This is a transcript of SYS 474 – From Photographer To Filmmaker With Carter Smith .
Welcome to Episode 474, the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger with sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I’m interviewing writer director Carter Smith. He just did a really cool indie film called Swallowed. We dig into this film and how he was able to get it produced, as well as talking about some of his earlier projects, directing music videos and working as a professional photographer as a jumping off point to his film career. This film was shot in Maine, where he’s from so it’s a nice template for creating movies far outside of the Hollywood system. So, stay tuned for that interview.
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Ashley
Welcome Carter to the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Carter Smith
Thank you so much for having me, man. Happy to be here.
Ashley
Hey, thank you. So, to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background? Where do you grow up? And how did you get interested in the entertainment business?
Carter Smith
I grew up in rural Maine, you know, very small town and had always been sort of fascinated by films and filmmaking, but grew up at a time when like, we didn’t all have iPhones in our pockets and sort of filmmaking felt like, you know, it was a little bit out of reach, like it required all this equipment and like big crews and so I started dabbling in photography. And that ended up being my sort of first career as a fashion photographer, which was you know, about creating images and telling stories through imagery. And I didn’t really come around to filmmaking until about 10 years later when I made my first short film, you know, so it’s like, sort of a roundabout way to come to filmmaking.
Ashley
Yeah. And I’m curious. That’s interesting. So. for photography, I noticed on IMDb, you have a good number of credits as a music video director, and I’m curious so did you use that was the transition you started doing shorter? Did you transition from photography to music videos?
Carter Smith
I’ve done like, three music videos, like I haven’t done that many. So, it was never like, I wasn’t one of those guys that like did commercials and music videos. I was very much like stills. And then you know, films and short films. I mean, I’ve done I’ve done there is actually another Carter Smith, who is a music video guy who does a ton of them. So, like a lot of people were like, I can’t believe you did Jane’s Addiction. Like that’s not me, like different Carter Smith. So, like, and also because like the films that I make are dark and horror and like sort of twisted. And then my stills are pretty and commercial and you know, sort of accessible. Like there’s a real kind of two sides of the coin thing that like they don’t relate to each other in a lot of people’s eyes.
Ashley
Fascinating. So, let’s dig into your latest film called Swallowed. Maybe to start out, you can give us a quick pitch or logline what does this film all about?
Carter Smith
Oh, yeah, it’s about to two friends who agreed to deliver a package over the border into Canada and end up in this sort of backwoods hell of drugs and bugs and a horrific intimacy that kind of changes them forever.
Ashley
And so where did this idea come from? And I’m curious, just I noticed again, on IMDb, you had a movie called Bug Crush. As a short one of your first shorts. Was that sort of some somehow inspire for this, but just in bit in general, where was this idea come from? What is the genesis of this?
Carter Smith
Yeah, so Bug Crush was my first short and that was adapted from the short story by Scott Tre leaven, who, you know, has an amazing story. And, you know, it’s a film that I love, and I’m super proud of, and I always wanted to do something that was in the same universe, like, you know, Bug Crush, I shot in Maine with a kind of tiny little crew and, and, you know, then went on to make, you know, some other sort of bigger films, and had always wanted to return to this sort of world of bug crush, and this sort of the rural dark Maine that I grew up then that sort of inspired, you know, a big part of my love for, but like writing the scripts, like it was, it was very much a result of me saying like, okay, what’s a film that I can I can make with five or six, seven friends and we can go out and we can do it and we’re not going to have to wait around for anyone else to finance it or to give us permission or to, you know, sort of, I’m not going to be hitting notes. And I’m not going to be like, you know, I wanted to kind of avoid the traditional development process.
Ashley
So, let’s talk about that the actual writing of the screenplay, just in general, I’d like to get a sense of sort of writers how they go about their business. And do you typically write in the morning? Do you typically have a home office, you go out to Starbucks, you need the ambience is just sort of when you’re in a writing mode? What is your day look like?
Carter Smith
Yeah so, I mean, I start every day with morning pages, Julia Cameron’s morning pages sort of routine. So, I start with that. And then if I’m in a writing mode, I will try to go directly into, you know, a chunk of time devoted to screenwriting. But if it happens at night, then I run with that I’ll take it wherever I can get it, basically. But I wrote this, I was in Maine, and I was at my place, I was there alone. And it was very much like, you know, there wasn’t a lot else going on. So, I was really able to focus on it in a way that I find more difficult in, you know, sort of the real world of New York or whatever else, real life puts them in the way of getting down.
