If you Want your Film to Make Money

Brian is a Producer with Silver Peak Productions, the President of Candlelight Media Group, and a director with Sun World Pictures.  We talk about the business side of filmmaking, from development, to unit production managers, to post-production.  Learn how a full-time filmmaker with a business mind cycles through various stages of developing, producing and selling Independent feature films.

You can find out more about “In the Telling” at lizzylizzyliz.com

Theme music by Gordon Vetas

Episode extra, Brian’s favorite tools to use on set

Transcript

Brian Brough:   0:00
honestly, you could go off and make a film for almost nothing nowadays and have a look great. If you have the right people involved or you learn how to do the right kind of you have the right skill. Set yourself and you don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a movie.

Liz Christensen:   0:14
The voice you just heard belongs to Brian Brough.

Brian Brough:   0:17
My name is Brian Brough and I have been working in the film industry for a little over what about 22 years now, 23 24 years. I don't know, 20 plus years, which sounds like it is same amount of time, but looking back, it's gone by really, really fast.

Liz Christensen:   0:33
Brian is a producer with Silver Peak Productions, the president of Candlelight Media Group and a director with some World Pictures.

Brian Brough:   0:41
Basically have been working in film in a variety of positions. I started freelancing as a production assistant on Silly, worked my way up to do different things, and now we have our own company where we produce and distribute and develop and do pretty much all aspects of film making.

Liz Christensen:   0:56
Brian joined me for the fourth episode of Season two to talk about the business side of filmmaking, from development to unit production managers to post production. Learn how a full time filmmaker with a business mind cycles through the various stages of developing, producing and selling independent feature films. I'm your host lives Christiansen, and it's all in the telling Welcome to Episode 25 with My Guest, Brian Brough of Candlelight, Media Group. Some World Pictures and Silver Peak Productions listen through to the end of the episode to hear the episode extra. Brian's favorite tool to use on set What got You Started in film?

Brian Brough:   1:37
Um, I took an introduction to film class at BYU.

Liz Christensen:   1:39
Like for generals.

Brian Brough:   1:40
Yeah, just one of the general education things was just kind of here is almost like a film of pre appreciation type of class. And I thought, This

Liz Christensen:   1:47
is kind of cool

Brian Brough:   1:48
and I never really thought about it as a career, even though as a kid we make our own little videos back with the big VHS cameras that they had, and you have to carry the deck around with you and stuff, and that was just kind of for fun. But when I got to college and took that class, I thought, Well, okay, you can actually do this for a living. And so that's what really got me interested in The filmmaking process is just the intruder film class.

Liz Christensen:   2:09
Were you a declared major at that point?

Brian Brough:   2:11
Yeah, I was accounting at the time.

Liz Christensen:   2:12
Oh, that's a big sweat to

Brian Brough:   2:13
Europe. So, yes, I went to accounting and decide to switch to film, then got talked out of that so into physical therapy on dhe. I was terrible at science. I thought, I can't I can't pass my classes well enough to do physical therapy and ended up going back to film.

Liz Christensen:   2:30
How many's semesters was that from the time that you started school to the time that you were declared film major? Probably

Brian Brough:   2:36
some time. So I just started school a little bit younger. So I had two years of school before my mission, and as a result, I so I probably had. But the four semesters, when on a mission, came back. So probably about four semesters, maybe even five to some summer summer terms as well. So it took a while before, but by the time I started to the film program, I was pretty much done with almost all my generals. And so I could just focus on the filmmaking process and accepted classes

Liz Christensen:   3:03
when you first started as a filmmaker, or even as a student filmmaker, uh, did you have a specific like, I want to be behind the camera or I want a writer I want to act. So if you want you they

Brian Brough:   3:13
had at the time they have basically a writing program and a directing program and are those kind of emphasis is, And I wasn't interested, neither one. I was interested in the business side of film, so I took the unit production management class that they had there. I thought, This is great. I love doing that. And that kind of led to my natural tendencies, which is more organization and the business side of things. So I talked to my advisors, and we kind of came up with business classes and film classes to almost have him on my own producing track and do something along those lines.

Liz Christensen:   3:43
For someone who's not a film person, what is a unit production manager there that basically

Brian Brough:   3:47
the person that deals with all the crap on set you wanna call

Liz Christensen:   3:51
it. That thing is more

Brian Brough:   3:53
than just that, but they're really a producer. Is says. Here's my idea and I have a director and the production manager is hired to make everything happen. So they hire all the crew. They keep everything on budget and schedule, and they just coordinate with everybody to make sure it all happens. And then as there's problems along the way, they're the ones that solve the problems, you know, along with other people as well. But they're the ones in charge of solving all those things.

Liz Christensen:   4:15
I can hear somebody who's not a familiar with film in the back of my head being like, How is that not a producer if they're the one doing the producing, Yeah, you know, not to

Brian Brough:   4:24
diminish what a producer does, but most producers don't do. A lot of some do. Some do. But like back when I was in school, I producer, it kind of means that here, can you do this and I would do everything and I'd look back like the producer barely showed up, even on set. So I was like, Well, then maybe I should be a producer and I started doing everything But, you know, even on a feature film, I've been hired on stuff, and some producers are really involved. But the producers are more about finding the right script, finding the right director, making sure the money is in place. But after that, the day to day on set activities most producers aren't very heavily involved with.

Liz Christensen:   5:01
So they're more like instigators. They instigate and they kind

Brian Brough:   5:05
of they oversee the whole process, but they don't deal with every day. Nitty gritty of things.

