Season 5 Episode 12: KUYASHII GONZO Director Jeff Frumess

Episode Transcript
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You are listening to the IFH podcastNetwork. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dotcom. There are some questions I'd like
to ask you Low Budget Rebels Podcast. I don't tell me you're taking all

(00:26):
this seriously. All right, andwelcome to another episode of Low Budget Rebels
Podcast. I'm your host, JoshStifter, and this is a show where
I sit down and talk to independentfilmmakers, truly indie filmmakers, about their
process about what movie making is.And this week I talked to a returning

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guest, Jeff FROMUS, who isthe director of a movie called Romeo's Distress,
which played at Jean halfway to onraBlast with The Good Exorcist when it's
screened there a few years ago,quite a few years ago at this point.
Wow, time flies. But wetalked about that in this episode.
Jeff is a great dude, andhe does a ton for podcasting. He

(01:14):
does a ton of really low budgetstuff, and he released this he sent
me like a few months ago.This I struggle to even call it a
documentary at the time. I thinkit was called Blood Visions and Chaos Magic
or something like that. I don'tknow if it's called that. That's what
it's called now. It's called KayoshiGonzo, Blood Visions and Chaos Magic,

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But it's this amalgamation of diaries videodiaries he's done over the past couple of
years that show the making of amovie. It's fascinating to watch because it
is very like raw gonzo. Ifyou follow Hunter S. Thompson to know
what sort of gonzo art is orgonzo writing is, that's what this is.

(02:00):
It feels super raw and super unique, and I think it's something that
it was very fun to watch.The version I watched was a lot longer
than I think the version is that'sout there, but you can follow him
on his Patreon to watch it,and it's just it's really interesting and different,
and I really appreciated it, andI wanted him to come on the
show and discuss that, along withwhat he's been up to since finishing Romeo's

(02:24):
Distress, since he was on theshow last over the past few years,
and so, you know, Jeffis a great dude and the kind of
indie spirit, the kind of hehas the kind of energy that makes you
want to go make movies. LikeMark Brochard from American Movie. He's got
that similar like, I don't know, you can't help but laugh at how

(02:47):
interesting of a dude he is.I think he would agree with that,
but you also can't help but feelinspired when you listen to him talk and
in watching Blood Visions and Chaos Magic. For me, it was one of
those things where I'm in the processright now of working on a brand new
feature exclusively on Patreon. And excusemy sniffling, my allergies are really bad.

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I bought a house. This podcastis coming back because I actually bought
a place with a studio, andI can now record without having airplanes and
cars and all of the Atlanta noisehappening around me. I have a beautiful
studio that's quiet, and I canbe loud, and I can do whatever

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I want down here. Why WHOA, I can do that down in my
basement. I can do whatever Iwant. And it's awesome to be able
to be loud and be crazy andtry all of this experimental art, which
means I'm finally getting back to Scumbag. Scumbag will be releasing on the Patreon
relatively soon. And I know Ikeep saying that for years, I've been
saying it's gonna be releasing, butI actually now can. I've been in

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a condo for two and a halfyears. It was really tough to film,
really tough to actually work on stuff. Now I'm in my own domain
and I can actually put up greenscreens and actually film stuff, and actually
record music as loud as I wantand do the things that I want to
do and not worry about neighbors oror you know, having the hoa get
up my ass about stuff. Havingyour own domain, having your own location

(04:15):
to be able to create is oneof the most pivotal things of creating art.
I've realized Knowing who you have towork with, knowing what you have
to work with, it's such animportant element. And like, I went
to a party this weekend and talkto filmmakers, talk to actors. It
was with my friend Aaron Hale,who a great dude, great filmmaker,

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has made a bunch of really greatshorts and we're talking about creating some stuff
together. But he had his whatdo you call it improv troop was at
the party and being able to talkto the filmmakers, it made me feel
like, Okay, there's people inAtlanta who I can film with and especially
with this new no budget project,as Dan and I move forward with Garagro,

(04:59):
as we move forward with Absess.I'm also working on this other project
that you can follow along on myPatreon and see what where it's at as
I work on it. And nowI'm just getting started. I posted a
video last week for the Flush PatriotPatreon filmmaking project, and that's what I'm
calling this and it's basically my takeon Rebel without a Cruise. So if
you want to follow along patreon dotcom slash Flush Studio, subscribe for dollar

(05:23):
five dollars ten dollars. If youwant to be a producer on it,
it's twenty dollars a month. That'sit, and you literally get your name
in the credits twenty dollars a month, and you are a producer for Flush
Studios at this point for our newfeature film, and you will be a
producer on the film as it getscompleted, hopefully this year. That's one
of the things I'm hoping to do, is like treat it more like Rebel
without a Crew and set dates,set end goals, and make sure that

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I can accomplish them. So that'swhat I'm actually doing this week, is
starting to schedule it and starting tofigure out what's possible and what's plausible for
writing the script, for getting itfinished and getting it out there and actually
making something this year. I meetit with Sean Ashley tonight. In fact,
tonight, we will be going outfor a couple of drinks at a
place called my Parents' Basement. It'sa really cool little bar that's not far

(06:08):
from where I live, and they'vegot pinball and video games and comic books.
It's pretty dope. So we're gonnameet there, have a couple of
drinks, and that will be I'mhoping to actually film a part of it
and put it on the Patreon aswell. So all that being said,
I'm very excited, and I thinkafter this episode, any filmmakers listening to

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this, any artists listening to this, I think that Jeff was inspiring and
I think you guys are gonna takesomething great away for it. So,
without further ado, here is myconversation with the lovely and talented Jeff from
Us. All Right, so,Jeff, here's the thing. We have
done this podcast before. We've hungout a few times. What have you

(06:54):
been up to So the last timewe actually talked was at like in person,
was at like a genre Blast halfwayto genre Blast, halfway halfway to
genre Blast. Thing, that wasthe last time we talked, and that
was that was a good time.That was dude. Our movies played at
it was it was Romeo's Distress,The Good Exorcist and I'm dreaming of a

(07:16):
White Doomsday triple feature, yeah,which was awesome. At the Alamo,
Yes, at the Alamo, whichto me is like that's my cathedral.
So to play at the my cathedralis that's that's it, man, Like
that's the that's the be all endall. Yeah. And one of the
things I like about genre Blast isthe fact that they do such a good

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job of putting on the production.Like it's not just slap together. Here's
some movies. Move on, it'slike actually well done and they make sure
that it looks good and they carea lot about the movie. Yes,
everything that Nathan Chad and Raygan dois I I really do. I I

(07:57):
of all my fest going experiences,I haven't had many fastcoing experiences, but
of the ones that I've had,that is my favorite. It's just been
amazing, so I have had quitea few, and that's still one of
my favorite, if not my favorite. It's just the fact that like they
are incredibly welcoming and treat everyone likethey're going to be watching their movies versus

(08:20):
like we're doing a favorite for you. It's like, hey, we're all
part of this, We're part ofthe whole film making fun of independent film
exactly. This is true. Yeah, So so our movie screen there.
That was actually the first time I'dseen Romeo's Distress on the big screen.
I watched it one time, likelong before, but I think before we

(08:41):
podcasted, so I had watched it. We podcasted, and then I got
to watch it on the big screen, and actually, like, it's just
a different experience when you're immersed.You know, a lot of times for
the podcast, it's like it's onon my computer and I'm watching it and
writing questions and I'm not just likewatching it. So I actually got to
just sit and watch it, whichwas apletely different experience. And I think
there was a few minor changes fromthe version I saw. That might have

(09:03):
been the necro ending cut, whichis as close to the original visions as
I was hoping to get. Soyeah, so tell me about this because
I like this, because this isone thing that I think a lot of
people don't like, you don't thinkabout with indie film. Is so the
version when we had talked the lasttime, it kind of cuts off,
not abruptly, but it doesn't havethe full ending. And then you film

(09:26):
some stuff and added and kind ofcompletely changed the ending, like at least
visually made it more impactful, tosay the least. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, you know the move.The whole third act of the movie was
supposed to be something entirely different,and I lost an actor on a critical
day of shooting, and then wehad we incorporated a brand new character that

(09:50):
was made up twenty four twenty fourhours before. It changed the entire narrative
to an extent, as well asjust the the culmination of the third act,
which is supposed to be the shockingfinish, and it never sat well
with me. I was it wasthe choice of would you rather have a
movie would you rather have nothing?And I chose I would rather have a
movie. And I'm you know,I'm mostly I'm mostly happy to have a

(10:13):
movie. But it just always thevision, the fact that I didn't get
to execute the vision is always neversat well with me, and so I
went back and I tried my bestto fly in a few inserts to better
imply what is supposed to be happening, which is necrotic love ye, and

