Original subtitles

This section of the retrospective

is all about locations

and the importance of locations in your film.

Production value.

Production value.

For me is very important

on many different levels.

It adds to the story that you're trying to tell.

It also adds

to the marketability of the story you're trying to tell.

It also adds to

the distribution

value of your film for the story you're trying to tell.

And I'll be going back and forth between sort of the esthetics and the nuts

and bolts of filmmaking as we go on.

Locations are critical,

very important for many levels.

They're important that your cast, crew

who geographically, wherever you're located, has access to them.

In other words, you don't want to select a location. Why?

I want to select a location where I have to fly people to

put them up in

hotels, feed them at restaurants, etc., etc..

That's an expense that I want to stay away from.

So you try to pick locations that are local to you

or local to that portion of your shoot,

locations esthetically

or from a photographic

point of view, from a story point of view, from a production value

point of view are crucial.

All of my locations in all five films

I've had permits for if they were required.

I've had lawyers approval in writing.

If it was required.

I've had

written

approval

from the owners of the private party,

if it was requested, if it was requested.

I've had written approval.

From whatever

agency controlled that property.

Federal government or state or private?

I've had their written approval.

I have never.

Gotten a location for free.

I have paid to use

every location in my films.

National parks,

private property,

and on down the line houses.

I have ensured the locations

that I've used every location are.

Typically, they require $1 million liability policy.

So you must be able to pay to look to ensure your locations.

They'll demand it.

Otherwise you won't get

written approval, lower approval or permits without insurance.

And the insurance that you're taking out is just for the period

of the shoot.

I've shot in the desert.

It's really photographic, look spectacular, but it's very, very hot.

You've got to be prepared for that.

I've shot, in the city.

I've shot in houses that I've rented.

I've shot,

or twisted pair a year before I shot it

while I was writing the script.

I knew that I was going to shoot that all at night.

So the locations I selected for Twisted Pair

were all nighttime locations.

In Twisted Pair, I rented

the university so that I shot it at.

Yes, I rented the university property.

Interior and exterior.

Obviously, I couldn't shoot there during the day when students were there.

So the agreement I have with the lawyers, with the permitting people

to shoot at the university was that I could shoot there from 10 p.m.

to 6 a.m., which is when the sun rose.

And that worked out that that's the way I wanted to do it.

It worked out perfectly.

So all the night shots,

were based on shooting from 10 p.m.

to six a,

So we worked nights for many days.

But locations are critical.

Absolutely critical.

Obviously, when you're shooting remote locations,

just the logistics of shooting are interesting.

What do you use for power?

Where are you getting power from?

Where are you getting restrooms from, etc., etc., etc.

you got to think about all this stuff.

The bottom line is, if it looks great in the end and you really capitalized

on the photographic effects

of the location, it all works out great.

This is just a shot of kind of a fun shot.

Of locations I've used,

exterior.

This happens to be an area that I rented.

I rented the vehicles are rented

this location, for the, broken down piano.

This is a set up for the large

overhead shot.

This is the cave I rented.

And let.

This is the storage building I rented

the forest location for faithful findings.

It's the building site

exterior for the Rolls-Royce crash.

Can you hear me?

This is a hospital room that I built in my house.

I bought all this equipment and built

the set myself.

I sort of worked out really well.

I still have all the equipment, including the hospital bed.

This is the exit into the hospital

corridor from his room.

I'm supposed to be in a hospital.

I'm not myself now.

This is the shower scene

and faithful findings.

I took the shower doors off of the shower

so that I have a clean camera shot inside.

This is a building

I rented, for the psychiatrist's office.

The grand stairway.

This is the conference room inside the,

paper filings.

Production value is critical.

All of your locations, both interior

and exterior, really should lend themselves.

Lend themselves to enriching the production value.

And the look of your film.

They shouldn't be there just to be there.

You care more about the car.

Make sure they add to the scene.

This is a typical dining room set up and fade for findings.

I use this dining room.

We've gone through the good times and the bad times together.

Living room set up.

This is,

hallway location in the building that I rented.

For the psychiatrist's.

Inside the black cube,

he's reading the book of Life.

Exterior pool scene.

The hospital.

Inside the black cube.

The lakeside.

It's coming together.

And embrace.

All of these elements, whether it be location,

production value, lighting,

special effects, obviously, they all overlap to some degree,

but this should all build on and support

whatever scene or shot you're doing.

This is the,

trailer.

And the interior of the trailer.

It's going

where he's helping her escape.

Everything's going to be okay.

In Washington,

DC, outside the, National Archive building government and corporate systems

all over the country with the senators and congressmen.

Here are the files.

Walking away through the meadow and fateful findings.

These are the migrants in pass through

as they're navigating their way across the border.

The interior of the children's bedrooms.

The boy and girl that I built in my house.

And provided all the props.

It's the girls bedroom.

They're both interested in astronomy.

This is the exterior

and the interior of the trailer.

That I used in, passed through.

In the set that I built.

I try to take advantage of both

the interior environments and exterior environments.

And I had the,

migrants

go through this really interesting canyon

and then enter into this pipe.

Which was on the property that I rented for.

Oh. This is a set that I built

so that that gate would collapse.

That gate wasn't there when I first arrived there.

We built the gate to collapse

so the migrants could escape through it.

This is the hospital room that I built for the old professor in

one of my bedrooms.

But once again,

it's filled with equipment and all his paraphernalia.

You're looking for richness and texture and

shade and shadow and interest.

These are prop guns, prop drugs that I had.

All the gang members

handle

international bankers.

Property I rented,

I had these, bully guards

load the men and load the women into the truck,

and, drive off with some.

These are painted

petroglyphs, rock paintings,

from thousands of years ago.

That I made

as a prop, which you'll see later on.

Here we are, with the,

the character coming up to the petroglyphs and meeting the tiger.

That's a real tiger.

It's not CGI.

It's not an animated tiger.

But a lot of this will be,

described later in the special effects

portion.

This bus was on property that I rented,

and it became the location for handling the mail.

Migrants

pass through for

both.

This is another set that I built.

I turn up, it's where the,

girls are held

while they're awaiting their,

disbursement into the country.

It's filled with junk and

rags and overturned mattresses and toilet paper and

stained stuff.

But they're all just piled in there to wait.

This is inside a cave

I rented, for this mysterious shadow.

To crawl along the wall

inside the trailer where the two girls are held up.

In the attic.

I have nothing.

I'm empty inside for.

This is your eyes.

For the whole universe.

So we've got the interior locations.

And this is typical of the kind of exterior location I like to use.

Fill with the real sort of majesty of nature and the beauty of

of the natural environment.

I used a drone,

in this particular shot.

Trying to capture

the the isolation of the character, as well as the, only

the laws of its vastness.

The location, the exterior location

that he was in.

Another kind of rugged location.

But with a lot of texture

and a lot of interest.

Visually.

And that's what you're looking for.

The exterior of the trailer,

with them sitting around the garbage.

Another

interesting, location that I used.

Relative to the,

circular paintings on the rock wall,

which you've seen earlier.

Well,

this is the character.

With the tiger.

Discuss the tiger later.

The tiger, like many other objects in my films,

is filled with metaphor and symbolism.

This tiger is the same.

This is a newsroom,

that I used to spy.

This. Is how we present the news.

