Season 5 Episode 19: THIS MUST BE IT Director Tommy Baker

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 you Low
Budget Rebels ONCST. I don't tell me you're taking.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
All this seriously. Hello, and welcome to another episode of
the Low Budget Rebels podcast. I'm your host Josh Stifter,
and this week I talked to Half Brother Media's Tommy Baker.
He's a filmmaker who has made a documentary called Facing

(00:49):
East that is all about an overcrowded cemetery which is
a total trip, and he's in the process of releasing
his new film This Must Be It. He also worked
with Antonio Pintoha on One Must Fall. He works professionally
as a cinematographer slash director, slash editor creator with his

(01:11):
half brother who. We talked about that in the episode
Who they Do. They have a production company and so
they do a lot of contract work. So we discussed
things such as how to balance your time as a
creative and a you know, making money off of what
we do, which a lot of us in low budget
filmmaking do. Many of you are probably editors or cinematographers

(01:33):
or directors or I know there's a lot of animators
who listened to the show. That's how I began my
career was as an animator and then shifted from there.
But we talked about that. We talked about stuff like
the music and filmmaking, being like a band. That was
a fascinating conversation for me, and the comparisons of what
it's like to play music with a group and be

(01:55):
on set with a group of people. This was a
great conversation, truly. It was spur the moment episode because
I feel behind on episodes and I'm trying to keep
this weekly again until we wrap up season five. But
I had put it out there and Tommy was able
to come on very spur the moment, and I am
shocked at how great the conversation took turned out just

(02:16):
based on the fact that I was completely ill prepared,
and sometimes you have to be ill prepared to just
have a very casual, fun conversation. All right, this conversation
is awesome, but would be what would be really awesome
is if you headed over to patreon dot com slash
Flush Studios and subscribe to the Patreon I am in
the process of making a new movie called Get That Dick.
It's a feature starring Sean Ashley and Maximus Stifter, my son.

(02:42):
It's a comedy action movie, sort of a Shane Black
style thing, but by way of maybe a little Bokowski
and a little weirdness. But it's very much my first
action comedy to prepare myself for the action comedies I'll
be working on next because I have a couple in
the pipeline and it's a low budget, totally on par
with what you'll you're interested in if you're listening to

(03:04):
this episode of the podcast, and so we're making this
movie for Patreon, I'm showing the behind the scenes. There
are already six or seven episodes showing the process of
pre production and we're going to go into production in
the coming weeks. So if you want to follow along,
if you want to be part of live feeds as
we make the movie, be a part of the process,

(03:24):
make sure to head over to patreon dot com slash
Flush Studios. That's how we keep the lights on. That's
how you get this podcast add free and there are
over a thousand posts on there already with podcasts, comics, films, videos,
behind the scenes, all that fun stuff. It's all available
Patreon dot com, slash whishdios. All right, the only other

(03:46):
thing I want to talk about at the beginning of
this episode is the fact that there is a website
called speakpipe dot com slash low Budget Rebels where you
can go and leave in comment. For me, it's like
it's like an old school recorder, Like you just have
to have a microphone on your phone or on your
computer or whatever, then you can leave it like an

(04:07):
answering machine message. And what I would like to hear
is recommendations for books to read on filmmaking. If you
have a recommendation. At the end of every episode, I've
been doing a book recommendation and if you have one,
send it over there. I need more books to read.
I am aiming to read fifty books this year. I'm
at like forty two and I only have a couple

(04:28):
months left, so I will probably wrap that up pretty easily.
But if I could end the year reading some books
on low budget filmmaking, that'd be fantastic. So give your
review of an indie filmmaking book at speakpipe dot com
slash low Budget Rebels. What I would also like is
for my indie low budget filmmaker friends to head over
to speakpipe dot com slash low Budget Rebels and give

(04:49):
your favorite advice you've learned over the years. It'd be
cool if we got like a dialogue going where you
all leave a message and it's like you get to
be on the show for just a little quick snippet,
even if you I've already been on the show, or
if you want it, you know, if you comment. I
had like a thousand people message me saying that they
would like to come on the show. I cannot keep

(05:10):
up with that. It's too many. So I have been
reaching out to people as I go, just going to
Facebook or Twitter or Instagram and looking at what people
said and then from there trying to figure out who's available,
what's happening. So I'm attempting to get to as many
people as I can. It is impossible to get to
everyone because there are so many people, and I do
this all on my own. But if you would like

(05:31):
to be a part of the show, this is an
easy way. Speakpipe dot Com slash low Budget Rebels. Leave
me a message and I'll play it and we can
have a sort of back and forth dialogue at the
end of the episode. All right, without further ado, here
is my wonderful conversation with a very talented Tommy Baker.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Sounds good. I'm happy to be here, by the way,
I'm really really excited to be on here. And I
love the work you do, your show and everything, so
thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, man, I appreciate you coming on last. This was
a spur of the moment episode of a random Thursday
morning coffee film conversation. So I'm really excited. I don't
get to do these very often. A lot of film
people are late night folks, and so yeah, actually getting
someone to have coffee and talk because I'm an early riser.
I'm up at six every morning.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, no, I think it's the best for me for sure.
My brain's not firing at night like it does. Hopefully
a little better in the morning anyway, So we'll see
what happens.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Well, Okay, So that leads me to my first topic
of conversation. I want to discuss because while you've made movies,
you've done documentaries, shorts, all this other stuff. You also work.
You have a company called Half Brothers Media, and you
do it's like a production company, right, tell me a
little bit about it because I think that'll help me
get to the question that I have to ask. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Absolutely, So I started off just freelancing, and my brother
kind of was getting into it too. We're half brothers,
literally the same mom, different dads, And in twenty eighteen
we decided just to kind of band together. We formed
the LLC. He's a little more on like the producer
business side, and I'm more the shooter. So it's a

(07:16):
great relationship. And yeah, I mean, obviously we want to
make movies, that's our number one thing. That's why we
got into video, but we do a lot of like
corporate videography, a lot of music videos. We were in
Michigan last week shooting interviews with dairy farmers, you know.
So it's always something different every week and I love that.

(07:37):
But it really changed my life, like getting away. In
my past life, I did restaurant work and managed bars.
And doing this full time it's sort of a double
edged sword because I love it and I'm always learning
and getting better at filmmaking and video, but also you
wake up one day and you're like, man, for two years,
I've been shooting client work and I haven't made another movie.

(07:57):
So you know, there's a little bit of both. But yeah,
so we make our full time income and support our
families from shooting video with Halt Brothers Media, but we're
still very interested, you know, primarily in making films and
trying to kind of get to that place where that's
our full time thing, if that ever comes and happens.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, I think as low budget filmmakers, that's a huge
h This is a topic that doesn't get talked about
enough or all that often. Even I don't bring it
up that much on the show. But I work a
full time job as a video editor. I run the
video department for a company that does automated system for
heavy machinery. So I literally am doing interviews with like
construction workers and out on pavers and stuff like that

(08:40):
throughout the week. And you know, you have to pay
the bills. You have to mean, you have to have
money to make these low budget movies. Even though there
low budget, you still have to continue to get new gear,
figure out how to use it, find the time, so
working it into your job, so you're constantly learning on
the job, learning new things. I guess the question that
I have is like, how do you balance the productivity

(09:02):
with the art and film, and then how do you
utilize your time that you're you're spending at your job
versus doing, you know, restaurant management, which I've been like
obsessed with Anthony Bourdain recently, watching all of his stuff,
reading all of his books. I'm actually in the middle
of his one of his early novels it's called Bone
in the Throat, which I find fascinating because you get
the like blend of the artist Anthony Bourdain with the

(09:24):
restaurant tour chef, cook Anthony Bourdain. But like, how do
you balance this that the work of it all and
the and the day job with creating the art and
making the movies.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well versus what I was doing restaurant work. I'm happier now,
So I mean that within itself is just a huge win.
You know, I'm not waking up every day like, oh man,
there's a gun to my head. I got to get
in here and make this paycheck, you know, Like that's
so joyny.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
In a past life, I had no like the concept
of making food and running a restaurant being as insanely
stressful as it is is like something completely false. And
like now we live in the Era of the Bear
and Gordon Ramsay and Boordain and like we see how
stressful that.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Is, Well, yeah it is. It's stressful. I mean in
a ways it was more stressful even than filmmaking can be,
which is crazy to say. But it's really about what
you want to do, you know. So I like doing that,
but I love doing this, and.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
It's proper stress. It's all about the kind of stress
that you want in your day to day versus the
stress that's just purely unwanted stress.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I mean another part of it too
is just getting those reps in. So, like you said,
we're learning the gear, we're learning the lenses, we're learning
how to light stuff, and so getting those reps in
is super important. But then to your question, that is
the hardest part is how do I balance it now?
Because when it rains, it pours, it's feast or famine.

