The Movie Crypt! And welcome to another edition of The Movie Crypt. I'm Adam Green. I'm Joe Lynch. We are recording this episode way back last year on Monday, December 9th, 2024. But we have strategically planned this so that this episode will come out the week that the movie we're going to be talking about comes out. But at this point, I am long gone on the other side of the planet. Hopefully you are deep in...
Pre-production. I've been in pre-production for months, but I'll be in pre-production there. Hard prep. Boots on ground. Hard prep. Hard prep. Today was the day that we shut down the Aeroscope store for the first time ever. You were doing a jig. I was. I was very excited about it. But it'll open again in May, maybe a few weeks earlier than that. But we're going to have all hands on deck on the other side of the planet doing what's next. So there will be nobody here to make sure orders are being filled.
But it was so weird to finally click that button that shut it down. Did it make a pew? Yeah. It was kind of like Jurassic Park. And I was like, oh, thank God. And then Sam Jackson's arm came out and grabbed me. Hold on to your butts. Anyway, we should get right to it. Yes. This is someone I have a personal connection to because he employed me a couple of years ago on a great show called My Dead Ex with our... Obviously, you didn't do a background check first before that.
We met. We had a brief. Yeah. It wasn't long enough that I really got a sense of who he really was. He tricked me. I didn't trick you. It's called charm. All right, mystery guest. All right. But look, he's been kicking around as a writer, but also a director for years. Shows like Mr. Pickles, Suburgatory. Did I say that? Suburgatory. That's great. But his new feature, which is coming out this week. This week. On IMAX, by the way.
little asterisk there, called Companion. We've seen it. Fucking awesome movie with a murderer's row of amazing cast. Please welcome to the movie crypt, Drew Hancock. Yay! Thank you. Thanks for having me. I heard someone at the New Bev last week, that's why I was asking about Strange Darling, because people were talking about Companion in front of us. And the...
Guy goes, oh my God, it stars the chick from Heretic and the good Quaid. The good Quaid, yes. He's now been upgraded to the good Quaid. Sounds like a great movie, the good Quaid. The good Quaid. Or at least a good show.
Um, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Well, this is your first in what's going to likely be a lot of press that you're going to do. So this is a dry run. This is the easiest one. No, I appreciate it. It'll be like, I've done a couple so far and I've had to like reduce it down to sound bites. And so this will be great to kind of open it back up and just have a conversation. Always tell people, usually when it's like their first thing they're doing press for.
Don't say no to the first couple of email interviews, because at least that way you get to control what you're saying and then see it and be like, I don't need to say all that. I can just say this or no one. I shouldn't say that or.
That doesn't sound right. But that way, when you do start doing it, you know exactly what to say. But I've seen people who are like, I'm not writing the article for them. I'm not doing the email interview. And then they regret it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that seems like good advice. Yeah. You think you're prepared and you think you know your movie in and out. And then you get that question. You're like, oh, wait, I have to think about this. And sometimes you just say the wrong thing.
Cause you've been doing them all day. You mess up, you do. And then, and we've all listened to so many podcasts, not even realizing that there's a copious amount of editing that's involved. We try to keep it, you know, on, off. We barely edit. Yeah. Well, only the zoom ones just to tighten things up. So it's not that weird.
like delay. Sometimes if you're speaking to someone in like Australia, there'll be sometimes it's like long delay before they answer or whatever. So we'll, we'll clean that up. But the, like the, the rapport back and forth usually isn't pretty snappy, pretty, you know, like pretty, uh, pretty quick paced if you will. And then when you have those like, Oh, that's a good question.
I never thought of that. It sucks. I got one of those last week where I was like, oh, I never even thought about this. What was that question? Do you remember? You have a chance to do it again if you like. No, it had something to do with the framing of my relationship with technology and was there a moment in my life where I was like, you know...
like my life changed because of technology and I was like oh I haven't been asked this question before and I thought about like later on oh like and the complicated part is everyone wants to hear that's a really good question I've never been asked that before I'm gonna date myself here but my answer would be the microwave oven I know it has nothing to do with filmmaking but that one over in the corner not that one specifically but in 1980 whatever when my uncle brought over a microwave to our house for the first time and like gave us a microwave
And we spent two days as a family putting stuff in it and watching it and then being like, oh, my God, it's all warm. Do you remember when microwaves first came out and they had microwave milkshakes, hamburgers, french fries? Oh, when they were touting that you can make grilled cheese, it's not grilled cheese. Oh, my God. It's terrible. It's the worst. Terrible. But we couldn't believe. And I remember just thinking, is it safe to eat it? Oh, that's right. The milkshakes to this day. Yeah. I tried to dry a bird once in a microwave.
But, like, none of us should be surprised. I like how you just passed over that. If in, like, 20 years, though, they're like, oh, scientists have now found that if you eat microwave food, you grow, like, a third arm or whatever the fuck. But, like, I wouldn't be, like, shocked. Yeah. But did your mom also do what my mom did? She was like, get away from that thing. You got to stand, like, 10 feet away. You can't look in there. No, we had our faces pressed against it. Like, riveted.
The little circle tray in the center would turn and we're like, oh my God, it's heating in 30 seconds. It's, it's, yeah, anyway. Yeah, no, that's, that's funny. I would go over to my friend's house and because, because my mom was like, you have to stay as far away as possible. I went to my friend's house and their parents did it. And I was like, oh my God, this is my chance. I can get right next to the microwave and just watch it. Watch that crimp and explode. Yeah. And then cable TV as well. Like the first time it was a neighbor who had it first, but going over there and just seeing MTV.
for the first time and being so riveted, like what we're like, the channels go past 13. Yeah. What comes on next? Another video, another one. Yeah. That's all they show. I mean,
Kids today have no idea what we're talking about. Yeah, no, I mean, I remember when Fox was a new thing. I was like, there's a new channel. There's a new channel? Just one Fox. Wasn't it like 89? It was like 89, right? It was 42 in Omaha, Nebraska. No, no, like 1989, right? Oh, 1989. Something like that? I thought that you were saying the channel. Channel 89. And we're talking about Fox, the channel, not Fox News. Oh, no, no. It was like Married with Children. Yeah, The Simpsons. No, even before that. They had Married with Children. Was it Martin?
