Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: There's this interview with Spielberg where it was after a screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And the interviewer was like, Spielberg, your mother was a musician and your dad was into computers.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Is.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Did the story come from figuring out how those two interact? A story about, how do I understand this? These alien life forms that are coming to my planet with music.
And Spielberg in. By answering. In answering the question is like, holy cow. I never thought about it that way. But that's exactly what it is.
And he's. He made the entire movie like he, he wrote the entire thing, he shot it, he edited it, and it was only years later at some screening where he realized, oh, this is what it was really about. And I think that speaks to the fact that stories are going to come, are going to compel us for reasons that we don't immediately understand.
And so I think that setting out to tell a story about what you know is a little bit counterintuitive. You're going to tell the story that's interesting to you and then later you can figure out why it's interesting to you and use that knowledge to make your movie more personal and better, as opposed to just, I'm going to draw from personal experience and tell a story about my time in high school, you know.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: I'm Luke Steinfeld.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: And I'm Wyatt Sarkisian.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: We made the 5050 podcast to support you on your filmmaking journey.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: 50% business, 50% creative.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Every Tuesday, a new how to.
[00:01:28] Speaker C: This week we talk with writer, director, and 5050 Festival alum Eli Staub, who discusses his award winning short moderator. Whether it be the ultimate hack to joke writing, how to effectively scare an audience, or even how to navigate representation as an early career writer, Eli's got this one in the bag. Thanks for listening.
Oregon's really good though, right?
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Oregon's great. I mean, I showed up. I'm a. I went to usc, but I wore green at the sports bar, so kind of stuck out like a sore thumbnail.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: That's not. What's up with that.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Why I didn't, I didn't know my day.
I know my day was going to go to the football game. So I.
Or green, because I think green's a good color on me.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Green's a great color.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Green's a great. Yeah, it's one of the best.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: It's a good color on you, definitely. I think it fits your eyes, your vibe.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: I appreciate that.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: You get the mustache. Got the mustache happening.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: If you can call it that. Yeah, a little. They call it. They Call it the Van Dyke. It's like. It's like this. It's like the Tony Stark.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: But here's. They.
[00:02:39] Speaker C: They're calling it the Van Dyke.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: The world.
But it's mostly. It's a. It's a facial hair style for people that can't grow a beard, but can grow whatever this is.
So this is the early stages.
It remains to be seen whether or not I can do the whole Johnny Depp or. No.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: That's a good look, dude.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: I mean, you look. You look great. Like, you got the hair going.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Thank you, man.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Got that.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah, the hair is new.
I used to have, like, Lego hair. Like, just like the very simple swoop across the top. And one day I was like. I was spending a lot more time in Silver Lake, and I feel like I got.
I gotta prove to people that I'm with it.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Totally.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: How has that been with long hair? Because long hair, it honestly changes things. Like, people see you and they're like, okay, you're probably a filmmaker or a musician or something, right?
Yeah.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: It's completely changed the way I'm viewed by my peers. I have a newfound respect.
It has nothing to do with the quality of my work or my skill.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: I was about to say, do you think you're better at directing now because of the hair?
[00:03:50] Speaker A: I do think so. I think people listen to me more.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: I used to be like, hey, can you move a little over the side? And they're like, dude, your hair's.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: They would just sit right there.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: You're probably from Burbank, dude.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: And now they're like, why would I.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Exactly. Now they're like, you're either from. From Silver Lake or from soho. And that's really cool.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So cool.
And are you in Silver Lake?
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Are you.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Are you out there now?
[00:04:13] Speaker A: No, I'm in Burbank.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: But his haircut's from Silver Lake, though.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: My haircut's from Silver Lake. I mean, my haircut is from New Ha At Sport Clips, but it does the job when I'm. When I'm in Silver. Like. Yeah. Shout out to New Ha From Sport Club. She's really good.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: We. We would love to have her on, honestly.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Get. Get new hot on the pod.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: So you're. You're in Burbank.
What's that like? This looks like a nice apartment, dude.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: It's a home.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: It's a house.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:04:41] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: That's why it looks nice.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: I guess. I guess any place can be a home. But this is a house. This is A. This is the house I grew up in.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Sweet.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: And I continue to live here in Sabrent.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Good for you.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: So, yeah, it allowed me to get this. I'm. I just bought.
I built a computer, a PC that living at home and saving money has allowed me to build probably the strongest computer on the western seaboard.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:05:10] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So what are you gonna do with it?
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Like, do you do vfx stuff or.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: 3D render, 4K Minecraft? No, no, no. I'm gonna. There's. There's some animated films I want to make.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: That's so cool.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: I have a few short films I want to make that are animated and that I'm, like, experimenting with Unreal Engine and trying to make things that are kind of like a hybrid 2D, 3D thing. Like, trying to do 3D using a 3D engine to create, like a 2D painterly look. And I was trying to do that on my MacBook and it just did not. Was not up to snuff.
But. And there's also. I have a white whale project, like, the thing that I can die happy if I made it feature that I didn't originally think was animated. But now that I have the PC, I'm like, I think I'm gonna make an animated feature and I'm gonna go the flow style and just do it entirely on my computer, on my own.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: That'll take you at 20, 25 years.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: Yeah, 20, 25, probably. 25, 26.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: 25, 26 years. Yeah. It'll be worth it.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. Man, that's amazing. Unreal Engine is ridiculous. Like, a crazy tool also for previs too, obviously, you know.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it's great. Like, Unreal is the best. Like, I think that in 2025, like, learning how to use Unreal, it. It can only help you. Like, there's so much. So much you can do for it. And I. I've used it for previs before, and I'm a terrible artist. And so, like, storyboarding, I always. I always storyboard, but then I show it to a cinematographer and they're like, what am I looking at? And Unreal has made it a little bit more like, this is. This is what I want to do because I can actually lay stuff out and in a way that's more legible than my, like, you know, chicken scratch storyboarding. So it's proven very useful on a variety of fronts.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: Have you. Have you always been handy with, like, the technical side of filmmaking? Is that something you're.
