It can be hard balancing school and shooting your first feature film as a student filmmaker.
This week we talk with a panel of filmmakers live from the Sonscreen Film Festival, our sponsor, about how they were able to make their first features. The panel includes three former students and one current professor from Southern Adventist University. In this episode, they share how their project was funded, what their biggest expense was, and how they’ve transitioned into full-time filmmaking.
Watch to learn how these former students made their first feature film.
Key Points:
1:55 – After 95 (Production Company) Latest Production
4:24 – Michelle Noland Feature Filmmaker
5:42 – Nicholas Livanos Feature Filmmaker
8:46 – Sydney Tooley Feature Filmmaker
17:10 – Biggest Spend
19:18 – Transitioning from student to full-time filmmaker
28:13 – Managing life & filmmaking
31:11 – Working with an international crew
41:49 – Something going wrong
53:42 – Other jobs to pay bills
55:17 – Future plans with filmmaking
58:55 – Merging music & filmmaking
59:48 – Where to watch the panels’ projects
61:42 – What would you do over again
Links
Michelle Noland Film
Voices Rising
Jared Jamison
Michelle Noland
School of Visual Art & Design at Southern Adventist University
Sydney Tooley
Transcript
Sydney (00:00:00):
“Okay, you go find Sydney and I’m going to take her to the hospital. All right, cool.” So I get this call at 5:00 AM and I’m like, “Oh my gosh. Okay. So we have to change the entire day around.” This creates a myriad of problems, one, your actors are prepared for not what is being shot, they are prepared for what they have prepared for. I am also not prepared to direct these new scenes. You think after doing shorts that you can just swing into a scene and be like, “Well, it’s fine. We’ll just to it,” You cannot do that. It was bad.
Tanya (00:00:30):
Welcome to The Practical Filmmaker, an educational podcast brought to you by the Filmmaker Institute and Sonscreen Film Festival. We recorded this episode live at the festival. It is an undergraduate student film festival in Southern California, dedicated to growing young filmmakers who have a passion for creating timely and relevant productions for social awareness, outreach, and uplifting creative entertainment.
This is our panel featuring filmmakers of feature projects, both narrative and documentary with a range from thriller to faith-based. You may notice a few gaps at the beginning where we screened their trailers. We’ll put links to the available ones in the show notes, but for a couple of them, their teaser is either unreleased or was exclusive to the festival viewers. Still, they had some valuable insight to provide the student festival goers as those involved with or in the driver’s seat of these features. I hope you also find value in what they had to say. Enjoy.
Please welcome Jared Jameson of After 95 to the stage. He’s a Walla Walla alum, a group of super talented students, After 95 they got together and they pitched as students against pros and won $10,000 for this project. Please quickly break down for us some things. Okay. What is your project, the scope of it? And how did the concept come?
Jared (00:01:57):
Yeah. So basically this project is really just about highlighting the story of the Marshall Islands and doing that through the lens of music and poetry created by local Marshallese artists.
Tanya (00:02:09):
It hits a little close to home because I was actually there for a year too. That was Majuro, right? All right. So how did you come to be part of this process and what is your role specifically? Because there’s a team.
Jared (00:02:20):
Yeah. So, so during my time at Walla Walla University, this project started at the beginning of my third year. There was a bunch of us, we’ve made films together for our whole university career. And a lot of those films had to do with combining music and film. And beyond that, a lot of the people on our team had connections with the Marshall Islands. They lived there for a few years and… Just Walla Walla in general through the SM program knows a lot of people in the Marshall Islands, a lot of families. And so this project made sense for us because we had a lot of deep connection with the Marshall Islands. And I feel like we had the skills to hopefully make something that could combine music and poetry and art into something that was cinematic. And so my role specifically is assistant director, cinematographer, and I guess music production for the original music that was created with the Marshallese artist.
Tanya (00:03:14):
Did it started out as a featured documentary project with a companion album, correct?
Jared (00:03:21):
Yes.
Tanya (00:03:21):
And where are you guys at in the process right now?
Jared (00:03:24):
So right now we’re in the production phase of the film. COVID really delayed the project a ton because we actually were supposed to go back, but we couldn’t go back just with how crazy everything was. And I think you still need government permission to go back. And so we ended up focusing on right now, the social media side of the film and releasing smaller pieces of the film, like the clip that we showed, stuff like that can not let the project go stale. To keep it alive in some sense. So that’s where we’re at in the project right now, because we still want to go back. And there’s other places that we also want to go. So there’s a lot of trips yet to be done, but that’s where we’re at right now.
Tanya (00:04:03):
Because you guys went to, where was it?
Jared (00:04:05):
We went to Arkansas.
Tanya (00:04:06):
Arkansas. Okay. Because there are pockets of Marshallese.
Jared (00:04:09):
Yeah, there’s a ton of Marshallese people in arkansas.
Tanya (00:04:11):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. And so that is that first breakdown. We’re going to move on to the next teaser. Next up we have Illusory. Is that how you say it? Okay. Illusory directed by Michelle Noland. Please, welcome to the stage Michelle Noland. She is an alum of LA Sierra. She made this film as part of her thesis and it actually got recognized by IMDbPro and Women in Film Los Angeles for having a gender balanced and ethnically diverse casting crew. Please quickly break down for us what your project is. It’s a feature, correct?
Michelle (00:04:46):
Yes.
Tanya (00:04:46):
How did the concept come to be?
Michelle (00:04:48):
So it is a feature. It’s a drama. The concept came out of a random thought I had of what if you’re trying to remember something that you can’t and then the idea of your life flashing before your eyes, during a near death experience came to mind. And I thought, “Well, what if someone tries to induce a near death experience so they could remember something that they need to unlock?” So, that was the original idea I had. And then my brother, my husband and I all worked on the screenplay. And then this is what you see here.
Tanya (00:05:21):
Wow. Okay. So, all right. Where are you in the process?
Michelle (00:05:25):
So the film is complete and it’s in film festivals right now.
Tanya (00:05:29):
Okay, nice. Nice. We are going to the next one. Next up is All The Wrong Ingredients directed by Nicholas Livanos. Please welcome Nick Livanos to the stage. This film was made in conjunction with Southern School of Visual Art and Design. It is his second directorial debut. Yes. For a narrative feature.
Nicholas Livanos (00:05:29):
Sure.
Tanya (00:05:54):
Yes. His first being Belly of The Whale that premiered in 2018, showed at Sonscreen in 2019, Nicholas Livanos. Please quickly break down for us, what is your project with the scope and everything and how did this concept come to be?
Nicholas Livanos (00:06:10):
Yeah. So it’s another feature film. It is about a driven young chef who gets this chance to reinvent the desserts at this posh restaurant. But he finds out quickly that if he’s going to have any chance of success, he’s going to have to sort of partner with his imaginary frenemy, sort of friend, not really, and some high jinks ensue. It’s sort of a buddy comedy thing, but it’s really about it identity. It was actually bizarrely inspired by a sermon that I listened to, you would never know that from watching it. But it was inspired by a sermon where this pastor talked about how we form our identities and how we want to do that for ourselves. And that means that if you want to make your identity yourself, sometimes that means people try to achieve their identity. They try to like win and accomplish their identity. And if they don’t do it, then it’s like, “Well, who are you?”
And instead it’s maybe a better sort of psychological, and it’s a very spiritual idea to sort of embrace those identities. And you have maybe many parts of you that are more given as a gift. And those are largely relational things, right? Everybody here is a son or a daughter, and that was just sort of given to you. Some of you are a boyfriend or a girlfriend and that’s sort of a gift that’s given. And I’m a husband and that’s great. I’m a dad now, and that’s great. And I think all those things are given parts of your identity. I think the best, one of those is probably being a child of God. Some people in this room can resonate with.