Ashley
Yeah. And I’m curious, how much time do you spend and we can use this film as a sort of an example, how much time do you spend outlining index cards, just writing notes, versus how much time do you spend in Final Draft cranking out script pages?
Carter Smith
It’s so funny, because like, this particular project was completely different from how I normally I outline and I put everything on cards, and it’s all on the wall, and I’m moving it around, and I’m looking at it for weeks before I put any words on the page, what I did with this, which was incredibly helpful was, instead, I put on each card, I put everything that I had, like I had a white Jeep, I had a cabin in the woods, I had, like, I put all of those things on the board. And I sort of challenged myself to write using only those elements, and if I started to veer off into like a scene in a hospital, I was like, I don’t have a hospital, I’m not going to write that. So, it was a weird sort of set of limitations that I put on myself that, you know, it took a little getting used to, but once it came time to shoot, it was like, oh, yeah, I’ve got you know, I’ve got the white sheep, I have the cabin, like, I’ve got everything I need, and I don’t have to pay for any of it, which was kind of the point.
Ashley
So, what is your development process? You mentioned on this one, it sounds like from the very start, you knew you wanted to shoot it yourself. But what is the development process on something like this look like? Do you send it out to the actors and get some notes from them? The other people involved in the film, do you have some trusted writer friends? Just how did that process go on swallowed.
Carter Smith
Yeah, so I didn’t send it to actors right away. I was I was writing, you know, Mark Patton, who plays Rich, I had him in mind for that character. As I was writing, I sort of had Jenna Malone in mind for Alice, because we had worked together before. And, you know, I knew that I could hopefully talk her into coming up to Maine to shoot a film. And then Jose who plays Dom, like I, you know, I had him in mind for that role. So, it was kind of, you know, I like to write with someone in mind, even if that doesn’t end up happening. And then, you know, my editor, who’s also a sound designer, who’s I’ve done a bunch of projects with, I shared a lot of early drafts with him. He’s sort of a trusted early reader. But on this one, it was incredibly fast. Like, I’ve spent years working on scripts. This one I started writing in December. And you know, by March, how to draft that was, we were prepping because we shot in June. So, it’s like, it’s never happened that fast for me before. But it this time, they just seemed to kind of speed along.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. How do you approach screenplay structure? There’s sort of the Blake Snyder Syd field templates, where they have very strict turning points and act breaks and stuff. How do you approach screenplay structure, especially something like this that’s sort of an indie horror film?
Carter Smith
Yeah, I mean, you know, I’m normally you know, I, I will break things up into four acts, and just make sure that those turning points are in place and sort of build out from there. This one, like I said, it was a little bit different in that I just, I didn’t have an outline, I just sat down and wrote and I just wrote whatever I ended up, you know, I sort of let the let the pages dictate where I went. The one thing that I did on this also, which was, you know, this one Know the producer and me and sort of knowing what it was going to be, like shooting. So, I was like, okay, you know, in a film like this, we’re probably going to have to shoot five, six pages a day. And so, I know that on any one day, I am not going to want to be at two locations. So, every scene has to be at least six pages, you know, so that we’re never moved. There’s no two-page scenes, there’s no three-page scenes, it’s very much was created with a schedule in mind so that I was okay. It will be one full day here, where we’re going to do 12 pages, and we’re going to do two full days here. And that was super helpful when it came to actually scheduling the shoot.
Ashley
What about genre requirements? I mean, just taking a look at this, it felt sort of sci fi horror, like the fly, you know, has that sort of things? Just what were some of the inspirations for this? And how do you approach something like this? You know, there’s the old adage, given the same thing, but different. This is certainly, you know, in a genre, how did you give us something original? And what were sort of the other films that maybe led up to this for you?
