#23 - Andrew and Isaac Lewis

If You Denton Know Andrew and Isaac Lewis, now you do.

Andrew and Isaac Lewis are twin brothers, born and raised in Denton, who turned a childhood hobby into a career producing and directing feature films. Through their company Denton Film, their work has reached screens across the country, all while they choose to build their careers and raise their families right here in Denton.

In this conversation, the brothers share how they went from making movies on a VHS camcorder to producing feature films, what it took to leap into the industry full time, and the story behind their directorial debut, Bethesda. They also talk about their new release Man of War, out July 3rd, and why they believe Denton can become a real home for filmmakers. It is a story about passion, risk, and staying loyal to the place that shaped them.

Key Topics Covered

• Growing up as twin brothers in Denton and falling in love with filmmaking as kids
• Making early movies on a VHS camcorder and editing with two VCRs
• Taking the leap from blue collar and tech jobs into the film industry
• How their first feature, Daylight's End, launched a long relationship with director William Kaufman
• The founding and evolution of Denton Film
• Their new release Man of War and their directorial debut Bethesda
• The growth of the Texas film industry and new state incentives
• The push for a Denton film commission and what would help filmmakers thrive locally

Timestamps

00:00 — Meet Andrew and Isaac Lewis of Denton Film
 01:43 — Growing up in Denton and graduating in 1997
 03:52 — Making movies as kids with a VHS camcorder
 07:25 — Their first feature film opportunity
 10:36 — Daylight's End and catching the filmmaking bug
 13:51 — The story behind launching Denton Film
 19:52 — Man of War arrives July 3rd
 21:24 — Directing their debut feature, Bethesda
 25:46 — Texas as a growing film destination
 36:04 — Favorite Denton spots and closing thoughts

Denton Highlights

• Mi Casita
• Dan's Silverleaf
• Angeline's
• Komodo Loco
• Oaktopia music festival
• Little Guys Movers building near the Downtown Square

Guest Links / Resources

• Denton Film (production company)
• Man of War, available July 3rd on VOD, iTunes, and Amazon

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

From Texas Neo Westerns to alien invasion thrillers, their films are landing on screens all over the country. And their newest is out on July 3rd. Today I'm sitting down with Andrew and Isaac Lewis of Denton Film. Denton's got it all. The food, the music, the art, and of course the people. And behind every corner, there's a story worth sharing. And that's what this podcast is all about. Denton's Best, one conversation at a time. I'm Brad, and this is If You Didn't Know, Now You Know. Welcome back to another episode of If You Didn't Know. Really excited to sit down with the Lewis brothers. Isaac, Andrew, welcome to the to the studio. Glad to have you guys.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Thank you, Brad. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us. Y'all excited to be here or is it kind of we don't uh we don't do many things like this.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So uh we're you are you know y'all are kind of incognito out on the the web. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

We're not real great at marketing ourselves, but um you know we let the work speak for itself, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Well, we're gonna talk a little bit about that work and maybe get get the word out a little bit more about you guys. Y'all are doing some really cool stuff, and uh I said this earlier when we were visiting, it just never ceased to cease to amaze me, kind of all the cool stuff and people and creative things going on, and you guys are right in the thick of it here in Denton.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

So yeah, man, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Excited to sit down with you. Well, let's start before we get into what you're doing now. Let's start back up here. Uh, as obviously brothers, is it just the two of you in the family, or you got other siblings?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Uh we actually have four sisters, so it's a pretty big family.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Okay. Two two brothers, four sisters. Okay. And where'd y'all grow up?

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Right here. Yeah, right here in Denton. Born and raised in Denton. We were born at Flow Hospital, which is now, I guess, a big apartment complex. Yeah, that's where I was born. Yeah, right on uh born there, grew up on Panhandle Street uh most of our lives and have always been in Denton.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I didn't realize that. So went to Denton High or was it still Denton High when y'all graduated?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

It was actually the first they re when they closed Denton High.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

And everybody was going to Ryan. When they reopened Denton High, it was ninth grade only. Okay. And we were the freshman class.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

So are y'all twins?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Okay. I don't think I ever knew that officially. All right, all right. Okay. Identical.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Two minutes apart. It looks very similar, that's true. The the beard high, you know, covers it up a little bit. Yeah. For the if you're not watching on YouTube, you can go to our YouTube YouTube channel and check out Andrew's beard.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Well, we're we're old men now, so uh the years tend to uh create a chasm of what we look like from when we were kids and identical to where we are now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah. So okay. So what when you left, when you got out of Ryan then, did y'all do some college or did you go straight into filmmaking? Where what kind of how did you get to where you were?

