Focal Point
Conversations with artists across all industries, taking a deep dive into the nuances, techniques, and philosophies of society's talent.
Focal Point
Why I Came Back to Filmmaking #47 w/ Filmmaker Richard Russel
After three failed feature attempts, a halted production due to the pandemic, and personal battles during Covid, indie filmmaker Richard Russel found himself at a crossroads. Eventually he channeled his frustrations into his latest production Shadow of Thulis—a revenge thriller inspired by Mike Leigh’s Naked. What started as a story of brutal violence evolved into something deeper: a character-driven exploration of pain, forgiveness, and the cost of vengeance.
In this episode, we dive into Richard’s journey as a zero-budget filmmaker navigating creative burnout, failed crowdfunding, and the harsh realities of independent cinema. Through stubborn persistence and a directing style built on trust and spontaneity.
Well, jack, we're rolling. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me man. Is it Jack? Rich Russell, hold on. No, you're Richard.
Speaker 2:Richard yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know, that's what I was doing. I was texting somebody named Jack prior, and then I'm bouncing between two different things, right?
Speaker 2:now.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say probably Welcome back, sort of kind of. My internet connection decided to not be so fruitful the last time we tried this, but you were gracious enough to come back, so I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I had nothing going on, so I wanted to come back.
Speaker 1:You got a little bit going on toward the end of the week. You said though right, yeah, come back.
Speaker 2:So you got a little bit going on. Toward the end of the week you said, though right, yeah, um, got a basically all all for the rest of this month and next month. All my weekends are just booked up because I'm in production shooting my first feature is that a shadow of thulis?
Speaker 1:how many pages is that and what's the shooting schedule?
Speaker 2:um, it is 96 pages and we started back in may, or not may, I'm sorry. We started back in april and we took a month off because I was. I had some uh previous uh commitment to another film project, and then we picked everything back up in june okay, would you mind centering yourself in the camera for a?
Speaker 1:second I do like the relaxed vibe, though, you know, maybe maybe we should just do a podcast where we just kind of you know the entire time. So how long did it take you to? Uh, can you tell me a little bit about a Shadow of Thulis and, um, the uh, all the steps you had to go through for pre-production in order to get where you're going right now?
Speaker 2:Shadows of Thulis is a revenge thriller. There's basically the best way I can say it is that a drifter serial killer comes back to a town and he starts offing people left and right, but little does he know that the town that he went back to is actually the town that he was abandoned from. And he meets this local drunk named Mike and leaves him for dead and Mike starts to go on a journey of revenge. And Mike starts to go on a journey of revenge and in his process of his journey he runs into a familiar face he hasn't seen in quite a few years and they both learn to forgive each other and both decide to go to a new journey of forgiveness and also revenge.
Speaker 1:They've got to accomplish one before they have the other. It's like a clause in the stipulation of forgiveness.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the pre-production stage for that film is kind of interesting. Without going into a lot of details, we've gone through pre-production twice for shadows, um. First time we started pre-production was back in uh 2023. Um, due to lack of funding. Uh, we had a crowd funder. Uh, we did indiegogo for the film and it wasn't the biggest success and there were some creative differences, personal differences between some people and I, and we ultimately came to the conclusion of postponing the film for a year. So during that year I worked on a movie called In the Hands of Fate. As a second camera operator, I worked on Ludella, a short film directed by my friend Heather Bales. I did a comedy called Architect's Wife and near the end of the year, I co-directed a short film called Danny Don't that I directed with my friend Heather Bales again.
Speaker 2:And then we officially kick-started pre-production for that film, for, uh, for shadows of phyllis, again in, uh, january of this year. And good news, there was some good news. There was some bad news, uh. The bad news was we lost a few people, um, that were originally attached to the film. We lost some locations, uh. We even launched the second indiegogo and it did not do well, um, but that did not keep me from saying, okay, you know what, let's just do it. So third time is, the charm third time, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna write that down in my journal. Uh, crochet it on a pillow, engrave it on a stone tablet with a chisel exactly so third time, yeah, so basically, third time was the charm.
Speaker 2:And we, you know, we, like I said, we we ran into a lot of bumps in the road, um, a lot of unnecessary things happened on, a lot of unnecessary things were said, but the good news was is that I found the urge to continue going and to continue making the film and I I have to be honest with you, we've been, since we've been shooting for four days now. It's it's been looking really good, it's been sounding good. I've actually been, um, I'm actually picture locked on three scenes right now, going on four and are you editing it?
Speaker 1:yeah okay I'm uh editing the film as we go okay, yeah, I mean actually with you know hollywood studios that all of the shoots for the day end up going into the edit. You know room the same day. So yes it's the most efficient way to do things if you can do it.
