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[00:00:54] Reel Nerds, let's get action released.
[00:01:01] Welcome back to Reel Nerds Podcast.
[00:01:05] I am your sometimes host Zach and with me is your much more regular presence on the show,
[00:01:11] Mr. Brad.
[00:01:12] I'm here.
[00:01:13] Brad, who are we here to talk to?
[00:01:16] What are we doing here?
[00:01:17] What are we doing here?
[00:01:19] We're doing a real interview with a filmmaker.
[00:01:23] Oh, could it happen to be the director of a film that features one of the best puppet
[00:01:28] fights I've ever seen in my life?
[00:01:30] I hope so.
[00:01:31] All right.
[00:01:32] Well, if that's the case, then I think we have the right gentleman in the studio.
[00:01:36] Please welcome Mr. Nick Roth.
[00:01:38] I am so happy to be here and be associated with a puppet fight as my main bullet point.
[00:01:47] Very few people have it.
[00:01:48] And happy time murders.
[00:01:49] Not enough.
[00:01:50] And happy time murders disappointed me so grandly that this made up for it.
[00:01:54] OK, yeah.
[00:01:55] That's what we're hoping to do.
[00:01:57] We're really hoping to make up for the entire Puppet Master franchise.
[00:02:01] Look, Brian Henson had one job to do, which is make a movie as magical and dirty as his
[00:02:05] father might have made it and he just failed.
[00:02:07] But you succeed in the place that he failed.
[00:02:11] I have a question to kick this off because there's a couple of things I noticed about
[00:02:16] the film with watching a screener in advance.
[00:02:18] OK.
[00:02:19] What what gave you the inclination to pursue a story this surreal?
[00:02:27] Like, what was the genesis of this?
[00:02:30] You know, I this is just how my stupid brain works.
[00:02:33] I don't know. I wish I had an answer for you that was like we really wanted to plumb
[00:02:37] the depths of weirdness.
[00:02:38] But I was like, oh, it's a napkin.
[00:02:39] The napkin can talk.
[00:02:40] And then, you know, from that everything sort of like falls out from that.
[00:02:43] If you've got a topic talking napkin, well, what's his going to get off on cleaning
[00:02:47] up messes, right?
[00:02:48] Like that's what else is an napkin going to be turned on by?
[00:02:51] You know, that just makes sense.
[00:02:52] So it's actually quite logical.
[00:02:54] Like once you just sort of I don't think of it as surreal, you know,
[00:02:57] I'm just trying to make it make sense.
[00:02:58] I think that the well, the entirety has a surreal functionality to it in
[00:03:02] the way you're playing with your visual spectrum, how you're playing
[00:03:06] with this ice shack with it's so small and the outside and big on the inside
[00:03:11] like a TARDIS, the the Mushroom sequence in general.
[00:03:15] Like those are those are just like lovely things that I appreciate of a film
[00:03:19] that's not afraid to kind of go go off into the into the irreverent.
[00:03:25] So I guess like, when did the when did the when did the origin of it begin?
[00:03:30] Like, when did you come up with this idea?
[00:03:32] Like because I saw that you made a short of this prior.
[00:03:35] The short we made a short.
[00:03:36] The most of us who were involved in the future had worked on the short,
[00:03:39] a bunch of us at least.
[00:03:40] And the short was really a very innocent sort of much more like.
[00:03:45] Maybe PG 13 story about like a guy and his talking napkin being on a date
[00:03:50] and they're on, you know, it's a sort of unlikely romance.
[00:03:53] And but then the idea was we go underneath the table where you get
[00:03:56] both napkins talking to each other.
[00:03:58] And they sort of, you know, are somehow representative of the
[00:04:01] like the it or the unconscious or whatever you want to say is
[00:04:04] like the awkwardness of a date sort of through the eyes of like
[00:04:07] what's on your lap, right?
[00:04:09] Um, but there's no, you know, murder and mayhem and gore
[00:04:15] and nudity and, you know, all the things that we then were like,
[00:04:17] well, once we get to a feature now finally, we can have this napkin,
[00:04:21] you know, have an epic wire food duel and all the things that you want
[00:04:26] to have in the short.
[00:04:27] Right.
[00:04:28] So so when you've got so when you come to the feature film realm,
[00:04:32] your, your, your next step point was basically to kind of pull into
[00:04:36] a interdimensional horror film.
[00:04:40] Yeah.
[00:04:41] Yeah.
[00:04:41] Yeah.
[00:04:41] Well, I mean, I love an alien invasion movie and it's not,
[00:04:45] they're not easy to pull off with puppets and no money, but you know,
[00:04:48] we did our best.
[00:04:49] I think you, I think you absolutely succeeded at the goal there
[00:04:51] because like something that I like about it is well, one, the
[00:04:54] interdimensional aspect isn't until the third of the film.
[00:04:57] We may have to put a spoiler or to get the buff because I don't want
[00:05:00] to totally fine.
[00:05:02] You know what I mean?
[00:05:02] Like I don't think this is this isn't a movie that really
[00:05:04] relies on twists and plots to get you through it.
