December 2, 2025 • 52 mins
On today’s episode, we meet David Ash, a filmmaker who perfectly embodies the spirit of the weekend warrior — balancing a demanding corporate career, a family of four, and a thriving passion for filmmaking. Living in the Twin Cities, Ash proves that a creative life doesn’t have to mean abandoning stability. With a degree in business administration and a full-time job as a treasury director, he still finds time to write, shoot, and direct independent films fueled by sheer willpower and resourcefulness.
His journey began after a screenwriting contest brought him to Los Angeles, where he realized Hollywood wasn’t going to make his stories — so he decided to make them himself. From there, he dove into every filmmaking class he could find, learned the craft from the ground up, and began creating short films that would eventually lead to his first feature.
His early projects, including the $800 mockumentary Love: A Documentary, showcased his ability to stretch every dollar while maintaining a sharp creative vision. As his filmmaking matured, Ash produced Twin Cities, a powerful drama exploring identity, duality, and personal transformation. Balancing his corporate life and creative drive, he continues to inspire other aspiring filmmakers to stop waiting for permission and simply start creating. His message is simple but profound: you don’t need Hollywood money or endless free time to make films — you just need passion, persistence, and the courage to begin.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.
His journey began after a screenwriting contest brought him to Los Angeles, where he realized Hollywood wasn’t going to make his stories — so he decided to make them himself. From there, he dove into every filmmaking class he could find, learned the craft from the ground up, and began creating short films that would eventually lead to his first feature.
His early projects, including the $800 mockumentary Love: A Documentary, showcased his ability to stretch every dollar while maintaining a sharp creative vision. As his filmmaking matured, Ash produced Twin Cities, a powerful drama exploring identity, duality, and personal transformation. Balancing his corporate life and creative drive, he continues to inspire other aspiring filmmakers to stop waiting for permission and simply start creating. His message is simple but profound: you don’t need Hollywood money or endless free time to make films — you just need passion, persistence, and the courage to begin.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
thirty one. Cinema should make You forget. You're sitting in
a theater, Roman Polanski.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we showed 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 1 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am your humble.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
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The old distribution model of making money with your film
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The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook.
If you want to order it, just head over to
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www Dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
On to today's episode, I chat with a filmmaker who
actually lives two lives, which I think all of us
because you know, in the day, we work a day
job and then we make films on the weekends or
at night or wherever he can until we can make
movies full time. You know, it's kind of like a
side gig or a side hustle or a weekend warrior
type thing. So usually if you're like me, you kind
(02:15):
of hide that side and you kind of make you know,
I have two linkedins, I have two different twitters, et cetera.
Because you don't want them to bleed into each other
because usually it doesn't end well. My next guest, he
actually constantly just goes out and says, yeah, I make
films on the weekends. Yeah, I was in the paper
and I also work at this company. So he's kind
of like the iron Man, you know, he's just at
the end he's, oh, by the way, I'm iron Man.
(02:35):
I do all this stuff and if you don't like it, whatever,
But he's embraced it and it's worked very well for him.
We're gonna talk about his new movie called Twin Cities,
about living a double life, and we're gonna talk about
filmmaking and winning writing contests and being flown out to
LA and he saw the frustration not being able to
make his own movies because these guys are gonna make it.
We're gonna talk about all that stuff. Really cool interview,
(02:58):
So without further ado with guests, David ash.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Yeah, I fell. Long story short, I did well enough
on these careering contests that they brought them out to
La to kind of do the La thing and meet
with some producers and stuff like that, and you know,
I really realized from that experience that basically, there's no way,
hell there we're gonna make my movie. And that became
pretty apparent. Not that they didn't like it, just wasn't
the kind of stuff that they were interested in. So
(03:25):
from there, you know, pretty much on the flight from
from LA, I decided I want to just learn how
to make films so that they actually got made rather
than just stacking up on my shelf here. So so
we have an I f p autor not. It's an
independent feature project, which is kind of a local thing
here in the Twin Cities for filmmaking photography. And I
(03:47):
started taking a lot of classes there, you know, everything
you can take in filmmaking, screenwriting, uh, directing, you know, editing, lighting, audio,
anything they would provide I would I would take it
and just kind of learned it that way. And then
you know, got into one of the classes, I think
it was intort of film production, and in the class
(04:09):
we actually had to make a short film. So I
made a short film in the class, just using other
students in the class. We shot in about two and
a half hours. It cost about fifteen bucks to make it,
and it actually got into some festivals and you know,
played in a few of these fest not just here,
(04:30):
but you know internationally, and that was really kind of
the spark for the whole thing. So after that, the
actually the guy that was teaching that class asked if
I wanted to keep making films. I'm like, yeah, of
course I do. So he was actually also the facilities
director of the IP so we could get our equipment
(04:50):
for free. So from there we just started making short films.
I think we made five or six and about a
year this is now probably eleven twelve years ago. Those
did pretty well, gotten some fast and such, and then
you know, got a little tired of just making short films,
and then I made my first feature about ten years ago.
(05:11):
It was a documentary called Love of Documentary, and we
made the whole thing for e hightred bucks. But you know,
I think I let's say a thousand dollar film if
you ask me, but you know, definitely not high budget.
But that actually gotten some pests as well, and you know,
from there I've made two more much more bigger budget
(05:32):
films since then. But that was the way that the
shart the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So you mentioned you have a degree in business administration,
as do I. So it's kind of it's kind of
ironic because you and I see that's one of the
reasons I wanted to talk to you, because you and
I have a very similar path. Because I have a
degree in business administration. I thought about going for an MBA,
and I said, what the hell am I thinking? And thanks,
and I decided, you know, I used to work at
(05:59):
a college and they were gonna all for your free
masters and I decided not to go that route. And
it wasn't the NBA. There's a couple of different options,
and I thought, I don't feel like going for two
more years of school for a degree that I just
don't know if I'm going to fully use, so you know,
but but it was it was very similar though, because
during college I realized that I didn't want to really
(06:19):
do go into business or anything like that. So it's,
you know, it's just kind of ironic because you know,
if you got that business degree, you know, and you know,
you mentioned that you started taking some screenwriting courses. We
know we're with these like online seminars.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Now there's there's a place to call it the it's
actually a literary loft. It's a place that offers just
writing classes all kind and one was a screen rinon class.
It was a night, you know, once a week for
probably two months. It was anything huge, and that was
really the only screen rinon class I had, but it
was it really helped to kind of understand the mchaics
of the film, you know, writing works and such. So
(06:56):
that was that was how I got started screenwriting as
far as the educational part of it.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So so when you did take that course, you know what,
like what were some of the things that really you know,
stood out for for for you for taking that course.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
You know, I think the first thing was, you know,
screen scrappy shouldn't be four armed pages. I think that
was a good learning, you know, because I was just writing,
and Ryan Rai and the teachers like, you know, you
gotta pare this thing down quite a bit. We can't have, uh,
you know, fifty pages of this dialogue in a row.
It was just kind of learning film language and you know,
three X structure, all that kind of good stuff. So
(07:32):
I was really a baby in the woods before I
took that class. And then I've kind of learned more
as I've done it since then, but it was really
just the basics and then you know, earning your uh
you know, you're ending that kind of thing. I was
kind of a big thing with that instructor, But that
was really just the start of I think I've I've
learned a lot since then just doing the screenwrite in
(07:54):
the filmmaking, but that was the first time I actually
had understood you couldn't just write four or five hundred
pages and call that a film, right.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, and definitely and just to go along with that,
it's also about you know, writing a scene, what makes
a scene, putting all those together, actually making sure the
screenplay actually, you know, works and it's not just basically
a collection of you know, someone's day as they sort
of just go through the minutia, you know, is I
mean because you knew writing going into this, So yeah,
(08:25):
I'm sure you knew about tension and building characters already, right.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Yeah, but yeah, I mean not not in the form
of filmmaking, though I kind of, you know, I knew
it for more the literary side of things, And you know,
the biggest thing just was for me, it was learning
that you know, you can do in film with you know,
three or four lines and the right shots we you know,
would normally do in three or four pages in a
book for example, and just pairing everything down to and
(08:53):
something I'm still learning, I'll pay everything down to just
exactly what you need nothing more. So that takes a
long time to learn if you're not used to that,
and you want to just kind of expound on everything
at nauseam, which I learned very quickly was not the
way to go about it.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, very true. Yeah, you know, And what I was
just getting at was, you know, just about coming to
building characters, you know, like character descriptions and stuff like that. Obviously,
you know, you can't put in like fitzgerald prose where
you know, he describes the curtains or whatever, you know,
for for a couple of pages. But you know, it's
about economy of words. So so you know, after it
(09:27):
was all over, did you actually have a you know,
a ninety year one hundred page screenplay.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yeah, I think I got it down to maybe one
twenty one thirty, you know, and that was the script
I used to kind of get into the contests and such,
and you know, some of those contests. If you do
well enough, they give you like free feedback. So that
was a good learning as well. And you know, for me,
the biggest thing that helped me with Screenwrine was just
having to actually make the damn things myself, right, because
(09:55):
then he realized.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
If you're making these kind of amateur mistakes, once you
get on the set, you know it's irresponsibility to making
a film, and you learn very quickly, you know when
you're directing what you're what you're writing, that the script
has to be something that's directable. So that just kind
of diving in and starting to make films after I had,
you know, just only written a few scripts was definitely
(10:28):
the best education I had, you know, in my whole
career was just going and doing it and getting progressively
better at understanding what a script should should do and
how it should look and in terms of you know,
building scenes and such. And you can't replace just having
to do it yourself, I think any kind of film
film school or class. So that's my you know, my
(10:51):
biggest advice to filmmakers and folks wanting your filmmakers always,
you know, don't don't necessarily go to film school just
you know, start making a film. Even it's going to
it will suck, you know, the first table that polite suck.
