Episode 010

Hey Robb, have you ever been mistaken for someone else? Well, you know, when I was younger, people used to say I looked like Ethan Hawke. So did it lead to you being chased by criminals? No, but I did end up in the movie Dead Poets Society. [laughs] [upbeat music] Hey, hello, and welcome to Indie Film Lodge, a podcast about the nuts and bolts of independent filmmaking from the bottom up. I am Matt Jackson.

And I'm Robb Padgett, and today we're talking about resourcefulness, because sometimes when you have to make do with what you have, you have to get creative to get the most out of it. Today's guests are Alberto Nunes and Caleb Keller, who made the terrific Last Reckoning. Hey fellas. Hey guys. Thanks for having us. I can't wait to talk about this movie because I feel like it really fits in with the vibe that we are always advocating on this show.

But in case somebody hasn't seen Last Reckoning, those poor souls, Can you please tell me what it's all about? So Last Reckoning is about a guy named Dan who used to be a getaway driver for criminals. And now he's on parole trying to get his life back together. When someone accidentally puts a bag of cash in his car and then it gets towed. So now he's responsible for getting the money back and his life's on the line.

And there's a few surprising twists that the movie takes. But that's kind of the gist of it. Yeah, it does not end up how you expect it to end, that's all I'll say. So it reminded me of late-'90s, like early-aughts crime-action movies. Like, the only thing I could... I was racking my brain to figure out what it reminded me of. But it kind of reminds me of Suicide Kings, of like a bunch of guys who get, you know, in over their heads.

I mean, it's not, because Suicide Kings has, like, Christopher Walken tied up. But like that vibe, that vibe of like being a criminal, but I don't want to be. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've had a lot of people tell us it's kind of like that early-'90s, 2000s kind of movie. It's interesting you say that. Yeah, I got kind of a, and this is weird because the movies are very different. But I got a Kevin Smith-y sort of vibe from it.

And I could have just been that it reminded me of movies I watched back then. Because I'm old. I remember these movies when they came out and I would go see them in the movie theater. And so there was like the dialogue's not the same. It's not a Kevin Smith movie, but there must have been something about the vibe of it that just reminded me of that era also. Right, right, right. I could see that. And some people have told me that similar thing too.

They're like, look, you can have kind of like a Kevin Smith progression. You know, where you make your own Clerks or whatever and kind of do something like that. Something that we've heard recently is, I don't know if you guys saw Caught Stealing. Yes. So when we watched that movie, we were like, wait a second. And some people have told us recently too. They're like, this is Caught Stealing if it was made in Utah for no money.

And I was like, no, Caught Stealing is Last Reckoning if it was made by Aronofsky. Yeah, honestly, that was one of my touch points. But I was like, that feels too recent to be a thing. But I've had that happen where you make something or you write something and then you're like, oh shit, this thing that's exactly what I wrote is also coming out. Hopefully you're able to ride that wave a bit, of whatever Caught Stealing generated.

No, it was fun and it was cool too. Because we were like, all right, what's he doing? Like, what can we use from this to make our movie better? You know? Hell yeah. Well, and so that actually is a great transition to my next question for you. So going into the movie, Caleb, you wrote Last Reckoning, correct? Yeah, yeah. I co-wrote it with Alberto, and then I also was doing, like, assistant directing, a little bit of a hybrid situation.

But I directed a handful of scenes. We kind of split off and would, like, do one scene. He does another scene, kind of make it more resourceful. Sure, sure, sure. So, yeah, multiple hats. I dig it, especially doing indie stuff. You can't be so hardcore about the job titles. But so going into it, before you guys started shooting, what did you use as inspiration to let everybody know what kind of movie you were making?

Did you watch other things, or did you just go in blind? You know, like we're making a movie in the broadest sense of the term. Yeah, well, I mean, I guess you could start kind of like it with the very, very beginning which was, we, as in me and Alberto, we had met on some other projects of other friends. We met kind of like a big friend group in that area doing some other projects and then some of us kind of stayed together and kept in touch. Me and Alberto kept in touch on a lot of his projects

that he's been doing. And at one point it was me, Alberto, and another friend. We're like, hey, we're thinking about moving to LA together. We should do it. And I was like, cool, let's do it. Let's do it in the summer. And I was like, all right, I'm planning on it. And it's like June is our formal plan for moving. This is like 2023 around April. Alberto comes to me and he's like, look, I just did a short film and I'm doing the math.

You know, if we do it multiple times, we just have a feature. What if we move to LA with a feature instead of just moving to LA empty-handed? And I was like, well, we're definitely not going to move in the summertime, I guess. So we're going to have to push that back. So we're like, all right, this is kind of crazy, but I want to take a risk and want to do something and that kind of like kicked it off.

So Alberto had some notes on his Notes app. And he kind of went through there and that kind of started with an initial idea. But Alberto has his own side of the story too. Yeah, as far as inspiration for the movie goes, I mean, to create the film that was kind of the inspiration and then we immediately started looking at like, what could we do? So I have like a notes app full of ideas, any time I have an idea, I'll just write it down,

just like the sentence or whatever it is. So we've kind of picked one and we were like, okay, what are similar movies that we can kind of draw some inspiration from to kind of see where we can go with the story? So honestly, like, it was a lot of just like, we'd write something and then we'd just get absolute, like, brain fog, and then we'd be like, okay, let's go watch a movie or something to figure this out. But I'd say, like, our biggest inspirations for it were, like, stuff that you

might not even expect, like No Country for Old Men, a lot of Mission: Impossible. Like, we probably rewatched the entire series like six times while making this. But there's no masks in this whole

movie. We were taking a lot of notes of, like, pacing and, like, the editing and the action and how they would fit things together. And we'd be like, oh my gosh, okay, why didn't they show this dialogue before the action? Why did they show it after? Or, like, why did they cut to it in the middle of the action instead of waiting for everything to finish? So we'd be just like literally like rewinding and

