Anna 0:25

All right. Welcome to the podcast. We have Kyle and Adam Bova is back on. Kyle, what's your last name? I should

Kiel 0:32

know your last name. It's Orton. So it's Irish like Tarleton. It's Oh, okay.

Anna 0:38

Oh, okay. I'm not gonna try and say that and mess it up, but

Adam 0:42

Th Thor.

Kent 0:42

Thorton.

Kiel 0:43

Thorton. Yeah. There you go. Thorton. You got it. All right.

Anna 0:48

Right. And he is director of a place called Home. And we've got Adam Bova back on. He has been on the podcast before talking about the film, and now I believe it's available in theaters and or streaming. And, I mean, let us know how we can watch it. We're gonna, we're gonna kind of touch base again.

Adam 1:07

Yeah, it's available now on pretty much every single streaming platform except Netflix. cuz it is a rental at the moment. 3 99.

Kiel 1:17

Yeah, it depends on the platform, but it's rental usually.

Adam 1:21

so you can see it on Amazon, apple tv, voodoo, I know I'm missing like a half

Kiel 1:28

dozen. A lot of satellite things are available too, and if you, if you're like me and actually like physical hard copies, you can buy DVDs of it too. What's a, yeah, Walmart Best Buy and Barnes and Noble I think are the three. I'm a huge,

Kent 1:40

I'm a huge believer in proponent of physical media. Yeah. I still think it looks better than streaming. Yes, I think it sounds better than streaming. I don't know what happens to sound. No matter how good your internet. I love Blu-Rays. I like Criterion Collection movies. Yes. I, I like all that stuff.

Kiel 1:57

So, and then there're conversation pieces on a bookshelf when people come over. It's like looking at books, right? You get to know people. Yeah, that's true. I'm not

Kent 2:03

like, can you turn on your subscriptions and

Kiel 2:05

can I look at your watch history, comedy?

Anna 2:13

No, that's good. I actually watched the film today. and I really loved it. It was great. So, oh, thanks. You guys have a lot to be proud of. well,

2:22

thank

Adam 2:22

you. At work, did you cry? I got really

Anna 2:26

close. I did get emotional. I was taking care of my own babies while I watched it some of the time, so that Oh, yeah. Added to the experience,

Kiel 2:33

Oh, I bet. Yeah. We, we had, I mean I've had a bunch of people that have told me like, oh my gosh, I didn't expect it to be whatever. But, the baby in the film is now like a toddler. She's three now, and her mom had not had a chance to see the movie, so she sat down and watched the movie and at some point throughout the movie, the three-year-old woke up and it was like this really surreal experience of like seeing her baby in this movie and then her baby in real life now being three, which was really cool. Wow. That is cool.

Kent 3:04

We were just working on the edit of our film and our three-year-old was sitting on her on Anna's lap and was like, oh, that's, That's me, but the baby. But the, but the baby me, like, it was like this weird like self realization and everything. So yeah, honestly, like I was, I've been reviewing our edit as we're locking in and just this last couple days and then I was watching your guys' film and I was like, oh, this is about as much like intense domestic drama as I can take in one day. Like, I don't know if I can keep, like, cuz it got real intense and I was like, ah, shoot. Like I'm not, I don't know if I can handle this right now.

Kiel 3:40

very similar. You can't watch them every day. You gotta, you gotta yourself.

Kent 3:45

Yeah, no, it's, but they leave you feeling more whole, you know, there's, there's a, there's a difference between wholesomeness and sort of sterileness and Yeah. And this, I, I felt like this was a film that actually wanted to, do something for someone, to do something for the audience. It's actually serving them in a way that I think sometimes our films are like, giving us what we want, but not actually doing anything good for us. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, no,

Kiel 4:11

that's something from pretty early on, from pretty early on we talked about, like, we hoped that at, by the end of it, it at least made you go and hug your family maybe a second time. Right? Right. On those like, like if you, especially you have kids and you're putting 'em to bed, or you have a significant other and you, you know, do the good night or whatever. You're like, you know what, I'm gonna take the extra second and do the extra hug just in case, because you know, unfortunately life is fleeting. You never know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anna 4:37

So, Kyle, you wrote this as well as directed it. Yeah. Where did this story come from? Is this based in any personal experiences or is this. what, what book did

Kiel 4:46

you write it? Well, kind of, it was really macab while I was writing it So I started writing it while I was still, in film school and I was working full-time, so I was writing in the evenings and I started writing it really shortly after my second daughter was born. Mm-hmm. And so it became really macab because a lot of times, I'm sure you guys have experienced this too, people will say, oh, well write what you know. And I think as filmmakers sometimes we take that really like to the letter and just go, oh, my mo my life is a movie then and I'll just write my life. And that's not always the case. Right. So I wanted to incorporate a few things that I felt like I really did know intrinsically, which is growing up in the south and being a dad, growing up in the rural south and being a dad. And so then I mixed those together and my second daughter had just been born when I initially got the idea. And we played around a couple with a few drafts. There was a draft where the mother made it and the baby didn't. For a little while, which would've been a very different movie. yeah. And then only went through like maybe draft one or two. And then it was one night, it was really late and I woke up, it's gonna, this is gonna sound super cliche, but I really did. I woke up out of a dream, it was like two 30 in the morning. I went downstairs and I'm just typing away. My wife wakes up, she's like, what are you doing? Look, I have an idea. I know where I need to go. So, so some of it was absolutely my experiences and Levi really is, there's some of me in there. There's some of, a lot of other people I know, other people that were in, the area that I grew up with kind of melded together into this person. and then it just started really exploring that family dynamic. I love exploring family dynamics. Families are so unique, they're so different all across the world. and I really like sitting down and just kind of picking those apart and what would happen if this and this and this and this and this. And then the further that it got in the process, the harder it. it became to write, because it started to, I had to start pulling from personal experiences of, you know, what would I do? Like, how would I go to sleep at night? That's a really big theme of the film is going to sleep at night. Well, if you're used to having somebody with you, what is that like now? Because it seems like something, something very simple, but it's really not, it's really complicated. so it was a combination of a few different things mixed with a few things that I felt like I really knew. and then enough separation to say it's a story, right? So it's not, I'm not Levi by any means, right? Because I don't think that would've worked well for my mental health. but it was, you know, separated enough that I could look at it and go, this is the story through these lenses that I'm putting in front of them.

