Clark
Hello, everyone, and welcome once again to the Soldiers of Cinema podcast. I, as always, am Clark Coffey. And also as always with me is Mr. Cullen McFater. Hey Co. Hello. Good.
00:00:22:17 - 00:00:23:16
Cullen
Good, good. How are you?
00:00:23:19 - 00:00:39:09
Clark
I'm doing fantastic on this beautiful, overcast, misty day, which is rare for us to get here in Southern California and enjoying it. It's like perfect riding weather. So I'm excited too, after we record this, I'm going to sit down next to the fireplace and do some writing.
00:00:39:18 - 00:00:40:10
Cullen
Nice. Yeah.
00:00:40:15 - 00:00:41:08
Clark
I don't know what it is.
00:00:41:08 - 00:00:44:18
Cullen
Like the best atmosphere for. Yeah, it's mysterious, you know.
00:00:44:18 - 00:00:58:21
Clark
It's always I feel like it's harder to write when it's, you know, 80 degrees and sunny every single day. You know, I maybe it's the romantic in me, but I, I want like, you know, a foot of snow outside and overcast and it, you know, it's too cold to go anywhere. And when it.
00:00:58:21 - 00:01:00:07
Cullen
Feels like there's tension in the air, you.
00:01:00:07 - 00:01:25:10
Clark
Just, like hunkered down, you know, and. Yeah. And it's like, well, there's nothing to do but right any way. And, you know, you make yourself a hot toddy. And so now anyway, maybe. But anyway, I'm also glad to be here, which with you on what will be episode 43. And I'm I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your film Daylight Again.
00:01:25:16 - 00:02:00:18
Clark
So, you know, we've we've done an episode, a couple episodes up into this point where we kind of went over some of your preparations for pre-production, and we had another episode where we talked a little bit about the first part of your of your production. You're shooting and now you've wrapped and you're in post. So we're going to talk a little bit more about your whole process and what you went through and maybe what you learned or you know, how things went for this, this the second half of your production and kind of as you slide into the first parts of post here.
00:02:00:19 - 00:02:18:07
Clark
So, yeah, let's jump in. I mean, let's let's remind everybody, if you would like, give us a quick little summary of your film, of the project, of its scope and story, just in case people are jumping in here and haven't heard the other two. And then we'll we'll kind of go through what your process has been thus far.
00:02:18:15 - 00:02:47:19
Cullen
Yeah. So the project, the movie, as you said, is called Daylight Again, It's a very Hitchcock kind of drama thriller about this character named Maggie, who's kind of reached rock bottom and has nowhere to go. And her family and friends have all kind of disowned her in a way. And then she bumps into her ex from a few years ago, Peter, who, you know, they had kind of a toxic relationship back in the day and did some illegal stuff.
00:02:48:00 - 00:03:09:12
Cullen
Whoa. But he kind of offers to, you know, house her and help her kind of get back on her feet. So he brings her up to his house, which is off in the country, way up north. And things kind of aren't as they seem. And she sort of realizes that there was a ulterior motive to his his his reaching out.
00:03:09:21 - 00:03:46:01
Cullen
So don't don't get very, very Hitchcock very like I was kind of funny because I rewatched Rebecca right before we did our major shoot at the house location, which is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. And I sort of realized how much I accidentally stole from it completely subconsciously, like even the plot itself is super similar to Rebecca, which of course is about a woman who is swept up by a man who she has never dated before in that instance and goes to his house and finds out all these, you know, secrets about him and that that maybe he's not quite as nice as he seems.
00:03:46:01 - 00:04:04:04
Cullen
So it was kind of funny to to watch watch that before I went and kind of realize like, oh, wow, this is I can tell where my mind kind of went on the the inspiration side of things. Yeah. So it was it was a year and a half about a year and a half of writing and pre-production and stuff like that.
00:04:04:04 - 00:04:10:12
Cullen
And then we shot it over the course of about a month and a half. But there were ten shoot days individually.
00:04:10:12 - 00:04:10:20
Clark
Okay.
00:04:10:22 - 00:04:23:11
Cullen
Originally there were suppose to be 11, but one of them got cut, so there was ten total shoot days, which is I'm sure that anybody who has experience in the film industry right now is going like first feature in ten days. There's no way that worked.
00:04:23:18 - 00:04:25:14
Clark
Yeah, yeah, that's not many days.
00:04:25:14 - 00:04:40:01
Cullen
I thought the same thing and everyone I told was like, good luck because you know, a lot of people's first shoot features take years to shoot and get done and stuff, but I hopefully will be able to get into kind of the details of like how I planned it and how I scheduled everything.
00:04:40:12 - 00:04:41:11
Clark
Well, yeah, Let's.
00:04:41:15 - 00:04:42:12
Cullen
Talk a little bit about Yeah.
00:04:42:15 - 00:05:02:02
Clark
Yeah. Well, let's use that. Let's use that then as a segue way to, to, to talk about how you set things up and what your shoot was like. So I mean, how did you get it done in ten days? I mean, give us an idea of script length and kind of where you feel like if you've got a target for film length.
00:05:02:11 - 00:05:09:05
Clark
But what what do you think were some of the keys for getting that successfully shot in such a short period of time?
00:05:09:05 - 00:05:45:01
Cullen
So the script length is 90 pages, okay. And I'm aiming for about 80 to 90 minutes on the film. Okay. And I think the biggest key was, you know, during the writing process, knowing that I was directing it, being able to both cut down or alter scenes to make it, you know, easier to shoot. So an example is in an earlier draft like this, the final set piece of the film took place at night or at dusk or dawn in a forest, and it was this big like action, not action in terms of like fight scene, but it was like there's a lot of action, a lot of stunt work and choreography and stuff that
00:05:45:01 - 00:06:08:16
Cullen
had to go into that. Yeah. And I was like, There's no way that on this budget, which is again, it's entirely self-financed not just by me, but, you know, self-financed by the group of us, that there's no way that that I was going to be able to wrap around the the infrastructure needed to shoot such a complicated scene out in the forest at at dawn.
00:06:09:00 - 00:06:27:20
Cullen
Yeah. Like that's just you know, those are three things that are like, you know, even a big budget movie would have a hard time pulling that off. So I wound up switching that whole thing to be inside in this cellar, which is a location that we'll talk about once we kind of get onto the actual shoot days themselves.
00:06:27:20 - 00:06:43:01
Cullen
So it was a lot of that. Like it was a lot of going through the script and being like, that's going to be way too complicated to shoot. So how can I get that scene? Kind of or the idea of that scene across while also making it a much more simple logistic kind of thing to to get done?
00:06:43:22 - 00:07:12:20
Cullen
And then the second part of it was, was also being able to kind of go through the script itself and sort of say like, okay, what what locations need what, you know, who are the actors I need? Because I kind of did all of the pre pro like the production by myself as well. So it was it came down to basically looking at the short list and getting a really detailed short list actually running through that short list in the rehearsal and kind of, you know, faking the setups during the rehearsal process that we did, which we spoke about kind of in our first episode, right.
00:07:13:04 - 00:07:31:14
Cullen
Um, and, you know, setting up with a viewfinder like the shots and realizing, okay, that actually I can, I can cut out these three shots because that shot kind of covers the whole scene and actually looks really nice in the blocking can kind of play out naturally in that one set up rather than having to do six different shots for for a scene.
00:07:31:20 - 00:07:52:12
Cullen
Yeah. So it was again, it was a lot of kind of cutting things down to the essentials, which not in a way that, that made it seem like it was like lazy or rushed or anything like that, but rather quite the contrary, so that I could put a lot of effort into as few shots as focus as opposed to, you know, spreading out so much effort over 50 shots in a scene or something.
00:07:52:17 - 00:08:07:22
Clark
Right. Which often happens. So so yeah, it sounds like I mean, in the writing process, it at least if not if not in your first kind of draft or I mean, not your first draft, but you kind of it sounds like you took your shooting script and you went through and you even refined that further.
