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Let's Walk (with Halli)
Pete Ohs : Making Movies With (Almost) No Money
How do you make a feature film for less than $30,000 that attracts A-list talent? Pete Ohs reveals his unconventional approach to filmmaking that throws out the rulebook and returns to what makes creativity truly fulfilling.
Pete shares how his journey began simply as a teenager making videos with friends, not aspiring filmmakers creating art, just kids having fun with a camera. This foundation of joy-first creation became the philosophical cornerstone of his professional methodology. After studying computer science and pivoting to video production, Pete developed a filmmaking approach that prioritizes creative freedom and enjoyment over traditional structures.
What makes Pete's process remarkable is its radical simplicity. No scripts, just brief outlines. Minimal crews, often just himself handling camera, sound, and direction. Two-week shooting schedules in single locations with small casts who become co-writers. The first week is spent filming the first half of the story, then everyone takes a day off while Pete determines how it should end. This approach has attracted collaborators like Julia Garner and Charli XCX, who value the opportunity to create without the pressure of justifying massive budgets.
Throughout our conversation, Pete opens up about recent personal struggles, his father's passing and a relationship ending, revealing a stark contrast between his professional confidence and personal insecurities. His mantra "smaller is better" applies not just to filmmaking but reflects a deeper philosophy about finding meaning in process rather than outcome: "If the journey isn't enjoyable, the end result won't be worth it."
Whether you're a filmmaker, artist, or anyone seeking a more fulfilling creative life, Pete's approach offers a refreshing alternative to the bigger-is-better mindset. Subscribe now to hear more conversations with creators who are redefining what's possible in their fields.
How's it going?
SPEAKER_01:Good. How are you doing, my friend?
SPEAKER_06:I'm great. I just came back. Our 13-year-old is wants to be an actor and is in acting school. There's one big sort of semester thing they do, but they also do these short sprints where they'll do two-week increments where they'll come in and over the course of two weeks they will create a new show. And then there is um an opening. And so that's I just and I just came back when and just saw him performing with his friends, and it's just always so fun.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god. Were they all f I mean fabulous? Because I mean we've all seen kids play, so then you see kids play with kids that really want to be actors, so uh that probably must be another level up. Were they all good? Were they good? Were they fabulous?
SPEAKER_06:They're always really funny. I don't know if they're always supposed to be funny, but they're always really funny.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing.
SPEAKER_06:But yeah, no, they were all they were all great. They were all just adorable, and and yeah, it was it was fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:I love that.
SPEAKER_06:How about you? What what are you up to?
SPEAKER_01:Well, let's see. I think I have an unprecedented gap in my calendar right now, so I'm kind of like, you know, that feeling when you like you feel like you just graduated high school and you've just done your summer exams, you're like, wee, but then I have nobody to hang out with because everybody's either working or out of town. And like my husband's on a TV show until August, so he's always out the door at like 4 a.m. and back at 6. So it's not like we go raving after he comes home. Not that I want to go raving, but you know, it's just uh it's a little cloudy day in Los Angeles today, so it's kind of nice. It doesn't feel the I don't have the urgency to go out and do stuff if I can just actually r have myself what we love to call a rot day, you know?
SPEAKER_06:You rot at home? Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:It's just me and my cat and just like maybe we'll watch YouTube all day.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:That sounds funny.
SPEAKER_01:I it's listen, I haven't done it for a I wouldn't recommend that as a thing for people every day. I I recommend it every six weeks.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I've I don't think I've ever talked to you when you're on a break.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's not. Yes. This is I've been quite fortunate to keep keep my keep my plate spinning in the air. So I'll take the little respite, the the check and I get it, you know?
SPEAKER_06:Uh well, I'm really excited about the guy that I'm about to interview. Uh his name is Pete O's. Yeah. And he is, well, I don't know what to say. He I guess he's a filmmaker. Yes. He but in in every possible sense of the word, he is he's the director, he's a screen screenwriter, he is an editor, he's a DP. Uh he's just uh he he makes movies like in Hollywood, I think a low budget movie is a few million dollars. And then you could say an ultra low budget movie is a few hundred thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_00:Correct, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:But this guy makes movies that are s uh in the tens of thousands of dollars.
SPEAKER_00:It's incredible.
SPEAKER_06:Which uh and I mean in tens sometimes in the twenty thousand dollar rings.
SPEAKER_01:I mean he's obviously not paying himself anything, uh you know, and it's just like rentals of equipment and and forging is I I've I I when he told me about it that this was gonna be one of your guests, I did I look him up and then I was like, of course, this is the guy who did the thing with Charlie XEX. So I did know that.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Eruption, that movie eruption, the po where it happens in Poland. I haven't seen it. Uh is it out?
SPEAKER_06:I think so. Yeah, I think that's out. Yeah, it must be. I also haven't haven't seen that one. Yeah. But uh very much want to, he's I think he's about to premiere uh another movie called Tick.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Uh he he makes he makes a movie a year, and and like you said, he works with like big stars, like people that you would expect would have plenty of things to do. So I'm just really interested in trying to figure out how does this actually work. And he he made a movie with one of my favorite actresses who is have you seen Orsark?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, absolutely, Julia Garner, obsessed. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah, love her.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, who played uh Anadelphi as well? Did you see the Anna Delphine hotel?
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, oh yeah. Delphi's a bass. She was fabulous, fabulous. I stayed at that hotel when I went to New York out of that reason to stay at the Anna Delphi Hotel instead of because of Anna Delphi. Um yeah, no, Julia Gardner's amazing. His approach to filmmaking is very unique, and I hope you're gonna talk a lot about that so we and our audience can learn more about his approach because well, I I know a little bit because I'm in the business and I've I I know of him and like music videos that he's been doing and stuff like that. Very unique eye, very unique of working. So I can't wait to hear about what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_06:$20,000 doesn't get you a commercial.
SPEAKER_01:Not even in Iceland.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Like a a minute, one minute commercial doesn't cost$20,000. Yeah, no. So I don't understand this, so I'm really interested in trying to figure out how he does this. So yeah, let's let's see what he has to say.
SPEAKER_01:See you on the other side.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Okay, now you can say something. Go. Interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting things to say. We're here in Los Angeles, California, where I once lived. Where I no longer live. I do not.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. Where where do you live?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if I live anywhere at the moment. But I've been most recently spending time in Oklahoma, where I have some family.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. Is that is that caused by an event?
SPEAKER_02:It is caused by a very real sad event.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. You want to talk about it?
SPEAKER_02:I will mention it because I am in the practice of not hiding this or denying it, but my father passed away last year.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And you had a good relationship? I did. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's strange the things that we have to be grateful for now. In spite of.
SPEAKER_06:How are you working through it?
SPEAKER_02:Therapy? Being closer with family? Yeah. Taking deep breaths.
SPEAKER_06:That's pretty much all I have to do. Yeah. I got no advice support from what you just said.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I know it's a process. I know many things are processes.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. It takes a brain and some time, you know, even with all the right tools to get through something like that. Yeah. I went through a loss when I was young. My mom died when I was 11. And I didn't have any tools. And it wasn't until much later that I started to figure out, you know, that I I could maybe process this better than how I did in the beginning, which was not at all.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_06:And just shutting it off. Putting it in some dark corner of my brain.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_06:Because it was all I could think about.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's survival.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I also think at that age you're just starting to learn about tools. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Was it sudden? It was.
SPEAKER_02:Very sudden, very unexpected, very unprepared. So that's why I've been most recently in Oklahoma. That's where my mom lives. That's where my sister, younger sister lives with her kids and husband. And have already been finding how good it is to be around them. I had never prioritized family in the previous 15 years.
SPEAKER_06:So this is a new event. So this was last year.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this was last year. Yeah. Last June.
SPEAKER_06:And are you able to take anything from it yet?
SPEAKER_02:Or are you still just in the middle of the hurricane and just I definitely still feel in the middle of the hurricane. I feel like I get glimpses of the like life lessons, but then they blow past. And I'm like, I'll try to grab it the next time around. Yeah. And it's it's because it's such a tragedy. And yes, it's part of life, death is part of life, but still, this is one of the big things that can happen in a person's life. Still feeling bad to take anything good from it.
SPEAKER_06:Maybe we we go back to this because I'm already very emotional. Um and I'm sure you are. What else is going on? So what else is new?
SPEAKER_02:Right. The other like element that is like further intensifies this moment is how much very fun and cool career stuff I have going that I could be talking about.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And to have those fun things be there at the same time as this other terrible thing.
