E54 • Genre Blending: Creating a Hilarious Horror • David Joseph Craig & Brian Crano, dirs. of ‘I Don’t Understand You’ Now in Theaters following SXSW

Co-Directors David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano share their take on the unique blend of horror and comedy in their latest film, “I Don’t Understand You”, now in theaters following SXSW. Past films discussed include Eugene Levy’s 1992 crime-comedy “Once Upon a Crime”.

They share their personal experiences working with producing partners Joel and Nash Edgerton, what it’s like to film in Rome, Italy, and the importance of collaboration with an Italian crew. The conversation also touches on nostalgia for 90s films and the evolving landscape of cinema, emphasizing the need for originality and risk-taking in storytelling. 

David and Brian also discuss the dynamics of co-directing, the importance of collaboration in editing, and the need for authenticity and joy when creating films.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Past Present Feature, Hosted by Marcus Mizelle
• 0:20 Presented by Valerion Projectors
• 1:01 David Joseph Craig & Brian Crano, dirs. of ‘I Don’t Understand You’ Now in Theaters following SXSW

Transcript

Marcus Mizelle (01:02)
Co-directors David Joseph Craig and Brian Cranow share their take on the unique blend of horror and comedy in their latest film, I Don't Understand You, now in theaters following South by Southwest. Past films discussed include Eugene Levy's 1992 crime comedy, Once Upon a Crime. They share their personal experiences working with producing partners Joel and Nash Edgerton, what it's like to film in Rome,

and the importance of collaborating with an Italian The conversation also touches on nostalgia for 90s films and the evolving landscape of emphasizing the need for originality and risk taking in storytelling. David and Brian also discussed the dynamics of the importance of collaboration and editing, and the need for authenticity and joy when creating films.

Marcus Mizelle (01:43)
you worked on a movie called Boy Erased. my former production designed that movie. Chad Keith. Did you ever get to meet? You know, Chad?

David Craig (01:46)
Mm-hmm.

No way!

I love Chad.

Marcus Mizelle (01:53)
Yeah, I knew well if you knew him then I figured you would say something like that because everybody loves Chad. Yeah

David Craig (01:57)
Yeah, no, wonderful.

Marcus Mizelle (01:59)
I live with Chad in Wilmington, North Carolina.

David Craig (02:01)
No way.

fantastic. We had such a fun time on that film, even though it was a bummer of a movie, yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (02:09)
Yeah, I mean that was a good one though. So the Joel Edgerton connection,

David Craig (02:13)
did The Gift before that. ⁓ That was here in LA. But yeah, no, I think you were asking about that connection. But yeah, I started working with Joel. That's kind of how I got my way into the world of

Marcus Mizelle (02:15)
Mmm.

David Craig (02:30)
creativity in a way, was, you know, I acting before that and mutual friend connected Joel and I and I started working with him and I worked with him for about 10 years and that's sort of, that was my film school. That was how I learned how to make a movie. Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (02:45)
Nice. And I saw

Nash. So Joel Edgerton, Nash Edgerton, the brothers, they produced this film? Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when I see Nash's name, I always think about Spider, that short film. Insane.

David Craig (02:51)
They did.

⁓ have you seen all

Brian (02:55)
Yeah, it's so great. It's so

great.

David Craig (02:57)
of them? you, have you, yeah, if you, yeah, he had, after Spider was Bear, and then, and then I think maybe like five or six years ago, he did another one called Shark with Rose Boone. Yeah, no, he's fantastic. And he ended, he was our stunt choreographer, stunt director on our film as well.

Marcus Mizelle (02:59)
I don't think so, no.

yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw a bear.

Brian (03:06)
dark.

Marcus Mizelle (03:20)
I saw that in the credits. one more shout out to Chad Keith. Chad's the one that showed me Spider back in the day. That was that, hey Chad, how you doing? I don't know, it something about like, it was one of the first short films that I saw online where it's like, whoa, this is like, this is like bigger than what I thought a short film could be, you know? Yeah.

David Craig (03:26)
Nice. Hi, Chad.

Brian (03:26)
Awesome.

Yeah.

David Craig (03:38)
I think for

us too, like, I think before I even knew and started working with Joel, I knew of Nash's work and I think it really drew both Brian and I, I'll speak for myself, but drew me into comedic stunt work. think that is something that is, know, Nash has inspired me endlessly with like what you can do with stunts and how you can.

push them into a sort of comedy world, is ⁓ kind of what inspired us on a lot of our stunts as well.

Marcus Mizelle (04:06)
Mmm.

And that's what makes this film unique compared to anything I've interviewed about on this podcast so far. Yeah, which I should go ahead and say, I Don't Understand You is a horror comedy from 2024. Well, it's here now. But you guys premiered at South by Southwest World premiere? Yeah, okay. And then you did, what did you have after that? I forget, it was two.

Brian (04:25)
Yeah, that's right.

We did overlook

and frame line and that's it. One more.

Marcus Mizelle (04:36)
great. I enjoyed it. Thank you for sending me this greener, I love these movies where, and I've seen a lot of them recently where it seems like around the first, after like the first third or the midpoint, around the midpoint where they kind of, it shifts from like a genre A to genre B, you know, like it shifts from like a, I don't know how much you want to talk about or not talk about, but I just love.

Brian (04:55)
talk about anything.

Marcus Mizelle (04:56)
OK, I just love how I do. You it was like this this this escape, this escape to Italy, you know, like a romcom, light romcom. Then it just turns on into like a fucking murder, murder, murder, murder.

David Craig (05:07)
Yep.

Marcus Mizelle (05:10)
So, Brian, you are from East Lansing, Michigan,

David Craig (05:09)
Hahaha

Brian (05:15)
Yeah, I mean, I was born there and then we moved around basically every year until I went to UCLA when I was 16. And then I moved to London to do drama school over there. So multiple degrees in pretending different continents is the idea.

Marcus Mizelle (05:20)
Okay.

Nice, okay, yeah. How was UCLA? Yeah.

Brian (05:33)
it's the best. It's the best,

the greatest, coolest education, smart, interesting people. And unlike many theater schools here, they expose you to kind of world theater is the idea. So it's not, you're not just doing sort of Eugene O'Neill endlessly on a loop. You're you know, Japanese puppet theater and German and expressionistic dance. And you just sort of see that there's all of these different kinds of ways to tell a story. And that, that I think more than anything,

Marcus Mizelle (05:44)
Okay.

wow.

Brian (05:59)
while still doing all of your sort structural Aristotelian, you know, kind of breakdown of script kind of stuff. That place really made my brain work ⁓ for this job.

Marcus Mizelle (06:05)
Mm-hmm.

Nice.

You know, my kid is five years old. He's got some time, but he's already obsessed with filmmaking and everything filmmaking behind the scenes and all this. so being in LA, you know, it's like, where is he going to go? You just start kind of daydreaming. Where's he going to go to school? If he does go to film school. Wait, should he go to UCLA? Should he go to USC? Should he go to school of the arts, North Carolina? But it's so it's nice. September 19th, 2019.

Brian (06:18)
Awesome.

Yeah. Yeah.

David Craig (06:30)
What's his birthday? We have a five-year-old. Okay, we're

December 14th, 2019.

Marcus Mizelle (06:37)
Wow, what a crazy little pocket. mean, thankfully we got in right before COVID, And then was able to hang out with him during COVID.

Brian (06:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, for real.

David Craig (06:47)
We say the same thing. was literally like, at first we were like, shit, like we're in this with a little kid. And then we were like, had we not had COVID for a year and a half in our house, we wouldn't have seen our kid as much as we did. It was amazing.

