In this episode of the Clone Cops Podcast, filmmakers Phillip Cordell (Co-writer/Actor), Danny Dones (Co-writer/Director), Charles Royce (VFX Supervisor/Producer), and Corey Allen (Cinematographer) dive into the intricate world-building of Clone Cops. From costumes to set design to iconic props, the team breaks down how they created a visually distinct and immersive sci-fi universe on an indie budget.
🎬 Episode 3: Designing the World of Clone Cops
THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SOME MOVIE SPOILERS - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
🔍 Episode Summary:
In this episode of the Clone Cops Podcast, filmmakers Phillip Cordell (Co-writer/Actor), Danny Dones (Co-writer/Director), Charles Royce (VFX Supervisor/Producer), and Corey Allen (Cinematographer) dive into the intricate world-building of Clone Cops. From costumes to set design to iconic props, the team breaks down how they created a visually distinct and immersive sci-fi universe on an indie budget.
They discuss:
• The Origin of the Iconic Clone Cop Helmet – How a last-minute decision turned into an instantly recognizable sci-fi symbol.
• Crafting the Clone Cop Uniforms – The hilarious process of designing a “committee-approved” security outfit with hidden layers of satire.
• Nefari Corp’s Aesthetic & Branding – How corporate dystopia was brought to life through logos, posters, and subtle background details.
• Prop Design & DIY Movie Magic – The team shares how they built weapons, gadgets, and tech using unexpected materials.
• Building Sets on a Budget – How they transformed real locations into believable sci-fi environments.
• Marketing Through World-Building – The unexpected impact of the film’s costume and design choices on audience engagement.
🎤 Notable Quotes:
• “We had no business making this movie without this helmet. It became our brand identity.” – Phillip Cordell
• “The mustache on the helmet was the best decision we made. The moment Phil took it off, we knew it was gold.” – Danny Dones
• “We wanted Nefari Corp to feel like a company that takes itself too seriously. The kind that accidentally brands itself as ‘Nefari US’ without realizing what it says.” – Charles Royce
• “If you want to get your indie film made, you have to be willing to do everything yourself.” – Danny Dones
📌 Key Takeaways for Filmmakers:
✅ How to make props and costumes look high-budget on a low-budget production
✅ The power of visual storytelling in marketing a film
✅ Why small background details add massive rewatch value
✅ How branding within a film can create an extended universe feel
✅ Why world-building matters even in a micro-budget film
🛠 Next Episode Preview:
Next time, the team explores “Filming Clone Cops: On-Set Challenges & Breakthroughs”, diving into cinematography, lighting setups, and how they pulled off ambitious shots with limited time and resources.
📢 Today’s Episode Sponsor:
Brought to you by Nefaricorp. Visit nefaricorp.com for more.
#CloneCops #IndieFilmmaking #SciFiComedy #FilmmakingPodcast #BehindTheScenes
0:02
Welcome back to the clone cops podcast. We missed you. I'm Philip Cordell, co writer and actor in clone cops. I'm Danny Jones, co writer and director, and apologies for last time I think my fly was down the whole time. This is why I have this beautiful clone cops pillow on my lap. I'm Chuck target. Charles Royce on IMDb, VFX supervisor and producer clone cops. Oh, that was so great.
0:30
And I'm Corey Allen, cinematographer for clone cops. So again, welcome back, guys. This is episode three, where we're gonna spend a little time talking about designing the world of clone cops. We had a lot of stuff going on. We had the helmet, which is iconic at this point, the uniforms for the replicants. A ton of work designing the world of nefari Court, which we'll get into talk about some of our props, some of the set design, all those fun things. Well, let's start with the first big one, the helmet. Tell us where that came from.
1:08
Yeah. First off, I just want to say I'm I'm so glad you outed yourself just now with the fly down, no, with his alter ego, I was thinking I'm gonna have to go back and watch Episode Two to guess that fly down.
1:22
I'm pretty sure. Yeah, so the helmet, when we originally conceived of the clone cop thing, we knew that we were going to cover their faces, because we knew, you know, we weren't going to be able to clone Phil, so we're days away from that technology indie film hack.
