July 9, 2025 • 22 mins
Host Christian Toto welcomes indie filmmakers Max Tzannes and David San Miguel, the creative minds behind the new horror-comedy Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project. The duo dives deep into the chaotic and creative world of low-budget filmmaking, sharing behind-the-scenes stories, unexpected challenges, and how cutting corners on set often led to surprisingly better results. You'll hear about the genre-blending magic that combines laughs and frights, plus the surprising wisdom from a veteran co-star that helped elevate the final product.
With DNA rooted in the found-footage classic The Blair Witch Project, The Patterson Project delivers a fresh spin on the genre—equal parts spooky and side-splitting. Oh, and there's a Bigfoot lurking in the woods. If you love indie horror, mockumentary-style filmmaking, film industry insights, or just want to learn how a scrappy team brought a big idea to life, this episode is a can't-miss.
--------------------------
https://thepattersonproject.org
https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/found-footage-the-making-of-the-patterson-project
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
With DNA rooted in the found-footage classic The Blair Witch Project, The Patterson Project delivers a fresh spin on the genre—equal parts spooky and side-splitting. Oh, and there's a Bigfoot lurking in the woods. If you love indie horror, mockumentary-style filmmaking, film industry insights, or just want to learn how a scrappy team brought a big idea to life, this episode is a can't-miss.
--------------------------
https://thepattersonproject.org
https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/found-footage-the-making-of-the-patterson-project
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I hate found footage movies, hate them, and I don't
think I'm alone. You know, we got a glut of
found footage movies after the release of The blair Witch
Project in nineteen ninety nine. Movie was the sensation. It
changed the game. It caught everyone by surprise.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You guys say you know something about the Blair Witch, and.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
All of a sudden, we got a flood of found
footage horror movies and some other genres as well, but
mostly mostly horror, and some of them, a few of
them were actually pretty good. The Taking of Deborah Logan
comes to mind. Also Willow Creek from bobcat Goldwaight good
found footage movies. The rest mostly not so good. The
(00:41):
Paranormal Activity series had some moments as well, but generally speaking,
it was a gimmick that needed to go away, and
it mostly has, which is good because it's done. I mean,
at some point you just can't explain why these particular
characters are on screen. Keep holding those cameras, keep recording footage.
It just doesn't make any sense. Come on, put the
(01:01):
camera down. And you know, with horror films we can
suspend a lot of disbelief. You have to the horror
genre just demands it. But you know, it was a
bridge too far, so now they're mostly gone. But that
doesn't mean you should shy away from a new movie
called Found Footage, because actually you should lean into it.
The full title is Found Footage The Making of the
(01:22):
Patterson Project. It is a satire. It is a horror movie,
all blended together and quite well, I might add, Actually,
horror comedies are one of my favorite genres, and they're
really hard to get right. But this one does just
the trick. It follows a young, hungry filmmaker who decides
to make a found footage movie about Bigfoot. Doesn't have
a lot of budget, doesn't have a lot of resources. Hey,
(01:44):
I've got to get this movie made. Let's do it
the found footage way. And of course along the way,
the set well, there are some problems on the set,
not just the usual stuff, the usual complications, but something
going on behind the scenes. Is there something, maybe even
supernaw natural at work. That's the gimmick here, and it's
a good one. There are so many films lately that
(02:05):
are neither fresh nor funny. This one is both found footage,
checks both boxes, does it quite well? Surprise surprise. So
when I was offered the chance to interview two of
the main players behind the scenes, I said, heck, why not.
I want to find out more about found footage, how
they made the film, some of their influences, things that
helped make this project possible. Here's a sneak peek of
(02:26):
the movie available now on video on demand platforms. So
I've had the idea of doing horror film foulm footage,
and then of course Bigfoot is always fascinating. You're totally
forsaking the integrity of the movie.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
If we have no money, there is no movie.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
There is no integrity.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
This is a napkin and we'd like it on nactual check. No.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, we got a lot of problems happening right now.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Man, I don't want a tiptoe around anything.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
But the thing about it is you have to look
at it like a challenge.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
This is how you show your worth is a filmmaker.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Meet ma Xanis, David Sam Miguel max Is on the left.
They are part of the creative team behind the movie,
and they could share some great behind the scenes stories
about what makes this tick and also what projects they
might be working on the future. Because I think if
you see the film, you want to know what they've
got up their sleeve next. So I hope you enjoyed
this conversation. Again. The movie is Found Footage The Making
(03:20):
of the Patterson Project, on video on demand platforms right now,
and I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Well,
Max and David, thanks for joining the show. Really enjoyed
your new film and wanted to find out. I guess
it's always easy to start with the obvious question. Is
the origin story, How the idea for Found Footage came about?
And what did it kind of sparkle at once? Was
(03:42):
it a collection of a kind of many ideas cobble together.
