Season 5 Episode 22: COOKE CONCRETE director Ian Martin

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.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Low Budget Rebels on pocast.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
I don't tell me you're taking all this seriously. Hello,
and welcome to another episode of Low Budget Rebels podcast.
I'm your host, Josh Stifter, and this is a show
where I sit down with independent filmmakers to talk about
why we do what we do and spill a little

(00:47):
tea on the process of making low budget and independent,
truly independent movies. This week I talked to Ian Martin,
the director of Cook Concrete, a movie that's available on TV, Amazon,
on Hoopla, a bunch of other places. But it is
a fascinating little indie film. It's very unique to the
types of movies I usually am able to talk to

(01:09):
people about. It is methodical, slower paced, but in a
way that is consistently interesting, going on these little tangents.
And it's a mystery. But the mystery is it's not
your typical like it's not your typical mystery you'd expect.
It's sort of a disappearance film done in a very

(01:31):
fresh way to go full gray Wood's plot on you all.
It's fresh. But I talked to Ian, who was a
great dude, really fun to talk to. But we talked
about the making of this movie. I've seen the movie.
It's up. First off, I'm gonna say it straight up front.
The score is awesome for a low budget movie. I
see so many low budget movies that struggle to find

(01:53):
a tone for the score. Now that's great, and I
am exactly that sometimes, you know, because I have Curtis
doing Skull, then I have music and I've struggled to
find it, and it's a back and forth, you know,
in Greywood's plot whether you if you like the music
or not. There are certain people who don't like the
use of songs that I that I used on they
Some people don't like the way what was I gonna say?

(02:19):
Some people? They people generally like the score in my movies.
Curtis does it. Curtis Allen Hagger does a great job,
and I really appreciate what he does. But I see
a lot of low budget movies that, you know, they
struggle to find one coherent tone in the sound. They're
jumping around a lot. They move to different tones, and
I think that Ian and his composer have found a

(02:44):
fantastic tone with this movie. This acting is great, the
style is great. But the thing that really surprised me
about the movie was literally just what it was. So
many people try to do genre films in low budget filmmaking,
and so many people try to do things that they
think are incredibly marketable, even though low budget film is

(03:04):
still really hard to market, rather than doing what I
think kind of comes naturally. And Ian and I talked
about this in the show, and you'll hear more about
why it came to be the way or why this
movie is the one he chose and why it came
to be. But it has a tone that I really liked.
And there's something about this I think maybe it's because

(03:25):
I've been reading so much, and you get a lot
of first person, you get a lot of narration, you
understand the character's motivations, and this movie does a good
job of jumping between showing us literally what's happening, giving
us the narrator's perspective, and also making us question like
is this narrator being honest with himself? Which I think

(03:47):
is a big thing that's often missed in movies when
you're trying to consolidate everything together. There's a really fascinating
tone to this, and it's rough around its edges in
a way that I really appreciate. The characters are rough
around their edges, and the way we're getting fed the
information and the story is wholly unique. I really really

(04:08):
really liked Cook Concrete, and my conversation with Ian Martin
is fantastic. Hey, before we get started with that conversation.
Patreon dot com slash Flush Studios. That's where you can
go and check out my movies, hear these podcasts, ad
free follow along as I make comics and other art
and short films, feature films, all the stuff. It's all

(04:30):
at Patreon dot com slash flush Studios.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Here.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
You can join for one dollar a month, five dollars,
ten dollars a month. Whatever you can give to help
goes a long way. Right now, we're really struggling to
find funds. I've been taking less contract work because I've
been working harder on my feature films, and the contract
work I take is usually what goes towards funding Flush Studios,

(04:52):
and right now we are just barely making it by
so anything you can give to help patreon dot com Flush.
But the thing is is you're not even just doing
it to help me make stuff. There's a ton of
great content. There are a thousand posts on there. You
can go back throughout the years of Flush, ten years
of Flush studio stuff is on that Patreon and see

(05:13):
how we've got to the place where we are. And
hopefully in twenty twenty five you're gonna see some really
cool stuff from Flush. God Willing and the creek don't rise.
Who knows if it'll really happen. I say this every year,
and every year some cool stuff happens and some lame
stuff happens. It's always a struggle. That's sort of what
you know, Ian and I talk about that in the
episode that you are challenged in low budget filmmaking. It

(05:35):
is really difficult and so when and especially coming up
with ideas writing and whatnot and figuring out what story
you want to tell and what story you should be telling.
But if you head over to patreon dot com slash
Flush Studios, you can help me tell those tales. All right,
fuck this without further ado, Here is my conversation with
Ian Martin. Okay, so the first question I wanted to ask,

(06:03):
is Cook Concrete, Like, we'll go back to what got
you into filmmaking and all that stuff, But I'm curious why.
I really appreciated the fact that this was very different
than a lot of the independent films I see, because
a lot of them are very genre blit based or
very they feel like they constantly have to be like go,

(06:24):
go going, and this was very methodical. I read a
review online that said this was on IMDb, I think,
and it said something like it felt like reading a book,
and that to me was like the perfect example of it.
And what I liked about it specifically was that it
did feel like every picture, every moment on screen felt

(06:46):
like character development, Like I was figuring out what the
characters were feeling, what they were doing through expressions. Why
was this style what you chose?

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah? Cool, Well, I like that's really I like hearing
that that's reading a book is fitting because so I
have done a lot of writing and so both fiction
and screenplays, and so I and I'm not not like
stuff that's been published, but stuff that I've worked on

(07:15):
and tried to get developed. And so I had written
this novella co Concrete, and I had done a draft
of it, and this had part of why I was
writing fiction is because I do love to write fiction,
but also because it can be very difficult to get
movies made and and and expensive and so so I

(07:37):
had written this novella and was at a point where
I had been trying for years to get a feature made,
and thought, you know, I really want to make a project.
I really want to get a feature done. And this
guy was working with I was working at the Apple
Store at the time, and this guy was working with
He did a kickstarter to do a cthuluto and with

(08:01):
it with a bunch of his bodies, and they raised
a bunch of money and they got it made and
it was it was a success, and I thought, man,
maybe I could do a kickstarter to make a feature.
And I thought, well, I've got this book, this novella,
I should say, and that could be one of the
kickstarter rewards. And and I've always loved movies that are
are based on books. I just love character development and characters.

(08:24):
So I thought, you know, I'll go for this. And
it's also a little bit of a mystery, but I
would say it's a low key mystery, so so yeah,
so I had this, had this this novella, and I
had a source, and I was like, I really want
to make a feature. So I thought, I'll do a
Kickstarter and I'll adapt the novella. I'll make the novella
one of the rewards. I'll have a print version of it,

(08:45):
I'll have an ebook version of it. So that's sort
of how it got chosen. I would say it was
for me. It was a property I guess that I
had made, you know, something that I had done that
lent itself really well to doing a crowdsourcing campaign.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
I love that. I love the fact that, you know,
I find that one of the biggest inspirations I personally have,
especially as I get older, make more stuff whatever is
actually like myself going back to old stuff I had
done and things that like I appreciate that I had made.
So I think that's one of the reasons why, I mean,
I think it's one of the reasons why people do

(09:25):
so many sequels. On top of the fact that like you,
you know, you have an IP that's already there, you
have something is the fact that you fucking love these characters,
you love the idea, and so having something that you
spent some time with wanting to put it on screen.
I think that's awesome. I think a lot of people
could learn something from that in you know, finding motivation

(09:47):
in your own work.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah. Well, there's also like I don't know if this
is the case for you, but I'll find like a
work on a screenplay or a work on a story,
and I'll really like it, and but but it won't
I won't do something with it, or won't I won't
go anywhere, and then I'll be like, on to the
next project. And then oftentimes I'll like cannibalize a little
bit of that where I'll be like, Okay, let me
just take a little that scene is kind of making

(10:10):
itself into this into this project. Now, Really glad I
don't lose that scene because I really loved that scene
in the last project. So it can also just sort
of be like like a bag of tricks that you've
developed and you want to make sure you use them.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yes, one hundred percent. I think that that is such.
It's something that so many artists in general, I think,
fear that they're repeating themselves, that they're like kind of
making a bastardization of their own creations. But the reality
is like the best of the best. That's what they do.
Go look at Like, I was just reading Tarantino's book

(10:43):
Cinema Speculation, and he was talking about De Palma and
like sort of the inspiration he founded to Palma. But
the fact that like de Palma's first films all just
like bastardized concepts from the one before and improved on
the next one and then improved on the next one.
It was stealing concepts from himself until he realized he
was stealing concepts from Hitchcock, and then he was just like,

(11:05):
oh fuck it, I'm just gonna completely steal from Hitchcock
for sisters and just like ape the entire vibe of Hitchcock,
especially since DePalma was not a creative mind or is
not a creative mind, like his movies haven't been necessarily creative.
He's like De Palma will say it about himself that
he is very much like into building things, math, like

(11:27):
all of these technical elements, and the creative part is
something he had to like learn over time and figure out.
He really loved the like mechanics of filmmaking.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
That's so interesting because I love Hitchcock and one of
the things that's so interesting about Hitchcock is how I
feel like conscious he is of his process, like like
the the the what it is that he's making. I
feel like he's very aware of the moving parts. It
does feel mechanical in a way, and the same with Diploma.

