Transcript

I'm very happy to say that today's episode, it's going to be interactive with one of our sister companies, Click. If you'd like to give real time feedback

for this episode, please click on the link down below. Sam Cutler is a master of creating suspense. His short films bring you to the edge of your seat and

make your surroundings go blurry. They share the modern-day struggle of Americans just trying to get by. His films are real, captivating, and emotionally resonant. for his work. He

has been given multiple Vimeo staff picks that have debuted across many film festivals. Guys, I had an awesome time talking with Sam. Take a look. Enjoy.

You are the master of creating suspense. How like how do you go about creating that spense suspense in in your writing

and then when you actually get on set? I think it's a good question. Um, you know, I'm glad you found the films affecting. Um,

I I think it's it's potentially a couple things. It's not it's not always intentional. Exactly. I think, you know, we edit the films to what we think is

good. And like we we find ourselves, me and so I co-direct with my brother David, co-write, co-produce. We we do it together as a duo. Um, he's amazing. and

it's 11:00 a.m. East Coast time, so he's asleep probably in LA right now. He's not here. Um, but yeah, I think it

starts off with just at the base level, Dave and I in general are kind of like bored. Like we're like when we get bored of stuff, we want to

like move on. And so like if we get if we're bored of the shot, if we're bored of the story be like, "All right, let's

go to the next story beat." So, I think we have a tendency to pack these shorts in particular and and with a lot of

story and we kind of like kind of like go through it fast, which is just sort of a weird like it's just of who we are

by nature. I think we we start to let things like just chill. Um that so that's one piece of it. I think the second piece obviously is like, you

know, I think we we know how valuable people's time is, especially for a short, you're watching it online or you're, you know, whatever. And it's so easy to click away to

something else, look at your phone. We try to make pieces that people would want to keep watching. Oh, yeah. Um, and so you there's an intentionality

there for sure. Um, and then I think, you know, part of the the process of it obviously starts in the writing. You know, we

can envision the scenes as we're writing them. Um, and I guess a writing process is it's very much a conversation. And so

if both of us are kind of like feeling the idea or like you know I don't know I'm thinking about in Flounder like when

you know he we realize that his friend is is sort of still under there. There's sort of a moment like in the writing of that scene in the

in the creation of that idea before we were even writing on paper just talking about the idea like which just grabbed us like oh [ __ ] that's like that's going

to be a crazy moment for somebody who's like watching this you know if it excite if it excites us we think it's going to

excite somebody else which I guess is the basic takeaway there which again is not like a crazy concept you know um that if it excites you it's gonna excite

someone else but but I think it's easy to try and when you're writing write like what you think you should be writing versus what you yourself are

feeling. And I think we try hard to like both to follow our feelings and at the same time once we've written things down or or sort of like you know

carded them out. We try hard to go through and take it back from a viewer perspective. And I think Flounder is maybe does the best job of this of the

three films. But trying to like think about like what is the information kind of like drip if you will like what is the kind of like teasing out of this

hypo across this across this time that we have and how are you kind of staying with it and building as you go. Um so

yeah that that's a piece of it. I think it definitely starts in the writing and then on set, you know, on set, we're just shooting

the scenes that we wrote. So, we're not like creating the tension exactly on the set like other aside from just filming what we like what we wrote essentially. Um, so I

think really it does come in the writing more than anything else. And then in the editing, you know, where it's like, okay, once you filmed it, how do you

make sure that it's working? And one of the things we've we've we've found with the editing is and one of, you know, when you're working with an

editor, which we've done in all of our shorts, and they've all been amazing editors, um this guy Matt Shaft did Flounder and then Caitlin Carr edited

both um Alien and Trapped, and they're both crazy talented um primarily commercial editors. So Caitlin's been doing more narrative stuff recently. Um,

but you know, it's like trying to make sure that the moments that you wrote in the script are coming through in the edit. And that sounds like very obvious, but

it's easy to like see an edit and be like, "Okay, that works." Because the editor's the editor's brain in particular is really good at like

putting together edits that kind of make sense and making a flow that feels good. But often times we'll find ourselves, especially in our first cut where the

editors kind of just like they did their first their first pass. We're like, "Okay, let's look at back like,"Oh, we're actually missing a bunch of beats

here that like you that weren't so obvious in the shooting of it that that you noticed to try and create, but we think when they're there, we wrote them

in the movie and we think the beat exists. Typically a beat of tension, you know, or maybe whatever any kind of beat, but often times beat of tension

and it's like how do we like go find that beat?" And often times that requires being very creative in the edit. I think about trapped in for for

instance there's the first um the first interaction where with the kind of like the kids and the gender spoil sorry spoiler alert here if you watch this

watch my movies first because I'm going to spoil everything. But anyway, like at some point there's there's a very tense interaction where he like

where where the kid offers him basically money to to not say anything and to actually help them set up these like rat traps for their senior prank. And that

scene was not tense for a very long time. And it took a long time the edit to kind of like dial in what is the

tension? What is the kind of like hung moment here where you're like, "Oh my god, what's going to happen?" And it and the tr one of the there are many tricks

in that scene, but one of the big pieces was this is sounds again sounds really obvious and dumb, but this came from I think this came from our friend who's

telling us this, but we just started going every shot gets a little tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter throughout the sequence. And and the way we and it had initially been

edited sort of off the bat was we cut back wide again, we go back tight again, we cut back wide again. And it's like,

no, we just start in the wide and then every time as the scene progresses forward, we like march in and in and in and in until we're at that final kind of

like closeup closeup and then it's like and there's like a moment and then it's like then we can come back out and then it goes like oh man. Okay. And there's

like, you know, it's that's like really simple and like probably pretty obvious, but for us it was a big moment of like, oh, this is like finally starting to

work a little bit, you know? Yeah. That's that's a piece of it, you know. And then other piece of was just trying to make sure that like when you're in

those like really tense moments of of people in the edit, you know, like we spent so much time looking at like what their eyes were doing. And if you watch

that scene back, you'll see like them. They're like looking around like very kind of like subtly. And you're you're kind of tracking the scene, the

progression of the scene through the eyes of the characters, who they're looking at, who they're what they're checking with, what they're looking back, what they're looking down. and you

can kind of like your brain cues into what's happening even if you don't see the whole wide shot. Um, and so it kind of like again you can get the story but

it's like getting closer and closer. I don't know. Those are things we thought about I guess. Yeah. I mean the to speak on that

tension in the scene where the kids offer the janitor the money for me there's two things that added to the tension. He looked at his kid.

