Under The Lights, Beyond The Stigma

What if the most useful thing you create isn’t built for gatekeepers, but for the people who need it most? We sit down with filmmaker and advocate Miles to trace how a DIY obsession with iMovie grew into Under the Lights, a short that sparked a community and a feature with a powerhouse cast. Along the way, we pull apart the myths around epilepsy, talk about the loneliness of invisible disability, and explore why the toughest part isn’t the seizures but the stigma. Miles’s message is simple and strong: stop putting your goals in someone else’s hands and make work that serves.

We dig into the messy, unglamorous craft of indie filmmaking—fundraising, pitching, finishing when burnout bites—and the mindset shift that makes it possible. Shorts don’t prepare you for features, so you have to let the story evolve, release your attachment to the original, and build a team that can pivot when chaos hits. Miles shares how a teacher’s offhand comment lit a years-long fire, why honest pages from your private journal create the best roles for actors, and how a film becomes a verb when it’s made for a community rather than a laurels list.

There’s humor, too, and a clear-eyed take on identity. We talk about dating, labels, and the choice to be “passing” versus visible. A TED Talk with the eyebrow-raising title Why You Should Give Up on Your Dreams turns out to be a blueprint for redefining success: be useful, be brave, and measure outcomes in impact, not press. If you’re a creator, advocate, or curious listener, you’ll walk away with practical insights on turning lived experience into art, navigating festivals without losing your soul, and treating your film as a service that keeps giving long after the credits roll.

If this conversation moved you, tap follow, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more people can find it. Your support helps us keep building this community and bringing you stories that matter.

Transcript

Season Two Kickoff & Guest Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the NeuroFucked Podcast. I am your host, Haley Olivia, and then we have this other host right over here. What is your name?

SPEAKER_03 0:09

The other host, Jackson Rosa, and we're so excited to have you today. It's season two. Haley, are you excited as I am?

SPEAKER_02 0:17

I am, but I'm trying not to be as excited while we're filming.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

We're trying to tone down our excitement. It's really hard. It's bursting. Yeah, I giggle so much.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

You know how hard it was for Jackson to edit, and I get to edit this season, so I'm not laughing as much.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Yeah, we're gonna We're making some changes around here. Okay. Let's enjoy the episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

It's time for NeuroF podcast with your host, Jackson Rosa, that mischievous motherfucker. Haley Olivia, what's your name, girl? You on the spectrum, and Terrence. We've got autism, ADHD, OCD, all the D's. We got stories and artists from all walks of life. It's time to get fed. Neurologically.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Um, Under the Lights, the short film, but also Under the Lights, the uh feature film. Uh, he also is a longtime friend. Um, and we made films together, we worked on music, little music scores together. Very talented guy. Um, and also on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation, and goes on talks. Uh he's uh he's Mr. Worldwide of Epilepsy. Uh no, he's just he's just awesome, dude. And I wanna share him with everyone and share him with the world. So let's give it up for Miles, everyone. Let's give it up for Miles. Okay, cool. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it sounds like we have a huge audience here, actually. You guys are good, so all four people. Yeah, so uh for people that are gonna watch this or tune into this, so give us an intro to yourself, bud.

Falling For Filmmaking Without Film School

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Hey. Um, it's good to be here. I guess everybody else must have canceled, so um this uh this uh this was open. Um I'm kidding. I'm kidding, I've been waiting. I've been waiting for the call. Thanks for having me. Jackson's one of my favorite people I've ever met. And um, so I'm Miles, and I am a writer and director with epilepsy. And I'm on the board of a few epilepsy foundations. The one here in Northern California and the Cameron Boyce Foundation down in LA. And uh, I don't know, where do you where do you want to start? I mean Where should I humiliate myself first?

