tell you
how appreciative I am for you takingthe time to come on this piece of
garbage show, especially the news thatI just read this week. You're about
(43:14):
to shoot into the stratosphere, myfriend. So the fact that you took
time to come on this show,I forever grateful, forever A fan,
Well, I was gonna be afan regardless after I saw the film.
But now in talking with you,definitely fan for life, Gonna follow you
anywhere you are, invited back wheneveryou want to come home the show Man,
(43:35):
I'd love to. Well, we'lltalk about we'll talk about Evil Dead.
I wasn't gonna say anything you didit. I was. I wasn't
gonna say a fucking word, dude, because like it's like, so I've
had a Cronenberg's son on before,and like I don't know, like going
into it, like I was justlike, I'm not mentioning his dad.
I'm not like, I'm not likeI'm not gonna really you know, like
(44:00):
like that just seems like a slapin the fucking face, which brings me
to my next point that I'm gonnatell you forgive me for blowing smoke,
but I have to. So whenI get done watching these films, then
that's when I start to do aliteral research read what people are saying about
it, and I gotta be honest, I'm annoyed, Francis. I'm annoyed
(44:20):
because I felt like there was severalof them. You know what, I
don't give a fuck. I'll throwthem to the wolves. Most notably variety.
And if I have to hear thefucking phrase tarantino esque one more time,
like I think I'm just gonna blowa fucking gasket. I'm gonna riot,
dude, because here's the thing Iunderstand, and this is no disrespect
(44:43):
to you. Like if you readany of those articles, there was like,
oh, it's Tarantino this blah blahblah, and you were like fuck
yeah, Like I'm glad, I'mglad for you. But again, it's
kind of like what I said earlierabout shifting the narrative, Like you want
to know what I thought when Igot done with this film. Then I
I read a couple of those reviews. I thought, this isn't tarantino esque,
(45:04):
this isn't Cohen Brothers. Ask ifyou your act too is most people's
act threes. This is galapiesque.And I think we need to start shifting
that focus and giving filmmakers as eliteas yourself. And yes, sir,
I don't give a fuck that thisis the first feature you're elite. Okay,
(45:27):
I watch a lot of shit.I know the goods when I see
the good and this is galapiesque,my friend. Now, thank you,
sir, I appreciate that. Man. I look, I am a big
fan of Tarantino. I'm a bigfan of Cohen Brothers, right, I
mean, what was that on theforefront of my mind when I was writing
the script. No, it wasn'tright like it was it was film noir
and it was Don Siegel and SamPeck and Bob. But look, these
(45:50):
are the movies that also inspired Tarantino, you know, And that's okay,
Like Tarantino was fucking never missed inmy opinion, He's a fantastic filmmaker.
Like, of course he's influenced me. Like I love movies. I watched
multiple movies a day, and itis just like inevitable that your influences are
(46:13):
going to sort of, you know, like bleed into your work at some
point, Like I've been rewant,Like I just rewatched Stanley Kubrick's The Killing
and the Ending with all the moneyflying around. I was like, oh
fuck, but did I Is thatwhere I got that? I don't know,
Like it definitely wasn't intentional, butlike you know, it all becomes
sort of like you kind of justinherently just sort of write your your favorite
(46:37):
things in your in your stories andand no, I don't take offense to
it at all. I think it'slike it's definitely praise and it's it's really
crazy. Like guys, I readthat Variety article yesterday and I was like,
holy shit, this is insane.But I thought we were Like my
fear of making when I was makingthis movie is like it's gonna have like
a fucking four percent on Rotten Tomatoes, you know what I mean, Like
(46:59):
that's your so all this like positivestuff has been really really well. But
I do I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate it, man,
I really do. Yeah. Imean even people that aren't sentophile. So
I always use my partner as anexample because she she doesn't like, let's
just be honest, she doesn't givea shit like she she'll watch them with
me and take part and you know, offer critiques here and there, but
(47:22):
at the end of the day,I kind of use her as kind of
like the masses. And as soonas the credits rolled, man, she
was like, well that was fuckingawesome, and like you know, and
like I'm sitting there still processing it, like oh my gosh, this was
this was good, this was good. This beat was great this and like
all I can tell you and believeme. I don't give a shit if
you believe me or not very rarelywhen credits rolled as you go, hey,
(47:45):
that was fucking awesome. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's true. That's
sort of my caliber of movies aswell with my wife, because she falls
asleep in every fucking movie, allright. If she if she just stays
awake for a movie, then I'mlike, okay, you know, like
I just watched the buddy of mine'smovie and like I text him, I
was like, I you got thehighest praise. My wife actually watched the
(48:08):
entire thing and didn't fall asleep,and that says a lot my dude,
and he was like, thank you. So yeah, I get it,
man, but no, thank you. That really I do believe you and
I appreciate it. Man. That'sreally really fucking cool. Good, thank
you, good, Thank you somuch for coming on, sir. I
(48:29):
am going to let you go andthen I'm gonna spend another two minutes just
retelling them where everything is. Butyou don't have to stick around for that.
Again, thank you so much.You are welcome on here anytime,
and it doesn't even need to bediscussed like I mean, of course I
want you to discuss your movies onhere, but if you just want to
fucking talk about Peck and Paw,let's hey, come on, let's let's
do it. Do it, let'sdo it. I'd love that. Man.
(48:50):
If you're on Instagram and stuff,hit me up and we'll keep the
conversation going. You got it.And in fact, to that point,
not that anybody cares about this.This will be up shortly, like I
said, nod and we're gonna havethis up on all the socials and I
will get at you on Instagram,sir. Thank you so much, Thank
you so much. Loopy. Yeah, yeah, thank you so much.
Man, oh Galoopy. So waita minute. You but let me say
it wrong the whole time, thewhole time, Francis, come on,
(49:16):
I just hate doing being that guy. Fuck sake, man. I was
so nervous at the beginning because Iwas like, oh no, I was
to trust me. It's I've gottenway worse, dude. I've gotten like
go out of loope like I've gottenI've gotten it all, man, It's
totally fine. I just had tothrow that in those like Kaloopy, Galoopy.
(49:37):
But no, yeah, at Francisgloopy. Dude, Seriously, it
looks like it's gluppy. My nameis spelt like it looks like gluppy.
So I totally get it. Here'sthe thing. Like, I was actually
struggled. I was like, okay, make sure that you asked him how
to say his last name properly galoopy. But then, like I'm I'm kind
of insane. I had to fightthe urge of saying Francis like pee wee
(49:59):
herman, big advent, Sure thisFrancis. But I was like, first
of all, he's probably heard thatfive million times in his life, and
second of all, not very professional. And you call me Francis one more
time and I'll kill you. Youknow I've heard that my entire life.