00:08:08:04 - 00:08:08:18
Cullen
Where you.
00:08:09:04 - 00:08:31:13
Clark
You said, okay, what are the actual practical limitations? What locations can I get? And even more, you know, these shots, the handful of shots like the one that you describe, this is going to be technically quite difficult. I could like kind of put this in a different place or at a different time and make that shot technically much easier for me to to actually pull off in such a short amount of time.
00:08:32:03 - 00:08:51:09
Cullen
And then I mean, if an example of one of those things too, is that there was a location that was was we inside kind of like a hardware store and I was not getting a response from anywhere, you know, even when they'd email back and sort of say, hey, do you have any more details about the thing? And of course, you know, again, offering to pay for these locations as well, but nowhere close.
00:08:51:09 - 00:08:52:14
Clark
It is probably tough. I mean.
00:08:52:17 - 00:09:19:21
Cullen
Exactly. And so I wound up taking that scene and just setting it outside in a parking lot. And we already had another shoot at a parking lot, which was the scene was supposed to be the scene after that scene in the hardware store. And so what that made me that's actually why it went from 11 to 10 days, because I wound up cutting an entire shoot day out because of the fact that we no longer needed that location of of inside the hardware store.
00:09:20:03 - 00:09:38:04
Cullen
And so I just kind of combined there was like supposed to initially be two scenes. They have a conversation in the hardware store and carry it out, you know, into the parking lot. And I just wound up using that entire parking lot to be the setting of the entire scene rather than. Yeah, which took some rewriting. You know, I rewrote the scene so that it made sense to be out there.
00:09:38:04 - 00:09:54:14
Cullen
And I actually wound up liking that scene in the way that the dialog kind of progressed in that scene. More than had I even shot the scene in the hardware store in the first place. So, yeah, again, a lot of things like that just kind of going like, okay, this location either isn't responding or is going to be, you know, too much work or something like that.
00:09:54:14 - 00:09:58:21
Cullen
And so why don't I just simplify it and kind of find things and make it more efficient?
00:09:59:03 - 00:10:12:22
Clark
And I mean, I think it's important to note, too, and because I see this and a lot of shoots and it sounds like your rehearsal process limited this quite a bit, which is just a ton of coverage, I think.
00:10:13:00 - 00:10:13:12
Cullen
Yeah, Yeah.
00:10:13:16 - 00:10:33:20
Clark
And you know, it seems to me that it's and I'm really against shooting a lot of coverage. And I know that there are people out there who, you know, they, they want to get everything from every angle because what, you know, it makes them feel kind of safer. You know, it's like, okay, if I've got all these angles, if I've got all this coverage, I'm, you know, get as wide as possible to, you know.
00:10:34:06 - 00:10:35:23
Cullen
I can cross wherever I want. Yeah.
00:10:36:00 - 00:11:03:07
Clark
I mean, everything in between. They feel like, okay, I'm giving myself all these options when I get into editing and I don't actually feel like that's really how that ends up. No, I think what ends up happening is that you're overwhelmed in editing A and B, that lack of focus really becomes evident once you start to edit the picture together, you can tell that there wasn't an intensity of focus and and a conscientiousness.
00:11:04:05 - 00:11:05:19
Clark
So I don't know it, you know, I.
00:11:05:19 - 00:11:36:07
Cullen
Didn't got a perfect example of that to use into when we were shooting at the restaurant one night, which again lots of extras and things like that and props and fake wine and beer and stuff like that. So like logistically a more complicated shoot than, than the earlier ones have been. Probably the first, like majorly complicated lots of kind of infrastructure going into the shoot, you know, actually having to speak with the location owner JR and stuff Owner owner owners here is actually the restaurant that I used to bartend at.
00:11:36:07 - 00:11:59:03
Cullen
So it was, you know, a little bit of a great way to sneak in there. But there was one scene where I knew that I wanted to have the primary the most of the scene take place in a one hour of just them talking at the the table, kind of a very Bong Joon Ho shot where it's like they're very again, it's almost like tableaux like they're choreographed and staged in a way.
00:11:59:03 - 00:12:21:04
Cullen
Then the blocking is in a way that like you can see all their faces. They're all kind of sitting on one side of the table and talking to each other that way, as opposed to something where it would be like were shot over, shot at a table. I just liked the look of the kind of, you know, back from afar on a really long lens looking over to them and having this whole scene play out in the shot was though, I had, you know, an insert of or just, you know, the master.
00:12:21:04 - 00:12:37:14
Cullen
And then I had the close ups of each of them so that if something went wrong in the master, I could cut in. But we did the master first and my first or my assistant director sort of came over and said like, okay, now it's like, what's the like how we're going to light the close ups? And I was looking at the the take and I sort of said like, Oh, we don't even need them.
00:12:37:14 - 00:12:56:20
Cullen
Like, I'm happy with that. And I know that if we cut into anything, it's going to interrupt the rhythm of that scene. And so we we wound up cutting, again, three shots out of the scene. Yeah, just on the shoot day, because I realized that that one master, which was always my plan initially, didn't need any coverage to, to fill in the blanks or anything like that.
00:12:56:20 - 00:13:07:16
Cullen
It just worked on its own and the performances were solid. So I was happy with it, happy enough with it to just go with the master as I had initially planned and didn't need that that extra coverage.
00:13:07:16 - 00:13:07:22
Clark
Yeah.
00:13:07:23 - 00:13:35:21
Cullen
Which again would have just slowed things down and it would have been pointless because I wouldn't have used them. So you kind of have to again, you have to be really you finite resources, including time. And I think if you use them wisely, then to make shots look good and to make sure the actors are, you know, delivering well and things like that and liked them really nicely, then you're going to have, I think, a better final product than if you just, you know, get so much stuff that that it just winds up being jumbled and, you know, Sure.
00:13:35:21 - 00:13:49:08
Cullen
Are there you know, the slight moment of like a continuity error or something like that somewhere in the movie probably. But it doesn't really matter at the end of the day because it's one second. And I think that you'd have to really be forensically analyzing the movie to actually even notice those types of things.
00:13:49:08 - 00:13:49:18
Clark
Right.
00:13:50:11 - 00:14:04:20
Cullen
Whereas I think what's much more noticeable, again, like you said, is just this kind of like lack of vision or lack of of like a clear choice of what the shots are. And you're just trying to capture everything so that you can kind of like stitch together in the edit.
00:14:05:05 - 00:14:24:01
Clark
Yeah, yeah. Absolute. And I it's, and it takes confidence, right? I mean you've got to because I mean look, I understand it's, it can be scary you know, to, to put all your eggs in one basket so to speak. But you know it's, I think that confidence usually pays off. I mean, there is, you know, everything is kind of a balance.
00:14:25:01 - 00:14:55:03
Clark
And you've got to be sure. But yeah, well, I'll be excited to see the what you've got. And, you know, we could talk a little bit more. I know you're you're actually kind of starting post this, but but before we jump to that, let's let's talk about you've already mentioned like a handful of different locations. And I know you know, for for people who are kind of just starting out, who are making some of their first films, that's one of the biggest challenges right away are are finding locations that you're able to use.
00:14:55:04 - 00:15:05:03
Clark
Talk to me a little bit about some of the locations that you used and how you went about finding them and how that kind of worked. How were you able to do that on such a low budget?
00:15:05:11 - 00:15:29:00
Cullen
Mm hmm. Yeah. So the first two days were just one of them we shot just at my house, which is always, you know, the easiest. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's an exterior scene in a forest that we shot very close to my house. There's a big kind of, like, forest with a marsh and stuff nearby. So we were able very much a local kind of like I knew the locations, I'd been there, a shot things there before.
00:15:29:21 - 00:15:33:00
Cullen
So I kind of knew how easy it was to get equipment over there and stuff like that.
00:15:33:05 - 00:15:36:02
Clark
Now, did you just steal those exteriors? You just kind of ran out?
