Making Pondo with Tad Sallee

 In this episode we talk with Tad Sallee. Tad played Tucker, Sarah's boyfriend, in Revenge of Zoe.

Going Postal Trailer

Summertime Killers Trailer

Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle Trailer

Galaga

Scott Pilgrim Trailer

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to season two of Making Pondo and Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest. Making Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty talk to people they have worked with and discuss their experiences on set.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Today on Making Pondo, we talk with Tad Sally, who played Tucker and Revenge of Zoe.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Alright, Marty, we're back.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

And we are back.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Making Pondo.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Yeah, another episode of Making Pondo where we talk to people we've made stuff with. Clever title. Right.

unknown 0:40

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

We have with us this week.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

So I'm Marty Catola, as always. We got Cliff Campbell over here, and our guest this week is.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Hey, my name is Tad Salee, and I've had the pleasure of working with these two gentlemen on a film called Revenge of Zoe.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Oh yeah, you might remember him in that movie. He was uh Tucker, the uh the the uh jerk boyfriend. The jerk boyfriend.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, there's a little acting there. Actually, it wasn't too bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

You uh you uh you looked the part, but you were anything but, I'll put it to you that way. You looked like that. Yeah, we were like, we need a good-looking guy, kind of looks like a frat kid. That's him. Okay, great. But you were you were the complete opposite of your character, so it's very funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

I remember you and Julie were just cracking each other up in that car. We were trying to get the shots, and every time pull up, and then somebody would start laughing, or it was a good time.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, she spoke fondly of working with you and and that time in the car. She she we we still laugh about the um you have there was a red sunfire, if I remember Iponiac sunfire that you had, and it had roll-up windows on it. And I don't think Julie had ever seen roll-up windows, and so she was both fascinated and she found it one of the most hilarious things. Like, I I've we have outtakes of her like laughing as she's rolling up the window. I'm like, well, we can't use that one. Well, okay, what's is there one where she's just kind of grinning? Yes, there it is. We use that one instead.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

It adds to the comedy bit, right? You know, because it does it's not like fast. You gotta like wind it like a hundred times all the way up. And it's like, okay, this is gonna take the full take here. Thank God we're not shooting on film.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah, the take we look the take action that we use. She's kind of she looks like she's sort of rolling her eyes, like Jesus, why don't you have electric windows? You know, kind of like that. But it's it's actually her kind of laughing. It's really funny.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, those are good times. I just re- uh Marty, you had sent me the the film a couple of days ago and I rewatched parts of it. Um yeah, I just brought back some some good memories. What we shot that what six, seven years ago now?

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah, 2017. 2017.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I didn't think it's been that long. I can't believe that. It seems like yesterday I we had you on set, and we were I there's a great photo of you and me. You're in the car and I'm leaning on the windowsill talking to you, and it looks very directory of me. Like it looks like I'm really or you you're really an actor, and I'm really a director, and it's really we're having a good conversation about what your scene is, but I'm sure it's just me telling you a joke or us jibber-jabbering back and forth or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Talking about the windows. Here, can you roll up the windows?

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Probably, yeah, probably making jokes about the window, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

And because the two of you were in the car and we had no way of monitoring the sound inside the car, it was the only shot in the movie where we just kind of had to trust that you two hit your lines and your mark because we couldn't tell until later when we watched it back. And it was just like, Did you get it? Yeah, we got it. Okay, moving on.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

And it was there, so yeah, it that was uh that was a really cool, cool shoot. I remember um I don't remember, did we shoot it in the summer? I I I vaguely remember.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I think it was in the spring. It was like spring, yeah. So it wasn't too hot out, but it was still pretty sunny and bright.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Right, yeah, that's the problem with shooting in Arizona. It's just yeah, obviously it's hot, very bright. So um, you know, shooting obviously interiors is is pretty much the way to go. And it reminds me that that comic book shop. Is that still there? That was a that was a really cool place.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Yeah, like many of our locations, that's another one that it's gone. He his business didn't survive uh the pandemic. We didn't even get to shoot there for the follow-up movie. We had to build our own new version of that store.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So it seems like those small small business, you know, uh especially arts and crafts, video games, uh comics, just yeah, just couldn't really survive the pandemic, which is a shame. Because some of my favorite uh favorite locations, there was one on um, oh man, it's on it's on the west side of Tucson, uh Grant and kind of like Sweetwater. There was a really cool little video game store and it just went under because of COVID, too. You just couldn't keep up.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, yeah, we've shot in Charlie's, we shot three movies in Charlie's comic book stores, and we really wanted to, we really wanted to shoot that last one. I know we tried, I think at one point, because at one point Charlie, due to COVID, was like, no, we were gonna shoot there, and he was like, nope, COVID's got going out of control. I don't want to be more storage. And he I think we even Jeff called him up and like offered him some money and sweet talking and was like, well, we went over there and have to be there, just give us the keys and we'll take the, you know, we'll take the health risk and we'll go in and shoot it. You just be somewhere else. And he was like, Nope.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Well, we had to convince him, but it went on, the actors eventually hit their breaking point. That's right. About four days left to shoot. Everybody was like, nah, we we don't want to risk this anymore. So we had to wait about a year and a half to finish.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, I remember you walking up. I remember you walking up to me that night. I think it was the night that we were shooting at the liquor store, and you said, Well, Bradford's done. He says he's not gonna do he can't take the risk anymore. And it was like, well, if our main actor's done, then we're done. There's nothing else to shoot because he I think the rest of it was just all him. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

When when did you start shooting that roughly?

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Oh, we started shooting it in March of 2020. Oh, so we got shut down almost immediately.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Literally, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was like I I remember um going back, I rented a truck because I didn't want to fly. It was that scary, you know. It was that that time where nobody knew how bad COVID was or how you know how virulent it was. And all we knew was that people would get it and they'd have to go to the hospital and go in a ventilator and die, possibly, right? And so um there was a lot of misinformation. And so I remember calling uh Enterprise, and I was like, Can I rent a car one way from Tucson to Oklahoma City? You sure can. I'm like, how much is it? She's like, I think it's like, and she looked it up, she's like, You can have a Dodge Ram pickup truck for$37 a day one way. Are you kidding me? So I think I paid it was more in gas to get there than it was to rent the truck. Because they were just they were at that point, they're just giving them out because this is before everybody had figured out, oh, I'll just rent a car, you know, and I'll just I'll douse it in Lysol before I get in it and I'll be safe, you know. Um but yeah, it was just the airports were dead, the streets were dead. Um, you'll see once once you get to see Love Song, we shot entire we sent Jeff and the crew out with uh Rachel, the girl who plays uh Frenzy, and they went out and shot at all these places that you would normally just be packed that were just dead zones, the U of A, Science Center, all these places, they look amazing because they're empty. But you know, that's the only time we were ever gonna be like getting those shots. It was pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

So how was picking that up a year later with the actors and the talent, you know, minus like I assume hairs probably changed, you know, people look a little bit different. Is that a struggle in the you know in filmmaking post-production-wise?

