Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Method that I swear by, which is the only way I've ever been able to get anything done, which is you start with a blank sheet of paper, and you make two columns.
On one side is your assets, and on one side is your limitations.
Everybody's got assets. You have to write them down, right? And you don't really even know what your assets are until you write them down. And if you're a part of a team, everyone does this, right? Oh, man. If we could only get a fire truck for this scene. My uncle has a fire truck.
Right? So you are bound to have assets that you don't remember that you have. And that's just like what life is like. You don't remember that your uncle is a firefighter because it's not special to you, right? Until someone is like, damn, I wish I had a firefighter.
And then you make a list of your limitations.
Money, time, cast, whatever else. Covid.
And then you figure out a way. This is the puzzle. You figure out a way to turn your limitations into storytelling devices.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: I'm Luke Steinfeld.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: And I'm Wyatt Sarkisian.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: We made the 5050 podcast to support you on your filmmaking journey.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: 50% business, 50% creative.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Every Tuesday, a new how to.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: This week, school's back in session. It's Aviv Rubenstein on the pod. The screenwriter, director and professor gives us his take on how to make your greatest filmmaking challenges your greatest creative strengths. Enjoy the episode.
Oh, my God.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: There's gotta be a better way to say that. Hi, guys. Hi, dude. Hi, CL. Hi, Luke.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: It's nice to meet you. I know we've been emailing back and forth, and I think we can all thank Rachel for introducing us.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: So Rachel is my neighbor. She lives right upstairs. Oh, nice.
And, yeah, we started a podcast together, sort of at the end of the podcast. Boom. Which is currently on hiatus, because Rachel.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: Is, I think, doing a million things. Always.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Doing a million things, including writing a book, which is very cool.
And so, yeah, so we hope to come back pretty soon, but the podcast is called NSync and explores all of your favorite music moments from TV and film.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: And she said that you guys were on hiatus because she was writing the book and you were working on your movie.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah, so my movie is out now. So she's a liar.
But I.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: Good start.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: I know that you're lying about me, Rachel. You're me telling. Telling lies about me on the Internet.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: As he looks for our audio listeners, he's looking up at Rachel's.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: At her apartment. Yeah. So it was Kind of a difficult time.
We started the show basically right as I was about to film a feature film that I wrote during COVID I guess we're gonna talk a lot about COVID here.
And so as our second season of NSYNC was winding down, I had also just finished the film, and we premiered it at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival just about a year ago in August of 2023. And then we had a little bit of festival run, and we came out on Screenbox in January.
And now we're available on all the places. Tubi, glipglop, whatever free site. You get films. You can get our film. I love it.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: And let's just. So we can properly promote it.
You wrote it?
[00:03:47] Speaker A: I wrote it and directed it. My wife stars in it. And it's called Lizzie Lazarus. And it is basically two people walking through the woods with a corpse the whole time.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: And you. I mean, just looking at your past projects, it seems like you've done a lot of horror stuff in the past.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: I have done a lot of horror stuff. I'm not exclusively.
There are certain horror fans. I'm not trying to denigrate the community or anything like that. I love the horror community. But there are certain fans who, like, only watch horror and can't seem to, like, get out of that window. And those are also, to me, the people who have kind of the narrowest view of what horror horror is and isn't interesting. And then there are lots of other. Just like, horror first, but just cinephiles who love all kinds of movies. And I try to count myself as in the latter group, especially because I write movies for fun and profit. And so people hire me to write all kinds of stuff. I've written.
I've written Christian movies. I've written musicals. I've written all kinds of different stuff. I wrote a movie about a girl who wants to be a competitive dancer called Lift Me up that is out. I believe it's on Netflix. So I've done a lot of stuff, but I think horror is a really great way to.
It's like the term breaking into the industry is. Is really not great.
But the horror is a good way to practice your skills as a filmmaker in a form that someone might actually see, because there is this really, really, like, rabid horror community. You don't need a big star necessarily to be in a horror movie. You just have to be able to scare people.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: And lower budgets help.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Yeah, lower budgets. And also, like every.
Every innovation in filmmaking has come from horror. Like the Steadicam found footage, the adoption of digital. Like, everything starts in horror for all those reasons. Right? Because it's the lower budgets and you're, like, risking less money and time and all this other stuff. So, like, you can be a little bit more.
You can be a little bit more daring with the way you film things. And then like, later, sort of, it's adopted by the wider community.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Your. Your first film that you wrote and directed. Yeah, right. Was 2016. And that. That was not horror, correct? That was. No, on. On the. The tour.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: It is a musical music. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:30] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: So.
So that movie's called the Anchorite. Do you want me to talk about that movie?
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah, because it sounds like. Like, I. I guess when you. If you start there, how did you kind of end up. And, and, oh, man.
Space that you are now, you know?
[00:06:45] Speaker A: So to start there, I actually have to start a year before that.
Do you want the long story? The medium story, the short story?
[00:06:52] Speaker B: We got time, man.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Fuck, yeah. All right. So long story is I graduated with my master's in screenwriting from Boston University in 2010. I played in bands all throughout college and high school. And my best friend in the world, his name's Dan, and he quit our band. He was the drummer, and he quit our band to work for NASA. He's a propulsion engineer at NASA. Whoa. Yeah. And so in 2011, he was like his kind of last hurrah with the band, and he sat me down. I was living in Boston, and even though I had a degree in screenwriting, I was working at a home healthcare company scheduling nursing visits for, like, old people, people that, like, were kind of shut ins or whatever.
And I was working there because someone who was, like, in a band that I would play with a lot was the manager there, and she would hire all these band people who needed kind of day jobs. And so Dan and I went out to a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge that I don't think is there anymore. And he's like, you're wasting your time here.
You have one year to move or I'm gonna move you for me.
[00:08:09] Speaker C: And this is the NASA guy who just got.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah, right. And so he.
He. He gave me like a year deadline and so to. To move to LA and to like, really make a go of. Of being well.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Why, why was that? Just because he knew you weren't very.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: He knew I wasn't fulfilling my thing. He's also, like, kind of an asshole. I say this, he's coming over for dinner tonight. We're still Very close friends. But he. He, like, he thought he knew what. He thinks he knows what's best for people. And in this particular case, he was absolutely right.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: And your goal at the time was to make a movie?
[00:08:42] Speaker A: To be a screenwriter.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Be a screenwriter. Okay.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Specifically to be a writer. I like directing, but I really like writing.