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Let's go back to the beginning. What's your first memory? Was it bright lights in a hospital room or was it a guy slapping your ass? Okay, never mind. Uh let's not do the first memory question, and that's where we're gonna go with it. Um tell me about your foray into film specifically. What got you involved and what really spurred your initial passion for making movies?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

So I would say that filmmaking is something I don't recommend to anyone.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

And I knew you were gonna say this.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, starting strong. It was I was warned, and yet I persisted. So I I when I was a little guy, I would love going over to the friend's house that had iMovie and iMovie HD. Do you remember iMovieHD? Oh, of course I remember iMovieHD. It had all the sick effects with like you could have lightning shoot out of your hands and stuff like that. They got rid of all that stuff. But I I loved editing and I loved messing around with the pitch of my voice, stuff like that. But I was a I was a theater kid, I loved acting, and so I didn't really put those things together in my head until high school when we made these little short films, and I really fell in love with it. And what I love about filmmaking is it can't really be mastered, it evolves too quickly, it's too diverse, it's the intersection of all art forms. So if you like exploring, you know it's it's easy to it's easy to love. That's and so I I I fell into it and I got really ambitious, and I I was felt like I was just making a film all the time. And I didn't go to film school, but I was sort of building classrooms for myself that way, making movies with you and our friends, and um sort of expanding the toolbox a little by little.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

And so you you just fell in love with it and you just kept making things. I know you had projects you were doing over the summers and stuff like that. You know, we went to the same uh community college as well. Shout out Santa Rosa Junior College. Um I love how they just call it junior college and not a community college. Anyway, that's the story for now.

SPEAKER_05 5:19

It's humiliating, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Yeah, it's kind of like, oh, thanks, you know.

First Feature Lessons And Burnout

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah, so I always had a thing where I always wanted to take things to 110%. I was really uninterested in in projects that would you just do for the sake of doing, you know. So my first project was a long form thing. It was a long movie, and I did it because I misunderstood a teacher when they told me that, you know, oh well, if you wanted to, you could probably make a longer movie. It would be hard, but you probably you you probably could. And the way that I took that was she was being condescending. She's saying, You're a child, you could never make a real movie, right? And so I spent the next several years making this, you know, full full-length movie. And it it was brutal. It was really, really hard, but it was also my film school, and it taught me so much to sort of start doing things the hard way. And I remember going to my advisor and saying, I have two scenes left to edit, and I don't think I can do it. I've just I've been working on this so for so long and I'm so burnt out. And she said, You are going to hate working on this, you are going to suffer, and furthermore, you're going to question why you're doing this at all. But the second it's done, I promise you'll never want to do anything else for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Uh, what are some of the big top three items you would say that people just don't really have locked in about epilepsy? Like that they just don't understand.

Epilepsy 101: Misconceptions And Isolation

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah. So I'll ramble a little bit. Okay. By all means. So, yeah, so epilepsy is an invisible uh disability. And when you have an invisible disability, I think something that's really unique about it is that you can choose if you are, you know, neurotypical, in quotes, passing, you can choose whether or not you want to expose yourself. And it's a debate within yourself whether or not you want to take the risk either way. Do you do you talk about it openly, outwardly all the time, and hopefully you get treated with respect and get the accommodations that you deserve? Or, you know, are you suddenly treated worse because now everybody knows and everybody has questions? Or do you hide it and hope that everybody treats you as quote unquote normal, and then when you do need to be treated a different way, you're not. Or the secret comes out and everybody doesn't know how to deal with it because they didn't know, right? So that's something I think people with epilepsy definitely relate to. It's something that epilepsy is incredibly diverse. No one person with epilepsy is like another. There's more than 40 different kinds of seizures, and it's sort of like there's many reasons why a person might cough. There's not one condition that's just for coughing, right? You could have a frog in your throat or you could, you know, have cancer.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

So it's always the quick jump to cancer. It's always that WebMD search away from cancer.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, exactly. So so it's it's a very isolating condition. And I was working at a camp for kids who have seizures, and I was really struck by how many kids totally regular kids, they'd they'd say they'd never made friends before. And there was nothing wrong with them. They were just treated poorly because they were different or because people didn't understand their condition. And also judged for seeming normal, and then, you know, if they do talk about it, they seem whiny or they seem, you know, exaggerating, and so they get ostracized. And what really struck me was a lot of the time when they talk about how lonely they were, or how beat up they were, or how much they were suffering, it really wasn't the seizures they were talking about. They were talking about the social element, and I thought that's something I could work on, because I I can't make a cure happen. That's somebody else's gig, but I had rejected the idea of incorporating epilepsy as subject matter into my art because I felt like that was cheap. You know, I thought, oh, that means I'm virtue signaling, or oh, that means that I'm, you know, using identity politics to, you know, build myself up. And I was totally misunderstanding the point that art is really not worth making um um procedure. Neurofucked.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

So I totally misunderstanding. I was gonna say like that should probably be one of the taglines.

