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May 27, 2025 92 mins
When a zombie filmmaker makes you laugh so hard you forget you're talking about death and destruction, you know you're in for something special. On today’s episode, we welcome Marc V. Price, a fiercely independent British filmmaker whose claim to fame is making a cult zombie feature called Colin for just £45. That alone should make you lean in. But that’s just the prologue. This is a man whose journey into the heart of DIY cinema is paved not with glamour, but with grit, late-night edits, and an undying love for storytelling that’s as infectiously entertaining as the virus in his debut film.

Marc V. Price is a visionary guerrilla filmmaker who turns limited budgets into limitless creativity.

In this profound conversation, we dive deep into the chaos, comedy, and consciousness of being an indie director who not only survived the industry’s many booby traps, but did so while telling stories worth hearing. His reflections on Colin—a film made while overdrafted and eating whatever he could scrape up—are as humble as they are inspiring. What started as an experiment in shoestring storytelling exploded into a global festival darling, not because it was flashy, but because it was honest. And that's where Marc's strength lies—he doesn’t pander, he creates.

We drift into an epic conversation on the Star Wars universe. This isn’t fanboy babble; it’s an existential breakdown of myth, legacy, and the strange, often contradictory reactions that fandom provokes. Marc speaks with wit and clarity about his take on The Last Jedi, “I have a character, I have no idea where Kylo Ren is going in the next film, so I’m really interested now.” There’s no arrogance in his opinion, just a deep appreciation for complexity and imperfection, a theme that winds its way through all his art.

But Marc isn’t just waxing poetic about galaxies far, far away. He shares the alchemy behind his newer projects—Nightshooters and A Fistful of Lead. These aren't just action flicks; they’re love letters to the film crews behind the scenes. Imagine a group of low-budget filmmakers caught in a building rigged for demolition while gangsters try to kill them—forced to use their behind-the-camera skills to survive. This isn't satire, it’s celebration. It's also the sort of beautiful madness only someone like Marc could conjure.What stands out most is Marc’s radical respect for collaboration. He believes the true magic of filmmaking lies in giving young talent real responsibility. On his sets, interns aren't coffee runners—they're script supervisors and first ACs.

This communal spirit translates into films that are textured, layered, and brimming with the energy of people who actually care. He’s not just making movies; he’s building a village.Even in setbacks—like getting fired from a film he poured his soul into—Marc finds the lesson, finds the momentum. Instead of sulking, he pivots. He doubles down. He makes another movie. And another. By the end of the month, he’ll have two features under his belt. He’s not chasing Hollywood; he’s chasing the muse, armed with a battered camera, a mischievous grin, and a hell of a lot of heart.And perhaps most beautifully, Marc wears his humanity like armor. He laughs at himself, calls out his own missteps, and embraces the contradictions of the creative life. From living broke with roommates in London, to pitching ridiculous Star Wars spin-offs, to dreaming of snow-covered Westerns in the UK, he embodies what it means to stay playful—even when things get dark.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
O four Cinema should make You Forget.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
You're sitting in a theater, Roman Polanski.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
I am your humble.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Host Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur
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(01:44):
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Speaker 3 (01:49):
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Speaker 5 (01:54):
On this episode of the podcast, we have a returning
guest who gain frame from making a seventy five dollars
zombie film. It was actually a feature length film. It
cost seventy five dollars or forty five pounds, and it
was an absolute independent film smash hit because it went to.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
All the different festivals.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
We're not gonna talk too much about that, but we
because we've already talked about that, the first time he
was here, but we we kind of touched on it again.
But now he's back with not one but two movies,
Night Shooters and A Fistful of Lead, which is actually
gonna be distributed by Sony. We're going to talk about
that as well with guests.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
Mark the Price.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
Well, I'm vi to a cinema an age. They can't
go because I'm stuck finishing up this film, so I
have had a chance to really get into, you know,
an air conditioned cinema and just hide from the sun.

Speaker 5 (02:44):
Well see, that's a good problem to have, though you
can't watch movies because you're making movies.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
It is true.

Speaker 6 (02:51):
Yeah, I think a lot of my friends have got
to be seen this. Have you've seen this? And I'm like, oh, may,
I'd love to, but I got time. You know. I
found the time to go and see Solo, which is unfortunate,
but hey, I did it. It's a thing. But yeah,
it was a really empty cinema as well. It's like
literally me, it was just me. I wandered and there's
a bank holiday in Stratum in London, so there's there's

(03:13):
loads of kids around here who would just go to
see anything just to talk. So I was like, I'm
manum screwed. This is gonna be a horrible experience. And
although it was, it wasn't because of the audience. There
was no one there, and I thought, Wow, this film
got the audience it deserved. It was absolutely atrocious. But
I feel bad hating it because you know, I kind
of want to be a little bit more supportive of

(03:34):
films that I love and kind of think that I'm
lucky to have Star Wars movies. And I remember thinking
when I was a kid, and there wasn't that much
of a gap between them, how like starved I felt
of Star Wars content. I never went to the Expanded
Universe for any for anything, I never really interested me.
It was the films I was interested in. And yeah,
and all I had was two We Walk movies, which

(03:54):
at the time I loved, Like, but yeah, that's that's me.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Yeah, No, I completely understand.

Speaker 6 (04:01):
Man.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
After the Last Jedi, I I am done with those
Star Wars movies.

Speaker 5 (04:05):
I don't care anymore, I'd be grudgingly. Okay, so let
mean just to give you a question of the past
three Star Wars films. Okay, yeah, the Force Awakens, the Last.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Jedi and wherever the hell are you?

Speaker 5 (04:16):
No, the other one was called I don't even remember.
That's how much I care. They all felt like the
same movie. I had no clue what the hell was
going on, and I'm just like, Okay, well it's over now.
And I don't even know what this was supposed to do.
I mean, is this supposed to set something up? No,
because that didn't feel like that. Was this supposed to

(04:37):
be a self contained movie? Not didn't feel like that either.
What the hell is going on?

Speaker 6 (04:43):
See?

Speaker 5 (04:44):
My whole thing was I I the whole thing was
sup snook snooky.

Speaker 6 (04:50):
So I gotta I absolutely loved the Lost Jedi. That
was the one I loved the rest of them. I
was like, all right, so that that was the one
I loved. Yes, with this crazy setsby street name mister
snow Glophagus, and I was like, what the fuck's he called?
Don't they know only that names like mister Bostond or
something some something that's definitely evil. But snow cuts like, Oh,

(05:13):
he's gonna teach you how to say the letter F.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I was gonna say.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
He actually was a cool character because okay, he can
control he can read people's minds, Okay, now you got
a really, really tough villain here, and he was defeated
so easily, and I go, well, that that's there, there,
there goes.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
That was so anti climactic.

Speaker 6 (05:34):
Oh I I honestly, it was the complete opposite. I
think this is the disparity between Star Wars movies. I
think in the one, particularly with this one, it seems
to really be pulling people in different directions. I was like,
I was watching it, going, okay, Emperor, shit, we're gonna
see him in the next one, and then I suppose
he'll probably get killed before Kyler Ren is like I'm
sorry I killed my dad, you know, or some ship
like that, And instead I got this scene that wiped

(05:56):
him out in the way that I thoroughly was like, fuck, yeah,
this is awesome, and now I have a character. I
have no idea where Kylo Ren is going in the
next film, so I'm really interested now, I'm really, I'm really,
I'm like, I'm in I want to know what they're
doing with him. He's not evil enough to want to
be killed. He's not a good guy by any stretch
of the imagination. He's a really interesting, conflicted character. I
don't know what the story he's going to do with him.
So I'm kind of curious. I'm in a position where

(06:17):
I don't really know what's going to happen with this character,
and he is the most compelling character in the movies,
and so I'm kind of in I'm on board, and
I'm curious to see what Jaja Abrams can do when
he ends something for a change, because he normally starts stuff,
which is why all this stuff has these mysteries that
he doesn't give a fuck about and there's no plan
to end them. Now he has to, and I'm kind

(06:38):
of curious to see what he's going to do with it.
To be honest, but I don't. I mean I don't.
I don't love it enough to I mean, I love
it a lot, but I don't. You know, I'm fascinated
with the debates. I love listening to them. I love
looking on YouTube and seeing all the angry, angry ates.
I'm like, oh, this is really interesting, and I love
how Chris mcquarie, although he's got nothing to do with it,

(06:59):
I'm Ryan Johnson sort of like dealing with it on Twitter,
like this is fascinating. It's just amazing to watch. It's
like I love trashy TV, and it's like trashy TV.
It's these these bickering yago and stuff like, oh this
is amazing. It's just a movie. It's okay if you
didn't like it. I thought Rogue One was fine, and
I kind of know the guy who made it. It
was like, it's you know, it's it's Rogue one, right, Yeah,
it is boring as fuck, but it was. It was

(07:20):
you know, the end battle was great. I know one
of the X Wing pilots, you know, the one who
could act, you know, So it was. It was fine.
It was a it was a decent it was it
was an experience. They're all an experience. I just think
that with Solo, I was by myself and so bored.
I was so bored. I was just sitting in there,
going I could text my girlfriend right now and I'm
not gonna be irritating any in the cinema. But the

(07:41):
downside is if she replies and I get into a
conversation with her, and so this film suddenly gets interesting
for about twenty minutes, I'm fucked. So I was a
very good boy. I behaved myself. I watched the film,
and I was I was just so bored. Oh God,
that robot, that fucking robot was the worst things. Worse
than Jaja Binks, much worse. Did you see it? Sorry,

(08:03):
I shouldn't.

Speaker 5 (08:04):
No, no, I haven't seen it yet because after the
last Jedi, I'm officially just I'm I don't want to
say I'm protesting new Star Wars movies. I'm just I'm
going out of my way out to watch them.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Let's just say.

Speaker 6 (08:16):
Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying, like, you know, just
download it without any money going back. Although I think
they've learned a lesson of some sort. I don't really
know what that lesson is. Maybe don't make movies about
characters and no one gives a shit about It's like
the hand Solo is such a non character in Style Wars.
I like, I think Harris Support was cool as fucking
I love Hands Solo in those movies. But you know,
as an adult Washington in The Jedi, he contributes literally

(08:36):
nothing to that story. Like, he doesn't do anything. He
just stands there and pull's dirty faces and doesn't do anything.
And I'm just like, I'm really kind of as an
adult of watching it going, It's amazing how everything sort
of switched around. For me as a kid wa washing
it in the Jedi, the stuff with the Emperor and
dar Fader was always the boring bits. As an adult,
the stuff with Darfader and the Emperor and Luke Is
are the best bits, and there aren't enough of those

(08:58):
moments in that film for me. So it's it's it's
it's nice to see a film that's grown. But yeah,
Harrison Phone's a characters, nothing there. He doesn't even have
a theme. The fucking Millennium Falcon has a theme. Hans
Solo doesn't have a theme in a movie. There's the
score that's peppered with lamotiefs is. There's not even a
theme for Hans Solo. It's fucking so they made a
movie out of it, but it's like ship, they didn't
even come up with one for that. It's just it. Yeah,

(09:21):
it was, it was. It was not a film I
liked much. I wouldn't recommend it, but also yeah, definitely
watch it to have a good old because there's plenty
in there to hate and it definitely makes for a
more fun conversation. But yeah, there's a robot in it
that's worse than jar Jar Binks like, I actually quite
I'd never hated jar jabinks, you know, I thought I
thought it was ship as he was at least he

(09:42):
had a really cool like at the end in the
end battle in Phantom Menace. I kind of thought, yeah,
he works, he's making me laugh, he's tripping over droids
and accidentally killing things. That's fine. I'm alright with this.
But yeah, I think the rest that yeah, this this
this droid, this this droid clearly played by another part
British actress who's never heard the fucking word droid before.