21 Jump Street. No, Martin was later. Martin was later? What was this? I'm trying to think. The flagships were Married with Children was the big one. That was the big one. I remember that was my mom watching those commercials and being like, oh, this is the death of television. It's like, oh, they're screwing up our kids. Let's go back. Where did you grow up? Omaha, Nebraska. And when you were a young tyke at that age, because it's so funny how there are generations.
artists who for the most part it was for a very long time it was just film and then it was segwaying into television or using television as a way station into film or vice versa now you have a much younger generation who's like oh no I start like I remember when I was six and the Sopranos came on you're like oh fuck you you know what was when you were dealing with storytelling because I've like I've
always admired your work as a storyteller in any format. So that's why the, I don't even want to say the upgrade, the transition from TV to feature films felt very natural, at least from a viewer standpoint.
Did you see television or film as your like vestibule, you know, like your dream vestige to be able to tell stories? Yeah. So that was a very, very easy transition from TV to film because I found myself, I am a film first guy in my entire life. It's been movies and not television. Even when we were working together on My Dead X, all of your tone meetings, you never once talked about television. No, I'm not like a big TV guy and I still don't watch a lot of television. You know, there's some that trans.
and that and I like you know like the Breaking Bads or whatever it's like is big enough that like I watch those for sure but like
I moved into television because, you know, pushed in like your agents are just like, this is where the money is. Like there are more jobs and kind of existed in that world. Hey, peak TV is where it's at, man. And all of my specs were movie ideas. And I always found it very hard to kind of contain my, or not contain, like my stories were contained. It was very hard for me to think in story in terms of like seasons or like even like one season.
multi-episode arcs. I like nice, no loose ends, self-contained stories. And so to write Companion, it felt so gratifying to me because I could just be like, okay, this starts here and then it ends on page 110. I don't have to think about leaving this open for season two or season eight or whatever. And not to jump into that movie too much, but the thing that I remember...
For the longest time, I always went, you know, if there was anybody who wouldn't be suited for television, it was the Coen brothers. This is before Fargo, before Noah Hawley came around and kind of snatched Fargo out and made it his own. They had such a knack where even though their endings were somewhat ambiguous, it always felt buttoned up. There were always things that set up and paid off so brilliantly that
by the end you're like, I don't need a sequel to that. I don't need the further adventures of, you know, like the, the blood simple gang or anything from raising Arizona. You know what I mean? Like, and when, when you let companion unfold and even some of your other stuff too, it's, it always feels like it is a beginning and middle and end. And is the only thing that's missing is at the end in certain ways, you know? Do you, were you over, did you ever read like a, write short stories? No.
No, I didn't. Like prose, nothing like that? No. I mean, I kind of came into writing. Because you know how short stories are just like these button-sized. I mean, I love reading. I love reading horror short stories. I try to read as much as I can. Right now, I'm writing. And when I'm in writing mode, I just... It's hard to read. It's really hard to read. It's also really hard for me to watch movies. When I'm in production, I can't watch movies. I only watch trash reality TV. I watch The Matrix for the 60th time.
I watch, I have like 10 movies that I just watched that I can just turn my brain off because any, like, you know, I did see a Nora and that was fantastic. But like, for the most part, if I like it, I just can't give.
any form of entertainment my full attention and so i just feel like no let's go insular let's just know what could you start breaking it down and pissing it out i'm like how many days did they have oh they must have shot all that and oh look at that and why didn't they use a light there and that's no way to watch no no you have to be in that frame of mind um yeah so what was the question that like or just like what was
Here, let me throw this out there. As a kid, what were some of the movies that inspired you to tell stories that way? I have a distinct memory of being in second grade and my mom was watching the movie Charade.
Really? Yeah. Interesting. And like, this is not like an exaggeration. The Cary Grant one? The Cary Grant, like Stanley Donnan movie and watching it from beginning to end and going to school in second grade and assuming everyone on the playground knew what Charade was. You know, you have no concept of like, oh, I didn't know this was an old movie. I thought this was just a new movie. I didn't know. I thought they made, I was like, this is so weird that, you know, Charade's not a black and white movie, but in, you know, that second grade mindset, I was like, oh.
Black and white movies, it's just a choice that they're doing. Those aren't older movies. I just had no idea that there was any kind of previous era. It's just made for now. So I remember sitting around the table being like, yeah, you know in Charade. But the experience of watching that movie, it was funny. I didn't really get all the humor. It's got stakes. Cary Grant's very charming. Walter Matthau's very charming. There's twists, there's turns. There is a really great...
Is that the one with the rooftop scene? Isn't there like a rooftop? Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking compelling. It's a brilliant movie. If you haven't seen it, I don't want to talk too much about it because I don't want to spoil it. But it is kind of like a Coen Brothers movie before the Coen Brothers. It's been said to be the greatest Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock didn't direct. I completely agree. And I don't think it found its audience when it came out. Jonathan Demme remade it with Mark Wahlberg.
called the truth about Charlie. And like, that was a remake. I didn't realize that. Yeah. All right. So, so that was, that was one that, um, really affected me that I was like, I, I like, I, I just remember seeing my parents laughing and being in like entertained by this movie. And it also had thrills in it. And, and that, that had played a big part in my, um, like, um, like.
history with movies i would say that's a big one that not a lot of people when that we've talked to talk about we always talk about like were your parents accepting of you kind of getting into the arts and you know how did you like did your parents show you certain movies and stuff but not we don't talk enough about how the the first movies that we watched affect other people around us you know um like i remember seeing ghostbusters in a theater and there were
moments where people were screaming and I walked into that movie going ha ha funny funny these are the guys from like all the funny movies I didn't expect it to be as scary as it was like the Sigourney Weaver scene when she's getting fondled by all the hands and slides in I remember the crowd going
Or the librarian. Librarian scared the shit out of me. And I didn't see it coming, but I'll never forget looking around going, holy crap, this movie scared the shit out of people. And that's something that whether you do it or not, I feel very early on, especially if you're a storyteller in a visual art that wants to affect people, you grab onto that. You want to kind of...
hoeing in i want to play that tune i want to play that note you know like i want to affect those people i've said this many times before but like i had an obsession with misery where that scene and when you watch it back you know it's it's 10 to 12 frames of the of the actual ankle going and it's not even that great it just kind of goes because i think all of our eyes are closed yeah i don't think i've ever seen the hit
But we all thought we did. Yeah. And I went to see that movie 11 times in the theater just for that moment. And I would be that fucking creepy little kid who would actually go to the front and turn around because I just wanted to see people's reactions. And it was fascinating. More times than not, it was people, there was like one or two times where someone's going, turn around, stop looking at me. But that is so exciting.
