Podcast, Film, and Filmmaking Journey

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Obrother podcast , with hosts Dan and Mike Smith , brothers from the same mother with different opinions , movies , tv , video games or more , plus celebrity interviews . Get ready , it's set , it's time for the Obrother podcast . So welcome to the Obrother podcast column . We appreciate you being here and congratulations on the gesture . Thank you very much . Now I got to ask you Are you ? Because I'm in , I'm in central Florida , I'm in Orlando area and Mike , no , yeah , now .

Speaker 1 0:41

You know , don't scold me for not being out there at the at the premiere last night at City Walk , but are you a local guy ? Yes , you are okay . I was trying to kind of piece that together and I couldn't quite kind of nail it down and kind of looking up . You know , before when we were researching for the for the interview with you Now I got to ask you . So last night was was that the first screening of the film ?

Speaker 2 1:06

It was the first screening with people who actually paid money to watch .

Speaker 1 1:12

That must have been a thrill .

Speaker 3 1:14

You get into the background and stuff how to go .

Speaker 2 1:17

It was a lot of friends and family , so it was probably the most positive receptions of the movie that I'm going to get , where afterwards , you know , grandma and mom and dad come up and they say it was very good and so it was a lot of that and so I felt really good at the end of the night .

Speaker 1 1:35

That's high praise you know , I hate that . When you say that too because Mike and I have talked about that with some other art artists on the on the show is it's a very vulnerable kind of position to be in , right once you you've got this kind of baby that you've raised and you kind of release it out to world like we can't completely relate to that part of it . But you know that that's gotta be a it's gotta be an interesting thing to go through . I would think no , you are .

Speaker 2 2:04

You are absolutely correct . It is a very , very vulnerable thing and I realized last night it's even more vulnerable when these people that are finally seeing the movie have heard you talking about the process of making it for the past year . So it's like , well , everything that I've been telling them . Now they're gonna see what it was all for and I hope it's not a , not a disappointment . And there's something that happens Internally to you , or you know , I've seen the gesture feature , you know a thousand times now . I know how it ends .

Speaker 2 2:35

And the second you , when you're watching it within an audience that has nothing to do with the movie , that wasn't a part of the making of it , they're seeing it with fresh eyes . For the first time , you don't even have to get to certain parts of the movie . The second that movie starts playing and you're sitting among All these people that are seeing for the first time . You in your brain see every problem In the movie . For the rest of the 90 minutes You're just like , oh my god , none of this , none of this is working , none of this is gonna work . I've seen it a thousand times . And suddenly You're seeing it through their eyes and you're seeing all of these new kind of Things that that surprisingly work , and then things that you Dread , dreadfully , become aware of don't work .

Speaker 3 3:20

And this started as Shorts right , yeah , the shorts Related to the movie or the shorts completely a separate thing . The shorts , for the most part , are a completely separate thing .

Speaker 2 3:35

The shorts themselves are pretty much separate from each other , which was a difficulty because we wanted to stop making Jester shorts . Uh , so we we were like let's end it with three . But how do you end an anthology ? Like how do you end something that the first two have nothing to do with one another ? So we just make a third one that also has nothing to do with the first two and then that's the big finale .

Speaker 2 3:59

Like I don't know , just that was its own challenge . And then we had talked for years Just idly , and I never really Serious enough to be able to do anything , but I think Seriously considered it . Just because so many people asked , like what would a jester Movie be like ? Like , if we made a jester feature , what would that be ? And we always end the conversation by saying it would never work , we could never make a jester feature film . Like thinking about the , the shorts alone . Like the jester was made for the short film format . We intended him to be kind of like an urban legend On on screens , like the , the creepy reddit posts or you know campfire stories or whatever . Uh , gets you off with that kind of like creepy urban legend , horror stuff . Like we wanted the jester to kind of fit in that , in that tone and uh , it's just like how do you sustain that for 90 minutes without Making it feel like sam from trick-or-treat or something like that , you know ?

Speaker 2 5:03

it's uh and then , when you get the call and somebody who's like I'm a real guy and I want you guys to make a jester feature film , what do you say ? And you say yes .

Speaker 1 5:14

Right , that's the right answer , we'll figure it out Right . Well , you know , if you don't mind . So , like , what we like to do is kind of go back a little bit and sort of get First your origin story and then kind of , you know , come back around to the jester sort of like how did you get , how did you get into To filmmaking and sort of what's that background ?