Finding Purpose Through Art And Advocacy

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, hashtag. So what I was failing to understand was that art is really pointless unless you're doing it for a reason. You need to have something to say, or else the art falls flat, no matter what it is. And so the moment I decided to make something sharing the way that this made me feel, and furthermore, making art that was not really for me, it was for something much bigger than me, I found a lot of purpose, and it started to undo all of these negative feelings that I had about my condition and gave me a great deal of purpose. Suddenly it it actually mattered that I made art, it mattered that it I existed, it mattered that I kept going, and while I always had a pretty good, did a very good job of um you know keeping a positive attitude, and fortunately I'm not someone who has ever really struggled with with chronic, awful, can't get out of bed level, you know, feelings I very much started to feel like my the time that I had lost to my condition, the sacrifices that were made, the things that you know were total L's in my life were were for something and they were worthwhile. They were an investment worth making. Um and so uh, you know, I think that it it it it led me to rethink how epilepsy fits into my story well spoken spoken like a like a person that knows how to speak.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

So you know what? Well, the thing about Miles I want to point out to everyone is Miles has always been a legitimately good public speaker to the point where I believe one of our like professors that we had way back said that you were like a car salesman of filmmaking. Or you're just like I don't know how to take that, but like no, just the point that you understand you're a very good communicator, which is important when you're a writer or when you're director. Um but the yeah, the fact that you've also turned the purpose into speaking gigs. Um another thing I want to bring up to everyone that uh Miles just published a uh was on had a recent TED Talk. Um that was pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah. Okay, we don't have to clap for everything, you know. No, no, I wanted to say it's a big deal, and it actually was a very um very touching story uh from this TED Talk. And so I'm gonna link it in here. I'm gonna point to a link right here. Go click on it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wait, that's right. You guys don't know. It's yeah, it's I I would say, like, I don't know, in the description. Well, no, I'm gonna put it here, and then when you finish the rough cut, I'll help you superimpose something here.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

I at least promise that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

It's called Why You Should Give Up on Your Dreams.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Oh, okay. So just alright. That's a positive way to start the uh the TED Talk. No, but it's you gotta watch you know, you gotta watch it to number one. I'll watch it.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

I'm it's the best clickbait title I've seen in the world.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

I mean, it's it's it's a good eye catch. A good eye catch. It is a good uh what's the word catchy uh title to watch because I would probably watch it honestly.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Well, you should. I'm going to face it. Not probably, I will watch it. I'm gonna force the I'm gonna do Clockwork Orange style, force you guys to watch it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

You guys can't see this, but Jackson actually has a gun pointed directly behind my back. Uh I'm constantly in stress.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

He's got a Glock on him, and I got someone with a la with a scope right over there.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Yeah, they're on uh on a sniper. Yeah, exactly. It's it's great.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

He's like, I will watch it, I promise. No, but um, so yeah, so a lot of public speaking events and recently been going around different places and conferences and speaking on uh epilepsy awareness, correct? Tell us a little bit more about speaking about public speaking and how you you know feel about it, how you got into that side of things too.