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Uh actually we didn't go to Ryan. We graduated, uh Denton High School in '97. Sorry. No, that's okay. Um, we didn't. We went to NCTC like a lot of people, a lot of folks from Denton Do, um and uh did not finish associate's degree there. Um just jumped into the workforce, started raising a family, and you know, Andrew and I uh always wanted to be filmmakers or make films that we did as children, but I don't think it was ever really I never thought it was an option, you know, as a career that you could do. Being from Texas, way far away from Hollywood, uh it wasn't really a thing that uh we thought was an option. So it was kind of a hobby growing up, uh, from being little kids making movies and and even into our 20s, yeah, you know, short films and and writing stuff. But uh, you know, so like VHS kind of work back in the day, yeah. Yeah, our stepfather back in the late 80s bought an old Panasonic, well, new Panasonic then, uh VHS, full VHS recorder, and we used to make movies with that, which we still have some of those old ones. Um we had a buddy, uh Aaron Griffith, who is a dentite, who still lives here. Uh he was a filmmaking buddy of ours, and we would make, you know, uh action kung fu movies with him. That was his big thing. And uh and then with with our buddies Jeremy and Eric, you know, when we're teenagers. So so yeah, I kind of went to Camcorder high eight, you know, and we're kids.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

What was what's editing like in that in that world, at least when y'all were doing it?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

I mean, well, there's two ways to do it. So you you can edit as you shoot, yeah. You know, you stop and start, you know, your cuts as you want them, or you you connect two VCRs together and you have the recorded media in one and a fresh tape in the other, and you can you stop and start and then rewind and record, you know, between the two as you're watching it on TV. That's how you edit. Yeah. Pretty wild.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

It's basically just pause. Right. You hit record and hit pause and play and pause and play. Yeah. Just kind of find your cuts that way. And I mean, look, there was probably a better way to do it. But yeah, that's how you know being 10 years old or 11, you know, 12, 13 years old.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Do you still have some of those?

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, that's so cool. In fact, I still have one of the VHS um systems that we use to record. It still has a piece of tape on the top of it that says on, because one of them would say on and one of them would say off. That was uh how simple it was for us back then.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

That's cool. So you're y'all, y'all have been hooked on this from an early age, really.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Even before it was really uh an option as a career, yeah. You know, we thought that's what they did over there. We can't do that here. And we would even go buy you know, Final Cut Express for a hundred dollars and put that on uh a PC and use that to edit when you you found out about nonlinear editing. And we would do that. Um, and it wasn't even something that we thought was gonna be what it is now. We had no idea that it would turn into this. It was just more of something we like doing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah. What what is uh I mean, so you're just kind of learning the craft as you go, or I mean, so I mean, was there was there some an like yeah, where did you actually learn once you say, okay, we're gonna get really get into this?

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Well, I think um yeah, learning the craft as we went, but I think a lot of that was sort of um practice at storytelling.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

You know, um, less technical and more just like, you know, wanting to tell a story when you're a kid and when you're a young adult. Um, I think there there was a point definitely in my 20s when uh and I can speak for myself when I say, and I think Andrew the same way, when we were writing a lot, you know, writing short films a lot and even working on feature-length ideas, not really knowing um where that would take us or if that would take us anywhere. But um, but it was, you know, I guess we just had something within us that was like this is what we want to do. And so we did it um without any sort of expectations, and we sort of built um built up a library of little short stories or short films, and it was just a lot of doing that in our 20s, and it wasn't until uh we were in our 30s that we got an opportunity to work on a film, not having ever um worked on any kind of feature film before, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

We've never really been on a set, yeah, you know, other than the little short films we've done. Yeah, nothing professional, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Yeah, and and uh uh a director um, you know, through a mutual friend, kind of found out that this was a dream of ours, and he said, Hey, do you want to come work on a movie that I'm shooting in Dallas? And we're like, Yeah, okay. Um we both have full-time jobs, raising families, yeah, responsibilities. I mean, literally had to take a vacation to go work on a movie.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, what what kind of I mean, what were y'all doing before you got into trying to make money in the film?

