Season 5 Episode 15: THE LEGEND OF EL CHUPACABRA Director Rob Mabry

This week I had the pleasure of chatting with writer and director Rob Mabry.If you look at our film's synopsis, you can instantly see that my film Greywood's Plot and his The Legend of El Chupacabra have some things in common. Watching the movies, it's interesting how unique both movies are as well!

Rob and I discussed his rise from early days of playing with cameras, to the break in his filmmaking process and coming back to it through 48 hour film fests and making a plethora of shorts, to eventually making his first feature film. We also chat about Rob's preproduction process, finding the shot in the moment, messy effects shots, and the fun of creating monsters with practical visual effects.This and so much more!

 Make sure to follow @thechupacabramovie to find out more about Rob's movie.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
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 pocast. I don't tell me you're taking all

(00:26):
this seriously. All right, Welcometo Low Budget Rebels Podcast. I'm your
host, Josh Stifter, and thisis a show where I talk to you
truly independent filmmakers about independent filmmaking.And this week I was joined by a

(00:47):
guy who is when you hear it'sjust like right on point with my kind
of filmmaking. Rob Mabry is thedirector and writer of a ton of short
films and a feature called The Legendof El Choopacabra. And anyone who knows
me knows well, I'm a bigfan of Cheopacabra. I made a movie

(01:07):
that is about people hunting for theChewpacabra. And uh so, Rob and
I had a lot to talk aboutin regards to why we wrote these kind
of stories, why these this kindof a monster was important to us.
But there are two There's a lotof similarities between our movies and a lot
of differences, and that was aninteresting point of conversation between us, and

(01:30):
I am always impressed when someone hasthe behind the scenes stories to tell of
what goes wrong and what goes righton a film, and Rob one percent
delivered on that front. So it'sabsolutely just a really really great conversation.
All right. If you're listening tothis on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you

(01:52):
get it for free, there's goingto be ads. I know a bunch
of people have been complaining about howmany ads there are. That's just the
way that the site that we useis. But if you want to hear
this ad free, head on overto patreon dot com slash Flush Studios.
There you will get all of mybehind the scenes content, links to my

(02:12):
movies short films every once in awhile, tons of like really interesting behind
the scenes stuff, and you canwatch the making of my next feature film,
my next low budget feature film,play out as I make it.
I'm only a couple weeks into theprocess, but I'm showing everything from writing
the note cards all the way uphopefully until the movie is done and releases,

(02:34):
so you can look forward to theFlush Filmmaking Patreon Frost Patreon Filmmaking project
on there, but also you getthis podcast ad free every week that I
put an episode out, which isrecently every week, So head on over
Patreon dot com slash Flush Studios.All right, without further ado, here
is my conversation with the wonderful directorof the Legend of El Chupacabra, Rob

(02:59):
me bre So. I just actuallywatched The Legend of l Chubicabra again today.
I watched it like when you sentit a couple of weeks ago,
and then I threw it on againtoday because I really enjoyed it. And
but before I get to that,I was looking into your background and such

(03:22):
an interesting like on your IMDb itsays you start as a military journalist and
humor colonist for the army. Howdid that translate into then going into filmmaking.
Yeah, well the filmmaking bug wasthere for me from like a very
early age. Are you running aroundwith a camera at a young age,

(03:45):
Like did you did you have theaccessibility to something? Yeah? I did.
So my dad owned an eight millimetercamera and then he upgraded to a
super eight camera. And he wasthe kind of guy who like he's made
home movies. But I remember,for one he did a title sequence with

(04:06):
the magnetic alphabet you know that youput on your fridge. I don't know
if anybody even knows what that isanymore, right, but you know,
back in the day, you hadyour alphabet on the fridge. So totally
as a kid, yeah, Itotally know what you're talking about, all
right. So he did like astop motion you know, animation title sequence

(04:28):
for a home movie, and sothat that left a big impression on me.
And you know, once in awhile he would let me, you
know, take the camera and filmsome things. I have to say,
none of that survived, so Idon't really even remember, you know,
what I was doing with the camera, but you know, running around with
my friends, you know, screwingaround and trying to to make little movies.

(04:50):
So yeah, I had the bookfrom an early age. And I've
always been a writer, like,you know, I wrote comic books when
I was a kid, and youknow, if I got an assignment in
school where I had to write,like, I was excited about that.
And so in a lot of ways, the movie making, you know,

(05:11):
is a means to kind of beingable to be a storyteller totally, I
mean, and that's the thing likewhen you're younger and you're just experimenting with
stuff. I find that a lotof the people I talked to who went
on to make low budget feature filmsor any films for that matter, they
experimented with different forms of art,whether that's writing or music. They like

(05:33):
filmmaking was sort of like that's wherethey got to in the end, like
that was the final thing. Butso many people, you know, wrote
comics, and it sucks that thatstuff you don't have that stuff anymore.
I actually just moving. I foundthis box of like all these all the
little high eight and vhs. Ohnice. I actually never got to film

(05:56):
on Super eight when I was akid. I would. I'm very jealous
of that we were able to useSuper eight. I actually made my first
Super eight short film last year justbecause I you know, you hear about
Spielberg talking about filming on Super eightand all these filmmakers who started on Super
eight as kids. Yeah it supereight, yeah man? And I never

(06:16):
got to do it. So Iwas like, what would my experimental college
movie had been, and what wouldit be if I'd done it? So
I actually got to sit with thatdid your dad's camera have didn't have like
a single frame that it could take. Is that how he did the stop
motion? Yeah? Yeah, soawesome. Yeah, he was a gear
head, you know, back inthe day, like he always he actually

(06:40):
had a little little eight millimeter editingbay, you know that he would splice
up the film and you know,try to create a narrative for these home
movies. So he was very intoit. That's so awesome. And that's
how I got my first camera.Was my dad was a gear guy and
bought a VHS or like a VHScam corder to shoot home movies with,

(07:00):
and I just ended up stealing it. I used up every tape. It
would finally go on vacation and he'dbe like, Josh, we have no
tapes left. What was my camera? Yeah exactly. So then okay,
so then you went on and Ihaven't actually seen any of your short films,
but I've seen that you have alethra you are a prolific short filmmaker.

(07:25):
What how did that sort of cometo be and what was your process
in getting into making these short films. Yeah, so I guess it was
seven or eight years ago. Igot the bug again, you know,
like there was a time in mylife where I was gonna be a Hollywood

(07:46):
screenwriter, you know. And thiswas back in the day when like Shane
Black, you know, was gettingpaid twenty million dollars for Last Boy Scout,
and I was like, oh,I'm gonna, you know, be
a Hollywood screenwriter. And I wasactually living in Atlanta and and that wasn't
the place to become a Hollywood screenwriter. And you know, so I think
I had one script that was optioned, you know, for zero dollars,

(08:07):
and somebody was shopping it around,but you know, it didn't happen.
And I kind of realized, like, man, I need to get my
shit together here and you know,be able to take care of my family.
And you know, so I wasalways interested in technology and went into
computer science and you know, gota real job, and that was just

(08:30):
my life for a while. Butyou know, seven or eight years ago,
I just realized, like, youknow, there are people out there
with kind of prosumer cameras making films, and you know, why why am
I not doing that? And andso that's what lit the fire. And
then I found out about something calledthe forty eight Hour Film Project, and