(12:00):
It feels very much like it's an assembled piece. So
there is something I don't know, mechanical or assembled about
it that I love.

Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, Tarantino said the same thing. He said that which
I totally agree with. That Hitchcock was one of the
first filmmakers who allowed you to see the camera, Like
he allowed you to know that you're watching a movie.
Before that, everyone else was like, how do we hide it?
How do we make this in people subconscious? And you know,
like in Citizen Kane, there's these moments that kind of

(12:30):
like let you in on the secret of the process.
But I do think that Hitchcock was one of the
earliest to really at least when I watched, because I
was not a big Hitchcock fan for a long time.
I just I wasn't an old movie person, Like I
couldn't get past anything before David Lynch, you know, like
I was like into Lynch. I was into that stuff,
and I just never really went back that far into

(12:53):
like Hitchcock stuff. And then later in life, you know,
post college whatever, in my twenties, I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna give this a shot and got, you know,
way into Hitchcock. And then even in the last few years,
I've gone back and just watched through everything and become obsessed.
But I think it's true. I think Tarantino's exactly right,
and it's something that I never thought about. With Di

(13:13):
Palma and DePalma was one of the first filmmakers I
started watching his movies, so, like, you know, never thinking
about the fact that I liked that about DePalma, that
I could feel the filmmaking process, the edits, the quick cuts,
all of that stuff. It makes sense. But it's to
go back to what you were kind of saying before.

(13:36):
I do think that the creative mind we struggle to
like to decide what we want to do next, because
you just you said, like we connect to I don't
remember exactly how you put it, but something about like
connecting to the projects that you've worked on and wanting
to move on or figure stuff out. I think sometimes

(13:57):
I don't know if you're this way but creatively, I like,
I just want to keep making something new. I want
to keep trying something else versus using that bag of tricks.
Was that so going back to some of the earlier
projects you work on, were there things you learned in
those processes that made this project the one that you
were like, I'm going to do this because of what
I've learned.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, maybe, I mean I knew that like that it
helps to have a big question in a movie. So
like you know, in cook Concrete, it's like what happened
to Adam? And so if you if you set up
a question for an audience, then you know the natural
response is to want to have it, to want to
have it be answered. And so I could sort of

(14:39):
learned that working on projects was like, Okay, you know,
what's the what's the big question of this movie? To
make sure that audiences want to have that question be answered?

Speaker 4 (14:51):
I think so that's I think that that's a really
good point that a lot of us take for granted,
Like that seems obvious. You want it. You're putting a
question on the audience and then they want to answer it.
But I don't think that everyone always thinks like that.
I think we think about our characters, or we think
about the general plot, but like, are people questioning something
through this movie? What are they thinking about? I know
I've I've fallen victim to not really following that, and

(15:13):
I think it's a great point to bring up what
is the question?

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Well, I think especially if you're if you're in like
low budget filmmaking, or if you're working with characters a lot,
I think that you know what can happen sometimes with
characters if you're focused on them, is they sometimes they
can't carry the whole story right Like they can they
can make interesting scenes, but can they carry the whole
story from beginning to end? And so if you have

(15:39):
a question that's set up, I think it helps carry
the story. It also helps just from a marketing perspective,
So like if in a trailer you can set up
a question like what you know what happened to Adam?
That's that's an immediate question before you've even seen the movie,
that you have about the movie. So I think that

(16:00):
was something that I had learned was like let their
at least try making a question that the audience is
going to want answered and make sure you're building around
that that that question even if you go on tangents
about characters or you know, a little picker esque scenes
that happen, like set up that question and follow that

(16:20):
through to the end.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
Yeah, I think that my favorite independent movies, my favorite
movies in general, are the ones that have a very
specific question that we're trying to answer, but then go
on tangents that are interesting and fun because those tangents,
Like I like it when i almost forget what the
question was and then I'm reminded of it because I'm

(16:42):
so into the tangent. I'm loving these characters. I'm starting
to find what's going on. I mean, it's a weird comparison,
but like in Tommy Boy, I know that it's not
a mystery. It doesn't like that though. If you take
Tommy Boy, there is the question of will Tommy say
of this company town? Yeah, the company which will inevitably

(17:04):
will help the town continue on because we're they're in
the midst of mixed, midst of having this whole little
community crumble, So that that's a very deep question. Like
that movie, as silly and stupid as it is, has
a very like specific plot that we're trying to figure out,
Will they will he be able to save the day,

(17:25):
and then of course the movie goes on all these tiny,
little fun tangents. But the and the tangents are what
everyone really remembers of the movie. That's the stuff we quote.
It's the fun of the movie. But the question is
constantly being You're constantly being reminded this is the question
we're trying to answer, and it keeps you interested in
where they're going to go next.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
It also helps just from a creative standpoint, because you know,
it can be hard, especially in film, if you're if
you if you're just relying on your characters in film,
it can be really hard to find ways to develop
them in a way that's visual and cinematic. But if
you if you have this central question that you've tethered
all your characters to, it makes it a lot easier

(18:04):
to give them sort of a direction, something that they're
working towards. So those scenes that you, you know, you
mentioned that you do enjoy these little tangents, those can
happen because there's the central anchor running through the whole movie.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
I love it. Okay, so let's take a step back,
and I want to ask you what were It's interesting
because you started, you know, you wrote novels and other things.
What got you interested in telling stories? Like what were
some of the first movies, first books, the early things
that made you go like this, I got to do

(18:35):
this as well.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Well. So I when when I was in second grade,
I I wrote a story called I Don't Want to
Grow Up I think is what it was called, something
like that. Sure, and and there was this theater company
that came to our school and they picked you submitted
your story to them, and then they would adapt the story.

(18:59):
So so they chose my story and they adapted it,
and it was like the thrill of a lifetime, you know,
as a second grader, you're like, I got to see it.
And it was also interesting because as someone who likes
to write, I was like, you know, the teacher said
to me afterwards, like what did you think? And I
was like, well, it was great, but I don't know
if I like, like, I wasn't happy with the adaptation.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
Critiquing, critiquing their take on it. It's so funny. My
kids do the same thing where it's like, you know,
we write a little script and then we film it
and we just do it for fun. And they're constantly
like critiquing the tiny details, like the little minutia of
the of this little skit we made. And to me,
I'm just like, guys, we're just having a fun Saturday,
Like this doesn't need to be But that's the way

(19:41):
your little mind works, especially.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
For sure, and I mean even as you get older.
And that's one of the big challenges of filmmaking in
my mind, is like, if you what you're envisioning is
never going to be what whatever what's on the screen,
and it can be really hard to let go of that,
and it can hold you back to you know, you
can be like, I can't get that just ride that
scene doesn't work for me, and then you're not proud
of the scene. But the scene may work or you know,

(20:04):
you could maybe get it to work, but you're so
locked into whatever it was in your head. So I
think being able to accept that it's not going to
look like what's in your head it is maybe also
part of the process. So but anyway, so that was
one of the things that got me into it. And
then my dad was really creative guy, and he for
some school project we made an animated so it was

(20:26):
it was a he had a big chalkboard, and we
basically pointed our campcorder down at the chalkboard and we
put a bunch of paper cutouts on the chalkboard, and
we animated a little story about this kid who's trying
to find the real Santa Claus and he follows one
Santa and the Santa kicks a dog and then so
he knows it's not the real Senna. And he falls
another one and it goes into a bar, so he
knows it's not the real Senna. And then I don't remember,

(20:48):
I know that he eventually goes home and then he
opens a present with his dad, which was very fitting.
So so that was something that was super thrilling to see.
I mean, it was really really rough animation, but to
see my classmates be like excited about it and to
see something come to life was very very thrilling. So

