Speaker 1: 0:30

Chris Peters, welcome to the Film and Family Podcast and home of the Feature Filmmaker Academy, so it's a pleasure to have you on.

Speaker 2: 0:40

Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate the invitation.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Awesome. So, chris, remind me the name of your partner at Crave Content. Where does the name Crave come from?

Speaker 2: 0:54

Yes, Crave content. Where does the name Crave come from? Yes, so, my brother-in-law, actually David Lawrence. He is my filmmaking partner in crime and we met when I was about 15 or so and he had started seeing my sister, who's a few, six years older than me, so he's and then he, basically, when we were just chatting, getting to know each other, when he, when he was starting to see her, he had the same interest in making films and he said, he, he did that as a hobby as a teenager and I was just getting into it for the first time, and, um, so we chatted a lot about that.

Speaker 2: 1:29

And then when I got a video camera for christmas one year, I told him, hey, I got a video camera, and he goes year. I told him, hey, I've got a video camera, and he goes, oh cool, let's make movies together. So then he started coming around on weekends and I thought you would think to hang out with my sister, but we ended up making little movies in the backyard and so we got the whole family involved and other friends and then we kind of just, you know it's what, 17 years later and we're still doing that. They're now married and have children, so everything worked out brilliantly there. So, um, uh, yeah, but um, his, because his name's dave and I'm chris. We basically just put our names together and created crave. When we decided to make our first feature film, we thought that could be our name for our brand. Um, because, because it just seemed appropriate and um, yeah, so that's kind of that.

Speaker 1: 2:23

That's that's kind of how how crave evolved, um kind of by accident, but but a good accident yeah, you know, I think we a lot of us at least, it's a common story that we started making stuff like just dumb stuff in high school with people we got along with usually, and I think it's awesome that you guys are still doing it, because sometimes we move on or we go to film school or we, you know different paths and it's like those guys aren't necessarily, or those guys go. None of my friends have stayed in film, right, that was just a high go, you know. None of my friends have stayed in film, right, that was just a high school thing, you know. But like the fact that you guys are like let's just keep a good thing going is super awesome.

Speaker 2: 3:05

And they've had children now. So I've got two nieces and they love it too. They get involved. The older one was was an assistant on our feature film for one for one day. Um, she was only 10 years old, but we, we just wanted someone literally to keep track of the shots, and she, she did that. She had a great time, and the studio where we filmed that day they had a dog, so she had a dog to play with. In between the boring parts where we're setting up, because we said it's going to be boring, sometimes there's a lot of waiting around and you know, there's just it feels like just nothing's happening. So there was a dog there she was playing tug-of-war with, so and, yeah, she, she, she had a great time. So, um, they and they love being in front of the camera as well, um, so, yeah, that it's, it's a.

Speaker 2: 3:49

It's just it's funny that your podcast is called film and family family. Is that right? Yeah, it's like. So it's like I, I very much relate to that because it is a family thing with us. You know, my, my brother, gets involved as well. Um, and, yeah, almost all my immediate family have had some kind of involvement with it. It's just to some degree, whether behind or in front of the camera. So, yeah, they all love it. Have so much fun.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I think it's great that's awesome, you know, that's so like the basic tenet. Actually, there's two basic tenets of this podcast, which is, um, that people with families um can make movies. So we'd love to maybe have dave on the podcast at some point because, um, this idea of responsibility, of a, of a marriage and a and children to take care of and pay for you know, like to pay for their food and everything Sometimes I mean logistically that becomes very complicated, especially for indie filmmakers. But our whole tenet is like it's possible. It's possible to do this, and we just saw so many of our friends just like quit, they just couldn't keep it going in school, and so the other side of this is just this idea they just couldn't keep it going at school. And so the other side of this is just this idea that, like, anyone can make a feature film, including people with families. But, just like that first feature, it's really hard, it's really um takes a ton of faith to like just just do it. You know it's like it's just so many question marks and you're just stepping out into the dark, and so we really want to encourage people to kind of, we just know what a huge career milestone that is and how you can translate that eventually into a real career.

Speaker 1: 5:24

You know doing this and so I think it's cool to hear that like all of that from the beginning is like just founded and family and you guys had kids on set, know, and and everything. That's just really, really neat. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about morehouse road. Yes, so so so did you guys make like you see, you made videos and fun little films and short films, yeah, but did you guys, when did you guys start to like say, oh, we could do commercials or we could start making money with this? Was morehouse road your first foray into let's make something serious, or were you guys already making commercials?

Speaker 2: 5:57

uh, yeah, um it. It was the first first and it was the definitely the biggest project we've ever done, that's for sure. Up until then, we'd made a few short films, um, that were that we. We sort of started taking it seriously. You know, there was a period of when we were younger and doing fun films in the backyard with friends, family, but then I got a job at a talent management agency and I was sort of getting to know the industry from a whole new point of view and I had access to so many professional actors and a lot of them who had seen on stage or seen in other like self-tapes and things and thought that was so good but they weren't famous and they just weren't getting parts because it's the most competitive profession in the world, I don't know and I thought, oh, it's like I could make something with these people in it and it would be good. It would be like.

Speaker 2: 6:57

So when the first, we made a short film called Sinking Ships in 2015. It's a 20-minute film. It's basically like a little gritty drama involving domestic violence and troubled relationships, and it was sort of our first attempt at making something professional. We had professional actors, a bit more of a cast and a crew, a schedule call sheets, you know all that jazz, yeah and um, that was our first sort of let's see if we can do a good job in, and and actually something we'd be comfortable showing people. You know, I wouldn't dare show the films we made when I was a teenager right, they're embarrassing to say the least. Um, but yes, so we made that film and it was. It was it played at a couple like local sort of film screenings and things like that, but it's had so many. We then put it on youtube and it's had like over 300,000, I think maybe close to 400,000 views and just like hundreds of comments of people talking about their own personal experiences with that subject matter and just sharing their life story. Some of them and they're all like just talking to each other like a forum for like almost a support group, and I thought, oh my God, this was a little movie we made in six days in just a couple different locations with a group of good actors in our hometown and where we live. It's not a huge film, tv, heavy capital.

