Indie Filmmakers get the truth from Clay Epstein - PART 2

Clay Epstein drops distributor secrets every young filmmaker must hear on Part 2 of The Film Hustlers Podcast — The budget sweet spot, making a commercial calling card. The added value you need for indie success, and the new Nancy Joan Epstein CSUN “New Voices” scholarship. Hit play if you dare. 🎬🔥

#FilmHustler #IndieFilm #Filmmaking #FilmDistribution #FilmSchool #FilmTips #NewVoices #FilmModeEnt

Transcript

Mark Roberts 0:00

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Film Hustler. Boom! My name is Mark Roberts. I'm a filmmaker, have been for a lot of years. We got a filmmaker over here, Rod Tootty Ranks, makes movies, creates verticals, does it all, and then David Dave. Poke your head in, David.

Rod Rinks 0:16

David Dave on the ones and two.

Mark Roberts 0:17

David Dave right there. Also uh guest back there. And then we have Clay Epstein, distributor, extraordinaire. He's been doing it for how many years now, Clay?

Clay Epstein 0:32

Uh stop and think there for a minute. Graduated film school in 99 and went to work right after.

Mark Roberts 0:38

Okay, that's awesome. So now that I have you all worked up, let's talk about this. If you're if you're a young filmmaker the way we were at one point, think about yourself before you were before you were as tainted as you are now. So I have to go back that further. Just go back, go back 30 years and think about you're a young filmmaker living today. Like, what is the most important sort of first step? Let's say you do go out and raise money from you know people that believe in you and you get yourself $100,000. What is what what what would you advise someone to do so that they can either find find their their superpower in that and also find like get eyes on it, be like, oh, that's interesting. That's you know, like get people to notice what you're doing. Like, is it a genre? Is it editing? Is it all of it?

Speaker 2 1:31

Well, you know, the reason I got into distribution and marketing and and more executive producing space is because I don't I don't think I had the talent. I don't think I I mean talent has to be uh born talent, and then you if you have that born talent, you work hard to then hone the talent. But I do believe in born talent. I I do believe someone athletes, whatever, any anything in the world, math, you have to be born with this ability that then you build upon and you hone and become an expert. You know, I wanted to be a filmmaker, I did have stories and ideas that I had wanted that I wanted to tell or I felt I had to tell. But I don't think I had the the that that raw talent you're born with to be a filmmaker. I didn't have the patience, I didn't have that natural ability to have something in my head and get it out on on the screen. You know, I was very I just was didn't have that natural ability that some filmmakers just naturally have. Um but I went through the process to try. And luckily I came to the conclusion that I did find another area in the industry that that has afforded me the capability to still be creative, to be collaborative, to make films, but to work with other people that are more talented than I am in the areas where I don't have as much talent, right?

Mark Roberts 2:58

Yeah, and you've done really well, and I know a lot of filmmakers that respect you and appreciate what you're doing.

Speaker 2 3:02

But if I had to go back and have that talk with the 20-year-old with the 20-year-old Clay, God help him. He was working for you, Roberts.

Rod Rinks 3:15

I know that, I know. You would throw the keys at him here. Before you fired my ass.

Speaker 2 3:21

We had great talks. We had a great talk. Because they'll fired my ass. I think the the the young filmmakers that have this ability to make something commercial, commercially driven, as their first calling card. That it's not a drama, that it's not a little quirky comedy with no one in it about characters people can't relate to, that it's not so insular from their world, right? Everyone tells them again is the narrative, write what you know, make what you know, stick to what you know. You can argue that. You can argue that that's the right thing to do at all times. When you're writing a script, you need to put things in there that you know. But if I again, if I had to go have that conversation with myself at 20 years old, I would probably say, you know what? Wait till you're successful to go do that comedy or to go do that quirky, whimsical fantasy film that you want to do. Right now, go make five minutes of a little action sequence, or make you know, five minutes or ten minutes of a thriller or a mystery or something really show show the world you know how to build suspense and you know how to set up a scene and you know how to create a little action sequence. That's gonna really strike people's interest. That's gonna show the world that you can handle commerciality and bring some a fresh perspective on it. And freshly, I was at my uh my university showcase last night. I wanted to go back and and and see some of the senior theses and a lot of talent in that room. I was very impressed. I really was. But there was there was one film, and now I'm talking about it openly, I suppose. Um, you have listeners on this podcast? Yes, we got a lot. Millions. No, I was very, I was very impressed. I was very proud of this one, of all of them, but this one filmmaker in particular um that had talent. He just had the fucking talent.