(08:56):
so I I decided to enter that, and I was a writer and producer
on a film called Cutthroat. Ithink that was in twenty seventeen. But
that was it, man, LikeI was just hooked. I love the
forty eight hour Film Project. I'mactually doing next weekend is the Austin forty

(09:18):
eight Hour Film Project, and soI'm entering that. It's just a really
satisfying experience. You know, togo in on a Friday and then on
Sunday you have a movie you know, and and you know people are going
to see it. That's the otherthing about the forty eight that I like.
Whenever you do a forty eight orany of these like film festivals where

(09:41):
you're making something specifically for the festival, it's going to have a screening in
front of people. And that's somethinglike when you make a you know,
independent feature film. Everyone wants tomake their El Mariyanti or whatever, but
the reality is is it's hard tofind audiences to come out to see them.
Yeah it is, and you knowyou're and you get that experience,
right, not just people seeing it, but being able to sit there with

(10:03):
people and get their reaction, andyeah, that makes it it special.
Learn so much you learn so muchabout the process and like what you can
do different by doing those things.And so many people, you know,
try to skip that, you know, doing those processes or stop doing them
once they've made a feature, likeor maybe you know, it's always like

(10:24):
this thing where you want to theykeep wanting to build stuff. And I
find like I learn more when I'mjust like I'm gonna make a short film
and I'm gonna take a weekend anddo it. I learned so much in
those experiences. Yeah, absolutely,And and you know I made my first
feature, but I made close totwenty short sor you know, web episode.
Yeah, so many. It's it'sawesome to see you looking at your

(10:46):
IMDb. It's just like a tonof stuff that all the names make me
curious to see them. Awesome,awesome. Well, you know, maybe
maybe you'll check them out. Maybea few more people will check them out.
That would be fantastic. But youknow, those were labors of love
and an opportunity, you know,to learn the craft of filmmaking. And

(11:07):
yeah, so you know I've donemany forty eights. Some of some of
those shorts are just things you knowthat I wanted to get out there into
the world. But it really wassomething that helped me learn to make movies,
you know, because the first onesare not great. But did you
doing those forty eight did you meetpeople that you've worked with then since on

(11:31):
other stuff? Oh, I wouldsay, you know, the legend of
Belpchupacabra, probably half the cast itcomes from the forty eight hour film projects
that I've done, and I actuallywrote the script, you know, with
certain people that i'd worked with.In mind, the main character, Sam

(11:52):
Pierce is my go to nerd.He's probably tired of me saying that,
but he's just such a great kindof Michael Sarah, you know, nerdy
character, and he plays it sowell. And yeah, he has been
in six of the shorts or fortyeight hour shorts that I did. That's

(12:18):
awesome. Yeah, that's and that'sone of those things that I have taken
advantage of over the years is goingto those festivals, meeting people, whether
it's the forty eight or in Minnesotawe had one called z Fest, and
any of these festivals that you gomake something for and then it gets screened
and they do their awards ceremony andstuff. Just going and meeting people that's

(12:39):
where half of the people I hadwork on any projects I work on come
from are from those festivals and justgetting to know, getting yourself out there.
Yeah, I think the forty eightis a big part of the San
Antonio film community. You know,there's a lot of participation in that,

(13:03):
and so, you know, it'sbeen amazing, like over the last five
to seven years to see the numberof people here in San Antonio who are
are making films and making feature films, Like there's a lot going on now,
you know, compared compared to whereit was even just five years ago.
So it's pretty cool. And fortyeight is a big part of that.

(13:28):
That's awesome. I filmed The GoodExorcist in Texas in Austin, and
I found filming in Texas to beincredibly gratifying. There's just so much beautiful
scenery. People are pretty accepting offilming. Have you found that or have
you found it to be challenging.I think people are pretty receptive, especially

(13:54):
if you are a local filmmaker.I was actually looking scouting for the upcoming
forty eight and you know, Iwas looking on the San Antonio Film Commission
site and that've got a gallery oflocations. And I saw this really really
cool Victorian house, you know,out in the middle of nowhere, you

(14:16):
know from the pictures, And Icalled the guy up, and you know,
I asked him if it might bepossible to film there, and he
was like, yeah, sure,come on out, you know, like
no problem. And then he waslike, are you from around here?
And I was like, yeah,yeah, I'm a San Antonio guy.

(14:37):
He's like, okay, because I'lltell you what. We had some Hollywood
times come out here the other dayin their alligator loafers. What were they
doing? You know? I lovethat. That's so true, man.
I have had so many experiences recentlywhere because that's what my new method has
been. You know, I usedto write around loc I had, or

(15:01):
you know, people's houses I knew, or bars that I frequented where I
could go in like Greywood's plot,there's a scene where you know where they're
in the bar. I literally ona Sunday was just like, Hey,
does anyone have a bar I canuse to film at? And my like
local stopping ground is called Wicked Wart. That's where I would go get drinks
in the evening. They were like, just come film here, I was

(15:22):
like, oh, yeah, Iguess I could ask you guys, couldn't
I like, I was, Idon't know them that well, but they
know me just from the massive amountof money. I think that's where I
take people who come to town,like everyone would go to Wicked Wart and
yeah, they just invited me over. But now being in Atlanta, I
don't have that. I don't knowanyone here. I'm in a brand new

(15:43):
location. Plus this is little Hollywoodnow, so everyone is trying to film
everywhere in Atlanta. But when Iwhen I find places online, I'll look
online for like film friendly locations orinteresting airbnbs that you know are more for
like a niche thing, and I'llcontact them and just be like, I'm

(16:04):
a little no budget filmmaker. Whattime I work with Robert Rodriguez, would
I be able to come film withyou guys? And they're like yes,
like they give me discounts all thetime. But it's just based on the
fact that I'm not like coming inHollywood, coming in hot, like coming
in honest and sincere, and likecan I make a movie with you guys?
And they just feel like they're apart of it. Yeah. I

(16:26):
love that kind of stuff. That'sI mean, that's good advice for any
filmmakers who are listening, right Like, it's kind of like the sale.
You just ask, right like,don't be afraid to ask. The worst
thing that's going to happen is thatyou know, somebody's going to tell you
no. You know, maybe they'llbe rude about it, but you know,

(16:47):
to be rude and always like somepeople are are just like, oh
my god, you want to makea movie here? Yeah, so yeah,
you know, if you find alocation that you think is right for
your film, like, uh,make the request. Sincere excitement I have
found to be like the true toolof producing directing, like pre production,

(17:15):
like being sincerely excited when you goto talk to a location, like like
the person who owns the place,and just telling them about your project.
But being sincere and not fake,not whatever. That has been the thing
that's helped me, you know,get my cast for I wish I could
pay them more, but I justdon't often have a big budget. Oh
you know, they'll work and putforth extra effort because they sense that excitement

(17:37):
and they want to be a partof something interesting. But you're right,
every once in a while, youknow, you. Most people are genuinely
excited. Every once in a whileyou get that rude person, and I've
learned to just be like, Iwouldn't have wanted to film there. I'm
glad they got it out of theway now because it would suck had they
put on a fake face and Ihad ended up filming there exactly. Yeah,

(17:59):
yeah, you you had some reallycool locations. Like I said,
I hadn't seen any of your shorts, and I would love to go watch
them. You'll have to tell mewhere I can see them when you when
we wrap up the show, becauseI will definitely go watch them. But
moving on to the legend of ElCheepcabra, you have some really great locations
in that, So let's piggyback intotalking about that. But how did this