Speaker 2: 8:25

A lot of stuff happens here, but not to the point where it happens in in Australia. It's mostly in the eastern states and we're in the west, yeah, um, and, and it was here, it was reaching these audiences around the world and people telling their stories, and we, we loved that. We thought, wow, that that's, it's, it's. You can just get that audience today like that, which wouldn't have been possible, you know, 20, even 20 years ago with the internet, wasn't what it is now. Um, yeah, and so we we just sort of kept going on that path.

Speaker 2: 8:54

We made a couple other short films. We did a lot, a lot of branding, a few branding type videos, because, mostly through word of mouth, people who had businesses that knew what we were doing and said, hey, how much for a branding video. And both we both worked in sort of you know, branding and marketing ourselves. I did a lot of marketing work for the, the agency where I worked, and Dave worked in advertising agencies, so he was very much in that realm as well. And yeah, but branding videos and all that commercial, they're good to do, I guess, to make money and if they come your way, but ultimately narrative filmmaking is where the passion really was Right, so we wanted to keep going with that and then basically it was around, I think 2019-ish.

Speaker 2: 9:48

I was like thinking I wonder if I could have the ability to make a feature film, like if I could first of all write one, have a story for one, and then I guess at that point we realised we'd done so much just on our own. We thought let's tackle that and see where it goes. And, yeah, you know, then we did it. So it was certainly a huge project that I'm glad I had the years of practice, if you will, with the smaller projects to be able to handle this. I think attempting your first feature film if you haven't done many shorts or much else is going to be like a recipe for burnout, like instantly. So once you have that kind of experience of okay, things don't always go according to plan, things take longer, you have to redo things, you know then then it makes it easier to finally attempt that that big, big project so what was your experience on the feature?

Speaker 1: 10:50

because, like you know, you're saying like it's a recipe for burnout, but, like I know people who have done lots of short films, they've done films with lots of money behind them. But then that first feature, I mean I know guys who are just now releasing in theaters a movie that they had $16 million behind and it's their first feature and they talked about it I could tell in the Q&A a because I went to the premiere. Um, that I won't tell. I won't say the name of the film, I don't know if they want me to share some of their drama, but like, uh, it's in theaters right now in america, you can go see it.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Um, and uh, they said it was just such such a nightmare. You know, like there were so many things where it was like I mean they had to fire the cast a week into shooting recast, like I mean the millions of dollars they've got behind this movie and stuff like that. So, like with you, I mean, do you feel like obviously the shorts helped prepare you? Do you feel like they prepared you enough? Or were there days when you were like I'm in over my head? This was a mistake? All is lost, you know.

Speaker 2: 11:56

Well it's funny you should mention that it was a 16 million dollar film.

Speaker 2: 11:58

And then you know it was a nightmare, because you know there's that saying more money, more problems. I think because our film was so small in scale, like small budget, small crew, local cast we I I knew that making a feature film was going to be a challenge. I knew it wasn't going to be something you just sort of do in a weekend and then it's done. So I made sure when I was doing the writing stage, I'm like let's write something that we know is doable. Yeah, you know you're going to try and make it as quality as you can, but you also can't write your first feature script with, with not much money, and you're just sort of starting and have a scene where helicopters are shooting at each other in the sky and there's bad, you know, and there's explosions and people jumping off skyscrapers. You know it's just ridiculous to think you can make your first feature with all that big fancy hollywood stuff, unless you're born into wealth or you. You know someone in the in the industry.

Speaker 1: 12:59

You know as it is right, but um motion feature film that you make by yourself six years in your basement or something oh, exactly.

Speaker 2: 13:07

And so this, this one, was like let's make a small, a small project that's small in scale, that's got um, just enough of a story and characters and some interesting elements to keep it going through. And that was that there was more periods where I felt, oh, this is too much, was sort of before we started shooting, just the general organising of locations and making sure people were available, you know, things like that. That's kind of the, the hard part, I would say, the actual shoot days, because you're, you're kind of, you're there, the work's kind of done, it's just a matter of okay, we're all here, now let's get through the, the days, scenes and things like that. But all the sort of build up to those days is kind of the part. That's a bit, what have I got myself into?

Speaker 2: 14:01

But I tried to never let that thought creep in of oh, this is too much, what am I doing. I'm just thinking now everyone has you have to put yourself through this if you want to achieve that end result. You know, nothing worth achieving is going to come easily. Nor should it. So you know, I just thought, not like we can get through, we're going to do it, um, but yeah, of course you're going to have days of like feeling just, oh my god, why? Why am I putting myself? But? But yeah, otherwise, yeah, we kept it. We kept it quite simple. So I think that's the trick with with this. With this one was um was not to tackle something that was beyond our capabilities I think it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 14:47

no, it sounds like you approached your uh, your first feature with like the right ratio of ambition and wisdom. You know that that I mean the fact that you were feeling some of that heat in pre-production I think is a good sign, because I think sometimes, I think sometimes ignorance is bliss and we walk right into the fire, you know, and it's like, oh my gosh, like then production is really hard and that's probably the wrong place for it. But yeah, from my own experience, so okay, so Morehouse Road talked to me about, so you said like, oh, I wanted to make a feature, but then how did you, how much did you and Dave work together on the script? And and how did you kind of I mean, it sounds like you, did you really write this to be like built around your resources or did you just kind of, I mean, how did you approach that basically?

Speaker 2: 15:41

Yeah, well, we I wrote the script most like by myself, but I would always be sending updates to Dave and we would be sort of basically just he'd say, what about this? How about that? This part doesn't really work. What if you structured it this way? Uh, so there was that. Then, of course, there was a sort of a few weeks in between periods of writing where you can sort of go back and go. You know what, now that I've slept on it, this part doesn't work either and it just all that um and we had like a cast and crew, a cast script reading and where we could hear it out loud and it's like oh, now that I hear it, this doesn't work either. Um, but the actual story was based on um.

Speaker 2: 16:27

We made two short films back when we were younger and they were both the backyard DIY, but the initial stories were kind of we thought had potential. One of our short films was about a person who gets abducted for an illegal like organ harvesting operation, and then the other one was about like kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre style crazy family in the outback who lure in unsuspecting victims and we sort of the way they looked and, being that we're in Western Australia, where we have so much locations that are only just driving distance. You know, we thought that the two stories put together could maybe work together and have it's a family that live remotely but they're secretly doing this illegal organ harvesting thing for people who can afford it, um, to cheat death, basically. So we, we sort of thought of working with that angle and then once that sort of okay, we've got the, the uh, the villain and the, the crooked operation going on, but how do our characters sort of fall into that? And we sort of tell it from the point of view of someone who's connected to someone, who's the newest target in a way, and then it's told from their point of view, where they uncover it all gradually throughout the film and learn more about the stuff that's going on and realise almost when it's starting to get too late, now she's in danger and you know, as those thrillers tend to do, it just gets worse and worse.