Yeah. You know this is such a formative moment for the child seeing if their dad is going to fold. Yeah. Yeah. And then when he actually goes for the

money, they throw it on the ground, which was such a nice such a nice touch to add. Um, and also one thing, Sam, you're mentioning that

really stuck out to me. You're kind of saying like, hey, you know, when I'm writing, if it makes me feel like excited or energetic,

Yeah. I I go with it, right? Versus actually, you know, doing it for someone else. I think that's like the biggest indicator of whether or not like people will feel

what you do is like if you feel something you put that in there and it's like so simple but then the real world kicks in

and then your like mind is all over the place between people pleasing and then actually like doing what's you Yeah. No, I think I mean I think my it's

funny. My only um caveat with writing what what makes you feel good is we've had an interesting experience with writing

uh like writing some features recently longer films and we've taken a we oh this is a weird thing to say but I'll I'll just try to

explain it. So, sure. It's interesting. We we've sometimes with these longer pieces, I do think that you have to regground yourself because it's easy to like

especially in like a two-year writing process or whatever to kind of like get bored of your old ideas and then like build new ideas and then get bored of

those ideas and then get build new ideas. And that those aren't bad. The first weren't necessarily the good ones, but it can potentially allow you to kind

of like subtly creep away from kind of like real, not reality, but like a re a re grounded perspective because you're kind

of like you've thought about it so much that and you've kept going with your ideas and they get bigger bigger and bigger and suddenly you have this like weird

crazy thing that's sort of like a little bit like kind of disjointed versus like Yeah, it can be there's only like a just a One note of caution there I think is

we found as we've like been reading working back with our with our longer films like okay like we have to make sure we're like staying backgrounded

again each time as we do this loop even though we want to keep building on the ideas that are our own because it can I

think potentially put you in like a really crazy place without even kind of realizing it sometimes. Yeah, I honestly I appreciate that perspective and I

never thought of it that way. And as I'm relating it to my own life and my own projects, it's like you get like you can

get bored of stuff fast and it's easier so easy to build off of stuff and then forget where you were originally at. Yeah. C can you talk to me a little bit

bit about the I don't know about the mindset of at least for these longer feature films of staying grounded to that one vision and one idea that we're

such a creative person. I mean, we're we're still learning this obviously. I don't have the all the answered and it's something we definitely have had to

contend with, you know, as we've had a tendency with our shorts to kind of write them in a vacuum and not really show anybody else and then like come out

and then be like, "Okay, here they are." And then the writing a feature has been a little bit different. And I think I think I in retrospect with some of the

features of enriching we're working on this maybe we're trying to add to our process is trying to get feedback a little bit earlier in the process to try

and just get it's hard to know trying to get like a level a beat on like what exactly like where we're kind of at what

people are what people are feeling about it where they're confused what they're thinking about I think is an interesting thing because I think with a short

you can kind of just go whatever direction you want and a feature there's a little bit more of like having having someone else's is I don't know

having someone else to like bounce the thing off of sometimes can be helpful. But I think from a mindset, I mean, one thing I think David and I have gone back

to a lot in shorts and and in the future as well, in the futures as well, is like everything starts with an idea, a nugget

of, you know, a nugget of of any something, you know. And I think sometimes it's easy when you're like struggling with the project. We say this

to me and David says this to each other a lot like uh where it's like you're like, I don't know where to go. I don't

know what's going on. You know, I'm struggling to figure out how what comes next. And I think that one of the things that we try and do is we try to go back

to that nugget where it's like I this is definitely somebody else told me this so I'm I'm quoting some other person that's smarter than me but you know yeah going

back to the idea that got you here like what when you first wrote this idea down in your notebook or in your on your

Google Drive or whatever Google Docs like oh it's about you know a man who decides to become a space or an astronaut and you're like huh that's a

pretty funky idea what about or whatever that's not that good of an idea whatever you're like it's like when you're when you're a million miles way and then

you're like, "Fuck, why do I why am I making this movie? Like, what's going on?" You're like, "Okay, but this was a the kernel of this thing was about a guy

who wants to become an astronaut." That's the that's the that's the like that's the like uh you know kind of grounding factor here. Let's see how we

like are we activating on that properly? Are we giving you know what's the kind of like are we giving people what they or what they want? Are we giving

ourselves what we want in that moment? Are we exploring that thing enough? And I think it's something that's going to help kind of like bring you back to what

you had initially, I don't know, thought of or or tried to do, you know. Um, yeah, it

it seems it seems challenging especially for me because my brain goes from place to place and project to project and

I guess having people or an audience to bounce feedback off of well can be quite helpful. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think

yeah, having having feedbackers is important, you know what I mean? I think um we've tried hard to we've tried various forms of of feedback, you know, and I

think one of the things that's been most successful for us is trying to find people that like what you do. You're not looking for

yes, yes men, but like everybody

everybody likes different music, right? And it's like I I'm not a big fan of like country music, you know what I mean? Or like whatever. So if someone

came to me and said, "Hey, I've got this country song that like I just made. Do you want like can you give me feedback?"

My feedback is not going to be like that good because like I just don't like country music that much. And it's like it's so it's not really like you know

and maybe you want that perspective. I don't know. But I at least initially with the project I think trying to find the fans and then see what they're

feeling. Yeah. In some way is important. And it's easy to like waste a lot of energy and a lot of time and be really unhappy with

people who just like kind of work on like the movie anyway giving you feedback why they don't like the movie and you're like okay well I guess this

film's not for you. But you know finding somebody who does like it and like oh okay you like this but you think it needs X or needs Y. Like that's I think

can be more helpful because it's not everybody's going to like everything. That's just just like all right, you know. And so trying to find feedbackers

who can who can who enjoy the the work you're making but also can help you sort of go forward make it make it the best

it can be in the style that you're making I think is is quite useful you know. Yeah. And not not being yesmen at the

same time because then the new challenge is is if you have people who enjoy your work watching your videos it poses another challenge of them only giving

you positive totally reinforcement. I mean, I I can only imagine what that's like for you. Um, and honestly, it it makes me want to

know here. Um, you have to you have to navigate a very

difficult balance between your work as a director being the one that crafts the vision and being the spearhead of the

project and make and making sure that vision stays intact. when you're continuously surrounded or continuously given feedback from other people. Yeah.

How do you go about balancing those two? Staying true to your vision and it's [ __ ] impossibly hard. It's so hard and it's been really hard with the

it's been harder than ever with the feature where it's like, you know, if you're going to make a feature film, you're going to have to play the game of

like not politics exactly, but it's like you people are going to have comments with a short you could basically just do whatever you want, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, but the feature people are going to have comments. They just are like that's how it works. You're going to get notes. You're going to get if

someone's going to give you millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to make a movie, they're going to have something to say. And try to

find a way to you know keep the vision while also um you know while also pleasing the people need to get pleased

is is an important thing. It's hard. And I think, you know, I think if from a perspective of to be to be totally candid, I don't know

if I know the answer of how to like please a studio executive while also keeping my vision intact because I haven't had to do that.