Brian (06:47)
Yeah, that-

Marcus Mizelle (07:02)
Totally.

a blessing. Yeah. God, what the fuck? That happened. I about that. Okay. So, back to your movie. Okay, so how did you guys, let me just jump into this. Why this movie? Why did you guys have to make this movie? Let's talk about, I guess, the origin of how it came together and not too much into production, but kind of just the development and the beginnings of this film.

Brian (07:04)
Yeah, it was great. Yeah, that's crazy.

Well, the development was we had been through, you know, the first act of the movie is pretty accurate to our life experience in terms of like navigating an adoption process, which is not super simple. And we had been through an adoption scam before we matched with our birth mother. And neither of us really, like it was devastating in a way that of course on its face, it would be devastating. But the thing that was really interesting about it

Marcus Mizelle (07:36)
Mmm.

Brian (07:52)
for our house, and the movie's a comedy guys, so don't, know, like it's, this is gonna get funnier, I guess, is like we both dealt with it really differently, and like we're processing it really differently and really separately. And then we're like, okay, we have this, it's about to be our 10th anniversary, we had this trip planned already, like should we even do it, because we're in this kind of like weird place. And then we're like, yeah, fuck it, like let's do it. And then truly days before we were about to go.

Marcus Mizelle (07:55)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Brian (08:19)
we found out that we had matched with the new birth mom. The whole vibe was different. It was crazy and she was so great and so kind of like clear and resolute about what she wanted and that she wanted to do this with us. And it was.

David Craig (08:36)
We sort of,

we pitched it and then we got stuck in a ditch in the middle of early Italy. And the next day we called Joel Edgerton and sort of told him the story and he was like, mate, it's a horror film. And it was just off to the races then.

Marcus Mizelle (08:39)
Okay.

Brian (08:40)
Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (08:50)
ha ha, nice.

Brian (08:50)
Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (08:53)
⁓ interesting.

Brian (08:54)
And

what we didn't associate immediately, but then as soon as we started writing it, we were like, ⁓ this comes back to the feelings of how kind of broken open you are when you're expecting your first child and don't know anything about what's gonna happen. And you're so freaked out. You're like, I'm the lady in the woods with the flashlight about to get cut up. It had a sort of emotional resonance between a horror genre

Marcus Mizelle (09:04)
Hmm.

Mmm

Brian (09:18)
and our experiences, perspective parents. And then the other thing is we're just deeply silly people. And so once we started writing a quote horror film, we were like, well, it should have some jokes. we just kind of progressed from there.

Marcus Mizelle (09:21)
.

Yeah.

My

brain goes to two places. One is the autobiographical elements. It seems like is such a running thing with this, with films being successful, films being made today and the power of just using autobiographical, you know, things from real life to, you know, write what you know, I guess is one thing. And then the other thing about, you know, power of genre filmmaking too, right? Where you can like, where you shift to a horror genre and it's like, whoa, how much it opens up or how much more, you know, you can kind of do with that, how much freshness comes with that.

So, you I guess my question for you would be, whenever Joel made that suggestion ⁓ saying, you know, this is a horror film, mate, were you immediately like, yeah, this is great? Or were you like, wait a minute, I don't know. Like, how did you take that at first?

David Craig (10:08)
Yeah.

Brian (10:17)
I for me, I was a little reluctant about it at first just because I was like, it feels.

I guess I just hadn't wrapped my head around it. Like we were so in the middle, you know, we were like holding our baby and we were like so in that moment that it was like a little bit like, yeah, I guess you're right. Like it probably is. And he really encouraged us to do it. And I think, and I really thank him, you know, now because I don't think, I think if we had had the idea, we would have been like, yeah, that's funny. Like, let's write it down and maybe we'll get to it. But he kept, he kept pushing us to do it. And it was, it was such a useful.

Marcus Mizelle (10:27)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm. Mm.

Brian (10:55)
encouragement and then ended up being like a great way for us to actually kind of disassociate from what had happened to us personally through the characters and be able to like really talk about ourselves with the kind of a little bit of a safety ⁓ removed. So that was that was really great and and it ended up being this kind of amazing weird love letter to our son.

Marcus Mizelle (11:11)
I don't know. Hello?

I

think about my first feature back in North Carolina, wait, Chad actually, don't know. wait, seven. Hey, Chad, hey, Chad again. This episode's called Hey, Chad. ⁓ Chad, wow, that's good. ⁓ And so the initial script that I had written was like serious and like drama, it was like a drama, drama genre, whatever. And my friend was like, this is funny, dude. Thanks for sharing it with me. And I'm like, funny?

David Craig (11:26)
Chad.

Add GPT.

Brian (11:34)
He's fast.

Marcus Mizelle (11:48)
And then of course it's like, wait a minute, I guess it could be funny. And then it just, yeah, I just never, but I ask you that question of like, how did you respond when you first heard? This is a hard thing because yeah, I remember just being in that space of like, it took me a minute. And then it was like, damn, this is so much better for that, for, know, putting.

Brian (11:51)
Yeah.

David Craig (12:04)
Yeah,

I think that's sort of the key with a lot of, in the writing process is you are so personally connected to it that you're usually writing something from such a space of reality that like, that's what genre can help with, right? Is genre can always pull you out of it to exasperate it. We always say like,

Yeah, I mean, my personal favorite decade of film are 90s movies when when literally money was just being thrown at movies and you could do whatever you wanted with them and go wherever you wanted with them and people would watch them, right? Like you could literally just make a movie that is like, no 90s movies make sense.

Marcus Mizelle (12:38)
Ugh.

Mm-hmm.

rough.

David Craig (12:56)
because they are just like, they just fucking go for it. And that's just what excites me about filmmaking is like, you can just go for it with any sort of like kernel of an idea.

Marcus Mizelle (12:57)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Don't get me started on 90s movies, cause like even like all this shit up here, you know what mean? All these DVD, Blu-rays I still have up here where it's like mostly 90s. Let's talk about it.

David Craig (13:10)
⁓ I will get you.

Brian (13:11)
we'll do it.

Yeah.

David Craig (13:15)
I will get you started because that is

Brian (13:18)
Yeah, we'll

David Craig (13:19)
my space.

Brian (13:20)
clear our schedule to talk about

Marcus Mizelle (13:21)
Hahaha!

David Craig (13:22)
Let's watch them together. will geek out on 90s movies with you.

Marcus Mizelle (13:24)
Well, this could be a good

way to segue into a little bit of a past, you know, film thing. Like, what are some 90s movies? Let's talk about 90s movies for you. what, yeah, I mean, it's a fucking broad thing.

David Craig (13:29)
Yeah.

god.

Brian (13:34)
Okay, so.

David Craig (13:35)
I mean,

my all time favorite movie, I will literally make new fans of this movie throughout my life is Death Becomes Her. ⁓ Hard hit, yeah. Huh? The Mecha's. ⁓ But like, know, Die Hard, ⁓ True Lies, anything that, like anything that is like a,

Marcus Mizelle (13:42)
Oh wow, is it Levinson? Is it Barry Levinson? Fuck, Zemeckis, okay. Fucking Zemeckis. Zemeckis.

Brian (13:47)
Zemeckis, Zemeckis.

Marcus Mizelle (13:56)
Mmm.

I love true lies.

David Craig (14:03)
that is sort of a domestic, starts as a domestic movie that turns into a thriller or a genre movie was like right up my alley. And I think it's probably due to my tumultuous growing up that I like just wanted to see parents get into turmoil. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (14:12)
Mmm.

Okay,

interesting.

Brian (14:23)
For me,

a great one that is lesser known but should be because it's fantastic and actually was a reference for me for this movie a lot is a Eugene Levy comedy from 92 called Once Upon a Crime. And it's brilliant. It's John Candy and Jim Belushi and Cybill Shepherd and Richard Lewis and Giancarlo Giannini. And it's a Monte Carlo kind of like.

