Learn about our first movie GONE which we made to upload on Amazon Prime Video. You'll learn insights into approach your first Indie Film and tips on how to make sure you'll be profitable in the adventure! Be sure to follow us on TikTok, Instagram and Discord for more content!
GONE
Isolated by a forest that stretches for miles, Camp Liberty is the perfect place for Chris to disappear and escape from the tragedy of his current life. But something lurking in the woods begins to disrupt Chris's weekend getaway.
Learn More
https://dbsfilms.com/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10514532/
Learn about our first movie GONE which we made to upload on Amazon Prime Video. You'll learn insights into approach your first Indie Film and tips on how to make sure you'll be profitable in the adventure! Be sure to follow us on TikTok, Instagram and Discord for more content!
GONE
Isolated by a forest that stretches for miles, Camp Liberty is the perfect place for Chris to disappear and escape from the tragedy of his current life. But something lurking in the woods begins to disrupt Chris's weekend getaway.
Learn More
https://dbsfilms.com/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10514532/
Welcome to the DVS films podcast. A behind the scenes look into making indie films, learn from DBS films about their process tips and fun stories that all come with making multiple movies a reality.
Kellan Rudnicki:Welcome to the DBS films podcast. My name is Kellan with me as always, as my brother Brendan, and today we are going to be talking gun, which was the first movie that we had made. So when I say gun, what kind of pops right into your head, Brendan?
Brendan Rudnicki:Well, God was one of our smoother shoots. The the process all the way through wasn't too difficult. The issues that we encountered were mainly post production. But for our first movie, I'm proud of it. It's not the best in the world. But it has some character.
Kellan Rudnicki:I definitely do think it has a lot of character in my opinion. You know, I think to me, it's almost something where, you know, we were kind of children of summer, or with wide eyes of what it's like to make a movie. So, you know, in the writing process in the filming process, I think a lot of things that we thought were gonna be either scarier or, you know, look different. We just had no clue. And when they came out on on film, you know, they ended up being a little bit different than expected. But, you know, overall, you got to start somewhere, I think the best thing someone can do is start something no matter what it is, if you start something and finish it, you'll end up learning. So we're going to dive into gun again, you can unfortunately not see gun because it is not available on Amazon anymore after the great Amazon purge of indie films which occurred. However, if you do join our Discord, you will be able to get a link to God. So you can watch that one. It's kind of like a superfan exclusive. So, you know, really, when you are going into this project, it was kind of the first feature that we're doing what was kind of the thoughts in your head about, you know, executing on this project.
Brendan Rudnicki:I mean, like you said, we were children of summer, um, it was, you know, we go out there, you know, we'll shoot this thing is maybe four days, you know, we'll knock it out real quick, the acting would be great, you know, the shots will be great. And, you know, we came from writing, like all my writers and myself had a business already for four or five years of publishing books. And our books do very well. They're top of the charts in Amazon. So we're like, alright, we got really good writers, this can be a great script. And that's when I learned that there's a huge difference between writing a book and writing a screenplay, they're completely different. And also, there's just a lot of pitfalls. As far as what you can do, as in the studio, there's just a lot of seats that you just cannot do. They're just too difficult, or they need a higher budget. And so, you know, when we went through gone, we were stepping on landmines left and right. But the good news is, is we look back on them now. You know, we saw the stuff that worked, we saw the stuff that didn't work, and we just put the stuff that didn't work on the infamous DBS ban list. You just we don't do that stuff anymore. And we take the three or four things that we're like, hey, you know what, that works really well. And you'll see some of those things in our other movies.
Kellan Rudnicki:Yeah, I think that's a big one. And we'll talk about it more on our next episode, when we go into the invited I think one of the biggest things that almost held us back a little bit with the invited was, um, you know, we didn't quite have that finished product with gone going into the invited. So, you know, once you end up finishing editing the movie completely, that's when you really see how it turns out. So you almost kind of you write something, it's nice and easy, you film something, you're kinda really high on the moment of being on set, and then you look at it in the editing room. And that's really when you kind of learn what works and what doesn't work. So you'll walk me through what was kind of the first idea for it, because I remember we were talking about it, I was working downtown at the time, and you're like, Hey, man, I have a script for like a movie that we're doing like, would you want to, you know, take a look at it and whatnot, you'd mentioned you're doing some movie stuff. But this is the first time you really kind of reached out to me and said, Hey, I really want to look at you know, what, some feedback on this. And to me reading the script, it was really kind of, you know, we had like two or three scares in there where it's like, they walk down a road and they're supposed to go back and it doesn't quite happen. So where did the idea kind of come from with gone?
