Hollywood is Dead
Hollywood is Dead
9 // Dir. of Crash Site // Jason Sperling
Jason Sperling's fingerprints are all over modern television's visual language. With three Primetime Emmy nominations and two VES Award nominations, he's shaped shows like American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, and Bridgerton through his visual effects expertise. Yet his most profound creative achievement might be his wildly successful directorial debut – a short film that took nearly a decade to complete.
"Crash Site," starring Steven Yeun and Sam Richardson, has exploded to over 560,000 views on YouTube in just three weeks. But this "overnight success" began in 2013 when Sperling and writer Miles Brandman launched a Kickstarter campaign that raised $13,000 to shoot their sci-fi story. What followed was a winding journey through post-production challenges, life interruptions, and eventually a pandemic delay before the finished film reached audiences.
This remarkable timeline speaks to Sperling's central philosophy about creative work: "No one ever fails in Hollywood. They just give up." His persistence paid off spectacularly, revealing how independent filmmakers can thrive by focusing on story fundamentals rather than massive budgets. The film demonstrates Sperling's core belief that visual effects should serve narrative rather than dominate it – even as he navigates the industry's complex relationship with advancing technology.
Sperling provides fascinating insights into how he secured his high-profile cast (a friendship with Yeun from The Walking Dead led to Richardson joining before his breakout success), the challenges of indie production, and the future of filmmaking in an AI-influenced landscape. While acknowledging genuine concerns about technological disruption, he sees opportunity in democratized tools that allow creators to "zig when others zag."
For anyone pursuing creative work against seemingly impossible odds, Sperling's journey offers both practical wisdom and philosophical encouragement. As he puts it: "Human beings creating art are being the most human they can be." His story reminds us that Hollywood isn't dead – it's evolving – and determined storytellers still find ways to break through when they refuse to give up on their vision.
Please consider following the podcast on Instagram, TikTok, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube!
HiD Artwork //
Mark Vega - Instagram
Theme Music //
Try Epidemic Sound (This helps my channel if you sign up using this link)
Thank you for listening; it means the world to me!
LONG LIVE INDEPENDENT FILM!
The what's up everybody. It's Tyler and guess what? I've got another podcast episode for all y'all. Yeah, I'm really excited for this one. This was a good one. This was a really fun, informative, educational, inspiring and inspired podcast. This episode is brought to you by me.
Speaker 1:I have no sponsors, but I'm in a new space. I have no sponsors, um, but I I'm in a new space. I rented an office and it's just a black box. There's no windows, which means there's no distractions. Um, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to kind of feel like I'm getting back into a groove. I feel like I'm really feeling it put it that way, I just want to make these episodes for all y'all out there. But also for me, it's like I feel like, uh and I mentioned this in the podcast for a brief second but I do feel like you know I'm I'm projecting every time I'm talking, uh, about inspiration or motivation or anything like that, and um. So these conversations are really important for me and I hope that they are at least resonating with you to go out and make your dreams come true. You know, as the Duplass brothers say, the Calvary is not coming. You have to go out and make your film, and I do believe in that, and my guest did that and it wasn't easy Surprise.
Speaker 2:It's not easy.
Speaker 1:It's not easy to do this whole thing. So if you are feeling like you're in the trenches right now, if you're feeling like everything you're doing is somehow wrong, just know that you're not alone. There's a lot of people out there that feel like that, yet somehow they overcome it. So I think that's important to understand is that they are also feeling like the world is crashing down, but they're still creating, and I think that's a really, really, really important takeaway from this episode. Let's see Updates. I do have. I've got a big update.
Speaker 1:Actually, our film is completely done. So when I said it was done, before it's cut, it's made, it's everything. But you have to go through a whole rigmarole when you do a film of this size. That is called deliverables and our first film, um, it wasn't, it wasn't big, it wasn't a big movie, and it turns out the distributors were not super great and thorough. So the deliverables are like you know, you give us a file and you know all the legal paperwork and we're good, all the legal paperwork, and we're good. But on something like this, there's an infinite what seemingly is an infinite list of paperwork and also digital stuff, dpx stuff, and some of these things can take a long time to do and Michael was all over it. So he's sending out the hard drive today and that over it. So he's sending out the hard drive today and that is it.
Speaker 1:Then it's up to y'all to follow along with this podcast and social media the Dresden Sun on Instagram, archetype Pictures on Instagram, tyler Lockme on Instagram, hollywood is Dead on Instagram and follow along to see when the film actually comes out, because we're going to need y'all to rally and come out and see this thing. Really, really, really, really excited to get this out to you, and I will actually be having Michael on the podcast next week. We're recording on Monday and I will have an episode out to y'all to uh, to listen. I don't know where it's going to go, um, you know, michael and I kind of riff and and just go and uh, but there's going to be a lot of conversation around around Dresden sun, you know, and what our dreams and aspirations are for it. And uh, you know, and and for what's next for us.
Speaker 1:So you know, I hope you uh subscribe to this podcast on whichever platform that you're listening to it, and, man, I cannot wait for you guys to listen to this episode. It's a good one. I'm going to let you get to it. Thank you so much for listening and supporting this podcast. If you can share it with your friends, if you find something really interesting about the episode, and I will be so grateful. All right, enjoy, I will be so grateful. All right, enjoy.
Speaker 1:Today's guest is someone whose fingerprints are all over the visual language of modern television and streaming. With over 20 years of experience in visual effects, three Primetime Emmy nominations and two VES Award nominations, jason Sperling has helped shape the look and feel of shows like American Horror Story, the Walking Dead, the Umbrella Academy, vikings, valhalla Three, body Problem and Bridgerton, among many others. He's worked in both the trenches and at the top, from on-set VFX supervision to executive leadership, as director of VFX for original series at Netflix, where he oversaw more than 60 active titles and helped lead product development around bidding, budgeting and global VFX strategy. Jason's career spans vendor-side work at Stargate Studios and Ingenuity Studios, freelance supervision on high-budget genre series and executive oversight on some of the most ambitious productions in streaming. He's also a proud member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Visual Effects Society.