(10:35):
it's that's not sure cone, it'sjust straight up necrophilia. Like it's like,
it's necrophilia and that's what the endingwas supposed to be and it's not
in And I was listening, alot of people are like, nah,
don't do the necrophilia. I waslike, dude, that's the whole point.
The whole concept is that it's alove triangle between a dead girl and
a boyfriend and a creepy stalker.That's the point of the movie minates with

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necrophilia. That's that's the shock ofit all. So it's like the it's
the like punk grindcore like without it, Like I remember watching it the first
time, and I mean, andit's sort of I feel like it was
still quasi implied in the original,like there was an element of it where
it was like, Okay, Icould tell something bad is in the works,

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but this when you straight up youdid an insert that for those who
don't know which I mean, everyonelistening to this probably knows. But an
insert shot is just like a pickupwhere you get a close up of something
or grab a you know, footagethat then explains something that was maybe missing.
So you went back and after you'dalready finished the movie people had seen

(11:43):
it, you went and did aninsert shot that made it very obvious what
was happening. Which I remember youwere talking about this at the halfway to
Genre Blast, how the actual originalending was like a whole fight was supposed
to ensue and all this other stuff, and you had another concept obviously that's
what you're referring to, where youdidn't get to finish this full you know

(12:03):
concept. But I think that that'skind of true of all indie filmmakers.
We have an idea and we getto do about eighty percent of it.
And I think maybe originally you kindof hit about like seventy five percent,
and these couple of insert shots bringsyou closer to that eighty percent. Uh,
I would say it's probably probably yeah, like se sixty five seventy percent

(12:28):
we hit and then the rest wasjust sort of it was changed. And
yeah, that just like I said, that just never sat well with me,
and so I just had to dosomething about it, just to feel
a little piece piece of mind.And that was as closes as I could
do with after having the movie isalready baked together, it's mixed, and

(12:48):
it's just I'm not going to goback in there and get surgical with it.
It's just it's done and it's timeto move on to other things.
And so okay, here's a quickinsert boom. It slightly it slightly implies
what I was originally intending, andthat's good enough for me. Well,
I think it goes beyond slightly implies. I think it originally slightly implied what

(13:11):
the what I thought you were goingfor. And then when I saw this
version, I was like, okay, implications are gone. Now. As
a viewer, I never would haveknown. I never yeah, I never
would have known that you were thatyou had the other ending. Like as
a viewer, I never would haveknown that there was gonna be more,
there was gonna be a fight,there was gonna be all this other stuff.
I don't know that, just likepeople don't know that In The Good

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Exorcist Dan and I in the originalscript, the house literally becomes like this
twisted demented building of horror and tentaclescoming out the windows and all of that
stuff. And obviously when it wedid it for no budget, we weren't
able to do that. So there'slike a shot of animation in it where
you actually see the house and fatherGils like crucified in the front yard,

(13:52):
and it's in the animation that Abadonpresents on the TV. That was just
a reference to the fact that Ididn't get to do that. I did
what we changed it and did itin a way that we could for seven
thousand dollars with fourteen days of filming, and I'm really happy with it still.
But you know, you you makethose compromises and changes in indie film.
Yeah, that's what you do.And I think that's that's all of

(14:16):
to me, and that's one ofthe reasons why, you know, it's
one of the reasons I love doingthe low budget stuff. As I work
more and more on the big budgetstuff, it all it all becomes like
how do we see the vision throughcompletely? Like no compromise. That gets
rid of the compromise the second moneyis involved in a big way, then

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it's like this is what you wrote, this is what you have to do.
But when you're doing low budget,no budget stuff, you're like,
this is what I wrote, butthis is what I have to do something
different totally. So then, okay, so you finished Romeo's Distressed before we
even talked the last time we hadthe screening, We watched it, we
had a good time. And thenwhat happened since? What's been up since?

(15:01):
Man? When was that like twentytwenty twenty twenty? That was?
Man? I want to say thatwas like twenty twenty one, maybe like
early twenty twenty one, maybe earlyYeah, I think it was early twenty
twenty one. Yes, it hadto have been one hundred percent. It
was early twenty twenty one because itwas post pandemic. It was post pandemic.

(15:22):
Yes, it was early twenty twentyone. That's right, you nailed
it. That's what it was.So what's what's been up since we talked
last? So? You know,I you know, it's funny like completing
It's one thing to finish a feature, you know, to reach that peak,

(15:43):
and then to you know, goturn around and go, Okay,
I'm going to do this again.I'm gonna do this again. But you
know, like I don't know ifI like I like, you remember you
remember how what the cost on avariety of different levels, and you just
kind of shrug your shoulders and yougo, Okay, it's time to do

(16:04):
this again. So I was like, that's what. There was a butt.
There were a few years of justkind of spinning my wheels writing scripts,
trying to figure out what was goingto happen, And finally, in
December of twenty nineteen, I reallystarted to push the locomotive for it.
Was like, Okay, it's gonnahappen. We're going to start, We're

(16:26):
gonna you know, I was.I had been casting and doing pre production
and I just hadn't picked a dateto start my second feature film, which
was going to be called wash Away. And I had written the script maybe
a year prior, and I'd donelike eight drafts, and you know,
i'd even I'd shot some preliminary footagefor it, including footage of like some

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cameo stuff with my grandmother who wasin the Nana who was in really stress.
She shot her cameo with this thisother guy, Matt, who was
gonna be like my ad kind ofguy. And we were gearing up,
We're getting ready to do it.We're going to do the first block of
shooting all the interiors for the protagonist, the main character's apartment, and that

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was the That was an early weekendin March, and it just so happened
to be the weekend of March eighth, which was the weekend before the entire
world shutdown. So he shot twentypercent of the film. And then the
world shut down, and you knowwhat happened, and then I lost my
job, and then and then mygrandmother died. Like all this stuff started

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to happen. I was like,the movie's dead, Like I can't really
do anything with it. The actorsthat I was using were not available for
a variety of reasons from you know, from family planning to you know,
a trepidation over vaccines and stuff.Rightfully, so you know, to be

(17:59):
safe when you're making a micro budgetfilm, you know, you can't really
PPP kind of goes out the window, you know. At the time,
like PPP was taken up, youknow, twenty to thirty percent over budget,
like it was inflating budgets significantly forfilms that were trying to continue on
through the pandemic. And I waslike, I'm just a no budget,
micro budget filmmaker. I can't there'sno way, there's no way that's gonna

(18:22):
happen. So the film died.And then about a year later I suddenly
figured out how I figured out howto keep going, and there was just
a lot of there was a lotof I was very lost, and it
was it was really, it wasjust it was just a hard time.
And then lightning struck and I figuredout how to how to use the footage

(18:48):
that I had to sort of RogerCorman it and keep going and to keep
telling the story, and wash Awaytransformed into Gouge Away, which was It's
crazy. I was editing, writing, I was editing, writing and doing
sort of these improv days all atthe same time. The that cameo I

(19:11):
was talking about the guy, thatMatt guy. He ended up becoming the
star of this new film because ofthat little cameo. We then decided to
make the story about him, andso they'll it just basically everything got reverse
engineered, and the footage that wehad shot of that main character, she
suddenly became kind of like a twinPeaks Laura Palmer, like who Killed Laura

(19:33):
Palmer style character, and we justwrapped. We basically told the sequel to
a movie that doesn't exist. Thatwas basically what happened. So what happened
was the film died, couldn't completethe film, and I said, well,
let's start a new movie that takesplace when the when this movie that
I was making ended. And thatwas the beginning point. And then from

(19:57):
there as I was editing the fand figuring out where the gaps go and
like what needs to happen, Andit was a very organic process and solely
but surely we would just day afterday after day. Every day was touched
and go. Any day that didn'twork or was a mess up, like
I had no money, I wasunemployed, so anything that went wrong would

(20:18):
have spelled the death of the movie. At the same time, Nathan from
Genre Blast was like, hey man, how's your friggin' how's your movie going?
Like what's going on? Like when'sthe next movie coming out? And
I told him, well, washAway is dead and I'm trying to do
this other thing. He said tome. This was at Genre Blast twenty
twenty one, so after that halfwaythe Genre Blast that we were at,

(20:38):
this was in September. That wasFebruary. That okay, that was February
of twenty twenty one. In Septemberof twenty twenty one, I was back
at genre Blast with another short andwe were we had done a thing called
the We both had done a thing. We both were segment directors. You
and I were segment directors for theTransformations of the Transformations of Doctor Jenkins,

(21:00):
which played, which played at genreBlasts in twenty twenty one. So I
was back there and that's when Nathanwas asking me, when's your next feature
coming, and I told it.I remember that because that was when I
was That was, yes, Septembertwenty twenty one, because that was when
I was moving to Atlanta because Iwanted to go to see it. Everyone

(21:22):
was going to Genre Blast, andI remember there was like rumors that it
might be the last genre Blast fora while and whatever, and I was
like, God, I wish Icould go, but I was moving to
Atlanta. So that's right, gottenthe way of everything. When money's tight,
money's tight, you know, youknow how it goes. Yeah,
So you were at genre Blast withthe Transformations and which I wasn't. I