Brendan Rudnicki:Um, well, we wanted to make it anthology so when you're talking to Amazon at the time, they wanted 30 minute episodes, so sort of like Black Mirror of horror. Um, and we had chosen to go with I believe, like a creature we kind of keep you want to keep it vague. I believe it was like aliens. can remember like, this is a flashlight. Um, but you know, we had to stay in our constraints in the budget. And we you know, we we tried to make something you know, that was similar to Blair, which you know, is out in the woods, you're isolated. But was more of just like an alien twist, I believe was like the general concept we were going in with, um, and, you know, we we just, we went headfirst with it.
Kellan Rudnicki:Yeah, it was definitely something that, you know, jumping in headfirst in the deep end, when you're, you know, making this a, what was kind of, you know, the writing process was like, at this point in time that the book writers were a lot. I mean, they were very heavily involved for the first few movies we did. And as you mentioned, there's a big difference between screenwriting and book writing, you can be a fantastic screenwriter, a fantastic book writer, and you might not be able to make that jump just because it's different styles, you know, really reading the script, people don't read scripts for entertainment, they read scripts is almost a blueprint for making that movie. So I think that kind of leads difference. But what was kind of the writing process, like, you know, walk me through how long that took the revisions was kind of the overall vibe.
Brendan Rudnicki:Yeah, I mean, we had a writers room, because we have writers on there. And I thought the writers did a great job. I mean, I'm very happy with all the movies that my writers have worked on, I thought they did a great job on all of them. They just, we need more reps. And eventually, I hope, I think the highest level of what DBS is going to become, is more of how television operates, where you have multiple writers working on one project to create the best, you know, script possible. And I think that's the highest, you know, you that's really what they do in Hollywood right now to. And that would be my goal is to have, you know, a Writing Room of 10 people cranking out the best content, really honing on dialogue, you know, and trying to make the best possible script. And, you know, my writers did a great job, everyone did a great job on these projects, we just didn't have enough reps to really, you know, get where we needed to go. So the writing room, we had a whole bunch of writers, so the foundation was there. I operated sort of like a showrunner. So I was like kind of guiding ideas, but at the same time, I had no idea what I was doing. If anything, I was probably more detrimental to the process. Um, but that's how it was we fleshed it out, everyone kind of came up with ideas, we try to pace it with like a three act structure with like, beats every 10 minutes, as kill alluded to, you got to have more than three beats in a movie. And, you know, the beats that we thought were going to be impactful just never turned out very well. But that was pretty much the process is a lot of collaboration, a lot of feedback, probably too much feedback. Because at some point, you got to cut your losses and just run with something, as opposed to, you know, spending six months writing, you know, 30 minute pilot.
Kellan Rudnicki:Yeah, and again, I completely agree, I mean, by no means is screenwriting easy at all, it is a very, very intense thing to do. And just kind of throw people say, alright, we're making a movie, it's really tough. And it's easier now in hindsight to kind of look back at those things instead, you know, okay, well, is this gonna hit or is this gonna not hit, but I think one thing for writers that you know, I will hit is, you in your head, when you're writing it, it will never be that vivid, it will never be that vivid on screen, it's always going to be a compromise. So you really got to almost kind of go over the top. But then again, you have the budget, but you have to almost kind of really ensure that whatever is going to be scary is any scary. One of the things that we allude to, you know, one of the big scares we were counting on in the movie was the car doesn't start, which is, you know, a typical horror movie trope. And it just, you know, when we filmed it, a car didn't start. So it's one of those things where you learn in hindsight, and again, I do agree, you know, they did a fantastic job and putting something together on a timeline, getting everything done. So it's by far not easy. But those are one of the things where, you know, the more you work at something, the more you kind of understand the pitfalls. And also the success points, you know, really, we have a bandless. And we have the DVS classics, we got two things we go through. And we just understand, you know, what, what makes it easier to film that. So, when you had the script, you know, what were you kind of feeling at that point in time because the script is really now a living breathing document for us in the sense of how we alter and change it, you know, whenever we're going to be tied down to what the script says is more or less of what we're doing. But when you have that script in your hands, how are you kind of feeling like at that point in time before going into casting everything
Brendan Rudnicki:I'm at I thought it was good. Like I thought it was a good a good pilot a good thing just test out. Um, you know, I thought it was it was we were able to shoot it, it would it would come under the budget that we wanted to come under. I didn't think it was like the greatest thing in the world. But I think it was enough to move forward in the process. And usually when you write a script, when you finish the script is the happiest you're going to be with your movie, because once you start you're on set is disappointment. And you're going to have to make concessions You have to cut things and things that you know are in your head didn't turn out very well. And then you get to edit in and, you know, cuts don't cut together and you have to, you know, cut certain scenes, some of your footage get could get deleted, you have audio issues. So, you know, going from the script all the way down, once you start shooting, it's just you, it's, you're going to take a lot else along the way.