To give the effect that, the character is,

giving this speech around the world.

A guarded mansion

that the character morphs into a suit

and then enters.

Once again, you're looking for production value

and how it lends itself

towards the characters and the story.

This is the sum of the characters inside the mansion by this.

Discourse on several politicians.

And how the mansion lends itself

to the storyline of the characters who are speaking,

inside the mansion.

It's another drone shot

of the spiral.

Stone location.

Once again, it's

terrific production value and very much lends itself

to, support and reinforce the story

that, I'm trying to tell.

And the zoom out is a terrific effect in itself

and lends itself towards just enhancing the production

value.

Security.

Security is inside the newsroom.

You won't get security.

You're gone.

And the effects, once again will be handled.

And the effect and the effects portion of the film.

I am not officer.

I am artificial intelligence for sure.

This is an overall shot of the gold mine

that I rented

as a location.

And, this is the character going into the mine itself.

The cave.

It's a long silhouette shot

of her coming into the cave.

And now I've got other shots

where I lit the cave itself.

Now. Go

this way. You.

This is the ending of pass

through, and we'll cover this.

We'll cover this in special effects.

But, once again, from a location point of view,

this is perfect

for the ending of pass through.

There's

hundreds of thousands of people laying on the ground dead,

and he's walking through them, and they're dissolving away.

This is, in Double Down.

He's working from satellite dishes that he's mounted on the back of his car.

He's got those biological warfare

test tubes on the ground.

Destroying the economy.

That's

at least a biological.

So typically work from the back

on his laptops, from the backseat of his car.

This is a cave man.

In the national park.

Counter-Terrorist,

where the old man, the hermit,

the magical man lives.

Where are these?

Where are you

in this?

Have you learned the meaning of life?

Mom? Is there life after death?

They're all dead.

Is there a heaven?

This is a, another dining room scene.

Congratulations.

I'll be your driver.

Congratulations. You.

I can steal any car

any time with these electronic locks and ignitions.

It's so easy.

To. These street shots from the back of the truck.

Lend a light once again to production value

in establishing the location.

This stone rubble,

served as the location for these,

terrorists.

Gunmen.

Adding a lot of texture, to the scene.

It looks like a target of flying overseas.

And it's only five miles outside of Vegas.

Real world.

Once again, the,

The exterior shots

have a relationship to the storyline

and try to capitalize on

something that makes it interesting, rather than him

just climbing up a normal hill.

But this stonework has texture to it.

I've set up attempted versions of areas dealing with the train tracks

and the train once again builds on the production

value of your shot, and you begin the diversionary attacks

to distract the military.

At the time.

Day for night.

Agents.

You're right.

It always can be effective.

Yeah, you'll be just as alone as.

Honest.

And say

you're taking the call and the play time.

I'm big on,

composition and geometry and shots.

Whether they're long roads like this

that disappear in perspective.

Which once again lend themselves to the,

the storyline.

Much like this shot

where the perspective of the landing craft

goes off, towards the horizon,

leaving a trail.

But it it's typical of the isolation

created by a.

The crosses and the shadows,

which are, selected, specifically

because of the time of the day and the fact that they cast long shadows.

Just looked very good

relative to the story.

The being approaching from the horizon.

The heads,

projecting out from the ground on the dry lake bed.

It's all about texture.

This couple lived on in their truck.

You're crazy.

Here.

Crazy.

Is a, solar farm.

Humans have taken far

too long to understand solar energy

at the beginning.

And then progress the use of stock footage

like this, which you can ever achieve on your own.

Does have value.

Once again, I'm in this shot and tight, trying to take advantage

of the perspective of the highway

relative to production value.

And the exterior location.

Of the establishing shots of the City Hall,

which the men, are approaching here.

Gives it a legitimacy and a richness

that you really want to strive for in telling your story.

The exterior of the office building where the women work

once again gives the story legitimacy.

It gives a dialog, a legitimacy.

The country is finally seriously addressing sustainability

and respecting the.

Planet's natural resources.

This shot is actually

it starts out establishing the street scene,

and it winds up on the car, inside the car,

where the two men have their dialog.

Now that we've paid off our fellow.

Elected representatives in the legislature, an environmental

solar panel development film, male.

This is a broken down.

Debris laden, fired out building.

That I used,

where this particular homeless man lived

as a character.

The city hall,

once again, trying to project the,

the justice system and still,

the conflict that the character had with

the existing justice system.

These are gang of men,

and the women that work for them.

Against the backdrop

of the burning, of building.

Two men at City Hall.

Once again, you're trying to build the context visually

that they're in an important place

doing important things,

etc..

Swimming pool scene.

Car world.

Taking advantage of it.

Visually,

once again reinforcing the story.

Shot at the Las Vegas side,

where the bully throws over the wheelchair

right in front of everyone.

But the being comes by

and says, that's just not right.

The being then freezes.

The people that are walking, the tourists that are walking by,

and they wheels the man up to the Las

Vegas sign before I die.

I don't even have it all.

This has meaning relative to the story.

In total,

but once again, production value.

Sorry, we have to leave office workers.

So sorry.

In a rich kind of office environment.

Happen.

Utilizing the

park and the lake as a backdrop for the dialog

between this couple.

Now I've lost my job.

I'm not happy.

It's an exterior location that has people moving through it.

Life.

It just lends itself,

to reality.

This location I built

and designed as a special effect for the twin brothers.

And we'll get into that later in the special effects section.

I was involved directly in these locations,

that I no designs.

Once again,

to the reality and the richness

of the artificial intelligence theme

of, twisted fairy brain power.

Plays the pure majesty

the eagle.

And here in twisted pair

and the tiger in, passed through.

Were terrific.

Once again, production value elements,

that I contact as a character

and, Majesty leaned towards

the mysticism and the fantasy of the story.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

From a production value point of view.

To that character, being able to fly up into

the building has tremendous effect.

The building exploding

and subsequently

flying out of the building

before the fire reaches him

has tremendous

production value.

And that's what you're trying to build.

Things that are interesting visually,

story wise and effective.

Here at the being is in the, bombed out

building with, the soldiers.

And, he tells them to wait

so that he can help them.

Wait,

wait.

Let me go first.

I'll protect.

And the being comes through the building.

I'll protect you.

Follow me.

I've been walking out of the bombed out

building with the forces of Building and transform,

which I handle in the special effects shot later on.

Obviously has a lot of production value.

Stoppable. And I fully accept these powers.

The being in a private jet.

Obvious production value, interior location.

These are subtle things.

Or not so subtle things that you really need to capitalize on

from a visual impact and storyline

point of view.

The exterior location, at the university,

it's a tilt up on the high tower.

Programable virtual reality,

the corrupt version.

The obviously special effects have a lot

to do, lending themselves to production value.

So we'll get into that in the production value point of view,

a limitless digital universe

connecting all shared virtual reality.

Here is the theater.

From an interior location

point of view, coupled with specialty lighting.

Programable matter,

we will all be connected telepathically.

It's beyond their wildest expectations.

Oh, he's a shoot.

From an exterior location point of view.

I would have liked to have 30, extras

in the background, but, I didn't have that.

So you try to make the most of what you have?

Yeah.

Without too many wide shots.

Trying to capitalize on the moment

of the film.

Once again,

an interior location, interior

set with, shadows,

all creating production value and a richness

adding to the story.