(21:11):
so those were some things that as a very little person,
got me excited about it. And then, you know, when
I was in undergrad I went to Indiana University and
they had a film production program, and we I shot
some movies on film and that was really that was

(21:33):
where we first learned. I was first learning about like
the language of cinema and things like cutting on action.
Like I know this sounds maybe stupid or something, but
like the thrill of realizing what cutting on action meant
and then executing a cutting on action to see how
it actually made a smooth cut, and like there was
a certain like power and excitement and going from one

(21:55):
one shot to another and having that connection be made
was that was really fun. It's just it's just exciting.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
Yeah, I think as filmmakers as we do it, you know,
because you know, you make shorts, you practice and practice
and practice. Sometimes those like the simple concepts that first
got you really excited about it, can you know, go away?
You just they don't excite you the same way. And
so for me sometimes like I get in fact, for
like Christmas, I will I'll ask for books. I'm a
big reader now, I love books, but I'll ask for

(22:25):
books that are very simple, like like books for I'll
literally read like The Teenage Guide to Filmmaking again because
it will like I don't I'm just making this title up.
It probably doesn't exist. But I will read like books
or like animation books that are meant for you know,
young kids, and I'll look through those pictures because I
find like being inspired by I can be especially inspired

(22:47):
when I'm reminded of like where I started and those
early moments and how cool it is that we get
to actually do it. Because you talk about being you know,
in second grade or a young kid doing this, and
that that joy of playing god making something out of
that thing.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Right right and see and seeing it work, and then
also seeing an audience, like seeing your classmates laugh or
you know, get excited or something. It's like, that's thrilling.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
It is, it's it's so fun, like it's I mean,
it never I don't think it ever goes away. I'm
almost forty years old. I still like will watch my
movies with an audience and be like, oh, yeah, this
is so great. And then that nervousness that you get
before you hit play or before it starts up in
the theater, it's like, I don't know, I don't think
that will ever go away from me, Like just personally,

(23:34):
that excitement and that like that nauseous butterflies and your
gut that are.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Just going like yeah. I mean, especially you know with
a movie or whatever it is that you're making, You've
oftentimes spent years working on it, and so to think
about these years of your life, you know, being put
forth in front of an audience. It's I mean it's thrilling.
It's also like it can feel terrifying at times, but

(24:01):
it's also interesting. Maybe this is a little I know
that you have like filmmakers in your audience and and so,
and maybe they can identify this, Maybe you can identify
with this, which is like I made a short film
called The European Kid, and I was it's a comedy
and I so I screened it a couple of different festivals.

(24:22):
And so we screened it at one festival, I mean
several festivals, and it was like crickets like nothing, and
it was, you know, in some ways horrifying, like you
want you make a comedy, you want it to be great,
and then you get crickets. But then we screened it
at south By Southwest and the audience loved it and

(24:43):
it was so it was very telling to me that
like you know, when you when you when this thing
that you've worked so hard on gets gets a silent
reaction from the audience, that is, you think, maybe this
is inherently bad, right, maybe this is a bad movie.
But then it goes to another screening and people love
it and you realize like, no, I guess I just

(25:04):
have to find my audience. Like there's not not every
audience is going to like every project. So so that's
sort of a lesson that I have to constantly remember,
is like your audience is out there. So so just
because one audience doesn't necessarily connect with it, that doesn't
mean that that what you're doing, you know, is bad
or shouldn't be done. You just have to find the

(25:26):
audience that that will connect with it.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah, I mean, that's it's so true, and so grading
isn't the right word, but it makes it makes the
process of going to festivals and learning these things challenging
because because like you, you could have a silent audience for
the entire time and they loved it, but you don't
know that it's because because they're in Minnesota and they

(25:51):
just don't react in movie theaters. And then you come
to Atlanta. I mean, and you see this. I see
this with movie Like going to the movie theater in Minnesota,
people did react. You just sat in the theater quietly,
and then at the end you walked out going like
I love that. Whether you loved it or not you
didn't matter because Minnesota nice. Then I come to Atlanta
and I sit in a theater and it's like I
went and saw a smile too. I have the AMC
A Listers Pass. I'm bragging now, but I got it

(26:14):
for my birthday. So I've been going to movies, like
three movies a week and it's the best. It's like
going to church again, but I get movies.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
I know this isn't ant for AMC. The canask real quick,
what does it allow you to do? Is it? So?
How does that work?

Speaker 4 (26:26):
You get to see three three movies a week and
you just go online order tickets zero dollars, you go
to the.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Movie theater and is it an annual fee?

Speaker 4 (26:34):
My yes, my so my in law has got it
for me for my birthday and they got it for
six months. But I'm like, I've saved. So it's like
I think they paid like one hundred and twenty five
dollars for six months or something like that. But I've
but in like I've been going for three weeks now
and I have said, like, I never would have gone
to these movies, so I never would have spent that money.

(26:55):
But if you think about how many movies I've gone to.
I would have spent more than one hundred and twenty
five dollars the movies I've seen in three weeks already.
So it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
That's great, and I like, I love the theatrical experience.
I love going to movie theater. But I also find
that I go less now because there's so much media
just immediately available online and I can watchuff in my
house because post pandemic, it's just harder to get people
back into theaters, I feel.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
So we have we have huge TVs, we have this,
our sound systems are set up in a way that
are better than, not better than theaters, but they're better
than they have ever been in the past. So for
us it's just like we're spoiled and we can watch
things anytime there's any comfort to it. But for me,
it's just become this thing where like I I can
go on a Sunday morning at ten thirty and see

(27:41):
a movie and so I just you know, I do that.
It's a church. I go see Smile too, you know
what I mean, Like just fucking I'll go see I
go see movies now with the AMC pass that I
never would have seen in the theater, like that's the
best week we live in time. Oh yeah, I never
in a million years would have gone to the movie
theater to see that. And I'm one, you know, forty

(28:01):
year old white dude sitting in a theater full of
you know, sixty year old white women. And but I
was like, this is this is an awesome experience. And
but it's I say all of this because the experience
of like now going to the theater a lot in Atlanta,
I've learned, like the difference in audience at ten am
versus the difference in audience at six pm on a

(28:24):
Friday is like they're completely different audiences and you're gonna
get a completely different reaction to the exact same movie,
Like and the experimenter in me, And now that I
don't have to pay for it, I am like I
should go see the same movie at two completely different
screenings and seeing the reaction because it is fun for
me to do that. And I mean I've I've seen

(28:46):
it with my movies. Greywood's plot is the kind of
movie that like one audience will be like this is
dog shit trash, and then the next audience that will
be like, this is better than the Lighthouse, Like, why
is this not being compared? And I'm like, what the
f this is insan that you people would like that
the jump is there, but it's just that kind of
a movie that is so polarizing, and I saw all

(29:08):
different audiences of it, and you just have to get
used to learning that your audience is going to be
what it is and reviews online all that stuff, especially
in no budget filmmaking.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well and and also one
of the wonderful things about filmmaking now is that you
can find audiences like There's I Mean to b is
a great example of there's There are so many low
budget features on that that that get views that wouldn't

(29:39):
necessarily have been able to make money off of their
project or get views before. So so I feel like
there's more, there's more out there now that that that
helps with that. And actually curious for for Greywood's plot,
did you use how did you get it distributed? Did
you use film Hub or something like that?

Speaker 4 (29:57):
I did for film Or for Greywood's plot, we actually
went with a distributor named Terror Films and they put
it out after the festival run. Great Wood's plot was
a weird one because it got finished in twenty nineteen
and we hit the end of twenty nineteen and then
the pandemic came, so the movie was like essentially shelved

(30:17):
or digital film fests for like a year and a
half and then hit. We went to a freight Fest
in the UK, which is like a bigger horror festival.
And after that, like we had distributors coming out, and
I was just like, I'm not gonna go through self
distributing it. If someone else will do that work and

(30:38):
I can have it under just a three year contract.
That was like my big thing because I want to
be able to get the movie back if I want
it back, to do whatever I want with. But with
The Good Exorcist, we went through film Hub and I
did it. I did all the distribution myself. Well, we
were in a weird place because it was made for
L Ray Network with Robert Rodriguez and stuff, and that

(31:00):
got finished. They retained the rights, so I fought them,
fought them. I basically just sent annoying emails once a
week and was like, Hey, if you guys ever want
to give me the rights back, I can actually do
something with the movie. And eventually Cci, the producer, and
Robert's like second like right hand person messaged me and

(31:20):
was like, fine, you can have it, and we're like
good news, asshole. And so I got the rights back,
but they still retained rights to show it on l
ray and do things as they wanted to with it
and stuff. So I didn't get full rights back, but
I could put it on film Hump, put it on Amazon,
do all of that stuff with it. And then I
did a distribution of the Blu ray and stuff through Trauma.

