Latest / Cinema Yūgen / Inbetweening: The Hustle Behind the Screen
Transcript
- 0:00G'day. That's right, it's that time again. Time for Cinema Yugen.
- 0:15G'day, welcome back, Cinema Yugen. As Orson Welles once said,
- 0:21I have wasted a greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get
- 0:25along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paint box, which is a movie.
- 0:32And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie.
- 0:38It's about 2% movie making and 98% hustling. And that's no way to spend a life.
- 0:44That's very, very true. And never has
- 0:47this utterance been so accurately
- 0:50captured as it has been now in melhouse's
- 0:54in betweening yes in betweening is wonderful
- 0:58new independent film in betweening takes
- 1:02spike lee's bamboozled woody allen's deconstructing harry
- 1:06and richard linkletters waking life and tosses them
- 1:09into a blender it's a handsomely shot brilliantly
- 1:12written dramatically staged which drifts from drama to
- 1:15animation to puppets singing with narrated
- 1:18storyboards to construct a madness which is the pursuit of
- 1:21a career in the film industry the
- 1:25rest of my review for this wonderful movie the
- 1:28link will be in the description but now eugenites welcome
- 1:31to the show the man behind the madness the
- 1:34man who lived the life that you'll see in
- 1:37this wonderful film in betweening please put your
- 1:40hands together and welcome him to the show here he
- 1:43is the man who knows all about in-betweening the mighty mel house g'day mel
- 1:49thank you for having me sir mate it's an honor to have you it's an honor to
- 1:54have watched the film in-betweening you know mel i have to say that there are
- 1:59quite a few people probably hundreds.
- 2:02That I've met along my journey that have done quite a lot of in-betweening.
- 2:06Let me just say. Oh, yeah.
- 2:08Yeah. Especially when involved in the arts and more specifically involved in
- 2:12the film business. Definitely. Definitely.
- 2:16So is that, or was that, I should say, the inspiration for in-betweening?
- 2:23Like, did you hear a lot of war stories along your way or? Well,
- 2:27what's funny is it, it actually sprung out of obviously like a personal story of mine.
- 2:33And it was specifically that part where he's in the car talking to the famous
- 2:38pop star, you know, like sort of in running in between doing everything because
- 2:44that, that literally happened to me.
- 2:46I was trying, there was, it was about 10, no, it was more than that was maybe 15 years ago.
- 2:50I was trying to get a movie going and we had, it was right after I'd done my
- 2:55last feature film and, you know, it had gotten a decent release.
- 2:59So there was a little bit going on around it. So I was able to get some people
- 3:03attached. Like we had Robert England attached. We had Charles Dutton attached.
- 3:07At one point or another, we had like different, just a bunch of different name
- 3:11actors attached. And, but at the same time, I, I, I had always worked a day
- 3:16job during doing all this stuff.
- 3:18And at the time, the day job I had, had gotten rid of my position. Right.
- 3:24And this was right when my daughter was about to be born. She just turned 13,
- 3:28two days ago. So it was like 13 years ago. Yeah.
- 3:30So she was on the way. So I was like, well, shit, I got to do something.
- 3:34So the only job, the only place that would hire me was a pizza delivery place.
- 3:37But while I'm doing that, I still was sort of fielding calls to try to get this movie going.
- 3:44And one particularly surreal moment was I was dropping off like 16 pizzas to
- 3:50this 14-year-old pool party, a bunch of 14-year-old girls.
- 3:55And they all just, they just were like complaining about the pizza.
- 3:58They were telling me I was late.
- 4:00But at the same time in my earbud, I was on the phone with this producer and
- 4:04this pop star that everybody knows. You know, I don't want to say his name,
- 4:07but everybody's, everybody's heard of him, you know?
- 4:10And I was like, this is, you can't make this up, dude.
- 4:14Like, like if you know what I mean? And I, and that was when I was like that
- 4:17I have to write about this.
- 4:19Like I've got to write about this. So it's, it's largely autobiographical.