1:41
So we're going to cover the clone face. Kind of mask, some kind of some kind of covering. And I think the original concept was that we were gonna do, like, we're gonna get, like, a welder's mask or something. And I was just kind of like, sorry, janky, the plant was, was half baked and janky and an afterthought, right? Like, when we get some, some potted plants, oh, yeah, like, a potted, yeah, plant pot, uh, like a plastic planter at one point, and I was gonna, like, 3d print some crap and glue it on there. For the record, I'm so glad that was not the place I looked, even on Amazon, I think I was sending you guys stuff like, what if we use this for this part of the helmet? Yeah, paintball mask. I mean, we were looking at a bunch of stuff that we could readily, easily get. Yeah, yeah. And then we kind of had an epiphany. I think it was before we did the concept art, right? We talked that was partly why we got a concept artist. Was we kind of as we were talking about it more, and we were thinking about, like, long term, what this movie is going to do, and where we're going to go with it, and how we're going to market it. We realized like, hey, this clone helmet thing is kind of our opportunity to make something iconic, something that's going to really stick out and be part of the Zeitgeist. And I kind of kept throwing out like, you know, what if Darth Vader was a planter, you know? Like, this is our chance to make that Darth Vader helmet or that Boba Fett helmet, and we should make it something unique and interesting and really special. So we reached out to Chris Butler, concept artist that I went to college with at isoban ISO Yeah, and and he put together some incredible concept art that really solidified what we were going to do with the clones and who the clones were, and kind of really rounded out and informed a lot of our nefari Corp stuff as well, just absolutely, you know, so that, that was where that all started. And then then we reached out to pop printing. I'm gonna say something. You guys aren't gonna want to hear better. Cover your
3:38
ears. We had no business making this movie without this helmet. It has become such an important, critical part of the brand identity. It's been so cool. You know that we did a 10 city road show theatrical, and the first, the very first place that we got out in costume in Philadelphia, Corey and Danny and I, and we're walking up to the to the stairs where they shot Rocky, and we just hear, hey, clone cops. Love you guys. And it was the helmet. You know, you saw the helmet, saw the outfit, and it was just the most fulfilling feeling ever, right? We're like, how did you hear about clone cops? It's because this thing's making its way into the algorithm. You know, so, so glad that that we leaned into the design and saw it for what it was, which is an opportunity to make the thing. When we were talking about, okay, what's the thumbnail for the for tea VOD gonna be? What's the DVD cover going to be? It just became real obvious that, like, this is our identity. We don't need to put the, you know, me as an actor on there, or whatever. It's like, it's the helmet. Yeah, it's not only part of, kind of an iconography that you guys were wanting to create, but earlier, in an earlier episode, you were talking about everything being a spectacle, and that helmet is certainly a spectacle, like you can't forget it, right? Yeah, and I think the helmet itself is a visual clue as to what we're going to do in the rest of the movie. You know, there's so many elements of that that inform the.
5:00
You are like, this is the road that we're on. This is the path that we're taking. You know, from the there's a camera in there. So, you know, we're in a surveillance state.
5:07
You know, the eyes look like aviator sunglasses. So it's like, reminiscent of, like, Highway Patrol kind of stuff. So it's like they, this is a play on the iconic cop, you know, like with the helm the hat is, like the play on the iconic, like, dress hat for a patrol officer. And then the mustache, we knew was a must. And we, I think, to me, adding the mustache was the like, best thing that we did on the helmet, because there's that scene where you take the helmet off and you have the mustache on underneath, and it's just so funny, and your dumb face when you take that off is too, too funny. And how, how art informs life. I had never had a mustache. I'd never worn a mustache in my life, and now I've had a mustache for two and a half, almost three years. I can't imagine you without it. It's a part of me. Everywhere I go, people shout out the stash. It's a real, real life changing experience. I still prefer you without it.
6:03
That's for another story,
6:07
alright? So that's the helmet, and it is 3d printed. It's incredibly comfortable to wear. That's who I've heard. No, you know, we we just knew we needed to make a thing, right? And so reached out to popped printing out of Huntsville, Alabama, Daniel Thompson, and they put together, you know, they, we sent them the drawing, and they helped model it with us come up with a model, which now you've replicated on a smaller scale, right? Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool. It's fun, yeah, yeah. And it's, yeah, it's a two piece print job, right? So there's the large bell shaped and then the hat that goes on top, which honestly has been a godsend, because I've been traveling with it all month and and one giant helmet actually won't fit into a bag, but when I take the hat off and the face mask, yeah, yeah, it'll it'll travel okay. And so those guys were just have been tremendous to work with. And, you know, delivered on what we were looking for. Yeah, that's great. Now, what about the the shirt, the uniform? How did that design come to be?
7:10
Well, that's another piece of Chris's design, his concept art, his whole kind of idea behind that was that it would be something designed by committee. So he was a graphic designer that worked at Fruit of the Loom for a long time, and he got very used to that corporate structure of design, where you it goes through all these meetings and everybody gets to put their thumbprint on it, designed by committee, kind of thing. And so that was kind of his satirical take on that is that he's the clone himself, has all of these kind of like disparate pieces that somebody along the line has tacked on, like, he should be friendly, so they put a smiley face on there, but also he needs to be intimidating, so we put like a warning symbol on there. So a lot of that stuff came from Chris's original concept, yeah. And then the fun part was kind of taking that and then adding the stuff that he just Greek in, you know, like, what does this say? And what did this supposed to it was so much fun doing those shirts well, and Charles is such a fan, just fantastic graphic designer. But most of the stuff that you do is very sleek and minimal. Right now, remember the first time you looked at Sure, you're like, I don't know about this, but you figured it out. Yeah, you cracked it where it's like, it looks really great. The first time, it was kind of like all laid out in a really, kind of, you know, linear order. And Danny was like, no, no, let's make it a little bit messier, a little bit more designed by committee, which is what he always said, Yeah, I feel like that was my note to you on a lot of design from the beginning, across the board, throughout the whole movie, was like, it needs to be worse. Like it's too good. It looks too good. It needs to look crappier. Make it worse.