[00:05:07] You know what I mean?
[00:05:07] It's a comedy.
[00:05:08] It's funny.
[00:05:09] And I think it's funny.
[00:05:11] It's just as funny if you know where it's going, even though
[00:05:14] you probably don't.
[00:05:15] Absolutely.
[00:05:15] Well, actually I didn't.
[00:05:17] I knew that we were dealing when I saw the trailer, I knew we were
[00:05:19] dealing with the napkin and the hat, but I wasn't incredibly
[00:05:24] aware of where it was going to go.
[00:05:27] Even at the midway point when you have, when you have the
[00:05:30] Chardonnay drinking of Cabin Dweller talking with the napkin
[00:05:35] in the bathroom, I'm still like, OK, something's off here.
[00:05:37] I don't know exactly what's going to happen.
[00:05:39] I do know that something different is going to happen
[00:05:42] than what I thought was going to happen in my head.
[00:05:44] My thought initially was evil dead, but with a hat, a sentient
[00:05:47] hat and it completely managed to twist my expectations, not the
[00:05:53] least of which with adding a government organization, which
[00:05:57] I love the line, a kid, the men in black.
[00:06:00] Yeah, it's not the men in black.
[00:06:01] It's just, you know, but that's like, I feel like this is a
[00:06:05] pet peeve in a hobby horse of mine is like people in movies
[00:06:08] always act like they haven't seen all the movies because
[00:06:11] you don't want to like overly reference movies.
[00:06:13] It's like, but the actual CIA agents, they're talking about men
[00:06:16] in black all the time.
[00:06:17] You think they haven't seen these movies?
[00:06:18] Like that's probably what they that's their language.
[00:06:21] Right. And so like I always like in I appreciate in movies.
[00:06:24] I try to write it as they're like, this is how we talk.
[00:06:27] If we say, oh, it's like in this movie where whatever.
[00:06:30] So when she's going to go explain to them who she is, she's
[00:06:33] like, just it's basically men in black.
[00:06:35] You know what I mean?
[00:06:36] Like just assume it's that you know what that is.
[00:06:38] Everybody knows.
[00:06:38] It's better than having a grander idea of the the mythos
[00:06:43] you're creating.
[00:06:44] Like you're not you're not J.R.R.
[00:06:45] Tolkien, you're not trying to build like a mythology for
[00:06:48] England. You are you are very much trying to get us from
[00:06:51] point A to point B to make that point.
[00:06:54] Now I but I did have a couple questions about the way you
[00:06:57] made the film.
[00:06:58] Like first of all, like it's an interesting film.
[00:07:00] It looks like you guys had a lot of fun making it.
[00:07:02] Can you talk about the process of not just writing
[00:07:05] this script but directing it with Lindsey Han, your
[00:07:08] co-director?
[00:07:09] Yeah, I mean this was an like look first of all, it's very,
[00:07:12] very collaborative.
[00:07:13] Like I'm taking the writer's credit.
[00:07:14] I guess I wrote the draft, but like everybody really had a
[00:07:17] hand in writing and crafting it.
[00:07:19] We all kind of just made this thing together.
[00:07:21] We like the whole the the whole cast basically the main
[00:07:25] cast and Lindsey and I are we're are like we've really
[00:07:29] wrote the movie, developed the idea, did all of that
[00:07:31] together.
[00:07:32] We all stayed in the cabin and we were living in this
[00:07:35] tiny little cabin while we made the movie.
[00:07:39] And then like a lot of the stories just sort of like fell
[00:07:41] out from like, I don't know, we'll kill people in the
[00:07:43] order that we have the availability of actors.
[00:07:45] I think that makes the movie kind of unpredictable because
[00:07:48] it's like when you sit down to write a script.
[00:07:51] This was also I wrote this so long ago is early in my
[00:07:54] screenwriting career.
[00:07:54] I definitely not that I know so much what I'm doing now
[00:07:57] but I definitely didn't know then.
[00:07:59] So it's like between those things I don't think
[00:08:00] there's any no one could predict where the movie goes
[00:08:04] because it doesn't make any it doesn't it doesn't like
[00:08:06] follow a lot of the rules of screenwriting.
[00:08:09] And partly that's because it's like, oh, well, we're
[00:08:11] losing Azure in two days.
[00:08:15] So we got to that character's got to die fast.
[00:08:18] Like or I mean, I I die fast because I had to I was
[00:08:22] needed in directing the film.
[00:08:24] Yeah.
[00:08:24] So I wanted to touch on that because you play
[00:08:30] there's a couple of characters that each of the
[00:08:31] characters has a standout moment.
[00:08:33] But your character and your characters like love
[00:08:36] interest that's being kept to lock behind a door.
[00:08:38] Yeah.
[00:08:40] It was it was as very refreshing to watch this kind
[00:08:43] of like intellectual of this pollutant intellectual
[00:08:46] in a robe.
[00:08:47] Just and I love how he doesn't get out of that
[00:08:50] robe really at all, even when he's outside.
[00:08:53] Never.
[00:08:54] I think he's in at the home.
