1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 [MUSIC PLAYING] 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:06,840 Here we go, folks... 3 00:00:06,840 --> 00:00:08,640 It's show time. 4 00:00:08,640 --> 00:00:10,920 People pay good money to see this movie. 5 00:00:10,920 --> 00:00:12,560 When they go out to a theater, they 6 00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:16,080 want cold sewage, a hot pop plorn, and no monsters 7 00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:17,400 in the projection booth. 8 00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:20,240 Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. 9 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:21,040 Turn it off! 10 00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:24,040 [MUSIC PLAYING] 11 00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:27,040 [MUSIC PLAYING] 12 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:43,160 What did I told you that the man who was coming to this 13 00:00:43,160 --> 00:00:46,280 here's festival will put us back on the literary map? 14 00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:49,040 [MUSIC PLAYING] 15 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:51,920 The man that vanished after the publication 16 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:53,440 of his masterpiece. 17 00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:54,680 I know who you are. 18 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:56,360 You do the misdee. 19 00:00:56,360 --> 00:00:57,360 Shriver. 20 00:00:57,360 --> 00:00:58,360 Shriver. 21 00:00:58,360 --> 00:00:59,160 Shriver? 22 00:00:59,160 --> 00:00:59,680 Shriver. 23 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:01,720 I thought he was dead. 24 00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:03,080 Shriver. 25 00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:04,560 I'm bringing a crowd. 26 00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:07,360 Because this is the last chance for this festival. 27 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:08,800 You may think I'm someone else. 28 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:09,680 I'm not a writer. 29 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:11,320 Everyone's a writer these days. 30 00:01:11,320 --> 00:01:12,240 Everybody is the best. 31 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:13,560 The last time you were in a Starbucks. 32 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,720 My pleasure to attend your most esteemed and prestigious festival, 33 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:19,560 which is totally my thing. 34 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:21,240 Also is the prize a car. 35 00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:22,240 OK? 36 00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:24,240 Well. 37 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:25,240 [MUSIC PLAYING] 38 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:27,280 Are you the festival query? 39 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:28,680 So you ready for this? 40 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:29,440 Oh. 41 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:31,080 Here you are. 42 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:31,800 Here I am. 43 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:36,520 Unless the real tribe is still an hiding. 44 00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:38,120 Something about you just doesn't smell right. 45 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:39,120 I need a drink. 46 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:40,120 [LAUGHTER] 47 00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:41,120 [MUSIC PLAYING] 48 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:42,120 [MUSIC PLAYING] 49 00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:44,120 [MUSIC PLAYING] 50 00:01:44,120 --> 00:01:47,280 I need you to behave for three days. 51 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:49,280 Can you do that? 52 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:50,280 And there's no car. 53 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:52,520 [MUSIC PLAYING] 54 00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:53,560 Man needs a whiskey. 55 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:58,040 I need you to be the man who wrote one brilliant song. 56 00:01:58,040 --> 00:01:59,160 I'm on to you. 57 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:01,440 I'm not driver. 58 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:03,240 You really have to go to this party. 59 00:02:03,240 --> 00:02:05,400 She became a benefactor for the festival. 60 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:06,840 This is your driver. 61 00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:08,240 Come and see my library. 62 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:11,600 This does not appear to be a library. 63 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:12,840 Talk to me about literature. 64 00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:13,840 Oh. 65 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:14,920 Hey, you! 66 00:02:14,920 --> 00:02:15,920 No. 67 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:17,840 This is ridiculous. 68 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:19,120 Who is this guy? 69 00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:20,000 I'm driver. 70 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:21,040 Do you imposter? 71 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:22,600 You, my friend, are the imposter. 72 00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:23,720 This shit is wild. 73 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:25,160 I am so thankful. 74 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:27,520 Can you honestly tell me that you haven't been lying to me? 75 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:29,120 That's a complicated question. 76 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:31,600 Would the real driver be support? 77 00:02:31,600 --> 00:02:34,600 We please put an end to this buffoonary. 78 00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:35,800 This is our birthday. 79 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:38,680 [music] 80 00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:43,280 - I think this is one of the great literary hoaches of all time. 81 00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:45,000 - Are you talking about me or him? 82 00:02:45,000 --> 00:03:00,400 [music] 83 00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:02,040 - Hey folks, welcome to a special episode 84 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:03,040 of the projection booth. 85 00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:05,660 On this episode I'm talking with Michael Marron. 86 00:03:05,660 --> 00:03:09,020 He is the director of a little white lie. 87 00:03:09,020 --> 00:03:13,420 It's a brand new comedy that is kind of making the rounds out there. 88 00:03:13,420 --> 00:03:16,380 Check it out and I hope you enjoy the interview. 