Dude. Yeah, okay, Wellso I fucked up the last name and
I should have utilized the facists fromtotally okay, totally okay, man,
(50:23):
I get in every interview, Ohmy god, you know what, get
the news. Get the news,all right, brother, I anytime,
anytime. I'm very appreciative. There, cool, Thank you so much.
Man, have a great day.Hey you brother, All right, cool
man, see it all right,we are going to get Francis out of
(50:44):
here. Holy shit, Holy shit, gang. Now, you know,
there's just sometimes, you know,there's just sometimes you know right off the
jump that it was gonna be infact, and he doesn't know this,
but in fact, he really hereally got me, just really frazzled in
(51:06):
the beginning because he was so coolbefore we started to roll the mic.
And then I had I do thisthing where like I flip the switch.
I'm like, all right, thisis gonna be a cool interview or whatever,
and then I start getting excited.And then when I start getting excited,
I start making mistakes. So listento the intro, which is where
I'm just like, oh, he'sgonna be a cool interview. And then
once we get into it, Icalmed the fuck down a little bit.
(51:29):
But now that I have been callinghim by the wrong fucking name the entire
fucking episode, God damn it.Galoopy Francis GALOOPI all right, so we
got the Last Stop in Uma,the Last Stop in Youma County in select
theaters. Now you can also streamit at Fandango at home. Right now,
(51:50):
Well, Go USA presents the LastStop in Uma County. Francis Is
a good Egg. Next time,Francis, they'll be that guy. Just
correct me. It's all right.The last stop in you Ma County well
Go USA presents out now, noexcuses. Gang Elli Cinema were gone
Recording in progress. All right,Ellis Sendema back another dish? How are
(00:42):
we doing out there? Good?Great, gray yand Ayyan wonderful as you
see on your screen your dial.However you're choosing to join us today,
I know the cast and crew appreciatesyou. Well, Go USA, Well,
Go USA presents the Last Stop inYuma County, the Last Stop in
Unconty, playing in select theaters allacross the US right now. Or if
(01:03):
you're you know, don't like todo the whole communal experience, even though
that upsets me. If you're alistener of the show, you know,
I want you to go out tothe theater. If you can't go to
the theater, if it's not aroundyou. It's also streaming on Fandango at
home right now in the Blu raysare on are available for pre order on
Amazon, Amazon right now, rightnow. This is why I don't edit
(01:25):
Gang. They need to see allmy perfections. But please go out to
the theater if it's close to you. If it was just out of my
driving ranges about six and a half. Otherwise I would have made the trip
because I was bummed that I didn'tget to experience this in the theater,
So for fuck's sake, go outsupport the theater. So what is last
stop? In you m a county? While awaiting the next field truck at
(01:49):
the middle of a middle of nowhereArizona rest stop, a traveling young knife
salesman is thrust into a high stakeshostage situation by the arrival of two stranded
bankrupts with no qualms about using crueltyor cold hard steel to protect their blood
stained, ill begotten fortune. Andthat is the fucking truth. Holy Richard
(02:09):
Brake and Nicholas Logan. This filmstars Jim Cummings, Jocelyn Donahue, Richard
Brake, Nicholas Logan, fi IsOn Love, Michael Abbot, Junior Sierra
McCormick, Ryan Mason, Jeane Jones, who I thought lost everything on a
coin toss apparently not. Robin Bartlett, John Proud, Star, Alexandra s
So, Sam Huntington, Barbara CramptonThe Resurgence of Barbara Crampton. I watched
(02:30):
two films in the last week anda half with her and Connor Paolo.
From the crew side of things,we have a production designed by Charlie Texter,
art, direction by Adam Goschow,music by Matthew Compton, which I
thought just added another layer to thisfilm. What else we got here?
Just when you have someone dueling asa cinematographer and a colorless colorist. I
(02:54):
don't think you know what kind ofdividends that pays Gang, but scoring the
hat trick at the end of theday. We h There's an editor,
writer, director, Francis Galuppi,And as most of you know, I
can't stand doing the show unless Ihave someone to talk to, or until
this show gives me dental Anyway,today I shan't be doing this alone.
(03:16):
Joining the Ellisinema podcast for the veryfirst time. Francis Galuppi, writer,
director, editor, How are youthere? Hey, how's it going?
Man? Thank you for having me. Thank you for you know, mentioning
the a lot of the crew andcass that's awesome, and for telling your
(03:37):
listeners to go watch it in atheater. That means a lot, man.
I mean, I think far toooften we get drawn to the stars
in the film, right, butpeople don't understand just how much goes in
on the backside of things. LikeI told you before we started rolling,
we got a lot of aspiring filmmakersthat listen to this show, and I
think as good as the cast is, the crew is is meeting their level
(04:00):
of execution on this and I justdidn't want that to go unnoticed. But
before we get started with the LastStop in You mccounty, I just wanted
to ask you, how are youjust you the person? Francis Well,
I'm doing great. I'm very tired, but it's all really great man.
You know I all the things thatcame out of making this movie were just
(04:25):
so unexpected. You know, Ididn't really think any of this, any
one of these things was going tohappen. I just kind of set out
to make a movie with my friendsand then you know, didn't really think
about like is it going to getgood reviews? Is it going to set
me up for the next thing?And like, you know, it's just
(04:46):
it's done amazing things and today it'sbeen so today it comes out today.
So you know, I started writingthis script four and a half years ago
when my wife was pregnant with ourdaughter, and now two kids later,
it's finally out. You know,it's been four and a half years of
my life of like every day isthe last stop in You the County.
(05:08):
I'm doing something with the movie.Right, Like my daughter's first words are
like, man in my county.Like it's like it has been the longest
fucking journey, and so it's areally good feeling to have it just be
out in the world. You know. Well, then I do apologize because
(05:29):
I'm sure at this point you're like, all right, four and a half
years, I like, yeah,I know it was good. I know
it is good. Let's put thisbehind me. It's time to like move
on to another thing. Well,that's the weird thing, right, It's
like it's that's sort of making films. It's like you're constantly kind of going
back and forth between solidarity and thenlike complete chaos. So it's like you're
write and you're in you're just likeby yourself in your office, like kind
(05:54):
of prisoner to your own thoughts.And then like you get the movie made
and then all of a sudden youhave to be like a business guy,
Right, I got the money inhere, and it's this just chaotic thing,
and then you get to like dothe creative thing and like have those
conversations with your hods and actors andlike that's you know, a real treat.