00:15:36:02 - 00:15:54:21
Cullen
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No, like scenes in the parking lot. Exactly. We just I knew what parking lot would be kind of the least busy on a Sunday morning. Yeah. And so we just went there and, you know, there was, of course, traffic going through, but it kind of added to the location anyway. But there was no issue of like people parking right beside us or something like that.
00:15:54:23 - 00:15:57:10
Clark
You never had anybody come up and say, What are you doing here?
00:15:57:15 - 00:16:16:05
Cullen
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Good, good. Yeah. And then the so then the first kind of major location that was that was like an actual kind of rental was the restaurant, which as I said, I used to bartend there. And when I was writing the script I wrote kind of blocked the scenes in my head in that restaurant. So it was really great that I wound up getting to use it.
00:16:16:05 - 00:16:39:13
Cullen
The lighting was also like, IS has always really been really beautiful in that restaurant because it's a very light. There's a lot of light fixtures that are very soft, that are kind of hanging from the ceiling all over the restaurant. So it provides a really soft kind of wrap around lighting versus, you know, some restaurants that are either really dark or some restaurants that just have really harsh lights that are just in certain areas and there's not like an even distribution of light.
00:16:39:13 - 00:16:56:05
Cullen
So it made it really easy to light around. And then, you know, again, because the fact that I bartended there, I was able to easily talk to the owner. Yeah. And that is again, a huge recommendation is just use what you know when use don't be afraid to ask for favors from people and stuff like that and of course return them.
00:16:57:00 - 00:17:14:20
Cullen
But yeah, so that was kind of the first major location that wasn't, you know, my own or something that I owned or something that's kind of stolen outside that, that didn't really have a like that was public. And that one went well. That was just a, again, a restaurant scene. So we had to we had extras and stuff like that.
00:17:14:20 - 00:17:26:19
Cullen
And then after that was a cellar scene. So that was one of these scenes that I was kind of concerned about because in that, again, very specific blocking and very specific needs from the screenplay, right?
00:17:26:19 - 00:17:30:20
Clark
I mean, you had seen tons and kind of I mean, there's a whole quarry at choreograph and they were in.
00:17:30:20 - 00:17:41:02
Cullen
There was like a you know, just even the way that that our main character enters the space and exits the space was very specific in the screenplay, and I had a very specific idea in my head.
00:17:41:09 - 00:17:51:11
Clark
Right now. Did you? Did you. So the cellar scene, you're going to tell us in a second maybe I'm jumping the gun here, but did you have the location locked down and then wrote the scene? No way.
00:17:51:12 - 00:18:02:13
Cullen
No. So I knew that I would probably have to change it, but I still wrote it specifically anyway, like for a fake location in my head, just like, okay, I kind of want the door to be there and then another door here. And then so you.
00:18:02:13 - 00:18:06:13
Clark
Imagined the space and then you went out and you found something that you could make work.
00:18:06:13 - 00:18:20:15
Cullen
With. Yeah. And so what was funny was that so I there's a lot of great is another, you know, piece of advice for anybody who's kind of starting out. There's a lot of great Facebook groups that are just like film industry network Toronto or, you know, wherever you are, I'm sure there's a ton of them for each city.
00:18:22:00 - 00:18:36:05
Cullen
And so I just went there and I sort of said like, Hey, I need a location that's sort of like The Silence of the Lambs house or like the parasite, you know, Bunker, basement kind of thing. Like I need some sort of cellar with hallways, basically like a main room and then some some tunnels.
00:18:36:05 - 00:18:37:14
Clark
Which kind of. Maisy Yeah.
00:18:38:02 - 00:18:58:18
Cullen
And I got a few pieces of like, you know, people saying like, here's this or that or this, and none of them really worked. And then this one guy reached out to me and said, like, Hey, I'm in Hamilton, which is a you know, very short drive, like a half hour drive from where I live. And he said, like, I've got this this location where there's soundstages on the top.
00:18:58:18 - 00:19:16:12
Cullen
It's this old like warehouse, but in the basement it was an old hydro building. So they used to run water through it and it would power the street lamps. It was so like back in the early 1900s. And so we I went for a scout, like I went with one of the people that was working with me. We just kind of went to check it out.
00:19:16:21 - 00:19:29:12
Cullen
And I walk into the space and it was literally like, you know, block for block exactly what I had imagined. Perfect. Like I had to change absolutely nothing about what was in the screenplay, which was, you know, kind of insane.
00:19:29:14 - 00:19:30:09
Clark
Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:30:10 - 00:19:51:10
Cullen
And, and so then so I booked that location. And that day, that shoot day was like, without a doubt, the most complicated, because again, that was the day that we had to have, like, makeup. We had to have, you know, there was like a lot of the lighting had to be very specific because we're in the cellar. And so we needed like 200 feet of extension cords to get light down there.
00:19:51:18 - 00:20:11:18
Cullen
Yeah, we had to make sure that the lenses were fast enough to to actually capture, you know, a dark space like that. And we had to bring like a haze machines that it filled the space and that we there was a bunch of props. There was, you know, very complicated set dressing to make it just look like the space that I wanted to look like.
00:20:11:18 - 00:20:18:19
Cullen
So, yeah, without a doubt, that was that was the most challenging day. But even that went really, really smoothly.
00:20:19:00 - 00:20:37:07
Clark
Yeah. Let me let's talk a little bit more in detail about that. Let me ask it. You know, because I think sometimes, you know, it might help some people who are like, again, you know, in the process of putting together their own first films or they're coming up against the challenges. So talk to me a little bit about how you negotiated the rental of that space.
00:20:38:08 - 00:20:42:21
Clark
Was it was it difficult? Did you you know, just tell me a little bit about that.
00:20:43:13 - 00:20:53:13
Cullen
Yeah. So it was basically I went and I think their rate was 100 an hour and or you could do a thousand for the full day.
00:20:53:16 - 00:20:56:03
Clark
So they were kind of set up like they had it sounds.
00:20:56:03 - 00:21:03:08
Cullen
Yeah, they had, they had fees but then they also you were able to negotiate if your budget was lower to to, you know, pay less.
00:21:03:12 - 00:21:03:22
Clark
Okay.
00:21:05:04 - 00:21:24:12
Cullen
So I wound up kind of negotiating down a little bit. But then what was funny was that I showed up. So that was also the day that, again, nothing really majorly went wrong, but there was it was actually kind of turned out to be a little bit lucky for that location. So I had booked the location in April and the shoot day was at the end of July.
00:21:24:12 - 00:21:42:02
Cullen
So there was a few months between me actually going to location and then the shoot day. And so I show up on the shoot day and I had talked to the to the owners a few days or a few weeks in advance of it and sort of ask them questions and stuff. And then suddenly they kind of stopped responding.
00:21:42:16 - 00:21:59:10
Cullen
And it was kind of odd. And I was like, Well, I hope that they're just busy. I definitely need this location. I've got actors that are actually, you know, hired out to come. I've got a makeup artist that I've hired. So let's hope that that they're just busy. So we show up on the day and the door was locked and the place was empty.
00:22:00:02 - 00:22:19:18
Cullen
And so I was like, Oh, no. Like, let's just let's just hope that that, you know, I just have to call somebody or something. And so I call and the guy that I was arranging kind of like my contact at the place was out of town, but luckily he was able to pick up his phone. And so he just gave me the code, the code for the lockbox.
00:22:19:18 - 00:22:39:17
Cullen
And so I can get the key and open everything up and get in there. But I think what had happened was actually that he had forgotten to actually write me and schedule me in. So I think that he'd completely forgotten. And luckily it only took like 5 minutes to actually get all that figured out. But because of that, he wound up like just basically giving it to me free of charge, because he was like, you know, my bad was.
00:22:39:18 - 00:22:42:03
Cullen
So I wound up getting the location for free, which, oh.
00:22:42:03 - 00:22:44:01
Clark
My God, great. That's amazing.
