Hi, I'm filmmaker and movie crypt host, Joe Lynch. And I'm Becca Howard, a writer, editor, and person. And thank God it's... Tuesday? No, I mean, technically, I know it's Tuesday, but this is for a couple of old fashions. Oh, so you want me to lie and pretend it's Friday? Well, cinema is lies at 24 frames per second. Going for Goddard.
Quotes already. Really going to be lining them up for that one. There's no need to. Thank God it's. As it were. Hi. Well, no matter what day you're listening to this, we're here to talk to you about a couple of old fashions. a new limited series subsidiary of the Movie Crypt Podcast. As you may or may not know, at our first date, Joe and mine, we each brought a surprise movie that neither of us had prior warning of. I brought my man, Godfrey, a 1930s...
screwball classic. And I brought Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper. And true love was born. And now, a few years later, we're married. And more importantly, we're co-hosting this new series together. Every Friday at midnight, a new episode featuring yours truly will drop via the movie. Patreon account. Each episode has a unique theme for that week's movie marathon. We both bring a surprise title that neither of us know about and we watch them together. Off screen. Well...
Yeah, no one wants to just watch us watch movies for hours on end. I mean, that's what Slumber Party Massacre is. Anyway, we then discuss the movies together with a couple of old fashioned cocktails, having a couple of old fashioned conversations with our old fashioned dog, Rocco. What we liked or didn't like about each other's pics. Whether they work together.
or didn't work together. The movies, right? Not us? Yes. This isn't a litmus test that just never ends. Anyway, we would love to invite you guys all to join us on our double-feature date nights at the movies. And let us know! What do you think of our picks and what you guys would have brought to the marathon? Our first episode's theme is One Night Only. Which may also be how long the whole show lasts. And that one is already up on our podcast and available to listen to or watch. Or both.
at the same time. For free. If you like what you see and hear, going forward, the episodes will drop every Friday at midnight and will be only three bucks an episode to access. Three bucks? Jeez, I can get three Taco Tuesday tacos for that. Well, that's the lowest amount you can set a price at on Patreon. Surely you have to be worth at least three bucks. Nah, I'm a ten cents a dance kinda girl. Not anymore, right? Yep.
Okay. Well, we hope to see you here every Friday for a couple of old-fashioned movies, a couple of old-fashioned conversations, a couple of old-fashioned cocktails, and a couple of old-fashioned people. Now back to Taco Tuesday. No, remember, it's Friday. Oh, yeah. Lying. I mean, cinema is lies at 24 frames. Thank God it's Friday. As it were. So be sure to tune into A Couple of Old Fashions with Becca and Joe. right here on the Movie Crypt Network. And now, on to the show.
And welcome to another edition of The Movie Crypt. I'm Joe Lynch, and I am flying solo again because Adam is on assignment. Hope he's to go. Actually, he is shooting. At this very moment, we are recording this on February 24th, 2025. And hopefully at this point, Adam is desperately trying to make his day. He is nine hours ahead. So as we all know, when you are making a film. In the morning, it's Lawrence of Arabia. By lunchtime,
you're shooting Dukes of Hazzard. So hopefully he's in the Dukes of Hazzard part and the 47 setups that he's combined together and he's hopefully making his day. But so unfortunately, he gets to miss out on this fantastic conversation I have not. one but two guests with me today. You may know their films from previous installments of, let's see, we have...
Steakland, well, what is it? It was Steakland. Steakland 2, the Steaklander. That's what it was. I remember it being Steaklander. Yeah, that's what we were pushing for was Steaklander. And then it became...
It became Steakland 2 in a bunch of different places. The distribution company made us throw the two in there. Was it Dark Sky? Yes, it was Dark Sky. Good old Dark Sky. Gotta love those guys. But also, the movie that kind of jumped on... to my radar was villains and I fucked dude that movie wrecked me because again like I think one of the things that if you know our work being able to traverse between
Genre and comedy is not an easy feat. And what you guys were able to do with villains was no small feat, but also significant other. And now... Big studio Hollywood dude. I was we were coming from the New Beverly last night and the amount of billboards that were all over Hollywood were amazing. The movie, well, Jack Quaid is having a moment, and I was thrilled to see him. It is the year of Jack Quaid, I think. It is. He deserves it. Amber Mid-Thunder.
Ray Nicholson is also having a bit of a year. Who's incredible. I'm so excited for him. Matt Walsh shows up. Novocaine, which comes out on March 14th. So the movie will have come out as of this recording. So hopefully... You've already seen the movie at least twice. We'll see. But I have the directors of the film right here with us. Please welcome to the Movie Crypt, Dan Burke and Robert Olsen. Yay! Thanks so much for having us.
Big fans. Long time listeners. First time callers. Fuck off. Now I'm going to get the question you probably get all the time out of the way. Sure. Because. It's a funny thing when it comes down to duo directors. Usually in the past, there's always been a caveat of siblings or twins or whatever. But when it comes to two directors working in tandem, it becomes a bit of a funny collaboration.
in terms of like delegation. So before I ask you like, so who does what on set? Who's the better director? Right. That's, you know, it fluctuates. It really does. Day to day. On any given day. Today I'm feeling pretty good. Oh, good. I might take it. Yeah, I'm feeling low today. I really am. I feel like I feel like I'm the second man on totem pole. So do you have that? Because when you guys first came in, you had this cute little like
uh, hand slap. That was like a secret handshake. Yes. We established that years ago. Do you, was that, is that something where it's like a trade off moment where it's like, Oh, I'm not feeling it today. You know, it's like, I'm going to have to trade off and work on this side of the production. Cause I think every director at some point wishes that they can clone themselves on a set because there is 500 million decisions to make.
You wish you were in four different places at the same time. You wish you were talking to costumes. And then location scouts asking for something. And you have to be on set because the actor is being an asshole. There's so many different...
components that you sometimes wish you can do like a multiplicity thing. Yeah. Where hopefully you don't get the copy of a copy that happened in that movie. Right. Where's craft service? Yeah. Yeah. That is what would happen. Bobby's like sixth clone would just be eating Sour Patch Kids. Yeah.
