0:08

Everybody welcome to. The. Know if those two

0:10

point guess for the week a Valentine's

0:12

Day. New. On T Twenty

0:14

four not or Valentine's Day, we're going to

0:16

be talking about everyone's favorite love story: This

0:18

your Superbowl and the Superbowl commercials that went

0:20

with it. The. Cia marketing campaign

0:23

that brought to Us. We're.

0:26

Going to be talking about he can we

0:28

were to adding a new casting Academy award

0:30

which is. Really? Awesome and I

0:32

can't believe it's taken the song. And. We're

0:34

going to fall that up with a

0:36

limited news about the most anticipated new

0:39

camera of the year. We've been waiting

0:41

a long time on this one and

0:43

footage is finally out. You. Have to

0:45

wait till we get there for me to say what it is.

0:47

But. Most you nerds probably already know.

0:50

It's the camera. We've all been waiting the longest

0:52

on. That. Is this week on

0:54

the Know Film School podcasts. Okay,

1:05

First. Up. The. Love Story

1:07

of the Year Travis Calcium Taylor

1:09

Swift's like know rom com can

1:11

match it and. As. Many on

1:14

the internet are convinced it's an elaborate

1:16

Cm viral marketing scheme for the Superbowl

1:18

and they stuck the landing. The.

1:20

Ending works. The. Boyfriend in

1:22

the rom com won the Superbowl and

1:25

this year. But. All filmmakers really

1:27

care about our the Superbowl ads. It is

1:29

the excuse most filmmakers have made to go

1:31

to Superbowl parties so that we can watch

1:33

the ads. And can I get out

1:35

with a hot that I'm sure everybody else already

1:38

got to yell at? Serious. There.

1:40

Was a time when I remembered

1:42

that the Superbowl ads were about

1:44

cool, creative, an interesting visuals. And.

1:48

I. Was at a Superbowl party last night bros with my

1:50

daughter's I didn't really watch the game for she's five.

1:52

And. Will I watched a bunch of them this morning. I was

1:54

like. The. Creative isn't that interesting

1:57

individuals or that innovative. It's literally just.

1:59

what who, what famous people did

2:01

I get? That was it. It

2:04

was entirely celebrities. If

2:06

you compare that to the ad that launched at all,

2:08

the New York Times just did a great retrospective of

2:10

Ridley Scott's original 1984 ad, which

2:13

had a lot of amazing quotes, including Steve

2:15

Jobs didn't know what the Super Bowl was, and

2:17

someone explained it to him. He

2:19

apparently responded, I have never seen a Super

2:21

Bowl, and I do not think I know

2:23

anyone who has. Which is like- That's incredible.

2:25

Well, it's also a time when people were

2:27

much more segmented. If you were a Silicon

2:29

Valley nerd in the 80s, you

2:32

probably could have avoided the Super Bowl.

2:34

Yeah, you were in your garage building

2:37

things. Whereas now

2:39

everyone, all of the

2:42

silos are all gone. Everyone in tech also

2:45

is aware of the Super Bowl. Everyone

2:47

is like, culture is much more- Yeah, you're tracking it around 115

2:49

million viewers, it

2:52

seems like, as of this morning, and others

2:54

still putting together the numbers, but that's- The

2:57

talk to someone I follow on, Blue

2:59

Sky pointed out that China's Spring Festival

3:02

had 650 million viewers. So

3:05

when we think about the Super

3:07

Bowl and its cultural dominance, we should also

3:09

remember that, especially

3:11

the Super Bowl is just really cared about

3:14

in the United States of America, not even

3:16

North America in general. But going back

3:18

to the ads, like when you look at hiring Ridley Scott,

3:20

when you look at, although the New York Times

3:22

also had an interesting thing that they hired a bunch of Nazis

3:24

to be extras. So Nazis made money

3:26

off of that spot. National

3:28

front members, which are like English Nazis, might

3:31

even- Yeah. But all the shaved

3:34

head extras in the 1984 spot are

3:36

actual skinheads. Yeah, I don't know.

3:38

I was like- They

3:40

were gonna mark it down. In my lifetime, they were interesting, right?

3:43

They did a Martin Scorsese commercial last night for

3:45

Squarespace, but it was not like,

3:48

it didn't feel like an autor Scorsese moment, right?

3:51

Oh, is it the alien one? It's

3:53

the alien one, yeah. Hey, we're here.

3:55

And they- Yeah, they swooped down. Yeah,

3:57

it's all CGI until you get into

3:59

the- limo with Marty and he has

4:01

some funny lines, but it definitely,

4:03

as somebody who's worked on a handful of Super

4:05

Bowl commercials in the past, most recently

4:08

I did. I just wrote jokes for Intuit Turbo

4:10

Tax for the one where they had the live

4:12

robot. I don't know if you guys remember that

4:14

from four years ago. I was

4:16

a robot in the garage where it's like,

4:18

I have feelings. Anyway, fun job. Great playing

4:20

job. Commercials are such a

4:22

weird thing. I mean, Charles, I do think

4:24

going back to your point, it's just famous people. Everything's

4:27

become branding and who they can put in

4:29

and who they're going for. If you look

4:31

at the State Farm commercial, which I liked

4:33

with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dan DeVito, obviously

4:36

targeting people of an older demographic who

4:39

maybe are buying versions of

4:41

insurance. If you look at some of the

4:43

younger skewing commercials, Mountain Dew

4:45

using Aubrey Plaza and then pulling in,

4:48

what's it called, Nick Offerman at the end, same deal. They're

4:50

like, okay, how do we get into this sort of older

4:53

millennial, but still younger than

4:55

40 demo that might

4:57

drink soda? It has become a famous faceless thing.

