Jake Bradbury - Producer, Director

Joining me this week, Jake Bradbury

As a child, Jake was conditioned to relate to others through storytelling. That’s just the way my family did things. For his dad, that meant long-winded tales of Maine told in the regional dialect he grew up with. For him, film became the ultimate form of communication.

The revelation came to him as an impressionable 11-year-old. During a family screening of “Strange Days” his father said,

“You know, people get paid to make movies.”

Jake went on to graduate from UCSC with the highest honors in film for his Japanese costume epic, “Vengeful Spirit.” After graduation, the move to Los Angeles was inevitable.

For the past 16 years, Jake has had the opportunity to work with incredible talent from all corners of film and television. More recently, he's done work for Netflix, Maxim, and CBS as a Senior Content Producer.

Jake's film Disfigura premiered in the Youtube channel Alter, I highly recommend watching it.

My letterboxd: 

My film Reel Terror: 

Jake's film Disfigura:

Jake's website:

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Your Life and Film. I'm your host, Ted Bennett. Joining me this week, Jake Bradbury. Jake is a producer, director. He's produced more than 50 short films. He's also written three feature-length scripts. Jake is the operator of the production company 512 Media, which he's been doing for about 15 years. And he does a lot of commercial work. There's some good stuff. I'll link some stuff in the in the bio. Jake's most recent film, which he co-directed, Disfigure, is on Ulta. It's a great film. I saw it in LA, 2024. It was really good. And Doug Jones is in it playing a human, which is quite fun. Before I hit record, we were talking about Jake's wife being a writer for the Groundlings, which is why I uh assumed he was based in Chicago, which you'll hear me say. But first we're talking about AI. So uh let's get straight into it.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

We we go, Oh, we love to humanize our food or chickens or cows or whatever, animals of any kind, or dogs, and attribute human attributes to animals or human attributes to AI. And it's uh it's a slippery slope, man. You do it too too much, and you you Yeah, you try to apply humanity to something that isn't human, and it's tough.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

And it's only humanity by how we rate it in today's standard. Yeah you know, it it's like even if you were to take it back hundred years, not even a hundred years, like sixty years, like morals of the people sixty years ago would seem barbaric in certain ways to us. So it's you've got to be really careful. It's like if you're telling a robot like, oh, this is uh like you should be a good human based by 2026 standards, and it's like, yeah, but there are things that we still quite haven't ironed out the kinks yet where what's considered good.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

So who's you know controlling the good as the controller too, right? Like you can put program, you can program something to be pretty malevolent. Um luckily it's only billionaires who have these things. Yeah, I don't think giving all of our power and our society over to technocrats, I I just don't maybe not a good idea. Maybe. Actually, I can affirmatively say yes, a terrible idea. A terrible idea. Hot take everyone. Yeah, right, exactly. No, I sometimes say like normal things that everyone knows in a profound voice. Do you know what I mean? And like I find I catch myself doing it, and I'm like, okay. Like, yeah, guys, we need sleep. What if? What if what if humans needed sleep and everyone's like, eh, okay. Water, hear me out, man. Hear me out now. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

You know, it's like bottled in the shops already. What if we just cracked them and drank them?

SPEAKER_02 2:46

What if like equality, right? Like, what if we did the You're a madman.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, how dare you come up with these books?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

This world. No, but it is also bonkers that there's uh seems to be a whole like sea of people who aren't interested in equality. Right, right. And then you're like, how how? It affects you.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Have you lived? Like I thought we were all told about the golden rule when we were children. Uh they were told different rules. Yeah, different rules. It's true. No, it's true. I think it was more of a white rule they were told. Yes, there you go. Yes. Yes. You're the best, and there's no problems.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Hey, if you're rich, straight white male, you've hit the jackpot, babe. You ain't gotta do nothing. You don't even have to be good at what you do.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

That's right. You can get to the highest office in the land. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, let's let's not get political. It's not a political podcast. Are you based in Chicago then?

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Mm-mm. Los Angeles. Glendale. Lovely.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Then I thought Groundlings was Chicago.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Uh it it is. It is Chicago-based, but there is a pretty big school here as well. Yes. A lot of people from who graduate from the Groundlings and do Sunday Company and stuff go on to SNL. I mean, you know, they do auditions at least. My lady is in like Advanced Writing Lab, which is the first thing before um the big companies like actually performing at the Groundlings.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Nice. So does she look at things like dropout and consider those to be sort of the new places you want to try, or is SNL still like the place to go for her?

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Uh sh it's funny. She is like, I'm just gonna keep going. Yeah, she has no plans for the future. There's no like I'm getting on SNL or dropout or anything. And uh, although she does occasionally say, no offense to anyone, she could do better than some of the people on dropout. Uh which, you know, okay. Go do it then.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Um go go call up Sam Reich, go tell him.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah, exactly. Go do it. So we'll see. We'll see. I I mean she she is incredibly uh funny performer and writer, so there would be no stopping her. I just wonder um what she wants to do with it. We'll see.

unknown 5:13

I guess.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Although there are so many avenues these days to being a successful performer.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

You can still use that successful performer and writer to then work a nine to five job, working copy for other companies.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Or get your own audience.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

I mean that's yeah, that's that's that's uh that's I think that's the most rewarding, but it is the most challenging. And if you're not a and I'm not gonna say like if you're not a performer, because she is a performer, but I think there are certain people who, you know, that theatre kid energy, they thrive in front of it. And then there are other people who it's unfortunate that's a part of their job, you know what I mean? Where it's like, I'm not a massive performer, but I will perform when I have to. So it's a very, you know, and I I wonder if she's doing the writing side of it. Is that is there more of a like, well, if I'm in the writer's room, I'm getting the high fives from all my fellow writers and they're the people I want to impress, or is it I want to impress, you know, the idiots on the street who don't know what's funny?

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah, it's it's tough. I I would say to advise to anybody who wants to do that, I was like, okay, do it for 10 years straight. Yeah, never stop. That means uploading every three times a week for 10 years. Yeah, if you can't do that, then don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, yeah. Also, if you want to just say that you're a comedian, just do an open mic once a month. Exactly. That's fine. Exactly. That's all you have to do.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

She was a stand-up comedian. She was a stand-up comedian for a while, yeah. That's the hardest. I I honestly think that's the hardest thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Will I recognize her from anywhere?

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Uh no, I don't think so. No. No. Her name is Celia. Celia Carver. She's great and funny and uh and an undiscovered talent.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Was after party her short?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Yes, it was. She made a a short film. It got into the I think it was the Houston Film Festival.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

After party, I feel like. She wrote, directed, and uh, or wrote and starred in it. Did it go anywhere else or did she only take it to the internet? I think she took it to the internet. I'm not sure if it's published yet. Uh, but it might be. I don't know. Well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Well, we're not here to talk about her.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Oh, yeah. I mean, we have to white men.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

That's not here to talk about people. Thank God. You um you have your production company. Is it production company? Yeah. Yes. And that does a lot of um sort of commercial work. Mm-hmm. Is it a mix of everything, mainly commercial work?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yeah, uh, 512 Media is something I started a long time ago when I realized after I took my first job as a PA, I was like, oh, I don't ever want to do this again. Um, so I started my own company and started doing business profiles, and it's been going for about 15 years now. Um I do branded and commercial stuff. Uh so any, you know, corporate interview type things or events or anything, I cover those and then uh the commercial stuff as well. So for any brands or anything like that, I do um commercial things. Yeah. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

And was it this sort of background that led you to making Disfigura?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

That is a tougher question. It was the other way around. I love narrative film and I love film, and I went to school for film, and I made you know a million short films. I've literally made like 65 short films in my career, and I've won every award you could possibly imagine, and I've been to every film festival you could possibly imagine. That's not bragging, it's just like it's a fact, yeah. It's a fact. And uh, you know, my my advice to somebody or even to myself would be like, make a feature, man. I could have made five features by the time I made 65 short films. So I don't know if 65 short films is a brag. It's like you made a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Go make features. I know what you're saying, because like there's a a point where like three shorts feels like if you've not been invited to play in the feature game after three shorts, maybe something wrong with you, you're not spending enough time on your shorts. And it's and I was like, oh, that's that's scary for me. I'm on two.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

You know, uh I here's what I always say and and say make a feature in your 20s, and it's gonna be really bad, but so what? Yeah. You'll have the you'll have the experience, and you'll have people that are are dumb like you that will help you for free to do this passion project in your 20s, and it just gets harder as you get older because people have kids and families and things, and you're like, hey buddy, can you help me with this? And they're like, I can't take three weeks off my family to go help you with your weird What do you mean? This is better than your family. Come on. Exactly. It gets harder and harder to convince your friends that it's a good idea to do your feature with you than it just. And plus, most of the people that are successful feature filmmakers in some way or another made a feature in their 20s and it was terrible. Yeah. I mean, it still gets distribution on some kind of tubi channel or whatever the whatever the heck, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