Speaker 1:But beyond the resume, jason is deeply committed to one thing helping storytellers bring their imaginations to life, no matter the budget, genre or platform. And now he's stepping into the director's chair with his wildly successful debut short film, crash Site, written by Miles Brandman and starring Steven Yeun and Sam Richardson a bold move into narrative storytelling from one of the most trusted minds in VFX. It's got currently I looked this up today over 560,000 views in three weeks on YouTube. Congratulations, I'm really excited to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for that warm intro and I'm really excited to be on the podcast and talk to you about the state of the industry as well as specifically the crash site. This is the first conversation I've really had about crash site, so you'll get the raw, unpracticed version of my answers.
Speaker 1:Love that, love that. So the purpose of Hollywood is Dead is to talk to creatives about their personal journey as a filmmaker, the struggles and triumphs, and just give the listeners a chance to get to know you a bit and realize that being creative can be, and often is, hard, but not impossible. That said, how does it feel to be an overnight success?
Speaker 2:You know it's well, it feels really good and obviously want to thank everyone who has been able to find Crash Site on YouTube and given it a watch. It's really amazing to think that there's 500,000 plus people in the world who have seen something that we as a team created and something that I directed, so that's really gratifying.
Speaker 1:It's like a hundred football stadiums.
Speaker 2:It's a bigger number than I can really even put into words because, to be completely honest, when we threw it up with the hundred or 50, so Kickstarter backers that we had, I was sort of like hoping to get 500 views on it right as just a hey, I had no previous videos.
Speaker 2:I had no previous following. Obviously, I knew that Sam and Steven their names, and what they bring to the table in terms of notoriety is going to get eyeballs names and what they bring to the table in terms of notoriety is going to get eyeballs. But I've been surprised to see just how long and sustained the viewership has been and what the reaction has been, which has been seemingly clamoring for more and overall positive.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Now I've read that Crash Site was a pretty long journey, but I'll let you tell that story what made you come back to it now and what changed in you as a filmmaker in that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. So, yeah, full sort of disclosure on it. We shot the initial principal photography in 2013. And at the time it was expected to be a relatively short post adventure, the goal being, you know, the script itself was around 25 to 27 pages. We thought it was going to be about a 30-minute short.
Speaker 2:Obviously, we knew that there was visual effects involved that could be difficult to do, but ultimately it was designed to be a little bit of a calling card for my abilities to direct as well as miles's abilities to put together a very tight um character driven genre piece, which we are both huge fans of um, and so you know the ups and downs of it and why it took so long. I think that's that sort of life got in the way. Um, we did sort of finish a version of it pretty quickly, and then you realize you've got sound design and now I've got score to build in, and now I got to get the visual effects done, and now I've got to go into online color, and so ultimately, what happened is we sort of finished it everything except for final color and the marrying of score to audio mix. That was kind of the final steps and then titles and credits, and so, uh, after my time at netflix, I sort of had um free time on my hands and I was looking for something to do to fill it, and the dp sean, where I'll shout out to him um has been an incredible partner in providing the motivation to just get it out there and to like what is really preventing you?
Speaker 2:And kind of asking that question enough times to like when he was able to finally get us Color Bay time and finishing time. We then only sat on it once it was a finished product for a few months, and then I just said you know what? There is nothing preventing me. Let me get it out into the world. I don't need a huge marketing campaign. I don't need a film festival strategy right now. My goal was to get people to see it and to get as many eyeballs on it as possible, because, at the end of the day, when I looked at it, I was very proud of it and I thought it was worth getting out there to whatever degree we could do it. And so that was the 10 plus year, 12 year journey, um, of going from Kickstarter to finished product.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I mean, you know kudos to sticking to it and keeping keeping on because it's it's hard and and who knows it's like. This is why, you know, this is one of the big things about this podcast and it's probably me projecting a little bit, you know, just trying to get the inspiration as well from people. Um is that you know it's like it can, it's, it's really hard and you don't know what's going to stop you from from actually putting something out there. But I think typically it's mostly mental. You know now there can be budgetary stuff. You know, uh, if, if you have um, you know huge uh. You know, uh, vfx stuff you have to do. It's like, well, you need a team to do this, you know. But, um, no kudos to you for doing, for getting it out there, and and I do know how you know we're we're in post-production or we just wrapped post-production on the dresden sun um and that was a very long, unexpectedly long process, mainly because once we got into, it's our first film with this much vfx.
Speaker 1:I didn't tell you this in our little um conversation before the podcast started, but we have over uh 1700 specials like visual effects yeah, that's big and it's huge so you know, we just didn't know at the time that it was going to be this hard, you know, but kept going. And that's kudos to Michael, my business partner, and he's the writer, director, editor, VFX supervisor did a lot of VFX himself, you know wearing a lot of different hats. Did you wear a lot of different hats?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's where I was going. It speaks to wearing a lot of different hats and the challenge of indie filmmaking, where you're going to be asked to wear a lot of different hats. I had the benefit of my full-time day job, as you mentioned is as a visual effects supervisor and executive and all that kind of stuff, and so I definitely had the know-how of how to shoot it and how I wanted to finish it. But, like you said, you know you've got to edit it and you've got to tell the story and you've got to come up with the designs and then you've got to either raise money or find the money to do the shots.
Speaker 2:I sort of had the good favor of being embedded in a visual effects house. In a visual effects house I could pull some favors here and there and kind of get all that work done really free of charge, which incredible. Shout out to both my family and partners who worked with me at Stargate Studios as well as Ingenuity Studios. Also, for your intro, I am now at Refuge VFX, so I want to shout out to them out of Portland Oregon Great facility there that won the Emmy for Shogun last year. So I want to definitely plug them as a great visual effects house, but at the end of the day, I think filmmaking is so all-consuming and really you can't finish something until the entirety of it is done, and so to all the filmmakers out there who do get stuck on a particular prop, or an edit or a visual effect shot, something that's not working.
Speaker 2:You know, my encouragement is to just keep going, because there are solutions. You know I love telling the story as a as a VFX supervisor, around jaws and the fact that the shark never worked, and that's why you never see it, and that's why it's such a good movie.
Speaker 2:It's because you never saw it and had it worked, it probably would have been a much different movie, and the constraints that you're working with bring out the creative necessity to be able to find the right way to tell the story, or to find a unique way to tell the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's so much evidence for that. It's like some of my favorite directors in the past. Now they're getting these huge budgets.