SPEAKER_02 7:38

I think if it had gone any longer, but we stretched it about almost a year and a half, and that was kind of like we have to do this now, or people really are gonna start looking different. And and thankfully, we you look at the final product, and now I'm even starting to forget when it all kind of blends together, thankfully.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

But yeah, most of the new most of the new store stuff was shot at the end, and then at the liquor store stuff at the behind the liquor store. What we ended up doing was we had an at one of the actors we thought had COVID. He called us that he's like, I'm sick, and I think I have COVID. We're like, Oh, great, because you're supposed to shoot tonight. Okay, so we ended up blocking the scenes and just shot everything without him, and then uh brought him back what a year, year and a half later, stuck him in the exact place, put an actor in the opposite spy space, shot over the shoulders, and boom, just cut it in and it cuts perfectly. You can't even tell. You can't even tell. Um I'm pretty proud of that actually, because like if if I told you find the scene where all four actors aren't together in the scene, you wouldn't be able to you might pick it out if you really knew you know how scenes were put together and how they're shot, but I think a normal viewer would just be like, I can't I don't know that one. So I was pretty proud of that.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

That's cool. That's like the Vin Diesel rock, you know, scenario where it's like they're not gonna work together, so you're gonna film their scenes separately.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

And you know, when I heard that, that's one of my first thoughts. I was like, I could I could probably do that. Yeah, I could handle that, I could figure that out. We've blocked something like that before.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Creatively, it you know adds fun to filmmaking, right? As long as you can get it right and figure out the logistics and post-production, everything lines up. I mean, those are kind of cool filmmaking techniques.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

We had the other shots and we were watching them in our phone, so we could line up the eye line to where, okay, this is where Eric was standing and looking and because without having the the other footage on location when we were doing the pickup shots, there's a chance that maybe an eyeball would have been looking the wrong direction or whatever. But the worst thing we have is like a slight bit of sound change. When the shots change, you can hear the little bit of the background hisses. But if that's the worst thing in the whole movie for about two seconds, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

So, how did you find us to do um revenge? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

That's a great question. You know, I think it was uh, if I remember correctly, I think I got an email or Eric had reached out to me and said, Hey, I have this project. I think you know, maybe you could be a good fit. I don't remember if I auditioned via self-tape or if it was an in-person. It's been seven.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

I think you were we were at that other uh that uh it's over by Aviation Highway. I had a little place where I was doing auditions.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Uh yeah, right. Okay, I vaguely remember that. Right, yeah. And then I think came in, did some lines, and you guys liked me enough uh to offer me Tucker, which was pretty exciting. Um and then I don't remember how soon after we shot, but I think it wasn't too too long after that that that we we shot my scene, or you guys shot the movie.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Mm-hmm. It was probably only maybe a month or so before we went into that one pretty quick. Uh we hit the ground running on it in January of 2017, and then by April we were already on set, so yeah, that came together pretty quick.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yep. Yeah, that was a fun shoot. That was a lot of fun. I really look back at that and don't hardly have any bad days.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

About what, three or four days of that shoot? Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

If I remember correctly, right, yeah. Um, and it's always interesting because like I when I was re-watching the film, I'm like trying to like obviously try to find my scenes to kind of refresh my memory about these takes that we did. And um, you shoot it all like pretty pretty tight, and then my parts spread out amongst you know 30 minutes of the film. And it's just so cool seeing filmmaking happen like that. Like, you know, you you would you'd never be able to tell. Um, but uh yeah, we shot it, I think, you know, for those three or four days, and I remember just being so like enthused by all the comics in the store that like I didn't want to do my job. I just wanted to go in and like look at all of the comics and like because I'm not like the biggest comic person, but when I went in there and I'm like seeing everything, I'm like, maybe I could be into comics. This could be like another thing for my collection here that I could add to it, which I don't need anymore.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

But um I was gonna say, yeah, looking behind you, it doesn't seem like you would need anything else to collect, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

I can't fit anything back here anymore. I'm I'm my uh my my lady is just getting upset at me. I'm gonna have to move to the living room. But yeah, it was a great shoot. I remember it was a lot of fun. Everybody was like, you know, very, very positive. Uh the improv that we did in a couple of the takes, I think, um, I think made it into the movie. And uh how the guys would pick on me uh and my character, that was just you know so much fun, you know, going back and seeing them uh uh kind of improv these lines and throw some insults out at me and me trying to come back and then come back with something else, and I would just walk away with my tail between my legs, basically.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, that hug is my favorite part. Hey, bring it in here, give us a hug. Yeah, yeah, we shot that at night, and then um our DOP went in uh later and shot a plate of the store during daylight and and and put a plate and basically um rotoscope. I think he rotoscoped a plate in whatever and uh so yeah, so that scene where you're like, hey, get off me, you know, you weirdos, and you go out of the store, that's all that's all a plate.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Even Julie was like, I thought we had shot that at night, and we're like, Yeah, special effects.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

We did special effects.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, that's crazy because like it if you hadn't told me that I probably would have assumed we shot it during the day. And that just goes to the to the extent of of you know, obviously, your editor and and the power of filmmaking and kind of changed perspectives a little bit, which is kind of crazy because like, well, are you sure you didn't shoot this during the day? Like, look, look at the scene. Oh yeah, we didn't we definitely shot this uh during the day.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, and that's um that's uh Bobby Francis was our was our DOP and our our Fifth X guy. He did a fantastic job. He really lovingly fixed a lot of things that we were like, um, can you fix this? He's like, Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Yeah, we didn't realize until late into editing that it was like uh-oh, we were because that was an 11-hour day. I know people who do big budget movies are like, oh wow, 11 hours. But for us that was quite quite a bit, and we uh we uh should have shot that one during the daytime, we realized, but maybe we fixed it, fix it in post, the thing you never want to hear, but we managed.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, yeah. Well, when you're in 11-hour days and you don't have like we don't do we don't do camp chairs on sets and things like that, and and so there's you know, we don't uh our our our cat our crew takes a lot of breaks, but Marty and I tend to move from because there's not a lot of um people in like department heads and different things like that. Marty and I tend to have to move around a lot to talk to the okay, how are we gonna light it? How are we gonna it sound good? Oh, okay, actors, are you okay? Okay, how's the is there is food on you know, so we're everybody else is kind of like, well, I'm gonna chill over here on the side, and it's like, well, we can't really do that. So 11-hour days for us are kind of exhausting. You know, I imagine if you've got a 12-hour day when you've got a union crew and camp chairs and a you know uh craft services and all that, it might be a little bit easier, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Well, you know, we had the advantage of being in a comic book store while we're waiting. So I remember we we were taking a look through some some Superman comics and some stuff that I hadn't seen before, and just you know, really enjoying the downtime.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Well, you guys set up camp over in the corner. Like if I remember, like we I would always look over to the corner and over by where um Elisa was doing sound with her little Kerrig, and there'd always be two or three actors over there just kind of chilling, drinking water, hanging out, maybe like you said, reading comics or talking or whatever. Um so it was all it's it was almost like its own little camp. It was weird.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah, it was a good time.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

