Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everyone, it's Jim Phoenix here, and welcome to what's cracking? We've got none other than the award winning. That's right, Gen Con audience, the award winning team of Chris and Jason from the awesome film. Check it out, the reviews. It's the Empire queen, the golden age of magic. I can't believe that you're here. This is so cool. We just got your screener, and it's an amazing two and a half hour draw that has everything. Everything I always wanted. I don't want to break it down bit by bit. First of all, how was the reward that you just got? How was the award?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's fantastic. I mean, you know, there was a little bit of that festival, you know, question, like, how will the audience receive us and so forth? And then a couple of weeks ago, we got an email from the organizers saying, like, any chance that you guys might be at the award ceremony because you've been nominated for something? And we were wondering, like, is that code for please be at the event?
And it turned out to be true. You know, we were not planning it, but, you know, our flight landed just 2 hours before the event started. So we just hustled straight from the terminal to the event, got there 1 minute late, and then wound up winning best feature film at the end of the evening.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: I've tried that trick before. Usually I just get kicked out, like, hey, what are you for? Like, my film. Now, what was going through your mind when your film's being announced?
[00:01:22] Speaker C: Oh, they had gone through everything else before that, and they said, now is the final best picture category. And they said, they said, and this film is two and a half hours from Jane. And I looked at each other, said, that's gotta be us. Who else is weird enough to do that? And we said, I think we're gonna, but you still don't know for sure. And then they showed our poster and called us up. And it's great because it's amazing. You know, we didn't really enter a lot of festivals. It wasn't really our focus. And we won best feature film at the Sweden film awards, and that gives us an international recognition, and this is a domestic one for us. And we won two telly awards last month. So it's been really. It's getting. Getting some nice acknowledgement, which is very meaningful for us. Yeah.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Now, from this, are you thinking maybe theatrical?
[00:02:10] Speaker C: You know, that's always been in the works. We've had discussions with several people that want to put it up on the big screen, probably in a limited, certainly domestic release. I would say put a pin in that and we're crossing our fingers. It looks great, by the way, on the big screen. It's beautiful.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: It's something I'm gonna bring up. I bring this in review, and it is a. It looks like a labor of love, but looks like a labor of love by very talented people, amazingly talented people.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: You know, we have our sensibilities of what we like, and we have, you know, the skills that we can bring to it. And I think that those all combine together quite nicely in terms of executing this particular film. And so I'm glad that people recognize that our sense of storytelling is commercial enough to be digested by the audience.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: I think that you hit it on the head. I'm not going to lie. When I saw the runtime from the screener, we get a lot of screeners like, oh, indeed, two. And I'm like, oh, fine, press play. It flies great when it's over with you. Like, it was only two and a half. Like, honestly, you could have gone longer.
[00:03:14] Speaker C: That's wonderful. That's a great feeling.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Like I said, I think the Hobbit and the Game of Thrones, people can take a lesson from you. It's everything those shows should have been.
[00:03:25] Speaker C: Oh, that's a nice thing to say. Those are really well done. We love pacing, and we're both a little add, I think, all of us, on the thing that's needed to move at a good clip.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: That's exactly. The pacing is so smooth, and it goes boom, and you don't forget anything. And the storyline is great. It is an amazing work of talented actors and designers, everything from the sound to the opening footage. Is this how you pictured it? Is it when you're storyboarding, when you're writing the screenplays?
[00:03:53] Speaker B: I think that we had ambition of what we thought we might be able to achieve, but as we started going through the process, we started realizing that what we were hoping to achieve was possible, given the advancement of gear and the reduced cost of a lot of things. So, yeah, we were optimistic that what we were creating was going to fulfill a vision that we had started developing. And, you know, in terms of the storytelling and so forth, you know, we learned a lot of lessons from some industry colleagues and so forth about building some set pieces that we wanted to showcase in terms of, like, you know, either a location that was very majestic or, you know, a sequence of action that we really wanted to do, and then we linked those set pieces together with what is the action necessary to drive us to this next piece. And so there was no waste or fluff in that regard because we only designed and created what was necessary to get us to the next element that.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Was important for our storytelling.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: So that's an amazing. Is it improper to ask your budget?
[00:04:52] Speaker C: You know, we're not reviewing the full budget, but we would say we had a variety article that came out recently and they quoted millions of dollars.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: And I think that somewhere, had we been forced to spend what those elements that we were able to acquire costs, yes, it would have definitely have been that. But let's put it this way, that if you have a hundred million dollar movie, they would need to have had a billion dollars to achieve what it would have to look like in order to do what we did. So I think we delivered value of what you think we might expect.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: That's exactly it. That's the love. And that's why it comes so crisp and everything is so amazingly beautiful. You have no idea from story angle, from everything like that. I was trying to even look at things to pick apart on to give you something like, constructive for the review. No.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: Oh, that's cool.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Everything thought through and crafted in terms of every visual. And I would have to say that we focused just what was in that frame. So you can frame out the fish house and the Starbucks. If you just kind of move the camera down this way.
[00:06:00] Speaker C: That's the challenge.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: That's the amazing part.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: We do a fantasy film in big cities, and if you just turn the camera this way, you see something that you don't want to see or you hear the airplane because we had too much environmental sounds.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: So patience and ingenuity.