I I feel like a lot of people forget that for every 27-year-old Spielberg and every 23-year-old Kevin Smith, there is Schlock by John Landis. Yes. Like no no one knows that one.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah, no, no, but no one's gonna see your first film. I mean they might, but if they go look it up, but only if you're successful. But I I I used to have a podcast called First Films, and it was um it was about people's first feature films and making them. And then like wherever they are in their career.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

They're they're my favorite first features are they're cut some of my favorite films to go back to. Like I watched Thesis by the guy that did um Open Your Eyes and The Hours and something else. But it's just this, you know, a woman trying to do her thesis and it's on violence in cinema, and then she discovers a snuff film, and it was made like two or three years before 8mm. And it's like this is dope. This is absolutely dope. Yeah, and yeah, um I watched that and I was like, this is so much more fun. Like seeing people be like, I'm gonna throw something at the wall and hope this sticks, compared to the safe bet sort of Rousseau's and Cameron's, and just like, I'm gonna paint by numbers, and you're all gonna cobble it up.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

I mean, go see the first film of um the guy who did Hereditary, right? Ari Aster. Uh it's a real weird one. It's a real weird one. He was at AFI and he made this uh he made this film about uh abuse and family. It's just really well stylized and terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Ah, God, it's on my watch list. Um Yeah, it's it's real weird. I mean, you can see where he's coming from. But talk about a swing, right? Why not? Why not? Do something different. There's you know like it's yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

No, it's that's the thing. It's a lot of the as Hollywood has always been, it's a money man, like money person, um invariably a money man, uh, situation where there's they've got X amount of money and they want a confirmed return and you're trying to quantify uh artistic merit and vision and idea uh into just a quantifiable return, and it's like, well, no. And they're like, well, the same but different, the old Hollywood motto, and it's like Yeah, but maybe we don't need it. And then you hear like Netflix dropping 350 million on Electric State, and I'm yet to know anyone who's seen that film. And you're like I watch everything. I mean, I don't think I've got time for Electric State, but like you're telling me, hey, I'm sure someone put their heart and soul into their role. Yeah. But like you you couldn't have given a hundred like filmmakers a million bucks and then still made a 250 million film?

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Like here's the thing there's like a there's like a law of returns or something that executives look at, like a mathematical formula where it's like the more money you throw at a film, technically, the more money you can make. That's what they all think. They look at these Marvel movies and they go, Oh, if we spend 200 million, we'll get back 400 million. And it's like, okay, we make a bunch of million dollar films, that that really technically will never make its money back. You have to get up to the $20 million price range to make your money back. The only other way of doing it is spending nothing. You spend literally nothing. Hundred, maybe a hundred and two hundred, three hundred thousand dollars, four hundred and five, five hundred thousand dollars on a film, and you have more of a of a chance of getting your money back than when you spend a million. So, but the law of the law of return should include I mean, they should just do a charity at this point. The rampant overspending at Netflix, I've seen firsthand. It is egregious and disgusting. Take a hundred million dollars, because you get five billion dollars a month worldwide, and just be just pick a hundred, a hundred up-and-coming filmmakers and no million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I I don't want them to be like, oh well, they're short, won an Oscar last year. It's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I I want the guy who nailed it at his college. I want the guy who can't afford to do any of that, but he's churning out good 20-second spooky things on YouTube. It's like go throw the thing at them.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

But I think it's a combination. I think you do give the you know, 25 people who won their first feature was a smash hit. You give them a million dollars and you go make your thing. Then you give the other 25 you find on YouTube, and they're making interesting, weird stuff, and you're like, make a feature, do it. 25 should be like the best short film you've ever seen that year. You know, the 25 best short films you saw that year, then you go go make your feature. And then 25 should be a complete gamble and just weirdos, just weirdos in the deepest reaches of the internet where it's like, I want to see what you make. You know what, Netflix? I'm saying it right here, and I know this has a giant reach, so I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it here. You have a responsibility as the cinema overlord to give back. 100 million dollars is not a lot of money to you. Do it and do exactly what I said.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

I think art. Jokes aside, that's 100% fact. Like, I think that they do have uh an obligation to cinema. If they care about cinema, which they apparently do, they should be reinvesting in the industry. And by reinvesting, you don't just keep giving Christopher Nolan a blank check, you don't just keep giving all of these known filmmakers blank checks because eventually then more than a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

What's a hundred million dollars to you? I mean, yes, but the the odds of like two or three of those films get becoming mega hits is high. Yeah. Because filmmakers struggle. They struggle, they struggle. Even the Oscar-winning the filmmakers struggle. They struggle, they win an Oscar. The Brutalist, the guy from the Brutus, he's like, yo, I can't even afford to come out here to all these festivals. It costs a lot of money. No one's supporting me. I can't have a family, I can't do a bunch of stuff because I've chosen to make film, and I'm not rewarded for that. Even though I'm rewarded in an Oscar, I really hope that guy after the Oscar just like directs a ton of commercials and gets paid.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

I was just about to say, yeah. I hope like some decent people have gone like, go make an ad for us. And he's like, What do you want? Just sell this product however you want to do it because you know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Here, okay, I'll amend this. Netflix, right? You've given all this money, $100 million, right? And you give all this money to all these filmmakers that are up and coming. They're grateful to you because and it's and you're making a big premiere. You're making a big thing. Yeah, make it a big thing. Maybe people apply for this. It's like a grant or something. They apply for it, you know, all over the world. Or you go find them. You should go find them. Do reach. I think you should go find them. Get a whole team together, get a team together to do this. Then you premiere it, right? You premiere all these films. Wow, you know, you get articles written about everybody makes these. On the platform, everyone who's got a subscription is watching all of these shorts. Amazing, amazing, right? And then sign a contract with them. I know it's a business. Listen, I know it's a business. Sign a contract with them and say, okay, we now are gonna get a percentage for the next three years of the ad revenue that you make from making commercials. Done. Something like that. Yeah. There you go. I just made a business model for you. I just made a business model in general.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I mean a banking. That's the thing. I'm so annoyed. If I had that money money money to start with, there's so many people I know who would instantly get a cash injection into their business of just like, Jos, crack on. Just keep going. Like, and if you fuck up, don't worry. Like, this money doesn't need to come back to me, just keep going. But that's I'm not a money person. Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

So in my brain, I'm just like would you're would you're would you still believe that if you were? Hopefully. I mean, there are a lot of people who do, they make their first billion or whatever selling their company or first hundred million, and then they become angel investors. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

I don't know. I I'm I always consider money like a plague, and you just got to get rid of it. Like I don't I don't ever see the point in saving it.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

So I I do money money's a tool, right? Money's a tool. Of course. It's never it's never the point, it's never the thing that you're striving for, but it is a really useful tool. And um, the more money you make, the more you can do what we would do, which is give it away to people who you think deserve it. Um it's not an evil thing inherently, but it definitely motivates people in an evil direction. So I think if you have a good relationship with money, money will have a good relationship with you. And uh if you use it well, then great. I don't think billionaires should exist. I think once you make uh, you know, $500 million, you get a park and a statue, and anything you make past that is recycled back into the society that helps bring you $500 million.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

So and $500 million, like let's not be silly. That is generational far too much more than you'll ever need. But but these people, they're so they're like dragons. It's nothing, nothing, yeah. Nothing that's why we have dragons. Yeah. They're billionaire dragons. Anyway, we were we were talking about Disfigura. Right, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

So either editor or you is gonna have a hell of a time with this one.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Me. Oh, don't. I've had I had one episode uh which the recording was three and a half hours long because we just kept going off and riffing. Right. And then trying to get back. So, yes, so disfigure it. How did you and Tony uh like meet to write to work together?

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Uh so it's a really cool place uh called Echo Ben Productions. You can look it up. They they did a um, they do music videos and they do commercials and they do uh a ton of stuff, they do feature films. My friend Ryan Turner uh started this company with uh his friend Zubin and they gave me a tour a couple years ago. And uh they were like, hey, I've been a freelancer forever. I know what it's like to be a freelancer. This is a hub. Use it as such, use it as office space. We're trying to start a community here, and they were true to their word. They're incredible, incredible people, incredible creatives. And so Tony and I met through Echo Bend. They have you know parties and they have meetups and they have, you know, they have a community. And I felt like I was a part of that community. And Tony came up to me and said, Hey, you've made films. Will you read this and will you direct this? And so I read it, I loved it. I was literally considering doing something in black and white. And noir and Twilight Zone, and it was perfect. It was right up my alley. I was like, yes, this is this is good. And then we got on the phone and we agreed on everything. I just put out my entire idea and we went systematically through the entire script. And I was like, what about this? We do this. And Tony was like, building on it. We were getting, we were totally in sync. Totally in sync. And by the end of the call, I was like, hey, you know, you should direct this with me. You should absolutely 100% direct this with me. Because I feel like a lot of young filmmakers will write something, but be scared to direct it. And they'll they'll look for help. Right. And more often than not, they'll find help from someone who's terrible. And what I mean by that is like someone who is power hungry or wants the glory for themselves or is like, I know better than you. Yeah. And I'm like, no, I know what I know, but I I'm not better than anybody. And it's a collaborative process. And I really like having a second brain. Oh honestly.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Like on set, whenever I'm whoever gets us out of the hole, I don't care if you're I don't care if you're the runner, the fucking clapperboard guy. Like I don't care who gets us out of that hole. Yeah. We're in this together. We're making this together.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Yeah. There is there is obviously a hierarchy on set always, right? And I only lay down the law when it comes to speaking to my actors, right? About performance. Because it can be muddled so quickly. It's not that they're fragile, it's that like there needs to be a unifying voice talking to the actors about the performance, about what you're looking for. But other than that, it's like anything, yeah, anything goes. Someone has a better idea. Great. Sick. Great. Tell me that. That's only the problem of this. Yeah. Tell me that I tell me that idea. Yeah. So that's how it happened. Tony, Tony, and then we decided to to do this together through the entire thing. And I I I have some mentees. I like being a mentor and I like telling people straight what they should and shouldn't do. I'm a director, you know, I like telling people what to do. But I also like giving advice. You know, I like giving advice and really being um encouraging of new filmmakers. Uh, I've I've encouraged a lot of people to go into directing who maybe would not consider it because I can tell right away if they have a vision for it. And if they don't, I'll be like, yeah, okay, I'll direct it. Yeah, no worries. But if they have a strong vision, and usually when they write it, they do. Yeah. It's like. And Tony started getting a lot more comfortable, of course, being on set. Beautiful. And then went on to do her own things. You know, her own show. And I said, I went up to her and I was like, I am so sorry because I've given you a horrible burden. And that burden is filmmaking. You now are addicted, and you will have to do it for the rest of your life. And you'll hardly ever make money. And you'll be you'll always want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

