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 Wish I Started Sooner #59 Filmmaker Jamison Braly
What if the stick-figure family on the back of a minivan is actually a body count? In this episode, we sit down with Jamison Braly, a filmmaker whose path from wedding videography to viral horror shorts proves that smart constraints beat big budgets. Jameson breaks down how one-room setups, small casts, and borrowed locations can elevate story and performance, why his 23-minute short struggled while tighter work thrived, and how weddings quietly trained him to move fast, adapt, and treat every moment like a one-take scene. We dive into writing for clarity, thinking like a producer, building strong crew culture, and why horror is the perfect low-budget training ground—even if it’s not your end goal. If you’re trying to start, scale smarter, and make story louder than gear, this one’s for you.
Welcome to the Focal Point Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Riggs. Here I take a deep dive into my personal interests of the hidden craftsmanship, philosophies, and passions behind society's talent. If you're intrigued by artistic nuance, please subscribe and follow on my YouTube channel, Spotify, and Buzz Sprout. With that being said, let me introduce you to today's guests. For context, I I released a short film this last May, but it was extracted out of a feature that we just couldn't finish. And so it had been on my plate for quite a while, and I kind of just had to pull the cord and make that decision executively. But um once I did that, I put it out there and showed it to a few friends, but now I've kind of made it private again because I want to submit it to festivals. Yeah. It's it's the least fun part about this whole process, but it's necessary.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's a lot of unsexy things about filmmaking that people don't realize.
SPEAKER_02:48 hours the 48 hour festivals though are the least sexy. They have to be like the bastard children that we we adopt. But that's funny. Uh I have seen some good 48s though. They're yeah, there's there are what people can do within that framework is sometimes rather impressive.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I can see that.
SPEAKER_02:But only if the dream team's there. You have to have a dream team who has like done 48-hour film festivals like five years in a row, and then they just end up winning every single time, and then they get bored of it, and then the new people come in. That's that seems to be the cycle that I witnessed. Alright. Well, we're recording, we're live. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Um I think I reached out, I think, to a Facebook group that you were a part of because I was just looking for some new uh talented to kind of see what's going on. But also I'm getting I I'm for context, I'm from the Cincinnati-Columbus area. And I've interviewed and talked to a lot of artists and creatives around me locally and a little bit from you know Philadelphia, but I don't think I had reached out yet to the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Knoxville, um, and Nashville area. So I started reaching out a little bit to see, you know, what was there, and then um eventually I came across you and I saw some of your work. But just go ahead and take a second to introduce yourself, what you do, and how you got into it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and before I do, um, the Columbus, I I was in a film, the one of my films was in a film festival in Columbus. Uh Nightmare, yeah, nightmare something. I can't remember now. Anyway, I'm Jameson Brawley. Um, I I live in Chattanooga. I tell people I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but I really live in a place called Ringold, Georgia, which is 10 minutes south of Chattanooga. Uh I grew up in Chattanooga. Um, I'm in my 40s. Um, and all my life as a kid I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I didn't know what I didn't know what a filmmaker was. Um, I didn't know if it was the guy who held the camera. I don't know if it was the guy who was in front of the camera. I didn't know if it was the guy who did the lighting. And um and now we still don't know. That's really true. Um, but uh I'd always had these stories that I'd kind of type out in like Microsoft Word, maybe two pages long. And uh I'd never written the script because the crazy thing was that I was always scared of like doing it wrong. It's such a stupid thing to say, but I didn't know what font to use. I didn't know the formatting, I didn't know the spacing, and so I just I didn't know the terminology that people would use in scripts, and so that just sort of held me back until uh it was only a few years ago that I was telling a friend of mine um all these ideas for films I had, and she said you should write one. And she's like 20 years younger than me, and she had made four films at this point. And I thought, yeah, this kid basically is telling me that I can make I can write scripts, and so she said, just write it with pencil and paper and don't worry about formatting. And then once you've got your story down, then you can worry about formatting. But uh, it's just funny how those little hurdles can prevent us from doing so much. Um, a little bit more background. Uh, I'm a wedding videographer. I've been a wedding videographer for 15 years, and I tell people it's not every little boy's dream to be a wedding videographer. Um, it does pay the bills and it has helped me, like we were talking before we started recording, it has helped me to think quickly because you know, you're basically working on a set with actors who are not trained actors, you have no script at all. Um, you have to use whatever lighting's available, and you only get one take. So um that I've used in the filmmaking world, uh, much to my DP's chagrin, because in many ways I'm like, okay, we can do this real quick, we can knock this out. Okay, we don't need that lie. Let's just go, go, go, which is not really how you should properly make a film, should take time. But I think it's a I think it's a happy balance being able to think on the fly, work on the fly, and also understand that good things take time to uh to set up and and to to work well.
SPEAKER_02:You made a film, um, I believe, uh I forget the name of it. It's like maintenance something, but it was in 2013.
SPEAKER_00:I think uh you made that maintaining justice. Okay. Yeah, that's hilarious.
SPEAKER_02:There was a like a 10-year gap before you made your next one. What happened there?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay, yeah, that's great. Um, so the uh that was a buddy of mine, a college friend of mine, who was in town, and he was a big film buff, and we're like, let's just make something. So he always had these, he was a big comic book guy. So we thought it would be funny to have a the idea of the superhero who's uh in his 50s now and sort of his superpowers have sort of drained, and he maintains the safety of this small town because he doesn't have the the abilities anymore to you know maintain the justice in New York or LA or Atlanta. Um and uh we there was no script, we just kind of decided the the scenes on the fly, and it was around that time that I was starting to explore the idea of you know maybe making a documentary or something. And then I started to look at how much it costs and you know how much gear costs. And again, I didn't know what a filmmaker was, so I thought, oh, well, I've got to buy all the lights, I've got to buy all the C stands, I've got to buy all the cameras. And it was so prohibitive that I remember making the decision about then I was just gonna focus on being a really amazing wedding videographer. And not to toot my own horn, but I did become, like, at least in our region, one of the top wedding videographers. And my work stood out among everyone else. And and I was just like, this is how I can make money and still be a storyteller. Um, and so that 10-year gap, at the end of that 10-year gap, was when that younger friend of mine said, just write it all down on a piece of paper with pencil. Um, yeah, I'd forgotten about maintaining justice.