And then and then you're back intosolidarity and and you're editing the thing
every day by yourself, prisoner toyour own thoughts, and then like and
(06:17):
then you do this, and thenyou have to talk about the movie and
like constantly and now, so I'mvery much every time I'm in that position,
like whatever position it is, I'mvery much looking forward to the next
stage. Like if I spend toomuch time by myself, I'm like,
I really need to talk to people, you know what I mean. And
right now I'm like, I justwant to go in the hole and start
(06:42):
writing. So it's very much whereI'm at right now. But it's also
I need to like really kind oftake like a breath and just feel like
this is incredible everything that's happening,and I kind of need to soak it
in and then get in my fuckinghole just right. Well, so let's
kind of talk about that whole becauseI was reading some of the press release
(07:03):
I tried so I went into thismovie. Something you should know about me,
Francis, I do not watch trailersto movies. I will get if
I'm in the movie theater and atrailer to a movie that I know I'm
going to see starts to play,I walk out that motherfucker and I just
come back in. So I knewnothing going into it. So when I
read some of the notes afterwards,I actually I found this The story of
(07:28):
how this script came to be,or at least where the idea came to
be pretty interesting, And like Isaid, the aspiring filmmakers, I was
just curious if you could share kindof when that idea popped in your head,
because I thought it was pretty sweet. Was it about touring like in
bands? And yes, that wasthe Yeah. Yeah, So like you
know, if you if you don'tmind, I'll just kind of go.
(07:49):
I mean, this whole journey ofgetting this movie made is pretty fucking insane,
and especially like if your listeners areaspiring filmmakers, you know, I
feel sort of like an obligation toshare this story to you know, give
some inspiration, you know. Soyeah, I my background is music.
(08:11):
I have always been obsessed with film, but I kind of started playing drums
at a really early age and thatwas my whole life. That's all I
knew. Was like I bought avan when I turned eighteen, I fucking
hit the road and toured and shittypunk bands, and that was that was
my life. You know. Iwas always obsessed with movies, but it
always seemed very, very unobtainable,Like it was just like, how do
(08:33):
you even break into this? AndI broke my wrist when I was like
twenty eight years old and couldn't playdrums. I was in a cast for
like six months, and so Ipicked up a T t I and I
came in TI and I made ashort film around the house with my wife
and I just didn't know what wewere doing, kind of learning stuff on
YouTube, didn't even have a story. It was kind of just like,
oh, this is a cool shot. That's a cool shot. And then
(08:54):
eventually pieced it together and made itshort. And then at that point I
was like, I think this iswhat I want to do. I think
I have to do this. Andit was a weird kind of I mean,
you're like almost thirty years old,you've been doing music your whole life,
and then telling your you know,your partner, like I think I
want to be a director. Shewas like, what the fuck are you
(09:16):
talking about? So so yeah,I kind of just like got so from
there, I started writing scripts basedon locations that we had free access to
because we had the money. SoI was just like I would get my
friends together for the first one wedid and it was like, no,
we knew what they were doing.We just went out to the desert and
(09:37):
I was like, Scott, you'regonna be our ac and Gabe you're going
to be a grip And they werelike, what the fuck is that?
And I'm like watch these YouTube videos. And we went out to the desert
and we just figured it out andwe made the short film. Luckily,
like and it's another side story,but I kind of like haphazardlif found my
cinematographer Mac Fiskin, who has shoteverything I've done, and he was there.
(09:58):
He showed up and like realized nobodyknew what they were doing, so
he kind of like shepherded the wholething and like was like, uh,
this is how you do this,and so you do that. But anyway,
we did this short film and thenlike I did another short film called
the Gemini Project because my buddy hada cabin up in Oregon and got in
the tour van all you know,got packed it full of my buddies and
(10:18):
went out and really good by theway, I ended up watching that after
I got done with Last Stop andreally good, just wanted to say that,
oh cool, thanks man. Itwas funny at the time when I
made it, like you know,it was like during COVID or I was
right before we released it during COVIDand was just like, what the fuck
is this? Man? This isweird, Like nobody really got it.
(10:41):
And I was like, all right, well that was kind of a waste,
but I like it and uh butanyway, So my first short film,
how does Her Hell, went toa festival in Cincinnati and I flew
out there. It screened it's likeeight am at the first screen of the
day after the opening night party,and nobody showed up. Was like,
I wasted my money. But therewas this guy, James Place. I
(11:03):
know, I've talked about this alot, but like I think it's you
know, it's important to know.But so he saw the short and was
like, yo, I'll give youfifty grand for whatever you do next.
And I was like that's insane,Like I can make three movies for that.
Like literally, that's what I thought, you know, because I'm doing
the math with my short films.I'm like, all right, one thousand
dollars. I got twenty two minutesof screen time, you know what I
(11:26):
mean. Like, so I kindof did what I was comfortable with or
what I knew, which was Ifound the location for races in Palmdale,
and I went there and took abunch of pictures and drew an overhead and
then wrote a script specifically for thislocation. They're going back to what you
were saying about like what the catalystwas for that. I mean, really
(11:46):
it was the location first and foremost, because it was like I sort of
always gravitate towards period pieces because cellphone suck, and I saw this place
and I was like, cool,like this is I can I can craft
a story here. And I thinkthe catalyst for the story was I spent,
like I said I had mentioned,I spent a lot of time touring.
(12:07):
I would find myself like in themiddle of nowhere at these roadside diners,
and like you walk in and you'reit's fish out of water experience.
Everyone's looking at you like, uh, you don't belong here, you know,
and like especially when you're playing inpunk bands right like and so you
know, I just kind of Ijust remember that feeling and it was like,
(12:30):
oh, like does everyone here knowsomething? And like I'm late to
the party, and it really stuckwith me. So I think that was
like the catalyst. But anyway,so I wrote this script and I was
gonna make it for read like amicro budget version, and what I ended
up optioning the script to a companythat like was like, we're going to
(12:52):
make it for like five to sixmillion dollars and I was like, oh
my god, that's insane. Wheredo I sign? And so I optioned
the script and it was a shitshow. It was like it was the
name game of like, oh,we're going to get so and so and
this person and that, you know, and that's the only way we can
try to finance it, and likethey didn't really care about the story.
It was just like get a nameand we'll finance it. And like that's
(13:15):
was really disheartening. And on topof that, we just weren't having any
luck. Nobody wanted to sign onto a first time, you know,
the first time feature filmmaker, Likethat was just not happening. So as
soon as the option expired, Ipulled it and I was like, you
know what, fuck this, I'mjust I'd rather make this movie with my
friends like I've always done. SoI just started pretending like we had money
(13:37):
essentially, you know, like Iused shot designer for every single shot.
We just meticulously planned every single day. My cinematographer and I. I wrote
letters to this cast, like nobodyauditioned. It was all just personal letters
seeing how big of a fan Iwas and how I wrote this part for
them and blah blah blah, gotit. D's on board. You know,
(14:01):
people that I that I talked tothat were there for the right reasons.
