Directing Kevin James in "Solo Mio" w/Chuck Kinnane

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Hey, welcome to the 514th episode of Just Shoot It, a podcast about filmmaking, screenwriting and directing. This episode is brought to you by patron Matthias Kepler. I'm Matt Enlow.

1:42

And I'm Warren Kaplan. And today we have Chuck Kinane on the podcast. He is an awesome filmmaker. He has one of the craziest stories about how he got his first movie. So I'm gonna let you listen to it. He also has seven brothers that he works with. I think that's all the headlines. We talked about that maybe too much. We probably, probably cut some of the brother stuff out in the beginning because I bet everyone asks him about working with the brothers.

1:50

Don't you think? Well, no, may. Maybe that's got to be a way in.

2:13

But I think, like, it's fascinating, huh?

2:17

To me, it's fascinating. It's hooky, it's fun. He, first of all, he's a really great conversationalist. It was really fun. I think he was game, like, really Open and humble and, like, just happy to talk about his filmmaking career. And clearly it's a dream come true. Right. So I think he's quite relatable in that way. But I think also, like, we weren't just like, isn't it crazy? You work with your whole family? Like, I have legitimate.

2:19

Like, how do you separate the money and the work and the things in.

2:43

The way that I think that we oftentimes will talk with off the show or on the show, people who are partners, if you're screenwriting partners, if you're directing duo, like, how. How do the logistics break down? Right. But this gets just complicated and compiles and so, yeah, I was really just like, how do you put this to your advantage? How does this work? You know, just walk us through it. And so I think if you're in a creative partnership of any sort, you're going to relate. You're going to relate to this stuff for sure. It's just you're probably not related to your entire crew.

2:47

Right. He's one of ten kids. Yeah, I. I did. I really love the nuts and bolts part of this conversation where he just talked about, like, how he got. I mean, I think so is his third movie or he. Or that was the second movie now. He's already shot his third movie.

3:20

Yeah, yeah. They're in post on their third movie.

3:35

And these are not small movies. They all have a list, like stars in them and budgets. And he does not come. He was not connected, you know, with anyone starting out. So just if you listen to the. The sequence of events that got him to where he is today, it's quite fascinating and almost emulatable in a way. You do not have to have seven brothers being filmmakers with you in order to get to where he got to. And he. I feel like he's just very nice, humble, smart, fun conversation. So I hope you enjoyed and check out Solo, if you can, starring Kevin James. Before we talk to him, though, I just wanted to. There's not much to say other than that. We went to this panel and it was just an incredible panel.

3:36

It was so fun. We went to two that were both great. I almost texted you, like, oh, should we do like a special episode? That's just like a rubbing Elbows episode.

4:20

Oh, yeah, we did rub some elbows, but it's because the. Our seats are prickly.

4:29

Yeah.

4:34

We're sitting in coach at the DGA theater.

4:34

We went to the DJ theater because the DGA Awards were just this week. And we went to both the feature and commercial director's panels, both of which were really fun for.

4:37

In different. Totally in different ways.

4:46

So the commercial director's panel, there's like a little bit of a gala afterwards there drinks and there's very hot appetizers and.

4:48

You mean like temperature wise?

4:57

Yeah, yeah. Burn.

4:58

Burned ourselves.

4:59

Yeah, yeah.

5:00

It's so funny.

5:01

Cassie laughed at both of us. Yeah.

5:01

Cuz I was like trying to have a conversation while literally probably getting second degree burn inside my mouth.

5:04

And I made the mistake of hanging out twice. Matt Garrett and Matt Pollock all night. Good buddies, good dudes, good hangs. And also anytime we met someone new, we had to each go, hi, I'm Matt.

5:09

Yeah, I introduced you guys a few times. I was like, this is Matt. Actually these are all mats. And then. And it does kind of erase your identity a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

5:25

We're just like, okay, we're just a blob of Matt's now.

5:32

It's like, well, I guess that person's not going to hire me. Or there's a one out of three chance hire the right person.

5:34

Even though Garrett's a DP anyway. Yeah.

5:40

But yeah, I fit. So on the, on the feature panel, as I would say, the famous directors.

5:43

Spike Jones was on the. Oh yes, commercial director panel.

5:48

So yeah, Spike Jones is there. I said hi to him. It's my second time saying hi to him. That's about as far as it went.

5:51

Yeah, I oren said hi to all of the directors on the panel and then sat down next to me. And you were like, oh yeah, I'm a little nervous. And I was like, you literally talked to the most famous people in the room first.

5:57

Yeah, because I was on the nomination. So my Kevin Brady, my first ad, he was like, oh, you guys are just like, walk up to them, tell me that you nominated their work and that they should be appreciative that. That you're the reason they they're nominated. Which I, I have no idea how big the nomination panel is. I think it's probably like 10 people or something.

6:08

Oh, it's probably probably bigger than that, right? I don't know.

6:26

I guess I asked because I mentioned it to a bunch of commercial directors and they were like, oh, they didn't ask me. So I don't know. I asked the woman that runs the commercial department there. I was like, how do they choose the panel? And she's like, oh, it just kind of has to do with like how much they're working in commercials and something. I don't know.

6:28

Do they have a podcast?

6:44

Yeah, they Have a podcast if they are unemployed at the moment. Like, a lot of people turned us down before we got to you. Don't worry. But. Yeah, but. But it's. I. I don't know. It. It's weird because a lot of people that go to the commercial nominee event are dps. They're not all directors. There's reps there.

6:45

We.

7:00

Some. Some production company folks there.

7:01

I was going to say. There's also, like, a vibe at the DGA of like, kind of guys in their, like, 50s, like, with like, a nice pair of slacks they got from Costco and like, like, you know, a baseball hat. And like, it's probably the USC or some other, you know, like, just kind of like these, like, sort of like sort of jockey uptight, like, Alpha ads. Do you know what I mean?

7:02

Yeah, there are a lot of ads.

7:26

Like, they. They don't have, like, a surveillance in their ear, but they should, like, they feel weird not having one, you know?

7:27

Yeah, some cargo pants.

7:34

Good people.

7:36

Shirt, tie and cargo pants.

7:37

Interesting. Yeah, but.

7:38

Yeah, but the. So the feature panel had, from right to left, Josh.

7:39

Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Pardon me. Yeah.

7:46

Paul Thomas Anderson, by the way. Yeah, I'll get to the. Who introduced it then? Then Guillermo del Toro. Then we had, in the middle, Chloe Zhao. And then to her right we had Ryan Coogler. And then to his right we had Josh Safdie. And, yeah, they were introduced by freaking Christopher Noll, who, like, barely said anything. I was like, is he. Him being in this room makes me want him to be, like, at least part of the panel in some weird way. But, no, he just sat like the rest of us listening. But it was. It was a really good panel. I think it was three hours long. It was three hours long. It felt like two hours and 15 minutes. It was longer than any of their movies, oddly enough. No, no, maybe not longer. One battle after another. No, that's true.

7:47

Yeah.

8:32

Or Frankenstein, actually. But I did find that, like, the younger the directors were, the more kind of insightful there. What they said was because. And it could be because. Because Paul Thomas Anderson and Guillermo del Toro have talked, so I've heard so much from them.

8:32

Hold on. Check yourself. There's. So he was dropping insights left and right. That's all anyone was talking about. Yeah, yeah. But you.

8:49

You could tell that he's given those insights like, 10 times, you know, wow. Filmmaking is like. War is. Filmmaking is like. You're.

8:56

Yeah.

9:03

You know, he has all these sayings and things.

9:04

Yeah, yeah. It's hard to say because he's also quite eloquent. So, like, it might feel trite because he said it before. It might feel.

9:06

He's moderated thousands of panels. That guy is. Is an expert on speaking.

9:14

So Jos Safdie, who maybe is repeating himself as well, feels a little bit more spontaneous. I hear your point.

9:18

Yeah, I like you posted his thing about the JFK that came out of nowhere, you know, like now, you know, I don't know. He and Ryan and Chloe is just like operating on a different plane of directing, you know. And Ryan too, to some degree. He's like, kind of bridges the gap between the technical and the like, spiritual.

9:25

He felt like the per. I think Ryan Coogler is a poet, truly. He felt like the most relatable to me in terms of like, he was just like dealing with production logistics and like, what order should we shoot Michael B. Jordan in? Does easy in more of a. This mood or that mood, you know, like.

9:43

Yeah, I guess I found Josh Safdie like the most relatable. Like, the most like. Oh, I could see myself kind of doing what he's doing. And Ryan Coogler still just seems like he. He could like point to any prop in his movie and be like, so the reason we use the silver cup here.

10:01

Sure, sure. Like, it traces back to this and that.

10:17

You find so much meaning in every pixel on the scre. Best. It's an imax, not pixels.

10:19

Yeah, it's a lot of microns. The. The thing about Safdie that I. He's got that like maverick energy that like, you know, he mentions like, oh, in McCabe and Miss and Miller, they would just go like, Mrs. Miller. Pardon me. They would go to the bar to get extras and just everyone would be super drunk and like the energy transfers onto screen. Or like he. Did you check? Did you realize he kept talking about Jack Fisk, his production designer?

