Show Don't Tell: Micro-Budget Filmmaking

In this episode, I'm joined by Legion M co-founders Jeff Annison and Paul Scanlan to talk about the new Green Day comedy Nimrods, hitting theaters August 14, and how the world's first fan-owned entertainment company ended up behind it and Coyote vs. Acme after three years on the shelf.

Jeff and Paul break down a model that doesn't exist anywhere else in Hollywood. Over 60,000 people now co-own Legion M, with an average investment of $500 and a minimum of $100, and they've raised roughly $30 to $35 million across the studio, individual films, and their new film fund. As Jeff puts it, their entire existence has cost less than the first ten minutes of a Marvel movie. Along the way they financed the William Shatner documentary in four days with two emails, produced My Dead Friend Zoe with Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, and co-released Fackham Hall with Bleecker Street.

We also get into the business realities most filmmakers never learn: why the group of people green-lighting projects narrows every year, and why your movie ultimately boils down to its trailer, title, and key art. Paul walks through the New Year's Rev to Nimrods title change, and tells the story of pitching Green Day on a Comic-Con panel only to be told that punk rock bands don't do panels, which is how Billie Joe Armstrong ended up performing from the roof of an ice cream truck while the band threw ice cream at the crowd.

Topics covered include:
How a fan-owned studio works, and why it has advantages
Getting to 60,000 investors one at a time, and the goal of reaching one million
The three ways to invest: the studio, individual films, and the film fund
How Legion M polls its community to decide which projects to pursue
The community response that pushed them toward Coyote vs. Acme
Jeff's contrarian take on David Zaslav and the shelving decision
Why they went after Nimrods and Obsession out of TIFF, and what happened
The title change and the marketing balancing act around a Green Day audience
The Comic-Con activation with Billie Joe Armstrong and the ice cream truck
Why distribution should be the first thing a filmmaker thinks about, not the last
Jeff and Paul's definitions of a great director
Links from the show:

Legion M - Website

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In this episode, I'm joined by writer, director, and bestselling comics author Michael Moreci, whose reentry into filmmaking came in the form of Revealer, a single-location horror film set in a 1980s Chicago peep show booth. He wrote the film in about ten days and it later premiered on Shudder.

Since then he's co-written and co-directed the heist comedy Holiday Hold-Up, written on Syfy's Revival, and continued a long career in comics on series like Barbaric and Dick Tracy.Throughout the episode we get into the discipline that lets you write a feature in ten days, why he thinks directing is mostly pre-production and post, how the crew community at Flyover Studios in Illinois has become the lifeblood of everything he makes, and the hard lesson that the second film is harder to get made than the first.

Topics covered include:Writing Revealer in ten days and more or less shooting the first draft
Why a thorough outline is what actually lets you write fast
Wearing the writer hat and the director hat, and why you can't wear both at once
Splitting one narrative feature between four directors, one per character
Clarity of vision as the thing that makes every on-set decision easy
How an abandoned Air Force base became Flyover Studios
Building a crew community that stays, grows, and moves laterally
What writing for a cable series taught him about what he doesn't want
Why comics training makes you fast, economical, and better at editing
Somehow holding the Dick Tracy comic rights, and the value of just asking
All of this and much more on today's show!

Links from the show:

Michael Moreci on Instagram

Tessellation official site

Revealer on Shudder

Flyover Film Studios

Barbaric from Vault Comics

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In this solo episode I break down the process of writing a musical score for the first time on my upcoming short film Crow.

Topics covered include:
Why the advice to "specialize in one area" was never right for me
Editing the entire rough cut with zero music in 10 to 20 second chunks
Locking in sound design before any temp score so music never becomes a crutch
Scoring all five cues out of order, starting with the final cue and working backwards
Where the process stands now: rough guitar demos down, next up is re-recording
Much more!
Big thanks to Soundstripe for executive producing the film and sponsoring this episode.

Check out their new Soundstripe LIVE tool at soundstripe.com/noam

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In this episode, I'm joined by filmmaker and re-recording mixer Mark Hensley to talk about his micro-budget feature Clown and Out in Valley Village, which he shot guerrilla style over the course of a year with no crew, a cast of two, and a total budget of around $4,000 (half of which went to a single permit).

Mark shares how he found the script through a Facebook writing group, cut a 200-page draft down to something shootable, and built a workflow around editing each scene the night it was shot so he and his actors could review the footage and reshoot anything that wasn't working.

We also dive deep into his remarkable background in sound, from recording music at the Record Plant in Sausalito to mixing major network TV shows in LA, and the practical audio techniques every indie filmmaker should steal from his playbook.

Topics covered include:
Why shooting slowly over a year with no crew is a creative advantage
Operating as a one man band with the S1H, an RS3 Pro gimbal, and lavs into camera
Why no single plugin fixes bad dialogue, and rescuing scenes with tools like DX Revive
Having actors re-run scenes as audio-only safety takes to patch dropouts in post
When emotional production sound beats technically perfect ADR
Shooting guerrilla style in LA, and why a boom mic is the one giveaway to avoid
Knowing your coverage in advance instead of shooting every scene wide-medium-close
Renting vs. buying gear, and why becoming a filmmaker means owning a camera
Why anybody can become a filmmaker, even starting at 55 with zero experience
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In this episode, I'm joined by Aidan Leary and C.R. Thompson, the writing team behind Monkey's Magic Merry Go Round. A micro-budget horror feature pitched as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood meets Evil Dead 2, produced by mumblecore legend Joe Swanberg.

Throught the episode Aidan and C.R. share the wild origin story of the film, from a screenplay written in just two weeks, to them living in the back of Joe Swanberg's video store just two months later after he bought it.

We also get into the nuts and bolts of the 11-day shoot: directing without a first AD, running a crew of about a dozen people inside the Chicago Children's Theater, hiring set builders straight off PBS, and their lightning fast post-production process.

Topics covered include:
Turning a childhood nightmare about an evil monkey puppet into a feature
Four-act structure vs. three-act structure, and the South Park method
Using Joe Swanberg's own pitching technique to sell him the script
Joe's best advice: the only wrong decision is no decision
Intentional continuity breaks as a creative safety net
Editing lessons: temp sound effects, test screenings, and killing your darlings
Why editors often make the best directors
Much more!
Links from this episode:

Film on Instagram

Aidan Leary on Instagram

C.R. Thompson on Instagram

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