IFH 826: How to Turn a Script Into a Movie Without Hollywood’s Help with Chris Jay

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
twenty seven, Cinema Should Make You Forget 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 3 (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 3 (00:38):
I am your humble.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
Host, Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur
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(01:44):
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Speaker 2 (01:49):
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
On this week's episode, our guest is the frontman and
founder of the rock band Army of Freshmen. He's an
actor and screenwriter. His comedy film The Bent releases this
coming Tuesday, July to twenty six, twenty sixteen, and it'll
be available on everywhere. Be available on Hulu. It'll be
available on Google play Store, iTunes Store, Xbox PlayStation. All

(02:18):
that good stuff With guests Chris J. Chris, how are you, sir?

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Hey, thank you so much for having me. Dave, I'm
I'm very very happy to be here, and I'm gonna
correct you right out of the gate. I definitely don't
start in this. I don't think anybody would want or
need that. But I did throw myself in there because
I figured if I never make another movie again, I'll
probably kick myself in twenty years if I can't show
my kid like there's your old man, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, Well, I usually just say star. I mean usually
it's I don't know what else, because usually I don't
know else to saying that.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
I don't know on a real loose term, even when
I find myself writing press releases for the film, it's like, wait,
who's starring, who's featuring, who's cameo? I mean that shit's
kind of out the window these days. I just think,
like you said, everybody just says starring in. You know,
it could be the grounds keeper in the background, and like, yo,
he stars in the New Guardians of the Galaxy. You know.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's crazy, Yeah, you always cause like for me, I've
always sprakally appeared in shows, so I never know what
to say. I mean, do you say, featured extra. Do
you say, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (03:19):
It's like the weirdest featured extra, say you know what
I mean? That sounds weird, like it's I don't know,
it's it's so funny, all the terms. But you get
all those head shots. Man on, I'll tell you when
we were casting the movie, you'll get a kick out
of this. It was a really interesting experience. But you
look on the back of these resumes, Dave and some
of these people, you don't know who the person is,
You've never heard of them, but they've been on the

(03:39):
coolest stuff in the world, like oh my god, you
were on Friends and you were on Seinfeld and blah
blah blah blah blah. And then at the bottom there's
like a little note that just says featured extra, you know,
And it's like, wait a minute, You're like an extra
just showing up for lunch, which is badass, you know.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
What I mean.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
But it's crazy that you put this on your resume,
you know.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, I mean honestly, like every reacting thing I've ever done,
I have been a featured extra and like always sunny,
you know, I was in a again a pre interview.
We're talking about NFL films. I was. I was in
an NFL Films commercial with some size So it's just weird.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
You know what I mean. So you're like me, like
you're a jack of all trades, not really successful at
any of them, but god damn it, you're out there
doing something you know exactly.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
You got it.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
I love it so so Chris, just to get started,
you know, I wanted to ask you know about your background.
I mean, obviously you know you're a founder of the
rock band Army of Freshman, but I wanted to ask,
you know, how did you actually transition into you know,
the idea, you know, of getting into the film industry.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
Great question, Dave, So basically, super quick background. I am
in the band Army of Freshman, and ever since you've
been doing this movie, we've been on a bit of
a hiatus, but we've been around for like over fifteen years.
I was born and raised in New Jersey, close to
you up in Media, Pennsylvania where you're at. And when
I was seventeen, I left home and I moved by
myself to California to do the rock and roll thing.

(05:01):
I mean, there was two things I loved in my life.
I mean, I always love music, and I always loved movies.
Quite frankly, nothing else really interested me period. I like
wrestling too, in boxing, but that's getting off topic. But
with that said, so I did the music thing man
and Army a Freshman was one of those bands that
didn't blow up. We were always opening up for bigger bands,
but we'd be like the first band on the bill,

(05:23):
Like we'd come and play the trocad Arrow in Philly
or the TLA, right, but we wouldn't be the band
on the marquee. We would be the band that you
didn't know that played first, right. And it was awesome. Man.
We got to travel around the world, and I mean
I put my blood, sweat, tears heart. I spent my
whole twenties and practically early thirties doing Army a Freshman.

(05:44):
And right around the time that we were close to
finally signing a major label deal in the late two thousands,
which in the old music industry was like, you know,
that was the goal, right, that was the goal. And
dude downloading Kane and it came like a violent, terrible
evil wave and it literally destroyed bands of my size,
and we were the middle class bands, if that makes sense.

(06:05):
You know, like we weren't the big boys, but we
weren't the garage bands. We were just those hard working
bands Chris Cross in the United States and Europe in
mini bands. You know, it was really honorable and noble
and you could make enough to maybe pay the rent
and eat right. But when downloading came and then the
what the financial collapse in two thousand and eight, dude,
it just all went to hell and you quick, you know,

(06:27):
it was really really ugly for the music business. And
with that said, we were very close to signing to
a major label, and the A and R guy that
was ready to do the deal literally the financial collaps hit.
They froze all signings for the year, right, So I'm like,
oh my god, Oh my god, what's going on. Literally
thirty days later, I called to check in to see
how things are working and see if we could do
the deal in January, something I had been working for

(06:50):
basically my whole life, right, Dave, and the receptionist says
he was fired and there's nobody else to talk theory.
He is the only A and R guy that wanted us,
So I kind of went through I don't want to say,
a depression. But I really had to take a hard
look at my life. And I had always bounced around
the idea of writing a screenplay because I'm a writer,
like I would pay the bills kind of doing freelance
journalism for local newspapers and stuff, right, So I always

(07:13):
wanted to write a film just because I'm I'm in
southern California, right, Dave, Like everybody, every waiter's got an
idea for a movie, right, and it would be fun
to do, not even necessarily to make. So I got
with my partner in the band, Aaron Goldberg, who co
wrote the screenplay with me, and I got in touch
with a producer friend by the name of Reza Riazzi,
who had produced one of our videos. And this is

(07:34):
kind of like the key link here to the story.
Reza kind of guided us along. So we were first
time screenwriters, right, but he helped us. He kind of
gave us just the you know, just kind of the
focus of what we're trying to do and trying to
get across, and he kind of guided the screenplay and
we worked on it off and on for a while.
We didn't sit down for like two weeks Sylvester Stallone

(07:55):
style and cram out rocky. You know, it was a
work in progress here and there, we got to the
point where we thought it was pretty good, and Resa
thought the same thing, and we made the decision that
I spent my whole life doing music, going in front
of a and our guys, you know, begging to get
signed or get this, or kissing button, giving demo tapes.
That I said, you know what, if we're going to

(08:17):
do this movie, let's just do it right, Like, no
matter how much money we get. If we get ten
thousand dollars and we've got to turn it into a
short film and shoot it in my garage on an iPhone,
let's do it. Let's just not have anybody tell us
we can't do this. I didn't want to be begging
for people to read a screenplay because think of that, Dave,
who the hell is going to read a raunchy comedy

(08:40):
screenplay first time screenwriters? Oh and they were in a
rock band. I mean that just sounds awful, Like I
wouldn't want to read that if that was the background
and you gave it to me. So I kind of
knew going in that we were going to have to
do it on our own. And we set out at
that point too, let's make this movie. You know, Resa
agreed to produce it, and he had produced some indie

(09:01):
films before. So the good news is we had somebody
helping us. And that's the key thing. I don't want
you to think that we were just two guys from
a band that just did all this. We had somebody
guiding us, but there was no money. He just hopped
on because I think at that point he had given
us so much advice. He had taken a little sabbatical
because he had a film that really got taken from
him and turned upside down, and he kind of moved
into stand up and I think this was an opportunity

(09:23):
to like, hey, maybe I can get back in the
game a little bit, and let's find a young, hungry director.
And that's basically the genesis. I know that's a lot
of backstory, but I think it's important to know because
we didn't come from movies at all. The closest we
had to that was I mean I was an extra
in one or two movies, a featured extra, right and
then also making our music videos. But that was it, man.

(09:45):
I mean, we as screenwriters went into this blind. We
just had that determination from the indie music world that
we weren't gonna we were gonna do it, you know
what I mean. We came from a very diy music background,
and I think we sort of took the ethics and
put it into the film.

Speaker 5 (10:03):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
So that's how we got to the point of, yes,
we're making a movie, and there's a long backstory, and
I'm sorry for that day, Chris.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Everyone always likes to talk, and they talk a little
more on my podcast what I'm trying to say, So please,
don't you know you said you might ramble sometimes it's
encouraged on this podcast.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
Well you cut me off at any time. It's skinny,
especially if you and I start talking cheese steaks. I mean,
it's dumb, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Yeah, I completely understand. By the way, speaking of cheese steaks,
what is your favorite cheesteak plays?

Speaker 4 (10:44):
So I know this is sacrilege. Keep in mind, I
didn't come from Philly. I came from Jersey, so I
had to drive into the city. But pounds for pound,
I always like Gym's on South Street. O don't know.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Jim's is great. It's my second friend.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
What's your favorite?

Speaker 3 (10:57):
My favorite place is John's Ross Pork.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
Oh, I heard of that place. I've heard of that place.
Is it that sensational?

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yeah, because it's different than all the other cheese steak places.
Once you have it, you really you understand what a
cheese steak is supposed to be.

