This is a transcript of SYS Podcast Episode – 541 Making a Trump / Anti-Trump RomCom with Erik Bork .
Welcome to episode 541 of the selling your screenplay podcast. I’m AshleyScott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger with sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I’m interviewing writer and director and also producer Erik Bork who was one of the writers on the HBO series Band of Brothers. He’s been on the podcast before in episode 82 where we talked about his origin story in the entertainment business, how he got into the business, and then episode 245 where he came on to talk about his book, The Idea. But today he is here to talk about his new feature film, which he wrote and directed The Elephant in the Room. It is a rom-com with a political message. So, stay tuned for that interview.
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So just a quick few words about what I’ve been working on, the rom-com that I shot in November is still in editing. I’ve not seen a first cut of it yet, but hopefully soon we’ll get that first assembly cut and then we can start to really get into the story and the meat of it. In the meantime, I’ve been creating promotional content. I’m going to launch, I mean, and promotional content, I did like a website, I’ve been working on the poster, using AI to do the poster. I got, we took a bunch of still photographs with the actors on the green screen. So, you know, I’m taking the images of the actors and then I’m getting AI to put in some different backgrounds, all that sort of stuff. But the main things are just sort of basic peripheral type stuff that you’re going to need to promote your film. But the main thing I’m doing is I’m preparing to launch a TikTok channel and it’ll be on Instagram, YouTube shorts and all that stuff. But it’ll be short form and it’ll be vertical, you know, it’ll be the cell phone aspect ratio. And what I’m going to do is a series of videos about how to make a micro budget feature film. And I’m just going to make an individual video. Can I keep them, you know, a minute or two? But I’ll just go through every step of the way, you know, writing the low budget screenplay, getting insurance, doing the casting, you know, hiring the crew. Each one of these topics will get its own little one- or two-minute video. And I’ll just run through, as I said, pretty much every aspect of creating a micro budget feature film. So the idea is if you watch this video series, then at the end of it, you would actually be able to go off and create your own indie film. And then obviously that’s, you know, great. If you can go make an indie film, that’s fantastic. But also it’s bringing awareness to my film. I’m using my film to sort of illustrate a lot of the points I’m making, reusing footage and stills and stuff as I make these videos. So, it’s all in an effort to sort of build awareness for the film, which will then we’ll move on. We’ll do a Kickstarter. That’ll be sort of the first hurdle. And once we do the Kickstarter, then shortly after that, hopefully we will finish the film. We’re just going to do the Kickstarter for post-production and marketing money. Obviously we’ve already shot the film and so that’s all paid for and it’s in the can. So we’re just going to do the, and that’s what we did for the Rideshare Killer 2. You sort of do it at the end. And I feel like that’s a little bit of a better strategy in the sense that, you know, do your Kickstarter and then, you know, two years later you finish your film. We’re going to do, we’re going to have our film edited and close to finished. So the momentum we get from the Kickstarter hopefully goes on and becomes some of the momentum to actually watching the film. Anyways, that’s the idea. But the bottom line is I’m creating all of these videos. I’ve got a few dozen of these videos to create and they do take some time. I’m new to vertical editing, you know, that vertical format editing those and just using all of the different tips and tricks. I downloaded CapCut and I just paid, I think it was a couple hundred dollars for like a year, you know, a year pro, CapCut pro, but it gives you access to some interesting tools. And again, I see these videos because I watch a lot of TikTok, but I never was quite clear how they made and they have some pretty, you know, advanced tools in terms of, you know, the green screen cut out. You see that very often. I’ve done videos where I’m talking at the camera, but then it cuts me out and then I can put actual stills or even video behind me as I’m talking and I use video and stills and that sort of stuff from the actual movie. But these are all the tools and the tricks of that sort of vertical TikTok editing. The captions, you know, it’s very easy in CapCut. You just press a button and it generates the captions. I mean, there’s some minor little spelling issues, but I’m amazed at how good that it is. I still pay someone like to do this podcast. I send off a copy of this podcast to somebody and then they actually transcribe it for me. And I would say that the automated transcriptions in CapCut are actually better than what the human can do. So, I might have to change that and maybe I’ll just load at the end of the day. I’ll load these podcasts into CapCut. Once they’re edited, I’ll load them into CapCut and I’ll just generate the captions that way. I’m not sure if it can do that. I’ll have to figure out how to do that, but it does it so well. You know, it generates the tech so well. I’m sure there’s got to be a way of like exporting a transcript, but I haven’t gotten to that. But as you can see, as I’m rambling on here, it’s a learning process. So, which is part of the part of the, you know, what’s fun about it is getting into new stuff and learning all about it. So that’s where I’m at. I’m going to do, you know, I think I have like maybe 25 or 30 of these videos sort of planned out. Hopefully there’ll be a few more ideas that I have between now and finishing. And I’ve completed about three of them. So that gives you some ideas. Take me a couple of weeks just to get those three done. So, I’m hoping to get it down to like maybe do one a day and, you know, in maybe a couple hours I can knock these out and get them going. But again, I’m sort of experimenting with the format of TikToks and just how they’re done and the different tools and tricks. So it’s been fun, but it has been a little bit slow going. But the bottom line is, you know, Bernie is my editor is still off editing the film. So there’s really no rush. So, I feel like I have some time. I’ll probably be doing this for the next few months, at least the next couple of months, let’s say two months, get those done, and then we’ll watch the Kickstarter. And then hopefully, you know, a month or two or three months after that we’ll have a finished version of the film. Anyways, that’s the goal. That’s kind of the timeline.