That's what my original form does. No, I mean, I think to start with, you know, neither of us are specialists. It's not like one guy is the actor guy and the other guy is like the camera guy or something. Do you remember when... When Menace to Society came out
And they made such a big deal about the Hughes brothers directing together. And, you know, they look very similar. I think there was even jokes where sometimes the actors didn't know which one they were talking to. That happens with us even though we aren't twins or brothers. In spirit, you guys look exactly... the same. We get that a lot. It is confusing because we're both tall-ish brunette.
white guys. And like, it's just very easy to get us confused. Is that on your grinder? That is exactly what it is. But yeah, in Stakeland, let's call it the Stakelander. We're going to go with that. We're putting the gauntlet down. We're staking Stakelander. We're sorry. Yeah.
Uh, but so one of the actors, AC Peterson, um, who plays the character bat in the movies, great actor, great Canadian actor. Uh, he just kind of, he was like an older guy and like didn't have the time to, to differentiate between us. So he just called us Danny Bobby.
Yeah, and so anytime he needed anything, he'd just be like, Danny Bobby, Danny Bobby. Like, where'd you get that sandwich, Danny Bobby? It sounds like a character in Letterkenny, that Canadian show. Yes, totally. Oh, yeah, there's old Danny Bobby. That is exactly it. But we don't mind. One of our big rules, which I'm sure a lot of people say this, but it's like...
no ego at all. And we've had enough experiences like that, that are like humbling. And we're just like, listen, if you mix us up, like you're not the first person to do it, you won't be the last. Like it's totally, we don't give a shit. We just always try to make it the, you know, the fact that there's two of us like, asset not a liability and that's a process though because on our first film body
You know, we had never directed together. You know, we've written together a lot. But that was the first thing that we really, the first feature that we directed together. And we were both so excited. to be directing a feature, you know? And so because of that, we were both, every time there was a note to be given, we're both going up there and giving the note. Even if it's the same note. And sometimes actors go like, oh, yes. Too many people around me right now.
Exactly. And they should. It's not a good strategy. Especially two tall brunettes like yourselves looming over them. And then sometimes in the worst case scenario, we wouldn't even connect with each other initially and we would say kind of different things. And then the actor is like, OK, who am I supposed to listen to? But now, like one of the things that I think both of you can agree is that.
pre-production, even soft prep, which IE means not paid work. But those are crucial in terms of making sure that everyone is on the same page. And for two directors, More than ever, you guys need to be on the same page in, you know, if... somebody's got to go take a shit. And you know, like actor comes over and goes like, I need some motivation. Like you want to make sure that you feel that every, but you two at least are on the same page so that, you know, Dan doesn't come back and going like,
Why does Jack Quaid have his shirt off? Like, you don't know. Yeah, I mean, we try to, you know. We learned early on that prep is where the movie is made. Your movie's going to come out well if you prep it right, and if you don't, it's going to fall apart. And then we kind of take that... ethos and put it into every day of shooting where the night before a given day of shooting we'll sit there and just like read read the pages that we're shooting the next day and kind of
you know, do the voices, if you will, so that we're kind of, we act out the scene together. And then that way, you know, you can hear like, oh, is that how you think that line was set? I always thought it was going to be like, the emphasis was going to be on this word. And you hash that out then.
Before you're ever on set so that like, once you get to set, you're a unified front, you know? And like, we just try to make it so that like, you don't have to talk to both of us. You can come up and say it to one of us and, and, and we'll inform the other guy, you know? because it's like in doing that it's not just about the the lines although that's a huge thing because the you know the worst thing is to to
you know, be unprepared in front of an actor or something. But we also just try to cycle through every single eventuality on set. So that goes to like, well, what if this actor who we know really likes to kind of be free with their blocking? What if they decide they want to be up and pacing? instead of sitting on the bench. You know, what do we do then? There's nothing more challenging sometimes that when, do you shot list or board?
We shotless and board. Yeah. But we usually only board, you know, like action sequences, things that are really. Well, like for an action sequence, for example, in Novocaine, there is, you know, a pretty Michael Manzian. heist totally uh which Like the second somebody's like one of the, one of the Santas like got up on the teller board and started walking through, I'm like, somebody watched me in a good way. But you know, what if you're boarding or, or shot listing a moment that is incredible.
physical when you have to know that like, okay, whether the camera's on steady or handheld or on a dolly or even on sticks, that if someone is going up there, you're going to have to tilt the camera up. So I said tilt, not pan. Every VP is like, thank you. You did it. That always really does. I always did that. And my DPUs would always be like, it's tilt, not pan. Get it right. But if the actor goes, I don't want to do that. Or my character wouldn't do that. And, you know, after a healthy...
discussion about it and you know if they do decide like well i don't want to be up there i want to be over there sometimes that throws everything off even like when it comes down to flipping the world getting your coverage totally like so to make sure that you guys are on that same front you do need to have those conversations because there's nothing like as you guys know when you're in the throes of production you know once you call rap
Yeah, that's rap for everybody else. Like, you're lucky if you, you know, haven't... stolen some of the craft services or taking an extra lunch home with you so that you know that you have dinner at the hotel. I've never done that before. Lying your pockets with plastic bags or figuring out how much your per diem is going to go towards you.
you know, getting that burger down the street because the rest of the night is going to be dedicated to going over stuff again or doing your shot lists and how that days, depending on how continuous the action is for the scenes. how much that is going to dictate everything that you probably planned on because i do a shot list like three weeks
Before, once I know my locations are set, once I know the parameters we've walked up before the tech rehearsal, I try to have everything shot listed at the very least. Then you do the... The action scenes, and I'll board those. I can't draw for shit. I cannot draw. I can trace really well. So for Suitable Flesh, there were certain sequences that I knew I had to board.
or the camera crew was just not going to know what I was going for. Like my subtle De Palma ripoff versus my Coppola moment or my Friedkin bit. So I had to board those. unfortunately again can't draw so i would do photo boards and because i didn't want no it was the sex scenes so the sex scenes had to be so copiously scrutinized because of sensitivity and making sure the actors are comfortable on set. So I had two actors who had the same lawyer who sent me a request to explain every single shot.
in the sex scene down to where my angles were going to be. So unfortunately, my now wife and I had to take photos of how much butt crack I could show. But then I would trace over it. And I'm like, I'm drawing over my own ass. Scoping your if I'm pretty much it. They look like that. Aha video. I was gonna say that's a scanner darkly. Now I'm giving myself way too much credit, but Having that all worked out, you can go to set at least knowing, aside from force majeure, you know.