Tanya (00:07:32):
So how did you come to be part of this project and what’s your role?
Nicholas Livanos (00:07:35):
So I am the film program coordinator at Southern and what we’re trying to do over there, bless our hearts, is try to make a feature happen every four years so that every student who ever comes to the school can have a chance to participate in one, if they really want to. It’s not required, but they can sort of jump on the Southern sort of bandwagon and do something over the summertime. Last summer was four years since we produced Belly of The Whale. So I was like, “Well, it’s now or never with that dream.” And so I was like, “I better make something happen.”
Tanya (00:08:07):
And where are you in the process?
Nicholas Livanos (00:08:09):
We are tail end of post production. So it’s been a very long day, but I’m pretty sure that it was just last night, I was listening and sort of trying to finalize most of the last of the music. So music is getting finished up, sound designs getting finished up. The sound mixing is happening. The color grade is almost done. It’s all these things that are almost done. It’s very frustrating, actually. I’m building a house right now and it’s all the same things, that everything’s almost done. I really would like to move in to my movie, but I got to wait a little bit.
Tanya (00:08:36):
Yeah. Gotcha. Nice. And last up is Sun Moon directed by Sydney Tooley. All right, please welcome Sydney Tooley to the stage. She is an alum of Lipscomb University and Southern. Sun moon is her directorial debut and fully funded feature of Sony’s Affirm Films. You may notice that it’s a coverage reel and not a trailer because Sydney is quite literally a week, two weeks.
Sydney (00:09:06):
Two weeks.
Tanya (00:09:08):
Two weeks fresh off of wrapping principal photography in Taiwan. And she brought this exclusive coverage reel for us. By the way, fun fact, that last shot, the church, my dad designed that church.
Sydney (00:09:27):
Oh my god. You’re kidding, that’s crazy.
Tanya (00:09:28):
It’s super random. My parents were, they were missionaries in Taiwan for six years and they got me as a souvenir, but yeah, he is the designer. Random. Okay. But please quickly break down for us. What is your project and how did the concept come to be?
Sydney (00:09:45):
Okay. So Sun Moon is a feature film about a woman who gets left at the altar and decides that God is out to get her. And so decides to go and teach in Taiwan and ultimately finds God in Taiwan, and potentially love and all these things. It’s beautiful. It’s loosely based on my time in Taiwan, I was not left at the altar. I’m going to say that right now. So all the exciting parts in the movie are not my life. A lot of what we’re seeing here, the scooter she’s on, the church, the campus, all of that is where I lived. That is my personal vehicle that I own, that is still there.
Tanya (00:10:22):
Your parents are still over there, right?
Sydney (00:10:24):
My parents are still there. They have their citizenship now. They love it. They’re never leaving. And so that’s super exciting.
Tanya (00:10:29):
And how you came to be part of this project?
Sydney (00:10:32):
I’m the writer director of this movie. I was doing this as my master’s thesis at Lipscomb. We were starting to kind of push this thing and then COVID hit. And we were like, “Oh crap. Well, that’s great.” And then Sony was taking pitches for a new platform that they’re creating. And we were like, “Why not? Let’s go ahead and pitch it.” And we pitched it and it was a kind of a whirlwind very quickly. They picked it up and they were like, “Okay, we’re going to fund this thing.” And I was like, “Okay, cool. We’re doing it.” It’s been a journey.
Tanya (00:11:05):
Where are you in the process?
Sydney (00:11:07):
Currently we start post on Monday, post production’s still being figured out, but we just wrapped literally two weeks ago. And so it’s post is moving very quickly now, hopefully. So when I get back, I land and immediately go into post.
Tanya (00:11:28):
That’s crazy. Okay. So you did two phases of production, right? Because you did some shooting in Nashville, right?
Sydney (00:11:34):
Yeah.
Tanya (00:11:34):
When was that?
Sydney (00:11:35):
Ooh, so we had our first week of production in July, end of July. We couldn’t get permits to get into Taiwan. So we sat for seven months before we could get into Taiwan. And then they were suddenly like, “And you’re going to Taiwan today.” And I was like, “Oh, I have two weeks to go to Taiwan now.” So you just kind of, you sit and hope, pray that it’s going to happen. And you don’t believe it’s going to happen. And then it happens and you’re like, “Oh, I’m leaving. Now. Okay, great.”
Tanya (00:12:06):
Oh my gosh. So now that I’ve got you all up here, I would like to hear how you either fundraised or came about funding for your project. A lot of first time projects here.
Jared (00:12:16):
The biggest thing that kicked off the project was a CO.LAB event, like you mentioned, that happened where we got second place and that was $10,000. That got the project on its feet. And then after that to keep it going, that really just got us to the Marshall Islands. That was as much, because a ticket costs $2,000 a person. And then after that, a lot of it has been other grants from other foundations. A foundation called Living Islands, other private investors. And then a lot of personal team donations as well as, “Hey, I worked on a project, here’s some cash.”
Tanya (00:12:51):
So you guys crowdsourced within yourself?
Jared (00:12:51):
Yes, crowdsourced within ourselves. And then pitched it to [crosstalk 00:12:56]-
Tanya (00:12:55):
Okay. So you do commercial work or okay. Okay.
Jared (00:12:59):
Yeah. So if there was some commercial work, put it back into the film.
Tanya (00:13:01):
Okay. Got it.
Jared (00:13:03):
So yeah, that’s how it happened.
Tanya (00:13:05):
Okay. Is there an estimate, a range of… I mean, are we talking like 10, 20, 40, 60, a hundred? Is there any kind of range?
Jared (00:13:15):
Oh, that we’ve raised?
Tanya (00:13:16):
Well, that has been put into the project thus far.
Jared (00:13:19):
With all the things that I’ve talked about?
Tanya (00:13:21):
Yeah.
Jared (00:13:21):
About $50,000.
Tanya (00:13:22):
Okay. All right. Nice. All right, Michelle?
Michelle (00:13:27):
For me it was crowdfunded, we used Indiegogo and a lot of it was just word of mouth and talking to people that I actually knew. Because people that you don’t know, they’re like, “Why should I even donate to this?” So yeah. It was just really targeting people that I knew who actually had money to give. And the whole budget was in the end 12,000.
Tanya (00:13:50):
A feature?
Michelle (00:13:51):
Yes. Yeah, I used a lot of resources from people that I knew. So yeah, it was 12,000 and about 7,000 of that was from crowdfunding and the rest of it was just me saving up paychecks and paying for it myself. So.
Tanya (00:14:09):
Wow. And Nick?
Nicholas Livanos (00:14:11):
Before I say anything else, I’m going to comment that for $12,000, Michelle, your movie looks amazing.
Tanya (00:14:20):
I know, right?
Nicholas Livanos (00:14:20):
So good.
Tanya (00:14:21):
It looks so good.
Michelle (00:14:21):
Thank you.
Nicholas Livanos (00:14:23):
Well done. In visual art and design, a certain chunk of money gets put away every year. And usually in institutional budgets or people who work at institutions, certainly a few of us here will be like, “If you don’t spend it goes away. Ha ha ha.” But at some point in the past it was negotiated that this could go into the bank and stay there, and then another sum, and then another-
Tanya (00:14:45):
It’ll roll over.
Nicholas Livanos (00:14:45):
After several years, there might actually be enough to make something with. It’s just a matter of, wait until there was enough in the bank. And then I go and pitch and say, “Here’s what I’d like to see happen. And it’s been a while since we did the last one. So I’d love to make something go down.” I’m not trying to be cagey about exact amounts, I’m just not sure I’m allowed to say. I’ll say what I think I’m allowed to say, Belly of The Whale was movie made for $50,000, that was the last feature four years ago. And this movie costs more than that.
Tanya (00:15:17):
Yeah. Got it.