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wasn't. It was actually it wasBob Rose and Michael and Sophia and Steven.
They were all there with transformations thatthey had direct and they directed that
with Kate I'm trying to remember herlast name, Kate mccoyd. I hope
I didn't Butcher that they had allmade this movie together and we were all
segment directors. So I wasn't withthat movie particularly. I was with another

(22:06):
short that I had made, calledBeyond the Green Hole. But Stephen had
asked me. Stephen had asked me. It was like, not Stephen,
Nathan Wrongfest director. Nathan was like, so, when's the next movie?
And I told him that I toldhim about all the trouble that I was
just telling you, and he lookedat me and he said, if you
can have your film completed, He'slike, get your film completed by genre

(22:29):
Blast twenty twenty two. Remember thisis twenty twenty one. Get your film
completed by genre Blast twenty twenty two, and I will screen it. If
you can finish it, I willscreen it. And I thought about that,
like for the entire wood, wedidn't shoot for the entire winter because
it was too cold and we hadstuff to do outside, and we'd only
shot three days up until that point, they were all improv days. And
at that was the point where Iwas like, Okay, I gotta start

(22:52):
writing like actual script pages. Sothere's only about forty five ish pages of
Gougeway that are actually written, alot of it as improv and a lot
of it is wash away. Andthat's when I was like, okay,
because the thing is when you're doingimprov, especially on a micro budget,
you know, you can have thegist of a scene, but you're spilling
so much footage to try and getwhat you need. And I was like,

(23:14):
we need to be more measured andprecise to start writing script pages.
We started working towards getting a cutready for Genre Blast twenty twenty two,
and again it just took forever becausethere was no money. So come around
May I had I had reached outagain to Nathan. I was like,
I am well on my way tohaving a cut. I have about six
days left to shoot, and youknow, I think Genre Blasts, like

(23:36):
the submissions were in there like latephase or something, and it was going
to take some special consideration. AndI remind it was like Nathan, like
remember what we like discussed he andhe was a man of his word.
And he was like, get mea cut, show me a cut so
I could see what it is.I need a cut. No later than
July something or other. I waslike, so I had it wasn't I

(23:59):
didn't really have until September. Itwas like May, and I had to
like July something to get an assembledcut that he could at least see and
decide if they wanted to include inthe programming, and so and so.
The next five days of shooting.The last five days of shooting were super
I mean, the stakes were sohigh, especially when we got towards the
big like climax days, because theany misstep, any misstep, would have

(24:26):
put us off track. To causeI was like, I went from having
no movie to suddenly I have likethe chance to not only resurrect this dead
project, but have it play atGenre Blast twenty twenty two at at the
Alamo Draft Houses on the Alamo DraftHouse. So it's like the stakes became
super high. I was like,I have to do this, I have

(24:48):
to get this cut in. Andit was it was harrowing, man,
it was a harrowing touch and goprocess, and it was an amazing thing.
No matter how sure I thought Iwas that we were going to do
it, and I can't telling myselfbelieve. You have to believe. I
have this little like metal coin onit. It says believe on it,
and I would put it right hereand I would stare at it and put
like laser beams to it. Ijust kept saying believe. I wasn't sure

(25:11):
if it was going to happen.I wasn't sure if we were going to
complete it. But I just hadto believe that if we kept working at
it, that eventually would get tothe Genre Blast Film Festival at the Alamo
draft House. And so like thefinal day, I mean, we got
a flat tire before we even startedshooting, and we had to drive.
We were in the city. Iparked the car, I parked the car,

(25:32):
and I parked the car, andwe're about to start shooting and I
get a friggin flat tire before weeven set up the first shot. Mind
you you know, I'm doing locationsound, I'm also the DP, I'm
directing and production design. I'm doingit. I'm doing everything right, So
it's like to worry about a flattire. It was just like it was

(25:55):
over before it started, almost Andthe key to remember in those situations,
was like I had to like remaincalm and not look like it was a
surreal situation. And the thing is, when you get yourself into surreal impossible
predicaments, there's always an equally surrealimpossible solution to said predicament, and it
usually comes really soon. So ifyou just stay very calm and look for

(26:19):
it, it will come. Andthat's what kind of happened, and we
were able to get the last dayin the can and then it was just
it was just there was three weeksto edit and grade and mix the movie
to be have it presentable for GenreBlast, and it was you know,

(26:41):
my computer died. I had toborrow a friend's computer. We lost the
whole grade. I had to regradethe movie in twenty four hours before I
send it out the DP. Sorry, the DCP was not finished. The
DCP was finished two hours before itfinally screened at midnight on Saturday, which
to me was always a dream tohave a movie play at midnight at the

(27:03):
Alamo Draft House. So it wentfrom COVID destroying this film and listen,
COVID killed so many people died becauseof COVID, Like people lost their jobs,
I also like, there were somany worse things in the world,
like movies like could took a backseat. It was okay that movie took
the back seat. And like,considering that what people have lost during COVID,
this was not like the end ofthe world by any means, but

(27:26):
the fact that we went from losingthe fact that the movie died and everything
was over, to somehow a yearand a half later, premiering the film
at Genre Blast at midnight at theAlamo Draft House, the sequel to a
movie that doesn't exist and yeah,called Gouge Away. It was just it

(27:47):
was an incredible journey man, andI just like I, you know,
the victory was in the process.It wasn't It wasn't about the outcome.
It was more like, can Ieven can this happened? Can I do
this? And we were able todo it. And I'm very grateful to
have had that experience. I neverwant to have it again, but I'm

(28:07):
grateful to have had it in thefirst place. You say that now,
but like, seriously, the amountof times I've said that I don't want
certain experiences and then like five yearslater, I find myself going, like
shit, I'm not I want thatexperience again. I'm literally living it right
now, like I'm living it again. I said when I did Greywood's plot
that I was like, I'm notgonna do this indie thing again. I'm
not gonna do the no budget runaround with your friends, running gun make

(28:30):
it up as you go, whichI like the fact that you bring up
the improv until you write. Likethis concept of like finding the thing,
playing with your actors, figuring outwhat the story is, like having a
general outline, and then you know, shooting stuff, figuring out some shots,
editing a little bit, playing withthis concept in more than just you

(28:52):
know, the written form. Youknow, the normal route of filmmaking is
come up with the concept. Ihave an idea, write the script from
beginning to end, make that scriptsupposed to do, right. I haven't
done it yet, so I don'tknow. Like it's just and and talking
to some of the bigger you know, I've talked to some bigger filmmakers where

(29:14):
they tell me about their process andyou see this the original script versus the
shooting script versus the what ends upcoming out, and you're like, oh,
we're all making it up as wego. Each moment but like Greywood
plot was the same thing. Iwent out in the woods with friends and
a bunch of note cards and wejust improv scenes and then came back home
and I wrote. I just wroteover like three weeks, going like,

(29:36):
Okay, well, what is thisthing I have? What could we make?
So I dig that. And Ialso like the fact that you talk
about the the memento of the Believecoin, because I find those things,
those mementos you have on set thatkeep you motivated and keep you interested to
be so huge. You know,even even in my office, I have
this sign. It's actually in mycloset right now, but it's it's just

(29:59):
it's just like little Marquis that glows. You flick a button and the battery
comes on and it lights up,but it just says I wrote in sharpie,
don't fucking stop on it. Andit's like one of those things that
every time I see it, I'mlike, Okay, keep going, keep
going, which is my motivation.It's not for me. It's not ever
like Believe. It's always like it'snot like have faith because I'm I'm so

(30:19):
like I grew up in the churchand everything in faith was such a big
element of it. I'm so overthat that. My thing is like,
just fucking do it, man,just go do it. No one can
stop you if you keep moving.But I like the believe element too,
because it is like believe it,like every day, go out there and

(30:40):
believe that you can get the thingdone. And I think that's an extremely
important memento for everyone to find orfor you to have. But I think
it's important for everyone to have thosethings on set that keep them motivated,
keep them excited, keep them interested. And then the deadlines, of course,
like setting deadlines like you having thismidnight screening at the Alamo Draft House,

(31:02):
like that's you probably never would havegot it done if you hadn't had
Nathan pushing you to all of these, you know, to get it done
by July so I can see something, or June so I can see something,
get it done for this day andhave this date like that was what
made me finish The Good Exorcist withoutRobert being like, hey man, you
have to have it in on thisday. You have to have it in
on that day. I had thesame thing happened where the guy I had

(31:22):
hired to do sound sent the soundlike three days before the movie had to
go out to south By Southwest,and he just kept telling me, like
over and over, he's like,it sounds great, Like it sounds awesome,
You're gonna be so happy. Andthen he sent it and I'm like,
this is fucking trash, like justdog shit. And I had to
spend two days, like sleeplessly completingthis to send it to south By.