10:26

Oh, yeah.

10:52

Who's like the best production design ever, basically. But like is very like, you know, there was that write up that I think we talked about on the show in like the New York Times about how like he's, you know, he comes from a carpentry. Carpentry background. He's building everything. He's really into archival. He's uncovering things.

10:53

He was doing.

11:11

He did the killage of a flower. Moon sets. So like that. I think that was when the last write up was. It was like, oh, there's this weird location where it's a barbershop and also a pool hall.

11:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:23

So. Well, that was killer. Moon.

11:25

He.

11:27

He built. Built a vintage bowling alley or augment. Oh, right, right. Yeah.

11:27

Yes.

11:32

Anyway, the point is, it was really great. I think the big takeaway was just like every director was like, hey, don't say too many things to actors. Say five words if you can.

11:32

Yeah. I thought that that was a nice thing to see them all kind of say the same thing. Yeah, it was really fun. I guess the whole point of talking about it, it's only to be like, how cool is that, that we got to see those people in a room together? And again, one of my. One of my reasons to be in la. There aren't a lot of cities that would have those six people in a room together.

11:41

Yeah. Yeah.

12:01

Okay, cool. Well, go to our Patreon. Patreon and enjoy the show. Chuck Canine.

12:03

And we get a pitch from Imani about like, oh, you should meet the kanane brothers. There's 45 of them, and they're just a whole filmmaking squad.

12:10

There's the eight of us.

12:19

Yeah, eight of you.

12:20

There's.

12:21

Okay.

12:21

Yep.

12:21

I feel like if I had seven brothers doing all the work while I just did the interviews, be pretty easy, but I guess if I know what.

12:22

You think it'd be, you think it would be a lot easier. It's never easy.

12:29

I thought it would be harder. Yeah.

12:32

Yeah. I have two brothers that definitely make my life harder. Matt has a brother, so I have a brother.

12:34

Yeah, my life's pretty easy.

12:39

But is it like the Jonas Brothers where like eight of you are making movies and there's three other ones that are like, accountant.

12:40

Yeah. Just riding along, like, hold the weed for everybody.

12:47

Well, I'm the one who. I think I'm the one who's riding along. You're talking to the one who's.

12:51

Yeah, it just tells everyone what to do. Where are you in the birth order? Where are you in the.

12:55

I'm the oldest.

12:58

Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure. Yep, yep.

12:59

So I'm the oldest. Yeah, we. So I'm 42. And John, the youngest, is 25. He'll be 26 this year. 17 years between us.

13:01

Yeah.

13:12

Incredibly crazy.

13:12

So I get this email and I'm like, I've heard of these guys before.

13:14

No way.

13:19

In 2019, the October before the pandemic hit, I was in the Austin Film Festival, and one of. Maybe your littlest brother was there as well. Did you guys have a short in Austin that we did?

13:20

Yeah, we were all there.

13:33

We had a short, and I remember there's the Q and A. And he kind of explains, like, oh, it's me and my eight brothers or seven brothers movies together. And we were like, oh, that's memorable. That's interesting. And then at the film festival, you know, it's like, it's a shorts block, right? So there's a bunch of us all up there and like, you know, your mom is asking you a question or whatever, someone asks you what, what camera you used or whatever. And inevitably the last question of the film festival panel is always, well, what do you have next? And your little brother is like, well, we happen to have a movie with Kevin James. And everyone's like, what? Just green with envy. And so Fast forward to 2026. I get an email that says, hey, a Kevin James movie with a squad of brothers.

13:34

No way.

14:22

Helming it. And I'm like, oren, we're taking this interview. Let's make it happen.

14:23

Matt was like, we should have invested. We should have buttoned in when you guys were inexpensive.

14:26

So here we are, Chuck, congratulations. And also in between then I saw the sound guy shorts, which are so funny. And in fact, at the end of the episode, I should have mentioned this to you. At the end of the episode, we do what's called unpaid endorsements, where we like mention a thing that we like and we dig back to the archives circa 2020. I guarantee that the sound guy shorts was for sure.

14:31

Matt was a real big fan and.

14:53

I was like, yeah, they're so cool.

14:54

It's like, I don't get it because it's just behind the scenes footage.

14:55

It's like, oh, that's amazing.

14:57

So for listeners who haven't been listening since 2020 or whenever, it was the sound guy shorts. And is. Is Kevin James, you know, in like tackle vest, holding the boom pole as though he is performing. It was the boom operator on. I think the most, probably the most viral one was the Star is Born.

15:00

Star is born.

15:20

Right, yeah, yeah, but. But also, did you do the Notebook as well?

15:20

We did the Notebook. There Will be blood.

15:23

Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah.

15:26

They're all so no country for all. Yeah, no country for old men.

15:27

Anyway, he's just reacting to, listening to the dialogue.

15:31

Yeah, he's in the coin. He's in the coin flip scene. And he. You know, we did that, that classic thing where you. I mean, they used to do this at the Oscars, right, Where they put the host in the movies.

15:34

Right. Like Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise.

15:43

Yes. We put. It was our brother Pat's idea, who's one of the writers in the group. And he had this funny Idea. He's like, what if Kevin plays the sound guy and they, the guys kind of comp this idea and showed it to him and Kevin's like, I love this. Let's do a million of them. And then we end up doing a million of them because we were in lockdown with him.

15:45

There you go. Well, so. So there's two obvious questions.

16:02

Yes.

16:04

Right.

16:05

When did you kidnap Kevin James?

16:06

When did you get. No, no. So I think maybe in order, we go, eight brothers all making movies together, and then how the heck did you, Kevin James, become the ninth Kanane brother? Right.

16:08

Yeah. Or is he your den?

16:21

Yeah, sure. Easy answer. Yeah, he.

16:23

It's. It's kind of a funny story because we, so we, we always made films together just for ourselves. Nothing, you know, we posted, but there's.

16:26

A 17 year age gap, so are you making films at like 16? And then every time a new kid comes in, it's like, oh, look who's talking.

16:33

Seven.

16:39

Yeah.

16:40

Oh, yeah. I was making stuff at, you know, 10 years old. I was making stuff. And.

16:40

But half your brothers weren't alive then.

16:44

They weren't alive yet. So you're like, mom, Dad, I need.

16:46

A bigger crew, please.

16:49

You get new actors coming up every.

16:51

Like, mom, can you birth a financier, please? That's the one thing we're missing.

16:53

That's what we really needed.

16:56

Yeah, yeah.

16:57

But yeah, these guys have been in stu in our shorts since they. Yeah. Before they could remember.

16:58

And these guys, you mean, you mean your brothers?

17:04

My brothers, yeah, my brothers. And it is what we did for fun. And then I went off to pursue it for. Try to pursue it professionally in New York. And they said, you go to film school or anything? No, I went right to work at a closed circuit television studio and ctv. I know it was. And it was kind of, kind of a crazy experience. But I, yeah, went to New York and started making documentaries and was there for a while. We had a couple of documentaries that got made. We had one that I got picked up by Netflix, early days of Netflix.

17:05

And was it super high me or Helvetica?

17:37

Helvetica. Probably some of the best kerning content I've ever seen.

17:42

You remember though, right? I love that.

17:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:48

But I remember being at Comedy Central at the time and the head of digital being like, who here subscribes to Netflix? And we all raised her hand and he was like, who here watched Helvetica? And we all raised our hands and he was like, they're selling you content. You don't Want. This is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled. No one wants to watch a documentary. And we all had. Anyway, sorry, Chuck back.

17:49

So that our film was one of those. One of the ones you didn't want to watch.

18:12

Sure, sure. Which. Which one was it, though? Which one was it?

18:15

It was a film called the Human Experience. And it was kind of. We made it as, you know, 2020 something, very altruistic looking. We were searching for the meaning of life. We were like, why do you know, why do bad things happen to good people? Or why do bad things happen to everybody? And. And so we went. We went out in the street. We talked to a lot of homeless in New York, and that led us on a trip around the world. And there's. It was all done on a shoestring budget, but somehow Tom Shadiac got behind it. He saw it and. And he ended up promoting it. And then it became a thing with Oprah, and Oprah loved it. And, and it ended up on Netflix, and it was a really interesting film. Took us around the world screening it. But we love. And it was a fun thing to do, but we always love comedies. We always loved making shorts. And what happened was I went back home after spending a couple, you know, number of years in New York, and all my brothers were still making shorts. They're working in carpentry. And we decided, it's about 10 years ago, we decided. We're like, hey, let's just make a run. We've always wanted to make a movie. Want to make comedies. Let's get together, put our heads together, and let's just try to make a run for it. Let's see if we can put our efforts together and, and try to get a movie made. And here we are.

18:17

We.

19:23

We joke that it took, you know, it took us about 10 years, but we finally have a movie made coming into theaters.

19:23

So this is the first, like, feature that you guys have done together?

19:28

We did. It's our first feature in theaters.

19:31

We.

19:34

We ended up doing a. We got this incredible opportunity from working with Kevin doing the shorts. Adam Sandler gave us a movie at Netflix as he gives projects to a lot of people. We were one of the lucky beneficiaries of. Of his generosity of that deal. Yeah, sure, that deal signed up for.