Speaker 2: 18:07

But yeah so, and then it just sort of evolved that way and then it was just a matter of okay, we need scenes from A, b to C. We've got to have a scene that establishes this moment, that moment, um, something at the beginning, where it sort of shows you a bit of um background on how do they actually get information about these people who have these rare blood types. So we just sort of thought, let's, let's work with that. And then it just sort of built from there, and then it was just a matter of putting scenes together and making it make sense in the screenplay. So, yeah, it's, it's, it was quite of a, it's quite a. Uh, it was probably like a non-conventional sort of way of writing a script, because it's sort of we just sort of let things evolve and then add and subtract. But yeah, I think sometimes that's how you have to do it. Um, but yeah, that's, that's, that's that what? So I forgot what was the other part to your question.

Speaker 1: 19:04

Well, I don't think it sounds too untraditional or anything. I mean, like you're gonna hear those debates in hollywood, like they're the writers. I start at a and I just figure out how to get to z, you know, and I just I don't want to know the end, because then you can't know the end. You know it's like if I don't, you don't know it. And then, like there's the other ones who were like, you know, I outline everything in detail and then we've shuffled the cards on the board until it's a perfect outline. It's just, and great movies have come from both systems. So it sounds like you guys really spent your time and diligence on on the script. And you spent a long time on the script Cause you you wrote drafts, you guys worked it back and forth and you had readings. Was it like a year?

Speaker 2: 19:47

It was the actual first draft, took a few months really, but then it was getting it to the point where we were ready to shoot was probably a year or so it was. It was getting it to the point where we were ready to shoot was probably a year or so it was about. Well, as I said, 2019 is when I started the whole, I guess, synopsis treatment and sort of thinking how am I going to make this work and what's a story that can go with it, and then basically build from there and then over the next couple, I guess, a couple of years, it was sort of, oh, let's figure this out. And then 2021 is when we started shooting. So, really, only a year, just over a year, was the sort of the script stage, which I guess is quite short.

Speaker 2: 20:34

A lot of people spend years and years and years writing one script. But, as I said, we were going to keep it simple and small all the way through. We knew we didn't have the luxury of having someone a professional you know go through it all over again and change it and fish it out and things like that. But so, yeah, it did. Of course, scripts don't happen overnight, but you know, considering how long it takes a lot of scripts. It was a bit shorter than I think. I mean, I've never written a feature before, but yeah, the first draft was very rough, like you know, where there's very basic dialogue, very basic, just scene structures. But then it just once we did the cast reading and things just don't sound right. Then you change this again and then you go, oh, actually, let's get rid of that scene. It just doesn't work, it's not flowing. And then, yeah, then it's just a matter of polishing until you get as close to a diamond as you can, because I figured you could keep going over and over again.

Speaker 2: 21:39

I mean, this isn't perfect, this isn't perfect, or actually this part doesn't make sense either. But I figured that you're going to end up just never finishing it, because nothing's. I think perfection is such an illusion. You'll never get there. You just have to get as close as you can.

Speaker 1: 21:57

Yeah, and output is so, like because so many people tell me like I've heard a lot of people, and even in school, say like, don't, don't ever shoot your first screenplay, like the first thing you ever wrote. Don't shoot it because it's going to be bad, you might as well throw it away and write the next thing. And I'm always like no, shoot it because that's how you're going to mine everything that you need to learn. You're going to have to deal with that. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:15

You're going to have to deal with that script in the editing room and all the things that you read about. You're either going to realize why they were right or why they were wrong or what's working for you, and you're going to discover yourself as an actor really fast when you have to live with that script. But like you, I think it was just. You say that that was short, but our first feature we wrote it in like weeks because it came together so fast. That project we got, we pulled some money together. We wrote like a 40 page version of it with like bullet point scenes, like there were like full scenes and then there was like and then this happens, and then there were like full scenes and then this happened. It wasn't even really a full thing and then we barely had a full script by the time we were shooting. No draft three, four, five, nothing, none of that. But that was because of the nature of the project and we knew we were going to have to shoot it and edit it almost like a documentary with kids involved and stuff. But you know that's unique to us, our circumstances, I mean Not like no one's ever done that before, but that presented strengths and huge weaknesses on both sides of the equation, because then our edit took three years because it was just working.

Speaker 1: 23:28

That footage was basically like the script, due diligence that you did which we wish we had done, you know, did which we wish we had done, you know, and um. So I just think that's it's cool to hear you know your guys' experience Um, there's really no right way to do this, because I think we're all just like getting baptized and tons of experience and knowledge and, um, and, and I think, huge opportunities. I think just making a movie presents opportunities, you know, and so I mean I'd love to hear more about that. So you talked about getting that script going. You had some actors available, which I think is huge. I love that. You've already started with the two most important assets of any film in my opinion, which is story, and your cast Like just casting some good people is where almost every indie feature fails.

Speaker 1: 24:20

I feel like we're just like okay, like, oh, no, yeah, you could and you get a solid story, then it's like you've already won like 80 of the battle. Um, yeah, everything else is, you know, competent, um, so, so what? How did you guys logistically pull these, pull these things together? Did you guys um sort of how did you pull some money together, if you don't mind sharing as much as you feel like? And how did you um? And then, how was post, I guess? So the money question first, how did you manage getting the logistics pulled together?

Speaker 2: 24:56

Well, with budget for the film, there really wasn't any. I mean, it was self-financed. Dave and I basically said we know this is going to be an expensive venture that is likely not to pay off in the long run, but we knew that it was a project we really wanted to do. I mean, people spend thousands of dollars on going on holiday and that's great, but you know it's like that's money that you you won't get back. And then you've got the experience.

