This is a transcript of SYS 521 – AI Filmmaking and Interview With Writer/Director William Eubank .
Welcome to Episode 521, the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter blogger over at sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I am interviewing William Eubank who is an indie filmmaker with a lot of passion for making movies. One of his early projects was actually a contained sci-fi story set in a spaceship, and he personally built the spaceship set in his parent’s backyard. So, we talked about that a little bit, and ultimately how those early films of his led to his latest film Land of Bad starring Liam Hemsworth and Russell Crowe. This is the film is a film he directed and co-wrote and we dig into this latest project and really talk about how that all came together for him as well. So, stay tuned for that interview.
SYS’s six figure screenplay contest is open for submissions, just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. Our regular deadline is May 31st. So, if your script is ready, definitely submit now to save money. We’re looking for low budget shorts and features. I’m defining low budget as less than six figures. In other words, less than 1 million US dollars. We’ve got lots of industry judges reading scripts in the later rounds, we’re giving away 1000s in cash and prizes. We have a short film script category as well 30 pages or less. So, if you have a low budget short script, by all means, submit that one. I’ve got a number of industry judges who are specifically looking for short scripts, so hopefully we can find a home for some of these short scripts as well. If you want to submit or learn more about the contest, just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest.
Also, again this year, we are running an in-person Film Festival in tandem with our screenplay contest. It is like our screenplay contest. It is a film festival for low budget films produced for less than 1 million US dollars. We have featured and shorts category the festival is going to take place here in Los Angeles, California from October 4th to October 6th. So, if you have a film and you it’s low budget, please do take a look at our landing page. And just see if you think this might be a good fit for your film. We have a page on our website www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/festival but that will just direct you over to our FilmFreeWay page where we’re actually taking the Film submissions. They have a more robust submission platform for accepting submissions. So all the film festival submissions actually go through FilmFreeWay. We also will take screenplay submissions through Film Freeway as well. So, if you’re on Film Freeway, and you have a script and want to submit there as well, that’s totally fine. But we do take the screenplay contest entries, www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. And we also take them through cover fly. Cover fly is another one of these aggregation sites that has a lot of screenwriters in it. So we get a lot of submissions from them as well. So, if you’re on cover fly, if you’re on FilmFreeWay, you know, no problem at all. Just submit through those services. And it’ll all end up back at Selling Your Screenplay. But of course, you can go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest, if you’d like to submit directly to us.
If you find this episode valuable, please help me out by giving me a review in 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 521. If you want my free guide How to Sell a Screenplay in five weeks can pick that up by going to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide, it is 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. 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 is everything you need to know to sell your screenplay, just go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide.
So now just a couple of quick words about what I’m working on. I’ve been talking about this for the last couple of months. But I’m still working on this big Server migration project and sellingyourscreenplay.com is obviously a part of that. But I have a number of other websites, too that I run and those are on the server. So, it’s just taken a lot longer than I had originally planned. But the good news is I am almost done, hopefully here in the next week or two. So, by mid-April, let’s say I should be done with that and hopefully can get back to some screenwriting and filmmaking real soon. So, I just want to take a minute today and talk about AI. There’s been a lot about AI in the news and how it’s going to affect the entertainment business and then ultimately how it’s going to affect writers specifically. So, the first thing I want to say about AI is obviously I’m not an expert, I definitely have experience in entertainment business definitely have experienced with screenwriting, but I’m definitely not an expert at AI. So, there’s anybody who listens to the selling your screenplay podcasts who works in the AI field or really has some expertise in this, please just reach out to me, I’d love to have you on the podcast and kind of hear your thoughts from really the AI perspective.
But I’ll give you my perspective. And there’s definitely two parts of this that I see. The first piece of AI is what we’re hearing about, you know, and a lot of it sounds like the strike the writer strike the actor strike was a big piece of this was, you know, writers and actors are concerned that AI will be able to just churn out an entire screenplay. And that’s, you know, obviously, that would take jobs away from us. But I’m a little skeptical of that is that whether that’s actually going to happen anytime soon. It just feels like we’re a long ways for that. I listened to this author on Tik Tok, Jason Parkin, and he actually wrote the book for John dies at the end. And he’s written a number of novels. He’s a writer. Yeah, he’s a really funny guy. I think he’s almost more of a comedian than anything else, but very funny guy. And he just posts interesting Tik Toks. And he had one on AI. And he made the point, which I totally agree with is that, you know, for AI, when you go to AI and say, recommend a pizza place that give me the best pizza place in New York City. It’s hard to imagine that any machine or any creature, any device, or anything, could really successfully recommend pizza when they themselves have never actually experienced or tasted pizza. And I think there’s a real valid point in that, you know, the self-driving, we’ve been hearing about self-driving cars now for probably 10 years, oh, we’re almost there, almost there to self-driving. And when you dig into it, they pretty much have self-driving on the freeways, the sort of the broad strokes of it work well in probably, and they’re probably like, 90%, there. It’s that last 10%, that’s really tough. I heard a little video of some guy that was testing out the AI. And he said, you know, on the freeway, it can change lanes, it can get off the freeway and avoid traffic, avoid accidents, avoid traffic. So, on the freeway, where there’s a very finite number of choices, it does really well. But then this vehicle got off the road, and it went down like a one-way street. And that was like parking from like 6am to 9am. And so it was getting stuck behind these parked cars, I couldn’t figure that.
So, you know, those are the sorts of real intricate details that I think come into play when you start talking about AI and what it can really do. There’s nuance, there’s life experience, and there’s taste. I mean, it’s not just, you know, when we go to see a Quentin Tarantino movie, his sort of taste and point of view is very distinct. And that’s kind of why we’re there. So again, I just, I’m skeptical that AI is going to really master that soon. I mean, it just, it feels like it’s a long-ways from creating a full blown screenplay of a story that a human would actually want to go and see. And I’ve actually got in there and tested this, I’ve tried to do a couple scenes, and I’ve mentioned this on a podcast before, you know, maybe for my next script, I might actually use it to help with the vomit draft, just give it some seeds to write pull them out, and then rewrite them.
My mother, who actually runs a garden blog, which is one of the other sites that’s on my server and the server migration. She does a garden blog. And she’s real progressive on some of these technology things and likes to try things out. And so, she’s been using it for her garden blog. And I’m just going into AI and sort of getting it again to do sort of a rough draft. But you know, she tells me about the mistakes it makes. And it’s you know, it’s sort of laughable at this stage, some of just the huge mistakes it make, but it does seem to give her sort of a first draft, and it kind of gets her over that hump. So again, it’s a tool. But is that really going to just out of whole cloth even if you feed it a story idea, is that really going to be able to come back to you with a fully fleshed out screenplay that’s fun and enjoyable and is a page turner? I’m skeptical. Again, I just think we have a ways to go before that act actually happens, eventually. Sure. I mean, I, you know, I’m very bullish on technology. I love technology. And I do think that there’s almost no limits to what we can achieve with technology, but I’m not sure that they will do this in my lifetime, frankly. I mean, to write this fully fleshed out screenplay, let’s just say you feed it an idea or a logline and then just pumps out a screenplay for you. I mean, you’re going to need a fully sentient computer like it’s just it’s not just a, you know, it’s a mechanical process that you can just put something in and it can, you know, the ones and the zeros and it spits back this piece of art. It’s just not a mechanical process that feels all that simple.
