Cats Cast
Join the Nova Cats as we discuss film, our lives, and our love of filmmaking!
Cats Cast
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Welcome to Cat's Cast. Sit back and enjoy. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Cat Cast. Metronome, dude. Metronome.
SPEAKER_00Metro booming.
SPEAKER_02Listen, I know we promised a guest. We have next episode is a guest. This one I'm booked as hell all next week, and we need to record when it emerged. Unless you guys wanted to already see the Kevin Solo podcast.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I forgot we had that in the bank. We do have that in the bank. Shit. Um, well, yeah, we could have done that. But oh well, we're here.
SPEAKER_02We were here, you know. The Oscars just happened, so we have some things to talk about. People see I'm selling a bunch of gear, you know. If you're interested, hit me up. I'm selling some things. Um, but yeah, how you been, Quinn?
SPEAKER_00I've been good, dude. Just uh got the music uh recorded by the orchestra for James yesterday. Um trailer should be released soon. Soon, I know. I some people are very much eagerly awaiting, and and I told them that that it was supposed to come out earlier and and so on and so forth, but uh just figuring some things out, trying to trying to make it as good as possible, get everything buttoned up.
SPEAKER_02We're just waiting for the final couple things, a song here, a color there. You know, once it all comes together, it's it's gonna be for the.
SPEAKER_00I'm just very eager to get this out. I'm very eager to make this uh you know, wrap wrap it up.
SPEAKER_02Start the wrap-up process, you know, start start, you know, tying the knots, but buttoning the buttons.
SPEAKER_00I just want to get it into festivals and do that whole thing and start doing something else.
SPEAKER_02Start them pre on the next project.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's uh I love James, it's always gonna be important, important, but at the same time, it's just like How long are we? Yeah, I mean, you can't sit around forever and just Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, Lord knows the best advice I was ever gotten on in film was from my professor GT Keplinger. Uh big dog, big big ups GT. He was my advisor at Stevenson University. Um he said that most films you eventually just give up. Not give up on it in that sense, but eventually it's like you work on it, you you fixate on it, you fix it, you fix it, and fix it. And eventually it's gotta be like it's done. Like you gotta eventually just kind of call it cards.
SPEAKER_00Of course, because I mean you could tweak it, you could do, you know, it's uh whether it's the script, whether it's a shot onset, whether it's editing.
SPEAKER_02Lord knows there's even things still now and Jamie. We we think James looks fantastic, and we've been told nothing but fantastic things, but there's still a couple shots we're like, uh what if we go?
SPEAKER_00What if we just go back up for a week at a reshoot? Oh, absolutely, dude. It crosses my mind quite a bit.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean? Like you could be we could be working on James for 10 years if we let it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but we can't. We gotta move on.
SPEAKER_02You gotta eventually nip it in the bud and move on to the next great thing.
SPEAKER_00Um It's very interesting, just not to cut you off, just it's the the orchestra that that did the music that recorded it and everything that it's in Macedonia.
SPEAKER_02I thought they recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria.
SPEAKER_00I thought it was in Bulgaria, it was in Macedonia.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_00It was in Macedonia, but the guy was like, Oh, could you just speak on like the film? And uh I told him like basically what the film is about. He goes, he goes, Wow, very interesting concept. I would love to see it when it's all done. And one, two, three. It was just it was just interesting that you know, even halfway across the world, it's interesting to somebody that has no clue about me.
SPEAKER_02He just said, Great. And yeah, and a one, and a two, and a one, two, three. But yeah, um, also, shout out to some new listeners because you know, I just realized that we didn't really advertise when we started doing this too hard other than to our own people, but like I was talking to some people who want to be guests, and some some people they even heard us talk about, like our our favorite, our favorite boy, Devin, didn't even know we had a podcast.
SPEAKER_00I love you, Devin.
SPEAKER_02And we've been sitting, and he, you know, he he reposted uh because we were talking about we talked about him last episode, and he was like, you know, he did one of those like ID Real Karen's career. Like, you know, he did one of those like clickbaity uh they very funny, but very interesting. It was very uh it's just it's always kind of funny to see with this podcast, you know. Thank you to our loyal listeners. We got you know who we have, but then it's always good to have some new people. Hopefully we get some some new loyal people that pound us just like our current loyal listeners do.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, man.
SPEAKER_02Um, does Ryan know we do this? I know Raheem does.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure he must. There's no way that Ryan doesn't know. I mean, maybe he doesn't. No, uh I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.
