Nick Hiance & Ricky Glore // The Gory Details of Indie Horror

SPEAKER_06 0:29

Welcome to the Glory Details podcast, where we discuss horror from every angle. We break it down with humor, sarcasm, and curiosity, looking at what scares and excites us most, what gets ignored, and the people shaping the genre right now. And speaking of people shaping the genre, I'd like to discuss and introduce our guests, Ricky Glore and Nick Hyats. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. We're excited to have you all on. Rick, Ricky, and Nick, why don't you all tell us a little bit about yourselves?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

First off, he goes by Mr. Glore. So that's what we'll do movie. Excuse me. Okay. As a shaping of horror expert. Um, no, sorry. I'm um, so my name's Nick. Um Ricky and I met. This is me. Take me or leave me. I got four kids that I know of. I live in a van. No, um, Ricky and I met in high school, and we started making uh some short films and some and uh some cable access TV stuff back in the day. Um and cut to 20 years later, and we're working at the same place, and he comes in and he's like, hey, you know, if we never make a feature film, um that'll be a huge regret because we talked about it for a decade, right? And I'm like, yeah. And so that kind of kicked off this NKY film thing that we kind of got going on now with our first feature, All Your Friends Are Dead. Um, then we we rolled in the sweet meats about a year later. We just finished filming something a little different um called Casually Cool. And this fall we are we find, we're green lit to go into um run is the was the is the working title. Um so so that's uh what we got going on. Ricky, fill in all the good details.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Runs no, that was great. Runs the working title because the now the the new title is just uh for I I mean not just for ISO but but because we like it, all the creative uh team is Don't Scream, Don't Hide, Just Run, because there's so many other things called Run, as I found out while watching Real Housewives of Atlanta while Drew was going to a premiere of a science fiction movie called Run. I was just like, oh, we gotta there's so many things going run. I was like, we gotta change that. But uh so Oma and uh Dahlia, like we go back. Like you can't be nervous. Like we can, you know we're gonna talk. Like all your friends are dead. You guys were at like the green floor.

SPEAKER_06 3:00

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

I'm so glad that you all are back um uh doing this and talking about horror. Uh, not just because selfishly for us, um, I'm Ricky Glore. I directed and wrote uh and starred in Sweet Meets that uh we sent you all the screener link for to talk about. But yeah, I'm one of the co-writers and director of the upcoming uh horror slasher satire, just all around indie movie, uh Don't Screen, Don't Hide, Just Run.

SPEAKER_05 3:33

Well, we're the discuss Sweet Meets, your recent movie, and run your upcoming project. But first, let's talk about why you chose horror.

SPEAKER_06 3:42

I mean, you're a comedian.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I uh so with our first film, All Your Friends Are Dead, one of the things that incredibly micro budget, almost no budget, just under $6,000. Um, we submitted it to festivals, and we thought the best bet was because it was kind of like our pitch line was, well, what if the uh breakfast club grew up into the big chill, but then went camping in a Friday the 13th movie? And like on promotions, I was just like, oh man, like you know what you like about the Friday 13th movies, the last 10 minutes, last 10 minutes. This whole movie's that. And then we filmed the middle of the movie first, and then we filmed the wraparounds after we got our budget, and we were just like, oh, this whole movie isn't that.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Like, this is just the last 10 minutes of Friday the 13th in the last 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

And I was like, everything else is this indie movie using the conventions of a slasher movie. And so when submitting that to festivals, exclusively almost horror festivals uh on Film Freeway, some you pay for, some you submit for free that you fit for, like we were getting a ton of rejections. And if you could check the box that said, uh, do you want feedback if they provide? I was always like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me, like, tell me why you said no, or yeah, whatever. Uh so we're paying for it, like tell me the humiliation. Um, but the people who would give us feedback ubiquitously said it's more comedy than it is horror. And knowing basically our audience, movies at this budget, they want something a little different. And so, like, I couldn't ever argue with that note, but then we would get selected for horror festivals in like Germany, and then like randomly someone would hit me up on Twitter and just be like, I don't know if you see this, but my name's Klaus and I'm from Germany. And like, I saw All Your Friends Are Dead, and it was one of the greatest micro-budget comedy, horror comedies, like Shawn of the Dead, whatever that I've seen in years. Like, that was one of the first times that like Edgar Wright kind of got evoked. And I was just like, Oh, okay, well, next time, let's lean into that. Like, that's not just our special sauce. Let's like promote that. That, like, all right, our stuff's gonna be made if we're doing horror, it's gonna be very specific in its inspirations of horror and like what it's homaging and like what it's doing. Horror is just, I think, like if you combine if you uh if you talk about like in casually cool, the ingredients of a chili, uh, horror is just like one of the ingredients of like seven ingredients if the movie is horror. So like Run coming up, or like Sweet Meets, they both have horror and it's like top three descriptors, but I don't know if at the end of Sweet Meets would I be like, oh, what a horror movie.

SPEAKER_05 6:47

Um what type of horror were you watching when you were younger? Either one.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

I would I would say that like um the Michael Myers Halloween series was like huge in my household. Like that's I just I remember having like VHS copies like that were like taped off the TV or like VCR, the VCR like bootleg copies, and like I had three movies on one cassette, and like so the quality's really low and the audio keeps scratching.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

It's Halloween one, Halloween two, Halloween four, Halloween five, Halloween three, Halloween six. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And I remember I would just like rewind it to like like and I would get you know, because you're a kid and so you have to rewind it, and it's like takes an hour to rewind the VHS tape. This is how old I am, and I would just stop it. Like, and I was like, whatever. I'm just watching from here. So where I don't even care in this nine hours that we've crammed onto this one VHS tape, wherever it lands after the three minutes I was able to like withstand, which was probably really 30 seconds rewinding, like, well, this is I'm just watching it from here. So I would just like watch clips and chunks of a Halloween, like almost on repeat.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

And then it's like a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a part 12. I don't know how many there are.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

They all run together. Yeah, Ant Man.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

The one with Michael Myers, like the one where like he stabs somebody and there's a pumpkin. It's a Loomis and yeah. I don't know. No, that's the boardroom meetings of the Halloween movies.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

And what and I would, you know, I wanna I wanna answer the first question also, because uh, at the end of the day, I'm a huge scaredy cat. Like, I need the relief of comedy. Okay, like I love Evil Dead 2, and like I just love that series because I know that I'm going to get that that come down of like, oh, okay, I don't have to sustain like trying to watch something like um what is the it's like Annabelle and that kind of stuff. Like, and I don't I can't I can't pull the names of what it is, but like I can't like just the anxiety just gets to me because it like never breaks.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

