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GUILLERMO DEL TORO: Making movies is beautiful.
Prepping them, raisingthe money, selling them is horrible.
Horrible.
And I think Ican make movies
the rest of my life.
Selling them, you grow impatient,
you see it for what it is more and more with every year.
JUSTIN McCONNELL: It's been said that there are three things
you should never do when making a film.
Make a film about yourself, make a film about filmmaking
or open the film with a quote.
Test.
MAN: Record.
McCONNELL: Yes.
Okay.
Here it goes.
I'm Justin McConnell and uh...
[CHUCKLES] Welcome to the documentary
currently entitled, um...
See you can tell it's a current working title,
because the name doesn't jump to my mind
the second I have to say it, uh,
but right now it's called Slate and Gain.
No, Slate and Game. See?
It's gonna happen. It's gonna need a title change.
McCONNELL: I've wanted to make films since I was very young,
but not since I was a little kid.
At first, I wanted to be a paleontologist
or a criminologist, but eventually I realized
I just lovedJurassic Park andThe Silence of the Lambs.
I absorbed everything I can get my hands on
and aside from a few stop-motion experiments with toys...
[WHIRRING]
McCONNELL: I started seriously making my own movies at the age of 15.
Documentaries for class at first.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like
to make a movie?
Well, in this video, I'm gonna tell you
what the roles of screenwriters and directors are,
from big to small budget, from commercials to major films.
Then short films and even my first feature when I was in high school.
[COCKS GUN]
Open the fucking cash register!
McCONNELL: Consumer video tech was just then cheap enough
that I could save up and buy a Handycam
that wasn't great on quality, but served its purpose.
Just a question here. How do you expect to get away with this?
McCONNELL: Growing up in the '90s,
my generation of filmmakers were raised in the wake
of the independent film movement.
The working-class success story,
the self-made kid who worked outside the system
and then broke in,
the Sundance darling, the director as a rock star.
So I grew up dreaming of when I might get the big break,
that moment I made a film that would break into the public consciousness
in a way that my career would be set.
The dream of making it.
A dream worth working toward,
for that one day when lightning strikes.
[GUNSHOT]
McCONNELL: But who was I and what chance do I really have?
I came from a small town in Canada, starting with zero contacts in the business
and just a dream.
Now, it's over 20 years later since the dream was born
and the business is not what you dream it'll be,
the industry is not the same as the hope,
the reality does not match up to the dream.
How could it?
Okay. Mmm-hmm. Uh, okay.
Film has always felt like the most important part of my life,
my whole identity.
My family and friends matter to me greatly, but for most of my life,
I've had this feeling that if film was stripped away,
I wouldn't be much of a person.
I'd be a rudderless ship drifting in open seas with no hope of direction.
But I can't deny that it's taken its toll
in more ways than I can count.
A few years ago when I was at my lowest point,
I began to question why I'm even trying.
The doubt began to creep in.
I had tragically lost my best friend
and writing partner of a decade,
the co-architect of my strategy for breaking in,
and it hit a big reset button.
I gained weight and hit nearly 300 pounds.
None of the projects was trying to get made were getting off the ground.
I'd had a no-budget feature horror movie released around the world
that while some people really enjoyed, enough people hated it
that I started to really doubt my own abilities.
I was in a slump and the business didn't seem to be doing any better.
I, uh, find myself second-guessing
myself a lot, lately.
And it sort of feels like, um, the opportunity
happened for other people more,
way more than you know, it happened for me
And I'm wondering...
I'm always wondering why that is.
I question it sometimes.
I question, you know, my place in a business
that is tough enough to get into on its own, uh,
and even more difficult when people
have written you off.
The film business that existed when I was growing up,
the one that I dreamed of working on is long dead.
It died before I had a chance to even get to the proverbial locked door,
much less walk through it.
In its place is a Wild West of competing ideologies,
a greater gulf between mainstream
and independent cinema than ever before,
more product than the population can handle,
and more new types of media entertainment
to compete with film than the business can sustain.
The possibility of having a career actually creating content is there,
but the competition is fierce.
The market's oversaturated, only the very best breakthrough.
But in that, there's hope I think.
There's a reason to keep trying and there's more reason than ever before
to try and become a self-made creator.
The doors to getting your work seen are wide open now.
The ability to make money off your work
is what's much more difficult, which means,
as I've learned the hard way countless of times,
you have to be smart.
You have to keep learning.
You have to work hard enough and survive long enough to get your chance
and know that your chance,
your lightning strike moment, may never come
and you have to be okay with that.
That's a form of insanity, isn't it?
I think it might be to be a dreamer,
to live for a dream,
but it's a form of insanity everyone trying
to be a filmmaker shares
and somehow I take comfort in that.
I decided to make this doc,
because I've been working in the film industry now for 15 years
in an actual, somewhat professional capacity,
but I also don't want to show a biased opinion
of who I am, because I'm not...
I'm not really anybody yet.
I moved to Toronto in the year 2000, just a fan with a dream.
Slowly built a career in post-production,
made a bunch of short films and music videos,
amassed a lot of debt, made a lot of mistakes.
The first film I made that did any sort of real distribution,
the documentary Working Class Rock Star,
I made zero money on after being conned
by a predatory producer's rep, having one distributor
go bankrupt before I was paid out and another's releases
get lost in the shuffle when their sub-distributor sold to a bigger company.
I made a horror film calledThe Collapsed
on basically pocket change, but sold to 13 territories
and some sizable companies, and made a tidy profit.
And then another documentarySkull World,
which has a few distributors on board,
but was partially self-distributed,
and not very profitable.
Around 2009, I started trying to get a bigger feature,
The Eternal, made with little luck.
Despite having a really cool attached cast of people who I grew up watching,
the recession and a lot of bad luck led to that one going on the shelf.
But in 2012, that project and my client work for Anchor Bay
connected me with a prolific producer, Avi Federgreen,
who I joined forces with to continue the development of my slate
and help his distribution company IndieCan Entertainment.
In 2013, I started working as a film festival programmer
at Toronto After Dark and in various capacities for a bunch of distributors.
I am really not anybody, you've probably never even heard of me.
I'm one of thousands of people trying to do this,
but I do think my experiences are a good jumping-off point
to examine the business further to try and understand it more,
and figure out how to keep a career building in the modern film industry.
But there's no point in going it alone,
so I've gradually collected the opinions of dozens of knowledgeable figures
from across the industry who've graciously given their time, offer collective insight into
such a complicated business.
To be successful as a filmmaker,
you have to be a fucking masochist.
[LAUGHING]
You have to, um, be a little bit insane.
Independent film has never been something that you go into to get rich.
I mean I guess in a sense in the '90s when people
were getting rich off the Sundance sales et cetera,
it created this illusion that there was this world out there
that you could get rich making art.
Um, you know, I think that was always kind of
a bullshit assumption.
If you are entering this business in order to be
rich or famous, you're in the wrong place.
If you can get distribution, most of that comes after the fact
after you've made your movie.
I get so discouraged sometimes, I go, "I'm gonna quit," you know?
At least, twice during the...
Last months right before we're green-lit,
and it's so hard, and it's just not coming together,
and you get a piece, but you lose a piece, and you're, "Oh, my God."
[SPEAKING IN JAPANESE]
Problem we now have is we a tsunami of product.
We have much more product than it is possible to watch.
JORDAN FIELDS: There are definitely more films made today than ever before,
completely saturated.
It just makes a job like mine a little harder,
because I have to weed through so much to get... to find the gems.
Nobody complained when there were thousands of paintings,
and drawings, and comic book illustrations.
Why should anyone complain about too many movies?
Uh, the problem is there are too many great movies
that nobody gets to see.
I mean you can make wonderful film and never, it never gets seen.
That's the problem today.
I mean, that's happened to me several times,
even with, even with the studios.
CAROLYN MAURICETTE: I'm finding now if you're really active on social media,
getting a big following, that actually helps your chances.
It's all about money.
That's why you get the Aliens 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Terminator 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Fast and the Furious 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
It's very telling that the fact that people now use
terms of "content" and "pipeline" to describe stories.
We need a content to feed our pipeline.
That's sewage language or oil language.
It's flow.
It's only content for as long as it lasts in the pipeline
and then it moves to the ocean of forgiveness and forgetfulness both, you know?
It's air.
McCONNELL: At this point, I was working with Avi
to try and get a horror film calledTripped made.
I had just optioned the film rights to a novel calledKane and had a dozen or so
other projects on my slate.
I just got an email stating that an actor I really respect, Michael Eklund,
he wants to doTripped, which is a movie
that I wrote with Kevin before he died.
Uh, it's kind of about us.
I always get excited whenever an actor
that I like, uh, wants to do one of my projects, which is great.
It's always great news, um, but I still have to get the bloody movie made.
I've been down this road before while trying to get The Eternal made.
I'll tell you what was uncomfortable in your situation
is that you faxed me a contract.
McCONNELL: I faxed you an LOI...
Well, but you know, when you get to that point...
-McCONNELL: Yeah. -It gets a little confusing.
I mean if you really wanna know,
before you start talking about money
to any actor or any... or anybody else, you really
should wait until you actually have
cash or money in the bank or you,
or you have a production, uh, office.
Where you have some money,
that doesn't mean the film's gonna get made.
it doesn't mean anything, but you know, you wanna wait
as long as you can so that you can move quickly.
MICHAEL BIEHN: We never got to a point where it's like,
"Okay, here's how much money you're gonna make,"
and so on and so forth.
I know you were just tryin' to put it together,
but I thought it was an extremely well-written script.
Uh, the action was just like fantastic and if you
ever had the, you know, time and money
to make that movie the way it's scripted,
I think it would do very well.
McCONNELL: Eklund is definitely interested.
Uh, he liked the script a lot.
What do you think Tripped could get in terms
of a Canada presale with Eklund attached?
Well, that was a promising call.
So the way it's working is that we need cast attachment
to be able to go to Super Channel,
so that we can get a presale out of them
and a presale out of Anchor Bay,
and uh, go and finance the tax breaks
and that puts the movie together.
But in order for that to happen, we need to get
Michael Eklund to sign a letter of intent to appear,
which is a legally non-binding document
that just simply states, "I'm interested in this."
That's it.
But they're not gonna give us an LOI
they said, "We're really interested,
"but we don't want you to come back until it's a fully-financed film
"and there's an offer to be made,"
which to me is like...
[CHUCKLES]
It's like everything else.
You need to have the money first,
but then in order to get the money,
you need everything else in place,
but in order to get everything else in place,
you need the money, so in order to get the money,
you need to get everything else in place.