Rod Rinks 5:19

Did you sign him right there?

Speaker 2 5:20

I don't want to track boom. He you could tell he had the talent. He was able, you could tell that he had a vision in his head, and he got it out, and when he got out on screen, it it worked. Yeah, it wasn't there weren't it wasn't inconsistent, it wasn't totally inconsistent. It worked, he had the camera movement working, and it was it was comedy, but it was really funny, and it was visual and with language, yeah, and it was relatable. And anyone seeing that, that to me looks that to me, I'm sure there's gonna be a good calling card for him, maybe to get some representation, yeah, maybe to get an opportunity to write a script because that was true representation of what he's capable of, right? These are undergrad films that probably cost 30 grand or you know, 30, 40 grand. Shorts in 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah.

Mark Roberts 6:15

Shorts, shorts do a lot. Now, now, as we're talking about today's world, everything that goes on Instagram is sort of a short, right? And it's not cinematic all the time, but there's uh there's your ability to like for instance, we you know what we talk about all the time on the show, and we talk about at home all the time is uh the coffee shop thing. Brooklyn coffee shop. Brooklyn coffee shop, extremely well written, remarkable value. In fact, in fact, I would say that the best thing about it, like if there was a measure, it would be like 90% is the writing and the delivery of those lines. Um, and it's a great show, and it's there's only two shots the shot this way and the shot this way, and that's all it is. Talent. Would you say that's talent? Yeah, it's 100% talent. Talent execution.

Speaker 2 6:59

I had a film years ago, I was executive producing a film, and it was a new filmmaker out of film school. I think, I think he'd I think it was a grad grad school, I think, if I remember correctly. But he'd gone out of he'd come out of grad uh film school and they gave him a shot, the production company gave him a shot, and he had a manager that was helping him out, and they go off and make this film with some, and that's some cast in it. I can't remember if I saw dailies or not. I can't remember. I was trying to remember, but he sent me a they sent me a you know an assembly that was unwatchable. Wow, I was not watchable. I remember calling the producers, I said, I said, I'm just you know, I have a responsibility, a fiduciary responsibility to you as your sales agent and executive producer. This film is not it's not watchable. Um if you take it, if you continue down this path and you finish the film in this version, we won't be able to sell it anywhere because there's no there's there's no cohesiveness, the story's all over the place. It looks like a like a student film.

Mark Roberts 7:59

Jesus Clay, I'm starting to sweat over here.

Speaker 2 8:02

I know. So I said, so I said, and again, but you have to be honest with you, you know.

Mark Roberts 8:08

You do, yeah, you do.

Speaker 2 8:11

So so the producers were smart and you know they had this money on the line and they didn't want to. They said, okay, what do you sus what do you suggest? I said, I think you need to you need to bring on an editor. I think maybe you want to give that editor one more chance, but I don't think this version shows that the editor is capable even of putting something together. Right? They don't have the experience to do it. I was an inexperienced editor, inexperienced director. So I said, I think you need to hire an experienced editor to take because I think the footage is there, but you need someone who really knows what they're doing to put it all together. So I I worked with them to bring on a new editor and they took it down to scratch, and um we worked on it, and I gave them ideas and we talked about different ways to approach this because while the footage was there, there wasn't an enormous amount of coverage. So there weren't a lot of opportunities to cut away or to do an insert, right, or to cover mistakes, or to cover bad shots. Or and I remember getting on the phone with the filmmaker, and I said, Look, I'm gonna send you 20 shots you have to go get. It's like, well, you know, we finished rap, we've wrapped. I said, No, no, you gotta go get the shots. Get an i get an iPhone and go out on the weekend in LA and just get the shots. You don't have to start getting crew. Like, this is just how you do it. No one's gonna know that it was three guys in a gas station getting the shot of a pump. Yeah, get the shots.

Rod Rinks 9:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:37

And he did. To his credit, he went out and we got an insert of a gas pump and an insert of a wheel screeching, and we needed some B-roll. He didn't have any B-roll.