It's that there's that meme that goes around, which is uh tell me something about your hobby that you hate. And it's like, uh, I hate pre-production, I hate production, I hate post-production. The only thing I hate more than all three of those things is not doing it.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

And it's like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

If you can if you can do anything like that, say if you can do anything else, do that. Just do that. But if you're addicted to the struggle, I mean you're picking the hardest possible thing you could possibly do.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Honestly. I remember I said to my mum years ago, I said, like, I'm gonna be I got two career choices, filmmaker or paleontologist. And she just went both very lucrative. And I was like, thank you, Mum. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah, it um it's it's it's painful, man. It could be painful. But okay, you pick the hardest possible thing you could you could ever do, which is writing if you write. Or and then you go into a field where everyone is an expert. Your mother's an expert, your friends are experts, everyone's watched TV, everyone's seen movies, and not only that, but they've seen the hundred million dollar ones. And they go, That's a standard. That's how we make it. I watch NCIS, I watch whatever show your grandma watches that, and she goes, I know what it should look like, I know what it should sound like, and she doesn't think about how it's made. And then you come along with your short film and you go, look at this, and they go, you know, is that yeah, it's fine, yeah. It's okay. Or the other side of it when they remind me of.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Go on.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

You just that's what that's what they say. Oh, right, yeah. And you go, uh, great, yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Derivative, is it? Yeah, um, the the other side of that is I hate when they go, it's excellent. And you're like, oh yeah, it's the best thing you've ever seen, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, really? I know it's not the best thing ever been made. Like, can you give me some? Did you watch it again right now? You're you're desperate to watch it. Well, I've got things to do. You told me you had nothing to do.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Yeah, yeah, hyperbole, man. Hyperbole. But you know, the cool thing about um Disfigure on the internet is that people are honest. They have no in the game. We got a we got 500 comments already in the first five days. Jeez. Uh so people are talking about it and they will not pull any punches. Good and bad.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Uh yeah, I was gonna say, I I am one of those people that as long as it's constructive, all feedback's good. You know, I don't like you tell me it's a piece of shit, I'll be like, okay, why?

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

And if you tell me and I don't agree, I'll be like, okay, like that doesn't matter. But if I do if I do agree, I'll be like, well, you're wrong, and then 30 minutes later be like, damn, they were right.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Yeah, that's what uh Tony and I are farming the hate, and so someone just like writes terrible, right? And then we go, you might want to watch it one more time all the way through, just to make sure. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

The ending really makes it all up for it.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah, you know, did you make it to the end? Did you engage with it all the way through?

SPEAKER_00 28:14

What's weird is that it's and I'm not just saying this because you know, whatever, it's not terrible. You know what I mean? Like, it genuinely isn't terrible. I've watched thousands of shorts at this time. Like, and there are some shorts out there that when you watch them, you're just like, I love that you and your friends got together and made something. Like, I I'm gonna tell you some good things, I'm gonna say, next time work on this, try and get your sound a bit better next time, try and do this. But otherwise, whatever. Then there's the next round of shorts where it's like, you probably should have had a third person telling you no. Like, just just dial it back a little bit, you know what I mean? But then when you when you see them build and build and build, and they get to a certain and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with production value, but it there is usually a sort of correlation between it. When there's a certain amount of production value and you can tell that care and love and attention has gone in, Disfigure is not a terrible short. So if anyone was to say terrible, it's like, well, you need to change your vocabulary because what you mean is not for me.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

You don't mean terrible, because it's not terrible. It like it is just fundamentally not a badly made film and it's good.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Like we think so. But you know, it's for the 500 comments we got, 480 of them are this is excellent, and here's why. And then of course it's the 20 that are like they stick in your car. You're like, uh yeah, that you need to care about. Come on, man. But I I I'm of the belief that you the uh the attention economy is here. How dare you not entertain me? If you are asking for my attention for 30 seconds, for 15 minutes, for half an hour, however long your short film is, or God forbid, two hours, two hours and thirty minutes, if you are asking for my attention, you better work your ass off to make sure that however amount of time you have is entertaining me.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

I can go and rewatch all of The Office for 16 hours straight and have a good time. You're gonna tell me I gotta watch something new for 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

You're gonna tell me I have the entirety of the human experience on my screen, and you're gonna tell me. I can't tell you the number of films I've seen at film festivals that that demanded my attention and were fucking terrible. So bad. I apologize for cursing, but so so bad. You know, we just got together and we made this thing in like 48 hours. Oh, did you?

SPEAKER_00 30:52

It's you couldn't tell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

It showed. And I hate you now.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

So that's my I'm a a judge for uh first cut, first cut uh fucking hell, completely lost all my words there. First cut film festival in North Carolina, gotta get it right. Um I'm a judge for those guys, and it's a short film festival, and it's great because usually I get two or three shorts, you know, pop up on my film freeway, like watch these. And I'll watch them. And I'm just like, you son of a bitch, you wasted everyone's time by uploading AI Slop. Like, get the fuck out of here. And and I get so irritated that like I feel like I shouldn't do it. Like, I should see what they're doing with AI Slop and go, like, okay, you couldn't afford to tell this story, so you've used a tool to help you get through it. Last year, someone made an entire uh French Legion short using roadblocks. And at first I was like, fucking hell. And then by the end, I was at the end, I was like, uh, actually, fair enough. That was very compelling. Roblox, it does have it's like Lego, right? You I'm not familiar, but yes, that's cool. So I was like, I should stop looking at AI slop with that mindset. But then when you then when you watch it and you're like, well, that was nine minutes of dog shit. Right. I don't know why you've made it.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Visuals. Listen, I have seen AI be used to great effect in music videos. In in in enhancing what's there. Sure. So they shoot the whole thing, they shoot talent, they use VFX, and it it's just used to enhance. It's a little touch. Yeah, there's still humans there, and it still takes a long time to iterate. It's not like it's not, but making a full thing with AI, like, I don't care. Do it to pre-viz, do it as a pre-viz, do it as a as an ideation thing, like I'm working through the scene and like I gotta figure out the angles and things. Do that. That's fun. That's cool. That's where it's for. Don't ever show it to anyone. Don't ever show, don't ever waste my time. Don't waste my time with it. And that's that's what I get.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

I'll watch these shorts and I'll be like, you son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

But then every once in a while, right? Gold.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Oh, uh, there was some absolute gold. This year there's been two or three, which I think they're some of like the funniest horrors I have seen. And I was just like, oh. And one of them was so jankly shot, yeah, whether it was on a little handicam, and you know, everyone's and everyone's being a crap actor. But I was like, oh, but the comedy is really strong, and you've managed to get that visual gag from the horror really tight. And like it's that thing of we've got the comedian, he's long dead, but there was a comedian called Tommy Cooper, and he used to do uh magic tricks and he would fuck them up, and like he'd get them wrong, and that was the joke. Great. But the thing is, you have to know the trick backwards and forwards, inside out, every which way you can to successfully make it look bad. Yeah, and I kind of feel like that's what these guys have done. It's like if you've stumbled upon this, then there's no chance for us you're amazing. Yeah, but if you've knowingly done it this way, that actually makes you even better. So either way, you've struck gold. And yeah, like they're instant, like you know, some people are submitting $30,000 shorts, and I'm just like, this is good, yeah, it's good. And then these guys, yeah, well done. That's a professional piece. And then these guys are throwing up something that they've just thrown together and it's excellent. And I'm like, award worthy that.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Yeah, you're like, oh, this is Monty Python before you know. This is what I want to see. This is what I want to see.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

So yeah, I think that's the thing. Like, and it also as a filmmaker, it's uh it's very useful judging a short film festival.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