Kent 7:17

Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver talks about the metaphor. Close enough that there's a spark. If it's on top, if the, if the positive and negative are on top of each other, it won't work. And if they're too far away from each other, but you've gotta get it just close enough that he's like, I basically just put my angsty 20 something year old in a taxi in New York City and like, just wrote the most just self-destructive version of myself. And then like, I was able to like, walk away from it, you know, and not live that out. But, but not that that's exactly what you did, but, but that's a, it's an interesting approach. I wonder, so I feel like you were, you were really going for a sense of like authentic, portrayal of domesticity with Levi and his daughters and his, some other, familial relationships that were in the movie. did you do any preparation in terms of, because I've had an experience of depicting in a short. It was really a homework assignment, someone losing their spouse mm-hmm. And, and I actually showed it in a class, and that professor had lost his spouse to cancer, which was like, made me really question my smartness in terms of selection of material. And I was like, wow, that was stupid. But, but he, he immediately called me out and just said like, oh, the actor missed the mark here. Like, you, like that either wasn't the take or that wasn't the right direction, or it just wasn't the right performance. But like, someone who got this news in this moment would not respond exactly in this way. And I, and it, it was when he said that, that I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. He would know. Yeah. I mean, did you do any, like talking to people or, or, or did you just kind of take it from like, what would, what, what do I think I would experience

Kiel 8:53

or do? No, I did, I did a lot of conversations with people and what I tried to do. So there were, there were a couple key stories that I didn't talk to these people directly, but that I knew about that went through something similar. And I found, you know, news articles, stuff where they had maybe written about, I read a couple books on, you know, losing loved ones, especially like losing spouses when you have children and things like that. But I had a couple conversations which really interesting about people who had lost spouses and were removed from it, 20 years, 15 years removed on it. And reflecting back on what that scenario was, right? What were the things that stuck out to them? Because if you take somebody that's really fresh in the moment, they're gonna say everything is important, right? You take somebody that's 20, 30 years, they're like, this was important and this was important and this was important. And after I had those conversations, one of the big changes that was. I think on draft three going into four, draft four was kind of the first like blueprint of like, this is it, right? And then everything else past that was just tweaks. But the big change going from three to four was to put the space, the gap of time between the loss of the mother and where we pick back up in the story. Cuz a few months have passed in between as soon as she's gone and there. And that was for a couple reasons, but the really biggest one being that everyone's experience that I had talked to or read about were wildly different in those first like two to three months. And I didn't want somebody to look at that, that maybe would connect to this story and go, that's not true, because that's not my experience. And because it's so traumatic, they feel like that experience is everyone's experience. So by separating it a little bit, that couple month timeframe, once we pick back up in the story, we don't have to deal with the messy fallout of the initial, right? So we can kind of save some of that emotional stuff for later. And then it can be Levi's experience. And, and it's that recovery experience of just getting used to life moving on. Mm-hmm. and although this wasn't during the film, I had talked to somebody, we've now moved and we live in another state, and I, while we've been there, there's a person that we know that her husband just all of a sudden passed away. and she has a teenager, a pre-teen and like a 10 year old somewhere in that realm. Mm-hmm. And, talked to her about the movie and she's like, I can't watch it. You know, da da da da da. That's not, you know, cuz it's really fresh for her. Mm-hmm. But, I was explaining some of the things that kind of happened in the movie. She's like, we can talk about it, but like, I don't wanna watch it. And somebody brought it up to her like, you should see this thing. She was like, I don't wanna watch this thing Right, right. You know, from her being really fresh, she's like, I think that the things that you are nailing are accurate to what's happening because she was living in that moment that like two to three months after it has happened and it just, Understanding that life moves on. You gotta get back in that rhythm. You gotta figure out, yeah, you probably dealt with some stuff, but there's some things that you're not dealing with yet. Right. And they were approaching going into Thanksgiving. Yeah. And all of a sudden the first Thanksgiving where dad's not there, what do you do? How does, how do your kids react to that? How do you react to that? so yeah, I did a good amount of research. I'm still very interested to hear what other people's opinions on it are, because I'd like to know, you know, how close was it to the mark? How far away was it? What did you feel about it? Especially somebody who has dealt with something very similar to this. Yeah.

Anna 12:11

Hmm. I think you handled it really well. I mean, not being someone who I thinks evidence experienced it, but think it's evident that you did your homework. Yeah. I mean, I related to it. I think even just the idea of like raising young kids and financial difficulties, I actually think is something that so many people experience and our film's about, that it's a young family financial crisis, very similar. So it's interesting to watch yours and I was like, wow, we must have a lot in common with Kyle But I think that that experience is common. It's, it's something a lot of people can relate to, but we don't see it portrayed.

Adam 12:45

Well, I think it's also common to our generation and yeah. You know, we're starting to see that generation of millennial filmmakers, get into positions where we can make films about us for us. and, you're seeing, you know, just a whole new side I think, of storytelling, just from everything that we've experienced and we've had to go through.

Kent 13:07

so that's, so I I have a really follow up question. I don't know. No, go ahead. Go ahead. So we had a professor of ours, I'll just say this openly, in full of transparency. one of our professors straight up said that she hated it. Our movie not Oh really? Yes. and, that's just to your point, Adam, about this millennial like depiction of, parenthood. And I, and I just got this sense that this was a woman who was like, look, I've been through divorce. I've been through like raising kids alone. I mean, she's been through so much more than I, I think I have so much respect for this woman's opinion of our film because she's watching this mom have a hard time and she's like, suck it up, you know, And so her perspective is like this, like, you know, about a generation up mm-hmm. a more advanced, and she's been through some stuff where it's like, oh, it's hard to listen to kids cry. You know, it's like, nah. Yeah, okay. Like, whatever. And so I think that, I don't know if it's just a, what has your guys' experience been with your film in terms of audiences that are, and, and your film is, I think, more deeply situated in like, Kentucky, the South? there's like a very rural, yeah. Lifestyle in the sense that like, incomes are really low, but so are, I mean, relatively speaking, they so are expenses, like the numbers they even throw around in the movie, I feel like they talk numbers where it's like, yeah, he doesn't live in downtown Atlanta. He's not living in New York City. You know what I mean? Like, it's very evident that it's like, oh yeah, like what's your mortgage? 900 a month? You know? And, and, and it's like, it's, and that's, that's, it's just a different way of life. So I'm just wondering how does it, how did this film resonate with, if you guys have, you know, been privy? with older audiences.

Kiel 14:45

Well, I did hear back from some of 'em, it's funny that you say 900 a month because when we film this, you know, inflation has happened. Right. It's, it's continuing to happen. That 900 a month is definitely not none hundred a month anymore. Right. If we filmed,

Adam 14:58

just to remind, just to remind your audience, we did film this in 2019 before the pandemic, before the housing just like blew up all over the place. That wasn't even a blip on our radar at that point,

Kent 15:11

so Yeah. Right. It's become people's reality even more though, even though the number times sounds silly.

