S10 Premiere: Filmmakers JJ Perez & J. William Boothman II

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[00:00:47] I'm your host, Soley. And once again, got another independent filmmaker showcase. Wonderful duo who is making it happen. Welcome to the show. JJ Perez. What's up? How you guys doing? We're live. John William Boothman, how are you buddy?

[00:01:03] Man, doing great. I'm coming in live from Weird Wednesday. It's a monthly minicon on the first Wednesday of the month here in Fort Worth, Texas. And it's hosted in an abandoned church. And right now I'm doing the podcast from the quietest room, which would be the bridal suite.

[00:01:20] And like all the furniture in here is from the 50s or early 60s. If we were doing video, I would show it off because it's pretty wild in here. I love the slogan though. It's like some daring, some controversial, all weird.

[00:01:35] Exactly. Yeah, it's all genres and ghost trippers fit in perfectly being cavity and horror. Oh, wonderful. And so I noticed you said in that bio that's a TV pilot you've been trying to ship around. Yeah, JJ and I had the pilot in 43 different festivals and screenings last year.

[00:01:58] We've had it at a national touring horror convention called Days of the Dead. We've had it at four times twice last year in Indiana and Chicago and twice this year in Atlanta and just this last weekend in Houston. Wonderful.

[00:02:16] Alright, so did you guys go to the same classes together or did you meet down the road later in life? We actually met in 2019. We were showing our own individual projects. It was my first feature and Will was showing one of his short films.

[00:02:37] It was our first film festival. It was my first film festival and his first film festival. It was called Prison City Film Festival. We actually met during my screening of my film, he sat behind me, him and his mother.

[00:02:53] Turns out his mom begged him to go see my movie and he was like, man, I don't want to see this damn movie.

[00:03:00] It wasn't quite begging, but yeah. You never know what a feature is going to be like in a festival and if you want to commit your time to it.

[00:03:10] But JJ's beneath, I mean just from the jump he had this great entertaining cast and he had a good natural sense of pacing. So there was never a moment in the movie that I was sitting there watching my clock waiting for this thing to be over.

[00:03:23] That's good. Makes a difference. William, you went to Northlake College which I've had the honor of actually kind of browsing once upon a time just when we were actually doing a film set event there one time and how was the film department there?

[00:03:44] Oh, it was exceptional. I'm actually my two time film school dropout. The first time was at the Art Institute of Dallas and after talking to so many people that didn't do a whole lot with their degree there, I left after a semester or two

[00:04:02] and spent way too much money and then later realized that I could get a lot more bang for my buck at the community college. And the great thing about Northlake is that they have the connection to Los Calinas studios where Walker, Texas Ranger and other things were filmed.

[00:04:16] Yeah, so that was great. And that's been a decade that's a decade. Yeah, that was 2013, so it's been 10 years. But I stayed there a lot longer.

[00:04:31] Man. And well, where did all the main film influences come into your lives? Where were the main keepers that you're just like that movie's embedded in my mind? I want to make something of that pedigree.

[00:04:46] For me was back in 2006. I would get chore money from my parents and I would always go and buy a movie at Walmart or whatever the case was, even Blockbuster, I'd go and buy movies at.

[00:05:03] And I stumbled upon this movie called Hatchet by Adam Green. There you go. It was his first feature.

[00:05:11] But when I saw that movie, I was like, oh, this is so cool. This is the kind of stuff that I want to make. I was always into the horror genre, but I loved his style, how he mixed kind of comedy with true horror, although not mixing them together in the same scene.

[00:05:30] They were always separated. So also like an all star cast and just crazy old school gore, all that type of stuff. So that was my inspiration. But beside that, like, you know, all my favorite films were, you know, 80s horror, Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead.

[00:05:49] You can go as far back as the exorcist from the 70s, but there you go. But mostly 80s horror is a big inspiration.

[00:05:57] And I actually was not a horror fan until I hooked up with JJ in the last two years of doing the Scows Trippers. I've been trying to crash course, you know, 50 years of horror or more. Of course, I watched all the classics like JJ said. I mean, who's not a fan of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.

[00:06:17] But my inspiration was more action films and Robert Rodriguez came out with that book Rubble Without a Crew. He made Mariachi by himself, you know, one hand crew.