19:34

The lottery, but I guess I. I know we did.

19:50

And so we did a movie for him and for Netflix and Kevin was in it. It was a kid sports comedy. It was called Home team. Came out 2022 on Netflix.

19:52

How cool.

20:02

But anyway, we. It was a It was a amazing school for us. We got to work with the Happy Madison crew, which are just as. As far as, like, a comedy school. It was the, you know, one of the most amazing, amazing landings in Hollywood we could add.

20:03

So, yeah, we're so grateful to pump the brakes real quick. Sorry to interrupt, but when someone comes to you and says, hey, we want you guys to make a movie, there's interview. Like, dude, are they like, so who's gonna direct? And you're like, like, is it. How does the division of.

20:16

In the wheel of jobs?

20:31

And yeah, so it's funny because we. At working together over a number of years, everyone kind of found their lane. So Dan and I are a team now, directing as a team. And. And then. And Dan was our cinematographer who then, you know, started. We started directing as a team. Peter is our editor. He's been editing. He just kind of fell into. It was cutting stuff he loves. He was like the guy that didn't want to be on set. He's like, I love seeing all come in and. And telling the story. And then John, Pat and Bren started writing. And John, who's the youngest, who maybe you met Nat at the Boston Film Festival around that time or. No, it was a couple of years before that. John started this. This thing where he was taking scripts and playing them against scenes of movies that we loved. And that's how we learned how to write. And we would watch the script play below the movie. And then he started posting these online. And he has a huge following now. John has his screenplayed. And that's how we learn how to. How to write movies, was with that screenplay, you know, watching the movie and reading the script beneath it. So everyone's kind of found their lane. It's kind of strange. And there is. There is an element of everyone kind of chiming in on what's good and what's working, what's not working. But everybody's kind of picked the lane. And then. And then finally, Jeff and Will are our producers.

20:33

They're.

21:47

They're the guys that do all the deals and. And keep things proofing.

21:48

So I have to ask, as brothers, you know, does that.

21:52

Does that.

21:57

Do your old habits ever come out like. Like, you know, like you grew up. You're all a lot of professional scissors. But, like, yeah, there's anyone want to give somebody, like, a wedgie or like a nookie or, like, you know, you know, you get what I'm getting at, like that. Or rather the. The maybe more mature version of that. Right? But those the family, you know.

21:58

Yeah, no, it's something we deal with on a daily basis. I mean we've had you call your mom.

22:17

Used to be like, mom's a mediator. Yeah.

22:21

Wrote me out of the scene movies.

22:23

Yeah.

22:26

Right.

22:26

It's a, it's a process. Like we, I think, oh yeah, we'll have full blown out. You know, not, I mean it won't, you know, won't turn into a fistfight, but we'll have.

22:27

Sure.

22:34

You know, as far as an idea and is it working or not. And there'll be some very strong conversations and, and fights about something and, and what, what's interesting about the dynamic is that you kind of for better, for worse, you get past the niceties.

22:35

Right.

22:51

So for us it works because you can get to the, I think get to the better idea quicker, hopefully where you can get past where I think in the professional setting you want everyone to like you. You want to, you know, be political and, and pragmatic and not piss anyone off and not on someone's idea. In the world that we operate in, it's like the best idea wins. Nobody gives a. If any of you need it just.

22:52

Happens to be the biggest brother.

23:14

No, it's funny because I would say there's been moments where I fought for my ideas and almost tried to pull rank on them. And then very quickly you learn like, all right, well listen, I gotta listen. There's a, I trust these voices in the room and if they have the, if they have the best interest of the project in mind. Right. Then we got to listen to that. And I think, I think it's a lesson for everybody where it's so easy to get wrapped up in your ego and say, I, I've got the best idea. But it's another thing to put all that to the side and say we got to work towards what's really going to work.

23:16

Yeah, I was going to say it reminds me of. We had the Radio Silence guys on a few years ago when Ready or Not was just, oh wow. And yeah, so talented. And it's four. Or is it three of them? I think it's.

23:48

We had three, but it's three.

24:01

Yeah, it's, it's. Yeah, it's a three person collective. That's right. That's right.

24:03

Amazing.

24:06

And for like, you know, guild reasons or whatever, like one of them is listed as a producer or whatever, but they kind of think of themselves as a three headed dragon. And their problem solving basically boiled down to they had a rule of like, who cares the most like who's the most passionate about their point getting across and you have to, you have to earn it. It's not just like, I care more than you do, dude, but like you have to argue for. But like the rule was clearly you care more than I do, so you win. Right.

24:07

Wow.

24:36

Do you, do you guys have any sort of like problem solving techniques along those lines or how do you, how do you guys deal with it? How do you determine what, what best idea, what's. Which idea is the best in order for the best idea to win?

24:37

So yeah, one of the great things about having so many, yeah. So many brains in the think tank, which again, it's a double edged sword. Right. It works against you in some ways. You have too many opinions. But what's nice, you know, the so called first idea, like every, every if everybody thinks of the same joke at first, it's like, okay, that's the obvious one. Let's dig deeper, let's get past that. So that's a great litmus test.

24:49

Sure.

25:09

For the ideas. And I don't know if it's, I don't know if for us it doesn't work. Maybe who cares the most? I think maybe it's very rarely 50, 50. Like it's normally one guy fighting for his idea and everybody's like, dude, that, you know, we've seen that before, you know, or, or there's a better way to do that. So for us I think it's a fast, you know, it's kind of a very democratic process I think in a lot of ways where instantly you'll tell, okay, there's, there's five or six guys who are saying this is the, this is the right creative choice. And then there's a couple guys, you know, maybe there's one or two guys fighting for it, but it's very rarely split down the middle. I can't think of anything we've had where. And we came to a stalemate for something where, you know, if it wasn't glaringly obvious that most of the group thought this was better. So again, I don't know. And it's, it's to be proven too. I mean we'll see. We're very early in our careers. Is our second movie coming out. We just wrapped our third movie.

25:09

Congratulations.

26:06

But we'll let, we'll see what the audience thinks. If people if, if our creative decision making has, has proved to work.

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26:47

I want to get to the Kevin James of it all in a minute, but I have another just like, logistical eight brothers.

27:50

Yes.

27:56

Question. So, like, obviously you guys have kind of divided up the tasks, right? So, like, you know, so most of the time the producers go produce and the editors go at it and the writers go write and all that stuff. But obviously there is that angle of like a mob of brothers. Like, that is a novelty, right? And that is like kind of a marketing hook. It worked on me, right?

27:57

Yeah.

28:16

Is there ever a circumstance where you're like, hey, guys, it's got to be all of us in this meeting? Or is it always just like, okay, well, it's a pitch meeting, so, you know, these parties should go and do you ever get the whole circus out to a meeting or, you know, is it always just kind of like on the party lines?

28:17

We, you know, it's funny. I think, I think the more that we're getting our stuff out there, I think people are more open to the idea of, of meeting with everybody. And it doesn't have to be. We have a. You know, maybe there's a handful of us. A handful of us that'll go on the first meeting. But I think we met a lot of opposition early on. I mean, I'll even be honest. I think the producers of, of the movie that we're releasing tomorrow, when they heard how many of us they were involved, they were like, oh no, you can't. We can't have that many people.

28:34

You guys don't all line up on the zoom. You just.

29:03

Yeah, no, and. And, and we were like, no, this is. And. And again, I think it's what's nice too maybe is. I don't know if this makes sense, but there's kind of a common esthetic at play where.

29:05

Look alike.

29:15

No, not, not the look. Not the look. Look alike. But I think as far as our taste. Yeah, what we, what we gravitate towards, and that's something that's just built into. I mean, it's like, you know, it's like, I guess, you know, I'd liken it to maybe fan. You know, if you. Have you ever seen family? You know, family playing basketball together or something? There's just kind of a. There's a connection. Yeah, there's a connection there that I can't explain. But, but it's an aesthetic. We, we love a lot of the same movies, we're drawn to a lot of the same stories. But yeah, it's not. I don't know. I don't know if it'd be interesting. Certain, Certain people are, I think are more willing to. Are excited about the idea then others were like, I just can't deal with this many people having, having an opinion.

29:16

Like, look what happens when you break up the Safdies and the Cohen's don't do it.

29:57

Exactly. That's exactly.

30:01

Sorry, no disrespect, no disrespect.

30:03

I just want to ask one last brother question. So when like Sandler's company comes to you and says, let's make this movie, like, I guess, yeah. Do you still need the producer brothers? Do they let you use your editor brother? Do you have to join guilds? And some of you do join and some don't. And like, how does that get really complicated and faster?

30:05

So it did. I would. The. And again, the, The Sandler movie was our first foray into, you know, making a movie. We weren't in the guild before then, so we joined the guild. Dan and I joined as a team. Sandler already has his editors, he already has his producers, his writers. So Happy Madison was like, yeah, all the brothers can come and be a part of it. But we were definitely coming on to a Happy Madison set. It wasn't a, you know, we were.