TED Talk, Public Speaking, And Identity

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Yeah, it really was the last thing I expected to be doing, and now I love it. I love my weird job. With you know, when I I remember being in my doctor's office and being asked, you know, do you want to go to epilepsy camp or do you want to be involved with, you know, maybe you should volunteer for the epilepsy foundation? And uh I said, fuck that. That sounds terrible. I why would I make this my identity? You know, and I came to realize being a being a part of something bigger than yourself is is the most human desire. And being a feeling like it again, like I said, it feeling like it matters that you get out of bed is um and so I I realized that being a part of something bigger than yourself is what it means to be successful. And in our culture, we're taught, you know, success, be successful. We want our children to be successful, we don't really explain to them what that means. We loosely have this idea that has something to do with maybe being rich or maybe getting recognition or things like that. And my journey has been one, especially a person in the arts, you know, we're taught to focus on those glittery golden things, and they're fleeting if they happen at all, and they're someone else's decision, and putting your goals into someone else's hands is a really dangerous thing to do. And so I ended up speaking about my condition or you know the needs of the community or the lack of representation of you know epilepsy in cinema, and in doing so, I ended up on stages making my epilepsy useful. I ended up a person who would get called upon all the time. I have a full calendar of all these places to go and speak on this, and it's become my job to be a public speaker.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Would you say that you're now epilepsy Jesus?

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Yeah, I mean I mean to be honest, he's got the beard down.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

All he needs now is like I look more like the Jesus on your mother's wall than than than the real guy.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

I I'm hesitant I hesitate here and there to actually say something because I don't know you as well as Jackson. So I'm kind of just picking and choosing my jokes here and there because I don't want to be that guy yet and says something completely off the rails.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Miles has a really solid sense of humor, so yeah. I mean but yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

Yeah, I mean we bonded over South Park, so there you go. So that's a good start. That's one that's one thing.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Um yeah, so the speaking engagements, so you've been booked for a lot of stuff with that, which is super cool. Um the yeah, the thing that I think it's one of those things that people fear the most, right, is is um public speaking. And you I think it's ever since I've known you, you've been good at that. Like I would probably want you to write my eulogy, you know, you probably want my I would love to write your eulogy.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah, exactly.

Dating, Labels, And Owning Your Story

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Like we could have a pre-funeral. But like I think that like the point is is that like that's a that's a skill set on its own, so it's funny to me that you that you realize it was that. But I do think even in starting this podcast, there was a f underlying fear if I it put too much investment into this. That an art if if Pitchfork writes or Variety writes an article about me in the future, Jackson releases XYZ album or this thing or whatever, Autistic Artist releases album, right? I'm just like, oh Jesus Christ, you know, like I don't want that, I don't want it to be like the tagline of anything. However, what you said about building community and having it be a part of like something, no matter what the scale, um, you know, it could be the church of autism, you know, like like I don't, you know, I'm not saying this should be a cult or anything, but what I am saying is that like you have I don't know, my mind's just on cults right now. I've been watching too many documentaries. Oh boy But like the thing is is that I don't go to church, I don't go to temple, I don't go to any of those things. Like I um don't really form a community like that other than the friends that I make. Right? So if you don't, you know, you're kind of building out a we're building out a network here of people that have kind of similar stories and can reflect on these things. So same as you going to these conferences, you know, you're building a community of people that feel understood by these stories, uh, feel like they're not completely isolated uh from existence, you know.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Have you ever had someone come up to you during one of your uh I guess speeches and say, Oh, I really connected to all of your experiences or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Every time. Every time, wonderful. Every time, every time. And I I feel like I'm always seeing I mean it's amazing. Like when did when do short films get fan art? It's crazy, right? But it shows how powerful that is to people to feel seen, you know, and to feel less isolated because you did something or said something. And to Jackson's point, I definitely have had that moment where I go, ugh, like if I mean if you type if if it's gotten to the point where now if you Google me, right, two things come up. The filmmaking comes up, but the epilepsy also is everywhere. And I remember, you know, um, you know, in in dating and stuff like that, I would worry about that. That my you know, I would want I would want someone to dig up that, you know, I I I make movies, and that's cool. Oh. He has this condition and he's got this disability, right? I don't really want that to be the first thing that people think about when they think of me. However, it it has made such a difference that I've been public about it that I think it's been very worthwhile that you know the variety article is all about that, you know. And it it might not have been how. I would have envisioned a filmmaking career, but it has made quietly made a difference. And I'm willing to make that sacrifice. And uh if I need to do a hard rebrand at some point, you know.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Yeah. We'll hire the but you'll hire the best marketing for PR firm to wipe the everything.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

I suggest hiring the uh marketing team that did uh promotion for Final Destination because that was that was perfect. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

It was actually on the uh on the wooden on the wooden truck because they were advertising for the new movie and everyone their mother Oh remembers those scenes from with the log trucks, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean maybe not the best epilepsy cross comparison. It's not but I was just going with the marketing, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Guys, can I say something?