SPEAKER_02 8:00

I mean, you want to talk about a life full of jobs before getting into the industry. The last job that I had before I uh jumped into the industry was driving a forklift. I drove forklift for forklift for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Uh yeah, yeah, and blue-collar stuff. And I was and I was doing that uh when I got that phone call.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

I was uh a web designer and software developer for a company out of Dallas, and and uh, you know, that was able to take time off to jump on a movie with my brother for some guy that we didn't really know that well, but yeah, he was making a movie um that had a pretty decent sized budget. And when I say decent size, it's a time anything would have been decent for us. It was definitely sub-million dollar like low budget film, but for us, I was like, wow. No cameras. That must have been really exciting. It was very exciting.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Oh, it was it was still to this day in many aspects, it was the best filmmaking experience of my life because it was all brand new. Yeah, it's like going to summer camp with all these new people that you're meeting that are really talented and they know how to do a lot of stuff you don't know how to do and learning a lot. Um, yeah, it was a it was a crash course for sure, but um, what often happens in those situations happened to us, we got the bug. We kind of always knew that we wanted to do it, but experiencing production on that level like we never had before was like a magical, magical experience. And uh we knew that there was kind of no no turning back.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Well, it's also the realization that that these are jobs you could actually make money. Yeah, people do this for a living, and it's very difficult to have consistent work and make enough money to do this for a living, but people do it, a lot of people do it. Yeah, um, and if you can, you know, kind of build your community and collaborators and you can find a way to work together, like you can make a career out of it.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yeah, yeah, and I mean that's a great point. That was that was eye-opening for us because you have this um this idea of what uh filmmaking is when you're just watching movies growing up, it's like Hollywood is this untouchable place, and there's movie stars and these big directors that you grew up watching. Um, but when you step on your first set and you meet all the crew members and the different types of people that work on movies, and yeah, you realize that oh, this is like I just got done driving a forklift. Yeah, you know, it's kind of the same thing. It's it's just uh it's another job, it's a way to put food on the table. Yeah, and uh that realization was like, oh, if I get good at this, I can actually uh make a living doing this, doing something that I love to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

So what what year are we talking about? 2013, yeah. 2013, okay. And so what what's the name of that movie?

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Daylight's End. Mm-hmm. Daylight's Daylight's End, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Daylight's End, okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

How did it do? Uh great. I mean it continues to do well. It's kind of a cult zombie film that um nobody really knew what Andrew and I s for sure didn't know what we were doing. Uh the director uh definitely did. It was not his first film, but uh you know I didn't know what we were making at the time. It was just happy to be there. And well, it turned out to be a really great thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