Speaker 3 9:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:46

And the editor worked on it for, I don't know, three, four months and put something together, and it ended up being pretty good with the sound effects and the color correcting and the cuts, and we we kind of we kept referring to the Mission Impossible three, which is the best one, JJ Abrams. It's amazing. It opens up on Tom Cruise Tied to a Chair with Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's just brilliant. And that's how we started the movie with with the the the middle uh at the beginning, and then all right, how do you get there, you know? And that helped us with cheating around lack of footage and lack of coverage. Uh filmmaker uh gets a gig to go shoot some uh TV series for Blum, for David Blum. Nice now he's huge for Blum House. Well, you're you're Jason Blum, yeah.

Mark Roberts 10:30

You sort of became an old school executive, really. Like you were like uh Carl Lemon. Yeah, you were head of production at Universal, like going like this isn't gonna work, we're gonna have to like, and you jump into an editing babe, not.

Speaker 2 10:42

You have to push, you have to, yeah, you always have to, and again, I've learned this, I didn't know this at the beginning. You learn through trial and error, you learn through through suffering and yeah, um panic. Panic.

Rod Rinks 10:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:56

Um you can't be afraid to push. You can't be afraid to uh be honest, be honest, yeah. Right? How you communicate that is part of your ability to uh be a good executive or be a good producer. You mark knows that, I'm sure. But you can't be afraid to be honest, you can't be afraid to push, because in the end, all the audience sees is the movie. Yeah. Because the movie doesn't have in the credits. Well, Clay had a conversation with that person, and then that person had a conversation, and then they had an argument, and then that person stopped calling back, and then they decided to do this, and they took the name off it. That's not in the credits in the end. No, the backstory's not there. They just see a movie. And is the movie good or is the movie not good? Yeah, enjoyable, entertaining, or not?

Rod Rinks 11:45

That's the fun part about independent film, though, because like when I did the fun part? Well, when I did Made in Mexico, we were shooting B-Roll and Lilo stayed in character, and they said uh, because Ron Lee was directing, and so he just he said, just walk around over here, and we just want and so him and I just had conversation, like we were both loved, and he stayed in character, and he was just saying outlandish shit, and I just kind of agreed with him. We just stayed in that because it was all supposed to be B-roll. We used all that, yeah. It was part of the it was some of the best part of the movie.

Mark Roberts 12:11

Well, that's what that's what Rich Alarcon did. He used it, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Rod Rinks 12:15

He found that, and again, Richard was a great editor, you know.

Speaker 2 12:19

He took the as a director, you need to push as well. Yeah, you need to you need to have the confidence and the ability because you always have a line producer and a producer telling you you don't have any more time. Yeah, we have no more money. The camera legit the lenses have gone back to the rental, you know, they broke this and that. Uh but again, all the people are gonna be left with is how good that film is in the end. That's it. That's it. And you got to do everything you possibly can to make the film the best version of itself.

Rod Rinks 12:48

Yeah, that's the collaboration, though.

Speaker 2 12:50

That's the collaboration, that's collaboration. Everybody comes together. But one of the one of the most collaborative filmmakers I worked with, Ernesto. Man, I we did Diablo. Uh we should put it. Can you put stuff in the comments or the Probably yeah? Like a description we can Ernesto uh he directed Diablo with Scott Atkins and Marco Zeruar that I produced with Craig Baumgarten. I mean, it was a thrill for me to work with legend like Craig and uh and Scott and and really great talent. And Ernesto's a Chilean filmmaker, and the most collaborative uh and confident and easy to work with and open for comp for comments and and open for discussion and trying different things, never had an ego. And we're down there in the jungles of Colombia, Jesus hard jungle, man. I barely made it out. I barely made it out. And uh there was drone camera, there was an A camera, B camera, but we were on a scrappy budget, but we managed to cobble all this together, and I was so impressed by how open Ernesto was. The film came first, yeah, and his you know, quote unquote credit as director came second.

