Ep 654: Paul Gandersman & Peter S. Hall

It's an ethical battle.

It's the Movie Crypts! And welcome to another edition of The Movie Crypt. I'm Adam Green. I'm Joe Lynch. We are recording this conversation on Thursday, November 20th, 2025, and it should be out... I think it's like what second week in December, which is perfect timing because the movie man finds tape is currently in theaters in New York, LA and Austin and available on VOD.

Really cool movie, and I think you guys are really going to like hearing the whole process on how this came together because for this pair of writer-directors, this was their first feature. After doing a bunch of shorts, and that's... Peter S. Hall and Paul Gandersman, two dudes who we've we've hung out with in the past before on the festival circuit in the Austin scene. And, you know, they started out doing shorts and now with their first feature, they are.

fully ensconced in the film community, which is great. And I personally, I love this movie. I love the mixed media format where it kind of takes found footage to a whole new level. And, you know. The trailers, you know, I'm sure if you've seen the trailer or you should check out the trailer, it only scratches the surface on what the fuck is going on in this small town as a brother and sister are trying to uncover the truth.

on where these mysterious tapes are coming from. And stylistically, I'm curious to hear from people on the Patreon if you saw Shelby Oaks. How do you think this stacks up with it? Did you like this more? Did you like it less? Because they both use a similar aesthetic. Different movies, different stories, but a similar aesthetic. In this conversation...

you might find yourself being like, man, Austin definitely sounds like the place to be. And Austin is fucking incredible. But you know what's great about living in LA? Last week, Tosh and I went... to Luke Greenfield's friends and family screening of Playdate. Oh, yeah. At the Fox lot. Always nice to go to the Fox lot.

And the traffic was so fucking bad getting into the lot because Fox fucked up and they programmed like three events. I think two of which had full audiences. So everybody was arriving at the same time. So after waiting for an hour, we had to turn around and leave.

But on our way there, we're at a red light, and Tosh goes, is that Weird Al Yankovic? And I look, and sure enough, there's Weird Al walking in front of my car. You ain't fat! You ain't nothing! I'm like, huh, that's something that happens in L.A. And like... You know, you see famous people all the time, but Weird Al is like, that's awesome. Dude, I had that last year when I went to go see Smile 2 and I'm like, is that Weird Al sitting next to me? But wait, oh, there's more? Yes.

So we go and we wait in the line to get onto the lot for over an hour before I had to just text Luke. I'm like, dude, I don't know what's happening.

here right now but like we're never gonna make the screening so we left like an hour later there was an email that was like go to this other gate like it was a nightmare really felt like something that would usually happen to me like imagine the night that we did the secret unveiling of victor crowley and something like that happened and nobody was there um but on the way back and now we're talking like an hour and 15 minutes later we're at a different red light

And Weird Al Yankovic walks by the car again. You ain't nothing. So two Weird Al sightings in less than two hours. And I love LA because... I love Weird Al. Hey, you know what? If you go to Austin, there's a good chance that you might see fucking Cargill walk by. Weird Cargill. Hey, I'm not saying that wouldn't be as cool as Weird Al. But Weird Al is... That's pretty fucking rad. That's pretty fucking rad. All right.

Anyway, we will shut up and let you enjoy this wonderful conversation with Paul and Peter from Man Finds Take. Actually, I think they prefer Peter and Paul. Yo, ding dong, man. Ding dong. Ding dong, yo. Okay, so our next guests, we have two guests with us today. You know, there's an old adage, or at least an adage that Dave Lawson likes to profess greatly, which is make movies with friends. He wrote that on our bathroom wall.

Yes, he did when he wasn't drunk. Oh, no, that was all the time. But these two guys have been creative partners for a while. I you know, we've we've kind of run. passed them in many ways at various festivals, but their new first feature, they've worked together on a bunch of shorts and stuff, but their first feature, Man Finds Tape, which is being released on December 5th.

is fucking awesome. And I'm really excited to talk to these guys. Please welcome to the movie crypt, Paul Gandersman and Peter S. Hall. Thank you so much for having us. This is... This is an honor. And this is Paul's voice, by the way. Oh, hi, Paul. Yes. Thank you very much for having us. And this is Peter. How did you guys meet and start working together? Peter, you want to take that?

Yeah, so I moved to Austin in 2009 with my wife right after we got married. Didn't really know anyone in town. Knew some people from the film world online. just started going film twitter was like a cool place when twitter was a cool place oh remember that yeah like like cargill and whatnot online and i met paul

through sort of just mutual friends going to the same screenings over and over. This is back when you would go to promo screenings and you would have to wait in line and hope that you got in. And then also Fantastic Fest and South By. And so...

We just kind of had an overlapping group of friends that kept showing up in the same places. And I didn't go to film school, but Paul went to film school and I was always interested in film. And then at one point I was kind of just like, hey, you want to make stuff together? And we started producing together for Emily Higgins. And I guess I'll let Paul take it from there. Wait, wait, wait. So Paul, Paul, you went to film school. Peter, did you go to go to school for anything else or anything?

I did. I went to I went to FSU for sociology. I have a bachelor's of science in sociology. Oh, boy. We have an academic here. Oh, great. Well, when I graduated. I went and worked in the defense industry, which was a complete 180. Is that one of those jobs where someone goes like, oh, I'm in the private sector? Kind of, yeah. Oh, wow. building various computers for various three-letter agencies.

And then when my contract on that was up, it coincided with me getting married to my wife, Christine, and then moving to Austin and once again, pulling a complete different lifestyle upheaval. And it's shocking that it worked out as well as it did. I, you know, because you guys were, you know, kind of organically came together in the Austin scene. One of the things that I love hearing about when you have these kind of. merging of the minds and tastes and stuff.

Especially when you're going to Fantastic Fest, you're going to South by, which are very genre friendly festivals. You know, not everyone is talking about De Sica and Antonioni. They're talking about Cronenberg and they're talking about, you know.

russ meyer and stuff it's like a little more on the fringe you know and were there any movies that when you guys were first getting together because it's great when you can you know sit there have a beer sitting in the highball or in line during a movie and be like oh man dude i love pink flamingos too or something but were there any particular movies or filmmakers that both of you went yes that you know i found a kindred spirit

Hmm. That's a good question. I'm trying to think. I mean, I feel like it was just really horror and genre cinema in particular that we just kind of bonded over. I think, I mean, it's probably a very... mainstream answer but i think wes craven scream things like that um i think when we started working together we were really interested in like ya horror uh i remember just bringing over piles of like

R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike books over to Peter's and just looking at the covers going, oh, we should write something that evokes the feeling of this book cover. But I don't know, Peter, what's in your memory? I'm trying to remember. I mean, that's actually a really great question. I think that I don't remember that there were any specific filmmakers that would be on like, you know, a level of scream. I think that's a scream is sort of a gateway.

drug horror movie for both of us. But just the... festival environment for both South by and fantastic fest. I think the shared love of trying to discover new filmmakers or films that people weren't talking about. That was definitely something that we were constantly doing. There's really a thing, and I'm sure you guys have experienced this, having been to plenty of festivals. There's a magic when you're at a festival, especially something like South Mar Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, where...