SPEAKER_02:But what's funny is that I like to remind you of all the things that you forgot about.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, what's funny is that I'm I actually started writing a feature for that. Um uh the same concept where uh the superhero who's who's protected Atlanta for decades is now turning 50, and the mayor's like, you're causing more trouble than good, just move out, retire to a small town. And uh so he starts to uh you know find little crimes to to uh to solve or uh to to help the citizens there, and he's just annoying to them. But what's funny is that his his nemesis from the big city is also in his 50s and losing his power. So he moves to the small town uh that the hero's at, and they um uh insanity ensues from there.
SPEAKER_02:But honestly, that's a really funny concept. You know how um like uh the boys kind of turned superheroes into uh they took a very different take on superheroes, but it was more about it was a it was a bit of a commentary on society. This one sounds like one of those it's I wouldn't I don't want to say depressing, but it's all it's almost like a comedy. Where these two there's two uh superheroes are like, oh, do we really even want to fight at this point? Because now they got like a herniated disc or something like that.
SPEAKER_00:And they just got funny. I've had three of those. Um but uh yeah, it's sort of that uh there was a Will Smith movie where he was sort of he was always a drunk superhero. I forget the name of it. Hancock? Yeah, Hancock. And so that's kind of what it's based on, except instead of the hero being a drunk loser, he's just getting older. Um, but anyway, that's that I I got to about page 70 in the writing and realized wow, I'm still not out of act one. I hadn't really honed like my writing abilities then. And so when you realize that, at least for me, I'm I I'm kind of lazy and I'm trying to get better at this. When I realize I'm at page 70 and still in act one, I just uh eh, I'll put it off. So I haven't written in on that for probably a year. What software do you use? Uh there's a website called writer duet, w-r-i-t-e-r-d-u-e-t.com. And you just write it in the browser. So, you know, any computer you log into, you've got your work there. They give you three scripts for free. So you know, I just keep three that I'm working on in there.
SPEAKER_02:You just make a new email account every time you write it.
SPEAKER_00:You could, yeah. You could. Um, but with each with your account, you can write three scripts. And when I say three scripts, like you could finish one, print it out, and then delete it, and then create another one. So um okay. I've I've paid for it, I think, once when I needed to. One of the features for the paid version is you can collaborate with other people so other people can log into it and make changes. Like the DP would put DP notes in his version, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, yeah, I've been using, I think, uh I've been using the same online software for over 10 years at this point. Oh, yeah. For screenwriting, uh, it's called Celts. I've never heard of that one. Yeah, honestly, most people, every time I mention it, and it's been around for a while and it has a lot of great features, but every time I mention it, people haven't heard of it. I've only met one other person in my life of all the other creatives that I've talked to who have even heard of Celts. And it's a great software, and it's really it's well, it's got it's free, but it has the most amount of free features that I've seen from a bunch of more other popular screenwriting softwares. Um and you know, it has within the unlock feature, it also gives you like a lot of analytics uh analytics and uh static statistics based on your writing habits, how long it takes you even distinguishes between thinking time and writing time.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Jeez. I wonder what mine would be.
SPEAKER_02:Like when you stop writing, it pauses for like five seconds and then switches over the clock to thinking until you start writing something again. It's really it's it's it's a fun little thing that it keeps up, but um yeah, if you haven't tried out Celts, maybe check it out. It's really it's it's it's quirky. It's kind of quirky, but it works great. And it's free for the most part. So when you started getting back into filmmaking, uh what which project was it? I'm trying to remember which project was it that got you back into filmmaking. Um, and all of them actually have, I think, have been horror films, right?
SPEAKER_00:Three, uh three of my own, and then I've worked on two others um that, like we said before we started recording, are sort of like my adopted children. Um, the first one was called Hit on the Head, which that was an idea me and a friend of mine had 15 years ago. Um he was kind of into movies too, and we always thought we would write movies together. Um, but the idea was uh at that time people were putting the stick figure families on the back of their cars.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, if you remember.
SPEAKER_00:And uh we were in traffic and there was one in front of us, and he said, What if that's not their family? What if that's how many people they've killed? And so that that was the genesis of that story. And um that was I I remember maybe three or four years ago, just kind of cleaning out my my desktop computer, and I found a folder called scripts and opened it up, and that story was written in notepad, it was maybe two pages long. And then a few weeks later, I met with that friend uh who told me just start writing with a pencil and paper. And when you do that, there's something magical about doing that, is your brain starts working on a different level than when you're typing with your fingers and looking at this at a screen, and it's almost like autopilots, really magical. And so I hammered that out. That was about 13 pages long. And um, of course, even the final product, as you know, some of the things that happened in the final product were not in the script that we had to change on the fly or decide on the fly. Um, but yeah, the antithesis for that was um seeing the stick figure family on the back of a car and thinking it's more like uh how World War II pilots on the side of their planes would put how many kills they had.
