This is a transcript of SYS Podcast Episode 045: An Interview With Writer, Director Julian Gilbey.


Ashley: Welcome to episode 45 of the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger, over at sellingyourscreenplay.com. In this episode’s main segment, I’m interviewing Julian Gilbey. Julian is a British writer and director. In the interview Julian gives a detailed account of how he broke into the industry, and we talk about his latest film Plastic so stay tuned for that.

 

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If you want my free guide How To Sell Your Screenplay in Five Weeks, you can pick that up by going to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free. You 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 teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide, how to write a professional log line inquiry letter, how to find agents and managers and producers who are looking for material. Really, it’s everything you need to know to sell your screenplay. Just go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide.

 

So now let’s get into the main segment today. I’ll be talking with writer/director, Julian Gilbey. Here is the interview.

 

Ashley: Welcome, Julian, to the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

 

Julian:   Well, thanks very much for having me.

 

Ashley: So, to start out, I wonder if you could give us a quick overview of your career in the entertainment industry, kind of how you got to where you are today.

 

Julian:   That’s an interesting one. I left university in 1997 and basically spent four or five years making a Clockwork 60-millimeter film which opened a few doors sort of halfway and stuff but ultimately, unlike America, it is a real kind of cottage industry over here in some respects, and basically what it really came down to is that after a while, and after working on a few other people’s ideas, I realized I wanted to write my own original ideas. With our other screenplays we adapted other people’s screenplays of Rolling with the Nines or Rise of the Foot Soldier which was adapted from a true book, but I suppose my most satisfying work to date was what I’m doing more of which was A Lonely Place to Die which was just a nice solid idea from me and my younger brother. And we went straight with it and Plastic again was an adaptation from somebody else’s screenplay which was successful in some areas but perhaps not quite as satisfying an experience as A Love Place to Die. Moving forward, yes, I have several projects that are all original pieces of work.

 

Ashley: Okay. So now when you said these 60-millimeter films, are you talking about was one of those films Reckoning Day? Was that a 60-millimeter film when it was—

 

Julian:   That was shot new. I mean, we literally had to shoot guidelines. That was shot in Clockwork [inaudible 0:03:33.5] that could only take 100-foot rolls of film. Yes, it was crazy but I mean, we were out of film school and we just went ahead and did it. It was incredibly time-consuming but mostly from experience.

 

Ashley: There has got to be some moment where you—and it sounds to me like Reckoning Day you said opened a few doors—what sort of happened like what did you do with Reckoning Day? How did you get that second job or even how did you get—

 

Julian:   It’s interesting. Basically, I mean, I didn’t know I was so green. Literally I mean this was back into the 2001 or whatever, I just made a note of VHS tapes and sent them out to all these different addresses and all these different sales agents and companies. And I just didn’t know so a lot of them just came back unopened. Somebody said we don’t read unsolicited material, etc. etc. But luckily we’d done this movie and then luckily we had a couple of sales agents that came back and said yes, we can do some sales for this. And then of course, sales agents are in touch with all the production companies and then they put other people in touch with other people and then you start doing the whole network thing. That’s how it began like that.

 

Ashley: So Rolling With The Nines, that was like your first paid gig where someone hired you to write and direct something?

 

Julian:   I’d love to say yeah, I could have retired. I mean, I was paid for that. No, that was an interesting project. It was somebody else’s sort of idea but it was a film that could be financed and it was an idea that we researched and ran with. Again, it was a lot of fun. It opened our eyes to an interesting world. It was not an entirely unsuccessful project. I mean, the Powerful Woman number with the Oscar nomination for most promising upcoming star which was won by Andrea Arnold who did Red Road. I think she deserved it to be fair. With these lower budgets, we were really cutting our teeth and really just learning so much.

 

Ashley: I think it’s important that people get sort of a scope. I mean, everybody looks at these big—like the guy that just did Guardians of the Galaxy and it’s like wow, this is a massive hit. But they don’t realize that he started out exactly like what you’re talking about with these low budget films and slowly worked his way up. Take us through—I mean, Plastic, I don’t know what the budget was but I mean it’s a big polished movie—so fill us in on some of the details of where you went from doing these really low budget films to actually getting paid and working with stars.