Speaker 1:It's like they don't have to want for nothing, like if they want to make something, blow up, they don't have to figure out how to do that cheaply and creatively they can just do it, you know, and you know it's like with spielberg, it's like, in my opinion this may not be a popular opinion, but I think his earlier stuff when the studios were like yo, you got to wrap this up you know, he's like okay, I got to, just I got to make this work somehow. I'll go film the boat in my neighbor's pool, you know but, you know it's like it's a big thing and so it's really leaning into that that you know the creative side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Crash Site, from its original conception was, was really shout out to Steven Spielberg and the influence he where, you know, camera motion and framing selection, trying to tell the story more than visual effects. Of course there are visual effects in Crash Site, but we did an extensive sort of pre-scout and photographic storyboards to really know sort of what the tone, look, the feel is. Um, because that to me was very important to kind of continue, uh, you, because I didn't have dolly cranes and all sorts of fun toys to play with. We basically had, um, you know, we did, we had a dolly and we had sticks and we were even out there in the, uh, the wilderness with them. But that stuff is cumbersome and it and it is hard when you've got a crew of you have like six people, you know, and so you're trying to look professional, trying to do it.
Speaker 2:And Steven and Sam were both well say. I'm actually interesting story about Sam. Steven was an established actor that I had worked with on walking dead season one and two, and so him and I became friends from our onset experience over season one, which was a very unique experience, and from there got the script in front of him. He was interested in it. I was like sure, let's do it some weekend, let's see if we can figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, along the way we realized we had to cast the other character, and so at that point I said, stephen, do you know anyone who might want to be in this or do you care who you're against? Like could it be a total no one, no actor, or do we want to put someone that's got some chops up against you? And he was like well, you know, one of my good friends from Chicago just moved here. I think he would be great in it and probably would do it. So we had a dinner with Sam and this was before he was Sam Richardson of Veep fame and multiple Emmy winner and all this amazing stuff that he's gone on to do and he agreed and we got them both to shoot for four days, and one day was entirely the driving scene which we were. Just that was kind of our prep day and off we went, and so I kind of got very lucky with the casting of all of it and caught lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic yeah we had a similar thing happen with, uh, christina ricci. So in our film and um, you know, we we casted her and then she was nominated for, uh, yellow jackets, and then she's incredible and and then after that she was nominated again, and then she got the matrix, and then she got, uh, um, the, the. Then she got the new Addams Family film.
Speaker 2:Wednesday yeah right.
Speaker 1:And so we were just like, oh my God, we got our A-lister here, absolutely, and, yeah, it really works. So that was going to be. My question was yeah, how did you get such powerhouse actors?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit of luck, a little bit of gumption, a little bit of um naivety on my part to just ask steven, yeah, you know, um, I, I, I can't even remember. I was going to go back and look and see if he was actually in between walking dead seasons or if he had actually finished the walking dead. I think he was in between seasons actually. So, um, I don't know how we secured it and I don't know I know we've got sag paperwork somewhere you know, um, but uh, he agreed to it.
Speaker 2:he liked the character of max and he sort of liked I mean, he's a huge sci-fi fan and I don't want to speak for him um but uh, I think that drew him into it and I think just doing something, you know, a little off the beaten path also probably drew him in a little bit.
Speaker 1:And uh, he seems like a guy that just loves the craft you know, and so it's like, hey, you know, let's go out and do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course you know unbelievably professional during the whole shoot performance, uh, I believe when I was editing it, I was just completely captivated by him and his ability to have what. What I wanted, which was it to feel like a conversation and then actually transition from an intimate piece about two friends who maybe you don't really know what's going on in their friendship, to now, all of a sudden, the second main character is this inanimate object that steven's trying to figure out as max the character and, uh, his performance, uh, and his ability to show emotion and interest in it without it doing anything on the day was really incredible, culminating, of course, in his rip away from the reveal of of what the box might be showing him, which to be honest, the outtakes of that are even more dynamic in many ways than what I ended up putting in the film, because it was such a powerful performance and he was so emotionally invested in it.
Speaker 2:That up putting in the film because it was such a powerful performance and he was so emotionally invested in it that ultimately I had to try to find that balance between giving people some ending of what was on the box versus showing his performance, and so I erred on giving the ending. But I look back at it now and be like it would have been interesting to see a little bit more of his ending performance. You hear a lot of it but you don't see all of it in the finished piece. So I was just thinking about that today in terms of the choices you make as an editor and director and where that really guides the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if Steven was editing it, he probably would have put his ending in.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, but no, I think, as a director, it's important and you know from whether it's the YouTube, you know comments or Reddit or anything like that everyone's just like, oh my God, like I need another one because you know, I want to know how this goes. And so I think, as the director and the editor, I think that's such a a something that I don't know if you learn that or if it's just the feel, the natural, you have an instinct for that, and so you know, leading us to want more, and that, I think is is brilliant.
Speaker 2:So yeah Well, thank you for that. I am a big fan of movies that don't tell you what you're supposed to think afterward and leave some stuff to the ambiguity, uh, ambiguity around the the mind of what. What were they really saying? And did that happen the way it ended? You know and christopher nolan obviously is a master of kind of leaving you with a question and an answer at the same time and you know we were definitely going for that, um, but it is all as scripted, you know, ultimately, um, there are some scenes that were dropped ultimately from the finished cut piece, uh, that we shot, but most of them were dialogue scenes between steven and sam. Yeah, um, and ultimately I just felt like the motive, the, the momentum, once you're in that environment of the garage or the workspace with with Steven, you sort of wanted to stay and follow that journey and I think that's maybe a good choice I made. That does sort of build in that tension.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because at some point you really don't know what's happening beyond the walls and you're sort of locked into what Max is trying to figure out with the box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, wonderful. So okay, so in 2013,. How long were you in visual effects at that point?