Get let's get the sort of the start of the project?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The star of the project, well, we had just finished
our first movie, if you believe it, and we quit
our jobs for that movie because we imagined we'd be
millionaires right after the movie was made, which was was
forward thinking, I think. And we're kind of sitting around
and you know that one came out pretty well, and
we thought we could make another one, maybe pretty pretty
(04:11):
low budget if we were able to pull it together,
and we just have a big we've been working on
movies together for seven years, short films, you know, And
I think that the first thing was just, you know,
we have this big catalog of experience on set where
it feels like everything goes wrong at all times. So
(04:32):
how can we kind of get that feeling and then
maybe layer it into something that a is funny, but
then we has like a genre element. And I think
the biggest like spark for us was if we were
on set legitimately, you know, and everything was going wrong
and there was a true presence that meant us harm,
(04:53):
we'd probably just chalk it up to being the chaos
of set and we wouldn't really think too much about it.
And I think the irony that was something where like that.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Feels like a movie.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
So we started to write around that concept. And then
from there came all the layers and the you know
what kind of movie they're making and everything, and then yeah,
then we started layering the influences. You know, Christopher guests
huge influence. We love mockumentary, The Office is obviously in that.
I mean, when you grow up watching something like that,
which we both did, you know, that's just in your DNA.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
So it kind of all spurred from that.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I don't know about you, but for a lot of
horror movies, sometimes you just it's hard to buy the
characters not pointing at the thing and saying that's a
big scary monster, right. And I'm sure there'll be some
people who watch a movie like how are these people
not leaving the location? And all I can tell you
is if I was the last day of shooting and
I had twenty pages to shoot and someone told me
I need to do a company move, I probably wouldn't
(05:48):
do it.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
You know. I think one of the things your film
does so well is it captures, like you said, the
chaos of a film set and also the sweet and
I have a tae of this soul collection of personalities
where nothing will get in their way, even the hint
of a supernatural problem is there. But I think that's
(06:09):
a trickier thing to say. I mean to do them,
to kind of say how did you kind of pull
off that balance, because I think there's a sweetness to
the story that feels genuine and raw. But I think
kind of getting there is not always easy.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, there's some scenes I think that we're kind of
scary to keep in because you're not sure We have
a scene in the first twenty minutes where a character
just talks about how he's not getting his movie made
for a minute and a half and it's you know,
you just see him, you see him at work, and
he's talking about how hard it is. And I think
in a mockumentary, it's scary when you're not throwing out
jokes every second. But that was one that we showed
(06:45):
a rough cut to our lead actor Brennan, and we
did it with it, and then we took it out
in the next one.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
He said, that was my favorite scene in the movie.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Of course now it's his scenes, so of course he was,
but he was like, I showed other people, and I
think that it really humanizes the character and it lets
them know the truth of this, which is one second
it feels like your dreams are coming true and then
the next you have to go grind coffee beans for
nine and a half hours.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
One of the things that's interesting about the film is
the Bigfoot connection. And I have a friend who's a filmmaker.
He just made a film called The Sasqualogist. It's a
wonderful film, but he really did a deep dive into
that community. It's fascinating. I don't know if you both
had the chance to kind of look into the lore
behind that or that kind of. I mean, I know
it's not the thrust of your film, but it's in
there for sure. Any any thoughts on the bigfoot part
(07:32):
of the story.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I think Chase went on that deep dive, real deep
for sure, because he's he's a big foot enthusiast.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Where do you think you can give him the down
low on that?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Yeah, I think for us it's more of like a
it's a fascination, you know, we have so we're a
three man team here. And while we were discussing what
like what could be the creature for the subject of
Chase's movie in the movie, and it needed to be
something like recognizable enough that people like right away, they
don't get hung up on like what are the rules
(08:03):
of this thing? You can't raise any questions. People just
kind of have to have a baseline that they understand
it's a big foot. It's a big foot, you know,
it's just a big, big movie walking around the forest,
big scary thing. It's probably gonna get them. It's probably
gonna get.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Them at some point.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
So then you can just fall into that story a
little easier with less questions. And also the third member,
Jake Susa, who were missing to who are missing today?
But we love him, we love him dearly, Jake, this
one's for you. He he just loves Bigfoot and so
he brought that up and was pretty enthusiastic about using that,
and we were like, that's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know, I have a lot of mixed feelings about
found footage in general. Obviously Blair Witch exploded the format.
It allowed young filmmakers to go into a project with
very little money and make something of consequence, but also
the limitations of the genre were so frustrating at times.
And it's not a shock that it's mostly faded, but
you know, your film kind of has it both ways.
In a way, it's a found story, but you're able
(09:01):
to pull back and tell it in a visual style
that makes it more you know, creatively open it. Just
talk about that part of the story and why why
kind of fits like a glove here.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I think it's well, that's another one.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So Jacob was our cinematographer, and there was a he
really wanted the look of the movie, to of the documentary,
to have a certain level of polish to it. So
that's why they're French documentarian, so of course they want
the lad Yeah, they're shooting on film, you see, and
or at least they're shooting digital to look like film.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And he did.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I think that it was important to him that yes,
you know, it had this kind of you know, it
is handheld cinema verite.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
But at the same time he had a few.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Ideas as far as the way the things should look,
so that it was it's a comforting watch and it
should be very easy to just fall in and you're
not maybe you're not thinking about the cinematography, but if
you do take a second and polage, like you know,
for a found footage movie, this kind of looks a
little cooler than I'm used to. And then we get
to have some fun by inner cutting the kind of
little silly found footage movie.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
They're making in the movie within the movie.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
With what the documentarians are getting and the process I
think of connecting that might make it a little more
dynamic than your typical doun finish movie.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You know, I hesitate to give away one of the
best jokes, but maybe we can just tease at the
Alan Rickman situation. Where did that idea come from? Because
it's it's so gold you know, even saying it, well,
you have to see the film to really experience it
in full.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I think that's probably something a lot of like indie
filmmakers think about, is like, how can we get one name?