For me, the comedy only comes out of the next level of like you're done being scared because you you know the tricks and like nothing you've seen too much. For to me, it's like you've reached that, and then it's like, well, what is the next level? Well, satire. And like breaking the tension with honesty and like not just playing the the scare, it's another hill on the roller coaster. I'm not saying that's what we're doing, but I'm saying like me with like Evil Dead to Evil Dead 2 or like Army of Darkness, if you just use that, those movies pretty perfectly describe where we're at with horror currently. You're either like Edgar Wright, or you're like your obsession, which is like Evil Dead 2, or you're like this bear is bones kind of like I mean, I'm sure something has uh like what's the most recent, like people talking, like, oh, that's fucked. Oh, I mean, evil, I mean another Evil Dead movie. People are talking about like, oh, it's really messed up. Like it's really dark, like there's nothing fun. Like it's fun if that's what you want to see, but it's intense. And so I think Raimi in his own trilogy was presenting that. And for good or for bad, like I think that has influenced, I think, a majority of horror filmmakers nowadays with having like humor and like I think infused. I mean, I'm I'm trying to think of what was I mean, what was the last horror movie that's recent that you saw that didn't have like a little bit of brevity? That was just like straight balls to the wall, just like scary. But then again, like, does that ever exist? Right? Because there's humorous moments in like the original nightmare on Elm Street. So, like, what did I grow up on? I was at Elm Street. I mean, I I was shown everything at too young of an age, but Elm Street is the one that I uh Elm Street and Phantasm, um, and Hammer movies, uh, and then like Universal and like figuring out the eras of that, and like washed up actors, actors returning, the first versus movies, like where you have uh the werewolf versus Frankenstein, and you have um, I think it's Bello Lagosi playing Frankenstein versus Lon Cheney Jr.'s Wolf Man, and like Lon Cheney, who is a known alcoholic, like his body's not what it was 15 years earlier when he was playing. Like, it's the first version of like the Marvel movies. Like, we're getting these actors like much later, and it's just like, hey, and everybody loves Chris Evans' Captain America. There's gonna be a time where he comes out and he's waving his little shield and he's gonna be like 40 pounds overweight. It's gonna be like, oh, maybe Cap is like Steven Seagull is another great one where it's just like, oh man, and he's back in his new action movie, Steven Seagal, and he's just like sitting in a chair.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

You shut your mouth. He's an icon.

SPEAKER_06 12:04

Oh my god. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, that was my I I saw everything at way too young of an age, but yeah, uh Freddie Elm Street. Um, that was my number one in the household.

SPEAKER_06 12:14

So has your has your taste in movies changed much since you started making movies? Like, are you appreciating some things differently now that you're started making movies that you enjoy movies differently?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

So I love uh services. Obviously, Tubi is a huge one, but I just watched a movie on Canopy last night. Um it's actually a vampire vampire zombies from outer space or something like that. I think it's a trauma movie, actually. So we're in the universe. Um, and I really pick out and appreciate the little things now, and it's just like things that I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

You know, you could be watching one of those, and they go to a space truck stop, and there could be a sweetmeats food truck in outer space, and we could have no say in it. You could just be watching this movie on TV.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Well, if that happens, I will I'll pat ourselves on the back.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

No, you'll screenshot it, you'll send it to me.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

No, so I I would definitely say my, yeah, is it's it's changed the way, you know, after making a movie, uh, you know, we we edited the first two features ourselves. So, like compiling all those pieces and then you know, wishing that you had, you know, this magic bucket of shots. You're like, oh, why didn't we do this or do that? And then I and you know, you see those shots now, you see how they did it. And sometimes you you see something like, I don't know, like even like pre like CGI and special effects kind of thing, like computer generated stuff, you're like, I have no idea how they accomplished that. And like I've taken shots before movies and like threw them like in on a timeline in an editor so I can go frame by frame just to kind of like see like what can I see, what's happening, or maybe how they did this, or how can I replicate this kind of shot? But I've definitely or even the cadence of the edit.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Like, can I like have it be in the same pace? Like, so I'm like faking even if it's not like shot for shot the same.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah, I just yeah, so that definitely has changed the way I I look at movies now. And it's also in this kind of time, we've you know, we've been the last decade, it's all been, you know, CGI, superhero, big blockbusters, um, contrast it, which one of my like kind of I would say favorite, but I really enjoy like the Mission Impossible movies, which are like obviously they use a lot of CGI, a lot of safety stuff they erase, but it's like a lot of analog um stunts and action things, um, just erasing, you know, the the safety harnesses and things that you know you would have to wear. Um, so just kind of like picking out all those different little nuances, like, oh, they they put the light outside the window, and now they're utilizing that for all of the things. So they put this screen up here, or there's this lamp in the background, just things that I would never even pick up on before. I I kind of notice all those little things. I really enjoy watching lower budget films that kind of see the things that they do because I think that we can kind of replicate um, you know, with our with our budgets that we're living in.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

And so with the the it I think it goes hand in hand with how uh this is a great um simile to explain our growing up. Highance watches those more say schlockier movies that are currently being made to being like, well, why do these suck? And how could I say it differently? Why do these suck and how could we made it better? Like with what the resources we have, because yeah, they may have a bigger budget, but like we got more like savvy. Like we we in our short amount of time we figured out how to kind of accomplish a story. And the thing that they don't have is they don't have the story, but what I think Nick's able to recognize, or from what you've talked about or hearing you talk about when you watch those movies, you're just like, oh, well, they pull off this, or they kind of do, and I think this is how they did it. And if we want to try to do something like that, this is how we'll do it. So it's a little bit of film school, and that comes from Robert Rodriguez explaining it in his film school on El Mariachi, the 10-minute film school. He's like, Here's how I edit. Hyance just said what Rodriguez is basically saying. He took action movies and he's like, This is how they're edited. This is when they're cut. This is all I have to film with the the footage, the time, the resources that I have. For me, I like watching movies that I feel like for the most part I could never achieve, whether it's maturity in the story or the directing um storytelling. So, like I will watch something like Bill Hayter or Martin Scorsese or Spielberg or go back to like Val Luton or go back to like just something that takes a um Kirasawa, like watch something where I'm just like holy shit, like this is one person's vision. A lot of times it's an auteur, like a writer-director, and it's just like one person was able to corral all these people to execute. I mean, you can listen to commentaries where the director's just like, that's not what I wanted it to be. Those tend not to be my favorite movies, like Blade Runner is just like when there's 20 edits of that movie, I'm like I'm glad people like it, but that screams a mess. Like, yeah, there might be ideas, there might be pieces in it that are good, but between the two of us, Hyance has been more finger on the pulse, kind of in the waters of what we're wanting to do. By um you saw uh did you go see Hundreds of Beavers or just Blind Cop Two? Uh I've seen them both, yeah. Okay, but so you went and saw like the local premiere of Blind Cop Two, where you got to meet the creators of that who are kind of working in a similar ballpark with a gimmick heavy but uh idea forward, heavy on the execution, without it looking super schlocky, but knowing what they're making, having a clear vision, got to talk with those guys, and I don't think their knowledge or what they're talking about, what they're currently going through is too dissimilar from what we have going on.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