SPEAKER_02:Honestly, you could uh you could take that concept for a lot of different things, but instead it's it kind of makes it funnier, even though it's a horror movie. The fact that it's like this innocent little um family on the back, and turns out it's not that you could even make that a comedy.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we first see when we first see it, uh, when the main character sees there's like three dads and two moms and a bunch of kids, and she's like, it's a twisted family you got there.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. What is what was the best creative input that someone else contributed to a film of yours?
SPEAKER_00:I think it was with that uh hmm. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is probably not the best example, but it was that first film Hit on the Head, which um I wanted to include a dog in it. And we all know that the the big rule is never ever kill a dog in your films or everyone's gonna hate you.
SPEAKER_02:And so I had safer to kill a child, honestly, ironically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, sadly. But um, so in the film, not to spoil it, but um, she backs her car up and hits a dog. And it was a trained dog as my nieces, my niece trains dogs. And um, I was just sitting there, it was three o'clock in the morning, and I was like, guys, I don't I don't know what to do here. I don't know where the where this story should go, what happens to the dog. And the boom operator, who is this guy older than me who had never been in a boom operator before, he just simply says, What if the dog just got up and left? And I just cracked up laughing. I don't know if it was because I was tired, but I was like, fine, that's what we do. And so the dog's pretending to be dead because it senses, I guess, the danger of the killer. And as soon as she closes the door, the dog gets up and leaves. And and when I've been in film festivals where that happens, the audience is so relieved and they cheer. Um I remember I was at one film festival, it was in Long Beach, California, and it was this Australian guy behind me, and I was chatting with him before the film started because it was an audience award thing, and I was kind of trying to charm and schmooze people. And I was chatting with him, and he's like, Oh, okay, I'm really looking forward to your uh to your film. And so when that scene happened, when she backs the car up and hits the dog, he leans forward and says, You just lost my vote, mate. And then, of course, the dog gets up and and leaves and he pats me on the back and says, Good job.
SPEAKER_02:So all right, now you get my vote. Yeah, you get my vote. I'll vote for you. Now, when you're submit submitting your films to film festivals, do you try to target strictly horror film festivals? And what what's the ratio of success to all-encompassing film festivals versus strictly horror film festivals?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't I know you're supposed to do that, and I I do um I obviously do take that into consideration, and I've had luck with that. Like, for example, the Long Beach one, it's a film festival within a horror convention. So the film festival is in one of the rooms, you know, among other things you can do at a horror festival. Um, that it's not a lot, not a big audience participation in that and the awards, a piece of paper, but I can almost all any any film. Um I'm assured that any of my horror films I submit, they're gonna accept. Um, but some of my most successes have come from non-horror film festivals. One, for example, is called Sugar Hill Film Festival. It's in it's in this little town north of Atlanta. It's put on by the city. And I just submitted to that because one of my actresses lived in that town, and she strongly suggested I submit. And I didn't even realize there was a thousand dollar prize for first place, and I won that. I didn't even go. Um, I just got a text from her saying that we won. Um, and then I was in a film festival in Rome, Georgia, which by the way is where a lot of Stranger Things was shot. Um, and it was it was not a horror film festival, it was a fantastic film festival, just so well run, well organized, a three-day event, and they really treated their filmmakers like kings and queens. And it had nothing to do with horror. And I didn't win anything, but I just love that whole experience. Uh so to your question, I guess if people are making a horror film and looking to um submit to film festivals, I would always say focus on the ones that are horror-based. Um, they usually run in October, so you're gonna have a lot of overlapping if you do that. But some you can go to and some you can't.
SPEAKER_02:Would you consider yourself a horror-only director? Are there other genres of interest that uh you'd like to do but just haven't gotten the time to do yet?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the funny thing is I don't like horror at all. I don't, I have no interest. Yeah, I don't, I don't watch horror films. I I don't care. I don't, I've never seen a I've never seen one Halloween movie, which is shocking because a lot of the scenes in my first horror film, um, I was describing them to my DP and he's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, this was in Halloween three, right? I was like, I've never seen it. He pulled up the scene, I was like, oh my gosh, that's the exact vision.
SPEAKER_02:I thought I was being original.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know, and that happens a lot, unfortunately. But um I I think that horror is very a very easy starting point to sort of learn how to write because um it's very easy. I tell people it's very easy to scare someone. I can say, hey, there's a spider on your shoulder and you're freaked out. But it's harder for me to make you laugh. It's harder for me to tell you a story that's gonna make you cry, tears of joy. Um, it's harder to write uh a love story or historical fiction and get the sort of emotion you want, but it's very easy to scare somebody. So I've always thought you know, fear is like our most primal emotion. It's the one thing that keeps us alive, you know, as cavemen or whatever. Um, so that's that's kind of why my first three are horror thrillers because um they're just me, and I I don't want to disparage people who who write horror, I guess, for a living, but it is it's an easier emotion to elicit from people than anything else. So so so I'm so and now I'm writing a feature that's uh a historical piece, uh, and I'm writing along with that a rhom and then the the superhero one that I mentioned to you about. So, and none of those are horror thrillers because I feel like I've gone through my writing school, I guess, um, with the shorts.
SPEAKER_02:Would you consider yourself more of a writer or a director?
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, I like I like the idea of being a writer more. Uh I've directed three and been assistant director for two. And it's just I don't think I have it. Like I I don't I don't think I have it, but I say that because on the three that I directed, I didn't have an assistant director. And, you know, it's small crew. And as a director, I'm doing everything and I'm not focusing on directing, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:So maybe I don't really know what it feels like to direct. And that's why I volunteered to be an assistant director on two of my friends' films because I wanted them to be able to do what a director should do. And I'll do all the unsexy stuff.
SPEAKER_02:What are the writing lessons that you've learned from doing just you know horror scripts that you're figuring out that you need to adapt or do differently to write different genres?