(18:22):
movie come to be? Like whatwas the process and why did you?
I mean, I'm asking kind ofI don't know, false sleep, because
I made a movie about a cheepof Cabra. I know exactly why you'd
want to make a movie. Yeah. Yeah, you're just as guilty as
me, man. So what droveyou towards that this story and making this
movie? Yeah, so part ofit came out of wanting to, you

(18:49):
know, just wanting knowing that Ihad to cross all my bucket list making
a feature film, right and partof it. And that was something that
you always were interested in doing,like what you were from the beginning.
No one really sets out to belike I'm just gonna make a thousand shorts.
There's always this like thing in theback of someday, I'm gonna do

(19:10):
a feature. Yeah, yeah,that was it, you know, like
from the time that I was akid, you know, I wanted to
make a movie, and you know, I said those dreams aside for a
long time, but you know,it was always just there in the back
of my mind, you know thatit was something that I wanted to do,
and all those shorts were preparation forit. So, you know,

(19:34):
I talked about reusing a lot ofthe cast that I used in the shorts,
and it actually was originally Chupicabra wasa short film. It was about
fifteen pages, vastly different than thefilm that I made as a feature,
but I wrote it for a coupleof people that were in it, Sam

(19:56):
Peters, the main character, PeteMackie Nerd, and then the guy who
plays the villain Jared Donnelly long BlackHair, plays Sturgis Preston. He was
somebody that I've worked with on manyprojects, and so I wrote that short,
and then as I started to thinkabout doing the feature. You know,

(20:22):
that short was something that I hadn'tdone but always wanted to do,
and so I started playing with theidea of turning it into a feature.
The original, or the first version, was much more sort of sci fi,
kind of had a stranger things vibe. But when I write, I
get a lot of feedback from frompeers. I use something called coverfly x,

(20:48):
which is a peer review site,so you yeah, you read somebody's
script and give them feedback, andyou earn tokens, and then you can
use those tokens to have somebody giveyou feedback. And I learned a lot
through giving people feedback on their scripts, like what works and what doesn't.
And I got a ton of greatfeedback from other people. But one of

(21:08):
the things that the reviewers keyed inon was the humor in in that version
of the script. You know,they were like, hey, that's what
makes it special. You know.Everything else in terms of the story is
you know, kind of pedestrian likewe've seen it before, but the humor
stands out. Why don't you makeit a comedy? And then I looked

(21:30):
at my short films that I've done, which are eighty percent comedies, and
just sort of realized, like whatam I doing? You know, like
I'm a comedy writer. That's mystrength, That's what I should lean into.
And you know, so twenty versionsof the script later, you know,
became very like I tell people it'sa horror comedy, like, but

(21:52):
it's a horror comedy, you know, very much leaning into the comedy.
Yeah, that's I mean, that'sthe same with The Good Exorcist. Everyone
hears Exorcist and they think it's goingto be like a scary movie, and
it's not. It's a comedy first, you know, the horror is almost
satyrical of horror movies. And Ifelt a similar vibe in Chepicabro that it

(22:14):
is very like it leans into thejokes, it is fun, and it
felt very you know, similar toit had the vibe of something from like
the late eighties, like The Urbsor something like that, where the comedy
kind of comes first and the scarescome second, but with some really fun
gore effects and stuff as well.Yeah. Thanks, Yeah, the sort

(22:36):
of retro aspect of it. Idon't know that I consciously went into it,
you know, like I'm going towrite something that's you know, retro.
But I do think, you know, growing up in the eighties and
you know, loving films like theGoonies that you know, it just has
had a huge influence on me andinfluenced the you know, the approach of

(23:00):
the film and the comedy of thefilm. So what was the process like
for filming Schupacabra, Well, like, what was your pre production? Like,
how how did it? How'd itgo for you? Pretty well,
for the most part, I wasin pre production, I don't know,

(23:22):
probably for six months. You knowthat includes crowdfunding, you know, getting
the So you did, you dida crowdfunding campaign with it, Yeah,
I mean relatively successful. We didn'tmeet our goal. I think it was
twenty thousand is when I was tryingto raise and we raised a little over
half of that, okay, butthat gave us use indiegog Indiegogo, right,

(23:49):
Yeah. I chose chose Indye Gogo because unlike some of the other
platforms, you can keep the moneyeven if you don't meet your goal,
and I I found it to be, uh, you know, a very
user friendly platform, Like I wouldrecommend it to any filmmakers out there if
they're that's good to know. Imean, I've I've talked about crowdfunding a

(24:11):
lot on the show because I didmy first crowdfunding for a short film called
Little Lucha and the Big Deal andwe made our goal and it was fine,
but I'm so stressed. I foundit to be incredibly difficult to run
their interface. Uh yeah. Iwent with Seed and Spark. Their website
wouldn't load. Sometimes people would messageme and be like, hey man,
I'm trying to give money, butit won't let me click the button,

(24:33):
and I'm like, I don't knowhow to do that. And once someone
attempts to send money and it doesn'twork, they're never going to send money.
Like, they don't go back.That was their that was their kind
gesture. They're not going to goback and do it again. So yeah,
that's yeah. I found Seed andSpark to be really difficult to work
with as far as their interface went. They're great people and we made our

(24:57):
we made our our amount we wereshooting for in the end, but it
was it was a lot of work. It was a lot more work than
I expected a crowdfunding campaign to be. Yeah. Yeah, and you have
to, you know, put inthe effort and promote it and you know,
and make the ask, you know, on social media, just get

(25:19):
out there and push it. Andyou know, I don't know that I
was great at that, but youknow, but that helped us. But
it's something. Yeah, it's something. A little bit of money off the
top is incredibly helpful. Yeah.I mean, I thought financed a good
portion of the film myself. I'mfortunate. I work in technology, and

(25:40):
you know, I've been fairly successful. And you know, people people always
act like, oh, you've madethis movie, You're gonna quit your day
job, right, And for me, I'm like, uh no, I
have the day job, so Icould make a movie that dude, same,
same I have. And for fifteenyears now people have been like,

(26:02):
so, when are you just gonnaquit and move to Hollywood and stop working
a full time job. I'm like, I don't know if I'm ever going
to do that. Like, atthis point, it's so much nicer to
just be able to fund my ownstuff. And you know, I work
as an editor, so I can. I get to edit and teach myself
new software and stuff like that allthe time. But it's yeah, it's
one of those things where like untilsomeone is like, hey, here's three

(26:25):
million dollars to go make a movie, I'm not I'm not jumping at it.
I'm not running out there to Ilike, Yeah, I like having
the I like having the house andfamily and all of that stuff rather than
you know the stress of running aroundLa hunting for funds. Yeah. Yeah,

(26:47):
it's rough out there. But uhbut yeah, so that you know,
that was pre production and kind ofhow the budget came together. We
shot the film, uh, mostlyon weekends. One thing about in Texas
is it's hot, a shit wronggod man in the summer. We started
in late September and it was stillyou know, ninety five degrees outside.