Now, with that said, and this is the piece that I think will affect writers and I mean, I take a step back, I do think actors have a big problem, I think the service that they provide to the entertainment industry, I think that that can be digitized, and probably will be digitized in the next 5-10 years. I think famous people, you know, they have a brand and so they will be able to license their image and likeness out just as you know, famous athletes and famous celebrities do now. So, I think once you can achieve a certain amount of fame, I think actors, you will be fine. But I don’t know, like extra some of these smaller roles that don’t require a great deal of acting ability, you know, a waitress in the background, I mean, I just sort of feel like a lot of those types of roles, they will ultimately be replaced by AI. And again, this is not me saying I want that or…I don’t wish you know, Ill on any of my actor friends. But I definitely do see it as an issue, that’s going to hit them a lot sooner than it hits the screenwriters. And so, you know, thinking about that, that’s where I think the screenwriters will, or filmmakers will be impacted by AI. Some of the new stuff that I’ve seen coming out with video, I this was maybe a month ago now, but one of the AI companies released some sort of a thing where you could put in a sentence, and it would actually pump out, you know, a 90 second, or 60 second, or 30 second video, you know, basically using your description, and they the videos weren’t bad, the again, they were sort of wide shots. So, you’re not getting that sort of real detail on people’s faces and expressions and emotions. But you’re getting some sort of broad shots of wide shots, sort of the establishing shots. And I’ve heard from other filmmakers, and I’ve seen this, I’ve read about this where you know, things like a teaser trailer, creating a trailer before you shoot your movie, creating a little promo video, before you do a Kickstarter, that’s where I think these AI tools in the very near term, like in the next year or two will be quite helpful, you know, we’ll be able to just very cheaply and easily, you know, get some pretty high quality video, maybe it won’t pass muster, you know, compared to a studio movie, or something like that. But I bet we’ll be able to get sort of some rough draft type video here in just the next year or two by just typing in a sentence, and we’ll put that out. So ultimately, then then the goal clearly is going to be just feeding your entire screenplay into that AI, and it’s just going to pump out the polished film. And that sort of a tool, I do think is probably closer, a lot closer than what people are talking about where a sentient computer can actually create art, you know, that that humans are actually interested in looking at. That’s, to me, in my mind, in my view, that’s a much bigger step than creating a mechanical tool, that’s just frankly, just a little bit better than what we already have. We’re not that far out far enough away. And again, it’s a more mechanical process, just feeding in a couple of sentences and outputting a video to illustrate what you fed into it. It’s not nearly as much as the nuance and the taste, and that sort of stuff that comes into play. So that’s sort of where I see it going. And as a filmmaker, myself, obviously, I’m a screenwriter, but I’m also a filmmaker. That’s where I’m excited and frankly, kind of keeping my eye on and I want to be one of the first people once this sort of gets going. I love to play with those tools and to start to figure out how can I as just a indie filmmaker, you know, as from a producer standpoint, it’ll make you, if it’s going to be AI generating all this stuff, you don’t even really worry about budget of your film, you can have as many actors, you can have car crashes, you can have helicopters, you know, crashing into the White House, whatever you want. If it’s going to do it digitally, it’s not going to make any difference on the budget. And that’s exciting. And I think that’s where I think filmmakers could really benefit. And I think as a screenwriter, I think that’s something to start to think about yourself. You know, there’s always going to be a need for a good screenplay, at least, you know, in my lifetime, I would think as I said, I don’t think it’s the computers are going to be churning out high quality screenplays anytime soon.
But some of this other stuff should get us thinking a little bit. Okay, what are we going to do when you can just feed in a screenplay and the entire movie is output? A polished, you know, studio level movie is output? What is that going to be? What is that going to do to the entertainment history? Well, what is going to do is going to put a lot of the power on the people that can write these high-quality screenplays are the people that know how to write a screenplay and ultimately utilize these tools. But if you can write a good screenplay, and utilize these tools, I guess if you don’t want to be a producer or director, you could just write the good screenplay and then give it to someone That’s maybe more technical and understands how to use these AI tools. But I sort of liked that stuff. I like directing, I like sort of be the master of my own domain. So, for me, this is very, very exciting. And as I said, I’m looking for opportunities.
Now, the test that I saw a couple of weeks ago was like a beta test, I didn’t don’t know anybody or how to get in. So, I wasn’t able to get in there and start to use that. But I would definitely say keep an eye on this stuff. And, you know, certainly for short films, or, or whatever, you know, people can start to pump some of this stuff out. And we can kind of just see the quality of it. And again, this is not something that’s going to happen tomorrow, I’m saying this is probably like a five- or 10-year period before really something like this is, is to the point where it’s commercially available, you can just feed in a screenplay, it could be 20 years. I mean, it could be a while, but I do think that’s on the horizon, as opposed to a fully sentient computer that can just churn out an entire work of art. You know, that final 10%, of going from, sort of this mechanical process of taking a screenplay and turning it into a movie. That’s pretty straightforward in a lot of ways. And, again, the people that use these tools, the directors, the producers, the maybe there’ll be a cinematographer, a lighting guy or something, you know, there’ll be different positions and different people that still, it’ll probably be some collaboration. And there’ll be people that are experts at the lighting, and they’ll know how to tweak these tools. They’ll know how to what to write in the prompts. And that stuff is all going to be very, very valuable. But again, I still think at the core of all this stuff is going to be good storytelling, the people that know how to write good screenplays, the people that know how to write good stories, compelling stories, stories that get people excited, that stories that get people motivated to come and watch them. I think that’s where I think that’s where a lot of the magic is going to happen. And I think that’s where this is headed in the in the near term. So that’s some of my thoughts on AI. Again, if you work in the space or have some expertise in the space, by all means, reach out to me info@sellingyourscreenplay.com, I’d love to hear your thoughts on and perhaps do a podcast episode with you. So anyways, those are some of the things I had been working on. Now. Let’s get into the main segment. Today, I’m interviewing filmmaker William Eubank. Here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome, William to the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. Really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
William Eubank
Hey, thank you so much for having me. This is great.
Ashley
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?
