Comcastrodors, please welcome actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician Dave Sheridan to the podcast. Well-known for his roles as Officer Doofy in Scary Movie and Doug in Ghost World, Dave began his career with Saturday Night Live and Second City and is credited with introducing the first reality series to the MTV audience with Buzzkill, a show about three slackers who videotape their pranks. Host Maximüs Groves and guest host Jarren Wood chat with Dave about what it was like pitching to MTV and Fox at age 25 and the inherent conflict of being simultaneous writer, actor, and producer in your own production. The conversation turns to genre spoofs, grindhouse films, traditional film financing versus crowdfunding, time traveling social trends in period pieces, and the mastery of Cuban scientists over disease.
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Some to come Castro how are you. Welcome America the world universe. I finally made it. I won contests sure. That’s right as the entire world prepares for the dawn of a new pod casting a just as we kind of show up late to the party. But we’re going to spread or in a sprint. So speaking of Sprint I am on a cell phone so I drop out of his Cairo right up but where is that your character definitely if it’s spread under this body area that I was always dropping out. I don’t even change carriers from one to another so to speak I’m not going to give them free advertising now right. Yeah I was going to say it’s printed spotty does that mean you are in a major metropolitan area with plenty of coverage. Yeah exactly that’s an insane. I’m not with the sprint. So you that smart man what the hell is Comcast you know them and I thought this was Comcast. I thought I was conned Conteh. Oh yeah. Welcome to the sport line. Now instead of actually giving you help we will make jokes with each other while nothing gets done. So we think this will increase our general company feeling for the National way even if it has the exact same level of service as before but I actually like that yeah it’s the you know it’s sort of like interactive service and kind of like it’s like there was over there was wedding day like Donors wedding on Broadway where you were actually part of the play. It’s like you’re actually high you’re calling for customer support but you’re actually you’re on a pod cast at the same time to let something slip or do right. Yeah. Reset your remote control while we’re interviewing. Yeah but just out of the rage we felt. I guess I guess we started politics and business technology and then we quit. We realized we were out of things to talk about their home. I get it too it’s a mash up of the words there to make the schools under the chair. Yeah yeah but ultimately we think the name’s fun and like connecting with the villainous side you know. So yeah. Any more than I really I don’t know many gay guys I don’t even live anymore but they are slowly removing Cuba from like the enemy list you know and I mean it just took them off with the supporting terrorist list because you’re opening up tree. Now if you have to really think what what is that all about. Well it is a long time that I have to figure out like how to get back in this good guy running around in the morning. It’s you know I guess if I you know who did what you’re not just going to visit with a bike or secretary of state or was that Obama somebody just went to Cuba. Yeah yeah I mean it was scary it was probably Kerry said but but it was like a historical thing but I can just picture you know Castor is dead but it was like Norman Bates from like psycho you know to me where they keep the freaking mommy of it sticking around smelling up the house. Mama tie like shrunken head the skin is all like altering that’s a good metaphor for Cuban socialism. I mean it’s got these ideals going and then you’ve got this nation of impoverished suffering that lives in the pocket of the greatest wealth excess at least on the side of the globe just because of this new world order. They’re going to kids growing up that realize that Cuban cigars are just OK because you look at him freely and the mystique is gone. Yeah yeah exactly but you know that So the real story behind all this opening up the embargo to Cuba getting relations going again eccentrics jerk who wanted to play against Russia but the others. I don’t know if you guys knew this that in the bio tech world which is drug you know drug manufacturing but not manufacturing but drug development right. Or Cuba Cuba. No pun intended to have been operating in a sort of petri dish for forty years and they simply haven’t had access to a lot of stuff up there scientists have developed the number one they’re the number one community country telep thing these kind of natural immunizations Drew naturally into bodies and stuff like that. And these companies Merck and Pfizer it’s billions and billions of dollars at play once they get their hands on the stuff because you’re actually a cure for lung cancer said the body cures itself lung cancer but yet we can have access to all these national Kiran so they’re going to be able to patent and make the money or just run it. Yeah right it’s mutations what they’re doing to take antibodies and they figure out ways to actually make you know shots that you get to make you immune to lung cancer. So well we’ve been trying to fuck you both for what fifty years and in the process they cured lung cancer. They did the works. Yeah I was saying listen learn that they did it because their scientists had this being so far out of the box at the actually creates of so it’s in a weird way that’s like a Petri dish with no notes intended but it was sort of like it was a scientific experiment that was read out you know it’s a total Dr Moreau’s I went you know over their checks for some people but the OP said you know it’s the doctor from traffic park so nature found a way. Yeah. Yes exactly and I don’t know if you also that it’s actually that they have a dinosaur park they’re a real dinosaur park which So that’s something that my it’s really it’s not directly world but it you know it’s a sort of Cuban name but they really did they brought dinosaurs back in. Theme park there so that’s something that they’re very excited about America. Yeah just all of a decade. Yeah well we just admire banish culture but Degas so far that you know we have Meyer so much the emerging culture of Cuba that’s clearly going to wipe across the face the United States and enough like Greece like Greece taking over Rome and a brief ignore Romans bank account I guess the