Theater 5 is like less than 200 people. And you're experiencing something all at the same time that you know is about to become like this worldwide phenomenon. But you're part of this. cool club that all got to see it first and not in a gatekeepy way but like talking with everybody after it all of the film nerds you know again like peter mentioned like somebody like cargill

Um, well before, you know, he was, you know, uh, sinister Cargill and black phone Cargill. Um, just talking with your buddies. Yeah. Massworm. Yeah. Talking with your buddies about.

you know these magic moments in films that you know are you know about to blow up and uh you know some of your guys's films honestly and you know there's just a magic to it and you just want to be a part of that community and i think it's you know it's interesting that we eventually ended up working with rustic films whose motto is make movies with friends

While Peter and I never said those words, that's kind of the reason we started making movies together. We were just hanging out, watching movies, talking about movies, and it just naturally evolved into just make movies with friends.

I love how, especially between the Cargills, who I know were executive producers on the film, and Lawson, and there's just this great community in Austin that's... kind of like what we always hoped for in L.A. We had as much for a little for a few years. We had it. And the thing that I think really helps.

is that like we're all in it together we have this we share the same likes but we also share a lot of the same experiences that's one of the things that made doing festivals and meeting fellow filmmakers because filmmaking can especially i hate to say it but like out here

or two can be a very isolating experience where sometimes you just need to have a beer with someone else. Who's like, dude, I can't like, I don't know what it's like. I can't deal with these notes or, you know, the talent that can be persnickety or even just like. The financing fell through. There's always these things that you can't really talk to like your spouses with or your family with or people who aren't in the circle. So to be able to surround yourselves in that environment.

And that's one of the things that I loved, especially about like the Fantastic Fest crowd in that community was that every like in one form or another, you could throw a rock and someone has made a movie and you can commiserate with them. And there's nothing better than to.

share those experiences with each other, which ultimately turns into fuck man, let's make a movie. You know, let's make another movie because the more that you can find like-minded souls that have been through the shit, the more that like you can.

be able to kind of traverse through all the bullshit and be able to make it with other people that have been through it and you know like that that's where porch beers started you know way back in 2017 when cargill and i were having this long fucking night where we got shit faced and

talked a lot about movies. And then that kind of turned into this whole community of people that could rely on each other. And ultimately, like, you know, all those Zoom calls that he would do during the pandemic and everything. Ultimately, we all find each other and go, you know, I can collaborate with that person. I can collaborate with that person. And that's so exciting. How many movies in that whole community have become possible?

because of that situation and and this this movie is definitely a testament to that i totally agree and and even beyond just the the practicals of having people to talk to the, the inspiration you get at Peter and I talk all the time. Every year we go to South by, we go to fantastic fest, all these.

the handful of festivals we go to and you come out of them with just this energy of seeing people succeed and make stuff that inspires you and we always talk about trying to ride that high like let's go right into writing something or polishing a script right after because we're just

in that creative zone. There's a magic to it. Anytime I talk to young filmmakers, you know trying to break in i mean we're trying to break in but we're just not young um you know and they said what should i be doing i say you got go to south by go to fantastic fest or if you don't live here go to whatever festival is in your community

to meet people and just to feel that energy. It's really valuable. This is kind of important for the person listening out there who maybe doesn't live anywhere near. a film festival and chances are pretty good. There's a film festival near them, but one where a bunch of like-minded people who are interested in what they want to do are going to be there.

You talked about waiting in line for screenings and starting conversation, but a lot of people will say, look, yeah, fine, I'll go to whatever, Beyond Fest, Fantastic Fest, whatever the festival is.

and fly in for it but then what like how do i even talk to people what do i do um for you guys when you first started going can you talk about like what that was like and how you were able to to even start those conversations because it's a lot easier than people would think but if you're a little bit

you know, shy or socially awkward. It's like, I'm not just going to walk up to someone and be like, Hey, my name's so-and-so and I wrote a script. What do you do? Cause you feel like a douche. How did you guys maneuver through all that?

I mean, I think I I'll go first, Peter, that you can jump in. I think for me, I definitely had like those early years of like going to it, trying to think I have to have a script in my backpack that I'm ready to hand to somebody at any time. But that's really in my experience. That's not the way. It's really just about going, hanging out, talking about movies with people. You talk about how do you strike up a conversation.

You just walk out of the movie and go, did you just see. Yeah, exactly. And what did you think? And what I've learned is that people want to work with people they like people they like to hang out with. And that's. been literally our experience right the people we work with are people we like and hang out with and i think it's really just if you approach it as i'm just trying to make friends with people that speak the same language as me

then it can evolve into working together and making stuff. But I don't know. Peter, what do you got? No, I agree with that. You can kind of get a sense at festivals when someone is trying to develop a sort of transactional... relationship when it when it does seem like the conversation is oh yeah i've got this script in my back pocket that i want to hand to you right now

And that can be a little awkward, so don't take that approach. But you can definitely get a sense of whether you've traveled to a festival or if it's one in your community. You get a sense very quickly of... who is there for the right reasons and it's for the love of the movies and sharing in that enthusiasm and discovering. I'm sure that probably all of us on this call were the same kind of kid who was trying to host a movie night.

and like showing off a movie to a friend to be like, hey, you guys got to see this because it's fucking awesome. And a film festival is basically like that all day long. And so you can kind of quickly figure out who... You can have conversations with. I'm a huge introvert. I'm not the kind of person that's going to walk up and just start talking to people. But it happens at film festivals. It happens very organically in a no pressure.

environment and i think one sort of good example that we keep talking about cargill but we've known him for at least i've known him for 15 16 years but this is the first time paul and i have worked with him um it's and so it's it's because we weren't ever constantly like

oh, okay, you got your foot in the door, now drag us through the door. It's more so like when the time is right and you've had friendships... evolve into professional friendships and then beyond like it just sort of organically mutates and as long as you're not forcing it to happen you're gonna find those people and there's there's tons of we've produced a number of shorts for friends uh that we've met through the festival world some features and it all just it really does just turn into a like

make movies with friends scenario it's like i want to do this do you want to do that all right let's figure out how to do it together hey y'all it's kelly clarkson with wayfair my favorite thing about the holidays decking out my whole house and it's not a competition but like if it was i would totally win the season with wayfair Giant outdoor inflatable Santa, got it on Wayfair. Trees, lights, and ornaments in every style and color, yep, got those on Wayfair.

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trying to find the most famous person you can walk up to and ask them like, Hey, how do I get this finance? Or I have this thing. Or I like, nobody wants to be put in that situation, especially it's not a networking mixer. No, but real networking is making friends. My other piece of advice would be like, rather than walking out of a movie and then shitting on it, find something you liked.

And, and be the positive person because chances are good. A lot of the people that are there are super into movies or, or maybe work on the movie. They're just, just don't.

Don't introduce yourself as that guy. But so I don't want to spend too much time on the shorts because I really want to talk about a man finds tape. But when you guys made your first short together, like in a nutshell, what was the biggest learning? experience that you had from that first time. Well, I think so. We did a short film back in 2016 together called Give or Taker, which was the first one that was creatively ours. And I think the biggest learning experience is what our roles.

are how we work best together because we originally intended for peter to be the writer and for me to be the director and we did that that short film In those roles. But really what happened is the entire process, Peter and I were side by side. You know, he's standing by the monitor. We're talking through everything, discussing it all. And we we kind of figured out after that we should just.

be co-writers co-directors and some people told us not to do it but it just felt right and natural to us and um that that's the biggest thing i i feel like we learned uh to take into what what we ended up doing and what we did with Man Finds Tape is really developing our working relationship. And now it's like I couldn't even imagine like writing a page without Peter involved.