So acting's probably not your main thing, but you do a lot of filmmaking. So you've you've been involved in what? Is it documentarian work as your main other field of interest, or is it more of like photography or yeah, I'm kind of a hodgepodge mix.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I started when I was very young. My mom bought me the VHS tapes of Indiana Jones, the trilogy. And I was like, oh, filmmaking, this sounds cool. And um when you're young, you can cast yourself usually as uh as all of your background characters and your lead characters and your family members. So it just kind of transpired that yeah, I just it just kind of transpired that it was gonna be me and my brother acting. So we did a couple of YouTube videos very young, and so kind of one in the same. Um, my love has always just been for filmmaking in general, whether it be behind the camera or in front of the camera. So uh now I own my own video production business, so I do everything from uh weddings to documentaries to commercial projects, uh whatever kind of keeps me busy and stuff that I really feel like I'm gonna I'm gonna work well on um as far as like a creative eye. I tend to not do uh like music videos, and I really try to find myself into projects that are really gonna call out to me. Um so right now I've been working on a documentary for the past five years called Going Postal, The Legacy Foretold, about a uh video game property called uh uh Postal, but uh it's been developed by this Tucson company called Running with Scissors. They've been in Tucson since the late 90s. And uh the what transpired amongst uh uh from 97 to now, they've made four postal games, but it was the most controversial game of all time coming out late 90, 97, 98. And um obviously then Doom came out, then Grand Theft Auto and Night Trap and a ton of other super violent video games came out that kind of proceeded and became more popular. Obviously, Grand Theft Auto became what it is today, which is the biggest video game property of all time. Um but you know, Postal went to Congress, it became kind of this poster child for video game violence. So anytime there was a school shooting or anytime there was something that violent happened, there were a ton of uh ton of shootings at actual post offices. So the term going postal kind of kind of uh came from that, and they thought, oh, you know, we should use that, which in turn added more controversy, and then they've had sequels.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Um there's a movie of it, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

There's a movie uh directed by famous German director Uwe Boll, who uh uh is a very, very crazy, very crazy guy, awesome guy, um very friendly. He's he's made some arguably bad movies, and I think he he can attest to this, but yeah, you know, they're enjoyable for what they are. They are a good popcorn flick, especially good if you're drunk. Um and uh and so we had the chance to chat with him.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

He's he's there are movies out there that the more you drink, the better they get. If you can get get a buzz on by the time you get to the end of it, you go, that's a pretty good movie. I kind of enjoyed that. But yeah. Sorry to interrupt.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

No, no, you're good. I I I would agree. Yeah, movies definitely get better, and hopefully this film that we've been working on, this documentary, is one that you don't have to get drunk for to enjoy, but I can in the majority of films that you know they become arguably better.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Some of them, some of them have this magical pop property, this power where they transform, they're not very good, and then you start drinking, you're like, this is actually a pretty good movie.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Uh Oppenheimer might be one where it's like might not want to be drunk for that because it's like that's a three-hour-long movie.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, I haven't seen that one yet. Yeah, you're gonna be gone by the time that one's over. Yeah, um, so it's funny that you mentioned postal because in that and that term going postal, because um, when I was a kid, um the Edmund the shooting in the Edmund post office in 1986 happened where that guy walked in and he killed a bunch of people. I think he killed 14, 12, 14 people. Um, and so it's I I'm I'm I'm interested, I wonder if the game postal or that uh phrase is kind of tied into that or spawns from that or has some sort of corollary. But um, I remember that as a kid. I think I was 12 or 13 years old when I it was the first first time I'd ever heard about like a mass shooting was a very shocking thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

So yeah, that's that's really where the term kind of originated from. And uh and so when running with scissors called their game postal, they got uh they got a letter from the from from from the official post office, um Postmaster General, saying, Hey, your name your game is in very poor taste. Um you know, we encourage you to change the title of the game. Ultimately they didn't, they kind of shook it off and laughed at it. Uh but yeah, I mean it was it in great taste. Uh who knows? I think it it obviously added to the controversy and made it to become what it is today, which they have now made four games and a spin-off and obviously the movie.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

And so well the the games are kind of known for their off-color, dark kind of humor, anyways, right? Like that's part of it. It's like Leisure Shoot Larry, right? Like Leisure Shoot Larry is this this sort of like if you play that game, you know your the comedy is going to be kind of gross and sexually out of bounds or whatever and um not appropriate, right? So that type of thing where like that's the that's the kind of game that you kind of bought into play. Like, I don't know why you're complaining, right? Like this is the game.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Leisure leisure shoot Larry. They need to bring that back. That was uh that was uh uh fun, you know, just kind of like to experience it, right? Just to see what this game is.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Well, I mean, there's no other games out there where and and Marty and I have talked about this in our podcast where it's like the 80s were obsessed with uh losing your virginity. Like the 80s were obsessed with like you have oh, you've got to lose your virginity, you gotta have sex. Where while you know, are you not even a person until you've done that? And Legion to Larry basically took that and put it in a video game of all things, right? Where it was just like the entire point was to get this poor loser laid, um, which has just never been I can't think of another video game franchise like it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

I remember the Xbox game of it years ago. You always get up to but when you beat the level, but then it would never happen. You know, that was the whole the whole joke of the game. My favorite part of that one was you go to the the lab and the monkey there the the it that lived in the lab would would be drunk drunk and you had to play quarters against it and the controller would make it simulate like you were drunk and slowing your movement.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Oh right, right right I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

This is weird how many games they have in it.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