That came natural to you, or did you start Writing stories. And then you found that these things could help with that.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: I mean, I. First and foremost, I think, like, writing is. Has always been, like, number one. And the technical side of things is like, I only learn what I feel like I need to. To accomplish what I want to accomplish. And there's things where. I mean with sound, because sound is, like, another one of my huge passions that I'm doing for all my films, basically. And so in school, like, that was a huge focus. It's like, how do I get really good at doing sound design? And so on a technical level, like, I. Pro Tools is like, I. I understand it backwards and forwards, but there's other stuff where, like, I can. I can never be a cinematographer because I. I can tell you, like, what I want the composition to be and. And what I want the color palette to be. And framing is very important to me, but when it comes to actually all of the buttons and, like, how to actually, like, build a camera, that's, like, so far removed from my skill set that I have a lot more trust in a person who's dedicated their life to that than myself. So that's where I'm like, I can be a control freak and be like, I'll do my own sound, I'll edit it, but I'll never be the one holding the camera.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: You can acknowledge that people are better than you at specific things.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: And that ultimately will create the best art is, like, figuring out what you're good at and what you're not, and anything you're not good at delegating to people who are really good at what they do.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: I would say it definitely never hurts to know all these positions, though, you know, and, like, know what it takes and be able to speak the language.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Well, before we keep going, I. I just want to say welcome to the podcast, Eli, everyone. Eli was one of our filmmakers at the most recent horror fest with his film moderator, which was horrifying and awesome.
It actually started the festival.
And maybe we can link it in the. In the description. Who knows?
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, maybe we can.
I'm thinking about, like, uploading it on.
I've been considering, like, considering distribution options. Now I've been, like, recklessly emailing everybody, trying to get it distributed somewhere, and nobody has bitten. So it's moving about the Internet.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: We have a 50, 50 YouTube channel that we can put it on there.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe that's the route, because I'm like, I ultimately think it's a film about social media, and so it existing on, like, YouTube makes a lot of sense.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Makes a lot of sense.
[00:09:29] Speaker C: We can do it.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah. It will require some cuts because ironically, it would probably get taken down by a YouTube moderator.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: That is so ironic. And, yeah, the idea of a YouTube moderator seeing that.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's me.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: I know that's me. But I can't put it on the platform.
Yeah, that's complicated. Do you want to take us through just, like, a couple sentences, what that film was about? Because I would love to kind of get into that, because that film still holds a very specific place, like, in my mind, as I've never seen anything like it, really. So if you want to just take us through it.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So moderator is a day in the life grounded look and what it's like to be a social media content moderator. It's these people who essentially get paid minimum wage to work, watch, on average, a thousand pieces of content per day. The content containing basically the most disturbing and depraved stuff the Internet has to offer. Anytime you're on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube and you see something disturbing and click, report, it's going to one of these people. And so their entire day is they show up to work, they sit down at the desk, they clock in, and then they are exposed to the worst humanity has, and then clock off, go home, talk to their friends and family.
But they're also all forced to sign an NDA. So they don't typically have their story told because it's a breach of contract in most cases. And so moderator is using a lot of interviews from people who are gracious enough to break their NDAs to, like, talk to us and, like, tell us everything they'd seen. And so the film is, like, as realistic as it can possibly be without being a risk at lawsuit.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's a delicate thing to handle.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: Because in a way, the content writes itself, you know, like the horror elements, it's the worst parts of humanity that's showing up, you know, so it's very much like, as a filmmaker, how do you sort of channel that into a digestible thing, you know, because you don't want to make it too, you know, just like documentarian, just like slice of life, like that. But you also don't want to go too dramatizing to the point where it's disrespectful or feel like it's not kosher in that way.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: And there's a. There's a feature made that I thought the film was great, and I really respect the filmmakers, and I actually reached out to them and I'm getting coffee with the director of it sometime next month called American Sweatshop. And it's a feature about a social media content moderator. And the first 20 minutes of that movie is like basically the exact same thing that my short film is.
It's just like showing what it's like to be a social media content moderator. And to be honest, when I saw the trailer, I was like, oh, really?
Like, this is exactly what I wanted to do. And.
But then as I kind of like tried to take the high road and be a little bit more mature about it, I was like, well, my initial goal setting out to make this film was to spread the word about how horrible this job is. And these filmmakers succeeded in doing that in a feature length version. And so I can't be anything except for excited and thrilled that somebody's doing it. The only thing about that film is that in the film it follows a woman who sees disturbing content every day. And then one day she sees something that's so disturbing that she decides to like, take matters into her own hands and like, solve the crime on her own.
And I think that's a totally viable way of making that feature version. But what I really set out to do is like, the horror intrinsic to the setup is the real world thing, which is just the job. Like, it doesn't require some additional aspect. Like we need to track this down and bring it into the real world because it already is the real world. It's already a real world issue.
And there's horror enough in just what takes place inside the office. And frankly, I don't think there's a version of a feature that you would sit through that's 90 minutes of that. So I think that they made the right call to do something else. But that's why it's a short film. It's because I believe that like a 15 minute dose of this is about enough. You need to be like thoroughly unsettled and disturbed by this real world issue. And the other thing that was like kind of the main undercurrent of what we wanted to go for was we're trying to expose that the great danger of social media and this job is that you get desensitized to disturbing content. And were I to make a film where I'm just like showing you tons of disturbing content, it would be counterintuitive because I'm being like, isn't it so bad that people are exposed to all this terrible stuff? Anyways, here's all this terrible stuff.
But. But instead being like, how Much can be left off screen. How much can be done in sound design? How much can be done to make you feel the same amount of disturbed or even more. By not showing you everything, as opposed.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: To showing you everything, or showing the reaction of the actress.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: And how she's affected by it.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Which ultimately the most compelling thing is, like, it's the people that have to do this. And so there's something just horrifying about watching someone's face as they're viewing something incredibly disturbing and thinking about what's going on inside their head. And them being like, this disturbing piece of content I'm seeing is going to damage my relationship with my daughter, and it's going to hurt the way I live my life, because that thing I have seen is now permanently etched inside my head.
And I think that's the plight of anybody who grew up on social media.
It's like the Gen Z issue is that we've all grown up in this great experiment where we're just being exposed to all kinds of stuff. And so the short film is kind of a microcosm of the most extreme version of what all of us have experienced in a really universal way about just kind of the dangers of social media as a whole.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: You know, what, what made you think about this? Like, were you reporting a video and thinking, who's gonna see this? Or are you on, like a Reddit thread? And, like, you saw some, oh, my gosh, I have this job or I just quit and like, this is what I saw.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's, there's.
I'd say what, like, the thing that literally brought me into the world of it was I didn't, like most people, I didn't know that this was a job that people have. Like, I wasn't really aware of what it was. And then I saw an article on the Verge by a guy named Casey Newton, and it's called the Trauma Floor.
