This is a transcript of SYS 465 – Action Movies On A Budget With Gregory Lamberson .
Happy New Year and welcome to episode 465 of the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger with sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I’m interviewing writer-director-producer Gregory Lamberson, who just did a contained action film called Guns of Eden. We talked about that film and how he got that produced. We also talked a little bit about his earlier films, which include the cult horror film from the 80s Slime city so we dig into his career and how he was able to get some of these films made so stay tuned for that interview. If you find this episode valuable, please help me out by giving me a review on iTunes or leaving a comment on YouTube or retweeting the podcast on Twitter or liking or sharing it on Facebook. These social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast, so they’re very much appreciated. Any websites or links that I mentioned in the podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show or look at something later on. You can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast, and then just look for episode number 465.
If you want my free guide How to Sell a screenplay in five weeks, you can pick that up by going to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free. Just put in your email address and I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks along with a bunch of bonus lessons. I’ll teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide. I’ll teach you how to write a professional logline and query letter, and how to find agents, managers and producers who are looking for material, really has everything you need to know to sell your screenplay, just go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide.
So, quick few words about what I am working on. Once again, a big Happy New Year to everyone. Hopefully everyone is ready to tackle 2023 with some cool new projects. I know I have a lot planned. I’m still working on this NFT project with The Rideshare Killer. My timing is definitely off. I’m trying to launch this thing as crypto is basically tanking. So, it’s proving much harder just to get any real traction or anybody really interested on the PR front. But I’m going to spend the next month or so really trying to push this and just see what sort of, you know, marketing and PR I can do for it. And then probably towards the end of this month I’ll kind of just see where we land and kind of do a reevaluation. I’m going to be launching the film festival again this year, I should have a live on Film Freeway in the next week or so. I signed the contract yesterday for the theatre that we’re renting. We’re going to be showing films in a nice Theatre in Glendale, which is just about 15 minutes outside of Hollywood. They’ve been very gracious and cool to work with. And this is a really upscale theatre. Last year, we were kind of a community theatre had kind of a real grassroots feeling to it. But this is a really upscale movie theatre, as I said, in Glendale, California, just 15 minutes outside of Hollywood. So, I’m excited to be doing a real upgrade for our screenings. If you listen to this podcast and you have a film, just email me once you’ve submitted unless your film is highly offensive, and I’m not easily offended, I pretty much guarantee that anyone who listens to this podcast will get accepted. And we will screen all the films that get accepted. So do think about doing a short film this year and potentially showing it at the festival. That’s really how we build community, I think it’s going to be the same time of year as last year. I’m going to kick off on Friday, October 6th, and then we’ll run for about a week. And of course, the screenplay contest will launch at the same time and run concurrently. You can always find the submission page for that at sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. Again, this year, just like last year and the year before, we will be looking for the best low budget screenplays out there. So, if you have something that could work for that, please do consider submitting. Or if you have an idea for a low budget script, this is a good opportunity to knuckle down and get it written. Maybe our final submission deadline can really work as a deadline for you to get it written. Our final submission deadline is July 31st, like last year, and we’ll have the early bird deadline and the regular deadline as well. We’re going to just it’s six we’re going to collect submissions for six months. So, it’s January, February will be the early bird deadline, March April will be the regular deadline, and then May and June; maybe a month, maybe it’s February-March. Anyways, I’ll have the date sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. Now, I’m getting confused with the actual dates but July 31st for sure is our last is the final submission deadline. So, keep that in mind. You know write something low budget and see if you can get