And it's just this big fuckin' circle of bullshit
and it just... it's endless.
It's absolutely fucking endless and it seems
like how does anybody get anything made?
I spent 10 fuckin' years tryin' to figure out how this thing works.
If somebody had just been able to just walk down,
"Oh, here's how you, you know, finance a movie.
"You get this and then you go do this."
You know, duh.
You know, instead of just sitting there.
Like, I think a lot of filmmakers
before they've gotten the experience,
think there's like, it's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
where you just get the golden ticket,
and then you're making movies, and that's not what it is.
It's this business that's pieced together
by these very defined components and if you get
an understandin' of how those components work together,
and you get an understanding of...
of how to focus your energy,
how to maximize the results from it,
then it's much easier to make a movie.
It's not a mystery, it's not a lottery, it's a...
It's a sort of, you know, a formula.
When I look at a project, I analyze it
as if I were investing in real estate and I have to look at
the package and, you know, what assets are in place.
Obviously, the first, money in is always
the hardest to find, but it's so much easier
if you have a director that believes in your project
and is willing to put his name on it
or if you have a brand that really loves it.
And there are lots of different aspects that are...
that are more approachable than others.
So maybe don't start with talent, 'cause that's
a little scary and you wanna have some dollar signs
before you go out there, but definitely
flesh your concept out, definitely if it has any
tie to a video game, reach out to video game.
Like, you know, all that you can do to bring in
more players and make it a more appealing asset.
The old way, it used to be, you had a good script,
you had a good mood board, maybe you cut together
like a mood reel like you would take footage from
other stuff and you would put it together sayin'
you know, "It's gonna kind of feel like this."
And that used to get it done.
That doesn't get it done anymore.
You have to have a really great, what people perceive, as a great pitch.
I mean it is a bit unfortunate that, you know,
you kind of think, "Oh, I could just get
really good actors and it doesn't matter,
like it'll be an amazing film."
But uh, for people trying to select good films
and put them on a platform where everyone can see them,
it's like looking for a needle in a haystack,
so it really helps to have, yeah,
a cast in your film.
If you're doing this, you know, fully independently,
you're working with people who are even recognizable,
but not necessarily like valuable names,
least amount of money for the best quality product.
JENN WEXLER: The other thing that really draws us in
is when people have lookbooks, because just receiving a script
is, it's a little bland and it's, ah,
from a producing perspective,
it's just like, "Oh, I have so many
"things to do and now like reading the script."
Um, but if a script is accompanied by a lookbook,
then you're like, "Oh wow, I'm pulled in by this aesthetic,
"this is so cool."
Are we meeting about Tripped or are we discussing
the option of a bigger film?
[PLATO FOUNTIDAKIS SPEAKING]
Have they specifically said that they're interested in making Tripped?
[PLATO FOUNTIDAKIS SPEAKING]
I'm really shitty at the financial end of movies of moviemaking, you know?
I've been fortunate that most of the work I've been done
has either been network or studio or, you know, things.
Even my original stuff has been done within a system that funds itself.
I have done some independent film work and it's, I think, it's more difficult than ever
to find funding if you're not doing something entirely
on your own, because it's so much more difficult to make a profit at this.
So getting the funding to do a film that requires
more than just homemade guerrilla filmmaking
is excruciating and I,
I wouldn't have a clue how to do it,
you know, other than going through
production companies or through agents or managers, things like that.
Apparently, the investors he's talking to are actually really interested
and they wanna raise the budget.
Is there anything dishonorable with that,
'cause I'm already also talking to Eric...
[AVI FEDERGREEN SPEAKING]
Okay, all right.
I just, I wouldn't want Eric to get pissed,
'cause I'm talkin' to someone else, too.
But I think that's the...
[FEDERGREEN SPEAKING]
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
-It's the game, right? It's the way it's played. -[FEDERGREEN SPEAKING]
-All right. -[FEDERGREEN SPEAKING]
Yeah, exactly. All right.
Okay then.
Well, still seems promising on either end.
MIKE MENDEZ: It's always an adventure when it comes to financing, you know?
A, how you're gonna finance the movie is always a different thing.
Currently, I'm in a project that is supposed to shoot six, seven months ago.
Well, honestly three years ago, but lately we're supposed to do seven months ago and it...
it, you know, the money wasn't closed
when we were on set and it had to collapse.
I'm supposed to leave at the end of next week.
I don't know if I'm going.
I never feel good when someone says,
"We almost have the money."
It's... "Next week, the money should be closing."
I have never had a good experience.
That is never followed by something positive.
It's tough enough to find money,but to certainly find money that's not gonna weigh you down,
you have 16 producers.
I mean look at, look at movies certainly,
at film festivals now, there's usually a whole list of credits, of producers.
12 different executive producers.
And that's where money starts to get expensive.
It's like well, for every one of those people,
they have their own needs, they want to pump up the budget
but with that comes their perk package,
and with it comes their, wife that needs to be in the movie.
I mean it's a really, it can be a complicated process.
My strategy is get a job, work, save your money,
get a nice little, like, nest egg of cash,
and then produce your movie yourself.
Keep it simple, keep your movie small, get your own budget,
and just keep it.
The more insular you can keep your production, I think the better.
I'm supposed to do the entire movie,
initially based on plan for $275,000,
which is really low for how many effects and how big a movie it is.
And luckily, these guys, they're, they're more talking like 1 to 1.5 million.
And I never, I've never seen Trippedas a big film.
I have to choose the right partners
and I have to make sure, like, they're not gonna sign it
and then immediately replace me as director, which is not what I want.
Or, you know, no matter what I need to be...
I need to have some creative control on the project
and if that means that I do it for cheaper,
then so be it.
Don't go into it goin', "Here's the movie I wanna make.
"Here's the movie I wanna make. "Here's the movie to make."
The first question should be,
"What are the movies you're lookin' for?"
You know?
And ask that question to as many people as possible
who are in a position to release movies, finance movies,
you know, fellow producers.
Just listen and get a sense of what type of material works for them.
It's tough, right?
You're, you're, you're, you're building yourself,
building your name, and building who you are,
and you don't really have a lot of bargaining power
at this point in your career.
This is the hardest business, all aspects of this,
and it's not good enough to justbe one thing anymore.
I'm a writer, I'm a director, I'm a producer.
No, not good enough.
I need you to be more than that.
I need you to be all of those things and I need
you to have legal skills, I need you to understand
what legal jargon means, you need to know
how to use QuickBooks, how to file your taxes properly.
Like you cannot just say, "Well, I'm a director."
Fuck you.
I think this is a year where I, I start to grow the fuck up.
A time for me to realize that I might not know as
much as I think I do and that's the first step
towards learning the things I need to know,
to really survive in this business.
I'm not as effective a producer as I think I...
I want, I am.
I mean I'm still pretty green in a lot of ways.
I've always kind of done it myself every,
everything, a lot of the jobs myself, a lot of the work.
I put on multiple hats just to save money,
but I need to learn how to work with a team.
I'm currently working on the script for Kane,
which Serena Whitney and I are co-writing.
Around the same time I met Avi, I also met Serena Whitney,
a writer who was working for Dread Central at the time,
but quickly displayed real talent for screenwriting.
We became friends and started working together on a couple of projects.
Kanewas something I discovered when I was 12 years old.
it was on my mom's bookshelf and I decided to read it one night,
and I actually read it in an entire night, because it was terrifying.
I told myself, by 30 I would try to get the rights to it.
And that's when we got the rights to the, the film.
McCONNELL: Having a female writing partner's pretty cool, because,
[CHUCKLES] I've been criticized
in the past for not writing great female characters
and I'll be the first to admit that was the case for The Collapsed, for sure.
Uh, hey, Dad?
Yes, Rebecca.
Can I head off for a bit?
I need some privacy.
McCONNELL: Yeah, I'm distinctly aware of how stupid this scene is
during the apocalypse.
In this case, we've got, we've got...
This really tough task of taking this big-ass book
and turning it into a movie that's tight,
and still is true to the book and people will like.
The press went out last week first that
we optioned that bookKane by Douglas Borton.
You know, we released the press
and obviously they talk about the team's last projects
and I guess my last one is The Collapsed,
which was about 50/50 split.
Half the people hated it, half the people liked it.
But immediately as soon as the new press comes out,
you've got people commenting and saying things like, " The Collapsedsucked."
I always hate going into a project with a feeling
like I have to win back the public or win back
the audience, when, you know,
the difference between a movie that costs $40,000 to make
that we wrote in three weeks and the difference
between a movie that's probably gonna cost 1 million,
1.5 million that's based on a book that was written 25 years ago,
that is a solid fucking book, is night and day.
STEVE KOSTANSKI: I love reading the Amazon reviews forManborg,
because one of them, a guy actually says,
"This director should, like, quit filmmaking,
"never make a movie again."
The fact that any movie ever gets made is a miracle.
So even like the... whatever piece of garbage movie you think is, like,
the worst piece of shit you've ever seen in your life,
that was somebody's life for like many years.
And they worked really hard to make it.
And it were, and it was really hard just to get it
in front of you, and so I find that
there's a certain amount of respect for the filmmaker that
you can afford them that's just finding
something good about it.
KOSTANSKI: Reading stuff like that makes me feel really horrible,
but at the same time it makes you wanna work hard
and do a better job.
If you get discouraged when people tell you
that something isn't up to snuff
or they don't believe in you or support you early on out
or early out, then, [CHUCKLES]
you might as well just give up,
'cause there's no point in living a life
where you always feel like you're less than worthy.
All of us suck.
[CHUCKLING] You know, like, we're all bad
and the minute you think you're good, you should quit.
You know what I mean?
I'm sure Spielberg sits there and he's like, "I suck.
"I could be better.
"I can make better."
You need that doubt so you can hopefully improve on,
on the next project.
And some of it's just fun to laugh at, too, 'cause
like seriously Internet commenters are just ridiculous.
DAVID GREGORY: It's definitely more of, "It's awesome or it's shit" world now.
It's definitely more of a star-rating world now than than it used to be.
But it's definitely more democratized as well.
I mean everybody can have an opinion and,
and influence the way people see movies,
influence the movies that people want to see, I should say.
Take it with a grain of salt, 'cause people are nasty.
It's one of the reasons why I don't like social media.
They will, you know, they're just hiding behind their keyboards,
so they're gonna say whatever they wanna say.
DAVE ALEXANDER: People do not act in a civil or polite manner often
if it's in a virtual world.
There's no reason to act like that.