Kiel 15:16

Yeah, and, and we've had some other people that have shared stuff. You know about the financial difficulty that feels like it's in this film because it's so much more evident and in our society now that it's mm-hmm. everything is more expensive. I'm raising kids, let me tell you that grocery bill man is a tough pill to swallow when you're, you know, so it's, it's all these things. So I think part of that is really captivating in, in this particular story is that it is challenging, right? Our lead, Ben Gavin, he laughed. Once he got partway through the film, he kind of get some of his money situations resolved for a second, and the first thing he does is buy pizza. And he's like, why would this guy do that? And I'm like, because he just wants to love somebody. And he's like, it's just pizza. It's not a big deal. But now, you know, you go out to eat a couple times, it's, it's kind of a deal and, you know, breaks the budget. But the response that I have heard, obviously I haven't heard from everybody, but I have heard from a couple people who are a generation or two past us, have been positive and connected with it. And part of that could be because it's that lens of the south. I wanted to put a lens of it on there because I wanted to, not only am I, you know, connected to the south, but like there's a little bit of style and a little bit of flair that can add onto that because you don't see a lot of films set in the rural south. They do exist, but you don't see that that many. Right. but specifically I had, a, a couple that are, you know, two, two and a half generations passed me that watched it, both loved it, and these two people have dealt with, losing some of their family members and then raising their grandchildren. Mm-hmm. And for them to then go. I loved it, you know, for the wife to be like, I cried my eyes out, I couldn't stop. You know? That to me obviously makes you feel good, cuz you did what you wanted to do, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like that was, that was really good and positive, reaffirmation of, you know, what we were trying to do. And I can remember a couple different conversations that I overheard at a film festival I can think of, I can think of three at three different film festivals where it was somebody who was a good maybe 15, 20 years older than I that were, you know, she obviously was kind of cleaning herself up. and they're having a conversation about, you know, what do we, you know, this, this was so good. What would we do if we, you know, lost each other? Obviously they're a little bit more moved on, but they still connected to it. so, so far I've heard that, I mean, I'm sure, the only negative one that I've. from somebody who's a little bit more removed from us is that somebody was like, I can't believe how much language was in it. And I don't feel like there's that much language, but there definitely is some, I mean, it's meant to be an adult film. and we tried to market it and, and sell it in such a way letting people know, Hey, this is, you know, it's, it's got the morality that you probably are looking for, but it's wrapped in a package of being very serious and very adult. It's not a Hallmark movie, right? Mm-hmm. it's, it's, it's an adult Hallmark movie. so I, I think that's probably the one that I've heard most recently was like, I can't believe the language. but that was probably, you can't please ever, you should recommend Hacksaw Ridge

Kent 18:15

to them for their

Kiel 18:16

next Yes. Oh, you're right. I, Anna, I think you hit it on the head, especially when you're talking about your film, is that any filmmaker going into this, you have to know you will not please everyone. Yeah. Period. It will not happen. You're probably not gonna please 75%. I think, I think if you please 60, you're doing something right, because not everybody's gonna be into your thing. Not everybody liked pick the, your favorite movie you saw in the last two to three years. Not everyone like that. There's probably people you know that don't like that movie. I don't wanna watch that. Right. I've almost

Kent 18:51

found that like anything above 90% on Rotten Tomatoes I don't like anymore. And like, and it's like the ones that are in like the seventies now are starting to be my prime spot. It's the

Anna 19:02

ones that are so controversial, they're, they're like,

Kent 19:03

either they're just love it or heated. They're personal enough and they're artistic enough that there's people that are like, this rubbed me wrong. And it's like, because it, it had to elicit an emotional response and it wasn't this perfectly calculated movie made by a committee coming out of like Marvel Studios or something where it's like, oh, well what's there? Not like, it's like Exactly. Which is like, what's there. Work with, you know, like, it's like there's nothing to dislike. So it's this perfect, like, wholesome thing, but it's not even wholesome. I would say San Sanitized is, is the problem. And so the that, that's my experience with the script, man, that I've been tr trying to write for a little bit now, and I finally just had to come to the conclusion. Everyone but me is gonna hate this film. That's the only, that's the only thing I could do to like get myself into a head space where I was just like, I've just gotta let go of it. Like everyone but me is gonna hate it and I'm gonna write it anyway and I'm gonna make it anyway. And in the end, Someone's gonna thank me for it. You know, someone, it's

Anna 20:00

a tricky balance. It's a tricky balance. I think you have to make something that you wanna see like that you legitimately like. Yeah. And tell me your thoughts to, Kyle and Adam, but I, I also think you have to balance that we've done rigorous testing with ours. I don't know if you guys did any like of that process. and we had to, you know, get to a point where it's like, all right, it's averaging pretty good and, you know, no one's ever going to be like all tens all around. But

Kent 20:24

our first test screening audience was an audience of one who happened to be

Adam 20:28

Adam

Anna 20:31

That's true. That was our

Kiel 20:32

very first test score. I think it got a pretty score. Yeah, it probably, yeah. Needed a low

Anna 20:37

score. It was a totally different film, but,

Kent 20:40

Yeah.

Adam 20:40

I think Kyle's right, you can't focus on

Kiel 20:45

You

Adam 20:45

gotta put it out there that you're only going to please, you know, 60 to 70% of the audience, and then you have to stop worrying about that 30%. They're not important. you know, there's going to be somebody out there who's willing to buy your idea, who's going to be willing to put money behind it. you just have to keep on looking for that person. You just have to keep on knocking on doors. You just have to keep on pushing it. You will find your 60%. you just gotta keep looking for it. and I think that's the important thing to, to kind of remember. as you know, you're a filmmaker going through this, whether you're writing or you're, you know, actually in production or in test screenings. you know, you, I think you guys said it, you, you just, you have to write what you want. You, you have to create what you want to see. and you will find that there are others out there that are wanting to see that same. Yeah.

Kent 21:38

Yeah. I'm, I'm trying to remember the movie. It was like, I listened to the interview with the producer of Alien, I think it was, I think it was Alien. Oh. And they tested it up in like Minnesota or something, and it just bombed, it bombed so bad in the test screening that like, all the producers were like on the plane, and they were like, what are we gonna do? All right, let's start looking at scenes that we're gonna have to chop. Like, it's just gonna be a flop. Like, we thought we had something here. Like, we thought it was really good. And then they went to Texas and screened it, and it was like a raging success. Like, people were just losing their minds in the theaters. People were screaming, people were shouting, and like, it was just like a smash. And they were just like, oh, maybe, maybe it's not so bad. Like, it's just like And it's like, it's the same movie and you just get this group of people together and, and it's, yeah. It's just a, it's a funny thing and maybe it was the weather that day, you know, it's just, you don't know.