Rod Rinks 14:04

Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 14:04

And he edited the film as well. And the editing process was collaborative. You'd give him notes, let me try it, let me try this, let me try that. He'd said, Oh, I'm I'm emailing you two versions. I'm gonna email you the version of that fight sequence with with this note and that note, and a s and a version without doing this. Let's pick which one's best. And it was a real collaborative effort because the greatness of the film came first. Yeah. And the film ended up doing pretty well. Number three, yeah, number three on Amazon when it came out, like good reviews all around. We sold it everywhere in the world. That was a great experience because he was such a collaborative professional. Yeah. Did you make the money back? The film just about that that film that model was we just about broke even. Everyone made their fee.

Rod Rinks 14:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:54

No one made a dollar more, right? Uh but it was yeah, yes and no. No one no one made no one made a lot of money in that movie, but we no one lost money on that movie. I mean, that's it. That's a win. That's a win. That's a win.

Mark Roberts 15:07

So we're we've cut we're covering a we're covering a lot of ground here. So I think, but I think that definitely you need to consider what you're putting out and figure out a way to show your talent in a much smaller way so that you can figure out if there is talent or if someone's responding to your story.

Speaker 2 15:28

There's more opportunities.

Mark Roberts 15:29

There's more opportunities, but but if you do it in a smaller version, you can also test the market on ideas, right? Because you can't like I like the karate kid, but I'm like, I'm not gonna make the karate kid today just because I like the karate kid, right? It was a success. Like, should I make a karate kid today just because I liked it back then?

Speaker 2 15:47

I'd love to sell a karate kid movie. Well, again, I got one. My friend just made one. Cobra Kai did very well. We did a jujitsu movie a couple weeks ago. Me and Davy are maybe they've started in the buttons, there's more, but the the challenges we had, Mark, when we were uh at the beginning of our careers, yeah, is the cost that the literal financial cost to entry was very high, right? It was a very high, you know. You need you needed money for film and film camera and film developing, and then you needed a professional editor that that knew how to literally cut film or work on a hundred thousand dollar AVID machine, you know. Um, and the tools were just expensive, and you needed skilled people to work them. And now the tools are so uh accessible. It's right here. There's the tool. And with AI, you can do VFX text to video when you have VFX. And so there's no longer there's no longer a gateway, gatekeeper, a gatekeeper, a financial or skill that's gonna keep people away. So it opens it up to everybody. Is that good for you though, right? At distributor? I don't know. I mean, again, we're just we're all looking for where the talent is, right? But if someone is talented or has this uh this goal or this in you know this this this uh hunger, this desire and hunger, um, they at least have the tools at their disposal.

Rod Rinks 17:10

Yeah, it's not far, it's not far fetched, yeah. You could you could actually do it, you know.

Mark Roberts 17:15

Well, let's take a break from this for a second and talk about extreme music.com.

Rod Rinks 17:19

I was gonna bring that up. Diablo, did he use it?

Mark Roberts 17:21

Well, yeah, did Diablo use uh extreme music.

Speaker 2 17:23

I I know I told him about it.

Mark Roberts 17:25

You did okay, good. As long as you told him, I definitely did. Extrememusic.com, best music library in the business. I'm gonna be using them very soon on my Christmas movie in June. And uh, I just want to say today, yesterday, and tomorrow, it is absolutely the best place to find whatever it is that you're looking for. Make sure I look okay. For your for your movies, for any of your content, they are amazing. We want to thank them for their partnership and for their uh sponsorship. And uh go check them out, extreme music.com. Also, don't forget about the library. Except the problem with the library is first of all, there's no problem. It's beautiful, it's this awesome cigar place, but you can't find it.

Rod Rinks 18:02

What do you mean you can't well no? Because it's he doesn't want you to find it, he doesn't want you to find it. That's the whole point.

Mark Roberts 18:07

We're gonna advertise it, but we're gonna it's a secret.

Rod Rinks 18:09

It's like social. You go on their IG. Listen, go on their IG, and you could you'll be able to find it, trust me. But uh I love it here.

Speaker 2 18:17

I'm never gonna leave. It's like it's Vic ain't getting rid of me.

Rod Rinks 18:20

No, it's it's like it's like an old school like social club. It's you know, you it's invite only or membership only.

Mark Roberts 18:26

But thanks to Vic for hosting us here and uh letting us uh infiltrate and have conversations about movies and we gotta start smoking cigars. Stuff like that. Yeah, we really should have done this one.