Speaker 2:But you know, often with indie filmmaking, either you know you don't have the budget for it or you don't have the time for it, and it's usually one of those two things well, in my case, I don't have, I, we, we have, we have zero budget almost, and but you know I'm not letting that stop me and I'm just like, okay, well, I want to keep everybody hyped, I want to keep the cast and the crew hyped, so yeah, so I start, as soon as I leave the set, I start cutting the movie right there and then so I mean, it's been going pretty well. I actually sent a scene to a friend of mine who's an editor for a TV show called Evil and he gave me a lot of good feedback, a lot of good notes on it, did the script change much through each iteration.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, this script has changed a lot. The first draft of the script was a lot more about the character Thulis, more than it was about the character Thulis, more than it was about the character Mike. It was more about, hey, how extreme can I go with some of the more intense scenes with the film, you know, like, how violent can I go, how brutal can I go? Cause I was on, I had a kick where I was just like, yeah, I want to make the most brutal revenge story ever told. You know, even though I'm not even going to be a snowball I have, I don't have a snowball chance for that, you know. But so when we, when we did postpone I went, I decided to go back to the uh, the right back to the drawing board and I started reworking a lot of scenes. I gave certain characters, uh, arcs that they did not have because they were pretty much one-note characters. There was one character in particular and it's played by actress Michelle Stupor. She actually plays the character of Alice.
Speaker 1:That's a hell of a last name. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I probably mispronounced it and she's probably going to get mad at me, so that's fine. But she plays the character of Alice, and Alice in the original draft was such a one-note character and I decided to take that character and expand it, see if I could expand her throughout the entire film. And, lo and behold, I did. And now the movie, now this newer draft that we have. There's a lot more development, character, uh, character arc and more of a more of a story than just your typical blood and guts. You know, brutally violent film.
Speaker 1:you know there's a little heart to it how has the budget restrictions changed your approach to how you're going to tell a story?
Speaker 2:I really honestly, I don't really think about that. I mean, even though we have a very, very limited budget, I haven't really thought about it Because I feel like if I did think about it, I would start cutting everything out of the script that required a lot of you know. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, there's no car chases or anything in this movie or anything like that. But I don't know. I just I never really thought about it. It doesn't really.
Speaker 1:I consider the michael bay approach, where you get sponsors and you give them like a basically a 30 second ad in the middle of the movie I.
Speaker 2:You know what's funny I almost did do that. What I? Yeah, I almost I was gonna. I have a friend who works for Golden Crisp Potato Chips Golden Crisp Potato Chips, yeah, it's very popular here in the east side of Ohio and I actually tried. I was going to reach out to them and say like hey, do you want to be a sponsor? I can have a character eat a bag of chips throughout the entire time. And I decided not to do that because I was just like there is no, I don't. I was like no, not justified, not.
Speaker 1:Yeah so you've been filmmaking in filmmaking for about three years now. So right, if I recall correctly from our, you know, last attempt at a conversation, rather um uh, so that puts you trying to get your first feature off the ground roughly a year after starting filmmaking.
Speaker 2:About that yeah.
Speaker 1:What gave you the confidence to be able to, at least? Or is it just you know? Was it just ignorance as a? You know, this was where it really pays to be off be a cinephile, but I can't even remember the dude who quoted this. Um, I think it's. Uh, oh, you know what. It eludes me. I give up. Um, you know? Uh, ignorance is much better to be as a motivator than you know, know, actually knowing what you're doing well, honestly, I've been doing.
Speaker 2:I've been. I've been a filmmaker for about a little over 10 years now, because I did technically start after high school. And back in 20, late 2014, early 2015, I started my quote-unquote first directorial debut, but I put that in quotes for a reason. I made a movie called Dinner Guest back in 2015, and that's a whole different story. To be completely honest with you, we would be here all day if we talked about that, but the movie None of their time's a charm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically so, shadows is actually my my fourth time trying to make a feature, because after after Dinner Guest, I never got it distributed. I did just make DVDs. I sent it out to a handful of people about a year, about a year later, I want to say 2017. I tried to make a feature film called Abnormality. I tried to make a feature film called abnormality. That movie got shelved. And then in 2019, I tried to make a feature film called Mr Darkness, and then we got 70% of that film done and then the whole world shut down. Thank you 2020 for that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and so when that happened, the crew and the cast that we had at that point in time just literally just went different directions and I was just left with, like, do I keep doing this, do I not keep doing this? So, pretty much I was in a rut for a couple of years. I want to say it wasn't until like late 2021 is when I had a friend of mine pretty much pushed me back into doing it again and he was very helpful to help me with this short film called brother. And then he starts uh, you know, he helps me make it, helps me make that movie. It did okay, and then I came out and then early 2022 and I want to say it was the winter of 2022 I started uh, I started pre-production on the short film of thoulas and that, how that short film came to be, was during the lockdown. I was a pretty bad alcoholic. I mean work, come home, drink, watch a movie where alcoholism spiked actually.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'll be honest with you, I still drink, but not as bad as I did back then drink watch a movie Alcoholism spiked.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you, I still drink, but not as bad as I did back then.
Speaker 1:I hear you.
