Season 5 Episode 18: PIZZA GUY 8 Director Tate Hoffmaster

This week I sat down on two occasions (thanks Hurrican Helene) to chat with filmmaker and genuinely nice guy Tate Hoffmaster about filmmaking and his new movie Pizza Guy 8.

We also discuss working with VHS and other media to create art, Troma and its influence on low-budget filmmaking, assessing criticism of films, and things we've learned on set. We also talk about our scripting process and improvising ideas. This and so much more! Ch

eck out Tate's work at https://www.youtube.com/@GuyBacon13 and follow him on social media @xfilescabinet

Have a great week and don't let your meat loaf!
Josh

Episode Transcript

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 canst I don't tell me
you're taking all this seriously. Hey everybody, and welcome to
another episode of Low Budget Rebels podcast. I'm your host,

(00:40):
Josh Stifter, and this week I have Tate Hoffmaster. He
is a trauma alum similar to myself. He has created
a bunch of very raw punk rock movies and he
sent me a couple of them. I watched him and
I had to talk to this guy because he is
I say it in the episode, he's basshit crazy like.
He does some wild zany stuff and it's all very

(01:00):
funny and very fun but with a strange sense of
heart that I really enjoyed. Here's the thing, before I
get started with the conversation, I need to do some
housework here. Gotta do a little house cleaning first off.
Halfway through this episode to cut out, we had a
storm in Georgia, big hurricane came through the last few

(01:20):
days and the power went out in the middle of talking,
so I had to split it up and we had
to finish in the morning. So it's kind of a
weird conversation because it starts in one place, then it
has a pause, and then we kept going. But I
had it was a really wonderful conversation, so I didn't
want to lose it. As you'll hear me say in
the cutaway, I'm sure. The second thing that I need

(01:43):
to get off my chest patreon dot com slash Flush Studios.
I don't have to get off my chest. I love
the Patreon. I'm working on a new intro video for
it right now, and I'm really hoping that as this
year comes to an end, some people I will get
some new subscribers who will come on and help support
Fun Studios as we move forward with our new movie,
Get That Dick. It's a feature film starring Sean Ashley

(02:06):
from Homicide Cloud and Old Man Slaughter Fame. My son
Maximus plays the secondary lead and it's a really wonderful
little script that I'm hoping to shoot soon, but I
need help to get it made. I'm broke as far
as the filmmaking stuff goes. I have very few funds
to help make this movie and I need your help
to get it made. So instead of running a crowdfunding

(02:29):
I am running a behind the scenes campaign of the
making of this movie. There are multiple videos already up
on patreon dot com slash Flush Studios where you can
see all of the zany antics of my film process
in the pre production phase, and that those videos are
only going to continue. So I took a couple of

(02:49):
weeks off from working on it after I had done
the reread through of the script. But I'm coming back
into it this week and we're actually probably i think
midway through this week, we're gonna start filming and we're
gonna do a couple scenes and see what it kind
of looks like. So with that being said, subscribe for
a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars, whatever you can subscribe

(03:09):
for a month goes a long ways towards helping us
make these movies. I have a lot of stuff I
have to buy. The script isn't incredibly complex. Oh god,
I just had a nasty hiccup. I'm leaving that in.
I'm not even gonna edit that out because that was wonderful.
I mean not for me. It was gross. But I

(03:31):
really would like to get some props for the movie,
a couple masks, a couple things, and while I want
to do them low budget, I still need some funds
to make it happen. So if you feel so inclined,
head over at patreon dot com slash Flush Studios. There
is so much great stuff on Patreon. I'm not kidding.
I'm been runing that Patreon for like sixty years now,

(03:51):
so it is filled with behind the scenes short films,
feature films. I'm just gonna say it. If you subscribe,
you get a link to Rebel Without a Crew, a
private link whatever. If they want to hulp me down
and take that away, okay, but good luck, because it's
a secret. I have a secret link Patreon dot com
slash us Studios. You subscribe, I send you The Good Exorcist,
I send you Graywood splot I send you Rebel Without

(04:12):
a Cruise so you can see what I've worked on.
I also have tons of behind the scenes and these
podcasts ad Free. I know, if you're listening to this,
the ads are fucking obnoxious, absolutely distracting and terrible and awful,
and I hate them, but that's the site that we
use forces us to use them, and I don't have

(04:32):
an option. They have to be on there. So with
that being said, and they've just upped the amount, they
keep upping the amount. They're like, you should put two
every fifteen minutes. It's fucking annoying. But you have the
choice of listening to it with the ads, or you
give me a dollar a month. And it's like ten
dollars or eleven dollars a year if you subscribe to
the Patreon and you can do it annually. So eleven

(04:54):
bucks and you help me make my movie. Not obviously
you're eleven bucks doesn't me all that much, but if
a hundred of you do, that is a big chunk
of money that can go towards props and getting this
movie made. And I just need some funds to actually
see this through because I am struggling to get it going.

(05:15):
That's my little song for you, all right, without further
ado and with no more. What's the word pimping my wares? Is?

Speaker 2 (05:23):
That?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Is that the terminology pimping my wares? This conversation with
Tate was absolutely wonderful. He is very chill. It's an
incredibly chill episode, but he was so sweet and so
helpful in dealing with the power outage and everything. I
am extremely excited for you all to hear this conversation

(05:43):
because there is a lot of great information and he's
a really, really nice dude and really fun to talk with. So,
without further ado, here is actually my conversation with the
wonderful Tate Hoffmaster. Okay, so, Tate, here's the thing. All

(06:05):
I know about you is your weird ass movies. So
a lot of this is going to be about, like
what inspires someone to make stuff this weird? And I
think it's a cool topic because of the fact that
I make some weird stuff too, So we're sort of
like minded individuals in some ways, and we both go
about it in a very like raw punk rock way.
So I'm curious, what are some of those earliest memories,

(06:30):
like one of those first things that made you go, like,
I got to pick up a camera and as ridiculous
as the shit is I want to make, I gotta
make it. What were those first memories?

Speaker 2 (06:39):
So for me, it was a lot of like William
Castle movies, anything was Vincent Price. And then eventually, you know,
I have friends who are like really into horror movies,
so and I was really scared of most of like
what was coming out currently, like sawing all that.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
So my friend was like, Okay, here's the Dead too,
you'll get it after this, and then I was like, oh,
it's like all just like for show, you know.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
So I'm kind of mainly into like purposely like being
bad or like using like I love when like the
boom dips in a shot, or like I love like
the ed wood, like the invisible string and just making
that part of your style. And then you know, I

(07:30):
just I feel like I chase weird experiences, you know,
like you ever hear of the Van Peeland or z No.
They're like this band that they're from Japan and they
all dress up like power rangers and they're like okay,
yeah yeah, yeah they do jump rope and during their
sets and stuff like that, and yeah, I like to

(07:54):
just follow wherever that goes.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah that's interesting. Like I know, for me, I was
really into death Mat and uh there's a band called
Exhumed and yeah, Exzoomed is like their stage presence is
like they come out with fake chainsaws, there's like vomiting
blood all over the place. And when I was younger
and like trying to get into film. I remember being like,

(08:17):
why don't they film every single one of these shows?
Because this is a movie in and of itself right here.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, no, I heard about a band that also like
does like because I've seen some of your stuff. I
saw there's a band that does luchador wrestling, like right
as they play too. Are you like a Santo fan?