89 00:03:16,380 --> 00:03:21,260 I am so curious about your career because you've done a little bit of everything. 90 00:03:21,260 --> 00:03:25,900 Can you tell me a little bit about you and especially even before the screenwriting career 91 00:03:25,900 --> 00:03:30,460 because you, like I said, you've done so much, especially with the reporting. 92 00:03:30,460 --> 00:03:35,700 It's not like I did these massive, tonic upheavals in my career. 93 00:03:35,700 --> 00:03:39,860 It's one thing led to another and very naturally I found myself. 94 00:03:39,860 --> 00:03:44,540 And in a weird way, if I want to tell this is a story, 95 00:03:44,540 --> 00:03:46,420 it all starts with film. 96 00:03:46,420 --> 00:03:51,140 I'm old enough to remember when you just couldn't watch a film any time you wanted to. 97 00:03:51,140 --> 00:03:55,940 And you had a wait for something to show up on TV or end up at a local, 98 00:03:55,940 --> 00:03:57,940 or at how status or something like that. 99 00:03:57,940 --> 00:04:03,020 Well, one of my earliest memories is watching Black and White movies on our shitty TV with my dad. 100 00:04:03,020 --> 00:04:07,380 And he liked a lot of these, as the results sort in sandal films, 101 00:04:07,380 --> 00:04:11,380 that's used to call him, I don't Jason and the Argonauts and stuff like that. 102 00:04:11,380 --> 00:04:13,220 But also he loved both Jest. 103 00:04:13,220 --> 00:04:18,540 The African Queen and Zulu and actually both versions of both Jest. 104 00:04:18,540 --> 00:04:20,260 There's the original one. 105 00:04:20,260 --> 00:04:21,700 I'm going to say it was a clip, people. 106 00:04:21,700 --> 00:04:22,540 It's a clip, okay. 107 00:04:22,540 --> 00:04:26,100 With any, it was already original on it and they made remade with Kelly Savallis, 108 00:04:26,100 --> 00:04:32,580 years later, I got into the whole world of Africa and not Tarsanne crap like that. 109 00:04:32,580 --> 00:04:35,660 For against foreign Legion, always seeing a really cool to me. 110 00:04:35,660 --> 00:04:38,780 When I graduated from college, I didn't worry about getting a job. 111 00:04:38,780 --> 00:04:41,780 I just went with a piece of the score and I went to Africa. 112 00:04:41,780 --> 00:04:46,380 And I spent two years there teaching in a world of secondary school in Kenya. 113 00:04:46,380 --> 00:04:50,220 And I wanted to stay because I really loved being there. 114 00:04:50,220 --> 00:04:53,660 And I worked with a really organization for a while, 115 00:04:53,660 --> 00:04:58,540 driving all over East Africa doing stuff at Sudan and Ethiopia and Kenya. 116 00:04:58,540 --> 00:05:03,740 And then I still want to stay and I got hired by the US government to go to Somalia. 117 00:05:03,740 --> 00:05:07,100 And where I spent another year in 1981. 118 00:05:07,100 --> 00:05:12,700 And that's when I started getting very political about was going on because I really disagreed 119 00:05:12,700 --> 00:05:14,260 with American policy. 120 00:05:14,260 --> 00:05:17,100 And I wrote a report to the US government at the time just saying, 121 00:05:17,100 --> 00:05:19,700 "In essence, we're really fucking this country up." 122 00:05:19,700 --> 00:05:22,060 And we need to stop it. 123 00:05:22,060 --> 00:05:24,460 And that's exactly what I mean to journalism. 124 00:05:24,460 --> 00:05:26,860 And that's started my writing career. 125 00:05:26,860 --> 00:05:28,460 And I always wanted to write anyway. 126 00:05:28,460 --> 00:05:33,260 So I started writing op-eds and I started reporting and I ended up back in a half-per-gup 127 00:05:33,260 --> 00:05:35,260 as a journalist for a long time. 128 00:05:35,260 --> 00:05:37,740 There's only so many years you could do that. 129 00:05:37,740 --> 00:05:41,340 I remember being 35 years old and Somalia during the war. 130 00:05:41,340 --> 00:05:44,140 And now I'm back to Somalia when the civil war started. 131 00:05:44,140 --> 00:05:47,340 And being one of the older people in the press corps there. 132 00:05:47,340 --> 00:05:51,740 But I stayed and I wrote a book about it called The Road to Hell, 133 00:05:51,740 --> 00:05:54,620 which was about American policy, the Cold War. 134 00:05:54,620 --> 00:05:58,620 That book got optioned by HBO. 135 00:05:58,620 --> 00:06:00,940 I wanted to write the screenplay on HBO originally. 136 00:06:00,940 --> 00:06:04,780 It was like, not because I was thinking, "Yeah, I can let me try this other thing." 137 00:06:04,780 --> 00:06:07,580 And HBO wasn't so cool about that. 138 00:06:07,580 --> 00:06:09,100 They had that the option expire. 139 00:06:09,100 --> 00:06:10,940 Somebody else optioned that. 140 00:06:10,940 --> 00:06:16,940 And then, but another year later when I had given up entirely on writing screenplays, 141 00:06:16,940 --> 00:06:20,700 James changed it these places all the time and they have not been institutional memory. 142 00:06:20,700 --> 00:06:24,700 Guy and Steven Tolkien, whose students were a non-writer and director, 143 00:06:24,700 --> 00:06:27,500 and he wanted to do about African all that. 144 00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:31,420 And I said, "Funny thing, I have a story that I wrote, it's fictional, 145 00:06:31,420 --> 00:06:33,420 but I think it'll make a great screenplay." 146 00:06:33,420 --> 00:06:34,860 And Steven read it and he agreed. 147 00:06:34,860 --> 00:06:36,940 Anyway, back to HBO when they were, they were, 148 00:06:36,940 --> 00:06:38,860 I've been offered me a bunch of money to buy this story. 149 00:06:38,860 --> 00:06:40,620 I said, "I don't want a bunch of money. 150 00:06:40,620 --> 00:06:41,900 I want to write the screenplay." 151 00:06:41,900 --> 00:06:43,500 I want to make that show. 152 00:06:43,500 --> 00:06:46,140 And they offered me more money to go away. 153 00:06:46,140 --> 00:06:47,980 Steven stood up for me and said, "You know what? 154 00:06:47,980 --> 00:06:49,980 I think it's not the correct screenplay." 155 00:06:49,980 --> 00:06:55,100 So we, Steve, we together, we wrote the script. 156 00:06:55,100 --> 00:07:00,060 This one is 90, I'm going to say 99 or late 98. 157 00:07:00,060 --> 00:07:03,260 And that's back when a writer's quote meant something. 158 00:07:03,260 --> 00:07:05,420 He used to get quote year, quote plus 10. 159 00:07:05,420 --> 00:07:06,540 So I got in it. 160 00:07:06,540 --> 00:07:09,100 Steven's quote and he'd been doing it for a long time. 161 00:07:09,100 --> 00:07:10,780 And that was pretty cool. 162 00:07:10,780 --> 00:07:12,540 The movie never got made. 163 00:07:12,540 --> 00:07:14,860 There's been another regime change at HBO. 164 00:07:14,860 --> 00:07:17,660 And they watched everything that at the ancient regime 165 00:07:17,660 --> 00:07:19,100 had come up with down the toilet. 166 00:07:19,100 --> 00:07:21,660 Plus that I think they found this story, 167 00:07:21,660 --> 00:07:23,900 not uplifting, which is my style. 168 00:07:23,900 --> 00:07:28,140 But I went on from there and I got hired to write any number of screenplays. 169 00:07:28,140 --> 00:07:33,100 I got some on spec and I had actually very early on. 170 00:07:33,100 --> 00:07:35,900 I had adapted and my wife has an novelist. 171 00:07:35,900 --> 00:07:37,740 She had actually written a memoir that 172 00:07:37,740 --> 00:07:39,820 reads her whether she was reading it before she was reading it. 173 00:07:39,820 --> 00:07:41,660 Where there's been one I had to produce. 