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The New Century: Reel Dreams and Indie Realities · Cinema Yūgen

• 0:00
  G'day, that's right, it's that time again, time for Cinema Yogan! Game. Game.
• 0:08
  Music.
• 0:11
  Game.
• 0:18
  Yes, Eugenites, a new century has been whacked over the barrier,
• 0:27
  to use a cricketing term, I suppose any listeners out there who are fond of the cricket,
• 0:36
  a century is a hundred runs.
• 0:38
  And this is a hundred episodes into this cinema Yugen run.
• 0:44
  And it's been fun. It's been a lot of fun. We've had some incredible guests,
• 0:49
  seen some incredible films.
• 0:51
  We hope for another hundred episodes, but only time will tell.
• 0:57
  But for right now, we're going to spend our 100th episode with the man,
• 1:03
  the legend, my friend and filmmaker, film enthusiast, passionate man,
• 1:09
  a dreamer, a warrior, a good soldier of cinema.
• 1:11
  He was there for the first episode. He was there the 50th episode.
• 1:16
  He is back for the 100th episode. He's my good luck charm.
• 1:22
  As I said, good friend, confidant.
• 1:26
  The master of Never Say Die.
• 1:30
  Here he is, Con Cristobalus.
• 1:35
  Hello, Kent. It's an absolute honour, mate, to be part of your first,
• 1:39
  your 50th, and now your 100th show.
• 1:42
  Pleasure to be here, mate. I thought it was only fitting for you to be the guest
• 1:47
  because you're a bit of a lucky charm.
• 1:51
  So um mate that's
• 1:54
  that's a beautiful thing to say and yeah yeah
• 1:57
  i sort of consider you the same because uh you've
• 2:00
  been with me on a bit of an interesting journey and you've been on a very interesting
• 2:04
  journey yourself and it's absolutely like i said an absolute pleasure to be
• 2:09
  here on your hundreds amongst so many established beautiful artists so i am honored i mean i'm.
• 2:19
  So when I'm asked by people, you know, what good movies have I seen this year,
• 2:23
  honestly, some of the best films I've seen have been all independent films this year.
• 2:29
  Yeah, right. Which I'm happy to say. I have seen some of the movies that are
• 2:33
  at the cinema, but they've been hit and miss, you know, and.
• 2:39
  Yep but honestly con for the
• 2:42
  money and the resources that they have behind them there
• 2:44
  shouldn't be any bloody mistakes no i
• 2:48
  know mate um they've got all this money it's just the sort of
• 2:50
  money we could only dream of having because we could
• 2:53
  probably have a fair crack at doing something decent with the
• 2:56
  sort of money these guys are playing with and you see some of
• 2:59
  the products they come out with and you just sort of think to coin
• 3:02
  a modern cliche you just think really you know
• 3:05
  i mean even even if even
• 3:08
  if even if some of these independents were given like one
• 3:11
  tenth of some of these budgets that they
• 3:14
  have yeah i just i i
• 3:17
  i sit and and it really gets ponderous after a while how much greater their
• 3:25
  visions could be amplified but by the same token And that's not taking anything
• 3:30
  away from what they've done because just throwing money at the problem doesn't
• 3:36
  necessarily make it go away.
• 3:37
  If there's something rotten in your story, it's no amount of money you throw
• 3:41
  at it is going to fix it later on.
• 3:45
  Right because as you know as you know
• 3:48
  whenever you make something this matter it's a film or
• 3:51
  a book or a piece of music or a painting or whatever
• 3:54
  it is that you do at some
• 3:57
  point you've got to give it to an audience and they're going
• 3:59
  to tell you what you've done as much as what you think you know what
• 4:02
  you've done they're going to tell you exactly they're going
• 4:05
  to tell you whether it's good or bad or shit or whatever the
• 4:09
  case might be don't you think oh most
• 4:12
  definitely mate most definitely and sort of um in
• 4:15
  regards to all that you know budgets and movies and
• 4:18
  of course we're talking about movies in cinema as as
• 4:21
  you know my we talked about my my first and unfortunately at this stage only
• 4:27
  attempt at a feature film was a a partially complete independent movie called
• 4:32
  alien sons now i've chucked it up on youtube like that's the best i could do
• 4:38
  when i did the trailer for it,
• 4:40
  dreaming that I was going to crack it with this movie and whatever. It was pre-internet.