 

Julian:   Okay. Sure. Well, I mean, what happened was after Rolling With The Nines, we’d actually written the script before that based on this book called Rise of the Foot Soldier which was about an ex-footballer who became a gangland member and ultimately his friends were murdered in a horrendous triple murder in December 1995. What happened was that we went to this production company and Rolling with the Nines, you know, they watched that and they realized that we had had competent film-making ability and it was a very hard-hitting script. It was also a very violent script and they took a chance on us, and I’ve had a great relationship with [inaudible 0:07:03.3] ever since. Rise of the Foot Soldier although not a big theatrical hit, it was an enormous home cinema hit. That film sold over a million DVD’s in the UK alone. It became massive. Again, I wouldn’t just sit here and just sort of Telly was the perfect film. I would say that my sort of most satisfactory film purely on a filmmaking level came next which was A Lonely Place to Die. That for me was the fun of that which was a purely original idea of mine, mine and my brother’s, and it was really fun to just completely sit down and not be a slave to true stories and all the rest of it and not have to sit there meeting people that had lived the life because I think we got a bit true storied out. With A Lonely Place to Die it was nice to just be able to have that freedom to just write exactly what we wanted to do.

 

Ashley: So what was the budget on something like Rise of the Foot Soldier?

 

Julian:   Rise of the Foot Soldier was about 1.3 million.

 

Ashley: So it’s definitely not nothing. And you got that job, it was really big-time strength.

 

Julian:   That was based on Rolling with the Nines, based on all of that, but when I say 1.3 million, I mean 1.3 million pounds so that’s about three million dollars maybe?

 

Ashley: Yeah. Okay. Perfect. So that definitely still is in some of those details. So let’s talk a bit about Plastic, your most recent film. Maybe you can just kind of give us some background about how that story came about and how you got involved with that project.

 

Julian:   Again, it was from one of the producers, one of the executive producers I should say from Rise of the Foot Soldier, and he had seen a Lonely Place to Die, really liked it, knew I was working on a number of other projects and said look, I’ve got this movie. It had already been written and he said I’ve got this movie; I want it to go as soon as possible. I read the screenplay and it needed a lot of work. In Plastic, you know, it’s a tough one because it’s somebody else’s story and it’s also loosely based on a true story. So William and I, my brother and I, we went into—it needed a lot of work which was a tough one—but you know, I guess we took the bull by the horns and though it should be a fun adventure. It was a much lighter for the film of touch than a Lonely Place to Die, but by comparison it’s a definitely a lighter-toned film even though it does have some darker moments, but you know it’s interesting some of the UK critics got very angry about that the morals behind credit card fraud and everything else and the supposed glamor of it all. We were like we do need to sort of seduce our audience in—and I’m not making excuses or anything here for the characters’ behavior—but we were bringing in the credit counselor; we were bringing in the dialog for how a lot of students in university have had—you know, a lot of people—we only wanted to touch on that because we don’t want to get preachy, you know, it’s a fun film after all—but we did want to touch on the fact that there’s a generation out there that a lot of them are not going to be able to do what they want to do in life because a bunch of funkheads in America and the UK and Europe and everything else just snorted up their future in Cocaine binge [inaudible 0:10:36.1] We were at least playing that out as one—not an excuse, just one more explanation as to why people might turn to another form of fraud, another form of making money.

Ashley: So I’m curious in terms of this. So you have a screenplay that you’ve been given, did you then go back and, as you said, loosely based on a true story, did you then go back and sort of dig into the true story, look at the screenplay and then—

 

Julian:   I think that the most important thing is to go back and talk to the original people. It’s an interesting one because I think it was definitely a difficult screenplay to totally get right. Initially I think the characters were far darker how I guess they may or may not have been in real life, but I kind of felt we’ve got to try and humanize it more. It was a tough one because it’s a fine balance. In something like A Lonely Place to Die, it’s very easy to set the tone. You know, the tone is a bunch of people saving a child and trying desperately to survive, but this film had to balance, a harder tonal line between comedy, between seriousness, between morals, between ethics, between excitement. It was a tough one.

 

Ashley: So coming through this experience I totally agree. It is much tougher. Do you have any tips for writers that are maybe potentially going to try and tackle some material that has these tough issues?