Kiel 22:28

Yeah. David Sandberg, which is, the Shazam director. Yeah. And like now he has a really good, it's like eight to 10 minute YouTube video that he's animated about test screenings. Yeah. And screening. And it's so well thought out. I mean, obviously he's coming from, you know, a bigger, a more robust budget area, right. Dealing with DC mm-hmm. and things like that. But I think so much of it is true that you're right. Depends on the weather. And if you're doing test screenings with people online, it's okay. Did they have their phone out? Did somebody, you know, they do, they have kids. Did somebody wake up halfway through and they had to go and deal with that and they come back and go, wait, where was I? Did they watch it Monday morning before to work? Or did they sit down, grab popcorn, turn the lights off and watch it with their spouse? Because those screening experience are wildly different. but we absolutely did some screenings. they were all online cuz we were doing it in the midst of Covid. So we did not get a face-to-face screening. So many of the things that we got, we just missed out on face-to-face but, what we were really looking for is patterns, right? We were just looking for those pattern moments. Was this an issue? Was this an issue? and there were some, there were a few that were patterns that nothing egregious, but like, I would like some more clarity on this. Oh, you know, 11 other people said this exact same thing from the screening. Okay. There might be something here. Yeah. and taking some of that into account as, as much as we could, for the film. and I, I think it did make it better ultimately, but it didn't change a lot. It changed some small things, but it didn't change like massive waves of things, like I'm sure what the film is. Yeah. Right. It, it is what it is, right. We're not dealing with, I can't go back and do reshoots, right. We're an independent small production on an ultra low budget scale. It is what it is at the end of the day. And yeah, the scary part is eventually you have to just go. All right. Y'all watch it and I can't touch it ever again. and I'm at that point now. We're, we can never touch it again. It's done. It's out there.

Anna 24:18

Yeah. How long has it been, the whole process from start

Kiel 24:21

to end? I started writing, well, my daughter was born and she's six now, so There you go. Okay. So that was the writing process. Yeah. the writing process took a little bit of time. Mm-hmm. And then, I hate talking about Covid, but Covid did slow us down because that was all in our post-production. We did at one point. I'm so thankful we didn't, but at one point we really talked about shooting the summer of 2020 to have an extra, you know, year to get our pre-production done. Mm-hmm. that would've been height of Covid, so I'm very glad we didn't, because then that would've pushed, you know, even further beyond. So, but I mean, yeah, it's. I started writing when she was born. So it's been about six years now at this point. Yeah. Wow.

Kent 24:59

So for filmmakers like us, we're like, especially these initial films. This is your first feature film, right, Kyle? Yep. Yeah. Well, it takes a long time to get these movies made, man. It's like, I like listen to, Ryan Johnson, director of, yeah, LA The Last Jedi Knives Out, yada yada. And, his, his lifelong DP Steve Edlin, they were best friends in college and they've worked together on every film. Steve Edlin talks about, like, you know, you, you go to school and you're like a dp. You go to LA and you just start shooting movies. You know, you just start picking up gigs and you just hop on projects and, and he says, and then like six years, your friend who graduated as a director. It's like, Hey, I'm gonna make my first thing, like, you know, yep. I'm gonna make this movie. And he's like, he's like, at that point, and he's like, I was like commanding, like a decent Dave raid as a dp, but it's like his best friend. So his producer's like, wait, this guy said he'll do this movie for you for like a hundred bucks a day. And he is like, yeah. And he is like, well do it, man. Like, and, and yeah. And so, like, you know, for so many people, actors, dps, why it, it just takes a ton of commitment, I think, for directors to be like, I don't really just, it's not like, oh, I'll make my passion project in three months because I'll just take this one for the money. It's like, I'm gonna make a film and I'm just gonna have to say, you basically have to say, I'll just, I'll just work on this for as long as it takes until it exists, you know? Yeah. So why, you do this one? Why did you tell this story? And you could have probably, you probably had a shelf of ideas, I'm assuming.

Kiel 26:30

Sure. But this one really stuck out because when I was writing it, I wanted to write a story that I felt like could be done if we had nothing, if we had no resources. Right. And so the story that I wrote was that story. It was a place called home, which could have been done for nothing. It would've taken longer. It wouldn't have been as good, you know, I wouldn't have got to make some of the contact, we wouldn't have gotten probably any of our amazing cast. and so that was where it came from, was that necessity of nothing. We got a little bit, to be able to do something with it, but I just made a really big, I, I'm kind of coming to the consensus that I realized this chapter is now closing in my life. And I made a really big post and I was thinking, you know, through conversations I had early on with, and there was one in particular that was me. It was Adam, our other producer, Nathan Banister, and our director of photography here of our music. And early on we all sat down and went, this is gonna be a marathon. And it's been, it really has been. It's, it's been even longer than I thought it would be. And there's so many projects that go through it that maybe they do get done. and then they don't know where to go from there. Or maybe they go through a few festivals and they're like, well, crap, what do I do now? And we just made a, we just made a commitment early on that we were gonna go, okay, look, if we wanna make other things and we've gotta prove that we can take this one through through the ringer, you gotta pay your dues, right? Mm-hmm. for me, in this particular story, it rings true to so many things that I believe that I believe there is a really big emphasis that we can put on family, whatever family looks like to you. And family looks very different to everybody else, right? And I think that that's the most intrinsically important thing to humanity is our family, right? How we grow up, what we're raised with, things like that. And I wanted to tell that story, and then the fact that I could film it because we filmed it in my hometown. and, and I grew up in an area that, you know, my hometown. I remember getting our first stoplight when I was 16. It's the only stoplight that's still in this, in that town, Wow. So, that to me was really important to be able to, to put that lens on my first project where I realized that I wanted to make movies. did I think it was gonna take six years? No. I really thought it was gonna be like a two to three process, but it's just not the case. I don't have, you know, we don't have a huge studio backing us. We don't have a huge PR team backing us, anything like that. So it's, it's gotta be us. We have to hustle for. if I opened up a business today, it's not gonna make money in a year. Right, right. It's gonna take time to get that stuff going.

Adam 28:58

I mean, even, even after we got done with, our, most of our film festivals were in 2022, right? Yes, Kyle. Yeah. So most of our film festivals were in 2022. Welcome to

Kiel 29:10

2023, by the way. Everybody New Year. but I mean, I can remember,

Adam 29:17

you know, Kyle and I are both, professors at college so for this last spring and fall semester, you know, we've been trading emails back and forth and I've been working on getting contracts all together and making sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and that people actually signed them. those of you who are currently in production that may be listening to this, those signatures at the bottom do matter so make sure you get those. you know, just going through all this list of stuff that the distributor needs in order to legally be able to distribute this film. and you know, it wasn't until what, October, November that we finally got like everything done and turned in.

Kiel 30:03

I think it was, I think it was early November. Yeah. Yeah. It was Thanksgiving for sure. Yeah. But just barely

Anna 30:12

now I've heard that from a lot of people that that can be a beast. what happens if you don't have something

Kiel 30:18

Just, well, it depends on what that something is, I would, you know, imagine if it's, you know, how big of an effect is it gonna have? Is it your lead? Never signed their contract? Okay. Well that's, that might be a deal breaker, right? Yeah. or maybe it's something that you have to go, just have to go back and get. There was, I remember one thing that I had to go back and get, from somebody else that we had the verbal, we had the written agreement, but we just didn't have the thing signed. Right. and so much of it is just making sure that you have all. Ducks in a row. if you don't have something, it's gonna depend on how important that something is. you're like, darn it, I

Anna 30:53

don't, I didn't keep the receipt for that lamp. And now now we can't sell it.