(31:45):
So the shitty sound that is inThe Good Exorcist is like a fucking masterpiece
to me compared to what I had, and to have done it in two
days makes me very proud that itwas even like watchable in any way,
shape or form. What was whatwas really what was even more nail biting
than that, was the fact thatmy computer I had to have the export.

(32:08):
The export had to be the exportthe movie with all the stuff is,
all the fixings and the grades andeverything that I had done, all
the work that I had done.It was going to take something like one
hundred and twenty hours. And genreblast started on Friday, and I had
to have a DC. I alreadyhad to have the DCP like in like

(32:30):
it was or the movie in forthe DCP, And so if it had
timed out where it was exactly.If I had it would have finished exactly
before we would have driven driven outto Virginia for ten hour, right,
So as long as the computer stayedon track. And then about thirty six

(32:52):
hours in, I started to reallybite my nails and I called up my
friend, my friend, God blesshim, he had a much faster MacBook,
and so I reinstalled That's what Idid, reinstall of Adobe onto his
computer. I put all the things, the plugins that I had. I
had installed all the plug ins,and then just as I was doing that

(33:14):
that export at thirty six at afterthirty six hours, it died. So
now I had no export of themovie. I had a new computer that
was fast enough to handle the job, and I had but when I online
the entire project, the grade,the grade was gone completely. So I
had to do a new pass.Like I said, I did it in

(33:36):
twenty four hours. And this wasthe amazing thing. I finished the grade.
My eyeballs were bleeding when I wasdone. I finished the grade and
I went from taking one hundred andtwenty hours to do that export. You
know how fast his M two MacBookit took. It took an it took
seventy minutes. How you serious?It was seventy minutes. It was.
Difference is crazy, though, Likeseriously, the render on I mean,

(34:00):
because these computers are set up forthat kind of handling, that kind of
a render versus I mean, yeah, I was the same way. I
remember working on Greywood's plot. Werethere good Exorcist for that matter. Both
of them took just like you know, ten hours to export anytime. I
exported the whole thing on my computer, which wasn't even a bad computer,
but it still took ten hours.And then I had a rush that I

(34:21):
had to export, so I tookit into the job I had at the
time. We had really nice computersthere, like actual rendering computers for like
rendering bigger videos. I took itin there and rendered it there, and
it was like forty minutes, thirtyfive minutes. I was like, oh
god, damn, I should havebeen sneaking this the whole time. But
it's fine, and finding ways todo those workarounds. Asking favor is calling

(34:44):
on people when you need it inthose moments of total intensity. So you
got it done? What and youscreened at Genre Blast and then since then
that was in twenty twenty one endto twenty twenty one. No, that
was twenty twenty two two. Okay, gotcha. We uh, you know,

(35:04):
we were nominated for a bunch ofthings, which was which was such
an odd I wasn't honestly, Iwas just grateful that we got the slot
to screen. Anything else was justlike you know, anything else was was
unexpected, and we got nominated forI got nominated for a bunch of stuff.
We got nominations and we won theGenre Blast Forever Independent Spirit Award for

(35:24):
the Fest for the accomplishment, andit was just it was just that was
just the the icing on the topof the cake. The award was getting
the movie to the Genre for theBlast one at Alimill draft Us. That
was my reward. You know,that was totally totally understand that. I

(35:44):
remember when when Gray Woods PLoP playedat Genre Blast the first year, but
that was the first year I evenhad heard of Genre Blast. I sent
it in, you know, watchedthem do the nominations and whatever, and
it got in and then I couldn'tgo because it was COVID. It was
the year of COVID. It wastwenty nineteen, end of twenty nineteen and
or twenty was that twenty twenty ortwenty nineteen, whichever year, and the

(36:06):
movie screened and we couldn't be there. They did do something. It must
have been twenty twenty, because theydid do some kind of like small in
person thing, but most people couldn'tgo, obviously, and it was just
a whole ordeal. Anyway, wewatched it through a live stream and that
was that was the award. Thatwas amazing. It was so nice to
have that. But then I tunedinto the awards ceremony and I was listening

(36:28):
and I think I won Best SpecialEffects or something. I was like,
oh, that's awesome, you know, like that's really great, thanks to
them for doing that. And it'son in the background and I'm working on
a different movie, like editing something, and all of a sudden, you
know, Best Film goes to Greywood'splot and I was like, what the
what just happened? What the fuckis going on? And I like called
Dan and I'm like, I thinkwe just won Best Movie and Genre blast

(36:51):
like, I don't think they fuckedit up. I don't think this is
like a what was it Moonlight andgreen Book or something. There was like
a whole whichever movie it was.At the Oscars, they fucked up which
one had won. I was likepart of me thought that that was like
what had happened where I was like, I think he accidentally said the wrong
name, and he's like, no, man, you won. You guys
did awesome, like we love grayWoods plot, and it was it was

(37:14):
huge. That was amazing for us. I love those kind of festivals though,
where it's just the respect for thefilms, where you know, he
most festivals would have been like,hey, you didn't have your movie in
by this date. Under this circumstance, you guys aren't in, Like it
would have just been a whole thing. But Nathan understands. He respects his

(37:35):
filmmakers, and like when you're inwith the family, your family, it
really feels like a indie filmmaking family. Absolutely. I love that. So
tell me about Okay, so thenfrom there you screen you Gotta. You
kind of worked on some other littlestuff along the way. But then you

(37:57):
sent me something like a week ago, which is what on that like like
like a couple months ago. Imean you sent it to me again like
a week ago, a more completeversion. But I watched it like maybe
two months ago or something like that. You sent me sort of a behind
the scenes documentary of sorts, andit was it was a beast. It
was huge. When you sent itme the first time, what was like
two and a half hours, threehours something. What happened was I,

(38:21):
yeah, So, so here's whathappened. So I've been working on my
start at the beginning. Let's Iwant to hear tell me the whole story,
because we kind of we kind ofchatted about it, but we I
don't I didn't hear it from youdirectly, So tell me how this all
came to be. The the SoI started working on my third feature film,
which is which is what I'm aboutto take the plunge on. That's
the next plunge. It's called MyShadow, okay, And I'm working on

(38:45):
that now. And the script iscomplete, and we did an audio we
did an audio play of the firstdraft. And I did that specifically because
after what had happened with Romeo's Distressand the third Act, I said,
I, if if I don't getto complete my original vision, I want
some sort of like I want thereto be something of the original vision out

(39:07):
there or documented. So we dida reading of that as like an audio
play, and that was very Thatwas a very fulfilling and I was inspired
again by Genre Blast because we haddone Nathan asked me to play characters for
the table rings. It was like, this is a lot of fun.
And I'm thinking, like, thereare so many, so many people don't

(39:28):
do them. They're so great,They're so fun, and I was like,
let me do it for my YouTubechannel. This is going to be
a great like little like pre productionstepping stone where I get to hear the
movie and then you know, Igot to tell you like months and months
and months later, I put iton just to hear it. I don't
do anything. I was just there. I had people, I had someone
Nathan read the all the action,and I had people in the different roles

(39:51):
of things, and and I justlistened to my own script like it was
an audio play. And it furtherallows me to visualize how I wanted to
sort of attack and like the rhythmof the dialogue and just sort of see
like it was a great pre productiontool for that. So I'm getting ready
to take the plunge. That's thenext thing. I'm going to take the

(40:13):
plunge. On. Right before that, though, I was starting. I
was preparing my first two films forBlu Ray and which there's still which is
still in process right now. Ijust have to get that dialogue. I
have to fix some dialogue stuff onGouage Away before I put it, because
once I touch it, I'm nevertouching it again. That's it. I

(40:36):
am done, just like with Romeo. So I was like, well,
if you're gonna do it, doit right and make sure it's done so
that that's what's delayed the Blu Rayrelease. One of the features on the
Blu Ray was a just a twentyminute because that's the point, you know,
when you're doing a Blu Ray,you gotta have Blu Ray features.
Yeah, and so I'm like,all right, I'm gonna do. Let
me just do twenty minutes of behindthe scenes whatever of making Gougeway because I

(41:01):
always had a camera rolling behind thescenes because I figured there'd be something with
it. I didn't know what itwas for. I just I would give
Matt the guy, the ad guywho eventually became the star of gouge Away
as Tony the Stamper. I gavehim the camera and he would you know,
shoot here and shoot there, andI had my cell phone going and
my friend Jack, we all wereshooting stuff. I had all this stuff,

(41:22):
and so I put together. Iput together like this thing was like
twenty to twenty five minutes long,something like that. And then I expanded
a little bit and I started toI said, wait a minute. I
started to think about it more andmore, I'm going, fuck, there's
like a uh. I was like, I was like, you know,
there's a lot of like I startedto see there was like it was like
a puzzle. That's what it was. I started to I approached what was