like frame by frame like, oh, wait, oh, that's how they did that. Okay, cool, cool, cool, okay. So we can figure this out. I'd say another one too is, like, The Hangover. The Hangover was also like a really good inspiration for us. So we were honestly, it's like the way I would describe our movie, influences-wise, is like if No Country for Old Men and The Hangover kind of had a mashup. No Hangovers

for Old Men. I saw a little bit of Breaking Bad in it too, not just because of the locations, but some of the characters. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Breaking Bad, huge influence on almost

everything I write, almost everything I try to make. There's a lot of Lost for me too. Like, you know, the cutting back and forth between like different people's perspectives. I get that from having watched Lost like seven or eight times. That's true. That's awesome. You guys are living in the dream. I had a similar experience when I moved to LA back before the before times, but yeah, we did college with a bunch of guys. We're like, let's move to LA. Let's make it happen. But we were

not smart enough to utilize the resources we had in Arizona before we came out. We are just like, let's go. And then we came out here and just became super successful is what I meant to say.

Right away. Exactly. Just boom. Just right away. Super successful. But that's great that you guys had the wherewithal to utilize where you were. Did you guys meet in Utah or did you guys meet somewhere else? Yeah. Yeah, we met in Utah, in that friend group that we kind of cultivated together. It was like a short series project that some friends put together and then I kind of joined in the group, and that's kind of where we met, me and Alberto and some other friends that we've all kept

touch with. Yeah, there's friends of ours that to this day we're still working on stuff with them. Utah has a really cool, very tight-knit film community. It was really cool to just be able to

everybody kind of works on everybody else's projects. Everyone who stays in touch and then every couple of months you just hear someone go like, all right, I'm doing something and everyone's like, all right, let's do it. Let's help you out with it. Even if it's just, like, to share post stuff on your stories about the project. We kind of come from that group and so we've tried to keep that vibe active. Moving out here, it was me, Caleb, my brother, and then another friend of ours.

We all came out here at the same time. We've been trying to keep that community alive and going.

It's so invaluable to have that. If nothing else, just to keep your spirits up because LA does one thing really well, and it's beat you down. It helps to have a support system that helps lift you up and you can always do something. When I first went to town, I had three or four roommates that were like that. We would lean on each other and shoot stuff and just keep each other working. Because yeah, it's hard to do and it's so important to make those connections, to make stuff.

Especially if you're going to go make a movie for what you guys made it for, which is incredible. I think that's one of the advantages actually now of Hollywood being what it is. Not what it was. When I first moved to LA, it was just my wife and I. We had some friends down here, but we weren't making movies down here. We made movies up in Washington State, which is where we're from. When we came down here, it was like, "Okay, now we're going to go on auditions and we're going to do all the

Hollywood stuff." The system was still very much in place back then. Then we learned pretty quickly that that system sucked. We started making our own stuff and then we met people and we all made our own stuff, but it was easy to get distracted by Hollywood back then. You would meet some people and they'd be like, okay, okay, but no, I got this development deal over at this thing. And so so they'd be gone. They'd be off doing this development deal and nothing would ever come of it.

Then by then they were jaded and angry. But we just kept kind of plugging away. But now that

distraction isn't really there anymore. I think it might be easier for you guys to keep your little community going because it is important because if you don't make stuff, you will leave. Or else you'll just get a jobby job, and you can do that anywhere. You don't need to do that here. But yeah, you guys are already way ahead of the game, which is really inspiring. I'm very

inspired by you guys. It was good to come with a feature. I came with features, but they were bad. They were college features. So I didn't use them, because the old system, nobody was going to be impressed because I couldn't make a film that would impress them. I didn't have that kind of resources. But you guys do, and you did. So now maybe you could do something with it, but even if you don't, if you don't let that discourage you, you're going to keep going because you want to make movies.

Yeah. That was kind of the logic. In my mind, it's the classic story. So many people move to

Los Angeles with a script and they're trying to sell it or they're trying to get it made. And I was like, man, I don't want to hold on to the script for the next 10 years, trying to figure out how am I going to do this. I was like, look, I've just made two pretty high production value short films here in Utah. Why don't I just make six more and just pretty high-production-value short films here in Utah. Why don't I just make six more and just

have a feature? That literally, my pitch to Caleb was, instead of showing up with a script, all you got to do. You know, it's like we did all the work already. Yeah. And everybody knows distribution is the easy part. Right. That's three years later. So before we get too deep into

the nitty-gritty, because man, I just, I have so many questions about how you made this movie. You've kind of answered this, but one of the things we like to ask on the show is what the OPM is for the

movie. And I know I say this every week, I'm never going to change it, though. OPM is a terrible title,

but it's what we came up with. Every movie has these three elements to it. It has an obsession, a pivot, and a miracle. It has the thing that got you so excited that you're like, this is the thing. It has that moment while you were shooting that you're like, oh no, everything sucks that you're able to pivot into a moment of victory. And then a miracle, something that shouldn't have happened, but did happen. So my first question is, what was it about this one line in your

notes app that you're like, this is the one to make? Okay. So for me personally, we probably had chosen

like three or four different ideas to start working on, but we very quickly realized, like, we can't just start writing. We can't just go crazy with an idea. We need to figure out if any of this is feasible at all. Like, can we actually shoot it? So we went and we kind of wrote down all the locations we had available to us. And we went out with the camera and lenses and we were like, let's just do a little location scout. Like, let's just do some camera tests. And we did a camera test, probably

spent like a day or two doing camera tests. We rented a lens that I really wanted and I was, you know, we were just trying to see like, what's this going to look like? Does this inspire us? does this inspire us? Does this make us want to write this movie? And that camera test was pretty cool. shoot, okay, this is the movie. You know, we looked at the images we had at the end of it and we were like,