If we could just get one name in this movie,
it gets seen, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And also the people that they pitched the movie to
are thinking the same thing exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, it makes it's a selling point.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
And so you know the movie Frank the their financier
or their creative Uh, she's created created financier and Stewart
comshl uh, he's gone behind Chase the director's back promising
it a name that that is just an impossible get
without even realizing how actually impossible that and that is a.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Real thing, I think, you know, getting someone and oh yeah,
we're gonna get Tom Cruise in this week.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's it's that.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
But then maybe an edited layer added layer of it
actually is, no matter what you do, this is impossible.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It's time.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Uh so yeah, that's just a it's a fun joke.
And and the the the woman that they're getting the
money from is you know, she's very seniles and and
she doesn't really quite have a grasp on reality either.
So it's a very easy sell to just say, hey, totally,
we got your hero in Let's go.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, and then the moment when they finally meet each other.
I think it is one of my favorite moments. Definitely
for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
But yeah, in one of your cast members hers is
Dean Cameron. He said, very a collect career. I mean,
in the eighties, he was sort of part of this,
you know, summer school. Talk a little bit about him,
does he you know, you guys are young, you got
the chops obviously, but having someone who's been through the
mill in Hollywood does that help you as filmmakers or
can you pick his brain? I mean, he's great in
(12:14):
the film, but I don't know. He just brings such
a unique resume to the project. I was kind of
curious any thoughts on him?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, Dean was my Dean was my first friend when
I moved to Hollywood because my uncle was best friends
with him in middle school. So I had this sort
of like personal connection with this guy who's you know,
X years. We're in different generations, but I feel like
we always like, really got along.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
He's one of the funniest people I know.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And it's cool because I knew him from his previous
movies and I had seen him in the eighties. I'd
see him, you know, in the nineties as well, and
then I watched his television shows when they came out.
But what I didn't know was just like how funny
he is at underplaying stuff. You know, it's just being
a normal guy saying something under his breath is like
the funniest I've never heard someone mumble funnier things than Dean.
(13:04):
So when we finally you know, it's just been a
matter of time, Like, what's the movie we're gonna make
with Dean and him coming on? Basically the whole cast
is what under thirty. Everyone else in the cast is like,
you know, thirty two and under, and then you have
Dean there and very much like in the movie, he
gave it. He kind of grounds the thing a little bit.
(13:26):
He just he's a true professional. I trust his instincts.
When a scene's going a certain way and he tells
he pulls me over. Hey, you know, we just you know,
he's very kind about everything. But I think he has
a really good instinct about that sort of stuff. He's
also a fantastic writer too, so he knows you know,
he knows good what's a funny joke. And he's also
(13:46):
not trying to be the object of attention in every scene.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
He's in just a pro you know.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Obviously with the indie film project, there's always going to
be mistakes alone the way, things that don't work out,
and often you get the happy accidents that as a result.
Was there anything like that on the set you could
share like a little a quick, little moment where things
just went wrong and you thought, let me pivot and
then actually it ended up better.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I feel like every scene, you know, it's like I
think the biggest for me, the biggest part of that
is probably for this one because it was improv and
we had never really done anything like that where it
was so heavily improv It was accepting where the actor's
instincts were to take a specific scene.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
It's not it didn't go wrong, but on set. I'll
give you an example of one. So there was a.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Scene where a ca where an actor has trouble using
a camera in the scene. I think it's one of
the funnier scenes in the movie, and I remember while
it was happening, I was looking at Brennan. I could
tell he was actually getting frustrated during this. He was
actually getting mad during the scene. And it was almost
all improv because the scene was like one line long,
and it ended up being this like fine, he could
(14:58):
go back and forth at pull Branna's I was like,
what's Cob. He's like, I feel like we're overplaying the scene.
I feel like we're going way too hard. It's too big,
Like I don't know, man, I think it's funny. And
then I showed him the cut of the thing and
he's like, don't touch one second of that scene.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
That's my favorite scene in the movie. So I think
that there was.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
For this movie because we were pretty meticulous with the planning,
and then we gave ourselves more time to create it
within the confines of that. It was a lot more
like that, finding scenes that when in a direction that
maybe we weren't anticipating quite as much. Frank for example,
was like a total on the page. She was a
total prick basically the entire time. Chase was not a
(15:37):
very likable character on the page, and they did a
lot of improv in the actual movie to make them
more likable. And that's why it's really heartening to hear
that you found. What I think is very important, you know,
is that you it is coming from a place of
love this movie, and it's coming from a place of
shared experience.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Frankly, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I mean, I think sad tars. You can tell when
the filmmakers or the creators have their heart in the
right place and they have genuine affection for the product
versus kind of a snarky, mean spirited which nothing like
that at all. You guys are young filmmakers at the
start of your career. You're just getting started here. It's
such a weird landscape right now. There are so many platforms.