[00:06:30] And even now JJ and I are looking at some, you know, better opportunities. And I still want to kind of keep the crew streamlined. Stanley Kubrick when he made The Shining at times only has six people on his crew.

[00:06:49] And, you know, that's a fantastic looking film. So I don't think you always have to blow it up your army. You can do things streamlined. Yeah, essentially it you don't have to go all out and exhaust yourself. Right.

[00:07:06] Wonderful. And so again, the struggle is real. We're all trying to make something and it's never easy to make it all happen right away. But so far, have you found this to be a very collaborative community? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:28] Ironically, I think like more so after COVID, I think everybody being locked up. Made them made it's where everybody wanted to work together. It's amazing here in Fort Worth we have three different film communities the weird Wednesday that Matt now there's that classic

[00:07:45] classic film club and then there's also the more art house for worth film club. Those only popped up in the last year to two years. Nice.

[00:07:57] It's also all the film festivals that we've been attending and we're meeting all these other filmmakers that you know want to collaborate and you know are asking if they could be a part of what we're doing or if we could be a part of what they're doing.

[00:08:09] We definitely get a lot of that a lot of networking. That's what's great about film festivals. Yep. Absolutely. We've seen a lot of great films on the road and it feels like there's an energy for another independent, you know, film boom coming.

[00:08:26] It seems like at times and you know everything goes in waves and you don't have a good networking event go to a better one you know. I mean, it's just a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:08:39] Never give up. You know we've been through some some troubles. You know will was was trying to make.

[00:08:47] I mean to this day is still trying to make a feature film that we were both working on and we had to put that on hold and decide to make something else.

[00:08:54] And that turned out to be ghost trippers and it's been widely successful so far so again, you know, never give up and just keep going at it.

[00:09:03] Wonderful. Yeah, absolutely that feature was started in 2019 when JJ and I met there's seen there's a couple of scenes shot then and of course COVID happened.

[00:09:13] And then I was trying to pick up the pieces after that. And the biggest hurdle was that my first movie my first feature length movie was going to be a road trip and that's probably not the best strategy.

[00:09:24] Amazing amazing things in Caprock Canyon, the state park of the panhandle this beautiful and down in Galveston.

[00:09:32] So the footage is great but it got towards the end of 2021 and as JJ said that I realized I couldn't get it finished and we needed to finish a project that year just to have something to show for everybody's hard work.

[00:09:46] So we, we all went to this motel in Hillsborough and print storms my days and then the next day I took those ideas and matched them up into one script.

[00:09:58] The first was just going to be a short story. And then the more I started thinking about the characters and how they needed to develop I thought it would be, you know, a great TV series. Nice. Yeah.

[00:10:12] You know, I'm kind of noticed that myself to where I would work on something and be like yeah but this is too much for a short film and to be consumed in one timeframe or it's a good idea but it shouldn't be in this particular movie. Right.

[00:10:30] It's always interesting how you kind of just go with what you find comfortable. Yeah, yeah. I'll get her.

[00:10:42] So I was just gonna say and you know as JJ said, the little pilot ended up turning turning us be way more popular than we expected it to be. I mean we knew it was good.

[00:10:52] And what we're shooting and we know we got good performances but we just didn't think it would take off like it did. Yeah. You can't predict anything nowadays. Right. Lovely.

[00:11:04] And when your brainstorming anything that you recommend as just kind of a, just a must do before anything happens. Yeah. And go ahead, JJ. I was just going to say, I mean when we brainstorm stuff.

[00:11:28] You know like will said we got together at the actual location that we shot at as inspiration and kind of thought up some ideas of what we could do like we sat outside at one o'clock in the morning and just kind of thought up some stuff

[00:11:44] of what we could do or how we could use this location to our advantage. And I came up with with the really, you know, amateur ghost hunting group that not very good at what they're doing or they just want to fake everything.

[00:12:07] And then, you know, will and then a couple, a couple of other of our co-writers came up with the idea of a guy running around a motel. And just kind of combine those, those ideas together.

[00:12:20] And so you pull the Tarantino is like take a bunch of things you like and put it into one tasty milkshake. Yeah.

[00:12:30] The main reason why was the guy running about around a motel thing was built around time travel and I just couldn't work it out in my head the logic of it.