Kellan Rudnicki:And that's why I was curious to ask you about it. Because again, you're going to be really happy when you have the script, and you're going to be pretty motivated with it. I think the biggest thing, though, more importantly, is it was fillable. And I think the biggest thing I see with a lot of scripts and a lot of movies, you know, your number one thing is making is finishing a movie, and a lot of people who just watch movies, or just watch indie films, they don't understand that you go through such a nightmare to get that process done of work and just making the movie having something that's presentable. That's not always the case, there's a ton of movies that don't even ever get made. They don't get seen the light of day, they have to go through rounds of scrapping. So the simple fact that you know, you did have a movie that was within those limitations is really huge. And again, for something that gone I think it was really clean. You know, I think it's something where, you know, heck, it's easy for us now to think of a movie to make because we've done it so many times, but had you said hey, I'm actually gonna I need a 30 minute, you know, anthology here, what what is it going to be? That's definitely not not the easiest task. So you got the script? Walk me through the kind of production How do you get the team together? When it comes to you know, the the production side of things, the actors? How do we kind of get the crew together?
Brendan Rudnicki:Yeah, so we were lucky cuz I worked in a co working business or building. So um, you know, we had a camera guy that did videos that work down the hall, you know, he worked with him on some other projects, we brought him in said, Hey, man, like, you know, you want to make a movie? Totally, he was all about it. Like I said, I had a staff of writers that were ready to work. You know, we got the sound guys, you know, came in, it was just a lot of sweat equity on this one. And we did all our casting through a local university Full Sail. But yeah, I think like the actors got paid, and maybe the DP but everyone else is just working off sweat equity.
Kellan Rudnicki:Yes, I mean, and again, that's another good thing with, you know, what we like about the passion of our community that we're building here is you got to be passionate about this, especially at this level, you know, this isn't the, I think, actually, in general, I don't think you can ever find a cushy film job unless maybe you're like, already thrust into the higher up executive level, but you're going to be working, you're gonna be working hard. And I mean, they, they know, you're just as passionate unfortunately, when it comes to even on the bigger set. So, you know, for someone like us, we really try and treat all of our cast and crew as good as he can, but it's gonna be a tough one, you're gonna work a lot, you know, so having a good crew is critical, you know, that that's again, it's something where can't make a movie about he can make a movie by yourself. But you can only make a very limited amount of movies by yourself. So when you had the production, everything set up, and when I was kind of going through your head when you're like, Alright, I got it. I got the team, you know, we got the cabin, we convinced them to let us have a movie there. What was kind of me was it like, sensing dread, because I know, it's a dread, but it almost feels like you know, when when a movie is coming up, it's like a long race or it's like a long something that's kind of there, you know, the schedules there, and then boom, here we go. We execute. So how are you kind of feeling going into the the filming?
Brendan Rudnicki:Um, well, I was just, you know, the goal, the only thing I was thinking about is, no matter what happens, get something that we can upload. That's all it launches the finished product. And that should be honestly, in the set, that should be the producer and the directors, number one thing, get something that you can upload. Because if you're missing shots, if you have to do pickups, it's just gonna be a mess, and there's no guarantee your actors gonna come back after, you know, working them for 1214 hour days. So just the minimal viable prizes, get something that you can be finished. And like Cal said, there's a ton of indie films out there that never see the light of day. And if you can't get something uploaded, if you can't get feedback on it. You know, number one, you don't have a shot at getting your money back. But you're, you're gonna learn along the way, obviously, you're going to find mistakes that you don't repeat. But really getting people's feedback on it really diving deep into it, getting the editing done, and the color done and the sound on is a huge process. And you'll learn so much from that as opposed to, you know, give everyone just a couple of clips for the demo reel. So as a testament to the team, that we were able to get this together, especially with our first one we had no People with, you know, film school experience on this set. The fact that we got it done, we got it up on Amazon, and it made us money back. So that is a win all the way around. But, you know, I was looking back on, I had no idea what was gonna happen, I really had no clue. I
Kellan Rudnicki:mean, that was definitely the risk of it, I think you're touching on that a little bit. Um, I think doing the work to get it completed is often the hard way. And I think a lot of times easy way out for indie developers, or just people in the film industry is, oh, well, you know, we can pick this up, or we'll refilm this, or we'll do that because those are all, you know, oh, I know, I can fix this later. But a lot of times, it's it's sitting there and figuring out how to actually get it done before you kind of fall into that cycle. Because again, you know, if you want to make it perfect, you got to understand filmmaking is just a compromise, it's a compromise of what you want to do versus what you actually were able to do. So that's always huge. And again, you know, gun, regardless of how it came out, it is, you know, it's the first will always point back to God, it's always gonna hold a place in our heart of, you know, the start of it. So that's one of the coolest things with films as well, too, is you know, you can always go back and look at something. And I think the goal of any film content creator, anything like that, it's just create, you know, try and get to that finished product, try and get it done. Because, you know, worst comes to worst, you know, you'll force yourself to learn how to get it through to the end. That's, that's one of the better things that you can do. And I think that was a huge, you know, that had gone not been able to upload, there would be no DBS films, I feel like he probably would have said, Nope, we're out of here, in the sense of, or at least later on, you know, it was really something where it almost feels like you kind of jumping from landmine to landmine right after they explode just to get where we're at. So that's definitely there. In hindsight, was there anything in pre production now that you know, I mean, I'm sure we will completely redo that script a little bit in the sense of, we just know things that work now on camera, and that's just a testament to making night. Was there anything that you saw that was kind of a big, you know, red flag that you wish you would have, like noticed or put more idea until,