[00:08:55] Well, no, he he he puts on a cardigan for dinner
[00:08:58] but other than that, he's in the robe the whole time.
[00:08:59] Yeah.
[00:09:00] And it's just like, oh my God, that's commitment
[00:09:02] to to this bit here of just this this like hey,
[00:09:06] hey and the whole hagiography is not an actual thing.
[00:09:10] But like did give me a nice little like each time
[00:09:14] it was being called out.
[00:09:16] And but I but when you were directing as an actor,
[00:09:21] how does that work for you?
[00:09:22] Like how do you balance those two?
[00:09:25] Well, you so it's co-directed with me.
[00:09:27] Lindsay and I co-directed and you may notice
[00:09:29] that Dr. Crane and Rebecca are never in a scene together,
[00:09:33] which is by design because we were like one
[00:09:36] we can't be in scenes together.
[00:09:38] One of us always.
[00:09:39] So at least there's somebody who's directing
[00:09:42] while the other one is acting.
[00:09:44] And we didn't really have a crew.
[00:09:47] Like at all, like we had at any given time
[00:09:50] we had a DP and like maybe our friend Sam
[00:09:54] to hold the boom sometimes.
[00:09:55] And then that's like that's basically it.
[00:09:57] And then the we just had us in the cast.
[00:09:59] So, you know, the cast had to do their own sound,
[00:10:02] which is I think maybe felt a little bit in the film.
[00:10:06] But yeah, I was like, we need we need bodies.
[00:10:09] It's a horror movie. People got to die.
[00:10:10] And so everyone's got to be in it.
[00:10:14] Who's working on it except for the except for the directors of photography.
[00:10:17] They're the only ones who escaped that.
[00:10:19] We were like, we need somebody
[00:10:20] to be manning the camera at any given time.
[00:10:22] But everybody else you got to be in the movie
[00:10:24] and you got to be on the crew.
[00:10:25] So they didn't have to get splattered around with paint
[00:10:28] with blood makeup effects and whatnot.
[00:10:31] Yeah, yeah, they're the only ones who have escaped it so far.
[00:10:34] Yes, we can actually talk like that transitions me into the way
[00:10:38] some of those some folks get get their demise,
[00:10:41] one of which is when they're wearing Harry the Hat.
[00:10:44] All that blood is trickling down.
[00:10:46] Yeah, I just liked how it was nice and inventive.
[00:10:49] Like you didn't need to go too far.
[00:10:50] It's just right there and it's just dripping down.
[00:10:52] It was like very I got I got a nice little like, oh my god.
[00:10:56] This is a lot of this is a nice like splatter
[00:10:59] fest going on right now.
[00:11:01] There's just enough of it to I think be like a little like actual
[00:11:04] like it catches you off guard.
[00:11:06] Maybe it's so creepy.
[00:11:07] There's a shout out is warranted here to Toby, Toby Bryan,
[00:11:10] who plays Norm.
[00:11:12] He's the voice of Woody.
[00:11:13] He did all the puppeteering.
[00:11:14] He's our special effects guy.
[00:11:17] So there's somewhere there's somewhere I have a video
[00:11:20] I haven't published it yet, but some of there's a very funny video
[00:11:22] of Toby and I testing the blood bags inside the hat
[00:11:25] and just like putting a hat on our head quickly
[00:11:28] and having the blood go down to great.
[00:11:31] Trying to figure out how much blood,
[00:11:33] how fast does the blood need to drip?
[00:11:34] You things you don't really think about until it was literally
[00:11:37] like the night before we were shooting, whatever.
[00:11:40] And we were like, we got to figure out the blood effect.
[00:11:42] Yeah. And it's in your right, because it does take you back
[00:11:45] for a second, because the good chunk of the good chunk of
[00:11:47] the first part of this movie is not really blood laden at all.
[00:11:50] Whatsoever really going on.
[00:11:52] And then all of a sudden it kicks into high gear.
[00:11:55] And what what I kind of noticed as I was watching it shift
[00:11:59] from those modes is that you were already from the get go
[00:12:02] blending a couple different films in here.
[00:12:05] And yeah, shame to do it through the score.
[00:12:09] I noticed the ones that I noticed off the top of my head
[00:12:12] were the shining at the beginning.
[00:12:15] Yeah. And then I got a bit of a sense of other horror films,
[00:12:19] maybe a rainy vibe off through that.
[00:12:20] And then I got this this basically Howard Shore
[00:12:23] asked Middle Earth score for the final fight and whatnot.
[00:12:27] Did you instruct the composer to just go all out
[00:12:30] and try to recreate some of those vibes
[00:12:32] when getting that music together?
[00:12:35] Yeah, the composer is the composer is Jimmy Han,
[00:12:37] Lindsay Hans dad.
[00:12:39] And that's actually his cabin where so the music
[00:12:42] was also composed in the cabin where we shot to.
[00:12:46] And yeah, so we we tempt.
[00:12:50] We made a temporary score with the score from the shining
[00:12:53] was a big piece of that always.
[00:12:55] And this was always sort of like Lindsay's initial idea
[00:12:59] for the movie as how she would approach it as a director was.