Marcus Mizelle (14:44)
⁓

Brian (14:51)
you know, couples like starts as a rom-com about like placing a lost dog with back with its owners and then turns into a murder mystery. And it's just so, it's just so joyfully silly, but the characters needs are all really, really high. And I think that that's like kind of the frame that we're always looking to, if you sort of sell out your characters for the comedy, which feels like what happened in kind of the last decade of comedy for us and like,

Marcus Mizelle (15:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Brian (15:20)
why there's a reluctance in studio to make big studio comedy now is like, you know, if it's just a premise comedy instead of like the characters really doing something emotional that an audience can relate to, I feel like it really flattens the genre out. And I think that that's where you're getting a lot of these sort of hybrids is if you're adding a genre element, it's just another way to kind of like introduce a real thematic.

Marcus Mizelle (15:24)
Yeah.

Totally.

Brian (15:49)
without alienating the audience.

Marcus Mizelle (15:51)
It's like comedy is serious business, really. I all these genres, like you have to at least like know the beats and to understand, you need to understand the genres before you try to at least move away from it. I mean, If you put the comedy first before the characters, know, what they need, you know, all the basic ingredients of a good story.

Brian (15:55)
Totally.

Marcus Mizelle (16:09)
then it won't work because comedy is not about laughs first. It's kind of ironic to say that actually. But it's like, in my opinion, it's more about the, you what is the concept of the gag or the gags in place? You know, the, how do you, the common gaps between, you know, say again? Right.

David Craig (16:10)
Mm.

Brian (16:20)
Yeah.

David Craig (16:20)
Well, cause it's not about jokes, right, Marcus? It's not about jokes. It's about, I think that

that's the, I think that's sometimes the error in comedy is the trying to, you know, land a joke rather than it just being circumstantial. you know, we have, I think we have two jokes in the movie, but the rest is all based on circumstance.

Marcus Mizelle (16:35)
Mm-hmm.

Right, yeah.

David Craig (16:44)
and human interaction.

Marcus Mizelle (16:45)
Yeah, Once upon a crime, Eugene Levy directed this. I've never seen this movie. I'm gonna watch it. This is the coolest thing about this podcast. I don't have any trouble finding stuff to watch now Yeah, with Leary? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian (16:50)
⁓ it's great. You'll love it. It's so silly. It's so fun.

David Craig (16:51)
It's amazing.

you remember the ref?

Brian (17:01)
Yeah, exactly, Dennis Leary, genius, genius movie.

But again, starts as a drama, family falling apart, divorce over Christmas, the extended family's gonna come over, are they gonna pretend that their marriage is still working? Some guy breaks into the house and now he's stuck with these fucking people. And it's like, it's such a simple, great setup.

Marcus Mizelle (17:09)
Mmm... Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Damn, it's got my wheels turning. What else from the 90s that was similar to that? You know what? My favorite movie of all time right now, it always changes. It's from 1995, I think. I didn't see it until four years ago. Le Hain, the French movie. It's like so, I mean, 95 is, it was 30 years ago and it plays like it's, my God.

David Craig (17:33)
wow.

Brian (17:35)
Yeah, genius. Beautiful.

David Craig (17:36)
⁓ yes!

Brian (17:45)
Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (17:45)
Can

we just go back? Just give me anything. The worst movie in the 90s is better than any movie right now. Maybe that's a fucking...

David Craig (17:48)
bridge.

Well, it's the truth. like we

used in the 90s, we could go to movies and laugh together. Now it's like, you know, it's either a Marvel movie or, you know, like truthfully, the last movie I walked into that I had the best time in the world was The Substance because the entire audience, even like, it wasn't, it's a body horror, but it was fucking funny. Like it was.

Marcus Mizelle (18:06)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Craig (18:13)
and funny.

Marcus Mizelle (18:14)
And it didn't care. Like these movies that don't care if like, they're not pandering to you. You know, it's like, they're just gonna, they have their own identities, you know, and they have their own confidence.

Brian (18:18)
Yeah.

David Craig (18:18)
Yeah.

Brian (18:22)
Well, the

challenge of it is, you know, like we're talking about this from a creative point of view, but it really is a financial conversation. Because if you're making these movies through a studio or through a development process, you have to be with people who will support risk taking. And the way that, you know, the sort of like commercial crunch of the business right now.

that is not encouraged. It is very difficult to make original, first of all, very difficult to make original films at all, but also to make original films that take those risks, even though those are the films that end up performing and connecting with an audience, but it's just, is so hard to get somebody who is constantly on the verge of being fired to take a risk and go up the chain to their boss and be like, yeah, this movie,

Marcus Mizelle (18:50)
Right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Brian (19:14)
about a weird thing deserves our 15 million, 20 million, 30 million bucks. And I get that, it's a lot of money and it's a lot of pressure to ask somebody for that amount of money. But those are the ways that connect.

Marcus Mizelle (19:19)
Yeah.

For sure. And I think, you know, obviously home video going away really affected it and pre-sales and foreign sales getting all wonky. I mean, it's like, cause like what, late eighties, early nineties until late 2010s, 2015s, was a pretty sweet spot, right? To be an independent filmmaker. And, and...

Brian (19:30)
Yeah, totally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I remember

my first agent at ICM, I would keep pitching these ideas and he's like, were born, go yell at your parents because you were born 10 years too late for the kind of stuff that you wanna make. And that really fucked with my brain for long time until honestly like Joel's encouragement, other mentors of ours encouragement and just David's encouragement being like, let's just write what we like.

Marcus Mizelle (19:54)
Yeah, yeah, same.

Nice.

Brian (20:09)
and

then prove it out. Like let's use this movie as a proof of concept that you can do these kinds of stories. And it's kind of worked. mean, it's been great.

Marcus Mizelle (20:19)
There is a way to succeed even if things change, times will change and they will change from now. And I guess the last little note I just wanted to say as far as, know, it is frustrating to have like the, you know, Netflix's of the world being like the, you know, the creators of their content and the exhibitors really, right? I there's no, there's like just a direct pipeline now. You can't really sell a movie in piece, like, you know, in piecemeal like you used to be able to, which then affects like how you can get an investor, you know, people to part their money because

Brian (20:23)
Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (20:47)
The money don't make no, the ROI numbers don't make any sense anymore, right? The saturation has it all out of whack. All that being said, wah, wah, wah, wah. You know, it's like the dark, yeah, the cloud, the dark cloud.

David Craig (20:56)
⁓ I'm glad you didn't ask me a question on that one. Thank you. Thank you for...

Brian (21:01)
Yeah, yeah,

we're gonna pass on taking a hatchet to Netflix as a way to preserve our, like we got a child in private school,

Marcus Mizelle (21:05)
There's, yeah, no, no, no. Look, Yeah,

think.

Brian (21:10)
I think the

one advantage I will say about those from a filmmaking perspective, the streamers offer you a really interesting safety net, which is eyes will be on your movie. And if you can take that pressure off yourself from the perspective of like, here we are, cameras are about to roll, is anybody ever gonna see this? If everybody knows what your distribution track is before you start, that is a real asset. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (21:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Totally.

Brian (21:37)
you know, and makes up for a lot of the other stuff. But I agree, I mean, you have to be reactive in this business to like where things are gonna be in five years. Because like we started making this movie five years ago and we weren't, know, in the middle of COVID when we were writing it, we're like, is there a film business anymore? Like, how do we make, you know, like, is this gonna work? So to find Jesse Burgum at Pinky Promise and Cara Durant who produced the movie with us,

Marcus Mizelle (21:50)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian (22:07)
who were such advocates of exactly the thing that we wanted to make. It was such a pleasure to go through that process with real allies. And so they're out there, you know what I mean? It's just like, it just...