(41:43):
supposed to be just a little makingup thing. It was like this weird
puzzle. And then here's the otheraspect. So in my personal life,
part of you could call it ritual. I don't know what I would call
this. I keep a journal.Lots of people keep journals. What makes
my journal kind of maybe unique ormore unique than your run of the mill
journal is that, you know,I'm hyperverbal and I think faster than I

(42:07):
can write. And so since Augustof twenty since August twenty nine, two
thousand and nine, I have kepta video journal, and I you know,
I don't record it. I don'tdo the journal every day, but
it's a way of checking in onlife, and I talk about everything.
I talk about happy moments, Italk about sad moments, I talk about

(42:29):
mundane moments. It's just a wayfor me to kind of and then the
thing is every once in a while, I I know I'm never gonna watch
any of this stuff. I justknow that it's like a therapeutic way that
I can sort of, you know, get out my thoughts and feelings.
And the camera is like this thecamera which I'm used to, which I
do everything with the cameras. Thecameras like this objective. It's like this

(42:52):
objective thing that non judgmental, likelike eyewitness thing that I can confide in.
And so I've kept this. I'vemeticulously kept this journal over the years,
including when I'm making movies. Andthat was like, that was the

(43:15):
big additional That was the big additionpart because I'm going, wait a minute.
I shoot it right on my cellphone, you know. I do
it when I'm mostly when i'm driving, because that's when i'm alone in the
car, so that's when it's easiestdoing I'm going, wait a minute.
I just realized the I bet youthe entire fucking story of making this movie

(43:35):
is in those journals. Oh mygod. And here's the crazy thing.
The cool thing about it is,like I said, I can't check every
journal. I can't like I'm nevergonna watch it all, but I can
go like I can randomly pick likeApril fourteenth, twenty thirteen. I could
tell you the T shirt I waswearing. I could tell you what happened
during the you know what I mean. It's like a really it's like you're

(43:57):
storing your memory in this place whereyou can like access it in this very
like in this in this really matterof fact kind of way, and I'm
going shit. And then the otherthing, the other cool therapeutic thing is
when you're older and you've changed andyou're sort of like you could see the
bigger picture of things. When yougo back and you watch those moments and
you sort of understand them from beingon the other side of them, it

(44:20):
gives you deep, profound, likeunderstanding of your life. And that has
been the most beneficial therapeutic tool ofhaving this very video journal. So sometimes
when things are like really tough,I'll like be like, where was I
a year ago, and then Ilike watch I'm like, oh wow,
like I remember that. Oh Iremember how that was such a big deal
and it wasn't a big deal atall, and like, well, what
I'm going through right now, it'snot that big of a deal either,

(44:42):
and I'll get through it. Likeyou know, it's like kind of like
so it has like some stoic sortof like it puts you in like a
stoic mentality of like just keep goingthat sort of thing. And so I
realized, just like you know,I bet you. The entire fucking story
is in these video journals, inaddition to a podcast that I do where
I talked about the process that wasreally kind of like the chronological discussion.

(45:05):
It was called how to Never giveUp and Finish Your Movie. It was
just a podcast I did in anticipationfor the Genre Blast Film Festival where gouge
Away was playing, and I recordedit the day after the final day of
production on gouge Away because I wasn'tgoing to talk about it online. That
was the other thing too, Ididn't talk about it. I just did
the work. I kept my mouthshut, and once the last day was

(45:27):
in the can, then I unloadedwhat I had been trying to do,
you know, offline, just tryingto make this thing happen, and I
realized that kind of is like thenarration that told the entire fucking story of
trying to make your second feature film. I was like, is there a
movie about trying to make a secondfeature film? Somewhere in this mess?

(45:49):
Can I find it? And thenI started to think about all the different
things that are like out there,there's this, there's a Q and a
panel that you and I are bothon. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Right. So I took from thereand I because I like it has
me talking about this stuff so slowly, but surely it's been all you know.
It took about nine months to do. It was really another challenge.
It was like a puzzle. Iwas like, can I tell because I

(46:12):
was thinking in my head, I'mlike, this is a complete story.
I start out trying to make onefilm, that film fails, a long
period of self reflection and not likeknowing what the fuck is what I'm gonna
do, and like trying to findmyself again, followed by this remarkable day
that I recorded for the video journal, and that was really when I was
like, oh my God, thisis there's a story here, And it

(46:34):
was this day. It was Apriltwenty second, twenty twenty one, so
it was after that genre blast thatwe were at that event we were at.
I was standing in the shower,and I had been every day when
I stand in the shower, Iwould think about the movie, or any
time I'm think about the movie,I'm just trying to figure out a way
around the obstacle of the movie isdead. What do I do with this
footage? It's not a short film. The film is not a short film.

(46:55):
It's a feature. This is afeature. I'm not going to turn
this into somel shit short film.Project is the feature film. I got
to figure out how to make it, finish the feature. And it was
like lightning had struck Lightning struck mein the shower, and I suddenly realized,
you can't tell the story anymore,but you can tell the sequel to
the story. And that was thekernel that allowed me to And I had

(47:17):
documented that. I had talked aboutthat in these journals, and then I
had shot footage of all the behindthe scenes footage of us trying to make
the movie. So there's behind thescenes footage of when we were trying to
make the first movie. And it'samazing the difference in ideals making the first
second film versus the second second film, and just the process of the touch

(47:38):
and go nature the entire thing,and then getting to genre blasts. It's
like, oh my god. Andthe movie ends with this movie on the
big screen. And I had footageof that too, because I, you
know, I'm sitting there watching mymovie. I you know, took out
my camera to film it. Onthe discus of the novelty of seeing my
movie on the big screen, I'mgoing I have entire fucking story, A,

(48:01):
B, and C is right here. I'm gonna turn this into a
really long YouTube video. So Istarted making a YouTube video that was gonna
be in two parts. And that'swhen I put out onto Facebook. I
said, filmmakers, I need filmmakers. I'd like you to watch this and
tell me. I need feedback becauseI wasn't sure. Two things. One,
this is interesting to me because it'smy life, right Obviously, I

(48:23):
give a shit because it's my life. Is would anybody else give a shit?
Is this? Is there any kindof value in doing this? I
don't know. I mean, it'sfine for my YouTube channel, but like,
could this possibly be more than justa YouTube video. I don't know
if it could be. Maybe,I don't know. I got to find
out. So that's when I sentout, and you responded. You said

(48:45):
you were interested. A bunch ofpeople said they were interested in seeing what
I had, so I sent outwhat was essentially a longer assembly. The
first assembly was two hours and fiftyminutes, and I got it down to
an hour and forty five minutes,and that finally I'm like, I don't
think I can cut anymore. Ifeel like it's it's just done, and
you know, it's kind of likethe way I'm trying to spin it is,

(49:06):
it's kind of like an updated versionof American Movie if American Movie was
made by Mark, because I'm boththe subject and the filmmaker making it.
And that's when I realized that's whenthe movie. The movie was originally the
documentary was originally just going to becalled Blood Visions and Chaos Magic. Blood
Visions I have visions of making washAway and Chaos Magic. Chaos Magic is

(49:28):
this concept of in the uh,in the process, in the chaos magical
things happen and things come together theway that they're supposed to. I could
never plan for it. You justhave to keep your eyes open and watch
for how things are going to fitinto place, and then let them fit
into place. And so that representedwash Away and gouge Away. Wash Away
was I had this vision of myblood, you know what I mean?

(49:51):
And then like, chaos magic islike trying to find like roof bubbles right
how and just finding like right how, what is it? What does it
become exactly? And so that wasthe title and then and then I was
like, but this still doesn't work, Like, this doesn't this doesn't represent

(50:12):
entirely what this is. And thething is what what I made is gonzo
for anybody who doesn't. Yeah,so the full movie title is Kuyashi Gonzo
Chaos, Blood Visions and Chaos Magicwith the Gonzo aspect is like you have
to realize at the beginning, there'sa disclaimer that says, this is not
a unique story. This is astory that happens to a lot of people.