(10:56):
So when there's a lot of work, maybe you had
a project that you had in your sights or you're
hoping to shoot and then somebody offers you some crazy
day rate for a couple of weeks and it's like, okay,
well we're gonna have to put that project on the
back burner for a little while. But then at the
same time you hit these lulls and it's like, Okay,
I'm gonna pump a script out and I'm gonna go,
you know, go out with some friends and shoot a

(11:16):
skit or a short film, and so you do your best,
but yeah, it does become kind of all consuming, and
you have to remind yourself, Hey, I want to make movies,
so I'm gonna have to make time for that, you know,
come what may. And there is a sense of, like
I've heard Rick Rubin talking about it, that having a
regular straight job and then doing your art can be

(11:38):
really good, because when you're doing your art for a job,
you do get burnt out on it. And there's days
where I'm like, man, I don't even want to look
at a camera. I don't opening my laptop and editing
this thing, whether it's a cool project or just you know,
something to pay the bills. Maybe that day I don't
want to do it because I've done it for the
past ten days in a row, you know. So there's

(11:59):
a huge given take. But for me, I think it's
ultimately worked great, just in learning and getting to the
point I feel like if I just tried to make
movies that I would have never grown as I have
as a filmmaker, If that makes sense. I just I
wouldn't have been able to get those reps in. And
now I'm at a point where I'm a lot more

(12:20):
comfortable behind the camera and I can go out and
do and shoot a crazy short film and you know,
I have a lot more confidence in it too, which
is a big part of it.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
No, I totally, that makes sense, completely, because I have
found over the last couple of years, actually over my
entire life, as I take on different jobs, each job
I've had has the thing that I'm doing on a
day to day basis becomes the thing I don't want
to do in my free time. So now I'm mostly

(12:51):
shooting and editing and doing interviews in my actual editing.
You know, I'm trying to work on this movie Scumbag,
and I'm struggling, and I'm like, why am I struggling?
This was never a challenge before, And I realized that's
because in the past I was a direct I was directing.
I wasn't actually doing the busy, you know, the work
of editing. So editing was fun when I got home
from work. Now I'm doing the editing and the other

(13:12):
stuff so that the writing is more fun for me,
or the actual like directing and being on set is
more fun for me. And it's what is in the
day to day becomes a struggle. And I think sometimes
we don't actually think about that. We're just like, I've
always been a good editor. Why am I suddenly not
good at editing? And it's like, oh, because it burned
out on it kind of kind of seems obvious. But

(13:33):
also as someone like as an artist, I don't Sometimes
we don't think about.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
It right, And I mean I also have to remind
myself that Tommy from ten years ago, if I gave
him a peek into what I do every day now,
would be like, oh my gosh, you know you you
filmed with this artist and you were here shooting this event,
and I you know, at one time maybe I thought
I'd never get work like that. So there is you know,
you have to kind of try to take yourself back

(13:57):
to that childlike because just like you said on some
of the first short films, it's like you're running home
from work, like I'm gonna edit this and we're gonna
see what the tapes look like and I could watch
these dailies all day, you know, whether they're bet or good,
and now it's just like, huh, yeah, I got okay.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
I gotta watch daily so yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
So so you just have to try to bottle that
and capture that that you know, wonder again at some point,
and it's definitely possible, you know, I don't want to
paint oblique picture.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
Either, No, I think, but I think you said it.
It's like feast or famine in the work, but it
also is feast or famine in the creativity, and I
think you find those moments where it's why I think,
especially as I get older and do more and more
of this work, I become I'm understanding more the vacation,
the break from it, all, the taking a step back,

(14:48):
because honestly, like I hit a I take a step back,
and after three days I'm like, I want to edit again,
and then I'm editing my own stuff. But it's like
just taking the step back is crucial. And in the
past I've never that person who could stop. It was
just like go, go go. But then then again, like
with all of the editing I'm doing and stuff like that,
you talked about retrospection of like I never if I

(15:11):
looked fifteen year old me would never be like, holy shit,
you're doing this, Whereas like ten years ago me who
was just trying to make gray Wood's plot, like just
trying to film a movie and figure out how to
do a feature film after The Good Exorcist, after these
other features, and then this last two years of just
writing screenplays. I never thought I'd have fifteen feature scripts

(15:34):
under my belt, Like That's something that never would have
occurred to me, that I would have so much on
my plate and now it would be like I have
to actually make all of this, Whereas, like you know,
fifteen year old fifteen years ago me would be like
I just want to make one thing. If I can
do one thing, i'd be happy.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, And I think you touched on something really good
there too with taking a break, because you know, you
have to have something to draw that writing from too.
And I find that like, Okay, I'm done with my
work for the day, and then I'm sitting down like Okay,
what's how can I work on this script?

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Or?

Speaker 2 (16:09):
But if I only do that stuff, and I don't
like I have to force myself for a couple of
days to like play video games and go out with
my kids, and you know, you have some kind of
life experience, because that's really what a lot of my
writing's been based in. So, like my feature film that
we're trying to get released right now, this must be
it is really based on my times in restaurants and

(16:30):
a working at a bar, And so how do I
write another one after that? You know, because I'm not
doing anything but filmmaking most of the time. So it's
like you really have to stop yourself and say, Okay,
we gotta do something else in life to get some
life experience too. You know.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
I also think that there's creative overload where we get
to this spot where we're like, I have forty things
I need to make every single one of them, and
I don't even know where to start because I have
the work stuff, plus all this of our to do
list becomes this massive thing of like after you make
the first you know, a couple of short films, you're
doing it daily. You make it, you made a documentary,

(17:06):
you make a feature, you do all of this stuff,
You're suddenly like, well, anything's possible. I did it. Now
I can do anything and anything is not having a
box becomes a struggle. You got to put yourself in
like a lane sometimes.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, I mean that's daunting within itself. And like you
mentioned having multiple scripts, I'm the same way. I write
when I can. So I've got five or six that
you know, they're not perfect, but I would love to
make them. And then it's like you said, well, which
one do I make? And how do I go about
making this? Like five, six, seven years ago is like
I've got this one script I've worked on for years
and I have to make it. But now it's more

(17:45):
of a question like, well, you know, and then you
start thinking, well, if we make a horror movie, maybe
that'll do a little better, you know, maybe we'll make
a little money off that. And you're like, no, man,
that's not why I got into this. I love horror.
I don't mean to put it that way, but you
find yourself thinking about you've learned the finances or what
camera are we gonna shoot on it?

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (18:03):
No, And then I'm like, but what matters is the story? Actually,
you know, that's what I actually should be, you know,
focused on.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
It's funny you bring up the horror thing, because I
think it is a modern trap where yes, horror has
it built in audience, like it's there, it has a market,
and we've seen over and over these people who make
a horror and it hits and it does well, and
it becomes this weird like we understand the business, like
we watched the box office, We watch what things are

(18:32):
doing money, and we become obsessed with it to this
point of like we know too much, and it's I
was reading this book, The Psychology of Money, and it's
nothing to do with filmmaking, but it's literally just about
the concept of like stocks, what you should be buying,
what you should be doing, which doesn't interest me at all,
but the psychology of it does. And he talks about

(18:54):
how history never actually repeats itself. We put ourselves in
this concept that history repeats itself, but history repeats itself
on a massive scale. But in the day to day
with like stocks is what he's talking about, it's like
you can never know what's going to do well tomorrow,
like every company, it's there's no history, otherwise everyone would
be billionaires, like everyone would know exactly how to do it.

(19:16):
I think film the concept is the same where we
don't know, like comedy has not been hot for ten years,
but then every year there's always that one comedy that
hits it big, and we go back to twenty years
ago where everyone was making comedies. There's a new comedy
every weekend, and you don't know when that bubble is
going to come back and the comedy is going to

(19:37):
be huge, or the indie drama, Like the indie drama
was big in the nineties, they were hitting sun Dance.
You don't know what's going to do big, what people
are going to be interested in. So we're constantly playing
this gamble of like what do we do? What are
we going to do? Whereas in reality we should probably
just be doing what we're good at, what we know,
what we have.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, And I mean you shouldn't even be thinking about that.
It is demoralizing because I watch guys on YouTube that
make micro budget films and they say, well, if you
make a comedy or a mumblecore drama, it's your guaranteed failure.
And like the distributor that put my documentary out and
they were great Uncorked Entertainment, they were awesome to work with.