SPEAKER_06:If a funeral and a and a marriage meet, the funeral always has to get out of the way because life has to go first. And I think that's how I try and think about something like this is that if you find a way to be happy and even in times of like great sadness, I think you should I I I at least try and chase that feeling rather than suppress it because it's so precious. But so I'll I'll I'll help you. What what what is interesting and exciting that that you've been working on? I've I've I've caught up, I did some a fair amount of research, but enough to sort of say, yeah, this is a a person I want to talk to. Uh but I didn't want to know everything, so I stopped. So it sounds like your career started in just messing around with film. Right. And you know, with your friends.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I would even say like with video.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. With video, okay.
SPEAKER_02:With video, like making videos with friends. Yeah. We weren't we weren't thinking we're little filmmakers. We're just like we're making some videos.
SPEAKER_06:And when how how old were you guys? 14, 15. And was it a crew?
SPEAKER_02:It was, it was like a group of friends. Yeah. But this was like the group of friends weren't necessarily friends because of the video making. Right. It was just one of our like friends, we were friends, and then as one of as like one of our parents got a video camera that got folded into instead of video games today, we're gonna make videos today. I certainly really like latched onto it and and who got the video camera? Uh first was another friend, his name was David. Then I got my parents to get us a video camera. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:It's like a little with a little mini tape, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was a VHS C. Yeah. We weren't even really editing them, we're just shooting them, and then like the same day after filming the video, we would put it in the VCR and then watch it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And so just, yeah, when you cut on the on the video, that was the cut. Yeah. You just record again and that's that's the action.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, and then the thing exists. Yeah. There's not multiple takes. Were you in the beginning just like messing around, going to different scenarios, or did you quickly start to think of scenes and I honestly like early on, it was really almost like making comedy sketches. Like SNL. Yeah. We're like mim, and we're like just redoing the ones we watched that weekend probably, you know, like our our riff on it or whatever. Yeah. It wasn't really, for me anyways, we weren't imagining movies. We were just doing a scenario of like, this is a taxi driver. Not that in our little town in Ohio we've even had taxis, or if anyone had been in one, but this is a taxi driver, and different people are gonna get into the taxi and he's gonna get mad and kick him out. Okay. And that's just gonna happen over and over. Okay. But the taxi is just my parents' car, and it's just parked in our driveway. Right.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And we're just pretending that he's driving and we're pretending people are getting picked up. So it's like, is that even a film? Is that a short film? We're not thinking about it that way, but it certainly was the joy of spending time together with friends with a camera and playing make-believe.
SPEAKER_06:And was that enough, or did you were you always were you thinking about an audience?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_06:Did you run home to show it to anyone else?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I our parents would eventually watch it, but often there was also a lot of profanity to that. We actually were like, I don't know if they're gonna if we like should be showing this to them or anyone. Um in like thankfully, this was the 90s, so things weren't being uploaded to the internet yet. Because like a lot of this stuff probably would be bad to exist in perpetuity. What?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, these would be like TikToks.
SPEAKER_02:Would they be TikToks? They would be like TikToks, they would be very much like YouTube comedy thingies.
SPEAKER_06:You made a bunch of I'm assuming just these were like one-day shoots, basically. There must be a lot of these.
SPEAKER_02:There are a bunch of those, and then as like time progressed and technology progressed, my life progressed, now there are better computers that make video editing possible, and that's like, and now I'm in high school and I'm doing that, and now the the little comedy videos are now becoming music videos, or they're becoming short films, or they're becoming uh like a fake reality series we made. So, like just lots of playfulness of experiments.
SPEAKER_06:Still with the same group of people?
SPEAKER_02:Generally, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And did you have assigned roles? Was one the director, one was the sound person? Or was it just everyone did everything else? Everyone did everything. Everyone acted.
SPEAKER_02:Everyone acted, yeah, yeah. Did you just hand off the camera? Somebody else is like, I'm gonna be in this one, so now you're filming it. Um, certainly there were a couple of us who liked holding the camera more, who maybe were a little bit better at it. Right. Um some of some of us also were like better in front of the camera, so who were like funnier, the better actors. So like there there's like some natural things there, but it certainly wasn't the word director was never talked about. I even remember when I eventually was applying for colleges and talking to admissions people and me saying, like, oh, I want to do film, and they were like, Who are your favorite directors? Yeah, and I was like, directors.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, did you and and so you just but you you liked movies, I'm assuming. I liked movies, but you didn't. But I wasn't like a cinophile, right? Yeah, but you didn't think about them as oh, this is the person that did this, right, and then did this. Right. Uh you just thought this is a good movie. I like this movie.
SPEAKER_02:And and they were very like mainstream movies. It wasn't I was watching foreign films or any art house stuff at all. It was just No Fellini? No. Didn't know who that was. Um didn't even know what Italy was. Right. Really, aside from pizza and spaghetti.
SPEAKER_06:So um and but you you got in?
SPEAKER_02:So I didn't even go to film school. I didn't the one film school I applied to, which was NYU, I didn't get in. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:And ended up Maybe because you didn't know any directors?
SPEAKER_02:I don't think my shit was very good. I mean, I think I was like, you didn't get in on merit. Didn't get on merit, didn't get on like again, like my passion wasn't for like filmmaking. Mm-hmm. Really? Did you have a passion? Making videos of friends. Yeah. But that like doesn't that doesn't didn't and I didn't but I didn't necessarily like recognize that about myself yet. Yeah. And so I think my real, my admissions letter was not particularly uh inspiring. Right. For them to think this is somebody we should give us a seat to at our school. So um that's not the path I found myself on.
SPEAKER_06:So what was the next, like how did you graduate from, or did you graduate from making movies with friends? Is that still what you I know that's still what I do?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um same friends? Not the same friends, new friends. Okay, better, better friends, upgrades, friends who like are also wanting to do it as opposed to just through circumstances we lived in the same neighborhood. These are like we're chosen, we've chosen to move to this neighborhood. And I would say that I did like go move away from the making videos with friends, and then found my way back to it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that's where I'm speaking from.
SPEAKER_06:Right now. Right now, yeah. But then do you remember like what was your first paying gig? Like, what was the first time you thought you you cast a check or something?
SPEAKER_02:Right. So I I went to school for computer science, studied computer science, but still was always as a passion or just as a practical thing. Good at math, good at science, yeah. Need to get a job at some point. Yep. But I was always doing videos and volunteering in this TV studio at s in college. The hobby, the passion was still there. And then as I was about to graduate, I looked at the job listings for like computer science jobs. I just had a sinking feeling in my stomach that like this cannot be what my life is. Then I luckily had a really wonderful advisor, mentor, who pointed out that I had already made enough videos to make a real and try to get a job as a video video editor. And so I pivoted hard. I got some unpaid internships, and then pretty shortly out of college was able to get a job at a small production company in Cincinnati, Ohio.
SPEAKER_06:As an editor? As a shooter editor.
SPEAKER_02:Like when I even as an assistant, it was a perfect job for me. And like it also sort of became my film school. The boss was also a mentor, also loved to teach. And I was very it was very hands-on where I was already editing, I was already shooting. It wasn't necessarily like climbing the ladder of production. It was just let's go, let's start making some things. They're gonna be small, you're gonna learn. And I'll and like even for the first years, my dad would send me job listings for like computer consulting things or whatever. Yeah, of course, the way parents are. Yeah. Um I was like, no, dad, I'm gonna figure this out. This is gonna work.
SPEAKER_06:And and so were they making their own movies?
SPEAKER_02:He my boss had this really amazing business model where we would make an hour-long TV special once a year. Okay, that he would get some sort of big corporate sponsor to finance. The company was very small, it was like four people. We all kind of did a lot of things. That one show a year was enough to kind of like support us, along with like the little small things here and there.
SPEAKER_06:And so for the rest of the year he was able and you were able to work on your own project?
SPEAKER_02:I would work on my own projects a lot. There would be like small local things. There's some small projects here and there for the you know, for the company, but it also did leave lots of time for me to try to make music videos, try to make things of my own and learn and grow.
SPEAKER_06:And the music videos, as I saw you, that was sort of at least online, some of the first things that are credited to you. Um and that was in the 90s or what? That was in the 2000s, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Late aughts.