And it's an article that just goes into detail about what these people are doing and what they're experiencing. And I was so horrified and stunned. And then I saw there's a Vice documentary they do. Vice does these like, 20 minute videos where they have a person sit in a mask because they prefer to remain anonymous and talk about their job. And it was following a social media content moderator. And I was like, blown away that nobody had ever done a fictional, like, like a narrative of this.
And I was immediately compelled to the idea from all that. But on top of that, like, that's the objective thing that brought me into it. But the kind of internal thing that made me be like, I want to be the one to do this. Like, I feel like I have the experience to tell this story is the fact that, like, I've been in those middle school guys group chats. I. I've. I've been exposed to all this stuff. Like, we. There is this website that in middle school or in high school guys would be like, oh, can you go to this website and watch all these videos? It's almost like a hazing ritual.
And it was this website where it was just. It was like 10 videos back to back that were like the most disturbing things that anybody could find.
And I'd seen all of it. And I, to this day, like, those images have not gotten out of my mind. And on top of that, I think junior year of college, I was diagnosed with ocd. And my OCD wasn't like the. I mean, if I were to pan my camera, you'd tell that it wasn't the neat OCD because I'm like a slob, but my version of OCD is like, highly intrusive thoughts and imagery. And it would get to the point where, like, there. There was a girl I had a crush on in college and my. My fear of, you know, going out and like, asking her out and like, am, like, going for it.
That fear manifested in my brain as, like, picturing all the worst things that could happen to her. And so my brain would fire these neurons of like, I'm nervous to talk to her, and therefore my brain is going to show me the most disturbing thing possible to, like, create a sour taste in my head whenever I'd think about her. And it was the. And it was my brain trying to protect me by being like, look at all these terrible things that could happen.
And it got to a point where I was like, I just can't take this anymore.
And so I got medicated for it and it. And it really helped me out.
And so I felt like I really had this struggle navigating life when I had a very creative mind that would conjure all of these disturbing images, largely caused probably by all the stuff I'd been exposed to as a kid growing up in the experimental phase of Instagram and Facebook, where people didn't really know what all was on there and what people would upload. And I had seen so many things that were so disturbing. There were videos in moderator that are like, loosely based off of stuff I had seen when I was like, 12.
And so the, like, an objective sense, like, the thing that led me into making the film was all the stuff I'd read about these, about this job, but on a more emotional, deeper level. What had compelled me to make it was that I sympathize with being desensitized and having images in your head that are conjured up that you don't wish to be exposed to, but still.
And it was. It was actually only after I finished making moderator that I was like, oh, that's why I wanted to make this movie. This is something I struggle with.
And so it's ultimately, even though I didn't realize it, it's by far the most personal thing I've ever made because it just deals with a similar issue that I've felt in my own way that these modern. Like, I've never been a Facebook moderator, but I understand what it feels like to have a brain that's kind of like to disturbed by all the stuff that you see.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: Absolutely. It sounds like there's some traumatic stuff that a lot of our generation goes through just by being exposed because the algorithms are so evil sometimes that they will send you what gives clicks.
And if that is something that's the worst thing in the world, it gets clicks and people are going to look at it.
So I guess. But I'm curious if you have thoughts just, you know, if that's something you have wanted to tackle before. Just like thinking about our generation specifically and the unique sort of trauma that we have from growing up with social media, in a way, you know.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think that intrinsic to the mind of every young person growing up in the 2020s is like, this. This experience, like, the quintessential experience of growing up in the 2000s is the onslaught of social media. Like. Like that's what our young lives have ultimately been about. And so whether it was conscious or not, which I think it was probably not conscious for me, we all feel a need to be like, hey, this is how we're feeling. This is. This is the result of the experiment is this is what you've done.
And so I think that I was drawn to the idea first by just being like, oh, this is an incredible story.
And it was only later that I realized kind of the subconscious what was really going on underneath.
That's what a lot of ideas is. Like, a lot of times you're like, oh, I have this awesome idea and I love this story. And other people might not really understand why, and you can't understand why either. And you don't. You don't know what draws you to it until you Dig really deep. And you go, oh, this is why I'm so compelled by this, is because this is what makes it personal. And I think that a lot of people, it's like, there's the adage, you know, write what you know.
And I think that can be a little misguided at times, because if I followed that advice to a T, what I'd be doing is I'd be writing a story about a dude who grew up in Burbank.
And that's not particularly interesting.
[00:22:08] Speaker C: Don't sell yourself short there.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Maybe. Maybe it is. I mean, that's kind of what, like, Edward Scissorhands is.
But literally, he was.
Tim Burton literally said that Edward Scissorhands is about growing up in Burbank.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: But you.
To me, it's like you can figure out that you're writing what you know after you've already started to write it. Like, that doesn't have to be a thing where it's like, what do I know?
What is my experience? Let me write about it.
[00:22:42] Speaker C: That's great advice.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: What story compels me? And then figuring out why it compels you. And in the why, you find out why you're really interested in it.
[00:22:51] Speaker C: You know, I think that's so much more powerful, honestly, because it feels a little bit. It feels a little bit untruthful. To just start with, you know, doing it the other way rather than your way is very much like, oh, let me. Let me listen to myself and listen to. I might not know exactly why this is something that I want to tackle, but I'm going to tackle it because I feel this, like, intrinsic passion. And then through talking about it and writing about it and talking with collaborators, you kind of start. Understand thematically why it suits you.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. There's this interview with Spielberg where a guy I'm sure you've seen, it's like, super viral on Instagram reels.
It's a guy at Spielberg.
He says it was after a screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the interviewer was like, Spielberg, your mother was a musician and your dad was into computers.
Did the story come from figuring out how those two interact? A story about, how do I understand this? These alien life forms that are coming to my planet with music.
And Spielberg in. By answering. In answering the question is like, holy cow. I never thought about it that way. But that's exactly what it is.
And he's. He made the entire movie. Like, he. He wrote the entire thing, he shot it, he edited it, and it was only years later at some screening where he realized, oh, this is what it was really about.
And I think that speaks to the fact that stories are going to compel us for reasons that we don't immediately understand.
And so I think that setting out to tell a story about what you know is a little bit counterintuitive. You're going to tell the story that's interesting to you, and then later you can figure out why it's interesting to you and use that knowledge to make your movie more personal and better, as opposed to just, I'm going to draw from personal experience and tell a story about my time in high school.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: You know, that's really well said. What, what's your introduction to horror?
Because I know we, we spoke about briefly of like, or you might have mentioned you're. You were writing some sort of comedy or something that's not horror. And you're like, this just isn't. This isn't me. Like, horror is me. So what, what was your kind of first step into the genre?