Speaker 4 (11:10):
Well, next time I'm out there, you and I are
going there. That's good. Just put it on the calendar.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
I let's do it. Man. It's right by the e
c W ri in it too, so.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
We can talk all right there on Yeah, yikes, that's.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Hip Swanson and Redner right by Swansor and Redne.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
Oh so you talk wrestling too, Dave, I'm impressed.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah. I could talk all day about professional wrestling. Before
I got into film, I used to be a huge
pro wrestling buff. Quick, little mini mini background. I don't
want to talk too much about myself, but many many background.
Out of high school, I went right in the pro
wrestling school. I ended up working with King Kong Bundy
and his promotion, and that was a whole that was
a whole adventure I could talk about hours about.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
So yeah, now, okay, we're we're getting we're veering far
off track, but really quickly we'll circle this all around
because obviously there's wrestlers in my movie, so that's like
kind of like a connection. But did you ever get
to have an indie match? Did you ever get to
actually have a pro wrestling match?

Speaker 3 (12:00):
I had one actual match, and that was really where
was it that it was in? I think it was
either Springfield or Exton, a Springfield Druge hill I met.
It was a twenty man Battle Royal. It was all
of the rookies of the school we were at, and
that was my one and only professional wrestling match because

(12:22):
after that I just wanted to get out of it
because I had to go to college and my love
affair of wrestling was really like really burning out. And
then basically I still if that's right, around of the time,
I ended up helping King Kong Bundy, So I had
that match started like and I still had tons of
contacts and they were like, oh, I hope you're not
going to leave, and I said yeah, I said, you know,
I'm not six foot four, I'm five foot nine, you

(12:45):
know what I mean. I'm a ginger who's going to
cheer a five foot nine ginger.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Come on, dude, that is too cool. But you got
to say you had a professional wrestling match. I mean,
like that's a bucket list thing. I think for a
lot of people, myself included. That is awesome. Dude, that
is so cool.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Well, thank you, you know, if you ever want to
talk about that anytime.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
There's some pinetic energy here. We're both from from a Philly,
South Jersey area, we both like Chief Stage, we both
like wrestling, and both like movies. I mean this, this
could get really awkward, dude. By the end of this podcast,
people are going to be like disgusted, like these two
guys love affairs, ridiculous men.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Well, most people tune me out anyway, so they're probably
me too.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
Cool man, cool.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
So you know, just you know, getting back to the bed.
You know, so I wanted to ask, you know, Chris,
you know, where was the impetus of this idea to
actually for the screenplay. Did it did it come from
like a friend of yours. Did it come from an
idea or Joe was It.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
Was an original idea that I had, And honestly, I
think it was kind of inspired by the fact that
being on tour in a band, right, Dave, I got
the opportunity to meet a lot of girls that I
had gone to school with over the years, like maybe
you know, you come to town and they live there
and they see that you're in town and they come
to a show, or you invite them, or we would
go play my hometown in kate May, a lot where

(14:01):
a lot of people you went to school would still lived.
And I was always fascinated to see where these girls
that I had crushes on where they ended up. And
I don't mean that in a negative way, but just
like man in the sixth grade, this girl was, you know,
the hottest girl in school or the girl that I
just had a crush on, or whatever it may be.
And you know what would happen if you met your

(14:23):
crush twenty years later? Like where are they? Who are they?
And that kind of just kind of bounced around in
my head and at one point, I don't have her
Uretha moment or I remember it. I just always remember
when I thought a movie idea is that that was
at the top of my list. A guy gets in
a bet where he's got to go back and meet
every girl that he had a crush on in high
school because it's essentially just a fantasy that I'm assume

(14:45):
I'd like to have, but the reality is it's not
going to be all good. Just because that girl was
the cutest girl in sixth grade, she could be like,
you know, a white trash drug addict. And I thought,
what would be funny about that premise is if the
guy had to hook up with the girl, right, no
matter what scenario she's in, he's got to bite the
bullet and do so. And it just kind of sounded

(15:06):
like it would be a good, fun, raunchy, wacky movie,
and I just was that was the genesis. So I
think it was kind of influenced by having met some
of the girls I went to school with and being, oh,
jeez man, that was my cross. Glad that didn't work
out right, But at the same time, I think it
lent itself to a good premise, and it, you know,
just kind of once Aaron came in and started writing
it together. You know, that's the fun part about script writing.

(15:28):
As much as you set it up, you go down
different avenues with the script. The new characters get introduced
and things change, and I find that such a fun
and fascinating process. How different the project is like because
when you think about it at first, because you're a writer, Dave,
you know, you see it just like this word for word,
and it's got to be like this, and these are
the characters and this is a story. But when you
start writing that, baby, these characters kind of take a

(15:51):
life for their own. And even in a silly, raunchy
movie like ours directions, they start moving in different places
and you you know, motivations and scenes and that's a
fun process. I think it's really when you know, when
you're just cooking with gas and you really like where
something's going with the script. That's a cool moment. Man,
that energy if you can capture it. And I like

(16:11):
writing with a partner because I think you can really
feed off people. I think it would be very difficult
if I wrote a screenplay by myself because you don't
have that quality control of the other person.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, you know, very true. And you know, I as
I found you when writing. You know, sometimes I take
it way too seriously and it ends up I try
to end up forcing things, you know what I mean.
It's like and then you realize you're spoken. You got
into writing because it's fun, right, or you have something
to say, or you want to explore something, you know
what I mean. And you know that's why, you know,

(16:44):
when you were discussing the idea, creation and all these characters,
you know, that's what you need. You need to always,
you know, be excited to come back to it when
you cause you got to write. You know, nobody sits down,
just writes out the whole thing and one one foul swoop.
You know, you come back and you write it in pieces.
You know, you write three pages, five pages, and you
when you come back, you always have to have that
that excitement and you know what I mean, You have
to have that excitement of Okay, I see where it's going,

(17:06):
What's gonna happen? Now, I'm going to be just as
surprised as the audience, you know what I mean. So
when you were writing this, Chris, I wanted to ask you,
did you buy any of those screenwriting books like You
Have a Key Story or Save the Cap I Play Exciter?
Did you buy any of those books?

Speaker 4 (17:21):
You know, I didn't. You're talking about the actual screenwriting books. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. It was very I mean,
and again I think I'm a little spoiled because of
the fact that I am a writer, you know. So
not that I'm a good writer, but I just had
experience in writing. You know, even in writing a five
hundred world article about a band, you still have the beginning,

(17:41):
in the middle and an end. So I think I
understood the process to the point that I didn't. I didn't.
It just seemed weird to read a book to tell
me how to write a book, if that makes sense,
you know. But I definitely grabbed uh, you know. Once
we're getting ready to make the movie, I ordered a
book online that was like the Real Truth about Indie filmmaking,

(18:01):
a complete guide from top to bottom, right, that kind
of deal, you know, and you'll love this. But you
know the book now, I keep it by the bathroom.
It's like the bathroom read dude, the thing was made
like five years ago, okay, And as I'm reading it
getting ready to make the movie, just looking for pointers,
you know, half the information was defunct and the book

(18:22):
was only five years old. Like they were talking about like,
well this new Netflix saying nobody's really figured it out yet,
and you know, they're talking about Lonely Girl fifteen was
an internet phenomenon. But how can you? I mean, and
I'm like, my god, this is garbage. I mean, things
are moving so fast in the world of technology and
film that a book and a definitive book on the
subject in two thoy and twelve is now literally archaic.

(18:46):
And that's that's wild to me. So it's almost like,
what the hell do you read? Unless you read the
most recent stuff on the internet, I don't know if
anything could really help, you.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Know, Yeah, absolutely, I have tons of I mean, I
know there's a podcast you can't see, but to my
left is tons and tons and tons of how to
filmmaking books. I mean virtually, I have every indie filmmaking book,
screenwriting book, producing book you can get, and some of
them are just like that, they're just completely Hey, you know,
go grab your friends, grab a mini dvcam, you know,

(19:17):
shoot some stuff in your backyard, and you know you
can send it to festivals. Well, now I don't have
to do any of that. I could use my phone.
I don't need a DV tape. I could, you know,
an edit an I movie or edit and Windows movie
maker or premiere or whatever one I want to. I
can just put it right to YouTube.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
Wild huh. I mean the same happened with music in
terms of how quick you can go, Like you and
I right now can make the decision to start our duo. Right,
we could write a song not in person, dude, We
could write a song over freaking FaceTime together. Right, we
could record the conceivably record the song and release it
and have a website up, you know, with a social
media account before before the sun goes down. And I

(19:55):
mean I'm allowed to curse.

Speaker 5 (19:56):
Right, We'll be right back after a word from our
spam sir, and now back to the show.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Oh so that's fucked up, dude, that's process. Isn't supposed
to be like that, Like where's the growth? Where's the learning?
And I think the same thing has happened to film,
where it's certainly much more complicated process than writing a song,
of course, no doubt. Right, But everything that you just
said you can still kind of do. And that's awesome,
But it's also that double edged sort of it's really

(20:26):
flooding the market and putting a lot of crap out
there too, you know people are they just release everything
instead of like, you know, where's the days of kind
of just making movies in your backyard and nobody sees
them but your parents, and then you slowly grow and
get better at it. Now kids are making their very
first thing and throwing it up on YouTube hoping they
get like a viral thing. I don't know, it's just
it just seems it's like it's a hard time for

(20:47):
the cream to you know, was it the cream Rise
at the top or whatever the saying is. I just
it's just really muddy. Man. Technology has made things so awesome.
We could never make the movie that we made without it.
But at the same time, I am also where that
there's a lot of films maybe some people would think
are film that are being made and it's almost, you know,
blocking the path for other movies. It's a weird time, man.