SPEAKER_04 22:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Um, but going back to uh can you hear me, Miles?

SPEAKER_05 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah. Going back to you talking about how you're searching yourself up and epilepsy comes up and things like that, especially in your dating life. Um, I know I've had that worry. I know Jackson has brought that up.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Um yeah, I was worried that this would be this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

That worry of having a podcast that highlights being autistic and things like that, and definitely and it kind of forced us to fully, fully accept ourselves. So have did you experience that as well?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah, I mean, I'm able-bodied passing, so I have a choice. And now I have fully committed to a choice and there's no going back, but I don't regret it because I have so much pride and purpose around you know, these projects. Right? And so that is that is I'm I'm more than happy with that, and then to Haley's point something else that happens is it's very therapeutic to get comfortable being on that side of the fence. And at some point I don't it's not really something I think about anymore. You know, I very much feel accepted for who I am, but I think that that required me developing I was always pretty confident that nobody would judge me. I think I started with a really naive attitude, but it insulated me to practice it. And so I don't think I'll ever feel vulnerable about my condition again.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Yeah, that's awesome, Miles. That's really cool. Yeah. I think um I think it's good for people to know that and so like um like was joking that like partially joking that when I start this podcast, it's gonna be a major cock block, you know. Because it's like we're talking about things that are favorably like vulnerable and dive in deep, and that's not always gonna be that's actually very attractive to a lot of people, uh, to be that open and vulnerable and to figure out and to know these things and to know these topics, um, and be able to speak eloquently about it. Um but yeah, that's one of those things where and then I had to think about I'm like I've been with some beautiful women, it's never it's never been a problem. It's only a problem if you make it a problem, or if you come across that you're insincere um about it, you know. Um so so yeah, that's awesome. But so I want to go back into under the lights. I want you to tell us in the audience about the short and how you turned it into the upcoming uh star-studded feature film.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

So can you tell us? You you want me to tell you about the film?

Short-To-Feature Realities And Letting Go

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Tell me about the film. I know about the film. I don't know about it. Terrence doesn't know much, Haley knows a little bit, but like for the audience that's gonna watch this, we wanna let them know about what you know this is. Full stop.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

So the short film that preceded all of this is called Under the Lights, and it's out on YouTube. Very easy to find, and it's about a boy with epilepsy who's so desperate to feel like a regular kid, he goes to prom knowing the lights will make him have a seizure. And it obviously did very well. It's been seven years since I shot it, and we're still screening it all the time, you know, and I spent the last many years putting the feature together. And so now we have the full-length movie, which we'll start screening this year, and it has a incredible, incredible cast. Lake Bell, Mark DuPlace, Nick Offerman, Randall Park, um Marin Hinkle, who's uh the mother and Mar Marvelous Mrs. Mazel. Amazing. Oh my goodness, amazing. And Pierce Josa, who stars in the in the short, returns in the feature. So pretty amazing experience for uh a director to have for sure.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

It's awesome. And um a lot of you know creatives and filmmakers watch this too. Um you know, a lot of people talk about you know having a festival run with their short and trying to do the short-to-feature pipeline. What were some of the um things that you would tell someone to be prepared for something like that of that scale?