Speaker 2:So I got into visual effects probably around 2004. So I got in young and early. Some big breaks in my life were being asked to be a junior onset supervisor on the television show Heroes, and so I was like a 26-year-old not really knowing much about visual effects but obviously soaking in everything that was going on around the set, and I would be called in for late-night shoots that the on-set supervisor either couldn't attend or wasn't able to attend, and so basically, I got very lucky in that I had a pretty rich visual effects background before jumping into the script and seeing is this something that we can actually produce?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy. And so at that point, like now, you, you, you went to Emerson in. Boston right Did you go for film.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, shout out to Emerson college who I do think just in crash site alone played an integral part in it coming to life, because most of the crew are people that I went to school with at Emerson. Almost every single one of them are people that I at least met through Emerson some way or another. That's all the way from the secondary camera operator, john Matyshak, who him and I used to direct films together when we were in film school, and a little bit afterwards all the way to you know, miles, who wrote it was Emerson. We were in a screenwriting class, sophomore year together, something like that, and just all the way down the rungs, most of the people.
Speaker 2:Once I moved out to LA, lots of Emerson people come out, most of the people. Once I moved out to LA, lots of Emerson people come out, and so they do do a good job of sort of giving people a community to try to tap into. So I did go to film school for film school. Yeah, you know, back then it's generalized film studies, you know, and so not to get too deep into that, but I once had a desire to be like a film theorist or critic.
Speaker 2:And then I sort of realized well, I actually kind of need a job and I don't love writing as much as I probably should have to have that job, and so I stumbled into editing because I had done a lot at at Emerson, um and uh, visual effects house Stargate was. Ultimately I was PA-ing for them and ultimately they had a opening in their edit bay and I just raised my hand and said, yeah, I could do that and the rest is history there, um, and just had a lot of great mentors along the way teaching me the VFX side of filmmaking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so was it always. Was the goal always to direct, like, was it? We've? You know, I think, on every indie film set, you know, everyone wants to be the director Absolutely, and so, like, was that a thing in the back of your head and so?
Speaker 2:like. Was that a thing in the back of your head? Yeah, so, definitely, going into Emerson, I fancied myself a director. I had done some short films at the New York film Academy. I shot films in my backyard stop motion animation. So, yeah, I'll be a filmmaker director. Then you know, you do realize pretty quickly that a lot of the and I you know this is not just an Emerson thing, I think this is an all film school thing is that most of the directors who come out of film school have some significant funds behind them because they can bankroll their own films while in film school. And that's a lot of how. You know, the classism exists on all levels. But that is at the time I was going.
Speaker 2:That was the primary way to be a director at Emerson was to fund a movie, get your friends to shoot it with you and then put your name on it as the director. I do believe you know USC and other york uh nyu. They all probably operate very similarly. So, um, to that end, I always wanted to be a director, but I also love storytelling and love filmmaking so much, uh, that at the end of the day, just being part of the industry was really my goal, however, to stay in it long enough that maybe eventually someone would give me an opportunity to direct, to direct, and so you know, I do think that there is some value in staying in your lane for a film career in the industry. There's also great sort of handcuffing that comes with that. You, you know, as a 24-year-old did I really know that visual effects was the thing that I wanted to do for my entire career? Not really, but I slipped into it and it's been a great career and I'm very proud of everything that I've accomplished in the visual effects realm. But you know, when you are standing on set of television shows and your job is to make sure that the director looks good and making sure that you're thinking about things that they might not be thinking about because they're not visual effects supervisors. It did allow me to sort of demystify that role a little bit and be like you know, they're just good human beings that have creative decision making, and I think I can do that Right.
Speaker 2:And so that creative decision making process I learned very early from being on film is that, like, even the wrong decision on a film set is better than no decision, and that's an idiom that I've taken with me for a very long time, because at the moments that you're the most intense on set or there's the most eyeballs looking at you as to like, well, what are we going to do? Can we film it? Do we have to move that grip truck? Do we what? What can we do? And they all turn and look at you. You have to have an answer and you have to, even if in the back of your mind you're like I have no idea if that's going to work. You have to convince all those people around you that it's going to work.
Speaker 2:And so I think that just seeing that and being in that environment sort of told me that I have the skills necessary to direct and that it's probably more will anyone give me the opportunity. But I did not actually have a crisis of confidence while I was on set or, you know, approaching directing, because I really do think a lot of it has to do with being able to make good creative decisions in high pressure moments and living with the results and trusting your gut instinct that those decisions that you don't have a ton of time to think about and you're just kind of reacting to the situation that unfolds is the right creative choice for whatever story you're going to take. So that's a long way of saying I've always wanted to be a director, but like anything, it takes two to tango and you need that opportunity for someone to say, yeah, I think you could actually do this, and so I'm still waiting for the larger opportunity for that to come along. But hopefully Crash Site can open some doors.
Speaker 1:Know, one of the things you set yourself up really well was when you have creative collaborators that are there to help you.
Speaker 1:You know, especially working with friends, working with such talented on-screen talent, you know you're really taking a lot off your plate, you know it's like it can be pure hell if you have, if what you're seeing in the camera you're just like scratching your head, like how am I even going to make this work compared to you know, having so much you know, especially with with steven sam that you have to cut it out and that's the hard part, like that's the. That is the goal, I think, for every filmmaker. That should be. Your goal, you know, is set yourself up, get the best, best actors as possible, get the best crew that you can that you work well with and that you have rapport, and oftentimes that's going to be with your friends.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent and getting to shorthand as quickly as possible. Yeah, you know, um, I always say a film set is one of the most unique working environments possible and I know a lot of people out there, maybe listening to this or um, who would eventually see it or who have always dreamed about things, will never get that opportunity to really sit on a set and not just witness it but sort of be a part of it. Um, and you know, you, you have a of paper on you get the night before and it tells you sort of like what you're doing the next day. But there's not. It's not a beat by beat playbook, it's a general idea of what we hope to accomplish, right, hopes and dreams.
Speaker 2:And so every morning when you walk on that set, it really does feel like you are creating something from nothing. And yes, of course, planning and pre-prod and scouting and all of that helps to hit the ground running. But there are still so many micro decisions that need to be made and understood in that moment that that energy and that feeling of accomplishment when the day is wrapped and you get another sheet of paper telling you what's going to be next day, it's, it's really um, it's something that I've never been able to recreate in any other experience in a career, whether that's you know cause as a Netflix executive very fun environment, very dynamic, lots of high pressure, high stress it's still different because you're one step removed from that actual creative decision-making process.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think to me that's what drives me is being a collaborator in that space of on set and, whether that's as a VFX supervisor or as a director, I think, creating the space for people to be able to have conversations around subjective things. You might have a different opinion of what it looks like, I might but let's have that conversation and figure out what the best idea is to serve the story. And I think Crash Site is a great example of how I was able to do that on a very small scale with sort of every department and every aspect of the film felt very, it felt manageable to do on that scale and I just marvel at the people who do it on the biggest, biggest scales.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's, that's excellent. Um now, uh, you mentioned that you funded this through Kickstarter. Um, now, and that you made this with your friends, small crew, um and that it was out of kind of was it necessity or like that was the point right, like you guys wanted to go out and just make something.