• 4:45
  And I actually had a one minute and 20 second, it was one minute and 18 second long trailer.
• 4:52
  And I invited, I don't know, it was about 50 or 60 people, 38 people showed
• 4:57
  up to a little independent cinema in the valley and watched my little trailer.
• 5:02
  And that was a big thing for me.
• 5:04
  Now, anyway, years later passed, I sort of,
• 5:08
  you know, to scrimp and save and beg
• 5:11
  and plead and whatever and filmed a bit
• 5:14
  of my movie and um i ended up putting it on facebook i'm
• 5:17
  sorry on youtube about a year and a half or so
• 5:20
  ago maybe more now it's only had 140 views which is by today's standards by
• 5:26
  any standard it's not great but to me it's kind of cool because 140 people compared
• 5:32
  to 38 it's like oh wow that's that's an increase That's better for a dreamer like me, you know,
• 5:39
  an aspiring filmmaker like me.
• 5:40
  But what I'm getting at in regards to, you know, budgets and the stuff that's
• 5:45
  coming out now and whatever is even though I've only got 140 views.
• 5:51
  Recently through TikTok, I've jumped on TikTok, which is a bit awkward for me
• 5:55
  because it's a bit more of a younger thing, but I've jumped on anyway.
• 5:58
  And I've done a couple of, somehow I've got over a thousand followers that enables
• 6:02
  you to go live and whatever.
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  And I've gone live a few times and all I do is sit on my balcony and people to my surprise jump on.
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  And just as I'm having my morning cigarette and coffee, I just start talking
• 6:16
  about stuff and people who I guess are just looking for something,
• 6:20
  looking for company, looking for whatever, just jump on.
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  And over 1,000 people have jumped on. You know what I mean?
• 6:29
  And in a couple of those times, like I said, I've only done it like four times
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  or so, but in a couple of those lives, I've mentioned my movie Alien Sun.
• 6:39
  And before I did this, Alien Sun had about 110, 112 views on YouTube.
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  And just through talking just through talking about
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  it through tiktok on these lives it's jumped up
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  to nearly 140 now through these
• 6:56
  live tiktoks because you're communicating and they're
• 6:59
  with verbally and they're writing stuff back
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  to you as you're talking you can see what they're writing it's
• 7:05
  rolling along and a handful of people
• 7:08
  have actually commented commented because i've said to them look
• 7:10
  guys unfortunately it might be the shittest movie you've
• 7:13
  ever seen it's incomplete we didn't have money so we
• 7:16
  compromised and that's the
• 7:19
  best i could do so i posted it and a
• 7:22
  few people offered strong moral and
• 7:26
  spiritual support like mate it's not the worst movie i've seen the worst movie
• 7:31
  you could have made is the movie you didn't ever make you know stuff like that
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  yeah and other people right and other people have commented how i think it's
• 7:40
  fantastic you're this nobody from the suburbs you know you're a traffic controller
• 7:44
  and you've managed to make, this is brilliant, you know, so...
• 7:48
  Only a handful of people have seen it, but from this no-budget movie and from
• 7:53
  this has stemmed conversations on these lives where it's like,
• 7:56
  stay away from drugs, blah, blah, blah.
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  And a few people have actually said, yeah, I'm getting off drugs,
• 8:01
  mate. I'm going to chase my dream of being a bricklayer or whatever.
• 8:05
  So even this shitty little independent, no-budget, incomplete movie called Alien
• 8:12
  Stuns has changed lives to a degree. So that's pretty cool.
• 8:18
  Now, I think what I'm getting at vaguely is that I believe social media,
• 8:25
  in particular YouTube and similar platforms that are coming through.