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I.
Great question.
I think that, like, I've always been.
It's been difficult to pin down exactly what my thing is. And I still have a hard time figuring that out because I work for a comedy executive. Like, I work as an assistant to a TV comedy guy.
And I showed some of the actors on our show my film, and they're like, you're that guy. Like, why are you working for this guy when this is the film that you made?
And the answer to that is, ultimately, I. I'm just gonna make what is most interesting to me at the time. And sometimes that will be a comedy, sometimes it'll be a horror. But I think that with horror, there's a unique opportunity to explore the stuff that's a little bit taboo and that we feel uncomfortable talking about.
And as artists and as filmmakers, like, we have a responsibility to understand humanity.
And part of that means digging into the darker side of things.
And horror is a unique opportunity to explore that in the most intense, powerful way of being. Like, if. If the thing that you're struggling with is trauma or it's kind of the darker recesses of what you're dealing with.
And you kind of live in a world where it's not kosher to just like trauma dump on people and talk about all your issues and the stuff that you're struggling with. And the natural inclination is to tell you how great your life is going and to post on social media about, like, oh, I went on this awesome trip. Here's photos from it and I'm smiling at all my photos and there's the natural kind of inclination to lean towards. I'm only going to discuss what's positive. But through horror we can actually combat the stuff that we're dealing with and show characters overcoming with it and dealing with it. And ultimately it shows us that we're not alone.
And I think that's what really draws me to horror is that when I see a film about, oh, what the story is really about is grief, like the loss of a loved one.
And sometimes comedy is the best way to deal with that kind of stuff.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: Yeah, not at all.
[00:27:22] Speaker C: I was gonna say.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah, like some of the best comedies I've ever seen have been really funny, but about tragic events. I mean, I don't know if you guys have seen the movie Sorry Baby, that came out this year. Yeah, it's a woman goes through a horrifying experience and it's the funniest movie I've seen all year because it's watching.
[00:27:42] Speaker C: Her cope with this and through her ridiculous way and she's developing a strange sort of off putting personality through it and rejecting people in funny ways. And it's.
I think, yeah, it's.
I agree with the horror stuff but I also, I did just want to point out because comedy sometimes is some of the darkest stuff and like art, we can't help but just laugh, you know?
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I.
Comedy is also like.
I think comedy and horror are probably my two favorite genres because they're the two things that get that kind of dig the deepest and in a way that's a little bit subversive. Whereas like if you're writing a straight drama, which dramas are great, I love dramas. But the drama, what you see is kind of what get like it's going to be. If the movie is a drama about your sad personal experience, it's going to be a very literal interpretation of what you've experienced.
Whereas if you're, if you're watching a horror or a comedy, you're approaching it in a way that kind of immediately gets to the primal nature of what you're experiencing. Like with comedy, it's immediately primal by the fact that you're making me laugh. And now I trust you and now you can do whatever you want and I believe you and I'm with you. And same with horror. If you can make me scared now my walls are down and whatever else happens, I am 100% with you and I'm connecting to you on a deep level. And I Think comedy and horror are like, two sides of the same coin and kind of breaking down your wall and then just, like, hitting you in the most specific way. And I think that moderator is not a funny move. I mean, there's, like, there's funny moments because there's some clips that she sees that are, like, kind of funny.
But I think that some of the best horrors are the ones that have an element of humor, and some of the best comedies are some of the ones that have an element of horror.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: So, yeah, I don't know. I. I love horror. I really do.
I love it all. But I think horror and comedy, I don't know. It's. It's tough, and it's hard for me to define myself as an artist because I feel so drawn to both.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: I would say, what's a recent horror movie that you've seen that you're. Because I'm not even going to say what's your favorite? But, like, what's one that you've seen recently that, like, really kind of inspired you or sparked something in you to be like, yes, like, this is why I'm doing this.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: I think that the.
My favorite. I have two favorite comedies of this year or horrors of this year. Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: Don't talk about comedy. Whatever you do.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: No horror, no comedy. We're on the other half of the 50. 50.
But two favorite horrors this year are. I loved Bring Her Back.
I thought Bring Her Back was. Bring Her Back is the scariest movie I've seen all year.
And I think that.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Have you seen that movie?
[00:30:31] Speaker C: No. You can tell by my expression.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: There's. There's a scene in there. There's a scene in there where there's kids eating a table. Like a wood table.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Yeah. It's awesome.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: It's awesome.
[00:30:41] Speaker C: And it's not a comedy.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: What?
No, but. But the Philippus, the. The guys who made it is also the Talk to Me guys. They, literally, the start of their career was making funny YouTube videos. It was like lightsaber battles using VFX to, like, turn sticks into lightsabers and having to battle each other at target. Like, that was what they did.
And so Bring Her Back. There's plenty of moments of humor, but it's also, like, a really, really deep, thoughtful family drama.
And so that's really inspiring.
And then the most obvious version of this this year has been Weapons.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Because Weapons is a hilarious movie that is a horror movie. Capital H. Like, it is a horror movie that happens to be very funny.
And the humor and horror just they just blend into each.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: It really blends.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: Such a nuance.
[00:31:34] Speaker C: It's almost like beautiful way. And I. It's funny because I rarely ever see horror movies. That's just not my genre. But I saw weapons, and it was kind of like being on a roller coaster, you know, which I feel like is a fun.
It's to look at it through. Because being on a roller coaster is. You're scared, but you're also having the most fun of your life, you know? And. Oh, yeah, that movie was totally.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: I mean, there are scenes where, like, Josh Brolin is just acting the way a normal human would in this scenario, right? And it's so funny.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: It grounds it.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it really grounds it.
And also with horror, you're dealing with the absurd. And so when you take it a little too seriously, sometimes it falls off because you're going, okay, if I were in that scenario, I would be swearing. I would be freaking out. And there's something funny about watching a person being like, are you seeing this, guys? Like, this is nuts.
And weapons taps into that really well. And also with the humor again, like, it breaks down the wall and makes you trust the filmmaker because it's like, oh, they're sharp. They get me. I also think that's funny. And then you trust them when they take you down to the bottom of the staircase into the basement. Now you're really scared. Because if they can make me laugh, I'm sure they can also make me scared.
So. Yeah.