Yeah. But to take it to a thing that I do know, um, like you're on set, right, with a million creative, amazing, creative

people that you brought to set and they all have ideas and they're all interesting, great ideas, and they're not all the right idea for the thing

you're doing. You know what I mean? the DP suggests this, the AD suggests that, the actor suggests this, the editor suggests that, whatever the production

designer says, why don't we try this? And some of those ideas are good and fit. And some ideas are also good, but they don't fit. And I think, you know,

trying to honor everybody's ideas while also sorting through which ones fit and which ones don't fit, you know, the thing you're making is that is the job

of the director more than anything else. It's, you know, keeping that core vision alive. How do you do that? I mean, part of it is having a clear vision to start

with, you know, and making sure that you've clarified your vision enough earlier. You've done enough work early on like I know what this thing is,

you know, so that when people give you ideas and you're like, "That doesn't quite feel right for this. It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't quite

feel like this." Or it's like, "Oh, wow. That really enhances this." And so that being, you know, so obviously Dave and Dave and I spend a lot of time talking

about the idea and the film and the script and we, you know, we really know it sort of backwards and forwards and we spend a lot of time working and writing

and trying to like make sure we're really kind of like crystal clear on what this thing is as best we can and then simultaneously knowing that like

things are going to change and like trapped for instance all the films trapped as a good example changed a lot. The first draft we had of the script, we

spent six months writing it or whatever, you know, writing a first draft that we were like really happy with, sent to our one of our close friends, trusted

producer friend, and she gave us a bunch of really hard notes and they were the right notes in the end. They were actually very much the right notes. We

ended up changing some stuff around and had a better draft and the draft was still a little bit broken, but we're like, "All right, we're going to go fil

we're going to go shoot this." and we shot the film and you know the actor had some certain scenes weren't working in his mind and he changed some stuff and

made it better and then we went to the edit and we you know the editors they thought we should change some stuff and we cut things out and cut cut a lot of

dialogue in certain scenes that didn't need to be there and cut the whole opening out that we'd written put a different different scene as the opening

and change for the better and you know the the film really iterated many many times across the board with every every small people that we have involved you

bringing their ideas and changing stuff and you know us trying to make sure that the changes were in the service of the like you know vision we were all the

river that we were kind of like paddling down but but you have to be open that things are going to change and sometimes this the

best thing that can possibly happen I people telling me about scenes you know oh my god I can't believe when he did this or that and sometimes but that

wasn't even the idea you know like it got changed by somebody else in the flow of it and we were like that looks that

works a lot better let's let's do that. And then it becomes someone's favorite moment. So, you know, I think trying to keep the keep your ego out of it as much

as you can, hey, you know, I help shepherd this project along as a director and it's it's my baby to some degree. No one's going to care as much

as I do, but also like being willing to and open to people giving you feedback and allowing it to change in a way that

makes sense, I think, is I don't know. It's important, I think.

Yeah. Um, there's one thing I wanted to touch upon. So,

just one sec, Sam. I lowkey blinked. I blanked out for a sec. Um, no worries. Oh, yeah. Here it is. So, you're talking about earlier on,

right? People are coming to you with ideas like these DPS, 80s, editors. Yeah, sure. And you're saying that,

hey, this like first, you know, you of course know the vision, right? You spend all that time in pre-production writing the script, understanding what this like

who this baby is. Yeah. Sure. And now there's these people that coming in, they're saying, "Hey, maybe we should put this piece of clothing on

your baby, yada yada yada." Sure. And one thing that you said that really stuck out to me, you said, "This doesn't this might not feel right or this feels

right." How do you distinguish between your feeling versus logical reasoning? Yeah. When do you when do you use feeling? When do you use logic? Maybe when do you

use both? It's a good question. I mean, there's a great Dana Finchure quote where he talks about like the left side of his brain,

the right side of his brain that this he often I'm not sure this is even true that he does this, but he always says

like he looks at like uh when he looks at a frame like he looks at the monitor, he does it like he like does it with one eye and the other

eye because I guess one eye is fixed to your left side of your brain, one other eye is the right side of your brain.

It's like a logic whatever emotion versus logic or whatever. Right brain, left brain. I don't know. That's David Fincher thing. I don't know if that's the thing

he actually does, but that's what it's in some interview. Anyway, but I do think there's a balance between logic and emotion.

I think, you know, film making is an emotional thing. Art is an emotional thing, you

know, and it's uh it's it can be many times like nonverbal, non, you know,

I'm not sure the the I'm not sure the exact answer. I'll say like a couple interesting things or maybe interesting things. So one thing is like logic is

super important. You have to you know be smart about it and logic things out and make sure it makes sense and high high level stuff is

really important but also create using that logic to create space where you can just be emotional. You know, oftentimes I find when we're writing like the first draft

of stuff where it's coming from, you know, a set of note cards or whatever, sort of an outline onto the paper, that's a very emotional space, you know,

and part the only reason that the writing kind of like goes at all is sort of like because you're letting your you're like opening

up the tap of your like emotion and saying like, "Hey, I'm just going to like I'm just going to start typing." And you know, if for me, you know, I'm

hearing them I'm hearing the voice to people talking in my head as I'm as I'm writing it down, you know, like I'm just listening to the people they they're

like speaking, you know, and I write down what they say. Not like in a weird like, oh, I'm channeling the divine or like having, you know, visions of

[ __ ] and not that I'm such a genius writer. I'm not. But but as I as I read as I as I write the piece, I am hearing

the characters talk at it and then I know kind of where the scene is going, but it's almost like uh almost like hypnosis or something where it's like

I'm like I'm like suggesting I'm like putting myself in hypnosis and then and then like I'm also the person suggesting what I should be doing kind of, but like

it's sort of outside of like it's sort of outside of like your perception in some way. I'm like, "Okay, I know what this scene's supposed to be. Yeah.

So, I kind of know where I'm like vaguely going, but how am I exactly getting there? I'm not really sure. And that that kind of like gap of like how

we're going to get from here to here. That's where the emotion and the kind of like you know the I don't know where your kind of own I use the word talent

because talents it's not like oh I'm so talented but like you're that's what it's sort of like um if you say like you know this person has a really

beautiful voice right they didn't do anything to like get that to get I mean you can train your voice and take voice lessons but like some people just have a

beautiful voice you're like that person just got pipes damn like that that person can really sing you know and that it's that moment you you know, between

you can you can logic out the start of the scene, you can logic out the end of the scene, but the kind of gap in the

middle. That's where your voice comes in, so to speak, you know, your singing voice and you just have to sing and sort of let your let the voice guide you.