You wouldn't act like that if we were sitting
in a room having a conversation,
so why the fuck do you think it's okay
that you can act like that online?
ZACK BERNBAUM: Criticism is part of the business,
no matter what, it'll happen.
I think you have to have a thick skin.
A film critic/reviewer is gonna look at a film
the way that they're gonna look at it and I think
the best thing we can do is just sort of let it go.
In some cases I got savage reviews, but they always just,
there was always good ones intermixed with it,
but it all changes.
It's strange how...
a decade or two makes the difference of how people see your work and stuff
that was... [SIGHS]
Like a film like Frankenhooker was,
"Oh my God, it's just tits and ass.
"Just I mean, it's, that's nothin' there.
"It's not a horror film, just tits and ass."
Now, I read these reviews that say, "Oh my God,
"it's, you know, it was so ahead of its time."
Well, which is right?
Which review was right?
The contemporary review or the review today?
I mean, the answer is none of it.
McCONNELL: Last week, we had a meeting for gettingTripped made.
they said they'd have contract to us on Monday.
Nothing came on Monday, nothing came on Tuesday,
it's Friday now, so I enquired to Plato,
"What's up?"
and it sounds like they don't want to proceed.
MAN: [ON RECORDING] Now laid out our mission.
I expect you to fall in line.
[RINGTONE]
McCONNELL: Hey, Plato.
[FOUNTIDAKIS SPEAKING]
Right.
[FOUNTIDAKIS SPEAKING]
[CHUCKLES] So it did come down to me.
You know, I, I've only ever produced at the bare minimum of a budget like ever.
Ever.
Except the one, that one video fact video,
but mostly everything I've ever done was really,
really, really little budget and it's part of
the reason, you know, I don't have footage that looks like Scorsese.
Today, you can take a camera and go out and shoot,
make a movie for no money.
Now, it may suck, and it may not be a good movie,
but you can actually look at it,
and project it, and it looks pretty damn good in HD quality,
and you can manufacture a disc,
and put a little wrap on it, and look, "Hey, I got a movie."
And that works until people have to sit and watch it,
then it, kind of, that plan usually falls apart.
There's lots of more, people more talented than me,
and there's lots of people less talented than me,
and I've seen less talented get more successful,
and I've seen more talented get successful,
and they all get, they all get there
for different reasons and they all get their
finance together for different reasons,
but at the end of the day,
I have just as much chance as anyone else, I believe.
There are millions of footnotes in the history
of Hollywood of projects that someone said,
"You know, I would rather put this in a drawer
"than, say, sell it."
Um, but at the same time when you think about it
if someone, you know, you hear these stories
about someone saying, "Oh, they offered me all this
"money if I walked away as the director and,
and I think if, if that were a client or if,
even if I were that writer or that filmmaker,
I would think, "If somebody's willing to offer me money
"to walk away, I can find somebody to offer me money
"to stay as, as well.
"If I'm getting this kind of interest in the material now."
And now, I know.
Right now, I'm, now, it's the material's being validated,
this story that I want to tell is being validated.
DEL TORO: The only way that you do it is you try to stay
faithful to yourself and do movies that,
that really need to be made.
That really you think, for whatever reason.
It doesn't matter if it's an intimate little story
or giant robots and giant monsters.
A part of you needs that story told.
You know, my 10-year-old with my Godzilla on one hand
and my Iron Giant and my Iron Man
on the other are clashing.
That's the guy that doesPacific Rim.
The, the, super lonely melancholy kid,
doesPan's Labyrinth, but it's,
It's both equally me.
So that's the only thing, it, it just tells you,
You wanna fight for the stuff that is a lost cause.
You know what I'm saying?
A lost cause is the only one worth fighting.
It's cool, because we're in the Frontieres Market.
McCONNELL: Oh, my God, it's coming.
-Oh, no. -[CORK POPPING]
-McCONNELL: Look at that. -Yay!
-Look at that. -[LAUGHING]
From around the world over 100 projects are submitted
and usually they're all pretty legitimate projects,
because Frontieres is not just... you can enter,
anyone can enter, but you... You really gotta have
your shit together to even have a hope
and we were among the 20 chosen, so that's awesome.
We set out on a marathon of work getting a draft
of theKane script ready to show in less than a month
at the upcoming Market with the help of
our consulting producer George Mihalka.
WHITNEY: It's exciting because I've never done something like this,
I've never been a part of a film market,
it's kinda cool to be on the other side,
uh, this is where I've always wanted to be,
not just reviewing films but to have my, my film reviewed,
which is what you should want.
Um, so yeah I'm really excited.
I feel like, I feel like it's, it's like
a lifelong dream coming true.
McCONNELL: I know that Serena's really excited and she's very optimistic.
I've been down this road before
where I thought things were coming together,
and that the movie was gonna get made,
and I was ready to almost celebrate,
and then it didn't happen.
And I am somewhat concerned
that development's gonna take a long time,
which, that's why
you take the rights for four years. [CHUCKLES]
The best thing you can hope for is
for some investors to buy,
but that is not the primary reason why I wanna go.
It's to make the connections,
learn more about film markets,
and hopefully have something
to show for it at the end of the day.
Oh, wow!
Look at it.
It's real.
McCONNELL: I think we're ready.
I feel like we're ready.
We put a lot of effort into the package.
We've got a package, then a lookbook,
then a printed lookbook, then flyers,
and the posters, some concept art.
We got the script to the point
where we were really happy with it.
I guess we're ready.
ROSS DINERSTEIN: I think film markets are great.
I think a big part of the job is to meet people that are,
you know, shared similar interests,
but are from all over the world.
It gives you an idea of, you know,
what your peers are doing, and what's coming up,
and just kind of keeps you freshand keeps it competitive.
McCONNELL: [ON PHONE] If you were in our shoes, and doing these meetings,
how would you approach them?
Like, from a creative perspective?
What do they rather hear?
Do they wanna hear about the money they're gonna make
or do they want to hear about this great vision we've got?
FEDERGREEN: They know how to do their job.
They wanna know on the creative side what it looks,
what it feels like, what would you compare it to?
Because then once they hear all those things,
they wrap their heads around that and go,
"Okay, yeah, so I remember how successful that movie was.
"If this is gonna be like that, then we can make X amount of money,
"and we can market it in an X sort of way," and all that kind of stuff.
McCONNELL: Yeah, all right man. FEDERGREEN: All right, talk soon.
McCONNELL: Okay, take care, bye.
STEPHANIE TREPANIER: Over the years, we saw how the community aspect
of Fantasia was really important
and was actually getting new films made.
Filmmakers would meet.
Creating the Market at Fantasia was an extension of that,
but makin' it real, makin' it serious,
and it went from 220 to 280,
to 350 participants straightaway,
and people from top production companies, sales agencies.
LINDSAY PETERS: In contrast to some of the larger markets,
we know that one of the key qualities of Frontieres
is the fact that we create a relatively small
intimate atmosphere that actually allows people to get to know each other.
PETER KUPLOWSKY: I think after going through a co-production market
or any kind of production marketplace,
you're able to better assess the movie you're making.
So I've had a project, which after going through
meetings at a co-production market,
I've then realized maybe this isn't the right project for this marketplace,
because I've spoken to distributors,
and exhibitors, and producers,
and I've realized this isn't the kind of movie
that people are making right now,
and so maybe this is movie two, not movie one for this particular filmmaker.
ANNICK MAHNERT: Having all these people together in one room
for four days is really amazing,
because you get all these ideas of how they would do the things off
or maybe you might meet someone who has a project
but he lacks funds and someone will say,
"Well, this is great. I can help you with the fundings,"
or someone could help with post-production.
They give you the opportunity to talk to people in a relaxed,
informal kind of environment
and that's really what this kind of event is all about.
Otherwise, when you're back out in the big bad world, and you need your lawyers,
and your managers, and your agents to open those doors for you.
McCONNELL: We currently have 30 meetings definitely on the books,
but there could be more, there should be more,
and hopefully we get some traction with Mark of Kane.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
I think it's important to attendif you're interested in kind of going for it,
for that world,
and to be aware of who all the players are,
and what each company is really there to do, you know?
Are you talking to a financing producer,
you know, production company, are you talking to this distributor
and a lot of it is just communication and following up
and figuring out how to match your project
with the best collaborators that's gonna really get you what you want.
When you look at an artist, you're like,
"Can I be making movies with this person for the next 15, 20 years?"
It's just too much effort to just do a one-off.
It's too much effort if this is that person's one story
and once they're done with that,
they might just be done with film.
I need someone who's going to be a director
that needs me just as much as a producer,
and we're gonna spend our career making films with each other
and that's what you look for in someone you wanna collaborate with, you see a future.
BRYAN BRUCKS: The biggest first-time filmmaker mistake
is someone trashing that executive producer's movies.
The first thing you should do is look on the wall, see the movies they produced,
and, you know, don't shit on 'em.
METTE-MARIE KONGSVED: If you're talking about being
a filmmaker deciding which producer or financier or sales agent to work with,
I mean, I'd say meet with them and see what your chemistry is and then do some due diligence.
Ask around.
Do you know anybody that's done business with them?
Do you know anybody that has any experiences with these people?
If they've been around, chances are people will have worked with them,
and they'll have opinions.
WHITNEY: I think it really went well, the Market.
I think we were all really prepared,
and that was one of the notes that we received that we were really prepared,
and that was a good feeling to know that we could have stood out.
We met with people that I never thought I'd get a meeting with
at this stage of the game.
Um, the producers of Driveand Only God Forgives,
the Weinsteins.
I know, I know, but nobody was talking about
that particular scandal when I recorded this.
I've got a lot of hope at this point.
I'm gonna knock on wood.
[KNOCKING]
Knockin' on wood big time,
'cause you never know,
you never know until you know, but, uh, holy fuckin' shit.
The fallout from the Market ended up being good
in terms of building a network, learning some new things,
and meeting potential future collaborators,
but the response toMark of Kane
wasn't as immediate as we'd hoped, so development continued.
I filled my fall that year with client work
and shot a zero-budget comedy short for fun
calledDamned Selfie, but something was weighing on me.
Despite some added interest that hadn't paid off,
I started to realize I've been hitting a brick wall trying to getTripped made.
The decision was made to put it on the back burner
and focus on a lower-budget project that has more chance of getting to camera sooner.
Maybe I suffer from having too much of the split focus,
but I find that when one thing stalls,
it's good to have something else to do.
Every day, I am trying to move the pieces
on my board forward, you know?
It's an eternal chess game.
So I have a few knights, and a couple of bishops, and many pawns,
and occasionally a pawn can become a queen.