other way around. Doesn’t have any money but you’re talking ancient. Oh yeah yeah. Oh we have so much in common with Greece right. What is that word mean anyway. Greece not because I know there’s a big there’s Greece as in Greece the musical in Greece in your hair but what is the greasy likely to lead to what is that. I guess it’s one Canadian saw Greek people me only where they had to come up with. Which is crazy. It might be mildly offends them since that twenty questions for Dave Sharon and that’s online that is a very good point which we’re going to have one of my working on I’m just finishing up a script that we all raise money and we’ll try to be shooting this fall. But it’s you know I’ve done a few spoofs in my day and I have I have some sympathy in the regular car and so I just wanted to do something that was you know I write a lot of scripts in a lot of my tickets or so outside the parts of the drama are things that I have trouble getting going because people like well that’s not what you known for so I decided to write something that in my brain and in my wheel house that I can get financing for and go make it direct. So this will be my directing debut and it’s a and this gets caught up following party one nine hundred eighty six and it’s it’s if you morphed Friday thirteenth and Halloween with you know Harold and Kumar and Ted’s Excellent Adventure but set the movie in one day. As if it was also made in one nine hundred eighty six Grindhouse So this is your personal time that you’re. Yeah exactly yeah. Stone or body are common. Yeah that’s amazing I like it. But it but it’s set in one nine hundred eighty six as if we made the film. You know they’ll be right I’ll be a title card that this film is made in one nine hundred eighty six and I’m going to cast a lot of these actors along with a lot of electronics. Hard guys like Bill Moseley in today came harder and etc etc So are are do you have what I think are right in the heart. Well absolutely. I know Matthew was more like the slasher stuff during anything with ghosts and demons gets my gets my vote. Not really necessary only an overly huge fan of like just Gore for Gore sake but I love it whatever reason man. I mean demise. OK I was going to say I need to feel like the universe is collapsing and like a psychological rewiring of your own existence but if you like The Shining absolutely top the list. So in our film our sort of Jason Michael Meyers has been pleather head even if he didn’t can’t count the sheet it and a lot going through my wife and my wife in the car right now she’s making phone calls all important super important you know and this would be on Jeopardy someday so I didn’t win money. Answering the question of what pod cast I was gone out and a lot of the time because that guy who took over all of American culture soon as we open the borders. That’s right. Thanks for thanks to curing cancer. Yes long and not so pleather head is like our gates in character and so one of the ideas I have is I’m friends with King Arthur and Tyler me and Derek mirrors and these guys. It’s all play Jason or Michael Byers you know so right. But in various different movies about what I want to do is have them all play fatherhood in one movie. So no longer going to have them on each for like two days as the killer. So the idea would be that I literally have six iconic actors that play killer play this one guy. OK that’s fun. And I think I’m going to change the out that you know I like Jason morphed from the original one various stages of what his constant sort of look like and so right. Weatherhead will go through that sort of evolution but within the film. Is there going to be any cuts back and forth in the same scene where he goes from Version A merchant the expulsive that’s possible. I haven’t I haven’t really gone that you know you’re you’re asking a question that people ask me on set. Right right and I think when we’re shooting the video editing there is excited yeah I know the one where he’s wearing a wristwatch on the left hand one word Wrangler swatch on the right one might be and I and I watch this equipment are just kind of like destroying it after the fact. Yeah you’re getting too far ahead of the game. So I think we may have run into a tunnel. Yeah we might allow us to double check. This is normally where some of it. I told you I was going to cut this quality phone call brought to you by Sprint. The answer to that is that the duo which is actually a trio you know are sort of pseudo heroes aren’t yours that they are shooting a little documentary of their band in the road trip and so they’re covering that would it be. Just camera so I definitely will have to V.H.S. build it just put it in terms of what we’re really going to shoot with on the regular camera it will probably. I’m really that up to the side. What would be most likely wouldn’t shoot at the highest and digital we can shoot and then you degrade everything down from there because you would do your post effects on the highest level of digital and then you once all the effects are done then you degrade everything Cordingley still and post in the journal. OK that’s fine I think it will look like you know they will have that Grindhouse you know Machete Kills kind of vibe to it where it will seem antiquated in term way maybe to teens cut out some trains together. You know that kind of fun I think is going to go over real well in our like Colorado. Maybe D.C. Alaska are good examples. They let me begin Guam. They’re just getting movies from one nine hundred eighty six they won’t even understand and like in the future although I mean aliens get alley McBeal a thousand years late or something from the broadcast. Well they’re going to be eighty S. actors in one movie from the eighty’s and then there is see them again in this movie if you like what happened. It would be it is kind of interesting that like you know we travel to different speeds so you think of a T.V. show like The audio will probably get there you know thousands of years before the video and they have to wait they’ve been listening to it like an audio play well when they finally see what Archie Bunker looks like only if they’re using Comcast right. Yeah. Comcast or spa would also be kind of funny that if they sense with signal that the laugh track to get there years later too and they were laughing at the wrong spot or they thought it was a romantic reading and they were like oh yeah well we still are slick. Very special episode of whatever had a special. So I thank you guys so let me ask you a question is this pot kettle bailable like