You know what works immediately. It's so funny. If you make your your short, and I I I tell everyone to go to go to film festivals with shorts and watch all the shorts you can because you know immediately which ones you like and which ones you gravitate towards and why they don't work or why they do work. You know, it's all useful. If it's bad or it's good, you pick something up from it for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that. Just do that. And I applaud you. I applaud you for uh judging because I I'm sure you watch so many, so many, and they're so, so bad. So many are so bad. And you don't let the bad ones through. You just go, no. And you champion the ones that may not have all their stuff together, but there's something in there that's worth seeing.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

There's even um I look at the credits and it'll if they'll say that they're from North Carolina, I'll say to Mark the organizer, I'll say, like, if they are local and they will turn up and they will meet people, their film's not good enough. But if they meet a community of people near them that they didn't know existed, that's better as well. So it's I mean, it's a no, but if they can turn up, it's a yes.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Because I mean that's why films film festivals that I think are successful, at least the smaller tier ones, are like oh yeah, have a day or during the week. I don't know, a Wednesday part, you know, before everybody gets there for the weekend, that's just for the local film block. You do the local film block meetup and then they can stay through the weekend. You know, they get a pass and they get to see all the things and they get to meet everybody. It just makes sense. If you have your you know, your film festival at a place, you want the locals to be a part of the community. You want the locals.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

I I I'm really starting to like look at festivals as a if you've been going anywhere from like one to three years, you're gonna have no um network, but you're gonna really take care of the filmmakers. Yes. If you've been going from like three to seven years, you're gonna have an acceptable network, and you're gonna have a little less care for the filmmakers, but you're still gonna be on it. And then from seven plus, you are a money-making situation, and it doesn't matter who's there, it's about selling tickets. Right. And at that point, I'm always like, Ugh, there's there's no point.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Yeah, you you start to look around and you go, Oh, it's gotten a little too big for it. And I I don't I don't know how to do that because I get it. It you gotta make money and you gotta grow.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

And like, don't get me wrong, I I attended Scream Fest, even though my film wasn't there. I was in LA for the whole thing, and I I went every day um and I watched as much as I could, and I met loads of people, loads of really interesting filmmakers. But that was also just because I stood in the foyer and was like, hey, I saw your film, I really liked it. Like, right, and I'm gonna talk to you about it. And had I not done that, like, I don't feel like that film festival is offering that to anyone.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

I like film festivals like FilmQuest, where it's uh filmmaker networking events first.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

It it's Scream Fest is cool, yeah, but there's no opportunity to network. There just isn't. There's no up there's no room, there's no other place, there's no third place where filmmakers can just talk to each other. There's no opportunities to do it. It's only the lobby. That's the only place you can talk, and that's not great.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

That's not great. I did meet Colin, you know Colin. Yeah, yeah. I I I met Colin just purely that's him, purely by we both got there very early, and I was like, Are you waiting to get your ticket? He was like, Yes, and then for 10 days straight, we saw each other every day. But it's funny, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Uh we did a full film quest, we did the exact same thing. He was the first person we met, and we just he's you know our film festival buddy.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah, and that was it. It was just but that was purely off my own steam of just talking. And if you don't do that, I don't feel like festivals really look after you, which is a bit shit. It is.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

I I uh yeah, I think that festivals can be useful uh if they r you know have networking as their first thing, first thing, and then like opportunities for getting I don't know, vouchers uh for equipment and stuff like that. That's the next thing. Yeah, I think that's you know, grants and access to people. Again, you know, I'd love a access to people, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Access to people is all I really think I need. Like money obviously would facilitate certain things, but the access, if I could talk to an established producer and be like, this, why doesn't this work? And don't worry, I'm not precious. Tell me. And they rip it apart and I go, Great, can I come back with you something else? They go, Yeah, sure. And I go, Great, okay. Whereas if I've got a cold call people and be like, Hey, I I I wrote this thing, I shot this thing, what do you think? You might get a like, ah, cool, I'll take a look. Yeah, and never again. No, or you set up a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Uh oh, there you go. See, that's I like no one's like if you just called me and were like, Can I talk to you? I would talk to you because I I do that all the time. But a podcast is like it's the best possible way to get someone and hang out with them for an hour. I mean, I I want to do a podcast, but I don't edit it. I just it never comes out, it never comes out, it never I never have to edit it. And uh I just use it as a tool to talk to people. That that is kind of when I first started it.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

I thought like, oh, I just want to talk to my friends about films, but I feel like unless we record it, I can't justify doing this all the time.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

That's right. So then I started like maybe it's a motivator for you too, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Yeah, it really is. It really is. Um but now we've looped back to the idea of a podcast, we should probably uh get into the questions.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Doing this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

We should actually do it, yeah. Um okay, so um in all of that, uh we hardly actually spoke about specific films, so it'll be interesting to see where it all sort of originated from. So, what was the first film you saw at the cinema?

SPEAKER_02 41:13

The first one I remember is Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Beautiful, and I think it was uh memorable for a couple things. One, first crush. Yeah, okay. Uh yeah, him too, man. Hey, stud. And um, it was memorable because uh as I came out of the theater, I fell off a brick wall and then messed myself up and had to go to the hospital. I was really young, just tiny kid. Yeah. And uh saw my brother walking on the same wall, so I jumped up there, my older brother, and then did the same thing and fell off into a concrete thing. But yeah, who frame Roger Rabbit? And I still love it. I mean, it's still an excellent film. What a great thing. And I'm so happy that my parents took me to that. Uh why? Who knows? I love it. It it it forever expanded my imagination into what's possible and what can do, and it was uh cool and scary and funny and sexy and all the things. So I was really young though. I was must have been really, really young. Yeah, because it was 88 it came out. 88, yeah. I was born in uh 84.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Okay. 88. It was yeah, it was the it was the film that was number one in the UK when I was born.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

88.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Dang, I didn't even know the date. So I must have been four years old. I was four years old. Four years old watching that film. That was the first one I remember. Remember it vividly. Hot Jessica.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

I mean, she yeah, oh slamming. I like I I remember we watched it on video when it came out. Um well obviously it came out when I was older. No, it came out when I was still uh uh young, but we watched it, and I remember just loving it. And I think old Hollywood was a thing that I absolutely love, like old studio stuff. Even to this day, I'm always looking for like, oh, is there a book which is like a crime thriller set in old Hollywood? And they're just like has to be. Absolutely whole series. Devil in a blue dress, yeah, maybe uh LA Company.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

I'm trying to remember there's there's uh there's a very famous series of books set in in LA during Whole Hollywood. And I don't know if it's always in the background sort of thing. I can't remember. Ah God, it's gonna Is it the guy that did like Black Dahlia? Is it James Elroy? Uh no, I don't know. It's pulp fiction. You know, it's just it's pulp books of the you know, the seedy underbelly of LA. And you know what? Uh reflecting on who framed Roger Rabbit, I realize that it showed behind the scenes stuff. It showed the mook movie making. I'm wondering if now it affected me deep more deeply than I could possibly imagine.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

I think it must have, because you're seeing all that stuff where you're like, oh, we don't meant to see that, and that looks so much fun. Like, I don't know how anyone doesn't look at a backlot and doesn't think like, Oh, I gotta be there. I gotta get there. I don't know what they do. What's that crane for? Why have they got that backdrop? What's going on? I gotta get there. I love it. Yeah. Making movies, man. Making movies are rag. Um uh what film did you watch over and over again as a kid?

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Uh Austin Powers. So I never watch films more than once, usually. Oh, really? Uh I I have good retention. I will, and I'm that's changing, you know, as I get older. Movies are getting worse. And I tend to go back in time to watch movies that are still cool. Um, yeah, there's some some great movies.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

I watch uh the films I didn't like more than once just to make sure.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Yeah. So uh Austin Powers, I watched it I think three or four times in theaters. Damn. Uh, and it just got me. Man, it's just my type of humor. It's silly, it's absurd. It's excellent. It's it's so funny. It's so funny and so dumb.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Have you seen the OSS Santa Set films with Jean Dijardin? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

I love those as well.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Good.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

I love those as well. But I I have to be clear, I only like the first one, the first Austin Powers.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Because the first one lost the thread. The first one is shot as if it was designed by Ken Adams, as if it had been a Bond film. They used it looked like they used old film stock, I'm sure they didn't. Doctor Evil was serious in his humour, he but he was still a serious villain. Whereas two and three were silly comedies. And perfectly fine. They were perfectly fine. I enjoyed like I remember seeing Goldmember at the cinema. Yeah. And that intro at the beginning with Tom Cruise's Austin Powers, lost my mind as a kid. Yeah. But that first Austin Powers, it was shot very differently.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

Yeah. It's so special. It you know, and I love I love parody. I I make parody in my commercials, I do parody. I like something that is completely serious and really highly elevated production-wise, but then completely silly. Taking taking the piss, you know. I love doing that. So Austin Powers, one of my favorites. I love it, I love it so much, and I still love it. I'll still go by. I do blame Austin Powers for giving me a terrible roommate in college. Okay. Because we had nothing in common except that we liked Austin Powers, but he liked the second one, see, and I liked the first one, and uh we became roommates, and I we didn't get along at all.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