(20:15):
I sent them my second film. I said, hey, I
made a drama. Yeah, we're not even going to watch
the trailer, buddy, it's a drama. There's no money, And
then you're kind of now you're thinking about that instead
of what's the next great story I can tell you know. See,
it's a really it's a trap, I think.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
And it is, and it's funny because I'm really interested
in comedy. And one I had a podcast with a
filmmaker a while ago who made a golf comedy and
made a bunch of money off of it. Low budget
did it because they had a golf course available. Did
not even expect to make a ton of money. They expected,
you know, to hopefully make a return on their investment.
But they put this golf documentary out there, and it
turns out that's an underserved audience. Golf comedy is there's

(20:55):
something they could put a trailer out there and people
would go find and watch and they made a ton
of money on it Amazon. And that's like a fascinating
concept where it is like they utilized what they had,
what they loved, and realized there was a specific market
for it. But again it's also.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
There's that's like a two part thing because they found
a niche and there's people who will tell you find
your niche. Find your niche, but that's not the whole thing.
They love the golf, you know what I mean. I'm
assuming so that's why they made a great movie because
they were passionate about it, not because they found this
weird niche to fit into. I'm, you know, not knowing
of the specific movie, but that would be my take.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, it was one percent. And it is like one
of those things where you look at what you have
what you can utilize, and I think that's important, like
or what you know. Another huge thing is just writing
what you know versus writing what you think you know
or what you wish you knew. And that's been a
big part of my learning experience over the last twenty
years of doing this. It's just like, oh what When

(21:54):
I send a script to my producer Dan and I'm like,
what do you think of this? I can instantly tell
if he's like, well, you didn't know what you're talking
about here and here you're kind of making stuff up,
but here I can feel what you're going for. So
I've had to really try to utilize that. I wanted
to ask you speaking of like utilizing what you have,
you talked about you know, you being more of the

(22:16):
shooter or like the kind of technical side and your
half brother being the producer. I'm just gonna say brother
from here on out, even.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Though yeah, we call each other brothers, I mean half
brothers a lot of I always thought as a kid,
my mom would be like, your brothers, don't say that,
But then everybody we work with is like, oh, it's
such a brilliant name, you know, so yeah, no, he's
my brother, we grew up together.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
No, it's super And I think that the reality for
you guys is you are very specifically half brothers and
taking advantage of that. But like me and my cousin
Chris number one, cousin Chris isn't even my actual cousin.
He's my wife's half cousin's husband, so we're like, you know,
separated massively. He's Japanese and I'm as white as it gets.

(22:57):
So like the two of us show up and we're like, yo,
it's my cousin Chris, and everyone's like, how does this
How does this worry? It's just fun, Like it's just
it's fun to simplify it, and then it's also fun
to tell the story. We're half brothers, you know, or
Chris and I aren't actually cousins, but man, we became
cousins along the road of life, you know.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, I mean I thought it was really cool what
the Daniels did because it's just two guys named Daniel.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
You can't forget it. You know, those guys and my
brother and I have different last names, so we couldn't
be the Cohen brothers or or you know, the Russo brothers,
so we were the half brothers, I guess, you know.
And we'll see. And they're even on Only Murders right
now the new season. They're making fun of it with
the brothers sisters or whatever, and I'm like, oh my gosh,
the brothers directing together thing is out of control now, you.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Know, Yes, I love it. So you take on more
of the technical side. He takes more of the producing side.
I'm sure there's some like, you know, collation of these
things coming together. What is that like? What is it
like to work with someone I specifically know from my side?
Where it's like to work with Daniel, who had these
my best friends since kindergarten. We have worked together on
every project. He acts and stuff. I act and stuff,

(24:05):
He writes stuff, I write stuff. We just kind of
let everything co mingle. And as we've made this into
an actual business, we've had to actually delegate and be like,
you take on producing on this, I'm gonna take on
the directing, and we have to specifically let each other
take jobs.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, I mean, and that's a learning process too, because
of course, when we started, we both wanted to be directors,
my brother and I and we will both direct projects
at times. But if I'm directing, he's certainly producing, and
if he's directing, I'm certainly shooting it. And that's so
it's not like a set hat that we're always wearing.
A lot of times one of us will take the
lead on the project versus the other. We both do

(24:44):
some writing. I'm more of the main writer, but he
helps me so much with just like notes and concepts,
and so there's a lot of you know, working together
on that. And we also we were brothers, we grew
up together, but we have two very different viewpoints and
I think even though you know, we argue like brothers
sometimes and if he was just like my co worker,

(25:04):
I probably couldn't say some of the things I say
to him, you know, that's a huge advantage. I'm probably
the same with your your friend that you grew up with.
You have that kind of connection where you can have
a shorthand with them. But he has an interest in
totally different movies than I do, so it kind of
forces us to try different things and to get out
of our box. And it also you know, if I

(25:26):
have an idea and he has a totally different perspective
on it, so we kind of find a way to
you know, just kind of come to agreement. But there's
always Okay, this is yours and this is mine. To
a point, like there's two of us only, and we're brothers,
so at some point there has to be like a
one guy is gonna make this final decision if we
can't agree on something. But you know, it always ends
great and we're always really happy with the product, you know,

(25:47):
the end results.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
I feel that with Daniel as well. I think over
the years, you know, we've had our ups and down
through life so much that we've hit this point where
we're like we have a shorthand, but we also have
an understand of how to register when something's important. I
think that's one of the hardest things because I think
we have an ego. Every person has an ego. I
don't care what you say, everyone has some form of

(26:11):
an ego. And being able to like step aside and
realize like, oh, this is my ego, not my like,
not what really needs to happen. I don't really care
as much as he does. But my ego or my
my me thinking that I know what's right is what's
pushing me to believe that this is the move we
should make. But the reality is is like there's no

(26:32):
right or wrong ninety percent of the time. Like yeah,
sometimes there is like a sure set path, but in entertainment, art,
you know, design, whatever we want, whatever you're working on.
It's one of those things where like there is no
there is no actual right and wrong because you never know.
You never know, like with a client, Like I've noticed
this with clients a lot, where I never know what

(26:53):
they're gonna like I think I do, I think I
know what's best, and then I send it to them
and I'd say fifty percent of the time, I'm like, oh, wow,
that's really they wanted it this way, Like that's not
what they communicated, This is not what I thought, and
this is not what my set of skills would have
showed them that they want. But then it's not what
they want.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
No, I tell clients all the time, the scope of
the project is changing. Right now, this is not what
we agreed on, And and when you're working for somebody,
there's a at some point you're just like, I'm going
to give them what they want. I may not agree
with them, but that's a lesson. Even in filmmaking too.
I mean you hear people say the best idea wins,
but it's, like you said, it is all subjective, Like

(27:31):
how do we actually know which idea is the best one? So,
you know, sometimes that's a tough thing to figure out
and delegate, whether it's client work or it's a film
that we're working on or whatever kind of project. So
at some point it's like, hey, this is your vision.
You know, we're obviously not going to agree on this,
but you know this is your vision. Man, Like you
do what you think is right now. I'm going to

(27:53):
support you on it, no matter what.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
You know totally. So let's go back. What so I
don't exactly know the best of you and your brother
and getting into this, but specifically you and you can
work him into it as the story unfolds. But what
got you into creating video and creating art and wanting
to do this, Like, were there specific movies, were there's

(28:15):
specific moments you guys had coming up together that made
you go like, I want to pick up a camera.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, I mean there's many different moments like that. I
always loved movies from my earliest memory. I definitely remember
watching Pulture Geist when I was like five years old,
and it scared me to a point where I couldn't sleep,
you know. I mean it was like every night in
the dark, I'm like looking for the pulture Geist in
the house.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
And when GG the movie was PG, we all watched
it because it was like accessible. I mean, I think
it eventually got the PG thirteen rating, like it was
one of those transitional movies that forced a PG thirteen,
But it still was like I remember being a kid
and my parents being like, hey, here's a movie you like,
kind of scary st off, here's a movie and I'm like,
guys ripping his face off and stuff. I'm like, this