Liz Christensen:   5:10
Okay, I'm thinking a unit production manager sounds a lot like a stage manager. Probably. Yeah,

Brian Brough:   5:16
probably. Very similar to that is the ones that make the day to day. Every little thing happen by coordinating with the different department heads. Where's the producer is Hey, let's hire the right people and then you can take care of the rest. You know, most producers that I've worked with summer are someone involved, but most are pretty hands off when it comes to the day to day activities.

Liz Christensen:   5:35
How did you get from what is primarily like a business thing to being a director or a director of photography, which sounds far more artistic? I hate to admit this,

Brian Brough:   5:49
but basically I was producing and we always have to go off in higher. Director and I started directing because it was one less person higher. It was more of and that's probably little too simplistic is so I mean, I worked as a production manager and also as a first assistant director and the first assistant director works with the director and the director of photography on set as far as making the stuff on set happen. And as I worked with different directors and cinematographers and stuff, I started getting a little more creative confidence thinking, You know

Liz Christensen:   6:20
what? I think I could do

Brian Brough:   6:21
this. So it was a combination of K instead of trying to find directors that will have the same vision and be able to deliver it what I want, as well as gaining some more confidence in what I can do. That's kind of why I thought, you know, let me take a stab at this and see what I can do. You know, I kind of approach directing from I mean, there's definitely the artistic side. But having the business background, I approached it a lot more in terms of how do we get this done on schedule? How do we make sure you know, understanding the financial ramifications of different decisions that I make is the director.

Liz Christensen:   6:52
Can you give me some specific examples of a choice that a director might want to make on a set that would cause problematic business ramifications? A lot of it

Brian Brough:   7:02
is, I mean, unease E one to be locations, for example. Sometimes you may say creatively. I want this location, you know, and it may be really difficult to get. You may be difficult to bring the crew in all the equipment, but creatively you may say I want it and you don't really care at how hard and how much it costs to do that where, as you know, on the producer side, I'm thinking it's gonna cost this much. Here's an example is we have a project that we're I think, that we're getting to developing right now that will shoot in Fiji. I found a house that's not on the main. I don't I don't know if easy, but on ah island just north of there. And I would love to shoot at this house and the house isn't that expensive to film, and everything would be great to film there. But since we're filming on the main island of Fiji, to go up to there would take us a 12 hour ferry ride. Plus, we have Thio so we can take our equipment and our crew up just to get to this one house and because we still need a film of the other island. And so we're looking at a day to travel up the day to travel back and the cost it takes to travel all of the equipment and get set up to have to go out and scout the location. It just gets really expensive justice shoot at this one house on a different island. So even though the director side of me says, Hey, that'd be really cool Visually, the producer size said Okay, the cost is this much. Is it gonna buy me that much more in the film than just finding another house that's easy to film that

Liz Christensen:   8:24
you don't want it that badly? Yeah,

Brian Brough:   8:26
well, I mean, does it project need it? The flip side of it also is Is it gonna make the movie a better movie is gonna make it sell more. Our audience is gonna like it more because off the hassle of doing this and sometimes it does make sense to say, you know what? For what the film is, I need to see this. But in this project, I'm like, You know what? We don't need to see. I like it as a director, but I don't really need it. And so you have to compromise right there. And that's what you see as you work with directors and producers are always fighting on. The director wants creatively and the producer saying, no cause cost too much. And so I kind of have those internal struggles, you know, discussions. And then we figure out what's worth spending the money on and what's not.

Liz Christensen:   9:06
You're having this as a conversation with yourself rather than a debate with another person. Yeah, exactly. Tell me what candlelight media is and what some world pictures is and how they're different or the same or overlap. There s so some candlelight

Brian Brough:   9:19
media started off is our main company, and it's mostly our distribution company. And we started off a lot more and faith based projects, so we created son World Pictures as more of a mainstream brand. There's very similar now. We don't do as many faith based projects, but as Faras what we put out to the world. The brand is more several pictures, whereas we started office candlelight, so they're very similar. They're both distribution companies in just different brands and labels that we release under

Liz Christensen:   9:47
what the distribution company in film. It's

Brian Brough:   9:50
the company distribution companies, a company that actually gets the film out there. So whether we go back in the DVD days as a distribution company, we'd get the DVDs into Wal Mart. You know, we go off and get him into best buys and targets and Costco's and all the different retail stores. You know, we go and talk with the actual stores, the buyers from the stores and place it now in the digital world. We talked with Netflix. We talked with the Hulu's and the Amazons of the world and all the different digital outlets that there are. We also work with broadcasters, so we do a lot of stuff with, you know, with Hallmark and Lifetime and the guest free form which used to be able to family and sci fi Channel and you know the different TV stations. So, really, it's about the distributor distributes the film to the widest audience possible, so they try to get your film released and out to the world.

Liz Christensen:   10:39
When you're creating a film that you're going to then distribute. Is candlelight media or some World pictures creating the film? Are you creating another entity that is filmed specific? That then has a contract? If that's the word I want to use with some world way have

Brian Brough:   10:55
multiple companies, so we're kind of in a unique position. So candlelight and son world, that's our distribution arm. But we also mean as a result, So since we're a distributor and we work with buyers were already working with them and selling our films before we even make them. So we developed as a candlelight or what company is doing it. But, you know, internally, we developed the film. We say, Here's our idea. Let's development. Let's write the script and then we have our production arm, which is our production company, which is called Silver Pete Productions. And that's the company that will normally produce the film. Sometimes we may create another company, you know, for whatever reason. But candlelight itself doesn't produce. It's just the distributor of the films. And then we have other companies that will act as the production entity.

Liz Christensen:   11:37
Is there a lot of human resource overlap between those entities? Uh, yeah.

