Directing Movies at Age 8, Acting in The Flash, USC film school | Octavian Kaul

Welcome to episode 3 of The First Act Break podcast, the show where we dive into the art, business, and hustle of breaking into the film industry. Today, we bring on Octavian Kaul, a USC film director who began his career at the age of 8 years old and acted in TV shows like The Flash. We chat about his philosophy when it comes to filmmaking, his honest opinion on USC film school, and advice for people trying to make their first feature films.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Flash
• 2:41 Kids vs. Aliens
• 4:11 Jurassic Park
• 6:22 Stop Motion on iPad & India
• 7:50 Finding gaps in cuts
• 9:13 Editing for Famous YouTuber
• 12:13 Gap Year
• 14:50 Auditioning & Parents
• 16:15 Drinking & Partying
• 17:11 Challenge of USC Junior Thesis
• 23:11 Potential Changes & Harms of Negativity
• 26:21 First Year Slump
• 32:01 General Sentiment
• 33:15 Application Process
• 44:12 Do I need film school?
• 45:12 Alternative plan to film school
• 47:18 Post grad plans & Filmmaking Career
• 50:11 Early filmmaking
• 51:16 How acting informs filmmaking
• 52:55 Directing First Features & Canada
• 55:45 Attack of the Scarecrow & Filming at home
• 58:44 Transitioning to LA & Cynicism
• 1:00:03 Making Wormies
• 1:10:41 Advice for Younger Self: Just Do It
• 1:13:22 Consistently Writing & Creative Process
• 1:22:17 Limitations of Screenwriting Rules & Finding Your Personal Process
• 1:26:36 Field Trip Plans & The Future

Transcript

Speaker 01: 0:00

Welcome to the first Act Break podcast, the show where we dive into the art business and hustle breaking into the film industry. Today we

Speaker 00: 0:07

have Octavian, who is a USC film director with a long history of acting and film directing. Super excited to have you on the show. Happy to be here. I love that you threw an acting on that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's actually going to be the first thing we talk about in today's episode. Yeah. I was in seventh grade and... I was binging this show that

Speaker 01: 0:31

I loved. Wait, I watched that show when I was in seventh grade. The Flash. Yeah, I watched it with my dad. Oh, really? Yeah, all of it. So,

Speaker 00: 0:39

okay, there's a character in there that I didn't really think much of, but I noticed, and it was a key part of the story. And then years later, I'm in class with this man named Octavian, who I look up, And he was the actor for that character, which blew my mind.

Speaker 01: 1:02

So talk

Speaker 00: 1:02

a little bit about your

Speaker 01: 1:03

experience on The

Speaker 00: 1:05

Flash. And how did you... Yeah, because I was the young version of the main villain in season two. They do like a flashback at the end of the season. The whole scene is really dark. It's basically a kid who watches his dad die. like come home from war and kill his mom and then get sent to an orphanage and it's like this scary gothic place and he has a horrible childhood um yeah so i started acting when i was uh like 12 or 13 years old because i wanted to get on film sets um because i knew i wanted to be a director and i wanted to make movies but you know they don't really let kids on set and uh so i i Yeah, so I started acting and I did just a few bit kind of one episode TV parts like that and then a lot of voiceover stuff. So how did you like get into this specific project? It's for The Flash. It was just an audition like anything else pretty much. I had never seen the show. I watched it when before I auditioned for it. I watched it and then After I got it, I watched kind of the rest of it. But I haven't seen it since, to be honest. Although, actually, I won't say that. I've heard season two was a real peak. So that's on me. How

Speaker 01: 2:22

many seasons was it run for?

Speaker 00: 2:24

Oh, God. You might know better than me. I thought it was seven, to be honest. Seven? Yeah, it went for a while. I stopped watching after season three or four, maybe. Yeah, no, it was very successful. That

Speaker 01: 2:34

was my introduction to DC, to be honest. The Flash. That was one of the first DC things I watched.

Speaker 00: 2:39

But, you know, I do know that... Your history with film didn't start there because there's this film called Kids vs. Aliens. Holy fuck. Who told you about that? Wait, can we swear on this or is this family friendly? You can bleep it out. Sorry about that. Did I tell you about that? I was doing research, you know. Oh, it's probably somewhere in my IMDB or something my parents wrote. Yeah, that was great. to yeah grade two i uh second grade yeah in second grade wow um for the americans in the room i yeah i've got a group of like friends together and the whole the whole thing i mean i i loved i started loving movies because of jurassic park and like super eight and you know, I really like that kind of adventure type movie, adventure sci-fi movie starring kids or like something like that. And so I, yeah, that was my first little opus of, I think we had a lot of ideas because we would get together in class and at recess and stuff to draw pictures and talk about it. There was a whole story, but what it manifested as was about 10 minutes of camcorder footage of just kids screaming and running around. I love that. Yeah, no, it's great. I've still never topped it, I think. I think

Speaker 01: 4:00

you're probably the youngest person to direct a movie that I know, really. At second grade? That's crazy. Was it your first thing that you've ever made in terms of film?

Speaker 00: 4:08

Yeah, that was pretty much it. I saw Jurassic Park when I was five or six years old, and And there's the shot where the T-Rex... it's his head comes through the roof of the jeep and the kids are there and like holding it up and that was like i literally i remember that exact moment in the movie when i saw it for the first time was me going like oh i want to make movies because i saw like i saw kids and you were five six years old yeah i think yeah i was i think i was five that's awesome that is crazy yeah because i saw like there were kids with this giant monster and it didn't a lot of my friends really like dinosaurs after that movie but i just my head went to like oh my god that's like fake and they made that that looks like so much fun right and there's like There's kids kind of my age, a little older, beginning to have so much fun with these monsters. I think when I was five, I didn't even know something

Speaker 01: 4:57

like a

Speaker 00: 4:57

camcorder existed, or it could be something that I could use to make short films

Speaker 01: 5:02

on.

Speaker 00: 5:03

Yeah, I mean, that was my parents. My dad won a camcorder at work or something from some random work contest, and he just gave it to me. And so I started filming. I was in a bowling league as a kid. It was really, really cool. I had a lisp, and I was in a bowling league. And so I started just filming. filming me and my friends bowling. I think I still have that footage somewhere. But I started doing that, and then I was watching more movies. So I've wanted to do film for longer than I can even remember, to be honest. That's awesome. Would you say Jurassic Park is the main inspiration for you, or is there something else that

Speaker 01: 5:42

also pushed you to make more films?

Speaker 00: 5:44

I mean, it's one that I always love. I think I've changed a lot. in the last 10 years especially. But yeah, it's always one that I go back to for a lot of fun and for inspiration on shot design, definitely. I watched Jurassic Park before I storyboard every film that I've ever done.

Speaker 01: 6:04

that's incredible

Speaker 00: 6:06

it doesn't even necessarily inform all of them it's just it's such a beautiful movie and it really gets me jazzed to make movies still so you do have like

Speaker 01: 6:13

a spielberg kind of style

Speaker 00: 6:14

i feel like a lot of people think that yeah no that that is something that in the last couple of films that i've done for sure yeah i remember freshman year you made a stop motion film which was the first stop motion film i saw the cohort like do right and I do know that I think you started making stop-motion films when you were in India in 2011. Yeah. Tell me about that story. So my parents... My dad was already working in India, and he was kind of traveling back and forth. And my parents were really adventurous people, and they were kind of tired of Vancouver, like the big city. And so they... They decided, screw it, let's just sell everything and move to India for a year since he's working there already. And then we'll just figure it out after. Which I didn't register because I was an idiot child. I didn't really know how crazy that was at the time. It was just like, oh, cool, we're leaving. But it was... insane and so we spent a year living in India and yeah I made a lot of stop motion stuff because that was when the iPad 2 came out and for all of you listening the iPad 1 didn't have a camera only the iPad 2 had a camera and I had an iPad 1 because my uncle gave me and my sister iPad 1s for Christmas which was really nice and then the iPad 2 came out and we kind of swapped them in for that and that was around the same time that we went to India and so That's why, because now all of a sudden I can make movies on the iPad, because I had an iPad 2, and that was the last iPad I ever owned. So that was really exciting, and so I would use iMovie and stop motion software, but I didn't really know... I didn't understand what editing was. I still, for some reason, I would always pause movies... When I was watching them, I would watch them on my iPad, too. And I would pause them right at cut points because I was... I don't know why I thought this. I thought there was, like, a frame of black in between every shot. And if I paused it the right time, I'd see where it changed over. No one told me that. I just believed it for no reason. And so I'd sit there for, like, half an hour sometimes just, like, trying to pause it at the right time. And when I was... When I first, like, got on iMovie, I don't know what I thought it did, but I... didn't understand the concept of editing so my sister and I we made like a little like a harry potter parody movie with our dogs who we adopted in india and then brought back to canada um and we made this little like like a it was called fluffy potter i think and it was a little harry potter parody that was 25 minutes long and that we had to rehearse like a play and we did like 12 takes of it because 12 minutes in we'd screw up and then be like fuck we have to go back to the start and then we spent an entire day doing that finally got one that worked showed my parents and they were like, oh, I mean, why don't you just do different shots? And I felt like a f***ing idiot. And that's how I learned what editing was, which was really exciting. And now you... are one of the best editors I know, and you edit for a huge YouTube channel, right? Yeah, that's what I do for work, is I edit for a YouTube channel, which is really great. It's the best gig ever. It's so cool. Wait, I do want to hear you talk about that. How did you get this YouTube editing gig? Yeah, I edit for a YouTube channel called Pretty Much It, which is a comedic commentary YouTube channel. They watch movies and record commentary tracks on it. My boss, Eric, he watches movies with his comedian friends, and they make jokes, and sort of make this audio commentary track that i take and i cut down to like a 10 to 20 minute highlight reel of the funniest moments in there some of the funniest moments get cut but their whole kind of business is around selling the commentary track they have a patreon that they use uh and the highlight videos what i do is for youtube and it's kind of the promotion for that oh nice and yeah i got into it because i was uh I just watched the channel for like four or five years. It was one of my favorites. And then they put out a call for editors. Oh, wow. And so, yeah, I got super lucky because I wasn't even really fishing for a job. It just showed up and I was like, this would be awesome. So I put a lot of work in my application and made it really good. That's perfect timing. How long have you been doing it for? I've been doing that for like two and a half years. It was right in my gap year because I took a gap year between high school and college. So it was right in my gap year that that happened, which is the Absolute perfect timing. I think I got that job and I got into USC in the same month. That's cool. How does the pay work? Do you get paid by video? Yeah, so I'm an independent contractor. I have a contract with them for continued projects. And I get paid per video. But obviously it differs. If the video is... Highlight reel of their like commentary on one movie. It's a certain amount of money versus if it's Several movies that's obviously more footage more to cut down So that's more like a TV show season like we have kind of different tiers of payment How much is the average you think per video? yeah I get paid like $550 for our normal videos are just on a movie so that's kind of my normal thing and then it's more for TV shows but it kind of depends that's great that's such a good gig it's fantastic yeah my bosses are great the YouTube channel is funny I can make my own hours it's a really really good job I'm really lucky I just stumbled ass backwards

