Writer/Director Max Neace Creating With Constraints

Sandy chats with film producer, writer, and director Max Neace about his journey into the entertainment world. Max shares how he learned the ropes of producing and used that knowledge to make his own movies, like Shift—a thrilling film created mostly within tight constraints. The story of SHIFT sounds simple but intriguing: what if a thriller stayed inside a security office? Max also produced other films such as WHAT WE DO NEXT, written and directed by Steven Belber and featuring actors like Corey Stoll, Karen Pittman, and Michelle Veintimilla, along with STALKER and DON'T TELL A SOUL, plus many short films. He studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and then moved to Los Angeles to pursue his passion.

Executive Producer Kristin Overn
Creator/Executive Producer Sandy Adomaitis
Producer Terry Sampson
Music by Ethan Stoller

Transcript

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Hello, my name is Sandy, the social media director for the page, international Screenwriting Awards, and your host for the Writer's Hangout. A podcast that celebrates the many stages of writing, from inspiration to the first draft, revising, getting a project made and everything in between. We'll talk to the best and the brightest in the entertainment industry and create a space where you can hang out, learn from the pros, and have fun. Hey writers. It's Sandy coming to you from Studio City, the crown jewel of the San Fernando Valley, and we are, a couple of days ago, around 9:30 AM the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call about a 70. Year old hiker in distress with minor injuries from a fall from Fryman Canyon Trail, LA Fire Department Air Units initiated a hoist operation to bring the hiker to solid ground where she could be evaluated and taken to a hospital for treatment. Rider. There are two hiking canyons in this town. Fryman and Runyon. I'm Fryman, but I've been to Runyon. Runyon is much cooler than Fryman. Runyon is walking past young Hollywood in athleisure wear while Fryman is walking past the homes of rich Hollywood in athleisure wear. I'm excited to share today's episode with you where I have a conversation with film producer, writer and director Max Niece about how he broke into the entertainment business by learning the ropes of producing and how he took that knowledge to make his own films, including Shift A thriller built almost entirely out of limitations. The premise of shift, is simple enough to sound like a dare. What if a thriller never leaves a security office? Writers? Let's start the show. Max. Nice. Thank you so much for joining me on the Writer's Hangout. Of course. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited. Hey Max, have you joined the Lottery for Olympic tickets yet? I haven't, I'm more of a soccer guy, so my brother and I are trying to plan World Cup plans around the country. Oh, when is the World Cup? Is that this year? Yeah, it's this summer. we've got tickets for July for the group stage right now. Oh, where's it gonna be? The World Cup? So it's based in North America, but unlike previous World Cups, it's actually based in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. So it's in three different countries. It's gonna be pretty cool. Oh, that's cool. You know, when I was in Lithuania, there around the World Cup and, they were building stands in the street. Just to go down Main Street and there was all stadium seating and I. it was for a parade till somebody said, Nope. World Cup. It's really big. Yeah, it's unbelievable. We actually went to the World Cup in Brazil in 2016, I believe it was, and you would go downtown and the cities would almost be empty, but they were designed to look like they were full and totally built, and stadiums would be in the middle of the jungle. You'd have to take buses out to get to them. It was, a wild experience, so it's amazing what they do to places they essentially Terraform different parts of the world. How interesting. Now as we're talking about this wasn't there a soccer player who went home and they murdered him because he missed a goal or something? What was that story? I forget the exact details, but it was in, I believe, south America and there was just a total collapse from a player and he ended up being killed by. people in the country. I don't know. the exact details, but I do know what you're talking about. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I think it was something really dramatic. Hey, you're from Kentucky. What, city in Kentucky. I'm actually technically from New Albany, Indiana, which is right across the river. I just use Louisville as a home base'cause most people know it more. So I'm actually a river rat that just swims across And you graduated from NYU, of the Arts. Yes. Bravo. Thank you. And then you moved to Hollywood? Mm-hmm. And it was just rainbows and puppies. That's the end of the interview. No. You struggled, but then you. figured a way into the business. Can you tell us what happened? Yeah, of course. right. I graduated from school, I was talking to my professors and I was really interested in screenwriting and they said. You know, if you wanna go be a screenwriter, move to Hollywood, find an agent and make it out there. And I said, okay, that's great. So I packed up my bags pretty much the next week after