But you have to just kind of learn my doing otherwise,
you know, you're not going to quite internalize what you
need to internalize in terms of how it's actually done.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, it's kind of like what Robert Rodriguez says. You know, basically,
you have like a bunch of bad movies in you
in you, and you have to get them out as
soon as possible.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Absolutely true. Yeah, I still have you haven't gotten out yet,
but uh, we're getting there, you know, depending on how
you talk to you, I think we've we've gotten most
of them out.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah. I found the key is is to just when
you're first starting out, especially, is to aim low. And
what I mean by that is don't say like, hey, listen,
I'm gonna go out this weekend. I'm gonna I'm gonna
shoot a short film for ten grand and we're gonna
have blood and squibs and you know, blanks and everything else,
and we need to I mean, I think that's where
(11:49):
just a lot of filmmakers tend to shoot themselves in
the foot.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Yeah, that's absolutely true, and I've said that before in
similar kind of interviews and hells about you know, if
you're having to make what you write, you realize very
quickly that you have to write to what you can make, right,
You have to write something you can actually shoot. And I,
you know, I learned that pretty early on. I made
a short film. I want to get into it, but
(12:13):
it was just an effing nightmare because I fell in
love with the script and then trying to make it
became just a vortex of pain and agony if everyone
involved for a very long time, and I was like,
you know, I'm never again going to write a script
that I can actually make very you know, reasonly underneath
the budget that I've got. Otherwise it's just pointless and
(12:35):
just leads to a lot of frustration and people hating you.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, that's very true. But I think we all have
those stories, you know, Dave. I think we all have
those stories where we tried to do something a little
too much, too quickly, and it ended up, you know,
we kind of brought some people down with us. I
made a short film one time that literally everything that
could go wrong went wrong, and finally we were like,
(13:01):
this was after the whole day everything was going wrong right,
And we had to go outside to shoot this one
scene and I thought, Maye, hey, listen, you know what,
this can't go wrong, right, This cannot go wrong, Dave,
I shit you not. It starts pouring rain like you
wouldn't believe, and I said to myself, I go, this,
this can't be happening. Like I have to be in
(13:21):
bed dreaming that this is all just happening and I'm
gonna wake up. But no, it's it was real life, unfortunately,
and I just I ended up shortly then after that
the directors cinematography actually just like vanished and I couldn't
find him, and I was like, what the hell? And
so I I and just to you know, just to
surmise that whole story, I actually met him or reconnect
(13:44):
with him, probably a few years ago. When I actually
asked him, I said, did I do something? Was it
that day that did it? And he goes, well, that
day was bad. He goes, but the whole but He's like,
the whole reason was and there was a whole other
reason that was going on in his personal life. That
thankfully had nothing to do with me. I was like, oh,
thank god, I didn't want to be responsible for this
guy quitting film.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Yeah, well that's good the intelligent. Otherwise you'd your whole
life thought of Hagees. That's just good.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
No, but you mentioned your short film that though everything
went wrong, and you know, again, I think we all
have those. And so as you you know, started to
go through, you know, deciding to make you know, more films,
you know, you worked a day job at the same time.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah, I always have. That's that's kind of I think
the uniqu thing where what I do is that, Yeah,
I didn't just you know, go into writing after I
got the m Yeah, I stuhally in the business and
I've this is probably twenty years ago, you know that
graduate from grad school and Peny corporate Finance ever since. So, yeah,
(14:48):
I'm currently a exec at E Colab here in Saint Paul.
And you know, that's a pretty involving gig. You know,
probably fifty sixty hours a week on that side of things.
I've got four kids ages thirteen through seventeen. That is
(15:08):
a little consuming pretty much all the time. And then yeah,
then doing the film stuff on top of that. So
it's really been you know, uh, just trying to find
a way to do it and just doing it. You know,
there's no real easy explanation for you know, making six
short films and three features in the last thirteen years
(15:29):
other than just willing yourself to do it because it's
you got a lot of it. You won't you won't
do it. I guess it's easy to saying say, but
it's it's not for but I. But I think I
have a pretty good example of, you know, if you
want to make a film, get into filmmaking. You know,
I mentioned some of the budgets that I worked on.
We're pretty much peanuts, and you really don't have an
(15:52):
excuse for at least not trying it, given the way
the technology is now and how you can make a
film for cheap, and you just kind of do it
when you have time. And you know, I think if
nothing else, my story is something that hopefully can inspire
folks to just you know, not say I can't do
this because I've got a day job and I've got
a family, and I've got everything else in my life,
(16:13):
because you know, if I wait for that stuff to
not be around, I would never make a film, so
I'm glad I've done. It's kind of exhausting sometimes, but
it's also gives you energy because it makes you, you know,
want to get up and keep keep pushing at it.
So now I'll keep doing it. You know. It's it's
something I love to do.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So I wanted to ask what when? So does it
ever come back? Does it never? What I mean by
that is, do people ever like search for you online
and they'll say, Hey, Dave, is this you? Or something
like that where you're kind of well because at work.
I imagine that happens because I mean imagine people are
because you know, you're the Treasury director and I imagine
you probably you know, people look you up on LinkedIn
(16:55):
or what have you, and I'm sure they're probably like, hey, Dave,
is this you in the local paper or whatever.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, it happens a lot. I mean, it really started
happening last fall. We did our way. Most recently, Fature
Twin Cities actually had its local premiere here in October,
and as part of that, there was a big feature
stories in both the Minneapolis papers as well as the
(17:21):
Saint Paul paper in consecutive Sundays, and that kind of
reaches pretty much every in the state that reads you know,
so there was a lot of that, you know, at
work on Monday, like wow, I didn't know you did
this because I don't talk about it at work, and
I don't really it's not something that a lot of
folks are it doesn't doesn't come up in a lot
of meetings about finance and accounting, let's put that way.
(17:46):
But yeah, folks, definitely at that point, we're very supportive
and very interested, but also very shocked that I was
doing this on the side addition to you know, being
a treasure director for Free Collapse. So it's most people
think it's great. Some people were just like what the
fuck are you doing to you know, but over almost positive.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, I mean I was expecting that a lot of
people would be like, hey, Dave, you know, why are
you doing this and this, or maybe even saying because
I mean that that's happened to a lot of different
people on this podcast where they've worked a day job
and uh, you know, they worked, they were like, you know, what,
what the hell? But did anyone ever come up to
you and like pitch like, hey, you know I have
(18:26):
I have a friend or daughter or cousin that wants
to be in movies.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Yeah, I mean I get them more like when I
do some panels down and then I always have one
personal cinve she wishly walk up to me. I had
one not too long ago, and it was her husband
always wanted to write a screenplay, and we meet with
them and you know, basically be his mentor. I I'll
talk to him. I'm not going to you know, uh,
(18:54):
going to readjust my life for for his film career.
But that's that's something that's pretty common and there and
then that work. It's more like, hey, I want to
do a person that wrote a book, and that's pretty
cool too. And you know, there's not many filmmakers in
corporate finance. I would just say as a rule, but
everyone knows somebody that does something sort of similar and
(19:14):
they want to talk about, which I think is great.
You know, but yeah, I've had that experience quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Actually, So have you ever actually met with somebody? So
if somebody has ever requested it, like hey, Dave, will
you just meet my husband wife or whatever, have you
ever ever actually sat down and met somebody?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Probably not, probably always figured out a way out of it.
I was just kidding, that's going to mind. I I'll
have a drink with somebody, like after a film panel
and that kind of thing, but nothing like formal like hey,
please show me how to do what you've been doing.
But I'm always I usually just gonna send up some
links to some stuff and.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
You know, get in contact with the ip here, which
is a great place like I got started to get
started and throw them that way because they've got all
the classes there to get involved and all that. But yeah,
I don't generally do a lot of one one mentoring.
I guess i'd say.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, because I've noticed that comes up a lot too.
Is the whole like, hey, would you mind meeting somebody?
I agreed to it one time, and I think the
person I met was had a different idea of what
screen running was or is. Basically, I just started talking
about screenwrinning theory. I said, you know, what are your questions,
what do you have? What do you want to know?
(20:37):
And I did this for a friend. You know, this
is kind of like a professional acquaintance slash kindest sort
of a friend. If you know what I mean. And
I met with her and went with her daughter, and
her daughter I think was just kind of a little
taken aback and didn't really have any questions. I think
she was kind of expecting me to like, Hey, here's
(20:58):
the key to all of this, and this is what
unlocks all the doors.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Right. Yeah, that's the folks dently that I've talked to
think as well, is that you can just kind of like,
to the extent I've talked to folks, but then what
I do. It's generally like, you know, well, you know
sevent email with how he did this right, and it's like, well,
it kind of takes twelve fourteen years of work to
kind of get even to where I'm at, which is
(21:22):
not exactly you know, big budgets, big budget land. But yeah,
it's folks think it's just something you just kind of
write down on a piece of paper and you to somebody,
you know.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yes, And and I once was out of writing a
seminar slash Picchu event and this mutual friend of mine,
you know, can walk up to me and said to me,
you know, hey, Dave, I want you to meet somebody.
And this guy he was wanted to get into screenwriting,
and every question was about basically money, was like do
(21:55):
they still give people million dollar contracts? This and that.
I'm like, what do you care? You've been written anything?
Like you think you give them ten billion dollars? What
does it matter to you?
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it's aid. Yeah. The good thing to
know about filmmaking is like, yeah, I think about half
percent actually make a pretty good living at it. Another
nine nine point five are just you know, doing it
because I love it, honestly, And most folks don't realize that,
you know, they watch the Oscars like a few days ago,
and I think that you're making films, you must be
real rolling and uh rolling in it. That's pretty much
(22:27):
the opposite. You just have to do it and love
it and hopefully something comes to at some point. But otherwise,
you know, I I haven't made a ton of money
and I'm happy with what I've done, So you know
that's usually the end result of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, right, uh and so so just continue on with
your with your journey, you know, after you you know,
we were before we get to Twin Cities. You know,
I just want to ask, you know about any of
the other short films you know, before we talk about
twin Cities, is there anything else that that's sort of
really like you wanted to to to sort of like
talk about a discuss to focus on just because you know,
usually the short films, as you know, Dave, are kind
(23:03):
of like this setup for a feature film.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah, it's a great way to get started. I would
definitely recommend doing shorts. I've gone some filmmakers that just
go directly the features, and I don't think that's the
way to go. I mean, a lot of these shorts
were five to ten minutes, you know, some of them
were like fifty bucks. But you know, they all played
a small to medium sized festivals, which is great. But
(23:28):
I would definitely go with that route. I think I
would have not probably done any differently than I did
it if I had to do it over again, which
was making five, five or six shorts and then kind
of get your your voice and what you want to
do with film dialed in before you tackle it features.
So you know, I would say, you know, do that
and then put it online. You know, you're you're not
(23:48):
going to find a more ruthless audience and putting something
on YouTube, So that's a good indoctrination into you know,
film criticism for you because the comments there will if
you can if you can stomach that, then you can
probably stoll making a feature film, because that's a that's
a great proving ground, I think, is getting it on
(24:09):
YouTube and getting some clicks. We did have one that
went pretty viral, a couple hundred thousand I think, pretty quickly,
and it was very politically oriented. And that's one thing
I learned about, you know, uh that kind of you know,
getting short films out there is if it's politically oriented,
that it seems that folks were really ready to jump
(24:31):
in on one side of the other on it. And
that was definitely the most the biggest short film we
had was was what they had a pretty pretty hard
liberal bent to it, and you could get all of
the all the Trump Trumpsters and and such out of
the woodwork to really you know, share with their friends
because they hated so much or vice versa. And uh,
you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is
(24:52):
if you want clicks, make it politically orient on one
side of the other. And that's kind of the the
MILLIU right now and online is political stuff that folks
just want to either attack it vaciferously and sent to
their friends they hated, or sent to their princes they
loved it. But that was my experience with short film making,
was that we made some films I thought were much better,
but they didn't have anywhere attraction of that.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
And that was the Obamacare website explanation, right.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
No, it was actually not that one. That one was
out there too, but it was about it was about
a father talking to a son, and the father was
very hardcore right wing and the son was very liberal
and kind of setting him straight as they went along
the path there. And we did it for actually a
(25:38):
political action group called Live Liberal, and they asked us
to make the short film as myself and this other
guy that I mentioned that got into filmmaking, and we
did it just for them and then just kind of
took off from there. But yeah, the Obama thing was
also pretty full political, but this one was very at
a very defined point of view, which really set some
(26:00):
folks off, which was which was fine with me.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I mean, well, you're you're at least evoking some kind
of emotion, right, and then that's what we're after, right.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, for sure, So you know.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
With the Obamacare website explanation, I haven't actually seen that.