00:22:44:14 - 00:23:03:02
Cullen
But then we get in and it's again, it's like a big warehouse soundstage type thing. So we could actually pull our cars into the to the actual building. And I locked my keys in my car, which had all of the equipment, all the other sound equipment, the camera, everything. So it was like two things in a row. We're just like, Oh great.
00:23:03:02 - 00:23:24:01
Cullen
But again, luckily that was resolved within 10 minutes. We called CAA, which is, you know, based triple triple-A here. And, and they opened my door and it was it was all fine. And those two things for that day were the biggest things that went wrong. Everything else went, you know, incredibly smoothly. But again, to talk about scheduling so there's kind of two sections of the scene.
00:23:24:01 - 00:23:44:07
Cullen
There's the scenes that take place in the tunnels, and then there's the scenes play set takes place in the the cellar and actually two separate parts of the building. So you had to like you couldn't actually film right through into the one location from the other side. But I knew that the one actor was going to be alone in the tunnel scenes and she was the one that needed the light makeup and the other actor needed heavier makeup.
00:23:45:00 - 00:24:11:08
Cullen
So basically, again, like just to talk about efficiency of scheduling, we got there at nine. The first actor, we probably didn't get set up until about ten, ready to shoot the lead actress. She gets her makeup and then we got the other guy in the makeup chair to get the the more intense makeup for him. And while he was getting his makeup, which was going to take about 2 hours, we were down getting all the shots in the tunnels because he wasn't needed.
00:24:11:16 - 00:24:31:01
Cullen
Then by that point, we'd wrapped we took about 2 hours in the tunnels to get all the stuff that we needed down there and lots of like dollies and, you know, some kind of cool effects lighting and stuff like that down there. And then we finished that about 1230, got lunch, and then we had the rest of the day to actually do the major scene in the cellar.
00:24:32:01 - 00:24:45:06
Cullen
So we basically again, it was kind of this like it seems very simple, but it's one of those things that's just kind of like, okay, well, he's in his makeup chair. We don't need him for any of these scenes. Let's go get those scenes, finish those lunch, then move on to more complicated stuff.
00:24:45:12 - 00:25:01:05
Clark
Well, let me ask I mean, I know, you know, it's I think you said what you had a six crew total, and I know you funded it yourself. Very low budget. You wrote it, you directed it. Did you also build the schedule? Did you line.
00:25:01:09 - 00:25:04:08
Cullen
Crews? Yeah, Yeah, I did all the scheduling and everything myself.
00:25:04:16 - 00:25:05:02
Clark
Okay.
00:25:05:19 - 00:25:27:18
Cullen
And and just because I knew that, like, I wanted to wrap my head around it and kind of know what every moment, like it was really, really helpful for, for any time. Something kind of like, couldn't be done at that time and I could sort of go like, Oh, well, I know that we're going to have this location later that time, so let's just get this other bit here and then we can go back to that after.
00:25:27:18 - 00:25:46:23
Cullen
And it's really easy. Whereas I think if I didn't do the schedule myself or wasn't as familiar with it, there would be a lot of situations where it's kind of like, Oh, something went wrong and now I need to figure out what to do, as opposed to just being able to in a split second, know exactly where we can go from a certain place if something is unavailable or whatever.
00:25:47:05 - 00:25:49:23
Clark
Did you have an aide or somebody there to help keep you?
00:25:49:23 - 00:26:00:06
Cullen
Yes. So? So I had one aide who he kind of controlled the shot list and I kept track of time and stuff like that. And so he had the schedule. Of course, he.
00:26:00:06 - 00:26:15:14
Clark
Did have a little bit of help there. But I mean, it's a lot to take on. Did you find that to be I mean, it's a lot to hold in your head. It's I mean, you're right. There's a there's definitely a benefit to having all of that information and being so intimately involved in it. But that's also got to be a lot, too.
00:26:15:20 - 00:26:26:05
Clark
You're worried about getting the shot, you're working with actors, you're dealing with whatever issues come up, like the two examples you just said. I mean, look, you know, no amount of planning can can.
00:26:27:00 - 00:26:27:15
Cullen
Negate that.
00:26:27:21 - 00:26:45:05
Clark
Negate anything from happening, right? So you're all you're having to I mean, it's a major problem. I mean, I think, you know, it's it's easy to forget sometimes that directing, I think, is really you know, it's at least as much about solving random weird problems that it is about, you know, the creative side. Yeah, the creative side. Yeah, totally.
00:26:45:08 - 00:26:57:17
Cullen
Well, I know. Yeah. I think that for me, the way I think about it, it's like I don't really compartmentalize things. Yeah. So, like, I get on and, you know, working with the actors or setting up the shot or the lighting, it's all, to me, just like one task.
00:26:57:18 - 00:26:58:01
Clark
Yeah.
00:26:58:04 - 00:27:15:13
Cullen
So knowing that schedule and stuff like that, like to me that's still just like it's not necessarily jumbled up in my head of like, I have to, like, think about this now and this and then this and then now I'm working with the actors. It just comes quite natural to, to be able to go like, Oh, I'm kind of doing it all simultaneously.
00:27:15:13 - 00:27:39:23
Cullen
Like I'm like able to set up the shot while speaking with the actors. Well, kind of like, you know, checking the lighting and kind of building this thing. And the other thing about that is, is keeping your crew really informed as well. So because of the fact that like I would, you know, was really, really I would say heavy handed with the communication of the crew and making sure that they knew what we were doing, what the shots were, everything, you know, what the schedule was like that day, what scenes we were shooting.
00:27:40:06 - 00:27:43:09
Clark
Tell me more like when you said heavy handed. Like, what do you mean you.
00:27:43:09 - 00:28:03:09
Cullen
Mean So just lots of emails of like, like our three days tomorrow. Here is the schedule. Like, here's the scenes we're shooting there. Here's the pages of the script that that scene is going to be. Here's what the lighting setup is going to be and kind of sent them like, you know, overhead diagrams of light or whatever. So that way, even if, you know, I'm busy with an actor, I can sort of say, yeah, this is actually going to be like set up six.
00:28:03:11 - 00:28:18:00
Cullen
Yeah. So all they have to do is look at it and then I can go over, check it, kind of say, Yep, that's good, that works. Or if I need to shift something a little bit, I could do that. But yeah, it was, it was. I can see that. I can see how it would get very out of hand on like larger films especially.
00:28:18:00 - 00:28:25:04
Cullen
Right. We're talking something with like, you know, the huge amount of extras or like, Yeah, big, big set pieces but or, or.
00:28:25:04 - 00:28:52:11
Clark
Even union or even union limitations. If you got a larger crew in your union. Now there are, there are literally like rules as to what you can and can't do. Yeah, that can get pretty specific but and that's where you know I think it's still good to be hands on but you can start to delegate and then you're kind of you're passing that detailed explicit communication through to your department heads as opposed to every single individual in the crew.
00:28:52:14 - 00:28:53:14
Cullen
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
00:28:54:01 - 00:29:08:15
Clark
But it sounds like but that is one of the benefits of working so small. You know, I mean, a lot of times we talk about the limitations, but one of the benefits of working so small is that it that you can be intimate. You put together a team of people and you empower them to do a lot of things.
00:29:08:15 - 00:29:25:01
Clark
And you can have this kind of holistic approach where everything no, everybody knows everything that's going on and you're aware of every aspect of the process. And and so you could you're much more nimble in that way because everything is kind of right here in your head at that moment.
00:29:25:19 - 00:29:42:18
Cullen
And, you know, it's even things like, you know, writing the production Bible and stuff like that. Yeah. Which is a huge, you know, hundreds of pages of stuff in a binder. But being able to do that to me wasn't like a task. It wasn't something that I was like, Oh, man, now I've got to do this and I got to schedule all this and blah, blah, blah.
00:29:43:04 - 00:30:02:23
Cullen
It was very much just like a step in the process and really helped me again wrap my head around everything in a much clearer way. So that, yeah, you know, when I was scheduling, when I was shortlisting and kind of transferring the shortlist into the schedule because basically I had a master shortlist that was the chronological order of the shots in the film can only an editors list.