Rod Rinks 18:36

But Robert says he gets too loopy. Like when I used to drink together all the time. Yeah, that's those were good times, too.

Mark Roberts 18:41

But this is this is a great conversation. I mean, look, it's hard, Clay, because you know, you and I go back a long way, and there was a there was a time, like my superpower was I wanted to make movies, but I was only good at one thing, and that was raising money. I was very good at raising money. I wasn't really a filmmaker at that point. I was just someone who could convince other people to give me money to do movies. I had Lorena, who was my partner, and everyone else sort of did most of the creative stuff, and I was always just raising money, and I did a very good job of it for many, many years. Tens of millions of dollars I raised for movies. If I tried today, I probably couldn't do it anymore because there's no way to guarantee people their money back. There wasn't back then, but you could make a blockbuster deal, you could make a Hollywood video deal, we could go with you to uh, you know, to a market and make 175,000 bucks. It could happen, it was happening back then, you know. But but my gift was raising money and I knew that. So I did that for a long time. When I eventually realized that I had to add my creative side to it, everything changed for me, right? Because I just I was able to translate all that and everything I had learned from other filmmakers uh on how to do it and what to do, and you know, and it really served me. So I was able to, through my career, learn to do different things, and I eventually became a filmmaker.

Rod Rinks 20:05

Is that when you started driving the director to set so you could kind of influence him? But he still I thought he meant is driving him crazy.

Mark Roberts 20:11

I think he was driving. I let people do what they're what they do. You know, I I I I tell you what, the the the types of films that I make at this point in my career, I definitely just need you to get the medium over the shoulder, over the shoulder, and then you can do whatever you want. Because I know what I know that a lot of people aren't criticizing that in television or Christmas, you know. Uh, when I did my Netflix movie, yeah, I had to have a lot, I had to have a lot of sweeping shots, I had to have a lot of cranes out, I had to, you know, I had to tell the story differently because it was a different budget and they're expecting something different. But you know, some if you're working under three million bucks, you know, have fun. You just have to have well, you have to get your shots and then have some fun.

Speaker 2 20:56

We have a new film um that's probably gonna come out next year that's shooting in Australia called Tarantulas. You know what it's about? Tarantulas. You're right.

Mark Roberts 21:06

Do they get into the house or into an airplane or something?

Speaker 2 21:08

No, no, this is this is tarantulas in the jungles of Australia.

Mark Roberts 21:11

Oh wow, and then jungles of my. So it's is it VFX? Is it is it AI?

Speaker 2 21:16

So it's gonna be uh a combination, right? And I and a lot of the VFX now everywhere are kind of some of it's generated from AI, then they're using more traditional compositing and VFX tools to then color and lay, you know, texture and move and and animate them. Um but the footage we've seen that the the tests of them are look fantastic.

Rod Rinks 21:39

What's working? So is horror horror, thriller, yeah. What is working today? That's a good question.

Speaker 2 21:44

Action, is it the the the Yeah, the the the easiest in the independent space, at least, maybe even the studio space, is air action films still. I mean, we've been saying that from the beginning of time, right? Not cheap action, necessarily, you know, not cheap.

Mark Roberts 21:58

Did Frank does Frank's action? Still move the needle?

Speaker 2 22:02

But action films that are still kind of that are competently made and you have good cast and you have good setups and concepts. You know, Scott Atkins is at the moment probably the biggest action star at the at the at the moment, right? Because some of the ones before him have aged out.

Speaker 3 22:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:21

And there hasn't been a lot of big studio opportunities for the newer one, newer stars. Lewis Tan is up and he's in Mortal Kombat. We're gonna try and do a film with him. He's in the new Mortal Kombat film. Tom Cruise's still an action star, right? Yeah, but I can't get him into an independent film. You never know. You never know. Tommy there?

Mark Roberts 22:39

If somebody is watching anywhere in the world right now and they want to sell you a movie or they want you to represent their movie all over the world for sales, what would be like your number one genre?

Speaker 2 22:56

They should go to our YouTube page and subscribe. All right. There we go.

Mark Roberts 23:00

What is the YouTube page?

Speaker 2 23:01

Which is film mode ent or at film mode ent film mode entertainment film mode entertainment on YouTube.