In terms of SYS, I am going to launch the contest in March. So, keep an eye out for that. I’ve been working on getting all of that set up as well. It’s not that difficult since I’ve run the contest before you can kind of roll over a lot of the stuff that’s already in place. But I’ve got to just get all that set up and it does take a little bit of time. So, I’ll be making an announcement of that hopefully on the next podcast. But keep an eye out for that. As I said, I’ll hopefully be launching that on March 1st. So those are some of the things that I have been working on. Now let’s get into the main segment today. I am interviewing writer, director, and also producer, Erik Bork. Here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome back, Erik, to the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Erik Bork
Ashley, it’s always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for having me.
Ashley
So, you’ve been on the podcast twice before originally in episode 82, and then also in episode 245 in episode 82. I will point all of our listeners to that episode. We dug into sort of your background, how you broke into the business. And then in episode 245, we talked about your book, the idea, the seven elements of a viable story. Maybe you can tell us just quickly, how’s it going with your book? What’s your book all about? And how can people find you? We’ll, we’ll start with that little plug at the top.
Erik Bork
Yeah, so the book was based on me having, you know, studied screenwriting and worked at it professionally and not for many years and then starting to teach it and starting to mentor people, which I’m still doing. And I started seeing certain patterns and what were the key things that we writers tend to stumble on. The biggest thing I noticed is that writers, myself included, want to jump into the writing too soon before they have a really viable, solid idea. Everybody does this. And what I learned when I was in the business, once I had an agent, is that they don’t want you to ever do that. They want you to pitch your stuff to them and not write it unless they’ve really vetted it and think it’s worth writing from a marketplace standpoint. And my experience is that most of my ideas would get shot down by my own agents. So, it’s not easy to come up with a viable idea. And so I started thinking about, well, what do I want people to know? Or what am I always telling people I think are the elements? And so, I came up with a problem acronym because every story is about a problem to be solved the way I view it. And so the seven elements are the seven things that you want your idea for a story to have, which are easier said than done. And they all line up with problem as an acronym.
Ashley
Gotcha, gotcha. So, people can find your book anywhere. Books are sold Amazon and that sort of stuff. Perfect. So, I’ll put a link in the bio. And I think that in the show notes, I’ll put a link to it. And I think that leads nicely into your latest project, The Elephant in the room. Maybe you can pitch that to us and maybe you can even run it through your own system of how you came up with the idea and doesn’t meet some of this criteria. But what is The Elephant in the room all about? What’s the logline for that one?
Erik Bork
So, The Elephant in the room is a romantic comedy about a lonely progressive young woman smarting for a breakup who meets a guy she might want to date and then finds out he voted for Trump. And it’s December 2020, leading into January 2021, which was a kind of important month. And so but it’s a comedy, and it’s got a lot of heart. And it’s kind of like an edgy indie comedy where she’s kind of trying to give the guy a chance, maybe I can impact his views, how could he possibly feel that way, etc., etc. And, you know, I just got the idea, I think somewhere around 2016, when I started thinking about political polarization as an underlying problem that people recognize, but in some ways, is the biggest problem we have, I think that underpins other problems. And that is pretty toxic in people’s personal lives. But, you know, really, what I was thinking was, I’ve written other like romantic comedies, and you always look for the thing in the way of the relationship. And it just occurred to me that politics could be that thing in the age of Trump, because that’s how big it is. Obviously, it has been in a way of a lot of relationships of various kinds for people. And for understandable reasons, but still regrettable, right? So, so anyway, I just started thinking, well, what if you had these two characters who that was the issue? So in a romantic comedy, you know, the stakes, I mean, the elements of problems that you asked, it’s like the problem has to be punishingly difficult to solve, which this is because neither side is changing their views. And for her, it’s a deal bank breaker, relatable, and that you relate to the main character. In a romantic comedy, you often follow both characters equally, but we don’t, we follow the progressive female character. And I think she’s very relatable. Although if you’re a hardcore Trump voter, you might be annoyed by her politics, but she’s like a lovable person that I think you can get why she’s grappling with this and why this matters. Oh, and problems for original, I don’t think I’ve seen this subject done before, you know, it’s a original take on a tried true genre, I think, B is for believable, I tried to make most care. And by the way, believable is harder than it looks like I often my big note on scripts often have believability reasons behind them, which writers don’t tend to think is ever an issue, I think, but it’s a big issue when you’re doing professionally, making things believable is a huge part of it anyway. So I tried to make both characters believable as voting for who they voted for, while also relatable and likable enough, because you need to like both people in a romantic comedy. So, so that was definitely something we strove for. And I think it’s a believable scenario in our world today. Ellen problem is for life altering, which means the stakes are high enough. And in