It starts to rain. A truck doesn't show up. Your crew flips on you, which happened to me. Anything that could go wrong. will go wrong. So the more that you can have that kind of unified front, but then you two split off like zygotes. And like I was saying before with like the Hughes brothers, they were very like... public about how one would be purely focused on the visuals and the other would be focused on the actors. And I would sit there and go like, I don't know.
if I could work that way if I was working with a partner. Yeah we mix it up so you know we will always just basically we'll do a take. And then we'll have a little powwow, you know, and then maybe one of us talks to the actors, the other talks to the DP and you just kind of switches, you know, like it's not like one of us is always talking to the DP or one of us is always talking to the actor. Because like a big component of work.
in a partnership is that it's not necessarily... uh natural that that you will each feel like equal levels of fulfillment all the time and there is a great deal of intentionality that we have with that you know because I think we both know that even though like what I said about ego is true, like the ego is out the door, but like no matter what, if a day went by and like, you know,
I kept being like, I'm going to go talk to the actors now. I'm going to go talk to the actors now. You go do it. Ultimately, at the end of the day, he'd feel bruised. And so we make sure that we really split those things because every part of directing is fun. You want to be able to do everything.
We are like, you know, we're like nursery school teachers sometimes with each other being like, you're good, right? We really do. We have like check-ins, you know, and we have like, we'll go on, you know, we'll go to Joshua. a tree for a weekend and just have like a creative like talk and make sure we're still like feeling good and everything and uh and whether mushrooms involved check in if we if we can afford it usually you know yeah cremini you know
It is, like I said before, it's a process that we've gotten better and better. Now, I think a lot of that stuff...
I don't think we require as many check-ins as the past because we kind of get it now. You create a shorthand. Yeah, we know. I know that if I... do a certain thing that makes Dan feel shut out or, and he knows that if he does a certain thing that makes me feel shut out, that it's going to make the other person upset because we've had enough of those moments where we said at the end of the day, Hey, back earlier when you did this, like, that's fine.
like check in with me next we've done that enough times in our early films that now you know Novocaine for instance was just like a total dream you know and I think a big part of that though is that we are we were best friends for years before we ever started to work together, you know? And I think that's why so many, um, duos are siblings or something like that, because it does help a lot to have a base of a relationship.
you know you can never sink below you know and so we can get into the biggest creative argument when we're outlining or whatever we can be screaming at each other and it's never going to actually affect our brotherhood our our like best friendship you know yeah and so that's what's nice is that we can be very open with one another whereas i feel like if one of us was teaming up with somebody that you know we met in la a year and a half ago or something
Something like that. You'd have to handle each other with kid gloves a bit and be like, Hey, that's great. I love this idea you had, but, but we can with each other, talk to each other like brothers and be like, no, that kind of sucks. Let's do this. And you're not going to get as offended. When you can get rid of the.
like the ego death and not feel like you're going to hurt someone else's feelings or that you're stepping on any toes, which you're right. Like it takes years sometimes to be able to. cultivate that like there's so many and I think that this kind of pertains to when you're working with producers who come to you and say like I have this project or whatever you're creating a relationship with them and
you never know. I've had plenty of times where, you know, you get into bed with a producer and then you spend a year trying to get the movie made and you feel like you have a relationship, but it's not until you get onto set and you go, Oh, that person doesn't give a fuck about my opinion at all. Yeah, totally. Or on the other side of that, you go, this person's really got my back and I really like being able to.
problem solve these situations together and I don't feel like they're talking about behind my back or they're undermining me and stuff. So you guys... did say that you had a long relationship. Let's origin story this shit. Sure, sure. Let's go way back. How did you guys meet? So we met at, we both went to New York University and we were randomly assigned roommates our freshman year.
Third North. So like the algorithm. Who would have thought if admissions had only no, it's like, let's put these two schmoes together. The bursar's office is like what we owe this entire partnership to our entire careers. And, and, you know, it.
college anywhere, especially NYU is just way too expensive. And like, Oh yeah. For many years we were saddled with tons of student loan debt, but, and if we hadn't met each other, I think I might say, that wasn't worth it because everything we've really learned about filmmaking we've learned in the field on on on film sets uh and the foundational sort of analysis stuff like you know the theory and scandinavian film classes and the you know uh writing the essay
The shit that always builds toward your actual marketable skills as a filmmaker, that's all valuable. But the fact that we met each other, like... I would pay that amount to meet my best friend and hopefully career-long working partner. Of course. So that is the one thing about NYU when people say, oh, should I go to college or should I do this or that? It's like I can't deny that we spent a lot of money, but we did meet each other.
Yeah. Yeah. I always, cause that happens all the time too, where, you know, some younger cousin or something like that wants to, you know, ask about, Hey, should I go to film school? And I always say, look, if you're, it depends. Like if you're. Parents are wealthy and they're gonna pay for it like then. Yeah, go ahead, but
you know, we were not that when we went. And so we had like a lot of debt coming out of that and that can kill you. This is a hard industry to make it in. And we paid off my student loans maybe like seven years ago. Yeah. It sticks with you forever because you're just paying off the.
interest or all that stuff so you know i i do say like if all you care about is making movies then like get on a set you know go and just start PA-ing you know get just get on a set and work your way up like that's what we did we've done you know every
job in the book, you know, like, and I feel like, uh, you can just start that process earlier if you want to, but again, it's still fun. You know, we, we had a great time there. You're still in a vacuum though. Yeah. Like, cause I went to Syracuse because I got.
Fucking waitlisted by NYU. But at the same time... I got waitlisted too. I thought I didn't think I was going to get in. I just went, fuck it. I'm just going to... Oh, fuck you. But I used that opportunity because Syracuse was like, they just... Because I remember, and I don't know if it's the same for the way it was in the last couple of years as it was back in 94, as I'm dating myself. But I remember...