8:47
Yeah, that was a but that was great. And the the uniforms really helped tie it all together. And man, what a great look. It's just really has turned in like you're saying to this iconic kind of thing, and it's everything that we hoped it would be. And yeah, every city we've gone to, somebody has recognized us unprovoked, like it's not us walking up to people being like, hey, it's people calling us out and shouting after us as we're walking around with you in the uniform, right? Or we were in Louisiana and in kind of the boonies shooting some content in a swamp, and there was a highway, kind of nearby, and then that night, we have a screening at a theater in Gonzales, and some woman and her daughter come over, like we saw y'all shooting today, you know, 45 minutes away, yeah, you know, like, oh, that's crazy. Like they saw this thing, and then they immediately put two and two to, you know, that goes, like, right here, into the brain. Yeah, it does, man. And dude, kids, kids, flip out, dad, daddy, who's that? Man? I hear that all the time, and I give him a little head hat tilt, keeping you safe out here, kids, when it does look like a cartoon character come to life, I mean, it is that look, yeah, yeah, we should just make it a cartoon. Hey, I thought I love that idea. Partner with us. Check out the website. Yeah, please do clone copsmovie.com, I think.
10:00
Three episodes in. I think that's the first time we've said that. I think it is, yeah, clone cops movie.com,
10:06
that's com three times. We'll cut that and drop it into the other episodes.
10:13
So aside from the replicant security officer
10:18
outfit, wardrobe, get up, there were a lot of other really interesting wardrobe choices, both for the gang. You know, towards the end of the movie, we have some clones in other uniforms as well. How did all those come to be?
10:34
A lot of credit goes out to Anna Schmidt, who is our costume designer.
10:38
We talked a lot about
10:41
the design of the gang in particular, because without giving too much away, they're not exactly in total control over what they're wearing. So we wanted to make sure that they were represented in a way that kind of told that story as well. So she did great work on that. A lot of, a lot of the design of the wardrobe was
11:05
they should be able to make action figures to these people. You know, at some point there's an action figure of everybody in this movie, so we wanted to dress them in a way that would be evocative of that we talked a lot about with the hit squad. We talked a lot about
11:19
GI Joe and Power Rangers and that sort of thing. And what would, what would those guys look like as toys come to life? And she did just a phenomenal job with such a small amount of resources.
11:35
Yeah. I mean, it really is incredible to see across the board, everybody but our wardrobe department especially, managed to really pull off some incredible stuff. And it helped too, that the Everything takes place in one day, so there aren't any wardrobe changes, so everybody was wearing the same thing throughout the entire movie. And I think as independent filmmakers, you might not think about that too much, but yeah, when you know you can really cut costs by having everything kind of take place in one day. Yeah, and again, on that indie filmmaker tip, most of the stuff in in the wardrobe is off the shelf. There's a few things that that she showed, but that's why you hire somebody that has that background. You know, don't just wing it yourself. And yeah, the actors will just bring what they want to wear. If you've got somebody that's creative in that way, like Hannah is, she can pull from all these different online areas, you know, and build this thing out for us. That was really cool that that first shirt, I mean, Chuck had those may, you know, he uploaded the design to an online web thing, you know. I think people think in movies, oh, there's probably somebody making these, you know, especially each one by hand. It's like, No man, we're using the same mechanisms that everybody else has, and in our case, sometimes even cheaper than other people are doing it. Yeah, that was going to be my other question too, though, is, is there like a codex of all the components of some whether it's the gang or others, if, like, for the cosplayers of the world, if I want to be brick for Halloween.
13:02
Can I do that? I think there needs to be. I don't know that there is currently, but by the time you're listening to this, I think that should be our goal, that you should be able to get on to clonecopomovie.com
13:14
and and find that Codex, right? Because that's that's our goal. That's what we want. We would love to see people dress as these characters, that would be a huge throw, right? And what is a codex?
