The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast
Welcome to The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast, where we won't claim to have all the answers to life's deepest questions, but we promise you an exciting journey into the realms of knowledge you never knew you needed!
Join friends Cesar, Rob, Chris and Victor as we dive head first into topics that might be mainstream but not common knowledge. No topic is too taboo for us to explore. Let's get curious together!
The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast
There Will Be Film
Screenwriter and producer Michael Box joins us on the "I'm Not Dumb, but Podcast" to share his fascinating journey in film making. With more than 15 years of experience in writing, Michael speaks about how his passion for movies and music set the stage for his life creating films.
With his writing partner Patrick, Michael created the production company Echo Eterna based out of Dayton, Ohio. Which has undertaken the lengthy process of their new project Speakeasy. A narrative film that romanticizes the experience of being in an underground rock band, desperately fighting to be heard as the outside world feels like it’s closing in.
Michael offers insights into the challenges of creative expression, his writing process and how his role transitions from screenwriting into producing. He takes us through a roller coaster of emotions detailing the trails of creating a full feature film outside of the world of big studios. We explore how tools like AI may effect the industry and finally someone sheds a light on how to interpret Christopher Nolan's "Tenet".
Through tales of personal experiences, unexpected challenges, and rewarding collaborations, we underscore the importance of fair compensation and the joy of working with talented individuals in the ever-evolving world of film making.
You can find out more about Michael Box and the movie Speakeasy below, drop him a follow:
https://www.echoeterna.com/
https://www.speakeasythemovie.com/
https://www.instagram.com/mikewritesmovies
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Welcome everyone to the I'm Not Dumb, but Podcast. I'm your host for today, victor, joined always by Rob Hello and Chris Yo. So, guys, give me a movie that you absolutely love.
Rob:I would have to say Top Gun. I had the shot. There was no danger, so I took it.
Chris:For me it's James Bond 007 series, the whole series. Yes, I love the whole series. Yes, who's your favorite? James Bond Tomorrow, never Die. That's one of my favorite ones. Pierce Brosnan, yeah.
Victor:Is that the one with the Koreans? Maybe, chris. I think it was Chris. Come on, You're just like we had Koreans in there, maybe that's why we made it, and we're not the bad guys.
Rob:wait, wait, are we, are we?
Chris:I think it's something with the north koreans, isn't? It wasn't?
Victor:it no, uh, no, actually that was wrong. I was wrong. Sorry, tomorrow, never. Dies is the one with michelle yo we knew there was something there's gotta be something there, but you live to die another day. Have you ever thought about the people behind the scenes? Like you know the names on the credits, like what do they do and how important are they? Or like how did the movie even start? I?
Chris:always thought producers and directors are same person, is it? No, I don't think exclusively no, but than that I know there's like a sound engineers right. Other than that, I have no idea.
Victor:There's a janitor.
Rob:The only time I wait for the credits is if I know there's something after the credits I want to see, like the guy punching the bag at the end I'm like, all right, there's a sequel coming.
Victor:The Marvel has warped your mind.
Rob:Yes, I need something at the end and then I just wait to see like, oh, who was waiter number two? I just wanted to know who the waiter was. The guy looked familiar.
Victor:The guy looked familiar With us in the studio today is screenwriter and producer Michael Box. Over 15 years he has written or co-written over 10 screenplays, short stories and TV pitches. Mike co-founded Echo Eterna Productions, operating out of Dayton Ohio, and is here to help us answer the question. I'm not dumb, but who's Michael Box? Welcome to the I'm not dumb, but podcast, where we won't claim to have the answers to life's deepest questions, but we'll give you an exciting journey into the realms of knowledge you never knew you needed.
Victor:Might be mainstream, but not common knowledge. From artificial intelligence to conspiracy theories, no topic is too taboo for us to explore. Let's get curious together, mike welcome. Hey, thanks for having me, I appreciate it. Welcome to the podcast. Yeah, how are you today?
Mike:I'm really good. Thanks for asking. That's a great thing to ask.
Victor:So you've been writing for some time now, like 15 years.
Mike:Well, I've always wanted to be a writer. So when I was in high school, I was editor of the yearbook, the newspaper, the literary magazine. I actually was going to go to school on a journalism scholarship. Things took a different, long approach to get back to that, but, um, but here I am again. Um so, uh, my writing partner, patrick, uh, he and I have been writing together for about 15 years, but we've known each other about 25 years. We started with music together. Uh, I'm a bass player and guitarist, he's a drummer. Uh, yeah, we played together in a couple of bands and so we've been I mean, we've been working collaboratively for 20 plus years.
Victor:Oh, wow. And so when did you get that first feeling of like, hey, I need to be like a storyteller?
Mike:I come from a family of Scotch Irish people, and so storytelling is genetic.
Victor:So it was like storytelling or making Guinness or fighting. You know, fighting, yeah, prove me wrong.
Rob:I dare you.
Mike:We always joke that like we put the funk in family function. You know, everybody has to have a little bit of alcohol in order to keep from just obliterating each other.