Maybe a relative of mine was trying to make me feel better, but they were like, you know, the NYU process is really kind of messed up. Everyone's got to submit a script, and then it's like the best three scripts are the ones that get made. Because there was one guy that I met.
when I worked at Troma because I went to Syracuse and then my first job right out of film school was working at Troma and that was the boots on ground film school that I needed because you can start as a grip and by the end of it you're the writer you're in the movie you're second unit directing like you're everything but that's how you really learn where you're grabbing the fucking you know the grip package and then you're you know
directing Sergeant Kabuki man, NYPD at the same time. But there was a guy that went to NYU and he was like, I went there for four years. And I'm not a writer. So I ended up becoming an amazing boom operator because I ended up having to boom for everybody else's or I was a grip or whatever. And he's like, and I got the, you know, the.
student loans to, you know, to show for it. And that, that sucks. Whereas where like in Syracuse, they just, they hand you a camera. They say, you got to pay for the film. Go make your little, you know, artsy fartsy diatribe and then come back. We'll tell you how much it sucks. And you learn from it. Yeah. You know, was this process the same for you guys as well? Like where it was a script based? We had an interesting sort of entrance to it because initially.
Initially, Bobby was actually a drama major for the first two years, and then he switched over to film. I love the swish of the hand. This is why I wish we had videos. I always like to plug him. Bobby's a really, really good actor. He just doesn't do it anymore, but he is very talented in front of the camera.
as well uh and then i was a uh a producing minor um so initially for the first few years like we weren't necessarily in that i think that like hyper competitive thing is if you're doing the directing focus which at that point
Neither of us were necessarily sure what we want. You were like around the outskirts of it. Yeah, exactly. So I was taking like, you know, I think the most valuable class I took at NYU is was a class called boards and budgets, which was basically an A.D. in class where I actually they actually gave us.
access to software that at the time was too expensive. I would have never gotten, you know, movie magic budgeting and movie magic scheduling. That's a class that they could essentially call making glue. Yeah, right, exactly. And it's sort of the more boring side of things, but it was really like, oh, and it was, again, using the software that you use as a professional AD. And that was really valuable. So I was sort of learning that side of it, and I was having class.
about how to pitch a project and stuff like that. And so that was useful. And then... Well, meanwhile, like, you know, I went to the... Strasburg school of acting within Tisch and it was it was great but it was you know early on I just felt like you know there were some really talented people in there but then at the same time there were a lot of people who were just you know I didn't realize how many people were just going to have like
chosen to go to acting school to learn how to act and are not particularly good at it. I thought it was going to be this iron sharpens iron crazy thing. No, they just think immediately they're going to get snatched up by some casting director. Exactly.
The director is going to see them walking down the street on Houston Street and going like, you're a star. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm sitting there, you know, imagining a coffee cup in my hand and stuff for $50,000 a year. And I was looking around all my friends.
were in the film program you know and so i was helping dan and and the other uh our other friends brian chad uh who are all you know film majors um you know with their with their student films and stuff like that and so i eventually just the switch over and it like cost me basically a year of being in school. So you had to kind of go back to one? Sort of, yeah. So I like switched over to film for a while and that's...
And that just like felt, it was clicked in so much more, you know, and we did, uh, you know, we're in sync. Well, like, yeah. And we, and like, you know, I think that all of a sudden I felt like the classes that I was taking, we're going to, um, have a positive effect on the career I wanted to have. Because at that point, I realized that I didn't really want to act. I love acting, but it's also just a...
It's so hard. Like the audition process. You auditioned for a couple of things. I did audition for a couple of things. I filmed Bobby's self-tape for Chronicle. Yeah, I was going for the Michael B. Jordan.
They made the right choice. You know, when you first walked in, I was like, he's so Michael B. Jordan. Exactly. I get that all the time. But it was in my apartment, my little studio apartment in the West Village. And like, it was the scene of like them up in the clouds. And so Bobby was like, he's going like,
And I was giving it like a little shaky cam to try to, you know, it was very funny. Yeah. There was like an audition for like the office or something. We did one time too. And no, it wasn't a blue mountain.
Sam is basically my like, no, that too. Yeah. That too. Yeah. I also, I lost out on that to Alan. We've got a lot of cell tapes going, I'm sure. I wish that we had this. I don't know what hard drive they're on. No, they're fucking gone. You never want them to show up again. No, they're not there. But anyhow, so at NYU.
Yeah, so once he moved over to film basically like he alluded to there was like sort of a court there were four of us that we were like best buddies with Brian Gaynor who's a still edits a lot of stuff and Chad Harbold who is a director in New York He directed him
called Long Night Short Mornings a few years ago. He produces a lot of genre stuff now. He produced, like, Becky. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah, he's sort of involved with those guys. And we're still really, really close friends with them. So the four of us... You know the classes were great at NYU, but we really wanted to be doing stuff outside of that and Chad had like a
What was the camera? HVX. Oh, the HVX 2000? 24P, baby. Remember those P2 cards? We thought it was... Oh, so you were P2 card? I was still... The first one I got... When I came out to LA in 2002... It just got announced. Oh, yeah. I put myself on a waiting list immediately. And I for about two months, I was the only person in L.A. that had that. That's amazing. Yeah. How many metal videos? Yeah, I mean, it was a powerful thing. No, getting that camera was our like.
this like, this like Fableman's moment. It's like, like now we can make things. There was a moment where everyone got tricked into thinking, like I would have so many music video commissioners going like, wait a second, you didn't have 16 millimeter film. I saw your line items and I'm like,
Yeah. I think Chad sold his car to buy that. He did. We should call him and say thank you for that. But we had that camera. And so we basically were like, well, why don't we go and just start a little production car?
company, the four of us, and we'll do short films, and we'll try and see if anyone's... This is after school. This was during... This was the very last year of school, probably, and then... And everyone became entrepreneurial. Yes, we became very entrepreneurial. Yeah, exactly. Everybody's like, how are we going to make money when we get out of here? We were doing whatever it was.
would pay us you know so like there was like we put out the word to everyone and that you know we're doing any kind of filmed content you know obviously we had no shame so it would be anything like we did like motivational speakers for motivational speakers
It's great in 24P. Yeah, we did a bunch of fashion week coverage. We were in New York City, so there was all that. Every fashion week, the demand for videographers was huge. Obviously, all sorts of music videos, short films. And then we got a short film into Sundance right after we graduated. when we were 21. I don't know, 2009. I forget what year it was. And that...