(21:08):
I feel like we're just living in a very strange age.
You know.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Oh yeah, absolutely we are. And you know, it's funny
because there's a there's a short film called Panic Attack
and it actually I forget the guy who made it,
but Hollywood found it and they actually gave him the
job of directing the remake of Evil Dead just because
of that.

Speaker 4 (21:27):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
So it's almost like, now you know, this whole avenue
of YouTube and podcasting and self publishing. It's like they're
bypassing not just one gatekeeper, but like twenty five because
now you're almost like your own agent manager, because now
you can say, oh, no, I don't want to sell
these book rights, or I don't want to sell your rights.
I want to sell this. I mean, but you're right,

(21:50):
there are a lot more players out there now. But
you know, I think that as long as you have
something that is that can stand above anybody else. Paul
Patido on here, and he and I were talking about
the exact same thing, because he was always saying, you know,
he tells his film students, you know, you have to
make something, and they're saying, well, there's like ten kacillion
things on on YouTube right now, and he says, you

(22:11):
have you know, how do you stand out? How do
you get on the front page of iTunes? How do
you get on the front page of Netflix? You know
what I mean? And it's just all and it just
it really depends upon what's hot, your concept, how polished
it is. I mean, you've a lot of different factors.
Now maybe it's the same factors always have been there,
but they're always but you know, they're always have to
sort of work out like in your favor. Like we

(22:33):
were talking earlier about in the pre interview, maybe you know,
some guy, some someday, some guy wakes up, has a
great morning, and all of a sudden, your TV polic
gets made, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (22:40):
Yeah, yeah, And that's ah man, it's it's a depressing thought,
but it's just I mean, yeah, I certainly don't want
to go down the negative road, for lack of a
better word, but I think it's a terrifying prospect. I mean,
I used to and I keep falling back to music,
but that's just who I am. And I think what's
happening to the film world happened to the end to
the music world about ten years ago, right. But yes,

(23:03):
I used to tell kids, dude, just get in the van, man,
just do it, dude, just go for it. Just do it.
You know, good, bad, learn, go do it, dedicate some time.
And now I don't say that, And it really freaks
me out that if a kid comes to me and says,
we just started a band, what do we do? I
don't tell him to hop in a van. Where are
they going to go? Where are they gonna play who's
gonna give a shit? You know, And I wonder in

(23:23):
some ways if it's that similar to the film world,
you know, like if a kid right out of the
gate wants to do it, I mean, it's probably not
you know, I don't want to say going for the
big time the brass ring, but it's probably much more
honing your craft on web series and smaller things instead
of jumping right into it, you know, guns blazing, you know.

(23:44):
I just it's strange, man, you know. And I come
from such a different perspective because I didn't have that
educated film background that somebody like yourself does. So I
think some of the reason we got this made was
sheer tenacity and dumb luck and a lack of education,
because I think if we knew what we were getting
into and how much time it would be and how

(24:04):
expensive it would be, we probably wouldn't have done it,
you know. And that's kind of that Sometimes being naive
can lead to good things if you're willing to put
the work in. You know, a lot of people I
think took mercy on us, Dave. They were just like,
you're doing what, Like you can't do that? Oh god, okay,
Well let me help you. Good luck, good luck falling
on your face on this one, good luck making a
feature film, come on, you know, and somehow we pulled

(24:26):
it off. But we surrounded ourselves with good people to
help pull it off. But I mean, man, people hurt
our budget. When people here were we wanted to shoot
it in Ventura and not Los Angeles, they were looking
at us like we were lunatics. Dude, I mean, like,
you know what the cool thing is. We proved a
lot of people wrong. We got it done, but it
was a painful, long process. It was not smooth sailing,

(24:46):
you know.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, it definitely U. I understand completely where
we're coming from. And you know, just to sort of
as we're talking about writing the becks, I do want
to talk about actually making a move. But as we're
talking about, you know, writing the bet, did you guys
actually did you use Final Draft or fade in to
write the movie? Did you use any software you check
this out?

Speaker 4 (25:04):
We were so naive. Aaron did the typing, I did
the talking. We didn't really know about Final Draft. We
had heard of it. We were kind of aware what
it was. And I'm sure you're listening will be like,
are you kidding me. We were literally indenting every time
a new character talked. Like the first draft or two

(25:25):
drafts that we did, we turned it into you know,
Reza who was kind of helping us and giving us
some guidance, who ended up producing the film, and he
was like, man, he was like, is something wrong with
your final draft? And we're like, what do you mean?
He was like, don't tell me. You type this and
we're like yeah, he was like, oh my god, you
know what I mean. He was like, dude, he was like,
that's remarkable. He was like, how long did this take?

(25:46):
And we're like, what would take hours? You know, we'd
write it and then spend another couple hours like indenting, indenting, indenting, centering,
you know, bracketing. I mean, it was trial by fire man.
If you can believe that, we did get final drafted
and it was like, oh no, you know, like it
just changed everything. But you like, literally that's how backwards were.

(26:07):
It was like Mick Foley writ in his biography on
pen and paper, you know, it's like there's something kind
of cool about that, but I can't believe we did it.
I'd love to get those hours of my life back, you.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Know, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You know,
I know, like James Patterson and Quinn Tarantino they still
use like pad and pen. I still do it too sometimes.
But now you know what my with the biggest con
of that is, Chris, is the fact that now you're
ending up with like notepads and like seriously, I have
like stacks of notebooks that I've been writing in, and

(26:36):
I'm always sitting there going, you know, someday I'm gonna
have to scan these things. Yeah, yeah, and just and
just do away with it, because every note has changed
my life. Because that's why I just if I have
an idea, I pulled my phone and go, okay, hold on,
let me just write this down real quick. Okay, so
you know what I mean, I just type like that
and then I'll come back later on and put you know,
pull it all up and then go, okay, now I'll
get into final draft or fade in and whever I'm using.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
But do you wonder sometimes I mean not to get
on the bigger sort of like uh deeper meaning, but
you know, do programs like that have they have they
cheapened things a little bit? I mean, like all the
greats back in the day. They didn't have final draft, right.
I mean, like you know, when a guy like Mankowitz
was banging out Citizen Kane, he didn't have somebody indenting
things for him. I mean, these guys are on pypewriters Man,

(27:18):
and then they banged scripts out. I mean you just
kind of wonder as much as it's made things easier, like,
has that affected worth work ethic in a lot of ways?
You know?

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, you know that that's a good question. I I
I want to say that I hope it has just
made it so they can concentrate, like guys like us
can just concentrate on the craft more without having to
worry about stuff like you know what I mean, like
getting you know, getting you know, bogged down with that.
I mean, technology of itself is supposed to make things easier,
like in the pre interview we're talking about if when

(27:48):
technology works, it's phenomenal. But uh, you know that is
a good question. I mean, uh, personally, I could never
go back down to using anything else besides fine. Yeah,
So I mean like it's if I ever had to
go back, I would I would probably I don't know,
take a header off.

Speaker 4 (28:03):
The roof, got it? Understood, understood, you wouldn't be alone,
just be able to red screenwriters you probably lived because
you'd land on their corpses or something. You know.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yeah, that's right with lift because like somebody the James Patterson,
what he does is he writes all longhand he gives
it all to a secretary. She put like types it
all up and then gives it back to him and
he has a process and it's triple spaced.

Speaker 4 (28:25):
And that he can be like if you have a secretary,
you know, like some whole buzz aren't lucky enough to
afford these type of things.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, well, yeah, that's what That's where I was, uh
was saying, was you know he does have a secretary.
I mean that's why I think he can get away
with it. And Tarantino, I don't know what he does.
Maybe he has a secretary at some point.

Speaker 4 (28:44):
I imagine he's got a few at this point.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
So all right, so you know, you you have written
the bet, So I just want to take us through
this process of you know, you have had the idea,
you wrote the bet, you've actually got final drafts, you
were able to actually uh correctly format it. So where
was the point where you started pitching to people. You know,
did I and did you? Did you pitch to investors?
Did you try to crowdfund this? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (29:08):
So, I mean it's an important part of the story,
and I think that's what people everybody's interested in that, right,
Where the hell do you find the money? So when
we decided to do it, okay, what we did, I'm
giving you the step by step. We came up with
three budgets. We didn't do one of these things where
it has to be this amount of money. Right. We
came up with our bare bone, super backyard indie budget. Right,

(29:30):
we came up with you know, our ideal budget, and
we came up with something in the middle. And when
I say ideal, we weren't asking for sick money, you
know what I mean. We were saying, like ideal for
a micro budget movie.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (29:43):
So we had these three different budgets and basically we said,
let's initially go to some friends and family, like you know,
and again we're not talking about all our you know,
broke music buddies. You know, we went to mom and dad,
you know, aunts and uncles, Aaron and I you know,
literally pitched them personally.

Speaker 5 (30:00):
and now back to the show, A.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
Couple people came in with just a little bit of money.
We found a couple thousand dollars to be completely blunt,
And what we did, Dave, is we used that as
seed money to try and find bigger money. And what
I mean is, if you're trying to, let's say, take meetings,
or you need to fly somewhere or whatever it is,
you need a little bit of money to do that.