So Ted I I I like to ask this question um as an actor I mean have you have you done a lot of acting? Was that your first time? Have you been have you been done other parts and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Yeah I've had the pleasure to to do a handful of other projects um and uh now I do a lot of commercial acting uh you know for for stuff that comes especially locally to to Arizona. Gotcha gotcha when uh when a film comes out to Arizona when we when we get blessed with you know a big Hollywood production to come out you know I'll throw my my hat in the ring my my agent will reach out and sometimes it'll stick sometimes you know it won't um you know I I I obviously love filmmaking and so whatever part that I can be involved if it's either a part of being you know on set as a crew member or you know if I'm lucky enough to be in front of the camera. I did a film a couple years ago called The Wall that was shot in in Tucson south pretty far south Tucson about a Border Patrol agent that hasn't come out yet. And then amongst that I've had done a handful of other things uh uh since then which have been you know quite a bunch of fun but I've migrated really to to directing and and really trying to to get into the kind of that realm. Acting is still a love for me. I will say like the the hardest part for acting is is really uh overacting because it it's it's very easy to overact. So as a filmmaker I think it's really important that a lot of actors should uh have some experience in filmmaking um because it can lend to a ton of a ton of things when it comes to working well with with the team especially your director the the DP and even in post production if you're knowledgeable about how to edit a film you're probably gonna be a a you know trying to incorporate what you know as an actor like oh this is gonna land really well maybe you know the editor will use this take or I can see how this is going to land well in the edit so let me go and approach it this way or if it's like you know you know cameras and you know lenses uh and the director says oh I'm gonna shoot this on a 35 1.4 or here's the ISO that should give you an idea of like okay it's gonna be really shallow depth of field my blocking should be you know right here I shouldn't move um and so I think that's just super important why you know uh more actors should try to get involved in filmmaking in in in any aspect uh it'll it'll lend to you being a better actor I was watching a conversation about um Brando uh during on the freshman the movie The Freshman and um he was telling all the young actors Matthew Broderick and Penelope and Miller and Penelope Ann Miller and some of these others he said um you know that they're gonna want to make you do the take a bunch of different times because they're gonna want covers they're gonna close up all this he said just screw them up screw this take up screw that take up till you get to the close up then nail it and that's the one that they have to use.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

And he said that that was a technique that he often used with directors that he couldn't when he couldn't reach an agreement with a director on a on a direction he would just screw the take up until he got the camera where he wanted it and then he would nail the part and they'd go okay great moving on and he's like awesome all right here we go which I thought was very funny but kind of in that vein um is there any good feedback that you've ever gotten from a director like is there is there great feedback you've gotten from a director do you like to get feedback from a director do you do you prefer to kind of search around until they tell you you found it you know I'm I I I always like to ask that question because I I'm interested in in how actors work with directors.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

I think feedback is good for for any actor um even if you're very a very experienced actor because every project's going to be different but I'll kind of go back to what I said earlier just overacting and I think that's that's the biggest thing um when I was uh when I was on a a project when I was 16 or 17 it was my first feature film it was an indie film I'm not sure if it ever really made its way out there but uh we shot it for 30 days um in in the hot sun in in in Arizona uh and it was it was a quite a lengthy project um and I remember at one point you know this was this is my first film and I got the film because the lead actor had had dropped out he he wasn't allowed to do it it was very edgy very like R-rated and my coming from like a very religious Christian background I had to persuade my parents like I need to you know do this film and they're like I don't really think we want you to so it was a it was a it was a hard conversation to have with my my parents and I remember on on scene one day I wasn't going to get into this but I I think it's important to say um we had a piece of pornography in the background and the drug adamant that we have this in the scene and I was like what was what was his reasoning by the way out of curiosity like why was he what like because you know that he'll go surely he went no it has to be there because you know blah blah blah would want that there that would be part of his did he did he give you any of that it was more or less about I mean the film was already very edgy it was kind of a Jesus in the sub suburbia kind of take but it was kids selling drugs at 1617 loosely based on a true story and I think that's where it kind of derived from you know trying to kind of keep it true ish.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Okay so kids would have porn on the walls type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah and we were in a dream house and there's a girl with her legs spread open in the background in the back of the table like a shot at like 2.4 whatever but you can still see it you can still clearly see what it is and so I had a conversation with the director and you know he gave me great feedback like you know sometimes it's not in uh it's not up to you. Sometimes it's it's up to to myself the director and you just kind of have to walk away and just agree with them. It's their project you signed up for it and uh and uh that's it ultimately what happened it was a hard conversation you had to have with me I didn't agree with it. I still think it was a little risky. I think the film could have probably gone out to to have some legs if it didn't have so much of this kind of edgy stuff toward towards it but it was trying to be like a live action kind of South Park um with with with really dark tones. It's called Summertime Killers and there's a there's a trailer out there on YouTube somewhere yeah it was a it was a a fun project to work on very young and you know when you when you're jumping into the water so young especially acting you're trying to take in everything that you can and so uh especially like knowledge from people who are experienced and so you want to try to soak it all up and that's really what I tried to do and and took a lot of that from what I learned on that film to to who I am today as a filmmaker.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Nice. Out of curiosity I of course I've gone through your IMDB you um you made it onto a big set Jumanji Welcome to the jungle that's a I mean that's a that's a that's a big ass film. I mean that's a no-joke lot of money friggin' film um I'm curious what that was like I mean I've never been on a set that big for sure so I'm I I have to admit I'm curious what it was like yeah you know that was uh that was a uh a crazy project um and it it had just so happened that I was I was getting over a really bad breakup and I um I think my agent emailed me and she was like hey we have this project it's in Atlanta I don't think they told me what it was and I was like okay all right cool so I sent in a self-tape I sent in you know all this stuff and I heard back pretty much immediately like within 24 hours they're like hey we liked it the the casting director liked it um but we need you out here you need to hop on a plane tomorrow so I I literally hopped on a plane um that I think that next day and I was in Atlanta for I don't I can't say exactly how three to five days we shot quickly and um my scene I'm uh I'm a I think I'm uncredited I think they cut yeah he says you're uncredited which is crazy that they would they would make you do a send in a self-tape and then fly you out 24 hours notice for an uncredited role but I guess that's Hollywood man.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

It's crazy I saw so much so much being filmed that never made it into the film that the whole I won't spoil it but the ending of the film was very different from what I saw when I was on on SAT because they were shooting a portion of the ending of the film. And um and it was it was very different. So when I went to the theater to see it I'm like okay this is coming up I'm super excited and then they completely changed and cut you out they cut you out bro you can still see my butt I'm in the trailer I think longer than I am in the actual movie is funny. But um it was cool it was a really cool experience when when I was um I basically there's a scene where it's a master shot of the high school and I walk in with my skateboard and uh I was standing next to this guy for a good portion of like this scene which took like at least an hour or two and um I was just like loosely talking to him and it was Jake the director of the film. Oh and I was like oh my gosh this is so cool because I hadn't I hadn't um gotten the chance to talk to him at this point. And uh it was just really cool just kind of seeing like a huge film from a from a small person's perspective like play out. It kind of ruins you know movies a little bit too because then you're then you're like oh man so this uh you know is how they're shooting this they use this high school now for like a dozen movies a year so every time I'm like looking at a at a movie shot in Atlanta like Stranger Things or any Marvel projects I'm like that's the same high school they just kind of tweak it around a little bit um but that's movie magic for you. So that was Jake Kasten then that you were standing next to whose dad Lawrence is well we all know who Lawrence is right we all know who Lawrence Kazden is right we all holy shit it's pretty cool it's pretty crazy that's pretty amazing man that's uh that's a uh what's it the the Oracle of Bacon man that's the six degrees of separation you're right there you right there rubbing elbows with Jake yeah it was a fun time it's it's that's a that's a cool it was a cool movie too um I think it was it it it are honestly became I think Sony's biggest film um it's a good it's a good little remake of it I I honestly don't normally with a reboot or remake I I kind of I'm like that I didn't have any problems with that really I thought it was kind of fun yeah another I can what they made another trilogy or two or two or three of them but I think that's why they reshot the ending is because they they saw that this film was actually had really good legs and it became what it is today.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Yeah makes sense so outside of film what's another big creative outlet for you some people we've talked to you know they're in they're really into food other people are into sports uh is yours like more of like a video game obsession as I can tell by the uh mess what uh what you say that yeah you can't see it but the man behind us behind him it looks like uh it looks like a a gamer's backdrop for a YouTube thing I mean it's it's ridiculous the amount of stuff he's got uh nintendo and Atari and just I mean controllers mounted along the wall of course everything's tastefully lit um but yeah it's pretty impressive that's a Game Boy that's a color game yellow Game Boy back there.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