13:27
Is this another spitball? Spitball? I really don't know what that means, well, and not to derail the conversation, but we premiered our film at Gen Con, which is North America's largest tabletop gaming convention in Indianapolis, over 70,000 people. They've got a film fest component, but there's a ton of cosplay there, and it was super cool. You know, we went and costume, both Danny and I and and walking around amongst all these people from known IPs, and still having people, Hey, stop. I'm trying to read that shirt. Hey, man, what are y'all What are y'all from? This is, what a crazy look. You know? I mean, again, it's we know we're on to something because it's evocative, and people are want to talk to us about it or want to take photos with us, right? It's like none of those people, I suspect, had seen the trailer or seen anything about the film, but they saw the clone cops out there and wanted to take a photo with it because it was meaningful to them, or, you know, we struck a right note somewhere in the ingredients. So, yeah, that's, you know, indie filmmaker. We're talking about how we know what the next step is, or next phase. And so there are some easily identifiable things. And one of those certainly is, I can't wait to get out there and meet somebody wearing the shirt. You know, they can buy the rash guard right now off of our website. Nefari corp.com NEFA report dot nefari corp.com that's right. Or get to it through clone copsmovie.com the fanny pack, the fanny Yeah, so you can build this stuff out and like, I'm still rocking this costume out on a promotional tour. I feel like I'm gonna be wearing this thing for the next five years, if that's what it takes to get clone cops off the ground. And I can't wait to meet somebody in the wild dress stuff like a clone
14:59
com.
15:00
Oh, it's the Spider Man meme, yeah, yeah, that's great. Then let's talk a little bit about some of the other world building that went on, aside from just the wardrobe components, specifically, some of the nefari Corp world. A lot of we essentially created this corporate entity from nothing. How did that happen? Yeah, it was, it was, it was a lot of fun. A lot of inspiration was drawn from the concept art, for sure. And then with my graphic design background, was able to explore a few different options, and sent those to these guys to let them choose. And hey, is this what you're thinking in your head? This is kind of where I would love to lean if we could, or whatever the case may be, it ended up kind of being this,
15:47
almost like the for a company that takes itself too seriously, and here's what they would put out, you know,
15:56
and from the posters in the background from the kind of earlier scene, The very almost like the first scene of the movie.
16:05
To you know, what are the training videos look like?
16:09
The Fauci core. There's a, there's a really cool scene.
16:15
I won't give too much away, because it's kind of a spoiler, but there's a, there's a part where the screen turns to like a screensaver, and it's very ominous, this nefari core logo, and it's almost like, Okay, well, this is the first kind of like, here's the glimpse into okay, this. This is a company is evil, but it's layered with all of this really funny kind of iconography. Basically, one of my favorite things that you designed was there's a poster that's nefari. It's like the NEFA at the United States wing of nefari, yes. And it says nefari, and then underneath its us, yes. So it reads as Nefaria, nefarious, yeah. And I thought, like, man, that's that's so funny that, and it's so apropos to me that it's like this corporate, this giant corporate interest that doesn't even realize what they're saying with their marketing terms. Like, somebody was like, yep, nefari, us, that's us.
17:08
Like, because that, how often does that happen in normal life or something, you were looking at somebody like, did anybody even breed this? We are kind. We are the far us. Yeah, yeah.
17:20
I think that's, that's the beauty of this movie, and from the design perspective, is that you can watch it and see something new every single time it's there's so much stuff in this movie in the background, in like the tiny little, little bits and bobs that stickers on the computer. That's one of my favorites, yeah, and then I'm not going to give it away, but the one in the bottom left that you see was that an original design. Did we find that somewhere? No, I made that up. I thought, Oh, well, that would be cool to stick on there to go, Okay, well, maybe they have some thing that they remember. You know, I don't know I meant the
18:03
Yeah, without it's hard to talk about this, but my, my little like, head cannon, about that sticker is that there's some employee that's like, got a crush on cipher that's like, trying to warn her he came in and put that sticker. I love that, like, that stuff. That's where I kind of went with that. All right, we'll put a spoiler alert warning for this episode. The sticker says you've been here before.
18:32
Yeah. I mean, there's so much of that stuff, and it's just such a addition to, I think, so many movies, especially movies of our budget,
18:41
if you take the time to create all this stuff, you want to make sure it's seen, you know. So I think, feel like so many movies would make all that stuff front and center, and they would single on it, you know, and you would show all of it. And we had so much great stuff that we're able to just put it in the background and let it live there and be part of the world and not so. It's discoverable. It's not something that we're throwing in your face. It's something that, as you're watching the movie The second or third time, you're like, oh, that's something like, I didn't see that thing this time. Yeah, yeah. We've, we've discussed a handful of times how fortunate we are to have found each other as a team, right? Because there's no way in the world that I could have done everything, any of the stuff that Chuck did, you know, and just giving Chucky his flowers, where it's like, man he, he built this whole world out in pre production so that when we shot, we had everything we needed. And then, you know, spending countless hours doing all the VFX, because you didn't have any VFX background, but you knew Adobe, right? Yes, you knew the Adobe Suite. Adobe literate for sure. And we'd found a couple of professional VFX supervisors or artists, and they were like, you guys can do this yourselves, right? Like, that's such an indie film inspiration of talking to people that are doing it professionally and hearing them say, You know what, it's gonna be tough. You're gonna learn as you go. But like, this isn't rock.