4:59

I think a lot of that's because the

5:02

Super Bowl has become a famous faceless thing. We

5:04

could joke about Taylor Swift, but for

5:06

the majority of the broadcast last night, we saw Taylor

5:08

Swift. We saw Beyonce. They cut to all

5:11

the other celebrities that are out there and walking

5:14

through the crowd. Justin Bieber, not

5:16

to mention the halftime show. So I do think marketing

5:19

has just gotten a little lazier. I mean, it is

5:21

a bummer because I think I'll

5:24

remember the Was Up commercial for the rest of

5:26

my life. I'll be on my deathbed doing that

5:28

voice. This is the

5:30

first year I remember, like, did we get a Clydesdale horses

5:32

Budweiser commercial? I don't think so. One

5:35

at the end. Right. Yeah. And then there

5:37

was a fun Bud Light one, but was it that

5:39

fun? I don't know. Remember, they've

5:42

had more fun ones in the past. Yeah. It felt like

5:44

there wasn't as much creativity this year or anything like that.

5:47

To me, it felt like this

5:50

is where all comedy goes to

5:52

die. There were very

5:54

few commercials that felt earnest.

5:57

I'll give a shout out to Poppy, which

5:59

I don't. think was a great commercial per

6:01

se, but at least they were just like,

6:04

hey, we are trying to make health.

6:06

This is soda, we're redoing

6:09

soda and it's healthy now. This

6:11

is our comeback and there was some

6:14

earnestness to it. Then there's

6:16

of course the Bizarro Tamu

6:18

commercial, which played quite

6:21

a few times and is very, shop

6:23

like a billionaire, but with some Disney thing.

6:28

But besides that, it was a lot of mullets

6:30

and Aubrey Plaza, tongue

6:35

in cheek stuff that just feels

6:37

so dismissive of audiences. It's

6:40

like, we're not even going to take ourselves seriously. I've

6:42

talked about this on the

6:45

podcast before, how a lot of comedy

6:47

and a lot of the underground comedy

6:49

seen here in LA, I see a

6:52

lot of people making things

6:54

that they're holding back on

6:57

ideas, because if they can be like,

6:59

we're not even trying that hard. So we're

7:01

kind of laughing at ourselves too. That

7:03

is a risk averse way of creating

7:06

comedy. I

7:09

also do feel like celebrity

7:12

gags. It's

7:15

not special anymore when literally everyone

7:17

is doing it except for Tamu,

7:20

which everything is either 99 cents or $9.99 or $6.99. They

7:24

are targeting me on all of the platforms and

7:26

I want to stay I'm terrified of that. But

7:29

yeah, I wish that there was

7:31

more pushing for fun

7:35

and innovative stuff. It was cool to

7:37

see some friends pop up in the

7:39

commercials, love it when a good

7:41

improviser gets their moment and I'm like, oh

7:43

good, they will have their bills paid for

7:46

a little bit. But yeah, the

7:48

comedy just was a myth for me

7:50

across the board. Google had that nice

7:52

sensitive commercial that Stevie Wonder narrated about

7:54

being blind. Yes, I did like

7:56

that one. Yeah, I like the Michael Sarah, Sarah

7:58

V1. But that's

8:00

real comedy, right? Like he is trying.

8:02

That's with well-written, it's whatever. Yeah. It's

8:04

well-written. It's a smart idea. It makes

8:06

sense for the brand and it was

8:08

like tongue in cheek, but it wasn't

8:10

like Michael Fara, like

8:13

winking at the camera about acting. They

8:17

committed to the bit. You committed to the bit.

8:19

That's all we ask. Yeah. But there'll be

8:21

an article in no film school this week about committing to the

8:23

bit. Literally called, what is, yeah, how to commit to the bit.

8:25

I love that. So yeah. I

8:27

also think that we're witnessing a world

8:30

that has accepted that accidental

8:32

virality is no longer a part of our

8:34

current internet. Like when you talk about

8:36

the What's Up ad, there were no famous,

8:38

I mean, I hope that none of those people went on

8:40

to be famous. I'm sorry to the people in the What's

8:42

Up ad, if you were famous and I didn't recognize you,

8:44

but like it was an ad

8:46

about common humanity and then it blew up

8:49

because the creative was legitimately good, creative and

8:51

very enjoyable and it worked. The same way

8:53

with the Budweiser Frogs shot by Conrad Hall.

8:56

Budweiser. But all

8:58

of those, there was a moment

9:00

in the internet where virality could occur organically

9:03

by people sharing things because

9:05

of the joy of it.

9:08

But if you've ever been

9:10

in a meeting with someone and they're like, you know what we should

9:12

do? We should do a viral video. Everybody

9:14

who actually understands the internet groans, it's

9:16

because we haven't actually had videos that

9:19

go viral without a network of effect for a

9:21

long time. One of the things you probably get,

9:23

I mean, I'm no longer on the hell site

9:25

that is Twitter, but I bet if you go

9:27

to Twitter right now, a lot of the celebrities

9:29

in those commercials have also tweeted the

9:32

commercial. Yeah.