[00:13:02] It's the shining.
[00:13:03] But if Leslie Nielsen was playing Jack.
[00:13:09] And so we were always like, OK, so the shining is a big piece
[00:13:12] of it. That's, you know, a movie that's near and dear to all of our
[00:13:15] all of our hearts.
[00:13:15] And if you're doing a sort of snowbound
[00:13:19] family murder movie, it was so yes, that's that's a big piece
[00:13:23] of of of where we were.
[00:13:24] The I'm not sure if I used any Howard Shore in particular
[00:13:28] in the temp score, but there was really it was always a really
[00:13:31] big sweeping orchestral
[00:13:35] oral is popping up everywhere.
[00:13:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:38] And and Jimmy's fantastic and extremely versatile
[00:13:41] and can do just like anything.
[00:13:43] So I was like, I was like, I need you to do the shining here.
[00:13:46] There's a little bit of this is going to get more like English
[00:13:48] patient over here and then like, yeah, giant orchestral.
[00:13:52] I think I think I used
[00:13:55] like some of the inspiration pieces I gave him were like music from
[00:13:59] the Star Wars video games because they had that kind of like epic
[00:14:03] fighty gigantic.
[00:14:05] So this may be a little bit of John Williams in there, if not,
[00:14:09] if not Howard Shore.
[00:14:11] Then and I I'm actually curious because of that that epic feel
[00:14:16] that you're underlaying in the final fight.
[00:14:20] It kind of has an overall question about how you as a director
[00:14:23] and how your special effects guy handled this.
[00:14:27] Talk a little bit about the puppetry and how you were
[00:14:30] basically kind of motivating yourselves around that function
[00:14:34] because it's one thing to have a bunch of actors and get your
[00:14:37] shots off on and make your day.
[00:14:39] It's another to have this puppet element in the mix.
[00:14:43] How did that affect the way you guys were able to progress at
[00:14:47] a pretty reasonable rate and like how difficult was it to work
[00:14:51] with those confines?
[00:14:52] Is definitely look having a having the puppets are very rudimentary,
[00:14:56] right? Because they don't even have really like moving parts.
[00:14:58] I mean Woody, who is one of the main characters of the movie
[00:15:00] is literally just an Afghan, an unaltered.
[00:15:03] He is an Afghan.
[00:15:04] But then there's a lot of things that we did to sort of
[00:15:07] bring him to life a little bit more.
[00:15:09] I think that Toby's sort of hand.
[00:15:12] I mean, Toby's a serious puppeteer and a real puppet builder.
[00:15:15] So it's not like it was just like he's much better than if it
[00:15:18] was just me with my hand.
[00:15:19] Like and I think Toby brought a lot of life to the character
[00:15:21] by doing, you know, live recording the voice with the movements
[00:15:25] and Toby really got into the sort of hand of it.
[00:15:28] The other thing is a decision that was made between
[00:15:33] Lindsay, who was really working more closely with the DPs.
[00:15:36] I was more like the director, who is also the writer,
[00:15:38] who is working on trying to look.
[00:15:42] I just wanted the movie to be funny.
[00:15:43] That was all I was focused on.
[00:15:44] It was just funny, funny, funny, funny.
[00:15:46] Can I get to be funny?
[00:15:47] Yeah. But Lindsay and the DPs worked out this cool thing
[00:15:50] where they altered the shutter speed of the camera
[00:15:53] when we're on Woody.
[00:15:55] So it just suddenly gives this kind of unreal effect
[00:16:00] just a little bit and it changes the way that the camera
[00:16:02] is like catching movement.
[00:16:05] So there's like little tiny things like that that were
[00:16:07] I thought were really cool.
[00:16:09] And then look, there was at least one moment
[00:16:12] where we were moving so fast because it was puppets
[00:16:14] that we forgot to shoot Woody's close-up.
[00:16:16] And that's a problem too, because usually you have
[00:16:19] if you have a human actor, it's a lot harder to do that.
[00:16:22] You're like, OK, we need to turn around on, you know,
[00:16:24] Jacob or Ashley or whatever.
[00:16:26] But there was definitely a let's just say a key moment
[00:16:29] in the film where we just never shot a close-up of Woody
[00:16:33] and real life.
[00:16:34] It's the moment at the end of the movie
[00:16:35] where he says the titular line of the film.
[00:16:37] We got Hanky Banky.
[00:16:38] And so I had to like go reconstructed by.
[00:16:42] I did.
[00:16:43] I managed to digitally remove like Harry from another moment
[00:16:48] where Woody was talking and then digitally zoom in
[00:16:51] and turn it into a close-up.
[00:16:53] But like that's the that's one unforeseen challenge
[00:16:57] of working with napkin puppets.
[00:17:00] Right.
[00:17:01] Well, and I with that puppetry in mind
[00:17:03] and the way you're affecting the shutter speed
[00:17:05] that that makes a lot of sense now hearing that
[00:17:07] because it does feel in tune with the rest of the film.