(30:29):
You know, a guy like me that works a part
time job and is normally always dead broke, I don't
have a budget to go if I get a meeting
in New York, hop on a plane and fly out there.
And then, let's face it, if you're meeting somebody, you
probably want to pay for the dinner, right if you're
actually trying to get them to invest in your freaking film.
So what we use that couple thousand dollars for was
seed money, and I mean that what we did is

(30:51):
we printed pitch packs. We you know, put a little
budget for travel, we put a little budget for food,
and we sort of use that for a money to
try and find more money. If that does that make sense?
So we didn't take the first five grand and like, hey,
here's our first five grand for the movie. We took
it as almost our money, and I had to give
ourselves a couple bucks not to lie to you, so

(31:12):
we could take a little time off work and actively
take two months right and look for money. So that's
what we did. And I think maybe that's a little
different than most people, you know, because I think some
people put the money away in the budget for the film,
but then how do they you know, how do they
fly out to get that meeting? How do they do
this or that? And I think talking to somebody in

(31:32):
person is infinitely always better when you're talking about finances.
You know, you can look them in the eye, they
can see your passions. It's real, it's tangible. You're dealing
with the human being, you know. And this is what happened.
This is how we got our executive producers. First off,
luck is a huge part of it. But obviously being
an army of freshmen, right, we had, you know, a

(31:55):
lot of connections in the music world. We were I
was friends with and very kind of casual friends. Obviously
now grown to be very close friends, but casual friends
with to if you can believe this. Theater producers in
the United Kingdom thet When I say theater, I mean theater,
you know, like musicals, like shows, right. And I know

(32:17):
that they have been friends with some other bands that
I that I was friends with, and I knew that
they were visiting the United States, and uh, you know
they kind of told me one say, if you ever
have some projects going on, just keep us posted, you
know that kind of thing. But basically I knew these
were people that were open to the arts, if that
makes sense, because they came from a theatrical background. So

(32:39):
I reached out to them because I knew they were
going to be in the United States. I said, hey,
I'd have this project I'd love to tell you about.
They said, hey, come on out. And this is completely true.
And this is where I talk about the seed money.
They were going to be in Disneyland and I live
in California, so they were going to be in the
you know Disney, the Disney in Florida. Right, So we
took we took the last money in the pot, right,

(33:00):
bought a plane ticket, bought a cheap motel six, got
the cheapest rental possible. Okay, and I flew out by
myself because we couldn't afford to bring rezor Aaron with me,
that's a co writer and the producer. And I met
them at Disneyland, and I sat down over lunch at
Disney right, and I told them what we were doing,
and I told them what we were trying to do.

(33:21):
And I told them we were looking for, you know,
executive producers and investor for the project. And I gave them,
you know, two budgets, you know. I gave them the
the not the ghetto backyard budget, but I gave them
our moderate and I gave them our ideal. And again
when I say ideal, it wasn't like, hey, millions more.
I'm talking like, hey, another twenty thousand dollars or something, right,

(33:41):
And they said, okay, well think about it, thanks for
talking to us, blah blah blah. And then about two
weeks later, I got an email saying that they're in.
They were down to be the lead investor, you know,
as long as we could find a couple other smaller
investors to you know, do it. And that was that
we were off and run. And literally that that is
the story of how we got our executive producers for

(34:03):
the project. And I have to say this because you
just you got to plug the people to help you, right.
Their names are Craig Beach and Teresa Beach, theatrical producers
over in the United Kingdom, and Dave. They were so awesome. Literally,
I tell other people about our executive producers and they're like,
they start crying because they can't believe it, because usually

(34:23):
the executive producers are, Hell, when's it getting released? When
are we getting our money? What's going on? How come
it's taken so long? Dave, we were doing a lot
of first time stuff and you know, we're new to it,
Like I mean, a regular investor probably would have, I
mean probably would have taken legal action against us because
things were taken so long. But we had such a
limited budget, we had to go really slow to make

(34:44):
things right. And we were a small team, so we
were very lucky that way. But what I would have
to say about that, if somebody's looking for advice, and man,
how'd I get my project filmed? Find a couple dollars
and almost use that as as I say, seed money,
but use it as the money that you're going to
use to try and find the investors. If that makes sense.

(35:06):
At all, almost like find a little bit of money
just to be able to give yourself a month or
two months to send emails all day and make phone
calls all day and connect dots like these are dots.
I wasn't in film where I just called up a
film producer and they said, I want to back your movie, right.
I was in music, and I knew somebody in music
that had been involved in some musicals in the UK,

(35:28):
so I knew they were involved in theatrical projects, right.
I have a bit of a relationship with them. So
it was outside the box. And I think in this
day and age, that's the only way to find money
for film unless you're one of the big daddies. And
I may be wrong, but unless you're a big daddy,
or unless your parents are filthy rich, which mine certainly
are not, you have to think outside the box. You

(35:51):
have to look in different places. So this small, tiny,
micro budget, raunchy indie comedy essentially was made and executive
produced by to theatrical producers in another country. So I
know that's a bit of a long story, but I
just want to stress that if someone's looking for money,
you've got to look in places where maybe people haven't
looked before theater people help make a movie as opposed

(36:15):
to movie people that are bitter, right and they've gone
down that road, they know how difficult it is for
indie film. Theater people actually found it more fascinating then
than actual film producers who we met with that just
rolled their eyes and said, good luck.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
You know, that's an interesting strategy, Chris, you know, and
you know, I always am fascinated with how you know,
people have gotten their movie made. And you know, that
is an excellent point because you know, you're right, you
want to I mean checking out theater people and you
know what I mean, like they're not this is this
is new to them too, you know what I mean?
This is this is still cool to them. And if
you do get some film people, there's a lot of bitter,

(36:52):
burned out people in the film industry and they just
sort of go, oh, another film, blah blah blah. And
and that's why I try to be the difference that
you know, I'm always trying. I always try to stay
upbeat and positive. And you know, and it's the same
thing too, you know, for you know, everyone listening if
you're going to make a production staff or whatever crew
you have, make sure that they all believe in the

(37:13):
project and that no one is negative or bitter, because
that attitude spreads like a virus.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
It's death. It's death. It's absolute death on set, it's
death in pre production. Just because somebody's too and just
because somebody has great gear, just because somebody has good
hookups or a good resume. I'm telling you, man, don't
fucking work with them. If you were Indy, find people
that are hungry and young and they want to kill
for it, like you, it's just not worth it. I mean,

(37:41):
I'd rather shoot on a lesser camera and have a
DP that's thrilled to be there. You know. I'd rather
have somebody that maybe's not on a TV show and
I found him in a theater program, but they're believing
in that character. They're becoming that character, because dude, that
jadedness is terrifying. And the great thing that we did
one of the key things to get the thing done,
because I'm Tony. We didn't have enough money to do it, Dave,

(38:02):
and we didn't have enough time to do it. We
didn't have enough people to do it, but we got
people that were stoked. We got our director, our producer
knew a guy that was doing a web series right,
didn't go to film school. Director by the name of
Ryan Ederer, right, had never done a feature, had never
done a TV show. We literally had just done web series, right,
And our producer, when he was looking for the director

(38:23):
for this, went to see him work on a web series.
They had mutual friends. And he said the director was
holding the boom mic and shouting instructions right, and also
running to get coffee for everybody. And he said, that's
when he knew this could be our guy, right, because
he was so passionate right over a little web series

(38:43):
that most likely no one's going to see. How passionate
would he be if he got to do a very
very small feature. So we met with him at a Denny's. Right.
You know, he actually reminds me of you, to be
quite frank, you know, because just because he's positive like that.
And he just said, guys, if you let me direct
this movie, all I wanted to do it was directive feature.
He said, I will quit my job. I'm a waiter

(39:03):
in la I will quit my job for pre production
and for the filming and for at least a solid
month after done, I will live on nothing, you know.
I mean, we gave them peanuts day pen. Everybody worked
for so cheap on this, But I think it was
we found the good people. But I also think they
believed in my passion, in Aaron's passion and resist passion.

(39:24):
I mean when I hunted down some of the cast,
which are some really super crazy cool stories, but dude,
I was coming to them with nothing, but I was
coming to them with passion, you know what I mean,
like please, you know, you know, just like, let's get
behind this if that makes sense and it appeals to
a certain type of person. Not everybody, dude, some people
blew me right off, right, but you'd be surprised some

(39:45):
of the cool little people you can pull because they're
just good people. At the end of the day, it's
getting to them. It's getting to them. It's all connections,
and it's all how do you get to that person?

Speaker 5 (39:56):
You know, we'll be right back after a word from
our sponsor and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Yeah, very very true. And uh when you said you're here,
reminded me. Uh, he reminded me of He reminded you
of me. I was gonna say, what is he a
five foot nine ginger like. But but it's the five.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Foot nine from five foot nine kid from Chicago.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Aha. Okay, yeah, yeah, I always like to uh I
always want to ask, but uh no. But all kidding aside, though,
you know, I agree completely man, you know, just going
back to that, you know, having that passionate people man
on set and and avoiding all that negativity because it
is it. It not only is a virus, it drains
everyone's energy, and it also causes a lot more conflict

(40:43):
with each other. And and you know, because I've been
on those sets, Chris, you know where all of a
sudden someone comes in They're like, oh, this is okay,
We'll get someone to be here. And then then you
have people who were just flat out like, oh I
don't I you know, I don't want to be here anyway.
This thing is gonna suck. Let me tell you about mine.
Let me I a real story. I was on a
film set one time, and this is years ago, when
I was just goofing around making a student film, and

(41:04):
I had this guy come on and all he did
all this he was he's my director's cinematography and he
came recommended by this other guy I know, and all
he did was tell everybody about his latest project. He could.
You could not stop him from talking about it. Between takes.
All he did he's like, you know what, this reminds
me of my my movieah blah blah blah. My Jesus Christ, Yo,