Brian Brough:   11:43
I mean, yes, and we all share the same office is the same. General ownership of stuff is just more of more of just, ah, accounting and legal entities that we've set up. And so, you know, like, for example, I work at candlelight. That's my you know, my family's company. But I also work for Sonny for Silver Peak Productions. Um, when we produce it. So it's just more of which entity is doing what? And then we kind of shift over to whatever role were doing in that for that project.

Liz Christensen:   12:11
Give me a sample timeframe of how Silver Peak. Oh, I don't even know where it starts. Who who starts with? Let's make this thing. And at what point are you selling this thing in tandem with making of this thing from a company stamp?

Brian Brough:   12:26
I don't really. I mean, it's just kind of how we want to document it on how we need to say who has a copyright and stuff from a process standpoint. You know, we'll come in and say, Let's develop this project So we'll have the idea Well pitched it to different people. Two different companies are different. I say buyers. I mean more of TV stations and foreign buyers that we work with. So I said, Here's a different ideas and they say These are the ones that we like and then we'll go off and and development meeting will come up with the developed a synopsis and then you write the script and, you know, working in house. And then from there, it kind of just over to our production arm, which is okay, let's start casting the project. Let's start hiring the crew and picking the locations and getting ready to actually produce and to shoot the film

Liz Christensen:   13:08
so that if we're gonna split hairs and categorize things than the creative impetus and the business is starting in the same place, and it's not until there is somewhat of a business lied that you're kicking it over in a production. Yeah, if you want to

Brian Brough:   13:24
call it that, then I mean candle lights kind of developing it, and then candidate will have a contract with Silver Peak to actually produce the film.

Liz Christensen:   13:31
Okay,

Brian Brough:   13:31
Yeah, here's the script. So Catholic Media will say, Here's a script to Sun World and some not Some worlds are Silver Peak and Silver People produce it. And when it's done so for peak therefore hands it back over to to candlelight

Liz Christensen:   13:42
and candlelight saying, Hey, produced this because we're probably selling it to a lifetime or hall marker. We

Brian Brough:   13:47
I don't know. Yeah, we would produce it because we have people that want to buy the film. Okay, Carlos, where it goes a

Liz Christensen:   13:52
lot of time, just it over there. Either

Brian Brough:   13:54
they're interested or we know them well enough to know where the film can possibly go.

Liz Christensen:   13:58
Okay, because you have a long established relationship, your relationships with

Brian Brough:   14:03
um and whether we've never sold like toe Lifetime the hallmark. We don't produce a film saying, we know it's gonna go there, but we get their input and we try to make the films that they're gonna want. And then afterwards we go in and we sell the films or we give them the films. And if we did a good enough job than the license the film from us so was acquired after the fact.

Liz Christensen:   14:22
That too, because that I feel like I understood those words. Sort of, You know, a lot of

Brian Brough:   14:26
companies like, you know, we're based in Utah and so a lot of companies from outside of Utah will come in and say Hallmark is hiring us to make this film and the higher the current to make the film the hallmark is giving them the money to make the film. It was considered a co production or a work for hire, however you want to call it, whereas their hallmark is bankrolling them to the movie for us with our films, for the most part, we are saying we want to make this movie. We might get input from people, but we will make the film independently of them so we don't get any money from anybody else. Ah, from these outside broadcasters, we make the movie, and then when it's finished, we say, Here's the finished movie and we hope to sell it to them. And so and if they license it from us, meaning they come in and say we're gonna get it for X number of years for this much money, okay? And so, whereas when they produce it, when Hallmark hires you to make the movie, they're going to get the movie that you fulfill. Take the film. You're you produce the film with their money, you give them the film afterwards and they're gonna put it directly on the channel.

Liz Christensen:   15:23
Okay, so I can't think of the word that I want for that, but, um, when you're selling it or licensing it, they haven't for that amount of time to complete how many times they want they can do

Brian Brough:   15:32
it depends what the contract terms are. Usually, it says, I can play X number of times over the course of this many years, and there's a lot of definitions on that conduit on broadcast on digital within what, what? Digital platforms and so forth. So it's all part of the contract, but yeah, they're able to do it what? Whatever we agree upon for that amount of time. And then at the end of that time, it comes back to us

Liz Christensen:   15:54
that those generally exclusivity contracts while their place it varies. Okay?

Brian Brough:   15:58
Yeah, Like with broadcasters use exclusive with digital. It's it depends on who you're talking to,

Liz Christensen:   16:03
you might be able to be on a prime and Netflix at the same time. Depending in

Brian Brough:   16:07
digital has a lot of different areas to. So there's, you know, T VOD was his transactional meaning of rental.

Liz Christensen:   16:13
Yeah,

Brian Brough:   16:13
you know. Then there's Espada with a subscription base, and there's a VOD. Was his ad based

Liz Christensen:   16:18
Is that who What was that? Who

Brian Brough:   16:20
used to be They still have some as we like to be. TV is one that's completely justice, always free to watch, but you have to watch commercials with it. Okay, that's ad base. And that's where if you go to row crew, that's what most of the road who channels are. And there's a whole bunch of Avon Platforms subscription based on who is somewhat subscriptions somewhat ad base, depending on which interior at Netflix subscription based, um, Amazon Prime subscription based. Now you have a lot of the new ones that are coming out with, uh, what is that? Quimby is coming out. You have peacock, you have Apple TV plus, Um, actually, Peacock is probably be ad based. Yes, there's a lot of new ones coming out. Disney, plus that subscription, based So when we do a contract, it says, Okay, we'll weaken, Go for Chee VOD and Transactional meaning. We could make it available for rental or purchases, but we can't make it available for subscription.