When you were kind of burgeoning your, I guess, creative juices when it came to writing, did you want to be a writer or a director first? When you kind of differentiated between the two? Yeah. So, I mean, fast forward. I mean, being from Omaha, Nebraska, you don't even think about that as being a career choice. I loved movies. I inhaled them. I was obsessed with them. But the idea of working.
In Los Angeles, I mean, it was a place you just visited and you went to Universal Studios tour. You didn't actually like. Did you ever go out there before? Yeah, in fourth grade. And yeah, it was it just was like an alien land. And so I was on a track and I was a space cadet in high school and I got fine grades, but I was always just.
just, just lost in thought. And like, I would like, like my teachers would be like, yeah, he's like, he, he's, he's a good student, but like sometimes I'll call on him and he won't know where he is like that. They don't say that to my mom. And, and, uh, I think I probably would have been on like some ADHD medication if I grew up today. Um, but I, so I, so that is just a way of me saying that like, like I was always like the creative like kid. And so, uh, but you know, the world that I come from is like,
accountants and lawyers and teachers and so i was on a track to like what's the most like creative job that i could have in business like advertising so i was on a track to in college like taking advertising classes and just was fucking miserable like i hated all of my classmates i had my teachers i hated classes but because
it is so drummed into us that we're supposed to hate school. It never occurred to me that something was wrong. Like I never did the mental math of like, Oh, you shouldn't be doing this. It was just like, Oh, except that like you're, you're miserable because school sucks. So what was the pivot point? One of those lines about accepting that school sucks. Like I wasn't miserable when I went to college at like, I liked, but you went in knowing what you wanted to do. Yeah.
Maybe that's the difference. I just felt like I was wasting my time. I could be on a set somewhere. I could be PA-ing. I could be writing. And instead, I still had to do things like I took two semesters of Chinese. I can't speak a fucking word of Chinese now. Why did I have to take those classes? And I did a Bachelor of Science TV and Film Production. So it was a lot of physics of light and sound and stuff, which I'm sure is in here somewhere in my head.
I just felt like I'm wasting my time. I need to get out of here. None of these other people are going to ever actually do this anyway. None of these teachers have ever done it. Like, what am I doing here? I always say to people, if you have the means to go to school, then absolutely go. Yeah. And I'm sure there's plenty I got out of it again.
We were still of the generation where if you wanted to be taken seriously, you had to shoot on film. And the only way to shoot on film was to use the equipment. And the only places that had equipment that was reasonably priced or free was a film school. In my case, some of my parents were more like, you need to be able to fall back on something because what you're going after, the chances, the odds are very much against you. So that was sort of my mentality was I could be the manager somewhere and not the...
bag boy at market basket, you know? Um, but still, I just, I know what you're saying about why am I here? I got to get out of here. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. It sounds like you, but you knew that you wanted to go into film. Like what, what I did, but I didn't know how you actually do it. Where are you from? From Boston. Okay. And I was going to hold it against in New York. And so, um,
I knew that's what I wanted to do, but I didn't feel while I was in school other than learning. Did you go to Emerson? I went to Hofstra. Okay. Do you know, we, you know, Eric Falconer. Yes. Yes. Fucking love. Yeah. So I, so I was, I was wanted to save this for the podcast. I saw like a very hatchet was already done.
And Falconer, I was working with Falconer. He was like, whenever, whatever year that came out, he was like, do you want to go see this movie? He was there on set. Um, and I, but he took me to it. So I saw like a, it was done. So it wasn't like a friends and family. So I saw Hatchet and I was like, Oh my God, this movie is amazing. Oh my God. That's hilarious. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I, him and Chris Romano to the funniest dudes I ever, I worked with him like on a bunch of stuff together. Did you ever get to see when they were still doing standup and they would, and Eric would do the, but when Eric would purposely bomb.
And Chris would be in the audience to cheer him on. It was one of the, like, they were very, they loved Andy Kaufman. And so Eric would go, cause I did stand up with them and Sandberg and like, like we had like a little run back in like, I guess it was like 2003 or if it was right. It ended when Sandberg left for SNL. Yeah. But, um, they would go out on stage and Eric would be like, so, uh, Hey everybody. Um, I got this blue Chevette. Oh shit.
Sorry, I'm taking a class. Can I start again? It's a red Chevette. And the audience would be so uncomfortable. And then he would...
start again and fuck up again and be like oh my god and like he's such a sweet guy yeah and then chris would be in the back going like come on man you got this like everybody get everyone cheering for him and he would just keep bombing or they would do this thing with puppets and the puppet would just say the most racist fucking horrible thing and then whoever was there was like what the fuck like they were the
Oh, man. And then Chris always showing his dick and everything for a while, too. They also had the thing where, because Falconer's a big guy and Romano's a small guy, where Falconer would go on stage and hold Romano, just in an awkward pose. Like cradling? You can't see it at home, but like this with his head here, and then he would have to position the head by the mic. Sounds like he's holding a bagpipe or something. And Romano would say a joke, and then he would go, hup!