And so he told me to move to la. And the next day I quit my job and started planning my move to la.
And it was very scary. I'd always lived on the East Coast. I never.
I was really, really mentally unprepared, emotionally unprepared to leave everyone that I've ever met to go do this thing. And there's a part of it that was also like, I forget what movie it is. There's this movie, there's this romantic comedy from the 90s where someone talks about leaving a big empty space in their flat for a grand piano. And they have enough money to get a grand piano, but the idea of a grand piano being there one day is better than actually having the piano. Right? And so for me, that was what LA was like. And, like, if I. If I went and did it, I would actually have to do it and I could potentially fail. Yeah, can't fail if you don't try.
And so I quit my job, I started teaching more and I made a short film and then was planning this move to LA and. And had this thought process of, well, I'm gonna be moving to la.
I obviously have to drive all my stuff and I'm gonna have my guitar with me, so I might as well play some shows, like, on the way. And then that kind of ballooned into, I don't know when the next time I'm gonna be able to go on tour is. So I might as well, like, plan a whole tour and sort of zigzag the United States, visit all my friends from being in a touring band and play, like, a bunch, like, go on tour for over a month.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: Just as a solo artist.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Just as a solo artist, right?
And then that ballooned into, well, I might as well. I should take a camera and make, like, a documentary about being on tour.
Because every movie that is about a band on tour gets it, like, extremely wrong.
And that turned into, well, documentaries leave too much up to chance. And I already have all these cool tour stories from what had happened to us on the previous tours, so I might as well write a movie that I just then do on tour. And so I roped my friend Chelsea in to be, like, an odd couple. I'm a punk Rocker. She's a folk artist. This is my actual friend, Chelsea Mitchell.
I grew up in the same town as she did. She owns our local record store, Newtown Book and Record Exchange in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Go there. She's awesome. She's there six days a week.
And then I missed Dan's deadline that he left that he set for me by like 4 days just based on, like.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: So he was really, like, holding you to this?
[00:11:43] Speaker A: I. Probably not, but.
[00:11:45] Speaker C: But yeah, but it made an impact.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: He came with us. Oh, and so he's in the movie. It's the three of us in the movie. I raised, I think 25 or $35,000 just based on, like selling percentage points of the movie. And like, to be completely honest, speaking way more confidently than I should have been speaking because this is 2012.
Mumblecore is still a thing. I'm like, we're cutting edge. We're shooting on DSLRs, we're doing things, like, real things.
And this is gonna get into south by Southwest. This is gonna fucking go places. Like, I was really, really certain I wasn't lying. I was certain that this was gonna be like a life changing movie at some point.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Did they teach you how to pitch in school?
Writing program. So how did, where did you get that confidence? Where'd you get that knowledge to be.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Like, the confidence was fake.
The confidence was absolutely put on. But I did believe in the movie.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: And I still do believe in selling percentage point. Like, did you have some mentor, like someone on the business side that was like, hey, Aviv, like, make sure you do this?
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Totally. Actually, the guy who I only, I don't know him very well, but I did have a few long phone conversations with him. His name is Chris Sparling and he wrote the movie Buried, which is the Ryan Reynolds in a coffin movie. And so he taught at BU for a semester and I didn't take his class, but he, like, you know, I saw him around and then after Buried kind of like dropped and he moved back to LA and all this stuff. I wound up on the phone with him and I was like, I listen, I'm really into making my own stuff. I'm really into this, like, diy. I'm like a punk rocker. I, I, I want to do DIY filmmaking. How the fuck does this work? And he told me the story about how he got Buried financed or how he got his previous movie financed, which was that he sold off percentage points of the movie, which is that he identified the budget. This might be something that you've already talked about, but let's say the budget of Your movie is $100,000. Just nice round number. So you value your movie at $200,000. So you can sell off 50% of your movie and still retain 50% for yourself.
Right. So you draw up a contract that says basically you're buying a stake in this movie. You have no creative stake. It's just a complete net profit.
And I had people who believed in me from making films in Boston, from just sort of doing screenwriting workshops and all this other stuff that really wanted to participate in this.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: And.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: And I raised a significant amount of money.
Turns out, not quite enough to fully make the film, but that's an entirely different story.
And then so we bought a van and it was a crew of six people total. So there are three actors, me, Chelsea and Dan. And none of us are actors. I will never act again. And I wouldn't have done it in the first place if I had had money to pay a real actor.
And then we had a producer whose name is Rachel Mossberg, who's amazing and produced for Vice for a really long time after that, and a camera person, Phoebe Waldron, and a sound person, Jim McDevitt, who had also just never done sound before. He was a friend of mine. He was into music, and so I just taught him how to do sound. And that was the. It was the six of us on the road in one van for five weeks until the van broke down. Wow. We had to finish the tour in two rental cars.
And so I didn't slate a single shot of the movie.
We time slated it. We clap slated it. So I'm sure that every DIY filmmaker who listens to this show, and I'm sure you two have done like. Okay, it's like 4:50 on August 10th.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: Look at the sun.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Yeah, right? And you clap your hands. So we did that for like 6 terabytes of H264 footage.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: Oh, my God.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: It was. It was. It was bad. And at one point I.
I had this like, weird existential. So we moved. I landed in LA and started unpacking all this footage. And it's like the tour, though.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Like, you fully did the tour?
[00:16:26] Speaker A: Yeah, we fully do.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Were you like, oh, man, this is going great. Like the footage?
[00:16:30] Speaker A: No. Not a single fucking day did I think that it was going well.
Our first day, our first day on the road, our van breaks down 12.7 miles outside of Boston.
And so the.
We break down on 95 on I95 and a cop has to come and push that. We put the van in neutral. Cop has to push the van through the toll so we can be towed back to Malden, where we bought the van for the guy to, like, fix it. So we missed our first show.
It was. I had, like, several panic attacks on. On the road. It was never.
Never going well. But I also, like. I had this sort of.
This obsession of belief that I was, like, making something worth.
I was saying something worth saying.
And we had no real. So there's no script. And we had no real sense of how much footage or how much story we had. And at some point halfway through the tour, we realized that the things that were happening to us on this tour were crazier than the things that we had planned to plan.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: How does. How does a screenwriter. Sorry to jump in again, but like.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: You said, you jump in all you want. Please.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: You love writing. You did the screenwriting program.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: I know.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Your first movie, you say no shit, unscripted.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: I know. So I think we were really inspired by Spinal Tap. We being. I.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: That's what I was thinking about.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Really inspired by Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap had, like, a script mince where you understood sort of where the movie had to go.