Brendan Rudnicki:I mean, knowing what I know now, um, it just wouldn't, I would have made it like a witch or something in the woods, like a shapeshifter. And aliens is tricky. There's a lot of special effects, like you'll see them and they're just not done very well. Where we could have made something a lot easier. Made our made our lives easier. If we would just like realize, alright, don't do aliens, like just put a monster out there and you'll get everything will be so much better. Because the trope of going out to the cabin your cars and start, it's in a ton of movies, and you just have like I watched a Bigfoot movie today. It's like that could have been it could have been Bigfoot, and it would have been totally fine. And aliens don't sell as well as much as you know, shapeshifters or, you know, Bigfoot does. But as far as like anything other than that, like story wise still thought it was good pre production. For indie studios, you're going to live and die by pre production. If you don't do pre production, you're going to have problems on set. And I think 99% of the problems with indie films can be solved in pre production and casting just really make sure you're casting you know people that are into the project and you know that understand what's going to happen and understand the rules really work with them on making sure they understand the rolls. But pre production stuff like you really got to like make sure you know how to use all the equipment we had a lot of issues with the equipment on this site we're just inexperienced people using the equipment and you know, we a lot of this stuff really went out and try to shoot it ourselves we just do some test footage we need to realize is about idea.
Kellan Rudnicki:I think one thing that we do now kind of spawn out of this is our day zero so can you explain what a day zero is?
Brendan Rudnicki:So Day Zero just be like our pre production stuff where we're trying to find a lot of locations we don't have the luxury of going on there and really you know, scouting out or you know, figuring out where we're going to shoot so days years usually we get to the location and we just start shooting but usually just you know the skeleton crew the actors usually don't arrive yet and we're just trying to find the best locations for pop scares we're trying to find you know, I'm trying to take the script and just map it out to the location but even days Euro stuff like we should upload the the cabin 13 days Euro stuff, because I think the superfans would like that. It's just us testing out how does the mask look outside of a window. We test it out like banging on the windows and putting the paper on the windows. Different pop scares for the next movie that we're going to be doing the shape shift concept, we're probably going to try and shoot the entire intro, which is a seven minute scene, just to really make sure that you know, you know what you're doing? Because it's so much easier to shoot something a second time versus, you know, being like, does this work? Or does this not work? And for a lot of our movies, we've one into shooting, not knowing how to do a scene. And we're just like, well, we'll figure it out. When we get there. And fix it in post and figure it out. When we get there are just not things you should be doing. Yeah, you
Kellan Rudnicki:time is your biggest asset onset. And even if it's just knowing, you know how it walks it, I mean, one of the biggest things that that's good is we would do the days here. And I definitely agree, we needed to look at uploading some of that stuff, because basically, it would be me playing all the actors, and you know, doing the special effects. But what it also gave us is, now that we have the actors on set, we literally have something to show them, so they have an idea of what we're looking to do. So pre production, day zeroes, anything that you can do to set yourself up to have more time on set is really going to be one of the biggest advices I can give any indie studio just because you will be surprised how quickly time goes when you're on set, it just slips through your hands. And before you know it, you have one day left and you have a day and a half to film. And you know, what ends up happening is you lose a lot of scenes that you compromise on. And they affect the final project. So walk me through the location where you guys ended up doing what was the idea? I mean, that was pretty out there.
Brendan Rudnicki:Yeah, I don't remember exactly where this was. It was in North Florida. And we had a guy that, you know, allowed us to shoot and his cabin. And so we went up there. And I mean, there's just your standard cabin. It was fine. I'd actually shoot there again, if I could, I thought it was kind of cool. Splice
Kellan Rudnicki:had a good look to it. Like it's a smaller one. Did the actor stay on set for this one? Or I think Derek or DP drove in or what was kind of because usually what we try and do now is to maximize as much time as we humanly can is to have everyone stay on set. So you basically asleep wake up film, eat sleep wake up film? What was kind of
Brendan Rudnicki:feel like they did I feel like I slept there. We had two writers, the DP. And I think the actors all stayed
Kellan Rudnicki:on because I remember when we did the reach filming, which we'll get to I was on set for that one and I I slept on a slept on the couch there. Which is something you know, you're used to in the sense of just crashing there. It does. Honestly, it would be a good idea. Plus, I think it does kind of almost build camaraderie a little bit. And the biggest issue of all is you don't have to be like, Hey, man, where are you? It's called time. So I think that's another little tip for it. So you get there, you start filming walk me through how was day one, then any issues on their own? Because when I wasn't there for those,
Brendan Rudnicki:I'm I mean, I'm trying to trying to bring it back
Kellan Rudnicki:into sets in Chicago.