And then he would have to switch positions. And then he would say another joke and go, and then switch positions again. Those guys were so amazing. I swear I'll move off of this in a second, but the best thing I ever saw Chris Romano do, we were at the Rainbow, which is where we did our stand-up shows once a month. And he started dancing with somebody's girlfriend and the guy's getting in his face and pushing him.
Ramona's not a big dude. This guy was going to kill him. And Chris just starts yelling at the guy, insulting himself, yelling, I read at a fourth grade level. I will suck your dick. I will suck your dick right now. And the guy got so confused that it ended the fight. It diffused the whole thing. And I was like, when did you come up with that? He's like, I just came up. I have no idea, dude. I was scared as fuck. And I just started insulting myself and he left me alone.
Yeah. Unbelievable. I wrote for Blue Mountain State. So I wrote for all three seasons of Blue Mountain State. I was going to say the audience, that's where you would know them from was Blue Mountain State. But that is, we put that. You put that in? He put that in an episode. Oh, I never saw that one. Yeah, I think it's first season where a guy, he's hitting on a girlfriend and then the boyfriend comes in. It was Spike TV. You couldn't say, I'll suck your dick. I think he says, I'll give you a handjob or something. It's definitely like neutered. It's fine line for Spike TV. It's neutered. I love those guys. Same sentiment.
I ran into them randomly like a few years ago and it was, you know, you have those friends where it doesn't matter how many years it's been or how, and no one even asks each other, well, what are you working on? That's the one thing I hate about out here. Everyone you see, what are you working on? They're just genuinely wonderful, wonderful people. Yeah. Well, Romano is someone I always want to know what he's working on because he always has some weird project. Didn't you meet them on the Wastelander?
Was that it? Through Channel 101. Yeah. Yeah. So which is a big part of my I mean, that could be its own chapter. Because we've had a few more than a few guests. Rob Schraub. Yeah. A bunch of guys who started out in the 101 realm. Yeah. But what got you out here? OK, so like fast forward, rewind to me being miserable in like school. I just it's just just by chance. I was just looking through electives in the in like the little book, you know, pre like not even on the Internet. I was looking through like.
the little leafing through the the the electives and one was a class called editing and and i was you know so enamored by movies i was like oh this would be a fun elective and i and i think day one i was i called my parents i'm like i'm switching majors i know what i want to do wow it's just like that's it i i loved my teacher i loved my classmates and it it's it was like this is what i'm meant to do
From that point forward, I was at Colorado State University, which does not have a film program, but I cobbled together a film studies major. Within that, there would be an Asian film class that was through the foreign language department. You stitched together a curriculum. There was a news department, so I was able to take news classes and video journalism and shooting news packages and was able to convince.
um, one of the teachers to let me do a short film as an elect as like, uh, what is it called? Like your senior year when you're getting like course credit for doing your own little project, like a thesis project or something. So I was able to, and they had a campus television department, which we had an avid and we had, uh, you know, everything and no competition. No one, no one at Colorado state wanted to do anything with that. Like, so, and this was going to be a narrative short.
It was a narrative short, yeah. I was cleaning out this closet and I found an old 60mm bolex and made all the mistakes that I possibly could. I shot three days worth of footage with the cap on. I was like, I didn't know what I was doing and the teacher didn't know what it was so he couldn't help me. When you first got on an Avid and learned how to cut, was it the footage of the guy on a horse walking through like...
the woods and then another guy shoots at him and they give you like there's a lot like did you have to do this on avid it was just weird like why is it we never got taught avid we were the last class to get taught strictly film my final semester we got into non-linear oh you're talking about all the stock footage shit they now give you now and be like yeah play with this but what was interesting about the footage was there was multiple ways you could cut it and make it a completely different story yeah and so
I remember having a hard time with that being like, well, what is the story I'm cutting? And they're like, that's for you to come up with. And I'm like, just tell me. I thought there was like a right or a wrong way. There wasn't. But it was just to teach you how to cut and have it make sense. But yeah, it's...
Do you still use Avid? Oh, I haven't edited anything. I mean, I'm in a fantasy football league that when the loser has to make a video like each week. And so that's like I had to like re-download iMovie. And it was like 20 years since I'd edited something. The last editing software I had was Final Cut Pro. I didn't even know they stopped making Final Cut Pro. Yeah, we were here the day they shut that down. And we're like, fuck, we got to do Premiere now. Premiere sucks. They purposely killed Final Cut.
with Final Cut X.
And then that was the end of it. But yeah, I haven't touched an Avid myself since college. Hatchet 1 was edited on an Avid. Actually, a bunch of these were edited on an Avid, but I wasn't the editor. But what's the advantage now of doing anything on an Avid as opposed to Premiere or even like Da Vinci? It's just a preference. Like certain editors you talk to, they just swear by Avid or they don't. I remember learning on Avid and being self-taught and just like having this footage that we'd shoot.
for campus television and it like the the things you would have to do made no sense and then all the media management shit yeah and final cup you would just omf omf media files it's like that's like seared into my brain i don't even remember what that is
And then Final Cut Pro came along, and I was like, this is so user-intuitive, and it just all makes sense. And no render time anymore. That's the biggest thing. No, no, no. Final Cut was render. Premiere is where you dropped that shit out. I was like, thank God. Although I did enjoy the times where I'm like, all right, I'm going to render, and I'm going to go run around the block, jerk off, take a shit, and come back, and it'll be halfway there. Just doing exports on Premiere.
Sometimes like the Movie Crypt Live pre-shows. Oh, those are like six hours. Well, it should be like three to six, but then lately they've been like 12, 13, and then they fail right at the, it's my computer. But still, it's been a journey that we've all been on and at least been around or had to touch various technology on the way. But this goes back to your first question, you know, that you got asked that you didn't know what to ask for.
I feel like I became a better writer and a better director because I knew things about how to shoot or how to edit, you know, especially when it comes to, which again, brings us all back around to like companion. When you're on that set, I'm sure there was that little editor in your brain going like, all right, I know I can stitch this together and that together. There are so many filmmakers who never learned how to edit, never learned how to pick up a camera and they just go, oh, that's somebody else's job.