I am obsessed with doing work and I love family,
I love my personal time when I'm not working,
but, you know, I've always been somebody
who has felt the need to do my own thing,
so I don't work a nine-to-five.
I always say, working for yourself is like working 24/7,
because your hours are basically what dictate your output
and what you end up accomplishing.
You push as many things forward as you can,
and, well, as they say, you throw as much mud at the wall and see what sticks.
I've been trying to figure out an idea
for a low-budget feature or something I could do for Collapsedmoney or cheaper.
Um, 50 grand would be ideal.
So I had this idea a while back I was gonna call Shifter,
and it was just gonna be basically,
vaguely, it was about a shapeshifter,
someone who takes on a new face
every little bit of time, um, and they are the same character,
but someone else is playing the character throughout the movie.
Now, I'm making a much more simple idea.
I'm gonna call it Lifechanger instead of Shifter,
'cause "Shifter"has been taken a ton of times.
[MAN ON PHONE SPEAKING]
McCONNELL: Are there character flaws that I have
that you could point out things that might have pulled me back
or things that I've had to overcome?
If you had an idea in your head, it was right,
you wouldn't take criticism very well.
[MAN ON PHONE SPEAKING]
Nope.
The rule, the basic rules of the transformation
is it can't use its power,
it can't transform until it starts deteriorating.
If we thought maybe it was something else
or something you could do better,
you really sort of got mad about it, you know?
That's just the way you were or are.
You probably are the same way right now.
McCONNELL: [CHUCKLING] No.
But yeah, you have to take criticism, you have to.
-McCONNELL: Yeah. -Only way to learn.
McCONNELL: My parents are right.
I need to learn how to take criticism better.
Somethin' to work on.
So that's why it's able to touch people normally when...
[MAN ON PHONE SPEAKING]
If you're established,
a successful writer, yeah, you have a, you know,
justification to kind of push back.
But if you're starting out, I mean, be open, hear out, you know?
Think about it, mull it over,
because the last thing you want to have happen
is basically the movie gets made as-is, your vision,
and then you just read in the reviews all the notes.
Suck up your ego for a second and understand
that, like, generally,
all somebody's trying to do is help you.
You don't ever have to agree with whatever anybody is saying,
but it's very important,
I think, to pay that person proper respect
in terms of listening to it.
In terms of applying those notes to the movie,
I mean it just depends on who they're coming from.
McCONNELL: I really have to start draftingLifechanger.
I've got to start writing that script.
Title page is laid out.
So now, here's the first location.
MICK GARRIS: The script is by far the most important thing.
I would rather see a well-written, well-acted story
about interesting characters that looked shitty or cheap or undistinguished
than a big extravaganza with special effects
and beautiful shots that was empty and nothing.
You can make it look gorgeous,
you can get it acted brilliantly,
you can get really cool shots,
but if it's just a weak story or it's boring,
it's hard to fix that.
I need to write.
I need to turn around the first draft of Lifechanger
if I hope to hit the plan that I wanna hit of shooting by March,
early April at the latest kind of thing.
If you don't have a deadline, you tend to go on forever.
I know I certainly do.
So, in a lot of ways, having a deadline is an extremely useful thing,
because creativity, I mean, the kind of mystery of where creativity comes from
is... You know, I can't answer that question,
and in terms of feeling inspired when you're under a pressure,
I find there's a lot more pressure
that comes out of not having a deadline.
The hard and fast rule is...
I don't know who came up with this.
Where I saw it was on Warren P. Sonoda's Facebook wall.
When I'm writing and when I'm trying to come up with stories,
I have a saying that I keep trying to hammer home,
"Don't get it right, get it written.
"Get it right in the rewrites."
Which makes total sense to me.
You get it down and then...
I've got scripts that I'm on my eighth or ninth draft.
You know, the first draft is the easy one.
I used to think, "Boy, wouldn't my work be great
"if it took me six months to write a script?"
No, it would be labored and shitty,
is what I discovered.
So I would much rather just sit down and write a script,
than outline it, and pitch it, and do all those things,
and go through...
That to me is agonizing.
The writing process is exhilarating,
and exciting and fun to me.
Yesterday, I finished the first draft of Lifechanger,
which is a pretty good accomplishment.
I worked my butt off on it over the holidays.
I used to look at life where I would think,
"This is the year for me.
"This is the year it's gonna hit.
"This is the year where I'm gonna break out
"and my career's gonna explode,"and all this.
And I've stopped looking at life that way.
I now look at it more like, "This is another year
"where I'm gonna put more bricks on the wall that will support my career"
or, you know, whatever lame metaphor you wanna use,
"Plant the seeds," you know, whatever...
"Climb the ladder" or... You know?
I now look at it as a process as opposed to a big bang.
Here's to next year.[SIGHS]
It's incredibly important to fail in one's business.
People that have had very little failure in their lives,
I don't trust them.
McCONNELL: I just made an update to the Facebook page
ofThe Eternal andThe Eternal official site
basically stating that the film is officially shelved.
At a certain point, I just started to realize
that this thing is not getting made
and it's not getting made with me as the director,
and I think the main reason is
that I haven't really proved myself yet.
At least, not to the point where people
are taking a risk on a larger budget for me.
I never used to have backlog of scripts,
but now, I finally do, and it's very sad.
They sit there saying, "What's wrong with me?"
And then, I've also tried for many filmmakers to get their movies made,
and though we do have a roster of films,
I have a whole graveyard
of sad, beautiful movies that lived in my mind
and that we, over drinks, would be like,
"This one's gonna be great."
So it's, really, a tiny percent gets made.
It's one of the great tragedies.
If you're a shoemaker, you make the frickin' shoes,
if you're a filmmaker, you dream about the shoes.
It's just a sad state of affairs, really.
I always thought I was a reasonably smart person,
and I'm good at figuring out how things work,
and I've been making films for almost 30 years,
and I still don't know how they get made.
I mean, you know, by fate.
PAUL SCHRADER: I wouldn't want to do it all over again
because I don't think I would get as lucky a second time.
[CHUCKLES]
You know? And then luck
has played a large part in this.
You know, obviously life only happens to the prepared,
but you can be prepared and not lucky.
And so you have to have some fortuitous things happen.
McCONNELL: I applied to the Producers Network at Cannes,
which is essentially, each year they select or they allow in 300 producers
from around the world. They cap it at 300.
Um, I got in.
I decided a couple of months ago,
I was gonna go to Brussels for the Frontieres Market there
because we were in last summer's one.
They have one in Brussels,
one in Montreal each year,
where I'm allowed to go to the Brussels one
and get free accreditation and take meetings.
These two trips are gonna cost me a fair bit,
but I found online accommodation,
I booked all my flights, and I'm good to go.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
MAHNERT: What Frontieres achieved, really, is the fact that
you have this gathering of professionals of the industry
who concentrate on genre film, and who know what they're talking about,
and who constantly have to try to find new ways of financing genre film,
because it's really not something that is easy.
It's not easy in the US, it's not easy in Canada, and it's not easy in Europe.
I'm alone in a canal boat in Amsterdam right now.
Baked out of my mind after being at this
coffee shop called Baba.
It's been an amazing trip.
And I think it was the absolute right choice
for a lot of different reasons.
I met some people that are
potentially gonna be allies
in the path to getting these movies made,
people that can make 'em happen.
So we'll see what happens.
I've never been to the Cannes Film Festival before
or the Marche du Film, the Cannes market, which is why I'm going.
It's a flea market of film at the end of the day.
It's a bunch of little booths.
You go booth to booth to booth to booth
and buyers can walk around and see what the new product is,
and just make deals right on the spot.
A whole bunch of deals get made.
FEDERGREEN: This is the biggest game in town.
There is nothing bigger than Cannes.
Sales world is EFM, Berlinale and Cannes.
Cannes is most of the sales agents,
50% of their global business is made there.
What you can get done in a day in Cannes,
would take you two years to get done in Toronto.
COREY MOOSA: It's a place for sales agents
to basically try and sell pre-sales on their film
and to gauge interest from different foreign territories.
BRIAN YUZNA: When I first saw the first film market,
my eyes opened and I thought, "Oh, so you make the movie,
"you take it to the market, you have a little stand,
"and then people come from other countries,
"and they buy it from you,
"and you end up with more money than you start."
The whole thing made sense then.
FEDERGREEN: And you're in one place that the entire industry collects
for basically ten days
to help you realize possibilities.
There is so much content right now
that at these film markets, it's insane.
And so it's like, yeah, the film markets work for some people,
but it's like there's just more stuff at these markets now than there is room for.
FEDERGREEN: It's clear that without having a sales agent
come on as early as possible,
the opportunities for you to sell your film is less and less.
GRAHAM SKIPPER: It's just a whole different side of stuff,
'cause if you're an artist, you're sitting
in your dream world and you're just writing your ideal movie.
The business aspect is its whole own art form.
KEITH LEOPARD: You have to have an art and a commerce hat on
and I would just say to guys,
take the time to learn the business side of it
so that you can make an intelligent decision,
because there may come a time
when there aren't gonna be a ton of sales companies that can help you
and you might be out there on your own going,
"I gotta figure this out."
McCONNELL: Is this your first time at Cannes?
How many people have been here before?
-[CHUCKLING] -Yeah.
[LAUGHING]
-MAN 1: Yeah, come on. -And counting and counting.
You know, it's my 21st year in a row.
McCONNELL: Twenty-one years? MAN 2: Yeah.
-I got some news, guys. -Yeah.
I just got off the phone, all right?
You guys got Sony.
-MAN 2: Sony? -[CHUCKLING]
MICHELANGELO: Sony, it's a Sony.
Yo, bro. [CHUCKLING]
MAN 3: Yeah.
McCONNELL: This week's been crazy.
The opportunities that have arisen,
the possibilities for real dealsthat may happen.
I had meeting after meeting after meeting
after meeting after meeting after meeting,
and many of them were really promising
to the point where if any one of them happens, that's huge.
I sat within meeting today with a guy
who just wants to do the whole slate,
all eight to ten movies,
which... [CHUCKLES]
Hell, if I can get The Eternaloff the ground,
that'll be fuckin' incredible,
because I've been working so hard.
Even The Eternal is a possibility now again,
'cause of this.
So basically, I should be able to walk out of this and be set for life.
That's what it seems like.
It seems like that's what I've just done for myself.
So, you know, there's hope out there.
You just gotta work your balls off and it'll pay off.
I believe it'll pay off.
I think it's gonna pay off.