Nicholas Livanos (00:15:20):
To put it in some perspective though, I feel like what SAG modified low budgets is 625K or 650K something like that. And it’s embarrassingly less than that. So it’s somewhere in there, between.
Tanya (00:15:32):
Wait, wait, SAG. Sorry. Say that part again.
Nicholas Livanos (00:15:34):
The, the SAG modified low budget, if you want to use SAG actors, like Michelle was able to do, the modified low budget where you can pay them just about as little as you can pay them, is 625 or 650, don’t quote.
Tanya (00:15:48):
600?
Nicholas Livanos (00:15:49):
Right around there. 600,000.
Tanya (00:15:53):
Yeah. 600,000.
Nicholas Livanos (00:15:53):
625.
Tanya (00:15:54):
Yeah. I thought you were saying six, like 600.
Nicholas Livanos (00:15:57):
No. And so if your budget for your movie is more than that, then you’re obligated to pay your SAG actors a next tier rate. So a lot of people sort of target that range. And our movie was embarrassingly less than that amount.
Tanya (00:16:09):
Considerably less.
Nicholas Livanos (00:16:10):
But more than 50,000.
Tanya (00:16:11):
Okay. All right. And Sydney.
Sydney (00:16:14):
It feels like you were in the right place at the right time. But my mentor at the time, and now the producer of the film knew someone at Sony, knew that we’re taking pitches. He went into the pitch.
Tanya (00:16:25):
Steve, right?
Sydney (00:16:25):
Yes. Steve went into the pitch, Steve Taylor.
Tanya (00:16:28):
Steve Taylor, who did Blue Like Jazz, I believe.
Sydney (00:16:30):
Yes, yes. He went into this pitch and was like, “Don’t hope for it.” And then came back to me and was like, “Well, we’re making this movie.” So I was attached without having to pitch. And I actually didn’t meet the execs until we were in the table read. Which is terrifying, because you’re like, “Oh gosh, do they even like this movie? I don’t know.” Our budget was 1.2 million, which seems like a lot until you have quarantine hotels and you’re traveling to Taiwan and all of COVIDs fun stuff.
Tanya (00:17:02):
You’re paying your crew, as well.
Sydney (00:17:03):
Yes. We’re paying our crew and we have a SAG cast. Money disappears.
Tanya (00:17:08):
Okay. Yeah. No, I got you. So from all of what you guys were talking about, I think we heard from you Jared what your biggest spend was, that was…
Jared (00:17:17):
Travel basically.
Tanya (00:17:17):
Travel. 100%. And then Michelle, what was your biggest spend?
Michelle (00:17:22):
Just paying for people in post production really.
Tanya (00:17:25):
Finishing funds huh?
Michelle (00:17:26):
Correction, music composition, all that.
Tanya (00:17:28):
Okay, Nick?
Nicholas Livanos (00:17:30):
I don’t know. I’m going to say something that is, I’m really thankful that I get to be naive about the dollars in this movie. I was so well supported by the producers on this movie that I have no idea where the money went. I just know we spent it. Thank you so much to the producers of All The Wrong Ingredients, they took that one right off my back. Sometimes they were like, “Do you want this thing? It’ll cost more.” I’m like, “Will that be a problem?” They’re like, “Well maybe not.” I was like, “Then I want it.” And that’s incredibly how I was able to operate. So thank you producers.
Tanya (00:18:05):
Oh yeah. Full disclosure, I was one of the producers on that. We also had Nathan and Michael, Michael Moyer and Nathan [inaudible 00:18:15]. So I could actually speak to that and probably say talent. Michael, are you shaking your head? All right. Yeah. Actually I could believe that too. It was talent and catering.
Nicholas Livanos (00:18:27):
Either food or catering, which I feel comfortable with that. Literally those, when I’m telling students what you should spend money on, it’s, “You got to keep those people happy, feed them well.” That’s thing, number one. And then thing number two, if you can spend money at all, if you have the money in your tiny budget is, get some good people in front of the camera, it makes all the difference. Actors right after food.
Tanya (00:18:47):
Yep, absolutely.
Nicholas Livanos (00:18:48):
And then music in my opinion.
Tanya (00:18:50):
Yes. And then Sydney, your biggest spend?
Sydney (00:18:53):
I don’t know where it went either, which is great.
Nicholas Livanos (00:18:57):
It’s a nice feeling.
Sydney (00:18:58):
Well sort of, sometimes it’s a nice feeling, but I’m going to guess probably just going to Taiwan, just getting everybody there, going through two weeks of quarantine in a hotel. Food that comes with that. Just sitting for a while. So I’m guessing staying alive in the hotel probably.
Tanya (00:19:17):
Nice. So, okay. I have a couple of individual type questions. Both of you two, you guys and maybe Sydney as well, but you guys transitioned from student to professional in the middle of your project. Are you graduated Sydney?
Sydney (00:19:33):
Yes. I was in the project and graduated.
Tanya (00:19:35):
So you were in the project and you graduated. So how did that transition impact your project?
Jared (00:19:44):
I think for me, I don’t know if I can say that, but it’s almost like burnout. It’s almost like when you’re in school, this was my senior project. I was spending all my time on it. I was focused on it. And then after I graduated, I realized I had to make money to survive and I couldn’t just make films because I wanted to make films. And so after that, I realized that I needed to make money. I didn’t have as much time to do this. And then you have this project and this is a big team project, there’s other people. And a lot of us are in that same stage of graduating. And then you realized you don’t have the time to do things.
And so then on the project, you don’t get to focus on it as much as you want. And then it, like I said, you don’t want a project to go stale, especially something like this when COVID happens. And then it’s sitting there and you’re slowly working on things. You’re like, “What should we do? Do we do nothing? Do we plan for the next trip whenever that happens? Or do we just start making smaller content that we can kind of build in more of a social media sense to try and build some audience in that way.” I guess basically what I’m saying is time and passion after that. Because when you’re in school, it’s all you’re working on. And then you have a ton of other things you’re trying to work on and it’s easy to lose focus and passion and excitement about a project that can take long.
Tanya (00:20:57):
Interesting, Michelle?
Michelle (00:20:58):
For me, same thing. I had to get a job after graduation. So I had tons of student loans I needed to pay off. Yeah. I had to work and it actually, it sort of worked out better because I was trying to find people that I knew to do a lot of the post production, but I ended up paying for professionals to do it, which I think it turned out a lot better that way. It’s interesting just trying to find the time to work on it, I was working at my full-time job and then at night I was working on editing this film. And so it just took so much time and I was at a point of burnout a few times, and then COVID happened and then I’m like, “Oh great.” So it was just really intense just trying to push and motivate myself like, “I have to finish this film. I put too much money into it. People put so much effort into it.” And they keep asking, “Hey, when’s the film going to be done?” I’m like, “Oh I’m trying to get to it. Just give me some time.”
So I had to just keep pushing myself mentally like, “I need to finish this. I need to finish this.” Because without the school deadlines, it’s like, “Oh I can do whenever,” it’s up to you. It’s your choice. But then it’ll never get done. So I had to give myself personal deadlines.
Tanya (00:22:05):
No, that’s definitely a thing for an artist. Especially if deadlines are arbitrary. Making a deadline and forcing yourself to stick with it, even if you end up pushing it again. Yeah, it’s tough.
Sydney (00:22:17):
I was freelancing through my master’s program. I mean you’re already struggling through trying to get those jobs and stay floating while you’re trying to do your master’s, while you’re trying to also write a feature and get it done. So I spent-
Tanya (00:22:35):
Wait. Yeah. So this was your master’s thesis?
Sydney (00:22:37):
This was my master’s thesis that started about a year in about, and so I would write in the morning and then I would go to my gigs at night. And I was line producing a football show while trying to do this. So working 16 hour days and writing and trying to get it done.