(41:25):
I got it. Dude, You're making a zombie film. Congradula, congratulations.
You know there's twenty five could trillion of them. Man,
you know, you know you can add.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
You were still him on other projects and instead of
working on that project, all they do is talk about
their project. We had somebody like that show up and
I won't get into any details beyond that, but it
was just like, dude, you know, it's kind of like
he was kind of driving the director nuts because he
kept talking about the project that he was working on.
It's like, hey, man, you know, like that's awesome, dude,
stoke to help you. But we're fucking you know, we
got a day left of filming here. We you know,
we are making the tiniest movie of all time. Like

(41:54):
we don't have time for this, Like we just stay
on board here, man, call next week and we'll talk
about the zombie movie.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
You know, yeah, yeah, exactly you know, And it's like,
if they had played their cards right, they could have
had an ally instead of just you know, boring everyone
to death, just going hey, man, by the way, my
own movie, like we got it, yeah, you know, we
got every you know ever, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
So when you're on set, you know, do the job
that you do, try and make connections. But but but
work hard on the job you do, because that's what
will really come through, especially in the indie setting. And
I'm telling you deep, there's so many good things aligned
up with this cast and the people involved. But you know,
we didn't get a lot of strangers. Reza was like, hey,
I want to work with this DP. I know, you know,

(42:34):
I got one or two stand ups that would be
great for these roles. Let's try them first. I got
an actor buddy that was in this other indie. I
did try him, and lo and behold. I look at
the cast. There's a hand field of people that we
got from open casting. And we had huge open casting.
We brought tons of people in, but I'd say seventy
five percent of that cast is a direct connection in

(42:54):
one way or another. It's probably only a handful of
people that we walk in and didn't know, and they
just kick so much. But we put them in. And
I think a lot of people like to work with
who they know, but there's a reality to that. So
it's good to make a lot of friendships and connections
because you got a better chance of getting thrown into
a film as an actor if you're a waiter with
the director who just got this small indie then just

(43:16):
going to an open casting call. I almost wonder if
it's even possible to do that anymore, to even get
in a movie just as a dude who walked in
a room. Hi, you don't know me. I'm here to
show you how awesome I am. Because in the back
of the head they're sitting there and they got their
buddy or their nephew, or their uncle or their neighbor
or you know, it's very incestuous and our movie was
no exception to that. But you trust those people. They

(43:38):
didn't screw us. You know, we had strange We have
one lady take us to sag because we canceled her
because we had to cut the role because we couldn't
film the scene. Dave, it was one hundred and fifty
dollars a roll and she contacted SAG and said, I
need to be paid because they canceled on the day up.
She hadn't even left her house yet, Dude, you know
what I mean. So will we ever work with her again?

(44:00):
Hell no, If we ever hear about her again, we'll
be like, dude, that fill in the blank literally cost
us one hundred and fifty dollars when we had nothing
in the bank because a role got cut. She wasn't
in the car, she wasn't on set, literally, she was
just waking up. And I said, I'm so, so so sorry.
But that just gives you an example of that type
of attitude can be deadly, you know. So I'm glad

(44:21):
she wasn't in it, because if somebody would do that
to a small, tiny little movie to get you one
hundred and fifty bucks, like, how would you have been
on set? You know? I just I just don't think
you can be positive enough, even if you're not a
positive person learned to be, because I don't think this
is the business for you if you're not ready to
really just be nothing but good energy.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Yeah, I concur you know. And the funny thing is,
when last time I casted for a film, I was
shooting in We did it the right way. We had
it at a studio. We had you know, we had
a we had two rooms, we had everything so and
we had a great audition room that was on an
elevated stage. And I had a rule, no, I am

(45:00):
going to cast everybody that I don't know. People people
got you know that I knew, got to go up there.
And I gave everyone a shot. Who I think even
had a remote shot. And we whole day and I
actually ended up casting everybody who I didn't know completely.
I had no friends, no family, nothing. Everybody was somebody
I didn't know. I was meaning for the first time.

(45:22):
Though all those people proved out to be right. Uh,
they were all great, great people except for I. Actually,
let me let me amend what I just said. There's
one person I hired based upon a producer who wanted him,
and I said, okay, I said, I will, I will
tell I will take a chanceless person. That person ended
up being the problem. Okay, Yeah, And that and that

(45:43):
was because I knew and I said, this is why
I wanted all fresh faces. But by the way, and
it's funny you mentioned about SAG because uh, this person
kept you know, as I didn't even I announce casting
and then I didn't even bother like you know what
I mean, Like my producers were on Facebook all the
time and I did, and you know at that point,
I you know, I have an on and off relationship

(46:04):
with Facebook. But anyways, doesn't dude, who doesn't? Oh my god,
the drama on Facebook? Like who needs this ship?

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Honestlyious with the whole promoted post shit like isn't the
whole premise of Facebook is if somebody likes you, when
they click like that, they get to know about what
you're doing, and now you have to pay them to
let them know what you're doing. It's like ridiculous, dude.
It's like, you have like ten thousand followers and your
post reached five people, Like, well, what about the nine thousand,
five hundred and ninety nine five people that want to

(46:31):
know what I'm doing? And now I have to pay
you to do it. I almost feel like they invented that,
they made it awesome, and then once they had the
whole world on it, they decided to start getting fucking
paid and screw you. The whole purpose of this is
out the window. So I mean Facebook to me, is
I want it to go the way of my space.
Let it burn.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
You know, it's like the mafia man. Anything you want
done on Facebook, you gotta pay for it.

Speaker 4 (46:53):
Absolutely totally Facebook, the mafia of social media.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
But I was just gonna just to finish that thought.
This guy, uh said, you know, hey, I would like
to like to try out and and and I like
to you know, for a role. And already I've been
warned about this guy. Real creepy dude, real sleeze bag. Well,
one of my producers says, listen, you know we're we'll
be casting soon enough, or we're crowdfunding right now. He

(47:19):
took us to SAG and said that we were trying
to make him pay to audition. Oh my god, and
SAG thankfully sided with us, and they said, no, they
did not say that. Blah blah blah. I told my producer,
I said, don't even talk to him. I said, I
told you about this guy. And then I mean that
caused the problem between us, and I mean all because
of this this really wormy guy.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
It's bizarre. It's like there's people just like I always fear.
There's a lot of people in this world that I
would like to fucking tell the fuck off, right, But
I don't because I just feel that you burn bridges.
You never know what's going to occur, especially in a
business like this. Why do we did you ever? Even
somebody's a dick, Okay, they're a jerk. You're my homeboy, Dave.

(48:03):
I call you on this line, say, Dave, do not
work with Chuck Schmuccatello. He's terrible, Right, But why I
tell Chuck that he's a terrible person? Even in life?
I don't do that when I meet somebody that don't
like It's like, what's the point, dude, Like, why throw
that negative energy out there? I mean, it's just but
I just think people that do that in this business,
what are they fools? They don't think people talk. I mean,
it's just insanity, you know.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
Oh dude, there was one time on Facebook that you know,
the Philly film scene. As we were talking the pre interview,
this guy gets on his Facebook tags a local producer
and says and says, Oh, this guy's a piece of shit,
fuck him, blah blah blah. And I'm sitting there and
I'm thinking this has to be a joke. I said,
because there's no way this guy is serious. They start

(48:46):
going back and forth all of our Facebook and the
one and the guy chimes back with, well, it's not
a good idea to make enemies with a producer.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
Huh yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
And they're going back and this guy because the other
guy was an actor. They're going back and forth. Other
people are getting brought in, and I go, all these
people have just entered my blacklist, because I mean, I
would never want anything like this to happen.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Isn't the crazy dude? Like why, It's just there's a
lot of weird stuff out there, so obviously and I
were jumping all over the place. But the whole point
of that, to go back to the bet. The movie
that we made is man, we eliminated that, Dave. I mean,
it was awesome. If you would to go on this set,
you literally would be treated with so much kindness and respect.
And check this out. When we were doing auditions, I

(49:26):
would ask people that I was interested at the end
really got up. I literally even the girl who plays
our lead actress, who's gone on to do some really
cool stuff. I said, because I loved it. I thought
she was great, and I was just like, I have
one last question, like, are you a nice person? And
she was stunned, and she was just like, uh, what
do you mean, Like I don't know, just like we're
new to this, and you know, we're scared of like
the whole actress Hollywood reputation, Like we just want nice,

(49:49):
normal people. Like are you friendly, like in real life?
And she started laughing and she's like, yeah, yeah, I'm
friendly in real life.

Speaker 5 (49:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor

Speaker 4 (50:06):
But she was so stunned to hear that question, But
it came from a very honest place, you know, like
are you being real right now? Or are you being nice?
Because you want to get cast in this Like if
we're having lunch, can we talk to each other? Are
you going to be I don't want to be here.
I just did it. Get everything on my reel. I
got something better. Now I need to go be a
hot chick on the set of you know, the thirty
Rock I'd be bad example, but you know what I mean,

(50:28):
Like it was, I was so obsessed with making sure
that people were nice. I wanted them talented too. There's
a couple of people we passed on. I think that
could have maybe even helped the movie because they had
a bit of a name because I met him and
I was like, I got a bad feeling, man, I
got a bad feeling, like they're not going to take
this seriously. They wanted being bigger shit. I'd like those
people that are kind of bubbling, that are really hungry
and want to do good work. Because there was a

(50:50):
lot of like with the dads. We cast two professional wrestlers.
We cast a diamond Dallas Page and Jake the Snake Roberts,
which is a wild story, but we had a couple
of leads on. Some dads are more like character actors
and I won't say any names, but dudes that you
and I know, But there were these B movie dudes, Dave.
These dudes are like, yo, you give them five grand
a day, right, and they'll come and they'll barely know

(51:12):
the lines, but you can say, you've got the dude
from this TV show in it or the guy that
was in this movie, you know, and they just make
a living popping around these B movies. I even hear
one guy wore an earpiece and I'm like, what, that
guy's not even that big, But they're like, he wears
an earpiece and you feed him his lines, but hey,
you can give them five grand and then you can say,
so and so is the dad in your little tiny movie.