We've got we've got quite a bit of stuff here stuff that is col that I've collected over many a year.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

That's a that's a Nintendo 64 that's a 64 controller. Is that an early PlayStation early PlayStation I pretty much have um the PS2 do you is early PS2 that you've got down there?

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Yeah PS2 I think I have a majority of of I do have a Genesis yeah and I just got the uh the 2600 just a couple of days ago sorry 2600 um yeah I guess you could say video games are kind of like a a hobby um a hobby sir it could be yeah I mean you're making you're you spent five years making a documentary about a video game I think you know maybe yeah maybe not lie to yourself anymore it's a business expense right it's a write-off it's a write-off that's what I'm trying to say nowadays um yeah it just yeah I was always fascinated by video games as a kid and uh and and and grew up with um with my my mom and and my dad started with Galaga and still probably my favorite game of all time Galaga so simple easy you can pick it up it's it's but it's also very hard and especially once you get into those big levels where you've got you know the double ships and the constant I mean it's that that is a tough game.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

I like it. That's one of my favorites of my wife's favorite video games too is Galaga.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Yeah it's always packed at the if you go to an arcade usually Galaga's like always always you know busy it's hard to find an open arcade with with Galaga which is great because that attests to just like how awesome that game holds up now. You know early early video game. And I think people are clamoring for more of that like simple stuff. You know with nowadays we have like open world video games that go like three to a hundred hours and I'm like overwhelmed like I can commit to like one like open world video game a year.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah I have to play I have to play one and then finish it and then move to another one I can't I can't be playing multiples I just finished Baldur's Gate a couple months ago and and um that was fantastic. Oh my god as a D nerd since I was about 10 that I was just like it's all turn based and it has the rules and this is amazing oh my God is you know it was really good.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

How long is Baldur's Gate 3?

SPEAKER_01 35:25

I've heard conflicting reports I put 110 hours into it before I beat it. And I and honestly I skip some stuff that I like if I go back through it and I'm really thorough and because I'm a I'm a bit of a guy who like I like I'm a completionist I like to go all the side quests and all the main quests you know as much of it as I can there are some things like if you play a good character or a bad character of course the game is different. But yeah I mean I could probably put another I would say probably another solid 15 hours into it probably if I wanted to go back and really cover everything. That was a fantastic game and I and to to attest to its gameplay I started another game immediately after I beat it because I was like well okay I want to try it now with a different character right I want to try with a different alignment. I want to try with different responses.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

So um that's how they get you you know I just did the same with Diablo I finally beat Diablo 4 and I'm like oh I feel good wash my hands out wanna play more here we're seeing a new class sure sure why not yeah that's hilarious did you ever see the King of Kong documentary about the Donkey Kong I always thought that was a fascinating one.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

I did yeah that's a that's a it's a great video game documentary there's uh there's really not a whole lot of like really good video game documents too many yeah um well that one I mean that one kind of blew the the gaming world up I mean there I mean Steve Weebe and um the other dude he's the twin galaxies has been found to be falsifying records for years now and those two guys that guy the the Walter dude and that other guy were in coats and it was like wow like because if without that documentary we'd have never known and that dude's still the greatest Pac-Man player and Donkey Kong player of all time and it's all a lie.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah it's interesting I I really think that they could probably make another documentary like a follow up to I agree completely. It's it's um and I've actually talked to my business partner about that I was like what if we get in because that was a really inspiration for us to was King of Kong it was also one of the earlier like video game documentaries that I think came out looks like 2000 2007 so yeah it's a while ago yeah but it's it's sort of the penultimate like it sort of sets the stage and and really puts the bar really high on a on a really great video game documentary because it's compelling stuff. You know when you watch when you watch Steve finally show up to play live and people are walking by and him and give him the cold shoulder and shit you know while he's getting to a damn kill screen and people are great it's gotta get to a kill screen get over here it's just like that's compelling stuff yeah yeah I think I think where we're at today with Billy Mitchell it's it's even arguably crazier than it was in Fistful of Kong like all the controversy and the back and forth lawsuits uh I mean I I'm I'm assuming that probably make a a f a follow-up here um yeah definitely one of the one of the best video game documentaries uh Netflix is a really good one too called high score um and I've seen that one this one's really good yeah really well produced and and they threw a lot of money into it it's very like you know retro themed so if you love like early 80s 90s video games kind of the start of start of of of you know video games I can't remember who narrates it it's it's either Charles Martinet or I think the the gentleman from Lord of the Rings um but uh Sean Sean Austin. But it really great um thank you for correcting me really great video game documentary I think it's four or five parts uh don't correct me don't uh call me out on that but um yeah we need more video game documentaries right I know Netflix had another one about the the legendary et cartridges that were buried yeah that was a good one yeah that was a good one I haven't seen that yet but oh that's good I I think it might only be like maybe an hour or so but it was this is a fun one I think there's a a semi follow up to the fistful of quarters I think it's about mappy I know there's an it they follow another guy who hung out at that arcade and he was gonna beat one of those games where I I think it's anything oh there you go you got the card trick but it's like your tail gets longer and longer and if you hit your tail you die was the whole point of the game.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

I don't know if it's called Mappy or Mappy's not the right name. But anyways I think there is some kind of a semi follow-up to Fistful of Quarters out there at least following another character from the uh the arcade I'll have to check that out yeah I'll have to look that one back up it'll be in the show notes so I mean you only worked with this for a few days but there's probably enough time to have a favorite moment on the set if you think can you think of any standard I think I think that hug moment was was so cool.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