And I think what I'd add to that is, you know, the just the differences between uh Mr. Galore and myself is like I look at somebody like Jordan Peel. Hair hair length. One of us has a shiny head. Uh like Jordan Peel, like I really like and enjoy his films, but then I listen to him and his director of photography talk, and I'm like, son of a bitch, man. Like, I'm not that smart. Like, I'm not doing what they're doing. Like, but it's but it's it's more of like on a fun level, it's like, oh yeah, I didn't even think of that, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Like, but the Jordan Peel thing and like the collaborative thing that like you were talking about, um, so like all your friends are dead and even needing that brevity. Something that happened on set that wasn't in the script was when uh in the movie, my character Matt Wilby goes to hang himself. It was uh part of a an economized way of filmmaking. Uh, when Hyyn said, okay, this thing has to star you because we need to write this thing that we can feasibly make and cut the time out for it. And a lot of it has to be just you and me filming. And that's why we filmed the middle of it first with the full cast and then the wraparounds just me and Nick. I'm going to hang myself and I'm like, it's just me and Nick. And I'm like, well, hold on. I was like, I don't know how to tie a noose, I gotta pull it up on my YouTube. And Hyans is just like, oh, we got to film this. He's like, we'll add the ADR. He's like, we'll add the the audio of the YouTube later. He's like, but let's film this and do it in real time. And he's like, that's the joke. We're not making fun of suicide, but he's like, this is the honesty in a could be a lifetime movie because I don't have the chops to act. Heinz doesn't have the chops to, you know, we don't have light, like it's just him and I. And he's like, but this could really be honest because this is what is happening. And I was like, yeah, that's great. Like, yes, that's a hundred percent the way that this should be. So that's how we collaborate. And I don't know, I think the way that we are implementing like what we learn and how we can collaborate, as long as it's in the right sphere of the thing we're making. I think you and I are very similar that way. It's just you're not the best writer when it comes to the script to the page. I think you are a great, like, hey, here's the world. And you're like, oh, I got some thoughts on this. Like, and and you've done that every time with each, with, with each one of the uh succeeding movies.

SPEAKER_06 21:41

Well, um, you did touch upon it a little bit right now when you were talking. Um, so we interviewed Joe Bandelli, producer of the Hell House movies, a couple of weeks ago, and he mentioned that he started appearing in his movies uh out of necessity. So kind of like you mentioned right now. Um, so Ricky, you You have been in your movies, um, acting. So do you just like acting? Or I noticed uh Nick, you're not appearing, or at least I don't remember seeing you.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

No, yeah, no, I'm saying we did we got started doing basically a two-man sketch comedy show on cable access, where it was me and Nick were the only constants. And that's loosely putting it. Like Danny John's, our other friend, was listed as the third cast member because we also had a boner for Stella, uh Michael Ian Black, David Show Walter, David Wayne. Praise on Gail Dotry and the celebrity uh sex pass that I think uh Hyantz and I may be going to see tomorrow in the theaters. If you're looking for something to go see in the movie theaters, go support smaller comedies. Um David Wayne directed, Ken Marino written by. Um if you're feeling superhero fatigue, that's that's a great way to get away from that. But uh so I think heants always jokes that he wants to be a lead or a star in something. And then at the end of the day, he's just like, no, no, I'm I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Me, it's partially been a necessity, but partially been a the projects that I led were I think made sense fiscally, and I was just like, Oh, I think I should just play this. Like, I think this is yes, this is something that makes sense if this is me. And so Casually Cool is the first movie not starring me, and I think I'm not even the top four. And I think the movie benefits because the part I do play again was by necessity. The actor who I wrote it for had to drop out, and then I was just like, All right, I have to be here for all these scenes. Like again, I have this trust with high-ance, but now we included Gage Daly, who joined our camera team, who we used two cameras because we did shoot it kind of like an old school TV show with a couple multiple camera angles uh for easier for editing. And I already had the trust of Nick of being on camera and being like, Well, how does that look? I'm not behind a monitor. But also now I also have the trust of for casually cool, Timmy Baron and Andrew Thorpe, who are fantastic stage second city trained actors, performers, who it's just like I get to be in a scene with them and like Eileen Ernest, who is Laddie and Sweetmeats, like there's a couple four-person scenes where by design my character's basically a silent Bob. So like I literally just get to be an audience member in the scenes and just watch them perform for me and just like, oh, this is great. Next thing we do, the next movie we're doing, uh don't scream, don't hide, just run. I maybe do a Hitchcock. But that's and I'm not saying I won't be in something down the line. I just don't uh there is a Corneto trilogy of like a king should have turned mountain kind of character that I played now and all your friends are dead and sweetmeats. That there probably is a cap to that to some degree, but uh no idea when that would when or if that would ever happen. No, so yeah, long story short, I don't care to be in them anymore. I did what I wanted to do. Um and I think high-intz like what yeah, what to what extent would you want to be in something?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Oh, yeah. I'd like like Ricky mentioned, it really started off as a necessity back in high school. It's because like, well, we just wanted to make stuff, and no one else wanted to make stuff. So we're like, well, we're in it, right? We're just gonna set the tripod up on a or set the camera on a tripod, and then we're gonna stand in front of it, and then we're gonna go over here and stand in front of it, and then we're gonna go over there and stand in front of it, and then we'll do a couple single shots and we're like cut it together, right? So it just kind of uh, you know, went out of necessity. Now I couldn't act my way out of a paper bag. So, you know, I am sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Waiting in line, our friends did their own short movie that we participated in. It was a script that we had all kind of written a variation of, like a very Rosh Mon, like so many different locales of like we were chasing Kevin Smith, like indie film kind of thing. Um, the script was very large at one point, very small. The thing that got made was a short film made by Eric Hunter and Nick Prince, who I uh was asked to play two roles in, and Hyant was asked to play the video store clerk. Yeah. You filmed twice and then refused to come for your like third day. It's but this is all when we're like 19. And like I love that the the stuff we did back then, I love like Deadwoods, our first movie. It's on our NKY films channel from 2005. It's crazy to think that it's 21 years old, that it could buy a beer. Um, that is wild. We could not buy beers when we made it. Our rat party was playing poker in the house that we were just shooting at, Nick Hyantz's house, kitchen, like with no alcohol, freshly showered, because we were all like covered in blood, or I just was, I don't remember. But yeah, uh, I think um, yeah, I think uh if if we go back and like watch all of our stuff, uh Hyant's always has like a thumbprint somewhere, but you didn't answer. Like, what would you want to like what's your zenith of like we did costume swap and casually cool? Yeah, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

So I am in casually cool from the uh the a drone shot.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

There's me addressed as in Ricky's character on far enough away because he has you know the the facial hair, and I was wearing a long wig and a sock hat and a trench coat in the movie. Um funny story that had happened was I thought I was done for the day. And I went and we were shooting where uh James Gunn did Superman for the Hall of Justice at Cincinnati Union Terminal. And uh, because we were like, why not film in a place that's been in a big budget like movie? Like we have, well, we can ask and we can film here. Great. I thought we were done for the day. So I went in and I ripped off the wig and the sock hat, and which had been applied by our makeup and hair person to like look good, not look like a sock hat and a wig, and yanked it off, went to the bathroom, took off my costume, called my uh wife, and was just like, I'm done for the day. We're gonna be heading home in like 30 minutes. I'm gonna pick up food, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because real blow, I mean micro budget. Um, and I come out into Union Terminal and Lizzie and Nick, who Nick is DPing. Lizzie is our makeup in uh special effects person. They're just like, What are you doing? What like I had the costume over it and I'm like, and lefty.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