To your mind.

Now, I'll teach you to record.

You were supposed to meet me at eight,

bitch.

Oh, you can't fight a special effect that I did.

I built this picture,

to crash and collapse around my head.

But the production value

that that has, I think is very high,

coupled with the sound effects and so on.

I miss my brother trying to create the contrast between the two brothers.

These lonely hoodie, shots in the old building,

lends itself to supporting this story

as well as production value,

but I. Know

you're coming with me right now.

I that

you're coming with me.

I don't know, I don't want you to come here.

Take your hands out of your pockets.

Oh, yeah. Oh.

Oh oh 0000

no This is the interior

set that I built, for the three men

being chained up.

We'll get into that later, but I

you can see the production value they did has, Oh.

I. Have a virtual I feel I've seen every day.

I've seen this.

Come on.

It's kind of,

we wrote 4

to 3 men mysteriously disappearing two nights ago.

The interior of this building, I had control, and the lights,

The last time they were seen was on surveillance camera.

And they were being followed by someone with somebody.

White collar criminals,

for example, of a

fine, upstanding businessman.

They were just sitting

on surveillance cameras, being followed by someone in a hooded.

I've reserved this entire restaurant

just for the two of us.

This exterior, set.

I had set up,

to be this restaurant scene.

It would have been nice to have extras that I could have dissolved out

and dressed the set, but I didn't have that,

that option.

So I made the most of it.

This is DNA that they can't identify.

Here's the money I got from the package.

That's for.

Damn, Mark, wait for me. Roger.

This is for all of us.

Taken.

This is the boss man.

Who controlled everything.

We'll get into the special effects later, but,

this is his richly appointed dining room.

Whose is him? Or desk in that table?

At his home.

This is the exterior of his mansion.

On the construction.

Great.

Let's look at this.

Is a meeting between the three of them,

discussing some artwork.

This is a special effect

which is addressed in the special effects portion,

but it has terrific production value

as a group scene relative to the storyline

with the winged muse, as well.

Reinforcing the richness of the mansion.

This is the entrance lobby to,

his mansion.

Which reinforces his character's control.

The overall establishing shot

of the exterior of the University.

And its high rise building of the operation.

The interior of the computer room,

obviously, put a lot of production value,

as well as a very interesting interior set.

I had to run around and touch every screen just to keep them lit.

And while we were shooting this, some of the screens went out and some by

one of the crew members would run up and touch the screen in a red light.

So they'd all be lit at the same time.

These are the four soldiers

that, equipped with, gas masks that I provided and rifles and so on.

Who are seen throughout

I into the film of this.

I can stop all of this with my own powers

alone.

This is a lobby location,

and hallway location that I used inside the university building.

Once again, I had control over the lighting.

So I purposely turned the lights out.

I cast that triangular shadow on the wall just to give that wall some,

lighting relief.

But the fact that

he could enter the laboratory rooms,

from the hallway,

added to the production value

of the of the scenes.

Cuz this biological mutant.

Warden inside the laboratory must had a terrific production value as well.

And and they were real laboratories with real equipment.

And, it just gave more credibility to the scene and what he was doing.

Programable matter.

This interior location is very symbolic,

of the story and the conflict between

the two brothers.

This is the scene where the VR,

soldiers are getting up.

This location worked out terrific.

This is the the interior set.

Ooh, the orange chairs really lend themselves

to accentuating the men in black.

Hybrids that were in the scene.

This is the interior

explosion scenes of the,

powerhouse.

I did not have control over the lighting of this,

so the lighting was always bright and on.

I would have liked to have had control over, but I didn't.

The exteriors,

I thought, work out really well.

Relative to the flying scenes

and, all the aerial acrobatics that went on.

But once again, I didn't have any control of the lighting of it,

but from a production value, both the stunt

and the actual location

really lend themselves,

to to the production value, of the film,

the isolation, quietness, darkness

with a single ray of light, that I used in this scene.

Really,

added to the production value and,

emotion of the scene.

This is a very residential interior

set of their home where the couple live,

and it's it's meant to just be a warm,

inviting space next to the fireplace.

This scene is meant to have a little bit of shock value to it,

relative to the shadow creeping across his face

and his reaction.

In his dream, he's

granted access by the powers that be.

I'm here,

and this exterior location brings him

to to arrive

here once again.

From a location point of view, I'm looking for a shot point of view to look at.

Look at the composition of the shot relative to the perspective,

created by the long wall.

And the joining

and coming apart of the, the couple

and her in the distance.

This, exchange

location is focused on her once again

with the perspective of her walking

away down the

narrow bridge.

Here in the lobby, the production

value of the soldiers is established.

The exterior of the lobby

is established here.

And the

interior of the lobby.

This is the end for you.

Cruz and.

And his flight

up the lobby from the gunfire is established,

lending itself to the production value under

him, destroying all the labs in the end,

through explosions,

lends itself to the production value, sir.

And the story?

Is the long hallway and the foreshortened run,

and is flying down from the lobby above.

Is an effective

production value shot.

The exit from the building

and his burst into a beam of light.

The muse inside the theater,

to the man's mansion.

Symbolically, metaphorically

looking at him dissolve

into his true character.

And then she dissolving

out of her character and leaving the spiked,

diamond filled shoes on the ground.

I'm so sorry.

This location showing the morphing between

the two twins.

Is effective.

In. The interior set showing the

through

morph

RA die.

The exterior night.

Lonely location

for the twin.

Walking away in darkness.

Alone

lends itself towards.

His resolution

of the issues with his brother.

This set with him

walking away into

and then finding his love.

The one

that.

Lends itself towards the mystery of the environment.

The production value.

That supports that.

I designed these exteriors

to support kind of the mystical environment

that, I have much more

that the story is all about, once again, capitalizing on the sci

fi fantasy theme of the entire story.

Virtual universe.

Living in our.

Own world every day.

Everyone has the right to be loved.

Everyone has the right to love

and peace.

I'll be right here.

Romantic as we all are,

I've chosen specifically in all of my films

to deal with romance.

On a lost love kind of basis.

Lost love, found love, in other words, twists

and turns in people's love lives rather than

just straight on. I love you and I love you.

Okay? Let's be happy.

That doesn't interest me.

Okay.

So there.

It's double down where his fiancé is murdered.

Then he finds her ghost.

And fatal findings.

You know, they grew up, they grew up as children.

And he finds her years later, and they're still in love

and fall in love.

Past through,

the being and pass through

not being a human doesn't relate

to another female on a in a loving relationship.

He doesn't know romance.

And that's sort of exemplified in when he goes to hug her, he goes,

I'm I really like this, but what does it mean?

So we.

Help. We.

In twisted pair.

The love there,

is really between the two twin brothers.

Amongst other things.

So which is lost and found

and lost and found?

So the romance, the twisted, romantic.

Twisted in a good way.

A romantic angle in those films.

Is something that I feel strongly about.

Also in Twisted Pair.

If if

Laura turns her back on him,

he turns her back on, he turns his back on her.

Then they rediscover each other in a fantasy, and then she disappears.

Although she's going to love him through eternity. No.

Okay.

That I will love you for all eternity.

And he walks on accepting, that that's the fate.

His fate. Like in life.

So I've got that romantic twist,

that I like.