9:34

Because if you get them. It's

9:36

contractual obligation. Dan DeVito live tweeted his own

9:38

commercial with the. Oh yeah. With our. Because

9:41

that is part of the negotiation because he

9:43

has those followers, because of Always Sunny, because

9:45

of that 80s show, then all goes back

9:47

to that 80s show, the source of all

9:49

modern culture. It's

9:52

this weird thing where it's like, Oh, the people who

9:54

will end up in these, like your

9:57

commercial will not be as effective, even though you paid

9:59

$7 million. for 30 seconds of Super

10:01

Bowl audience if it

10:03

is not also getting network effect

10:05

retweeted by Danny DeVito. So they're paying not

10:07

just to have Danny DeVito in the ad,

10:10

they're paying for Danny DeVito to tweet it.

10:12

And it is this weird moment

10:15

we are in culture. I wish

10:17

that we still could have some

10:19

things. And you know, to pivot to our next

10:22

subject, this factors in casting, right? Like when you're

10:24

casting actors at the high level, you are looking

10:26

at their social media presences. As we were just

10:28

talking, you were looking at the behind the scenes

10:30

dramas. There's a rom com that did well right

10:32

now because of the tabloid

10:35

attention it got during production probably

10:38

drove more ticket sales as has

10:40

happened since time immemorial. And

10:43

it is interesting to think about that as

10:45

filmmakers that, you know, when you are trying

10:47

to go out and make your independent production

10:49

and get attention to it, it

10:51

is no longer a world of I just want

10:53

the best people. It is a

10:55

world of I want the best people who can also help it

10:59

find its audience. That's a good, I

11:01

worked for and with Samuel Baer

11:04

for, you know, maybe the better part

11:06

of the last seven years. And

11:09

for those who don't know who that is up top

11:11

of their head, I describe him as the most famous

11:13

director you've never heard of. Sam has

11:15

done well over 1000

11:18

commercials, maybe 2000. He

11:20

did the Nirvana smells like Teen Spirit

11:22

music video, the Cranberry Zombie music video.

11:24

He did a bunch of Justin Timberlake.

11:26

And I mean, like you could go

11:29

to his website, like Samuel Baer for Baer pictures.com

11:31

and check it out. But he also did commercials

11:33

that were a land, you know, landmark commercials, either

11:35

the Toyota commercial where it climbed Mount Everest. That

11:37

was a Super Bowl commercial. He did a

11:39

bunch of Nike commercials. But the one

11:42

in particular that I just quickly will talk about,

11:44

which I think maybe to me

11:46

represents what a commercial can be. And maybe

11:48

it could possibly be in the arguments for

11:50

the greatest commercial of all time right up

11:52

with the 1984 Ridley Scott one.

11:55

It's from I think 2013. It

11:57

is the M&M Detroit

12:00

Chrysler commercial right where you have the thumping

12:02

drums and the feeling and then suddenly a

12:04

gospel choir comes out and is singing And

12:06

m&m is like we're back and we know

12:08

that like we've had this Tragic

12:11

mishap and detroit has fallen apart, but we're

12:13

bringing cars back and Chrysler is going to

12:15

come back You know with a vengeance. We're

12:17

going to bring jobs back in this place

12:19

and hopefully like the economic downturn

12:21

will You know turn around you

12:23

can watch that that you know, we'll put a link maybe

12:25

in The podcast article but for me

12:27

it's like every time I watch it I get goosebumps

12:29

and sam always tells a great story of like

12:32

Chrysler coming in and being like we don't know what we want

12:34

Can you help us get m&m blah blah and then it was

12:36

his idea to bring on this gospel choir because he was like

12:38

The only time i've ever cried in my life is like listening

12:40

to a gospel choir So he's like this is how you like,

12:42

you know Like bring this in

12:44

like I want everyone to feel this emotion. I do

12:47

feel like When that commercial aired

12:49

but like that had gravitas, right? It had the

12:51

celebrity But the celebrity wound up being like all

12:54

of us feeling like hey like Man,

12:56

this is an economic downturn Like the problems we're

12:58

having in america could be solved if we come

13:00

together we do this stuff if we like and

13:02

buy Buy a Chrysler car. Yeah, exactly like you

13:05

know, and it is it's such an

13:07

interesting world we're in now like I

13:09

feel like the celebrities become way more important than the

13:11

message and you know, the delivery

13:14

of The message is

13:16

what a commercial is about right? What can you do in a minute?

13:18

You know, like the Super Bowl spot I think was costing

13:20

seven million dollars a minute last night During

13:23

prime time. So it's like you're betting everything on it

13:25

and I do think It's

13:28

difficult for marketing everyone to come together But seeing

13:30

them bet on a face instead of bet on

13:32

a feeling Is really a bummer and the ones

13:34

will remember for a long time are the ones

13:36

that made us feel something And not the ones

13:38

that just had a celebrity walk out I

13:41

mean, I do feel like there's uh There's

13:44

there's one of the biggest learnings i've had in

13:47

In directing this first feature

13:49

is the power of like

13:51

trusting a feeling and trusting a gut feeling and

13:53

like And and and

13:55

specifically when it comes to casting

13:58

so i've talked very publicly about how we

14:00

had to recast one of the leads in

14:03

the movie. Two weeks before

14:05

we were going to Panama, and it

14:07

was really scary because I wrote it for my

14:09

friend who I knew could

14:12

handle the role and I wrote

14:15

it for someone. To

14:17

undo all that thinking and

14:20

all that vision of what I thought it would

14:22

be was horrifying. We

14:25

worked with the casting director, Alabama Blonde who we have

14:27

to have on the podcast at some point. I

14:31

remember getting a video or a

14:33

submission for the role, and it

14:36

was basically two weeks out down to

14:38

the wire, like to make a break for the

14:40

film. I saw this

14:42

guy's performance and I was like, oh my God, we

14:45

are going to be able to make the movie. This

14:47

is somebody who could be this role. It

14:49

was a very interesting process that I

14:51

had never gone through before of casting.