00:30:03:07 - 00:30:28:12
Cullen
And then I had the shot lists, you know, divided up into their locations and scenes and things like that so that, you know, on a day I could just pull out. Okay, here's the shot that we're shooting this day at this location and being able to do that and kind of know like there was a lot of times when I had schedule or put things in those smaller shot lists and then realized like, oh, that actually isn't going to work there, because in this scene we've got to put like a blood effect on somebody.
00:30:28:22 - 00:30:47:18
Cullen
And then the scene after that, he doesn't have the blood effect. So I should probably put the blood effect at the end of the day so that we can get all that stuff done. Yet rather than having to change out of costumes and change back into something that doesn't have the blood on it or whatever, it end up making it again way easier to kind of figure things out like that that I think had I not been so hands on with, it would have missed.
00:30:47:23 - 00:30:51:18
Cullen
Right. And would have just kind of, you know, they would have slept under the radar.
00:30:52:04 - 00:31:14:21
Clark
Well, I mean, it sounds to me like you worked at a you know, to be perfectly honest, you were it sounds like you worked at a higher level of planning and preparation and detail than most productions at this budget level at probably I mean, at least in my experience, like 99.9% is where you're at with your strategy, your planning, your preparation for films.
00:31:14:21 - 00:31:27:22
Clark
This budget, which which is likely why you, you know, this a huge part of why you succeeded, why you're able to shoot, you know, 90 pages in ten days and have really good luck and stuff come out of it.
00:31:29:00 - 00:31:49:17
Cullen
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is that like there's for me, rather than thinking that it's like I'm wearing a hundred hats and I'm trying to get the cinematography to look good while I'm also trying to get the performances there. I think again, being able to to do that all, I'm like, again, not to say that it was all on my own because I had tons of help from from like a really, really great crew.
00:31:49:19 - 00:32:10:07
Cullen
Yeah. But being able to again, kind of be perhaps in charge of scheduling all that and writing it out and actually, you know, figuring it out in my head to me again, kind of made it like an amalgam as opposed to, oh, you know, the cinematography is suffering because I'm working with the actors. I was able to kind of go like, No, it's all one.
00:32:10:07 - 00:32:26:15
Cullen
Like, I'm looking at this as though it's the film. And so I know that when she delivers her line like this, I want the lighting to be like that and I want the camera to move like that. And it's kind of like that way of thinking about it as opposed to, again, kind of sectioning things off and sort of going like, okay, this is what the lighting is going to look like here.
00:32:26:15 - 00:32:44:23
Cullen
I'm going to work on that for a half hour and then I'm going to go over and talk to the actors and then I'm going to go over and kind of get the camera figured out and stuff like that. And so, yeah, there was also I mean, another thing was my assistant director, I had I have a wireless video monitor, and so he was able to be on an iPad the whole time watching the shots as they played out.
00:32:44:23 - 00:33:04:09
Cullen
And so while I was, you know, if I was like working on performance, he could easily say like, hey, you can actually see the camera in the reflection in that shot for a second, or that actor in the background looked at the camera for a second. So let's retake that. And so he was kind of the logistical guy that was able to, you know, look at a shot and sort of rather than like on the creative side of it of like, oh, does it look good?
00:33:04:15 - 00:33:13:09
Cullen
Is it lit? Well, he was able to sort of point out the things that I might miss out on just because of the fact that I'm so focused on kind of the more creative stuff.
00:33:13:09 - 00:33:32:00
Clark
Well, and that's that's a really good thing to point out. I think that this is a really interesting suggestion. You know, a little little tip or trick here. Real quick. Let's focus on this that, you know, especially I mean, you're directing, you're also operating. That's a lot to put on someone's shoulders, you know, no pun intended. You know, in the moment.
00:33:32:00 - 00:34:00:09
Clark
I mean, it is right, because you're having to manage all the technical aspects and. Right. You're pulling focus to I mean, you're doing everything right. And I'm assuming it's not like you had a camera attack. You didn't have a focus puller. You're doing everything yourself. That's a lot to keep track of. And then to also be watching and paying attention to performances, paying attention to you've got the edit in your head or kind of what you you know, what you imagine the edit to be, what came before, what came after.
00:34:00:09 - 00:34:27:10
Clark
How is this going to cut in now? You're like all the technical aspects of everything that could kind of go wrong. You know, to have a second set of eyes is really vital. And I'm sure that saved your butt probably in in New York Times, I'd guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about sound a little bit too, because we've not touched on that and yeah, and specifically I'm kind of interested in talking about a particular of gear that I know you used that.
00:34:27:10 - 00:34:52:17
Clark
Yes. That, that I think is pretty amazing for filmmakers. And that is the the Zoom f6. And I think you and I are actually both using that at this very moment. Are we not, to record our own audio for this? But what's unique about this device at its price point is that it is a 32 bit machine. And tell me a little bit about your experience using that for the shoot.
00:34:52:17 - 00:35:24:15
Clark
And did that. And let me back up a little bit and say that in a nutshell. One of the benefits of 32 bit is that basically its dynamic range is substantially greater than humungous. That shoots at 16 or 24 and it basically it almost totally eliminates clipping issues that you might have, which are a real problem when you have high, you know, huge differences in volume, basically from a performer or from anything that you're recording.
00:35:24:15 - 00:35:33:15
Clark
So it often happens that you can have a a tape ruined because either it was recorded it too low of a volume or too high of a volume play.
00:35:33:15 - 00:35:34:08
Cullen
And then it clips.
00:35:34:08 - 00:35:44:16
Clark
In and it can be a real challenge to keep that at the sweet spot while you're while you're recording. So tell me a little bit about that. I'm curious to that. How how did that go?
00:35:44:21 - 00:36:04:09
Cullen
Well, it was it's I mean, it's it's fantastic and even especially for performances because and so my my good friend Evan was the location sound. He's also doing the post sound. But he and he's a very talented, you know, boom operator, you know, sound recordist. So he's he's quite good at, you know, getting levels correct and stuff like that.
00:36:04:09 - 00:36:04:18
Clark
Right.
00:36:05:03 - 00:36:31:14
Cullen
But when it comes to performances for actors, there's one scene in particular that's like an argument in the the bedroom and the volumes like there's, there's very soft talking and then shouting and stuff like that. And what was great about the 32 bit float was the fact that I was able to do that. He looked at me and said, Oh, that clipped on that one line, but we know we can recover it.
00:36:31:19 - 00:36:40:09
Cullen
Yeah. So that in the it's actually the line is actually in the trailer itself which was released a few days ago, if you just look up daylight again trailer, it should be on YouTube.
00:36:40:13 - 00:36:43:01
Clark
And maybe you can find a way to link that. Yeah, but I mean, literally.
00:36:43:04 - 00:36:44:18
Cullen
But it's almost like magic.
00:36:44:18 - 00:36:45:15
Clark
It's almost like so.
00:36:45:15 - 00:37:05:07
Cullen
I when I, when I was editing it before because I, of course, didn't do the sound for the trailer, there was also. Evan Yeah. But I was able to drop that, that shot into the trailer clips like it was a really bad clip. Yeah. And, and it sounds completely fine in the trailer. It sounds like you, you know, as though the audio was was recorded at the right level the whole time.
00:37:05:07 - 00:37:35:16
Cullen
And so it's you know, it's very much for anybody who perhaps knows kind of what dynamic range is in a certain sense of a camera or if you're recording in a raw format on a camera where it's like you can essentially choose the level of gain after the fact because records at every level. So it's recording. So the file size is, of course, bigger, but you're simultaneously both recording the highest, the mids, the lows on a spectrum, which is kind of again, the evolution from older devices which used to just kind of record one high, one low.
00:37:35:16 - 00:37:54:01
Cullen
And so you kind of have a two track to choose from, but even then there could still be issues with that. Sometimes they would both clip and you're kind of sol but um, but this thing is yeah it's it's it's a really really workable like just the the the workability in post with these these files is insane just what you can do.