- 4:23Oh, mostly. Yeah. And, and what's funny is at the time I didn't really,
- 4:26I was so in my head with all of it.
- 4:28I, when I was making the movie, I didn't know if people would be able to relate to it or plug into it.
- 4:35I thought it would seem like too much bitching, moaning, why,
- 4:37you know what I mean? Like navel gazing shit, you know? Right.
- 4:40Yeah. But, but since it's come out and people have gotten a chance to watch
- 4:44it, I started to hear back, oh, I have this kind of story like that.
- 4:49Or it's kind of universal in its specificity. You know what I mean?
- 4:55Because regardless of what,
- 4:57What your pursuit is, there's a relative amount of in-betweening,
- 5:01doesn't matter what you do, really.
- 5:02Right. In life, I mean, particularly if you're married with a family and you
- 5:07have a career and, you know, that real life and work life and the work-life balance,
- 5:14there's always in-betweening in there. Oh, yeah.
- 5:19A hundred percent, yeah. But I have to say, immediately when I finished watching
- 5:24it, I thought of that Orson Welles saying that, you know,
- 5:29that movie making is, you know, 99% hustling and 1% movie making.
- 5:34It's no way to extend a life.
- 5:36So true. Yeah, the calling sort of supersedes that, or the love supersedes that.
- 5:42One of my good friends is a longtime Hollywood screenwriter.
- 5:46And he's, I agree with him when he said, you know, you really need the love
- 5:51because talent, you know, I think it was Stephen King that said all the talent
- 5:55in the world won't carry a quitter, you know? Right.
- 5:58And it's, it's, it's vital that if you really, really want this,
- 6:04because there's, there's, there's a thousand people, thousands of people, millions.
- 6:09Hundreds of millions of people you're competing with all over the world,
- 6:13all different age groups.
- 6:14They all want a piece of this pie and i
- 6:17do believe there's enough to go around uh but
- 6:20the only problem is is the circumstances under
- 6:23which the movies get made it's it's quite amazing sometimes
- 6:26that that movies get made yeah i totally agree you know yeah totally agree if
- 6:32people like when people talk to me about movies just generally on the street
- 6:38you know they have absolutely no idea of what goes into even an independent
- 6:42film the pieces i i compared it once to like.
- 6:47Buying a thousand piece puzzle one piece at a time yeah
- 6:50yeah yeah that's a good analogy yeah and you
- 6:53you you know you get another piece and you
- 6:56get another piece and you get another piece and eventually hopefully at
- 6:59the end of it when you put all the pieces together you get some sort
- 7:02of coherent image right which
- 7:05you can then and take out but of course
- 7:08like in like in your story with with
- 7:11brandon cole's character he uh he
- 7:14came off some some promise you know
- 7:18sort of some early momentum and that's another
- 7:20thing i remember talking to larry karaszewski about this
- 7:24and and the momentum too is another big thing when making movies or making art
- 7:31isn't it like once you like you said you you you sort of on a roll but if you
- 7:37don't sort of keep or endeavor to keep the momentum rolling,
- 7:41you can very easily lose it. And it's very hard to get that back.
- 7:45Yeah. Yeah, definitely. At that time, right before that happened,
- 7:51right before I lost my job, it seemed like everything was sort of going to crack open.
- 7:55I started getting invited to all these cool parties and hanging,
- 7:59you know what I mean? And cool screenings and stuff.
- 8:01And then all that sort of went away and
- 8:04nothing really changed other than I wasn't actively
- 8:07working on something because i couldn't i was just in survival
- 8:10mode you know and that was a i
- 8:14i wrestled in this movie i wrestled with whether or
- 8:17not it like it's a movie about making a
- 8:20movie but there's no movie making in it or
- 8:23they're very right yeah yeah and i and i were i
- 8:25wrestled with that i was like well should i put more of him like trying
- 8:28to write or be on a set or something and i was like well
- 8:31no because that's not what it was like like i was
- 8:34where i did three movies kind of back to back to back to back the
- 8:37last one came out had some big premieres and played some
- 8:40big festivals and then it sort of like fell off a cliff and like
- 8:43for several years after that or a couple years it was
- 8:46just surviving and while i was calling people trying to get stuff happening
- 8:52or trying to find out what was happening with my other stuff there was it's
- 8:56not like i was actually making you know something other than maybe writing down
- 9:00ideas to eventually use in this movie you Like when something crazy would happen.