SPEAKER_02Maybe, maybe not. But um I was texting Raheem the other day. He's he sent me a very nice text. Love that dude. He's he's he's a good dude, good actor.
SPEAKER_00I'll have to hear that off off uh off.
SPEAKER_02It was it was like a voice message, you know what I mean? But um he's a great dude. If you guys are in a Philly looking for an actor, I guess nationwide for looking for an actor, hit up a boy Raheem. You know, he's uh very good, very solid, great dude to be around. Lord knows he's ripped as hell.
SPEAKER_00Dude, I like dude. That guy literally, like, listen, I don't I don't lives in that gym, and we're two little budgy boys. Dude, I don't I don't I don't go down that path for me, but like I'm like, damn.
SPEAKER_02Like he's yeah, this guy clearly that's a leading man.
SPEAKER_00Uh if I've ever seen it, that's a I mean, dude, this guy's so like disciplined that it's insane. Like, yeah, he doesn't he, you know, I don't know what he does now. This was a year ago from when I've seen him. So uh, but like he was just very much like, when I'm done filming, I'm going back to the room. I'm going to just like rest. I'm gonna eat my meals that I've packed, I'm gonna like do my thing.
SPEAKER_02He pre-packed a bunch of stuff, and I remember he was asking, where's the nearest gym?
SPEAKER_00Like he was like, Yeah, he went to like the gym.
SPEAKER_02We sat there, we're colloyal beach, we're like um there's the uh colloyal beach local gym. I don't know what the rates are.
SPEAKER_00I'm do you think that there's a rate?
SPEAKER_02I'm sure there is membership.
SPEAKER_00Um one membership, dude. A visitor pass for Raheem.
SPEAKER_02Shit, we should have paid for that. That would have been a geek. Well, there's no way I would have gone in and been like, hey, Kevin of my motion, I got down in Colonial Beach when we were in the movie. It's like I'm executive producer in James.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, our actor needs to like work out.
SPEAKER_02Our actor needs to work out any way we could work some of them out. We'll put it in the background of a shot. That would have been a cool thing in the background of a shot. It was a really funny because I used to be the for some Colonial Beach town lore. If anyone, first off, if anyone knows the town Colonial Beach, Virginia, it's a town.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna tell you what, I had never heard about it until you know two years ago.
SPEAKER_02Until I opened the door, yeah, you were like down there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, dude, like you know, we could just like go to Colonial Beach. I'm like, where the fuck is that, dude?
SPEAKER_02Colonial Beach is about an hour from DC. It is the longest beast in Virginia. Do not get misconstrued with the biggest. It's not the biggest, it is the longest. That is a claim to fame, longest beach. Really? Yeah. Point to point.
SPEAKER_00But some of it that beach is missing. It's the longest beach. Okay. All right. All right. Shout out Colonial Beach. I love everybody there.
SPEAKER_02Colonial beach, they're great, they're fantastic. I will recommend for people to go film in Colonial Beach. They were very great with it.
SPEAKER_00Accommodating.
SPEAKER_02Um, my family grew up going to Colonial Beach. My grand oh, my grandfather, uh, well, actually, I guess my great uncle. Yeah, my great uncle had a property that he built down there, got inherited by my grandfather. Um, and then my grandfather, we all were, they all worked in elevators. He was throwing a money, a lot of money down into town. At one point, we owned like five properties down there, and now we own my family. I think only has their hands on one.
SPEAKER_00But technically it's like three different properties, but it is one, right? No, well, it's five lots. Or five lots, excuse me.
SPEAKER_02But we used to have uh on the main strip, my grandma had a shop, and then we had a shop on uh another street, and a shop on a third street, and a shop on the street that we ended up that's in the film. So Colonial Beach is near and dear to my heart. I went down there, used to be like every weekend. My family would go down, and um it's great. You drive golf carts around the town, it's a ball and a half. We rented a golf cart for this movie, dude. It was and it was hilarious driving around. Me and me, Jeremy, and Hazen would keep stealing the golf cart to go do to go get ice cream and stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, bastards.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was there's a you know what? There's a funny video I'm gonna text Quinn of me and Hazen. If you're listening to podcasts, stop what you're doing right now and go to the Nova Cats Instagram and we'll look at this video. It's me and Hazen driving, crushing an ice cream. That was we were filming, and me and Hazen stole, it was like one of those things where we had a break.
SPEAKER_00Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I know that you went. Hazen didn't go. He was how he was supposed to be pulling focus.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, no, no, no. It was one of the times where they were waiting around for set deck and costume changes and stuff. And me and Hazen went, we took it, we took a little stroll down to the pink doodle, which used to be Annie's ice cream, but now it's called the pink, the pink poodle. We went down to the pink poodle.