00:37:54:01 - 00:37:57:05
Cullen
I could right now scream into this microphone. I won't but.
00:37:57:13 - 00:37:58:12
Clark
I could take you for.
00:37:58:12 - 00:38:00:01
Cullen
Now and we could quite easily.
00:38:00:02 - 00:38:01:13
Clark
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:01:22 - 00:38:07:14
Cullen
Even if it was right in the red, it was completely peaked. Yeah. I'm like, losing, you know, when it gets all chippy and stuff, the.
00:38:07:14 - 00:38:24:14
Clark
Data is very easily recover. Yeah, the data's actually still there. And I think, you know, for people, for when you have a small, a small team, you've got a small crew, you've got maybe one guy who's operating boom, and he's also, you know, monitoring and adjusting levels and everything. I mean, it's.
00:38:24:14 - 00:38:27:22
Cullen
On three different tracks on the boom and three dev labs.
00:38:27:22 - 00:38:45:09
Clark
Absolutely. And it's inevitable that you're going to have clipping, that you're going to have levels that are just not matched perfectly to what's going on. And, you know, especially to if you have actors who are a little bit less experienced, they're not acting from a perspective of, okay, I need to you know, I need to be careful for the sound.
00:38:45:09 - 00:38:52:04
Clark
I need to be you know, they don't have that kind of thing in mind. Oh, exactly. Because don't have a lot of experience. So there you know that even.
00:38:52:04 - 00:38:54:16
Cullen
For professional actors, it can be very freeing to not have to worry.
00:38:54:17 - 00:39:05:03
Clark
Oh, my God. Well, I was going to say, and even. Right. And in spite of all of that, I mean, to be freed up to to just go ahead and go for it saves a lot of takes and. Okay, cool. Well.
00:39:05:11 - 00:39:15:05
Cullen
I mean, it's a the other thing, too, is that it's not there are cheaper sound recorders out there. You could get 1408 times cheaper than than what this is. This is about. And at least in Cannes it was about 800 bucks.
00:39:15:09 - 00:39:16:16
Clark
Which is not bad at all.
00:39:16:16 - 00:39:39:10
Cullen
But it's not bad for that. But that's what I mean is that it's almost worth that amount of money, which is not expensive by, you know, by industry standards, it's very cheap. But I would say definitely worth that because you're going to save your butt so many times. Yeah. Working on an A budget crew where, again, like you said, the sound recordist is having to watch three separate tracks and.
00:39:39:20 - 00:39:40:04
Clark
An.
00:39:40:04 - 00:39:42:20
Cullen
Operator, the microphone is pointing the way like, right.
00:39:43:06 - 00:39:58:21
Clark
You know, it'll it'll literally save your cost in shooting fee. You know, just in the shooting cost, you will recoup your money many times over this thing. Anyway, we're not sponsored by Zoom, so everybody, this is totally objective. We don't have it there.
00:39:58:21 - 00:40:00:22
Cullen
Just it's just honestly fantastic.
00:40:01:00 - 00:40:15:10
Clark
It's it's just a device. It's a it's a piece of gear that I've recently acquired. I have not gone out in the field yet and shot with it. So I was just excited to see what Colin's experience with it was and sounds like it was awesome. So I'm I can't wait to use it on my own projects coming up.
00:40:15:10 - 00:40:21:05
Clark
Yeah. So let's talk a bit. I mean, was there anything else that you wanted to to kind of talk about with your production?
00:40:21:05 - 00:40:42:15
Cullen
I mean, I would so again, there was it was lessons learned or like, you know, again, I can share another because I keep saying that like nothing really went wrong and there were a few things that so yeah, when we got to the the the location for the house, if you live in, you know, Toronto area, you probably know Muskoka, which is about 3 hours north of Toronto And it's there's, there's definitely, you know, towns and things like that.
00:40:42:15 - 00:40:54:01
Cullen
So it's not impossible to there's there's modern infrastructure but it is you know you're out in a forest by a lake, so it's not like you can just run out the door in 2 minutes and get to a Best Buy and something at that.
00:40:54:01 - 00:40:54:06
Clark
Right.
00:40:54:09 - 00:41:01:16
Cullen
But I realize when we got there was we forgot the silver cable. Oh, so we had labs on the actors.
00:41:01:20 - 00:41:06:01
Clark
The. Hold on. Let me back up the Zeller case. You only have one.
00:41:06:01 - 00:41:23:21
Cullen
Yeah, well, the thing is, because I thought that we have to, but I had assumed that the one that was hanging was packed. I thought that that was the backup. I thought that I'd packed one and then forgot to put the one that was hanging on my door into the bag. And so it was so we get up there and then we're like, Oh, damn.
00:41:24:06 - 00:41:42:02
Cullen
So we spent like day. We basically one of the days was only laugh. Audio wound up again working okay because the the F6 is so dynamic and it was also a pretty low dialog day. It was a lot of just just movement and stuff like that, which of course can also be, you know, very vital of a boom to capture those things.
00:41:42:02 - 00:42:01:11
Cullen
But we, we had backup mikes that were kind of less good than a boom, but still something you just kind of get scratch audio. But we wound up having to basically find this like a V store that was like a 45 minute drive away. It was the only place that we could find that was selling our cables. And so we sent one of the.
00:42:02:11 - 00:42:02:18
Clark
PR.
00:42:03:00 - 00:42:15:02
Cullen
My friends just over to get it. And yeah, but again, it's things like that where it was like an immediate well, like as soon as we realized that we didn't have an actual our cable, it was like, okay, so this is what we're going to do. If I could just move on to this.
00:42:15:08 - 00:42:40:21
Clark
It's a good time, though. It's a good time to make make a couple notes. I would I would recommend a couple of things that I always do are I have like a checklist whenever I whenever I pack my gear up, when I'm when I'm going out on location, I have a checklist. I make sure everything's there. And then, of course, when I pack up and leave, I have a checklist you reach and I make sure that I've actually packed everything because, my goodness, it's really easy to leave things behind.
00:42:41:21 - 00:43:01:01
Clark
And then the second thing is that when it comes to cables especially, I always have redundancy. You just never know when a cable's either going to magically disappear and walk away or stop or get a short or who knows what. But when it comes to cables, I have in least two and usually three or four. You know, if I need one, I have two or three.
00:43:01:01 - 00:43:08:02
Clark
If I need three, I have four or five. I always try to have extras of all that stuff because it's inevitable.
00:43:08:13 - 00:43:09:14
Cullen
That something is going to happen.
00:43:09:14 - 00:43:27:00
Clark
Something's going to happen. And it's like and this grief, you know, for for a $15 cable, you don't want to stop, you know, production. Yeah, I mean, look, we're we're all under the gun on budget and none of us have infinite money. And even though they're cables, you need a lot of them. And it really does add up to thousands of dollars.
00:43:27:00 - 00:43:31:03
Clark
But wherever absolutely possible, I definitely try to have and get as many.
00:43:31:04 - 00:43:31:13
Cullen
Yeah.
00:43:31:13 - 00:43:35:07
Clark
And just a checklist. I mean, that doesn't cost you anything. That's a piece of paper, you know.
00:43:35:08 - 00:43:38:08
Cullen
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I have one and I was checking them off and I just.
00:43:38:11 - 00:43:39:07
Clark
Yeah, I guess it was.
00:43:39:07 - 00:43:42:20
Cullen
Just it was again, it was, it was a very stupid to just misplace like you.
00:43:42:21 - 00:43:44:06
Clark
Got lost in your muscle that had.
00:43:44:06 - 00:43:47:16
Cullen
Put, I had put one of them there and then gone. Yeah. I just put that in the bag.
00:43:47:22 - 00:43:49:13
Clark
You're mustache age. It's like I think that. Yes.
00:43:49:17 - 00:43:51:12
Cullen
Yes exactly. Yeah.
00:43:51:12 - 00:43:52:20
Clark
I just want to say, by the way, it was.