The Avalanche Of Indie Filmmaking

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah, wow. Um that's a whole different thing for sure on its own, but I think that artistically you have to be willing to let go of the original and accept that when you go from a short to a feature, there are two different art forms, they're two different mediums. You're not just extending the story of one, it inevitably has to be allowed to step outside of what the original is. And that was hard to do because the short did very, very well, and so I wanted it to just be a scene in the feature, and it it it wasn't that easy. Um making a full-length movie is a gargantuan superhuman effort, and it takes more than a village. And I was really lucky to have some wonderful collaborators to do it. But nobody's coming to save you. When you when you set out to make a a big project in any medium, you have to let go of the idea that, especially in film, that is sold to us, is that you know, if you're special, if you're unique, you're good in a room, whatever, people are gonna come and wanna sweep you off your feet and fund your movie or make your movie or whatever, and that's just not the case. If you wanna if you want it to exist, you have to want it more than anything. And you have to make it happen. And if you don't have the skills to make it happen, you need to find the people and you need to uh learn the skills yourself. And because I did that, I walked away with a lot of new skills. You know, I learned to fundraise, I learned to bitch, I learned to uh finagle and scheme, you know, and uh and ultimately you know make things happen. And that is vital. As far as film festivals go, I think it's you know, the reminder is ultimately your work is for your audience and not for any one institution, and I think that uh keeping that at the forefront is is really important because you can't you can't put your goals in somebody else's hands, you know. Ultimately you you gotta make the work for you, and if you make it for you, then the people like you will like it.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Yeah, so that's uh that's um great advice, actually, to any uh filmmakers, because I think that it's really hard to for people to understand and gauge um even if they are in film in the first place, the amount of work and effort uh goes in in indie film and the amount of stress and the amount of like pressure uh to make things work. Um my mom came from a writing and you know producing background, as and you've met her before, Miles. And one of the quotes she got from an executive many years ago was Um She said, uh making a movie is like trying to keep an avalanche from coming down a mountain. If the vis your vision is at the top of the mountain and it's constantly falling apart. So your job is to keep the snow at the top of the mountain. You're just running around trying to keep and it's like you're fighting nature, essentially sort of saying.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

You were fighting. Yeah, I mean there were moments where I felt like I was gonna die, you know, and and and that was because I had when you when you put some so much effort into something like that, it becomes your whole identity. It becomes like your first name.

SPEAKER_03 31:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Like I I probably say under the lights as often as I say my own name out loud. Like think about how crazy that is.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

That is a child. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

And so whenever there's and that's the nature of it, things things shift and and and you know, directing is the art really it's less creative than it is just about pivoting, learning to pivot and make decisions and in those moments where you go, oh no, oh no, something might happen, something bad might happen, or the future is unknown, I feel like I'm getting erased. And those moments are really, really scary, but it's also just sort of part of it. You know, they're destined to be those shifts.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Oh yeah, yeah. No, I think that's um yeah, it's a massive um effort. And so I've seen cuts of the film, so no spoilers or anything. But um at the end, everyone dies now. Um just so at least we know now. Just joking, just joking.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

No, um Tarantino's cut we just cut the second act of Final Destination.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

Oh, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 32:51

You spliced it in. It's uh it's a Shamanalong, a Shamalong uh style movie.

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Yeah, in the end, it was actually everyone else that had epilepsy.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

See, now I'm really interested.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

It lives with us, it it uh it just makes things better, I guess.

Make Work For Your Audience, Not Gatekeepers

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I know it's terrible advice. No, no, no. I'm just we're just saying this is the M night Shyamalan version. We we we we don't need to see this cut. Oh, okay. We're curious at least, you know. Um no, so yeah, I was gonna suggest it's how does it as a Tarantino style shootout at the end. Oh my god. Oh my god, that fit the movie perfectly. It's a coming of age movie.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

Yep, about a boy and his dog.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

Exactly. So um, but yeah, no, I think that like it's very it's very good, like coming of age story, so I can't wait for everyone to go see it once it premieres or once it hits different places um and does its run um and and you know makes it to uh services. Uh I can't wait. I said services. We don't know where there's certain places we don't know where it's going. I don't know. But I know that it's gonna be on somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Um it's gonna go to one VHS copy and everyone's gonna have to go to well, I'm hoping for uh Apple.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

I'm hoping Apple, you know, TV buys a distro. I think that you know it has a high potential to get distributed properly by a good, like a really good distributor. So I'm uh I'm my fingers are crossed, you know, for that happening, obviously. I want to make sure and I have a I've part of partial part of the soundtrack is is me. So I'm a little biased because I want it to get, you know, I want this thing to go far.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

I want some of the credit.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. No, well I just no, I just want to make sure it actually reaches the most amount of people possible. Um yeah, well the credit. Yeah. No, I don't want I want to make sure my film my friend Miles is successful. Oh, that's the cover-up, all right. It's a it's all a massive scheme. Yeah, you're right. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

I don't know if I buy that.