Speaker 01: 11:41

that's like a top tier job I would think yeah it seems like a lot of SCA people or film students that kind of YouTube editing seems like to be um a gig for for a lot of people to

Speaker 00: 11:53

you know hone editing skills or just make some extra cash yeah that's another great part like for film it's it's good to just like i'm editing all the time like every day i'm gonna go home from this and i'm working on a video that's for this week um and so i'm pretty much every day i'm editing which just helps keep that muscle oh yeah for sure yeah so it's good practice yeah yeah i didn't know you took a gap year hold on yeah hold on so you graduated high school in 2021 uh yeah Yeah, I graduated high school in 2021, and my whole back half of the high school experience was completely kind of demolished by COVID. So I didn't really... My high school experience ended in the middle of my junior year, pretty much. And then I just sort of stumbled through the next year or so of finishing out high school. And so then after that, I mean, it was post-COVID, and I didn't really... I don't like school that much. The high school I went to was great and the people were really supportive and I'm proud to be from there. But just school as a concept, I've never been a big fan of. And so I decided to take a gap year. I did apply to a couple of places just to see, but my heart was not in it and I didn't put a lot of work into it. And yeah, so I decided to take a gap year and it was the greatest decision ever. I could have absolutely done. Because it's... If you have the ability to take a gap year, because not everybody does, but if you have the ability to take a gap year and have a little bit of experience and go somewhere like travel a little bit, which I was privileged enough to be able to do, that it's like... Right. Right. Right. Into another year of high school. So I don't know. For me personally, I thought it was really great. I drove across the U.S. and traveled, like, backpacked around Europe with my sister. Dude, that's wonderful. And that was the best part about having that editing job is I can be making money while I'm doing all of that. Exactly. So for, like, my road trips and for traveling around, because I've done that a lot now, driving around the U.S., it's great because I can... like I spent not this past summer, but the one before I spent the whole summer doing another, like cross the U S drive, like all the way around. And, um, And it was great. Like, I worked the whole time while I was driving and, like, traveling the country. And then by the time I got home, like, I had a little bit more money than I did when I left because, you know, I was just paying off a trip as I was traveling around. That's so great. Which isn't, like, the greatest privilege of having that job because that's something that I love to do is road trips and driving and travel.

Speaker 01: 14:40

Back to editing, though. And I remember earlier you actually dropped the F word. I do want to hear about the story where you auditioned for Strawman.

Speaker 00: 14:48

No, I was very... I was a good little kid, I didn't swear, I didn't, I don't know, I was very well behaved. Not, my parents weren't very strict about any of that. But I don't know why, I just, I was very, very like, I did not feel good about swearing, saying bad words. Now it's fun. But I... Yeah, so even in auditions and for roles and stuff, it was really tough. I did not want to. And so yeah, I was in a couple of short films. I did a lot of student short films back when I was much littler. And yeah, there were some... There were several curse words, and in various, like, auditions and nonsense and stuff that I had. Yeah. That I had a problem with for sure, yeah. And you said your dad convinced you. Yeah, no, I mean, that's the thing, is that my parents, they're not, like, they've always been, I don't know, they didn't swear around us, but they were never, like, strict about it, really. I mean, you know, with all of the... kind of rebellious things people do against their parents like any they were very just sort of like matter of fact but oh you know you'll probably do this and this and that and and and that's fine just you know be safe and let us know and um and because of that i didn't like there was no way to rebel against them i never had a desire to because they weren't like strict on me and so i just sort of did it i i my rebellion was i guess not doing any of that stuff my unconscious lame rebellion

Speaker 01: 16:14

so that like

Speaker 00: 16:15

It definitely shaped who you are today, right? Yeah. Because I know you're not huge into drinking or partying. No, I still don't drink. I barely go out. Although that's more just because I don't drink. It hits 1 a.m. and I'm like, oh my god, I've got to go to bed. But yeah, no, I still don't have many vices. I don't drink coffee. I don't do drugs. But it's not... It's not something that I necessarily... I don't judge other people for doing it. It's just not something I've never wanted for myself. Who knows? Maybe later. Maybe later. At

Speaker 01: 16:48

the Cannes Film Festival Yacht Parties. You know

Speaker 00: 16:51

what, Giant? When we're at the Cannes Film Festival Yacht Parties, I will have a sip of wine. I will as well. I think that's a good goal. Actually, that's good. It'll keep me... That'll be my motivation, I guess. It'll mean something, not just going out. I cannot drink... Hold me to this. I cannot drink until I win an Oscar. You applied to USC, right? Yeah. So, looking back, do you regret? No, I don't. I'm really hard on the school. Because it's expensive. But I'm pretty hard on the school. and I don't regret it at all I really you know it's what everybody says about film schools it's important to like meet people and that's what you get out of it and that I absolutely have gotten out of it I'm so happy to be here and it's also been great just experience having the college experience I don't think that's something that's necessarily a USC specific thing I just think going to college has been really good for me and at USC it's been it's a great place to meet people and to meet people in film and There are cool opportunities and cool... There are really cool things happening at and around USC. It's specifically the curriculum and some of the higher-ups that I have my problems with that I'm not shy about.

Speaker 01: 18:09

On that note, talk a little bit about your 310 experience. Because I do remember I was at the screening where I think Dan's film was also screening at that point. Was it P1? Yeah, yeah. I remember after your screening, you had a little spiel about

Speaker 00: 18:23

the whole process. Well, I did do a speech about... It was about a couple of things. It was simultaneously, I think, praising our cohort and also kind of, you know, simultaneously bringing up some of the disappointment in the program. That is not only my own feeling. It's something I've talked to, like, to be honest, most people. students and also faculty not like lower level or adjunct faculty which that's a whole other thing right now right they have their own