Speaker 2 5:35

It was one of those weird things were like as a kid , I always loved movies , which is like a cliche for every filmmaker to say is you know , as a kid I love movies .

Speaker 2 5:45

I was somebody who loved watching behind the scenes of movies just as much as the movies themselves . And there was something that was like when I was a kid and I learned that they would build Inside sound stages to make it look like the outside . It like blew my mind , you know , just like it's real life magic what they do , and it didn't diminish the effect that the movies had on me . It only made me appreciate them more and I never for years Considered making it a career . It was always just I like movies and I actually wanted to go and be an audio engineer and I didn't really know why it was . It was one of those things . We were just like yeah , you know , I play guitar , I like music , so why don't I do that ?

Speaker 2 6:30

But I , movies were what I was interested in , and it wasn't until I made a , a short film in high school on an iPod touch with a friend of mine and set it together with a Windows movie maker and it was . That was it . I was just like , oh , I like this , whatever this is , I like this . How can I do more of this ? And I changed . I was set to go into a technical school for , uh , audio engineering after high school and , at the last minute , switched to filmmaking because I realized , like I love it , why don't I do what I love rather than the thing that's going to be a job ? So , yeah , I I'm glad that I did that and it's it's . You have to be passionate , you know you have to be . The filmmaking is impossible , making movies at any level , at any budget is impossible .

Speaker 1 7:30

Now the schooling was . That was that in florida .

Speaker 2 7:34

Yeah , there was the first institute . This is where Mike and . I met .

Speaker 1 7:41

Okay . And now Michael Sheffield you're talking about who is your co-writer , right ? And so now do you and Michael go back to the origin of the shorts , which I think that kicks off like in 2016 . Is that right ? When the first short for the gesture comes up ? Okay ?

Speaker 2 8:00

First short is 2016 . And everything I've made I've made with Mike that goes back to like 2013, . I think was the first thing that we made together . So more fun . Yeah , I know 10 years later we get to do this and that was that was such a , such a relief . When you know they , I get the call and the offer to make the gesture and then they say , oh , and that guy who was in it , you know you can bring him to because he was good as the gesture . It's like , yeah , I was going to , I was going to do that anyway . Like there is no , there is no gesture without him and I would have collaborated with him on the story , like regardless of whether he was , he was part of the production or not .

Speaker 2 8:42

Like yeah , that's your having a having a partner that you trust creatively , like that is important , and somebody that you can look at at a certain point and say it's kind of a shit idea , right , and they go yeah , and and like , finding what doesn't work is is , I think , maybe more important than trying to find the right thing that does .

Speaker 1 9:03

Yeah , you need that honesty for sure , that's true . And now , so for those that don't know , mike plays a pretty significant role in this film . Yeah , he is the man behind the mask , correct ?

Speaker 2 9:16

Yeah .

Speaker 1 9:18

He's the title of the film really yeah .

Speaker 3 9:20

And you know one thing he's very meticulous . You know hat just right he's always fixing his gloves , it's high , you know , and he's filthy and I didn't know if you did that on purpose . That dichotomy of this guy that's really kind of ragged but is always adjusting everything you know , just yeah .

Speaker 2 9:45

Yeah , the , the . I wish I had a more like inspirational , a creatively inspirational story about how we develop the costume and everything , but I like the . The truth , which is we got it on sale in the shorts , the mask we bought from a Walgreens for $6 . And then we went to a spirit Halloween and we went to the clearance rack and they had that solid orange suit and I was , I remember , asking the guy who worked there . I was like it's just so orange , like do you guys have something that's not so orange ? And he did like the laziest but most effective sales tactic that completely worked on me . He was like no , it's clearance , so that's all we got . But I mean , you know , orange is like Halloween . And I was like you're right , that's true .

Speaker 1 10:35

So we take it , I'll take it .

Speaker 2 10:37

I'll take it . The the it was . It was so orange to me that I was . I wanted to break up the orange and not make it look so loud . So the way that we the thing we came up with was let's dirty it up , let's kind of break up that orange with a lot of grit and grime and make it look like he's been living and wearing the suit for years . And it's one of those things where , like , you can see the jester from a distance and he looks like a guy who's you know dressed super nice and wearing a suit and he's got the mask and everything . And then you get closer and you see , oh , the suit is dirty and his neck is all kind of fucked up , like there's something wrong with this guy upon closer inspection and it is just more of that . Like , what is what is more interesting and more interesting suit is one that's dirty and not completely clean . So always , always going with the more interesting and especially the weirder choice , because we always said just make the jester weird .