Victor:It's your natural habitat, like you need to get into it.
Mike:Well, yeah, I mean the, the the, my generation does like the, the my family, my parents' generation none of them are drinkers, really, no, no. So I think the kids just all realized how awful that has to be all the time. But no, we, we we have a good time. Our family's not as close as we used to be, but we grew up all within like an hour of each other at one point, yeah. But as far as writing goes, I always wanted to be a writer. I don't know if you ever saw the movie Almost Famous. It's a Cameron Crowe, uh, I was a writer before. I was a musician, uh, but I was always a music lover, and so I had this like crazy idea that I wanted to be a writer who followed bands and wrote about them and did the whole.
Mike:Rolling Stones article thing, and this was I. I'm quite a bit older than you guys. I graduated in 94. Uh in 94, uh, so this was before almost famous came out.
Rob:So when that movie came out, I was like this is me, this is my journey yeah, this is about me this is supposed to be me, yeah, right.
Mike:So when I got to college I kind of fell into the uh, artsier, musically inclined crowd and I started playing guitar and really fell in love with music, learned how to appreciate music for more than just its pop culture influence, but appreciate it more on a music theory side, writing music, that kind of thing. But the writing was always a part of it, it was always there.
Mike:I wrote for the local newspapers, I've written for a few magazines and it was just one of those things where it took reconnecting with that seed of wanting to be a writer, or for me to get back into it, patrick had a screenplay that he was focused on producing himself and he knew that I was a writer and he was. You know, he was like hey, do you mind reading over this? It was about 300 pages.
Mike:So if you know anything about screenplays, it's usually a page a minute, so he was writing an epic movie, so I helped him pare that down and once once we realized that we worked really well together in that area we were able to pare it down to about a 90 to 100 page screenplay and we decided to film it and that was our first project together we shot. It was called A Savior. Come my Way. It was a time traveling story about a man desperate to do whatever he could to help his family and um. We shot it on 16 millimeter film, which was ambitious, uh, for our first feature, um, and we looked at that as our, our student film. That was our film school. We learned a lot about running a set, working with actors, working with the crew Was that?
Victor:your first experience in that kind of world? Like was your partner already in it?
Mike:he was um a music video producer and director at the time okay so he was familiar with filmmaking on a short form yeah uh, kind of kind of a medium, um, but uh, like I said, we we learned how to, how to work really well together.
Mike:We learned what his strengths were, what my strengths were. I'm a writer-producer, he's a director-cinematographer, and so it makes for a really good partnership because I can keep him focused on his tasks where he has the vision of where to go creatively. I tend to want to put the words in the actor's mouths. I really like writing dialogue where he likes to really write action lines, and so we work really well together in that way.
Rob:Yeah, writing is one of those things where, like sometimes I don't even know where to start, because I've started trying to script what I say. I feel like the episodes just come out way better.
Mike:They do like not not from what listening to you guys, not from experience, but like, yeah, every podcast that I listen to, yeah, you can tell when it's a scripted podcast or when it's just an ad-libbed like let's shoot the shit podcast. The the written, scripted podcasts tend to go so much smoother. They stay on point, like you know. Yeah, I, that's what I felt like it was so much smoother.
Rob:They stay on point. But you know, yeah, I that's what I felt, like it was so much more structured, right, yeah, and and writing dialogue is it's tough Cause I'll be like, oh, this is, this is exactly how I would say it, and then I say, and I go, I don't talk like that or no one talks yeah.
Mike:Yeah, some of my favorite dialogue writers are guys like Aaron Sorkin, who wrote Social Network screenplay, yeah. Or Quentin Tarantino, you know they write dialogue in a hyper realistic way. So it's yes, it's similar to what or to how other people talk. You've heard people talk like that, but not in that way. They don't talk over each other, they don't stutter when they speak, they don't pause and start and then pause again. It's quick, rhythmic writing and it's just one of those things that it's a craft to be able to write that way, and it takes a lot of time learning what your style is as a writer to make it work.
Victor:Now, when you're writing dialogue for, let's say, different characters, do you find it tricky to not bring your own voice into both characters or multiple characters?
Mike:Every character that Pat and I have written something about. That character is a part of us, each of us. That character is a part of us, each of us. Um, you know our current project. It's about musicians and, uh, they each represent us in certain ways.
Mike:I tend to like to put a specific personality trait and assign that to a character. So one of the characters in our project, uh, his name's Lucas and he's very anarchist, kind of punk, you know, fuck the man, damn the man, damn the system. That is definitely me. When I was 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, I had the same kind of anti-authority vibe. And you know another one of our characters, weston, is kind of an idealist dreamer with dreams of. You know another one of our characters, weston, is kind of an idealist dreamer with dreams of, you know, being an artist that people respect and recognize for his talent, and that's Pat. Pat has that same vibe about him.