[00:12:40] And for the audience, you probably don't need the explanation. But if I'm going to try to direct actors and to doing this, I have to explain what they're doing and I just cannot make sense of it.

[00:12:51] And then finally, I was like, you know what would make sense if it was a ghost. There you go. Then the two ideas became one. Right. Instead of having to get their close ups and they're not sure what they're looking at. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:13:08] I had to get off of one very poorly run indie film set one time when long story short, like these actors and directors were doing everything that like a bunch of no-nos like the director was telling the actors how to act and vice versa.

[00:13:24] I'm like, no, that's not going to work guys. When you tell people to do their job, it just gets hostile. Yeah. Oh, man.

[00:13:39] But it is kind of fun to just kind of experiment with different tags and see which one looks better versus which one happens more organically and you're like, wow, I can use that tag. Yeah. It's better than what I had on paper.

[00:13:54] Definitely. And that helps whenever you have a great cast to whenever they kind of know what they're doing or they do a lot of improv like a lot of our actors did. Oh, lovely.

[00:14:06] So each take was different in its own way because we kind of gave them a little bit of freedom.

[00:14:13] Yeah, the pilot's 28 minutes. And as I was saying earlier, I've kind of done things the Rodriguez way so we only had a crew of three that's the DOP on the camera, the sound guy and the mom is myself.

[00:14:27] JJ is the producer but he was also a lead actor so he's in front of the camera most of the time.

[00:14:32] And we shot it in five days. So we got 28 minutes of story shot over five days with just three people that's that's pretty incredible and I think the only reason it works is what JJ was saying we have a great cast, and all of us had worked, you know, spent many,

[00:14:49] many days working on the feature. So we kind of knew how everybody works. It wasn't like just jumping together and trying to get out how people do things. It was lovely man.

[00:14:59] And when what are some brainstorming methods that you recommend for anyone, you know, what are they're doing storyboards or shot lists or a line script. So JJ myself and Mike Sarkosa or stand up comedian and one of our actors.

[00:15:16] We were all last year at the week long San Antonio Film Festival. And I think it was three nights. We were up in my hotel room, like all night working on the second, the second episode and maybe part of the third but I know the second one.

[00:15:36] You're talking about brainstorming.

[00:15:39] If you're working collaboratively like that, you know, you kind of need everybody on board. And I remember there. There's so many times that you know JJ would be at bat writing and they get stuck and then we have a, you know, what, what do they do next.

[00:15:51] And I would just come up with whatever I did whatever it was and I would write it down. And then I'd write it out and step away and then wait for the reaction if they said it was shit. I'll just delete it and we do it again.

[00:16:01] But I'd rather throw shit at the wall than, you know, sit there and not write it at all. And definitely so instead of getting bogged down with well, they think this but it's not helpful or.

[00:16:16] And even if it's bad idea one of them, you know can come up with Oh, alright well this is good but this isn't so we should do this. And then you know you get something out of it. Absolutely.

[00:16:25] Instead of just say it's not working but we don't know why. Right. Now, now although. Now, although this is with this project I've had the most fun writing for for these episodes. Usually writing is my least favorite part about making.

[00:16:45] You know, making a film or making a series whatever the case. Yeah, but what would I recommend to, you know, answer answer your question what, you know, give some tips, what helps with me when I'm writing alone is music.

[00:17:00] Yes, has some music playing in the background and of course have it fit to whatever you're writing if it's a hardcore scene. Put some heavy metal on or something.

[00:17:10] You know, I was writing some dramatic parts for the finale of our show and I had some really slow like ballads playing in the background so that I found that to help out a lot in the writing process. Oh man. So there you go.

[00:17:26] Let your brain go in areas you don't you don't even expect. Exactly, exactly. Would you also say that when you go to this special place, you also, you make the writing a little more laid back instead of stress, and you also essentially just

[00:17:53] kind of invite yourself to go there, if you will. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, David Lynch has a, you know, he describes writing as like fishing your ideas just kind of come to you and you have to catch them.

[00:18:05] And I totally can feel that sometimes you know, sometimes stuff comes just easy easy breathing other times you're so especially improv hammered out. But of course the first rule of improv is don't try to be funny. Yeah.

[00:18:19] And it happens and it's almost always like lightning in a bottle and you're like, Oh, I want to recreate that. But if I do it's just, it's just not going to land because it's going to be too staged.