I can't think why.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

It was the only thing we had in common. I was like, what who's putting us together? But whatever. It doesn't matter. What college was it? Uh Santa Cruz, which I had my choice. You see, Santa Cruz. It was um go banana slugs. You know, I'm a banana slug for life. And um what I liked about the college is that you you could touch cameras your freshman year. Oh, yeah. A lot of colleges, until you define your major, your junior year, they'll let you touch cameras. And I was like, but I want to touch cameras now and I want to make things now.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

And um to go back to that thing with comedy, like if you want to be a stand-up comedian, do a hundred shit shows. Yeah, yeah, go stand up and make a fool of yourself and keep going. And it's the same. Go get a camera and go film your cats running around. Try and make narrative, go film anything, just go get a camera and fucking try.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Okay, that's hard to do, right? Like, I just saw this video online about like the most annoying creative person you know, and they're always like, just go film it, just do the put it on your phone, right? I'm not making fun of you, I'm making fun of me because I've said it.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

No, no, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

Yeah, and you're right. When you hear that as a creative and you're like, just go film in your garage, you know, do the DuPlace Brothers thing, just make things until it sucks. It's like it's hard to do. It is hard to do. I'm not saying it's not hard to do, but do it anyway. Yeah, you know what I mean? Do it anyway. Get some friends together, try to recreate scenes that you've seen that you like.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Just recreate how that light source works.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Yeah, like how think about it. Doesn't have to be this is the film I'm making. This can be an exercise. Yes. Just is this this the proof of concept so you can go to that local business owner and go, can I have some money? And can I to make this properly?

SPEAKER_02 48:31

It's all advertising. It's all advertising. Um if you yeah, I mean I agree with that. If you are able to I lost my thread, never mind.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

That's fine. Um, no, I will say though, I agree. Uh that that person is annoying. Um, and I've been that person, and I've also been on the receiving end of that person. You're right. Wait, I got it. Go on. I got it. So I'll edit it.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

If you if you have uh trouble motivating yourself to make these short films, um YouTube. That's why a podcast is helpful for motivation, right? And talking about movies and making connections. I think uh likewise, uploading it to YouTube when you're trying to make your films may be a motivator to help you make that film, whatever it is. And it can be crap, and you don't have to put it up, but you can if it helps. And it sucks to say, like, go and do it, right? It sucks. But literally, film yourself. Set up a tripod, try to get the lighting right, do a shot, one shot, two shots.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

But that's another thing. If you're self-conscious about putting it up because you know it's a bit shit, then try and make it again until you don't feel as bad about doing it. Exactly. You know, exactly and like I was desperate to make a like multi thousand pound whatever like short. Like over here, shorts aren't as expensive. Like you could probably make a very good one for about 10 to 15 or 10 to 20,000. Wonderful, right? So like my one was I think mine was about 15 grand. And that was a full crew, you know, nearly 20 people. It was all great. We had proper crafting, everything, it was great. And part of me needed to do that just to get it out, and now I'm like, right, okay, I've done that. And I don't think it made that much of a difference. And I think I only know that after I spent it.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

I know exactly where you are on your journey. There are so many filmmakers I meet who blow their wad on a film, and it's this magnum opus, right? That it's this big film, it's this huge, it's you know, they they get like period costumes and pieces, and they hire big actors and they do the thing. So you're describing your film. I mean, I've done it too, but everyone does it. Everyone does it because they're like, I need that thing, that lofty thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

I need to prove to myself that it can be done by this guy.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

It all it's not always, but it's always not as good as the thing that you made before or I mean, of course, after, but like it's because you start believing that you need you need the money to solve problems. And listen, money's nice, but problems never go away. No. And yeah, and and it it's the your next one after this one is gonna be your best one.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

And that old adage of like shit going in, shit coming out, like if the script's not tight, right? You could put you could fucking cast Leo DiCaprio in this motherfucker and put millions into it. But if the shit doesn't work, it doesn't work. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

A friend of mine did the Magnum opus, yeah, did the thing, and it it was okay. It was just okay. It didn't work. There was a lot of reading for what it was, you know, that were really important plot points.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

Um, and then the second one they made after that one, two guys in a homemade sub like submarine. Amazing, beautiful, incredible, full of tension and like cost nothing.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

Yeah, yep. That was it.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

I shot a promo, I shot an intro for my film where I did it like Criswell predicts from the beginning of Plan 9 from Out of Space. I put it on my Instagram, I don't know if you know if you saw it, but I was, you know, I did all this thing and I did the makeup and I did a push in and I did a whole script. And after I'd finished that, I was like, I think I actually prefer this to the film, and this didn't cost me any no, this cost me uh 10 bucks because I had to go to a Goodwill to buy a suit. Yeah, because I don't own a suit. And I was like, that's all it costs me. Like, I I have the camera gear, I have the lights, I have what that's what it has cost me. Yeah, yes, but that cost me 10 bucks, and me and a buddy shot it in my garage, and it was great fun.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

And I was like, uh, this is more of this. Yeah, but then you realize what you like, what you like and what you want to do. You know, I I made um I did this thing called 20th Century uh Fox, F-A-U-X, yes, 20th Century Foe. And um 16 shorts and 16 weeks, and we got together every Sunday and we didn't have an idea. We'd be like, okay, what are we gonna do today? And I have talented friends and we'd invite them over. Whoever wanted to come that day, we would just shoot something, and it ended up being this whole thing, and we got written up in a bunch of places Filmmaker magazine and IndieWire and no film school, and we sold it to uh an online uh aggregator that was a big comedy network, and it was cool, a success. But it was literally a reaction to what we had to go through, which is people telling us notes, people giving us notes, people, the slog of getting something made in a system that doesn't want you. They don't want you, they don't we got too many of you. We don't know we haven't got time to find out whether you're handling.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

You suck. And then we're like, If you were good, I would have heard about you by now.

SPEAKER_02 54:27

Yeah, maybe we do suck. So we ended up making these shorts, and they were like really fun. They were really fun to make, and they were really good. If you see these 16, there will be one that is your favorite, and it's never the same one for anybody. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

I it's it's so annoying how like you never listen to that information, you know? Like I I got a friend of the family, uh he's a like a he's won two BAFTAs for directing, he did a film for uh DreamWorks, uh like he's an established guy, right? Cool, and when I first started uh saying to him, like I was like, John, I'm gonna go make like this short, and I said in the script, and he went, This is great, by all means do this, but do something smaller that you and your friends can just do at the weekend. And I was like, No, John, you don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

Yeah, I don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

You don't understand, John, you highly successful director. No, I get what you're saying, but also I know. Yeah. And it's just so weird. Like, I I had to get I had to do it. You know, I had to go and make that film, and I had to go tour the states with it, and I had to do all that stuff, and I met met loads of really really good people from it.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

But it all helps. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's it's very much that like Kevin Smith makes clerks for 27 grand, then he gets five million to make Mulrats, and then he's given a quarter of a million to make chasing Amy, and you can definitely tell which one is the best one. Like so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

So there are there are tiers, right? First, story's king, always. Story and writing is king, so and you can iterate on that forever. That's a trap in itself, but also good art is just abandoned, it's never finished. So find a place where it's good enough and then let it go. Um I'm in the hellscape that is rewriting right now for my feature. So uh I call it the swamp. And I'm I think I'm terrible, I'm not a good writer, nobody likes this, I don't even like this, and then like know that that is part of the yeah, you know, the the swamp before you gotta get deeper so you can swim out self-loathing before you get out. You're gonna get right in that there are tears, there are tiers of this. So storytelling is king, right? It's at the bottom. Then that's like 80%, I would say. I'm just making these numbers up, but it sounds about right. Then five percent can bring you like really good production value, could bring up 10%, maybe, get you to 90%, right? So like 10%. That means that includes a good art director, a good cinematographer, a good lighting. It all matters, but it's only about 10%. Remember, 80% is the writing and the the story and the characters and everything, like everything like that. And then another 10% on top of that is like just luck. It's just like, did you did you did you go to shoot your outdoor scene and it was raining? Oh fuck. And you have to like compromise. Did you go out and your actor was sick with food poisoning and it that the performance sucked ass? Oops, not lucky.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

Way she goes.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

Yeah, so that's for everything. That's every short film that's ever feature ever made. Yeah, you know, would have been something if only. Would have been something if only. You know, I love this podcast. I'm repping this other podcast, but I love it. It's called What Went Wrong. And uh it's great, it's fantastic. It's about every film that you love and how it almost didn't happen, and how hard films are incredibly hard to make, and they are. Yeah. But I think the best thing a filmmaker can do is write. Write, right, write, write, write, write, write, write, write, write, write, right, forever, write forever. Write is a it's a lifelong thing.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

If if you like, I've got uh some friends who are like, oh, this is this this project, I really want to work on this, I really want to work on this, and I'm like, is this the only project you're ever gonna do? And they're like, no. I'm like, well then don't worry about it. Start something else.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