yeah, no, this is it. This is the look. This is this is what it's going to be. Okay, cool. Let's write it. And I think that's kind of what guided us throughout the processes. Like, we want the movie to look as cool as this camera test. Yeah, no pressure. Jeez. Yeah. I think it was just, like, the genre. I think I was really interested in doing something more action oriented. It's, you know, it has some

action elements. I wouldn't say it's like a full blown action movie, but there's action elements, you know, kind of like a high stakes, you know, more fast-paced story. I think it was really interesting, you know, makes someone interested. Grab them first, you know, when they see the movie. Right. Because a lot of indie films choose to go for something more like horror or drama. And we were like, well,

we can kind of set ourselves apart by doing a genre that most people think is too expensive or like hard to do if you're not an experienced filmmaker. And it might have been really ambitious to do that, you know, right out the gate, but we're like, look, there's no use in trying if we're not going to go all out. Yeah, I'm a big fan of a healthy dose of ignorance before you do anything major, but I will tell

you that I think it's really hilarious that you're like, we're going to see what we can do and see what's in the budget range. You know, like, so we're going to run around downtown with guns. And you're like, this is totally the one. Right, right. Yeah. The easiest thing we could do. Well, we can talk about this later when we actually talk about making the movie, but you were pretty smart with how you use those guns. Because I was thinking before I

watched this, like, I know there's going to be guns. And I know there's going to be low budget filmmaking. And those two don't always go together because cops get calls and people get weird. When you start running around town with guns in your hands, but you were very smart with when those guns came out and where. So good job with that. So then as you were making the movie, was there a moment where everything went south and it changed your trajectory of the movie for the better?

Well, there were several moments on set that we had to like do like some major pivots. I'll let Caleb tell the one about, you know, one of our locations that fell through and then worked, but then fell through again. And it was just kind of crazy. But for me personally, I think the major pivot that we did with the movie came in post-production. So the tone of the movie originally was supposed to be

like very serious. Like we thought we were making No Country for Old Men too. Like that's what it was going to be, you know, and you can even see in some of our early marketing materials, like when we did we did some pre-sales for our Blu-rays, you can see that it was still very down-to-earth, like very gritty. And once we had our first rough cut, we realized like, oh, that's not the movie we have at all.

That is not the movie we made. That's the movie we wanted to make. But we realized that it had like a more like that's where kind of I think The Hangover influence comes through is that we realized that we had a much more lighthearted and like funny movie than we thought originally. And so, you know,

everything from like music choices to like the pacing of the film, everything had to change because we were like, no, we had we even changed the genre because before it was supposed to be just like an action thriller. And now I think it's on Amazon. It's like a comedy, suspense, crime, kind of like

hybrid thing. But I think that was like a really big pivot that needed to be made if we wanted to film to work properly. You know, it's like we were fighting against the actual tone of the film and we realized like, no, no, let's let's do it. Let's let's rework this. Yeah, that's a big moment of

self-reflection to have when you're watching the movie and you're like, oh, oh, I see what I made. I mean, good for you guys for seeing it early and not because at first you're disappointed. You're like, man, I didn't I didn't make the thing I thought I wanted to make, you know, like you're like, ah, shoot. Yeah. But then, but then once you accept it, you're like, okay, what does the movie want to be? What are these performances giving me? You know, I'm not going to fight against it. You have to work

with it. Well, that's what I tell people because I'm an editor and I know that they're disappointed and I'll cut it in a way and they're like, I don't think he gets it. Like, no, I don't think you understand what movie you made. You wanted to make a movie, but this isn't the movie you made. I'm trying to edit the movie you shot, not the movie you wanted to shoot. They're always like, did you read the script? I'm

like, I don't care about the script. The script isn't going on screen. The footage is going on screen. And so it's good that you pivoted and didn't try to force it into a box. Yeah, because that dictates everything else you do. You know, like your marketing materials, what your trailer looks like. Can you imagine if we had made like, you know, if we made it seem like it was this very serious film that

was going to talk about some like deep social issues of like what it's like to recover, you know,

you're on parole and like, and then you get there and you watch it and it's Last Reckoning and you're like, what the heck? You're like, what the freak? Well, I think it's really interesting. We say that

about editing just because I feel like throughout the entire process of making the movie, the main thing was that the movie you make the movie three times. You write it, you shoot it, and then you edit it.

I think the biggest learning that we did was in the editing process. You know, making a feature is completely different than making anything else, you know, short film, what have you, all that stuff. I was also trying to mention the one kind of miracle or, like, pivot that we had to do

when we're shooting the film specifically, you know, we were trying to use our locations to our advantage, and downtown Salt Lake, there was one alleyway that we really wanted to use. So I, like, I went through so many different locations and I basically picked this one and we're like, this is the one. We wanted to use this one. This is amazing. Scheduled the date. And then on top of that, I was like, just in case, I'm going to make three or four backup locations, if anything happens,

available to me. So we ended up going to the location, as, like, on a Sunday. It is in Utah. So granted, the spot we were at, this alleyway, is next to, like, a little shopping center. And then

there's like another stone-looking building. I didn't know what it was, but apparently we get there

to go and shoot. And this scene we're going to be like yelling, screaming, you know, like throwing people against the wall. We don't necessarily want to make a lot of, you know, grab a lot of attention, but that stone building, it was like a church. And they were getting out of church, so there's probably like a hundred people walking out. I'm like, I don't just want to be screaming and throwing people

against walls. Like, what are we going to do? So we needed to go and check on our other

locations. Our other locations were all... there's a jackhammer across the street, just... They were tearing down a building, and we were like, dude, this happened within the last day or two. Like, this has never happened. We even location-scouted all of our locations as well. So, like, we went there, and just because that church was, like, in disguise, there's, like, a stone building. I had no idea, like, that's what it was. So that was kind of a crazy

moment, but we ended up being able to pivot by moving our schedule around. So we went and shot a different scene just downtown at a different location, kind of moved it up the schedule. And then came back and shot the alleyway scene. And luckily it like worked out that way. Because a lot of our lighting was also a result of sun position, so that kind of boned us, but it also just ended up working out.