it submitted. And I am really determined to get into the movie shot this year. So, I’ve started to kind of look at that I have a low budget rom-com. I’m thinking about doing, it’s sort of an indie rom com, so more 500 Days of Summer than When Harry Met Sally. So, I’ve gotten started to put that together. I’m going through the script is a script I wrote geez, probably 10-15 years ago, quite a while ago, but it’s very, very low budgets, very easy to shoot. The main thing that I need is a dive bar. So, if you live in the LA area and you know of an indie friendly dive bar, please drop me a line info@sellingyourscreenplay.com. Once I get that piece, it’s, you know, obviously, this is going to be super low budget. So, I’ve got to find a dive bar that kind of wants to work with us, I don’t think it’d be super hard as we can shoot, you know, during off hours, a lot of bars don’t open till four in the afternoon, you know, might go four to midnight or one or two or something. And we can kind of shoot during the day and maybe the early morning, get in there like four in the morning to do our night scenes, super early and then see what we can do. But the bottom line is I know as a low budget producer, I’m going to have to work with some schedules. In terms of the bar, obviously, we’re not going to have to pay a ton of money. So, they’re going to need to keep the bar open. And obviously, we’re not going to be able to shoot while they have customers there and stuff. So, but that’s all good, we can work around that. So that’s going to be the main thing. As I said, I got to finish up with this NFT project. And then I’m going to start hunting for the dive bar. And then you know, put the money together and cast it and hopefully we’ll go shoot it. It’s always a challenge. So, we’ll see if I can pull it off. But I would definitely like not necessarily to get it finished in 2023. But I would definitely like to get something shot in 2023. And just really in my calendar to you know, have the festival in October. That takes a lot of time. So, I’ve kind of got a few things I’ve got a sort of schedule around. As I said, it’s always a challenge, but we’ll see if I can pull it off. Anyways, those are the things I’ve been working on and the things that I’m hoping to work on this year. So now let’s get into the main segment. Today, I’m interviewing writer director producer, Gregory Lamberson. Here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome Gregory to the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. Really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Gregory
Thank you for having me on, Ashley. You know, I’ve done probably 100 episodes of shows like this over the last 10 or 15 years however long the internet’s been around and this is the first time I’ve ever been on one devoted solely to screenplays, screenwriting, it’s about time.
Ashley
Yeah, there you go. There’s a few out there. But yeah, yeah. Welcome, welcome. So, let’s talk about your background in the entertainment business. Maybe to start out you can just give us a quick overview. How did you get into the entertainment business? And what were some of those first steps into turn this into an actual career?
Gregory
Well, I knew, like in middle school, that I wanted to make movies, I figured horror and science fiction. I went to New York City to the School of Visual Arts, I only attended classes for a year because I found myself staying up way too late going to midnight movies every night of the week and school just wasn’t really working for me. But you know, I came up when video exploded in the early 80s. And I got my start working on a film called I was a teenage zombie, which I worked on after I had written the script for Slime city. And I worked on that film for free primarily to learn the nuts and bolts of putting together a micro budget film and 16 millimeter I mean, we shot on film back then 1986, four years after graduating high school is when we actually shot Slime City. And I had a very independent spirit. You could say, you know, in New York City at the time, there were several 16 millimeter horror films which have been blown up to 35 millimeter, which we’re playing in theatres. And I knew that I was too impatient to wait to graduate film school. I wanted to get into that fast. And that’s sort of the milieu that spawned me.
Ashley
I got you know, what was going on in these days. You know, trauma, at least sort of looks like a trauma movie. That was obvious some of those movies were playing in the late 80s, early 90s. There’s another guy had him on my podcast now I can’t remember but he was making these sort of low budget horror movies as well. Just talking about that. What were you trying to feed him? Were you trying to make something similar? And you mentioned some of these other 16 millimeter films that was actually like a market for that back then. But talk about that a little bit. What were you sort of going for with this film? What were your expectations with Slime City?