14:55

We also cast another character who's

14:57

one of the leads, and it

14:59

was very difficult to find this very

15:01

particular person. They're a very specific type,

15:04

they're non-binary, they have to have

15:06

chemistry with everyone. Also, our casting director was

15:08

able to source a bunch of

15:10

different people, but then ultimately brought on somebody who

15:12

is the person and is the character. It made

15:15

my job on

15:17

set incredibly not easy. It

15:19

wasn't an easy shoot, but

15:21

I trusted every day that

15:24

the people who we cast could carry

15:26

the scenes, and they showed up

15:28

and they were prepared, but they also had the chemistry

15:31

on camera and the chemistry

15:33

as a unit. It

15:36

just made me have this entire appreciation

15:38

for casting. Here we

15:40

are at a time where we're finally, and

15:43

a feeling about casting and trusting

15:45

that gut feeling that, I think you

15:47

can't engineer that. You can't engineer that

15:49

with just putting

15:51

the prettiest faces together. Casting

15:55

is just truly an art

15:57

and a science, and I'm so

15:59

glad. that's being recognized by the Academy

16:01

these days. It

16:04

is interesting that I think a lot of people, I think

16:07

with the Academy Awards, a lot of people do the same

16:09

thing that they do with the Olympics where they assume

16:11

it has been a fixed thing for a long time and

16:13

that there's no change. But what

16:16

we reward, what we award, what we think

16:18

of as being important as part of the

16:20

process is constantly and continually changing. And I

16:22

remember the fur, the big

16:24

drama, when it went from five films to 10

16:27

films for Best Picture and we

16:29

should constantly be striving to be better

16:31

in what we pay attention to. The

16:33

Olympics is added, is it skateboarding or

16:35

surfing or something? Some people I know

16:38

were like, that doesn't feel right. And I was like, I don't

16:40

know, why not? It's

16:42

already, it's always been chock full of

16:44

stuff that they didn't do in each increase. Why

16:48

not keep adding stuff people actually

16:50

care about? Yeah, I feel like,

16:53

you know, as we think about what the

16:55

job is of the Academy Awards, one of

16:57

the jobs of the Academy Awards is to

16:59

remind people that these things are jobs that

17:03

people do that require effort

17:05

and work. And I feel

17:07

like I'm going to go

17:09

on a limb as someone who's been teaching film for a long time

17:11

that like a lot of people

17:13

don't really appreciate what a casting director does at

17:15

the beginning of their film school journey and you're

17:17

teaching it to them and you're explaining to them.

17:20

And I feel like one of the reasons

17:22

for that is the lack of a major

17:24

public facing award. Like, I feel like

17:26

a lot of film students in high school watch a

17:28

thing, watch the Academy Awards, and

17:30

then end up googling all of the people. And

17:32

that's the first time a lot of them learn

17:35

what a cinematographer or production designer does because they

17:37

see the production designer from Mad Max Fury Road

17:39

get up and she's in an amazing

17:41

outfit and she has this presence and you're like 12 and

17:44

you're like, what the hell did that person do on this movie?

17:46

I have to find out more. And so

17:48

thinking about that, I'm really excited that

17:51

there will be casting director Academy Award. It

17:53

is a incredibly difficult complex job that is

17:55

a huge part of making a movie what

17:58

it is. And I've

18:00

always wondered if it didn't get an award

18:02

because people wanted to preserve the illusion that

18:05

that was all like the director and the

18:07

producer is doing, especially

18:09

the producer's doing. So I don't

18:11

think the director has a lot of like, Yeah, I was

18:13

going to say, I do think it's produced like producers peeing

18:15

on trees and saying they're mine, you know, like, like, why

18:17

hire that person? So shouldn't I get this Academy Award? Exactly.

18:21

The best cast is what you walk away talking

18:23

about, right? I think like, you know, if

18:25

it was around this year, like poor things would

18:27

be competing with Barbie would be competing with Oppenheimer,

18:30

you know, like, like you don't, these people don't

18:32

just magically show up in your movie. And I

18:34

like, there is something behind

18:36

it. Yeah, the trick will be

18:38

interesting, though, right in that, obviously,

18:41

Margot Roby as Barbie is like one

18:43

of the perfect castings of all time.

18:45

Yeah. But that wasn't the casting

18:47

director, Margot Roby put herself in that role by coming

18:49

on as a producer. And that will always be the

18:51

tricky part of this award. Yeah. Because

18:54

there are so many projects where the

18:56

star finds the material either at the

18:58

studio level or at the indie level

19:00

attaches themselves to it. And then a

19:02

casting director is hired for all of

19:04

the rest of the parts. So like

19:06

Oppenheimer, I think the director probably does.

19:08

I think Killian Murphy probably was a

19:10

Chris Nolan decision at the probably at

19:12

the point he was reading American Prometheus.

