Season 5 Episode 17: THE ZOMBIE WEDDING Director Micah Khan

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

Speaker 2 (00:15):
There are some questions I'd like to ask.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
You, oh budget rebels on cast.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't tell me you're taking all this seriously, because
it's like a condenser microphone, so you can you can
directionally say if you wanted to use the whole microphone,
just the front, just the sides. I had it set
to just the front, so it was very honed in

(00:47):
on my tones, and I thought it sounded weird as
I was recording, and Mike even said it was. It
sounded kind of hollow, and I couldn't. I didn't even
think about the fact that the microphone might be facing
the wrong direction because I usually have it all directional,
but I had changed it up for a vo I
did for a video for my day job. So long

(01:07):
story short, I'm a fucking idiot, and the sound in
this episode is not the best it can be, but
you know what, the conversation is so fucking good that
I have to put it out there. Because Micah Khan
came on the show. Micah con directed this movie, his
first feature film, called The Zombie Wedding. And I've been
following Micah for a while because he was on the
show The People's Network Showcase, which was a program that

(01:31):
Robert Rodriguez did on l Ray Network where he had
filmmakers bring their short films on talk about them. He
invited them out to his studio and then they would film,
talk about their short film, talk about the process, and
then they would play the short film and it was
a really wonderful program. You don't get to see independent

(01:52):
short films, and they'd always be themed. The episodes were themed.
I loved that, Like I was on the animation episode
and then I later was on one. I think they
did a whole series that were devoted to Rebel without
a Crew. Maybe I'm not exactly sure how it worked,
but I did one for Rebel without a Crew where
they showed one of my short films that was on
the program, and it was a great show, a great

(02:16):
little show. I was so proud to have been a
part of it. And Micah was on the show as well.
So when I started watching l Ray Network more, I
was watching Lray Network for a while based on they
had Luca Underground. I was a fan of Luca Underground,
so I would tune in and watch l Ray Network.
That's how I found out about the People's Network showcase,
sent in the short and ended up on Robert's reality

(02:38):
show Rebel without a Crew. But following Micah, I was
a big fan of his short film, so when I
found out he did a feature I had posted on
Facebook asking if anyone wanted to help me finish up
this season five. I've got five more episodes after this
one I want to do, and Micaeh was one of
the people who reached out and said, I have a
new feature film called The Zombie Wedding that's screening in

(03:00):
theaters right now, and it is it's playing at limited
release right now, but you can also watch it all
over the place. So go check out The Zombie Wedding
after you listen to this podcast, because I think it
is so insightful hearing someone like Micah talk and talk
about the issues like I was about to talk about
the fact that I'm doing the short film with my
buddy Sean Ashley RS Trashy. He does these sort of

(03:24):
trauma like movies called Homicide McLoud. They're very fun, spoofy
cop detective movies, and he's going to be working on
my new movie, Get That Dick that is starring him
and my son Max, Private Detective movie as well, and.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
We've been working.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
He asked me to help him with this short film,
so I helped shoot it. I was there for the shoot.
I worked through some of the story with him and whatever,
and then I was going to edit the first pass
of it. I ended up editing the whole thing for him,
just because it's the way it worked, partially because of
these technical issues. So when I was doing the mix,
because I was going to do the sound mix, I

(04:03):
brought it into audition. An audition has so many issues
right now version twenty four, I am like, I'm just
flabbergasted by how difficult it's been to work with. So
I actually, in recording this introduction, had to go back
to version twenty three because I couldn't stand the issues
I was having with the mix, and now working on

(04:23):
this podcast and recording, I was having issues. And there
seems to be all these little updates with software or
with cameras or with other things that get in the way,
and the technical issues can be a complete detriment to creativity.
It just throws me off sometimes, And as you know,
I've been doing this now for twenty years, so you

(04:46):
know the last ten years have been feature filmmaking. And
as I've been trying to work on the new feature Scumbag,
I've noticed so many little issues that I didn't have
on the last project. So maybe it's you know, footage
getting bigger, my computer can't keep up, or whatever. But
I don't think it's computer issue because I have a
very nice computer and for some reason I'm having technical issues.
If anyone else is having tech technical issues, go over

(05:08):
to speakpipe dot com slash low budget rebels. I think
that's what it's called speed pop speakpipe dot com slash
low budget rebels. That sounds right. Leave me a message,
because I want to hear from you guys the technical
issues you've had and how you figured them out. Like
flipping my microphone is one thing that was an easy fix,
and I can't even compare that because that's just stupidity.

(05:30):
Yet it's fine, it's just absolute stupidity. But the technical issues,
like going back to version twenty three fixed all my issues,
like it instantly has started working. I'm not having the
latency issues I'm having no problem moving around. Like literally,
I was having this issue where if I click on
an audio file, it takes like two, like literally two seconds,

(05:54):
like one two, three, three seconds probably before it actually
clicks the file. So every little thing I want to
do takes time that I don't have when I'm trying
to do a feature film, a short film, work, the podcast,
all these other things. Three seconds over and over and
over and over and over adds up and it kills

(06:14):
my productivity and I hate it. So I'd love to
hear from you guys. Speakpipe dot com slash Low Budget Rebels.
Also before I get started on this, Patreon dot com
slash Flush Studios is how you can hear this podcast
ad free. It's where you can see the making of
my new movie, Get That Dick. There's already six videos
up there behind the scenes right up until the point

(06:35):
where we go into production. We're gonna be going going
into production probably next week, and you can see the
entire process of writing the script, talking to Sean, figuring
out how we're gonna do the movie, and the script reading.
The last episode was all about the We did a
script reading of Get That Dick and had Max, my
son Daniel Dagnan and my producer and Sean Ashley, all

(06:59):
of us discussing the making of this movie and it's
been incredibly fun so, but there's also thousands of other posts,
every podcast I've done, every You can watch my feature films,
you can watch a you also if you subscribe today
not today, ever, if you subscribe when you're listening to this,
I will send you my two feature films and a

(07:23):
bonus something that you can watch a certain series that
you may be interested in seeing that's very hard to find,
and if you're interested in that, make sure to head
over to Patreon dot com slash Flush Studios subscribe, And
most importantly, it truly helps support this independent art. It
allows me to be able to pay the people that
I bring on to the set to make these projects.

(07:43):
So if you're interested in helping out, please consider subscribing
Patreon dot com, slash Flush Studios. All right, without further ado,
here is my I really love this conversation. Mike a
Con is a great dude and was full of insightful information.
Some of the stuff he talked about is it's stuff
I've never heard before on a podcast because it is

(08:04):
a different kind of movie it's a new studio, it's
their first attempt at a film. It's low budget, but
it isn't no budget, So hearing what it was like
to work with a cast and crew that was some
of them were young and willing to go with the flow.
Others were far more you know, set in their ways,
and I think there's a lot of that on movie sets,

(08:25):
and I kind of discussed it as well, what I've
dealt with before on those kind of sets. So great conversation.
Without further ado, here is my little chat with Micha Khan. Well,
let's start from the top. I'm curious, Michael, what were
some of your like earliest memories like of being interested

(08:48):
in film? What made you go towards the visual arts
in this sort of way.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Actually, it's pretty funny. I mean I grew up. I
grew up in an immigrant household. My parents are from Pakistan,
and uh, you know, we grew up watching a lot
of American action movies and Bollywood musicals. So that's kind
of like my brain was split as a child. It
was like I loved musicals and I loved Terminator two.
You know, it was specifically Terminator two. Can still the

(09:15):
movie I talk about every single day.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, but such different, like such a varying type of film.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's definitely. It definitely split me down
the middle for a long time. And then as as
my teenage years, I got more into like horror films,
so like specifically Army of Darkness was like one of
my first like I love this movie. It was my
first Sam Raimi film I ever seen. And then I
went and found his other films and uh, and then

(09:45):
it was just definitely like my path into film was
is a was. It was a couple of things too.
It was like, yeah, I had my influences, like I
have my like James Cameron Spielberg, Ridley Scott Gandy Tartakowski,
which is like he's an animation director, He's one of
my favorite directors. He. I had my influences, but there
was like a specific chain of events that I'm starting

(10:06):
I remember now. Uh, when I from when I was
a kid was one I watched a movie called Bollywood Hollywood,
which is a Canadian Canadian film, uh, and it was
about like Canadian like Canadians dealing with their identities and
like I was like, oh, it was a first. It
was a film by Deepa Matha. It was the first

(10:29):
time I ever kind of realized like, oh, there's people
in America making movies that look like me, and I
never experienced that before. And then and then also American
Dacy was another one, uh that came out and it
was just such a weird, wacky movie. I was like, Oh, okay,
so we're also allowed to be funny too. It's not
just like big romances, it's not just like you know,

(10:51):
over the top action. It's like we can just be
people too. And then this is the this is the
part that really did it in for me. And I
didn't know it at the time, but it was Signed.
I absolutely love the movie Signs. And I was watching
something on TV and m night, Shyamalan showed up and
my mom or my mom was like, that's the director.