You know, your work could be on Hulu or Netflix,
(16:19):
it can go straight to vod and yet there's so
much content you're competing against at the same time. Do
you swing madly from optimistic to pessimistic about the work
you'll be doing down the road, or how do you
kind of view the Hollywood right now?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, that's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I mean, we're so any like if we get an
anch will take a foot whatever we can get basically,
so we're so on the outside of the large pendulum
swings that go on in Hollywood for us when we
look around at like platforms and what's going on in
theaters and stuff like that. The one thing that is
(16:55):
a little hardening is I am seeing, especially this year,
some more original come out in theaters, which is ultimately
the reason that we started was we wanted to make
theatrical movies that had original concepts. Now how that looks
in you know, fifteen twenty years, no idea, but I
think we're always going to be writing movies that are
(17:15):
towards that goal, even if it's even if that place
doesn't exist, I still think those movies will probably play
better at home, even if they're you know, we originally
had them for a theatrical release.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
It like in our minds.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Ultimately, I think that just means that you're making a
better movie, right, So that's always the goal. Let's make
the best movie for the theater and then we'll see
where it ends up.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
One of the things I noticed about the film, and
I didn't do a deep dive into it, but I
remember in nineteen ninety nine when Blair Witch came out,
I believe there was a website that was pretending this
was really happening, that this was you know, they found
the footage, We lost these filmmakers, and I'm pretty sure
that you've got something similar going on with your film.
Can you talk a little bit about that before we
wrap up.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, it's just part of our marketing.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
We were like, like you're saying, it's a it's a
pretty bloated market. So it's like, how do we cut
through make something that's like a little more I don't
know that that could pop up anywhere for someone to
like ping their interests, click on something, go down the
rabbit hole. So it started with yeah that this website
we created that may or may not be real. It's
(18:21):
ah the Patterson project dot org and yes it is.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
It is a homage to Blair, which how they did
their campaign as well.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
It's just like we try to make it look very old,
very start of the internet kind of you kind of
like feel weird just even being on it, and if
you click around on stuff, you know, something weird or
like pop out at you, or.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
It'll be a joke, you know.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
But it's all like points back to the movie and
we're just trying to get people excited to watch this
kind of weird, fun, heart heartfelt movie.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
All right, last question, I mean, what do you work
on next? Is it too soon to even get into
that or anything you can tease or what the next
project will be.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
We got, well, we got a few, you know, we
all we're always trying to find the next thing.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
So we've got a few. Are we allowed to talk
about it?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I think we get there's not we can talk, but
but we can say that we're in the horror realm,
we're in the comedy realm, and we're in the horror
comedy realm. And I think, as you watch, you know
you don't found you watch the movie, we have a
big I think as much as that movie starts as
a comedy becomes a horror movie, it really is. For
me as the filmmaker, A lot of the scares are
(19:37):
jokes to me, and I do think our future will
probably be continuing to go even more comedy. So I
think if we are going to be whatever our next
product is, I have a feeling it will be probably
either a horror comedy with against strong comedy or just
a straight up comedy film, which wouldn't that be nice
to see in the theaters again.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Well, well, before we let you go, what is the
best way that people can see found footage the making
of the Patterson Project?
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Right now?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
You can catch it on Apple, iTunes or on Amazon
as well as YouTube too, so any of those check
it out, and yeah, we hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, it's a it's a really enjoyable film. I'm a
little bit jaded because as a film critic, I see
so many formulaic projects and things that just feel if
they're not written AI you can almost think the sense
that they might have been. But this is fresh and
funny and sweet. I laughed a lot, and it's the
kind of it's the kind of good jokes where it
comes out of characters and situations where it's not just
(20:36):
forced into it, which is all the better. But thanks
both of you. I'm hoping we can talk again down
the road. Go check out the film. It is really
enjoyable and horror comedy is my sweet spot and you
guys nailed it. So congratulations, thank.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
You so much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Well, let's it for this bonus episode. And I confess
I've had some issues making shows. I had a double
barrel full of fun lost my voice a few days ago,
and then my eyes just completely got allergyed up. Is
that a term allergy up? I think If it isn't,
it should be just unpresentable on camera. So of course
had us take a step back and wait till like
(21:16):
a fully healthy which I think I am. Now, we've
got some great interviews that are in the can as
they say, including the great John on Rassic Fire for Fighting,
and also Mark Judge, a terrific entertainment journalist who share
some cool behind the scenes stories. And also he's got
a screenplay that would make a great movie if only
Hollywood would wake up and actually make the film, or
even conservative Hollywood that's coming soon as well. So for now,
(21:39):
I hope you'll like and subscribe and do all the
things that boost that algorithm. Of course, check out hollywood
intoto dot com site never sleeps. If I lose my
voice or I lose my I lose my peepers, I
can still keep that site alive and well. Of course,
it's updated seven days a week with the greatest news, reviews,
and commentary about everything happening in pop culture, like this
show from a right of center perspective. Of course, this
(22:02):
episode was politically neutral. I love that as well. A
lot of the content on the site is just that.