(50:36):
My story is not a unique story. It's just my story. And
we are all on this journey goingthrough this process in different ways, shapes
and forms, And this is medocumenting that. So that's the Gonzo ask
for everybody who doesn't know what gonzois. Gonzo is this journalist. This
first part, it's the it's theauthor inserting themselves into the story via their

(50:57):
point of view, and it's donein kind of like a weird, quirk,
bizarre kind of way. It wascoined by Hunter S. Thompson.
Now, what does kuyashi mean?Kuyashi I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. Kuyashi
is Kuyashi is a Japanese word forwhich there is no English translation. And
that's why. Now, remember whenI was talking about being in the shower,

(51:17):
right, well, I had thisfeeling and it's a feeling that's guided
me when I was making Romeo,when I was trying to make wash Away,
when I've tried to do anything inmy life, there's like this.
It's like a thousand yard stare.There's anger, there's like there's like adrenaline,
I can't describe it. There's fearthat I'm not gonna be able to

(51:37):
do what I want to do.All of that culminates in this sort of
like it's like it is it's likelightning. It's like it's and it's it's
like It's kind of like having thefootball and wanting to reach the touchdown zone
and running as fast as you canand having the adrenaline pumping, and like,
there's no there's no way to describewhat it is. And frustration is

(51:58):
a key element because so often lackof resources, lack of you know,
exposure, lack of whatever, thatthat just holds you back from trying to
do what is always feels like it'simpossible, or when people doubt you and
tell you that you can't do thisand you're never gonna do this, and
you say, oh, yeah,well I'll fucking show you. I am

(52:22):
gonna do this, And that hasa word. There's a word for that
in Japanese. It's called kuyashi andit basically means it Basically, it's the
wanting to do better after perceived failureand frustration, the frustration of wanting to
do better. And that is whatI felt in that shower. It was

(52:43):
that was the moment, and thenI realized my entire life, I have
had this sort of It was alwaysthe kuyashi, it was always inside of
me. I didn't have a fuckingword to describe it. I didn't understand
what to call this thing Kuyashi.That's what it fucking is. It's Kuyashi.
I am the Kuyashi Gonzo. SoI was like, this is you
know what I was trying. Youknow, this is this is like American

(53:07):
movie if it was like a gonzosort of thing, and that's how you
know, that's the closest way thatI can explain it to people. And
then I was like, you know, like this feels like a film.
It doesn't feel just like a longform YouTube video anymore. I'm gonna just
keep cutting it down and now Ifeel like I've made a documentary feature and
it's called Kuyashi Gonzo Blood Visions ofcast Magic. I did not intend to

(53:29):
make this documentary. It was notmy intention at all, Like I just
it just happened organically in yeah,and just sort of came together and I
some, now here's this is myactual third feature, and now my shadow
will be the next one. Sothat's the story. That's awesome. Yeah,
And I think, I mean,I think there's a lot. There's
a lot going on right there,because it is like one of those things

(53:51):
where, yeah, it becomes yourthird feature, it becomes something that you
didn't expect but I think that there'ssomething to be said about a lot of
us in low budget and indie filmsmaking things we didn't always expect to make
you go into it. You justgot to look at what you have.
You gotta find that what what canyou do with the chaos that's around you,
and how can you force yourself toto just keep going, to just

(54:17):
not fucking stop. And I thinkthat's the way kuyashi has always been described
to me is like in the past, it was always described as like when
someone puts you down and you canbuild yourself up and you you force yourself
to persevere past their doubts. Nowwith the term yeah, yeah, yeah,

(54:37):
so and because I think I sawit on like Chef's Table or some
ship like that, like that's right, that's right, yeah, so I
yeah, right, So I knowI know the term. But to me,
the thing I like about it islike, I don't I don't think
anyone really puts artists down in thesense of like there's not a ton of

(55:00):
people out there going like you can'tfucking do it to almost anything these days.
It's not malevolent, it's not done. It's not done in sort of
a mean spirited way, but it'sdefinitely done. It's definitely it's a it's
backhanded. It's backhanded, and itdoesn't feel good. I think it's more
so this element of like, howare you gonna do it different than how

(55:21):
other people have done it? Howare you gonna what makes you special?
What makes you? Like the conceptof like actually completing Like when I tell
someone I make I'm gonna make amovie, no one goes no, you're
not, you can't do it,But there's a lot of like, well,
who's gonna be your audience? Whoare you doing it for? What's
the like, there's a lot morequestions. That's where the doubt comes in
from outsiders, And to be honest, I think it's more from myself than

(55:42):
from anyone where like, yeah,a lot of it is from I've got
self Kuyashi, where I'm just like, yes, I don't think I could
do it, and I just gottago to fight past that. So I
love this concept because I think,you know, in the modern era where
everything seems possible because the Internet isjust it's fucking We're roll through Twitter for
ten minutes and you'll see ten impossiblethings where you're like, Wow, didn't

(56:04):
think that was possible, and likeit's just constant stories of things, people
doing things better than you think youcan. So it instantly puts this like,
well I can't do that. Ilike it's too much, there's too
much happening. Or it's the oppositewhere people aren't like, holy shit,
you're gonna do that. Instead they'relike, okay, people are making movies
every day, like go ahead,go do it. Everyone's doing it.

(56:27):
So the kuyashi becomes like, forme, your element of it is really
interesting because it is like I gotall this footage, got all this bullshit,
I've made a couple movies and nowI'm gonna try or I made a
movie, now I'm gonna try again, and showing us that entire process is
such a fascinating well, it's theprocess of the documentary shows the process of

(56:47):
the kuyashi. But the kuyashi reallyis the movie wash Away dying, right,
I think as a result of COVIDand a variety of things and then
resurrecting it as this other thing thingcalled gouge Away. This is what I
found on Reddit, and this iswhat I actually put in the movie because
the kuyashi element came after the moviewas finished. I had finished the movie

(57:09):
and then I had heard this termkuyashi, and I was like, oh
my god, that's what this is. This is what it says. As
a translator of many years, Istill find kuyashi one of the hardest Japanese
words to translate to English. Therejust really isn't an English word for this
emotion. In practice, we translatorssubstitute it with words like bitter, painful,

(57:30):
hurt, frustration, and the likeI felt all of those things yeah,
right, the right, depending onthe context, but none of them
are true translations. Kuyashi is thefeeling after failure. Not that downtrodden feeling
of being beaten and defeated. No, it's the feeling of when you're dropped
from the team at the last minute. It's what makes you slam your fist

(57:51):
on the turf that you've missed.What a sitter. I don't know what
the hell that means. It's something. It's what makes grown men cry on
the pitch after losing the Championship leagueor the World Cup finals. So close,
could have done better. It's thatfeeling when your song sells so much
better when someone else covers it.It's the taste of hard to accept defeat
because you know you had a shotand you came up short. Sometimes it's

(58:14):
not even your fault. It's thetaste of iron in your mouth when you're
grounded for something your brother did.It's the lump in your throat when your
professor publishes your research in his name. It's the fever behind your eyeballs when
your crush marries your friend. It'syour fist clenching your bank statement as you
terminate that awesome game you're developing becauseyou haven't got the funding. It's feel

(58:34):
Here's it is? It all boiledout to this. It's the feeling of
wanting another shot, that wanting tobe better and come back stronger, that
wanting to win next time. Andthat, to me, that's what that
force that I've had since I startedtrying to make art, I have felt
that inside of me. I justnever had the word. There was no

(58:54):
word. I just always called itanger and frustration. And to me,
it's not that that's a that isa clunky term for the more nuanced feeling
of kuyashi, and so I feelafter this, I was like, that's
what I am. I was theKuyhashi gonzo. So that's and that's what
the documentary is about. Amazing,So what happens now now? So yeah,

(59:15):
the Kuyashi gonzo element. I don'tthink that was in it when I
first watched the long version. Ithink that's something that has come more recently
than that. I think when yousent it to me, I can't.
I mean, it's it's been awhile since I watched the long version.
But regardless, I think that nowthat it's done, what happens? What
do you do with it? Imean, this is a question that I

(59:37):
ask myself all the time, likeeverything is like what do I do now?
What is the thing that I dowith everything? So you know,
I have a Patreon and anything thatI do, I always tell my Patreons
because here's a thing when I whenwhen when Washaway died, something unexpected happened.
And this is part of the movie. And this is one of the
themes of the Kuyashi Ganza movie.It's it's the understanding of of you know,

(01:00:00):
I didn't give up. I walkedaway from something where I could not
move past. There was a walland I could not move past the wall,
and I had to walk in adifferent direction. But the spark,
the initiative, the feeling of wantingto keep going and doing and doing something
that never left me, and soI never gave up. And what I

(01:00:22):
ended up doing is I started toget into YouTube, and slowly, but
surely, I don't have you know, I don't have a ton of subscribers.
I haven't reached ten thousand yet.I've closing it on eight thousand.
But like, I slowly started tobuild this very small audience because I discovered
I was like, wow, Ithink I like podcasting, so I really
I became a podcaster and I startedmake friends through podcasting, and then my

(01:00:45):
channel got remonetized and I started whenI was unemployed. I started to make
enough money on YouTube that I wasable to pay for my family, my
wife and myself cell phones and theWi Fi I was keeping the Wi Fi
turned on with no job. Itwas was like it was this and it
was coming from being creative. Andthen I was like wait, wait,
I was like, I'm going tostart. So I started a Patreon and

(01:01:07):
then I started getting Patreon people andI started and so I don't, I
don't I'm not crowd, I'm notthe I'm not a crowdfunder personally, but
the money that I'm getting from myPatreon right now and the money that comes
from the YouTube, all that goesinto a bank account that will be for
this my shadow phone at least partof it. Part of it is going
towards that. Yeah, that's whatI too. My patreon I run.