Brendan Rudnicki:You know, I don't remember it being like it. Honestly, looking back on it, it was probably one of our easier shoots. Now it was only 30 minutes. So for you know, 30 minutes now we're shooting hour and a half, essentially. And you know, it's more technical now. But I don't remember a time where we ever really like running out of time. And the writer who was working on this did a really good job of, you know, making sure we had a shot list, making sure everything is scheduled out well. And this is really like I never was worried about time on this one. It was pretty smooth. Especially for a movie that had a lot of night stuff like shooting at night and throughout the night is difficult. And the actors were great. Like they knew their lines and knew what they're trying to do. They did, you know did a phenomenal job. So I think this one was honestly one of our smoother ones. We did have some issues with some equipment. I know the ronin broke. We didn't know how to use the ronin I think we have some audio stuff that was going wrong. But there there wasn't anything in there that was like, you know, oh, no, this is we're not going to get a finished product. I don't think I thought at all until post production was when we got our first real scare. This one never had an issue with like, you know, are we going to get this movie completed?
Kellan Rudnicki:And I think one thing you will you will feel momentum on a set. You know, it is palpable when things are moving good and when things are moving bad. So that is something where momentum is honestly one of the biggest things you can do because, you know we're filming multiple days long shoots and you can really almost, you know, feel the actors and none of the actors but you're and everyone just kind of lose that extra, you know, extra gas that you can put on it. And what ends up happening is, you know, you get one shot at filming. So having that momentum, having a smooth shoe is super critical goes back to post production. Really the you know, the filming is kind of like your execute, you know, how well did you prepare for? And let's go ahead and you know, make the rubber meet the road. So you end up filming this one? Um, what would you say the biggest things you learned from filming this one? Like what was and this is before post production too. So before because, again, post production is almost like, yeah, pull the mask off of like the Scooby Doo villain, and you see what you really got in front of you. That's when you really learned but what was kind of your overall, you know, was it man, I'm gonna be making movies, and next year, I'll be inking deals with the universal and you know, me and Blumhouse we'll be hanging out by his Yeah, all that cool stuff. And what's kind of your thoughts?
Brendan Rudnicki:Well, I think just looking as I was just more focused on the top down, you know, vision of how this, you know, how can I make the production better for the next one? How can we schedule this better? How can I work with the crew better? That was like my thing. So I was really on the lookout for this one, on things where I could just improve it. Because this was a minimal viable product. I was like, okay, you know, we're gonna make this movie. But you know, I'm planning to make a ton more, what's what, like, what little things can I do to make, you know, the next set run more efficient, you know, so we can get more footage that we can, you know, make sure that the actors are, you know, have the ability, I can give the ability for them to create a better performance, you know, what little things can I really just hone up and fix up?
Kellan Rudnicki:I think one thing that's unique for us is we have a really business minded approach to everything. Um, you know, a lot of creatives, when you're just dealing with this, you don't really think about, you know, how well can I market this? Or, you know, what are the budgets, what's the line items here, you're kind of focusing on the vision. And, again, there's nothing wrong with that, in the sense of, you know, you can really want to be a creative, and that's what you enjoy. But you have to deal with the harsh reality of you got to make some type of way to recoup your money, whether that's, you know, working with investors or producers and being able to provide for them. But one of the things is, you know, I've always really seen this as essentially a film company run like a startup more than anything where you have your MVP, you have your, you're rolling it out, and really what you're looking for is what's that? What's that next step to where the, the flywheel really starts to move, and you can go ahead and just scale from it. So that doesn't surprise me that you're already kind of, you know, seeing Well, where can we do this. And, honestly, you know, just looking at how this, I mean, the invited, I think it's the prime example of a set of the invited to like the set of girl in cabinet 13, there's a lot of areas where we were able to just kind of maximize and improve it. So I'm not surprised that you're already looking at ways that you can improve it. So overall, you'd say, you know, give me a one out of 10 how you were feeling after filming.