SPEAKER_00Weren't we calling you on like the walkie talkies? We're like, Kev, where are you? Kev, where are you? I was right out of ray. I think we were like looking for you. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02Where were we these are one of the early days? It was like day one. Because I was like what day one or two when we were down there. Um, not when we went to the school. No, not the school.
SPEAKER_00Well, we never shot at that school.
SPEAKER_02No, no, I'm not saying that's what I'm saying when we shot down in a different town and that's cool. Like when our first days in staying in the beach wasn't then. I know when we shot in front of the motel. Yeah, that's the day that I sent Jeremy to go get ice cream, but I didn't leave set. I was on set the whole time.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's what I'm thinking of.
SPEAKER_02No, I was on set. That was when I went. All right, Devin. I'm sorry. Maybe this was the better for Devin's around, but I'll I'll defend myself. Uh I used Devin's, I took Devin's uh key to his like he gave me the key to you I was like, Oh, I need to take a take a leak. And so I went up to his motel room and I blew that shit up. Jesus Christ, Devin. Um and I felt so bad because it was his room that he was staying in, but I was like, dang, that sucks for Devin. Uh but besides that, I don't know if that was TMI for people, but whatever.
SPEAKER_00You told you you've told that story before on here.
SPEAKER_02I have.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you told you you said gripping the walls, half house wall gripper, pants off, yeah, hat off. Like just like sweating, and then you walk out like nothing.
SPEAKER_02That might have been what y'all were called for me on walkie, and I was just vanished.
SPEAKER_00I you probably turned it off. You were like, I need some, I need some crazy.
SPEAKER_02I needed some I did crack the window. If I won't and so I'm not a villain, I cracked that little window in there. I was like, you get some fresh air in there. He needs he's dude.
SPEAKER_00That's insane.
SPEAKER_02Especially because it was like so it was like some weather staying, which is funny as shit. But um, no, maybe we weren't shooting, or maybe it was a scout day or something, whatever it was. Me and Hazen definitely took the golf cart and went and got ice cream on one of the first days that we could we were down there. I think I I think it was like the first day with the golf cart. I immediately took it to get ice cream.
SPEAKER_00Well, I the first, yeah. When when did we pick that up? When as soon as we got there, no, it was the next day. It was the next day.
SPEAKER_02No, it was two days after. It was after we're done after school days because we didn't make sense for us to have the golf cart okay when we weren't actively in the town. For people who didn't know, Colonial Beach is kind of like an island town. Yeah, not it's not actually an island town, but I say that is like there's nothing around. Like there is a food line, Alito's Pizza, the McDonald's, and that is your fast food option. There's a bunch of great local places like Shout Out Lennies, Lenny's, Shout Out Willie's, Willie's, shout out the Sandwich Shack.
SPEAKER_00Sandwich Shack, shout out El Toro, El Toro. Um, I think that's oh uh Muse. Muse. Muse. Well, shout out that pirate bar, whatever that place is called. The point? No. No, is that it might be it? I don't know. It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02Something like that. There's a bunch of like local places run by local people there. Um but but basically when you're there, a lot of people drive golf carts. The nearest like Walmart is like 30 minutes away. The nearest Chick-fil-A is 30 minutes away. Like everything else is like 30 minutes away. Um it's so we were just having a ball of a time. Hang we kind of you're all kind of stuck in the town, and no one's there's no reason to really leave. You're working long-ish days.
SPEAKER_00Well, everybody's staying in the town. Where are you gonna go?
SPEAKER_02Exactly, right?
SPEAKER_00You're gonna drive 30 minutes to go.
SPEAKER_02I think on the day off, you mean Hazen went and got Chipotle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was.
SPEAKER_02That was that was an hour and a half adventure because it took us 30 minutes to get. No, it was maybe the hour. 30 minutes to get there. We picked it up and then we drove 30 minutes back because I know my food was cold by the time we got back.
SPEAKER_00Yep, it was cold.
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, it it's but I miss it. I miss it too. And Colonial Beach was such a great place for us to film.
SPEAKER_00Well, it was just it was a perfect backdrop for the film, and I and I thank Kevin for introducing me to Colonial Beach.
SPEAKER_02And shout out Sally, who she was uh head of uh parks and permits down there, and um, they were so accommodating.
SPEAKER_00Shout out uh Kelly, who runs the motel, who owns it, super accommodating, super nice.