Gregory
Well, I considered myself more of a character artiste. But I was looking for a project to do with my partner on Slime City, Peter Clarke, who was my cinematographer and CO producer, and he was a big Evil Dead fan. I’m a huge horror guy, but I have to admit, if you look at 90% of the horror classics from the 80s, I didn’t like them the first time I saw it was only through multiple viewings, I learned to love films, and most of my friends loved the first viewing. So, I kind of conceived Slime City as a cross between Rosemary’s Baby, which was what I thought I wanted to do, and the Evil Dead. But in terms of the city, you know, there was a very renegade atmosphere that anything goes and you know, we didn’t worry about permits there was a lot of guerilla shooting going on whether it was a $50,000 film like mine or a $600,000 film like street trash, brain damn which is one I work on, I think that in a $900,000 budget, anything went, the doors were open for creativity, the crazier the better in some ways, and I think we’re kind of getting that back to that now. But more so in the mainstream movies that have kind of taken over to be movie concepts, you know, all the studios now we’re making be movies, essentially. And when we were doing it, it was because the studios weren’t making that kind of stuff. They weren’t making films that were different than people had ever seen before. And I think now that you have this sort of meta filmmaking going on, and existential filmmaking going on, and all sorts of things where you have to figure out what the story actually is. And I think that’s the equivalent of the crazy stuff we were doing back in the 80s.
Ashley
Yeah. And so that’s a good question. How can you differentiate because you’re right, there’s all of these, like, SAW, obviously a good example. But even a movie like I.T, Stephen King’s I.T was a really high value production value horror movie. How can you compete on a low budget? What can you do to differentiate yourself from these big studio movies that have, you know, almost unlimited budgets?
Gregory
Right, and I think it’s not even just in the horror films, I think, the Michelle Yeoh movie that everybody loved that was out a couple of months ago, where she’s in the different meta verses and things. I think, even the most grounded films have some weird, fantastical element to it, whether it’s subject matter or execution, you know, with editing, jumping back and forth in time. I think audiences have gotten so sophisticated, that now the studios are really looking for a hook to catch them in a way that they weren’t necessarily doing before where maybe special effects were the hook when I was coming. Even Indiana Jones was sort of the beginning of the studios, spending a lot of money on stuff that had been super low budget. And it was originally done.
Ashley
Yeah. Now, you mentioned on Slime City, you guys had a budget of about $50,000. I’m curious, how does a young guy you know, fresh out of film school, how does he raise in the 80s $50,000? Do you have some tips? If there’s some filmmakers out there? How can they put together you know, a budget and go and do their first feature?
Gregory
Well, I wrote that script in 84. I worked on, I was a teenage zombie in 1984. And I got Peter, who I said was my cinematographer, I was a teenage zombie as an assistant camera person and my friend Robert Saban, Robert Greg Saban, who was the star of Slime City. I got onto that film as an actor. So, we really did use, I was a teenage zombie as a dry run for Ireland film, swearing that we would learn from their mistakes, which we did, we made it wrong. And we just kind of assumed that the money was going to come to us somehow, and plan to shoot in 1985 and did a head cast of robber and quickly found that young guys couldn’t so easily raise money to make our film. So, it took another year. Peter and myself saved money, like crazy. We brought in a partner and he put in his own money. And then we begged family, we actually raised 35,000, which is what we got in the ken floor and started editing. And then we went to a sales agent who was pretty famous at the time, his name was Alexander Beck. And he’d had a big article in Fangoria, and he’s the man who brought Godzilla to the US. And his claim to fame was that he had purchased Friday the 13th from Paramount, because Paramount thought it was going to be a dog. And then Paramount changed their minds and bought it back from him for twice as much. And that was really how he had made his fortune, beginning of his fortune, but he put up an extra 20 grand and finishing funds and sold it to foreign countries.
Ashley
Gotcha. Gotcha. So, let’s go ahead and dive into your latest film Guns of Eden. Maybe to start out you can give us a quick pitch or logline, what is this new film all about?
Gregory
Four campers, witness and execution in the woods and find themselves hunted by and different factions of an armed militia.
Ashley
And where did this idea come from? What was sort of the genesis for this story?