And I actually saw that, I was like, did he
make a video up on the Obamacare website, because it's possible,
But then, you know, I imagine it was probably you know,
like a parody video.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yeah, that was basically that was going back a few years.
That was when Obama the website, if you recalled, didn't
exactly set the role on fire, and they had a
ton of problems with it. So he had this really
I'm kind of abimo fani, it's very earnest, kind of rose
garden explanation for all the things that have gone wrong
(26:49):
with it and why that was okay and it was
still going to be great. And what I did was
I subtitled that with what he was actually trying to say,
which was of course heavily satirized and that kind of thing.
So it was, you know, I consider myself a level,
but that was pretty much making fun of a bottom
which went the other way. Is the other short film,
so I'll say it to you want to check it out,
(27:10):
But I did not know as much an he clicks
as the uh one of that pissed off the Republicans.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
So so once you actually started, you know, you know,
making these short films, you know, making them for you know,
fifty eighty one hundred bucks, you mentioned you made another
film for a thousand, the future film for a thousand,
you know, you know, so what was the you know,
the impetus there, you know, did you start with the
budget or did you sort of write it and say,
you know, hey, look it's only gonna cost a thousand
to make this now.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Actually that one actually started as a short film, and
it was the whole setup was was cheap to begin with.
It was basically a documentary about a guy who you know,
worked in an office and he thought that God had
come to him and impored him to spread love and
joy throughout the world. So it was this kind of
(28:00):
found footage type of doc about this guy and his
you know, very jaded co workers and you know, kind
of played off the tension between that. So he had
kind of scenes of this person talking, which actually was
played with myself, and then scenes of things just going
horribly wrong in the office as you tried to kind
of impart this spiritual journey he was on. And we
(28:21):
shot it actually at if P using the equipment from
I f P and you know some actually professional actors
believe or not from the area. They were willing to
do it for you know, Pizza and Die Coke. And
he was literally like, I eight hundred bucks for eighty
three minute feature film. What you gotta can send me
if you want to watch it a link to your
(28:42):
your podcast listeners. And it actually played at some festivals
and it did very well one award, and it was
you know, people either loved it or hated it, and
those that loved it really loved it, and those I
hate it really hated it. But it was it was
really proving for me that I actually could make a
feature film, and until then it was just kind of
something that people didn't And you know, we started with
(29:02):
the short film and I just kept writing more and
more pages along the lines of this the story, and
before we knew we had forty or fifty minutes, I'm like, well,
if it's gonna be that long, let's make it a feature.
And we just blew it out to a full arc
of a film. I think it was eighty three minutes
in total, and just did it on you know, literally
less than a thousand bucks.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
And you know, once you actually were able to shoot this,
you know what what locations were? Were you like using
you used?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
You know?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Did you I mean do you ever? Uh while while
I'm thinking of it, I'll kind of shoot myself in
a real question, do you ever? Did you ever shoot
at your office? I mean, obviously if you want to
answer that, you don't have to, but if that's like
the secret, but.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
No, we not in my office, but we shot at
for both a couple of scenes in Twin Cities and
a couple of scenes and twenty twenty one, my second feature,
we shot at my wife's office, which.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Is we'll be right back after word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Was Minnesota Public Radio. So they were very you know,
accommody of that kind of endeavor, and they let us
shoot there for free and it was great. So we
shut You don't know if it's just downline for the
last the last two patures, so.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
They just basically do they ask you like anything like
the usual two questions are is their nudity? And is
their blood? That that's and every time I've walked up
locations that was the two questions. Is there violence like
blood or is their nudity? And and usually the answer
is yes, no.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Uh, there's actually a no on both those accounts for
for us.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Even better, even better, But they didn't ask.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
We could have done that. I should have probably thrown
that in there, you know, so no, no duty or violence,
but not because we couldn't.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
It's usually when when when you're asking those things they
did they ask you about insurance.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
They were just incredibly lax about the whole thing. No,
they didn't ask about of shit. It was just kind
of like, we're gonna come in on a Saturday and
we're gonna shoot from you know, eight to five, and
you know, my wife came with me because she works there,
and didn't really ask any questions. They were they thought
it was great. So I think that's you got to
really be carefully you choose. I don't think my e
clad would have been that way where I work, so
(31:27):
they were just like, hey, just go ahead and do it.
So I got lucky, very lucky, my friend.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
See, that's the thing, man, when when you have a
connect there and you're able to come in and professional
and also you know you're still in an area where hey,
filmmaking is you know, people haven't beat over the head
with it. Like a sack of oranges. You're kind of like, hey, look,
you know it's still cool and neat, and you know
Dave's wife works here and this and that. You know,
because because you know, they always say in la in
New York, as soon as we ask the film somewhere,
(31:55):
it becomes like a huge pain in the ass and
they're like another thing was you know what I mean?
And its just it does and had that that cool
cache anymore. So Philly was kind of like that for
a while. Now it's back up to be like, hey,
you're you're doing something, are awesome. I want to help
you out.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
But uh, but that those are the things that for
all the all the listeners I keep harping on about locations,
it's it's the blood gore, the violence of the nudity.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
They sometimes ask about insurance. I mean you can always
sign waivers, and but I mean if they allow you
just to make hey, look, you know we trust you
and you're not gonna do anything crazy. You know that
that you can't beat that. It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Yeah. That was actually probably the easiest location we had.
I mean we had some that were not not easy.
We shot a day at a hospital Er parking lot,
and it was I didn't have what I says, I
didn't have permission for it. We got permition for everything else,
but we were going to get it. But we needed
this very key scene, which is actually the last scene
(32:53):
in the film. And we shot pretty much an entire
day and it was all an interior of my SUV,
and about halfway through they came out with security and
they said, you know, what, what the fuck are you doing? Basically,
and I'm not sure what what words I strung together
(33:14):
to get them to go away, but some of I
did it, and we just kept shooting, and you know,
day turned the night, and they finally came out with
more security dudes and probably some firearms and and such,
and they're like, Okay, whatever you antellis is not going
to work. You need to get that out of air.
And fortunately we were done except for one shot. So
(33:36):
we went to a different parking lot where we could
just see the exterior shot and and patch together and
work perfectly. But that was probably the most stressful day
of shooting I've ever had, because you had, uh, you know,
ere our parking lot and kind of swarming security guards
and I knew we had, we probably could't shoot nowhere
(33:56):
else and get the same kind of shot. And we
had to have the scene to make the film more so,
you know, I wouldn't recommend that, but we did it,
so Lesson learned.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Well, you know that that's amazing that you were able
to get him go away the first time.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't recall what I said. I probably
pulled some I haven't. No one have pulled my butt.
I couldn't. I could not tell you. But they I
think they just scratched their heads and left and we
just sid okay, let's keep shooting, and we powered through.
And we've had you know, I've had a few similar
shoots like that where you're just really on a tight deadline,
but they always know you're you're that you're supposed to
(34:34):
be there. But this was one where we just said
to pocket, we're just gonna do it even though we're
not supposed to be there, and you know it's in
the film, so it works out.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I mean, like literally, you guys just rolled up into
that hospital parking lot and like I was, shoot here.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, they had It's got like I got to I
mean eight or nine other er parking lots and I
wanted something that where we could it's hard to describe.
I want a certain and I wanted to have like
the you Weregacy parking lot sign the background and to
make it all kind of come together. And it was
(35:09):
the only parking lot I could find that works. I
really wanted to to shoot there. I didn't think we'd
have a shot and help we asked, so we just
kind of just did it, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
And that's gorilla filmmaking, right, You gotta just you just
gotta go out there and do it, you know. I
imagine And I'm just gonna just just food for thought, Dave.
I'm gonna imagine that when they probably approached you, they
probably said are you guys supposed to be here or
something like that. You and you probably said, oh, yeah, yeah,
we're just finishing off and this and that, and they
probably went away to go check. Because I've seen that
(35:44):
happen before. They're like, oh, oh, are you guys supposed
to be here? Yes, And then by the time they
get back, you're either gone or they forgotten, or they
don't care anymore to even pass it up to the line.
And and but it seems like that time they actually did.
They Actually it was.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Probably three or four hours later. That's the thing I
knew there, if they're gonna go check. I think it
was kind of like, well, these guys will leave pretty
soon anyway, we'll let this one go. But that were out,
you know, four or five hours later, they're probably Okay,
this is not cool. So I'm not I can't say
I'm proud of that, but it turned out great, you know.
And that's that's that's the non Hollywood filmmaking right there.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, it's the true indie film spirit. Matt, my friend
is that. That's what that is. That's what you gotta do.
You gotta you gotta steal locations at times, and that's uh,
you know. I I one time was talking to Scott
mcmannerhens film Trooper, uh, and I told him, I said,
I think that's the number one problem for most filmmakers
is getting locations. And I honestly I often said it'll
(36:43):
be a great idea and it could never work. But
here's my idea, Dave. It's like a hub, kind of
like Facebook. You could friend another filmmaker and let's say
you know you, you and I both lived and let's
just say Boise, Idaho, well I have film connections, and
and you know you have film connections. Well we could
sort of put up you put up on a on
a post or whatever. Hey, look this is who I
(37:06):
know at this hospital. This is what they did. They
let me shoot here. Uh you know what I mean.
Like obviously you wouldn't do it to your for your
own house unless you were insane, but you know if
they if you, they would let you shoot somewhere and
make me, hey, this is an abandoned house. This is
how I got to shoot there. Blah blah blah. And
that's basically it almost become like this collage of sorts
(37:26):
of city by city of all the places where you
could where you could shoot and that are that are
friend friendly to filmmakers?