SPEAKER_02Shout out my Uncle Matt Warring, Matt, Uncle Matt was uh instrumental in helping us open some doors because you know, my being related to who I was related to, and like because everyone there knows everybody, right? Like people have been there for like three generations. So as you sit there and you know, saying I'm related to the Warrings, help open some doors that in honesty probably shouldn't have been opened. Like if for outsiders they might have a harder time, but I was able to kind of pull the I'm a local card in some of these things, right? And then that that helped me when dealing with local businesses and dealing with Lenny's and Willie's, and because people there are incredibly nice and they'll help out, but that's it helps when you sit there, like, listen. I remember coming to Lenny's, and I remember when the decorations were this and when Lenny was grilling, and you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Like it helps you knew some of the history, so then people felt more comfortable with you.
SPEAKER_02It helped. It helped, like this opened an extra door. Um, and then it was like, you know, we sat there and people were I'm not gonna say more generous because you know we we paid everyone fairly, but like, you know, it just helped. It made people like want to help us. Like, what can we do? And we're like, oh, we're looking for a place for us to help cater breakfast. Do you guys do that? And we didn't know if they because like you know they gave us like the coffee.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they gave us like the like their like industrial coffee pot thing.
SPEAKER_02Like, yeah, like they brought they brought it to set, and they're like, We have three of these, you can take one. We just need it back by like two or something. We're like, Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, whatever. Well, of course. Um, and then oh, the flower, the flower people shout out Paige that that uh Paige got.
SPEAKER_02They they donated all the flowers, donated flowers that decorate uh a scene, and they came and they set them all up, they decorated, and they then they came and packed them up and left. Like again, there's a lot of fantastic people in there, and then we shot a whole scene over at what was the name of that place? Which place? The uh not the food line, the place I say I'd never been to in my life that has been there forever.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the little um the little grocery store. Yeah, the grocery store. I want to say Howells, but that's not it. Hails, hails, hails, yeah, hails, hails shout out hails. Um super nice letting us use their parking lot and talked to Mrs.
SPEAKER_02Hales, you know what I mean? Like it's at there and it's it was uh it was great.
SPEAKER_00Is it uh uh or Halls, something like that. Hall's Hales, yeah. I forget. And it was an H. It was an H. Um H blank L picked a letter in. Is it um is it weird for you this time of year? Like it's March compared, like I just think about like last March and how like crazy everything was, and like you know, going into April and blah blah blah. Like coming up on like a year of us filming and wrapping it, and like I don't know, I I've been reflecting a lot about like the the last year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's definitely because this time we were in like a full sprint, right? In the James, and we had our we had just made some adjustments to our pre-production staff, and um we were just like really we're in the this is the dead sprint now. I think this is around the time you and me drove up to Petersburg, and we were we went in person to a lot of motels and hotels, and we're like getting prices.
SPEAKER_00Dude, the one dude, that one's super sick. Okay, for anybody listening, Kevin is a fantastic producer. He will try to save money anywhere that he can, but his hotel choicing don't let him pick the fucking hotels. This dude wanted us to stay at some crusty ass motel six that had like a bulletproof like reception area, like right when you walk in. The room, the room was basically like a mental, like like hospital.
SPEAKER_02Like, I admit it, that was a bad motel six. I at least would go. And they wanted like a lot of money, double the amount that we where we stayed, and it always like it was insane. So, for people who are like wondering why do I care about these crusty motels? Here's my producing 101. I did a couple movies where we stayed in motels, and they were surprisingly great. I think of one especially where I was in, you know, I was working on Jersey Shore, little beach motel. Little small hotels can be fine, that's not the issue. Yes, and so my logic going into this was is that we're sitting there like, okay, where's um we there is a price allocation we needed to hit. I was like, let's look at the super eight. It has good reviews, like it did have legitimately like four and a half stars, which for a super eight is crazy good.
SPEAKER_00Was it a super eight or was it a Motel 6?
SPEAKER_02I don't remember, but anyways, it was Super Eight when you know it's one of those super eights where it's right next to a Waffle House. I was like, look, we can all get Waffle House right after each shoot, it's gonna be great. And we walked in. I swear to I didn't think I told you, I swear I saw a roach immediately. Like it was like like I was like, Is it the open in the lobby? And then the guy was not we're like, we might need you know 20 some rooms, and he was like, I was just like he's like, Okay, so we can give you them for like I think he also said he can give us half.
SPEAKER_00Like he was not he wasn't accommodating at all, and then you were like, Look, some people stay here, some people stay over at the other place down like the street, because there was more than one, I think there's like three hotels like right next to each other, and I was just like, dude, this is getting too complicated.