Because if that's the only thing you're ever gonna do, hold on to it like it's your child, only be the one that's allowed to touch it, but accept that that's the only thing you're ever gonna do. If it's not, yeah, just fuck it. Just keep yeah, just keep going. Just keep going.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Just keep going. Just keep going.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

I've got I found a notebook the other day that had some like solid ideas that I was like, oh, these were these were my bread and butter ideas for like three or four years, and I just forgot all about it. And then I read them again and I was like, yeah, one of them's okay.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

But that's too the enduring thought, the enduring thought of something that you love that won't leave you no matter what. That's definitely something you should listen to and go towards. Yeah. I've been iterating this idea for my feature for years. Yeah, I've written it with other writers for years. I've then decided last year to completely throw it out and write it from scratch. And I did. And then I put it into script writing festivals and I won awards. I got semifinalist, I got finalist, I got a semifinalist for film quest, which was very cool. That is very cool. And then my friend gave me a note that I couldn't ignore, and I hate it. I absolutely 100% hate it. But I love it, and I knew in myself intrinsically in my heart of hearts that she was right, Mike Swartlow. I love you and I hate you. And she is a fantastic writer and filmmaker in her own right, and she gave me a note I couldn't ignore, and now I am literally page one rewriting it to accommodate this note. But you know what? It makes it better, it'll be better, it makes it more producible, it makes it easier to shoot, and it's more about what I want it to be about. There we go. 100% worth it then. What? 100% worth it. Yeah, yeah, I guess. It's just refer back to swamp stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

I like to see that thing where you uh I like to write something and then forget all about it. Like I just put it away and I start something else, and then I try to rewrite it from what I remember. And then it's like, oh, I didn't remember this whole section. I was like, well, then it was dog shit then.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

It wasn't worth remembering. Oh, is it? Yeah. He he does that, he says that. He does that exactly, puts it away for a year, and then rewrites it from that perspective. Good advice, but not I'm not at that point yet. No, I can put it away. I'm like, these don't this like fundamental things don't work about it. So I I gotta get back into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:22

But I'm excited about it. So, what was the first R-rated film you saw, and how old were you?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

Uh, so my growing up, I grew up in Florida, Gainesville, Florida, and uh my dad was in Berkeley, California. So I would get a little special name tag and a little pin, and I'd fly like Delta or American Airlines by myself at a really young age. I must have been, I don't know, starting at 10, maybe, maybe even younger. And like the stewardesses would look after me and walk me to my gate and I had a transfer or everything like that. It was great. But then they were-cause it was the 90s, people didn't care. Yeah, they were like, whatever. The kids run around, okay, fine. And they'd stick you in this room, right? If you had a long layover that was like specifically for, I think, kids who were going by themselves or whatever. And uh I remember sitting there and I had a long layover between uh flights, and I watched uh Nightmare on Elm Street, and it destroyed me. Yeah, the young nine-year-old, ten-year-old kid. I was like, I can no longer sleep. I can't take a bus. Yeah, I can't be anywhere. Uh it was terrifying, it was absolutely a hundred percent terrifying to me and fantastic. I mean, at the same time, I was enraptured, I couldn't turn my eyes away. They were like, someone was like, maybe we go. And I was like, do not touch that channel. We're not watching sports. Stay. So uh equally terrifying, and um for a long time I couldn't watch horror movies at all because I had such bad dreams, vivid dreams. And um, I think I I think that's a real boon to who I am as a person because I think I'm really empathetic about who's on screen, right? Is that sympathy or empathy? I don't know. And um, yeah, I I you know I cry at films all the time, I get scared of films all the time. I'm a great audience member. Um and I think that's the first step in being a great filmmaker, right? Is being having a great being a great audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

That's true. I think that is an important thing. I think uh I recently watched Six Feet Under for the first time, and I got to the end, and I was bawling my eyes out, and then uh there was a delivery man knocked on my door, and I had to pause it, like sort myself out, accept it, like you, and then went back plus play again, and then got straight back into it, and I was like and it was wonderful. Top ten sad endings of all time, but but totally like it wasn't gratuitous, no, it it felt just like of course, yeah, of course, this is how we're gonna find out what's gonna happen, and it was oh my god, such a good show. So good, so good. That show was masterfully done. Yeah, yeah. Do you ever got that thing where you watch something and then you're annoyed because you're like, ah, well, I would never have come up with that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:23

It's like I mean, of course. I'll tell you a story about watching. Um, I'm not a huge Joe Wright fan before this, but when I watched Anna Kruinina uh in the theaters, I was like, oh, I'm gonna quit. I can't do better than that. Yeah, that is the best thing I've ever seen. A true master work. Yeah. Uh what the hell? I didn't even mind Natalie uh um sorry, Natalie Portman. I didn't even mind um Kira Knightley in in that. And like she can be a bit annoying sometimes, sure. But in that, she disappeared, everyone disappeared. It was craft first, it was the perfect combination of play and and movie and seamlessly moved between the two and was about every iteration of love there is. And I I came out of the theater and I was like, well, like a master, like going to see a masterwork, uh a painter, and be like, yeah, okay, time for me to find something else, might as well become a baker. I can't do it. That lasted for about three weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

I was like, oh, Anna Karinina, Anna Karinina. I can't, I can't, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I couldn't get it out of it. I was like, there's a lot going on in my life at the time, too. Yeah. With a woman who sort of looked like the lead. And so uh yeah, that it was awful. It was awful. But then I went back and I watched all of Joe Wright's other films, and I was like, oh, this is the culmination of an entire career of movies that have built a Upon everything and everything and everything, and finally the masterwork was Anna Karinna. And I really believe that. People might not agree with me, but it is a masterwork of Joe Wright's work. You can see the influence of all of his other films in it, and he reaches the peak. It's the peak.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

I think the second film is always the more telling film, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

Because the first film is going to be good.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:21

That first album. I think he made at least a five, six films before that one. I'm not sure. I I don't know again off the top of my head. But he oof, boy. Yeah, I think that you're right. The second film, the second film. And I I I I love when filmmakers find their voice and perfect their voice in every film they do. You just find what you're drawn to and what you can do. Yeah. And uh given the the team that you work with, you can either make something that's really incredible that can that can build on your voice or not.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

Yeah. I did an essay uh when I was at university, which was the first five films of like the American independence. So like uh Spike Lee and Jones, Kevin Smith, Link Later and someone else. And that that sort of thing of looking at their first five films and sort of seeing how they had the message they wanted to say in the first one, a lot of them fumble in the second one, and then they come back with the third, and then you can kind of see where they're trying to go with things. And I thought it was so interesting that like when you put them like that, it was like, Oh, yes, yes, and it kind of makes you feel a bit better because you're like, Yes, you can fuck up, but you can also create greatness, and it doesn't necessarily matter what order you do that in sometimes. That's right, so it's good, right? Feels like a fitting time for this question. What was the first film you watched that you considered grown up?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

My dad sat me down and showed me Cool Hand Luke. Ooh, and uh I remember it distinctly. He he made a big deal about it. He made a big deal. He's like, You gotta see this film, you gotta sit down, you gotta watch this film, we're gonna watch this film together, we're gonna do this film, we're gonna watch it. And I'm like, okay, I mean, whatever. Now, from that first thing where he's cutting the parking meters, just the walking around as well. Because the thing was, I didn't I didn't tell you this part, but I was a bad kid. I uh I got I got kicked out of my home in Florida. It was um she was considering military school. Ah my my mother was, and my dad was like, ah, let him just come out here and live with me instead. And I was like, you know, 17 or something, I was halfway through my junior year, and then I woke up one morning and my dad was in my room, and he was supposed to be in California.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:50

So I was like, Oh, what are you doing here? And he's like, We're moving to California today. And I'm like, Oh whoops.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:58

Sick.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:59

Yeah. Yeah. So I had to say goodbye to all my friends, and I had to do, you know, say goodbye. And I we drove out together. And so he wanted to show me cool hand Luke as like sort of a warning what my behavior could lead to. And uh he's like, You want to fight the whole world, you wanna like the the world will destroy you. It will destroy you. Bigger and it will win. Then take one on your own. And you can do it, you can do it, man. But this is where it's going, this is what will happen. And I was like, Oh, cautionary tale, and also great film, and also Paul Newman. Um, that was the first big grown-up movie, and it started like sort of my film education from my dad. Nice. Uh, where he was like, We're gonna sit down, we're gonna watch this film, and those films are enduring in my work, in my way of thinking about film.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

Yeah. That Hollywood Renaissance period where it's you know, from Bonnie and Clyde onwards up until 75 essentially, where it's just all of those filmmakers and they're just fucking giving it to you good. Like I like in Hollywood cinema, it's that period and the American independence that are my two favorites. Yeah, because I think it's the time where that it's where film students have gone like, uh fuck off. We're gonna do our own thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:16

Yeah, let's just make our thing. Let's just make our thing. I think we're gonna come back to it. We're we're there, man. We're there, we're we're we're due for another renaissance. I'm serious. All these YouTubers now are like, do we really need this system? You need to build an audience and you need to make something.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:34