(11:13):
And I was like, what do you mean that's the director?
Like that guy looks like me. Yeah, And then that's
that's really what did it. It was like it was it
was just knowing that there's other people because like when
you grow up in the South Asian household, there are
no options for you as a career. There's only doctors
or engineers. That's it, you know, and you're told since

(11:35):
birth that if you don't do any one of those things,
you're disowned. And when I told my parents I wanted
to be in film, they didn't talk to me for
like two years, you know, because it was such a
like wild shock for them. Now they're fine. They my
dad finally texted me, I'm proud of you after thirty
two years of being alive. If you watched this movie,
which was so weird experience.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's amazing, you know. I think this is a similar
story for a lot of people. Where it is, you know,
we all have our weird our different backgrounds, and it's
overcoming that element of like it's possible, Like it just
seems so impossible. I just remember, like growing up or
or there are people out there, people in your life

(12:18):
who are essentially making it seem like that's so outside
of the realm of your existence, and so it becomes
this thing because I grew up. I mean, I'm a
white dude. It's in theory. I see myself on screen
every day of my life, like literally I'm everywhere. But

(12:38):
you know, growing up in like a religious household, it
was like you don't make movies because that's evil, that's
Satan's work. It's so it was always this thing of
like having to get over there's always even into my thirties,
there was this thing in the back of my head
where I was like working on my second movie, Greywood's
plot and some of the themes are really kind of dark,
and I, like my childhood Christian upbringing, was going like

(13:01):
you can't do that, Like, don't do that, that's too dark,
and so like, yeah, overcoming those I could see the
pastor like over the top of me watching me as
I'm getting my face cut up and stuff in the
movie and just being like, oh, he would so not
be okay with this. But I think, you know, you
overcome those things and when you have that moment of

(13:21):
screw it, like I can do that. Okay, I'm gonna
do that. Those a right, those are what you like
strive for.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Yeah, those those moments of like I wish someone told
me earlier that you can do it. You just gotta
do it your own way, yes, Like I just wish
someone like when I was like fifteen even was just like, hey,
you can make films, like you can. You just this
is how you do it properly, because even in high school.
I was like, I was making a little short, shitty

(13:48):
short films like uh, and I would just call them
YouTube sketches, right, because that's what that's my only frame
of reference was YouTube at the time. Because I was like,
no one had told me this, like short films exist.
No one told me, like, isn't like you could you
could do this that whatever? You can submit to film festivals?

Speaker 2 (14:03):
No one.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
I mean I didn't know about that until I was like,
you know, nineteen, you know what's a film festival. So
it was like it was very interesting to like finally
get my my head around. I mean, I just I
do wish that somebody had told me when I was
a little bit younger, because I feel like I wish
I learned I started learning sooner because I had a
lot of I had a learning curve. But that's part

(14:24):
of the reason why I jumped into making so many
goddamn short films when I when I first started.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's that thing of like you wish
you could give yourself a note at fifteen to like
tell yourself, because the reality is no one, no one
had the frame of reference to actually tell you. No
one in your life was there to go like yeah,
like do this this way. There's these festivals the internet.
Even now, like watching my son he's eleven and he's

(14:50):
got a dad who makes movies. I tell him anything
he wants to know about. I help him with it
and stuff like that, and it's still like so challenging
to wrap your head around because you are coming from
a very specific place. Yeah, so you would know what yeah,
fifteen year old needs to hear, like you would understand it.
But for us, it's like trying to tell my son
what he needs to hear. It's tough.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean especially now like when I
talk to like students and stuff like that, like are
people who are just trying to figure out how to
make films and just like start small, start real small,
like start with can you tell a story in one shot?
Can one singular shot and static shot? Can you tell
a story in three shots? You know? Can you? Can
you tell story in seven? Give yourself a limitation in

(15:35):
each one? Can you okay, you have three setups? How
do you tell a story? You know? And that I
think I feel like that helps people, especially recently, like
as I'm meeting like you know, my me and my
team have started an organization where we live to help, like,
you know, people figure out how to make films. And
so we meet people who are like, hey, I want

(15:55):
to be in the film industry. I want to right,
want to drag, but I have no idea what I'm
doing under touch the camera. And so we just teach
them how to do everything, you know, and we invite
them on sets and we you know, we put together
projects for people. We produce no budget projects for them,
just so they can make their movies. And then if
any problems arise or they need advice, like, we're there
to help them, but we're not there to overstep and

(16:16):
be like this is how you do it. We're like,
do it if you have questions, if you're if you're worried,
if you want our opinion, we're here, but we're not
gonna step over you. You know, we're not gonna We're
not gonna be like, all right, this is how you
do it properly. It's like, no, how does it work
for you? Because there's also that element of like, you know,
filmmaking the way that like the right way, like the

(16:38):
like the big budget filmmaking style is not right for
everyone you know, it's and also it's super ablest, right.
It's like, you know, if we're gonna make movies the
way people want us to, then we have to we
have to you know, what if someone's autistic and they
want to make films and they just can't deal with
the stimulation or like you know, of being on set,
or they just can't you know, they need time to

(16:59):
think about it, shot, how do we accommodate.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
That, you know?

Speaker 4 (17:02):
And those are the things that like we're trying to
work towards in our community because we have a few
you know, neurodivergent filmmakers that we're working with who were like,
we don't know how to make films, so, you know,
and we we're stressed out about it. And I'm like, great,
we'll take you from you know, step one to step
step twelve, you know, however fast you need it to be.

(17:22):
You know, our goal is just to help you make
your films, you know, like we were. I was just
talking another filmmaker who's just like, you know, going going
through something right now, and they're like, I want to
make a film, but I'm They're like, but I don't
think I'm gonna be ready for like another year. I
was like, hey, when that year is up, we're here,
you know, like just you know, trying to build that
community and also find new people who are like, hey,

(17:44):
we want to make movies and hopefully help them in
some way.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
I think that's fantastic because I think you hit one
real important point that I've tried to use with my
kids and even in like even yesterday, I was filming
helping a friend with a short film. And I have
my way of doing things. I've directed enough stuff now
that I know the right way for myself. I've also
worked in, you know, bigger budget stuff enough I've seen

(18:11):
the industry and the way the industry works versus the
way I work on a low budget movie. And I
think I think it's a detriment to a lot of
people that I've met who are work in the industry,
work on bigger stuff, that their concept of trying to
actually make their story is almost impossible. They'll probably never
do it, if I'm being honest, because they are so
ingrained in the rules of filmmaking, like how you have

(18:34):
to follow those rules. And this whole podcast is about
low budget filmmaking and the reason I'm still drawn to
low budget filmmaking is the fact that I don't have
to follow those rules, like I can do stuff outside
of them now. I think those rules are there for
a reason. They're fantastic for big budget movies. I feel
like even now, like finding ways to follow SEG rules,

(18:54):
finding ways to like keep inside of you know, at
least play a little bit inside of the game. It's important.
But there's also this element of like, like people you're
talking about, the people who are learning, people like my son,
who he's not going to follow SAG rules like he
doesn't he's eleven. He's just got to learn how to
make stuff and fail and succeed. Like you could easily

(19:14):
walk in there and be like, I've learned so much.
Here's the five things you need to do right now,
and if you don't do these, you're going to fail.
But that would be such a It would set people
back because that's instantly just setting them up for failure
in their brain. But being like, you, guys, try it
and see what happens.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
My son and I.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Made this skit like a couple of weeks ago, and
this weekend he showed it to the family, and you know,
some of the jokes didn't hit. Some of the stuff did,
but it was just this moment of like watching him
watch people and be like, what's working? What is it?
How do what do I do next time? That would
make them laugh? And maybe this joke isn't for them?

(19:55):
Like learning his audience. Those things are so important.

