Tag feature film

Tom Jennings is an award winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. Tom has written, directed and produced more than 400 hours of programming on a variety of topics including politics, religion, history, crime and sports to name a few. His documentaries have been seen on channels like National Geographic and The History Channel.

The best way to sum up our interview with Tom was that it was like taking a masterclass in documentary film making. We reached out Tom’s production company 1895 Films to talk about his latest release on Netflix, Diana: In Her Own Words that was produced for the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s passing. The journey of producing a documentary of this magnitude is a true test in problem solving and ingenuity that every filmmaker should take notes on.

Tom stresses you need to love what you do to be a documentary filmmaker. There are growing numbers of documentary television programming but Tom think it’s probably easier to sell a reality show. Don’t ever give up. If one network doesn’t want your story, maybe you can tailor for someone else. Sometimes you just have to step up and figure out how to make things work the best you can.

Keep Up with Tom Jennings Online

Website: http://1895films.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1895filmsCA/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/1895films

Tom Jennings Interview Highlights

Life as a Journalist

• Before becoming a filmmaker, Tom Jennings was a journalist in Washington D.C.
• Having moved to Los Angeles, Tom ended up covering the O.J. Simpson criminal trial and got burned out
• Cable television networks were taking off and needed writers to write non-fiction television with Discovery and History
• Writing led into producing which led to directing
• Tom sold his first project in 2004 to the Discovery Channel and had his own company since then

Learning to Make Documentaries On His Own

• Tom didn’t go to film school and had no film background
• His education came from being in the field and learning from the crew
• “People like to talk about what they do if you show a genuine interest in what they do.”
• This is how he learned how to put non-fiction documentary television together
• Tom admits he would have failed film theory classes but he knows how to get the right material in the can to make for a good documentary

Selling His First Documentary About Roanoke Island

• Tom’s first project was for the History Channel about the lost colony of Roanoke Island
• This was at the time when networks like History were interested in cool stories
• Today, having a cool story doesn’t cut it. There has to be something new, information that was never known before
• By complete luck, every year in the town of Roanoke Island actors recreate the story in a play
• Tom was able to get the actors to participate in the documentary and the rest is history…pun intended
• Tom also notes, recreations can be poorly done if you’re not careful
• For his first film, Tom had interviews, a great mystery and on top of it these great images to go with it

Diana: In Her Own Words

• This film commissioned by National Graphic is now available on Netflix
• It’s a difficult type of programming to do in film making because there are no interviews or narrator
• Archival footage and audio was the only content used to make Diana: In Her Own Words
• The archive they got for the Diana story was from author Andrew Morton who wrote Diana: Her True Story
• It consisted of private interviews of Princess Diana through tapes that were made for Andrew Morton through a mutual friend
• When they approached Andrew Morton about the tapes Andrew’s response was get in line
• Tom explained this would be a film about Diana, narrated by Diana which was something that had never been done before
• There were many rules put in place by Tom and his team to in regards to the use of imagery when talking about particular time periods

Watch Diana: In Her Words

Telling A Story With Archival Footage

• Depending on the source material available, every production is different
• For Diana: In Her Own Words, there were 7 hours of audio that they mapped out as storyboards
• They listed all of the story beats she talked about at length or momentary asides
• There were 140 story cards stuck on a board at that time
• Tom and his team knew they had to tell the broad strokes of the story people knew about Princess Di
• Then they found the stories they knew people had not heard before
• The story works so well because Tom purposely chose story beats where they could find footage of the event

Winning an Emmy for Best Documentary Research

• Whether its a feature film or a documentary, filmmakers always need to think outside the box
• The Challenger story had been told many times before but not in this way
• Tom received 30 beta tapes from the NASA archive and having gone through 28 of them they found gold of Christa McAuliffe rehearsing her lesson plans aboard The Challenger
• When they called NASA to tell them what they had found, NASA had no idea that footage existed because nobody else had gone through the tapes before
• Remembering Christa McAuliffe was from New Hampshire, Tom called a local radio station who had kept all the footage of her training and their news director was actually on the launch pad broadcasting live
• All of this added to the most unique coverage of the events of the Challenger disaster in decades which ended up winning an Emmy for Best Documentary Research