what I mean there’s not been happy with how do you. Yeah I don’t know if it was connected to a I don’t know if it was connected to a video Elementary. So I don’t because I have the poster that once. Halloween party one hundred six actually had the one she’d already done that. Perfect. We put all the media on comcast dot com and the on the Web So it’s going to strip through i Tunes to turn all the other directory services and what right and my guess and catching up with the rest of the pack in terms of any promotional material you want to add just for to us an e-mail and we’ll make sure it gets attached. So OK yeah well since we mentioned Kong country very often due to the contrary that I shot thirty four years ago. Oh yeah it’s with me and Dave techno and it’s called L.A. cyber vice where he’s sort of an antiquated Robo Cop and we shot a manner of sin city all getting blown up and when I say I you know basically when I saw it on to your ear like you know as you know did that a couple years ago. From from point what did you think of so you watched as you watch all of it. Now I watched trying to think of what I got up to where I get in a rage if it got made and I had a movie that to me where did I get up to I will you know what I think I watch just now I did watch something like in Hitler’s at the end and it’s dying in the soul and I think it bounced around I think I watched the part surfed that he got getting went through the time portal on Rec like skateboard down the keyboard and then I kind of just. And then I move forward from there to the end to the other thing to do. I was impressed with the. They didn’t over do the the eighty’s like the V.H.S. line something like that that I thought they had it pretty much nail on the head. I was with something like that and I feel like it was from an editor standpoint or a visual effects guy same point it could be an easy thing to overshoot accidentally overshoe overshoe what then fly to over degrade to the video or or make it too I mean I think they did a good job I think whoever was doing it was mimicking for the big stories from the eighty’s yet I think and there’s no good because that thing was you know composite hidden in the you know with the green screens in the stuff like that with like still photos. There’s no getting away that Kidman Eric aspect you know in this sort of like now are you know like there’s an Adult Swim aspect to that sort of proportions being often errors and stuff like that in the sort of C.D.’s that’s up you know like it was so I guess that’s why they were like let’s not degrade is too much because at a certain point you know we’re also losing the artistry of the palette that we’re actually creating a sort of collage art form here. At the same time you know in the heavenly sense no absolutely. Like I said I think they hit the sweet spot with that I thought they could easily overshot it. I think that’s probably the reason was what you said is that they didn’t want to cover up too much of the hard work they don’t yak and there was a sort of there’s a palette there there is a canvas that wasn’t just oh it’s eighty’s but there was that layered effect going on that had nothing to do with the eighty’s but I loved my guess my favorite part was where they had the fight scene and it was a giant with the videogame robot and basically scene changes and how big they jumped you know kind of like jump to the other aspect. For the track and you know that was a great thought it was really funny how you just ended up beating the guy be like in the delivery his shorts a nigger line over just like slaves but he wouldn’t stage at some point getting thrown against a satellite you know to me like clearly losing him and it was like I’d be the bus literally got the guy out. So the speaking of it these guys were crowdfunding these guys went to the Internet and they got out there a lot of money from a lot of people based on a trailer they made with the project. Well yes and no. That’s correct and incorrect. The they did the movie the green screen stuff was already in the can. It’s only thirty one minutes. Right you know right here the big guy who directs sand and bird now and David something he started in any directed it and he wrote it probably did a lot of positive insults but he you know than the money it was already shot because I spoke to him during his Kickstarter I actually called him up and he basically everything was shot in terms of the actors because that was a screen three so your money was all that was just posts you know I was like what I needed to get the post in the build up and maybe some you know proper edge and shit like that you know because obviously the video game coming alive or more of all the props it need to build out his his apartment and stuff like that. So but he did shoot all of the talking tought stuff already. You know she was just like yeah I was in shock as to that I was questioning my like well you need the money for what let’s you know that I was going to possibly donate and I may have a king I’m not going to say I’m not going to confirm or deny. Well when something like that we always we all know that the lion’s share of the work is going to happen in post but yes to my question. With your current project are you so. Also financing this thing or you going to go similar route. OK So you know what I’m going to do. And so other like filmmaker that was in the park with other guys are you saying there’s a it’s like a cinephile type of park and we were just kind of exploring whatever topics like I’m I’m not one to like always going to like say everything I’m going to do going to hold some not to like you guy I’ll remember I put it on my checklist that I’ve already told this to people and it’ll be you guys I’ll tell you what I’m going to do and then but I can’t keep spreading it around the world didn’t it was don’t go blah blah blah but OK so here’s a situation I I raise money or you know was involved with the walking deceased as you guys know right absolutely. And then which is a spoof of Walking Dead. And we shot that movie for one hundred twenty grand and we raised the money from three parties one party put in seventy grand one party putting fifty grand and another guy putting twenty five thousand dollars. That’s part of our fundraiser. They were great party big balls easy D.C. style. It was like you know different groups against you would say but different three different and each put in money and the whole thing is like one forty we got in the can for one twenty. We spent ten on post on the editing side of post and then we spent another