[00:06:13] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: And, you know, Chris was great. I mean, he would do a scout the weekend before saying, I think I know where we can shoot this next bit. And, you know, we have access in southern California to so many diverse terrains. So you'd be surprised at how much of it was shot within a five mile radius within the valley of Los Angeles.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: I was going to say, I'm watching this. I'm like, is that. Did you just use really?
And it fits the story? It looks like it belongs in the thing. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I walked by that for a leg. I'm pretty sure I've already drawn past this. Yeah.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: And we got lucky because we had a lot of rains in California around that time. So what was normally kind of brown la was lush and beautiful. People go.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Pops up nicely.
[00:06:54] Speaker C: It's like, no, that's actually cats work.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: You know, and there is obviously very distinct difference. When we did do several days of filming in Portland, I. So that's a very unique and diverse topography of its own. And so we were able to weave that together with some of the other visuals of southern California, the use of some stock shots, of course, and they all blended together quite nicely to unfold this particular kingdom, Elarion, that has mountains of snowy hilltops and trees and rocks and grass and seas and all.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Everything and above. Now, I have to ask, without spoiling in the movie, will there be a sequel?
[00:07:29] Speaker C: We want to do one. We know where it's going. We're ready to do it, and we think that with the right reception and finances, we'll be able to do that. We'd love to take people to Iceland and New Zealand and a couple of places that we didn't have the money to do in this one. And another trekking adventure. We know where it can go, and we feel like we have a template for how we want to make our movies. So we would stick with that.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Yes. Award winning. I think you guys nailed it. We'll keep it as award winning.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Set out to try to make a festival piece or try to make our mark in that world at all.
You know, I had a particular itch at some point, saying, like, let's see what it could potentially do. And then to receive the acknowledgement has been really a nice shock.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: Jay said that I was going like, I don't think we have a festival film. Don't even bother. And he's like, no, let me. Let me put out to a couple. We only entered a couple, and we won 60% of them.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Nice. There you go. That's all we need. Now, as a parting shot, is there anything you would like to tell younger or starting out with, you know, filmmaking or people just who've always wanted to make their own. They have their own passion project. They just can't seem to. What kind of advice would you give?
[00:08:38] Speaker B: I just participated in a panel, and I made the same point, and I would put this out to your audiences. Feel free to be as ambitious as you can possibly imagine with whatever it is that you would like to create, because it is doable and so many ways because technology is cheap now, where you can get the resources to film the cameras, the gimbals, the lights, and so forth. The drones. The drones, absolutely. That elevated us to. To quite a degree. And there's a lot of hungry people out there that are willing to throw in with you on a project because they're as excited about your idea potentially, as you are. And they are willing to put their expertise, you know, the 21 year old kid that is a wizard at after effects would love to do wand blast for you for $30. And that's leveraged a lot of those types of hungry. And Nick, our composer, excellent world class composer, and you've had heard the music.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: It comes out. It comes out.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: We have 2 hours of original orchestral masterpiece. And Nick came to us because he was excited to showcase what he was able to do and our.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: Are you kidding? Okay. I thought that was Mozart. Honest to God, I was listening to that. I thought it was Mozart. I missed Nicholas repetto, right? Oh, my God.
[00:09:47] Speaker C: Mozart.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: It was an 80 piece orchestra done in Budapest, Hungary, and so it was done in Los Angeles and a choir done in Maine, and it was blended all together by a wonderful mixer engineer at Sony Studios. And so it's a character in the movie, isn't it? Our score.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Right. It fits, and that's what one of my co hosts were asking. How's the music? It's wonderful. It fits like a glove.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's all custom. Everything is everything.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: So I'd say, yeah, aim high, because even if you achieve 80% of what your ambition is, you've done quite well and let things come to you. Like Cl, for example. You know, she was part of, of the original music video that launched this entire kingdom. Amazing actress. And, you know, you find your people, you find your team. They bring their expertise and creativity, and it raises the bar for everybody else, you know, so.
[00:10:34] Speaker C: And Jay and I really built the movie around Cl. We thought she can carry this picture. And Mary, who are both in the original music video, it works, right? The hero and the villain. Yeah. So we felt really lucky that we found them. They're lovely ladies and great to work.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: And the characters are multifaceted. Everyone's got something about them. They really get into the character work and it shows. It really comes through on film.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: That's great. Thank you. Thank you for that.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: I'm glad you. Amazing. Is there anything, one last comment. Anyone want to say?
[00:11:02] Speaker C: You know, Jay nailed it with go big and go for your dreams, right? Life is short, and if you have, you feel like, have this in your soul to create something, it couldn't be a better time. The equipment is reasonable, the editing gear is reasonable, and finding enthusiastic partners, I think, is easier than ever. So go big, go for your dreams.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: And any limitations you have will actually split spark your resourcefulness, your cleverness, and your creativity, because you'll find a way to overcome whatever obstacles in front of you.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Thank you, Jason. Chris, thank you much for your time. I can't wait to watch it again.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Oh, that's so cool.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Can't wait. Bye.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Appreciate it.