SPEAKER_06:And people were still making music videos. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right, people were still making music videos. Not that anything I made was budgeted, but now we're in some other realm where there are any music music videos, now it's just lyric videos or something. Yeah. Um but certainly it was still a culture of bands, artists make music, and then they need videos for them. Music, independent music, going to shows was a big part of my youth, my identity.
SPEAKER_06:This is still in Ohio.
SPEAKER_02:This is still in Ohio. And I had a band in high school. Like I play guitar, you know, I love music and whatnot. But there certainly at a certain point I recognized music's not gonna be my thing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I'm doing videos. And how can that interface with this music world that I love? And that's I can be the one with the camera, I can be the one filming the bands, playing the show, I won't be on stage, but I'll be close to it. Yeah. Um, or I'll be the one making music videos for them. And so that was a cool way to keep practicing, keep getting better, keep kind of trying to figure out what we're putting. Yeah, it's always a one-man shop for me.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, so you're making music videos with your friends, you know, you're probably not getting paid or very little. No. And uh you're working at with sort of a mentor person that you're able to look up to and say, like, oh, this guy has life pretty much figured out. Like he does one gig a year that sustains him.
SPEAKER_02:Right. He just had a he had a lot of really smart systems set up for how he operated, how he made it work for him.
SPEAKER_06:And like what? Like did you and did you incorporate that?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I I think a big part of it that I do incorporate now is keeping things small. Smaller's better. That's what I say a lot.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And so, because you, you know, you the movies you make now, you know, they're ultra low budget, some of them. Yeah. Like, you know, basically non-existent budget. Yeah. Yeah. With that, I assume comes so much freedom. Uh, which is the point. Yeah. Yeah. Is that you know, you don't have these financial backers that you don't, you know, the movie doesn't have to get this much return. Right. All of that goes up goes away. And it I I'm assuming it it sort of takes the pressure off on the set and the whole thing. The whole thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Makes it like the 15-year-olds making videos.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I saw that quote of yours somewhere. Like, what would I, you know, how how would I make movies as a 15-year-old? Yeah. Would I be writing scripts?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_03:No. I wouldn't. Maybe someone else would do it.
SPEAKER_06:But yeah, so you you're, you know, you're still in that mindset of like, let's just go out and have some fun together, and what comes out of it will then probably be fun too.
SPEAKER_02:Right. That realization has continued to feel correct. Yeah. Certainly, as I progress, there are carrots dangling that are trying to tell me that it's not correct.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But I'm pretty sure it's still correct.
SPEAKER_06:Carrots as in people coming to you with like bigger budgets, more money.
SPEAKER_02:Even in small ways. Yeah. Even like small carrots, of like, and sometimes you because the practice of creativity, of creating, of art, of whatever, of life, maybe even, is like to try to stay open, be open. Like you do have to entertain this stuff, kinda. Like certainly you need to have some sort of systems or filters going, or you just will waste all your time looking at carrots. But sometimes it's a real carrot. Sometimes it is a person suggesting a thing that is a good idea, that is worth absorbing into your like your plan or whatever. Um and then the challenge just becomes how far from that truth can you roam, can you wander, and still be able to make your way back?
SPEAKER_06:But how do you so but you've made bigger budget films?
SPEAKER_02:The first movie I made was a bigger budget, still small by many people's standards, um, in that it was like an under$200,000 movie. Yeah. That's big to me, it's still as big to me, that's small compared to lots of movies. Yeah. Um and it's still like the lowest tier of SAG. Yeah. So it is low budget in a way, but that's the big that's the the one with like the bigger budget.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And and and and you felt like that's too much. Let's let's slow it down here.
SPEAKER_02:Kinda, yeah. I mean, I went through that experience. I've talked about this before, but I went through that experience. I'm very proud of that movie. I think it's a really cool thing that we all made, but the it wasn't the fun that I had with the 15-year-olds. And ultimately that's why I'm actually why I'm why I'm doing why I'm doing it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um moving forward, I was like, okay, I don't I don't want to do that again.
SPEAKER_06:And that was a scripted.
SPEAKER_02:That was a scripted, that was made like essentially the normal way.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so I learned that I didn't want to do that again. So then I'm like, what are you theory of my own?
SPEAKER_06:So you but you were proud of the end result. You just maybe didn't enjoy the process. Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that took many years, and I recognized how the destination will not justify that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And and do you mean that in the sense of the quality of the work or in just your personal gratification, happiness coming out of the work?
SPEAKER_02:How I will feel about the time spent that the eventual premiere, the eventual release, the eventual positive reviews, or negative, but whatever, the eventual release, it's asking too much of that thing, again, to justify all these years, all this life that was given over to it, that was sacrificed to it. But if that journey, the theory being, if that journey was enjoyable, then you don't even need the release to be to provide anything. It ends up, it can be icing, it can be a cherry, whatever. Yeah. Um, and like I kind of had that realization as well after that first project got released, and I was like, oh, this whole time I thought that the end was gonna make it worth it. Yeah. And it's like, oh, it just totally didn't, it totally doesn't. And so I remind myself of that often when making lots of decisions all along the way to remember that this process needs to be enjoyable because the thing later is not gonna make up for it. And I hear myself say it, and I'm like, I think I'm right, guys.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. I mean, going back to our earlier part, you're uh 100% right for you.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, yeah, but and probably very close to 100% right for most other people too.
SPEAKER_02:Right, but certainly I'm not telling them that this is the way they should do it or need to do it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Very much trying to speak from my own truth, from my own experiences about what I mean, there is how I understand it.
SPEAKER_06:There is a quote, again, I'm gonna mix this up by someone that says, you know, uh, there was basically, you know, you want to learn how to make a movie, don't go to film school, just spend that money and make the movie.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right. Many a person has said that for sure.
SPEAKER_06:Um I just said it for the first time now. Nice. No, this is my quote. Um just in the process of making it, you learn so much. Right, right. And so, you know, I I I really and you seem to be on a track to make movie a year, which is, you know, when you look at, when I look back at like some of the artists that I admire, that's what they were doing for a long period of time. Like, and it was some of them, you know, especially in music. Um, there would be like these artists like album a year. And some of them are duds. Yeah, totally. And you're like, but okay, but but you wouldn't have made the next one if you hadn't made the dud. Exactly. And maybe it wasn't a you know, and probably that maybe the dud was fun to work on. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And maybe we won't listen to that one again.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, but or maybe I didn't get it, and maybe I'll get it in ten years. Uh-huh. And the the ones that I like now are like, oh, this is too, you know, plastic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this one this one's too uh e easily accessible. Like I didn't have to work for it at all. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it it it comes and goes, and your relationship to things changes. So yeah, making something, just continue to make things, I think, is is also the space that I'm trying to be in. And I admire just being able to make a movie a year. Right.
SPEAKER_02:I definitely do in between. In between? I mean, what do I do in between? Often I'm working on uh I do a lot of freelance editing. Just often sometimes it's TikTok reels, you know? Like it's like it's not always cool stuff. Yeah. Um but uh a lot of times that's what pays bills. Yeah. Um just kind of like freelance editing for all kinds of things. Um sometimes it's other people's movies, sometimes it's it's like all of the things. Yeah. It could be a music video, it could be a documentary, it could be a feature film. We still like editing. I love editing. The good the thing I'm grateful for it's convenient.
SPEAKER_06:It definitely happens in the editing. It definitely really happens.
SPEAKER_02:The editing is very important. Yeah. I I even though I do kind of do everything on my films, I'm pretty sure I don't have a big ego. Um, and so when I'm working on somebody else's thing, that's cool too. I'm still getting so much out of it. I'm not mad. Probably because I have enough of my own things, it's not like that's not gonna get fulfilled. But I'm more than happy to give myself over to this person who's trying to come to figure out their thing.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, that I mean that's one of the things that I found is hard to find, actually. It's finding creative, like very creative people that understand they're playing a role sometimes that isn't the lead role.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the thing I recently have come to realize is that essentially in my personal life, so this came out of my dad passing, it's like walls have been broken down and now I'm facing new truths that have been hidden, but that I am actually so deeply insecure and afraid and anxious in my emotional personal life. Uh-huh. And I feel like I've actually just poured all of my security into the into like the professional, into the into the creative, into the work. Right. That over there, that's the safe place, that's where I'm like so secure, so ego-list, so just ready to show up and be present. Yeah. But if you flip it, if you flip the coin over, it's like and that balance is not not.
SPEAKER_06:So are you in a relationship?
SPEAKER_02:My uh my most recent relationship just ended. Okay. Like two weeks ago. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And was it a good thing?