They weren't there for a paycheck.They were there because they believed in
the story. And we basically wereready to go. It was like fucking
tell me when, and like,I'll but we didn't have any money.
So the guy who put in thedevelopment money, he had been messing around
with me for a few weeks,just saying like, oh fuck it,
(14:24):
dude, I'm just gonna sell myhouse and finance the whole thing. And
I was like, that's crazy,don't do that. You know, we'll
figure this out. And then Istarted thinking like maybe we won't. Maybe
nobody's gonna want to fucking finance thismovie. So I I said, hey,
I don't know if you're serious ornot, but if you are,
like, this is what it means. We can kind of nobody's going to
be telling us how to make thismovie. And he did. He sold
(14:46):
his house and I say that,yeah, and that's how really that Yeah,
So it was like as independent asyou get. And I and I
tell that story not to say,hey, find somebody who's gonna sell their
fucking house. Like that's it's notgonna happen, right, it's like one
in a billion. But like Ithink a lot of people just wait for
(15:07):
permission. And what when things reallystarted happening was when I just said,
fuck it, I'm just gonna startmaking a thing. Like because you're it's
independent film, you're not gonna getpaid to prep right, like and like
you you need to be committed todo that kind of stuff because you want
to, not because somebody's paying you. So like, just start making your
(15:28):
movie. Start shot listening sharp,start scouting, start like reaching out to
actors, start talking to like youknow, your hods. Put this thing
together. That shit doesn't cost money, you know, like maybe a cooler
and filled with some water bottles andlike that's it, you know, in
some gas like that's all it takesin your time, you know, and
(15:50):
thank god we did that because wedidn't have any time or money to make
this thing. So all that prepjust helped things move so much quicker.
Like, yeah, I've been showingthis thing off. I know its video,
so I can kind of show itoff. But like this is sort
of like the prep that we mycetatographer and I did. We use shot
designers, so like it's just everysingle shot is meticulously planned right, and
(16:14):
it's like that makes things move.But we couldn't have done this movie in
twenty days if we didn't do that, you know, and you're never going
to get that much time to prep. So if you're like, oh man,
things are taking forever, this movie'snever gonna get it, we'll start
prepping, start doing things because it'sa lot easier to convince somebody to finance
your movie if you're already making themovie, right then people are like those
(16:37):
financiers are going to be like,I want to be a part of this.
This looks fun, it looks likeit's already a thing. But if
you're just like I don't know,man, like scripts, like I'll start
working when you pay me, Likegood luck. You know. I hope
you hear this, man. Ihope my audience, I hope you hear
this. Man. Sometimes go outand utilize the free stuff. Do you
hear what I'm saying? Just poundthe pavement for a little bit and you
(17:00):
don't know what's going to become ofit. Sorry, sometimes no, nor
I get on my soapbox too,man, because I'm passionate about it,
you know, and I like,I think, I think where you are
deprived of like good more independent cinema, and I think, like we need
to take those risks. You know. It's like nobody was going to finance
(17:22):
this movie if James didn't do whathe did. It's a period piece,
you know, like nobody. There'sso many times there's just like, you
know, this industry has a specificmandate and if it doesn't check those boxes,
it's just like a no. Andthat really sucks, dude. You
know, it's not like it usedto be so. But if you can
get people excited by starting to makeyour movie and like you said, just
(17:45):
you know, hit the payment,it's like you're gonna have a better shot.
Damn. I love that story.I really you're just kind of sitting
there, You're at a diner andyou're like, it's every way fucking are
they looking at me? No?Fuck? You know, would be a
good idea something that you having themusical background, and I'm going to kind
(18:07):
of rearrange some of the questions thatI had here because you tackled a couple
of them. But the score.So you being you know, coming from
a music background, how does thathow does that relationship with Matthew Matthew Compton
work? Are are you letting himgo? Or because you know you are
so in tuned, you know,you've done music until you said, what
(18:30):
twenty eight and then you kind ofpivoted like, I'm like technically still in
a band right now. But soit's like you're still in a band.
Like I'm interested. How does thatprocess look when you're sitting down with a
composer. Yeah, So, Imean I've scored all my shorts and I
was planning on scoring this one,and then my son was born and I
(18:53):
was like, okay, I needto spend time with the family. I
need to find a composer. SoI I forgot who I told this to,
Maybe it was Jim. I wasjust like, you know, it's
kind of unheard of to have,especially like you know, sort of well
known composers demo for like a firsttime filmmaker. But I was like,
(19:15):
fuck it, maybe if I justlike reach out and write a letter or
something and be like, hey,look, this is my baby, Like
I like, I'm a composer myself. Like it's hard to pick somebody,
right, can you just so what? I ended up having like eight different
composers demo two scenes in the movie. One of the scenes is a spoiler
and the other is the scene ofJim doing the whole nice sales pitch to
(19:37):
Jocelyn. And I heard Matthew MatthewCompton demo for it, and it was
just like immediately he understood that,he understood where to let the comedy breathe.
And he's a comedy guy, likehe did Palm Springs, he did
mcgruber like, but he's also likeit just he just nailed it. So
I mean, you can, youknow, I asked matt I'm pretty I
(20:00):
was very hands off with him.Like everything he sent me, it was
just like, this is fucking great, this is perfectly you know, like
keep going, my dude. Andthen you know, obviously at the end,
we sat down like we fine tunelittle things or I was like,
oh, can you like stretch thisor whatever? You know, But no,
dude, that's all Matt, LikeMatt fucking as the as the homies
call him Cornbread. He just he'she killed it, dude. He's so
(20:23):
damn talented, and I hope heis. I hope he wants to,
dude score all my movies because he'sincredible. And he's also a drummer,
so we speak like the same sortof language. You know, any drummers
out there know exactly what I'm talkingabout, well, and I got it.
I think it also pays dividends interms of beats for the story not
(20:45):
to get cliche and you know,top forty hits. But being able to
he doesn't you you don't need,like you said, you can kind of
be hands off because he's already theway that you're writing the script, which
probably subconsciously there's you know, there'smusic coursing through your veins, you know,
right, and that script and thatdude, that probably makes it so
much easier for you to, youknow, kind of just relax a little
(21:07):
bit. But yeah, I gotthe fact that you mentioned the whole comedy
once I saw he did Pop Star, Never Stop Popping and Palm Springs mcgruber
and I'm just sitting here going Idon't want to say it's a complete deviation
from what he's because, like yousaid, he does hit those moments of
comedy really well. But I alsothought he does a goddamn good job of
(21:29):
building tension as well. Totally.Yeah, now, he absolutely nailed it.
It's funny, you know. PalmSprings was also shot at four Aces
where we shot, and I wasin the studio like when we were kind
of wrapping things up, and hewas like, man, I'm pretty sure
I ate out the Steiner before AndI was like, no, you've scored
a movie that was shot at thisthing before. But yeah, dude,
(21:53):
he I don't know. I can'tsay I have great things about Matt Compton.