SPEAKER_02I remember we went and walked into a room. At first, I was like, Oh no, because the price was like, I don't know, like maybe sixty-eight dollars a night or something. So we walked into a room and he was like, Can we see you? No, it was more than that. Well, no, because we went in the room. So he first he showed us it because that was what was online. We went and we looked in the room. I said, Oh, okay. And we were looking, and it looked like hell. Yeah, it looked like a place where someone honest to God would be murdered. And and then I was like, Well, how much is this room at night? He said, 125 bucks. I said, Okay, we're good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, 125 bucks. And we and we need, and we were like, okay, but we're gonna get like 20 rooms or whatever it is. What discount can you do? He goes, No discount. I was like, dude, we're literally like you. What do you mean? Nothing.
SPEAKER_02And then I think we did we end up staying in an extended stay, America? No.
SPEAKER_00Uh extended stay, yeah. We did, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We did, I think we did an extended stay, and then we actors got something nice. Candlewood or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think, yeah, something like that.
SPEAKER_02Um extended stay was very nice. Oh, it was perfect for like what we needed, and also people were great, you know what I mean. I remember we talked to them on the phone and in person, and um yeah, they actually gave us a deal. Very accommodating, gave us a deal. Uh, staff was fantastic. Shout out to them. But no, listen, my whole thing, because at the time when the other producers, me and Alex and Quinn, were looking at hotels, they were talking about Hildons and Hampton Inns. And I was like, and these were averaging out to like 180 a night. I was like, listen, y'all, you you had I had to be the voice in the room being like, we gotta go cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap. Because you know, lodging adds up, especially when you shoot on location and we're not hiring local Richmond crew, which you know, in hindsight.
SPEAKER_00No, we couldn't have done.
SPEAKER_02No, listen, we I wouldn't have changed any of our crew members forever. Uh, I think in hindsight, if we're gonna go shoot on location, I'm gonna fight hard for uh more local crew, unless it's like department heads that we know that we need. Like, for instance, like you need to know you trust your first AC, sure, you know your key grip is great, and there's a lot of great. Grips and genie people in Richmond. That's all I was like. That's part of me was thinking of that.
SPEAKER_00But do you think that they really realistically would have driven back and forth every day? I know it's like not that far from Richmond to Petersburg, but that's still like 30 to 45 minutes each way. They would every day.
SPEAKER_02Because I listen, I've done indies where I've most people do indies. I guess.
SPEAKER_00I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I just think like I think anything under an hour people would commute for. Especially especially anything under 30 minutes is a guaranteed well no 30 under 30 minutes for 25 and under. There might be occasional somebody is like, eh no, but most people probably especially if we weren't keeping them too crazy and depending on the hours.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, but some of those days went long, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02Who knows, man?
SPEAKER_00But um, I know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02No, but yeah, but we needed the try I remember because we were like, well, we're gonna need to put everyone up before Colonial Beach because there's nowhere to be a local from. Because it is like an hour and a half from DC, but Alexandria was an hour twenty or whatever it was. Like, even if we were gonna find one of these Alexandria locals, they could well then it was an hour and a half from Richmond, too. Yeah, it was in a such a spot where Colonial Beach is again in the middle of fucking nowhere. Uh yeah. On a map, it doesn't look like it's gonna be, but it is.
SPEAKER_00And um maybe we could have gotten somebody from La Plata.
SPEAKER_02Maybe, but I don't even know how many local La Plata people work over there.
SPEAKER_00I was just kidding. I mean, we drove through and there's nothing there.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. It's it's like the buildup to Colonial Beach. Like that's how I think of it in my head. But um, it's just weird, it's it's such uh location was great, but then you I think you end up do spending a lift on lodging. We lucked out because we had property down there, yeah. We yeah, and we did lodging, which was like again, me being a local helped us open some doors with that again. Absolutely, you know, it was oh you're such and such. Yeah, my my I'm related to such and such. Like, oh you're it's it opens doors, it makes it a lot easier, makes it like it's family friends.
SPEAKER_00Um but that just felt like a big to me, especially like once we were like in the throes of Colonial Beach. Like, it just felt like I was at like camp with a whole bunch of like friends. Like I remember just like waking up to like cannons going off in like the morning. That is it was so hot and like the upstairs and like the sun was beaming in, but like I slept super well, and like I was just with my friends that we're in felt like a frat house at some moments. Oh, absolutely, dude.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely for better or for worse, because it would be sitting there and playing spades until two in the morning, and you know, it was just a good time. It was there's some good, there was some bad of Coil Beach, you know. Like, as always, we're not we we sit there and we insurance, I mean that's your hindsight. You you know, you see you don't see the bad, but I heard the hotel was fun too, and people who stayed at the motel.