Tanya (00:22:57):
No.
Sydney (00:22:57):
And so.
Tanya (00:22:57):
No. No. No.
Sydney (00:23:00):
I’m in a weird transition period now, because where you get paid to direct your movie and you’re like, “That’s cool. How do I get paid to do my next movie?” So it’s weird sitting on the edge of it being like, “Well, I don’t know what to do next, exactly.” So it’s a weird period of time now where it’s, do I use that money to try to get that next one going, do I work and try to get that next one going? And you want to keep the momentum, but it’s a weird… I’ll let you know how it goes, when I figure it out.
Tanya (00:23:32):
We are actually doing a series with Sydney that has been following her process. So we interviewed her right after principal photography in Nashville. We’re going to be following up and seeing all of the fun grimy details that come shaking out of Taiwan. So Nick, this is your second feature. I would like to know what’s the biggest difference, what’s something that you learned from the first that you implemented and saw change?
Nicholas Livanos (00:24:03):
Well, I can tell you, I didn’t get paid to do the second one either. That’s a nice feature, if you’re feature. Looking forward to that one day. Sounds cool. First one was smaller in scope, we pushed the boundaries on this next one. There’s some obvious differences like that. It’s a little bit bigger, it’s a little more complicated. I think the biggest differences are me reacting to the pain points of the first one. So in the first one it was a smash and grab job, man. Just way too fast. I sometimes tell people, “I wrote that script. I wrote the first draft of that Belly of The Whale script in four days.” And then they’re like, “Wow.” And I’m like, “No, that does not mean it was good. Doesn’t mean it’s any good now.” It’s just a thing that happened because it had to. And then to almost to compensate, it was like, post production just went oh so long.
And in post I started to feel really sort of lost and lonely in it. And who’s going to finish this movie? It’s just me alone in the dark trying to get this thing done. And maybe everyone sort of felt like that, every filmmaker’s been like… And maybe it always does come down to just one person alone in a dark room hitting render for the last time, final final underscore this one MOV.
But anyway, that was actually genuinely traumatic. I mean, it’s fine to joke about it now, but I actually went to therapy because it was very hard and sort of wrestled with what did that mean? And do I want to do this again? And immediately after I was like, “Maybe I scratched that itch and I don’t need to.” But then within a year I was like, “Nah, I got some more ideas. I got some more ideas.”
And so as we entered into this next one, I think actually learned a lesson here at Sonscreen a number of years ago. There was an animation from some students, it was this little sort of first nations, Canadian or Alaskan tribal thing with an Eskimo who sort of igloos. It was very cute, but they went through a process where the team collapsed and they rebuilt the animation in half the time that they had originally. Does anyone remember this thing? It’s called [inaudible 00:26:11], a couple people. Anyway, it’s really great. But I was like, “How in the world did you get your team to rally?” Like when the team fell apart and you felt alone, how did you get the team to rally?
Kasey Layson who is now in her masters at USC told me, she just kind of had a very serious conversation where she did… maybe it was dramatic, she held the hands of people and looked deeply into their eyes and said, “I need you to walk through the fire with me. To go to the ends of the battlefield with me, so that we are two people alone in the dark pressing render when it’s finally done.” And I know it’s really dramatic, but honestly literally doing that is something I’ve started doing. But the message there for me was, it’s not wrong to ask for what you need as professional in order to succeed professionally.
And so I always start every project with a big crew meeting like, “All right, let’s come together. And here’s what I think about this movie. And here’s why we’re doing this as far as I’m concerned. And let’s all just get on the same page.” And part of that for this one was me saying, “Here’s what I need,” to the crew. And I just am endlessly thankful because I feel like the whole crew just showed up. It was like they all were like, “Okay.” And then they just did those things and more, and I got to not know how or why money got spent and sort of relax and sort of do specific directing jobs and things like that, and that was huge. So I think take the pain point of your first one, or any project you have and really actively apply it to the next one. That’s what I tried to do.
Tanya (00:27:51):
Yeah. So one thing that sets your experience apart from some of the others is that your father, you had mentioned before that you’re a dad. And something that we like to highlight, or at least just talk about, have a conversation about on the Practical Filmmaker is the balance, the balancing act. This can be a pretty tough industry on families, on relationships. I’m just wondering what you make of it.
Nicholas Livanos (00:28:15):
Yeah, man, that rings, that strikes a lot of chords. I remember I have been in this room at Sonscreen and asked that question in a Q&A of a very big professional, a very big professional.
Tanya (00:28:26):
I think I remember sitting next to you.
Nicholas Livanos (00:28:27):
I’m not going to name who it was because I feel… I was basically like, “What about lifestyle? And holistic happiness and stuff.” And he kind of laughed at me and then said he had been married 19 times or something.
Tanya (00:28:39):
Oh no.
Nicholas Livanos (00:28:41):
And I was like, “Okay, so it’s a joke to you and you don’t care.” I was like, “I don’t know what to take out of that,” which is why I’m not naming who it was. But it’s not a joke to me. I love my wife. I love my kids. I want to be with them way more than I want to make any movie ever again. If it was a choice, it’s not a choice. It’s easy. Yeah, that’s tricky. My son was a baby when we made Belly of The Whale. They were four and two when we did this movie last summer. And I remember the day that I went to have that crew meeting, I’m not going to cry here, but the day we went to have that crew meeting and sort of say, “Here’s what’s up.”
The day before we started shooting, I’m about to walk out the door and I’m missing bedtime with my kids. My wife’s going to do everything, which she’s going to do a bunch of through the rest of the next four weeks of production. I hugged my kids goodbye for four weeks and I thought, we’re pretty cool with it. We sort of prepped them. They knew what was going on, but both of them were like, “Papa, I don’t want you to make the movie.” And I was like, “I’m going to lose it here, kids. Please just hug me and let me go.” And I walked out of my house and I left them behind and I went to the crew. And I remember looking at them being like, it wasn’t part of the prepared speech, but I was like, “What we are doing has to, must be worth it.”
And so thankfully I was doing something that was really close to my heart, right? It’s a buddy comedy, I get that. But it’s also, there’s some thematic stuff that there’s really meaningful to me. And I think in some ways, man, life’s too short to not make the stuff that you really, really love. Who knows if you get to make another one. Make the one you love, make it for the ones you love maybe. And balancing that thing, a lot for us had to do with any moment I could, I protected, spent with them. I got my son to set once or twice. We almost put him in the movie and then we’re like, “He can’t do it. He’s no good. He’s never going to be an actor.” No talent there, no offense.
And really sort of protecting our schedule was… I scheduled family vacation immediately after. And there were moments where we were like, “We really could use some of those days,” and I was like, “I’m sorry, those days are not available.” And so it was on me to be like, “I will finish making the movie in the time that we agreed we would make the movie.”
Tanya (00:30:59):
Yeah. So you worked with student crew, student crew, students, you guys were students. Sydney, one of your experiences is you worked with an international crew, let’s talk about that for a second. Was there a language barrier? Did they?
Sydney (00:31:21):
There was a language barrier, but luckily because I’d lived in Taiwan, I knew it fairly well. I know the culture fairly well. Taiwanese culture is really interesting working with them because everything that goes wrong, they feel like it’s their fault and they can’t mess up, and it’s going to be really bad. I had a boom op, we love her, she’s amazing and there was this one scene where the boom just kept getting in and I’m like, “Take the boom out. I don’t need sound,” whatever. And she’s like, “I’m really sorry.” And I was like, “No, no, no. You’re the best boom op ever. No, it’s fine.” So it’s really interesting working interculturally because we had three teams who had never worked together. We have three languages.
Tanya (00:32:02):
Three languages?