Gregory
So, this was actually a trunk script of mine. I wrote it back in 1996. And I decided I wanted to do to do an action film because the guy who had been the Assistant Director in my first three films, his name was Ed Walsh, he was a really good screenwriter. And we were looking for something we could do that would kind of blend the horror that I liked and sort of the crime dramas that we were watching on TV like Wise guy and crime story and he came up with a really good script, which involved a priest as an action hero. Priests and two cops take some inner-city kids on a camping trip. At the same time that a Charles Manson type guy is escaped from prison and reunited with his cult was really good but was also really long and it had a lot of kids in it. And I lived in New York City and the thought of going anywhere in the woods was challenging. And there’s just numerous reasons why the project was improbable for us to raise that kind of money that we would have needed. And he had suggested, you know, we started coming up with different things we could do to cut it down. And he kind of rightly suggested that I should try writing my own, which I did. And as soon as I wrote it, it was also too big, I put it in the drawer. And every five years, maybe I would pull it out. And I would read back, say, oh, this is pretty good. There’s something there, it needs something. And then the pandemic hit. And I had just done a film called widows point with Craig Sheffer, which I thought was, you know, I say this about every film, this is the one that’s going to break through for me. But we went with a sales agent for that film. And they went to one market, and made a few sales, you know, no amazing sales, but some decent ones. And then COVID hit. And when sales agents do their sales, they do them face to face, you know, at film markets, and the film markets closed for a year and a half. So that film really took a bad hit. And I usually do a film every two years, I would like to do one every year, but it’s just too much work getting the money together. I was looking at three years without doing a film. And I was kind of desperate. And I couldn’t see what the film industry was going to be at that point where theatres is going to reopen, where people are going to start paying for movies. You know, we just missed the window and widows point with some of these micro budget horror films which hit the driving circuit, and it really well. And I tried to get my distributor to do the same thing, and they just weren’t having it. So, I decided that the best way to do it was rather than go to investors and trying to say, put money in who knows what’ll happen, I would crowd fund, which I hadn’t done for a long time. And this one project, this Action Script, which had seemed so impractical at the time, because there’s a helicopter, and there’s all these different groups with guns. And just because 90% of the story was said outdoors, like first blood, which is the obvious inspiration. Suddenly that was became the most practical project I had. So, this other one that I had planned to do even before widow’s point, for a second time, I had to push it on the backburner. And this was the project that I just deemed safe to do. Because we can be outside most of the time.
Ashley
Yeah, so that’s, that’s interesting. It’s a very practical decision. And I want to talk just briefly, we’re going to get into the actual writing of the script. But I want to talk just briefly about the poster. And I’m looking at the poster on IMDb, you’ve got helicopters, you just mentioned the helicopter in the script, helicopters explosion, you’ve got a sexy woman with a big gun. How much do these elements play into the marketing of the film? How much of these elements do you need? And how much does that impact you? I mean, again, you’re going through your scripts in a very practical way. COVID makes shooting outdoors much easier. So, it sort of jumps out on the front of the line. But how much does some of these sales hooks impact your decision on writing the script in the first place, much less going and producing it?
Gregory
That is our actual actress on a poster in her actual costume holding the actual guns she uses in the film. And there is a helicopter, there’s not two, so they exaggerated in that sense, but I actually think it’s a fairly honest representation in the film. When I started flirting with doing this film 10 years ago, when I dug it out, and I just kept thinking, you know, maybe I should try an action film. Because you know, horror, it comes in cycles. It’s hard. It’s not and you can never second guess what the market is going to want. I said to a friend of mine, can you please do me a painting or concept art I wanted to be very 70s Grindhouse. I wanted to be a sexy woman with a gun, even though there is no sex in the film. And she’s not a sexualized character at all. You know, it really took reading the script and determining what it was about to come out with the fact that yeah, it’s a feminist Rambo is really what she is. She’s a badass. But that was the concept art for a while. And then we did our own poster, which was sort of a 70s collage of action scenes, which was also very representative. And then we go to the distribution and the distributor has control over what’s going to be sold but how it’s going to be sold. But I did put into my contract that I wanted at least the right to consult that I wanted them to hear me out if I had objections to the poster because I have had a film that I think sank because it had a horrible DVD box, it really is important, and I was very relieved and happy when I saw this. Now it does have sort of the Lions Gate horror, color shading and stuff, which is not representative of my film, but I’m pretty happy with it. And I hope it works.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah no, definitely, definitely. I was just curious about, as I said, all of these elements of an action movie are very well represented in the poster. And I just wonder how that relates to writers. I mean, what lesson can we take away from writers if this is what the distributor actually wants, and actually thinks they can sell? How does that impact what we actually right?