Kiel 30:59

Well, I mean like, yeah. I mean obviously something like, that's not a big deal. But

Kent 31:02

I mean, like, I mean, you listen to like someone like, Australian commercial director of Mark Toya, who talked about making his little movie for like a million dollars of his own money And he says, you know, something that's not gonna break the bank, make us lose sleep. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's nice. Yeah. And, yeah, and, and he, but he talks about like, these YouTubers making great content out there, and they're making like some really impressive stuff. And there, there are people out there that are making like remarkable looking, sounding well produced, high-end stuff, and they're throwing it on YouTube and just to command, like, audience, you know, just to pull an audience in sponsorship. And he's like, and then you go and you make this movie for like a million dollars. You put your heart and soul into it. He say, you go throw it. And like some German distributors, like, well, there's a dead pixel at this time code, the AI found it. And he's just like,

Kiel 31:49

who cares? Like, I just don't, yeah.

Kent 31:51

It's have you experienced anything like that where your distributor's like, oh, I need this thing. And you're just like, look, if you need that, just forget it. Like, have you, like, have you run into anything like that?

Adam 32:01

Nothing quite like that you had, oh gosh. How many exports did you wind

Kiel 32:08

up going through? Oh man. So we did have to go through quality check. So there's a, you know, a tertiary company. There is a quality check to make sure everything's good. So that way when Apple gets it or whatever, you know, goes where it needs to go. And we had some sound issues that, somewhere along the lines, we had to go through all the quality check stuff. and at some point along the lines, and I'm sure that I did it. We messed up our audio somewhere and I didn't notice it. Mm-hmm. And so I had to go back to our sound designer, who was, is an amazing sound designer out of, off the East Coast, Randy Field who just had the original stems, went back and redid it. but there was one that was kind of funny and it reminded me of Jurassic Park, cuz there's kind of a famous thing in Jurassic Park with a velo raptor. But there's a, a moment in the film where there's a visual effect of a combine, a corn combine, and for some reason it just disappears for a frame and then comes right back in and we didn't notice it. Right? Mm-hmm. And so that, we had to go back and we had to fix it. it wasn't okay to let that go through. Mm-hmm. in Jurassic Park, there's a scene where the transverse Rex is eating Velos Raptor. And the very first export of the film that went to the theaters, the Velos Raptor, just disappears for a frame. Nobody knows why. Oh yeah, yeah. they fixed it since they've fixed it since. But so there was like that where it's like, hey, if the quality check company says this has to be fixed, then this has to be fixed. Yeah. Sound was a big issue. The combine probably not a huge issue, but obviously we had to go back and then fix that.

Anna 33:30

And what otherwise, how is the process of distribution been for you? Do you feel like it's gonna make its money back or it has made its money back or you, you know, what's that been like?

Kiel 33:41

Adam and I just both had different, very different responses. I don't know. You know, that's such a great question because there's just, there's so much content out there. We've made what I feel like on this side of it is a very, very good. that doesn't have a household name in it, and that's just the fact of it, right? Mm-hmm. we have some incredible actors in there that some people do know. They, some people do know Ben, some people do know Sean. some people do know Paul. Like there are some names in there, but there's not somebody that my mom would just recognize off the top of her head, right? So that's just the reality of it. I'm hopeful that it will, but even if it does, it's gonna be a marathon again, right? Mm-hmm. it's not gonna be in six months. right. You know, it might be in six years mm-hmm. that that process happens. yeah. But I think the, the

Adam 34:30

important thing is, you know, getting it out there, we are currently, you know, for rental or for purchase, right now, which is kind of the first phase of distribution, post covid, our distribution company, didn't even, purchase, not purchase, but they didn't even want to acquire our theatrical rights. they left those with us cuz they're like, it's just way too expensive for us, the distribution company to try to get your film into theaters. theaters are charging so much money nowadays, to get a film to, you know, screen for even one night. so we still have those theatrical rights, but, you know, you go through that rental process. You hope that you, start generating some buzz. You start getting people to download it, you know, it starts to take off on a life of its own. I have noticed we have moved up Amazon's ranking. when you type in a place called home, we, we are slowly creeping up that, that, search result. So you go through that so that you can then do the spo, you can do the subscription, you know, the Netflixes, Amazon Prime, Hulu, those places, you know, you're trying to generate buzz that you can get a better deal out of the subscription services. and you know, that's a game that's probably going to take years. You know, we'll probably sign a, exclusive contract hopefully, with one, Subscription service after the terms of that contract expire, you know, we'll go back to other subscription services and see if somebody else wants to, you know, play the game next. and then after that you kind of go into a v od, which is advertising supported video on demand, so your Pluto TV and all of that. and everyone else now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Disney, you know, everyone's ad supported. Now. I think even Netflix is thinking about ads now. Everyone,

Kent 36:21

everyone will be ad supported before the end of this year. yeah.

Adam 36:24

Yay. 2023. so you do that and then, you know, then you have all of your ancillary markets, you, your airlines, your hotels. I think somewhere along that line we'll try to do some overseas distribution. But again, you know, thanks to the pandemic, thanks to streaming, even, you know, European countries are not quite as interested. in just the run of the Mill American films. because they're now seeing that they can develop their own, country's film industry in their film culture, in their native language. which I think is great in, you know, it's good. as Kyle has said, you know, all families are u are unique, each country and how they approach story is also unique. and.

Kent 37:09

But you might, you might find some interest in Europe because, you know, movies like Thunder Road did really well in France. Mm-hmm. because of its, its americaness, you know? it was like a, almost a voyeuristic experience for the French to be like, wow, this is like an American cop, you know, like dealing with like this. Like, but, but, but the movie was like a tragic comic, which is just such a genre that the French love, like, it's sad, but it's, it's funny at the same time. Like, it's Right. It's like, you know, and so you get like, you might actually find some interest there. I even think the movie would do well in Spanish speaking countries, especially Latin American countries. your film might have some interest there because of its, rural mm-hmm. mm-hmm. sort of, I mean that, that scene where he talks to that lone guy for the first time and, and talks about land and, I don't know, there's something about that that I'm just like, no, I think that this like fight to like keep the family alive. Would really resonate with, Hispanic people. This is talking to someone who's lived in Hunters for two years and lived in Chile. You know, like we, we, we have a lot of friends from Mexico. yeah. I'm like, yeah, maybe. I mean, the py pieing is a big problem, but you might be you might be able to make deals with like television networks and stuff. So yeah, it's

Kiel 38:14

interesting. It, it's definitely a part of the conversation going forward of seeing where it can go, you know, after this kind of initial push of mm-hmm. what it's gonna do. one of the cool markets that we've unlocked is, I mean through the distributors like libraries, and you don't think about that, but like, my family goes, the libraries like three times a week. No joke. Like, we are always like at the library. Oh yeah. It's awesome. And that's awesome. Yeah. We love it too. Yeah. So it's unlocking some of those, some of those odd markets. There's a, a streaming service that universities can access to that we have called, canopy, K A n O P y. Hmm. but it's, so we have it where I work and there's. Tons of incredible stuff on there. And so that's like another market to look at as like educational markets. I, Adam brought that up, but like, those educational markets are big streaming platform markets. Mm-hmm. that are like their own little thing. it's such a,

Anna 39:02

and libraries, it's like selling DVDs to libraries or mm-hmm. or those stream.