30:23

It wasn't a Canadian brother set.

30:48

It was not a Canadian brother set. Exactly.

30:49

Yeah.

30:51

So we, we, we talked about that as a group and we said, listen, this is an opportunity. It was kind of this crazy opportunity that came about and we talked about it as a group and we said, listen, we're just going to take the opportunity. We're grateful for it. And the thinking is all. All boats rise with the tide. So even though a lot of the guys didn't get credit, they were all part of it. So a lot of guys were working on set. And even Peter, who didn't edit the movie, who's our normal editor, he got very in tight with the Happy Madison guys. Brian Robinson, Tom Costain, and they've mentored Pete. And Awesome. Learned so much. You know, Pete's in his, you know, mid-20s and. And he's getting mentored by these guys who are doing these huge Netflix movies. And so it all. Everybody. It was, it was an amazing, you know, we look at it as just a crazy thing that happened. Like Sandler. Sandler's friends with Kevin and he gave us a movie. And it sounds terrible. I mean, you have some incredible. Obviously have an incredible audience of cinephiles, but we were, you know, we've been the biggest movie fans our entire lives. We've worked in indie projects forever. Our very first time on, like, our real studio movie set was on this Adam Sandler produced movie.

30:52

Yeah. Yeah. That's how it goes sometimes, though, right?

32:02

How it goes. And again, we, yeah, we feel, you know, it's. I don't know if it's like a nepo baby feeling, but it kind of is, you know, like we didn't do anything to deserve it, you know, very much.

32:04

It's a long road to get there, though, right?

32:15

Yeah, we, yeah, we made a lot of fun shorts and Sandler gave us a shot with Kevin. So.

32:17

Yeah, and you didn't fuck it up a million times over. Do you know what I mean? There's so many circumstances where you could make the mistake that would blow everything and they would be like, well, sorry, Chuck, this. This one's not going to go your way. Or, you know, we're going in another direction. Like. Right. No one's, no one's altruistic. You got to have the goods in order to make it happen. Right. Can I ask a slightly Personal question.

32:22

Yes.

32:43

Feel free to cut this out if you don't want to look at it, but. So some of you guys are paid to be on the set, but all of you are on set?

32:43

Yeah.

32:51

How's the financials? Like, are people just taking a loss? Are you guys all sharing it? How does that work?

32:52

We split our director's fee with everybody.

32:56

Yeah. Yeah. Hardcore.

32:58

Yeah.

32:59

Really?

32:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you.

33:00

You don't have to put that in, but. Yeah, that's honestly what we did.

33:01

Should. Should we cut that out? It's up to you.

33:03

No, no, it's totally up to you.

33:05

I mean, I think it's. I think it's very cool. I bet your mom and dad were pretty proud.

33:06

Well, it was the only. It was the only right thing because we'd all work together as a team for so long, and then for.

33:11

Yeah.

33:17

You know, for only a couple of guys to get a line item, it was. It was the only right thing to do.

33:18

So.

33:22

And it's kind of how we. We're like, listen, we're gonna find a way to make this work. It's not gonna be pretty. It's not gonna. It's not gonna be great, but we're gonna. We're eventually gonna take this crooked path, and as a group, we're all gonna end up doing it. Now. Now, finally, we are with Solo mio. Everybody was involved. And now our new film that we just wrapped, even more so. And that's where the. You know, with a major studio, and we're thrilled. So I feel like we're finally getting our footing. It's taken like any, you know, anybody in the business. It just takes some time. Unless, you know, unless you're, you know. You know, unless you're like, once in a generation.

33:23

David Ellison. I don't know.

33:56

Yeah, exactly.

33:57

Oh, yeah, sure.

33:58

Wait. Okay, so let's get into the. Kevin James. Where is he coming from?

33:59

Yeah, so, Kevin. Yeah, so, Kevin. We got a call from Kevin out of the blue. He's seen a short film that we had worked on, and he.

34:02

You guys just had a good short film, and he saw it on Vimeo or at a festival or something, or he's.

34:12

It was share. It was a viral film that we. That we had, and it was a.it was actually a documentary doc. Doc short that we had done called Just Keep Swimming. And it's this interesting connection between the writer director of Finding Nemo and our nephew Francis. And there's this great. I mean, I love. I love talking about this because there's A great TED Talk that Andrew Stanton gives about the clues to a great story. I don't know if you've seen it.

34:17

I think so. I think it might have even been an endorsement.

34:43

Right?

34:46

Yeah, yeah. Andrew Stanton's TED Talk.

34:46

Andrew Stan's TED Talk. Yeah. But it's this amazing TED Talk, and I watched it when. The same time I watched it, he talks about how write what you know, and he said, Finding Nemo is him. He's like, I was born very premature. Anderstan talked about being born a premature baby, and his parents gave him a shot and he wasn't supposed to survive.

34:49

And.

35:08

And so Finding Nemo, that was. That was him. That little fish with the. With the arm.

35:08

And.

35:13

And. And I sent it to my sister because she was in the hospital at the time with my nephew, who was born very premature. Very tough situation.

35:13

And sorry not to disrupt a. Yeah. You have a sister, too?

35:22

We have two sisters, yeah. Yeah. There's 10 of us in the family.

35:27

So how do they feel? Are they. They're just like, we don't want anything to do with the. The boys are.

35:31

No, they love it.

35:35

They.

35:36

Maureen More. You know, my sister Maureen, she'll come on set, she'll take a lot of photographs. She's a photographer. And then our sister Janie's an artist and she. We're always trying to get her artwork in the movie.

35:36

And your parents had 10 kids and all of them are artists.

35:48

10 kids. Yeah. And even there's one brother who is probably the only smart one in the group, but he. He started his own business and he does interior trim working.

35:51

Right.

36:00

So he.

36:00

Yeah, smart.

36:01

He stayed in the. Yeah, he stayed with the carpentry path, and he has a very successful business with our cousin. But, yeah, they were. They were. They love it. They're huge supporters, but they're like, no, we're, you know, we're gonna get a regular paycheck.

36:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they still get the set visit, right?

36:13

Like.

36:16

Yeah, exactly.

36:16

They've got a selfie with Sandler as well. Right, yes, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. You were in a. A moving story. I didn't mean to derail.

36:17

Yeah, no, I'll just share this story because real quick. But the. So my sister's in the hospital with our. My brother in law, Jeff. Their. Their baby's in the NICU, struggling to survive. And I sent her this TED Talk from Andrew Stanton because it. It blew me away. And I think your response was like, why the hell are you sending me a TED Talk? I'm in the. I'm in the hospital with my son. I was like, just watch it. And. And she watched it. And it was about. It was about this incredible story Andrew Stan talked about, you know, and he talked a lot about how stories give us hope. And it's something that his story gave my sister hope and being in a tough situation. And. And then what happened is I was on a. I was on a Southwest flight two weeks later. And I sit down and you know, there's no sign seating in Southwest. You just sit down. I sat down and. And I looked to the right of me and at the window is Andrew Stanton on the Southwest flight from Burbank to Oakland. And I was like, get the heck out of here. I'm like, wait a minute. There's no way. I'm like, this guy should be flying private from Pixar.

36:25

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. They don't. There's not a private jet on the. No. Quick Google.

37:21

A quick Google is this huge.

37:25

I knew it was him.

37:28

I record because I just watched his TED Talk. I knew it was him, but I go, what is he doing on his Southwest flight? And sure enough, if you look up, Pixar has like Gold Elite status on Southwest. Like, they use it as a shuttle just between LA and Oakland, right? Or Emery. Emeryville. And so I leaned over to him. I'm like, I'm like, hey, I don't want to bother you, Mr. Sam, but I'm like, your TED Talk meant so much to my family. My nephew's in the NICU now and. And it was so beautiful. He took out a piece of paper and he. I said, what's your nephew's name? And I said, Francis William. And he wrote. He drew a cartoon of Finding Nemo and incredible. To Francis William, just keep swimming.

37:28

Yeah.

38:02

So we did a. We did us. It was just this incredible coincidence that I. That I saw him on the plane. And so we did a story on that. And that was. That was something that Kevin saw and reached out to us and said, hey, I'd love to work with you guys. I love. I love the way you guys shoot stuff. And I think he was moved by the video and the doc, the short doc. Anyway, sorry for the long story, but.

38:02

No, no, it's wonderful. I'm curious, is that something that Kevin James does? Is he kind of like, you know, I can keep an eye out on fresh talent and I like to sort of connect with people and, you know, put feelers out or is it. Was this a one off?

38:20

No, I think so. I Think he. I think he's got a lot of interesting people in his orbit, you know, a lot of, like, the ufc. You know, I know he's. He was involved in the UFC and a lot of trainers, and I don't know, he. Yeah, I think he. I think he does a lot. I don't know, as far as the films, maybe with writers and people who they. So, yeah, you know, knowing him for a long time, for sure. He's always looking for interesting people to work with.

38:33

Yeah. There we go.

38:55

Hollywood. At all. You just, like, happen to fly on a plane. He sat next to Andrew Stanton.

38:58

I was taking it. I was taking a class, actually, with Judith Weston.