A lot of important relationships uh were were formed on that film. People that we've been working with for years since then, and particularly the director. Um, we've now produced three movies and about to do a fourth for him. Yeah, his main producers. Yeah, yeah. So we started out. I was a uh second AC, which is a camera assistant, okay, and Isaac was the second AD um in the in the production department, and those were our first roles on the film. We met that director and fast forward, you know, 13 years later, we're we've been producing movies for him for almost over five years, almost six years. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Wow, that was that's really um incredible. So he had just heard from through through a friend or a network that you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Yeah, we kind of kept up with him loosely since working on that first movie. I mean, look, we we got on that first movie, and then the movie wraps, and I go back to driving a fork lift. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what do I do? I just I just I tasted my dream experience. And I was fortunate enough uh a couple weeks later to get a phone call from a producer out of Dallas that was working on that film, and and she was like, Hey, I thought you were great on this movie. Can you do this little movie? We don't have a lot of money, but you were great, you want to do it? And I'm like, Yeah, I'll do it, sure. And so I quit my job and and decided I'm just gonna take a leap and and work in the industry full time and and did that. And it was just that belief in myself, you know, uh, which is a really important thing when you're jumping into any industry, but industry like this that's really competitive, is uh you gotta believe in yourself. And I naively did. Yeah. And uh it kind of paid off to the tune of a career in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yeah, I mean you gotta love it, but you gotta keep on loving it because a lot of people start out with the passion and they love it, but you you can just like anything else, you can get burnt out.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Um it's very hard. It's a it's a hard business to stay in love with if you don't have the passion for the craft, you know. Um there's a lot of filmmakers out there who can who be able to figure that out and a lot can't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah, you you gotta have the passion, but I mean, and and you gotta get a little lucky, but I think you guys prove prove that you just I also gotta take take the risk, jump in. I mean, it doesn't matter what you're trying to do, right? Believe in yourself and be willing to take that risk. And when you're when you're young, typically there's not as much at stake, but when you're you'd already started raising families, there's a little bit at stake there. It's like yeah, I mean that's a big deal. It was not an easy decision, that's for sure. But great, great decision, good call. Well, so I from there, when did when did Denton Film officially get started when Jonathan launched?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

I guess I can speak to that. I mean, uh at least from my perspective, um, I uh you know started a career as a first assistant director in the film industry and was becoming pretty successful in that, but in doing that I was out of town a lot. Um you know, not a lot of movies are made here, yeah. And uh being out of town a lot, yeah. I mean it's growing, that's for sure. But especially at the time. Right um, and and I remember I'd just gotten off of a film. Gosh, what year would that have been? Andrew? 16, I think, yeah. And Andrew said, Man, uh we gotta we gotta get you to stay in town more. You know, we need you home. Uh and so his idea was let's just start a little production company and start shooting stuff here. And uh well, what do we call it? I don't know, didn't film.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Well, really the story that goes back to basically. So 2016-2017 is when that conversation happened. Yeah, but really the idea of Didn't Film was before we worked on that first movie, we got a call from that director, and he was like, I got a buddy who's shooting a proof of concept for a feature he wants to make. Can you help him out? And we were like, uh yeah, of course. We don't know what we're doing, but we'll try and help him out. And and it was like the night before we show up to we had to drive like two hours the next day to this guy's set. We didn't know him. Uh and I think we were doing sound on that. We were doing sound. Yeah, I've never done sound since. I shouldn't do sound. Don't know why. But we had we had the equipment, yeah. We had bought equipment because we could use it for our short film, so we're like, yeah, we could do that. Um, and the night before we were leaving at four in the morning, we're like, well, we need to, we're gonna meet people that are doing this. What do we what do who do we tell them we are? Uh let's call it didn't film. Yeah, like and then we can change it later. And it just stuck. Yeah, and then it wasn't a thing for three or four years until later in 2026. We really appreciate it. Yeah, we're like, well, we we need to just start something here. We want to work here. And we we're we're working with Oktopia, which was a music festival in town for many years. Uh, and that's when we were like, Yeah, we'll just call ourselves Dent Film, it's easy. And we already started that. So yeah, very cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Well, it's a great name, and I love the obviously the tie to this great town. So uh that's cool. And now today, so talk about what Dent Film is today, because it's not just film, right? I mean, you do commercial work, and I mean that's where we met. Maybe it is now, but we initially met because we were looking for somebody in town, and the uh I think it was Marcus, uh, you know, the little.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah, y'all did a commercial for us. Yeah, we did a commercial, and it was not the only one we've done for sure. Um, and and we've also done a lot of uh campaigns for different private companies, but uh you know, that was sort of you know, doing it for people that we know. Right. Um it's like, oh yeah, we can we can help out and do this, um, or like we have a gap between projects you know to fill. Um but the goal has always been feature films and gotcha. You know, I d I don't mind saying Andre and I have probably sacrificed a lot of money over the years choosing to stay honed in on uh feature film producing and turning down a lot of it takes a lot of time and a lot of focus to make a single movie happen, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