SPEAKER_00:I think with horror, especially with shorts, I don't think you really need to worry too much about character development. Um, because again, we're just there to scare you. Um, we know who the bad guy is with the knife, and we know who the good people are. Um I think a thing I try to do now when I'm writing is think if I didn't know who was saying this, if I could cover with my thumb the name of the character and just read what they're saying, would I know who this character is? So so that's that's kind of an exercise I do is while I'm writing, I need to write in such a way that I would know who this character is, just based upon the way they're talking, the beats they're the beats they're making, um, the vernacular they use, the words they use, maybe the uh maybe you've written written in such a way that it sounds like an accent. Um, and I think that uh that's advantageous, especially if you're trying to sell a script. Um people want to know that each character can be read and seen differently, uh, even if you were to just delete all the character names.
SPEAKER_02:One of uh you released two horror films, I believe, in the same year. I don't remember if it was this year or last year or the year before. One of the films got uh uh I think is around a thousand views, and then the other one is over 270,000 views. Yeah. What what what was your reaction to that and why why why do you think that happened?
SPEAKER_00:So the one you're talking about with all the views, quarter of a million. Um, that was the first one. I I created that YouTube account specifically to post that video. Um, and so I don't know what the algorithm was thinking, honestly, because I didn't have any other content. I had a long like description.
SPEAKER_02:This was the first video that you uploaded to the account.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I thought, oh, this is my path to fame. This is I can't believe it. I'm amazing, you know. Uh tons of comments.
SPEAKER_02:I can do cocaine and get away with it now, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. And so I thought, well, okay, this next one I'm gonna do, we're gonna shoot for six days. It's gonna be twice as long, and it's gonna be a more in-depth uh story. And um, yeah, I think that's that one was called Night Mommy, and it it did poorly at film festivals, it did poorly on YouTube. Um, I thought we were putting more into it.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, in fact, about three times the runtime of the other film that was another reason it didn't get accepted.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, it was 23 minutes long, which is an extremely odd time for film festivals, a slot for film festivals. Like they would love it if it was 15 minutes, they'd love. Um, if it was 30 minutes, it might have done better. But 23 is just like, what do we do with this? Where can I put this? Where can I fit this in in an hour time slot? Um, I feel like uh I did go back just for my own sake and re-edit it to get get it down to 19 minutes. Just there's so much there's so much joy and terror in deleting scenes and lines. Um, it feels so good, but it also is so scary to kill your darlings. But I realized that there was a lot in that film that didn't need to be there. Um, there's a lot of telling and not showing, um, which is a big problem with you know independent films. Um so yeah, it was a that was a big and and that's why I made Slideshow. Slideshow was my third film, and I was like, okay, we're gonna boil all this down. We're not gonna make it a big production, we're gonna shoot everything in one room, and we're gonna shoot over a period of 24 hours, which I know that sounds like uh it was a period piece too.
SPEAKER_02:It took a little piece in like the 70s or 80s, and the sets were really well done, I have to say.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, and and I'd love to talk about that. Uh, but real quick, that that was the op that was like I'm gonna take everything from Night Mommy, which was the 23-minute one that took six days to shoot, and I'm going to do the opposite. And we're gonna hire four actors, and they're all gonna sit in one room, and we're gonna have them show up the night before and do a screen test, which we actually went ahead and shot a few scenes with them, and then the whole next day we're gonna shoot. So it was really a one-day shoot, and uh, I think it turned out better. Uh, to the set pieces, um, that what you see in that film is exactly how the house looked when we walked in.
SPEAKER_03:Really?
SPEAKER_00:Um, yeah, I got on a Facebook. I got on Facebook and and was asking, hey, does anybody's Mimaw have a room that looks like this? And this lady who's my age, she's like, I have a room that looks exactly like what you need. And I'm such a fan of the 70s, and I've got it all themed to look like the 70s. And we walked in and we were like, we don't have to do anything. I think I brought in a rotary phone, a life magazine from the 70s, and an ashtray, but they smoked they and they already had ashtrays. Oh, and the percolator I bought. So that was that was the only things I added to that set.
SPEAKER_02:That is a rare thing to happen. To find a time capsule piece for a film like that. Save the life. It had to have been static because you didn't even have to do a whole lot of work to it. Nothing.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't have to do anything. Everything you see is exactly how it was when we walked in.
SPEAKER_02:What was the conversation that you had with the director of your director of photography for slideshow, given that everything was already there? Because it but you had to have like hit the ground running.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we walked in, and uh, if you recall, there's a a cow skull above the fireplace that wasn't written in the script that he saw that and said, Okay, we're going to do a scene here. We have to use the skull, we have to use the horns. Um, and what really helped that shoot be efficient is we me and my director of photography and uh the gaffer went to that house probably two weeks before we shot. And I played one of the actors, and my daughter came with us. She played another actor, and he just kind of handheld his camera, and we did uh sort of a video storyboard. And then on the day of shooting, he showed up with screenshots of the video storyboard printed out on his his shot list. So we knew exactly you know where the camera needed to be, where the actors needed to sit, and uh and it it it just it just flowed. It was it was beautiful. It was beautiful how efficient and quick that shoot was. Yeah, yeah, I give full like trust to the DP. Um I'm not a nerd when it comes to like cameras and lenses and stuff and aperture and all that, and I don't even want to pretend. So, you know, uh I I I I joke with him on set, and I'm like, uh, make it more cinematic. Um, of course, it's a joke, but um you know, I mean make sure you give it the movie look, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, don't forget the movie look.