that short at Sundance, like Bobby and I were producers on it. I think Bobby, I also, I don't know. You gaffed it, bro. Bobby gaffed it as well. And I produced it and, and, uh, Chad directed it and Brian wrote it. And we took that to Sundance and we all, all four of us got signed as a,
Quartet off of that which was exciting because we also didn't expect to kind of get any of the attention because we chad directed it But you know they took the whole the fact that you were a collective though Yeah, that but everyone was kind of an all-for-one one for all okay two things really quick
before we go forward one because I want to talk about that feeling that when you watch your first short on a big screen whether you're the director or the key grip or whatever like you're sitting there going I fucking gripped the shit out of that on the big screen in Eccles Theatre
What was the movie that you guys bonded over when you first, you know, met and... collab not collaborated but like first sat there in your respective beds on each side and we're like oh you like this movie like there's always that one movie that like sets things off where you go like, all right, we, we park our cars in the same garage. Um, I'm going to go with commando. I was just going to say that because I, that was just like, I, there were a lot of, I think,
Like, I just loved Commando and I would just make people watch it. And then Dan got so into it. And it got to the point where like... Dan actually bought me as a birthday present one time. It was a framed two pages of the Commando script, and it was the, like, remember when I told you I'd kill you last time? I lied. I lied. And it's just those two.
pages like framed in a beauty it was yeah it was just framed in this like beautiful little shadow box frame and uh yeah i still i still have it it's a transformative thing i think that both of us felt um a little bit like maybe outsiders creatively at Tisch. That's how I felt when I was, yeah, I would come back like, guys, did you see Armageddon? And then you'd be like, no, but I saw Wayne Wang smoke totally. So there was like, the entirety of Tisch was just like,
And this is not to shit on that. We love the people we went to school with and stuff. No, but there is a preconceived notion that you have to start liking art films to be in film school and not be able to appreciate blockbusters. Yeah, you do feel like you have to be...
uh a little quiet about your genre fandom in a way or like and there's like and you know there are just there are some people out it's daunting too because like there's some people who are just such cinephiles from a super young age that by the time they're at NYU, they already seen everything. And they were like, you know, in competition with one another. Some people's brains just work differently. Like we were friends with, I mean, Chad is someone like this. People who just have encyclopedic.
memories for you know the the casts of every single movie from 1940 to 2000 it's like we my brain just isn't like that like I forget everything immediately you know and so having these conversations at film school was always like okay maybe I'm not
from the right cloth I don't know I mean I seem to like the movies that are playing in these theaters more you know and of course I can appreciate when we see the 400 blows or something I'm like okay I totally get it this is beautiful it's awesome then there's like the crossover stuff that they would show us you know it's like when we saw Mulholland Drive I remember the first time
at film school it was like oh wow you can kind of do both it's sort of cool you can do like this weird genre sort of like bubbling under the surface but also be sort of an art house situation but yeah I feel like we both in each other found a creative kinship and just being like we just love big
popcorn entertainment. And the trick is, of course, those things that still make you feel something and that you remember because it was emotionally evocative and it was characters whose journeys you related with. There's a bullseye there that sticks with you forever. Yeah, and I think we still like to... E.T. is right behind you. You can see the artistry in it, but also go, it's a Hollywood genre movie, and it can still be made with a lot of love and care.
And watch Arnold Schwarzenegger kill Vernon Wells the way he does. By the way, when was the moment that you realized that the guy with the mustache in Commando was the Mohawk dude from Road Warrior? Did I blow your mind right now? I think it might be today. Yeah, it could be right now. I met him at a convention recently and it was for me. I'm like, that's the same fucking guy. Holy shit, man. Throw a mustache on anybody. They just look so different. They're chameleon-esque. Yeah.
Yeah. And, you know, and so that was definitely something that we always kind of had an insecurity about, I guess. And, you know, since then, I feel like, obviously, we've... uh, seen a lot more movies since the time we were 20 years old or 19 years old. But when you first get to school and you meet some people who have seen absolutely everything, you know, um, it is, it's intimidating. Cause then you feel like you have to like, You know, yeah, well, and I think a lot of times like, you know,
My thing is, and I've only just been able to kind of break out of this, but I have to watch a movie in its entirety in one sitting with the lights off. I need to be able to...
to just, you know, lose myself. And I think some people can watch movies and... do other shit and like have shit in the background or like I can't do it to a new movie yeah it's really really I just I could never do that and I think a lot of the people it's hard to see that many movies in a you know kind of a monastic state of of of you know and so uh i've only just recently allowed myself to start watching movies in parts like just because i feel like we've gotten so
busy that sometimes it's hard to find the time. Now, you know, we have families. You can justify it by saying, I'm making a movie. Exactly. And so like, you know, if I'm sitting there, you've got like, you know, whatever, like the Criterion app or something, and you're just like,
pop something on, watch the first 40 minutes of some, you know, classic film you hadn't seen before. And then you watch the next 60 of it the next day or whatever. Like to me that like, that's better than never having seen it, you know, but it took me a long time.
get to that place i think before then i was very like not willing to do that we're getting to a place right now in just like culture consumption where that's just all the norm you know where people are kind of treating longer movies as you know, limited series installments, which sucks, but that's part of the reason why, like, I think places like the new Beverly, you know, the cinema where my wife and I go to pretty much every other week when, especially when it's an older film.
I know that if she's going to show me, over the weekend we watched Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Sam Peckinpah's movie. Great movie. I had never seen it. I got to admit like I, my mind drifted towards like, let me check the trivia on that. I want to see what, I want to see what Peckinpah did to piss off. Chris Christopherson or whatever. And then now I'm not engaged in the movie the way I should be if I was sitting in a theater like last night. We saw this fucking amazing movie.
It's called Two Minute Warning with Burt Lancaster and John Cassavetes. It was made in, I think, 76 or something like that. But it's one of those sniper pot boilers where there's a sniper. at a football game in L.A., everybody's there, including the president, and only three or four guys can stop them.
