1 00:00:07,374 --> 00:00:08,274 Hey, y'all. 2 00:00:08,274 --> 00:00:10,710 I am Frank, and today I'm with Nick Roth, TV 3 00:00:10,710 --> 00:00:13,713 writer filmmaker here to talk about Hankie Panky. 4 00:00:13,713 --> 00:00:16,583 How are you doing today? I'm doing. 5 00:00:16,583 --> 00:00:17,550 If I'm being honest. 6 00:00:17,550 --> 00:00:21,087 my my balls are really sore from a vasectomy two days ago. 7 00:00:21,121 --> 00:00:23,056 I was gonna say I'm doing great. I'm not. 8 00:00:23,056 --> 00:00:25,792 My ball hurt. 9 00:00:25,792 --> 00:00:27,327 I have small children, so I'm tired. 10 00:00:27,327 --> 00:00:29,429 I am tired, and my balls physically hurt. 11 00:00:29,429 --> 00:00:32,332 That is how I'm doing. How are you? I'm doing okay. 12 00:00:32,332 --> 00:00:34,100 And you also have a kid just off mic. 13 00:00:34,100 --> 00:00:35,802 So get ready for the noises, guys. 14 00:00:35,802 --> 00:00:37,470 Yeah, that's how life is. You know, mac. 15 00:00:37,470 --> 00:00:39,906 And cheese and strawberries, like, I don't know what else. 16 00:00:39,906 --> 00:00:41,341 That's the best I can do. 17 00:00:41,341 --> 00:00:42,742 Yeah, that is solid. 18 00:00:42,742 --> 00:00:44,377 but let's go ahead to talk about hankie panky. 19 00:00:44,377 --> 00:00:45,578 We're gonna talk about you here a little bit. 20 00:00:45,578 --> 00:00:48,782 But first, can you give us a rundown of what is hankie panky? 21 00:00:49,482 --> 00:00:50,850 It's a movie. It's a real movie. 22 00:00:50,850 --> 00:00:52,619 Despite what anybody tells you. 23 00:00:52,619 --> 00:00:55,221 It's a film, a cinema film. 24 00:00:55,221 --> 00:00:59,759 it's, it's a very zany, silly comedy horror 25 00:00:59,759 --> 00:01:04,664 movie that pits, talking handkerchief, against, 26 00:01:04,831 --> 00:01:10,003 the intergalactic, evil, brain eating, soul sucking top hat voiced by Seth Green. 27 00:01:10,670 --> 00:01:11,004 of course. 28 00:01:11,004 --> 00:01:11,738 I mean, why not? 29 00:01:11,738 --> 00:01:14,040 Because. Because of that. Who else? And, 30 00:01:16,142 --> 00:01:18,578 and, it's, it's now 31 00:01:18,578 --> 00:01:22,082 streaming on Tubi and anywhere else that you do VOD or anything like that. 32 00:01:22,649 --> 00:01:22,949 Yeah. 33 00:01:22,949 --> 00:01:26,319 So, you can stream it on TV with ads, but if you guys want to purchase it, 34 00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:29,889 it's on Apple TV, Prime, Google Play, YouTube, and normal places 35 00:01:29,889 --> 00:01:32,392 where you just get a few bucks to rent a movie. 36 00:01:32,392 --> 00:01:33,226 So check that a. 37 00:01:33,226 --> 00:01:36,129 Couple people about it on Xbox, on the Xbox Marketplace, you can get 38 00:01:36,129 --> 00:01:38,531 you can get it. It's everywhere. There you go. 39 00:01:38,531 --> 00:01:40,433 I, I didn't think you did that anymore. 40 00:01:40,433 --> 00:01:42,001 That's cool. That's all. 41 00:01:42,001 --> 00:01:44,971 A couple people told me they did, so that's cool. 42 00:01:45,338 --> 00:01:45,672 okay. 43 00:01:45,672 --> 00:01:48,108 So let's go ahead and talk about you a little bit here. 44 00:01:48,108 --> 00:01:51,144 one of the more unique things is stood out when I started doing my deep 45 00:01:51,144 --> 00:01:54,614 dive on to you is that you have this PhD in English from Cornell University. 46 00:01:55,181 --> 00:01:59,018 tell us why you decided to do that and what, from that translated into 47 00:01:59,018 --> 00:01:59,853 I want to be a filmmaker. 48 00:02:01,054 --> 00:02:05,692 it. Well, I don't want to go so far as to say it was a mistake. 49 00:02:05,692 --> 00:02:07,727 I don't think it was that bad. 50 00:02:07,727 --> 00:02:10,864 I had dubious 51 00:02:10,864 --> 00:02:15,335 psychological reasons for wanting to go to grad school and get. 52 00:02:15,368 --> 00:02:18,071 I wanted to, I don't know, I probably wanted to prove to my mom I was smart. 53 00:02:18,071 --> 00:02:19,706 I don't know if that's possible. 54 00:02:19,706 --> 00:02:22,208 And found myself in grad school. 55 00:02:22,208 --> 00:02:25,211 you know, in the early two, 20 tens, 56 00:02:25,211 --> 00:02:28,214 I guess, realizing 57 00:02:28,848 --> 00:02:32,685 that the academic world wasn't for me, I like 58 00:02:33,019 --> 00:02:36,022 I wanted to study books and movies and 59 00:02:36,589 --> 00:02:38,458 write about them and read them and understand them more. 60 00:02:38,458 --> 00:02:39,826 And I didn't do that. 61 00:02:39,826 --> 00:02:44,197 But then at some point I was like, oh, writing these movies would be an awful 62 00:02:44,197 --> 00:02:47,734 lot more fun than writing about movies, books and movies. 63 00:02:49,202 --> 00:02:52,138 and so like in 20, that was like 2013. 64 00:02:52,138 --> 00:02:55,141 I was like, I made the decision in my head. 65 00:02:55,508 --> 00:02:56,309 I'm from L.A. 66 00:02:56,309 --> 00:02:58,711 and like everyone I knew was in the film industry 67 00:02:58,711 --> 00:03:00,613 and my parents were in the film industry and stuff, and I was 68 00:03:00,613 --> 00:03:03,850 I had sort of like been running away from my destiny or whatever. 69 00:03:03,850 --> 00:03:06,853 And so I about ten years ago, the lover that I came back 70 00:03:07,020 --> 00:03:10,023 to embrace my fate, 71 00:03:10,390 --> 00:03:12,492 and then spent, you know, the next 6 72 00:03:12,492 --> 00:03:16,729 or 7 years in different assistant gig until, eventually. 73 00:03:16,729 --> 00:03:19,966 Yeah, sort of slowly climbing up from 74 00:03:20,700 --> 00:03:24,571 from aspiring writer to struggling writer, which I think is a good. 75 00:03:24,637 --> 00:03:27,073 Yeah, nice. 76 00:03:27,073 --> 00:03:29,709 I'm, I'm on the on the title train. 77 00:03:29,709 --> 00:03:30,643 Yeah. 78 00:03:30,643 --> 00:03:32,679 yeah. It's a pretty unique take. 79 00:03:32,679 --> 00:03:34,113 Is the fact that you were trying 80 00:03:34,113 --> 00:03:35,882 to get away from the entertainment business 81 00:03:35,882 --> 00:03:38,318 when so many people moved to LA to try to embrace it, 82 00:03:38,318 --> 00:03:40,053 and now you were sitting, I think, like. 83 00:03:40,053 --> 00:03:45,191 I think I vowed and I may have sworn in blood to never be part of it. 84 00:03:45,225 --> 00:03:46,893 I don't know, I broke that like. 85 00:03:46,893 --> 00:03:48,828 Yeah, you broke it. That's your next movie right there. 86 00:03:50,863 --> 00:03:51,164 then. 87 00:03:51,164 --> 00:03:51,598 Yeah. You're. 88 00:03:51,598 --> 00:03:55,768 So you have your dissertation, potential cinema closet film in the 20th century. 89 00:03:55,768 --> 00:03:56,536 Fiction. 90 00:03:56,536 --> 00:03:58,504 sounds like a fascinating title. 91 00:03:58,504 --> 00:03:59,706 What was this about? 92 00:03:59,706 --> 00:04:02,508 What influenced you to to write this dissertation? 93 00:04:02,508 --> 00:04:06,479 Okay, so this is f for for academically minded people. 94 00:04:06,479 --> 00:04:07,447 They will appreciate this. 95 00:04:07,447 --> 00:04:12,485 The this, you know, you have to when you write a dissertation, it's like 250 pages. 96 00:04:12,485 --> 00:04:15,822 It's got to be oh, I know you have to find an original thing 97 00:04:16,222 --> 00:04:17,790 to write about that no one's ever written about. 98 00:04:17,790 --> 00:04:18,391 It seems about. 99 00:04:18,391 --> 00:04:21,194 And so I stumbled upon that in grad school. 100 00:04:21,194 --> 00:04:24,364 I was taking a class on melodrama. 101 00:04:24,364 --> 00:04:28,368 And, you know, we're reading a lot of plays and watching some movies. 