19:14

They have a long standing relationship. The

19:17

appearance is there. He can carry it off. But

19:19

like all of the other parts are where

19:21

the Academy, but will audiences understand

19:24

that distinction? Will people

19:26

watch a movie where all of the little

19:29

parts are perfectly cast? And yeah,

19:31

well, voters understand the distinction, you know,

19:33

that's the other like, it does Hollywood

19:35

truly understand how Hollywood works. No, no,

19:38

that's the theme of all of our

19:40

Academy Award coverage is no, they don't.

19:42

Whatever. I'm still so excited for this. I

19:44

think that it is also one of those

19:46

things, you know, as a film teacher, I always talk

19:48

about your journey in the industry. And

19:51

I try and tell people like one

19:53

of the unappreciated journeys is casting director.

19:55

If you are like interested in eventually

19:57

directing, there are many casting directors who

19:59

move over directing. most famous was Lee Daniels,

20:01

but there are some others who've made that leap. If

20:04

you want to know all of the talent

20:06

in town, like getting an assistant

20:08

job at a casting agency and then eventually casting

20:10

on your own, you will develop those relationships in

20:12

that network that you then need if you want

20:14

to go do your indie feature. Or

20:17

even if you're doing little shorts, I have a friend who

20:19

does little, I shouldn't say

20:21

little shorts, I have a friend who regularly make shorts and

20:23

often has people who are the next

20:25

coming up people in them. Two

20:27

years later, you see them in a TV show and you're like, you

20:29

really have a good track record. That person's

20:32

worked fantastic. So those

20:34

are good relationships to develop. So

20:37

I'm really excited about this. I think it's great news.

20:40

I recommend checking out our interview

20:42

with Sami Birch who wrote

20:44

May December, who came up in

20:47

the world of casting. Like her mom is

20:49

a casting director and she worked

20:52

as an assistant and was

20:54

very much had her finger on the pulse of

20:57

that world and that element of the

21:00

world and wrote this screenplay with

21:02

the intention of like none of these characters are

21:04

going to get cut in the

21:06

final edit because it's such an

21:08

extensive thing. Not only are

21:10

the characters in that movie so

21:12

rich and wonderful, but not

21:15

a single character was cut from the final

21:17

edit. I think it's a really great lesson

21:19

in screenwriting as well, if you want to

21:21

be in the screenwriter's seat. That's

21:25

awesome. Yeah,

21:27

I hadn't thought about that from a screenwriter's perspective,

21:29

but also one of

21:31

the things you want to do as a screenwriter is

21:34

write parts people would like to play. And

21:37

going through a period of casting

21:40

a project, like I've been

21:42

on castings where like you

21:44

can tell the actors are not excited about a

21:46

part or there's some derision or judgment of like

21:48

this. Oh my God, this wasn't a project. Like

21:50

I had a friend who was in an acting

21:52

class and they

21:55

were getting, it was taught by like a big castor, so

21:57

they were getting like big scenes from movies

21:59

that were currently. being cast, this was like forever

22:01

ago. They brought in a scene from a

22:03

movie that went on to be a big blockbuster that made a

22:05

lot of money, but the scene was ridiculously bad. You

22:07

could just tell as she was rehearsing it how disdainful

22:10

she felt of the scene. Yeah. They

22:13

ended up not getting a very big person for the parts. Yeah,

22:16

I think you will learn tremendous amounts about

22:18

what actors are interested in and what they

22:20

can do and what they are looking at

22:22

and how they break down a script. Yeah,

22:25

totally. I hadn't thought about that leap, but that is

22:27

another huge leap. That's great to think through. Yeah.

22:31

Then our last story

22:33

of the week. So this camera

22:35

was originally announced. Look, I'm actually excited

22:38

about this camera and want to play

22:40

with one. What I'm about to say is

22:42

going to be a little, because that mean,

22:44

I don't mean it to be mean. But

22:46

it was originally announced. Our first article about this

22:48

camera was January 7th, 2016 with

22:51

a price point between $400 and $750. It

22:54

was supposed to come out in the fall of 2016, and

22:56

then there would be a cheaper version in 2017. Then

23:01

they announced a new price points in

23:03

2018. Camera was still not out,

23:05

$2,500. They

23:08

have now released footage from this camera,

23:11

and it is at $5,495. They've

23:16

released footage, but we still don't have a shipping

23:18

date. Look, there has been inflation and

23:21

there's been supply chain issues and yada, yada, yada.

23:24

$5,500 is probably like $3,500 in 2018. God,

23:28

that's such a present. I sound so old when

23:30

I say that. Yeah. Boy, does that hurt. Yeah.

23:33

But true facts. Regardless,

23:37

we now have publicly announced footage

23:40

from, and it's supposed to be

23:42

coming out, the Super 8 camera

23:44

from Kodak. If half of

23:46

you have spent this whole ramp up being

23:49

like, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.

23:51

The other half of you have been like, what could he possibly

23:53

be talking about? You're either waiting on this camera or you're not.

23:56

But it's a new film camera and Aries stopped

23:58

making new film cameras. 2011,

24:02

2012, 2013, there's a big hullabaloo when they made their last

24:04

Airycam. I think it was now Panavision has not made new

24:06

Panavision bodies in a while. We haven't had a new film

24:09

camera in a while. Part of it is

24:11

that I'm still regularly shooting on World

24:14

War II era film cameras. Like a film

24:16

camera lasts a long time. There are two

24:18

airy- Bring out the bollocks, baby. Oh,

24:21

yeah. I teach a similar type of class. We have

24:23

a Panaflex and an Airy 2B, and that Airy 2B

24:25

made in the early 50s. Still

24:29

hook and strong. Thank you, Steven Soderbergh,

24:31

for donating that. Also, if you want

24:33

to take my 35-millimeter class, brooklyn35millimeter.com, like

24:36

how I snuck that one in there. I didn't even know I

24:38

was going to- I was waiting for it. I was going to

24:40

bring it up. You knew it before I did. I forgot. Anyway.