Like at this point now when I'm writing, I'm writing for Peter's eyes. I don't know, Peter, what do you got? We are definitely each other's first audience and keeping that in mind. And it's become a really, really natural way for us to work together. But as far as making that first short, for me, it was also the learning curve of what it's like when things don't go right and how you overcome them.

that creative problem solving in the moment it's kind of like when you're facing the sort of blank page when you're writing and you can get in your head about like oh well what if it's not good enough like if I don't write any words, then I'm, you know, in a weird way, I've succeeded more because I haven't failed. I haven't like risked it. And so just taking that sheer leap of like,

well, fuck it, we're going to do it and see if it works. And maybe it will, maybe it won't. But just taking that leap is a huge, huge learning experience just on a confidence level.

It's so funny that you, it's so funny you bring that up about the, the written page, like the, the blank page. I just in the last week have watched two movies where. a closeup of a typewriter with a, with a blank page, Barton Fink and misery are both two moments where you see, and it cuts to the writer and they're just sweating their balls off and you don't really understand.

that series of shots until you've written until you've actually sat there and went fuck. Now I have, I have to put something on there and I've always subscribed to, uh,

putting anything out on there, like do the vomit draft and try to just get something on page because it's easier for me to go, Oh no, that is terrible. And fix it other than going every time I. i hit the key it has to be the final version and genius and like and i for the longest time i used to think that too i was like oh man i can't put a paragraph out

until i can actually know that it's the thing that is going to ultimately get shot and put out like it's better off if you just kind of go and then later on go oh no that that's just vomit like i should i should clean that up and make that a little tidier Yeah, we are big fans of the vomit draft and just getting it out there. And we will, when we're writing stuff and constantly passing it back and forth, it's like, okay, I know this isn't there yet.

But it got us over this hump and we'll fix it later kind of thing. And we are constantly writing and rewriting and rewriting. And I can't imagine... having the terror of being like it's got to get it's got to be perfect each time like no you can get to you can improve it and just be plenty happy along the way and there's there's a lot like you you know we didn't we haven't gotten into man finds tape much but like

There's a lot that we learned making this film about the writing process in the sense that obviously you want to go in with a script that's as good as possible, but so much of it is going to be rewritten. altered based on who you cast what the locations are all of these kinds of things that i definitely went into production on this film thinking this script has to be airtight and perfect

No room for error. And really realizing once you cast your first person, you're already changing it. And you want good actors to bring their own ideas to it. And so I think... For me, it's kind of taught me that on this next one, it's like the script is really just a starting point. I feel like that sounds obvious, but until you've gone through it, it's hard to wrap your head around that.

I want to know because like in doing my notes and everything and, you know, Man Finds tape kind of falls into somewhat of a, you know, the subgenre of. found footage. But, you know, between this and Shelby Oaks, there's this new kind of mutation of that subgenre, which is more of like mixed media. It's more taking tropes from true crime documentaries.

and testimonials and using different medias and different resources, all to make it feel like it is in fact real, even though it is a fictional account. Were there any movies that you guys saw before or even maybe during the development process of the script that led you into doing this more, utilizing those facilities and utilizing more?

mixed media formats um because i thought that that like and and you know no offense to anyone else on the shelby oak side but i felt like this was a i preferred this much more you know, kind of organic way of using that throughout instead of like with Shelby Oaks, it started off like that and then kind of turned into a more conventional narrative. What was the impetus for you guys kind of using that mixed media format and telling the story?

I mean, I'll kind of start with the practicals and then Peter can get into the more creatives. You know, a little bit of backstory. Peter and I were, you know, after we did our short film, we were trying to put together our first feature film, which was a different film altogether than this. It was way bigger. It was honestly, it was too big for what would be our first feature.

And the pandemic hit, so we didn't know if anybody would ever make a movie again. And so we ended up adapting that into a novel called The Dead Friends Society, which we're very fortunate came out. But after kind of that process, it was like January of 21.

And we were talking about what is a kind of movie that we... can make where if everyone else says no to us we can still do it yeah and uh we you know we can we can you know save up twenty thousand dollars and and you know sell a bunch of stuff and figure out a way right And so we started by talking about what is our advantage. And so I, for about the past 10, 11 years,

have been producing sports documentaries as my day job. And so we said, well, okay, that's an advantage. I know how to produce documentaries. We have documentary cinematographer, documentary editor. I edit as well. And documentary allows you to make things cheaper. You know, it shouldn't be lit. You know, you don't need a whole proper lighting package, right? You know, maybe for interviews, but...

But you want the found footage elements to feel real. If it's lit too perfectly, it kind of breaks the immersion. So we kind of just started with what would that look like? What would we want to do? And yeah, Peter, why don't you take it from there?

Yeah. And then on the creative side, once we thought like, OK, what if we made a fake documentary? What would it be about? And years prior to this. I had an idea for a fictional documentary that was going to be a, or not documentary, a fictional podcast that was going to be about a journalist investigating this viral video.

And it would be her going to the town and interviewing people and it would all be audio. And aside from a few of the thematic things and the video, the video itself was this person getting hit by a van, which is... it's one of the few remaining things from that original idea. That's still, that was so cool. And then immediately after I watched the movie and I texted Dave,

And they're like, dude, this fucking movie. He goes, that was me in the van. Oh, that was the body. I'm like, of course, the producer would love to tell everyone that he's one that took one for the team and basically and literally. Got run over by a truck, you know, it's like class classic Lawson

Yeah. And that was also very much so a safety thing because we were like, well, if we're going to hit anybody, it's going to be the producer. Yeah, hit the producer. One anecdote that I think you guys will appreciate, and then Peter, you can continue on the process. It was...

So, yes. So Dave was the guy in the street. I was actually driving the van. We were making sure like no one we were hiring was going to be liable for anything. And but the actual body is a dummy. You know, we have like a. creative cut in there but uh this is indie filmmaking like if anybody's curious you know how indie this is it is um uh my wife ashley landavazo who's our production designer

also helped produce and tip wardrobe uh she was looking into rental costs for you know dummies and realized that she could buy a a sex doll on amazon for half the cost so that's actually a sex doll

We've run over. So it's Dave slash the sex doll. I was going to say, did Dave get his doll back afterwards? It actually went to, I believe it went to the... uh uh our makeup effects team's warehouse um but but one ex i don't think we've told anybody this so it actually came with options um in the package uh there were multiple members

So we referred to it lovingly as Double Dick Dave. Sorry, Peter, you were telling a story. Yeah. How do you follow that up? Jesus Christ. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck.

um but yeah so it just for the documentary side of it it was um there wasn't any one specific film that we then watched and we were like let's do that it was more of a um in a weird way seeing what other films what doesn't work in other films and and sort of building a like a checklist of don't do's uh and then crossing that with like what do we want to do

And the movie that was actually the most influential on this thematically wasn't even a horror movie. It was Sarah Polly's Stories We Tell. Interesting. I don't know if that's a documentary you guys have seen. Yeah. It's a story about it's a film where she's investigating this sort of like family rumor that had had percolated through her generations. And so it's her talking to different family members. And it's all about how.

truth sort of twists depending on who's telling the story and so once once we You know, honed back in on Manfine's tape being about a brother and sister investigating a piece of footage from their childhood.