(10:04):
You know what I mean, it's like, it's it's weird.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 6 (10:16):
I don't want to keep picking actors who don't give
a shit about the thing they're in when there's a
legacy of actors who chose to be actors because of
stars you could find you would love to do. It
would bring a lot to that character. Does that make sense?

Speaker 4 (10:28):
You know what makes perfect sense?

Speaker 6 (10:30):
Oh? Weird?

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, the word droid, I know, it's it's a it's
an interesting word.

Speaker 6 (10:35):
So well, it turns out that Luke Skywalker is something
of a slave owner now because that's how they paint
the picture of droids in Solo, and I was like,
oh shit, that's weird. They want to go on this road.
It's you know, it's like oh yeah, I mean yeah,

(10:55):
like those those Artity too and all those guys get
a little bit shiit on. But you know it's because
I don't know, I've had to think about it now.
I've had to think, fuck, what is this Like it's
it's maybe that Luke and and no one understood that
these things feel even though they yell and scream when
they panic and they express fear and you know, so
you might get a lightsaber. Then I have a light saber.

(11:16):
Fucking bottle of men. Yeah. I think I clearly have
a love for Star Wars.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
Yeah, I know we we the last the the original, three, four, five,
and six are just you know, I think they're universally loved.
I actually one, two, and three, I mean they're not
They're not perfect, Uh, they you know, at.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
Least there was some love. I think George Lucas actually
liked to put some love into them. He did like
making them. And you could tell even though they were
they were you know, some.

Speaker 5 (11:46):
Moments were like what the hell is going on here,
and you could tell there were some moments that made
no sense, like for instance, in the in The Phantom Menace,
when young Anakin jumps into that uh into that fighter
pilot sorry, and then into that fighter fighter plane and
there is the perfect size helmet just for him, And
I'm like, wait a minute, why would there be a
children's size helmet in a in a plane met for

(12:08):
grown men or clones or what have you, so or
or robots where the hell they were using?

Speaker 6 (12:13):
So then what I've always loved things like that is
that like those are accidents, like someone would have had
to have designed that, And I think George is like, yeah, no,
they'll never get it. It's not like I always love
those things, those those moments, and I always saw to
do that. I throw a lot those moments in myself
and say right to see if we can get away
with this and if you But I think it's kind

(12:34):
of gone a weird way where if people spot things
they resent them. They're like, you try to trick me,
some of a bitch. It's like, no, no, no, it is
meant to be a part of the fun and games.
Come on, guys. But I like the prequels. I don't
hate them. I'd like I could see what the problems
are obviously, but I kind of, you know, I think,
like James Camera says something really interesting where he felt
that those films took big steps. They took risks, and

(12:56):
they they they were huge steps, and you know, collectively,
in many ways they failed, but in other ways they were.
You know that you've got to I'd rather have a
film that take risks like that instead of The Force Awakens,
which I thoroughly enjoy the first two thirds of, but
then it just becomes a bit of a nostalgia thing.
With with with Hand Solo and Princess Leah. I'm like, look,

(13:17):
none of these people want to be here, Like like,
I had a happily ever after with these characters that
I knew it was going to be destroyed by making
a sequel. You know, at least George Zucas was smart
enough to go, you know what, you go back, there's
a happily ever after that we're not going to come
back to this, So we'll go to a prequel and
we'll we'll go to where this all started and see
if we can tell a darker story. And I was like, Okay,

(13:38):
you can't. You can't fault that, like that understanding of
the story that's told up to a point. And yeah,
and I think that. Like, so the second hand Solo
comes back, I'm like, well, my happily ever end, happily
ever after ending is gone, so everyone's hatred and what
Luke Hauld become. I'm like, well, what the fuck do
you expect? Like the hand Solo wasn't hand Solo in
The Force Awakens by any stretch of badger. He was

(13:59):
more Indiana Jones in the last one that nobody liked that.
He was hand Solo in Force Awakens, which everyone seemed
to love. So ka, well, I think you know this
is not necessarily the characters aren't going to be the characters.
They're going to be sort of like the actors playing
different versions of the characters. It's you know, it happens.
I guess it's uh. I've accepted it, and I'm in
a good place now. So however, this next film is

(14:21):
I'll be excited for it, it'll come out, I'll be
underwhelmed or I love it. I don't know. We'll see,
but you know i'd like to see more, you know,
So yeah, I just wonder what directionly, I just want
them to be special, you know, I won't want to
you that doesn't seem to be working very well.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
Yeah, it's I think for the next one, whatever that is.
I heard that they're just going to go right to
vod with it no theater, which which honestly is probably
a good idea for.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Them right now with all these movies.

Speaker 6 (14:53):
That I mentioned last time on my idea for one,
I got to spin off one right Sigala, this is
gonna be fucking Max Rebel band right start and jabbers passed.
They survived that explosion. They're like, fuck this, Max, fuck you,
I'm out of here. They'll say, you know, glebe off
or whatever, you know, alien language, so they're essentially saying
fuck you you blue elephant cunt. But they'll say it

(15:16):
in a in a in a you know, in in
the in their own alien language. So we can have
in the kids film and then it's and then they'll
split up, right, and then Max will be asked by
the Emperor like I've got this plan. I'm going to
destroy the fucking rebels on end or it's going to
be amazing. I want a big party afterwards. So Max
Rebel Bands asked to reform. It's like The Blues Brothers
where he's going around trying to get the band to reform.

(15:37):
They reform, they go on the Death Star ship starts
going down. It's about them trying to get off the
Death Star during the Battle of end Or and they
they end up thinking they booked a really cool gig
and they're the cunts end up playing yob nab. There
you go. That's that's it. That's going to be the story.
Low stakes, high octane, Max Rebel Bands, Blues Brothers, the

(16:01):
Blue Brother will call him because he's you know, blue elf.
And I suppose there you go, that's my Max Weebos story.
That's why I pitch How long do you think I'll
kick you out of the room really quick or something?

Speaker 4 (16:12):
No, No, they I think they'll green light that.

Speaker 6 (16:14):
At this point.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
I think they're they might give you a you know,
like a mill maybe two mill range.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
Make make a gritty independent.

Speaker 5 (16:23):
Film, you know, on on along the lines of The
Blues Brothers and you got it man, And in fact,
you know what they're gonna say, keep all that language
in there.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
I think, so it's gonna be completely different.

Speaker 6 (16:36):
It'll be so foul like the sexiest Star Wars movie.
Have ather be like in the in the Jabbaz scene,
will put all these little references to the to the
to the special editions where like that blue fuzzy thing
starts singing and then someone's like, who was this? Hay?
It was his ass? So it was was he always here?
He always in the band? Since when did this singer

(16:58):
get so much dexterity? She used to be a little
potato on til't pics. So she's running around, going up
the cameras and blowing her and so that what the
fuck what that's going on in here? We used to
be a band. God damn it.

Speaker 5 (17:09):
If you pitch this to Kathleen Kennedy, I think she's
gonna say, here's what happened. Okay, she'd say, everyone can
can you leave the room and just leave Mark and
I to our by ourselves, And everyone's gonna everyone's gonna go,
oh shit.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
So they're all gonna get.

Speaker 5 (17:22):
Up and slink out of the room, and she and
they close the door right and she looks at you
and she says, Mark, I'm glad that finally somebody has
had the balls to come in here and tell me
what it's really like. And she's like, I love this thing.
We're gonna give you that the the X millions to
make this, and she goes, it's gonna be Star Wars

(17:43):
for a whole new generation. It's gonna be a punch
to the gut and if anyone doesn't like it, they
can fuck off.

Speaker 6 (17:50):
I'll say this all. We're gonna put a Christmas tree
in it, right, that makes it Christmas. We've gonnas every
fucking Christmas is on. I'll have of lifetimes with the residuals.
It's gonna be great. It's gonna be perfect. I've got
my Star Wars sequel plan, and any of that ship
will translate to a movel movie either as well. So
if they want me to make stilt Man, I'm like, yep,
got it. Here's my idea. Still Man has a band boom.

(18:12):
It'll take off soon. Be fine. I'm sorry, buddy, I'm waffling.
I should, I should, I should? I should let you
I'm already sucking you away from your Fourth of July
celebrations too much, So I'll be good and stay on target.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Well, all I'm gonna do is work. So the other
thing there is.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
No full July celebrations for me. Today, I way way
too much work to get done. But I'm gonna workaholic.
I'm one of those guys, Mark that will be on
my deathbed just wishing I worked more. Be like I
wish I had worked just that one extra hour and
then I and then I'll finally just throw my body
in trash. But but but you know, it was great

(18:51):
talking about their Star Wars movies. I can just imagine
you at the bar or the pub later on that night,
and you're sitting and your tune all your friends. You're like, listen,
they actually bought that pitch. Now now you're like, I
don't know what else to do.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Now I have to actually make this thing. Don't worry,
don't worry. We got you covered. And then it's uh
and then it's just you know, it can become a hit.
It could be just speaking just be the new Star
Wars type, you know.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
Take somebody from the background and make them the start
of the next film.

Speaker 6 (19:21):
Exactly. It's gonna go on like that. That's so they
all worked out. It's fine, man, Yes.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
So so cool.

Speaker 6 (19:28):
Mark.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
You know it's been a while since I mean, you know,
I'm just gonna keep rolling with this if you're happy
with it.

Speaker 5 (19:31):
Oh yeah, of course, of course, yeah, because I mean, honestly,
I think this is hilarious so far. So you know,
the last time we talked, I mean, you made Colin
which was which was this? You made it for seventy
five pounds, right, I was.

Speaker 6 (19:45):
I think seventy dollars was the line, and then forty
five pounds was the UK line. There was a some
conversion that went on there, and yeah, so that was
but to be honest, that was just that was if
it cost that. I mean, it was a whole movie
made given a time when I was living on on overdraft.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show.

Speaker 6 (20:12):
You know, much younger and more had more ingenuity, and
so we just sort of made that movie without spending
any money really, and because it was a zombie movie,
the nature of the zombie movie allowed us to incorporate
anything we could find and say, isn't this a cool weapon,
brilliant let's use that. So it it just evolved really
and the improvisational nature of how I like to make

(20:34):
things anyway kind of carried forward. And yeah, and then
we just sort of made that movie and yeah, it
somehow got released, which is still crazy to me.

Speaker 5 (20:44):
Yeah, because I remember talking to people about that movie.
I was at a networking party and I said, man,
you you know, I just read about the zombie film
called Colin and it was made for you know, like
forty five pounds, fifty pounds, and you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
Getting rave reviews. And I'm thinking to myself, you know,
what could they have done?

Speaker 5 (21:01):
And when I finally was able to see it, I
was like, you know what, this was fantastic.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
And I'm not just saying that because you're on the
podcast Mark. I was like, you know what.

Speaker 5 (21:08):
And so there's two zombie films of the past ten
years that are worth anything, and one is Colin.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
Yeah, and you know what the other one is. Do
you want to take a guess?

Speaker 6 (21:19):
I want to say Zombie Land because that was great.
I love that. Oh, but I imagine it's probably something cooler,
but I should So.