- 9:04But, but yeah, that's, I did wrestle with putting that stuff in,
- 9:08but then I was like, no, this is what it, like they were back to the Orson Welles quote.
- 9:12Like most of the time is spent just trying to get your shit together to like
- 9:16make the stuff happen. You know?
- 9:18Yeah. I, I know in the review, I, I, I,
- 9:22I liken this in-betweening to one of Woody Allen's films, Deconstructing Harry.
- 9:29But in retrospect, I really think I should have said Annie Hall because I know
- 9:34that your film is not about relationships.
- 9:36But the fact that in that film, Woody Allen went with all the – there's some
- 9:41animation in there. There's breaking of fourth wall, which is in yours.
- 9:44And of course, Richard Linklater's Waking Life and Spike Lee's Bamboozled.
- 9:50There is a great number of wonderful elements
- 9:54in this and i love how it it
- 9:57drifts in and out of them sort of at
- 10:00the right time like i don't know what when you were writing it
- 10:03did you did you write it did you write it
- 10:06straight and then go well this scene could be animated or
- 10:09did that did it develop did it
- 10:12wasn't written like a straight story and then
- 10:15you decided well this sequence could be animated in this sequence or
- 10:18did you just write it how it is it was
- 10:21it was actually a little bit of both there were a couple things where i
- 10:24was like where i knew either because of
- 10:27access to a location sorry my cat's gonna this cat
- 10:30is gonna be back here because of access
- 10:33to a location or just what
- 10:37we were able to pull off i knew i was like okay it'd
- 10:40be easier to animate this and then also that initial
- 10:43scene where the standardized patient scene where he's
- 10:46like in the medical school and i i knew
- 10:48that i kind of wanted him to fall into it and all so i knew that
- 10:51i wrote that one animated but there were a couple that i wrote as you know just
- 10:57sort of wrote straight as live action and either i either through discussing
- 11:03it with nick our animation director or something that happened during production, I was like, oh,
- 11:10we can't, it's not going to make sense logistically to do this live.
- 11:15Let's do it animated the musical number in particular is what i'm thinking about
- 11:18because we were actually going to shoot all that live right we had a choreographer
- 11:23we had because we have a lot of musical theater people in the movie that's why
- 11:26i wanted to do a musical number.
- 11:28And we were going to shoot it live and we were getting very close to doing it but,
- 11:32schedules started diverging and it and i
- 11:35kind of was putting it off for anxiety reasons too because it was going
- 11:38to be a big deal right i was kind of afraid of doing it and
- 11:41chelsea our lead actress that played michelle she got
- 11:44pregnant fishbone started touring so angelo
- 11:47was relatively unavailable right yeah ty who
- 11:51plays the zombie guy he actually just mounted a
- 11:54show he he just opened a show called titanique which
- 11:57had just opened in new york right off off broadway
- 12:00but that was eating up a lot of his time in fact
- 12:04i think it's about to open in sydney oddly enough it's actually like
- 12:07spread out you know i love i love the dead what was
- 12:09his official title dead guy oh zombie guys
- 12:12zombie guy that's right yeah yeah so that was
- 12:15that was like i i was stressing about getting their schedules together
- 12:19you know so then i started thinking well what if i animated this
- 12:22part that i thought i was going to do live action and i have a effects company
- 12:28that i had been working with on the previous couple movies that were like more
- 12:33horror sci-fi movies and they they basically just did like clean up or just
- 12:37like tweaks of stuff for me on those films but But they would always email me and go,
- 12:42hey, do you have anything to animate? We do a lot of 2D animation.
- 12:46And Nick and his team were already loaded up with everything I had written animated
- 12:50already that they were doing.
- 12:52So I thought, well, what if I reach out to this Indian, they're in India,
- 12:56animation studio that keeps asking me for animation.