Marcus Mizelle (22:08)
Nice.

Nice. Yeah, totally. It's not about

the dark clouds, it's about the silver lining. I am a cheeseball positive person after I bitch for a minute. We identify the problem and then what is the solution? What is the solution though? We're not going to be victims here. It's like, there's always a way to succeed. And I do like a good challenge too. but it's okay. So your movie, let's go back to your movie. So yeah. you pack packaging, I guess, can we talk about that? And like, you know, how, you kind of, how you packaged it, how it came together, how did you get your casting in place? How did the...

Brian (22:23)
Get it out. Yeah, let it out. Let it out.

David Craig (22:36)
Yes.

Marcus Mizelle (22:46)
you know, once your producers came on, yeah.

David Craig (22:48)
I mean, yeah,

I mean, the first thing that I realized that was really helpful and that was like getting a producer on the movie, right? Like, think that that is like having somebody who advocates for your movie who is not the creative lead is like, was like the number one. so like, we knew Kara personally for a very long time and she just like,

Marcus Mizelle (22:57)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

David Craig (23:13)
she bullied us into her producing the movie, which was necessary because, know, Brian comes from a very independent film background where like he's been burned quite a number of times. And so bringing on somebody like that is a very person, I'm speaking for him because he said this in the past, but but he's been burned many times. So bringing somebody on like that is a very personal thing to him. And

Marcus Mizelle (23:22)
Hmm. Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

David Craig (23:40)
And then we went into casting and honestly, you know, both for the movie's sake, both of our characters are queer characters and we got a list of talent that we could go out to and Andrew was literally the first person on both of our minds. you he came on instantly. And then while we were on, know,

Marcus Mizelle (23:58)
well.

David Craig (24:06)
talking to him about the movie, just like kind of like alley-ooped the idea of Nick because both Brian and I had heard a podcast recently, right before that, of Nick talking about, he had just recently become a parent as well. And he was talking about like how his experience with becoming a parent was so close to ours. And so we just kind of pitched the idea to Andrew.

Marcus Mizelle (24:13)
Mm-hmm.

David Craig (24:35)
And before we could even like reach out to Nick's reps, Andrew had sent him the script and by that following Monday, we had both of them on board. in a sort of like uncharacteristic way of independent film, had just been recently working with Jesse on a film together and she just sent it to her and she said yes.

Marcus Mizelle (24:43)
nice.

David Craig (24:57)
So we were kind of oddly off to the rake. We were off. This doesn't happen except for Joel Edgerton, where you just get your money right away. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (24:59)
Wonderful. ⁓ yeah. Nice, nice.

Brian (24:59)
It was really fast. Yeah, it was really fast.

Yeah. Yeah,

Marcus Mizelle (25:09)
Yeah.

Brian (25:09)
people fire hose money at Joel, is awesome, but also sort of warped David's idea about how independent films get put together. ⁓ But I will say as an advantage when you're saying like, hey, how would you like to go spend six months in Rome? Like people like prick up their ears a little bit easier. So, you know.

David Craig (25:16)
Yeah. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (25:16)
Oh, I see, I see, I see. So you've had a good first outing.

I assumed it would

be a fun shoot. Real quick before I forget, it's funny because actually, like a few weeks ago, I was at that taco spot in Los Villas beside the, the one beside the theater, the cinema. And this kid, yeah, and this kid bumps into my leg and I look up and I swear to God, it's Nick Kroll and his child. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember being like, somebody get their fucking kid out of my way. And it was literally Nick, it's funny. The child you speak of.

David Craig (25:37)
Which one?

Brian (25:41)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah, what was great is that.

David Craig (25:46)
No way.

Brian (25:53)
Yeah, it was great

actually because had our, know, Leah, his son was there and our son was there too. And then when we came back, they were in school together and like they're little best buds. So it's great and we get to like hang out all the time, which is a pleasure.

Marcus Mizelle (26:05)
Nice. That's so cool.

Amazing.

Having kids is the best. I love it. ⁓ So, okay. So that's great. So it came together nicely. No problems at all. It was just perfect. That's great. Yeah. No issues.

Brian (26:18)
Absolutely perfect. Definitely.

David Craig (26:19)
Absolutely perfect. Literally, literally,

literally zero errors.

Marcus Mizelle (26:24)
Wow, that's great. And

so that's, thanks for joining us everybody. That's how easy it is to make a movie. Yeah.

Brian (26:26)
No, yeah, making a film is super easy. Yeah, no, but I mean, you know, there are certainly challenges and a lot of stuff we had to learn in terms of, you know, when you're working here, you have all your people you rely on and all your favors that you can pull and, you know, that kind of stuff. And when you're making a movie over there, you have to really earn those relationships. And so that was different and learn how they do business. Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (26:50)
Shooting a... So you shot it in Rome, outside of Rome,

guess, the rural parts of Rome? Yeah, okay, because I couldn't tell. like, where are we at here? What was it like shooting over there? What are the crews like? What was your experience?

Brian (26:54)
Yeah.

yeah. The crew was

so fast. was so, they were so great. Everybody down to like the grips and the sort of like temporary guys had read the whole movie, which was so, which changed the entire workflow of the movie. Just that you didn't have to explain what was happening or why we needed something to happen. Everybody was in on the storytelling and that was like.

Marcus Mizelle (27:09)
Whoa.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Brian (27:22)
going forward, I think that for me was like the biggest takeaway is like before you hire somebody, make them read the movie and just go like, do you care about this? you be into it at five in the morning in the woods in the rain? Like if yes, please come, you know, if not, go away. they were so committed to it. They also loved that the movie is about kind of dumb Americans blundering their way through Italy. They related to that a lot. And, ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (27:29)
Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, that's funny.

Brian (27:47)
And we realized really quickly there were seven of us that we brought over and 150 Italians and we were like, we're making an Italian movie in English. So we better learn how they wanna do this and oblige them because that's gonna get us the farthest. that was a great, they really took to that because I guess a lot of the American crews that come over are like, this is how you make a movie and this is the schedule we're gonna do. And they're like, we have a proud, incredible

Marcus Mizelle (28:04)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ god. Yeah.

Brian (28:15)
cinematic history that is not to be denied. And yeah, so it was a wonderful experience.

Marcus Mizelle (28:17)
I mean, come on, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, just might, yeah. I mean, the Rome film industry. What is this big studio there that Scorsese shot, Gangs of New York at? is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. cool to just remember that Hollywood is not the end all be all. Like you got the Berlin scene and you got the Rome scene and all this deep history. used to grip for a while. That's how I got myself into the industry, out of Kinston, North Carolina and into the film world. And anyways, they would never, I mean, you...

Brian (28:29)
You're a cheetah.

Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (28:49)
I would try to read scripts if I could get them. You'd see sides and stuff, but that was, that's such a foreign idea to have a grip, read the script. But it would totally helped. It would totally help. I feel like, you know, it wouldn't hurt, that's for sure. It would totally incentivize. Like, what are we doing here? As opposed to, here's your floppy, you know, like.

Brian (28:59)
is incredible. Yeah.

David Craig (29:07)
Yeah, no,

they would show up to us and be like, how does this fit in? you know, you shoot out of order, but like, they'd be like, how does this part fit into this part? like, even like, like, like, props would be like, should the phone be plugged in in this scene here? Because shouldn't it be not like, and you're just like, right, we are a team. they really, they really work on films as a team, which is, which is incredible. And

Marcus Mizelle (29:16)
Hmm

David Craig (29:32)
And I think as long as you have humility towards that, it's a beautiful experience.