My character is like officially wrapped for the day. They're like, he sure isn't. We have the main drone shot that like we have to get right now. And I was just like, oh fuck, oh, fuck, oh fuck.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

And I don't even remember, like, how did even get we weren't even talking of like, oh, Nick should play Lefty in a scene. Like, how did that even happen? Of just like, did I just say, hey, do you want to throw this on and be lefty in the city?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

It was just like immediate, like, you you put it on. We were just kind of slap happy, like the sun setting, the drum guys outside, like, where is everybody? I got like five minutes to get a shot. And we're like, wouldn't it be so funny if I Nick put on this outfit? We're like, yeah, let's go ahead and do it.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

And Leland was just like, someone's just like, Hyans is wearing the lefty costume. He's like, fine, let's fucking get this shot.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Um, but yeah, so that the the collaborative effort and spirit of like, to what end will Hyance end? Like, we've written a whole movie, basically, called Nick Hyance Has a Hole in Him, which is a rom-com like hallmark holiday, like dumb movie about a guy who physically has a giant hole in his chest that is never referenced.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Okay, no, and Dali, I gotta get your opinion. Okay, so the character physically has a hole in them.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Yeah. You know Nightmare Elm Street 4, where Freddie gets Alice and you see through Freddie, and it's that hole?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Okay. So it's that. It's that character lives a normal life. Now, here's our big debate. I would say if you're wearing a shirt, all the shirts have holes in it.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

So in its closet, and it's never referenced. It's like band t-shirts. They're like, oh man, you have so many cool band t-shirts, but you kids need what they are because they all have a hole in them. That makes no sense.

SPEAKER_06 31:13

It's the joke. And he's like, have you ever felt like you've been missing something? Why would the shirts have holes in them?

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 31:21

Sorry. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

So what? We're gonna see a whole movie of a dude just covering up a good open hole, and the movie's called Nick Hydes is a hole in him. What does he reveal? Then it's a reveal. The shirts have to have holes in them too.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

We set it up early, but the whole you don't need to have every shot. You wouldn't just be anyway.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

Next year.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Nick Hyans is a hole in the movie that's never ever gonna happen. Derailed the whole podcast and our careers.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

No, Dahlia was laughing so hard, I think, that you went silent or you turned off your mic. So I think we have we have one. We have one.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

Well, you you guys are indie filmmakers and you're working with small budgets. How much does that inform your initial idea? Do you develop an idea around a smaller budget, or do you just make what you have work?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I would you're you're you know well, you know how it starts. You're part of the walks.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

When you point that way, it's not on my screen. Yeah, it's never. Yeah, just yeah. There you go. You somehow missed me every single time. Anyway. Um no, it it's it's definitely uh I they're married, they go hand in hand. Um, you know, one of my favorite series is uh Jane Bond. I love all those those films. I love the globe trotting, I love the the stunts and all that kind of stuff. Um realistically, I I know that you know uh we can't do that. So do we have ideas that are grandiose on that level? Sure, but I think the stories that we kind of want to tell that we keep coming back to, um, that we you know just churn over and over again. It is definitely things that don't require millions of dollars to make happen, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, could we, you know, uh, you know, will we produce better films if we had a higher budget? I would, I would assume, yeah, because we'd be able to hire some um um really good people who know they're doing gaffers, sound people, other things like that, set designers, people that could help us kind of elevate our game. But I at the end of the day, I think a lot of our ideas are also um, you know, maybe we don't think of the budget as a restraint, but it it's in the back of our heads is kind of like, oh, this is the pieces that we have. Here's the camera and equipment we already have. So let's not, you know, try to shoot something that requires, you know, an IMAX camera or just as a bad example, but just like that's always kind of there that you know, we're not trying to um, you know, blow out the budget um on special effects or or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 34:19

This is a question for both of you, actually. What's one horror movie that you wish you had been part of making?

SPEAKER_01 34:27

That would be, I mean, uh I I mean it's gosh, do you know like do you meta answer and like know, like, oh, the what a great movie, but like like the I don't love The Shining, but like if someone's like the shining, it's like famed, awful set of just like watching Shelly Duvall get like dehumanized by Kubrick. Like, what an awful terrible set, but like, yeah, interesting, huh?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

I would, I mean, I would go. I mean, this this partially goes back to like our film school, which we've talked about in the past, where it was just like growing up in the DVD era where you would get a DVD and it would be packed with features and you know, the commentaries and the second disc if you were lucky. You just have all the things that you're gonna do. Yeah. Um, I would uh you it's so just re-watching all that again and again, something that just kind of sticks out as like evil dead for me. Like, I love that idea of just this group of friends going to this random cabin out in the middle of what was a Tennessee and just like hanging out and making this film, and like it was a little bit of hellish, and some people had to drop off and things like that. But like kind of taking what we've done, I can understand. And like, I'm like, oh, that would be so cool to like just be a part of that, to like have that freedom of you know, being able to put that movie together.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Mine's the s a similar answer, and you helped. I knew you were gonna see uh I think Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2, but Evil Dead is more feasible in like what we like we were very influenced by uh in the woods or whatever the the the proof of concept was that they made before Evil Dead um that we were chasing, and that's why we're watching the DVDs, because in the infancy before YouTube, we were like, How do we find this online on the web? Like, and we couldn't find it. And like, is it on this special edition? Is it on this Army of Dark? Like, blah, blah, blah. And it never was. But your answer made me think of like, oh, it's from Dusk Till Dawn, because they were mostly at that bar set with like the band. And like, think of everybody who's on that set, or who crosses through that set almost like a television show because they shot there for so long. Or you have One Day with Cheech Marin, where you film him out, like just that movie of it's Robert Kurtzman. Like pr a lot of most it's practical. The my only negatives, I think, are the CGI. I don't think they stand up. Uh, Me, Hyans, and Hunter went and saw it at a um, if you ever get to see an on uh the the the like the big screen at the movies at the theater uh from Dust till Dawn, I think it plays the best there. I'd been growing up watching it on TVs and on small screens, like uh small, like edited down for the size of the screen. And even the DVD, it didn't play. I it felt like I was watching it for the first time, a lot of that movie at the theater. And to be on that set, especially like the bar stuff, man, they weren't being fucked with. That's the movie they had a pass. Like it's Tarantino, it's Rodriguez at their most, like not most privilege, because once upon a time in Hollywood costing like a billion dollars, like that's pretty fucking privilege. But like they had just gotten through the door and they were both at the like the height of their powers. And this thing didn't have a lot of oversight because they didn't care, they weren't spending that much money on it to have that freedom. Now, they also did four rooms around that time under that same guise and that same feeling. It was just like, oh no, that's that that didn't work as well. People don't anthology movies never work for some reason. Uh, but from dust till dawn just seemed like those dudes, for good or for bad, were 100% making the movie with the people they wanted to be making it with and the way they wanted to make it with.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