20:00
Science, you know? And, yeah, and so I love talking. Do you remember his name? Yeah, Philip Moore. Philip Moore, just that one conversation that he was so brilliant enough to give us that day where we sat down and talked. That was the inspiration I needed to go. Okay, I can do this. I can do this. He's a VFX supervisor on Stranger Things and on a bunch of big budget Hollywood movies. And he happened to move from LA to Middle Tennessee, and I saw that, and just shot him an email, and we hopped on and I was like, and we thought we were going to hire him to, you know, supervise, or just help or something, yeah, and instead, he inspired. That's great. I feel like to as we progress, because do you, you did it almost linearly, like, right? You start at the beginning of the movie, and then, you know, worked your way through. And definitely, as we were giving notes, and we were looking at stuff like this towards we got towards the back end of the movie, it was, like, clear that you were feeling more comfortable in it, and that you were, you know, turn your process was getting faster and, like, slimmer, yes. And is there anything that you wish now that we're picture locked in the movies out? Is there anything that you wish I could go back and, like, 100% just be like, this is the thing I would change. 100% is bricks first blood drip. Oh yeah. It bothers the crap out of me. It's just so slow and like, blood doesn't drip like that. You know, that's the one thing, I go, Oh God, I don't need
21:23
the one. The second blood drip I'm super proud of when it, when he's actually getting too much away. That's a boiler alert, yeah, whole episode. So anyway, that that's the one, that's the one thing. There's several other ones I have a ton of. Yeah, I would like to change that. I did understand. Not me happy with all of it. Thanks. Yeah, I wouldn't change a thing.
21:48
And then clone alone,
21:51
do we use it wasn't it's in there. It is, yeah, you got to find it DVD case. Clone alone, two and it is a pornographic clone movie that's on one tank, Frank's desk, his workstation.
22:07
And Chucky made this perfect looking DVD, and it's in my basement sometimes, like my kids have found out, Daddy, what's this?
22:14
Not for you? I'll explain when you get older.
22:18
Those are fun.
22:20
That's great, yeah, absolutely amazing job. Chuck loved every little easter egg that exists in there well. And just the reason we were able to punch above our weight, it feels like, from an indie, you know, filmmaker standpoint, is because of the commitment of Chuck and Corey, of bringing the look, you know. I mean, I'm again, just you can't do this by yourself. It takes a team, and if you're lucky enough to find teammates that give a shit like you do, you know, then that's to me, is the recipe for success, because I'll work my ass off for hours, but if I'm the only one doing it, I'm not going to get where I need to be. I remember too, while we were shooting you coming to coming up and being like, I feel like I'm not doing anything, and I'm just, I'm like, I just feel guilty you guys are working so hard and I'm not. I feel like I'm not doing anything. I was like, you will be
23:08
don't enjoy this time. Just wait coming. No, yeah, and then all well, we'll talk about this in a later episode, I think, right? But there's just so much I would have done differently, even work us working together. I gave some wrong call.
23:26
I was just doing what the VFX told me. I understand
23:31
well, but I mean, again, that's what a great lesson to filmmakers everywhere, where it's like you just got to do the thing and you're going to learn a ton. And even if you don't do it perfectly, just do it so that you can learn, because if you don't try and fail, then you'll never know that lesson, right? And so, yeah, we learned a ton that we'd love to use in clone cops two and three. Yeah, oh.
23:52
Clone cops two, the screen, replacement,
23:56
replace,
23:57
replacement of the screen. What not to do by Charles, no, you did fantastic. It really was great. Yeah, absolutely. I'm very happy with the way things look. And you know, the thing too that we hear a lot is so much of what people compliment about the film is your work. It's the ads. People love the ads, and they talk a lot about them. And people talk a lot about crime, time, 360 and all the stuff that's going on there, and how much they enjoy that part of it. And then the other compliment I get all the time about even though, you know you might feel like the effects aren't up to snuff or whatever, they don't feel as polished as you want them to be, the they fit with the overall look of the movie that that it everything kind of lives in that world, and everything has that kind of rough sheen to it. So it all works together, you know, in a way, if we had gotten, like some, you know, perfect VFX, perfect VFX, it almost wouldn't look as good, because the lab looks kind of rinky dink, you know. And like all these other little like.