Liz Christensen:   17:11
That's when it's on prime, not included with prime. But Amazon has it.

Brian Brough:   17:17
Yes, Amazon video. Amazon Prime has it where you can buy it or rent it. Or if you want to be on iTunes, for example, that's a rental or purchase or voodoo or wanted of platforms like that.

Liz Christensen:   17:28
This sounds utterly overwhelming. So if if somebody's listening in there like they're really interested in putting their first feature film out for distribution, how do we make them not panic at this point? Honestly, it's finally

Brian Brough:   17:45
finding a distributor you trust that can handle that. Yeah, we talked a lot of people, and sometimes it's overwhelming. Sometimes they think I could do this myself, and they try and then they realize, you know, honestly, you can do it yourself. But it's really as a lot of work, and it's a lot of, ah, lot of learning curve, you know, to figure out the right order to do things in, and some people if you do it in the wrong order, you're shooting yourself in the foot. You know, if it comes out one toe on ad supported first, nobody else description is gonna want you.

Liz Christensen:   18:12
Why is that?

Brian Brough:   18:13
Because there's an order of doing things. Which is why would somebody paid to watch your film if they could watch it for free

Liz Christensen:   18:19
over there? Because it still exists over here. Yeah. Okay.

Brian Brough:   18:22
So you want There's a certain order in a certain strategy of how to release it that you call windowing. You put a window for for different types of things. So, honestly, you know, to make it simple, as if you have one or two films, it's better to have a distributor, you know, for us, we have, you know, you know, over 100 films. We do this all the time so we know how to do it, and we do it ourselves. But we're not just like an individual doing that we have. You know, people that have their full time job is just handling the distribution side of things, you know, and we deal with foreign distribution and distribution in the U. S. And digital and broadcast and it could get really complicated. So, you know, for the filmmaker that's just says, Hey, I just made my movie. What do I do now? Find honestly, find a distributor that you that you feel you can trust That, um well, that what they could do aligns with what you want accomplished with your film.

Liz Christensen:   19:10
So if I had a film that was faith based and so I was head I'm thinking, OK, maybe candlelight media is the thing I want to do. Do candlelight media and some world pictures. Do they take like, submissions? How do How do you people do that? Yeah,

Brian Brough:   19:23
I mean, on our website, we have a submission little submission area where people could just email us in with a link to their film or a trailer or whatever. Alison just say, Hey, here's the film. Is this something that works with you guys? And so we'll watch it and review it and say, Yeah, this could work. Let's talk some more Or you know what? This is not quite in line with what we D'oh.

Liz Christensen:   19:39
What kind of places are these links coming from? Is this like YouTube video video? Unlisted. Yeah, it's really

Brian Brough:   19:44
wherever people want to put it, you can put it on me trailers you can put anywhere Honestly, I'd rather watch the trailer first in the whole movie. You know, that's gives a chance to look and see. What's the story about, Um, you know, what's the genre? You know, if it's a horror film, that's not stuff we do quite as much of his faith based, even at that. It's more of our we the right partners for that, Um, also we look at the quality is from a trailer. You get a sense of do. Was it lit properly? Is a sound done right is, you know, is the acting decent? If you offer trailer, that's fine. We can just look at the film to, and within the 1st 2 minutes we'll know if it has enough quality to be distributed. A lot of films we that are submitted unfortunately don't have the quality that you need to release the film on a worldwide to a worldwide audience. You know, the ones that do that's great, you know, whether has big name actors in it or not? Doesn't really matter as much as is the quality and the technical against technical quality. That film good enough to be released

Liz Christensen:   20:41
have I feel like I have way more questions? I

Brian Brough:   20:46
mean, you really with a lot of information, which seems very standard to me, but it really is. The problem is, most filmmakers don't know anything about this.

Liz Christensen:   20:53
Yeah,

Brian Brough:   20:53
you know, it's like I have an idea we could make a movie, and that's fantastic off you could make a movie. But if you want to do this as a business, if you want your movie to make money, you need to have either an understanding or somewhat of an understanding of what you actually knowing what you don't know. You know, too many filmmakers think they know everything and they come over. And when we try to tell them, this is like, No, that's not right. My friend told me this. My investor told me I could go off and sell it to this person like a great if you could do that, sometimes it right, but most of the times they're just misinformed, you know, They hear this the Napoleon Dynamite stories off. Oh, they made the movie and they sold it for four point whatever $1,000,000 I could do that, too. Mike. You can. But it's really tough to do it. So don't count on being that that outlier, that one film that got that huge success, you know, Blair, which had a huge success. But how many people try to make Blair Witch after that? Yeah, even the polling dynamite. How many people try to make them the next Napoleon Dynamite? And that's the thing is when you're pulling down and it was made, they weren't trying to be the next Napoleon Dynamite. They just made a film that worked for them, and they found the right audience where you know, which is fantastic, that they had that success. But to try to duplicate that is really difficult.

Liz Christensen:   21:58
How do you start with the money to make it? It's It's tough,

Brian Brough:   22:05
you know, for us right now, we've basically we have an investor group, so we don't go off and seek for outside investors beyond what we have set up right now.