[00:18:33] Oh, and so I've noticed Dallas is pretty much permit based and Fort Worth is way more open to where you can just be at a private resort or do gorilla type filmmaking.

[00:18:47] What are some good studios or filming spots that you guys have kind of come across that really just so rewarding and helpful for a film shoot.

[00:18:56] I live in Austin, and it's not very friendly here out of the whole state I recommend not trying to look for something in Austin. A little over saturated I guess now.

[00:19:11] Yeah, I mean they always want a ton of money and then it's just it's crazy versus from what I experienced kind of location scouting with will for the feature film.

[00:19:23] Going to smaller towns helps out a lot. They, they're off for a film being made in their town and they'll fully supported and it'll be either super cheap or just free in general is what we've encountered. That's a good part about small towns.

[00:19:39] I didn't try that as well because I was also kind of looking at those raids and then seeing a lot of feedback where people were like, well you can pay the fee but they still will probably say no even after you paid $250 it's like well. Exactly.

[00:19:57] If I've done paperwork and they still say no what what gives. Right. As JJ said, we've we've got a lot of love from from small towns.

[00:20:07] Coleman Texas is one of them and since we filmed there they started a film festival that there that's run two years now last year in this year. And where we shot.

[00:20:23] Are both the feature and ghost trippers in Hillsborough, Texas. They, you know they're very comedy name there, especially the motel but we have kind of a special relationship with them. It's the it's the hotel that the motel that.

[00:20:38] Wes Anderson shot bottle rocket at and they were going to go under in 2011 and our DOP and our actor actor and writing partner Andy.

[00:20:50] They in 2011 they found out about that there were huge Wes Anderson fans. So, they got a hold of Alamo draft house and did a screening of a rocket at the motel and brought in Wes Anderson fans from all over the country and other countries as well.

[00:21:07] They all they all went there dressed up cosplaying as characters from Wes Anderson movies and had a great time. And then they did that, like for another eight years.

[00:21:17] And that's why I'm the motel. Let JJ myself, Chris and Andy kind of do whatever we want to the hotel as long as we didn't damage it. We had a you know run to the whole place it was really nice. Wait. And some helpful.

[00:21:38] Now, not not every, not everybody could have a relationship like that but the idea is just to try to find you know people that you know that have businesses and of course treat them well, but at the same time, they'll treat you well because you have that relationship with them.

[00:21:54] And even, you know, even in Fort Worth. If you go to neighborhoods that aren't as popular. I haven't shot there but I would imagine it'd be hard to shoot in the stockyards or the water gardens or someplace like that where everybody should. But

[00:22:08] But I think it helps that we're a very commercial kind of state. Right.

[00:22:14] Right. It seems weird like if they think you're a big out of town crew then they can kind of pull you a price that doesn't just not going to work and then other times it seems like they'll, if you're just shooting a commercial or something they kind of seem to be like okay that's that's fair game.

[00:22:32] Right. I don't get it. I don't get it. I'm just like, I'm a man so. And isn't it just kind of just so relaxing when you're seeing a lot of these people who you meet at these festivals and you're like where have you been my whole life.

[00:22:53] Oh yeah, yeah. I think it's fun running into kindred spirits. I think that's one of the great things about you know horror films and poor communities. It's so tight. Whether it's the actors, the fans the other filmmakers, it's that collective love for that genre that brings everybody together.

[00:23:15] Totally. And again, you won't forget those. Right, right. So, what kind of camera angles do you recommend the most especially for those who are on a budget and want to shoot it quick but not look too rushed or unnatural with their film stuff.

[00:23:40] Getting a good steady cam light rig or you know there's those gimbals now but they won't hold a lot of weight. Chris uses a an over the shoulder rig that worked out great.

[00:23:53] But the idea is to kind of shoot it handheld. We did shoot a good amount of stuff on sticks, you know, on tripods.

[00:23:59] But with the with the feature we did do a couple of dollies but that was only because Chris had the time to set up the dolly with ghost trippers again we were shooting that thing so quick that we.

[00:24:11] You know, we never used a fancy shot like that. There's a long tracking shot that I believe I know Chris was actually using the gimbal during the chase sequence.