And sometimes you can tell, you know, or you hear that like, oh, they had three cameras on set at all times. I'm like, fuck that noise. I just let it roll. I mean, you could usually tell an amateur if they're like.
You can tell they've never done it before if they're shooting people entering rooms and exiting rooms. You're like, okay, you don't need to do that. My guilty pleasure with my wife is to watch the Zeus channel. It's like an urban reality show. We love the worst of the worst. They call it ratchet TV, but just like the fights and just like the worst stuff.
like scene it starts with like an empty couch and people all walk in sit down have their forced conversation where they're all perfectly sitting like facing the camera and then they all get up and exit and only after the last one has exited the shot does it now cut to the same fucking drone footage of yeah whatever city they're in and then back to the next scene but yeah you're so right like there's no reason there was a movie we just watched recently for somebody who I think was going to come on and then
Didn't. I mean, hopefully they didn't because I'm going to feel really bad saying this, but I guess I don't remember. Maybe you'll remember the movie, but you could tell that they also edited their own movie because this thing could have been so much tighter, so shorter, but they wanted everything that they shot, every frame of everything they shot in there and it just kept going and going and going. Anyway. Yeah. I'm just, it's funny you mentioned.
People entering and exiting every... Oh, yeah. I mean, if you want an example of... I just watched The French Connection for, like, the 10th time, like, two days ago. And that's, like, the sloppiest, like...
I think it's a perfect movie and it's like jump cuts. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But there's a perfect example of one of the most famous exit out a door shots in cinema history because then you hear the gunshot. But there was a reason for that. Of course, I know. I mean, yeah, that's just to be said. If you're going to show someone entering a room, you know, like it needs to serve the story. It needs to serve a purpose. Even in theater, though, they'll black out the scene when the scene is over. They don't always wait and have the actors suddenly all.
exit and then do it. But that's the fun of editing, realizing and having...
you know, made as many short films as you possibly can, the control that you have, like what you can do. And, um, it really helps in those moments, like on companion when like the sun is going down and you're, you have seven shots and then you immediately are like, without questioning, like, okay, I know how to do this in one shot. Let's just do this with this way. Like the, like the, the, the, the, the shot of the reveal of the, um, the, um, little thumb drive. And that was supposed to be like seven shots and we didn't have enough time. And so I was like, Oh shit.
Let's just do this in a one shot. That's the stuff that I wish people who are like super critical of every movie they see, but have never tried it to just put them in that situation once. Here's how I want to do it. And I have it all set up. We're just going to shoot this, this and this. And then it's like a physical challenge from Double Dare. It's like, you know what? It's after lunch. You have 17 setups here. Go.
But then it's like, good luck. There's a plane. This isn't ready. That light went out. We just need a second to reboot. We need that. Okay. Now you have time for one shot. How are you going to tell this story in one shot? Because that's all you have. And then eventually you see a review. That's like, it would have been good if it did this or if they're like, why didn't, well, it has its technical flaws. You're like, fuck you. You know, one of the biggest like bonings I ever got on a set was in the fourth hatchet movie, which we only had 11 days to make it in. And.
Were you shot Hatchet in 11 days? The fourth one. The fourth one. Okay. Yeah. It was done in secret and everything. Got it. But still, there was, you know, it's a swamp and there's water and there's a boat that pulls up and characters get off the boat. And when we got there, the guy who owned the ranch we were shooting at had drained all the water out of the lake.
And even he, I don't think knew why. He just was like, oh, I forgot you guys needed that. So now the boat can't move. So it's like, all right, fine. Boat's already there. We pick up the scene as they're getting off. But I couldn't shoot too low because then you could see there's no water. But if I tilt it up too high, you could see the Santa Clarita Mountains and they're supposed to be in New Orleans. And so everything had to be so tight.
because I couldn't go up or down or what, like, it's not my fault. But then one of the first reviews I read was like, Adam Green shoots like it's a TV show. There's never scope. There's never, like, I couldn't fucking, like, you don't think I wasn't planning on doing this great sweeping shot of them coming under the, anyway, but yeah, I just wish everybody could.
be in the position you're talking about once. Yeah. I mean, but there's, I would say there's a flip side of that too, where you make mistakes and people think it's intentional and like lauded as being like this. I remember writing on suburgatory and there was one episode that we just, just.
biffed the like the the c story it was just like oh shit we don't know what how this is going to end and the review in the av club was like the way they subverted like like like like uh sitcom tropes by not having this storyline wrap up it's like no bullshit like we just we didn't know how to end it so we just like swept it under the rug and we're just like oh i don't know what to do because you think like well that must have been intentional if they
deliberately didn't remember did you did you read all of the because i used to love reading av club uh like reviews or like recaps of shows yeah and i always wonder because sometimes it could be oh they were brutal of mine like it was um that was my first taste of like
um like criticism for like i'd never made something up to that point that was like got like a grade that that that it was an episode of spurgatory that got the lowest grade that any episode of spurgatory ever gotten and then and i was devastated devastated how how do you how did you deal with that i mean i fetal position
But then you get to the writer's room and you just keep going. And you just keep going. Yeah. Yeah. You get a little, you get a thicker skin. I mean, I'm not prepared for like the amount of scrutiny that like this companion is going to come out on a scale that like I, I mean, it's getting a global release and I, I'm not on social media, so I can be a little protected from that. Oh, good. Yeah. So don't worry about it. We can go on Blue Sky for a little bit. The publicist is going to send you recaps that say all these places. Yeah, but you'll always have a friend that will be like.
don't listen to the New York Times. You'd be like, why did you tell me that? Because they secretly wanted to make sure you saw it. When you hear, here's the code, it's fine. Yeah. When you hear the fine, it's not fine. Yeah, so that, yeah, not looking forward to it. Be happy there's not IMDb message boards anymore. Oh, God. Because... I used to have so much fun on IMDb. I troll, like, I used to, like, troll IMDb. Were you the guy that gave Raiders of the Lost Ark a one? No, no, no. I didn't do stuff like that. I went on, like, what's the Any Given Sunday?