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Oh yes, Oh yeah, that's like that was like one
of the biggest inspirations for me wanting to do the
lucha thing. Like I grew up I love Luca wrestling,
and I grew up going to Mexico like a month
out of the year, Like I spent a lot of
time in Mexico, so I would see Luca wrestling and
everywhere you go they have lucha art and stuff like that.

(08:57):
And Santo would play on you know, like TV, but
it was in Spanish. There was no dub. It was
just like you're in Mexico here it is on TV.
And then uh I remember I started watching I kind
of forgot that I was into it, and then I
started watching uh LRA Network when I was going to
be on Rebel without a Crew and all of that stuff,

(09:18):
and Robert will play those movies all the time, and
I was like, oh, I forgot about these They're the best,
and I just got obsessed with them again. Yeah, no,
I totally like I see it in your style. This
like passion for being okay with stuff like you know,
letting letting the boom fall into your shot, or just

(09:39):
you know having fun with stuff like don't know, letting
people see the making and the crafting of the filmmaking.
Like that was a big inspiration behind Greywood's plot. Was
just like ed Wood, like making movies that are just
like who cares what other people think, just get the
thing done and make it with this like raw mentality.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Oh yeah, definitely, like for sure, and love Trauma's approach
to it as well. I was an intern there for
a bit. I liked Toxic Avenger And.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Did you see that earlier, like because you talked about
the fact that you saw saw and I mean there
was like this era of torture porn type movie when
there was this like beat in the early two thousands
where horror hit the spot where it's like really tried
to be realistic. It was like post Batman Begins, they
were like, if they can make Batman really raw, we

(10:34):
can make horror movies really raw and real, and I
like a lot of those movies, but there is something
like the fun of horror is kind of lost on them.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
No, I agree, Like sometimes like with Eli Roth, it's
hit or miss for me, you know, or and I
know he started there, but you know, I love Cavin Fever.
Hostel was good to me one and two, and then
I like Thanksgiving but the most part, like I saw
Toxic Adventure in high school, So most of those movies

(11:06):
I found in high school, I remember I would just
like go on the computer and google like cult movies, sure,
and yeah, because I just I was like, what's the
common thread? Like I liked Eraserhead and stuff like that.
I'd be like, what are these? What is this genre?

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Right? Which is weird because it's like it's part it's
kind of its own genre, but it's also kind of
just like an artistic statement where you're like, it's so
different than. Part of what I liked about those kind
of movies is it felt like someone was actually saying
something versus a studio trying to tell me something. You
know what it does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (11:42):
No, I agree, like and I can and definitely making
indie movies has taught me that, like you're very free
to like, especially when you're the producer and the writer
and the director, you get like you can just say
whatever you want and nobody's going to be like you
got to cut that out. Yes, sponsors are good, drop

(12:03):
out if you say this or.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
For better or worse. Sometimes there are moments where I
have people say things where I'm just I got this
really great review of Greywood's plot that was like it
was from when it played at fright Fest, and it
like called out all of these shitty things that the
characters do, like it was actually me doing like making
a statement that I agree with them, which is obviously

(12:26):
not what I was trying to do. Yeah, and I
was just like then put the review went on this
whole rant about like they talk about how Chinese food
is made of dog and it all these other like
little jokes that we made in the movie barely even
jokes more or less like me trying to be like,
don't like these characters. They're bad people, and like I
didn't want it to be like so over the top

(12:46):
that it's just like you know, they're they're really really awful,
but they say things where you're like, I don't know
if I like this guy, Like, am I supposed to
be agreeing with him or not? And by the end,
I hope that people are going like, oh, I don't
agree with this, but I I or to a certain
extent at least kind of quasi I feel bad for

(13:07):
where they are in life anyway. But the review that
I'm talking about at the end, it went through all
of these negative things and then it said, but what
do I know? I'm autistic? And I was like, what
a weird fucking like addendum at the end of this
whole story.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
You know what's funny? I gotta review like that once
on my first movie, where the one guy was like, yeah,
but I'm like a guy who smokes pot who lives
with his parents.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, so what do I know. It's always like it's
something like them validating it to me, where they're like, oh,
I have it, or like some reviews will be like,
but I never made a movie, so what can I say?
And I'm just like, it's kind of true, and I
appreciate you knowing that, so I guess you know.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
It is what it is. No, it's always good. I
always prefer the self aware people then the people, you know,
it's like all the movies they like. The best movie
they like probably has like four stars, not even a
full five star, or and it's all like Criterion movies.
It's all you know, stuff that's like, well, it's obvious,

(14:11):
like what you're you're after, I'm just not that.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah, don't you ever wonder like why did you watch
my movie? Like what made you watch this when you
obviously could have watched the trailer or just like the
first two minutes have been like the same for me,
this is not going to be my jam.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Well that's always interesting. You always got to wonder what
brought them in, you know, because at least for me,
like I'm very like the anti pretentiousness of film because
I went to film school and you know, you hear
like all these people who are like Truefo's God, Hitchcock's God,
you know, and it's like, you know, I'm very much

(14:50):
about doing my own thing. So at the end of
the day, like I'm not going to like base myself off.
I'm just not that person.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
You know. Sure, let me ask you who were some
of those like first filmmakers that if you know, you
say you went to film school, so that obviously that
came from somewhere that made you want to go to
film school. What were those films that made you want
to go to film school?

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Believe it or not, it was Rodriguez. I read his
book Without a Crew, and that's actually what got me
started on my first movie.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
I love it, man, I love it so like I
used to read that book like Grandma reads the Bible.
Like I would pick it up before bed and just
read like some passages and be like, oh, this is
this is my this is my God.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
No exactly, And I really appreciated like growing up with
Spy Kids, and I was huge on Shark boy a Girl.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
My kids love it.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Man.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
I was a little bit I'm a little bit older,
so like that was like just right as I was
hitting you know, middle school, and so I didn't I
was out of that by that time. I was already
watching from Dust Kill Dawn and stuff like that. But
trans Yeah, but then my kids later on started watching
Spy Kids, and well, Robert released the new one though

(16:05):
we can be heroes. So then my kids went back
to everything, and I was like, oh shit, I get
these now, I get what he was doing and who
they were for.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, I just thought that was sweet too, you know,
and like especially like just like these films, the fact
that films can be like a way to communicate to
your family values or you know, being even though like
yes we do, we're all films, but like keeping in
mind like the morals and values and like kind of

(16:36):
you know, working with a purpose, you know, which is
pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
I think there's also this like false concept that just
because our movies are stupid and really raw and don't
have the feeling of like we're taking it incredibly seriously,
that we don't have something to say. And I think
that's complete bullshit because I think a lot of those
movies have more to say. You just have to really
focus a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Well, Like I mean talking to Woyd, like he he's
very intellectual, you know, like he speaks like three languages.
He's got like a lot of I used to just
like when I was in the office, I talked to
him about like PG Woodhouse and like James Joyce like