• 8:29
  Enabling gateways for artists, filmmakers, or whatever,
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  to get their product out there alternatively and products that otherwise might
• 8:39
  never see the light of day and also associated sort of social media things like your podcast.
• 8:46
  It's creating it's it's a new
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  media it is it's it's it's a new media
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  and if we keep chipping away the way you are
• 8:55
  my age i believe a new a
• 8:58
  new pathway will be forged for artists and in particular filmmakers because
• 9:03
  i think even though social media has been out for a long time i think it's just
• 9:08
  really starting to be utilized for cinema makers for independent filmmakers
• 9:13
  now I think now's the beginning of the boom.
• 9:16
  Thanks to people like you and Cinema Yugen, you know, stuff like that.
• 9:20
  It's really starting to come to the fore through social media for cinema makers,
• 9:25
  for filmmakers. So I think if you just keep doing what you're doing,
• 9:29
  mate, and we'll all keep doing what we're doing as filmmakers and we'll get there, you know.
• 9:35
  Well, I mean, look, I mean, I never got it.
• 9:42
  I mean, I'm doing what I always wanted to do. I write movies.
• 9:47
  I never really got into this to do podcasting or interviews or anything like that.
• 9:53
  But that was an opportunity that came along.
• 9:57
  What I have discovered is it is – what I discovered is that when I stopped doing it,
• 10:05
  I realised that there was no one out there talking to the filmmakers or about
• 10:10
  these little films that I had been seeing when I was doing podcasting softly.
• 10:16
  And I thought, well, that's a real shame because these people,
• 10:21
  I mean, there was one particular guy I remember I interviewed and I don't think
• 10:26
  he'd ever been interviewed before and I don't think he'd ever expected to be
• 10:29
  interviewed for this film.
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  But he was completely matched.
• 10:35
  And it was the greatest day of his life that he got interviewed about making his movie.
• 10:41
  And like you said, success is a great thing to achieve goals or whatever,
• 10:49
  but I'll tell you what, nothing keeps your fire lit like encouragement.
• 10:55
  No. Nothing keeps your fire lit. I mean, because trust me, your fire's got to
• 11:00
  burn long through years, long, hard,
• 11:06
  shitty years where you're going to be told no, no, no, no, no.
• 11:10
  No sorry sorry sorry no sorry no sorry no no sorry no no no sorry yep yep no absolutely yeah,
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  and that's the that's the that's the shitty reality i mean i'm not going to
• 11:27
  sugarcoat it it's uh it's it's the it's the cart before the horse it's just
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  the way it gets pulled along.
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  And then you don't you don't get anywhere
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  by as soon as they tell you no
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  by turning around go well i'll go home and and do
• 11:45
  something else you're only gonna you're only gonna
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  crack it if you're a bit like old mate in the shawshank
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  redemption is you write a letter every week right yeah when he goes to build
• 11:57
  the library in the prison he writes a letter a week and there's there's a there's
• 12:02
  something he says in that script which is the best advice that you should ever
• 12:05
  listen to is that they can't ignore you forever.
• 12:09
  Yeah, yeah. If you bitch long and hard and day and night, they can't ignore you forever.
• 12:19
  And, yeah, and that's got nothing. Unfortunately, that's got nothing to do with
• 12:23
  screenwriting. It's got nothing to do with movies.
• 12:25
  It's got nothing to do with making art, nothing to do with making money.
• 12:28
  It's just got everything to do with persistence, and that's the secret.
• 12:34
  But that's an open secret. If you want to learn to play an instrument,
• 12:38
  which you do, you've got to practice every day
• 12:41
  until you can know the chords and all that sort of thing and
• 12:44
  then only then can you think about cracking out a
• 12:46
  tune yeah but if you
• 12:49
  just pick up a guitar once and start strumming it and go
• 12:52
  oh shit i can't play and then put it down never look at it again
• 12:54
  of course you'll never get good at it yeah yeah that's
• 13:00
  totally true mate but it's um as you know it is
• 13:03
  hard to to maintain the dream no
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  matter how persistent you are because as you said life can
• 13:09
  get hard and it's so easy to sort
• 13:12
  of try and well it's so easy to
• 13:15
  try and keep going but you also know while you're trying to keep
• 13:18
  going it's just so easy to give up i could just give up like that i might as
• 13:21
  well give up but it's through podcasts like you and artists like you that give
• 13:29
  people like me aspiring filmmakers a a glimmer of hope now i've driven through where you live.