- 12:58And now that scene will now be animated.
- 13:01So that sort of changed sort of midway.
- 13:04And did that help with the budget, delegating certain scenes to animation?
- 13:10Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It made it, yeah, it made things a lot easier.
- 13:15And especially with a lot of those scenes where people are, like I said,
- 13:18spread out, like Ty was in New York at that time. He's from Houston,
- 13:22but he lived in New York at that time for the show.
- 13:24Angelo's all over the place. You know, it, it,
- 13:28brought that time that i had to have everybody together down to
- 13:31a minimum because you know i paid everybody i put them up in hotels
- 13:34or airbnb's you know although it was
- 13:37indie i tried to make it as comfortable as possible
- 13:40because you know we're all tired of sleeping on floors or you know what i mean
- 13:44like we yeah or in some dude's garage right exactly so so that's that's not
- 13:50biographical is it you did you didn't sleep in some dude's garage which doubled
- 13:54as a a taekwondo that so it's a little bit.
- 13:58I, it was more like couch surfing type stuff. However, I know I've been,
- 14:04I've been in martial arts for a long time and I've known a lot of guys that
- 14:08have done that exact thing.
- 14:10Because they, they travel somewhere to go train with a certain person.
- 14:13They don't have any money, but those guys are like animals.
- 14:16You know what I mean? Like, they're just like, yeah, sure. I'll sleep in the
- 14:18garage, but I've heard that story from so many people. So I'm like,
- 14:21oh, well that's believable, you know?
- 14:23So yeah, that's kind of where I thought that's how kind
- 14:25of I put those things together but as as far
- 14:28as everything like the puppet stuff was written because i just i
- 14:31kind of wanted to work with puppets grew up on sesame street yeah why not
- 14:34and meet the feebles is one of my favorite movies so
- 14:37i was like oh really oh my gosh yeah that
- 14:41that is actually when i moved to college in
- 14:43austin in the 90s they
- 14:47were playing that at the dobie theater which is at the time it was like the
- 14:50art house theater on campus and i was like what the hell is this and so and
- 14:54that's when i got hooked on peter jackson like that's fantastic i have a i have
- 14:59a dvd copy of that which at the top of it says from the academy award winning
- 15:03director of lord yeah yeah yeah,
- 15:06Yeah.
- 15:08Yeah. Yeah. And you've got, you know, cats in the alley smoking bombs and,
- 15:12you know, blow job from a cat and all that sort of stuff. Rats sniffing underwear.
- 15:18I like the contortionist gets his head stuck up his bum. Yes.
- 15:22And he's like, I'm in need of assistance. My head is stuck up.
- 15:26Yeah. My, uh, my band in high school slash college, we, we covered the,
- 15:31uh, sodomy song that the Fox does.
- 15:38You won't see that in a high school musical. Nope, you won't.
- 15:43Don't listen while I sing about an act that's fun.
- 15:49So good. I'd love to talk to Peter Jackson about that.
- 15:52I'd throw out Lord of the Rings and all that other stuff and just go,
- 15:55let's talk about Meet the Thieves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
- 16:00And Bad Taste too. I like all of his elders. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 16:03Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff. I mean, you can really see, I mean,
- 16:06that's the thing with some filmmakers. You can see, you can see the sort of,
- 16:09sometimes you can see the trajectory of where they're going.
- 16:12Oh, for sure. And sometimes you're just like, I don't know.
- 16:15Whoa. Right. Right. That was a weird, that was a weird step or a side quest
- 16:20as the kids say today. Yeah. Yeah.
- 16:24That's great. Meet the Feebles. But, yeah, back to the in-betwoining,
- 16:28it really struck home for me, this film, because I myself have been in – I mean,
- 16:37I've couch surfed. I've never lived in a garage or anything.
- 16:40And, you know, you do a thousand other things besides that, which,
- 16:45you know, you're striving for.