Coupled with that,

I've got this for lack of a better term,

the sci fi fantasy

twist in all my films,

all of the romantic action in my films

is done within the context of my films

being sci fi fantasies.

So within the fantasy aspect of things, I

try to include that twist

in. Any.

Key. You're free.

Go learn to love yourself, other humans

and humanity.

You have so much to offer.

Nature

and this planet.

I know you from somewhere.

Help me, help me,

save me.

You can save yourself.

I've made you strong enough to save yourself.

Wait for me.

Wait for me.

Is this yours?

Yes. It's just something I've been carrying for

good luck.

Oh my God,

is that you?

It is, isn't it?

It's you.

Alia.

It is me.

And you're Dylan.

It's been so long.

I have no idea.

I couldn't see your face.

Can we talk now, please?

Let. It's great to see

you, too.

I know it was you.

Who? Was.

We have to find her.

Please.

We have to find her.

Right. Wait.

So we.

Help! We.

We have to find her. For.

Forgive me.

Forgive me.

Make time stands still.

Right now.

I love working with Dylan.

Of seeing her every day.

I love seeing you like this.

Come on.

You've got a minute.

This is so nice.

Alana.

King.

This is the editing bay that I use to edit

my four most recent feature films.

The software that we use was premiere,

Final Cut Pro, Blackmagic Fusion.

After Effects, and an occasional Photoshop post-production.

As magical as it is to shoot a film,

especially when you've written it and you can see all the pieces

start to come together.

The real magic happens in post-production.

The editing,

the way I've worked on almost, I think for the films, was that

I've used the same editor, John

Mastro, Jacomo excellent, excellent technician,

and a great guy.

So the way I work with John is that we literally

all the all the principal photography is done.

I've never had the luxury

of being able to edit my film

while I was shooting the film.

So I don't begin editing my film

until all of my film has been shot.

Now, obviously, I'd previewed it

while we were shooting it,

through video assist,

but I don't begin editing in the editing bay

until all of my principal photography is done.

All of the raw footage

is given to me, and it's all been time coded.

I spend days, days and days

and days going through all the raw footage that's been shot over.

Let's say it's 22 working days,

all timecode it, and I go through and select.

Shots that I want to use.

In other words, I identify the beginning at the end of the timecode

and just create a list.

So now that I've selected

the hundreds of shots that I want to use,

I'll begin to,

on my own, begin to put those in chronological order

so that essentially we can create a rough cut.

So when I've got I've gone through all the film,

I've gone I've identified all the time coded scenes that I select.

I then spend days placing them in chronological order.

I then sit down with the editor

for the first time.

And that's really a function of finance too.

I mean, you can't be paying an editor to do something that you can do yourself

or certainly duplicate your efforts.

So when I'm ready to sit down with John,

we we pull out all the time coded selections that I've made.

And then he drops them all in line.

And then I go through.

And the way he and I work is that he's the technician.

Now. I'm making all the creative decisions,

whether it's what I want to use, where

I want to use it, the length of it, I want to use, and,

the pacing, the timing, they're all decisions that I'll make.

But we literally are sitting elbow to elbow

to each other with the monitors in front of us.

Okay.

So that he's responding

to whatever I'm telling him right there on the spot.

And we go through and we create a rough cut.

In other words, we trim down, the films,

the clips that I've selected, and then

I'll take that and I'll go back on my own

and I'll go through the rough cut and I'll refine that,

and then I'll refine that again, and then I'll refine that again.

So there's this constant process,

of refinement

and identifying what

we may have to pick up as a shot, which you try to avoid.

Don't do that because the cast is gone.

The location may not be there anymore, weather conditions may be different,

etc., etc.

and then I sit down with John again and we start going through my refinements,

my pacing, my timing,

and lay all that out.

And that takes a lot of time.

And then I go through refining the frame and frame and again on my own.

So to make a long story short, I eventually get to a content,

a film content that I'm comfortable with.

Then,

well, then we start dealing with special effects,

whether what I should say, we've begun

in some of these later refinements we've already begun to deal with, you

know, dissolves in CGI and special effects and greenscreen and so on and so on.

So at some point, we're

going to reach a. Recut.

And this is after many, many, many, many,

many, many hours, hundreds of hours of me

just getting where I want the film to be

with the effects that I want.

Then I take that because I've,

I think I've created the mood that I want in the pacing

and so on.

The soundtracks

there may be between sound and effects and music.

There may be 8 or 9 tracks of just sound.

You can see how complicated

the overlays of the, of the various,

shooting shots we have relative to,

the effects.

But this is all very typical of, almost any of the five films

that I've done.

This section is all about special effects.

Now, it's a question of special effects.

Greenscreen

dissolves

and I go through and I do all of those,

Here's the Rams head skull

from, fateful findings, the one that,

mysteriously comes to life

and turns

and looks at the kids as they walk away.

I designed

all of the special effects for my films,

whether they be green screen shots,

trews, special effects,

stunts, props, etc.

I typically design them while I'm writing this script.

This gets back to what I mentioned earlier in writing.

There's no reason to plan on doing a special effect

that you know you can't afford to do, or you know you're not going to have

the location to do, or you know you're not going to have the means to do.

So. All of my special effects,

and that's numerous and all encompassing.

I've worked out myself in advance,

whether it's the dissolving of the huge crowd on the ground

at the ending of Pass Through,

or the levitation of the four cans

in Pass through or, in shape of findings,

the character being hit,

by the Rolls Royce.

All of the props in my films, I make myself,

whether they're props such as the hospital room, all the,

accessories that are on the hospital bed,

all the equipment,

I do everything myself.

I made the hospital room.

I made the children's rooms.

I made all the dining room table settings,

etcetera, etcetera.

All of the props that you see,

both in interior sets and exterior

sets and locations I made on my own.

That includes the false,

rock paintings,

and so on.

Everything.

You see, I made myself the reason I mention

this is because, number one, I find it very interesting.

But also you can control what you're doing.

The cost of what you're doing.

And this gets back to being truly independent in, in trying

to achieve your goal of making a high production

value, theatrical feature film,

it's not my intention to

teach you how I did every shot and all of my films.

That would take many, many, many hours.

This is intended to be an overview to show you

the successful film

quality product that you can

produce on a relatively small scale at a relatively low

production budget.

Here's the head from fateful findings.

It's a mask that I made.

To go over him

after he was hit by the car and in the hospital.

I just made this out of paper maché,

and then I covered it in gauze and obviously,

but the blood on it,

the here is the infamous mask right here.

Oh. Really?

That.

Oh, look, we're a mushroom.

We're a treasure.

Kids, a magical day.

From fateful findings.

Here is the buried little jewel case

that the kids discover.

Once the mushroom dissolves away.

The magic mushroom.

And inside the jewel case

is the magic black cube.

The black cube.

Inside, we also have

the beaded bracelet.

That she finds eventually

in the operating room,

and the audience says, oh, we've seen that before.

It's a magical day.

Here is the book.

And Faith findings.

It's a magical day.

This is the one.

She she writes this in there when she's a little girl.

And, later on as a grown adult, she drops it.

And that's how her identity is discovered.

But it's a magical day.

Here's the book

and set of findings.

The Book of life,

the book that has every of the world's secrets in it.

I made this book from scratch.

What I did was

I bought a bunch of books in a 99 cent store.

I found them all together.