Carter Smith
Yeah, I mean, I think that the, you know, the same but different. I mean, I think that that, you know, in a lot of ways, this is like, you know, this was a crime thriller. This is a body horror, this is like a love story. Like, there’s elements of a lot of different types of stories. I tried to, at every point, I could sort of send these characters in a direction that that they aren’t expecting, and then we as an audience aren’t expecting, like, the film on unfolds sort of in real time. And so, I liked the idea of the audience being in the same space, as, you know, Benjamin and, and Dom and like, when something happens to them, we’re sort of sent off in that same direction. So, like, I, you know, I wanted it to be horrific. I wanted to be, you know, sort of intimate and personal. You know, I think that a lot of the films that I looked at, or that I was thinking about when I was writing this weren’t necessarily films that I was inspired by the content, but they were films that I was inspired by, like, how the filmmakers went about making the movie, like sort of micro budget for the whole sort of mumble Gore movement, you know, with there’s a movie called Sun, sun don’t shine, I think it is. And like, there’s, you know, or she dies tomorrow, and all of these sort of, like, micro budget indies that just sort of defy the limitations of their budgets to tell stories that are deeply personal and sort of affecting.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. How can people see Swallow? Do you know what the release schedule is going to be like? When is it going to be available?
Carter Smith
Valentine’s Day, and it’ll be available on VOD and digital platforms to rent and buy and yeah, it’s like a weird messed up.
Ashley
Yeah. Sounds like the perfect way to curl up on the couch. Yeah. What’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Anything you’re comfortable sharing I will put in the show notes.
Carter Smith
Yeah, this is my Instagram is all_the_dead_boys. I mean, it’s one of them. And there’s also CarterbedlowSmith, but and then you can I do a little like, weird, dark, sexy newsletter on Fridays called Dirty Little Fridays, which people can sign up for at allthedeadboys.com
Ashley
Okay, perfect. Perfect. Yeah, we’ll link to all of that. And I just like to end the interview. Is there anything you’ve seen recently, HBO, Netflix, Hulu, that you can recommend to our screenwriting audience? What have you been watching that you thought was really great?
Carter Smith
It’s maybe not a traditional screen or anything. I am in love with this movie, The out waters, which is a found footage, like I have not, I’m not a found footage fan normally. But I think that there’s something about the out waters and found footage specifically that I’m kind of fascinated by and sort of curious about what that process is, like of, you know, of writing a film like that, or letting it unravel and unfold sort of in real time.
Ashley
Gotcha. Yeah, that’s a great recommendation. So well, Carter, thank you for coming on and chatting with me. Good luck with this film and good luck with all your future films as well.
Carter Smith
Thank you so much.
Ashley
Thank you. We’ll talk to you later.
A quick plug for the SYS Screenwriting Analysis Service. It’s a really economical way to get a high-quality professional evaluation on your screenplay. When you buy our three pack, you get evaluations at just $67 per script for feature films, and just $55 for teleplays. All the readers have professional experience reading for studios, production companies, contests and agencies. You can read a short bio on each reader on our website, and you can pick the reader who you think is the best fit for your script. Turnaround time is usually just a few days but rarely more than a week. The readers will evaluate your script on six key factors; Concept, Character, Structure, Marketability, Tone, and overall Craft which includes formatting, spelling and grammar. Every script will get a grade a pass, consider or recommend, which should help you roughly understand where your script might rank if you were to submit it to a production company or agency. We can provide an analysis on features or television scripts. We also do proofreading without any analysis. We will also look at a treatment or outline and give you the same analysis on it. So, if you’re looking to vet some of your project ideas, this is a great way to do it. We will also write your logline and synopsis for you. You can add this logline and synopsis writing service to an analysis or you can simply purchase this service as a standalone product. As a bonus, if your screenplay gets a recommend or a consider from one of our readers, you get to list the screenplay in the SYS select database, which is a database for producers to find screenplays and a big part of our SYS select program. Producers are in the database searching for material on a daily basis, so it’s another great way to get your material in front of them. As a further bonus, if your script gets a recommend from one of our readers, your screenplay will get included in our monthly best of newsletter. Each month, we send out a newsletter that highlights the best screenplays that have come through our script analysis service. This is a monthly newsletter that goes out to our list of over 400 producers who are actively looking for material. So again, this is another great way to get your material out there. So, if you want a professional evaluation of your screenplay at a very reasonable price, check out www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/consultants. Again, that’s sellingyourscreenplay.com/consultants.
On the next episode of the podcast, I’m going to be interviewing writer and director Corey Deshawn. He has a great story. He was just a kid with a dream when he moved to Hollywood. And he just started networking getting low level PA jobs in the industry, worked his way up started writing and television and now has a new feature film out called Daughter starring Casper Van Dien. So, keep an eye out for that episode next week. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.