Speaker 1 11:37

I love that story about the , the costume and that hope . I mean it's just , you think of Halloween , right ? It's like the captain Kirk mask and boo .

Speaker 2 11:46

Yeah .

Speaker 1 11:47

Do a little . It's no different . And now it you know it .

Speaker 2 11:50

Let's hope it becomes as iconic as that you know well , let's put them in a top hat and in the shorts we got the the top is hat that we could find .

Speaker 1 11:57

Very tall , but for the most part the look is is a remain the same , really , yeah .

Speaker 2 12:03

I really wanted to not change the look as much as possible and if we could get away with using the mask in the future I would have . But you know we didn't . We didn't make the mask . We don't own it so we can't use it . But it that gave us the opportunity to make it our own and we got . Somehow . We got Jason Baker to make the new jester mask in the movie , who is like the coolest , and the guy who made the grabber mask in the black phone . He does a lot of wrestler masks and everything like .

Speaker 2 12:33

It's like oh oh , that guy's going to do the yeah sure , Like , what's , what's that going to look like ? And so getting to see his concept art and everything and talk about the changes that we wanted to make , it was no , it was incredible .

Speaker 3 12:47

Why jester ? Because when Dan said his name's Colin , I said Hmm , must be European , because it's in like Shakespeare and not a lot of gestures in American literature or whatever . So where did you come up with , you know , using a jester Walgreens .

Speaker 2 13:09

That was the name of the mask on the tag was jester masks . So we were like , ah , he's the jester and that's it . I wish I could say that there was some underlying meaning . But it is , you know , it's , it's , it's like it just , it's like we didn't even think about it . It was just . We called him the jester because that's what he was .

Speaker 2 13:28

And it's something that I heard in a commentary Lee Wanel say for the invisible man when he's talking about like you don't always go into a project like fully having like subtext and theme and things like that fully nailed down . Sometimes you find that stuff along the way and finding what the jester was along , we didn't . We didn't go into it with the idea that , like he mocks people you know , like gestures did back then they were the only ones who could mock and not be ordered dead by a king or something Like right , that's what the jester does . And he humiliates people Like that's that's kind of his , his tactic . And then the feature expanded that by he's not just humiliating you , he's finding the , the one thing that you don't like the most about you and he kind of picks at that . Oh , that's a perfect .

Speaker 1 14:21

Yeah , I think that comes through in the film for sure . That's a perfect description

Create Character, Find Support From Eduardo Sanchez

Speaker 1 14:25

of it . Yeah , was the idea of the character already fully fleshed out , you know ? In other words , like the mask that just helps you put the skin on a character that you'd already developed and had the idea about . You know what was the idea of that character itself ?

Speaker 2 14:45

We had made , I think , maybe two horror shorts prior to the jester . We were like every year for Halloween we would try to make a horror short , which meant , you know , we decided to start shooting on October 25th and then wonder why we couldn't get it out on YouTube by the 31st . But the , the two horror shorts I think that we had made before the jester was creep and on my way and they're both kind of had similar antagonists in that they are like maniacal and brutal and like animalistic and psychopathic and and we're , you know , we're wearing masks and things like that . And the masks was a way that we could reuse the same actors for multiple roles , which is why we did it in on my way .

Speaker 2 15:35

But for this one , I think the main intention was let's just , I don't want to do that again .

Speaker 2 15:41

I don't want to do like the reptilian brain guy who just like runs at you with an implement and wants to beat you to death . Like I want somebody who is so in control of the situation and like three steps ahead and there is something . You might not know what it is , but there is something working inside of him that you are not privy to . You know some logic that he is following , and I think the thing that sells the first short and what made me love the idea the most was the very last shot of the first short is him performing the same trick for new people and then he lets them go because they react differently to it and it's like we don't know what the rules of the gesture are . But we know there are rules and that's enough for me . You know to know that he operates by a certain kind of standard that he has set for himself or his own internal morals , and that's so much more interesting than what we were doing before .

Speaker 3 16:38

We talked about that specifically when the kid comes up to him trick or treat and he does this little you know trick for him and put his bag , and we both of us were like why didn't he just waste those kids ?