I feel like Marc Pellier, whatever, is that's what it is. It's just proved. It's just like, look, if you've got 60 million fucking followers.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

If they all paid a buck to watch your film, then it's made its money back.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

And it's like I mean, but he's a unique case, right? Because he was a streamer first. And I'm talking about the other guy who did a bunch of comedy shorts and then it made a feature and A24 bought it for $10 million. But these they're all they're all part of it. They're all part of it. I want to say, is it Oat and Milk? I don't remember. I feel bad. But it's called One Wish. It's like coming out. I think it's called One Wish. I don't even know the name of it. Anyway, I heard the story, and I'm a fan of his. I really am. The the uh short comedy stuff he does. I I I I I watch something as well, and it's all in there. It's all in the memory bank. It like so it's it's all happening. It's all happening. I think we're due for another Renaissance, and I feel like the YouTube is the way to do it. You you prove the model, you iterate, you find a style, you see what works. You you know, he didn't start from nowhere. He made a half-hour horror short thing that people responded to. Um, and he makes a lot of comedy videos on social media, you know, stuff like that. And I I'm actually taking a uh a page out of that book and I'm starting um a vertical series, not not a movie, but like a repeatable, yeah, same location, different characters, literally using all of the people that my fiancee met at Groundlings and just having a rotating cast of characters.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

I mean, that's that's helpful as well. Like it's all community, it's all community, that's all it ever is. It's that's all it ever has been. Like it just so happens that the people that came up with you turned out to be just as famous, if you know what I mean. It's that like whenever you hear about comedians who came up at the same time, you're like, oh god, imagine that. And it's like, well, they were just kids at university, they were in the same groups, they're in the same comedy clubs, and they happened to all come out. Three of them are huge, the rest of them now just work in marketing, they're nobody.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:45

But it's just how it is, you know. Well, don't discount those people working in marketing, man, because I got my best clients from friends who I met when I was in high school, college are now marketing directors, and I work for them doing video stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:58

So I was I was I was a marketing director for eight years. What film holds a special place in your heart?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:06

Uh, this is one of the other films that my dad showed me, um, Strange Days. Oh strange days. Love strange days. Angela Bassett and that is fantastic. Everybody in that film is fantastic. It's Gary Oldman's in that film, isn't he? He's like, uh, is he? Is he? No. I don't think he is. I don't know. Ray Finds. Ray Finds. Ray Finds is in it for sure. He's the lead. But the fact that it's like you can see, so the whole conceit is that he puts this thing on his head and then he can see through other people's eyes.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:40

Fantastic. Love that. And he's obsessed with his ex-girlfriend that he has. You put these little tapes, these little cassettes in there, and then you relive these moments through your eyes, and you feel what they feel. And then there's like uh he finds uh you know, uh a woman who captures her own death on camera. But it's like there's some political lean leanings in the you know, so now he has this hot tape and he has to figure it out. That has it that has really affected my work. Just the way I like to think about things and the unreality of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:13

Um I mean, the fact that Cyberpunk the game used that whole story of brain dances as you know, capturing people's murders and selling them. Yeah, it's gold. But it's Catherine Biglow, so obviously it's a good one. Yeah, it's Catherine Biglow. It's great. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:33

So that was very close to my heart, really messed up. You know, I made a short film that kind of pays homage to that. Oh yeah? It's called Rental. It was my first experience at FilmQuest when I got into FilmQuest with it. And it's about a woman who uh is a filmmaker herself, and she rents out some equipment and she's going to pick it up. And so she goes to pick up the equipment and she's checking it, and the guy's super creepy and weird. He's just like, I don't know why I couldn't just come to your house, you know. I don't know, you know. She's like, Yeah, I prefer this in public. You can give it back to me. It's like seems like everything's good. And he's like trying to like win her over, being like, Oh, I've shot for, you know, whatever this hollow tumor. I shot for, you know, he's trying to like, you know, big time her and he's being a little weird. She goes home, takes a shower, comes back, she looks at her camera, and then she puts it on her projector because she's like, I always want to look like if someone leaves footage on the camera. And so she sees a grocery store and she's like, Oh, okay, whatever. And she's about to do it, and then she sees herself come out of the grocery store. And then she gets in her car, and then it cuts, and she's at her house. She's walking to her house. And then it cuts tonight and it's outside of her door. And then she calls the police because he's inside of her apartment while she's sleeping. And then, like, it just progresses and progresses and progresses and progresses until it cuts out. And he's left a message for her in her closet. And so she goes to her closet, she peels back the thing, and we don't see the message, but we do see him come in behind her. And love it. It's great. It's called Rental, it's wonderful. I loved it. But there was one thing that I missed that I really I want to remake it because I feel like I'm a better filmmaker now than I was before. And the last moment I want is for her to wake up in the chair, and she's she's taped to the chair, and there's a video camera on her, and she's watching herself on the projector. And her like head is like this, and she has blinders on, she can only look there, and he he he kills her while she's watching.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:46

Right. Before you remake it, treat yourself to watching thesis because I think that's gonna add so much because that's gonna that's got a lot of uh that sort of strange days footage. Yeah, not cool, not in your story, but in that sort of like I think you're gonna get a lot out of seeing that film. Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

And I I love I'm missing that one moment. I'm just missing that one moment, and I feel like that moment, maybe even before he kills her, but just like you see him, like the knife come in and like she she ugh, so creepy. So I love it though. Love it though, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:27

Did you ever send you my film?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:28

I don't think so, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

Send it in, send it over. I'll send it over. Um, because that's about um it's it's semi-true story, but it's obviously not. But uh I collect film, I collect physical media by the sea of nonsense. But but I also have um eight mil and sixteen mil projectors. Yeah, real nice. And I would take myself to people's houses in the middle of fucking nowhere, and they'd be like, Oh, I've got some reels of film that my dad like like they're in the basement or in the attic, and I'm like, Alright, sick, let's go. And I would just go, and then I'd realise like up in the attic, just like no one knows I'm here. But look at these films, you know, and I'll like I'll take take them away. And I took a load of films once from this couple, and just as I was like paying them, she said, We don't know what's on them, so if there's anything weird, we don't know about it. And I was like, Well, you you could have said that before I paid, I would have paid double. Like, God knows what's gonna be on here. There was nothing, you know. Yeah, but family, yeah, it's that thing of just like, yeah, but what I would be anything. Oh it's a family holiday, everyone's at the beach, everyone's having a nice time, and then maybe in the evening, dad got a little bit kinky with mum and thought, let's let's fucking film it. And I want I want to see that, I want to see that kind of like that candid thing that we no one was meant to see, and I'm not using it, I'm not gonna exploit it, but just sort of be like, Oh, I love that that's what you two are getting up to and you're having a great fucking time. Yeah, so I love just capturing that voyeuristic sort of like nature of it. Yes, but this film is about what if the footage that you see um is more like in a cult or a snuff or a satanic kind of thing, and then it that sort of takes over you, like an obsession takes over you. Yeah, so it it deals in those things of seeing um things you weren't meant to see, and yeah, that there's something about physical media which I bloody love.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:30

Yeah. That most things. Yes, I love that. I love it. Yeah, finding something in an attic, and you're like, oh god, this no one should ever have seen this. Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:39

That's great, and and and not for any reason other than it's dog shit. Like we were in a like a flea market in Bruges or something once, me and me and Kirsty. And like I'm always like, eight mil film, sixteen mil film, anything, and they're like uh this family family video, and I'm like, I'll take it. And I and then I get all excited. I'm like, oh god, I wonder what's gonna be on it. I wonder I wonder if they went on a caravan holiday. It's the mystery that uh introduced. No one there's nothing there's no copy of this. This is the only one, and it could be gold. And a friend of mine once bought a typewriter, and in the case there was two pages of a book that someone had started to write, and he picked them up, looked and went, oh, and was about to throw them away. And I was like, whoa, no, yeah, keep that. That's good shit, man. Like, you don't know. It's over there. I've still got the pages. And it's because it's like that's that's someone's little story, and they wrote two pages of it, and it's not very good, and there's a bit smutty, but I want it, I want it. So yeah, I love it all. Yeah, so yeah, yeah. Um what is your controversial opinion on a famous film?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:50

Uh, I hated Uncut Jams. Thank you. Uncut Jams. I don't know, man. It was I I get it. I don't necessarily it's like a Marty Supreme thing. I haven't seen Marty Supreme, but feel like I feel like people are getting that same feeling from that. And the Safety brothers, they're trying something new, they're doing something new. These irredeemable characters who are, you know, you you know, they're they're I don't know. I I I don't think you have to always write protagonists as heroes. I I love anti-heroes, yeah, I love them, but I want to root for them at least once. And I I couldn't root for uncut gems, and I couldn't root for characters that I despise and that are horrible in every sense of the word, have no redeeming qualities, and I get it. I do get it. It's frantic, and it gave me a panic attack just watching it. So, like that is a skill, right? It is it's it reminds me of a Gorky painting. Have you ever familiar with Gorky? It's uh I I wanted to I've never felt this before, but I wanted to rip the painting off the wall and I wanted to use it as toilet paper. I wanted the shit on the painting. I've never felt that before. I wanted to destroy the paintings. Yes, it made me mad. They made me mad. And in the same way, I felt that that's how I felt about Uncut Gems. I I didn't feel that viscerally that I wanted to destroy the film, but I felt like there's no redeeming quality to this film, and I don't like it, and I hate it, and I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:19