He's he's incredibly talented, and uhyeah, there was one other thing
I was gonna mention about him.Oh the knife sales. I don't know
if you heard that. Did youwatch the credits at the end, Yes,
yes, I did so. TheOdachi knife had I wrote Originally I
really wanted to like film an infomercialand I had a particular actor in mine.
(22:18):
I was like, oh, wegotta god to him, it'd be
so great this post credit sequence.And then we just didn't have money.
So I wrote the copy. Isent it to Matt and he totally got
it, like right away. That'sthe thing. It's like he just I
didn't have to explain anything. Ijust did a little voice memo, and
then like maybe a couple hours later, he sent me exactly what you hear
in the movie, and that's hisvoice pitched down, and it's just like
(22:41):
I was like, yeah, done, it's in the movie. Like he's
fantastic. Yeah, all right,Let's let's talk a little bit about the
look of the film. I thoughtit again, top notch, like it
is razor sharp. The look ofthis film. I thought Mac killed it
(23:02):
from almost even even the choice ofsome of the shots for particular instances.
Again no spoilers here, but Ithought that we did a lot of things
that we were familiar with, butit was different, Like this whole movie
kind of feels that way to me, where it's like, ah, I
kinda and I'm gonna blow smoke upyour ass once we get at the end
(23:22):
here. But I'll just say thatthere was moments where I'm like, this
is elevated, Like this is likethey took like what we may see in
say, you know, the lastten fifteen years of film, but we
tweaked it just enough to make itpitch perfect. Like I don't want to
go shot for shot, but Iguess I kind of want to know again
kind of the partnership with Matthew,how does that look? And you already
(23:44):
kind of touched on it in termsof, you know, the constant pre
planning, And that was one ofmy questions, like are you kind of
because I know when I'm writing ascript, like I'm nauseating with my storyboards,
man, Like I just I kindof go along and it's all done
in advance. And you know,for those of you listening, I hope
you understood what he was saying aboutthe whole pre planning thing. You don't
(24:06):
have a whole lot of time tobe fucking around on set once you get
everybody involved, So I guess,you know, what does that look?
What does that relationship look like withyou? Like, because you know you're
kind of coming in to the filmworld and he's tried and true. How
does that look? Yeah, soI'll answer that in the question like two
(24:30):
parts, one talking about the likethe actual shots, and then I'll try
to talk about the nerdy shit withlike lighting and everything. But so how
what I typically do is all allshotless the whole movie. And then I
translate my shotless into shot designer.And then Mac and I will get on
a zoom and we will talk aboutthere's like at least seventy scenes or something
(24:51):
we broke it out into and wewill spend every single day talking about one
scene and we'll talk about one shotfor hours. Like he is that level,
like I'm neurotic and fucking crazy,and he like is on board for
it, like he's down to putthe time in. So and then once
we get through the entire movie,we go back to the very beginning we
(25:11):
start over again. Because by thetime you get to the end, you've
created like your visual language, right, and then you get to the beginning
again, you're like, oh,that doesn't fit and the thing that we've
made, you know, you sortof just like slowly start to understand what
the visual language is. Like youset rules and you're like, oh,
we're not gonna do steady cam inside, and you set all these bullshit rules
right, which is always helpful,but like it it's crazy that when you
(25:34):
get to the end and you goback to the beginning, like you slowly
start to see through every scene howit evolved. So we do that and
I will continue to do that onevery project, and yeah, a lot
of the times, you know,it's like I really love committing to those
(25:55):
like two shots and winners and findingintricate ways to like tell a story.
There's you know, I'm always thinkingabout, well, if if we turn
off the audio and the audience waswatching the scene, what emotion does it
evoke? And if like that's That'swhere I'm always coming from, is like,
of course, what is the optimalway to build tension? And that's
like, well, just watch Hitchcock. But you want to, like if
(26:18):
you want to convey an emotion,like there's a thousand there's a thousand different
places to put in the camera.But like I always think, yeah,
you turn off the audio, where'sthe camera need to be to tell this
story with no audio? And Ithink about that a lot. And then
in terms of like the technical sideto this, like we use shot designer
or sorry shot what is it calledshot deck and where it is like a
(26:44):
bunch of screen grabs from movies andwe will create a deck and we'll talk
about like, you know, theratio of shadows side and this, and
then we watch a bunch of moviesand like we just have really long conversations
about what the lighting is and whatwe're going for. And then we got
lucky because we borrowed this camera fromthis camera package from my friend Chris,
so we got to go out tothe location and shoot stuff, test out
(27:06):
different filters, create a lot thatwe used on set. So every time
we were looking at dailies, itwas like, you know, we were
looking at something that was like percentcolored and making adjustments and uh, we
got to shoot on these these lenses. They're they're basically the first iteration of
(27:29):
the super speeds. They're called bspeeds. They shot Taxi Driver on them
and it's really cool, like theyhave triangular boca and they have just a
lot of character. So that wasfun. And then you know, I
like, as much as I lovethe look of film, it's such a
I'm gonna get fucking, you know, ridiculed for this, but it's such
a pain in the ass to workwith especially when you don't have a lot
(27:52):
of money, you know what Imean. And one day I'd love to
shoot on film, but it's justnot worth it right now when you're dealing
with like when you have a limitedtime, limited money, and there's tools
out there now that like you canemulate film almost almost seamlessly. I should,
dare I say? And you know, it's been crazy hate mail from
(28:15):
cinophiles filling up right now. Thismotherfucker whatever, dude. I mean,
like I've it's crazy when you talkto people and they're like, oh,
yeah, I spent like thirty thousanddollars on a short film because we shot
on film. Like what that's crazy, dude? Uh, Like I get
it, Like I love film isdope. I hope it never like we're
(28:37):
always using film, but like I'mnot Christopher Nolan, you know, like
I don't have that type of money, and like I honestly do. I've
had a lot of friends that likelove they are very much film officionados,
and they've watched Last Up and theywere like, oh, would stock the
way would you shoot on your shoton film? And I'm like, it's
(29:00):
all digital, dude, you know, we just you you know, the
elation and the gate weave and thegrain and this and that, and like
you get to a place that's prettyfucking convincing, you know. Man,
I was about ready to say ittoo, but I try so hard to
refrain from top forty comments. Ireally wasn'tna Like I'm telling you what,
man, it looks like you shotit. Ah, but I hate like
cause like I don't know if youyou spend enough time around that, you
(29:22):
know, right, but like Idon't know, Like to me, why
don't we switch the narrative. Lookat how fucking good the execution was digitally,
like instead of it like being oh, well, you didn't shout this
on film, No, Like Ishot it digitally and this is still what
it looked like. This is stillwhat you can achieve, Like yeah,
just and look and we shot Imean, the hill that I really was
(29:44):
gonna die on was like we shoteverything practical, like all the all the
V effect stuff, like you know, it was all squibs, like we
blew that fucking tankrupt but the end, like you know, everything was practical,
dude, even the TV when they'rewatching their rifle. Man, like
that was practical. And that's noteasy it was like it took a whole
room of equipment to get like youknow, the frame rate right right and
(30:04):
all that stuff. But I meanthere was like eighty three the effect shots,
I think, but it was alljust removal. Like there was a
giant warehouse outside of the diner thatyou know, we had to take out
of every single exterior shot. Shewas a fucking nightmare. But yeah,
man, I mean I don't wantto go out in here and say like
(30:25):
I don't love of course I lovefilm, of course I do. Of
course I would love to shoot onfilm, which is like we don't have
the team and like the fucking manpowerto do that. And you like,
I know there's a lot of peoplethat are like, oh, but when
you're shooting on film, like thingsmove so much quicker, And I actually
agree with that to a point,Like I've you know, I've aded a
lot of stuff that there's like musicvideos that we've shot on film, and
(30:48):
like there is something where it's like, yeah, when that fucking thing's rolling,
dude, you go you don't fuckaround, you know, And I
totally get that, but yeah,this was such a like quick shoot.