Sydney (00:32:03):
We had three languages, we had Mandarin, traditional Taiwanese and English. So all of these languages are in play, which is great because I don’t understand the problems that happened with the Taiwanese crew. So there were no problems to me. And then you have also three cultures, so you have American, you have Taiwanese American which is a whole other thing, and then Taiwanese. So you’re trying to manage all of these cultures and languages and people that are just… And how do they feel today? It’s a lot.
So I had an assistant director who would speak for me, I would say the direction and I’d be like, “Please translate.” Because the students we have, really don’t speak English. My crew speaks English fairly well. And they’ll also tell you, “We understand.” I say, “Do you understand?” They say, “Yes, I understand.” And then they don’t do what you say, because they don’t want to tell you that they don’t understand. And I’m like, “I don’t care. Just tell me so I can fix the problem.”
Tanya (00:32:59):
A lot about saving face.
Sydney (00:33:00):
Yeah. I mean, right. Its a lot about saving face. So I would give a direction and then I’d be like, “Please translate.” And he would translate and then we would go on and that worked really well. It was less challenging than I thought it would be, because I do understand the culture. And our team was amazing in Taiwan, they were on it. And we did have a good producer and AD who was really rallying them all the time. It’s really fun working interculturally and I really enjoy it. And it didn’t really slow us down, I thought it was going to slow us down a lot, having, I have to say something, then he has to say something, and then I have to say it again. And there were days where we were like, “Just,” but as we went, the flow started happening and they’re really fun to work with because you learn about their culture too, while you’re working and they learn about you.
And it was funny because we came in being like, “Oh my gosh, the Taiwanese team is going to be so on top of it,” and whatever. And they came in with like, “We’ve never worked with an American crew before.” And we found out about a weekend that they were like, “Oh, you guys are cool.” We were like, “Yes, you guys are also cool.” So it was funny being like they’re just human beings. Everybody is just looking for approval. And that was a really big takeaway that everyone coming into the room is looking to have your approval, even if they’re not saying it.
Tanya (00:34:20):
Is any of your actual film in Taiwanese or Mandarin?
Sydney (00:34:23):
There is a lot of Mandarin, but as you’re watching the film, there is no subtitles. This movie was made for Taiwan, this is a love letter to Taiwan. All of the Mandarin is for them. And we, as the audience should stand with our American main and be as lost as she is, as she learns words, we get subtitles, but this movie was made for them. And it is specifically targeting just my gratitude and love for that country.
Tanya (00:34:54):
I do have to just bring attention to the awesome fact that every single one of these projects has diversity in either its subject or its cast. I think that’s worth celebrating. I think that’s really cool. But anyway. We’re going to move on to some gear and gadgets, and something that you couldn’t live without during the making of your project, your good old reliable.
Jared (00:35:22):
A lot of the stuff that you guys saw was drone shots. And we had a Mavic, and we brought three batteries. Someone ended up running over two of those batteries, destroying them. So for most of the trip while we were there, we had one drone battery. And if you know how long one drone, it’s 15 minutes, maybe a little bit more than that. So when you’re going out to an outer island and you’re trying to film stuff and you have one battery for three days, you have to be very, very thoughtful with how you use that battery. But anyways, I guess that’s something you don’t want to have to live without, but sometimes you do have to live without.
Tanya (00:35:58):
Well, what was something that maybe revolutionized your gear? Something that revolutionized-
Jared (00:36:05):
Oh, waterproof bags. Yeah, those are used super handy, especially when you’re in the Pacific and the air is just so salty.
Tanya (00:36:12):
So salty. Yeah.
Jared (00:36:13):
And we had issues, some of our cam… the salt would get into the buttons and they’d corrode. And one of our cameras, you couldn’t twist the… you could, but it was, you had to use your hand to twist it and just stuff like that. So having waterproof bags and trying to keep it as dry as possible, and dry packets and stuff. You just have to do your best. So yeah, waterproof bags.
Tanya (00:36:35):
Okay. Michelle.
Michelle (00:36:36):
My dad’s white van. It was the creepy van you try to stay away from, but we ended up using it in the movie as the vehicle. At that last shot where she’s screaming, she’s trapped in that white van. So that was pretty much, I mean, from my perspective, I’m sure crew had their own idea of what was most important.
Tanya (00:37:01):
That works.
Michelle (00:37:01):
That it was big enough to fit tons of equipment, so it was doubling in its roles. It was super helpful for us.
Tanya (00:37:10):
Nice. And I’ve never gotten that answer before. And your favorite gear that has revolutionized, your new piece of gear that might have revolutionized your experience.
Michelle (00:37:26):
I mean, just Adobe Suite is pretty sweet, I would say.
Tanya (00:37:30):
What did you guys shoot on?
Michelle (00:37:33):
We shot on Canon actually. So we were going to use a RED, but that was unavailable. So we had to use the equipment that was available from LA Sierra University.
Tanya (00:37:45):
And Nick, old reliable.
Nicholas Livanos (00:37:48):
Old reliable, I’ll match it. A couple things really quick to try to answer these questions. I’m not really a gear guy. But the old reliable for me is, there are directors who are… they don’t even know what’s happening with the camera and they’re just like watching the actors, and like “There, it happened, the magic, I’m sure you did the right thing camera guy,” and they move on and I am not that guy. I’m like, “Well, that’s cool and all, but what happened for the movie? What did we get for the movie? I want to see it.” And so having a monitor just available to me all the time is very, very valuable. And I think that’s my standby, I want to see what’s happening. Even if it’s a small [inaudible 00:38:24] that I take around. And sometimes I prefer the small, so that it’s just…
I actually don’t really like a video village with a bunch of other people sort of hovering, “I’ll tell you if it’s good,” it’s me being picky. And the thing that sort of goes along with that is, Artemis viewfinder is a $30 app, $30 well spent friends. Artemis viewfinder-
Tanya (00:38:46):
Artemis?
Nicholas Livanos (00:38:46):
Yes. You can choose exactly which lenses you are working with. You can choose the exact sensor and camera you’re using, and it will show you a focal length on your camera, on your phone that is an exact replica of what you’re going to get with that camera and that lens set. And it is invaluable for previsualization. And I like to figure out how are we telling the story with the camera? I like the acting stuff too. I like it all. The newest thing that sort of revolutionary to me, is we shot all this stuff on ARRIRAW, which is like, “Ooh, yeah, like a pro”
Tanya (00:39:17):
And you shot on?
Nicholas Livanos (00:39:18):
ARRI ALEXA SXT, it’s the specific camera.
Tanya (00:39:20):
All right. Yep.
Nicholas Livanos (00:39:21):
And so we shot everything ARRIRAW, and knock yourself out if you want to do that. But it shoots ProRes too, and it works real nice when you do folks. So if you’re trying to move a little bit quicker, I recommend ProRes folks. But we shot on ARRIRAW anyway, and so I’ve learned some things about that in post production. And what I’ve generally learned is how the ACES workflow really pans out, as it corresponds to visual effects and sort of working with a separate visual effects artist team and your colorist, and sort of how that handoff needs to go so that everybody can sort of play nice. And when they render out visual effects, which you cannot do in ARRIRAW, the thing that the colorist is then getting still looks like it matches everything.
Tanya (00:40:04):
For those not in post, ACES?
Nicholas Livanos (00:40:08):
ACES is, the Academy’s sort of color science sort of spec. It’s a standardization to sort of hopefully create some of this unity in these processes on purpose, make it easier to do those things that I was just talking about, handoffs specifically between VFX and color.
Tanya (00:40:24):
And they have a specific ACES workflow?
Nicholas Livanos (00:40:26):
Yes. Yeah. And it’s complicated, but I kind of get it now.
Tanya (00:40:30):
Yes. Sydney, old reliable?