(17:21):
never even b movie stuff. Just like I was like, oh,
he knows like literature.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's amazing. It's so funny because I feel the same
way all the time, where like I literally I struggled
to get through Portrait of an Artist as a young man,
and I've tried to read it like ten times. I
finally like this last like last year, I started reading more.
I read fifty books. Last year I got like obsessed
with reading, And now this year I continued that and
over Christmas this year, or like right at the beginning

(17:49):
of the year or whatever, maybe the end of last year,
I finally was like, Okay, I've read enough. I feel
like I have a comprehension for reading in a way
beyond what I've ever had before, So I'm gonna try
to read it again. And Portrait of an Artist is
fucking brilliant, Like it's so good, but it just is
so much work, like you have to analyze every sentence
and like, oh, it's so good, but I had to

(18:11):
like write notes for myself and read little cliff notes
to try to figure out like how these threads go
together and concepts of like what he's fucking talking about
at any given moment. And once I got it, I'm like, oh,
it was just a fucking journal, Like it literally just
reads like a person's journal of moments in life. As
so good.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
No, I love portrait. I actually really loved Ulysses. I'm
actually gonna work on it. I'm working on an adaptation
right now.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
Oh I love that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
I just a lot of my friends were like, it
can't be done. I'm like, oh, yes it could. That's
like a kid.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
So like, when I was writing this new script it's
called garag Rot, I had just read and never connected.
I had read On the Road when I was a
kid and never connected to it. And then I went
back to it as a grown ass man and was like,
I'm gonna try to read on the Road. And I
read the uh the original scroll, like the all one, big,
fat like scroll basically no paragraph breaks, no, like all

(19:10):
of the misspellings and everything are all in there, and
it like, oh, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
So then when I was going through garage Rot, I
was like analyzing beats from on the Road and stealing
little ideas but kind of spoofing them in my own
way and kind of in a way that I thought,
you know, Lloyd would is it. I always say, like
Lloyd is the smartest idiot in the entire He's so smart.

(19:33):
He's such a weird guy, so goofy, but also like brilliant,
like absolutely so smart when you talk to him.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, that's very true. I've gotten that vibe from him.
He's uh, he's funny man. When I would he used
to like come and just give me like weird stuff
in the office. Like he gave me this like splurge
type drake and he just came up to me. It
was like toxics live. I just walked away.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
I like it's example.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, okay, so what was it? Like? Okay, so how
you had these you know, you're inspired by different stuff
and then kind of moved on what made you decide
to go to film school?

Speaker 2 (20:21):
I finally decided on school visual Arts because they are
the ones that like just let you get right into it,
you know. So I really prioritized just like making a
bunch of movies that like, you know, may and it
may not be good. And I had a lot of

(20:41):
fun and you know, some of them I probably wouldn't show,
you know, Like I was reading Roger Korman's book recently
where he was like, most of my mistakes everybody sees,
and I'm like, well, maybe I'm fine with editing some
of it. Yeah, and yeah, I just for me, like

(21:03):
I live in Lancaster, so and I'm from Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
so there's not a lot of a huge movie scene here.
So I just thought, Okay, go to New York and
you know, that's where I got connected with trauma and
these these are people I'm probably gonna work with for
a long time. Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Well that's the thing about Trauma I love is that
they it is like a place to meet like minded
people and sort of form your connection with folks, even
if it's sort of like on the outside or not
not like directly with them, but like a lot of
the people I've met over the years, Like you know,
I've worked with John Brennan, I've worked with my friend

(21:45):
Sean Ashley who I worked with now he did a
movie called Homicide McLeod that Trauma helped, you know, put
out on their site or whatever, and so we kind
of met each other through that where it's, you know,
we both have a trauma connection. We know, you know,
we both like hung out at different trauma festivals. We've
had movies in them, and it just kind of became
a thing where we became friends through trauma, even though

(22:07):
neither of us ever officially like worked at trauma, because
all my trauma stuff is just contract. Anytime I do
something for Lloyd, it literally is like, Hey, no one
else I know can do this quickly? Can you do
this for me? I'm like, Okay, Lloyd, I can make
a giant humpback or a killer why I'll fall onto
a group of people. I think I can work that

(22:29):
visual effect out, and so it's like just randomly doing
visual effects for them.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
That's awesome. Yeah. No, The one person I usually work
with pretty closely is Dylan. We're pretty close collaborators. It's
definitely that mentality of we just like to when we
shoot a movie, we just you know, we don't fuss
too long with lights. We just want to like, go, go, go.

(22:56):
And I don't know a lot of like producer or
writers or people like that that just want to like like,
let's not waste time, let's do this, but at the
same time trying to be a little thoughtful, like, Okay,
we can take our time with this just so this
part of the release goes well, or like for distribution,

(23:20):
taking it a little slow.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah, I mean, I think it was funny. On the
last episode of the podcast, I had Micah Conon and
he talked about how he was working on a movie
that had a little bit bigger budget, but he was
still having to do like low budget techniques through it,
and the difference between some actors who have worked in
the industry and expect things to go a certain way

(23:42):
and other like the younger people he was working with,
who are just like down to run and gun. In
this modern mentality of like we don't have to fuss
over everything, there's something like very like freeing about being
able to just do.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
It, yeah, because I'm always happy with what comes out,
like just with like setting it. You know, generally I
just shoot wide, medium, close, right, and then if I
have like a specific shot in mine or like, for example,
the only way we're gonna get the shot it like

(24:20):
we had a shot and Pizza guy where there's like
a spinning pizza. We were gonna have this pizza fly
through the air and cut someone into half, and we
had to shoot it with our budget, Like, Okay, we
have the wide. Then we have like kind of like
a tracking shot with somebody just like spinning the pizza
like this in front of the camera, and it looks great.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
You know, you find you have to find clever ways
and like in with low budget versus like throwing a
bunch of money at it and being like, we could
buy this whole rig to make it work. You can
find ways to make things work.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, just get someone to spin it or you know,
I know Dylan and I were going to make our
own like car crash. She found like this little like
toy jeep that's kind of like you know the ones
that like kids right around in Sure, just gonna push
it down the hill. I have a friend who works

(25:19):
in demo. We're gonna blow it up and then we
can use that whenever we want.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's awesome. So okay, so you were work did you
work on your first movies while you were working for
Trauma or did you start on the movies before that.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
That was actually during COVID, so I was safe set
certified and I forget if this was before or after
I was paying for MTV, but I was like, Okay,
I have this safe set certification, so I know how
to I was like okay, and I found like the
story that was basically like seven people just going insane

(25:58):
in the house, and then I wrote it like my way,
and I was like, I can get seven people together
in like one house, So that's kind of you know,
you're just like working with what you have and working
to make it interesting. Like especially like because I think

(26:19):
when I made my first movie, I was like, I
kind of want to make like a really dark, kind
of Seinfeld esque movie where like nothing happens, or like
Napoleon Dynamite, you know, nothing really happens. It's about small change, sure,
but make it kind of Troma, make it kind of weird,
make it kind of and then when you're writing, you're like,

(26:41):
what would make this interesting? Oh, somebody is like accidentally
takes Spanish fly and gets like really sick. You know.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
I like that. I like the fact that you say
that this concept of when you're writing it, you're like,
what would be interesting? Because I truly think that that's
some thing that people struggle with, is like what you
look at a scene and you just go like, not
what gets us from point A to point B? But
what's interesting? What could be interesting right here? And it's
something that my co writer Dan Diagnan and I strive for.