Speaker 01: 18:52

opinions about things

Speaker 00: 18:53

yeah um because they haven't necessarily been paid their worth um but yeah so that was i mean my 310 experience and 310 i don't know if if there are non-usc people here three there will be ctpr 310 is a class that you take in your in your third year um in the USC film production major, and it's a class that is supposed to be kind of like a short film production intensive. Your cohort is split into trios, and you make three short films. So everybody, you rotate roles. Everybody directs one, produces and edits one, and is a cinematographer on one. The editing job has kind of floated between the producer and the cinematographer. I don't know where it's, I think they might have switched it back. I think they're switching it back, yeah. But for directing, producing, and cinematography, you'll always be rotating one per film. So I directed first, and then I did producing, and then I did cinematography. But it changes depending on when you direct. And yeah, so it's kind of notorious for being a difficult class and a really stressful class. And that's one thing that I do kind of have a problem with. For any incoming... film production people at USC. I think there's an attitude about it that I remember on like admitted students day, like orientation, they're telling people that they were bringing students in who were in 310 and talking, having them talk to new, like at admitted students day about like, oh my God, it's like so difficult. Like, like you're just, you're going to want to die. I think someone did say that, like you're going to want to die and it's the worst thing ever. And I don't know, it sets this expectation of, of it being this massive, difficult, stressful, awful thing. And what it is in actuality is making three short films. Now you have to deal with the sort of inner politics and rules of USC, which changes it from just kind of an indie student film vibe. But it's not, like most of the people coming out of 310, with the exception of people who had like especially difficult times because of whatever, extenuating circumstances. Most people got out of it and were like, it wasn't as bad as they described. A lot of work, definitely stressful, but it's, I think, throughout the years leading up to this one class, you get people just constantly going on about how it's the most difficult thing and how bad it's going to be for you. And it's kind of like if you're I don't know. In my head, it's like if you want to teach your kid to ride a bike, and so from ages one to age eight, you're telling him all about how when you ride a bike, you're going to fall off, you're going to skin your knee, it's going to hurt, and it's going to be scary when it happens. And you're just telling him that for the first eight years of his life, and then you put him on a bike and go, go! And... what do you expect? He's going to be scared out of his mind and then he's going to fall and skin his knee and be like, oh my God. And then he's going to start telling everybody else that, that, oh my God, Viking is so scary and you're going to fall and it's going to be like, it's not productive. I think to just be going around setting this. Yeah. Setting like an expectation of this horrible thing when it doesn't have to be like that. If we'd gone through our first couple of years and we the reputation of 310 as a class wasn't a part of our experience of it. And we just went through with people just saying it's another class. It's a lot of work, another class, but it's fine. If that was what people had been saying up to that point, I think we would have gotten into 310. And people were scared when 310 started, because why wouldn't they be? They've been told it's scary for years. I don't think people would have been scared. And I think by the end of it, they'd have the exact same feeling of like, yeah, no, it's just... lot of work and you know we tough through it we tough through it and and so it's just it feels unnecessary and it feels like i don't know you go through something that is a lot of work and you put a lot of work into it so you want it to be this big thing but

Speaker 01: 22:56

it seems like it's the status quo for a minute because 310 has been a class that's been around since I want to say maybe a decade or two decades ago, maybe

Speaker 00: 23:05

even longer. Even longer. George Lucas made it three times. That's right. So that's been like a

Speaker 01: 23:08

thing in the whole USC curriculum. But do you think they're going to do anything to change that? Or is that just going to be... Because their argument is, oh, we're going to bring... You're going to realize that you're not here to make just your films. You're here to also help others make films. And that's the whole point of putting you in a trio. There might be friction when it comes to creativity, but you just have to power through it. That seems to be almost... their argument do you think is there any i think

Speaker 00: 23:35

the room for change i think the class is good is the thing i honestly i don't know that i would make any changes to the class part of it because all the difficulty that comes out of the collaboration part and the being like forced with people who maybe you wouldn't necessarily want to work with right or even outside of that just people who you've never worked with before and that's a challenge right i think that's a great thing i think the class is good it's just the reputation of the class that Even like students and teachers and everybody seems to be like just sort of repeating and repeating. That's the thing that I think it's just it just scares people. And I don't know. I think there's an attitude like that about how scary everything is about a lot of filmmaking at the school. And so it's honestly a lot of the stuff I have a problem with. There's some stuff in practice that I do, but it's not really the individual classes that I'm like. that I feel like need to be overhauled as much I think maybe their positioning in the four years of the film production program should be moved around but in general it's the culture of it there's a kind of jaded attitude with not all it's a sweeping generalization because each class will be taught by an individual teacher with their own thoughts and we've all had great teachers at school and I have teachers who I really really love and who have been super supportive and have fostered a good kind of culture But at the same time, I've gotten the overarching feeling from just the school in general that there's kind of constant doomsday talk about the state of filming in Los Angeles, AI, salaries, streaming services, just jobs, like all of this stuff worth talking about, worth bringing up, absolutely. But there's... I don't know. I think that... for people who are just coming in and just starting a journey in filmmaking, I don't think it's a, I don't think it's helpful. Cause a lot of people, like I fortunately, I guess, knew that I wanted to do this when I was really young and I've been doing it for a long time and I've had experience on set and I've, you know, but there are lots of people who at the end of high school were kind of figuring out what they wanted and discovered that they wanted to do film even sometimes after their senior year was done or in senior year. And there's some great talented people as well, but the problem is I think they're being thrown in now with their first experience of filmmaking being film school and film school being kind of a culture of negativity. And I don't think that fosters a good attitude towards art. So that's my kind of big problem. I think that... a ton of good stuff about the school. It's just in general, the culture of it is kind of negative.

Speaker 01: 26:21

So I guess going off of that, what are three things you would change about USC's film school's curriculum or program or faculty or whatever?

Speaker 00: 26:29

All right, Dean Daly, I'm speaking to you. Yeah, so I think for the first thing is that in our first semester, we didn't do any production classes. which is ridiculous to me. I think that the idea maybe was to ease people into it, which I think is useless because you're paying a lot of money for a full semester. So like, if you want to get eased into all this stuff, then take a gap year. But it's, yeah, I think the first semester, I didn't really know anybody. We didn't meet until second semester. And that was the same, like I didn't meet a lot of people until second semester because there weren't really any social events where they got us together. And there were no classes where it was just us. In your first semester, you take Intro to Cinema, and a class called Reality Starts Here that's more of a mental health class. It's basically just about time management. And the history of that I won't bring up here because I don't know exactly how much of that. I don't want to get sued. But there's a reason they have that class, which is good that they have it, but that can coexist with a production class. Because in our second semester, we take... a class called CTPR 285, and that's the first kind of beginner production class that you take. It was a really great class because it was a lot about creativity, and we had a great teacher as well. We did, yeah. We had Ben Hansford, who I love. He's amazing. He's great. And that was a great class because it was almost entirely individual projects. So it was like, you know, just... The emphasis was on just making stuff, whether it was good, whether it was bad, whether you put a lot of effort into it or no effort into it, just getting something done. And so people made really cool stuff. Pretty much all of the screenings were a ton of fun because it was everybody just expressing themselves. It was really creative, and I think it was a good artistic class. And it also wasn't a huge workload either. It was pretty low pressure, and so you could work as hard or as you could just sort of like... throw something together, and it wouldn't matter. Which I've worked super hard on my stuff, and you did too. But yeah, it was just a really great low pressure, high creativity class that there's no reason that can't exist in first semester. Yeah, definitely. Because then, what, you're intro to cinema, your reality starts here, and then you have this class where we're all meeting each other, because that's where I met everybody. But the problem is you spend like four months at the top of the year... not meeting anybody and not doing film, which I think was a lousy intro to the

Speaker 01: 29:12

school.

Speaker 00: 29:13

And so I think that's the main thing that I would change. And I would just advance everything. I mean, this is obviously just my opinion, because I'm more of a fan of the intensive stuff, which I think partly was because I took a gap year. I took a gap year, and I had the fun that I wanted to have, and then I was like, okay, now I'm going to pay for film school, and let's do this stuff. And I know, like, I don't know where I'm, like, in Vancouver, which I'm from Vancouver Island in Canada, but Vancouver has some great film schools, and the Vancouver Film School has a program that I think it's like a year or two years, and it's really intense. And you just get thrown into it with this cohort of people, and you're off to the races immediately, and you just work really, really hard. And so it's this condensed, really fast, really bonding and educational experience, because you're just working harder than you might ever have to work in the industry with this group of people. And we get there with... 310, the class. But that's year three. Year three of four were finally getting intense. I don't know. It feels kind of like... Yeah. Yeah. 310 is great because you get into a flow of just making stuff. Because you make one short film, and as you're finishing it, you're working on the next one. And so by the end of it, to be honest, I was feeling like, and I've talked to people who also were feeling like, this is good, I can roll right into P4, frankly, like a fourth film, and then a fifth and a sixth. I'm just like, I'm in it now, I understand it. Which I think is perfect, and it's exactly the mindset they should get you in. But then in this semester that we're in now, so this, like a sixth semester, they just like completely ease off the gas and and so it's not intense and it's not as crazy and the semester after that you get into the thesis films which is a whole other problem and then you get into more intense again but it just it interrupts the momentum unnecessarily um I think you're ambitious though. I mean, that's true. That's true. I know I could have kept going. I think I could have kept going all the semester if we just had three, 10 part two. Yeah. I am three, 10 part three, 10 part two. That's awesome though. Do you feel like you share similar

Speaker 01: 31:54

opinions with a lot of the cohort or do you feel like you have different kind of

Speaker 00: 31:57

perspective on that? I mean, I, yeah, I can't speak for everybody obviously. Like I've talked to a lot of people who feel the same way. I'm definitely more vocal about it. it than most people are, but I do think that a lot of people feel the same way. No, I think in terms of like, I have my solutions that I feel will work for the school or whatever. I'm sure everybody has their own stuff. Um, and, and yeah, but overall it's really not like the school has, it's all there. It just can be reordered and restructured in a way that's way more, that's tighter and more educational and a little bit more intense. And that I think gets, gets more across to

Speaker 01: 32:35

students do you feel like you wanted more like technical studies or more like theoretical studies do you know what i mean

Speaker 00: 32:41

yeah i think well i think technical i'm a hands-on this is also because i did say this earlier and i should say i don't like school I've never... Classes and assignments and homework is not something that I've ever enjoyed. So this is also a problem with me, to be clear. This is my own issue. I think a lot of people share that. I feel like I might have a problem with authority. Who knows? So that's also something. If you really like school... you'll probably, I know there are some people who don't have any problems with the program. So it's all subjective, this is my opinion. I would like to hear about your application process, actually. How did you get into USC? What made you choose USC? And was it easy to write those essays? What did you talk about? Yeah, I only got into, well, I got into two schools. One was USC and one was UT Austin. Go Longhorns. I think that's their thing. That's their thing. And I appreciate them. Matthew McConaughey teaches there. It's awesome. Oh, that's right. He's like an ad hoc professor or something. Yeah, he fully teaches there. UT Austin's really, they have a good campus. Because I did my USC application on the UT Austin campus. What? Okay, let's hear about that. And so if anybody out there is applying to film schools and you're unsure, UT Austin is a good school. They've got a good campus and a good program. And that's where I probably would have gone if I didn't get into USC. Yeah. But I, yeah, so I was doing my, yeah, I just finished school. And so that was when I did my like drive around the country, around the U.S., my first one. And so I, yeah, I basically, I don't know, I worked on a little bit of the USC application. I'd like filmed, I'd realized that I like had to make a short film specifically for it. And I filmed that, I think, the night before I left. And it was just, like, I just acted in it. It was me in my room. It was a more experimental film than I normally go for.