But we do want to cover Hollywood from a right
beening perspective, because Variety won't do it, Deadline won't do it,
The Hollywood Reporter showing wood as well. But that's exactly
where we comit, so I hope you'll have a great
week again. Apologies for my failing health, but I am
(22:23):
back fit as a fiddle or close to it, and
we will see you soon.
I hate found footage movies, hate them, and I don't
think I'm alone. You know, we got a glut of
found footage movies after the release of The blair Witch
Project in nineteen ninety nine. Movie was the sensation. It
changed the game. It caught everyone by surprise.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You guys say you know something about the Blair Witch, and.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
All of a sudden, we got a flood of found
footage horror movies and some other genres as well, but
mostly mostly horror, and some of them, a few of
them were actually pretty good. The Taking of Deborah Logan
comes to mind. Also Willow Creek from bobcat Goldwaight good
found footage movies. The rest mostly not so good. The
(00:41):
Paranormal Activity series had some moments as well, but generally speaking,
it was a gimmick that needed to go away, and
it mostly has, which is good because it's done. I mean,
at some point you just can't explain why these particular
characters are on screen. Keep holding those cameras, keep recording footage.
It just doesn't make any sense. Come on, put the
(01:01):
camera down. And you know, with horror films we can
suspend a lot of disbelief. You have to the horror
genre just demands it. But you know, it was a
bridge too far, so now they're mostly gone. But that
doesn't mean you should shy away from a new movie
called Found Footage, because actually you should lean into it.
The full title is Found Footage The Making of the
(01:22):
Patterson Project. It is a satire. It is a horror movie,
all blended together and quite well, I might add, Actually,
horror comedies are one of my favorite genres, and they're
really hard to get right. But this one does just
the trick. It follows a young, hungry filmmaker who decides
to make a found footage movie about Bigfoot. Doesn't have
a lot of budget, doesn't have a lot of resources. Hey,
(01:44):
I've got to get this movie made. Let's do it
the found footage way. And of course along the way,
the set well, there are some problems on the set,
not just the usual stuff, the usual complications, but something
going on behind the scenes. Is there something, maybe even
supernaw natural at work. That's the gimmick here, and it's
a good one. There are so many films lately that
(02:05):
are neither fresh nor funny. This one is both found footage,
checks both boxes, does it quite well? Surprise surprise. So
when I was offered the chance to interview two of
the main players behind the scenes, I said, heck, why not.
I want to find out more about found footage, how
they made the film, some of their influences, things that
helped make this project possible. Here's a sneak peek of
(02:26):
the movie available now on video on demand platforms. So
I've had the idea of doing horror film foulm footage,
and then of course Bigfoot is always fascinating. You're totally
forsaking the integrity of the movie.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
If we have no money, there is no movie.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
There is no integrity.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
This is a napkin and we'd like it on nactual check. No.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, we got a lot of problems happening right now.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Man, I don't want a tiptoe around anything.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
But the thing about it is you have to look
at it like a challenge.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
This is how you show your worth is a filmmaker.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Meet ma Xanis, David Sam Miguel max Is on the left.
They are part of the creative team behind the movie,
and they could share some great behind the scenes stories
about what makes this tick and also what projects they
might be working on the future. Because I think if
you see the film, you want to know what they've
got up their sleeve next. So I hope you enjoyed
this conversation. Again. The movie is Found Footage The Making
(03:20):
of the Patterson Project, on video on demand platforms right now,
and I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Well,
Max and David, thanks for joining the show. Really enjoyed
your new film and wanted to find out. I guess
it's always easy to start with the obvious question. Is
the origin story, How the idea for Found Footage came about?
And what did it kind of sparkle at once? Was
(03:42):
it a collection of a kind of many ideas cobble together.
Get let's get the sort of the start of the project?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The star of the project, well, we had just finished
our first movie, if you believe it, and we quit
our jobs for that movie because we imagined we'd be
millionaires right after the movie was made, which was was
forward thinking, I think. And we're kind of sitting around
and you know that one came out pretty well, and
we thought we could make another one, maybe pretty pretty
(04:11):
low budget if we were able to pull it together,
and we just have a big we've been working on
movies together for seven years, short films, you know, And
I think that the first thing was just, you know,
we have this big catalog of experience on set where
it feels like everything goes wrong at all times. So
(04:32):
how can we kind of get that feeling and then
maybe layer it into something that a is funny, but
then we has like a genre element. And I think
the biggest like spark for us was if we were
on set legitimately, you know, and everything was going wrong
and there was a true presence that meant us harm,
(04:53):
we'd probably just chalk it up to being the chaos
of set and we wouldn't really think too much about it.