24:44

I'm really pushing for this class. I

24:46

appreciate that. We've already got 40 percent of

24:48

the registration we need to run, so we're

24:50

really close. A couple more

24:53

people, and this far out, to have 40 percent of the people we need

24:55

to run, I feel like we're going to make it. I feel like we're

24:57

going to spend June shooting 35. Back

24:59

to the point of the Kodak. It's

25:02

a Kodak Super

25:04

8 camera that lets you roll

25:06

in sound, that has a microphone mount, that's

25:09

a modern camera with a digital viewfinder, so

25:11

you can see what you're shooting with estimated

25:13

exposure and shoot also to an SD card

25:15

at the same time. You can start editing

25:17

immediately and then get your footage back

25:19

later and cut your negative to match. All

25:22

of the stocks Kodak makes are currently available in

25:25

Super 8. It's going to be

25:27

great. It's exciting that

25:30

I'm excited they are making it. I'm also going to

25:32

go out on a limb and defend the price. Making

25:34

physical objects is really hard. Yes.

25:39

Frankly, when they originally said the price was going to be $500

25:41

to $750, I

25:43

was like, LOL, no it's not. I

25:47

know a lot of you are thinking, man, that's a

25:49

lot of money. For those of you

25:51

thinking, man, that's a lot of money, you can go on eBay right now and

25:53

buy a Canon 1014 XL for 400-500

25:56

bucks, get it fully refered for a couple

25:58

hundred bucks and be I'm completely happy

26:00

that camera flaps. I've shot so much on

26:02

the 1014 or the 814 XL, great cameras,

26:05

or the Ballew. There's a lot of great Super

26:07

8 cameras available. What the Kodak

26:09

is bringing is the video tap integration, which

26:11

is going to make it play better on

26:14

film sets. There's going to be an HDMI

26:17

output, which you can hook up to like

26:19

a Teradek Bolt, so that a client can

26:21

monitor it. And what this camera is really

26:23

going to offer is the ability to integrate

26:25

Super 8 into a modern set. Because

26:28

the biggest problem with something like the 1014 is

26:30

like, let's say I want to, at this point,

26:33

every client wants to watch what you're shooting,

26:35

music, video, commercial, studio, whatever. They want to

26:37

be able to integrate and see what's going

26:39

on. Video village is a

26:41

thing. And if I bring out the 1014, nobody

26:43

can see what I'm doing. This

26:45

camera's main place will

26:48

be bringing Super 8 into

26:50

client work, whatever client work

26:52

means for you, because it's going to

26:54

have the actual I.O. to

26:57

hook up a Teradek, so that you

26:59

can broadcast wireless video to people, so

27:01

they can see what's going on. And

27:03

that is the reason why I think

27:05

it is worth the scratch. Because

27:08

it'll honestly be a rental item for most of us, except

27:10

for those of us who end up shooting a lot of

27:12

Super 8, in which case, because of

27:14

client work and what it pays, you'll

27:16

end up paying it off. I actually think the price point

27:18

is fine. I think it's the right

27:20

price point, to be honest. That's great. Yeah,

27:23

I mean, look, not to be that guy, but

27:25

I think you're spot on with the inflation. It's

27:28

just like when you announce something so long ago,

27:30

and you keep putting money into it,

27:32

it just is. I

27:35

was happy that it's not 10 grand, especially because

27:37

it's not like film is cheap. Kodak

27:40

has a whole line of Super 8 film they're releasing

27:42

with it, which seems really cool. And the

27:44

footage, the diversity of

27:46

the footage they showed, I thought was

27:48

also worth mentioning, not just like concerts

27:50

or cityscapes, but they had done some

27:52

really cool stuff with LED lighting and

27:54

some other lights just really popped.