ten on the sound design in the score you know higher note of the score in all the deliverables because once you sell a thing there’s all the digital deliverables every you know Europe want to get this guy in there it’s all different U.K. packages or whatever and what they’re called Electric. So bottom line was it really was one twenty but it ended up the investor out of pocket one for. So it’s making good money right now. But here’s the thing because when you get investors to give you the money will they tend to make contracts where they’re going to get the bulk of the returns and so they got like you know the I think the standard you know they’re going to get fifty percent of everything so they’re after they get their money back so the first thing is first they get paid off so you don’t make any money there on the first hundred forty grand and then you start splitting money would ban but also since you signed a deal with the distributor you’re splitting the first initial money with the distributor then that fifty percent that come to you you’re getting not a fifty percent to the investors now you get twenty five percent and then you start giving it up between all the producers and every actor gets a point now that they’ve got Gordon gate in the point. So you wind up all the sudden go on Holy shit that you know the guy that did the majority the work have two percent of the whole movie. We’re such a success. Yeah exactly. It turns out to be OK this check or my my cable bill this month looking rock. So I’m trying to avoid financing this heart of you know the Halloween movie. I’m trying to avoid going to investors that are going to glom on to fifty percent even though they raised the money so what I look into doing is starting a company. So instead of people investing in the specific film that they can then be participants and I’m just going to finance a new corporation and then within that corporation of that pot I will finance a movie and then all the profits go back into the corporation which then I can continue to finance the movie in the investors are sole investors in a corporation that the idea is to build the I can lease up and build the worth of a company and they get their money will be split up our minds. Somebody wants to buy the ten. Well films that we need within this company. OK So that way. Long term investment inside of the sort of right. Exactly that way it’s not. I’m some guy on a golf course at best. No I think that’s Sherrod’s Film Company case trauma meets Roger Corman little mini studio. OK so I felt like that was more longer like to me that way I can get money out of you know like taking myself a fee to be the C.E.O. or you know like getting fees for myself but that way I always have money coming back in the pot to finance the next movie and I’m not constantly out to raise more money on the next movie. So so that’s one thing but then you also mention the Kickstarter and I’ve never done a Kickstarter and I know I’ll tell you why because it is a lot of work and from what I’ve seen and friends of mine that have done it it’s just so much hustling I mean by the time you’re done you’re so tired you’re out of your warts and Sharon is going to leave your voicemail again Cheryl come and cook your home cooked meal and Sharon will sleep with your wife no matter how that year. So there are little things her company did one of those and they had like like they sold a misty three K. commentary on your favorite film but they sold like ten of them and write something like we have to do with this and it’s like exhausting right. So that for film it takes like six months even if you’re just putting speakers in the tank like a lot of brick work and there are companies that will do the film or you serve for a purpose and meaning like OK here’s your Kickstarter will run your Kickstarter it will do all this for film and the rewards like they’re going to take a certain amount of money and that’s a great company a lot of money to stop occurring but I probably will do a Kickstarter. I just got to be smart with the rewards not being something that’s going to just be so draining and time consuming. You know and but the social network. That the only way you know because the thing is you know what really kick started to be that you just asked all your friends and family but in one of those on live and on the marketing. Oh yeah. They’re writing there they’re being smart about I guess the reward structure is definitely it’s if you’re doing something that has like a home in it featured in the movie having people that pledge sort about submitting like you know you tell me I have to submit if they pledge that much like a family style picture throw to frame one of the sets you know and you get up the wall littered with just random goofy families and they’re like oh I’m in the movie and you know things like that it’s all about the creative way in which you do it but never over promise because then you’re stuck with it at the end. Yeah yeah exactly. The good they would like a hollowing party massacre type of movie is yeah you can promise a lot of people like you can get killed. OK And you know the one part of the party scene that like obviously everyone did but didn’t slaughter so it was always my childhood dream to be murdered viciously in the grotto following film. Yeah well I’ll let you know them with my kids. I forgot to tell you those were those are twenty thousand dollars and dreams can make you go to Disney World or you can get started and be killed and it’s nice to find out what a dollar value to real sentimental value. Yes but here’s the situation. So as you know when you do Kickstarter not all of them run this way. Kickstarter definitely has a larger thumbprint you know most people are used to Kickstarter it’s like Nike It’s like dolls or Coca-Cola you know but there is an ego go and I Go Fund Me or whatever and so I would probably from going to go ahead and do what I’m going to do the mall somehow think it was going to be in terms of the service thing somewhere for that that you can milk the entire public three times. I would do it I think if I think he caught one of the things I want to do go it with my I.Q. is I only want to raise six dollars ninety eight. So what I’m going to have work that will tally up to like two hundred fifty thousand be the fastest funding movie you can you know and I’ll do a dunking Starwars like you know I figure I can make this movie people like you know certain on one job will be put up but I wouldn’t be here so you know I you know for one case appeals this is the guy who tried to finance this potato salad. Right. Which exactly into anything. Exactly so I just thought I’d try to have the record for the the smallest Kickstarter ever truck attempted You know Nina guides only trying to raise you know it’s three dollars ninety five cents and then yet still put on the rewards like the first reward started a hundred dollars. Right exactly. Three Don’t work the other thing is though if you don’t that you know like let’s say you set your goal at two fifty or three hundred. The other key is to make sure you know like if I go and raise the money with the company for it and I have that money in an escrow account then I think you might kick starter for this project. Well I have the money to back the project on Kickstarter so even if I get to one hundred fifty thousand well then I come in swoop in and I found it at the last second to collect these they want this right then a lot of hello to everyone that they let us go to live in love us and it’s like holding your money hostage. Right now we’re going to turn it off you don’t finish the last ten grand you know. Oh yeah that’s the weirdest thing in the world but the main guy Kickstarter he just ignored me a week ago and give you some tips. And was that was he said like near the end you want to do a matching fund donor saying and you put out like hey guys we just got a generous ought offer just fund you know. Eighty thousand dollars if we get a matching thought right and then that’s the way that you know you could put that in and maybe some to check out the logic put up a thousand or you know you just fund it yourself but that way you have it built in on the fun. Now you said something you put in your the end. Ok for sure. I did see your trailer for the the walking to see some of those very funny and I saw people are pretty vicious online and reviews for it. Oh I don’t pay attention to two years and that’s the last moment my mom. Well how did you go to Terry Sheridan movies dot com You know we’re going to do that for all her future guess checking with her mother’s first just to get a nice now of what they’re into. Well actually the reviews of this film are you talking about comments the actual written reviews of the film both kind of because it’s the good thing is I am just judging I did look at like they are the harder ones like bloody disgusting or. Fangoria and the ones that were hard based. They gave it you know either you know middle offense or favorable reviews right. And I was you know I want I really care about because they’re the ones that sort of get the spectrum of shooting something at one hundred twenty grand. They understand big movies they understand you know shooting something on a shoestring budget with a lot of unknown people and so they they review it based on that and then there’s other ones that it’s probably not real good. They probably didn’t understand the budget level that we shot of that or the concept of how we were shooting it or understand the level of trauma you know these type of trauma movies you know what to expect in terms of production level and how much jokes you can afford because the one hundred twenty one you can afford the person who gets killed it’s typical gags you know you might you might want to write a bunch of funny stuff but you can’t shoot that bus. Now going to months or so. Well from what I hear about how they treat background actors pretty soon we might be able to actually chop them into pieces. Yes So that would be the best cost saving measure ever take these people and just you know lay waste. Right. Blow it. Well we had a large on the short free will on Facebook in just Tom examine Walker clubs. They came with all their makeup done you know doing like we don’t really have a makeup artist it was just like a you want to be in this movie come to the mall. Six P.M. and you know out of like three hundred forty people that responded maybe fifty showed up but we did have a good number and they were made up and I’m not saying it’s like it saves a lot of money and then maybe maybe Cuba will come up with us on the virus that we discovered documentary about US comedy just as long as we feel my in Cuba the moment they know that there’s actually zombie movies you know I mean they have gotten a Weekend at Bernie’s that has played it I was just not the first. Are we going to parties too. That’s one to be found for my children with some of bin Laden’s even that was an old phone line. Yeah and they were still in bash. Yeah yeah they by the way I was I was working in New York for three months over the winter and I was always on the bus in the back room and some guy on his i Phone six giant on the big i Phone six was watching streaming episodes of Nash that I like and I think and I just thought it was funny because here’s a fucking T.V. show from one nine hundred seventy three. This guy’s watching on his you know brand new i Phone streaming it but yet he’s also watching it was commuting. Oh you know I mean like that’s that’s what you decide to watch you watch mash you know like the oddest thing. Yeah I mean it’s a great telling of the seventh year of the Korean War you know twenty fifteen. Yeah. It’s nothing like the first year which is like the funny thing one it’s like that would have been a whole different movie or T.V. show. Probably a little bit less funny. Yeah yeah. Just not as funny and also not as thoughtful and just students like I don’t know I just feel like you just you know maybe they’re a bit more mustaches thinkers like peeling mustaches were more prevalent at the beginning of that war and then as time went on the moustache went out of favor so as you see in the show not a lot of guys wear mustaches and just Sydney the psychiatrist is the only one with the moustache. OK that’s very important for present day American turns to go back in time as they enter into these you know documentary style period pieces. Yeah exactly. No you’ve got to know you know your time period of course just like you look at Mad Men it’s working huge but nobody realizes that they ripped up this well you know I’m saying it’s a good go watch but it’s wealth and then come back and tell me you love Matt. Wow That’s that’s a reference that I have to look back on that I had no idea where they were going to put me. Swope to check that out. Yeah you’re right. So there is a lot of bad venturi but I like these well better than I like madmen through through the creative process. You’re the writer and the director you obviously hire on a I guess a talent to D.P. You know what what is your what is the part the process is a must for you. Where