story are sort of like cross references in that initial conception stage where stories we tell and then of course the Australian movie Lake Mungo which is sort of like the high high high bar of fake horror documentaries was actually talking to someone uh at a film festival a couple months ago at tiff about lake mungo because i was trying to they were asking what man finds tape was about and lake mungo is kind of the best comparison point even though a lot of people haven't seen lake mungo

And I was talking to this person for about five minutes about Lake Mungo before she stopped me and went, wait, it's not real. She in this entire time thought that Lake Mungo was a real documentary about a real event that happened in Australia. um so they no i don't think anyone's gonna watch man finds tape and think that it's a real documentary the events escalate to a point that that's not uh i i hope no one thinks it's real but uh the the sort of the sentiment of of those

two movies combined is what we were sort of chasing. So ultimately, how did you put it together? Did you approach potential investors with a specific budget in mind and then you had sort of like... a fail safe like all right if nobody does it we'll do the 20 grand with our own money selling stuff like how did you ultimately put together the movie that everyone can see now

I mean, this kind of ties back to what we were talking about earlier about just making friends at festivals. But I mean, so Peter and I spent, I don't know, you know, because this is just in our free time, right? So we spent our nights and weekends writing and rewriting the script. that whole figuring that whole process out and um basically just uh peter uh Talked to David Lawson. He had met David Lawson a couple of times at festivals. And Peter had seen, I think it was...

I forget the year, but Something in the Dirt was playing at Fantastic Fest. And Something in the Dirt has some similar elements to our film. You know, there's some security cameras, some... some fake doc interviews, sorts of stuff. And Peter just asked Dave after the festival, after they talked like, Hey, we're working on this thing. We're planning to shoot it next year.

Would you be willing to look at the script and just let us know any red flags or things that you learned making something in the dirt? And a credit to David Lawson, these guys he barely knows. He read their script. Then kind of hit us up and said he was really into it, was interested in producing, wanted to show it to Justin and Aaron and see what they thought. And they came on board. And we really didn't have to pitch it. And it was also designed.

to be so small that you really didn't need to get too much buy-in, right? It was enough of a, if we do this right, it's not going to be the hardest thing in the world to make a theoretical profit on because it's intentionally designed to be. so small well who better though but who better than the guys who made a movie basically like during the pandemic by themselves that has a very similar kind of

kind of technical flow to it than these guys who have done it, you know, numerous times, but especially with something in the dirt. I kept thinking about that. There was a couple of movies that like, even like the, the atonement in a way, but then also mixed with, you know, some, some more genre tropes, like stuff from the ring. And even like the opening of the Manhunter, you know, when they're going up the stairs.

and everything there's a bunch of like like little bits there but once you kind of set how you're going to tell the story it it becomes much more clear to the people that can actually help you be able to do it but also know that You know, this isn't this is one of those unique situations where it's not like, OK, we have 25 days. We only have these.

particular actors for, you know, those 25 days, we got to get them all together. We can, we have to shoot all of it like in succession, even if it's out of order, we only have, you know, the location for a certain amount of time here. The, the advantage of having it be.

you know a mix of interviews and you know i shouldn't say dramatic recreations but that's kind of what it is then mixed also with the different graphics and the different news reports and everything it almost feels like it's the sort of thing that like the sort of that you can kind of pick off as you go like okay we you know we can do a little bit here we can do a little bit there it doesn't feel so self-contained like some other movies can was that like was that

or was that something that just kind of organically came out once the other guys came on board? That was very, very intentional.

um because we we knowing before we knew that rustic was gonna get involved or xyz or the cargills or any of that it was a really calculated decision on our part just knowing going into the production, it was like, okay, we can get a lot of the movie shot in a sort of... short amount of time a lot of the interviews a lot of the talking head stuff the b-roll the archival the the essentially the non-genre stuff we could get a huge chunk of that just a few days and then really take our time

getting the horror stuff right we could get a bit more indulgent on our schedule uh with that and so i think we were talking earlier about you know writing and rewriting and writing and we got this script it was It was a very unicorn scenario how it came together, but we were also very lucky that... Dave and Justin and Aaron read the script and weren't like, what the fuck is this? Because they got what we were going for because we, more than a normal script, we were breaking out.

what the cameras were, what the angles were, what the source of material was. Oh, that's perfect. And the time period it was set in, because this film jumps over all these different time periods, we had all of that stuff mapped out ahead of time. And I think that that might have been the thing that gave... Justin and Aaron the confidence to sort of buy into it was they're like oh they've already thought about this

the actual practicality of making the film in a real sort of tangible way. And I think that, I think more than anything, that's probably what got us the green light essentially. I was going to say, and those guys, Justin, Aaron, and Dave, just ended up being the absolute perfect partners. or mentors to guide us through this journey, just like you mentioned, like from their experience and what they'd worked on, but just down to like their whole attitude of...

of how they make movies is very aligned with how Peter and I did without knowing each other. We were kind of kindred spirits creatively. There's so many times in the process where, you know, we'd never done something and, and the advice we'd. we'd get from Justin and Aaron and Dave was like,

Yeah, we had neither when we did it. We just figured it out. I remember, because this is a low-budget movie, I'm sitting here in my home office in my non-professional setup trying to fumble my way through color correction on the film on my own.

you know, I was talking to Aaron, like, I don't know if this is going to look good. And I don't know what I'm doing. And his advice to me was, nobody knows what they're doing. He said, we're all just guessing and trying our best. God damn it, Aaron, stop giving that shit away. And he was just like, look, man, check it on a few monitors, check it on your TV, check it on your phone. Every screen everybody looks at it on is going to look different. As long as it's 90%.

there across the board you're good and and hearing that kind of advice from from somebody who directs for marvel kind of like you're like oh okay well he knows what he's doing yeah and and um It was really just a dream come true getting to work with these guys because, like I said, I don't know if we could have had better mentors for this film. It was perfect. Well, speaking of the practicality of it...

Most of your sets, you're talking about rooms, houses, but without spoiling anything, there's one set piece that's... Kind of like a spiral staircase. Oh, my God. Almost that the camera's moving up. Obviously, I'm assuming that was not a practical location. That's underneath the South Lamar. But. How did you approach that sequence? Because it's very important to the film. So I imagine that was one of the things where you were like, this has to be a thing. This can't just be whatever.

Yeah, not only was it a thing, we kind of came up with it like two or three weeks before shooting. We kind of were looking at the script and we're like, this is not a satisfying enough.

third act we need something that kind of looks into the eye of madness and yeah peter why don't you go take it yeah and so we we wrote that it's sort of like a last last hail mary like i hope that we can pull this off and it is a big a big set piece, bigger than anything else that's sort of in the film conceptually. And so we had a rough idea of how it was going to work. And we had to find like another partner for it. And we talked to one visual effects guy who I had met at a film festival.

And he was like, oh, yeah, I can do that. And he worked up some ideas and sent us back a budget. And we were like, yeah, that's, you know, that's a bit beyond what we're talking about here. It was like half the movie. Yeah. And then just by it was sort of dumb luck that I had loaded up Instagram and a friend of mine that I've known online for years named Tim Buell was his sort of like hobby.

is making these short films entirely in blender that are sort of like found footage digital creations that look really fucking rad. And that was not that far off. from what we had written and so i reached out to tim to just say hey we're you know we're paul and i are working on this project we've got this idea

Would you be interested in reading this script and see if you had a way to advise us on how we should do this sequence? And so he read it and he was kind of like, yeah, let's hop on a call. He was like, I've got an idea of how I would do it. I would do it this way and that. He really, I think, kind of came on as a probably wanting to work with Benson Moorhead, to be perfectly honest. I don't think it had anything to do with me and Paul.