Speaker 2:I was watching this movie called Naked, directed by Mike Lee. It's a very great movie if you have not seen it. It's about this drifter who's walking the streets of london and he's like talking about life and religion and all this other um philosophical stuff and he's a very hated character in the movie like he's like the like the biggest a-hole and in cinema history, if you ask me. So there's a scene in the movie where him and the security guard they have this 25, I think it's like a 25 minute scene of them just talking about the end of the world If the world was going to end in 1999 and religion and what happens after you die, all this other stuff. And when you're in a drunken mind, like I was at that time, it spoke to me, it really did. So I took that scene and I kind of turned it in and I turned it into a thriller and you know, and then cut back to 2022.
Speaker 2:I started pre-production on because I almost didn't do it, because I thought it was too dark and I thought it was way too much. I was very, very worried at the time. And again, the same friend who helped me make brother he, you know, he helped me make that one as well. And we made the film. Uh, we actually that was like my first time working with you know, working with uh actors here in the local scene here in Ohio, and we had a one-man crew. It was just me running camera, sound, everything editing, and when the movie came out it really blossomed Like it opened up a lot of opportunities for me. I met a lot of cool people because of that short film and I pretty much started working on.
Speaker 2:I basically started doing a short film like every. It always felt like every four months. I was doing a short film from 2022 to 2023. And I just kind of I'm not gonna lie I got my my ego got the best of me and I was like, man, these short films I've been doing like a family matter, know it'll be okay. You know they're all doing so. Well, I'm going to make my first feature film, not realizing don't have the budget for it, didn't really have it, did not have a finished script at the time, but my ignorance, my ego, pushed me to do it, you know and I had. So I had support from other people who wanted me to do it, you know and I had. So I had support from other people who wanted me to do it, so I did it.
Speaker 1:And so. I think that you got back into the craft.
Speaker 2:I'm very glad, you know I'm I'm glad that I did. Um, like I said, even after some of the hiccups we've had in the past uh, couple of years and even a few months, you know, mean I, I still love what I do. I still love it and I hope that once shadows is finished and we get it released, I hope people like it, and that's one thing I really care about honestly okay, when do you think it's roughly going to?
Speaker 1:when are you trying to wrap shooting?
Speaker 2:we should be done by uh, we should be done by the end of August. We should be.
Speaker 1:Okay, because I got a. There's somebody that I know that is actually trying to start their first feature film after doing like just short films for, like you know, nine, ten years, you know, and he's getting up and going. It's been really interesting talking to him a little bit behind the scenes because I had him on the podcast at one point and you know, sometimes you know, once I stop recording and then they're like oh yeah, so it was actually this person in that story and here's what happened in the following. So sometimes occasionally I get like a, I get a juicy story out of it, but then you know, they'll tell me about their next project, oftentimes people who have just been working on short films. They haven't told anybody, but they're actually gearing up for a feature. It's cool hearing that you're finally getting around to do it and it sounds like it's actually happening after all this time.
Speaker 1:If you hadn't gotten, if you hadn't came back, that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly like I think we all have those moments where you know we always get the crappy end of the stick and we're just like what's the point of doing this, what's the point of what's the point anymore? Is this even worth it anymore? But honestly, it's just like I'm too. I'm just too arrogant to quit, and I'll be honest with you there. I mean, there are some people that you probably had on this show that would flat out tell you like, oh, I got a drunk text from him saying, oh, he's gonna quit, he's gonna quit. I.
Speaker 1:I never mean it, it's just the feels talking you know, yeah, well, I had one guy on who's local to Cincinnati. He was doing a feature and his producer quit mid-shoot. Oh Jesus, like just on the spot. Well, there were some other things that happened with it. I don't even remember. I won't go into detail about it, but I don't know if he necessarily disclosed that during that episode, so I won't necessarily tell it. Uh, but when you're dealing with artists, you run into every type of artist and very quickly and I don't understand this phenomenon, to be perfectly honest you'll run into the arrogant, the egotistical, um, the person who's way too humble and is actually really talented but doesn't want to, like, say anything about his talent. You know, you will run into every flavor, probably within one to two years, realistically, and I don't know of any other place or any other field where that sort of thing happens that quickly.
Speaker 2:I have to agree with that because I've met my fair share of all types. I was one of those types, to be honest with you, and the funny thing is is when you're too egotistical, you will have those individuals who will point it out like hey, man, your head's getting just a little too big, or you need to slow down a little bit. A little too big, or you know you need to slow down a little bit. And when I, when those, when those things, when that happened, I remember I never, I never really listened.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh guys, I'm just joking, I'm not really being, I'm not being serious, and you know.
Speaker 2:Then you kind of realize oh wait a minute, I actually was, oh crap you know hindsight 2020 quite a little bit yeah, but you know, but the funny thing is is that, um, when you have certain people that have stuck with you for so long and then your ego or something that you've done, you know, I mean just kind of makes part ways with you, it really does wake you up and it really makes you reflect on a lot of things. You know, I'm not going to go into details of what I've gone through, but you know I had a partnership with someone, fact that I held a grudge against someone and that affected our relationship. Instead of learning to just move on and just to see what happens. I always was the overthinker. I was always the well, what if this, or what if this. But the thing about the what ifs is that nine times out of 10, they don't. They don't happen, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I can sympathize with the production going wrong. I tried to make my first feature after.