Speaker 01: 34:39

Which I have never seen, so...

Speaker 00: 34:41

You know you have not. Well, I'll have to show you at some point. Yes. But, yeah, so it was... But it was cool. It had some cool, like, colors. And I think it, you know, it worked for what it was supposed to be. And so I filmed that, and then I did not edit it. I just went off on my road trip. And I didn't really... I kept trying to work on it, my application. But I was driving around. I was seeing stuff. It was exciting. And I didn't really get a lot done. I did the Common App in New York when I was driving through there. But then finally it was like the weekend before the deadline for the application and I was passing through Texas and so I got a hotel in like basically right next to the UT Austin campus. And for two or three days I lived, it was Thanksgiving I think, American Thanksgiving. I basically just wandered the empty campus, the empty UT Austin campus, and went into just random libraries and buildings and stuff and just worked on my applications. And yeah, so it was, I don't know, it was a mad dash. My personal statement is, I think, what got me into the school and my interview. My personal statement, I basically, I don't know, I was sitting there in one of the like kind of library, like a really nice little library area on the campus. And yeah, I don't know. I was just like thinking about, I'd been doing a lot of, I'd watched a lot of videos about like college admissions. and about that process. And it was just starting to piss me off. Like just the way that they let people in and don't and what they choose to value and what they don't. And I was just thinking all about like, I don't know, what people do in high school and what they give up for a better look on their application and how sometimes that doesn't even matter. I was just getting myself riled up and I was just pissed. And... So again, take everything I'm saying on this whole podcast with that in mind. But I... Yeah, so I... just decided like USC has a really low acceptance rate. Um, it's almost like a lottery ticket school to apply to. And so I just thought like, I'm going to just have fun with the application. So I, I wrote a like very kind of like meta weird, like thousand word personal statement that like it changed fonts. It changed into a, at one point it switched into a screenplay format and there was like a weird script about like, I, I forget exactly what it was. There was like a, I started writing a script about like me on like the Jimmy Fallon show and he's like introducing me so that's how I got into my like got my little like resume items in to personal statement as he was introducing me with them but then fake Jimmy Fallon my essay started freaking out because he was a figment of you're the reader's imagination and the moment you stop reading and stop thinking about him since he's an imaginary character on a page he'll stop existing and he's afraid of not existing anymore and then we just cut back out to like I just sort of went back to my normal essay then I like I added like a little picture So I got to see that. Wow. Wow. I don't, I didn't like school, but I did get like, I got fine grades. I got kind of like a B plus average my entire life, even through college. I like B plus is my kind of zone where I live. Um, so it wasn't like, I, I don't know. My grades weren't necessarily like helping me, but they weren't like dragging me down. Cause I know like people, cause I'm sure some people who might watch this might be applying to this. schools. And so, yeah, I applied test, like, test optional. I didn't do the SAT or whatever you have to do. ACT, yeah. ACT, okay. Didn't do any of that. And I didn't... We didn't have AP classes at my high school, so I didn't do any of those. But I did do an IB English class, and that was my one little higher level class. And then, yeah, I got, like, B pluses, A minuses. And so, yeah, then I... The rest of the application, I don't even really remember that much, but I submitted that and then I got an email once I was back home from my trip. Because I submitted that and I kind of forgot about it. I was just like, well, it'll happen or it won't. And so then I got an email from a professor at USC. who is not here anymore, unfortunately. But I got an email that was like, oh, I saw your application and I'd like to ask you a few questions about it and have an interview with you. That's awesome. And did you guys do interviews for USC? Yeah. Okay, because from what I heard, from what I've looked up, they're supposed to last like 20 minutes-ish, like 20 minutes to half an hour. And my experience, like I got on... a call with this guy and I was like nervous. I was really scared. I set up like a sheet by my window to like be diffusion from the sun. And so I got on, I got on this call and I, he and I just got along really, really well. Um, and I, the interview ended up lasting over an hour. Like it was just cause it was us like talking, shooting the shit for like a lot of it. Cause he asked me about what I'd done. And then I talked to him a little bit about the school. I think at some point I made the college admission scandal joke, which I just made like off the don't because I've been thinking about it because I've been applying to the school and I was like oh I shouldn't have said that but then he liked it and he like went along with it so it just like he and I clicked really well which that's the other thing about applying to USC and getting in because I there's not really a doubt in my mind that he's the reason I got in like he fought for me after that because he was interested in that personal statement that's what kind of caught him and that's the other thing is it's like you can be totally suited for it. And just, you get a bad interviewee or the people reading your application are not like into it. Cause that's the other thing is that he emailed me and said that he needed, like it was a last minute interview. Cause he's like, I don't know how, like, I missed this, but I was doing my second round of reading the applications, and I found yours. So I don't even know what the hell that means. But clearly, other people read them, and someone else, I think, read my application and just didn't really care for it. It was that specific guy who read mine, connected with what I did in the application, interviewed me, and he and I had a good conversation. So there is a lot you can do to set yourself up for success when you're applying. But at the same time, if you don't get in, it's just, like... Frankly, there's a part of luck to all of this that is, I think, important to not, like... be crushed by a rejection from USC. Because that's the thing, I got rejected from all the other schools. Because I didn't do a crazy personal statement like that for the rest of them. Because USC's was the most open. All the others had really specific like font, whatever, like really specific rules. And USC was just write a thousand words. But I got rejected from LMU, or I think I got like waitlisted everywhere. I got rejected UCLA, I got waitlisted like NYU, LMU, Chapman, wherever. I only got into USC. And again, there's an element of luck to that and timing. And I got rejected from USC the first, like when I didn't really care about the application that much, but I did apply to like a couple of places. USC was one of them and I got rejected that first year and then I applied again and I got accepted. But you didn't take the gap year because of that rejection. No, not really. I was kind of planning even if I got in to try to like defer or like do it. The gap year was always kind of a part of that plan. That's awesome. But yeah, no, so it's like... It's definitely a nice little ego boost to get into a school as exclusive as this and with such a reputation. But it's also not getting in, I think... I would hate to see someone be crushed and think that there's something wrong with them or whatever, that they can't achieve what they want because they didn't get into USC. Because so much of this is luck. Absolutely. So yeah, if you didn't get in... It's fine. Yeah. Did you only apply to film schools or, um, also other programs that are like outside of the film world? I, I only applied to film schools. Cause again, I don't like school. So I was like, I, if I'm going to get, if I'm going to go to film school, I'm going to go to like a good film school and I'm going to go to film school. Yeah. Um, cause that's the thing. I, I also, while that whole application process was happening, I, um, USC was one of the last schools that I heard from. I think it might have been the last school that I got a decision from. And so, like, I basically through that spring was just getting rejected, like, well, waitlisted or rejected from everywhere. Like, I remember as that was happening, I was just getting kind of like waitlisted and waitlisted and rejected. And, you know, there were some schools that you know, reputationally nowhere near USC. And so I was like, oh, I'm not going to get into USC then. And so I kind of written that off. Um, and I was I started to kind of create this own world of like you know what I don't need film school like screw this here's what I'm gonna do when I don't get like I'm not gonna get in and that's fine and I'm just gonna I'm gonna go to LA and whatever and I'm gonna like make my own path and this is fine and I just like over the weeks came up with this like world that I was gonna live in with this plan for the future and I was feeling great about it I was like I'm gonna go the indie film route this is gonna be fantastic cause I've already I'd worked on like a bunch of like some indie features and lots of short films and stuff I was like this is you know what This is good. I don't need school. I like this plan. I fell in love with this imaginary future for myself. And then I got into USC. And that whole day was really exciting. And I was stoked and super excited. And then the day after I got into USC, I was really sad. And it wasn't because I was sad about getting into USC, but it was just like... Oh, no, I'm definitely going to go here. This is, like, a great opportunity, and I'd be an idiot not to. But it's... Now, I was kind of mourning this whole other plan that I had for myself and this, like, world that I'd, like, carved out. What was that plan? It was really loose.