• 13:38
  I won't mention it just for good measure. I won't mention it.
• 13:41
  But every time I've driven past there, I've driven past there for work six or
• 13:46
  seven times in the last few months, and I just really can't help but be in awe,
• 13:52
  of your passion and drive for film. Now, when I first met you.
• 13:58
  You helped me with my script, Mother Hunter, and I'm forever grateful for it.
• 14:03
  But since then, you've achieved some incredible milestones that when I,
• 14:10
  you know, when I drive through where you live and just see where it is,
• 14:14
  I can't help but think, how did this guy do it?
• 14:17
  He's up to his fourth or fifth script now that's actually been produced.
• 14:23
  And it just, it makes me emotional. I know I'm sounding corny and whatever,
• 14:30
  but it sincerely makes me emotional and gives me drive.
• 14:34
  And ultimately, apart from it
• 14:37
  all being about cinema and wanting to make movies, it's also about hope.
• 14:41
  If we don't have hope in this life, we don't have much. We don't have much, man. Well, not anymore.
• 14:50
  Not anymore. It's all getting too bloody expensive.
• 14:54
  Oh, it's just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous that everything is expensive,
• 14:59
  but despite the challenges of modern-day life,
• 15:04
  as a filmmaker, I'm still, every day I'm still sort of trying to sniff out angles.
• 15:10
  And, like, my employers, I ask my employers if they want to invest in a movie.
• 15:15
  I still send random emails, and I don't even know if these emails are actually
• 15:19
  going to the people because, you know, how sometimes it's hard to find actual
• 15:24
  direct email, but I still do it.
• 15:26
  On a regular basis, I actually, I'm just a traffic controller by day,
• 15:31
  but in my mind, I'm forever trying to hunt out money to make Mother Hunter, our second film.
• 15:39
  Yes. But through my rudimentary, I think I may have mentioned this to you.
• 15:43
  I believe I have. I'm not sure.
• 15:45
  But through my rudimentary Google-style research, I found out that,
• 15:51
  and it was actually on a website where they've created a bra,
• 15:54
  and also, you know, the reasoning behind these results and the outcome of their
• 16:00
  research. And this research stated that,
• 16:03
  that any movie with a budget of $1.5 million has a 100% success rate of turning a profit. Wow.
• 16:15
  So that's my benchmark. I used to think with Alien Sons I did it.
• 16:20
  It was like, oh, just do what I can and this and that and that,
• 16:23
  you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:24
  It turned out to be near impossible. I got done what I could get done.
• 16:30
  And, you know, it's on YouTube now.
• 16:34
  It's got 140 views, all that work, blah, blah, blah, blah, for nothing, no profit, no profit.
• 16:39
  And, yeah, it does have its spiritual benefits, its philosophical benefits for
• 16:43
  me and whatever, but we also live in the real world. We're getting older and
• 16:46
  uglier. The clock's ticking.
• 16:48
  It'd be nice to make some money, you know what I mean? Yeah.
• 16:52
  So now, right, right? So now with Mother Hunter,
• 16:56
  and I'm looking at it seriously, you know, i'm sort
• 16:58
  of thinking okay 1.5 million budget
• 17:01
  me and kent have written it or kent and i use
• 17:04
  my english you're right i want to pay ourselves 25
• 17:09
  grand each for the script we're human beings that have put blood sweat and tears
• 17:12
  into this so 50 grand for a script on a 1.5 million budget that's what i'm playing
• 17:18
  with now i don't want to i don't want to have another crack in mother hunter
• 17:22
  like i did with alien sons and just try you know and compromise on a script
• 17:26
  and yeah we might be able to pull it together for $12,000,
• 17:28
  I've got $3,000 in the bank, and if I use my credit, no,
• 17:32
  $1.5 million or nothing, mate.