(27:15):
It's the reason why we're able to write so many
scripts is because our favorite thing in the world is
to shock each other. So it's like He'll write a
forty five page script and then I'll look at that
forty five page script and go like, okay, how can
I take this scene and add three pages that He'll
be like whoa, how did that happen in this scene?
Like I like we do that to each other, constantly

(27:36):
sending our scripts back and forth and like surprising each other.
I have a script called Absess that it's out there
kind of trying to be produced right now, and I
gave Daniel twenty five pages. I'd written twenty five pages,
and then I started writing a different script and I
was like, dude, if you want to take this, see
what you can do with it. I'm gonna go finish
this other script, you take that one. And then he

(27:58):
sent me back like sixty page script and I was like, dude,
I told you what direction I was expecting this script
to go. Why would you send it back? Like, like,
what did you do to this He's like, I don't know.
I just wanted to surprise you. Like he literally took
one of the main characters at the scene that I
had written it to and he was like, I'm gonna
kill this character. Just killed the character out, and like
your this is what you took from what I had written,

(28:21):
and like he's like yeah, and then he had taken
that character and had that character have a twin throughout
the movie, so he's like the person that you had,
you could still keep the cast, so it's still a
big character, but we get to surprise them with two
roles for the price of one. I'm like, you are,
You're crazy, but I love it. And that ended up
being like the script that producers were like, we want

(28:42):
to make this so right now it's in that weird
spot where they're like trying to get funding for it
and whatever. I'm like, that's cool. But it also was
a script that had it ended up being nothing like
what I had originally written or concepted out.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
It kind of sounds like improv, but like a little more.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, it is improv, No, it truly is. I think writing.
The thing that people take for granted is they think
writing is this, like it's like math or it's like
a concept that you have to put together the pieces
like you read books like Save the Cat or even
Rebel without a Crew. The way Robert talks about his
scripting process of El Marianci, it feels very like, you know,
there's like a routine to it and in a certain point,

(29:23):
in a certain way, there is there is like the
hero's journey, there is the act structure. There are these
like concepts that play. But at the same time, like
there is an improv of like what if we throw
this mouth, what if we fuck with the concept? Even
in Save the Cat, he says like, these are the guidelines.
These are the ways you can make a script that works.
But if you use every single one of these, your
script's gonna suck. You gotta figure out ways to like

(29:45):
not use one or throw something different in here. Like
you have to try things. And that's why I like
the note card method, like laying out forty note cards
that have like every scene and like whether the scene
goes from a negative to a positive or a positive
to a negative. I can surprise myself and look at
those forty cards and be like, I'm gonna do something
weird in this one randomly, and it just is like improv.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
No, And I love improv, Like I like casting like
improv comedians a lot because I know that they're pretty
good with that stuff. And like some of the best
scenes that we've ever had were like not even written
in a script. You know, we just said, hey, can
we do something where like this character is just like

(30:31):
messing with this other character up until the point that
they're either both screaming or one has to leave the
room or you know.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
I love that because it is like especially in the moment,
like the actual improv on set, where you're just like,
what do we change this? Like, as long as you
have a script where you know where you have to
start and where you have to end, it's like then
you can do anything in between.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Exactly. No, I definitely agree with that because it's good
just to have again, just have fun with it, don't
take it seriously, and I think it's important just to
just see where you can take the script. Like at
the end of the day, Like my philosophy is just
like I want to watch or I want to make
something that I would watch and like be like, oh

(31:16):
this is fun, this is cool, just simple like Caveman
brain stuff.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
No. I was reading Paul Hirsch then editor. Oh yeah,
he's a book called A Long Time Ago in a
cutting room far far away, and it's really good. Oh,
it's so good. He's like the director of Star Wars.
He did a ton of movies and and like a
huge variety of movies. Like you don't realize the guy

(31:46):
who edited Star Wars also edited planes, trains and automobiles
at Ferris Bueler's day off. Like that those two concepts
seem so foreign and so different. But like and also
like steal anoleos or something like that, Like just like
the movies are like so strange and random. Source code

(32:06):
like he did source code by Duncan Jones, like all
these like just a massive variety of movies. But at
a certain point, I don't remember what script it was,
but he did one movie that he didn't like. The script,
tried doing it and it failed. Miss oh it was
I think it might have been Trouble. I Love Trouble,

(32:31):
the Julia Roberts and the movie. I don't know, it's
a it didn't Yep, you didn't see it.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
It didn't.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Actually, that'd be amazing. I just watched that recently and
I was just like, who the fuck? Okay this movie
and I love it for what it is, but it's like, wow,
this is wild. But uh no, it's called I think
it's called I Love Trouble. It's it's a stupid movie.
I didn't. I saw it when I was a kid,
and I leave there's a scene where like Julia Roberts

(33:02):
is naked in a lake, but it's PG or PG thirteen.
She's like naked in a lake and a bunch of
kids like see her and then they take pictures. And
I was like nine when I saw it, and I
was like, fuck, why don't they show it? Like just
like why why do they have to tease me? And

(33:22):
then I realized, oh, and I was nine, and then
I was like, oh, there are other movies or ten.
I was like, there are other movies where I can
see that, but you know, just wanting to see boobs
in a movie. It was like the thing, that's all
I wanted. But anyway, Paul Hirsch's talking about that, and
that was I don't know if it's that movie or
a different one, but he just decided like he has
to like the script. Like if he doesn't like the script,

(33:44):
he's never going to be passionate about the movie. You
have to want to see the thing, like you have
to want to see it to make it. And that's
I mean. Both of my features that I've made so
far that I've finished were very much that same concept
where I was like, what can I do right now
that I would want to see?

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Exactly No, because at the end of the day, it's
just about like that's just kind of what you want
to go to a movie that you want to go to,
or you want to make a movie that you want
to go to.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
Yeah, it's like it's what do I want to see
and what do I have? There are these two parts
that play into a low budget concept. It's like what
do I have access to? What can I do? And
how do I make that something that I want to
put on the screen.