[00:32:51] Speaker C: Aunt Gladys. Is that her name? Gladys? She is also. If she was in a different movie, it would be a comedy, you know, like, she is a. She's a comedic character, I truly think. Like, she looks so scary, but at the same time, she's like. It's the. It's like the worst portrayal. Like, she's like a creature, right? Barely human, but she puts on makeup and she's like, hi.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Like, it's like, yeah, it's.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: Nobody's believing that you're a, you know, a real, like, old lady, you know, 100%.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: And even. Even in movies that, like, aren't really horror, like, what's the Coen Brother?
No country for Old Men. Like Anton Chigurh is frequently lauded as, like, one of the most.
One of the best depictions of psychopaths in films. And he's terrifying. And when he's on screen, he is so scary. But you have to admit there's a humor to him. Like, he has. He's got this dorky haircut, and he's going to a gas station and he's telling the guy, like, coin toss. And the guy's. The guy's life is in his hands and it's all based off of a little coin toss. And it's.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: That's funny. That's absurd.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: Funny scene. It's a funny scene. And it's. And people use it as like, this is one of the most tense scenes of all time. And it is very tense. It also happens to be very funny and kind of navigating the ebb and flow of where horror ends and humor starts and vice versa.
I think you explore humanity in such a real and rich way that a lot of other genres just can't really get to that same level.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Do you have certain techniques to do that, whether in prep, like writing or actually on set when you're with the actors on the day where you're kind of balancing this, that horror and comedy aspect, but making sure the tone is sound, like tonally sound throughout the entire short or feature, whatever you're working on?
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, part of it for me is that I kind of can't help but if I think of a joke, it's going to go in there. Like, when I'm writing something, if it naturally lends itself to humor, I want it to be in there.
The first video and moderator is the kid who puts the toothpick under his toenail and kicks a ball. And that's simultaneously one of the hardest things to watch in the whole movie. But also it's kind of funny if you watch it in a theater. You hear this uncomfortable laughter. Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Luke and I.
And I think that just naturally, if you think something's funny, I think that. And if you think it's funny and it's in world like it belongs in the world of the story, it should go in there because it's just real. Like, it's just things are funny. And a lot of things that are scary are also really funny.
And so it's like, you should never have the blinders on and be like, this is a horror movie. It must be horrifying all the time because the horror is going to hit so much harder if there's funny stuff too.
I don't think I'm really, like, actively thinking about it as I'm directing.
The best thing you can do is just be true to the world of the story you're telling and be true to the characters. And any humor that comes of it is going to be from the people's reactions to what they're experiencing.
[00:36:10] Speaker C: Yes, Totally. And it's the way that you. You have to just, like, laugh or else it's going to be too much for you to handle. You know, it's your way of coping with what's on screen, almost.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: I was about to say that, Wyatt, of, like, as an audience, you're sitting there watching a horror film and you're, like, pleading to laugh, like you want the sun to come up. You're like, please, just give me anything to laugh at. Like, give me. Like, you're. It's so tense.
And that's where I mean comedy and horror when it. When it comes to pacing and timing. Like, it's all about setup, punchline setup and jump scare. You know, like, it's. It's. It's one in the same, really. And that's why, you see, you know, the weapons director came from sketch. Like, these directors who come from. Jordan Peele is the. Exactly. Jordan Peele is the ultimate kind of example of that right now. But if, like, he's comedic through and through. Comedic directors coming up and making incredible horror films.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And the best jump scares are the ones that read like a punchline. Like.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: It's a setup and it's a payoff. And I think that, you know, I was talking to one of the writers on the show that I worked on as an assistant. I am not a writer on the show, though. I wish I were.
And he was talking about how he's been in both comedy rooms and in drama rooms, and what he's seen is that, a, comedy is 10 times harder to do. To do right.
But B, it is much, much easier for a comedy writer to go into a drama room and thrive than a drama writer to go into a comedy room and thrive. Because there's something so fundamental you have to get about comedy that will then unlock your ability to work in other genres. Because it's all about conflict and it's all about the setup and understanding.
Does this setup work? Does it draw me in? And then when the payoff happens, does it hit? And the best jump scares, the best scary moments in films come from the subversion of an expectation, which is exactly what comedy is. It's. It's. I'm directing you this way and I'm going to sidewind you and I'm going to throw this at you instead.
And the scariest moments like that, that scene in Mulholland Drive where they're going around the corner, you do not think that's where that scene is going. And then it has such a terrifying jump Scare.
And it's the subversion of the expectation. It's get out. It's the guy running towards you and, like, turning to the right really abruptly, you're like, why do you do that? That's not what I was expecting. That's not what the setup had led me to anticipate.
And that element of surprise is identical in both comedy and drama.
[00:38:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: And so if you have a grasp on how to tell a joke, I think you also probably have a grasp on how to make somebody scared.
[00:38:50] Speaker C: As a writer, you have to be very, very economical as you're writing comedy specifically.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Because you.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:57] Speaker C: Back in the day, you would only have, whatever, 22 minutes to write a script that hooks everybody. And you can have jokes, a bunch of jokes every minute, et cetera. And it's the same with horror, right? Because you're thinking about the audience's reaction. And if one thing is off just, Just by a couple milliseconds, basically, it's not going to work. The jump scare is not going to work. It's not going to land properly. So, as Luke said, it's kind of all about timing.
We'd like to take a quick break to thank the sponsor of today's episode, Evidence Cameras. Evidence cameras. Sponsored. This year's 5050 horror festival.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Evidence is awesome. They have an incredible assortment of. Of cameras you can rent. Joel and the team are incredible. All of them were actually there at the festival. Shout out to them.
I also shot my most recent short using their equipment, and it was such an easy experience.
I implore you all to do the same.
[00:40:01] Speaker C: I'm curious just to pivot a little bit.
Are you a person who likes co writing or collaborating, or are you more of like an independent writer? And what is your relationship with collaboration in general?
[00:40:15] Speaker A: So both. I mean, I. I have a screenwriting partner named Nolan who I think is infinitely more talented than I, who is an excellent horror writer. And he and I have written a number of features together.
And he is.
He has such a good grasp on horror. I mean, that dude, he watched three movies on average. Based on his letterbox. This is like verified. On average, three movies a day. In all of middle school.
[00:40:42] Speaker C: In all middle school.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: In all of middle school and most of high school and most of college. And he was dealing with some personal issues and his escape was movies. And so he's seen so many movies and seen so much horror. And I'm sure that the difficulties he was experiencing in life lent itself to being like, I want to watch horror because I want to see People who are going through difficult situations, seeing if they can overcome it.
So most horror movies, I write, I write with him, and I'm incredibly grateful for his collaboration. And I think the best thing to come out of my film school education was just finding him.