William Eubank
I grew up kind of just north of Santa Barbara and this sort of ranching community called like Santa Ynez, or there’s like a Danish community out there called Soul gang. But we were out on a ranch with a bunch of horses. And yeah, I just knew, I loved, my mom was like a children’s book author, illustrator. And I, I just loved art. And I either wanted to like go into the Navy, which my grandfather had gone to Annapolis. So, I was like, I either wanted to, like, try to go fly jets, or I wanted to make movies. And in the end, I was really bad at math. Like, I was barely surviving all my, like calculus classes and everything. And I knew in order to be a pilot, like you had to be at the top of your class at Annapolis. And that means you’re an engineer. So, I knew that I was going to have a hard time going that way. And I went to, I think it was the first year they had, or at least the first year they had it here in Los Angeles, I went to the New York Film Academy. And back then it was kind of this amazing program where you shot on the universal backlog. We shot 16 millimeters, we caught on old steam backs. And that’s when I knew like I just loved. I loved filmmaking and that’s what I was going to do. So from there on out. I was like, okay, I got to get into a film school and do all that. And, unfortunately, film school didn’t really work out. I spent two years at UCLA, because you had to do the UCLA undergrad, program first. And then you can apply to the or the general ed, you had to finish your general ed then you could apply to you have your major be film, and unfortunately did not make it in I like missed my interview. And the crazy thing is this. I used to give this girl ride to Santa Barbara back up where I lived every weekend, and she was always like, I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I would always tell her, well, I’m going to the film school. And then she called me because I left UCLA after I didn’t get it and she calls me she said, Well, where are you? I thought you were going to the film school. I’m like, Nah, I didn’t get it. She’s like, Oh, well, you inspired me to apply it. I got it. And I’m like, Oh my God. What?
Ashley
So, how did that dovetail in with the what you said the New York Film Academy?
William Eubank
Film Academy… Sorry, that was like a summer camp. I should have said that okay, what was just like a two week or maybe it was like a month program. It was a summer camp. So, I did that when I was like, I think I just turned 16 years old. And then yeah, so obviously, real school was a lot later, New York Film Academy was like, dip your toe in the water program.
Ashley
And so, then so you leave UCLA and where did you end up going?
William Eubank
From there, I went to Brooks Institute of Photography, and I started learning photography up basically in Santa Barbara. And then I got a job, an internship at Panavision. And that’s when I really started to lean into to that I ended up actually dropping out of Brooks Institute of Photography, because they wouldn’t take my gen ed from UCLA, it was like crazy. I was like, I already did all my gen ed and can’t do it again. And so, I was like, I’d screw it, I’m just going to start working, Panavision gave me a job. And then I really was very, very fortunate because I basically started working at Panavision, just at the birth of like, big films using digital. And it was right around the time where I was like, is it all going to go digital, are people going to go digital. And so most of the technicians that pan division stayed fill film, and nobody really wants to learn all the video cameras. So, I was like, I guess I’ll just do this because nobody’s doing it. And then that did not realize how strong of a sort of knowledge that would be or just was a huge foot in the door because suddenly, Panavision was sending me on collateral and they were sending me on Superman, like anywhere something digital was being shot, I ended up working on those sets. And that really kind of was another form of film school, I guess you could say.
Ashley
I noticed on IMDb, you have a ton of cinematography credits, really, some of which are even before you’re writing and directing credits. So, is this how you’re sort of getting into the business get some gigs?
William Eubank
Yeah. So, I started Panavision, they were like, I still consider panda vision, my film school, they would let me take the cameras on the weekends. They were always hooking me up with gear for free. And back then like, I mean, I don’t even know I’m sure you can’t do this anymore. But yeah, they taught me David Dotson and Panavision and Bob Harvey, those guys, they probably let millions of dollars go out the door for me to shoot with. And at one point, I think David Dotson let me keep an F 900 like a big digital cinema camera. Like I like kept it in my cupboard at home for like months, because I was trying to shoot this project on the weekends. And you know, I owe so much Panavision for my career.
Ashley
So, at this point you’re starting to do your work in Panavision, and you’re starting to do some of these weekend projects. At this point, did you know you wanted to write and direct stuff?
William Eubank
No, no, that’s always the goal. This was just my way in, you know, learning, learning the shots learning the language of filmmaking through the lens, you know.
Ashley
And how do you let people know in a appropriate way that today, I’m just the PA here, you know, running around doing any job. But ultimately, I want to be a writer director, how do you just make those connections and not be too pushy about it and not be…?
William Eubank
Never tell anyone. Like I never told anyone. Nobody wants to hear that, you know, not only that, like, when I was younger, I was so enthusiastic. And I was like, you know, I was a seeing a lot. I was an assistant cameraman a lot, I was changing. I had film bags, I might, I had to buy my own film bag, which was $300, which back then was so much money for me. And like, you know, I’m like changing mags inside these things. And, you know, you never tell them people like – Hey, I’m going to be a drag. Nobody cares. Like, you know, so I was just like, you know, you’re just dreaming your own stories up, you’re always writing them down. I have so many booklets of my old ideas. And you know, you just I was, I guess what I’m saying also is I was so enthusiastic to just actually be working on sets and doing that. That it wasn’t like, they were separate things. It was just, you know, you’re doing this job. And then you’re directing, that’s going to be your own thing. You know, you’re going to do that on your own. So, if you’re saying how do you do that? Or like, how are you convincing someone to let you do that? You have to, of course, like make your own movie. And then show people a finished product.
Ashley
So, how did you get some of those first gigs as a professional cinematography on some of these projects? How did you make that transition?
William Eubank
Well, to become a cinematographer was truly like … Well, it’s funny. That’s where I met my co-writer on this movie. David Progeria, he came into Panavision, and they were trying to shoot something. I said – Hey, man, I do a little cinematography on my own. And I would always like shoot stuff in the prep rooms there and sort of have a little real sight to show people like how I lightened stuff, and I showed it to David, and he was like – Well, this is pretty good. I was like, hey, and I can also like, you know, I get the equipment for free. So, if you let me shoot it, I can kind of hook you up. And you’d be like, okay, that sounds good. And I had so many jobs like that. I mean, I shot like a Tiger Woods commercial for Buick out in like Las Vegas way back in the day. And like, like, they were like, alright, we’ll let you take the cameras. They knew they were giving me jobs. So, Panavision was really giving me the jobs because they were letting me use the equipment for free.
Ashley
Yeah. Even Buick like free cameras.
William Eubank
I mean, it wasn’t really Buick. It was a production company. But yeah, exactly.
Ashley
So, let’s talk about your first feature film, Love. Starring the fantastic Gunner Wright, I actually did a movie with Gunner Wright as well. He was in my first feature as the lead.
William Eubank
No, way! He is my best friend here.
Ashley
I did it in 2016. So, he was actually talking about Love. We actually had some conversations about this film on set coming up. And so maybe just quickly, you can give us a little backstory on this. And I’ll see how it sort of jives with sort of stuff. But it was an impressive production that you sort of put together on your own, correct, but maybe just sort of walk through what Love was, what it was about, and how you made it a reality.