SPEAKER_02:No. I mean, good for her. Yeah. Good for me in that it's connected to these new awarenesses of the things that I need to work on so that I don't keep repeating these patterns with partners in in my like intimate relationships. So these are the ways I can already be grateful for it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Um relationships, you get a do-over every time, which is the nice thing. Yeah, yeah. It's not like with your parents. You get the ones you get, and that's it.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06:But with relationship, you can come in like every time with like these new lessons.
SPEAKER_02:A new chance.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And like, okay, I'm gonna do this right this time.
SPEAKER_02:And then you don't. Of course, you make a different mistake, or you make the same mistake. Or it is a new ad bat.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And you sort of realize something new about yourself, like, oh, there's more here.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:But and how do you do you take that, those lessons, anxieties from your personal life and put them in your work? Uh not in a positive way?
SPEAKER_02:Or do you Yeah, I mean, I would say not consciously. I certainly think it's all going in there subconsciously.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um when I watch the movies and analyze them, I can see how much I'm exploring these traumas, these like fears of being alone. But I sort of just, you know, this is all these are all like coping mechanisms related to the traumas and stuff. But it's just, I just choose to trust the process, follow the intuition, know that like the stuff that is inside of me is gonna find its way in, because that's unavoidable.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Or it would take lots of energy to try to have it not happen. Although, and might be impossible. So I'm more just let go, let these things end up in there, sort of consciously choose fun things.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Consciously choose like a story that seems entertaining to me, that makes me laugh or makes me excited because I haven't seen it before. Um, and then just know that like the personal things that art's so good at processing, it's gonna be there. Yeah. Because you're a human and you started walking in this direction.
SPEAKER_06:I I I have a theory, and this could be totally off of uh after watching some of the work, it seems like a lot. There's a couple, and then not necessarily a couple there's two people, and then there's an outsider.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And there is there's like a reoccurring theme of sort of like, and then I don't know, hilarity into sort of whatever. Right, right. Um, you know, things start to fall apart. Right. And that so that seems to be a thread that you're sort of revisiting, but in different very different ways, yeah. Um over and over again. Like I mean, and to me that resonates because I think it's very hard to find a connection with one person, and then if you add a third element into it, it it becomes like a different thing, and it becomes uh so hard to deal with, and and uh sort of like if you rethink your that whole structure now is dynamic and yeah, so yeah, I definitely connect with that if that is what what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it looks like it's what I'm doing. Often a lot of these circumstances are practicalities. I want to make a movie, I need it to be small so that it's doable. That's the main thing, it's like we want to do it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so you start with one person, you're like, okay, we need at least another person. And then the other person's there, and you can like milk that for a while, and you're like, Okay, we need to. Somebody else at least needs the show. Um, and so, and then like maybe even a fourth sometimes. But that definitely is like the practical way to make a movie to make us tell a story, and then if I'm gonna kind of like film school, psychoanalyze myself, my own stuff, and try to justify it in some way, then I could say, well, as these like human creatures, we're often looking for a human connection, a partner, a person to connect with in some way, and so that makes sense that there would be these two people, and then life is not just two people. Yeah, you you get that the external party entering is the same.
SPEAKER_06:You get the cocoon for a little bit, which is like the the honeymoon period of your relationship, which is like this is amazing. I want to spend my whole life with this one person, and then yeah, you have to sort of there's new things happening, and it's does the relationship survive reality or in your some of your movies the non-reality.
SPEAKER_02:Non-reality. Yeah, yeah. I definitely like when the movies aren't in reality.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, yeah, I felt that. It was, you know, there's um that's also something I resonated with because I've never felt like I live in reality.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I often feel like an alien. I often forget how weird I am. Yeah. Even when I'm making these things, yeah, these movies, I think they're normal. I think I'm making logical decisions in my mind. And then later you can look back and be like, oh. Yeah. Or somebody points it out to you how weird you are.
SPEAKER_06:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:What's your relationship to entitlement?
SPEAKER_06:Um, very mixed.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_06:So I came from a very, you know, we didn't have anything. Uh-huh. I, you know, have a disability, and and so, you know, I was very used to not having anything. Suddenly, in my 40s, actually, I started having a little bit of money, and I was, you know, I had employees, and I was starting winning a bunch of awards. And after a while, I was like, of course. Of course I'm winning all the awards. Because? Because I'm amazing. Yeah. And it's just like it took them 40 years to realize it. So yeah, I I do sometimes, yeah, feel entitled. And sometimes it's because I think like, you know, I I'll I'll switch my mo motives for why I'm entitled to it. It's I'll I'll change it because from, you know, I'm great to going back to when I was a kid of being like, no, I should, you know, you don't understand how hard my life is. Yeah, yeah. I should win I like that should be on for something too.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_06:And so it becomes this very weird dynamic in my brain of like it's first of all, you don't need awards to be happy, and it and actually they don't make you happy at all. They end up sort of messing with your whole sense of reality and your sense of how you want everyone else to be around you. Right.
SPEAKER_02:It's not helping.
SPEAKER_06:No, and definitely not healthy.
SPEAKER_02:Are you religious?
SPEAKER_06:No, but there's a joke that Neil Brennan makes.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_06:You know who he is? I know the name.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_06:Um, which is basically you know, I used to be an atheist, but I've taken too much ayahuasca.
SPEAKER_03:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06:Right. And I'm a little bit on that path, not with the ayahuasca specifically, but I feel like there's things I've experienced um where I've felt something.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Where I believe in sort of a cosmic connection between all people.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_06:And I think that's enough for me for now. Uh-huh. Um, I'm not all the way there to like a higher being. I feel like we're all higher beings.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. The reason I asked was because I grew up going to a Presbyterian church, going to Sunday school every week, reading the Bible, learning the Bible, all these things. And so in my mind are all these, as as I think it culturally in America, anyways, there are lots of these Bible stuff. Yeah. Like Bible words in our Bible verses in our mind. And often they do make sense in different ways. Of course. Like just now when you're talking about the awards, I wanted to say, well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I don't believe in God or the Lord or whatever. But what that's expressing is true.
SPEAKER_06:Absolutely, yes. I mean, in in in all of those ancient sort of religious texts, there's a lot of wisdom. Because they were written, you know, there were cumulative knowledge of those cultures. Right. And it was like the best stuff. Like it was like the hits. Right, the greatest hits. Yeah, the greatest hits version of whatever was around at the time. And so you think, of course, there's a bunch of good stuff in there. The thing religion was always off-putting to me because I just I I saw that people would use it to harm people.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And so I but I have friends who are religious and that are just sort of where I feel like it gives them real peace. It gives them They were jealous of that. Very jealous. Yeah. Um, you know, if yeah, if if I if if I had one wish, like if if if it was one thing about myself I could change, it would be that I would just believe. Like truly believed. A higher being is taking care of me, and everything will be okay. Like that's such a wonderful concept. Yeah. And it will make everything so much easier. I don't know, maybe it is. But I just wish I I think my life would have been better if I believed that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Uh, in in the in the good way, in the way my mom actually believed in in Jesus in that way. Where it was just, and that's she she sort of, I was religious as a kid. Not in the I didn't go to church a lot, but I just believed there was this sort of nice presence that was kind and good to everyone. And then you look at what his followers are doing, and you're like, I don't think they read the same book that I read. There's some disconnect here. I don't know, but I wish I did. And you don't, you lost faith? I didn't. You never had it?
SPEAKER_02:It was all just like the social aspect of church. I mean, it's like what is community and those things.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, but the community part is also beautiful, I find.
SPEAKER_02:It definitely is. I I guess I it's not that I identify with like believing, but I definitely remember as a kid engaging with the idea of heaven and like enjoying imagining it.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And like for moments being like, oh, what's it what's it gonna be like when I'm in heaven?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'll be able to fly and you know, I'll get to eat cake all the time.
SPEAKER_06:I think I had similar thoughts. It's my idea of heaven.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we used to play video games all the time. I don't remember remember like questioning Jesus or God or like having to deconstruct that. I think at a certain point I, you know, my version of the truth, but I was just like, oh right, this is just a story they're telling.
SPEAKER_06:And there's you know, there's so much comfort in a unified story.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And I think we, you know, I think we're seeing that unravel now a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Like we it would be nice and it wasn't just Batman.
SPEAKER_06:I mean no, what I what I mean though specifically is there is something to a unified if a group of people, a community, believes the same thing.