Speaker 01: 45:15

Okay, I would love to

Speaker 00: 45:16

hear it. I mean, it was really just, like... For anyone that didn't get into USC and wanted to follow Octavian's indie film... No, I mean, it's just, like, there are a lot of ways... everywhere not just los angeles los angeles is obviously hollywood land so it's a good place to go for film um especially if you want to do studio film work but um there are lots of ways to meet people and get on sets i mean everybody who's making films needs people especially like in indie film um So my plan, I was going to go down and go to Santa Monica Community College or City College or whatever. So yeah, I was going to do a community college thing, just meet some people through that, and then just go through independent film societies and meet people through Film Independent, Secret Movie Club. There are others that I'm completely... All the festivals too, right? Yeah, and the festival circuit, which I've been on... a couple of times and I've been on since which I love and I meet people every time I go through film festivals I've met some really close good friends at film festivals who are like the coolest people ever and um And so that was my plan. I was going to do film festivals. I was just going to make my own stuff and I was going to meet people through these like film societies. Um, cause that's what I'd done back home as well as through a film of film society in Victoria called Cinevic. That is a great, if anyone's on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, um, it's this fantastic, like independent filmmaking society that doubles as kind of a rental house for equipment that really good rates for members on various equipment and also workshops for filmmaking and also networking. Yeah. that is my plan actually I'm going to live in a van because I love driving I love driving around I should say houseless I guess I'm going to drive in just like drive around the US drive around Canada travel a little bit because hopefully I'll still have this great job that I have right now and I can do that maybe pick up some more editing work yeah immediately post grad that's my plan so far because I don't want to I don't think it's necessary to rush a film career. I think that that can really kill your love for it. It's just my opinion. But I... I don't know. We're not athletes. Like, it's not something where, you know, you hit age 29 and all of a sudden it's like, you just can't do this anymore. People are directing movies at age, like, 90. You know, Clint Eastwood's directing movies still. He's, what, 89, 90? Yeah, yeah. And it's... Like, I'm in this for the long haul, obviously, and so I don't, I don't know, I don't need to be some super success at age 23. It's not, like, a priority for me because, in general, what I've been told by every single, like, we're adults, but every single adult in my life, every single, like, person, basically, is to have fun now, do stuff now, like, get, like, live, right? but and and go crazy and travel and do stuff before you know you have responsibilities and and you start to build a career and that is more responsibility and if you want to have a family that's more responsibility yeah and those are beautiful wonderful things that i want to do but at the same time i want to be able to to live in my van and just drive around and do whatever and it's like i want to go somewhere i can just go

Speaker 01: 49:07

yeah

Speaker 00: 49:08

um so that's just for like a year or so that's my plan right now i i'm trying to emphasize life experience I used to care a lot more about career when I was in like high school and and you know I just the the longer I'm alive the more I just want to be an artist

Speaker 01: 49:25

yeah

Speaker 00: 49:26

that's beautiful and you have a van already right I have a I have a little minivan that I've done all my driving in I'm gonna have to I'm saving I'm gonna be saving up over the next like year and a half ish I mean Yeah, not quite an RV, but I definitely want, like... I mean, the ideal is a sprinter van, but those are expensive, so... I love those things. Yeah, no, so I definitely... My dad and I build lots of stuff together, and I want to build out a van. You know, if you didn't go to USC for a year, you'd get a sprinter van. Yeah, keep that in mind as well, actually. How expensive this place is, yeah. I, um... But, yeah, no, so that will be very fun. You know, from what I've heard you speak, like, you have a lot of experience, like, making films, like, already, you know, coming in from, like, age eight until now, you know, you've been making films for, what, like, almost 15 years, right? Is

Speaker 01: 50:25

that crazy?

Speaker 00: 50:27

Yeah, I mean, I guess. I will say, like, I got serious about it and, like, making short films and not just sort of filming around, like dicking around with a camera. I really started making stuff when I was like, Yeah, when I was like 13, like 12, 13. That was when I really like, I had a YouTube channel, as we all do. And yeah, so I would do like daily, I would do like two videos a day for like months at one point, like comedy sketches. I was on that grind. They were terrible, but it was like a great, you know, that's when I really started making a lot of stuff. And then after that, I was like, I want to make short films. And I started getting serious about that. So it hasn't quite been that long, but I've known that I wanted to make film. I just didn't quite understand what that meant until you know, a little bit later.

Speaker 01: 51:17

I was wondering, though, in what ways has acting informed your filmmaking? Because you're in The Flash and you're on sets a lot as, you know, talent. That's kind of the other side of filmmaking is working with actors and being behind a camera versus in front of a camera. So I was wondering how that affected, you know, your sensibilities or the way you work.

Speaker 00: 51:36

Yeah, no, I love acting. It's a lot of fun. And I think it definitely helps... I don't know. I know what I like and don't like from a director when I'm acting, which helps a lot. Like, that's, I think, why it's so good to act a little bit if you're directing is so that you can have the experience of, like, I don't know, some director telling you something and being like, I don't need that right now. I get it. What's, like, one example? Well, it's just when people get a little bit too, like... I don't know. As a director, I guess there's kind of an instinct to over-explain sometimes that I've, you know, fallen into that trap all the time. Same here. Yeah. But it's, um, and that's one thing when you're acting, it's like, no, I've done the work. I know, I know, I know. Or like, you know, you, you're kind of screw up a take and you know that you screwed it up and you're like, okay, well just let me do another one. And then there, you know, director comes in and starts talking about like, Hey, so let's do it. It's like, no, no, I know, I know, I know. It's like the worst thing ever. Um, so yeah I think that's like for me but I also as an actor I like to get notes I like to give options and I don't know it makes me uncomfortable when I do like one take and then the director is like yeah good it's like well hey whoa I'm not that good like let's calm down so that's definitely a couple of things but just in general it's nice to know what it feels like and yeah

Speaker 01: 52:55

would you want to direct a feature anytime soon?

Speaker 00: 52:59

I don't know. I've been writing features recently, which is really nice. I've been doing a lot of writing recently. I love to write. And so maybe just the right story would have to come along. I really do love indie films. I wish I watched more of them. But I really enjoy movies that have a little bit of a budget, but are more in the $200,000, $300,000 budget range. I watched Shiva Baby recently, which is a great movie. Emma Seligman is great. Canadian director. Canadian. This is really awesome.

Speaker 01: 53:38

There's a lot of good Canadian directors.

Speaker 00: 53:39

There are. Megan Park is another fantastic new. Yeah, and The Fallout. Also Canadian. Yeah, there are some good Canadian filmmakers. Denis Villeneuve. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. He's one of our best. He's the guy. Yeah. Um, no, Canada's, Canada's taking a lot of creative people. A lot of, um,

Speaker 01: 54:00

production is actually happening

Speaker 00: 54:02

in places in Canada, right? Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, Toronto is a big place to film and Vancouver is a huge place to film. I mean, that's, so yeah, all of those like DC shows, a lot of TV, honestly, for the past like 40 years, Vancouver has been a big place to film in. Um, cause why wouldn't you want to film there? I mean, it's a great, it's, it's a pretty friendly place. Um, Vancouver gets a little bit of, but it's a great city and it's got great crews and great facilities. And if you go there, I mean, the currency right now, I won't get political, but the currency is a bad, it's bad for Canadians right now, like coming into the US. But if you take an American film budget over to Canada, like you end up with, I think it's one, like $1.40 Canadian budget for every dollar US. So like, if you take a million dollar budget from America into Canada, you're talking about like a million, 400,000. Yeah. And so, and there's tax credits. So like there's, it's a great, it just makes sense. Yeah, it really does. And it's a beautiful looking place. And it also Vancouver doubles as anything. Anytime you see Seattle, it's Vancouver. Um, it just, it looks like a city. It can, it can be Chicago, not quite New York, but it can be kind of any just metropolitan area. Vancouver is fantastic. Yeah. And, um, And yeah, so a lot of films in Canada, I definitely like, I, I didn't go to school in Canada and in Vancouver, not because it wasn't like a great place to be for film. It's just, I, you know, I didn't want to go so close to home and just, I know that already. And I kind of wanted to come down here. I mean, you're, you got that adventurous gene in you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's for my parents for sure. Um, but I did want to ask you about, um, back to the IMDb stuff. Yeah. in there it says the police showed up during the filming of attack of the scarecrow yeah we had a c-stand uh we needed to get a light for moonlight up and i had it was like one of those big aperture lights um like a big sort of older aperture light uh and we needed to get it up as high in the sky as possible and so we set it up on a c-stand fully extended which is bad But that wasn't the worst of it. Fully extended, then we took the C-stand, put it on top of my car, like on the roof of my car, and just kind of strapped it in. Oh my god, yeah. And that wasn't for the whole shoot, that was for a specific shot, but it was... It wasn't dangerous in the sense that there was nobody in the vicinity to get crushed if it fell, but it was certainly dangerous for the equipment. We were safe about it, but it like... Yeah, so people did show up and ask about it. But I don't know. There's a better attitude about that back home. Because I'm not from Vancouver. I was born there, but I live on Vancouver Island, which is a much more rural area. And not a lot of stuff films there. All the Hallmark stuff films there. If you see a Hallmark Christmas movie, it was shot in Victoria, basically, or the surrounding area. But not a ton of stuff is filming Vancouver Island. And so it's really great for indie film and for... my purposes and all that. Cause people are just curious. No, nobody's jaded from it. You, you know, if you go into a, I don't know, like I, if we went to like a restaurant and needed a restaurant for a short film. And so I, you just knock doors and you're like, Hey, we're filming a like short film and it helps them like young. It's like a student thing. And, um, and everyone's really like the attitude in general is really good. It's like, Oh my God, you're making a movie. That's so cool. And, um, and it's, uh, yeah. So, um, It's been really great. I mean, for yeah, Attack of the Killer Scarecrow is a Halloween short film. That is exactly what it sounds like. And it takes place in a corn maze. And we literally like I, we just showed up, I emailed back and forth with a guy who whose family owns a corn maze that goes up every year. Well, I didn't know him at all. I'd never even been to the corn maze or anything. And it's the Sandwichton Corn Maze. It's October and you're in Sandwichton. And it's this just wonderful family. And it was like, I asked like, hey, can we film for two weekends, basically like in your backyard at your corn maze? And he was just like, oh my God, yeah, that sounds amazing. Like, can we help? Like, do you need food? We can bring you some like... Let's run power. Like, how's it going? They were the sweetest, nicest people ever. And it's really, there's a great community feeling to where I'm from that I really, really love. And that I appreciate even more now that I'm here in a big city. Yeah. It's not like LA. It's not even really in LA. It's a city thing, kind of. Right. Is it a little different here than