I covered it, and then I.

Dumped it

in a bucket of tea to dye

all the pages and give it that antiquated look.

But I made this from scratch. And.

Oh, yeah.

There's another secret.

Oh, wow. Oh.

How could you have done this, Jim?

I can't believe you committed suicide.

I cannot believe you committed suicide.

How could you have done this?

How could.

I can't wait any longer.

I'm not ready for this.

These are the books

I used in Fatal Findings.

Autographing them as the writer.

When I was at my desk.

No more books,

no more books, no more books, no more books.

You. Oh.

Oh. Oh.

Should I be afraid?

Should we be afraid?

We, we.

I want to be honest with all of you.

I've been hacking into government and corporate systems all over the country.

Here are the microphones

I used in fateful findings

when making the speech in front of the,

Archive building in Washington, DC.

I actually made this base from scratch.

These are PVC pipe

that were white.

Cut them. I glued them onto this base.

I bought some second hand

microphones and all the cable.

But this is this is the mic, the set of mics

that I was using in that scene in Washington DC.

And. Here are the files

and supporting documents

and supporting truths.

The factual documents.

They now know my crimes.

I'm leaving now.

Rather than going to prison

for the rest of my life.

You know.

This is the being's craft

as it arrived from space.

And I am here now

to travel through the sky.

Landed on earth and left a trail in the dirt.

But this is the being's craft.

Oh. These are some of the heads that I used

in that scene from I Am Here Now.

The heads were buried in the sand in the desert up to their necks,

and it symbolized humanity

buried up to its neck in sand

and nowhere to go

as to being walks through them.

But these are the little heads.

No gods.

We. Cancer.

Chemo kicking my ass.

Yeah.

I know.

Which one is you?

Like a brother?

Kill him.

You're friend.

Go! Up!

I have eliminated

the corrupt politicians and lawyers.

Eliminate them all.

If the humans cannot

or will not.

On their own.

I contacted the company

and the attorneys who own the legal rights

to this mask.

I received written permission

from the attorneys for the company

that owns the legal rights to the mask to use it in my film.

And, I am also the person

wearing the mask in the film. But.

Other criminals

who have escaped the legal system.

I was drawn.

They got her.

They finally got to her.

She's gone.

The CIA.

Oh. No.

Credit card

uses this year.

I told you this was going to work.

Because you have. To.

You. Know. You.

These are the rocks

that you see and pass through.

Like all of my props, I made these.

These are foam.

I made them,

and I had them colored to match the red

limestone that's out there at the location.

I also hand-painted all this myself. So.

We had to

carry these up the mountains.

But essentially what you get them in

front of you, they're not too heavy.

So these are the rocks from the petroglyphs

that you see in the scene.

Props that I made out of foam.

This is a real tiger on the hill.

The top of the stone.

It's not CGI, it's not green screen.

No. Man's law

changes with his understanding of man.

Only the laws of the spirit realm

always remain the same.

Don't come near me.

I'll kill you, you fucker!

I won't hurt you. Oh!

Oh. Something

incredible is about to happen.

From past through.

This is the shirt that I wore,

every day and pass through.

It's never been washed.

It's full of sweat and dirt and, hasn't been washed since.

This is exactly the way it exists.

It's really, literally stiff from sweat

and dirt.

This is my reality.

Not a false human illusion.

I. What an asshole that politician was.

I can't believe he just said that.

He is so damn extreme and biased.

Thank you, Senator, for that thoughtful and sensitive interpretation.

Very thoughtful and insightful.

It's as if all the harmful people on earth

are disappearing.

The actress has

a tattoo of a tiger on her back.

What is their relationship in the symbolism between the lady

with the tiger on her back and the real tiger on the rocks?

The mystery thickens.

When I painted the rocks,

obviously I had this circular stone pattern

in real life in mind.

This is the first time

that I used a drone in a film.

They are fantastic in that the flexibility

they give you, relative to the shots that you can make,

let alone the aerial photography available

and the zoom out scenes,

are really, really spectacular.

Another tool I've used

is this metal sculpture.

I put a light behind it,

and it would either be stationary on a C stand

and project the various patterns that I wanted on the on the wall

or whatever the surface may be, adjusting them accordingly.

I've also used this in the cave and pass through,

where I could, in front of the light,

manually move this to create the shadow.

Moving along the wall of some unforeseen,

being or image.

This international newsroom

security is a set that I designed and built,

just for the film to give it your God,

a worldly character.

I am not of this earth.

I am artificial intelligence from far into the future.

I have taken on this human body

in order to communicate with the humans.

I have taken control of this international media center.

What you are seeing now is being broadcast throughout the world.

Human evolution has ended

and there can be no further advancement.

The turning point is now

the cleanse has begun.

This has been the, most complicated,

shot or clip that, I ever sort of envisioned.

How do you have 30,000 or 300,000

people, dead bodies laying on the ground,

and as the being walks out,

they dissolve away behind him.

But, it actually turned out

to be relatively straightforward

in how to accomplish it.

You can see in film production

the overhead scaffolding that I built,

and the cluster

of a few bodies that we used

and then multiply those

in perspective and relatively true perspective,

and also change the color of their clothes so they all wouldn't look like a cookie

cutter stamp out of the same cluster of original people.

But, it worked out fantastic.

And the effect is exactly the way I envisioned it.

So, I'm very pleased with this.

Untwisted pair.

I really set out the challenge myself,

technically as well as creatively

when I designed

this film,

to be about two identical twin brothers.

And obviously I only had me to deal with.

I don't have an identical twin brother.

So in all of these scenes, I needed to create,

a twin brother.

But a twin who was somewhat different.

And in fact, as the film goes on, he becomes a twin with a full beard.

But this is the

very beginning shot against the background

that I also, designed.

But I thought this captured the moment, and,

it really was special time.

His flame was put out.

The final time I saw Kail broke my heart.

Although we were now humanoids,

I still felt a bond and love for him

as my brother.

The pure majesty of nature.

While developing further

and further in a humanoid state over the years,

I never wanted to lose touch with the magic

and majesty of nature and the gifts

it had given me.

The flying sequences I was hoping,

we'd be able to do them

as best that I could.

And I think they worked out great, especially in conjunction

with the backgrounds and the building, that we were working with.

Another defeat for the forces of evil.

The forces ability to transform and advance

my superior powers over the years has been rewarding.

I'm unstoppable, and I fully accept these powers.

When I shot this in the theater that I had, I knew I had total

control of the lighting, so I knew I'd be able to black it out.

Then I'd be able to throw a key spot for

this scene is exactly the way I envisioned it when I wrote it.

What's interesting about the Blue Sphere

is that when it comes over to my chest,

it actually casts a blue shadow on me, which I didn't envision happening.

It turned out to be a nice touch.

Personal facial recognition data.

But a humanoid such as me

is beyond their wildest expectations.

This scene is interesting

because I knew obviously what was going to happen, and I built this

picture frame as a breakaway frame because I knew we'd only get one take.

So if she crashed it over my head, it

broke away relatively painlessly.

And the effects, was terrific.

Which

your mind?

Here's a little gift from me to you. Oh.

Oh, no. No.

Oh, just hang here and rot, you scum.

Frame.

This is where we bring you

all to rot and die.

But you threw it away,

or it was taken from me.