 

Julian:   You know, it’s interesting because somewhere the other day, it’s funny because one of the screenplays I’m writing at the moment is—I’ve got two or several movies at the moment—but one of the screenplays at the moment I’m enjoying writing a lot of is called Summer Of Life and Death. It’s about a couple of gap-year students who have a crazy summer out in Shammany, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll and extreme mountaineering and all the rest of it. It’s a really interesting fascinating film to write, but it’s interesting I’m drawing on a lot of my own  power loves, my own time in ski season, my own time being a student, my own experiences with mountaineering. I’ve climbed the Igor, the Matterhorn, a few other bits and pieces. You know, the point I’m trying to sort of talk about here is writing from truth has been a really, really interesting from experience for that particular project. I think with certain other films that you’re dealing with, crime, for example, you always have that filter in that you’re not a criminal yourself. Yes, you can go and talk to these people but it has been a really refreshing experience writing this new screenplay which I think is going to be very successful as a film. I think it’s a really successful mix. I keep going back to that thing of truth or trying to find truth within it the best that you can because I think otherwise it can come across as false. And sometimes with Plastic it’s hard and then at the moment where you find the truth is you go well, okay, I may not have done this; I may not have done that, but I have been drunk at a party. I have had sexual jealousy; I have had this. I have had that so try always even if you’ve got a story that doesn’t really have anything that you can relate to, you can’t stop swelling in those human moments. I know I’m very long-winded way around your question but you—

 

Ashley: Nol. Absolutely I totally get that.

 

Julian:   You know, we’ve all had sex or a drunken argument. We’ve all done this; we’ve all done that. We’ve all done all sorts of things that we can actually draw on our experiences and that is how people will ultimately empathize with the characters.

 

Ashley: Yeah, yeah for sure. So take us through the process—I mean, I think people are always just wondering like how did you land this gig? Just give us some sort of logistics of how exactly you got hired? I mean who hired you and what the production sort of looked like and just getting you on as writer/director?

 

Julian:   With Plastic it was a case of I lectured. I was invited up to London for a bite of lunch and I had the script put in front of me with a producer I already knew. And he said Julian, I want you to do this. Go away and read it and tell us what you think. And I said okay, guys, it needs some work. They said yea, will you come aboard and do it? I thought this would be fun. Again, after doing the much darker hard-hitting Lonely Place to Die where a bunch of mountaineers rescue a child who’s buried alive up in the mountains. And you’ve got something that is terrifying, a kidnap plot unfolding. It was nice to just do something a little lighter of tone, not to knock it off and stay serious in some places but it was nice to have a bit of–the characters to have a bit more fun.

 

Ashley: So just to back it up a little bit, so the producer that you had this initial meeting with, that was a producer you had worked with before on Lonely Place to Die?

 

Julian:   No. Rise of A Foot Soldier.

 

Ashley: Okay. So you just kept in touch with these various producers you worked with.

 

Julian:   Yes. I’m always in touch. The day after tomorrow I’ve got a meeting with Ridley Scott’s company over here at Scott-Free Productions. I’m just going in. I don’t know what the nature is about. They want to see me. Can you discuss a couple of projects? So that will be fun; that will be interesting. We’ll see how that goes. You just take every meeting. That’s based entirely on A Lonely Place to Die. So once you’ve done a movie that is well-reviewed and it’s out there, then you can definitely start opening a lot of doors. But it is tough to get a bloody thing in the first place. That I really do sympathize.

 

Ashley: So one of the things I like to do on the podcast is give people sort of an idea of the scope. I mean, you went to the meeting, you got this job basically writing and directing this script and the entertainment industry is filled with projects that are basically a false start, how many of these types of meetings do you typically take and then they don’t turn out to—

 