Sydney (00:40:34):
I’ll back up Artemis on that one. Artemis is great. I think my immediate response is my script that I carry around, but that’s not a gear thing. I think Comteks, I had never really had the privilege of using Comteks for myself, which, and I am the person who’s like, “I trust the camera, let me see what they’re doing right there. Okay, cool.” And also you can hear how an actor feels if you leave it on because they talk to each other with their mics on, which is very helpful, because then I can troubleshoot before it comes to set. And I’m like, “Oh, there it is.” And so that’s nice.
I’d have to say, I don’t know, we shot on Red, I’m not a gear person, but my immediate response was trash bags because we also were dealing with a lot of rain and water and you forget that the simplest tool is often the most effective, which would be trash bags because it rained on us a lot. And on the days we had to be outside and don’t forget simple sometimes is better.
Tanya (00:41:37):
Well, I mean, that kind of actually leads into the next question because one of my favorites on the podcast is what I ask when something went wrong. So Jared, I know that you’ve already kind of highlighted something that went wrong, but if you can dig up another.
Jared (00:41:53):
This is more personal.
Tanya (00:41:54):
Oh, that’s [crosstalk 00:41:55].
Jared (00:41:55):
…Than film wise. But I think it kind of goes into being healthy and protecting yourself against the elements. But we were going on a trip to an outer island, it was a 24 hour boat ride. And I was really enjoying the sun and the waves. And I ended up taking my shirt off, just laying on the deck. And I fell asleep and I woke up with the worst burn of my life.
Tanya (00:42:17):
The Marshall Islands are right on the equator, by the way.
Jared (00:42:22):
Yeah. And we get to the outer islands and I’m just like… there’s nothing out there and I was trying to… and we had to walk the next day, we had to carry equipment and I was trying to wear all this clothing to cover myself. But then it’s so hot too, you have to make sure to take care of yourself, be smart, take breaks, drink water, and wear sunscreen.
Tanya (00:42:52):
Wear sunscreen. Michelle.
Michelle (00:42:55):
For me, I don’t even know if my crew knew this happened, but one of the characters of the cast, he dropped out at the last minute. We were in the middle of filming, it was a two week shoot.
Tanya (00:43:07):
Wait, had he already shot?
Michelle (00:43:09):
No, not yet.
Tanya (00:43:10):
Okay. Okay. All right.
Michelle (00:43:10):
So it was the day before we were going to start and then he’s like, “Oh, something came up. I can’t make it.” I’m like, “No.” So I was trying to go, because I got my characters from Backstage. So I was using that to find actors.
Tanya (00:43:23):
Backstage is casting?
Michelle (00:43:25):
Yes. Yes, for casting. I was frantically searching, we were having long shoot days. And then at the end of the day, I’m trying to search through Backstage and everybody that I’m asking like, “Oh, I’m not available. I’m not available.” Or, “This doesn’t work for me. It’s too soon,” or whatever. I was thinking, “Okay, the actors must know other actors. They must do workshops and stuff.” So I was asking around and the lead actress, Latoya Ebony, she knew somebody from a workshop she was doing in LA. And so I was like, “Could you contact him for me or give me his contact? Because I just need somebody to fill this role.”
And then the day before we were shooting, he confirmed that he was available. I’m like, “Oh thank you, God.” It was so stressful, because I’m like, “All these things are planned. We can’t reschedule this, there’s no way we’re rescheduling any of this shoot because nobody else is going to be available after this. People are graduating. People are leaving and stuff.” So it was just super stressful. I don’t think I told anybody. It was just me panicking by myself.
Tanya (00:44:24):
It’s a good thing, maybe that’s the lesson, stress everybody else out too.
Nicholas Livanos (00:44:31):
Do I tell this story, Tanya?
Tanya (00:44:37):
No. Well, sure.
Nicholas Livanos (00:44:39):
All right.
Tanya (00:44:39):
Sure. Why not.
Nicholas Livanos (00:44:40):
It’s your podcast, you can edit if you want to. We had some crazy folks maybe involved at a location, and so I got a whisper in my ear at one point when I was like, “All right, we’ll knock this out in the next four hours. No sweat.” And the AD is like, “I’m so sorry. You only have 20 minutes left. And then we have to be out of the location. We have to be out the location in 20 minutes.” I was like-
Tanya (00:45:00):
Taillights.
Nicholas Livanos (00:45:02):
“Okay.” And there’s not even time to ask why at that point you. You just know, well that’s the truth or else I wouldn’t have been told, let’s make a movie folks. And we stole it, testament to the crew they just were like, “Let’s go get it. Let’s go get it.” People were packing and wrapping out, in the meantime the Steadicam guy’s like, “I’ll run up the stairs, I’ll go get the other shot you wanted from upstairs on the balcony. I’ll go get it.”
And so we’re out, we’re out. Don’t look up there. Don’t look up there. And then finish it off. And we bag the scene. And actually that scene miraculously works pretty well. But the biggest pain point probably was the hardest day of directing an actor of my life was on this movie. There was an individual who did not know their lines and they had a lot of lines. Their lines were in fact, some of the most important lines in the movie. And I had previsualized the scene with Artemis and planned to shoot the whole thing as this very, oh, I thought I was so clever with the staging and the blocking. And it was all going to be this one shot. But not flashy, just little transformation here.
And at some point I was working with him, send him off to go like, “Well you just run lines with that other actor and you’ll get them by the time.” And then I was like, “Okay, well I’ll just run drills. And we’ll rote memorization one line at a time.” And at some point it became apparent, he didn’t know them and he wasn’t going to learn them. Through no fault of his own, just maybe the stress of the moment. It was bad news bears. And so I was like, “Abandon ship, what’s the new plan?”
And I remember having a pow wow with some of the leadership and figuring out, “All right guys, here’s what’s going to happen, we got to find a way to maybe shoot this scene where we can edit around him as much as possible. And if he just says something, that’s not the line, we just keep rolling and the other guy will just carry it. The other guy in the scene knows his line. He’ll just carry it on through.” And so we have the guy who didn’t know his lines in the middle of the take will be like, wrong line completely, one I made up myself. And then his scene partner will be like, correct line for this moment. And we just keep rolling and we can edit it later. And just a lot of creative figuring out how to shoot it again. And it was pretty dramatic.
There was a moment where he was sort of rolling it back and starting at an earlier place, “I’m sorry. Let me go back,” and starting at an earlier place, and starting at an earlier place. And I was like, “Okay, cut.” And I took him alone into the next room and I later found out he was afraid I was going to fire him, which I don’t know, maybe secretly I had some feelings, but the reality was I didn’t really have an option. I couldn’t if I wanted to. So I was just like, “Hey man, I really need you on my team. If I say start at this part, I need you to go there and trust that I’m watching. I’m the compass for whether this is working, supposedly. I’m going to tell you whether I think we have what we need and then we’ll move on. Okay. But I need you on my team.”
And after that, followed instruction a lot more, and we even had a crazy moment later on where, after trying to record wild lines and just reading the script. So nervous or whatever it was, he couldn’t even just read the script and record the wild lines. And so when we came back after lunch, I was like, “Hey man, this next scene, the lines are not as critical as that first scene. If you don’t say it, whatever. Say something like that.” And I’ll be darned if the guy didn’t nail his lines over and over and over again. So I think it was largely a stress thing, but it was finding what this guy needed to succeed. And I’m thankful that there were a lot of people who came up to me that day and was like, “Wow, good job.” And I was like, “Thanks. I’m trying. I’m trying.” But it was very difficult.
Tanya (00:49:00):
If I remember correctly, I want to say it was somebody standing with cue cards with bullet points, just main bullet points. That was just like, “Okay, just say whatever you want, just hit these points, whatever you can.”