Kiel 39:06

Well, no, libraries and well on libraries also have streaming stuff because our library had access to it. My wife watched it. I was like, you've watched it before. She's like, I know, I wanna watch it again. you know, through a streaming platform that our library has access to. So it's, you know, it varies depending on, you know, the library itself. but some of that,

Adam 39:24

I think, I think they even put it on hoopla, which a lot of libraries have access to. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kent 39:29

You know, it's interesting, even DVDs, like, there was a film, filmmaker from Texas who was just interviewed on the, indie Film Hustle podcast. And, he talked about that. He, he, his biggest client was a distributor who said, I just want your rights for library distribution. And he just put it on like, every library in the United States now has his movie. And it, in honestly, some of the best movies I've ever seen in my life were in film school and from the public library.

Kiel 39:55

Yeah. I mean, that's where I go and find my stuff.

Kent 39:59

Most, they're way better than any streaming service that I've ever found, ever.

Kiel 40:02

They have everything. Support your local libraries kids. Yes. Yeah.

Kent 40:07

Well, and, and go to your local libraries, filmmakers, Yeah. Like if you wanna see the best movies you've ever seen and be inspired, like go to the foreign section,

Kiel 40:16

hundreds and

Kent 40:16

just like pick up random stuff and like, Man, I could just list the movies. They're just

Anna 40:22

life-changing. Well, I was gonna recommend Corta to you Kyle, if you love family stories. He's a Japanese filmmaker who's always exploring like what does it mean to be a family and what does that look like? And astonishing filmmaker, he's amazing. Roger Love his

Kent 40:36

work. I think Ro Roger Ebert said that he was one of the greatest living directors of our time, like one of the greatest living directors on the earth.

Anna 40:44

Corta. Wow. So K O r K

Kent 40:47

O R E E D. Yeah. He's awesome. Yeah, I think you like that one. Getting recommendation. If anyone is a longtime listener of our podcast, they're gonna be like really tired of hearing us recommend cor those people Like

Kiel 41:03

if that's the only thing I hear outta this podcast,

Anna 41:06

Yeah. I think it's interesting cuz it is almost like you've purchased a property or you own an asset now and. you could sometimes just sell the whole thing outright. Mm-hmm. or you can lease it out and you're not gonna make back the cost of it immediately. You're not gonna make Not over time. Yeah. Eventually you'll pay off the house and you can keep renting it out and you can build up your properties and, you know, it's like real estate in a way. this different

Kiel 41:32

assets. Well, and, and realistically in distribution now, I mean, any film at our level is not getting bought out, right? It's just not No, absolutely. That's not happening. Mm-hmm. unless you have a name or you have won a tier one festival, there's your opportunity. And even then it's a little rare. So we're dealing with a, a fairly substantial distributor, freestyle digital media. They, they do a bunch of stuff. One of the properties they're owned is shortlisted for like best, feature animation this year. Mm-hmm. and, we through a kind of. Series of events. We, you know, have this kind of personal relationship with a few of them now that work there. And they've talked about like going to South by Southwest, going to Sundance and being like, look, here's what we can offer to you. and the expectation of the filmmaker to be like, whoa, where's my 5 million check? And they're like, that's not a thing.

Kent 42:19

Yeah, right. Absolutely. No, I think that's such, it's an important thing for people to accept. I think going into the process of feature filmmaking and it's not a hopeless thing, there's just a new way of looking at filmmaking and film distribution that we just have to change the way we're thinking about it. And we can't expect to sell our movies for a million bucks at a f tier one festival. Even if you get into a tier one and once again, thunder Road, they had to self-distribute because they were like, no one would even offer us the budget of the film. And they won South by Southwest, like Grand, grand Jury prize at South by Southwest. And people were like, do you want like 200,000 for your film? Like, That would be a wash for us,

Kiel 42:58

our film cost. Like, yeah, I don't think anybody really knew what to do with that film. It's so good. But I don't think most people knew what to do with that film. Well, that's, most people

Kent 43:07

don't know what to do with well-made, independent, creative, different sort of movies that are not, they don't know, they're not stuck.

Adam 43:15

They don't even trust

Kent 43:16

themselves. Most of these people, especially studio executives, they don't even trust their own opinions. Like, they're like, well, is there big name actor? Are there robots Like, you know, it's like, how do I sell this? Like, they're just, that's all they can think. Like, and, and you don't have that. Then they're just like, well, no one will watch it then. And then all of a sudden something explodes. That's like, breaks all the rules because it's a good film, but they don't know what that is. You know? So, you know, it's your job to know what that is. You know?

Kiel 43:46

So, so much of what we talked about, like what we've talked about so far has been, makes it feel like it's very, Hopeless almost, to create film where in an age where I can grab my phone right now and I can be on 50,000 different things that I wanna watch. Right? And, and it might feel that way to a lot of people. and I would be lying if I didn't say there are definitely times throughout this process that it's felt like that for me. I think you should use that, not as a means to say nevermind, but a means to check yourself and go, am I passionate about this? Because I can promise you right now, if you're not in it, because you love the art of it, it will destroy you. You have to, you have to. It's too challenging. It's too difficult. Unless you just know some people, if you have, your buddy's uncle is an exec somewhere, right? Unless you have that attitude, it's gonna be a journey and you gotta be able to be in it for a long haul. You just can't go into it flippantly. and say, well cool, I'm gonna take out this loan and make this movie and it'll be great. Well, and then I'll be a

Adam 44:53

millionaire and retired to my yacht in The

Kent 44:55

Bahamas. Right. And never make movies again cuz I don't even like doing this

Kiel 45:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, gosh. Yeah. There have been so many people that I've listened to that have done interviews that are like, after you get in with your first ones, if you make a second one, then you're really there. Like you've decided you've made it through it and you go, okay, maybe I can do that again. Like, okay, great. That's where, you know, like Sweet. After our first

Kent 45:21

film wrapped on production, Anna and I definitively stated we were never making a film again. And we believed it. We believed it. Our house was ripped to shreds. Our family felt like it was going to, like, it was hanging by a thread. Like we thought we would just, we had ruined everything. Our lives were like over kind of a dramatic, you know, thing. And then like, of course, you know, you, you recover, you get some sleep and the edit comes together and, and then it's bad. But then a few months later it starts to come together and you're like, oh wow. It's actually, actually, it's really coming together like,

Kiel 45:52

now that it's no longer two hours and 40 minutes long. Yeah,

Kent 45:55

it's good. It's actually pretty good. And, and then you start to go, we learned too much and we've come too far to not make another one. And yeah. And we really do love it. It was just like, you get, you know, it's exactly what you said, like that first film, like if you, if you can get over it, it can be, it was intense for us. I mean, we, we learned everything the hard way. I feel like, I feel like we did not have any wisdom whatsoever in our first film. Well,