Brendan Rudnicki:Um, I was probably like seven or eight. And I felt pretty good. Obviously, I had no real push production skills. So I didn't know what that process was. But after wrapping there, I felt like we got some guy enough to obviously upload it. And you know, I thought the actors did phenomenal job. And I thought, you know, the DP did a good job shooting. So I felt like we had everything we needed to be successful. So I will say one
Kellan Rudnicki:thing, as you've developed into someone who does all aspects, including the post production, my feelings now is a little bit more of a pessimist. When we get done with filming. Usually, what I'll hear is, this is going to be a wild one, or, you know, you're almost ready for what post is, you know, now that we've been through multiple posts, you're ready to almost kind of, you know, after you film something, I feel like, you know, in the early years, when we're on set, it's like, this is gonna be the greatest thing ever. Like, wow, now it's like, Oh, my God, I hope this cuts together, like, please let it work. You know, I I'm scared about this, or I'm scared about that. And I think it's not that it's, you know, an optimism or pessimism thing. It's just the harsh reality of filmmaking is you will always have to compromise and there are so many little things that can go wrong. And you have a limited capacity to realize that in the moment, and you have an even more limited capacity to fix that with the free time you have left. So was that kind of like you see your mind shift, you know, from gone to now since you have more of that responsibility in the post production? Yeah,
Brendan Rudnicki:I think it's just realities, the nature of the beast, as an indie film studio, doing indie micro budget movies. You know, you only have talent for a certain amount of time, and you're also working with people who just don't have like, a lot of experience on it, myself included. So you know, on a Hollywood set, you have a DP that's been You know, working behind a camera for 20 years, you have an expert sound guy, you know, you have a ton of writers working on the script, you have a great director. So all these people are masters at their craft with indie, it's like, you have to wear all those hats. And you're, you, it's very difficult to do one of those jobs, let alone three or four of them. So, you know, you're always worried about what's going to happen. And just being through this process, understanding how easy it is easiest to mess up a shot. Like if just to get like a mic bump, you can't use that shot. So, you know, you the goal is to get as much footage as you possibly can, with the highest quality as you possibly can. And, you know, excuse me anything less than that, you're gonna have issues.
Kellan Rudnicki:Yeah, I think one thing that even happens is almost kind of your, your let it slide, um, ability when filming, you know, you end up really where like, you'll see like, a little ball for one, it'll be fine, just keep keep rolling. Whereas now we're more or less like, that is not fine, that is gonna cause an issue, just stop it, you know, redo it from there. Because again, you you can get caught up in the momentum. And that whole fix it in post mentality it is there. And it is one of the biggest downfalls because it can be really demotivated, you know, it can be really demotivating working all of this kind of being really, you know, up on the energy, and not being ready for the reality of what your movies gonna look like, once you sit down with editing. I think another process with that is, you know, this was out when we're working with other people, when it comes to filming and editing, we do all the stuff in house now in the sense of, you know, me and my brother. But with that being said, people just have different visions, they have different eyes. So even if your eyes is different from what you're looking for, when you pass that project off to someone else, um, you just might not be ready for what their take is. So there's a lot of things where I think a lot of film makers fight this huge reality that is post production. So speaking of post production, what was that process? Like? You know, I know, we ended off to the editor, which kind of walk me through what that whole process was like. And then we also had a fun little surprise. So we'll, we'll get to that.
Brendan Rudnicki:Yeah, so the the DP was the editor. And I think that's a it's a powerful thing, if it's done, right. Because being able to shoot and edit your own footage, it just allows you, you know, when you're behind the camera, you can kind of cut together the scenes in your head. So he was editing the the movie, and I was actually I think I was on a cruise. And he like wasn't responding anything for like two weeks, I finally got a hold of them. And apparently, on set, he formatted one of the memory cards that had like three or four scenes in it. So we had 80% of the movie done. So I was like, Alright, not a problem. We take a look at it and the scenes that were deleted were just, you know, we needed them. So, you know, it's this decision to either, you know, scrap it or try and fix it. So we got everyone back out there and we did a day of reshoots to try and save the movie. That was a this this
Kellan Rudnicki:leads to what is the role one of the filmmaking
Brendan Rudnicki:don't wait anything. Don't.
Kellan Rudnicki:Don't just just don't do it. It's totally worth it. Now we literally and we have a triple backup for the newest film. And still my brother refuses to remove any of the hard drives. Because if you delete your footage, that is by far, the biggest blow and it happens all the time. It happens all the time. We had a bunch of scares on set. I think we've probably done it maybe once or twice till. But rule one is do not delete your footage. Just figure out by harddrive get as much space as you possibly can. But just simply don't do it because again, you have a micro budget and easiest way to blow through your micro budget is having a reset but one of the benefits of it is I was able to join you on set so I came out from my first film experience. And just gonna give you a little insight on that, you know, always wanting to make movies. I ended up making movies in high school. I won the high school Film Fest you guys want to watch razor's edge? It is on YouTube. It's probably one of the best movies ever made. But I was all over the writing process. I think I had something going on where it couldn't go out to God I mean, I was still working a sales job so I did not have flexibility when it came to my nine to five but he basically like hey, we're gonna go out and film this would you want to come out and help out and I was all over it. And at this point in time, I had the skill capacity to hold a light. I would say it's kind of what I would do. I think I may be improv the few lines of Leo, you know, I was trying to get like one or two lines in there. But you know, it was Just awesome being on set, it's crazy thing and how big the crew was, I think we had like seven people there. When I was there and like now, you know, we're filming, like our entire crew is some people. Um, but it was really cool to kind of see that and it was reshooting the day stuff and the mission of the night, which is always a can of worms, because you got to make sure that footage, you know, blends in together. And you never know, if someone just looks different one way or the other. I mean, the recent one we did to try and cut my hair, so it matched as much as we could. So that's always an issue, but what was your How are you feeling with the reshoot?