Speaker 2: 25:30

So my attitude was well, I'm spending this money on a really good experience which, even if no one sees the film, I've got it on a Blu-ray forever maybe. And so I guess you know we said okay, so we're going to have to invest a bit. So we spent, we both worked full time and I owned a house at the time which I put up for rent. And then I started going through the process of selling the house because I was doing it by myself and the mortgage by myself, so it was so just tough financially. So I ended up selling the house so that I could not have that financial drain on myself because I thought I want to make a movie. I don't want to.

Speaker 2: 26:20

I don't want to not make a film because I got into the property market, even though some people think that might think that's ridiculous, but yeah making a movie was more important for me personally my, my, my, yeah, that your brain might want to buy property, but my heart and soul wanted to make a movie, um, and so we basically just, uh, we bought a few bits of equipment like a black black magic, 6k um, and then a bit of sound equipment, and then we basically had a few people we knew for crew, like who we'd met along just through people, of people and to do lighting, sound, and we basically were just honest and said, hey, we don't have much money. We can afford to pay like a really small day rate so that you can cover your basic expenses and things like that, but if the film goes on to make money, we'll pay you what you're entitled to. Were this like a big production with the union salaries and things like that? And so, luckily, a lot of people in our case, you know people want to get their resumes going and their so they think it's a good opportunity for them to work on something to put on their resume and put on their show reel, especially for the actors and things like that. And we had a much smaller crew than a typical film would Some days. You know, there'd be just a cutaway scene of two characters running out of a hospital and it would just be me and Dave. He'd be holding the camera and I'd do the sound. All in post-production ADR record their footsteps and things like that.

Speaker 2: 27:57

And then, in terms of other parts of production, we basically just tried to get everything as cheaply or as free as possible. We had a few locations we were able to get without having to pay anything. There's at least a third of the film takes place at a country cottage which was actually an Airbnb. Who we talked to the host and she was really cool and very supportive of the project and so we hired the house for the weekend. And another location which was a hospital a simulation hospital at a university was um cost, cost money.

Speaker 2: 28:37

So locations and equipment and a few and things like food all the things you don't think about to feed your cast and crew um, we're all, we're all where most of the money went and, of course, like the cast and crew that we're paying these small um rates too. So the post-production again, both Dave and I, we wore so many hats throughout the whole thing. I edited and did the sound and he did the colour grading, visual effects, and we worked together to. So I would cut a scene, he would grade the footage and I'd send me the graded clips back and I'd relink them all so they'd go into the new time sync up properly, and then that was all very much a learning experience as well.

Speaker 1: 29:26

So did you guys use round trip through um final cut and da vinci? Was that what you guys did?

Speaker 2: 29:32

yes, we used um, da Vinci and Final Cut together and sometimes, uh, I think Dave would use Premiere for a few visual effects. Yeah, so, because, um, I know, post production for a lot of indie films is where they spend so much money because of the just the relentless hours and hours that goes into it. But we were confident enough that we could do it ourselves and we did. We both had a lot of experience, like well, in that area. So we and because we're working for free, we were able to really cut corners where I guess a lot of some people don't, a lot of people are writers, directors that don't know how to edit or they want to do it a more traditional way. They want to write a script, send it off to somewhere else and someone else handles it, you know, whereas we basically just for every step of the way, we were doing it ourselves, because we knew we just wanted to make a feature film, we were going to just make it happen. And, yeah, we were both pretty confident with our post-production abilities.

Speaker 2: 30:34

I'd never done much sound editing before, just real basic stuff. So that was interesting, just to learn about levels and 5.1 and, uh, lots of adr and lots of foley, just things like opening a side door and letting it close and then them walking away and touching their shirt, and so you've got to recreate the touching of the shirt, otherwise it looks fake. And all these little times I have so much respect for Foley artists and people that do sound design and sound editing because it's like, oh my God, it's so tedious in microscopic detail but you have to do it. Yeah so yeah, but I actually had fun doing it. I thought it was fun, like, you know, just recreating footsteps and things like that, just because it's, you know, just do it on the weekend when you got spare time.

Speaker 1: 31:21

So well and yeah, so we were able to just do so much ourselves the fact that you did it, did all that is is shocking to me honestly.

Speaker 1: 31:29

I think that, like you said, most of us as indie filmmakers we pull the money so tight in production and then we get to post and we realize, okay, like if we want this to be really done, well, we've got to just start blowing money, you know, basically, and your approach was like all right, this is where we can just hunker down and get it done right and do it ourselves, and I think that's really, really, um, I think that shows the right spirit.

Speaker 1: 31:56

I know that the guy um who made the film thunder road, which was a sundance darling several years back, um, he said when you, when you're willing to do everything yourself, you know you're ready to make your first feature, um, which there's truth and and debatableness to that statement, right, but like, yeah, everything yourself, obviously, unless you're making like a really interesting movie. But but there are things like this that that can do attitude that like, okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna learn how to sound, mix a movie and and not letting the, the, the imposter syndrome and the and the doubt just get to you and you're just like, I can learn this, I'm a capable human being and I can just I can learn a step at a time, like I think that's really admirable well.

Speaker 2: 32:43

I think, like when you make short films and content videos and things like that, it's kind of you're always going to hopefully attempt something that you may not have attempted before or attempted that you didn't do so well before, and so doing shorts and all those other videos was training to do a feature, and then doing the feature itself was a whole level of like doing your masters. It's like it's a whole other level of training. Like when I think this is going to play, if this plays in a theatre with 5.1, I want to make sure it's done, done competently enough so that it feels cinematic and you know. And then you, you go through it all and I mean youtube is the best. You can just get a tutorial for anything.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Um, so I was like what, what's up? And then I was watching tons of tips on 5.1 and layering and you know Foley and just the best way to record so it doesn't sound echoey. So I had a bedroom with, you know, thick blankets and cushions on the wall so that I could redo the ADR and not have that bounce. You know all things that I wouldn't have thought known to do really well before and just thought, okay, let's just do this and see if we can pull it off you know so a lot of it was, yeah, that ignorance as well.

Speaker 2: 34:00

Like I'm sure I can do it.