William Eubank
Yeah, that’s a kind of a wild story. Basically, I was. You know, I was working in Panavision. And still, I was doing like, weekend gigs and stuff. And I there was a competition. YouTube was brand new. And YouTube had a competition for Red Hot Chili Peppers, music video, you could just send anything you wanted in. So, I shot a thing. And I didn’t like win or anything like that. But I got in the top 20 or something. And I think one of the guys at Panavision because Panavision would sometimes helped me and you know, there were so many people that were always kind of like helping or ‘oh yeah, we’ll come shoot with you or whatever.’ One of the guides is neighbor was Adam Willard, who was the drummer for Angels and Airwaves, which was Tom DeLonge’s band after Blink 182. He saw it and showed it to Tom. And then Tom called me while I was at work, and he’s like, Wil, oh, my god, I love your stuff. I would love for you to come work for me. And we want to make movies and stuff. And I was like, okay, and he’s like, how much does it cost to hire you? Or like, what’s your…I just like kind of made up some numbers. And it wasn’t much money. But it was like, oh, you know, basically a little more than I was making a Panavision. So, I went to work for Tom. And we started making this like idea for this movie. And we tried to shoot some of it. And it was a disaster. It was so bad. I mean, someday I’ll have to break out this edit. It’s so horrifying. And I realized, like, man, it’s like, I didn’t have enough time to like, make it great. So, I was like, I need to move home. And I’ll just start building the set. So, I can control the story and shoot it on my time in, you know, my parents backyard, essentially. And so that’s what I did. And it took me, I spent probably like $20,000 on Tom’s credit card at Home Depot buying materials. And like all these months later, then finally, like, Tom called me one day, he’s like – Hey, man, we got to like, let you go. Like, you know, we got to just put a cap on this. And I was like – Well, I have all the sets almost built. And he’s like, Yeah, we just, we got to close it up. And it was around Christmas time, Gunner had seen the sets and everything. I’d met him on a Travel Channel show. He was like one of the motorcycle guys, and I was shooting it. And my grandma came up for Christmas. And she was like, whoa, what is this? And I was like, ah, it’s trying to make this movie. And, you know, she…
Ashley
And I think we should give a little context here for people that are listening. I mean, it was the interior of a spaceship that you created. And fantastic. I mean, again, in the backyard of your parent’s, interior of this spaceship.
William Eubank
Oh my god. Yeah, it was covered in all this visqueen, it was like, I mean, the hardest part was like rainstorms and trying to keep it dry and not warping, you know, it was just a nightmare. Every time it was raining, I was basically sleeping out there trying to shove water off the top of it. But anyway, so my grandma sees it. She’s pretty impressed. And she’s like, what do you need to make this movie and I said, I need like $10,000 and she wrote me a check for 20 grand. And so, it was really my grandma who like gave me the money to make the darn thing and we spent most of that money on a techno crane operator. Because the Panavision gave me a free techno crane free camera. I just had to pay the operator for the techno crane. And that’s how we got that like, cool. Like even though we have no anti-gravity, we got that like, you know, sort of anti-gravity feel. And it’s funny that that guy had just come off of Apocalypto. And he’s like I’m now at my parent’s house. And he’s asleep in in my little brother’s room. It was off at college at the time. And it was funny because we kept him on like eight-hour day, like a normal day. Because we he was expensive. You know, that was where most of the money was going was paying him. And so sometimes we’d let him go like, oh, you’re done. And but he wouldn’t have anything to do it. So you’d be like, No, you guys, I’ll just keep helping. And because we’d keep shooting, and we’re like, no way, man, you’re done. And so he would go, my parents had like a hot tub. We’d send them to the hot tub. He’d just sit over there. And the funny thing is, it was these frogs, there’s frogs because we built it near this pool area. And freaking frogs were going on all the time. It was like we’re supposed to be in space, but there’s the frogs. So, the technocrat operator, he would be over in the pool, and he’d be yelling, and we’d be like, alright, kill the frogs. He wouldn’t kill him. He would just yell and clap. And it would make the frogs be quiet for a second so we could do it take any random story, but just crazy. Anyway, so we made the film finished it sent a footage to Tom, Tom called me he’s like – Dude, this is unreal. What do I need to do to get back involved? So the paid my grandma back, and we started like a real post production. And that was my first movie.
Ashley
Gotcha. And so where did you get the technical chops to build this set? Like, you have learned?
William Eubank
That’s what I’m saying. That’s why it took so long. I didn’t know. I mean, I was buying nail guns, not knowing what to do with them. I bought, like a chop saw, not knowing what a compound miter angle was. But now I know all those things. You know, it’s like, you know, sometimes, like, we had a friend who, who did construction, and he would come over and show me this or that. And, you know, we would have people like sometimes, like, just through family friends that we had, like, wow, well, you’re building this like, and I’d show him something I’m having trouble with. And they’d show me I remember one guy was over one time he showed me how to use like this brad nailer. And he’s like, you always want to be careful with these Brad’s because, you know, they’re so bendy. They could go through anything. And he literally holds this little block down. And he goes, you got to you know, do this. He shoots it, it gets off a nail and it goes up and it just pops right through his finger. And he literally nailed the piece of wood to his finger with the brad nailer.
Ashley
Oh, my God.
William Eubank
He was like, Oh my God. Be careful. I was like, oh my god, I’m never using a brad nailer. But yeah, that movie, what a journey, man. It was my own.
Ashley
So, then what did you do is once you had it done, it sounds like you went back to Tom. He got back involved? And then what did you guys do for distribution? Did you take it to festivals?
William Eubank
Yeah, we took it to festivals, it’s funny, because there was, I got a call we submitted Sundance of course didn’t get in, but I got a call from Trevor Groff. And he was like – Wil, I just want you to know, this film was like, right there. It’s like, I just, I only made a couple of these calls. But man, this was, it was like, you’re so close, I want you to please bring me anything you do in the future. And so yes, then years later, we do the Signal. And they let that in. And it’s funny because even during when Trevor Groth introduced the film, he’s like, everyone needs to go see Love. Like, you know, I let this film in here, but maybe that film should have been the film that should have been here. He was so nice to let Signal in.
Ashley
Let’s talk about that transition, then from Love to the Signal. How did love lead to the Signal? And just in terms of financing, were you still working with Tom? Just maybe give us the two-minute pitch on that?
William Eubank
Basically, that, you know, that was kind of totally separate, not involved with Tom, or anything that was that was really my first, you know, love kind of showed I could shoot and build a story. But the Signal was more a pitch, where I was like, trying to think of like – How can I create something contained? That is also genre. And that is very pitch bowl. So people are like, Oh, we can see that. It’s going to be a small movie, but it has some cool big ideas. So it was just kind of a pitch that I created. And I took it around and I ended up pitching it to Brian Kavanaugh Jones, who was like, hey, alright, this sounds cool. You go write it, and then show it to me. It’s like, okay, so then yeah, I wouldn’t wrote it. I was shooting some second unit stuff for Nick Cassavetes at the time on this weird film and very interesting film mountain in Oklahoma. And yeah, I wrote the Signal on the nights like I would just start writing on the nights I was doing with my brother and my co-writer on this David Frigerio. And yeah, we ended up finishing the script, showed it to him, they’re like, wow, we love this. We’ll make it. But we probably can’t find much money to do it. And I was like, that’s okay. Let’s just do it. And the rest is history.
Ashley
Gotcha, gotcha. And so then how did that lead to some other gigs? Like how did that propel your career forward? And ultimately, we’re going to talk about land a bad.