(31:41):
So Lloyd contact me, it was like, hey, I want
to put it out there. I was working with him
on Shakespeare's Shit Storm and he was like, hey, I
want to put it out there. So I didn't have
to pay for Blu rays and I got sent, you know,
a couple hundred copies that I could sell on my own.
But you made a really great point about like being
able to distribute however you want. And someone listens to
this show and listen to more episodes than just this one,

(32:03):
you'll hear like every one of these filmmakers has done
a different form of distribution. It's incredible to hear the
variety of ways you can get it out there to
find an audience, but also the variety of ways you
can utilize social media modern technology to make money off
of it, do different things with it. My method personally
has been like straight up learning from my punk background,

(32:25):
like just doing the punk band type, sell t shirts,
sub merge, get it out where you can continue to
show it, continue to like hit festivals that want to
play it again, or if someone does like a you know,
like genre Blast film festival. They did like a weird
middle of genre blast thing and they were like, hey,

(32:46):
would you want to show a movie at this It's
not the festival, but would you want to show The
Good Exorcist? Like hell yeah, I want to come out
and show it, like if anyone you know. That's that's
the beauty of like the grindhouse mentality is just like
you can constantly show it. It's funny like reading books
on you know, sixties and seventies filmmaking. They used to
hit theaters for like two years, like movies would just

(33:09):
screen around.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
And they'd like recut them and retitle them too, which.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
All sorts of stuff.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
It's crazy, yeah, and use footage from one and another
one and yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
The retitle thing is like hilarious because you know a
lot of the grindhouse movies that Tarantino talks about in
his book, He's like, I saw it as this name,
and then it changed to this name. You might be
able to find it now as this name. I'm like,
what a weird like anything to make money off of it.
It's when it was really like the business, like truly

(33:40):
a business. Even your artsy fartsy grindhouse movie would still
have to follow a business model versus now like it
kind of is more like you can put it out
there as an expression of art if you want to,
just like you know, let it be what it is,
or you can work, continue to work at it, continue
to show it, continue to promote it, which I think
think that's I love that. I love the fact that

(34:02):
you have to live with the movie for better or worse,
for years and years and years as an independent filmmaker.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, it's well, it is something like we finished Cook
Concrete and uh, you know, screened at a couple festivals
and talk to one or two distributors and not. I
don't think it's an easy movie to distribute necessarily. It's
not because it's not super genre based. It maybe doesn't
lend itself to being sold quite as easily. But anyways,

(34:34):
so I kind of figured that the festival round that
it had would probably be be it and then maybe
somewhere down the road I would do something with it.
And that is what happened. My friend. My friend contacted
me and was like, and I will say before before,
like years before we got it on film Hub, we
I was looking at ways to distribute and what I

(34:56):
found was there was a company. I don't think they're
around anymore, but basically they would take like three movies
and they would like aggregate them in some way and
sell them to platforms and so. But you'd have to
pay them to do that for you. And I was like, well,
I really don't want to pay thousands of dollars to
do this. So so then you know, cut to like
three years later and my friend Peter gets in touch

(35:16):
with me and he's like, have you heard a film Hub?
Should you should put the movie on film Hub? You
can distribute it and get it out to these distributors
and there's no cost for it. So that blew my
mind and that's just a wonderful thing. So sometimes you know,
when you go to me finish a movie, you may
think like, oh, that's it, that it's done, but then
three years later, something like film Hub makes itself available
and now you know, you can get it on two

(35:38):
b and Amazon and Hoopla and all these other platforms.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
Yeah, I think And besides just like getting it on
a platform years later and finding a way to do that,
I think there's also the fact that you're, like the
fact you're coming on this podcast to talk about it still.
That's the kind of stuff that you have to have
that sort of passion for the film, passion for the projects.
Like I'm you know, we just finished this movie called
Little Luca in the Big Deal. It's a short film

(36:03):
that's playing at a bunch of festivals and Scarlet and
I we co direct she co directed it with me.
We you know, we're going on these like radio shows
or on news stuff or whatever. And I still bring
up the old projects all the time because I'm still
I still love them, like you still they're they're like
your children. You don't want to stop talking about them

(36:24):
or stop you want people to like get to know them.
And I think you have to have that. But I
do see sometimes people go like, you know, you move
on to the next project, it's hard to want to
talk about the one that you did before because you
become so passionate about this new one.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, yeah, yeah,
that can be. That can be. I mean it's also
like with with a with a project that you finish,
it's like, because like we were saying earlier, what you
envisioned in your head, you know, you're like, oh, it's
not the movie I envisioned it. You can sometimes feel
like I want to go on to the next thing
because the next thing is gonna be better, right.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
But I think that that taking like what you're doing,
taking real strong pride and all the stuff that you've made,
all the old stuff, everything, I think is really the
way to go. I think that that is the mentality
to have, even if it's a struggle. I think that that, like,
you know, if there's something that I can recommend people
do with their finished project, it's like, be proud of it,

(37:19):
you know, and really don't be afraid to talk about
it and get it out there. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
Well, speaking of getting it out there, talking about showing
it off with a movie like yours, it's so I agree,
it's a challenging one. I love it, but I just
totally you're right, like it is hard to make something
like that, And for me personally, it's the same thing
where like I love those kind of movies. I love dramas,
I love mysteries, I love comedies. Comedies are right now

(37:46):
at like the all time low for like actually being
able to get them out there, show them. It's so
And when I grew up, that was the movie Like,
the comedies were the ones that brought us together. The
horror were the ones you watched alone, it seems.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
And horror, yes, it's flipped. Horror was something that was
sort of it was like the it was an outsider.
It was an outlier, you know, it was not necessarily
a mainstream type of movie. But now it's like, I mean,
horror and thrillers are like they're the main thing that
that even comedies. It's like, if it's a comedy, it
has to be like a a thriller comedy or horror comedy.

(38:22):
So yeah, so right, I mean, the marketing a drama
or comedy or mystery, if it's not the genre that's
necessarily the most popular at the moment, it can be.
It can be challenging, for sure, but I don't know.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
I mean, you also have to make and there's also
not a forgiveness in it. I think with horror, there
tends to be like a forgiveness, like people can forgive
the fact that it doesn't have a name star, you
know what I mean, Like it doesn't have to have
a name in it to be something like that, whereas
like comedy and drama, it's like if you can instantly
feel people are comfortable with the concept of horror versus

(39:03):
being comfortable with the concept just of comedy. And I
say this from a personal place where I'm trying to
get three comedies off the ground right now, and it's
a pain in the ass, Like everyone is just like, oh,
but you can't do that without this cast or this
cast or this cast and or this much money. Like
it's always like something very specific and action comedy just

(39:25):
right now, it's not incredibly popular unless it's like a
big budget thing like that Ryan Reynolds or not Ryan Reynolds,
Ryan Gosling movie that just came out.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, what I saw.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
It too, and I can't remember the name of it, Yes,
show what was it called?

Speaker 2 (39:46):
The Stuntman? The Stuntman?