I'm gonna throw in another one. I and I know I love the derail. Sorry, but like I think like Romero, like zombie films, like just like just all the special, like the practical effects and things that they did, like to be on set to build those things. Cause I know.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

If you'd have been at like Monroe Mall, like like the thing we don't talk about is like Hyantz and I uh not necessarily like cut our teeth on anything that we can like reference to and be like, here it's online, but like him and I would help these film shoots back in Cincinnati. And we did this one, we were the special effects team for this Stephen King short film, Nona, that was shot on film and like never saw the light of day, got destroyed. It was be made by these filmmaking, like I don't even remember their names anymore, but like we spent weeks shooting in this, like we learned a lot of stuff, I think, from them that like we've never talked about of just like them asking that diner and like filming at odd hours when they weren't open, providing like a certain amount of craft, or what they also didn't do, where we'd be like, man, we don't know what the fuck we're doing on this movie, like and they're not even gonna feed us, like, or something like that, like stuff like that. But like we really learned by doing and for good or for bad, doing the things like remember shooting that truck, that semi-truck in that garage for like three days.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

And like I was like standing on it at one point to like shake it, and I was like getting really into it because I had to make it look like rhythmic. I gotta like, yeah, so I gotta like it.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

You know what I think that I think that is what did it. I think it was that experience that like because we've worked people in our micro budget uh uh our circles where a lot of actors or creatives, whether whatever department they're part of, like set, deck, costume, music, acting, or producing, where they're just like, I would I want to do your thing, even for the little pay that you're offering. But my biggest concern is that it's never gonna see the light of day. Hyance and I, we've only shot one thing that everybody fully on knew. And it was basically an elongated sketch for the movie Open House that never saw the light of day. But we've kind of been able to promise like, no, no, no, no, we're gonna figure out how to use this. Like, this will be seen somewhere. And I think it happened with that, with Nona. Like the hours and like the experience that we gained was great. But like then to be like, oh, did it suck? Like, are we not seeing it because it sucked because of what we did?

SPEAKER_06 41:12

Uh well, we're gonna talk about sweet meats now. Uh, I'm very, very curious. What came first? The idea for having music highlighted in a movie, or was it the sweetmeats idea?

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Sweetmeats, I'll I'll do the abbreviated and then I'll toss it over to Nick from what he remembers. Is we were trying to make it came from a failed project, Open House, which was from what we learned from All Your Friends Are Dead, we're like, all right, our sophomore movie is 100% gonna be us. We're gonna put so All Your Friends Are Dead, we sold it as a slasher and not a comedy. And then it like through screenings and then people giving us feedback, they're like, no, it's a comedy. And it like, it worked better as saying like it's a horror comedy. And but that almost for some reason gives it a ding, but that also elevates it. Whatever. Our second movie, like Open House, it's gonna be on Front Street that it's a horror movie, but it's a musical comedy, like it's a dark satirical comedy. And we got a lot of uh retweets and stuff at the time for like Roger Avery and like Edgar Wright and different notable people in the film world, like um Mike Flanagan uh gave money to our first film, All Your Friends Are Dead, which is insane. And I know has followed different things that we've done. That translated to zero dollars on our Kickstarter for open house. So a week before the campaign was ending, I was like, uh, we're getting ready to rehearse and stuff. Like people are about ready to come down like to get paid. And like, we don't have a budget. We don't have the bare minimum to start this movie. And Kickstarters all or nothing. But within the movie, what I had occurring throughout was this restaurant called Sweet Meats. And of course, like we do, everything in our movies either has a rich history or give us five minutes and we'll figure out one and like why it exists, like what is its purpose. And so Ty West was doing his trilogy um X, Pearl, and Maxine. And I was gonna go, I was doing a show in Utah, and I had uh the morning off before my stand-up show, and the theater was showing uh Pearl, and I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go see this. And my brother's like, Well, you know that's a prequel to this movie he did last year called X. I was like, What's X? He's like, It's Texas Chance on Masker Meets Boogie Nights. And I was like, awesome. So my hotel room that night, I watched it. I was like, Yeah, I like that. And then I went and saw Pearl and I was like, Oh, I love Pearl. I was like, Pearl is exactly like I love the golden age of musical. Like, I just love the juxtaposition of all this, the horror, the musical, blah, blah, blah. And so I was like, well, you know, this is sweetmeats. And sweetmeats could be this prequel to open house. And it shows us the the history of this very small thing in this movie, which is just a restaurant that has commercials and occurs, but we have this motel hell like rich history about it, this op operatic uh like what if Colonel Sanders like was Kenny Rogers, blah blah blah. And we just took Mike Flincham's family, who is a friend and producer and actor, uh, he's uh hardware store Bob and All Your Friends Are Dead, who gets his eye popped out. Um his grandfather's Bobby Mackey. And so him and I were like, well, if we did our Pearl version of sweetmeats, what would that be? And we were like, Well, could we could the restaurant we were gonna film in open house through Chris Morris, uh producer he worked at the the restaurant in Harrison, Ohio? I was like, could we get that for like seven days instead of two days? And they're like, Yeah. And they're like, All right. And then so I kind of adapted this play I had written in Chicago called Fleetwood Macbeth, which was what if Macbeth was set at a radio station in the 70s to Fleetwood Mac music. And I kind of took that some lines, some familial connections, and I just did that with Sweetmeats, and I took some songs that I already had and then wrote some new ones and melodies that then David Kornfeld arranged and brought to life, and then Dustin Matthew Taylor arranged and brought to life. Um coming up with the script, which is pretty much the movie that you see, the hardest part was pivoting to then high-intz and a lot of our team and just being like high-intz first. I was just like, So I know this is crazy, but I think we should a hundred percent within like four weeks of shutting one thing down, do this. And like, here's the plan and how we can do it. And I mean, you didn't say no obviously. Yeah, but so that's that is from my recollection the the the story of like how we got to sweetmates.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Yeah, just born out of the ashes of that failed project that like we had a lot of these pieces, you know, the pieces that we could have built already or had, or you know, ideas that we just wanted to throw in there. Um we've often talked about musicals. Um, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Our second idea was Have Fun, don't run, which was basically a um a creature from the Black Lagoon set at a swimming uh community swimming pool. And then it turns into like a little shop of horror kind of thing, like um old um uh whatever uh lifeguard who's aging out of being a lifeguard and like her sexiness would have been Eileen Ernest, which we pitched it to her. She falls in love with this kind of like um the shape of water monster in this community again, our version, like this low like community pool, low low rate community pool, like uh and the sticks of like northern Kentucky. And that just came to the case.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

But I still want to make happen. I don't I'm I'm not letting that one go.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

We literally like contacted pools of just being like, hey, trust us for like two weeks after your pool shuts down. Could we just have the run of the mill? And like we're on Front Street, this is what we want to do. And they're just like, no, you can't film with actors and water. Like, are you stupid? Like, and it's a musical. Now that's the thing, is most people didn't respond because they saw the page and they're just like, no. But so, like, yeah, so I remember um after all your friends are dead, uh, Nick's wife, Kelsey, uh, my wife Allie and I, we all had a barbecue outside and their dog Benson, and I believe Anna um walk around or inside on a monitor. And uh Kelsey's like cornered me outside, and she's like, So tell me now what's this next movie? It's a musical in a pool. And I just like, tell her, tell her, I can't sell it. But yeah, so sweetmeats. So, like, yeah, out of like that was an idea pretty quickly, like, so that's how pretty quickly we move and we don't stay precious. And we kind of cannibalize and use the buffalo of past ideas where like I don't know if open house would ever happen because a lot of sweet meats came from that. There could be a movie that I still think is interesting to one of the A-plots, but have fun don't run. I don't think we've taken anything from that yet because it was like two-thirds done at the point that like we moved on, that we didn't think we could get a we didn't think we could get get a community pool.