(27:11):
But yeah, we would shoot onweekends, you know, hustled for a
lot of the cool locations. Weshot at a diner called the Pig Stand,
which was over one hundred years old. It shut down shortly after we
shot there, so we were probablythe last feature film to film in that

(27:32):
location. And they were always verygenerous to filmmakers in San Antonio, and
it just has this great, youknow, diner look like it's gorgeous.
I saw when I saw that,I was like, oh, it was
funny, like the similarities to certainthings because we filmed Little Luca and the
Big Deal in a diner that wedid in Minnesota, and securing a beautiful

(27:56):
diner like that was actually easier thanI expected it to be and they were
very behind. But there's just somethingthere's something to the look of a diner
that when you're there filming and thenyou see on the screen, you're just
like, oh, this is soit's just value, just value all over
that exactly, you know. Andand all we had to do was walk
in, you know. But yeah, sometimes you know you're you're you're lucky

(28:18):
into a great location, and thatwas definitely the case for us. But
the last act of the film weshot in a studio. There's a woman
who is a filmmaker herself. Shelives in San Marcos. She's got ranch
property and she built herself a warehousestudio where she films, and she was

(28:45):
generous enough to allow us to filmthere. I don't think she'll let us
back. We had we had kindof a mishap in the studio. So
in the final scene of the film, at least the way that it was
can and I don't want to giveaway too much, but a character dies
and they explode, and so wehad this blood gag set up with an

(29:11):
air compressor, you know, basicallyan air cannon, you know, to
blow this blood up against a glasswindow. We hit a little more than
the glass window, so you know, we had this air compressor filled with
blood and it, you know,and it was the most tense moment any

(29:34):
shot I've ever done, right,because it was like, we got one
chance to get this right. We'vegot this blood all over the window.
It's gonna look fantastic. And sowe get everything set up and you know,
my heart is pounding, and Icall action and boom and you know,
the blood just splatters all over thewindow. It looks fantastic, and

(29:57):
I'm so excited, and all ofa sudden, I hear chip chip chip,
chip, chip chip chip. I'mlike, what the hell is that?
And I look up and the entireceiling of this, you know,
fifty by forty foot warehouse studio iscovered in blood and just dripping over the

(30:26):
set and everything. It was justan absolute disaster. Yes, you go
from watching the monitor and seeing thatshot and you're just like, yes,
it was all yeah. So thenI had to go and find the studio
her and I told her, Hey, I got some good news and some

(30:49):
bad news. The good news iswe got the shot. You're gonna have
to come see the bad news.And to her credit, she just looked
around and said, well, Ihope you can figure out a way to
clean it up. Yeah. SoI had a similar experience on The Good

(31:11):
Exorcist. We were the place thatwe filmed that was a usually it's rent
it's a ranch and it's usually rentedout for like weddings or you know,
private events stuff like that. Andthere was a it was our last day
of filming and we were filming ascene where I was gonna splash blood on
the wall, and so I testeda little bit and it cleaned up just
fine or whatever. So I'm like, Okay, we're gonna go for it.

(31:33):
I'm just gonna spray the wall withthis blood. Oh wow. The
we did it. We sprayed it. We were like kind of slowly cleaning
it up, and the owner ofthe ranch walked in the other door and
was like coming around the corner tocome talk to us. I'm like,
Dan, go stop him. SoDan goes running off and he's like,

(31:53):
let me let me show you wherewe're this like making up some some excuse
to get him out of the room. I'm like scrambling with towels to clean
the blood up off the wall.It all came off, Everything went fine,
But I just remember being like,I have like five more shots to
get and I'm gonna get kicked outof this branch right now. But even

(32:13):
if I honestly think even if hehad come in, he would have been
totally fine because he was one ofthose location people that is awesome, Like
was just gave it to us ata discount because he knew my budget was
super kind. But those moments arethey're stressful, Like, oh, it
was funny because in my stomach andwe spent three days cleaning up the blood

(32:37):
and the ceiling it was like fiftyfeet high. How did you get up
there? What did you do?Well? Thank guid Mike Cavanaugh, who
was a PA on the film,and I'll love him forever for this.
He's like, I used to workfor the Forestry Service. I can get

(32:58):
up there and clean it like Mike, it's you know, it's like,
I'm gonna go get my rigging andI got you Rob. I was like,
okay, man, So sure enough, he just you know, put
put the rigging up and you know, scurried up to the top and just

(33:22):
sprayed it and wiped it down andeventually it was clean enough. I'm sure
that Data is still finding spots ofblood in that studio to this day.
And yeah, sorry, sorry,Data, That's an amazing story. So

(33:44):
for this movie, the movie looksbeautiful. Thank you. Legend of El
Chipicabra. It's got a really interestinguh tone too, because of the tone
of being comedy and horror. It'ssort of a difficult thing to balance that
visual was there. What were theconversations like when you were in pre production

(34:05):
as like how you were going toget the look, what you were going
to go for in style? Yeah? Interesting. You know, I don't
storyboard unless I've got like something thatis fairly complicated and I really feel like
I've got to, you know,figure it out visually. I tend to

(34:30):
write shot lists and just work fromthe shot list, and a lot of
times I'll just go in and kindof you know, with the idea like
I've got to get the coverage,you know, in the scene. It's
you know, I do feel likeI could have opened it up more,

(34:53):
you know, in terms of justI don't know, I feel like I
didn't take enough advantage of kind ofthe beauty and the landscape of Texas.
So, you know, as Igot into editing, I was like,
should I wish I'd spent a littlebit more time, you know, trying
to capture you know, just somemore establishing shots that sort of thing.

(35:16):
But you know, I don't.I don't know that. Uh, there
was a lot of uh sounds terrible, Like I didn't give any thought the
hell I was gonna shoot it,but you know, and thinking about the
coverage, you know, I youknow, I think I was probably you

(35:37):
know, I probably leaned a loton on you know, previous experiences in
terms of knowing kind of what's gonnawork and and what's not gonna work,
and so uh yeah, Josh,I I just went in and winked the
entire thing, you know what Imean. I'll be honest, though,
it's I think that I'm so I'mvery much a storyboard person, a like

(36:00):
pre plan every beat, like Iwill actually go film stuff in advance,
just to like with action figures orsomething, just to know that I can
kind of visualize it. Because I'vetalked about this before in the show just
a little bit. But late inlife I realized that I don't have a
visual imagination. Like when I talkto people, they talk about like how

(36:22):
they picture things in their head,and I'm like, what are you talking
about, Like how do you picturethings in your head? I don't have
that. I don't like when yousay, if you were to say,
like, what would this rug looklike in the room, I can't see
it. I just can't visualize whatthe rug would look like in the room,
and so so, and it's youknow, with filmmaking. It was
one of those things where I didn'treally realize it because I storyboard a lot.

(36:45):
I just plan things, and andyou're also right that a lot of
it is just like you know,the coverage you need for a shot.
It's two people talking. You know, you get a two shot, you
get a close up, you geta close up, and you know,
you just get every thing that youneed. So I just learned over the
years through doing shorts and animation andstuff like that, that I know,

(37:06):
I know kind of what coverage I'mgoing to want, and I'm editing in
my head as I go a littlebit. But for like Greywood's plot,
that was a big part of it. For me was just like, let's
just wing it. Let's see whatwe get when we go in the woods,
Let's see what we get when we'reat this cabin, and we kind
of will figure it out as wego, not having to storyboard everything.