SPEAKER_04 35:01

Yeah. I mean for yeah, I'm excited to see it too. Um one more question that I've kept forgetting to wrote to to ask you is like what are some, and this is for the other filmmakers and artists out there, what are the realistic challenges that they should be um open to when they're trying to make a indie that's uh uh potentially going to be a feature in this industry?

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yeah, well, I think that you need to make each project without looking forward too much, you know, because otherwise it just ends up being a trailer for something else, which you know, that that is a way to do things, but if you're gonna go bother to make something and it's gonna be challenging to do, do it well. And the best art comes from a journal entry you would never want someone to read. And you know, that's what my short was for me. And if you can push yourself to put that on paper, and you can be brave enough to put it out there, the risk that it will be bad is very, very slim. That level of risk tends to transcend and be understood. Um and it's also something that good actors want to do, right? They want to they want to the opportunity to be in good roles and um creatives want to be a part of things that are bold. But if you are not honest with yourself or if you protect it too much and you just, you know, uh sort of lowball it, it's not gonna be as good as if you take a personal risk. And if you take that personal risk, you're gonna feel better in the end, right? This has really paid dividends emotionally for me. Um, like I said, having purpose in life is a pretty good outcome. So the other thing is that no no amount of shorts I think can really prepare you for making a feature. It is a totally different thing. And I think it is really easy to say, oh well, I've been doing this for a decade or two decades. There's just something new that comes along when, you know, you have something that is uh involves so many more people. And um, you know, I think that you really have to want it. Yeah. Because the uh the one of my producers has a quote that I think is great, something like the most, or maybe he co-opted it from somewhere else, I don't know, but the most natural state for a movie is to be unmade.

Movie As A Service: Community First

SPEAKER_03 37:54

Yeah, yeah. It's everything that sits on the shelf. I mean think of all the songs that have been written that just never saw the light of day. The label shelf them, you know. So I think that, you know, I think that's true, and I think also being able to you've you worked on this project for so long now as well. I'm sure you're very excited to show it to the world and feel like there's an achievement the thing that like you needed to do was, you know, you get the premiere of it, right? 'Cause that's like a huge build-up because it's taken so much time and love, blood, sweat, and tears, and energy. So I think that that's gonna be a nice relief um to also have it done because you put all that energy in it, but you want to see the fruits of it. But you also want to understand that there's a there's a punctuation mark you can put at the end of the that, okay, this is done, this is the final movie, this is the thing. Uh frees you to do your next big thing.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Now um In a way, in a way, but I think I think what's unique about this is that it's become who I am in such a big way that it will be my job for a very, very long time to to be out there talking about it and screening it and and and whatnot. Um it's uh I mean again the the short realistically, if it was like other shorts, it would have lived and died within a year. But because it was for somebody and about some because it's for some someone, it's a service to provide. And I think that thinking about your movie as a as a service is really important because if it's something that is if it's a verb, then it's repeatable, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Is it mass movie as a service? That's a tech industry pun. Mass movie as a service, uh movie as a service, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Every time I go and I screen it somewhere, it's for you know communing with the group of people that's in the building at that moment. And ideally, if I'm lucky, I will get to do that for many, many years to come. Now, if people hate the movie, um, then it will be great press. I'll probably get to do that even more.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