Speaker 4 (39:48):
It's not the stuntman. That's what drives me nuts because
it should be called the stuntman. But yes, that one
fall guy fall guys. Yeah, unless it's like that where
it's big budgie at comedy mixed with big set piece
action moments. So in order to like to like convince
someone that you want to do something that is more
in the you know, low budget action comedy realm, it

(40:11):
just it's terrifying to them. And watching something like Cook
Concrete it I could see how it would be terrifying
to people because it isn't necessarily easy to say, like
this is what it is.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
It it's a lot of things, Yeah it is. That's
really Yeah, that's a challenge because I like movies that
it's hard to pin them down like I would do that. Yeah,
you know, I enjoy that. So and I will say too,
you know you'd asked earlier, like why this project, and like,
so I had made that short film The European Kid,
which is just I would say, pretty much a straight

(40:44):
up comedy and and and felt good about it. And
but I knew that I wanted to make I wanted
to make sort of like a something that captured a
feeling like I like there's a feeling that's when you're
in your twenties where you're sort of you know, maybe
driftless or aimless and and trying to figure life out

(41:06):
a little bit and and sort of like the graduate.
You know that that vibe, and I knew I wanted
to do something kind of like that and something that
was kind of purposefully slow. And because I you know,
you talk about this is going to be really hard
to put into words, but you talk about what were

(41:27):
things that excited you about movies when you were you know,
first when you're young. And the first thing that one
of the things that excited me is I remember watching
my parents would put on a movie, right, and sometimes
it would be like a slower art house movie, right,
And as a kid, I couldn't understand it, right, I
don't understand the adult world. But there was something about

(41:48):
a slow, methodical pace that really appealed to me. And
I always anytime I see that in a movie like
like Broken Flowers as an example, like yes, yeah, really
you know, not super fast right, like and and so,
but that that that kind of slow pace, that intentional

(42:10):
pace was I really like it because then I feel
like I start paying attention to the location, I start
paying attention to the actor. The mood, Yeah, the mood.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
It's and that's where I think the concept of this
playing this visually being like reading a book, that you
get the feeling of reading a book. That's one of
the things I like about books that it's hard to
like express in film sometimes, is this feeling of being
with someone, like the reality of it. You know, It's

(42:41):
one of the reasons I love Bukowski or love right now,
I'm listening to Henry Miller's Henry Miller is that his name?
The tropic of cancer And it's just like very it's
just in the life. It's like a diary or you know.
So how many books are to me just like living

(43:02):
in the moment with someone, And sometimes movies are afraid
to do that. Expressing this like being with someone, especially
if there's someone who you don't necessarily relate to, that
can be incredibly difficult to be like, I want to
be with this person.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, yeah, if a character is not likable, I don't know.
I think that at some point I let go of
wanting to always like characters like yes, you know, like
I got to the point where I was like I
actually think I want to not like some characters. I
want to because I want to know what makes them tick.
I want to know, like, why are you that way? So,

(43:39):
so that is when a movie does that, it's I
love it. And when a movie is not afraid to
like this is hard to I like sometimes when a
movie is not afraid to not entertain me, when a
movie is like, I'm going to go slow, and I'm
and I'm going to just see what happen if we

(44:00):
go slow. So so I wanted to make a movie
like that, and and yeah, and so that's that's one
of the one of the reasons why I forget how
I got on this tangent, But that's one of the
reasons why I think The Concrete was the movie that
I that I wanted to make. But it also makes
it harder to sell.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
So yeah, I think this tangent is great because I
think a lot of us. I mean, I am I
am a victim of this terribly that I love slow,
methodical movies and yet I'm terrified to have any scene
last more than a minute and ten seconds, Like I
am that person. And I also because I work with

(44:39):
I work with a producer Daniel Dagnan. He's the dude
from the Good Exorcist and Greywood's plot, and we've been
friends since kindergarten and blah blah blah blah blah. But
we make these movies together and part of our writing
process is literally shocking and entertaining each other. So we're
both like completely scared to let things just sit ever.

(45:00):
But the funny thing is, like I watch Glengarry Glenn
Ross twice a week. I love a slow, methodical movie,
like I love Broken Flowers, I love The Graduate, Like
The Graduate is a perfect example of that kind of
movie where you're just living with someone and you have
no idea why, Like you almost hate him right at times,

(45:21):
and then you almost love him at times, but you're
constantly like, what the fuck are you? What makes you tick? Man?

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah? Yeah, And you know, then there's that it's not
you know, there's the whole long shot of him at
the beginning just going down and moving a stairway or whatever,
an escalator, not an escalator, but a moving walkway, and
and I don't know, it's just not afraid to for
some scenes to go slow or go weird, you know.

(45:48):
So so yeah, I do love that, and I mean,
but I also love a really entertaining movie as well.
I think that's great as well. I just knew that that, yeah,
this might be the only chance I had to make
a feature. I don't know, I'd love to make another feature,
but I thought this might be the only chance to
make a feature. So if I really want to see
what it's like to make that moody, slow, atmospheric feature,

(46:11):
now's my chance to do it. So so yeah, that's
sort of how it came about. But it can make
it tough.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
I think that there's something to be said. No, but
you're it's so all right. It does make it. I mean,
the fact that you're making a low budget movie at
all instantly is gonna make it tough. Yeah, then you
add elements that make it tougher and tougher, Like I
made my characters. I made my characters intentionally unlikable, Like
I wrote things into the movie where I was like,

(46:40):
this is me. I wanted to write the character that
would be me if I never met my wife, and
then wanted to turn myself into a dog man apparently,
and so like that, like a monster version of what
I would become. And how the and even like mentally,
how the creative process kind of just eats away at
you constantly. And I mean the people who hate the movie,

(47:04):
that's their go to and their reviews of hating the
movie is like I hate this character, just like, yeah,
if you don't like some people want to like their
their lead character. They just want to enjoy being with them,
whereas I don't necessarily feel that way. I don't always
have to enjoy being with you. I can watch you
and live vicariously through your awful choices.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, yeah, you know so. And I was wondering with
Grewd's plot, so in my mind, part of the story was, well,
there was the line. Where was it, Doug? I guess Doug.
I think Doug said. See he was like, uh, it
used to be that we were afraid of the unknown,

(47:47):
but now we're afraid of not being.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
Known, right, yeah, yeah we're afraid. Yeah, you're afraid of
being unknown. And yeah that was Yeah, that was like
a massive part of that movie. Like when we came
up with that line, we were just like, oh, this
is what this is like we are afraid of that,
and I think I think, like part of me, I mean,

(48:09):
that's very personal that's a very personal statement.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Day I was gonna say. I mean, it's got to
be personal, right, I mean, that's what being a creative person,
trying to get your stuff out there, and especially in
a visual way. Uh, that's got to be a big
part of what it's about.

Speaker 4 (48:24):
Yeah, I mean, I've I my wife and I constantly
have this conversation. But it's you know, like as we're
getting sort of deep into like why we do what
we do or whatever, and it is this element of
like you fear what you're going to leave behind who
you are, and but you can only live in this moment.
So we're like constantly looking to the past to try

(48:46):
to figure things out and looking to the future to
try to figure out what to do. But we're always
just like living in this fucking moment, and you become
terrified of like what the next moment is and regretting
what you've done in the past and trying to make
this all come together today can be hard. So that's
what I like that you said, like this is the
movie I I could only make this movie now, Like

(49:08):
this is the movie that I wanted to try to
make because I didn't know if you didn't know if
you'd ever get the opportunity to do the movie like
this again. And that's just I think that's like so
important to the low budget filmmaker is going like, Okay,
what do I have to say? What the fuck do
I want to say right now? And no one else
is saying or no one else is going to say
it the way I can?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah, Or you know, another thing is like what's the
scene I haven't seen before? Like like I I.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Early, that's exactly it, man, Like that's Dan and I.
That's what we write a scene and then we go
back to and we're like, yes, but this is something
I've seen. What would make this something I've never seen?

Speaker 2 (49:48):
You never seen?

Speaker 4 (49:49):
And that it lets your mind go anywhere when you
realize like, oh, yeah, what haven't I see whatever?

Speaker 2 (49:54):
I've seen it? And I can do I mean, you
have a budget, right, but I can at least when
conceiving of it this, I can do anything right, and
I can or I can try to do anything, and.

Speaker 4 (50:04):
And you can start you could start up here and like,
what what would I do if I had an infinite
of this amount of money? What could I do if
I didn't? Like what what's the least I can do,
and then you find this like happy media between the
two concepts.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
And sometimes what you can't do what you wind up doing.
When is it being better what you can't do, like
like because you have to be creative in a way.
As an example, in Co Concrete, there's this scene where Vince,
the main character, is like remembering time that he saw
Adam get picked on, and so we kind of uh

(50:40):
breaks the fourth wall and talks to the characters acting
as themselves. It's kind of hard to describe it. They're
sort of re enacting as adults what they remember as kids.
And that was done because because we couldn't afford to
get a bunch of you know, kid actors and on
set teachers or whatever you need, and so so that

(51:02):
was born from that and it wound up being for
me one of my favorite scenes in the movie and
also a scene that I was I'm very proud of
it because I don't think I've seen a scene like
that before necessarily, so I don't know, Yeah, that's that's
always exciting to think, like, what's something I haven't seen
before and like how do we how do we pull
that off?