39:03

Oh, no.

39:07

Awesome.

39:08

I don't know if you know Judith.

39:08

Of course.

39:09

Yeah, yeah.

39:10

Acting. Directing actors.

39:11

Directing actors. Yeah. So Judith is. I would look at her as one of the. One of the great life mentors in my life. Like, aside from directing. She just had. Has had a huge impact on my life. And I was going to her class and she met. She was the one who, I think initially had told me about the. Because I think she's mentioned in the TED Talk, too, which is another.

39:13

Funny, crazy.

39:32

I think Andrew Stan mentions her in the TED Talk, so another layer of strangeness.

39:33

That's awesome.

39:37

Judith has been a huge mentor of ours, and the brothers, too, and she's helped us with projects.

39:38

Boy, that's incredible.

39:43

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I had her. She helped me on a project.

39:44

No way or.

39:47

Yeah.

39:48

Did you go to the. Yeah. What'd you do?

39:48

I just hired her for it. To, like, read a script and meet with me to talk about it. And I was like, you know, she. She had some notes on the script. Like, I'm not going to give you notes on the script. But I really. I really feel like the whole act could. Act first act could go. Anyhow, let's talk about what. And then, you know, she basically was like, so who in your life is this character? And I was like, oh, yeah, I don't know. I guess, like, there's maybe a few different people. And she's like, and why do they do. You know? And she just kind of like, like, peeled the can open, you know. Yeah, the lid off the can.

39:50

The sardine can open.

40:21

Yeah. And then I was like, Then I just emailed the actors and I was like, like, who are deaf, by the way, so no way. Easier to communicate with them over email. And I was like, so who in your life is like, this character that you're gonna play? And basically just like, copying her question and Then, like, literally, one of them. One of them was in There Will Be Blood. He played the sun. Deaf son, Daniel Day.

40:22

No way. Amazing.

40:41

He.

40:43

He's like, oren, you're like, one of the best directors. Like that email you sent me, you know, and that, like, just kind of so funny looking into the character. I was like, yeah, just when you.

40:43

Got it exactly right.

40:52

Yeah.

40:54

Yeah. Well, so that's amazing. No, isn't she the greatest, though?

40:54

Yeah, yeah.

40:59

Phenomenal. I know. I. I mean, I've always referred to her as kind of like a Yoda. Like, always has the right. I mean, it's amazing. I've watched her. I mean, it's been incredible because the. I can't say enough about her because there's something about, you know, the. You know, The. The idea of this. When something happens in. In real life, there's usually two or three real human responses to an event in your life. And as directors or creatives, we try to invent all these, like, interesting responses that don't ring true. And she, you know, I think. I think she was more of an expert on life than anything and living truthfully in. In the moment and. And creating real, truthful moments on screen. But I can't say enough about her. I love her to death. She's just been amazing, and she's been great to all the. All the guys.

41:00

That's awesome. Okay, so does Kevin live in Little Compton also? Is that also.

41:44

Well, yeah. My real question is, like, okay, so you get that email, then what? Right, because there's a. There's a huge gap between, like, I'm a huge fan of your work. I'd love to work with you guys to, like, coming through. Right. So, yeah, so what. What were those next steps after. You guys are like, can you believe Kevin James just emailed me? Like, what happens next?

41:49

Yeah, so he invited us to come down and visit him in Long Island. He was. He was shooting. He's shooting one of his TV shows, and I think it was Kevin Can Wait, which is on cbs. I think we met him, like, right at the end of that show, and we. We got to meet him and. And he had all these, like, crazy ideas. He's like, I want to shoot a music video. Would you guys do that? And we, like, all showed up and he had, you know, he had. Had this lighting package delivered and not knowing, like, we're all indie, you know, filmmakers that don't use real Hollywood movies. And so we laugh about this scene, but, you know, we're on this stage. Gold Coast Studios In Long island, he's ordered this lighting package. He wants to shoot this music video. His friend's got this song that he wants to do, and he's got all these ideas. And so our guys are, like, opening the lighting package and. And youtubing how to. How to start these lights up.

42:09

I mean, literally, where do we plug this system? Exactly.

42:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thank God for YouTube. I mean, YouTube is the real film school nowadays. I am. Our feeling is we come out of the YouTube film school.

43:01

That's.

43:09

I would say everything we've learned. Everything we've learned has been through all the. All the different beautiful essays people have done. And so, yeah, we learned how to start those lights up on YouTube.

43:09

Sure.

43:19

Which is great. And we shot this music video. It was so random, and Kevin loved it. And he's like, let's do something else. And then. And then what happened was his. His manager, Jeff Sussman, was like, listen, you got all these guys, they understand the Internet better than you do. He was like, why don't. I've been trying to get you for years to start a YouTube channel, so why don't you do a YouTube channel? And so we're like, yeah, we're like, this is what we grew up doing, doing short films. We love to do that. And so we started his YouTube channel.

43:19

And forgive me, is there any, like, money exchange to see? Like, hey, I'll pay you guys a little bit of money, or is it just like, hey, I rented some lights. Let's go do a thing?

43:45

I don't think there's any talk about money. I think he may have, like. I think. I think when we, like, finished the video, he, like, threw us a few bucks for it. Like, I mean, I think he. He definitely, like, paid the guys, but it wasn't. There was no, like, contract.

43:53

Sure, sure.

44:05

Just kind of jumping in and doing it. And. And then, yeah, it was very, very much, oh, this is a cool opportunity. And then. And then we started writing with them right away. Like, we started working on these shorts and stuff, but then immediately we were pitching them our. Some of our movie ideas that we've had. And then there was one that him. And he's like, I want to do another thing with Sandler. And we pitched them in this idea. It was called Surreal Estate, and it was about these two knucklehead real estate agents that have to sell, like, a haunted mansion. And Sandler liked it. He thought it was funny. And so we. We started writing that with him for Sandler, and that one didn't go. That one didn't go. But I think that's maybe why Sandler gave us the. The home team.

44:06

Yeah. And before you were in your, like, we just got this movie for no reason, but you didn't let us. Yeah, you're doing an entire feature together now.

44:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, maybe. Maybe all those cool videos that we made with his friend and then also, like showing up and having all these pitches.

44:50

You said it. You saw him at like, you're right. There's a Trader Joe's and he is like, we're.

45:00

We're giving you a hard time, Chuck. Because like that, that is the, that's the version you tell, you know, in the 10 minute panel after the movie or whatever. Right? Yeah, but like, but and both are fun. Like, the fairy tale did happen to you and it's. That's true. That's incredible. But also, like, you showed up every single step.

45:04

You're right.

45:23

Yeah. And not just like, you weren't just receiving, like, job. Like, it's not just like, Kevin was like, okay, shoot a music video now do this, now do this. And you brought a whole crew with you.

45:23

Do you know what I mean?

45:33

Not just the crew.

45:34

Yeah.

45:35

Which, you know, like, you can get crew, but you're coming. You're bringing ideas, you're like, you're bringing pitches, you're bringing material, you're. Hey, we have this idea for a feature. Like, that's the value. More than like knowing how to turn on the lights, you know?

45:35

Sure.

45:48

Yeah, you're right. You're right. I. You know what? I, I will share because I. Again, I'm. I'm thinking, I'm telling. I know I'm talking a lot about ourselves, but I want to provide value.

45:48

You're on a podcast, Chuck. Don't worry about it.

45:55

I know, I, I know, but I want to. I thought something that was really interesting, something we did with Kevin and Sandler, was we, we took a Google Doc and I think it was Google forms, and we took all our pitches and we put a picture up and we put the log line and then we let them rate on, you know, one to five or one to ten, whatever it was.

45:57

Yeah, yeah.

46:16

And so really quickly, we, we sent this out. We sent out. I'm not kidding. We sent out probably. I think, I think it was like 30 ideas or something. And they could go through each one and, and pick. And we, you know, we, we shared this with Kevin and some of his people and his people in it, you know, on his team, and it was cool. They were able to go and rate.

46:16

You're blowing my mind so much because.

46:35

And at this point, they haven't even committed to making a movie with you.

46:38

But that's true for everything.

46:41

I don't even think they asked us.

46:42

Right. But, Matt, it would be easier to make this document if someone's like, hey, we got some money. We. Let's figure out.

46:43

No, no, hold on. No, no, no, no. Here's the thing that's blowing my mind about it is that, like, all over town, there are so many decision makers who have scripts upon scripts upon scripts that they need to review.

46:48

Right.

47:01

Like the phrase weekend read is because, oh, you need to read 6, 8, 12 scripts over your weekend and then come back with feedback on them. You're like, hey, no, I'm going to give you 15 great ideas, and all you have to do is click a button. And at the end, Google is going to give us consensus on what your favorites are.

47:01

Exactly.

47:20

It is the most frictionless way to get notes I've ever heard of.

47:20

Yeah, yeah.

47:25

Because all you need is. It's just thumbs up, thumbs down. That's all we need. Right. And then you have a conversation. Right. Get past the. The thumbs down or the ads. And then let's just talk about, you know, if you had three movies that had 30, you know, points to their names, then you talk about those three movies. Right, right, right.