SPEAKER_02:That's very powerful.
SPEAKER_06:That is very nice. And it they can believe in, you know, it it's this story or this story or this story or this this book and and these these gods. And it's nice. It's like a nice thing they share, and it means that they can communicate better sometimes. And what we're seeing now, I think, is there's a breakdown of any kind of communal experience. And we all have like individual truths that is just maybe you always did, but and maybe I'm just realizing it now.
SPEAKER_02:But you know, there are certainly so many things where there's a I'm pretty sure it's Joseph Campbell who says life has never been any worse or better than it is right now. And the idea that like anything's new or anything's different, I get how like it that's just us in our heads thinking we're special or whatever. But there are also like uh facts like until whatever 150 years ago when cars got invented, like we had never really gone faster than a horse.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that like now with how fast we can send messages around the world, yeah, like it used to not be able to be that fast. Like we can't, but we can't really go backwards.
SPEAKER_06:Uh no, no, yeah, we can't go backwards. So there's no stopping uh, you know, uh most of the forces around us. Yeah. Even the people, uh, you know, because I was in tech for a while. In where? In tech. I realized like even these people have no idea what they're doing. Like I was always waiting to be in the room with the smart people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the end, I was in those rooms, like the the room with uh at least the the people with the biggest titles.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_06:But I didn't feel like these people have a clue.
SPEAKER_02:Right, they don't have the plan.
SPEAKER_06:They don't have a plan. Um when when the the Beatles went to India to study uh transcendental meditation meditation with the Maurishi. There's a story where uh where the Maurishi says, like, there's a there's a helicopter, who wants to go with me to a helicopter? And and John Lennon is like, me, me, me, me, me. And afterwards, Paul McCartney asks him, like, why were you so like interested in going with him? And he says, I thought he might slip me the answer. And that's that's I think that's what I've been chasing my whole life. It's like, I just want to find someone that knows something about what's going on because none of this makes any sense.
SPEAKER_02:You're chasing that helicopter right.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Uh but yeah, I you know, being in tech, you sort of realize that the people that are doing these things, they're motivated a lot by fear because they're so motivated by if we don't do it, somebody else is gonna do it. Yeah, and we're gonna look like idiots.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And so they will chase anything, and they won't, there's no time or space to ask, should we be doing this? It's just happening. And even the ones that are deciding that it's happening are not deciding it because they're just looking at somebody else and saying, Well, they're gonna do it if we don't. So it all feels like just a train that we're on, where nobody's in control.
SPEAKER_02:Right, and it's probab if and again, this is like probably basically always been this way. Yes. Because we're all just humans continuing to be human. I don't know if it's actually different, because we could say that we're always we've always all been connected in some way, whether just the air or the earth or whatever, or the mushrooms. But um perhaps something that is happening now is this interconnectedness of the technology, of the information.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we just have access to so much of it. I don't know. But so that's that's new.
SPEAKER_02:But so that um, I mean, we just had our pandemic to like learn about things spreading. Yeah. But it's like because it's all connected, that's why it's sort of dangerous.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because the bad things can spread everywhere.
SPEAKER_06:If the domino starts to fall.
SPEAKER_02:Right, they all fall.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Because yeah, in the in the past it was, yeah, a country can collapse.
SPEAKER_02:Right, but it doesn't immediately affect or you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And so we're in this space where Wait, so we need to close borders. I don't know. I don't know. Uh-uh. But we just topped ourselves into that. I don't know. So you right now you don't write scripts.
SPEAKER_02:I don't write scripts.
SPEAKER_06:But do you have a story idea?
SPEAKER_02:A story idea that comes from a location.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, so it's would would you call that a treatment or what would you call that? How do how do you convey that to the people you want to sort of seduce into your project?
SPEAKER_02:Right. So the first people that I seduce are just the actor collaborators who also end up being writers because they're figuring this thing out together.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but they don't really require that much. They require like a good idea and like an openness to listen to build it together. Um they don't need to see like a PDF of anything. But their reps might, but they do.
SPEAKER_06:But how do you I mean, and I notice you work with like the repeating characters. Definitely. Um so there's a trust there.
SPEAKER_02:There's trust there. I usually always like to have one or two returning people. Yeah. Always wanted to have one or two new ones so you can keep kind of like spreading, expanding the family, but um helps to have some people who already have ridden that ball before. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06:And so you so what's your latest movie?
SPEAKER_02:So I a new movie. So I had a film that I didn't direct that premiered at Sundance this year. Okay. That was made in a similar process um called Obex.
SPEAKER_06:But you didn't direct that film.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't direct it, but we and it wasn't my idea, but we still did the same process where it just started from no script and a smaller group of people got together to make it. Um and then I have another one that was shot the same year, which was 2023, that is premiering at South by Southwest. That's called The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. So let's so let's run with that. So, what's the idea there that you came to the team with?
SPEAKER_02:The idea is fear of being bitten by a tick. Okay. Okay. So it's I went and visited my friend Callie, who is renting this house in western Massachusetts. And we went on a walk through the field, and it's beautiful, and she said, be careful, there's lots of ticks out here. I'm like, okay. And they're like, and they have Lyme disease because we're Right, and what do you do with that information?
SPEAKER_06:I go back inside.
SPEAKER_02:Right, yeah. Right. So so the next morning I'm now so after that walk, you know, we finished our day and we check for ticks or whatever. And the next morning I'm sitting on the back porch drinking some coffee, looking out at the beautiful field again of this tall grass, and thinking how nice it would be to go on a walk. And I thought, you know what? If I go on that walk, I might could tick bite, contract Lyme disease, and ruin the rest of my life. Yeah. I know. And I and and because of the, and then and then I decided to not do it. I stayed on the porch. I didn't go on the nice walk that I probably would have really enjoyed.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I thought that fear, the power of that fear is the movie. Like that, you know, yes, this is a metaphor, yes, we're gonna use it literally, but clearly we're talking about you mean it literally in the movie. In the movie, we didn't even mean it literally for sure.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, so you have this idea, you go there, you go, okay, I have this idea, I'm afraid of ticks.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_06:Uh, and it it's stopping me from doing things in my life.
SPEAKER_02:Doing good doing things I would I actually want to do. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, so that's that's the the idea.
SPEAKER_02:That's the idea that arrived just from that visit to Callie and her house and us going on walks, and I share that with her, and she says, Oh, I love that. And we start talking about what other actors might be in it. And then I reach out to those actors and I say, I think we're gonna make this movie about these ticks, about fear. Yeah. It would be for these two weeks in this house. We're thinking maybe in the late summer, right? August-ish, maybe, what's your world looking like then?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And they either say, Oh, I'm busy then, or they'd say, I'm actually free in August. And I'd say, Great. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:You're in. And and so in that particular movie, there's how many actors?
SPEAKER_02:There's four.
SPEAKER_06:Four main actors. Okay. So you you start with them. Yep. Because they're the they're your co-writers. Yeah. Uh and how much back and forth do you do with them? Do you get on the same page in some way, or just is it that all happens on set?
SPEAKER_02:No, no, I mean, mm-hmm so a lot of so much of the work is on me. Like it just has to be. It will be, it is. So it's a lot of me presenting ideas to them. And also a lot of like not worrying about it before they show up, phone calls, a couple Zoom calls, maybe.
SPEAKER_06:And and are these seeing ideas?
SPEAKER_02:Are these This is like working towards an outline. So it's all like very, you know, I have this computer science background, I do have this very left brain strength as well as the right brain. But I do like the left brain thing. I like systems, I like structures, yeah. And I like making up rules for myself. I like giving myself the sandbox to play in. And so there's like a system to it. So you a movie is averages two minutes per scene. You're gonna do three scenes a day. You're gonna shoot for 12 days, you're gonna get a 72-minute movie. That's what happens.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Sometimes longer, sometimes a little shorter, but generally speaking, that's the way.
SPEAKER_06:Is that like your ideal It's long enough. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know?
SPEAKER_06:To tell a story.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I and I don't need it to be longer.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Keeping the stakes low, keeping the kind of like fun and freedom, risk taking high, also has to do with time. Yeah. So I'm asking for three weeks, four weeks of people's time, it's just gonna be harder to fit that into their lives and all the other things they're juggling. So two weeks is your two weeks is the how much time it takes to make is the sandbox I'm giving myself. Yeah. And recognizing that will result in a feature film, which will be a short feature film.
SPEAKER_05:What's the next step?