(51:35):
And I just thought that was so horrifying and kind
of sad too, But it's a reality, you know.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Yeah, you know, I just I was just thinking right now,
a guy on set with an ear piece and someone
some some pa feedingum line, like and what does he say?

Speaker 4 (51:50):
Like, you know, okay, mister so and so say this
one sad? You know, I miss you son, you know,
and he's just like, I miss you. I mean, imagine
editing around that. I mean, imagine making sure the dude's
hair covers the ear piece. And that's a reality that
a filmmaker would do because hey, at least he's got
some type of name. So on the stupid cover, we
can put featuring the dude from I'm trying to think

(52:14):
of a TV show, you know what I mean, but
featuring the dude from you know, you see them, Davey.
You know, I don't have to do as you see
those guys that just they're like, why are they in
so many B movies where they just take the five
grand a day and that's that and then people cram
their scenes in one day because they can't afford him
for two days. You know, it's crazy, man.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
You know, my favorite dad who's actually starting B movies
was is Michael Gross from Family Ties? Where's he's in Tremors?
And I actually know somebody who's worked with him and
he says, no, Michael's not like that at all. Michael
actually shows up. He still works hard. He's the nicest guy.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
And I said, I hasn't done more. I actually thought
he was a really good actor. Like, is he still around? Oh?

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yeah, he's still around. He just released Tremors five with
him and Jamie Kennedy.

Speaker 4 (52:58):
Wow, Wow, dude, great name great. That's a hell of
a poll right there. Dude, that's that's somebody that's just
seems like a good actor. I bet he's a good dude.
You know. That's when when that's an interesting one, you
forget about people like that. There's so many of them
floating around out there. It's it's got to be brutal, dude,
I mean, to be an actor has just got to
be tough.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Yeah, definitely. And you know I have friends who are
actors and we're always going back and forth about you know, auditioning, casting,
and stuff like this, and you know, because you know,
you know how it is Chris, because some people know, hey, Dave,
you know, what's this director like I'm going to work with?
And I say, you know, he's you know, he's pretty
no nonsense and you know, blah blah blah. This one's
you know, real, you know, fast and loose, just likes

(53:38):
to have fun. So you know what I mean. It's
just stuff like that, you know, And and it's most
And I would never recommend anybody like we were just
talking about. I would never recommend anybody who I wasn't
one hundred percent confident in, you know what I mean,
And I mean that that really is critical, you know.
And I would, by the way, I would love to
work with Michael Gross someday. I think I've not only
heard good things about him, but I heard you know,

(53:59):
I still I love thing. He's in all the Treumor's movies.
He makes those Tremors movies.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
And plus, if he ever writes an autobiography, he already
has the greatest title ever, Just a Gross Life. And
it's just in on the front looking sad, you know,
just covered in blood or tremor of a gravel totally.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
So, you know, Chris, as we know, as we're talking
about the bet, I wanted to ask, and I always
ask this to to any filmmakers, what was the biggest challenge,
Whether it was a day, whether it was a specific incident,
you know, what was the you know, the biggest obstacle
you had to overcome while you were making this thing.

Speaker 4 (54:32):
During during filming, or during the whole process. During filming okay,
during filming, okay, because we filmed over thirteen days, you know,
we shot in thirteen days, all in the city of Ventura.
The most difficult thing was during filming. The most difficult
thing was the wearing of the different hats because we

(54:52):
were so small that Aaron and I were the set dressers, right,
Aaron and I were the the wardrobe dudes. Aaron and
I were the prop guys. Aaron and I were the
go get the catering guys. And Aaron and I were
also the oh geez, we were. I mean, we were
so much. We were so much and it was too

(55:13):
many hats. The lesson that I learned hopefully, when we
make our next one. Oh actually I just thought positive,
when we make our next one next year, right, The
key thing I think would be is you just can't
have enough of those assistants. Not people to beat up
or bully or make you go get coffee, you know
what I mean, but just somebody there with you, like, hey,

(55:34):
like this is kind of my guy, you know what
I mean, Like, you know, Hey, I'm just gonna make
this up. But Steve, Steve, you're with me, Ryan, You're
with Aaron. Yo. We'll treat you great, nothing but love.
But we just needed sec a set of hands that
you're always with me, almost like give me two extra arms.
You know, we're gonna be doing some fun stuff, you know.
But we just bid off more than we could choose,
so it was hard to focus on that. And then

(55:55):
I was also picking up wrestlers at airports, and we
also had other people helping with this. Dave, I want
you to think it was just four people making this movie, right,
but we just thought we could do more. I wanted
to be on set more, dude. You know, I wanted
to be sitting there watching it. And you know, as
the writer and co producer, I wanted to be watching
the actual movie get made. And I spent fifty percent
of that movie not on set but setting up the

(56:18):
set or picking people up or picking up food because
we were so small, you know, So I guess, I
guess the most difficult thing was wearing too many hats.
You got to find a way to find more people
to help with the hats, but you have to trust them,
and I really and don't trust many people. I had
a vision of how every room should look. I had
a vision of I knew the relationships with the restaurants
that were doing the catering, So how can I send

(56:40):
somebody when I need to be the one that goes
in there And it's Chris's face that they know, and
that's why they're giving them a bunch of tacos. So
it was just that, you know, I think you can
wear too many hats, and sometimes that can probably be
the death of small movies. But again, we had a
lot of good people around us, so that to me
was the most difficult thing. I should have trimmed a
couple things off the list that I was responsible for,

(57:00):
but we wanted to take that money, Dave and put
it in other places. And I think that's why our
movie Hopefully when you see it, hopefully you'll like it
and find it funny. But I think you'll see man
for the budget. Damn, these guys did a good job
of making this stuff look legit, you know. And I
think that's because we put money. We saved money in
certain places where other places would get trailers right, or
other places would hire a catering company, or where other

(57:22):
places would pay for food, or other places would hire
a set dresser. We did all of that, you know,
and that really I think made things difficult but made
us to make a movie that's better.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Yeah, you know, that is something I always talk about
with filmmakers, is there's a tendency to read something like
Robert Riguez's film with a filmmaker without a crew, or
even like The Rebels Guide by Stu Makowitz, and it's
almost like, and I've done this to myself. It's almost
as if we're trying to be a one man crew
and it ends up hurting you more than helping you.
And I completely understand Chris, when you're talking about putting

(57:57):
that money elsewhere. That's what I've always thought, too, is
you know, why should I have You know, I can
be the camera operator and the cinematographer and the and
the boom mic operator, and I'll edit this thing and
you know what I mean, and I'll be the colorist.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
I'll do Follward just speak because you can, should you?
That's the question exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
So that's why when when I when I make movies
from now on, I always just want to be the writer,
the director, and the producer. And even that's a lot.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
Even, yeah, that's a lot, dude, that's a lot. I
think the writer is the easiest one of the bunch
because your work's kind of done, Like, what are you
going to do on set? Maybe catch a line that
you want done a little different? It's you know what
I'm saying, Like, I think you can handle being like
but it sounds like, yeah, I'm not certain. I'm not
going to tell you how to do it, but you're right.
I mean, you just wear so many hats because you can.
But then again, at the end, the hardest part, the

(58:43):
hardest part of the whole movie, forget the filming, filming
was awesome, is post production. We were not prepared, We
were not ready. We ran out of money. Tech issue
after tech issue after tech issue after tech issue, to
the point of, uh, the film is out upon really
this podcast right came out today. I believe, so the
film can be seen blah blah blah. But I'm talking

(59:04):
to you a couple of days before we release it, right,
let's be honest. So our premiere is in Los Angeles
in forty eight hours, and we just just got the
blu ray completed to show it, because the poor producer
and director spent the past ten days doing program after
program after recording after program to burn a freaking blue ray.

(59:29):
I mean, like, that's what we're talking about, and it's
tech tech tech. Tech tech has been a complete nightmare
for something like this because we haven't had the money
to have a real proper post production team, and it
really made things take a long time and was really
was brutal. Man. So I would say tech is the
hardest part of it, which is funny because it's the
first thing you and I said when we got on
the phone in the pre interview.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
You know, yeah, absolutely, And you know, I'm so glad
though that everything has worked out, honestly, man, because I honestly, Chris,
because I hear so many you know, independent films.