That's that's crazy. Man, I have a lot of questions about permits now. Yeah, I have a feeling that we made our movies in a very similar fashion. Well, I actually, I don't know if you did. And that's actually my big question. But hold on, hold on. Before we get there, we haven't gotten there yet. Hold on. We got a, we got a whole thing that we're doing here. I'm trying to stay on, stay on target. So honestly, like, it could be discovering the movie was your miracle moment, but do you have

another miracle moment, like making the movie or finishing the movie or getting it out or, you know, somewhere in there, like getting, yeah, personally, I feel like the movie was honestly, it's a miracle that the movie got made in the first place. And we didn't really realize this until looking back now, but it felt like anytime we needed something, it would show up right as we needed it. So like locations would just pop up, you know, like the alleyways, like I'd never

seen, like, an alleyway like that in Salt Lake. I'd lived there for, like, years. And anytime it was like, oh yeah, they just removed the fence off of this one place, you know, like gear whenever we were like, how are we going to do the shot? Somebody would message me or Caleb and be like, hey, I saw you guys were shooting a movie. Like I've got this piece of gear. If you guys want to use it, just put me

in the credits. And we'd be like, okay, there we go. Like, we were finishing up our rough cut and, you know, we have a movie night at one of our friend's houses here in L.A. and they've got a friend over and we're like, oh, hey, what's up? And he's like, oh, yeah, I'm from New York. I'm just visiting for a couple days. I'm a composer. And we're like, oh, really? And he's like, yeah, yeah. I've always wanted

to do like an action movie. And we're like, whoa, whoa, okay. But it was like he was there for one day at their house. And it just so happened to be the day that we were there too. So many things like that would happen where like as soon as we were like, okay, we're going to be moving on to the next phase. How are we going to do this? Boom. Something would show up and we'd be like, all right, that's how

we're going to do this. Yeah. Not even to mention, to your point, that when we started the project, you were just about to move to LA, but we're both in a good position financially because we'd both like, worked on some bigger shows and, you know, just in the industry and saved up a bunch of money. And like that alone was like, I don't know if that would ever happen again. You know, like that point

in time where we could just be able to take off time to just work on this project for four months straight because that's what we did. So that is one big advantage to being as young as you are and not having children or you know, that kind of stuff. But you know, you can still do it when you're old. But that is still like, I love it when that happens. When the universe wants your movie to

happen, and then, like, the universe provides. And I don't want to get all, like, woo-woo about stuff. But I feel like if you put out good vibes into the universe, the universe will always kind of take care of you in that way. And the movie Last Reckoning is a testament to that, it seems. Yeah. You have to be willing to also take the chance. I mean, there's still a chance in it. The universe will give you stuff. But if you don't take it then what's the point?

Yeah. And we talk about it all the time where like everybody's just holding out for, you know, their opportunity or whatever. But when the opportunity comes, are you ready? Like are you ready and willing to take the opportunity? We've seen so many people, friends of ours, even within that group that, you know, we mentioned that get an opportunity and we're like, oh my gosh, okay, here we go. And then they don't do it, you know, whether they didn't realize it was an opportunity

or maybe they weren't ready yet and they couldn't do it just then. And so we kind of hold ourselves accountable to like, hey man, that email that was a really, you know, you should reply like, you know, that kind of thing. We're always trying to stay aware of like when opportunities are coming

and being like, okay, we got you got to be ready for them. You got to be ready. Like, oh, if a piece of somebody offers some gear, but we don't have the shoot planned, or we don't have the scene ready for us to film, we can't take advantage of that. So it's like we, we're trying to always be ready for when something does happen. You can drop everything and pivot to that and be like, okay, for when something does happen. You can drop everything and pivot to that and be like, okay,

or times that I didn't know that I was in a position to take advantage of an opportunity. Yeah. It's good wherewithal you guys have and and a good system to keep yourselves accountable. Because I think that's also the big thing. It's like you need somebody yelling. I always need somebody yelling at me. I'm a good rallyer. I'm a bad pusher. And I need somebody who's like, hey, you idiot, do this. But at the same time, don't forget that the opportunity is only as big as the

the risk you're willing to take. An opportunity could be something as big as, hey, man, I've got this camera. And then I mean, is that an opportunity? I mean, I guess. Okay. But the opportunity is what you make of it. So don't forget that you're creating more opportunities than you realize. Right. Just out of these little inspirations. I think too moving forward just like very recently, there's been some other things that are happening where maybe like I've fallen short on the

opportunity and missed out on it. So it's like, oh, I need to make sure not just be you know, you want to be ready for the opportunity. But what are you doing now to prepare and be ready for a potential opportunity? You know, where that's like, oh, I need to have another feature script or another project ready to go. And so in case somebody asks me, it's like, that's the preparations you can't be ready for it. And not to beat yourself up if you missed an opportunity. Because again, like,

I've missed a ton and you know, you can miss an opportunity to be like, oh, it sucks. And, you know, never get that again. And that didn't help anybody. But what you said Caleb of like, yeah, okay, I missed an opportunity. But how could I make sure I'm ready for it next time? Is the way to approach it? Exactly. And there are some opportunities actually are better off having missed to be quite honest with you. Yes. I've said yes to some stuff that I wish I hadn't

like this podcast. Yeah. Oh my gosh. The worst decision I ever made. So all right. Great. Now, we want

to ask you so many questions about resourcefulness because your movie was made for, I don't like to ask

budgets because budgets are all weird. But I know it was part of your marketing plan. So tell me, how big was your budget on this thing? So production budget, by the time we were done shooting, we had spent just under $3,000. Now, the movie wasn't finished with $3,000. Obviously,

we had some other stuff to do and to pay for. We did a round of pre-orders for our Blu-rays and for

digital versions of the film. So we were able to raise like, I think, $2,400 after that. And that

helped pay for some of our post-production expenses and stuff. But it was mostly like optional stuff. It was more like, we need a piece of software that we really wanted or something like that. And so the movie was shot for $3,000. We'd already spent a good two and a half years. So we're like, let's just raise a little bit more money. Total, I think, we spent $5,500, maybe. Which is still ridiculous. So nuts. Because it doesn't look like it. It looks like a million dollars.