Speaker 2 16:54

Yeah , and I think that is . For me , that is part of what makes the gesture . So it can make him scary , but to me it just makes him more fun . And interesting is that he is unpredictable . There are some slashers where you know they are just bulldozers . They come into the room and they're gonna hack and slash whoever crosses their path , and it's just , and there are absolutely times where that's the movie you wanna watch , but we wanted to do something different and there was a moment in the is it the 2018 Halloween ? The David Gordon Green one ?

Speaker 2 17:34

so it was 2018 , right , that came out . Does that nice long there it is . Yeah , that one . It was a nice long tracking shot of Mike over . He's walking through the neighborhood and he kills a few people in that tracking shot . But the most interesting part of that shot for me is where he there's that gut-churning moment where you hear a baby crying in the living room and Michael walks up to the cradle that the baby is in and he looks down at the baby and he considers it for a moment and then he moves on and it's like you don't know what Michael was thinking , but there is a reason that he didn't kill the baby , and it's so interesting that he didn't , that he isn't just brutalizing every single thing there are .

Speaker 2 18:17

you never know if you're gonna be the kid that he just grabs by the shoulders and then lets run away , or if you're gonna be the guy brains with a hammer . It's , it's- .

Speaker 1 18:25

Yeah , yeah , that's a great point . It's the unpredictability that makes it kind of more terrifying , really , when you think about it .

Speaker 2 18:33

Yeah , it hopefully makes each interaction interesting , because you never know if he is gonna waste those kids or if he's gonna just kinda . Is he gonna waste them in a way that's like like he would an adult , or is he gonna just kind of traumatize them , but in a kid friendly ?

Speaker 1 18:49

way . Yeah , well , for the record , he should have wasted the one kid , but that's for another , that's for another episode .

Speaker 2 18:54

Yeah , he should have .

Speaker 1 18:55

Shouldn't he ? He had it coming . You know , can you talk to us a little bit about how ? So Eduardo Sanchez , who executive produced the film , right , how do you get connected with him ? And what's interesting , because I know he's got Florida roots University of Central Florida , obviously famous for the Blair Witch Project but how do you guys get connected on this project ?

Speaker 2 19:26

It really was just through Epic Pictures . Epic are who contacted me and asked me if I wanted to make the feature , and then they were in partnership with Cinematic Productions , which is a Maryland based production company . They're kind of the boots on the ground that make the feature with me and Ed is associated with them . So luckily , ed , I would say like the idea enough that he supported it . And when you have the support of the guy who , kind of you know , changed the face of independent filmmaking forever in the late nineties , I'll take it .

Speaker 1 20:06

Especially for this genre for sure . And you know you mentioned the Maryland thing . So that's what I was wondering about , because from the very first shot of the

Filming Locations and Casting Process

Speaker 1 20:14

film I said , oh my God , that's Carol Creek in Frederick , maryland , where I lived . I lived calling there for 12 years .

Speaker 2 20:23

Wow , so you have lived in both places that all the gesture stuff's been shot Central Florida and Frederick , Maryland .

Speaker 1 20:30

Yeah , now , okay , so I wanted to ask about and I'm wondering if it's like Claremont area or something , but yeah , clearly , patrick Street , south Market , all that , which is a great location to film . It looked beautiful on film the forest . So you know this big whole sequence you have with this in this forest kind of setting . Where was that at ? At this harvest festival , this Halloween celebration ? Where was that ? Was that in Florida ?

Speaker 2 20:58

No , that was everything in the feature was shot in Maryland , in Maryland , and that was at Markov's Markov's Haunted Forest .

Speaker 1 21:06

Oh , so legitimately . Oh right , Okay say I wasn't as familiar with that , yeah .

Speaker 2 21:11

And this was . It's like 40 minutes south maybe from Frederick .

Speaker 1 21:17

Okay .

Speaker 2 21:18

Okay .

Speaker 1 21:19

Yeah , and this you . This was last fall right that you were filming up there .

Speaker 2 21:26

Yeah , end of October into early November . It was three weeks . Perfect time for this .

Speaker 1 21:33

Yeah , perfect time for this , yeah .

Speaker 3 21:35

You know , speaking of locations , was the convenience store ? Was that located in Maryland , or was that a set ?

Speaker 2 21:44

Yeah , everything , with the exception of the forest festival stuff , everything was shot in Frederick .