(29:03):
is really on the pale of what I'm ready for.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean, in the late eighties, early nineties. We didn't
nobody knew any better.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
It was just like your kids are running wild outside
or that was my experience, you know, and we watched
whatever we wanted to. But that movie, looking back, I
didn't know it at the time obviously, but the fact
that a film can have that profound effect on somebody
and like literally have them scared, you know, or.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Because it was a family right for me, it was
because it was just like an average family, so it
felt like this could happen anywhere.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah. Absolutely, I started wondering if my house was built
on like a sacred burial ground, you know, for sure.
And then you know, of course I love Star Wars,
Indiana Jones, all the great you know, I love films
growing up, but I wanted to be a musician, so
I always knew I was gonna do art, and I
played in bands from all through high school and in
my early twenties, and then at some point that you know,

(29:57):
I had kids, that just wasn't the right path for me.
There was just a lot of things in that world
that didn't work for me.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
It's funny because a lot of filmmakers I talk to
go down that same path of music leading into film,
and I think part of it is because, well, the
storytelling is a big part of it. Storytelling and music
just creating in general. And it's so easy when you
start to just pick up a guitar and write a
song three chords, put some lyrics over the top, and
it's simple. Then you play in bands like I did
the same thing through high school. Up until I had

(30:26):
my first kid. I was playing in bands every Friday, Saturday,
Sunday night. And then you hit a point where you're like,
this is so time consuming, Like this is so much
more work than just going and shooting a movie every
once in a while, right.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
I mean I remember having the thought that was probably
twenty five, twenty six. Well, first off, a guy I
worked with invited me to just play a bit role
in a short film and he's like shooting it in
the middle for a wide and then he shoots over
one shoulder, shoots over the other shoulder, and that was like,
oh shit, continuity editing, Like I can do this and
I can get my two VCRs. Like I didn't know

(30:59):
that was an option. You know, nobody told me when
I was a kid. You can go to film school
and move out to la and be a grip or
a PA. I had no idea that was an option.
I truly didn't know that was an option. But when
I came to that point where it was like, Okay,
I can either take this path of music and like touring,
or I can have a family and do you know,

(31:19):
this is what's obviously is what's happening. So then it
was like and also a lot of bands I was
in there was problems like the guitar player didn't work out,
or the drummer. There was a there's with film. I
remember having the thought, well, every movie I make, I
can have a different director and a different DP and
a different you know. It's like I'm not tied down
to these people like I am with a band and

(31:40):
I'm making art. And I remember telling myself, well, there's
a score, there's a soundtrack, so I probably still you know,
look at Robert Rodriguez making his own score and stuff
that was always really inspiring to me. And then it
just kind of went from there and it was like
you discover the filmmaking is a thing, and then you
realize that there's elements of it with writing and music
that are that you can you know that you understand

(32:02):
and that you're excited about, and then all of a sudden,
it's like a you know, it's a pit you fall
into and you're like, oh my gosh, you know, what's
a thirty five millimeter lens? And how does this work?
And man, they're flying a drone now, like I, you know,
it's just every little thing got me more and more excited,
until you know, one day I woke up and I
was like, I'm a filmmaker. I have to do this.
This is it. And I've literally never had a second

(32:24):
thought since.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
I like that you said you kind of compared the
two and made filmmaking like a band. I've never thought
about this concept before, but every time you are on
set for me, I get that feeling of like when
your band has jammed a couple of times, and then
you have a song that you wrote and all of
a sudden, it like all comes together and you have
that like out of body experience of like, this is

(32:48):
a song, this works, this sounds awesome, and then you
come back and you play it, like you know, three
weeks later and you're playing the same song over and
over and you're like, ough, this song is kind of
lost all meaning I'm kind of just doing it now.
Being on set is like that moment where you're writing
this song for the first time and it's like, this
is awesome, this works. But then you get to just
never play that again and go to the next song
and keep like changing it up. I've had that feeling

(33:10):
multiple times on sets that I lose when I play
with a band and we have to play the same
you know, twenty songs over and over again. Eventually you're
just kind of going through the motions. But to have
those experiences every time you get on set, every time
you're filming, that's what I look for. I am always
excited for the next day of playing with new people,
playing with a new band.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah. Absolutely, And it's a really similar process because you're
at home and you write a song and play it
on guitar, and then you go and you jam with
the band and you get it tight, and then you
go and record it maybe and you're playing it for
your buddy in their car and you're really excited for
them to hear this song. And it's really similar with
filmmaking because you go home and write and then you

(33:52):
get with some guys on set and there's even a
similar feeling, like you said of when the guitar, drums
and bass all lock up, you have that sort of
out of body experience. Same thing. I'm putting a camera
at an actor and they do something I wasn't expecting
and there's just like a moment and you know, the
air gets sucked out of the room and it's like
very much the same gratifying experience.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Okay, so let's talk about you. I want to jump
a little bit, but just to hear kind of your experience.
You were on My Friend film One must fall Antonio
up until explain what you did on the movie and
what that experience was like, because I think my audience
he's been on a few episodes, and I think they'd

(34:37):
like to hear it.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah. Absolutely, So Antonio turned me on to you. I
guess had tried to get on the reality show and
was like some kind of a finalist for that and
either couldn't do it or didn't make the cut. But
I remember him being really excited and talking about that,
and he was really a mentor to me. Just like
some background on me and Antonio. Sometime in twenty seventeen,

(35:00):
he had me out. I was I just quit a
job at a restaurant, like I was planning on grabbing
another one in two weeks. You know, I had no
interest in not doing that. I was unemployed, but I
thought that I was gonna be seeking game full employment.
So he had me out to shoot b roll On
a thing with him, and I remember we were packing

(35:21):
the gear out and he says, so you do this
full time, And in that moment, I said, yeah, I
just made that decision. It was like, yep, I do
you know if he can do it? If this guy
and he you know, he did weddings a lot, and
he kind of turned me on too, like you can
make some money doing this, and then music videos. He
was really a mentor all the way along. So then
when must Fall came along and he was gonna do

(35:42):
his first feature, and even in that he mentored me
so much because I would tell him, well, I've got
this script at home that I really want to shoot too,
and how are you doing this? And he was like, man,
a year from now, I'm gonna call you and you're
gonna have made this movie or you're gonna be making
this movie. And him whatever it was about him saying
that was a big motivating factor for me. So on

(36:04):
One Must Fall, I shot BTS, I was it was
actually the best possible position to be in to learn
because I'd really never been on a film set with
a real crew, you know, anything beyond just my buddies
and getting to see how they built the lights and
ran the sound and staged the scenes and did the takes.

(36:24):
And I'm just there with my C one hundred the
whole time, just capturing everything I can. So it's like,
you know, I was just in that best possible spot
to learn that process. And just also watching him light up,
like when Vincent Gustini came in with the cart full
of severed heads and severed limbs. I mean, just watching
him light up, it was it.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
You know.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
One reinvigorated me and they kept me trucking forward on that.
So he was single handedly really got me to where
I was pushed me with like just being inspiring and
having me out for those shoots and having me out
for One Must Fall. Well every step of the way,
he's really been there for me. And he's just such
a he really gives back any chance he gets, so

(37:07):
I can't sing his praise is enough. But but yeah,
that was just the best possible spot I could be
in to learn that process with shooting BTS because I
didn't have to do anything except for point my camera
whatever was happening. That was cool. I even remember a
point where him in his first ad Herschel Zohn went
off way back in the corner and they're having a
discussion about some scene that wasn't working. They were having

(37:29):
a problem. I tropped back there with my camera and
that was the one time Herschel and Antonio said you're
not filming this right now, like you need to go
back out there. This is you know, a heated conversation,
and it was just so awesome, like getting to document that.
I was really working in documentary at the time, so
it was just such a cool experience getting to work
with him on that.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
That's awesome. I have worked BTS a bunch of times,
and I can tell you I have never like film
school couldn't have taught me the stuff I learned earned
being on BTS, Like it just makes such a difference
to see what's happening. I mean, I wish you could
show one hundred percent the true story of what it's

(38:11):
like to be behind the scenes with Rebel without a crew.
I think they tried to do a pretty honest job,
but then of course you have the outside elements of
like having Robert Rodriguez show up to set, having you know,
a reality crew really kind of getting in the way
here and there and stuff like that, so you don't
really see what it's like. And it's one of the
things I try to do on my Patreon is like