Speaker 1:like, I don't know was it maybe two years, something like that, and it was really ambitious for technically speaking. It was it involved? Technically speaking? Yeah, it involved a lot of CG. Like two-thirds of the film had some type of CG shot in it and you know, I had originally people that were, you know, set to do it, but it was mostly like a bunch of.
Speaker 1:We were all in our college years at that point, most of us anyway and you know you, you find out some people they commit out of good nature, um, but they don't necessarily they're they're, they don't they're. This is this is a good point to talk about. Sometimes there's a, there's a people pleaser and you, you know it's. You know, having egotistical tendencies is one end of the spectrum. And then you have the people pleaser, which is the complete opposite end of the spectrum, and they tend to cause ultimately just as much harm even though they're well-meaning, just as much harm even though they're well-meaning.
Speaker 1:And it's difficult. You can yell and be aggressive and speak your mind to somebody who had ill will, but it's much more difficult to deal with a people pleaser if you're running a project simply because you know at least they meant good and they tried. And that's one of the heartbreaking aspects of having to deal with that sort of person. But you know what I eventually learned from that is you know you have to establish clear boundaries from the very beginning and you have to be very open up front with with everything I agree I 100 agree with that because I've met my fair share of people pleasers and, I'll be honest, I was one myself Like.
Speaker 1:I said a few months ago to almost a year ago, I did cause a lot of harm without even trying. Yeah, I hear you, so I want to pivot a little bit in terms of the craft of filmmaking itself, now that I've kind of gotten a feel for you. Do you find yourself thriving creatively in more conditions that come from solitude or collaboration with people?
Speaker 2:It's a mixture of both. Honestly, when I'm writing, like when I wrote the short film, the short films of Foolish or Let Me Go, those were more personal stories, stories with somewhat of a personal connection to me, only myself would understand that I have collaborated, uh, before, um, I collaborated. I collaborated with um. Uh, actually she was a guest on your show, uh, heather bales on the architect's wife oh, yeah, we, uh.
Speaker 1:Can we just briefly like pause for a second? Just talk about that. What were you, what were you two smoking when you decided to make that? I swear like quentin, tarantino has nothing on the content of that film uh, first things first.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed it so I was certainly flabbergasted and, uh, entertained, um, in some ways it was uh. Well, it kept escalating and I'm like, oh shoot, how far is this gonna go? Toward the very ending, the ending, this shot, you know, toward the end of the short film, and patrick johnson is doing something I know patrick johnson absolutely hated is ripping his shirt open. And did you have to get people drunk to?
Speaker 2:do this sort of?
Speaker 1:stuff, feet rubbing. I mean I need the full explanation here and I I might text Heather after or DM Heather after this and be like yo I know you co-wrote this Like I want to know who was responsible for this.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I'm going to save the trouble. I will go into that story real quick.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:So I was in the middle of shooting um, I was in the middle of shooting in the hands of faith with um, with my friend samuel fronsman, and I was I had I started coming up with with and I started. I was at work one day and I was just starting to have an idea for like another little short film that I would like to do while we're waiting on getting Shadow started, and I was like, well, you know what, let's try to do a comedy. You know like we did it? We tried to do a comedy back in 2023. And that film ultimately got shelved due to a lot of issues Now. So I reached out to Heather and I said, heather, I would like lot of issues now. So I reached out to Heather and I said, heather, I would like to do a comedy or somewhere wrong, somewhere when did you know Heather from?
Speaker 2:Um, we, we got introduced by, uh, by an actor friend of ours. Okay, um, she actually uh, she actually um, she. I got introduced to her. She was just getting back and she was just getting back into acting, if I'm if I remember, if I'm remembering this correctly. So I gave her a. Uh, the first gig I ever gave her was a voiceover in my short film. Uh, it'll be okay as a voiceover.
Speaker 2:And then shortly after that I gave her a pretty decent sized role in my short film, a Family Matter, and we were collaborate. We were collaborating for a good two years after that. So I reached out to her and I said, hey, I want to do a comedy. And I was like, I was like kind of like wanting to do like a clue type of comedy like murder mystery, wanting to do like a clue type of uh comedy like murder mystery. But I ultimately, uh, I think we ultimately decided not to do that because, uh, at the time she and um pat johnston were actually already doing they already did a like a murder mystery comedy, uh film at the time okay so I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2:I can't write comedy like my comedy comes off as too dark and too mean, like you don't know if you should laugh or you shouldn't laugh.
Speaker 1:You know and the wrong joke at a party that had good intent let's just say a wrong joke every time I open up my mouth.
Speaker 2:Basically, I've unintentionally offended people. To be completely honest with you sober and drunk.