Speaker 4 (37:34):
No, that's a great Yeah, yeah, that's you know someone
we got through the film board. They would post locations
online and you I'd call the film where and say, hey,
look that that's a film friendly place and they would
always say yes, but I love your idea. I mean
anything like that, because that's a very dawning when you
start an indie film to not know where you can
(37:54):
shoot it, and you know, when you don't have a
lot of cash to get these guys to shoot, you're
really just kind of begging, which I've done a lot of,
but you kind of just kind of learn how to
what they want to hear, you know, Like I said, insurance,
we generally do get insurance and waivers all that kind
of stuff, you know, and then you figure out, you know,
(38:17):
what to say to get the location. And but every
location I think I've had, even you know, where we're
supposed to be, it's it's super stressful because usually it's
in my case, it's been you know, a bar that
opens at eleven for lunch. See, you've got like four
in the morning until eleven thirty and then you got
to get in six pages or something. And every single
(38:37):
location shoot I've been on besides my wife's office, it's
been that kind of pressure. And that's because comes with
the territory. I think. You know, that's again the not
Hollywood filmmaking that you just somehow make it work, right.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, exactly because I and I've been there before too, man,
where I've showed up on a Saturday morning at like
six or seven am and they're like, oh, yeah, well
we're going to open today at one whatever, and you're like,
all right, well here we go. Uh right, let's get
let's get wrong with this bad boy. And so, I mean,
and I've been there, man, where people don't show up,
you know, people show up late or ultra late. I mean,
(39:14):
you know, at some point I should just do a
podcast one episode why I just tell stories, but all
the all the horror stories I have, but I remember,
I mean some of these where people would show up
not at all and you're sitting there calling them and
they're like, oh, I forgot today was the thing, And
I'm like, well, I sent you ten thousand emails.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
How the hell did you fit this? Yeah, that's that
is the the most you can count on, that more
anything else in any filming. And somebody's I gotta show
up or show up late, and you know that that's
that's a given. I mean Twin City is another kind
of example of working around stuff. Have you seen the
(39:51):
film or not, But the lead character, the leak uh character, Emily,
is played a Bethany fort Bankley and she's awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
But she was actually had like a five month old
kid when we were shooting. So she'd sometimes I had
to bring a baby on set and it would usually
had nanny therefore, but we'd be through halfway through a
really intense scene that's going well, then the baby start
crying and that would be the end of that. And
(40:29):
those were a few shots like that. So it was
always something, and it is always something when you're working
on this kind of level of filmmaking, and you just
kind of have to not get frustrated and just you know,
working around it somehow. But yeah, it's everything in the
kitchen saying for every every shoot that I've been on
at this level.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Yeah, you mentioned Twin Cities, and I wanted to ask
you about that film now because that's uh, you know,
I know, you actually debut that film, and you know
it's employ in a few festivals. So I wanted to ask,
you know, if you could just you know, take us
through the film, you know, give us a long life
you could.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Yeah. So it's actually a sequel to twenty twenty one
of my second feature film, but it's a very kind
of spiritual sequel versus like an additional sequel. But it
picks up four years later with these characters John Emily
and they're married now and the Lee character Emily, as
(41:28):
I mentioned, she's actually pregnant. Someone's pregnant with their first kid,
and that kind of sends the husband John into a tailspan,
and you know, things are really falling apart and looks
like it's all going to kind of turn a ship
for the couple in their lives. And he gets this
(41:50):
cancer diagnosis which shakes him out of his his downward
spiral and sets him on kind of a new course
in life to you know, make amends with his wife
and to kind of find his God and go on
this sort of spiritual journey to to find himself. And
that's the basic set of the film. There is about
(42:11):
halfway through a very i would say extreme twist which
I generally don't give away in case folks want to
see the film, but it really from that point on
becomes a much different kind of film in terms of
I would say, a different kind of film. But the
plot kind of turns on its head and it becomes
a sort of a more reflective type of narrove structure.
(42:35):
That is really the reason why it's call Twins. That
he besides the backt that libert, it's got a kind
of dualistic narrative that it plays out after this very
jarring twist to the to the plot, and it you know,
it kind of gets bananas from there at that point.
So that's probably a much I can tell you without
(42:57):
spoiling the whole damn thing. But that's that's the basic
setup of the film.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And so you know, once you actually wrote the screenplay
for this, Dave, you know, how did you go about
raising the funds to actually shoot this? Did you sell
finance this movie?
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Most of it? Yeah? I mean generally what I've done
is I just put my an angle bonus my job,
and I you know, I just put my bonus in
it when I'm making a film, and I never really
use my actual uh paycheck for filmmaking. So you know,
(43:31):
for this one, I used a couple bonuses and I
used I got a snowbathed from the Minnesota Film Board.
They played for a good check of it through their
their rebate program, which is really an incentive to to
film in Minnesota, and that was that was very helpful
as well.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
So when when you told your wife you wanted to
make a film with the bonus, did she just did
he think you were crazy? Or or she used to
it like, okay, David, you know it's.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Yeah, No, she's been great. I mean, she's got kind
of her own artistic endevors, so it kind of humans
out I want to go into that, but it kind
of we both have this sort of side thing. We
did our job. She's a hr director and has her
own kind of career, but then she also does a
lot of artistic stuff on the side that balances out
(44:18):
what I do. So we're very accomnying with each other, like,
you know, I want to, you know, spend some cash
on on this thing that I really am a passionate about.
And it really wasn't very hard of us sell. I
did the same thing for my second film and she
was around for that as well, so I think it'd
be different for I was saying, well, look, you know,
we're gonna have trouble maybe making more ease now because
(44:39):
I got to use my paycheck for this. The fact
that's really just my bonus. It's kind of like, well,
it's found money anyway, and you know, go for it.
So she's been great, honestly, not kind of the opposite
of what you might expect, but she's been fantastic. About
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, I and you know that that's good that that
you know, she's supportive of this, and so we're people,
we're can people find out more about Twin Cities.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Yeah. So website is, uh just twin Cities thefilm dot com.
We've got our trailer on there, a ton of stuff,
you know, clips from the film, synopsis, a bunch of
reviews for the film. We've actually got I think, really
great reviews for the film. So there's a lot of
that on there, cast and crew bios, you know, all
(45:23):
the all the stuff you'd wanted on a website. More
is on there.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
And I will link to that in the show notes.
Everyone at davilis dot com.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
But Dave, just just in closing, you know, I wanted
to ask, is there anything we can get a chance
to talk about that you want to just to say
right now, anything you want to discuss right now, or
or maybe it's just something you want to say to
put a period at the end of this whole conversation.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Yeah, I guess, Well two things. I mean, first of all,
what I'm working on now, I've been working on a
TV series since we finished Twin Cities production about a
year year and a half ago. So that's kind of
my next thing. So I'm you know, you know, doing
press for the film, but also kind of trying to
you know, generate some possible interest in in this. Uh.
I think it's gonna be a nine episode first season series.
(46:05):
I'm working on that. Hopefully we'll get some external financing
for and not use my bonus for that. So uh,
that's the first thing that's just kind of throwing at
that out there that that's sort of my next project,
and I'm really excited about it. Yeah, beyond that, I
think you know it, you know, I think what's interesting
about my story probably reason, to be honest, is because
I've got this whole other life besides filmmaking. So you know,
(46:28):
I do try to encourage folks that want to get
into filmmaking, would think that they can't because they've got
this you know, very consuming day job or anything else
in life. I think is is not going to let
it happen, that that's possible, and you really just need
to start and just do it, you know, rather than
you know, think about doing it or reading books about
(46:50):
doing it and and such. If you want to make
it into filmmaking, I would say, you know, start with
a two mint film and whatever you money you have
for if it's a ten dollars ten bucks you've got
laying around, make a ten dollars a film you got
a hundred bucks and a hund our film. But you know,
I would just encourage folks too, if they've always wanted
to get into filmmaking, just do it. And if you
(47:11):
go to my website and you go to the contact page,
I think that goes diroctly in my email. If you
are interested this kind of thing, you want to kind
of know more about how I've you know, been making
this kind of life work with filmmaking and everything else,
you know, definitely email me and I can help you
out as much as I can. But that's that's the
big thing I want to get across as well to
(47:32):
your audience, is that, you know, try to encourage folks
to to get into filmmaking that maybe are not sure
if they can or I have the time to do it.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, I just don't ask you for mentorships, right, I
don't ask to take you meet somebody.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Yeah, it was probably it was probably overly uh you
know whatever about that, But I I'm happy to impart
whatever advice I have, But yeah, I can't do a
full time mentorship at this point unfortunately. But maybe someday
they'll be part of the explan But right now it's.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Not well, you know, it's it's like I say, Dave,
when any anybody who listens to this podcast or what
have you asked to meet me for coffee or as
to meet me meet me for coffee or what have
you or whatever, I always say this, I said, it's pointless.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
If you shot me an email, it would it would
do you ten times the benefit the meeting me for coffee, right,
because we both have to drive out there, gonna find parking,
it's gonna be crowded, it's gonna be loud.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
And what you know, if you if you send an email,
it's you know, you can do it from anywhere, you
do it on your way to work or whatever, and
you get a lot more from it. You know, maybe
not in the short short run, but over the long run,
if you just keep going back and forth, it's a lot.
It's worth a lot more. Maybe even one email in
general is worth a lot more because you can actually
just detail things out.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
And then you also have a written transcription on most
of what the meeting would have been. I just have
never or the second part is, you know, just meet
me at a at an event. You know, if I'm
ever at one of these events, the Blacklist Philly, I
might end up going to one of their events. I'm
not sure, though I haven't. I don't know. I'm kind
of network event out, Dave. I don't know if you are.
But I'm just like, people invite me all the time
(49:12):
to these things, and I'm like, you know what, I've
done a ton of them when I was just starting out,
and I got burned out of them real quick, and
I haven't been back since.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
It's just I just sometimes feel it's a lot of
you know, I was one time part of a screenwriting
group and every meeting we had a new batch of
people come in, right, So it was always like bringing
people up to speed about what screenwriting is. And then
it'll be like February, and then by the end of
the middle of summer they're like, yeah, we've had fifty sixty,
(49:41):
seventy people come through here, but we have never gotten
passed like teaching the basis of screenwriting.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Right, Yeah, I hear you, man, we'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor and now back to
the show.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
Serioly.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
So, Dave, where can we'll find you that online?
Speaker 4 (50:05):
Yeah? I think the best place to start is that,
you know, twin citiesthefilm dot com. I've put most everything
I'm on working on in terms of the film, I
should say most of everything from the film was on there.
I haven't done the website yet for the series I'm
working on. That's going to come at some point. If
you want to go to the website for my second film,
(50:27):
twenty twenty one, and it's twenty twenty one in the
film dot com. If you want to see that film.