Speaker 4 (51:22):
Oh, that's such great advice. I mean I love that
because it's not I don't think I've ever actually heard
this said or said this on this podcast, And this
concept is exactly what Dan and I do. Like I'm
an example is we're writing the script called Garagra. We
actually just finished it last week, and we had a scene,
we had an element that repeated a couple times through

(51:44):
the movie, and we sent the script out to some
producers and some actors and some people we know, and
the one note we got from everyone was like, you
guys repeat the same thing like a couple of times.
And at first that was like fuck, we like, I
don't want to change that. I like that way. It
is like, it's it. It works to have the like
rhythm of the same thing kind of happening in three

(52:05):
different quasi different ways. But then when we went back
through it and we were like taking that to heart,
we were like, Okay, but we can do the same
thing but in a way that no one has seen
and like it let us down a completely different path
that I love. I'm obsessed with where the script goes now.
But it was so hard to write because you get
so attached to the concept, you're like nobody it works

(52:26):
because of this without realizing like, oh, but I can
shock the audience more and I can do something that
I have never seen before. And I think that's like
that's such a what do you have right now? What
can you use? And how can you show it in
a way no one's seen. That's like the way to start.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yeah, Like what's the scene that you've always wanted to
see in a movie? Or like I remember when I
first saw so, I saw Rushmore. I think I was
a senior in high school. It blew my mind because
because I had never seen anyone make a movie that
looked like that, make a movie with jokes like that,
like the dialogue. It was so idiosyncratic and and it

(53:04):
was like it was as if someone said to someone,
if what's something? What's something if you would love to
see in a movie that you've never seen before? Or
like uh, what is uh? Oh guess man of Terrence
ma Alex movie Tree of Life. So in Tree of Life,
there's this scene where they jump back in time to
the dinosaurs. I mean, this is a movie that's sort

(53:26):
of like, you know, it's hard to piece together, but
it's sort of a drama about a family and then
suddenly you go back to the dinosaurs. That blew my mind.
I was like, I've always wanted to see something crazy
like that, and the fact that it was in Tree
of Life, I mean, to me, that was just like,
that's so thrilling to just see what what's something that,
like you've people are scared to do because it's so
out there or so unexpected and the audiences won't like

(53:49):
that audience isn't for me anyway, It's like, that's what
I want to see.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
Duh, that's so no, You're so right. And what was
the movie you're talking about before Tree of Life? Rushmore?
I even just the element of a kid thinking he's
smarter than adults but being kind of an idiot, and
adults who should be smarter than kids and are technically

(54:15):
like smarter, more smarter, having less wisdom, and this like
mesh of adulthood and youth coming together. I don't think
i'd ever seen that before, and being a high school
student at the time when that movie came out, I
was just like, oh my god, I'm an idiot, Like
I'm I am this kid and I am this adult,
and I'm like we're we're all just morons. It gave

(54:37):
me like a really, I just I loved it. It
was such a eye opening movie in that way.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
And just so many, so many fun jokes that just
I don't know that to me, that was that's that's mine.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
One of the reasons why Wes Anderson has all these
memes and everything else about his stuff is because it's
so especially then, it was so inventive. It was like
something that you had just never seen before. So he's
this like stylist who invented something that was so new
because he was willing to say, like, I want to
see this, I want to see what happens.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
You know, yeah, and just being willing, being willing. I
think the thing one of the funniest things about, especially
early Wes Anderson is his ability to be like, I
don't have to be fucking witty. I don't have to
write a joke that's like it's not that it's not funny.
It's incredibly funny, but you can be obvious. You can

(55:28):
just say what people would be thinking in reality, and
it's fucking funny and like it. It kind of feels
like making jokes with a friend sometimes, or like pointing
out something stupid that you see in the Duplas Brothers book,
they talk about how one of their techniques of writing

(55:48):
is too it's called like Brothers, and they talk about
how they'll sit at like an airport and make up
a story for random people they see, or at a
restaurant and make up random stories for people's so they'll
be like the story they tell is like an older
woman and a younger man get off a plane and
sit down and they start telling the story about how
it's a mother and son and blah blah blah blah blah,

(56:10):
and then all of a sudden, the man leaned over
and kisses the woman. They're like, they are not mother
and son. Okay, this story just took a turn, and
so like that to me, like the comedy of real
life that you can find in moments of just watching
people or seeing something play out the way it would
play out. Like there's that scene in The Royal Tenet
Bombs that makes me laugh every time where Ben Stiller

(56:32):
comes in like hot, like he's got something he's gonna say,
and then he gets asked one question, he just like
turns off the light and walks out of the room
like he can't handle just having a conversation. It's the
simplest joke. It's something that I probably do, like to
my wife on a weekly basis, where I come in
and I'm just like, why did we not do this?

(56:53):
And she's like, why didn't you do it? I'm just
like and I walk out of the room and like
that sort of thing is so it's not funny in reality,
but if someone was a fly on the wall, it
becomes incredibly hilarious.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Yeah, it's yeah with like it's like you're in it
and you're out of it, right. It's like, on the
one hand, you're like, oh, I know what that's like
to feel that, but then you're also stepping aside and
being like, but it's ridiculous that that people do that
or that I do that. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
I love I mean, I just I love stuff like that.
It's one of the things I think in your style
I appreciated was this concept of like just feeling a
part of the world of the life at the time
versus like and Broken Flowers and a lot of these
movies just like they they're yes, slow, I hate that

(57:44):
word because I don't. I don't it's not slow. It's
more methodical or more like whatever. But the but I
mean you you're the one who said I know, I know,
But it's this concept of the slow movie to me.
I went and saw Wheeler in Time. It's a fucking
movie about people who fall in love and random things
that happened through their life. I enjoyed the shit out

(58:05):
of it. But it's just random moments. And the big
moments weren't even the moments that I necessarily liked. There's these,
you know, epic moments are funny things that the audience
was laughing at. The parts I liked were just seeing
them like sit around a table and figure out what
their relationship is. Because we want to be a fly
on the wall. I like to live vicariously through people
through these movies. And I think that there's I think

(58:27):
independent films would I think I would enjoy more of them,
a fless of them tried to constantly entertain me, and
more of them tried to show me what the life
is like for how the filmmaker sees life.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Yeah, that's interesting, you know. I remember reading a review
by oh Man what is her name, uh, Tarantino loves
her Pauline Kale and and she was reviewing I think
blood simple Coen Brothers, And in the review she said

(59:03):
something to the fact that I might bastardize this a bit,
but she she said something to the fact of, like,
why would you make an independent film that's a genre film?
You know, why wouldn't you make an independent film that's
something outside of genre Because you can go to Hollywood
to see a genre film, but to make an independent
film that's outside of it. Well, I love indie genre

(59:25):
films as well, but I think that her point is interesting,
which is like, indie films have this opportunity to be
something that doesn't necessarily have to satisfy an enormous audience
because they don't have to make back millions and millions
of dollars. So there is an opportunity in those, you know,
in independent film to do something that is a little

(59:48):
bit more slow or methodical, or something that you wouldn't
see in a genre film. I love genre films. I
love the Coen Brothers, but I did think, and do
you think that that's sort of like an interesting an
interesting point.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
I love that. I think a lot of people will
hear this and be like, oh, yeah, I do have
that concept in me that is personal. Someone reviewed in
one of the reviews of your movie, they said they
use the term ethically messy or it was ethically messier
or something like that, And I love that because it
is like I love this concept of the indie film

(01:00:22):
because they compared it. I think they were comparing it
to like a nineteen nineties movie, you know, like the
concept of the nineteen nineties indie which is very much
what I felt watching it, where I was just like it,
not in style and or subject matter, but that concept
of just like showing a moment in time the way
cleric Slacker, like all of these movies do. I think
that that's something that we've because we know so much

(01:00:46):
about marketing and we know so much about filmmaking. It's
so hard to be like, I want to make a
movie like that because you're not doing it for the art.
You're doing it because you want to sell a movie.
You want to get into the festivals. The easiest festivals
are to get into our genre festivals because of the
fact that there are so many of them and they
only have a certain type of movie they can fill,

(01:01:08):
and they're not going to be getting a shitload of
They're not going to be getting the big budget horror,
they're not going to be getting the other stuff, so
they have this like if your movie is sort of
in that middle or in that happy indie spot, you're
more likely to get into them. So doing something more
slow personal it's harder to hit festivals, so it's harder
for you to say, like, I'm going to do that,

(01:01:28):
but it's so important to the indie scene for me personally,
for like the art to continue on and to say
that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
That's so interesting because I hadn't put together that you said, Like,
part of it is because we now are all we're
oftentimes called to market ourselves much more than we would
have before, right right, And because of that, if you're
an indie filmmaker, you probably because you now have a
marketing mindset, are drawn to those things that are successful,