Speaker 4 (19:59):
Yes, yes, figuring out like yeah, that's that's the biggest,
biggest thing with like making so much stuff. Yeah, you know,
just like you want to see what works. I tell
everyone's like, you're gonna imitate people in the beginning. Everyone does,
and then you start to figure out like what you like,
and that's the key in filmmaking, you know, And I
tell everybody is like what you can You can imitate

(20:21):
Edgar Wright, you can imitate George Romarrow, whatever whatever filmmaker
you want, But start to figure out what about those
films you like, like because there's there's a clear reason
you're gravitating towards those things, and then figure out how
that works within your specific voice. And that's how you
figure out your voice, you know, like that that's that's
the reason why those old masters are there, right, Like

(20:42):
I'm you know, I'm a big fan of Ridley Scott.
I'm not going to get to that level yet, but
that's the movie. That's the type of moves I want
to be making, sure, you know. And also, like you know,
what you were saying is like those those no budget
filmmaking things, they they do come into play as you're
like making these bigger budget movies, you know, especially like
you know Loui I just made. There were multiple things

(21:05):
that we did where you know, when I was talking
to the producers and the writer, you know, there was
a scene where there's a ceremony, right, and there's gotta
be like there's gotta be one hundred fifty or one
hundred extras in it, right. I was like, and in
the script they're written that they're sitting in the pews, right,
They're all there, and only the bride and groom and
the preachers are are standing up front. And I was like, listen,

(21:27):
if you let me just have everyone stand up front
at the ceremony, I can shoot all the extra stuff
in one day and then we don't need them for
the rest of the shoot. We can just have the
entire cast upfront. I can just break it into sections.
So here is all the extra, like what we need
the extras for and then from like the next four days,
I need to shoot in this direction and we're good

(21:49):
and you save a ton of money that way. And
they were like, oh, okay, yea, let's do that, you know.
And there's little things like that, and like, you know,
we I remember there was a there was a moment
where we lost a location the day of and we're
supposed to shoot We're supposed to shoot it in a motel.
And so I was talking to writer and I was like, okay,

(22:10):
so what what can we rewrite this as? And then
I invited my production designer, John Stegman. I was like,
what can we do? And John Stegman, my production I
was like, I was in the basement and I saw
diner booths down there. I can build a diner in
like an hour, Yeah, in the corner of the production office,

(22:31):
and we can shoot this whole scene as if it
was in a diner. And I was like, Okay, Greg,
you're gonna rewrite this scene for it to be in
a diner, and and John's gonna go build the diner.
And so we built the diner literally from just like
stuff that was in the basement of this office. And
if you if you were to shoot any any way left,
you would see the entire production yeah yeah, yeah. And

(22:54):
then if you shoot any left, you would see the
entire makeup department. So we had this little sliver of hey,
we made a diner. It looks real, you know. But
it's like you can only shoot straight, you can't shoot
in any other direction. And that's how you adapt, you know,
because you and I like we're people who just like, Okay,
things go wrong, let's pivot. And that's I think the

(23:14):
real benefit of low budget filmmaking is the art of
the pivot.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah. Man, you don't have the option to throw money
at it and figure it out by like talking to
fifty different people. Instead you're stuck going like, we lost
our motel, What can we do? What do we have
right here? And it's always like one person or two people.
And you also know, I think doing a bunch of
short films, doing a bunch of sketches, random stuff, you

(23:40):
learn what it's going to look like when it's done,
not what your human eye is seeing right now. And
I think so many people, I mean I saw it
yesterday where we were filming a scene and I'm like,
you guys are seeing this, what you're seeing is not
what the audience is seeing. What think about what the
audience is going to be thinking. So like the shot

(24:01):
for the edit, Yeah, this shot in that moment, and
and well, god, thinking of the edit last night was
the perfect example of that where I'm because I'm literally
like editing the project so as I'm shooting, because I
was shooting and I'm going to edit, and a different
guy was directing and wrote the whole thing. So it's
very different for me because I'm not usually doing those
two sides of it where I'm on set, but I'm

(24:21):
also going to be editing. Usually i'm either editing, i'm
camera or I'm directing. So taking up, like taking on
two sides that aren't directing was very different from me.
And but because I knew how I was going to edit,
there were moments where I'm like, okay, you have it
like this in the script, but we're cutting to the
same guy twice. According to the script, we need to
either be in a wye and an a close up,

(24:43):
or we need to shoot something else that we can
cut away to. Otherwise we're just seeing the same thing
twice in a row. And like no one on set
could wrap their head around it in the moment, and
it's one of those moments that you would have got
to the edit and been like, I gotta figure out
how I'm gonna fix this, but being able to tell
them visually what they're going to be and like trying
to explain the edit in their home and everyone was like, oh,

(25:04):
oh that makes sense. Okay, here's why we have to
change it. Let's flip these two. And it was so
fun to like be able to edit as I was
shooting on someone else's project, someone else's free.

Speaker 4 (25:15):
Yeah. I mean, that's the benefit of having people who
are very experienced in filmmaking on your set, especially like
when you're just starting directing or stuff like that, so
that guy you know, really owes you one.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
But even even in people who are used to it,
I think when you're you're in the zone and you've
written it, you see it in your head. Sometimes it's
hard to see it any other way, and in your
head it worked because you're not necessarily thinking about the cuts.
You're thinking about the emotional connection, and those two are
very different things.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
Yeah, yeah, you know that's I definitely you know you
and I, you know, we've done a ton of stuff like,
you know. That's the other thing is like edit your
own stuff from the beginning, Yeah, because you really start
to figure out like, Okay, here are the mistakes I made.
I wish I got, you know, a little bit more
coverage here or something, you know, like where I could
get out of the scene sooner, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
And keep it simple. You talked about the one shot
idea and doing things simple. It's something I've learned working
with my son as well this past few weeks. Is
I'm so jaded, like as far as like a, I've
got six mics set up, I've got you know, multiple
camera shoots, I've got I know the angles, I know everything.
So when I when Max sat down, my son sat

(26:26):
down to edit the thing, he was like, what is
all of this? Like what is you got coverage from
so many angles? I don't even know where to start.
And I was like, oh, yeah, that would be incredibly
challenging for the first time.

Speaker 4 (26:38):
Yeah it's overwhelming.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, you know, I don't know how you learned, but
I learned like straight up editing in camera basically like
I got very little extra footage. I got what I got,
and that's what it looked like. I you know, even editing.
In the early days on VHS tape, it was like
you didn't shoot anything extra. I had a double deck
tape that I could cut between, but that you were

(27:01):
just taking like this chunk and removing these five frames
and this chunk and removing these five frames. Now I
just shoot like crazy and can work with twenty five
takes of any line. And I'm spoiled. But someone who
isn't spoiled hasn't done it. It's tough for them.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Right, yeah. I you know, when I first started, I
started on this like, God, I have it somewhere here.
My first camera was this HD cam. It was just
like this tiny, little square thing that my dad had
just randomly bought one day and he was like, it
was like twenty bucks. I bought it, and that's when
I started making these little short films on it. Geez,

(27:39):
I don't even know where it is. I wish I
could show you, but it's somewhere here. It's such a
silly looking thing.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yes, dude, I have like so many random My wife
hates it because I have, like in storage, I have
so many cameras, every piece of gear I've ever bought,
or like every little I mean, one of the worst
things that ever happened to me was is going into
Roberts rodriguez Is airplane hangar that is Troublemaker Studios and

(28:09):
seeing everything he's kept throughout the years, because I literally
like walked through there going like I'm never getting rid
of anything, Like I want this someday. I'm gonna keep
every wheelchair, I buy every you know, crazy prop because
that's what that was. Just eye opening what you can
use and what you can utilize later.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, museum too is filmmaking that I remember watching Rebel
Without a Crew that that was an awesome show. I
wish I really wish that came back too.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Man. I would love a second season of it or
like a new series of it, because number one, it's
fun to watch. It's fun to watch people succeed and fail.
It's fun to learn from them and what they do.
Like I learned so much just not just being on
the show, just watching it back and being like, oh shit,
that's what we were doing. Wow, that's crazy, like I

(29:06):
had no idea, but also just the inspiration I get
watching people do stuff like that, Like I want more
things like that. I wish more filmmakers who are learning
would be a gutsy enough to show it because it is.
It's it's terrifying to do to be like you're going