We actually got distribution for that film and it's on
Amazon Prime. You know, they can see that for free
if you have Amazon Prime. Just go to twenty twenty one,
put that in search engine for Amazon and should take
you to the film. We got distribution for Twin Cities
(50:47):
as well, so that'll be on Amazon later this year
and hopefully a few other paper places besides Amazon, So
hopefully that'll be out there, you know by fall. I'm
guessing yeah, beyond that, you know, Yeah, if you want
to shoot men, email it's David at ash seven at
gmail dot com. Happy to to you know, tell you
(51:11):
whatever wherever I know, I'm happy to send them along
as well, so that'll get you started. But again, if
you go to Twin Cities of the Film dot com,
I've got probably most of my stuff is on on
that page that website. It's a it's a pretty pretty
starch side at this point.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Cool Dave. It's been so great avenue on man yea,
and yeah, I look forward to check out your stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Man.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Again, we have a very similar path. That's why I
wanted to have you on. And again, best of luck
to you, my friend, and I will talk to you
very soon.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me down. I really
really appreciate it, so thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
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 any film uncle
dot com Forward Slash eight thirty one, and if you
have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com,
subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
really helps us out a lot. Guys, Thank you again
(52:04):
so much for listening to guys, as always, keep that
hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
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
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
thirty one. Cinema should make You forget. You're sitting in
a theater, Roman Polanski.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we showed 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 1 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am your humble.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
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www Dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
On to today's episode, I chat with a filmmaker who
actually lives two lives, which I think all of us
because you know, in the day, we work a day
job and then we make films on the weekends or
at night or wherever he can until we can make
movies full time. You know, it's kind of like a
side gig or a side hustle or a weekend warrior
type thing. So usually if you're like me, you kind
(02:15):
of hide that side and you kind of make you know,
I have two linkedins, I have two different twitters, et cetera.
Because you don't want them to bleed into each other
because usually it doesn't end well. My next guest, he
actually constantly just goes out and says, yeah, I make
films on the weekends. Yeah, I was in the paper
and I also work at this company. So he's kind
of like the iron Man, you know, he's just at
the end he's, oh, by the way, I'm iron Man.
(02:35):
I do all this stuff and if you don't like it, whatever,
But he's embraced it and it's worked very well for him.
We're gonna talk about his new movie called Twin Cities,
about living a double life, and we're gonna talk about
filmmaking and winning writing contests and being flown out to
LA and he saw the frustration not being able to
make his own movies because these guys are gonna make it.
We're gonna talk about all that stuff. Really cool interview,
(02:58):
So without further ado with guests, David ash.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Yeah, I fell. Long story short, I did well enough
on these careering contests that they brought them out to
La to kind of do the La thing and meet
with some producers and stuff like that, and you know,
I really realized from that experience that basically, there's no way,
hell there we're gonna make my movie. And that became
pretty apparent. Not that they didn't like it, just wasn't
the kind of stuff that they were interested in. So
(03:25):
from there, you know, pretty much on the flight from
from LA, I decided I want to just learn how
to make films so that they actually got made rather
than just stacking up on my shelf here. So so
we have an I f p autor not. It's an
independent feature project, which is kind of a local thing
here in the Twin Cities for filmmaking photography. And I
(03:47):
started taking a lot of classes there, you know, everything
you can take in filmmaking, screenwriting, uh, directing, you know, editing, lighting, audio,
anything they would provide I would I would take it
and just kind of learned it that way. And then
you know, got into one of the classes, I think
it was intort of film production, and in the class
(04:09):
we actually had to make a short film. So I
made a short film in the class, just using other
students in the class. We shot in about two and
a half hours. It cost about fifteen bucks to make it,
and it actually got into some festivals and you know,
played in a few of these fest not just here,
(04:30):
but you know internationally, and that was really kind of
the spark for the whole thing. So after that, the
actually the guy that was teaching that class asked if
I wanted to keep making films. I'm like, yeah, of
course I do. So he was actually also the facilities
director of the IP so we could get our equipment
(04:50):
for free. So from there we just started making short films.
I think we made five or six and about a
year this is now probably eleven twelve years ago. Those
did pretty well, gotten some fast and such, and then
you know, got a little tired of just making short films,
and then I made my first feature about ten years ago.
(05:11):
It was a documentary called Love of Documentary, and we
made the whole thing for e hightred bucks. But you know,
I think I let's say a thousand dollar film if
you ask me, but you know, definitely not high budget.
But that actually gotten some pests as well, and you know,
from there I've made two more much more bigger budget
(05:32):
films since then. But that was the way that the
shart the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So you mentioned you have a degree in business administration,
as do I. So it's kind of it's kind of
ironic because you and I see that's one of the
reasons I wanted to talk to you, because you and
I have a very similar path. Because I have a
degree in business administration. I thought about going for an MBA,
and I said, what the hell am I thinking? And thanks,
and I decided, you know, I used to work at
(05:59):
a college and they were gonna all for your free
masters and I decided not to go that route. And
it wasn't the NBA. There's a couple of different options,
and I thought, I don't feel like going for two
more years of school for a degree that I just
don't know if I'm going to fully use, so you know,
but but it was it was very similar though, because
during college I realized that I didn't want to really
(06:19):
do go into business or anything like that. So it's,
you know, it's just kind of ironic because you know,
if you got that business degree, you know, and you know,
you mentioned that you started taking some screenwriting courses. We
know we're with these like online seminars.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Now there's there's a place to call it the it's
actually a literary loft. It's a place that offers just
writing classes all kind and one was a screen rinon class.
It was a night, you know, once a week for
probably two months. It was anything huge, and that was
really the only screen rinon class I had, but it
was it really helped to kind of understand the mchaics
of the film, you know, writing works and such. So
(06:56):
that was that was how I got started screenwriting as
far as the educational part of it.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So so when you did take that course, you know what,
like what were some of the things that really you know,
stood out for for for you for taking that course.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
You know, I think the first thing was, you know,
screen scrappy shouldn't be four armed pages. I think that
was a good learning, you know, because I was just writing,
and Ryan Rai and the teachers like, you know, you
gotta pare this thing down quite a bit. We can't have, uh,
you know, fifty pages of this dialogue in a row.
It was just kind of learning film language and you know,
three X structure, all that kind of good stuff. So
(07:32):
I was really a baby in the woods before I
took that class. And then I've kind of learned more
as I've done it since then, but it was really
just the basics and then you know, earning your uh
you know, you're ending that kind of thing. I was
kind of a big thing with that instructor, But that
was really just the start of I think I've I've
learned a lot since then just doing the screenwrite in
(07:54):
the filmmaking, but that was the first time I actually
had understood you couldn't just write four or five hundred
pages and call that a film, right.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, and definitely and just to go along with that,
it's also about you know, writing a scene, what makes
a scene, putting all those together, actually making sure the
screenplay actually, you know, works and it's not just basically
a collection of you know, someone's day as they sort
of just go through the minutia, you know, is I
mean because you knew writing going into this, So yeah,
(08:25):
I'm sure you knew about tension and building characters already, right.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Yeah, but yeah, I mean not not in the form
of filmmaking, though I kind of, you know, I knew
it for more the literary side of things, And you know,
the biggest thing just was for me, it was learning
that you know, you can do in film with you know,
three or four lines and the right shots we you know,
would normally do in three or four pages in a
book for example, and just pairing everything down to and
(08:53):
something I'm still learning, I'll pay everything down to just
exactly what you need nothing more. So that takes a
long time to learn if you're not used to that,
and you want to just kind of expound on everything
at nauseam, which I learned very quickly was not the
way to go about it.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, very true. Yeah, you know, And what I was
just getting at was, you know, just about coming to
building characters, you know, like character descriptions and stuff like that. Obviously,
you know, you can't put in like fitzgerald prose where
you know, he describes the curtains or whatever, you know,
for for a couple of pages. But you know, it's
about economy of words. So so you know, after it
(09:27):
was all over, did you actually have a you know,
a ninety year one hundred page screenplay.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yeah, I think I got it down to maybe one
twenty one thirty, you know, and that was the script
I used to kind of get into the contests and such,
and you know, some of those contests. If you do
well enough, they give you like free feedback. So that
was a good learning as well. And you know, for me,
the biggest thing that helped me with Screenwrine was just
having to actually make the damn things myself, right, because
(09:55):
then he realized.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
If you're making these kind of amateur mistakes, once you
get on the set, you know it's irresponsibility to making
a film, and you learn very quickly, you know when
you're directing what you're what you're writing, that the script
has to be something that's directable. So that just kind
of diving in and starting to make films after I had,
you know, just only written a few scripts was definitely
(10:28):
the best education I had, you know, in my whole
career was just going and doing it and getting progressively
better at understanding what a script should should do and
how it should look and in terms of you know,
building scenes and such. And you can't replace just having
to do it yourself, I think any kind of film
film school or class. So that's my you know, my
(10:51):
biggest advice to filmmakers and folks wanting your filmmakers always,
you know, don't don't necessarily go to film school just
you know, start making a film. Even it's going to
it will suck, you know, the first table that polite suck.
But you have to just kind of learn my doing otherwise,
you know, you're not going to quite internalize what you
need to internalize in terms of how it's actually done.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, it's kind of like what Robert Rodriguez says. You know, basically,
you have like a bunch of bad movies in you
in you, and you have to get them out as
soon as possible.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Absolutely true. Yeah, I still have you haven't gotten out yet,
but uh, we're getting there, you know, depending on how
you talk to you, I think we've we've gotten most
of them out.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah. I found the key is is to just when
you're first starting out, especially, is to aim low. And
what I mean by that is don't say like, hey, listen,
I'm gonna go out this weekend. I'm gonna I'm gonna
shoot a short film for ten grand and we're gonna
have blood and squibs and you know, blanks and everything else,
and we need to I mean, I think that's where
(11:49):
just a lot of filmmakers tend to shoot themselves in
the foot.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Yeah, that's absolutely true, and I've said that before in
similar kind of interviews and hells about you know, if
you're having to make what you write, you realize very
quickly that you have to write to what you can make, right,
You have to write something you can actually shoot. And I,
you know, I learned that pretty early on. I made
a short film. I want to get into it, but
(12:13):
it was just an effing nightmare because I fell in
love with the script and then trying to make it
became just a vortex of pain and agony if everyone
involved for a very long time, and I was like,
you know, I'm never again going to write a script
that I can actually make very you know, reasonly underneath
the budget that I've got. Otherwise it's just pointless and
(12:35):
just leads to a lot of frustration and people hating you.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, that's very true. But I think we all have
those stories, you know, Dave. I think we all have
those stories where we tried to do something a little
too much, too quickly, and it ended up, you know,
we kind of brought some people down with us. I
made a short film one time that literally everything that
could go wrong went wrong, and finally we were like,
(13:01):
this was after the whole day everything was going wrong right,
And we had to go outside to shoot this one
scene and I thought, Maye, hey, listen, you know what,
this can't go wrong, right, This cannot go wrong, Dave,
I shit you not. It starts pouring rain like you
wouldn't believe, and I said to myself, I go, this,
this can't be happening. Like I have to be in
(13:21):
bed dreaming that this is all just happening and I'm
gonna wake up. But no, it's it was real life, unfortunately,
and I just I ended up shortly then after that
the directors cinematography actually just like vanished and I couldn't
find him, and I was like, what the hell? And
so I I and just to you know, just to
surmise that whole story, I actually met him or reconnect
(13:44):
with him, probably a few years ago. When I actually
asked him, I said, did I do something? Was it
that day that did it? And he goes, well, that
day was bad. He goes, but the whole but He's like,
the whole reason was and there was a whole other
reason that was going on in his personal life. That
thankfully had nothing to do with me. I was like, oh,
thank god, I didn't want to be responsible for this
guy quitting film.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Yeah, well that's good the intelligent. Otherwise you'd your whole
life thought of Hagees. That's just good.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
No, but you mentioned your short film that though everything
went wrong, and you know, again, I think we all
have those. And so as you you know, started to
go through, you know, deciding to make you know, more films,
you know, you worked a day job at the same time.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah, I always have. That's that's kind of I think
the uniqu thing where what I do is that, Yeah,
I didn't just you know, go into writing after I
got the m Yeah, I stuhally in the business and
I've this is probably twenty years ago, you know that
graduate from grad school and Peny corporate Finance ever since. So, yeah,
(14:48):
I'm currently a exec at E Colab here in Saint Paul.