Speaker 4 (21:27):
It's the movie called The Battery.

Speaker 6 (21:29):
Oh shit, I don't know that.

Speaker 5 (21:31):
So Colin and The Battery two zombie films, and the
only zombie films of the past like ten years, maybe
even since the remake of Daughn of the Dead that
are actually worth anything.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
I did not like zombie Land too.

Speaker 6 (21:43):
Much, by the way. Ah cool, Hey I'm looking at
the battery. No, oh shit, man, okay, that looks pretty sweet.
Right there we go. That's on the list. That's the feature.
Isn't that? You can like this? How this could go?
Know how? I didn't play this. I didn't say, oh yeah,
the Barry and then you just hear the sort of
typing of the keyboard. I was like, I was honest,

(22:06):
oh yeah, the battery. The personalities are too former trivia
all the Cancusa shad the synopsis. I read the crop version,
but oh no, this looks great. I think I wonder
if Good Bad Flicks covered this. Actually, do you know
there's a there's a YouTube Channe called good Bad Flicks.
I'm really into a great guy. He's got this a

(22:27):
back catalog of really obscure movies that he always sort
of showcases. And although it's called good bad Flicks, he's
not like he doesn't present them as oh it's so bad,
they're good. He just says I love this film because
and he and it's it's nice to see such in depth,
you know, not pretending they're anything other than the films

(22:48):
they are, but honest sort of reviews of of these
really interesting movies that this. You know, the guy who
runs it, I think his name is Cecil, just loves
you know. Their films are personal that you grew up watching,
and some of them are ones that I caught as well.
So is this great? I highly recommend the channel if
you don't, if you haven't subscribed already.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
It's I'll put that on the link in the show notes.

Speaker 5 (23:11):
I haven't actually checked out that channel, but I definitely
will because I'm glad to clarify that too, by the way,
because sometimes when I see channel names, you know, I
kind of go, well, you know, I could take this
a number of different ways, because you know, language is imperfect,
and English, as we both know, has so much slang
in it that sometimes like when I say bed, then

(23:32):
does that mean good?

Speaker 6 (23:33):
You know, it's yeah, yeah, well that's the point. Actually,
Like I think, were you rolling when I was slinging
very insensitive swear with their ownes. I apologize. I'm going
to try and hold back on some of the sea woods.
But you know, my best friends are Copey and an
irishmand so you know, it's like saying shit to me. No,

(23:58):
it's it's not the Axacon. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
Oh I see, yeah, I see yeah, I mean honestly,
the podcast is uncensored, you know. And I mean and
and the British are known for their sense of humor.
In fact, you know, let me let me just forphrase
that the entire United Kingdom should be is more known
for their their sense of humor.

Speaker 6 (24:18):
Yes, of course, yes as well. British is good because
I guess I fall into that. You know that we're
we're you know, we couldn't make the escape that you
guys could. Let you're celebrating today, know, the Welsh were
we're all we're all under the English. I mean, I
believe we tried, and then we're just like, hey, look guys,
it's just you know what, what's the divide really? And
then I think we all just got along. Although we

(24:39):
have our own government now, it's we're still part of okay,
So it's uh.

Speaker 5 (24:45):
Yeah, you know, the scott the Scottish, the Northern Irelands,
the North, the Northern Ireland, Northern Irish and you know,
the Welsh and the British, you know, all known for
the sense of humor.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
So it's a it's all good.

Speaker 5 (24:57):
So so I think people would understand. But are you
impressed that I actually knew what the UK was?

Speaker 6 (25:03):
Well I would have been, but you told me this
morning that your mother was well, so now I expect
you to know everything, okay about about how the UK
is ALTI.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Fight, Well, it was my grandmother. She she's actually Welsh.

Speaker 6 (25:15):
I was a grandmother. Sorry sorry, ye, she actually came.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
She actually came over, you know, directly.

Speaker 5 (25:21):
She you know, she came over when I don't know
how old she was, but yeah, she she uh came
over directly from from Wales and came over and uh,
you know, started a whole life here. And uh if
you ever saw me by the way, I you know,
people ask me what my genetic makeup is and when
I tell them like no, it's no, don't don't even
try it because I'm actually like.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
Fifteen percent Cherokee Indian Cheroke' Native American. But I don't
look like it at all.

Speaker 5 (25:45):
I look, I look I look exactly like you do,
you know, like some some just a ginger Welsh guy.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
You know it's well know that you're ginger, but.

Speaker 6 (25:53):
You know what I mean, I'm not. I'm not. I
have a nephew who is. It's uh shit, this makes
me look like a terrible I think he is. I mean,
he looks ginger, looks it looks ginger. And I generally
cast my eye over the other end of the room
and I'm like, what's that noise? Oh yeah, you're there. Okay,
you know, here's some matches playing with those. You know
your uncle's awesome? Is he rummy somewhere? I don't know,

(26:17):
it's yeah, Sorry, this isn't This is only funny to me.
This is not funny to anyone. No one knows who
haven't related to. This is a terrible angle to try
and get a laugh.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
I think it's hilarious.

Speaker 5 (26:28):
Gingers don't have souls, so you can't give them matches
because you know, they're like Godlin knows what they're gonna
get into.

Speaker 6 (26:35):
Exactly one way to fight out. Like I keep saying,
when I get really really sick, like terminal sick, these
are the guys that are gonna have to be pumping
me full of heroin on my last few days. Just
it doesn't you know, itch or whatever cancer does? You know?
So I was wrong with it. It's like this is
how I'm choosing to face the death. You know, may

(26:57):
creeper on the corner at any point to laugh at
the face of death.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
You have to mark.

Speaker 5 (27:03):
And also they could have like you know, great new
designer drugs, and you're gonna be like, no, no, no, I
want the heroin.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
Just give it to me.

Speaker 6 (27:11):
Yeah, I mean it's the future diseases. I'm gonna die
from the ones in the zombies like that would suck
man to have some semblance of consciousness as I'm running
around like snarling and spewing blood all over some you know,
attractive young fucking person who survives this sort of shit.
You know, I've got zombie written all over me, like
in a in a post apocalypse. I'm I'm fucked. I

(27:34):
can't got I can contribute nothing, Like I'm gonna have
to align myself with the strongest and try and do
something to try and make sure that I'm not too lowly.
But like I said that on raids to fight mutants
in the desert, which I'm not used to deserts, you know,
but I imagine the desert is gonna be everywhere because
that's how apocalypses work, and I'll be stuck. Yeah, I'm

(27:54):
not a hero in a zombie movie. I'm definitely a
zombie and a shit one too, And I was just
such a throwaway ill. I'm not even a memorable kill.
I'm not a scow driving in the ear or anything
like that. I'm just a sort of like band killed dead,
moving on, you know, gots.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
Yeah, it's like when the Horde of Zombies comes in
one of those movies and you've gotten the hero has
like a gatling gun and just goes you're one of
those guys, and just like, for a split second, think
I think that was Mark. I can't tell, all right,
moving on.

Speaker 6 (28:21):
Everyone's looking at my digital arm that got blown off,
you know, That's what everyone's looking at. And he's even
looking at me. I don't even have good makeup, Like
I don't have season fucking eight whatever seasons we're on
Walking Dead level makeup. I've got like season two ran
out of money, only two or three complicated ones. The
rest of them just dude shambling makeup. That's what I'll have. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (28:44):
I had a friend of mine who just shot a
zombie film and he had that he had the tears.
So he said, if you're in the foreground. You're in
a zombie and you get the most makeup. If you're
a B zombie you get like somewhat good makeup, and
then if you're a C zombie, he said, somebody just
comes by and throws blood on you and they call
it a day.

Speaker 6 (29:05):
We had a similar system on Colin and anything else
of them with zombies, where we have gold zombies, which
now means they get some prosthetic work. We have silver zombies,
which are your standard, like you know, heavy late x stuff,
Bronze zombies which are just like the one you described.
Then we have leads zombies, which is just someone further back,

(29:28):
nothing on them, just shambling and making a shape for
their body so like. And then I never necessarily even
keep them in the right order, so they're mixed up
all over the place, so it's just a mess, which
you might have seen in the clip I sent. Actually
that was the last zombie thing we did, which is
the film within a film for night Shooters, which I
thought would be a really fun way to open the movie,

(29:50):
and so we do. We open with a big violent
zombie action sequests.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (30:06):
Well, you know, I was gonna ask about that because
I was saying to myself, you know, I know what
the synopsis of the film is, and I was like, wow,
you know, maybe something happens, but it's good you mentioned that,
and so so let's let's start talking about you know,
before we talk about night Shooters.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
Actually, let's just finish that thought about Colin.

Speaker 5 (30:20):
When you actually released Colin, you know that did that
open any more doors for you? Do you just like,
you know, inundated with like different people approaching you about
projects and such.

Speaker 6 (30:30):
Yeah, I mean I think a lot of works of
happened after that, and then I think from that point,
I think I was a little bit nervous to quit
the day job really, so I sort of excited, really lovely,
uh sort of like late at night evening job where
it was just me and one other guy and we
were running this little courier company. And then there are
car service as well, like a prestige car service. So

(30:51):
I was in the office there. So that's when I
was sort of just doing everything really, and it was
I was just a little bit nervous to leave because
that was a lovely job and everyone there was really
supportive and really, you know, I was able to just
do whatever I wanted to do, provided you know, I
answer the phones when they rank and yeah. So but
when I eventually did sort of leave, that was the

(31:12):
scariestart because that's essentially going freelance. And yeah, and but
from then there was always some work. It's just it
took a lot of getting used to that. That work
isn't always there, so you have to do sometimes go
a little bit of a period where there isn't much,
but that's when you are able to live off the
last job you did. There's also a little bits of

(31:32):
work there. Really, but I tended to do a lot
more stuff that was in development, and I was really content.
I mean, none of it got made, and I think
after a boat, I think after three years, I started going,
oh Jesus, I should probably make something, because you know,
you got to sort of try and keep the fires burning,
if that makes any sense. And so that was the

(31:54):
thing that I was always I started to get a
little bit worried about. And then yeah, we just started
making things. So I made a budget film called Magpie
and then and I mean that did okay, it did fine.
We got the US release for that a very small release,
but a very nice release. And after that, I got
stuck into another film, which I'm not we won't talk

(32:16):
about because I got five from that movie and I
don't want to give them any unwet any undo press attention.
But uh, I got kicked up that movie and then
whist I was running around trying to get another one made,
which turned out to be Night Shooters. Yeah, it's just
there was always working between. So there was commercial work
and you know, little pilots here and there that was

(32:38):
asked to direct. So's there's always it's been it's been work,
but it's you know, it's a scary bit of work.
It's not it's not sort of work that way to
go oh great, I can relax. Now, it's so work
that we to go, oh god, I help, there's something
after this. I'm gonna make rent next month. So things
like that really so.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
So the I mean, I know, we you don't want
to mention that the movie title. But what happens though, well,
I just you know, just out of my own curiosity,
h And also you know, just as a learning experience.
I mean when whenever you get fired from something like that,
you know what I mean, like.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
You know two things.

Speaker 5 (33:16):
I mean, did you I don't want to say, well,
did they give you a reason as to.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Why they were why they were letting you go?