Mike:Ascribe a certain characteristic, a certain personality trait of yourself on that character. It's really easy for you to write in that way. But it's also fun to write a character who's not anything like you, the character you wish you could speak like or act like or talk like. It's fun to write those characters because they're a challenge, that it doesn't come naturally to me for me to write somebody who's just a huge asshole, because I'm not. I mean, like, like, those who know me know that I'm not an asshole, even though, like, my personality is typically a little bit like just give me some space. You know, I'm an introvert by nature. I have to turn on the extrovert, and so, uh, to write an asshole is really difficult sometimes, because I'm like all right, I don't like this guy right, yeah though I hear for actors that it is more fun to play the the bad guy.
Mike:It is asshole type it is you know you, you see it like actors who really just chew up the scenery. Uh, when they get a meaty character who's just like really well-rounded but like not very likable, like like, uh, daniel day lewis when he played daniel plainview, and uh, there will be blood you know, like nobody really likes that character that character's a total asshole you know, not a good person, no, a terrible person, but he had a great time playing that role.
Mike:You could tell, you know, maybe too good probably, yeah, I mean, he is one of the best actors who's ever lived. He has three academy awards.
Chris:You know, that's true, I drink your milkshake do you ever go back to your old dialogue and you'd be like what the fuck?
Mike:oh yeah, oh yeah, like that is garbage, you know, or? Or you, you learn something about yourself in that time and you go oh, I would never write that right now yeah, that joke doesn't land. That joke is so sexist, chauvinist, bigoted. Why would I have ever written that that's gross? And now you're like oh man, like I was so free, I was so unencumbered.
Victor:I mean, that's also a sign of just like times, the times changing, so it's like you've written something for that period of time.
Mike:Absolutely.
Victor:People's society is. And then now you're here, yeah, and you're like I. Now I have to shift.
Mike:Oh yeah, my audience is kind of shift, Absolutely, Absolutely, and you know it's fun to write a shifting mindset in mind. The project that we're currently working on. It's called Speakeasy I don't know if I've actually said the name of it yet.
Victor:No, not yet. I was going to ask you what you're working on. It's called.
Mike:Speakeasy. It's about a renegade band of punk musicians who are living in a near future dystopian society where the government is suppressing acts of self-expression as political dissent, and so they're-.
Chris:So two years from now? Yeah, exactly Like just this week, maybe.
Mike:But they basically have to go underground to perform and they're at risk of being raided by the government enforcers and it's a. It's a really dark story but at the same time it's full of, like, fun moments because they're a punk band and they have a good time and you know they make a lot of stupid decisions, but you know, but they're I mean they're in their 20s. Everybody made stupid decisions in their forties, no matter what the political no no, not at all.
Victor:So you've been writing and you telling a lot of stories. So like tell me, did you understand tenant?
Mike:The fifth time I watched it. Well see, here's the thing I don't. Well see, here's the thing Any of you guys diagnosed ADHD.
Victor:No, not diagnosed at least. Okay, everybody's self-diagnosed.
Chris:Self-treating.
Rob:I am self-treating.
Mike:Okay, so I was diagnosed in my 40s, which, when I was diagnosed, I was like holy shit, this would have been helpful to know when I was in elementary school, right? Because of that, I've noticed certain things about the way that I consume media, and one of those is I love listening to music with headphones on. Oh, okay, because I feel like I get the mix that the producer was trying to go for.
Mike:I get it so much better that the producer was trying to go, for I get it so much better If they were doing playing with the stereo sounds. I feel like I feel that better. So one of the ways that I watch movies and a lot of people do this now, I think, but I watch everything with captions on- I just started doing that actually. And so with Tenet it's almost necessary because the audio is so awfully mixed. I feel like a director on that level, like Nolan's level. He knew what he was doing.
Victor:Yeah, he puts a lot of detail into everything that he does, right.
Mike:So I feel like he knew that it was being mixed in a weird way.
Victor:So maybe the dialogue's not as important as the what's going on on screen, but I feel like I need to know what's going on in the character's mind, and so I watch everything with the dialogue or with the captions on well, I also just wanted to bring up the point of that, just like do you feel that if someone misses the point of the movie or what you're writing like, is that something that you take internally, or do you just like nah, the viewers are just not getting it I think that you have to look at at it as art, and art is something that everybody interprets differently, and so I can look at a painting and go, oh, that is really sick, I'm really into this.
Mike:And my wife can look at it go, yeah, that's boring, like I don't. I don't feel anything from that, and and I think that with movies. We. It sounds pretentious to say movies are art, but they are they're. They're a form of art it's a form of expression, absolutely, and I think that, like I said, everybody interprets a movie differently. Uh, some people look at a movie like mother. I don't know if you guys have seen Darren Aronofsky's Mother Harvey.
Rob:R.
Mike:Bardem was in it with Jennifer.
Mike:Lawrence Great movie, panic-inducing, heart attack, anxiety-type movie, and it's an endurance test. But a lot of people just didn't feel like it was a successful story because it was so heavy on the metaphor. But I feel like that's part of putting out art is you let people experience it. If they enjoyed it or they didn't, I hope they felt something. If they didn't like it same way I expected you to, I want to know why, not because I need to defend it, but because I'm seriously curious. What did you feel? Was it just ambivalence, or was it more like oh, I'm confronted by something about myself that I don't like and so that makes me not like this, which can happen with a lot of art.