do you what do you think you shine is in front of a computer or word processor printing out the script which I really like to get into the angles in the directing. Oh yeah no I think I think screenwriting Yeah I I I’m not saying I’m right. Porsches. But I definitely craft the page you know I mean I I read a lot of scripts because I act in other movies and the other people’s screen scripts and I probably spent too much time on the pages because I don’t know why but I like I like action lines to be balanced you know if I have a if I have a like two of one word or two words hanging off on an extra line I try to rewrite the whole thing to that it doesn’t have those extra lines extra words hanging off you know I mean like you know I don’t even like sometimes you can look at the page without it reading it and just seeing actually if it’s symmetrical balanced enough because I like to have balanced things and I like to have things flow really fast reach you know. So some people get too detailed when they write and then I feel like that’s maybe why some people connect miked up because maybe I’m not detailed enough but I feel like you don’t need overly detailed stuff because all that’s going to come when they start hiring other people who put it all in because they’re creative people you hire to do it and I do you know I don’t leave out too many nuts and bolts but sometimes somebody sometimes people paint a beard they’re in love with their own writing so much that they get long winded too much of a little picture of what the apartment looks like you know I’m saying where you could probably and I read great scripts you know like a specie American American Beauty. Yes script I just read Cameron Crowe’s to write you see these one you know I got I got a Karate Kid and I got pastimes original high both of those scripts are just great screenwriting just so can sight and the dialogue is so snappy and the action is written really sparse you know saying like one or two lines but gets too much said by by deduction by the word choices how the person is explaining you know the vocabulary used to explain why. What they’re trying to say they’re very minimalistic but so expressive at the same time. So would you say that would you say that the choices you’ve made is is because you’ve experienced it and you understand that you can write you can be long winded on the page but then when you get on to the actual set with the actual act of the actual actors that a lot of that can just go out the window because there’s something better right in front of you. Yes exactly. Yeah I mean there’s so much. Everything changes so much with you which is what pisses me off about the writers’ guild because I’m in the writers’ guild when they are and you know the Academy Awards when they submit their screenplays for best screenplay when they send us you know they used to send us actually printed out screenplay and now I gotta go online download them they’ll send you like a little like or they’ll send you to keep up with all the Nazi cause with the flash drives. So Warner Brothers will send all the Warner Brothers scripts on a flash I thank you for your consideration and all of the scripts that you sent for consideration for Academy Awards or you know Writers Guild Awards they’re all transcripts from the movie they’re all transcripts of the movie written by another writer not the actual writer. They’re actually physical transfers and that’s what you buy when you go into a store and you you know you see these things that are glossy colored version instead of the actual source but you’re actually getting a transcript from a writer a ghost writer that’s set down in front of the final cut. You know the final thing that was it was actually screened in my day right. They rely on the dialogue to match. So like first for instance Ghost World which I was in Ghost World I’m not in the script the original script the ghost world my character is not a negative. Terry’s like up and then Klaus they called me up saying do you want to come improvise. Sure they’re going to find a place. So there is no God where people are getting awards for other people’s improvisation. Yeah yeah that’s something actors. Yeah actors change actors like things are really worked on set so much the actors bring lines to the table the director will change the line in the directors not the writer and then you know what you’re saying because you discover things like that or something might be art department like put something somewhere and so all the sudden so much goes into the final product but yet then somebody comes back and we write the script to match the movie and I’m not I’m talking about a shooting script I’m talking about this is a transcript of the actual So therefore there might be twenty five percent of the dialogue might be stuff that the actors you know manipulated in props which is what the fuck Academy. Yet no reflection of the writer’s talent at all. Yeah I think I’d rather I’d rather have them get judged on what they intended the movie to be like that girl band like today might as well get an award for adapted screenplay based upon the original book. Why would you have adapted screenplay when there are definite screenplays. So you think you think we’re going to submit the well as a title in the horse slash party following part in one nine hundred eighty six minute to be going soon into the Smithsonian not just go to the lab or Library of Congress. So that’s again. So you’re really quick. So I love I think I like writing I think I have the most power when I write because you are God at the keyboard you can write anything you want you know I obviously if I’m writing something I want to produce and direct I tend not to write any. I won’t because I know that I’m going to be the guy who’s been smoking out of me. But I’ve done I’ve written stuff like I just had a writing gig in New York oh talking about for two months that I was just a writer on the T.V. show and then they said oh we want you to go to New Orleans and help co-directed. Well that’s what I thought myself because I wrote all this stuff thinking I’m like my aunt and I’m going home right next to you know it’s like you want me to produce the stuff I just wrote God though I think if I wrote things that I was like there’s no way I don’t know how we’re going to figure out I’m writing this draft coming out of the sky you know and I’m like we can’t you know it’s a rascal balanced guy that’s not going to happen when you like it really because I didn’t know I’d have to be shooting it so you get like a professional Zeiner for