(29:26):
to see my failures. You're gonna see my successes, but
you're really gonna see my failures. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
I tell everyone all my failures, so I'm like, listen,
I'm not. No one's perfect. Yeah, we all make mistakes.
And I think that's the other thing, like, especially with
your son, is like you gotta let them make their
mistakes because they're not actually gonna learn if they don't
make their own mistakes because you can tell them, you know, like, hey,
this is how you do it, and this is how
you're gonna you're gonna stay safe. And they're like, well,
I have a vision, and you know, let them have
their visions because their visions adapt. And I think that's

(29:54):
the key, is like you know, people people figure out
how things work for them, right Like so yeah, I
mean I could definitely see like how a six camera
setup would have overwhalllmed me in the beginning.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, or even simpleff like being on the shoot yesterday.
They they still shoot with smaller footage because they don't
know the like back the back editing stuff of what
I can do with like eight K footage, to proxy it,
to actually work with it, like all of the technical
stuff that goes into it. So like I took the
camera and when I was filming yesterday, took the black

(30:26):
Magic and flipped it over to like the highest res
four K the camera could shoot. And they were just
like what are you what are you doing? Like how
are you gonna edit this? Cause it's a it's a
quick turnaround short film com like a forty eight hour
type thing. It's not forty eight but it's just a
fun thing for us to do before fall hits. And
they're like, how are we going to edit this with
this big footage? And I'm like, you guys, I'm gonna

(30:48):
proxy and I know exactly what I'm doing. So when
I sat back and edit the next day of what
we had filmed the day before, they were like, wow,
did you do that? Like how is this possible? And
I'm like it's experienced, Like I've done this for so long.
I know what I'm doing, But I could never tell
my son like dude, here's eight K footage, go cut it.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
Yeah, I will say. Once people get to that phase,
I think that, like, the higher resolutions really changed the
game in terms of like for me for low budget filmmaking,
because you could reframe.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Oh yeah, ude, I do it. I still do everything
in two K because none of the like I finished
in two K, but I've got like six K footage
I'm working with because I can punch in, I can
do slow digital pushes, I can reframe things I need.
It's a crutch to me, honestly at this point because
if you gave me, because when I got on Rebel
without you.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
And David Fincher, You're okay, You're in the right, You're
in the you're in the same boat.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, dude. When I got on Rebel and they gave
me the camera that was only ten ADP, I was like,
so screwed because I've been so used to four K.
I was like, I don't know what to do with
somebody that what they did. And I had to like
when I was editing, I would come home from shooting
all day and sit down and edit at the house

(32:00):
we were in and I would be like, I have
no room with this. I have what am I doing?
How am I supposed to work with this? And had
to teach myself over the two weeks how to reframe
for ten eighty and not screw myself over. And that
was actually the reason why I ended up, you know,
doing like fake bars to make it look I didn't.

(32:20):
I didn't do it because I wanted to look more cinematic.
I wanted that little extra up and down for if
the boom was in the shot.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
Yeah, yeah, you need it. Yeah, And that's that's I
think that's you just you just gave away a top
secret secret right there. As the using that's the reason
we use letterboxes, you know, is really just to hide
the boom.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
It really is choices. Yeah, I love it. And you know,
at the end of the day, when I saw it
on the big screen, I was like, you know, it
makes it look more cinematic. It's cool. I like it
for something because it's low budget, because I'm working very simple.
It does give it a little extra boost. But it
also is yeah, totally is a crutch to be able

(33:01):
to move up and down. And uh so in your
early I want to go back really quick before we
move on to the new project. But in those early
days you were talking about picking up the camera. Do
you remember any of those shorts you did any of
the stuff. The skits, do you.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
Have every single one of them? I remember every single
one I've done. I just don't know where they are
right exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
I've lost every single one of them.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Yeah uh, you know, my god, I remember every single one.
I remember exactly what it was like filming them. And
I don't even remember high school that much. I just
remember the things I made during high school, and like
and I played. I played a lot of World of
Warcraft too, and that was that was definitely one of
the things I remember, is well, playing too much World
of Warcraft. But yeah, man, I remember all of it.

(33:46):
It's it's so weird to think about all the little
short films that I have. And I have maybe like
one yeah, from that era left. And I recently my
the the organization that I we created up here called
five on a Film Network. We started a film festival
called Cringe Best. If anyone wants to do it, tag
us because we want to see what you do. The
idea is that we choose a couple of filmmakers, we

(34:07):
screen their very first work or their worst work, and
then their latest and see how they've grown as a filmmaker.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Oh, I love that so much.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
Yeah, it was so much fun.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
I would love to dig up something old and something
and put a shot, send you a short like one
of these littler ones and that is that's a fantastic idea.
And if there's nothing more fun, Like Robert Rodriguez has
been pretty good about it. I know, Kevin Smith has
posted some of his older stuff for people to see,

(34:37):
and like, even I watched Tarantino's first attempt at a
feature you like. It's on YouTube, the called The Best Friends. Yeah,
and it's you just watch it going like, wow, that's crazy,
like the dichotomy between that and there's great little moments
you get a few little tarantinoisms in it or whatever,

(34:59):
but you're just like, this is not reservoir.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Dogs, Like this is not it.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, it's not it. Oh, that's such a fun idea.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yeah, if anyone out there wants to do cringe Fest,
just just tag five one A Film Network or Ember
Autumn Sky, our member who came up with the idea.
She was the Architecture's like I really want to do this,
Mat It's like, let's do it, and we've never looked back.
It's the best idea. Ember. Thank you. Shout out to you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
I actually I've posted multiple times on social media where
I'm like, please, for the love of God, if anyone
has insert project, I would love to see that old
crist I did this one. Yeah, we made this music
video called The Plastic Surgeons of Rock and Roll, and
it was like the worst hilarious like attempt at It's

(35:49):
like the perfect blend of guys who know that they're cringe,
but also at an era where it was so truly
cringe because we didn't have the technology to even do
what we were attempting to do. Oh I wish I
had it still, but I definitely, damn. I definitely could
dig on a few older ones where you'd just be like, wow,
this is something else, like.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
Grim I love it. I love it, and I love
embracing that, like because it's the idea is a celebration too.
It's like, yeah, we all kind of start in a
bad place, Like we we like to pretend like our
first short films are oscar qualifying things, but like you know,
we're all growing and we're all we all start in
a place where it's like not great. I mean like

(36:30):
I've made thirty four short films. Yeah, you know, all
no budget short films. I've never had a budget in
a short film. I've always been like, you know, my
first ten short films was just me with a shoulder
rig attached, and then I would duct tape a selfie
stick with an iPhone at the end of it for audio,
and then I would just be like and like And

(36:53):
then it got to the point where like people were like, yo,
do you need help? And I was like, yeah, because
I was. I was. I was shooting, I was doing sound,
I was editing, I was lighting, I was I was
doing all the VFX, all the sound design, every single
thing I was doing. I learned how to color grade,
I did. I did all those things myself, and it

(37:14):
was so nice when people were like, hey, let's let's
do let's help this guy, because he's just crazy enough
to just start doing stuff. Yeah, CRITI things. That was
the thing. And then my early short films I was like,
for me, it wasn't It wasn't about like, oh, I
want to make something so people can see it and
be like, look how great I am. It was like,

(37:36):
I want to do something where I can try new
things for each one, so like, you know, for this one, okay,
I really want to play with. How does the lighting
tell the story? For this one? How does the editing
tell the story? How does how does the camera movement
tell the story? How does like and this? How how
do actors tell the story? How does blocking tell the story?
And for each one, I tried something new and I

(37:57):
and that's something I was like, I don't know how
my stupid little nineteen year old, twenty year old brain
even thought to even do that.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
It's necessity, I think you do, like I think you're
your young brain was like, I want to make video,
Like it's that simple. It's just like I want to
do video. And then you do video ones and then
you're like, oh, this sound is terrible. I want to
try sound, and then you then you watch it and
you're like, then you your sound is a little bit better,
but you're like, oh, but the visuals didn't keep up.