The Lost Tapes Series

• Watch the Lost Tapes Series on The Smithsonian Channel
  • The Lost Tapes: Malcom X
  • The Lost Tapes: Patty Hearst
  • The Lost Tapes: Son of Sam
  • The Lost Tapes: LA Riots
  • The Lost Tapes: Pearl Harbor
  • Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes
• Tom goes in depth on making the series from production schedule to business of running a production company
• When you have a small production you have to go from concept to delivery
• The networks know what they want and when they want it. If you want to keep working with them you have to deliver

Getting Around Licensing for the King of Pop

• Tom produced a show for Investigation Discovery on the death of Michael Jackson
• It’s difficult on a budget to license images or music of Michael Jackson
• It’s frustrating to know you’d only get the same content as everyone else
• They shot interviews and b-roll of locations but they wanted more
• Tom hired a Michael Jackson impersonator and shot them for hours in shadow to beef up the footage

Landing a Job with Robert Redford

• Tom was fascinated by the Lincoln assassination and John Wilkes Booth when he was a journalist
• Most people don’t know the story stretches over 12 days where John Wilkes Booth was on the run
• He pitched the story to the History Channel and it was created in HD with a ton of reenactments
• 2 years later he received a call from Rober Redford’s production company about a movie called The Conspirator
• He was asked to make the documentary version for the DVD The Conspirator: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Lincoln

Today’s guest is Robert Sciglimpaglia, an actor and accomplished voice over artist who is also a practicing attorney has been producing his own feature films as an Executive Producer. the past few years. We had the pleasure of meeting Robert at the American Film Market in 2017 where we spoke about film funding and film distribution. What we learn in today’s interview is that there is a delicate balance between financing, casting and distribution that may lead to the success of your next independent film.

In the early days, Robert hosted a local radio program back in the mid 1990’s called “The Law Show”, and more recently, hosted a radio show called “Ask the Lawyer.” Robert’s first venture into the acting field was a show called “American Experience: Hijacked!” which aired nationally on PBS-TV and was narrated by Campbell Scott. Since that time, he has appeared in numerous national projects with many big name stars, both in acting and voice overs. His latest project in post-production is an independent feature film, called One, featuring Lance Henriksen.

Follow Robert Sciglimpaglia’s Independent Film Projects

• IMDB – http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2215197/
• Website – http://www.robpaglia.com
• Twitter – https://twitter.com/robscig
• YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/user/robscig

Breaking into The Film Industry

• After working hard as a lawyer Robert, started doing voice over work about 12 years ago
• He took an adult education class for voice over acting to see if he even liked it
• From commercial work to animation, Robert has tons of street cred as a voice over actor
• Within 6 months of doing voice over work, he was doing on camera work as an actor
• Robert started taking acting classes and still takes classes to this day to perfect his craft
• From there Robert started producing his own films

Landing a Super Bowl Commercial

• Getting a phone call on the golf course led to his role in the Chevy Superbowl ad
• It was originally meant to be a spec ad for the London Film Festival but Chevy liked the ad so much they pulled it for the superbowl
• The commercial was voted as the #21 Superbowl ad in history!
• Robert’s big takeaway from the ad was “Whenever I do a job, I do it 100%. It doesn’t matter what kind of job it is…I want to work those people again.”
• Robert’s 2nd takeaway was “You never know where your project is going to go.”