You know we we chatted about that earlier but that was a a really cool moment because it like it wasn't also like a part of the scene I felt like I felt the love from all the actors there like you know because everybody kind of came together and it's like hey sorry for picking on you and your character throughout the movie and it was almost like hey Tad you know this is also from us the the people behind character sorry for you know kind of berating you for the last like two days on set and I was like okay they were kind of in character for that weren't they yeah like I mean not that I mean they didn't go overboard but they you know they were basically like we don't like this guy and and and kind of gave you some ribbing over it that was hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah you were a good sport about that I appreciate that it was a good time it was a good time felt the love on set for sure so so I have a weird question I like to ask everybody um so some of my favorite films ever made are about music not necessarily musicals but they're about music or bands or or anything like that. And so it could be a musical but do you have a favorite movie that centers around music or is about music or about a band or or I mean possibly a musical but like an example would be that thing you do um Amadeus which is about you know Mozart.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah that's a that's a really good question. You know and you could you could tell me if I'm if I'm completely off here with with what I have in in mind it's slightly about music but I mean music is a big part of the film and really Yeah that's that's probably good too yeah um and it's Scott Pilgrim.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

I think it's just that's a that's very centered around music.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

He's in a band absolutely yeah yeah it's just the the the art style art direction of that film just centers Edgar Wright directed the shit out of that movie. It's ridiculous he lost his mind on that thing. I just watched the Netflix animated version or the animated take whatever you call it on Scott Bilgram and it's really good. It takes a couple episodes to get into it but I really enjoyed it it it actually takes the film and like still makes it canon but still retells the story in a very unique way all told through animation and they got all the they got all the actors back so as you're like listening you're like oh my gosh wow that's the actual character and they came back and um if you haven't checked it out definitely recommend it it's uh it's it's a good um it's a good time on on on Netflix.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

I like that film quite a bit I I especially because I you know some I always love a film even if I don't like the content or it doesn't really hit me but if it's something I've just never seen before in a way you know the movie's just made in a way that I've never seen it probably won't again you gotta just kind of give it the nod. I've never seen anybody do that before it's like it combined a comic book and live action and being in a band and all this shit all together and and also wrapped it in its own world right where you know the the when they have the um the battle of the bands and they're playing and the giant gorilla pops up and the giant snake pops up like this is fucking wildly creative and I'm sure that's part partly due to the comic book but you know wow.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Yeah it was I mean from the start of the movie when when the the Universal logo spins and it's in like 8 bit or 16 bit I forget which and that just sets the precedent for the rest of the movie it's it's a shame that the film didn't I think box office wise do as well as Universal I agree.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

But it's it's a cult classic though I mean it's got a strong strong following out of curiosity being a gamer what did you think of Ready Player One?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah Ready Player One was um I was a big fan of the book. Um same same and reading it I there was like there's no way right and then there's no way Gilberg is attached to it and you're like oh my God this is Right, yeah. And uh yeah, and w when it came out, I um I think any property that you adapt from a book, it's always obviously very tough because you have to change things, not everything's gonna work. And I think Red Eclair 1 was one of those books where it's like I liked the book better than I did the film. Right. Um but that's just you have like this idea already in your head.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

But for like the IPs are everywhere in that book, and you I'm reading the book going, there's no way that you're not gonna get Tojo Godzilla. There's no friggin' way that's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. You're not gonna get a Mecha Godzilla, you know, and they they they pulled some of that off, but they also were smart and like, well, we're gonna use a universal monster, well, we'll use King Kong. Well, we'll use, you know, but they got the Back to the Future in there, and they got some other things that were pretty important. Um, I don't know, I thought he you know pulled it off because it was just like, there's no way you're gonna have to wrangle IPs from all around the world to do this. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Oh, yeah. When you've got the power of Spielberg and Warner Brothers Money, I mean, a whole lot is possible. I heard they're making a sequel to Ready Player 2, which uh I think Spielberg is not attached as a director, but I'm I'm excited to see that be adapted because the book is the book, the second one, is pretty good itself too.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Oh, I haven't read the Ready Player 2. There's a second book.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Oh, yeah. There's a second book, yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

Uh I knew he'd made Armada, but Armada, but I hadn't I hadn't caught up with the Ready Player 2. I'll have to read that.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

Armada's great too, yeah. And they're supposedly adapting that as a film as well. But who knows? It's been on the I think a a shelf somewhere collecting dust for for many years. That's a great book, too. If if you're the listeners haven't read that and they like video game inspired arcade shooters, great book.

unknown 45:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

Oh, that's all of our main questions.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

Yeah, crazy, huh?

unknown 45:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Kind of blew through that. Uh do you have anything that you want to plug? Any any projects that are coming up or things coming out? I know you have the long-awaited postal documentary, of course, but yeah, take a few minutes to talk about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Oh, well, appreciate it. Um, well, no, it's been so great to chat with you, you guys. Uh, this has been a lot of fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Um Yeah, I it's it's wild. I I yeah, I'd like to get you back on a set. You're you were a lot of fun, and I talking to you is like, oh yeah, I remember it was a blast hanging out with that guy.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

You know, when I rewatched it, I was like, you always, as an actor, um, and I'm sure, you know, even as a filmmaker, you go in and you're like, why did I do things this way or why did I do it this way? So when I was rewatching it, I was like, ooh, why did I why did I deliver this line that way? It's cringy, and maybe it's me. I've grown a lot as an actor and a filmmaker since then. I mean, it's seven years ago.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

So um, you know, you have a perfect reaction where Julie looks at you and says, She says, Can't you at least try smiling? And you smile and you go, How's this? And she goes, You look like you're getting a procol proctology exam. And you go, perfect. And it's just it's just no perfect on the timing of it. It's just wow. Chef's kiss all over that.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

I think we were, you know, it's at some point is you know, when you're shooting in the sun in a hot car, I don't remember if the air conditioning was on or not, or if the engine was running, but I imagine we were probably like, okay, let's start to wrap this up. Let's get this take here. And I'm just like, all right, I'm gonna be dry and witty about it and little sarcasms coming across here. But uh yeah, that's a great, great, great film. I I really enjoyed what you guys put together. It was a it was a you know, even from outside the look at perspective looking in a fun comic book infused movie. Like the humor was funny, uh, everybody was on point casting wise, um, you know, minus myself. But uh you were right on point, too. It was a it was a it was a cool property. So I'm curious where um where is Revenge of Zoe? Yeah, I know you were talking earlier, where is that gonna live? I know you're talking distribution-wise for like a you were saying a trilogy.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Yeah, so we so we we're in talks with a distributor now, and we don't we're not gonna you know we're not gonna mention any names or anything, but we're in we're in talks with a distributor um to hopefully pick up all three films because it's a trilogy. So we've pulled uh Revenge of Zoe off of Tubi in in anticipation of hopefully that that deal. Um so that would put Writing Frenzy, which is the first film, Zoe, which is the the one you were in in the middle, and then Love Song of William Hot at the end, um, all out there as a package deal. So that's we're pretty excited about that. We're really hoping that comes through in the next couple months. That's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I know we were chatting earlier, but yeah, distribution is a it's a beast. Um we've been chatting for the last couple of years just with like loose distribution partners to get uh going postal out there. Um I think we we we originally were trying to get the film out and done in 2022, and then we were re-evaluated, we got some more finances, and we're six figures deep into the film now. Um it's been yeah, it's been uh quite a financially draining project, but it's been, you know, it's great. Uh so the goal is to land on one of the top five streaming platforms. The Netflix's Amazon's Hulu's, you know, Peacock. Uh I mean, there's so many options, and I think we're really striving for like more content now, especially like after all the strikes that happened last year. More studios are looking for more content, which is really cool because that gives us the smaller people uh a little bit more power. Um you know, and I think it's I think it's still possible. I was just watching yesterday that Napoleon Dynamite was made for like 400,000 and it ended up making like five million dollars. Uh obviously it became a cult classic and uh just a just a huge indie movie. Um I still think that's possible for for for the smaller filmmakers out there. And you look at Evan Smith's, yeah, he's kind of the the the director in that realm.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