You. The cat figures

in this scene on the table are actually three muses

who changed position

on the table in coordination.

Empire is planning to take over with the old man's position.

But I was

manipulating those from underneath the table.

These are the figures that you see

and twisted pair on the tabletop

adjacent to the bucket of diamonds.

And they rotated accordingly.

The way I did this was I magnetized the bottom of them,

and then I was underneath the table, rotating a another magnet,

making them activate so that they would turn

and look at each other or turn and away

from each other.

Adjacent

to the old man's bucket of diamonds,

here are those three cat muses again.

Who move in reaction to causes.

Speaking the way I did that was I manipulated the cats by magnets.

Underneath the table.

This is a winged angelic muse

who was also part of the

Coos quadri of characters,

and she morphs from one position to another.

But she is one of his muses.

Mr. Coos,

I assume this shot worked out exactly the way I planned it.

It's a blank frame.

You can see through it.

There's.

You see the buttons and so, beyond.

But then what appears is this painted

figure who suddenly, out of nowhere,

comes to life.

And she moves within the frame

and you can see it there.

And this is his special artwork.

And as she disappears,

we can once again immediately see through the frame.

Magic. Art.

I can stop all of this with my own powers

alone.

Good point.

You are not in control.

We are not going to let you take control.

This is the resolve of the four men in black.

And the following dissolve

of the coup's character from the circular seating.

So in the end, there's no one left

and we leave the scene.

000000. Oh.

You'll be dead soon.

On these power

plant shots, I had no control over the lighting.

This is the lighting I had to live with.

I really would have liked to have incorporated

a lot of shadow, in here, but unfortunately,

I wasn't allowed to do that, so I.

This is what I had to work with,

planning the bombs and then having them explode.

I thought it worked.

Well,

it's a time for these purposes.

The same on these exterior shots.

Obviously, I couldn't control lighting and,

But I thought all the aerial,

flying up, flying down worked out.

Well,

has impact, has drama,

tells the story, and, I think it's kind of interesting work out.

Well,

flying up and flying down.

This is the end for you, cuz.

And your evil empire.

I'm ending this.

Justice is served.

By the aerial flying scenes.

I think, worked out really well, and I'm very pleased with them.

They were fun to do, and I think the effect worked out

great.

Here are the gold spike shoes

that the winged spirit wore

in, Twisted Pair.

I just was maybe a year before I even shot the film.

I was at a flea market, and I saw these, and I said,

I'm going to use them some place.

So I bought them, and I think they're terrific.

Great effect in the film.

It was only business

had scientific.

Only business.

I'm so, so

you're breaking my heart.

I'm so sorry.

I'm working with you.

Here is the head from Twisted Pair.

That being.

That he has this great relationship with.

But this is what I used.

And what I did here was I puppet it.

It just like this.

And then in post,

we created, the transparent version of it.

This magical forest is exactly,

the way I envisioned it

and the way I designed it.

I designed it to have these mystical, magical colors.

The fog, the, the lighting.

It all worked out terrific.

So I'm very, very happy with my design

for this.

It has all the

the semblance of the kind of place that these characters

would exist in.

No. Okay.

That I will love you for all eternity.

I accept my loss.

But, you need to work those out in advance.

Know what you're going to do?

No. How are you going to do it? Technically?

Know what your visual result

wants to be, and, have a lot of fun with it.

We will live in a virtual metaverse, a virtual universe.

Living in our.

Own world every day.

Everyone has the right to be loved.

Everyone has the right to love

and peace.

I'll be right here.

Green screen.

I've used green screen,

in probably four of my films.

I probably have used maybe about a dozen

different actual green screen

configurations.

From small green screen to medium sized green screen

to very large green screen.

This particular green screen

here is the one I this stage I rented in LA,

it's 85ft long, 35ft deep and 18ft high.

And I needed that to achieve the large,

virtual universe format

that I had designed this shot in,

as well as some of the other shots, like the exploding building and so on.

So I'm very happy with how all that worked out.

Then,

I go through and I do the music.

The music is interesting.

Much like I said earlier, the location is a character.

The music is a character.

The mood, the music sets, the mood,

the music gives the film pace,

the music gives the film the emotion.

These are critical to the success of your film.

The music gives. Or.

The fact that there is no music

that's as valuable sometimes as having music.

The way I do the music, I'd love to have

the availability of an orchestra composer to create something,

unique on his own, but unfortunately I'm not there yet.

Soon enough, there. Yeah.

So what I do is I buy once again, I don't get anything for free.

I buy royalties of music

and I buy different time.

I spend hours,

many, many hours

selecting the type of film that I want to buy, the royalties

type of music that I want to buy, the royalties for.

To make a long story short, I buy the royalties.

I then from different pieces of film, pieces of music,

and I then combine those.

So I may have two pieces of different music

that I then compose

the music for my film, and I may use

5 or 6

pieces of music, of orchestrated music

for my film that I've paid for.

And then I begin to lay in the music

soundtracks for maybe

between sound and effects and music, there may be 8 or 9 tracks that just

sound,

You can see how complicated

the overlays of the bare of the various,

shooting shots we have relative to,

the effects.

But this is all very typical of, almost any of the five films

that I've done.

There is nothing more rewarding.

Self satisfying.

Valuable to me

than being in an audience of

200, 300, 400, 500 people

watching your film and they're just going crazy

loving it,

having the best time,

appreciating the work you put into it,

appreciating the story

you're trying to tell.

There's nothing more valuable

that in the standing ovations than the cheering.

It's dynamite.

This is a screening in Paris, France,

of twisted care.

There were 2700 people

in the audience at this single screening at Twisted Care.

This is their reaction to the film.

And to me after the screening.

Neil Breen.

Oh my God. Oh, oh my God.

This is a screening in Los Angeles.

Oh. Oh.

We knock it down.

Oh, you.

You go.

Oh, this is it.

I can't believe this is happening.

Oh, my God. Oh.

And then when people wait for

an hour and a half for an autograph, see lines around the theater.

It's all very, very rewarding.

And it makes all the hard work,

really worth it.

It really fulfills my sense of passion for filmmaking.

On the other side of the coin,

there are people that you'll never please, ever.

Don't worry about it.

It's meaningless what they think.

Don't worry about it.

The film industry is filled with positive,

creative, interesting and exciting things.

Yes, the wonderful people.

It's also filled with envious people,

jealous people, people that will never like you, etc. etc.

don't let the negative stuff bother you.

It doesn't bother me.

I am really not even aware of.

Probably most of it.

But that's

that's the nature of the business.

Any creative endeavor that's done by anybody, whether you're

writing a book, painting, a painting, designing a car, designing a house,

designing clothing, they're all people who love your stuff,

and they'll be able to hate your stuff or don't like your stuff to whatever degree.

Don't worry about it. Who cares?

As long as you personally are happy and fulfilled

that you've created a passionate piece of film

that means something to you and obviously means something to the audience.

That's where the rewards are.

In this section, I'm going to be discussing distribution

when it comes to getting your finished

indie theatrical feature

out for the public to see.

First of all, there will be people

during the course of your post-production saying,

oh, send me a rough cut, send me a rough cut.

I'd love to see it.

Don't ever send a rough cut of your film to anybody unless it's you.

Don't even send it to your mom and dad.