Julian:   I’ve had plenty of false starts, and I’ve had a lot of mean things that were very promising but a lot of these meetings, a lot of these false starts, they usually come when people don’t have a screenplay. The amount of times I hear about films in development hell and it’s usually because it’s either a first draft screenplay or it’s still an idea or it’s still a free page content. And you start thinking over breakfast Jesus Christ, everyone’s in, everyone’s getting up, everyone’s making all these plans over an outline, that is typically when something is potentially a non-starter. Where things tend to move quicker is if you’ve got a good spec script or you’ve got a screenplay; you’ve got 95 pages or 105 pages, whatever that are very strong. That’s not to say that it doesn’t necessarily need a tweak but that is why I have two spec scripts at the moment and a third which is half-done but basically it gets the wheels moving much quicker if you have a finished screenplay with all the high quality because people can go right, okay, let’s see where we can go with this. I think that a weak screenplay or an unfinished screenplay, the worst thing to do to your writers is when they say well it’s kind of half-finished and I need a few pointers, you know what? Show it to your friends. Show it to other writers; get advice. Get everything but don’t go to work because you only get one chance to present that script to an agent. You only get one chance to present that script to any particular producer. When you’re talking about a first draft, for example, if I go back to the story that I’m writing at the moment, Summer of Life and Death, I’m looking at my printed draft and know what point five is, so what I start with is a scratch draft. That was 173 pages. It’s every idea and every other thing. That’s what I call my scratch draft. Then I do draft 0.5, and then I do draft 0.75, and then after that is what I call first draft. That is something that I think yes, that is something I think I could show. That is not what I call the shooting script but when people say oh, it’s only a first draft so at the moment there is no chemistry between Julie and John but [inaudible 0:19:39.3] yet it is something you would present. If you bind it as a book because it might be your tenth draft but it’s a first draft to anyone you’re showing it to. But I do think sometimes people are—people too quickly call that first draft their first draft. So I mean I’ve been working four months on this project. I’m working with a couple of producers on it, but I’m still not showing it to them. And I say guys, I’m not showing you my 136-page draft 0.5. You’ll be seeing the first draft when it’s about 116 pages which will still be a little long and all the rest of it but it should feel exactly what we’ve been talking about. Does that make any sense to you?

 

Ashley: Absolutely. I agree. That’s a good tip. I totally agree.

 

Julian:   Just to say if you want those meetings; you want those film projects to get off the ground—actually another thing just to talk about it is to Aaron Creevie; he’s a lovely chap who did Welcome To The Punch and he’s directing Autobond at the moment with Joe Filver, and I’ve been chatting to him and he was just talking to me and he said he did a lot of what you talked about, go to these gigs; go to these meetings where you talk to people and for one reason or another nothing happens or somebody else gets the gig. And eventually he said you know what, I can write. I’m just going to write the gig and then I’m attached to that. I mean, I suppose it’s a Sylvester Stallone story isn’t it. I mean, he was a bit part fog in Woodie Allen movies. If Rocky had been written by somebody else, they’d be offering it to Robert Redford, not a bit part mugger for the Woodie Allen movie. But he wrote it. He attached himself to it so in that respect, there’s also that approach.

 

Ashley: I guess my main point to sort of asking questions like that is I think especially new people who are getting into the industry, I think they would look at your career and think that you’re basically on Easy Street. And they don’t realize how much hustling is involved.

 

Julian:   Oh my God, not Easy Street at all, I mean definitely not. I think a Lonely Place to Die is my film that you know, that’s the one that won the most awards, got the most kudos for the American festivals and worldwide festivals; that’s the film I’m very, very proud of. Plastic is a broader film; it’s lighter of touch. You want to call it more fun. Does that make it a better film than a Lonely Place to Die? No, probably not but it’s a good piece of escapism. Having said that, my next couple of films are definitely going on sort of the hard-hitting side of things.

 

Ashley: So let’s talk about your collaboration with your brother. A lot of the scripts that you have written and directed have been co-written with your brother. Maybe you can kind of just tell us what that process looks like. I know there are a lot of writers out there that they collaborate with family, friends, so maybe you can just kind of—

 

Julian:   I think if you’re going to collaborate with someone, you need to write with someone that you can be totally honest with and tell somebody if something is good, tell somebody when something is bad and also hopefully you trust their opinion. What I tend to do—I don’t know if this is what most people do—but if I come up with a story, the way I write is William and I will sit around it, we’ll sit around the table for two days or three days and thrash it out. We’ll thrash out a story which we’ll put down on paper, maybe ten pages and call it a treatment. Then we’ll just do a more detailed treatment. You write detailed treatments would be “Julie goes to see John to discuss the affair. Nothing comes of it. That’s that scene. Then ultimately you have to do the draft and write it. I like to have sort of an outline, if you like, a ten-page outline of the screenplay and then what will happen is William and I usually if it’s a double like with A Lonely Place to Die, I’ll take these two characters that are following down this route, why don’t you work on this story for a little bit. And then we’ll go over one another’s work and work on it together and blah, blah, blah. We go off and then we come back to one another. It feels very organic.

 

Ashley: Let’s talk a little bit about filmmaking sort of in general. Can you give us some sort of great general tips. I mentioned to you this in the pre-interview, I get a lot of questions from people from the UK that say how can I break in? I’m not from the UK so I don’t really know, but I wonder if you have some tips for people in the UK, young writers, maybe they want to direct. How can they potentially get their stuff out there and try and break in?