Gregory
So, something interesting there is, I had to make a few decisions in doing a final polish on the script as we had it in. One of the things I did on the crowdfunding campaign is we did let people basically by acting roles. They were almost always friends or people I knew who are just trying to support the film, but I knew I had all those militia groups. And I could create personalities for the different characters in those groups, and it wouldn’t hurt my film. And then I could cast, you know, people I knew were real actors in my key roles. So, it wasn’t like some of these things where, you know, you may get stuck with somebody who’s never acted in their life in a lead role. I couldn’t take that chance. But I had to make decisions on what the themes of the film were. Because when I came up with this concept back in 96, the idea of rural guys with guns who wanted to overthrow the government, it was a fantasy to me, I was just looking for an excuse to have guys running around with guns trying to shoot this woman. And right before we launched our crowdfunding campaign, January 6th happened. So suddenly, I have a film that maybe it’s going to be controversial, maybe it’s hot button. I think enough time has passed. So, people are just going to assume that I was capitalizing on that stuff. But everything was locked in way before that. So, I had to make a decision about that and just some, some character choices. Because for me, character is the most important thing that dictates everything else. But the interesting thing that happened is after we did the crowdfunding campaign, but before we were close to shooting, a film called up came out called Army of One, which was another female special forces type character battle and drug dealers, you know, group of like eight guys, we have a much bigger army than ours fights. But the trailer had so many little things that I was really worried. My cinematographer co producer Chris Cosgrave sent me the trailer was like shit. So, I actually did go through and removed some of the military references and some things that I just look too similar. Then I saw the film, and I go, I have nothing to worry about. They’re so different. It’s just the way they cut the trailer. So I went, and I put everything back in. But I thought that that film was going to hurt me. And as it turns out, the distributor uncorked, they handled one of my other films, and the man who runs the company is very nice. And when he sends me my, my statements, he always sends a nice little note or something, you know, puts a personal touch to any. So, what are you working on? And I said; Well, I’ve got this werewolf project that I’ve been trying to get made, that I’m passionate about that I love the script, and I’m crowdfunding this female led action film. And I thought, for sure, he was going to say, oh, yeah, tell me more about that werewolf script and said, he said, Listen, I’ll write you a check now to put towards that female led action film. And it was because he had had so much success with this movie army of one. So, I knew going into the film, what had worked in that film, and probably how they were going to be marketing and stuff. But I didn’t have to make any changes in the script. As far as what I thought production would be, you know, I’ve been an independent filmmaker now. Since 86, with my own film, but I started in 84. And the one advantage there is to being an independent filmmaker is you don’t have to answer to anyone. You do the films that you want to do now, that means you’re responsible for everything that doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to be. But I’ve always insisted on final edit and creative control on my films. They would have to offer me a real paycheck to take that away from me.
Ashley
I gotcha. So, let’s talk about the writing process of this script. And just some general questions. Where do you typically write, when do you typically write, do you have like a home office? Do you go to Starbucks, you need the ambient noise, you write first thing in the morning? Do you write late at night? What is your writing schedule, like especially when you really get into it, you’re you know, getting ready to finish a script or starting a new script.
Gregory
Everything is on its head since the pandemic, I have an immunocompromised daughter, so we’re very careful still to this day with everything. I do not do the diner or Starbucks or anything like that. I have an upstairs office that I write in unless it’s winter because it gets very cold up there. I need to be alone. You know, I’ve had 15 books published as well, I’ve ever in 12 novels. So, when I am in the zone and ready to really be productive, I’ve got to have I just have to have no distractions and be by myself. And the Internet is a horrible thing for me.
Ashley
Yeah, no kidding. So, when you get to writing, how does that break down for you? Do you do 16-hour days do you write for short bursts? What does it just sort of look like?