Liz Christensen:   22:12
This is because you have a history. We have a

Brian Brough:   22:14
history. We've been doing this ritual for over 20 years now, so we're at that stage now. Frankly, most people are gonna give you significant money until they know what you can do. And even the people that do give you money, they're not doing it for an investment as much as to help you out. There's a tear of investors that are going to give it to you from a money standpoint, but if you're a first time or ah, relatively new filmmaker, people don't give you significant amounts of money just because they think that you're really gonna make them tons of money, they hope you will. As a result, you know, there's always this debate of If you don't make spent five million on a movie, just not doing it right. And I think that's a bunch of bull. It's You can make great movies for almost nothing. It comes down to Do you have a good enough story? You know what your script was it about? Is it something that is that's worth making number one and isn't marketable, that you can sell it, you know, and if so, why is it marketable? Because you think it is, or because you've talked to distribute it says I can sell your film, you know, and this is stuff you can do way before you even start producing. Too many people make the movie and say, Here's my movie and try to sell it And we did the same thing when we got started, But it's really hard to sell. Ah, film that didn't work right because you have the right wrong concept, so make sure the concept works and then you're jumping ahead. Is cast the film properly? Don't just hire your friends. Hire actors that connect everywhere you go. There's good actors and it doesn't require a lot of money. And it granted, you're really established actors. You need to pay them, and they have their rates and just not worthwhile for people to do suffer free as much. But there's so many actors that are still good that just want the experience. We just want to go off and do this and don't take advantage of them. But work out a deal that makes sense that fits within your budget. That also makes it worthwhile for the actors. Tell a good story with good actors, you know you can make a movie. Everything's you have to have the most amazing cameras now, you know, with the new iPhones. You can go off and shoot amazing stuff. I'm not saying go off and shoot a movie on an iPhone, but you can if you really wanted to find the right kind of people and make a film that can sell going back to the money. Part of it is yes, you need to do need to raise money and whether it's, you know, your kick starters, which is really hard to do nowadays. Back in when it started off, it was a little bit easier. But now everybody doesn't kick starter. But I mean, frankly, for 10 $15,000 you can make a feature film. You know that covers to pay for some locations if we need to. To pick the future crew to rent the stuff you need, Thio. And you know, if you know how to do things and compartment with the right people, you could make a good film and now go off. Make the money back on that and use that as your track record. Also, if you're working with investors, it's a lot easier to raise $10,000 it is to raise half a $1,000,000. Sure, you know and now you can go to your family and friends. Whatever hit everybody put in $2000 now I have enough to actually make this plan to pay them back. Too many filmmakers promise investors to pay them back, but when you get down to it, they just don't do it. They don't care. They give up at the end of the filmmaking process where they go. Okay, well, I made it, Okay, this is good and it's just whatever. I'll just move on to the next one, and that's how you don't make you Don't make your money back for your investors and you don't get money from them again. But it's sad to see how many filmmakers get to the end and just say it's just easier to give up because they don't have any skin in the game. And that's where I like the idea. Put your own money into it, you know, which is a big no no for Hollywood. But if you have something invested, make it back. This is your calling card. Make a great film and do it for whatever money you can you can raise.

Liz Christensen:   25:38
So if somebody is listening to this and they're like, I'm gonna try making my first feature film. Um, if I kind of break apart what you said and put it in an order of things, if they haven't made it yet, don't just go out and make it go talk to somebody about so a distributor about what maybe they would want or what they're looking for or a broadcaster. Pitch the idea before you put the skin in the game and then maybe start looking at, like, your investors. Because now you have some something that you can bring back to them were like, I think this is how this is gonna end up.

Brian Brough:   26:11
Yeah, yeah, that's totally true. I think once that before that is even What? What's your goal in making the movie?

Liz Christensen:   26:16
Why are you even doing it?

Brian Brough:   26:18
You're doing it to make money. Then yes, you should do everything you just said. Other people say I just want critical acclaim. I want to get my film, my name out there and do this Well, your your objectives are a little different. So the way you're gonna go about it will be slightly different. But

Liz Christensen:   26:30
how would that be? Different What would you I ask

Brian Brough:   26:33
people all the time? Why do you want to make a movie? Well, he is it to make money because you want to make money for you and your investors because you want to go theatrical and get your name in lights because you want the fame from it because you want this. I want everything but no pick the most important

Liz Christensen:   26:46
thing because, like if you want

Brian Brough:   26:48
to make it critically acclaimed movie or you want to go to film festivals and get noticed, that's not the same film as same. Same thing is making a movie that buyers want. I mean, you look at Hato poop with the Oscars, but most in the past at least so many them are critically acclaimed films that people that the academy may love that your regular audiences are most, for the most part, are not watching. And so there's exceptions to that, obviously, But you know, your movies that make half a $1,000,000,000 in the theaters are not the ones that make it to the Oscars, and so it's a little bit of same process on a much smaller scale. If you want to look at a little romcom that can go off and sell our little romantic comedy. It's not gonna get critical acclaim. Most likely it's not gonna make you famous, but it could make money. So which one do you want to? D'oh! You know, So it's you do a coming of age story about somebody struggle to overcome whatever there might be. A great story is not, most likely, gonna be a very sellable story. But if you're not trying to make your money back on it, if you don't care if you said, here's a story I have to tell, that's great. We just realized financially there's a lot of limitations on selling the movie later on, so that's where it affects. What story you want to do is what you're going with it

Liz Christensen:   27:58
that makes that makes a lot of sense. I like that you backed it up that step in case a lot of people that have things you and some

Brian Brough:   28:06
people say I have to tell this story. Have to tell Mike if you make these changes will be more remarkable. No, I want to tell this story, and that's fine as long as you go into knowing, Hey, that decision to make this story means that it could sell better or not, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't be surprised later on, you know it. Just make that decision cautiously, as opposed to not recognizing the consequences of those decisions

Liz Christensen:   28:28
that makes that makes loads of sense. Talk to me about your opinions out. Short films