People will look at that rough cut,

and no matter what they say

or think or how experienced they think they are,

or you think they are, they will view it as the final version.

Guarantee you golden rule.

Never send a rough cut of your film to anybody

for any reason, no matter what they say.

Period.

When you create a screener for your film,

people will want to see it.

There will be people that say,

and the whole reason I'm giving you this is that

you need to protect your

intellectual property rights for your film.

You've submitted it for copyright.

And by the way,

the date that you submit

your film to the Library of Congress, the date they receive it

and identify it through certified mail,

that's the date of the effect of copyright legally,

because the reality is, you know, they're going to get the copyright form

back from the Library of Congress for maybe six months

or six months.

So once you've submitted it

and you if confirmed that they've received it,

then you're free to sort of move about as though it's your legal property.

Back to the screener.

There are people there will tell you, oh,

just put a watermark of your logo

or whatever down in the far right hand corner, you know? No.

Never sent a screener.

Unidentified.

What to do is to literally

cross the bottom of every frame of your film.

So say and good sized text screener,

not for commercial use.

If you send them a clear frame of your film,

even with a little watermark on the bottom, which is meaningless legally,

it leaves the opportunity for somebody

to pirate, steal your film,

and you have no recourse.

It's that simple.

So you always have to be prepared

to protect yourself.

I have built up a reputation as a brand,

which was always my intention

and credibility with theaters

and distributors

using twisted Pair, my last film as an example.

When I completed Twisted Pair and I let

people know it.

There were theaters,

regular big theaters all over the world.

That I

contacted and I said, hi, this is Neal.

We've got a new film.

The theaters immediately said, Neal.

We want to screen your film.

These aren't little art houses.

These are a little, you know, flat floor warehouses and so on.

These are real theaters, which is all I accept now,

I will I'm not doing little theater art houses.

I don't think I ever did that, actually.

But anyway, my point is that I personally me

booked my film

in theaters

all throughout the United States, in major cities,

all throughout Canada, in major cities,

all throughout the United Kingdom,

in London, Bristol, major cities,

all in Australia,

major city Sydney.

I did that on my own.

I contacted the theater

and said, I have a film I want, I want to show it.

What can we work out for every one of them?

Said Neal.

We want to show your film, we know about you, blah, blah, blah.

Not one theater in the world, said Neal.

Can you send us a screener for Twisted Pair?

We like to see if it's worth showing.

Not one theater did that.

Every theater booked my film

to hundreds of people per screening,

500 in Chicago, one screening

and showed my film without ever even seeing it.

Knowing that a Neil Breen film has an audience,

a big audience worldwide.

The way I work with

the theaters is that, and this is important,

and eventually you'll reach a point where you can do this.

You will be able to do it initially, but you've got to create

a brand or real credibility

in the market.

I tell the theaters

we're trying to screen the film.

I said, I want my films shown at the normal early evening,

730 or 8:00 pm timeslot.

Whatever your normal is, I do not allow my films to be shown at midnight

or late night cult movies.

I tell the theaters

what the ticket price will be.

Even outside the country,

I give them the ticket price, which is in, and I give them the equivalent in U.S.

dollars, and they price their tickets accordingly.

Not one theater complained about it.

Everyone showed it at 730 or 8:00.

Everyone gave me the ticket price that I wanted, which was competitive

with any multi big screen theater complex in the United States.

And they showed it again and again and again.

So from a theatrical release

point of view, I think I did,

38 theaters

in 38 major cities around the world.

And most of them replayed it,

either once a month or once every six weeks, something to that effect.

And they still are doing it.

So that's been

terrific.

And I purposely.

From the beginning knew that I was only going to let a screen

in theaters for X amount of months,

and this time I think I said five months.

So at the end of five months, no matter how successful theatrical was,

I said, I'm releasing DVD because I built the audience.

The word of mouth was out there.

You need to understand your audience.

You need to understand how you're going to market your film to your audience.

How are you going to market your genre?

How are you going to market yourself to the audience?

It's critical.

You've got to understand that you can't free for all this stuff.

It doesn't work.

Every indie filmmaker

wants their feature to find a distributor eventually.

You've got to be very, very

careful with distributors.

There are very good distributors out there,

and there are very bad distributors out there,

and I'll get into that in a minute.

Distribution.

Film distribution has been around for 100

years.

It's been

good for 100 years, and it's been bad for a hundred years.

So when I say bad, I'm talking about theft,

pirating.

Whatever you want to call it.

Distributors are in the business

of making money

off of your film.

If you're film doesn't make any money,

they don't want to do it all.

Go sit on a shelf

to makes money.

Five.

The contract.

When a distributor approaches you, this is critical.

Crucial. In the old days when there was just

a making a film, the markets were very limited.

I mean, it can only literally be shown in the theater eventually

went to a VHS, VHS, were sold out of brick

and mortar stores and rented out of brick and mortar stores.

So the exposure was still relatively limited.

Then, DVDs and Blu rays evolved and,

the others just the other platforms disappeared

and it was still the brick and mortars were gone.

And you sold DVD Blu rays through the mail.

Then it evolved into where we are

now into having literally dozens

of digital platforms out there that your product,

your content, your intellectual property, your film can be shown on.

As time has gone on through the decades.

If becomes more and more critical

that you protect you, the producer of your indie film

that has commercial and legal value, so there's no commercial legal value.

You got nothing to worry about.

If people steal it, you don't care because nobody's going to pay for it anyway.

But if they're gonna pay for it

commercially, legally, then you've got to be very careful,

because what's happened is that because there are

so many digital platforms out there now,

it's very prone

to being sold to one platform

or distributed to one platform.

And then subleased

without you knowing it to other platforms.

That means other platforms are making money,

but that money is not trickling back to you.

The producer.

Let me back up a little.

The distributors

contract with you.

The producer

is the Bible.

That contract should be

12, 14, 16 pages long.

Has to be that long to cover everything.

If it's not, don't sign it.

In fact,

welcome back to the,

I function,

and I say this only because I've done this for five films.

I've now become extremely experienced

at the distribution game, and it is a game.

Distributors.

Big and small.

Can be good or bad.

Once again, bad.

Meaning they're going to steal your money.

It is critical in the distribution contract

that everything is identified.

They will write the contract.

So it's literally in their favor.

They will write it full of loophole

legal loopholes that favor them.

You've got to be smart enough to go through their contract.

Red line what you need to be red lining.

Editing, what you need to be editing, deleting, revising everything.

So winds up in your favor.

If not, you've got a big you will have a big problem.

You will lose.

No doubt about it.

I have function once again

because I've been doing this for 12 years now,

and I've done this for five theatrical features.

I know what those loopholes are.

On my last two contracts,

I functioned as my own attorney,

my own entertainment attorney.

I read lied, I deleted,

I revised the distributors contracts, I closed all the loopholes.

I changed the terms of the agreement.

To favor me.

Remember, they're working for you.

You're not working for them.

You made the film.

You made the content, not them.

They're just sitting in an office,

you know, hustling your film,

trying to make money for both of you.

They're a couple things you need to look at.

I structure my distribution agreements.

I call them

performance contracts.

In other words, a distributor will come to you

and he'll say, oh, Joe, we we love your film.

We want to handle it.

And we'd like to handle it for five, seven, nine years.

Big red flag

never.

No matter what anyone tells you,

signed a deal for five or 7 or 9 years.