102 00:04:28,368 --> 00:04:32,905 And at some point we were talking about closet, closet drama, which is, 103 00:04:32,905 --> 00:04:37,510 an established and very much talked about within academics. 104 00:04:37,510 --> 00:04:41,948 it's, it's people who are writing things that aren't meant to be plays, 105 00:04:41,948 --> 00:04:42,915 but they're writing them 106 00:04:42,915 --> 00:04:47,520 as if it was a play at like it's written in script format with dialog. 107 00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:50,623 This goes all the way back to like Plato was writing philosophy 108 00:04:51,224 --> 00:04:53,593 like Free Dress, and some of his other works are written 109 00:04:53,593 --> 00:04:55,895 as if it was a play, but it's not meant to be performed. 110 00:04:55,895 --> 00:04:58,164 And it's not really a script, but it's like that. 111 00:04:58,164 --> 00:05:01,134 And Milton, John Milton wrote these in the 17th century. 112 00:05:01,134 --> 00:05:02,802 Samson Agonist uses a very famous line. 113 00:05:02,802 --> 00:05:05,138 So there's a very long history. 114 00:05:05,138 --> 00:05:06,506 Seneca and Rome. Like there's 115 00:05:06,506 --> 00:05:10,009 a thousands of years of people doing this and people talking about it. 116 00:05:10,476 --> 00:05:11,678 And I, 117 00:05:13,112 --> 00:05:14,514 I think because I was interested 118 00:05:14,514 --> 00:05:17,884 in movies and I had come from LA and knew people in the industry, 119 00:05:17,884 --> 00:05:21,721 I was the person in that class who was like, does this exist for movies? 120 00:05:21,821 --> 00:05:23,723 Is there closet film? Does that? 121 00:05:23,723 --> 00:05:24,857 Is that a thing? 122 00:05:24,857 --> 00:05:27,527 do people have people written things that aren't 123 00:05:27,527 --> 00:05:30,630 meant to be movies, but you but written them in screenplay format? 124 00:05:30,630 --> 00:05:32,498 And the professor, 125 00:05:32,498 --> 00:05:34,701 Nick Sabato, a great guy you mentioned, was on my committee 126 00:05:34,701 --> 00:05:36,969 and helped me with my dissertation. Love him very much. 127 00:05:36,969 --> 00:05:38,471 I think he's still at Cornell. 128 00:05:38,471 --> 00:05:41,240 was like, I don't know the answer to that question. 129 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:44,210 And that's a dissertation topic is born whenever you find it. 130 00:05:44,210 --> 00:05:47,213 When you come up with the question that the professor doesn't know the answer to, 131 00:05:47,280 --> 00:05:51,250 that became the the subject of my of my research, which was, 132 00:05:52,385 --> 00:05:53,519 has this happened? 133 00:05:53,519 --> 00:05:55,922 And to what extent and how can we answer this? 134 00:05:55,922 --> 00:06:01,861 And so and the answer is, no one had written about this extensively. 135 00:06:01,861 --> 00:06:05,031 A couple people, well, one guy who became my friend 136 00:06:05,031 --> 00:06:08,968 when we Milton, who lived in Huntington Beach, wrote an article about this. 137 00:06:08,968 --> 00:06:11,971 And then some guy in Japan has written an article and now was in. 138 00:06:11,971 --> 00:06:14,941 So now the three of us of a whole field of study, 139 00:06:16,376 --> 00:06:18,711 and, and and the truth is, a lot of people have done this 140 00:06:18,711 --> 00:06:19,779 in really interesting ways. 141 00:06:19,779 --> 00:06:20,780 There was a, 142 00:06:20,780 --> 00:06:25,651 a Japanese writer in the 20s who wrote a lot of these kinds of things. 143 00:06:25,651 --> 00:06:27,687 He was sort of embracing early silent film. 144 00:06:27,687 --> 00:06:34,160 His name is, you know, Sky is a very famous, Japanese modernist author. 145 00:06:34,460 --> 00:06:39,265 it's not really known internationally so much, but he's like one of the biggest 146 00:06:40,233 --> 00:06:42,402 19th century writers in Japan. 147 00:06:42,402 --> 00:06:44,771 And, he wrote it turned out a bunch of these things. 148 00:06:44,771 --> 00:06:46,105 He wrote novellas and short stories. 149 00:06:46,105 --> 00:06:48,441 But then in the 20s, there were all these people who were made 150 00:06:48,441 --> 00:06:51,177 who had these, like, film scenario outs because they were silent film. 151 00:06:51,177 --> 00:06:52,578 They didn't have dialog. 152 00:06:52,578 --> 00:06:56,749 and he was like, I'm gonna start writing poems and stories that use this form. 153 00:06:56,849 --> 00:07:00,052 And then also in in France in the 20s, people were doing this. 154 00:07:00,052 --> 00:07:03,423 The French surrealists, a lot of them were really interested in movies. 155 00:07:03,423 --> 00:07:04,724 They tried to make movies. 156 00:07:04,724 --> 00:07:07,193 They did a really bad job making movies. 157 00:07:07,193 --> 00:07:09,829 They made very few movies. It's hard to make them. 158 00:07:09,829 --> 00:07:13,733 So they actually then they wrote things called cynic poems. 159 00:07:14,233 --> 00:07:16,803 so now Roman, sort of movie 160 00:07:16,803 --> 00:07:19,972 book they like, there's a lot of experimenting with this form. 161 00:07:19,972 --> 00:07:23,943 And then, you know, later people, there's this really interesting guy. 162 00:07:23,943 --> 00:07:25,978 He's still around. His name is Darius James. He's like a 163 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:28,881 performance artist and a 164 00:07:28,881 --> 00:07:31,851 voodoo practitioner and an experimental writer. 165 00:07:31,851 --> 00:07:34,220 He wrote a novel in the form of a script. 166 00:07:34,220 --> 00:07:37,223 But it's it's it's a novel, but written script. 167 00:07:37,557 --> 00:07:38,724 It's called Negro phobia. 168 00:07:38,724 --> 00:07:40,927 An urban parable, a novel. 169 00:07:40,927 --> 00:07:44,030 It's amazing. It's crazy. It's unfilmable. 170 00:07:44,030 --> 00:07:47,400 It has, you know, all kinds of things, but it's written as if it was a screenplay. 171 00:07:47,834 --> 00:07:48,367 Yeah. 172 00:07:48,367 --> 00:07:52,605 and so there are examples from sort of, 173 00:07:53,239 --> 00:07:57,310 you know, throughout the last 100 years or so of people sort of just messing around 174 00:07:57,310 --> 00:07:59,345 with, like, I want to write a poem, I want to write a novel. 175 00:07:59,345 --> 00:08:04,217 I want to write something that but use screenplay formatting 176 00:08:04,217 --> 00:08:05,618 and make it have that. 177 00:08:05,618 --> 00:08:08,621 What does that do to like how we think about 178 00:08:09,589 --> 00:08:11,891 how we read and whether we see a movie in our head 179 00:08:11,891 --> 00:08:13,693 as we read and questions like that. 180 00:08:13,693 --> 00:08:17,330 So that was what that was what my research was about. 181 00:08:18,931 --> 00:08:21,234 which was more or less because it was like, oh, here's a 182 00:08:21,234 --> 00:08:22,902 this is a thing that's a worthwhile 183 00:08:22,902 --> 00:08:27,240 question in academia that no one else is or almost nobody else is asking. 184 00:08:27,540 --> 00:08:30,810 No one had written anything substantial on on the topic. 185 00:08:30,810 --> 00:08:36,949 So, so immediately my mind's racing with ideas of like, why do this? 186 00:08:36,949 --> 00:08:40,953 Is it easier to then picture the scenario in your mind than it is a regular novel 187 00:08:40,953 --> 00:08:43,923 or something like that? There's all kinds of ideas for that. 188 00:08:43,923 --> 00:08:47,560 There's a lot of really interesting hypothetical stuff like why aren't. 189 00:08:47,660 --> 00:08:49,161 Well, I mean, why are more people doing 190 00:08:49,161 --> 00:08:53,499 it is one question because it's been done so much with with plays. 