[00:17:10] It doesn't feels like it's off off to the side
[00:17:14] in terms of like the visuals don't shift strictly
[00:17:17] unless you the director or Lindsay as the director are
[00:17:20] saying so in the edit, nothing is shifting from the visual spectrum.
[00:17:23] We've already set up.
[00:17:25] And also you you handled your your foley beautifully
[00:17:28] to match each movement that was clearly hitting
[00:17:30] with the best take that you had.
[00:17:33] It was very, very lovely to watch that.
[00:17:35] And the Harry puppet was a very lovely surreal invention.
[00:17:40] That thing looked look groggy as soon.
[00:17:44] It's absolutely fantastic to get him.
[00:17:47] He's actually have him right here.
[00:17:48] You see.
[00:17:49] Oh, no.
[00:17:50] He's a little worse for where his peacock feather eyes
[00:17:53] have rotted off.
[00:17:54] But you know, he's still there.
[00:17:56] There's still I still have the gaffer's tape
[00:17:58] that holds the blood bags inside of his head.
[00:18:00] So I love the the the function of the rim of the hat
[00:18:04] has the teeth inside of it like a job.
[00:18:06] Yeah, very lovely little addition to the detail.
[00:18:09] This is that's all Toby Toby sort of made isn't he?
[00:18:11] He was like, I'll give him a little bit of a tongue and, you know,
[00:18:14] it's sort of like, you know, when when you see it up close
[00:18:18] with the shutter speed, I'll forget if it's sped up or slowed down.
[00:18:21] I'm bad with technical stuff.
[00:18:22] But like it does give him a kind of like fun creepy flair.
[00:18:27] Yeah, he he fits right within that eye shack motif.
[00:18:31] And when you have him placed upon other people's heads
[00:18:35] that that just gives off this amazing like it's already
[00:18:40] an unsettling image on top of what's going to be
[00:18:43] an unsettling performance from anybody who's wearing it
[00:18:46] and or anybody who's getting the wrath of him.
[00:18:48] I really appreciated that.
[00:18:50] So when from from start to finish,
[00:18:53] how long has the film been like how long have you been constructing it up to this
[00:18:58] point? Is was this like over the course of a year?
[00:19:00] How long did this take you to put together?
[00:19:02] So we assembled the idea for we developed and wrote the script
[00:19:06] and sort of prepped really that was only a few months.
[00:19:08] We shot it in like three.
[00:19:11] Most of it was shot in three weeks.
[00:19:13] And then some of it a little bit a couple weekends later were sort of pickups.
[00:19:17] And then Lindsay and I spent seven years editing it
[00:19:19] because it was a real bear and we were doing it in our spare time.
[00:19:24] And so it took just an enormously long.
[00:19:27] I think the the real tremendous
[00:19:31] boon that we got out of that was that like this was a movie
[00:19:34] where it really benefited from us being able to sort of take a few months off here in there
[00:19:39] come back with I mean, take a year off maybe at one point
[00:19:42] and really come back with fresh eyes because it's very hard to edit.
[00:19:47] Oh, look, we had never edited a movie.
[00:19:48] We didn't know what we were doing.
[00:19:49] We were learning as we went a lot of it.
[00:19:52] We'd only edited shorts and music videos before this and.
[00:19:56] There's a lot.
[00:19:57] It's a lot.
[00:19:58] And we had to figure out what the movie was and really put it together
[00:20:01] in the in the cutting room.
[00:20:03] So we spent a long time doing that.
[00:20:05] We finished it.
[00:20:06] We picture locked right before the writer strike.
[00:20:14] So then you put it down and wait.
[00:20:16] Well, and then we and then we did like I did the color and sound
[00:20:19] and all that during the strike, actually.
[00:20:21] Nice, nice.
[00:20:22] And so like so did you like I appreciate you finding a benefit
[00:20:27] in taking that long to edit?
[00:20:28] Because most people I would I might encounter may not like feel that way.
[00:20:32] They they have a turnaround in their mind.
[00:20:36] But if it's something that you're dedicating your time and passion to,
[00:20:38] there's no time limit on that.
[00:20:41] It was just the movies.
[00:20:43] Not it's not there yet and it can get better.
[00:20:44] And, you know, it was mostly just cutting it shorter and shorter
[00:20:47] and shorter and shorter until it's now it's this very crisp 86 minutes
[00:20:51] and change. But it took a lot to get to.
[00:20:54] And you know, things came out and went back in.
[00:20:56] There's a lot that's on the cutting room floor.
[00:20:58] Yeah, you're not only right about that crisp tight 82 86.
[00:21:03] 80 socks. Yeah.
[00:21:04] Yeah, you're your your what's put aside the puppets
[00:21:08] and the sci-fi and the horror elements here for a second.
[00:21:11] The first third of this reminded me of a screwball comedy.
[00:21:14] Which I really appreciated.
[00:21:16] Like the editing is very, very tight and and these characters feel like
[00:21:21] they're walking in and out of a press office in his Girl Friday,
[00:21:25] the way they're kind of maneuvering in and out.
[00:21:28] Like I was very, very impressed by how you managed to kind of fit all that in.
[00:21:33] Like did you did you start off?