Yeah, I was um if Adam Sandler, a bit like the substance and whatever, it was like if if this wasn't Sam Man, I don't know if anyone would give a shit about this film.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:31

Like I think it's because he's being a scumbag and he's so known for being a he delivered an incredible performance and I knew he was a great actor from Punch Drunk Love, and I knew that he had, you know, I think all comedic actors can be dramatic actors, and all dramatic actors cannot be comedic comedic actors at all, ever. Um, but yeah, because there's there's pain and sadness in every in every clown, and I think that they can access that really well. So yeah, listen, the Sandman did a great job, and it was a panic attack in a movie. Cool. Not necessarily what I want out of my movies, and people will defend it and be like, I love that film, that was the best film, blah blah blah. And I was like, You clearly don't have any panic disorders. So like what like it's clearly don't have any mental illness.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

Oh, it must be so nice waking up in the morning without having to take a pill. Son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:25

Yeah. So anyway, that's I don't know how controversial that is, but it certainly I've had loud arguments about uncut.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:33

Yeah, I've had to justify a similar view. Uh and I don't, I don't, I don't I mean it's to me it's the same as The Bear. I understand that the Bear is a very good and well-written show, but I've worked in hospitality. I don't need I don't need that. Like and I really feel like if you like the bear, you don't have that in your life.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:56

You don't have You've never worked in a restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:58

You've never worked in a restaurant, you've never had something mean so much to you that you're willing to throw it all away and like throw everything else away and just fucking focus. And it's like if you've never had that, get it artificially by all means. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I live that's my cat. I I live most days with the panic of ah fuck. Am I gonna am I gonna justify this career for another day? I think I am. Right. Am I? I think I will. Yeah, come on then.

unknown 1:24:25

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:26

Start writing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:28

Yeah, my my addiction is film and making films and being uh you know marginally successful. Um, and I still it's just enough to keep me coming back and you know huffing the dreams. So I get it. I get it, uh Uncut Gems, but it's too close to home. So I don't love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

Don't love it. What have you been watching recently?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:51

Oh, uh I have a whole list of films and I'm working my way through it. Uh I just watched Oh Hi. Um, it's an indie film uh about a woman taking her what who she thought was her boyfriend on a vacation and then uh chaining him up. Um it was fun, it was well made, it was okay. Okay, you know, I saw no other choice uh Korean film. Um fantastic. Uh the Koreans know what they're doing. Oh man. You know, no other choice. They like don't give a shit about structure. They're like, oh, you think it should go this way? No, it doesn't. It doesn't go the way you think it goes, and then it goes so deep into other people's lives. It's fantastic. It's about a guy who loses his perfect life and he loses his job, and then he realizes the only way he's gonna get this other job is if he kills the other three candidates that are ahead of him. Yes, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:45

And it's um Pakwanchuk.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:48

Yeah, that's it. He's done uh a bunch of other really good films.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:53

Big fan, big fan. I saw him introduce The Handmaiden at BFI Film Festival once. And uh God, that was good.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:01

Uh no other choice. Uh and then I watched Teeth for the first time about Dentata. It was fun, it was a romp. Yeah. Ridiculous, but uh incredible lead actress. Um, I don't know her name off the top of my head, but uh she was really good. And then my uh fiance Celia and I are doing really a really nerdy thing. We are re-watching all of Game of Thrones, but then re-watching each episode with the commentary. So we're watching an episode, then watching the episode with the commentary, and we love it. We couldn't we just love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:39

I'm so happy for you. So you're watching it on like DVD, Blu-ray? Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:45

More respect.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:45

More respect from the library.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:47

Oh lovely. That's nice. That's that's lovely. It's okay. Well, um, so are we are you talking like you bookend, you go episode, finish next night again with the commentary?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:02

Sometimes same night. Sometimes same night commentary, and it's always different. I thought it was gonna be just the showrunners, but they did the pilot, but then it's the actors, it's different perspectives, sometimes it's the writer, sometimes it's the art director. Uh it's so cool. I thought I wasn't gonna like the one with all the kids, Sansa, Maisie, and Bran, but they they did had some really interesting introspective commentary, even though they were little kids, little babe kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:30

I once did uh I interviewed uh the one who was the one that um was paralyzed?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:36

Bran.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:37

Bran. I interviewed him on a I interviewed him on a red carpet once, and um he mentioned he was sixteen or something, mm-hmm and I kind of went like fucking hell. And he kinda looked at me like, what? And I was like, Oh, that was because you're sixteen and you're that good. I was like, You're you're a pretty good actor. And at sixteen that's that's well done.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:01

It didn't seem like even when he was a little kid, a little little kid in the in the pilot episode, he had something. And it was it was untrained. He's too young to be trained. He he just had a natural ability to emote through his face. And um he could he could do it with a look. And the thing is that I learned all about the pilot and how it was reshot. And like they they begged. It was so funny. Only in Hollywood. They went to the the HBO and they were like, hey, we messed up the pilot so badly. We spent $10 million on the pilot. And we we have to sh we can you just give us a hundred million dollars for the first season? And they were like, Alright. And then they reshot 90% of the pilot. Cheeky motherfuckers. I know. How did they get away with it? Who knew? But then it became someone was right.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:56

Whoever watched it was right. But then again, like the first three series of that show, it that it wasn't like it was a bit of a sleeper hit. Like it didn't blow up, you know? It wasn't until like I think season three and the dragons that everyone over here was like, oh fuck, we should be putting a two- I think I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:13

It became immensely popular in the fourth season, and I think it was only good until the books ran out, right? Fifth season, maybe, or something like that. The the last good episode was with Brianna Tarth fighting the hound. And then after that episode was the new season, and it was terrible. We can all agree on that, I hope. And uh, you know, the season finale was terrible and everything like that. It was fucking awful. They had a carte blanche, they could have done it forever, and they could have they could have done like six more seasons and they could have taken as much time as they wanted, and they didn't. They fucking didn't. They fucked up, and they deserve all the shit they get because they fucked up. But uh first couple seasons, great. And after the first season when Ned died, I think it got a boost because people were like, You can't do that. You can't kill off a lead character. Of course they can. Um anyway, so that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm watching. I'm watching, re watching and re-watching all of Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:09

Nice. I uh I once referred to my friend's dad. I said to him, Your dad, like, he goes, I can't explain how I think of him, but the line, I bet you taste like blackberry jam from the first episode of I remember it was improvised. I said, like, that is how I picture your dad. And he was like, Fucking hell.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:37

That's such a great scene, too. Yeah. Uh oh god, the guy who played the king is incredible actor. He's excellent. Everybody. But he's Robert Baratheon. Uh just he's just a TV guy over here, you know what I mean? He's a comedy, he's a comedy guy, too. I got roles after that, I'm sure. Because he was sure and Sean Bean. Sean Bean, I'm blown away. Have you watched any show? That guy can convey everything. Yeah, you want to just live on that guy's face. You just do a push in to that guy's face. Anything, anything you want to sorrow, shame, despair, all of it. Ah, he's so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:19

He's so fucking good. Have have you seen uh Jupiter Ascending though? Because he's in that.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:26

Yeah, okay. He's not good in everything. That shut me up real quick. Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:32

Um no, Sean Bean is uh he is very good. And have you watched any Sharp?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:36

I uh that was that was my next they talk about that in the commentary. They're like, hey, it's not popular in the States, but you have to watch Sharp.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:43

Yeah. Um I will. I will. It's it's very, yeah. Like it's got a big following over here. Yeah, like people love it, you know. Yeah, and I'm into it.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

I'm gonna totally pick it up and watch it after after this.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:56

Yeah. Well, thank you very much uh for for coming on. Uh if do you want to do your shout- oh, do you want to do your promo for Dust? It's on Altar, yes. It's on Altar. Okay, fuck that. Yeah, thank you very much for coming on. Um, do you want to do a quick promo for Disfigura?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:15

I absolutely do. Uh if you're a fan of old Twilight Zone episodes or Alfred Hitchcock or Bernard Herman or you like anything in black and white, then go see Disfigura. It's a 15-minute short film, it'll be well worth your time. It's on Altar now on YouTube. All you have to look up is Altar on YouTube and find Disfigura. Uh please like, comment, share. Um, and if you like it, reach out because I'm always available.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:42

I I saw it uh, like we said, at Scream Fest, and I bloody loved it. I think it was genuinely a very good short that works. And the story of how it got made and how you got Doug Jones involved was always great as well. It's uh it's such a fun sort of it's fun to see Doug not all done up as well. Like he's being able to be a be an actor.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:02

He's doing a lot more of that stuff now these days. He's he's sure. I think we were we started that trend and he's continued it since then.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:10

I mean, nothing will ever beat him playing uh pencil head from Mystery Men, but it's good enough. Well, thank you very much, and uh hopefully I'll see you speak to you soon. Absolutely.