25:00
Rinky dink, kind of weird things work together to build the world up that we're telling, the story that we're telling, of like, the world's kind of dumb now, everything has kind of gotten dumber. And yeah, so it's perfect. It works great, yeah,
25:14
yeah,
25:16
yeah.
25:18
All right, let's talk a little bit about some other world building, specifically with the props. Yeah, so I'm a prop master, but trade, that's how I came up through the film industry. And when we were very first getting started in pre production, we talked a lot about psycho Gore man, and how the guy who made that was a makeup effects artist, and he knew he could build the suit. He knew he could build the guy. And so we kind of approached this from that angle with props, is like, I know I can build all these props. I know I can make all these fun things, and we spent a significant amount of pre production time building those props. And when you say we, yeah, it was all you. It was all day. I mean, pretty much a lot you, but I 3d printed a lot of stuff, and just kind of used my years of experience and making some fun stuff and Truth I got to make stuff that I've always wanted to do, that I'd never like, ideas that I had. Like, what, like the acid grenades, for instance, was something that I knew I could do, that I kind of played around with on some other things, with using the glow sticks, and I knew that we could make something really fun and interesting and visually engaging with that. And so that, that was one of the things we did the guns. I knew we wanted to paint those all to be kind of like clown colors
26:36
we used all airsoft. I knew, I knew we could pull that off.
26:41
And yeah, I think we, we really just focused on kind of creating that spectacle with the props. If we did it again, I would love to have somebody else do that,
26:54
but that's what it takes for the first for you know, if you're out there watching, it's like, what do I have to do? You got to do everything. You gotta be willing to do it all, yeah, the first time, yeah. Well, in the helmets too, to a certain degree, which we did work on together. But the helmets came to us unfinished. They printed them, but we had to put the lenses in. We had to put the mouthpiece in you, wired up the LED thing, to make it, make it speak, and then we painted them and all that stuff. So we finished the helmets and and then when it came time to shoot, we had Jill Ledbetter, who's a good friend of mine that I've worked with a bunch come be our prop master, and she did a phenomenal job of keeping everything organized and making sure everything was handled safely, which is a huge you know, even though they're airsoft guns, it's still a huge deal, and you still have to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. It's that when they're comfortable on set when there are firearms on set. What about bricks prom date?
27:47
Tell me about that one, the BFG. The BFG, yeah, we called it the BFG in internal dialog. I don't think we ever put that on screen. Did we? Yeah, that one was a backpack mister that we got from I saw somebody using it during COVID. I saw one. It was like a backpack D like, they used it to sanitize brooms. They'd walk in with this thing and spray the whole room. So I got one of those. And then the gun, I think, was like a one of those, like slime ball shooting guns like you, like you fill up water with the little pellets that turn to slime, and you could shoot those. Orbeez, the Orbeez, yeah, it was like one of those. And we just kind of married the two together and gave it a
28:33
paint scheme. And then I wired up all the, like, lights and stuff. I ve printed some pieces for that, and wired all that up. And it actually a feature we never did use. It's vented. The tank was supposed to be filled with water and dry ice so smoke would come out of it. And totally forgot to do that all day. 100% forgot to do it. Clone cops too. Yeah, dried up. Now, a dry ice when we do the special edition, that'll be the thing that I go back into George Lucas, that's funny, dude. And as you know, I mean, I've written some stuff and acting some stuff. This was the deepest I'd been on production of a film. And so to see you do your thing was so cool. Where I was like, This is how you make it look like that, you know. And like things that I would never think to use in props, you know. And I was like, Well, how are you gonna make it look good on cam? And it did. Well, that's, that's the brilliant part about what Danny has done with props throughout his career, probably, but especially on clone cops, is that Charles Royce would have just picked up something on Amazon that looks kind of similar to what you were thinking. And Danny's like, No, you have to add this or add that. You have to make it unique, something that looks great on camera. And that's what he did with every single thing. My favorite one being the droid, the crabby, oh my god, your favorite. Danny's least favorite. I love that thing so much. The crab is a.
30:00
I went round and round on how to do that thing. And it's, it's a remote control car I took, I wound I was trying to 3d print all these things to make it really cool and make it like this really unique, interesting thing, and I couldn't make it work. And what I wound up doing was I took a Tupperware container, flipped it over, spray painted it black, glued it to the top of the
30:24
RC car. And I had all these bibs and bops from other 3d printing pieces. There's pieces from the grenades glued to it. There's all this other like, just random Riff Raff stuff that I had laying around that I just I got the glue gun out, and I just went to town. I just started hot gluing crap to it. Love it across that uneven ground. It is very funny. It's a very funny like, I mean, I remember when we talked, when we premiered it, and it came out on set for the first time, I was like, This is gonna be the thing that people like latch onto. It's my least favorite all the work I put in on all this other stuff. And this will be the thing that people are like, that's my that's my droid right there,
31:03
yeah. What about Denta track? How did you make that? I made the Denta track. Yeah, that's my mouth.