SPEAKER_02:So then so then there is this outline that gets created that's the first half of the movie. So the first essentially 20 story beats. But really, it's like 36. Or no, it's 36 would be the whole length of the movie. So the first 28, you know, or whatever, 18, sorry. Um, first half of the movie. Um, and those are just single sentences, almost like headlines for each what the scene is. Yeah. They arrive. That's a scene done. Like, we're not even worrying about what else is happening to us. It's like, right, they arrive. We have to have them arrive, right? Yeah. And then what happens? Well, then she's hungry because she was traveling all day. So they're gonna make some food. Oh, right. So there's a dinner thing, and they talk. That's number two. Number three, what happens? Well, like, probably she wants to go to bed, so like she's gonna go to bed. She's gonna have some nightmares, like, okay, yeah, she's gonna go to bed and have nightmares. Okay, that's number three.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so you just do 18 of those. And once you get to 18, and each thing is like connected one to the next to the next to the next, then you have enough.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Sometimes I will make even more of an outline, but as long as I have at least half and I feel confident to like.
SPEAKER_06:And these are and you don't flesh them out any more than that.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, with only without pressure.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So I don't need to. Yeah. But you can't help but like imagine that scene of them at the dinner table and hear a line or two in your head that somebody makes a joke about how good the soup tastes or whatever.
SPEAKER_05:Do you have a notebook or something that you can do?
SPEAKER_02:It's all in uh the notes app. Yeah. Right. The whole movie exists in notes apps.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, so now you have so you're in this case, you're the director. Are you the producer as well?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah? Yeah. You're arranging like and the the location in that case was just the house that you were in when you had the idea.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. And is where we will shoot it. Yeah. Yeah. All of it.
SPEAKER_06:All the whole movie happens in that one location.
SPEAKER_02:In and around that location. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. And then you need a crew. What's what's your crew?
SPEAKER_02:Crew's just me. I on this one I had a friend who came and helped who isn't even in film, but just an extra set of hands who has good energy.
SPEAKER_06:So that means you do do you do you do uh is it all like natural lighting or do you do lighting?
SPEAKER_02:I have a couple lights. Yeah. I have a small camera, just a 5D. I have a couple Lav microphones to record in a Zoom that I've had for 15 years. And uh I do all that. Yeah. Um it's what I've been doing since I was a kid, so it's like there's lots of muscle memory involved and lots of awareness of like good enough is still good. Yeah. So has anyone recorded better audio? Has anyone like done better cinematography? Yes. But is this good and good enough? Yes, it is. And I'm more than happy with that. Yeah. And then keeping it really small just keeps making it all doable.
SPEAKER_06:So in this case, it's the six of you in this house, four actors, uh, and you and you're a person. Yeah. Um, and then do you shoot in a sequence?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, you shoot the movie in order. Yeah. Um, you live the story essentially.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You're talking about it, you're reflecting on it, you're ready to make the changes necessary as the realization. And you know how it ends? You don't know how it ends. Okay. You shoot the first half of the movie, then you take a day off, and you say, What is the second half of this movie? But you that you've committed to all these things, you shot all these things, you made all these decisions, but now you have to make sense of it. And like that's the challenge.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, so the the first week is the first half of the movie, roughly.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, and the second half is the second half.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and there's a day off, and then is that literally everyone gets a day off except you, or what yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Everyone gets a day off except me. Sometimes people will hang around and like riff with me as I brainstorm.
SPEAKER_06:And they have input into Of course. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's I'm steering, I'm the I'm the driver, I'm in the driver's seat, but they can point out You're the what George Bush used to call the decision maker. Yes, definitely. Yeah. I definitely am the decision maker.
SPEAKER_05:Do you believe that there needs to be a single vision? Like, or a single like person that is driving that, or can there be multiple drivers?
SPEAKER_02:I think I kind of think there does need to just be one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's that's where I'm at too.
SPEAKER_02:It it for efficiency's sake, for intentionality.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. It's very muddled.
SPEAKER_02:The the second person can be so involved, yeah, can have so much strength and power too, but they need to, it still needs to be that this one person is actually at the top who then says we're going or we're not going, who's like one foot on the gas pedal.
SPEAKER_06:You know, like I often thought about it as an editor on a project of just being like, yes, we're going with this. Like, you don't have to have all the ideas. You just, yes, we're going with this idea, this idea, this one doesn't fit. We're doing this one, this one, this one. Right. Like, and we're trained tweaking this one a little bit and adapting it. And so let's go. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So yeah, I'm the decision maker. Um, but you like accept the responsibility of that. That means like if it's good, if it's fit, all those sort of things.
SPEAKER_06:But do you and and how do you like if you're working with an artist, you know, or or an actor that feels like or maybe used to being the head honcho. Like how do you do you have is that a hard conversation if you have a like in some of your movies you have people that are you know riding high in their careers and are probably starting to make demands.
SPEAKER_02:So the a thing that I think helps is from the very beginning of what I'm describing to them, I'm being really honest about it all. And I'm not, I'm like trying to get them to say no.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Honestly. Like I'm like, I don't want you to think this is gonna be good or cool.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm I want you to think that this is gonna be an experiment where you are free to take risks and that failing is not, doesn't exist. Because it's all like it just that's not even part of a word in the vocabulary of the project.
SPEAKER_06:Right. And but to them it might exist because they might have a career there, you know, and like you mentioned representations before, like they have people, agents whispering in their ear, like, no, this is like career killer, this is whatever. Yes. And you're trusting this guy with no script. Yes. So I think How do you how do what does that conversation look like?
SPEAKER_02:Or you just I think it's getting a little bit easier just by doing it more times, which both means like the proof is in the previous projects and the proof is in my own kind of like confidence, with which like how quickly I can answer their to their fears, to their concerns, whether it's them or their reps or whoever. Um, and also like the clarity of that comes again from that experience for me understanding like why we're doing it and what we're doing, and to continuously kind of like cle cleanse, cleanse the the hopes and dreams, like like flush the hopes and dreams constantly, like it just keeps needing to be flushed again. Um because that's where it's coming from. It's like the thing, the second the thing starts to be good, the second you shoot the first shot and the first shot's good, you're gonna be like, oh, this is this is like working. It's like fuck it, no, don't go there. Doesn't help, not gonna help. Um, this is not that. That's something else. That's things made for other reasons, with other resources, with other intentions. Um, and just that's just not what this is.
SPEAKER_06:So you worry in that case, you're worried it's this is too good?
SPEAKER_02:Or are you just worried about the You're worried about what happens by feeling good about something and how that can make you excited and make you start to dream. And there's the danger of dreaming irresponsibly.
SPEAKER_06:Well, there's a day for me, it's the danger of living in the outcome.
SPEAKER_02:Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And like that again, you're not here. Yeah, this is it now.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So many things can happen. They aren't that will stop that thing you're thinking about. But what's happening now is happening now.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. So now you have uh the first scene, you have your people there, and you say, She arrives. That's the scene. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and and then what happens? You just like uh an action. Or is it, you know, let's all come together and figure out what the scene is.
SPEAKER_02:So we would have come together, I would have like pitched more concretely what the scene is. I would have presented even long, like I would present the lines.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Um it becomes a good thing. In advance or in the advance, like the night before, the days before, the morning of. Yeah. In advance in some way. Yeah. And then there will be enough of a conversation, whether that's short or long, um, about what these lines are and why these characters are saying them, what I'm thinking, how that merges with the things they were already thinking, whether it's in line or not in line, until we eventually arrive at enough of an understanding to be like, okay, let's actually shoot the scene now.
SPEAKER_06:And what about do you do you have to have the the with each actor like go through the character and who they are and their motivation and all of those sort of things? Or is it just like fuck that and let's let's go?
SPEAKER_02:Personally, it's fuck that. Yeah. Like I don't need it. Yeah. Um different creatives have different things they like to do, different ways in which they want to prepare. And so I'm happy to let them do that. Yeah. Um I I like to do that.
SPEAKER_06:Would you have do you do you uh entertain those conversations with them? Do you if they like if they come to you and like what's my motivation in this scene?
SPEAKER_02:What's you know, do you I I I think that's a fun conversation to have. Yeah. Um I think the thing that sometimes happens is those answers get held on to. Like that's the kind of potential danger of it. So as we're answering these questions, I like to remind them that like also this could all change and we could draw all this other. So yes, we maybe have said that your character had a dog, but we might realize that your character didn't have a dog. So just and and and but if you stay open in that way, you stay ready to let go, even if you went out and got a dog tattoo. Like we can explain that first in some other way. You know, it's never too late.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, so you got that, you got the first week. Um you're in your little space now, figuring out okay, what what is the story? What is this movie? Yeah. Are you like, can you honestly say that going into it you had no idea? Or did you have some thoughts of where it might go?