SPEAKER_00:But uh yeah, I think that's that's a wise thing is to just give it, you know, that's that's what they're there for. You know, you you you hired a cameraman to do what they do best, and they know what lenses to pop on and pop off. And um he he's great in that he he understands that the camera is the eyes of the audience, and what you do with that camera can determine how the audience feels. So I know this sounds probably very elementary to a professional DP who may be listening, but you know, if you're if the camera's lower, that elicits a certain emotion. If the camera's higher, it elicits a certain emotion. If it's tilted, that elicits a certain emotion. And uh having a DP that understands all of that beyond what lens to use and what aperture and f-stop to use, um, really uh takes your your film up one percent.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Do you see are there any angles that you do see? Because obviously, when you're writing, you know, there is a version of what the film looks like in your head. Yeah, yeah. And then you get the set, and somebody else has read the script. Now they have a version of what it looks like in their head. So what are the conversations that you have with your DP specifically when it comes to merging those two visions together? Because ultimately you're the director, you do have the final say, but you you know, you gotta walk that line of not being able to like crush their creativity and being able to recognize good ideas that are better than yours when it comes to accomplishing, you know, shooting the script in a way that is gonna end up being the best version.
SPEAKER_00:Well, uh a lot of times what we would do is get together and uh I would have, you know, obviously, if we've watched movies our whole life, we are being influenced one way or another by certain scenes and certain movies, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But I would come to him, you know, and say, okay, on this scene, um, I want it to look like this scene from Back to the Future 2. Like there's one shot where Biff uh or Marty's in the middle of the pond on the hoverboard and he can't he can't move on the hoverboard because it's on water. And Biff takes the bat and the camera goes right up into him and he says, batter up. And there's a scene in Night Mommy where it's just ripped straight from Back to the Future, too. Um, and I'll I'll give him that scene and say, This is what we need to recreate. And then we'll look on shot. I think it's I think the website's called Shot Deck, where you can put in like colors and all sorts of keywords, and it'll show you scenes from different movies, and we'll pull from those and make make our shot, our shot list from that. I'm not really sure if that answers your question or not, but I've known my DP, I've known him for 10 years. He used to be a wedding videographer, also. We worked together on weddings, we competed.
SPEAKER_02:Do you ever share horror stories together about those bridezillas?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. Everyone always asks me that, but I I do uh uh I mean I know that's a that's a whole different podcast altogether, but um, I do a lot of consultations before I say yes. You can kind of you can kind of sense red flags. So I've never really had a bridezilla in 15 years.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that that's a talent in and of itself. I mean, well, that does that's a skill set that honestly does come in handy for filmmaking because when you're interviewing people, you know, to see if they're gonna have that type of self-entitled attitude when it comes to coming on set and delivering you know their aspect of your vision. Yeah, we turned down some actors and and other positions.
SPEAKER_00:As I was about to say, uh, we we had some um auditions, and when the there's one I'm thinking of in particular, when when they would get the line wrong, sort of their reaction to their frustration with themselves was a red flag just right off the bat. Like that's not like I want my film sets to feel like summer camp. I don't want any drama. I I'm not I'm not a director who's you know like a a dictator. Um, I just like to have fun. I like it to feel like summer camp. And and I don't want people to take it too seriously, you know, because I mean we're not making money doing this, we're just having fun. And most of the most of the people on the crew are my friends uh that I hang out with socially outside of film sets. So um it's really just an excuse for us to just hang out and have fun. So if anyone's gonna bring any too much drama, you can you can easily see that in auditions and how people are in their auditions. You don't know how your grip, if you don't know your grip, you don't know what they're gonna bring. Uh because you don't audition grips. That'd be funny, that'd be a funny short film though.
SPEAKER_02:Grips are the most blue-collar people, probably, I would say, in the industry, based on my personal experience. And those, especially if they're the sort of grips that travel for their work, because you know you gotta go where the work is, whether it be you know, Georgia, LA, even now in Ohio, actually, there's a fair amount of work that is new work that's coming to here. Like great examples like the new Superman. They filmed some of those scenes in downtown Cincinnati. And um, but I had one experience with uh some grips uh I don't even remember what chute it was, but I think uh me and some other, and this was years ago, me and some other people that I know were PAs on this commercial shoot, and the grips were from out of town. And right after we had, you know, finished unloading what we were supposed to do out of the truck, um, we sat down, I think, for like five seconds or something like that. And it I guess it had looked like we had been sitting on our asses from for like a while, and they came in and just kind of shoot us off. And they they literally well they didn't they didn't just shoo us off, they said shoo. Shoo, shoe, like all these PR. I'm like, we just got finished unloading this. You're welcome, first of all. That's buddies. Uh but I mean some people do get jaded a little bit, especially not even necessarily come when it comes to the tight scheduling of film, but it's mostly also the travel that some of these people do is that they're just tired. Yeah. Not only they're tired, they also have to be creative when they're tired, and that's a skill set in and of itself. What about uh your experience when it comes to like because you did uh a lot of late night shoots for Hit on the Run and Hit on the Head. Hit on the Head, right? Getting my titles mixed up.