Marcus Mizelle (29:38)
Yeah. Is

there anything that's notably different between your experience at shooting in Rome and here in America? Mills? Better Mills?

David Craig (29:45)
Meals. Meals.

Brian (29:46)
Yeah, they

protect, well, that, but yeah, mealtimes incredibly.

David Craig (29:49)
Meal times. could have done quite a number of splits, split days, ⁓ but because of meal periods and meal times that they honor, we had to do all nights. ⁓ So, but.

Marcus Mizelle (29:52)
OK, OK.

Mm-mm. Mm.

Okay, got you.

David Craig (30:08)
You just, it's part of the culture. can't argue with it. It is. It is. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (30:12)
But also it's quite abusive here. it's fucking ridiculous. I mean, haven't been

Brian (30:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (30:16)
on a big, big film set in a minute because I don't do that type of work anymore, but I remember working 20 hours a night sometimes. It's like, is just, strap up, kid.

David Craig (30:22)
yeah.

Brian (30:26)
Well, also with a movie.

David Craig (30:27)
Overtime is very fun too, because basically, in Italy, because basically when you want overtime, they'll huddle together to decide whether or not they want to do the overtime. And then they come back to you, and they come back to you and they tell you yes or no. So they'll spend 15 minutes deciding whether or not they'll give you the overtime. And then even if they say no, they've just taken 15 minutes away.

Marcus Mizelle (30:41)
like that. That's cool. Yeah, yeah.

Brian (30:42)
It's very democratic.

Marcus Mizelle (30:54)
Oh

yeah yeah yeah. But they talked about it. There's no uh yeah. I mean because I used to always hate when it was like 14 or 15 hour mark and people were like we're going into golden you know golden time here whatever and it's like I don't want to work more. I don't need I just want to go home. I don't it's like money or time. Which one do want here?

David Craig (30:55)
Yeah, it's very funny.

I'm done today, I'm done.

Brian (31:07)
Yeah. Well, also,

you know, also like with a film like this where you're doing stunts at night and everybody's tired, you're like, we just shouldn't be shooting past a certain point, it's not safe. You know, and for the comedy stuff, like sure, you wanna let Andrew and Nick riff when they're like goofy and sleep deprived, that's fantastic.

Marcus Mizelle (31:15)
Mm.

⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brian (31:31)
But you're hitting a lady with a car, like no thanks, like I wanna get out. ⁓ Tons, yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (31:36)
Lot of stunts in this movie, lot of stunts. Yeah, I mean, it's

like, I didn't think of it that way until I saw Nash's credit at the end. I'm like, yeah, of course they had us, know, that stunt guy, like stunt guy. It was one thing, like it's crazy, it's crazy the pace that it picks up too, once it's like, as far as like when it turns into this kind of, a little bit of a genre shift, I guess you would say, right? And then it's like, you guys waste no time in giving us some like,

David Craig (31:50)
Thank God!

Brian (31:58)
Yeah, yeah.

David Craig (31:59)
Yes.

Yeah. I mean, why not, right? Like if we're going there, we might as well just like, just keep doing it.

Brian (32:05)
Yeah. Well, that's...

Marcus Mizelle (32:06)
shit.

Why not?

It's a series of kind of nightmares that can increase as it goes through, which is really good. I like the, my favorite scene is probably the, what's his fucking name? The son with the knife and he's trying to, in this communication error, you know, that's a funny gag. That was a funny gag where he's like, you're gonna be a dad, but he sounds like he's saying, you're gonna be dead. You know, it was good shit. And then the fucking mouth to mouth with the blood and all this. I was literally eating a breakfast burrito when I

Brian (32:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good.

David Craig (32:42)
Honestly,

Marcus Mizelle (32:42)
I had to stop.

David Craig (32:43)
that's

how everybody should watch our movie is eating a breakfast burrito while, whilst, whilst, whilst blood, blood gags are happening in front of them.

Marcus Mizelle (32:47)
From Jones on third with the salsa verde.

Brian (32:48)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

Marcus Mizelle (32:53)
Yeah.

Brian (32:53)
but what was hilarious too is like, you know, our Italian is pretty remedial and then you have like six very serious Italian men having an argument over a blood pump and you have no idea what the fuck they're talking about, but they're incredibly serious. then it's like, okay, okay, okay, here we go. And then it's like, they do it and it's perfect. And then they like argue again. mean, was like, it's the call, my family's Italian, so I'm I'm used to the sort of like culture of this.

Marcus Mizelle (32:57)
Mm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Brian (33:19)
of like a loving argument about something where we're all on the same page. But it was so funny to be like, wow, know, because essentially this job is like playing pretend for a lot of money, or with a lot of money. And like just the idea of like doing that with these incredibly serious technicians, which we needed for sure. But it was like, it was weird to be sort of removed from that process where, you know, you're giving them.

Marcus Mizelle (33:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

Brian (33:44)
some information of what you want and then they're executing it in a language you don't really speak. It was kind of great. Yeah, mean, like a lot of them speak really good English, but at least at the sort of department head level, but then the crews don't, not all of the crews did. And certainly when they're kind of trying to figure something out, they wouldn't do it in English for our benefit. know what I mean? So.

Marcus Mizelle (33:46)
Hmm.

Was there a translator involved? How did that work? Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, okay, yeah.

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Craig (34:06)
Yeah,

our first AD was essentially, our first AD and on essentially our translator. our Nunzia, who is our third lead, is the Luciana, spoke literally maybe three words in English. And so that was also an interesting thing is like speaking to actors who don't.

Marcus Mizelle (34:19)
Hmm.

David Craig (34:29)
who don't speak the same language and trying to convey what you are wanting out of them was a lot of gesturing. And so that, you and just to comment again, cause I don't think I like about the Italian cruise is they'll just do it, right? Like they will just figure it out. there's like, like for instance, like our special effects,

Marcus Mizelle (34:32)
⁓

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

David Craig (34:52)
ladies who worked on the movie, if something wasn't working, it wasn't like, who, which, which, who can I go to for this answer? They would just figure it out. And which, which is like how we like to work as, as filmmakers is like be the stupidest person in the room and learn from everybody else. And that's how everybody on this set worked. It was, it was great.

Marcus Mizelle (35:02)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Totally.

Honestly, my grip career really informs me lot as far as being a good key grip is like that. think you figure it out because nobody else is going to figure it out behind you type thing when it comes to, you know, like how do we rig this thing or how do we make this platform in the middle of the air or whatever, whatever it might

Okay. So what was like the hardest thing for during production you think? What was like the most challenging, the biggest challenge you had during production of this film?

David Craig (35:37)
Hmm. I would say, I would say Knights ⁓ and COVID. Brian, Brian, Brian, our first AD. Who else at the same time?

Brian (35:40)
Yeah, doing lots of nights.

bunch of us went down on like day 10. Yeah.

David Craig (35:53)
Yeah. Yeah. And

Marcus Mizelle (35:55)
no, COVID.

David Craig (35:56)
it was right when we were going to shoot our first nights in the woods with a rain rig, ⁓ a stunt and a car rig. And it was literally me. and zero service. So like, couldn't even do, I couldn't even send Brian any takes or anything while we were shooting.

Brian (36:05)
stance.

Marcus Mizelle (36:06)
God.

David Craig (36:20)
So for me, those three days were probably the hardest for me.

Marcus Mizelle (36:24)
That's

the scene too where the film kind of turns, right? Yeah, yeah.