When it comes to sweet. Yeah, no, he's the best. Like, he's. He's incredible. Nolan Lamson, the goat.
But when it comes to comedy, that tends to just be me. Like, I've.
It's weird. I mean, like, I. I've written a number of comedy pilots, and as of. As of two days ago, that's what's gotten me wrapped. Like, I just got a manager for writing, and it's for Comedy tv.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: Congrats. Congratulations, man.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: That's amazing.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Thank you.
Thank you.
And that. That was just like.
Honestly, the way. The way it happened was at work, I write a lot of emails to these people at Universal Television because our. My bosses have a deal with Universal Television, and all these coordinators at Universal Television just want to be writers. Like, that's what everyone wants to do. And so I would do script swaps with them. And I had written some comedy pilots that I had sent to them. And when I'm at work, I'm like, I'm the comedy guy. Even though I do all this other stuff.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:17] Speaker C: Even though you're looking at Reddit threads of moderators.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Literally, even though I've been in, like, the deepest, darkest trenches of the human mind, I'm like, animated comedy about the Oregon Trail.
And so that was one of the two pilots. The other one was about interns on Capitol Hill, and they're both, like, goofy, whimsical, funny comedies. And I. And I sent them to one of the coordinators at us at UTV just to, like, as part of our script swap. And she's like, these made me laugh. These are really funny. I have a friend who's a manager. Do you want me to send them to her? And honestly, I was kind of like, I don't know. Like, I don't know if I want these to be my first impression. Like, I feel like these are not the best thing. Like, other things I've made, like, moderator that I'm, like, way more proud of and feel like are more polished and. But she was like, it made me laugh, and it'll probably make other people laugh, too. And so she sent them to this manager, and the manager was like, I love this. You're funny. And so I met with her, and then she was like, let's do this.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: And tell her I mean, did you.
[00:43:18] Speaker A: Did you about, like, everything?
[00:43:20] Speaker C: Did you tell her, did you tell her about moderator?
[00:43:25] Speaker B: You know, like, did you, did you tell her about, like, I love horror or it's like, I love your dark skirt. Thank you so much.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: Yeah, right. So that was the question going into it, and I talked extensively with my friends and with my boss, and I was like, do I tell, like, when I go into this meeting, do I tell this manager that, like, I'm also interested in a lot of other stuff and that my favorite stuff I've ever done is not these comedy pilots?
And most people's advice was just be honest. Like, like, tell her what you want to be and what you want to do.
And so in the meeting, one of the first things I said was, like, I have to be honest with you. Like, I love comedy tv. And because I, I, I feel that it's probably the closest route, not swimming upstream to going where I want to go and doing what I want to do.
It's comedy TV because it's where I work.
But I love horror, and I, I, I love everything. And a lot of my favorite stuff has been horror. And I told her about moderator. I told her that I've written horror features with my, with my writing partner, and she was like, I think that's awesome. She was like, I think that that is great that you do that.
And she, she saw it as a pro, not a con.
I think that one of the reasons why is, like, you, if you're interested in a lot of different things and you're kind of a utility writer, you can fit into a lot of different places.
So on a practical level, it's a pro because you're flexible and you might actually be considered for a horror show or a horror movie, even though you're in was through comedy. So there's a practical element there. But also just on, like, a fundamental level, I think the best storytellers are the ones who are story first and genre second. Like, I love genre films, and that's kind of all I do. But it's always been like, whatever idea I'm most compelled by, I want to do that.
And so I think it speaks to having an open mind and being open to, you know, trying whatever you're most driven to do in the moment. And I do foresee the next couple of years, my life being a little bit more comedy TV focused, because right now that's the closest in. And my manager is also going to agree with that take. But it doesn't mean that, you know, having your in be one thing doesn't open the door to opportunities down the road where you can be doing everything you want to do. And all of our goals is to be doing whatever we want to do. And my goal is that in 10, 20, 30 years, I'm just making what I want to make, whether it's a comedy, whether it's a horror, whether it's a drama, whether it's, you know, flat comedy or, like, whether it's broad comedy, whether it's dark comedy, whether it's, like, a succession or whether it's Breaking Bad. Like, there's. There's so many things you can do.
[00:46:12] Speaker C: And I think it's story first.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Yeah, story first. And I'm capitalizing on what is, like, the most useful to me right now.
And not to mention getting my comedy chops in order, I think is going to make me a much better creator in all genres. Like, as I was saying earlier, like, you can tell a joke, you can't do anything. And I think that it'll be useful starting in comedy, even though, like, I have many interests and I'm going to continue making films that are horror. I mean, the next short film I want to make is a horror film that is kind of funny, but it's a horror film, and I'm going to keep doing what I want to do, you know?
[00:46:53] Speaker B: Do you. Do you have tips for screenwriters looking to write a comedic pilot? You said those were the two that got you interest. You had two pilots, half hour, I assume. Yeah, yeah. So what. What. What are some tips perhaps you learned in school or some from elsewhere that you kind of listened to in your head while you were writing these two.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there's kind of a cheat code to comedy, and it's that in comedy. Comedy is the only genre in which you have an objective metric to see if something works or not. And it's just, can you make someone laugh? If you can make someone laugh, it means you're doing it right.
Whereas in other genres, like, okay, yeah, sure, if you make someone cry, but nobody. It's very rare they're gonna make someone cry with a script. But if you can make someone laugh out loud as they're reading something, you've immediately won them over. And so what I was doing, I was writing these pilots, is just sending it to as many people as possible and being like, is this stupid or is this funny? And there were. I think the reason I'm wrapped is because there was. It was. It was probably one joke that was in one of my comedy Pilots where she was like, I couldn't stop laughing at this one joke, and I think that's what won her over. And I knew that joke worked because I showed it to lots of other people, and they'd laugh, and they thought it was funny. It was. It's a dumb joke.
It's like. It's. There's a. There's a. It's. It was in the Capitol Hill intern pilot called Hill Turns, and it. There's, like, a senator that they work.
[00:48:24] Speaker C: Luke, that's not the joke.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Already won. Already won. Luca.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Wow.
But there's a senator who's, like, trying to rebrand himself, and he has this whiteboard, and he's coming up with, like, what the motto of his campaign is gonna be.
And they're like, there's a really good rhyme of his first name that would be great for a slogan. And. And he's like, I don't want to go by my first name. That's Obama's name.