• 17:35
  You know what I mean? So I'm chasing that $1.5 because everyone said according
• 17:40
  to research, 100% of films are $1.5, and they turn a profit.
• 17:47
  And they even gave the reasoning as to why that. They were even saying...
• 17:52
  Films around the $800,000 budget mark, they are the ones with the greatest failure rate. Really?
• 18:01
  See, if you make a movie cheap, you know, $80,000, $150,000. Oh, yeah, of course.
• 18:07
  A certain percentage of them generate a small profit.
• 18:11
  You know, the indie scene, the indie market, not a risk factor but not much of a risk factor.
• 18:16
  Then you've got the sort of mid-level, sort of semi-established indie filmmakers
• 18:21
  that can manage to rustle up $700,000, $800,000.
• 18:25
  And as you can imagine, for around that budget, they really want $2,000 or $3,000
• 18:30
  to achieve their vision.
• 18:32
  But they're sort of credible enough and have enough of a network to rustle up $700,000, $800,000.
• 18:41
  Subconsciously, to the viewer, that doesn't come across as a good movie because
• 18:47
  the viewer, even if they're not cinephiles, can sense that there's been a compromise on this movie.
• 18:53
  Right. You know, it's not bad, but it's just a little bit shitty.
• 18:57
  So the $800,000 mark, that's the danger zone where most movies lose money.
• 19:03
  Right. So basically, if, you know, even if I, so what I'm getting at is with
• 19:08
  Mother Hunter, with this Mother Hunter film we've written, even if a bank manager,
• 19:14
  for example, said to me, hey, Tom,
• 19:16
  yeah, you want $800,000 on loan? I mean, you've got a mortgage on your house or whatever.
• 19:21
  You know, put your house down as collateral. We'll give you the 800 grand.
• 19:25
  Romantically as a filmmaker, it'd be like, yeah, let's do this.
• 19:29
  But now I'm 52 and older and uglier and realise I could end up homeless if this
• 19:34
  800 grand loan doesn't work. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:38
  I would say don't worry about it, mate. I'll stick to my traffic control job
• 19:42
  and just keep paying off my mortgage and at least have a roof over my head.
• 19:46
  Right. So I'm at that, you know what I mean? I'm beyond that romantic stage
• 19:51
  of like, oh, whatever I can get. if I could get, you know, 200 grand or 800 grand?
• 19:55
  No, 1.5 mil or nothing.
• 19:58
  Of all the things I've learned, that's the most key in my mind to make the adventure worthwhile.
• 20:07
  So with Mother Hunter, I'm trying somewhere, somehow, Kent, to get the 1.5 mil.
• 20:15
  Hey, mate, fingers,
• 20:18
  everything crossed. I've got a rabbit's foot, a four-leaf clover.
• 20:24
  And, mate, thank you. Thank you. You've got everything crossed. Look, I have this.
• 20:31
  I have this. I'm just showing a Greek Orthodox Christian little incense burner.
• 20:37
  I have this, and I burn incense to Mother Hunter.
• 20:41
  I don't know if I've told you. When I went to visit Mum in Greece in 2020, I was just after COVID.
• 20:47
  Yes. And the priest is a family friend, little village,
• 20:52
  you know blah blah blah everyone knows so i'm
• 20:55
  leaving and with my mum was 82 83
• 20:58
  at the time she's still with us thankfully yeah she said let's
• 21:01
  go to church before you go back to australia i said okay went to this old orthodox
• 21:06
  church you know beautiful icons i love the artwork and whatever and a priest
• 21:09
  and all so what do you got planned for when you go back to australia i said
• 21:13
  hopefully i'm gonna make a movie and he said a movie and mum goes yeah he's
• 21:18
  serious he's been talking about it since he was 19.
• 21:23
  He said, just wait a minute. So he goes out the back where it's sacred Orthodox
• 21:29
  priest territory, right?