SPEAKER_00Well, everybody like me they're closer to town, they just went over to like museum. Walked down the street to the bar, the bar, and like just you know, had drinks and hanged out with the locals who were always very kind.
SPEAKER_02We did karaoke on the last day, which was a which was a blast. But especially as James is coming to a close here and you guys are starting the trailer. Yep. Um, and then we're gonna be having some events about it later, potentially.
SPEAKER_00Basically, one year to the day since we wrap filming.
SPEAKER_02Basically, so that's it's it's on our minds because we're at the finish line. Like if people if we're running a race, we are in the last lap. Um, yep.
SPEAKER_00Which is like I said, um it's pretty sweet. It is very bittersweet. I'm happy to move on, but I'm a little sad to to let it go. But it just for you know the next film.
SPEAKER_02I'm exactly I'm excited from from what I hear from the next one, or if we do that, or if we do mine, or if we do um, there's a a plethora of ones. We're talking about Yumi co-writing one, even potentially. And um, if anyone else got a script you want us to make, bring it to us. Um but you know, we've got some fun stuff down the pipeline, and uh we're about to start pre-on something. And that'll be fun. And especially with the with how that one sounds is gonna be Colonial Beach Beach 2.0.
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah, dude. I mean, but like Colonial Beach will be a luxury compared to where we're about to be going. Like, like when I tell you, you'll be missing that super eight. You're gonna be missing. You're gonna be missing literally everything, dude.
SPEAKER_02But that's the fun of it. That's of course, that's the fun of what we do.
SPEAKER_00I think I think one of the best things that as a filmmaker that you can do, even if you just want to do like a short film on for like a weekend, dude, go find a small town, rent a couple rooms, maybe one room, if that's all you can afford, whatever. Stay there, shoot your little movie in and around like the small town, and like, dude, those are some of the best memories. Like, yeah, and don't go to like these like big like a big city's fine, like whatever. I don't know. To me, like going to these small towns, it's more hanging out with your character. Uh you're just hanging out with like your friends, and like you're just making something like that.
SPEAKER_02The people in a town, in my experience, have always been so appreciative of absolutely because that's income to the town. Income, you're bringing money to the town, and you know, if your movie becomes the next, you know, indie darling, right? Like then all of a sudden the town kind of gets put on the map, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Like, that's all of a sudden there's there's more tourism that comes there.
SPEAKER_02Tourism, and then like for instance, Colonial Beach. We might do a we might do a big screening and a little film fest. We might do a film festival like hosted by Nova Cats and Colonial Beach, like the Colonial Beach Film Fest. There's been talk to that, and we should reach back out to Sally and see like this would be the keynote thing as we show James that we filmed a good portion of it there, and then maybe we can get local high schoolers and the people in the town to shoot little film, it'd be fun, right?
SPEAKER_00I think that'd be so dope.
SPEAKER_02And like that's an influx of stuff for Colonial Beach. That's also why they were so excited for this because we were film permit one number one, baby, number one of the town, and a lot of these towns, like that's kind of how it goes, right? Is that especially like you know, I think of in these flyover states. I'm sure if you go and find a small town in Arkansas, they'd be like, sure, what can we do? What can we do? Like Colonial Beach, they gave us like two cops to shut down. One of the days, like, you can shut down whatever. We're gonna treat you like a parade, uh, wherever you want to shut down. Except you can't shut down the main street because I think the main street's owned by the county or something, yeah, yeah. Not the town. Any roads run by the town, like we did on the car rig day. They're like, do whatever you want. They're very much like do wherever you want, go wherever you want. Um, we'll make sure there's no problem. And you like the you know, I think Colonial Beach has they shut down the pier for us. They shut down the pier for us. And I listen, shall I colonial beach colonial beach PD. Uh, I'm gonna say a number of how many police officers I think are there. I'm not sure how true. I just heard there's like five to ten officers on staff.
SPEAKER_00Well, that it was that is that during summer or year round?
SPEAKER_02I think year round.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Like I just don't I think they bring people in from out of town during peak season, but I think in the slow season we're close to four to five, right? During the slow season, and they gave us one of them, and this dude hanged out with us. He apparently was incredibly excited to hang out with us, and I talked to him a little bit, he was a really cool guy, super cool guy, but he was very like low-key.