Speaker 5 (34:30):
Like, well, and you're going to have to rewatch it
a lot when you put it out, and when you're
editing and then writing it, you're kind of watching it
in your head and then directing it, you're seeing it
but not quite in the camera just yet. And then

(34:51):
you're kind of just working through and then you have
all these screenings and tours and eventually you're gonna be like, man,
I have seen this movie like a hundred times.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Oh God, it's terrible. It's terrible. I hate it so much,
like I seriously, and I've hit this point where I've
done it so many times now that I'm just like
every project, the second it gets to that point where
we're like sending it to festivals, I'm like, I don't
want to send it to festivals. I don't want to
watch it anymore. I don't want to be a part
of this. And it may I've used it to inspire

(35:26):
me to move on to the next project. For the
most part, that's sort of my move, and luckily I
have some really cool people in my corner who helped
take over that part of it. And I still go
to screenings. It's still fun, but it does hit that
point where you're just like, oh my god, I have
seen this a lot, an incredible amount of times. The
amount of times I've seen gray Wood's plot would probably
make you sick, like thousands of times.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
No, I understand. I just went through that with Pizza Ca.
I was like, I am so sick. That's why I
started working on like multiple movies, because I was like,
I like need a break. I like to remember what
it's like.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Yes, I love that. Well, let's talk about Pizza Guy
because I wanted. You talked about the writing process and
you said something interesting. You said you see it in
your head while you're writing it is that true, like
I I only ask because like for me, as I'm
writing a script, I struggle, so I do not see

(36:26):
it in my head. And I've realized late in life
that I do not have a visual imagination. It's probably
why I make movies and why I draw pictures, because
I can't see these weird things in my head. And
I like, I dream extremely vividly, like I dream like
a movie. I see things in my dreams so crazy vivid.
And then when I'm awake, if you say, like, we

(36:49):
should put a red carpet on this floor, I'm like, Okay,
I don't know what that looks like. I have no
idea what a red carpet on this floor. I could
photoshop it in and then understand what it looks like,
but I do have I have no idea what that
looks like. And so when I'm writing my scripts or
when I read books, this was a big problem with reading.
I think in the past I assumed I was supposed

(37:11):
to visually see this playing out, and I do not.
I don't see anything visually, and I've learned to connect
with the emotion and the words that are being said,
but I do not see pictures in my head.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Like that, well, that's probably going to give you like
a very interesting person. I heard that there's like a
small percentage of people who can't you know. Yeah, I mean,
I yeah, I mean usually I'm thinking at the end
of the day, like some stuff's just going to go
out the window, Like.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Yeah, it has to. It has to because the thing
you see in your head is never going to be
exactly what you can put on screen, just based on
the fact that like you can kind of imagine it,
even if you have an imagination like that, But then
the second you put on a fourteen millimeter lens versus
a fifty millimeters lens, things look different. Like it's just
naturally things are going to change.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah, I mean sometimes I get lucky, you know, Like
I remember when we did Pizza Guy, I had this
I wanted to randomly cut away to like our characters
like stepping on the city, like Godzilla nice and like
luckily my friend Dylan just did a shoot with like
these tiny houses, like these tiny buildings. Yes, it worked

(38:27):
out great, Otherwise it would have been cut. And yeah,
I mean generally I'm if I have a shot or
like a scene, like I try to have the shot
compliment the writing. So like, for example, like in Clerks,

(38:49):
I'm always mesmerized by that scene where it's obviously it's
just Kevin Smith in the back of the car going
like with the camera or like the two actors going
like just go pand back and forth between their conversation,
because I feel like that like accents the rhythm of.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Okay. So, in a crazy turn of events, as some
of you may know, there was a hurricane that rolled
through Georgia and it happened to hit right as I
was recording this podcast, and we lost power. It just
all of a sudden clicked off and the conversation with
Tate ended, And that sucks because I was really enjoying
the conversation, and I decided, instead of calling it a wash,

(39:35):
to try again. So I had Tate back on the
show and we finished the episode. So without further ado,
once again, here is the conclusion of my conversation with
Tate Hoffmaster. So we were talking about how in the
process of creating these films you kind of like write

(39:56):
for what you have and just go with it. You
brought up a point right as we lost connection that
you're talking about Kevin Smith and how he just was
in the back of the car filming and going like
filming from Jeff Anderson to what's his name? Dante to
Randall and Randall to Dante, and it's like it's one

(40:16):
of those things where in the moment you kind of
just find it. With your films, particularly Pizza Guy eight,
what were some of the techniques you found when you
were like on set, Like, what were some of the
things you were just like, I gotta go do this.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Well, there was sometimes where we would just because mainly
it was like Dylan and I were playing both like
the main care I was the protagonist and Dylan was
like my best friend in the movie, so there was
some time and then Dylan's also like and I are
both like camera on this too. So there'd be times

(40:52):
where we'd literally just have the camera because we have
this vhs C that we were using, so it's very
easy to like point at yourself almost like a selfie stick.
So sometimes that would become the shot, and or sometimes
we would just we would get like these beautiful wides,

(41:15):
but we would be like, Okay, we're just gonna double
them over because we don't have like a sound guy,
but shoot the back of our head or you know,
but still trying to make like a cool shot versus
just and something that kind of helps carry the story
and the pacing versus just like oh we got cool shot.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Yes, yeah, yeah, for sure. I Mean that was the
nice thing about independent filmmaking versus you know, having a
budget and being kind of forced into this box is
you can do stuff like that whenever you have time,
whenever you want. There was a lot of shots on
Graywoods plot where I was just like I had, you know,
one person's performance, but I didn't have the other. And
since I'm sort of I was like the star of

(42:01):
it or acting in it, a lot of times I
would just pick up a camera, go to the same
location I was at, and film myself in that moment.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah. No, I love pickup shots, and I used those
a lot myself. I think we used a bunch of
pickups on Psychic Vampire because like with Psychic Vampire, I
shot that mainly in seven days, but then like you know,
we'd have issues where we lost footage or just what

(42:28):
have you, and we would just either go get I
mainly use people in Lancaster for that movie, so I'd
be like, oh, we just come back over to the
house for like a weekend because we mainly just shot
that in like one house.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
So right on, just such a smart move. Like, honestly,
so many people feel like they have to constantly be
moving around us as many locations as you can. You
can get so much out of one spot or two
spots that people don't even realize, like just utilizing every

(43:07):
part of a room or changing things up in a
room or just any There's so many ways you can
utilize a location.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, it's all about the camera, the writing, and like
the performances at the end of the day, Like if
you have like I'm a huge fan, and I know
Dylan's a huge fan too, but I think you should leave.
You ever watched that show? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I see,
Like that's one thing where it's like you have people
acting over the top enough that because like once static

(43:37):
location can become super interesting because.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
And you could and I think that show is a
perfect example of like utilizing utilizing people. What is your
strength as an actor? Like there's so many funny moments
where it's like you just see how they talk, like
this actor acts a certain way. They're like, let's just
roll with it, go big on it.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yeah, like the dude who's like, steering wheel just flew
right off my hand. You know, they were like that guy. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
I always think of that, isn't there Like a dude
who's like, uh, yeah, what's his line where he's like,
I'm going to eat that I'm gonna take and have
a bite of that burger. I'm going to eat that burger.
He just keeps going. I always think of that performance
and I'm like, how did they get that performance out
of the dude? Like what is the director like, give
me one more, just go a little bigger, one more,
one more, a little bigger, and then they like just

(44:31):
cut the whole thing together. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
No, I think they definitely. I know for a fact
that they write it off so that Tim Robinson is
always the main guy who is acting like that. But
they'll do like a table read and they'll switch all
the different actors and then they'll be like, Oh, that's

(44:54):
actually this is better for you.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
That's so funny. It's so perfect And like I found,
even on serious moments, one of the most difficult things
in the edit for me is knowing when to move
on and when to cut things, because having lived in
the moment and seen it film. There's so many spots
where I'm just like, but I love this so much,
and I know the audience doesn't give a shit about it,
but it's so fun for me to watch.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
And sometimes for me, like I'll sometimes go back and
I'll cut out stuff like that. I originally was like, oh,
this is so important, and even after like the movie's
been released, because since Indie, you know, it's not like
a lot of people are gonna notice.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Yeah, you could do whatever you want with it. I
seriously have edits for The Good Exorcist that I constantly
am like, I should go back and just do this
other edit of it. In fact, with Greywood's plot, one
of the big reviews we get is always like it's
too long, which is fine, I get it. It's I've
made an eighty five minute movie and people get a
little bored at the beginning. As fine, But I've always

(46:03):
been like, I should go do the reviewer cut where
it's just like fifty minutes long, like the shortest version possible,
and be like is this better? Is your incredibly tight
version better than the other version?

