Adrian Todd Zuniga: Stop Asking Permission To Make Films

I love talking to people who prove that a creative career is built, not “found,” and Adrian Todd Zuniga is exactly that kind of artist. He is a novelist, a live show creator (Literary Death Match), and now a filmmaker, and our conversation starts where the real story always starts: childhood, attention, and that first moment where you realize you can make something out of nothing. We talk about how reading trains a director’s mind, why fear and wonder are evidence that art is working, and how a sports mindset can quietly become a blueprint for creative discipline. 

Then we jump into one of my favorite curveballs: Adrian’s work writing Long Shot, the playable movie mode inside Madden NFL. We unpack what branching narrative actually demands, why “binary choices” fall flat, and how story craft changes when the audience is also the player. From there, we connect the dots to modern screenwriting, perfectionism, and the pressure artists feel right now as AI tools reshape what “making” even looks like. 

Finally, we get concrete about independent filmmaking. Adrian breaks down what it took to shoot his feature documentary The Heart Is Made to Be Broken across Los Angeles, London, Warsaw, and Berlin, including why a local fixer is priceless, how microbudget production value is often a relationship game, and how he raised money by making a clear, professional ask with executive producer tiers. If you’re trying to make your first feature film, this is the kind of honest, practical roadmap that makes the goal feel real. 

If this hits for you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s sitting on a script, and leave a review so more filmmakers and storytellers can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Adrian’s Many Hats

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey everyone, how's it going? My name is Nate Kaywood. I'm a Los Angeles-based cinematographer, and this is Film Shit, the podcast where I sit down with a working professional in the TV and film industry, ask him where they came from, what exactly it is that they do, and what the future of the industry looks like today. I'm incredibly excited to announce a very dear friend of mine, a collaborator. He is a novelist, he is a presenter, he is a filmmaker, writer, director, he is Adrian Todzunigo. What's up, dude? What's up? How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

I'm I'm so tired. Okay, that's great. I think there's a good reason for you to be tired. Yeah, I feel like being here today is a it's like the most relaxing, most fun thing uh amidst a like string of like really incredibly uh awesome but exhausting projects. Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

I mean, which we will obvious we'll get into in a second, but usually this uh the podcast likes to take form of we sort of like talk about your genesis, we talk about what it is that you're working on now and what you think the future

Childhood Attention And First Writing Win

SPEAKER_02 0:56

is. So, like great. Um, how did you begin? What uh how do you exist in the early times?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Um I'm the last of eight kids, which I think is a big part of my origin story because uh I was like the weird dreamy kid of my family. But also by being the last last of eight kids, I got a lot of attention from my brothers and sisters because they were like, oh, I'm gonna imprint myself on him. Um and I think that was really important because it gave me a really interesting relationship with attention. And so I love attention, but I also like playing with it, and I also don't want it sometimes. So it's like this really interesting thing. So when I'm writing, sometimes I'm doing things that I'm trying to be provocative, or uh when I'm making jokes or whatever, and then I'll there's all the also this like quiet part of me. I can't even speak properly. Yeah, I think it's just half the fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

It doesn't even matter. It's fine. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, we're figuring it out. It's life, whatever. But yeah, so I think there's like those levels of uh is this the kind of answer that you were desperate for? It's not what I expected, but that's great. You know? Um what else should I talk about?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

I mean, I guess the thing is like, okay, so um how did you when did you first realize that you wanted to be an artist?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

And what does that mean? So when I was 10, I wrote a story about a ghost ghostly island, and there's some pirate things going on. I love pirates. I know. And I won a contest uh where I got elevated or somebody cared, and I remember taking that home to my mom, and she was like, You won some or you won or you did a great thing, whatever. And I was just like, Oh, that was cool. I just made something out of nothing. Like I didn't really understand it in that language, now I do. Right. And that the ultimate magic trick of creativity is like you you literally create something that would not exist if you hadn't lived your life or and like sat down to do your thing. And I think that's just like deeply powerful and so fucking cool. Yeah, like really, yeah, it's crazy. So there's like the things I do in my life. I'm just like, I take a lot of moments to be like, holy shit, this this wouldn't exist otherwise. Right. So okay, so you're the youngest of eight kids. Where are you from again? St. Louis, Missouri is where I was born. Then I moved all around the southeast. Uh the southeast, Georgia? Uh no. That's the south, I guess. Uh Tennessee. But it's also in the east. Alabama, Mississippi. I had 106 degree temperature and almost died. Um, and then back to Missouri, I guess, Illinois, southern Illinois. Yeah. Carbondate. Which is very close to St. Louis. St. Louis. And then back to St. Louis when I was 10. Uh, and then that's when I met my best friend Mike Young. Um, and that was an important relationship.

Long Shot And Branching Story Design

SPEAKER_00 3:30

We worked on the long shot series for Electronic Arts, um, which is the series of playable movies. Mahershala Ali said things I typed. Okay. Hold on, stop.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

No, just explain what that means. Like, we're jumping way ahead, of course, because we have to. Okay, now you've brought it up. What is long shot? Don't worry about it. No, no, no. We have to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Explain, because otherwise they're gonna be like, who gives a shit about what you just said? Explain to the people what it is. Right. So long shot was a playable movie by EA Space. What does that mean? Okay, so uh in the Madden eight Madden NFL 18 video game, there was a mode called Long Shot.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Oh, okay, so it's like uh it's like a care it's not like a career, but it's like a movie career mode?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

It's like a movie mode. Okay, not a career mode. And basically you entered and you played the character of Devin Wade, who was voiced by J.R. Lemon, and he had a best friend who was voiced by Scott Porter. And they basically this guy was uh a great college football player, but he got injured, and now he was gonna make a comeback by going to the combine. And our goal of that story was in most story modes in sports is like you start at nothing and then you win the championship. And our idea is awesome, it's super rewarding, or everybody loves it. And our idea was like, what if you make barely being drafted in the AFL, like a sixth or seventh round draft pick, make it feel like you won the Super Bowl. So like just barely grasping your fingers onto the very bottom rung of that ladder, and uh, and it was it was awesome. So you did it. Guys wrote the screenplay for the playable movie for Madden.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Correct, and it had branching storylines, so they're you know, you got to make it. So it's sort of like choose your own adventure type. So you had to write the narrative to be able to like for it all to wrap up in so many ways. Actually, that sounds really cool and like a very interesting um um problem to have to solve.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, it was. I mean, we had to figure out how to do branching narratives, which was fascinating because we came to realize that if you just gave people binary choices, like, do you want to eat this apple? Yes or no, that's not interesting. So you had to do it thematically. So you had to give them choices that were like a little oblique in the text, but reference to how you made choices.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

And those like your your caloric intake is really off. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Consume this apple or eat this donut. Yeah, exactly. Only totally different and way more interesting. But uh yeah, it was it was an incredible thing. It was a $15 million budget, over a million people played it, which is wild. I remember on Twitter, this is my favorite part of it, is on Twitter afterwards, uh, I saw people that were like, This sucks, this is dumb. And I would just write uh as a response to those. Uh I'd be like, I think it's great. And then they would write back a couple minutes later, like, well, yeah, because you wrote it. And I was like, Yeah. So that was really fun. That is fun. I just thought it was funny to you know counter these people who were just like, This is gay. I was like, I think it's a really emotional story between two best friends. Yeah. And they're like, Wait, you wrote it. And I was like, Yeah, and they were they were probably like, oh, somebody paid attention to me who felt like he was important, or not felt like it was important, who was important. Right, right, right, right, right. But it was very sweet. I like doing that. And then we did a sequel. Right. So okay, so you did two of those. Yeah, but that one didn't have branching storylines.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