Rob:When you start your first drafts? Is it like pen to paper when you start off, or is it digital?
Mike:I like to write pen to paper to start a draft, but I gather a lot of notes in my phone, notes in my phone. I'll have a scene idea or a piece of dialogue that I'm like. I really need a character to say this. Then I'll write a scene around that piece of dialogue. But, that being said, when I sit down to write a first draft, I really want that tactile feel of pen on paper. It just feels good to me.
Victor:That just might show your age.
Mike:Yeah, definitely no, because I feel the same way.
Victor:Sometimes I just like to write things down and scribble.
Mike:Yeah, and I do scribble a lot and I doodle while I'm thinking, and Pat, my writing partner while I'm thinking, and, um, pat, my my writing partner, he uh keeps little, uh moleskin notebooks in his pocket all the time and he writes down stuff all the time. He probably has about 60 or 70 of them that he's filled up during our time, during our time together. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Victor:He's got. He's firing in all cylinders all the time he is he does.
Mike:I don't know when the guy sleeps. Guy sleeps um, so he'll text me at like two in the morning and he'll be like hey, I just had this idea.
Rob:I'm like dude, you should be sleeping where's like the weirdest place that you were, where an idea just popped into your head and you're like, uh, I gotta do this my, my wife and kids joke about the fact that I have my phone on a perch in the shower all the time, because I will.
Mike:I will get an idea while I'm in the shower and I'll be like. So. One of the things that I have a problem with is I'll get great ideas that I'll be like. This is such an incredible idea. There's no way I'll forget about it. I oh yeah, it's gone yeah, it's gone instantly, I'll be laying down in bed. I'll be like, oh, it's so good, i'll'll be laying down in bed. I'll be like, oh, it's so good, I'll definitely remember this in the morning. It's gone?
Chris:Yep, it's gone yeah.
Rob:I was talking to somebody who's also into writing and when they're trying to develop the character they would live a day as this person, they would think as this person Do you find yourself doing?
Chris:that.
Rob:Like walking around, like this guy would do this, or he would walk into this coffee shop like this Is he method writing? Yeah, method writing.
Mike:Not particularly for me. I tend to be an introvert when I'm out in public and so I spend a lot of time at a coffee shop just watching other people and that's like I'll get ideas. Like I wonder what that guy was doing before he walked in here. I bet he looks like he was like all disheveled and maybe like flushed. I bet he was in a fight with somebody, like he was arguing with somebody.
Chris:And so I'll build a scene out of like something that probably didn't happen.
Mike:He's probably just red faced all the time. But yeah, I just like to think like what was going on in that person's life five minutes ago and then you know, try to build that story in my head.
Victor:So you and your partner, you guys have a production company, right, yeah?
Mike:Echo Eterna Productions. We launched on 2-22-22. It was mostly because we were working on this project and we wanted to incorporate as an LLC and build the company so that we can hopefully start working with some investors. We've been pitching to investors for this project for about six months. It's a really difficult process to get people to buy into an indie, an indie film yeah, how does?
Victor:how does that whole process work like? So do you go out like, do you like make a little sample for them? Do you have to film the whole thing and then pitch it like um?
Mike:some people do a concept, a proof of concept film, so like a short film, maybe a scene tells us a little bit about the story. In hindsight, that would have been really great for us. But we didn't go that route. We did a fundraiser, like a local fundraiser, where we had companies, some businesses in the area. They donated some items. We did an auction where some of the props that I've been building. We auctioned those off and they'll be used in the film and then signed by the cast and then given to the people who bought those for auction. And then we got companies that donated gift bags and we raffled those off. We got companies that donated gift bags and we raffled those off.
Mike:We had a friend of ours owns a wine bar in Dayton and she hosted it for us and it was really successful. It helped us. It basically funded our production costs for the year, but you know that was in March of last year. It didn't get us filming. It basically helped us to launch. It was you know that was in March of last year. It didn't get us filming. It basically helped us to launch. It was, you know, seed money. Some people go the route of crowdfunding, but you can only ask your friends and family for 50 bucks so many times before they're like you're a nuisance.
Victor:Yeah, grandma come on, get a real job. Is this for next Christmas? Get a real job, moocher? Yeah, exactly. Grandma come on, get a real job.
Mike:That's all you got. Is this for next Christmas? Get a real job, Moocher. Yeah, exactly. Hey, Grandma, have you done? Your will, yet Is there anyone who can get an?
Victor:advance on the will. How old's this vase, by the way? You don't need it, right.
Chris:I need some money.
Mike:I mean, the old school way was you just took out an extra mortgage on your house or you maxed out your credit cards, or you, you know like Kevin Smith, when he financed clerks, he maxed out credit cards, he sold a huge comic book collection, you know, and he still made that movie for like $25,000, which I mean honestly Granted it was a long time ago though.