SPEAKER_02:So the thing that we ought we know, if you just think about like general story structure shapes. If this story started with her arriving, with people arriving, how do you think it might end?
SPEAKER_06:Probably have to go?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Okay, so we know how it's ending. Yeah. Now do we know why we're going? Do you know who who's going, to know where they're going? We don't know that. Are they all going? Are they all alive? Exactly. Did they make it to the end? Who made it to the end? We don't know. Maybe none of them did, and and the movie's just gonna go. Yeah. Just by starting this movie this way, we kind of know where the end is of this thing is. So there is that awareness and the safety in that. Yeah. And then the fun being as you're going, you get to find out like actually why.
SPEAKER_06:And so by the end of that day where you take off, do you have the same like outline for the rest of the week as you had before for the first week?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Sometimes. Sometimes not all the way. Often you would certainly I know what the next few days are gonna be. Okay. And just because of what the first half was, you start to have more clarity, more focus, see more clearly what you're getting closer to the end. Yeah. You're becoming more clear, more in focus. Um, but not necessarily. You still maybe don't really know. But because it's again, the sandbox is so defined, and we've given ourselves into that, as you get closer and closer to the final day, you know you need to wrap things up. And there is no reshoots, there is no uh it's not that there's like a rule for no reshoots, and on each movie there always are things that get figured out later. Yeah. Um, whether it's shooting a few more things or adding ADR or voiceover or whatever element, because you but yeah, so there is an openness to going back to the space and there's an openness combined with like financial limitations. So it's like, are we all gonna go back to New Mexico to shoot that? No, but we could make we could pretend this bathroom is in New Mexico, yeah, is in that house. Like we could we could there are always like if you are creative, which we all are, you know, there's there's always options. There's always there's so many tricks, there's so many ways that don't have to be we go back to that same house and we get all those same clothes and we pretend that that that's what's happening again.
SPEAKER_06:And you have a totally different haircut now.
SPEAKER_02:Right. But like actually let's embrace that we have a totally different haircut now. Yeah, let's have this take place in the past or the future, and you're like, what then what we would do, because the problem we were trying to solve is this. It doesn't have to get solved any specific way.
SPEAKER_06:You take that all that stuff and you go back into your room and start to edit. Yes. And start to sort of figure out okay, how do I structure this? And is it does it end up being in s the sequence that you shot it, or do you often like jump back and forth?
SPEAKER_02:It it basically Does end up in the sequence that I shot it. I think part of that comes from having done it a bunch of times, both my own movies and editing other people's movies. I it comes from making that first film and editing for a long time and just exploring so much and then learning what exploration was good and what exploration actually wasn't fruitful.
SPEAKER_06:Do you go straight into editing? I do, basically. Yeah. And and how long is like two weeks shoot and how long is the editing?
SPEAKER_02:Two weeks shoot ends up if I'm like really doing it maybe a month and a half, okay, two months of for the first pass of editing, and then we all get to watch it, we get to reflect on it.
SPEAKER_06:You watch it with your collaborators or send it over or send it over, send them a link. And then you do your own own color grading or sound mixing and everything?
SPEAKER_02:I don't do I have before, and I could if I had to. But thankfully I have found some collaborators who I enjoy and trust and am impressed by. And so there's this really amazing colorist named Hannah in um in Poland at this company called Blackfoot. I have she's on three of my movies now, and it's a joyful part of the process where I barely say anything, and I just say like, just do your thing. And then she sends it back, and I'm like, great, you're a genius. I love it. And I have close filmmaker friends who do sound elements. Um I come from this music video world, so I have all these relationships with musicians and love that part of the process, and I'm always excited to get to that collaborative stage of it. But because it's also kind of like being kept so small, I still end up doing a lot of work, a lot of the work, um, and try to only ask them to do the fun parts.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And now then now you have a movie and it costs like this one. What's the rough budget apart from your salary?
SPEAKER_02:This one we're not gonna say, but it's a very small amount of money.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. So it's it's a small amount of money. Uh how do you make up for people's times and that do you share in the proceeds of the end result?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, everyone has. I mean, with the the thing, the annoying thing though is that like within the film world points are kind of pointless. Um it's the thing I say in the beginning too, and it's the reality of my reality that I'm grappling with, which is just like film doesn't make money, especially like indie films. So even at these budgets? Even at these budgets, that's the crazy thing. It's like maybe it'll make its money back. But like and if it makes money, yes, of course you get some of it. But know that it's just like act and know that it's not going to. Yeah. It doesn't mean we're not doing all the things so that to set it up for success, but just like don't make these decisions based on the idea that it's gonna get some money. Um and so like trying to have that clear again, those things that you're being honest from from the beginning I think are helpful in aligning people's expectations so that later they feel good about their experience.
SPEAKER_06:This has been great. Now I know how to make a move. I know. Now anyone can do it.
SPEAKER_02:But there are things that we do that you do, that you've done for so long, that you take for granted that you don't realize like how the thing you make look easy, the thing that it's like it comes naturally to you, like it's because you did it a million times. Yeah. You make it look easy.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and it's so hard to explain. Yeah, or you know, you do it effortlessly. You just do it for like 10 years, you're good.
SPEAKER_02:It's fine, no big deal. But I do like I do like demystifying process, demystifying, you know, for me it's specific to filmmaking, but sort of demonstrating how little you actually need to have the beautiful experience of getting together with people you like and creatively problem solving and having a thing you've made together that gets to be a document of your time spent.
SPEAKER_06:Do you like your movies?
SPEAKER_02:Do I like I love my films? That's great. I love my shit. Um that's great. Yeah. Which is really just a culmination of like just continuously doing the thing because you liked it, you know. Yeah. We're gonna film this wall because like I like that grading, you know. Later when you see it again, you're like, I do like that.
SPEAKER_06:I think I could talk to you for a few more hours, but I have to go. Nice. This has been great. Just say thank you, and uh so we have that on record. Um thank you so much for a great chat.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we barely even talked about ice.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Okay, well, we're back.
SPEAKER_00:We're back.
SPEAKER_01:That was that was a beautiful interview, and everything and more than I had hoped. I mean, you dove right into it with uh the the beginning of, I'm gonna go to the beginning of this whole thing when you nailed it that he uh you asked him if he had moved to Oklahoma for uh was there an event that happened, and and he and you kind of could just got right to the crux of each other, opened up each other, and he's like, Yeah, because of his loss of his father, which is something that I connect to as well, losing my dad in 2021. And him being so in the raw wounds of of that as an event. And then you you guys talking about your loss of your mother when you were a kid and didn't have tools and this and that. It's just a beautiful conversation. Yeah, he he had a lot going on. Also, a breakup with his girlfriend, you know, there's a lot of uh lot of things happening in Pete's life over there uh on the personal side.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, he was he was definitely in um uh in a unique place and he very gracious about it all and opening up about it. Um generous, yeah, very yeah, and sharing where he is and and understand that you know his his self-awareness and some of this, uh, you know, uh obviously with his dad passing, but I also some of those one thing because I just re-listened to the interview, one thing I I I caught was which I I didn't really push on in the interview because uh you know there was so much going on, but w when he talked about the fact that he is so confident uh professionally.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_06:But that he has sort of realized that that that confidence does not translate into his sort of personal relationships. Yes. That that's something that I definitely connected with, you know, it's I think I've gotten a little bit better over the years, but I've I've done so much work, I've just worked so much throughout my life that I've often realized that then when I once I am in a relationship that I that I especially in the past, I think I'm again I'm I'm almost 50 now, so I think I'm hopefully getting there. But I think in the past it was just I there was a huge gap between my professional self-worth and my self-worth as a dating partner.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, absolutely. I think a lot, I think more people than we could even imagine connect to that. Because I mean it's like the imposter syndrome, and like womanhood struggles with this all the time, and and I mean I think all of us kind of do. It's just like you're so confident in because also work is something practical. It's not this like you know, you are a tool here, you know the tools, skills to do X, Y, and C, and then the projects are finite, usually, like you have this and then this, and then you clean your desk, and da-da-da. I mean, that's not that's not the the the structure of relationships. I mean, they they are ongoing, they are working problem and they never work. Definitely I'm I'm a woman who's been married 16 years, they never work. I'm very lucky that my work has been has been a pretty great um journey so far. I still think he's cute. I still laugh at his jokes, but um and I think those are the very, very important things.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, same same with me, luckily. Um but there were so many things that he that he said that I that it was that were fascinating. I I mean I I was trying and because again, I think we talked about this as I was before I talked to him of trying to figure out how do you do this, how do you do and so I was really you know trying to deconstruct his process because it is so different to every other filmmaker that I've ever heard of.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. What what I have kind honed in for and like that he barely has a script, he has notes and they just go it's basically like making skate videos when you're a you when you're a punk kid back in your day. You just it's you're just rolling with the camera and you just and I love that he said like he would just I wouldn't even edit it, it would just like videotape all day, and then you just watch the VHS when you came home, and it's kind of like that's still kind of my process. And and he has a very um very interesting thing. I was reading about this eruption movie that he did with with Charlie XEX and how that whole thing came about. And like you just said, like big names work with him, even though he has three cents and a shoestring to make movies. It's because of this process. People want to feel this creativity because that I think there was an actor in the eruption, he said it's just like you're on the cutting edge of just creating something together. It feels dangerous, it feels like, ooh, what's gonna happen? You don't know what's gonna happen. And that's what is the drawing point to people wanting to work with him. And then on top, he's just an incredible filmmaker. I mean, I gotta do a deep dive now of his catalog.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and and I've watched uh most of him his movies now, and and again, I mean, yes, you can see this is not a multimillion dollar budget. Nope. You can you can sort of sense that, but still you cannot sense that it's anywhere close to the budget that he that he actually uses. Like I you know, he's he's making movies for twenty thirty thousand dollars, forty thousand dollars, I think it's uh it's a big budget movie for him. Yeah, yeah. And so it's just it's ridiculous what he does. Yeah. And you know what I realized because he did a movie and he he called it a big budget movie. It was a$200,000 movie. And not to say$200,000 is not a lot of money, but for a movie it's a very low budget.