Speaker 6 (33:23):
Oh? Yeah, it was it was. It was definitely a
politics thing. So so to talk around it whilst talking
about it because it's you know, it's gossip and it's fun,
isn't it. So what happened was I was, uh, I
was asked to I agreed to edit the film. My

(33:44):
fee was very very low, and I said, look, I'll
just do this and and if you pay me that fee,
i'll edit it. I'm that's sposed to edit it. And
you know, I was given a good amount of time
to edit it, but you know, when I got it
done and and but you know, we need a lot
of pickups. There are a lot of things that the
production company failed to come through on that we asked
for that was of minimum requirements. So you're making a

(34:06):
film without some of those things. And you know, I'm
not the sort of person that complains. So I don't
even really know if they were that aware of how
much of a problem that was. It didn't really come up.
But they were fine with you shooting pickups which is
where we're going to make up for some of that stuff.
So it was all fine, but I think that I
didn't voice for my fee to edit because I was
very careful about, you know, not taking work so I

(34:30):
can concentrate on that. And I said, look, I need
to invoice for this now. And although it wasn't part
of the agreement, you know, the comeback was, oh, you know,
we pay you when you finish the film, and I said, well, no,
that was an agreement. The agreement was this, okay, fine,
well we'll pay you no if, and then there were
a bunch of new terms that were conditioned of that payment,
and I said, well, I'm not going to agree to
any new terms as condition of payment for the work

(34:51):
they've already done. But I'm happy to have these conversations,
but they have to be a separate conversation because there
were things I think they were left out of the contract.
I only think a delivery date was in a contract,
for example, and it was something they wanted in, which
is fair enough, but I just wasn't going to have that
uncondition of something. And also their little things, like I
think the visual effects company had not given me anything
the some department had not given me anything, and I'm

(35:12):
not responsible for those departments. So if the film isn't
delivered because those departments were pretty unresponsive, well I'm kind
of like, well, hang on, I'm I'm in trouble then,
and I don't really so I'm not going to sign
anything that means I'm responsible for that when that's not
even my company. So yeah, so I so that was
my reason. I said, look, these new terms, I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna agree to anything as a condition

(35:33):
of payment. Well, I'm happy to discuss it in another way.
And the response was there will be no discussion. Services
no longer required. I thought, oh, surely that's surely they
don't mean that because it's going to cost them a
lot of money to finish this film though, because you know,
the pickups weren't going to cost anything. And but no,
that that that's stuck, and I was like, oh interesting,

(35:54):
and so so I just sort of I just thought, shit,
I need to get another film made, mainly just because
you know, I put a lot of I put a
lot of heart and soul into that film. I got
a great cast together, we made some really nice stuff.
I think some of the best directing have done is
in that film, and uh and and I just kind
of felt like, shit, I needed I need to make
something else. So it was in a bit of a

(36:15):
mad panic to get Night Shooters done. And so Night
Shooters so that landed at the same time as this
Western Fistful Lead, and so I spoke to my producer,
who is amazing. I said, I think I think we
can do these. I think I can do both of these.
I can. We'll do this one and then I'll be

(36:36):
deep in posts than that and then we'll start shooting
the other one and then it'll all be fine. And
it has been fine. I finished Night Shooters this week.
We're just gonna sort of find out where we're going
to get the DCP made for it, and then that's it.
I saw take it over and say here, you go
make a movie with this, and we're done. And then
I spend the next few weeks now finishing up Fist

(36:58):
Full of Lead, and then I get that to the
colorist and the we're working on the sound and we're
gonna get the visual effects done. Yeah, it should, it
should all come together quite nicely. So by the end
of this month, I should have two features under my belt,
which is fun. It's tiring, but it's fun.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
So you know, I was gonna say, either you're not
sleeping or or you're either like a raging alcoholic at
this point, Mark, so it's.

Speaker 6 (37:24):
Like one of the other ship. I'm drinking cider right now.
It's not ten am here, incidentally, but you know that. Yeah,
but yeah, you know from alcoholic. Yeah, but it does
seem very appealing. But yeah, it's it's it's just been
very busy. But uh, I mean. The interesting thing about

(37:47):
when you do in a film as quickly as doing
that she is, is you look at that and I
haven't had time to watch the film as a whole,
so I'm so busy working all the minushit, you know,
and and all the little teeny bits and the connective
tissue and all those things come together. And I think
I saw it for the first time from the beginning
to end a couple of weeks ago, and it was,
it was, it was. It was a really fun experience

(38:10):
for me because you know, you know, coming back to
the alcoholism and then made sure i'd had a couple
of beers first, and and I was I was watching
with my girlfriend who worked on the film. She's sort
of the atmospherics and a special effects department, and uh,
I just really enjoyed the film we made. I was like, oh, Jesus,
I thought I hated this, you know, because you do,

(38:30):
you fall out of love with these things. You see
all the holes, and then to see it flow like that,
I was. I was surprised at how how everything seemed
to slot into place in the way that you hope
and you work towards. And and we watched it again
on Sunday because I had what was close to the
final cell Michs, so I had some friends around to
watch it, and it was great watching their reactions to it,

(38:52):
because you see their faces screw up at the right moments,
and then they laugh at the right moments, and and
and it's just really nice just to see them re
acting exactly how you hope people will react when those
moments occur. And from a filmmaking perspective, I mean, that's
all I can do. That's all I can do is
make the audience react a certain way at a certain moment,

(39:13):
and then after that, whether they liked it or not,
that's beyond my control. There's nothing I can do about that,
So I I you know, but but if I can
at least make them in that moment go or yes
or haha, you know, there's there's there's something. So that's
all I can really work to on. So that's all
I really concentrated us. So it's really nice to see
there is a small room, just a few people to
see that that reaction. It was lovely.

Speaker 5 (39:37):
Yeah, And that's what you're always hoping for. Because somebody
once said, there's there's two ways you want someone to.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
Like to take your movie. Either they love it or
they hate.

Speaker 5 (39:45):
It, because the worst thing you can do is they're
just completely benign to the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
And he said that that's the worst spot to be in.
No matter what.

Speaker 6 (39:55):
You know, what I've speaking, I was speaking to another filmmaker.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Will be right.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
to the show.

Speaker 6 (40:08):
Because what we do on our films, and we have
a lot of young people work on them. I think
it's really important to get young people working on films
because I mean, I coming from Swansea, I didn't really
feel that there was they weren't man, they were lovely
people in Swansea. You did encourage me, but there were
a lot of people who the general reaction was, what
what do you want to do that for? Why do

(40:29):
you get a real job and work really hard and
get up early and then go to bed early and
lift the weekend and then have a family? Why why
don't you just why do you want to do this
ambitious thing. You're considered a little bit strange for wanting
something it's a little bit different to the norm, and
you know, not to knock any of those things. I
kind of think, you know, like raising a family is

(40:50):
a very admirable thing because it's something you know that
that I'm not doing, you know, but I see my
brother doing it. It's incredible and I know that my parents,
you know, I was part of that and it was fun.
So you know, it's it's just this really, you know,
it's it's it's it's something I admire. But I've chosen
the more selfish life of of making films, and you know,

(41:11):
so that's a it's a really interesting thing back in
Swansea where I kind of find that there wasn't much
support for making films, and so I think it's really
important when there's young filmmakers to say, look, it's worth
exploring to its fullest before you move on from this.
So we always, you know, as part of work experience,
we get a lot of young people working on the

(41:31):
film and we give them proper roles. They're not making
tea or coffee for us. Their their script supervising, or
their camera assistance and first first acs as well. They're not,
you know, a runner for the camera department. So it's
we do a lot for those guys. And yeah, I
think that it's it's you know, to me, that's one
of the most important aspects of making these movies. And

(41:53):
I've always is making sure that the people who are
working for you feel like they're part of the film,
because what happens then is that everyone throws in and
you end up with a Really it's like it's like
a community where everyone wants the film to work. Everyone's
all on the same team. It's like, I I love
that that feeling of making a film. I think I've
gone on a tangent you and I forgot where it

(42:14):
was going with it. But uh sorry, d.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
No, no, you know, it's all It's all good, Mark,
believe me, I know what you mean.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
Man, I actually do both.

Speaker 5 (42:23):
I I actually work the day job, like I was
telling you before, and I, you know, I get up
every day at four am, regardless, I get up a
four am. I got a four am today, and I
was off today just so I could try to get
some extra work. I get working before I go to work,
and then while I'm at the you know, and then
I come home and I start doing the other work again,
trying to trying to keep the ends both ends burning at.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
The same time.

Speaker 5 (42:47):
Yeah, but I but the whole family thing, I don't
know how people do it when you add that equation
in there. I couldn't even fathom how some people do it,
because that's bringing it at a three ends.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
Then Oh, it's amazing, Like I think I know what
tied is. Working on these movies my brothers. He's like, Oh,
you don't know what tired is. You actually have two kids.
I was like, okay, Like and I felt, you know,
I see a really happy family and it's amazing. I
was like, oh, well, this is you know, it's it's

(43:15):
it's exciting. I's just think that, like, you know, me
and my brother have gone in different directions in terms
of what we're trying to get out of life. I
find what my brother's doing far more admirable than what
I'm doing. I'm you know, like I said, I'm playing
I play games. That's my job. My job is to
play games in a way where people look at that
and instead of going are you been old to play games?
They look at that and go, oh man, that's cool.
You make movies. And it's like, oh yeah, okay, I

(43:37):
don't know. That wasn't never the plan. I was just like,
I just want to do this. It seems like fun,
and I enjoy doing it, and I want to be better,
and you learn and you grow and all those things
so come together.

Speaker 5 (43:47):
I think, yeah, yeah, And you know, I wanted to
talk more about Night Shooters too, So could you just
give a brief synopsis of the film.

Speaker 6 (43:55):
The film's about a group of low budget filmmakers who
are shooting pickups. They've broken into a building that turns
out that it's rigged for demolition. So they've snuck in
and the director, well, the term is the term is
gas lighting. Now the director kind of gaslights a bunch
of his crew. We're just working in a building this
rigged for demolition, and whilst working on their movie shooting

(44:19):
their pickups. They see they witness a murder in the
building opposite. The murder is being committed by a gangster
who owns the demolition company that's leveling the buildings. The
idea is you killed people in the buildings, the buildings
collapse on them and the bodies are buried, and oh
there were people in here is the is the idea.
So they have to use their filmmaking skills as weapons

(44:43):
to survive. The constant onslaught from gangsters who're trying to
eradicate any witnesses, make sure they're dead, and then leave
them in the buildings to get demolished. So, yeah, it's
a it's fun. The stunk. The stunt guy's a martial artists.
The special effects lady takes the plastic explosi from the
rigged building to create more dangerous explosives using her squibs.

(45:05):
The sound guy is leaving radio mics everywhere so we
can hear when the bad guys are coming. The cinematographer
knows the layout of the buildings perfectly because she is
kind of studied them for all the best angles. Yeah,
little things like that. Sort of a fun concept that's
as much of a love letter to filmmaking as it
is films themselves, and even in the sound design, we

(45:27):
were able to throw in a couple of familiar sound
effects that people might clock and go, ah, the world
they live in now has these sound effects from films,
not the Wilhelm screen, though we didn't do that one.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
The Wilhelm screen.

Speaker 5 (45:41):
That's like a staple, that's like a stiple of so
many movies.

Speaker 4 (45:44):
In fact, I think it was in the Layers, should
I It better have been the thing.