And so I did that, and I had control of what I thought. I had control of the story, which was, like, the most important thing to me at the time. And I didn't want to make anyone, especially myself, learn lines.
Right. Because we were also, like, actually playing shows every day.
[00:18:30] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: And our sound guy, Jim, was also the bassist in the band. So we would shoot stuff with the three actors and then cut cameras, and then Jim would, like, grab his bass and play the rest of the set with us. So it was a pretty complicated juggling act.
And so every day we would approach the seat we had, like, you know, everyone has their own name except for me, because I wanted a separation between Aviv the director, and Aaron the character. And of course, like, everything smeared, it became like a Whatever. Like a cult or something at some point.
So the scene is like, okay, I'll talk to you about a very specific scene. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:12] Speaker C: I'm so curious what this looks like, because I think it's a. It's a good lesson for people who are doing their first thing right, for sure, and how ambitious they should be with it.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yes. This was a little. Maybe a little too ambitious, but it worked out kind of okay.
I also was really inspired, like I said, by mumblecore filmmakers. Andrew Bujalski taught at BU When I was there, and I was really kind of. Because I love writing, so Much. I was really mesmerized by things where it doesn't look like there's any script.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: I was, like, super naturalistic. Yeah.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: And so we had. Okay, so the scene is Chelsea wants Aaron to pull the van over because she has to pee. Aaron is too ocd, and he's worried about getting to the venue on time. And they, like, argue about.
About whether to stop or not. Right. And so Chelsea Mitchell, who plays Chelsea, is, like, one of the funniest human beings in the world.
And truly, the only reason that Rachel Mossberg signed on to produce the movie is she's like, the girl has to be funny. And I was like, no problem.
And so we would rehearse the scene. We'd sort of, like, just kind of go back and forth and commit to the bit and sort of figure out the beginning and the middle and the end of the scene.
And we would keep rehearsing it until it stopped getting better, and then we would shoot it.
Um, and so we had, like, hours and hours. We were driving six, seven hours a day. And so we could shoot a bunch of stuff.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: While you're driving.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: While we were driving.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: While you're driving to the venue?
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Yeah, while we're driving to the. To the real venue. And then at one point, we got, like, behind. We were like, as one does, you, like, are shooting different things, not in chronological order. And so we had to keep track of what clothes we were wearing, like, where we are in the country, where we are in our character progressions. And then we would, like, drive for an hour, shoot a scene, pull over, change right into our previous day's clothes.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: And you don't have a script to use as, like, an anchor for just having.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: We have the. The script. Mint is printed. Is printed out.
Other than that? No.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: And so the continuity was like a biz.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Well, was. Was.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: It wasn't bad. The.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: The writer brain during this. Like, okay, I know. We were at this diner, and with this conversation, all of a sudden, this relationship happened. So, like, what if this happens tomorrow? Let's make sure we hit that in the scene.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Exactly right. Exactly right. And so, like, the first thing we would do in every scene is like, okay, what just happened? Where are we going from here? Like, what are these two characters trying to get from each other? And three characters for most of the movie trying to get from each other.
And so we rehearse piss van for a couple of, like, an hour, maybe we shoot it for another hour. And I believe that night we realized that one of us is wearing the wrong T shirt. I truly cannot remember which one of us was wearing the wrong T shirt. And so the next day we're like, we gotta do piss van again. And. And then we did it again. We rehearsed it for another couple times, and then we did it all. So we would just do all of these kind of improvised bits for over a month. And about halfway through the tour, we were in Chicago and we realized that the things that were happening to us in real life were wilder than the stuff that I had planned in the scriptment. And so the six of us sat in our friend and musician Spitzer Space Telescope's apartment in Chicago and rewrote the back half of the movie. This is his name. Hold on.
His real name is Dan McDonald, but there's a Dan on the movie. And so his singer name is Spitzer Space Telescope.
And he's a great folk singer. He lives in London now, I think. But he's awesome. And he is in the movie. He. He plays like this weird super fan, which is something that he brought to the character and kind of brought it out of nowhere. And it was the single hardest scene for us to get through because he came in, his character was someone who, like. So the plot of the movie is these three people who all have different chips on their shoulders form a band on the road and start playing shows together. And the scene was supposed to be, we debut our original song that night. And this guy who I kind of know is so inspired that he stays up all night and makes us T shirts that we, you know, that we like then use for the rest of the tour.
And in real life, I went to Chicago and like, shot a music video for Spitzer Space Telescope in exchange for him making us these T shirts, which I didn't want in the movie. And so Dan McDonald, like, he was like, he did his character work and he's like, why would someone do this? The only reason that someone would do this is if he was like obsessed with this guy in this. In this band. And so that's how he plays it. He plays it like, you know, you said we were brothers and brothers do things for each other, and we just could not get through the scene. We did it maybe 20 times to try to stop ourselves from laughing. And so all this happened in the summer of 2012. I get to LA, I get an apartment, I get a big hard drive, and I realize that one of the scenes did not make it onto the hard drive, okay? And so I have to like regrow a seven month beard and fly back to Boston to, like, reshoot a scene, like, two years later.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: What? Was the scene that important? How did you.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: It was. It was like, basically the inciting incident of the movie.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Okay. Because as you say, when you. When you got that drive and sat down with the footage for the first time after all of that there, I. I can't imagine. Unless you were taking very detailed field notes, which maybe.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Which I was not.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: You were not. Okay.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: So not a single note was taken.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: How the heck did you sit down and say, oh, this one scene. We got to get this reshoot? Because I know this entire.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: So I have a pretty good memory, and I could tell you the dates of all the shows that we played in these different cities. And so the scene that went missing was a scene that took place on the roof of a radio station originally, where.
So the premise of the movie is my band breaks up because I'm an asshole, and the tour is already booked. And so I'm like, fuck it. I go on the local radio, and I was like. I'm like, the tour is still happening. I'm just gonna go by myself. And so my manager shows up and is like, what is wrong with you?
But I have. I manage the singer songwriter. She's new, she's green.
She's gonna go on tour with you.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: And she's Chelsea.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: And she's Chelsea. And I'm like, no, I'm a punk rocker. I don't like folk music. Whatever, Whatever. And he's like, no, you're a singer songwriter now. Cause you sing and write songs, and you don't have a band anymore, so you're stuck together. And so it's like a very crucial scene in the movie.