But the way it was made, you guys would fucking love it. They're doing POV shots of the sniper walking around. You see his hands as he's putting together the sniper rifle or driving along or shooting people. I would have never given that movie as much of a time of day if I didn't sit in the theater and I couldn't check out my phone. And I was absorbed by this movie. And it's a discipline that I think is unfortunately going away also because there's just less.
less repertory theaters that are allowing people just even just to see like the obvious classics you know like Lawrence of Arabia or 2001 now I mean God bless the Criterion channel but And I have a bone to pick with them a little bit. We just had the Criterion Collection, one of the heads on last weekend, Curtis Choi, which was amazing. I was sitting there going like, oh my God. Because he let me go into the closet.
last year oh that's cool I left with so many fucking movies I'm always like whenever I watch those I'm like what if you just did like 40 of them can I just take like so much we walked out my wife and I walked out with two full fucking bags And I was like, am I the worst? And he's like, no, no, no. I'm not allowed to say who.
was the worst not the worst but the one who just like stuck their hand in the back full size like ikea bag uh but the criterion channel they have one glitch and that is their sometimes their resume does not always work Oh my God, this happened to me because I was like, I downloaded a couple of movies to watch offline on a plane ride. Oh, their download thing sucks. But it was weird because I could, the one...
I was like midway through a film and that one I couldn't play, but the other ones that I hadn't started yet would play, which was weird. But so let's fix that. Okay. Well, See, this is what I mean, though. Diatrides. Diatrides all the time. No, no, no. What I want to get to is when did you guys decide that...
being a creative partnership on the directing front. Cause sometimes directors, you know, like they would like the Coen brothers, you know, Ethan would produce more and Joel would direct more. And so, you know, sometimes they like that creative collaboration.
is an agreement that they make, you know, beforehand they go, your strengths are here and your strengths are there. So, so yeah. So basically like once we, once that, you know, little collective had got up and running, um, you know, we all had our, our positions, you know, Chad and I, we would direct things. Dan would be producing. Brian would edit. And then at a certain point, Dan and I started to write together. And that, I think, is where...
it really shifted because we had such a great time writing together. And then we started to have like a little bit of success where, you know, we were able to sell one of the scripts that we wrote. And, and so that was, that was huge. And then we, we knew that we wanted to. to direct you know and the problem is that like nobody ever lets you
direct a movie. Oh God. Directed a movie like that. That's the moment when you put that like out there and you can almost hear the, Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, Oh, there's two directors. Well, and the script we had written that we, we sold to, um, to, to bluegrass, which was,
It was Scott Stuber's company at the time before he moved over to Netflix and NUA. And it was going to be a co-production between them and Blumhouse. It was basically a found footage horror movie. It was called The Marriage at Fort Call. Was this an idea that originally wasn't a found footage? No, it was found footage from the start. There was that moment where every single script got retrofitted into like, you know.
interior POV, you know, this was very much made to be that because it was like the raw footage from four different cameras that were like handed out to the wedding party. It was a zombie outbreak at a destination wedding, basically. Oh, nice. We found footage and we loved it. Yeah. Because of that, we were like, okay, this is
we'll make this a low-budget movie, right? Of course we should at least have our hat in the ring as directors, and we were laughed out of the room. There was no world in which they would let us, even though we had directed short films and stuff, but it was not enough. It was like, no fucking way. And so that was really demoralizing for us. And so we realized then, okay, the only way we're ever going to get to direct is if we just do it ourselves. So we basically...
Endeavored to write a script that we could raise the money ourselves and go and direct it. Knowing the parameters. Yeah, and we had a few elements that we could back into, which any indie filmmaker will recognize this idea. hey, I have a barn. Yeah, exactly. Well, a friend of ours, basically a friend of a friend had a very wealthy family who had a house in Greenwich, Connecticut or in Westport or something that was a huge mansion.
And it wasn't necessarily being used at a certain time of the year. And they were like... And the guy wanted to be a producer. And so we were like, all right, well, if we use the house, you can help produce the film. And so we just backed into that. We were like, we have this kind of luxury mansion. Let's write a movie. And so we wrote this little, you know, way too short, I think.
The shooting draft was like 74 pages. Oh, my God. That's like gold right now. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, people say that to us sometimes. If they stumble upon the movie, they're like, it was great. It was only like 69 minutes pre-credits. I remember that being like, oh, you can't go under. you're 80 now people are like wait
74 minutes. Yeah. I don't have 83 minutes. Yeah. Our friend Ellie has that hat that everyone has an ally now that says like make movie or make movie short again. Yeah. That's great. None of the back. What does it say? Like 85 minutes or 85 minutes or less. but anyhow so we wrote the script body that sort of filled those parameters and we cast like
Friends of ours that were actors that were amazing. Larry Fessenden, who we had worked with. I just talked to Larry two days ago because I might be doing something with them. Oh, amazing. That's great. We love Larry. And he played sort of the titular role of them. body in that movie. Tooth or sans tooth.
Sans tooth. Yeah, it was sans tooth. I always wonder what the creative process for him to go like, do I put in the denture or do I not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he had the tooth in. I think he had it in and then it came out. Yeah, when he gets the shit, he gets basically brutalized.
He worked it into the script as like an Easter, you know, it's not like some focused on thing. But still, I've seen him do that before. I think it was like that Jodie Foster revenge movie or something like that where he gets knocked in the face. And, you know, I remember someone else going, holy crap, how did they do that?
I'm like, you don't know Larry Fessington. Yeah. And, and, you know, but that movie, it was so important. Cause like when we were writing that, you know, that was the one where we had been writing together, but at that point I was still doing like directing this, Dan was still producing that. And, and I want to.
to do more producing damn wanted to do directing we were like you know what let's just like from this point on we're already co-writers so let's just be co-everything and just kind of like you know slice our hands open handshake forever just be be partners like that. Establish the secret handshake. Once you do that, it opens up the creative floodgates because you're no longer...
hoarding your own ideas where you're like, okay, I'm going to hold on to that for when it's just me or something. I want to stop you there only because we've talked a little bit about your directing collaboration. Sure. Writing collaborations are always very unique. Years I've been trying to find a really good writing partner.