I had graduated and drove across the country to California with a couple friends of mine. and I have since not found an agent to rep me. But I got into the business just kind of by way, people say that you need to work in an agency or you need to work in a management company and be an assistant for a while. Cut your teeth there. So that's, how I initially got into it. I started working for a couple different companies. And was not the greatest assistant in the world, admittedly. And while I was at that process and I was kind of learning about how talent is brought on to shows, how they're hired onto movies and just kind of their day to day and how you keep them happy. There was an associate producer job that had popped up in Louisville, Kentucky, and I interviewed for it and I got it. So I left and I came back to Kentucky to make my first movie as an ap. I was essentially a producer's assistant that was kicking around. And after that I ended up working with one of those producers, Chris Mangano, for a while. We made another movie together and then I was his head of development for a bit before I went out on my own. And you know, during that time I had met some financiers, some people that were interested in getting involved in the movie business a little bit. So I ended up putting my own movies together, one of which was Shift I wrote and directed movie that's in post-production called Red Camelia. And after my shift experience, I pivoted and leaned into the line producing job and producing in general. And that the long and short of it. That's how I got into all of it. a producer. Yeah. A very glamorous job. Can you tell us what a producer does? yeah, I mean it's, probably less glamorous than I think people make it out to be, essentially just trying to make sure a project stays on the rails the whole time. I always describe it as a product manager, so if anyone has worked where you have, any kind of product from design to actual production of that product to distribution of that product, that's what producers do. They find a script, they develop a script with writers, sometimes with the director. They end up hiring the crew most of the time. They bring them on, they find the money, they take that money, figure out how they're actually gonna implement it into an actual production. They go into pre-production, which is where you're hiring the crew. You're making sure everything's ready to go for when the cameras start shooting, you oversee production, which is where the magic happens. So they say, and then you go into post-production, which is when you're editing the movie sound, designing the movie, all the fun bits, and then you see it through distribution, which is when it actually goes out into the world and people can watch it. Wow. a lot. You know, I was lucky enough to, know al Ruddy a short period of time in my life. And he said to me as a producer, you wake up every day and you try to do at least one thing to get the movie. made. Yes. there's just not a day when you're not doing something, to get the movie moving forward. Yeah, and it can be, innocuous sometimes. Sometimes it's just jumping on phone with an actor, a writer, a director talking out a story beat, and then it can be, you know, bigger meetings when you're actually helping to bring financing to a project or you have a big story breakthrough. It's, constant. He's totally right that there's always something going on, even when there's project you haven't worked on for a while, or it seems like it's dead in the water, all of a sudden something will come up and you have more homework to do on that show. now you're quoted as saying budgets are creative. Those constraints sometimes make better movies. What do you mean by that? I think a lot of people, a lot of conversations I have with creatives, especially when I'm line producing or directly in charge of a budget for a script is they, don't totally understand how malleable numbers can be. And I think in general, a lot of people look at a budget and they see a lot of numbers. They think it's confusing, they don't really wanna dive into it and figure out what that means. But the more that I've kind of dissected budgets and gotten in the middle of them and created them myself. You really see how much things cost, where costs can shift to where you can actually put the focus of a cost. And I think all filmmakers should be able to look at a budget and actually know what they're looking at and how they can actually break it down. Because within those numbers, if you have have a$10 to make a movie, you need to know where each of those dollars is gonna go to maximize how good the movie's ultimately gonna be.'cause it always starts in the production office. The production office gives the filmmakers the tools. To actually go out and make the film. So to be able to look at a budget and say, okay, these are my limitations. This is what I know I can accomplish with this amount of money. Let's focus on camera. Let's focus on these special effects. focus on the actors themselves. You can make a more educated decision to focus on one or two really great things, especially with a lower budget, than try to focus on everything and the whole project suffers. So I think it's just You really gotta understand what you're spending money on and why you wanna spend money on it. And it can't be as vague as just, I want