It's just may I may I bepetty but endearing for one moment, go
for it. If you would haveused CG for keep it spoiler free for
(31:15):
the violence in this yeah, yeah, I would have canceled the interview.
I'm not I'm not. I'm noteven kidding you, Like it has gotten
to the point now and I'm notgoing to name any names. I tried
to be is use the least amountof negativity as possible. But I'll just
say, very recently I have seenmaybe you'll know what I'm talking about.
Maybe you won't, but between CGbloodholes, I'm out, like it takes
(31:37):
me out of the movie. ButI just saw film recently. Maybe you
have seen the same one too,where we are now doing CG hand to
hand combat and combat and we're nottalking about Marvel movies and bro. When
I saw that, I just waslike, what are we doing, dude?
Like what? Yeah, you know, I talk about film and stuff
that like, and that's it's like, Oh, it's getting in a place
(31:59):
where it's really good. It's Vincent'sCG. No, like unless you're doing
Plant of the Apes or some shit, you know, like like that works
right, but no, dude,Like squibs exist and they look fucking awesome
and like, you know, they'recheaper to do squibs and like get it
right in post. And that wasreally the hill that I was gonna die
(32:19):
on, dude. Like I therewas many times where I was just like,
no, you're wrong, it's gottabe we are doing everything practical,
and like you know, and wedid everything's We used blanks for all the
guns too, and like this waspost RUSS, so it was you know,
it was it was weird. Butlike also we were a libit production.
(32:42):
Like nobody we didn't rush anything.Like we were very very safe about
everything. You know, I wantedeveryone to feel safe and and and so
we really took our time and allocatedthe time during the day to make sure
anytime there was a blank being fired. It was like we took our fucking
time and and and I mean,honestly, that's one thing that I will
(33:02):
say. I I totally agree withUH having everything practical. I do think
though there's really not a difference betweena CG muzzle flash and a real muscle
flash. I think they look prettymuch identical. The only time you missed
the mark is when people forget tolike add like the highlight on the actual
(33:23):
gun which happens. You know.The biggest thing is for me is just
performance, Like it's just performance,you know, the actor really you really
feel it, you know. Butsometimes actually a lot of the times,
I mean, have you shot,have you used blanks onset before? I
have not, But I do haveone rule, keep it dark, keep
(33:44):
it quick if you're going to dothe c Yeah, but a muscle flash
looks perfect, like it's it's it'sone frame. It's one fucking frame.
There's no difference whatsoever. And thecrazy thing about is when you use blanks,
half the time you're missing it becauseit happens in between the twenty four
frames, so that we'll be like, oh my god, it was a
great muscle flash, and then youwatch playback and you're like, it's not
(34:06):
there. And that happened a lot. So for me, yeah, I
mean, look, it's a lotsafer to do CG muzzle flashes, but
for me, it's just the performanceis better. Man. I had a
feeling that you were going to bea good egg. And I still have
so many questions for you, butI know im no, no, no,
(34:28):
no, I got time. I'mall right. All right, Hey
Sam, you heard it. Iknow you're I know you're there, You're
you're lurking there, Sam, I'mjust playing with you, so wing and
and here's the thing, I won'tkeep you much longer than the allotted times.
But there was all right cool characteractors. Yes, somehow we're able
(34:51):
to get what I would consider ablend of new faces kind of. I
don't want to say all of themare leading the charge into new new ways
character actors. But what I thinkI was just shocked and loved and all
all these positive emotions that you somehowgot the new wave and a couple old
wave legends. I mean between Geneand Richard, you know, like who
(35:15):
are about his character actor? AndI might I don't want to say,
I don't want to put this asscripture, but Richard Brake in terms of
acting and spectrum, may have myfavorite moment in this film. And I
can say it to you because it'snot gonna mean shot. Yes, yeah,
Like it came like like I'm sittingthere, like I'm in, like
(35:37):
right, I'm leaning, I'm leaningin listening to him, and then he
says that, my god, damnit, all right, it's all one
shot too. Man. That wasa fucking pain and asked, yeah,
I've ever assume we're doing that shot. He we didn't want to take any
(35:58):
his friend, You're you're not gonnabe on for all that juicy stuff.
And I was like, no,no, no, this when you're saying
all that, it's like it's kindof about Charlotte and and he goes,
ah, you fucking cunt, andthen he was so mad. And then
after he watched the Daily was like, A, you were right, you
were all right. But honestly,rich is like the sweetest guy ever,
(36:19):
and he is just so damn professionaland so good and like, yeah,
he scared the shit out of usduring that take, Like I didn't know
he was going to go that,and I was, oh Jesus Christ,
like well, I looked around andeverybody jumped, and he was actually the
first person to sign on, youknow. I yeah, So I might
(36:39):
have skipped over that when I wastelling you the whole story, but I
you know, when James gave thedevelopment money, he had a loose connection
with Richard Brake because he's like buddieswith Rob Zombie and I had known rich
and and so I wrote Bow withrich in mind, thinking like, oh,
you know, that's how actually couldmaybe happen because we have that connection
(37:01):
there, and he did. Heread it and he called me and was
like, I'm in and we talkedfor hours, and every like every couple
months or every few months, heI would just call him and be like,
oh, this is where we're at. I mean that went on to
like three years, like and everytime he was like, I'm in,
I'm game, just like whatever itis, tell me when I'll be there,
(37:23):
and he was. He stuck tohis word, and I'm so so
thankful that he did, because like, really he is. He's such a
crucial part of this movie. Iam going to ruffle some feathers here because
I like ruffling the Hohore crowds feathersbecause I think they're very toxic. This
(37:43):
may be Richard's one of my favoriteroles of his and arguably his most polished,
and it happened in your film,and I just I need that.