SPEAKER_00He was like, I mean, obviously, like he's doing his job, but I also he definitely just wanted to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, and um it was great, it was great fun. And uh you know the commentary, like you you good, like coming to the thumbs up as they drive by.
SPEAKER_00Like it was well when we went back to do the couple reshoots, he he we saw him and he's like, He's like, Oh, the movie people are back. What are you guys doing down here? We were like, Oh, we're filming something else. And he was like, I he was like, he was like, Hell yeah, dude. I can't can't wait, or whatever. He said something along those lines.
SPEAKER_02Again, it's very um, it's very fantastic. And then we ran into like and also the town as some people like go retire there. Like, we wasn't there like a DP or director. Oh no, there's a one girl, you weren't there for this. There's one woman who worked there whose son was a director in DC. It's like, oh my gosh, feeling some little colonial beach. Oh, really? It's very fun. It was very, yeah, we're down here filming some.
SPEAKER_00I think the only thing that you have to kind of weasel your way in, like, at first, they might not be so I'm not gonna say open to it, but they might be a little bit more reserved, and you just have to like gain like their trust and like you know, be friendly. You have to show you're legit, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You have to listen, it's any local government, you're in the and I'll say this as an indictment of Coinhow Beach. I love Coin Old Beach. They don't do nothing fast. If you want to film something here next summer, you start now. It's just a very and I'm not saying in summer 27, 26 is too late. You're not gonna get nothing. You're not gonna get it.
SPEAKER_00When did we reach out to them? Was that was that last like or was that the fall before we started?
SPEAKER_02Fall 24. Yeah, fall 24. We went and looked at the location. Uh it was right after a big storm because the high tide was up. Yep. That was in fall. It was before Thanksgiving. Because I saw Uncle Matt at Thanksgiving, and that's like when we hammered out the deal.
SPEAKER_00So that's how I know that that was Yeah, and we basically got like the permit, if I remember correctly, either middle to end of April or like in May or something.
SPEAKER_02We got the actual permit like two weeks before shooting. We were cutting it close. I remember I told people like a we and then I you know, I was telling people who like deal with the town down there, and they're like, Oh, you're cutting it close, huh? Like it's the same for building permits, it's the same for you want to sell a house.
SPEAKER_00If you want to Yeah, it's just slow, it's just a slower pace life.
SPEAKER_02Because you know, the town government's like 10 people. I mean, for sure. A lot for them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you're gonna go shoot in a small town, make sure you know you you plan accordingly. You plan accordingly, you pre-planned, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean? You sat there and be ready to drive down a couple times too, just to say hi. You know, yeah, show your face we went down there like four times and we did like a little we just like metal.
SPEAKER_00We would just eat like lunch down there and just like you know, try to for catering and stuff.
SPEAKER_02You just went and shook some hands and yeah, uh that also helped. Like, for instance, like for our I don't know this is we're saying all this is advice in general for shooting in a small town, right? In my opinion. But for instance, we wanted the we wanted a motel, we need like a whole floor of the motel for our crew and and like talent. We went down, we spoke to the manager. Manager the owner wasn't there. They said come back like another day. We came back another day, talked to the owner, work something out. So you know what I mean? And then we we left, we look we reviewed contracts, we signed contracts over, payment, yada yada.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02And that was like, you know, that was we had to physically go down there. It's like an hour and a half drive for us from here. That's what you have to do, but you gotta do it.
SPEAKER_00And so obviously, if it's further away.
SPEAKER_02It's further away, maybe some things can get done over the phone. But I would also always advise, especially if you're filming in a small town, not like get a fixer, but like have someone who kind of knows the area, right? Whether you want to hire a local crew member or you wanna shoot in like a building or something. Or somebody that you could sit there to like be a face, to represent, that knows the community, that knows how things work. Like, for instance, I think one thing that was really fantastic for us was that again, like I knew where and where to go, like where to go, what time to go there, what beach to go to, what time is there a beach or busy or not, just because I've been around, right? And like now, you know, we were very fortunate that I was an executive producer, so I then I was able to go and like, oh yeah, if we're gonna get breakfast catered, go to Lenny's. And so I was able to go to Lenny's and be like, I'm an executive producer, I have the power to make a deal here. Let's make a deal. And I know what our budget constraints are, and you know, and you know what you need to make money. Let's find a way so we are both happy here, right?
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes it's like that's great, agreed. Like El Toro is very much like agreed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was that was easy. Some others, it was like, let's how yeah, you gotta you gotta like push and pull a little bit.