(37:27):
I think there's a there's kind ofa joy in finding the beauty through the
camera lens without overthinking it. Yeah, for sure, Uh, your cinematography
in Greywood's plot was beautiful. Theopening sequence, I thought, what was
great And I'm sure you you know, spent some time thinking about that.

(37:50):
There were some the opening sequence.The best part is I didn't that opening
seat. That opening sequence was wewalked into the cabin on a day that
it was like a hundred degrees outand apparently the fly eggs decided to hatch
and that room was covered in flieson the inside. I was like,
we are not filming in here.This is disgusting. Like anyone who anyone

(38:15):
who's been in a room like thatand knows the smell that flies have.
It's like a very distinct smell,and I can't take it anymore. Like
I just like walked in, waslike, I can't film in here all
day. We're not gonna do it. We'll come back tonight when it cools
down, we'll get the flies outwhatever, but I'm not filming in skin
And Daniel was just like, letme just sit down in the chair and

(38:37):
you filmed me for a little bitwhile flies fly around me. And I
was like, all right, let'sdo this. That was great for creep
factor for sure, so you know, and then all the other like establishing
shots of the cabin and everything.That was just the day I got there.
I just started filming stuff and Iwas just figuring it out, like
just deciding what would be a nicewide shot, what would be in you

(38:59):
know, how would I kind ofwhat kind of coverage could I get of
all of this stuff? And endedup being, you know, really happy
with what I got. But thatwas a movie where I just shot everything,
Like I probably have three hard drivesfull of footage, Like there's probably
sixteen terabytes of footage for Greywood's plotbecause when I just filmed everything, that's

(39:22):
about what I have for a chupof Caver too. Yeah. Yeah,
just kept having to buy six terabyteyou know, hard drives. Yeah,
and then you're like trying to editit together and it's just becoming an absolute
mess of like figuring out what's whereand trying to consolidate everything. It's that
was a learning process for me withwith later projects where I'm like, I'm

(39:44):
not gonna film that much because itjust becomes overwhelming to go through it.
But but like, yeah, Itotally I'm I actually think one of the
things people do incorrectly with low budgetfilmmaking is overthinking it and not trusting their
instincts and not trusting like you're goingto get something cool if you set the

(40:06):
camera up and look for it,you'll find it. There's you can make
a beautiful shot in any room.Yeah. Yeah, people definitely get in
their own way. And and oneof the things I tell people who are
thinking about, you know, makinga movie, is go make a bad
movie, because you you can't makea good one until you make a bad

(40:28):
one, right, And you justgot to get out there and experiment and
learn, and you know you'll you'llget better through the process. But if
you think that you're going to geteverything, you know, perfect from from
the start, and you spend allyour time, you know, trying to
make it perfect, you'll never makea movie right, especially now when you

(40:51):
know, when we have the accessto gear that we can film as much
as we want, you know,we can you can buy it yourself.
I don't know, do you ownyour gear not? I mean, you
don't have to tell me what youhave or any of that stuff. But
for you as an indie filmmaker,do you utilize your crew like do you

(41:13):
have them bring their stuff? Doyou rent gear a lot? What's your
what does it look like for youwith this kind of low logic process.
So I own a black Magic fourK, and most of the shorts that
I filmed I shot on the blackMagic. For Chupacabra, I have the

(41:35):
DP owns a red Gemini that's hishis camera of choice, and that's what
most of Chupacabra was filmed on.And then there were some some scenes like
rean out of Money still had somescenes to shoot that I went and shot
on my black Magic just you know, solo crew, you know, just

(41:59):
to get the kind of fine oldpieces that I needed and you know,
I think someone with a really discerningeye, you know, might be able
to pick those scenes out, butit's hard to tell. And with that,
I mean I didn't notice it atall. And with that being said,
I it was so the visuals weregood, were so well done,

(42:21):
Like they were well done enough thatI wasn't paying attention to like specifics.
I got into the story. Iended up you know, getting lost in
what the way you're supposed to versuslike nitpicking the low budget things or little
concepts. I totally just lost trackof that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Well, I mean, you know, footage shot on a red looks beautiful,

(42:43):
there's no doubt about it. Butyou know, you can you can
get away with a lot if you'vegot a good story and you know you're
getting great performances from the cast.You know, sound is more important then
you know what the image quality is. But yeah, for sure, Yeah,

(43:05):
sound is the one thing that willdistract people and pull them out.
And finding a way to especially withlow budget filmmaking, finding a way to
learn that lesson sooner than later.That's like one of the keys that I
have, you know, over theyears, just learned through experiences of low
budget filmmaking where I had a constructioncrew on The Good Exorcist who was destroying

(43:30):
all of my audio at the ranch, and you know, had to learn
from that experience. Yeah, wespend ninety percent of our time thinking about,
you know, the image and whatit's going to look like, and
maybe ten percent you know, onon sound and that that is not good.

(43:50):
Yeah. No, the sooner youcan learn that lesson and find people.
A lot of times we find youknow, dps we like working with,
or you know, uh, someonewho does score that we like working
with, an actors and you castthat we like working with. But we
uh sometimes the don't realize how importanta sound designer is until after we're done
and we're like, man, Idon't know that many people who do sound

(44:14):
well. And that has been,you know, one of those things that
I've Yeah, like you just learnedwith time that how crucial sound is.
And everyone can say that, andI think you just have to learn it.
Yeah. I was fortunate, likewe didn't do any a dr or
or have to. We were able, you know, to get good quality

(44:36):
out of the sound that we goton set. But in the next you
know, the next film I makeI will definitely be thinking more about,
you know, how can I getthe best possible you know, best quality
audio I possibly can. So that'sawesome. So I want to talk about
the I mean another jumping from soundback to visual wells, the monster,

(45:00):
the Creature of Facts. What wasthat process, like, how did you
design it? What was the like? Oh, it's so much fun.
Yeah, yeah, that was oneof the most exciting parts of making the
movie. So I worked with aguy named Sergio Gara. Sergio was on

(45:20):
the very first season of a showcalled face Off, which was on the
Sci Fi Channel. It was acreature design competition. It didn't last long
on the show, unfortunately for Sergia, but he's a super talented guy.
He's here in San Antonio and Ican't even remember how we got connected up,

(45:42):
but yeah, he kind of taughtme what the process of making a
creature is. And so he didfour different designs, you know, potential
designs for the cheap of Cabra.You know, we talked about those,
and it's interesting that it's you know, it's an artistic thing, but it's

(46:05):
also an engineering thing, right,yeah, like super technical. Yeah,
and you know, somebody's got towear that suit, and they've got to
be able to move in that suit, you know, and they've got to
be able to breathe. You know, these are all important things. So
he helped me to understand, like, you know, you know I want
this, Well, we can't youknow, really do it that way,

(46:25):
you know, because you know he'sgoing to have to be able to move
in the suit. But we settledon one of the four designs and just
kind of iterated through that. Butreally, you know, once we made
that choice, like very early onin the sketching process, you know,
we were pretty satisfied with what wehad and then you know, he went

(46:49):
to you know, making the fullbody mold of the actor Kiki Suki,
who plays the chupacabra. He alsoplays doctor the Shaman, so he's got
two roles in the film. Butyou know, made the mold. You
know, it wasn't without its challenges. Like the first shot that we uh
did with the chupacabra is a scenewhere the chewpacabra attacks this rancher in his

