The Big Damn Podcast | Episode 026 – Better Late Than…

Welcome to Episode 26 of the Big Damn Podcast, appropriately titled "Better Late Than..."! We recorded this episode back in March 2026, when we were blissfully sweating through the final 30-day countdown to the Arbor Day: The Root of Evil premiere. Now releasing on May 23rd, this episode is a perfect time capsule of independent filmmaking anxiety.

Listen in as Michael and Logan navigate some 11th-hour hurdles, including the recent storms that sidelined our composer in Hawaii and how Tamara Johnson stepped up to save the 5.1 surround sound mix. Plus, Michael shares reactions from showing the trailer at MegaCon, we give a shoutout to Dread Alert Media, and we look ahead to future 4K physical media releases. While the April 24th SModcastle premiere is now in the rearview mirror, the mission continues: we are contributing to the Arbor Day Foundation with every ticket and unit sold to plant a tree in the woods! Catch us on the 10-city US Roadshow kicking off June 6th at the Cinemark Egyptian 24 in Hanover, Maryland. Tickets at bigdamnentertainment.com.

Learn more about Big Damn Films by visiting: https://bigdamnentertainment.com.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Alright, you ready? Oh am I. Don't sound too enthused, man.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

We're keeping that opening, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hey, that's fine. Richmond, the the but um boom of the the let's do it.

unknown 0:22

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Alright, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Welcome to episode 26 of the Big Damn Podcast, the monthly behind the scenes peek into our production and distribution company, Big Damn Films. Yeah, I like it after blank. You can say so whatever you want.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Hi.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

How's it going?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Uh well uh it's the end of March.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Yeah, it is the end of March. It's 30 days from our premiere is 30. 30 days. Yep. Uh wild. Yeah, it's wild, but it's also uh as with everything with this project, nothing is going smoothly.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I mean, if it if if the saying goes that adversity builds character, we've got enough character for another movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

We've got enough character for a trilogy.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

We do, after everything from this one.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yep. So uh a little bit catch-up since the last podcast is our audio, or sorry, our sound designer and composer Johnny Wilson, who lives in Hawaii, uh got hit with back-to-back storms, which damaged and destroyed his studio.

unknown 1:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

So we are now in the process of pivoting to finding a new composer, which I think we have them.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Um and uh Tamara Johnson and I are going to tackle sound design. Um sound design for me being the uh you know, the hits and the the all of that other fun stuff, and for her, the overall experience of 5.1. So but that also happened at the 11th hour, right? Like we still have the tree the trailer that is beautiful, color corrected by Edwin. The audio is is crisp and clean from Tamara. Uh so I'm going to be adding a score to it as soon as we get in recording this podcast.

unknown 2:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Um, but that should have been done two weeks ago. We were supposed to release it on St. St.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Patrick's Day.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah. Yeah. And everything kind of went to shit a couple days before St. Patrick's Day.

unknown 2:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Uh but yeah, uh, 30 days away from the premiere, we have a lot of interest. Uh dread central. I don't know what it is. As soon as we start recording this podcast, like my nose itches.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Like I've gone back and watched every episode and at some point like I I've scratched my nose.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Look, stop the pre-show coke.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

I you're right. God damn it. Uh I it's I've picked it up in New Jersey and anyway. Uh so yeah, I mean, it we're we're behind, but I'm gonna be honest with you, like I'm still I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'm not nervous.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah. There there's a lot of things that haven't gone according to plan or gone in the most ideal way. Right. But there's nothing insurmountable.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

No, I mean it's it's gonna suck for a lot of people for the next two weeks. Uh a lot of people being me, Tamara, and the sound designer. Yeah. Or score the composers. Composers, yeah. Um, but the reality of that is that once it's done, like the movie by itself looks amazing.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Um I went to Megacon last weekend because Jen was working and we got a photo with a lot of the cast The Lord of the Rings. But I also talked to the people at Indie Indie Horror Junkies and showed them the color curricula trailer. Oh, cool. And they were like, holy shit, this looks better than some studio stuff, right? It does look good. It looks great.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

So is and the sound, like I there's nothing that I I trust more in as far as sound than Tamara Johnson, who's been juring this for 40 years. Uh and if she's telling us that she's competent, it's gonna sound good.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Then it will.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Then it will. Um but yeah, I mean, it's as soon as that trailer's done and it's out, the pickup of steam.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

Yeah.

unknown 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Very, very good.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, and again, this is this is like we kind of talked about earlier with with Tamara's that you know, this is to get it ready for the premiere, and then got you know, more theaters to find and some good physical media to to develop and do, and some streaming packages to put together, and some of those things, you know, are are still a ways off. And if there's you know, oh, we thought of this, or oh, if I had more time I could do that, you know, look, how many times has uh George Lucas remade Star Wars?