Speaker 2:So that tells you everything. So we were brainstorming some ideas and she took over majority of the writing. My job was actually giving her some weird ideas. So the foot rubbing scene in that movie you can blame me, that was my idea. Rubbing scene in that movie you can, you can blame me, that was my idea. Um, the shirtless scene with patrick that was also my idea. I want to say yeah, and that was because I just got done watching deadpool 3 and the scene where hugh jackman's shirt was up. I was like, man, that'd be kind of funny to kind of do something like that now. There were a lot of other ideas that we had for that short film but they were way too out there and way too weird that Heather graciously watered them down. If it's OK with you, I'd like to share the post, the original post credit scene that never got shot.
Speaker 1:Go lay on me.
Speaker 2:All right, got shot, go lay down on me, all right. So there was a joke that ended up getting cut out of the film where, um, james l edwards would pull down his pants and he's wearing this elephant thong and we actually bought the thong. I remember he bought the thong. We quickly realized that it wasn't going to work because it was too revealing, you know, and it was an elephant thong so you can imagine how that looked. So my idea, I imagine very cartoony it was so.
Speaker 2:So basically, the my original idea was um, we would fade to black, credits would roll, we would fade back. There would be a close-up of Lonnie in this thong, james L Edwards in this thong, close-up of his behind, and he's walking down this hallway walking like this kind of like shaking it, dancing very cringy. He gets to a bedroom door. You see him standing there with the thong on and all you hear him say hey guys, are you ready for round two? And he does like an elephant noise. That was the original post-credits scene. However, I pitched it. No one liked it, so I let it go, and this is why we collaborate with other people to keep doing some things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, trust me, I've uh, when I write my. Let me just say this when I write my own scripts I am very boundary pushing, I'm very willing to go that extra limit. But I always have to remind myself when I do collaborate with somebody, I gotta make sure that we can meet in the middle. So some of my more out there ideas are probably not gonna sell very well all right.
Speaker 1:Well, I got the full story now. Now we can backtrack to where you originally were going, because I forgot about the architect's wife and then you mentioned it. I'm like, all right, we need to address the elephant thong in the room.
Speaker 2:I'm happy you liked it, so that was. That makes me feel good. Honestly, my dad really didn't like it, so he didn't hate it.
Speaker 1:Who did I raise?
Speaker 2:He said about my other films, but that one in particular. He basically just told me in a very nice way, very fatherly way. He just said I know you've done better. I was like oh, oh damn shit, that's very nice actually yeah, it's like okay, well, I guess comedy's not my strong suit. I guess I won't touch that genre for a minute, you know well, you seem very willing to mess up oh yeah, oh yeah. So where did we leave off before we got to talk about the architect's wife?
Speaker 1:um, I think I was asking about, uh, what your creativity thrives in, like solitude versus collaboration, and then you brought up like your collaboration with architect's wife okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So collaboration, I, I like collaborating with people. It's just that I always like, again, I have to learn that. I have to learn how to be, how to meet in the middle and even if I think a certain way is going to go, but if this other person is so passionate about another idea that they want to fulfill with a story, I could either go with it or I can just, you know, cry about it. But honestly, now, honestly, I just be be like you know what, let's do it, let's see if it works. Nine times out of ten, it works. So, but when I, when I like again, like when I write my own scripts, um, it's, it's helpful to have somebody read them for me to see if I've gone too far, like, cause I'll give you a great example.
Speaker 2:I'm currently writing a another script for a feature film that's somewhat in ties with shadows of the list, and I wrote this scene, or wrote the scene in the script, and I sent it off to a friend of mine and I said, hey, man, I need feedback on this scene. For uh, wrote this scene, uh, in the script, and I sent it off to a friend of mine and I said, hey, man, I need feedback on this scene. What do you think? And I'll never forget what he wrote. He wrote he goes. Richard, you did the impossible. You made me very uncomfortable. This is not gonna fly, I'm like, so I gotta keep that in there.
Speaker 1:Got it, thank you so how well, since you consider yourself a boundary pusher. Um how far is too far for you? You know, in principle, not necessarily like one instance or scene that you wrote, but like you know you like to. If you like to ride the guardrails, you know, certainly you've probably scraped up the car every once in a while and you know, presumably learned your lesson from it. Um, so where?
Speaker 2:where now are those guardrails at and where you're willing to push boundaries it's mainly when I'm writing um, when I'm writing like a, when I'm writing a script about a, about a serial killer or about a true, true crime case. That's where I want to be able to push the boundaries a little bit further. When I'm writing a drama, I don't think I have pushed the boundary. I mean some people might think, like in my short film Let Me Go, they think I probably pushed a couple boundaries with that one, because that movie dealt with estranged parents, abusive relationships and also dealt with suicide as well. I mean, crammed all that in in a 30-minute short. Some people thought I went a little, some people thought I went too far with it, but a lot of people understood where I was coming from with it now.
Speaker 2:As a writer, I feel like I've gone too far. When I read back what I've written and I delete the entire page. That's happened a handful of times, honestly.