(47:15):
shed, and the the chupacabra justwasn't quite done, Like we didn't have
feet yet, and you know,all of the sort of you know,
texturing and and you know blood hejust looked a little too too new,
you know, and so uh thatwas something where we had to, you

(47:37):
know, really think about, Okay, how are we going to shoot this
in a way you know that thatyou know is exciting and and you know
kind of masks the fact that thesuit is not completely done. But sometimes
less is more, you know.And and it was my Steven Spielberg Jaws

(47:58):
moment, right like brew the Sharkand Jaws you know, never worked,
and so they had to find allthese creative ways, you know, to
to create that terror, you know, without the shark, you know,
being being front and center. Anduh and so yeah, sometimes you know,
interesting things come out of having towork around those little challenges. But

(48:22):
yeah, an amazing creature. Likewe wanted something that you know, aligned
to what people who know and lovethe choop of Cabra, you know,
we wanted it to be that,but also be unique and different and not

(48:43):
a copy of something else. AndI feel like we landed that. I
love that because, I mean wehad the exact same conversations when Dan and
Strauss and I were trying to figureout what our Chuop of Cabra, you
know, Man's best Friend thing wasgoing to be. And it was this
like back and forth of like dowe go more monster? Do we go
more dog? Do we go morehuman? Like? How what is this?

(49:06):
Back? And I met with likefour people for visual effects artists and
sort of like talk through what LikeI showed them my drawings and some concepts
and stuff like that, and youknow, they sent me a budget of
what it would cost. And Iwas always just like, you guys are
taking you're taking this too far.You're not thinking like in a low budget

(49:30):
box. You're trying to make somethingreally, I mean I was either trying
to make something like what you guysmade, and for me, it was
like that was never the point.It was always to make something that was
kind of like throwback universal monster styleto the like campier side. Yeah,
And like those conversations led us tojust going like, you know what,

(49:52):
there's a lot of YouTube videos abouthow to do this shrouse do you want
to try to learn? And thencut to like three weeks later, my
kids running around with cell phones filmingme getting a plaster mold made of my
face in my kitchen, and Ijust had them film the whole thing,
because I'm like, if this goestotally wrong and I ended up dead,

(50:12):
there has to be some proof ofwhat we attempted to do. And it
all went great, and I'm reallyI love you. People can't see if
they're listening to the podcast, butyou have your Chepicabra mask behind you,
and I have I have mine onthe side over there. We got all
right, so we're talking, Well, your movie was terrific. I just

(50:37):
wanted to say that. And thetwist at the end was fantastic. There
was some really gruesome stuff in therethat you know, I just thought you
nailed and like it was really uhalmost sickening, you know what's going on
there. But uh, you know, in the same lessons more or fashion,

(51:00):
like here's the thing, we showa lot, but we also don't
like there's most of the like nastieststuff is actually like out of focus or
just barely showed or whatever. Likethere was one scene of the scene where
he's getting his face mutilated and whichis you know, it's me on the
table in like negative ten degree weatherin my garage. It was so like,

(51:27):
I'm all I've got like goosebumps tothe whole movie, and I'm like
shaking with terror and it makes melook like I'm a really good actor.
It was cold as hell, likethat's all it was, was just so
cold. But yeah, in factthat the reason like that blood is all
thick and chunky in my face isbecause it was freezing, Like it was
freezing in my eyes and shit.So anyway, what was I going to

(51:52):
say there? We were talking aboutthe gruesome ness of oh yeah, yeah,
but there there was a moment whenI'm getting my face done where I
had originally taken like soap and madethese little soap teeth that I put in
my mouth and shooting Daniel like grindingdown the teeth, and everyone I showed
it to it's just like that's toofar, man, Like I can't It's

(52:13):
it's gone beyond like fun and creepyand gone into like I'm literally going to
puke watching this. People on teeth, man, People in teeth don't work.
So I ended up just cutting toshots of him like pulling the teeth
and dropping them into like like likea b shot of them falling into the
pan. But it was a blast, Like learning those kind of techniques and

(52:36):
trying things like that was where wehad so much fun. It's like,
how can we make a monster that'scheesy and creepy and fun to look at,
but also like doesn't doesn't go toofar, you know, because I
still wanted it to be campy,you know what I mean. That's it's
a weird balance of finding campy andthe first half of the movie is so
goofy and different that like once you, I don't know, you have to

(52:59):
try to find that blend. AndI think it was fun watching your movie
because it was almost the opposite,like yours lean so much more into comedy
throughout the whole thing, and whenthe blood and guts start happening, it's
like, yes, like it's enjoyableversus Greywood's plot. At least the experience
I've had with watching it with people, they're mostly like, oh no,

(53:19):
yeah, you had me. Iwas along for the ride. Like I
was surprised by the ending, youknow, I didn't think it was it
was going where it went, butbut I thought that was great. But
the comedy is so strong and andthe movie is really really funny, which

(53:44):
which I always appreciate. I thinkcomedy is a difficult thing to to pull
off, but but yeah, therethere's some great gags in there, for
sure. I think one of theone of the benefits is and I could
feel it in your movie too,that you work with these people before and
you guys are having fun. Itruly think that with comedy, you can

(54:06):
write really great jokes, but they'llnever come across as really great jokes if
you're not enjoying the people you're aroundas you're doing it. Like that is
the key. The funniest stuff iswhen you feel like you're in on the
joke with people. And I feltthat with Legend of a Troop of Coabra.
There was plenty of times where Iwas like, they're having so much
fun right here? Yeah, ohyeah, I mean everybody else is having

(54:29):
fun. I'm so stressed, likewhen I'm on set, you know,
and I'm doing the nine jobs youknow that an indie filmmaker does when when
they're on set, you know,like I'm just you know, making a
thousand decisions and running back and forthand you know, of course trying to
keep things on track. But yes, everybody else was having a great time,

(54:52):
and it's funny, you know sometimeslike I think, you know,
in the back in my mind.I believe in the comedy and the jokes
that I've written, and I youknow, am am confident that they're going
to work. But you know,after you've read something one hundred times or
seen something one hundred times, likeI just, you know, commented to

(55:13):
somebody on set like, you know, I just don't know, you know
sometimes if this stuff is working ornot, And they said, Rob,
if the crew is laughing, theneverything's okay, you know, yeah,
and yeah, that's true. Youknow, I can't tell you there's probably

(55:35):
a hundred like amazing jokes and projectsthat I've done over the you know,
twenty years of more than twenty yearsof film making, you know, from
shorts and animation everything. There's probablyone hundred jokes that are hilarious that didn't
make it to the end because Ijust see them over and over. I'm
like, it loses its comedy andyou just like no longer trust that it's

(55:58):
fun. Yes, yes, youlose faith. Yeah, I cut it's
probably twenty five minutes out of Chupacabra. You know a lot of gags,
a lot of you know, thingsthat were strong and funny, but you
know, weren't necessarily in service ofthe story and it was really hard,

(56:21):
you know, to cut those sohard. Man, it's so hard,
but nobody, nobody wants to watch, you know, a two hour and
ten minute comedy. So yeah,oh, and I totally can relate.
There are so many scenes that wecut from things over the years, and
so many like Dan Dan who playsDog gray Woods of the movie. He