Gregory
I have done 16-hour days, certainly. When I wrote slime city, I had a manual typewriter. And if I wanted to make a couple of changes here and there, I had to do a whole new draft and I would sit there pounding away on my manual typewriter, not with all my fingers, but with more than two. And, you know, there were times when my finger tips were bloody. Then I got an electric typewriter. Now of course, I’m on a computer like everybody else. And I can write quietly and that to serve other people. But I need to be distraction free. And usually, especially with the novels, they would pay me an advance upfront. And I would wait to the last minute possible to get to work. And then I would have a crushing deadline over my head, so I’d have to put in the hours. For screenplays, for instance, I have been hired to write some scripts for other people. Once I’ve processed what I’m going to do for a couple of weeks, I tend to write a draft in two or three weeks. And I can do it without putting in super long days, I’m a very intuitive writer, and my first drafts are usually pretty solid. And I don’t need to consult the notes and stuff. And outlines tend to make things worse for me because when I do work from an outline, I find that I’ve gotten two thirds or three quarters. So, the way through the script, and there’s a lot that still has to happen. So suddenly, things happen very quickly. So, it’s better for me, if I don’t do the cards or the outline, I have a few key scenes in mind. For me, it’s really figuring out the characters. And figuring out what their initial predicaments are and have some idea of what the confrontation at the end is going to be. That’s really important to me. And I would say in the last year, Roy Fromkus who wrote the substitute and street trash and a few other things. He said that what he realized when he did street trash, and it’s something that I now consider, he realized that just as important as the ACT breaks, was to have a really big scene in the middle of a film, not necessarily the midpoint, that we’ve all read about a character turn, character maybe becoming a more assertive, but a big scene, and I’ve kind of come away to his way of thinking. So, now when I’m plotting out of my head, I know what that first act point is. But I also know what some big portion of the script will be. And like I said, I’m very intuitive. And just from watching so many things. I’m pacing myself when I’m writing and I’m trying to surprise myself I’m writing that’s another reason why I don’t like outlines. If I surprise myself, I’m confident that I’m going to surprise other people too. And if I get to the middle of that script, and I have a big sequence with a lot of characters going on, and it worked out that way for Guns have Eden, then I feel confident that I’m on the right path. So, I know halfway through if I’m doing what I want to do.
Ashley
Gotcha. And what is your development process look like? You said your first drafts are usually pretty solid. Do you have some trusted writers, trusted actors that you send out you get notes, you do some rewriting on it. Just talk about that briefly. What does that look like for you?
Gregory
I did a project with Craig Sheffer. The actor was in Widow’s point, he option one of my books, and we were trying to get it going as a TV series. And it was the situation for the first time I was writing to please somebody else, you know, whatever he said went. And he would ask me after I did a draft. So did you send this out to any of your friends to critique and I was like, apoplectic. The last thing I want is feedback from friends. Because I find that I mean, it’s different if you’re in a writer’s group, I guess where people have their own sensitivities and how they want to be treated as a writer. But I feel like when you ask somebody for an opinion, they feel compelled to give you some criticism that maybe they don’t even believe is valid, you know, like they have to give you something critical to put them up here above your material. I really, I show my wife what I write and if she doesn’t like what I’ve written, then I’m usually just offended at her critique and I move on.
Ashley
Yes, spoken like a true independent producer who doesn’t have to answer to anybody.
Gregory
You know, but one rule that I did learn from a friend who critiqued a novel and that is, if you suspect that something you’ve written doesn’t work, or that you’re cheating in some way. Maybe you’re taking too much of a shortcut or a coincidence is too extreme. And if somebody offers you that as a criticism, you’ve got two valid criticisms at that point, and you better look at your material. That’s how I feel.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so once you had a draft of this that you were happy with, you started to push it out. What were those steps to raising the money? And it sounds like you did some sort of a crowdfunding campaign. So maybe you can dig into that a little bit, some tips and tricks. What are your suggestions? How can people raise money for a feature film using crowdfunding?