Speaker 6 (45:49):
It's in all the Star Wars movies. It should be.
It's in all of the lucasfilm movies. I think it's
in Willow a couple of times. It's in all the
Indiana Joe's movies. It's yeah, it's uh, it's it's one
I've always loved. That used to terrify mem as a
kid because it sounded so anguished and pained, but as
an adult, it's it's the funniest thing ever.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Yeah, it's it's always something.

Speaker 5 (46:13):
It always makes me laugh whenever I hear And I
know it's in a lot of Tarantino films too. But
I'm gonna link that into the show notes everybody. For
anyone who doesn't know what the Wilhelm scream is. But uh,
but but for for night shooters. You know, how did
you go about you're putting this all together? I mean,
you know, did you have to did you go with
the team to sort of find an abandoned building that
you could actually shoot in or even semi abandoned or

(46:34):
what hell when that was actually fully operational?

Speaker 4 (46:36):
You know, so how did you go back it? He'll
started to put all this together.

Speaker 6 (46:39):
We actually found a building that was due to be
demolished in after a week of shooting, so we said, yeah,
we'll take it, and my amazing producer worked really really
hard to try and convince them to let us stay there.
Because the building doesn't just get destroyed, it gets you know,
there's a degree of tidying up, electronics come out, all
that sort of thing, and that's when that's why and

(47:00):
that you know, so there's about there's about two weeks
worth of that that would have happened before we would
have needed to get out of there. So we were
trying to sort of talk ourselves and talk our way
into it, which she did actually and we managed to
get the full three weeks there. And the only problem
we have on the last day it snowed, so we
had to shoot some stuff in January, but yeah, it
was It was great because the building was going to

(47:23):
be demolished. I was like, can I just trash this place?
And they went, yeah, your signed something it says we're
not responsible if someone hurts themselves. You can do whatever
you want. And we're like, wait, great, So yeah, we
we wrecked the place. There was one room we shot
in and then we thought, look, this is a good room.
The lights are here, let's smash down this wall. And

(47:43):
now it's suddenly put the cameras over here, and now
it's suddenly a new set. Right. They were like, yeah, great.
So we spent like ten minutes throwing ourselves into walls
to try and tear the place apart, and it worked
quite well. It was a good way to get some
frustration out of our systems. It's about week There was
day five. I think at that point we're like, it's
that we were shooting actual nights. I remember saying revand I,

(48:04):
it'll be great. We'll just adjust and then we'll be
fine and we'll shoot. And I think on night three
I turned to this the special effects department, who are
also my girlfriend and then just said, fucked up. Fucked
up so bad. This is really hard. I don't know
what the fuck I'm gonna do this for another two
and a half weeks. But we did and it was fine.

(48:25):
Of course I couldn't say that to anyone else because
that would have been poor leadership. But my god, I
remember working nice to as in my early twenties and thought, yeah,
you just get used to it. It's fine. Oh man,
it's different when you're nearly forty. It's a much different experience.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
So I mean, did you find that some part? I mean,
you know, really do you? Does anybody ever ever really
get used to those long days?

Speaker 5 (48:50):
I've kind of gotten used to them in a way,
but sometimes when you're on set for you fourteen sixteen,
eighteen hours, you're like, you know, I thought i'd be
to this by now if they're doing it for five
ten years, But it's like, you know what I mean,
it just kind of never never really sinks, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 6 (49:07):
Yeah, I mean the thing is from from where I am,
because you're always fighting a schedule that's really difficult. The
days always seem quite short. From my perspective. I was like,
we never seemed to have enough time and only when
life is like that do you go ah, And so
the knights would fly by pretty quickly. For me, I
think there's only one day and this is when we switched,

(49:29):
and because on Saturdays, because it was a part of
a complex, a business complex, so we had to shoot
at night just for the noise readly and because you know,
to block out the windows on some of these buildings
was a huge ordeal. So we would just shoot at night.
We could just move around and go to whatever we
wanted at any point, and we didn't have to spend
forty minutes each setup blocking out lights. So it was
it was, it was just it did make sense to

(49:51):
shoot at night. It wasn't just for the sake of it.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
And we'll be right back after a word from our
sponsor and now back to the show.

Speaker 6 (50:05):
But yeah, it was on Saturday. On this we had
two Saturdays where we worked during the days or they
were later days. And one of those was the hardest.
I was. I think I just didn't get much sleep
the sort of day before, so I yeah, I think
I said to my producer and my script supervisor said, guys,

(50:26):
I need you guys to drive time today. Because I can't.
I am just so tired. I'm going to concentrate on
what I'm doing and I'll make sure that works, and
then we're going to move on to the next thing.
I don't really want to think about time or any
of those things. So you guys come to me and
tell me that we need to get a move on.
Otherwise I'm just gonna assume we're fine and just keep going.
And that day worked really well. It was fine. I

(50:47):
kind of got through that one. Slept very quickly when
I got home. But that was a that was the
hardest one. That was the hardest day because there was
a day. Ironically, if it was another night, I think
it would have been fine.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
But but you know, it's in those moments, man, that's
when you need to have that team, you know what
I mean, like you kind of you know what I mean,
Like that, that's when the team can actually come together, and
that's when you're like, man, I'm glad I've always been
you know, try to be a good guy whoever, because
now I'm just going to gall on these on the team.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
A lot right now and not you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (51:19):
And it's those times where you were like, thank God,
I wasn't a freaking tyrant.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
Maybe you were, Mark.

Speaker 6 (51:25):
Maybe it might have been like, ah, he's all right
except for this making us work nights. Shit. But they
were like these guys, they actually they were amazing. They
were all really great for me. I One of the
things I tend to notice is that I mean, I
I don't think I get you know, there's always a
moment where pressure and time and all those things so compress,

(51:47):
and what you end up with is what I end
up with is more of an mergency to get things done.
So I think, whereas my normal approach is to be
kind of like very excited and happy and you know,
like a basically, when it comes to those moments, I
tend to get more I think focused, So I tend
to sometimes I'll just sometimes it doesn't get a cross

(52:11):
as like I'm having a good time, and I think
that when those moments do crop up, I notice that
everyone really really everyone really works anyway. But I do
notice a change in that everyone works to try to
get me excited again, if that makes any sense. And
the way I've always interpreted that is that I'm obviously

(52:32):
doing something where they like me being happy and enjoying
what we're getting, Like I think that there's something there
and then what they're trying to do is get that back.
I think that's just how I've interpreted it because and
that feels to me, that feels lovely, that feels like
I've got a group of people who aren't just helping
me make a film or to tell a story, but

(52:53):
you know, they want me to enjoy myself with some
doing it. And like I said, a lot of these
guys are really young, some of them are more experienced,
and it's just really great when that group of people
come together because they see that I'm frustrated or disappointed
because something isn't working, and they find a way to
make it work or they're offering solutions. I mean, if
you think about it like this, if I was like

(53:14):
a complete, like vicious asshole during a shoot, like a
young person isn't going to make a suggestion to me
that can save the day. They're going to think, oh,
he's a bit grubby, and it's not. I don't want
to really, I don't want him snapping at me, so
they keep quiet. But they don't like you. When I'm
stuck for a problem, I've got people throwing ideas at me,

(53:34):
and it's like, that's great, that's what I need. I
need solutions to problems, not you know, a bunch of
people scared to speak up because I'm having a tantrum
and because I'm in a building where I can actually
literally smash a wall. I'm not smashing a wall, you know,
which psychologically isn't healthy by the way, if you do
take out your rage by breaking things or damage and things,

(53:55):
but you do as you condition yourself. So needs to
do that whenever you're in a moment of heighten stress,
and that's not healthy. I don't know. I've read that
a while ago. I'm not sure if that's true anymore.
You know, it's like with psychological uh theory, it's always changing.
And but I did hear that. But well, nevertheless, it's
a very unpleasant thing to see, so so I so

(54:19):
I don't do it. But but yeah, it's really lovely
that I think every sort of comes comes through, and
you know, everythink we had a really great team on
this one. We had a really good cast. Everything was
like exceeded the expectations so much, and you know, it
was it was a tough shoot, but I think what
we've got is a fun film that that you know,
seems to make sense and and the action is really

(54:41):
good fun, and the characters are great. I really love
I love tonal shifts, so there's lots of those in
the movie. So yeah, it's it's it's yeah, it's it's
a weird one. It's the kind of one of the
first times I've talked about it. Uh, it's weird because
I've been making it for so long and be but
been interacting with a part of that or that people

(55:02):
have been sending clips to all along who have read
the script, and this is the fiste I kind of
spoken about it, so without anyone having that favorite reference
of context. So I hope it's making sense. If it's not,
you just get me let me know.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
And and I, uh, with with your permission work.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
I'm gonna post a link to the trailer if it's
up yet, or maybe it is still. If it's not
up yet, I just soa it's a frame of reference.
So people aren't like.

Speaker 6 (55:25):
Yeah, I'll give you a still because this is gonna
oh this is an awkward one. There is a trailer, but
I I it's yeah, it's it's Oh god. Uh this
happens all the time, right, Directors not like trailers they
see for their films, Like, surely that happens all the time.
I've heard it discussed a lot of times. I don't

(55:46):
think the trailer represents the film very well. You know.
It's interesting because you know, I'm being as diplomatic as
I can do. The guys who make this, I'm obviously
want the film to do really well, and they care
a lot about the film, the guys who have sort
of been financing it, but also so they're distributing it,
and they know their audience, they know the audience they
want to capture, and that's fine. I can understand that
and get behind it. But and I know they worked

(56:08):
hard on the trailer to achieve what they want to achieve.
It's just that it's it's just I'm just is not
one that I'm particularly keen on. I don't think. I
think it under sells the film criminally. And yeah, and
I have really made any secret about it. I mean,
I wasn't really involved in the in the construction of

(56:29):
the trailer at all. And even from a technical perspective,
the way I shot that film to specifically be graded,
no one asked me about that either. But this is
the difference from the film that I guess I was
kicked off and this film is that for this film,
we made sure that all the things are in place
so that it was like we own the film and

(56:49):
we're given it two distributors, so it's our film to make. Really,
it's just been financed. So that's kind of where it is. Really. Yeah,
I'm trying not to be a dick because you know,
I think these guys, these guys help me make a film.
You know, it's I've got nothing but like appreciation for
what they've done. It's just that I I do also,
you know, have an idea of how the thing should

(57:11):
be marketed and and then their idea of how should
be marketed in mine are very very different. And that
that's all. It's just it's just a it's basically, it's
a it's a it's a it's a pull in two
different directions. It's it's there's there's there's nothing but sort
of support and love for the film. And you know,
I think these guys, you know, I'll be forever in

(57:32):
debt with them because I've been able to make a
film that just really close to my heart and really
personal out of it. I just want people to see it.
You know. That's where the marketing comes in.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (57:41):
Yeah, that that that's the big thing nowadays is you know,
how how do you actual get people to see your movie?
You know, things have gotten you know, I don't want
to say easier, but let's just say more accessible to filmmakers.
And you know, now it's like, well, we've made the thing,
now how do we people to see the thing?

Speaker 6 (57:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (57:57):
And you know is a vod is a theater? Do
we slap it on YouTube and call it a day?