[00:24:23] But I mean, I think that looks as smooth as had it been on the dolly and that was just him running very delicately backwards. I have to add.

[00:24:33] So he's very talented at that. But, but yeah if you're shooting with a small crew and a compressed timeframe, you got to try to keep it as handheld as possible and then find out what a rig so you can get that will stabilize it the best you can.

[00:24:48] It's wonderful. So, you know, everyone's different and has a different style. But what are just like maybe five things that are just like always a requirement, you know, other than just you know obviously working out a budget or third plan and food obviously right. Sound sound.

[00:25:14] For sure is number one, probably as far as I can think of is super important. Having a good sound guy on set I've learned is is so helpful.

[00:25:27] And then also in post production having a good mix somebody that knows what they're doing mixing and removing, removing noise and just ADR stuff.

[00:25:39] We also also hired somebody to score it stuff like that. You'd be surprised at what a score can do to your film like you could look, or it can look or sound so empty and then you add a score to it and it just adds so much.

[00:25:53] Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we have to give a shout out to our sound guy, Joey.

[00:26:01] I'm going to slaughter his last name Doppler because the downside of our location the motel was it was right off of I 35 in Hillsborough, which gets a lot of traffic and JJ shot some behind the scenes stuff and I was just, I looked at it you know in two years and then I was surprised how loud the freeway was,

[00:26:21] because Joey was able to minimize that just with his equipment and you know skill of pointing the camera in the right direction. That's wonderful.

[00:26:31] A funny thing about that was you would, you would think that the noise would be louder pointing the camera the mic towards the towards the freeway. The hotel was laid out and you know in a U shape.

[00:26:48] The shots where the mic was pointed towards the walls of the motel was picking up the road noise more. And like JJ said, we did a lot of work in post to minimize that but that just blew my mind I was like I never would have guessed this is where we have problems with that with that freeway.

[00:27:09] All right. Well, no, that that is surprising because yeah. I think it's the.

[00:27:17] Never get enough recording of crickets crickets will chirp faster and louder at different temperatures and different scenarios, and you were shooting stuff in the exact same spot but changing the angle to get one character to another and those damn crickets would just change their their pace.

[00:27:33] So then you'd have to loop over the loudest crickets over the quietest crickets to make it all man. That was fun. I'm not that. I always, I've been joking that I'm just going to get filled recordings of crickets at every temperature possible.

[00:27:50] And I'll have them as a backup. About that. Because of course be here in Texas. So we shot this in five days over two weekends that I think we're 2 weeks apart.

[00:28:03] And the weather changed drastically in those 2 weeks, but also in those 2 nights. I remember we had one warm night and then the cold front came in and everything dropped. So, you know that added a lot of challenges, including those crickets. Oh man.

[00:28:21] It's either that or airplanes flying overhead. Yeah, that's the one good thing about Hillsborough is apparently not on a flight path because I don't remember us ever having an airplane there.

[00:28:32] You almost can't shoot DFW because there's going to be playing everywhere. Every part of DFW is going to have a plane flying overhead. In addition to the motorcycles that you know are over the top. Right. And the stuff that surprises you. Right. And that's very fun.

[00:28:58] So, all together. When scouting and looking up actors, it seems like there's all a bunch of other sites that are good ways to kind of get shortcuts and find people who are reliable.

[00:29:14] So, it's really good for voice acting. Obviously theater community always has some people who want to showcase their skills on recorded video.

[00:29:24] What are some tips and tricks that you'd recommend to those just trying to find someone who is someone other than their friend, you know, who's really serious and haven't heard any problems of being opinionated. Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

[00:29:41] For Ghost Trippers we really didn't audition anybody for this project anyway.

[00:29:50] But when we were doing Barry Lover, we had such a huge cast that I was like, well, why don't we just pull some actors from there and cast them just so to make the process easier and to give them more work.

[00:30:05] And yeah, it worked for the most part. I think the only one that we got from somewhere else was Mikaela or Ghost. Oh no, but even then she was in Barry Lover but we will found her on a Facebook group.

[00:30:26] Yeah, we were shooting her last scene, her JJ's last scene from the feature, you know, literally right before we started Ghost Trippers because I was like well, I want to wrap her from the feature.

[00:30:40] So we have her here might as well knock her out, knock out her last scene and we were able to do it in the same town of Hillsborough.