Like, if you told me you spent 25 grand on it, if you told me you spent 100 grand on it, I'd be like, yeah, of course. Because the action sequences and the locations and all of that. It's, what's the word? It's fighting way above its weight class, which is a testament to your guys' talent behind the camera. Thank you, man. Yeah, yeah. But you did a really good job shooting this thing. Thank you, guys. Well, I think I would attribute that in large part to Caleb said, like we

work in the industry, right? So we work on set. We do a lot of different jobs on set. like camera assistants. I work a lot as DIT, do a little bit of color, do a lot of editing. And so, like, you know, we've been kind of mentored by people on these big sets. And so for us, we were just like

looking at how a professional set runs. Like, what can we trim down? You know, how can we shave off the fat of some of this budget? And what are things that we already know how to do that we can implement into it? So it's like I said, we did the camera test. And on that camera test, we figured out what camera, what lenses, what time of day, you know, we made our own LUT. Like, we did all these things that

were like, okay, cool visuals done. Great. Next thing, you know, and so it was more like how do we adapt a professional process to a two-man crew, you know, and do it properly, but adapt it in some

way so we can make it cheaper and a little bit quicker. And that's kind of what I attribute that to. Yeah, I attribute it to the run-and-gun style that, where we met each other is on that short series that we

shot with a bunch of friends that was run in this very similar style to how we shot Last Reckoning. So we kind of took that experience. We're like, well, we've done this short series. We could do the same thing for the feature like we both, you know, collectively have a lot of camera experience. We can cover the camera bases and then just work on the things that we don't necessarily know how to do as

well, just attack those as hard as possible and figure out a physical problem. Okay, how do we solve it with our resources? So a lot of it's with our experience now taking into action. How do we solve

new problems? Well, and a lot. So I shoot my movies run-and-gun also. No permits. Just around. And one

of the biggest hurdles that people run into in the shoot that way is if you're going to use the sun as your light, you need to know where to put the sun. You need to know where to put the people. And you, I was watching the whole time like, Oh, yeah, this is all very familiar. They got the light on the correct side, you know, using the natural ambient light in the correct way in the way that makes it

look the most cinematic. I was really impressed with that, and the sound. I was impressed with the sound too. So I have a question because I do want to know that sound too, but you mentioned that you were calling these locations and lining them up. Were you shooting with permits or are you just kind of casually calling people because I know when Robb shot his feature, it was all, what's the word, it's criminal. Yeah.

Yes, he shot a like a criminal. Like how did that work for you guys? For locations, the way it

happened for us was we get a lot of reality show stuff in Utah, right? Like a lot of the sets you're working on our reality shows. And there was one that I worked on a few months before we did the movie where they had forwarded an email to me and they're like, Hey, keep this on hand in case anybody

comes to bug us on our shoot. And the email was from the film commission, the Utah Film Commission that said the rule in Salt Lake County is if you have four people or less, you don't need a permit to shoot in any public space. And I immediately saved that email and I was like, Oh, this is it. This is big. So for all of our locations other than the motel and Darcy's bedroom, they were all Salt Lake

County public areas. And we we kept our cast and crew to four people or less. Now, you know, you

bend the rules, you know, like maybe there's four people on screen or there's three people on screen plus a camera person. And so Caleb would go, like, across the street and just kind of hang out, or, like, we'd switch and do something like that, you know, where you're like, Okay, well, technically there's only four people over there. I'm in the car, you know, I'm not with them. Hey, it's not a crime to be

hanging around the film set. But yeah, that's that's basically how we picked our locations. We were like how many locations are Salt Lake County public areas that we can shoot at without permits legally without permits, or bending the rules without permits. And that's kind of what guided, like, what the locations would be for the film. That's what I tell people all the time, like less is more with these things. If you want the crew, that's great, but you're not going to get the location.

Right. You know, figure it out because the less is more. And plenty of cities across America have similar things, you know, like tourists can film vlogs or YouTubers can go out and shoot stuff. Why would it be any different with us? You know, like just because it's a film will just look up where you're shooting. They might have different, you know, some places might be up to ten people. I don't know, like some places might be just like, oh, if you're not blocking the sidewalk, you're good,

you know, so it's I think it helps to know beforehand that like, hey, I might need permits. Let me check what the rules are. Oh, I can get away without permits. Cool. You know, I just got to do these things. So for us, like if you look at the movie and you try to pinpoint, you know, ah, you should have had permits here or there. To us technically, we didn't need permits for any of that. So like that's how, you know, we kind of got away with it. And we structured the film

around that too. So it wasn't like we were shooting and we're like, yeah, I wonder what the rules are for shooting here, you know, it was like, okay, we can shoot in these places and we don't need a permit. And having one dude run down a flight of stairs in the really cool building while it's being filmed from like a half a mile away, right? That's not bothering anybody. Like nobody's going to get on your ass about that stuff. Yeah. And that's a good way to use this type of stuff.