Gregory
Most of my crowdfunding experiences have been for seed money. And then I’ve gone and I’ve gotten some investors. And on top of that, I’m talking about micro budget films like $50,000 films. The two times that I had the luxury of a $250,000 budget, I had investors. This film was a little different. And I think the reason that the crowdfunding campaign was so successful, we raise 86,000, and then another 10,000, and finishing funds. I think it’s just because of the timing that nothing was being produced. And I live in Buffalo, New York, which in the last 10 years has really increased in terms of production. And all of a sudden, everything shut down. You know, we were on our way. The Lifetime movies were coming here, bigger films were coming here, locals were getting money to do films, there were announcements of soundstage is being built, and then everything stopped for COVID. And during the three years that we’ve been living in this world, tax credits changed, and now production has slowed. And we’re waiting for those soundstages to open, and in the beginning of COVID, when everything was shut down, I think people were just so anxious and excited that I was going to do something that they were very supportive with their contributions. And by the time we finished the campaign, and we’re in pre-production, a couple of other films actually came here. And I think if I had done this six months later, it wouldn’t have been the success it was, I think I still would have raised enough to make the film but so I don’t think anything that I did necessarily applies to today’s world. But I think it’s very important to get a good graphic designer doing work. To have a really good pitch video, we were shooting our pitch video, we shot a sizzle reel in September when everything was shut down. And then a couple of months later, we shot a second action sequence with myself being chased by bad guys to do my talking to the camera bit. And both of those were shot and somewhat directed by my friend Chris Cosgrove, who was my cinematographer on this film, he did the visual effects with a miniature helicopter. And he’s also a graphic artist. So, he’s an all-in-one type of guy and a real resource. And I think, whether you have one person doing that, or several people doing that, you need to have talented people giving something exciting to that pitch for Indiegogo. I mean, I have friends who don’t even do a pitch video. And I just think to myself, you don’t really want to make your movie, do you? And then they’re surprised when their $10,000 campaign raises 3000-4000. And they make do with a lot less.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. So how did you get word out about the kick, or about the Indiegogo? Did you have a network of people that have sort of been following you and your career that you could go to? Just some tips there? Because that seems to be the secret sauce? Like how do you, did you do some local PR? You get some do some local events? Just how did you get word out? How did people even know that you were doing this Kickstarter?
Gregory
So, my social media presence is largely Facebook, I do stuff on Twitter, but I’m not an Instagram guy, my daughter and wife will post up for me on my Instagram. But the one piece of advice that I can give, which I think is very important is you and your buddy and the one person who’s going to act in the film. You really can’t do a successful campaign on your own, you need to put together a team. And I went to 10 people and of those 10 people, 8 of them really took it seriously and went to the mat for me and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it. And that includes other filmmakers. I probably had four other directors on my campaign team. And this person was great at Twitter. And this person was great at Instagram. So, they we had all the bases covered. And we didn’t hit our goal in the first 30 days. And you know, they say the difference between Indiegogo and Kickstarter and Indiegogo, you can keep whatever you make. But there’s another big difference which is an Indiegogo, they let you crowdfund for up to 60 days. Now no one in their right mind wants to crowdfund for 60 days and no one should crowd fund for 60 days, and no one wants to read posts for 60 days. I did like a 28-day campaign, knowing that I could extend it if I didn’t hit my goal. And that’s what ended up happening. And when I got out of that, as I was able to do, like a five-day countdown, five days left 4, 3, 2, 1. Didn’t hit my goal, push that extension button did another 28 days, and I got a second round of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And then we exceeded the goal. So have a team, don’t do the six days, do 28 or 30 days. And then if you need to extend on Indiegogo, you can. It’s a different story, obviously on Kickstarter.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. And that’s interesting you say that, because I’ve done a couple of Kickstarter. And precisely that value proposition of the countdown was one of the reasons why I always went with kickstart. And in fact, I always found I got most of the money at the beginning and most of the money at the end. So, I just condensed it down to 15 days, figuring, you know, the first basically, it was, like, I got almost 98% of the money came in the first week or the last week. So, I just only had two weeks, the first week in the last week. And exactly what you’re saying, having that hard deadline as a way of just sort of telling people this is your last thing. I wonder though, if it does, because with Indiegogo, people sort of have that attitude that you can do the extension, you’re taking a little bit of the pressure off of it.