So crucial that we spent about a year trying to figure out how to make the movie without reshooting the scene. And it just wasn't happening.
And so I flew back and. And my old band's real manager, his name is Dex. Hi, Dex, like, played himself again. And we've redid the scene from a couple years prior. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty wild. And so it took me three years to edit the movie. And the first cut was, like, maybe three hours long, like, Apocalypse now level self indulgence. And basically it was just a string out. I just, like, included everything and worked at it, worked at it and worked at it until it's like, I think 91 minutes or so when it was done.
And I included a bunch of music from my friends, bands, and all these bands that I had, like, known and played shows with, and it was great. And I Think I paid, like, in total, maybe $100 to license music for the movie.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: That's the way to do it, right? Just use your total.
Mutually beneficial in so many ways.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Exactly. And I used my network. And so the thing that I'm like most. I'm proud of a lot of things about that movie, but the thing that I think has been the most lasting is, like, I have this kind of time capsule of not just like, myself and my friends on screen, but, like, all of this music that meant so much to me, still means so much to me in the movie. And so it was dope done in, like, early 2015.
And I went to.
At the end of 2014, I went to AFM, the American film market, which I think is a thing still happens, but I don't recommend doing this.
So the way that AFM works, it's in, like, a hotel in Santa Monica, and there are, like, upstairs, like, meet and greet rooms, and people have, like, showcase rooms and all this stuff. And to get there, you have to have a badge. But at that time, at least it was possible to just go to the lobby without a badge.
And the badges were color coded.
And so I knew that the distributors had the purple badge. So I would like to strike up a conversation, a thing that I don't like doing. Strike up a conversation with, like, a complete stranger and be like, hey, I have this movie. It's almost done post. Here's a DVD copy of it with the soundtrack, right?
And so I did that for about, like, four, four or five hours. And at one point was, like, very dejected. No, no. No real takers. No real biters. And then I sat down. This feels like a rom com.
Sat down, started chatting with this girl around my age whose name is Angela Villalobos, and chatted about basically how much I hated doing what I was doing. And then I, like, saw the color of her badge, and it was purple. And so I was like, oh, man, I really hate to do this.
Will you take a look at my movie? And she said, yes. She watched the movie. She was an assistant. She passed it on to.
To her boss, this guy named Scott. Scott worked at Mar Vista, I think. And he's like, I want to put out your movie. And I was like, oh, my God, I have to go lay down on the floor.
And then, like, kind of a month, he's like, you have to do a new sound mix. You can't be listed as an HD movie on, at this point, iTunes, without having a 5.1 sound mix. And you need something Called an M and E.
So an M and E is the music and sound effects without the dialogue, because if it's gonna be dubbed into another language, you still need, like. So we're talking the. The.
All of the, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And.
And the music and, like, the atmosphere. And none of that stuff was separate. Right. Because it's all just.
[00:30:56] Speaker C: Nothing's in. It's. It's natural.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah. What we grabbed. And so I spent months and lots of money on a new sound mix, and then I delivered it.
And by that time, Scott had left Mar Vista, and he, like, told me he was leaving, and he's like, I. I'm setting you up with this other person. It's gonna be awesome.
And so 2015 rolls around, and I am literally sitting in the parking lot at the premiere of a different movie that I wrote, the one that is about the competitive dancer, and I get an email being like, we're so sorry. We're not putting out your movie. Like, like, eat shit.
And we're not. We're not interested. I mean, they didn't say eat shit. They're like, we're not interested. This is like something that Scott was into. Like, we're taking in a different direction. Like, sorry, dude. And so I was destroyed. And I emailed Scott and was like, I know it's not your fault. This is what happened. I don't feel great about this. And he's like, I'm so sorry. I'm gonna set you up somewhere else. And he did. He set me up with Synergetic Entertainment, and they put out the movie. And I got the call on my 30th birthday that they were gonna put out the movie, and it came out in early 2016, even though it was shot like four years before that. And so a lot of the comments were like, oh, this feels like a throwback. And I'm like, yeah, it's a period piece, throwback.
But every so often, for at least a few years after that, I would get random Facebook messages or emails of, like, someone who spotted it on late night television. And, like, it really, like, meant something to them, which is, you know, obviously that movie never made me a dime, but stuff like that was really, really meant a lot to me because people saw in it what I saw while making it.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: Yeah, it's so funny because, you know, it really is a thing that happens all the time, right? With people leave companies and, you know.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Yeah, happens constantly.
[00:33:04] Speaker C: People are fighting. Like, even if a company's attached to something, it could just be One person fighting for it, you know, and then they leave and it's in flux again. But I assume it's hurt more just because it was your first thing, you know, almost like a time capsule, as you said.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: I also didn't really know, like, I thought that I knew so much because I knew a lot about writing and I knew a lot about, like, I could tell you what lens to use and all this stuff, but like, I knew so little about the business. And it's not film school's fault because the business is so different even from like five years ago.
[00:33:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: That it's like, it's really impossible to teach people.
[00:33:42] Speaker C: Even people in the business don't know the business.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: It's great. Especially like after the strike. Like, no, really, no one know. Everyone's sort of making it up as they go and there are best practices and worst practices. I actually sat around with my friend Eric, who's a producer last night, and we talked about like our worst film experiences and like what, what happened and how we got out of it and what we thought we could do and believed in our. About ourselves and that kind of thing. Yeah.
So yeah, every, every movie I make, I learn something pretty significantly about the how to make a film and how to, you know, finish a film in the business and. And you know, myself as a filmmaker, so it's always. You never stop learning.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: What, what. Did you. Or did you ever send an email out to those investors that, that put money in up front?
[00:34:33] Speaker A: I did. I would sort of update them regularly and eventually we all sort of lost touch and there was kind of like a blow up.
So when I got to LA, I posted on Facebook 2012 asking whether I should cut on Final Cut. Like just taking a poll, right? Hey, editors, should I cut on Final Cut or premiere?
And this was the Final cut seven days when it was like possible to edit a feature on Final Cut, essentially. And one of the investors who was like the main ep called me and fucking screamed at me, like, lost it because it was like unprofessional of me to post on Facebook about the process or something. Really, really outrageous. Outsized reaction.
And so we lost touch a little.
Not on, I'm being completely honest, not on purpose with anybody. And I still, you know, every so often I'll say hi to someone on, on Instagram, but no one put in so much money that it would be like they would lose their house.