- 16:49And I think that's why, and I hope that your film continues to get –,
- 16:56a lot of responses for it because i'm pretty sure that it
- 16:58speaks to just about anybody especially in this business especially an
- 17:01independent film right and another thing
- 17:04i liked that's brought up in there is is about credits and this is this is something
- 17:09that that i came to late and the fact that if you don't have any credits people
- 17:14really as good as you are they're really not sort of interested because until
- 17:17you've sort of proven that you can do something they're not going to hire you
- 17:20do anything is that what you're right right.
- 17:23Oh yeah yeah definitely definitely and
- 17:26earlier on the less so now
- 17:29but at at the time around when that all that stuff was
- 17:32sort of happening people were really obsessed with
- 17:35like your imdb rating or not rating but
- 17:38like your your popularity number i think you know
- 17:42and they're like well you know you're only in
- 17:45the like hundreds or what you know what i mean like there was a lot of yeah i'm
- 17:48like you're not talking about sorry yeah yeah
- 17:51and it's weird because it's sort of
- 17:54the hat it happened in the other direction for us too because at
- 17:57the time that my last was like two features ago
- 18:00but i did a movie with katie featherston from paranormal activity right when
- 18:05it was when it was between when one and two came out so she was like number
- 18:09one on imdb and that's when everything sort of blew up for the movie she was
- 18:13in with us and she was only in it for a few minutes but i mean she we put her
- 18:17in because I knew her through Dallas.
- 18:20She's a Texas actor. So I just friends of friends, you know,
- 18:23but I knew that that movie was going to be popular. So I was like,
- 18:26yeah, let's put her in it, you know, do something.
- 18:27I never realized it would be that big, you know, but it's sort of,
- 18:32It gave us a bunch of good fortune and bad fortune, because as soon as people
- 18:40got over that, then it was like they didn't care about any of it anymore. You know what I mean?
- 18:46But yeah, I definitely did experience a lot of that.
- 18:51Who are you? What have you done? What's your IMDb rating?
- 18:55Right, yeah. hide into that. Again, another reason why I didn't know that I
- 19:00didn't really, I didn't know if it speak to people at that time,
- 19:03for whatever reason, maybe still to this degree, I was working out in LA a lot
- 19:06or trying to work on movies and stuff as a crew member or whatever.
- 19:10And people would not admit to doing anything other than that.
- 19:14Like they could have had 12 side gigs, but it's like, if you take a meeting
- 19:18with somebody or even not even somebody that's going to make something happened,
- 19:21but just maybe somebody you want to partner with the, the minute they would
- 19:25get a whiff of, Oh, this isn't like you have a day or you have a day job.
- 19:30They would be like, Oh, you're not like just in the biz kind of stuff.
- 19:34And there was a lot, there were four or five times where that happened.
- 19:36And I'm like, what are you talking about, man?
- 19:38I know you just, I know you just worked a catering job last week.
- 19:41You know what I mean? Friends of friends.
- 19:44So there was a lot of that. So it, it became weird to where like,
- 19:48I, there was a movie I was producing here that Debbie, I actually got Debbie
- 19:54Rashawn and Lisa Wilcox in, and it was, it was being shot at St.
- 19:59John's Academy, which is where they shot Rushmore. A lot of well-to-do Houstonian
- 20:04kids have gone through that school. Right.
- 20:06And I don't even remember how I met these kids, but they asked me to help produce.
- 20:11Cause I had done a couple of movies.
- 20:12I knew some people that wanted me to get people attached, but I found out quickly
- 20:16that I had to kind of hide the fact that I was going to deliver pizzas after
- 20:22we wrapped or had to leave because I mean,
- 20:25they were all rich kids to be honest. Like they'd, they'd,
- 20:29They, I mean, their parents gave them money to make the movie,
- 20:32you know, they didn't know about like trying to scrape shit together to like make something happen.
- 20:37And, uh, I remember Debbie and I had this code and I was like,
- 20:40Hey, Debbie, I gotta go. I gotta go have a meeting with the Italians.
- 20:44That's what we called me going to the pizza job. So it sounded like I was doing something official.