I need the record to show.I think I think rich himself would agree
with you. Okay, yeah,Savior DMS, Yeah, I mean ask
(38:04):
him, but I mean he's toldme so, so like you know,
uh, yeah, we were richand I had a really cool thing to
happen. When I spoke to himyears ago, four years ago, now,
like we had, I had thiswhole backstory about Bo being like this
blue collared worker and like in overhis head and blah blah blah. You
know, I didn't want Rich.I wanted Rich to like have do something
(38:27):
else besides like what we've seen Richdo so so cool. So that was
sort of the idea we talked about. And then once we were actually making
the thing, we did at tableread and he was in the UK,
so he wasn't there. But theone thing I learned from that tailor Read
(38:49):
is like I got home and Iwas like, this doesn't work with that.
I write backstories for everybody. Iwrote bios for all the actors,
and I was like, that doesn'twork. He needs to be fucking terrifying.
He needs to be like calm,collected terrifying. And anyway, so
I texted him and I was like, Rich, I need to talk to
you about something. Do you havetime to chu up on a call?
Today? Said now, I needto talk to you about something. I
(39:09):
was like, oh fuck, Likeyeah, so we call. He's like,
you go go first, you gofirst, and I was like,
look, man, and I justtold him. I was like, I
think you need to be terrifying.Blah bla blah, I'm so sorry.
I thought he was gonna be like, ah, I've done that before and
blah blah. You know, andhe was like, mate, I had
(39:29):
the same exact thought. You andI are on the same wavelength. And
from that point on there was justthis level of trust, like we were
sort of just really really in sync. So, like, I think,
I don't know if that wouldn't havehappened. I don't know if he would
have trusted me enough to like gothis as like as mellow as he did
(39:50):
in this role. You know,I think he was a little nervous about
going, like, you know,underplaying it. I know. I mean
too, man, I think hehe's phenomenal. Every time I see him
in this movie, I'm just likeJesus christ Man. He's a powerhouse.
But yeah, anyway, so Ijust had such a great collaboration with Rich
and I really hope to work athim again. He's incredible. Well,
(40:15):
and you got you also have Jimin this which shit, I even screamed.
I rented out a vintage theater.I'm in Toledo. Toledo, Ohio,
rented out a vintage theater showed TheWolf of Snow Hollow because I thought
it was such a really inresting Peace. And now I'm seeing him pop up
more and more. And I havebeen thinking that for years now. You
(40:37):
know what I'm saying, like,why aren't we seeing more of Jim or
even Jocelyn. You know, Ijust reviewed a movie with Nicholas Red right
hand from the Nelms brother. Ijust talked about like these people that are
now kind of coming to the forefront, and I'm here to see it.
Yeah. Man, I saw NickLogan and I care a lot. And
(40:59):
I think when I was writing thescript for Last Time, and I had
never seen Nick before, and Iremember I remember turning to my wife and
I was like, holy shit,that's that's Travis. And it's funny.
He just was over for dinner theother night and he pulled out or he
found the letter that I sent him, and it was it was just that
I was like, hey, man, like I saw you, and I
care a lot. Like I wrotethe script, I think he'd be perfect
(41:21):
for this character. And it wasreally funny because when we talked, we
talked for like guy like three hourson a zoom and he was just like,
look, dude, I'll be honest, man, I don't really like
this part. I've played this before. I'm not really into it, but
you seem cool enough. I'll doit whatever, dude, but I think
I'd rather play like whatever. Iforgot who he wanted to play. And
it was so fucking awesome because likethe last day he was like, Buddy,
(41:45):
like, I know, I remember, I know what I said about
not wanting to play this character,but I think it's my favorite character I've
ever played. And it was reallyartworming. And it's funny because Nick has
totally like adapted the character like intohis everyday life, like motherfucker where he
like crops all of his T shirtsand cuts off the sleeves. Now it's
(42:06):
just like his style and it is. I spent two weeks with them in
Spain for stitches, and like everyday he's just wearing like the fucking crop
top cutup. So he's the Yeah, he's one of my best friends.
Now he's awesome. I turned tomy chick and I was like, hey,
for my birthday, HiT's right aroundthe corner. If you could get
me a big Foot for President Tshirt. That would be fantastic. That's
(42:27):
actually James, the guy who financedthe movie. That's he owns a clothing
company and that was his shirt.And I wrote that into the script when
I was writing, because I waslike, oh, I've got I'm gonna
write a Boogeyman shirt into the script. This will get him super excited.
And now that the movie's out,I'm like, he's out. He doesn't
have any stock at that. I'mlike, James, make more boogie or
make more big Foot shirts. Peopleare gonna want it, you know.
(42:49):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm sure he'llprint some more. Yeah, So I
am gonna I am gonna buy bythe by the timeline. But I do
have some shit that I want totell you, So in closing, just
a couple of things, sir.One thing, I wanted to tell you
how appreciative I am for you takingthe time to come on this piece of
garbage show, especially the news thatI just read this week. You're about
(43:14):
to shoot into the stratosphere, myfriend. So the fact that you took
time to come on this show,I forever grateful, forever A fan,
Well, I was gonna be afan regardless after I saw the film.
But now in talking with you,definitely fan for life, Gonna follow you
anywhere you are, invited back wheneveryou want to come home the show Man,
(43:35):
I'd love to. Well, we'lltalk about we'll talk about Evil Dead.
I wasn't gonna say anything you didit. I was. I wasn't
gonna say a fucking word, dude, because like it's like, so I've
had a Cronenberg's son on before,and like I don't know, like going
into it, like I was justlike, I'm not mentioning his dad.
I'm not like, I'm not likeI'm not gonna really you know, like
(44:00):
like that just seems like a slapin the fucking face, which brings me
to my next point that I'm gonnatell you forgive me for blowing smoke,
but I have to. So whenI get done watching these films, then
that's when I start to do aliteral research read what people are saying about
it, and I gotta be honest, I'm annoyed, Francis. I'm annoyed
(44:20):
because I felt like there was severalof them. You know what, I
don't give a fuck. I'll throwthem to the wolves. Most notably variety.