31:12
Molded, molded. Yeah, y'all. No, no, that's right. I actually, I did one with my mouth, and it didn't work because I couldn't get the bar to set into a wire, a wire. And we had in a previous episode of Nashville dad's club, we'd had a shot from the inside of somebody's mouth. And we bought a pair of, like, dental teeth, dental a model. Dental teeth, model. And I used that to, like, mold it, and all the teeth came out when I, when I took it out, and I had to, like, pry all the teeth off of the plastic. But yeah, it was a it was a thermal molded plastic that I pushed up into that that model, and then added the wire to it and put a USB, put a USB in there, and wired it up so that we can run a little coin battery and make that turn on and blink, yeah. And we had two or three versions of that. We had the wired model, and then we had the model that that Skyler actually put in his mouth that was just just like, as safe as we can make it. Yeah, there's a lot of really fun things that show up from a prop standpoint. I think you did a great job. Thank you. Yeah, it was fun. I had a great time doing it. Like I said, it was a chance to, like, really play with, with, with the medium, and do some fun stuff. And from a getting, getting your movie made, that was one of our strategic opportunities at the beginning, is like, we know that you can make some cool looking stuff that everybody can't do, you know? And so, like, how do we again? We're all, we all worked on the film for free, so we got, I mean, hundreds of 1000s of dollars of work out of Charles, for sure.
32:48
You know, I mean all of us, right, but it's like, cool. If you're making friends, making movies with your homies, with your friends, like and you're all pouring everything you got into it, what can you kind of divide and conquer and find people with those complimentary skill sets that that can bring production value? Because the only thing that makes only thing that matters is what shows up on the screen at the end of the day, you know? And so the fact that you were able to add so much production value with your background is just, is, you know, I mean, we could have made a lot of other movies and not leaned into that, yeah, yeah. Well, and there's this in props we do, there's a saying of it's doesn't have to be right, it just has to look right. So a lot of times it's about finding the thing that can you can pull off. It's not about, you know, it doesn't have to be the exact thing it's like, but if it's close enough that you can fool the camera, then, then you're good. That's, you know, look with the camera. Don't look with your eyes. Look what? Because Right, absolutely through the camera, it's gonna, it's gonna look right when you're sitting here holding it, it looks dumb,
33:42
but I promise you it'll sound,
33:45
yeah, no, that's great. Now, I know in a previous episode, we talked a little bit about locations and securing our locations. Talk to me about the set design for each of those once we got into the location, like, and maybe like, what was your favorite and what was your least favorite to work in?
34:03
I think my favorite set was probably the lab.
34:07
It was something that we all kind of got to chip in and work on together with the production designer Ben Johnson, and not just I come from that world. I my first gig was as a art department PA, so I love building sets, and it's super fun to me. And to get to come in and normally, you know, the director would not be at all involved in building a set, and to be able to come in and kind of like, help design that, and help place things where I wanted them to be, so that on the day when we shot it, you know, everything was exactly where we wanted it to be. Was super fun. I had a blast. Well, that's that indie film thing, right? Where it's like, Dude, we're involved in every aspect of all of it. And, yeah, we came in on the weekend, right? And,
34:52
yeah, brought the kids in, put them to work, use everything at your disposal when trying to get your Indie film made. That's, that's the takeaway there. No. And I had a back.
35:00
Around in AV. So I've hung up, you know, hung 1000 TV, so I got to help build out that console, right? Got to help kind of design the pod, you know, what that might look like and how that might work, and draw up some schematics. So just leaning on a kind of engineering background for that stuff, and, you know, all the, all that cabling and the piping and the tubing getting to, getting to address all that in on the walls. I mean, it was just, it was a lot of fun. And figuring out how we were going to pump the sauce that was, that was a whole thing, right? There's, wow. There's a scene where we throw a version of me into the reclamation unit and then practically shoot a bunch of sauce, you know, reclaiming the clone, recycling him. And had a few different pumps from Home Depot, you know, and a big old bucket of pink goo inside that thing. I'm so glad that worked, because the effects fun. So glad, yeah, yeah. And that was one take. I mean, we got, we had one shot, right? We got it rolled on it, and that's the one that's in the movie, yeah. And I think too, you did all the screens. We did do some screen replacements, but you also pre loaded a bunch of screens that that could show up, so that would save us some time, and we had some green screens so we could do screen replacements.
36:11
Yeah, the lab was super fun. The trick with that location, which we talked about this in previous episode, was that so much there was already so much stuff there, that we were able to, like, borrow a lot from what was already in the location, and move it around and dress sets with it. A lot of the hideout stuff has medical equipment in it, because we were in a an old mental hospital. So we were able to pull a lot of that stuff. The thing that the remember we used a kiln, oh, yeah, like as a sauce base. The thing that the saw sits on is an old kiln. We stuck some lights on it and forgot to turn them on. Those lights turn on.