And I think the irony that was something where like that.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Feels like a movie.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
So we started to write around that concept. And then
from there came all the layers and the you know
what kind of movie they're making and everything, and then yeah,
then we started layering the influences. You know, Christopher guests
huge influence. We love mockumentary, The Office is obviously in that.
I mean, when you grow up watching something like that,
which we both did, you know, that's just in your DNA.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
So it kind of all spurred from that.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I don't know about you, but for a lot of
horror movies, sometimes you just it's hard to buy the
characters not pointing at the thing and saying that's a
big scary monster, right. And I'm sure there'll be some
people who watch a movie like how are these people
not leaving the location? And all I can tell you
is if I was the last day of shooting and
I had twenty pages to shoot and someone told me
I need to do a company move, I probably wouldn't
(05:48):
do it.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
You know. I think one of the things your film
does so well is it captures, like you said, the
chaos of a film set and also the sweet and
I have a tae of this soul collection of personalities
where nothing will get in their way, even the hint
of a supernatural problem is there. But I think that's
(06:09):
a trickier thing to say. I mean to do them,
to kind of say how did you kind of pull
off that balance, because I think there's a sweetness to
the story that feels genuine and raw. But I think
kind of getting there is not always easy.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, there's some scenes I think that we're kind of
scary to keep in because you're not sure We have
a scene in the first twenty minutes where a character
just talks about how he's not getting his movie made
for a minute and a half and it's you know,
you just see him, you see him at work, and
he's talking about how hard it is. And I think
in a mockumentary, it's scary when you're not throwing out
jokes every second. But that was one that we showed
(06:45):
a rough cut to our lead actor Brennan, and we
did it with it, and then we took it out
in the next one.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
He said, that was my favorite scene in the movie.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Of course now it's his scenes, so of course he was,
but he was like, I showed other people, and I
think that it really humanizes the character and it lets
them know the truth of this, which is one second
it feels like your dreams are coming true and then
the next you have to go grind coffee beans for
nine and a half hours.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
One of the things that's interesting about the film is
the Bigfoot connection. And I have a friend who's a filmmaker.
He just made a film called The Sasqualogist. It's a
wonderful film, but he really did a deep dive into
that community. It's fascinating. I don't know if you both
had the chance to kind of look into the lore
behind that or that kind of. I mean, I know
it's not the thrust of your film, but it's in
there for sure. Any any thoughts on the bigfoot part
(07:32):
of the story.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I think Chase went on that deep dive, real deep
for sure, because he's he's a big foot enthusiast.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Where do you think you can give him the down
low on that?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Yeah, I think for us it's more of like a
it's a fascination, you know, we have so we're a
three man team here. And while we were discussing what
like what could be the creature for the subject of
Chase's movie in the movie, and it needed to be
something like recognizable enough that people like right away, they
don't get hung up on like what are the rules
(08:03):
of this thing? You can't raise any questions. People just
kind of have to have a baseline that they understand
it's a big foot. It's a big foot, you know,
it's just a big, big movie walking around the forest,
big scary thing. It's probably gonna get them. It's probably
gonna get.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Them at some point.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
So then you can just fall into that story a
little easier with less questions. And also the third member,
Jake Susa, who were missing to who are missing today?
But we love him, we love him dearly, Jake, this
one's for you. He he just loves Bigfoot and so
he brought that up and was pretty enthusiastic about using that,
and we were like, that's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know, I have a lot of mixed feelings about
found footage in general. Obviously Blair Witch exploded the format.
It allowed young filmmakers to go into a project with
very little money and make something of consequence, but also
the limitations of the genre were so frustrating at times.
And it's not a shock that it's mostly faded, but
you know, your film kind of has it both ways.
In a way, it's a found story, but you're able
(09:01):
to pull back and tell it in a visual style
that makes it more you know, creatively open it. Just
talk about that part of the story and why why
kind of fits like a glove here.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I think it's well, that's another one.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So Jacob was our cinematographer, and there was a he
really wanted the look of the movie, to of the documentary,
to have a certain level of polish to it. So
that's why they're French documentarian, so of course they want
the lad Yeah, they're shooting on film, you see, and
or at least they're shooting digital to look like film.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And he did.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I think that it was important to him that yes,
you know, it had this kind of you know, it
is handheld cinema verite.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
But at the same time he had a few.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Ideas as far as the way the things should look,
so that it was it's a comforting watch and it
should be very easy to just fall in and you're
not maybe you're not thinking about the cinematography, but if
you do take a second and polage, like you know,
for a found footage movie, this kind of looks a
little cooler than I'm used to. And then we get
to have some fun by inner cutting the kind of
little silly found footage movie.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
They're making in the movie within the movie.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
With what the documentarians are getting and the process I
think of connecting that might make it a little more
dynamic than your typical doun finish movie.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You know, I hesitate to give away one of the
best jokes, but maybe we can just tease at the
Alan Rickman situation. Where did that idea come from? Because
it's it's so gold you know, even saying it, well,
you have to see the film to really experience it
in full.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I think that's probably something a lot of like indie
filmmakers think about, is like, how can we get one name?