Yeah, the dude who made SLC Punk, when Marty and I we reviewed that on our our podcast, I think he spent what 300,000, 400,000 on that. Wow. The guy who made swimming with sharks, he spent four or five hundred grand on that. And and those are, I mean, swimming with sharks in particular, while it's a it's kind of a dated movie as an indie film, I think it stands up pretty well. And with that much money put into it, it's pretty impressive. You know, they're out there. You just you just got to know what you're doing. And you know, if you're making a movie and you don't know at the end how you're gonna get it in front of people, like that's a problem that you need to solve, like sooner rather than later, you know. Because you don't want to, you know, we've done it in the past where you finish the film and you're like, all right, what are we gonna do with this? That's you want to have a plan, at least marketability. Some sort of marketability, somebody to talk to, you know, and a festival run can get you some of that too. You know, like we've we've been doing a festival run, that's that's sort of how we've talked to several several different, you know, we've sales agents, we've talked to distributors, this and that. So, but yeah, I mean, I think you have to have a plan for after the film, right? Like, all right, it's done. Now what are we gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Totally, totally, yeah. Because you get questions, right? Like, uh, hey, where's the film? Where can I watch it? Um, and obviously every artist wants their work to be seen, you know, especially as an actor, yeah, as a filmmaker. That's that's the the point of filmmaking. Um that's such a painful question.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Where can I see your movie?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

You're like, oh I asked Marty the other day, I was like, hey Marty, where can I see the where can I see Revenge of Zoe?

SPEAKER_01 51:29

And we could have pointed you to Tubi up until about two weeks, a week or two ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

So what was the process of Tubi? Um, I'm curious as far as like um financial proposition. Are they uh are they taking your film for free? Are you getting any financial you know um revenue from Tubi?

SPEAKER_01 51:49

We went through a distributor for it. So we went through Brink. Um there was a small he he put in some, I I don't know, I think it was marketing and and and some probably some fees for deliverables uh into Tubi, and then you know Tubi paid him back and had revenue as it went. Um we didn't do terribly, but we didn't do great.

SPEAKER_03 52:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

You know, but but it did generate money. And I think that's the that's the key, is like if you're a if you really have a decent marketing strategy and you've got a decent film that you you think you can hook, if you can find your audience and hook them with it, Tuvi's not a terrible option at all. You know, you get your platform on, you get it out there, it's ad supported, which means you've got money coming in, and then you start your drip campaign, your ad campaigns, whatever that you're gonna do to get to drive people towards Tubi. Um, I don't think, especially now, I think it's gonna be, you know, back in the day there were different windows, right? Like you had a theatrical window, then you had a DVD window, or a VHS DVD window, then a cable window, so on, right? I think the windows kind of now are starting, like you said, top five streamers. That's my first window. If I can't make that window, my second window is fast, right? And if I can't make free ad supported television, my third window is YouTube, putting it on Amazon Prime by myself, etc. And so on and so forth. So we have these, it's just the yeah, the streaming windows are different now. They're not and I maybe they're not really windows, they're more like tiers, right? Right. Tier one, tier two, tier three. You're shooting for tier one, you know. And we were only uh hopefully make it, man, shit.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

We were on national distribution. If we had had international distribution and been on the tubies throughout the world, which is a bit of a disco around, maybe a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Yeah, this distribution is supposed to be worldwide for English speaking, so that would put us in Australia, England.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

And maybe when you hit one of the top fives with postal, it'll go international as well and be on Netflix, Australia, etc.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

That's the goal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Yeah, that's that's the hope, right? It's it's crazy. Russ uh postal is uber popular in Russia. It's like Brandt. See, popularity. So that's that's a big hope. Um I know Amazon takes a lot.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

Are you looking into Russian subtitles and all that stuff for it then?

SPEAKER_00 54:01

Yeah, Russian film titles, Russian dubs, Russian subtitles, the whole kind of yeah, and then it's got a property, you know, in in in Mexico and in international. I mean, it's a huge property. We've we shot the film um in at least half a dozen countries. And we started during 2020 when we started like really boots on the ground filming, and so then COVID hit and we were like, crap, where do we go? Uh and it just became a conversation of okay, well, we can't actually travel to like Germany to like interview, interview UVA Bull anymore. We can't travel to you know the UK or to Spain or to Poland where our animation team is. Um instead, we we had to outsource, so we would like find camera operators and really good teams that we that we really connected with to go and do these interviews for them. And then we would hop on like a Zoom call or like you know, a Zencast or a Google Meet, um, and then we would interview the the the talent uh via you know the Wi-Fi, via there, and then have their eyeline directed into the camera A or B. Um really crazy time of I think filmmaking was definitely changed obviously during during the pandemic, but it was more affordable to actually do that. Granted, you lose out on a little bit of the creative aspect because then it's like you're putting everything into the hands of some other person. Somebody else, sure, yeah, third party. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, okay, we're kind of really hoping that everything pans out, and thankfully everything did thankfully everybody was really excited to to to work on this. But um, yeah, filming internationally during during COVID was uh was was quite the experience because you know I'd have to be up at four in the morning for uh 10 a.m. interview in the UK. And so we're having these these super late nights and they're going like two, three hours long. And if the team's not set up, like you have to be there on the call to really chat with the talent and kind of like you know, kind of just uh play for time while the camera operators are setting up. Um that's the filmmaking process. It's fun, it's it wouldn't change it for for the world. It's uh it's fun. Even the long 11-hour, 14-hour days, you know, we uh we're in it for uh for for the arts.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

It's a different kind of high. Like it's like working for working 11 to 14 hours at a job where you're making money, and then working 11 to 14 hours on a project that you're excited about, it's like a it's like a different, it's like night and day. One's like a drug, and the other one is just like a drudge. You know, I mean, it's so different. Like, I mean, I I can remember, you know, Marty and I would come back from 12-hour days, 13-hour days, and we'd spend three or four hours looking at footage and talking, and then it's three in the morning, it's like, well, yeah, 10 a.m., 8 a.m. Okay, I'm gonna go to bed, you know, wake me up, and you just do it all over again because it's so it's so engrossing and it's so awesome. You don't want to stop, you know. If I could go from set to set to set, just like, all right, what are we shooting? What's this project? Great, done. All right, what's the next project? Yeah, I'm gonna fly out. Okay, I would do that as a life completely. Yeah, I maybe take a week off in between stuff and just thing to thing to thing. I love being on set more than I love anything else.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