191 00:08:53,900 --> 00:08:57,537 But one of the chapters of James Joyce's Ulysses is written 192 00:08:57,537 --> 00:09:00,306 as if it was a play that's a lot like it's talked about like this. 193 00:09:00,306 --> 00:09:02,508 Is that there are lots of instances. 194 00:09:02,508 --> 00:09:06,112 There are relatively few instances of people doing this, like movies, 195 00:09:06,112 --> 00:09:10,082 and there's and it's partly just because, like, 196 00:09:11,017 --> 00:09:15,121 film scripts haven't really been embraced as literary 197 00:09:15,454 --> 00:09:19,492 in the same way that I think plays, they're not studied that way. 198 00:09:19,492 --> 00:09:22,929 But it raises an interesting question of like, why not? 199 00:09:23,629 --> 00:09:24,230 Yeah. 200 00:09:24,230 --> 00:09:28,134 And there is a very big community, especially in like the geekdom 201 00:09:28,301 --> 00:09:31,837 of movies being novelists especially, like you think of Star Wars or whatever. 202 00:09:32,305 --> 00:09:34,707 and then they usually add details that weren't necessarily in the movie. 203 00:09:34,707 --> 00:09:36,509 And so it would be interesting to see 204 00:09:36,509 --> 00:09:39,579 how those two correlate, like, what are you adding in to this way? 205 00:09:39,579 --> 00:09:42,515 What do you what's worth taking out when you go the other way? 206 00:09:42,515 --> 00:09:44,116 That's very interesting. 207 00:09:44,116 --> 00:09:44,450 Yeah. 208 00:09:44,450 --> 00:09:46,452 I mean there's all like it's 209 00:09:46,452 --> 00:09:47,620 there's interesting there's another 210 00:09:47,620 --> 00:09:50,623 another interesting parallel is like the storyboard, 211 00:09:50,623 --> 00:09:54,060 which in some cases is very similar to a graphic novel or a comic book. 212 00:09:54,060 --> 00:09:56,929 Right. And like but the storyboard never gets 213 00:09:58,431 --> 00:10:01,100 or rarely unless it's like a big movie 214 00:10:01,100 --> 00:10:04,704 with it's really doing promotional stuff like does that get published? 215 00:10:04,737 --> 00:10:05,104 Right? 216 00:10:05,104 --> 00:10:08,040 And then we get to look at that in the same way that it's like, 217 00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:11,811 you know, when we talk about theater or plays, it's like most people read 218 00:10:12,278 --> 00:10:16,549 plays and study them, not necessarily even having seen them. 219 00:10:16,549 --> 00:10:16,716 Right. 220 00:10:16,716 --> 00:10:20,319 Like you can be a Shakespeare person and just read them. 221 00:10:20,319 --> 00:10:23,222 You don't have to actually plays, right? 222 00:10:23,222 --> 00:10:25,424 I mean, partly that just because it's harder to like a play 223 00:10:25,424 --> 00:10:27,193 has to be staged for you to see it in a movie. 224 00:10:27,193 --> 00:10:30,463 You are you are expected to have this text and talk about it. 225 00:10:30,463 --> 00:10:32,632 Right? But, 226 00:10:32,632 --> 00:10:37,103 certainly when you put like a play script next to a screenplay for a movie, 227 00:10:38,371 --> 00:10:41,340 I mean, the formatting is slightly different, but not insignificant. 228 00:10:41,641 --> 00:10:42,842 Yeah. 229 00:10:42,842 --> 00:10:45,878 So then you get, you know, you decide, hey, I want to be a filmmaker someday. 230 00:10:45,878 --> 00:10:47,079 I want to be a TV writer. 231 00:10:47,079 --> 00:10:49,815 How do you pull that information that you gather that is quite unique. 232 00:10:49,815 --> 00:10:51,150 You're one of three in a field. 233 00:10:51,150 --> 00:10:53,185 How do you pull that into your your career? 234 00:10:53,185 --> 00:10:56,689 Mostly didn't I mean, like, the experiences that I had, 235 00:10:56,756 --> 00:11:00,192 in grad school are formative for a lot of reasons, but 236 00:11:00,559 --> 00:11:03,963 it's not like I was able to I didn't take a lot of, like, practical. 237 00:11:04,063 --> 00:11:07,833 I mean, grad school is mostly about I will say this grad school did help me 238 00:11:07,833 --> 00:11:11,370 with pitching as a as a writer because it's it's a lot of bullshit. 239 00:11:11,404 --> 00:11:14,340 It's a lot of like, how convincingly can I swear on this podcast? 240 00:11:14,340 --> 00:11:15,174 Yeah, of course, of course. 241 00:11:16,642 --> 00:11:17,910 it's a lot of bullshit. 242 00:11:17,910 --> 00:11:20,513 It's a lot of convincing people, you know what you're talking about, 243 00:11:20,513 --> 00:11:22,381 and everyone has to be an expert on a thing. 244 00:11:22,381 --> 00:11:23,582 And like, it is true. 245 00:11:23,582 --> 00:11:26,819 Rigorous training in the art of bullshit. 246 00:11:26,819 --> 00:11:30,690 And I do think that that is a skill that in some cases in television 247 00:11:30,690 --> 00:11:34,393 writing and in, you know, pitching projects and movies and stuff, you do. 248 00:11:34,860 --> 00:11:38,197 I am better at sounding like I know what I'm talking about than than I am 249 00:11:38,364 --> 00:11:41,400 than I actually know. Right. that's useful. 250 00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:47,173 But I, and I read a lot in grad school, and I think that's helpful in my writing. 251 00:11:47,173 --> 00:11:50,943 But like, other than that, it's not like there was a lot that was specific to this 252 00:11:51,677 --> 00:11:54,346 very esoteric project. 253 00:11:54,346 --> 00:11:56,816 Yeah, it's so niche. 254 00:11:56,816 --> 00:12:00,686 I was writing mostly about authors that most of the authors 255 00:12:01,554 --> 00:12:02,755 no one had ever heard of. 256 00:12:02,755 --> 00:12:06,225 and then sometimes I'd be like, oh, William Burroughs wrote one of these. 257 00:12:06,225 --> 00:12:09,161 I can write a little bit about that, because at least he's like, I'm like, 258 00:12:09,161 --> 00:12:09,762 that's great. 259 00:12:09,762 --> 00:12:10,496 He's a name. 260 00:12:10,496 --> 00:12:13,999 But like Darius, James was not really a name. 261 00:12:13,999 --> 00:12:16,569 I was able to go if I went to took a train down to. 262 00:12:16,569 --> 00:12:17,903 I was in upstate New York at the time. 263 00:12:17,903 --> 00:12:19,905 I took a train to Yale. 264 00:12:19,905 --> 00:12:23,576 he was living in New Haven, and like, he hung out with me, and we got a beer, 265 00:12:23,576 --> 00:12:25,978 and I was able to talk to him and stuff, like, he was very approachable. 266 00:12:25,978 --> 00:12:28,380 He's a nice guy. We sort of kept up a bit of a friendship. 267 00:12:28,380 --> 00:12:28,781 He was. 268 00:12:28,781 --> 00:12:31,784 He did come out to LA trying to make actual movies, 269 00:12:31,884 --> 00:12:33,686 and then he ruined the whole thing for me because it was like, 270 00:12:33,686 --> 00:12:35,321 I would love if someone made this into a movie. 271 00:12:35,321 --> 00:12:38,858 And I was like, no, the whole point it's it can't, you can't. 272 00:12:39,125 --> 00:12:43,562 I wrote I wrote a dissertation chapter just about how this is unfilmable. 273 00:12:43,562 --> 00:12:46,298 And really interesting was it was like, no, I think it is. 274 00:12:46,298 --> 00:12:49,101 I was like the Coen brothers. It got it. It was like, no, no, no, no. 275 00:12:50,636 --> 00:12:51,103 so I don't know. 276 00:12:51,103 --> 00:12:51,737 I was like, what do I do? 277 00:12:51,737 --> 00:12:53,139 I did, so it's not like, it's 278 00:12:53,139 --> 00:12:56,142 not like the stuff that I was writing in that is very 279 00:12:56,408 --> 00:12:58,110 practical in any, in any way. 280 00:12:58,110 --> 00:12:58,778 It did get me. 281 00:12:58,778 --> 00:13:00,946 I did have a I was, up for a job. 282 00:13:00,946 --> 00:13:05,184 One of my first job was a writer's pay, mostly just getting coffee for writers. 