Brian (36:27)
Yeah,

well, which was hilarious too, because like we got, know, the other thing is because there were two of us, sometimes we would split up. I would take like a stunt unit or he would or whatever. And so there was footage that because in the run of the show, we didn't have a lot of time to like review stuff back. So there was stuff in edit when we would like get back to America and started cutting the movie where I was like, I've never seen this. Like I didn't understand, I've never seen these scenes.

Marcus Mizelle (36:45)
Mm-hmm.

So wonderful, isn't it?

Brian (36:56)
And yeah,

it was cool. it was like, but it was like, was interesting because, know, you have to be so focused on what's in front of you, like what's on the monitor. And that's a really good lesson is to be in a trusting partnership like this where you can divide the labor and be like, those scenes are great and they turn out cool. It's not how I would have gone about it, but it works out better for the movie. And you realize like,

Marcus Mizelle (37:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Sure.

Brian (37:19)
those kinds of instincts are so good to, like, this job can be so much about control that sometimes letting go is actually really helpful. And like, you know, probably just made it funnier or something.

David Craig (37:28)
What would you have done different, Brian? What would you have done

Marcus Mizelle (37:28)
my god, yes.

It's so true. I mean when I switched to documentaries,

it was that that's the whole nutshell right there where it's like I don't have control over certain things. I love it too much control fuck shit up. I've had control and it's like I don't want I don't want you to watch those movies actually the end result. I'm like, please don't watch that but

David Craig (37:41)
Hmm.

Brian (37:42)
Right. Yeah.

David Craig (37:49)
Yeah, no,

truthfully, like that is the best part about filmmaking too is like, like I think that as a filmmaker, you get to lose control so many times because at the end of the day, like you will always get a chance to do something new with it. And it's like, that's what's so fun about this business is like.

Marcus Mizelle (38:05)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

David Craig (38:09)
Not only do you write it, not only do you direct it, not only do you edit it, but then it's out in the world and how it's interpreted is different than how you even edited it. think that that's what's, you

Marcus Mizelle (38:17)
my god, yeah, totally.

Co-directing, ⁓ my first feature I co-directed. hi, who's that?

David Craig (38:25)
Yeah,

we have a puppy who is unneutered as of today. He has been,

Brian (38:29)
I'm heat.

Marcus Mizelle (38:32)
been very good up until this point. Very

impressive. Good job. What's his name? His name. Animal.

David Craig (38:36)
His name is Animal

after the famous Muppets character.

Marcus Mizelle (38:41)
Nice. Animal, what's up? Co-directing, yeah. I remember I've done it twice, one for a feature, one for a short. It was cool, but after the second time, I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. And I guess it's all about the person you're doing it with too. But it was very effective on that first feature where we would, yeah, divvy up duties. And I was mostly with like the actors. I would do the, you know, directing the actors thing. And then Troy would, would do most of the technical, like wherever you're to put the camera.

how are you know talking to the dp more more so but yeah, I guess there any challenges to? Co-directing with one another or maybe the better question would be I don't know. What is like a What do you what's a quirk that you guys share when you guys work together?

Brian (39:23)
I mean, you know, there's a real advantage to being married to someone for 15 years before you do this thing. So it's like our taste level and like there's

Marcus Mizelle (39:29)
Okay, yeah, yeah,

David Craig (39:34)
Argus, what we're saying

is, is marry Troy.

Brian (39:37)
Yeah, yeah, it's ⁓ time to put a ring on it. ⁓ No, but you know, like when you have that level of trust built in, it's not like you ever feel kind of pressure to be smart or good or cool or look smart or good at girls. You know, you're like, it just is about like kind of making the other one laugh or, you know, like pitching an idea that they like. And in this,

Marcus Mizelle (39:37)
Ugh, fuck, I knew it. I've been procrastinating.

Okay. Yeah.

Brian (40:04)
In this case, it was very helpful because, you know, it's such a hard job. It's like to be able to be like, you know, week four of nights and be like, babe, I don't have a great idea right now. I need you to take the next 20 minutes. Like, and just being able to offload that was so helpful because again, it's like, can't, you know, nobody bats a thousand and like sometimes your idea for a scene is not working and you just need to be like,

Marcus Mizelle (40:11)
you

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Brian (40:32)
do it, I don't know. And that was really great. And I find like our taste level is so known to each other and so similar that there was never a kind of like big argument about what we were trying to accomplish, because we were trying to accomplish the same movie. And that would be my advice for anybody like working on anything, whether you're co-directing or not, is just like, all be making the same movie.

Marcus Mizelle (40:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Got you, yeah.

⁓ Yeah.

Brian (41:00)
you know, just be

heading in the same direction and then you're kind of safe.

Marcus Mizelle (41:06)
Which is a good lead way into like post-production editing because, you know, working with an editor, it's a beautiful thing. I love this process, but also like it's fucking so difficult, especially with the doc stuff. It's more, the volume is crazy. the collaboration with the editor and your editors where it's like, maybe it's similar to co-directing where, you you want to hear and be heard, right? And you want the best idea to win and, you know, what does that look like and how does that?

Brian (41:13)
Mm-hmm.

David Craig (41:27)
⁓

Marcus Mizelle (41:30)
How does that play out? And I just love an editor who, and I believe different editors are good for different projects, right? But I think a good editor is somebody who is not a yes person, of course, stands by what they believe in. But also it's coming from a place of where you're trying to tap into with understanding the themes and understanding what you're trying to get at

As far as your editor on this project, what did that process look like? What was post-production like for you? Putting the film together?

David Craig (41:56)
I mean, Nancy Richardson is just, she's a master and I completely agree with you. You don't want, you do not want a yes person to just be like, to taking all of your ideas and just, know, piling them all together. We walked into a rough cut that was already a movie and...

that was just such a relief because then we could just play. we, I think she was such a perfect fit to this film because we work in such a way where we'll have big ideas and then we would put all the notes down. We would go off and have lunch. And by the time we came back, she had implemented those notes into three different kind of cuts that we could then.

Marcus Mizelle (42:23)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

David Craig (42:47)
put into the movie and figure out. And that's, that was what worked so well on this project was because I think specifically because once we hit a certain element, like you said, in that genre shift of the movie, we can't go back, right? Like so many movies, you could take the middle and put it up top and you can take the, you know, the ass end of the movie and put it in the middle and you're always rearranging scenes where for us, we kind of put ourselves in a corner of like, like,

Marcus Mizelle (43:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

David Craig (43:15)
once we hit a certain point in the plot, we really can't go back from it, right? We can't reorder this movie very much. And so it was really wonderful to work with somebody who was such an excellent technician at scene work, because then we could just really take scene by scene and manicure it to its fullest potential.

Marcus Mizelle (43:19)
Right.

David Craig (43:37)
she stuck by things that she really knew were supposed to be in this movie. Cause like, you you always get the, shorten down the top of the movie so that you can get to the thing. Guys, guys, guys, we have two dogs, sorry. ⁓ So you can get to it. And she was like, no, if you don't have

Marcus Mizelle (43:50)
animal and friend.

David Craig (43:57)
She was an ally with us the entire time that if you don't have their relationship at the top of the movie, then you will not forgive them for the things that they have done. Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (44:08)
You've got to plant the seeds, can't rush through it. Yeah, and expect some,

Brian (44:10)
Yeah,

Marcus Mizelle (44:11)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian (44:11)
well, and it was a great, think working with us was an interesting learning opportunity for her as well because like our, we come out of this much more independent side where we are very experimental in the cut. I like to work from bad ideas. Like what's the worst thing we could do right now? You never know and that gives you a place to start and it can only get better.

Marcus Mizelle (44:26)
Nice.

Because you never know.