Um, and it just so happens now it's my wife. Um, but we worked on a couple things together and it's been an amazing process, but we had to find what that formula was. Sure. You know, we got commissioned for this one script and you know, they were like, need it in four weeks and we're like oh shit so I'm a morning person so I would you know write in the morning and then we would kind of
Secret handshake. And then she would take over at the night, you know, at nighttime. And, you know, I'm more of an outline person. She's not. She's more of a dialogue person. So we had to organically find. that rhythm. What would you say is your rhythms when it comes to, and has it changed over the years? Yeah, I mean, look, so we usually, what we do is we will outline together and then we will
It might take a week or so. The other thing is that a lot of times we're writing two different things at once so that the other person isn't just sitting there with their thumb up their ass. And so what we'll kind of do is one of us will take a pass at, say, the first act. hand it off to the other guy they rewrite the first act take a pass at the first half of the second act hand it back that person then like you know you go and you look at
what the rewrite the other person did. And you can bring up any issues where you're like, Hey, I love the changes you made, but the one thing that you change that I want to kind of fight for a bit or have a conversation about is this blah, blah, blah. Uh, and then, and then you go on and you go to the part that they wrote and you do your rewrite on that. on and so forth until the draft is done and by doing that
Usually when we're done with a draft, our first full draft is almost like a second or third draft because we've already rewritten each other's stuff a bunch of times. Yeah, and working in partnership in that way. It forces you to defend your ideas so much because when you're writing alone. I'm so grateful that we work in partnership. I'm sure you are too, because when you're alone, a lot of the time as a screenwriter, you're like, okay, I know I got to get this guy to the baseball stadium.
to make this thing work. And sometimes because you're alone, you're not accountable to anyone. You'll just do kind of like a lazy thing to get them there, right? And you're saying that's a placeholder. But if you're alone, it ends up staying there. And then suddenly you get a script. It's that whole thing where it's like you start putting in friends' names and the next thing you know, they're just...
stuck there because you didn't have someone vetting it exactly yeah and that's the worst thing is like you know we we get scripts submitted to us and and you know sometimes you'll read it and you'll be like there's some clever stuff in here but like all the connective tissue is so kind of nonsense
and just collapses under the lightest scrutiny. And that's a lot of the times just because someone didn't have to defend that. But we have to defend every single decision. So it's like usually when we're submitting a script, it's at least... pretty ironclad on logic and things like that. We've kicked those tires and had those conversations and stuff, but, but yeah, I mean, I think it does, it does help too, because I think a lot of times when you're writing by yourself,
you get stuck, that can be really demoralizing. But when you're in a partnership, you get stuck. Sometimes you can just be like, hey, I'm stuck here. Can you do, you know what I mean? Sometimes we'll just be like, can you hop on a Zoom? I just want to talk about it. And it's not even asking for any specific questions.
sometimes it's right there, but you needed to have someone else. Yes. Cause you're right. Like when you're writing by yourself and I used to do this all the time where I would just get so precious about certain things because I sat there going, what am I to do? And then I come up with that. dumb fucking idea that just kind of sinews things together totally and just because it's stitched
Pretty shoddily. But it works. It works. And then you start getting notes from whoever. You're like, you don't understand me. But when you're in the trenches with that other creative person, they can... If you have that kind of relationship where you can be like, that sucks. And not feel like you're hurting the other person's feelings. At the end of the day...
If you send out that script to a producer or an investor or you're a mom or you're an agent or something like that, they're looking at it through different eyes. Yes. Whereas when you're in the creative collaboration. You're not thinking past that point. You're thinking of what's going to make this scene the best it can be that you can collectively throw ideas back and forth.
like you said before, like not have the ego to worry about like, well, I didn't get my ID. They don't understand me. Well, and honestly, like, I mean, that happens sometimes where one of us will. um you know be really passionate about a given thing in a script and the other person is like
not into it, you know, and you have to then have like, what can sometimes be like a really heated discussion, you know, and, but what's so funny is that it's like clockwork. Every time we have a big disagreement by the end of that.
argument we're arguing the other person's side and we're like no no no you're right what are we arguing about yeah exactly and then and eventually the the compromise is found there sometimes it's not even a compromise it's just a new idea that pops up out of that argument And that's where you get the best ideas are from the creative disagreements. You know, I think a lot of the best things in our scripts will come from, you know, some kind of, you know...
Verbal clash that we have over like where whether we should take a left or right turn here And then like that argument always winds up breeding a better idea So that's like that's you know, it's not like most of the processes is pretty seamless because again at this point we know each other well written like 40 scripts together or something you know so it's the first 10 you're like really unmoored from the process but by now it's like it's
Listen, writing is, is painful for most people, you know, looking at a blank page can be painful, but I would say it, it is as joyful as it can be, you know, at this point in our, in our careers. Yeah. Cause we, again, we know, we know at this point I, I know. things that
I know little things that annoy Dan in scripts. Dan knows things that annoy me in scripts. And whenever we want to use one of those tools that we know the other guy is annoyed by, sometimes you'll warn them and be like, look, I did this. that thing that you hate, but I think it actually works here. I did have someone over explain a moment, you know, where they're like, we're in this bank and we're going to have to deal, I've been there before. Totally. Now,
If I don't get to know the cane, Greg, our mutual PR person is going to fucking kill me. But now I've seen both. I've seen Steaklander, which I don't know how the fuck you guys got half the shit you did, knowing what your budget was, because I know the people who were involved. I remember watching it, and even when Jim made the first one,
the amount of production value that goes into those movies far exceeds what the line items are on the budget. And I think that that was really smart of them to bring you in. You guys did something similar that I... dealt with when I did Wrong Turn 2, where you're taking a sequel to a movie that had a level of success that people knew about, and now you're trying to make it your own while still staying within the atmosphere. Yeah, we still had to do... like we always talk about how, you know,
You still have to stay true to the vision of the original. So you have to do a little bit of a Jim Mickle impersonation when you're directing that. He's a great director to do an impersonation. He's so talented. And he was so awesome. He met with us a bunch of times.
He gave us so much advice. He was absolutely incredible. He gave us notes on our cut. And he was busy at this point. I don't know if he was doing Happen Leonard. He was busy with something. I think it was Happen Leonard. Yeah, that seems like the right time. He sent us, we sent him the cut and he sent us like 10 pages, super supportive. And it was like 10 pages of notes, but the notes weren't like, this doesn't work. It was like.