[00:21:36] I'm wondering actually just as an editor to editor,
[00:21:38] did you start off giving them a little more space
[00:21:40] and then realizing you had to like compress it?
[00:21:42] Or was that the idea from the get go?
[00:21:44] I mean, I think that we were from the get go.
[00:21:46] We were trying to compress it and then we compress it as much as we could in
[00:21:49] performance, then we compressed it as much as we could in post because it was all like,
[00:21:53] you know, there was a lot of emphasis on like clue is a good example
[00:21:57] of sort of like cabin murder mystery, but also we wanted that incredibly quick.
[00:22:02] It's not we I hesitate to invoke clue too much
[00:22:06] because there's pieces that are superficially very similar to clue.
[00:22:08] But I think like tonally, we were going for a very different kind of humor than clue.
[00:22:13] But with some of that like fast talking and obviously murder mystery in a cabin, right?
[00:22:17] But, you know, clue is we had jokes that were more clue like jokes, word play jokes.
[00:22:22] Most of that we cut out.
[00:22:24] We were like, this is actually not the direction we want to go in.
[00:22:27] We want to have it be this sort of weirdly it's more grounded in a lot of ways.
[00:22:31] Like in the end, it's kind of I think it's really great to throw people in this.
[00:22:35] OK, so here's this crazy thing.
[00:22:36] But then let's treat that realistically and what would happen?
[00:22:39] What would really happen?
[00:22:40] How would you really react if this insane thing was happening?
[00:22:43] You're not cranking it to total ludicrous speed, essentially.
[00:22:47] If we're in terminology, you're not going to ludicrous speed.
[00:22:50] You may be going toward ridiculous speed.
[00:22:53] Yeah. And there's a there's a definite like I got clue vibes,
[00:22:57] but it was a larger drawing room mystery aesthetic at large.
[00:23:01] You could apply that to like how how they're how
[00:23:04] Ryan Johnson's pulling off his knives out films recently, where it's just
[00:23:08] it's a bunch of people in a room.
[00:23:09] We are trying to figure out what's going on here.
[00:23:13] Different relationships are being formed in and out of the cabin.
[00:23:17] And there's something about the speed of it that worked very well
[00:23:20] without going into a one a full five hundred percent of clay.
[00:23:26] Like it's the speed is exactly where it needs to be.
[00:23:30] I think that's always on my mind structurally is Jurassic Park,
[00:23:33] which is like we so we open.
[00:23:35] There's a cold Jurassic Park opens.
[00:23:37] You don't even you don't see the raptor, but you see a guy get killed.
[00:23:40] Right? This this isn't reinventing the wheel.
[00:23:42] But then, you know, then there's forty five fifty minutes, I think, after that
[00:23:46] where there's no violence.
[00:23:48] There's nothing bad that happens.
[00:23:49] There's some eeriness or whatever, but it's all just character building
[00:23:53] and slowly building suspense until it's nighttime and it's raining
[00:23:56] and the and the electrics go down and the T-rex comes out.
[00:23:59] But that's half of the midpoint of that film, I think, is is mama.
[00:24:02] T-rex gets out and eats the lawyer off the toilet.
[00:24:05] Right? Spoiler alert on Jurassic Park.
[00:24:08] It's the plenty of time to do it.
[00:24:11] Yeah. Anybody if there's anybody listening to this podcast,
[00:24:14] who somehow missed Jurassic Park, stop the podcast now.
[00:24:18] Watch Jurassic Park.
[00:24:19] You got you got the one guy who in 93 just.
[00:24:22] What? He did what now with dinosaurs?
[00:24:25] Well, I'm curious in this creature horror film, but I've never seen Jurassic.
[00:24:28] Anyway, my point is that like, yeah.
[00:24:30] So so I think that there's you know, there's good reason audiences
[00:24:35] aren't going to be.
[00:24:37] I think like disappointed that it takes a long time to get back to
[00:24:41] oh and now people are getting killed again.
[00:24:43] I don't think they will.
[00:24:44] I don't think they're they're going to have any reason to be disappointed.
[00:24:47] They're in for a fun time.
[00:24:48] I enjoy like as somebody who's been
[00:24:52] we were talking off Mike, how I've been like running around with the head
[00:24:55] like a chicken with a cut off.
[00:24:57] It was nice to sit back with a film that just embrace the irreverent,
[00:25:01] embrace the madness and just had fun with itself.
[00:25:04] It was a great treat.
[00:25:06] I want to know, though, how other people can experience this film.
[00:25:09] What is the plan here?
[00:25:10] Where does it go at this point?
[00:25:11] Where are we? OK, somehow we did get a distributor.
[00:25:15] The movie is coming out on actual platforms, which feels crazy.
[00:25:19] I think after somewhere in the seven years of editing,
[00:25:21] most of the people who worked on it just thought this was disappearing
[00:25:23] and never getting finished.
[00:25:24] And when I was like, hey, I finished the movie.
[00:25:26] Everyone was like, what movie?
[00:25:27] What the hell are you talking about?
[00:25:28] It is coming out.
[00:25:30] We made a movie.