 

Julian:   Yeah. I mean, I would say honestly, I mean, my advice—I wish I had done it a few years ago—is for them to write their best spec script and get it to a really good agency and maybe in the meantime instead of doing a really low budget feature film is to spend—because some people can go into a feature film for ten grand and for every one that’s good there are a hundred that aren’t good, and so maybe instead of shooting a feature film for ten grand or whatever you can rustle up, beg, borrow, or steal even if it’s five grand or less if it’s a grand, instead do a much slicker short film. What would even be more interesting is if you, for example, write your spec script to the best ability that you can and then maybe choose a couple of scenes from that spec script and then shoot them to the highest value, I mean, that’s what the guy who did Thor—he wrote the screenplay to Thor and he spent ten grand shooting five minutes of it. For that amount of money I can do the lighting, I can show people what it’s like. People watching can go whoa! This is slick and they go yea, there’s the script. Bang! That’s a very good idea of doing it. That’s something that I will do and continue to do which is to shoot instead of a mini-slick sort of five-minute short film/trailer to the screenplay that you’re handing out.

 

Ashley: So that’s interesting. I’m surprised I guess a little bit because that was not the route that you took. You did Reckoning Day where you did exactly what you said. You shot the feature.

 

Julian:   That was straight out of university, and that was also 14 years ago. It just creaked a couple of doors open because I got it out to a sales agent, but now yes because I wanted to make an action movie maybe flex my muscles, it would have been more sensible to have perhaps done a couple of shorts because what I kept finding was that I kept trying to improve it and trying to improve it and patch up the early stuff we’d shot because we now had this, it was difficult. It is not a route I would do unless you had a very, very strong script. I’m not talking maybe two or three years out of film school, but initially it’s sort of good to get some advice. That screenplay, get a good spec script, by all means shoot a feature film, sure, but Reckoning Day was just an action made. Maybe 13, 14, or 15 years ago it would grab people’s attention and they say oh, there is some skill there but it’s ten a penny nowadays.

 

Ashley: And you don’t think, though, doing Reckoning Day didn’t—maybe it just only creaked a few doors open, but that didn’t give you competence and do Rolling with the Nines which eventually led to your next—

 

Julian:   Yes, I suppose it did only in that in a very strange way, but Reckoning Day had better UK sales agent who then introduced me to a couple of producers that had also worked with him on one of them, had this story or rather new somebody else. It was one of those he [inaudible 0:27:39.1] so it does open a few doors but again, this was sort of awhile back. Now I would say get that screenplay tighter, get that screenplay better.

 

Ashley: Let’s kind of wrap up here and talk about what does sort of the future have for you and maybe you can talk about even as far out as ten or twenty years. What are kind of the goals that you have going forward?

 

Julian:   I suppose my goal is really not to remain in one genre. I think it’s unfair especially in America where filmmakers go to America and a lot of people like to be labeled, oh you’re the [inaudible 0:28:21.1] guy; he’s the horror guy. That’s the action/adventure guy; that’s the romance guy, and that’s not necessarily what I want to do. I definitely want to be able to jump between genres. I mean, look at Matthew Warren, for example, Stardust is a light fairy tale if you like, a good fun fairy tale followed right up with kick-ass which is possibly the most violent superhero movie and my personal favorite superhero movie. In that respect, weaving around, I’m working on a science fiction project and I’m also working on a project with the producer Lloyd Levin who produced Hellboy, United 93, Green Zone. I’m working on a film at the moment with him which is going to be shot out in China which is set in the 15th century. It’s not my screenplay. I also have another screenplay that I’m working with him on which is a science fiction project which is still not finished and I think it’s got a good six months of writing left on that. But you know there are some really exciting projects as well as my [inaudible 0:29:36.4] in a film called [inaudible 0:29:37.0] which is an American road movie so movie sets have all over the world, just things that interest me. I’m 39 now and I really want to explore and definitely why would anybody want to stay in just one specific genre all the time? It’s nice to sort of—if you take every night of the week, you don’t want to watch the same thing every night. Why do we have to sort of work on the same thing sort of every night?

 

Ashley: Yes, for sure. Julian, this has been a great interview. We covered a lot of ground and gotten a lot of great information. I really appreciate it. What’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing and follow you?