Speaker 3 21:51

My favorite sequence was in the convenience store , for a couple of reasons . I thought the two cops were really good . They were like you just grabbed two cops and said , hey , just stand there and do your thing , yeah , but it was the way you move the jester , like there wasn't jump scares , he would just kind of appear and you'd move him around in ways . I couldn't quite figure out how you moved him without the set moving , or if you did it with just the camera , or was Michael just ducking down and you know , crawling , or what ?

Speaker 2 22:33

Is there a specific cause in the convenience store scene ? I can think of two moments where the jester moves in kind of a weird way and one of them where he's doing like the kind of the shark fin thing down the aisles . Yeah , I didn't know what the hell was going on . I just told , like I told Mike , what the thing that I wanted to do was . I was like I just want to see like the top of his head , his hat , like going down the aisles and everything , and then call action and then it's like he's . It's like he's like riding a shopping cart or something .

Speaker 2 23:02

Like he's just perfectly smooth and I was like what the hell is he doing back there ? And he was just just rolling his feet just walking . So that's all , mike . And then for the other shot , which is the cops are kind of confronting the jester and tell him to take off his mask and everything , and he walks off to the side and then walks into frame and appears behind Emma . Yeah , that was a double , so I had I requested somebody be on set that has a similar build to Mike .

Speaker 3 23:33

Right and that we had a spare suit .

Speaker 2 23:37

Really , all we needed was the pants .

Speaker 3 23:39

See that I didn't want to give that movie magic away .

Speaker 2 23:43

But you know , I was it was so fast . I knew that it's all about the timing and the blocking and trying to shoot it in a way that's like , yeah , it's a I mean we all know probably what's happening , but just make it look interesting . At least you know we're a super low budget movie , so Nothing's going to be a surprise . How do they do it ?

Speaker 3 24:08

It's just like well , that was me . I was trying to figure out how you did it . I thought the aisle in the convenience store whipped around . You can build sets that do anything now , but like you said , it's a low budget . Yeah , Do it .

Speaker 2 24:29

It was a tight space . It was very cramped in that convenience store . So I'm glad that you enjoyed that sequence . That is , I was hoping it would be fun .

Speaker 1 24:40

Yeah , I'm not sure it's . A couple of times I'm like who's creepier ? Is it the jester of this guy that runs the convenience store ? I mean yeah .

Speaker 2 24:47

It's like yeah , you know what he shot his shot and it didn't work out .

Speaker 1 24:53

No , it did not work out . So how does the casting work in a film like this ? Is there just kind of a casting call of some sorts that happens , or how does that come together ?

Speaker 2 25:01

Yeah , it's a lot of , because I was just sent the kind of filtered self-tapes that were . I wasn't getting all of them , I was getting the ones that they chose . But yeah , they're putting up casting notices , they're reaching out to contacts that they have locally with theaters and things like that People that they know and have worked with before . There was not , unfortunately , time or money to do a lot of unset pre-production so when writing the script I kept all the locations very generic and all the actions in those locations very basic in the script , because I didn't know where they would be taking place , what places we'd be able to access when shooting and some things would have to change and the convenience store figuring out what that blocking would be in such a tight space . But yeah , it was getting self-tapes from actors and my little Excel spreadsheet that I made were ranking but just picking my favorites who I wanted for each role , which I guess is ranking . But yeah , everything was done remotely .

Speaker 3 26:19

You got lucky with the two young women . I thought they were both really good yeah .

Speaker 1 26:25

Is it Layla

Filming Process and Movie Release Discussion

Speaker 1 26:25

Simington or Lelya , because I'm putt Lelya , ok , because I was afraid of her . And then you get Matt Servito , of course , because as soon as I saw that I'm like OK , from Sopranos fame , that must have been a blast to work with him .

Speaker 2 26:40

Yeah , he , like Carlo , is one of the producers on the film . I had maybe a mutual contact , I think , and sent him the script as like just let me know what you think of this kind of thing , With no expectation because he is an in-demand , busy working actor , and no expectation that he was going to even respond . And he ended up responding and saying , like I like this idea , I want to play John , and it's like what ?

Speaker 1 27:07

OK , you're John , then yeah , ok .

Speaker 2 27:10

Sure , come on in , he like on set , you know he shows up and it's like you can't help but be so grateful that it's . You're just like yeah , sorry I have to stick in this barn , but like we got a heater and stuff for you here and thanks for coming and working on this project with us . But he was so just like I love making stuff at this level because it is like this , like you're not in a green room , you're in a barn in the woods and it's just , it's a production that's fueled by passion .