- 20:48Yeah yeah yeah but yeah it was why and and even that like i said even that would
- 20:54kind of if had they found out i think it would have got twisted and it did eventually
- 20:57when they they found out that i wasn't mr big shit you know indie horror guy
- 21:02or at least not what they thought you know,
- 21:04they i they kind of just all you know they they all kind of drifted away and
- 21:09you know didn't really want to have anything to do with me unfortunately but yeah it's it's weird how,
- 21:16there's this people put up this facade of you
- 21:20know everybody's sort of surviving off this when the reality is like
- 21:23most people aren't yeah it's very
- 21:26it's very rare you know yeah yeah i i was interviewing um bill oberts jr great
- 21:33actor earlier this year and his manager told him a very interesting phrase and
- 21:40and it's really stuck with me since i heard it it's perception is reality,
- 21:45especially in the film yeah.
- 21:49I mean that sort of sums up a little bit of in-betweening too you're trying to,
- 21:59You're not trying to front, you're trying to be a professional,
- 22:02but you're forced to front because of all the other crap that's going on.
- 22:06Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- 22:08And not everyone has a nice, happy little train to go away and sit in and chill out for a few minutes.
- 22:17I love that sort of scene anyway. Is that little train, is that somewhere near you or is it something?
- 22:24Yeah, it's kind of, again, it's a combo of a couple of things.
- 22:28Like there was, so in Houston where the, the medical, they call it the medical center.
- 22:33It's where like a lot of the medical schools are in a bunch of big hospitals,
- 22:36but there's a big park, right? Sort of in the middle of it's where our zoo is as well.
- 22:41And there's a, a tracked train that runs through the park and it's sort of like a scale model.
- 22:48Like, you know, you see, you see them in a few big parks, you know,
- 22:50around the world, but I would sometimes after my shift at the SP hospital,
- 22:55when I would get like in between working with
- 22:58medical students because a lot what a lot of us would do is we'd
- 23:01take a shift teaching this case to these kids at this school and then take a
- 23:05shift in the afternoon at the school across the way and you have a little break
- 23:09but you kind of would have to piece it together like that to sort of make a
- 23:12living at it right it's not something that was consistent you know right right
- 23:15it's like most of these it's it's gig work kind of so what i would do is i would go and just,
- 23:21fall asleep on this train and just pass out because it would you know take 30
- 23:25minutes to like lap the park.
- 23:27And during the day they didn't really care. And it was like a dollar or two
- 23:30to get on it. And it was so relaxing, you know, the, the rocking back and forth, the noise.
- 23:34So I would do that often. And there were a lot of times where people would look
- 23:38at me crazy or think I was, you know, you know, a homeless person or whatever,
- 23:42but. It's a game of a filmmaker.
- 23:44Exactly. Yeah. There were a couple of times where I did do it in my gown,
- 23:48you know, cause I just didn't want to change.
- 23:50So I can only imagine that they thought that I, you know, I just like walked
- 23:53out of some hospital over there.
- 23:56But there was that one. And then the train, the train pretty much exactly like the ones in the movie.
- 24:02Was they had a train like that in the mall that was
- 24:05like directly across from where my pizza restaurant was so
- 24:08i would go kind of that one was a little harder to chill
- 24:11out in because somebody my i'm a bigger guy so somebody
- 24:14my size like it's very hard to like get in those little yeah sort of relax yeah
- 24:18but i i did once or twice because i was just bored and i had time between shifts
- 24:22i was like huh i wonder if i can recapture that train feeling on this thing
- 24:27you know you pay for a ticket they don't care you know as long as there aren't
- 24:30a bunch of kids trying to get on and you're trying to crowd them out or whatever.
- 24:33So yeah, I would, I was, I would just get on and kind of laid out in that or
- 24:37pass out and just kind of space out as he drove around the mall, you know?
- 24:42So it was like my weird sort of Zen area, both those trains and that,
- 24:47that original train, the one that's actually on tracks in the park,
- 24:50they had agreed to let us shoot. They were going to let us shoot up, shoot there.
- 24:53But I quickly realized that there would be a lot of starting and stopping and maybe turning around.