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah, I mean, and the beauty the added bonus of this is that because we're uh if you attend the premiere, which has the QA afterwards, um those people get added to the credits. So the credits have to be adjusted anyway for the Zuray and DVD. So if we take that, like that's why I'm totally okay if we take that time and and bump up the in-home experience.

unknown 6:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Right? Uh, because it just makes the streaming and in-home experience even better.

unknown 6:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Uh yeah, it's not gonna fundamentally change the movie, but there are gonna be little things and and just little things that you know we can actually have the time to do right.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Right. Uh but it's crazy because it's just it's getting closer. It is. It's gonna be real soon. I mean, it's a it's a real boy now. We're gonna deliver the baby. But I'm I'm also like, I'm uh, you know, I I'm rehashing uh for those listening, you're hearing this for the first time, but Logan and I had this conversation earlier. You know, like going to MegaCon and uh bumping into people in the airport and telling them about the movie and telling them and showing them just the color correction of the teaser or trailer, and like it gets people excited. And uh dread alert media did a really nice piece for us and promoted it, like and that just made my heart happy.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah. I I mean and again, that's that's combining so many things from from both our history and and where we're going. Um I mean the fact that they, you know, really did touch on the the Arbor Day, you know, foundation connection where you know we are gonna be, you know, taking a dollar from each uh each viewing, each its physical media, and donating it to them to to plant a tree, you know. We don't have to do that, but you know, that that's one more piece of kind of the the the DNA of who we are and and what's gonna help distinguish us from everything we do uh from others.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Yeah. Uh well said. And I I think honestly, like I'm very curious to see what life will be like. Again, I don't know what it is, it doesn't bother me. It's a fucking cocaine. Uh because I have to look at this in the edit afterwards, yeah, and I'm like, what the f like at no point up from nine o'clock till eleven did my nose itch. We start recording, and I'm like, I feel like I have a cocaine problem.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Uh I'm very interested to see what life is going to be like on the other side of a finished movie like this. Yeah. You know, it's it's very weird to be. You know, this wasn't this isn't isn't like brown coats. We're like brown coats, we knew we had something good, but yeah, you know, we it was it was not as great as we wanted it to be because we didn't find Tamara until Worder, so like the the quality of the movie at Dragon Con wasn't even 95%. Yeah, you know. Um but we finished it and everybody loved it. You know, for me, what with this one I will be very interested to see with the level of quality that we have, with the level of polish that Tamara will bring to it, yeah, what the life of this movie has on the other side of release. Yeah, you know, like and if the interest in indication is an indication of how we'll do, like it's going to do pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah. And I mean, look, we didn't really have that. Not that we could have, um, but I mean, the only the the only digital legs brown coats has was the torrents back then. So it wasn't even like there was a streaming option or a world to really kind of look at then. So I I think that's where the difference for me comes in, and that like, you know, I remember seeing it for the first time in in public. I remember seeing it for the first time in a theater, you know, in an Alamo in in Virginia. Um like there's there's that release, so I'm looking forward to that again. But but yeah, there's the there's a whole new world of of digital longevity that uh is going to be really interesting to um to have and to kind of live with.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Well, not just that, but it's also you know, we want to do a limited theatrical run, right? Like we want to try to find a bunch of theaters that'll take this up. Uh, and then that'll be significantly easier with a trailer out in the world for people to see. Sure. Um but the ability for we've done the theatrical. Like the the thing about brown coats is that everything was either tied to a convention or wherever we could get like a charity showing. Right. Right. There, like, and it was laying the track, like laying the tracks down in front of the train as it was going 120. And this time, we don't have that like worry of we only have 365 days.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

You know, we have the ability to do a year from now an annual showing at Smotcastle. Sure. We have the ability to uh you know slowly take this out and do uh a 5.1 and then like we shot it in 8k. So like we could release a 4k version, we could release an 8k version, we could do uh like what was the the binary a binaural. Yeah. We could do the binaural recording version of all the ambient effects for like a steelbook release in a year. The the we were limited to a a window of time with brown coats. Like with this, we have like the rest of our lives of how many times we want to do this. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I'm fully aware, like movies like Evil Dead and stuff like that bombed at the movie theater, but came back to be called hits.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

And by no means am I under the delusion that we have the next like iron lung or undertone, but I think this could, you know, have legs for a long, long time.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah, it's absolutely got some legs.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Uh and this is where if you are a Patreon supporter, you'll hear something, but if you're not, you're gonna hear a jingle.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Hey podcast listener. If you're hearing this, you're only getting part of the story. Our Patreon members get exclusive early access to live recordings, bonus content, and the full unedited version of this podcast. Join us at patreon.com slash big damn films and be part of the big damn story.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

This is gonna be an abrupt version of Yeah, this will be a quick one. Yeah, we got too much shit to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

We got we got stuff to do. You know, we're gonna we're gonna finish a movie, we're gonna put it out, and then we'll come back and then we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

So Logan, I got a question for you. Uh how long would you like to play the Arborist?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

How long would I like to play the Arborist?