And if I have to hear thefucking phrase tarantino esque one more time,
like I think I'm just gonna blowa fucking gasket. I'm gonna riot,
dude, because here's the thing Iunderstand, and this is no disrespect
(44:43):
to you. Like if you readany of those articles, there was like,
oh, it's Tarantino this blah blahblah, and you were like fuck
yeah, Like I'm glad, I'mglad for you. But again, it's
kind of like what I said earlierabout shifting the narrative, Like you want
to know what I thought when Igot done with this film. Then I
I read a couple of those reviews. I thought, this isn't tarantino esque,
(45:04):
this isn't Cohen Brothers. Ask ifyou your act too is most people's
act threes. This is galapiesque.And I think we need to start shifting
that focus and giving filmmakers as eliteas yourself. And yes, sir,
I don't give a fuck that thisis the first feature you're elite. Okay,
(45:27):
I watch a lot of shit.I know the goods when I see
the good and this is galapiesque,my friend. Now, thank you,
sir, I appreciate that. Man. I look, I am a big
fan of Tarantino. I'm a bigfan of Cohen Brothers, right, I
mean, what was that on theforefront of my mind when I was writing
the script. No, it wasn'tright like it was it was film noir
and it was Don Siegel and SamPeck and Bob. But look, these
(45:50):
are the movies that also inspired Tarantino, you know, And that's okay,
Like Tarantino was fucking never missed inmy opinion, He's a fantastic filmmaker.
Like, of course he's influenced me. Like I love movies. I watched
multiple movies a day, and itis just like inevitable that your influences are
(46:13):
going to sort of, you know, like bleed into your work at some
point, Like I've been rewant,Like I just rewatched Stanley Kubrick's The Killing
and the Ending with all the moneyflying around. I was like, oh
fuck, but did I Is thatwhere I got that? I don't know,
Like it definitely wasn't intentional, butlike you know, it all becomes
sort of like you kind of justinherently just sort of write your your favorite
(46:37):
things in your in your stories andand no, I don't take offense to
it at all. I think it'slike it's definitely praise and it's it's really
crazy. Like guys, I readthat Variety article yesterday and I was like,
holy shit, this is insane.But I thought we were Like my
fear of making when I was makingthis movie is like it's gonna have like
a fucking four percent on Rotten Tomatoes, you know what I mean, Like
(46:59):
that's your so all this like positivestuff has been really really well. But
I do I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate it, man,
I really do. Yeah. Imean even people that aren't sentophile. So
I always use my partner as anexample because she she doesn't like, let's
just be honest, she doesn't givea shit like she she'll watch them with
me and take part and you know, offer critiques here and there, but
(47:22):
at the end of the day,I kind of use her as kind of
like the masses. And as soonas the credits rolled, man, she
was like, well that was fuckingawesome, and like you know, and
like I'm sitting there still processing it, like oh my gosh, this was
this was good, this was good. This beat was great this and like
all I can tell you and believeme. I don't give a shit if
you believe me or not very rarelywhen credits rolled as you go, hey,
(47:45):
that was fucking awesome. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's true. That's
sort of my caliber of movies aswell with my wife, because she falls
asleep in every fucking movie, allright. If she if she just stays
awake for a movie, then I'mlike, okay, you know, like
I just watched the buddy of mine'smovie and like I text him, I
was like, I you got thehighest praise. My wife actually watched the
(48:08):
entire thing and didn't fall asleep,and that says a lot my dude,
and he was like, thank you. So yeah, I get it,
man, but no, thank you. That really I do believe you and
I appreciate it. Man. That'sreally really fucking cool. Good, thank
you, good, Thank you somuch for coming on, sir. I
(48:29):
am going to let you go andthen I'm gonna spend another two minutes just
retelling them where everything is. Butyou don't have to stick around for that.
Again, thank you so much.You are welcome on here anytime,
and it doesn't even need to bediscussed like I mean, of course I
want you to discuss your movies onhere, but if you just want to
fucking talk about Peck and Paw,let's hey, come on, let's let's
do it. Do it, let'sdo it. I'd love that. Man.
(48:50):
If you're on Instagram and stuff,hit me up and we'll keep the
conversation going. You got it.And in fact, to that point,
not that anybody cares about this.This will be up shortly, like I
said, nod and we're gonna havethis up on all the socials and I
will get at you on Instagram,sir. Thank you so much, Thank
you so much. Loopy. Yeah, yeah, thank you so much.
Man, oh Galoopy. So waita minute. You but let me say
it wrong the whole time, thewhole time, Francis, come on,
(49:16):
I just hate doing being that guy. Fuck sake, man. I was
so nervous at the beginning because Iwas like, oh no, I was
to trust me. It's I've gottenway worse, dude. I've gotten like
go out of loope like I've gottenI've gotten it all, man, It's
totally fine. I just had tothrow that in those like Kaloopy, Galoopy.
(49:37):
But no, yeah, at Francisgloopy. Dude, Seriously, it
looks like it's gluppy. My nameis spelt like it looks like gluppy.
So I totally get it. Here'sthe thing. Like, I was actually
struggled. I was like, okay, make sure that you asked him how
to say his last name properly galoopy. But then, like I'm I'm kind
of insane. I had to fightthe urge of saying Francis like pee wee
(49:59):
herman, big advent, Sure thisFrancis. But I was like, first
of all, he's probably heard thatfive million times in his life, and
second of all, not very professional. And you call me Francis one more
time and I'll kill you. Youknow I've heard that my entire life.
Dude. Yeah, okay, Wellso I fucked up the last name and
I should have utilized the facists fromtotally okay, totally okay, man,
(50:23):
I get in every interview, Ohmy god, you know what, get
the news. Get the news,all right, brother, I anytime,
anytime. I'm very appreciative. There, cool, Thank you so much.
Man, have a great day.Hey you brother, All right, cool
man, see it all right,we are going to get Francis out of
(50:44):
here. Holy shit, Holy shit, gang. Now, you know,
there's just sometimes, you know,there's just sometimes you know right off the
jump that it was gonna be infact, and he doesn't know this,
but in fact, he really hereally got me, just really frazzled in
(51:06):
the beginning because he was so coolbefore we started to roll the mic.
And then I had I do thisthing where like I flip the switch.
I'm like, all right, thisis gonna be a cool interview or whatever,
and then I start getting excited.And then when I start getting excited,
I start making mistakes. So listento the intro, which is where
I'm just like, oh, he'sgonna be a cool interview. And then
once we get into it, Icalmed the fuck down a little bit.
(51:29):
But now that I have been callinghim by the wrong fucking name the entire
fucking episode, God damn it.Galoopy Francis GALOOPI all right, so we
got the Last Stop in Uma,the Last Stop in Youma County in select
theaters. Now you can also streamit at Fandango at home. Right now,
(51:50):
Well, Go USA presents the LastStop in Uma County. Francis Is
a good Egg. Next time,Francis, they'll be that guy. Just
correct me. It's all right.The last stop in you Ma County well
Go USA presents out now, noexcuses. Gang Elli Cinema were gone
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