Selling a Film at AFM (The American Film Market)

• One, a film recently produced by Robert for $50k was brought to AFM to find distribution and he succeeded
• The film features actor Lance Henriksen (Alien, The Terminator)
• Evan Evans also agreed to do compose the film score
• As an attorney, Robert advises filmmakers regularly
• “Figure out where you want the film to go and work backwards”
• Whether its to get financing, distribution or even go to festival know what your goals for the film are
• Anything you can do to generate buzz from getting a named actor for cameos or a composer to score the film
• Genre is something you should research to see what types of films are selling

Getting Film Distribution Contacts

• The most important thing a filmmaker can do is put their project up on IMDB even before you make
• Adler and Associates Entertainment, distributors for Robert’s movie One, found his project because actor Lance Henriksen was attached
• Lance is popular in foreign sales and sci-fi and Robert had worked with Lance before
• Making contacts is more about what you can do for them
• While at AFM Robert also found funding for a second film through Bitcoin Film Funding

Have more questions for Robert Sciglimpaglia? Leave em in the comments and we’ll make sure he gets back to you!

A critically acclaimed actor, Tom Malloy wowed Hollywood with his stunning turn in the indie-cult favorite Gravesend in 1998, which was produced by Oliver Stone. Tom became a trend setter as one of the first successful triple-hyphenate Actor/Writer/Producers and made it his business to learn as much about the filmmaking industry as possible. Over the years, Tom has raised more than $25 million in private equity from independent financiers and has written, produced and starred or co-starred in nearly all the films that his company Trick Candle Productions has made.

Tom Malloy is the author of the book Bankroll that is a must read for filmmakers, actors and producers that want to finance their independent feature films. Tom has now turned Bankroll into a video course for filmmakers as a new approach financing feature films. Get the Course. In our interview you can hear Tom talk about his experiences financing films and the great stories he has to share from behind and in front of the camera.

Keep up with Tom Malloy Online

Website: http://tommalloy.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TommyMalloy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tom-Malloy/69665101522
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tommalloy/

Tom Malloy Interview Highlights

Background

• We discuss the Long Island connection
• Tom wanted to be an actor and thought that’s what he wanted to pursue
• He was cast for the movie Gravesend in 1998 that was filmed in Brooklyn
• Gravesend was picked up by Oliver Stone he thought he’d made it
• When he didn’t become an overnight success he started learning every other aspect of the business
• Tom Malloy has now produced 15 movies and written over 20 screenplays
• The book Bankroll is considered the gold standard for film financing that he wrote in 2009

Being a Dancer

• If you can do martial arts you can be a dancer
• It’s similar to martial arts in learning patters, forms and moves
• Tom took a job as a ballroom dancer when he was preparing for the movie Love N Dancing with co-star Amy Smart
• Dancing is something he thinks anyone can do

Becoming a Producer

• Producing became a means to an end
• Tom discovered he was good at raising money by persistence and motivation
• It took 6 movies before he was confident enough to produce
• “If you do it long enough people start to trust you.”

How Do You Raise Money For Film

• Network with people that are outside of the movie business
• Act as a conduit for them to get into the movie business
• Everyone wants to be part of the movie business.
• They want to have celebrity friends. If you can be the person to bring that to the investor you’re in great shape.

The book Bankroll had two editions and Tom didn’t want to write a third.  Working with Jason Brubaker, their video course contains 85 videos on funding a feature film.  Get the Course. In this course Tom is giving away all of his secrets about how he personally raised $25 million to finance feature films.

Read the book Bankroll

This week’s guest is your humble host, Alex Ferrari, known for his film making blog and podcast Indie Film Hustle. With his 20 years of experience in the industry Alex dishes the straight line on making it in the film business. He shared his experiences with us as a film maker, making the rounds at every film festival imaginable and why film festivals may or may not be a good idea for film makers. This year he put his money where is his mouth is and shot the micro budget feature film This is Meg starring Jill-Michelle Melean who also co-wrote the film with Alex.

Indie Film Hustle Roots And Why Alex Started the Popular Film Making Blog

• Alex talks about escaping Miami to Hollywood and cutting his teeth as an editor. Remember what cutting ¾” tape was like?
• He talks about running garage sales as early as the age of 10 and walking around with a wad of cash
• Listening, watching, reading for a year Alex studied the business of an online business, creating content and SEO
• His rise was quick his content on Indie Film Hustle was resonating because Alex wasn’t afraid to tell filmmakers the truth.
• Providing value is his number 1 priority because he was tired of seeing filmmakers get beat up and ripped off in the film industry.