Don't do it. It's wrong.

You're getting screwed.

What you want is a short term agreement.

Maybe it's 2 or 3 years max. Max.

Because if something goes wrong

in your films, they're not selling your film

and you're not contractually able to do anything with it.

That means that the film was on their shelf

for five, seven, or nine years, and you're

sitting at home to a linear films.

The way I structure my film

distribution agreements is that I call them performance agreements.

I've performed as the producer, I've made a film that I know and you know

will make money for us jointly.

So therefore I'll sign an agreement with you.

But I'm only going to sign it for a year.

One year.

And at the end

of one year, if you're making me money

will renew it for another year

or another year.

And you go through it like that.

Now you find distributors, the old timers, even the new timers

will say, oh, Neil, nobody does that bullshit.

They do it.

The other thing to remember is that don't ever let distributors

tell you that they want money upfront for marketing costs and so on.

The old days of distributors needing

and maybe legitimately needing a,

printing advertising money up front so they could advertise your film

in a newspaper which doesn't exist anymore.

Plus they don't.

It costs nothing to make digital availability

because virtually nothing to make DVD and Blu rays.

So don't let anyone tell you they need all the thousands of dollars upfront.

That's a big red flag.

You'll also find distributors saying,

oh, Joe, we've been doing this for 30 years.

We've got this down.

That's a big red flag, because that means they know all the loopholes

and they know how to take advantage of you for all the wrong reasons.

The the industry has changed.

It changes every two years dramatically.

It doesn't change bit by bit by bit.

It changes boom, boom, big time.

Right now, you can distribute films

on a multitude of digital platforms

that don't require any money upfront.

Minimal, minimal, minimal

expense by the distributors.

The marketing

cost for them is virtually zero.

The web's doing a website doesn't cost

anything, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So don't let anyone tell you they need money upfront.

Now the important thing is.

So now going back to the distribution contract,

you've got a short term contract.

Now, you do not want to give up any rights to your film.

Certainly.

Well, because you're the producer, you own the copyright,

you do not want to give up the copyright ever, ever, ever.

No matter what anybody tells you, you don't want to give up,

DVD rights, you don't want to give up,

other rights, digital rights on various platforms

without them being tied into the fact

that there's a term limit

and you're call you the producer are calling

the terms of the term,

so you need to take control,

because once it's out of your control, what will happen?

Like I said, there are some good, distributors out there, but

you will fight if you don't take control that your distribution contract,

you will find out the money is being stolen from you.

It's that simple.

And don't let anybody tell you differently.

Because that's a fact.

Be careful.

I've helped people get around this,

and, it's all worked out for the better.

Be very, very careful

because, there's a lot of illegal

and unethical activity on the distribution

side of indie filmmaking.

And that's really all I want to say about it.

Once again,

I've had really positive experiences, but I know there's this dark side.

You don't want to get caught in that black hole because,

you'll find there's no way out for you financially,

and all your hard work will be going to waste.

I want to stress to all of you how critical it is

that there be full

transparency in your contracts.

Don't let anyone tell you they don't need to be fully transparent

with all the terms and conditions of your contracts.

Demand transparency.

You must have it.

You must know every person and place

and thing that your film is being involved

in relative to distribution,

and your distributor must agree to tell you all of that.

Transparency is critical for your benefit

when it comes to digital distribution.

You do not want to sign any contract

which gives a distributor exclusive

rights to all platforms.

You do not want to give up that exclusivity.

You must have the

flexibility of going to other platforms,

but you do not want to sign away

exclusive rights to your films.

Now that will be different in DVD, Blu ray.

And that's that's a fine line you'll have to walk,

but digitally you don't want to give away exclusive rights.

You're what you're doing is you're signing on to specific platforms,

not all platforms in general.

That's critical exclusive rights.

Remember that.

Reviews, reviews, reviews.

I'm not,

I think in my first film, Double Down,

I may have read 2 or 3 reviews because I was new to it.

I do not read.

I honestly do not read reviews.

I do not look at podcasts.

I do not look at links

when someone says me a link and say, oh, Neil, you got to look at this.

This is what they said about this film.

I never look at that stuff.

My reviews that I value

come from the theater audiences

and subsequently the DVD

and Blu ray audiences.

When you're in a theater with 100, 200,

300, 400, 500 people

that are just loving

the movie on many different levels,

and then after the screening or during the screening,

they're texting Twitter or Facebook

or wherever saying, we love this stuff.

That's the review that the reviews that mean something to me.

People that have seen it, experienced the films

or experienced them at

home in the quiet of their house,

or wherever.

That's the reviews that mean something to me.

Also, when I do audience Q&A, is there

the comments or reviews that mean something to me?

Somebody?

Who wants to write?

The way I look at it is every person who sees

every film is a reviewer.

And somebody

who wants to do a podcast about one or more films, more power to them.

Somebody who wants to tweet about something great,

somebody wants to send me a link or send anybody a link about their thoughts.

Great.

That's all good for them.

I really don't care.

I get a tremendous self-satisfaction

out of doing these films

and the happiness,

the thought provoking attitude

that it brings, in the vast

majority of people, is all I need.

It really fulfills me and inspires me. And,

the overwhelming

numbers are staggering.

And overwhelmingly they all

really like the films on many different levels

and really support me, which I'm more than grateful for.

I developed this huge

multi social media following and worldwide

and it's just been terrific.

So the reviews

I don't even follow, to be honest.

But everyone's entitled to their opinion.

I write my stories in screenplays.

Purposely in order to challenge myself,

to challenge myself

from a story line point of view

and from a technical point of view,

every film that I've done,

I've done more technically advanced work

than the prior film.

The challenge is that

that I give to myself is to do things

I've never done before,

both from a storyline and a technical point of view.

In other words, there are effects that I've used in subsequent films

that I've never done before.

But I did my homework.

I tried to figure out how they were done, how I

could accomplish them, and so on.

So this gets back to the adventurous journey

of a filmmaker.

Don't do things.

Don't stay with things you're totally comfortable with.

Challenge yourself.

Reach out there for something on a new horizon.

You'd be surprised how much, joy

that gives you when you've achieved it.

Be creative

as a filmmaker.

Use your imagination.

That's what the media is all about.

Creativity. Imagination.

Entertaining the audience is informing the audiences.

That's what your goals should be,

that achieving that goal will reward

you both creatively and financially.

There are many truly

independent feature filmmakers out there,

just like me,

making quality, professional, creative, imaginative

theatrical feature films.

My experience in having

self-funded, written, produced and directed five theatrical feature films

has been an amazing educational experience for me.

I've learned so much

and I'm happy

to share that information with you.

I think I demonstrated,

that it is possible for you

to be a theatrical feature filmmaker.

If you want to work for it, you got to work your butt off.

There's no getting around it.

There's no easy path.

But, I hope I've demonstrated

that it's possible the opportunities are there.

If you've got the potential and if you want to work at it

in a very professional way.

I'll be right here.

This is a screening in Paris, France,

of twisted care.

There were 2700 people

in the audience at this single screening that twisted care.

This is their reaction to the film.

And to me after the screening.

Neil Breen.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

This is a screening in Los Angeles

where?

Where?

We don't

do. Oh.

No no no,

no, this isn't me.

I can't believe this is happening.

Oh, my God. Oh.