[00:30:47] But yeah, again that's why I think Ghost Trippers was a part of why it was a success. It was a great idea. They came up with a great idea, a great set of ideas, but also because all the casting crew had spent that time working together on Barry Lover.

[00:31:04] With that, again I wanted to stress, you know when it came to casting and getting crew for Barry Lover, I wanted to stress going to film festivals and meeting people because JJ and I had met there.

[00:31:17] I knew Chris and Andy beforehand but all the other actors and crew were people that either JJ or I had met on the festival circuit. With the exception of Mikaela and we got her from the Facebook like DFW filmmakers, something like that.

[00:31:34] She was looking for work. I saw the post. I went and looked at her real and I was like hey, you know she could fit that part so then we had her audition and brought her on board. There you go. We'll return after these messages.

[00:32:15] Here's Florida men plural on Florida man podcast. Or wherever fine podcasts are found. The Jacked Up Review Show podcast is honored to be part of the Blind Knowledge Podcast Network. Join any time, talk the talk and enjoy yourselves.

[00:33:00] There's something enlightening for everyone with this crowd of cool cats. Check them out. Isn't it just such a fun kinetic feeling when it all clicks together?

[00:33:15] Oh yeah. Yeah. It's I mean even people showing up on time and you don't have to deal with just someone who's just doing a total of work. You know, like a little jerk move and you're like, oh no, no, no. Right.

[00:33:32] Yeah, even when things don't go as planned, of course, it can all go bad bad but even if something goes bad, I enjoy that improvisation of trying to figure out how to make it work.

[00:33:45] You know, nothing I don't think anything ghost trippers went on schedule. I had the schedule and we kept rearranging it for people schedule people schedules when they were coming in and how long things would take to shoot. Start taking notes.

[00:34:00] But I remember we were trying to wrap Rebecca our lead actress and ghost trippers.

[00:34:06] I had planned on shooting their last scene the next day but she would prefer to it was like the only indoor scene too. So we've been shooting this thing all night sunrise sunset to sunrise.

[00:34:21] So, I thought she'd go back to the room that we got her and we shoot everything the next morning and she's like, no, I just want to get home. Can we knock this up tonight?

[00:34:29] So, I'm scrambling already told the sound guy that he could wrap. So I go find him and he's still there.

[00:34:36] Grab him we go to the room and then we shoot the scene. And then I typically like to shoot dialogue first because that's like, you know, the thing you got to really work on.

[00:34:46] Not that action doesn't need to be worked on too but rather knock out the dialogue. So do the dialogue dialogue and then I realized I can't start the scene without seeing them enter the room because they're supposed to be in the haunted room.

[00:34:57] You can't just have them in the room. We got to see them get into the room. So I'm realizing the time this is at the very end of the night early morning and I'm like, oh God please don't let that son be up because it's trying to get them in the room.

[00:35:08] I don't know how many fake it'd be at night outside. So I open up that door and pull it open and it's still dark. I'm like, all right, let's get this last shot. Yeah, we shot them coming in the room. Yeah, clock is ticking.

[00:35:20] Yeah, clock is ticking and we miraculously got that scene shot. I don't know the time I remember that I had like, you know, like 10 or 12 shots on the storyboard, and we shot it in five.

[00:35:32] Now JJ and I came back into some pickup shots where we didn't need Becca to be in it. You know, but for the most part that thing was really still needed her establishing shots at least before he could go.

[00:35:43] Yeah, we really streamlined it a lot more than what it was on paper. Sure thing. Ah, so man.

[00:35:54] And this is kind of wild too because like time is like always of the essence and when you're on a film set you can always tell like who's got to get her versus who said you might want to unabite yourself from because they're just three hours have gone by and nothing's been put in the can.

[00:36:10] Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, any colleges that you personally recommend. I've had a few good experiences with like some UNT guys and also the Dallas Art Institute. I don't really recommend you to a but

[00:36:30] I didn't go to any of the other schools. I can't say that the cost of community colleges is definitely worth it, especially if it's North like because they have good equipment and experienced people running it.

[00:36:47] And UNT, I would say it's probably great. I don't know anything about it but I do know that Micaela came from there. Another one of our actors been came from there. His director that I met him through also came from there.