(56:42):
yeah, he's my best friendle writer, producer, like we've worked on everything
together throughout the years. He isthe one who tells me, like he's
very honest with me, where he'llbe like, I know you love this
joke, but I've got to cutit. You've gotta cut it, man.
Yeah, And it's like it happenswith a bunch of things. And
then there's always like one thing inevery movie that he tells me I should

(57:05):
cut and I'm like, no,I'm sticking to it. I believe in
this joke too much. And whenit gets a laugh in the theater,
I'm always like I told you,yeah. So, like the big one
in in Greywood's plot is when hegoes, uh, I'm like, yeah,
we have a we had a coupleof a couple of beers or something
like that, and he's like afew looks like you got a goddamn six

(57:27):
pack or something like that, andit gets a laugh every time. But
it was just an improv thing Dandid, like as a joke. It
wasn't like it was obviously film,but it was not meant to be in
the movie. And I cut itinto like the first draft of the movie
as a joke and I laughed everytime, and I just could not take
it out. And it gets laughin the theater. It always makes me
happy when it gets laugh. Infact, we were in Texas, we

(57:50):
at the South Texas Underground Film Festivaland that scene happened, and this big
biker dude sitting in like the secondrow act just was like like it was
like the happiest moment of my life. After the movie, I like found
the guy and I'm like, dude, you made my whole day. He's

(58:12):
like, that was the funniest shitI've ever seen. I was like that
that joke tickled you, like ofall things. So I instantly like called
Dan and was like, dude,it got this guy so bad he wants
to talk to you. Yeah,I've got one of those. Like in
the opening sequence of Chupacabra, theyou know, the the big Battie is

(58:34):
has his boardroom assembled, and youknow he is chastising a guy, but
he's gonna let him slide because hehad a great idea about the pizza place.
And and the pizza Place is reallya joke about Pizzagate, which I
don't know if you're familiar with thatconspiracy theory, but a friend who made

(58:55):
a movie about it in Texas.John you, yes, that's my buddy
John Valley. Okay, okay,yeah, that's a good flick. But
I realized, like I might bethe only person who gets this joke,
you know, because it's it's subtle, and you know, it's just you

(59:17):
know, it doesn't have a frameof reference. But but I left it
in to entertain myself. Oh yeah, there's so many of those in my
in Greywood's plot, it's just ait's like almost masturbatory, so many jokes
that people don't get that I'm like, I mean, like even just the
fact that, you know, peoplelaugh at the stuff with my mom,
but I don't think it brings themthe true joy it brings me to make

(59:40):
my mom say that terrible stuff tome in the movie, Like that just
makes me so happy that my mom, you know, mocks me relentlessly and
says she regrets having me and stuff. And she just had to do that
on camera, and we had somuch fun making her say things. The
only thing she wouldn't say. Ihad her say a couple goddamns and she's

(01:00:00):
like, I can't say it,Josh, here, don't do that,
like church, I can't say goddamn. And I'm like, Mom, you're
talking about shitting razor blades and rapeshows, but you can't say god damn.
Well, there's a bit where you'reyou're trying to put your suicide DVD
that you've recorded and like you can'tcan't get it to sit on the desk.

(01:00:22):
Yeah, I love that great.Yeah, those little things where you
just like you got to just leavethem in there because you don't know who
it's gonna mean. I thought thatwas funny, and I thought, like
the little note or whatever is funny. It's the kind of shit that would
really happen, making the reality ofsomething so kind of depressing, even like

(01:00:42):
the editing, talking to yourself whileediting, it's just like, so it's
just things I've done, not makinga suicide video. But it's just me,
like, I just wanted to showthat side of the sadness of being
an editor. A solitary pursued,for sure. It is to ask why

(01:01:05):
did you choose to to go blackand white with greatwood'splot? Yeah, so
that's funny. I we filmed.The short answer is we had filmed and
failed at filming it. And whenDan and I went and looked at the
footage we had filmed the first timeafter we did The Good Exorcist, we
were watching it and we were like, well, what is this movie going

(01:01:27):
to be? What is it supposedto be? And I told him,
like straight up, I'm like,I think we're I'm making like my take
on an Edwood movie, Like I'mdoing what Tim Burton. It's kind of
Tim Burton mentality. I'm like,I think I'm like making something that's sort
of referential to the universal monsters.I mean, it's it's my take on
Island of Doctor Moreau because I'm ahuge Island Doctor Moreau fan. Yeah,

(01:01:47):
yeah, yeah, okay. Andlike Terror as a Man was an old
B movie that is sort of similar. It's based on like Island Doctor Moreau
style story and so I was like, well, if I'm ripping that off,
if I'm ripping off Islanded Doctor Moreauand doing my take on it,
why don't we just lean into it? And so we looked at the footage

(01:02:08):
in black and white that we hadfilmed in some of the bureau shots like
all that, like the stuff inthe intro that you see that we had
filmed that, like the birdhouse that'skind of hanging there. We'd film that
shot, like the big field momentand stuff some of that bureau and I'm
like, we're probably gonna have torefilm almost everything because we look completely different.

(01:02:30):
Dan and I had we didn't havekids when we started, or I
had one kid when we started,and then we realized, like three years
of raising kids, we were likewe had dadded like we had just started,
and we were just like, youknow what, we could probably cover
some of that up if we goblack and white. So it was a
lot of it was just like beingable to utilize footage that was four years

(01:02:52):
difference. Making it black and whiteactually helped that. And uh and like
I said, like over a fouryear period. Yeah, So we went
and filmed on it never registered withme for my thirty first birthday, I
was the same bucket list like Ihad kids, I had you know,

(01:03:13):
a mortgage, a wife, goodjob or good enough job. But I
had never made a feature film.And I didn't even want to do any
of that other stuff, Like allthat other stuff was just like stuff I
kind of ended up doing life justso didn't want the house or the wife.
Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, I didn't want the house.
Didn't want to. I just thoughtI literally never would have thought about it,
like that's just the stuff that naturallyhappens in life. And but like

(01:03:37):
if you had asked me when Iwas, you know, thirteen, what's
one thing you what's your bucket list? I would have been like make a
feature film, Like that's it.That's the only thing I ever consciously thought
of doing. And it hit mythirtieth birthday and hadn't done it. So
for my thirty first birthday, wewere just like, let's go out in
the woods and try this, andso we filmed, got back, looked
at the footage and that's when thewhole rebel without a crew thing started happening.