It uh just a straight linear win or lose storyline. EA got the note from the Twitter people, which was like, stop telling stories with nuance and interest.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Like, we just want to win the Super Bowl. I'm gonna keep a straight face and just nod. Like, I don't I don't know what decisions were made creatively. I just know that I wrote a script that did have branching storylines and was really evolved. I was like, holy crap, we're really doing something. Wait for the second film you're saying? Yeah. And then it changed. Yeah, Joey King was in that, and uh Scott Porter was the lead of that one. Um and it, yeah. And we had a third storyline that was awesome. That I think I can tell you. Are you sure you're gonna break like an NDA or EA sports? Because we never made it, we never like submitted this idea to them. The idea that was that you then again played the guy from the first one. And uh Okay, so hold on.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

You you're the lead character from the first film that you guys did, movie playable film, is the lead of the second one as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

I don't remember, if I'm being honest, but I know that Scott Porter's character took an outsized role in the second one because he was the best friend who like got into coaching. Um and anyway, and the third one we were gonna have uh you get drafted to an expansion team in London, and then you're gonna go to London. Uh, and so we were gonna kind of Ted lasso it a bit because I had lived in London, so I had a lot of experience with how goofy that uh culture is compared to goofy it is for Americans, and uh and then the idea was that they were also gonna draft like a Steve Young or like a late career guy who was a celebrity kind of quarterback. And so you had to again fight your way up, even though you were probably the younger, more capable guy. Interesting. And just bringing the London into it would have been so fun.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Yeah, except for I feel like just as a person who would observe football, I don't know it very well, but I just I do feel like Americans would be like, why am I playing a British team? Like, I'm American, I this is an American sport, literally nobody else plays this. Okay, well, that sounds great. Okay, so what a side tangent, right? So that is one of the creative processes, things that you recently did. That's one of your recent hyphenates of many, many, many. Right. Okay, but let's let's let's get back to where

Reading, Wonder, And The Power Of Fear

SPEAKER_02 8:45

you're from. Back back, back, back, back, back. Mike Young, St. Louis. St. Louis, Mike Young, you're 10. You just got uh a big kudos from your mom for winning a writing competition, and now you're like, wait, I can get attention and people notice me for my thoughts that I put into words.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Okay. And then I met Mike, and Mike and I were like the best friends that just made each other laugh so hard, which I think is a really important part of I think our upbringing. Like, I don't know generationally if it's turned, but like young boys at least, like making each other laugh super hard about the dumbest stuff. Yeah, dumb. And making like references that nobody else understands, but you can like say it across the room and nobody understands. It just was so absurd. And I think that was a huge part of me and my sense of humor being developed. Um yeah, but we never made anything. It was it's interesting. I remember having moving away at one point, and I got a like a DV cam or whatever it's called, like a little camcorder. And me and this guy I had hung out with, we made short little things that were like little S and L skits. Like one time I walked into the room and he was between the the box springs and the mattress, and I just like sat on the bed and like started reading. And I just thought that was so funny, right? But I never developed it. I didn't understand what filmmaking was, I didn't understand that there was a director, and you know, just when I watched a movie, I was like, this is happening, you know?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Right, of course. I mean, I think that that's just part of like the generation that we had when we grew up, is that it was just like there there information was readily available if you knew to search for it, right? But it's like when I was growing up, like my interest was in music, right? So, like um when I wanted to learn more about music, I would go to the record store, right? Where they would sell CDs and cassettes, maybe by that time, but they still had records. But it would be like there was always a guy who owned the record store, and then there was like another, there were two guys who worked there at all times, right? And basically you would show up and you would be like, Man, I just really enjoyed this like Buddy Guy album that you got. He's like, Oh, if you like buddy guy, you're definitely gonna love X, Y, and Z. And you're like, oh, okay, cool. And then you get that record and you listen to it. It's like that's how you used to get information. Yeah, that's how somebody would have explained to be like, Oh, yeah, you just want to like make a movie, yeah. But there's no movie-making stores to walk into.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah. Well, the thing that's what you're reminding me of is when I was young, I would just go into bookstores because my mom always loved when I was reading. Like when if I was reading, my mom was ecstatic. So I very much remember reading uh It by Stephen King, and that's like a 1400-page book. And I remember every day after school like being excited to come home and just read another X amount of pages of that. And my mom loved it because if as it says in the uh the little note that precedes my novel, my first novel, it's it's like if I was home reading, she knew I was safe, you know, like that idea. Yeah, and uh I remember thinking the characters after I finished the book, I was like expecting to see them in the world. I think that was very important to me in some way, like, oh wow, like this became real to me. But also just that age when you would walk into a bookstore, you didn't know any author's names, you didn't know what a you didn't understand anything about anything, and just be like, this is cool. I'm just gonna start reading this book. And at that age, you're just like, well, I'm gonna read it through to the end because I bought a book and that's you know, there's value to that.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Um, and I I don't know, that's such an interesting thing to mean talking about it now. Cause now if I go into a bookstore, I know like 30% of the authors personally. Right. And I and then the ones I don't know, I'm like, well, I don't know if I'm gonna buy this random book because I should be reading my friend's book. And then sometimes I get so frazzled, I'm just like, okay, I'm just gonna be like, Yeah, that's like just being an adult, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 12:21

I know. It's interesting. I'm speaking of reading, I'm not a big reader, but I'm trying to become a big reader or getting into the idea of reading, building the habit of it. Um, because actually, I can't, I I need to refine this video of the interview or whatever, where it was just like there somebody just asked Steven Spielberg, like what what how can you become a great director? And he was basically like, read relentlessly, like never stop reading. Because it's like you like if you actually think about it, what you're describing about it is literally directing, right? Like it's being a filmmaker, except for like how do you create your skill, the vision of you walking out into the world, how do you get to show that to other people? Yeah, so it's like every time that you're reading something, you're essentially being a filmmaker. I was like, oh boy, I gotta read more. So, um, but I've been reading Um A Creative Life by uh Rick Rubin, the uh music producer. Yep, and he one of the chapters was talking about basically the idea of retraining ourselves as adults to explore and find the joyous wonder of childhood in a way that you're like, no, actually, not knowing is like kind of the cool part. That's the awesome and like dive into that because we get positioned as adults that it's like if you don't know something, you're an idiot. Or or like people look down on you if you don't know and like as a kid, you never cared. You everybody just expected you to not know stuff, and now that we're like uh 40, you know, however old you are, the vampire baby. Um, it's sort of like we're just expected to have all the answers all the time. And it's just like, well, that's like kind of not even and also technology and information is ubiquitous and easily accessible. It's just like, well, sometimes just having the mystery or like like like being afraid to walk outside after reading it, that's fucking cool. Yeah, like that's so cool. Yeah, and they're like, yeah, hopefully someday we can make something that causes somebody to feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

You just reminded me of another moment in my life. I was living in Chicago, that's where I went to university or college, and I was walking home after seeing the Blair Witch project. Oh, yeah. And I remember like seeing a flicker of movement to my right, maybe like a hundred feet to my right, and I jumped. And I just remember turning and like it was just a house. I don't think there was any movement, but I literally it was just somebody turned a light off in the upstairs. Yeah, and like everything was like uh capable of making me just scream and run. Yeah, you know, and I was like, wow, that's really and funny enough, the Blair Witch producer also produced Long Shot, which was oh wow, yeah. Overlap, yeah. Venn diagram. Venn diagram.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Well, it's interesting. I like man, it there is a reason why people make horror films. There's a reason why audiences go to see them because it's like there you feel something when you're watching it when you leave, like when it's done well, like you feel stuff like uh Sabrina and I were just watching Widow's Bay the other day, which is a new uh show on Apple TV, um, written by Katie Dippolt, who I used to watch perform at UCV all the time. She's tremendously talented. And um I we were up in Big Bear and we were hanging out, like relaxing after we'll talk about the film that we just made together, a feature-length film that we just made together. We'll talk about uh in the third act of the podcast. Um and so we watched the first two episodes, and I had to take the dog out to go to the bathroom in a heavily wooded, very poorly lit area of Big Bear. And I was fucking freaking out. I was just by myself. Charlie couldn't be less concerned. And by the way, Charlie himself is so nervous, he's like an alarm. Yeah. Like something would if some if he went off, then I would be scared. But I was still nervous. Yeah, so funny, it's so powerful that when things are done well, like we can actually feel it resonates with us after long after we finish consuming the thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Kurt Bronholer, who's an incredibly funny man, he was doing a stand-up show one time in LA, and he said, uh, if you ever want to scare the shit out of yourself, just if you're home alone, just look towards an open doorway and go, who's there? And I I like two weeks later, I was home. I was downstairs in an apartment, my bedroom was upstairs. I was watching TV and I just got that idea, and I just looked to the doorway and felt myself say it. And I couldn't get off the couch to go to bed because I was so fucking terrified. And I was just like, this idea who's there is like so scary. Oh my god. Yeah, it's really funny. Yeah, that's incredible. Uh, also, I want to go back to my origin story. Yeah, please do. I mean, thanks for getting us back on track. I want to make this the hardest podcast you've ever seen. It's already been way more difficult than any other podcast we've ever done, but it's great. Uh, I have other questions I wanted to ask you about to talk about creativity, but nah.

Sports Discipline And Creative Standards

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Uh, another thing, um, when I was young, uh when Mike Young and I met at H10, I was the worst baseball player on the team. And by the end of by the time I was 18, I was one of the better players on the team. Would your other fellow players say that as well? Yeah, I think so eventually. Like I made the high school team, but I was a bench jockey, but I was like a rah-rah guy, so they like kept me around.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Uh my coach said it was like watching a bag of bones run around second base. I'm not a I I don't understand how to run an alternative. Yeah, I could see that in your frame. Yeah. Um, but the one thing I learned from uh from that experience that is definitely carried through to today and tomorrow is the idea um that if I really want something, sports taught me that I can I can do it. That basically, like I fucking love baseball. I loved it then, and I was like, I want to be good. I'm gonna work so hard to be good. There's 27 different things that's wrong with a baseball swing that can be wrong with a baseball swing. And I was like, I'm gonna make sure none of those things are wrong with my swing. And actually, by the time I quit playing baseball at age 21, when I was hitting like 800 for my club team and at DePaul University. Right, of course. Like I was just like locked in, and I was like, oh man. So, and all that stuff, I was just like, I want it so bad that that helped me understand that anything I wanted in my life, I could pull off, which is really important in this moment.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah, absolutely. And also in this industry, right? Which is like so much of just like self-motivation, um discipline, um, you know, so much of self-belief. You you have to have that in this because it's like if you don't believe in yourself, you certainly cannot convince somebody to give you a million dollars to make a in some cases a commercial. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

You know what I mean? Um well, real quick, just thinking about that. I on the drive here today, I was thinking about when you're younger, when you're early 20s, for me, definitely into my late 20s, there's this this rhythm in your body that you're just like, I'm ready and I want to do it, and I'm good enough and I'm great, and why doesn't anybody recognize it? Right now there's ways to get your work and your your self-seen on the internet. But I do think just thinking about AI and how that's gonna make things easier for people that had that same level of desperation and desire to do something meaningful um creatively. I think like looking back at the last three to five years of my life and just understanding how many like layers have stacked up of me studying or wanting and like pivoting and responding, and all the different creative projects that have come out of that. And now I'm just sitting on this bed of like really deep thought over time. Like I thought very shallowly at the time, but very deep thought that is like added up to where now I'm just in my older age, I'm just like, oh fuck, I understand all this different stuff that I wanted to understand, but I I just didn't have enough experience. So, like the idea of rushing is very youthful, and I get it, and and maybe you have it. I remember thinking early on, like, if somebody doesn't publish one of my short stories or my novel, ultimately they're protecting me because 10 years later that thing will be out, and people will be like, well, that wasn't good. So there is this idea of of dealing with how bad you want it, but then how ready you are to actually achieve the level that you know it's the 10,000 hours thing, which is a total fraud of a theory, but it it's like you know, isn't it a fraud? Malcolm Gladwell? Yeah, that whole book has been largely debunked as I understand it by people.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Okay, cite your sources, dude.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Everybody loves Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, I saw him at a cafe in uh in Austin, just walked right by me. Yeah, I didn't say hello. Yeah, because you want to just spurn him from his outliers book that was incredible.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

He's great.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I just I think that uh some of his stuff has been debunked.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

But I I don't mind, I'm still on board, and I've just been interesting because it's like I I don't know how it could be debunked. Like the idea is that it's like if you do 10,000 hours only 9,800 hours. That's what you're saying. That's what it is. It's like you gotta do 9,800 hours and then you're an expert. I got it. Because I was like, I mean, the truth is that you do 10,000 hours of anything, you're gonna be really fucking good at it, no matter what it is. Like, yeah. Um, okay, you said a lot of things, and I had a lot of thoughts. Um, one thing is that I uh thought was really interesting. Um uh sort of when we were talking about sports, when you were talking about how you're like, hey, 27 things wrong with my like how can I be great at this? And how does that allow you to um level up even in creativity or even in artistry or what it is to be a person surviving in the world? Like, um, part of uh again, it's part of the Rick Rubin book, but it's actually interesting because it's sort of like one of those Bader Meinhof syndrome things, which is like when I first heard it, I had never heard it, and then now I keep seeing and hearing it all over the place, which is like um I've recently been working for a soccer academy where I've been shooting a lot of videography for them, and the coach said this one thing to one of the players. Players that he said, uh, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. And uh I was literally like holding the camera, I had an easy rig on, and I was like having a gimbal, like a Ronin 4D with a gimbal while he said that. I literally like stopped. I was like, Holy shit, that's fucking crazy. Yeah. And then of course, I read it in that it's accredited to some incredible, the most successful college basketball coach of all time. Um, exactly. It was in yeah, it was in the uh Rick Rubin book again. So I was like, holy shit, now I can't, it's constantly like literally playing in my mind. Like so much so the fact that it was like, uh, we got back from Big Bear yesterday and I was just like cleaning the dishes, and I was like, uh, do I have to do the water bottles? And it was like the way you do anything is the way you do everything. I was like, yeah, dude, I do. I have to. And now I also have to get out the baking soda and like really clean the uh the tea kettle that I left the tea in over the entire week that we were gone. I was like, Well, we gotta like really clean it.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

We gotta get after it. But by the end of that, yeah, you were annoyed or it took time that you could have used or something else, but by the end of it, I bet you felt great.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Uh no, I did because the thing was like I was able to look at the kitchen, I was like, wow, this kitchen is cleaner than when I walked into it first. And then also it was like, oh, I feel like the teapot is like much cleaner than it was yesterday. Yeah. And it's just like I looked at it this morning when I made tea and I was like, wow, that's a clean teapot. Fuck yeah. Yeah, it was so rewarding. But the thing that's like so interesting is that it was like, I don't know when I lost that. I used to be, I used to be incredibly competitive as a high school athlete. Like I was uh when I was the first freshman in my in my high school to ever go to state and swimming. I was the first person to ever qualify for all four years of swimming in in my high school. I'm from a very small place. Um, so it wasn't like I was actually like tremendously good at swimming. It was just like I was better than all the bad people before me. Right. Um, but I I like really had an incredibly inspirational coach, like a guy that would bring that out of you, right? And I just remember, even when I was a freshman, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know anything about stroke mechanics or like actually how to swim, that I would just choose a senior who was in the lane next to me, who was like maybe the fifth or sixth fastest kid in the team, right? But he's a senior, so he should be way better than me. And I was like, you're not gonna beat me on this set in this one training session. You're not gonna beat me on that one set. Okay, you beat me that one time, you're not gonna beat me on this lap. And then I carried that all the way through till like the whole time, like all through senior year, where I was like, oh great. Well, at a certain point, you become the fastest kid on the team. You're like, well, I guess I'm gonna try and lap you to try and keep the rhythm alive, right? And I don't know if it was college, going to art college or whatever, but like I feel like I just lost that somewhere along the way. I think I have a really it's I know I'm gonna be jumping ahead here, but last night we've been jumping all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

This is totally against all uh operation of how this podcast works.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

We we threw it out at minute one, dude.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

I don't I love it. I last night I went on stage to host Literary Deathmatch.

Literary Deathmatch And Stage Evolution

SPEAKER_00 24:59

It's a show I created.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Yeah, talking about now you gotta sorry, dude. It's gonna be the same thing as long shot. You gotta explain to the people where you can. Yeah, look straight to the camera and tell us like give us the literary deathmatch pitch. So no, straight to the lens, I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Come on. In uh 2006, I created Literary Deathmatch, and it is a show that uh now features four writers reading their own work for five minutes or less. And then they're judged by three all-star judges in the categories of literary merit, performance, and intangibles. Uh the judge the readers read, the judges say lovely, strange things about each of them. They have we have a no-meanus rule. And then they pick two people to advance to the finals where we play a vaguely literary game to decide who will be the literary deathmatch champion. Think like Pin the Mustache on Hemingway or an author spelling bee with increasingly complicated names. Like Jeffrey Eugenides. Jeffrey Eugenides. Is that his is this that is his name? Yeah, that is his name. I got it. Or Bougainvillea. Um I once read a script that has Jeffrey Eugenides in it, and you were like, Oh, we can't use his real name, call him Jeffrey Bougainvillea. Do you remember that? No, I don't, but I do love Jeffrey Bougainville. That's a very funny name. That's great. Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Okay, great. So you so literary deathmatch is uh a thing that you uh co-created. Yeah, you co-created. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

And I've taken it to 73 cities around the world, done it 561 times as of last night. Maybe congratulations. Thank you. Uh but last night I went on stage. We did a show as part of the West Hollywood uh I it's funny I can't say it because it's written as Wehoe, Wehoe Pride Arts Festival. Um, and I hadn't done the show since November of last year in Austin. And you I used to do this show 63 times a year. Like I used to do it all over just nonstop. And I haven't done it for six months. So last night uh I opened the show with a Dorothy Parker. Uh, you know, she was a great ally to the queer community, so that was a great opening. Um but it I wasn't sharp, and then eventually like the show starts going on, the readers read they're incredible, the judges are funny, everybody everybody's into it. Then I'm like, okay, I gotta pick up my game. Um, but I was thinking about before the show, when I was younger doing the show, I was so I would get nervous because you get nervous before you perform, generally. Of course. And I remember when I started to lose that nervousness, and I miss it now a little bit because I know I'm gonna be able to make the show incredible because I have so much talent around me. I know how to like work all the beats by doing it so many times. Uh 10,000 hours. Exactly. 10,000 hours. 9,800 hours. Yeah. Um, but I do there was something in me that was having a hard time charging up for the show to like go out, like I gotta fucking impress the shit out of these people. I have to win this. I have to prove that this is incredible. And I have this thing I do before the show where I jump up and down three times and think of my mom before I go on stage. And I did that, and that like got me a little bit of a jolt. But I'm not as desperate because A, I know what the show is, so that helps. I've like jumped into more extraordinarily difficult circumstances by filmmaking. Um, but it it was really interesting to me that I couldn't quite gear up in the way because I didn't have the fear and I didn't have the desperation to be liked or loved because I've just evolved through those things for myself. I've you know, I was gonna say aged out, but that you it can happen at any age or never. But yeah, that lack of competitiveness, competitiveness is really interesting to me. And now it's almost been replaced, and I wonder if it's the same for you, that it's compassion and just like empathy and an awareness of a larger world. And I just don't need those people to love me. I want them to have an amazing time. And there was a moment in the show where it kicked up where I was like, oh fuck, now I'm in, and I'm like really rocking it. But I think also at the beginning, the thing I forgot about the show, and it we did a 5.15 to 6.30 slot. So it's part of a festival. It is, yeah. But it also the thing by not doing it so often, there's just things you remember and you teach yourself, and and it's a great thing to know. It's like those people were having a great time, just because they weren't like super clappy or responsive or deeply laughing at the amazing jokes I wrote, they were having a good time. And I forgot that sometimes when I haven't done the show for a while, I need to I need the response. And when I've done the show more often, if I go out there and I'm just like, oh, these people are having a great time, just keep keep going. Like we're having a good time. And so that was a really interesting reminder to like I need to write that down because not being competitive is not bad. But there's still I have a lot of competitiveness in me, but now I'm like competing to make the scene, like in filmmaking or the sentence, the best thing I can do. But I guess I'm just not trying to win something, which is an interesting transition.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Yeah,

Finish The Work, Embrace Imperfection, Face AI

SPEAKER_02 29:42

that is interesting because it's like I actually like going back to my own, like the way that I swam, like even looking at it, it's interesting because it was like, I guess I was competing with somebody else that I was like making a choice that I'm not gonna let you beat me. But the truth is that it was like that was based on the idea of me understanding what my physical limitations were, and that even if I failed, I'm still pushing myself in this moment. Right. And it's interesting because I'm actually, I don't I hear what you're saying. I I don't necessarily disagree with it. I I think that I am re-engaging with that competitive nature in a way that hopefully allows me to uh push my craft forward, right? And I think that that's what you're saying too, right? Which is that it's not necessarily it's not competitive externally, right? It's competitive internally, right? Which is that like if the way you do anything is the way you do everything, right? If that's the idea, that it's just like, okay, well, let's say I'm trying to do a lighting breakdown today. Well, it better be the best fucking lighting breakdown that I can figure out how to do today. And tomorrow I might look at it and be like, I'm better tomorrow than I was today. Right. But the thing is that it's got to be like, well, if you want to achieve the things that you want to achieve, I don't think it's it's not about not having compassion, it's not about not having empathy. I I think it's about holding yourself to a standard and realizing, sorry to cut you off, but like realizing that your own personal standards have nothing to do with external validation. Yeah, they have nothing to do with external reward or what you receive in this life or what people give you. Like, like, I think that's where I'm starting, like I'm finally getting back to at nearly 40, is that I was like, oh shit. Um I just need to uh beat that that person in the other lane, not because I need to beat them, but because I need to prove to myself that I can do XYZ.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

I I always say that I'm not a jealous person because uh when somebody I know or even somebody I don't know does get something that I don't have, uh there is a moment, like there's just that little tear in me that's like, oh man, but within two to three seconds, I would say this is consistent. I I'm never jealous in that way because I'm just like, oh, that's the bar and I gotta get there. Right. Like I can get up there. I remember seeing challengers and feeling that way. I was just like the Luca Guadanino film. Yeah, I just fucking love that movie. And there have been movies that I've seen that I'm just like, oh shit. Like I didn't it's somewhat of like I didn't know you could do that. Right. A heartbreaking work work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers was a significant step for me in 2000 when I was like, oh shit, you you can do anything. Right. Um so there are certain films that I've seen that I'm just like, oh, I'm here, and like I've got to get up there. It first in writing and then ultimately directing. And I think like a ghost story is another film that I feel that way about. That I was just like, yes, that's like my youth of and like what I believed in what I was trying to write on screen. And they're just things that you're just like, oh fuck, that's awesome. Yeah, you're like, oh, I wish I could do that is a different thing. But usually with friends when they get a book published or when they have success, you're like, oh, I want that. Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

But which is a like that's a perfectly human thing, right? But there's it it is about recalibrating, like realigning what that feeling is, right? What is like it's potential, it's not, it's not shackles, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Um well I'll say this too. When I was a kid, because I was the youngest, we would play board games, me and my brothers and sisters, and I used to get so fucking mad if they let me win. And the idea for me is I'm not um I'm not I'm a very good loser because my sense is like I will give everything I have, and if you beat me, it's like fucking good on you because you beat me. Like I'm gonna give everything I have. Right. So I'm you know, if I go out and play basketball later today and I I'm not good, I know my limit is very like the ceiling for me in basketball is very, very low. But when it comes to something creative, I'm like, I will give everything I can and attack it from every angle until I knock down the wall that is between me and a finish finish whatever. And uh that I just know that's in me. I know I think my greatest strength as a creative is to finish things. And I I didn't know that that was such a superpower, but you start having you meet more people and they're like, oh yeah, I'm like, I'm on the third draft, I'll get around to it. And I'm like, what do you what? Like I'm a bulldog on that stuff. I'm just like, I gotta do it. Um, yeah, I don't know. I'm all about it.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

Well, no, I think that's great. I actually one of the books that I've sort of like lined myself up with after finish once I finished the Rick Rubin book is like, man, I don't remember the author's name, unfortunately, because uh I did like a list of 10 books that are like next to read. And it was like how to be an imperfectionist. And I think that it's probably quite in line with that idea, which is that it's just like perfectionism is the antithesis of uh finishing anything. And and arguably, like um things being imperfect are what creates our voice. It's like what our at least our perception, like that's just insecurity, like the insecurity of being like, oh, it's not perfect. I'm not getting that person doesn't like it or whatever. Those are all just external things versus being like, well, actually the imperfect imperfect nature of things is what makes it human, which makes it not AI, which makes it Adrian's or makes it Nate's or it makes it whom whoever's. Yeah. And it's just like, uh man, that we're all we're being f uh forced to face all of these sort of things. Like right now, at this uh technological convergence is that we have to actually understand what our superpower is, and our superpower is humans, is that we get to look into the future and say, this is what I can do. Right. And and AI and all of this technology can only look into the past and be like, here's what Adrian did do. Right. Or like, oh, here's what Roger Deacon's films looked like. Right. Not like, what is this next movie gonna look like? It's like, so um, it's interesting. We're in an interesting time uh of creativity. And I'm grateful to sit down and talk to you about this because I was like, oh man, I'm just like in this place right now where I'm feeling really like uh sponge about being like, oh, what is the next phase of creativity look like? I think that actually uh brings us to a great spot for you, which is that it's like I think uh I can really uh empathize with and relate to this, which is that you know, at 35 I basically decided to change careers, sort of like leave acting and become a cinematographer. It's like you've had you're a man of many careers, of many hats, but all under the guise of creativity and telling story. Right. What was your first job?

From Playboy To Paris To Los Angeles

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Uh my first job was uh I I guess if we go all the way back, it was at the gap. I was a sales per person. Uh-huh. And how'd that go? Um, boy, I really didn't I just wanted to hang out. Yeah, yeah. But I sold clothes by hanging out. Uh, but I wasn't a great folder, although now I fold my own clothes very well, and anybody that I've dated or friends will be like, oh wow, you really know how to do that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

So I'm still looking for external validation, even though it's like really for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah. Um and but my first job job was out of college when my mom called me after I graduated college, and she was like, We're not gonna pay for your credit card anymore. And I was like, this I mean, we were we were I grew up lower middle class, and then my uncle passed away, and then we inherited a bunch of money. And then uh my parents blew through that money very quickly, but it also coincided with me in college, so I sort of, you know, they would like to do it. You reap the benefits of their blowing their money. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I I'm I've never been a big spender, but uh when I got that call, I was like, but mom, she's like, get a job, which she should have done like 10 years before or you know, eight years before, but I I just I was the least hardworking in terms of like go out and get a job and get my own money of my brothers and sisters. But the um I worked at Playboy magazine as a temp, which was like a huge gift, just because I was like, oh man. I ended up working for what city in Chicago. Oh, okay. And I ended up working for the executive director. So the card catalog, or whatever it's called, the Rolodex, like literally three, and like every name of every writer you would ever care about. I ended up emailing Tobias Wolf through that, and I mean, I I got I wrote down Woody Allen's phone number. Um, didn't ever call him and more. It's probably a good idea. Yeah, I'm not interested now, but um, but yeah, like the level of people, like any uh incredible person you can think of was in this Rolodex and their phone number at that time, a few email addresses. But um yeah, it was just a very cool job. Like Hugh Hefner's assistant would call and be like, put me on the phone or um and that guy actually, I was working on a I don't know if a book or a short story, but he caught me one day doing it and he was like, What do you what are you writing? And I was like, Oh, I don't know. He goes, No, just tell me. And I told him, and he's like, Well, I want it on my desk when you're finished. And he used to call me rookie. He thought I was Jewish, I wasn't Jewish, or I'm not still. And uh, but it that seemed to disappoint him in some way. But I I I gave him the story. I put it on his desk and he um he read it and he gave me notes, and he was basically like, you don't, you know, and it was just cool to be like, holy shit. Like now the idea that that guy would read my work it would be an incredible, like, holy shit, like I do have something now, I know what I'm doing, whatever. Right. Um But also what else was I gonna say about that? Oh, he at one point he sat with me and he he said, What like what do you want to do with your life? And I said, I want to be a writer and novelist, and he said, Um, he's like, You should have been a lawyer. And I was like, Oh no, I I want to make sure I did I'm an artist. And he's like, You would have been an artist anyway, if you were real, you know. He's like, but that way you have a fallback. I've never had a fallback, and boy, sometimes you're like, Man, that would have been a good idea. Fallbacks are great. Um, but I think ultimately my stupidity and propulsiveness has gotten me here, and I think it's good. But yeah, like uh so yeah, I started at Playboy ultimately, went to work in a video game magazine. That was a boon. I mean, just like what a it didn't get paid much, but it was a great life. Um and then So you wrote for a video game magazine. Yeah. Okay. And then after that, uh I and I won an award there for I won a journalism award, which I wow, that's incredible. They gave that to somebody who wrote about video games. Yeah. It was for uh an article I wrote about Tony Hawk's pro skater. Yeah, but I positioned it. It like I went and hung out with him in San Diego. With Tony Scott. Right. I mean with Tony Hawk. Yeah. I've I uh skateboarded with Rodney Mullen, who's like a listener. Yes, like anybody who's ever uh been on a skateboard knows who Rodney Mullen is. That's incredible. I there's video of me.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Wait, you can't run around second base. How could you skateboard? Did you skateboard well?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Uh there's a video of me and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. If you beat the game with a created skater, you unlock the producers of the game skateboarding in this guy's backyard. And there's video of me falling down a half pipe repeatedly. And it just before I go down, it circles me and says never skated before. I went down a six-foot half pipe. Yeah, that's insane.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

It was you were like about to die. How old were you? Uh 25. Yeah, this is the time that you do that. But wait a second, let's just take a second to pause. You were in Tony Hawk Pro Skater, the video game at the end.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

If you beat it, if you unlocked it. Yellow button-down shirt. And boy, I I mean I did it four times. My hip was so swollen for three weeks. I hit my head so hard. Thank God for that helmet. I would have died. Like it was crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had a helmet on. Nobody stopped me. Because if you're going down a half pipe. If you're not going to stop you, they would be like, go, bro, here's a cool slide, chug it. I guess. But you're like, you're supposed to go down like this, but that means your face is gonna.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

You have to lead with your shoulder. Like, you have to lead, and you're just like, and then that kicks out. Oh boy. That's why I was I was trying to learn how to skate at 35 years old, and I did not do anything half pipe-wise. I was just on the street. I'll tell you what, I did it for a couple months, and then we went to snowboard up in Big Bear. I got a little bit cocky, broke my wrist.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

There we go. Never did it again. One thing I'll say at that time, living in Chicago, I had bought I'd bought a skateboard because it was just cool, you know. Like I wanted to, I loved the video game, and it really inspired a lot of people to skate or to try. And at one point I took my skateboard and I literally was going across the street to my car, and I fell. And I I heard my roommate look at the he was looking at the window and just goes, ha ha.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

And it was one of the funniest moments.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Like, like, what a great moment for him to just look out the window and watch me fall, going 15 feet.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Oh my god. Great. These are the things that these are the moments that you need to save to put in a film because it's just so real, it's so human. It's just like that's what you gotta do. Um, okay, let's churn through this. We've been talking so much about so much creativity and all this sort of stuff. It's like, who's Adrian? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

I then I wrote a novel. I wrote a novel, it's called uh Collision Theory Jinx. Um working on my second now, I'm literally.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Uh and I've created literary deathmat with uh some people and then um and then recently But you basically like for all intents and purposes, you did literary deathmatch as like a primary source of income or as like a primary creative outlet for like almost 20 years?