SPEAKER_05 49:01

Was there a moment during the production of sweet meats where you found yourselves taking the story in a different direction due to limitations with your budget?

SPEAKER_04 49:13

Trying to think if there was a scene.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

I I don't think there's any kind of overarching thing where we had to, you know, make compromises or completely pivot. It's more just trying to um what what we really got lucky with sweetmeats and it really became super cool was so we're at this restaurant, and right next door they had like a catering hall. And so for this whole week that we're there, like we were able to use the catering hall as like our our back lot. So everybody had their tables, so we're all kind of hanging out. Um, so we had this like really cool space for like we're up front filming in the restaurant, but then you know, your downtime, you can kind of go back there. And I I just mentioned that because it like it really helped, I think, give people some downtime. We actually had like a catering table out there, mostly with junk food, but you know, we had like fruits and vegetables and like protein bars and other things like that. And yeah, fresco, right? Because we're fancy. Um uh, but it really helped, I think, on this, you know, eight-day production to kind of give these people some rest in between takes and shots and things like that. And I was able to trade off um with Chris Morris, who is you know, um does everything on our films behind the scenes and in in front. He didn't he didn't make sweet meats, but uh, we do have some footage of him on there. Um, but anyway, so it really gave us some time to uh, you know, kind of have that downtime, I think, to like work through any little hiccups that we might have ran into. I think of the day, Ricky, where we had all the extras, right? All the extras were came on a Saturday. And so we had, you know, this kind of hectic morning, and then before you know it, there's like 50, 60 people show up, and it's like, oh, we've kind of been.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

So nothing dramatically changed. It was literally going, okay, in the script we have it written this. So like if it's not dialogue, if it's just like there's a line out the door, we put out a call to a bunch of extras, and I think we got like over 300 people were just like, yeah. And then 70 people came. And we're like, all right, Heinz and I, uh, with Trace, our our assistant director, A D, Trace Walker, uh, we're just like, how do we make this look really like a long line? Where like distance-wise, the shot that we want to do is from the cash register here. It has to go out the door. So if you've watched the movie, it has to go down that line, has to go. There's a little vestibule that has that beautiful stained glass. Then there's another door, and then it's a strip mall. So then you gotta like curl it down. So like we've all gone to um comedy shows where they've been in strip malls. And it's like, you know what a sold-out like line looks like. And like we got uh maybe 60 people. I think I said 70, maybe 50. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

If you counted them all, but you know, and if 300 people would have showed up, we would have been underwater because like we didn't have the personnel to be able to handle that size crowd either. So it's just adapting in real time and not really can we convey or how can I use these people in our sketch?

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Um, in our sketch world of thinking on our feet, and basically because the way we're shooting it on a monopod, so we can we're never locked down and be like, all right, move these people over here. Oh, we're losing, we're losing people. It's just like, all right, we're gonna have these people for ostensibly two hours before people start being like, being on a set of a movie ain't fun. Like, I don't care what you're giving me cheeseburgers or the the thrill of a lifetime, like my day's done. And so we're like, great, we don't want these people waiting. If they're waiting, they're waiting this line here. And then when they're done with that, okay, everybody, now we're all gonna give you food to stand outside. You can actually eat it. It's all real uh cheeseburgers and hot dogs from places we found the cheapest that we could go through the drive-thru and get day of. And uh, you can really eat it. Whatever you eat, great. If you want more, we'll hand you more. Like this is your catering for the day. And they all knew that. And so then we got everybody outside. We had the old, we had the um the vintage cars out there, and we had tried to frame it so you didn't see anything that took you out of time, but ultimately, does it matter? This is our own universe. It's this weird time, ambiguous time, which was a decision made by Nick uh smartly, but that comes in editing. That's but at this time while we're filming, we're like, okay, everybody's eaten, great, we're going inside, where they've now set dressed all the tables with food and stuff, and we start sitting people down and the groups that they're in, or if they weren't with people, we start on the fly pairing people up. Like everybody who's not doing something is getting the next thing filled out and go, okay, now we're having these lines of dialogue with the quarterback and the news reporter, and we've been rehearsing inside while they're getting the B-roll outs. It's a circus.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

And what we did also is like after we got the wide shots, so finally we got everybody inside, did our wide shots, and then we started doing like go the table to table and like to kind of give people hope, right? Like, we're like, okay, this table, you guys are cut. If you want to stay, you can stay and hang out. Like you're free to hang out. But like if you want to go home and like half the people end up staying, but like we were like going table to table at that point to like, so it's like if somebody's like, this sucks, and like we get to them and they're like, oh, I can go home. But now I can go home. Well, I'm just gonna stay around for another half hour until like they're in a few more shots and things like that. But like just trying to like what you do is you have that.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

You have that be the day, the buy-in of just like, oh, it's great. Do you want to come back tomorrow or when we're in the basement of Bobby Mackeys? And they're like, hell yeah, I want to be in a basement of Bobby Mackeys before it's torn down one of the hauntedest places ever. And then it's just like, here's the worst part is this is a special effects day, which means you're gonna sit around a long time where we're like, no, the blood didn't squirt, right? No, the bite on the tongue, no, all right. We're just filming the same thing over and over again. We got to do something different to make it interesting. Like the people that came from the diner to Bobby Mackeys the next day, or the people who just came to the Bobby Mackeys part, like those are the people who without them, we don't have the scope of even what you saw because they're those people, and then we paid them with pizza afterwards. And a lot of them were like after they got covered in blood and stuff and washed off and whatnot from our special effects team. We'd be like, Do you want to stick around? Pizza's gonna be here in 20 minutes. And some people were just like, No, we're good. Like, like, not pissed, but just like, we got the experience. But that's I mean, talk about like anybody. Um, I did a masters of the micro budget episode where I break down the nitty-gritty point by point of the sweetmeat's uh experience and budget and incredibly transparent. And everything that I just said to you didn't really cost us money. That was people being like, yeah, I'll be paid 50 bucks to spend three hours, you know, having a fake tongue, like a prosthetic tongue ripped out of my mouth and then spit out the what I heard tasted a little bit like mint blood, or that's what they told them to like, it kind of tastes like mint. Now hold it in your mouth, okay? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:10

I was wondering what that, yeah, what that experience was like. I love practical effects and all of that. So I would love to have been played a role in have maybe having my tongue uh the scene I think I liked was the beginning when uh we got uh the guts cut out. Ooh, that was much.