And that's good, because it's Obama's last. Obama's last name is Obama's last name.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Like, it's just a really dumb joke, but it got. It always gets people to laugh when they read it because it's just so dumb.
And in the meeting, she was like, that Obama joke is so funny. And she's like. And she just kept talking about the Obama joke.
And even though no matter how stupid I think that joke is, like, it works like it's funny. And so when you're writing comedy specifically, I think getting feedback and seeing what.
[00:49:31] Speaker C: People laugh at and what sticks in people's minds, right? Like, there's a difference in people's minds. You can have a chuckle joke that's Maybe even laugh out loud. But, like, what. It's kind of a thinker, too, in a way.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: You know?
[00:49:44] Speaker C: Like, it takes a beat for. For you to understand it, which I think makes it even more like that ingrains it in your mind even more.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: It sticks a little more because you've devoted a little bit more time to.
[00:49:53] Speaker C: Thinking about understanding it.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: And then the other thing with comedy is your first draft of a comedy script.
You're gonna look back and be like, this is super funny because you put it there because it was funny.
And then you start revising it by your 9th or 10th revision, you're like, is any of this funny? And the reason it's worn off for you is just because you've read it so many times, because comedy has.
There's. There's a It's like if I told you the same joke 10 times in a row, obviously be less funny the 10th time.
Unless it's like a really funny joke.
[00:50:31] Speaker B: Turn into a horror movie.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: Exactly. Turn into a really, really difficult movie to watch in a horrifying way, as if it was just the same joke over and over.
But the.
It's. It's all. It's about trusting your gut. Like, if you found. If you really found it funny the first time you put it down, chances are it probably is funny. And your backup plan is you're gonna show it to a ton of people anyways, and if they still think it's funny, then it's funny. And there's so many things that I've written into these comedy pilots where I'm like, I don't know if this will land. And a lot of times it is 50, 50, and you show it to somebody, and some people think it's funny and some people don't. But you. The more you show people, the more you are gonna dig in and excavate the stuff that, like, this is funny. Like, this will always work.
So, yeah, I'd say the two biggest things are trust the laugh. Like, trust what gets people to laugh. Because laugh. Laughing is an objective metric. It's about the only objective metric you have in all of screenwriting.
And two, it's trust your gut and trust what worked on the first pass. Which is not always good advice in most genres. But, like, if it worked in the first pass and it made you laugh when you thought about it, it's probably gonna work, even if it's worn off for you.
[00:51:50] Speaker C: And then I'm curious, if we're gonna look at the story elements of a comedic pilot, what are some tips you have for that in terms of keeping it simple? But also, you know, people will sometimes stick with something for comedy, but they're also going to stick with something because it's captivating characters and there's heart to it as well. So have you learned anything kind of about that in your comedy writing journey?
[00:52:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is just put people with opposing worldviews at odds with each other. Like, have a character who believes one thing really intensely and have another character who believes another thing really intensely. And that's storytelling in general. Like, that works for everything.
But in comedy, I think that the best humor comes from scenarios in which you have two people with completely diametrically opposed worldviews who, when they're talking to each other and when they're making choices, are at odds in an absurd way. I think that I took a class at usc. The first comedy pilot I wrote was I've written a scene for a class and then I turned it into a pilot and it's a. It's terrible, it's not funny, it's not good.
But what the assignment was that inspired me to write the pilot after I finished the class was write a comedic protagonist and a comedic antagonist. And basically the only direction the professor made was like, have them be incredibly at odds with each other.
Have them just be so diametrically opposed. I think the first thing he said was actually make the, make the antagonist first. And I had written, I was like, I think it'd be a funny character is if like there is a, there is a chess club in a high school and a girl shows up who's like a 12 year old Soviet protege, like just the best chess player alive shows up at this chess club.
And then we made the protagonist and I was like, well, the best thing to fight her is the person who thinks they're the king of the world and is the best chess player at the school. But when they meet her they realize that, oh, I suck at chess.
And also another, another difference between them is that the antagonist, this 12 year old girl would really keep her cool and she was like super like stoic and calculated and everything was planned. Whereas the protagonist was cocky and would get sloppy because they believed that they're the best. And it was ultimately the scene that they're like, now write a scene between the two of them. And so the scene I wrote was, it was the protagonist being cocky, kind of lured himself into a false sense of security.
And then the antagonist wins by taking advantage of that and she kind of pretends to be failing and that makes him like slip and then she wins. And there's just like funny little things in that dynamic because these two people are so different. But pitting them against each other made it really funny. And that's the only good scene in the pilot that I wrote is like that chess.
Yeah, but, but it helped me learn. Like all you really have to do is have people that are, that fundamentally believe different things.
There's another really funny character, I just want to say it's so stupid, but the main character's dad, it takes place during the 80s and the dad is like a super nationalistic military guy who hates Russians and he also hates chess because he thinks it's like nerdy and loser stuff. And he wants his son to be in like JROTC and the Son is hiding the fact that he's in the chess club from him. But then when the dad finds out that he's fighting a Soviet, he's like, you better beat her ass, dude. Like. Like, he gets, like, super intense about him.
[00:55:41] Speaker C: That's good.
[00:55:41] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: It's just worldviews. It's just the opposition of different worldviews and seeing how they interact and change is where I think all the humor comes from as a story structure, perspective.
[00:55:52] Speaker C: And to me, a lot of the times, like, you can have a really funny pilot and you can. Things can be. It can be an interesting perspective. But if you don't have camera characters who are. You know exactly how they're going to react to a situation. Yeah.
Because they are they. In the pilot, there's a story engine between two characters that's repeatable. That's. If they're put in this situation, they're going to be arguing. One's going to think this is the way to do it, and the other is going to think this is the way going to do it, and they're going to be at odds with each other. So it's really about. That's the big question, like, how. And especially with a pilot, it's a suggestion that there are going to be more episodes, you know, so it's about that repeatability factor, and that's probably why that professor had you do that.
[00:56:35] Speaker A: Right. The engine of a show is ultimately just going to come down to, are these people's differences big enough to expand upon, and are there enough stories to generate from this conflict? And I think, like, one of the funniest moments in any episode of TV I've ever seen is in Breaking Bad, and it's when they're in the trailer and you have Walter White, who is a disciplined scholar, who's a teacher, and he's working with a student who is kind of a dope and was a bad student, but wants to be better and wants to do his best.