Mark Roberts 23:06

Film mode ent. I don't know where you came up with film mode and, but film mode, right? Is it 2Ms?

Speaker 2 23:12

Film 2M's film mode entertainments that come up. It's like Leloyd. You look that up on YouTube, you subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're trying to build subscribers. And we have trailers, we have uh panels that I've moderated, we have clips from films, and you will see the genres that we're doing. See how I type that together?

Rod Rinks 23:34

You have BTS of when you worked at his with him. There was no BTS.

Mark Roberts 23:40

Can I put any of your uh talks up on our on our website? Sure. Really? Yeah. Oh, that'd be kind of cool. We could extend this, we could do two episodes out of it and use some of it. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 23:52

Because I'm gonna put clips up on our so you didn't answer the question.

Mark Roberts 23:54

What can they bring?

Speaker 2 23:55

Well, I was trying to get around to our YouTube site without sound. All right, good. No, no, I love it, I love it.

Mark Roberts 23:59

So they could but it but it's action.

Speaker 2 24:01

It's action. But the the the easiest, most commercial is action. Um after that, it's probably varying degrees of horror. But the again, the whore has to be because the audience has become very sophisticated, and therefore our distributors and clients have become very sophisticated and very selective. And so the whore has to truly have a vision and have a hook and have that's hard to do because a lot of very visual and be same but different, right? Which is easy to say, but no one knows what that means. Megan, same but different.

Mark Roberts 24:37

Have you ever picked up a movie that costs $10,000 or less?

Speaker 2 24:43

No, not that I know of.

Mark Roberts 24:44

Okay, have you ever picked up a movie that costs $50,000 or less?

Speaker 2 24:50

I think I have I think I've probably sold a movie that cost like $150 or $120.

Mark Roberts 24:55

Okay, $150,000 and twenty. How'd it do?

Speaker 2 24:58

Um, well, not great, but uh, you know, it's hard because it's hard to get production value.

Mark Roberts 25:04

Is there a sweet spot for independent filmmakers? $500, 2002 million? Like what is it? What's the sweet spot?

Speaker 2 25:09

I've I've I've I've seen and I've represented some pretty good movies that were that 750, 650. Okay, but it's when the filmmakers have an added value of some sort, like maybe they're VFX guys, they go make a movie.

Mark Roberts 25:22

Got it.

Speaker 2 25:23

Or um they're they're friends with uh a particular celebrity that's gonna do it for free or for scale, or you know. Yeah. So so they're adding some some additional value that normally would cost quite a lot more. And if they didn't have that, maybe the film would be a million and a half or two or three, but they could do it for $650 because of these added. They own the camera, he's also an editor.

Mark Roberts 25:47

Uh I like the VFX angle, though. I like that. That's kind of cool. Or the action.

Speaker 2 25:51

They have they have the they they own the stage or they own the set, or the you know, they own the location, yeah, they have the camera. Um I did a film with uh Mel Gibson's sons, and I don't know what they spent, but I'm guessing they spent under a million. Uh but it was great because the one son's wife uh was a fantastic actress, she was the lead. Milo Gibson, who's the brother, was the brother of the director, was the other lead. You know, they went out, they went out.

Rod Rinks 26:20

I think I heard of this.

Speaker 2 26:21

Yeah, it was good, it was it was a good film, and they were great, great to work with. They were great. Really nice.

Mark Roberts 26:25

You made some money for them?

Speaker 2 26:27

Um, I did the best I could. Yeah, okay.

Mark Roberts 26:29

Well, that's good.

Speaker 2 26:30

It was a few years ago. I can't remember the numbers, but I mean we did the best we could.

Rod Rinks 26:33

I did hear about oh, they came to extra promote their movie.

Mark Roberts 26:37

Oh, yeah, I think I was there. Yeah, that's right. Hang on though. Also, I you know what I just watched? I watched uh a documentary about the making of um uh what's the Keanu Reeves movie? Uh John Wick. Yeah, I saw the the I saw a documentary about the making of John Wick. All stunt guys. Well, yeah, but the stunt guys were making like two million dollar movies before they did John Wick.

Speaker 2 27:00

So Marco Zerrar. Is that him? In John Wick 4, the right-hand man to uh Skarsgard, right? He was he's a very tall Latino uh martial artist, and he was in almost every scene, kicking the shit out of everyone. That's Marco, the nicest.