174 00:07:41,660 --> 00:07:46,140 And I went together to Phoenix Pictures, 175 00:07:46,140 --> 00:07:47,500 like Metabois Company. 176 00:07:47,500 --> 00:07:49,420 And I thought the producer was with me. 177 00:07:49,420 --> 00:07:50,060 He was going to pitch it. 178 00:07:50,060 --> 00:07:52,060 So I was reading on this little couch. 179 00:07:52,060 --> 00:07:53,980 You know, everyone has their little chit chat. 180 00:07:53,980 --> 00:07:56,940 And then the producer says, "My Michael's going to talk about the film now." 181 00:07:56,940 --> 00:07:58,860 And I was like, "I just stepped in it. 182 00:07:58,860 --> 00:08:00,940 It was just, it was disgusting. 183 00:08:00,940 --> 00:08:03,340 It was like stumble through this thing." 184 00:08:03,340 --> 00:08:06,380 So standing down in the lobby with a reason. 185 00:08:06,380 --> 00:08:07,420 I'm really apologetic. 186 00:08:07,420 --> 00:08:09,180 And we're going to have to pull this together. 187 00:08:09,180 --> 00:08:11,020 We're going to pitch it somewhere else. 188 00:08:11,020 --> 00:08:13,660 And Mike Metabois comes down the elevator. 189 00:08:13,660 --> 00:08:16,300 He's building across from the from Sony. 190 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:17,820 And he's got his tennis whites on. 191 00:08:17,820 --> 00:08:19,180 He's off to play tennis. 192 00:08:19,180 --> 00:08:21,660 And he was flirty with Reese, so he slowed down. 193 00:08:21,660 --> 00:08:25,660 And I standing in the lobby with the pressure, I just pitched it again. 194 00:08:25,660 --> 00:08:28,780 And then he looked at me and said, "All right, I'll call your agent." 195 00:08:28,780 --> 00:08:29,660 And they bought it. 196 00:08:29,660 --> 00:08:30,700 And they were made. 197 00:08:30,700 --> 00:08:31,820 Which is what happens. 198 00:08:31,820 --> 00:08:35,100 But they came to me with another project that they wanted me to write. 199 00:08:35,100 --> 00:08:39,820 And it was an adaptation of another memoir that was by writer 200 00:08:39,820 --> 00:08:40,940 named John Hawkenberry. 201 00:08:40,940 --> 00:08:44,140 There was a part being a paraplegic in Warzones. 202 00:08:44,140 --> 00:08:48,060 And then they thought, "Because of the Warzone connection, I would get it." 203 00:08:48,060 --> 00:08:49,980 But they never pulled the trigger on that. 204 00:08:49,980 --> 00:08:53,580 And when their option expired, I reoptioned that book myself. 205 00:08:53,580 --> 00:08:55,020 And I called them moving violations. 206 00:08:55,020 --> 00:08:56,940 "We're at the screenplay on spec." 207 00:08:56,940 --> 00:09:00,780 And all, I've sold a screenplay twice. 208 00:09:00,780 --> 00:09:05,260 I've never got made for books, books, books, for of reasons. 209 00:09:05,260 --> 00:09:06,700 But it got me into a lot of rooms. 210 00:09:06,700 --> 00:09:09,020 And I sold a bunch of scripts to other people. 211 00:09:09,020 --> 00:09:13,660 But yeah, it got the money was good, but you get tired of doing that. 212 00:09:13,660 --> 00:09:15,340 And it was a producer I was with, 213 00:09:15,340 --> 00:09:18,700 what I'd been working with on producing a peer-numan, 214 00:09:18,700 --> 00:09:21,100 who owned the right to the Janistoplin story. 215 00:09:21,100 --> 00:09:24,860 I was working on the Janistoplin pick with Peter. 216 00:09:24,860 --> 00:09:27,100 We had meals, four men attached to direct. 217 00:09:27,100 --> 00:09:29,660 And so he auditioned, "Oh, it was got an employee." 218 00:09:29,660 --> 00:09:30,780 Janists. 219 00:09:30,780 --> 00:09:32,780 That got ball-except for reasons. 220 00:09:32,780 --> 00:09:36,300 I'm the way to complicated to get into here. 221 00:09:36,300 --> 00:09:40,140 But I've got Peter another script later than I wanted to make. 222 00:09:40,140 --> 00:09:41,900 And we're talking about finding a director. 223 00:09:41,900 --> 00:09:44,060 And he finally said to me, "Why don't you direct it?" 224 00:09:44,060 --> 00:09:45,820 As or how to direct a movie. 225 00:09:45,820 --> 00:09:46,540 So you wrote it. 226 00:09:46,540 --> 00:09:47,580 Do you know what it looks like? 227 00:09:47,580 --> 00:09:49,020 You know what's going to happen. 228 00:09:49,020 --> 00:09:50,780 It wasn't that that I ended up directing. 229 00:09:50,780 --> 00:09:53,420 But I ended up thinking, "Yeah, I'm getting older. 230 00:09:53,420 --> 00:09:54,460 I don't want to do that. 231 00:09:54,460 --> 00:09:56,620 I don't want to just keep writing screenplay for money. 232 00:09:56,620 --> 00:09:57,980 It's really unsatisfying." 233 00:09:57,980 --> 00:10:02,860 And so I wrote a script called "The Short History of Decay." 234 00:10:02,860 --> 00:10:09,100 But about a young writer dealing with his own failing as a writer and as a human being and dealing with 235 00:10:09,100 --> 00:10:11,180 his mother's cancer and his father's stroke. 236 00:10:11,180 --> 00:10:14,060 And then there's some autobiographical elements in there. 237 00:10:14,060 --> 00:10:17,500 But I put a script that I thought I could make for very little money. 238 00:10:17,500 --> 00:10:22,220 And I just got the script out and Linda Lavon got attached to her as you and Brian Greenberg. 239 00:10:22,220 --> 00:10:27,580 And Benjamin King who also plays the journalist in a little white lie. 240 00:10:27,580 --> 00:10:30,620 And shot the film for about $400,000. 241 00:10:30,620 --> 00:10:33,820 And it got a lot of love, which was nice that didn't make any money. 242 00:10:33,820 --> 00:10:37,580 Made it easier for me to then move on. 243 00:10:37,580 --> 00:10:42,860 I know it was soon after, right after I had wrapped a short history of Decay, 244 00:10:42,860 --> 00:10:45,900 walked into a bookstore in Lennox, Massachusetts. 245 00:10:45,900 --> 00:10:47,580 And I heard Chris Bellden reading, 246 00:10:47,580 --> 00:10:51,180 I'm kind of a writer in Chris Bellden reading from his book called "Sriver," 247 00:10:51,180 --> 00:10:54,140 which became a little white lie in the movie. 248 00:10:54,140 --> 00:10:56,140 And it took years to get that going. 249 00:10:56,140 --> 00:10:58,700 Yeah, well, with some of the challenges, why did it take so long? 250 00:10:58,700 --> 00:11:01,660 Of course, there was a global pandemic somewhere in there. 251 00:11:01,660 --> 00:11:04,940 It was more of that. First of all, I was a really slow writer. 252 00:11:04,940 --> 00:11:07,260 Many frustrated people will tell you that. 253 00:11:07,260 --> 00:11:09,340 I just take my time. I'm easily distracted. 254 00:11:09,340 --> 00:11:14,060 I'd go off on other tangents and start five or six screened ways of the same time, 255 00:11:14,060 --> 00:11:15,500 put them aside and tell them to get back to them. 256 00:11:15,500 --> 00:11:18,620 But also, I know from being in the business. 257 00:11:18,620 --> 00:11:23,740 I had a kid in private school and then had life and all this stuff going on and more 258 00:11:23,740 --> 00:11:29,420 did you run up stuff. And you can't just be focusing on one project. 259 00:11:29,420 --> 00:11:34,940 I've got to have a five or six things in various stages at any time because if I hadn't learned 260 00:11:34,940 --> 00:11:37,180 the lesson by then, I would have been idiot. 