Then you can go back and look at it like, did that make sense? Yeah, that's a little [ __ ] up. We'll go back and

edit, you know, edit that doesn't make sense. It makes sense. But letting but leaving space for yourself to like just let your voice if you're singing just just sing you

know as if no one's listening and let your voice kind of like come out I think is an important piece of writing and I

think it's really easy for that like it's really kids obviously have no logic at all emotion right you can watch a kid sit on the floor with you know a

coloring book or or Legos or you know whatever and like just build a little universe in their own brain and they're talking out loud

But this person goes over here, this person goes over here. You know, there's no kind of like um whatever I don't know what part of the brain is, but you know,

no kind of prefrontal cortex that's like telling you that's not the right thing to do or that doesn't make sense. You know, that you're kind of trying to like

kids don't have that and adults have like a ton of that and they lose that other section. So, a little bit too much of that.

Yeah. trying to just like take use for me and I'm a very logical person like use the logic to make a space like hey I

have I have given myself space here logically I know it works to start the scene logically I know where it was going to go to the end of the scene I

know it's going to connect so I don't have to worry about anything oh it's not going to make sense like I know that I

know where the scene's going I know where it started I know I'm not I'm not like s I'm not like unhappy that like we're going to go on off track or

something like no we're just going to have We have a a dedicated box that we're in and that's a box where you can like do whatever the [ __ ] you want and

just be yourself and and and use your own whatever creativity, talent, voice, whatever to call it to fill that up and then then then it's like, okay, you can

look at it and so we just do that for every scene where it's like we kind of build up the structure of the scenes and

like what they're kind of going to be and then we like fill it with our creativity each. So you fill each ice cube ice cube, you know, tray ice cube

holder in the tray of like our own stuff. But we kind of but the tray is kind of built already, you know. Um yeah,

but but the but the building of the tray also has sections like each one it's it's a it's [ __ ] turtles all the way

down, you know? Like the tray at some point starts off as a big mush of ideas, too. And that's the space and Dave and I

will we'll just take like you know multi-hour long walks and like just [ __ ] and talk about stuff and like follow little rabbit holes and trails

and try not to put a structure on it and just basically come up with just creating just ideas and like you know sort of packing things together into

this like onto a Google doc or whatever you use you know some kind of like gathering space for ideas and solely you kind like okay there's a pretty good

amount of material here I wonder if we can start to sort this out into like a structure that like makes sense and you kind of okay so it's trying to engage

your rational brain but disengage your rational brain and go to your emotional brain and you sort of like bounce back and forth to like with what part of the

process you're in I guess okay first of all sorry long no no no that is that is sick I mean you're talking about like you go in

writing you know the

Okay, we good. Yeah. Yeah. From the top of that. Sorry. Okay. Well, I'm saying it's sick. Like you're you're mentioning you know the beginning and you know the end and like

in the state in the middle where you got to figure out how you go from point A to point B and then you're in this like

flow state where these where you can hear the characters talking. I've never experienced something like that, but the way in which you're describing it, like

I I got a I got a better sense of where you're at. And I think that's the the most fun in the creative process. Like

you have this giant clump and and you're working your way through and somehow but every time it finds its way to the very to the very end. and just learning how

to like play with it like like a kid, you know, not letting like having that prefrontal cortex develop to the point where you can logically say, "Hey, I'm

actually going to allow myself to be more emotional here and work my way like through this because there's there's there's a reason for it." I think that's

what makes art art the whole um emotional aspect because in a sense like what we feel is often um I think it's one of the truest things

we have like maybe it might be for interact like we might be feeling the wrong thing for something but the way we feel like that is at least to me it's

like an objective truth like I might be angry I might be angry over something stupid but I'm still angry nonetheless and learning how to channel

those feelings because there's a very intuitive side of of our body that brings these things up for a reason. And learning how to channel them and not

overreacting to them or learning when we need to overreact to them should really make for some cool work. Yeah, for sure. I think there's there's

two quotes that apply here. What is a Stevie Brides interview I heard a while back talking about like she's like talking about making songs and she's like I want

everyone's like I I know I know the idea is going to be good when they say okay this is a terrible idea but and then they say

something because it's that prefix where it's like my intellectual side of my brain is telling me this is the dumbest stupid thing you've ever seen in your

life. It's ridiculous because they kind of knows that it it hasn't necessarily been thought out yet or like it's just sort of like a little burst of like

inspiration for lack of a better word, you know, or whatever you want to call it that, you know, she's like that's where the good ideas happen. I want

everybody's like joke idea where it's like, "What if I did this stupid thing?" And you're like, "Yeah, that's what we're going to do." That's the cool

thing. And I think there's also a quote by I guess it's T like Tyler the creator talking about he's like I I try and

write like a kid and like edit like a professional. Um, and I think it's interesting too like this idea of like how do you get back to

a space where I think we're it's easy as humans inherently we're we're scared of the future. We're scared of the unknown. As an adult you're

scared, you know, you're you're just your world is very rational. It's not very emotional. And it's it's yeah hard to let your you know learning to be an adult in some

ways is learning to control your emotions, control your irrational thoughts, you know uh and part of making art is is finding a way to and I think

there's like a weird stereotype of like artists like they're so wacky, they're so crazy, you know, whatever. And often times those people, you know, are just

more open to letting their emotions or their whatever, they're kind of like un those unsaid thoughts come to the forefront in a way that many of us have

kind of like shut down our shut down that part of our brain. And so I think part of being an artist who's also, you know, who's also rational and

can kind of like have their [ __ ] together is is using that rationality to create space for the like part of your brain to

let yourself, you know, be less rational, you know, and be more emotional. Like that's and you can couch it to yourself because it's like, okay,

well, you know, it's easy to sort of like shoot yourself down or say things are bad, right? You people talk about writer's block or whatever. It's like, I

don't know what to write. I don't know. Like, and that's just your brain telling you, I don't think, you know, you write the first word and it's like, oh god, it

could be the wrong word. It's the wrong thing. I don't know where it's going to go. What's going to happen? What's the next word? And it's like, no, you got to

like get rid of that. Be like, hey, I'm going to write, you know, you can kind of you can build structure to stabilize yourself there so you can allow yourself

to to go, you know, skydiving with the parachute and not just feel like you're totally parachuteless flying through the air, you know? Yeah. It also makes me interesting

interested. I mean, the hardest part for me whenever I create something is starting, like either starting the pre-production, picking up the camera, just starting to edit.