a random comedy, the stakes are you think two people might be a great couple, and you don’t and you want to see them together, which, you know, hopefully when people watch this, they despite the politics, they do feel like they wish they could work this out. He is for entertaining, which means you’re bringing the audience the emotion they want from the genre they’re watching, like in a comedy, they’re going to laugh. And it definitely is a comedy and does get laughs. And romantic movie also want them to feel the warm kind of bath of romance, which isn’t quite as much happening in this. It’s not a Hallmark movie. And because of what it’s about, what’s in the way of the relationship, it’s a hard edge topic, even though it’s dealt with in a in a warm way, in a light hearted way. So it’s, it gets some of the romantic stuff, but it’s more leaning on the comedy side with this interesting topic in the way. Politics edgy topic. M is for meaningful, which just means thematically, it’s about something more than just the surface story that hopefully applies to the human condition. So like for me, it’s about this movie is about loneliness and isolation. And should you try to change people if you think they’ll be better off and a lot of different things. There’s more than one relationship in it. She has this housemate that she’s trying to be friends with who isn’t that interested. And that’s as equally important as the potential romance in the movie. So those are the seven elements and I tried to follow my own advice.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, and I think that’s fascinating actually here you go through that because it does it speaks to sort of some of your thinking on this, so I think you did a great job with the characters. And I think when I went into watching this movie, I sort of thought that you would lean one way or another And it would and it would end up being like a progressive look at this relationship with a Trumper, and I thought you did a really excellent job. Sort of showcasing both characters. Now, as someone who is sort of non-political or tries to be non-political and truly thinks both Political parties are equally as ridiculous, I think you captured a lot of that on both sides. But I wonder from a business standpoint, one of the things I was thinking like as I said If you would have leaned into it if you would have made this more of a liberal view seeing this, that would ultimately would be your audience. Liberals sort of coming along for the ride. I wonder how many people out there, like I think you’re going to rankle both sides. The liberals are going to think you weren’t hard enough on the Trumper, and the Trumpers are going to think you weren’t hard enough on the liberals, but just maybe you can speak to that a little bit. What was your thinking just, I understand the creative urge to want to do something believable and you know real, but from a business standpoint, I wonder if that was the best decision.
Erik Bork
Yeah, probably not, especially because we didn’t know Trump was going to be reelected when we made the movie. And so I think for audiences, and look, and I come from one side for sure, but I really tried to work to write it in a way that it would do what you said, and thank you for saying that, where you would feel like both people are fairly represented and believable and likeable, even if you’re on the opposite political side from one of them. And also, as I was funding the movie, I started getting in touch with organizations that care about polarization, and there’s actually quite a few of them, nonprofits, that this is their big issue. In fact, there’s one nonprofit that’s really trying to advocate for the media to be less polarizing and to get movies and TV shows that depict different sides in a way that isn’t sort of black and white judgmental all the time of people that might think differently than you do. And they really inspired me, and I started to feel like I want to be part of that movement, I believe in that movement, and I want the movie to represent both sides fairly, and so they helped me in some ways with doing that by giving optional script notes about the depiction of the two characters, helped me understand how someone different from me might feel the way they do politically, et cetera. And so, I wanted it to be both sides could watch it and feel those things. But getting people to want to watch it is a whole different thing. Like, when people watch it, for the most part, I’m getting very positive comments back and good ratings on IMDb and another place where people rate the movie or critique the movie. As a little indie movie, you’re always going to have some struggle with getting the word out and getting it marketed and getting big reviews and all that kind of stuff. And you can rent it anywhere, like Amazon, Apple, you can watch it on 2B for free, but it’s not on Netflix and it’s not in theaters, right? So anyway, that’s the normal thing that a movie this size would struggle with. For us, we have also the barrier of the last thing I want to see for entertainment right now is politics, because politics is driving me crazy. Or this premise sounds terrible, like dating a Trump voter, no, thank you. If you’re a progressive, dating a liberal, no, thank you. So, people that are really hard into their point of view, which I totally understand and have been that person myself, the premise may not sound fun or light or warm or a good escape. But once people watch it, they’re like, that was actually really sweet. That was actually funny. I liked it. For the most part, obviously not everyone. But I think it’s harder with Trump in office because indie films maybe tend to lean more toward liberal audiences. And the last thing liberal audiences want, potentially in January of 2026 as we’re doing this conversation, is to, you know, entertain, you know, I want to meet a nice Trump voter in a movie or whatever, you know. So, I think that that’s definitely been an issue or probably is an issue out there with people wanting to click and watch. And I understand. I totally understand.