That was a sort of Hail Mary on our end where we weren't entirely sure how it was going to turn out because we weren't hands-on creating ourselves. We essentially outsourced that entire sequence to Tim. And we filmed different moments of the character kind of entering and exiting this part of the film. and we got different levels of like you know exhaustion and tone and reaction from her coming out of it and it's a because it's sort of like a liminal space kind of thing

And the honest answer is we never got a version of Kelsey's reaction. Paul and I didn't direct her in a way that was like, what if her reaction was, holy fucking shit, that turned out incredible. Like, I think we were actually kind of... assuming that whatever Tim turned back to us wasn't really going to be all that cool. And so maybe it wouldn't work. And the first time that we saw it, the rough draft that he sent, we were like, holy shit, this really...

really works. And we actually kind of had to change how we got out of that moment because we had to cover up the fact that we didn't get a reaction from Kelsey that sort of corresponded to the reaction the audience would have had in that night. seconds beforehand and so we had to cut that's when we actually wrote in the 911 call which was it let us get out of that scene earlier slick

But yeah, that's all. Tim Buell, I highly recommend. He lives in LA. He does VFX sort of on the side, but he's also a creator of his own. He's a really talented guy. And he... crushed it for us and what you see in the film is his second version of it he only did two versions the entire time i just love that you describe that moment as seeing into the eye of madness because like when that sequence was that was it 90 seconds total that yeah about about 90 seconds when that sequence was done

I definitely needed therapy. And now it's time for Hollywood therapy. The doctors are winning.

That's right. It's time for everyone's favorite part of the movie crypt. It's time for Hollywood therapy with Dr. Arwen. This is where the four of us do the best job we possibly can answering your more personal questions on behalf of the good doctor. We would let her answer, but she's a dog. All right. This is actually perfect for what you were just talking about with the reaction that you didn't get. This is a question from Ken.

Hello, Dr. Arwen, Psych Ward Superintendent Green, and Joe the Orderly. Please sheath the baton, sir. When you write for and direct a character who is maniacal and violent, evil even, How do you gain a window into that mindset and on set help an actor do likewise? How do you keep those frenetic wretched vibes from wrecking your mellow? Thanks.

There's probably so much everyone can say about this because you guys in your movie happen to have a so-called holy figure as your, we'll just say somebody. might have something else going on. But I think a mistake that I have seen, I'm not saying it can't be done, but when you have a bad guy, that's just bad. That's all this.

this thing does is he just kills people there's no reason for it and there's no story behind it and it's just oh my god this this bad guy and then oftentimes in movies where they didn't bother with any type of

Story for that character or reason For why they're like that They'll also start jumping to Things that I personally can't stomach Rape, animal violence Just to keep showing, oh my god, this guy's so bad Look at how bad this guy is but when your so-called bad guy thinks they're the good guy.

Like what they're doing is right or it's self-defense or I have to do this because of what they did to me or whatever it might be I think your character becomes a lot more three-dimensional and you're giving an actor Something more to work with Sid Haig famously said even back in the day when he was always like the heavy and everything second or third heavy Yeah, he's like even

if your role is thug number three you can't be there just to be like i'm gonna get you you have to think you're right you're on the winning team for whatever your reasons are um so kind of bringing this hollywood therapy question into man finds tate you guys have because i'm trying not to spoil the movie because when this when this episode was just out john's performance is reverend carr yeah

Reverend Carr is a character where if you've ever seen a movie when it first starts, you feel uneasy because he's... right there right from the start of the movie and then as things progress you learn more and more what was that like crafting that character and then working with John

I mean, that was one of our favorite, I think Paul and I's favorite aspects of making this because we've known John Golsan for years and years outside of, you know, an acting context. We're just good friends.

and but have also worked with him on other productions and when we first reached out to him for this it was to have him read for uh the character of boone which ultimately went to graham skipper and Golsan he read it and was gonna you know come in and audition but then he was also like he read he asked to read the full script and very

He bluntly was just like, I would love to try for Reverend Endicott. Like, I have a take on this guy. Because the way that he was written was a much more classically... bad horror villain where it was a tall, lanky, 70-year-old, small Texas town preacher, which is not John Golson. He's not 70 years old. He's not tall and lanky. And he...

Even though it was sort of against the initial conception, we were like, yeah, let's see it. And that first audition in Paul's living room, we were like, okay, we see what you're doing. And so that alone brought so much to it because John has he grew up in a small Texas town. He grew up in an evangelical environment. He grew up.

around a lot of what was already on the page and so he knew how to embody that even more and then as far as talking about villain motivations and keeping them sort of like relatable beyond just the actions of what they're doing. Paul and I had a dinner with John leading up to production where we were just, you know, talking about the character. We had this with every actor, but in particular for John, we had a conversation.

about the sort of nature of monsters and the nature of Endicott in particular. And I don't want to get too much into spoiler territories, but the film opens with... us saying this guy matters. We are clearly establishing him as a key part of this mystery story. And then the sort of next thing that we see is... talking about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and what do monsters of the 20th century or 21st century look like. And we had a lot of conversations with John about whether or not...

Endicott was human, if he was a creature, if he was, you know, what was his origin story? And I won't necessarily fill out everything that we talked about, but just I think the sheer fact that we... could have that conversation really helped him sort of inform it. And you feel it. I think you see a sense of guilt in his character, particularly towards the end. He has some remorse. And I think that goes a long way for the audience understanding.

why a character was doing something if you can see them showing regret for what you've just seen them do. And it gets back to what I was talking about earlier about the writing process, right? About not trying to have this like... quote unquote, bulletproof script, because as soon as you cast somebody, it's going to start mutating and adjusting. And, and yeah, I like, it's so much better because of John and the, and all the actors that we cast in it and what they brought to it. It became this.

um two-way street right it wasn't just us telling the actors say this stand here action cut um it was really them contributing and challenging us and asking us challenging questions And bringing so much to the movie, that opening sequence that we're talking about, the opening like minute and a half unbroken take was John improv-ing.

we were shooting something else. And John just goes, I have an idea. Can I try something? And we're like, and what we learned on this movie is if the actors have an idea, you shoot it, you just do it. And he did that. That was like, I think the first and only take of that blew us away.