Where do You Find Time To Create That Much Content?

• Alex admits he has 150 unpublished blog articles and 50 videos just waiting!
• “There’s a lot of time in the day”
• Over the course of 2 years he’s learned how to process all of the content efficiently. Alex says he can put together a podcast in 2 to 2.5 hours.
• If he didn’t have a family, Indie Film Hustle might be even be bigger.
• Alex puts in 10 to 12 hours a day and rarely works weekends. When he does work, Alex says he’s efficient. He stops every day at 6:30.
• Ask most high achieving entrepreneurs and they’ll admit what Alex did to us. He says, “I feel like I’m a slacker, I feel like I’m not doing enough. I feel like I could do better, like I could do more.”

How Do You Feel About Film Festivals For Film Makers?

• Alex has been to every film festival you can imagine totally upwards of 500 festivals including Sundance.
• Quote: “If you’ve never gone through the experience, it’s magical. The first time you go to a festival and see your film projected, it’s the most amazing thing ever.”
• When do you that 500 times and spend a lot of money you realize what its worth.
• Alex doesn’t like the cost to many film festivals and feels like they are ripping off the film makers.
• After spending $1000 on 35 film festivals he learned how to get into festivals for free and his movie Broken ended up in 150.
• If you live in a small town, do it every year because it’s the only place you are going to connect with other local filmmakers, producers & investors.

Watch the Interview with Alex Ferrari on YouTube:

Sundance Film Festival: Alex recounts his experience

• His first time at Sundance he had just finished Broken and walked around with a laptop asking people if they wanted to watch a movie
• Sundance was like Disneyland. He would just take pictures with every celebrity he could.
• Name dropping time!!

What is your opinion of The American Film Market?

• This is Meg is going to be screened at The American Film Market
• Alex has been to AFM once before but this is the first time he’s heading upstairs with the big boys.
• Right now AFM is still the way to do international sales. It’s all about relationships.
• Quote: “You can sense that energy when somebody comes up to you and they just want to take and suck from you.”
• The bottom line is give more than you get.

Where did the concept for your feature film This is Meg start?

• Watch This is Meg on Amazon
• Find out what a scriptment is and why film makers use them.
• Alex was tired of waiting for permission to make his first feature film.
• He called his co-producer Jill-Michelle Melean and said, “I wanna make a movie and we are gonna do it this way and this is story I want to tell. I wanna tell your story as a comic and actress who is not 21 anymore and who’s been a little famous but is not a household name and what it’s like for you.”
• 1 week later Jill had a scriptment for This is Meg, 3 days later they locked up the cast and were shooting a few weeks later. This is Meg was shot in 8 days total over 6 weeks.
• Alex talks about how much he loved the process because he put absolutely no pressure on himself about the outcome of the film. And never even shot more than 6 to 8 hours.
• This is Meg was the most effortless project he’s ever been involved in.

What the trailer for This Is Meg

What was the distribution plan for This is Meg?

• Alex admits This is Meg is a dramedy that’s may not be for everyone.
• We have wonderful actors that you’ll recognize but we have no bankable stars.
• I created a lot of content around the process of making it so I’d be able to sell it to my audience which brings in revenue.
• I made a relationship with Distribber to be able to self-distribute the film which can now be seen on Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play & Vudu.
• Oddly enough, it sold to China, South Africa and have a pending UK deal. Little by little it’s made some money and was a great proof of concept.
• If you don’t have an audience there’s no point in self-distributing with something like Distribber.
• Alex made a movie within the resources that he had. A lot of filmmakers become too ambitious too early.

What did you shoot This is Meg on?