Speaker 2:We just wanted to make something. That's absolutely the point. Miles and I had collaborated in the past on some things, um, but never found the film that we wanted to make together, the story we wanted to tell, and so this very much came out of a desire for us to do something together, um, and really get get content out there now back then it was not. I had no. You know, tiktok didn't exist, and yeah you know, instagram was just photos.
Speaker 2:It wasn't, you know, shorts and all this kind of stuff, so the format was really just well, it's easier to do a short film than a feature film, it costs less and that was really the the. It wasn't any great, you know. Oh, this is the perfect short film story. It was what is the short film that we can actually produce and actually get out there.
Speaker 1:And you know, we were right on that edge there for 10 years as to whether or not we could achieve it Right, and was some of that also um so in my experience? So, uh, I've produced two feature films, both of them in the sci-fi world, and both of them kind of handling way more VFX than than we should have on our own. But I I remember on the first one, when Michael was editing and doing the special effects himself, that the computers were not as great as they are today. Was that also something? Were there any technological limitations that you can think of back then? That was kind of making friction for you.
Speaker 2:So what's funny about it, I think, is that, in my experience as the filmmaker, the answer to that is no, because I was sort of doing things in Adobe Premiere which I had had experience with and you know the VFX side of it. Again, it wasn't an unknown thing, I just needed to get the favor of people to do it. Ironically, if you look at Max and that character inside of Crash Site, it's technology that I realized I have basically nostalgia for and a longing for an analog time that simply does not exist anymore, and some of the most fascinating comments that I read are ones of like well, why didn't he just pull out his cell phone and take a video of it? Or what the hell is he rigging a video camera to get into his computer? He could have just taken.
Speaker 2:You know, photographyinkerer, I come from a love of analog everything. My whole film background up to 2003-ish, 4-ish, when everything changed, was analog, and so I have this great affinity for being able to take a cable and take one output and plug it into the input and see the image. It's like oh, it's amazing, I don't have to download a file and transfer it to so. So there's that, and then max itself, as the character was meant to be a tinkerer and that workshop of his was meant to hold, you know, jurassic technology from that he's just been collecting through his life and happens to have a mind about taking it apart and putting it back together, and so that fed into his character a little bit. But the making of the film itself the only thing that really stopped us was at one point we were going to finish Final Color and then COVID hit, and so we paused that for two years, and that's why this probably could have come out in 2019. Probably could have gotten more of an audience with everyone being at home watching stuff during COVID.
Speaker 2:But ultimately we just couldn't get. We couldn't figure out how to get into the bay properly and all that kind of stuff. On a favor it's one thing to do a favor in normal times, it's another thing to ask someone to risk their life to color your film, and so we paused that, and that's how, ultimately, we ended up, taking about two years.
Speaker 1:Don't you even care about movies?
Speaker 2:Let me in Exactly.
Speaker 1:This is more important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Unfortunately. Yeah, life happens.
Speaker 1:And I feel like in either 2012, 2013, around that time, like Kickstarter was really kind of you know, blasting off.
Speaker 2:It was.
Speaker 1:Were you. You guys were successful in your campaign.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we didn't ask for that much. That was a big key was like we tried to raise something that we thought was manageable. So I think initially it was like $10,000 that we tried to raise, which is a lot, I mean, that's not nothing and then I think we ended up raising $1,200, like about $13,000. Let's just put it that way and you know, about 150 donors, there were some varying, you know. That's a whole other story is just how do you craft a Kickstarter. And again, I don't know if Kickstarter is still a real sort of hotbed for getting funding for indie films, but at the time to your point, it was a viable mechanism. Time to your point, it was a viable mechanism and so you know, obviously, if you read the credits, my parents, miles's parents, also contributed some money to that and, um, ultimately, I think, from people I didn't know, we probably raised, uh, a good 9 000 of it and then got topped off by, you know, family members that were gracious enough to donate.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I know that there's. You know, uh, that whole crowdfunding thing has really kind of evolved and my last guest, um max kleiber, uh raised a pretty decent amount of of funds through, uh, we funder. You know, um there's, I guess there there's a bunch of different platforms, so that's kind of cool, you know, and really cool now you know friends and family and and all sorts of stuff you know.
Speaker 2:I think, you know, something that people have recently talked to me about is like well, now that you have this audience, isn't it like could these people help you raise funds to do a second part of Crash Site or whatever the you know the next idea is? And that you know? That's really interesting to me. Only because when we did the Kickstarter again, we had no built in audience. We were asking friends and family and trying to get the word out and just seeing if the community behind Kickstarter would kind of pick it up, and so it probably was. It was successful, but it wasn't like a runaway success, you know, and so I do think now there could be an opening to get some funding for what's next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a really good idea to snowball I've I've mentioned this before where, you know, I really do feel like the, the new kind of um it's not even new, it's just the way forward. I think is is doing it yourself. Um, that's a big thing. But also, you know, relying on uh, on kind of each project, you know they always say, like you're only as important as your last project or whatever popular or whatever, and so I think, yeah, snowballing this thing and and see where it goes, like you know it's it's, it's all about momentum, you know, and you got some good momentum going. I think it's a good idea yeah, I know we will.
Speaker 2:We'll see um, and I would love to tell more of it. You know miles and I definitely have a pitch out for larger, uh, a feature based on it and or a way to continue it if you wanted to do a different sort of format. So I think there's definitely a desire on our part to tell more of the story. I think Steven and Sam now might not be gettable, gets anymore, you know, and so you never know. But you, you know, I I do certainly not want to discount them and how much their names brought attention to this and I do think it is important.