Brian Brough:   28:32
Short films are fantastic as a way to learn how to do things in my mind. There's two reasons to short films. Number one is It's a great training ground as a filmmaker to say he'll make a 10 minute version or 10 minute film and see, Can I tell a story in 10 minutes? Technically, can I make the film? Can I get the film edited in the music and the sound and complete and make a really good short film? That's a good training Ground Number one and number two. It's a great way to go off and prove a concept to raise money. We talked about Napoleon Dynamite earlier, and you know they made their film. It was a short film starting off called Luca about this kid up in Idaho, you know, and that's It was the same character, same actors, and I don't know, they made it to raise money, but they've made it as a short film, and I I can't speak exactly how the process works. I wasn't involved with it, but I'm sure they showed the short film to somebody and said we could make a feature with the same kind of character. And so it was a way to say, almost a proof of concept, if you want to call it that. I know a lot of people that that's why they do shorts is you know, I can't afford it. I want to do a feature much bigger. But instead of doing a two hour movie, I'm gonna do you do a 10 minute version of it. And do you like it enough? And look at the quality. Look at the story. Look at how engaging it is. If I have this much money now, I can make a bigger version of that.

Liz Christensen:   29:45
Okay? Yeah. So this is prepping you for those conversations with investors and

Brian Brough:   29:49
yeah, but I would caution people on with short films is make a couple of them. If you want to learn from it and then move on. You know, I almost feel like there's a lot of filmmakers that have done 2030 short films, and I'm not sure why anymore. If you're doing it as an artistic expression or you have these short stories you want to tell, that's fine. But there's nothing business wise to accomplish with a short with that many short films, you know, it's at a certain point I always look at. How do you make all these short films? I'm thinking if you had a feature script you can put, put together your crew, they're making the short films for nothing. Why not make a feature of the same way? And now you have something that couldn't make you money because it's really hard to make money off of a short film. You make a little bit, but it's really hard to make anything substantial. And so it's a great training ground or, uh, wayto prove a concept. But it's not a way to make money.

Liz Christensen:   30:36
Is it more a difference of just the amount of time it takes than any other resource to switch from making a short film to a feature film? That's probably

Brian Brough:   30:44
One of the biggest things is you know how much time and energy and money it takes to make it. The other thing is, it's

Liz Christensen:   30:49
a lot harder

Brian Brough:   30:49
to tell a story in 90 minutes than it is in 10 minutes. With 10 minutes is, all you need is one story, and it could mean starts. I mean, it's his own set of challenges to make a story that short, but it's even harder to make a movie that lasts an hour and 1/2 that stays interesting. You know, you can't just have in a feature. Film is not just one story. You need to have multiple stories going on to be interesting. The pacing is very different. You don't drag out a 10 minute story. It's just happens really fast. Well, if it was 90 minutes along with that same story, what do you have to do to make it interesting, you know, So the storytelling process, I believe, is different, and obviously the time and energy that goes into its different also a short film, as you could do it in one or two locations and be good in a feature film, you'd be pretty claustrophobic unless the story calls for it. It really needs to be in 20 to 30 locations, you know, are depending what the story requires. But it needs to be a lot more visual to be interesting for that long. You know, the decisions you make in a future are gonna be different than a short film. But the same general process.

Liz Christensen:   31:48
Okay, this is kind of a bizarre question. Maybe, but, like, what is the feature film budget look like? It really

Brian Brough:   31:55
varies. And it depends on what is your What's your business? What number one of what is the story? What does it need? And then what do you want accomplish with it? Ivy? I know people that have made future felons for 10 grand and people that have spent millions millions of dollars on it, you know, Is it important to make your money back? Because if it is, you need to keep it within a better budget. You can't go off and spend $5 million think you're gonna sell independently and make your money back just unless you sell it to the studio at Sundance. There's something like that. You're not gonna make your money back independently. It's just too expensive. You need to keep your budget down to well under a $1,000,000 to make your money back on an independent level. The exception would be I mean, Sunday is just happened here recently, and you know, they're selling movies for anywhere from 1,000,000 Thio. 17 million. I think 17 and 1/2 1,000,000 was a big big sale for this past year. And if you could get that kind of money, that's great. But, you know, it's really hard to go off and make your money back. It's a lot harder to make your money back. Then you think it will be

Liz Christensen:   32:50
so. It sounds like if Sundance and selling to a studio there is the end in mind that you want definitely make choices that direction. But don't bank on getting that money. Yeah,

Brian Brough:   33:00
I mean, you look at the films that were picked up and look at the purest deals and who buys them? You know, it's it's the same thing is make a movie for that buyer. Essentially, if you want to go there, they have names and um, meaning them recognizable, unmarketable cast, you know, and they spend the money on that. They are quirky and they're not your standard movies, you know, it's a film festival piece, which is different than a mainstream movie, you know, and they're being picked up by studios or now Netflix and Amazon and who are coming in and acquiring a lot of big films there. So, yeah, the process is different, but it's hard to ever bank on that unless you're making a film that fits exactly for that, which for your first film or to most people are not doing, You know, not to say you can't do it, but it's Most people are making a film that's much, much smaller. That probably won't have that kind of success, which is fine, learned on something smaller. And then, you know, if you want, aspire to that. That's great when you're ready for it.

Liz Christensen:   33:53
What are the things that a new feature film maker unit Is it the unit production manager building the budget? Yes, a new feature film UPM is going to forget to put in their budget.