the best camera because Spielberg shoots on this camera. It's like, all right, but this camera is smaller. We can be a little bit more nimble with it and maybe move a little bit faster so you can get more takes. What's the trade off that you're gonna actually do to approach it financially that's gonna lean into these creative decisions that are actually gonna make the film successful or not successful? Brilliant. You're not going to put a choreographer. Salary in your budget if there's no dancing, you know? Correct. my budget story is I had the privilege to, work with a Lang producer In an office on a network TV show. And, just really learned how, The budget is a pie. And the line producer people would call up and he, would listen to them and he'd be like, you know what, I'm gonna take what you said in consideration. I'm gonna call NBC and I'm gonna see if we can get more money in the budget. He would hang up the phone. He played Jewel Crush. He would get back on the phone and he'd go, I tried. So all such an interesting game your script for the Shift, which I watched yesterday and really, enjoyed, I was just into it congratulations. Thank you. it really shocked me. At one point I was a little horrified, in, the good way. I was horrified and it kept me glued to security monitors for over an hour. Please tell the writers what shift is about. Sure I describe it as a Hitchcock and Skinny Jeans take on Rear Window, which is You know, most people have seen Rear Window they've seen Disturbia, which is a modern day take on the same movie. There's a lot of clones and it's, you know, somebody's sitting in a chair, they think they witnessed a murder, and then they start to investigate it. So that Neo noir sensibility kind of played with offbeat humor is at the heart of shift, but shift we didn't have as much money as Hitchcock did to recreate an entire New York cul-de-sac. So we put a. Down on his luck security guard in a storage unit facility. And all he does is watch his security monitors all day. And through those monitors, he thinks he witnesses a murder. So then he starts to investigate it. Now, what was the original spark or inspiration behind the story? Sure. There was friend of mine that I went to NYU with, we were living in LA together a few years ago and he, came to me'cause we were both kind of talking about wanting to make our own projects and what could we get off the ground for cheap.'cause we knew we weren't gonna be able to scrap together too, much financing. And he said, what if we make a horror movie in a storage facility? And I said, that's an interesting place to set one. What if, we tell it all from the security guard's perspective? And that was pretty much my rebuttal from the get go. He wanted to make more of a classic. You know, you're in the hallways of a storage facility. It's spooky, it's scary. You don't know what's around every corner. And I, just always thought it'd be more interesting if you place someone in a vulnerable place, but all they're doing is watching these things unfold.'cause even though the movie's set in the nineties, it has a little bit more of a modern sensibility to it where we interact with phones and screens almost all the time. And I thought that was an interesting way for someone to play off, sort of, you know, the fear of what's happening behind the camera. So the initial idea really came from this idea that there was gonna be a horror a storage facility. I wanted to tell it from the security guard's perspective, from these monitors. And eventually he was no longer involved in the project'cause he wasn't sure if that was the best way to do it. And after I sent him the first draft of the script, he was like, I actually think this is a better idea than the one I had. I think it's gonna be really cool. but I still am not that interested in it. And I was like, okay, well I guess I'll take it on and see if we can get it off the ground, which ultimately we did. just brilliant. Now, it must have been a hard read, right? Did you work to make it more interesting for the reader or just wrote the script? an interesting question. I mean, I actually, it's one of the easier scripts to read, I think, because it really breaks down what's happening on each monitor during each scene. And the action lines are so. That it so fast to read through it. I think it's an attractive looking screenplay. oh, that's interesting. Do you mind, do you think you could send me a page or two? Of course. Because it would be really cool to see that formatting and I'll put it up on, Instagram and our socials, just so riders can get an idea, because I'm sure that must have been one of the first things when you sat down to write it, how do you communicate and make it interesting? And, assume you did a good job because the movie got made. It did, yeah. I mean, honestly, difficult, I think, for our assistant directing team to actually break down the script to know exactly what was happening because. there's scene headings in a screenplay. There's action lines, there's dialogue. I always used the scene headings as monitors, but when you watch the movie, it's drifting over these monitors the whole time. So cuts sometimes in between what's happening on each one, but for the most part these fluid movements through the cameras. I wonder if they, had to do it old fashioned way if they put it into a No, it