• Blackmagic Cinema 2.5k https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/855879-REG/Blackmagic_Design_BMD_CINECAM26KEF_Cinema_Camera.html
• Mastered in 1080p (you do not need to master in 4k)
• Edited on Davinci Resolve https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

Indie Film Hustle Episode Recommendations

• Making a Micro Budget Film That Cracks iTunes’s Top 3 with Julian Galea
• Watch Love to Paradise on Amazon
• How to Make 250K Indie Film Look Like $25 Million Blockbuster with Gaelan Connell
• Watch Blood Sand and Gold on Amazon

Watch The Director’s Series on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtBderQpMjs&list=PLHw-MoPtkleeOcuaZAXVNHOh5M5EfWLaW

David LaRosa is an actor, director, producer and writer as well as the president of Feenix Films, an independent film production company. He was born and raised in Lincoln Park, New Jersey. David received a Gold Remi Award from the 2016 Worldfest Houston International Film Festival in the Crime/Drama category for his latest release, “Clandestine.” He also received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Special Agent Thomas Mackenrowe.

In this episode of the Imperfect Podcast we discuss the business of indie film making.  Unfortunately man filmmakers don’t understand the business and one of two things happen. They don’t have a plan for making money with their film or they get taken advantage of by a distribution company that doesn’t have the filmmakers best interests in mind.

Keep up with Filmmaker David LaRosa

Feenixfilms.com

Twitter: @davefeenix

Davids LaRosa IMDB http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1390287/

Clandestine IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3325098/

Watch Clandestine

Local Police and Federal Officials join together to unravel a sinister meth crisis in a small suburban town. Faced with the prospects of life changing events, the team struggles to balance their personal fears with their professional duties. Starring: Nick DeMatteo, David LaRosa, Janine Laino.

David LaRosa Interview Highlights

How did you catch the film bug?

It’s hard to say exactly, but many years ago I found out that my cousin, who I never met, starred in a 70’s sitcom. He was actually my favorite character on the show. I think the fact that I could watch someone related to me perform on TV sparked my interest in the field.  Also growing up in the 70’s and watching a movie like Star Wars, made my head explode with possibilities.

I eventually got involved with my High School plays, but when I went to college, I didn’t want anything to do with acting, so I majored in Political Science until I realized that field was actually acting as well. I eventually dropped out and took acting classes, where I met my wife and business partner. We started a theater company in 2006 and then decided to do our own thing, so we created a web-series. A couple years later in 2008, we formed Feenix Films.

It’s an LLC. I am the president, Janine Laino is the treasurer, Nick DeMatteo is the Vice President, and Kate McGrath is the Business director.

Making movies is a business. You do all this creative stuff, but you need to have this super structure underneath that allows you to do the creative fun stuff.  We developed a strategic plan, which consisted of two phases. Phase 1 was to create and learn from our mistakes. This meant to evaluate what skills we had and what skills we didn’t have in house. The skills we didn’t possess, we went outside and hired professionals, which were our DP and a sound person.  “Clandestine” is the culmination of Phase 1.  Phase 2 is: we use what we learned from the film and build up. Now we have several scripts, which we will use to attract investors.

Where did the idea for Clandestine come from?

Kate McGrath, the screenwriter, was influenced by her father’s stories of life as a Long Island police officer. She never forgot this disturbing incident that scared her as a child. This film brought that image to life.  There is a form of meth in Long Island that is coming up from Mexico. Also no one has explored the use of meth in this particular area yet. It makes the war on drugs a little fresher. The film is an analogy of the entire war on drugs and what people and towns go through.

How important is the relationship between the DP and the Director?

That’s the most important relationship there is. We interviewed many DP’s. We received over 300-400 resumes and reels. I went through all of them before deciding on Brad Rego. He quickly understood the feel and type of images I wanted and why.

Where does your business acumen come from?

I went back to school and changed my major to psychology and minored in political science, then got my masters in social work. I completed my studies with a dual concentration in administrative and therapy. I used this to develop the business aspect.

Also, my partners and I work together using our composite knowledge and a bit of common sense.

We realized that Feenix Films’s focus is the story and our ability to relate to our audience.

When you made this film did you have a distribution plan or did that come after the fact?

Right from the start, we placed a lot of the money toward PR. Chris Ryan, who played Billman in Clandestine, said, “Twitter is a huge room where everyone is yelling at the exact same volume level.” So how do you get above the volume level? You need to pay for a spotlight or a megaphone, which translates into, “pay for PR.”