Nicholas Livanos (00:49:13):
There’s a moment. We were rolling that day, there was a shot where he had to do nothing. He had to do nothing, lie still, act asleep. And here’s what he did, “Ah. Ah. Ah,” and I just looked at everybody else and was like, “It’s just funny now. It’s just funny now. I don’t know where we are, what’s happening, but we’ll figure it out.”
Tanya (00:49:55):
Wow. Sydney.
Sydney (00:49:59):
Oh, we love making movies.
Tanya (00:50:01):
We do, we love it.
Sydney (00:50:03):
I really believe that filmmakers are somewhat a masochist, because we continue to come back every time.
Tanya (00:50:09):
Yep.
Sydney (00:50:11):
I think the hardest day on set, you’re running it, you only have a certain amount of days in Taiwan. You have to make every single day at a certain time. And they’re all very scheduled to, we do not have time to move any of these things. So one day we get a call at 5:00 AM that one of our actresses who is in every single scene, critical actress is out because she is sick. Really sick, has been in the hospital all night and we’re like, “Oh my gosh.” And later my AD and my Taiwanese producer both walk out the door at the same time, just look at each other and they’re like, “Okay, you go find Sydney and I’m going to take her to the hospital. All right, cool.”
So I get this call at 5:00 AM and I’m like, “Oh my gosh. Okay. So we have to change the entire day around.” This creates a myriad of problems, one, your actors are prepared for not what is being shot, they are prepared for what they have prepared for. I am also not prepared to direct these new scenes. You think after doing shorts that you can just swing into a scene and be like, “Well, it’s fine. We’ll just…” You cannot do that. You cannot do that. It was bad. So I pull the whole crew together at the beginning of the day, I’m like, “Here’s the issue, she’s super important. She’s really sick. She’ll be back later. But today I really need you to stick with me. We’re going to change entire day to a completely different place. And I need y’all to just go with it.”
So the crew’s amazing, they’re just like, “Okay, cool.” And they all go for it. In the meantime, my main actress and I are just like, “Okay, okay, we’re going to be fine. This should be a real easy day right here. We don’t really have that many things to do.” Don’t ever say it’s going to be easy. It’s not, it’s never easy. And you’re like, “Okay, cool. These are simple.” So we get in there and it goes fine until you get to… You’ll hit a certain stuck scene where you’re just like, “I don’t know why this isn’t working. We’ve prepped, we know. It’s just not working.” We had to stop, it was on closeups so we had to stop a scene. It’s not working. We go to lunch. We come back. We probably did 15 takes of just her and both of us are like, “Why isn’t it working?”
So finally we go away together, sit down. We have to take a minute, breathe. Be like, “Okay, it’s fine.” Realize we’re attacking it wrong, both of us are like, “We’re attacking the scene wrong.” And then we come back with a different form of attack, but it’s just the complications of trying to be like, “Lighting’s doing something else. Location is completely different. Your actors don’t know what they’re doing. What wardrobe were you in? You’re in the wrong wardrobe, go back.” We’re not going to talk about wardrobe, but that was rough too. But yeah, that was probably the day from just-
Tanya (00:52:55):
[crosstalk 00:52:55] bad place.
Sydney (00:52:55):
We get done, the AD and I are like, “We lived, and we have to go again tomorrow. Oh no.” It worked out, and ended this beautiful scene. That was the stress. Yeah.
Tanya (00:53:10):
Filmmaking, a lot of the times what’s highlighted, we have a whole entire panel of feature filmmakers, and you think you need to be a director with a script or a project in your back pocket and all of that. But if we back up, being part of the industry is so much more, it’s so much more broad than just that aspect. Not just the roles you play, but you have other full-time jobs, or you do other gigs, there’s bread money. So what do you guys do right now to keep bread on the table? I’m just curious, besides these projects that are in front of you, what do you guys do for bread money?
Jared (00:53:49):
Actually, I work for the Loma Linda University Church, the media team here. So yeah, that’s what I do to make money. And then after work I try and be creative as much as I can.
Tanya (00:53:59):
Nice. Michelle?
Michelle (00:54:00):
For me, I work for the Southern California Conference. I’m an associate director for media production, I just started that job. But it’s really interesting because I’m just creating a job out of nothing pretty much. So I get to be really creative with it. So that’s my full-time job. I also do freelance work, if people have projects they want me to edit, I do that as well at home at night after I get home. And then I also host a podcast with my husband, The Musty Creative.
Tanya (00:54:25):
Yeah, Musty Creative. Yep.
Michelle (00:54:27):
So that’s making a little bit of money outside, but that’s a weekly thing that we do.
Tanya (00:54:32):
Nice. Nice.
Nicholas Livanos (00:54:34):
I’m a professor, I teach film production at a university, Southern Adventist University, I think I might have said that at some point.
Tanya (00:54:40):
Got it, yep.
Sydney (00:54:41):
Currently this is my full-time job, but on the side I freelance edit, second AD, AD, script supervisor. I also go in and teach classes at Lipscomb University when they need them and I cover for teachers. So I do basically all of that nitty gritty jobs that need to be done and whatever brings in money, because freelances is hard.
Tanya (00:55:05):
Freelance is-
Sydney (00:55:05):
But also it’s exciting, because you don’t know what’s coming in next.
Tanya (00:55:08):
Yes.
So now that you guys have all been involved with features, is that the direction that you want to still continue?
Jared (00:55:16):
I do like the documentary side of making films. I honestly, I realize I love music production a lot more than… I do love film, but I like music production more than I like film. So doing music as much as possible has more recently I’ve realized, makes me happy. And so I want to really focus on that. And if that can be with film, then that’s an added bonus because I did go to school for that.
Tanya (00:55:39):
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Jared (00:55:40):
No.
Tanya (00:55:41):
When you find something that you’re passionate about. I mean there, there are plenty of people that were part of our class, they’re school counselors, they’re nurses. They’re what have you. And they found something else in this world that they are really, truly passionate about and there’s nothing wrong with that. So we’re not going to crucify you for not wanting to do film.
Jared (00:55:57):
No, I don’t necessarily see myself doing future films in the future honestly. But if the opportunity arise then who knows, I’ll let you know in a few years, we’ll see. If I’m still in the States.
Tanya (00:56:10):
Got it. Michelle.
Michelle (00:56:12):
I am still interested in doing features. I am leaning more towards screenplay writing. So I’m trying to hone my skills in that area, because I took production in college. So I’m trying to practice more of my writing. I’ve been writing, I’m trying to write a novel right now, so that’s been fun, but yeah, I’m totally for features. I just want to make stuff that I feel like has a positive impact on society.
Tanya (00:56:39):
Nice. Nice.
Nicholas Livanos (00:56:41):
I want to do a lot of things. I want to continue making features, but I’d like to not make one with the university in the future. Not that’s been a bad relationship. Just, I really, really have a burden for that to be someone else’s opportunity. I’ve done two of them. I think that’s maybe one too many, actually. I’d really like to pass the baton and get other people involved who maybe came to the school. I always joke when I finish big project, maybe next I’ll just write a book. Because when I’m done with it, it’s just done. That does sound very appealing still.
And maybe the final thing that’s actually a little more realistic currently is, I’m going to go do a writer’s room retreat thing and maybe do a little bit of a break story for an animated show. And that’d be a dream come true in a lot of ways, because I sometimes I think, “I watch more animation than I watch live action film. Maybe I got in the wrong thing. Maybe.” So if I get my little toe in the door of the animation world, maybe I never come back. We’ll see.
Tanya (00:57:33):
Yeah.