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Um the in-makeup character, not the non-makeup character.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

No, no, that's fine. And and I think we we did talk about this a little bit. The the non-makeup character, I actually I don't have any interest in playing. Um if we get to the point where we're doing that kind of backstory and stuff, I would much, much rather spend the um spend the money, spend the time, spend the producing effort finding somebody who can act and do it justice, quite frankly. Um so uh I'm I'm all for that. Um but as far as in character, um I think I'd like to do it at least once more, at a minimum. Um I'd like to I mean I'll you know, when when we were doing this to start, um I I certainly had my you know horror icons to kind of study and and see how they did things and right and kind of what made them unique. Um there were things I I tried to do that sort of worked, things I tried to do that didn't work at all as I see them on camera after the fact. So trying to uh I have some interest in trying to build the unique aspects of the character out more in a second one than I was able to in the time we had for the first one. Okay, um that's fair. So so I'm I'm interested in trying to do that. Um and then grading myself and seeing, you know, did I feel I was able to do it? Did the camera catch it? Um and as long as quite frankly, as long as I'm not detracting from where the character, where the franchise, where we can take things, um it was fun. I had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Good. Uh, because I definitely want to make a second one no matter what.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Um because it's it's kind of like, you know, as we all know, this was the stroke project and there was a lot going on. But we have a good behind the scenes team that I would like to do this again with a little bit better pre-production schedule. You know, and I know you and I already have a plan for what the second one's gonna be, oh yeah, and all that other fun stuff, but as we're getting closer to actually releasing this thing, um I'm very, very curious to see if there'll be interest for a second one.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Uh and if not, like we'll make one dressed for us and then that'll be fun.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, sure. Cool. I mean, look, even even the worst, even even the schlockiest movies have their very have their day, have their rabid fans, have the people who are like, you know what? I lost an hour of my life, but I still watched it. And that's all that ultimately matters in the end. Um, and you know, sometimes when the world is going a shit around you, um, it's it's good to watch it and go, well, could be worse.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

So here's the thing. For me, I just want to see one person cosplay the arborist.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

That would be fun.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

And that because like that was the joy for me during uh the browncoat days is that like I caught like one or two people cosplaying our characters, and then somebody cosplayed me at a browncoat spash that was uh see David Dent uh dressed as me for a costume contest.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Uh but yeah, like I I walking around Monster Mania and walking around uh Mega Con's little horror area, like I would love that that would be if we achieve anything besides paying everybody back and getting everybody paid, if we achieve having one person cosplay, uh the arborist. Yeah, that would be cool. So yeah. Uh all right.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Good deal.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Good deal. Anything you want to go over?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

No, we've got some some editing to do, and we've got some scores to coordinate, and we gotta finish a movie.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

We we literally have some scores to settle. We do have some scores to settle. The weirdest way of saying that. Uh I think that's a good wrap. Yeah. Uh, and with that, we'll do the the shortest episode probably of this year as we go down the line.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Uh probably of this year. Not of last year, but of this year.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Of this year. Um, and that's it for episode 26 of the Big Damn Podcast. And let's huge shout out to DJ Zafer, as always, who does our intro and outro music.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Absolutely. But before we wrap things up, uh huge big damn thank you to our amazing supporters at Patreon, who, as we said, literally keep our lights on. Uh, shout out to Amy and Bill at the Big Damn Hoodie Tier, Ashley Heather John, no, Ashley Heather John, read the comms, Logan. Lauren, Nicole, Samuel, and Steven at the Big Damn High Five tier. And of course, our free tier supporters, Taylor, Catherine, Scott, and Victoria.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Yes. Uh, when this comes out, it will be April 1st. This is not an April Fool's joke. You have 30, you have less than 30 days. It's 23 days to get your tickets to the premiere. Uh, go to Smodcastle Cinemas.com and grab your your tickets. Uh, if you don't go to the premiere, you're we're gonna have to find a way to get you to see it somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah. We'll we'll we'll figure that out and we'll tell you about it in a subsequent one, but you won't you won't have the inside scoop.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

The the and the funny thing is, is the next time this podcast comes out, we'll believe in the other side of the premiere. We will. And uh you can't come see it then. Sorry. It'd be too late. You're gonna room. You can't come to the premiere. You have to find another way to see it.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Get it now. And as always, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and um you'd better be the premiere.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Right. Uh thanks for listening. As always, keep telling your big damn stories and go to the fucking premiere.