SPEAKER_05 57:29

That made me gag. That made me gag. I gagged two times in the watching the movie. Two times giant turd. Yes. And then also that it was so visceral for me, the two hooks going, uh, it was awful. I loved it. I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

Do you guys you are the audience that I uh that I wish I was in the theaters to see this with? Um unfortunately, this movie's the the least that I've I've seen with a live audience. All your friends are dead. It always shocks me whenever there's anything slightly action or horror in All Your Friends Are Dead, it plays. Like when he like comes up Tylene and like puts his hand on her shoulder, people are just like, Jesus. And I'm just like, really?

SPEAKER_03 58:11

I was like, it's not that good.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Or like, um, when I'm getting like sprayed with blood, there was a woman. Remember at the Esquire screening? When was it? There was a woman sitting in front of us that was like burying, like she was like a 50-year-old woman and like burying her head in her husband's like like shoulder. And I'm just like, what? Like, what is that? Like it might have been the throat slit scene with Eileen or something. And then I'm just like, this looks awful, honey. I was like, you can watch it. Like it's but so I'm gonna be able to do it. It works in that favor though.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

If you the more you turn your head for our special effects, yes, and you imagine what might be happening, is it it helps us.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

So I no, I loved it. I love the idea that the the I mean that's my version of um, and if we had the money and the time, really, is because we had the talent with uh Lizzie Schreibis um doing the the lead gore in special effects and makeup. Um, and she's just every year getting better uh when she ends up working on one of our movies. She uh is just now completing uh a special effects and makeup uh school in Orlando. Go ahead. And she's working on run during her summer break right now in Cincinnati and handing it off to the team of makeup people who do USS Nightmare, which is one of the haunts in northern Kentucky. They're hand they're taking it over. She's building all the prosthetics for our next movie and then giving them the instruction as of like this is how it should look, this is what you're going off of and building props. But anyway, those hooks, like that, like if I could have seen it the way I like pictured it, is only slightly different, which is more Hellraiser, like the first movie when the hooks go into the face and like pull that. Like that's what I wanted to see, but maybe that's too much. I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't have been too much like a little schlockiness of just like the like the garbage bag of just like intestines. Which I love the movie is framed literally uh by intestines. So the same intestines with a different looking blood, because we wanted it to look more real, more like um I think we called it like our saw blood or hostile blood, um, and that like sepia greenish tone. That starts the movie, and then those same guts are used at the end of the movie in the Demon Scar music video, where that blood Lizzie and Steve, her dad made, which was I was I wanted it 70s uh paint red blood. I wanted it just that like thick, bright red because I knew that's the era we were kind of like going for, like that late 70s, early 80s.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:00

Oh, that's exactly what, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

And so like having those guts be showcased in two different ways where I know the differences between the two is they lathered them up with uh like baby oil, like Vaseline, and then dipped them in the brown, uh darker blood for the opening scene. So when they came out, there was just this goo and this ooze and the separation of layer of blood and just like whatever that is to make it look more real. And then at the end, we took that all up to Pennsylvania. And I was like, what do I have to do? Like with the guts, they're just like, oh, dunk them in the bucket of blood and then just pull them out. Like that'll give me effect. And we're like, all right.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:45

Love that. Well, do y'all have any advice for well, I know y'all told us earlier that you were having a conversation with a young filmmaker. So do you have any advice for someone who's just starting out as a filmmaker, wants to make films, but doesn't have the budget or the connections or, you know, uh any of that, just wants to get out there and start making movies, but feels like they can't, or um, you know, they just want to go out and do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

You know, we got our start. I when um I forget what I think we were shooting like a DV camera, and this is like many like almost cassette things that my parents have is what we started filming on. And I remember when I graduated high school, my parents gave me $500 and I went and bought like a $450, like the next, you know, level up like you know, digital video camera. And this is like, yeah, just like being able to like film, and we ran around, you know, all of our county filming stuff with that thing for years. Um and and that looks, I mean, that's you know, that's 480 resolution or whatever, you know, all the all the junk from way back in the day. Um, so just the technology that is in a phone is like the video quality and iPhone. Like, I s like uh I was just on vacation. I was like, oh man, remember the takes I was at the Grand Canyon. I'm like, take a couple videos because like I just it's never in my head. And I was like, I took some videos of it. Um I was like, this is just looks so awesome. Like the quality that you can get out of the way. Man, I wish I was there.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Look at this.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

All right, yeah. Um uh it's so I think the the equipment barrier is is erased, especially compared to like back in the day when you had to shoot on film. Um it's real easy to get great audio now. They got like tons of those like a little audio. Oh, you almost see like every YouTuber with like a little clip-on thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Well fucking the next movie sounds like shit. It's like it's easy to get great audio. Oh, I mean, um future dick would like to make an uh an addendum on that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

So that's I would just like go out and make it, even if it's like it's yourself, this thing is like something like it's uh I'll say I'll stupid, right? So it's like I'm gonna set up and I'm gonna walk into the kitchen and like I'm gonna go slice an orange and then it rolls off the table. And I I don't know, just like make something, get it in an editor, you know, like I mean, like Da Vinci Resolve.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:13

The Duplos brothers, the thing of like the the short uh This is John, I think, where they were just like, we gotta film something. It's like, well, our camera at that time had a dead pixels, a DV cam. And they're like, Well, uh uh Mark Duplas said to Jay, he's like, Well, I'm gonna go get the camera, I'm gonna go get the tape, which is like seven bucks at uh 7E1. And he's like, When I come back, you have the story, and we're gonna film. I'll be the actor. And so they did it, and they came back home. And Jay didn't write this great story on the spot. He didn't write anything. He was just like, I don't know. I tried recording an outgoing message on the answering machine the other day, and I think I had a nervous breakdown while it was happening. And Mark Duplos is like, hoo, Cameron! And like that's their first short that then gets into Sundance. Because as Nick is saying, you don't need a fucking orange, like, did you have an orange? I don't know. Would you just do? Like, what is the most interesting or most mundane interesting thing about what you are doing? And then, or who is next to you that you're like, hey, can I film you? Like, or just like whatever. Like, just be introspective and then use your outtrospective to show the rest of the world what you find interesting. But yeah, equipment. Yeah. Or splice, displice app on your phone. I mean, there's probably better the things I'm using now are probably antiquated to what somebody could be using. Um uh to talk about like uh smartphone uh shooting. What was um what was that one app that I know I shot racist on and like shot some things? Filmic Pro. Yeah, Filmic Pro. If I was gonna To use smartphone filming, I would use uh Moondog Labs have different lenses that you can put, uh different rigs and different things that you can use. I'm no longer paid by them or given free things. No longer on their payroll. No, so I mean I've tried to do it. I think it comes at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