Use your locations when you've got a few people and then have them go into a room when you've got more, when you need more. What, what did you shoot the movie with? Like DSLR? Are you shooting with, like, I don't know, like an FX3? No, no, we, we, we shot the movie with two Blackmagic

Pocket Cinema Camera 4Ks. That's kind of what the idea started with, is that I bought one and then I had one from previous projects. We were like, oh, could we use both of them? So, oh nice. Were you doing double coverage the entire time? Yes. Yeah. That was, that was another one of those things where we're like, hey, let's try and shoot with two cameras to speed it up. And everybody advises us not to do it. No, definitely, absolutely do it. That's what I did for my movie too.

Do it 100%. All of my cinematographer friends, all of my AC friends, they're like, dude, it's going to look so bad. Bro, you can't light for two cameras at the same time. And we're like, well, what if you light for two cameras at the same time? Instead, you know, like, it's not like we're lighting for one camera and just throwing a second angle there and it doesn't look as good. It's like, we set up the

angles. Okay, let's let's figure out the lighting. Let's make it work. And it doesn't have to be cross coverage. You could do a close-up and a medium at the same time. Exactly. Exactly. And that's what we did a lot of times is we were just do like, okay, if we're lit for this, let's get the two angles of this that we know we're going to need. And then when we move on, we move everything on. So you can do it.

But yeah, it was the two of us and the logic didn't exactly work out that way. But it was like, if we have two cameras, we could shoot twice as fast. We shoot twice as much. For sure. We're sure. We have

twice the amount of footage. That's like, you've shot more. Sure feels like it. But you can, like, since you guys built so much in post, having those two cameras was probably quite helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Lots more options. So what did you guys do for sound? Because sound is a big problem that I feel like we've solved on the movies I'm making, but I don't know what you guys did. Yeah. Um, I feel

like any sound person would would absolutely hate the way we did sound. That is not like, not like it at

all. So I do want to put this disclaimer out there. I love and absolutely respect sound people. I feel like they're one of the people on set that you should not bargain with when it comes to their day rate. You pay sound people what they deserve. And that's it. But we've worked on a lot of run and gun productions, you know, whether it's short films and stuff or like I said, reality gigs. And I

think, honestly, reality TV is where I learned the most of this from. Like getting decent sound with reality is kind of hard. You know, you're in a restaurant with 50 people and you're trying to shoot a conversation between three at a table. So basically almost all of our sound came from lav mics

on the actors. So we mic'd up everybody exactly. Yeah, that's perfect. Robb, nobody can see what you're doing because we're not a video podcast. That's okay. I'm holding up a lavalier mic that I shot on. You see my movie. Perfect. Right. So so I have two lavalier mics and then whenever we would need extra ones, we would just rent them. They're super cheap. We would mic everybody up properly, you know, using

moleskin. We put it in the right position, test it out, make sure it sounded good, had them kind of like move and rustle their clothes a little bit to make sure we weren't getting anything, you know, crazy going on. But then we also made sure that the cameras had backup mics on them as well. And if there was ever a situation where we weren't sure if we were going to get a line cleanly, after we shot,

we would just go in and ask like, hey, can we just get an audio take of that line real quick? You know, a lot of times we would just be like, let's just shoot a close up and let's just get that audio just really clean so that we can use it. And we did end up having to do a little bit of ADR, just like a few lines, your classic like action movie, like grunts and breaths and stuff like that, which, you know, thinking about it now, I feel like, you know, that's like a mental note, like,

get the extra stuff, get the extra stuff during production. But yeah, that's basically how we did it. But I would say that none of it would have been worth it if we hadn't found our sound mixer. Our friend Bridger, he does sound on set as well. He's a production sound mixer. And he, in Last

reckoning fashion, right when we were ready to do our sound mix, he moved to LA. And we were like, Bridger, my friend, come through and help us out with this. And he was great because he's like,

oh, I do, you know, post-production audio as well. And he saw the cut of the movie and he's like, okay, I think I see what I can do. And so he went and touched it up for us. But even he said he was like, I'm surprised that, you know, I thought it was going to be a lot more work. But most of the audio was pretty clean. So I would say that it was just like, just making sure that we thought about it in advance. And we had everything ready to capture everything we needed. Sure. And so with

the lavs capturing locally on their packs, or are they capturing wirelessly to the cameras? Yes. That is the only thing I would like for the future, is wireless capabilities, so I can listen in while we're shooting. But yeah, so each mic was recording locally and then we had our camera mic backups. Yeah, that's what I tell everybody. It's like the only downside to this way is that you don't get to monitor the audio. Yeah. And so you don't necessarily know what you've got until you get

back home. Yeah. But I've had so few problems that I won't change. I don't care that I can't monitor. I just have to make sure the actors turn their mics on. Yeah. Yeah. See, I told you I thought that this movie was shot a lot like the way that I'm shooting my movies. That's true. Listen, you guys brought up securing locations and I... He said finding locations. He said securing locations. He said they had locations. I mean, I had my idea about what my locations were. So this is also important

when you're shooting this way, is you have to have backups. Do not rely on a location that you don't control. Definitely have backups. And what you did. And so I mean, make sure your light's the same or shoot at a different angle. Just don't get too precious. Right. Yeah. And it was like when Caleb put together the backups for the locations, it was like, okay, this location is great. Second location. That is great. But it could work. And then the third location is like, I don't know if