Yeah. Um, that part is the most daunting because it's like the first step is often the most difficult one. Yeah. You know, over your years, what what's

your approach to starting something? Is it you still have the same like daunting feeling that I have to do every time? Yeah. Every time. Um, yeah.

I mean, I'll say a couple interesting things here. Maybe they're interesting. Um, you know, one thing is I do think like

chasing inspiration is like what gets you started. You know, you have you have an idea and you're like that's a [ __ ] crazy idea and like that there's a

little bit of like there's a little burst of energy in that. A little a little like there's energy there. It just it's inherent, you know? using that energy.

There's there's a I remember reading it's um Stephen King's on writing um great book he talks about and this is something we struggle to be and David

struggled to do but but he's talked about like when you have inspiration for something he's like my he's like the book this is Stephen King saying like

the books I write they either get written in about three months four months or they don't ever get written because he's like I'm about three or

four months of like kind of like patience with the energy from the inspiration I'm like I'm writing it's coming I'm feeling it. I'm like, it's

like we're in the flow. We're doing it. And you spend too much. You can spend too much time, I think, ideulating and kind of like teasing. And at some point,

you have to just sort of get out there and do it. And that you harness that initial energy off the first idea where like uh there's still energy to be had

versus you've beat this idea with with the with the bat so much they're like, "Oh my [ __ ] god, I do not want to

work on this ever again. Like, I'm so sick of it." All the all the holes in the idea. Exactly. When it's still feeling fresh

and exciting and kind of like has some like vaa voom, you know what I mean? Like that's when you want to be like working on it and working on it hard

because it is fleeting a little bit and those ideas want to go they want to lose energy over time and they they inherently kind of like lose

their their momentum that they had at the start. But also I think like there's definitely like barriers of entry like

this guy uh the guy who is the lead singer of Glass Animals. say we're watch. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um Dave uh whatever his last name is.

Anyway, um I'll I'll be Jamie. I'll put it up. He has uh he has a great um a great quote talking about Sorry, I'm quoting a

lot of people anyway. Just things I think about when I'm doing creative stuff. Yeah. Um he talks about how he really tries to like

Dave Bailey. Dave Bailey, thank you. He tries to like he hates this out of his own voice and so he tries really and I think I think

um this is the same is true for like Tom York and stuff like you listen to their albums like they try really hard to like

obiscate or maybe it's not he's not Damian this may not I think this is actually this maybe Damian Damon from um from Gorillas which is why he uses the

weird like vocoder or the weird like um whatever the gorilla's voice he's he doesn't like the sound of his own voice and he's trying really hard to like um

he's trying to trick himself into if if you're a singer, it's the exact same thing, right? You're if you don't if you don't you don't like your own voice or

whatever, you know, you're not Adele. And it's like you start singing, you're like your brain immediately, your rational brain, the brain that has that

there's your that holds your like taste and like, "Oh, that's a good that's a good movie. That's a bad movie. That's a good song. That's a bad song. This is a

good voice. This is a bad voice." Right? You start to sing in your voice and you're immediately like, "Oh my [ __ ] god, I hate this voice. I hate myself. I

hate this art." Like I you you immediately like the whole thing collapses, right? And so like they're trying really hard Dave Bailey I think and also you Damon

Damon Alurn are trying really hard to like to just trick themselves into not stopping basically where it's like if my voice sounds like nothing like my voice

then I just kind of like you know it becomes another instrument and I can keep creating with it basically finding ways to trick yourself into

continuing to go forward is a thing that I do all the time and I'll tell you all the ways I do it okay I don't thing. But, you know, one thing

that I definitely do is like, and this is I think my uh my high school art teacher, film teacher, uh, shout out to Jerry Hernia. Um, he was he when we were

I was like a sophomore, freshman in high school, he was all he's like, "You guys have to keep like an art journal like you know, a note a journal where you

like write stuff down and like drop draw pictures and like that's what or whatever you do your visual art practice, you know. I'm sure many

artists have a journal or whatever. Some kind of journaling or not like a journaling thing like oh today I'm feeling X but like more like a creative

journal like your ideas. Yeah, I struggle with that class. I my handwriting is terrible. I'm really bad. I'm definitely like some weird combo of

like I don't know dyslexer or something like my handwriting sucks and I I I hate to write by hand and so and this is at a time when I was

in high school where there wasn't really another way to do it. But as Google uh has showed up in our universe like I keep a a creative journal of sorts in

Google on Google Google Docs basically just but just Google folders and Google docs and spreadsheets nothing crazy you can do on you however works for you on

you know on your notes app people you know whatever if you're artist a lot of people use their like their voice recording app to single melodies or

whatever I don't know but it's like part of being a creative creative person is like a wanting to create and then also sometimes and but then and then

also being asked to create on demand like hey we hire you for this job what are you gonna bring to it and you're like uh I don't know right so it's like

having if you I think one of the things that so so I I always kind of scoff at my high school art teacher because I

thought he was full of [ __ ] turns out he's a genius I learned that later um you know but but basically it's like the

reason you keep if you have ideas. Everybody has ideas that what sep one of the things in my opinion that separates a like professional artist from a not

everybody else is like they write their ideas down and that sounds super lame and dumb but like legitimately like everybody has ideas. You're watching a

TV show and you're like that ending sucked. I I could write a better ending than that or like I have a idea for this. Like everybody's having ideas all

the time. They're they float around your brain. They float they float all around and you have a little moment of like oh that's a crazy I saw a crazy little

scene today. A man I don't know, helped a woman across the street and then he, you know, fell down. She helped him across the street. Like,

oh, that's a weird little turn of events. Like, what the [ __ ] And like, that's crazy. Write that down cuz that's going to that's going to appear in

something in whatever your creative practice is. It's like in your subconscious, too. But but write it down if you have it. Because then what that creates for you

is a place to go when you want to make something or you're hired to make something that instead of just being like, "Okay, I'm about to do something

and I don't know what to [ __ ] do, you're like, "Haha, I have a space to go look for all the things that I thought

were interesting." and you crack that thing open and you've been if you've been adding to it over the course of the year or two or whatever as you're

working other stuff like you're like oh my god this is full of like really weird ideas and like one of those things is going to hit so like one of the ways

that again one of the hardest again there's so many places where you can get off the creative track where you can stop where you can basically just stop

right it's like I want to I want to make something you're like well I have no ideas so that's initially like you stop but if you have a book if you have a

book full of ideas you can keep going you You know what I mean? So that's like an initial thing that's like one of the

first barriers of like of just like stopping how to like is to I don't why this answer your question exactly but but this idea of like tricking yourself