(38:33):
really show the honest truth of what happens behind the scenes.
But it's hard because you do have those moments where
you have a heat of conversation you're like, I don't
want people to see this, and I've those are what
I learned the most from these moments of like shit
hit the fan and we can't talk about this, but
you're gonna learn something that you can't from something you
can't show. Like I worked on this. It's weird. I

(38:56):
work on this like soft core erotic porn movie, like
it is what it is. It was a weird project.
But I was on behind the scenes and we had
a day where someone decided they didn't want to work
on the movie anymore, and like it could have been
they could have just given up, Like it was a
main actress who was just like, I'm out, I'm not
doing this. I'm not doing soft core alien porn, which

(39:19):
is funny because I had just lost a job working
for a Christian media company and went from that directly
into softcore porn, from that directly into.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
The local news.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Yeah. Yeah, so it's like just jumping around from insane
project to insane project. But that moment, I was just like,
what are the ten things I would do right now
if I was in this director and producer's situation was
you know, obviously going through my head. They made a choice,
They made a decision. Maybe it's different than the decision
I would have made, Maybe it was the right decision,

(39:50):
But I just learned something in that moment. And I'm
sure you had the same experience working behind the scenes
on something like that, and in a lot of these
like contract jobs, you learn yet where you're like, oh,
I would do this different if I was them.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah, I mean, it really was one must Fall was
my film school more than any other project I've worked on.
And there is an element you talked about, like the
reality crew. Once I'm pointing my camera at it, it
does change what's happening. I mean, even though we're making
a movie. When I trot up and point the camera,
everybody knows you're kind of you try to be sneaky,
but they know you're there. You know. Yeah, anytime as

(40:26):
a documentary and you point a camera at something, you're
changing the environment that you're into. Some you try to
do it the least you possibly can, but you are.
But I still do think that that people can glean from,
you know, the ones that are done better at least
what it is like. You'll never know, though, unless you're
on set and at some point you start gripping, you know,

(40:47):
carrying sea stands in for the guys, and at some
point you're standing with Antonio and he's like, well, do
you think we should shoot this shot? You know a
little should we put it on the dolly here or something?
And then it's like, okay, I'm I'm definitely no longer
a documentary and I'm now both documenting this movie and
working on it a little bit. So there's a fine
line there anytime, But you know, I think that's all positive,

(41:08):
especially and when you're making a movie for basically no money,
you know, everybody's gotta gotta grab a c stand at
some point.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
For sure, that was my favorite part of being on
the reality show was playing with the reality crew the
documentary crew, because like they were used to doing reality
shows like that, where they're trying to push film or
not filmmakers push like, you know, survivors into whatever the

(41:36):
situation is, or like a lot of them work on
What's the Bachelor like or Bachelorette, so like a lot
of them are used to like pushing people into the
drama and trying to cause bachelor drama on a film.
You don't need to fake it, like there's plenty of
In fact, that's the best part of my part of
the show is the fact that, like they don't even
show my actual drama, Like it never comes up because

(41:57):
they legally couldn't. So you don't even get to see
that my set is being destroyed as I'm trying to
film my movie because they had rented out my set
to the AMC show The Sun with Pierce Brosnan. They
had rented out that entire set, and they weren't supposed
to be until the week after I was there, and

(42:18):
it turns out they decided to show up a week
early and tear the whole thing down. So I'm like
trying to work around this other crew and stuff that
they can't legally show, so instead they cut to me
being like, you guys are goofing around too much, and
I look angry, when in reality that never happened. The
reality of what happened was I was getting mad because
they were running like nail guns in the background while
I'm trying to film.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, that's for sure, Yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
I mean that's why my biggest issue with The Good
Exorcist is the audio. But like if you actually know
the story, it's like there was nothing I can do,
And what I can learn from it is the fact that,
like if you have control, I could always go do
adr later. I could figure something out, but because of
the reality show, it was like against the rules for
me to do any of that stuff, Like I couldn't.
I found out later everyone else did. But technically we

(43:04):
weren't supposed to do stuff like that after the fact.
So whatever, I'm following the rules and facing the consequences
for it. But all that being said, like you were
talking about the fact that you point a camera at
someone and it changes them, it changes it changes me,

(43:25):
and it changed the people on the reality crew where
they just wanted to play with me. They constantly were
like having to bite their tongue when I was doing
something wrong. There was a whole moment where I was
trying to set up a tripod that I or a
slider that I had no idea how to use. It
was the most expensive thing on my set, more expensive
than anything else. I had this like thousand dollars to

(43:45):
rent for three weeks to rent this thousand dollars slider.
I had no idea how to use the thing. So
I spent four days just trying to figure out how
to use it while they laughed at me, going like,
oh my god, just untwist the bottom and put it
in like this.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
And I could have came in and oh didn't just
set it right up for you. You know that's not
going to do it, Like that's gonna be frustrated.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
They couldn't, and they've got so mad that they couldn't
figure out. And eventually with one of the camera people,
like after we were breaking down, told me they were
just like, just do this, like just untwist the bottom
and put the thing in, and I was like, oh
that makes sense, And then I used the hell out
of it like all the time. In fact, I think
that's what. When Robert came to set, we just ended
up talking about the slider the whole time. He was like,

(44:27):
I like to do it handheld, and I'm like, oh,
come look at this, it's pretty cool. Let's let me
show you. I love that though I love the like
it could be because then you're a You're one of
your projects is a documentary, right Facing East is a
documentary project. So what so did you do that before
One Must Fall? Or was One Must Fall before that?

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Uh? So I was doing the documentary mostly before, although
they came out around the same time. The documentary we
shot over like six years. So I discovered the project
in twenty thirteen. I was I kind of met the
people that were working the cemetery and talked with them
and saw this story that it was like mind boggling.
Like at first it's like, yeah, we'll shoot a short

(45:08):
film about this, or you know, we'll just talk to
these people, come out with our cameras, and it just
made it had to be a feature. So then six
years we shot the thing in twenty nineteen. We finally
kind of got it edited and put it out in
twenty twenty. But it was a long journey, So I
was I was doing that and One Must Fall basically
at the same time. One Must Fall was a much
shorter period of time. But then yeah, we finally released

(45:32):
the documentary and yeah, I mean it's just a crazy story.
So the cemetery that they were burying people over and
over there's it was a cemetery that could have about
twenty five thousand graves and they were had like one
hundred and sixty thousand. I mean, it was egregious. I

(45:53):
think in Wikipedia, I don't know if it's still there,
but at one time it cited my movie and said
that that was the most overburied CEM Harry in America,
And like, I was in the notes of Wikipedia for that.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
How did you find out about this? Because it's always fascinating,
like what makes someone make the choice to choose this
topic for the documentary? Yeah, how did you hear about this?

Speaker 2 (46:15):
I'm not like the goth kid that was hanging out
in cemeteries all day or anything. That's what everybody kind
of thinks when they see the movie. But no, I
just stumbled on it. I mean, a buddy of mine.
It's because there's a nonprofit organization that cuts the grass there,
and just because the cemetery is abandoned, nobody wants to
take responsibility for it, so they cut the grass. So
I literally, this dude just cut the grass near where

(46:37):
I lived me and know, a buddy ran into him
and he just, you know, he saw our cameras or whatever.
I guess we were out shooting like a zombie short
film or something, and he saw the cameras and he's like,
you know, if you're into that kind of thing, we've
got a crazy story over here at the cemetery. And
so we went out just no idea what we were
getting ourselves into, and it, I mean it went. It

(46:58):
was just every step of the way it was like,
holy crap, I cannot believe this. And then it's like, oh,
holy crap, but now I can't believe this, you know.
I mean, it just like really went there.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
I love that there's because because it's true. I think
every person has someone in their life or something around
them in their area that would make for a fascinating documentary.
And I've talked to a few other people, a few
other documentary filmmakers, and that's basically the same story where

(47:32):
they were just like talk to someone who told them
something and they were like, oh, that's fascinating, and they
just built on it and eventually had this fascinating documentary.
Like the Last Blockbuster is a great example. It was
in the dude's area. He started to like talk to
the people who had this Blockbuster, and then it just
happened to be that every other Blockbuster closed down. He
was like, well, I guess I'll do a documentary on

(47:53):
Blockbuster because it's here and I can do it and
I have access to it. That's so cool.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Every every great documentary is like that, where if you
wake up and say, well, I'm gonna go find this
and make a documentary about this, it's never gonna work out.
I don't that I couldn't do it that way anymore.
You either do it, but you know, and that's so now.
I've just been waiting to stumble on that next like idea.
You know, I have a couple buddies making really cool
documentaries right now, and I'm just kind of you just

(48:23):
have to kind of try to keep your eyes and
ears open and hope that you know, at some point
something else is gonna grab me like that, and then
it'll be time to make another documentary. But until then,
I'm definitely trying to do the narrative stuff for a
little while.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
I love it. So let's move on to that, because
you have finished your first feature film, first feature narrative film.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Feature narrative film. Yeah, so we shot that after One
Must Fall.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
This documentary called this It's called This Must be It?
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Correct? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:54):
This must be it?