Brendan Rudnicki:Um, I felt good. It's, it's much easier, like doing pickups, like you shouldn't want to do pickups. But when you do pickups, because you already know what you're trying to do. They're much easier, especially with this, we're shooting the same scenes twice. Like there wasn't any variation. It was just doing the same exact thing. The actors were super nice, you know, bringing it back out there. That was my big concern. I was like, we did this whole set, we did all this stuff. I remember having called both of them being like, Hey, guys, like, the footage got deleted. And we need you to come back out. And I was fully expecting them not to want to come out. And then if that happens, you're just you're done. There's nothing you can't CGI them in or anything like that. So they came out, they did a great job, it was super easy. And you know, we got what we needed.
Kellan Rudnicki:Yeah, I would say, you know, one thing with that it's just, you have such limited time, and you got to maximize it. And you're really rolling the dice. Because again, you're opening yourself up to so many issues that can come up actors not wanting to come back for one reason or the other, or just not being able to make it back. So you know, again, it goes back to pre production and the filming, and then the post production is really when you're gonna figure out it so you got those footage together. Um, I remember, again, this is before the editing process for me. So I don't really think the first one I started editing was the Whitlow. And I think I did a little bit of work on scene because I started doing the trailer show and seeing I think that's kind of when I started getting going. But for this one, what was kind of the the inserts there because we still I know we use the different DP after that incident was do we have a different editor? Or what was that for the finishing product?
Brendan Rudnicki:Yeah, we got a whole new team for post. Um, so we had new editor. And this is when I was still learning how to edit premiere. And like, Guys, if you guys can learn how to do premiere, I'd say that's probably the biggest thing you could possibly do. There's a
Kellan Rudnicki:lot of tools online, you don't have to be the best editor, you know, you can look at color grading, you can look at those things, you can get little finishing touches on it. But I think every single film maker should be able to at least paste their movie together in a timeline. Because again, the editor can make or break a movie, I can take footage and make it a completely different movie, one way or the other. And that was something where I didn't really get into the editing process until like the unseen. And after that, that's when I think the gears really started rolling on our end.
Brendan Rudnicki:I think for like editing, if you can learn the, what each key does and watch little tools do in Premiere. It's really just drag and drop, it's not a difficult thing to do it and your pacing is going to be the most important thing in the movie. And if you can learn how to pace it properly, you can learn how to write it properly, you learn how to shoot it properly, I give a lot of credit to good editors. And you'll see stories of like big time directors who had like their wife editor, or they had a really good editor for you know, a long period of time, and they switch editors and all sudden their movies are just you know, the pacing is off or something is off. So I think, you know, learning how to edit properly is a very easy skill to do to learn. If you put in the time, there's a wealth of knowledge on YouTube that you can figure out how to do it. But it'll really help you, you know, learn the process of filmmaking. Because at the end of the day, you know, when you're editing your film, and you're missing a shot or something isn't cut together, it's your own fault. And you can take responsibility, and you're just like, I just won't make that mistake again. Yeah,
Kellan Rudnicki:I think one of the biggest things of using a different DP versus a different editor is you will get this line a lot. I can't use that footage, or the footage is bad. And one of the things you can do is if you made the own fudge, what are you gonna do you're to self. So I think that's a friction you'll get because it's easier for an editor to kind of brush it off and say Oh, well this footage is like this or this is that versus you sitting down how to bet Okay, well how do we fix this mess is something that I think I've seen in the industry is when it's you you know it's one thing when someone's putting into position, but when you put yourself in the own bad position, you don't really have an outlet to blame anyone. So I think that's, that's also a critical thing that happened. So we have gone, we got a 30 minute thing, again is held a special place in our hearts forever. And it was, to me my personal opinion of it, it's just a flat movie because we didn't understand what translates to cinema and horror, we didn't understand pop scares, and those things which you're just going to learn, but you have this you have a finished product, which is the name of the game, that is the goal. What did you you know, end up doing from there when it came to, you know, getting it uploaded looking to monetize it?