36:48
We put those emergency lights on. Nate brought them, and he's like, Oh, check these out. Then I was like, those are great, and they were magnetic, and they stuck right on the side. And I was like, oh, we'll turn those on when we go we're like, we're doing stuff. Never did it. We never turned them on. We were supposed to do that when we got the dry ice for the
37:04
BFG. Add that to the IMDB trivia.
37:09
And then the the inside of the reclamation or the cloning pod might if you're at all an avid swimmer, that might look familiar, that's just a pool float.
37:22
It looked great. Yeah, it looks great. Well, the lighting really sells it, yeah. What was the reclamation pod? That was a shower to corner shower, also a Lowe's or Home Depot buy. But you did that the cut, you did a cut out that says reclamation, like a CNC cutout, and that sells it. That thing right there really made it like, oh, yeah, that's, that's sci fi. Look at that. That's definitely not my shower. That's, yeah, that's, right, that's a reclamation. That's a reclamation the future. Yeah, it's a reclamation unit. Until you open the door to go and it goes,
37:58
and then there's like, soap tote caddies inside. I had to remove those
38:04
low budget, indie film making baby finding a way to make it happen doesn't have to be the thing. Just has to look like the thing. So much pink paint. We smear the sauce everywhere. I have people ask me all the time, what is the sauce? What is it really water and pink paint. Yeah, it was tempra paint. Pink tempra paint, which is water soluble and just a bunch of water. There you go. Yeah, but it stains, baby. Does it stain?
38:32
And it floods really easy, if you let it out,
38:37
referring back to episode,
38:40
yeah, we're discussing how we flooded our lab set, our favorite set, we flooded out. Yeah, I I'm gonna guess yours. I know your favorite set, and it's the main hideout with those big, those big windows, absolutely Wait, you know when we first, when we did our first location scout together and we walked through there, I immediately fell in love with these. Just a wall of old shitty looking like fiberglass windows that I knew number one would make it a lot easier to light consistently, but also knew like that's gonna give really amazing texture on camera. And it absolutely did. And then the other fun thing was, you know, as we were talking about what the set design looked like in there, the opposite side of the room from the windows. Originally was just going to be a room full of like, old appliances and boxes and just look like the abandoned warehouse that it's meant to be.
39:34
And I pitched you this idea of, hey, can we do that? But also, like, just hang a giant wall of dirty plastic sheeting, both for production design, but also to let us hide a wall of lights behind there and then treat that very much like a pre lit set, to let us really quickly shoot 360 degrees. But anytime you catch that on camera, you're just like, oh yeah, they're in an abandoned warehouse.
40:00
Is wrapped in plastic, covering all this old, ratty stuff that, again, gave us some really great texture and really help from a lighting standpoint too, which was great. It gets motivated. But man, did it cut down on room flips right and created a light box right. And then we just, we had four lights on each side of the room. So we just had whatever we wanted our ratios to be. From a lighting standpoint, we would just set those based on, you know, where we fell during the time of day or where we were in the room. We would lift one side or the other, and it made it super easy and convenient to get a really cool look in there.
40:38
What I wish I knew at 25 that I didn't learn until 41 when we shot the movie, is like light, so that you don't have to reset your lights every single time, right? And when we did that in both the hideout and the lab, I was so impressed with the work the lighting team did in the lab and the atrium, really every location, but instead of having to these long, arduous room flips and relights. You guys lit them so they were ready to rock. Yeah, yeah. It was incredible. It was really cool to go outside and see what was happening on the other side of those windows. At different points of the day, you're like, Oh my God, these guys are brilliant. They don't have to worry one bit about what's going on. It wasn't me. That was all Barrett Dennison and
41:22
Chris Dyer. Chris Dyer, I just said, I want it to look like this, and you make it look like this. And they said, We got you, yeah, well, and there's a few things in indie filmmaking that are tells that it's low budget, you know, it's usually poor audio or poor lighting. And like, we were so fortunate to have have both those bases covered in really competent ways that went above and beyond, absolutely
41:47
awesome. Well, it was a really insightful look at the like developing and designing the world of clone cops. And, you know, I appreciate
41:57
spilling the beans. We did it for you, Corey, because you ask just for me, just and for all of you out there watching the clone cops podcast, we're glad to have you, and we're gonna miss you until next time. Aren't we so much. We are good luck, moron. I live in space. Bye.
42:17
Brian Brown, taking us out every time. Hey, Mr.
42:24
Ice cream
42:26
man, we've been waiting all day while you taste so long to come back this way busy for everybody. What you need? I got it. Play up. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai