The Internal Voice with Special Guest: Director and Filmmaker Mike Pecci

S7, EP 208

Special Guest: Mike Pecci

Join us tonight at the Chaos Table and listen in on our conversation with award winning Director, filmmaker, writer and visual storyteller Mike Pecci.

Mike is known for blending horror, science fiction, and emotionally grounded genre filmmaking with striking cinematic imagery. Classically trained in silent film directing and cinematography in New York, Pecci built his career directing commercials, music videos, and branded content before emerging as one of the most distinctive voices in independent horror cinema. His work combines old school visual storytelling with modern cinematic intensity, drawing inspiration from filmmakers like John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Pecci first gained major attention with his viral science fiction horror short film 12 Kilometers, a Lovecraftian nightmare inspired by the real life Kola Superdeep Borehole. The film became a cult phenomenon online, praised for its atmosphere, practical effects, sound design, and cinematic ambition. The film generated a massive grassroots following through an unconventional “you need the director’s permission to watch it” release campaign, helping it spread virally throughout the horror community. Critics described the film as “what if David Lynch directed The Thing,” while audiences praised its haunting tone and immersive visual style. 

Since the release of 12 Kilometers, Pecci’s films have screened at major genre and independent film festivals around the world, including the FilmQuest, where his short film Come Home earned him the award for Best Director. His experimental horror fashion film Metanoia, starring David Dastmalchian, received multiple festival nominations including Best Cinematography and Best Macro Short at FilmQuest, as well as nominations at the London Fashion Film Festival. 

Outside of narrative filmmaking, Pecci has directed over 30 music videos and commercial campaigns for artists and brands including Killswitch Engage, Meshuggah, Czarface, Bose, Fujifilm, Leica, and Samuel Adams. 

Pecci is also the creator and host of the long running filmmaking podcast In Love with the Process, where he interviews some of the industry’s top cinematographers, directors, editors, and artists about the realities of the creative process. The show has become a respected platform within the filmmaking community for its honest conversations about art, struggle, obsession, and storytelling.

Known for his visceral visual language, love of practical filmmaking, and emotionally driven horror, Mike Pecci continues to push genre storytelling into bold and unexpected territory. His work has earned a passionate cult following among filmmakers and horror fans alike, establishing him as one of the most exciting emerging voices in modern genre cinema.

Mike's Links -

Website - http://mikepecci.com/

Podcast - http://inlovewiththeprocess.com/

IG- https://www.instagram.com/mikepecci/

This is a shareable podcast where a group of creatives join together to  document their creative voiceover & on-camera journeys in real time. 

We hope this podcast creates inspiration, stirs up a few ah-ha moments or maybe brings to the surface a feeling of "you're not alone" while navigating the creative process. Either way, we are glad you are here.  Oh, and we also pull into our conversations at the chaos table industry professionals along with other fellow actors, to share their stories, experiences and knowledge - so we can all connect, share, learn, grow and expand together.  

This podcast is for entertainment and not educational purposes!  

Enjoy and thank you for listening to our Creative Chaos!
 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

This is a podcast where a group of friends document their creative paths in and out of the booth and beyond the screen while also exploring the journey and origin stories of other fellow actors to learn from, get inspired by, and connect with our community as we share our ups and downs and of course our chaos along the way. Welcome to Keeping Up with Chaos from the Booth and Beyond.

Jozlyn Rocki 0:26

What's up, guys? It's Jocelyn, your host. Welcome back. And of course, I'm joined by Angela Cortez and Lloyd Waller is in the house. We have a very special guest tonight. We're very excited. Mike Petchi is an award-winning American film director, writer, and visual storyteller, known for blending horror, science fiction, and emotionally grounded genre filmmaking with striking cinematic imagery. Classically trained in silent film directing and cinematography in New York. I think that's so cool we talk about that a little bit. And this all happened before he emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in independent horror cinema. His work combines old school visual storytelling with modern cinematic intensity, drawing inspiration from filmmakers like John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, just to name a few. Mike has been in the industry for a very long time, and uh he first gained major attention with his viral science fiction horror short film, 12 kilometers, okay? This film had a massive grassroots following through an unconventional release campaign that helped it spread virally throughout the horror community, which is super cool. That so much. Also, Mike shares a really cool celebratory moment with us where he's announcing um kind of a full circle, exciting thing that's happening in his career. And um, that all happens at the end of the podcast. So we're very excited about that. He shares tons of uh nuggets of wisdom. So tune in, sit down, enjoy the conversation, and we're happy that you're here, and we're happy that Mike's here. Cheers. Hi.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Hi, Brand, how are you? Oh my god, I'm so happy you're here.

unknown 2:37

How are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I'm good. How are you? Yeah. I'm good. I was just um I got into my little booth, and I just noticed there's a big old spider web in the corner of my in my desk. I'm like, I guess I haven't been anywhere.

Jozlyn Rocki 2:50

You have some cobwebs.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah, there's some I need to do some dusting in here.

Jozlyn Rocki 2:54

Oh my gosh, that's so fun. Yeah. Hopefully it's not a big one, but they do say that spiders bring creativity. I don't know if you knew that, but like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Not only do I have spider webs in my my home office, I have them in my car. So I need to do my car too. And I was just telling my kid that too. And he was like, That's crazy, mom. You shouldn't have spider webs in your car. I'm like, it's nature. It means spiders are comfortable around me, but that's even better. It brings creativity.

Jozlyn Rocki 3:22

It does, it does bring creativity. I'm not a big fan of spiders. My one, my youngest, I won't kill them because they bring creativity unless they're like, they just are invading my space and like they just gotta go. Like, I will try to capture them and like put them outside. That's me too, me too. Yeah, but my youngest like freaks out, like he hates spiders. Oh my god. Like somebody told me that he woke up in the middle of the night and thought that he saw something on the wall that looked like a spider, and he was paralyzed in fear because he couldn't tell what it was and like he couldn't see it, and like he didn't want to move, right? And so he said he like stared at it for like a really long time and like wouldn't go back to sleep.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

I was like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

No, that's that's funny because my my son, he's not as scared as um of him as as he was when he was a kid, but when my sister was babysitting him when he was probably like four or five, yeah, she showed him one of those joke videos where like you're watching like you know, this beautiful scenery, and then out of nowhere, this big old spider pops out. Yeah, so he she did that to him and it scared the bejesus out of him. So for like the longest time, he's like paralyzed by spiders and stuff like that. Yeah, so he never caught him, but now he's actually he's 17 now, so like he's starting to be like, okay, it's fine, I can catch it, or you know, whatever. But it's funny there's something else.

Jozlyn Rocki 4:43

They are. It's funny how like my kids were um like there were things that he they would not watch, and now like I'm finding out that they're like watching it on their own. So when they were younger, I was like, you can't watch this, and I would never let them. And now they're like watching on their own. And then they even asked us, they're like, Can we watch this? And my husband's like, no. And then, like, you know, they have access to almost everything now. So it's like, and and then I found like Walking Dead, for example. Like, you know, because we're gonna be talking to our guest tonight who's who specializes in horror. And he, you know, and I was like, You're watching The Walking Dead?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Your youngest is watching The Walking Dead? Yes. Oh my god, that's even weirder. I know the two older boys.

Jozlyn Rocki 5:24

That's funny that they can't, but I know he's watching no, well, my middle's watching it too. My middle's like 15. My my youngest is 12, basically going at 18. So yeah, he's watching it. So I was he's like, it's not that bad. But I'm like, I don't like zombies, I'm just not a zombie person.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

You do I love zombies, yeah.

Jozlyn Rocki 5:43

Oh my gosh, that's funny. I think there's like two camps either you like zombies or vampires. I'm in the vampires.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

I like them all. I like them all, girl. I love all the cryptid stuff. Yeah, like if I in a in another life, I'd be a cryptozoologist, like just study of random, you know, aliens and you know, big foods and all that stuff. I love it.

Jozlyn Rocki 6:04

That's really oh, that's too funny. That's too funny. I um do you you believe in all of that too? I mean, to an extent. Hi, how's it going? Hey Mike.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Hi, hi, hi, how are you?

Jozlyn Rocki 6:19

We're great. Welcome, welcome to the chaos table. Angela was just saying that um in another lifetime she's gonna, what were you gonna be?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

I would like to be a cryptozoologist. What does that mean? I I think that's the word cryptozoologist, basically like the study of all like weird and creepy stuff, like you know, big hood and you know, bat boy and all the random stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Do you want to go you want to go for a ride through Texas and go to all those museums you find at gas stations?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Oh, yeah, totally. I would totally do that. That's awesome. Back in my younger days, we used to do like, you know, um, you know, the graveyard hunts and all that stuff. Yeah. I'm surprised I don't have any ghosts that are attached to me.

Jozlyn Rocki 7:01

I honestly like thought to myself, like, because we're, you know, Mike, thank you for joining us. I we're talking horror stuff, right? So I was like thinking to myself, I'm like, I don't think I like horror. I'm like, I don't know if I like it. I don't know if it's a genre that it like particularly grabs me. And then I was like kind of doing some like thinking back about the different types of movies I watched, and I was like, oh my God, I've watched a lot more horror movies than like I realized because the genre is so like vast and there's so many sh subgenres and niche stuff. And then I was like, my because we were also talking, we have kids, and so I was saying that my my youngest is watching The Walking Dead, and he didn't get permission to watch that, but whatever, it's happening. He's the youngest. We're just gonna look past that. But I'm thinking, like, how many scary things I watched when I was growing up, you know, like are under the age of 10.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Like, yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of the stuff that they had for kids when I was younger. I mean, if you even go back and you look at Goonies, like Goonies has got a lot of like horror stuff in that movie, like it does skeletons popping out, and they have to play skeleton piano, and like yeah, uh a gangster that's holding a kid's hand in a blender, threatening to like shred it, you know? Like it's a pretty horrific little movie, you know.

Jozlyn Rocki 8:15

It is. I mean, yeah, and and I was thinking like the shining jaws. I mean, I remember watching Jaws when I was on VHS, like, come on, you know, and like those types of movies, and like people don't realize. And then I was also telling Angela like a lot, like a couple episodes ago, like where I did an audio book or an audio drama, and it was for a horror audio drama, and I didn't realize that, and I was the mom, but I and I like replaced another actor. So I kind of came in at the you know, the end of it all, and then um the episode came out, and I was like, oh, oh no, oh no, oh no. And I was like, fast forward, fast forward, fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. I'm like such a wimp. No bad dreams for Jazz. Exactly. Well, Mike, we're happy to hear that you're here tonight and like hanging out with us, and um, and uh like how did you get? I mean, we're talking about movies we used to watch and you mentioned Goonies, like what inspired you to become a filmmaker, you know, and then how did you land in specializing in horror and science fiction, you know?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Um, well, I mean, I grew up uh like anybody else, like because I'm in my mid-40s. So when I was growing up, it was pre-Youtube, and it was I really didn't think about how movies were made, you know. I I didn't think that Indiana Jones lived in a box in my living room, but I never questioned it, you know? Yeah. Um, and when I was a kid, I was very much and still am, I was very much into comic books. Like my mom was worried that I didn't like to read, and so she went and picked up like a handful of comics and threw them in front of me and said, These have pictures. Go ahead, try to do that.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

Um I like your mom.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah, I don't think she realized what that the chain of events were after that. Yeah I mean, um, I really got into it just because it was everything that I loved. It was everything that I love about um comic books and telling a story within a 2D image, and then um I went to school for radio. It's everything I liked about sharing music and and and and creating really fun atmospheres with tone and music and and lighting. And then um I just happened to take a film course uh when I was starting school. I went to like a community uh college to begin and get my credits, and I had to fill some space. So I just took a film class and uh it blew my mind. We watched um, you know, Blade Runner. I saw Blade Runner for the first time, and I was like, Indiana Jones is in this weird movie, you know? And the um my professor was like, after we watched it, he was like, uh, so what did you think of the wardrobe? I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like, what did you think about the clothing and what did you think about all this stuff? And I just I know it seems like such a uh you know, like a caveman thing to say now because everybody comes up like knowing too much about how movies are made. I think ever since Jurassic Park came out, and everybody was like, Did you grow dinosaurs? And then they started to release the behind-the-scenes videos that I think our audiences now are so in tune with how movies are made and the process of doing it. It's kind of sad. It's like trying to be a magician, and everybody's like, Well, he's got a rabbit in his coat, but that's how good the trick is, you know. Um, but back then, when I when I saw that movie and I had the professor ask me these questions, it just sort of clicked, and I went, Oh shit, this is everything I love about this and this and this and this and this. And man, I this is my path. And and you know, I've been as an insane person, I've been on this path now for over 25 years, 26 years, or something like that. So it's um it's an obsession.

Jozlyn Rocki 12:06

It has to be, right? I mean, to be to stick through it to get through all the ups and downs. You say Jurassic Park, and I just have to make a note that like I read that book and I loved the book more than the movie, but I did enjoy seeing the adaptation of it on the big screen. And I've watched it multiple times because I through all the kids, I have like a wide range of.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah, it's a great movie, and the book is fantastic. I I went back and I read the book after I had seen the movie, and then I read Lost World, and I was like, man, I wish they had done a lot of this stuff in the movie.

Jozlyn Rocki 12:38

Yeah, I know it's iconic. That's exciting, but back to the wardrobe. What was it about the wardrobe that like that what was his what was your professor's like point of the wardrobe, like the small details in the scene that if you think back to, I don't know if you've seen the original Blade Runner with Harrison Ford.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

If you think back to that movie, it was such a shocking film for that time period because no one had really seen what now is the formula for every futuristic dystopian movie. Every movie that comes out that has something to do, like whether you're talking the fifth element and even all his new stuff that's on TV, everybody's ripping off Blade Runner. Um, when you watch that film, they were so crafty on a budget, they were able to take like uh Chinese and Japanese influence and blend it with sort of like future styling. And I know he worked with uh Ridley Scott works with a bunch of futurists and they're predicting how traffic lights would be at that time period. And they so uh it was really fascinating to watch people that were obsessed with one specific uh skill set and and what that brought to a project. And so fast forward to when you're a director, you start to understand that it's not my job. I think directors get a lot of credit where they shouldn't. I I think a lot of people are like, they're geniuses. You're now it's it's not like I came out of my mom with an idea of how to direct movies. Yeah it's the uh skill is collaboration, and the skill is knowing who to work with and who to pick to work with, and really letting that obsessive person loose. And then basically your taste, it's like someone shows up with five plates of food, and you go, I'll take the potatoes off of that plate, I'll take the steak, and I'll take that, and let's make a plate with all that stuff.

Jozlyn Rocki 14:38

I love that. I love how you like put that together, you know, because it's like it really is like a collaboration of, you know, you have makeup artists, you have the actors, you have the boom guy, you know, you have the cameraman, you have the people that are, you know, going out and doing wardrobe, you know, and like creating the wardrobe and the sets and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so that's that's interesting. I like your perspective. Angela, go ahead. I think you have this.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Sorry, I just it popped into my head the movie Idiocracy, where they talk where they wear crocs, and that's like the thing in the future, and it cracks me up because that's all everybody wears nowadays. So, like the fact that people actually really, you know, take the time to you know figure out what future might be like, and sometimes it actually has weird, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:21

You gotta you gotta ask that question, right? You gotta ask the question, is it was it always gonna be that way, or is it that way because the movie exists? Like if you go back and watch if you go back and watch Star Trek, like the early episodes of Star Trek, and they come out with their little flip phones basically the dilit and they talk. It's like, did the flip phones get made because all the dudes that were designing those phones are Star Trekes and they're nerds, and they're like, Oh, I've always wanted one of those things. And so Yeah, yeah. Yep. Chicken or the bet yes, I would bet yes on that one, actually.

Jozlyn Rocki 15:54

Yeah, yeah, maybe. That's that's a good point. That's a very good point. Even the DeLorean, I'm thinking of like, you know, back to the future stuff, you know. It's like, you know, what's the um the car that's on the road now is everyone's like, what it looks like? It's super spacey. Um, I'm it's totally Cybertruck. Yes. Oh, the Cybertruck. The Cybertruck. I'm just like, that is so sci-fi. Like it's just, I can't get over it. I just can't get over it. Lloyd, welcome to the party.

Lloyd Waller 16:21

Hi, I wasn't gonna be here. I think I allowed me to be here.

Jozlyn Rocki 16:25

Yes, hopefully that's a good thing.

Lloyd Waller 16:28

Yes, I'm in DC for my youngest sister's graduation, which happened yesterday. We were supposed to go somewhere, but my other sister has a headache and we're not going. Okay.

Jozlyn Rocki 16:38

Well, welcome. Then you get to talk movies and directing and all that fun stuff. I was like, Go ahead.

Lloyd Waller 16:44

I didn't want to interrupt because I uh uh two things happened in the short amount of time that I've been on this call. Hello, Mike. Nice to meet you. I'm Lloyd. Oh, okay. You immediately reminded me of two weeks ago, I was on a film set and I was script supervising, and uh I was just in awe by how many people had such specific expertise in the one thing that they do. That that no one else, it's like, oh there's too much light on this one side of the bathtub, and no one else is looking at the light on that side of the bathtub, and then you then they point it out to you and changing like, oh my god, you're right, there was so much light on that side of the bathtub.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah, dude. It's great.

Lloyd Waller 17:40

It's great.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

You have these people that uh are so good at what they do and they're so specific that they build muscle memory for the things that they do. And so when you see someone that's really good, like if it's an assistant camera person, or if it's uh a camera operator, or uh uh a person that textures walls when they paint walls and they do that kind of stuff, I always love it. You you sort of it's it's like watching it's like going to a concert and hyper focusing on a violinist in the strings department and just seeing the way that she uh holds it and the years and years of practice and the cheat codes that she has. It's the same thing on a film set. It's it's it's a lot of fun to observe uh these people that uh just absolutely love what they do. Um and when you get the good ones, it's like Spielberg puts his his his dolly grip on retainer because he knows that that guy is so important and integral to the way he visually tells his stories. I didn't know that.

Jozlyn Rocki 18:45

I didn't know that either. So so when when you know, we always hear like you know, some of us like that have you know a little bit of experience on camera and we do like commercials in theater and improv and and that kind of stuff, like you always hear about like getting to the director, but like you're saying, like you're not the end all be all, right? Like, I mean, you are a collaborative um piece to the puzzle so that like when you're making the decisions about casting and you're making the decisions about the project and everything that goes into it, like it's not just you, it's a group of people, right? That you're collect together and create.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, it's time. It's time. You know, it's like uh because I've been now been directing for you know 20-something years or whatever. Um, and when I first started, you know, you bury your head in the saw in the sand, and you go, all right, I'm gonna learn how to do as much as I possibly can, and I'm gonna try to replicate things that I like, and I'll try to shoot. Oh, I saw a fight club then. I I think I can do that, and I'll try to do that. And and you attempt to do it, you fail, but in that failure that you do, you go, Oh, but this trick is pretty cool. Oh, and this idea is really great. Log it away, log it away. And you just sort of you have a toolbox that you're just sort of filling up. And so I I have with my show, I have people writing to me all the time, like, how do we get in the business? And I don't think it's happening fast enough. I try to explain to them like with anything, the first eight years of what you're doing, no one gives a shit. Like it's creative, eight years of you practicing, eight years of you sort of digging into this world. Yeah, and then when you get to a point where you start to get recognized for all that work and that hard work, then as a director, a lot of people are thrust into it with ego issues where you have imposter syndrome, uh where you know you've convinced people to let you run the show, and you really don't have as much as experience as what you've told people you do. And so then when you're younger, what you end up doing is you hide behind being loud and you hide behind have having all the answers. And so I I think a lot of people turn to arrogance to to cover up their insecurity. And then you sort of hopefully, quickly, you learn like whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm actually being destructive to the vision, I'm actually being destructive to the process that is required to make this thing more than some dumb idea I sketched on a notepad in my pajamas late one night. You know? And so then as you get older and the the hairs on your beard get gray, you start to realize that there's a power to casting the people around you, whether it's crew or talent, that you want to have there when shit goes wrong or when things are falling apart. And there's a strong power, even though I have done my homework and I know what I think this is going to be, to stand in front of a group of people who are incredibly talented and go, guys and girls, I don't know how to do this. So who does? Put your hand up. Who's done this before? Great. What have you done before? What have you done before? What have you done before? Even though I have what I think is an answer back there, oftentimes I'll just do that. So that way that team goes, well, ah, cool. And I go, that's awesome. I never would have thought of that. I never would have written written that down on a notepad. Let's go with that. Run with that. Run with that. You know?

Jozlyn Rocki 22:16

That's really cool to hear that. You know, because a lot of times people put directors up on pedestals, you know, and then you're like nervous. And and um I but there's all different styles of directors. So it sounds like you're more of a collaborative um director, too. Your camera is zooming right in on you.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

I know. I know. I had I don't know how to shut this feature off on my Zoom right now.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

You know, and it I think that does um I would say would help along with your casting crew and whoever's working with you is, you know, the leadership that you show and giving them the opportunity to step up and say, Oh yeah, I know how to do that. And then that, you know, let leads them into their own direction, you know, like maybe somebody does want to be a director one day. And this gave them the opportunity to say, Hey, yeah, I've done this before, you know. Yeah. So uh that leadership is I think is parallel to to being a great director in in essence, too.

Jozlyn Rocki 23:03

So and I'm curious, uh, because I did read that you are classically trained in silent cinematography, yes, and directing. So what what is that? Because like, you know, like expand on that because I was like, what? That's so that's interesting. That's kind of niche, right? I mean, a little bit, no?

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Yeah, it's I mean, uh I think a few people have done it. I don't I I just don't think that they describe it that way. Um, I went to film school when I decided that that's what I want to do. I went to film school in New York. Um, and the school and I I only did it for a short period of time, but the school was teaching us how to make movies on old black and white film without sound. So we were actually just shooting on reversal black and white film that we would expose, develop, and then we would cut, actually cut film and tape film and yeah. So learning that way really teaches you how to be uh prepared. It teaches you how to be an editor when you're filming because you only have a certain amount of film, and then it it's I don't know if any of you edit at all, but when you're using a digital edit system, they often call it the bin. The reason why they call it the bin for your clips is that when you're cutting film, there's literally a bin, a trash can that has hooks over it. And so when you cut pieces of the film off, you hang them by the sprockets on the hooks, and then you see the edit. And oftentimes you'll lose them, they'll fall off, they'll fall into this huge bin of film strips. And so making tiny cuts is really difficult when you're just doing that um old film cutting. So it teaches you how to tell a story on longer takes, it teaches you how to tell a story um uh uh smartly, and then when I say silent filmmaking, you have to learn pretty quickly how to tell an audience what's happening on screen without dialogue. So it's blocking, it's body language. If a character is standing taller than the other character, is that a power move? Like how does how does that change? If they're closer to the camera, what does that mean? If there are is a room full of 30 people and someone has an emotional response and all 30 people respond to it, that's a powerful image as opposed to just one person in a space having a response. So um it's cool. All those skills uh are part of what I do. And and it fast forward years and years later, when I directed a film called 12 kilometers, yeah, I did in a language I don't speak, so that whole movie is in Russian and I don't speak Russian.

Jozlyn Rocki 25:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And so the skills of silent filmmaking were incredibly important to me when I was putting that together.

Jozlyn Rocki 25:53

How did you um how did that come across your your dash?

SPEAKER_00 25:59

It's a it's a a longer story. Uh like uh for years, um, I was running a production company back on the East Coast. I was running a production company, and we would do music videos, and then MTV died, and then music videos started to die, and so then we had to go into commercials, and I was just doing the grind for for a long time, and you get lost in that world where it's like job to job, and I gotta pay rent, I have a staff, I gotta pay for them. And I'm like, man, I'm I'm not making movies, that's what I want to do, is make movies, and so I was getting really upset. At the same time, I went on a date, I went on a first date um with Gina, and uh she took me ice skating, and I've never been ice skating before. And so we stepped out onto the ice and I slipped and I fell and I cracked my skull, and I ended up in intensive care. Um, and that's how she met my family because she had to call everybody in, and the doctor was like, You can't go to sleep, you might die. And so I was in intensive care for about five days. Um, and I had multiple concussions from this, and the byproduct of it was that I was convinced that my inner voice didn't belong to me, that it was somebody else speaking, was like this byproduct. And of course, me being a horror fan, I was completely fascinated by it. And I'm like, this is interesting and fun and cool, and that's so cool. Yeah. Uh, and so I went through the process of recovery on that, and then about five months of recovery after the concussions, and in that period of time, I was so inspired that I wrote a script about a guy who couldn't trust his inner voice, and that ended up uh becoming this feature version of 12 kilometers, and then as soon as I got better, I basically blew up my world and I was like, I'm done doing commercials, I'm done doing all this shit. Um, I'm just gonna do a proof of concept short film and dived headfirst into the proof of concept. Um, and then that caught fire. I because I was collaborating so much, I met a great cinematographer who introduced me to a writer, a Hollywood writer, and uh he's now my writer. And um, he introduced me to like uh Michael Bay's people, and then I got agents and management, all from this short film that I shot back in Boston. Um, and that really put me on the map and started the whole spiral of the of the career.

Jozlyn Rocki 28:28

So and uh short film was called 12 kilometers. Oh, that's that's what okay, because okay, very good. Because you have another one that I read about too.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. We had a big announcement this week, but um, yeah, and then with uh Gina, you know, we've been together now for almost 16 years.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

It's a love story, it was a great trauma bond, wasn't it?

Jozlyn Rocki 28:49

It was a great that's a sci-fi trauma bond, birth of a career, giant move, like wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

What's interesting, and not to get too serious, but what's interesting when you find yourself um on death's bed, and I've been there twice. When you find yourself on death's bed, you really start to understand your relationships and the relationships that are around you. And there are different types of people, they're the type of people that will walk into the room and see you on the bed and say, I can't believe this is happening to me. Yeah, it's a big group of those people out there that do that, and you realize when you're in that scenario, you go, Oh man, like that's not really healthy for me. And that's not really healthy. What am I getting out of this, you know?

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Um, and then there is the other group of people like Gina, who never shed a tear, was always completely supportive. Like, of course, she went and took care of all of her own stresses on her own, but was incredibly supportive, and it meant a lot. It really did. It was like, wow, you really, really are not a selfish person, and you're someone that wants to develop something in.

Jozlyn Rocki 29:58

Yeah, you know, yeah, absolutely. That's go ahead, Lloyd.

Lloyd Waller 30:02

Oh, I well now. I feel like it's not as we've gotten as sensitive uh. I want to ask this for clarification. So you wrote a story about someone who didn't believe the voice in their head while you were actively not believing the voice in your head? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Well, twisted. I love it.

Lloyd Waller 30:24

That's so meta.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Um, that's the best time to write that story, dude. Right.

Lloyd Waller 30:29

Well, my question is, how did you believe what you were writing? Oh god, you were being misled by this voice in your head.

Jozlyn Rocki 30:38

Oh yes, you opened up a can of worms. Look out, Lloyd. We're going down a rattle hole.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

I mean, dude, I the way I looked at it was who cares? You know, I don't need to believe what this is. Like the it you just can't, it's like it's like trying to write about war and you never go to war, you know, and then suddenly you find yourself dropped in a war zone and you're experiencing all this stuff, and all you're doing is just sort of documenting it, going like, Jesus, you know, and then this happened, and the way the person responded to that. And it's the I mean, one of the byproducts of the the head injury when I had the and I fully healed, but when I had the concussion is that I had I lost the ability to filter out background noise. Wow. And so you would go, I couldn't go out. You'd go out to a restaurant, you would hear everything all at the same time. You'd hear someone chewing, the conversation, the clinking of the plates, the chefs in the kitchen. You would just hear all this, and you just don't realize like sound, like noise canceling headphones, your brain is constantly like taking all this information that is just bombarding us and filtering it down to the specifics that you need. Crazy.

Jozlyn Rocki 31:48

That's probably what's happening with me with my husband right now. We've been together for so long, and some of the chewing of certain things. I'm like, can we just not to not to make it humorous, but no?

SPEAKER_00 32:01

My dad, my dad has that same skill. So for somehow, he's able to be deaf to the same frequency that my mom's voice is on right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

You know, they say that's a thing about teenagers too. Teenagers filter out their parents' voices for whatever reason. Like it's a scientifically proven fact.

Jozlyn Rocki 32:16

So brain is amazing. That's probably why we're still married. I need to filter out the chewing. And your parents are married for a long time too. Well, that's so interesting. Wow, that's like crazy. So, like, I find that super cool. That I mean, not that you had a brain injury. I mean, that's not super cool, but it was super cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

It was super cool.

Jozlyn Rocki 32:35

I mean, a negative turned into a positive. I really thrive on that. Like, I love that like whole perspective. You know, you took a negative situation and you like you've, you know, healed and and are thriving and and took it and made it creative. You know, like you said, there are other types of people too. You talked about the different types of people that, you know, go through the healing process with you. And but like there are different types of people out there that also take negative things and just live in the negative and they don't pivot. They don't, they can't because they don't have the skills, they don't have the internal strength, you know, and and that happens. But there are some people out there that just take the negative and try to climb out of the darkness and and spin it or pivot into something positive. So I think that's cool. I dig that.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I learned some good lessons. I tell this to a lot of people. I like because I had the head injury, and then last February I broke this arm pretty badly. So I have like reconstructs with the titanium plate and all the stuff that's in this arm. And I I say to them, like, the best thing you can do, because this shit's gonna come out of nowhere. Yeah, right. You know, you're gonna have something that happens to you, it comes out of nowhere, and the best thing you can do is just be a great patient.

Jozlyn Rocki 33:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

If you are somebody like when I was laying on the ground with this arm broken, and I was riding my bike around the Hollywood reservoir, there's a big track that's up here, and and I hit this manhole cover and I went over my handlebars, and I was I was probably doing about 15 miles an hour, and I landed, and I I hit that ground, and I started screaming my brains out. And um, but but when I hit the manhole cover, I was avoiding this group of like 15 off-duty firefighters that were just jogging. So luckily they were there, and I went over and I'm laying on the ground and I'm just screaming, and the world is throbbing, and I have all these big tough guys just like leaning over me and looking down at me, and I was like, guys, I was like, guys, don't judge me, don't judge me. And if you're fun with all these people, I remember I was joking around with the ambulance guys, and then when you're in with the doctor, you joke around with them, and yeah, you're just a good person. People really want to take care of you, and people really give you the best, and and it keeps your spirits up. Um, because you know, I had to go through physical therapy all year, I can finally do this again. And um, you know, if I could very easily just go like, I can't believe this fucking happened to me, and this is my world. And yeah, I'm only hurting myself.

Jozlyn Rocki 35:13

Yeah. So wow, you must set off a lot of alarms if you're going through the airport.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Yeah, if I die, you can use my arm as like a zombie beating stick because it's you know, get all the screws, get 12 screws in there, you know. Note it.

Jozlyn Rocki 35:28

So, what was um what like going back, like you know, reversing back to like when you were a kid and like the movies that influenced you? You mentioned the Goonies, like you mentioned Indiana Jones. Like, I love Indiana Jones. That's like one of my favorite series ever. I had it on, oh my gosh, yeah, I had a VHS, I had DVD. Um, like what are some other movies that like you can because I was thinking about that. I was like thinking about all the different movies that influenced me as a kid. And Lloyd, I've actually watched a lot more horror films than I thought I had that I did not realize. But like, what is like what are like what are some of the most influential movies, you know, that I mean I I would totally say Indiana Jones is up there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Um, but I was also like a huge diehard fan, I was a huge lethal weapon fan. Yeah. Um, if you're gonna start talking about horror nightmare on Elm Street, I think my favorite horror movie of all time is John Carpenter's the thing, and that is like in my DNA. Yeah, um, you mentioned the shining. I mean, there was a period of time where I would either put the Blade Runner score on or the shining score on when I went to bed at night, and that's how I would fall to sleep.

Jozlyn Rocki 36:36

That's pretty intense. That is very intense.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Gina gets mad at me when I do that. She's just like, What's wrong with you? I'm like, yeah, it's great, man. I'm going to sleep. I'm in the shining world. It's great.

Jozlyn Rocki 36:46

I remember listening, I remember like I was back in the day, we would go to sleepovers, you know, and they would be putting on the slasher movies like Freddie and uh Jason, which is uh, and I would be the one in the laundry room, like, because I didn't have a cell phone, and you know, and that meant I would have to go all the way up the dark stairs to go upstairs to the dark house where the parents were already sleeping to go to the wall phone to maybe call to see if a parent could come get me, and they would say no. And so I would be, and this is like I'm not traumatized or anything, but I would be in the laundry room, like singing Mary had a little lamb, so I could drown out. Cause like I was, I could I just I'm not a big fan of those type of horror movies at all. Like, but I did enjoy The Shining. Um, you know, I remember watching Carrie, you know, I guess like, you know, Stephen King is like what the king of horror. Yeah. So I mean, but I can't, I can only tell you that like a couple Halloweens ago, someone thought it'd be really cute to tie is it the red balloons? What is that? Is that it?

SPEAKER_03 37:45

Yeah, it's outside.

Jozlyn Rocki 37:47

I walked outside my door and I was like, holy hell, who just did this? And I literally for a second was like, what if there's something in there?

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Like I love it. I mean, there's something there's something so fun about it. I think that I think one of the reasons why I got into doing horror is that I've been just constantly chasing and trying to relive how I felt when I was like 13, 14 years old, and I watched uh a bunch of these horror movies, and just how magical, I mean, movies in general can be this way, but just how magical it was to like you know, have a shitty week at school and be terrible at what I was doing, or have awful grades, or you know, spend a whole day doing chores, and then you go down to the basement where we had our TV stuff set up, and you'd shut off all the lights and grab a bowl of popcorn, and then this little box in your room would start glowing, and you'd stick in a VHS or a DVD, and and suddenly outside of the frame of that glowing box, the rest of that world would just sort of stream and melt away. And and now you're in a whole new place. I my favorite part of movies, any movie, I don't care what it is, it could be Step Up Six, or it could be uh Fast and Furious, is the first three minutes of a movie. It's like going over to a stranger's house and being invited in, and you're just looking around and you're taking everything in like weird. You've got like a bunch of expired magazines on your table and like interesting wallpaper choice. And like, what's that smell in here? You know, like all of that stuff happens when you first walk into someone's house, and it's it's exciting because you're using your senses to build exposition, and you're going like, I wonder, oh, that's an interesting picture of her and her grandmother. Where's her grandmother from? And so you're your brain is just firing like crazy, and then you talk to the person, and most of the time you're deciding whether or not the story that you build through that exposition is actually true or not. And then sometimes you're disappointed when you meet somebody and you talk to them, and other times you're surprised, like, really? I saw like the motorcycle boots and the motorcycle jacket, but you're uh a science teacher, weird, you know? So that's the best part of movies for me because I think if it's done correctly, and I think that's kind of the sin of the the whole the new generation has a low attention span, which I think is bullshit. But watching these movies where it's just like high speed, get to the meat, get to the potatoes, you're missing the opportunity for the audience to have that bit where they're staring at the screen and the world melts away and they walk into a stranger's house.

Lloyd Waller 40:40

I have to ask, would you say, as a director, in your opinion, that's the most important part of a movie? That first three minutes?

SPEAKER_00 40:48

I would say this is I'm planning a movie right now, and I keep saying, My job, all we have to do is crush the first five minutes of a movie and nail the last 15 minutes of a movie. Because in between we could fuck it up a bunch of times, as long as the opening grabs you and brings you in and you're excited, and I pay it off in some sort of satisfying way at the end, then at least it'll be a B plus movie, you know.

Jozlyn Rocki 41:19

I would agree with that. I mean, I just we just went to see Project Hail Mary, which is like the you know, the latest, I guess, like it's like science and space, and you know, it's got um aliens. And I remember watching the trailer and I thought, okay, this is intriguing. You know, like I'm interested. My kids might want to go see it. Let's go see it. But I was like, how are they going to get from here to here? And how are they going to introduce the alien? How are they gonna introduce, like, so I was already thinking, like, am I gonna be disappointed? Am I not gonna be disappointed? But I left the movie feeling inspired. I like the comedic twist. You know, I thought, well, I didn't completely buy in on the alien part, but I left feeling like pretty good about it. You know what I'm saying? Like just in it, it was like a and I mean, you can't go wrong with the main character.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

I mean, he's you've got a little, you've got a little Ryan Gosling, and then you've got a cute little rock guy and it likes to listen to pop music and tap a window, you know.

Jozlyn Rocki 42:16

You could put Ryan Gosling in anything, and he's just gonna and it's and and then he's got the charm and the comedic timing, you know what I'm saying? And you know, and he's not like the most amazing looking actor, but he's got just enough, like I don't, you know, like what is that? Like, what is that? What would you say that is? Yeah, maybe he's got he's I don't know, as a director, he's got something, right? Like can you see that in actors?

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Like, yeah, it's funny, man. Like they call it like he's just got the thing, he's got this thing, and then when you I I read an article or I read a blurb from Guillermo del Toro, and he he was trying to explain the formula of what it is. If you look at actors that are successful, there's a couple things. I uh let me try to say this the right way. There's a cut, there's a there's a couple things I noticed. Like moving out here to Hollywood, I'm just under six foot, right? From the East Coast. So I'm a tall guy, and normally I've been in rooms and I'm generally like there's usually if I'm at a party or something, there's like maybe on the east coast, there's like you know, 10 other guys that are probably about eye height, but you come out here to California and you feel you feel like Jelly the Green Giant, you know, you're in bars and you're just like heads are about down to here, and you're just swimming over everything. So actors tend to be short. I'm not saying all are. You have like the Charlie Stones, and which then become troublesome when they are on screen next to Tom Cruise because now you have to have about 40 apple boxes just to make people, but um, they tend to be shorter, and then there's this weird bit where they tend to have heads that are just Little pig, so they slightly larger heads, and then there's something about um what I you know what's fascinating is that I think people think that you're supposed to be perfect, and that like an actor and actress is supposed to be like uh beautiful, gorgeous, and absolutely perfect. But I don't think it's true, especially now. You watch and you look at a lot of the leads, you realize that they have like funky eye placement or like some sort of funky a lot of people like oh, they have like a European look, or there's something interesting and strange. And think about it this way. I was watching um I think it was a Korean movie. I was watching a Korean film, and I was, you know, you go through that whole film, and a lot of those folks are all dressed the same way, and you're just you're going like on a wide shot, like which who's the character? Which character's standing out? Like, how do I know where my main character is? Um, and I think it's the same way when other cultures are watching our films too, where they're like, Who's the most important character? And it goes, Oh, like Adrian Brody, the guy with the big nose, right? He's the lead, or the you know, like yeah, what's her name from uh Furiosa? Um, and she was in the chess series. Forget that actress.

Lloyd Waller 45:17

Uh Anna Taylor Joy.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yeah, like she's the one with like the the Cindy Lou who features and and like the the big eyes. Oh, right, right, right, right. And so I think those features really are the formula for people uh to become leads. And if you look at Ryan, Ryan, Ryan Gosling, he um has a very specific look, but he is all about that, like not shy, but like that sort of I use comedy, yeah, aloof self-deprecating, yeah, but I'm also super cute, and a lot of ladies think I'm hot. But I'm I was the the only boy in uh in the kids' dance troupe of all girls that was the lead dance, like that's the thing, yeah.

Jozlyn Rocki 45:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Um because it's different. I have a lot of actor buddies of mine that are like, you know, open up the Ken doll package, you know what I mean, and you take them out, and they just don't have that thing that you give them in a lineup, and everybody goes, You got that thing, and you go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He stands out, he's there's a trick there.

Jozlyn Rocki 46:22

Yeah, there's like something, there's a little bit of energy, a vibe, maybe like, yeah, something. And it goes for female actors too, or you can see that too. So, so okay, so you have a lot of actor friends, like you've always been behind the camera. So, have you ever thought about going in front of the camera? I mean, because you'd hear about directors, you know. Yeah, actors, directors, directors, actors.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

I'm not an actor, I do go in front of the camera a lot for my podcast. We film our show and we do that kind of thing. Uh, over time you learn in our business that um uh my job is a very social job. Like it, I think when you're younger and you're a little art student and you're like the Tim Burton, like you know, goth kid that like his sketches on the back of his math book, and you just don't get it, you know, and like that whole you eventually realize that when you want to make these movies, you want to do art that requires more than a uh a cup full of paintbrushes, and your paintbrushes are actually people that have maritable marital problems and have all sorts of different things, and you have to convince your paintbrushes to to to paint, you know.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Your job is social, and so then you spend a lot of time learning how to tell a story and captivate people and and um paint a picture visually in the Italian with the hands and the whole thing, all that stuff becomes a piece of it. So, yeah, I often end up in front of the camera for the that reason, but try to get me to mem memorize lines, it goes back to the kid that couldn't read and I had to get comic books. I'm like, draw me a couple pictures, and I'll remember that.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

What about even like like Easter egg, like you know, Stanley's in the background or you know, stuff so I love that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

I would love to, but the problem that I've had is that there's so much for me to do. I know, right? Like, who has for me to do behind like so? If I jump in front of the camera, there's a hole, and I'm like, Wow, someone else is better at this. Get the thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

I like that. Yeah, I like how it is to watch a movie with you for the first time. Is it annoying?

unknown 48:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Because I feel like you have that mind where you're seeing things that other people are not watching for. You're obviously looking at, you know, oh, this camera angle, that guy, you know, came in too fast with that Zoom, or you know, you know, look at the continuity in this one and that one, you know. Like, I'm sure it's probably interesting watching movies next to you. Yeah, you can ask my fiance.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

I think she gets better.

Jozlyn Rocki 48:46

Yeah, she's probably like, uh you even watch movies now, like is it ruined for you? Oh, okay. It's not ruined for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

No, no, no. I love movies. I love I love getting lost in stuff. I think when something does when something annoys me, when something annoys me, it's pretty tough. Like, I'm the worst guy to watch reality TV with. Like if I'm sitting on the couch with you on reality TV and and you know, you're lost in the moment, you're like, oh my God, like that line that they're saying is so real. I go, yeah, but how did they get it from three different angles? Yeah, that meant that they that's not legitimate. There's nothing legitimate about that. Yeah, yeah. That's everybody goes, oh no. And you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the curtain. Get rid of the shit. Yeah, funny.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

I can see that. I actually remember that from high, like from college and taking like a little bit of TV courses. And ever since then, I've looked at TV in different angles and you know, just the way people do things. And I'm just like, that doesn't, you know, I'm sitting next to me is maybe not the most comfortable thing sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

But that that being said, like um, I used to do this a lot back on the East Coast. Um, once a month, I would uh rent out a theater, and then I would hire a uh poster artist to do a movie poster for one of my favorite movies growing up as a kid, and then I was surprised by how many young kids that I had working with me that hadn't seen a lot of the classics. So we would screen, you know, Lethal Weapon 2, or we would screen movies that we loved in this theater, and it was open forum where you can yell and scream, and jokes were made, and and the thing was a lot of fun. So I love, I mean, that's why I make movies. I I love watching movies with people, and I'm I've never been afraid to go watch my own movie. I don't understand directors that are just like, I can't go in there, I can't walk. It's like, dude, what yeah, not only is it the best research and development whether or not your ideas are are working, but you know, what are you doing it for? Like if not for experiencing it with people, yeah.

Jozlyn Rocki 51:03

Right, right, that makes sense. That totally makes sense.

Lloyd Waller 51:06

So you're more of a Kevin Smith than a Steven Spielsberg. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

I would say though, I am a I am a student of the Spielberg more than I am the Kevin Smith. But yeah, I I would I would say that yeah, you can't personality-wise, yeah.

Jozlyn Rocki 51:25

Well, also, too, it's like a good learning lesson. I mean, we all come from voiceover, that's how we all kind of got together. And um, Angela and I are so from radio. So back in the earlier in the conversation, when you mentioned radio, we're both like from radio as well. Um, and it's like, you know, when you hear your own voice, some people are like, oh, I can't listen to it. But you have to, you have to, you have to listen to it over and over and over again because it's a great tool to learn how you're saying something and where you need to inflect and where you need to not inflect. And I will tell you, like, I was watching a um a show with my husband, and and of course, like, you know, there's a the same narration in the beginning of the show every time, and it's this one voice actor, and I'm like, oh, I every single time I'm like, I do not like the way that he says that word. And then my husband's like, you say that every time. But it's like hard not to, you know, it's hard, but I still watch the show, you know. I still listen. Like, can we just skip the intro, please? Like, can we just forward?

SPEAKER_00 52:22

I I mean, I get it, and and it's interesting you guys are talking about voiceover work, and voices are such a voice is such an interesting tool, and the performance of a voice is an interesting tool. And then when you because we all hear ourselves differently in our heads, right? When we speak, we the low tones are bouncing around in our skull, like all of that, we're getting the resonate through through our our eardrums, through our bones, all that stuff is making our voice sound good to us, it makes it sound really great. And then if you watch uh something that someone shot of you on an iPhone with some shitty recording device, you just hear this mids, at least I do. You hear like the mids and maybe a little bit of highs, and you're like, that's not my fucking voice. And it wasn't until I started doing the because I've done my podcast now for like nine years, and once I got behind like a nice microphone, like a sure microphone, and then I just was like dialing in my compression and I built the voice to sound the way the voice actually sounds in my head. So when I listen to the show now, I go, that's me, because that's what I hear.

Jozlyn Rocki 53:35

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Yeah.

Jozlyn Rocki 53:37

Um, yeah, let's talk about your podcast. Yeah. And and wait, I have one question before we move on to that. Um was the voice that you said was not you in your head before you created 12 kilometers, did it sound different?

SPEAKER_00 53:54

No, I mean you know what I'm saying? Like, no, no, no. Here's what's interesting about it. What is your voice? Because okay, here this is an interesting thing because this came out recently where there are people out there who claim not to have an internal voice. Oh, really? Now, does everybody here have an internal voice? Like, and let me put some context into it. It's like you're gonna solve a puzzle, or you've got a day planned ahead of you, and you're running through your list. What do you hear in your head?

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Hear me. I can hear my voice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

Right? Right? Like some sometimes You see what I'm sure, Lloyd.

Lloyd Waller 54:37

I don't look, look, I don't think about this conscientiously. I often I can hear myself in my head if I think about hearing myself in my head. I don't, I don't just like randomly hear myself in my head if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 54:53

What do you hear?

Lloyd Waller 54:56

I uh my thoughts are just weird. I have ADHD and they're all over the place.

Jozlyn Rocki 55:02

I don't necessarily hear a voice either, but like sometimes I will like I I will hear my thoughts, so maybe there is a voice behind it, but like I will answer myself. You know, like I'll answer myself. I'll answer myself. So I must be hearing my internal voice, just not consciously recognizing it. I'll have to think about that again.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Wait, so you don't hear your own tone in your voice? Like when you ask yourself, what do I gotta do today?

Lloyd Waller 55:28

You don't hear your own tone. Now that you're asked now that you're bringing out right out this.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

No, but I'll answer.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Like, you know, you know, it's you know what's fascinating about it is I think that there are the people that have asked themselves that and have registered that. I think once that's presented to you, then and you have to put some sort of voice behind it, some sort of definition behind it. You go, well, of course, it's my own voice, but um, I can only assume that if you've never asked yourself that question, then you've never made that association. It's not like inside of our heads there's another one of us that's like sitting in a corner eating a bag of Doritos going, Hey, you know what you should do today.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

There it's some people, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that so I bring this up to answer your question. It was always my voice. And that's what's scary about it is that imagine you're in a situation where that internal place that you turn to where you go, do these genes look good on me? Or should I call my mother today? Or did I do the right thing when I did this? Or imagine if that voice wasn't you, the person that answered you back wasn't you, but it was disguised as you. And and then who would you become and what decisions would you make in that whole process?

Jozlyn Rocki 56:54

That is a wild. Yeah, that's interesting. That's so cool. That's that's very fun.

Lloyd Waller 56:59

That's what I would do.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

You know what funny is I heard, you know, like sometimes when you have those moments where you're, you know, you're in a bad place and you're talking down on yourself. Um, uh some people were suggesting that you need to name that person. Uh, you know, even if it is, you know, you could hear your own self speaking like, oh, you shouldn't eat that, it's gonna make you fat. You know, like you need to rename that person because that person is not technically your own voice, it's the bad voice. So maybe there are two other it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

I had a friend say the same thing, but differently. Um, and it was uh it was a a guy buddy of mine who's about my age, and we were talking about how at different points in your childhood, you're required to have a specific person inside of you. Well, so let's say that you're putting yourself out there and potentially getting made fun of, you have this person that's inside of you to protect you, whether that person is like telling you, like, no, you're better than them, or you're great, and you're awesome, you've got all this kind of stuff. And he was saying, which is interesting, he was like, we spend so much of our adolescence dependent upon that voice to get us through what it is that we get through. But then as we become adults, sometimes that voice comes back out, and that voice like resonates to anger, or that voice resonates through some bad decision making. And what he does, which I think is really sweet, is he turns to that voice and he goes, Hey man, I know you needed to be there, but I don't need you anymore.

Jozlyn Rocki 58:29

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

I don't need you anymore. So very interesting. That I thought was very, very touching and sweet.

Jozlyn Rocki 58:36

Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna name my anxiety, yeah, and she's gonna have to I don't have to tell her that we don't need each other anymore. Because, like, that's it's like reframing, like you're recreating, you're like, yeah, I like that. I like that. I'll have to figure out what I'm gonna name her. That is very interesting. Um, yeah, that's that's that's wild. You've got me thinking, and we could go down like multiple rabbit holes, but I promise that it would keep us on time. And I want to hear more about your podcast. But let's do let's do the random question really quick. Is that okay? And then I want to hear more about your podcast. So you get to pick a number because this is a fun impro improv style. Um so you just pick a number, any random number. It goes, it goes, there's lots of numbers.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

Yeah, are there? Uh eight. Let's do eight.

Jozlyn Rocki 59:22

Oh, you went, okay. I was already scrolling for like a uh higher number.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

No.

Jozlyn Rocki 59:27

Okay, so this is kind of cool. What item do you hope will be obsolete in 20 years?

SPEAKER_01 59:36

Cell phone. Your cell phone, yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

I think this is like the the destruction of everything that is great about us as a species and about our communication skills, about our imagination, about our power to choose. I think this is hopefully in less time than that, people are gonna look back at us like they do on people that smoke cigarettes every day back in the day and go. Oh yeah. What a bunch of idiots. I hope that's a good one. That's a good one.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:00:09

That is a good one. I remember pagers, you know. Like I remember like the Blackberry, like I remember the phones, like I've been through it all, guys. I mean, uh the bagged phones, like I'm a little bit older than all of you guys. But um, anyways, so Lloyd, you have what what one object? And it's gotta be a quick, remember, it's gotta be the quick answer. Whatever pops in your head.

Lloyd Waller 1:00:33

Well, the first thing I thought was motor vehicles. Oh uh, you know, I would like to be able to teleport without causing destruction to our environment.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:00:43

Oh, that's cool. I love that. Yeah, I like that. Okay, Angela.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

I have no idea. I have no idea. You guys took the good answers. I know, you did. Um things that could be obsolete. Jeez, I have no clue. Um, I don't know. I'm gonna go with cyber trucks. I hate those things. Oh, I do, right?

Jozlyn Rocki 1:01:06

They look like giant metal cockroaches. I don't know. Yeah, okay. All right, I'm with you, Angela. I mean, this I'm gonna, I I would say like um objects, like hard drugs. I know it sounds so okay, like okay, yeah, yeah, just say no to drugs to grow up in that. But like I always say to my kids, like, just stay away from hard drugs. Like, and and like and you know, I don't know. I just, yeah, just say no to drugs. Sure, yes.

Lloyd Waller 1:01:34

That's a great one because drug abuse does not perpetuate itself because people like it. Drug abuse perpetuates itself because people are hurting. And if that's obsolete, then it just means people aren't hurting in the ways that they are now. That's a great one.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:01:54

Great point. Good job. But the natural stuff can stay. It's fine. That's fine. Natural stuff can stay. We can all partake. Um all right, so Mike, tell us about your podcast. I love that you podcast because I obviously love podcasting. So like tell us about your podcast and you know, all the fun ways to find you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:13

I've got uh I've got two shows. My main show is a is a podcast called The Love of the Process. I started it about nine years ago. Um, and I I started it out of a necessity. I had at that time a bunch of fans of mine would write to me uh weekly and ask me simple questions like, how do you run your business? Like, uh, you know, is it okay that it takes this long for my work? And I would spend a lot of time just responding and writing emails. And I realized that it was just inefficient. Like I couldn't get to all the emails, and I went, maybe I should do something different. And I was like, maybe I'll do a podcast. And then I was like, wow, let me go look and see if there's another podcast that's similar. And I looked and I was incredibly surprised that most shows that are about life and work and all this stuff are all processed through what now is an Instagram filter. It is all hype, it is all untrue. And especially in my business, when I grew up, I actually formed business strategies around lies, around stuff that were told to us, like, oh, if you put your head down and you do music videos, then you'll get a feature film. And if you do this, this is how this director did it, you go back and you learn about it, and you go, well, those are just promotional lies on how they advanced. And so I said, look, if I'm gonna do a show, I'm gonna do a show that is completely honest, I'm gonna do a show that actually talks about what is going on. And and I'm very honest with my audience, and I go, look, I'm a director first, so that's what my goal is, and that's what I'm gonna be focused on. But in the meantime, I'll take you with me and I'll take you on my life adventures, and I'll take you and I'll tell you what actually happens and how it actually gets put together. Um, and that show caught fire. It caught fire during COVID because everybody was looking for something, and um, you know, we've got thousands and thousands of listeners all over the world at this point. That's cool. Um, I had a viral moment where on the show I was joking around about 12 kilometers, that movie I made, which was never going to be released to the public, but I would talk about it on the show all the time, and my listeners were like, Where can we see this? How can we see this piece? And I was in a bit of a dick mood that day. And I said on the show, I went, Look, if you send me your three favorite horror movies and I agree with you, then I'll send you a link to see the movie. And this kid did it, and then he made a video that was like, This director is he a genius or is he pretentious? And that went viral. Um that's been viral for years. I literally, my inbox at Instagram has hundreds and thousands of DMs of people's three top horror movies, and I am desperately making my way through them and just responding every other day as best I can. And I've been doing that for a good four and a half years now. Um, so yeah, that's what that show is. And if you like the movie business, it's not all movies because I get bored with it. So I have chefs on, I have firefighters on, I have musicians on the show, anybody that I encounter, because my business allows me to meet some weird people, um actors. So if you want to learn about life and you want to learn about the business and you're looking for a way to uh be better at communicating with people, um, it's a place to go. And with our recent uh news release this week, um, the fact that I am doing my first feature film, uh it's a great time to come listen to the show because you're gonna go for a ride with me on the whole process of making the movie. We'll take the podcast with us and meet the Crew and you'll hear about everything that's happening with the film, and you'll probably hear me turn into a fucking crazy man. Like uh a fun adventure.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:06:09

That's cool. I love that because you're like you're documenting your whole, you know, process from A to Z, which we all love that, like for sure. It's your second podcast is called Is there a second?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:22

There's another show I'm doing with my buddy Lance Williams, who is also an actor. And we started a show called Right Place, Right Time. It's on the same RSS feed. So if you subscribe to and love with the process on Thursdays when we do the episodes, you actually get right place, right time. Um, and that was born from the irritation that we have, where people would say to us, Look, we know you're talented enough, we know you uh deserve this, but you gotta be at the right place, right time. And so I was like, Look, is this bullshit or is this legit? And so then that's how that show started, where we were getting people on the show that had right place, right time moments, and we would break it apart, and we started to find a lot of similarities, and we started to find that there's a bit of a formula to being in the right place, right time, and being able to get that apartment you've always wanted. Like, how do you be that person that's in the elevator that meets uh some guy that changes your life? Like there's a there's a lot of parallels in there.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:07:28

Interesting, very interesting. Oh, yeah, I love that. I love that whole process and concept because I definitely believe in it. I believe that there's the right place, the right time, a little bit of luck is in there, a little bit of magic and luck. Yeah, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

I'll tell you before we go, I'll tell you the the one thing, I'll tell you what is the one thing that works every time for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

What?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:50

Getting off the fucking couch.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

Yep, gotta get out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

It's just no matter what, you and especially out here in LA, it's a it's a it's a it's a problem where people are like, oh, it takes so long to go over the they have a hundred reasons why not to get off the couch. And I always say, if you say yes, have a great time, meet new people, meet new stuff, then hell yeah. If you have a bad time, you experience some weird shit and hell yeah. Like there's no loss. Yeah.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:08:23

I like that. I like that because sometimes a lot of times you walk away from something and you're like, oh, that didn't really sit very well. But you're right. Like it it did. It whatever. It's a mindset. Yeah. You do or you don't. So um Gabby's not here with us tonight, and she always asked the final question, so I'm gonna leave it, I think, up to Angela. Is that you want to ask the final question or Lloyd?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

Lloyd, go for it. You're you're you're this is all your okay.

Lloyd Waller 1:08:48

It's the question I think it is. Yeah, okay. Uh Mike, what is the one thing in your life that you were the most proud of?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:02

What a what a what a what an easy general question.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:07

I'm glad you asked it, because that wasn't the question I had. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

All right, so what is the one thing that I'm the most proud of?

unknown 1:09:16

Man.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

Man. You know.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:09:24

It's a tough one a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

Yeah, I can rephrase the answer a bit. I I don't know if there's one thing that I'm the most proud of, but I can tell you a moment that I felt it. So um I did another movie. I did a um I'll I'll I'll I'll make this brief. I did a a short film, and it required us to shoot um in this old mansion, like this big old mansion on the east coast. And uh Gina found the mansion, we walked in, I somehow convinced this lady to let us shoot there. It was like Guillermo del Toro kind of stuff, you know. It was during the winter, and uh we were shooting and it started to snow outside, so we all got snowed in. We probably got like, you know, three feet of snow. It was ridiculous. And so we we all got snowed in. And when you do uh a small film and a personal film and a short film that isn't financed, um, you're asking favors and you're asking people to take the time, you're asking people to come and not go see their kids for the weekend or for a week and and do this stuff. And you're asking people to go back and be a kid again and fall in love with the reason why they love movies and their obsession, and it's the celebration of everything that we talked about before and why they love to do what it is that they do. And all these people come together because you have an idea. More importantly, they come together because you're passionate about your idea. And so we're in there, and I think I don't know if you guys have been on film sets and you guys know, but you can tell during lunch whether or not the movie sucks. You can tell where like the crew goes, finally, and they all walk away, they grab their food and they disperse and they hide in different corners, and they're sitting on apple boxes and they're on their phone and grumbling and maybe complaining about you. But I was on this set and we dispersed for lunch, and there was this ballroom that we converted into our lunch area with all these tables. We probably had like three or four tables with groups of a bunch of people. And I remember I walk in and I step in and I just look out, and they're all eating, and everybody's laughing, like everybody's laughing and joking, and everybody's having a great, great time, and people are talking about what we just did, and they're excited about what we're doing later on in that afternoon. And I remember I was standing there and I was tearing up, like just looking at all these people, and I didn't feel like, hey, look what I built. I felt like, look what these people are doing for me. And and and you sort of have this moment where you go, Am I earning this? Right? The whole Tom Hanks saving private Ryan, earn this line. Like, am I earning what this is? And um I started to realize at that moment, like, I have to log these moments and I have to really sort of live in them. And so I took it took me a while to get my lunch. I actually stood there and just like a creep watch this room of people enjoying and love their stuff, and it really came to flourish in this week. I I mean, the press release just came out that I'm doing my first feature film, and it's being produced by Ridley Scott. Wow, I directed Blade Runner. So, like, you want to talk about connecting the guy. That's amazing. Wow, it's you've got Liam Hemsworth, he's leading it, and like it's a it's a big deal. And when the press release came out, I had a hundred and change phone calls that day of all these crew people. And I sat there and I went, Look, there are hundreds of people that did hard, beautiful work to make today happen. And so what am I the most proud of? I'm proud of the fact that I was able to find these people and to collaborate with these people and make it into such an important moment for us and the fans and all that kind of stuff.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:13:41

Yeah, that's awesome. I love I love all of that. Yeah, I love all of that. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:47

Big congratulations, man. That's that's amazing. You can follow those little breadcrumbs throughout life and before you know it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:53

It's been a surreal, it's been a very surreal week. 25 years in the making, kind of thing.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:14:00

Yeah, and it's like a journey, you know, like you said, it doesn't happen in like nanoseconds, it takes time, persistency, consistency.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

Yeah, yeah, man. And in that time, what's interesting, I won't ramble. No, it's okay. I know you guys want to wrap this up, but what's interesting is now when I'm because fucking directing and making movies is just being on conference call after conference call after conference call, and you're just in nausea, just trying to answer questions and and take what's in this crazy brain of mine and translate it out of whatever this is, so that they see what's in my brain. That's the hardest part of directing. It's like, how do I take this and communicate it? And all those years of experience now make me a better director than I ever would be because now I've spent years talking to other directors through the podcast and talking to other people through the show and and all this stuff. So when someone asks me a question that could completely derail the project, I don't have to go, uh, I don't know. I I just go, no, this, this, this, this, this, because of all that experience.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:15:04

Yeah, that's awesome. That's gotta be a fantastic moment too when you see what was in your head that you had to get, you know, get out to get other people to agree to do it, and then to see it on the screen.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:17

That's so crazy. And and the thing that's really wild about it, because I'm going through this now, or I'm storyboarding this new movie and I'm concept arting this new movie and doing all my homework for this film, and you have all these different stages, and I will sit down and I'll draw, or I'll render images, and I'll take what is like a loose idea in my head and go, I think this is what the room looks like. And I'll spend like hours and hours and hours, and then suddenly I'll go, Oh shit, here it is. It's like ambers and greens and blues, and here's all this stuff. And I take this excitement and I'll turn and present it to somebody, and they'll go, like, uh, and I go, Oh, what? You don't see it the same way. Oh fuck, I haven't translated this right.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:15:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

All right, and it's just every step of the way. So when you finally see it on the screen, I don't know if it's ever the identical thing that it was originally in here because of all of that, plus everybody's life that has been put into that thing. I think most of the time I'll see something on screen and I'll go, the initial idea is really what I thought it was, but wow, the stuff that this person contributed to this, it's makes this world so new and interesting.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:16:22

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. And it goes back to that collaboration stuff. So I like that. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:28

It's all business.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:16:29

Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much for coming on and hanging out. I'm so glad that uh you're here with us tonight. And I mean, how can anyone get a hold of you? I mean, we gotta do the businessy, we gotta do the business stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:40

Easy peasy, man. Just Instagram is my uh prison. It is where you can communicate to me. So drop me a DM if you want to see 12 kilometers, send me your three favorite horror movies. Oh, um, and then uh follow our shit there, and then you'll get links. I think it's a love of the process.com is all the podcast stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:04

Um, but yeah, man, if you want to go on this this crazy ride, I think we're gonna start shooting the movie in October. So, like that's cool. It's it's going to be nuts. I'm there, man.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:17:16

I'm there. Angel's like, sign me up. Sign me up. I love it. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time and giving us your time tonight. Yeah, that's like that's that's the coolest part that you shared this time with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:29

Awesome conversation, man. And uh thank you. Yeah, like I said, keep in touch, please.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:17:35

Yeah, we're gonna have to listen in on your converse, on your conversations on your other podcast so you can know what's going on. Okay, I'm gonna pause it real quick, but I'm not really pausing it. Uh now is really quick, quick, is Gina your main actress in 12 kilometers? No, she's not.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:51

No, Gina, Gina's my fiance. So Gina is actually uh an amazing director on her own, and she's a great photographer. She just shot, I don't know if you guys saw it, but she did uh Entertainment Weekly's Jesse Buckley cover right before Jesse got the Oscar. Yeah. So Gina, she's a lot of uh Gina.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:18:10

Yeah, did you did you guys meet out in Hollywood or did you guys we met back at home?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:15

So the the story was that um when I was photography, uh, she came on and was suggested to me as an assistant. So she actually came on and was assisting me for year for just for that gig, and then we became good friends, and then we became more than good friends, but I taught her everything that I know, and she was learning from other people, and it's hysterical to watch uh me, who I was doing pretty good back on the East Coast, and then she just goes like her work has been on billboards and Times Square, like crushing. Yeah, and it's been it's actually been the Gina show for like the past three years because she's just been she did like she shot fucking Harrison Fort, like wow crazy, crazy people.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:02

So rock on that's awesome. That's very gene.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:19:05

Can we have Gina on next? Yeah, I was gonna say, could Gina come on?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:19:09

We need girl bosses on her on our show, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:12

She is a current, she is a girl boss, man. She can come to serious though, can we? No, I know.

Lloyd Waller 1:19:17

Yeah, asked a lot of photography questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:23

She'll tell you all sorts of shit, man. She's been doing it for a long time, and working with like some everybody from Disney to pop stars to celebrities to fashion, like Gina has been she's better than I am at communicating with people. She's actually much better than I am.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:19:43

Wow, that's she right there. Are you saying that so she can hear you?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:50

If she wasn't close to earshot, then I'd be like, she's a huge bitch. She doesn't put sentences together. I don't even know if it's English that comes out of her mouth.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:20:00

Get out of here. All right. I'll email you and or Gabby, we'll email you and see if if she and you can ask her and see if see if she really wants to come on. We love to bring on all different kinds of creatives, you know what I'm saying? Because it's all about just I love hearing people's stories, love hearing people's journeys. And um, that's kind of how this evolved into this type of podcast. You know, like we just have a conversation because you can you never know what kind of conversation you're gonna have with all different types of people coming from all different places and spaces and how they got there. We're all in the same, we're all going the same direction. We're just at different levels, you know, and and it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:34

So I'll tell you, but you just don't know. Like I had, man, I've had some really interesting players on my show, and before this movie got going, we had this other film that we were trying to shop around. And this business is so fucking shitty. Where, like, you know, it beats you down to the ground. And I had these guys on the show, I don't know if you know them, but uh Escherman Ian Ian Nelms. So the Nelms brothers directed like there was a Mel Gibson movie called Fat Man, where he played Santa Claus, they did small time crime, but these guys have been doing some movies for quite some time, and they just were coming on the show. I think they came on twice to promote what they were doing. So they would come on and we would talk about their movies, and and you know, like what we do here, we our conversations become really excited and really interesting. And so then when I was going through all sorts of shit, um, those guys were consistently listening to my show, and randomly I got a phone call from them, and they were like, Mike, we want to help you make your first feature. And I was like, Really? And they go, Yeah, yeah. How can we help? What can we do? What are you working on? And so I showed them that film and that script, and they go, This script is amazing. Like, let's see if we can help you find folks. And the next thing you know, they're introducing me to Tom Jane, like the actor Tom Jane. And the next thing you know, I'm getting introduced to somebody else. And so then those guys are just running with me, and I'm and they're doing it because they're like, We'll be we'll be producers on it, but we don't need money, we'll just help you. And so then all that came from that show, and that movie didn't end up going first. This other movie went first, but they called me up yesterday and they were just like, dude, we're so fucking excited, and we're and all of that comes from just great conversations on a podcast.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:22:22

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, a hundred percent. I love that. That's so congratulations again. Yeah, just really like because that's like inspiring for all of us, you know, because it can beat you down, the industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:36

The big trick, the big trick, because I always thought I had my head wrapped around it, right? And you go, oh, the business is gonna be beat the hell out of you, and you go, sure, and you're gonna go through some tough times. You go, sure. And when you think you've you're going through the hardest time that you can go through, it gets worse. Oh and it really does. It gets like it gets to a point where like it really tests you, and and suddenly, like, I'm doing therapy to to handle it. And and so you find yourself in like real dark, dark, dark lows. And then if you surround yourself, thank God for the podcast. But if you surround yourself with people that are great, then friends pick you up, and my buddy Lance, who now we're best buds, but he was like, Let's do something. He pulled me out of my depression. We shot a little film in our backyard, he got nominated for best actor, I won best director at just from that hangout, and so then longevity is the trick. It really is. If you can be passionate about an idea and go, I'm just no matter what, I'm gonna stick with it, and life's gonna come at you with all sorts of shit, death, birth, craziness, all that's gonna be true. If you can still just go like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, then all your competition when they confront death, life, death, they're gonna drop out, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop. As long as you're just walking straight, um, eventually, and you do your work, eventually your shot will come, eventually you'll have your opportunity. Longevity.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:11

Yeah, this is exactly why we don't stop the recording. Yeah, you're right.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:24:17

I'll have to like edit some things and add that in because uh, yeah, that's that's true, that's true, Angela. That that was gold right there. That was like a golden nugget for sure. We got to keep that one in.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:31

It's the truth, man. Like, you just don't think about it until like, dude, until like deadline puts out an article that like in the same goddamn sentence, it's like Mike Petchy's directing a movie being written by Will Simmons, the guy who called me from 12 kilometers. It's being written rice, Will Simmons and produced by Ridley Scott. And you just go, What is going on? I just wake up into today.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:24:59

Yeah. You're in the right timeline, man. Yeah. You are in the right timeline. Very good, very good. Well, thank you. Thank you, thank you. And we'll be in touch. And um, yeah, and look out for more emails to come.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:14

Yeah, man.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:25:15

I'm gonna go make some hot dogs, I guess, apparently, for my kids. Like I gotta feed people and watch dogs.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:25

I know that they arrived in my fridge when my husband went to the grocery store, and I was like, I like how you said they arrived in my fridge, like there's some sort of interdimensional portal. It was like every Saturday, some sort of food item just appears in your fridge, and now you know Lloyd's gonna jump in your refrigerator to see if he can teleport.

Lloyd Waller 1:25:46

We're both in the same time zone right now.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:25:48

So figure it out.

Lloyd Waller 1:25:52

Awesome.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:25:52

We are in the same time zone. You guys are once, whoa, for once. For once.

Lloyd Waller 1:25:58

So seven o'clock tomorrow morning.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:26:01

All right. Well, you guys, it's nice to see you, Lloyd. And did you have one more thing you wanted to say? Or no?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:06

Oh, no.

Jozlyn Rocki 1:26:07

No, okay, all right. I know you gotta get back to your sister, Mike. You gotta get back to your fiance. Angela, you gotta get back to killing spiders or not killing spiders. Right. I'm gonna go make some hot dogs. All right, bye. I'm so good to see you. Bye. Have a good day. You too. Bye. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:24

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