Victor:Yeah, inflation $20,000 got you. Yeah, it was like 94, 93. Yeah.
Mike:You can't make. I mean, you can make a movie for that much now, but you don't want to make a movie for that much. Not a full-length production. And ours is ambitious we're writing all of the music ourselves.
Mike:So the band is playing actual original songs that we've written. We have some musician friends in the Dayton music scene and the society our society music scene who are contributing songs for like side character musicians who are playing in the same venues as our main characters and we cut a vinyl for that. Everybody who bid on or everybody who won an auction item got a free vinyl to go with that at our fundraiser.
Victor:Just like a thank you for that.
Mike:Yeah, it was, it was. You know, that's a fun. We like tying in stuff like that. I printed speakeasy guitar picks and know like threw those, those out. They were everywhere. People could just take those home with them.
Victor:Uh, I made uh speakeasy, speakeasy flasks that I uh and what like, of the portion that you have to fundraise, like how much percentage wise like would go to marketing versus the actual production of the film.
Mike:For a Hollywood production, almost like if they had a hundred million dollar budget. About 50 million will also be added to that to go into marketing and commercials and all that stuff. So when you hear a film was successful, you have to consider how much they also put into the marketing campaign. It could be a huge marketing campaign. I know Marvel puts a ton of money into their marketing. They do tie-ins with fast food businesses and movie theaters, but they also get huge tax credits for filming in places like Ohio, which has a great film tax credit. Oh, does it. Yeah, that's why a lot of the Marvel stuff is filmed up in Cleveland and then over in Pittsburgh.
Victor:Oh, I thought they were down in Georgia.
Mike:Yeah, no, like a lot of the Cityscape stuff, DC stuff, they also film in Cleveland and in Pittsburgh, just because I think Pittsburgh has a really great film scene as well. We have two of our actors on Speakeasy are from the Pittsburgh area, one's from New York. He's a musician in Brooklyn, One's from the Nashville area, and the two of them are here from Ohio. And we've got a couple other people. We've got one woman, young woman. She's from Atlanta, georgia, and so we've got a lot of people from all over the place that are already excited, ready to go. We just need to get the funding.
Chris:That's like I said that's the hard part.
Mike:We've pitched to people we put together like a film or a video pitch that's kind of a graphic novel style, but like a motion graphic novel, and explain the core concept of the film and what we're looking for, where the money would go. I think that people like the idea that we're doing all the music ourselves. We're trying to do things, we're doing all the location scouting. We're going to be shooting in a lot of abandoned buildings. The Dayton, cincinnati area has a really great film community. A lot of short film directors are in this area. Not a ton of features are being made here, but I think that's changing. We have a good amount of talent. The actors and the musicians in this area are phenomenal and they just get overlooked on the bigger market. So you know we're excited to get on set. My two favorite things. I'd rather be in the studio writing or on set with the actors.
Victor:Yeah, you know you started mainly just writing Like how did you find the transition to doing more of the producing side and putting all this other stuff together?
Mike:So my degree is in organizational leadership, like nonprofits, and I've been on the board of a arts council here in the area. I was the vice president of the arts council here for a couple of years and I also worked with several youth organizations, community youth organizations, youth organizations, community youth organizations and so my background is really in leadership in those frameworks of community support, building initiatives with other organizations, putting on large scale events, budgets like all that kind of stuff. So like it really kind of translates really well into the producing side of things. I don't mind talking, obviously, um, so, uh, so, especially with something that I'm passionate about, I think you guys you guys probably understand yeah I mean, chris seems like a chatterbox.
Victor:Oh, chris is on. Oh, hey, chris likes passion.
Rob:We've been talking about that. Yeah, chris, who's chris?
Mike:once I start talking about stuff like that, I just get real passionate about it and I don't, like I said with with pat, he's the visionary and I'm the one that makes it happen. Like I, I get the shit done so that he can make them make the dream come true, kind of thing do you have to tell him no? Yeah, yeah, like throw things at.
Mike:You're like dude, that's not happening, yeah like even with the first project we shot that, like I said, we shot it on film, uh, and if we had shot it the way he wanted to, it would have been like a 10 million dollar movie, you know. Uh, I think we, I think we shot it for about 17,000 total.
Mike:So I, mean the price of a, you know, compact car. That being said, uh, a lot of times we have to write drunk edit sober. Uh, a lot of times I still have that editor vibe, you know, going. Where he'll pitch something to me, I'll be like, uh, how? And where he'll pitch something to me, I'll be like how are we going to?
Mike:make that happen on our budget. Like I try to reel him in a little bit, like I'm cool with that, but I need you to think practically for a second. You know, sometimes it's scaling back certain aspects of a scene in order to maximize the impact with the least amount of money.
Rob:That's one thing I just never knew about producing. I was talking to my wife. I was like, oh, we have a producer on today. You know what?
Chris:they do?
Rob:She's like? No, it seems like a lot of project management, Well he's not an executive producer, right, and that's the big title the executive producer.