I'd want to shoot here, but if we have to, we can. And so it kind of goes like that. And so throughout the day, you're like, all right, location one isn't working. We're going to go to location two. And I hope we don't have to go to location three. But it was just like that, you know, you got to be flexible and you got to make it work. So like he said, we ended up flipping the schedule. And so since we had

planned the shoot for the sunlight for the time of day, we shot a scene earlier in the day that we should have shot later. And so when I got there, I'm like, all the lighting's not great. Oh, it doesn't work. You know, but then you figure out like, okay, well, what can we do? Can we look the opposite direction instead and make it work here or like, can we maybe shoot the scene backwards and start with

the end of the scene instead of the beginning? Because then by the time we get to the beginning, it's a little bit later. And now we've got that light that we wanted. So there's just a lot of things that you got to do. It's like you said, you can't be precious with it. You plan for it. You have your backup plan. But then you got to be ready to just throw everything out the second, you know, you get there. And luckily for us, there's a couple things that we would catch. Like we were shooting

on the weekends instead of just shooting it all in one go. And so like we'd shoot on the weekend, then I'd look through all the footage. We'd do like a little test color grade. I could listen to all the audio. Like we had a week to figure out, you know, if anything was messed up. And so there were situations where, you know, there was an entire scene that we had to reshoot somebody's angle. But we caught it immediately and we're like, can you do tomorrow? Can we reshoot this tomorrow? And so we

went and we reshot the whole scene from that person's angle. And okay, cool. We got it. You know, so it was like we gave ourselves plenty of room to where if we did mess something up, we could just redo it. We were just talking about that last week about how it's good to not just schedule a giant chunk and think you're going to shoot all your movie. Because if you screw something up, you kind of want

to know if you can go back and pick it up. So having a little break between, so you can check the footage and check everything and make sure it's okay. And you don't have to reshoot anything. It's almost a must. You should plan it into your budget films. It's easier to ask somebody like, hey, can I get you for like two or three hours tomorrow and reshoot this? Then a year later, be like, hey man, like I'm so sorry. Can we, you know, like at this point, they've grown a beard. They got

long hair and you're like, can we cut your hair and like, have you come back? No, it's hard, you know. I had to throw a wig on one of my actors. Oh, because we did it almost a year later. Yeah, see that's, that's tough. Plus the fact that like we were thinking, we're shooting on weekends. So if we need rentals, for example, we only pay for one day and we have them for three. Right. So that's one of the cost-cutting measures that we took for the, for the film. So everything was kind

of planned around like we kind of know what we're doing, but we kind of don't. And we need to give ourselves some leeway for those things that we don't know how to do because we might mess that up. So we gave ourselves that little bit of, like, buffer space to figure things out at the, you know, at the same

time. Totally. How many weekends did you shoot? Four? That weekend in July. Yeah, so it was, it was 12 days total. Four weekends. You jerks. Yeah, we shot, we initially shot 10 days and then we had

two days where one was a pickup shoot and the other one was the reshoot. Right. So that was it. And then we were like, all right, everybody go home. Yeah, that's, I mean, again, that's about on par with the movies that I'm making too. It's almost identical. See, the system works. Listen, it does. It does. I understand the idea of doing the big bulk shoot. So I, when I made my feature, we did a

big, we're going to go up, we're going to shoot for three weeks straight, and you get the weird, like, set madness of you're here and everyone's kind of hanging out. You fall into a rhythm, and there's there's something nice about that except that you don't have the leeway to come home with footage to open it up. You're like, Oh, you dummy. You forgot these things or, you know, watch this performance or

or adjust these things midstream. And so yeah, I think you are again way ahead of the game. Just knowing

that like the one thing you have plenty of access to at a certain level is time. You know, there's that production triangle of time, money, and quality. And, you know, take your time, make those qualities

you can. And that's not to say that like our process is perfect and it's better than, you know, the way we shoot movies professionally. You know, obviously, if we had all the the structure that a film normally has behind it, it'd be no problem. You know, like, you come home at the end of the day, your assistant editor's sending you the dailies, you get to watch it the next day, you go up and you're

like, Hey guys, we need to redo this. Like, that's great. But we were, you know, it was just a matter of looking like, like, what do we have? And how can we adapt the process to make it work for us? But I do

think that part of it is knowing what the process normally is. You know, like, I feel like if we didn't have as much experience on set, and if we didn't have, you know, the traditional like classic filmmaking experience that we do, it would be much harder because we wouldn't know what we don't have. So right. It's easier to change the process than to make up a completely new process. Right. That old

adage of like, you got to know the rules before you break the rules, which is tough to take, I think, when you're, when you're so energetic about making something, you're just like, just do it. But like, knowing like, formally, how it's supposed to work, then you can move within that structure to make

the decisions that work best for you. Yeah, I think to that point, it's funny that there's like a structure because I feel like recently we went to a panel for our film festival that we premiered at, and it was David Greenwalt, he did Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But he said specifically, like, get you. He's like, every movie is different and nobody knows anything. So I think that to that point, like, even at a high level, every movie is different and nobody knows anything. So I think it's

really just, like, here's a movie I want to make. What resources or techniques do I know? And what can I basically like puzzle piece? I'm like, oh, I know this. Okay, boom, fit it in. Oh, this fit it in. Great. Now this is the way I do my movie. This is a way to get it. Yeah, it's like, it's like a ladder of problem solving. What do I want? First, I need to do this. How do I get that? Well, first, then you do this and then, you know, you're building the rungs from the top down and then you just

got to follow the ladder up. Yeah. Yeah. So do you guys have, now that you're in LA, and I'm going to tell you, you can do a movie just like this in LA. I've done it like four times. Do you have anything in the works? Working on some ideas, both me and Alberto, together and separately. But for the time being, it's a mixture of working on those new ideas and then as well as trying to make sure we still get the word out for this movie as well.

Yeah, like we've been writing some stuff throughout the process. We both just submitted short films to, like, a short-film competition that's happening this month, and we've got, like, feature-film scripts going, but it's like the movie has just been like so all consuming. But the good thing is that we've started to get some opportunities pop up because of the film. You know, a lot of people coming up and

being like, you know, let me know when you're doing your next thing, producers that we'd worked with on gigs that now they're like, hey, if you're writing anything else, like send it over, I'd love to take a look at it. So that's been kind of cool to see and I, you know, hoping that in the near future, here's some of these opportunities actually actually pan out. Again, it's still, don't let it distract you.