And I would just like, it would be like, yeah. And the title would be Hollywood strikes again. And the subject or the, the, the body was just, Oh my God. Like, like I'm all for them, like making this movie, but like, am I going to believe that Cameron Diaz is a professional football player? And then there's just, just to see like people react to it. Like, what are you talking about? She's not in it. What are you talking about? Willie Beeman, man. The problem was even people who aren't in the industry know what IMDB is. And so they would.
go to those message boards and treat them like reviews. Yeah. And it's like, man, I don't know why everybody's saying that whatever movie is the worst movie ever. I thought it was pretty good. Who said, what review said that? Oh, it's all over IMDb. Those are fucking jackasses. Like you just admitted, like you purposely would say something ridiculous just to get the reaction. Yeah. But I think, first of all, having seen the movie, I don't think you need to be worried.
And look, it doesn't matter what the movie is. There's somebody out there who's going to be like, this is terrible. And that's all I'll think about. I mean, a hundred good reviews and in like, you know, one bad one. And that's all that. That's the only one I'll think about. Consider the source. Yeah. All of my favorite movies this year. I've always had someone either walking out or in like the AMC 16 lobby or outside the new bed or whatever going, the movie fucking sucked. You know, like a Nora guy walked out when worst movie of the year. Yeah.
I remember seeing Pig, which I fucking loved Pig. And the two people in front of me hated it. Yeah, hated it. I saw it at the premiere, and our good friend Frank Grillo walked out and went, fucking sucked. I'm like, yeah, you wish, dude. Fuck you. I want to go back to... Yeah, we just jumped way ahead. No, no way, but we're going to be all over the place. But inevitably, if it happens, just ask yourself, why did you send it to that person to get their opinion? Because immediately they'll be like, well, I didn't. Right.
So, you know, you've got plenty of friends around you whose work you really respect. Those opinions matter. And then just the audience in general. Are people enjoying it, connecting with it? Not everyone's going to, but it's so hard to not just hone in on that one, like, brutal fucking... But then you're also going to be like, what are you so angry about that this...
film upset you that much that you're that angry, wishing cancer upon me and my family? Like, really? Especially when they probably didn't even pay for it, too. Exactly. That's a whole other thing. I want to go into My Dead Ex because I truly enjoyed the experience of being on it and working on it and watching you work on it. But it was also a show that I really just enjoyed watching. You know, I've been on a couple shows now.
And I'm sure this happens to every director who's been in serialized shows or episodic TV where they're like, I'm not going to watch what happened before or after, like when it all rolls out. Because I was in like the third block, I think it was. So I was in the thick. I think you were in the second block. I was like, I was in the thick of the story. Things have already been established. I'm sorry, too, because I realized in hindsight that I gave you the two episodes that had like five montages in them. And we had. Oh, no, I enjoyed the fuck out of that. Was it like three and a half days per episode?
Yeah. But that said, what was fun for me to go into with that show was that like how. And we've talked about this a little bit on the show, because we haven't had the privilege of having a lot of TV writers and showrunners on. Next week, we have a showrunner on. That's true. Which we didn't really talk about this, I don't think, but the tone meeting. And that tone meeting is so essential when you have the journeyman directors coming in and out of the situation. There isn't one director who's...
playing the whole thing out or there's not like the stable of directors. There's like three or four that are kind of making sure that they are managed, managing your overall vision. And I had seen you on set. I had seen you, you know, kind of around the office. Um, but you never seemed as happy as you were in the tone meeting. I don't know if that's like, maybe you do where you were faking until you making it something, but you were so excited about.
and relaying all the things that you wanted to make sure that I knew going into the fire. The first stuff I want to know, I think it's on Hulu still. Do you know? I don't know, honestly. I think it's on Hulu still. I don't know if it's on Hulu, actually. It's been, dude.
Like every few months I have people who are like, I love that show. You know, Derek was on the show. He was fucking great. Derek Mears. Yeah. Derek's in it. Yeah. Because we found out that we both knew him. Yeah. We were just, we texted him. Hey, maybe he could be the robber. And next thing you know, Derek's on set up in NoHo, like holding a gun to people. Yeah. So when it comes to My Dead Ex, when you were, when you were putting it together, one of the things that I really enjoyed was how you were balancing.
the horror and the comedy, what, like, what were some of the influences that you had going into making that show? Because you can watch it and it, it's kind of three components. It has the, it has the horror histronics of, you know, of him being dead, but then it's got the comedy section, but then there was the heart as well. When you were, cause you were, you were the showrunner for the whole thing. Did you ever want to direct any of the episodes? No.
because show run show running is like kind of the best of both worlds where you can just kind of sit back and let the director like answer all of the questions that you don't want to answer like what color are the drapes and like which gun should they be like I don't care about like
probably like 90% of the, I care about those things. I think I picked some really nice fucking grapes. All right. But, but when you're thinking about like, I, I'll always have a writer brain first and I'm always thinking about like story. And so like, sometimes like those like little things can just be very distracting in the, in the sense of like, I want to like have other people answer those questions sometimes. So the director could do that while I could just sit back. And then when I saw something that wasn't quite right, I could be like,
whisper in your ear and be like oh no this is actually about something else here and can we get a different take or a different read that was one of my favorite I mean directing show running it's it's now you have this team of people that you hired because they're really good at what they do I'm not a costume designer I can barely dress my fucking self and every costume designer I've ever worked with when they start showing me their ideas and they're like I wouldn't think of that stuff I would everybody would be dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans if I was the one doing it
um, production designers, like things that you didn't even think were possible. And they're like, Oh no, it was easy. We just put this together with this, this, this, and that. And then we gave it a coat of this and we painted the, I like, I agree with you. I would like much rather have them do what they do and then guide and be like, well, maybe I guess sometimes it, there might be something specific. No, it has to be exactly this for this reason or whatever, but yeah, let people do, do what they're good at. Yeah. And those are my favorite.