 

Julian:   They can follow me on Twitter. I always keep people abreast on that definitely. That’s an interesting plan I should say, the ABC’s of Death 2 which has just come out has just premiered, a fantastic in Strasburg in France. Both are interesting projects because again back to that short film thing, the basic is 26 directors and you were chosen and you’re given a letter of the alphabet and you’re basically given three-and-a-half minutes and a few grand and told go off and make a sure film. It’s an interesting fun—you know, but I mean the original ABC’s of Death had Adam Waingard who is the guest and you’re next and many others and in the ABC’s of Death 2, it’s got some really interesting directors along with myself. It’s a real honor when you’re asked by the festival directors of Fantasia, all of these festivals, when you’re asked to participate in one of these projects, it’s really exciting.

 

Ashley: For sure. So I will link to your Twitter account in the show notes so if anybody’s looking for that, they can find it and click directly over there. Once again, Julian, this has been a great interview. You covered a lot of ground. I really appreciate it.

 

Julian:   No problem. Really nice to talk to you. Thanks very much for having me on your show.

 

Ashley: One last question, Julian, can you tell us when Plastic will be out. I always like to ask that in case people want to catch it, maybe you know when it’s going to be released.

 

Julian:   In the States it is out tomorrow I’m pretty sure. No, sorry, Friday, the 26th.

 

Ashley: September 26. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Is it going to be [inaudible 0:32:37.7] movies or just video on demand?

 

Julian:   It’s a bit of both. It is out in limited theater and also on Video on Demand as far as I am aware.

 

Ashley: Okay. Perfect. So once again, Julian, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

 

Julian:   Thank you. Thank you.

 

Ashley: I’m going to be running another online class called How to Make the Opening Pages of your Screenplay awesome. This is probably my favorite class to teach. I actually learn a lot by preparing for these classes and reading the various scripts we’re going to cover in them. So hopefully you’ll learn a lot too. It goes without saying how important the opening pages are for your screenplay. If your opening pages don’t hook the reader, there is very little chance that the reader will continue to read the script. So it really doesn’t matter how great the rest of it is, if your opening pages are not great. I’m going to break down the opening pages for a bunch of great screenplays including Legally Blonde, Shawshank Redemption, Natural Born Killers, and a few others as well. This is the third class in this series which is going to guide you through the entire screenwriting process from coming up with a marketable concept to outlining the screenplay to writing the script to actually taking it out and marketing it. If you missed the first two classes, no problem. I record them and have them in the Sys Select form for you to listen to at your leisure. This class is going to be on Saturday, November15 at 10:00 AM Pacific time. If you’d like to learn more about this class, go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/classes. Also, if you’re listening to this after the class has taken place, that’s not a problem either. I will record this class and put it in the Sys select form as well. In fact, all the classes that I’ve done and taught through Sys Select are recorded and are in the forum for members to listen to. At this point we have more than a dozen classes covering the whole screenwriting process in there now. So to learn more about Sys Select, just go to www.sellingyourscreenplayselect.com.

 

In the next episode of Selling Your Screenplay podcast I’m going to be interviewing Arnold Rudnick. Arnold is a television writer. Over the course of his career he sold several TV spec scripts. We talk about how he did it so if you’re interested in TV writing, you don’t want to miss this episode so keep an eye out for that episode next week.

 

Just a quick couple of parting notes about the interview today with Julian. He’s another writer/director who really got his start just getting out there and making a low budget feature film. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really believe that the key to success in this industry is taking action. The first step is obviously writing a script, but then it’s really about getting out there and getting your script made too and not waiting around for a producer to decide if she wants to make it or not. As I said a couple of weeks ago, I’m really starting to see a pattern emerge here. It just seems like being a writer/director is a more complete package than just being a writer so kind of take that under advisement as well.

 

Also, his movie, he talks about in the interview that he did a couple of years ago called A Lonely Place to Die, it’s available right now on Netflix and On Demand so I would highly recommend you check it out if you have a moment. I just watched it a few days ago. It’s a well-crafted thriller and I highly recommend it. I think it’s interesting, too, as I interview British filmmakers vs. American filmmakers, the Brits seem to have a more artistic bent to them whereas the American filmmakers, and I include myself in this are much more practical and pragmatic, just trying to get stuff made whether it has any artistic merit or not. I just kind of got the sense talking to Julian, that he really did have kind of an artistic soul and was really looking to make something that fulfilled that artistic sensibility that he has.

 

Anyway, that’s the show. Thank you for listening.