William Eubank
I just think the Signal was, we worked so hard on it, and we there was a lot of ideas, it’s a very visual film, but it has some heart to it. Just a lot of pieces really fortunately came together and a lot of the professionals I still work with, like my stunt coordinator. A lot of the people I still work with, were on that film with me. You know, it was just so it’s such a cool movie. There was a lot of other amazing filmmakers at the time in New Mexico working on other things like it was like, Nash Edgerton, who’s a really cool guy ended up like stunt doubling in our movie a bunch. He’s made a bunch of interesting small things. That’s Joel Edgerton’s brother, there was just so many. I don’t know, there’s just like a perfect storm of creatives working on that. And I think, moving forward, people were able to see we made it on a shoestring budget for almost nothing, but when you watch it, you’re like, whoa, it feels big. And there’s characters you care about. So, it just sort of that meant something to studio execs who, when it came time to get the next job people were like, okay, we can he can handle crazy stuff. It took a little while to get that next job but I finally did.
Ashley
And how much did having a film at Sundance help your career? And did it help you get an agent; did it help you get a better manager to open some doors? Just from the Sundance angle.
William Eubank
I don’t think the Sundance angle… I don’t you know, it probably did. I mean, I’m sure it did. I’m sure people who like didn’t watch the film or didn’t whatever they just hear oh, went to Sundance. So that’s a good thing. You know, and probably, that’s like a buzzword or like a badge. That was probably helpful to people who didn’t know much about me or anything. But I think if people whether the film had gone to Sundance or not like Focus Features had already come on board. The old Focus Features. Actually, no, I think it was the well, I don’t know where focus is now. So maybe it was old? I’m not sure. But yeah, they, you know, it’s hard to said, I don’t know how much that helped me, like get the next movie, like underwater because it was so long. I want to say there was like three or four years between my next movie. It just took a long time to get the next one going. And even going Underwater was such a journey, because I had to like test for it. They’re like, Okay, you have to now like it was crazy. And I want to find I don’t know where it is. I’ve been looking for it. But I shot a test for the movie. That’s kind of cool. And it was just approved. We could do a lot of the dry for wet stuff. But yeah, it was like, yeah, it was tough. Oh, you know what I was doing in between then, sorry. In between the Signal and Underwater I had written like two other movies. And those were being bought up by the studios, like World breaker and Goliath. So those movies were being purchased. And but yeah, that’s where I learned, like, you can write these things in the studio will gladly buy them so that they can shelve them and not making them but you have the option to make them.
Ashley
And did you attach yourself as director to those writing projects? And they just got in turn around or whatever, for whatever.
William Eubank
Yeah, exactly. That’s like, you know, when you’re young, you’re so excited because you’re getting paid to write. But it stinks because you’re like, Wait a second. So, nothing can happen with this movie. Unless they, you know … the studios don’t make that many, especially when you start to think about your genre in the studio, you’re like, well, studio might make three sci fi movies a year tops, maybe. So, you’re like, gosh, and they bought like 40, you know, or whatever it was at the time. So yeah, it’s just it’s tricky. It’s a really tricky, you realize, like, you’re writing these things. They’re buying them you can survive. It’s awesome. But you’re not really making any movies. And that’s when I realized like, yeah, sometimes it’s just better to take the film that somebody else has already put a bunch of money into, and they like they’re already trying to make it and that’s what happened with Underwater.
Ashley
Gotcha. So, let’s dig into your latest feature film Land of Bad, starring Russell Crowe and Liam Hemsworth. Maybe to start out and give us a quick pitch or logline. What is this film all about?
William Eubank
This is a movie that’s like about a guy behind enemy lines. He’s kind of a rookie operator, gets into a crazy hostage rescue situation and loses all contact with everybody. And the only person he’s got is a drone in the sky. Basically, watching over him and he’s got, you know, a couple of Hellfire missiles. And that’s it. You know, it’s about trying to get this guy back to safety.
Ashley
And where did this idea come from? What was the genesis of this story?
William Eubank
We were writing this while we were making the Signal on the weekends and a satellite coffee because there were so many weird scenes in the Signal, I was afraid I was never going to work again because I was like this Signal such a quirky, crazy film, I was like, man, it’s just there, nobody’s going to hire me to do another film. So, I need to be ready with a more sort of mainstream-ish feeling film at the time. And David had had this idea for… learned about joint tactical air controllers. And so, we started at the time we called it JTAC. And it was just kind of a way to actually clear our heads a little of all the craziness, while shooting and everything that was going on, we would just walk to this little coffee shop and sit there all day. And, you know, think of what could be happening to this guy, you know, caught behind enemy lines, and then, you know, that idea evolved and changed over the years forever. So, we’d meet JTACs, we’d meet drone guys. And, of course, the idea really evolved from that first draft. But yeah, we wrote, like 15 years ago.
Ashley
So, let’s talk about your collaboration with David a little bit. So, it sounds like you guys are going to call it the coffee shop, sort of spit balling ideas. Once it came time to start writing. How did you handle that? Does he take a pass? Or do you guys sit in the same room, maybe you can just describe sort of what you how your collaboration actually functions.
William Eubank
This movie, he wrote a bunch of it first. And at the time, I was thinking you on the Signal I had wrote most of that first. And so with this movie, he kind of took the initial stab, and he was working on a lot of things. And we were spit balling a lot of ideas. But he was doing the core, like writing. And then it’s funny because I remember, there was a moment where I was thinking like I don’t know if I want to do this. And I was driving home, like, on the Signal. We had no budget for anything. So, every time I had to go back to Los Angeles, I’ve been driving, and I was driving with my friend and he was my friend Liam, he was just like, not Liam from this movie, different. He’s sitting in the passenger seat. And I was like, do you mind breaking open? You know, we call it JTAG. At the time, I was like, can you read some of that and he was reading it while we were driving. And I was like, Man, this really moves like Dave’s written like an incredibly fast ride. It just looks structurally we there weren’t the things that we were kind of looking for in there. But I was like, you know what, this is pretty darn cool. So then then I took it from him and started my pass. And it’s not always how we work. But on this particular movie, he really did most of the first pass, and then I did most of the second pass. Whereas normally we break it into scenes, which I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. But we’ll literally just kind of leapfrog each other and go.
Ashley
And how much time do you spend? And this could be specific to the land of bad or just in general. How much time do you spend in that outlining stage where you’re doing index cards, you’re taking notes, you’re writing stuff down, versus in Final Draft actually cranking out script pages?
William Eubank
You’re saying like in the initial planning phases?
Ashley
Like, I always like to get you know, when I find some writers that I interview, they don’t spend a lot of time in the planning stage, they just like to get into final draft. And those people generally have to spend a lot more time rewriting. There are some people that are maybe a little more organized. They do a lot in the planning stage, they can put out a draft in like two weeks.