261 00:11:37,180 --> 00:11:42,380 That most things even when everything looks like all the tangents are falling into place, 262 00:11:42,380 --> 00:11:45,100 that door still ain't gonna hold and for you. 263 00:11:45,100 --> 00:11:50,140 So it took me a while to get that out. But when I did get a version of the script out in 2015 or so, 264 00:11:50,140 --> 00:11:55,580 it got a lot of love and suddenly I was getting calls and actors and actors and then there's something 265 00:11:55,580 --> 00:11:59,820 that happened and this was a harder and less and there were producers out there, 266 00:11:59,820 --> 00:12:02,380 aren't people who call themselves producers. 267 00:12:02,380 --> 00:12:05,340 We would tell you they want to make your movie, they have the money, they want to invest 268 00:12:05,340 --> 00:12:10,220 in your movie and they will option, they'll give you a good option money on a script. 269 00:12:10,220 --> 00:12:13,580 But it turns out they don't have the money. All they want to do is control the script 270 00:12:13,580 --> 00:12:16,540 for a year so they can go out and find the money. 271 00:12:16,540 --> 00:12:21,420 That's a lesson to any screenwriter who gets your script, you'll get it's an option on a script. 272 00:12:21,420 --> 00:12:26,060 There's a lot of people doing that, which is simply not a control your script so that they can 273 00:12:26,060 --> 00:12:31,260 then try to produce it. And so if they can't produce it after you sign a way of year on something 274 00:12:31,260 --> 00:12:36,780 like that, if they can't find financing, suddenly it's your fault because of something wrong with your 275 00:12:36,780 --> 00:12:42,380 script. It's in my response to that is that line YGB 5000 dollars for it. 276 00:12:42,380 --> 00:12:46,940 So I learned that the hard way, a loss to year, loss to year doing that. 277 00:12:46,940 --> 00:12:49,580 We went through some other things with some other producers on it. 278 00:12:49,580 --> 00:12:53,980 We were moving ahead at one point and the script got pre-soldered can as a film. 279 00:12:53,980 --> 00:12:58,060 And so they was financing with the last pieces that I didn't come through. 280 00:12:58,060 --> 00:13:01,500 And then finally somebody came up saying they want to produce the film. 281 00:13:01,500 --> 00:13:05,260 We had one of the people connected to that producer, not that producer, 282 00:13:05,260 --> 00:13:11,100 brought Michael Shannon aboard. And I went into pre-production on it in 2018. 283 00:13:11,100 --> 00:13:15,260 And so then I George Huber, we were going to shoot it at a budget that had been given to me 284 00:13:15,260 --> 00:13:22,540 with my DP and with a line producer with the budget that we were told. We had some time after spending 285 00:13:22,540 --> 00:13:26,540 a million months doing pre-production and setting it up. The producer would promise to money. 286 00:13:26,540 --> 00:13:32,380 So with that's too much money for this film, you have to do it for you can't do it for X. You got to do it for Z. 287 00:13:32,380 --> 00:13:36,060 It was the end of the year I refused to renew the option on my script or the end, 288 00:13:36,060 --> 00:13:39,820 asked Chris to hold back to unrenewing the option on the underlying material. 289 00:13:39,820 --> 00:13:46,460 The funny little irony about that for me is that had we gone ahead and made that movie. 290 00:13:46,460 --> 00:13:51,260 I probably would have died because unbeknownst to me at the time I had cancer. 291 00:13:51,260 --> 00:13:58,700 I started, come around January in the beginning of the year, I started feeling things that I know 292 00:13:58,700 --> 00:14:04,140 if I had been in the middle of continued pre-production and then production, I started post-production 293 00:14:04,140 --> 00:14:09,260 on a film. I absolutely would have ignored because it can convince yourself of anything. 294 00:14:09,260 --> 00:14:16,860 And so I great cast the cast to it and some really good coming a con, funny people. 295 00:14:16,860 --> 00:14:23,820 And when all in the happen, obviously I had several surgeries as well as really harsh chemo, 296 00:14:23,820 --> 00:14:27,980 learned that I looked pretty good bald if I had to lose all my hair. So I was good. 297 00:14:27,980 --> 00:14:31,820 But it took me an entire year to get through that. And we lost the rest of the whole cast except for 298 00:14:31,820 --> 00:14:36,380 Michael Shannon. Michael stuck with the project. I think he very much left her answer that 299 00:14:36,380 --> 00:14:40,940 himself. But if he went to an SNS but I think he very much related to the character's driver. 300 00:14:40,940 --> 00:14:45,580 He seemed very at them playing it. I didn't have to give him a lot of directing in terms of playing 301 00:14:45,580 --> 00:14:52,300 my character. So with Michael, the base at the beginning of 2020, we will rebuild the cast. 302 00:14:52,300 --> 00:14:56,700 Kate has enjoyed and then things started to click in because we've Kate there are the 303 00:14:56,700 --> 00:15:01,980 finance people we're ready to pay. We got the money we needed and then on Johnson's Act 304 00:15:01,980 --> 00:15:09,100 Ralph and Emma Walls and everybody else to find somebody around all of his wonderful on it. So Jimmy Simpson 305 00:15:09,100 --> 00:15:13,660 Thres, everybody just showed up. And in fact, I was turning people away. We had like that. Yeah, 306 00:15:13,660 --> 00:15:19,340 we just went and asked people wanting to be in this movie. We started shooting late February of 2020. 307 00:15:19,340 --> 00:15:25,580 It was an article in the Atlantic Monthly called "Cancel Everything" that came out early in March. 308 00:15:25,580 --> 00:15:31,340 And I remember it was between setups on set and I walked out the, I mean we were shooting in this 309 00:15:31,340 --> 00:15:37,660 office suite and I walked out the hallway and Kate hustled his standing in the hallway staring at her phone 310 00:15:37,660 --> 00:15:42,380 and she said, "Come over here." And I said, "Yeah, she said, did you read the article?" 311 00:15:42,380 --> 00:15:46,460 "Call cancel everything." And times are, "Yeah, I read it." But I think we're okay. It's 312 00:15:46,460 --> 00:15:53,740 gonna be fine. There are the barbura in rapid succession at same afternoon. It's like suddenly 313 00:15:53,740 --> 00:16:00,140 Tom Hanks and else he has COVID and the NBA castles are season. This is all one wonderful day. 314 00:16:00,140 --> 00:16:05,420 So we shut down a couple of the guys on set really were like, "Dah, come on. We're gonna power it through." 315 00:16:05,420 --> 00:16:08,780 I honestly I probably would have to because I'm an idiot. No way. Yeah, 316 00:16:08,780 --> 00:16:13,340 he wasn't gonna happen. Screen actors, guilt got involved and everything. Virtually everything. 317 00:16:13,340 --> 00:16:18,220 We were one of the last film standing in LA actually. I think we tried to shoot one more day after that. 318 00:16:18,220 --> 00:16:22,620 But Sean, go what we shot that day actually isn't useful. You could see there was suddenly 319 00:16:22,620 --> 00:16:27,820 everybody were wiping down all the props between, between a retake and all that, which of course 320 00:16:27,820 --> 00:16:33,900 we learned. We didn't have to really do. But nobody knew what was going on. It was 400 days before 321 00:16:33,900 --> 00:16:39,180 we were able to pull the cast back together and before we had everything together to pick up. We stopped 322 00:16:39,180 --> 00:16:45,580 with eight days left of film and we could only get the cast for six. And not only that, it was 323 00:16:45,580 --> 00:16:50,300 assisted directors nightmare. Thankfully not mine. Kate has under the shooting for Apple at the 324 00:16:50,300 --> 00:16:58,380 time she was trying to TV show, truth be told. Apple let her go for six days. And Zach 325 00:16:58,380 --> 00:17:04,140 Braff was doing a movie for Disney. They would not let him go. So we had a shoot sack on a weekend. 