The Indie film market has changed. In the 90’s the question was, “how many theaters are showing your film or what city is your premier? Now the question is, “how many platforms and which ones is your film showing on?” With the help of our sales agent, Circus Road Films, and our distributors, Candy Factory Distribution, our film Clandestine, is on multiple platforms with more on the way.

Do you find directing yourself as an actor in the film difficult?

I keep waiting for the big problem, but it didn’t come. I love it. Maybe taking some of those psych classes helped me to compartmentalize. My whole acting approach is to think like the character, step into those thoughts and you’re there, you’re done.

It’s like when you’re a kid, you’re not thinking, you’re playing.

What gear did you use to shoot this film?

We shot the entire film on the Cannon 5D, DSLR. It came in handy because some larger cameras would be unable to capture some of the shots due to space restrictions. We edited the film using Final Cut 7, because I can’t stand Final Cut X. I guess it is what you get used to working with.

Have you done any crowd funding?

We have but it didn’t go so well until we learned several strategies that helped. You have to work at it.  There are pros and cons to it.

What did you learn from making Clandestine that you can apply to your next feature film?

 The most important thing for me is to make sure you spend the time necessary to put together a team of people you can rely on.

Tony Germinario is a writer and indie film director behind the award winning feature film Bad Frank. Born and raised in NJ. Tony went to school at Fairfield University where he initially began his screenwriting career. Since then, he has always been involved in creative outlets. At first, he focused on music and became one of the lead songwriters for a touring band called Jel, but then turned his writing skills from songs back to scripts roughly eight years ago.

Since focusing on film, Tony has written 9 feature scripts, several shorts, and has experienced increasing levels of success with his film-making. His first feature film “Wingman, Inc.”, starring Kristopher Turner, Erin Cahill, and Reid Ewing was picked up by Lion’s Gate/Grindstone and was released in April 2015.

Tony’s latest feature film Bad Frank, featuring Kevin Interdonato and Tom Sizemore has people talking. It’s won 11 awards on the film festival circuit and recently picked up a distribution deal with Gravitas Ventures. We learned a lot from Tony this week about transitioning from short films to creating feature films. The devil’s in the details and preparation can be the difference between success and failure. Surrounding yourself with a team you can trust is also the key to making big things happen on small budgets in the indie film world.

Keep up with Tony Germinario and Bad Frank

Twitter: @tonygerm & @badfrankmovie
Instagram: @tonygerm
Tony on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4894287/
Bad Frank on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3362238/

Watch Bad Frank

Director Tony Germinario Interview Highlights

Where are you from?

Born and raised in Bergen County New Jersey. We actually have a big New Jersey contingency on this film. Kevin Interdonato, Russ Russo, Lynn Mancinelli and about ¾ of the cast and crew were from New Jersey. Keeps down travel expenses.

How long have you been making independent films?

For about 6 years now. In my younger days I was a touring musician for a number of years in NYC and the northeast. You reach a certain age and have kids where you can’t drive to Maryland at 11pm on Wednesday anymore. I wound up transitioning out of that into film.

Probably about 8 or 9 years ago I wrote my first script and it was awful. Then I wrote my second script and it wasn’t as awful and it progressively got better each time I wrote one. I was hired by a gentleman, Choice Skinner to write a script for him. He had written an advertisement looking for a writer so I sent in a few samples and was hired. I was paid all of $100 and I was a professional screenwriter so I was thrilled. We hit it off. Choice is New York guy himself even though he lives in Los Angeles. The script is still sitting in development limbo on some executives desk.

We hit it off after that and I went to one of Choice’s acting classes. If you’ve never been to an acting class, go! It’s insane. I met a couple of people there and I wrote a couple of short scripts that they could use for class and he said why don’t we just make them ourselves. I had no idea what he was talking about, I had never produced anything. I just wanted to write.