Brian (44:34)
You know, I think Nancy at first was like, you wanna do what? And then after a while it was like, ⁓ no, we see this as very iterative. And we knew that we didn't have like a studio breathing down our neck to be like, where's the guy? You know, sort of like, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And so it was a great experience. I think, know, she cut Stand of the Liver, Twilight, ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (44:49)
Yeah, which is a huge asset, right, to have, to not have to deal with.

I'm looking at it right now.

She did a movie that I worked on as a grip. The last song, Miley Cyrus movie. ⁓

Brian (45:01)
Yeah.

yeah. Yeah, I mean,

she is just an absolute assassin and was so cool and such a great person to work with.

Marcus Mizelle (45:13)
Did you already know you were gonna go with her? Was she a friend already or what?

Brian (45:17)
No,

it was a recommendation of one of our executive producers who had had her recut some movies at a studio and was like, he was like very much like, guys do whatever you wanna do, I wanna support you, et cetera, cetera, throughout the whole process. And then we got to the editor and he's like, you will hire Nancy Richardson. And it was like such a, it was such a like hard.

Marcus Mizelle (45:20)
Okay.

Brian (45:42)
know, endorsement that we were like, great, let's meet. I'm very happy when somebody like plants a flag like that.

Marcus Mizelle (45:48)
Yeah, I made the huge mistake of editing my first few films You know, I had no money, but you know, I'm not gonna beat myself up too much These were micro budget films, but at the same time it's like I would never do that again I mean I edit my stuff but like bringing on someone to give that freshness

David Craig (45:51)
Mmm.

Brian (46:01)
Yeah, it's hard.

David Craig (46:04)
Yeah, think

I truly like we're collaborative beings, Brian and I that like, I always say like, pick the route you want to do for that project, but like have other voices, have other people like, I think that's something I learned from from the get go, which was the best film school knowledge ever is best idea wins no matter who has the idea. And never like,

Marcus Mizelle (46:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

David Craig (46:31)
making a movie is a long road. And if it's just your voice, you don't have every good day, right? And so it's of service to use everybody's voice in the making of the movie, because nobody's coming on to making a movie wanting to fuck up the movie, right? Nobody's there going, how can I make this the worst movie possible? Everybody's there with their name on it trying to make it.

Marcus Mizelle (46:40)
No. Yeah.

Right, yeah.

David Craig (46:57)
the best that it can be. So why not use them? So yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (46:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

What about test screens? You guys do a lot of that or how does that go for you? Yeah.

David Craig (47:03)
We did Friends and Families, but we

didn't do any formal testing before we premiered it. Yeah.

Brian (47:14)
But I will

Marcus Mizelle (47:14)
Friends and

Brian (47:14)
say...

Marcus Mizelle (47:14)
family is a nice little kind of a pre-card. I'm sure you still ask them what they thought and maybe all those questions.

Brian (47:19)
Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, we

love notes. I think that that always surprises people. Like a lot of people, feel like lot of directors are like, yeah, we love notes. And then you hire them and then they're like, fuck your notes, I hate you. I never want to hear it from you again. Yeah, we have no kind of dignity about that stuff at all and have cultivated an incredible group of people who will tell us the truth, which is the other really important thing in that process.

Marcus Mizelle (47:30)
My ego hurts now. I don't want it.

Yeah, yeah, Yep,

definitely.

Brian (47:48)
And so we have, you know, we definitely have a bunch of ringers who come in and help us out. ⁓

David Craig (47:54)
I also wonder

if because it was such a personal story to us that because we had so much like, we had so much connectivity to it that even if we got a note that needed to a major change, we still had the story that was ours, right? Like we had our own discovery with it that now it can be anybody else's and we just allowed that to happen, I think.

Marcus Mizelle (48:05)
Mm.

Right, yeah, it's still there, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I just brought on, I did this for the first time, but it was a suggestion by a documentary friend. had my, know, figured out my two hour version of my documentary. I've been following this private investigator around and it's a comedy too. It's real life, it's great. But it wasn't quite there. It was like, this isn't good enough. Like, what can I do? And my friend was like, you should bring on the story consultant. She saved my ass so many times.

Brian (48:29)
Cool.

Marcus Mizelle (48:40)
And I brought her on and she, you know, she, I'd never done it before. She watched the film and then gave notes, time-coded notes, just in like ideas of like, you should maybe switch these scenes around or cut this or you're being redundant here. Why are you telling me this again? Et cetera, et cetera. Like, and it made the movie so much better, you know? So was a very specific way a new take that I'd never done where like, you're a story consultant. was huge, you know?

Brian (48:55)
Yeah.

David Craig (48:55)
Ha

Brian (49:01)
Yeah.

David Craig (49:02)
I love that. Like, I love hearing that, because it really does... There is always a rejuvenation, like in saying, like, your movie isn't done until somebody says you have to lock picture. It's like, why not? Like, as they're a trusted person in your own brain, like, why not bring somebody else's voice on? Why not see what somebody else says? Because unless you're just making this for your own viewing.

Marcus Mizelle (49:17)
Yep. Yep.

David Craig (49:26)
Like, why not get multiple voices and multiple views on how many people this can affect and what they have? You can take or leave their note, but like...

Marcus Mizelle (49:35)
Exactly.

Yeah, it's like what is the best and then when you hear the same note more than once that's when you do that's when you should perk up I feel like too. It's like wait a minute. Okay. Yeah, should maybe do this with that Yeah, yeah and also it's this battle between wanting to be done with the film because you're exhausted and Versus like what is is the film ready or not? You know, like we can is this as good as it can be?

David Craig (49:42)
Yeah

Brian (49:55)
⁓

would, given the opportunity, I'd still be, I'd be Michael Manning this shit forever. Like I will cut, I will cut and cut and cut and cut and cut for as long as anybody allows.

Marcus Mizelle (50:02)
Yeah.

It's a great way to be, because you can't

put it back in once you put it out. You can't put the shit back in. And I learned that lesson.

Brian (50:11)
Yeah, yeah, and I

mean, not in a precious way, but in a way of going like, is there, know, can you make it clearer? Can you make it more refined? And like you're saying, like we would get some very straightforward, clear notes and you'd be like, yeah, it's interesting. Like, let's just try it and maybe it's better. So I don't know.

Marcus Mizelle (50:28)
Fun fact,

Michael Mann was in my waiting room when my kid was being born.

Brian (50:32)
Wow.

David Craig (50:33)
He was in your what?

Marcus Mizelle (50:34)
The waiting room, Cedar Sinai waiting room. My dad was talking to him. He gave him my business card. God. I never heard from him. God. Okay. Last few questions. Thank you all for doing this. So Joel and Nash connection. How did you guys meet? How did y'all connect?

David Craig (50:37)
Wow.

Brian (50:40)
Of course, of course, your parents are the best agents, of course.

David Craig (50:43)
Peace.

Hahaha!

I met Joel, I was, you know, I think I mentioned earlier, I was acting and I was talking to one of Brian and I's mutual friends, Mary Yoon, works at Vertigo now. And I was just saying how much I wanted, I never went to film school.

but I had a real interest in film and how it worked. And I didn't even know what like a first AD was at the time. Like I knew that they told me what to do on set, but like, you know, and she was like, these two brothers who just made a movie, a very successful movie in Australia, Animal Kingdom, are working their way into the States. You should meet with Joel.

Marcus Mizelle (51:20)
Yeah, yeah.

Mmm.

David Craig (51:38)
and he just needed an assistant at the time. And I went and met with him and two weeks later, three weeks later, we were shooting previews for The Gift. And then that movie got made like two or three years later and we were just like, it was just, was, I feel like in a similar way to Italian filmmaking, they made work the same way where you just do it.

Marcus Mizelle (51:47)
well.

Interesting.