did. Yeah, and that was the problem. There were 300 scenes or something crazy and really there, weren't that many. But the way that I just wanted to make sure everyone knew exactly what was happening on the monitors right at each moment, because I wanted it to be this long, slower process where the action unfolds in real time rather than, you know, try to cheat and condense time, which. Is the goal of editing? I think to a degree, but I, was rallying against that, for most of the shoot. So the, screenplay was just an odd looking screenplay. I think it's mostly very easy to read and it comes off very clear what's happening. It was when we were actually we were in pre-production trying to break down what we were gonna shoot and when. There were definitely times, even on the day when we were shooting where people would say, you know, I thought this was two different scenes. And I was like, no, it's all one sequence. so we need to shoot it as one sequence and how it should all be cut together. was a challenge for sure, I mean, we, worked really hard to make the monitor stuff work to our detriment and to our success that it is successful we shot those sequences at a different time and then cut that together and then replayed it live for our actors. So it's all this, like, we almost shot the movie twice. if you are the writer and the director who wins, if there is a disagreement on set. I think you always try to shoot what's on the page first. If you find for various production reasons, something's not working, you can always get a little creative and put the director hat on and try to get away from the script. But I'm a big believer, even as a producer, that there's a reason you chose a singular script to bring into production and to try to make, so you should try to follow the script as much as possible. There are always times when something isn't working out the way that. It's written or not going to work out because of the limitations of a location. Maybe your crew, maybe a cast member, so you have to be able to pivot at some time. Right. But for the most part, you know, you try to shoot what's on the page. but have to trust your department heads too. If you're trying to make something work and your camera operator or your DP just really can't get it to how either of you want to be satisfied. It's always good to readjust and try to think of a new way to bring a scene or a shot to life that you might not otherwise have thought of, at least at the script level. Cool. Did you produce shift I can't remember. Not in title. I mean I was definitely involved, but once, once we really started to get moving in pre-production, I told my producing team Gonzalez and Connor McGill, who actually plays Tom. Was a producer until the first day of production. And then our, guy had COVID, so Connor actually stepped into the role, which is a whole other story, but G Brian Randalls, Stanley, we had three producers that were pretty active the entire time, and they, brought the project home. Wasn't it wonderful to just be the talent? Yes. Instead of the money guy. Yeah. It's much more fun being the talent. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Hey, max, what's a typical writing day look like for you? it depends. Right now I'm in between movies, so, producing movies. So right now normally write for about three hours a day. I go to a coffee shop or I stay at home in my office and just open the laptop. And I actually have a separate laptop that I normally write on because it doesn't, have email connected to it. It doesn't have my phone connected to it. It barely has internet. so I just am locked in. Can't really. Do anything or look up anything. Try to minimize distractions as much as possible and write at least 10 pages a day if I can. Good for you. That's. Yeah, I've heard of that. I have not yet been able to break the internet, connection cord. Yes. Yeah, painful. It really is. I've been talking a lot to the writers out there as of late, about vertical series and you came up in shorts. if you were starting out today, which one would you lean into as a calling card? That's a good question. Yeah. I don't know that much about verticals, to be honest, so it's hard for me. I know a lot of people work on them. I think it's a great place for crew to cut their teeth. I think the script is, I don't know how important the script is to a vertical, to be honest. It seems like everyone I've spoken to, they, get a script, but they're shooting so quickly and so fast. It's hard to really focus. On a specific story you want to tell. I mean, I think if you're really, if you have a singular, you know, voice that you want to get across on a screenplay, I think a short is probably the best place to do it. still'cause you, can really, have a joke or an opinion and make it really straightforward to the point in a short film that maybe you can't in any kind of longer form of media. Are your friends talking about vertical series? Your, creative friends, your, squad Yeah, of course. Gonzalez, who's a producer on shift, he, works as a producer himself all the time, and he's just now starting to get into producing verticals. So I think their first shoot is next month on one. And I would probably have more to say after that. But most of the people that I know that are working on them are other crew members that I don't always hang out with outside of