326 00:17:04,140 --> 00:17:07,500 We had to take all the sack scenes and their cement for the last weekend. 327 00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:11,900 Divine Joy ran off could not be there. She was off shooting something else. 328 00:17:11,900 --> 00:17:17,340 It was previously committed. Agent Amy King was nine months pregnant. She couldn't travel. 329 00:17:17,340 --> 00:17:22,540 We were shooting outside of Los Angeles. We were shooting in a redlands. And she so we shot a body double. 330 00:17:22,540 --> 00:17:27,580 And then later when she was, I had the baby in there, in a couple of months later. I went back to 331 00:17:27,580 --> 00:17:32,620 LA and we shot her on a green screen and stuck her in the movie. Because she had a couple of really 332 00:17:32,620 --> 00:17:38,380 key moments at the end of the film. She shows up and without that scene, nothing else makes sense. 333 00:17:38,380 --> 00:17:45,580 Losing divine, her character, Delta Jones, meant that couplup of the scenes. I had a rewrite 334 00:17:45,580 --> 00:17:53,100 a couple scenes and also there's one scene that we shot anyway. But she's not there in the scene. 335 00:17:53,100 --> 00:17:57,660 This scene went to my mind. I'm lost all the energy. Because she's such a presence on screen. 336 00:17:57,660 --> 00:18:01,660 But you know what? I think we have a really good film. And I'm really happy with it. People are 337 00:18:01,660 --> 00:18:07,900 really liking it. And it's finally coming out, which is great. Were you able to start some of 338 00:18:07,900 --> 00:18:12,540 the post-production during the shutdown or were you just completely hands off? 339 00:18:12,540 --> 00:18:19,580 But you can do the editing remotely now, asings software. I was sitting at this desk with an editor. 340 00:18:19,580 --> 00:18:24,060 I used two editors on a one of them was upstate New York. The other one was in Los Angeles. 341 00:18:24,060 --> 00:18:29,660 We could work on the same screen, which is totally cool. I knew that in time with both of them. 342 00:18:29,660 --> 00:18:34,060 I'm sure I spent a personal time with the editors. I think that's the personal connections are 343 00:18:34,060 --> 00:18:41,900 really important. But yeah, so that was fine. Yeah, my family was still isolating here. 344 00:18:41,900 --> 00:18:47,660 And can have a good, and everybody was in their own place. And so we got the editor. 345 00:18:47,660 --> 00:18:51,500 It took a lot longer than I think it took a lot longer than if I'd actually 346 00:18:51,500 --> 00:18:55,340 just been sitting in the brilliant entire time. I also liked that at myself. I liked to turn 347 00:18:55,340 --> 00:19:00,220 the knobs and do all it. I went back to LA into the sound and called all of that. It's been a 348 00:19:00,220 --> 00:19:04,220 couple of weeks in LA doing that. And then I took a while to get the film out. I took a while to 349 00:19:04,220 --> 00:19:09,900 deliver things. I think that the COVID delay caused a break. And I don't know. Some of the stuff 350 00:19:09,900 --> 00:19:14,940 that I don't have anything to do with honestly. The one we finally able to see the whole thing together. 351 00:19:14,940 --> 00:19:21,740 Probably last summer, I had it. And then there was a question of a distributor and trying to 352 00:19:21,740 --> 00:19:26,460 sell, trying to sell the film, which again, is not anything I have anything to do with. I don't know 353 00:19:26,460 --> 00:19:30,700 the heck how that goes. I don't know certain decisions were made. I don't know. It was totally 354 00:19:30,700 --> 00:19:34,860 it was hard to sell the film of our writers, some of the people with the computers and the marketing 355 00:19:34,860 --> 00:19:39,420 numbers. And I think it's a film that doesn't need to fit into a category. 356 00:19:39,420 --> 00:19:45,900 It's a comedy. I think there is a wrong calm element to it. But it sure is how about a wrong calm. 357 00:19:45,900 --> 00:19:50,380 Not that there's anything wrong with wrong calm. I can weep with the best of them and watch those 358 00:19:50,380 --> 00:19:53,500 movies. How do there's a guy in 10 days to love that? I watch all the case movies for all of the 359 00:19:53,500 --> 00:19:59,980 case movies for all of the other. And I watch the actors like trying to watch all the stuff before. 360 00:19:59,980 --> 00:20:05,180 All of the actors have works. And you just gotta know what they are. But I don't think this movie 361 00:20:05,180 --> 00:20:10,700 is not a wrong calm. It by any means. There's calm, but there is not a lot of wrong. And although there's 362 00:20:10,700 --> 00:20:16,380 this literary obsession, which is a world I know really well. I know the literary world. I just got 363 00:20:16,380 --> 00:20:21,180 back from the Savannah book Festival of the Yesterday. I was in Savannah, Georgia, book Festival. I was 364 00:20:21,180 --> 00:20:25,980 with my wife and we're walking around and we would just point out things to each of the 365 00:20:25,980 --> 00:20:32,780 better, like string out of the movie. I showed the film last spring. We actually run a writer's 366 00:20:32,780 --> 00:20:39,260 conference in Pozytano Italy every year. All the siren lines. We're bringing 40 writers and 367 00:20:39,260 --> 00:20:47,340 40 writing students mostly, but some of them are they're all writers. And for a list writer, 368 00:20:47,340 --> 00:20:53,580 teachers, I mean bring everybody to what is maybe the nicest of telling a world. And we spend a week 369 00:20:53,580 --> 00:20:59,020 there writing and eating and drinking and talking about literature. And I showed the film to that 370 00:20:59,020 --> 00:21:04,540 group of people and they were laughing all over the place. Because they got a certain set of jokes. There's 371 00:21:04,540 --> 00:21:09,580 stuff there that may go over your head if you don't know writers, a hangover, writers go to. But that's 372 00:21:09,580 --> 00:21:14,540 a pretty good population of people on this country. One of the funny lessons in the film that goes on is 373 00:21:14,540 --> 00:21:20,620 that everybody wants to be a writer. Everybody's got a novel and everybody in the film who 374 00:21:20,620 --> 00:21:26,860 shire runs into and say, "China, press on the manuscript into his hands." And one of the lines I wrote 375 00:21:26,860 --> 00:21:33,180 in there that's really something that my wife is a very well known writer. The eyes every day, the UPS truck 376 00:21:33,180 --> 00:21:38,060 dries up the driveway and people sending manuscripts and all her. And Gala is in things because I want 377 00:21:38,060 --> 00:21:42,940 blurbs on me back. She's just on a moratorium on blurbing. You want you to like to help young writers, 378 00:21:42,940 --> 00:21:48,700 but on the one hand, the other hand, it's keep doing it. But a writer walks up to Shrongred and says, 379 00:21:48,700 --> 00:21:53,580 "Could you just write something?" If