And there's a moment, it's like towards the end of season one, I think, where Walter is, like, trying to explain to him how to work on the engine to their RV that's broken down. And he's like. He's delivering it like it's a lesson. Like he's giving a lesson to his student because that's the way he thinks. And he's like. He's like, now, Jesse, what? One element on the periodic table and he's holding up a wire. He's like. He's like, what One element on the periodic table is better at conducting electricity than any other. And Jesse's like, ah, wire.
And it's the fact that it's like these two people who are so, the way they see the world is so, so different and pitting them up against each other like that, like, it's not just that Jesse's dumb, it's that, it's the dynamic between a teacher and a student and it's, it's those people being paired up against each other that is where the story ultimately comes from.
So I don't know. Also, that's just an excuse to tell because I think that's just so funny. I love that scene. So much.
[00:58:13] Speaker B: Good stuff, man. This, this was a really, really fun conversation. Yeah, like, you can, you can feel the passion, man.
[00:58:21] Speaker C: You know, I think we're all very aligned on that. And it's one of the reasons why 5050 is comedy in May and, and horror in October, you know, because those are, those are two very strong genres that if you put a compelling story into those genres, that the genre elements kind of just elevate it, you know?
[00:58:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm, I'm obsessed. Like, I, I, I love it. I, and I, I love nerding out and I love, like, I don't know, making people's ears bleed with just like talking to them about how much I love this stuff.
[00:58:58] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: They complete more, man.
We, we ask, we ask a question to all of our guests at the end, which is a simple one. And that is, what is the dream?
[00:59:10] Speaker A: Oh, well, I'd say more than anything, I want to have like a, a lovely wife and kids and have a great, peaceful life.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: You know, you're the first person to say that, by the way.
[00:59:21] Speaker C: Everybody said, I want to make a ton of money.
[00:59:23] Speaker B: I want to get the money on a Ferrari.
[00:59:26] Speaker C: Yeah, every, it's all material to everybody.
[00:59:28] Speaker B: You are the first person to say that.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: I mean, I do think that's number one is like if, if you don't have that, then you. What do you have? Like, I'd say all the successes mean nothing if you don't have somebody to share them with. But that's so sappy.
But I think that career wise, I, I would like to.
Oh, that's such a, that's such a broad question. But I, I think I want to tell stories that move people. And at the end of the day, I think what we all want more than anything is to connect with people and try to understand people. I think that we're born with like. Like every time you meet somebody, it's like, I want to get this person. I want to understand them. And I think that's what movies and stories are for, is that the best movies I've seen are the ones where I see it. And I'm like, I have. I feel heard, like the emotion that I've experienced that I've never been able to put into words, that this person just put into a film. And I. And I get it so deeply. And that's what I want to do as a filmmaker is I want to make movies and stories where people watch it and go, oh, I feel that. And I've never seen anybody else tell it, but I'm glad you made this movie because now I know that I'm not alone, because I've also experienced this. Whether it's a humorous issue or a tragic issue, like making something. And then somebody being like that really resonated with me and that. That is my main goal. And I would say I've never felt it stronger than.
I was screening. I was screening moderator in a film festival in Egypt, and I actually went there. I was actually like, I'm gonna go to Egypt.
I had like three.
Three vacation days left of the year, and it was like in March. So, like, it was.
I'd already, like, blown them, but I was.
I was kind of in a place where I was just like. I was honestly feeling kind of disheartened about where I was and career wise and about, you know, moderator hadn't really gotten into the festivals I'd wanted it to.
And it gets into this film festival in Alexandria, Egypt. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go. I'm gonna spend this month's paycheck on flying myself out to Egypt alone, screening it at this film festival.
And it ended up being one of the greatest weeks of my entire life. The people I'd met there were so incredible and sweet and generous with their time and emotions. And I had so many questions about Egypt and about what it was like living there and what people were like. And they were so friendly and so gracious and so generous. And then I screened moderator, and I was a little worried because Egypt is a country where the.
Their media is heavily censored.
And I was like, moderators pretty intense. Like, for a lot of people, this is gonna be like, they're doing lsd and they're like, whoa, I don't know how to handle this, because they've never experienced this kind of. This kind of thing before.
And in the Q and A. It was a Q and A where there was, by the way, I was the only person from the Western hemisphere at the entire festival. There's nobody from the U.S. there was nobody from North America or South America. Pretty much everybody was either from Africa or from parts of Europe that were close to Africa.
And in the Q and A, there were people who were like in tears. Having watched the entire chunk of films and in the questions they were asking, I realized that like, oh, the themes of this movie are very universal and they speak to people that are literally living in Egypt. Like, you could not think of a place where people are exposed to a completely different set of media and culture and they're not used to the same things as we are. And so it's one thing to screen your film in Burbank at the Burbank International Film Festival and be like, what do these people think about this thing that everybody knows about and understands, but then you screen it in front of a group of people who don't speak your language.
And one of the benefits of the film is that there's also like no dialogue. So they get it just by watching and hearing it.
And there was a girl who gave a question and she was choking up because she was like. I'd never seen anybody make a film about this issue that I feel like she was like a teenage girl and she was like, I feel like this is my life and I haven't seen people talk about this.
And she was choking up and she was like, I'm so. I'm just grateful you made this because I feel seen.
And it was this like 18 year old girl in a hijab who hardly spoke any English and needed a translator to communicate. But nonetheless, it still really resonated with her.
And I think my goal as a whole long story short is to like, do that as much as humanly possible is like make as many people feel heard and seen through storytelling, you know?
[01:04:35] Speaker B: And you will, man. You know you will. You absolutely will.
[01:04:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: Thank you, man.
[01:04:40] Speaker C: Really appreciate having you on. I mean, we covered so much and I. I love that we started with purpose, you know, and. And kind of the understanding our path to.
Our path to understanding the purpose behind our own creative work and ending with purpose too, and understanding what it's all about and the people we touch.
[01:05:03] Speaker A: And for all those listening to this, I want to be very clear. 5050 has been so awesome. These people have been so great, like so generous and are clearly so passionate about storytelling and showcasing the films.
That means something and means something. To them and mean something to people. And so my, my thanks are to you and this, to have this platform is, like, really special. So I really do appreciate it.
[01:05:32] Speaker B: Appreciate you, man.
[01:05:33] Speaker C: Thanks so much, Eli.
[01:05:36] Speaker A: Thank you guys.
[01:05:41] Speaker B: Did you learn something? I'm like your mom. Did you learn something in this episode? I hope so. So. Or not. That's okay. Thanks for hanging. Make sure you follow us at the 5050 Fest on Instagram and give us five stars because why not? Why not subscribe? Why not?
Why not? Okay. By.