27:56

And it made me want to play with the camera, or at

27:58

least like, you know. Maybe we want to take

28:01

a course really but but it was

28:03

it was beautiful And I think

28:05

when you wait so long for something They

28:08

really have to pull out all the stops

28:10

and it does feel like oh you were

28:12

doing something for that amount of time You

28:14

weren't just ignore ignoring us and waiting to

28:17

release something I

28:20

Forgot to mention to you guys, but we have

28:22

a listener comment that I need to respond

28:24

to This is from our

28:26

episode two weeks ago interviewing

28:28

director lulu wong and In

28:32

the introduction. I reminded listeners

28:34

about How the

28:36

farewell opened and per

28:38

the theatrical ratio it had a

28:40

it outperformed and had a stronger

28:43

opening weekend than the avengers somebody

28:47

Commented on our spotify. Mr. Booth. They said

28:49

what do you mean? The

28:51

farewell made 23 million dollars avengers

28:53

endgame made 2.8 billion

28:56

dollars. Would one of you guys

28:58

mind explaining? What the

29:00

ratio is and what that

29:02

comment is and how the

29:04

farewell sort of famously exceeded

29:06

expectations by that ratio So

29:11

i'll jump in and jason correct me with what I get

29:13

wrong The only thing indie

29:15

filmmakers care about is our first screen ratio Like

29:18

in a typical year I would say

29:20

it's very rare if I see more than one or two

29:22

of the top 10 grossing films in a year This year

29:25

was really great the big box office earners like appenheimer and

29:27

barbie were movies that like I was excited about and I

29:29

saw In the theater opening week and it was great But

29:31

like a lot of times some of those top 10 earners

29:33

i'm a little bit aged out of that demographic But

29:36

I would say if you look at the list every year of

29:38

the top 10 per screen

29:41

Which is the ratio we're often talking about it's not how

29:43

much money does it make it's how much money it made

29:45

per screen Almost always have

29:47

seen eight or nine of the top

29:49

10 per screen movies because you know

29:51

That's when you know famously west anderson

29:53

is the reigning king Of

29:56

per screen averages over his lifetime. Like

29:58

I think he won for

30:01

Grand Budapest and also for, I mean,

30:03

pretty much every one of his recent movies was

30:06

the top first screen that year, except maybe the

30:08

one about the New Yorker, which I really enjoyed,

30:10

but I understand. I was not, it

30:12

was me and the New Yorker magazine who

30:14

liked that one, apparently. You know what, I

30:16

was right behind it, Charles. I thought it

30:18

was very endearing and beautiful at that. Ditto,

30:20

ditto. Yeah, okay, great. So we've got some

30:23

nerds on this podcast who like obscure stuff.

30:25

The Frankest Dispatch is the title. Yes, yes.

30:27

And not obscure stuff, because obviously it had

30:30

a huge marketing question. Bill Murray was in it, but the less,

30:34

you know, we like our movies. So the per

30:36

screen ratio is where the farewell did well. I

30:38

don't remember if it was a two or a

30:40

four screen opening, but it's usually

30:42

a good indication distributors that you've got a great

30:45

movie, that like even though you're not on a

30:47

lot of screens, it is packed

30:49

full of people who are excited to see it, who

30:51

want to see it in the theater. Whereas yes, Avengers

30:54

made $2.8 billion. But

30:56

I'm going to tell you what, they were on a lot more

30:58

screens. And there were a lot more

31:01

screens at once. So obviously

31:03

a lot more people ended up seeing

31:05

Avengers infinity acts or whatever than they

31:07

did. That would be a great name

31:10

for a movie, right? Yeah,

31:12

that was what it was, I believe. And

31:14

I don't mean to, I'm not like anti superhero

31:17

movies. I really love a lot of superhero movies.

31:19

I saw all of the three Iron Man movies

31:21

in the theaters. Like I enjoy a good superhero

31:23

romp. I just, I had a young

31:25

kid when adventures came out and I wasn't seeing anything in

31:27

the movie theater. So I maybe I would have enjoyed infinity

31:29

war. I'm not sure. I don't mean

31:31

to, I never want to yuck anybody's yum. If you

31:33

think that's the best movie ever made, that's great. I

31:36

have some movie choices. I still love the movie

31:38

blow, which everyone is convinced is terrible, but me.

31:40

So I'm not going to. I love the movie

31:43

bedazzled and everyone thinks it's horrible, but I'm

31:45

like, I loved it. I've not even heard of the

31:47

movie bedazzled. Oh, bro, for sure. I would make it

31:49

curly in the nineties. Yeah. It

31:52

was like one of five videos in rotation

31:54

that I had when I was visiting my

31:56

grandparents in Costa Rica. So anyway, we all

31:58

have our favorite weirdo. My

32:01

brain has been so corrupted by the video,

32:03

like the extended universe of products, that I

32:05

could only assume it was a movie about

32:07

someone using the bedazzler or about the backstory

32:09

of how the bedazzler was invented, or

32:12

the bedazzler as a character. It's a

32:14

remake of a 60s comedy too. It's

32:16

not a- Yes. Yeah. Pretty existing IP.

32:18

Yeah. One of my favorite per screen

32:20

averages stories is, I think,

32:23

2011 when Kevin Smith did Red

32:25

States, did the fake auction and then

32:27

took it on a road tour, Roadshow, which

32:29

I proudly went to see when

32:31

I was at BU, because he was

32:33

only on one screen a week and

32:35

rolling it out. His per screen average was like,

32:38

I think something crazy. It was crazy. It would attract for

32:40

like a $2 billion movie, but

32:42

you're on one screen. He was charging

32:44

$75 ticket because it came with a

32:46

three-hour Q&A afterwards, so you'd come watch

32:48

the movie. It's a five-hour event. I

32:50

remember I turned all my friends ago

32:52

in Boston, we went, we

32:54

bought our tickets, then you watch a 90-minute movie, and

32:56

then he comes out for two and

32:58

a half hours of talk and very fun. But that

33:01

was a crazy good, you're selling out theaters at

33:03

$75 a pop, doing

33:06

one theater a week, so

33:08

continuing his theatrical run at the

33:10

time, really smart, fun way

33:12

to do it. I think the movie cost four

33:15

and a half and you want to making seven

33:17

million total. So made his money back,

33:19

did whatever. But you completely

33:21

crushed the per screen average of that year, because

33:23

you're on one screen, so you're just going somewhere.