(01:03:59):
And I went and made The GoodExorcist instead. Over a year,
you know, I mean meaning likefrom writing to be like going to south
By Southwest. That's what how longit took to make The Good Exorcist.
But it was at the it waslike right after we did our Martini shot
on The Good Exorcist, I turnedto Dan and I was like, you
know what we have to do nowright He's like, yeah, we got

(01:04:19):
to finish gray Woods plot. Let'sgo do it. So so I got
back and actually wrote a script.We hadn't had a script the first time,
just like a scriptman note cards likeconcepts. So I actually took what
we had for footage, took theconcept we had, and wrote the script
and actually made it something serviceable.And it's funny because like the first time

(01:04:42):
we went out the scene of meand then get the dog chain around my
neck that we filmed the first time, I just got on the ground,
we saw that dog chain was growninto the tree and we just were like,
let's just do this. And originallyI was supposed to be changed into
a spider Man and when I whenwe saw like the dot that dog chain,
and there was a sequence where wehad Keith and I had improv talking

(01:05:04):
about our favorite animal and he talksabout dog I was like, this is
a this is a movie about man'sbest friend. Like this is that's what
this is. I'm gonna become adog man. So then when I rewrote
the Scream Day, I put thatall in there, and then we took
it more seriously. We had kindof learned and yeah, it was all
just very like kind of like runand gun, figure it out as you

(01:05:26):
go, try things, and moviejust kind of fell into being. But
we did the same thing. Wewere weekend Warriors as well, just filming
in the woods when we could goingto any different location we could find.
I mean, if you watch themovie and pay attention, when it starts
out, there's like flowers blooming andit's spring, and by the end of
the movie it's snowing and it's winter. And the whole thing really only takes

(01:05:46):
place in like a few days.Like it's not like a long it's not
a huge thing. I filmed throughall the seasons. Like there's a scene
where they're walking through the woods andthe leaves are all like falling like crazy.
Yeah, when they find a littlespider thing on the ground. So
it's like those challenges too, Likewe started filming in September. Everything's still
green, and then you know somethingthat takes place two hours later. Suddenly

(01:06:11):
we're in the woods and none ofthe trees at least, but you know,
it makes some of the big youdon't notice it. But I also
think subconsciously, I mentally just thinkof it as being a different area of
the woods. Like it doesn't itdoesn't register as like these are the same
goddamn kinds of trees, like whyaren't there leaves on them? But in
but visually it's it doesn't happen.And the black and white for the or

(01:06:35):
for Greywood plot saves me that too. I don't think people are thinking they're
just because it's black and white.You're not thinking like logically about what's happening
around them. And you literally,you know, see a random animation about
a hobo story killer, people arejust like, I'm just gonna go with
whatever is happening. I loved thoseanimation sequences and I was so jealous.

(01:07:00):
So there's a scene in the Legendof Belochbacabre where one of the characters is
dosed with peote and and yes,yeah, yeah, any any trips out
right, and like we we filmedsomething I wanted to have. You know,
my idea was like kind of aDisney type animation, you know,

(01:07:24):
live action animation thing with flying scrotums, which in the context of the scene
it probably makes sense to you,it makes I know, but but I
couldn't pull off the animation. Iprobably could have done it, but I

(01:07:44):
was just like, I don't havetime to do that. I'm kind of
finished this movie. But so whenI saw your your Hobo animation, and
you know, you have a characterwho's who's tripping and hallucinating and there's animation
there, but yeah, that's that'sfunny. There were actually a lot of
parallels between our two films that youknow, I thought were pretty I thought

(01:08:05):
that was great. Yeah, andthere was a man, there's so many
moments that I was just like sojealous of where I was, Like when
they're walking through the lab and stuffand you've got all these cool props and
all this stuff, I was like, man, I wish I had kind
of stuff we had we just utilized, like having my basement and random art

(01:08:27):
tools and stuff like, it's justso funny. People watch you know,
you watch it, and the thingshe's using, like the what are they
called a stelloscope or whatever the shipit's called. Like you could tell when
someone's an engineering nerd or like alike a tech nerd, because they'll always
point out where they're like the heartmonitor is actually not I'm like, I

(01:08:49):
know what it is. I'm like, I want to pretend that I know
what you're talking about. But butoh, in fact, it may not
be in the version that you evensaw. I think I ended up changing
it eventually, so it whatever,it doesn't matter, but it's really yeah,
it's yeah, the differences. AndI was just gonna say, shooting

(01:09:15):
in that studio was really a treat. You know. It was a big
part of our budget to to getthat constructed. But we were fortunate enough
to be able to recycle a setthat the studio owner had for one of
her sci fi films, so weweren't building it from scratch. Awesome,

(01:09:36):
and so you know, it stillwasn't cheap. It was a big part
of the budget, but just tobe able, like we shot there for
five days and to be able toshoot in a studio, you know,
and and the look of it ofcourse is amazing, but just the convenience,
you know, of like not runningaround in the woods. Yeah,

(01:09:59):
sure, because because that could bevery challenging logistically, you know, And
and the cast and crew just feltlike, Wow, we're shooting in a
studio, you know, this isso cool. So it was a lot
of fun. That is amazing.Where so we got to wrap this up.
But where are Where can people seethe movie? What's happening with it?

(01:10:21):
And how can people follow you?Yeah? So follow at the Chupacabra
Movie on Facebook and Instagram. That'swhere we are most active. At least
right now, the film's only availableon DVD and Blu ray. Awesome,

(01:10:44):
we have a distributor. I don'tknow if you've faced this challenge, but
there is a glut of independent filmsout there trying to get on all of
the streaming platforms, and so itcould be weeks, it could be months
before it gets out on the majorplatforms. And of course to be is

(01:11:06):
the most profitable for indie filmmakers.So that's where we would be pointing to
people. But right now, DV, Blu Ray, if you're into physical
media, you can find it onAmazon, Walmart. If you see the
film, please go on IMDb,Letterbox, Amazon, Leave us a review.

(01:11:30):
You know, that makes a bigdifference in terms of finding an audience
for the film. And so ifyou see it and you love it,
even if you don't, would lovefor you to review the film. Amazing.
Thank you so much for having onthe show. Rob, Yeah,
Josh, this is a great timeman, a lot of fun. Thank
you yeh. Another fantastic episode.Thank you so much to Rob mabray for

(01:11:57):
coming on the show. And gocheck out the Legend of choop Acabra wherever
you can find it. Like hesaid, he's trying to get it on
streaming platforms, but as of rightnow you'll have to hunt it down through
other means and hopefully it will beout soon enough. All right, Well,
that wraps up this episode of LowBudget Rebels. Thank you so much
to everyone who's been going online andwriting reviews, telling their friends posting about

(01:12:19):
it. The sharing, sharing iscaring, As they say, it's really
the only way that I can getthe word out about this is through the
people who like it. If youdig it, make sure to post about
it, post your favorite episodes,go on listen to the back catalog,
and then if there's an episode youlike, share it on social media.
Tell your friends. If you've gotfilmmaker friends, make sure they know about

(01:12:40):
it. And if you have anyonethat you think would be an interesting guest
for the show, make sure tosend them my way. I'm gonna be
doing some podcasts from film festivals.I have a few film festivals, will
be hitting up with my next shortfilm, Little Luca and the Big Deal.
And when we're out there, I'mplanning to start doing in person podcast

(01:13:01):
episodes, recording with the filmmakers andmore of like fireside chat style sit down
with independent filmmakers, not over theinternet and have a nice long conversation.
So I'm pretty excited about that.We have a couple more episodes lined up
for season five. I am stillputting them together. But like I said,
if you have anyone you think ifyou want to be a guest,

(01:13:23):
if you're a filmmaker, you've madea feature, you have some stuff out
there you want to get on andpromote, send me a message. I'm
on all the social media's on Facebook, on Instagram, at Flush Studios,
on Twitter or x or whatever youwant to call it, at Josh Stifter
and at Flush Studios. So justreach out to me. You can also

(01:13:45):
email me. Flush Studios at gmaildot com is where you can reach me
to contact about the podcast. Allright, until next time, this has
been great, Keep kicking ass,keep making the movies you want to make,
and, as always Stammeredbellious Low BudgetRebels is brought to you by the

(01:14:06):
indie film Hustle Network, recorded atFlush Studios headquarters in tropical Atlanta, Produced
by the film daddy Josh Stifter,Blabla Baboo