This fight scene, I think, could be a little better if you cut two frames from this. Like, all the little tips and tricks that you learned. With time codes and everything. So it was, like, so... incredible to and some might see that as like micromanaging but like whenever I would have another director like Adam's always watched we've always watched each other's stuff when it's in that post process because in most cases he
He knows without even asking, you didn't have a second camera on that. So you probably won't have a second camera. So you won't be able to do a, you know, a trim of this scene without having an egregious jump cut. So what if you did this, that and the other thing, when you have a filmmaker that like. again, wants to be honest, but also there's nothing worse than going, you know, I didn't like that. Well, what didn't you like? I don't know. Just not that. No, no. It was none of that.
More times than not, that's like producer notes, studio notes, and you go like, well, I don't have this. Or, you know, like, oh, you wanted that shot, right? Well, remember when you cut us off, you know, and we couldn't have that second camera that day? Well, that's the reason.
Oh, I thought we did. Oh, yeah. That sucks. You guys will figure it out. Right. Right. No, but he was he was so supportive. Yeah. And I think and he knew to the he's been there. He's aware of like what the budget of that movie is and all. Also, that movie's set so much further. It's sort of set a little bit further into the future than the first one is. And so you kind of have this...
post-apocalyptic vibe going on. Yeah. Which is a tough thing to, you know, achieve. It was a tight budget, but mind you, everything is, is relative. And so we were like, I know. Holy shit. We can pay for coffee. Yeah, exactly. How many days of shooting? Wow. Even though the numbers were that way. Uh, it did feel almost our first movie for, which was, you know, a $50,000 budget, uh, and we'll 11 overnights, uh,
Almost felt more luxurious in some ways because of like all the stunt work and the action stuff and the prosthetics and everything. And it was like, you know, our first film was. like Dan was saying earlier, we built it all around a location. It's a one location movie for the most part. And so when you're doing that, even though it's 11 overnights, you're saving so much time by not having to load in and out of a given location, you know? And so...
Cut to we're in Saskatchewan, like going all over the fucking place and shooting this thing. Two company moves a day. Like we were driving out to sets that were two hours away, you know, shooting. The trucks were getting stuck in mud and stuff. Oh, my God. Because we were out there. there for some because again like Bobby said we're supposed to be like post apocalypse like you know it's Martin like
traversing the badlands, you know, of this just destroyed, you know, collapsed world. And that stuck in the mud van, which probably cost you two or three setups with the time that it lost. Like, I love how... you know people can scrutinize filmmaking but we know what it's like how you have to make a day and how no matter what like you know if it's ripping out pages to you know like
Because you got to lose, you know, you're losing that location. You have to, you know, leave and do another company move. No one in the history of the world ever has said, man. that movie really made their days. Unless you really know. Totally, totally. It was so tough, too. And the star of the movie, Nick DiMici, who's a fucking legend and is just incredible. From the first one, yes. Yeah, and he's just got this...
Like he's got a little bit of like this genius mind thing going on, but he's the writer as well and the producer. And so like, you know, sometimes you'd show up to set and Nick would be like, boys.
I had an idea last night. We're shooting it in here and we'd be like, oh my God, Nick, please. We've been pre-lighting this location for 18 hours. The crew is not going to be okay with this. And it would be like a good idea. You'd be like, fuck, that does sound cool. And you don't want to be an asshole because, you know.
like you you're a guest in his yes in a way so you want to be like that's really interesting yeah the greatest words the director had has ever been able to hide behind is that's a really cool idea but it works you know like because at least it gives you
a few seconds to actually program yourself and go, two plus two equals, I'm not going to make my day if I try to get that extra scene. Yeah. So yeah, that was tough. And we always say, you know, it's tricky because, you know, body was a movie that we wrote. and you know directed and we did everything we line produced yeah we line produced I was driving like a fucking grip truck but if you didn't do that
You wouldn't be able to, because I think so many directors who kind of get thrust into these situations have never gripped before or line produced before or edited or shot before or acted. And they have no sense of communication. as to what they want to convey to those particular departments or to those actors, you know, and I think that that's a detriment I've always felt like.
like we were saying kind of way back when that like it's better to be on a set because then you can find the communication level and being able to say like Like with Trauma, I got to do every single department on that set. So by the time it came to even just starting out, I could speak on the level with the Teamsters or be able to kind of...
you know, massage the budget, talking to the line producer going like, well, we really don't need this and we don't need that. Sometimes producers prey on that. Yeah. That, that level of inexperience where they think that, and that happened to me on nights of bad-ass them where.
I just kind of relinquished all of my faith and trust into producers who had absolutely no fucking clue what they were doing. And later on found out that a $7 million budget was actually 1.5. Oh my gosh. Because I put the trust in. in that and I never let that happen again. Sure, yeah. I want to check really quick on when, because, you know, I've...
The movie that really kind of struck me with you guys was Villains. Sure. And I feel like that was a seismic. Because I had seen Steaklander. I liked it. But Villains is another beast. That's what I was about to say, too, is that, you know, body, we had... you know it was our original creative vision but no budget whatsoever you know stakeland had a
of a budget ish uh but it wasn't you know but it wasn't our script it was a sequel like i said we were kind of following in jim's footsteps trying to make the movie look like the original villains was while it's our third movie it's
kind of our first in a lot of ways because that is the first time that we had our script and the proper budget to make the movie. And schedule. We had 25 days on Villains which felt like... the longest time and now if you say 25 days to like someone who's making like a micro budget movie now they're like go fuck yourself exactly oh totally dude on Novocaine we had 45 days and we were like go fuck yourself remember when I mean but it's it's just but in fun
in some ways it doesn't even, it all scales up. It all scales out when, with the level of, you know, even just getting those driving shots sometimes, you know, you're like, well, there's a whole day that's like sucked up. Whereas if it was on villains or something, you have to figure something out that would process it. time but with with villains and even with significant other those are two scripts that you guys wrote together directed together and then you know
Coming off of that, and by the way, I really truly love villains. It came out in 2019, so it was at a time where it was so hard to... tell audiences that they could laugh, even with stakes involved. the performances that you, I mean, Skarsgård, Jesus Christ. And that was at the time where people were like, oh, that's the Pennywise guy. Yeah, exactly. Well, we were, yeah, I mean, when we were casting, we, our producer, Alan Mandelbaum,
he suggested bill and we were like, to hear the rest of this episode, go to patrion.com slash the movie crit for only $1 a month. You'll get every new episode every Monday downloaded right to your podcast app of choice.