47:25

Yeah. So then after this, you have. Yeah. Like, your three top ideas, and you just kind of blow those out with treatments and.

47:44

Yeah, yeah. And we started writing. Yeah, Then we started writing. Then we started writing one of them, I think. Well, actually, I think we wrote two of them and they. Again, they never. They didn't get made, but they led to other stuff. So I think I. Yeah.

47:51

And if you got eight brothers, it's 15 pages of brother.

48:02

Exactly. We've tried that. It doesn't always work. Yeah, yeah, we have tried that.

48:05

Oh, this is not an action movie.

48:09

Yeah. We could. Listen. We could write a script in a day that. No, that doesn't work. It doesn't work. It needs a lot more attention in. In many more hours and months and months. In years. So obviously, sometimes so.

48:11

So. So how did Solomio come. Come to be?

48:24

All right, you're gonna laugh at this one.

48:27

This.

48:28

And Bob Iger was standing next to you at Pinkberry.

48:28

He was in a sad Chipotle.

48:32

Yeah, no, this one sounds even worse than the other one. No, so we were writing. So again, as great as Kevin is, he was on another movie and invited us A few of us to come up and write with him. And we were writing on this other movie, and we kind of crashed this lunch that he was having with the producers of that movie. And they started talking about what they're going to do next. And Kevin said, I've always wanted to shoot in Italy and Rome. And they asked us if we had any ideas. And we. On the spot, we didn't have anything in, you know, written down. We pitched him this idea of a guy getting left to the altar. Like, what if Kevin plays this Porsche Mach that gets left at the altar? And they love that. And then my brother John had the idea. John's the writer of the movie. He said, with Pat. And he said, what if he goes on the honeymoon by himself? That'd be such a funny situation, a guy going on his honeymoon alone. And that was the kernel of the idea. And everyone kept pitching stuff at that lunch. And then Kevin and John and Pat went back to his trailer and they started writing that night.

48:33

Awesome. And, you know, I. I always say, like, you know, the best ideas because everyone pitches on them. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, oh, that's fertile territory. And, like, some jokes are going to be stronger than others or some premises or whatever, but, like, you know, that's. That's the beginning.

49:29

No, he's going to be on a gondola ride by himself.

49:45

Sure, sure, sure. Or like, asking somebody to take a picture of him while he pushes up the Leaning Tower piece or what? You know, we all. You could pitch it all day, right?

49:47

Exactly.

49:54

Yeah.

49:55

That's great. And so how does the financing come through it? And is there a studio? And is it. Are these producers involved? Is that, like, so the.

49:55

Yeah, so these producers took the pitch just on Kevin and. And being alone in Rome, left at the altar, and they sold the. The foreign rights at Cannes and. And then they were able to get a little bit more money. And.

50:02

Sorry, when you say sell the foreign rights at can, is that before or after production? Had you shot already, or is that your bankroll? Yeah, pre sale.

50:15

So I'll give you the timeline. So we had lunch. We had lunch with the producers in Kevin in March. We started writing it. They sold the idea. Can is in, I think, May every year. They sold the idea then. And then we were in production in the fall.

50:22

Awesome.

50:35

That's crazy.

50:36

Yeah.

50:36

Did you have a number that you wanted to get off of can, or was it like, what? However much money we get, we'll.

50:37

I think it was whatever they could get. Again, we Weren't. We were not involved in any of that as far as, you know, as far as the selling. But Jeffrey Greenstein and Mark Fasano were the producers who. And they'd had a lot of experience in that, but we. Yeah, but then we were in. We were in Italy.

50:42

We're.

50:55

And. And we shot in September. We started shooting in September.

50:56

Awesome. Nice.

50:59

And did you try the spaghetti?

51:00

Yeah, we did three times. Three times a day, so let me know.

51:02

I've always wanted to shoot at the China Chita. Did you guys shoot there at all or.

51:06

No, I, I. You know, it's funny because we thought maybe we would end up there, but we were at another wonderful studio down the street.

51:09

I think that it's really, like, if you need, like, a fake Roman set or like, it's kind of old time, like, you're more likely to shoot the Chinuchita if you're doing Doctor who than if you're doing it, you know, I think it's a little cheesy that I want to do it, but. But still. Still. That's wonderful, man. Awesome. Well, so.

51:16

So I. Are all the brothers there?

51:32

So we were told. I think we were told that at the most, we could have four there at a time, but we were like, we just brought everybody.

51:34

Yeah, sure. Yeah, Just, like, get a nice big hotel room, right? Like, yeah, you guys probably shared rooms for a long time, so for sure.

51:41

We had people sleeping on the floor. And. And it was. It was fun. It was. We brought everybody, and then we ended up bringing our whole family out.

51:48

And.

51:54

And it was. It was kind of one of these dream projects. And, you know, there's a story we tell about Pat, my brother Pat, who is one of the writers. Again, this is our second. Second movie. But all of us are there. All of us are involved. And Pat was like, you know, we're. We're there. You know, we're shooting in, like, Tuscany in this vineyard, and. And, you know, our whole family's there. And Pat's like, hey, this could be a real glimpse into what making movies could be like. And I was like, pat. I'm like, this is it, man.

51:55

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't, like, it literally doesn't get any better.

52:17

We're not gonna do. I was like, it's all downhill from here.

52:20

This is as good as it gets. Let's soak it up, man. Yeah.

52:23

Never gon. We did. I think every day we got up with, like, a real sense of gratitude and.

52:26

Yeah.

52:30

And we're like, we. We don't deserve to be here. But, you know, we're so grateful and. And it was fun, man. We tried to. Honestly, we tried to make a movie, you know, from day one, we were like, let's just make something that feels like a throwback. Like. Feels like. Like. Like a comfort film that people could. People could watch together and smile and enjoy. And it's not. It's funny because I would say it's, you know, maybe it's more of our. Like, there's other. Other films, other subjects that we want to tackle. But this was something that, you know, everybody has those, like, guilty pleasures or those movies that they can go back to again and again that I think. Yeah, and I think that's what we set out to do. We're like, let's make someone's favorite movie that they can, you know, watch together and when they're, you know, when they're having a tough day. And that's really what we. That's really what we set out to do.

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53:54

How was shooting in Italy? Any cool directing stories?

54:12

Yeah, so it was interesting because the Italian crews are amazing because they've, They're. They're legendary.

54:15

Like, they.

54:22

The. The family. It's the same families that have been shooting all these movies for years, so generations of films there.

54:23

It's like Fellini's great grandson.

54:29

Exactly.

54:31

Yeah.

54:31

There was people.

54:32

Frankie Fellini. Yeah. Of course.

54:32

I'm not kidding. Like, that was what it was like. You had, you. You had that. And they could trace their, you know. Yeah. Trace the ancestry back to the beginning of film in Italy. And. And it was beautiful also, too. Not to mention they live in, you know, I mean, we're walking into these locations and just jaw on the floor everywhere we're going. But they this is where they live, you know, so they. It was kind of. That was kind of neat to. To experience it and work with them.

54:34

I remember I was. When I was traveling around Italy many years ago, I met. We met someone, some restaurant. She was like, an American exchange student that was studying in Italy, and she's like, hey, you guys should come check out my apartment. Michelangelo used to live there. It's like, that's. That's insane.

55:00

No big deal.

55:14

Yeah, before he was, like, super famous.

55:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

55:17

Before he was super famous.

55:18

Yeah.

55:20

That's hilarious. That's great.

55:21

But that. Yeah, that's cool. Any. Any interesting challenges?

55:23

There were. There was. There's an element of, you know, an element of the mafia that is a part of this and part of working in Italy that control a lot of it. So we had to work with our location manager, had to work with certain facets of the family's there, and you can't shoot in a certain place without their permission. And there was one day. I will send you a photo. There's one day where we were shut down for about an hour, and there were a senator had to show up and someone else had to show up, some power people, and they went around the corner and discussed some things, and. And then we were back up and running. But you have to, you know, certain places, you have to have permission to shoot there. And we. We were. Tried to be as respectful as possible, working with the locals there and.

55:27

Anyone carrying a violin case.

56:09

No, thankfully not. And I'm trying to, you know, make sure I'm, you know, very diplomatic on this interview.

56:11

Sure, sure.

56:16

But.

56:17

But there were.

56:17

You don't want a horse head in your bed, right, Chuck?

56:18

No, no. But there were some. There were some challenges. We had someone from Interpol that was with us and. And turned out to be a friend of our, you know, became very friendly with us, but he was there just kind of making sure that. That we were, you know, working with the right people and. Yeah, yeah. So it's a different. Yeah, it's interesting. It was definitely. Definitely had its challenges.

56:20

We're making. Making jokes and making light. But what. What was at stake? Right. Like, what is it? You know, like, was it just like, oh, we're gonna get shut down? Was there. Did you get a sense of violence? Or was it more kind of bureaucratic? Like, how does.

56:41

No, it's more bureaucratic. Yeah, there's no. It didn't. Yeah, yeah.

56:55

It's no Godfather territory.

56:59

No.

57:00

Getting shut down is a pretty huge stake, though.

57:00

Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. For sure.