- 25:00It's not because it's on actual tracks. Right, right, right.
- 25:04Whereas this one, this is a train they rent out for parties and stuff and they
- 25:08kind of bring it. It can run anywhere.
- 25:10And on the second or third shot, I was worried about having to ask the engineer
- 25:16to move it every time for whatever we needed or whatever, the owner.
- 25:19But on the second or third shot, he went up to Jill who plays Andy and said,
- 25:23hey, let me just show you how to drive it.
- 25:25You could just drive it around so he was letting her drive it around the park.
- 25:30So we could just kind of just do what we wanted you know
- 25:33yeah it's um look it's
- 25:36it's a it's a wonderful film it's it's it's about
- 25:39all the heartaches and hardships that that go along with this it's funny i just
- 25:46finished reviewing documentary about dan rather yep and dan And rather used
- 25:53to sign off by simply saying, courage.
- 25:57And that's what you need to do this thing, isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of it.
- 26:06Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it. A whole lot of it. A whole lot of it.
- 26:11That's what I found, really.
- 26:13I mean, every time I have to give myself another round, well,
- 26:19consistently a round of pep talks to do it again, do it again, do it again.
- 26:22Even after like this, this has been so well received, you know,
- 26:27and you would think that I'd have no issues getting to the, but I know. Yeah.
- 26:32Yeah. But I know that whatever that's, I don't even know what it's going to
- 26:35be at this point, but I know that I'm going to go through the same round of,
- 26:39oh man, I don't know if I can do the second guessing imposter syndrome,
- 26:43you know, or is anybody going to care, you know,
- 26:45kind of because I've done that almost every time, you
- 26:48know so yeah because well i mean like like
- 26:52uh like you're the lead character in the film um and
- 26:56and as i stated in the review you in the whole in this business you're only
- 27:00as good as your last movie and if your last movie doesn't uh even attract or
- 27:04doesn't attract or doesn't uh right doesn't gain any traction then you're uh
- 27:09you know you you're pissing into the wind yeah,
- 27:14most definitely most definitely yeah because you're trying to convince i mean
- 27:19the the big thing that people don't realize is that most of the time is you're
- 27:23trying to convince other people.
- 27:25You know you spend you spend a majority of trying to convince other people or
- 27:29trying to sell other people on on your ideas and the fact that this is this
- 27:34is going to be this is going to be good and we've got we've got you know xyz
- 27:39actors and we've got you know this and that and we've got all that Well,
- 27:43that sounds really good.
- 27:45What else have you done? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
- 27:50Exactly. You know, or just, just like the, it's look, it's perfectly illustrated
- 27:55in your movie in the scenes where he's in front of these, you know,
- 27:59the, the suits, if you will.
- 28:00Yeah. And trying to convince them that, that he's the guy. I mean,
- 28:05uh. Right. Yeah. People. Yeah.
- 28:08People suffer the, the, the, the illusion that like once you've had a few movies,
- 28:15or you've got those credits now finally that all of a sudden the seas become calm,
- 28:21the sun comes out and the wind fills your sails and the rest of the voyage is smooth.
- 28:28But as in-betweening beautifully illustrates that there is no smooth sailing.
- 28:34No, no. And the maelstrom is perpetual.
- 28:38And if you do not have the courage and consistency and tenacity and the love,
- 28:45The road is going to, unfortunately,
- 28:48like it does to poor Brandon, it gets on top of him so much that he nearly does
- 28:54something very silly, unfortunately.
- 28:58But it's all in between. And it's a film that I've watched.
- 29:04Just reviewed recently. The link will be in the description, listeners.
- 29:07It's a fantastic film. I encourage you all to get out and see it.
- 29:11Mel, tell a listening audience where they can see in-between.
- 29:14Absolutely. Right now, it's available on Amazon Prime.
- 29:18It's on Tubi. Tubi? And it's on Fossum, which is, a lot of people don't know
- 29:24about that, but it's a very Tubi-esque sort of platform. Okay.