• 21:31
  Right. And he comes out with this, and he said, and I'm showing Kent a cotton
• 21:38
  ball soaked in blessed oil.
• 21:42
  That oil is from Jerusalem. It's from Jerusalem, right?
• 21:46
  The priest before him went to Jerusalem in the late 70s and bought a big ball
• 21:54
  of cotton soaked in holy oil blessed oil from Jerusalem and every year,
• 22:01
  He would go to Jerusalem, and since that priest had retired,
• 22:04
  this new priest that I'm talking about would go and bring back holy oil from
• 22:08
  Jerusalem, blessed oil, and would add it, would add a few drops to that big cotton ball.
• 22:14
  And he said, the reason we do that is because every year it gets stronger.
• 22:19
  The well wishes, the blessings get stronger.
• 22:22
  So he went from his private stash, this big cotton ball soaked in 30-odd years
• 22:27
  of blessed oil from Jerusalem, cut off a piece, and put it in my hand and he
• 22:33
  said, this is the most successful of your movie. There you go.
• 22:37
  So this is for us, Ken. Ken, this is for us, mate.
• 22:40
  Well, that's great. Look, we're all set. We've got the power of the almighty
• 22:46
  behind this. There's no stopping.
• 22:49
  All we need is a million dollars. Anyone listening, all we need now is a million
• 22:53
  dollars of Nicolas Cage to sign on.
• 22:57
  And we're done. We're on our way. Yeah, please leave – Nicholas Cage,
• 23:01
  if you're listening, please leave your details in the comments and we'll get back to you promptly.
• 23:06
  Nick, Nicholas Cage, have we got a role for you, mate? You think he's done it all? He'll jump.
• 23:12
  He'll jump at the chance to carry this cross. Trust me.
• 23:17
  I believe he would, mate. I believe he would. He'd be great for the part,
• 23:21
  and it would really sort of add a bold character to his repertoire,
• 23:29
  you know what I mean? And he could do it so well.
• 23:32
  Certainly one that he hasn't played yet, that's for sure.
• 23:36
  Absolutely. He's played quite a few. He has, mate.
• 23:40
  Before we run out of time, Colin, this has been 100 episodes.
• 23:43
  I didn't think when we did the first one that we'd,
• 23:47
  make it to 100. When I got to 50, I thought, well, we'll see how long it goes.
• 23:51
  Now we're at 100 and I don't know where it goes from here, but,
• 23:55
  I mean, yeah, whichever way it goes, it goes onward and upwards,
• 24:00
  and that's why they, yeah.
• 24:03
  Congratulations to you and to Stinema Yugen, mate, and originally it was podcasting them softly.
• 24:09
  That's right, yeah. I believe, yes, yeah. Podcasting them softly for a long time and then, yeah.
• 24:15
  Unbelievable, mate. 100 episodes strength to
• 24:18
  you you my friend are the true warrior
• 24:21
  of cinema you know keep going
• 24:25
  strong we need you out there for all
• 24:28
  our cinephiles you've got some great interviews my only
• 24:31
  regret is because i often work 70 to 90 hours
• 24:34
  a week plus travel so although i've
• 24:37
  listened to a few of your your podcasts i wish
• 24:40
  i could have listened to more and when i do get time i will
• 24:43
  sit down and listen some more because they're great yes the
• 24:46
  mighty con christopolis check the links in the description
• 24:49
  check out cons film alien sons and
• 24:52
  like i said to any investors listening
• 24:56
  a lot of money nicholas cage we need
• 24:59
  a million dollars and nicholas cage and we
• 25:03
  are going to change exploitation history
• 25:06
  cinema history in one fell swoop thank
• 25:10
  you for being with us for 100 episodes
• 25:14
  my friends we look forward to hopefully 100 more so we'll see what's in store
• 25:22
  and as always my little yugenites thank you for listening to us on spotify or
• 25:29
  wherever you choose to listen to your favorite podcasts I'm Kent Hill,
• 25:33
  and until next time, you've been listening to Cinema!
• 25:38
  Music.