I could even just write it myself. And we know that happens 380 00:21:53,580 --> 00:22:00,940 all the time. We love a blur, we know you're really busy. So if you don't mind, here's a few suggestions 381 00:22:00,940 --> 00:22:05,820 for things you could say where to God. I'm not making that. It's art in the business of art. 382 00:22:05,820 --> 00:22:10,620 We're in trend. That's what we've been talking about in terms of the movie today. And you can't separate 383 00:22:10,620 --> 00:22:17,660 them and you make your compromises along the way. I think the of making an independent film is 384 00:22:17,660 --> 00:22:21,900 really getting up every day and deciding what you can compromise on and what you can't. You can't 385 00:22:21,900 --> 00:22:26,860 do everything you want. And it's probably even a sugar big studio of films. If you've got a $50 million 386 00:22:26,860 --> 00:22:31,180 budget, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff you want to do that you can't do. I only got $100 million 387 00:22:31,180 --> 00:22:35,420 of budget and I'm short-gestless. I really like to, I don't know, I don't know. I don't never plan to 388 00:22:35,420 --> 00:22:39,660 direct $100 million or film. God, keep it. This is a good budget range. I like it. 389 00:22:39,660 --> 00:22:44,300 Had you worked with actors before your first feature? No, but I watch a lot of movies. 390 00:22:44,300 --> 00:22:49,920 It's the others that add. No, I've seen directors on TV. Like, day for night at Shrongr 391 00:22:55,120 --> 00:23:00,160 learned a lot from that and it's very accurate about what it's like. My mentor has a director, 392 00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:06,320 you know, all of this, a man who my wife and his wife went out to dinner with every Sunday night 393 00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:13,680 for more than a decade was a man named Milos Forman. I have heard of him. Yeah, he's got an 394 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:20,560 around. And Milos. I actually have a video tape I took of Milos. I'm asking him about what he, 395 00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:25,520 what advice he would give me. We talked a lot about directing and I'd been with him. But Milos 396 00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:29,760 has this phrase. Milo said to me, and I won't try to do his acts. His Czech accent 397 00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:34,400 said, because it sounded so much better in his Czech accent. And then I didn't will. When I say it, 398 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:39,760 said, don't talk to the actors too much. You'll just confuse their heads. 399 00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:44,960 Okay, I tried that. It was more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than Shaq. You know what I'm saying? Milo, 400 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:51,840 Milo is pulling was, it's all on the casting. You've got to cast the right people. And you've got 401 00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:57,040 to trust that they understand that they will understand read. Because they're agreeing to be in your 402 00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,880 movie, agree. Understand the roles and they'll fill bring it. They'll do what they do best. 403 00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:06,400 But we had a table read for it. And I had one table read with the whole cast. And then I had a 404 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:12,320 separate table read a little bit later with just me, Milo and Kate. The three of us, I'm going over stuff 405 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:17,280 about the relationship between those two characters. Then we topped out a lot of stuff. And 406 00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:22,800 but beyond that, I just remember the time I was topped actors about season with what they're going to 407 00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:28,880 do. I topped a dog, Johnson, about fine tuning his character. The character that Don ends up playing in 408 00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:34,400 the film is a little different from the character I had in mind. But I was clear that Don 409 00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:39,760 wanted to do it another way. He read it a different way. And I pushed him a little bit one way. But I 410 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:46,080 he played that. And he played the kind of want to be poet guy of spent teaching English for years 411 00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:51,200 at this college pretty well. And he did it in his own way. And I think I changed it before 412 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:57,280 I saw a little bit in terms of the taste of my take on the character. I had one talk with Milo 413 00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:03,520 about, I think one of my favorite scenes in the film is when Michael's when Shriver, 414 00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:08,320 Michael Shannon, is reading the excerpt from his own book. I wrote a chunk of the book. 415 00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:15,360 Myself to try to understand the key Shriver character. And I took a walk with Mike and before we 416 00:25:15,360 --> 00:25:20,560 sought the scene and I said, as one tell you a story, I'm not going to tell you how to do it. But 417 00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:29,280 this I was reading the article once and had a certain point in reading the article, I had a weird 418 00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:35,840 funny feeling. Something to start to come to me. And I think I think somebody played, I think I wrote 419 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:41,840 it's just a paragraph in the middle of this piece. I remember back through some of my early clips. 420 00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:47,520 And sure enough, someone had changed a lot of the words. It wasn't exactly what I wrote. But I 421 00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:52,720 had gone and played across. And changing the adjectives didn't change that for me. And I think 422 00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:57,920 every writer has their own take on that. You have a signature style. So I said, as he starts to 423 00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:05,520 read, he's going to start to feel familiar with the writing. That's all. That's really real. And I left 424 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:10,160 it at that. And then he was brilliant. I love him and everything that he does. And he just always 425 00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:15,600 gives such a great performance. And I love this where he gets to play slightly comic. But then 426 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:21,360 the scenes of him speaking to himself. Those are gold. Yeah, those were those risky. I thought to do 427 00:26:21,360 --> 00:26:26,880 that. But I think you really worked. I wasn't prepared if it didn't work to cut all those scenes out. 428 00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:31,920 But I thought it. But I ended up thinking it was really important. And I think it really worked. 