And I think probably why I was so animated during that tone meeting is that I love talking about story. I love making it a conversation, not just be like, oh, this is, you know, I'll say this is what I'm thinking, but also like, what are you thinking? And then like, you know, if you have a better idea than me, then that's like, that just makes me so, so much more excited. I love talking to like, you know, on companion, like one of my, I've said this story like a bunch, but it's one of my favorite stories.
um was we were shooting the iris getting out of the shower and looking in the mirror and we were she was the makeup artist was getting her ready and like oh we're like what's her makeup like she's you know she's a she's a spoiler alert she's a robot like does she wear makeup and then we can't she came up with the idea on the spot of like oh no she doesn't wear makeup it's baked into her skin and so suddenly it's like oh that's
That's about makeup. It's something that gets me excited because it's about story. It immediately opens up other threads. And it becomes an Easter egg. Now you watch the movie and you see, if you don't know what she is, and I'm sorry for your audience that you spoiled it, but there will be marketing that.
tells everyone very very soon yeah soon if not already yeah so so but but if you didn't know that like during the test market or test market the test group focus group we had someone um in the audience go you know i thought it was a mistake that her makeup didn't run in the shower and then i realized oh that was intentional because she's a robot later on and i immediately because people want to makeup artists like what we did like people are seeing it and up until that point did you even i'm
I hope I'm not putting you on the spot, but did you even think about that factor? No, that's what made me so excited. It's because it was like someone opening up another wrinkle. What they're best at and bringing, again, if it's about story and it enhances the story, then yeah. But also Sophie Thatcher has those natural, very high cheekbones that make you think that she's always put blush on. Yeah. Like in everything, I'm just like, the fuck does she do that?
But to go back to that room, if you remember that shitty room in the Valley, it is so hard. There were a lot of shitty rooms for that. Well, yeah. But it was so exciting to see you so animated in such a blasé room. You know what I mean? And I always wondered, you've been in writer's room before. I've never been in a writer's room before formally. I've always wondered, when you're in that room,
don't you want to put up like art or like some, some color or something like that? It's like, it's shocking to me that people have to be forced to be creative in a confined space in such drabness. But when you're talking about like studio and network jobs and you know, you're allotted space on the studio, like they don't give a shit and you're not really there to.
make it your own unless you have like a long-term deal and then you usually it's just the movie posters for the things you've worked on but all the writers rooms that i was in on when i was learning and coming up it was always pilots so you were only going to be there for a week so yeah it's the most drab furniture walls everything because it's just a space to bring everyone together but usually it's the cast of characters you have around that table that that light it up but um
I don't know. What about, um, when it comes to, cause when you, when you look at your IMDB, when you go from my dead ex, which was, did you even, did you have a writer's room or was it just primarily? No, that was just me. They had offered one, but, but what they were offering was, was I think three weeks with writers. And, and because I've been in so many rooms, I knew that like, you don't even get a, like a sense of like the room doesn't gel for at least a month. That first month is just like.
kind of figure out spitballing trying to figure out people's dynamics and by the time the three three weeks would be up it would be you know like that's when i would want the writer's room and so it's like just knowing that that that would just be wasted energy do you remember in in one of my writer's room in my episode in the gym scene you know the one where there's like the funeral the memorial memorial yeah and uh i remember i'm trying to remember who it was it was one of the actors and they kept saying like you know it's funny because like the the way that you write
it is very much your voice when you're, you know, you're writing for all these different characters and stuff. It was the janitor. And do you remember the janitor was the guy from fucking full metal jacket? I do. You know, like, and he was so happy to be there. And he was just like, he was just very joyous that he had the gig that he was doing this thing, but he kept talking about like your voice as a, as a writer.
And it reminded me of, like, when you watch the whole show, it's like, you get that voice. Like, it's not something that's a product of a writer's room sometimes, you know? Because I know that sometimes, like, writer's room, they have certain, I guess, writers assigned to particular episodes. And then the showrunner is the one who kind of, you know, controls the overall feel of it. But your voice was so assured in that, that, like, when you're...
When you watch companion, the first 10 minutes, not even, it's just the drive up and immediately went, and there's the drew voice again, you know, like it's, it's very immediate. It's very much your style. So when you were pivoting from, you know, a TV show, did you always know that you wanted to kind of get into features next, or was it just kind of like luck of the draw? This is one of the projects that that's out there. Let's see what happens kind of thing.
Uh, to get, you're talking about getting into companion. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that was, um, uh, you know, we're skipping over kind of a lot, uh, especially the, the early days of like, like the channel one-on-one era. Like, so I did channel one-on-one, which was like a little like film, like a kind of a mini film school. It's like a, it was a film festival that existed in the early two thousands. And yeah, channel one-on-one, um, was such a great thing. You were part of it, right? Well, no.
I wasn't, I was friends with everybody. Did you ever go into the screenings? I did. I went to some of the screenings, but then when pushed to, cause this, I'm going back to like house of Cosby's the boo, like that type of stuff. Um, and so my agent at the time, um, Jay Gassner. Yeah, that was my agent too. Not anymore, but yeah. Yeah. Um, and he, Jay's like the reason I even like ever got out here. Um, but.
he was like, yo, you should make something for this. You make shorts for every Halloween, like make something. And so we did the real world Hollywood where it was like a bunch of, um, stereotype people. And then Michael Myers all having to live in a house together and, you know, channel one on one style. We shot it in one day and like, you know, threw it together and they wouldn't even play it. Cause they said,
It's a parody. We don't do parodies. And I'm looking at everything that was winning. They were all parodies. Yeah. So I took that as, okay, I'm just not welcome here. And I went and made Hatchet and I was like, fuck you guys. Yeah. But that short ended up doing so well online too. But I was just like, I had gone to a bunch of the screenings. I was friends with everyone, but when they wouldn't even show it, I was like, honestly, that's why parody. I'm like, you know, the booze on it's like third episode. What is that?
So there were plenty of parodies for sure. Yeah. So I don't know who made that decision or what, but in the comedy world, um, I always like, once I got into the horror world, you just meet the nicest people. Like I'm sure a lot of it exists. I mean, I know some of it exists with the backstabbing and jealousy or whatever, but with comedians, it can be so hard. Like I was always.