David Craig (51:59)
You don't think

about it. don't overanalyze how the process works and who you need to do this particular thing. just like, somebody wants to see a proof of concept for this movie. Let's shoot it in our kitchen two days later. And we were literally shooting with Chris Pratt in Joel's kitchen in his rental apartment three weeks later, ⁓ previews for the gift.

Marcus Mizelle (52:02)
Right.

Nothing to lose, just a proof of concept.

It's like you put too much gloss on something anyways, tip to your your pins and needles and it's like that affects the movie. It's like, let just be like even these documentaries like the best scenes are the ones that I had to shoot on an iPhone. But it was so freeing because we could put the camera in certain place. There was just they were able to be more even so themselves, you know? And anyways, yeah, it's just, guess, you know, it's just all about just doing it and not thinking about doing it so much because the anticipation will fuck you up.

David Craig (52:35)
Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (52:50)
It's like going before you go exercise, you if you think about it too much, you might negotiate with yourself out of exercising. I might just do half my workout today, because I'm tired, as opposed to just do it.

Brian (52:55)
You

David Craig (52:59)
Well, it's

how film started, right? Like you didn't, like, I love our managers and I love our agents, but we didn't, like when early film was being made, there weren't people in the middle, there weren't lawyers, there weren't people, you know, showing you how the different parts of the business worked. You just made movies, right? Which like, I think in this, like we need our representation, we need the people who are behind us.

You know, but like in a creative aspect, it's like, yeah, just make the movie. Like just do it. Just do the thing.

Brian (53:29)
Well,

I think that that's where our love for this comes from is like making movies with your friends in high school or something and like just getting a little shitty camera and like shooting whatever you make. And that is such an immediate process. And then the bigger and bigger the budgets get of the things that you're making, the more time it takes and the more talking there is and so forth.

Marcus Mizelle (53:35)
Mm-hmm.

David Craig (53:49)
I think some of our favorite things that we would do on set were just like fun takes with the guys, right? It's like, this is what it is about is like, is something that we've been working on for five years. There's gotta be moments and fun in it, you know? Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (53:55)
my god.

⁓ Five years. Five years

is, mean, half a decade and like I'm four years almost in on this thing and it's like, man, I need to stop telling myself this, but this one's gotta be good. Cause you know, it takes this long, but then it's like, you know what, what am I worried about? It is good and I like it, you know, and it is good. And it's like, you know, but making sure it's done too. And I'm to the point now where like we're almost there, but I'm now I'm like tweaking and dusting off the edges and all this stuff. But.

David Craig (54:21)
Yeah.

Wait to see it.

Do we

have a title yet or no? Nice.

Marcus Mizelle (54:34)
It's called LAPI.

Yeah, yeah, and it's about this aging 65-year-old PI who is stuck in the past as one good detective character should be. And he has this protégé that's 28 years old that also lives with him. I would love, you guys might actually dig this. I'd love to share it with you when it's ready. It's like this protégé mentor story, and then they're trying to solve the case of who killed the mentor's mentor.

David Craig (54:44)
love that.

Brian (54:53)
Yeah, please do.

David Craig (54:54)
Please.

⁓ that's great.

Brian (55:02)
Wow, great.

Marcus Mizelle (55:03)
who was a fucking huge

PI named Fred Otash back in the day that nobody knows about, but they based Chinatown off of and all that. apparently he died of a heart. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

David Craig (55:07)
That's great.

Brian (55:10)
wow.

David Craig (55:11)
Marcus, should, okay,

I have a documentary that you need to direct, which is, I was watching this Dateline, my favorite television show, where it was literally about, like, it was one of the typical Datelines where it's about, you know, a girl is dead, they're suspecting the boyfriend, then there's this mother who,

Marcus Mizelle (55:18)
Okay.

Yeah.

David Craig (55:35)
it's a cold case, like her daughter's killer hasn't been found for 15 years. All of a sudden, smash cut in the middle of the episode, this woman out of nowhere sees the mother on television talking about this cold case, talking about how her daughter's crime still hasn't been solved and that she thinks it's the boyfriend. This woman,

goes and befriends the boyfriend, then gets into a sexual relationship with this boyfriend all because she found out she had a real inspiration seeing this mother's story. She gets in deep into where she starts to discover all of this stuff about this guy, and then she disappears.

Marcus Mizelle (56:25)
Mm-hmm.

Whoa. Ooh, that's nice. OK. ⁓

Brian (56:32)
David

only likes to pitch stuff that we don't have the rights to. That's his classic move in a pitch meeting. We'll be like, you know what I'd like to make? Space camp. And you're like, great. Do you control the material? We do not. Yeah.

David Craig (56:36)
Yes, yes, yes, that is.

Marcus Mizelle (56:42)
Hahaha

David Craig (56:42)
HAHAHAHA

Marcus Mizelle (56:45)
⁓ god, that's funny. That's funny though.

David Craig (56:47)
But why not pitch

the stuff you can't make because then you can just do whatever you want with it because if you don't have the rights to it, then you're not really pitching it.

Marcus Mizelle (56:50)
Yeah, maybe with the documentary stuff, you could just fair

Brian (56:51)
That's true.

Marcus Mizelle (56:54)
use it, just hire Donaldson and Califf and pay them fucking 30,000 for a fair use letter. ⁓

David Craig (56:56)
Anyways, Marcus, will find

all of the... I am a true crime fanatic.

Marcus Mizelle (57:02)
I think the characters in this piece, we'll wrap it up here, but my shit came out funny and I wasn't like sure it was gonna be at first, but that's the best thing about it. That's what you want. Your characters are the stars as opposed to the plot or something. They're hilarious. They bicker back and forth. They're like fucking odd couple. Okay, round on the corner, last two questions. One, so distribution. Film festivals, South by Southwest, you already did that. And then you got vertical, right? Vertical is representing

And so how did that come on, how did they come on board? How did that work out?

Brian (57:34)
They just loved the movie. I mean, they saw it at South By and pursued it and were just very like passionate about it. And it was important to David and I to have, well, more David than me, but definitely David, to have a theatrical because of the way that the movie works on audiences and like just our kind of taste. And ⁓ they were committed to that also. So it ended up just being a good match.

Marcus Mizelle (57:53)
Mm.

Amazing. So they've been good to work with. Nice, nice. Okay, final question for both of you guys. you tell your early filmmaking self if you could go back in time what would you say? What would you do? Would it be anything?

Brian (58:01)
Yeah, totally.

David Craig (58:13)
Do it sooner.

I don't know. I think in how we were talking earlier, like, I think get out of your own way and just play is literally what I probably, know, nothing is too precious. I think also I would tell myself, like, it is more than just you. And once you have an idea, a kernel of an idea, there will be 150 people who will help you make that idea.

Marcus Mizelle (58:22)
Hmm.

David Craig (58:42)
and it'll be everybody's process. And that filmmaking isn't just directing and writing, it's gripping, it's ⁓ electrical, it's everybody, know, work like the Italians do and everybody is a part of the project. It's everybody's project.

Brian (58:59)
I would tell myself, you know, be like more aware that it's all a game. You know what I mean? Like that it's not, that nothing is personal, that nothing, you know, just make things joyfully and don't ever be kind of, don't ever feel like confined by.

Marcus Mizelle (59:05)
Mmm. Mmm.

Brian (59:15)
by what the industry is doing and just do what you like. My older self never feels like we're in competition with anybody. Nobody else does what we do. Even when we're pitching on jobs that are competitive. It's like there is nobody who can do what we do and we can't do what anybody else can do. You know what I mean? So it's like whatever is happening in the business or in the world, it's like just be the best version of your, do the best version of your own stuff.

Marcus Mizelle (59:21)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Brian (59:40)
And that is like the best currency is to be like authentically in your own vision.