429 00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:36,960 We shot those with me reading against Mike. And so I was a little nervous about doing that because 430 00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:42,320 I'm no actor. But it did my best. Yeah. And he does comic. And it's very subtly comic. And a lot 431 00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:47,200 of it's in the timing. I think he's good great comic timing. And he's a straight man through a lot of it. 432 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,880 But he's really funny. He's really funny doing that. The young woman of place, the hotel clerk, 433 00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:57,360 it's small role. But I think she's terrific. And there's a couple of exchanges they have. Then I just 434 00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:02,800 think are great. And they're short. And they're to the point. But they play off each other really nicely. 435 00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:08,240 And the other thing you want to say about Michael Shannon. And I've been on enough film sets. He's the 436 00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:14,000 most generous actor I've ever seen on the film set. I've seen actors when it's not their coverage 437 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:18,640 when they're acting. But the cameras on the other, I suppose, you're listening to know this. 438 00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:25,040 Honey, it's never done the other actor. Kind of hold back because they, they save the really 439 00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:33,120 I'm not hammering this horn for when the cameras on them. Michael brought it with every performance. 440 00:27:33,120 --> 00:27:38,480 When the camera would be on on another actor, he would still, he'd still just 441 00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:43,360 laid it all out there and gave the other actors everything they needed to work with. And a lot of 442 00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:49,840 actors do that. But they give 90%. Like Michael gave 100% every time. And Kate Hudson, she just seems so 443 00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:56,320 effortless in the way that she acts. Just it feels like she just walked onto the set and just started. 444 00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:02,960 Yeah. Yeah. Once she did kind of eight to total pro, she was perfect in the role. I've never seen 445 00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:08,080 it, heard do anything quite like this before. There isn't a lot of comedy coming. How to further. 446 00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:15,200 But she's she's so key to everything else that's going on around. And we just really believe. And she's a 447 00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:20,560 writer who's stuck teaching, you can create a writing at this shitty college. You believe every moment 448 00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:26,640 of that that looked with all of her acting. And I would be standing there on set just watching her 449 00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:34,320 going like, wow. And then that kind of final, was just semi final seen with when she, Michael's 450 00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:39,760 are walking away from the gazebo after the whole thing at the cops and everything else goes down. I just 451 00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:44,400 said moment is perfect. But both she and Michael, great. Both she might be, if I was happy with 452 00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:50,560 something, Michael more than Kate, but Kate did it too. They'd go, hold off. I don't want to do this again. 453 00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:54,720 Michael would just put a finger up in there. I mean, we'd just go one more time when I was 454 00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,880 because I'm taking, yeah, how is the assistant director is looking maybe just tapping as 455 00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,960 a watch like and Michael's one more and I'll go, all right, we're going again. We're going again, keep rolling 456 00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:09,120 and let's go. And there's all that tension on set time and people like that. And I think we had a great 457 00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:15,280 set. I do my best to, I've learned, I learned that from me and a couple of other sets I've been on, 458 00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:20,400 just the director has a lot directing style of kind of filters down through everything. And that's 459 00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:25,440 really a big part of the job. Just for it, just I made sure I knew the names of the groups and 460 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:31,280 everybody else on set. I didn't second, third day in there. I just was, I'm bad at people's names, 461 00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:36,560 generally speaking, but just trying to create a really atmosphere because it's independent film is 462 00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:42,720 shot on her own a pressure. This taken you more than eight years for this to come through fruition. 463 00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:48,080 Yeah, and I'm sure it's changed a lot throughout the years and just the ideas of hand to change. 464 00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:52,960 You can be a thought about how you couldn't have everybody outside. All when you wanted to, 465 00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:58,720 but ultimately for me as a viewer, in all comes together, it all feels very seamless. And it just, 466 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:04,480 it was a very satisfying film. That's the idea isn't it? All those pieces in on and the match cutting 467 00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:09,920 from something you shot for a hundred days earlier. But it worked. I think everybody believed in the 468 00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:14,320 project. Everybody had a good time. I think that we, there was a real sense of accomplishment when we 469 00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:20,240 wrapped that film that we're our last filming day was nearly 24 hours. We ended it for a clock in 470 00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:25,680 the morning having shot that restaurant scene and people were wiped out and the idea was we're going to 471 00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:31,600 go back and have a wrap party and then that didn't happen. Everybody was asleep. What happens with 472 00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:38,720 the movie now? It's a VOD, DVD, those kind of thing. It's theaters right