Like it doesn't matter. Like if uh you would throw it up on YouTube. Uh better advice. If you if you you know you got a couple minutes short that you that you like and enjoy, you're probably gonna be able to find a closed film festival. And before you throw it up online, see if there'd be interest in bundling it and like their little, you know, a film, a short film festival, a little like bundle where you can go and see your film on the big screen Friday night with a whole bunch of other filmmakers in your position. Um, and then you can kind of network with all them and and you know, maybe it's just one, two of those people that, and then you kind of join together.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

Are you a real go-getter? Find your local uh theater that you're going to see movies that you've been inspired to do these for. Find out how much it costs to rent a theater for a night and host your own film festival where you make your own and you put it in the festival, and then you charge people to submit, and then you pay for the night, but then you make it free for everybody to come see. So then you have a sold-out show. Ostensibly, the theater's happy because they're selling popcorn and shit, and you're getting to be the person who curated this night of art that cost nobody really anything, like at the end of the day, because you're all the people who are putting it on, put the money forward, right? Because if you're curating it, even if you don't spend your own dime, you're spending your your time.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:42

And no one ever did it because it's the worst idea ever. Who's coming out of a door?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:46

Right there, one right behind you.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:49

No, that's the worst door. That's where the alligator is.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:54

We just watched a horrible movie the other day about alligators.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

She said horrible.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:59

She said horrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

Horrible.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:01

It was horrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

What was the name?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:04

It was Crawl. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:06

Oh, Sam Raimi produced.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:09

Yeah, yeah. What didn't you like about it?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:16

What didn't I like about it? Yeah, everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:19

Like, like, does I mean, but do like so, like my wife, I didn't know this, being from Florida, hates alligators, hates crocodiles. Yeah. This is a newfound so we're gonna be married 10 years together. So is that like, did it skeeve you out, or did you find it like Roger Corman Piranha like cheesy?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:37

Or no, just like why did the alligator have to be the bad guy?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:42

You felt bad for the alligator?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:44

Yeah.

unknown 1:08:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

Wait, so what do you think about Jaws? Like, what do you think about Bruce and Jaws? Like, do you feel bad for him? It's like you're just pretty sharp.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:54

Why are we messing with their home?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:56

I love it. I love that. Is totally um, oh my god, what was that Natalie Portman science fiction horror movie? That was pretty trippy from a few years ago. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's a little bit about like if we fuck with environment and environment evolves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:15

Yeah. Thank you so much, both very much, Nick and Ricky, for coming out of the video. Wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

What was your guys' favorite part of Sweet Meets? Uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:26

That was my favorite. That my favorite part was them getting gutted at the beginning. That that set the tone for the movie. Um, I thought I thought it was done really well, and I got excited for the whole thing. And I enjoyed the musical bits, and I'm not a musical fan, but I like the way that it was done in like like you're watching a country music video, like everyone's watching music.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:51

I love that we grossed you out back to back with two different ways of one with like grotesque intestine horror and then poop. I like I love that we got you like back to back. It's just like that's exactly the the the one-two that I like wanted of just like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:11

I said that too, and it kept making me laugh because I said it was a one-two punch number two, and I kept laughing like if I'm a fucking little kid, number two.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

Hey, I love it. What is your favorite moment, tell you?

SPEAKER_06 1:10:26

I already said it was when the guts came pouring out.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

Oh, okay. Anytime guts.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:31

I mean, that's because I love practical effects. And probably when the tongues guts uh were getting cut off, just because I like the whole idea of that being like probably cast in that part.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

Yes. Yes. Uh those everybody was a trooper. Even my mother-in-law, who played surly surely, um had just sit there with the blood. Yeah, that's my mother-in-law.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:54

And uh that's cool as shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:55

The the pregnant woman at the beginning of the movie was or is my wife, um, who uh was pregnant with our twins at that time. So um Allie, who was in All Your Friends of Even as an actress, um, her mom, on the other hand, who's been theater adjacent, like has directed and like like Christian like school theater shows, like directed a couple of like kids' shows, never acted. I wrote this part and I was just like, would you would you want to try playing this? Like, would you want to try doing this? And she's just like, Yeah, what about me? Do you think is why you thought me a surly Shirley? I was like, I don't know. I was like, I think you can turn it on. I was like, I think you could like really like because she's not that kind of person. And well, you contractually are obligated to say that after a character's called Shirley Surly Shirley. Um, I was like, yeah, I just think you could do it. It was like uh Patrick Johnston, it was in our first movie, All Your Friends Are Dead. Apparently, our movie, he has gone since to play uh other uh uh villainous roles, but he ours was the first. He was just like, What made you think that I could play an asshole? I was like, I don't know, there's something about you.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:19

Thank you for being on the podcast. Uh really appreciate it very much. How can people find you online? Uh if you wish to be found online, how can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

Got to go to the uh follow us on social media, the nkyfilms. Uh, I know we're really active on Instagram. That's like our platform of choice, uh, our website. Um, I do a bad job of keeping it up to date a lot of the time, but we do have a lot of good information and we have links to our YouTube channel and links to our Facebook and Instagram on there, the nky.com. So if you go there, you can find the links, everything. But um, social media, yeah, we're always posting things on there and then tagging with the collaborations from other people who are helping us get this next film off the ground. So it's a good spot to come on.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:07

If you want to see any pre-production or behind the scenes, that's just gonna keep on ramping up as we get closer. Um, not this weekend, but next weekend, we actually have our uh we've had a couple uh site scouting locations that I've made a few posts about, but like now uh we're gonna be doing our first fight choreography in one of the filming locations at the barn. So for our next movie, uh the third act is what if Nick Castle's Mike Myers basically had a fight with Rob Zombie's Tyler Main, Mike Myers, like Rocky V Drago, like head to head in the barn, um, in the slasher movie. And so our fight choreographer, Sean Stewart, who is Lord Crew, the wrestler, um, and Andrew Thorpe, who's playing Run, who is who just won champion for a middleweight uh belt or something crazy. Andrew's coming down from Chicago, and so for two days we are blocking and rehearsing the fight choreography. One to our benefit of like Gage and Nick get to get to have a camera and get to see what it looks like and figure out like what shots we need to do for day of. But also for like anybody who's following us, like that's a great time to like start finding out about the movie because I'm gonna be posting photos and some videos of just being like, here's how whatever you're seeing here, when you see the final movie, you get to see how the sausage is made. Like, cause maybe DVD special features aren't a thing anymore. It's following the social media account, like leading up to the movie, where you get those kind of like special features behind the scene things or nuggets that we grew up loving.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:54

Okay, all right. Well, Alma, where can people find us on the interwebs if they wish to find us?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:00

You can visit us on our website, thegory detailspodcast.com, on Instagram, thegory podcast, on blue sky, thegory details, and buy me a coffee.com slash thehoory detory details or the hoary details.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

The hoary details buy that domain now if it isn't already purchased.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:24

All right, everybody. Thank you for listening until next week. Bye. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:30

Thank you.