Brian Brough:   34:05
I mean, if if they're a brandy UPM, they're going to forget most things, Um,

Liz Christensen:   34:09
what should be in the budget? I mean,

Brian Brough:   34:11
everything you know, paying your actors, paying your crew the prep time for different crew members and for any rehearsals the director wants to do with the actor, of which we don't typically do a lot. But, you know, some people may want to rehearse it. Ah, wardrobe fittings, the cost of locations. If you're dealing with trailers meaning, you know, with cast trailers and stuff like that, that needs to be in there counting for the cost of gas. You know, in fuel for your generator and for the to run, all the vehicles are trucks, the cost of props. And it depends on what what your project is. Really. I mean, you're making a film for $10,000. You really not spending a lot regardless. But when you're spending 1/2 $1,000,000 everything's costing more money. Anything that happens cost money. So you need a budget for budgeting for walkie talkies so the crew can talk to each other. You know, just there's a lot of little things out there that are part of the process that you know, number one. You should never have a UPM do this. Do a film for you to do a budget for you. If they've never done a film, it's they don't They won't know. Okay, you know, UPM there could be a new u p m. But they need to be experiencing Phil.

Liz Christensen:   35:18
Where? What do most people do prior to being a UPM Like it? They kind of come up

Brian Brough:   35:24
through the as assistant director.

Liz Christensen:   35:26
Okay,

Brian Brough:   35:26
so, you know, I mean, for me, I was a p a that I was a 2nd 2nd 80 than a 2nd 80 than a first a d on. And I do a lot of upm work when I was in just as a student. So you know, I, um and then so I started u P I mean professionally as well, You know, even if they've done student projects, that's fine, and usually somebody who's done it, you know, and maybe they never done a feature, and that's totally fine. You got to do their first feature at some point, but they need to be somebody who knows at least is done on shorts or has done it with her friends. Or, you know, been around enough to know this is what I need to dio. I did a project for a friend. I was the first a D on. And the UPM, I think was so the producer hired a UPM that didn't know what a UPM waas. We had a production meeting and they were talking about getting like mats for the location just to protect the carpet. When we walk in the location and he turns to me and says, How do I pay for this? I'm like, you're the UPM. You gotta figure out how to talk to the producing it money. I'm That's not my job. But I just thought how green he was He was upm in name, but he didn't know anything of what he was actually doing. Um,

Liz Christensen:   36:25
so this is not the place on set that you want someone who has financial and organizational skills in other industries. You need a film person enough

Brian Brough:   36:33
of a film, for they have to have a film background of some sort, you know, and they don't have to have 20 years of experience, but they need to understand what films that ISS they need to understand when things need to happen and why they need to happen. And I mean your whole film could be destroyed by not having a UPM that doesn't know what they're doing. You know, they're the ones that approve everything. And if they don't know what to approve and how to prove it and how to get the money, they're the ones that spend the money so they don't know how to pay for things. That's a problem. You

Liz Christensen:   37:01
know, issues. Brian and I talked a bit about his favorite equipment to use on set, which you can hear in the episode extra at the end. But the order in which he talked about the programs he uses in post got me thinking In what order do you fix it in post? Is that like, the order of operations were gonna edit it and then we're gonna color it, and then we'll do sound of music after. Yes. Okay, you guys. I mean, when you add it,

Brian Brough:   37:27
you have to lock picture before you do anything else. Meaning we're not going to make any other changes in the attic. So here is our finished cut before we finalize the make it look pretty

Liz Christensen:   37:35
okay? Yeah. We're not even gonna take, like, two seconds out of that science. It's the exact same time.

Brian Brough:   37:41
Yeah, So that's why you lock picture. So once you're done editing, you lock picture, and then you give it to color, you give it to sound, You give it to music, you give it to any visual effects you have and they can all work on those things. They're aspects or their areas at the same time because you're not gonna make any changes. And so the music is being worked on while the sounds mean you've done. And then when the music is all done, you take the finish music. You too. Your final sound mix. We bring in all the sound elements and the music that's been composed, and then you can mix it all together at the very end.

Liz Christensen:   38:12
So picture lock is not sound touch? No. Okay. I

Brian Brough:   38:16
mean, there's stuff you do in the edit, but the sound has not been made till the sound better. You don't put it on me. Honestly, you don't really waste your time and putting in the sound effects and everything else unless you need to, because the sound guy and post will redo it Anyway. They'll do it with the better quality samples and put it all together, Okay, But, you know, and then you need to have your visual effects in, or anything that's gonna affect the sound by the time you do shall sound mix. So if you're on a green screen when you shoot it, you need to see what is it gonna be? So if you're not an ocean or if you're in space or if you're on the street wherever you are, that's gonna affect the sound effects you put in

Liz Christensen:   38:50
is that pretty much the last thing that happens that is, is the sound. Sound

Brian Brough:   38:53
is usually yeah sound, and you might be tweaking visual effects at the end. Your picture has to be pretty complete to make sure their sound matches it so sound. Your sound mix is usually that one of the final steps before you're done,

Liz Christensen:   39:05
that's really interesting to me

Brian Brough:   39:07
sometimes will go back and say, OK, we still gotta treat these last couple things, but we made sure the sound represents what it's going to be. Or it's gonna be something that the sound won't be affected by. I

Liz Christensen:   39:17
don't know what I would have thought would be the last thing, probably coloring. I don't know why, but just I didn't expect that to be the last thing. Maybe. How do you just manage your work life if you're traveling multiple companies? I imagine you have multiple projects in various stages of development in your pipeline. Give me some tips on how the multi tasker just I don't know if

Brian Brough:   39:41
we've really figured out how to do it. Great. We just do it. Whatever works were in various stages on different projects all the time. You know, Right now I'm actually coloring a film that we did back in at the last fall and trying to finish that one up right now. Once I do that, I got to go through and finalize the editor of a Christmas movie. Read it in December. You know, at the same time we are developing new projects. We have another project to start shooting in another month and 1/2 that we're trying to get the script ready for looking at two other projects. We're gonna do overseas, you know, at the same time. So it's really just a matter of I don't know if I do anything special to multitask. It's kind of where did my attention. Need to be at the time.