Ashley
And I guess there is political podcasts. You could potentially reach out to them. You could talk to some of those type of audience. Maybe you would, maybe you could hit the political audience. So, tell me about your thinking about placing it during COVID. That was one thing that struck me. I mean, I don’t know that I have a strong opinion on this like advice if a writer was coming to me with this question. So, I’ll be curious to hear your opinion. But when you said it with COVID, you’re putting on the masks. You’re definitely dating the film. I mean, you’re putting sort of a real hard, you know, it’s not just sort of roughly in modern times. It’s a very specific period of time. Sort of what was your thinking on that? For better, for worse, good and bad. What was your thinking?
Erik Bork
Right. I mean, we try to live with the mask where there’s only like a one scene where people have masks on. But yeah, it was a decision of I think I was thinking I think I wrote it in like 2022, 2023, like, you know, you’re looking as a dramatist for what’s the most dramatic time period to have this kind of story happen if you’re going to if you’re going to do any time over the last four to eight years, you know, whatever the Trump era, I guess, starting in like 2015, 2016. And I think when the election was being contested in December 2020, leading to January 6, was about the most dramatic time to date, right? So, at a certain point, I was like, well, January 6 could be the all is lost moment at the end of Act Two in this movie, like the thing that permanently becomes a rift if it seemed like they had any chance, they’re not going to after that, especially if he went or supported it or whatever. And so at a certain point, I was like, Yeah, I’m going to do that. So, I have this really big moment, right? And also you can open the movie with a quick way we find out what her views are. And she’s like a social media consultant, and she’s doing something online. And she sees some posts, some Trump supporting post about Mike Pence needs to not certify this rigged election, right? So we know we’re leading to January six, and she’s upset and like tries almost fires back an angry rebuttal to that and then doesn’t. So like, right away, it’s easy to establish, okay, this is the time period, this is her views. And then we can move on with other stuff, you know, we establish that right away. So, but yeah, it’s a fraught time. And I decided to lean into that, but we lead to this issue, which is already fraught, leading to the most fraught period for it, you know, compressed angry period around that, which to me, that was.
Ashley
So, let’s talk about the actual writing of this script. And I’d be curious to hear if this sort of was deviated from your normal writing process. But this is I fire off these questions, maybe you can answer it sort of in terms of this specific script. Just like where did you write this? How long did it take you to write this? What does your process look like? How much of an outline did you come up with before you wrote it?
Erik Bork
I think I probably wrote it over like a six-month period, where, you know, work out my home office and, and then I was living in California, now the New York City. I yeah, my normal process went to this followed, I think is I do an outline, I do a scene by scene outline, I probably do some version of like a rough kind of save the cap each sheet even for myself as I’m starting out, like I’m like, I just said all is lost, but like into back to like, I have structural pre planning thing that I definitely do once I feel good about the concept. And so it was probably pretty typical for me and then you know, many drafts and then getting feedback and many more thinking you have it, I did a zoom read through and I have to zoom read through I was like, Oh, no, this is going to work like it went through some pretty major changes over time that I think made it better. Most of those changes were in the direction of softening it into something more like romantic comedy where the both people relatable because originally I had her like more delusional, almost and him a little more hardcore right wing, like I softened a lot of edges to try to make a more palatable people, which you kind of need in a rom com and so but yeah, the normal kind of hell of like you get feedback and you have to rethink it and you rewrite it. But nothing majorly worse than usual.
Ashley
Yeah. So when you were writing this, did you know as you’re writing it, this was something you wanted to write and direct and produce yourself, so you kind of kept it low budget and that, and that was part of your thinking.
Erik Bork
Oh, for sure. That was a big part of that was the whole reason, right? I’ve been doing that for a while. As you know, I wrote a few scripts, I was thinking I can make this for $200,000, maybe even 100,000, like I had several of those that I sort of threatened to try to raise the money and never quite got there. I did a short a few years ago, but this is my first feature as a director. And I, yeah, it’s all set in one house, which makes sense during COVID. That was probably another reason why I chose December 2020 was like, it could be believable that all their dates are like in the backyard at the house where she’s staying, you know, and that they don’t go out to places and go to restaurants and bars and things that are expensive to shoot. They’re just home. And it’s a big house in Thousand Oaks where I shot that was beautiful and had a lot of different places with an introduce scenes outside inside etc. So, where it doesn’t necessarily feel small when you’re watching it, but it actually we shot the entire movie at one place over 18 days and I you know, small cast also with COVID not a bit a lot of big get together. So, you’re not trying to do a big cast a lot of extras whatever it’s just a few people at a time two to three people in every scene, pretty much.