Just for somebody to watch your film on an iPhone, sitting on the couch while they, you know, either have to pay attention or that's what I always think of. Like my girlfriend, she's sitting like on the couch watching movies on her phone, and I'm like, that's Oppenheimer, watch it on the TV. That's we got a 77-inch TV. What are you doing? Uh yeah, but that's that's filmmaking for you. People are gonna consume regardless, but that's that's the whole point is to you know to to enjoy, enjoy the content however you want, really.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Right. Hey, if you if if you really dig Oppenheimer on an iPhone, knock yourself out.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

You know, you haven't seen it until you've seen it only five inches big.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

They have a uh they have a theater in my hometown called Flix Brew House, and they do um they have what they call flicks picks, and so they'll they they show like like um on the 25th, we're going to see for the for the 25th anniversary, we're gonna go see Jurassic Park. And so they have a themed menu and it's a brew, it's a microbrewery, so you can get a beer and it's assigned seating and really nice seats. Um, and that's to me, I like at this point that's the way to go see a movie. Like, there's just no other way. If you're gonna go see a movie, go see a movie. And it's really great to see all these old films, like I've seen The Godfather, The Thing, um, you know, just uh they just did Purple Rain for Princess Birthday, which was like that was like going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, people screaming at the screen and dancing and singing along. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Um, yeah. Yeah, because you don't have the distractions of you know being on your phone or exactly that's the beauty of a movie theater. And um, yeah, it's a shame that so many movies this year seem to be not doing so well. You know, Furiosa just came out and I don't think it hit its targeted budget for what it was aiming for.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

But then there's Inside Out 2 is crushing it. Right, right, right. Bad boys out too. So yeah, Bad Boys didn't get it. Garfield did great, but Furiosa didn't do well. You know, it's weird, it's weird. They're gonna have to figure it out, man. Like they're gonna have to figure out what audiences want. The demographics are shifting. Obviously, kids do well. Stop doing prequels. Hollywood, you don't know how to do prequels. You've never made a good prequel, stop doing it, you know. Stop it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Yeah, that's that should be rule number one. No prequels. Yeah, I can't think of a prequel that I've seen that's like, oh my gosh, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, even the prequel, the Star Wars prequels, I mean, it gives you the best Sith Lord of all time, but it's still in the most in the worst movie with the worst character of all time.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

You mean I have to sit through Jar Jar to get to the really I think for a younger generation, obviously episode one was like, because I grew up with episode one. I mean, I grew up with the originals, but episode one was the first one I saw in theaters, and so that has a special place in my heart. Jar Jar aside, like it's it's um, and they just did the 3D uh, or not the 3D, they did the I think it was the remaster that came out a couple of months ago, which I heard was amazing. Um, I went and saw it in 3D years ago when it came out.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

I saw the 3D one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

And uh yeah, that was great. I I really enjoyed it. You know, that might be the exception, is is the prequels for Star Wars.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Duel of the Fates is the best lightsaber battle out of all of them. Darth Maul is the is the is, I mean, to me, it's way more menacing than Darth Vader ever could be. And that fight between the three of them is just you know, especially once he kills Qui-Gon and they separate him with the red shields and and he's pacing and and you know, Ben can't wait to get at this friggin' zip board. It's just oh it's a masterpiece. And then of course we have to go back to Misha. Who's I he's a you know, it's kind of a Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

Pretty good. If George Lucas or Dave Cody needs a jar jar coming back, we uh we gotta get him your number.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:55

It's no better than seven, eight, and nine, but that's a topic for another podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Oh, we can go in. We can argue about that all day, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

It's it's it's uh, I mean, we're in a different trajectory, different Star Wars nowadays than the ones that I grew up with, and I know the ones that you guys grew up with too.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

So we we kind of and we tend to do this on this show, but we kind of sidetracked you off of plugging yourself. So is there anything that you want to plug?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:22

You know, I appreciate it. Yeah, Going Postal, the Legacy Foretold, it is coming out this year. We don't have an exact date for our distribution. Um, but Fine Cut is happening in the next couple of weeks. So I'd say go ahead and follow us on our ticket. We have TikTok, Twitter, uh, Instagram, Facebook, all of the socials. It's going at GoingPostal doc. Uh as soon as we have any updates as far as uh releases, we'll let you know our audience know. Uh, we are planning a physical like Blu-ray. We're planning on like a deluxe edition.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

Um, so we're planning out like everything in like deleted scenes and extra stuff for the interviews and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

Cool. We shot uh about 20, close to 20 terabytes of footage for the film.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

Which uh which um so sifting through everything. We've been in post-production for two years, and I've had four associate editors working with me, um, and just sifting like through footage, calling through interviews. It's been quite a time time uh timely project. And so we've got hundreds, probably hundreds of hours of stuff that we can like create into special features, and we're having those discussions now about like, you know, what should we do here? Uh we're putting out like little bits and pieces of the film on our TikTok to kind of see how that's doing, and it's doing pretty well. We're getting uh thousands and thousands of views, which is really nice, and seeing people's response and hopefully it excites people. Um we just posted one yesterday of John St. John, who's the voice of Duke Newcomb. Uh uh, and he's he's um he's in the film talking about uh you know his experience. He's the voice of postal dude in postal four. So um it's pretty cool. It's it's crazy to see you know everything that's transpired and the people that I've met and my business partner have met over this journey. Um it's opened so many doors, met so many like cool actors, directors, um, and uh that's just the beauty of filmmaking is just meeting people you never think that you would. So yeah, going book buck uh on our socials.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

Folks, we'll have him back on once he's huge. He can't he can't resist, he can't tell us no because we got him first, he was in our movie first. He owes us at this point. So once it once it explodes and everybody wants to talk to Ted uh Tad's Alley again, we'll bring him back on and be like, hey dude, now that you're famous, give us jobs or whatever. You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

Well, when we win the trilogy Revenge of Zoe and well, like, hey, you know, we're we'll be one in the same here. We'll we'll see each other uh at those big Hollywood parties.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

Sure, sure we will.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

Probably a blood sacrifice or something. You never know what we'll do.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

That's exactly that's the Hollywood party I want to go to.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

Definitely, guys. Well, thanks so much for having me on. This was uh this was a great thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

Yeah, buddy, thanks for coming on, I appreciate it. And it's great to see you. And um really seriously, good luck with your doc. And if there's anything that we can do like when it comes out, or if there's any social media, anything that we can push for you or anything like that, just let us know.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

Definitely. We're gonna be having a premiere probably in Tucson. So I'll let you guys know the rest of the uh rest of the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

Right on. All right, guys, look forward going postal. All right, not us documentary. All right, I guess.