I hope it does, 'cause if I've got this,
and that catalogue of 1,000 companies in there,
and I can't make that work for me,
then I don't belong in this business.
I'm a little on edge right now for a few different reasons.
I mean, this is the week where I've been waiting
for a lot of answers to come back on Mark of Kane
and Lifechanger and all this stuff.
I'm gonna hear from MPI today or tomorrow,
apparently, about if they're coming on board for Lifechanger,
so that could be big news or it could be bad news.
Earlier today, I got a rejection, or a pass email from MPI.
They're passing the Lifechanger
after evaluating the project for about five weeks after Cannes,
and then shortly after that, like a couple hours later,
I got an email from the investors
that Avi and I met with two weeks ago and we pitched Lifechangerto
and it was another pass.
Constant rollercoaster, just ups and downs, and ups and downs.
[FEDERGREEN ON PHONE SPEAKING]
Phew! Every fuckin' bit of blood from the stone, man,
every bit of blood from the stone.
When you're dealing with a low-budget movie,
you have to be able to roll with some punches.
WHITNEY: I think it would be even better this year.
I think last year, we were very new to the...
Well, at least, the Frontieres film market,
I know I was new to the film market world.
Um, it felt more like speed dating,
whereas now you've already had that date,
and now you can actually make good contacts,
and be more confident in the meetings.
We're still promoting Mark of Kane
quite intensely, but I brought an entire slate,
so right now, what I'm doing is putting together a slate document,
which is basically a small binder of all of the projects
and films that I currently have in some stage of development.
FEDERGREEN: We've got a lot of projects in development.
I mean, I think, you know, the slate is so long, we could actually,
if you strung it out, we'd probably reach the Arctic Pole with it.
Uh, we'll see how it plays out.
We will see how our meetings go
and hopefully, we get some results out of them.
But long story short, I'm trying to be as prepared as possible.
♪ Step up, step... ♪
McCONNELL: When you've been to enough genre festivals,
you start to realize karaoke is kind of a secret handshake with this crowd,
so you better work on your chops.
There is a certain subculture, strangely,
and I think it's accidental.
I mean, we started doing it in 2007
and it just turned out that so many people
were closet karaoke fiends.
It's a fun time for people to relax and unwind.
I think a lot of people that are on the festival junket have seen a lot of films,
maybe they're here more to socialize.
GIGI SAUL GUERRERO: Maybe that's how filmmakers really connect.
With Josie Man?
I thought it was just with beer and drinks,
but karaoke? Really?
SHANE McKENZIE: That's how minors connect.
[ALL LAUGH]
GUERRERO: Karaoke seems to be what brings
the true inner filmmaker out of people and be like,
"I wanna see your films. You sing good. You must make good films."
We did a couple dozen meetings, and it was all very promising.
Everybody we wanted to take meetings with absolutely took the meeting.
Everyone's gonna look at our material. We'll see what happens.
So I just got the phone call from Avi.
Telefilm called Avi.
So they've greenlit 12 films
in this latest round of applications
and Lifechanger was not one of them.
I put a lot of work into that application.
It's not happening with them,
so that means I'm probably not shooting in November at all.
So, um, shit.
It's not that I was overly optimistic
that we were gonna get it, because it was a long shot to begin with
being how weird, and risky, and different the project is,
but once they called us in and had us present them with additional materials
and told us, "If you did this, we'll consider it more,"
definitely, I started to get my hopes up
because they were actually taking it seriously.
Of course, those hopes were dashed.
The big issue is that [SNIFFLES]
I'm just unsure of myself these days.
I needed to clear my head, so I decided to take a trip to Fantastic Fest.
As far as genre festivals go,
it's one of the top destinations in North America
and having wanted to go for over a decade at that point,
I thought maybe the trip would inspire me.
-[POP] -[CHEERING]
[CLAPPING]
McCONNELL: I flew home from that
with a sole desire to produce something of quality as soon as possible.
I'm gonna drop a bunch of money
and make a short film on November 21st and 22nd,
mostly 'cause I haven't been behind a camera in a long time
and I need to get the juices flowing,
but also because I feel like we're going into these meetings
and we've got all this very strong creative material,
but we don't have a combined proof of concept
that both Serena and I have worked on that says, "Here's what we can do."
Everybody, if you have
the opportunity to do it
without breaking the bank,
shoot an actual couple minutes, you know?
An original proof of concept that says, "Here's what it is,"
'cause then you can sit down with these people
and they're still aware of the obstacles and things.
But if you sit down and say, "I wanna make this,"
and you've actually got a piece of it,
and they can look at it and say,"Well, that's kind of awesome.
"How do we help?"
So I'm gonna put in not a ton of money,
I mean, like, five grand, which is still a fair bit,
and make a ten-minute short.
You can leap and do a feature straightaway,
but obviously, it's much better to do a short first
because one, it's cheaper, it takes less time to do,
and it's a good way to get a lot of learning in terms of screenwriting,
in terms of pre-production, in terms of production,
but also learning in terms of the film industry.
The reality is most short filmmakers are taking a loss
when they make a short film,
because they're investing time and money on a project
that is not gonna see any substantial box-office return.
The best thing to do is to try and make something
that's a statement of yourself as a filmmaker
that can get you the next project,
that can get you the paid gig.
Be it a music video, be it a feature film, be it a commercial.
McCONNELL: I've been running a monthly short film festival
called "Little Terrors" since 2011,
and one thing I've learned from playing over 600 short films
is they tend to be very wise first steps toward getting feature films made.
I've lost count of the number of people
who made notable feature films in the years following me playing their shorts.
If you can do it, just do it
because even if you do something over the weekend,
and it's you do it for no money,
and it's not gonna get you anywhere,
at least you have something that people could look at to say,
"Okay, I see the way this person works,
"what their vision is."
KEVIN KOLSCH: If you've done stuff before and you've finished projects,
if you've done projects,
and you've actually got them completed,
-and out there. -Yep.
And you did it all on your own or with no budget or no money,
then they go like, "Okay, if I give this guy a budget and some money,
"he's gonna finish a product."
The most important thing about a short film is
is that you're making it with the idea
that you're gonna use this as sort of a calling card
to steer you into making your first feature and you can use those.
Telefilm, when you're going to apply for production money,
likes to see a sample of your previous work.
So if you've done two or three short films,
they're gonna ask to see those short films
when you submit your application for production financing,
so they can see, do you have the chops
to direct actors and make a good quality film.
That should be a close-up, right?
Of what?
Of when when you see the aftermath of it,
-when you move. -Yeah.
Yeah, well, it'll probably be like you wanna
be able to see Steve move and the blood to spray.
-So it's gonna be like medium close-up. -Okay, so, medium close-up.
-So he heads that way. -The killer isn't there, is he?
No, the killer's in the bathroom, this way.
-In the bathroom and comes suddenly. -Yeah.
McCONNELL: It's been stressful. This has been one of the more stressful
pre-production processes I've done.
Because I'm putting in all that kind of money,
I'd rather not rush a product and then just dump it online.
I think it's probably better if we take the time,
make it the best short film it can be in editing and post,
then release it as a proper festival short,
get the proper festival sort of traction,
and then release it online down the road,
'cause there's no point in just "blah" and then it's out there.
-So are we seeing him coming from downstairs there. -Yeah.
McCONNELL: We're gonna shoot that afterwards.
McCONNELL: Ready for action? MAN 1: I'm ready for action.
McCONNELL: Action! WOMAN 1: Get back! Get back!
Get back, Jessica!
[YELLING]
-Get back! -[MAN GRUNTING]
-[WOMAN 1 PANTING] -That's great.
-[WOMAN 1 YELLING] -It's enough. We'll cut it.
Now let it drop.
-[GRUNTING] -McCONNELL: Oh, shit.
-Whoa! -McCONNELL: Oh, dude, that's it.
WOMAN 2: Fuck. MAN 2: That was way too much.
McCONNELL: How did that happen?
Holy shit.
You know how gore gags are.
They always take longer than anyone plans for them,
but that's why you have to be patient with them.
GARRIS: You have to budget enough time to do it right.
If you're doing a decapitation or something,
some sort of body horror thing, it's gonna go wrong.
Chances are, nine out of ten, that you're going to need to do it more than once.
KOSTANSKI: Everybody talks about, "Oh, practical effects!
"We gotta have a creature or a gag in our movie,"
and then they expect you to show up,
and basically walk on, the thing happens,
like you come out like a magician like,
"Oh, look at this cool thing. Bye."
And you walk off and everything's perfect.
But the problem with practical effects that people don't realize
is that they don't work 90% of the time.
PAUL JONES: A camera has been prototyped, and tested,
and it worked, and everything's fantastic.
You plug it in, you switch it on,
you move the lights around, it's gonna work every single time.
The severed hand gag or the disemboweling gag
that's been created for your movie was built once,
hasn't really been tested that well,
and God knows what it's gonna do on camera.
So the best advice I can give to anybody starting,
who wants to incorporate prosthetics into their production
is A, insist on camera tests.
Have somebody film it working before they bring it to set.
Be careful that you have a good stunt coordinator.
The thing about stunts is you can get hurt.
MENDEZ: One of my tricks that I at least try
is to have a second unit that I trust
that takes care of special makeup effects, takes care of stunts,
takes care of any sort of practical special effects
just 'cause it's you know... My AD calls it a "Time Vampire."
These things are time vampires and time is the one,
the most precious commodity that we have.
JONES: John Landis once said to me, he said,
"You know, a director's job
"is to listen to everybody's opinion and then make yours."
So if you're gonna hire any prosthetics guy, make sure,
especially somebody more experienced like myself,
listen to what they have to say.
Don't come in with, "Well, I need this from you" and that's it.
I think the consideration is largely overlooked
because if you're sitting in a trailer
and you're doing a makeup on somebody,
and an AD or an assistant comes in,
"How long is it gonna take?"
You say, "Half an hour,"
and then they come in five minutes later,
"I told you, you know, half an hour. It's gonna take..."
And they keep coming in trying to get you to the set.
So if you hire me two days before you start shooting,
I only get 48 hours to build something.
I know it seems obvious,
but I'm finding with more and more projects,
regardless of the budget,
that the preparation part is being cut shorter and shorter and shorter.
McCONNELL: Are we ready? MAN 1: Okay, you ready, Justin?
McCONNELL: I'm ready, I'm here.
Action!
[SCREAMING]
-McCONNELL: Oh! -[WOMAN GIGGLING]
McCONNELL: We finished the sound mix and the final mix
onDo You See What I See?,
our short film, Serena and my short film, yesterday.