[00:37:02] So no, you know a lot of people that that went to UNT so it seems like they've got something good going on over there. Yeah, it seems a little more organized. But actually all these places are pricey so right determine where you want to go on that one.

[00:37:18] And I did not go to film school, so I, I, I, I, I'll fairness there's so many YouTube tutorials now. Right. I'm completely self taught.

[00:37:27] And all I can say is going and making your first project or you're making your first few projects is the cheapest film school that you can have.

[00:37:37] So get your phone, get your friends go out there and shoot for nothing until you figure out how to make a movie. And then whatever you're going to spend on a university, spend that on your first movie.

[00:37:49] I hate to be that guy but you know spend a few thousand at community college. I have a hard time telling anybody to go to the university and spend that money on that when you could spend that on your first feature.

[00:38:04] And just like anything you know you don't want to be in a do as I say now does I do scenario. I don't want to ever tell someone something I would never do. Right, right.

[00:38:16] And just all I can say is just be patient with whatever gig you're on. You never know who's going to be cool but might start the day off as a hothead.

[00:38:27] But once you get to know them they're cool and vice versa. You might be on a great professional set but the producer doesn't know what he wants so he's just blindly telling you shoot something like okay.

[00:38:39] And that's the other thing is that there's a lot of people out there making movies and you know there's going to be bad, bad ones and good ones they're all going to be very hard to do, but just get a PA job and pay attention to what people are doing.

[00:38:53] I've done a lot of work for a guy here locally Mike Green and just you know observing how he's shooting his movies and learning from that.

[00:39:04] So kind of run the gamut I spent some time at film school of main movies on my own and try to pick up some more from other people see how they do it.

[00:39:14] I'm pretty sure every film set like even the big guys the pros. Every film says different everybody has a different way of working. Wonderful. Yeah, I used to know a guy who had a cool deal where he was like everybody trade something off each film shoot.

[00:39:35] Instead of just feeding me like I'll give you my camera for your new boom mic. Like whoa, I like that. Yeah, that's a way to do it. And make sure you don't need it anymore.

[00:39:49] Oh, I, that's lovely. And any movies that are out now that you recommend people go and see on the big screen. I'm kind of, I'm kind of excited about new exorcist. I know some people aren't the biggest fans of green but what is his name.

[00:40:13] I enjoyed the Halloween trilogy so I want to see what he's going to do with exorcist. Cool cool about you JJ. And I can be something we're streaming now or just even a TV show.

[00:40:33] I haven't really seen a whole lot of stuff lately I've been kind of the. I've been kind of too busy I haven't caught up with certain things lately I'm trying to think of the last movie I saw on the theater I don't even know what it was.

[00:40:46] I mean wasn't that long ago I just can't remember what the heck it was, but I am excited for the exorcist. Well cool. You know I was, I was also a big fan of that and that I think that comes out tomorrow night, I believe.

[00:41:01] Yeah, so yeah that's definitely a big one I feel like there's something else that's about to come out that I'm not super hyped for but. I want Friday nights at Freddy's can be good. We'll see.

[00:41:17] I'm very very skeptical about that one I mean I love Matthew Lillard I'm glad he was cast in this blowmouse thing but I don't know that trailer just looks kind of corny.

[00:41:28] That's why I avoid trailers because I know, you know I don't you miss the days like in the 80s and 90s where it was produced in studio and then after a while they started hiring people and have the time you can kind of get a feel that the editor just randomly just like skip through the movie.

[00:41:44] Right. Oh yeah.

[00:41:45] Absolutely. Oh, I know one that that I, everyone should go see killers of the flower moon is about to come out. That's, that's a big one that I've been dying to want to see we know I have huge handful of people that worked on that, whether it be just like as extras or part of the crew.

[00:42:06] It filmed up in Oklahoma and maybe parts of Texas. Yeah, I know Oklahoma for sure and one of our actresses from from Barry Lover the feature is going to be in that. Right. Did you guys see talk to me or grand charisma.

[00:42:26] I did see talk to me. I thought that was one of the better for her films of like past couple years.

[00:42:33] I really enjoyed it and I thought it was cool that it was done by those two YouTube guys that do the Ronald McDonald pair is a future for everybody nowadays.