a shoot, but they're collaborators, you know, that I see on set and hear their stories about verticals. But you know, no knock on the vertical game if that's how people are gonna break in and make it happen. They don't, don't think too highly of them has been the consensus that I've heard. Yeah. Really. I haven't really been talking about it to like my ad friends or that I just know how much everybody's hurting. crews are hurting right now. Yes. That at least money. But you're also making me think to what end, if cutting your teeth. if they're not being respected. Hmm. I'm gonna have to think about that for a little while.'cause, again, I don't wanna put forth an entity that maybe is not gonna be beneficial for the writers out there, but, yeah, that's interesting. if you're getting paid to write verticals, then you should absolutely explore that, right? Yeah. But you should, should probably too have whatever your because I feel like your voice is probably gonna be a little bit different in a vertical, just based off of the way that they shoot, the way that they. Move so quickly and the stories have to be a specific kind of setup, punchline, twist, or different iteration of that where if you're gonna write a full feature screenplay, you might have a different kind of opinion on how story structure should work. Max, you know a lot about verticals. I've heard this from people. I've digested it and have thought about it a little bit myself. Yeah, I think that's it. I think that is all there is to think about verticals when it's. It's funny, when I started out, I was at this production company that had film and TV and I was on the TV side. And the film, people would look down on the TV people, I mean, you know, in a fun we're better than you we're film. Yeah. And now it's, kind of flipped where maybe people, in traditional TV and streaming are going to the verticals, oh, we're better than you, so you know what you are. Right. Just do. What is, experience and if you're getting paid and have fun. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Stephen King, I think he, his quote is, you know, if, anyone pays you to be a writer, then you're a professional writer, in my opinion, and that is a hundred percent true. It doesn't matter what kind of medium it is. If someone's giving you money for your script to actually take it into production in any kind or publish it in any way, then you should probably let that happen. When you started out, what was your biggest misconception about what it meant to be a working writer and director? It might be a little harsh, but it's that anyone is really interested in what you're writing. I, think when you're in school, especially a film school or, you know, it can be an MFA program where you're just writing short stories. All you're doing is writing scripts, getting feedback from your peers and trying to make it with your peers. And it's a little microcosm that's great for creativity, but when you get out into the real world, there's, you know. You actually do have to start to contend with that. There are people that have been in this game for so long and are so successful that you're not, you're probably not gonna write something that's gonna break into that echelon right away. It might take 20 years to get there. So, you know, your first stuff you, might send it to people and they might give you a polite read and say, you know, call me when you're famous, or Call me when you have financing so I don't have to do any of the work to it. And I think that. Is a misconception you can have when you're right out of the gate trying to get started where it's people are really interested in what I have to say. People are really interested in my voice and that just isn't always the case. And it doesn't mean you as a writer aren't talented or worth being read. It just means you have to prove to someone or catch someone at the right time when they're actually interested in giving whatever it is you have to say the actual time of day to digest it. And think. People can have a chip on their shoulder coming outta school, moving to Los Angeles, moving to New York, wherever you're gonna go for the first time and be I'm here. The world is my oyster. Let's make it happen. It's You gotta figure out a way to open up the oyster first. it might be in front of you. But if you don't have the tools to cut it open, it's gonna be really hard to figure out how to navigate the industry and be prepared to navigate the industry in a way that is not how you initially saw yourself navigate it. I think that's a really important thing, that people need to be patient. They need to, you don't necessarily need to pay your dues, but you need to learn the process of writing maybe in a more. Realistic, production friendly way, or figure out how production works by being a Produce your friends work. Let your friends produce your work. You know, see what's really gonna work for you in the long term. are you currently listening to, or watching or reading anything you'd like to share with the audience? I'm big Gerald Rena fan. This book sitting in front of me. I've been reading which is his first book. He's an Australian writer who I'm a big fan of. I would recommend checking him out. I think he does some interesting stuff with characters where he hardly ever actually names them and you just fall into the way that they