looking office space of an architectural attritional be like none of this is possible right. You know you’re doing precisely that to yourself. Yeah I’m building a house right now and I just found out when I picked the plan that I wanted. That’s exactly Daryn. I just found out there is a difference between a designer and the architect right so when I pick the design plans that’s when they finally tell me though you do understand that was a designer and it can actually be like this because the architect gets to figure out now how to really make all this work and what the designer built doesn’t work you know Mike I didn’t know there was you know it’s kind of like the guy that draws the car and then an engineer that actually at the make the car throw code and everything along the way. That’s why I like the concept cars always look awesomely cool and then they come out it’s like well why did the bumper turn in that and they’ve been saying it or why why is the window much bigger it’s because well all the sudden the engineer had to make the thing and it was going to pass code with all like the legal stuff that needs to be on the street you know nothing about those when it comes at all clunky. OK now I think. What commentary on a movie called Stardust and Neil Gaiman’s And were you watching. Were you watching the commentary or listening to the commentary. Well the commentary was over the movie and they were you were you you were listening to the commentary track you can just go there. While watching the movie that they were not intending on but at one point he he talks about Neil Gaiman’s talks about he’s walking they have a a sky vessel sky ship in the book and he’s like you know he’s on the set and he’s These looking at at the actual ship that they had to construct is like you know I feel an immense amount of responsibility for all this work. Had I known that this were going to be creative you know I was like I could have made them you know I could have written them in a caravan something very simple to make and setting on this grandiose ship that they’ve had to construct in real life for this movie and I feel oh you know and they don’t want to think about jobs put for like seven years to create this fantasy other world you have the budget. That’s what I’m talking about like when I’m writing my own film for me to direct I got to be and I’m not so much conscious of the budget but like like for instance just cut out a scene where the guys get in a car and it’s it’s out of gas you know it’s that whole thing about the cars not starting then it does start the high wire it and then it runs out of gas in the darshan out out of gas and he is not a car about fifty feet away. So they decide to run out instead of just jumping in that other car they cited the gas from that car and bring it back and spit it into you don’t want to killers like slowly chasing them around all you slow spots and but I also wrote it where they had to get out and change a tire but the guy gets stuck in this not you know the actor get like oh you know they’re in mud and he’s like need deep in the mud and then I realized I don’t want to shoot that I go down that’s kind of funny. Oh not a second. We kick might up I guess what I don’t want to work with water I don’t want to I don’t want to hit the reset with the actor we didn’t need in the but not change wardrobe so I got rid of all that simply out of if I was just waiting for someone else to make I’d be like parents really funny stuff. But now that I have to shoot it I’m like I don’t want to work with but I don’t want to make what I don’t want you to get money I don’t want the actor to be wet and cold I don’t want to have to reset it. Wardrobe every time does it it’s just the whole thing he like it was going to be a giant pain so I cut it out. Trust me when i Pod casting for its complexity and that is that thing that is interesting though so your experience directing and making these these projects is now influencing the artistic side of your writing at least in least when it comes to your own projects. Yes yes exactly. Only when it comes to my own brother. Like I said if if if I was writing for someone else I’d let them figure out the problems because at that point I’d definitely want to write my vision of exactly what I want to do and say you know that’s what you got out of would happen anyway and throw money at it some of the giant studio time zone free. Yeah Dave sharing hasn’t had that movie produced and alternate like just going back to why I like the writing I would get what’s what you gave it away and I wouldn’t say that’s what I start so much but it is what I enjoy because it’s me myself in you know in front of a computer and there’s nobody getting you know it’s a nobody telling me what do you know so it’s the closest thing to being a totally self sufficient or sell profession why it’s your pure creative expression. Exactly it’s a given it is working in the crash and then it and then then we have issues. So that has happened where we had a studio brought about a month ago it was. Thank the government in that month anyway. So so a lot of people credit you as bringing reality T.V. to M.T.V. Yes. Good i’m not understand. Well that cold room one hundred six and what was that like just jumping into this sort of figured out sort of method. But OK so in one thousand nine hundred ninety four only started producing the show because it aired that in one. I was twenty five. Oka born in sixty nine year it was a good year we landed on the moon and we got rid of that dang Martin Luther King. Yeah yeah like I just went along with you I think that’s a joke by the way I don’t. I’m glad you can I don’t really know. Well it’s good to get out of the top your career in your real blaze of glory gone. And what was your position on the show where they say credit it was called buzz kill. Right because here you have buzz kill I created it I shot a pilot on my own shot a pilot and then I brought it to Fox I shot it. We shopped around everywhere but I had Fox offered me a deal and M.T.V. offered me a deal and I showed N.T.V. because I knew that they were the better chance that I was going to make it on air with a company like M.T.V. at that time were M.T.V. was that they spent money on something where they were going to air it because they weren’t they were in the business of making a T.V. show and just canning it you know and putting it on a shelf and Fox I figured OK I’ll probably have a pilot out of it and it will go anywhere. OK now. What I would have loved to have chosen part but I felt like I did make the right choice