I felt that was very fortunate because I didn't want to be a comedian. I never wanted to be a stand-up. I just wanted to be a better writer, which is why I would do it.
As I'm sure you know, if you want to be a good stand-up, you do the same 10 minutes for months and you hone it and you perfect it. I would do a different set every single time I go out because if I saw someone in the audience who I knew had seen me, I would be like, I can't do that joke. They already heard it, which is not what you're supposed to do. But I learned so much from the other guys I was doing it with. And I still love all of them. They're all great guys. But I would be at parties and witness.
the competitiveness so-and-so just told a funny joke this one is literally covering their mouth to not show that they're laughing because they need to be the center of comedians man that's a dark yeah i mean because it's all about you right like you're standing up it's your brand it's your voice it's like it yeah i mean i've never been in that like i've never had that mindset because i'm not a comedian but like i i understand where it comes from for sure yeah i definitely got it but i was really happy
to sort of move out of that. Cause in the horror community, it's just, it's for the most part, it's not like that. There's some of it for sure. I mean, in anything there is, but for the most part, everyone's just a bunch of nerds who loves the genre and you know, we geek out over action figures and shit. And Legos too. Yes. And vinyl. Um, all right. So from the channel one on one days though,
And doing that stuff, obviously it wasn't just like straight to companion in your movies. No, yeah. So making like short films for that. And that's where I would, that was like my true film school because you're making like little five minute shorts and you're screening it from an audience and you're like seeing instantly. You're making something and at the end of the month, you're seeing it like in front of like a hundred people and you're seeing what jokes work and you're seeing what like. You're getting that reaction though. Yeah.
And it was just like heroin. It was like, you were just, oh my God, I need to make another thing and get that laugh again. You're chasing it and then something doesn't work and you're like, oh shit. And you're like, why didn't it work? And you're starting to think about like, you know, like the, the, the kind of like, you know, the, the responsibility you have as a, as an artist and, and, and like, like entertaining an audience first. Like that should, honestly, like that really should be your, your goal is like we're, we're in the entertainment industry. Let's not pretend like we're not. Do you remember the,
The Lonely Island. It was one of their first ones. The Nintendo game hour with like Karate Champ. Oh my God. And Norm and Keith and Andy are doing all the voices, but he's like, there's a mushroom walking by. Okay. Do you remember that one? No. I mean, it sounds familiar. It was one of their earliest ones. That was the moment I like completely fell in love with their work. Cause I was just like, you guys are the funniest fucking dudes. Like, yeah.
And Keeve is just like a genius. No, I saw the boo is what got me. Like I think that was one of the first Channel 101 shows I saw. Frazzles the squirrel. Yeah.
So good. All right. Sorry. No, no, no. Nintendo one isn't one of the more popular ones though. So I figured maybe you had seen it cause I thought I probably have. I remember like they did like the ignition TV things. Yeah. There was like, they did something with like the, the teen witch like rap or they just don't like, they told like a VH1 behind the music kind of like story of the teen witch rap. And then they got a pilot for Fox called Awesome Town, which is really funny. Which was great. But then when that didn't go.
It was like, what the fuck? Jack Black is in the intro for it. It was like, this is definitely going to go. For Fox? Yeah. And then it didn't. And then Andy gets on to SNL and they all go there and then the digital shorts. Sometimes when something goes so wrong, for whatever the reason is, and then right behind it is where you're, I guess, supposed to be.
Yeah. And I have many of those in my, my, uh, uh, my story. Um, but, uh, yeah. So fast forward, like, you know, like learning how to, to, to, to make little short films and, um, do you miss them? No. Cause that's just, it's all the.
sometimes I miss the low finest of it where I'm just, I can just put everything together. I don't need a lot of people to do it. I just boop. It's done. I don't miss the prep and you have to make all the costumes and you have to make all the props. You have to go out and just go to the home Depot, Depot, Depot and like buy all the, buy all the stuff and you know, like coordinate the food and you're doing literally everything and that, that part of it. But like the purity of like having a, just you, me with a camera, you know, like, no, no, no, do it this way. Like that, that, and you're stealing.
locations, that was fun. But yeah, all the other stuff was not fun. Is there something from your repertoire before that, whether it was being in the room or maybe one of the short films, that you can look back on and go, I learned so much from that that I got to hone and bring to Companion? Because the thing with Companion is it is so assured.
Like when you watch it, like there's moments in it where you go, this guy's made at least four or five movies. Thank you. There's not one moment. It's my 15-year career, every mistake I ever made. I've treated every job as a learning experience. So there's this very specific moment in my career where I realized that I needed to take a break from directing. And I started out, I came out here, I wanted to be a director.
I was on that track. I directed a little bit for the Jimmy Kimmel show. That's amazing. Like just two weeks. It was like a trial thing. But I got into the DGA because of it. Oh, wow. And I did the VH1 show, which was called Acceptable TV. It was like Channel 101. Oh, my God. I remember that. We got it from Channel 101. So I directed that. And I was on a track to start doing.
tv like i got an episode of a like they were like if you want to direct this this you can have it it was a comedy central show and i read the script and i was like i recognize that this script doesn't work but i don't know why like i don't like it's it's i don't have a um
uh, like my, like, I don't have the tools to like, I didn't understand story. I didn't understand character. It was like something tasted bad. Yeah. And I knew, I knew I could like, I knew I was really good with like blocking and I could like, I knew what shots it needed to be, but I like coming from it, like from like the story side, I was just lost. And so luckily at that time when I had been offered that show.
I was also offered to write for Blue Mountain State. And so that gave me, it was very fortunate that I was given that opportunity, but I consciously made the choice. It was like, oh, I need to really hone in on my writing. If I'm going to be a good director, I have to figure out stories from the beginning.
I thought I was a writer, but... To hear the rest of this episode, go to patreon.com slash themoviecrypt. For only $1 a month, you'll get every new episode every Monday downloaded right to your podcast app of choice.