And and trying to fill that time uh between development, prep, you know, uh production, post delivery, and all that and selling it. Um, I mean, the first movie produced uh that we shot in 2021, we're still working on that movie today. Yeah, five years later. You know, it's not much work now, but we still that movie still has to find a home with international distribution when deals run out. Things like there's always work to be done.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

That one so are you at liberty to say the name of that one?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah, that was the channel, yeah. In 2021 we shot in New Orleans, and so we we can't, it's hard to do commercial work no matter you know how well it pays, because you have to be focused when you're working with clients. That's a different kind of work, right? Um, and you have to be highly focused and uh specialized in that type of work, yeah. And splitting those brains up, we really decided we wanted to just focus on narrative storytelling.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

And Andrew and I are kind of madmen because um we're heavily involved in all aspects. Yeah. Um, you know, people that you know, there's a joke, what you're a producer, what do producers do? Well, from where we sit, everything, because um we help develop scripts, we help, you know, develop projects, and then uh and then we get them off the ground and and prep, and then we're uh a part of production and shooting the film, and then we're heavily involved in post, including editing and coloring and and all the things that are involved in that. Uh and then we get involved in trying to sell the movie. And it's um uh it's not uh totally normal for producers. I mean, we're not uh completely unique in that. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that do the same thing, but it's something that Ander and I uh really enjoy doing and um you know we're a small outfit and we like to have control of all these things, and so you know, we're we're heavily, heavily involved in all aspects of it. So it's very time consuming. And it's hard to find the time to you know go shoot a commercial or something. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

It might have been it might have filled a need at the at the time, kind of what you what you had going on, but you're you're focused solely on this, and that's that's awesome. So you're you've got now you're you're working on you're doing your directors on a new movie, right? Yeah, that's right. And that's coming out soon, or you've got something coming out before this one, I guess. Talk to me about what you got in the works and what you want to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, Man of War uh comes out July 3rd. Um it'll be on uh VOD, iTunes, Amazon. Um, and it's a great movie directed by William Kaufman. It's our it's it was our third movie to produce for him. Um we're about to do our fourth one this summer, but Man of War is a really cool movie about um it takes place over the first two days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Okay, about some mercenaries who kidnap someone, and then we have a guy who goes in to to get her. Um starring Lamonica Garrett, Andrew Howard, Daniel Bernhardt, uh Linz Edwards.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Um totally fictional or based on true event? So I mean, obviously the the war in there.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

The bottom line is it's fictional.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

It's fictional, yeah. Uh the director, William, who's also a writer, he wrote it. He he does pull from real life in certain ways, but he's not taking like one-to-one stories. Right. But he definitely That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

He did do a lot of research on the people that were affected and have been affected by the war to really try and integrate uh some stories into the film. Um and it did a really incredible job with it too. We're super proud of the film and um yeah, real excited.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

That's really really cool. Well, yeah, so that comes out in like a week and a half or something. Yeah, two weeks. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah, that's awesome, guys. Well that I know you're looking forward to that, and I I'm I can't wait to check it out myself.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

And and then so as far as your directorial debut, what what are you working on now?

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Well, we uh Ander and I co-directed a film last year that we shot uh out in West Texas in Marathon, Texas, called Bethesda. And uh it's really incredible because it's actually got a lot of dent and ties outside of us directing. Um Grant Wakefield, who's with Weekend Video, uh was a producer on the film, one of the main producers. And Matt Black, who's a local uh filmmaker here in town, who also just directed uh his first film last year, the same time we directed ours. He wrote the film. Um Play he ever wrote that he gave to us back in 2018. And it was a story that Andre and I really fell in love with and developed over the years and turned into the first film that we directed together.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Wow. Okay. So what's what's different? And I'm just barely know some of the terminology and kind of what what what how this world works, but talk to us about the difference between being director and producer. I mean, what extra hats are you wearing that that you didn't wear as a producer?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah, I mean, I think for us, um there we also produce the film. Um yeah, you did both here, but as director, we but as a director, you really kind of have to trust the people that you hire. Adrian Testalin was producer on the film, Carly Jones, uh, Carly Jones, and and John Robleski and Christian Sosa, along with Grant Wakefield, those were our producers, and even Will Kaufman was a huge influence on on the film on the producing level. And so we really had to take a step back and and go, okay, they've got this as producers. Right. That's gonna allow us to just be the creatives, you know, and and spend time developing the script and uh you know, spend time uh casting and and you know, all the important things that directors do when it comes to the look and the feel and the tone and the vibe of a film and trying to uh tell a story because ultimately we're just trying to tell a story. Yeah, and you know, and bringing all those folks on to produce the film, uh, you know, the film allowed us to just concentrate on creative. And I I guess the long the long that was a long answer. The short answer is directing, we were really allowed to just concentrate on creative choices.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yeah, you could during you know, big portions of prep and production, you're taking off your producer hat. Yeah, you know, when you're producing a movie, that's all you're doing. It's hard, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