Speaker 2 (46:16):
I mean, I've that was kind of the approach because
I think when I did Psychic Vampire that was about
ninety five minutes, and now Pizza Guy's like eighty three. Yeah,
and I do admit I like, I personally think it
is pushing it in terms of like you know, because one,
when you submit to festivals, they usually want a movie

(46:38):
that's over sixty seventy minutes yep or so you gotta also.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
For me, eighty five minute is a feature, Like I
just in my head, I think eighty five minutes or
it's not a feature. Granted, there are the exceptions that
are like NIGHTMB Before Christmas is under eighty minutes, Like
there are a few movies that I'm like, okay, eighty minutes,
eighty five minutes as a feature.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Yeah, Like I think eighty is like eighty to ninety
is like my perfect range, Like I love movies of
that leg.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Yeah, And I will say that there is a new
because media has changed so much, I personally feel like
there is a great like sixty to seventy minute YouTube movie,
Like I feel like I could make that. You know
what I'm saying, Like to me, that's okay if you're
trying to get me to watch your feature on YouTube

(47:30):
and it's sixty minutes there's potential, I'll watch it pretty easily.
I don't want to watch I don't know if I'd
sit down to watch a ninety minute movie if it
was made for something like YouTube or a different social platform,
because there is there's a way to tell a story
on this new media in a different way. But I
still think if I'm gonna sit down and watch a
movie on you know, Amazon or Voodoo or two B

(47:57):
it's it's eighty minutes, is my like perfect length?

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Yeah, don't get me wrong. I've seen, like I've seen
movies that are three hours that are amazing, Like yeah,
huge on Ice Wide Shot, that's a three hour movie
that just feels like it blows right through right. And
then I actually really liked scenes from a Marriage by Bergman.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
Okay, I know I've seen it way back in the day,
but I can't tell you anything about it.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
It's like a six hour movie, like technically it was
a mini series, but like I'm like, you can just
sit and watch that, Like if you can watch, if
you can binge a mini series, you can watch a
six hour movie.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
So I have this conversation sometimes with Dan and my
buddy Daniel, and it's weird because I think there's a
comfort in a series like an eight episode. You're watching
eight hours of TV and you binge it in like
a day or two and everyone does it. But there's
a comfort in knowing I can stop after forty minutes

(48:59):
every time, just knowing like I could turn it off
after this, I got a note forty minutes, all keep going,
and it's just there's like a comfort to it. There's
also this element of like character development that you just
the way it's edited, that it goes to this climactic
peak and then you're like, well, I gotta know what
happens next that just like keeps you binging versus like

(49:21):
a movie. I don't have that. I'm just like I
know it's going to have a beginning, and I know
I'm going to get to an end point. It's like
running a race for TV or for a movie, but
TV it's like this just kind of going through your day.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Well, and you know, I think that's one piece of
the art that you're I see a lot of beginner
filmmakers not really get their head around, which is like
I remember I was binging the Umbrella Academy recently and
I went and you know, I was playing music that night.

(49:55):
And when I played music, and like everyone who talked
to me, they were like, hey, let's on your mind, man,
I'd be like, I'm I'm still thinking. I have to
know how it ends.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yes, Yes, I get that way with video games sometimes
when I'm really when I get really sucked into a
video game and I try to turn it off, I'm
just like my mind is still in the game, like
I'm still moving. I feel like I'm moving through that
world still. And I think I think TV kind of
has that same build of a video game where you
get so sucked in that you just can't like let

(50:27):
it go. I will say some one of the cool
things with like a low budget indie movie is because
it is so raw and so different than like the
comfort zone of blockbuster films or bigger films. I do
find that when I watch an indie movie, I get
incredibly sucked into what it is, and when it turns off,

(50:48):
it's almost hard to like disconnect from that world.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Oh, I thought, Jeremy Saundier is like great at that, because.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Yes, oh my god, I've been so obsessed with his
stuff recently, and I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, like I still have to see Rebel Ridge, but
I remember, I, you know, I just I think I
popped into his career right when everyone else did when
he did Blue Ruin and I saw Blue Rooine. I
love that type of awkward violence that I've seen like
present in like Shane Black's writing a lot that just

(51:21):
further complicates the script. So now you're like, oh, yeah,
this character, are they gonna get out?

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Yeah, that's I've got. I'm so I have this obsessive
movie watching where I like get into a movie and
I'll watch it thirty times in two weeks, like I
just I get like I start analyzing every edit, I
like watch it over and over and over again. And
this last couple of weeks, I've been really into Good Time.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
Oh that's a great movie.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Huh Oh, it's so good. And I've gotten really into
like why is it good? Because it's so uncomfortable, it's
so stressful, and it's like a different kind of stress,
and they're awful. He's an awful person, Like the character
does everything wrong that you can possibly do. And but
yet I'm obsessed with this movie and the edit and
it's because I get so sucked into his world that

(52:16):
I'm just like voyeuristically. I can't not watch him. I
just want to watch every little train wreck of a
move he does, where you're like, everything he does is
kind of brilliant, like it's kind of weirdly smart, and
you're like, oh, that's how he's gonna get out of this.
But you're also like, you shouldn't be in this situation, man,
Like there's no reason you should be here right now.

(52:40):
And it's that same thing where it's very raw, very
independent feeling, but you cannot help but get sucked into
the world. And the second the movie ends, you're like,
I don't want this to end. I don't I want
to see it keep going. So I've been analyzing, why
do I want to see that keep going?

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yeah? No, It kind of reminds me of what I
really liked about Blue Velvet, for example.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Perfect example, perfect example. That world is just engrossing.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah, and then you're kind of like comic Glachlin, you're
just doing this to yourself, everybody.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
And walk away, brother, just walk away. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
So that's the art that I see often overlooked in movies.
But sometimes I don't always think that's important. And I
always think because, for example, when I worked on pizza guy.
It became like this really self reflective thing and it

(53:42):
didn't really become about, like I remember when I was
writing it, it stopped for me at least becoming about
like what's going to happen to these characters and where
it's going, but more so like how can you push
the rules of a movie?

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Yeah, and that for sure that there's this element of
like what can I get away with right now?

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Yeah, especially like since it was like VHS, like I
was thinking a lot about and even when I because
when you shoot on VHS, Like the thing that I
noticed and I liked is like I'll be digitizing the
footage and sometimes I would accidentally digitize like rewinding the

(54:26):
footage or like fast forwarding the footage. And I've also
seen like those amazing like analogue like effects, like people
just make those like it's like a guitar pedal, but
for cameras kind of being able to push that because

(54:48):
an editing effect. I really like, do you like data mashing?