(38:25):
And you're like, I really want to figure out why
this why Alien is lit better than my crappy movie
that was kind of supposed to look like Alien. And
then you're like, Okay, I got the lighting a little
bit better. But you see some little thing on the
internet or you read a book where someone did something
and you're.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
Like, oh, I want to do that.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
I want to try squibs. I wonder what it would
be like to try squibs. So everything is just based
on like trying something, and that, truly, I don't think
that that ever goes away. I remember watching Robert working
on Red Elevin and just being in him being like,
I wanted to try this thing I saw somewhere and
I was like, oh, you're still like a kid playing
film like it never goes away. I love it.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah. I think that's the biggest thing with filmmaking is
that you just got to go into with a learning
mentality like, hey, yeah, I don't have all the answers.
Hey I'm here to learn just as much as everybody
else is. And I'm like, I think that's like I mean,
I think Scorsese said it's like the second you start learning,
stop being a student. You're debt as a Yeah, you
know I made be misquoting him.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
No, I know what you're talking about, and I know
there's I went through a phase where I went through
like every David Lynch interview possible, and like David Lynch,
the one thing I've learned is there's that like quote
where David says something and they're like, can you you know,
can you go into that more or talk more about that?
He just goes no, And I'm like, I realize that's

(39:45):
kind of a go to for him because he doesn't well,
he does love to help people, he wants to teach them.
He also knows he doesn't have every correct answer. He
has his reason, his story, his like visual way of,
you know, getting the thing out there, but he doesn't
have your answer. So the more the more he goes

(40:08):
into detail or pontificates about, especially stuff like story, David
Lynch is the master of like the dream like it's
all his own interpretation. So the more he goes into
the story. Yeah, the more he tells you what his
story is, the more he ruins it for himself. So
he's not going to do it.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he doesn't want to get He maybe
secretly he doesn't want to get to the answer of
it either, because once you get to the answer, you're like, okay,
well now I know the mystery right.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
It's one of my favorite things about my second movie,
Greywood's plot. I had my own interpretation of it. I
have my own reasons for doing it the way I
did it, and I learned the more people are like
I complain about a certain element of it, whether it's
the beginning or the end, because the beginning, one group
of people loves the first half, hates the second half.
One group of people hates the second or loves the

(40:55):
second half hates the first half. And I've learned, like,
that's what I love about the whole movie is because
it is a little bit of everything thrown into it.
And I have yet to hear someone say they turned
the movie off because it is one of those things
where either you hate it so much you continue watching
till it you love it, or you love it so
much that you get to the halfway point and you're like, oh,
now I hate this, but I have to finish the

(41:17):
train wreck.

Speaker 4 (41:18):
Yeah, I love. I love those movies where, like I
do love there are those movies that are out there
that are like, I gotta turn this off, like it's
it's great. But I love those movies that are like
I disagree with this, but I can't stop watching.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Here's the thing I hate. I hate nothing more than
people who say, like, I don't hate people. I understand it.
But when someone says I would have done this different
or I would have done. It's like, yeah, go do
it different, Like.

Speaker 4 (41:42):
That's doing different.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yet this filmmaker is, at the end of the day,
an artist in some way. Even on the biggest budget movies,
the ones that you go like it's just popcorn, it's
just trash, there is someone behind that who put a
lot of work into it. Yeah. I remember just now
or just recently reading about the Borderlands movie. I haven't
seen it. I know nothing about it, but like apparently
Eli Roth had a completely different vision early on and

(42:06):
things just kind of became like a mess throughout the process,
and the actors were like, yeah, man, we did that
three years ago, like that, it's not like the same
thing that we had talked about. We don't. These movies
don't come together like that. So if you watch Borderlands,
were like it was trash, I'd do something different, go
do that thing, like I would love to see your

(42:27):
low budget Wasteland R rated version of that kind of concept.
And who knows, maybe twenty years from now you'll be
doing the Borderlands remake that is Gorey and what you
want it to be.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
I I don't think people realize as soon as money
gets involved in a movie. How much control you do
not have.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Instantly instantly, And it's not even a lot of money.

Speaker 4 (42:48):
This project that I did, like you know, like I'm
really grateful for the opportunity to work with a budget,
but like I didn't have final cut of this movie.
It was the it was the brand. Yeah, dude, you
know they were let's talk about this.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
I want to talk about the movie because the movie,
for for those who don't know, it's called The Zombie Wedding, right, Yeah,
so the Zombie Wedding. Tell me about Tell me about
the movie a little bit.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Yeah, So The Zombie Wedding is the first movie for
the from the Weekly World News is production. So they're
like a famous like tabloid from the nineties and the
eighties that were like really famous for like bat Boy
found in a Cave or or Hillary Clinton sleeping with
aliens and Chelsea Clinton is half aliens and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Stuff beside as a kid, and you were just like,
what this.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
Yeah, it was basically parody of The National Inquirer, which
a National Inquirer is already kind of a parody. Yeah,
it's their it was their first movie. So it was
really they're like they're they're stepping into filmmaking, and so
this this was meant to like kind of launch their
their filmmaking slate, The Zombie Wedding. It's based on one

(43:53):
of their old their stories about just a zombie wedding.
And then they've got another thing coming out through Netflix.
They they're doing a bat Boy TV show.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah, dude, soul love it.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
Yeah, it's and it's really fun because, like, you know,
I'm really excited to have been part of this project.
You know, because when the producers came on, they're like, oh,
we want like Seawana the Dead meets Rocky Horror Picture Show,
and I was like, great, I can deliver that. You know.
The edit of the movie changed based on what they
thought was better for their brand. I don't disagree with it,

(44:28):
but I just wish I shot more coverage. Oh yeah,
you know you know what I mean. Like if I
if I had known like the direction they wanted to
go in, I would have just shot more coverage because
like I shot it, you know, because shawna Dead has
like really fun transitions and really fun camera movements and
visual callbacks. I just wanted to waste the time on
set shooting as much camera movement as I did. But

(44:52):
it is what it is. People like the movie, so
I'm not complaining about it, you know, but yeah, I
mean it's it's funny that like everyone's an armchair critic
right until they make a movie and then they're like, well,
here are all the things that went wrong. It's like, yeah,
and that's every movie.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I I love that you
bring up this the concept of like the minute money
gets involved, then it becomes the schedule in production is king,
not the art. You're not what your idea is, but
the schedule becomes king. And I one of the reasons

(45:29):
why I was able to make feature films with no
budget is because I realized that early on, like as
long as I if I treat the schedule like king,
it will be like like what works in movies, and
I'll respect people's time. I'll figure out how to do this.
But I also have the benefit of even though schedules kick,
it's a low budget movies. So if I didn't get
the coverage, I can be like, Hey, Keith Dan, come over,

(45:52):
We're gonna film some coverage in the basement. We're gonna
set up in front of a green screen.

Speaker 4 (45:56):
Yeah, yeah, you have the benefit of doing that when
you're like really low budge, but for something like this,
like we didn't. We didn't have that, and you know,
this movie it was a behemoth of a movie, Honest
to god. It was thirty five locations, twenty one actors,
and we had eighteen days to shoot it. It was
we had a location change every day, so any every

(46:16):
day we only had maybe two to three hours maybe
four hours max to shoot all of our coverage of
every scene we need to get. And it was like
it was an insane fight from beginning to end to
like get every scene and manage every actor and make
sure we're getting our performances, managing the tone, managing all
the fires that happened on set, you know, all the

(46:37):
things that change the way we want to shoot things. Cause,
like you know, one of the things I was really
excited about was actually having real vintage lenses to shoot
the movie. Oh nice, Like we never had a budget before,
so I was like, this is what I want to
shoot it on. So we got the we got uh
the cook vintage cook verital lenses, the zoom ones that
they shot the shining Arm and I was like, Yo,

(47:00):
this is gonna be sick. And then it came in
right and it's like this bit. Yeah, it's like it's
like a behemoth and I'm like, oh, and it's heavy.
It's like twenty five pounds, twenty seven pounds. It was
like insane, and I was like, I looked at my
DP and I was like, okay, listen, let's let's start shooting.
So we shot a lot of we shot a lot

(47:20):
of our early scenes on it. It's entirely and then
we sat down and like my DP and I were like, okay, listen,
we're moving really fast and this thing is heaviest weight down.
It's slowing us down. So we kept it, but we
ended up making it a choice in the movies. So
like a lot of our romance scenes, a lot of

(47:41):
our high emotional scenes that we knew where we'd be like, okay,
it's more performance based. We're going to be still we
use the cook baratols. But then when we're like going,
you know, adding to the chaos doing camera moments, we
switched to the Cannonel series and so we just have
to make it a choice. Yeah, you know, to be
like okay, we can keep them, we have to use them.
Very specifically in the movie, and we make it a choice.