Speaker 2 (48:55):
And and so the genesis of This Must Be It
it's really about an alcoholic who wants to write a
novel and he's hangs around in bars all day. So
I wrote it just thinking of all the people I'd
met working in bars and managing bars, and even we
filmed it at this little bar down the street. Air
Deevil's it and or the scenes that took place at
the bar, and the owners and bartenders in there were

(49:17):
even saying, yeah, we hear these conversations every night at
the bar. You nailed it. And I'm like, well, that's
one thing I've got as I heard bar conversations for
ten years, you know, accurately in dialogue show how two
guys or girls or whatever talking at the bar. But
I really wrote it, you know, a relationship ended in
my life and I needed I kind of needed to
deal with that, and I wrote through that. And then,

(49:41):
like I said, Antonio kind of was a big driving force.
I saw him make One Must Fall, and he'd said,
you can make this movie. Man, He's like, you've got
to make this movie, and that kind of gave me
permission to do it. And then you know, it's four
years later now and we're finally about to hopefully release it.
It's been a journey through post production and through figure

(50:03):
you know, we wanted to find legitimate distributors and now
it's kind of like, well, we're considering film Hub, which
actually looks and maybe better than some of those traditional distributors.
But so it's really been a journey to just figure
that out and we're really excited to hopefully release it
by the end of this year.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
That's awesome. Okay, So I have a couple questions. Sure,
let's start at the top of this. You kind of
explained like where the concept came from and how you
just sort of wrote it based on knowing these situations.
But then when you started to get into production. Because
one of the biggest things I have found issue with
when I was in Minnesota, I found it very easy

(50:46):
to find locations for stuff because it's small town, you know,
and I think a lot of the people listening to
this you have access to stuff, you have locations. Now,
being in Atlanta, I realized how much advantage I took
of having locations and how difficult they can be. Well,
how did you get the bar? How did you find locations?
And like, do you have any advice for anyone listening
to this who's a low bunch of filmmaker thinking about

(51:08):
making a movie and how they can go about that?

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yeah, I mean the obvious advice that I'll just echo
from Kevin Smith and everyone else has used what you
have access to. And that was definitely how we got
into the bar. You know, I just knew the owners.
I went into the bar sometimes, and I knew they
didn't do a ton of business on Monday nights. So
it was like, hey, what would it take to not
open on a Monday?

Speaker 3 (51:31):
You know?

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Would five hundred bucks get you there to where we
get to? You know? And I mean that sounds like
a lot of money, but also a very very little
to no money, you know what I mean. And then
we just got to shoot in the bar all day
and all night and get everything we needed. But that said,
in the script, there was also a scene where the
protagonist goes to a hospital to visit somebody, and I

(51:54):
wrote it and i'd had, you know, then it came
to time to shoot, and I'm like, how the heck
am I going to shoot and hospital? Am I gonna?
You know, am I gonna recreate this in my bedroom
with white sheets or what? And I made a mistake
of cutting that scene instead of trying to figure it
out and create something. And I don't know how that

(52:14):
would have worked out, but I cut the scene and
it's the biggest thing that I still think about that
there was just repercussions in the script and the story
that didn't work as well without the scenes that I said, well,
I can't do that, so, you know, if I was
gonna do it again. Of course, in the writing, you
really want to like is this something I can do?

(52:35):
Like no explosions, you know, I don't want to have
like forty cop cars like pulling up, you know. But
at the same time, sometimes you have to just push
yourself in like how am I, How am I going
to do this? You know, this scene's important and I've
got to do it. And I think the movie ultimately
came together and I'm happy with where it's at, but
I still it still just nags at me, like, man,
I wish I had that scene, you know.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
You know, And I think that's a good point because
I mean, we all have that from when we started
our first feature or second feature, and I think it
continues on. I mean, you listen to audio commentaries or
interviews with filmmakers who have been doing it for their
entire life, and they're like, man, I wish I had
if I think if I had done this scene, it
would have helped the movie, but we cut it due

(53:16):
to time or whatever. And you see that happening all
the time. I think that there's an element where, I mean,
you have sometimes you just do and you make the
mistake and then you live with it and you figure
it out you finish the movie or whatever. Then there's
an also an element that you start to learn as
you do it more where you're like, you almost try
to put yourself in the shoes of what am I
going to think about this movie ten years from now

(53:37):
when I have to rewatch it if I don't do
this scene or if I lose this thing, Like yeah,
for me, It's stuff where it's like I watch the
movie over and over, you know, you watch it a
hundred times when you're in production or when you're in
post production on it, and you just you kind of
become immune to things at a certain point where you're like,
I hate this scene, But do I actually hate it

(53:58):
or have I just seen it so many times times
that I cannot relate to it in this moment. But
in ten years from now, am I gonna be happy
I kept it in? Or am I gonna be happy
I cut it? That's a really hard place to get
to to know how that works. But it's it's interesting
hearing you say this about that scene, because yeah, probably
ten years from now you'll be telling that same story
where I wish I had figured out a way to

(54:19):
the hospital scene because whatever. But in your next movie,
when you get to that spot, you're gonna be like, no,
we're gonna fucking figure this out because I'm going to
get kissed when I don't do it exactly.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
And I mean, I think that's actually probably the biggest
lesson from making that first film, was how am I
gonna feel about this ten years down the road? You know,
And I'm not there yet. But I've definitely been with
it long enough that I'm starting to, you know, feel
things that I didn't know I was going to feel.
That's that's it's definitely going to affect the next project,

(54:50):
you know, and how I approached that, and I, you know,
you I keep thinking to where you said, these guys
are rebuilding this set and drilling and it's blowing my sound.
And I think a lot of young filmmakers are no
budget filmmakers, think that in Hollywood the money solves all
the problems. Yeah, you know, I think that's the biggest

(55:12):
fallacy of all of it, because they could have been
dealing with the same things we are. You know, there
could be I heard some guys talking about the audio
getting blown in a big I think it was a
series TV show and there they shot on a dock
and there's all these seals out and the seals are barking,
and it's like all you hear is like like no
dialogue at all, you know. So it's really not how

(55:35):
do you make a great movie, it's how do you
make a great movie under the circumstances. And it's always true,
like in Hollywood with a hundred million dollar budget, or
with a five dollars budget, you know in your backyard,
like you're still it of one hundred million dollars isn't
gonna stop it from raining tomorrow and blowing your outdoor scene.
You know, like you always have to figure those things out,

(55:58):
and you can do it with or without money. It's
just really like how, you know, how serious and motivated
are you to do that?