It's hard to separate that. Have you enjoyed it? Is it something you want to continue doing? Or you like it?

SPEAKER_02 23:52

It's my favorite job I've ever had in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

We're planning on doing it again. We're working on a few things.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Is it is it common? I know you guys needed to find funding for this film, right? I mean, that I guess is part of the director's job, or is that just kind of it's everybody's job, it's the producers, the directors, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Um, you know, that's the producers are the ones that generally will kind of make that happen, but the director needs to be just as involved in that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

You know, it's their movie creatively, you know, somebody that's putting in a bunch of their own money to to make a movie wants to trust that the lead creative of the film of the project uh has a story to tell and knows how to tell it, you know. And so a director has to be really involved and able to communicate that vision and and uh you know earn the trust of those folks that are gonna put money into a film. It's uh not a small ask when you go to somebody and say, hey, can you give me you know $500,000 or a million dollars or whatever it is you're asking for of your money, and don't worry, I can do it. Yeah, you know, and so there's a lot of work that goes into it.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Right, right. So what can you say about when you think it will be released and how you plan to release it? Sometime next year. Sometime next year, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Yeah, we're we're just about finished uh in post. It's the movie is you know literally weeks away from you know, a few short weeks away from being finished. Yeah. And uh we're in a fortunate situation with our investor that we don't have to go out and pre-sell it. We can actually do a festival run and get you know sales companies looking at it now that it's finished. Um and so that's really great for the film when you are in a position to be able to do that. Yeah, and that's the position we're in. So we're taking our time getting the movie finished, we're almost there, and uh then we'll be ready to show it to the world and we're extremely proud of it. I bet you know it's a Texas story that was shot in Texas by two Texas filmmakers, and um and yeah, we're excited.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

So cool. Well, I'm excited as well. So hitting on that, I want to touch on kind of Texas as uh, you know, how Texas is doing in the film industry, and then I want to dial into Denton and maybe what we can do. But let's start in Texas. I mean, I know initially when you guys were getting in the industry, it was like we if we if we're not in Hollywood, we can't play in this world, right? And so that's changed over the years, right? So talk talk to me about how's how's Texas doing on this scene.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

I mean, look, uh Texas did something that I think uh was enacted last September, I think, um, that I didn't think was gonna happen for a long time, and that was give Texas a real competitive uh sort of rebate program. I forget what they call it, but it's an incentive or a rebate. But um, you know, having a competitive program that draws filmmakers to your state is important, and you know, traditionally um it's been very frustrating for producers and filmmakers that uh that you have to sort of chase these incentives, you know. Oh, the the best incentive program is in Atlanta, so let's go to Atlanta. Well, you know, now their government changes over and it's not as good. But guess what? Louisiana's doing something great now, so let's go make movies in New Orleans, and that can be very frustrating and hard on a crew base for a specific place. Um but having said all that, it's really great that Texas uh made that leap and is actually offering very competitive, uh competitive program here, and that changes the game, you know. It changes the game. More movies uh come here. I mean, Texas already has so much to offer with the different landscapes and uh different different geography. Um it's just got a lot to offer for storytelling.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Taylor Sheridan's group really kind of helped help absolutely push the envelope there. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