into like you know keeping going that's one way I you know you get past that initial hurdle of like what do I write? It's

like well here's a notebook full of ideas that may all not be great but there are little fragments of stuff that could become something and you'll one

might hit you and you suddenly you can have some motion in the in the direction. I think also partially like a next step that we often times struggle

with is like okay I have an idea fragment you know but I don't know what to do with it now right and like that's

where the that's where the idea of like freewriting or or like in your case your writing partner me David just talking

and when I freewrite I talk to myself I'm I'm on the page like I'm if I'm writing alone I'm like I'm literally answering qu I like asking myself

questions and answering them. Yeah. Like on like a sheet of paper or on like a whatever spread or like a you know dock like and you do that if you just

spend the time to like spend an hour or two thinking about the idea and asking questions and trying to answer them eventually after enough time you can go

back and like I have 50 pages of [ __ ] flesh here that suddenly exists that it's like okay well let's start to try

and put this together. So, you're kind of like each each step you're sort of like duping yourself out of the like uh space where it's like, well, I would

just want to I just want to stop and and not continue forward, you know? We have an editor. I don't want to [ __ ] edit

the movie myself after I shoot it. I'm like I'm like I have this be all this beautiful footage. It's perfect. I don't want to think about it again. And so, I

don't I would never edit it myself because I don't want to crush the potential that might be there for the reality of what's actually there. So,

you pass it on to an editor, they edit it and they're and you they said you have a first cut and you're like, "God

damn it." Like, you watch and it's terrible because all first cuts are terrible. But it's like, but somebody did a first cut and like, "Okay, I tried

I tricked myself through the next barrier where it's like, well, someone made the thing, so here we are." And like, you know, or like with shooting

with, you know, when you're when you're want to go when your script is written or something and you want to make it, you know, it's so hard to do that. So

like oftentimes Dave and I will just set dates in the calendar and start telling people the dates like hey we're shooting June 5th 15th that's what's happening

and suddenly you have you know 30 people all think you're you're all showing up at this place in June 15th and you're like a [ __ ] I guess I got to make the

movie like there's no turning back you know another place where I'm just like you want to shut down and push the thing off inevitably and forever it's you know

kind of get cold feet like all these places that you you try like I find ways to like keep keep us leap across the gap

whatever it is to keep going because it's so easy to just just quit, you know, because it's really hard. Yeah. Be like, whatever. I guess this is

cooked for and it's cooked in the in the ideation is cooked in the writing. It's cooked in production. It's cooked after you shot it. It's cooked in the edit.

It's cooked in the like whatever. It's cooked in so many places. Like that's just how it's going to be, you know? Yeah. Anyway, sorry that's a long answer. I'm

not sure the answer your question anymore, but No. Um, actually, Sam, you answered my question. Okay, good. 10 times over in 10 unique ways. I'm

serious. No, I I mean what I I like that you said about having that idea book, you're right. Like if if if you're ever

like I don't want to say forced, but asked to create, you're going to if you're a professional artist, you're you know, if you're a

professional artist, you are asked, you're saying, "Hey, like we're going to pay you a lot of money to do something, whether it be, you know, paint us a

painting or make us a movie, make us a commercial, write us a song, whatever." You know, you're being asked and you're being paid to do it. So you have

to have something to somebody to come with, you know what I mean? And having that like back pocket book full of ideas is really really helpful.

You know, I I also think that writing those ideas down and doing the freewriting, it it assigns importance to those things in your brain such that

they they have a way of resurfacing. Yeah. Down the road. I don't know if it's if it's been the same with you, but you

know, well, actually, this brings up another question I have, which I'd love to get your opinion on. Yeah, of course. Or perspective. So, when you're being

asked to create, it adds a whole new element of pressure. Yeah. How do you continue to create in the face of pressure? Does it help you? In

what ways does it For me, it's always it's for me, it's always helped me because it adds a thing. It gets rid of the like uh

I mean, this is a good example. I'm literally pitching on a commercial right now that the treatment's done. We'll see if we see if we win in a couple of days.

But big is a big job, big treatment. It's like a TV commercial for like a national brand. And at some point, you know, I got the

script from the you I do we do commercials as well as narratives. Got the script from the client and like, you know, at some point like,

you know, I was like, I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do. I got to figure it out. And like I'm like, okay,

I know this thing is due. It's got a date. It's due in like a week or whatever. I'm like the guy who's helping us with the treatment like design the

treatment or whatever like these people need like he needs he needs the like what we're going to do to get started like he needs something

like he's he's every he's sitting there be like hey man so where's like the where's the script that you're writing I'm like yeah [ __ ] [ __ ]

and like you know so I think partial but but it also gave me space or not space but it gave me like a a little juice a

little jolt like dude just sit down and write it and like you know yeah lock the [ __ ] basically, you know what I mean? And and I and I it's so

funny like I'm sitting maybe this is like this is going to sound so [ __ ] cool, so pardon me, but like

like there's definitely I get a feeling a a physical in my body feeling of like of like the inspiration like you're like the zone is like like the [ __ ] like

rainstorm is coming like get ready, you know? and knowing that is coming and knowing the feeling and I was sitting there for like two days trying to figure

out what this commercial is going to be and like I'm sitting on the couch. It's like the it's like 1:00 in the morning. I had dinner with my girlfriend and

she's like looking at we like watching on her computer and I'm like sitting there on my couch and all of a sudden like oh my god I think I know what this

is going to be. And like I I I just show up at a doctor and start started like working on it and then my girlfriend

started ask me a question about something and I'm just like and I was like like I like don't [ __ ] me right now

get away from right now and like I'm like I'm it's I'm feeling the [ __ ] like thing happening like don't no one [ __ ] talk to me. You know what I

mean? It sounds like so stupid and like kind of like narcissistic which is not I was like give me 20 give me 25 minutes

I'll talk to you. And I was like put my headphones on. And I was like, didn't even put music on. Just like just like

just cut out the like universe and I just started [ __ ] typing and all a sudden and then like you know an hour later I

was like and there it is, you know? And like then you can go back and look at it like and I I sent to