Ashley
Whose house was it? How did you get the house? Because I thought the house was excellent. And just as someone that’s producing low budget stuff, I’m looking at, I mean, the production design of the house was excellent. The walls were all painted, very well decorated. Did you have to do a lot of production design on the house or it came?
Erik Bork
I mean, it was 90-95% the way it is. We did have an amazing set decorator who came in and did some changes. There was only one location where there’s a room in the house that you wouldn’t believe is the same house, like his apartment with where he lives with his grandmother is also in that. Yeah. But it looks very different. It’s more like a man cave and then set decorator turned it into like a place where you can imagine an older woman might live with her grandson. So, but mostly it was what it was. And it was a friend’s house. And the person that co-produced it with me, Diane Kerman, very experienced line producer, she, she recommended this house. And I knew it was a great house. But I was thinking, well, these are like, these are people that are around, you know, late 20s single, they wouldn’t live in a big suburban house. And she came up with a permit. What if she’s house sitting at her aunt’s house during COVID while her people had weird living rain during COVID. The aunt was in Europe and like, she’s house sitting and it’s like she just had a breakup and moved out with her boyfriend. So now she’s living in this house sitting nice house. And she’s like stuck there during COVID in a bubble with the other person’s son, but she doesn’t really know that well, and trying to get to know him. And so I was like, okay, talked me into it. So worked out really well.
Ashley
Yeah. And so, what was your development process like this? You said you did some reads. Do you have some other writers that you send it to your agent? Like what happened when you pitched him this idea? Was this something that your agent was excited about? Maybe you can talk about that development process a little bit.
Erik Bork
There was no talking to an agent about it. This was just me on my own doing it, kind of thing, very DIY. The main feedback thing was I did a Zoom readthrough with actors that I had in mind for the film that were willing to do a free show up on Zoom. Actually, I might’ve paid them, but one of them ended up being in the movie, a couple of them ended up being in the movie, but others didn’t. And when I saw the Zoom readthrough, it brought it to light what issues it might have that I didn’t realize it had. I thought the Zoom readthrough was going to be a step toward, okay, then we’re going to start crowdfunding right away, and these cast members will want to do it, and blah, blah, blah. But then I was like, nah. So that was the number one thing. That really helped. Seeing professional actors do it and do it well, but then realizing the issues with it reluctantly once that has happened. Then I also did send it to some people that were involved in the funding or potential funding. And these were, again, were like nonprofits. They’re not like movie people, but some of them had certain reservations about how certain things were depicted. And just in terms of the accuracy and the originality of how the politics were represented, different kinds of supporters of one side or the other and what they think, especially on the Trump side, which I was less familiar with. And so that also was a part of that process.
Ashley
Like what were they concerned like who are these organizations and what kind of stuff were they concerned about?
Erik Bork
Well, it was like my you didn’t see this version, but like an earlier draft, like I think in an earlier draft, Trump supporting guy himself wanted to go to January six, like he was interested enough to go on his own. And then they were like, you know what, left-leaning viewers, which was me, but still I wasn’t thinking this way, are going to have a hard time with her giving him any chance at all if he comes back from having gone to January six. I was like, Yeah, you’re probably right. And so if it’s not, if it’s not believable, if it’s believable that she would have ever given a chance to begin with given her politics in his, it’s not going to be if he goes. So then I came up with the idea that he has this grandmother who’s more hardcore than he is, she wants to go and he almost, well, you have to see the movie, but like it is a plot point, but he’s much more open to hearing a different point of view, and not making politics so important or such a deal breaker, like he’s not as polarized, even though he’s, you know, a Trump supporter than the progressive is or that his own grandma is.
So, I altered that. And I also found some reasons why he supported Trump that were, that were, you know, specific reasons why some people might support Trump, it doesn’t mean they support everything about him. You know, part of the thing about polarization is you believe people on the other side are all the most extreme version of the other side that you’ve ever seen, and that they agree with everything the person they voted for, whatever say, and even people more extreme than that. And the reality is not that the reality is that the average voter is probably close to voters on the other side closer than they realize in terms of basic values and beliefs. And they might like certain things about a candidate and not other things, but it’s enough to make them choose that candidate, you know, especially people that are more like in the middle or more invincible that aren’t, you know, so, so I try that’s part of the polar anti polarization messages to pick people being more complicated and nuanced than they are. So even though I came more from the left myself, she’s actually a little more closed off to people with other views than he is, and more just kind of hardcore on her side, it doesn’t know anybody to vote for Trump until she meets this guy, whereas he has been around a lot of people in LA who, who, who think it’s unthinkable, and what he wouldn’t even admit who he voted for, and stuff like that, and is more open, even though he doesn’t convince them of things politically, he’s more open to discuss them. So these are the kind of things I was talking about with these nonprofit people who, in one way or another, are trying to, you know, ratchet down the heat of polarization in our society, regardless of what your political views are, with the idea that being less polarized doesn’t mean you give on issues, and you have to meet in the middle on issues, it just means you don’t hate people that voted differently, and you want to hear what they have to say or be more open to, you may learn something outside of your information bubble, let’s say.