57:03

Yeah.

57:04

Yeah.

57:05

And especially as you, as you guys know when you're on set and the amount of money that's going up out the door every minute, it was one of those things where like, okay, well, how much is it going to cost to get us back up and running?

57:05

Like, guys, I just drank 17 cappuccinos.

57:15

Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think of. Oh, this is an interesting thing too, with the, like, a lot of the, you know, like, I don't know. I don't know what it is, but maybe it's just the, the American, like, American, you know, I'm trying to think.

57:18

Of the mentality or mentality of just.

57:30

Like, you know, you guys, like, yeah, if someone's on set and something needs to get done. Oh, somebody like, okay, we'll do that. And then they go and move a mound that nobody sees and it gets done.

57:32

Sure, sure.

57:41

The most impossible thing.

57:41

Yeah. And they're sprinting the whole time.

57:42

And the whole time in Italy, we would ask for something and like, we just get the response like, no, that's, that's impossible. Like, there's no, like, sorry, yeah, it's just. That's impossible. Yeah, yeah, we love that because it was just very upfront. It wasn't the, you know, the Hollywood, like, oh, yes, we will do that. And then. Yeah.

57:44

And they come back. Yeah, right.

58:01

Ruin their life for the next 24 hours to make that happen. It was just like, no, that's impossible. We can't do that.

58:03

I'm curious, you know, as a, as a band of filmmaking brothers, I'm sure you guys got used to doing it a certain way, right? Like you were alluding to. Oh, yeah. The gear you worked with wasn't always conventional, all that stuff. Did you have any moments where you were, like, caught yourself planning on doing it the old school way and then realized, oh, shoot, we're on a Hollywood movie. I actually can't do it that way anymore. And vice versa. Were there times where you wished it was the old way? Talk to us about that.

58:09

Yeah, so I think our first experience with that was on Home Team, the Netflix movie, where we'd only worked with us as a group. At the most, our crew, I mean, I don't know, maybe our biggest project, we had maybe 30, 40 people. And this was now you had 500 people on a football field in New Orleans in the 120 degree heat and the lightning delays. And if you, if we wanted to turn the camera on, you just couldn't because that was going to take an hour. And that was something we learned kind of the hard way where you can't. There's these very great systems that are in place, but for someone who does know how to operate in those systems, it's quite, it's, it's quite, quite the education, I think you need to have to operate in those systems where you're moving. You know, it's the difference between being in this little boat that can sneak in and out of the coves and do everything you want or moving this giant cruise liner that's going to take a day to turn around. So that was something I would say that was the biggest challenge for us. The biggest challenge for us was not understanding how to work in that environment where. No, we just want to turn around and get this shot. This is what we need. We have, we know we only have, you know, sure.

58:38

Just paying the camera guys, Right.

59:45

Just turn the camera out.

59:47

It's like, tell the people on the stands there to go over there. They're like, like, okay, that's the 35 minute thing.

59:47

Exactly. There's a whole city that has to move and pick up their tents and move. And so that was kind of. And even the first AD we worked with, David Bernstein, who's Clint Eastwood's first ad, that does a lot of work.

59:53

He's like, you guys are doing more than one take. What's going on? Yeah, yeah.

1:00:04

He's like, what time is your.

1:00:07

Bernie?

1:00:08

Yeah, exactly. But he, but yeah, Bernie was like, I, he goes, I can see what you guys are dealing with. He's like, if I just give you the camera and all these people went away, you could get that. But, you know, so he was very helpful.

1:00:09

Yeah, he's sympathetic to, to the curve. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:00:21

Did you have.

1:00:25

Realizes that it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:00:26

And maybe tries to help, you know, bring some of those old school, you know, creature comforts back in some way.

1:00:30

You know, or even anticipate, like, I know these guys kind of like to shoot 360, you know.

1:00:36

Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.

1:00:41

Set our gear up.

1:00:42

Yeah, exactly.

1:00:43

Supports that.

1:00:44

And there was, there were, there were those moments where we got, we were able to just grab the cameras and take them off all the rigs and we just kind of got into the huddle with, with the kids and the, and that was some of our favorite stuff, you know, that just was kind of more, more in the style of how we were used to doing it.

1:00:44

So did you have a moment where you felt like, oh, like the, the Hollywood thing has clicked? Like, ah, I've got the hang of this now.

1:00:58

Absolutely. I think for sure. In our last project, the one we just finished, where. And it took us a couple projects to get there, but there is, There's a real freedom in, in living in that world where everybody, you, you, you know, you come from the indie world and you're trying to do everything right. You're trying to, Trying to do it all and being at peace with the fact that there are way more talented creative people. And obviously they're looking at, they're looking at us to make the, you know, help. Help them make the decisions and get to the best place. But I think in our last project, more than ever, we felt that real comfort with just having full trust and, and, and it does. It takes some time to learn that. That system. And it's there for a reason, because it does. It. It's the only way you can do. Do these massive things where. So I think, I think having both experiences really helpful because there's some times where there were some days where we just had to say, nope, we're just taking the camera. We're going to do this like we used to and we'll get it done. So, yeah, I would say. And again, I'm probably not articulating it well enough, but our la. Yeah, our last film, it was great to really sit and there's nothing better to know that, that all these amazing creative collaborators, you know, have your back and they want what's best for the project.

1:01:06

Yeah.

1:02:17

Something. I'll share something with you guys. That was probably the most special, most special conversation I've ever had in the. Don't ask me how this happened, but we ended up. We ended up getting, getting to talk.

1:02:17

With terrence Malik at McDonald's. He's in line behind you.

1:02:27

Yeah.

1:02:31

And to me, he's, you know, to me, he's the ultimate, the old.

1:02:32

Yeah.

1:02:35

Like I, I remember sitting in a theater in New York watching the Tree of Life and sobbing and while people were getting up and storming out next to me.

1:02:36

Right.

1:02:43

You know, like, we are not watching the same movie, I think.

1:02:44

No. And so, so, and something, you know, a friend of ours had put us in touch and he, he was willing to help us out on this, this project we were developing, which never got, Never got made. But he was, he, he said something to us. He was like, he was like, lean on your collaborators. He's like, everybody thinks that, that they have to do it on their own and, and it's all up to them. And, and he was like, the. All the auteur of auteur saying this.

1:02:46

Sure.

1:03:09

But he said, he said you lean on your collaborators. He's like, you're surrounded. You surround yourself with all these amazing artists and you'll lean on each other and that's what's going to make, make it beautiful.

1:03:09

Say also only shoot during golden hour.

1:03:18

Yeah. Which we can't. Which we thought we were going to be able to do on home team, but. No, we can't. We can't. How come we can't shoot it, you know, six o' clock in the morning.

1:03:21

Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:29

That's awesome.

1:03:30

But anyway, that's. And that's what we've tried to do on, on set is with all, with all the brothers is. And there's so much stress too, that goes along with it. We, we started, we started handing out after our first movie because it's so crazy. And there's probably stories about that movie that there was such a hard movie. Like, I know the, our UPM Todd, who had worked on Deepwater Horizon, he's like, this was harder than Deep Water, our first movie. And he.

1:03:31

So yeah, it's like, from Apocalypse now is like, like, damn.

1:03:53

I know Wolf guys.

1:03:57

I know. But, but it was kids. It was coveted. It was lightning.

1:03:58

Yeah.

1:04:01

But anyway, we, we took this approach now where we, we hand out. And again, I, I, you know, I don't know if like the, the true artists listening to this will appreciate this, but we, we did this. We had. We hand out to all our production heads a picture of the pale blue dot, Carl Sagan's the Pale Blue Dot. And it was, for us, it's a, it's something to focus on where, like, as hard as we're working as everything we're doing and, you know, we're making a movie, you know, and it puts it in perspective. And I think, I think we gotta do more than.

1:04:02

I don't think I know what the pale blue dot is, actually.

1:04:28

I'm assuming it's Earth.

1:04:30

Yeah. Yeah.

1:04:31

Okay, so there's a, there's a picture and it's, it was taken by one of the satellites that went out. The probes that went out in space. I don't know if it's like taken from 90 million miles away, some crazy distance, and it's, it's the, it's Earth, but it's like a speck of dust and a sunbeam. And Carl Sagan has this beautiful poem and he talks about everyone who's ever lived out their lives, lived it out on that speck. Of dust. And so it's something where. Something we've tried to take with us in our. In our productions going forward, where everything's gonna be hard, there's gonna be a lot of tension. But we've tried to keep that perspective with the crew and try to find collaborative collaborators who will buy into that, that have that perspective too. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know why I brought that up, but that's. That's something.

1:04:32

No, that's. That's awesome.

1:05:17

Yeah.

1:05:18

Yeah. I was gonna ask. Can I ask one final question? I know we're gonna wrap up soon, but I'm just curious, you know, you worked with a cinematographer, Jared Fatal.

1:05:19

Yes, Jared Fidel.

1:05:27

Yes, Fidel. And I see from his work, it seems like he's kind of largely a commercial cinematographer. It's done a lot of really beautiful stuff. I'm curious if, like. Like, why you hired, like, him and what. What the visual approach was. You said earlier that this is a movie. You wanted people to.