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Uh it's now 20 years old. I would say there was a stretch of like 12 years where it was like a real It was like your thing. Like I would literally be like, oh shit, I'm running out of money, I'm gonna go do a show or a series of shows. Right. And then make almost no money, but it would like to be a little bit more enough to give you, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

So basically, but that was like the driving force of Adrian was literary deathmatch. Like that would be the first hyphen it behind your name. Adrian Tatsaniga, like literary deathmatch, comma, long shot.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Right, right. I would say I did a storytelling, a moth thing in Melbourne, and I referred to literary deathmatch as the first line of my obituary. Right. Then I'm trying to supplant it. You're trying to supplant it, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Yeah, which is a word that we all know. Yeah, I'm definitely smart. I learned how to read. Uh I'm just recently started to read. Um, yeah, okay, great. So so you've done a lot of stuff that's like literary based. You've written a lot. You worked for magazines, you worked for Playboy, you worked for all of these places, you ran your own magazine, if I remember correctly. Opium magazine. Opium magazine. So you were an editor of a magazine. So you've you've published a novel, you literary death match. It's all reading, reading, reading, reading. This guy's all about writing and reading. Okay.

Becoming A Filmmaker By Learning Structure

SPEAKER_02 43:51

How did you come to filmmaking and why why did that happen? What what year old were you when you decided that you wanted to be a filmmaker? So I moved from Paris to LA. Oh my god, I lived in Paris. I'm a rider. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

I was uh I went out one night. I was gonna move to Berlin. Okay, stop. Start from the beginning again. You were living in Paris. And you were gonna move to Paris. I'd I'd moved from New York to Paris with a girlfriend. We broke up relatively quickly. I was living in uh an apartment right behind uh Rue d'Orsay or on Rue D Rue d'Orsay, right behind Musee d'Orsay. Uh not Rue d'Orsay. It doesn't matter. You're right. I didn't know any of what you were talking about anyway. In the 7. Anyway, so I was living in Paris and uh I needed to get out of this apartment. So I was gonna buy a ticket to Berlin, a flight to Berlin. I was like, I'm gonna move to Berlin. Not a great idea financially, because whatever. But I went out and got some wine in me, and I came back. I was having a great time, took a Valib, one of those rental bikes, you know. And I got home and uh for some reason, like the flight to buy the flight was up for Berlin. I just checked the flight to LA and I think it was like $110 direct. LA? Yeah, I don't know what was going on. From Paris. And I just bought the ticket. And then I sat back and I was like, holy shit, I'm moving to Los Angeles. I'd never lived here before. Right. Been here quite a few times with video game stuff, but uh, and then I emailed five people, the only five people I know, like Sabrina Howells, who you might be, yeah. Yeah, your wife, uh Joey Salloway, um, and like three other people. I just remember those. And everybody got back to me and they're like, okay, we'll hang out when you get here.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

And that was uh my entry point to LA. And once I moved here, you know, there's the joke that once you move to LA, everybody's got a screenplay. I don't think that's true in the same way anymore, but for me, I was like, oh, I'll adapt this second novel I wrote that is now an abandoned novel. Um, I'll adapt the third act of it into a script, and then I'll have a feature, I'll have a feature script. This will be great. And I did it, a pretty much a word-for-word uh adaptation, and then the script was 40 pages long. And the funny part about that is if it would have been like 22 pages long, I would have abandoned it and probably been like, I'm not doing this. But because it was 40, it was long enough for me to be like, oh, well, let me extend this so it can be a feature. And uh that process has, you know, that script has been like alive, and I think we're gonna shoot it in the next two years. But um yeah, it just that sort of spurred me to start thinking about that. I finished my first novel and got that published in 2017, and by that time uh I had been writing other screenplays, and that ended up screenplays plus collision theory of the novel. That led to me getting the long shot gig. That was a fast education of like listening to script notes every day and just like picking out like two sentences per episode, being like, oh, that helps me. And then uh the pandemic happened. And during the pandemic, I realized my weakness was story structure. I was a very vibes-based writer. Um, and once I learned story structure, that fucked with my vibes-based writer, my my lyricism. But then in 2023, I started to really combine both because I was like structure is important, but I have to be also like a literary person. And then um yeah, I shot Told Me Don't Touch Me, a short film. Um and you shot it in London. In London, uh, before I moved to Australia with my partner at the time, and then came back to LA to shoot Not All Men, that you uh was cinematographer for, and Sabrina was the lead actress. And doing those two shorts, that was like a big escalation. Each one like got me a huge amount of knowledge, right? And um, and I still have a ton to learn, but then we just got back from shooting uh The Heart is Made to Be Broken. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

So we just got back from Europe, we shot 18 Days, um, Los Angeles, London, Warsaw, Poland, and Berlin. Okay, Berlin. Okay, I didn't know if we were gonna talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Do you uh let me just ask you this like the fact that we've shot this movie over four countries, not four cities, but four countries. Yeah. Do you ever just sort of like take a beat to be like, that's fucking wild?

SPEAKER_02 48:01

Yeah, dude. I mean, the the whole last week of us just like sort of decompressing, like like honestly, we we've been back in the States for like two weeks. Yeah, like uh we were just fresh off of shooting this feature. So um I did want to take some time to be able to reflect on what it was that we achieved, right? Yeah, um yeah, it is a documentary, it does follow you as you, the person is Adrian, um, seeking a long-lost love and trying to um figure out what the future of love could look like for you. Um, it was how are you describing it to you? I'm describing when people are like, how was it? Was it amazing? I was like, it was exhausting and incredibly rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Yeah. I've the way I describe it is that it was transcendent and emotional and healing and uh just wild. Yeah. Like just the act of going to all these places in a film context and like having to have a camera around at all times, and like we're traveling, but we want to see me leaving a train station, and so we've got to pull out the camera, and like the amount of work you did was unbelievable. Um, it's very it's so much easier to be a subject of something than the people shooting it. Um, and the directing and writing aspect of it, like that also like that it was such a a mix of how that came together because we just had a teeny team and we were just doing it. Um, but I that's how I describe it. But it's really interesting when I first got back that first week when I was talking about it, I was just so like fired up and just like, oh god, it was that and then in the last week, it's like I almost don't know how to communicate about it. It's like it's bottomed out to where I understand what it is, but I also am like my focus is on getting the edit done, finding an animator, you know, like how are we gonna do the score? Yeah, just like how are we gonna do this? And simultaneously trying to keep focused and making like deliberate steps every day. Plus, um just being just sort of like, wow, this is fucking crazy. But also, I think what's really interesting about the process of making something, and this goes for your novel, this goes for writing a short story, goes for making a film. For me, it's like at the beginning, when you have the idea, you're infinite and you're so excited because like your capacity of thought and wonder is so high. And then you go and do the thing, and that is draining and important, but then coming back from it, you're like, okay, we did it. I don't have the same enthusiasm from that day one idea, but now I understand what we've made. So it's really about landing the plane, but that it that's more of a like technical thing to a point and not the enthusiasm thing. And now I'm excited to start getting into the edit so I can return to the enthusiasm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

That will be the I I think that will be part of it. It's like it's almost like it's like uh the bell curve, right? Where the bottom ends are the enthusiasm. It's like you gotta go through the crucible of production to be able to get to the place where you're like, oh, I'm sitting in a comfortable editing suite and like figuring it out, like unlocking whatever puzzle we actually got, not what was conceived. Yeah. Um, okay. We don't have a ton of time left, but I just want to ask some pointed questions about the process of making your uh feature film a directorial debut. Sure. What was the give me two or three of the most impactful lessons that you learned from the process so far?