So now what we're doing is we're emailing it as a Christmas card
to every single producer, agent, studio person, festival person, financer,
etcetera, that we met in the last two years.
It's really just a proof of concept for us as a team
and just a way for people to see
that we're not just talkers,
we're not just there taking meetings,
we're actually making things.
Filmmakers today really have to do the hustle.
They have to get out there,
they gotta pound the pavement, they gotta hit the Internet,
they have to really canvass the markets,
and get to know the festival programmers.
It's so key, because there's such a glut of product out there now.
It's tough to get noticed, so you really have to put a lot of effort into it.
DEAN CUNDEY: There was quite a bit of hustle on my first films
because, you know, you need to make yourself desirable.
But one of the things I always tried to do was,
on those low budget films,
give them quality, whether they wanted it or not,
providing the producer, whoever, with a a quality product,
something that, you know, fulfils their expectations or exceeds them.
McCONNELL: So how does it feel to have a finished short film?
Good. Well, I'll feel better once we know the reactions to it.
Um, but I feel good.
McCONNELL: I'm realizing that 2015 was a really banner year
in terms of making things happen
and travelling to a lot of these markets and festivals for the first time.
I have a really good feeling about 2016.
I took an arrow to the head from a guy standing five feet away from me
and it wasn't the arrow that hurt me,
but it hit the mask and then drove the mask into my forehead,
so I have a gash.
This is Freddy. How's it going? I adopted this guy.
Hey, buddy.
We're here for the world premiere of Do You See What I See?,
the short film we shot just before Christmas.
So are you nervous?
Oh, little bit.
But you know, it's a short, so we'll see.
[CHUCKLING] We'll see.
I don't think anyone's gonna boo.
HOST: Um, Justin and Serena um, was the idea initially
to subvert and make a mess of a Christmas movie?
I don't think the Christmas thing came up first...
SKIPPER: There's nothing like sitting in an audience with people,
and hearing the sound booming around you,
and seeing this beautiful image up on the screen
looking the way that you intended it to look.
Young emerging filmmakers should see their films with an audience
and see how the audience is reacting.
Flaws become really apparent when you're seeing them with a crowd.
I think when you're looking at it on a monitor
and you're with it and you're too close to it, you can't see them.
When jokes aren't working or if tension doesn't build right
or if it's too slow, you'll see that,
because people aren't reacting like you think they should.
I did feel the premiere was frustrating
and I was pissed off
that the short had a lesser impact
than I was hoping it would because of the tech issues.
And there's other stuff, too.
I mean, I know some people don't get the ending that clearly.
They see it as a they-live thing
and that the people at the party are demons as opposed to the opposite.
It's an augmented reality game
where the game replaces living people as visual representations of demons
to make it easier to kill them.
You're not gonna sell your short.
I mean, you may, but don't plan this.
But if it's good, it's gonna do the festival circuit.
If it does the festival circuit,
then it gives you an opportunity
to travel through the festival circuit,
to meet festival programmers, to make friends around,
to build that community that you're really gonna need
when you do your feature film.
Film festivals are hugely important to filmmakers,
mainly because it's a chance to develop the audience,
it lets distributors and salespeople know
that there is an audience for your film,
and it's basically a way of getting publicity and interest in your film.
It is another way for an independent filmmaker
to have that sort of audience-building,
and just to see whether your film's actually working.
You have to kinda get the lay of the land
and kinda figure out, well, what film festivals are valuable
for what it is, what film you're doing,
and what it is you want your film to do.
If you wanna sell your film,
then there are certain film festivals you should be pursuing.
If you want to get critical acclaim, there's other film festivals.
If you wanna just have a good time, and meet people,
and, you know, party,
then there's another set of film festivals.
MAURICETTE: You shouldn't just cast a wide net.
Just kind of focus on film festivals
and make sure you read the film festival mandate,
because that will tell you what the film festival's looking for.
A film festival, the buzz that comes out of it is, well, free.
For one, it's free publicity.
Well, how else are you gonna do that?
Build buzz on a bad movie, like, without film festivals, what are you gonna do?
So, yeah, I mean, film festivals,
it's absolutely critical if your movie's good.
All I can say is continue to make films.
I mean, there's one producer
that I've been dealing with for ten years.
He's been submitting films for ten years,
and finally in 2013, he had a film that worked,
and I selected it.
And it was great.
Like, it was a great feeling,
and I'm so glad that he kept on persevering.
I mean, his films went and played other festivals,
but people thinking that TIFF or Cannes or Sundance is the be-all and end-all,
that's the wrong way to do it.
You know, more and more now,
I'm seeing these situations where a film will get one festival date,
then a day or two later, you hear, you hear,
uh, an acquisition announcement,
which is always exciting, and then two days after that you
see a VOD date, and it's like, "Whoa!
"You've just strangled it in the womb."
Like, "Why in the world?"
You know, there's so many titles that are
being made now and they're being rushed to
marketplace quicker and quicker.
[EXHALING]
I still, I don't feel artistically fulfilled.
Every step of the career so far has been planting seeds
and hoping they bear fruit, and sometimes they do
and sometimes they... I don't even know.
I don't know what the root structure looks like yet.
I just haven't seen the fruit there.
All right. Okay, talk to you later. Bye.
[EXHALES]
McCONNELL: We... Looks like we have a green light forLifechanger,
these investors out west.
I have to now call Raven Banner and make sure
they'll take the pre-sale deal for it to offer
international rights like they agreed to before,
but if they take the deal, according to the terms
the investors want, we have a film.
I'm now looking at the uh, final co-producer
agreement for Lifechanger.
It looks like at this point set... you know,
if, if the other producers are legit,
and the money is actually there, which they say it is,
um, I, Lifechanger's a go.
At that point, ifLifechanger was going to camera that year,
it wouldn't be for many months.
So I planned and shot a micro-budget,
single-take style film calledRed Mile
in order to have something new to put into the market
and build the track record further.
TOM HOLLAND: If there's a mistake to be made, I've made it.
You have to keep producing constantly.
You know, get out your four-minute shorts,
get out your two-minute, you know, blackout curtain things.
You see, you cannot...
you cannot ever stop.
So this is the best advice, really, for young filmmaker.
Look around you, you are a storyteller.
Write a story that you can make a movie
with the means which are around you,
and just go ahead and make it.
And even if the first one is not the biggest success,
go and make the next one.
FRANK HENENLOTTER: I'm very happy working with as few people as possible.
I really enjoy it.
I mean, when I'm... when I'm shooting something on the streets,
I never have permission, and that's fine,
because nobody pays attention to it.
They assume it's a news crew or something.
So, nobody, nobody gives me...
any interference, whatsoever. It's what I prefer.
So I've got a really busy few days ahead of me
if I wanna have a cut of Red Mileready to view
as a screener for Cannes.
It's not gonna be a finished version of the movie.
Well, I love the editing. Editing is similar to writing.
When you're editing, you're really rewriting
the picture as... visually,
and tightening, and suddenly you realize you don't need this scene
or the material in this scene is repetitive.
GARRIS: Knowing how to edit, you know, and to be concise,
because there is a sure sign of amateurism
when you're masturbating with a camera.
To feel that every moment of your grand epic
is worth capturing, and... and feeling the pain.
You have to be ruthless when you're finally making your film.
I'd rather see a great, brisk 80-minute movie
that covers all the bases
than 120 minutes of navel-gazing.
McCONNELL: I showed the film last night to the cast and crew,
and they all seem to love it.
I know a lot more work needs to be done on post.
I'm still gonna bring this version to Cannes,
and try and get early talks going.
Leave for Cannes tomorrow.
I am still a little nervous about the heightened police state
that Cannes is gonna be under,
and the... the threats that, you know, beaches in Europe are,
are under right now, but... [EXHALING]
If something like that happens
and I am taken out of this world,
I feel like I've still lived as a good human.
This time last year, I sat on this exact balcony
and I did a self-interview, but I remember
talking and saying that I felt like
I was finally ready for this business.
I see a change coming and I hope it's a big one.
I hope that all the work, and all the groundwork,
and everything, all the effort that has been put in
over the years pays off.
The good news is that it looks like Lifechanger'sgreenlit.
I just have to... It has to be the best it can possibly be,
'cause that's what's gonna elevate me to that next step,
is making a quality film that people enjoy,
and putting enough thought into it,
and time and effort to do it right.
We actually struck out twice.
Once with the traditional funding,
and then once with the private funding.
It's a few hours after I got the email that
the investors were pulling out of Lifechanger.
This was gonna be my first movie
where somebody actually invested in me,
and my work, where, you know, aside from my parents or myself.
Still hasn't happened. [SIGHS]
I don't know what that means. [SNIFFLES]
I know the business is tough, but it isn't that tough.
There's shit being made all the time, so am I shit?
Is the stuff I do shit? Or is it just...
Yeah, it's a ladder and a rung just broke.
As much as the business feels difficult for me to navigate,
I'll fully admit I have no idea how difficult it must be
for people who are even more marginalized than myself to break in.
Even coming from nowhere and working my way in bit by bit,
I'm still a white male in a business
dominated by the same, and I'm not facing the same
systematic bias that others are.
The toughest job right now for women in the industry
is being a director,
because a woman's vision is not the same as a man's vision,
and we need to work so much harder
to convince buyers
and distributors that it's worth it.
Lloyd Kaufman recently called it the "blood ceiling"
in the horror genre, you know.
He actually said it was despicable, you know,
how few opportunities there are for women.
The stories are just, you wanna scream.
I have to prove myself a lot harder.
I'm also very bubbly and so at times, like,
"You make horror films? You sure?
"You're wearing pink right now," you know?
It's like you don't get...
I'm not taken seriously right away.
Part of what makes the world, and narrative,
and the stories that we... that we tell is that we tell,
that we have the voice of everyone.
That we have the voices of men and female, transgender,
all races, all colors.
That's why I have a very interest as a producer
to do cross-cultural projects, because again,
looking at the specifics of cultures that are not necessarily mine,
there is a universal quality that brings us all together.
VUCKOVIC: Look at the average filmgoers, you know,
more than half of them are women.
We know this is a fact, we know this to be true,
and yet the numbers are staggeringly low.
The numbers of women directing films,
producing films are staggeringly low.
MAURICETTE: I don't think powers that be have
a lot of faith still in having marginalized people
starring in their own film.
And I don't know what that is, because, you know,
I mean, everybody knows Jordan Peele sold millions of dollars,
and broke records, and Black Panther,
and the whole nine yards.
So that still hasn't really, I feel like, settled in.
OLIVIA SAPERSTEIN: I can point the finger as much as I want,
but how can I take responsibility for my career.