Ashley
Which is good. Yeah, which is what tolerance and diversity is actually all about is ideas that you don’t necessarily agree with. How do you approach the screenplay structure in something like this? You mentioned that January 6 is sort of a pivotal moment. But how do you just approach the screenplay structure in general? You’ve mentioned a couple of save the cat things. You know, Dark Knight is there with some of those that you’ve mentioned. But maybe you can just give us sort of your overview on screenplay structure and then specifically with this.
Erik Bork
Yeah, I mean, you know, the idea of a catalyst in mid-act one that rocks the main character’s world, sets the story in motion. In this case, was the meeting. That’s what it often is in a rom-com. You know, the person meets a potential love interest, but learns there’s a problem or a challenge there. That’s the catalyst.
And, you know, then they have to sort of save the characters by debate section. They sort of debate what to do, try different things. And then finally, the break-in act two is like the entering into save the cat again. So, it’s like upside down world of act two, where the main character’s down in an unfamiliar situation with an ongoing challenge. In this case, that upside down world for her was like, okay, I’m going to kind of give him a chance, even though I found out who he voted for and that it’s not going to be easy and then it turns me off, whatever. I’m going to continue to like, just talk to him and see where it goes. So that’s a break-in to two. And then like mid-point, usually the stakes rise and that’s where they have a first kiss, which is a common thing in a romantic comedy. First kiss or sometimes first sex at a mid-point. I mentioned all his loss being the January 6th. And then a third act, one final chance to see if something can be saved here, which in this movie happens on inauguration day, where both, where she’s cooled down about the fact that he, you know, was open to the January 6th rally, at least before it happened, even though he didn’t like what happened there. But the meantime, I was doing a second parallel story, which about her relationship with her housemate, who she’s trying to be friends with. And that also has a three-act structure to it, where, you know, the catalyst has to do with her convincing him to sort of like, basically talk to her and, you know, get to know her. And like, they have a falling out around the all his loss moment too. Like all his loss moment is like, everything falls apart for every storyline kind of, you know, in a movie, a lot late in act two. So that’s kind of what happens here is that there’s challenges in both relationships, even though there’s also some positivity or progress, but second half of act two leading to the end of act two, things tend to go South, which they do. And then they get rescued at least somewhat in a kind of climactic way in the third act.
Ashley
Gotcha. So, you did a bunch of reads. You finally had a script that you felt was ready to go. What were then those next steps to actually getting this into production? How did you raise money and actually get this green lit?
Erik Bork
Yeah, well, I greenlit it myself. But yeah, based on the revenue, and I was like, full, I thought, Oh, I could do for 100,000 least get in the can for 100,000 end up being more like 250 to 300 in the end to finish the movie, including post and everything else. And that I had two methods. The one method was we funder, which is a equity crowdfunding platform, which is like Kickstarter only instead of donations, people are investing in the movie, which means they own a piece of any, you know, money that comes back in for as little as $100 per person. I became convinced that Kickstarter, you know, was not great for six figure raises, you know, they’re more for smaller projects, because I considered Kickstarter. And I was intrigued as a couple other movies had done we funder, and I looked online, and it’s more for startup companies. But there are other movies that have raised, you know, two to 400,000 on there quite a few. And so I sort of looked at what they did. And I thought, okay, I’ll try this. Now, the first 50k, you basically have to raise from your own network, because they won’t put it on their platform, like they’ll put it on there as a private link. But once you hit 50k, it becomes public. And then that means other investors on we funder will see your project, anyone on we funder can see your project. And so some people might just discover you that way. So the first 50 was the hardest. And I actually got a tip from another filmmaker, like you can go and see other movies on we finder. I don’t know if this would work now. But at the time, a few years ago, other people that invest in other movies or even other startups, but especially movies, you can kind of like see their names. Sometimes you see how much or that they’re on LinkedIn, and you can sort of like, kind of stalk them and query them on LinkedIn about your movie. I did a few of those. And I got some people that way. But then eventually, you know, it goes public and more people just find you and might invest without you having to query them. The other parallel path was the nonprofits. I did a lot of cold LinkedIn connection queries, because you know, it’s easier to get someone’s LinkedIn than it is their email address often, right. So I started looking up nonprofits, connect to polarization, found a list of them where there was like literally hundreds of different organizations. So, I started doing a lot of querying of those, and a couple of those hit. And then those, you know, led me to people that were interested. And then some of them led me to other people who were interested. So I raised I think probably two thirds through we finder and one third through these nonprofits that were doing grants or donations that don’t have to be repaid, which is also great for the investors, because it means the investor pool stays smaller, even though the amount raised goes up a bit. So as a total win-win. And so between those two, I was able to get to in the end around 300.