(01:01:28):
All that money goes into my businessaccount and it always That's that's why I
decided to make this new movie.Is I was just like, I have
a little bit that I've saved up, you know, since I moved here
and continue to run the Patreon.Why don't I use that and make another
low budget movie. Yeah. Andthat's literally that's so that all of that
so all of a sudden because Iwas I I turned my focus elsewhere when

(01:01:50):
the when the washaway thing had hadstalled, I realized that I really love
to be on the internet. Ilove doing YouTube and I love podcasting.
And I found this audience. Ifound an audience, and I'm making money.
I'm actually making money like I neverI'm paying credit card. It's like,
this is incredible. I'm like,holy shit, this is what I
always wanted. My dream was neverto be a fucking Hollywood filmmaker. My

(01:02:15):
dream was to make money from beingcreative and from my art, whatever it
may be. And now I've reachedthis place where I have this distribution network
via Patreon, so people who arepart of my Patreon can already watch Kuyashi
Gonzo as they can gouge away asthey could Romeo. Like, I put
my films out and I always tellthem, I say, you may not

(01:02:36):
always be super interested in what I'mdoing, but I promise you'll be the
first one to see it. Andso I put out stuff every month.
And you know what's amazing too,it I have to come up with stuff
to put out every month because Ihave you know, I have to fill
a quota. So it's kept myit's kept my wheels going, and like
I said, it's been amazing,Like it's amazing to like look at I'm

(01:02:59):
like that money. That's money,that's tangible money, and that's money that
I made from talking. I didn'tmake that from waiting tables. I didn't
make that from working at a deskstop. I made that money because I'm
just talking about things that I liketo talk about. What the fuck.
And now I have an audience tomarket my Blu rays too and now,
and it just keeps going and goingand going. It's very slow and very

(01:03:21):
small. And then what happened waslike so it's like bye bye. By
getting distracted, I found that Ihad this kind of distribution now, Like
I had like this means of distributionnow in a world where like like distribution
is not to be trusted on anylevel, Like if I want to get
my movie, like you know,Romeo's Distress is on Apple TV, but

(01:03:43):
like you know, it's not it'snot through like you know, I don't
know how much money I've made onit, you know what I mean,
because like it's not you know,if you want to if you really want
to make money on your micro budgetfeatures, you need to own them and
you need to like self distribute.Yeah, And so that's where that's how
I've made the most money. Truly, the most money I've made, like
physical, like here is money inmy hands or in my bank account was

(01:04:10):
still with T shirt sales and DVDbootleg DVDs of The Good Exorcist, Like
that's it. That was the mostI've made. So that's how you know,
I don't see myself as growing biggeranymore, Like I don't look,
I'm I'm gonna still I'm still challenging. Like the next movie, this my
Shadow movie, which is about hereis the this is the synopsis of my

(01:04:32):
next My next film is called MyShadow, and the synopsis follows Robert,
a painter who struggles with the suddendemise and grizzly resurrection of his best friend,
a rabbit named Shadow. Now,all Robert wants to do is take
the girl next door, Sydney Kidney, to the Jovial Halloween Ball. Yeah,
Sidney Kidney, who is like agoth girl on prozac. That's that's

(01:04:56):
their description, to the Jovial HalloweenBall and have good time. But it's
hard to have fun when your bestfriend aspires to be a rock and roll
singer and won't stop eating the peoplethat you know. So it's like one
part pet Cemetery via Little Shopahars withFrankenstein. And it's going to be in
black and white like Romeo was.And it's kind of like in my mind

(01:05:16):
when I'm making this, I'm pretendingthat this is the world of that eraser
Head takes place in. So that'smy approach, Like I want this to
be in that world. And sowe've already done some makeup tests and I'm
getting very stoked about in that movie. Like listen, that's this movie will
be the most challenging thing I've done, at least or the biggest scale production
I've ever done. But I don'tknow, you know, I'm not looking

(01:05:39):
to, you know, go bigger. I just want to just keep telling
stories, you know, on verysmall levels, for very sustainable amounts of
money that I'm funding myself out ofmy pocket. And so I don't do
the crowdsourcing thing, but if youknow, through Patreon, Patreon is affording
me the ability to earn money thatI can reinvest in my artistic endeavors.

(01:06:02):
And and I can't, like again, I'm I can't believe that I'm paying
my credit cards with my creative shit. Like that's fucking amazing that that is.
That is to me, that isthat is like that is a culmination
of the Kuyashi, Right, Yeah, that to me for myself, my
self doubting Kuyashi, because I thinkthat's right. I think what you said

(01:06:23):
is very accurate. The self,the self doubting Kuyashi is the biggest voice
of all and it's kind of likesomething that you live with, this this
kuyashi. And again, I don'twant to think of it as a negative
word. It's a po oh.I don't think it's negative. That's it's
a source. It's like, doyou follow comics at all? Yeah?
Yeah, okay, so flash theflash. He's connected to the speed force,

(01:06:45):
right ye yeah yeah. So tome, that's what the kuyashi is,
the Kuyashi force. I'm connected tothe Kuyashi force. And every time
I'm about to shoot a day onmy movie and I get the fear of
like what happens if I don't fuckingfinish, and I put on music to
pump myself up, and that's whenI feel the kuyashi like frothing inside of
me. Like I feel my fistlike clench up, and I grit my

(01:07:06):
teeth and my knuckles turned white becauseit's this anger of it's this anger but
it's not at anyone in particular.It's this anger of like like god,
damn it, I'm gonna fucking dothis and it doesn't matter, make it
and move forward, to keep going. I'm gonna believe that it's possible to
do. That's why I like this, yes, this believe concept because it

(01:07:26):
is like, yeah, it's easyfor me to it's easy for all of
us to suddenly, and there's somany moments. It's like on a daily
basis, you hit this wall whereyou're just like, Okay, even if
I finish it, what does itmatter? Like who cares? What right?
What's the point? And so likehaving this concept of just believe it
just keeps you moving forward, Itkeeps you motivated. It's the thing you

(01:07:47):
need to keep going. And dude, it's amazing because and at the end
of at the end of Kuyashi Gonzo, the morning of the premiere, there's,
uh, there's a video, there'sa scene whatever. I guess it's
a scene now, but it wasjust my video journal. I woke up
and I'm talking about I'm talking aboutlike like tonight my movie premieres, and

(01:08:08):
I'm so fucking excited. I justlike I can't believe that that I'm here,
that this is here, and thatlike the dream I had a dream,
and that like I just had tokeep the dream going and I had
to believe, and I talked ittalks about that. It says in that
I'm saying in the in the inthe video journal in Kuyashi Ganzo, you
know, I just you have tobelieve. I had to believe, and

(01:08:29):
I had to put Like I said, I put that little thing right here
and just got to keep fucking lookingat it every day. And even though
it doesn't feel like I don't knowhow this is gonna work. I don't
know how I'm gonna get to theend of this. I just have to
believe that I'm going to And thatis the fuel. And again talking about
the speed force, the Flash getsall of his energy that allows him to
run really fast from this thing calledthe speed force. And when you're making

(01:08:50):
a movie and you don't eat fortwelve hours and you could just keep going,
going, going, and you justyou're fueled by the creation of your
art. You are completely stained emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and you
are tapped into the Kuyashi force thatallows you to fucking keep going and keep
pushing. And it's this. It'slike you know what Kevin Smith says,

(01:09:13):
I love who I am when I'mdoing this stuff, and that's why I
will always do it because I likewho I am when I'm doing it,
And this is me. This iswho I really am inside. I'm not
my fucking day job. I'm notlike none of that shit defines me.
What defines me when people say whatdo you do? Well, what I
do doesn't earn me money, like, you know, the type of money
that I to to like live tolike to like pay the mortgage of my

(01:09:34):
house. You know what I mean, I need a day job to do
that. It's like what I do, what I do is not for money,
you know what I mean. Ido, what I do is for
outside of that. So my life'swork has nothing is not connected to the
ability to pay my mortgage. It'sjust connected to paying my cell phone.
Yeah right, I love that.That's fantastic. You know that was a

(01:09:57):
thing too about YouTube. But ohsorry, you're gonna you're no, go
for it, go for it now. I'm just gonna say that. And
that's the thing about YouTube and doingthis stuff. You make too much money
to stop, but not enough tolive on. That's the that's the killer,
you know. Yeah, But it'sI mean, like, once it
does become something you can live on, it's I mean, that's great,
that's awesome when you can survive,even if if you're fucking rich. Awesome,

(01:10:19):
that's amazing. But with that beingsaid, there is something about the
inspiration and the motivation when you aren't. Like for me, that's one of
the reasons why I am so Iso wanted to make another no budget movie
is because with all of these slowerprojects that do have budget and stuff happening
around them, I'm like, thisis fit. That's awesome. It's great