Really important advice that you're giving right here, which is don't have... tunnel vision especially like like i i get it when you're the director you've lived with this thing for a long time in most cases you have a vision for it and that's your job as the keeper of the story is to now Bring this vision to life, but stay open.

to other possibilities, because if you have that tunnel vision, you might miss something that could change everything. And it's not what you thought. Like Endicott car, which with two T's and two R's, you were saying.

your original vision for that was nothing like john yet now look what happened you'd never be able to see him otherwise open to it when we made the first hatchet we were seeing every like chiseled usual like hero guy from a horror movie as ben and then joel moore came in and i was like why is this guy here we already cast ainsley with joshua leonard and like well he's here to read for the lead and i was like i mean he's here we'll let him read i did not see it by the time he was done i think

It was like a three-page audition. I'm like, that's the guy. That's the guy. That's the guy. Like, I didn't realize it, but that's who I wrote. So you have to... you have to stay open to it i want to try to finish this hollywood therapy question so we can get back into it but the second part of it was how do you keep those frenetic wretched vibes from wrecking your mellow um

I have a simple answer for that. While it's happening, some evil, terrible, terrifying, violent thing or whatever. Yeah. No, it's not fun while it's happening because you're in it. But when it's going well.

and and it's working the happiness once you say cut on everybody usually but like we've all i'm sure had to do scenes that are uncomfortable for people or someone has to be crying their eyes out or sad or whatever like you want to make the set quiet yeah it's all about trust go through it it's truly all about trust like if if the actors feel like they can trust the director that they're getting the right stuff or what they want that's

servicing the story, servicing the character, but also feeling like they can... explore if needed given the time and the parameters and everything i always feel like when whenever there's an uncomfortable scene whether it's something disturbing or a sex scene i had to do a lot of that in um in suitable flesh where we had some very

amorous moments. And you know, the more, the more that you can find the right balance, it's, it's knowing your actors. It's knowing that like, if they want to feel like you can diffuse the situation with humor, great. Not every actor wants that. You know, it's truly knowing at least enough about your actors going into the scene and talking everything out so that there's no, you're not like going, actually, we were thinking about you doing the scene without a shirt. No. And then asking them.

what can i do for you yeah what do you need yep and let them say if they're like listen can we close the set can it just be us can it whatever it might be help them help them that's that's the that's really for me like anytime that i've i've had situations like that the more that you can make them feel like they trust you by asking questions by making them feel like they're incorporated into the process that you're not exploiting them

at all um but at the same time just like what what adam said if you can have it where everyone can feel like if they get it in the can right that that that horrible disturbing moment that super sexy scene and you know you can make them feel like they they've given their all and and accomplished that moment

then by all means, festoon them with praise and make the set feel, if it's closed or not, make the set feel like it was an all for one and one for all situation. If they feel isolated at all, or if the situation... just feels icky then you're gonna not get the best performance out of people because then people become self-conscious the the best thing you can do is make them feel trusted and comfortable and in the moment and any that's the director's job ultimately

at the end of the day that like going all the way back from you know the producers deal with getting everyone to the set and doing all that the director's job is to guide the actors as much as possible, along with all the other components, but really down to...

Directors were established to be able to create with the actors a sense of tone, a sense of place, a sense of character, a sense of story. And if you can foster that as much as possible, then you're going to get the best out of every collaborator, not just the actors. And that is Arwen's final word.

So going back to Golsan, which is so funny because in the span of one week, I watched both man finds tape and fuck my son. And boy, guys got range. Yeah, he does. And it's funny too, because you were talking about Emily. I remember the.

first time that i saw him uh i think it was my sucky teen romance was the first time that i remember seeing him in like just in anything and then from there he just became kind of like an austin staple um but to go through not just him because he is magnetic in the movie like you're right like once you see where he's coming from and the the baggage that he brings to the table and and feeling you know kind of filling in all the holes

no pun spoiler, no pun of Endicott. Um, it really does feel like there, there are certain found footage movies that sometimes feel like.

these actors are trying so hard to bring a realism to it and you know sometimes that can come down to craft that can come down to how the director is shooting the scene how it's being edited so that does it feel like you know real raw footage or does it feel like wait a second who's cutting this that can kind of take away from a performance and you know for actors sometimes they could

try so hard to make it feel real that all they do is say fuck a lot and stammer a lot because oh that's not what you know like the the theatrical experience would present it would be lots of flubs and lots of like ums and uhs and stuff And Golsan, I think part of it is because he is.

you know for all intents and purposes a televangelist you have that scene where it's right before they shoot and watch him talk to the family and the camera people and he's just kind of bantering before and the camera helps a little bit by doing the zooms and doing kind of like the the fuzzy out of focus moments and everything but ultimately it's down to how he presents himself to the crew and how he presents himself to you know the world when he's doing these these videos with the rest of

the cast though you mentioned graham skipper who both of us have worked with before and he's a good friend but the rest of the cast is fantastic in continuing the feel of it being real and you know Like William, for example, Lucas Page, and obviously Kelsey as, what is that? Lynn. Lynn.

They they're fantastic in keeping that reality alive. How did you cast them? And did you work with them like to bring them together so that they feel like more of a family unit? Well. Go for it, Peter. We really kind of lucked out. We watched a bunch of tapes and got people submitting for the role. William was someone who had worked with Ashley.

Paul's wife and our producer and production designer on another project. So she had kind of suggest through his name into the mix. And then when Kelsey came involved, they sort of unbeknownst to us. Kelsey and William had worked before and they had a very brother and sister kind of dynamic in the real world, which carried over really well. And one of the sort of best moments, the first time that we did a.

a sort of chemistry read with the two of them at Paul's house. It's a very emotional moment in the film where they are sort of, he's kind of... breaking down and she's going in to console him and in the script it's written that she goes in to go hug him at the end uh and the the first take that we did of it Kelsey didn't go in for the hug and then as soon as we said cut she apologized and she was like I'm sorry guys I didn't think I didn't do the hug because I didn't think we earned it.

And she was apologizing, but Paul and I were like, no, no, no, that's great. It's great that you have the instinct to do what feels right for the characters in the moment versus trying to check off the box of what the script said to do. And that really carried through. to sort of every actor that we worked with. We gave them the sort of the freedom.

to play around in the box without having to be line perfect, without having to have everything down to a tee. And I think it really, really helps with the realism. of those characters of their sort of shared history. And then another thing that we kind of lucked out with on the particularly for it being found footage. is one thing that does kind of bug me in other films, not just found footage films, but films where a character is supposed to be a filmmaker or a photographer.

And you see them holding a camera and it's like, they're like half holding it like by their waist and they're aiming it down at like the floor. And then it cuts to their footage and you're like, that's not the shot. Like, come on, give me a break. And, but William and Kelsey, who are the two sort of are POV in a lot of ways on a lot of these scenes.

They are also filmmakers themselves. William makes shorts. Kelsey makes shorts and music videos. They know how to operate a camera already. So we didn't have to coach them too much.

on that they were bringing that as well they know how to frame up a shot that's such good advice any actors that are listening to this right now i know your your focus is acting performing all that stuff which is Super important do it every chance you get you're always gonna learn something you're always gonna get better, but when you

don't have one of those wonderful jobs see if you can get on a set see if you can watch see if you can help make your own stuff the more you understand about all those other things that are going on around you the better you're going to be as an actor. I always have such respect when I'm yelling out lens sizes to my DP and

I can see actors know exactly what that means. Realize like what's a wide angle closeup as opposed to a long lens. This is a wide though, you know, but, oh, it's close on, on me, you know, it just.

It really does help to know that. That's, that's something that I experienced on wrong turn too, because that there's a whole reality show element of it. And the guy that was playing the director, who's also shooting, it's in the script of the showing that he's shooting it. Matthew Curry Holmes. He came to me early. and said, can I just get my hands on a camera? Cause I've never shot anything before. And.

Later on, he was the one who was like, could I have a monopod? You know, because and he was like, that's what the director would would probably use if he's always on the go. And it created a shot like it created shots that I don't think I would have used if. If otherwise, if I had not, you know, if he had not thought of that and ultimately in my shot list, originally I was like, well, fuck. Okay. Now I have to go back and I have to get all the shots that the director in quotes is getting.