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah, Like I love when people use that well, like
and put that in a movie because like I don't know,
I just feel like realizing the form that you have
and using that to like change your direction can be
such a fun thing.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
I think that's as it's sort of a struggle for
us because but not for us because I made a
black and white fucking movie. Like I definitely like working
in weird format and seeing the VHS in Pizza Guy
is it. It's cool to see you trying things like
that and seeing people who do stuff like that. But
it also is one of those things where you know

(55:37):
just as well as I do, that it's not as
easy for most people to accept that they're seeing something
that looks older or that looks different than the blockbuster movie,
and we kind of strive to make everything look like
what is comfortable sometimes, so for people like you and
I who don't like to do that, we are going like,
how can we make something that looks like I mean,

(55:58):
both of my movies constant, like The Good Exorcist, I
wanted it to look like a movie made for TV
in the nineties. I knew I was making it for TV,
and I'm like, well, what would it look like? So
everything is sort of like weirdly PG in an R
rated movie, Like the cussing is still there, there's still blood,
but everything feels kind of like it's TV. Or a

(56:20):
Grayo's plot being a throwback to like black and white
Edwood movies and you know, the Universal Monster movies. So
many people are just like this is old. No, they
literally like there are YouTube videos that are literally like
why is this coming out now? This is an old movie?

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Like, no, it's not.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
Made it last year.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
It's just like the genre, and it's fun for me.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
Maybe it's not comfortable for most people, but for me,
it's fun to watch Pizza Guy because I grew up
making VHS movies, Like that's how I learned how to
do it. So there's like a comfort in watching someone
who understands filmmaking better than I did when I was
eleven years old working on VHS. But it still feels
like that.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Well, and that was the first camera that I started on,
was the VHS we used for Pizza Guy. Like that
was when I would be bored at home. Well, my
friends and I we used to do like like I
had a friend who had like one out of every
type of Halloween mask and then he like eventually started

(57:25):
just making his own, so we would just mess around
with that thing. But I often love just like okay,
Like for example, on Pizza Guy, we did use like
some iPhone footage too, and just like digitize that through
the VCR just because those batteries love to die.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Oh yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Yeah yeah. But also like I've done short form stuff
where it's like, oh, let's use a DSLR with a
VHS camera with a Super eight camera or.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Yeah I saw I shot my very first Super eight
movie last year, a short film that I was just like,
I want to I never got to play with Super eight.
I was too old, like or born too late for
Super eight to be something that was accessible, but also
too close to it that it wasn't fun, like no
one was using it in a fun way, because it

(58:25):
was like this is why would we use this, it's
pass a and like I have this brand new VHS recorder,
why would we use a Super eight anymore? And so
I was always jealous, like I you know, you hear
all of these Spielberg talk about how he started on
Super eight cameras or jj abrams love super eight, and
I'm like, I want to use Super eight. I never

(58:47):
got to cut like that or never got to hear
the camera as you start filming. So I bought a
Super eight camera and got some Super eight rolls and
made my first Super eight short and it was a blast,
so fun to work in a completely different world and
see the challenge that goes along with it.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Yeah, and honestly, it's really fun to shoot film right
now because pretty much you're just getting it scanned, so
you can still work on it in a digital system.
It's not like editing.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
At that time, and you could still do that too.
It's like there's still access to yeah, right exactly. I
edited the whole thing digital first, and now I have
all of the film and I want to try to
do it like I've been like slowly cutting and taping
and playing it back and trying to figure out how
to actually make this whole thing cut together properly. But
it's a pain in the ass, like it never would

(59:38):
have come out if I had to actually find a
way to make that work. So I just did a
digital version of it, and we screened the We screened
the digital transfer of the Super eight edited digitally at
a film festival or at a friend. UH did a
screening of his movie and played it beforehand, and it
was before Sean Ashley's movie Old Man Slaughter and seeing

(59:58):
Super eight actual Super eight footage on a big screen.
Oh my god, it was gorgeous, man, just absolutely gorgeous,
and you just never see that. And I couldn't have
done it like fake. I couldn't have digitally make it
look like like if I had not filmed on a
Super eight camera, I never would have had it looked
that way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
I'm kudos to you for editing like the actual fashioned
way that would.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
I'm still in the process, Like I've got all the
film in my living room right now, and you can
see if there's like cut up and rolls of it
all over.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Oh no, that sounds really fun, Like I've thought about it.
Because do you like Stan Brackage.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
I don't know who that is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
He's like an experimental filmmaker. But one of the techniques
that I love that he did he would like use
an exacto knife to like scratch into the film as
an aspect, or just diet with chemicals or kind of
like the Lunar Brother's style of just like painting on

(01:00:55):
the actual cell itself. Is I love it. Such a
good way to add production value.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
Yeah, and it just looks so cool. I just watched
a movie what the fuck was it called? I saw
the TV glow. Yeah. So I just watched that the
other day, and the effects that they use in that
movie were so reminiscent of the drawing on like Super

(01:01:24):
eight film. Now, of course it was all digital, it's
all you know, modern day effects and whatnot, but the
look just totally harkened back to that vibe of like
nineties music video where they were just experimenting with what
you can do with film.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
No, And I definitely saw that and I liked that.
There was definitely like kind of like a little shout
out to a trip on the Moon.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Yes, oh big time, Yeah, totally shout to that. The
second you see it, you're just like, drip the moon.
You think of like the Smashing Pumpkins video, like all
of that stuff. You're just like, oh, this is so
like of that era.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Yeah No, And I love that they actually use that
song in the movie too.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
I know exactly. Yep. I love it so cool And
that's the kind of it, and that movie was the
perfect kind of experimentation between you know, making it look
modern using you know, current trendy actors. I guess I
don't have another way to put it, but like, you know,
people who are still kind of independent scene, but like

(01:02:32):
you've seen them and stuff and letting it be still
weird and experimental and fun and very like kind of
take what you want from it, even though there was
like a very obvious tone to what they were trying
to say. Even though I don't necessarily relate to the concept,
I related to it in my own personal way as well.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
No, I think that director's got like a pretty good
way of saying a very specific message, but in a
very way, like in a way that's applicable to everybody,
you know, yes, like everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
I think that's important in writing independent stuff, especially right now,
because you know, I think a lot of the big
budget movies are trying to make a statement, but it's
so like on the nose and also so big budget
that you're just like, I don't I don't know if
I really take that much from it. But as independent filmmakers,
we could take our silly, batshit concepts and say something

(01:03:35):
very honed in but also hopefully applicable to more people.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Yeah, it's a nice fine line of relatability, because like,
you don't want to be like so not relatable that
people are like, well, I you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
Yeah, my friend Luke Barnett did this short film recently.
What was it called. It was called like the Afterlife
Express or something express. Anyway, it's a short film and
it's blowing up on social media right now. I want
to give it a proper shout out because it deserves it.
But So Luke did this movie that it's about. It's

(01:04:11):
about this guy who goes to a what would you
call it? It is called the Crossing Over Express, that's
what it's called. And it's about this guy who goes
to this thing you don't quite know what's happening, and
then he goes in and you find out, like he
you can have two minutes with a ghost of someone,