Speaker 5 (01:00:00):

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
You know, they have a budget whatever that budget might be,
and they get to like seventy five percent done, eighty
percent done, and all of a sudden they have to
stop for whatever reason, you know what I mean. And
there are so many movies in the philadelph especially in
the Philadelphia area where you know where I am, where
I've you know, I've been a part of films like
that where I've been an actor for him, or I've
helped that and crew or something, and all of a sudden,

(01:00:30):
you know, they're like, oh, yeah, that movie's on some
guy's hard drive and we're probably never going to finish it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah totally. And how sad is that?
Is there anything more sad in the world than that? Man?
I mean, like you know that heart and soul and blood,
sweat and tears and it's just gone, like oh man,
I mean, I'd be devastated, dude. We were devastated how
long post production was taking. And at one point I
had I was never going to give into the vision,
but there was a vision of is this going to

(01:00:55):
be one of these things you know what I'm saying, like,
is this going to be one of these things that
can't get done because we ran out of money. That
was a real tough time, you know, I mean, post
productions took a long time, and man, it's depressing. It's
kind of scary, Like, oh my god, Like, you know,
what are the investors going to I mean, I'm being
honest with you because it's a filmmaking podcast, right, but like,
what are the investors going to do if we if

(01:01:15):
we can't pull this off? What happens to the footage?
What happens to our reputations? I mean, like, so we
just stayed in the pocket. But I mean the amount
of work. My god, Dave, if you could have told
me ahead of the time, I would have done it,
of course, But geez, what I questioned my sanity, you know,
because I mean I've basically remained in poverty just to
get this thing done because I can only work part

(01:01:36):
time because I need to spend the rest of the
time working on the movie. Man. I mean, it's god,
is it a labor of love. I just have such
a deep respect for people that make movies. Now, I
will never shit on a movie. I may not like it,
but an indie film, I'll shit on the studio ones
all day, you know, But I will never shit on
an indie film again. And when I say indy, let's
talk about real indies. Dude. I'm not talking about a
million dollar indie with Daniel Radcliffe being a guy who

(01:01:58):
farts as a corpse. I'm talking about, like, you know,
I'm talking about like, hey, you made a movie for
one hundred thousand dollars. You made a movie for one
hundred and fifty, you made a move for seventy five. Basically,
you pull off a movie for under one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and you have my respect forever, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Yeah, And I agree completely. And by the way, Swith's
Army Man. Somebody told me the premise of that movie
and I thought they were joking around, and then I
saw a trailer and I was like, oh okay, I said,
you know, Chris, I've seen so many weird movies over
the years. At this point, I'm like, you know what,
I'll take a gamble on this one too.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
Yeah. Cool, Good for you, man, good for you. Maybe.
I mean, honestly, it'd probably be like a freaking masterpiece, right,
It'd probably be like the most important film made in years,
you know, So good for them. You gotta respect somebody
doing something different, you know, you have to. But people
are telling me like it's this new indie. Get the fuck.
I ain't nothing indie about a movie with those two
guys in it, Like, come on, you know, the CGI

(01:02:54):
alone when he rides them through the ocean probably costs
like one hundred thousand dollars. You know, you and I
could have made five short for that, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Yeah, yeah, seriously. I mean, and I believe I understand
completely what you're saying, Chris and I and you know,
because I mean, I've made movies for literally nothing, just
everyone doing it for the love of the game. And
I've made things for like twenty five thirty forty thousand dollars,
and you're like, holy crap, it sounds like a lot
of money when I started, and now it's like down
to nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
Yeah, I mean, it's man, it's just a it's it's
a mind blowing business man. I got a lot of
respect for you guys that do this and love it
and breathe it because it's so hard to get it done.
I mean, what other thing can you name that you
just can't do? Right? If I want to be a
pro baseball player, probably not going to happen. But damn it.
I can play baseball every day in my life, right,
I can get in an inn and real league. I
can play and fill in the blank with anything else. Music. Okay,

(01:03:42):
maybe I'm not going to be you know, I'll give
you bon job reference and you're that part of the world.
I'm not going to be bon Jovi. But I can
still write a song. I can still find a little
coffee house open mic, and I can play it for people.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
But you just can't make a film. Okay, you can
grab your iPhone, of course, I'm not saying you can
do that, but do you know what I mean, an
actual full length feature film. You just can't do it.
There's a million hurdles, there's all these people. I don't know.
I just think it's just such a such an undertaking
to go down that road that I just support anybody man, like,

(01:04:14):
just awesome, hell, it's great. How can I help you?
You know, what do you need? Because you're about to
go to war? Like you are about to go to war,
and it doesn't end in the filming. You know, here
I am two years later finally releasing the thing and
the distribution you're dealing with and doing the premiere and
doing the press and you're all doing I mean, dude,

(01:04:34):
I mean, I'm just again. You are talking to me
at a time where my head's spinning, so you're probably
getting a very emotional version of me. If we talk
in three months, we could probably have a very relaxed
So Chris, how did it happen? Well, Dave, this happened,
you know, But I'm in the midst of like, ah,
but it's an exciting one and I asked for this
and I'm pumped up and we're proud of it too. Man.
You know, it's a big life goal and a huge accomplishment,

(01:04:56):
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
Yeah, oh, absolutely, Chris. And you know, I mean, I've
been there before too, and I completely understand where you're
coming from, dude. And honestly, Chris, you should be proud
of the bet movie. And now you're gonna you're probably
at that phase where you know, at the end you
were probably you know, you're drained, You've given everything you
can and you're like, you know what, I've made one movie.
That's it, goodbye, And then you know, about a month

(01:05:19):
or two later, you're like, man, I should maybe make
a nun It's.

Speaker 4 (01:05:23):
Funny you say that, Dave. While we were waiting for
post production to happen, and we were kind of had
the post production blues, right and trying to find some
more money. Right, What we did is we run another script.
Aaron and I learned so much. We said, let's take
this education, let's write another one man. And you know,
it's so funny. You know, you always you get better.
But we had so much on set experience in this

(01:05:44):
whole process. I kind of feel like we went to
film school without going to film school, right, And and
I'm sure film school people were like, fuck, idiot, No,
you didn't know. It's true, I don't know the difference
between this brand of camera this brand of camera. Right.
But we wrote this next script more very excited about it.
We actually want to shoot it next year in South
Jersey and your neck of the woods. And it was

(01:06:06):
so cool because we got to write a script knowing
what it's like to make a movie. Now we know
what we need, now we know do you can't write
that scene that's ridiculous, It'll get cut. So it got
to be very focused. And that's just the education that
comes with time that guys like you have. But it
was very exciting to put that into play. And if
this movie does well, you know, your hope is that
it opens the door for another executive producer, or the

(01:06:28):
same executive producers, or just more connections in the business
to back this and get behind another one. But I
definitely learned we need more money. If we want to
make the type of movie we made, We're not going
to be able to do it on that budget. Again,
We're going to need to find a couple more bucks.
You got to move up the ladder a little bit, right,
You can't go in the opposite direction.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
Oh yeah, It's just like what Dov Simon says. You know,
you get to make a twenty thousand dollars movie, then
you make a fifty thousand dollars movie, then you make
one hundred and some one thousand, and then all of
a sudden, you're making million dollar movies. You know what
I mean? I think actually I think he starts off
with his paradigm. You make you make a movie for nothing, literally,
it's just your friends, whatever, and then you have to

(01:07:05):
make a movie for like ten grand or five grand,
and and then you move up, you know, sporadically. But yeah,
but I could, I know exactly where you're coming from,
because that's what I mean. That's what I've always said too,
is you know, people ask me about making stuff, why
haven't made anything like four or five years? And my
answer is is because I'm an idiot and I write
things and I go, holy shit, I would never be

(01:07:28):
able to even using all my methods that I talk
about in this podcast, even having all the people who
who've talked to me and saying, look, what do you
have access to? What can you make today with it?
With all you have access to, I end up writing
stuff that I'm like, dude, I look at one effect
and I'm like, this thing would cost fifty grand, right,
look at this, this would goes you know, I mean,
I mean, but then again, Chris, you know, I don't
know if I don't know if you ever listened to

(01:07:49):
this other couple of the podcasts, But I mean, I'm
the guy who was able to get a live working
tank and also able to get fake police cars to destroy,
and we and it wasn't that that. It wasn't you know,
we couldn't make it because not because we couldn't find
the tank and the police carps to destroy, but because
me and uh the director couldn't get along, so it

(01:08:10):
was a very odd I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
So therefore your biography should be I found the tank once,
the Dave Ballist story, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Yeah, yeah, and and I actually because I have a
friend of mine who's a mechanic. He uh had he
has a contract with police. The police department had all
the old police parts. We were going to doctor up
all these old junkers to look like police cars from
just one side and then run a tank over them.
And we had and I got everything all squared away.
And I mean, the director connected, Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
That's crazy. But but now he's a tank and that
you found a tank, that's the important thing, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Yep, he's my tank guy from now on, this guy guy.

Speaker 4 (01:08:44):
I love it. Hey, at least you have a tank guy.
A lot of people don't have that either. I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Yeah. I got two things going for me. I had
a pro wrestling match and I and I have a
tank guy. So that's it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:55):
I think for most people that's enough, you know what
I mean? Like you know, you know, even on your
tombstone like here lies Dave Ballis, he had one pro
wrestling match and one time he found a tank. I mean,
everybody's gonna take a picture of that tombstone. That's gonna be.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
Plastic it up as I'm buried in a what is
it the piano crate, But I just become like Marlon Brando.
I just eat myself into like an early grave.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
It'd be worse.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
We just took a very dark turn there. But Chris
I wanted to ask, where can people find the BET movie?

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
Act?

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
Absolutely so the BET as of right now is officially out.
I think it's actually comes out today on the day
of airing. From July twenty sixth on, it is on
Shouldn't Be, should be on all VOD outlets like Time Warners,
movies on demand, Comcast Movies on demand, you know, direct
TV movies on demand, and of course iTunes. That's kind

(01:09:52):
of the de facto place and that's probably the first
place I would send somebody to look for it on iTunes.
But it'll also be available for around on Xbox.