Liz Christensen:   40:20
Obviously. You're working with, like, deadlines. Do you signed yourself sometimes being like you know what? I just need a break from looking at color. I'm gonna go check out that cut over there. I'm gonna go work on this. Anything depends

Brian Brough:   40:29
on what it is from color. Maybe not as much, just cause you want to kind of keep your mindset into what you're looking at. Okay. But like in editing, it may be him editing. I need to take a break for a couple of days just to take a step away, then come back so I'll go do something else. You know, I read a script, all do notes or start looking at locations or whatever. Then come back to it. So, you know, we don't really have a workflow where it's okay. This month, we're gonna focus on this next month. We're gonna focus on that. It's the projects. All have their own timelines, and it's really just trying to balance it in calendar it where you can say, OK, this is what I need to do now.

Liz Christensen:   41:01
Other than coloring, are there other ones where it's like walking away from that is actually more inconvenient because of how I have to get back in. I'm sure writing's

Brian Brough:   41:09
like that. I don't write, so I don't really do it

Liz Christensen:   41:12
that part of it.

Brian Brough:   41:13
But I'm sure riding is better. Just tow, get it done most of time or get a draft done. And then do I step away for a week and come back to it with fresh eyes? A little bit. Editing could be good with that, but as far as for the most part, we just don't have the time to walk away too long. Yeah, we usually have people waiting for our films on the back side of things. So it's about finishing this fast. You can. So we try to schedule it out in the house. You know, I may you know, I have people in here that do a lot of the editing now, and I'll go through and finalize it. But it's a matter of, you know, okay, make sure that it's done so I can take over and lock picture by this time and handed over to work to start the rest of post production, and then they'll jump over to do the visual effects for different projects. Project while I'm working on one thing, so we kind of go back and forth based off of what each person can do and when we need to finish up the films

Liz Christensen:   41:59
on an artistic level. Since we talked business, mostly, what are your tips for making a good film? It's having a

Brian Brough:   42:06
vision of what it is. I mean, there's artistic and I not to pull away from the artistic side, but don't try to be so unique and so artistic that it just doesn't work. Go watch the films that are similar to what you want to create, and you can put your own spin on it for sure and be artistic in that way. But when you try to reinvent the wheel, it doesn't typically work. Things have been done a certain way for a long time for reason, and so you know, with me being artistic, it's about how can I make this look as beautiful as possible? How do you pick great locations? So has that right capture the right field? How do you make sure your actors can you know the cast the right person to convey what you wanted, you know the way you want. The story told. That's the artistic side really is, you know, picking those kind of shots. It's not really about being that difficult artist, which is kind of a stereotype, you know, and there's no reason to be like that. You hear about directors that like to yell at people, and it's just, like, really brutal and stuff like Why? Because you're the tortured artist like grow up. You

Liz Christensen:   43:06
know how often

Brian Brough:   43:07
you can still be civil. You can still go often realize, Hey, we're just making a movie. I tell like a lot of doctors out when we come in from out of town when they come in, I'm like, Yeah, the end of the day, We're here to make a movie and it's just a movie And so let's go off, have fun. Let's make the best movie we can make within the parameters that we have. But if there's a problem, let's figure it out. There's no reason to be super stressed out. There's no reason to yell. There's no reason to have a problem. It's just a movie, you know. And so some people deal. Treat it like It's life and death, and I've worked with directors that just swear, like crazy years yelling everybody. It's like why he doesn't make a better movie. You know it's understand the process and go off and work with your team and make the best of you could possibly make

Liz Christensen:   43:48
thank you to my guest. Bryan Breath. Thank you so much for letting me interview today. I really appreciate it. No, My pleasure. Thank you. In the telling is excited to be back with its second season and is gearing up for something special. Ah, live show For its one year anniversary, you can find out more about in the telling at Lizzie. Lizzie Liz dot com Theme music by Gordon Fetus in the Telling is hosted and produced by me Liz Christiansen. Thanks for listening. I want to know what are your favorite things that you use in your studio and your workspace? Your tools, like what wanted the things that if that broker was not available to you today, you'd be like everybody. Stop! Wait. We're gonna go get another one of those. Our favorite

Brian Brough:   44:28
tool onset honestly is our slider, which is, you know, it's a camera slider so we don't deal with a lot of Dolly. So you could get a peewee or Chapman dolly These bigger dollars. You put the camera on to move around. We use a slider most of the time, which is really just a small track that we put upon stands or apple boxes. That gives some motion to the camera. So we have our slider that we've visually built in house, and we just love it cause it works so well that if there's ever a problem, we went Thio Project overseas last year and you know we couldn't take it with us because it was too big and it was really hard. We're trying to find another way to do that in this country, and it just nothing worked.

Liz Christensen:   45:05
You take, you decided. If you do this next time,

Brian Brough:   45:07
it's too big. That's the problem is like, you know, it's an eight foot tracks, so you can't just put it on in a case and take it with you. So let's figure out how do we get something similar to that? That's probably are our favorite tool that we use all the time. If we're as simple as what it is it gives us a lot more production value to have that motion, and we miss it when we don't have it. So that's probably where our simplest and favorite tools beyond that, honestly, it's just a matter of preference, you know, for for filming. We have a red camera, and that's what we've just used us because we have it and we've liked it. And that's what was around initially be fun to try other cameras, but at the same time, we haven't really felt the need Thio to make that change s. We shoot everything on the red right now for post production. We added in Premiere, we color and resolve. When it comes time for a sound and music, we hire other people to do those those things.