(01:04:32):
and it's like a company. You pay and you get
two minutes with this ghost. So he goes to talk
to his mom who he lost, and like basically doesn't
really know how to communicate with her. But it's fun,
so he gets too. Not if fun isn't the right word.
It's very emotional, but a high concept long story short.
I watched this and I've recently lost someone that is

(01:04:55):
not it's not the same as what happens in this movie,
but I still felt incredib emotional watching it because even
though this is a very specific story being told, you
still feel the emotion run through you as you watch it,
and it's you start to like empathize with the person
in a massive way, even if it's very specific. I

(01:05:16):
think that's really important in storytelling right now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
No, I definitely agree it's good to have like a
message that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
Which is yeah, no, you keep going, sorry you can.
I just think it's I think it's funny because we
also made such batshit crazy or crazy movies that it's
like it's two people who made wild ass pictures being
like you got to be emotional and make a statement.
But I think we do. I think that there is
statements to be made in your batshit crazy movies.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
No, definitely, Like you know, I try to tell people
there's not like a clear cut message with either one
of those, but like at least, you know, just coping
off a pizza guy, like it's funny. My friend Dylan's
always like, you know, you do these like b genre movies,
but they have like a lot of like sweetness or

(01:06:09):
or sentimental value. And like the thing about like making
a movie that like knows it's a movie, and just
because that felt to me like just a movie, making
a movie about making a movie, which is like it's
kind of like, for lack of a better word, like
a mind fuck. You know, like you're kind of like, oh,

(01:06:31):
like how much of because when you direct, you're basically
just being like that doesn't feel real or this feels
real And at the end we kind of are left
to like but then you know, you forged these very
real friendships in like this like Make Believe World, and

(01:06:57):
I guess the messages like, you know, we need indie
movies in order to like kind of have like a
much more collective experience of existence, so like we need
our friends, we need like the people that we love

(01:07:18):
in our life.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
I love that. Yeah, Okay, so we got to wrap
this up because the cutoff makes it so weird because
we talked for a half hour, then we stop, then
we come back. It feels like we didn't even get
a chance to really talk. I cannot wait to have
you back on the show with the next project. We
will definitely talk again, but I want to wrap this

(01:07:41):
up with you know, where can people see your stuff?
When is the Pizza Guy eight coming? Pizza Guy eight?
I love it coming out? And where can people see
your other stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
So my other stuff's on my YouTube channel. If people
really want to find my stuff, my Instagram's x files,
so I usually post most of the news there or
my Facebook and perfect. My first movie's on Trouma now.
We are currently going to like package Pizza Guy with

(01:08:15):
Psychic Vampire for hopefully getting it on tob and we're
going to do a Blu Ray release of the two movies,
and Pizza Guy's coming out in Halloween on VHS with
VHS Haven, and we're going to do a couple of

(01:08:36):
screenings in New York and see how many screenings we
can get and just kind of tour around with it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
I love that. That's so cool. I mean, I have
right now I'm working on a movie that I the
thing I'm most excited about is just taking it to
some theaters like that to me and my buddy Sean
did it with his movie Old Man Slaughter, and it
was so fun because like the people who are going,
they're not just there for a film festival. They're not

(01:09:03):
just there for whatever reason. They're going to see the movie.
They're going to watch it, So like four walling it
at a couple of theaters is just so much fun.
Like it's just that's to me, that's the modern move.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Yeah, and that's how you connect with like your fans
and like really know what they like about your movies
and in real time like understanding like how people react
to your movies. Like it's so nice to see people
laugh at the jokes that I want them to laugh at,
or sometimes I'll have like a few oh you know. Yeah, yeah,

(01:09:40):
and that's fun too, and yeah, there's just something really
beautiful about that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
So great, all right, they take this has been so
much fun.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
They talk about, Ah, wasn't that a lot of fun
folks that he was a really good, really good dude.
And I really enjoy his movie At the Pizza Guy eight.
It is a batshit crazy adventure. But like he said,

(01:10:14):
it's in VHS format. He literally did it in VHS.
I didn't know that. I thought maybe it was some
like digital intermediate like way of doing it, or he
filmed it, you know, more digitally. He said. He did
some stuff with cell phone footage and whatever. But I
think that's really clever and really fun. What a great dude.
I have a book sitting in front of me that

(01:10:34):
I'm going to highly recommend this week. It's called True
Indie Life and Death in Filmmaking by Don Coscarelli. Don
Coscarelli is the what do you want to call him?
Visionary filmmaker behind Phantasm, Bubbajo Tep. John dies at the
end beast Master. He was in, like all of these

(01:10:56):
projects that he was involved in that he talks about
in the book that are how do I put this?
This book is incredibly inspiring true indie, Like if you
like the Fantasm movies, you will find so much inspiration
in True Indie. However, you will also find the horrors
of fucking filmmaking in it. It really talks about what

(01:11:20):
that kind of roller coaster of the indie director is,
the ups and downs of fucking trying to hunt for
the money to make stuff. I mean, you heard me
at the beginning of this episode. I've made multiple movies
now I have. I have projects in production that are
multimillion dollar projects, and yet I can't fucking find any
money for them, and it is so difficult to keep going.

(01:11:43):
And Don talks beautifully about that. I'm sure a lot
of the filmmakers listening to this episode have that same
feeling where it's like, man, I can't get the fifty
grand I need to make my film. Even getting the
what did we get thirteen grand to make Little Lucha
and the Big Deal? It was like next, It's too impossible,
and it is so challenging to find the proper funds

(01:12:06):
and to get the things made. So Don Costcarelli the
book is pretty big and it goes into a lot
of details. So there's like the inspiration early on and
the fun of making stuff like Phantasm and trying to
get the next project made, but also the horrors that
go into trying to make these projects. I believe, I
think I remember right that he did Bubbajo tep entirely

(01:12:27):
on his own dollar, and to me, that kind of
stuff is like terrifying and inspiring. So it makes for
a very entertaining read. I am actually going to read
it again. It's been a couple of years since I
read it, and I absolutely loved it, but I'm going
to give it another read this year because I need it.
I need that inspiration. I need some Don Coscarelli, what's

(01:12:51):
the word the positives and negatives of filmmaking? To remind
myself that it is positives and negatives, It's not always
just fun in games, so highly recommend True Indie Life
and Death in Filmmaking. If you like the book, leave
me a message. You head over to speakpipe dot com
slash Low Budget Rebels and you can leave me a
message about books you've read, books you want on filmmaking,

(01:13:16):
or just questions in general. What do you want to
hear me talk about on the show. Do you have
a guest you would like to see me have I
would love to hear from them, or did you hear
something in the episode that you disagree with or agree
with speakpipe dot Com slash Low Budget Rebels. That's where
you can be a part of the conversation, especially next season.
I'm really hoping that there are some folks who hop

(01:13:37):
on there and send their messages because I would love
to hear from you and make the show a little
bit more interactive next season. But I'm going to work
on that a little more as this year progresses. All Right,
thank you so much everyone for listening. As always, stay rebellious,
keep kicking ass, keep doing your thing, and don't let
your meet. Low Low Budget Rebels is brought to you

(01:13:58):
by the Indie Film Hustle Network. Recorded at Flush Studios
headquarters in tropical Atlanta. Produced by the film Daddy Josh Stifter.
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