Speaker 6 (58:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (58:03):
You know, And that's where this distribution, you know, that's
why it's so important now more than ever. And the
movie has to be able to stand out. The marketing
has to be able to stand out because I mean,
now it's I think things have gotten. It's it's more
like you have to market instead of trying to do
it like the old days. We have to market to
everybody and say okay, and then the chips will fall

(58:24):
what they may. Now you have to market specifically to
that group of people who are going to see it.
And that's where all this big data comes in. That's
where the changing paradigms of social media come in, and
then you know, and then you can you know, basically
now you can either create that market for yourself or
you can pay to have access to that market.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 6 (58:43):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that's the thing it's about, you
know it, it's it's I mean, the thing with the
marketing is, you know, there are elements in the film
and like, you know, you you you staw call it.
I should have said you linked for Mike PI. Really,
Mike is probably the best example of what some this
stuff can be. Like that I make where I really
play with tone, not to a point where it's incongruous,

(59:06):
like you're not laughing at a scene you shouldn't be
laughing at, or you're not forced to laugh when you've
just had a terrible time, or the other way around.
It's tonal shifts. It's what Hitchcopter does perfectly, did perfectly.
It's what Spielberg does perfectly. And you know, it's that
idea of taking all your songs and so what happens

(59:26):
is when you sell a film or distribute it as
a film, they find an angle in there that they
find most appealing that they then think will help sell
the film. So, you know, action being a great one.
It's not an action film. We've got a lot of
action in it, but it's you know, it's a character ensemble. Really,
the action is a small part of the film. I
think if people went into this expectant to see the raid,

(59:48):
they'd be pretty piste off because you know, the raid
is forty minutes of awesome fighting.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 6 (01:00:04):
We really don't have that long that much, So it's
it's about some like I think from my perspective as
an audience, I'm always thinking about measuring expectations. I default
to what the marketing team do for for fist full
of Led, for example, Sony know exactly how they want
to market that. And you know, this isn't one of
their big budget films. This is one of This is

(01:00:25):
a completely different thing to Ghostbusters, you know what I mean.
So it's not you know, we're not going to fall
into the same traps that Ghostbusters fell into. They've said
to me, would you like to cut a trailer? And
I said absolutely, love too, and they said, okay, we
go one request. Can you make it longer than you'd
normally make a trailer, so we have all of what
you think are the best trailer moments and then we'll
whittle it down. I was like, well, that's that sounds great. Yeah,
of course I'll do that. So, you know, I kind

(01:00:47):
of like they've got a very like directed driven approach
to how the film can get out there, which we
did on Colin and it worked really well for Colin.
You know, I was, I was, you know, very specific
about what I think we should market the film towards,
and so, you know, it helped help the sales. So

(01:01:08):
you know, I think that's how I feel with that,
you is, is I just I want to I want
the film to be seen for what it's going to be,
and you know, like, you know, I'd like to send
you the trailer that I cut for the film, because
you know, I'm proud of it. I love watching people
watch it. It's uh, but I think what we're gonna do
is because I think it's fair that I don't interfere

(01:01:31):
with the marketing that they've put money into. You know,
I think we should. I think I should leave it
do its thing, and then when the film's released, then
we're in a different territory, then we can sort of
then we can release the trailer, although I guess I
don't know. I suppose maybe I could put because because
you're the US, this is a UK distributor. The US
is a completely different market, and we haven't sold the

(01:01:51):
film to the US yet. I'm sure I could give
you my trailer and say, well, here's my trailer. You
know it's and I think regionally speaking, no one can do.
You know, I don't think it's a problem. I'd have
to check, like, what's the harm gonna be if someone
from the UK sees our trailer and go, wow, that
looks amazing. You know, what's the problem? You know? But

(01:02:13):
it'd be great if we could. Hey, it's great. You
can tell by just scrolling down right now. If it's there,
it was fine. If it's not, it wasn't. We're in
the past right now, Dave. Everyone listened to this is
in the future exactly. I know.

Speaker 5 (01:02:27):
We would think we're in the present, but we're not.
We're actually you know, it's it's amazing. I will after
we're done with this interview, I'm gonna I'll look at
it and and I'll give you I'll tell you my thoughts.
I'll give you the thumbs up and say, hey, you
know what I think. I'm gonna post this everywhere now
work and be like, distributors be damned, but so but

(01:02:52):
you know, when when I'm.

Speaker 6 (01:02:54):
Gonna be clear with it them, they mean, well, that's
the thing. It's not they're not they're not like, they're
not bad people. They mean, well, they want the film
to succeed. It's just that they have their very specific
ideas in the same way as my specific ideas. It
doesn't make me right. My trailer could suck. But you know,
I you know this. This is the push and poll
And that's the thing with the creative industries that you're
always talking about. I always try to break it down

(01:03:16):
to tech technicalities. I don't look at it as like
on an emotional basis, say emotionally, I like this, Emotionally
I don't like this. I look at it and I
break it down technically. I say, right, what is this achieving?
Is this story point clear? Is this story point clear?
Here's a joke? Is that you're established well enough early
in the trailer for it to work at this point
in the trailer. If the answer is no, well, we

(01:03:36):
might have a problem. So what I try to do
with my trailers they try to make sure that all
those components are in place so that we're telling a
story and we have that emotional weight to it so
people do watch it and laugh, people are thrilled. That's
that's what you're trying to do. And it's the same
thing as making a film. You know, I was trusted
with the money to make film and tell that story.
Why not trust me to do the mini version of that?

(01:03:57):
You know, because I'm not exactly the director who says
you can't put this and it'll spoil it, I say,
fuck it, spoil the whole thing. The audience may never
this is the thing that most people are going to
see this trailer, so you have to do it in
a way that gets them in. And if the film's
good enough, they will forget all of these little clips
because these clips out of context don't mean anything. It's
just flashbang and cool. But in the context of the

(01:04:17):
story of the film, people will forget that they know
what's coming and they'll just enjoy it, Like do you
remember Return to the King? Because I love the Lord
of the Rings movies. In Return to the King. There
was an amazing end to the trailer with the you know,
the Felby sort of comes in and roars a gandal
from the horse, and I had I think someone pointed
out that that wasn't in the film, and I went, oh, shit, yeah,

(01:04:38):
that isn't in the film. I was so into the
movie that I forgot that the coolest part of that
trailer wasn't in the film, and I didn't even think
to ask where it was. I mean, I just loved
the film that much, So that's it. You can do
what you want. The trailer. It's fine, it's you know,
it's uh yeah. I started to think of bad trailers
and they give the whole thing away that terminut a

(01:04:58):
Genesis trailer.

Speaker 5 (01:05:01):
Whether yeah, I remember the poster gave that away too.
I actually have an idea for a movie. Every trailer
a movie trailer, and it's just called bait and switch.
Like literally, it's gonna be a trailer for a movie
that doesn't exist, which features scenes from from a movie.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
That if you were to go to it, it doesn't
exist either.

Speaker 5 (01:05:20):
So what I mean by that is it's like, imagine
a trailer that showcases a movie that nothing has nothing
to do with the movie they're trying to even sell.
It's just random random like scenes and stuff from others
from you know what I mean, that are all just
made up. So if you went to see that movie,
if it actually existed, it would it wouldn't none of
that would be in there.

Speaker 6 (01:05:38):
Anyway. That's great, that's stuff I said that they should do,
Like I was up to doing a it's called Groundhog
Day sequel. But but what you do is you just
release Groundhog Day. You just change the title card. You
just say, oh, this is groundoug Date. But you change
the title card and you just release Groundhog Date and
people will go get it. That's great. We've got to

(01:06:01):
see Growdug Day in the cinema and then there'll be
other people that go, god, damn, I hated this. This
is terrible. So you know, the the Ryan Johnson approach
can rage as much as you endear.

Speaker 5 (01:06:16):
So you know, just I know, we were talking for
about an hour, you know, Mark, it just been closing.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
I wanted to ask about Fist Full of Lead.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):
You know, how on how did you you come across,
you know, that opportunity to make that film, you know,
with with with you know, because I don't know if I'm
how much we're allowed to say, but you know, how
did you get the opportunity to to sort of start
making this film? And you know, because that'll be that'll
be the second film that you're going to have released by.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
The end of this month.

Speaker 6 (01:06:41):
Yeah, we'll have a finished there in the month. I
think it's coming out in December, because I think that's
the difference between I shot, is that I'll finish it
and that the thing is going to be released in
the UK virtually straight away, but the sony want to
spend more time like building up the marketing and then
looking at what they can they can do to really
push it. So even though our release is far away,
our deadline is is roughly the same. But what happened

(01:07:04):
there was we were looking for money for Night Shooters
and we were speaking to an investor that there's a
filmmaker he's absolutely incredb he's worth looking at. He's a
Welsh Roger Corman. And I met him through an interview
guy called Andrew Jones, and I met him during this interview,
and in this interview he was talking about how he'd
you know, he took the IP for and I either
Living Dead made a film called like Living Dead Requiem

(01:07:26):
and he was the first time and mate, he said, look,
the film's not that great, but you know, I just
love making movies. So I made this movie. And he
made this one night Living Dead Requiem because he knew
that that would sell. And then he did an amateur
Ville one and he knew that would sell. And he
started doing all these really smart choices and he started
building up investors. And the guy makes something like six
movies a year and they all sell, and Sony us,

(01:07:51):
I think I've released all of them. And I was
just in awe of this guy's ability to his business. Marbel.
It's like like a very low Blumhouse, right, So I
said to him, I said, you know, I asked him.
I said, like, I'm looking for money to do night Shoes.
And he put me in touch with his investors, and
his investors we got along with very well. It's a
very generous thing for a filmmaking to do, by the way,

(01:08:11):
to put you in touch with the investors. It's not
a it's not a dune thing. You know, directors don't
even ask. It's kind of it's terrible. It's like asking
to sleep with a family member. It's it's it's it's
wrong you worked to get those investors. You shouldn't, you know,
you shouldn't. You shouldn't really get involved. You shouldn't say, oh,
can I have some of your pie, because that's money
off his table, it's money away from his films. But

(01:08:34):
he was very generously of So my producer spoke to
these guys and they were trying to get money for
night shooters, and it was a bit of a song like, Oh,
if it could be this, we could do it. If
it could be this, we could do it. But then,
you know, another company sort of stepped in and said, oh,
we'd like to make my shooters. And so we thought, oh,
there's a dilemma. Do we keep working on so that
these guys can make it, or do we just say
yes to these these other guys who were offering a

(01:08:55):
very good deal, make night shows with them, and then
just stay in touch with the other investor. The other
investor said, if you got someone willing to put money in,
definitely do it. Don't worry about that. However, if you
are able to, we'd love you to make this this
western and and so I just said fuck it. Yeah,

(01:09:16):
let's do it. If we can shoot at this date,
we'll be we'll be able to do both. Michelle park
And my producer, said, you sure, that's a lot of work.
I said, it's a lot of work for me. I
think I can do it. Do you think you could
do it? She went, and she said, I don't think
this is entirely true, but she said, oh, it's less
work for me, it's more work for you because you've
got now two feature films to shoot direct right and

(01:09:38):
needed and not in that order. And so she so
I thought, and now let's do it and and yeah.
So that's how that one sort of fell together. But
it's really interesting because we're able to look at what
we did in Light Shooters, which was very ambitious, and
then we looked at the planning that we could sort
of put into Fist full of Lead and.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.

Speaker 6 (01:10:07):
Comparatively, maybe it's because we were shot for nights for
three weeks. When we shot Fist full of Lead in
two weeks, that was somehow the goddamn easiest film shoot
I've ever done in my entire life. It was a breeze.
There were two hard days on it, and that was
just because we were dealing with weather a lot, because
it was a huge snow storm the UK and we

(01:10:28):
shot it and that just meant that our film looked
amazing because it looked very expensive because we had huge
expanses of land with snow, which you don't get very
often in the UK. So when you see it in
films like Django or The Hateful Eight, there's a quality
to having it set a West and set in snow.