Speaker 2:It's one of the challenges of indie filmmaking is to find that name that will resonate with an audience and we just happen to luck out. But but I do think it's important to sort of realize that if we had just done this with two of our other friends, that we would not be getting the eyeballs that we're getting and we would not be getting the momentum that we're getting. And so I do think there is an interesting conversation to be had which is something around like can can there be different forms of content that is appealing to A-list stars or known actors that doesn't take them, you know, three months to shoot and is an all life encompassing thing, but can be shot over two days or over four days or whatever it is, and make content that again attracts eyeballs but also tells a good story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's an important point that you made. We also we learned from our first film, which doesn't have any notable actors in it, to our second one. We were like, well, we're going notable, we're going to load this thing up, and so that's what we're hoping for. It's going to load this thing up, and so you know that's what we're hoping for. You know it's not out yet, but we'll see, you know, if it brings more eyeballs but I can't imagine that it wouldn't, you know.
Speaker 1:And so you know. And it's one thing, though, yeah, to ask let's say, even back then with Steven, it's like hey, man, let's just do this feature film. You know it's like hey, man, let's just do this feature film. You know it's like that's a pretty big ask. But I think you know, when you have connections and you have some know-how, you have access to equipment somehow. That you know it's like yeah, go, if you have that connection, utilize that. And you know, not just out of you know using them, but also it's like I don't know, you want people to see your stuff you know, it's like that's why we make stuff you know we want.
Speaker 1:That's why social media is so huge. But sometimes it can be egotistical. But also, you know, sometimes it doesn't have to be. It can be that you want to tell a story that you are passionate about and the way to get the most eyeballs on it is to get people, that people recognize.
Speaker 2:I mean, we should all be adults here, right? The studios have known this for years. That's why they put Pedro Pascal in everything, right? It's because he drives eyeballs and people want to see him, and so it's again. It's nothing that I invented of putting a well-known actor in something to get eyeballs. It's the way the industry works. It's to your point. It's the way content nowadays, especially that algorithm, starts to pick up and drives. It knows who the fans of Steven and Sam are, and so it starts to push that material to them, and you can. I believe that is what happened with Crash Site. It got a little bit of an initial burst and then YouTube itself started offering it up to people inside of their back end analytics that they thought would be clickers of it or viewers of it. That's cool.
Speaker 1:And there is also value. This is something that we utilized that might be interesting for people. Now, with social media, you have TikTok stars, you know there's. So now with social media, you have you know, tik TOK, you know stars, huge stars, and they're not movie stars, but you know they want to be an actor. That's why they're doing their social media stuff and so sometimes it's it's hitting them up, you know, to be in your short film and they're going to pump it out to their huge audience. We, we utilized in Dresden sun, which people will be able to see, uh, twitch streamers that have these huge followings and we're and you know, uh, we approached them and was like hey, we want to use your character in our film. Like, cause, they have these particular kinds of characters and we implemented that into our world. It's a cyberpunk world.
Speaker 2:And so it's like it just works. You know, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to see if that idea translates into eyeballs and ultimately ticket sales or streaming sales, whatever.
Speaker 2:But I think it could be really interesting. I think it's a very smart strategy. I mean again, studios are already doing this right. They're starting to announce partnerships, mr Beast with Amazon, and you know, I don't know enough of them to know my kids know better than I do.
Speaker 2:But, the reality is that many that much of a built-in audience speaks for itself. They've got to be doing something right and they are dynamic characters, no matter whether it's you know, stuff that you and I would watch on Instagram, stuff that other people would watch. I think there's so much of that going on that it's a very good and smart strategy to tap into that built-in audience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I think I got the idea from that film. I think it was called Nerve.
Speaker 2:Was it the Safdie brothers that directed it? Oh yeah, I think it was called Nerve. Is it the Safdie brothers that directed it?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I think so, but they they had a YouTuber, casey Neistat. And so uh, they put him in there and I was like oh, he's in it, I'm going to rent that movie and watch it.
Speaker 2:And he was in it for two minutes you know, just like dude you got me Totally.
Speaker 1:Um, I want to switch gears and get into some kind of nitty gritty stuff that's currently happening in our world feels way different. It feels I don't know. I don't know if it's bleak or if it's hopeful, but is this? Is it the next revolution in filmmaking? Is it the beginning of the end of human creatives, you know? Have you noticed any jobs that would normally go to humans that that AI is replacing?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:On a studio level, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so full disclosure for the audience and for yourself. You know, I I think of myself as a futurist, and all of that does not necessarily turn out warm and fuzzy for everybody, and so there will be a part of this conversation that I think is sobering. But there's also, on the flip side of that, there is some great hope, and I'll try to weave in both as I go. I think it is for sure an existential threat to areas not just in the film industry, but into human productivity and needing a human to do something en masse. So I do think that there won't be a part of our society that isn't touched by AI and what it can and possibly do in the future.
Speaker 2:That being said, that, like any technology that comes around, there is going to be people who use it, embrace it and get I'll just call it super powered from it. There are going to be people who use it, don't embrace it, but have to use it for their job function, and then there's going to be people who reject it straight out. I only want to see stuff created by humans. So I think we're in the midst of everyone. It's almost like the fog of war right now, where there's so much happening so quickly and changing all the time that not only is it exhausting to keep up with, but that existential fear can really creep in. And in my industry, in particular, visual effects it will, without a doubt, impact visual effects to a very large degree, in my personal opinion.
Speaker 2:I think you're already seeing it with the studios who tell everyone don't use AI, don't use it. We've just gone on a strike about it, we just settled everything, don't use it. Oh, just gone on a strike about it, we just settled everything, don't use it. Oh, by the way, we're using it and we're going to take this thing that used to employ 100 artists, six weeks or more to do. We're now going to do it with. We'll keep some artists around because, we don't know, you might need to fix something. But we're going to take all of that money and, instead of giving it to a facility or a vendor, we're going to just put it into our AI machine and it's going to do a thing, and so it's. That announcement by Ted and Netflix should have been code red for everybody in our industry, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:I don't know anything, even from working at Netflix.