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Um man. If you would ask me a week ago, I would have been like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Right. Uh let me think. Um I th let's see.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Well, you can also marinate on it because I have other questions. Okay, ask me another one. Okay, these are more practical questions, right? So what um I think that this is like part of this uh part of what I'm hoping to achieve with this podcast is that people um who are maybe on the outskirts or tertiarily associated with the film industry can understand that everybody's journey is different and that you kind of just have to fucking will it into being into its existence and then and then people will start to show up, right? Like the train, you have to physically push the train itself, and then somebody will be like, wow, this train is moving. I guess I'll hop on.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

I thought that was a question, but actually, I think you just made a statement, right? I did, but I was about to tee up a question, yeah. Well, before you do, I'll say that that was the biggest lesson that I've written a lot of things that I believe in deeply, and I work until I believe on them, believe in them fully. But this idea like hit me like a lightning bolt on January 15th, and I very immediately knew how to communicate enough about it to get people excited. You were the first person I talked to, and you were like, holy shit, what whoa, what the fuck, right? And then actually then getting that to be like, I'm gonna actually ask for money for this because I know this idea is awesome. I know that we've got something really lightning in a bottle. And I think we always want our idea to be the thing. You've really been uh pushing me to really mine my own experience and and pull things from that. And I generally do in all my work, but lately I've been really like, okay, what would that look like? And doing that for this project meant that I I just there was so much like fizzing. It was just like alive and away. And the urgency to do it in the timeline that we did is totally insane. Yeah, but also I think the propulsiveness and the willingness to just be like, let's fucking go do this thing, is was very rare. And I hope that I can achieve that feeling with all my projects. And I am gonna start looking at my projects with that context, which is like, is this undeniable? And like now I know what undeniability is because I think this project was undeniable. I hope it's reflected in the actual edit in the film itself. I think it will be, but the idea of like knowing when a thing is undeniable and just being like, I'm putting my whole fucking self into this, and people will follow. Yeah. Because they will. Yeah. And like, and really that's what I think is the biggest takeaway is if you're directing a project, if you're the thing I've learned about directing is you're the general. And if you really are like, follow me, I'm we're getting the fucking, we're getting across that line. Then people are just like, okay, well, they're moving. Everybody wants to be part of a finish something. Right. So, like, if you were just like, keep going, I know it's hard. Like, you good, you good? Like, okay, I'll help you up, I'll carry you for this next couple feet, you know? Right. And it's like, if you do that, it's really powerful. And you can't be full of shit. You actually have to have the goods and whatever. And you can be unsure along the way, but like ultimately the project itself and the idea and the concept and all the stuff, all the momentum of it will build something that you can be like, okay, we're on this raft together. Hopefully a ship, but you know, raft sometimes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

Yeah, I I totally agree with that. Right. That's totally how this project came to be. There's just like sure grit of will to like manifest this thing. Yeah. Um, like I I just want to keep talking to people about how attainable making a feature is. Like, it's such like there's this pre- there's like this conception here in town in Los Angeles that is like it used to be the way that if you made like a really interesting, really compelling short film, um, that that a production company would come in and then just like dump a boat uh uh a dump truck worth of cash into your pocket and be like, go make a feature of this and we're gonna sell it. And while that does seem like maybe it happens every once in a while, it doesn't seem like it's the model anymore, and that basically your feature debut is now what a short film was 10, 15, 20 years ago. And so uh you might not want to talk about it, and that's okay, but it's like how did you get money if you're comfortable talking about the numbers, please do? And how did you feel?

SPEAKER_00 55:57

How do you feel you were able to stretch that to be able to get this movie made? Uh let me just first say that like the second big lesson I've learned is a fixer is priceless.

Fixers, Funding, And Getting The Train Moving

SPEAKER_00 56:08

We had a fixer in Poland, uh in Warsaw, and the doors they were able to open by speaking the language and just having enough connections and being able to have those conversations. Um we got what $30,000, $40,000 of locations for the cost of $200 dinners. Right. You know, maybe a $200 dinner total because it's not as expensive there. Yeah. But like the doors that opened was incredible. And I the level of production value we got out of having those people just talk to a cafe, talk to a restaurant, talk to a space, it was like unbelievable. And they deserve so much more money than we were able to give them. Um, but I do think the idea also of shooting in Europe, it's very exotic and feels impossible in a way because how do you do it? But like if you find a fixer, they can open a lot of doors and just be your boots on the ground to have that connection and understand the culture in certain ways. Um, but yeah, that's that was a big takeaway.

SPEAKER_02 57:09

Yeah, it's interesting. Like I um I shot a feature, my first feature as a cinematographer, I shot a narrative last year in Amsterdam based on an American filmmaker's experience of living in Amsterdam, right? And so I went with him to go there, and we took a camera and raised 25,000 US dollars and went to go shoot a movie there. And then I think when I got back, I was like, hey, we should go make a movie in Europe because of how available it is to shoot in places. Like Los Angeles is has been and seems to continue to be really prohibitive for shooting things um guerrilla style or cheaply because of all of the so many reasons, right? But it's like uh we were in Amsterdam, I shot the film. I think we were there for 28 days. I shot 21 of the days that we were there. The first seven days we were there was just the director and I for pre-production. And because he had lived there for 10 years, he had very close friends who essentially became our fixers, so that we could also just be like, this cafe is gonna let us shoot there for four hours on the day that they're closed. Yeah. It's like and it's like great, that would never happen in Los Angeles. Nobody would ever let you shoot in their place because they're just like, give me money. Right. Um, and so I don't know if uh me even coming back and saying it thought that it could be like a real possibility, but it was like, man, you can make a movie if you just I'm sure it's the same way. It doesn't have to be in Europe, like we just happen to have connections to places there that had gave us the ability to the infrastructure to go there. Yeah, right. Where like making most of our costs just to where are we staying at and how do we get there, right? Um you could probably do the same thing in like Topeka, Kansas, if you have a roots there.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