William Eubank
Sure. Yeah, I honestly like my weakest link is that organizational stage at the start, because I’ll have these visions of like how the details of this thing should work. And I just want to write that scene that I want to see. So that’s one of my greatest weaknesses. But now I’ve gotten better at like, banging out at least three pages of like, the core, here we go, here we go. Here we go. But I still struggle with that sometimes. Because what ends up happening to me specifically, when I get that outline going, it gets so wooden that I sometimes lose my own to do the work because I’m like, oh, my God is the Mount Everest right there in front of me and I can’t solve it. And then I don’t even want to write it because I’m like, so caught by this like, large plot thing I see in the distance, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Whereas sometimes when I just start writing, while I’m in the zone and I get in the zone, then the good ideas just like come down like divine intervention and go into my head and I’m like, Oh, yes. Oh my god, I can’t write fast enough, you know. So, I can tend to work better when I don’t do too much. Outlining but like you said, then you get to the end and you’re like, Oh my God, that’s a mess. But I don’t mind the rewriting part because my especially if I’m going to direct it, there’s going to be so much that has to be sorted out. Like I almost think like the second part of writing is like you can have your script however you want it and then you get to like where I start storyboarding and I’m like, oh my god, like just doesn’t work at all like the blocking where the characters are doing like that. That’s when I’ll start to draw the shot list and the storyboards. And it’s almost like the second writing phase. And you realize, like, oh, this isn’t even going to be cinematic. Like, I wrote this boring scene with these two dudes who aren’t even moving or, you know, and that that second stage of the boarding and the shortlisting, or the shot maps. That’s when I’ll like, kind of rewrite the script again.
Ashley
Yeah, gotcha. I’m curious just how it sounds like you’ve written a number of scripts with David, how do you guys get through issues? Do you guys ever just get to a point where he thinks one thing you think the opposite? And how do you get through those moments where you guys don’t agree on stuff?
William Eubank
That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think we tend to agree on stuff where it’s like, if he’s that passionate about something, I can usually hear it, you know, or if I’m that passionate about it, he can definitely hear it from me. So, I think we’re pretty good. Like, that’s the thing about having a good writing partner, I think you guys just generally see that, more or less the same. You know, if there is a moment where you guys really disagree on something, you’re going to hash it out until you do agree on it, it’s almost like there’s no option when you find a solution. So that’s never really a problem with us, but I’m sure there’s other writers that I could work within will work with. Well, for instance, like on paranormal, you know, that’s not, I’m a director for hire on that. And that was being written by Chris Landon, he is terrific, very funny writer, really, sweet guy. You know, those are his babies, like he’s written all the paranormal, basically, since the first one, or not the first one, but onwards. So, in that case, it’s really on me, I’m not writing that, obviously, I’m just directing. But there’s a lot of like, kind of like writing out scenes with each other or figuring things out. But at the end of the day, I know this is his world that he’s created. So essentially, I have to get on board with his ideas. And then if I disagree with it, I need to understand his vision. You know, I have to understand what he’s talking about until I forced myself to agree with it, you know.
Ashley
Yeah, that is interesting. And as a writer, I haven’t found most directors that I’ve worked with and they are director, and I’m just the writer. They’re nearly as amenable as ever. They see it quite like that. That’s refreshing to hear as a director, but I guess you’re also a writer. So that gives you a little bit of a different perspective.
William Eubank
Yeah. Chris is also just such a, you know, really like paranormal, it’s his create, you know, he’s really created all those other ones. So, it’s like, who am I to tell him really what it is? And obviously, I’ve got, yeah, I’ll just really, there were only a few times where I was like, wait, I really got to figure this out. I have to understand what he’s going for. And then I need to get on board so that I can give it that life.
Ashley
But what is your development process look like? So, once you and David had a draft of land of bad that you like, what were those next steps? Do you have some actor friends, you have some producer friends, you have some other writer friends that you send it to get notes, maybe you can just discuss that. What is your development process?
William Eubank
I mean, this one was crazy that we had it sort of setup with these, these folks. And then that sort of fell apart, and then somebody like ended up. There was so much time, I remember one of the initial guys who was involved, like he ended up like passing away. And that was crazy. That’s so much time between this movie being written and being made. You know, we at one point, the movie was actually possibly going to be with Gerard Butler, and, oh, shoot, I forgot his name. He directed one of the London Has Fallen movies, I can’t remember his name. Really nice guy. But he ended up starting, he started to go to work on the plane. And then I don’t even know if he ended up directing. I think somebody else ended up directing that but so it’s funny, like I wasn’t because I was kind of busy with other things. I for a while, I was not going to direct it, I was just going to produce alongside. And then in the end. You know, I there just sort of was a sudden window. And we, you know, I had met Russell Crowe through some other stuff. And we’ve just sent him the script says, hey, would you ever be interested in doing this? And he’s like, Well, I’m pretty busy right now. But it’s good to be wanted. And I’ll take a look. And you know, I’ll let you know, in a few weeks. He didn’t. He called me the next day. And he was like, hey, actually, I really liked this. If you can pull it together, I’m in and then that really sets everything off because once you have, I was very fortunate to get him on early. And now it’s like, buyers and you know, this was a foreign sales Movie. which isn’t always the easiest way to make a movie. But in this case, it worked out pretty well.
Ashley
And maybe you could just describe that foreign sales movie to our audience what that actually means. I mean, like Russell Crowe has international appeal. So that’s a big piece of it.
William Eubank
Yeah, it’s how you pull the financing together, which obviously, in the independent space is the most important part. And, you know, they pre sell the movie, they pre sell the movie to all these territories based off of the script, and talent on board, in this case, Russell, and, you know, they’re able to, like from that money, you’re able to, basically make the movie with that money that you’ve pre sold the movie. So, it’s a little bit of a backwards way to do it, because you lock yourself into an exact budget, which is not bad, but you’re doing that. Often, foreign sales, movies tend to be very above the line heavy, where they’re paying all the players like all the names, all the actors, producers, directors, they’re all getting like fat paychecks. And then they tend to just be like, oh, whatever, we’ll make the movie with this much money. Yeah. So, you’re above the line is inflated, and you’re below the line is like, almost non-existent. And that that’s a terrible way to make a movie. So, you know, me knowing that I’m like, okay, guys, we cannot do that. Because that will, you know, you just don’t get anything out of that often. So, you know, you just have to kind of, for me, coming from the independent world, as a younger cinematographer. I’d seen movies made that way. And I knew, though they never produce good movies, you know. So yeah, just knowing that you kind of want to set up the film in a way that won’t, won’t do that, you know, carefully watching the budget carefully, you know, knowing what certain things would cost and I’m curious aside money.
Ashley
I’m curious. My next question is, how do you handle genre requirements, and especially something like this, as you said, you’re doing these foreign sales, this is sort of a genre movie, there’s going to be as you say that, it’s I think what you’re getting as these films tend to be formulaic, because they’re pre selling them, and they need to have all of these things in place for those people to give money before the film is made. So like, you hear about action movies, or horror movies, you got to have an action scene, every 10 pages, you got to have a scare, you know, for comedy, you got just how do you handle some of those rigid requirements for something like this?