Speaker 5 (01:10:00):

Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
PlayStation, Fandango, now Voodoo, so basically all the digital outlets,
the VOD outlets, and then we'll be doing a DVD
at the end of August and then god willing fingers
crossed conversation for another time, we land on Netflix or
Hulo Hulu with the streaming deal. So that's a plan.
But right now, if you want to see this movie,

(01:10:30):
if you like comedy, if you like silly movies, if
you like professional wrestling, if you just want to see
what a bunch of psychotic, ambitious dudes made on a
small budget, you know, check it out. This one came
from the heart. Man. It's a silly movie. It's a
wild movie. It's a wacky movie. It's certainly not for everybody.
It's not high browed, Dave, but you know, in a

(01:10:51):
weird way, it came from all the right places. You know,
it came from good people that worked really hard against
a lot of odds. And you know, I think, as
any indie filmmaker, regardless of the content, it's a type
of movie you want to download, buy at once, and
support it because you know, I think a lot of
people can relate to the struggle. Man. You know, it
is real, and it's always cool when somebody cracks through
and gets it out there. We'll see what happens. Man,

(01:11:13):
I don't know what's going to happen. But it's exciting.
It's exciting to find out, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
Yeah, and by the way, I meant to mention, this
is Robby Roddy Piper's last.

Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
Movie, right, Yes, it's a final appearance of Roddy Roddy Piper.
He has a cameo in the film, so it is small.
But that was one of the great joys in my
life was having Roddy Piper in my own house hanging out.
We got to spend a wonderful day together. We really bonded.
We actually became friends from the whole project and kept
in touch. So you know, when we lost him, that
was you know, it kind of affected me a little bit.

(01:11:44):
It was strange to have made friends with a hero
like that and then worked with him on this and
started to talk to him about other projects, and just
as quickly as he came in my life, he left.
But it's a real honor to me. If if the
only thing that this movie becomes known for historically that's
a stretch of a word, but is if it's known,
oh that was that last movie that Roddy popped in
for a couple of minutes. Fine by me Man, Fine

(01:12:06):
by Me I'm honored to be the guy that made
Roddy Piper's last movie.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Yeah, And honestly, even if I if I didn't know you, Chris,
I honestly I would have actually bought the movie just
to see his last performance. I was, you know, being
a wrestling fan of a huge Piper fan as well,
and that I think that is so freaking cool. So
to be able to say on your on your you know,
on your eulogy, that can say, hey, Chris, you know
Chris j He he was able to hing out with

(01:12:32):
Roddy Piper and he made the Bet Movie.

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
Yeah, there you go. That's it, man, That's all I
got going for.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
Me, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
And of course, if anybody's listening, if they want to
follow us online, you can go to the Betmovie twenty
sixteen dot com. From there you can connect to our Facebook,
our Twitter, our Instagram. We're trying to have fun with
the marketing, Dave. We're really trying to get a little
cult buzz on this. It's for comedy fans, it's for
wrestling fans. We got some talented people in it, man.
You know, our two lead actors, A Manda Clayon is

(01:13:00):
going to be in a Martin Scorsese movie. At the
end of the year. She's on a Tyler Perry show.
Right now, our lead actor has a small role in
Guardians of the Galaxy too. So you're gonna see some
faces in here that I truly believe in my heart.
In the next year or two, you're going to see
a lot more of And I think we just took
casting so seriously that, you know, hopefully it's one of
those films that gains momentum as it goes to Netflix.

(01:13:21):
As people see it, they're like, hey, man, I saw
this movie and it's kind of wild, but it's actually funny.
I like to think it's kind of I don't know,
you know, I think it's a funny movie. You don't
make a comedy to not make people laugh, and that
was our goal. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
I'm glad you actually brought that up. If you have
the time. I had some fan questions coming through Twitter. Yeah, sure, okay,
So one of them, it actually is, if there was
one thing that you wanted the audience to take away
from your film, what would that be.

Speaker 4 (01:13:50):
Somebody's got to write dick and fart jokes? Why not me?

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
The second question is what cameras, did you shoot all?
And did you shoot in four K?

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
We shot on an Alexa, which we were very lucky
to get, so it looks awesome. And then we did
one or two pickup shots with a red that was
attached to a drone and the guy that let us
use it basically ran around and followed it underneath in
terror because he was ready to catch it if it fell.

Speaker 3 (01:14:22):
And so you shot, you didn't shoot in four K?

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
You know? I mean, that's how not technical I am
on being completely blunt with you, Dave, I'm not sure.
I just know that we had the Alexa camera that
everybody was super excited and it looked great, especially when
we put that color on it. It's like, man, this
looks like a real movie quote unquote.

Speaker 3 (01:14:40):
You know, it's uh. By the way, as you you know,
go through this wonderful world of filmmaking. By the way,
that's the number one question you will always ask from
now every time you make a film, every other filmmaker
is going to ask you this question. What did you
shoot it on?

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
What did you shoot it on?

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
Yep, that will be the cool de facto question. And
you know they're a filmmaker because non filmmaking people don't
give two flying fucks what you shoot on. They you
could shoot it on a cardboard box. No, you can say, hey,
I shot up with my iPhone. Oh that's cool. What
they're every filmmaking persons and say, hey, would you shoot
that on?

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
Okay? Okay? I just sent a text to find out
so in the future I won't look like a goog.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
Goob. It's cool, I believe me, man I you know
it's all good with me. You know because every time
that I've every film. If you go to a film festival,
a film networking thing and you show a film, would
you shoot that on? Okay? Would you shoot them? That's everybody.
Everyone loves to ask that question. But but but I
just think that's how I can tell if you're a film,
if you're in the industry or not, because non industry

(01:15:38):
people won't even mention it.

Speaker 5 (01:15:40):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
But but yeah, Chris, I I want to say thank
you so much for coming on. Uh. And I want
to ask where people find you out online?

Speaker 4 (01:15:50):
Yeah, if people want to see what I'm up to
and all that fun stuff, the best place is probably
on Twitter. And it's just at Army of Freshman that's
the name of the band, and that's right kind of
put my all my personal stuff, you know. And uh,
I got the text message. So I'm a professional filmmaker.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
Now, Dave you ready, Yeah, I'm ready read.

Speaker 4 (01:16:08):
You're ready ready? I said, we shot on an Alexa
camera and it said, uh at the time, Alexa didn't
shoot four. We shot on a two? Does that okay?
So two k two k okay, that's what I want
to say in Alexa two k okay? Good? Is that

(01:16:29):
a good thing, Dave? Or a bad thing?

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
And that's that's fun honestly, man.

Speaker 4 (01:16:34):
You know that's when should have hung up on me.
That would be a great end of this conversation. What
a fuck, you know, That's how I.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
Ended up most conversations. What a fun? Uh but uh
but basically, you know, everyone only only has tenndy uh
Tennandy monitors, TVs, tablets, phones, So I mean, you know,
this whole thing about shooting two four eight, you know,
it's I don't know, really know if it matters at
the end of the day. I you know, I think
it's a great thing. Honestly. If you I think we're

(01:17:01):
ways away from shooting everyone shooting in four K and
being able to enjoy in four K as well, because
you have to crush all this stuff anyway. So my
answer is, yeah, I think that's great.

Speaker 4 (01:17:11):
Man. Okay, good, good, good good. I can't wait for
you to see it, man, I really mean that, out
of everybody that I've been talking to publicity wise, I
think you'll have a neat perspective. Number one, because you
like wrestling in all honesty, and you'll probably understand that
now it's hard to work with wrestlers, and but you'll
understand the comedy of it. And number two, you're a
film guy, you know. Number three you're from Philly. And
number four you didn't laugh at me, and I didn't

(01:17:32):
know what camera it was shot on. So these are
you know, you're the type of guy that needs to
see this film. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
Yeah, I'm gonna put all my pjs, I'm gonna fire
up the old Xbox. I'm gonna check it out.

Speaker 4 (01:17:41):
Go coo. Awesome, David, And thank you so much for
your time, dude. And again, I do listen to the
podcast and I always enjoy your conversations. I like how
you have a lot of variety of people on the show.
You're not like kind of one of those conceited podcasts
that kind of just rip on people, and you know,
they just kind of make it sort of I don't know,
it's kind of seems like bitter dudes that don't make
movies that want to rip on people that do. That's

(01:18:01):
not you. You're always so supportive to your guests and I
always learned something, so I am a fan. Man. It
was a real pleasure talking to you. Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
I appreciate that, Chris. And like I said in the
pre interview, man, you know, I always try to say positive,
you know. I always want to make this a place
of positivity and have as many interesting, diverse people as
I can. But having said that, I want to say
thank you very much for coming on, Chris, and I
really do wish you the best with a BET movie.
I'm going to be checking it out Tuesday, July twenty sixth.
It is released on all of the of the channels

(01:18:34):
that Chris was talking about. But Chris, honestly, man, I
want to say thank you so much for coming on,
and I'm going to make sure to check out the
BET movie.

Speaker 4 (01:18:40):
Cool my pleasure, Dave, you take care and thanks everybody
for listening. Really doesn't mean a lot. Please check out
the film and say hi, let us know what you thought.

Speaker 3 (01:18:47):
Awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:18:47):
Take care, Chrit, Okay, take care brother.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at.

Speaker 5 (01:18:57):
Anything elsel dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
Forward slash eight.

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
Twenty six, and if you have it already, please head
over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
Subscribe and leave a good review for the show.

Speaker 5 (01:19:07):
It really helps us out a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
Guys.

Speaker 3 (01:19:09):
Thank you again so much for listening to guys.

Speaker 5 (01:19:11):
As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
indiefilm 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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