speak and think, and that's how you kind of whose perspective that you're in. He most famously wrote a book called The Plains, which, rightfully or wrongfully I've heard is the Great Gatsby of Australia. That might be totally an incorrect assumption. but I've that somewhere when I was first introduced to him, and I've, really grown to love his writing, at least in a prose form. I typically, watch through director's filmography too, just when I'm on the treadmill, when I have downtime to spend time. And it takes a long time to get through one director's filmography, but I just watched through all of West Craven's movies he's got some really great movies and he's got some really not great movies, so it's interesting to see how. someone, the master for West Craven has, he exploded onto the scene with last house on the left. Hills have highs night round El Street, and then his middle career, which a lot of people don't talk about. He just has a lot of movies that didn't work, I think, in the way he wanted them to. And then of course he came back with Kevin Williamson Scream, and that's one of the biggest franchises of all time. So it's, really interesting to see how his career sort of evolves. Where do you and your friends, your creative friends. Hang out. when I was coming up, we'd go to improv classes and then we'd go dancing up on Sunset Boulevard and just running around. when I talk to younger writers nowadays, I find they're more, at home. Yeah. Is that the same for your crew? Uh, I mean, we're barflies so we're outta bars. We're not really dancing or doing improv, but we definitely. Go out, have a couple drinks from time to time. Now, where do you go? I go to All Seasons Brewing a lot. You can normally find me there having a couple drinks. There's the Bounty, which is an old classic. Okay. love that bar. And then there's a couple of birds on Franklin Avenue is another one where a friend of mine, he can walk there. So. If ever really desperately needed a drink, I'll swing by there after work and he can normally walk over and meet me. So, I mean, we're, he and I out in public and he likes to write in public. I like to write in public. I've definitely heard writers that are, like, someone once said to me that I'm not a coffee shop writer, and I still don't really know what that means. I think you can be a successful coffee shop writer, and do work wherever it is. You're gonna get into your, flow state and really figure it out. Just talking about advice in general too, is if you don't put yourself out there as something, it doesn't have to be a writer, it could be a production assistant, it could be an assistant director, it could be a line producer, it could be anything. But you gotta let people know that that's what you're up to and that's what you're doing.'cause then people will start reaching out to you about those opportunities as they kind of pop up. But if you do keep it to yourself and you are a homebody, which there's not really anything wrong with, but you do still need to interact with the people that can make your career happen in one way or another.'cause it's such a collaborative industry, it's so important to have connections that are, you know, more successful than you, that are not as successful as you, that are on equal tier you. So it's you can actually ping pong off of these people and see who's coming up in different ways and finding ways to be successful. Well said. Now, max, before you go, would you like to play a lightning round of brain drops? Sure. brain drops is a fast-paced q and a with answers only a writer can provide. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna put the clock up. When writing music on or off? Both. If you're reading a hard copy of a script, one Brad or two. two Two. Whiteboard or legal pad? Legal pad, final draft or final draft What TV show do you wish you wrote on? Hmm. Maybe the wire widows and orphans. Get rid of them all. Really don't care. Hmm, don't care. Favorite snack while writing water? Favorite snack? That crafty. Oh. I'm a carrot guy. Do you come up with the title for your scripts at the beginning or the end? Let it come naturally to you. whoop. We ran outta time, but let's go through the rest of the questions. Writing at home. PJ's, sweats or clothes. Clothes, shaded parking spot right next to the production office. Or 20 5K extra in the budget. 20 5K. Favorite time to write day or night? Morning, I would say. Will you read and do extensive notes on my neighbor's? 200 page thriller titled A Cow Takes Brewster, New York. Probably not. Thank you for taking that quiz and thank you for spending so much time and congratulations again on shift. And where can the listeners watch shift this weekend? Shift is on Tubi and it's on Amazon, so you can find it both places. Very cool. Max thank you so much for being on the Writer's Hangout. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. and that's a wrap for the Writer's Hangout. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your positive feedback will help us keep the show going so we can continue bringing you more future episodes. Remember, keep writing. The world needs your stories. The Writers Hangout is sponsored by the Page International Screenwriting Awards, with executive producer Kristen Overn, Sandy Adamides, And our music is composed by Ethan Stoller. Alexa, you are gaslighting me,