now. It's opening and 473 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:44,800 selected theaters, I believe it is the known in the literature. I mean, it's probably not playing 474 00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:48,720 it at theater near you. It's playing in New York. It's playing Los Angeles. It's playing in 475 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:55,680 some major metropolitan areas. But at the same time it's available on VOD. Yeah, and then eventually it'll 476 00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:00,560 end up on a streamer. I don't know. Again, that's nobody asked my opinion about any of that. 477 00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:05,520 I've gotten to projects. I'm doing everything I can. I love this movie. I want people to see it. 478 00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:11,760 You can't rest. It's visit. You've got a two book I'm looking at. One of them for TV series off here. 479 00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:19,760 I've got a screenplay. I'm past deadline on that. I need to turn in for another director. 480 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,920 Yes, go on. The pollist director is directing it. I'm running a script based on a book that 481 00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:30,640 my wife wrote. Wow. So that's all coming together. And I've got to have a script that 482 00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:35,200 need to finish and I'd like to be directing it by next fall. We'll see if that can happen. I know 483 00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:39,280 I'm giving it an amount of time that it takes to assemble something like this. But I'm hoping 484 00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:46,880 that a little while I get enough love and that people will, you know, little dead. It'll get a little easier 485 00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:51,760 this time. But you know what, it never gets easier. I would say the adapting your own wife's work. 486 00:31:51,760 --> 00:32:00,080 It seems like a surefire case for divorce. Yeah, she also, right, screenplay to that novel 487 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:05,920 is mostly. And this book is a memoir. The one I'm adopting is called a memoirs called The Herodids. 488 00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:13,520 And I wrote, actually, what happened was the producer's hired a screenwriter to write and the script 489 00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:18,480 didn't do much. And it was during COVID and I was home from my home. I didn't know what 490 00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:24,720 else I was going to be doing. And so now let me take a whack at it. I just do it for fun. So I 491 00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:30,240 turned the script around and the script that I attracted and yes, go on to one of the director. 492 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:35,280 But and yes, just said, she wanted, she has some changes she wanted in the film. So I said, 493 00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:40,160 all right, I'll do that. Then they hired me to do to make those changes. I saw enough getting paid to do 494 00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:48,640 the script. But just good. Because we like. And so my wife understands that I need to make stuff up 495 00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:54,640 and change stuff and screenplay stuff and leave off good stuff. Leave out good stuff to make the story 496 00:32:54,640 --> 00:33:01,040 were. She's just adapted. She just adapted another novelist book and she had to do the same 497 00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:06,160 thing they had. And she heard she's got a novel. She's written since then that she just wrote the 498 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,480 pilot for. And we worked together on all this stuff and we really each other's work. And then I'm 499 00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:16,080 her in house editor. She's my in house editor. Ideally, one couple is a lawyer. Her new good salary 500 00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:21,600 and the other ones. The one who was just taking chances and trying to write stuff. But she's not a lawyer. 501 00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:26,720 And I'm not either. So we do okay. Mr. Mayor, does there a good place for people to keep up with you 502 00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:33,520 in your work? But the main place I put stuff out is Instagram, which is @mmarin.ar.e. and 503 00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:38,800 have stuff in the film out there. I have still some film up there. And I had cancer. I, you know, 504 00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:44,320 whole photo project. Because my mind was too adult to actually write on that's all for the 505 00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:49,200 down on my feed. That's probably the best place I would say. And Maran Michael Maran.com will get 506 00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:53,920 it in my website. But I don't really do anything with that anymore. People don't go to websites 507 00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,240 any. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for your time. This was so nice talking with you. Oh, 508 00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:03,120 great. I've enjoyed this. It's been fun. And thank you for how spreading the word on this movie. 509 00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:08,160 It's not there's no advertising budget really. I don't think you're going to see ads for it on TV 510 00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:14,240 shows or anything like that. So it's got to be word of mouth or letter box or rotten tomatoes. 511 00:34:14,240 --> 00:34:19,680 Or, well, where you get your feed here, people renting about movies. Well, hopefully we'll get a 512 00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:23,680 few more eyes on this. Hey, I appreciate it. Thanks very much, Rod. 513 00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:41,680 [Music] 514 00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:51,680 [Music] 515 00:34:51,680 --> 00:35:01,680 [Music] 516 00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:11,680 [Music] 517 00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:21,680 [Music] 518 00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:31,680 [Music] 519 00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:41,680 [Music] 520 00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:57,680 [Music] 521 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:05,680 [Music] 522 00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:15,680 [Music] 523 00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:25,680 [Music] 524 00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:35,680 [Music] 525 00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:43,680 [Music] 526 00:36:43,680 --> 00:37:03,680 [Music]