[00:25:31] It's a real movie and it's coming out April 19th on VOD.
[00:25:36] And so it'll be on Apple, Amazon, Google and then all the everything else.
[00:25:39] The ones with really, really funny names, Hoopla, Voodoo, Vendango or whatever.
[00:25:45] Yeah, so it'll be on all the really fun stuff on VOD for the in time
[00:25:49] to celebrate your four 20 weekend Friday, April 19th.
[00:25:53] I'm sober myself, but I think people who do engage in the sticky icky
[00:25:59] will quite enjoy what you have to offer them.
[00:26:02] It's got a lot of it's I don't think of it as a stoner comedy,
[00:26:05] but our distributor does and sort of, you know, it's got a lot of features
[00:26:10] of that kind of irreverent, absurdist psychedelic humor.
[00:26:15] I think but I think additionally, not just within that within that four 20 vibe.
[00:26:20] I think you I think you do manage to weave a fun, a fun tale of comedy horror
[00:26:25] that does that does have fun with its premise.
[00:26:28] Like you the joy of making the film is all over the film.
[00:26:33] It's not there's no cynicism involved.
[00:26:36] There's no nobody feels dishonest on screen and the film itself doesn't feel dishonest.
[00:26:42] So that that honesty, I think it's going to bleed into people
[00:26:45] checking out the film, my friend.
[00:26:47] Thank you so much because that is so much the the intention behind this was just
[00:26:50] like, let's make a movie.
[00:26:52] Let's have as much fun.
[00:26:53] I think I feel like this movie has big people, please or energy too, where it's
[00:26:56] like, I don't want to like we're so we're so hyper conscious.
[00:26:59] We don't want to waste anybody's time.
[00:27:00] Everything has to be good and funny in it.
[00:27:03] Like let's just make it the absolute best that we can.
[00:27:05] I think that there's a lot of times where
[00:27:08] super low budget comedy horrors and some of them are great
[00:27:11] and I enjoy them still, but like are like, well, this can be bad, right?
[00:27:15] Like or or we can sort of own intentionally being bad or call it parody
[00:27:19] and have that part be bad or whatever.
[00:27:21] And and maybe that's like cynicism, like you're saying, like that is not
[00:27:25] that was not our attempt.
[00:27:26] Our attempt was like this movie is silly.
[00:27:27] This movie is zany, but we are going to commit 100
[00:27:31] percent to making it as legitimately good as we possibly can.
[00:27:35] If I feel like if maybe this is a good way to to wrap it up is like
[00:27:39] if this film were trying to be a parody or trying to
[00:27:44] like poke fun at itself too much, I don't think that
[00:27:49] the heart of the woody character would be in full fashion.
[00:27:53] Like it's so like the thing I notice is like the the performance of Woody
[00:27:58] is this very like grounded some sounds like he maybe comes from the east coast.
[00:28:04] And interdimensional being stuck in a napkin.
[00:28:07] That is that that is does have like feelings for the people he surrounded with.
[00:28:12] He cares about Sam.
[00:28:14] He cares about the people in his life.
[00:28:16] Like I love the whole idea is like, no, Sam,
[00:28:18] I know I try to like con you into cleaning up messes, but this is to go like that.
[00:28:24] That that I think if you were to make the woody character,
[00:28:28] like not give a crap, then the movie wouldn't work.
[00:28:33] And the fact that he does a crap about the people that he's interacting with,
[00:28:36] it's kind of like the Muppets.
[00:28:37] Like if you don't believe that you're talking to Kermit the Frog,
[00:28:40] this premise doesn't work.
[00:28:42] And so I do think that you've built something that's genuine on this footing.
[00:28:46] So I think it I think it's a good achievement, sir.
[00:28:49] Thank you so much.
[00:28:50] I think another piece of what makes Woody work as well as he does.
[00:28:54] I mean, it's a whole ensemble is so good around him that them playing
[00:28:58] the actor human actors playing off him.
[00:29:00] I think it's a huge piece, especially Jacob Demony,
[00:29:02] Finn who plays Sam, who has all of these emotional scenes with Woody.
[00:29:07] And like he is I think he's a very talented actor, right?
[00:29:10] Like and his ability to sell the seriousness of this relationship that he has
[00:29:16] with his anchorchief.
[00:29:17] Like I think we really believe that they have like a 30 year history
[00:29:21] or whatever 20 something years of like backstory between them
[00:29:25] and this whole relationship.
[00:29:26] And that's there's a lot that's a lot of pressure was put on Jacob
[00:29:31] to really sell that as as as the human half of the of the pair.
[00:29:35] He provides just enough vulnerability to make that role.
[00:29:38] Right. It's actually he's
[00:29:40] he's got a very like I admire the tibidness he brought to the performance
[00:29:45] and then how it builds because at a certain point when he's when they're
[00:29:48] when they're talking about not mentioning the the mutated head on the back of that woman,
[00:29:53] like that that was probably my favorite character interaction in the movie
[00:29:56] going like you clear said something about it.
[00:29:59] Like that was that.
[00:30:00] Yeah. It's that vulnerability.