And so eventually, like when it came out, people were like, very excited and I was like, I promise I'll let you know as soon as we get any money. And it's been like nine years and I haven't ever seen any money.
[00:36:16] Speaker C: So, I mean, who knows? This podcast has this magical power boost.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: I would love the 5050 bump for this movie.
[00:36:26] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, the famous. We have a lot of listeners who love purchasing movies on itunes. So it's like, do it.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: It's available everywhere. My mom is a big. My mom likes to throw it on, I guess, because I love it. She lives in Pennsylvania and doesn't get to see me that often, but I still talk to almost everybody on.
On that shoot and they're all my family. And there are plenty of things that happen behind the scenes that I couldn't put in the movie.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: I really like what you said about how when it came out, it's just kind of a cool something to have that's almost nostalgic in the way of. This was me at that time.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: People, my friends and this time of life, and we're all like, what's happening? What are we doing? We're moving to la. We're making.
[00:37:20] Speaker C: Yeah, it's that idea also of like, you know, even if it. It's not. If you. If you don't think it's your abilities at the moment and it comes out like, it's. It's this idea something that I've been thinking about a lot of, like, owning your work.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:34] Speaker C: Whatever you've done. And. And to really be like, I did this and I'm proud of this, you know, And.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: And there's a.
Especially, like, through an edit, there is a significant portion of the time that you are looking at it that you hate it, right? Where you're like, it's not working. It's not the way it was in my head. It's like, I should have lit this differently. I should have done another take, whatever it is or like something that happened that day. Oh, my God, we got a flat tire that day. And this great scene. All I was thinking about was like, getting this flat tire.
And then after, like a certain amount of time, you're like, oh, you guys. Are you guys.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: Totally.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Did you. Did you find yourself kind of taken, Allowing yourself to take time away from it a little bit? Because obviously, I mean, putting your face in something for four years is probably.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: Oh, my God, I hated looking at my student.
[00:38:30] Speaker C: So crazy to have to do that. I'm like, I just acted in something and I'm like, so, so happy to not be editing it.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: I'm just never. Look at me.
I teach editing for actors. And I know that when actors are true narcissists, when they're like, I love myself and I should only be the, like, no reaction shots whatsoever, which is not all of my students, but some of them.
I took some breaks, but I also felt the sense of intense guilt for my investors and for, like, I needed to finish this thing, though. Chris Sparling, when we talked about making this movie, and he gave me this guidance, he said, the worst thing that ever could happen to your movie is that it just lives on a hard drive forever.
And so I had that echoing in the back of my head.
And so I was motivated to finish it. I also moved to LA and had no job. And so I was interning and editing freelance and working on this.
And I have this friend, his name's Rob Hackett. I went to grad school with him. And he's like a VP of Atomic Monster now. So he's like, always very successful, like, really focused. And I remember him.
I was like, chatting with him on G Chat or whatever people chatted on at the time and giving him sort of an update on what I was doing. And I was like, okay, so I'm doing this, I'm doing this, and I'm like, editing, editing this movie, like two hours a day. And he just wrote back eight hours a day.
And he was like, he's that guy. He's like, grind set. It's 2014.
We are killing ourselves for the dream, right? And so his was another voice that was echoing in my head of like, what? Like, you have to. You're sleeping. Why are you sleeping?
Why are you going for a walk when you should be finishing your movie? And so even then, it took like three years.
[00:40:40] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, one thing that I find is interesting about your path is that.
Well, I'm curious where teaching fits into it, right? Because obviously there's so many artists out there who do diversify their incomes and want to figure out ways to continue to be in the creative field. But, you know, it's so hard to just be doing that one thing all the time. And what.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: What.
[00:41:06] Speaker C: How did you start with teaching? And what does it sort of mean to you?
[00:41:09] Speaker A: For sure. So I actually started teaching in Boston right after I graduated. And I. It was just like kind of an extra source of income.
And I turned out to really, really like it a lot. And it felt like it made me a better writer. Cause I would constantly have to sort of solve problems, right? As a teacher, you have to sort of parachute into someone else's story and listen to what the story wants to be and, like, guide the writer to that without making it what, like you want it to be. What I want it to be. I love movies where, you know, people go down water slides. And so I had a professor in college who loved when.
Loved when movies had, like, sex scenes, like, weird sex things in them. He was. He was Dutch. It was a thing. And so every script that he would give notes on, he's just like, what if you put in a sex scene? And, like, I didn't want to do that. Right.
And so it's.
[00:42:10] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like an animated kids movie.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: Yeah, Right.
And so I tried to really, like, kind of put my ear to the script and see what this. What was best for the story and how to convince someone who didn't necessarily see that or who, like, really wanted to do right by the story, but couldn't quite see the path, how to, like, what the path was. And so it made me a better writer and then moved to la. No one gave a shit about. I was like, oh, I have a master's in screenwriting. I could teach screenwriting. And they're like, shut the fuck up, dude. Like, we have, like, Emmy winning screenwriters, Oscar winning screenwriters teaching for us. Like, no.
And so in 2015, I got a job at a school that was at Los Angeles Center Studios called Relativity School. And it was like a weird college that was partially owned or invested in by Relativity Pictures.
And they were like. It was supposed to be like a feeder. So it was a film school. And then you would work at Relativity. You'd be pa. You'd be in the office, whatever.
And then Relativity went bankrupt the second year that the school existed. And the school, like, kudos to it, like, limped along and eventually became part of amda, which is the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Yes, I still work there. I should.
[00:43:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: And so I've worked at this film school for 10 years, and it's had four different names. But I still. I like doing these things. I like talking about movies. And I teach directing classes. And I also teach, like, film aesthetics classes and editing classes. I do a lot of stuff. And it. And it just replenishes my love for filmmaking and keeps me young, as the kids say.
And so there's that. I also have hired former students as actors, as production assistants, as editors.
And so it provides me with, like, a good network of people who want to work and are really excited about doing stuff in the film industry.
And I met the producer of. Of my last feature, Veronica Shea is My production partner met her at school. My cinematographer on my last movie, his name is Tommy oceanic. He was the cinematography teacher at the school. So it helps me build a professional network. It's like a great combination of an office job and a set job together.
And so I really, really love being in the classroom. So much so that if I sold a screenplay for $2 million tomorrow, I would still teach my classes. I would still.
And so I don't really know if that answered your question necessarily.
[00:45:11] Speaker C: No, absolutely. There's. Yeah, there's something to kind of being in touch with the, you know, the youngest generation, whatever that may be, you know, like, totally. Are you. I'm like, what are you. What are you learning from them? Are you learning anything from them?