William Eubank
Yeah. I mean, I think our script already had that action. So, I wasn’t too worried about that. It’s more and that is true, those are those are, you know, important to know that you do need those things in the foreign sales world, usually, but if they’re written well, it’s okay. You know, it’s like, as long as they’re written well, and they’re exciting, and they’re cool, and they’re still character centric, that is fine. It’s more than management of money. In my opinion, that is the big problem in the foreign sales thing, because you’d steal too much, you’ve literally, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul. And now there’s nothing left to pay all the people that make the sound design grade, the editing grade, the, you know, the coloring the VFX. Like, if you have spent all the money already, then you have nothing to make the movie with. And I think, you know, on land too bad we were, you know, it was very difficult. Like, we had a lot of crazy things where we were really, you know, watching how we’re spending the cash so that we could pay some of these professionals that I’ve worked with in the past that are so talented, like, just our sound mixing and sound design, for instance, came from Wayne Lamars, like, he’s, you know, Wes Anderson’s guy, and he’s just amazing. He’s so talented. He’s, he’s never happy with his work. Just like, I feel like I’m never happy with my work. And normally, unlike a foreign sales movie, you would never get you know, you couldn’t get him he’s either too expensive. Or maybe he’s not interested in doing that film. And just watching a film with bad sound is one of the worst experiences you can have. So, you know, from a screenwriting perspective, characters writing a story in a way that you can get other good professionals to want to work with you is so important.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, I wonder we can dig into your relationship with Russell Crowe a little bit, I get a lot of emails from people. You know, they’ve got their script, and they email me say, oh, this actor would be perfect for this role in my movie, how do I contact them? And, you know, the reality is, and maybe you can speak to this a little bit. The reality is, even if an actor likes a script, I mean, his agents still might require the producers to sign a pay per play deal, which means you’re going to have to raise some funding before you get that in line, but maybe you can speak to that a little bit. What exactly did Russell Crowe give you? What was your prior relationship? Let’s talk about that. You said you had met him on a few other projects doing stuff. Maybe you can just talk about what was your prior relationship like with him so that you could pass him the script? And then ultimately, what did that look like in terms of getting him on board?
William Eubank
Honestly, yeah, so I’d written this other movie called World breaker, which is a fantasy movie about a, an old warlord, sort of like a Scottish Unforgiven, where this bold warlord is, like, has to kind of return to his roots to save his family. And he had read that and really liked it. He was in town to impress for the movie, The Nice Guys. And yeah, we had connected and I brought all this art to his hotel where he was staying. And I set it all up in this other room, he came in, we had a coffee together. And I took him through all the art and all my vision for the film. And he was like – Hey, this is really cool. So, he came on board to do that, unfortunately, things happen. And that movie didn’t go. But we had stayed in touch. So, I was very, very lucky, in this case, to have, you know, his phone number essentially, and just texted him like – Hey, I’d love to send this to you. And then at the same time, we’ve made a real offer. I don’t know if it’s like pay or play probably was not pay or play. But so, it was sort of a double pronged approach where we make a real offer. So, there’s real, you know, we had said, you know, this is a real thing. But then I sent the script to him personally, and was very lucky to like, have that personal relationship with him.
Ashley
And you’re sating a real offer, meaning the normal channels, your casting director reached out to his agent, and then…
William Eubank
Really producers, or I guess it could be a cat in this case, it was just the producers and you know, talk to his agent. Here’s the offer, you know, sent it formally. And so, at the same time. The agent, of course, at that time does not know that I have contacted Russell personally. Then Russell was like, hey, you guys can pull this together. He didn’t even know there wasn’t real offer. I just said at that point. I’m like, oh, awesome. Well, yeah, there’s a real offer. Just if you’re interested, you know, and he’s like, okay, yeah, I’ll talk to my people about it. But it’s kind of the perfect way for that to happen. But you know, also, yeah, Russell’s not like, who’s this random guy hitting me up? You know, it’s very fortunate that we’d had a previous relationship.
Ashley
And I definitely think another thing people may be that I mean, obviously, the financing becomes easier with an Academy Award winning actor that’s, you know, been the lead in studio films. But how much does that play in at this level after many, many years, in terms of just getting your funding in place, and not just funding but also actors? I know, I’ve talked to a lot of producers, you know, sometimes they’ll overpay for that first name actor, because once you have that first name, actor, other actors name actress sort of look at it as a more legitimate project. Once you had Russell Crowe on board, just talk about that a little bit how easy was it then to cast the rest of the film? And how easy was it to actually raise some of that money?
William Eubank
Yeah, pretty, pretty easy at that point. Because yeah, he does have … everyone knows Russell Crowe and I, I’m pretty sure they then went I think they sold it Cannes to the foreign sales in the film market to the foreign sales, buyers. And but even before that, I think we got Liam Hemsworth to play the main role of Kenny. And, you know, we just made that offer directly to his agent. And yeah, I ended up speaking with him and he was on board. Obviously, he knows Russell’s, and he loves that. So, everything feels better at that point. Because you’re not just going out like, okay, who’s going to start in this Reaper role? So, it does really, really help of course, having that initial cornerstone to your project. And then yeah, they were able to, I think so it pretty well. But they all kind of know, like, there’s so many like, I hate to say it, but those companies have like, formulas for how much we kind of know what the budget is going to be approximately give or take a little bit once you get certain people on board because they know what they’re selling this package for the foreign sales. Anyways, foreign sales world is a crazy one. And it’s very easy to make it terrible movie that way. But it’s also you can make great movies that way. You just have to be cognizant of not like putting too much money above the line and then not having anything to make the movie with.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. So just changing directions a little bit here, just maybe can give our audience mostly screenwriters. What advice do you have for folks that come up to you they’re trying to break into the business? Maybe they’ve written a few scripts. What is your advice in the year 2024 for just breaking into the business and getting your career going?
William Eubank
I mean, I think the most important thing begins with this is why I think it’s, you know, there’s so many books in screenwriting, there’s so many books about how to assemble the watch, if you will, like making a movie is you got to jam all the things in there. And they all got to fit and flow together. It’s hard, obviously. I think it’s so important to like, and I know this from being a director, it’s like, sometimes you’ll have these scenes where you’re like, really, this scene only exists to get me from here to here. And I really liked this scene, this scene, can be so fun to shoot and that scene over there. Oh, man, I can’t wait to do that. But then I have this other scene where I’m like, Ah, man, I wish I could just go back a year or two from before and rewrite this and make something that I really wanted to shoot here. And I think the most important thing is like, every scene you want to, you should only let yourself have like, maybe five of those stupid scenes that have to be in there to connect something. And all the other ones, the whole shebang should all be scenes that you like, love that you’re like, oh, this is so cool. This is so fun, or I can’t I love what he says here. And I love how he does this, or he, you know decides to do that. Like, I can’t wait to see that come to live, I cannot wait. I cannot wait. And if you can’t wait to see it, trust me, other people are going to feel the same way. And that’s how you make a good movie has to mean that you can’t wait to do can’t wait to break the law. I can’t wait to see Russell Crowe do that. I cannot wait. You know, I couldn’t wait for Russell Crowe to turn to those guys and say eat a bag of dicks. You know, like, I can’t wait for that. I can’t wait to see how he does that. And that’s so or complaining about his chair. You know, like, I you want to write stuff you want to see. And it’s so easy in today’s screenwriting world to like, and I’m not saying goes to get caught, like trying to make the plot be good or the, you know, trying to make the watch fit and all that. If you truly just write scenes that you want to watch, like actual moments, and you really are like, well, that’s cool. Like, it’s hard. But if you can really make shit little just think of that. Don’t think of it as the whole movie. Just think every day. Do you want to watch what you’re writing? Why is it cool? Like what’s special about it? What makes you want to watch this? And if you write enough of those scenes, and they all go together, trust me, you’re going to make a cool movie. Just will. Yeah, where you get caught up is just like, oh, wait, the movie has to go together like this. And the hero has to do that. And yes, and that’s how you make a terrible movie. Because you’re just caught in the, the, like, wolves of like, shit. It’s sort of like how the plot supposed to work. And that’s terrible. You just want to write cool stuff. And I swear to God, even if you don’t even if you just write cool stuff, and you like make that version of that like, and it was like a weird story. And it didn’t really work from a story perspective. It I guarantee, you would still have a lot of people who were like, man, that movie was weird, but I really liked it. She didn’t know. Because at the end of the day, you still got to shoot it and you still want to love what you’re shooting. So right that things that you want to watch.