Speaker 01: 58:46

back home?

Speaker 00: 58:46

Yeah, well, nobody, I mean, LA is weird. Nobody responds to your emails. Like, nobody calls you back. Everyone is really, like, cynical. The cynicism I have a problem with, like what I talked about with the school, that's a personal thing for me. I don't know. I don't love... When it comes to just filmmaking as a concept, as an idea, and as something that you do for your life, I don't like cynicism around it at all. What's the point? If we're going to be cynical about being artists and about being filmmakers, let's wrap it up and go home. Why are you doing this? Not to say that there aren't moments of cynicism. Everybody's human. I get pissed and sad and scared and all that. I can fall into that for... all of this, but just in general, I don't know. I would rather be optimistic about it. But then again, I don't think about it as much as a career as I used to. I mean, I love that. You know, I think optimism is always the

Speaker 01: 59:52

way to go. When approaching life, you know, things go wrong all the time, but when you approach it with a more positive mindset, things tend to turn around better. And, you know, I do want to talk a little bit about your film, Wormies, because that's the big, you know, monster

Speaker 00: 1:00:08

movie. That's my recent, like, big one, yeah.

Speaker 01: 1:00:10

Yeah, I want to hear your story on how you came up with the idea and how you made it and the aftermath of

Speaker 00: 1:00:16

it. Yeah, so Wormies is a 20... Yeah, 20-minute long... Well, 19-minute, 55-second long for festivals. It's under 20 minutes so I can get in there. But it's a 20-minute long 80s set monster adventure short film. It's kind of inspired by Spielberg stuff, by Gremlins and Poltergeist and a little bit of Jurassic Park and Gremlins 2, weirdly. And yeah, so it's... it was this big big project that I wrote it in when I was like 15 years old because I was having like a writer's block sort of month and my mom told me she was like just write like if we could make anything you wanted to make and it didn't like budget didn't matter and practicality didn't matter what would you want to make right now just write that and so then I wrote kind of the first draft of this short film and so like we couldn't make it at that point and But then I made Attack of the Killer Scarecrow, and that was an 11-minute short film, which was way longer. I'd done four or five-minute stuff, and that was pretty much it. And so that was a big step up for me, because it was a bigger shoot, bigger crew. And I'm still proud of that short film. It's a fun watch around Halloween time. I like it. But it kind of proved to me it was a longer shoot, longer movie, bigger everything. And I finished that movie and it went pretty well. And I'm never happy with anything. I mean, like I finished it and I thought it sucked, but we got through the experience and I was like kind of proud of what we'd done. And I was like, you know what? I feel like I can make this now, uh, this script that I've had. And so I think, yeah, I was like 16 then. And that's when I started like really seriously working on it. And so then I was going to, I was planning like, okay, We're going to do all this stuff and then we're going to film it in March of 2020. And that didn't work out for obvious reasons. Like we were really on our way and then... The worst time. And then, yeah, just everything shut down. And so it was just kind of sitting there. But the problem was I was really stuck on it. I got really into... Like we were in pre-production. We started building this mechanical worm creature. I can send you stuff that you can maybe cut in with this for what we've been building. Definitely.

Unknown: 1:02:40

Yeah.

Speaker 00: 1:02:41

And so we were fully working on it. I'd been revising the script a bunch. We were looking for props and locations. And so by the time COVID hit, I was stuck on that. I could not... I was trying to get my mind off of it. Like, oh, do another short film that I can do during COVID or do other stuff. And I could not. And so finally, in February of 2021, yeah, I... We filmed it starting Valentine's Day, starting February 14th, and going through... I think when all is said and done, and this isn't something that anyone should ever do for a short film, but I think we had 17 shooting days. Oh my god. Which is stupid. God, there's a bug. Oh, I think I got it. You did get it. Jesus. But yeah, so we shot way too long. We had like a full two weeks of production, just like back to back, just constant filming. We would take a day off every like four days of shooting, but we'd be right back at it. So it was like two full weeks and then a couple of days outside of that. Which not practical for any reason and not... it shouldn't be necessary for any kind of short film. I could make that short way quicker now, but it was a great experience for like in the future, making a feature film or something like that. Cause the, the stamina of that kind of shoot is something that like, even like three 10 doesn't even compare to it. Like it, the having to keep going after like 10 consecutive days of filming was so much, especially on like a student, like well it wasn't even a student film i worked with a lot of adults on that but we had a lot of great people who like volunteered and it was a community effort for the victoria filmmaking community which was really really nice and um but yeah by day like four i we'd been filming a ton and i watched the footage on the day off and i i was not feeling good about it and i was like this is not what the movie that i wanted to make things It's unnecessary to get into specifics, really. But it was just like things aren't working out in general for what I wanted. But you can't stop. It's all just a moving thing. And so I... Honestly, for that shoot, a lot of the days, things just didn't go the way I'd like to plan. I was having trouble communicating exactly what I wanted. And I would film... We'd film a 12-hour day. And then I would go home, cry my eyes out, then be like, okay... back into it and then the next day would just like do it all over again but it like it was good i never broke on set or even like i once i was in the car driving home that's one um which i think was a good thing but i i was devastated because it's this thing that i've been working on for years at that point it honestly it felt kind of like a first feature filmmaking experience just because of how long it took to make it and even the shooting schedule felt so long so it kind of It was initially going to just be a big short film project that probably would have taken a year. But then, by that point, it had been maybe two years of working on this one film, and I'm finally filming it, and it's not what I want it to be, and it was devastating. And so we got to the end of the production. The cast and crew were so wonderful, and everybody volunteered their time. That was something I really felt good about, just the people on it. But we got to the end of it, and I looked at the footage, and I just hated it. Like, I went through the dailies, I tried to cut it together, and then for the next basically like a year and a half-ish, I would... spend a week working really hard on it, trying to edit it. And then I would get so depressed from looking at the footage and feeling like such a failure that I would just stop. And I couldn't look at it anymore because it made me so genuinely depressed. And then I would just leave it for months. And then I'd come back to it because it would start stressing me out. Like, I still haven't finished this. And I'd go back to it and I'd start working on it. And I'd just be like, this sucks. And that just kept going until I was at USC, until the very end of my first semester. I woke up literally in a cold sweat from stress having not finished it. like I woke up and I was like oh shit I like need to finish this movie it's still like here it's still in my head and it's like screwing with me and so I um yeah so that's when I just really like powered through it and just worked really hard to get it done uh over sort of the next few months after that um and by that point I kind of completed the full cycle of grief you do on a film when you hate it and I um It got to the point where I'd filmed it so long ago that I had just enough distance to be like, okay, this is fine. I'm just going to finish it and do the best I can with it and really try to make it good. And then it started to really help when the finishing touches started to get added onto it. Like when I started working with the composer of that film, Jared Richardson, who he's from... He's from home. He's from Canada. And he's excellent. And so the score of that short film, what I wanted was this Jerry Goldsmith type of sound. And he got it immediately. And once I started getting music cues back, that's when I started to get excited about it again. It was this really great feeling of like, wait, this feels right. This feels really good. And so... that I kind of started feeling a little bit better about it I was like okay you know what this is fine I'm gonna get it finished and it'll be like it'll be done finally I can send it to the cast and crew those poor people who've been waiting for years to see it and um and yeah so I got it done I think it might have been like March 31st because it was I got it done for like a film festival deadline um and so I think it was March 31st or April 1st one of those that I submitted it to festivals, uh, which felt great. It just, it was a big relief, a big weight off my shoulders. Um, and then after that, it had a pretty good life at film festivals. And I did, I, I got to kind of slightly tour around the U S a little bit with it, like went to Chicago and went to like Portland and like a couple of places in California. And yeah, it was a great, it was really fun. The last half of 2021 or 2021, Wait, what year is it? 2022 maybe? Yeah. The last, my second semester here at USC, I was like bringing that around to film festivals a lot. Like, yeah, I went to Orlando and there's like a lot of fun film festivals and people I got to meet and places I got to go. And people generally, like it works for a horror film audience because it's a very like kind of classic 80s monster movie type of feeling. And interestingly enough, I think a lot of the ways that I failed on it were... maybe way like failings that are kind of common in that type of movie um and so it almost worked as like it was cheesier than i wanted it to be but as a cheesy 80s movie it works um and so now i'm able to like kind of look back at it and be you know that's still there's so much different that i wanted it to be but um I can look back at it and be, like, proud of what it is. And definitely proud of making it. I mean, the experience of making it, frankly, was film school for me. Like, that was my film school. And this is my industry school. And that was my, like, film school for directing. So it was a really great experience, but it was also deeply, deeply sad and scary and exciting and happy and horrible.