We ended up raising a little bit of money and shot two short films over the course of a weekend. That was really the start of it. I made another short film after that. Then I wrote a feature film that we produced called Wingman Inc. A professional wingman falls in love with a professional cockblocker. That was more of a comedic film than Bad Frank.

I wrote Bad Frank and wanted to see if I could do it all myself with the feedback I had been getting from people like Choice Skinner. I had worked with Brandon and Kevin before so we decided to do something really low budget. We were very fortunate to get great performances from great people involved. I feel very lucky to work with all these people and am beholden to them. Whatever I do next, any success I have is due to the people I worked with. I’ll do anything I can to help them out as well.

What is your philosophy on working with the same team for your films?

It helps you get a cohesive set. Especially for Bad Frank, we shot the whole thing in 12 days. If we didn’t have a good working knowledge of how we all fit together, there is no way we could have pulled it off. As you work on projects you determine this is someone you can work with again so you keep them in the fold and there are other people that may not fit. You know pretty quickly who fits your model. I like to think I don’t have much of an ego. I don’t really care as long as it comes out good. As long as everyone is working hard and doing what they are supposed to they’re good with me. That’s why I like keeping these people close.

Look at Judd Apatow who uses the same guys or Kevin Smith who uses Ben Affleck even though he’s one of the biggest actors in the world now.  That’s who I aspire to be. I bring Kevin Smith up because we were lucky enough to work with Brian O’Halloran. That was surreal. Clerks was one of those movies growing up I was like how did he do this. Brian walked on set the first day and I probably came across as a little jerky but I was really just intimidated. Probably more intimidated by Brian than Tom Sizemore.

I said it recently to a friend of mine. My next project I do, I want to have him back to give him more time to do what he does. He had two great scenes in the film but it wasn’t very much screen time.

Why did you start with short films?

I’m a kid out of Jersey. I just had to figure out a way to make a calling card. There are  a lot of festivals out there and if you start winning some awards you start to get your name out there. Maybe now it’s a little easier if you get on a Vimeo channel or something like that and you might find a way to monetize it but you’re never going to make your money back. I didn’t go to film school. If I was going to learn, that’s how I was going to learn. Still money well spent.

How did your process change from making short films to a feature film?

For the first feature, Wingman Inc. I was just a writer and showed up on set to watch and learn. Choice was the director and I kinda sat on his shoulder and watched how he did things. What I learned is, if you hire the right people, the director doesn’t have to do much. It’s all in the preparation beforehand. You’re going to setup your shot lists and work with your director of photography to do that. That was a learning process too but fortunately my DP was great, Mike Heachanova.

It’s about figuring out how do you get the right people in the right spots and letting them do what they do. My process is typically I’ll do a couple of takes and not say anything. On the 3^rd take I might say here’s a little note to guide them. If you’re working with talented people which every single person on our set was, you don’t have to do that much. Make it an easy place to work and the rest takes care of itself.

What is Bad Frank about?

It’s a love story…just kidding. It’s about Frank who has impulse control disorder. In his younger days he ruined all of his relationships with his family and friends. Years later he has himself straightened out and he’s medicated and trying to repair his old relationships. Just as he’s going to do that he meets up with someone from his past who sucks him in to his old ways. That’s when “Bad Frank” is reborn.

This film is all about performances. There are no special effects, no crazy car chases, we’ve got a couple of fights we shot but it’s about performances.

If you notice, one of the cool things throughout the film is that there isn’t much music but there’s a lot of sound design. We mixed these eery creepy sounds as things start effecting Frank and it gets stronger and harder as things progress. That’s something a lot of people don’t think about as well in the post production world. If our sound guy didn’t do a good job on that part it wouldn’t have been as intense. As good as Kevin is, you have to have the audio with the video. If it’s not there it would have been more challenging to keep people interested in it.  It keeps the intensity going and its such an integral part of the film.

What are the details of the Bad Frank shoot?

We shot on a RED EPIC. It was a two camera shoot. We didn’t really have that many takes. If we got 3 or 4 takes that’s it. If got a good performance we don’t have time to mess around. We probably had 20 to 30 minutes of film we cut. We had very fortunate circumstances. It was a 12 day shoot, 6 days on 1 off then 6 more days of shooting. I still have a regular job. I took 4 days off to shoot and while everyone else had a day off I was still working at my regular job. It was a total of 8 work days for me but it was well worth.