Brendan Rudnicki:Well, I remember it was stuck in posts for a while. And this is like another thing of like, what you want to do when you're editing is, you know, you can control how quickly it goes through posts, like you can't, if you're hiring another editor, you're gonna work on their, their timeline, and they might have a whole bunch of other projects in there. So it really slow down. Like I see a ton of indie films that take six months to a year to get it all fixed. And a lot of that could be issues. For the most part, it's, you know, editing can be difficult, it can be tedious. So it's really hard to like, just get in there and get it done. So this one took a while and post I don't think it took too long, maybe three or four months. But when we got it done, you know, Amazon was looking for it. So we were beta testing their upload system. We uploaded it to Amazon I think it was live within a couple of days is actually pretty quick.
Kellan Rudnicki:And I can't remember did what did this overlap with? I believe it's overlap with the invited didn't worry filming the invited before we had gone. Thanks. All right, or was that unseen that we did where we had,
Brendan Rudnicki:I feel like dawn came out when we were doing the inverted pickups, like I remember, like talking to one of the actors, who's in both the movies, and showing them when it came when it came online on Amazon.
Kellan Rudnicki:Knowing what you know, now would you ever start with like, now I think we can do it because we have a better understanding of it. But I think one of the biggest things I would recommend to any indie filmmaker is finish your first project before starting another one, simply because you will get a wealth of knowledge when it comes to what is better, and what's worse or whatnot. Because, you know, seeing the finished product is when you can really say that works. That doesn't work. We're never doing that again, let's always do that. So would you agree with that?
Brendan Rudnicki:Yeah, I think that if you watch like movies, six through ate, we're really backed up on post, there's just a lot of issues with those movies, there's a lot of issues with the footage, a lot of pickups needed to be made. And I think at that time, we had three movies like in post production that weren't even up. And now like I'm my goal is to get this new movie Up. Before we start the next one, I don't know if it's gonna happen, I better is at the point now where like, I know what mistakes we made. And you know how, how not to do them for the next one. And I think that's a big thing. So you have to really sit down and be like, alright, this is what we did, well, you know, try and find three or four things really well that you can take and put in another movie. And then try and find like the things that just did not work. And just don't, don't do those again. And I think a lot of good lady just comes back to reps, like a lot of people who are really good in this industry. They just have the experience is not that they're more talented than, you know, other people or they're more creative. They just know where those landmines are, and they know not to step on them just don't like don't write this scene, don't shoot it this way. Like, don't shoot stuff in cars, you know. So it's like, you kind of you know, as you go through this, you know, we have a whole bunch of stuff that works, and a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't work. And then we just, you know, when we shoot another movie, we try a few new things, you know, here or there to see how it works. But, you know, a third of the movie isn't going to be, you know, new risky stuff.
Kellan Rudnicki:Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think that's one of the bigger things that ends up happening when you look at, you know, first time producers and first time indie is it ends up being something where you know, you don't know until you know, and you only know when you finished the project. So was there anything else that you know, you felt stuck out to you from Ghana? You know, again, to me, it's one of those ones where it's always number one, you know, I think we have a special place where we got some super fans watching Dawn right now and they're, you know, it's great to be able to look back and say this was the first one that kicked it all off. And that's the cool thing with filmmaking, you know, but the end of the day when you When you get through it, if you do get through it, you'll end up having this product that's that's there for life. So was there any any last things that kind of hold a value see from that production?
Brendan Rudnicki:On it, I mean, obviously, it's the first one. And this is a huge testament to anyone who has the ability to make their first film, you know, whether it's short, or feature length, or in the middle, like this one, and actually upload it and put it on, you know, somewhere where people can view it and get feedback, you know, mad respect for that. And just a shout out to the team that worked on this one, the writers, you know, everyone that they had a piece in this, this project, you know, they're all new to and the fact that we all came together, got something done, overcame some hurdles. But you know, we got it up there, we can look back, we had some great feedback on it. And we learned a lot in the process. So, you know, it's, it holds a special place in my heart. And it's just crazy. Looking back on it, if I had to make a sequel to it. We definitely have the knowledge and the ability now to make something really cool.
Kellan Rudnicki:So what I would like to do with a lot of our first movies is refilm them word for word, in scene for scene, but just with a lot of better equipment. So I think I think eventually, you'll might see that if I have enough money to have that crazy project, because I mean, again, these are micro budgets, they're super tiny, but you just it's something about horror films and the genre that you got along so that wraps it up for our first film again, we have a lot more to cover, and we're gonna keep on giving you updates on the new ones. Again, if you want to follow us, please do we have Instagram Tik Tok DVS films. The best way to find this though is gonna be our Discord channel because we have a whole bunch of behind the scenes stuff we work with our super fans are amazing. You got to watch the movie before it comes out. You have to read the scripts before we make them. We also look at casting our super fans, you know, because it's something where we want people who are passionate with the project as well too. So as always, we thank you for your support. We are gonna keep making movies and until then we will see you guys later