Gregory
Today I was looking at a website, that someone I know, is hosting their own crowdfunding campaign on this website. And it’s like any other thing except it’s not going through to third party, the vendor. And the problem that they have is that they don’t have the threat of a deadline. Now you’re right. Some people can say, oh, they can extend. And that was something, when I did my second campaign for finishing funds, I intentionally did not do an extension on that one. I was like, I’m going for 10. And if I get it great. And I got a little more than 10. And it was like That’s it. Because I don’t want to pull that same rabbit out of a hat twice. And I hope never to have to crowdfund again. But if I do I want people to remember that I didn’t extend the second time. You know, there’s all sorts of psychological factors that you’re playing. But I mean, the other thing is crowdfunding. I’ve never really broken through too many strangers. They’re mostly people that know me or know my work. Or know people who are involved in my project. So, there’s some I guess you would call them cold or original people who see it, but Indiegogo and Kickstarter are just providing you with a platform, and they expect you to bring people who are going to market to them. They’re not bringing people to you. So, it’s kind of frustrating when you see how little support they give you when you need help with something you know, it takes three or four days for them to get back to you. You learn quickly when you’re on your own and you better step up.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So well, how can people see Guns of Eden? Do you know what the release schedule is going to be like?
Gregory
December 6th, will be available on all the places where you can do digital rentals and purchases, you know, Vudu, and Amazon and all of those places. So, the same ones for every film, basically, and it will be out on DVD and I believe it will be in Walmart, although I don’t have that confirmation. You know, Walmart used to be a reliable source for a lot of distributors. But now they’ve cut down the amount of DVDs they’re getting to make room for vinyl, because vinyl has gotten so big again. So, one physical media sort of displacing the other.
Ashley
Wow, what’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing? Twitter, Facebook, a blog, anything you’re comfortable sharing, I’ll put in the show notes.
Gregory
Facebook is best. I have an author page that anyone can follow, and author filmmaker page in addition to my personal account, which hits the maximum regularly. I’m not really as interested about people following what I have to say and getting my opinions on movies and politics and things as I am about some searching for the film. So, I just hope they will check out Guns of Eden and hopefully get something out of it.
Ashley
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Is there anything you’ve seen recently, HBO, Netflix, Hulu that you can recommend to our screenwriting audience? I always like just to end the interviews with some sort of recommendation for people to check something out.
Gregory
Now I am likely to get the title wrong. But the last thing I saw that I really, really liked, and I should have seen it in the theatre, but as I said, with the pandemic, I’m still being very careful, was Last Night in Soho. Last night in Soho, or one night in Soho, which starts off as sort of a lush, romantic fantasy and turns it into a Dario Argento style film and it’s on HBO Max and Matt Smith is in it. But that was an amazing movie. Definitely worth seeking out and it’s got a screenplay that is worth studying.
Ashley
Okay, perfect. Yeah, that’s a great recommendation. Gregory, I appreciate your coming on and talking with me today. Good luck with this film and good luck with all your feature films as well.
Gregory
Thank you so much.
Ashley
Thank you. We’ll talk to you later. Bye.
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On the next episode of the podcast, I’m going to be interviewing writer-director Katie White. She’s a real smart filmmaker, she was able to get on to NCIS as a writer’s assistant. So, we talked about that, how she was able to land that job. And eventually she worked there for a few seasons. And they let her write a couple of episodes. So, she has some writing credits from NCIS as well. We talked about that whole process, how she was able to get this job as a writer assistant, and then ultimately how she was able to get in a position to actually write a couple of episodes. Lots of great insight. I don’t have a lot of experience. I have no experience, frankly, with television writing. So, I really don’t know a lot about it. So, a lot of my questions I think will be will be good for people that are looking to break into this and kind of learn. She is, as I said, really smart, really transparent, and really gives a lot of information. But she’s really an indie writer-director kind of what the direction she wants to go. So now she’s trying to put together some of her own indie films and get those produced. So, we talked a little bit about that as well. So, keep an eye out for that episode next week. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.