(01:10:49):
And although I didn't initially want that because I thought that
was Tarantino territory, when I saw it, I was like, oh,
this is great. We've also got a spray blood in this.
This looks it looks amazing. So so yeah, we to
sort of shot that and we did them back to
back and it was It's really interesting. It's really interesting
working with both companies on films that have similar budgets
just because it's it's it's it's interesting to see how

(01:11:11):
the two different investors managed it. Really And I think
for Michelle, who's I think these are the first we
produced a lot. She's produced a lot of television before,
so she's very familiar with what I can do and
what I need and and and when to tell me. No.
I think that these were like our first two feature

(01:11:31):
films together, and uh yeah, and I think I've the
collaboration has been incredible. It's amazing. I think, if anything,
Michelle is as much as psychologist for me as she
is a producer. And she keeps me very well protected
from things that like, you, we're not gonna be very
good at dealing with this, So you go over there,

(01:11:53):
you leave it to me, and I'll do this. And
I'm like, I'm happy to get involved a conversation. Don't
don't I'll get She's like, no, no, no, I don't want
you there. Funk off over there, behave yourself. So yeah,
she keeps me a check. She's excellent. She's she's she
she's the only person I think who can say don't

(01:12:14):
do that. And I'm like, okay, fine, you know she's
And it's not from it's not from any any any
sort of it doesn't come from any position of authority
or ending. It's all to do with just like absolute
respect like I've got. I've got so much respect for
her and how we work together, and that it is
and it's so rare to find a producer. You can
have this sort of relationship with that, like when she

(01:12:36):
asks for something, I'm like, okay, fine, Like she can
give me notes and is one of four people on
the planet who can give me notes. And I don't
know what you know because you know this is this
is this is the horrendous ego of of a of
a writer director. It's there.

Speaker 5 (01:12:57):
But that's when you be That's when you become mister
bastard like were talking about earlier.

Speaker 6 (01:13:00):
Is that really?

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
And he's like, God, damn that Mark. He is a bastard.

Speaker 6 (01:13:06):
But yeah, but with Michell's he's like, this doesn't make
any sense. Can you you should fix that? I'm like,
all right, it's like a little child's like you're rubbing
his heels of the floor, kicking the dirty A fine,
I'll do it now. Then you know it's great, It's
it's I It's like, I'm really excited. Of course, we're
about to produce another film for someone. We're just waiting

(01:13:26):
for all the everything falling blind and when it all
falls in blank and then we have ourselves a budget
and we can do the Roger Corman thing of of
getting a filmmaker their first feature, which I'm really excited
about because as a producer pans off, I'm there if
they want me. If you get stuck, I've got a camera,

(01:13:48):
I'll go shoot see and I shoot second unit and
do whatever you want, or stay here and just eat
the catering and and write the next one that I
want to make. You know, I'm like, I'm not really
interested in telling people how to make films, like the ideas.
We go to filmmakers who make films themselves and and
it's like, right, you use your team, you make your
film your way, and you know, if this one all

(01:14:09):
comes again, I'm not allowed to talk about it yet,
which is weakly rubbish. I'll tell you on Facebook, but
like it's it's one of those things where it's we
we just you know it. I'm really excited at what
this directors pulled together with his resources. He's an infinitely
better director than I am. You know, if he was
my friend, it'd be a really bitter jealous person. But yeah,

(01:14:32):
it's uh yeah, it's it's, it's, it's it's I'm really
quite excited about what we're doing with that exercise. So
that would be if that all works out as three
films in a year, so we're written and directed two
of them, although I did co write fist of all
led Phil Das really as a writer friend. He stood
up and really helped us out there. And then this
third film would be when I'm just producing, and if

(01:14:53):
all goes well, we might have another action film in November,
which I'm really hoping we do because I was meant
to be doing something else, but I think that's going
to be pushed back, so I'm gonna try. So it'd
be kind of in my head of like, oh, three
films in a year, that'd be nice. I don't think
I'm gonna be able to do this for the rest
of my life, so I may as well do it
whilst I have the useful exuberance.

Speaker 5 (01:15:12):
Yeah, you gotta, you gotta hit, We gotta get the
momentum going. That's what I found when I stopped for
a while. Honestly, Mark, it's so hard to get back,
and actually that's why I'm starting. I'm gonna get back
on the horse next month and I'm gonna shoot the
first thing I've shot.

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
In probably five years, four years.

Speaker 6 (01:15:31):
Yeah you don't you said this last time we spoke, well,
what happened there? What happened there? You said you can
do that. We spoke about it a year and a
half ago. Maybe I think no idea I have.

Speaker 4 (01:15:46):
I don't even know what we were talking about that
point you said.

Speaker 6 (01:15:49):
Start making films again. I'm guessing. I'm guessing you didn't.
My my Facebook's talking didn't reveal anything, So, like, I
don't know you you should totally do it, dude, it's it.
I know it's I know it's tough, but like i'd
always recommend making a film, even if you made a
bad one, you're a better filmmaker having made that bad one.
So you know, so if you keep making bad ones,

(01:16:11):
three bad films later, you're three times a better filmmaker,
you know what I mean. So it's it's it's worth doing.
Even if you're just making a short with two people
sat around the table talking about a goldfish. You know,
it's it's something, so I'd recommend it. But you know,
it's you know, if you if you need any moral sport, dude,
I'm here, I'm always here, just coming. Oh happily, I'll

(01:16:32):
happily talk you into it. So I love doing well well.

Speaker 5 (01:16:35):
I don't know what I was planning on doing at
that point. It could have been one of two things.
But what I'm doing with this one is I'm sort
of taking the reins of more things myself, like I
like I used to do, where it was basically, you know,
I was wearing many hats. But the upside to it
was I knew what was getting done and what wasn't, truthfully,

(01:16:57):
you know, and I've gotten you know, since I I
don't want to maybe a couple of years ago, before
I even started doing this podcast, I would get offers
all the time, and it would be like these ridiculous offers, Like,
for instance, I got offered to be a part of
this website, which was pretty big at the time. At
the time, they were actually ready to partner with a
nerdist and then all of a sudden they were like, oh,

(01:17:18):
but you have to pay for everything.

Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
And we're not going to pay for this. You're just
at the exposure.

Speaker 5 (01:17:22):
And I'm like, Okay, well I can maybe make something
out of this. And I'm thinking to myself, as it
worth it, and then I'm like, you know what, So
I emailed the guy back and I just told him
my concerns never got back to me whatsoever.

Speaker 4 (01:17:33):
And I'm like, you know, what, what what what if
I had actually done this?

Speaker 5 (01:17:36):
What if I actually actually went through spent thousands or
hundreds of dollars or whatever making something and then he
just never got back.

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
To me anyway? And I'm what then?

Speaker 5 (01:17:45):
I mean, so with this, what I'm gonna do is
next month. I've already started to sit down. I storyboarded
the whole thing out. I have somebody building an animatic
right now. I've actually telling people in the podcast, I've
been saying, if you want to help me, shoot me
a freaking email.

Speaker 6 (01:17:57):
But yeah, how's it going? Is it going good? What feedback?
The feedback part is that people willing to throw the
hat in the ring and enjoy in. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:18:05):
I actually have had a few people who have emailed,
who have emailed me, and you know, we I've been
talking with them. I've had a few people email me
and basically they're trying to see what they what I
can do for them, which is kind of meaning that
they're like, hey, what's going on with this?

Speaker 4 (01:18:21):
Well, Hey, can you help me with my project?

Speaker 5 (01:18:23):
No, it's not I'm clearly not in a position right
now for you, for for me to do that, so
you know, it's it's you know, a lot of I
think I know what I was I was going to do.
I think I was going to do something similar to
what I'm gonna do now when I mentioned it to
you about a year and a half though, I think
I was going to do a trailer just to get
some eyeballs on some stuff. And then I remember then

(01:18:45):
then things kind of went south for a number of
different reasons. But I'm making a fake trailer, so it's
and so that this is going to be fun. In fact,
you Luis, let me tell you the stuff when I'm
done off for you.

Speaker 6 (01:18:55):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, do it do it too, because
I mean, I I think that there's a lot of
people who who adopt the attitude of, oh, you shouldn't
do it. The time is not right, And I'm just like, look,
the time never feel was right. You know, whenever someone
says here's here's the money you asked for to make
a film of this budget that you wrote specifically for
this budget we're shooting in a month, when that day

(01:19:16):
shows up, I'm still like, shit, was the script good
enough to do? Share like you constantly feel unprepared, no
matter how prepared you are, so just embrace it and
roll with it and make make a shitty movie or
make a great movie. Just make a movie, just like
you know you you all you can do is do
the best you can do at that particular moment in time.
And and sometimes we screw it up and we have

(01:19:38):
to get a pickup of a hand picking things up.
Or sometimes you get it right and we got the
whole thing, the single shot. You know, it's it's I'm
I would encourage constantly to make just make movies.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (01:20:03):
Yeah, I think that is the uh you know when
people say, you know, it's got to be the right time,
and I'm guilty of that too. You're right, it's ever
gonna be the right time. And you know what, I
found that particularly true by the way it's been writing
a screenplay. I think sometimes people think that they have
to have everything known before they start writing. And I'm like,

(01:20:23):
you know what, I I the people that I all
know who are the most successful screenwriters have all said,
you know that we don't really know everything before we start,
because you know, there's a lot of downside to that end.
Not only that, but really it's kind of hard to
actually grasp a screenplay because usually you get an idea
and then you go, okay, well, now I know the
whole story about what this is, and then you start

(01:20:45):
writing it, and then you hit a bunch of dead
ends or brick walls or obstacles whatever, and you're like,
oh shit, now what do you I?

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
Well, now what do I do?

Speaker 5 (01:20:52):
Well, I'm gonna start over again, and then you perpetually
never ever finish anything.

Speaker 4 (01:20:56):
So that's another thing to watch out for, is those
lot of obstacles.

Speaker 5 (01:21:01):
And see, that's why this podcast exists, Mark, So we
got guys who are actually out there doing it like
yourself and coming back here and you know, it's like,
you know, it's just a chatnel. Laugh.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
Remember you ever see the TV show extras?

Speaker 6 (01:21:13):
Yeah, I love extras.

Speaker 5 (01:21:14):
So so remember the second season when uh, maybe it's
the first season, but anyways, remembering Ricky your friends, that
guy on that Samuel Jackson yea set and he's a
big guy and he's like, oh I found the joker
of the pack.

Speaker 4 (01:21:26):
He's like, it's just a chattel. Laugh. That's what this is.
It's a chat and a laugh.

Speaker 6 (01:21:29):
I don't know, let's just bring it all the way
back to Star Wars, to the Fantom Menace. That guy
plays he's a Welsh actor for my mate snow him.
That guy plays the general of jo Jo Binks's army. Used,
that's that guy. There you go. We brought a full circle. Dude.

Speaker 4 (01:21:52):
Well, there you go. I don't think there's anything we
have to talk about. I think we have.

Speaker 5 (01:21:56):
We're officially just just you know, solved all the problems
the universe and we've exposed the crack of the matrix.