And you know, that's a pretty involving gig. You know,
probably fifty sixty hours a week on that side of things.
I've got four kids ages thirteen through seventeen. That is
(15:08):
a little consuming pretty much all the time. And then yeah,
then doing the film stuff on top of that. So
it's really been you know, uh, just trying to find
a way to do it and just doing it. You know,
there's no real easy explanation for you know, making six
short films and three features in the last thirteen years
(15:29):
other than just willing yourself to do it because it's
you got a lot of it. You won't you won't
do it. I guess it's easy to saying say, but
it's it's not for but I. But I think I
have a pretty good example of, you know, if you
want to make a film, get into filmmaking. You know,
I mentioned some of the budgets that I worked on.
We're pretty much peanuts, and you really don't have an
(15:52):
excuse for at least not trying it, given the way
the technology is now and how you can make a
film for cheap, and you just kind of do it
when you have time. And you know, I think if
nothing else, my story is something that hopefully can inspire
folks to just you know, not say I can't do
this because I've got a day job and I've got
a family, and I've got everything else in my life,
(16:13):
because you know, if I wait for that stuff to
not be around, I would never make a film, so
I'm glad I've done. It's kind of exhausting sometimes, but
it's also gives you energy because it makes you, you know,
want to get up and keep keep pushing at it.
So now I'll keep doing it. You know. It's it's
something I love to do.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So I wanted to ask what when? So does it
ever come back? Does it never? What I mean by
that is, do people ever like search for you online
and they'll say, Hey, Dave, is this you? Or something
like that where you're kind of well because at work.
I imagine that happens because I mean imagine people are
because you know, you're the Treasury director and I imagine
you probably you know, people look you up on LinkedIn
(16:55):
or what have you, and I'm sure they're probably like, hey, Dave,
is this you in the local paper or whatever.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, it happens a lot. I mean, it really started
happening last fall. We did our way. Most recently, Fature
Twin Cities actually had its local premiere here in October,
and as part of that, there was a big feature
stories in both the Minneapolis papers as well as the
(17:21):
Saint Paul paper in consecutive Sundays, and that kind of
reaches pretty much every in the state that reads you know,
so there was a lot of that, you know, at
work on Monday, like wow, I didn't know you did
this because I don't talk about it at work, and
I don't really it's not something that a lot of
folks are it doesn't doesn't come up in a lot
of meetings about finance and accounting, let's put that way.
(17:46):
But yeah, folks, definitely at that point, we're very supportive
and very interested, but also very shocked that I was
doing this on the side addition to you know, being
a treasure director for Free Collapse. So it's most people
think it's great. Some people were just like what the
fuck are you doing to you know, but over almost positive.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, I mean I was expecting that a lot of
people would be like, hey, Dave, you know, why are
you doing this and this, or maybe even saying because
I mean that that's happened to a lot of different
people on this podcast where they've worked a day job
and uh, you know, they worked, they were like, you know, what,
what the hell? But did anyone ever come up to
you and like pitch like, hey, you know I have
(18:26):
I have a friend or daughter or cousin that wants
to be in movies.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Yeah, I mean I get them more like when I
do some panels down and then I always have one
personal cinve she wishly walk up to me. I had
one not too long ago, and it was her husband
always wanted to write a screenplay, and we meet with
them and you know, basically be his mentor. I I'll
talk to him. I'm not going to you know, uh,
(18:54):
going to readjust my life for for his film career.
But that's that's something that's pretty common and there and
then that work. It's more like, hey, I want to
do a person that wrote a book, and that's pretty
cool too. And you know, there's not many filmmakers in
corporate finance. I would just say as a rule, but
everyone knows somebody that does something sort of similar and
(19:14):
they want to talk about, which I think is great.
You know, but yeah, I've had that experience quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Actually, So have you ever actually met with somebody? So
if somebody has ever requested it, like hey, Dave, will
you just meet my husband wife or whatever, have you
ever ever actually sat down and met somebody?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Probably not, probably always figured out a way out of it.
I was just kidding, that's going to mind. I I'll
have a drink with somebody, like after a film panel
and that kind of thing, but nothing like formal like hey,
please show me how to do what you've been doing.
But I'm always I usually just gonna send up some
links to some stuff and.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
You know, get in contact with the ip here, which
is a great place like I got started to get
started and throw them that way because they've got all
the classes there to get involved and all that. But yeah,
I don't generally do a lot of one one mentoring.
I guess i'd say.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, because I've noticed that comes up a lot too.
Is the whole like, hey, would you mind meeting somebody?
I agreed to it one time, and I think the
person I met was had a different idea of what
screen running was or is. Basically, I just started talking
about screenwrinning theory. I said, you know, what are your questions,
what do you have? What do you want to know?
(20:37):
And I did this for a friend. You know, this
is kind of like a professional acquaintance slash kindest sort
of a friend. If you know what I mean. And
I met with her and went with her daughter, and
her daughter I think was just kind of a little
taken aback and didn't really have any questions. I think
she was kind of expecting me to like, Hey, here's
(20:58):
the key to all of this, and this is what
unlocks all the doors.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Right. Yeah, that's the folks dently that I've talked to
think as well, is that you can just kind of like,
to the extent I've talked to folks, but then what
I do. It's generally like, you know, well, you know
sevent email with how he did this right, and it's like, well,
it kind of takes twelve fourteen years of work to
kind of get even to where I'm at, which is
(21:22):
not exactly you know, big budgets, big budget land. But yeah,
it's folks think it's just something you just kind of
write down on a piece of paper and you to somebody,
you know.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yes, And and I once was out of writing a
seminar slash Picchu event and this mutual friend of mine,
you know, can walk up to me and said to me,
you know, hey, Dave, I want you to meet somebody.
And this guy he was wanted to get into screenwriting,
and every question was about basically money, was like do
(21:55):
they still give people million dollar contracts? This and that.
I'm like, what do you care? You've been written anything?
Like you think you give them ten billion dollars? What
does it matter to you?
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it's aid. Yeah. The good thing to
know about filmmaking is like, yeah, I think about half
percent actually make a pretty good living at it. Another
nine nine point five are just you know, doing it
because I love it, honestly, And most folks don't realize that,
you know, they watch the Oscars like a few days ago,
and I think that you're making films, you must be
real rolling and uh rolling in it. That's pretty much
(22:27):
the opposite. You just have to do it and love
it and hopefully something comes to at some point. But otherwise,
you know, I I haven't made a ton of money
and I'm happy with what I've done, So you know
that's usually the end result of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, right, uh and so so just continue on with
your with your journey, you know, after you you know,
we were before we get to Twin Cities. You know,
I just want to ask, you know about any of
the other short films you know, before we talk about
twin Cities, is there anything else that that's sort of
really like you wanted to to to sort of like
talk about a discuss to focus on just because you know,
usually the short films, as you know, Dave, are kind
(23:03):
of like this setup for a feature film.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah, it's a great way to get started. I would
definitely recommend doing shorts. I've gone some filmmakers that just
go directly the features, and I don't think that's the
way to go. I mean, a lot of these shorts
were five to ten minutes, you know, some of them
were like fifty bucks. But you know, they all played
a small to medium sized festivals, which is great. But
(23:28):
I would definitely go with that route. I think I
would have not probably done any differently than I did
it if I had to do it over again, which
was making five, five or six shorts and then kind
of get your your voice and what you want to
do with film dialed in before you tackle it features.
So you know, I would say, you know, do that
and then put it online. You know, you're you're not
(23:48):
going to find a more ruthless audience and putting something
on YouTube, So that's a good indoctrination into you know,
film criticism for you because the comments there will if
you can if you can stomach that, then you can
probably stoll making a feature film, because that's a that's
a great proving ground, I think, is getting it on
(24:09):
YouTube and getting some clicks. We did have one that
went pretty viral, a couple hundred thousand I think, pretty quickly,
and it was very politically oriented. And that's one thing
I learned about, you know, uh that kind of you know,
getting short films out there is if it's politically oriented,
that it seems that folks were really ready to jump
(24:31):
in on one side of the other on it. And
that was definitely the most the biggest short film we
had was was what they had a pretty pretty hard
liberal bent to it, and you could get all of
the all the Trump Trumpsters and and such out of
the woodwork to really you know, share with their friends
because they hated so much or vice versa. And uh,
you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is
(24:52):
if you want clicks, make it politically orient on one
side of the other. And that's kind of the the
MILLIU right now and online is political stuff that folks
just want to either attack it vaciferously and sent to
their friends they hated, or sent to their princes they
loved it. But that was my experience with short film making,
was that we made some films I thought were much better,
but they didn't have anywhere attraction of that.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
And that was the Obamacare website explanation, right.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
No, it was actually not that one. That one was
out there too, but it was about it was about
a father talking to a son, and the father was
very hardcore right wing and the son was very liberal
and kind of setting him straight as they went along
the path there. And we did it for actually a
(25:38):
political action group called Live Liberal, and they asked us
to make the short film as myself and this other
guy that I mentioned that got into filmmaking, and we
did it just for them and then just kind of
took off from there. But yeah, the Obama thing was
also pretty full political, but this one was very at
a very defined point of view, which really set some
(26:00):
folks off, which was which was fine with me.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I mean, well, you're you're at least evoking some kind
of emotion, right, and then that's what we're after, right.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, for sure, So you know.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
With the Obamacare website explanation, I haven't actually seen that.