Speaker 3 (56:05):
No, I think this goes all the way back to
what we were talking about at the beginning, and I
think that you know, when we're talking about as an
independent filmmaker, you you you know, you can go, I'm
gonna make a horror movie because that's what's doing well
at the market, and you start to think more like
a big budget production company big you know, producer is
moved like like my my new example is Borderlands because

(56:28):
apparently when they were making the Borderlands movie, it was
supposed to be R rated. It was like completely different
when Eli Roth was first working on it, and by
the time the movie came out three years later, the
actors are all like, this wasn't the movie we talked about,
Like this is completely different than what we thought we
were making. And that's like when more money more problems
concept of like you, you throw they throw money at

(56:50):
at smaller issues. Maybe they have access to better ad
R if your sound gets messed up, but you're also
dealing with all this other stuff versus like you right
now as a low budget filmmaker, you know, listening to
this me you Tommy, we have access to the ability
to do what we want with a concept where we
can take it wherever. Yeah, we're gonna have a ton
of issues. We're gonna have sound being wrecked and all

(57:13):
these other things, but we also now have the ability
to learn and the means to like continue on and
take from this first project and do better on the
next and the next and the next. But like, one
of my biggest pet peeves is talking to people when
I'm doing like Q and A's or stuff like that,
and they're like, I have this script, I want to
make this movie. I need to have like, you know,
three hundred thousand dollars to make it or whatever. I mean,

(57:36):
it's all set in one room. I kept it real simple,
but I need this money or it's not gonna happen.
But I need to make sure that because it's my
first feature, that it comes out perfect and That concept
to me is just like, don't make that movie. Go
make something else. Do something else first. Make your first
feature suck, like grab a camera and do it all
in one shot with your grandma, like I do something stupid,

(57:57):
Like do not do that as your first film, because
you up this fallacy based on you know, Rodriguez blowing up,
Kevin Smith blowing up seeing you know, David Lynch's first movie.
Like you have this idea that your first movie is
going to make or break you, and that is so
not true in the modern era. Go make ten movies
that suck because you know, uh, the one that the

(58:19):
first movie that you're gonna make, you need to fail
a lot these days before you get to make that movie.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean I think it was
Robert Driguez who said, well, I'm gonna make El Mariacci
because everybody has three bad movies in him, right.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
Exactly, Yes, so he made that movie. You maybe get
lucky like like Robert. But Robert has said many times,
like to me in private and publicly, We've had this
conversation where he was like, yeah, just don't worry about
if it's good or bad. Just make the good Exorcist
and then go make the next one and make the
next one. In fact, like when I finished The Good Exorcist,
the thing Daniel and I talked about as we like

(58:55):
did the you know Martini shot, we're done, we wrapped.
Both of us looked at each other and were just like,
you know what we got to do next? Right? We
got to go make that other movie we had talked about.
It wasn't like we're done, we finished, this is great. Instead,
it was like, nope, we gotta go back. We got
to go back and finish the thing we started. And
I think that that concept is what's kind of motivate

(59:16):
motivated me along this whole path, is just like keep
making things because eventually, yeah, hopefully we will make the
three point two million dollar movie and then we'll make
the whatever movie. But right now, you gotta do what
you can so that you're learning constantly, because no one,
you're never gonna You're never gonna you're gonna get to
that set. You're gonna fail miserably when you're at that
three million dollar movie set if you don't know all

(59:39):
of this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yeah, I mean we've seen it happen a million times.
I love Marats, but it was it was a big
crash for Kevin Spa because they handed them six million
dollars and you know, I remember him saying that he
was coiling cable at the end of the day and
they had to be like, dude, you're the director, you know,
like he just had no idea and going to an
earlier point that you made. I don't think we know

(01:00:02):
how good we have it as as no budget filmmakers
or ultra low micro whatever you want to call it,
because we don't have a studio hanging over our heads
rewriting our scripts and telling us you can't have this.
And so, you know, even making a bad movie. I
haven't seen Borderland specifically.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
But making any I just I just know the I
know how it's you know, there was a bombings box office.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Not be great. Yeah, but even doing that or any
making any bad movie is incredibly difficult. I mean, just
to make a bad one, it takes a ton of
talent and tell them and effort, and and I think
we you know, whether whether we're making a good one
or a bad one, at least we're making something and
we're growing and we're putting there's maybe that weird kid

(01:00:46):
is going to see that bad movie and it's going
to get him through the day, you know, or or
change make him want to go I mean, you know.
And I mean that's if it inspires one person or
one person goes up and makes a film because they
saw that shity no budget movie that you made. Like,
I think that's a win, you know. And and eventually
we're gonna in the best case scenario. As a filmmaker,

(01:01:10):
you hope to get to that point where somebody's handing
you money. But I'm I fear getting there in a
lot of ways because then I'm you know, Kathleen Kennedy's
over my shoulder telling me that this has to happen
and that has to happen, and and you know that's
I'm not gonna be ready for that because I'm used
to making those decisions myself or the only person I
have to argue with is my brother to get through,
you know, not the twelve people and the you know

(01:01:33):
that are running the board of whatever for this studio,
you know. So I think that we got to take
advantage of that while we have it, you know what
I mean, and enjoy it, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Yeah, I mean I was just gonna say, like I
was that kid watching the Toxic Avenger and and wanting
to make bad movies based on seeing bad movies, and
like I loved it. It was just it's inspiring, I think,
because we're all we're all so connected. We're all critics.
We've always been critics, but now we're not just like
you know, disconnected critics who's just talking to some coworker

(01:02:08):
about it or whatever or our friends. Now it's like
it's all accessible. We see everyone's review of every movie,
and it becomes one of those things where you you
fear being the person that everyone's talking about how bad
it is. But the reality is is like there's someone
who's gonna love that movie. Even if you make a
bad movie, someone is going to like it. And and

(01:02:30):
I was that kid watching trauma movies and loving it.
And now we've hit a spot where, like you know,
making Blair made a Toxic Avenger remake and it's not
even getting released at the moment because of this bigger budget,
needing to distribute in a certain way, tax write offs
of companies like lions Gate just isn't releasing it. Or
what I think it was, Lion's Gating made it whoever

(01:02:51):
made it, and it's just like this absolute it's a disaster.
It's almost ironic that the bad movie that just got
released on its own, now this one can't release Like
I would. I would laugh my ass off if if
Making Blair came out was just like due, I knew
this was gonna happen at the point of the movie
when you guys all finally see it, when it gets

(01:03:11):
released accidentally, is exactly this thing happening, Like it's it's
the joke of the film. Like that would that would
get me because it is true, Like we live in
a time where that's you know, if Making Blair had
been able to make The Toxic Lloyd had remade The
Toxic Avenger on his own, he would have been able
to release it. Now it's sitting in limbo somewhere waiting
for it, and like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Yeah, it got big. It had too much money behind it,
you know, And I mean I think that, you know,
there's so many fear based decisions being made and and
that just defies the spirit of Toxic Avenger too. Like
on one most fall, I got to meet Lloyd and
and that was this huge inspiration. Definitely just hearing him
talk about the early trauma days, and you know, he

(01:03:53):
was telling us like, oh, you need a shot in
a car, just jump on the roof and strap yourself
down and get that shot with camera, you know, like
don't worry about the danger. And but by the way,
I'm not advocating anyone do that. Yeah, yeah, but you know,
it was just seeing he as an older gentleman and
having been in the industry for a long time, but
he was still just one hundred percent ready to like

(01:04:14):
go make this indie film and like to go show
up and and be on and make this on screen appearance.
And and that was really inspiring because he definitely did
not have to do that, you know. And then now
they're remaking his great movie, The Toxic Avenger, and and
like you said, they can't even put it out because
there's they got there's too much money and too many

(01:04:35):
problems and too many studios.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
Many names, too many things involved, Like there's too much
on in there are too many stakes. Whereas like with
your low budget film, whoever's out there listening to this
and and you and I we can go do it,
like we could just go do it, And that to
me is incredibly inspiring. Okay, so we have to wrap
up the show. But before we wrap it up, where

(01:04:58):
can people see your stuff? Do you have any idea?
I mean you talked about potentially releasing this must be
it on film Hub. By the way, I don't think
it's a bad option. I've used film Hub. One of
the nice things is you can get the movie out
there for a little bit, get some eyes on it,
and then take it down. That's what I did. I
literally put a movie out there, took it down when
there was talks of distribution, and then they released it.