[00:30:02] If he doesn't sell it, then the movie doesn't work.
[00:30:04] And if the puppet doesn't sell his sincerity, then the movie doesn't work.
[00:30:07] Everybody is very sincere about the job that they're performing.
[00:30:10] Even when they're doing silly stuff, I think they're doing it as if it's
[00:30:14] that these these actors really committed hard to the bit.
[00:30:17] Agreed. Well, before we go, remind everybody,
[00:30:20] I know you talked about it, but do it again because we want to get people
[00:30:22] to watch this film where we're able to find it.
[00:30:24] When is it coming out? How can I watch it?
[00:30:26] So April 19th, everywhere online, I think you just Google it and it comes up.
[00:30:31] Amazon will probably be the most reliable place to find it, you know,
[00:30:35] but it'll also be on Apple, Apple, Google, Apple TV, Google Play,
[00:30:39] whatever Voodoo is called in a couple of weeks, Vandango, I think.
[00:30:44] And home again.
[00:30:46] What? That's just a homework bound Vendango.
[00:30:48] I don't know. Whenever I want to watch anything,
[00:30:50] I just Google it now to figure out where to watch it because I have no idea
[00:30:53] where anything is. So yeah, I think I think probably people can do that.
[00:30:57] You can also find us at hankypanky the movie dot com.
[00:31:00] And if you screw up and just type hankypanky movie dot com, guess what?
[00:31:03] I bought I bought both domains.
[00:31:06] So you're good.
[00:31:09] Hankypanky movie not to be confused with Hankypanky the underwear,
[00:31:15] which is a pair.
[00:31:16] I we didn't know this at the time.
[00:31:17] There's a big underwear company called Hankypanky.
[00:31:20] So we're we're in a we're not winning the SEO battle with them yet.
[00:31:24] But hopefully hopefully one day.
[00:31:26] Never say never. All we got to wait for is either.
[00:31:29] Well, the film should blow up.
[00:31:30] But if it doesn't, for whatever reason,
[00:31:31] we just got to wait for Hankypanky underwear to collapse under itself.
[00:31:35] And then they'll be gone. Yeah.
[00:31:36] I could or better some kind of partnership for the sequel guys.
[00:31:39] You know what I mean? It could be Hankypanky presents.
[00:31:42] Hankypanky, too.
[00:31:43] Is there a sequel in mind that that may be the whole thing is in my head.
[00:31:47] I had the movie exists.
[00:31:48] It's up here and it's it's it goes much harder.
[00:31:52] Let's just say there are more hats.
[00:31:54] There are more hankies.
[00:31:57] There is it's just more of everything.
[00:31:59] It's independent state like on ass.
[00:32:02] Nice. Fantastic.
[00:32:03] Well, thank you so much, Nick.
[00:32:05] For sitting down to chat with us about your film.
[00:32:06] We were so happy to talk with you, Brad.
[00:32:09] I think that's going to wrap it up for this real interview.
[00:32:12] Should we switch it over back to the main programming?
[00:32:16] Or just the regular programming,
[00:32:18] because we might have just put this on YouTube without the rest of the show.
[00:32:24] Yeah, I think I have one question, though.
[00:32:27] Oh, yeah.
[00:32:28] You've been talking all time.
[00:32:31] The tears references, obviously, you must be huge cheers fans.
[00:32:35] No, no, no.
[00:32:37] Yeah.
[00:32:39] The the cheers thing came out of when we when we initially did the short film.
[00:32:45] It was for one of those like projects where you have a 48 hours to make a movie.
[00:32:49] And so so we were like, OK, we got 48 hours and we got a character named Sam.
[00:32:54] And I was like, I got to name all these other characters.
[00:32:56] I don't have time to name them.
[00:32:57] So I was like, Diane Cliff, Carlo, Woody Goh as a like a placeholder.
[00:33:03] But then once it was a placeholder, I was like, that's actually very funny.
[00:33:07] Let's commit to that and just make every character in the movie
[00:33:11] named after the characters from from Cheers.
[00:33:13] That is the end of where the I think the cheers references go.
[00:33:17] But it's the logo of the movie.
[00:33:19] But of course, the logo of the film is it's the cheers font,
[00:33:23] but then it flies in space like Star Wars and it's got music
[00:33:27] that is reminiscent of The Shining.
[00:33:29] We're like, I think it's pretty clear.
[00:33:31] We're just like we're all over the place, movie buffs and and film and television
[00:33:36] lovers who, you know, very freely picked and choose picked and chose,
[00:33:44] you know, all kinds of references.
[00:33:46] That's cool. I like it.
[00:33:48] Wonderful. Well, thank you so much again, Nick.
[00:33:50] And that's going to wrap it up for this real interview.
[00:33:52] Dig back over to real nerds podcast.com and check us out on all of our
[00:33:56] socials to hear more real inner real interviews as well as our movie reviews,
[00:34:01] our film explosions, et cetera.
[00:34:02] All that wonderful stuff at real nerds podcast until next time.
[00:34:07] Bye.
[00:34:27] Thanks for listening to real nerds podcast and nebulous visions production.
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