33:27

I think this is very, Lou

33:29

has talked about this in interviews,

33:32

but she premiered the film. It

33:35

premiered at Sundance. It was produced

33:37

by Big Beach, which is a New York-based

33:39

production company that got put on the

33:41

map via Little Miss

33:43

Sunshine. She

33:46

and her team were given an offer to go

33:49

straight to streaming with the film, much more

33:51

lucrative offer, and they chose for a

33:53

theatrical release. The

33:55

success of that opening

33:57

weekend, I think is kind of of

34:00

what created the buzz that ultimately led

34:02

it to be, you know, this award,

34:05

like it bolstered this award camp

34:07

campaign and success that like really just

34:09

launched a career. So I think there's,

34:12

there's something really powerful about like sticking

34:14

it in a theater. And, and even

34:16

if it means like not making as

34:18

much money as you're launching your career,

34:20

but now like Lulu

34:22

is a legend with a very successful

34:25

Nicole Kidman show. And if you listen to that podcast,

34:28

you'll hear how she said no to that

34:30

show. And then Nicole Kidman was like, no,

34:32

I'll give you all the creative power. So

34:35

like, I think that it's just a really

34:37

great story and of a second time filmmaker

34:40

sticking with what feels right for

34:42

their film and then having great success

34:44

with it. I mean, that's the movie that

34:46

she got off that was crazy. I mean, I felt

34:48

like it was in theaters here. You know, there was

34:51

Oscar buzz, you know, people were talking about Aquafina

34:53

and that performance and just whatever. Like, I

34:55

just think, look, I, as

34:58

someone who has made stuff for streamers and whatever, it's

35:00

just so easy to get lost and someone

35:03

gets to pay the bills. But if you have the

35:05

power to do it and you can see, and you

35:07

have, you know, hopefully the project that can launch that

35:09

stuff, there's no better way. And I do

35:12

think at the end of the day, like if

35:14

you can get into theaters, you can get people talking,

35:16

that's amazing. Because guess what? If the farewell didn't do

35:18

that well in theaters, it would have gone to a

35:20

streamer anyway, eventually, you know, like it would have shown

35:22

up. You get the same effect. So just the

35:25

ability for someone to go buy a ticket, brush

35:27

their teeth, hopefully, and then head out to the

35:29

theater and, you know, like feel like an adult

35:31

out there. I do think there's it's just such

35:33

a different feeling than than what I do,

35:35

which is like loaf on the couch in my

35:37

underwear and a sweatshirt and hopes of the best, you know,

35:39

so. OK,

35:43

well, that there

35:45

is no better summary than the mental image

35:47

of Jason hanging out in his underwear on

35:49

the couch watching movies. I did. That

35:51

was my vibe last week because I took last week off

35:53

to take a break from the movie,

35:55

which I'm getting back into now. And

35:58

I I watched The Virgin. at

36:00

like 11 a.m. on a Tuesday.

36:03

It was amazing. I did back-to-back features

36:05

at, via AMC Stubbs Pass. I did

36:07

put pants on for that, but might

36:10

I recommend anyone but you, followed

36:13

by poor things? Just two

36:15

delightful movies back to back. I

36:18

completely forgot about the first one after watching

36:20

the second one, but yeah, that time of

36:22

rest, very important. Indulge in the movies. I

36:26

only put clothes on to do work. That's like a

36:28

very famous, I think it was like Aileen Brash

36:30

McKenna in an interview. It was just like, when it's time to

36:33

be a screenwriter, I get completely, like I get dressed. I do

36:35

my hair, I do my makeup. I sit down and do it,

36:37

because she was like, I had a professor, was like, it's a

36:39

job tree, like a job. And that always stuck with me. So

36:41

it's like, if I have to do work during the day, screenwriting

36:45

work, I get dressed, I do whatever. But if

36:47

I'm just going to watch Red

36:49

Notice on Netflix, it's

36:52

hedonism too over here. Yes.

36:56

Respect. Yeah. The

36:59

life of the child. Yeah.

37:02

Once you have a kid, you no longer get to just hang out

37:04

all weekend. You've got to at

37:06

least put on pants. Fair

37:09

minimum. I mean, depending on what kind of parent you are. And

37:11

again, not going to judge, but

37:14

yes. All right, so that has been this

37:16

week's No Film School Podcast. I'm on the internet at

37:18

Blue Sky. I do some

37:20

articles on the film school. I've got a review coming

37:22

up of some stuff that I'm excited

37:24

to play with. And I can't wait to tell you more

37:27

about. You can always take a summer class with me, brooklyn35mm.com.

37:32

I am at Lost in

37:34

Graceland. Tomorrow we are releasing

37:36

our episode with Katie Burrell,

37:38

the star and director of

37:41

Weak Layers, which is this

37:43

hilarious ski comedy.

37:45

Very funny. It's streaming now. You can

37:48

loaf on the couch in your underwear

37:50

and watch it. Amazing trailer. Hilarious trailer

37:52

for that movie. Isn't it good? Isn't

37:54

it good? Also recommend doing it from

37:57

Tahoe in a cabin. Shout

37:59

out to. to all the Tahoe snowboarders

38:01

that I grew up with. I'm

38:05

at Jason Hellerman on Blue Sky, on Twitter, on

38:07

Instagram, Jason at nofilmskill.com. If you want to email

38:10

in a question or whatever. We've got some fun

38:12

articles coming out this week. Like I said, commit

38:14

to the bit. One of the most fun times

38:16

I've had sitting and writing, because I do think

38:19

at the end of the day, most

38:21

bad screenplays I read, the reason

38:23

they're bad, aside from formatting,

38:26

dialogue, whatever, is that they don't commit to their

38:28

own ideas. So commit to the bit. And

38:30

maybe we'll talk about that next week once the article's up.

38:32

I love that.