For sure. Yeah. Yeah, and then there's a lot happening in Fort Worth and the surrounding area because of uh of that group of filmmakers making all their TV shows out here. Right. Um it's strengthening the crew base, you know, and um and it's bringing attention to the state, and I think it's just gonna grow. I mean, Austin has always been pretty active. Right. Um, I spent a lot of my career um uh driving from Denton to Austin to work on movies. Yeah, you know, and um and that really hasn't changed much, but I think it's getting better. And uh, you know, Ander and I aim to make that happen in Denton on some level, you know. I mean, the next movie that we plan on directing, we plan on uh directing here in Denton and doing a full production here. Um that's the plan, and you know, yeah, I don't think anything's really gonna stop us from doing it.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

So a a lot of cities will will set up these commissions, right? Film commissions, and and I g I guess kind of on a smaller scale from what Texas did, uh each individual city can say, hey, we're really film friendly and we have some incentives. Is that the whole idea of a of a film commission in a in a town?

SPEAKER_02 28:39

It is, yeah. The film commission is sort of designed to uh make it a little bit easier for filmmakers to shoot in their town when you're talking about individual city commissions. And not every city has a film commission. Right. Um, but a film commission can help it easier to uh make it easier to permit things and help you find locations and help you get deals on you know hotels or you know, housing, food vendors, you know, yeah, connecting people up in relationships. So when you have an active film commission, uh it does make it more attractive to shoot in your city.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

And so the city of Denton's kind of kicking that around, right? At least exploring the outer of it.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yeah. That's what we hear, yeah. That's what that's what we hear. And you know, bring it on. Um, you know, Andrew and I are in a unique position to be uh Denton boys, and so you know, come hell or high water with or without a film commission in Denton, we're still gonna make our movie here, but that's not the same for everybody, and we would love for people to be attracted to come, you know, to Denton because Denton is a very hospitable place, and um we love it.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

I think one thing that Denton needs uh that a film commission can't help with necessarily is it needs some success, it needs filmmakers to uh make a name here to attract other filmmakers. That's a big reason what what happened with Austin. You know, you had a lot of filmmakers have success out of Austin and then all of a sudden it's film town. Well, you know, that happened for a reason. And I think that if we can do that, if filmmakers can stay here and be successful filmmakers here, that's gonna do most of the work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

And you'll kind of rub shoulders with I mean, you play nicely and rub shoulders with other filmmakers, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:23

I mean, it is kind of this like the all-we're a community, we love working with other filmmakers, right? Uh, I mean, it's we we need each other. We're all we all have the same goals. We're not there's no we're not competing against each other, you know. That's uh we can only help each other.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

I love it. I it's one of the things is I've visited with more people in the creative side of of the world, artists and uh music guys or film guys like yourselves, they don't see it as comp. I mean, there's just no competition. It's like let's help each other, let's jump in there and and in our business, you know, in traditional more traditional businesses, like there's this almost this scarcity mentality, you know, that you know, we gotta we gotta you know beat the other guys and keep it all. But I love what the way it is in your world.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Well, yeah, in our world, if you create something, people are gonna look for who else is creating something. Yeah, they're not gonna consume something that uh you know another filmmaker's done and now they don't want to consume they don't want to watch another movie, yeah. You're you're always looking for for stories, you're always looking to be entertained.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

It's almost like, wow, I've seen a really good movie or film now, and where do I go for really quality? Like I I've got a taste of the good stuff. Give me some more good stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

I think that that goes for a lot of the arts here in Denton, though. It's something that that I've noticed throughout the years. Um Denton is a really cool arts town when it comes to fine arts, uh filmmaking and and music. And um, you know, I've we've gotten feedback from people that come into Denton that move from other places to Denton, and they say, man, this is a really supportive town. It's like the artists support each other here, and that's really nice to hear. It's something that that we grew up with and something that we know about our community. Um, but to hear outsiders that come in and stay here and live here say that about this place is really cool. So I don't know how common it is, even in our industry, but it is it is common here. Well, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Well, let's keep let's keep that alive and and do more of it. I I think uh, you know, part of some of the things we're starting to think about in connection with fine arts, the the theater, is just what what else can be done to kind of keep and encourage more of that that artistic creativity to happen here, that what you guys are talking about, even just exploring crazy ideas, you know, what are is there a post facility that needs to be done in in the city and what kind of you know, what resources would that require, but also what would that attract, you know? I mean, what's your thoughts on a post facility being in the city?