Speaker 1: 34:01

Let's just do it and see what happens, you know, yeah but that's going to serve you for the rest of your life. Even if you're working with like skywalker sound on your next movie doing like an atmos, these guys who are, like life dedicated to sound design and and it's a team of 50 guys, you know, it's like you know you're still going to be able to approach that and be like I can talk with you enough to help you, I mean, and so I mean and you know what. I just don't think even some of our favorite movies, some of the best movies that are out there with loads of resources, still resort to that kind of stuff where they're like, uh, okay, we need to get something. They're gonna grab a little black magic pocket and go pick it up in the room next door and pick up a little pickup shot, or they're gonna.

Speaker 1: 34:43

I saw the scenes on a film that had nationwide um uh, theatrical distribution, big theatrical distribution. It was an indie film and they shot it in africa and I saw like behind the scenes photos of their adr sessions where they had like four mattresses stacked together in a little room in like south africa somewhere and they'd stuck a little boom mic into the mattress box that they'd created and they had their actress in there like recording her adr, like, and it's like that's not an ADR facility obviously, and so you have to resort to that stuff all the time.

Speaker 2: 35:18

It's just oh yeah, you have to do it and you can't be like too.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Like, oh, but that's not the right way. Like, so I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:27

I think so many.

Speaker 2: 35:29

I see so many indie filmmakers that are so caught up, and it's that kind of ego I think of.

Speaker 2: 35:34

I have to do this the way the industry and the professionals do it, because if, if I don't, then I'm just looking like an amateur and they end up sort of really um bare, just going down this, this dark, sort of like intense, you know, in a struggle of oh no, I've got to do it this way. And then when they can't achieve it, that just eats them up and I'm like, just do it the way you can Like, if you have to do it, that DIY style, just to be able to put, you know, there's always the next time, there's always the next project. And it's funny when people who have a tiny budget to make a feature film, they take it so seriously, like they're making the next Star Wars and I think with a big studio behind them, it's like why put that pressure on yourself? You know, just make something that's within your reach today that you can pull off, you know, and who cares if it's not 100% perfect? You know, there's always no one's going to make their best film on their first go.

Speaker 1: 36:39

then I would hope anyway, right, right, well, and that, just, you know, reminds me of, um, that little moment in disaster artist where he says, hey, look at that set for the for the alleyway. It looks just like the actual alleyway. And he's like, yeah, isn't it great? Why didn't we just shoot it in the actual alleyway? Cause this is a Hollywood movie, you know. It's like, it's that mentality of like I have to do it the cool way, you know, and so, yeah, no, I love that mentality. I mean, even you look at like I don't know if you're familiar with David sandberg's youtube channel, pony smashers, yeah, yeah, and he goes into the everything you've gone into in terms of like this, the post sound, where he just goes into huge detail on like how he acquires all these sounds with his little mic around his house and and he builds library and mixes it for hours and hours and hours on these little short films he makes with his wife and it's incredible how sound effects can come from simple things like what one?

Speaker 2: 37:36

one of my favorite films of all time, the exorcist um. The famous scene of the head turning um around the 180 degrees, is even the you know, warner brothers big million dollar film. That'd be one of their biggest films at the time and the big one of the biggest films of all time. That was the sound of, like a pickle jar, that there was a certain brand with this certain tension in the jar that just had this real sound to it when you opened it. That they said I think that would be great for the sound of a head turning around because it had this almost real, just gritty sound to it. And I'm thinking this is a professional and they're getting a jar of whatever pickles. This was to create that sound. And I thought even the big movies use, you know, basic, just household items to create these little effects. And you know so nowadays people you would think create that with ai or something. But you don't really have to.

Speaker 1: 38:38

You can get the authentic thing from your, from your house, if you wanted to from your pantry, apparently, you know I yeah, I'm 100 there, so I think that's super awesome. Um, well, I want to transition and ask you a little bit about, basically, really quick. I want to talk about distribution because I think that's that's something that is really exciting about your story and, and I think it's something that I think a lot of the people we talk to, a lot of our listeners, a lot of members of the Future Filmmaker Academy that we do, are worried about, which is like do I get enough money? How do I make it? There's a lot of self-doubt that goes into making a film and you have to get over all that.

Speaker 1: 39:24

And so now it comes to the distribution part, which is like, oh, no indie film ever makes money, et cetera, et cetera, and so like, were you guys really like hopeful to turn a profit? Were you in this more for the experience? It sounds like you had a good attitude in terms of like, this doesn't have to be the Mona Lisa I'm not, you know, this is our first film but but what were your expectations? And then talk to me a little bit about how you distributed it and what were your results. Were?

Speaker 2: 39:50

Yeah, well, expectations, as I said, we just. I just thought I really wanted just to make a feature. I wanted to be able to say I've done it and have it out there. And I thought, you know, if it gets seen by very little people, if it goes out there and no one watches it and it ends up just on YouTube in a few years for people who just somehow discover it, you know, that was fine as long as I can sort of tick that off my bucket list if you will. But, yeah, so I didn't.

Speaker 2: 40:24

And so I thought, you know, that's why we kept it so small and simple, so that we knew we could finish it and could hopefully play it somewhere for an audience, maybe get some kind of streaming going and then just sort of, that's it as far as we were concerned. Mission accomplished. You know, sure it would have been great to make money with it, and especially since our cast and crew were entitled to be compensated, so that would have been good enough had that been the case compensated, um, so that would have been good enough had that have been the case. And so, um, we, we had distribution. We hadn't really thought of approaching, uh, you know, distribution companies initially.

Speaker 2: 41:06

But even before we released, we released anything, even before we released a trailer, we had an imdb page and we had distributors discovering us through imdb, reaching out interested in taking a look, and and they talked about how they can get it on to be amazon, itunes and all these things. And I thought, okay, and around the same time, um uh, we were listening to a lot of podcasts with um alex ferrari, yeah, and um jay horton, and there's another one who was like there was like film courage, is that one? Is that am?