Speaker 2 27:39

So it's a it gets a little more chaotic , but it's a little more interesting and moves a lot faster than because we have to move a lot faster than bigger productions . But he's , he's a big goofball on set until the cameras start rolling and then he starts delivering . You know words that you wrote and you just go like , oh , this guy's a real actor yeah , like .

Speaker 1 28:02

So this is legitimate , like you know . Yeah , wow .

Speaker 2 28:05

It's almost like he's making these words sound pretty good .

Speaker 1 28:08

Yeah , I'd love to . I loved him in the Sopranos . He was great in that . I got to say , too , this you've got one of the greatest loglines of any film , like now you see me , now you die . I mean , come on , that's just like the best .

Speaker 2 28:21

Yeah , let's chalk that up to . I think somebody from marketing came up with that . I did not come up with that .

Speaker 1 28:27

No , that's good , that's good stuff . So this is coming out on the 3rd of October , which , depending on when you know the interview gets released , to be right around that time . So , and then it's hitting . It's hitting physical media on the 7th of November , is that right ?

Speaker 2 28:42

Yep .

Speaker 1 28:43

Okay .

Speaker 3 28:43

So you can have a .

Speaker 2 28:44

I'm excited because I get a blu-ray of my movie on my shelf , which is great . It's amazing .

Speaker 1 28:48

Now , Mike , as you can tell , yeah , because see Mike wants to know immediately are there going to be any extras on the disc ?

Speaker 2 28:56

No , there was no time to get extras out , but I will be trying to do . I will be trying to put some extras of what I can up on our YouTube channel so that you know there is something . There was just no time to actually get it on the physical disc .

Speaker 3 29:14

Make sure you have Michael teach us how to do the gesture jig , as I've named it .

Speaker 2 29:20

You know the dance .

Speaker 3 29:21

Yeah , the dance .

Speaker 2 29:22

Yeah , he almost rolled his ankle doing that . No , Mike , Did he really ? Yeah , apparently because the graveyards are full of holes in the ground . I guess that's where they keep the bodies .

Speaker 1 29:34

Yeah , I was wondering about . I was actually going to ask you about the cemetery , so special permissions you need to .

Speaker 2 29:41

Yeah , yeah , we got permits and permissions for all of our shooting locations .

Speaker 1 29:46

Yeah , I figured as much , but that's the .

Speaker 2 29:50

Mount , all of it , the Olivia cemetery , oh yeah okay , right , right , right . Where Francis Cahki is buried , and it is enormous . It's a huge cemetery , so we got to shoot in the old part , which I prefer it because the older headstones just look more interesting . You know , some of them have been there for 100 years .

Speaker 1 30:15

Yeah , Incredible . You must have been pleased with the location up there . I mean , there's some pretty nice spaces up there to film . Yeah , and again for those that are into this , so the technical piece of it , like what did you film this with ? It's just , I mean , super HD , 4K , like whatever . However you shot this , it looks fantastic yeah .

Speaker 2 30:36

I had a lot of long conversation with Joe Davidson , our DP , before we started shooting and we were trying to figure out what the look was gonna be . And you know , there were talks about like maybe we'll be able to like rent anamorphic lenses or something like that , and I had said like .

Speaker 2 30:55

I don't think this is an anamorphic movie . I think and my fear is , you know , I don't want to be accused , in making a low budget movie , doing all the tricks to make it not feel like a low budget movie . So we shoot anamorphic when in this kind of movie there's no need to shoot in that ultra wide format . It's just to make it look legitimate , and that would be the only reason to do it . Shooting with drones or things like that , it's like we're just trying to like manufacture production value without actually having it serve any other purpose . So I wanted to shoot in 185 because I missed that format I like when movies are in .

Speaker 2 31:30

my favorite movie , jurassic Park , is in that format and Knives Out . That came out . Looks amazing and that's in 185 .

Speaker 2 31:38

So there's just there's something about something that fills the whole screen that I just missed on you know R169 TVs . So I wanted a 185 film and I wanted to do film emulation . So we shot with you know kind of diffusion filters on the lenses . We shot with the red epic helium 8K camera there were . We had two of those and yeah , one was one was kind of reserved for keeping on the steady camera rig to save us time If we ever needed to get a steady cam shot and then a couple scenes that were . We wanted a little bit more coverage because of certain circumstances , like when Markovs was open for the one night that we shot to get the kind of the crowd in there when JC and her friends go in . That was two cameras just to make sure you know we're covering all our bases and everything .