Speaker 01: 1:10:34

After this experience and, like, so many other filmmaking experiences, what would be one piece of advice you would give

Speaker 00: 1:10:40

your high school or freshman year self? Oh, man. I guess... You know, it's tough because, like, all of the lessons that I learned on it kind of needed to be learned through doing it and through screwing up practically. I would say... don't film for 14 days in a row. That would be, like, you don't need to do that. But then again, even that was a total screw-up, and I'd never do it again for a short film. But now I've had that experience of directing for that long in such a stressful environment. So that was also a good thing, I guess. Advice in general, it's the most boring advice ever, but it's just, like, keep making stuff. Which I, frankly... have a tough time with even now so it's less of advice for my past self and more of advice for me right this second because I think I get really precious about stuff I don't know there's this like I guess there's like an ego about it and this feeling of I don't want my reputation to suffer from having made something bad and so when I make something it has to be better than the last thing I did and it has to be great and it doesn't and I know that but there's still like this feeling of you know needing to always be fantastic. The stuff you make to be important and to be impressive. And so you can only ever make something with that mindset where you put a ton of hours and work and whatever and spend half a year on. And sometimes it's good to just do a 48-hour film festival or to get like a reel of Super 8 film and just sort of shoot it and make a cute little short on that or to, you know, to just do an exercise. And that's something that film school is good for. And that's a great part of this whole thing. There are certain classes, like the 285, 290 is a class. And then 310, although 310 is more of a practical class and less of like a you making stuff just for making stuff. But 285 and 290 are two classes that I loved and I think they're really great. I agree. You

Speaker 01: 1:12:44

have some great stuff on there.

Speaker 00: 1:12:46

You really put a lot of effort into this. I put a lot of effort into my 290 stuff specifically. You know what, that was one where I really... I just kept getting more and more ambitious with it after every project. And that was one where I did really have the mindset of my next one has to be, like, way cooler than the last one. And that honestly kind of worked in my favor in that class. But, yeah, I worked really hard on 290's stuff. But you have to. I mean, if you're at film school and you're just, like, slacking off on the films, I don't know. Like, what's the point of that? What are we doing? Yeah, exactly. Oh,

Speaker 01: 1:13:20

I love that. And you speak a lot about your love for writing, actually. What is your process of just being consistent with writing and how to get a feature out? Because not many people have, at

Speaker 00: 1:13:33

our level, been able to write whole feature films, right? Yeah, I definitely... Because a good distinction is that I've not written good feature films. But I have completed drafts of scripts, which is what I've been working on right now. I would never claim to, I don't know, be an expert on... Writing in the storytelling sense. I'm definitely like getting better and I write a lot and so I you know I feel like I am getting better at it, but we're all still kind of in that learning stage right now and I Yeah, so for getting it done because that was the thing that I was having a problem with I was trying to like overcome I think it the way that I did it is With by doing three pages a day minimum three pages a day. Sometimes I would do more and But the first feature film that I wrote that I'm actually I'm right now rewriting because you know what that I do think that one's good. I take it back. That one is one that I I really, really love the story for it. And and so I like had the idea and I knew that I wanted to make it. And so I and I knew that it would be a good feature script to start with for my first one because it is like kind of structured and I'm sure all of us have ideas. You learn about story structure, and you're like, screw this, I'm going to do something crazy and abstract. And actually, the protagonist is the antagonist, and we learn three quarters of the way through the film, and then the protagonist changes to this other character. And those are great. But for my first feature, I knew that I wanted a story that would fit kind of into story structure, so I wouldn't be trying to reinvent the wheel before I could... make the wheel yeah um and so it was a story that i loved and it also generally not completely but it kind of generally worked for a beginning middle end and i had a protagonist all the way through and um and so i yeah so i started by outlining i spent like a month just figuring out my outline wasn't really a, it's not a beat sheet, which I'll talk about a little bit later because that doesn't work for me. But it could work for you. It's a, my version of it was just this kind of, like I would draw out a line and then I would put sort of like spokes on the line and I would just draw like, okay, this happens here. And I mean, I'm sure like people's, Coming up with ideas, it's like different for everybody. But I think in general, you know, you have an idea that you like, or maybe you come up like, oh, this would be a really cool shot or a cool character. And then you, I don't know, whenever I've been inspired like that, it's been followed by like a two week period of just, I'm going grocery shopping. I'm like, oh, and then there could be a scene where this happens, then blah, blah, blah. And I had some of those written down. So I just started writing. And this is a great thing to do off the bat, I think, because it just makes you feel good. I started out by just, like, taking all those scene ideas, and I looked at my line, kind of like I'm a detective with one of those, like, sort of clue boards. And I was just like, okay, this scene probably belongs around here. And then this one belongs around here. And then whatever. And so then I, like, knew how I wanted to end it. So I was like, okay, the ending's here. And I knew what my midpoint was. I was like, okay, that's there. And all of a sudden I was like, wait, this is, you know, I know where I'm kind of at. So then I spent a few weeks... Just sort of plotting out mostly character arcs. The plot isn't something that I wanted to plot out. But the character, I wanted to know exactly where they went and the change they went through. I did a lot of character work, basically. And as I was doing that, you come up with more ideas for scenes. Because you're like, okay, this character is this way. And so, wait, that would be an interesting thing, blah, blah, blah. And so that whole time, I am adding some more cards. And eventually, I ended up with... I knew exactly what my character arc was going to be. And I had a healthy number of scenes. Basically, every 10 or so pages, I kind of knew my checkpoints, almost. I didn't have any of the fill-in-the-blanks. I know he ends up here, and before that, he's here. I don't know what happens in there. But then I just started writing. Because I think... And again, this is different for everybody. For me... I think when I'm outlining stuff, I'm thinking through it, which can be necessary for like the logic of a story. But when you're just writing, I'm like feeling it. And so I thought through as much as I needed to before writing, but not like a thing more so that when I started writing, there was a sense of freedom of like anything could happen in the script. I know where it's going and I know some things I want to happen. But so I started writing it, and it was three pages a day. And the important thing for me, because I know myself, and I know that if I were to fall off for a day, I would stop. And so if I gave myself, oh, I'll just do a cheat day, a break day, I would probably just never get back to it. And so I didn't let myself miss a single day. It was basically before I go to bed, I have to have written three pages. So a lot of the time, I was writing... like in bed. It was like, oh my God, I want to go to bed so bad. I've had like a busy day, but I can't go to sleep until I finish this. And so I started writing it three pages at a time. And then I went on my second road trip across the US. And so I was writing the film while I was driving around. So that was the other thing too, is a lot of the time I would be writing it in a Walmart parking lot in an air mattress in the back of my minivan. And I'd be like, okay, I finally set up for bed. It's two in the morning. I need to go to bed, but I have to write my pages. And so it was a really exciting thing because as I was writing, I was not... holding myself to it being good. I was actually, I was like, this is going to be a bad script. So screw it. I'm not even going to think about quality. I was just trying to have the most fun I could possibly have while writing. And so, well, it would be like, okay, I introduced a character and I put them in like a tricky situation. And then I've, you know, I've hit like four pages or whatever. I'm going to go to bed. I'm like, man, what are they going to do? I don't even know. How are they going to get out of this one? And I just go to bed and I would wake up and, you know, as I was driving and as I was doing stuff, I would just be thinking all day about like, man, what's going to happen next? Who is this person I just introduced? I don't even know. And sometimes I'd come up with ideas throughout the day. Sometimes I wouldn't. I'd just sit down and be like, what's the most fun I could have right now in this moment with this character or with this situation? And I just followed that. I just went as fun as I could. And so what happened is... I basically spent two months having the time of my life writing this thing. Basically every day, it was like I was watching like a serial or something and I was, you know, it ends on a cliffhanger or something. I was like, Oh my God, what's, what are they going to do? Um, and then there's of course the thing of like, as you know, I have a scene that I really want for the middle. And as I was getting closer to it, I was like, Oh my God, this is so exciting. It's going to happen soon. Um, and so I, I kind of wrote my script as if I was just experiencing it as an audience. Um, and yeah, and it was the best writing experience my life because it was just fun i wasn't thinking about it being good i wasn't thinking about like it getting produced i like i wasn't thinking about anything it was just purely story and like what i was enjoying um and so because of that i got really into the characters and i got like really into the story almost like as an audience member equally to as a writer and so then by the end like there was a character that i like killed off at the end and i i've never experienced it sounds it's so pretentious to say but it's true i was like really sad like i started tearing up as i was writing the character dying which i had never happened before but it's because i was just like experience you know i felt like i'd just been spending the last month with this character having a fun time and like you know doing fun stuff with them and then now they're dying it felt like an audience's perspective on a character death and not just like a writer's plotting it and so you know i i wrote that all the way to the end and i mean i remember the very last day um I was just so excited about... Because my ending, I'd known the whole time. And I was like, finally, we're here. It's this big set piece. I was really excited about it. And so I got to the end, and I wrote 20 pages in a few hours. I was just so excited about it. And I knew what I wanted. And I finished it, and it was 122 pages of a screenplay. And then I put it away, and I did not look at it for a year. That's the thing. I made it not about... writing necessarily it was just about like me having a good time and like telling a story to myself basically yeah i love what you said about like just incorporating the funness into it you know