Kiel 46:19

for me, like that first one, we wrapped production. Yeah. It was rough because. So the opening of the movie, there's a big pregnant belly, that's my wife, right. Who was pregnant with Oh, okay. At the time with my son at the time. So the movie wrapped and it was less than, it was less than 30 days later that we had a baby. And so, and that it was so much, cuz it was the summer we were traveling, we were 16 hours cuz we were living in Virginia Beach at the time. And so there was so much of this traveling back and forth that it was, it was very much like a, oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into, kind of thing. And I wanna take the opportunity to really promote the idea of independent filmmakers. Setting some money aside if you can, and if you know somebody to hire an editor that you trust. And I want to tout Shauna Phillips, who is doing everything in the world in Georgia right now in so much post production. But she was our editor and there was so much of the film that she was able to pull out of the. because I was so close to it that she was able to look at manipulate, look at it very objectively, and really kind of saved my sanity in the midst of that because I was able to trust somebody handed over. It didn't hurt that she's extremely talented, but, you know, that could, that could shoulder some of that burden. So that way yeah, I was still watching it every day, but I wasn't spending eight to 10 hours on it every day. Mm-hmm. you know, I was spending two hours a day. Right. And maybe every day off because she wants to mess with some stuff or take the weekend off and I know that it's being worked on. So, you know, independent filmmakers that that's, that's an important thing. I know you're great editors, everybody can edit, but if you can have just a little bit set aside to let somebody at least take a little bit of time with it, I think. it'll make your film better, but it'll make your, you know, hopefully mentality better.

Adam 48:04

Well, and I think that's the other thing, you know, that we've kind of been skirting around with this, is it's not just the director, it's not just the writer that has to have the passion, to see a project through. It's the team that you have built around yourself. you know, there have been days and Kyle could probably point them out on the calendar. He probably circled them, where I just did not have the enthusiasm to do a bunch of stuff. you know, he would pester me with emails,

Kiel 48:32

Yeah. But, you know,

Adam 48:34

I, I do have that passion for this project. I wanted to see it through. but you know, I think that's the other thing we gotta re realize as the dependent filmmakers is we're going to have bad days. There are going to be days where you just do not want to do anything on your film. and you may be in the process of getting contracts and lined up for a distributor, or you may be working on the edit and, knee deep and post. and you need that person that you can, that can sh shoulder that for a while, until you get back into that groove and you're back on your good days. and I think that's the other thing, is you need that core group. You need that team, that can keep you motivated, keep pushing you and you know, when you have a bad day, they're not having a bad day. And so, Responsibility can kind of shift. and that's the other important thing about doing this independently, is, is having that core group together. So, and we were lucky to be able to find that on a place called home. So

Kent 49:40

That's so good to hear. I don't even know how we met her, but we actually ended up working with a really good co-editor, Adam's familiar with,

Kiel 49:46

Hmm. I don't remember who, who was that again? Start with a deed. Yeah,

Adam 49:50

right on the Danielle. Yeah. Adam's wife

Kent 49:52

Danielle. Excellent. Danielle literally saved us for all the reasons that you guys were expressing, which is like, I mean, it was even more than just like an off day. I mean, we were experiencing monumental family health crises and tragedies and all these things that were like, it was months long of literal shutdown. Like we, we could not put anything into it. And I remember just like at that point, Just feeling this relief that, like, I couldn't even look at the film for a week at a time. Oh yeah. Two weeks at a time, because I was like a full-time dad and like people were in and outta hospital and whatnot. And like, and just knowing that like Danielle was working on, it was like a, a huge relief that we were even progressing towards like an assembly cut, you know, like I don't even know where we'd be at this point without, without really, without her

Anna 50:42

support. So, so that's a really good word of advice. And we're short on time here, so I do wanna just ask, you know, what other words of warning or words of advice, or like what are the biggest takeaways, you know, that you have after this experience of making your first film that you would want to impart?

Kent 50:59

Can, can I, can your wisdom. Can I even reframe that question? Sure. Into two more direct questions. Okay. The first one is, what was your biggest mistake? On this film, whether it was artistically or like managerially. And then what was your, what was like your best move, like the, the thing you did most,

Kiel 51:17

right? Those are all very good questions. either

Kent 51:22

one. It's for both of you. It's a toss up jump ball.

Kiel 51:26

Creatively. There's something I've been wrestling with for a while, which would be changing the whole ending of the film but it works. It works, it works. But I mean there, I think, you know, you eventually have to put it out there and no one gets to go back. You don't get to then go, okay, I know you watched that version, but what about this and what about that? Or, Hey, get this cut eventually. You gotta do it. It will never be perfect. Period. Eventually you got to do it. You gotta push it out. You gotta let it be seen. And what happens

Kent 51:56

if you do make it perfect is you get to George Lucas and he's like released like seven versions of Star Wars and you're like, you've ruined this

Kiel 52:02

Then email me, go to a place called home, a place called home film.com and email me. and, yeah,

Kent 52:09

yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh

Adam 52:11

God. Oh gosh. I don't know. I, I think, you know, the, the greatest takeaway, a again, this is more from a producing standpoint, and I know that this can be a bit of a struggle with independent films. but it, it is just every single scrap of paper that you put the, the name of the film on or somebody signs or anything like that, make sure you have that hard copy, somewhere easily accessible. make sure also you digitize it and back it up on the cloud somewhere. so we had a stack of hard copies signed, releases. Have just disappeared. We have no idea where they are. luckily we backed all those up, and we have them digitally. but to this day I've moved, Kyle's moved, we've gone through our entire houses. We didn't throw them away. they were marked important, but we've never been able to find them, So, you know, I think that would be my key takeaway away is just from a producing standpoint. because as two people who have just gone through and gotten distribution, the distributor will ask, you know, anytime you're the name of your company or your film appears on paper in relation to that project, the the distribution company is going to ask for that paperwork. so just make sure you keep track of it. Google Drive is

53:36

phenomenal.

Kiel 53:36

I thank you Adam. You gave me time to think. I think you're welcome. you out for the last two minutes. No, I didn't. I, I, I hundred percent agree with him because, It really made me realize, I think the thing that we did wrong the most was post-production. Mm-hmm. was really having an understanding of what it takes and having enough of our budget set aside for post. Amen, brother. Right. Now you get, you get, so people get burned in post and, and, and I don't feel like people understand when you're going through it, like you go through quality check that caused something or you got e n O that caused something. You've got your sound designer, you got your, I mean everything, right? Mm-hmm. So having some of that set us some more of that set aside for post and we set some aside for post. and it still wasn't enough. So it just really understanding what it takes to, to complete it, to actually get it finished. But the thing that we did right, a hundred percent was again, that kind of brain trust. It was me and Adam and Nate, and Erin, and some of Shelly when she was involved too, is we had multiple, and I mean every day or every other day, four to five hour pre-production conversations when we got on set. We only had two days, go to 12, we shot for 24, we had four days go over 10. Everything else was 10 and under. Wow. Which is like not a normal independent feature film production, especially cuz we had, you know, a sizable amount of cast and crew for us. And

Adam 55:04

so the audience knows we have a two hour feature. You know, this is not a, and this is not a short 90 minute comedy. This is a two hour feature. And yeah, we, we did not do excessively long days. also because all of us were, well, most of us had families and too, and, you know, we were respectful of that as well.