[00:42:44] Yeah, they're the, the end for those of this year. So I enjoyed it too. And I especially you know like where they came from they came off of YouTube and and got their movie off the ground.

[00:42:55] There you go man just got to make a splash online and the right mind see it. Other recent movies. I know this one kind of was under scene I totally would recommend to you guys, especially if you're into get out or the Twilight Zone antebellum. Oh, okay.

[00:43:16] Yeah, I against type as a novelist who's trapped in a civil war era segregated town and has to find a way to creatively get out of there. A lot of people were complaining about the Hickish accents but

[00:43:31] I thought the production quality and a lot to us were at least delivered. I think it's a more mainstream B fantasy horror film. If you like something like Candy Man, I think you'll at least like the social commentary.

[00:43:45] I really, I really enjoyed the blackening and I wish it had done better in theaters because it felt like in, you know, 2000s comedy and the director was that I can't think of his name nobody directed barbershop and that so that's why it has

[00:43:57] Oh, it's a story. Yeah, I wanted to see it. I just, I think. Oh, it's fantastic. It's a, it's, you know, perfect mix of comedy and horror. Well, maybe it's more comedy than hard but the thing if you like horror movies, there's plenty of, you know, inside jokes that you'll love.

[00:44:16] It was good. I think it just came out of an awkward time because I guess so many other people ruin the spoof movie subgenre and you're just like, but there are some good ones like black dynamite is still a hoot.

[00:44:27] What's that one? Once in a while. Michael G white just came out with a follow up to that. That's a Western.

[00:44:34] Oh, yeah, that's right. I need to see that TV wise if you want just some very just layered comedy where you'll end up like rewinding each scene because there's like five different things going on all in the same scene. I 1000% recommend Ted Lasso.

[00:44:49] Okay, it's not a sports show. People keep saying it's a sport show. I'm like they work as soccer players but right. It's not about their profession.

[00:45:00] Horror wise, I totally recommend if you want a very captivating TV show that's for the dark fantasy or fanatic and I think you I'd like to see your take on Amazon primes them or even HBO's Lovecraft Country. Okay. Okay.

[00:45:22] I'm not sure what the author said in a Jonestown kind of place but right. It's a shame that HBO canceled Lovecraft because I thought it was their most experimental since tells from the crypt. Oh yeah, yeah, nice.

[00:45:36] I saw so many people like even professional critics like would sum up an episode. And it was just like, well, you're getting way too impatient. This is not going to be revealed into like the third episode.

[00:45:53] I mean, I got the inference that hey I'm going to be kept in suspense but I'm along for the gory adventure. But I get it some people want their meat and potatoes and they want it now. So, oh yeah, can't place them.

[00:46:11] This was just fun and later back and you know, Jay I've talked with you before on social media and it does seem like there's got people are just coming out of their shell or going to fantastic fest and then a bunch of other conventions.

[00:46:25] I know Texas right there is great at letting people screen their movies as long as it's before their deadline and it seems like there's just so many other methods to do it instead of just throw your movie away on.

[00:46:38] I don't name any sites but like just, you know, where, well, paid 50 bucks then here back. Yeah there's way more film festivals today than there were 10 years ago and maybe even five years ago.

[00:46:56] I support most of them. I mean, do your homework there's some of them that are just kind of cash grabs but as long as it's got some good reviews and they're actually showing your film in person and you can get to it.

[00:47:09] I mean, that's another thing. Look at your budget and see what you can get to do. But if you you can find the local festivals going to play your film Texas Theater will do a short snide.

[00:47:20] So you can get a plate there. But it's invaluable just to get an audience reaction from your film. It's in person. And, you know, I think that's that's part of the reason to go to a festival. The other reason is the networking.

[00:47:39] Yeah, I mean, hell even screen it to someone in your closed off studio if you want you know on a projector and just get someone's feedback instead of just saying I don't care. Right. People are dumb. Well, you'll feel dumb when people are doing you.

[00:47:58] Be safe out there amigos and keep the film dream alive in a while. Yeah absolutely we really appreciate this and we'd love to have you come back on if you'll have us. Follow us on the web on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

[00:48:17] The podcast is available on podby spotify I heart radio anchor Apple and anywhere else podcasts are available. Feel free to review our show and leave comments on any of those sites. Thanks a million for listening.