Speaker 1:Okay. Would you consider yourself more of a camera director or an actor director? Which are you more focused on once you get on set?
Speaker 2:I would like to say I'm both. If I'm the DP for my film, I'm both a camera director and an actor director. That's why I prefer when I have a DP and I have a second camera operator where I can mainly focus on directing the actors more. I will say that maybe Architect's Wife was my one of my best directed short films because I had two great guys uh, help me out on that movie on the camera department, so I had a lot more time to focus on directing um, lonnie and julie and you know, patrick and heather, and I was able to get those performances that I really wanted. But another thing is too is that when I direct my actors, I give my actors a lot of freedom when it comes to their character.
Speaker 2:Again back to Arquitect's Wife, for a second, majority of what James Earl Edwards said or did in that movie was all improv, his idea, and I just let it go. And it usually because I I always feel like this is how I always feel with the actor or the actress. They've had that material for months, maybe a year. They, they already know what, what they want year. They, they already know what, what they want from. They already know they already carved this character so well in their head and it might be completely different from what I was originally seeing. You know, and there's been a lot of times where I would, you know, we would shoot the first take of any, any, any film and the you know, whoever was in front of the camera, they would literally do something completely different than I ever imagined and I always, and I always kept it in. I was like wow, they went a different direction than I initially thought and it worked out a lot better, you know.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, being that you're, you know, in the indie space and you're working often with little, probably no budget most of the time. You've got to get what actors you can get, at least to get the project done. And every indie director has come across having to fill the role with a person who's either never done acting or is at least very inexperienced with it. How do you, how have you learned to try to deal with those types of people in the way that you can get a at least a good, decent performance from them?
Speaker 2:trust.
Speaker 1:I've always trust them um well, you're better than better man than me. I would probably attempt to micromanage them and think I'm the genius in the matter.
Speaker 2:Honestly, for me it's always about trust. A great example was when Heather and I first worked together on a family matter. That was, I want to say, her first short film she did. I might be wrong I completely trusted her with that performance. I don't think I I don't, I don't think I gave her a lot of notes on what she want, what she had to do and that literally like like the scenes in that short film where she is literally looking like she's I don't know if you saw the short or not but where she's helpless and beaten and bruised. Is it the?
Speaker 1:mafia type one.
Speaker 2:Is it Family Matter?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the mafia type movie. Yeah, she acted her guts out for that one.
Speaker 2:She did a phenomenal job in that one. Like I said, I didn't give her a lot of notes on that one and I think you know, like I said, it's all about trust. When I cast you in my film, I trust you enough to do what you think is right for the character. I'll jump in and point you into the direction I feel like it should go, but I leave.
Speaker 2:I leave a lot of the trust, you know, a lot of the performance to the actor that's that's, that's how I've always I I learned that told Tarantino to let them do the character how they have always pictured it in their head Because, again, like I said, they've had the material for a long time, they've carved this character into what they believe the character to be. And you can jump in and just, you know, like, like, even though what they are doing is great, but you, you know, but it's like, okay, it's not exactly how I want it, but you can point them in the direction that you do want and that's what I've always done. You know, I take a lot of my direct advice from the greats, you know. So, like I said, it's all about trust and I, I like, even for right now, for Shadows of Phyllis, the actor, uh, adam Joseph Turner. I, I'll never forget this.
Speaker 1:You said his full name.
Speaker 2:Is that how?
Speaker 1:you address him on set as the full name.
Speaker 2:No, I, I, uh, when I, when I address him on set, it's either Adam or Mr Turner. That's what I've always called him.
Speaker 1:Personally, I would say the full name. If he insists on me using his full name in the credits, I am saying his full name the entire time on set. Like buddy, you need to earn that one.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll be honest with you. When I did In the Hands of Fate, we had an actor on there. His name was joseph legion slade and that's how we always announced him like hey, joseph legion slade, you know, because one guy has a cool sounding name, so um, but when it comes to adam, I'll never forget. I get a call from him and he's telling me that he goes, and the guy kind of sounds like br Willis in a way, but he goes.
Speaker 2:Hey, richard, I just want to let you know you're not going to see Thoulis until we're in front of the camera, because I got some surprises for you and I just kind of went like okay, and I looked at the bat.
Speaker 2:I was like okay, and there's been a handful of times since we've shot with him, like he would add a bunch of tiny surprises for everything. I remember we shot this one day and I couldn't talk about it because I posted the scene. We're shooting the scene between him and Brad Vincent and all it was it was supposed to be. It's just a dialogue scene, all it was. It was just a dialogue scene. So Brad walks this direction and I turn the camera facing him to give it more of a profile. Look, and then, out of nowhere, adam pulls this apple out of his pocket I didn't even know he had an apple and just starts chewing on it and just staring down at Brad and just walks, walks away. I'm, like I said, cut. That was great, adam. Where the hell did you get an apple from?
Speaker 2:nobody noticed the bulge anywhere in his costume no, no one noticed anything, so so that was that's. That's what I love about when I that's. One thing I love about when I give my actors a bunch of freedom is that they come up with these creative ways on what to do with their characters.