Sydney (00:57:34):
I hate it. But I love it. I love everything about it. There are days you wake up and you’re like, “Why did I do this? I hate this.” But then you always go to bed like, “I got to go do it tomorrow,” or, “I have to go do it tomorrow.” And as sitting in the fire of it now on the edge of post, a day after we finished wrap and I’m like, “I’m never doing this again.” And then I’m like, “But when can I start writing my next one? And how am I going to get that done?” And I’m like, “Oh gosh.” So I think for me, I’m really passionate about being a storyteller. And directing is extremely, excruciatingly hard and you have to love what you’re telling every time that you do it, because you have to wake up and deal with just putting out fire after fire, after fire. Which is, we just love creative problem solving, I think.
But for me, I think if I could direct features or narrative in the future going forward, I would love to do that because I just love telling stories and other people’s stories and being able to just… I just want to make stuff. I don’t know.
Tanya (00:58:39):
That’s a good thing. That’s a good-
Nicholas Livanos (00:58:41):
That’s the dream, right? Don’t we all just want to make cool things with cool people?
Sydney (00:58:44):
Yeah.
Nicholas Livanos (00:58:45):
Summary.
Tanya (00:58:49):
So now we’re actually going to open it up for questions because usually we would have listener questions right now. Yes.
Speaker 6 (00:58:54):
For Jared. So you were mentioning music, that’s something I’m also interested in.
Jared (00:59:01):
Nice.
Speaker 6 (00:59:01):
What do you think you would branch out towards if you were kind of still interested in film, but really just wanted to do music sort of?
Jared (00:59:10):
I think for me, they’re somewhat separate. I mean they don’t have to be. And a lot of the projects that I made in school, I made a musical and that was very film and music heavy. And so it was producing the music and writing the music, and that was really fun. And this project is also similar in theme. Beyond that, I think it’s just, if you want to be a filmmaker and you want to make music, then find the people that also want to make films and want to have cool music. And if not, make your own and just go for it. I’m also figuring it out. So good luck I guess, because.
Speaker 6 (00:59:44):
Nice.
Jared (00:59:45):
You’ll need it.
Tanya (00:59:45):
Good luck.
Speaker 6 (00:59:46):
I like the answer, thank you.
Jared (00:59:47):
Thanks.
Tanya (00:59:47):
Okay. So we do have a question where can we watch these projects?
Michelle (00:59:53):
Mine is currently in film festivals, it’s not public yet. But if you want to get a private viewing, you can visit our Patreon page and become a Patreon. So if you go to patreon.com/mustycreative and you pledge even just a dollar, you can see the film and we can set up a private viewing just for you or your friends or whatever. So yeah.
Tanya (01:00:19):
Oh nice.
Jared (01:00:20):
So I think obviously the film’s not done, but I think the plan is to submit to film festivals and more specifically, Micronesian, Pacific Island or film festivals or film festivals that focus a lot on climate.
Nicholas Livanos (01:00:37):
We’re seeking distribution sort of actively now, exactly what that’ll be is hard to tell. We’ll do the film festival thing as well. That worked out for us with Belly of The Whale, a distributor approached us because they saw Belly of The Whale at a festival that we didn’t even go to. So we got a deal with them. So the low hanging fruit is, we’ll just distribute with the same folks again, if nothing else. And that’s just a sort of available on DVD and some sort of, one of those little streaming services that none of us have, but if we hit it, you could watch it.
Sydney (01:01:05):
Ours is, should be released sometime later this year, the beginning of next year on Sony’s platform. I’m not a hundred percent sure what that even is, but Sony has it. so whatever they decide. Yeah, it’s Sony Affirm Films, they’re releasing a trailer, a real one at some point soon, which is cool. So we have distribution. I don’t know where it’s going. It’ll do a limited release, I think hopefully through Taiwan and then hopefully at least on the east coast side of things, at least near Nashville.
Tanya (01:01:37):
Okay. And we have one last one. If you could change one thing about your project, knowing what you know now, what would it be?
Jared (01:01:44):
COVID.
Tanya (01:01:48):
Done.
Michelle (01:01:50):
I feel like I sort of rushed understanding the story fully before I was directing. I would really like to just have more time with the story and really just get deep into it before I begin directing it. That way I just have a clear understanding of each scene that I’m doing, and I know the purpose of each scene. Because it did feel a little rushed during production.
Jared (01:02:14):
And I can go back and be more specific as well, when I say COVID. Because we were in the islands just as COVID was starting to happen. And I was hearing about this thing that was happening and people were getting sick. And then the NBA shut down and I’m out here, we’re just doing our project. And then my parents called me like, “You need to come home.” And I was like, “Do I, can I just stay a little bit?” But I was actually ended up being one of the last flights back into Canada and we had to rush everything. We had to leave a few weeks early. Honestly, COVID really, yeah. Who knows? If I hadn’t have left, who knows, maybe I’d still be in the Marshall Islands, who knows? Which, hey, maybe we would’ve finished the project. Who knows?
Nicholas Livanos (01:02:52):
I thought about this and I have a good answer now, I think. I think this is interesting, working with a composer. We found a couple really interesting scenes that… Our composer is sort of a… I think he’s a great guy. I think he’s a genius, frankly. He doesn’t think of himself as a songwriter. And it was really interesting to hear, “Well, you’re a musician, you write music, but it’s not songs, it’s score.” And there’s a distinct difference. And I didn’t really think that much about it. I was like, “He could write that. He could write the other.” And we just have a few moments and sequences in the film that really feel like they were designed to have a soundtrack, to have a song.
And so now it’s like, “Well, what do we put there? Because we can’t afford anything, but this music you’re writing. So can you write something that’s pretty good?” And he’s pulling through for us in a big way. But it was really interesting to feel like, “Oh yeah, this shouldn’t be score, it should be soundtrack.”
Tanya (01:03:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sydney (01:03:42):
This might be cliche, but I don’t think I would change anything about what happened. Were things rough sometimes? Yes. But I think the journey is the journey, and embracing those lessons that are learned and learning as you go forward and being able to say, “I went through this, this was really hard. I made these mistakes. I learned from these mistakes. I won’t make these mistakes again.” And I think if everything goes perfect, you don’t learn and you can’t grow. So on this particular journey, I wouldn’t ask for it to change. Even though there were things I didn’t like, or that were not pleasant and sometimes. But I embrace fully that, from my first I have no regrets about it and I don’t come out of projects with regrets, because you’re not learning anything if you’re coming out like, “Oh, I failed in here.”
Tanya (01:04:29):
Yeah. How do we find you, or follow your work?
Jared (01:04:32):
You can go follow, Voices Rising on Instagram, that’s a great place to find Voices Rising.
Tanya (01:04:37):
Got it.
Jared (01:04:39):
Yeah. You can find me Jared J Jameson also on Instagram,
Michelle (01:04:43):
For me, you can follow me on Instagram at Michelle B. Noland or The Musty Creative.
Nicholas Livanos (01:04:49):
I’m so bad at social media, you can try following me at Nicholas Livanos on Instagram. The more apt place to follow news about the movie and stuff like that will be SVADatSouthern, the sort of visual art design Southern.
Tanya (01:05:01):
Is it Instagram or is it?
Nicholas Livanos (01:05:01):
I’m an old man, Tanya and I don’t understand these new fangled social media children’s things.
Tanya (01:05:09):
But it’s called SVAD?
Nicholas Livanos (01:05:09):
SVADatSouthern is the handle on Instagram.
Sydney (01:05:15):
You can also follow me on Instagram. It’s Syd2ly. It’s S-Y-D-2-L-Y. You can see stills from the movie there and also follow me on my website is www.sydtooley.com. Yeah.
Tanya (01:05:29):
All right. Thank you guys very much, here are your panelist.
Nicholas Livanos (01:05:33):
Thank you for listening to us, you’re very gracious.
Tanya (01:05:36):
If you enjoyed this panel, follow us right here and on Instagram. Ask us questions and check out more episodes at thepracticalfilmmaker.com. Be well and God bless. We’ll see you next time on The Practical Filmmaker.