I just had him roll after a couple of weeks. He knew how to use that DVX 100. So I had him roll on shots. And those are the shots that are in the movie. So I actually gave him a camera operator credit in it because I use those shots. But it also informed. performance there were moments where he would pause because he's like well fuck i gotta turn the camera off and if he didn't do that it wouldn't seem real you know um i i want to ask um

Can I tell one question? Oh yeah, please. So going off of that, going off of what Peter was talking about, about that moment where Kelsey didn't do the hug in the audition, that was the moment we knew she was... the right actor for the part and um that continued into production in a really positive way because so much of what we see is like peter was saying is her pov the camera is part of the performance

And so there were times where, you know, we're going through blocking a scene and we're like, okay, you know, there's this big effects moment, like practical effects moment. So you're going to get really close here. And the amazing thing about Kelsey is she pushed back and goes, there's no way I would be getting closer in this moment. I'd be backing up. I'd be going over here. And every time you're like, you're absolutely right. And every one of those times that made the movie better.

And we worked with her to kind of figure out – again, it was this weird hybrid of character blocking but also the cinematography of the movie. It was really – again, going back to – you know relying on the people that that you bring in to make this with making movies with friends it's the kind of stuff that i think if we had actors that were just standing there reading the lines that this movie wouldn't work yeah uh we needed with every everybody involved with it

is a part of the filmmaking right they they are filmmakers themselves so

One of the major elements of the movie without, again, without getting it to spoiler territory, is that there is a very specific mythology that's going on here that I would almost liken, in a way, to very Lovecraftian in certain ways. You know, it's something that... you can't not help it it's there's a little bit of it in the trailer but you do see that there is a form of mythology um i dealt with that again bringing up like suitable flesh like we were dealing very specifically with

very cthulian in mythology we were dealing you know directly with you know this the kind of stuff that lovecraft was coming up with back in the day so i had a mythology that was already baked in that was reinforced by um reanimator and from beyond because you know the movie was kind of connected to those but for you guys you were you were kind of making your own mythology you know for this specific film

I wanted to know, like, because sometimes people go as far as I wrote 300 pages, you know, or we just kind of came up with shit on the spot. What was it for you guys? And who created the book pages? Well, I'll take the lore one and then Paul can answer the book. We wrote everything out in the script. I mean, the script had a lot of...

a lot more explanation than is actually in the film. There's a character that was played by Brian Villalobos who we refer to as the Stranger is his character name and he's sort of the one who knows what's going on. He shows up and he has knowledge that nobody else has. He's the one who has the book. And it was, we...

We knew that we were going to write more than we were going to include because we kind of had to guide readers along and actors along and producers along to understand what was going on in the world of this movie. And our hope was that... we would cut some of that dialogue. I don't think we realized that we were going to be able to get away with cutting nearly as much as we did in the end. And it was to the Rustic guys' credit, particularly Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead,

They were the ones constantly pushing us in the edit stage. Like, no, no, no, you can cut more lines. You can take out more explanation. You can, like... trust the audience to fill in those blanks. And so we have, for the most part, we have answers to every question and whatnot. There was the sort of...

Things that we would only talk about with the actor. So Brian, who plays the stranger, he would be very interested in his backstory and where he comes from and where he goes and how he travels, which is a really fun thing in the film. stuff like that and so we would we would talk through all of that with the full knowledge that

At no point in the movie is anyone going to stop and go, all right, well, here, let me explain how this works. But as long as he understood, or even in some cases, as long as the actors had the faith that Paul and I understood, that was good enough for them. And so that's a lot of just convincing people that we had an answer was kind of all that mattered. Yeah, and I think, what was I going to say?

I lost my true thought. But the book, yeah, the book. So the book was actually, I think Peter and I just wrote. He's got a weird, creepy book with like runes and stuff on it. But my wife, Ashley Landavazo, is just an incredibly talented artist, production designer, art department producer, the whole thing. And honestly, she was part of the whole math and like, can we pull this?

off can what can we do and um and you know she built the whole salvation hour set in a barn stuff like that and so yeah that was just her just up late at night in our house like drawing this stuff in a book The reason why I asked that is because like, so we had an artist that we found on Etsy, actually, who makes those, you know, that very Lovecraftian, Cthulian, the illustrations and the typography and everything. And, you know.

when we found him, we're like, Oh, this is perfect. So we had him do them. And then, uh, you know, and we put them in the movie and they're, they're heavily shown in the film and the amount of fucking shit I got on social media from people who were like, it's not.

how it's said or that's not how it's done i'm like are you fucking kidding me really like they were being mean it was like what the fuck man like that was fucking weird that they were that that's why i was only asking because it's like A, I thought like maybe it's the same dude because it looked very similar to ours, but there was just that kind of that look, that particular look that you want.

for a book like that, that immediately gives the audience without even knowing what the fuck is being said. It could be all, you know, gobbledygook in some weird, you know, hieroglyphics that could say bread, milk, cheese, and no one would. Yeah. But at least the conviction behind it, you know? Yeah, I wouldn't put it past Ashley to have researched ancient runes and translated them into it. One thing that we did do the extra mile on that is.

I think, inaudible in the film is there are moments where the stranger is essentially... casting spells and he whispers in people's ears or he he says something sort of under his breath and for the longest time in all in all of the edits that we were showing to people it was just subtitled as like Indecipherable language or something like that. I forgot what it was. And then at one point we were like, well, fuck it. We should probably write what that is. And so I Googled a like.

Lovecraftian Cthulhu dictionary and found like the various words for like worm and home and egg and go and things like that and so we i i'll have to look up what those pages were but once we actually got into the adr with brian of of re-recording those lines even though we buried them so much that they were not uh legible they are actually like written in this sort of phonic language from that i'm glad that

There was attention paid to those things The movie I shot at the beginning of the year Ascent deals with a hot air balloon and at one point we met with two actual hot air balloon operators because uh people might not know this i don't actually know how to operate a hot air balloon and neither do any of you um but i was like i just want to make sure this is right because the reason for that

is it just takes one person who does know rooms to get on the internet and be like, this is bullshit. This don't say, and then everyone's claims they knew that too. So it's, you do have to think of those things thanks to the internet. I think in a genre movie, there's some leeway with certain things, especially when you're talking about anything fantasy or whatever. But if you're talking about something, you do want to try to make those details.

as correct as you can if if you can but i've to this day i've never heard anyone say like actually if you look closely at the necromont necronomicon that's not correct the actual necronomicon that's what i dealt with it was fucking pain in the ass man i'm like all right show me show me like the actual text that that we have to refer to i just love all the other people that jump in and claim they know that they know yeah

speak to me sir and that there is an i there not a t you fuckers we also make sure that our that our characters say we don't know what it says we can't read this thing exactly we have a bit of a get out of jail free card in our case the opera the balloon operator built his own his own balloon like his own basket his own like everything it's his thing that he made because when you start looking into this stuff there's

There's like fanatics of this stuff. There's older versions. There's the way they do things now. So there is a lot of leeway, but it just takes one person being like, actually, technically, if you were to do that and pull that rope, this would happen. And I know because my father's uncle. his brother's cousin's neighbor is a hot air balloon operator. And then everyone goes, I knew it. Totally. Totally. Fuck this movie. It's not even finished yet, but fuck it.