Speaker 2:I don't have any great insight is into what they are doing with it. I just know they're doing stuff with it and I think most visual effects companies are dabbling and understanding it in certain ways, but are very afraid to either say they are or to use it in any sort of final pixel mechanism, and so we're at a very interesting time, needless to say, where I just happen to believe that the power of technology wins out all the time and that even people's tastes and what they think looks good today doesn't look good tomorrow, and I think, as an audience, people are going to accept AI-made things they already do. There's TikTok stars that are all AI-generated. Right, I think we're a skip-hop and a jump away from a legitimate movie star being completely AI-generated. I can see that possibility happening. Ai generated I can see that possibility happening, and I just think studios are going to produce content for the cheapest amount possible. That is their goal. They want cheap content with big audiences, and I think AI opens the door to allowing them to do that.
Speaker 1:And it's very scary. And I wonder if that idea, if they can make it so cheaply, I think that it opens the door for you and I to make stuff cheaply. And these ideas that normally would take a massive team that we have to outsource overseas in order to get you know, and we can just do it here.
Speaker 2:That's right about is sort of like the democratization of this ability, which I am always a proponent for because I think that's naturally the way things go. Even if you just look at visual effects in television, let's say, there was visual effects that we could do in television when I first started or that we couldn't do in television when I first started. That now is commonplace simulations and all creature work and all sorts of stuff that you just didn't have the time or money in television to do before. So what you're talking about is the democratization, um, of a tool set that allows anyone to be a filmmaker, which I think is great. Honestly, the issue with that is not everyone's going to be a good filmmaker. Like that's just the way it works. Like, even with current tool sets that we all have access to, like, you can't always tell a good story, and so I do think the differentiating factor moving forward is going to be about the ability to tell a good story and to resonate with an audience, and whether you achieve it through AI or visual effects.
Speaker 2:It really doesn't matter that you're going to get me up on a soapbox here, but the dirty secret of the film industry for the greater part of my entire career is that even when they use visual effects, they want to tell everybody that they shot it practically or they didn't use as much visual effects as as they actually did, and so there's already a built-in narrative that doing something practically is better, even though the entire movie is made up. But there really is and it's strong with directors, it's strong with producers this idea that shooting in a practical space or doing something for real, again the entire conceit of the movie is fake and make-believe. But let's do something for real and that somehow is going to resonate with audiences more. I've never personally bought it, but let's not mistake the fact that there is that narrative out there, and so I just believe that that, combined with the cost savings that studios ultimately will be looking at, it's going to be a no-brainer that they're going to move into doing that, because, again, visual effects doesn't have a union even.
Speaker 2:So it's not like we can organize against this it's not like the writers or the producers or anyone else who has a stake in this. We don't really have a voice in that fight, and so we are very much at the mercy of, you know, techno content creators, which is ultimately what Amazon and Netflix are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, my fear is that we're going to get, you know, a huge flood of what I call content, even if it's a movie and we are, we're in that right now. We have content. It's not necessarily cinema. Occasionally you'll get one out there that's like oh God, yeah, this is great. And I think what the differentiating factor is between content and a movie, that nostalgic word or cinema, is that and you did this well, like you're a vfx guy and your vfx was subtle in crash site, like obviously, I mean like, but it would still pick.
Speaker 1:My moment wasn't yes, it was not the whole. Thing and what I fear is that actually I don't fear it because you're going to be able to pick out a decent story from a non-decent story. It's going to, you know, be so much cg, so much vfx that I think this is kind of the downfall, a little bit of like the marvel world.
Speaker 1:It's like it just doesn't resonate you know, and so you go back to horror films where they do practical blood effects and stuff on set. It's like there is a palpable difference in that.
Speaker 2:I do have a theory on all of that, that might not anchor us in the this is my take on it Is that? Look at, I think Quantumania is one that is often cited as one of the worst films, right, because the entire thing is a visual effects spectacle. Now, it's easy to point out the fact that the entire thing is a visual effects spectacle and say that's why it sucks. However, my argument would be almost every top movie that's ever been top grossing film that's ever been made is a visual effects spectacle, and so there has to be some fundamental difference between that movie and titanic or spider-man. And the difference is good storytelling, right, and craft craft and an actual story and scene to scene momentum that makes sense. And and so horror, um, I love, by the way. And one of the things it does really well is elicit emotion, right, you're always on the edge of your seat. The everything is geared towards making the audience react.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that experience is very visceral and we walk away from that experience in a film set or a film theater. Oh my God, how good was that. It made me feel all these things I was scared, I was nervous, I was frightened. I was happy at the end when the character didn't die, all this stuff. But in a Marvel movie these days it really is just more about world building and the individual moments of emotion don't hit anymore, because you've kind of seen it all and you're not invested in these characters, like some of these characters come from tv shows you've never seen and then they pop up on feature films and so they've kind of lost the emotional through line that a movie like like a horror movie can do. I work in visual effects. Every horror movie has a ton of visual effects in it. Yes, we all do the practical blood spurts, but guess what Little secret, they don't work.
Speaker 2:You have to amplify them or you either have to augment them or there's a little hose that you see of the blood Walking Dead. We did extensive work on the practical effects, and the practical effects were amazing and they they won emmys for it, um and so, but there is a there is a healthy reliance on visual effects to smooth it all out, not pull people out with, you know, weird film gags, and to actually have it look good. And so I would just argue that I think we have a misplaced sort of narrative around a movie's bad because the VFX look bad. To know that movie's just bad.
Speaker 2:And it's okay to say that you know I'm sorry, Paul Rudd, and Marvel and. Kevin Feige and you know like. Sorry, but that movie was not great.
Speaker 1:He's actually the writer. He's from right around my hometown here in Northern California. Sorry, jeff. No, it's okay, it's not a secret.
Speaker 2:But again, I love Marvel and storytelling and the characters, but those movies, I watch them and it's like something falls flat and I just don't think it's the visual effects, because the visual effects have looked better than they've ever looked before, you know. So there's got to be something in between and if you go back and look at, like Titanic, which is an amazing film, the visual effects actually don't hold up that well.
Speaker 2:And so don't come after me Titanic fans, but they don't. So don't come after me Titanic fans, but they don't. And so I just think that there's. We as an industry haven't done a great job of educating the mass audience as to why something works or doesn't. We're often cited as, ironically, a black box that people don't understand, and so I do wish that I could maybe go on a world tour and and kind of help people understand, demystify a bit of visual effects, because, at the end of the day, it's an amazing storytelling tool that lets you do things that you would never have been able to do before. Yeah Well, you should start a podcast and talk to your VFX buddies.
Speaker 2:This is great.