Yeah, okay. I see what I see what your angle is here. Well, yeah, it's like, no, here's the thing. I'm just gonna this is my perspective. Anyone hates the movie? Anti anti-people levels. I think they're just jealous. I think that they're degenerates and they no, I'm just joking. No, it's like you could you you could go on a no, you don't you're not gonna do that, obviously, but like the point is is that like people will see the movie, take the movie at face value. And what you said originally, which was really a good perspective to have, is this movie is for your fans, this movie is for um uh the people that it's for. And then anyone that can learn something from anyone that attaches themselves onto it, it's gonna be a bonus. But like I think it's it's going to hit the people it needs to hit. Um and my hope is that it just it it gets beyond that, you know. You can only hope the right person, you really you just need the right person, the right people to see the film and be like, I, you know, you you need rich white people to cry and open up their wallets, and that's how you get ahead in this business. Um, so on that note. Well right, please, rich white people, give him more money. Yeah, yeah, but like uh it's in order. Cry, open up their wallets.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

Yes and then cry again and then again open up that wallet.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

I'm sure also I would like to add Miles might be, you know, a year from now, I bet Miles will have to charge us for the speaking arrangement here. Because this is he's gonna be too successful. He's gonna be like, well, that that podcast appearance, you guys, you gotta pony up the cash, you know. Yeah, um, I'll start writing 3,000 IOUs. We're gonna be in debt trying to get our next guests. No, I'm just joking. We we won't, you know, we won't do that. But uh was so nice having you, bud. Uh Miles is an incredible filmmaker. Go check out Under the Lights the short. Search Under the Lights on YouTube. Uh, we'll put it in the description. Um, we're gonna make sure that you see everything he has to offer in our links, uh, the TED talk as well. Um, and yeah, thanks for coming on, bud. Great having you.

unknown 42:20

Woo!

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Yeah, we did the thing.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Okay, cool. Woo! For Cinematic Jesus. Yeah, I did say epilepsy. Epilepsy Jesus. Epilepsy Jesus. All right. I love that title. No, Jackson said that earlier. Oh, okay. Well, he's well he can say it.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Yeah, he can say it. Yeah. I just I just label I put a label on him. Yeah, they they they worked it out in post. We did we did the uh I don't know. I personally like it. I think your next movie should be called Epilepsy Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Yeah, do do it. I'll share the shit out of that, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Jesus Christ Superstar 2 with epilepsy.

SPEAKER_04 43:00

Yeah, I don't know, maybe the epileptic uh reckoning.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Maybe maybe that maybe that's why. I mean, they there's actually historically they think that a lot of these prophets and stuff that they had epilepsy, and that's why.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

I think they really had autism. I think that's how I think that's where the miracle came from.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Yeah, they're like, oh, like Jesus was maybe autistic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

He wasn't he wasn't a white dude in Kansas.

Closing Thanks & Links

SPEAKER_03 43:27

He wasn't Superman was a white dude in Kansas, bringing it back to Superman. Uh-huh. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Jesus. Uh I mean, we all love our six-pack, you know, football loving Jesus out here. Okay. But with that we already technically ended it. This is just like extra footage lodge at the end. So important. Oh, yeah. Any parting words, Miles for the fans? Any parting words. Um

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Goodbye.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

That's good now. That's a wrap and cut. That's a wrap, kids.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Hey everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the audio only version of the NeuroFucked Podcast. Um, I guess that's classically what a podcast is, but regardless, hope you are doing well. If you made it to the end of this episode, make sure to visit neurofucked podcast.com. Find it on all your favorite podcast platforms. Not only that, click donate, neurofucked podcast.com slash donate. Um, pay what you can, pay what you will, what you want. And the reason we have it up there is because we're volunteer only, we've had help on our podcast to produce, and we're planning to turn this whole thing into a live streamed podcast. We have a lot of the resources, but what you can help is pay for our snacks, our lunches, um, make sure the crew and cast and hosts are fed and everyone's doing well. So if you like the podcast, if you feel like it gives something to you and it benefits you in any way, as we grow, feel free to visit that part of our site. We'd love to see it, we'd love to have you there. Um, especially if this brings you value, which we hope it does. So, from all of us at the Neurofunct Podcast, enjoy the next episode, signing off.