Ashley
So, then those not for profits, they’re getting money from the government or they’re raising money and then in turn, they’re giving it to worthy causes. So, you tried to get in and say, this is a worthy cause. That’s sort of your pitch to them.
Erik Bork
Essentially, yeah. And for ones that care about polarization, some really did feel it was a worthy cause. Their world is like, there are all these documentaries about polarization, which are great, but they feel like the audiences for those are small and it’s like preaching to the choir of people that already are members of like Braver Angels or other anti-polarization groups. So, they felt that this would hit a different audience and hit people in a different way because it’s more of a mainstream romantic comedy that you don’t have to care about polarization to enjoy the movie or whatever.
Although once you’ve seen it, you probably have a lot to discuss because everyone’s dealing with this in their own lives. And when I have screened it, there’s big discussions after which are really engaged and cool. So, they were like, yeah, we want stuff like this to be out there a different way to kind of an indirect, general way to address the question of polarization. You know, you can’t say the movie has a message of like be less polarized. It’s not like it comes out and says that, but the themes of the movie make you sort of think about that, I guess, you know, as two people on opposite sides try to forge some kind of connection with stakes to it, despite that issue.
Ashley
Yeah. So, tell me about casting. Um, so you, once you radio, you had the script, you raise the money and then you get into casting. I thought your cast was excellent. Maybe you can speak to that. Did you get a casting director with these actors that were in your network that you could reach out to? Maybe just tell us how you went about the casting with this.
Erik Bork
Yeah, well, a couple of them were in my network, and I reached out to them directly. But the two romantic leads were not. It was during the actor strike. And so that was a whole other hurdle, because we’re going to use SAG after, you know, actors, which means a SAG after contract, which we got the ultra-low budget agreement we use, but then the strike was happening. So indie films like mine could apply for a, I forget what it was called, we weren’t supposed temporary agreement, right, to shoot even during the strike, because SAG wanted actors to make movies during the strike if they’re indie movies that aren’t against aren’t with struck companies, which we were the definition of that tiny little indie movie. So even though some people in SAG were like, well, you shouldn’t even do that, because it looks bad. But most people, I think, were like, no, that’s a good thing to do. So that might have made it harder or easier, harder, and some people might have been like, I don’t want to work during the strike for optics, because even though the union is telling me to, it’s still some people might take it the wrong way. Other people were like, I’m not working at all. So, I’m available during the strike and I’m out of money and health insurance. So yeah, let’s do this. I don’t know what my actors different points of view or the different people that I went out to. But I will tell you that there was one agent. So the thing is, the fact that we got this interim agreement is what they call it. The films that got interim agreements were published, their titles in the trades, like deadline Hollywood variety and stuff. And so I started getting queries from a lot of different people. But agents of actors were one of them saying, hey, we saw your movie. They must have found me. I don’t know how they found me. They had to do some online sleuth thing because it would just say the title of the movie and nothing else in the trades. And this particular agent at the Gersh agency was like, I want to help you cast this. And he was amazing. He started sending me people, sending me reels, and I would look at them and we made some offers and not every offer that they accepted and we would go to other choices or give me more ideas. And we ended up casting three of the six actors, including the two romantic leads from his pool at Gersh. And he made it real easy because he was trying to get them in there and he was sending me these great reels and then making the offers and then eventually we hit on the right people.
Ashley
Gotcha. Gotcha. So well, as I said, well done on the casting for sure. So, what’s next for you? What are you working on now?
Erik Bork
You know, I’m still out there with this movie’s distribution and promotion. As I said, you can rent it online or we’ll watch it on Tubi, but we’re also doing college screenings because there are colleges too, that feel like this is a topic, even though it’s a romantic comedy, it’s a topic worth discussing. So like, I’m kind of touring with the movie a little bit, like I’m going to be in Utah in a couple of weeks. Weber state university is doing a screening. Ohio state’s doing one. The university of Delaware, different departments, communications, psychology, political science departments. So we’ll see if that snowballs and that’s fun to do.
Ashley
And how do you get those set up? Did you reach out? Do you have a publicist or you reached out to them?