Speaker 1: 41:46

I getting that courage is a youtube channel, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:48

Indie filmmaking, yeah, and then and there's like interviews with people who self-distribute, and and then I thought, and then, of course, through all those sources, filmhub kept popping up and we thought, hey, filmhub could be like what you do if you don't get a distribution deal. But we did the other way around. It was sort of our first point of call, because what really could a lot of these distributors reaching out to us, what could they have done that we couldn't do ourselves on FilmHub? I thought we'd already done so much by ourselves, writing, producing, post-production. Why couldn't we self-distribute at this point? Why hand it over to someone else at this final stage of the game? And I thought, you know all the assets, all the technical difficulties. I thought, if we can figure out everything else up until now, we can figure that out too. Subtitles, you know, getting all your assets. And the more we looked into it, the more we liked it and how it was very you know. Just basically, there was 20% that they get and then 80% to you. And we thought, okay, that's whereas the contracts that some of these distributors were sending us, that we were because whereas the contracts that some of these distributors were sending us, because we were sort of talking to them, we were entertaining the idea, but the contracts were just full of just pages of legal, just like reading it, like trying to understand another language, you know, it's like what on earth. And the biggest thing was in one contract where it said we own the rights for all territories. And then it had, like in quotations, the whole universe, and we thought that was hilarious. We thought so, basically, the streaming service on Mars, they own the rights. And basically we just Googled the names of these companies and sure enough that there was like people saying beware, stay away, run like run for the hills, do engage, you know.

Speaker 2: 43:36

And then more and more, and then I joined a lot of groups on facebook that were like um, who were with all these groups of indie filmmakers who were going down distribution paths and sharing experiences and sharing people, and I thought this a lot. A few of the companies that were reaching out to us were popping up in these groups and we thought, okay, maybe we won't go down that path. And so we thought, well, let's give FilmHub a try, because it just seemed very clear and a lot of people had a lot of good experiences with them and we thought, if it doesn't make any money, then at least if it doesn't make any money, then you know, at least if it doesn't get picked up by any streamings or whatever, at least it's sort of we tried and whatever, at the end of the day we can make our own Blu-rays, put it on our website somewhere if we want to do really self-distribute. But yeah, so we just said let's do that. And at the end of the day this was a very small budget, indie, western Australian outback production. The actors I've got I think they're all terrific but they're not huge names. So it's not like you've got a big star in your film that's going to draw a crowd where you kind of have a bit of bargaining power when you go to the festivals and you can go and have meetings with some of the big players because your film's got a name in it. But you know that wasn't the case with ours and that's not the case with a lot of these small films with actors who are carrying the film, you know, with actors who are carrying the film, you know. So we knew that it was going to be pretty difficult to try and get you know A24 to buy it or something like that. You know it was going to be a long shot.

Speaker 2: 45:27

So I figured we've always been that kind of DIY underdogs.

Speaker 2: 45:32

Why not just do all that ourselves, do our own marketing? We both had experience in marketing already about Facebook trailers of DIY underdogs. Why not just do all that ourselves, do our own marketing? We both had experience in marketing already about Facebook trailers and things like that advertising and reaching a demographic, all those little technical things. So we thought if we did get it on FilmHub and get it on a couple of places like Tubi or Amazon, then we can just do our own advertising and see what happens. And so we just decided that that was for this film, our first one. It was the best option and I think the reason a lot of indie filmmakers end up going to that distribution deal is because again, I boil it down to a bit of ego they think they have to get a deal with a, with a company that's that looks on paper and on on line looks amazing, and they can go oh, my film got picked up by such and such yeah, I've got a big deal, got a big contract coming in.

Speaker 2: 46:27

It's more of like a look what I did, look what I've got, I've got, and I just think that okay, good, that's great, but are you actually going to be? Is it actually going to benefit you long term? Right?

Speaker 1: 46:39

and so you know, that might go both ways, depending on the sorry, that might go both ways depending on the contract and depending on the distributor, right, like in some cases it's very favorable, like you know. But in yes, like you're saying, you do have to have a lot of honesty with yourself. Like wait, is this really a thing in the long run?

Speaker 2: 46:58

So yeah, yeah, I've seen people brag about their distribution deal and their film was like shot on an iPhone in one location with first-time actors. And I think I'm sure there's an audience for those films, because sometimes I watch those fun films on like Tubi or whatever because they're act, first-time actors and I think I'm sure there's an audience for those films, because sometimes I watch those fun films on like tubi or whatever because they're like, they're just fun to watch. I find a lot of those sort of small sort of real, like home, almost home movie style, but, um, I think they a lot of people sort of they just think they have to make it so quickly and get that deal so quickly. And you know I I don't ever see it making a big difference as opposed to doing the, the route of doing it yourself.

Speaker 2: 47:41

Um, if, if at all like I think in our case, we thought, if, if the best these companies were offering were things we could already do through film hub well, we know how to cut trailers and do advertising ourselves why give them essentially all of our profits just so they can do what we can already do ourselves? And again, I think if they came forth and said, hey, we'll buy this movie for X amount, get it in theatres around the world because we think it's got so much potential. Then, of course, like you know, there are going to be deals that are too good to resist, right. But I think a lot you, as you said, you have to be honest with yourself is is is my ten thousand dollar movie that was shot in 16 days with mostly unknown actors, gonna actually go the distance, right, sure, you might be that one off anomaly, that where that does happen, like paranormal activity or blair witch project, but they are like lottery. They are just one of hundreds of thousands that didn't.

Speaker 1: 48:46

So and those were made in totally different economies than today is a right now like there's. Yeah, you can't just assume that you have so much in in like inherent talent and and golden. You know. I guess that you can just like make an offer it to these people who are all going to be eager to pay top dollar when really exactly.

Speaker 2: 49:08

I think you have to have that honesty, yeah, with yourself, like you're allowed to be proud of your work and you're allowed to to to be, you know, to put it out there and be proud to promote yourself in your film. But you also have to be realistic with yourself and say, and really have those hard conversations with yourself, like you know, is is, am I just kidding myself, holding out for that offer, that's almost, that's probably too good. I know people that literally make films and go through post-production and then just don't release their films because they're waiting for an offer too good to be true, interesting, and I think that's just, that's just I. I think that's ludicrous. You know they could have gone down the same path we did and made back their money by now. Right, but it's just this.

Speaker 2: 49:55

A lot of the time it's that ego or that almost delusion. I don't want to sound, you know, negative, but there's a lot of delusion with people who really just hold out. They're just so convinced that, no, this is going to be the one, I'm not going to go down that path, I'm going to wait till the Netflix or Warner brothers come calling. And it's like you know, you, you don't have that kind of bargaining power. Yet you know, work towards that. By all means, set those goals. But you got to also be realistic and when I worked in talent management for 10 years, that's where I learned those. You have to be realistic with yourself. You can't set these unrealistic goals. Yeah, you can set goals, those you have to be realistic with yourself. You can't set these unrealistic goals. Yeah, you can set goals, but you have to be prepared to work hard and take the blows with the punches, sort of thing and start at step one.