- 29:27There's a few of those in the States, isn't it? There's another one I've noticed that's called Zumo now.
- 29:32Right, yes. That one just popped up. yeah and uh
- 29:35it actually has been licensed by another platform i
- 29:38don't know if i can say it yet because it's a youtube-based sort
- 29:41of streaming platform so as soon as that goes live
- 29:44i'll let everybody know but you know you can you can find all
- 29:47the info about it at my website which is upstartfilmworks.net i
- 29:50try to update it with because everything i'm it's it's self-distributed as
- 29:54well i'm kind of doing i'm the chief cook
- 29:57and bottle washer like putting it out there yeah and and
- 30:00and promoting it with you exactly because
- 30:03i've had so many bad experiences with other
- 30:07you know where it's like it goes out there
- 30:09and you just never know what's happening
- 30:12with it where it's at i found there's a i have a
- 30:15poster for my one of my features it's a japanese poster it's
- 30:18right over here on the wall yep and i didn't even know it was out in
- 30:21japan like somebody a friend of a friend was like
- 30:24oh i got this tell mel i got his movie and you know the watch
- 30:27it's great and i'm like i didn't even know it was out over there so i had
- 30:30him scan i had him scan the art and send it to me and
- 30:33i made a poster of it oh i was similar i was similar i wrote like a horror western
- 30:37and i thought because it didn't it didn't seem like it got distribution the
- 30:43people that paid for it seemed like they were distributing themselves yeah and
- 30:47they put it out on dvd in states and the next thing.
- 30:51I didn't hear anything and I thought, oh, they've just put it on DVD and they're
- 30:54selling it, you know, like on website or something.
- 30:57And I thought, oh, that's a bit of a shame. But then someone called me and they
- 31:01said, hey, did you know you got a, they sent me a photo and it was out in the
- 31:04UK and some DVD company had picked it up in the UK. So I eventually got one from the UK.
- 31:11But, yeah, but it was very like, oh, wow, it's out in the UK, really?
- 31:15Yeah, yeah. Because like you said, they don't, you don't, you know,
- 31:19I mean, And depending on where you're at, whether you're the filmmaker or the
- 31:23screenwriter or what, you don't usually, sometimes you don't hear whether or
- 31:27not these things come to light or get released.
- 31:30I mean, look, I've worked on some films that have never been released at all. Yeah.
- 31:35You know, God knows what happened to them or the circumstances or whatever,
- 31:39but it's the nature of the beast and it's the battle we fight.
- 31:45But Mel, I want to thank you, mate, for your courage and your professionalism
- 31:50and for making this movie.
- 31:51It's a really, really great movie,
- 31:55and I think it has a lot to say to young filmmakers who may be feeling overwhelmed
- 32:00and that the rising tide is crushing them, but if you stick in there,
- 32:05you might get a movie out of it.
- 32:07So depending on how much you love it and how much you really,
- 32:11really want to be in the movies, you'll stick with it, just like my mate Mel
- 32:16here and his wonderful film.
- 32:19In-betweening, all the links will be in the description. Mel,
- 32:23you're a wonderful bloke. You're a top bloke.
- 32:26You're a great filmmaker. Thank you, sir. Can't wait to see what you get to do next.
- 32:30Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Yes, Mel House,
- 32:34great bloke, great film.
- 32:35In-betweening, there's no excuse to wait, ladies and gentlemen.
- 32:39Get out now. The links are in the description, links to the review, links to the film.
- 32:45Go get it now. It's on Tubi. it's on amazon it's coming
- 32:48to to blu-ray lots of cool
- 32:51extras mel's a top bloke get down
- 32:54to the links in the description and
- 32:57check out in betweening if you want a career
- 33:00in film business this is this is a look at
- 33:03what it takes and the courage required
- 33:06to see your dreams on silver screens
- 33:10come true it's in between check the
- 33:14links in the description and as always my little eugenites thank you for listening
- 33:20to us on spotify or wherever you choose to listen to your favorite podcasts
- 33:24i'm ken hill and until next time you've been listening to cinema you're okay.
- 33:30Music.