Erik Bork
We have used a publicist, and I did do some interviews and podcasts, by the way, including Newt Gingrich of all people interviewed me on his podcast, and I was almost on CNN. I was booked for Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room, which shocked me, but then they bumped me for the Trump-Putin summit, which makes sense. But anyway, so we’ve had work for the publicist and worked with some social media marketing people at times. But at the moment, with the colleges, no, that was more kind of what they call an impact campaign where you just query. Again, it’s me researching online and finding places that seem like good matches and querying, and then some of those people are saying, yeah, we’re interested. Let us look at the film or let us talk about doing a screening.
Ashley
Your pitch to them is that you’ll show up. You’ll do a Q and a like, what is your pitch? Like what’s in it for them? Just an interesting topic.
Erik Bork
The pitch is just a film that would speak to their students or their mission. Some of these are like centers for the study of politics and democracy, things like that, where it’s like this topic is mission related to what they do in some way. And so some of them are like, yeah, we do film screenings. This looks like a good film. It’s pretty cheap to get basically a license to screen it. And they have to pay the lecture if they want me to come. They don’t always have me come. Sometimes I can show up virtually, sometimes in person. And so, I’m just offering it. And if it fits the kind of content they’re interested in, they think will be a benefit to their community or their students. Because also other non-campus organizations, like Braver Angels has all these chapters. And they are into the movie because it’s exactly what they’re all about. But they tend to not always have funding to do screenings, but we have had some. And we’ll probably have some more through their chapters too. So yeah, it’s hit miss. But the ones that like it like it, and usually colleges have funding for events like this. So, we’re able to figure out a deal.
Ashley
Perfect. And so yeah, how can people see The Elephant in the room? I watched it on to be.tv. So I know it’s there, but where else is it available?
Erik Bork
Yeah, I mean the film’s website has all the links to where it’s available and that website is uh Elephantintheroomfilm.com. No, the. Just elephantintheroomfilm.com. But the quick answer is anywhere you rent movies on at home, you know Apple, Google play, Amazon, It’s on all of those and in Tubi you can stream for free with ads with no account or anything, so that’s a simple way and then there are these various screenings if you happen to live near one of them to see it in person.
Ashley
Okay, perfect. And those are listed on your website as well.
Erik Bork
they are. By the way, it’s only in the US and Canada right now. We also have a foreign sales agent who’s selling rights to various foreign distributors. And we’ve had a few sales, but I don’t know where it’s actually playing yet. And so if you live in the UK or anywhere outside US and Canada, you may not be able to see it.
Ashley
Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. And what, is there anything you’ve been, see, I like to end the interviews just by asking the guests, is there anything you’ve been watching recently, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, that you can recommend to our screenwriting audience? And it’s not a trick question. Just any, I’m just always curious to just hear what other screenwriters are, are watching and think is good.
Erik Bork
Yeah, it hasn’t been a really hot period the last couple of months for me where I’m like, I have these five things that I really love, but like, more in the last year, I guess, I mean, I’m more of a comedy person. So, I tend to go after comedies harder than some of the like awards season dramas or whatever. So, I’ve checked out a lot of things, but things that I tend to gravitate toward are more on the comedic side. I kind of like the FX show adults about the 25-year-olds, which debuted this last year and has a second season coming up. I’ve watched Jay Kelly. The other night, I thought Jay Kelly was good. I think I like marriage story more. Bob Bock, you know, those are both his movies. But you know, Jay Kelly is a very Hollywood type story about a movie star. And I’ve been around that, that world. People like that a little bit and thought it was well done. I mean, he’s a great filmmaker. Those were a couple times off the top of my head.
Ashley
Perfect. Yeah. No, that’s, those are great recommendations. So just tell us all your social media handles. I know you have, um, the flying wrestler or it’s flying wrestler.com. But just all your Twitter, Facebook, anything you’re comfortable sharing, just mention those now and I’ll round those up for the show notes.
Erik Bork
I mean the main one is the website like I said flyingwrestler.com. I know that’s a weird name, but it’s my, I explain why on a blog post, but it’s where I blog and offer consulting and coaching services. And you can read more about my book and I also have online classes. I do live sessions where I have a bunch of writers that come in and we talk. But I have LinkedIn, I have FlyingWrestler is my Twitter, which I’m not using, a ton of X, I guess it’s call. I haven’t been doing that a lot these days. There was a main one, the film website and the flyingwrestler website.
Ashley
Perfect, perfect. As I said, I’ll get those in the show notes. Erik, always a pleasure talking with you. I look forward to hearing about your next project and good luck on this project.
Erik Bork
Thanks. Yeah, thanks so much, Ashley. Appreciate it. And thank you.
Ashley
Talk to you later. Bye.
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That’s the podcast for this month. Erik gave us a lot of great information, so hopefully you found some value in it. Thanks for listening.