Mike:I won't bash executive producers, but they're the money people. When you see the the executive producer I won't bash executive producers, but they're the money people. When you see the name executive producer. That person contributed financially to make this project happen With a company like ours. The producer my title is I'm the guy on set that is making sure that things run smoothly so that the director can focus on the creative side of things. He's only focused on what's in camera. I'm focused on everything else.
Mike:And there's other types of producers that you can bring on board. There's people called line producers, which is more budgetary, and so you have somebody that only focuses on money in, money out, daily expenses, things like that. You have people who are only over the below the line, so like people who are the crew, uh, craft services, uh, you know people who that person's like your production manager. We're all producers in a way, uh, but it, I mean, it's basically like a catch-all title for we got shit done go to me for questions and answers yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
Mike:I'm on a small team. I mean it it's Pat and I, and then we have two other people with us and he's also helping with the diegetic noise, like the music or the sounds that are going to be audio within the film, that are, you know, your foley work and your you know music that might be playing on a radio in a scene. He's helping us with that. He's also doing the score, so anything that's ambient music in the background he's you know, know he's going to be working on that so you brought up uh sound.
Victor:I just kind of want to get your opinion on like the use of ai I knew this was going to come up because I've just been hearing a lot because, like I don't know if you've been following like the whole thing about the brutalist yeah, that's.
Mike:That's an interesting thing. I haven't read up completely on it, but from what I've gathered- is they used AI to enhance the accents. They were using a Hungarian accent.
Chris:Yeah.
Mike:From what I read, is a really difficult accent for non-native speaking people and they used AI to enhance the accent to make it more authentic and it's questionable, you know, right? I mean, you've got actors who are. They have dialect coaches exactly this reason exactly. There are dialect coaches for a reason.
Victor:If the actors couldn't nail it, don't start shooting yet maybe he wasn't the best actor for the role, right I? See a lot of people kind of freaking out about ai and yeah, especially with writing and stuff yeah because I think and I know a lot of people just accuse at this point any new netflix movie that comes out. Ai must have written it because it's it's gonna be. Yeah, it's almost algorithmic. Yeah, it's all plug and play.
Mike:It's like yeah, like, give me a script about, uh, a woman who is a corporate ladder climber in. New York and she goes to a small town in Maine and it spits out like your Hallmark.
Victor:Christmas movie. And what's Glenn Powell doing right now? Let's get him on the phone. How did you know I?
Rob:wanted to see the Rock and Gal Gadot.
Chris:It's just amazing.
Mike:Is Ryan Reynolds busy? See the rock and gal gadot. It's just amazing. Is ryan reynolds busy? Um, but, but no. Ai is an interesting thing in the filmmaking world because I think a lot of people are worried about it. Like taking jobs, obviously right, but I think the the the greater aspect is is like eliminating the humanity from the art. I think that that's something that is more of a concern for me. Yeah, I see AI as a tool. If you lean on it too heavily, it'll be obvious. So like if you're throwing every filter and every bypass and equalizer, this sounds artificial. It doesn't sound right.
Victor:Why do I sound like Lorde?
Mike:now.
Victor:What's going on Exactly?
Mike:Or you know, in film editing, you know, you get people that love ooh, I could throw a transition here that's a star white, you know and it's like okay, Sounds like my PowerPoints in high school.
Mike:Exactly. If you use it as a tool and you use it sparingly and responsibly, I don't have a problem with it. I think that the problem is when people think that nobody will know. I'll use chat GPT to write my whole script and it's like okay. But when there's no humanity in that script, those characters sound like robots. When it sounds like they're trying to sound like humans, like like yes, yeah, it's like what would a human say in this situation, it's going to be pretty obvious. I think that you can use it responsibly to help you, um, organize your thoughts. I think you can use it, uh, responsibly to analyze what you've already written and give you feedback. You can tell ChatGPT read this scene as if you are a movie critic. Let me know if there's any plot holes or weaknesses in the character that I should focus on. They'll see me arguing with ChatGPT.
Victor:I don't know what you're talking about.
Mike:But I have used ChatGPT to create pitch ideas and business ideas and give me 10 fundraising ideas that we could be using right now that we haven't thought of yet. One of the things that I do when I use an AI like that is I never use the first result that it spits out.
Chris:Right.
Mike:Continuously refine it so that each iteration gets closer to the messaging that you're looking for. Get to the voice that you would present if you were writing this. It's just a tool to help you use it. The way I look at it is those who adapt to new technologies will lead the next movement of innovation, but those who drag their feet will be left behind or they'll begrudgingly need to catch up in some way in order just to compete, and nobody likes to be behind when they have to stay relevant. I don't want to lose my job because I didn't adapt.
Victor:I mean there is a niche market for these things?
Mike:Absolutely there is, because it's not, it'll never fully go away, but I mean it won't be the mainstream, david Fincher and Christopher Nolan love shooting on film, darren Aronofsky loves shooting on film, but they will use digital filmmaking, they will use compositing and CG and they have adapted in a way that that works with their uh voice, their tone, their style.