(48:05):
So like so like towards the third act, we're all
we're only on the cook Veratols because or not sorry
the the l series because we're everything's gone to chaos,
you know, the movie's gone full gonzo at that point,
or like, uh, it worked out in that way. But
those are the things that like you have to adapt
to figure out, you know, because things went wrong, you know,
like we we had I think every filmmaker, especially like

(48:28):
something like people like us, like low budget filmmakers, like
if you give us a budget, we're gonna we we
of course, everyone wants to make the film that everyone
talks about, right, but reality sets in, time sets in,
the schedule sets in, and it's like, Okay, this cool idea,
this this dolly move to a zoom to to a

(48:48):
rack focus that we want to get. Maybe we only
got a shot for like we have a shot, we
have time for a medium, that's it. Yeah, you know
what I mean. So it's like figuring out on set,
like Okay, what's worth the time to get and then
how do we just make sure that all works within
the bigger story as we're as we're shooting.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
And I think that's something that you learn I think
in uh if you you know, in actual film school,
because like I kind of see the same thing with animation,
where because I went to school for animation, but like, yeah,
you get this concept in your head that these are
the tools, this is the thing you're gonna use on
the in the movie. You have to use these lenses.
Things have to work the way you plan them. And

(49:31):
it becomes this thing where they almost don't teach you
to adapt, but when you go do it for yourself,
you realize, like, Okay, I can adapt, I can I
can change this up. I can figure it out as
I go. Yeah, And it's such a it's such a
key lesson that I've had to. I've been on actual
like sets of relatively large movies, like you know, five

(49:53):
hundred thousand dollars or whatever it's they're not like one
hundred million dollar movies, but they're larger scale movies, and
like literally watched people have to convince the director like
your vision has to change now, and like the amount
of time wasted, the schedule gets behind because and they
they inevitably end up having to change something because it's

(50:13):
not going to work. No one would be like, hey,
you have to change this. It's gonna work great, but
you have to change it. Like that doesn't happen. Instead,
it's always like this actor is not going to be
here today. What do we do to fix?

Speaker 4 (50:26):
Oh my god, dude, And that's that's it. That's a
really good Like so the third act of this movie,
there's there's a there's a twenty one person on Zomble
in this movie. Basically everyone is in the everyone's in
the third act of the movie, but we didn't have
all the actors, so we have to figure out how
to shoot certain actors out in a way where it

(50:47):
felt like they were there the whole time. And uh,
that was like an insane scheduling. So like me and
my ad and my script supervisor, like we were like
they were like we were pulling our hairs out trying
to figure out like, okay, great, we have at least
eighteen actors. They're all and everyone's talking, so one like

(51:07):
we had to figure out like how to mic them,
but also like how do we split up the blocking,
So figuring out how to like how do we how
do we break these into segments where we can get
our coverage correctly. Yeah, and make sure that like everyone
is seen and ever it feels like every single person
is there.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
People can react to each other, like you have to
work with this concept of like what is the audience
going to see? Not what am I seeing? And that
is so challenging.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
Yeah, and exactly and that and that just comes back
to like thinking for the edit. You know, I forget
the guy's name. I think it was David Sandberg. Uh,
Like he's Pony Smasher on YouTube. He's just done like
the Annabel movies and stuff like that. Yeah, he had
a video where he was talking about Shazam and how
like he had to shoot coverage because he didn't have
the actors on set. And I was like, damn, that

(51:57):
was my first, like my my first like inkling, like Okay,
that's a problem that I might have to deal with someday.
And then literally like a few months later, I had
to deal with that problem and I was like, that's insane.
And if I hadn't seen that video of his, I
don't think I don't think I would have been as
prepared for it because I've never had to deal with

(52:20):
that before. Because anytime I've made my note my low
budget films. I've had everyone on set the whole time
I had all the actors. There was never a moment
where I was like maybe like once I had to
do that where I was like, Okay, this this person's
got to go to class or something, So let me
shoot all their scenes out and like figure out in
the edit how I make them look like they're there.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Right, but they're still that kind of there. They were
on location the day of like you kind of are.
You can kind of work around it mentally. It's like
just different when it's like they're gonna show up the
next day or like six hours later and we'll already
have shot three people and have to figure out this
fourth because we had to do that on The Good Exorcist.
And in fact, there's like the dad in the movie

(53:01):
is always kind of like sitting in the corner and
he's always away from everyone because he the dude John
showed up like a different time, so I would film
his stuff later. And Dan and I were watching the
movie like the first time. Dan, who plays father Gil
is my producer or whatever. We're watching the movie the
first time at my house and he's like, you know,
we should have written that like he was a ghost

(53:22):
the whole time or something, because he's never in the
shots with them, and it's like he's almost like a
side character to everything happening. So that's like a running
gang is like no one knows it, but the dad
was actually a ghost the whole time in the movie.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
You should go reshoot that, you should add it somewhere.
That's actually pretty fun.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah, there's just those things you don't think about until
you're you get to the edit and you learn from
it because you're like and luckily you know that you
have the experience that on a movie like this, you
were able to figure it out and be like, how
are we going to do it in the edit? And
but but man, just working with a cast that huge,
I can't even imagine, Like that's crazy to have that
many people.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
Yeah, yeah, and everyone everyone has their own style of acting,
So it was like a lot of managing, Like there's
a lot of talking to actors and figuring out where
their mental spaces as a character. Yes, making sure they're there,
you know, and we're okay, we're matching the tone, but
also here's your emotional state, like you know. It was
it was a lot of I think like every the

(54:23):
third act of that movie we were shooting. I think
I had to spend at least an hour because I
had to talk to every actor and make sure that
they were all on the same page and and like
working together versus like you know, like all right, let's
just go, let's just shoot it, you know, And yeah,
it was, it was, it was. We had a great
cast too, Like I don't think there's a There wasn't
a single actor who just came on said and phoned
it in right, you know, we are are are younger

(54:46):
ensemble was just they were fantastic. They were just like
they were game for anything. Our older ensemble like the
parents and like, you know, more than aame actors like
you know, Chavon Vallenhogan and like CHERRYO, Terry Kevin Chamberlain,
all those guys like I. Actually it's funny with the
when whenever I have like the the bigger actors on set,

(55:09):
I would shoot a little bit more professionally, and I
would I would be like, okay, like let's let's figure
it out, like let's let's let's get our coverage. When
I had the younger actors, I was just like, get
it let's get handheld, let's go, let's go, because they
were game. They were game, and that that was that
was a big learning experience, like you can do it
with some actor, can't do it all of them. But

(55:32):
like as soon as like okay, we're like okay, Kevin
and Shavanna wrapped, all right, get the younger actors, let's
get let's go, let's go handheld, let's go outside, let's
shoot all these covers. There was there were there were
there were days where like our eighty was like, okay,
we gotta lose this scene and we're we're not going
able to shoot it. And I was like, bullshit, We're
gonna get every single line of that scene. And he's like,
I don't think you're gonna do it. And I was like,

(55:53):
you have no idea, who I am?

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Give me an hour it yeah, give me.

Speaker 4 (55:57):
I literally took me an hour to get all of it.
He's like, and then I remember my ad coming to
me after said he's like, okay, sometimes I got to
remember to let you do things your way. Yeah, And
I was like, listen, I get it. Like it's if
you're in the system and you're like you're so used
to like studio filmmaking, and you know you're coming to
this like set, Like, yeah, I had a learning curve too,

(56:18):
because I had never worked with such a massive crew before.
But also like, if you just let me go, I'll
get what we need.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
I love that. It's yeah, and it's it. I think
you hit a really good point of like you work
with every actor, You work with every person differently. That
is the true job of the director. Yes, you want
to get your vision made, but the reality is is
your vision requires a lot of people to come together
in a way that isn't your vision. It's going to

(56:47):
be everyone's little hints of their vision, and some people
aren't going to be able to pull off what you
saw in your head, or they're going to do it differently,
and you're gonna realize your vision suck compared to what
that person can bring. And there's so many different elements that, like,
it's one of the toughest things to kick out of
your system because we hear stories about the like you

(57:08):
know Spielbergs who get their visions made, or you know,
David had.