[00:45:27] Speaker A: I learned what crashing out means.
[00:45:30] Speaker C: I learned that recently as well.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: I anticipate learning what a labubu is when classes start again.
So I learn slang, which is kind of silly to say, but I lived through fleek. I lived through yeet, and now we're on boots and whatever else.
And I also am more learning about how people consume their media.
So I try to be like a classic film watcher where I try not to look at my phone, I make it dark.
I really like to go to the movies.
And some of my students are on their phones the whole time.
And not because they're not interested, but because they're constantly like, they're doing their own I'm dating myself pop up video or what's the thing on Amazon X Ray? Where they're like, oh, who's that person?
[00:46:36] Speaker C: And then they're like, oh, yeah, they're researching it as their.
[00:46:38] Speaker A: So they're. Yeah, their second screen experience is like the director's commentary that they are sourcing themselves. Wow. Oh, who do I know that from? Oh, they said this word that I don't understand.
You know, if we're watching a movie from the 50s. And so they will do their own sort of research and it looks like they're not paying attention. And then at the end of the.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: Movie, they're like, this is a great excuse.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: It's a great excuse.
I also am learning that some stories are.
They know no age.
And so I keep seeing similar themes in the youth.
And these have been kind of growing. So if you can believe it, there's a lot of themes of social justice and mistrust of people in power, more than there was 10 years ago, pre Trump, let's say.
And so it's interesting, like, every generation, like, wave wags their cane at the younger generations. Like, these kids don't know anything. They can't read. Whatever, whatever. And I don't really think that that's necessarily true.
Every generation has people who don't read and people who do.
And so I think the kid, the kids are all right.
And yeah, when I started teaching, I was 28. When I started teaching college, I was 28.
And I was like the young, cool teacher. I wasn't like that much older than they are. And now I'm like the old man, where I, if I use a slang term, they like, can't. That's like the funniest thing.
[00:48:25] Speaker C: They point and laugh at you, right? Yeah.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:48:30] Speaker C: Do they call you Aviv?
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't, I don't do a mister. My mom is Dr. Rubenstein.
And so I, I'm just a Viv.
Even when I taught high school, I was.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: When I could be being in Los Angeles and just obviously being aware of the current state of the industry.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: City of dreams, right?
[00:48:51] Speaker B: City of dreams. And you have these starry eyed kids who are like, I'm in la, maybe for the first time. They're doing the thing. They're living the dream and at least getting closer to it or learning about it, learning about those who came before them. Like, how do you foster a space that like, keeps that dream alive while also kind of opening their eyes a little bit?
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Sure. I mean, I, I'm, I don't mince words about how bad the industry is right now.
And I also, I feel those things about myself. Like, I feel like I need to keep the dream alive in myself. And so I am.
When I was in college and grad school, the career path was you get a job in a mail room and then you deliver the mail and then you become someone's assistant.
And then eventually you can become that, that you can take that person's job and then you can direct a movie or write a movie or be a producer or like, there was like, profit and then there was like this other kind of independent way where you would just have to like, keep trying to make your own stuff until eventually someone noticed. And that was that alternative of like making your own stuff until someone noticed that was viewed as like, if you're fucking suicidal, you can do that.
But that was the only thing that made sense to me. I was an assistant for.
I was assistant to like a, like an actor. Thomas Jane, who played the Punisher. Super nice guy. I was his assistant for like six months. I worked at a, like, I was interned at like a production company for about Six months.
I'm not a good assistant. I.
I'm not too good to get anybody coffee. I just like, that's just not where my skill set is. Sorry, sorry to this man.
But the only thing that has ever gotten me advanced in my career in any way is doing it that other way is making my own stuff. And there's an asterisk to that. So my very first writing job came because I was so broke that I answered a Craigslist ad about being an ad on a Christian movie called Lake of Fire. You can go see it. It is not good.
And the producer on that movie was one of the very few competent people on the movie. It was a complete shit show. And you know, you trauma Bond on set, any set is like, that feels like summer camp.
And you. He found out his name's James. He found out that I was a writer and he's like, oh, I am producing this other movie. It needs a rewrite. I'll pay you $500 a week to sit with the writer and help him rewrite the script. And so that was my first paid writing job.
And I'm still friends with James. He called me yesterday. And I'm still friends with the writer and director of that movie. It's called Good Grief. And his name's Brandon Green. And we play fantasy football together. So part of it is like being in the right place at the right time, not being shitty or weird.
People can really tell when you are trying to get something from them. It's just like a weird ick that they get. And so if you're. People just want to work with their friends. This thing about what you were saying before, like, it feels so great that you work with your friends and you have this time capsule. Like that's what everybody wants to do. There's a reason that Spielberg only works with John Williams and Janusz Kaminski and Michael Kahn and all these other people like Janusz Kaminski, in my opinion, is not the greatest cinematographer working right now. And Spielberg could get the greatest cinematographer working right now. He just wants to work with his friends.
And so you make friends with people.
And my students sometimes come in with this mindset of, I'm down here and I'm looking for someone way at the top up here to like, grab me and pull me out of obscurity.
Right? It's the. It's the. You step off the bus from Topeka, Kansas, and some old fat guy with a cigar is like, you got a face for pictures. I'm going to make you A star, kid.
Which doesn't happen. If it ever happened. It doesn't happen anymore.
[00:53:11] Speaker C: If it ever happened. Don't go with don't.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Don't follow that, man. But what does happen and what has kind of been in my experience, the only way to succeed is like, you're down here. I got to do this in an audio sense. You're at level one and you meet someone at level 1.5 and you help them, and then they lift you up to level 1.5 or even 2, and then you help them to level 2.5. And like, you keep sort of incrementally building the ladder with your community.
And that way you have people that you can trust, you have people that, that know your work and can vouch for you. And now you're bringing each other in on bigger and bigger things. And so that's literally the only way I've ever gotten work. And I've been working on bigger and bigger things in the last few years because my friends are speaking my name in rooms that I'm not in, which is like one of those hippie dippy vibes phrases, right? But I am currently working on a screenplay for a movie that is the budget is so big that I will not be able to direct it. If it works out, the budget will be like, not insane, but they're not going to let me direct it.
And I'm doing that because my cinematographer, Tommy, after we finished Lizzie Lazarus, he's like, oh, I know this other guy who makes million dollar horror movies. You should meet him. And so I met with, with him and he's like, oh, I don't make million dollar horror movies anymore. I make $10 million horror movies. Do you want to write one?