SPEAKER_00:That's okay. Uh that that title, I I regret that title, but that was the original title we had like 15 years ago when we came up with that idea. And the idea is a hit, like a hitman, and head is a slang for the toilet. And so people would watch that film, no one got hit on the head. So I have to explain it. So uh that's that's a that's something I I I consider now when it comes to writing, like especially after reading the the book Save the Cat. You know, he says, your title needs to be what the film is about. And so looking back, I it probably would have I probably would have called it stick figure family or something like that. Um, but anyway, um, yeah, late night shoots. So that that hit on the head was um that gas station was gracious as the owner was gracious enough to let us shoot there, but his hours were uh he closed at 11 p.m. and opened at 4 a.m. So that was our window. Um and that was after shooting that afternoon in uh the bathroom, which was located in like a softball and soccer um uh complex. Uh so we had the city uh give us permission to shoot there. And yes, it was very uh difficult to keep people uh energized during that time, but I don't recall on that shoot anybody really suffering uh, you know, with forgetfulness or being grumpy. I think uh how late did you normally go? Um, well, with that being the first film, managing our time uh as something I had not perfected. I think we probably shot 12 hours that day, and then we shot again the next day, the next night, um, for some pickups. But you know, the the gas station uh had one employee who stayed, we had to pay him to stay, and he was always making coffee for us and giving us hot dogs that were on the little rollers. Um, so we were fed well and we had enough caffeine in us. Um, but but I would never do that again. Looking back, that that was just a horrible thing to put people through. Being up at 3, 4 a.m. just it's just ungodly.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, that's also a staple of doing horror films. It's like, well, we gotta like film it at night, right? Because like apocalyptic things and all terrible things happen at night when people have no sleep. But some of the greatest four horror films I've seen were like shot in broad daylight for the entirety of the film. There's something unsettling about people conscious of doing things like terrible things when they have great sleep, you know?
SPEAKER_00:And I love I love that because that's kind of why I make my villains um cute girls, because there's something unsettling about an attractive, cute young woman being the villain that you don't expect. Um, and uh that's to me that's scarier than you know, a big tough guy with a bunch of tattoos and piercings with a baseball.
SPEAKER_02:Tell me you've watched anime without telling me you've watched anime before.
SPEAKER_00:I do not watch anime. Okay, never mind.
SPEAKER_02:All right.
SPEAKER_00:But no, I uh yeah, I well, I did watch one in college, and I think I was traumatized by it because of uh um a certain part of a female anatomy had um teeth and claws, and I was like, what have you asked me to watch?
SPEAKER_02:You're like somebody drew this. Yeah, uh but no, I mean that is a staple of anime is like kind of taking the in uh taking innocence and just completely perverting it, sure and then slowly turning it into something.
SPEAKER_00:That makes sense, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So when you started getting back into filmmaking, how did you start plugging yourself into the local community around you? And what were your experiences with getting to know those types of people? How would you describe your immediate filmmaking circle now in comparison?
SPEAKER_00:Well, let me start at the beginning um because all I didn't I didn't have a filmmaking community. I didn't know people who were filmmakers. All I knew uh was my circle of wedding videographers locally. And as it turned out, all of them wanted to have a creative outlet as well. And it all it takes, all it took was all it would have taken for me is somebody in my circles to say, Hey, I wrote a film. Would you like to help me make? And I was yes, absolutely. And that's all it took for these people was me saying, Hey, I wrote a film. Um, does anybody want to help make it? And just people were just coming out of the woodwork because you know, you can only do so many weddings, uh, work for other people before you're like, I want to do something on my own. That's just sort of you know kick back and let my creative juices flow. So my DP was a wedding videographer. Uh my gaffer, uh, he was uh he was a he was more of a commercial videographer. Um, the guy who built my sets, uh uh part of the set in the bathroom. Um, he was my second shooter at a lot of weddings. I mean, just everybody there was somehow involved in the local wedding industry. And then I did have to reach out to some people in Atlanta um for like grips and and uh and things like that. Um I think all my actors were yeah, all my actors were local. Um, one of them was a wedding videographer, one of them was a a woman that had been in uh another film uh locally. And uh ah, I'm sorry. The guy behind the counter, Hamilton, he was from Atlanta. So he was the only one I outsourced. Um, and then as the years went on, I I it's funny how my circle sort of morphed from weddings to the film world. And ironically, it hasn't been many people in my local community that I've I've networked with and connected with.
SPEAKER_02:Would you say you've built your own circle then?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think so. Um, there are people here uh who are in the film community, I guess you could call it. Um, but I don't really have a like a personal connection with them. And I don't like the idea of just having a connection or relationship with somebody just because I want something out of them. Um, so I usually like to just work with people who I want to hang out with, you know. Some some want to get paid, and then some just want the creative opportunity. So that's how I've saved a lot of money is not tricking people into working for free, but just saying, hey, I'm making something creative. Do you want to be a part of it? Can't really pay you much, but I'll feed you well. And um that's a trick, uh, is just if you're not gonna if you're not gonna pay people, just get something other than pizza and sandwiches. You know, as I remember I paid like$500 to have this huge charcuterie board once, and people were just blown away by that. And I kept thinking, if they don't like me, at least they can say they're they ate well.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, every every position, um, especially in the indie world that is skilled labor, have at least one horror story of a film set where it's usually the director that's like a tyrant. Or a producer that's making promises that they can't keep. And they're telling like halves half truths. It's not completely like, yeah, if we I'm gonna pay you, but you know, if we make money, you know, and then they have up their how their abilities to make money off of it. That's that's a very common one. It's a very common one. And I I recently heard like the from my own circle the word like if I were to describe to you the horror story of one particular individual who I've never met, however, many people in my local community have met, they can all affirm that this horror story was completely true. And it is it it's you don't if I were to tell you the story, you wouldn't believe it. Because this character is written. This character is literally somebody out of a bad movie. And people now tend to work with this individual just to see if the story is true. And and and it boggles my mind because well now, like, okay, I get it. I want to like I don't even believe this the that this individual has is the sort of character that he is, and but now people are wanting to do projects with him and perpetuate it just to see if it's true.