Speaker 6 (01:22:03):
And also we had a very mature conversation about the
last Jedi, considering you hated it and I absolutely loved
We had a very mature conversation about it. There was
no name calling or you know, you didn't call me
like a cock, and I didn't call you a sexist.
It was great. It was great, although although in the
UK a good insult is a cock. You cock, as

(01:22:25):
you know, so I would have assumed you meant that
if you would have gone down that road, which of
course you wouldn't. You're a decent human being.

Speaker 5 (01:22:31):
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk sharing you later
on now I'm up. I have this friend of mine,
he's au Bastard. In fact, his name is mister Bastard.
He absolutely he actually liked the last Jedi. What a wreckage?
Oh no, no me, You'll be like, I think someone

(01:22:52):
in America is talking about me right now, And I'm like, oh,
come on, Mark, who's talking about you in America right now?

Speaker 6 (01:22:57):
Oh God, the stems of my snowflake of melting, I
can tell. Yeah, but it's a very tuer conversation that
we did. We did good.

Speaker 4 (01:23:06):
So before we go and work, where can people find
you out online?

Speaker 6 (01:23:12):
I am on Twitter. I'm at at Mark Underscore, the
Underscore Price. I'm sorry. I was early to Twitter and
I didn't really do anything with it, so I have
one of those annoying underscore names. I'm also the same
handle on Instagram as well, where I'm posting a lot
pictures about the films that we're doing as well, So
there's a lot. There's a lot on their Instagram. I'm
very active on on Instagram, but I think at Twitter

(01:23:34):
I'm working on I'm working on not leaving Twitter. My
Twitter is all I do is retweet shit that makes
me laugh. So my Twitter feed is just Star Wars
and you know, shit like that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:45):
It's well, I'm gonna link to all that in the
show notes. Everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:23:48):
You can see all the things that make Mark laugh,
and you can see me tweet about god knows what.
I'm gonna start using my other personal Twitter more because
I kind of abandoned it more to just to the
podcast Twitter because it was getting a lot more feedback,
you know, and I was kind of like, well, what
the hell is the point of you know, using this one.
So and I have one of the and I was
an early adopter of Twitter, and I late, and I

(01:24:09):
was very late, and I still I'm sorry. I was
late in changing my name though, and I had to
get Dave underscore bullets and I'm like, mother, god damn it.
And because a guy who has Dave bullets, yeah, actually
blocked me because so many people were tweeting at him.

Speaker 4 (01:24:25):
And I said, listen, let's just switch user names.

Speaker 5 (01:24:27):
And I said, I'll make it worth your while too,
I'll slip you like twenty twenty twenty bucks whatever, and
he and he blocked me. He actually blocked me, and
I was like, well, there you go. So because people
were tweeting at him and he's like, I'm not that
Dave Bullis. It's this guy here, and I'm like, dude,
just switch with me.

Speaker 6 (01:24:43):
For god's sakes, there's a there's a politician. John Fabreau
spelled the same. The first thing he's got under it
is not that one, right, that's not that's not He's like,
I did not direct iron Man. But yeah, yeah, it's

(01:25:03):
my Twitter stuff. I love a bit of Twitter. It's great.
It's how I get my news. But that's how I
get the gossip on my news. I'll see on Twitter
that I'll try verify it if I go to an
actual news source.

Speaker 4 (01:25:15):
It's all the fake all the fake news and stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:25:17):
You kind of like go, all right, yeah, it's like
great white Sharks spotted off corn Well. Ohly, shit, that's cool.

Speaker 5 (01:25:22):
I mean, you know, I have friends who post stuff
on Facebook and Twitter and this, this and that and
some of this stuff that I see them post.

Speaker 4 (01:25:29):
I go, guys, that there's no way that could be
true on any which way you slice stuff. I don't care.

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):
I don't care if you're whatever political party or whatever
you're you're from.

Speaker 4 (01:25:40):
There's no way this could be true.

Speaker 5 (01:25:41):
There would literally be a mass uproar, or there would
literally be h some kind of like government investigation one
way or the other. There's just no way, or maybe
maybe I'm the idiot and they're actually if all the truth,
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:25:56):
Well, I'm such a sucker, Like I'll watch it and
there I go, who wow, that's cool, and I'll check
it out before just blindly believing it because I've learned
from my mistakes. I was like, oh, well, and I
believe things for a brief moment before I find out
they're not true. I'm like, ash shit. But there was
that one, remember that meteor over Russia a few years back.
I'd been about five years ago, and all those dash
cams caught it, and I just went, that's the fakest

(01:26:18):
thing I've ever seen. As bullshites, No, that's real. Yeah,
that one was so the one time I called it
out thinking learning from the mistakes, but I don't trust
anything that's bullshit.

Speaker 7 (01:26:26):
Yeah it was real, and I was like, why the
fuck an I so many dash cams in Russia And
then I found out which I went on a wormhole
of YouTube, bat day man, it was loads are Russians
throwing themselves in front of the cars for fak insurance scams.

Speaker 6 (01:26:38):
It was, yeah, it was. It was a great day.
It was I was I think I was working on
Magpie at the time. I remember just sitting there going
I'm having a day off. To day, I'm watching Russians
try to run themselves over and meteors and that was
my day. That was a great day. That was a
life of a freelancer. Man. It's it's it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.
I should be ashamed of myself.

Speaker 5 (01:27:00):
It's all good, man, it's a it's all good. It's
because I actually always wanted that too. And then I
found out that there was so much insurance fraud over
there that that's why everyone drives now with a dashboard camera.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (01:27:10):
Yeah. Yeah. To clarify incidentally, this might seem like, you know,
like came lording it up, taking a day off because
you just decided to. I was broke as fuck as
well at that point, so it was really really still.
I was living with my parents. I was like, mom,
I got to stay over for a couple of months
to get to just try and save some money. So
it was a pretty that was That was one of
the dark times before the freelancing really picked up, but
my god, yes, it was still it was still a

(01:27:32):
day off. I remember if fondly back in the past,
I'd love another one.

Speaker 4 (01:27:37):
Well, it'll be funny.

Speaker 5 (01:27:38):
What if you got an idea watching all these scam artists.

Speaker 4 (01:27:40):
You're like, oh, I could.

Speaker 5 (01:27:41):
Fake a scam, should scam? I could do that for money?
And your parents are like, no, Mark, you're not doing that.

Speaker 6 (01:27:49):
I did think about getting the dog to do something
really cute so I could film it and send it
into a TV show and get two hundred quid. Ah,
but I was you know their FTP uploads like, was
so frustrated. I was like, fuck this. I didn't even
film enything with the dog. I was just exploring the options,
like this is too time consuming. I gotta do this.
I'll carry on making the film I'm making. I hope

(01:28:10):
that makes any money, which it didn't. That's filmmaking for you.

Speaker 4 (01:28:18):
So but but now you are you?

Speaker 5 (01:28:20):
I mean just out of curiosity, like do you live
in like a flat with a bunch of other people now?

Speaker 6 (01:28:24):
Or yeah, I'm living in London, so oh.

Speaker 4 (01:28:27):
Jesus, you're broke. I know you're broke. Now.

Speaker 6 (01:28:29):
Yeah, I'm working on it. I'm working with a friend.
I'm actually they're very creative guys. So one of my
flatmates works on a Game of Thrones show, throne Cast,
which is which is like a British equivalent of Hey,
we just watched an episode of Game of Thrones, so
let's let's talk about it for an hour. So he's
one of those shows.

Speaker 4 (01:28:50):
Make sure you tell them about this show.

Speaker 6 (01:28:52):
Oh yeah, hell yeah. I mean it was really cool
actually by his little Game of Thrones thing, because I
was on a film shoot once and there was a
guy on the camera department, one of those guys is
you just get the impression this guy is just a
bit of a bit of a tool, and he was
he was bragging about fucking I saw Battle of bast
This last night, and he wanted to just ruin the
episode for people hadn't seen it, and I just went mate,
my flat mate works on throne Cast. He's already seen

(01:29:14):
the final episode next week. If you fuck this episode
up for me, I'm gonna tell you what happens the
very last episode. Fuck your episode up. I could do that,
because if you do that, you would have equivalent the
equivalent of ruined the whole damn series for me, So
I'll just blow the last episode few so don't don't
test me, pal And then of course the last episode
came on, I had to work with him for another
five days. That was tense, but they give him credit.

(01:29:36):
He was all talking. He didn't actually blow it, and
he didn't blow it for anyone. He was just teasing everyone,
very convincing me, which is a confusing way to joke.
But hey, you know, whatever works, whatever works for you.
But yeah, it's but no, it's a it's a it's
a cool. Uh, it's really great because like the Game
of Thrones obsession in the in the flat is pretty intense.

Speaker 2 (01:29:57):
And we'll be I back after a word from our
sponsor and now back to the show.

Speaker 6 (01:30:08):
Uh, you know, and I think a lot of the
guys are in it somewhere, like I'm behind Jamie lanisterday
if you would have just moved to the left, you'd
see me as an extra ship like that. So it's
quite funny. It's you know, and then one of my
camera system's like I'm one of those guys in the background,
and like which one the bald one, and like there's
fucking nine bold people back there. Dude, like on the
Parker Am I supposed to? And they're all out of
focus around fire Like I can't tell which one of you?

(01:30:31):
He said, I think I'm that one. Like it's funny,
it's uh it's uh yeah, it's it's we were in
great times, arn't we, where television is so rich and exciting.
It's a yeah. In many ways, I'm glad I don't
have a career because'd probably love to direct the Game
Throes episode and it would just ruin the whole series
for me.

Speaker 5 (01:30:50):
Like it was great, it's all I got to direct it.
It was all going great. Then, Uh you know that
that one by Mark V.

Speaker 6 (01:30:56):
Price just kind of the camera was just pointing around
in place six. You wouldn't look. He just was like,
I'm pointing over there and I have them did the
lines over there? I'm not looking. Just tell me I
was in focus? Cool? Moving on, Yeah, that'd be me
directing Game of Stones, Bordoor, Campire Back, holl Soul. Any
show that I like, it's just gonna beat, that is
all it would be. Would be me just going like,

(01:31:16):
I don't tell me, just tell me I was in focus?
It is? Did they sound like they meant it when
they said the lines, then great, moving on. That's generally
how I directed anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:31:28):
I mean, I don't know if I'm very good that
that that's your secret right there? We've just had it revealed.
Uh that that that is just kind of like all right?

Speaker 4 (01:31:35):
Was it? Was it in focus?

Speaker 6 (01:31:36):
All right?

Speaker 4 (01:31:36):
Moving on?

Speaker 6 (01:31:37):
Did they sound like they meant it? Great? Moving on? Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:31:45):
Okay?

Speaker 6 (01:31:45):
But yeah, I hope this has been entertaining. Its terrifying.
We're just talking. I forget that we're doing me a podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:31:52):
It's just a conversation that that's That's a good sign though,
I I I think that is a yeah, so cool,
but so mark. I shit, you coming on man and everyone,
and this, by the way, your next on your next up.
And I want to say thank you so much for
coming on. And I'm going to link to everything we
talked about in the show notes.

Speaker 6 (01:32:08):
Everyone, Brittian, thank you very much. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
At indie film huscle dot com. Forward slash eight O
four and if you have it, already.

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):
Please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe.

Speaker 3 (01:32:27):
And leave a good review for the show. It really
helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so
much for listening.

Speaker 2 (01:32:32):
Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
Stay safe.

Speaker 3 (01:32:36):
Out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
E F I L M h U S T l
E dot com.
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