And so this is like, this is the only way to make it. And there's like a big asterisk with that. Go out and make stuff. Make stuff with your friends. But there is a method that I swear by, which is the only way I've ever been able to get anything done, which is you start with a blank sheet of paper. That's not unique to me.
And you make two columns.
On one side is your assets and on one side is your limitations.
Everybody's got assets. You have to write them down, right? And you don't really even know what your assets are until you write them down. And if you're a part of a team, everyone does this, right? Oh, man. If we could only get a full fire truck for this scene. My uncle has a fire truck.
Right? So you are bound to have assets that you don't remember that you have. And that's just like what life is like. You don't remember that your uncle is a firefighter because it's not special to you, right? Until someone is like, damn, I wish I had a firefighter. And then you make a list of your limitations.
Money, time, cast, whatever else. Covid.
And then you figure out a way. This is the puzzle. You figure out a way to turn your limitations into storytelling devices.
So for Lizzie Lazarus, we did this, right? That was the last feature.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: Are you saying once you have a screenplay before you write the screenplay? Reverse engineering.
[00:56:21] Speaker A: Yeah, reverse engineering a project. Because I'm not like a blue sky writer.
If I don't have any sort of structure, I can't write anything because it's everything. It's the entire universe. And so before I even start writing a screenplay, I do this list. I usually do it with my wife.
We do it verbally.
And then we figure out how to turn our limitations into storytelling devices. So for Lizzie Lazarus, which is the most recent film that I completed, so I can talk about that a little bit more, more freely.
Our big limitation was Covid.
So we.
It was like May of 2020. We had just gotten off a movie that really messed with us and was a really, really bad experience.
And so we were, like, desperate to make something new.
And so we're like, okay, what are our assets?
She's an actor.
We have other friends who are actors. And like the woods. No, no one's there.
What are our limitations?
[00:57:34] Speaker B: By the woods? Or you guys like, let's make a movie in the woods. What do we.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: So we picked the woods because the previous movie that we made, which was in Malaysia, which is like a whole other different fucking story, that the third act of that movie took place in the woods. And the producers were like, you. Under no circumstances are you allowed to shoot in the woods at night because you don't have the budget. You can't. You don't have a scissor lift. You can't rent a big light. So you're not going to be able to light it. It's going to look bad. You're not allowed to shoot in the woods at night. And so that. That asset was my spite. I was like, we're going to shoot this in the woods at night, and I'm going to light this in the fucking woods at night because they told me I couldn't. And so I'm going to do.
[00:58:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: So then our limitations are. It's May of 2020. We have to be outside the entire time. We. We don't know whether we're ever going to be able to shoot inside again. And even outside, we have to be 6ft apart from each other. So, okay, limited cast.
They have to be 6ft apart from each other. How can we make them six feet apart from each other without making it look like they're doing it on purpose? They're carrying a dead body.
And then we're like, okay, who are these people to each other? Where are they going? Why are they going there? And then we answer our kind of big three questions that you would answer when building a screenplay, knowing that we have to justify that they're basically never allowed to put this body down.
And who is the body to them? And that is the first act of our movie.
We meet our two characters, Bethany and Eli. They're carrying a body in media res. In media Ray. And we are sort of back like we are as the audience, catching up to, who are these people to each other? Who is the person in the bag? Who is she to both of them? Where are they going? Why are they going there?
And so we, like, figured out the first act of our movie, talking about all the work it would take to turn these limitations into storytelling devices.
And so this is what we did on our previous movie. This is what we did on the thing that we're working on now, which is like a horror anthology episode.
And it's the only way to give, at least for me, give me enough momentum to be like, I can make this, and I have to make this now because this is the situation that I'm in, and these are the assets that I have. And even the movie that got turned into, like, a much bigger budget movie started out that way. I was explaining this exact thing to an actor friend of mine who's in Lizzie Lazarus, Omar Mascati. And I was saying, okay, we are sitting in a tiki restaurant owned by a friend of a friend. And I said, okay, we have an asset. I know the owner of this tiki restaurant. What can we do in this tiki restaurant? And we basically spitballed a horror movie that takes place in a tiki restaurant. I wrote the, like, $500,000 version of it, which is what got turned into the much more expensive version that hopefully will find a director soon. Right? So I think even when those strict budget limitations aren't there, understanding certain production limitations is extremely important in making something producible.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't write something big budget. I'm not saying that you shouldn't go to space.
I love space movies. I love big budget epics. Unless you're Christopher Nolan or Denis Villeneuve or Zendaya or, you know, Zendaya or Zendaya's manager, those movies aren't gonna get made.
But have them. Have them in your drawer.
[01:01:24] Speaker C: Yeah. Don't not write them.
[01:01:25] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. Don't not write them. Just don't try to produce them for nothing.
Yeah. And I'm really inspired by a bunch of other. Like, this isn't original to me.
Really inspired by a bunch of movies that do this too. Primer is the very famous example, like the $5,000 feature.
I'm really fascinated by Shane Carruth's films. I know that he's had some kind of ethical trouble.
And the other movie that really inspires me kind of daily is a movie called Coherence, which came out in 2012. And it's like a $40,000 feature, and it's amazing, and it's largely improvised, and it's a sci fi movie made for nothing. And it's really, really, really awesome how they maximize their story while minimizing their budget. So Coherence. Check it out. Cool. If you. If you look it up, it's. The poster has, like a ping pong paddle on it. That's how you know that you have hit the right movie. Okay.
[01:02:28] Speaker C: Awesome.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: In the indie world right now. Sorry, Wyatt.
[01:02:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, go.
[01:02:33] Speaker B: I feel like there's. There's such a.
I'll leave. Okay.
[01:02:39] Speaker A: Have a good one.
[01:02:40] Speaker B: Thanks, Wyatt.
There's like, you make a movie and it's like, this has to go to Sunday. It has to go to one of these top festivals. Like, I'm an independent filmmaker, and this is the only reason I'm making this movie. It's a Sundance movie or a South by Movie or a Tribeca movie. You get what I'm getting at?
What are you. Are you talking to your students about this with their first features or just younger? I guess, if you're. If you're speaking to the younger generation, the next generation of independent filmmakers, what are you telling them about distribution? Or maybe the question is just goals or expectations with their first feature?