David and he like had lots of thoughts and we adjusted and stuff but it was like that initial moment of like the [ __ ] thing is here

like you're going to have to run the bulls right now. The bulls are [ __ ] coming. You just got to start running and like trying to find a way to just

like just like wherever you are, whatever you're doing to throw away all the stuff like we're running the bulls. It's happening right now. That's you

know, you have to capitalize. You got to just cap capture that. And sometimes pressure for me personally juices that a little bit in a way. Uh

personally, you know. Yeah. I mean, also if if a girlfriend, you know, if she's dating a No, she understand probably. No, I wasn't I wasn't rude to her, but just

just I was like, I can't talk to you right now. Give like give me a second. I'm the same way. I mean, it's like you

owe it to yourself. You owe it to your craft. Especially like you're spending two days ruminating over this, trying to figure out the right pitch, the what the

path is. Yeah. Exactly. And then you finally you have that moment where it all clicks in your brain and Yeah. like the if you don't do who

knows. You got to [ __ ] go right then. Yeah. So, I think it's you got to follow the feeling in that respect. And I'm I'm I'm not that old,

but I'm old enough now to know when it's there and to be like, okay, it's time like I have to I have to I have to write this down. It's the time

has come, you know? And I think as one part of growing up and I was did a lot of art in like high school, middle

school, high school, college, I didn't really realize that. It was almost like a weird like uh yeah I was I couldn't quite and I still don't have the control

over to be able to get into the zone like off the bat. Part of one of the many reasons I've always liked movies in

particular is I found that pressure really helpful to me helps clear my kind of like thoughts and like being on set and it's like okay we have exactly 30

minutes to get this shot and go and you're like [ __ ] okay I have to do this right now and it kind of just like it

it's like focuses your mind and like gets you like in the zone to do it you know and I mean after after that too it's

like I mean what I'm guilty of is I need to do like have a million takes, but it's like whatever you get done in those

30 minutes, you get done and I have peace of mind after that. Yeah. Every time after. But it allows you to just cook like,

"Hey, we're here. Like we're we're it's 90 minutes. It's 90 minutes of soccer. That's it. We're just playing. We're playing the game. Like the ball's coming

at you. You got to [ __ ] play. There's no like, oh god, you have just like go do it, you know? What shoes do I have on? Okay. No, you

got to run. Just take the ball and go." Like that's where we're at, you know? on that that like level of I've always enjoyed that level of kind of like hey

it's happening we're doing it you know and it's helped focus me I think as someone who in general like has a tendency to overthink things and have

too much thoughts floating around my brain like somehow it like takes off that top 10% and just like makes me dive in you know

I mean what's uh what's super cool um Sam is that you do this you're able to do this for a living and that you're

able to like think about this stuff and give these projects the time that they deserve. I try to be given, you know, it's something

that I think is I don't know. I think it's just one of the most beautiful things of someone of people in your space. So, I just wanted

to like tip my tip my hat off to you. It's hard. It's not you know the the middle management IBM would be easier for sure.

It would um yeah, you know, a lot of um well, having seen, you know, Alien, having seen Trapped, and having seen

Flounder, there's a like certain element to it, especially with the like especially with the coloring. I noticed it's um I don't know if cooler

is the right word, but I kind of get like a a subtle eerie feeling as if like something is about to happen. Um, and

obviously something always happens, right, in each of these in each of these films? I mean, can you could you talk to me a little bit about the the color? I I

don't know how much this is on the editing end versus, you know, you and David, but what are you trying to go for? From a color perspective, I think it's I

mean, each of the films have different colorists, so that changes it. Each of the films had a different DP that changes it. Um, you know, I think we've

tried we've tried in general to like use the language of like horror to like apply to like everyday life. Um,

from a coloring perspective in particular, I don't know, you know, I think with I'm not sure I' I've so thoughtfully like

uh

colored them in a way that would suggest something as bad is going to happen. I do think, you know, there I found flounder in particular this idea of the

flounder has a bit of like a like a like a half silver retention like emulation like um ENR like like an ENR film

retention um emulation thing that's happening where which they did on like Jarhead if you ever watch that movie. I think it's like ENR. Yeah. With um oh I'm forgetting his

name. Uh Jake Gyllenhaal. Jillian Hall. Yeah. Yeah. Roger Geek shot that. Um, so there is a bit of a desat happening at least partially like select a

selective desat happening in that film. But I think we tried to like sort of like contrast the like lushness of the summer camp you know August in New

Jersey with the kind of like horror the body horror of the film in some ways. So there's an interesting kind of like justosition there. I think for for Ailen

obviously, you know, the film takes place in like the most drab. Okay. Boring. [ __ ] Alien. That's fine. I think that works. Alien. Alien sounds better.

I think the the the uh the title is a bit of a a bit of like a two has two meanings or many meanings. So, um

but yeah, I think like that film takes place majority in like a the most boring building known to man. It's like a USCIS like you know, everyone's been to this.

It's some weird It's some weird combination of like the DMV and like court, you know, and it's like or like TSA. Um, this kind of like horrible like

taupe, you know, I don't know. We called we actually we called it the taupe the taupe labyrinth and I was like Labyrinth. That was one of the things we were maybe

thinking of titling the film. Um, but anyway, it became alien. Uh, but yeah, but the taupe the taupe labyrinth I think like so that film we try to lean

pretty hard into like sort of like the drabness of it. So, I do think there is again some like desaturated element there. And then I think for Trap, I

mean, yeah, I guess it's a little more on the low. It's, you know, it's obviously a bit darker than the other films. I think

we we leaned we tried to like Yeah, I think I think that I guess Yeah, I guess all three are a little bit desaturated

across the board. I mean, they're in their various ways. They're not with the same processes. Um, but I think Yeah, I think there's some of that. I don't

know. Yeah. Well, I mean, I I loved If you felt it, that means it real. I loved I seriously loved all three. And what I I mean, at least two of the three

of them, right? Trapped has a solid ending. You know, the guy keeps his job. Um but in Ailen, like the the husband, he got deported and then in

um Flounder, the guy's best friend died. And I I love I love the realistic Well, I don't know. I don't like I like I like

that it has raw endings. It's not like sugar coat. Everything is polished at the end. Um c can you talk to me about like why you chose not to have at least

those two films have good endings? Uh trapped and alien. No, not not not trapped. Um Alien and Flounder and Flounder. Well, I think we've tried

hard with all of our endings to have them be sort of like not bittersweet exactly, but like uh at least sort of a little complex where it's like at the

end of Flounder like his friend his friend actually we I don't think the way we wrote it the end of Flounder his friend isn't dead. He's like having a

heart attack. Heart attack. Yeah. He's having a seizure. Yeah. Is what it is because lack of oxygen in his brain from being down there so long, you know,

and you know, so like he's like he is maybe going to live. You don't know. The ambulance may be coming. You don't know. But like there's some level of like,

well, he did he did win. You know, the main character got what he want. He kind of got what he wanted, right? He's he's

got that cap on his head. Um, and you know in a funny way like part of the reason

that we like

uh the the sports team is like I think the the mascot is the Kings in that in that um in that film like we

were sort of like wouldn't the ending be kind of weird if he like meet like the the the water polo caps you know they

have like a crown on them, you know, as part of Logan. So, he kind of gets he gets crowned, but like what is he