Mark Roberts 27:17

Oh, wait a minute, is he the guy that like he's over here, then he's over there, then different scenes? Like they keep moving the camera, but it's still him?

Speaker 2 27:23

That I can't remember. He was he was just the the right-hand heavy, yeah, and he's the sweetest guy in the world, and he's a choreographer, he's a stunt choreographer. He's eight foot five. I mean, Marco is just Marco is a is a beast, and he's so dedicated to his craft, he really approaches his craft like an artist, and he's a choreographer. So on Diablo, him and Scott choreographed the fights together. We didn't have to go hire additional fight choreographers, you know. We had stunt doubles on set for dangerous stuff, but other than that, Marco and Scott did all their own stunts because they come from that space, and Marco comes from that.

Mark Roberts 28:04

So that makes it great.

Speaker 2 28:05

Elevates it again. That's added, it elevates it to a production value that that equates to hundreds of thousands, if not more, that we didn't have to go actually pay for because of the ingredients of well.

Mark Roberts 28:17

I love the John Wick doc because those guys were making indie films, making small movies, but they had like this vision of how an action sequence. Oh, Mark Marco is an artist. Remarkable, yeah.

Speaker 2 28:27

Marco Zerar is an artist. I love the choreographs. It's like it's it's a different form of dancing, really, when you think about it.

Mark Roberts 28:35

So let's well, uh Sylvester Stallone did it in Rocky, but let's just say if you're out there making movies, 500,000 to 750 is a good little spot, like a sweet spot, and finding those added values, someone who's like dedicated their life to uh to action sequences that haven't quite made it, but you know that they're on to something, getting them to help you make your movie. Um, you know, there's things like that that could be that could become added value for you. Like Keanu loved those guys, obviously.

Rod Rinks 29:04

If it wasn't if it wasn't for Keanu, but even like Guy, Guy Narduli, yeah, he made that movie that just came out, that action movie. Um, I forget what it's called, but um, and it wasn't a lot of money. He made it for for hundreds of thousands. Um, and he he shot it in his hometown. It was, you know, he got everything for free, location, street, all that. So it was very hustled, he hustled, he hustled, and and it just opened up and it did pretty well, I think.

Mark Roberts 29:31

That's good.

Speaker 2 29:31

Yeah, I mean, I'm a big proponent of film school, not just because I went to film school, I truly believe in it lets you practice. I believe in education, yeah, and I believe in it's a wonderful well, it's a wonderful environment to start networking. Yeah, because a lot of a lot of new filmmakers or people that want to get into filmmaking, they always hear the network. I have to network everything that says I have to network. How do I network? I I live, I don't live in LA, I don't live in New York, I don't live in London. Yeah, you know, how do I network? How do I start meeting VFX supervisors?

Mark Roberts 30:01

Tell us about what you what is.

Speaker 2 30:02

Going to film school, you're gonna start networking.

Mark Roberts 30:04

But tell us about your mom and the uh foundation and that stuff.

Speaker 2 30:08

Oh, thank thanks for the opportunity, Mark. Yeah, so my my mother was a teacher, she was a principal for special needs students in Glendale, was a very special school that there was only one within 50 miles or something like that. So she had students from LA and from Glendale and from Burbank up to the age of 18, I think. And it was vocational, it was uh included included a lot of different, but these students couldn't go to traditional school. And she was the principal of the school. And before that, she taught gifted students, she was a fourth grade teacher, so she really believed in education. And she passed away from new body dementia a few years ago. So someone that was all about academia and brains, and you know, a very smart woman and well read and into politics and lots of English accent shows, unfortunately gets dementia, right? And you start losing your mental capacity. And so I wanted to find some way to keep her memory alive and her passion for education. And we're starting a scholarship at Cal State Northridge in the film program. Okay, and it's called the Nancy Joan Epstein New Voices Scholarship, and it's gonna go into effect, I think, this year. I think this year for students gonna go into their senior uh year because that's when they make their senior thesis film.

Mark Roberts 31:24

That's great.