Ashley
Sound advice.
William Eubank
It’s that easy. I swear to God, and maybe you won’t make the perfect save the cat movie, or maybe you won’t make the whatever. But I swear that’s what Tarantino does. Tarantino just giggled, I swear to God, he’s sitting there at his thing, and he’s laughing. He’s like, Oh my god, I can’t wait for him to blow that guy’s head off in the back. And now they got to clean up this mess. Let’s think about that. Like, they got to just clean up this mess in the back of his car. That’s going to be so funny. I can’t wait. Oh, he’s going to say this. He’s going to say that. You know, he’s laughing, enjoying his work so much, that if you don’t feel that passion about what you’re doing, start over, pick a news story and start finding something that makes you laugh and enjoy what you’re writing.
Ashley
Yeah. And I just speaking to that, and maybe you can speak on this a little bit when Gunner described this process with Love, like the thing I came away from was I just was like, wow, this guy sounds like a really passionate filmmaker. And that’s just the way and as you describe it standing out there, you know, keeping the rain off. It’s just that passion for getting it done. And I just I always tell people, we all have these tools. And I you know, how many people in the world built a space set in their parent’s backyard who are not actually you know, writing and directing feature films, I would say most of them probably are if you have that much passion, and maybe you can speak to that a little bit just where do you get this passion from? How do you get out of bed every morning still feeling the same passion for all these projects that you originally did?
William Eubank
No, thank you. I mean, look, definitely the younger version of me had a crazy like, I hate to say the businesses very, very tough. And it’s very easy to get tired and get beat down. Like in that now having spent years in it, obviously, I loved. Here’s the thing, and I learned this on, we were so fortunate back then, like, Love, like I had a ton of enthusiasm, you have that youthful energy that is just somehow in you, I don’t know if it’s your just your body works better or whatever, but you just have tons of energy. Very little negativity is entered. Because you haven’t been through the wringer in the business. Yeah, you don’t know how the studios work or all that work. So, you just have pie in the sky. Let’s make cool shit. And you’re dreaming shots that can’t even be done, but the dreams are alive. The problem is, and I learned this on underwater because I went back to music school at night Underwater, I went to this music school in LA, the whole post of like, all posts, I was doing post and I go to this night school, to learn how to make music. And it was like producing music stuff. And that was an eye-opening experience. Because I was in this class with all these kids who were like out of high school. And then I saw like, every day, everyone’s talking about other people and like other, you know, DJ people, or producers, and they’re all everyone’s on social media. And it’s all like kind of like, what they’re doing and how I should make my thing sound like this, or I should do that if I want to be like that, or he’s successful doing this, or I should do that. And I was like, oh my god, like, these kids don’t get it. Like, you know, I was so lucky, I didn’t have any of that social media, because we didn’t have it back then. So, I was just like, Whatever, I’ll make a spaceship, this will be great. It’s going to be so cool. Whereas like, if I’d had social media, I probably would be like, well, nobody else is doing that. Or that’s a terrible idea. You’re just constantly thinking about other people, rather than just thinking about your actual ideas. So I think it’s super important to just separate your headspace now with all the noise and what should be done and what’s right or what’s wrong. And truly seek out things that you love, watch movies that you love go out and I want to make a story kind of like that. I just want to do this or do that. And then turn off all the noise turn off all the social media, don’t compare yourself. Because that’s how I think I had that energy, I had nobody to compare myself to because I’m in the middle of nowhere on a ranch, building the space station, like, pretty lonely unless gunner came up to see what I was doing, you know, or maybe a contractor comes over to help me figure out a compound miter angle. Like it was like, you know, it just had passion, because there’s nothing else to do. And then I was writing at the time, I didn’t have final draft. So, I was writing like paragraphs of what would happen, you know, and like I said, I had that stack of scenes. And inevitably, while you’re doing that, if you know anything about movie, you’re going to have that I didn’t know about structure, but I know near somewhere in the second half, he’s going to have his lowest moment where all is lost. Like he doesn’t know you’re going to have that, you know, and so you write that part in and in anyways, it works if you’re just passionate about what you’re doing.
Ashley
Sound advice, for sure. So, I just like to wrap up these interviews by asking my guests if there’s anything you’re watching currently that you can recommend to our mostly screenwriting audience, anything on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, anything you think is good?
William Eubank
I’m watching the Curse. My wife and I are deep in that.
Ashley
Where is that playing?
William Eubank
I watched the show Gold Rush because I like watching the big machines move around. That’s reality TV. And I’m watching the Curse. And that’s on Paramount plus, or like Showtime or something like that. And man, what a crazy show that is wild. Like. It’s written by I think Nathan fielder and Benny Safty or something. And it’s just wow, I don’t even know what we’re watching. It’s so different and interesting. The characters are just so real. And crazy.
Ashley
Yeah, that’s a great recommendation. I haven’t watched that yet. So, I’ll put that…
William Eubank
Strange but very… man, it’s amazing work. It’s just amazing work.
Ashley
So, how can people see the Land of Bad, what is the release schedule going to be like for that?
William Eubank
February 16th in theaters. You know, traditional release, so be in theaters for a little bit and yeah, hopefully, you know, people can catch it on the big screen because the sound design and everything the music brand and Robert has done such an amazing job. And yeah, it’s just it’s a pretty cool theatrical experience, I think.
Ashley
Okay, perfect. Perfect. Yeah, hopefully people can catch it in a theater. What’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing? Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, a blog?
William Eubank
My name is Superswift on Twitter or Instagram. So, one word Superswift.
Ashley
Perfect. Perfect. I’ll grab that and put that in the show notes so people can click over to that. So, well. I really appreciate William coming on and talking to me today. Good luck with this film and good luck with your future films as well.
William Eubank
Awesome. Thank you, really appreciate meeting you.
Ashley
Thank you. We’ll talk to you later. Bye.
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