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Well, I mean, a post facility that's I I think I would I would love that. We do all of our posts, not all of the but almost all of our posts out of our office here in Denton.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Um, I think that that's more of a private sector thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Um, I think it's gonna take an investment from from some people, a group of people, and it's a hard thing to um to decide to do because you know, if you build it doesn't mean they will come. I think maybe we were talking one time and you said that, like, yeah, is it if you build it, they will come thing? Well, not necessarily. Exactly. You have to have the right facility with the right talent behind it. Um but it doesn't mean it can't happen, and the talent is here.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Um, so you know, maybe if maybe if the facility's here and like and it helps when a city can say, hey, this is beneficial to the community, and we can and we'll pitch in X amount of dollars to make this happen. I mean, that's not unheard of.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Right. Right. Let's go. Okay. You know, and filmmakers and producers get an incentive for doing uh production and post-production in Denton because of it, because it's outside the zone, you know, so it's outside a certain range from the Dallas. I see. And so there is an extra incentive for for working in Denton. Okay. So that's a benefit.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Well, let's figure this thing out. Yeah. Let's keep going. That's the plan. We'll keep moving. Well, I love what you guys are doing. And uh anything else you want to say about Denton Film and where you're going or what what's next?

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Oh man, I don't know. It's a living, breathing organism. Yeah. Um, I just know that Andrew and I made a decision a long time ago that we were gonna make our careers out of Denton as filmmakers. Uh, that we, you know, we chose to raise our families here, work from here, knowing that um it was gonna be a little bit harder. But the democratization of filmmaking throughout the years with technology has really helped us stay here. You know, you don't have to move to New York or L anymore. And so um we love this town and we love this community. And uh like I said, we chose to to stay here and do it from here a long time ago, and it really seems to be paying off at this point. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah, you know, I would say that right now, you know, there's always um we're not where we want to be, but we're getting there and we're in a pretty good place in the meantime because we work in an area, we have we work in the downtown area. Our office is right off, you know, the square.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Um, the building is owned by little guys movers, Chris and Marcus. You know them well. They're big supporters of the arts here in town. We work in an office with them. You know, we're upstairs, we have weekend video up there with us. Um, uh Grant and Ryan, Isaac and I work up there with Carly Jones, who's one of our producers. We have a writer, Scott Porter, who comes in and works a couple days a week up there. A lot of good. There's some developers up there. Uh Matt and Claire with Mothai Creative work up there. So we're in a really good place to create things and collaborate with people in this town. And and so, you know, while we're trying to make more movies, you know, we get to be here and do that. So it's it's not a bad place to be.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Not at all. Yeah. Well, I love it. Well, I appreciate you guys jumping in. I've got a couple of closing things. So what you're you're obviously long time, more than long time, forever dent nights. What's what's your favorite place to grab a bite or to hang out or any any places you'd like to plug? What are we telling?

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Well, because we're so close to Meet Casita, we we get a lot of we a lot of breakfast tacos happen at the office. Me Casita's great. Um uh Dan's Silverleaf is our that's what we like to consider our our our home bar. Yeah. Um Isaac's wife works at Angeline's, so we're oh do yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Um yeah, I'm up there a lot, obviously. Yeah, um, I love Komodo Loco. Uh they've got an incredible bar there, and their food's incredible, and that's kind of a go-to place for us. I mean, there's there's a lot here, there's too many, too much to name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

You don't want to leave them all out, but yeah, some good stuff, good spots you've named there. That's great. Yeah. All right. Well, lastly, you get you each get a hat there from Norman Roscoe. So I guess a hat there. You get to pick one of those out. And guys, we really, I really appreciate you jumping on, taking the time to visit, and just love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

And one of those we we like that you do this. I mean, this is a pretty cool uh addition to the community, you know. So I think it's good for for people to come on and talk about Denton and for you to talk about Denton as prenating.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

There's just so much good stuff going on.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Humbled to ask to be on. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Oh, of course. Well, if you didn't know the Lewis brothers and didn't film before today, now you do