SPEAKER_00:I think every city has that person because I'm thinking it's always weird. I'm thinking I'm thinking of I'm thinking of one just like what you're describing, right? And everyone's got a nightmare story about him, but everyone also thinks that he's the he has change, and maybe the stories aren't true, and he has a lot of money and he's making a lot of promises. Um, but people have to learn, people have to pay their dues.
SPEAKER_02:I do find it curious though, is that you know, you're typically wedding videographers when they get into film, they tend to be very focused on the cinematography aspects. But with you, you're focused a lot more on the story and the writing and the characters. Why do you think that you gravitate more toward that than like doing the cinematography yourself, given that you're very, you know, experienced, at least in some form, with cameras?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, a wedding video is a lot different than you know a narrative film, just like news coverage is much different from a wedding wedding video coverage. Um, I don't think that my style of wedding videography would fit any film, uh, any narrative film. Um, I think a lot of times wedding videographers do overdo it with making something very cinematic and they overdo the drone and they overdo their gimbal work and they they want to really like show off for other videographers.
SPEAKER_02:They're like trying to create that montage in the beginning of an action movie where the they setting up setting up the wife dying, you know. It's like they try to recreate that for the wedding.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Um, and I've changed my style a lot. Um, I I do focus more on what the wedding's about, I focus on what the story is. Usually uh couples will have like letters they read to each other, sometimes they write their own vows, sometimes people giving toasts at the reception. I use that as my script, and then I just kind of plug pretty images within that. Um but at the end of the day, I d I I've stopped focusing so much on oh, I gotta make this look cinematic. Oh, no, no, no, she's in bad lighting. And I just focus on like what's important, like one bride's most important thing, her wedding day was her grandparents. And even if she went to visit her grandparents in uh an unwell lit room, I still I use that footage, and that's what was important to her that day. And uh for a for a film, um I I would rather watch, and I've seen it, and you've seen it at film festivals where you watch a film and it is beautifully shot, and you have no idea what the story is, and you forget it as soon as it's over. And then I've seen films, I'm thinking of one specific one, where the story is hilarious and the cinematography is non-existent. It was a story about an annoying ghost. Someone's house is haunted by a ghost, but it's just an annoying ghost. And the ghost is played by somebody under a white sheet. That's the CGI, that's the VFX, that's that's and I still remember that. I still remember that story, and I remember what the characters looked like, and I remember cracking up. Um and uh I think you know, filmmaking is like a wagon wheel, you know, it's got all the spokes, and you have to have all those spokes. And one of them is the story, and one of them is the cinematics, and one of them is the audio. You know, you could have a great looking film, and if the audio is the the camera's microphone, you're you're you're out of it. You're you can't you can't you can't get your head in this into the story or into that world. Um, I personally feel like the story. I mean, people people want a story. People want a story more than um, you know, the vistas of the Star Wars prequels. Like those those images did nothing for me to like best films at all. Uh they didn't help. Um, but yeah, I um I think I'll focus. I I think the storytelling element of weddings has has sort of crept into what I find important, most important in filmmaking.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think the trend nowadays I almost think that cinematography nowadays is too perfect. It always looks like they get everything just right. And there's something there's it's almost like I can't get completely wrapped up in a movie where I'm so distracted by how perfect everything is.
SPEAKER_00:I watched last night The Antithesis of that, and if you have not seen Being John Malkovich, it is so well. First of all, it's a it'll mess with your head, but it's so dark. Like, and I mean visually, like I I was I'm reading a book now, and I think some of the scenes were shot on high exposure film because they just used whatever lights were available. I mean, it's got John Cusack in it, um, it's got Gwyneth Paltro in it, but you can hardly tell because there's so many shadows, and I think some people find that annoying. I found it immersive. Um, and of course it's got John John Malkovich in it. Um, I found it completely immersive, and I loved it. And I love the imperfect camera, like there's so much handhold, uh handheld camera work. It's beautiful. You would love it. But yeah, you put that next to a Hallmark movie, and you're just like, which one do I which one am I more immersed in? You know, the one that looks perfect or the one that looks like my living room right now.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think I I mean the art of a filmmaking is really trying to provide enough mystery to where and this can be either um with the script, with the direction style, with the cinematography, with the way that the the actors are portrayed, is that you don't you you think you don't understand it. And so part of it, even if the film isn't written like as a puzzle, as a mystery that you're trying to figure out, there's something that you can't quite put your finger on about why you don't get it. You know, if I watch a Marvel film, it looks great, it's cool, it's fun, but you already get it like within five minutes of the the story happening. And I think that's part of the the allure of cinema is that we want to go into something that we we don't initially understand.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And going back to Star Wars, I think the beauty of the of the originals, episode four through six, is it didn't explain anything to you about uh the universe, um the technology. Um, it was so gritty and dirty feeling that you just took for granted this exists already in a different universe, and I don't have to really understand it. And then you go to the polished prequels, episodes one through three, where everything is fully explained to you, everything looks brand new and beautiful, and it just doesn't feel you don't feel like you're part of that universe. You feel like you're watching a movie about a different universe. Whereas, you know, the gritty originals, or like being John Malkovich, you are immersed in that world because of the the grit, the imperfections, the things that are broken, the poor lighting.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. What what skillset did you have to learn in order to direct the films that you do that you didn't know or have before getting into it?
SPEAKER_00:Say it again. Say it again.
SPEAKER_02:What was the most important skill set you had to learn as a director that you didn't have going in to getting him back involved in filmmaking that you didn't have beforehand?