[ __ ] the king of except his own like failure, you know? And I think like we thought that was an interesting kind of

like visual metaphor where he's sort of at the end there like with the literal crown on his head, but also like holding the one person who like he cares about

being like I think I [ __ ] I think I [ __ ] have the wrong idea here, you know? So, I don't It's like and it's

kind of interesting like nuanced take on on you know the price of success and your friendship and sort of the things you'll do to to to get to get what

you're looking for um to do you know but I think for Ailen you know the film immigration is not a happy thing you know a lot of these these films aren't

like the real life situation of Ailen is that you know as we've seen the last year I mean the ICE and USGS the policies are

horrible you know people are being harmed. And so we felt like it wasn't um yeah, it had to end with some tragedy as well as some modicum of success. You

know, she gets the daughter back, the daughter gets her hair braided, which is what she wanted the whole time. And yet that's in the face of her

husband, you know, potentially being deported or, you know, kind of going going into the the immigration, you know, uh mall, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I guess you do make a good point, right? It's not necessarily a bad ending. It's just more um open-ended because in Flounder I was

I was saying that the guy died and then Ailen like you don't know if the guy is fully deported. Like there's still chance and there's still hope. You're

not closing Yeah. that gap immediately, but it's also bad. Yeah. In some way. Exactly. Um, and um, and I think it your

ending really served to, I think, further your message of what's going on with ICE right now, cuz you're not, you know, if the guy was freed, you like you

kind of forget about ICE versus him being detained. But you also like showed the like the human like the human aspect of ICE and didn't fully condemn

them by showing that they released the daughter back to the mother. So there was like, you know, a balance of of both and and made me very interested in in in

you as a person, Sam, like what what stories or messages are you most uh passionate about sharing? I'm not sure there's a one-sizefits-all

message that I'm interested in talking about. I think, you know, part of being an part of being an artist is being able to to talk about the things that

interest you and to to like find a way to, you know, to me and for me and David, you know, art art is therapy in some

ways. You know, we get to kind of like talk about our own lives and and, you know, work out our own issues through the art that we're making. That's a big

piece of it, you know. um get get to explore and question and wonder and ponder and you know rage at the machine or in a system and whatever you know we

get to kind of like do all those things together which is kind of fun. Um, you know, I think we're trying to look at things from a human

scale if we can typically throughout our films. You know, we're trying to find ways to um see the humanity and all the characters, you know, and not not paint

everything with a with a kind of broad brush, try to find out exactly like what makes each character tick, even if they're not the not the hero, if they're

the villain maybe, you know. Um, yeah. So, I don't know. I think, you know, we're trying to filter all of our films

through through the human through a human lens through through a lens of somebody's experience, you know. I think

it's easy to kind of like talk about saving the world or whatever, you know, but it's but often times I think that those endings or those films kind of

land hollow a bit because the world is just unknowable and so many people I think it's you're trying to like deal with somebody and their experience and

how do you how do you reflect this larger thing through the experience of you know one person um and they're you know they're thinking that some film

professor I had talked about this at one point you know talking about the reflecting the macro through the micro you know I think the me are trying to

find micro micro stories in some ways that are hyper specific and interesting that simultaneously reflect the larger larger culture back out but but what

that culture is I mean it depends on the day I think it depends on what we're what we're interested in talking about and where our brains are at you know I

think a talks a lot about immigration. Trapped is talking about inequality. You know, Flatter talks about, you know, toxic masculinity in some ways. And

what our next thing will be, I'm not sure to be honest. And that's not like a copout. I just I don't know. I don't

know where our brains will take us next, you know, exactly. I think that's part of the fun of it is I think for everybody else, you know, they look at

our work and they see the kind of like wake behind the boat. You know, it it has a it has a a shape and a a length.

And for us, you know, Dave and I are sitting on the front of the boat, you know, we're staring out at the, you know, into clear open ocean. You we

don't know where we're going to go, you know. For us, it's all it's all blue, you know. So, I think uh that's the that's the joy of of being the artist,

you know, is we can we can drive anywhere, you know. Yeah. And I hope that you and Dave can continue to reflect the macro through

the micro. Yeah. Trying. Um, yeah. Anyway, anyway, Sam, uh, let's let's wrap up this episode. I don't know if

there's anything else that you wanted to share with the audience. Any like last words, um, pieces of advice, perspectives?

Are the people who watch us mostly filmmakers? Yeah, a lot of freelance filmmakers. Yeah, that that's our main audience. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I have

anything s sagely to say particularly. I I'm which is that I'm figuring it out as much as anybody else is. You know what I

mean? And I I struggle with all the same questions everybody else struggles with. And I have my answers and I have my little tricks and try to ways to try and

get myself to do do it right. And it's it fails as much as it succeeds, you know what I mean? And that's part of

part of the process, I think. Um but but I don't know. I think it's easy. I think the thing that the hardest thing especially in our current era and I

think I can't tell if this is a feature or a feature or a bug of our current of of our current kind of like universe but

like it's it makes you want to stop you know just like Jesus Christ man this this universe is like too much right now the news is [ __ ] crazy like

you know AI is going to take over the world whatever there's a million reasons that like I don't know uh yeah that basically like you shouldn't

do what you're doing. And I don't know, I guess I feel bullish on the future. And I think like it's it's only up to us

how we want it to be. And I think, you know, stopping is the is the way that that the forces that are lied against us

or that feel like allied against us win. You know, if people make keep creating stuff, making stuff, making movies, whatever, making art, like that's how we

get to keep going and do more of it. You know, I don't think anybody I don't think anybody any human is that interested in watching AI art. You know,

people are interested in watching other people. The only way we're going to have to be forced to watch AI art is if people stop making real art, you know.

So, if people keep creating, that's that's one of the that's one of the few things we have in our our back pocket, you know, against against the the

onslaught of of capitalism and and, you know, and sort of like corporate interests and whatever. So I I think you know I do think that it's it's scary

it's scary times out there for filmmakers but I think you know the the best is yet to come and I don't know I feel hopeful even though it it it does

it it can feel dark at times but I think people people keeping at it and because it is really hard you know it's a hard

industry it's a hard profession I've been rejected more times than I've been accepted you know in all the all the versions of this every every pitch or

film festival or you know uh whatever you know what I mean like so many things and I think you know just trying to keep

your head on your shoulders and and push forward you know I think is the only thing that can be done and I think I

don't know that my advice is to keep going if anything I love that Sam yeah I I I agree with you um as long as people keep creating

we're going to keep moving forward yeah exactly and you being bullish makes me all the more bullish well fair Come on. Horns up.