Speaker 1:Is there an area of filmmaking that you're ignorant in that you think you would benefit to learn or learn more about for future projects that you have in mind?
Speaker 2:I want to say it's definitely the the exploitation, seventies, grindhouse days, and then also the 90 and the independency in the nineties.
Speaker 1:Independent filmmaking scene in the nineties.
Speaker 2:Independent filmmaking scene in the nineties yeah. Cause I felt I feel like b movie techniques a mixture of b movie techniques, um, and also like how much freedom that um the filmmakers in the 90s had at the time.
Speaker 1:Again, tarantino was another great example well, there's also a lot more distributing outlets, uh, for indie filmmaking, during that time Exactly. Anyway, there's probably still a number of them around today but it's a different climate.
Speaker 2:It's literally like finding the golden ticket for Willy Wonka.
Speaker 1:Yes, you only discover it in poverty.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:Which technique? Yes, you only discover it in poverty Exactly. Is there a particular well, which technique sticks out? You know in your mind when I bring that question up, though curiously. That's an area of filmmaking, a genre and a niche genre of indie filmmaking that I am completely unfamiliar with completely unfamiliar with.
Speaker 2:Well, back in the back in the exploitation, you know, 70 grindhouse days, is that again a lot of these movies, a lot of those movies. Back then they didn't have a lot of budget but they did what they could for what they did have. A lot of times they were, they got creative. You know, the old saying is less is more. You know, and I feel like there are some techniques that that generation brought that I feel like not enough people bring to today, especially with the rise of AI.
Speaker 1:Do you think any techniques that died? Do you think that it was good that they died, that they shouldn't be resurrected?
Speaker 2:There's a couple, Nothing that really comes to mind. The only director I know that the only director I really know that does it a lot is Sam Raimi, where you have the point of view shot of almost anything. You know. I'm kind of glad that one somewhat died out because it got really old really fast. I would actually like it if the found footage genre I've dropped, you know, just basically died off.
Speaker 1:It's very hard to do found footage right though, oh and it's, it's normally it's always used for like a horror context, with the exception in recent times of, like what was that movie? Hardcore Henry? Yeah, it was a full POV movie. I think it was about this cyber-enhanced guy who was like a merc or something like that, and the entire movie was POV.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you my favorite. I have not seen Hardcore Henry. I own it. I have not seen it yet. I got it for a dollar at Dollar Tree. Are you the type that collects DVDs? Yeah, I still collect physical media. I actually, every six months I would spend $200 on one website called Grindhouse Video because they always had a deal going on, so I would always take advantage of that. 99% of the time I would buy them. They would come here and then I would just put them on the shelf and I wouldn't even touch them, because I just like how movies look on a shelf.
Speaker 1:So it's like basically my Steam library.
Speaker 2:Basically. Yeah, I've watched a few. I mean, I've bought some blind gems in there. You know some really good 80s horror films on there and also some lesser-known movies from actually very popular people. A great example was excuse me, I actually bought a movie called the New Kids and it starred Rebecca no, lori Loughlin, I think her name is who played Aunt Becky from Full House, and it also starred James Spader, who everyone knows best as the voice of Ultron in Avengers. So I was like, oh, cool 80s horror film with these two in it. I'll check it out. I watched it and it was cheesy, but I loved every single minute of it, you know but?
Speaker 2:but back to found footage for a brief second. My favorite found footage movie and I don't even know if you consider this movie found footage, my favorite is actually a movie called look, it's a uh, it was directed by adam rifkin came out in 2007. That movie was entirely shot on the point of view of civilian civilians, cameras, you know, like security cameras. It cause, at that point in time, we, you know, you know, you know cameras, security cameras were like popping all over the place, you know, and that whole, that movie literally tells a whole story just from the point of view of these security cameras and it was very creative and very different on how, basically very different how they have they've done it, you know how they've done it, how they've done found footage before, you know. And it wasn't a horror film, it was a drama with some comedic moments.
Speaker 2:Have you tried adapting any of those techniques into some of the films that you've already made. I thought about it.
Speaker 1:I have you sat underneath the tree, you ate an apple and you pondered the universe, whether to be or not to be.
Speaker 2:And you chose not to be or not to be, and then I chose not to be. Well, it's like, you know, when it comes to techniques like that, it's hard to really do that and then realize, oh, unfriended did the exact same thing. Or, you know, again, the movie Look did something similar. It's really hard not to, you know, do that and then like and also at the same time trying to figure out how to do it differently, how to do a different approach with it. Um, so, maybe one day in the future I'll definitely consider doing something similar to what those films did, but as of right now, I'm just like, if I do it, I'll just be copying what I've, what's already been done before you know.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the indie artist's worst fear is feeling like you're just making somebody else's work because you were inspired by them.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you With Shadows of Thulis. That movie has so much inspiration it's not even funny. It's like it was inspired by Prisoners the movie that stars Hugh Jackman yeah, that was a good movie great movie so underrated, and I'm mad that Hugh Jackman didn't get nominated for an Oscar for that.