Kiel 55:25

But we had so much scheduled and so much planned out that it made Hitchcock talks about, you know, going on to production is like going on vacation because he has everything listed in his binder, right? Mm-hmm. we had so many things planned out that it really did. Looking back on even now, and there's so many things, little things that as a director I'm like, man, I wish I would've done this, man, I wish I would've done that. But it was smooth. It was smooth because we took the time in pre-production we were in, once we found out we were gonna have a budget, we were still in pre-production for six months. Yeah. That's six months dedicated. Figure out how the heck we're gonna do this and be effective at what we're doing so that we're not burning every person alive, on our set. Mm-hmm. That's huge. Yeah. Did you, you, you made a very different movie from us, Yes.

Adam 56:14

Every experience is unique and different. So wish we'd heard

Anna 56:19

that one before. No, that's excellent. That's good to hear that that's possible to have that experience and have it go smoothly with all that preparation. I think that no, it really is helpful for a first film can be that way. It is possible. Absolutely. with. Enough preparation and, did you guys pay yourselves for that time or was that just spare time that you were putting in still?

Adam 56:43

Yeah, I mean that's, you know, the, the joy and the heartache of independent production is a lot of that pre-pro time. you know, is is just time. you know, that you're putting into the project. but I think both of us would say if we had not put in that time, the quality of the project that we got out would not be there. Yeah. and so, you know, which again gets back to being passionate about this project, you need to be passionate enough to be able to invest yourself in pre-pro so that you can raise the quality of the eventual project that you get out of it. and, you know, we were able to do that. We, we made our days. I remember on one day on set, I think we were like wrapping up sub eight, eight hours on, on set. And I went to Kyle and I was like, Do you want to do it? It's like We, we got through the list of everything we were supposed to do that day and we had done such an amazing job planning that there was literally nothing else that we could sub in. you know, there were no other locations that we could go to. not because of a failure of scheduling or planning or anything like that. we didn't have actors, on set to be able to do some stuff. cuz again, we had scheduled out our days so well, and we were like, let's just. Call it a day, go home. You know, we, we, we did our jobs, we got everything done that we needed to get done and that we could get done. And I had even pulled some things from other days to, to get us up to the amount of time that we had spent on that day. So, it is possible. It is possible. You

Kent 58:25

guys are so respectful. I, I feel like if I was in that situation, I would've been like, hold on, hold on. I'm writing another scene.

Kiel 58:31

I'm almost done. But, you know, I brought it up early. It is a marathon. Yeah. And like we went into that knowing it. So even when we got on set, we go, okay, great, this is the first day, but by day 10 people are gonna be exhausted. So every little thing that we can find to like, give people a break, you know? And just know that if I, if I call in all my favors right now, I'm probably not gonna get what I need later. Yeah. but I mean, and it did kind

Adam 58:59

of work out that that short day, the crew was starting to feel it a little bit. and so they really did appreciate that shorter

Kiel 59:05

day. It was right in the middle. Yeah, it was right in the middle of the

Adam 59:08

day. or in the middle of the, of the production shooting schedule. Yeah. Yeah. And so they really enjoyed those extra couple of hours off that evening. And, the next day was going to be an intense day anyway that we had planned. And they knocked it out of the park. And I think, you know, part of that was because they got a couple extra hours off the night before.

Kiel 59:26

Yeah. Well,

Anna 59:28

that is really awesome. And just to wrap up, I'd love to hear just a little bit of like what's next, what's on the horizon, and then how can we support you moving forward with the film and with what you have next in your careers. I just think you guys are doing great work and um, was so impressed with this is a really good first film and really worth the watch, so everyone listening, go, go rent it, go check it out, and it's really worth it. So, yeah. How do we

Adam 59:55

support you? What's, what's next? What's next? What's next for both of you? what's next for me is I will probably be working on a documentary with my university. so we are working on, some, we have some grants out, for some federal dollars. yay working for the university. You can go and do those things. so hopefully, we will be hearing back from that, real shortly, and that'll be the next thing on my plate. it's about a local figure here in, Columbus. that, again, kind of a very unique southern story, and am excited to share that. Maybe we, I can come back on later and talk to you guys more about that. Yeah,

Anna 1:00:31

absolutely. Yeah. And you'll have a baby, so it'll be totally new conversation to after that.

Kiel 1:00:36

I'm excited about sleep. That's what's next for me is some sleep. Now there, there's a couple things that, I'm working on. There's some things that I'm working on with Adam. Mm-hmm. but, you know, nothing official that's yet, I'm on a writing team for another project that's getting pitched pretty soon. you know, the idea was to make this one, and then hopefully the next one is, you know, a step up as far as budget, as far as, you know, things are concerned. And that just mean, that just means, takes more time. Mm-hmm. um, I'm writing a bunch. there's a project that Adam, myself, and some other people are working on to try to get off the ground, which hopefully will happen soon. which be, have a distribution deal down. So another, another narrative feature of kind of a bigger caliber. and then there's a couple writing teams that I'm a part of, that are pitching things soon. so that's really exciting as far as supporting the film, obviously watching it, renting it, reviewing it, that's a huge benefit for us. Yes, please

Adam 1:01:30

review the film. Don't just watch it, but, make it really hard. Yeah, yeah. please review it. unless you didn't like it. Well,

Kiel 1:01:37

no, honestly, even if you didn't like it, go ahead

Adam 1:01:40

and do a review. just cause it helps with the algorithms. and hey, I mean, this is the game we all have to play. Yeah. and, those reviews really do help. and, you know, that would be a cool resource, for you guys maybe, is to put together a list of you. films that everyone can go and watch and review and we can just have a big review. Circle Fest or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Kiel 1:02:05

We'll have a,

Kent 1:02:05

no, it's really, we'll have an online film festival where the only cost of admission is that you have to review every film you watch. There you go. Don't watch in the

Kiel 1:02:13

festival.

Anna 1:02:15

Interesting idea. I like it.

Kiel 1:02:17

Yeah, you can, everything about the film, if you just go to a place called home film.com, that'll connect to all the social, all the press, all the ways to buy, review all the festivals, all of our behind the scenes or on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, you can find us.

Anna 1:02:34

Okay. Happy to. Yeah, it's definitely not a hard ask to go take a little time, write a little review, you know, and she

Kent 1:02:42

watching a really cool film.

Anna 1:02:44

Yeah. Totally. Totally. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us on the podcast.

Kiel 1:02:48

Okay.

Kent 1:02:51

Thanks. You guys. Have a good night. we'll see you later.

Kiel 1:02:53

All right.

Adam 1:02:54

Yeah. See you guys.