SPEAKER_02What can we do to get that number down? Yeah, you know, um, if it's nothing, that's nothing. Thank you for your time. If it's something, then let's do it. Um yeah, it is nice to have a local because that that helps open an extra door. It helps and also just know like listen, don't go into Lenny's at fucking 7 a.m. expecting to talk to the man. Go at two when they're about to close. You know what I mean? Like, go know that like that's the time they close, and we're not gonna get Lenny's decater dinner because they close at two o'clock every day. Yep. Um things like that. Those little touches, and so like for people who are if you're sitting there like, I'm about a short film of small town because Kevin and Quinn said so. Um don't go find some small town in Utah and think it's gonna be as successful as Colonial Beach if you don't know anyone. Now, not saying you have to go to a place where you know somebody, right? I mean it's just some research, maybe go down there first time or go on these Facebook groups, like, hey, has anyone ever filmed in such and such town, Utah or whatever? Like, you know, have some connection there, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Uh that's that's best case scenario. Yeah, yeah. I agree with you.
SPEAKER_02If not, be prepared to kind of make the connection yourself, you know, and I mean go on a couple vacations there.
SPEAKER_00Well, I was gonna say, like, just go location scout there, see if you even like it, first of all. Because I'm sure you're gonna look on Google Maps or something or whatever. Somebody might know of it, and maybe the rest of the crew doesn't know it, whatever. See it, go to lunch down there, be like, hey, like, we're thinking about shooting like a movie down here, you know, like blah blah blah. Who should we like talk to? Or like what do you like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, because a lot of people went to Willie's, exactly, like and then they're like, Oh yeah, I'm the mayor eats here every every Tuesday. Look at smaller.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So it's just like, you know, sometimes if you just like just meet people and you tell them, hey, like, we're thinking about doing a movie, you know, blah blah whatever it might be, then they can help you out with that.
SPEAKER_02Also, sometimes you'll like it was very um Quinn Beach was again, it was it's very artsy town, they're very opening to it. But I'm sure some experienced people are gonna go to, you know, uh I'm gonna name a town. This is not indicative of the town, but you're gonna go to what was the name of that damn town. I'm forgetting it now. I'm gonna sit down and say Frederick, Maryland. You're going to Frederick, Maryland, and say you want to film a short film here. And they're gonna be, no, that's not gonna go well. You know what I mean? Like, see you also just get the touch from the town. Oh, yeah, absolutely. If you think it's gonna go over well or not, you know, absolutely Berkeley Springs. Well, I was thinking of Berkeley Springs. Oh, Berkeley Springs. And Berkeley Springs is also great. But like, if you will go there, like we're gonna shoot in Berkeley Springs in the big bathhouse, they'll be like, No, you're not. Like, you're like like they they can kind of give you the the the 411 on like what's going on there.
SPEAKER_00And that's you know, that's uh you're you're gonna run into roadblocks no matter where you look in film, which is how you work around them and and figure out where to go.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And so I think it's great to film in small towns, I think it's good for the community, especially nowadays with everything being so expensive, and um Lord knows how wonder how much the prices are to film in like DC or Baltimore.
SPEAKER_00But it's uh I don't even want to think about it. That's why I don't even want to shoot anything in and around a city.
SPEAKER_02But then like you you you get influx of money to the town, and you guys just going to the bars and eating afterwards, after set, just hanging it. It it it helps everyone involved, especially if you pitch like pick like a beach town and the off-season. Lord knows if we were filming how excited they would be if we were filming Colonial Beach in like the winter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I mean that was a that was a discussion that that Kevin had brought up. He was like, Oh, like you sure you don't want to just like film this in like the fall or something, or like whatever it was.
SPEAKER_02It'd probably be a lot cheaper.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it'd be a lot cheaper, it'd be quieter.
SPEAKER_02Um less people in town.
SPEAKER_00But I was like, no, I want to shoot and like we want it to be summer vibes. Yeah, let's go start a summer, yeah. And uh and we did it.
SPEAKER_02Went during a river festival and a bunch of antique cars about, which was really cool.
SPEAKER_00And it was just a super cool experience experience, and and something that I I have been looking back on more and more just because you know we're we're getting closer to like that one year market. You could be my dirty dad, and you don't want to hear it.
SPEAKER_02You know, I think that's it for this episode, everybody.
SPEAKER_00It's been a good one.
SPEAKER_02Next time next time we'll talk about some Oscars or we'll have a guest.
SPEAKER_00We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. You know, we just we shoot from the hip on here.
SPEAKER_02We really be fucking just winging it.
SPEAKER_03We we basically really just talked about it.