because we got twenty one episodes out of it with and I was creating a producer and I acted in wrote it. It’s very you know I didn’t know at that time that was as is so I would you know those were like when there were a hundred grand you know non-linear fifteen the first they were we were at the part where you reading on your laptop I don’t see that you know when people were actually creating the metaphor for cutting room floor. When I was one of those you know we have it but there were tapes. It was all it was all giant Beta tapes and stuff they were getting loaded into big scuzzy hard drives that were like you know that it was amazing this is thirty sixty eight this is this is a three hundred dollars drive with a thousand dollars. Yeah drive thirty six thirty six Barracuda you guys were about a thousand dollars and because I did buy an editing system once I got the show going but it was a a new tech not a tri caster what was a toaster Video Toaster ran off a shuttle or whatever the yammering of a Commodore common or four thousand or so and I had two thirty six gig study drives that were like you know that’s what Rand but we still were able to load like you know a couple hours of footage on the home to be a two part series. Yeah yeah but it was in a way the way that not only was it set up there in the original lab it was you know like when the editing system they don’t all that stuff on with the reel to reel you know the to Kate that you know they’re Do you like the baby take the baby and then a master so they. Well one beta cable free roll on that record and the other one what computerized the timecode timecode would then click on your next at it right and the original like non-winning years were very similar even though I was non-linear and you can move stuff from hard drive a hard drive so you hadn’t any hard drive into the hard drive. It really needed to figure out where you wanted to put it to be so that they would bounce back and forth properly and they would lock up. That sounds like someone’s weird crazy idea as he’s trying to convert to mediums. Yes exactly the sort of idea of like they were still working up the same process but they had a new medium but they still the idea of how it works was still in the older process by using these hard drives as those of the play decks you know a would be would roll and it was just there answered it to the speed problem. That way there too. That way you know because they couldn’t get information back and forth to one drive quick enough. That would just walk up with an insulating a twenty five to be pushing the M.T.V. and Fox. Now I didn’t know any better I started it the best thing about me I am creative but I’m even more of an idiot than anything else. And so to me that kind of like you know that the jerk from like Steve Martin and I don’t know any better. People just go wow he’s so funny now I’m just like you know I’m kind of an idiot but that was so dumb that you laughed at it. I’ll just alone because I was like hey there is whatever we got this thing you want like wow he’s so brilliantly and bravely to the Arctic never seen anything to show I mean you know behavior should be original show it more like a jackass. And they kind of couldn’t understand doing bitch in public and sort of messing with people but they couldn’t understand that. The non dot is that you know dot I suspect if they have they need it to be a prank with like. Yeah but what the what the overall goal and where is the reveal and I was like no there’s no Rufio I’m just and you go start a fight as a superfan pilot I shot the pilot I shot I went to a Chicago Bear getting dressed as an that’s online I could send you that this speaks to its online. Yeah I got a bear getting dressed as a Buffalo Bill and it is one nine hundred ninety two that I shot isn’t so O.J. Simpson stuff it was done but was just cooling off you know what I mean. So O.J. played for the Buffalo Bills and so I had an O.J. Simpson’s Jersey and I was like in the Buffalo Bills make up and I went on like the fifty yard line in the Bears. Actually it just went crazy until like the third quarter when people started throwing stuff at me by the fourth quarter guys were punching me at the end I was getting arrested. That’s good to finally get the point. Yeah only I thought you know this was about that this was you know fifteen years before you know what but it was you know pretty but tree Jack as they were sure was once killed had element to it but what they added in was a form that I was all but somebody we need that. What your goal is and then the reveal that you actually get up and point the body versus just being so much experimental You know what I guess at that time I was going to grow a theatre you know where we have cameras didn’t he answers and we were just perform. So so so happy for anything. Something tells me they dropped their pretense of the story structure. Yeah well you know and even then he was doing that stuff for years but I think you can draw a direct line. There is buzz kill ten green then there are Jack and you know each one has a story of elevation in some way. The metamorphosis of Candid Camera M.T.V. style. Right right. Then it’s been about an hour. We’ve had a really good time talkin any last words. Hark you see how much I talk I really don’t think I’m a gentleman of last words and your first words for any other time anyone will ever my wife said thank God thank you so I hear no like you know so you want to keep your eye out for Halloween party. Shout out all the parents here. Comcast well invented in the US Do you have a Twitter. Where can people follow you on social media. Yeah I get where I have other things but I don’t go there. What are they will put on a blog post something awesome and I was there. Thank you so much again man and will be in such systems already published on the right of all thank you and I hope you cut down on the little one I like I like that going to be ten minutes. My Son of all let me just I’m sure. All right. Parts were adequate. Obama bought it and engineer. All right well Family Affair great big now you know now you know why go right start to have as much as us. That’s right. Now works for someone recording you can only get Mike and Mike far apart because far worse. As you know no one wanted. Well I don’t know if he really well. So we call it words or Basically you’re seeing life leaders were before they did you last. Well you know I don’t think I don’t want to you know. Right. I think it really well and good stuff you know.
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