No, yeah, absolutely. Don't rely on those other guys. Absolutely. No, I think what we realize throughout this process is like, not only can we make a movie, but we can make a movie ourselves. And so as we

pursue like the bigger opportunities, always have something that you can produce yourself on the back burner where you know, if in a year or two, none of these other ones pan out, okay, just go out and shoot another movie. Film makers have to make films. It is. Right. It is. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Right. So I guess we should, I mean, this is as good a place as any to start bringing us in for a landing here. Robb, do you want to ask this last question? Sure. I'll ask the last question. So now that you're done with the movie, well, I mean, you're still marketing and you're still doing all the marketing. So if you know me, I just don't, I don't care if anybody watches the movie, so I don't pay attention to

that kind of part. But now that you've made the movie, if you got in a time machine and went back to when you started, is there any advice you give yourselves when you started this whole process? I think personally, and then I kind of realized this just as we were talking, if I could go back and

tell myself anything, it's do those extra little things. The little things that you're like, you know what, it's not that big. We're just not going to worry about it. Like I said, the little ADR lines, the little like, can we just get some grunts and breaths and just like, you know, little things. There was a small scene that I really wish that we had added into the film that would have been really nice. And while we were shooting, I was like, you know what, it's just like a tiny like three

minute scene. Let's not do it. And now I kind of feel like, but it would have been really nice to have. And so like, if I could go back, I would just tell myself, like, do the little extra things. If you have time, just do the extra things that you think are important. Because there is no later. I mean, there is later, but later is hard. Later is harder than now. That's true. Caleb, do you got any advice for your former self? Yeah, I think there's so much that I've learned just not with like,

making a film, but also getting your distribution for our film. I feel like that's probably the biggest thing for me. The last part, you know, the better part of the last year we've been doing distribution stuff. So I think knowing some things about distribution now, you can kind of think about it with it in mind in the beginning. So there's that I probably kind of go back and tell myself,

like, hey, you didn't know anything about this, but here's this, this whole thing. Maybe get some pictures of people while you're on the set, so you can use them later. Right. [unclear]. Like, hey, here's a couple of links. The articles haven't been written yet, but save these. You'll need them later. Real time machine. Yeah, but it is true. There's

those little things you're like, you know, when you're in the heat of battle, you're just like, God, can we just move on? We just got to we got to move on. We got to move on. But no, take it. Just take a second. What takes five minutes right now is going to take you days a year from now. So just do it now. Huge headaches. And it's like you said, the little things like some pictures of people on set, you know, maybe shoot a video of a set up that you had, like, all of this can be used later.

And it seems so dumb, and like, why would I take a picture? Like, look at me. I'm shooting my movie. But no, but once you get to the point where like, it's on Amazon, we need to be posting daily shoot. We've run out of content. Really wish I had that video right now, you know? So yeah. And you could go back and tell the young me also because that's also my advice for me. I mean, that is honestly the hardest thing about I think modern filmmaking is that never ending churn of stuff you need to make

to do the marketing because you know, it takes so much to make the movie that you're like, I finally did it. Done. And you're like, no, it's just now, it's really just started. Seriously, that's what I've heard, looking up on forums and everything. That's the place where everyone's like, that's where filmmakers crash and burn. It's like, no, this is, it's coming up with the idea, shooting it, now it's like the release. There's the three big, big parts. We can't lose it now.

Well, and that's the problem with you guys is age. You should have come up earlier when people didn't have to do that. Now you have to be your own everything. Why was I not making movies in the '90s,

man? I was like, just a little kid. You really screwed up. Really screwed up. You guys messed up.

You were born too late. Use that time machine to go back to 1996 and start making movies then. Sick. No, it's a crazy industry, man. And you think about it like, you know, some people have

asked us like, man, spend three years like, where's the movie? And we were like, look guys, this is two people doing the work of 200. So like, I'm surprised we were able to get it done in three years.

It should have taken us like nine or 10. Three years is really good. Three years is really good. Yeah, it's really, really good because it is really tough to get it out in three years is incredible. I think one nice little mention, too, throughout the process, we're always like, through the editing process, We did like a little screener to get some notes on where the movie was at. And there was some really

good notes in there. And we're always constantly like, oh, we want to get it out as fast as possible, as fast as possible. And when we did that screener, like the movie's done when it's done. It'll tell us when it's done. And that's we can't we can't sell it short. We can't be like, all right, we just want to get it out. Ah, here we go. Because then we want to make the best movie we could possibly make. So

there you go. That was that for your big thing. That's right. There's a fine line between being done and being finished. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to know when you're just moving deck chairs and and when it's time to launch the boat. Right. Well, for sure. Well, guys, this has been fantastic. Yeah,

it was really great. I love this whole thing. I am so inspired. I'm really excited for you guys and moving forward. But I know where to find you, but where can everybody find you the movie and everything? Tell me where you are online. Tell me where the movie is online. Tell me how people can get it? For the movie, if you go to lastreckoningmovie.com, we have links to literally everything: streaming,

Blu-rays, any screenings that might be coming up and the the socials for the movie, everything is

on lastreckoningmovie.com. Yeah, we're specifically on Amazon right now and YouTube Movies. That's one of the easiest places you can find us right now. How can they find you guys if they want to hire the world's best directors? For me, easiest would probably be on Instagram at @albertonunes96.

I answer to any and everything that shows up on there because I'm there all day long. Well, don't tempt me. We'll start sending you weird stuff. Say it with me. Might as well be my Instagram. Might as well as Caleb Keller.

I found three choices. Excellent. Excellent. Well, and that about does it for us. So if you have any

questions about filmmaking or movies in general, please email us at indiefilmlodge@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you and we may feature your question on a future show. In the meantime, tell your friends about us and remember the only thing holding you back is you. So get out there and shoot your feature. I'm Robb and I'm Matt. We'll see you next time. Woo!