If we could just get one name in this movie,
it gets seen, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And also the people that they pitched the movie to
are thinking the same thing exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, it makes it's a selling point.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
And so you know the movie Frank the their financier
or their creative Uh, she's created created financier and Stewart
comshl uh, he's gone behind Chase the director's back promising
it a name that that is just an impossible get
without even realizing how actually impossible that and that is a.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Real thing, I think, you know, getting someone and oh yeah,
we're gonna get Tom Cruise in this week.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's it's that.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
But then maybe an edited layer added layer of it
actually is, no matter what you do, this is impossible.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It's time.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Uh so yeah, that's just a it's a fun joke.
And and the the the woman that they're getting the
money from is you know, she's very seniles and and
she doesn't really quite have a grasp on reality either.
So it's a very easy sell to just say, hey, totally,
we got your hero in Let's go.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, and then the moment when they finally meet each other.
I think it is one of my favorite moments. Definitely
for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
But yeah, in one of your cast members hers is
Dean Cameron. He said, very a collect career. I mean,
in the eighties, he was sort of part of this,
you know, summer school. Talk a little bit about him,
does he you know, you guys are young, you got
the chops obviously, but having someone who's been through the
mill in Hollywood does that help you as filmmakers or
can you pick his brain? I mean, he's great in
(12:14):
the film, but I don't know. He just brings such
a unique resume to the project. I was kind of
curious any thoughts on him?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, Dean was my Dean was my first friend when
I moved to Hollywood because my uncle was best friends
with him in middle school. So I had this sort
of like personal connection with this guy who's you know,
X years. We're in different generations, but I feel like
we always like, really got along.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
He's one of the funniest people I know.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And it's cool because I knew him from his previous
movies and I had seen him in the eighties. I'd
see him, you know, in the nineties as well, and
then I watched his television shows when they came out.
But what I didn't know was just like how funny
he is at underplaying stuff. You know, it's just being
a normal guy saying something under his breath is like
the funniest I've never heard someone mumble funnier things than Dean.
(13:04):
So when we finally you know, it's just been a
matter of time, Like, what's the movie we're gonna make
with Dean and him coming on? Basically the whole cast
is what under thirty. Everyone else in the cast is like,
you know, thirty two and under, and then you have
Dean there and very much like in the movie, he
gave it. He kind of grounds the thing a little bit.
(13:26):
He just he's a true professional. I trust his instincts.
When a scene's going a certain way and he tells
he pulls me over. Hey, you know, we just you know,
he's very kind about everything. But I think he has
a really good instinct about that sort of stuff. He's
also a fantastic writer too, so he knows you know,
he knows good what's a funny joke. And he's also
(13:46):
not trying to be the object of attention in every scene.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
He's in just a pro you know.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Obviously with the indie film project, there's always going to
be mistakes alone the way, things that don't work out,
and often you get the happy accidents that as a result.
Was there anything like that on the set you could
share like a little a quick, little moment where things
just went wrong and you thought, let me pivot and
then actually it ended up better.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I feel like every scene, you know, it's like I
think the biggest for me, the biggest part of that
is probably for this one because it was improv and
we had never really done anything like that where it
was so heavily improv It was accepting where the actor's
instincts were to take a specific scene.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
It's not it didn't go wrong, but on set. I'll
give you an example of one. So there was a.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Scene where a ca where an actor has trouble using
a camera in the scene. I think it's one of
the funnier scenes in the movie, and I remember while
it was happening, I was looking at Brennan. I could
tell he was actually getting frustrated during this. He was
actually getting mad during the scene. And it was almost
all improv because the scene was like one line long,
and it ended up being this like fine, he could
(14:58):
go back and forth at pull Branna's I was like,
what's Cob. He's like, I feel like we're overplaying the scene.
I feel like we're going way too hard. It's too big,
Like I don't know, man, I think it's funny. And
then I showed him the cut of the thing and
he's like, don't touch one second of that scene.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
That's my favorite scene in the movie. So I think
that there was.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
For this movie because we were pretty meticulous with the planning,
and then we gave ourselves more time to create it
within the confines of that. It was a lot more
like that, finding scenes that when in a direction that
maybe we weren't anticipating quite as much. Frank for example,
was like a total on the page. She was a
total prick basically the entire time. Chase was not a
(15:37):
very likable character on the page, and they did a
lot of improv in the actual movie to make them
more likable. And that's why it's really heartening to hear
that you found. What I think is very important, you know,
is that you it is coming from a place of
love this movie, and it's coming from a place of
shared experience.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Frankly, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I mean, I think sad tars. You can tell when
the filmmakers or the creators have their heart in the
right place and they have genuine affection for the product
versus kind of a snarky, mean spirited which nothing like
that at all. You guys are young filmmakers at the
start of your career. You're just getting started here. It's
such a weird landscape right now. There are so many platforms.