00:43:52:20 - 00:43:53:09
Cullen
Probably still in.
00:43:53:09 - 00:44:11:11
Clark
There, right? It's probably still a Oh, my gosh, there it is. That's all you've got. Like a wasted fantastic, like tombstone, like, oh, no Kilmer mustache going on right now. It's so awesome. I think that's been kind of a running joke. I think I've mentioned that at least in a couple other episodes, and the only reason that I mention it make fun of it is because I'm super jealous.
00:44:11:16 - 00:44:12:06
Clark
I to say.
00:44:12:07 - 00:44:12:14
Cullen
Honest.
00:44:12:20 - 00:44:27:01
Clark
I wish that I could I wish that I could grow a mustache like that. Awesome. I mean, any other any other stories from production? Because we still when I want to save a little bit of time to to talk about you know some of your post work so unless you I mean I guess I just.
00:44:27:07 - 00:44:42:21
Cullen
One final thing I'll say is just that it was again that that like again a piece of advice when we were doing the shoot at the house, the cottage shoot, which was five days and we had I think I wrote it down here. So we had 40 scenes to shoot in five days, the bulk of the movie to shoot about an hour.
00:44:42:21 - 00:44:51:07
Clark
Of screen time. And that's I just want to be sure that that's not setups that scenes. Yeah you had hundreds of setups in five days.
00:44:51:07 - 00:45:09:02
Cullen
And so the way that I kind of schedule that out again was like, okay, we're doing everything in the kitchen today. Yeah, we can set up the lighting for the kitchen and then, you know, it was very much a thing of like, yeah, making sure that the everything was, was set and because again, we were living at a location too, so I couldn't just, you know, leave equipment out because.
00:45:09:02 - 00:45:11:10
Cullen
We had to wake up in the morning and eat and get breakfast and.
00:45:11:11 - 00:45:11:19
Clark
Right.
00:45:12:09 - 00:45:29:20
Cullen
You know, or people had to sleep in, you know, there's some people who were sleeping on a pillow couch. And so it was like things like that. So I couldn't just leave everything set up. So I had to make sure that like, okay, this day this is our shoot location. So if you need to sit down or if you want to go get lunch or something, you can sit in the kitchen while we're shooting in the living room or we're shooting upstairs.
00:45:29:20 - 00:45:53:18
Cullen
So everyone's going to kind of be downstairs. That's kind of going to be our home base for the day. And upstairs is going to be all set and lit for for the day. But I also had in there an entirely empty day because there was one day where we had so many scenes in there was the kitchen day scene, and it's like so much of the movie takes place in like a lot of the large dialog in the movie takes place in the kitchen.
00:45:54:05 - 00:46:10:05
Cullen
And so it was so much shooting and we wound up getting to the end of the day where it was like a huge, a huge kind of big finale of the movie. And there's some effects work that has to go on. And we were all so tired and it was very, very nice to just kind of look at this.
00:46:10:06 - 00:46:24:00
Cullen
The shot list go like, Oh, we still have like six pages of shots to do. Let's just do this on the redundancy day. Like, let's just let's just push this to the reshoot day. And everyone just kind of like had a huge sigh of relief and we were all just going to sit down and get dinner and relax for the rest of the night.
00:46:24:00 - 00:46:24:06
Cullen
So you.
00:46:24:06 - 00:46:27:17
Clark
Had so much time that you were actually able, even able to say, you know, have a.
00:46:27:17 - 00:46:28:03
Cullen
Reshoot.
00:46:28:06 - 00:46:34:07
Clark
We're going to quit early. And we've got we've got a day where we can pick those up and it's, it's no, yeah.
00:46:34:17 - 00:46:43:19
Cullen
Every well, I will say every single shoot day went either ahead of schedule or exactly on schedule. There was never a point where we were behind, which was really, really nice.
00:46:44:01 - 00:46:58:06
Clark
I mean, it, it really sounds like every again, I just want to reiterate because I think it's not I don't think that it is the first or even second or third or fourth or fifth thing that a lot of, you know, first time or even second or third time filmmakers think of is how much planning has to go into this.
00:46:58:06 - 00:47:23:03
Clark
It's, you know, the glamorous part that we all kind of fantasize about is, you know, being on location and shooting and, you know, making magic in the moment right there. Right. But, you know, putting together a production bible, putting together detailed schedules, shot lists, you know, this stuff is is sometimes forgotten, I think, in, you know, first time filmmakers when they're getting things together.
00:47:23:03 - 00:47:44:08
Clark
So kudos to you, man, because I think that's a real testament to you know, that's the payoff from that really detailed, extensive planning. So, I mean, and it sounds like you because we were talking before we started recording here and you were telling me that you had at least through a good chunk of the film, you were even putting together a rough cut as you went along.
00:47:44:08 - 00:47:57:20
Clark
You had enough time to actually start to put in, you know, assemble a rough cut. Yeah, yeah. From the day shooting. So tell me a little bit. Let's transition into into post now. So you went into post-production with, what, like half the film or something? I think.
00:47:57:20 - 00:47:59:03
Cullen
I had about half an hour cut.
00:47:59:03 - 00:48:00:15
Clark
Together. Okay, so about a third.
00:48:00:18 - 00:48:18:23
Cullen
And so there was about an hour that was that was shot at the cottage that I didn't have time to edit together during those shoots. But yeah, there was about a half hour cut together. And so I was very, again, very easily able to just kind of like edit those scenes that we shot and plop them into the timeline and stuff like that.
00:48:19:06 - 00:48:40:09
Cullen
Yeah, but you know, that's one thing about editing too, is that I'm of course I'm doing it myself, which, you know, many people would often like, advise against or say, you know, you need. But the reason I'm doing it myself is kind of twofold. One of the reasons is because I kind of when I'm even writing or when I'm shortlisting, I'm already editing the movie, so I know exactly where cuts are going to take place.
00:48:40:09 - 00:48:44:17
Cullen
I know how scenes are going to cut together. Yeah, during, you know, premium, you're.
00:48:44:17 - 00:48:46:06
Clark
Watching the section in your head. Yeah.
00:48:46:06 - 00:49:02:12
Cullen
Yeah, exactly. And the second reason is that at this budget point, it's one of those things where it's like, you know, even I was paying an editor, you know, a few thousand dollars to cut together my movie. It's still so low budget that you might not get a cut back for like months.
00:49:02:12 - 00:49:02:20
Clark
Yeah.
00:49:02:20 - 00:49:18:16
Cullen
You know, I know people who have been working on short films that are 5 minutes for the last two years because every time they send it off to an editor, this isn't the fault of any editors of course they're going to prioritize all of your paying jobs. Yeah, but it's like every time they send it, it's like, you know, three months later they.
00:49:18:16 - 00:49:19:11
Clark
Get the lowest price.
00:49:19:11 - 00:49:44:16
Cullen
For some people, that works it. It's like they like kind of taking the time off of seeing it. But for me, I don't like to not necessarily waste time, but like I like to, like Herzog says, have urgency. You want to have a sense, you know, I like to be able to sit down and cut it. And so there's definitely an issue sometimes of of getting kind of lost in your own work, which can be very easy to have happen if you again, if you especially if you've written it, directed it and are now editing it.
00:49:44:21 - 00:50:02:08
Cullen
Yeah. So my you know, my kind of tricks are one is very, very simple, which is that actually when I cut together a scene, I flip the image, I mirror the image. So that's actually the opposite way. So everything's kind of backwards in the image. And what that sort of does is almost trick your brain into thinking that you're watching something new for the first time.
00:50:02:08 - 00:50:20:21
Cullen
And it's me way easier to kind of notice things that are weird or when something doesn't cut together quite well because you're kind of removes you from from the actual objectivity of it. And the second is I'm like, Oh, cut to get together something and then I'll wait a week before watching it so that I can at least kind of come away from it, not feel like my head's still in the sand.
00:50:20:21 - 00:50:21:21
Clark
Get some distance.