(01:01:58):
which tend to be genre, and so you might feel
this pressure to do that, which because I do feel
like I miss sometimes some of the excitement of indie films,
like pre indie horror boom, I love indie horror, but
now there's it's like there's this indie horror boom, and
so so many indie films are horror films, and there's

(01:02:20):
part of me. That's like, I love it, but let's
not forget about the indie films that are different from that,
that are you know, I don't know, dramas or comedies
or other types of genres. So that's interesting because I
never put together that that marketing because we are all
now partially marketers. Yeah, we're thinking about that rather than saying,

(01:02:43):
you know, oh, because you know, I need I want
to I want to make this film that's you know,
that's about X y Z in my personal life. You're thinking, no, no, no, no,
that won't play. You know, I won't be able to
get an audience with that. That's interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
I think it also is partially because just accessibility. Like
we are, there's so much being thrown at us. There's
so many movies coming at us, there's so much content
being chucked at as constantly. To be like I'm gonna
sit down for an hour and a half and watch
something that no one is talking about or something that
I just you know what I mean, Like that's a hard,
real choice to make. Like I literally can sit and

(01:03:21):
flip through you know, Netflix or Amazon or HBO or
any fucking myriad of streaming platforms we have now for
an hour and be like, I'm just gonna go to
bed cause there's just there's too much and too little
at the same time. Like I'm just it is almost impossible.
It's one of the reasons why I do this fucking

(01:03:43):
podcast is because it gives me an opportunity for people
to send me their stuff, and I go, like, I
don't have a choice. I'm gonna watch this movie. And
it's why I like the amc A List pass now
is because it's like, I have this opportunity to go
to a movie for free. I'm gonna go, Like, if
I have two hours, I'm gonna go and and I
don't care if I'm seeing Terrifier three or if I'm
seeing We Live in Time, I'm just gonna go watch

(01:04:05):
it because I can go watch a movie and it
makes me appreciate all sorts of movies. And I think
the biggest blessing for me has been two years ago.
I decided I was gonna start reading like a ton,
and so I was like set out to read twenty
five or twenty four books, two books a month, and
I ended up reading like thirty eight books or whatever.
So then this year I'm like I'm gonna read fifty

(01:04:26):
and so that means I just have to like basically
find whatever is a veil. I read every book in
our house, you know, like every one of my wife's books,
like random stuff like that. I never would have read.
Like I never would have read what was it called
Derby Girl or Whip It the oh, the movie about it,
So I never would to pick that up. I never

(01:04:47):
would have been like, I'm gonna read this book and
I was just sitting there, so I'm like, fuck it,
I'm gonna read it, or like books on parenting I
never would have read. But so like opening myself up
to reading a lot of stuff where you're you're dedicated,
you know, twelve hours of your life to reading this
book that you maybe didn't have any interest in, but
you have to be interested in for that moment because

(01:05:08):
you're gonna put twelve hours of reading into this. It's
made me more open to being like I'm going to
dedicate two hours to this random fucking movie I never
would have watched a million years. And then sometimes I
like them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah, I love too, when like you know, you meet
someone at a festival or something and they they send
you their film and you know, I've got my film
on and you go to see it. It's just so
thrilling to see someone do it, you know what I mean.
Like I read's love thing. You know. It's great when
I see a commercial for a movie and I'm like, oh,

(01:05:40):
I got to see that movie. I'm excited about read
an article, I'm excited about it. But it's also really
wonderful when out of nowhere someone sends me something and
and there's no marketing or anything. I just see a
movie that someone else I know made, and it's wonderful.
It's wonderful to like, you know, oftentimes the movies are
really interesting, and it's also really wonderful to be like,
I know that person and I'm so proud that they

(01:06:02):
did that, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
So it's a totally different experience, and it makes you
appreciate their perspective. It makes you feel for the movie
in a very different way. But it also just makes
it so entertaining in a way that I could never
get watching a Scorsese movie. Love Scorsese movie is obsessed,
But I'm never going to know Scorsese in the way

(01:06:24):
that I know this guy that I ord, this girl
that I met over a drink at Genre Blast Film Festival,
you know what I mean, or like or like someone
I met who played a short there and then their
feature came out, and I'm like, I get to watch
a friend's thing that I've seen the like horror of
filmmaking come to be through it. And I mean, it's

(01:06:45):
the same thing when you release your next movie. Ah,
that's me when you make your next movie. I'm like,
or even like you know you talk about your novella,
your books like I want to read them now. I'm
like very into the concert of you as a person,
and I think that independent filmmaking allows that to like
foster this community and read a different form of enjoying entertainment.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Yeah, and it's also really fun, like like you know
in Gray's plot, like seeing the old footage, which I
assume is real old footage of you and your buddies, right,
Like there's something about that where I would never get
the tone of humor and storytelling from what you guys

(01:07:32):
did as a very small unit that I would from
anything bigger. And it's a delight And it's delightful too
to see like the locations like that birdhouse is really
cool and I know that like, that wouldn't show up
in another movie that had a that was a bigger
budget or that was you know, had a team of
twenty or fifty people hover many working on it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
No, because the biggest thing is like we literally just
film that it was there. You would never do that
if you had you know, even if you had three
hundred thousand dollars, you're still a low budget movie by
the SAG standards. You have three hundred thousand dollars, you'd
never be like, let's just film this random thing and
base the story around it because we can and rewrite
things and change this and film it differently because we

(01:08:17):
have this, Like we just had it, so we wrote
it into the script and randomly utilized it. But that's
I mean literally, that whole movie was based on the
fact that we found that chain attached to the tree. Originally,
I was supposed to get turned into a spider man
because I have a rachnophobia, So that was sort of
like the joke of the film was like me facing

(01:08:38):
my fears and turning myself into a monster. And as
we film, we were like, oh, it's a dog, it's
a dog man, Like it's best friends, it's a whole
movie is about friendship. That just makes sense for him
to become a dog and is much easier than making
him into some weird spider man, And like things just
were able to change and move in a fluid way
that you could never ever ever do if you had

(01:08:59):
any budget at all.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
There'd be so many people telling me, telling you you
can't do that.

Speaker 4 (01:09:04):
It's just a bad idea. That's a bad idea, Like
that's a terrible like why.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
And even if you stood up for yourself and said no, no, no,
I really want to do it, You've still got a
group of people telling you. Don't think that's the right choice,
don't think you should be doing that.

Speaker 4 (01:09:15):
I'm going to wrap this up with like one quick
story that I think is I don't know if I've
ever told this on the podcast, and if I have,
I haven't told it in a long time. But I
think maybe you can relate to it, especially with that statement.
One of the biggest moments, or one of the most
important moments of learning for me, was a moment where
I had an idea for a shot and I thought,
this shot totally will work. I know how we can

(01:09:37):
do it. It's going to take us twenty takes, but
when we finally get the focus right, it's going to
be an amazing shot. And my DP, who didn't really
want to be there to begin with, was like, no,
let's just do it in two shots instead, let's do
it this way. I don't want to film it that way.
And I totally went like, you know what, you're right,
it's too difficult. Let's not do it like, let's change
it up and do it your way. And I always

(01:09:59):
was It's like, it taught me, no, fuck that, try it.
What do you we're not filming on film? What do
we lose fifteen minutes? Like figure out a way. We
had the time to do it, And it taught me
going into the other movies that like, if you really
love a concept, push for it, especially an independent film
as a low budget film maker, because as you move

(01:10:20):
forward and as you get better, you're gonna lose all
those opportunities to try shit out, to try making the
slow movie, to try getting that shot. So don't let don't.
Let's someone tell you know. We ended up filming it.
We just after he left. I was like, fuck it,
We'll use my camera and we filmed it anyway. That's
great and it worked.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
Yeah, for sure. It's the opportunity. Indie film is the
opportunity to do stuff like that, and that's what makes
I mean, that's what makes it special. A lot of
times is those opportunities to do something that you're like,
well why not we are we are doing this so
that people don't tell us now you know, or don't
tell us how to do this.

Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
I love it. Thank you so much for coming on
the show. Where can people see Cook Concrete? Any of
your shorts? Follow you on social media? All that jazz?

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Yeah, so Cook Concrete is and it's Cook Concrete. It
is on to b It's on Hoopla, it is on
Apple and Amazon, and if you go to Ianmartin dot works,
that's my website and it has more information about short filmed,
the European Kid and other projects that I'm working on.