(01:10:41):
if I can make some money offof it, awesome, But it doesn't
have the pure inspiration and like justdo whatever you want feeling of going into
like a true no budget project.I absolutely love that. So people can
see you. You have your YouTubedot com, YouTube dot com backslash from

(01:11:03):
us that's it, f R UM E S S. And then your
Patreon is uh patreon backslash from us. It's so easy. Patreon dot com
backslash from us. That's it.It's that simple. You could all that
stuff is all laked together. Youjust go to from us dot com and
you can get to all of thosethings. So if you want to see
it, and he says, ifyou want to watch Kuyashi right now,

(01:11:23):
you literally can by uh supporting methe Patreon. You know, that's the
beautiful thing about building an archive.And by the way, thank you so
much for having me on your show. I really do appreciate it. I
love it. This was this wassuch a wonderful I'm so glad I could
share this with you, and thankyou for having me on. The beautiful
thing about Patreon and the beautiful thingabout this system and this idea of like
new distribution is that is that you'renot just what you're doing is you're not

(01:11:46):
just creating a paywall, You're buildingan archive. Yes, material and what
people do and what I tell peopletoo, and I say it on my
streams or whatever when I talk aboutPatreons, like sometimes people just want to
like people drop. People will comein for a month and then they'll leave,
and then they'll come back. Andit's like you can explore the archive
till you're done exploring the archive,and maybe you'll you'll leave and then maybe

(01:12:08):
you'll come back. There's some peoplethat have been have been with me since
I started the Patreon and have notsaid the same, and so it's like
it's just like, but what you'redoing is you're creating your your You've created
a means of distribution for for foran archive of things, of stuff,
of all your stuff that you ownthat's behind a paywall, and to me,

(01:12:30):
this is the this is this isit? Like that? I don't
like you know. I mean,of course, it'd be great to make
a movie for Netflix. Of course, it would be great to be making
a movie in Hollywood, and itwould be crazy not to say that,
But like doing this instead of tryingto raise like sixty thousand dollars or seventy
thousand dollars or eighty thousand dollars viacrowdfunding. And I have friends that do
that, and I contribute to thosecrowdfunding campaigns and I love them dearly and

(01:12:53):
I want to see them supporting one. But it's just like, that is
a full time job and I'm alreadydoing other It's not for me. It's
perfect personally, it's not for me. I did it for one project and
I just it's murder. It's sotough, it's so challenging. It's full.
It is a full time job.But but yet, but I've also
done the Patreon for many, manyyears and I love it because it is,

(01:13:15):
like you said, it's an archive. I can look back and be
like, I mean, I can'ttell you how many times I personally go
to my own Patreon where I'm like, when did I release this thing?
And I had go through and Ifind behind the scenes stuff, like,
you know, especially like some ofmy favorite stuff is on there, like
some of my favorite stuff for mepersonally, his stuff that I made that
isn't my movies. It's behind thescenes things. It's you know. I

(01:13:35):
have a video where I'm in thebackyard with my youngest son creating the pumpkin
Puke Guts that put the text firstof November for my short, that great
short the Guts Puke on screen.And the way I did that was like
we put Raffi my youngest and Iput a camera underneath a big glass plate

(01:13:58):
and cut it out of a cutthe words out of a green screen,
and then dropped pumpkin Guts onto theglass screen. I did the same thing
for the same fun. Yep,dude, it was so fun. And
I can go back to that behindthe scenes and you can see me running
around with my like three year oldas he's helping out on the project,
and it's just it's like John Carpenter. It was literally that's the way we

(01:14:18):
sort of like did it was thatJohn Carpenter's the thing style. That's what
inspired me too. I was like, yeah, that's what I want.
In fact, I did, Iactually did the like John Carpenter burn the
trash bag. Yeah, the trashbag for a different project, like many
many men did it? Did itwork out of curiosity? Did it work?
It worked? But I mean itdidn't look as good as like,
Yeah, you didn't have fall,you didn't have fogging like going through No,

(01:14:42):
not the same. I mean thiswas when I was like probably like
nineteen I tried it, and Imean, plus I was running on like
a VHS camera. I'm sure Idon't I don't even remember what I had
at that point. But awesome,dude, this has been so fun.
Thank you so much for coming theshow, and we will definitely talk against.
I always love having you back.So next project comes out, don't

(01:15:04):
oh don't, don't don't invite mebecause I will bother you. Oh yeah,
no, You're more than welcome tocome back when it's when it's good
to go. I love it.Ah, So what did you guys think?
That was a great episode, wasn'tit. I love Jeff He's such

(01:15:25):
a cool dude. And if youenjoyed this episode. I recommend going checking
out his movies, but also checkingout his YouTube channel, his Patreon,
all of that. There's so muchgreat stuff that he's putting out there,
and he's like an inspiration for creatives, for people who want to make movies,

(01:15:46):
want to put out want to putthemselves out in the world, and
just you know, continue making stuff. Jeff is one of those people who
will make you want to make stuff, all right. I am very because
I know I've said this last time, I said I was gonna have a
whole bunch of new episodes, likealmost like weekly. I have scheduled episodes,

(01:16:08):
so in the coming weeks and thecoming months, there are going to
be another huge batch of episodes withsome really great guests and some really cool
filmmakers. Like I've watched a bunchof brand new, low budget independent films
I've never seen before, and thatis such a cool thing to be able
to sit in my own house andwatch these weird, low budget indie films

(01:16:30):
and then be able to go tothe directors and be like, hey,
you want to come on the show, and they when they say yes,
it's thrilling. I absolutely love it. Plus I have some weird other types
of guests coming up as well,And if you want to hear more about
this low budget film that I'm making, make sure to head to the patreoon
because I'm gonna be posting podcasts aswe make it. I'm gonna be posting

(01:16:51):
videos behind the scenes. And it'snot just kind of like slap together nonsense.
It's actually some pretty cool stuff.Like the first video, it's free
right now for this week probably,but the flush Uh Patreon Filmmaking project I
made like an episode of going throughthe process of making ideas. It starts
out with this really funny moment whereI fucked up the audio. Funny retrospectively,

(01:17:14):
I was truly mad, Like youcan hear it in my voice,
that's not fake. I fucked upthe audio twice, and I was so
fucking pissed, like fifteen to twentyminutes of you know, OTF. It's
on the fly, that's what it'scalled in like reality TV. When you're
doing one of those, like turnto the camera and be like, dude,
it was a really tough day.I can't believe I fucked up the
audio twice. Those are called otfsin reality TV, so I do these

(01:17:39):
otfs when I'm sitting around. Irecord them and then I put them together
with the making of the movies,and it's really cool and exciting to be
able to do that again, likeI did un Rebel without a crew.
But the video that I put together, that I edited together, I think
it's pretty fun. I think it'spretty good. And so if you want
to check it out, go toPatreon, dot compleest slash Flush Studios and

(01:18:00):
it's on there right now for freeto watch this week. After this week,
it'll probably go back behind the paywallbecause I'll be putting on another episode.
My hope is to put these outevery like two to three weeks,
the actual video episodes, and thenas we go into production, it'll become
more like daily. Like I'm gonnatry to edit them together as we're filming
and put them out as we go. But I'm not in filming yet.

(01:18:24):
Tonight, like I said, I'mmeeting with Shan Ashley. We're gonna be
going through the concept because I wanthim to be a part of it.
So I'm gonna talk to him aboutbeing a part of it and hopefully film
part of that and we can putit up on this on the on the
Patreon. All right, if youguys have anything you'd like to here's the
thing. We have a thing.What is it called. I can't remember

(01:18:46):
the name of it. It iscalled I can't remember. We I did
a thing where people could send inaudio recordings and you could be a part
of the show. No one didit. No one said in audio recording.
So that's fine. If you wantto get in touch with me,
I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitterat Josh Stifter, I'm on Instagram ant
Flesh Studios. If you have somethingyou want to say on the podcast,

(01:19:10):
let me know. If you havequestions, concerns, comments, go leave
a review on iTunes or wherever youcan leave reviews for these podcasts. I
don't know if you can on Spotifyor not, but go, you know,
leave a review. This podcast isgonna be going undergoing some major changes
in season six. I'm gonna wrapup season five, get through the whole

(01:19:31):
season, and then in season six, I'm gonna make some changes. I'm
pretty excited, but it's gonna besome pretty massive changes because I'm in a
new location. Twenty twenty four hasbeen a year of big change and I
want to keep that going because it'sinspiring to me. So all right,
thank you all for listening so much, Keep kicking ass, keep making stuff,

(01:19:53):
and you know what, stay rebellious, everybody. Low Budget Rebels is
brought to you by the indie filmHustle Network, recorded at Flush Studios headquarters
in tropical Atlanta, Produced by thefilm daddy Josh Stifter, balla Baboo

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