283 00:13:06,786 --> 00:13:08,554 apparently, I did find out later. 284 00:13:08,554 --> 00:13:11,490 It was like it was between me and one other person, 285 00:13:11,490 --> 00:13:15,027 and the showrunner of the show had been like it was between me and a woman. 286 00:13:15,027 --> 00:13:16,262 She was like, okay, hire the woman. 287 00:13:16,262 --> 00:13:18,531 And then she was like, unless. 288 00:13:18,531 --> 00:13:21,467 Is there anything particularly hilarious about the 289 00:13:21,467 --> 00:13:24,336 the male candidate's resume? 290 00:13:24,336 --> 00:13:27,773 And her assistant was like, he has a PhD in English. 291 00:13:27,773 --> 00:13:29,208 She was like, that's fine, hire him. 292 00:13:30,743 --> 00:13:32,478 So I got me a job. 293 00:13:32,478 --> 00:13:35,314 It's it's terrible that PhD is the joke. 294 00:13:35,314 --> 00:13:36,782 Like he's a writer, but he's got a there's. 295 00:13:36,782 --> 00:13:38,184 A comedy, there's a comedy show. 296 00:13:38,184 --> 00:13:39,985 They needed the name of it to be funny. 297 00:13:39,985 --> 00:13:42,988 Yeah, I was, I on that show. 298 00:13:43,389 --> 00:13:44,657 Oh that's great. Oh, yeah. 299 00:13:44,657 --> 00:13:47,493 You. Aren't you a doctor? And this one too. Oh, they make you pinky. 300 00:13:47,493 --> 00:13:50,062 So show the character. Excellent segue. 301 00:13:50,062 --> 00:13:52,531 The character of Doctor Crane. 302 00:13:52,531 --> 00:13:54,366 You know, is he's a lot of things. 303 00:13:54,366 --> 00:13:57,269 He's based on a lot of things. And one of the 304 00:13:57,269 --> 00:14:00,706 a lot of it was me drawing on the sort of the end of an era of my life 305 00:14:00,706 --> 00:14:03,008 at the end of a chapter of me as an academic in my 306 00:14:03,008 --> 00:14:06,312 I got a big book worm tattooed on my ribs and stuff and made fun of myself. 307 00:14:06,312 --> 00:14:06,946 A lot. 308 00:14:06,946 --> 00:14:11,217 And Doctor Crane is sort of like the most bombastic, over the top, 309 00:14:11,217 --> 00:14:16,255 academic, pretentious, full of himself version of myself as a 310 00:14:18,123 --> 00:14:18,858 PhD and as, 311 00:14:18,858 --> 00:14:21,961 you know, as a, as kind of that guy. 312 00:14:21,961 --> 00:14:22,261 Right. 313 00:14:22,261 --> 00:14:26,298 And also, you know, drawn on some people I've met in my academic travels who are 314 00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:29,068 kind of that absurd. 315 00:14:29,068 --> 00:14:29,668 Yeah, yeah. 316 00:14:29,668 --> 00:14:32,071 Somebody who feels like they should be in a murder mystery that's like, 317 00:14:32,071 --> 00:14:34,740 kind of try to give you a hint as they're talking to you. 318 00:14:34,740 --> 00:14:36,108 Yeah. 319 00:14:36,108 --> 00:14:36,442 No, no. 320 00:14:36,442 --> 00:14:39,445 So speaking, 321 00:14:39,578 --> 00:14:42,581 with with hankie panky, it's a crazy, unique idea. 322 00:14:42,648 --> 00:14:45,417 even the elevator pitch, I'm sure, would be hard to get off. 323 00:14:45,417 --> 00:14:47,286 And luckily, you had practice with pitching things. 324 00:14:47,286 --> 00:14:49,221 what? Did you come up with this idea? 325 00:14:49,221 --> 00:14:50,289 Where did this come from? 326 00:14:50,289 --> 00:14:52,858 You know, week no one can remember. 327 00:14:52,858 --> 00:14:55,861 I've been talking a lot since we've finished the movie. 328 00:14:55,961 --> 00:14:56,228 Yeah. 329 00:14:56,228 --> 00:15:00,332 you know Lindsay, who is my wife and co-director, Lindsay Park place. 330 00:15:00,332 --> 00:15:03,802 Rebecca and Toby. Brian, who plays Norm. 331 00:15:03,802 --> 00:15:05,804 He voices Woody. He did the puppets. 332 00:15:05,804 --> 00:15:09,475 The three of us have tried to remember, but can't remember 333 00:15:09,475 --> 00:15:12,278 who came up with the hat. Like, why? 334 00:15:12,278 --> 00:15:14,013 Why is there a killer top hat? 335 00:15:14,013 --> 00:15:17,016 Why is that the foil to our talking napkin? 336 00:15:17,049 --> 00:15:18,083 We all sort of disagree. 337 00:15:18,083 --> 00:15:20,252 No one really wants to maybe take the blame for it. 338 00:15:20,252 --> 00:15:23,522 I don't know, we can't, I literally don't. 339 00:15:23,522 --> 00:15:26,492 I wish I had an answer for this and I should probably just make one up, 340 00:15:26,926 --> 00:15:30,262 but it was just one of those crazy things where it was like 341 00:15:30,262 --> 00:15:32,131 most of this film came out of 342 00:15:33,299 --> 00:15:35,935 what are the pieces that we have and how can we make 343 00:15:35,935 --> 00:15:38,537 because we just wanted to make a movie and we're a group of friends like this. 344 00:15:38,537 --> 00:15:39,571 There's no company here. 345 00:15:39,571 --> 00:15:41,006 There's no no one hired anybody, 346 00:15:41,006 --> 00:15:44,109 no one like this was just like, we are a very close, small 347 00:15:44,109 --> 00:15:47,880 group of friends and family who are like, let's make a feature film. 348 00:15:47,980 --> 00:15:50,683 Because, yeah, I think we can. 349 00:15:50,683 --> 00:15:51,984 And I think we can make it funny. 350 00:15:51,984 --> 00:15:54,153 That was my only concern. 351 00:15:54,153 --> 00:15:56,522 I was like, can I make I think we can make a movie. 352 00:15:56,522 --> 00:15:57,323 I think we can make it fun. 353 00:15:57,323 --> 00:15:59,858 We had access to that cabin that we shot in. 354 00:15:59,858 --> 00:16:01,794 That's Lindsay's dad's cabin. 355 00:16:01,794 --> 00:16:05,597 Jimmy Hornsby also composed the score for the movie, 356 00:16:05,597 --> 00:16:07,232 and we were like, we have a cabin. 357 00:16:07,232 --> 00:16:09,635 We had one very funky, weird, cool camera. 358 00:16:09,635 --> 00:16:12,638 And, with a short film of ours and a film festival, 359 00:16:13,072 --> 00:16:14,406 I was like, so we have a camera. 360 00:16:14,406 --> 00:16:15,874 We have all our friends are actors. 361 00:16:15,874 --> 00:16:19,611 Because we grew up in L.A., I was like, wait, so Ensemble Cabin? 362 00:16:20,612 --> 00:16:21,513 And then 363 00:16:21,513 --> 00:16:26,051 we had made a talking napkin short film, and that was really fun and funny. 364 00:16:26,051 --> 00:16:28,620 So I was like, all right, I think we could make a horror movie out of this. 365 00:16:28,620 --> 00:16:31,523 And I don't, I don't know how it came to a murder mystery. 366 00:16:31,523 --> 00:16:37,129 Top hat clue meets The Shining, but the is live action Simpsons 367 00:16:37,129 --> 00:16:40,132 Treehouse of Horror, I think, was sort of like the idea at the beginning. 368 00:16:40,399 --> 00:16:42,534 I don't know, I wish I had it, it's crazy. 369 00:16:42,534 --> 00:16:44,970 We're deranged, insane perverts. 370 00:16:44,970 --> 00:16:45,871 Maybe we're funny. 371 00:16:45,871 --> 00:16:49,208 Like which deranged, insane pervert decided to call Seth Green? 372 00:16:50,142 --> 00:16:51,744 So he's a friend of ours. 373 00:16:51,744 --> 00:16:54,146 Lindsay and his wife Claire. 374 00:16:54,146 --> 00:16:57,249 Claire is Seth's wife who plays Ellie in the movie. 375 00:16:57,249 --> 00:16:58,917 She's very funny. 