Speaker 1:The nice thing about starting a podcast is you get to let them explain to you, you know.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's really nice, it's really enlightening. That's why I've loved this because it is so enlightening, because VFX has always seemed so daunting and especially from our experience on our current film, it seems so daunting. But you know, it's important. I think it is an important thing, but, like you said, yeah, it's it's. It's really about telling a good story and I think if you have the right person crafting the story, number first is a script you know.
Speaker 1:Second being, you know, getting people in your film, uh, that other people kind of recognize, and then being able to craft that into a cohesive, entertaining story. I think that's absolutely. Now I want to get to this last question. This is one that I'm going to ask everybody, okay, and we'll be able to wrap it up after that, sure is. Is Hollywood dead?
Speaker 2:Um, I'm going to firmly say it is not dead, but I do think we are in a transitional period. Um, and it is I. I also want to just take a moment to mention how devastating the last round of labor strife has been on the industry Coming out of COVID, which was a very challenging time period for filmmakers and crew members. You know LA and I'll just rep LA because it's what I know LA is. It's sort of a ghost or a shell of its former self, and there are a lot of people struggling out there because content isn't being made at the same rate and level. And so I do hope that we are in a temporary transition before the studios really figure out what. I don't think they're ever going to increase the money they spend on content. I also hate that we call it content, but let's call it content and I don't think they're going to ever increase that again. But I do think they can do a lot to make better choices or make different choices around where things are being filmed.
Speaker 2:Obviously, on the studio level, you're chasing tax credits a lot, so the financial pressures that finance executives go through, production executives go through, it's real. You know we didn't get into this part of it. But there is a real Hollywood out there that is very business oriented and does not care as much about what the final product is. Of course we all want to make good stuff, but sometimes just making the thing is enough to get eyeballs on it and that's enough for certain people. And so I think look to your earlier point we have a great opportunity, with the democratization of some of these tool sets, to tell better stories and to really have that indie vibe that maybe I grew up in the, you know, eighties and nineties, where there were indie films that were some of the best and biggest films of my childhood, and so I think it's harder and harder to find a path to that. But another idiom I learned is that no one ever fails in Hollywood. They just give up. So don't ever quit on trying to tell a good story.
Speaker 1:I've always said that it's a game of attrition.
Speaker 2:It is, and even if you don't win the first battle, there's an endless amount of battles to be had along the way, and so don't give up. Follow the dreams. If you have a story that you feel is worth telling, try to figure out how to do it. Try to figure out how to do it. Nowadays, again, with tools of AI, you can do a lot with a little, and it's not going to look perfect. But whatever has the criticism of visual effects is it never looks photo real. So we've dealt with it as an industry for 50 years more, really, if you're counting optical effects, and so it's a wonderful time to be a filmmaker, but I do think we have raced so far to what gets the most eyeballs, that the feedback loop that studios are going to do. They're always going to take the safest bets. You know you can pick out, like a Sony or a Columbia Pictures or whatever. It would be um, same company, um, they know what their tentpole movies are going to be for the next seven years, right, and they're just hoping that one of them, one spider-man, performs better than the next one, or one offshoot performs better the next one. But they don't really know and they're not looking for the next risk. They're looking how to make the sure thing even sure and so they're going to double down on known IP and known stories and known filmmakers. But what that does do is give all the unknowns an opportunity to zig when other people zag and at least counter program something that's interesting to them. And, just like with crash site, it was really interesting to us and it found an audience and I think that's, as a filmmaker, all you can really hope for is it gets out there, some amount of people see it and one person walks away with oh, that made me think a little bit and that's sort of that was always my goal as a filmmaker and someone in the industry is to kind of leave everyone with that feeling that I had as a kid, which is like, oh man, that movie was awesome.
Speaker 2:I want to do that like not only do I want to do it, I have no idea how they did it, and it just seems so bigger than the screen that I'm watching it on. And you know, I think the tombstone that'll be written might be on the visual effects industry sooner than it is on Hollywood itself. And so I think there's a ways to go before Hollywood storytelling and filmmaking is is truly dead.
Speaker 1:Man, I love that answer. That was a great answer and you know, uh, like you wanting to encourage others to to go out there and make their stuff. I also hope that this conversation will encourage someone, at least one to pick up a camera. You know, meet up with your buddies and just start filming something, and then get really good at writing scripts and go out and make your film.
Speaker 2:That's right, and practice makes perfect, and so you know your first thing you do is might not be very good and it's okay. That's another thing I'd like to tell people is like, you know, part of what prevented me from putting it out in the world was thinking maybe it wasn't that good. Right, and we touched on it a little bit before is just the self doubt that comes in any creative process Analysis, paralysis, yeah, and like I guess my encouragement to everybody would be F all that. Just get it out there, because, uh, I once had a Emerson. To bring it back.
Speaker 2:My final thing I'll Because I once had a Emerson, because, to bring it back, my final thing I'll say is I once had an Emerson College professor and this has always stuck with me that this is debatable, but that human beings, when they're creating art, are sort of being the most human they can be, because no other creature on the planet creates art.
Speaker 2:You know things for the sake of someone else looking at it and relating to it, and so I've always taken that as you need not just the person who's creating the art, you need the audience as well to have the full feedback cycle of what art is, and so if you make stuff in your basement and no one ever sees it, okay, that's fine, that was for you, but it's not, in my opinion, not art until you really get it out there and you understand how that's impacted another human being. And so let's all be the most human we can be and let's go make some art and see the content that comes out and hopefully um, maybe we can, we can be the next thing that, if Hollywood is dead, we can be what replaces it.
Speaker 1:Love it. Thank you, jason. Thank you Tyler.
Speaker 2:Great conversation. Yes, sir, All right. Well, have a wonderful day and everyone can. I'll just do one final plug, which is everyone can go see Crash Site on YouTube. There's it's a URL that doesn't make any sense. So if you just Google Crash Site, steven Yeun, anything like that, it should come up. But I would really appreciate if anyone takes a watch and if you've got some positive comments on it you know Positive only people. Yeah, we're in a good, positive space.
Speaker 1:So we want to hear good vibes only yes sir Nice man. Well, thank you so much Best of luck to you in the future, and I can't wait to buy a ticket to your first feature film Awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much and best of luck to you on everything you do too.