What was I want to know, because there's so many different aspects of the just of the drama and how it unfolds. What was a scene that you can recall that? might have been completely different on the page that like because of whether it was you're shooting now you're in the thick of it and you're like maybe that's not going to work or an actor brings something new to the table that might you know um pull the thread out of some things in terms of the mythology or even just the tone.

what was something that might have evolved on during the course of the film? And even in the edit too, it might've been something that like might have been strategically shot one way, but then you changed it in a way for the better. Yeah, so there's kind of a big sequence where a bunch of characters are gathered around in Lucas's house around the middle of the movie or, you know, 60% of the way through.

everybody we had read it you know we wrote it everybody read it and producers no notes we're all good with it and we get it up on its feet we start shooting it and it just wasn't working like we we had scheduled this thing for two days of shooting because it was such a beast And we're halfway through the first day of shooting the scene. And it just it just wasn't working. It wasn't the actor's fault. It wasn't the cinematographer's fault. It was the way we wrote it was just way too.

expositiony it was an exposition dump and it just wasn't working so we all broke for lunch and then peter and i went off in a room and basically just like took the script and rewrote the whole scene in like 30 minutes um and credit to our actors we kind of came back from lunch and gave them this revised heavily revised version of the scene that was like half the length

And we're like, okay, we need you to learn this real fast. And Dave, Dave Lawson was like, I think understandably a little concerned because we just rewrote this heavy centerpiece scene.

in like 30 minutes and he you know we were like yeah and basically everything we got the first half of the day isn't gonna work and so he's like oh my god two days and now we only have a day and a half and then uh we ended up shooting the entire scene in the second half of the day and opened up the next day so it was uh yeah that's not really specific on what we did but it was i think it was one of those things where it's just kind of like

it reads great on the page everybody loves it and then when you're all saying everything everybody's kind of just looking at each other going yeah they're saying it this isn't working and i think having the confidence to go like to recognize that it's not working and

pivot and I'll work together to figure that out. That scene might have worked in a traditional film because when you have the ability... to cut to close-ups and wides and you have a master shot and you've got you have more room in the edit to cut around and see reactions and things like that. you can get away with those longer dialogue scenes or longer exposition scenes but since we have a very baked in style where there's you know maybe two perspectives on a scene

we don't have the luxury to cut in and out of scenes at random necessarily, not random, but like to highlight moments and looks. And so when we rewrote that scene at lunch, it was actually less about. writing new material and just figuring out what to take out from the scene. So when we came back, we weren't asking the actors to learn three new pages of dialogue. It was a, okay.

so this thing that might have been a back and forth on 10 lines of dialogue is now a back and forth on five lines of dialogue and they vary to their incredible credit it blows my mind they were you know they both are all of them went off for you know 20 minutes or whatever and came back and they're like all right we got it down um and like seeing that work was fantastic for me one of those moments of sort of changing from the page was

During the big finale in The Salvation Hour, towards the end, Brian, who plays the stranger, the one who sort of knows what's really going on and has his own agenda, it was written that he starts getting... His sort of performance and anger is blowing up big time throughout this whole scene. And Brian was kind of like... asking us can i hold back a little bit because i need to like if if i go too big too fast it's it would be pushing away the other characters like why would they still

Engage with me in the way that we need them to engage kind of thing and it was really I'm really glad that he had that that question of can I hold back because then when he does finally let go it is a big moment and you see all of them flinch and react in a very believable way because he hasn't

been doing that the entire time. And I think that was a moment that we thought it would be more intense if he was more intense the whole time. But actually, it's more intense if it's a sort of gradual and then sudden explosion.

So lastly, before we kind of wrap things up, you know, we're all friends here, right? So I think it would be a good time. You know, to really air out your grievances. We've all had shitty producers before, right? It's a common happening. You know, there's always one asshole on set. So I really want to know. Let's be honest here.

How much of an asshole is Dave Lawson? Dave. He's just, he's the worst. Are you guys talking shit about me? Holy shit, everybody. It's everybody's favorite producer, Dave Lawson. Hi Dave. I'm walking out of this interview I'm flipping tables.

So Dave, we're talking to our fine gentleman here. We're talking to Peter and Paul about Man Finds Tape. I know you're the greatest film that you've made thus far out of all the films in your filmography. This is the one that's your apex mountain. I want to know what was it like?

working with first-time directors who had absolutely no clue what the fuck they were doing? I wouldn't know because I haven't had that privilege. Luckily, all the first-time filmmakers that I've worked with have had a nice... nice experience either behind the camera or in front of the camera in the case of peter salella uh so yeah no it's it's always a joy because because you're not kind of held to the constraints of of what you can and can't do based on previous experience

Good answer. Very, very diplomatic. I feel like that's in his notes app that he has to say everything. That was good. Good producer spin right there. The Venmo is on its way, Dave. I want to say. Like, I don't know if people understand how passionate Dave is about making movies. Like, I'm sitting in my home office right now where Dave slept on an air mattress for six weeks.

While we made this movie because he refused. He does that normally. He refused to take a dollar out of the budget for himself. And when I found that out, I asked him, I was like, Dave, why are you. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this movie? Why are you sleeping on air mattress? And he just said, we're just making movies.

like that that was the answer just making movies and uh it's incredible i've yeah i've never worked with anybody in my life like like the rest of the guys and and the passion they have We haven't had a chance to ask Dave this on the record. So now I do want to ask. Oh, we got it. We got it. I know. I booked the wrong church. I'm sorry. But it all worked out just fine. When I sent you an email...

That first time to be like, hey, Paul and I are making this project. Will you read a script? What was your first thought? Were you like, God fucking damn it, I got to do this again? No, because the way you phrased it was like, hey, it shares a lot of the same kind of production techniques as something in the dirt. Can you let us know what you learned?

And one of the things that I really learned over the pandemic is that I really like mentoring and helping and like figuring out other people's problems. especially, you know, like first time, second time features where it's like, oh, I've been through those a time or two. I probably have a pretty solid answer, at least a path to go down.

And it's a little bit selfish because I get dopamine from that. So that's why I read it and was game to help was because I was trying to get dopamine to do my own work. Another good answer to this guy. Fuck, man. We were able to support your drug addiction. I know. You're confusing us is what I'm hearing now. Not just you, Peter. You're not special. Guys, unfortunately, you have another interview in a couple minutes. So we're being asked to wrap this up. Yes.

Rosa, I make the rules here, not you. Wow. Well, PR makes the rules, so you'll have to talk to Rosa. But...

Man finds tape at the time that this episode drops is in select theaters, uh, all across America. Correct. Please see it in the theater. It's fucking great. Yes. Uh, and is there a VOD date yet? Same, same day, December 5th. It'll be nice. Yeah. It's in New York, LA and Austin in theaters. And then same day VOD everywhere in America worldwide to come.

The perfect movie for this holiday season. Oh yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Some people always go to like a Christmas story or Christmas vacation, man. It's going to be your next eyes wide shut. Yes. It's basically like going to church. So you'll be good. Yeah, exactly. It's midnight mass just with more holes. All right. Are you guys on the socials where people could get in touch with you?

uh yeah i am anywhere that i use it mainly blue sky and instagram is just peter hall human okay he's not a robot he needs to make sure you know he's not a robot and then i'm just paul gandersman just uh one word And mine is Peter Hall, not human. Oh, you.

And where can people find you, Adam? I'm on Instagram at Adam underscore F and underscore green. And I'm at the Joe Lynch. We love you guys. This was great talking to you and we will see all of you next week with another edition of the movie crypt with Adam and Joe. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great.

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