1:05:28

To.

1:05:43

To be someone's favorite movie, like a comfort watch and. And maybe something that. That feels good to see. Was there, like, set, like, some visual, like, language that you guys tried to like. How do you define that from a visual standpoint? I'm just curious about that.

1:05:43

Yeah. So I think it. I mean, it's. Yeah, it's gonna. You know, I think some. Something we said from the beginning was we love the. We love the essays. Every frame of painting.

1:05:58

Sure. Yeah.

1:06:06

And I think that's something we. We really try to do is we really try to approach it. We're in this beautiful setting, and we really wanted to. Really want to design the images like a paint. Like paintings. And we were in. We were in Rome. I mean, Jared, Fidel, he comes from this commercial background. We worked with him on another project prior. Prior to Solomio. We love his work so much. And what. I'll say this. One of the things we wanted to do is we wanted to elevate this because there's a version of this movie because the story is very simple. It is formulaic. We try to add some twists and turns at the end, but it does follow this formula. There's a version of this movie that is shot terribly and, you know, and that nobody would watch. And I think with Jared's. With Jared's lighting and what he. What he did, we feel like it elevated the movie. It just. It made it so, so much special. I mean, it. Next to. Next to the actors who I. We love the actors in this film. All of them. Nicole Gramado, and Kevin and the rest of the cast, Kim Coast, Jonathan Roumie, Julianne Emery, Julie Serta, Alison Hannigan. They let, they lent. It was so beautiful. But, you know, Jared elevated it. I think these actors could have lived in a film that didn't look like this. And for me, it's probably the most special part of the movie is, is the way, the way he approached the visuals. And we really fought hard for it to get him there because it was a low budget movie working with unions in Italy and it was funny. We, our, our first meeting, they wanted us to meet with some Italian, some Italian DPs who had done a lot of Italian television. And we're like, of course we'll meet with everybody, you know, and we sat down at a meeting and, and, and we met some, some amazing people. Very talented, very talented DPs. But I think Jared had this approach to this movie that it was, it was, you know, we didn't want to shoot it. Like the rom coms are shot today. I don't want to, I don't want to say anything negatively about that, but a lot of it is very flat, Very flat lighting, very TV show lighting.

1:06:07

Yeah, there's that Netflix look.

1:07:59

Yeah, exactly.

1:08:01

Which isn't, you know, ubiquitous. You know what? We all know. We know.

1:08:02

No, we said it.

1:08:06

We said it.

1:08:07

We said we don't want it to look like. Because there's a version of this movie that looks very bad and, and, and very flat. And we, so we were like, we want it to look like how they used to shoot these movies. You know, if you look at like we referenced the apartment, you know, which is an old movie.

1:08:07

Sure.

1:08:21

But it's shot so beautifully and it's, and it's, I mean it's black and white, but it's the lighting in it and the camera movements and everything. So, so we hope we did that. We hope we, you know, people notice that that extra special thing that I think is. Makes it even feel for us. It makes it feel more nostalgia. So the long. The, you know, the short answer is we're going for nostalgia. We wanted to. The rom coms of the past got that justice. They got that hair with the light and the camera movements where we felt this one deserved it because we wanted to fit in that, in that world, if that makes sense. And Jared I. We love him. He did incredible. And the movie is, is so special because to us, because of what he did.

1:08:22

Awesome.

1:09:00

Awesome. Well, Chuck, I love that before we get to endorsements, how can people keep Track of you and all that. Some stuff.

1:09:00

You and your brother find out what this next movie is?

1:09:07

Yeah, sure.

1:09:09

So, yeah, I would say probably Canadian Brothers on Instagram is where we share most of our stuff. And then John's.

1:09:10

One of you would. Does one of you do all the posting or do all. All of John. Yeah, John does. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:09:18

John does all the socials. Yeah. And he runs screenplay it as well. Awesome. And there's a cool video he just. He just made and it was about. It's showing us like making movies as kids. And then.

1:09:23

Oh, cool.

1:09:32

There's like a cool little, you know, cool little thing that he cut together that you can see on our. On our Instagram.

1:09:33

That sounds awesome, guys.

1:09:38

Thank you so much for this. Thank you.

1:09:41

Yeah, no, no, it's been so fun, man.

1:09:42

I mean, yeah, it's kind of a fascinating story your way in. I don't think we've heard that.

1:09:44

It's a weird way.

1:09:49

Yeah, it's great, though. It's great.

1:09:51

Well, Chuck, thanks so much. Matt, do you have just a few minutes left to endorse something with me?

1:09:52

I do indeed. Unpaid endorsements. My unpaid endorsement. First, I'm going to double down on those sound guy shorts. They still make me giggle. They're really fun and truly the technical execution on them is great. There's a lot of skill going into them that really makes them seamless in a way that's cool. And I, you know, we could have done a whole episode on how you guys did all that, but for another time for the next movie.

1:09:58

Sound guy shorts have a lot of views too. Yeah. Multiple millions of views.

1:10:24

They went viral. And then I have one more endorsement, which is top seeds crackers, which are like, like, basically like wafers of like, chia seed and sunflower seed. There's like, there. It's just a bunch of seeds they squish together and they're delicious. They're a little salty. They're. They're filling in a way that, like, some snack foods don't tend to be filling. And what's funny, I bring it up because I had a 45 minute conversation with Oren's dad at Christmas about his recipe on how. And they're delicious. So my wife was like, hey, you should endorse these top seeds. But also, I would like the recipe from your dad, please.

1:10:29

Yeah, man. We actually made them so Trader Joe's last time I went, you know, they have this like, kind of white cheddar popcorn that we kind of get. It's like on the Healthier side of unhealthy food. But they had a new flavor. And I asked the guy at the checkout, I saw it at the checkout stand. I was like, what do you think of this popcorn? Is it better than the white cheddar? I think so. So I bought myself some Buffalo Ranch popcorn. And it's like literally buffalo sauce. Sure. With like a little bit of ranchy kind of vibes. And I, Yeah, it's probably made for like, probably like 20 servings. I ate 10 of them yesterday in the kitchen, standing by the counter. Yeah, it's that good.

1:11:09

It sounds like a perfect super bowl snack. Right. If you're not a wings person, you can have the Buffalo Ranch.

1:11:44

Yeah, it is. I mean it, it does make your fingers like a little red. You know, it's not quite as bad as like Cheetos, but. Or Flamin Hot Cheetos, but it, it's pretty good. I, I'd recommend it. Yeah, it's like those, the Buffalo Snyder's, you know, mustard pieces that are also just so good. But you know, it's like you're killing yourself. It's like. But you know, once in a while. My other one was just going to be whatever your opinion of Elon Musk Grock, Imagine it just, the new one just came out like yesterday. It's. It's free and it's really freaking good. I'm. I'm. Now I'm running the same prompts through Mid journey and Grok. Imagine and Imagine like beats mid journey like nine times out of 10 in terms of just understanding what I'm trying to do. And then if you type in a prompt, let's say you say, you know, Rhode island based filmmaker is on a podcast.

1:11:49

Yeah.

1:12:39

It'll. It'll just start generating images and the more you scroll, the more it'll, it'll generate. Just. I mean it'll make hundreds of them. And then on every single one there's a little play arrow. You can click on anyone and hit play and it'll make a video out of it. And they just introduced audio too, so I thought that it was like 100% free today. I did run out of like my user, but it, it refreshes. It's like Chat GPT, the free one where it's like come back tomorrow at 2pm but it's pretty insane. You can also. It doesn't have. The video doesn't have first frame, last frame, which is the one where you can like put in the first frame in the last frame. But it has first frame. So you can be like, here's a picture of Matt and here's Matt without clothing. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. And you can edit. It kind of has a little bit of nano banana stuff where if you make a photo with it, you can hit edit image and then you can say like, change the shirt to be read or whatever and it'll do it. So it's kind of, I mean, you just can't beat the price. It's free. I mean, you know, Matt, Matt sure probably thinks the price is like a future of humanity.

1:12:40

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I don't know. What do I know? Yeah.

1:13:39

So check it out. If you, I want. I, I, I mean, I, I'm still angry at all of this stuff, don't get me wrong. But if you can't beat them, crock them. We went to a panel last night with, with some big directors on it, and they were asked about AI and they kind of the consensus, which I thought was interesting, was that it's kind of up to us to kind of decide how it's going to affect this industry.

1:13:42

Yeah. It's not a foregone conclusion. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

1:14:02

If you guys want us to try to get you some free popcorn, you can email us@ distributorpodmail.com. yeah, you can follow us across all social media. We're at Just shoot a pod on Instagram. I'm at Kaplan.

1:14:05

And I'm@MrMatvenlo. Across all social media. This episode is was edited by Kevin Oyang. Thanks, Kevin. Social media is by Lily Bouvier. Thanks, Lily. Produced by Tyler Schmal. Thanks, Tyler. And you're listening to music provided by the F Music Archive and the artist Jazar.

1:14:16

Thanks, everyone.

1:14:28

Goodbye.

1:14:28

Bye.

1:14:29

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