Speaker 2 32:36

But it's amazing , coming from you know , kind of shooting your own short films with your own money , everybody's showing up for free and you're running out into the street to shoot something and didn't ask anybody to suddenly have locations Like we get to shoot in a bar , we get to shoot in a store , like these things are awesome to be able to do , and like to watch Joe and Jamie our gaffer light the inside of a convenience store . It was so fascinating to me . I like that stuff is not lost on me , so every part of the process shooting with the gear , having somebody able to record audio on set is a privilege for me . So it's just like all these people are here to help me Like it was . Yeah , you get imposter syndrome pretty frequently .

Speaker 1 33:38

Well , now you got a couple of other screenings coming up . Don't you get like a West Coast ? What would ? There's a few others ? Aren't there scheduled ?

Speaker 2 33:45

Yeah , tomorrow , the 29th , at the Lemley in LA , the gesture is going to be screening , I believe for a week . Oh nice , yeah , and then in Maryland it'll have a screening and that's where we'll all be all the casting crew on the 8th October , 8th .

Speaker 1 34:07

Oh nice , That'll be nice Instead of being around .

Speaker 3 34:10

I see the Universal shirt . Are you going to be at Spooky Empire this weekend ?

Speaker 2 34:19

No , I'm not going to be at Spooky Empire this weekend .

Speaker 1 34:22

Well , not this weekend , Mike .

Speaker 2 34:24

Well , I've got my You're hitting the bottle again .

Speaker 1 34:26

Yeah , it's at the end of October . It's at the end of October , yeah .

Speaker 2 34:29

There's no plans on that right now .

Speaker 1 34:31

I think the focus .

Speaker 2 34:33

I've just been trying to keep up with all the release stuff and getting the movie out . So we'll see what happens with all the Well once the movie's out . Well , I'm terrified . No , well , yeah .

Speaker 1 34:49

Like we said at the top , it's kind of that moment of Did you like that ? Yeah , it's also the beginning .

Speaker 3 34:56

This is your first full feature . It's going to be exciting . I'm sure you have ideas and having a good partner like Michael yeah .

Speaker 2 35:10

And it's , it's a start . I love being able to hear Like last night it's screened here and finally being able to hear what people think of it , because , as somebody who you feel like you're too inside of it , where it's like you made the shorts and then you write the feature and then you shoot the feature and then you edit the feature and you give notes on the sound for the feature and all this stuff , and all you can see at a certain point is an assembly of parts you see , and then you are hyper aware of all the parts that are missing , all the parts that are broken , and it's like looking , it's like standing an inch away from a painting . I can't see the whole thing anymore . I can see everything that makes it up , I can see all the mistakes . I can't see it as a one piece though , it's just you're too close to it . So it's . I really like hearing what people say about it and my question is always was it like a real movie though ? Like , did it feel like a real movie ?

Speaker 1 36:25

So yeah , it's scary that you're first thing come out and I think , if I think about some posts that I saw on maybe your account or it might have been , dredd put it out but it's the one where she says we did a thing , yeah , yeah , I mean , but it's a big deal . And you go back to your saying at the very beginning about how just your initial interest and movie making and how that happens in the behind the scenes , and now you're in that group .

Speaker 3 36:59

In 20 years from now , you're going to look back and you're going to be like the jester . That's what started it all . So , yeah , it's all about Walgreens , man .

Speaker 1 37:09

It's all about Walgreens . Yeah , if you need inspiration for your next big thing .

Speaker 2 37:12

Just stop by your local Walgreens and take a look inside . Now you said you mentioned Jurassic Park .

Speaker 1 37:19

So before we , let you go you mentioned Jurassic Park . We do like to kind of

Top Five Films and Filmmaking Joy

Speaker 1 37:24

get every guess we have on . We try to get their top five films . So not to put you on the spot but could you ramble off what your top five films would be ? Five is a good thing .

Speaker 2 37:39

I don't like the favorite film or top three questions , but five is like , gives you some room to pick some favorite films . I think for me it is like what are my favorite films . Right , it's not what I think are objectively the best films of all time . Right , what my favorites are and the ones that made me want to do what I want to do . And yeah , jurassic Park is number one . I think it's out of my control because it's just and it came out the same year I was born .

Speaker 2 38:16

So I feel connected to it in that way . But yeah , jurassic Park made me love what goes into making movies . Raiders of the Lost Ark and really all three of the original Indiana Jones trilogy made me love movies and Jurassic Park made me love making movies . So Raiders is definitely up there Back to the Future . It's just storytelling Chaws Alien .

Speaker 2 38:44

Alien has introduced me to like atmosphere Like that's a movie that like maybe kind of like fucked me up a little bit and that like my cozy movies now are like Stevan and Zodiac and it's like movies that are just like ooh , warm little blankets and I can put that on when it's raining and just have a lovely evening and they're like grotesque and terrible . But yeah , alien .

Speaker 1 39:12

Alien is like a perfect horror movie for me that's a great way to round it out . What about the Chaws Horror movie , or not a horror movie ?

Speaker 2 39:22

Chaws is just a man . Chaws is like it has horror elements to it . Sure , but I just like hanging out with those guys , like I like hanging out with those characters . I wanna like live on that island , I just like . That's kind of it's definitely a big conversation we had in making the Jester is do we want these characters to be fodder which is what you get sometimes in horror movies , and that's fine , that definitely has its place or do we want to care about these characters so that we don't ?

Speaker 2 40:01

want something bad to happen to them when it does . And I think , yeah , chaws is definitely one of those movies where , like you , don't want any of those guys to get chomped and there's so many lessons to learn from Chaws , the presence of the shark is , for me , it's the whole movie and it's barely in it . You know that's right .

Speaker 3 40:21

I don't know if a lot of people have seen it , but John's a good movie Very good . We used to review on it well , probably a year or so and we forgot just how good it was . Yeah , jurassic Park . When I saw that in the theater , I remember I don't know if I was with you , dan , or probably someone else , because you were too young but I remember saying you can do anything now on film . That was the film that made me believe that you could dinosaurs exist .

Speaker 1 40:55

Yeah .

Speaker 3 40:56

That's amazing stuff yeah .

Speaker 2 40:58

I wish I could have experienced that . You know , because in the original release trailer , I think , for Jurassic Park they didn't show any dinosaurs . Correct , you had to go to the theater to see them and people were In the way they revealed it .

Speaker 3 41:13

you see everybody's neck crane upward and their eyes popping out of their head and he still , he teases you by showing you them , yeah , and it finally turns it on the dinosaurs and you're even more blown away .

Speaker 1 41:30

Yeah , just the mere suggestion of it . Yeah , yeah , yeah , exactly .

Speaker 2 41:34

Suggestions , teasing , wonder . These are things that I think a lot of movies don't have anymore . A lot of drama is lost in moments like that . The first time you see something in a movie should be a moment , and there's not a lot of moments anymore .

Speaker 1 41:50

Yeah , we need more filmmakers like you . Bringing it back to basics . You know the fundamentals , you know , so where can people fall as well ? Because they want to continue to track your work as you're going through Well .

Speaker 2 42:04

I think the most active place I am on social media is Instagram , column K93 . And otherwise , any work that we're going to post is going to be on our YouTube channel , make 2 Entertainment . That's where you can see all those other three Jester shorts . Oh good , and any of our other short films too , where you can comment on those and say you want another Jester film , like everybody does , so yeah , Make 2 . Entertainment and just search my name , I'll pop up .

Speaker 3 42:39

Well that's great , so enjoy the next week yeah . The next couple of weeks and , you know , don't forget to take time to enjoy it . Don't be so critical , just have fun , you know .

Speaker 2 42:52

Yeah , I was definitely reminding myself of that last night , for sure .

Speaker 1 42:56

Well , Colin , it's been a great talk . I do appreciate you coming on the podcast to chat a little bit . Yeah , and again congratulations on the Jester out October 3rd video on demand . And then we get that physical media on the 7th of November . So I know Mike will be grabbing that .

Speaker 2 43:13

Yeah , bring back physical media . I mean , it's not .

Speaker 1 43:16

Yeah , that's not even like a that's not even a 16th of Mike's collection back then .

Speaker 3 43:20

Yeah , I've got , I'm 360 .

Speaker 2 43:25

Thousands . I'm a physical media guy too , so Good , we love our discs .

Speaker 1 43:30

Yep , well , colin , thanks again . We hope to talk to you again sometime soon .

Speaker 2 43:34

Yeah , absolutely .

Speaker 1 43:35

Thank you guys . All right , take care , see ya . Bye .