You know, your work could be on Hulu or Netflix,
(16:19):
it can go straight to vod and yet there's so
much content you're competing against at the same time. Do
you swing madly from optimistic to pessimistic about the work
you'll be doing down the road, or how do you
kind of view the Hollywood right now?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, that's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I mean, we're so any like if we get an
anch will take a foot whatever we can get basically,
so we're so on the outside of the large pendulum
swings that go on in Hollywood for us when we
look around at like platforms and what's going on in
theaters and stuff like that. The one thing that is
(16:55):
a little hardening is I am seeing, especially this year,
some more original come out in theaters, which is ultimately
the reason that we started was we wanted to make
theatrical movies that had original concepts. Now how that looks
in you know, fifteen twenty years, no idea, but I
think we're always going to be writing movies that are
(17:15):
towards that goal, even if it's even if that place
doesn't exist, I still think those movies will probably play
better at home, even if they're you know, we originally
had them for a theatrical release.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
It like in our minds.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Ultimately, I think that just means that you're making a
better movie, right, So that's always the goal. Let's make
the best movie for the theater and then we'll see
where it ends up.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
One of the things I noticed about the film, and
I didn't do a deep dive into it, but I
remember in nineteen ninety nine when Blair Witch came out,
I believe there was a website that was pretending this
was really happening, that this was you know, they found
the footage, We lost these filmmakers, and I'm pretty sure
that you've got something similar going on with your film.
Can you talk a little bit about that before we
wrap up.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, it's just part of our marketing.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
We were like, like you're saying, it's a it's a
pretty bloated market. So it's like, how do we cut
through make something that's like a little more I don't
know that that could pop up anywhere for someone to
like ping their interests, click on something, go down the
rabbit hole. So it started with yeah that this website
we created that may or may not be real. It's
(18:21):
ah the Patterson project dot org and yes it is.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
It is a homage to Blair, which how they did
their campaign as well.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
It's just like we try to make it look very old,
very start of the internet kind of you kind of
like feel weird just even being on it, and if
you click around on stuff, you know, something weird or
like pop out at you, or.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
It'll be a joke, you know.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
But it's all like points back to the movie and
we're just trying to get people excited to watch this
kind of weird, fun, heart heartfelt movie.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
All right, last question, I mean, what do you work
on next? Is it too soon to even get into
that or anything you can tease or what the next
project will be.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
We got, well, we got a few, you know, we
all we're always trying to find the next thing.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
So we've got a few. Are we allowed to talk
about it?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I think we get there's not we can talk, but
but we can say that we're in the horror realm,
we're in the comedy realm, and we're in the horror
comedy realm. And I think, as you watch, you know
you don't found you watch the movie, we have a
big I think as much as that movie starts as
a comedy becomes a horror movie, it really is. For
me as the filmmaker, A lot of the scares are
(19:37):
jokes to me, and I do think our future will
probably be continuing to go even more comedy. So I
think if we are going to be whatever our next
product is, I have a feeling it will be probably
either a horror comedy with against strong comedy or just
a straight up comedy film, which wouldn't that be nice
to see in the theaters again.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Well, well, before we let you go, what is the
best way that people can see found footage the making
of the Patterson Project?
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Right now?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
You can catch it on Apple, iTunes or on Amazon
as well as YouTube too, so any of those check
it out, and yeah, we hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, it's a it's a really enjoyable film. I'm a
little bit jaded because as a film critic, I see
so many formulaic projects and things that just feel if
they're not written AI you can almost think the sense
that they might have been. But this is fresh and
funny and sweet. I laughed a lot, and it's the
kind of it's the kind of good jokes where it
comes out of characters and situations where it's not just
(20:36):
forced into it, which is all the better. But thanks
both of you. I'm hoping we can talk again down
the road. Go check out the film. It is really
enjoyable and horror comedy is my sweet spot and you
guys nailed it. So congratulations, thank.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
You so much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Well, let's it for this bonus episode. And I confess
I've had some issues making shows. I had a double
barrel full of fun lost my voice a few days ago,
and then my eyes just completely got allergyed up. Is
that a term allergy up? I think If it isn't,
it should be just unpresentable on camera. So of course
had us take a step back and wait till like
(21:16):
a fully healthy which I think I am. Now, we've
got some great interviews that are in the can as
they say, including the great John on Rassic Fire for Fighting,
and also Mark Judge, a terrific entertainment journalist who share
some cool behind the scenes stories. And also he's got
a screenplay that would make a great movie if only
Hollywood would wake up and actually make the film, or
even conservative Hollywood that's coming soon as well. So for now,
(21:39):
I hope you'll like and subscribe and do all the
things that boost that algorithm. Of course, check out hollywood
intoto dot com site never sleeps. If I lose my
voice or I lose my I lose my peepers, I
can still keep that site alive and well. Of course,
it's updated seven days a week with the greatest news, reviews,
and commentary about everything happening in pop culture, like this
show from a right of center perspective. Of course, this
(22:02):
episode was politically neutral. I love that as well. A
lot of the content on the site is just that.
But we do want to cover Hollywood from a right
beening perspective, because Variety won't do it, Deadline won't do it,
The Hollywood Reporter showing wood as well. But that's exactly
where we comit, so I hope you'll have a great
week again. Apologies for my failing health, but I am
(22:23):
back fit as a fiddle or close to it, and
we will see you soon.
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