(01:05:20):
And a lot of those distributors, the smaller time ones,
I've found no returns on it. I mean they get
it out there to a small audience. I won't do
any deal that's over three years because I'm like, by
the time that three years is up, I'm gonna want
it back and want to try something with it. I'll
have ideas and I don't want to get stuck in
like an eleven year agreement where I never get to

(01:05:41):
see my movie again. So that's like I think, as
independent filmmakers, you know, being able to put it out
there is is a good idea.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
It's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Yeah, absolutely, and I mean, just to touch on you know,
when I put my documentary out, I didn't realize that
signing a ten year contract was a bad thing. And
I love that distribution company and they've been really good
to me. But you know, four years later, I am
kind of feeling like, well, maybe I could do a
sequel or recut this, or you know, maybe there's some

(01:06:11):
things that could happen here that I just didn't know
any better when I was making this, and I would
love to, but I can't because that's you know, that's
locked up with them until twenty thirty at least. So
that's a huge I'm glad you said that, because that's
a huge thing I'm looking at with film Hub is
no matter which way this goes six months from now,
we can do something different if we need to. That said,

(01:06:33):
so my documentary Facing East you can see everywhere to
be TV's free, That's where I recommend watching it. Just
type in Facing East and then our narrative drama this
must be it. We plan on having on you know,
all the platforms that film Hub will put us on
here in the next two months at the most. So
just depending on how long it takes for that to drop,

(01:06:54):
we'll definitely be on social media to shouting that to
the to every one when it is live. And I
think we're gonna put the first trailer up on YouTube
this weekend for for the podcast awesome, as I talked
about it, so I want to make sure people, so
I'll shoot that to you and and you know, people

(01:07:15):
can at least see the trailer while they wait. And yeah,
just check out half Brothersmedia dot com to see what
we're doing, so that that you know, we will try
to keep that in our social media up to date.
Half Brothers Media should should pretty much tell you everything
you need to know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Tommy.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Thank you so much for having me. Man, this is
a great talk. I really enjoyed it. Hopefully we can
do it again sometime.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
Awesome. Yeah, next time you got when you got another
movie out, let me know. I'm sure it's gonna happen.
As soon as you get the other one out, you're
gonna get the jones to start on another one. So
I'm yes excited to see what you do next.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
Go check out Tommy's documentary and be prepared to check
out his film. I wasn't able to watch the whole thing.
I did watch a little bit of the movie and
it looks fantastic. The trailer is great. What I saw
of the movie is really interesting. Low budget drama. That's
a very unique genre for movies like this. You don't

(01:08:19):
see a lot of like straight up dramas. And his
synopsis for it is on par with I think a
lot of what we do. That idea of like sitting
at the bar talking about wanting to write a book,
talking about writing, wanting to write a movie, talking about
wanting to direct something. We all do that shit. You
do it, trust me, we all do. We all sit
around thinking about the next fucking project and then we

(01:08:40):
struggle to make it. So a movie about that is
fascinating to me, and I can't wait to watch it.
He sent me a screener. So I'm gonna watch that
probably tomorrow. I would say tonight, but I'll be honest
with you, guys, I'm going to see the Substance. Is
that what it's called the Substance. I'm gonna say that
movie tonight, And so it won't be tonight, but maybe tomorrow.
I actually got one of those fucking my in law

(01:09:02):
has bought me one of those amc A list passes,
so I get to see like three movies in the
theater a day. That's huge for me because I am
cheap and I am not rich. My money goes towards
my movies and my art and literally running this podcast,
like most of you probably know, it's not cheap, and
in order to create your own stuff for the longest time,

(01:09:24):
you have to do it yourself until someone comes along
and says, hey, here's money, and that, like we talked
about in this episode, that just doesn't happen very fucking often, like,
and it doesn't actually make it any better the second
this podcast becomes something that literally is the place where
I earn my funds. Who knows if I'll still want
to do it. I take that back, I will if
anyone wants to give me straight up money to make

(01:09:46):
this podcast, wants to produce it, wants to do it,
give me a call, you know what I'm saying. But seriously, yes,
I would do that. But I'm very excited about what's
happened with this podcast because after this episode, I talked
with Tommy about the next season, and I'm I'm scheduling

(01:10:08):
out the next five or six episodes of this before
the season ends, and then I have a really fun idea.
So stay tuned Patreon dot com slash for Studios. That's
where you find the podcast at free, and that's where're
gonna hear season two with bonus content. Probably. Now to
move on to my last topic, I have to do
a book review and I'm going to pick a Let's

(01:10:28):
see if I knock over all my books as I
picked this one up. I didn't. I did it. Chasing
the Light by Oliver Stone. I read this book almost
two years ago now, and I think I don't remember
who gave it to me. I think Daniel maybe gave
it to me. I don't remember who I got this
book from, but I decided to give it a read.

(01:10:49):
And I'm not the biggest Oliver Stone fan, if I'm
being honest, I mean, Platune is a masterpiece. It was
one of the first movies I ever saw that made
me want to make movies that were Oscar worthy. It's
the reason I love the Oscars, which is also one
of the reasons I was so stoked to get this
AMC pass is because last year I watched every movie
that was an Oscar contender, literally every single one, And I,

(01:11:11):
unlike most people out there, love the Oscars. I know,
it's like, uh norm to be like, fuck the Oscars. Bullshit,
They're never the best movies of the year. It's a
bunch of white dudes voting on it. I get it.
I get it, but I also love it. It's a
way to celebrate movies and to hang out and talk
about them, and to post about it and to just
enjoy watching clips and rooting for your favorite It's my

(01:11:35):
version of the super Bowl, and I enjoy it so
fuck you. I'm just kidding. If you don't like it,
that's totally fine. I get it. I didn't like it
for years and now I do. But Chasing the Light
is all about Oliver Stone's early years. It goes into
how he went from you know, cutting corners and doing
these movies low budget. I guess low budget maybe isn't

(01:11:57):
the exact right word, since they had pretty big budgets
when they were starting out. But you know, he didn't
make Platoon until he was I think forty or something
like that, and everything that he had made up to
there kind of got panned or was challenged or you know,
he didn't really know what he was doing, and he
was a dude coming back from you know, living a

(01:12:19):
life of war and you know, boot camp and all
of that stuff. So Platoon was very much based on
true stories he had lived through. But it also like,
in order to get there, you have to read everything
that led up to it, or read about everything that
led up to it, and you know, hearing about his
his time writing a Scarface and Midnight doing Midnight Express

(01:12:42):
all of that stuff. It's a really really good book.
Let me see, I'm kind of like steadily reading the
cover to remember what the book was about because it's
been so long. But it was really good and I
may actually go back to it, and I would love
to not go back to it because you guys sent
in book recommendations. So let's do this. Head on over

(01:13:02):
to speakpipe dot com slash Low Budget Rebels and leave
me a voice message telling me what filmmaking book you
have read recently. Leave a review for it, talk ad
NAZM about it. Just go on, tell me all about it.
I would love to hear it. And I love the
concept of the Flush Low Budget Rebels film Club Movie

(01:13:23):
book Club put that down on paper, that's the name
of it. But truly I recommend Chasing the Light. As
much as it's been a while since I read it,
I do remember. I know way more about what he
went through, what it was like to get the Oscar,
and the weird moment of like realizing that Platoon was

(01:13:44):
an Oscar contender. It's like, it's just an interesting, inspiring
story of not rags to riches necessarily, but very much
like not knowing what you're doing to actually figuring out,
holy shit, I just did something that I did not
expect to be taken so seriously, and I think a
lot of you, at some point in your life will
be there. I really do. I truly talk to these

(01:14:06):
filmmakers who listen to this podcast. When someone comes up
to me and tells me they listen to it, and
then two years later their first feature is coming out
and it's getting into all of these festivals. I'm like,
holy fuck, that's amazing. I don't know if I had
anything to do with it. If you're looking into Low
Budget Rebels podcast, you are already interested far before you
listen to me talk. But if in some way this helped,

(01:14:30):
that's why I do it. That's truly. What I'm hoping
for is that this podcast inspires some people in the
filmmaking community because it inspires me, truly, it inspires me.
So speak piped up speakpipe dot Com slash Low Budget Rebels.
All right, thank you all for listening. This has been
amazing until the next episode, which I have two guests
lined up who are fantastic guests, and I actually have
a third guest who I'm really excited about too. Until

(01:14:53):
i those will be the next episodes, and this season
is wrapping up incredibly quickly, and it's exciting to actually
have a season five coming to close, pulling together. All right,
until next time, keep kicking ass, keep doing what you do.
Don't let your meat loaf, and by that I mean
don't don't be stale, keep trying things, keep working, Go

(01:15:15):
out there and shoot something. This week. I am going
to I'm gonna go film a short film with my kids,
just for fun, just for fucking fun. I'm gonna post
on the Patreon patroon comslast and go out there and
make something, or if you're in the middle of something,
finish as much as you can. That's the hardest part.
All right, until next time stay Rebellious Folks. Low Budget
Rebels is brought to you by the indie film Hustle Network.

(01:15:39):
Recorded at Flush Studios headquarters in tropical Atlanta, Produced by
the film daddy Josh Stifter, Bla bla bla 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 19: THIS MUST BE IT Director Tommy Baker

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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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Season 5 Episode 19: THIS MUST BE IT Director Tommy Baker

Stuff You Should Know