Speaker 01: 1:22:20

because if you're not having fun you're not gonna hit 122 pages you know you might and it would take way longer and you're like you won't get as much out of it so i love using the the fun is to like drive your

Speaker 00: 1:22:33

you know writing process and that's great you know yeah yeah i mean if you're not having fun with your own story then like right what is the audience gonna get out of it i don't know exactly i um and not all movies are supposed to be fun necessarily but whatever you're trying to get across like if you're not feeling it you're gonna be invested for sure but at the same time I think and this is another slight dig at USC sorry again but I think there's an attitude and this isn't a purely USC problem this is kind of a screenwriting guru problem or teaching problem when you take a screenwriting class or even like watch screenwriting screenwriters or screenwriting teachers on videos In general, there's an attitude about, like, here's how you write. Here's what you do. And there's really specific stuff about... You know, the structure is super specific. This has to happen on page 12. You start by outlining, and you do a general outline, you do a skeleton outline, and then you go in scene by scene, you do that, and then you do this, and then you do that. And there's a great video that's a... I'll just send it to you. It's a compilation... of interviews with some of the most famous screenwriters working today. A lot of them are writers, directors, but it's like, uh, Quentin Tarantino, Alex Garland, Greta Gerwig, Ryan Johnson, whatever, like big writers who are working right now. And all of them are talking about how they outline. Um, and the, the thing that, will strike you when you watch it is that every single one of them has a completely different process like genuinely like whatever quentin tarantino outlines to the middle then he doesn't anymore um ryan johnson needs to know exactly what happens uh i think alex garland has just like beats and then he fills in the blank like everyone's totally different because there's no way to write right and so in general because yeah it's it that's something that a problem i've had with USC and like our screenwriting classes, but it's also to be fair to them It's it's just a problem in general with people who claim to know how to be a screenwriter. Yeah So I think the big thing that I learned with writing my first feature was what worked for me Like I I guarantee you most people if they tried to do it exactly how I just described me doing it probably wouldn't like it that much because everyone needs to write differently like There's no one way to do it. So I think that's the most important thing is to figure out what works for you specifically and to not hold yourself to some standard of some other person. Yeah. How would you suggest someone find what works

Speaker 01: 1:25:04

for them?

Speaker 00: 1:25:05

Just keep writing? I think just trying stuff until it feels right, which it sucks because that takes a lot of effort and it's not some easy way to do it. But listen to interviews with writers about what they do. And try some of that stuff out. Because before, I tried to write features and just writing in general. I tried the specific outlining stuff, and then I tried just general, whatever. I tried a lot of stuff, and then finally, just on that feature, that was just what worked, and it was working. And I was like, wait, this is good. This is what I want. But I think just trial and error, and don't stress out too much about it. You can pick and choose what you like from... But, you know, try outlining, be like, I really, really like doing the skeleton outline, but I don't really like doing the beats. Or conversely, like, I really like doing this, but I want to get more specific with the outline before I jump in or, you know.

Speaker 01: 1:25:55

One thing I found really helpful, and I'm not sure, I think most people don't do this, maybe some, but I use like the record function on my phone or not record, but like voice to text. And for like, I time myself for like 20, 30 minutes and I don't stop. talking about the story so i go so here's you know this character does this and that oh and maybe that doesn't happen maybe we do this and i compile it into one giant messy paragraph and condense it into some kind of story and then right from there i found it to be really helpful and i it sounds strange but it works for me and i just kept doing it so i think it really is just about you know um having like a personal way in and and get words onto the page so

Speaker 00: 1:26:39

yeah no totally like i yeah absolutely

Speaker 01: 1:26:40

Octavian so after film school you're going to go on that road trip what are three things you're going to bring with you on that road trip that you

Speaker 00: 1:26:47

can't live without okay the teddy bear that I bring with me everywhere that I've had since I was a little kid I'm trying to think of like a good book what would be a book you'd want to bring I mean I gifted you Pet Sematary because that's my favorite yeah and it's I might take that one but you know what it's funny I have been thinking about this a lot what I'm going to take with me because it is kind of like I do have things um So, I mean, I guess... I gotta take my camera... What camera do you use, by the way? Right now, I have a Canon R5C. Oh, nice. Yeah, which I don't have signalizers for. On the equipment end, I have some lighting stuff here. I don't have a lot of camera stuff here right now, which I should probably change. But I did, you know, I recently got a Bolex 16mm film camera, and I need to make sure it works. Like, all the mechanisms and everything I've, like, checked out works well, so I think it does. But I have to run some film through it and get it developed and see what happens but yeah I really want to be shooting on film soon because it looks like so much fun it also looks great it looks great just sitting there on like in my room because I was just like watching for one on eBay for like a year and then finally one popped up it was like $100 and I was like I'm getting it yeah so you know what I'll say that one teddy bear my bolex camera and then I'm going to go with The Canadian flag that I have on my wall. Oh, yes. Yeah. So where are you going to take this van? Are you just around the States or are you driving around to other countries? So that's the thing. It's really an embarrassment for me personally. I've been to every single state in the contiguous U.S. And I have not... even gotten close to going to all the provinces and territories of Canada which is really awful of me but it's bigger and there's not as much in between the cities so I'm going to do some Canada exploration and then I'll drive around the US a bunch and hopefully by that point Our cohort will be kind of spread around probably the coasts. I'm sure some people are going to pop over to New York. Yeah. And I can kind of bounce between and say hi to people and go on little trips with people and have a good time. That would be sick. How long do you plan on doing this? You know, I have no idea. A year at least and probably two years max. It's not something I necessarily want to like... do forever um but yeah ideally i can just be driving around just making films and doing film festivals and um and yeah my priority right now is i'm becoming a better like artist i want to be a great artist eventually um and that's that so that's the thing that i'm really trying to put my focus on because i think the career stuff i mean it's its own animal obviously but um it's it matters less to me in terms of like what i want for my life as opposed to like being good at storytelling and telling really great stories.

Speaker 01: 1:29:53

So what would be three advice you'd give our listeners who wants to be better artists and tell better stories?

Speaker 00: 1:29:59

So I would say like, listen to yourself. Cause I think there's an instinct to listen to other people telling you again, this is how you write. This is how you make movies. This is how you build a career. This is how you do all this stuff. And no one really knows even the successful people don't know. I couldn't tell somebody how to get into USC today because a big part of it's luck. In a similar way that a lot of people who have made it, quote unquote, probably maybe couldn't do it again just because you have to be there at the right time and be doing the right stuff. Now, there are super talented people who I'm sure would rise to the top no matter what. But the path of getting there, you can't be instructed to it because it's not something that anybody knows. And the people who say that they know it, I think are bullshit. So in general... pay attention to what you like and what you want to do and, and understand and try to enjoy that there is no road to where you're trying to get to. It's kind of a big open ocean and you're sailing. Um, so go with the wind, go where you want to go. Um, and, and just try to enjoy it above all. Cause I mean, if you just rush through all of it and do, you know, and you hate it and you stress yourself out and you burn yourself out, um, And, you know, you don't want to hit 26 and hate film and be all jaded. We're in this because we love it. And so keep loving it. Do whatever it takes to stay in love. So that's what I'll say. That's my advice. That's

Speaker 01: 1:31:26

beautiful. Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on our podcast today.

Speaker 00: 1:31:30

Thank you for having me. I feel like I probably will be getting in trouble with USC after this. Maybe they'll change their policies. I'm sure Carol's watching. Is she still around, actually? I

Speaker 01: 1:31:41

think she's leaving soon.

Speaker 00: 1:31:42

I think so. Well, good luck to you, Carol, and to whoever's next. Please don't get me whacked.