And I actually saw that, I was like, did he
make a video up on the Obamacare website, because it's possible,
But then, you know, I imagine it was probably you know,
like a parody video.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yeah, that was basically that was going back a few years.
That was when Obama the website, if you recalled, didn't
exactly set the role on fire, and they had a
ton of problems with it. So he had this really
I'm kind of abimo fani, it's very earnest, kind of rose
garden explanation for all the things that have gone wrong
(26:49):
with it and why that was okay and it was
still going to be great. And what I did was
I subtitled that with what he was actually trying to say,
which was of course heavily satirized and that kind of thing.
So it was, you know, I consider myself a level,
but that was pretty much making fun of a bottom
which went the other way. Is the other short film,
so I'll say it to you want to check it out,
(27:10):
But I did not know as much an he clicks
as the uh one of that pissed off the Republicans.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
So so once you actually started, you know, you know,
making these short films, you know, making them for you know,
fifty eighty one hundred bucks, you mentioned you made another
film for a thousand, the future film for a thousand,
you know, you know, so what was the you know,
the impetus there, you know, did you start with the
budget or did you sort of write it and say,
you know, hey, look it's only gonna cost a thousand
to make this now.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Actually that one actually started as a short film, and
it was the whole setup was was cheap to begin with.
It was basically a documentary about a guy who you know,
worked in an office and he thought that God had
come to him and impored him to spread love and
joy throughout the world. So it was this kind of
(28:00):
found footage type of doc about this guy and his
you know, very jaded co workers and you know, kind
of played off the tension between that. So he had
kind of scenes of this person talking, which actually was
played with myself, and then scenes of things just going
horribly wrong in the office as you tried to kind
of impart this spiritual journey he was on. And we
(28:21):
shot it actually at if P using the equipment from
I f P and you know some actually professional actors
believe or not from the area. They were willing to
do it for you know, Pizza and Die Coke. And
he was literally like, I eight hundred bucks for eighty
three minute feature film. What you gotta can send me
if you want to watch it a link to your
(28:42):
your podcast listeners. And it actually played at some festivals
and it did very well one award, and it was
you know, people either loved it or hated it, and
those that loved it really loved it, and those I
hate it really hated it. But it was it was
really proving for me that I actually could make a
feature film, and until then it was just kind of
something that people didn't And you know, we started with
(29:02):
the short film and I just kept writing more and
more pages along the lines of this the story, and
before we knew we had forty or fifty minutes, I'm like, well,
if it's gonna be that long, let's make it a feature.
And we just blew it out to a full arc
of a film. I think it was eighty three minutes
in total, and just did it on you know, literally
less than a thousand bucks.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
And you know, once you actually were able to shoot this,
you know what what locations were? Were you like using
you used?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
You know?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Did you I mean do you ever? Uh while while
I'm thinking of it, I'll kind of shoot myself in
a real question, do you ever? Did you ever shoot
at your office? I mean, obviously if you want to
answer that, you don't have to, but if that's like
the secret, but.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
No, we not in my office, but we shot at
for both a couple of scenes in Twin Cities and
a couple of scenes and twenty twenty one, my second feature,
we shot at my wife's office, which.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Is we'll be right back after word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Was Minnesota Public Radio. So they were very you know,
accommody of that kind of endeavor, and they let us
shoot there for free and it was great. So we
shut You don't know if it's just downline for the
last the last two patures, so.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
They just basically do they ask you like anything like
the usual two questions are is their nudity? And is
their blood? That that's and every time I've walked up
locations that was the two questions. Is there violence like
blood or is their nudity? And and usually the answer
is yes, no.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Uh, there's actually a no on both those accounts for
for us.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Even better, even better, But they didn't ask.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
We could have done that. I should have probably thrown
that in there, you know, so no, no duty or violence,
but not because we couldn't.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
It's usually when when when you're asking those things they
did they ask you about insurance.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
They were just incredibly lax about the whole thing. No,
they didn't ask about of shit. It was just kind
of like, we're gonna come in on a Saturday and
we're gonna shoot from you know, eight to five, and
you know, my wife came with me because she works there,
and didn't really ask any questions. They were they thought
it was great. So I think that's you got to
really be carefully you choose. I don't think my e
clad would have been that way where I work, so
(31:27):
they were just like, hey, just go ahead and do it.
So I got lucky, very lucky, my friend.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
See, that's the thing, man, when when you have a
connect there and you're able to come in and professional
and also you know you're still in an area where hey,
filmmaking is you know, people haven't beat over the head
with it. Like a sack of oranges. You're kind of like, hey, look,
you know it's still cool and neat, and you know
Dave's wife works here and this and that. You know,
because because you know, they always say in la in
New York, as soon as we ask the film somewhere,
(31:55):
it becomes like a huge pain in the ass and
they're like another thing was you know what I mean?
And its just it does and had that that cool
cache anymore. So Philly was kind of like that for
a while. Now it's back up to be like, hey,
you're you're doing something, are awesome. I want to help
you out.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
But uh, but that those are the things that for
all the all the listeners I keep harping on about locations,
it's it's the blood gore, the violence of the nudity.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
They sometimes ask about insurance. I mean you can always
sign waivers, and but I mean if they allow you
just to make hey, look, you know we trust you
and you're not gonna do anything crazy. You know that
that you can't beat that. It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Yeah. That was actually probably the easiest location we had.
I mean we had some that were not not easy.
We shot a day at a hospital Er parking lot,
and it was I didn't have what I says, I
didn't have permission for it. We got permition for everything else,
but we were going to get it. But we needed
this very key scene, which is actually the last scene
(32:53):
in the film. And we shot pretty much an entire
day and it was all an interior of my SUV,
and about halfway through they came out with security and
they said, you know, what, what the fuck are you doing? Basically,
and I'm not sure what what words I strung together
(33:14):
to get them to go away, but some of I
did it, and we just kept shooting, and you know,
day turned the night, and they finally came out with
more security dudes and probably some firearms and and such,
and they're like, Okay, whatever you antellis is not going
to work. You need to get that out of air.
And fortunately we were done except for one shot. So
(33:36):
we went to a different parking lot where we could
just see the exterior shot and and patch together and
work perfectly. But that was probably the most stressful day
of shooting I've ever had, because you had, uh, you know,
ere our parking lot and kind of swarming security guards
and I knew we had, we probably could't shoot nowhere
(33:56):
else and get the same kind of shot. And we
had to have the scene to make the film more so,
you know, I wouldn't recommend that, but we did it,
so Lesson learned.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Well, you know that that's amazing that you were able
to get him go away the first time.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't recall what I said. I probably
pulled some I haven't. No one have pulled my butt.
I couldn't. I could not tell you. But they I
think they just scratched their heads and left and we
just sid okay, let's keep shooting, and we powered through.
And we've had you know, I've had a few similar
shoots like that where you're just really on a tight deadline,
but they always know you're you're that you're supposed to
(34:34):
be there. But this was one where we just said
to pocket, we're just gonna do it even though we're
not supposed to be there, and you know it's in
the film, so it works out.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I mean, like literally, you guys just rolled up into
that hospital parking lot and like I was, shoot here.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, they had It's got like I got to I
mean eight or nine other er parking lots and I
wanted something that where we could it's hard to describe.
I want a certain and I wanted to have like
the you Weregacy parking lot sign the background and to
make it all kind of come together. And it was
(35:09):
the only parking lot I could find that works. I
really wanted to to shoot there. I didn't think we'd
have a shot and help we asked, so we just
kind of just did it, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
And that's gorilla filmmaking, right, You gotta just you just
gotta go out there and do it, you know. I
imagine And I'm just gonna just just food for thought, Dave.
I'm gonna imagine that when they probably approached you, they
probably said are you guys supposed to be here or
something like that. You and you probably said, oh, yeah, yeah,
we're just finishing off and this and that, and they
probably went away to go check. Because I've seen that
(35:44):
happen before. They're like, oh, oh, are you guys supposed
to be here? Yes, And then by the time they
get back, you're either gone or they forgotten, or they
don't care anymore to even pass it up to the line.
And and but it seems like that time they actually did.
They Actually it was.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Probably three or four hours later. That's the thing I
knew there, if they're gonna go check. I think it
was kind of like, well, these guys will leave pretty
soon anyway, we'll let this one go. But that were out,
you know, four or five hours later, they're probably Okay,
this is not cool. So I'm not I can't say
I'm proud of that, but it turned out great, you know.
And that's that's that's the non Hollywood filmmaking right there.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, it's the true indie film spirit. Matt, my friend
is that. That's what that is. That's what you gotta do.
You gotta you gotta steal locations at times, and that's uh,
you know. I I one time was talking to Scott
mcmannerhens film Trooper, uh, and I told him, I said,
I think that's the number one problem for most filmmakers
is getting locations. And I honestly I often said it'll
(36:43):
be a great idea and it could never work. But
here's my idea, Dave. It's like a hub, kind of
like Facebook. You could friend another filmmaker and let's say
you know you, you and I both lived and let's
just say Boise, Idaho, well I have film connections, and
and you know you have film connections. Well we could
sort of put up you put up on a on
a post or whatever. Hey, look this is who I
(37:06):
know at this hospital. This is what they did. They
let me shoot here. Uh you know what I mean.
Like obviously you wouldn't do it to your for your
own house unless you were insane, but you know if
they if you, they would let you shoot somewhere and
make me, hey, this is an abandoned house. This is
how I got to shoot there. Blah blah blah. And
that's basically it almost become like this collage of sorts
(37:26):
of city by city of all the places where you
could where you could shoot and that are that are
friend friendly to filmmakers?