SPEAKER_01:It's very low budget, it's the lowest tier of SAG, yeah. I imagine that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:But even that felt too big for him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And so he came up with all these rules about okay, well, I don't want to be in that position. I want to be in a position where I can make a movie here. I d I want to be able to be in control, not to have people with money that I'm chasing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Notes, no studio notes, no thank you. Nothing.
SPEAKER_06:And then he just figured out, okay, well, if if that's what I want, then this um I'm gonna have to simplify, simplify, simplify until I get to the point where this is possible. And he came up with this two-week structure, which again is a ridiculous amount of time to shoot to shoot a whole movie. And then the way he works with people is, you know, everyone has a lot of creative input. He definitely is sort of the driver, but he he he gives people ownership of their character in some way. And that's how he gets all these credible people to work with him. So I don't think it's necessarily a mystery, but it's still I mean, I I and I I think what I really liked, he talked about this himself of trying to demystify the process.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because it feels like there's a lot of gatekeeping, like you can't make this without billions of dollars and backers and da-da-da-da-da. He it is it's it was very like an egalitarian way of of uh of making movies and making people feel like no, it's not for an exclusive club. You can actually just do it like this. And but he's honed his skill so amazingly.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and it and it it all goes like there's a through line. Like I I think I think we probably know, you know, we definitely know some of the same people from Iceland that that were doing these skating videos.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_06:And it's sort of like he just never stopped.
SPEAKER_01:Hat de gunde. Hatte gunne like I I mean he he was a skater, incredible director, incredible, you know.
SPEAKER_06:That's actually who I was thinking about. Because I I did it, because I have a an Icelandic version of this, and I talked to him uh a few weeks ago, and he and his friends were making these skating videos, and now he's making I mean, he's making actually multi-million dollar budgets, and I think that's that's still small. Yeah. I think Pete was just he's still in this mindset of a 15-year-old of how do we just have fun?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, Spike Jones came up like that too. Spike Jones came up like that, just shooting sp you know, skate videos, and then he did the Beastie Boys, they're all friends. It's it's all kind of if the creative community around you is as fertile as you and you're just like uh it just it's a be I mean, look at the magic that it has given the world with with with people who have just done that in true true outorship, you know, and a really, really commendable guy. Very, very again, I want to I want to be a part of your your board game night with all our all of your guests. And I just wanna hug and kiss everybody because everybody's just so lovely. We're just learning so much about the human condition and how they've honed their skills, and it's it's a beautiful thing. Thank you for doing all these. These are fabulous.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, well, I'm I'm so grateful for the guests because you know, every every single person I talk to is is obviously, you know, donating these are I mean, we cut these down, these are two plus hour talks, and and and I'm learning so much because I I get I mean I mean, which is kind of why I started the this podcast is I really like talking to creative people and and having having an excuse to ask them all the questions about how they how they actually do the things that they do. And so yeah, and and Pete to me is I just have so many effect.
SPEAKER_01:Absolute one of a kind, yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, there were so many. I mean, I come from and uh you know, I'm I'm I I know you're in you you know you're in the high-end business uh in in in terms of um production sizes and and sure, and our yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean our commercials that I'm working on, they have they have budgets higher than all of his movies. Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_06:Uh I I used to run an agency and we had you know multi-million dollar projects sometimes. And so good enough is is not a word that was has been typically in my uh vocabulary because it's sort of like if you're working on a multi-million dollar project and there's multi-bil for a multi-billion dollar brand, it doesn't good enough is just not gonna cut it. It has to be excellent. And so, but that's with that pressure comes a lot of anxiety. There is just like, you know, you have to think through every possible thing.
SPEAKER_00:And all the fault lines. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And since since talking to him, I've just been trying to go in through my some of my life and some of the things that I do, and sort of maybe I need to scale down in the way I think about a lot of things. Like, you know, you know, his I think he said good enough is still good, and you know, good is pretty good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because you know you did it. There's also the thing of like doing the thing, like doing like painting that painting, sewing that dress, making the movie, making that dish. You're like, I've never made I've never made turkey dinner, I don't know how to make Thanksgiving, and I'm I I I could never have never cooked it. Well, one foot in front of the other and just do it. And it is commendable when people just do stuff because we all it's very easy to sit in a place like I could have been a better rapper than that lady or this person. Well, you where's your single? Where is it? Where is it? You didn't, but I I I do see, and he when he talked about the$200,000 movie, he was just like, there was so much pressure, and then pressure on creativity is not a safe space for it, which I thought was such a wonderful way to kind of think about that. And then you also you said something, and in terms of this of the speak working in tech, you mentioned that you always thought you were gonna be like in the room with the greatest and the smartest and the smartest. And then you were like, These people don't even have a plan either. And I think it's kind of refreshing to hear that because we all there's gatekeeping of like everything is so blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, quite refreshing to see that everybody sometimes a lot of people at the top they're also running around like chickens with their heads cut off, you know, with no plan. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think that's all of us. And I think yes, it is. Once you realize it, I think it opens up your mind. It's terrifying in some degrees. But it also makes you sort of just r realize that, yeah, I mean, you can just do things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just do things. Don't be so scared. Yeah. Who are you giving discounts? Who are you giving these discounts on your life to towards to? They're they're not they're not gonna pay you back. So just live your life.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And I just want to end on like at least from my side, uh one of my f main takeaways from this is for him, the the you know, he realized once he sort of did that$200,000 movie and it came out, the the end result was not worth all that work to him. Yeah, yes. Because he realized I could have done multiple movies in that same time. And just realizing, I mean, this is this is a cliche, but that the journey needs to be worth it because the end result really won't be. Like if it if it isn't a joy to make, no matter what you make, it it won't be worth it.
SPEAKER_01:No, it will suffer for it for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, that's wonderful. I mean, I think that's sage words to go by when you're approaching all sorts of assignments. So bravo, everybody. I think we all learned something today.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and I'm just gonna go make a movie now because I think Go do it.
SPEAKER_01:I'm available, I'm SAG. I'm SAG, so I'm available, you know.
SPEAKER_06:Get a few people together for a couple of weeks that we can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get it done.
SPEAKER_01:I got we got you. Yeah, let's get it done.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:All right, honey.
SPEAKER_06:Good to see you.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks. See you next time. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_06:Thank you for listening to Let's Walk. This episode was produced by Jihan Sincerely and edited by Kunat Hanson. Our theme song is by Aknerunar Clover.