SPEAKER_00:I think one of the I think one of the aspects of my personality that was an advantage uh was that I'm a cheap bastard. Um and so I know I would go in saying, this is my budget. I want to make a film for less than this budget. Um, and so when I write now, well, when I'm I'm writing these features, I'm not thinking about budget because I'm not thinking I'll make them. But when I was writing shorts after my first one that I spent$7,000 on, I was writing thinking, how much is this gonna cost? Okay, if we add this extra actor, that's an extra$150 a day. If I add this extra scene, now I've got to get liability insurance for another location. And so that's where um slideshow came from, where it cost me$1,800 for actors, one location, as opposed to I don't even know how I managed to spend$7,000 on internet. I really don't. I can't think. I just if there was a problem, I spent I threw money at it. You're like less drone shots. Yeah, yeah, there was a drone shot in that too. Um, but uh yeah, I think to answer your question, I think the way I write now, if I were to write another short that I wanted to make, I would always take into consideration how much is this gonna cost, rather than you know, writing in a werewolf or writing in, you know, ghosts or whatever, CGI and and uh 10 extras that you'd have to pay. So yeah, I think budgeting is is really what I've learned the most in this process.
SPEAKER_02:And and you feel that that's also affected the way that you write at this point in your pursuits?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think if you write a very complex script and you want to save money, that's gonna show. You know, it's gonna look bad. If you write a script with a small budget in mind, then it fits and it works and it looks good.
SPEAKER_02:For you, what makes the suffering of filmmaking worth it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I still to this day will think about the money I've spent and then think, man, I could have taken the family on like three vacations for this. It's such a selfish thing. I think that's the hard thing to get over, is that and it's not just filmmaking, you know, any creative person appears selfish to non-creative people. You know, a musician has to play music. A musician will go to a bar and play for free drinks, you know, taking time away from you know their personal life just because they want to play in front of people and maybe not get paid anything. Um, same with a painter, a painter's gotta find something to paint. Okay, I'll paint a mural in my house. No one's gonna pay me for this. Maybe nobody's gonna see it, but I have to do it. And filmmaking is that sufferable art. Um, and it's so addictive to see an image in your head, see characters in your head, write them down on a piece of paper or type them up, and they become in your head like real people, like you're you're remembering something a real person said or did, and you're laughing about it, or you might cry about it, and then you see it on film, and it's just this existential feeling that no one outside of this field can really understand. And I I think I think um the suffering is just the cost prohibitiveness of this art. I mean, yes, I I can take my DSLR camera and I can make a little film, but if it's not like my visions are beyond what I can make with a DSLR by myself, my visions are big and grand, and that would just be disappointing to make something small and insignificant. I would I would just feel like I'm just wasting time. Um, if that answers your question.
SPEAKER_02:So, like the the biggest struggle that you that I I can sense that you probably also would feel like a lot of creatives, is that there's this internal need to justify your time and your effort for what you love to do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, luckily my wife understands it. Uh she's I mean, not a lot of people do though. That you know, no, that's true. I mean, I actually know a filmmaker whose wife divorced him, of course, in anyway. Um, but um different podcast. Yeah, my wife wants our the posters of the films I've worked on, she wants them in our our movie room downstairs. And she says, Oh, yeah, they're interesting conversation pieces when people come. So she's really supportive of it. Um, my kids get a kick out of it. Um I still my big regret is just as a family man that I did I've spent so much money on these things that I need, I want, uh, rather than than my family. Um but what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, there is an element though in a lot of people, a lot of like fathers, I think, uh, that I've noticed is that the thing that their kids take away from fathers who engage in their artistic pursuits is that they witness what it's like to be able to be passionate about something. And that that in a nut that in a nutshell is enough to inspire them to essentially be who be who they want to be or be who they are.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, my daughter is she's like me, uh, not in filmmaking, but she's more the creative side of things and the intellectual. And uh I I needed to have a sound uh and hit on the head of the phone falling on the floor. So I told my daughter, I was like, hold this microphone.
SPEAKER_02:I need you to fall down the set of steps for me.
SPEAKER_00:I have I said, I'm gonna drop this, I'm gonna drop this phone and you're gonna record the sound. So I did that and I said, Okay, now move it across the floor. I need the sound of it moving across the floor. So I put her as the Foley artist in the credits, and she she was over the moon. She's she gets she anytime we show her friends not film, she's like, Oh, there's my name credits, you know. Um so hopefully that I don't know, like you said, maybe that's gonna inspire her to follow her creative passions.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Jameson, it's been great talking to you and meeting you. Thanks for coming on. Do you have any final thoughts you want to leave the audience?
SPEAKER_00:Um, yeah, I would say don't be like me.
SPEAKER_02:You know, don't let ignore this entire podcast. Do not listen to a word that I said.
SPEAKER_00:No, um, my thing, uh I wish I hadn't waited so long to do this. You know, I I think a lot of times, I think all the time, man, if I'd started this, if I'd just written down, you know, my my script ideas 10 years ago when I had them or 15 years ago when I had them, where would I where would I be now? You know, what what would be what would my progress look like now when I was younger and had actually more more income? Um, so don't let the idea of, oh, I don't know how to do that stop you from doing anything, um, particularly writing. I mean, writing is free. Uh, we all know how to write. Um, we all have a computer or a laptop or a pencil and paper. And um, that's sort of the groundwork. If you want to be a filmmaker, that's you you can't sit around and think, well, I'm a great cameraman. I need someone with a script to come around and ask me to film it. Just you just have to write it yourself. There's nothing prohibiting us anymore from making these short films. We all have the technology in our pocket. And again, writing is free. And who cares if it's a crappy script? Hey, Robert Rodriguez said in his book, Um Rebel Without a Crew, he said, you have to make 10 bad films before you make your first good one. So go out there and make 10 bad films and know that that's the path you actually have to take to make a good one.
SPEAKER_02:Well, well said.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, same. All right, take care of