And if you're not doing the work and you have nothing to show, then...
-You're part of the problem. -You're part of the problem.
So, like my whole mentality now, it's just like,
"Okay, then I'm gonna write something that no one can refuse."
People say you can't tell new stories.
I don't think that's entirely true,
because I think there's a lot of stories out there
that haven't had the voice in the past.
So it's exciting that we're starting to get to see those stories.
McCONNELL: With Lifechanger stalled again,
I at least had the festivals and the release ofRed Mile to focus on.
We premiered in December at the Whistler Film Festival
and I managed to secure distribution,
which influenced the title change toBroken Mile.
We played another sizable fest in Toronto,
and a couple in the US, and the film was released in early summer 2017
in a rather limited capacity,
which is to be expected for a micro-budget film like this.
The reviews were mixed but skewed positive,
and the film did all right,
but didn't exactly set the world on fire.
Like before, I kept focusing on what was coming next,
the next rung on the ladder.
In addition to the constant client work,
I keep filling my days with little and big steps forward
and developing my slate, three projects in particular.
Mark of Kane, the feature-length version
of our short Do You See What I See?
and, of course,Lifechanger are the current priority.
Between all the meetings, markets, conference calls,
email chains, and rewrites,
they're all proving development is more of a marathon than a sprint.
Time keeps passing and hope keeps going
up and down like a roller coaster.
Oh, no. [CHUCKLING]
What I've learned so far, in the past couple of years
of trying to get this picture off the ground
is that you really need people to believe in your project.
You can't really take everything you hear from people
that can help you seriously
until the contracts are signed or deals are made.
I'm hoping this year is a year that we at least know
that it's going somewhere,
it's gonna be in pre-production by the end of the year.
I have a good feeling about that.
I met Justin a few years ago at Cannes and he told me about the project.
Um, I was really excited to have a read of the novel,
and then after doing that,
it was a case of just seeing what we could put together
to be able to finance it and make it happen.
At this point, we've built up a really solid project.
We've got Serhat, who's a fantastic director, on board,
we've got several major investors,
and we're just waiting on the final piece to kind of kick in
to cover our post-production.
Fingers crossed, we should be shooting within the next 12 months.
McCONNELL: I'm in a nice restaurant right now
and I'm marking this moment, because we just sat
with Keith at Uncork'd and I might have a green light for Lifechanger.
[PEOPLE SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
Uh, yeah.
I remember the steak was excellent that night.
[CHUCKLING] And so was the wine.
Took a lot of work, but we might be here.
Let's see.
We basically, at the end of that whole conversation,
before the main course arrived, actually,
we had solidified the agreement verbally.
What the structure is looking like is Raven Banner
coming on board for part of the finance
and selling international sales rights,
Uncork'd in the US coming on board
for more than half of the budget.
I got a very busy fall ahead of me.
I gotta shoot Lifechanger, and I've got tons of client work,
and then we have to get Mark of Kane
fully together and packaged,
and hopefully start shooting that in January.
So what we did is we hired a casting director named Ashley Hallihan,
who went out and got self-tapes from tons of different people.
We're talking like dozens, and dozens, and dozens of people.
You know, the minute that a casting director is hired,
it translates to the agents and managers that there's money,
the project's moving forward,
that the production is going to be working in a professional manner.
I've been going through these self-tapes
and then tomorrow, I'm going to the Carlton
to do one-on-one meetings with the finalists, I guess you could put it.
We're doing... I'm doing 15-minute meetings.
Every 15 minutes I meet with a new person
just to get a feel for who they are as people.
There's many actors for one role,
but there's only the one actor that's the best for the role.
And then simultaneously, I've been working with Sasha, the DOP,
to, you know, talk through the script,
and figure out the shot list, and all that sort of thing.
I'm excited about it. I'm happy about it.
I mean, I... This is what I've been working towards.
Having something where I can actually pull off
something on a... like with a budget.
Hell, I've got David Scott working on this movie,
who's like one of the best effects people in Toronto
for, like, prosthetics, and we're doing an animatronic.
Like these, these are things I dream of and I'm finally gonna get to do.
I'm looking now at our full cast list, minus one tiny role,
forLifechanger,
and we've got all the roles filled,
so we can now start setting up table reads,
and start rehearsing, and it's get...
Like, we're five weeks away from shooting now.
It's really soon.
So what I wanna get out of this meeting today
is put everything on the table, anything you're concerned about.
McCONNELL: You know, there are 148 scenes in the film,
and a countless number of shots.
And it's just... this is gonna be the biggest thing I think I've ever done.
136, 137, and 138 are all kind of...
-McCONNELL: They're all together... -Together and continuous.
-Yep, so we can shoot the bathroom stuff for sure. -Yep.
I'm a little... little stressed out right now
largely because we shoot in less than two weeks
for Lifechanger, and there's still a lot to do.
And we've got the fight choreography going,
I'm gonna go look at the makeup tests on Thursday.
We're getting as much rehearsal as we can done,
which I wish it was more, I mean, I always wish it was more.
PATRICIA CHICA: The acting process is so important in my way of making films
that I would invest a lot of energy and time rehearsing
and work-shopping the script and the characters with my actors.
Everything I've been working toward for the past
couple decades in film, since I was about 15, you know,
all those dreams and everything kind of cumulate with this.
All these people are working right now
alongside me as a team to recognize one vision
that came out of here a couple years ago.
I'm doin' this.
This is a big move for me.
MAN: And action!
BARBARA CRAMPTON: Film and...
and telling a story reminds us who we are,
and that's never going away.
Even the cavemen were painting in their caves.
We've always loved to tell stories
and always loved to tell stories with images.
I think that's why we created film, so we could make the images move.
Film is storytelling and... and we love a good story.
I've got like a full effects body in this trunk
of the... my parent's car right now
that we're tryin' to cover up in case somebody
sees it from a distance and thinks it's real.
Um, so it's almost like hiding a real dead body.
[CHUCKLES]
'Cause you don't want someone to get the wrong idea,
and call the police, and be like,
"There's a body in the back of that car in that garage."
Thank you.
We've done three full days of production now.
It's weird, I still get this surreal pang
when I'm looking at the slate, clapping for the shots,
that actually says"Lifechanger."
That... that the movie's actually being made right now
and I'm actually shooting it. [CHUCKLES]
It's, uh, I guess it's a win.
Just today, for example, I got to shoot an animatronic melt head.
I've never worked with animatronics before.
It's kind of a childhood dream, and I got to do it.
There's the first phase, is always that
you're pushing this project,
and pushing it, and pushing it,
and you'd give your life or your soul for the thing to happen,
you would sacrifice your firstborn
or do anything to close that deal
and get the movie to the screen.
And then, yeah, phase two, if you're lucky,
is the point where the project actually starts to move
and you find suddenly you're no longer having
to push it, and push it, and push it,
and the thing is actually moving along
under its own momentum and you're having to run to keep up with it.
Action.
Shake.
Tooth. Shake, tooth.
-Scream. -[MAN SCREAMING]
First.
Second.
[MAN GRUNTING]
When it comes to feature films, and you're on set,
and you're doin' this scene and you,
you say to yourself, "I've seen this scene 100 times," don't do it.
Do something different.
Find a way to take that scene, because you can't just throw it out,
and do something different with it.
We have a few really, really complicated days,
which I'm sure we'll get, but holy crap, man.
WEXLER: From a filmmaking perspective, it's important
to be loose enough that you can adapt
to the things that happen through every stage of production
and that you're prepared enough,
but you also have an eye out for happy coincidences.
DON MANCINI: It's an organic thing, filmmaking, and you...
you can't hold on to your original plan too tightly,
because I think, I think that will fuck you over in a whole other way.
So it's just... it gives it this combination
of planning it out to a tee,
but being open to other people suggesting,
"Well, maybe I have a better idea."
McCONNELL: We've just, as of last night,
wrapped our 11th day of production on Lifechanger.
It's gone by really quick,
yet at the same time, you know, each day doesn't feel like it's quick.
You're always racing the clock to try and get
your shots in, your day in, and hope that, you know,
you've had enough time to make the performance work,
which looking at the dailies,
I've got some editing challenges ahead of me.
No matter how much in love with the project you are,
phase three always arrives, which is the point on the project
when you'll do anything, when you will give up your life,
your soul, your firstborn just to have nothing more to do with it.
To not have to get up in the morning and deal with it.
It's only the director, maybe the producer also,
which are responsible for the fact
that everything we are making, anything we are making now
will end up as a movie, as a story, as a...
comprehensive idea.
And that is a consuming process.
It all starts with the concept, the script,
and putting in the right amount of pre-production work,
and the right casting and all that.
All that's the backbone of the movie,
but then you get into production
and, you know, you have to deal with people.
[CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY] Lots and lots of people.
And in this case, we're talking like 25 cast, 20 crew,
a whole bunch of extras.
Every single one of them's a personality.
JESSICA CAMERON: You have to make sure when you're hiring crew
that you get crew that are not only the best that you can
for the budget you're working within,
but that those specific department heads
and the people within those departments
all work well together and with those certain types of personalities.
ALEXANDER: You know, I had three kids before I made my first movie.
So I knew how to navigate personalities,
I knew how to damage control a lot of insane situations
that would crush lesser mortals, I think.
GREGORY LAMBERSON: The director is not just a person
who picks camera angles or locations.
A director has to know how to juggle
many different personalities and egos,
and know how to work with them,
and not bully them and get the best out of them,
and make them wanna do their best.
They all have needs, they all have wants, they all have quirks,
they all have flaws, they all have strengths.
If you have enough confidence to hire somebody,
then you should have the confidence to know
that they know what they're doing.
Whether it's Jim Cameron or Billy Friedkin or Michael Bay
or Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez,
these are people who have a lot of confidence in themselves,
and when they have confidence in themselves,
they're much more likely to listen to your suggestions
and think about it. "Is this gonna make my film better?"
I think the directors with the most confidence,
which are usually the ones that are the most successful,
are the ones that are most likely to listen to ideas...
Collaborate with actors.
...and collaborate with actors and change things in their movie
to make the movie better.
They can identify a suggestion,
whether it comes from me or a prop guy,
or it comes from an actress or anybody,
"Oh, that's gonna make my movie better. Do it."
I think the only thing you need to do
to survive telling stories is to be yourself.
That's the one thing.
I mean, how you leader a group of people...
Everybody... Some of them are hard, some of them are nice,
some of them make a family,
some of them make an army,
some of them like to be generals,
some of them like... but the only thing
that people will respond to is if it's you leading.