376 00:16:58,917 --> 00:17:02,821 She's from Memphis, so we should have played up this, like, double life for us. 377 00:17:03,355 --> 00:17:03,956 Yeah. 378 00:17:03,956 --> 00:17:07,359 Downhome Memphis in person, which is her actual self with that sort of 379 00:17:07,593 --> 00:17:11,296 stuff in the movie is something, they met, 380 00:17:11,296 --> 00:17:14,400 I don't know, 12, 14 years ago or something like that. 381 00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:17,202 You know, it's improv class and just became friends. 382 00:17:17,202 --> 00:17:20,272 And so then we're they were friends with, Ashley. 383 00:17:20,272 --> 00:17:23,042 Claire and Ashley have been best friends for a really long time. And Christina. 384 00:17:23,042 --> 00:17:25,110 So Christina plays Carla, and Ashley plays Diane. 385 00:17:25,110 --> 00:17:26,678 And then we brought in a couple of our friends. 386 00:17:26,678 --> 00:17:29,681 So it's just like this whole, like, most of this was our, 387 00:17:29,715 --> 00:17:31,717 you know, Claire was a bridesmaid at the wedding. 388 00:17:31,717 --> 00:17:33,585 Most of the Toby was a groom. 389 00:17:33,585 --> 00:17:33,986 Like this. 390 00:17:33,986 --> 00:17:35,821 Most of this was just our, like, closest friends. 391 00:17:35,821 --> 00:17:38,791 And Seth happened to be around. 392 00:17:38,791 --> 00:17:43,262 And we didn't ask him to be in the movie, because I didn't want to think 393 00:17:43,262 --> 00:17:47,900 that we just were friends with them to get him in our weirdest possible movie. 394 00:17:48,267 --> 00:17:51,036 You know, he's famous and we're not well. 395 00:17:51,036 --> 00:17:54,573 And in maybe the weirdest role to like, hey, you're gonna be a bad guy 396 00:17:54,573 --> 00:17:56,275 and your top hat. 397 00:17:56,275 --> 00:17:57,176 Yeah, yeah. 398 00:17:57,176 --> 00:17:57,576 Yeah. 399 00:17:57,576 --> 00:18:00,379 So we want you to play a killer. The voice of a killer top at. 400 00:18:01,413 --> 00:18:03,782 Anyway, after we were after 401 00:18:03,782 --> 00:18:07,019 we had shot the movie, I showed Russ that at one point 402 00:18:07,686 --> 00:18:11,123 to Claire and Seth and was like, did you know it would be cool? 403 00:18:11,156 --> 00:18:12,091 Do you want to voice one of these? 404 00:18:12,091 --> 00:18:15,094 Because I think, Seth, it's like, I want to be a part of it, but yeah. 405 00:18:16,095 --> 00:18:18,464 well, yeah, we do. 406 00:18:18,464 --> 00:18:19,098 We know that. 407 00:18:19,098 --> 00:18:20,632 I kind of knew all along, too. 408 00:18:20,632 --> 00:18:25,471 I was like, I had ridden hairy as you know, she has the voice. 409 00:18:25,471 --> 00:18:27,673 So it's kind of inspired by Skeletor. 410 00:18:27,673 --> 00:18:30,742 and, you know, 411 00:18:30,776 --> 00:18:33,979 Lindsay was doing like, it's when Lindsay sort of starts to do that voice. 412 00:18:33,979 --> 00:18:36,982 She had already been doing a skeleton for when tech was like, 413 00:18:37,216 --> 00:18:38,350 what voice do you want me to do? 414 00:18:38,350 --> 00:18:41,019 And I've. No, you got skeleton. 415 00:18:41,019 --> 00:18:43,689 Yeah. Then you do skeleton ly does skeleton 416 00:18:43,689 --> 00:18:47,392 robot chicken and and and in his daily life. 417 00:18:47,526 --> 00:18:49,828 So I was like, just do skeleton. 418 00:18:49,828 --> 00:18:51,063 And he was like, I got this. 419 00:18:52,064 --> 00:18:53,265 So now I know who's playing 420 00:18:53,265 --> 00:18:56,268 skeleton and all the family Guy episodes, and now I know. 421 00:18:56,635 --> 00:18:59,838 Honestly, I hadn't thought about that, but I'm sure it's probably him. 422 00:18:59,972 --> 00:19:02,241 It's probably him. 423 00:19:02,241 --> 00:19:03,475 okay, so we have. 424 00:19:03,475 --> 00:19:04,943 Of course we have the napkin. 425 00:19:04,943 --> 00:19:07,713 how do you develop these characters? 426 00:19:07,713 --> 00:19:10,215 Like with Woody and Sam and their interactions? 427 00:19:10,215 --> 00:19:11,483 How are you going to pull these characters out, 428 00:19:11,483 --> 00:19:12,484 especially with them being your friends? 429 00:19:12,484 --> 00:19:14,653 It seems like that adds a layer of difficulty, like, 430 00:19:14,653 --> 00:19:17,356 hey, you're meeting for the first time and everything. 431 00:19:17,356 --> 00:19:20,792 I think it makes it a lot easier because I really we really the, the 432 00:19:20,993 --> 00:19:26,064 it was very collaborative, like I had some semblance of a script very quickly. 433 00:19:26,064 --> 00:19:29,234 But there was, you know, early on we did a lot of like 434 00:19:29,668 --> 00:19:33,138 improv games with where we got as much of the cast together as we could. 435 00:19:33,138 --> 00:19:35,974 And just like, all right, you've discover your snow. 436 00:19:35,974 --> 00:19:39,111 Oh, you found a body go like. And what we 437 00:19:40,245 --> 00:19:40,913 both wanted to 438 00:19:40,913 --> 00:19:43,982 shape was like the story and like, see what was funny and what worked. 439 00:19:43,982 --> 00:19:45,517 And but more is like, 440 00:19:45,517 --> 00:19:47,786 everybody got to really sort of develop their characters. 441 00:19:47,786 --> 00:19:49,888 And we got to see what was funny in the characters 442 00:19:49,888 --> 00:19:51,557 that interacted with each other. 443 00:19:51,557 --> 00:19:53,759 And then that led to a lot of like, 444 00:19:53,759 --> 00:19:55,994 really fun, creative things we were able to do in the movie. 445 00:19:55,994 --> 00:20:00,165 The, you know, if you you wouldn't get to do if you just, like, wrote a thing 446 00:20:00,165 --> 00:20:03,168 and then cast them because we did that. If. 447 00:20:04,236 --> 00:20:05,671 Yeah, you have strong opinions about it too. 448 00:20:05,671 --> 00:20:09,841 I like Natalie's character, Diane, and our friend Anthony's character, 449 00:20:09,841 --> 00:20:11,510 who plays, Cliff. 450 00:20:11,510 --> 00:20:15,347 Like, it's not obvious that these two characters will be 451 00:20:15,347 --> 00:20:16,682 the ones who get to end up, 452 00:20:16,682 --> 00:20:20,052 you know, snowed into an ice shack together, which leads to this whole, like, 453 00:20:20,052 --> 00:20:21,286 she's going to save their marriage. 454 00:20:21,286 --> 00:20:22,454 She gives them therapy. 455 00:20:22,454 --> 00:20:24,990 This, this very fun, sort of surrealistic 456 00:20:26,091 --> 00:20:29,761 mushroom, but it's like psychoactive therapy scene. 457 00:20:29,761 --> 00:20:30,429 Right. 458 00:20:30,429 --> 00:20:34,233 And I only became because we saw that when we were just messing around 459 00:20:34,233 --> 00:20:39,504 that Anthony and Ashley, just incredible improv chemistry. 460 00:20:39,504 --> 00:20:41,206 They're both great and funny. 461 00:20:41,206 --> 00:20:44,209 And it was really funny to have those characters 462 00:20:44,676 --> 00:20:46,545 interacting with each other and in a room together. 463 00:20:46,545 --> 00:20:49,548 So we were like, let's make the story also go that way, right? 464 00:20:49,548 --> 00:20:51,984 Like, I don't know. 465 00:20:51,984 --> 00:20:54,987 Yeah, you got a strawberry? 466 00:20:55,387 --> 00:20:57,623 Am I just not listening to you? 467 00:20:57,623 --> 00:21:00,459 And that's a problem, I know, I'm sorry. 468 00:21:00,459 --> 00:21:03,462 I'm I'm I'm on a podcast. 469 00:21:03,996 --> 00:21:06,565 Well, speaking of the improv, it sounds like it was a big part 470 00:21:06,565 --> 00:21:08,033 of the creation of the film. 471 00:21:08,033 --> 00:21:09,801 did you have much improv in your background, 472 00:21:09,801 --> 00:21:11,670 or you were you working with a lot of just improv, but. 473 00:21:11,670 --> 00:21:12,838 I have a little. 