Speaker 2: 50:44

You know, start at step one and everyone wants to start at step 12. Yeah, oh my god, yeah, they just. No one really understands that concept of just that. Everyone sees these sort of overnight success stories. Well, there's no such thing as an overnight success story, anyone that claims to be. It's just everyone had worked hard to get to where they are. They had to go through so much rejection, you know? I mean, I guess yes, there are overnight in terms of people who go viral on TikTok and get their brand deals and five minutes of fame. But you know, if you're making movies or you're wanting to be an actor in Hollywood films, it's usually a bit of a different story than just going viral and being famous for five minutes, you know. So it's certainly a a marathon or not a sprint, is that? Is that the same?

Speaker 1: 51:36

so talk to me about, about film hub. So with the um, you're on social media marketing, you're on facebook marketing and you're on advertising yeah, trailers. And then how did you manage? Um, um, really quick, did you so? Did you guys end up having to go the route of it? So I know most distributors will require, like, eno insurance? Um, did you guys end up having to kind of go through more of that legal stuff, or did you bypass that when you went to FilmHub?

Speaker 2: 52:04

FilmHub was pretty straightforward.

Speaker 2: 52:07

There was, you know, you enter a lot of details with, you know, tax, but being that we're in another country to FilmHub, there's a bit of like. It's sometimes that kind of got a bit tricky knowing which sort of area to tick because we're claiming to be making money in other countries and a bit of that sort of technical stuff got a bit tricky, but not too much in the sense of legal issues and insurances, but not too much in the sense of legal issues and insurances. It was, you know, once the film went through submission and passed QR and all those things QC, I should say sorry, quality control and so you know, it basically goes from there. And then we saw that we'd made so much money but we couldn't access it straight away because we hadn't done the form properly and we had to tick a different box because you know, and then it says this is how much you earn. This is film hubs take. We have to pay the Australian government this much because you're Australian citizens, you know, and then you end up still making a decent percentage once it's all said and done.

Speaker 2: 53:24

Yeah, and so it was. Certainly. As I said, we made back our budget in about six months and then started making profits and were able to pay out the cast and crew, who all worked for deferred fees. So, as I said, I don't know, I can't, I'll never know if the same would have happened had we have gone down that typical distribution path, because I'd read so many stories of people who went down those paths and didn't get their money so I thought, well, that could have been. Also, there are people who go on FilmHub whose movies don't make back their money so soon.

Speaker 2: 53:57

So I sometimes say I don't know what we did specifically differently. I don't know if we could have just it could have been a fluke, I don't know. It could have just been the right place, right time. But there's also. But we also put in everything we had. We made sure we had all of our trailers ready to go. We put in a couple thousand dollars just to pay for Instagram and Facebook sponsored ads in targeted areas of the world where we felt this would do the best. And yeah so. But that first month it was on Tubi. Most of it made like $12,000 US in that first month it was on Tubi. It made most of its money like made like $12,000 US in that first month, so that was like pretty, pretty crazy.

Speaker 1: 54:45

That was your take, or was that gross?

Speaker 2: 54:49

That was before, before all the fees would come out, but still I think it was that much. I did a second youtube video when, because we started doing youtube about all of our um experience with all this and the second one that I did, dave's done a couple um I do go into specific numbers of what we spent, what we made for the months that we spent x amount on on um. You know we would spend this much during october and we made this much in october, you know. So um I have I have the exact numbers and data on in that video.

Speaker 1: 55:24

If, if anyone wants to know more about our marketing sort of strategy yeah, and and send me the link and we'll put that in the uh, the description, because I think that there are many listeners who would love to to look at that and I found it super awesome to watch and get the briefing on that, and so I think that I think what's nice is that you say maybe it was a fluke, and that's humble to say, and I get it. There's some aspect of that right, there's too many variables for any of us to be able to say this is exactly what caused it to work or not, you know. But but at the same time, like you can't say that as much, because you guys did have all the power over advertising. You didn't have a distributor doing that for you. You were taking way more of a cut than you would have with a distributor. So you knew the efforts that you put in. Like you, like you know, we cut all our trailers. We, we did our due diligence. We, we did.

Speaker 1: 56:19

You guys did really self-distribute, whereas I think some people they throw it up on film hub and then they go all right, like here, we go waiting for the money come in, you know, and it's like no, it doesn't just come in. Like you, you actually have to funnel an audience into that movie and then hopefully, if it's, if it's good, if it's getting good, like you know, good user reviews. I'm not sure how user reviews work on anything, but, like you know, amazon, they have users can leave reviews and I mean, if it's doing well and if it's getting some word of mouth, then those dollars go a little farther and and then you can kind of snowball it until you make all your money back and you start actually collecting profits on top of it. I think that what you've done, be it self-funded, indie, scrappy first-time feature, and the big mantra is 2% or less of indie features make their money back. So it's really an astonishing accomplishment in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 57:16

Indie features make their money back. So it's really an astonishing accomplishment in my opinion. And and to have done it totally self-distributed, um, I think, just shows that. First of all, I'm not sure if that statistic is correct. I just hear that always floating around on youtube, so people say that right, but like, I think it's actually totally possible. Um, what would you describe as? Like maybe some of the other value that you've gotten, totally outside of the financial of this, of this experience of making this film?

Speaker 2: 57:44

Well, I think it's it definitely. Once it's all said and done and you, you know you go to the premiere and you see your finished film up there on screen, it's kind of that gives you that sense of I did, that I can do anything now. So if I can manage to see that through to the end, then nothing will be as well, not nothing, but other challenges in life or other projects I undertake may not be as daunting as they may have would have been perceived originally had I've not gone through that experience first. And I guess, in a way, as I said, I sold my house when I was going through the production. When I built my house, I had that same attitude.

Speaker 2: 58:29

I was sort of did it by. I was working full-time in an agency and I got into the property market, did a home and land package in a new suburb and I was, you know, when I had to get all the backyard and everything done. That kind of gave me that now I've done this, I can do anything sort of thing. I managed to see through this seemingly impossible task. So when I did the house I thought making a feature film will be easy compared to buying a house. So it'll be and it was, it was, it was.