Speaker 2 31:24

And they have to uh they have to contribute, I think, fifteen hundred dollars to the program if they want to be in the production uh division. And that fifteen hundred dollars can sometimes be a lot for some of these students at uh at CSEN, right? A lot of them are working, yeah, uh a lot of them are on scholarships already. And I wanted something that would help students not have to worry about that again, that gateway, right? This is that's a financial gateway, right? Yeah, um, and it's gonna go to those students to be able to, they don't have to need financial aid, but that's certainly a plus.

Mark Roberts 32:04

That's awesome.

Speaker 2 32:04

And we're like agnostic on story. I said to the professors, I said it might be the only time in their whole career that they don't have to do a particular genre or story, you know, where they have artistic freedom. The last thing I want to do is burst that bubble now, right?

Mark Roberts 32:19

So don't do it.

Speaker 2 32:20

Whatever they want to do. I'm not choosing stories, I'm not curating scripts. I trust the school to do that. That's good.

Mark Roberts 32:28

And what's the name of the uh of the program again?

Speaker 2 32:31

It's uh it's it's the Cal State, it's Cal State Northridge, C Sun. And then it's the film program, and the scholarship's called the Nancy Joan Epstein New Voices.

Mark Roberts 32:40

Wow, that's awesome that you're doing that for your mom. That's cool. Um, and that you're helping out uh young filmmakers. Northridge is an amazing hub for super talent. It is. Not only did you come from there, but um so did Paul Buccieri, who's the uh CEO and president of AE Networks. I can name a bunch of people, but I just wanted to name him because he's he's one of the very successful guys, Sam Zoda, who actually uh ran a lot of shows at ABC. A lot, a lot of great people.

Speaker 2 33:07

They have great resources there now. They have state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos mixing, and they have you know red cameras, they get lenses from you know, Zeiss gives them lenses, they have stages, they got it, they have a they have a uh a digital stage now.

Mark Roberts 33:21

Oh, the LED wall. Yeah, so I want to sit on an LED wall for my next movie. I'll tell you about it afterwards. But anyway, dude, thanks for being here. I I feel bad because I was gonna attack you and then you you attacked first.

Speaker 2 33:32

So you loved me though, Mark. It's hard to do that.

Mark Roberts 33:34

Did he attack me because I thought I thought about self-discussion?

Speaker 2 33:36

I did attack you, didn't I? I didn't mean to, but I did. I I got very well worked up, passionate. You know what? I'm not asking the question. After all these years, we're still passionate about it. You know what's still fire.

Mark Roberts 33:47

What's important about the show, if you're still with me, if you're still here, is that this is a truth sandwich. We have a lot of fun on the show. We talk a lot about a lot of stuff, but this show is a truth sandwich. You really need to think about what you're doing and putting out there and if it's serving you or not, and if it will serve you in the future. Because you got to decide where you want to go. And you know, if you think about anywhere you end up, it's got one road. You know, you gotta turn right, you gotta turn left, you gotta go straight. You gotta decide where you're going and where you want to end up. See yourself in the future. If you're making action codes in the future, then you're then you know what your life's supposed to look like, right? So figure out what you're doing. Go to play only if you have power. And uh, and you know, I mean, look, keep hustling. I think we talked a lot about that, and I think that's like a key point to this is that you gotta keep believing yourself hustling and growing, hustling and growing. So keep shooting, keep figuring out what to do, keep thinking, think about ask yourself are you adding extra value to what you're producing and or directing or writing? Or is it just words or is it just an idea? Has someone already done it? I mean, there's so many questions. Ask AI for God's sake. Everything's asked AI. Ask AI. But anyway, Clay, you're awesome. I'm not kidding. Well respected distributor. People speak great things about you. Every time I mention your name, people like you, people think you're honest. So uh I'm not sure why why we've known each other for 30 years, we haven't made a movie together, but you know, that's that's honest. That's honest people, all the people that are being ripped.

Speaker 2 35:32

100% rule, 1%, 1% rule.

Mark Roberts 35:35

But uh when you come back and you know, things are changing so much in the business.

Speaker 2 35:39

Come back and I'm you know honored, yeah, and grateful to have been asked back. Yeah, absolutely. You're important, and I appreciate that, and congratulations on the six years of the show going video, man.

Mark Roberts 35:51

We're on video now. Like, subscribe, and tell your friends. Yeah, we uh we'll see you next time on