474 00:21:12,838 --> 00:21:16,108 Lindsay has a bunch, you know, everyone has. 475 00:21:16,508 --> 00:21:20,279 It's, Yeah, like, I like we're not like an improv troupe 476 00:21:20,279 --> 00:21:24,082 that does as perform together, but everyone has. 477 00:21:24,082 --> 00:21:28,153 And, like, mostly what the cast is made up is like is, 478 00:21:28,153 --> 00:21:31,890 you know, people would have, like, who are really used to TV, the pace 479 00:21:31,890 --> 00:21:34,626 of like working on a lot of TV shows and guest I need to be chosen 480 00:21:34,626 --> 00:21:38,430 a lot of the sort of like bad for like, you got to get your ass down. 481 00:21:38,430 --> 00:21:40,098 You don't get so many takes. 482 00:21:40,098 --> 00:21:43,902 and like, that makes them. 483 00:21:44,536 --> 00:21:47,406 I'm thinking of Jacob, who play salmon and Ashley replaced Diane. 484 00:21:47,406 --> 00:21:50,475 Like, these are like, working actors who are just really good 485 00:21:50,475 --> 00:21:53,612 and have very highly attuned instruments and they're very funny. 486 00:21:54,179 --> 00:21:57,749 And so we really sort of goes around like, well, we have them. 487 00:21:57,749 --> 00:22:00,452 They'll be funny. If they want to improv. 488 00:22:00,452 --> 00:22:03,288 They're going to like, yeah, we're not stopping them. 489 00:22:03,288 --> 00:22:04,122 yeah. 490 00:22:05,357 --> 00:22:07,092 And then and Christina also 491 00:22:07,092 --> 00:22:10,762 did a ton of improv, not everybody, because some people stuck to the script. 492 00:22:11,530 --> 00:22:13,899 We were like, sticking to the script more. 493 00:22:13,899 --> 00:22:16,435 I think I stuck to the script mostly because I wrote it. 494 00:22:16,435 --> 00:22:19,438 Yeah, but the best, all the best stuff in the movie 495 00:22:20,672 --> 00:22:23,709 is stuff that was not in the script is like, is all this, even this? 496 00:22:23,809 --> 00:22:28,580 I say this, but I think my favorite moment of Doctor Crane is an improv where 497 00:22:28,580 --> 00:22:31,917 Anthony is like, feel kind of shitty about giving that five bucks 498 00:22:32,851 --> 00:22:36,621 and then doctor friends like, oh, I don't I do not have it like that. 499 00:22:36,755 --> 00:22:40,625 That just like a it's like it's just feels very real. 500 00:22:40,625 --> 00:22:41,026 Anthony. 501 00:22:41,026 --> 00:22:44,062 Yeah, but I think it's sort of feels like this brotherly moment 502 00:22:44,763 --> 00:22:47,065 that like the, the little micro, 503 00:22:47,065 --> 00:22:50,068 tiny things that you discover when you're shooting and 504 00:22:50,602 --> 00:22:53,805 you know, and those I think are the, the things that ground 505 00:22:53,939 --> 00:22:58,343 what is otherwise such a zany, preposterous, absurd big movie with. 506 00:22:58,710 --> 00:23:02,314 Yeah, all this multi-dimensional, you know, napkins. 507 00:23:02,314 --> 00:23:05,317 You can see the puppet strings nonsense. 508 00:23:06,485 --> 00:23:09,121 I think it's good to swing it back and just have a lot of these. 509 00:23:09,121 --> 00:23:10,122 Just like little 510 00:23:10,122 --> 00:23:13,425 beats between people that that are, I mean, that feel a lot more real. 511 00:23:14,126 --> 00:23:17,129 When you're doing that, when you when you improv, improvise, improvising, 512 00:23:17,195 --> 00:23:20,432 and you find the grounded moments, how do you recognize them in the moment? 513 00:23:20,432 --> 00:23:22,701 Are you too far into it? 514 00:23:22,701 --> 00:23:23,668 did you find that in editing? 515 00:23:23,668 --> 00:23:26,238 I think you just try to shoot as much as you can and then. 516 00:23:26,238 --> 00:23:31,276 Yeah, you know, the first cut of this film, the script was 110 pages, 517 00:23:31,643 --> 00:23:36,548 and then the movie was three hours long, and and then it took a really long time. 518 00:23:36,548 --> 00:23:40,352 We spent a really long time trimming and cutting to get the movie down to, 519 00:23:40,352 --> 00:23:42,354 you know, now it's like just under 90 minutes. 520 00:23:42,354 --> 00:23:44,823 It's like 80, 87 credits or whatever. 521 00:23:46,591 --> 00:23:49,461 but that that was what that process was. 522 00:23:49,461 --> 00:23:52,731 It was just like, there's all like finding the right balance 523 00:23:52,731 --> 00:23:54,366 of these little moments that are just like, 524 00:23:54,366 --> 00:23:56,701 that doesn't really advance the story, but I like it. 525 00:23:56,701 --> 00:23:59,237 It tells us something about the characters. 526 00:23:59,237 --> 00:24:02,707 You know, this is really important to the plot, but it's not that funny. 527 00:24:02,874 --> 00:24:04,709 Is there another way of doing this better? 528 00:24:04,709 --> 00:24:07,446 Like, yeah. 529 00:24:07,446 --> 00:24:09,915 And so yeah, so being open to those improv things, 530 00:24:09,915 --> 00:24:11,516 you just you find that later I think. 531 00:24:11,516 --> 00:24:13,819 Yeah, being a part of the entire process 532 00:24:13,819 --> 00:24:15,921 because you actually have seen it from start to finish. 533 00:24:15,921 --> 00:24:18,523 what do you think is the most rewarding and most challenging part 534 00:24:18,523 --> 00:24:21,526 of making the films? 535 00:24:22,861 --> 00:24:23,462 Okay. 536 00:24:23,462 --> 00:24:25,130 Most challenging? 537 00:24:25,130 --> 00:24:26,131 I don't like sound editing. 538 00:24:26,131 --> 00:24:28,333 I had to do that myself because that's expensive. 539 00:24:28,333 --> 00:24:33,138 I don't think I do a great job, but I did a serviceable job for, you know. 540 00:24:33,171 --> 00:24:35,640 Yeah, for doing it basically by myself. 541 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:37,976 like. 542 00:24:37,976 --> 00:24:41,179 No, the most challenging thing is keeping up some sort of, like, 543 00:24:42,981 --> 00:24:43,548 you sort of 544 00:24:43,548 --> 00:24:46,551 tell yourself a lot, like, I was like a cheerleader of this 545 00:24:46,585 --> 00:24:49,321 who was telling everybody, we're going to make a movie, 546 00:24:49,321 --> 00:24:50,689 we're going to finish a movie. 547 00:24:50,689 --> 00:24:52,457 It's going to be a real movie. 548 00:24:52,457 --> 00:24:54,292 And I did not know that. Right? 549 00:24:54,292 --> 00:24:58,430 But I had to pretend to like a lot my wife, my father in law, 550 00:24:58,497 --> 00:25:02,400 a lot of my closest friends, some of whom were successful, like, 551 00:25:03,401 --> 00:25:07,372 I had to sort of be that cheerleader who was like, I have no job, right? 552 00:25:07,539 --> 00:25:08,373 There was no room for that. 553 00:25:08,373 --> 00:25:11,376 We got to soldier on and, 554 00:25:11,543 --> 00:25:14,779 that is, you know, to keep that up over the years of developing, 555 00:25:14,779 --> 00:25:18,149 writing, shooting and then editing and then releasing, right. 556 00:25:18,149 --> 00:25:19,351 Like the other thing 557 00:25:19,351 --> 00:25:21,086 that's very rewarding, but also challenging 558 00:25:21,086 --> 00:25:24,422 that I have never done before is like the part about finding 559 00:25:24,422 --> 00:25:27,792 distribution, getting the movie out, promoting the film, like 560 00:25:28,894 --> 00:25:30,929 that is a lot of work. 561 00:25:30,929 --> 00:25:31,162 I now 562 00:25:31,162 --> 00:25:34,566 have a tremendous amount of respect for the people who do that professionally. 563 00:25:34,566 --> 00:25:38,570 I this was not a part of the industry that I knew is like the PR 564 00:25:38,570 --> 00:25:40,338 and the marketing and the 565 00:25:40,338 --> 00:25:44,009 you just kind of know that that's somebody else's job as a as a writer, right? 