Mike:There are some filmmakers I I haven't watched it yet francis for coppola's megalopolis I have not watched that either I just watched a video on on youtube last night of a group of guys that they break down visual effects and, oh my God, that movie looks like a fever dream. I really feel like somebody should have given him a lot less leeway and said, no, let's rein this in.
Victor:But I feel like a lot of directors, they get to a certain point where they have so many hits and there's such a big name. They just show up and people just go here's some money, go do what you got to do. Coppola, basically funded point where they have so many hits and they're such a big name.
Mike:They just show up and people just go here's some money, Go do what you got to do. Coppola basically funded that movie himself. It was like $140 million and he, he funded it. It's only made about 14 million, Uh.
Victor:Kevin Costner just did this whole thing, which is the whole story on its own of just like, hey, I'm going to fund this big Western movie. It's going to be amazing. It better do well. And it bombed, it bombed yeah.
Mike:Yeah, it was like a trilogy and obviously the other two movies are probably not going to get made. But you're right, I think that at a certain point, like some of these guys have the track record that says we should trust them with this, but we're not asking for 140 million dollars for our project. So, uh, if any, if any investors want to, you know, jump on board, uh, with us.
Victor:You know they can, they can definitely do that I mean you should be focused on gladiator 3, not speakeasy you know, I did not say I knew him.
Mike:I said he touched me on the shoulder once.
Rob:How do you decide if something's done or good enough, like? At what point are you like? Yes, that was great. When the money runs out, okay.
Chris:No when there's no more money in the bank.
Mike:No, I mean, obviously when you're shooting you have, you know, your final, last scene. You know that you've got everything else in the can and after that there might be pickups which are like little interstitial shots that help connect a scene or exteriors. You might pick those up after you've shot all the cast stuff. You might pick those up after you've shot all the cast stuff. But for the most part when you're done with the cast you're not going to ask them to come back because they're going to move on to another project. So you need to make sure that once you get that last scene with the cast, once you get it shot, you got to make sure that you're done with it at that point.
Victor:Could you come back and do this in Spanish?
Mike:Well, I mean, on our first project, the lead actor, he and his wife, moved from here, from the cincinnati dayton area to la during our post-production. So we we were editing while he was what they were moving and we realized that we needed him to have a few off-screen voiceover lines that we needed to add, so we taught him how to do it through GarageBand on his laptop.
Mike:Just send us the raw file, man. But you know we were really low budget at that point. So, and you know, that film I joke about it it was our. It was our. What we looked at as our film school like a student project it was intended to be was our. Uh, what we looked at as our uh film school like a student project. It was intended to be like an hour and a half uh feature film. But, uh, due to post-production issues, uh, some other unhappy accidents and the fact that one of our crew members got arrested by the FBI Uh, it happens. Yeah, you know he was. He was part of the uh paypal anonymous takedown like they uh did a ddos attack on paypal back in like 2010 or 2012 oh yeah yeah, yeah, we.
Mike:We instantly scrubbed him from our website.
Rob:We don't know who this guy is we've never heard of him.
Mike:Uh but uh. But the. The film eventually ended up becoming a like a 20minute short, which we're still proud of, and it works really well. But it's not exactly what we had anticipated. And when you're shooting on film, the film becomes a commodity that you are constantly aware of, because every take means that you've lost that amount of film.
Chris:You can't use that film anymore.
Mike:Whereas when you shoot digitally you could go delete, take two. Yeah. So every time you shoot on film it's like there's that much film we can't shoot on now. Yeah. So you don't want to take, you don't want to do 10 takes, especially if you're looking at the budget that closely.
Victor:We got a great deal.
Mike:Back then, uh, on on, and we actually got two different film stock companies bidding lower for us. Like they were like in a little bit of like a bidding war, we could do this, we could do this. And so we kind of did a little bit of like positioning them against each other and said, well, company A said that they could give us two for the price of one. Can you do that? Yeah, we could do two for the price of one, all right. Well, company B said they could give us two for the price of one. Can you do that? They're like, yeah, we could do that. So, like we were trying to get a little bit and we did get a great deal out of them.
Mike:This project, we have the budget. All the actors are going to be paid what they're worth, because we feel like that's a really important piece of it. We have a great cast and crew and you know, our four actors that are playing are band members. Not only are all of our actors that are playing musicians, in fact great musicians themselves. Like all of the songs that Pat and I are writing we're going to record demos for and then we're going to have them record that band, that fictional band, it's called the riot police record a studio album that we can then put out and distribute. To have an album of a fictional band be able to, to be, uh, you know, put out there and the streaming world in the, in the mass market that's pretty cool
Victor:they just did. That was it when that showed daisy jones came out.
Mike:I heard that that's. They're on my spot. I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it. I heard it's really good. I haven't seen it.
Victor:yet it's really good. It's like someone just wrote a bunch of fan fiction about fleetwood mac, which I mean hey, if you're gonna bunch of fan fiction about Fleetwood Mac, fleetwood Mac which I mean hey, if you're going to write a fan fiction about a band.