[01:03:19] Speaker A: Definitely expectations with their first feature. A lot of them don't because they're artists. They aren't really thinking about the business of getting it in front of people's eyeballs. And so just getting a movie made is a miracle. Every movie is a miracle. Even it's a bad one.
And I also don't really necessarily subscribe To.
It has to go to Sundance. It has to go to South By. I did when I was 26. And then I, like, learned more and more about it. And I don't want to say anything out of school, but the numbers of original films and films that don't already have distribution that go to those festivals every year is, like, vanishingly small. Yeah, right. And even, like, Slam Dance, someone at Slamdance told me that Slamdance got to pick, like, five features to show two years ago. And that's like. And everything else was, like, put forth by a production company or studio or whatever else. And this is something that was told to me a year ago and someone I work with. His name's Albert Kane. He also made a movie called the Dead Thing, and we teach a class together. We locked our scripts within a month of each other. We shot within a month of each other. He shot a scene in our apartment.
We wrapped. We locked our edit within a month of each other and premiered within a month of each other. So he was a really good sort of buddy to go through this process with. And I would. I would look to him as kind of a mentor for, like, oh, like, what festivals? What time of year is this deal Good. And he and I both were under the impression that the biggest. You got it. If you don't premiere at a big festival. By the way, Sundance Slam Dance wherever else. South by will not touch your. Your movie if it's not a world premiere.
So if you have your eyes set on that, don't show it anywhere else. Cause they just won't look at it.
Because they're like. They're the biggest festivals, so they can. We're not gonna take. They're not gonna take anyone's sloppy seconds. And so we had situations where we were, like, withdrawing from festivals that had said yes to us. Cause we were like, well, what if this bigger festival.
[01:05:51] Speaker C: If they're saying yes.
[01:05:52] Speaker A: If they're saying yes. And so that didn't happen.
And we got accepted by Popcorn Frights Film Festival, which is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which, if you're from Popcorn Frights, listen to the whole statement.
Doesn't on its face, seem like a Sundance, a Slam Dance of South by a Can, Toronto, whatever.
It's a horror fest. It's run by two guys, Igor and Mark.
And they accepted us. They gave us a screening.
We guaranteed them that we would be there with cast and crew. And so they're like, yeah, we'll screen your movie. It'll be this time.
And we went.
And the day that it got Announced in the Whatever on the Internet.
We got like, five requests for, oh, do you have distribution yet? Do you want to see? Can we look at your movie? Whatever, Whatever. And then one of the people that reached out was Screenbox, and this guy named Brad Miska.
And Brad, like, goes to Popcorn Frights every year, and he just asked for a screener to watch it. And I told, you know, we got to. We got to Fort Lauderdale, and Igor, who I've never met before and never even emailed with, comes over, gives runs over, gives us a big hug.
And after a minute, he's like, screenbox will probably reach out to you because they like our festival. And I was like, they already did. They're looking at the thing. He's like, when he gets back to you, tell me and I will step you through how to negotiate with them.
And so this guy who I had met maybe 20 minutes ago, was giving me tips on how to talk to the distributor, who ultimately wound up picking up our movie.
Because this festival, especially with horror, is amazing, has a great standing in the horror community. And, like, you don't need Sundance or Slamdance.
[01:08:02] Speaker C: The thing that I really resonate with. And we've had a couple other people on this podcast who have talked about just the festival circuit and everything, but it's not about finding that thing that's the most popular. It's about finding that place where you're gonna find your audience, you know?
[01:08:16] Speaker A: Totally. And at this festival, we met Steven Hugh Nelson and his wife and producer Erica, who made a found footage movie called Old Wounds, which is amazing.
And as I mentioned, maybe Lizzie Lazarus is not like a capital horror movie. If you read the reviews, people are like, that's not scary. Fuck you.
And the day before our screening, I went full mask off at, like, the bar, the mixer bar for all of the filmmakers. And I'm like, people aren't going to like it. It's not going to be scary enough. It's not horror enough. And Steven and Erica were just like, it's going to be great, man.
We're going to be there. Someone who was like a judge for the festival. His name's Bobby. Bobby was like, I've seen it. I think people are going to love it. And they. I showed up the next day still trembling, and Stephen and Bobby were there, and Bobby sat next to me at the screening to, like, make sure someone was there who, like, believed in the movie.
[01:09:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the place where you're going to get cared for, you know, it seems like such a warm environment.
[01:09:24] Speaker A: It truly is. And Steven reached out as basically the second we left the festival. Steven's like, I have this idea for a horror anthology series. It's found footage. It's like the Twilight Zone, but every episode is found footage. It's called Final Transmission. You want to do an episode? And so that's what we're doing now.
[01:09:42] Speaker C: Amazing.
[01:09:44] Speaker A: Our next project is an episode for Final Transmissions, and we brought in, like, some of our other filmmaker friends. So community is the most important thing. Don't be a dick. Make friends. Make art with your friends.
[01:09:55] Speaker C: Authentic connections.
[01:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah, authentic connections. And even the biggest. The people at the top of the top of the top. That's all they want to do.
[01:10:03] Speaker C: Well, there we have it.
[01:10:05] Speaker B: We really.
[01:10:06] Speaker C: We really appreciate you coming on.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: Sorry.
[01:10:09] Speaker C: Like, this.
[01:10:09] Speaker A: Talked for.
[01:10:10] Speaker C: This was one of those episodes where I felt like I could just like, sit back and learn. You know, like, oftentimes we are where trying to figure it out with the guests about exactly the message that we're trying to project. But you, you came with a very clear.
[01:10:25] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:10:26] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I. I really appreciate the way you were speaking about everything, and.
[01:10:30] Speaker A: I love your show. I'm happy to come on whenever you want to talk about anything.
[01:10:35] Speaker C: Yes, please. Like, please.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: You guys are awesome. And. And I think that you're doing a real mitzvah.
[01:10:42] Speaker B: How.
[01:10:43] Speaker C: How else are we going to know all the things that the young people are saying these days?
[01:10:47] Speaker A: They're. They're not walking around saying a real mitzvah, I'll tell you that.
And thanks to Rachel for. For putting me up.
[01:10:55] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks, Rachel Yellow.
[01:10:56] Speaker B: She can maybe hear us. Thank you.
[01:10:58] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[01:10:58] Speaker A: Thank you. We're gonna go up to the pool in a second. Maybe we'll see them.
[01:11:11] Speaker B: Did you learn something? I'm like your mom. Did you learn something in this episode? I hope 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? You know, why not. Okay. By.