00:50:21:21 - 00:50:53:12
Cullen
Yeah, yeah. And then the third is obviously this is, you know, quite obvious. But but you know, if you're not, if you are editing something yourself that you shot, it's vital to get secondary opinions and be able to send that off to people. And because at that point they are kind of the, you know, the eyes that, that another editor would be so like sending something off and saying, you know, with a time code and sort of saying like, hey, can you can you make sure that when you write notes, timecode them and sort of say like this point cut that shot of, you know, 3 seconds longer or something like that or like this,
00:50:53:16 - 00:51:14:23
Cullen
this scene doesn't really it feels jarring the way these two shots cut together or this line doesn't work, cut that out. And so it can be really you know, that is I think the most important thing is getting as many secondary eyes on it as you can and then being able to go back in. So I've had one cut so far, one for complete cut that I've sent out to people and gotten feedback on.
00:51:14:23 - 00:51:38:05
Cullen
And then now I'm basically going into like had the big launch of our crowdfunding, our trailer and stuff like that, which kind of took a bit of time. But now I'm actually be able to sit down and kind of go into the second cut. After the second cut, I'll send it out again, then probably a third cut, and I'm hoping the third cut will be pretty close to picture lock at that point so that I can get the composer and the sound mix actually underway, neither of which I'm actually doing, which will be very nice.
00:51:38:05 - 00:51:39:05
Cullen
They're going to be able to step back.
00:51:39:05 - 00:52:08:23
Clark
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Who do you like to go to then? You know, I agree. I think it's probably one of the more vital things you can do are, you know, because I do I edit a lot of my own things as well for the same reasons that you just described yourself. And and you know, it is sometimes can be challenging to get some objectivity, especially for some, you know, if you're having some difficulty with the section or you're not quite sure how to solve a story issue or something, you to get other eyes on it as vital.
00:52:08:23 - 00:52:13:21
Clark
Who do you like to go to? Do you go to like some of that your your producers that are working with you.
00:52:13:21 - 00:52:14:21
Cullen
Yeah. Or do you just.
00:52:14:21 - 00:52:16:15
Clark
Go to like totally external.
00:52:16:20 - 00:52:35:21
Cullen
I try to kind of blend it. I kind of like it's always because in a state like this where the sound is like not even touched yet and it's very rough, I try to tend to stick to people who are like involved in films when the very least they can understand and sort of fill in those blanks and go like, I know that that line won't be you know, it won't sound like that.
00:52:35:21 - 00:52:54:00
Cullen
Basically, the final thing. So I've shown it to the like most of the cast and crew, not the cast or just the crew too. I know very well to kind of again, give me notes. But then, yeah, I've had a few friends who were completely uninvolved in the project, haven't seen any footage, don't even know the script, don't know what the story's about.
00:52:54:00 - 00:53:15:11
Cullen
And I've shown them just to kind of get, again, a more general like broad scope of what do they feel about the story. Doesn't make sense. Is everything clear? Yeah. And of course, what's really helpful for that is there's been points where they've sort of said, you know, like, oh, that I didn't really get that. And so I've said, well, in the final thing, there's actually going be a sound effect there.
00:53:15:11 - 00:53:36:17
Cullen
That sounds like that would that help that understanding And I'll go oh yeah I would totally of understood that way better if that sound effect was there. So can be something as simple as that like there's a little bit with a whistle in the movie and of course. No, the whistle sounds are in the movie yet, but I sort of asked afterwards, like if you heard that sound there and then heard it then again later on in the film, would it make sense to connect those two things?
00:53:36:17 - 00:53:53:23
Cullen
And they go, Oh yeah, totally, easily. I've got to connect that. So again, it can kind of help in that way of sort of being able to understand where's the weird stuff sort of falling flat or where stuff getting confusing. But also the same time is the plan I already have in place. Does it work? Yeah, You know, and.
00:53:54:10 - 00:54:15:17
Clark
And that's, that's too because I've definitely run into this on my, you know, on projects that I've been a part of, not where, you know, sometimes people have the story, you know, they've set with it themselves, you know, especially like writer directors where, you know, they've written the script, they've set with it for a long time. They directed it themselves.
00:54:15:17 - 00:54:56:13
Clark
And I mean, the story is just, you know, it's been years inside their own brain. And so it is it's literally impossible them to have objectivity about it. And they are kind of making connections in the story that that actually aren't there. And I and it's I've kind of been asked to come on kind of after the fact or, you know, I've worked in editing capacities like as an assistant or other things to come on and try to help draw these connections, try to help put that back together, because that it was kind of they were starting to realize, holy crap, you know, there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle that people aren't actually
00:54:56:13 - 00:55:07:22
Clark
picking up. But it wasn't kind of seen at the time because there was they're just kind of so involved, limited objectivity. Yeah. And you write and it's like to you it makes perfect sense. You're like, Yeah.
00:55:08:06 - 00:55:11:13
Cullen
You know exactly what the intentions are. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:55:11:13 - 00:55:21:07
Clark
It's like, well, of course this makes perfect sense. But then people, you know, totally objective audiences start to see it and they're like, I don't quite, you know, I don't quite, quite see how A and B are connected or whatever it is, you know.
00:55:21:07 - 00:55:38:07
Cullen
So and what can be great about too, about like watching it with someone completely uninvolved is seeing what moments they laugh at and what moments they get scared and stuff. And being reactive side them, watching it and sort of actually like kind of watch them watch it and sort of see, you know, okay, so great that that bit worked.
00:55:38:07 - 00:55:44:11
Cullen
And that's they laughed. There's that, that's good. Or like they got scared there so that that paid off and.
00:55:44:18 - 00:55:45:10
Clark
Absolutely.
00:55:45:10 - 00:56:04:09
Cullen
Because again it's very hard to like know if something that you're directing is scary because of course you're you're directing it or even funny. Yeah. And so so being able to actually sit down with another person who hasn't seen it and and watch them, where they react, where they laugh, or if they don't at some point, you know, can you rework something.
00:56:04:18 - 00:56:06:10
Clark
Or if they do, where they weren't supposed.
00:56:06:10 - 00:56:07:06
Cullen
To. Yes.
00:56:07:06 - 00:56:08:15
Clark
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:56:09:03 - 00:56:09:10
Cullen
Yeah.
00:56:09:16 - 00:56:18:18
Clark
Awesome. Well, I want you if you don't mind, if you want to, please share with everybody the location of your crowdfunding site.
00:56:18:23 - 00:56:38:19
Cullen
Yeah. Yeah. So it's on Indiegogo. So if you look up daylight again on YouTube or the date, of course, the trailers, not the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song. But yeah, if you look up thriller, film Daylight Again trailer, if you Google that or search on YouTube, the link to the Indiegogo is actually in the description of that video.
00:56:39:00 - 00:56:39:10
Clark
Okay.
00:56:39:20 - 00:56:47:23
Cullen
So it should be easy to find there. It's Also, if you just look up daylight again on on Indiegogo, it should be, you know, come up pretty easily. Perfect. But yeah.
00:56:48:03 - 00:57:12:19
Clark
Excellent. Well, Cullen, thanks so much for sharing some of your filmmaking experiences with Daylight Again with us. I hope that for those listening that that's been informative. It's I always enjoyed listening to other people's creative processes, how they make decisions. I still learn things to this day all the time, of course, And so it's fun for me to listen to your process.
00:57:12:19 - 00:57:26:10
Clark
Cullen But excellent. Well, I can't wait, you know, down the road a little bit as you as you move through post, we can have another episode where we talk about your adventures in post and and then I'll be excited to see the film.
00:57:26:16 - 00:57:27:20
Cullen
Yeah, I'm excited to show you. Yeah.
00:57:27:22 - 00:57:33:16
Clark
Yeah. Excellent. Fantastic. All right, Awesome. Well, thanks, everybody, for joining us. We appreciate it. Until next time.
00:57:33:17 - 00:57:35:20
Cullen
Bye bye.