(01:11:24):
And also it links to me on Twitter, which is
Ian Martin Hello, and also on Instagram, which I forget
what my Instagram handle is, but.

Speaker 4 (01:11:32):
Go to the website. Yeah, I'll put the website in
the show notes as well, so people can go check
out the social media follow you and go check out,
go check out Cook Concrete.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Everybody awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
That's right, Thank you, Thank you so much for coming
on the Showy, This is great.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Thanks.

Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
It's always fascinating watching a movie and assuming you know
what the director is going to be like, assuming you
know what the people behind it would vibe like, and
then you actually talk to them and they're often so
different and so unique. And I think that goes to
speak to the fact that you can write what you know,

(01:12:10):
and you can write for how you feel, but sometimes
your feelings and how they're expressed in the actual movie
itself can say a lot more about you. I think
that's true of grey Wood's plot and The Good Exorcist.
I think there's a lot of me in them, but
I also think there's a side of me in them
that's almost the opposite, or even just a feeling that

(01:12:31):
I don't think I really put out there, but I
feel on the inside there are all these elements. So
it's it's just just a interesting concept that the people
that I see in the movie or talk to on
the podcast don't always match the way the movies. Maybe
it's sometimes us trying to break out of our cage
and break out of what we feel we are or

(01:12:52):
the way we think the world reflects us and we
need to try to like emphasize it or to tear
from that concept. I felt that a lot with Greywood's plot,
where I think at that time, especially I think since
Greywood's plot, people maybe have a better understanding of the
kind of stuff I want to make. But I think

(01:13:13):
a lot of people saw me personally as the kind
of person who wanted to make very silly, like consistently
silly stuff. The idea of me trying to say something
was beyond what they thought I was capable of trying.
You know that I just wanted to be weird and
gross and nasty and stupid. And then Greywood's plot, you know,

(01:13:34):
well it is nasty and stupid and whatever. I think,
I say a little bit more in it than I
have in other projects, and so yeah, interesting. I mean
I felt the same with way with Little Luco, where
I think people expect me to be always rough around
the edges and sloppy, and I really tried to push
myself to make it a little cleaner and hire people
on who could really help with that element. And even

(01:13:57):
just like the fact that I chose that, you know,
Scar and I should work on it together, that goes
to show that I was hoping to try something different
and speak outside of the norm. I think that's so,
that's such a fascinating thing, and I think it's really
important to me to think about as I'm moving forward
with these future projects, and I think it's important for
you to think about as you're moving forward. Go watch

(01:14:18):
Cook Concrete, because I truly think it will inspire you
to go, like, I want to fucking pick up a
camera and go make something something beyond just like you know,
grindhouse movies or whatever. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Go make your grindhouse movies. But if you have something
else you want to say, watching something like Cook Concrete
might make you go, fuck it, man, I want to
go tell a darker story or a mystery story, or

(01:14:41):
something very methodical, something slower tonally. It may just give
you a little kick in the ass. The book that
I picked after this episode. We talk so much about writing,
and I talked a little bit in this episode of
the podcast about how I'll read books that I feel
like maybe are quote unquote butl and uh, this one

(01:15:03):
is one that is not below me. But I've read
it a few times and I believe I've gotten past
this point in script writing, in the art of the screenplay,
that I don't necessarily need to know the simple elements.
I don't need the fundamentals of the basics. But this
book Making a Good Script Great, I have the revised

(01:15:26):
and expanded second edition. I don't know what year this
is from, but by Linda Seger, and it's a book
I got many years ago, and I started reading it
when I first started writing screenplays. I actually was given
this book by one of my dad's friends when I

(01:15:46):
graduated high school. He gave me a whole bunch of
books on filmmaking, and making a good script Great was
one of them, and I found that I was struggling
with it. I struggled to read this book and its
copyright is nineteen ninety five by Linda Seeger. And I
struggled with writing screenplays because I didn't know what I
could use. I didn't know what I had. And it

(01:16:07):
wasn't until I got Rebel Without a Crew of the
book and it had that screenplay in the back of
it that made me go, like, Okay, just write simple,
don't try to actually write like a professional, because I
wasn't a professional writer. I had concepts of how I
could write, but I didn't know what I could get made.
I didn't quite understand the rules and regulations. And I
read through this book and it gave me a lot

(01:16:28):
of the tips and tricks I needed to to pull
off getting a book mad. And then my friend gave
me Save the Cat right after I read through this one,
and Save the Cat was the one that was like, Okay,
this is how I break it down. These are the
things that work for me. I hate when people say
they don't like Save the Cat because it has all
of these rules that you have to follow. No you don't.

(01:16:49):
You don't have to follow any of them, but you
could take from the ones you like. And I'm rereading
making a good script great, right? I just started it,
like literally just started it today and only a few
pages in, and I it's that same concept of why
I keep the cartoon and comic book or comic drawing
books around that are even though I have developed my
own style, I do things my own way and I'll

(01:17:11):
probably never change. I find inspiration in even the most
childish of books. I find inspiration in guides to writing
and rewriting. For this one, specifically, is very much for
like the Hollywood style of writing. What are the rules
you should follow? And right now, there are a ton
of rules in screenwriting. Sadly, it's just a fact. If

(01:17:32):
you want to make a script and get it scored, there,
yeah you can say stuff like we see all you
fucking want in your script. If you're gonna shoot it,
you can do stuff like I have this fucking terrible
habit of I don't just write night or day. I
let I get way too descriptive, so I'll write like
exterior Doug Graywood's house dusk. They fucking hate that. They

(01:17:55):
hate dusk. They want to just say night or day.
When are we film? That's all they care about. That's great,
but I feel like when you're setting up the tone
for your own story you want someone to read. Sometimes
you get a little, you add a little, but there
are rules, and for me, reading through a book like
this really reminds me of those rules and helps me

(01:18:16):
go back and figure out what I need to do,
So I highly recommend this. One of the things I
like is that there are a lot of examples of screenplays,
things that have worked in scripts, things that don't work
in scripts, and how to make sure your script is
cohesive story wise especially. She goes into a lot of
description on how you can make it cohesive, how you

(01:18:39):
can make things all play together really well. So I'm
going to I'm going to give this a reread. It's
been many years since I've read it, and if you
want to read along, you should, And then go over
to speakpipe dot com slash Low Budget Rebels and leave
me an audio message reviewing the book. Tell me what
you think, tell me if you dug it or if
you didn't dig it. Tell me the things that you

(01:19:00):
didn't dig about it. That's what I want to hear
this time. I just want to hear what you didn't
dig about it. And same with all of the other episodes.
I haven't had anyone go on speakpipe dot com slash
Low Budget Rebels and leave me an audio message in months.
I would love it if some people left me messages.
Tell me what you tell me a trick or a
tip that you have learned on a recent film shoot,

(01:19:20):
or tell me a story about a recent film shoot
and what's gone right and what's gone wrong? Tell me
a horror story and awful you can do it anonymously.
Tell me the absolute worst thing that happened to you
on your recent low budget film set. Tell me the
best thing that happened to you and something you learned
in a moment that like shook you to your core.
Speakpipe dot com slash low Budget Rebels. Go give me

(01:19:42):
your audio messages because I love to hear them and
I love to share them on the show. All right,
Thank you guys so much. As always, Patreon dot com
slash Flush Studios. Go subscribe, go help out get the
show ad free. So many people are listening to the
ad version of this. That's fine, that's dandy, But man,
you guys, there's so many goddamn ads in the show,

(01:20:03):
and I wish it won't didn't have to be that way.
And maybe in the future I will do a show
that is ad free completely, But for now, the only
way you can get this show ad free is Patreon
dot com slash Low Budget Rebels. All right, and you can.
There's so much other good stuff on there. Subscribe, help
me out, help me get this thing off the ground,
because I've got a lot happening and I just need
those initial funds to get this going. So all right,

(01:20:25):
until next time, keep kicking ass, Keep making the movies
you want to make, the art you want to make,
telling the stories you want to tell and keep. It's
just the fucking stay rebellious, folks, and as always, don't
let your meet loaf.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
Low Budget Rebels is brought to you by the indie
film Hustle Network, recorded at Flush Studios headquarters in tropical Atlanta,
Produced by the film Daddy Josh Stifter, Blah Blah Blah
Boo

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
A Sis

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Season 5 Episode 22: COOKE CONCRETE director Ian Martin

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