Speaker 4 (57:14):
Six months to shoot The Fableman's.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Right exactly right, And yeah, and.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
I always joked that the Fablemans is everyone else's first
film that they would ever make, and like we would
and those people would only have like fourteen days to
shoot it. Yes, and he got like six months to
shoot that movie. I was like, of course, people like
Spielberg and like and like these bigger directors of course
they can like create better stuff than us because one

(57:40):
they have the money and two they just have time. Yeah,
Like they can spend a whole day on a scene,
like a whole a whole five days on a scene
if they wanted to. We get maybe two hours on
a scene.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeap, Yes, exactly right. That's so true. And I think
that's something that you know, going back to the schedule
is king as an end low budget filmmaker, especially someone
starting out, just give yourself the right amount of time,
Like be honest with yourself. I think a lot of
us are so optimistic because it's so fun and we
love doing it. It's so easy to be like, all right,

(58:13):
we can get this scene in two hours. That's not
gonna be tough. And then you get there and you're
rushing those two hours. People have to use bathroom breaks,
or someone's got low blood sugar. They need to go
get a banana. Whatever happens. Yeah, all those add up
and you a five minute break turns to a ten
minute break. And so if you're just honest with yourself
and you're like, I'm gonna give myself four hours for
something I think I can do in two, you realize

(58:36):
you end up making up at the end of the day,
you've got two extra hours to go shoot something, which
you can't do on a movie that you have a budget.
They're telling you essentially how much time you have. Yeah,
you have say in the schedule you can kind of whatever,
but they're like, no, you know, Cherry or Terry can
only be here for three hours this day or whatever.
You know happens. It's like very on other people's time.

(58:58):
But when you're making something, when you're making your short
film and you're like, let's just shoot it in two hours, Like, well,
what if instead you take a whole day and you
just learn some things along the way, and you know,
goof off a little bit and still get people out
at the time you told them they were going to
get out. Like that's such a huge thing that means
a lot to people. When you're like, hey, we're gonna
break for lunch, for this hour and you're gonna be

(59:20):
out of here by nine pm and they're out of
there at eight thirty. Well, it's fun, they love doing it.
It's still a job for them that day. They're still
no part of your process, not sitting in front of
the TV. So being respectful of that stuff could be huge.
Now that's not to say like I go over time
all the time.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
We all do. It happens, yeah, And that's that's the
thing on this movie. We didn't we only had ten
hours to shoot any day. Like we only we did
ten hour days because we were still like technically COVID
like shooting. So it's like I it was. It was
a it was a beast of a shoot, like to
be able to get every single thing done on time.
And we know, I don't think we went I think

(59:56):
we went over once. That was it. Yeah, and that
was just because we forty extras and then by the
next day our makeup department was like, nope, we streamlined it.
We figured it out, you know, and like you know,
they're like, we know how to do this now, but like, yeah,
I mean yeah, actor schedules was nuts. I mean, I'm
really lucky that the younger actors were just game to

(01:00:18):
do whatever they wanted. That's actually like, hey, whatever you
need us for, we're here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
That's a huge lesson I think in and of itself,
is like working with some younger cast, working with people
who want to do things outside of the norm, who
are excited to try things for people who read Revel
without a crew and are like, I want to be
a part of that same kind of process too, versus
the people who are like, you know, they've been doing
it for thirty years, they know the routine of it,

(01:00:44):
they want it done professionally, totally understandable too, but that
you're gonna deal with a lot of different types of people.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
Yeah, I guess I wish that's what people will took
out of movies more often as like, Yeah, I don't think.
I think there's there's always a hand of people who
are in the movies for the wrong reasons, right, Like
they're just like they just want to go to women
and be like, Hey, I'm a filmmaker, date me. You know,
There's there's always that type of dude in this industry.
But like, I think, for the most part, most filmmakers

(01:01:11):
are here to express themselves and have fun, right and
and create a safe environment for people. I guess I
just wish people knew like how actually hard filmmaking is,
even when you're on the low budget you know, experience
and people are like, well this was trash, it was
so bad low it was a low production. I was like, yeah,
well we had a heart. It was still hard to make,

(01:01:33):
you know, and we tried, and like, you know, it's
it's tough to it's tough to deal with people who
like who are just like critics all the time and
just be like, well it's not you know. You know,
Donna the Dead did it better. It was like, sure
they did, Yeah, seventy days shoot, I would do better.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Too, right, or even just like I was doing my
I tried something different than that. Yeah, I could have
just remade that shot for shot and you would have said, like,
you just remade that shot for shot. I'm learning how
to do it my way and do something different. There's
going to be failures and there's gonna be successes. I'm
gonna learn as I go. And also, if you put

(01:02:10):
on don to the Dead right now and I showed
you that movie, you'd be like, this is cheesy as hell.
Why isn't this boy, like it's all it's all relative.
I mean, I did you know I've done multiple features,
thousands of shorts. I've done so much stuff. And my
new one, Little Lucha and the Big Deal. I show
it to people and they're like, oh my god, this
is so this is so good. This is so much better,

(01:02:31):
Like like, yeah, that's because I actually had a DP
and an editor and all these other people. I didn't
do literally everything myself. And it's a short that we had,
you know, three days to shoot twelve minute a twelve
minute short, not you know, fourteen days to shoot an
eighty five minute movie with a reality crew following me around.

(01:02:54):
Like it's a very different experience.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
I think about with film school students in general, like
when they're making their thesis film, they have like fourteen
days to shoot like a twelve minute short. I'm like, yeah,
of course that shit looks great.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
With shit that you could you could never have afforded
when you were starting. Like I've we've been screening Little
Luca with a lot of student films, and I'm like,
you know, one person could be like, wow, how did
this you know, eighteen year old make or twenty year
old make something that looks on par with your nearly
four year old ass. And I'm like, because I did

(01:03:29):
it with nothing. I literally my life has been my
film school. Which is great that they have that at
their film school or whatever, but I've had to take
fifteen years to meet the DP who had the camera
that they have just based on the funding from the school,
because they pay one hundred thousand dollars intuition that the
school can then put into equipment. Like, it's just two

(01:03:52):
different paths, and it's great. I love that there are
these two different paths, but it's I think it's hard
for outsiders to understand that we all take our own path.
I think every filmmaker has to understand that as well.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
And I think I think film schools are cool. You know,
I wish I do wish I went to film school
for like the networking and meeting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yes, networking for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
I've worked with so many film students now who just
don't like don't know how to work under pressure and
also don't know how to work fast. Yeah, And I
just wish film schools would just teach people how to
be like more resourceful and more like on the fly,
Like maybe teach them like more low budget no budget techniques,
bring in more low budget, no budget filmmakers to talk

(01:04:35):
to and be like, here's how we did it. Because
I've worked with a couple of people who are like,
I can't work without a crew. Yeah, And I'm like
and they're like, oh, how do you make your films?
Is like, oh, yeah, myself, you know, like and they're like,
but I worked on a short film where like some
filmmakers like they needed like a twenty person crew, and
I was like, they need they needed the DP, they
needed the ac there. I was like, do you like

(01:04:57):
meet you on Dance World, like the short film I made,
like and people think I made that for like fifty
to one hundred K, and I'm like, I when I
tell them, I was like, yeah, we spentbly two grand
on it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah, it's it's absolutely gorgeous. It looks like, yeah, you
put it on screen, like you see like visually it
is a big budget.

Speaker 4 (01:05:16):
Yeah, it looks like it's it's it's bigger, and you
know I had I've had so many people watch it
now and like when I tell them that we made
it for two grand and maybe like a crew of
five people, like we had me the dph. We had
a guy lighting, and we had our sound guy, and
we had maybe one grip and that was it. That
was our entire crew. And we made that movie. And

(01:05:39):
like when I tell people that, especially like people at
the bigger level, like they're like, what.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
What, that's impossible. It's impossible. It seems impossible, But.

Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
It's just knowing what you want. Like, especially like by
the time I made me Cute on Dance World, I
had so many short films behind me that I was
able to make that film in two six hour days
because I knew exactly what I needed for it. I
knew how I was going to edit it. When things
went wrong. There was a couple of shots where I
like I had to get it completely different because the
location was so small, right, so like I had to
shoot in a different way. But like I got two

(01:06:10):
shots that I didn't want the right the way I
wanted them to, and then everything else is exactly how
I wanted it to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
And no one knows that that's not the way you
wanted it, like exactly exactly. But everyone to go and
watch it and then send Michael what shots you think
it was?