Speaker 2: 59:01

I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was a different kind of challenge. But then during that I sort of gives you that sense of I can do it again. I can maybe even do a bit better next time. I would hope that the next film does a little bit better still and the one after that better still. Eventually you might want to have much bigger budgets, have named actors, eventually get that really amazing deal. But when you sort of can achieve that first sort of hurdle, you think, well, hey, if I can get that done, I can do that next project and then one after that dream project. It might not happen right now, it might be another 30 years away, but you know who's to say it's impossible. This seemed like it was impossible, but I still managed to see it through.

Speaker 1: 59:48

Yeah, so well, and you did it.

Speaker 2: 59:51

It sort of gives you that I think it's yeah sense of, and I think that's the same with any project, like even the short films. When they were done, it was like, okay, well, I've done that, now I'm ready to tackle something bigger and yeah so.

Speaker 1: 1:00:05

So you said you know, maybe you know I've done that I can do it again or I can do it better. So what is the next film? Is there a next film?

Speaker 2: 1:00:14

there is kind of two in very early stages. There was one that I was starting to. It's another thriller, but this one's more of a uh, spirit ghost sort of ghost story, um, as opposed to the more house road, which is more of a murderer for profit type storyline. But the next one would be more sort of close to like that kind of sinister ghostly vibe. But that's an early script, very early sort of not even a script, but just early synopsis and things like that.

Speaker 2: 1:00:53

But another one that we've only just started thinking about tackling was the film we made in 2015 about domestic violence has done so well with reaching an audience and having people discuss. We like the idea of shooting new scenes and adding it in and having a longer version of that film so that we can hopefully get it on Tubi or other streaming services, because where it is now it's on YouTube and it's not allowed to be monetised even though it's had so many views because of the subject matter. So we thought, what if we can make it a bit longer and hopefully do something with it? That's cool, yeah, but we'll see.

Speaker 1: 1:01:40

That's that's again early script days as well, so nothing immediately, but there are ideas in the works well, and that was one other question I wanted to ask you really quick before I ask you your final question, because we only have a couple minutes left. What? How did you shoot this? Did you so you said you shot it in 16 days? Were those consecutive days? Were those weekends? How did you shoot this? Did you so you said you shot it in 16 days? Were those consecutive days? Were those weekends? How did you piecemeal the schedule?

Speaker 2: 1:02:01

uh, there were mostly um, they weren't consecutive, oh, a couple of them were, but mostly weekends and the and a few weekdays where we were just organized to get out because we had our job, we had to get the time off, work and things like that, but we would some. The biggest one was like three days in a row at the cottage because we had to book the airbnb and you do everything we needed to do at that location in those three days and then we would sort of try and work around and because we had our jobs to do as well. Yeah, so it was over about two, two months. We had 16 days scattered across two months and sometimes they were close together, but otherwise there was sometimes a bit of gap, which was good in a way, because the actors had so much dialogue to learn. I guess it gave them more time to do the dialogue for the next scene.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

Well for everyone for a couple days. Reprep and decompress yeah, I think. I think that's the way to make it Get their hair cut a bit.

Speaker 1: 1:02:59

Because their hair would grow, things like that, that's true, you know, I think that if you want to just really reduce costs on any movie, that's the way to do it. I mean, that's how Chris Nolan did. His first feature was all weekend shoots. It was, you know, they had day jobs and I I I think that, yeah, if you ever have an opportunity to make a feature that way, it's definitely going to reduce the cost by probably like 70% or something. Like it's just just just pull all those resources in and then just like expand it all into that one huge chunk of time is it's that's intense, it's intense, it's hard on, it's hard on everybody, and so I mean it's totally possible. When it's intense, it's hard on, it's hard on everybody, and so I mean it's totally possible. It's the right thing to do for certain projects. But I think that was. I mean I would say it was wise. But sometimes you're like it's just what we had to do.

Speaker 2: 1:03:42

You know it's like it's not, that was just life yeah, we it was a case of that too had to do. Plus, the locations were not always available at certain times of the year. The hospital we had a hospital which was, um only available when there was no student activity at the university, so we had to shoot that. Our lead actress, hannah, who was in whose character, goes to hospital about three quarters into the film. She had to shoot those scenes first because that was the only time we could get that location. So her character had experienced all the horror and and and craziness by the time she gets to that scene but it was the first time she had acted on set was in the hospital where she had her character. She had to have already lived it in her head to act it out and then later, a couple months later, shoot the scenes that led her to hospital off the top of your head um, what are your three favorite movies right now?

Speaker 1: 1:04:44

and, uh, it doesn't really matter, but they're like the three, you know, just the three favorite movies that come to your mind. And then, what are you listening to right now?

Speaker 2: 1:05:05

after that, oh, three favorite films, oh god it's. I really find it hard to answer that. I mean I love so many, just all genres, all eras. I like old films, new films, as I said before. The exorcist, that's a huge inspiration to me. Um, scream was also a huge inspiration to me, the first scream film, um, but I also love um comic book films, dc and like. So I love like the batman, joker, oh that's. I'm going more than three, but you know it's okay. The Dark Knight, it's hard to pick, but yeah, I would say Joker, I think is one of the best films in recent years, I think, in my opinion. Yeah, that, I see, that I saw at the cinemas, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:05:56

And what are you listening to? Music, wise? What's on your? What's on your? Well?

Speaker 2: 1:06:00

you know, it's funny whenever I write, um, whenever I write scripts and I'm starting to write something now, I'm always listening to like scores from movies, cause I find it gets you in the cinematic headspace and like thing you know, um, hans Zimmer and all those classic composers, john Williams, all those, and if it's something that like, for example, when I was writing Morehouse Road, I'd listen to all the horror things because it was a thriller. So I was listening to, you know, the Halloween score and all the famous scores from thrillers. Yeah, but right now the script I'm working on is more of a drama, and so I'm listening to like the the scores from the more dramatic films. But, yeah, I, I, I listened again. I listened to all the genres and things like that. I'm not very good at picking just one thing.

Speaker 1: 1:06:50

That's good. Well, before we get kicked off, thanks so much, Chris, for being on the show and show.

Speaker 2: 1:06:56

Thanks so much for having me. I had a great time and really appreciate you having me on.