566 00:25:44,009 --> 00:25:46,211 Like you're on the other end of it usually. 567 00:25:46,211 --> 00:25:49,214 So when you're when you get all the way here, 568 00:25:49,748 --> 00:25:50,849 I will take that. 569 00:25:50,849 --> 00:25:54,085 And it will, it shapes the way I think of what projects to work on 570 00:25:54,085 --> 00:25:57,088 and kind of work on them and how much I pour into them. And, 571 00:25:58,089 --> 00:26:01,526 like I, I learned a lot about writing and doing all the other things. 572 00:26:01,826 --> 00:26:04,829 Writing the movie didn't get anything done accidentally 573 00:26:04,963 --> 00:26:07,966 releasing a movie, promoting a movie that taught me about writing. 574 00:26:08,133 --> 00:26:08,900 Yeah. 575 00:26:08,900 --> 00:26:11,803 Probably told you, like where the budget needs to go? 576 00:26:11,803 --> 00:26:14,205 yeah, stuff like that. That's probably when you're a writer. 577 00:26:14,205 --> 00:26:16,374 You're imagining, oh, I want to create this world. 578 00:26:16,374 --> 00:26:18,877 When you're the producer, you're like, this world needs to cost this much. 579 00:26:18,877 --> 00:26:20,045 You know? 580 00:26:20,045 --> 00:26:21,813 I mean, yes. 581 00:26:21,813 --> 00:26:24,649 And also, like, what are the like, no matter. 582 00:26:24,649 --> 00:26:26,251 You know, I sort of went in with, like, 583 00:26:26,251 --> 00:26:29,387 I'm just going to make this funny and as good as I can. 584 00:26:29,387 --> 00:26:31,656 And then, you know, when you get to the distribute, 585 00:26:31,656 --> 00:26:35,193 the you're selling it to a distributor, you're trying to put this on platforms. 586 00:26:35,193 --> 00:26:38,463 Nobody's at no point in any of that conversation 587 00:26:38,463 --> 00:26:40,432 is anybody talking about how funny your movie is, right? 588 00:26:40,432 --> 00:26:43,068 Like, that's all I cared about as a comedy writer. 589 00:26:43,068 --> 00:26:44,903 I was like, how funny is this movie? 590 00:26:44,903 --> 00:26:47,772 But at that point, the conversation was how much 591 00:26:47,772 --> 00:26:51,142 or organic promotion on social media will Seth Green do for the film? 592 00:26:51,142 --> 00:26:54,746 And like, how do we sell this movie as a horror film and how do we 593 00:26:54,846 --> 00:26:58,083 what is the key art that sells the concept of the horror of it? 594 00:26:58,083 --> 00:27:01,386 And so and not that any of not that they're wrong. 595 00:27:01,386 --> 00:27:04,923 Like, I don't know like that is what the conversation is about your movie. 596 00:27:04,923 --> 00:27:08,093 But like I made the movie to be funny, right. 597 00:27:08,093 --> 00:27:09,661 And but it doesn't. 598 00:27:10,762 --> 00:27:14,065 You just have to hope that that helps the movie once people click on it. 599 00:27:14,065 --> 00:27:15,133 But people aren't, I don't know. 600 00:27:15,133 --> 00:27:18,603 The idea is people don't click on a movie because they think that it's get like, 601 00:27:18,737 --> 00:27:19,337 I don't, I don't, 602 00:27:19,337 --> 00:27:22,107 you know, you can't sell a movie based on how funny it is, I guess. 603 00:27:22,107 --> 00:27:25,010 I don't know, maybe that'll change. I hope so, because, oh. 604 00:27:25,010 --> 00:27:29,080 Yeah, it does feel like kind of a 90s early 2000 things where it was just like 605 00:27:29,347 --> 00:27:32,250 the word would spread quickly, like, oh man, this is the funniest thing ever. 606 00:27:32,250 --> 00:27:33,084 People will watch it. 607 00:27:33,084 --> 00:27:35,687 But now you have to like, know the director, know the writer, 608 00:27:35,687 --> 00:27:37,455 or know something about the movie ahead of time. 609 00:27:37,455 --> 00:27:40,225 So much so that it kind of ruins it, frankly. 610 00:27:40,225 --> 00:27:40,558 Yeah. 611 00:27:41,559 --> 00:27:42,661 So we thank you. 612 00:27:42,661 --> 00:27:43,061 Pinky out. 613 00:27:43,061 --> 00:27:47,332 Now, do you plan on expanding the hankie panky verse or do you have another project 614 00:27:47,332 --> 00:27:48,099 coming up? 615 00:27:48,099 --> 00:27:49,501 I mean, I can't help myself. 616 00:27:49,501 --> 00:27:53,304 I've written most of a second, sequel, all the all the money 617 00:27:53,304 --> 00:27:54,739 that we were ever able to get. 618 00:27:54,739 --> 00:27:57,108 We'll go into more blood, I think, and gore effects. 619 00:27:57,108 --> 00:28:01,446 That's the feedback that we've gotten from, you know, we had a really good time. 620 00:28:01,446 --> 00:28:02,313 We took the movie to 621 00:28:02,313 --> 00:28:05,350 we did a panel at Monster Palooza, which is really fun convention. 622 00:28:05,350 --> 00:28:08,920 And like, I don't know, people seem to like or and the everybody 623 00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:12,490 who wanted to market it, the horror element over the comedy element. 624 00:28:12,490 --> 00:28:15,060 Yeah. All right. Well, I can do that. We can do more horror. 625 00:28:15,060 --> 00:28:17,362 We can do that. Cost a little bit of money. 626 00:28:17,362 --> 00:28:18,997 Like you can 627 00:28:20,098 --> 00:28:20,799 you can 628 00:28:20,799 --> 00:28:24,636 make fake blood, but you can't splatter it on everything for free. 629 00:28:24,669 --> 00:28:28,173 You know, if you're gonna blow up a head in a seat, 630 00:28:29,340 --> 00:28:32,310 whatever shirt that person's wearing, you got to have, like, a high end 631 00:28:32,811 --> 00:28:35,413 piece of that shirt. Yeah, that's, you know. 632 00:28:35,413 --> 00:28:38,183 There's rentals involved a lot of times and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. 633 00:28:38,183 --> 00:28:42,087 So that costume, geysers of blood shooting out of people's head cost money. 634 00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,723 You can't just do that at home and ruin the. 635 00:28:44,723 --> 00:28:46,658 Note to self. Yeah. 636 00:28:46,658 --> 00:28:47,792 So we've done that before. 637 00:28:47,792 --> 00:28:49,994 We made a short film, 638 00:28:49,994 --> 00:28:53,398 Lindsey and Toby and I and a couple of, I think a couple of the other members 639 00:28:53,398 --> 00:28:57,135 of the Hankie Panky team worked on a short film called Nano Blood many, many, 640 00:28:57,135 --> 00:29:00,038 many years ago. That was a sci fi horror drama short. 641 00:29:00,038 --> 00:29:00,905 It's out there on the internet. 642 00:29:00,905 --> 00:29:04,075 You can find it, we did something. 643 00:29:04,175 --> 00:29:06,945 We blow up ahead and we slit her throat, and we we did all kinds 644 00:29:06,945 --> 00:29:10,215 of that kind of stuff in it, and, it was art, and it's expensive. 645 00:29:10,849 --> 00:29:12,283 Yeah. Oh, yeah. 646 00:29:12,283 --> 00:29:14,285 We had to get actual special effects people 647 00:29:14,285 --> 00:29:16,821 to help us make prosthetics and stuff. It was a whole thing. 648 00:29:16,821 --> 00:29:17,889 It's much harder. Thank you, thank you. 649 00:29:17,889 --> 00:29:21,059 We were like, I don't know, just I don't know, I'll just put a 650 00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,629 I mean, Toby designed those the blood bags. 651 00:29:24,629 --> 00:29:26,397 It's just a Ziploc bag. 652 00:29:26,397 --> 00:29:29,501 Full effect blood on the inside of a hat with a needle that sort of, 653 00:29:29,501 --> 00:29:32,670 when you put it on, squeezes it, and then, like, comes out. 654 00:29:32,771 --> 00:29:33,304 It works. 655 00:29:34,572 --> 00:29:35,273 Yeah, but it didn't. 656 00:29:35,273 --> 00:29:35,940 It wasn't. 657 00:29:35,940 --> 00:29:39,477 It was not, it doesn't look tremendously expensive. 658 00:29:39,477 --> 00:29:40,945 And it wasn't. 659 00:29:40,945 --> 00:29:42,680 But it looks fun. I think that's the main thing. 660 00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:44,082 People need to go watch this. 661 00:29:44,082 --> 00:29:47,285 the trailer and all the links will be in the description, guys, but, yeah, 662 00:29:47,318 --> 00:29:48,520 at least watch the trailer. 663 00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:49,888 It looks like it's a blast. 664 00:29:49,888 --> 00:29:52,657 And you just want to kind of join in on the fun. 665 00:29:52,657 --> 00:29:52,957 Yeah. 666 00:29:52,957 --> 00:29:57,662 I mean, I think I think if you if you get the comedy from the trailer, 667 00:29:57,662 --> 00:30:01,232 then the movie will deliver on the promise that comedy. 668 00:30:01,232 --> 00:30:01,533 Right? 669 00:30:01,533 --> 00:30:05,470 And if you watch the trailer and you think this is this doesn't look funny, maybe. 670 00:30:05,637 --> 00:30:06,304 Maybe it will be. 671 00:30:06,304 --> 00:30:08,072 I don't know if I give it a shot, 672 00:30:08,072 --> 00:30:11,009 but if the trailer is funny, you're going to love this movie. 673 00:30:11,009 --> 00:30:12,243 That's cool. All right. 674 00:30:12,243 --> 00:30:14,112 Well, guys, thank you so much for joining me today. 675 00:30:14,112 --> 00:30:15,313 I appreciate that so much. Nick. 676 00:30:16,381 --> 00:30:17,282 There's so much 677 00:30:17,282 --> 00:30:20,251 mac and cheese on the laptop actually. 678 00:30:20,451 --> 00:30:22,520 The timing is perfect. 679 00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:24,255 Oh, he's just been like all day. 680 00:30:24,255 --> 00:30:26,291 I've been in a writing session with a writing partner. 681 00:30:26,291 --> 00:30:27,525 He's just been hanging out 682 00:30:27,525 --> 00:30:31,229 as it's just been sort of just chilling and then took too long a nap. 683 00:30:31,229 --> 00:30:33,932 And now we've just turned into 684 00:30:33,932 --> 00:30:38,703 a, mac and cheese demon who just wants to throw away everything. 685 00:30:38,703 --> 00:30:41,306 And, yeah. 686 00:30:41,306 --> 00:30:43,808 where can people find you when they if they want to keep up on the progress 687 00:30:43,808 --> 00:30:46,110 for the next? Thank you. Thank you. 688 00:30:46,110 --> 00:30:49,180 hankie panky movie on all of the socials is the best place. 689 00:30:49,180 --> 00:30:52,183 you know, we're on Instagram and Twitter 690 00:30:52,183 --> 00:30:55,186 and TikTok and all of that stuff. 691 00:30:55,286 --> 00:30:57,455 I'm not really on social media. 692 00:30:57,455 --> 00:30:58,957 Okay, that's good for you. 693 00:30:58,957 --> 00:30:59,891 But we wish I could. 694 00:30:59,891 --> 00:31:02,126 It's just me. I just I run most of it. 695 00:31:02,126 --> 00:31:03,261 Yeah. So. 696 00:31:03,261 --> 00:31:05,396 Okay. All right, guys, there's going to be links in the description. 697 00:31:05,396 --> 00:31:07,832 Make sure you click around start following up on everything again Tubi. 698 00:31:07,832 --> 00:31:09,801 It's free with ads. And then you can watch trailers. 699 00:31:09,801 --> 00:31:10,501 Really good. 700 00:31:10,501 --> 00:31:15,874 One last geek related thing that I forgot that I should pitch is that for for those 701 00:31:15,874 --> 00:31:19,410 who are in the Dungeons and Dragons, 702 00:31:19,410 --> 00:31:22,413 niche of geekdom, I am as well. 703 00:31:22,413 --> 00:31:24,649 And I am a DM and enjoy homebrewing things. 704 00:31:24,649 --> 00:31:26,851 And so I, again, I can't help myself. 705 00:31:26,851 --> 00:31:28,586 I did design. 706 00:31:28,586 --> 00:31:31,990 If you go to D&D beyond, if you go to a link tree, you'll get links to it. 707 00:31:31,990 --> 00:31:36,060 I did design some homebrew races for the hat and the napkin if you want to. 708 00:31:36,127 --> 00:31:40,365 If you want to create a character who has the hat, the hat folk or nap kind 709 00:31:40,832 --> 00:31:46,037 are are races that I've built for for five that are, you know, they're very fun. 710 00:31:46,237 --> 00:31:48,506 Immediately, I had a friend tested out who was like, 711 00:31:48,506 --> 00:31:50,408 yeah, so I made a hat character in a napkin character. 712 00:31:50,408 --> 00:31:53,845 They've infiltrated a group of adventurers who don't know that 713 00:31:53,845 --> 00:31:57,215 they're, other adventurers, you know? 714 00:31:57,215 --> 00:32:03,321 So it's it's if you want to find a character with a brain soul sucking mechanism 715 00:32:04,322 --> 00:32:05,223 and you want to, 716 00:32:05,223 --> 00:32:07,992 And you see beyond it's there, it's brains, it's whatever. 717 00:32:07,992 --> 00:32:09,193 But I tell you what. 718 00:32:09,193 --> 00:32:11,296 So, I mean, the co-host and I'm the DM. 719 00:32:11,296 --> 00:32:12,096 Of course I am. 720 00:32:12,096 --> 00:32:15,366 we have a session coming up, and I'm going to test them to see if they 721 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:16,834 listen to this interview, 722 00:32:16,834 --> 00:32:19,003 and they're going to be running into a bunch of loot 723 00:32:19,003 --> 00:32:21,205 that happens to be at a chest, and one of them will be a top hat. 724 00:32:21,205 --> 00:32:22,941 And so we're going to see how they, you know. 725 00:32:22,941 --> 00:32:25,977 It's a yeah, you could definitely run like mimic vibes on it. 726 00:32:26,244 --> 00:32:27,211 That's how think of this mimic. 727 00:32:27,211 --> 00:32:30,515 Yeah I put some pretty good rules about you know the hat has to 728 00:32:30,715 --> 00:32:32,650 you know if it grapples you it sucks your soul. 729 00:32:32,650 --> 00:32:34,652 gets longer after that. It's a whole thing. 730 00:32:34,652 --> 00:32:36,020 You'll see. It's pretty cool. 731 00:32:36,020 --> 00:32:37,855 There's some fun funds in there. 732 00:32:37,855 --> 00:32:41,659 I don't know why you're so upset, but you just go from that big map and you. 733 00:32:42,961 --> 00:32:44,996 I know 734 00:32:44,996 --> 00:32:46,297 I need to. All right. 735 00:32:46,297 --> 00:32:49,300 All right, Nick, I'll let you get back to the mac and cheese. 736 00:32:49,801 --> 00:32:50,868 all the chaos. 737 00:32:50,868 --> 00:32:53,538 Thank you so much for hanging out with me today, man. Don't much. 738 00:32:53,538 --> 00:32:56,541 And for putting up with all this shenanigans. 739 00:32:56,708 --> 00:32:59,510 Well, of course, happy to let me know when the next one's coming out 740 00:32:59,510 --> 00:33:02,213 so we can have you back on and talk about the next one. 741 00:33:02,213 --> 00:33:02,947 I'll hold your breath. 742 00:33:02,947 --> 00:33:03,548 You know what I mean? 743 00:33:03,548 --> 00:33:05,850 Other than these things, take these things take time. 744 00:33:05,850 --> 00:33:08,886 I'm hoping this I'm going to write it, that I also have a third one. 745 00:33:08,886 --> 00:33:10,655 The third one is very fun. So I think. 746 00:33:10,655 --> 00:33:12,690 Thank you. Three hat trick. It's going to be like Apocalypse Now. 747 00:33:12,690 --> 00:33:14,359 We got to go to the hat realm. 748 00:33:14,359 --> 00:33:15,827 Save all the. Spirits. 749 00:33:15,827 --> 00:33:16,761 Up there. 750 00:33:16,761 --> 00:33:16,995 Yeah. 751 00:33:16,995 --> 00:33:19,998 Doctor green probably going to make a comeback at some point. 752 00:33:20,298 --> 00:33:23,301 Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. 753 00:33:23,534 --> 00:33:26,571 All right guys, again follow the links and we'll see you guys next time. Bye.