Mike:there's a lot you could write about Fleetwood Mac.
Victor:They were crazy like incestual, so there's like a lot of not incestual like brother-sister, but like relationships within the band, not Kentucky, it's, yeah, sorry, kentucky. So where can people see some of the projects that you've already done?
Mike:Well, right now we're still building our YouTube channel. Pat has done a ton of videos music videos for SofaBurn Records. If you check out SofaBurnRecordscom, you can check them out on YouTube or you can find us at SpeakeasyTheMoviecom. You can check them out on YouTube or you can find us at speakeasythemoviecom. We'll have links to our Instagram and our YouTube page there. There's also a link to our GoFundMe campaign and if people want to contact us about investment opportunities, they can contact us at contact at echoeturnacom. It's E-C-H-O-E-T-E-R-N-Acom. Echo, eterna all one word.
Victor:Like, how do you like? Is it something that like goes through like an indie movie circuit of just like specific theaters, Like distribution, Like what we're?
Mike:looking for post-production. So what we have in mind is to do a kind of a grassroots distribution model where we'll work with independent theaters and college campus theaters and take it on the road, do a Q&A, show the film and do a Q&A, hopefully, with more than just Pat and myself, because he won't talk and I'll do all the talking.
Rob:You can take Chris if you need him.
Mike:But hopefully, hopefully, that that would drum up some support. But we'll also be entering into several film festivals. We've got a couple of people that we're connected to who have connections to some of the film festivals. As far as the programmers, who do with a film festival, the programmers are the people who watch all of the films that come through, so they'll decide if this one goes on to be showcased at the film festival. But from there, distributors and post-production distributor companies like A24, they don't typically put a lot of money into production.
Mike:They buy a film after it's already been made and then they slap their name on it and then they do a marketing campaign and everybody's like oh, if A24 believes in this, then it must be pretty good, because they put out quality stuff. There's also what's called the film market and it's basically like every filmmaker's worst nightmare. It's like you take your film, you go to the quote film market and you basically tell people why they should buy your movie.
Victor:I'm picturing like a Facebook marketplace of movies.
Rob:I got movies here, guys. Raw honey if you're interested.
Chris:Raw honey.
Mike:I've got some crafts that are up know up on the back. We did some but um cool you know. And then there's always the streaming platform. Uh, way to go, and and you don't make a big splash with streaming content anymore because, because a lot of people have access to putting their uh content on a streaming platform.
Mike:Uh, it used to be that if you could get like on amazon or netflix or hulu, like that was a big deal, and it still is. Uh, but it's pretty saturated and so, you know, I don't know if you've ever looked for something to watch and it's like no, no, no no, oh yeah, Right right. Like you guys want to work on AI, like find something that will like recommend stuff that I actually want to watch yeah, across all platforms.
Victor:Well, Mike, this has been an amazing and eye-opening conversation we had together. We appreciate you coming on.
Rob:Yeah, thank you.
Victor:Just once again if someone wants to reach out to you where can? They find you and your work.
Mike:You know most of our stuff is available through speakeasythemoviecom. You can find us on Instagram at speakeasythemovie or at Instagram on Echo Eterna. I also have an independent page for myself. It's Mike Writes Movies, and so you can also find me there. Mike Writes Movies on Instagram.
Rob:All right, thank you. Thanks a lot, mike, thank you.
Mike:Guys, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Victor:Again, I want to say thank you to Michael Box for joining us. Check out his website speakeasiethemoviecom and echoeternacom and drop him a follow at speakeasythemovie and at MikeWritesMovies, and if you're interested in helping his passion come alive, just reach out to him. I'm sure he'd appreciate it. Final thoughts.
Chris:Chris, I have no idea in that field, that industry, so it was good learning Again. It was pretty cool. It was actually really cool to hear on his side and his industry and about what happens and other stuff that you have to go through to make a movie.
Rob:Rob Nah, you can tell Mike's a professional, just him talking about his ideas of his characters. You know how he writes, taking it through, explaining to us like the difference in producing and basically managing these movies, I mean from the beginning to the end, and then going on to talk about distribution and what his plans are for these things. Um, you take for granted what that you know 90 minute film takes. You know everything is calculated. These guys are thinking about this and it's uh, it's refreshing to hear it's stuff that gets lost in the film. Yeah, yeah, that idea of you. You created something you know it's good. This is your vision and either people are going to accept it or not even give it a chance. I mean we it's like kind of like our episodes when we put them out. There's some I love. Yeah, mostly mine.
Victor:You know Listen, someone wrote Joker 2 and they thought that was a great idea. I'm kidding Joker 2. I did not watch this movie, me too. So we want to thank you for listening, but we need your help. If you enjoyed this episode, I want you to find that share button and send this podcast to a friend, a loved one or your gym crush, who will absolutely not find that creepy at all. And while you're clicking, hit subscribe to stay updated on new episodes. Until next time, stay curious.
Mike:Later Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained?