Speaker 2:It should have, exactly because I saw that in the theater when it first came out. I had a bad experience, but I saw it in the theater when it first came out. I had a bad experience, but I saw it in the theater. But you know, movies like that Rob Zombie's Devil's Rejects definitely has a little bit of inspiration in there, especially when it comes to the camera work. And you know again, the Hitcher. I don't know if you ever saw the Hitcher with Rucker Howard.
Speaker 1:I'm familiar with the title, but, no, I didn't see it.
Speaker 2:Great movie. Great movie, I mean. Save yourself some time. Just watch the 1987 version. Skip the 2006 version with Sean Bean. It's not a bad movie, but it's produced by Michael Bay, if that's how it's written.
Speaker 1:Well, you returned to filmmaking after a hiatus, so presumably you know it's obviously worth it in the long run. Why is filmmaking worth the headaches and the heartbreaks to you? Because anybody like filmmaking might be one of, in terms of stress levels, the worst hobby to get into. Because it's the amalgamation of every single art form into one medium.
Speaker 2:I felt well, the reason why I still get what it is because I love it. And yes, it comes with a lot of stress, yes, it comes with a bunch of bumps in the road, but I really do enjoy it so much. And it basically kind of starts back when I was a kid when my dad made me watch Saving Private Ryan and just seeing how they made that film with the camera techniques and what Spielberg did with the you know what he did to Tom Hanks, you know, make him go through boot camp and everything and did what they possibly can do to make everything feel so real with that film. At that point in time, after that I just kind of looked at myself and was like that's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:You know I don't want to work a boring nine to five. I don't want to. You know I don't. I'd rather be out there creating and doing stories. You know that's what I that's. I mean, I guess that's why it's because I want. I want to be different than most people in my family, because a lot of my, a lot of my family is, you know, they're blue collar, they do a lot of work, you know, and I'm not bashing that whatsoever, but I just want a little bit more out of life with filmmaking you know Well.
Speaker 1:As a blue-collar worker, believe it or not, I can sympathize with the sentiment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean obviously nothing against blue-collar workers, it's just not my lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Well, funny thing in my case is any crew that I've ever been a part of, whenever my personality actually starts coming out and I start talking about what I'm interested in, they're like dude, why are you doing this? Why are you here? They're like I don't fit the bill.
Speaker 2:honestly, it just something that I I grew up with and now I'm confident in, um, and so it's just something that it does make you appreciate everything, at the very least yeah, and it's like I remember when, um, when we, when we started shooting, when I started making the short films and then I started, you know, shooting shadows excuse me, I started showing it to some because I work in retail and I started showing some of my stuff to my regular customers, I I get the same thing. They say like dude, why are you working here, when you could be doing this? Because I'm like I just just look at it and I'm just like, well, I need to pay the bills and I need. You know I need to. You know I need to live. You know I mean right now. You know my movies aren't making me money and that's what I need right now. You know I hope the day comes where you know the right person sees the right movie and you know my career can go up if it, if.
Speaker 1:If that doesn't happen, would it still have been worth it? Oh yeah, hundred-percent hmm, well, I think a lot of. I asked that question specifically because you know a lot of artists want to be able to operate on the highest level that they possibly can. Because you, because they want to see their dreams realized in the highest form, that they're able to watch them, not in their head. And the downfall when the artist dies is when you pursue the career and not the art. That's when it happens yeah the career and not the art.
Speaker 1:That's when it happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in my case the artist died a couple times and he resurrected. And you know, now my job is to make sure the artist doesn't die again and just keep going.
Speaker 1:Well, now you know, it can be resurrected though.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean, I think if everyone literally just puts their mind to it, anyone can do anything. Honestly. They can be the best writer, they can be the best actor, actress, maybe even be the next CEO, for I don't know, for who's popular right now? James Gunn, you know, like you're like a CEO, for you know DC Comics, you know. But you don't know, until you try and you keep trying, it may not happen. It's not going to happen overnight, you know. You know. I mean, we've all been there where we all, you know, we all have these dreams and these ambitions and we all think it's just going to happen as soon as we, you know, as soon as we get older. But it doesn't. You know, you have to work for it. You got to work hard for it, you know. You got to learn how to network yourself. You got to learn how to market yourself, you know well, that's well put.
Speaker 1:Richard, thanks for coming on the podcast. Is there any final thoughts you want to leave with the audience?
Speaker 2:thank you for having me on the show and I'm sorry that I rambled a lot and a lot of fun that's what podcasts are for, though.
Speaker 1:If you don't really at least once, I mean, was it really a podcast?
Speaker 2:exactly um, again um, if you uh ever, if you guys are interested, follow the uh shazathulis instagram page. I post there on there daily on the progress and I'll keep everybody posted when we are picture blocked and ready to distribute.
Speaker 1:Well, Well, Richard, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Matt.