That's what I was just thinking. Like the idea that those doors are open in certain places, and basically, I don't want to call these people naive, but just more open to things. Like a restaurant in Topeka might be like, uh, okay, that sounds neat. Or like, can you just stay in the corner? And you're like, yeah, absolutely. Right. Uh there's just um it it is crazy that uh okay, this I'm gonna light something on fire here, but making a short film is important. And I just talked to somebody about this. I say, I said, make your first short film so you can figure out what it is to make a film. Make a second short film if you don't feel like you learned what you needed to from the first one, and then stop making short films. Now, if you're putting stuff on YouTube or you're doing short stuff, or I I get it. This is not a cross-support thing. But to me, as soon as you can make a feature, make a feature. And I think that goes for you have to understand the idea, you have to have a good enough idea, you have to write a cheap enough idea. That's that is important. Like you and I have been working together on different things, and I've literally written now a fourth project in descending budget order until we got to a thing that was cheap enough to make. And that brings us back to the budget question, which is I we probably you should never talk about budget when you're working at our budget level because when it comes time to sell it, then somebody's gonna be like, well, you only spent that much. So you this isn't a $500,000 movie, so we're not gonna pay you that much or whatever. Right. In this case, we're just gonna talk about it and you can make your decisions in the edit. But we put together, we slapped together a budget that wasn't even really a budget yet. I just was like, we need $25,000 to shoot and make finish this movie. And that's what I was like, that's our bar, and we're gonna go do this. Right. Because what I realized is like, if we had to edit ourselves, if we had to blah blah blah blah, you know, let's just go out and shoot it and then we'll figure it out. And we ended up, the story took some twists and turns, and we needed more money, and we figured out like feeding people just costs money, like that's a big expense, and especially when people are working um for next to nothing or nothing. So we um we ended up needing $35,000 to shoot this film. And my strategy very early on was I was like, I have some friends who have known me and known my journey of love for a long time and how funny and bad and silly and ridiculous and hopeful I've been. And I was like, I'm just gonna ask people for $5,000, which was very uncomfortable because I can ask somebody for like $500. I can ask them for a thousand, but five thousand felt like a real step up. And I remember massaging the email that was like that opened with like, okay, I have to tell you a quick riveting story. And like, in parentheses, sometimes maybe you've heard this or maybe you remember this. And I told the story of me meeting this woman 18 years ago and ultimately missing a date. And then to make it up to her, she was like, Well, you'll have to come to Warsaw to take me to dinner. So I flew from San Francisco to Warsaw. I'm giving a very bad version of the pitch right now, but in the in this the deck or in the email, that's what it said. And then I was like, and now I want to make a movie about it. I want to go back and find her 18 years later. And the end of it, you know, I rewrote the paragraph where I was like, uh, and I'm sorry to ask, or I don't know how to, well, but you know, we're trying to raise, and I in the end, it edited to be like, and we need, and I'm asking for $5,000. You get an executive producer credit and equity in the film. And like finally, when I was just like, no, I just have to fucking ask professionally because I'm asking for this money. You and then I, you know, after that it was like a comma, and then like, but more is welcome. But at least I was setting a bar that was like challenging them to come in at a certain price level. And we had five people say yes. So we had $25,000. And then you start thinking, like, oh, you know, this person knows the story, or this person had some money, or they they're doing very well in life, unlike anybody else. You know, you're just like, and the you start to be like, oh, or you have a phone call with a friend. I had a phone call with one of our executive producers where I was just like, Oh yeah, man, how's your script going? Uh yeah, you won't believe this crazy thing, and I'm I'm gonna go do it. He's like, Well, do you need can I can I? And I was like, Fuck yes, are you serious? I was like, now we have enough money to make the movie. Are you really? You know, and I I just was calling him because that I love him. And I it was just rad to like that speaks to something we said earlier. It's like once you get that train moving, people do want to be part of it. If if you have your story and you're coherent and you're like, if you really believe it, people will feel that. And um, so we ended up raising 35,000 and then some more money. Uh, I'm in a Madden league, a 32-person Madden league. And I was like, hey guys, $5,000 is a tier for executive producer, but you know, special thanks for anything under that. And then if you can do $2,500, like I'll get you a half point or whatever, you know, and because I was like, you know, our executive producer is like, well, it's paperwork and it's complicated if it's not a certain amount. And she already knows that $5,000 was low. But at one point I was like, no, we just need money and like let's take it from wherever we can get it. Yeah. Um, I didn't want to go to Kickstarter or whatever, because I there's this part of the story that I want to maintain a secrecy, so I didn't want to like tell too much before we shot it. Um, and I yeah, so we've now raised $42,500. We set the full budget to $75,000 along this process. Like, I I guess I'll say something that is a little bit of an aside. But once you start making a movie, and once you know the idea is there and you start raising money, when you're at a party talking to people and you're like, we're making a movie, it's just it changes how you communicate and it gives you a sense of like, I'm now part of this world. Holy shit! Like, I'm here, like I'm not full of shit, and I'm really doing this thing. And it really is interesting. So you're also going to mixers or events or whatever, and you're hearing people talk on panels, and you're like, I actually know exactly where this fits into my story and what I need. And then you talk to them afterwards, and you're like, oh yeah, I'm I'm making a thing and it's about this. And people are like, holy shit, that sounds crazy. That's uh I'm interested in that. So, like, just stretching those that understanding and actually doing and being the thing does help you do and be the thing, and that's a really exceptional thing uh that you only get if you start doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

Right. I I mean it's interesting because it's like um you know, you know, the the wisdom is that you'll just I every time people put a microphone in front of filmmakers from like the 90s, it seems like they're just like, just go make a movie. James Cameron's like, you pick up an iPhone and you shoot a scene and then say it put directed by at the end, and you're a director. It's like yeah, that it's true. It truly is that simple, right? And like we all have the access to do that. The technology is cheaper than ever to be able to do it. There's Like nothing holding us back. And it's like, it is really interesting because it's like, man, you know, in the freelance world, after I pivoted at 35 to become a cinematographer, like one of the things that I was like, to your point is like the 10,000 hours, like, well, I have to get on other people's sets so I can figure out how to be the best version of whatever it is that I want to bring as a cinematographer. So I have to work under other DPs. So I'm gaffing, I'm gripping, I'm doing whatever. To mainly because I was like, dude, if I can learn how to light, I can light my own sets. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Like, like also part of the thought process is uh when we start to get uh higher in budgets and understanding like that. If we ever get to a place where it's like, oh, we're up against it, I know that I can just be like, just put the light right there, just trust me, go, and then we can make the thing happen, instead of being like, you know, I I can pull focus really well. Yeah. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:45

Um, well, just another thing I think that people like if you want to make movies, if you've written a thing, try to. I think we're in an era where you have to think outside of like, well, I wrote it, so I'm gonna sell it, and somebody else will make it. Just start thinking, like, okay, how do I make this? Even just going through that process mentally and start building a team. That's a really hard part if you're somebody in the middle of nowhere and you're like, well, I don't know. But like they're read the book directing actors. Like the Cine Lumet film or a book? No, that's making movies. It's uh by a woman, uh Judith uh something. Yeah, and that's bringing our producers on it. Right. Um, but that book is like so important. It's just hugely important to understand how to communicate with actors, walks you through the entire process, and just how to think of bringing your story to life. And um and then just like I don't know, there is something to where you just you just need somebody to shoot it, and you just need uh some people to be in it, and you can go the Chloe Zhao route and be like, well, my friend Dave would be interesting. I don't know, it it is hard because if you're starting at zero, uh Judith Weston, directing actors, it's great. Um but yeah, it it is overwhelming, but if you just start piecing it together, like knowing you was a huge boon because like a cinematographer at a level of like I'm a I want to go do these things. And I was like, okay, I through literary deathmatches, like I know how to pull a thing out of the earth and bring it to life. So um having a cinematographer is huge. And if you just find somebody who's interested, and if nothing else, just have them watch videos, just be like, just sit around with your friends and watch a movie and then talk about it technically is another thing that will just get everybody to be like, Oh, I can do that, all right. Okay, so that's what lighting is. I don't know. It's it is hard if you're at zero and you're just like, but I want to do it, but like just keep piecing it together, and you can.

Lighting Breakdowns And Final Call

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

Yeah, it's not watching anything here with lighting breakdowns.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:43

Yeah, if you want to learn how to light, uh I have an entire playlist on this YouTube channel called Lighting Breakdowns. There's a bunch of videos on there, and people like them, and some don't, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

I've watched your videos, and it's like a great way for me to communicate with you better about things, or to just for my own understanding when I watch another movie, and I'm like, oh, I see what's happening here. Right, right. They backlit him just with the frame, the edge of him, instead of him just being swallowed by darkness in the background.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:09

Right, right, right. It's really interesting. It is interesting. Um, man, it's like uh we could we're well over, like we're to an hour and ten minutes already. I can't shut up about their own. I know, dude. This dude just freaking talks all the time. Uh, we should probably uh wrap it up here. You're certainly gonna be on the podcast again. I'm not worried about that. Uh, because we have many other feature films to make. Um, hopefully we're making another one in Poland soon. Yeah. Uh we'll see how it goes. Um, okay, guys, this has been film shit. Uh, thank you very much, Adrian Tadzi Nika for joining us. Um, writer, director, filmmaker. I'm so excited to be able to say that, man. It's incredible, right? We made a feature together. Yeah, we made a feature film together.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

We're working. I'm when I get uh off this podcast, I'm gonna go see if the editor agreed to edit our film, and then we're like really off and running. Yeah. Holding shit. Gangbusters. It's gangbusters.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

Um okay, this is the podcast. It's film shit. Um, it's not only the umbrella that we like to talk about, we talk about everything that is under filming shit, but it's also a call to action. If you guys want to sit where Adrian is, you want to sit where I am, take over the hosting uh duties of film shit, go out and film shit, guys. That's the only way that we can get our stories out there. It's the only way that we can make our dreams come true, and it's the only way that humans continue the human story. So go out and film shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:20

And if you want to find me on social media and you just want to ask dumb questions about like, I okay, you said this, like help me understand this thing. Like, you can ask stupid questions and I will answer them. Okay, and where do they find you? Uh Adrian Todd's Nega on Instagram, and that's probably it. Yeah. That's the only thing I've got to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:36

Hit my Instagram. Um, okay, great. Uh okay, great, guys. Thank you so much. That's been everything from film shit. I can speak. Bye.