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
Yeah, go watch it, because I think people people think
people really enjoy it, Like and that was like, you know,
other than you know, the Robert Rodriguez People's Network Showcase,
Like that was the that was the film that really
kind of launched me into people knowing who I am
as a as a no budget filmmaker. Because like obviously,
like you and I have both you know, you know,
done the Robert Rodriguez thing where you did Rebel without

(01:06:53):
a crew, and then my short, my short action film
won the People's Network Showcase contest, and that's kind of
like how we came into orbit of each other. And
like that action film led to obviously to me cut
on Dance Roll, which is like you can literally see
my two influences back to back right there, action movies
and musicals. But like Dance World was like, you know,

(01:07:15):
I was, I was ready to make that. I was,
I was ready to I knew exactly what I wanted
with that one, and that one, like you know, David Benioff,
the showrunner of Game of Thrones, watched it and loved
it and like is obsessed with it, and it was
like gave me a poll quote to using the poster,
and then you know, Ben Stiller tweeted it it was
like insane, like amazing, you know it was. It was
an insane like level of events that happened with that

(01:07:38):
short film, Like people that I didn't even think would
end up watching and watched it, Like the VP of
development at Lucasfilm's watched it and emailed me saying, wow,
this is super innovative. I was like, great, can I
have a meeting? And the never responded, but but yeah,
but it still led to people seeing it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
People. It pushed you forward, and it was one of
those things that like you never know what if which
thing you make is ever going to hit.

Speaker 4 (01:08:03):
And that's how I got this job. Yeah, that's how
I got this job. They've seen the short film and
they're like, let's try to hire this guy. I mean
like uh, and they did and that that's literally the
first people to offer me a job was was The
Weekly World News, And I'm super grateful to them for
like letting me actually make a future film, because everyone
knows making a future film is the hardest thing on

(01:08:24):
the like, maybe not the hardest thing of the planet,
but it's super difficult to get a feature film off
the ground. Either you're doing it no budget, or you're
spending years raising money, yep, right to do it the
way you wanted to, because like, I think people who
like who Like I mean, there are people who make
who get like ten million dollars for their future debut,
and I'm like, you are so lucky to get money

(01:08:46):
to make your movie. And also like the people who
are like, I hate the advice when people are like,
make the make the feature film. That's you, like completely
you for your first feature because that first feature matters
so much, And I'm like, I don't believe that. I
don't believe that because like that's a very privileged position
to be in, to be able to make your first

(01:09:07):
feature film exactly, Like that's the calling card, that's what
you wore. There's no more growth after that. That's like,
you're super lucky to make a movie that like, yeah,
you captured your voice with the budget and the time
that you needed. But like, I really don't think that people.
Most people don't get that shot right, and you're just
trying to piece together whatever you can the best you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Can for sure. All Right, this has been fantastic. You
got to come back on the show because I got
like twenty more questions where it got part two. So
tell me the Zombie Wedding. Where's it hitting, where can
people see it, and where can people follow you?

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
Yeah? So The Zombie Wedding is streaming on video and
demand everywhere right now, so Fandango, Apple TV, Amazon, cable, satellite,
everywhere you can rent or buy a movie. It's pretty
much on there. And then it's in select theaters in
La Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, and Denver. So I think it's

(01:10:08):
got a few more days in theater there and then
that's where you can find it. You can find me
on YouTube, you know, Mike Conn. You can find me
cut on Dance World, Safe House, all my video essays
on filmmaking, my interviews with filmmakers that I've done also
with as a collaboration with movie Maker Magazine. I have
all my interviews on there that I've done with them.

(01:10:29):
So I have like interviews with like Dannis Villeneuve, Spike Lee,
Joe Wright, like you know, the modern masters of filmmaking.
And then I'm on Instagram. You know, it's the easiest
way to stay in touch with me is I'm m
con film on Instagram and that's a yeah, that's where
I'm at.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Awesome, Thank you. So much for coming on the show.

Speaker 4 (01:10:49):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
I'm glad to finally be here like with something because
I listened, so I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Like, oh yeah, and when I saw you when you
posted on, I post on Facebook and popped on and
we're like, hey, man, I would love to come on.
I was like, oh, finally, yes, and I'm like at
his face. And there was a feature and this whole
season was dedicated to feature filmmakers, so it was like perfect.
So I can't wait to have opportunity. Awesome, cannot wait

(01:11:15):
to have you back.

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
I told you that was a great one.

Speaker 4 (01:11:25):
Wasn't if?

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
That was such a fun chat for me because Michaeh
Michael was so just his excitement. You can hear it
in my voice that I am like so excited by
the conversation. He just like kept me, got me pumped,
got me inspired, got me one to talk filmmaking. And
speaking of getting you pumped and inspired, one thing I'd
like to do for the next six episodes is on

(01:11:47):
every episode, I want to talk about a filmmaking book.
Just Josh Stifter's Little the Flush Studios Film Book Club,
and I'm in the process of listening to this book
right now by Paul Hirsch.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
It's called Paul is the director of Star Wars.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
It's called A Long Time Ago in a cutting room,
Far far away, or whatever, something like that, A long
long time ago in a cutting room, far far away,
subdit whatever. But Paul Hirsch, it's the editor of Star Wars, Planes, Trains,
and Automobiles. Feris Bueler's day off a bunch of stuff.

(01:12:22):
He's wonderful editor, and the book is absolutely fascinating. He
one thing he does that I really like is he talks.
He explains things like you're not into filmmaking, or like
if you don't quite if you just you know, know movies.
But he also isn't afraid to like really dive deep

(01:12:43):
into the reason he edited certain things a certain way,
or why the edits look a certain way in the movie,
or what was different originally, so you can compare like
what the initial cut was mentally for him, it really
lets you inside the head of an editor. And even
if you're not an editor, if you don't work on
the computer at all, you're a director, you're an actor,

(01:13:05):
you're someone who will never cut a movie in your
entire life. I think this book is crucial reading. It's
so important because it really lets you into the mindset
of that person who's going to be portraying you on screen.
During the planes, Trains, and Automobile segment, he talks about
how originally in the edit, they had John Candy's character

(01:13:28):
going to the Steve Martin character and telling him like,
I don't have I'm homeless, my wife died, I am
now homeless, I have nothing, I have no money, And
they said it didn't play well because it felt like
it wasn't earned by Steve Martin's character to care about
the John Candy character. And so they went back through

(01:13:48):
footage because John Hughes had filmed so much fucking he
has like eight reels, like one hundred minutes of footage
just of Steve Martin on the tree. And they went
through that footage and at one point in a close up,
Steve Martin had made this little smiley face because he
just kept doing stuff they made him do, like a

(01:14:09):
ton of stuff. And Paul Hurst says he went to
that footage, put it in and then did flashbacks of
things that were being said at which you've seen in
the movie that edit. But originally that wasn't the end
of the movie. He didn't Steve Martin's character didn't figure
it out. He was told And that is the reason
the movie works to me, is as he figures it
out and we the audience get to figure it out,
it's like, holy shit, like this is so it adds

(01:14:33):
so much heart and so much depth. So I highly
recommend Paul Hirsch's book A Long Time Ago in a
Cutting Room, Far Far Away. Fascinating read, and it's if
you have Spotify, you can listen to the audiobook on Spotify.
It's wonderfully read. I highly recommend it. If you have
a book recommendation, go to Speakpipe dot com slash Low

(01:14:53):
Budget Rebels and leave your review of the book. I'll
read it as well. I promise I'm gonna read as well.
Speakpipe dot Com Slash Budget Rebels. That's where you can
leave me an audio message. Or if you just listen
to this episode field inspired to say something and want
to come chat, go to speak Pipe dot Com Slash
Low Budget Rebels. Thank you so much for listening. Thank
you so much everyone for the support over this season.

(01:15:15):
It has been wonderful. I cannot wait for season six.
I have a huge idea for how to make this
show different, do something unique, and get more people involved,
so I'm very excited about that. Until next time, keep
kicking ass, everybody, Keep doing what you do, keep rebelling,
stayed rebellious, Keep doing the filmmaking and art the way

(01:15:38):
you want to do it. Cheers everybody, hev A green.

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):
Low budget Rebels is brought to you by the indie
film Hustle Network, recorded at Flush Studios headquarters in tropical Atlanta.
Produced by the film daddy Josh Stifter. Bla La La boo,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Season 5 Episode 17: THE ZOMBIE WEDDING Director Micah Khan

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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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All Episodes

Season 5 Episode 17: THE ZOMBIE WEDDING Director Micah Khan

Stuff You Should Know