When you can pull something like this together and see it on screen I was stoked.

What was the budget for Bad Frank and how did you get funding?

The budget for Bad Frank was $80,000. Myself and one of my other producers put up the money. Fortunately, I have a very understanding wife. We filmed at our house. Every single room in our houes the furniture was moved around. The final scene in the dining room where the big fight breaks out, we smashed everything in our dining room. If you want to do it cheap  you gotta use what you have.

What was it like being the writer and director on Bad Frank?

I had the original idea for the script and then Brandon and Russ added their input. It was a collaboration in the way we did. From a director’s standpoint it really helped. I knew the script inside and out. I knew the motivations of the characters in every scene. That’s one of the reasons Kevin and Russ were able to give such great performances. It’s all about the preparation.

I think I’d find it more challenging directing something I didn’t write. You then have to intrepret what the writers motivation was and you could be off the mark if you don’t have enough time or money. I’m planning to direct the next two or three projects of my own unless someone wants to give me $1 Million to pay for it. These are my babies at this point.

How did Tom Sizemore get involved with Bad Frank?

Tom Sizemore was great. We knew someone who knew him and him the script. He loved it and wanted to be a part of it. The great thing about Tom is, he’s just a regular guy when he’s on set. In one of the scenes where we’re throwing him around in the mud, asking if needs a mat or anything. He just said fuck it, lets just do it it’s gotta be real. You don’t expect it from guys like that.

When we originally started the schedule, Tom Sizemore was going to show up for filming on the 3^rd day. I was going to have 2 days to get my legs because I never directed anything before. I wanted a couple days before we bring in Academy Award Nominee Tom Sizemore directed by Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone and then this schmuck Tony Germinario. Schedules changed and there we are day 1 of shooting with Tom Sizemore.

After some travel complications, Tom actually admitted he was nervous about showing up on set. He said he didn’t know any of us. Tom just wanted it to work out good and put on a good performance for us. He did everything we asked of him, rolling around in the dirt and mud. When we were done he actually could have taken off but he stuck around for another day just to hang out and have dinner with us. You can’t say no to having dinner with Tom Sizemore. He’s a legend.

With Tom we could give him the framework and he just says whatever he wants. I don’t know if you caught it but he talks about something that happened in real life based on some research he did for a film. He actually brings it up saying someone else did it but he tied it to a true person.

What is the distribution strategy for Bad Frank?

After winning 11 film festival awards we just signed our distribution deal. We are getting the dates set but in early July it looks like we are going to have full domestic distribution through Gravitas Ventures. Bad Frank will be available on Amazon, iTunes, DVD and probably Netflix 6 months later. We also work with Lotus Entertainment who’s our sales agent and international distributor. We have already sold to the Middle East, Turkey and Japan.

Kevin knew them and they had liked the script from the onset. They were pretty much onboard before we made the film as long as we didn’t fuck it up. We’ve been very fortunate at festivals and with the backing of Lotus Entertainment and now Gravitas Ventures I think it’s really going to help launch this film. Even though it’s a small it doesn’t look like a small film in my opinion. The proudest thing for me is to get the performers recognition. They all did it for peanuts and I know the reason they do it, just to work but I want to see them succeed and not have to worry about taking the $100 job.

What did you learn from the making of Bad Frank?

Number 1 is preparation. The preparation is going to guide the end result. I spent months working on locations and shot lists. You can’t just show up and hope the magic is going to happen. You gotta be prepared for any contingency, sun to rain, lighting goes out. What do you do when things go wrong? As a director you can never show fear. You always have to be calm and be able to pivot.

Next I’d say, think smart. Know what your capabilities are and how you can handle them. Work with your team. Find people you can trust that you work well with. I’m extremely loyal to the people I work with and if I didn’t treat them well they wouldn’t by loyal to me as well.