Speaker 4 (37:34):
No, that's a great Yeah, yeah, that's you know someone
we got through the film board. They would post locations
online and you I'd call the film where and say, hey,
look that that's a film friendly place and they would
always say yes, but I love your idea. I mean
anything like that, because that's a very dawning when you
start an indie film to not know where you can
(37:54):
shoot it, and you know, when you don't have a
lot of cash to get these guys to shoot, you're
really just kind of begging, which I've done a lot of,
but you kind of just kind of learn how to
what they want to hear, you know, Like I said, insurance,
we generally do get insurance and waivers all that kind
of stuff, you know, and then you figure out, you know,
(38:17):
what to say to get the location. And but every
location I think I've had, even you know, where we're
supposed to be, it's it's super stressful because usually it's
in my case, it's been you know, a bar that
opens at eleven for lunch. See, you've got like four
in the morning until eleven thirty and then you got
to get in six pages or something. And every single
(38:37):
location shoot I've been on besides my wife's office, it's
been that kind of pressure. And that's because comes with
the territory. I think. You know, that's again the not
Hollywood filmmaking that you just somehow make it work, right.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, exactly because I and I've been there before too, man,
where I've showed up on a Saturday morning at like
six or seven am and they're like, oh, yeah, well
we're going to open today at one whatever, and you're like,
all right, well here we go. Uh right, let's get
let's get wrong with this bad boy. And so, I mean,
and I've been there, man, where people don't show up,
you know, people show up late or ultra late. I mean,
(39:14):
you know, at some point I should just do a
podcast one episode why I just tell stories, but all
the all the horror stories I have, but I remember,
I mean some of these where people would show up
not at all and you're sitting there calling them and
they're like, oh, I forgot today was the thing, And
I'm like, well, I sent you ten thousand emails.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
How the hell did you fit this? Yeah, that's that
is the the most you can count on, that more
anything else in any filming. And somebody's I gotta show
up or show up late, and you know that that's
that's a given. I mean Twin City is another kind
of example of working around stuff. Have you seen the
(39:51):
film or not, But the lead character, the leak uh character, Emily,
is played a Bethany fort Bankley and she's awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
But she was actually had like a five month old
kid when we were shooting. So she'd sometimes I had
to bring a baby on set and it would usually
had nanny therefore, but we'd be through halfway through a
really intense scene that's going well, then the baby start
crying and that would be the end of that. And
(40:29):
those were a few shots like that. So it was
always something, and it is always something when you're working
on this kind of level of filmmaking, and you just
kind of have to not get frustrated and just you know,
working around it somehow. But yeah, it's everything in the
kitchen saying for every every shoot that I've been on
at this level.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Yeah, you mentioned Twin Cities, and I wanted to ask
you about that film now because that's uh, you know,
I know, you actually debut that film, and you know
it's employ in a few festivals. So I wanted to ask,
you know, if you could just you know, take us
through the film, you know, give us a long life
you could.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Yeah. So it's actually a sequel to twenty twenty one
of my second feature film, but it's a very kind
of spiritual sequel versus like an additional sequel. But it
picks up four years later with these characters John Emily
and they're married now and the Lee character Emily, as
(41:28):
I mentioned, she's actually pregnant. Someone's pregnant with their first kid,
and that kind of sends the husband John into a tailspan,
and you know, things are really falling apart and looks
like it's all going to kind of turn a ship
for the couple in their lives. And he gets this
(41:50):
cancer diagnosis which shakes him out of his his downward
spiral and sets him on kind of a new course
in life to you know, make amends with his wife
and to kind of find his God and go on
this sort of spiritual journey to to find himself. And
that's the basic set of the film. There is about
(42:11):
halfway through a very i would say extreme twist which
I generally don't give away in case folks want to
see the film, but it really from that point on
becomes a much different kind of film in terms of
I would say, a different kind of film. But the
plot kind of turns on its head and it becomes
a sort of a more reflective type of narrove structure.
(42:35):
That is really the reason why it's call Twins. That
he besides the backt that libert, it's got a kind
of dualistic narrative that it plays out after this very
jarring twist to the to the plot, and it you know,
it kind of gets bananas from there at that point.
So that's probably a much I can tell you without
(42:57):
spoiling the whole damn thing. But that's that's the basic
setup of the film.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And so you know, once you actually wrote the screenplay
for this, Dave, you know, how did you go about
raising the funds to actually shoot this? Did you sell
finance this movie?
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Most of it? Yeah? I mean generally what I've done
is I just put my an angle bonus my job,
and I you know, I just put my bonus in
it when I'm making a film, and I never really
use my actual uh paycheck for filmmaking. So you know,
(43:31):
for this one, I used a couple bonuses and I
used I got a snowbathed from the Minnesota Film Board.
They played for a good check of it through their
their rebate program, which is really an incentive to to
film in Minnesota, and that was that was very helpful
as well.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
So when when you told your wife you wanted to
make a film with the bonus, did she just did
he think you were crazy? Or or she used to
it like, okay, David, you know it's.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Yeah, No, she's been great. I mean, she's got kind
of her own artistic endevors, so it kind of humans
out I want to go into that, but it kind
of we both have this sort of side thing. We
did our job. She's a hr director and has her
own kind of career, but then she also does a
lot of artistic stuff on the side that balances out
(44:18):
what I do. So we're very accomnying with each other, like,
you know, I want to, you know, spend some cash
on on this thing that I really am a passionate about.
And it really wasn't very hard of us sell. I
did the same thing for my second film and she
was around for that as well, so I think it'd
be different for I was saying, well, look, you know,
we're gonna have trouble maybe making more ease now because
(44:39):
I got to use my paycheck for this. The fact
that's really just my bonus. It's kind of like, well,
it's found money anyway, and you know, go for it.
So she's been great, honestly, not kind of the opposite
of what you might expect, but she's been fantastic. About
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, I and you know that that's good that that
you know, she's supportive of this, and so we're people,
we're can people find out more about Twin Cities.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Yeah. So website is, uh just twin Cities thefilm dot com.
We've got our trailer on there, a ton of stuff,
you know, clips from the film, synopsis, a bunch of
reviews for the film. We've actually got I think, really
great reviews for the film. So there's a lot of
that on there, cast and crew bios, you know, all
(45:23):
the all the stuff you'd wanted on a website. More
is on there.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
And I will link to that in the show notes.
Everyone at davilis dot com.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
But Dave, just just in closing, you know, I wanted
to ask, is there anything we can get a chance
to talk about that you want to just to say
right now, anything you want to discuss right now, or
or maybe it's just something you want to say to
put a period at the end of this whole conversation.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Yeah, I guess, Well two things. I mean, first of all,
what I'm working on now, I've been working on a
TV series since we finished Twin Cities production about a
year year and a half ago. So that's kind of
my next thing. So I'm you know, you know, doing
press for the film, but also kind of trying to
you know, generate some possible interest in in this. Uh.
I think it's gonna be a nine episode first season series.
(46:05):
I'm working on that. Hopefully we'll get some external financing
for and not use my bonus for that. So uh,
that's the first thing that's just kind of throwing at
that out there that that's sort of my next project,
and I'm really excited about it. Yeah, beyond that, I
think you know it, you know, I think what's interesting
about my story probably reason, to be honest, is because
I've got this whole other life besides filmmaking. So you know,
(46:28):
I do try to encourage folks that want to get
into filmmaking, would think that they can't because they've got
this you know, very consuming day job or anything else
in life. I think is is not going to let
it happen, that that's possible, and you really just need
to start and just do it, you know, rather than
you know, think about doing it or reading books about
(46:50):
doing it and and such. If you want to make
it into filmmaking, I would say, you know, start with
a two mint film and whatever you money you have
for if it's a ten dollars ten bucks you've got
laying around, make a ten dollars a film you got
a hundred bucks and a hund our film. But you know,
I would just encourage folks too, if they've always wanted
to get into filmmaking, just do it. And if you
(47:11):
go to my website and you go to the contact page,
I think that goes diroctly in my email. If you
are interested this kind of thing, you want to kind
of know more about how I've you know, been making
this kind of life work with filmmaking and everything else,
you know, definitely email me and I can help you
out as much as I can. But that's that's the
big thing I want to get across as well to
(47:32):
your audience, is that, you know, try to encourage folks
to to get into filmmaking that maybe are not sure
if they can or I have the time to do it.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, I just don't ask you for mentorships, right, I
don't ask to take you meet somebody.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Yeah, it was probably it was probably overly uh you
know whatever about that, But I I'm happy to impart
whatever advice I have, But yeah, I can't do a
full time mentorship at this point unfortunately. But maybe someday
they'll be part of the explan But right now it's.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Not well, you know, it's it's like I say, Dave,
when any anybody who listens to this podcast or what
have you asked to meet me for coffee or as
to meet me meet me for coffee or what have
you or whatever, I always say this, I said, it's pointless.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
If you shot me an email, it would it would
do you ten times the benefit the meeting me for coffee, right,
because we both have to drive out there, gonna find parking,
it's gonna be crowded, it's gonna be loud.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
And what you know, if you if you send an email,
it's you know, you can do it from anywhere, you
do it on your way to work or whatever, and
you get a lot more from it. You know, maybe
not in the short short run, but over the long run,
if you just keep going back and forth, it's a lot.
It's worth a lot more. Maybe even one email in
general is worth a lot more because you can actually
just detail things out.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
And then you also have a written transcription on most
of what the meeting would have been. I just have
never or the second part is, you know, just meet
me at a at an event. You know, if I'm
ever at one of these events, the Blacklist Philly, I
might end up going to one of their events. I'm
not sure, though I haven't. I don't know. I'm kind
of network event out, Dave. I don't know if you are.
But I'm just like, people invite me all the time
(49:12):
to these things, and I'm like, you know what, I've
done a ton of them when I was just starting out,
and I got burned out of them real quick, and
I haven't been back since.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
It's just I just sometimes feel it's a lot of
you know, I was one time part of a screenwriting
group and every meeting we had a new batch of
people come in, right, So it was always like bringing
people up to speed about what screenwriting is. And then
it'll be like February, and then by the end of
the middle of summer they're like, yeah, we've had fifty sixty,
(49:41):
seventy people come through here, but we have never gotten
passed like teaching the basis of screenwriting.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Right, Yeah, I hear you, man, we'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor and now back to
the show.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
Serioly.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
So, Dave, where can we'll find you that online?
Speaker 4 (50:05):
Yeah? I think the best place to start is that,
you know, twin citiesthefilm dot com. I've put most everything
I'm on working on in terms of the film, I
should say most of everything from the film was on there.
I haven't done the website yet for the series I'm
working on. That's going to come at some point. If
you want to go to the website for my second film,
(50:27):
twenty twenty one, and it's twenty twenty one in the
film dot com. If you want to see that film.
We actually got distribution for that film and it's on
Amazon Prime. You know, they can see that for free
if you have Amazon Prime. Just go to twenty twenty one,
put that in search engine for Amazon and should take
you to the film. We got distribution for Twin Cities
(50:47):
as well, so that'll be on Amazon later this year
and hopefully a few other paper places besides Amazon, So
hopefully that'll be out there, you know by fall. I'm
guessing yeah, beyond that, you know, Yeah, if you want
to shoot men, email it's David at ash seven at
gmail dot com. Happy to to you know, tell you
(51:11):
whatever wherever I know, I'm happy to send them along
as well, so that'll get you started. But again, if
you go to Twin Cities of the Film dot com,
I've got probably most of my stuff is on on
that page that website. It's a it's a pretty pretty
starch side at this point.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Cool Dave. It's been so great avenue on man yea,
and yeah, I look forward to check out your stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Man.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Again, we have a very similar path. That's why I
wanted to have you on. And again, best of luck
to you, my friend, and I will talk to you
very soon.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me down. I really
really appreciate it, so thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
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 any film uncle
dot com Forward Slash eight thirty one, and if you
have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com,
subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
really helps us out a lot. Guys, Thank you again
(52:04):
so much for listening to guys, as always, keep that
hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
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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