You.
Not a character you invented a director should be.
It's you.
They see that you are high on your own supply.
I get a lot of pushback and it's like...
Sometimes you just wanna say, "Do this."
You want a collaborative atmosphere on set, that's the ideal scenario.
I just hate hearing "No." Let's just fuckin' try it.
I don't care if you've got 20 years behind you.
There's nothing to be gained by going,
"Well, that didn't work in the past" or being like,
"I've got all this experience, so I know this." Well, fuck that.
Steven Spielberg, if you see E.T.,
notice that every camera angle is about this high off the ground.
That's how tall you are when you're 12 years old.
The cumulative effect of "you're one of the kids."
He made you one of the kids simply because
you're seeing from where they were seeing.
You know, keys in your face. That's what a director does.
It's not just pointing the camera at the action.
All right?
McCONNELL: I'm hoping that the film does well
and that the end result of it is worth all this effort,
because it's a lot of effort
and a lot of different people working on it, putting in that effort
to make it just incredible.
The only thing you really got going for you
in an independent film is the acting.
Who is it?
HOLLAND: Good actors are everything,
because finally for all the... for all the ego and everything,
it's about who's in front of the camera.
This is what's holding the audience.
If your actors will make or break you, casting is everything.
I cannot underline that enough.
Directors should take acting classes
to understand the actor's process,
to give clues to an actor about where you want them to go
in a particular scene.
Having people who can act, you save... you save money,
you save... If a guy blows a line, that's a big take.
That means that whole... that scene's gotta be shot over again.
Take.
Action!
I have one week left of shootingLifechanger.
We've shot 15 days already, there's five days left to go,
one really big week ahead of us,
including the first sex scene I've ever shot,
a serious fight scene with breakaway glass, breakaway tables,
and a whole bunch of effects stuff and prosthetics,
and a really big,
fully prosthetic pod effect thing we're doing on Wednesday.
-Awesome. Here we go. -MAN: And set.
McCONNELL: Action!
But I think we're getting really good stuff,
and I'm... I'm proud that I've been able to get to this point,
and I do feel like I've got a future in this.
I'm about to start watchingLifechanger
from front to back as one complete, edited film for the first time.
-There's a part of it. -[WOMAN SPEAKING ON SCREEN]
Uh, yeah, I think it's pretty good.
Tomorrow morning, I've booked the Carlton Cinema
to test screen an earlier cut of Lifechanger.
I've got a survey for people to either fill out
in person while there or online,
there's a link at the top of the sheet,
and then I've been collecting people associated with the project
and close friends' opinions as well.
The testing process is agonizing for me,
even when it's just showing the film to my friends.
It's... it's horrible, because first of all,
all of your mistakes are there to be seen and commented on,
and then, very often what I discover
are the things that I thought were problems for people are not
and the real slap in the face are there...
there are things that I've never even thought twice about
that are... create huge problems for people.
Sometimes you see filmmakers that get really big,
and then they start making thesekind of bloated movies,
and you feel that somebody stopped telling, you know,
somebody stopped telling them "no,"
and they don't hear the word "no" anymore,
and now they kind of, kind of go on their own whims,
and people just go with them, because they're that name.
I don't know if that's healthy.
I actually do welcome and encourage
producers to give you notes.
It's nice to have a little bit of resistance,
it's nice to have someone kind of second-guess you.
When you hear something that's consistent,
like, that's the most important thing, right?
You might disagree with something somebody says,
but if you hear another person say it,
and you hear another person say it, and another person say it,
whether or not you agree with it or not,
you really need to understand that an audience is
seeing that that way, though.
That's how something is being perceived,
whether that was your intention or not.
We did a test audience and we got back
a bunch of notes from that.
We... I've got back a bunch of notes from people I trust
and now the main core team of the film,
the producers, the distributors,they're all compiling a set of notes.
But the one thing I've noticed is that
nobody is saying the same things
and me as the director,
I still have to be beholden to the wishes
of the team, to an extent,
because they are the team
or they are the investors, you know?
They have a stake.
But I'm also, I gotta go with my gut
and like I... I already believe it's a good movie the way it is.
I'm gonna make more changes.
The problem I've got is like, which changes do I make?
You have to make everybody happy.
So find a way.
Hopefully, you know, everyone understands
the kind of film that it is, or the nature of the cast
that was assembled.
And so, you know, it's...
You have to judge every situation individually.
I've just picture-locked Lifechanger and I'm proud of it.
I think it's a fuckin' good movie.
It feels like it's a good movie.
I found out yesterday morning that
Lifechanger'sworld premiere is gonna be
at the Fantasia Film Festival,
which is a huge accomplishment in my mind.
I've wanted to play that festival forever.
Back at Fantasia.
With a film playing this time.
[INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
-If you look at everyone in that picture... -Yeah.
Wait till you get inside.
-[LAUGHING] -[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
McCONNELL: So, enjoy the movie and if I break your brain, don't sue me.
-Have a good one. -[LAUGHTER]
-[CLOSING THEME SONG PLAYING] -[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Movies are like children.
Um, after the...
The birth is always absolutely frantic, and insane,
and painful, and confusing, and horrible,
but then they grow up and they,
they go out into the world and as they grow up,
they make their own friends.
People meet the movies
who don't meet you, and come to love them
on their own, on its own terms.
[CROWD APPLAUDING]
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome Justin McConnell...
[ALL CHEERING]
...fromLifechanger.
-[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY] -[LAUGHTER]
This is fuckin' crazy.
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome Mr. Johnson...
I've never played to audiences this big,
or had reception like this, or had my work
programmed or showcased at a festival this important,
and it feels like a really major step in my career.
-Muchos gracias. -[CHEERING]
[INAUDIBLE]
McCONNELL: It still blows my mind, 'cause I've been coming here
to see movies for, fuck...
2001. So it's 17 years.
In this case, we are in the big...
one of the biggest theaters and it sold out somehow,
which is fuckin' awesome.
Just means a lot to me,
'cause people actually wanna see the stuff I make,
which is part of the reason you make it.
And it's been a long road to here.
KUPLOWSKY: So this is a special screening.
The... You know, I've known the director of this film
for maybe more than a decade at this point.
I've programmed his short films.
I've worked together on his... on some of his feature films.
He's made... This is not his first feature,
and... but this is a really, really special movie
and I remember when he shared the script with me,
I was so excited just at the ambition
and the ideas he was packing into the script
and so impressed with what he pulled off.
And to see Justin travel the world with this movie
-that's played many festivals... -MAN: Oh, yeah.
-...to great acclaim. -[AUDIENCE CHEERING]
And he really, really deserves all of it,
so a big, big round of applause for my friend...
[AUDIENCE CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
...writer/director, Justin McConnell!
McCONNELL: I thank all of you for coming out.
One thing you should know about this, it was shot in Toronto.
Can you raise your hand or stand up
if you were on the cast and crew?
-There's a bunch of you in the crowd. -[CHEERING, APPLAUDING]
I wanna thank all of you for coming out and doing a sold-out screening.
It's been over five years since I started making this documentary.
A lot has happened in the... [CHUCKLES]
in those five years, a lot has changed.
I was going to Cannes every year since 2015,
taking meetings there.
I went to my first Berlin, European Film Market last year in February
and took some meetings there
and got to see how that market was different.
I've been going to Frontieres every summer
and things are moving forward, but one...
I've noticed is with Lifechanger,
it has made the doors open more and more.
People are willing to approach me about
possible projects or take meetings about the stuff
I've got on the slate.
When it actually started being distributed in the US,
it did fairly well, but then Netflix picked it up
for a bunch of territories and we even hit
number one trending for a short period of time
with the film, this tiny little movie.
It blows my mind.
I've learned most of all that the thing that
I can't be as passive, and I have to make things happen for myself,
and bring in the right team
to help launch that, collaboratively.
Just listening to people, and letting go of my ego a little bit.
The future is potentially bright
and full of lots of things
that I don't know are coming yet.
I mean, anything could fall apart,
and given that the film business, the way it is, I fully expect
things to fall apart or take longer than they're going to take,
but I'm not gonna give up.
I look at my life in sections sometimes.
As I age, I get a tendency to reflect, compartmentalize.
There was my life before film was my mission and my life after.
That's further broken down into when I was just
toying with the craft, learning and getting my feet wet,
to when I got really serious about it as the thing I was going to do,
to the marathon that's felt like the last decade or so
when I started seriously making features.
Tons of missteps along the way, tons of deviations from the path,
experimenting, trying things, hoping something will stick,
and now withLifechanger, it feels like the start of a new section.
And whether I continue toward my ultimate goal,
whatever that is, or crash spectacularly
or just fade away remains to be seen.
You may hate everything I do and that's your right,
but it doesn't really matter, because I'm doing it
and I've been doing it for years and years now without fully realizing it.
I've been chasing a dream so long, it took me ages to notice
that I was already living it.
I don't think there is a top to the ladder when it comes to film.
There's just the ladder, just the climb, endlessly, rung to rung.
If a shark stops swimming, it dies.
As a filmmaker, swimming is all there ever is,
forward to whatever that brings.
You may fuck up along the way,
you may never reach the top of the business,
but as long as you keep trying, keep learning, keep striving,
-it has to be enough. -[APPLAUSE]
Just survive.
The rest will come.
I always got cheated. [CHUCKLES]
I know I always should have gotten more money,
I should have had more time, I should...
but all in all, when you look back over 60 years,
I figure I had a ball.
I really did, I enjoyed it.
To thine own self be true, but if you want the Oscars,
and the mansion, and the limos, and the drugs,
and hookers, and all that, I think you have to go
to Los Angeles.
And if you've got any talent,
and if you're driven and obsessed by it,
you probably will do all right.
And there are great people, about 1/10th of 1%
of the movie industry are the best people in the world.
The rest are scum of the earth,
whether they're independent or whether they are in the mainstream, they are
scum of the earth.
So if you sign a contract with them,
you have to assume in your head
that the other guy... You may,
you may do what the contract says.
But you have to assume in the contract
that the other person isn't going to do what the contract says.
And make arrangements for the worst-case scenario,
so that you don't lose your house and your business
and decide to blow your fucking brains out.
That's good advice.
But if you want the golden ring,
go to the mainstream in Hollywood,
which is where the projects are green-lit.
And if you are happy
being a broken-down old drunken filmmaker like Uncle Lloyd here,
whose probably next move, career-wise,
will be in a refrigerator carton
under the Route 95
with the other crack addicts,
then you become an underground filmmaker,
which is basically what I've always been.