In this jam-packed episode of the Clone Cops Podcast, the filmmakers, Phillip Cordell (Co-writer/Actor), Danny Dones (Co-writer/Director), Charles Royce (VFX Supervisor/Producer), and Corey Allen (Cinematographer), relive day one of principal photography and all the mayhem that came with it. From scooter wipeouts and green screen challenges to practical effects, stunt mishaps, and on-set VFX strategy, the crew shares how the first day of filming set the tone for their wild indie sci-fi adventure.
🎥 Topics Covered:
• Phillip’s unforgettable crash on the vintage Vespa before the first shot
• The chaos and comedy of shooting complex green screen scenes on day one
• Blending practical and visual effects, including glowing grenades and mutant faces
• How the Clone Cops aesthetic was shaped on-set, shot by shot
• The challenges of directing stunts without a stunt coordinator
• Cinematography inspiration from Dean Cundey and 80s sci-fi classics
• The team’s indie VFX approach, including screen replacements and weapon effects
• How the Clone Cops team built a safe, high-vibe film set with a ten-hour-day philosophy
• Reflections on what the director and DP would do differently in future productions
🎤 Notable Quotes:
• “The first thing that happened on day one was a wreck… and we hadn’t even rolled a shot yet.” – Corey Allen
• “Every decision I made on set for VFX… was wrong. I learned a lot.” – Charles Royce
• “We had no business making this movie without that helmet. It became our brand.” – Phillip Cordell
• “If you want to find Zen… just drive a scooter into a wall.” – Danny Dones
📌 Key Takeaways for Filmmakers:
✅ Be flexible — your best-laid plans will be tested on day one
✅ Have a VFX supervisor and experienced crew on set to avoid costly mistakes
✅ Blend practical effects with CGI enhancements for indie-level magic
✅ Think intentionally about coverage and inserts — especially when you’re also the editor
✅ Stick to your budget, but don’t sacrifice safety or the vibe on set
🛠 Next Episode Preview:
Get ready for some behind-the-scenes cast stories as the filmmakers sit down with actors from the Clone Cops universe to share hilarious anecdotes and insight into their characters.
📢 Today’s Episode Sponsor:
Presented by NefariCorp. Visit nefaricorp.com for more.
0:03
Welcome back to the clone cops Podcast. I'm Philip Cordell, co writer actor. I'm Danny Dones, co writer and director. I'm Charles Royce, VFX supervisor and producer, and I'm Corey Allen, cinematographer, and this is what we let's go. Can't see me. I don't
0:22
know. I welcome back for those of you that are sticking around this long, we appreciate you. This episode, we're gonna spend some time talking about actually making the movie like production. Previously, we've talked about pre production. We've talked about all the different things that make up actually getting to the point where you can start to shoot the movie. So I'd love to start out today with just
0:48
maybe your first memory from day one on set of principal photography, and we can just start with Charles and work our way back down. I mean, the only thing that's emblazoned in my mind is someone coming in and going, Philip had a wreck
1:07
the motorcycle, which I was obsessed with. I was like, Is this most beautiful little cycle I've ever seen, and now it's ruined and and I was probably more upset about that than Philip being okay. But you know, I also had concerned about Phillip, anyway, tell some tells something about that. Because, I mean, I was there for watching it, but for some reason I didn't catch the one where you crashed.
1:32
Yeah, that is, there was no one.
1:35
We weren't as soon as I got on the motorcycle scooter.
1:40
I think that's everybody's probably like day one memory, because the first thing that happened, first thing that happened, we hadn't even rolled a shot yet day one, prepping for a shot one, yeah. And we've got this vintage, beautiful vintage, like, Vespa. It's probably not a Vespa, yeah? And it was just like this powder blue. Just matched us. Matched the scene so well. And you had all these amazing graphics put on it, and it was so great. And Phil is learning to drive it well, he dropped it off, and he's like, cool, you know how to drive one of these? Like, yeah, I've driven a scooter before, yeah. How hard could it be? Which and I have done the exact same thing that you did, which is if you've ever ridden a scooter before, like when you go to grab the brake, the brake is a lever, but also sometimes the gas is a twist on the same handle. And so you roll your hand forward to grab the brake, and you gas it when you do that. And I'm wearing these gloves, or sticky gloves, the com cops gloves, which is your first day wearing those, and you careen into this low wall, and just I, all I see is your right hand smash that wall. And I, my immediate thought was, he just broke his hand, and we're gonna have to do this whole movie with his hand in a cast, and we're gonna have to figure this out, because we're not recasting them. Yeah, my first thought was, I wonder if anybody saw that.
3:05
And then you turn around and you're like, Oh yeah, everybody saw and everybody comes rushing. Oh, are you okay? Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. You know you, yeah, you tried to be cool. You did that thing. Like, when you do sometimes it's embarrassing. Yeah, that's fine. It's good. Let's Let's do it again. Get me back on the bike. And you're like, Dude, you're a little worked up. You need to just take a beat. Okay, okay,
3:31
yeah. Real day. The music died moment,
3:35
and then we started our day, yeah. And I remember I walked up to our Gaffer, to Barrett Dennis. And I was like, yeah, man, so that was wild, huh? He's like, dude, I'm glad to hear you say that. I wasn't sure if you're gonna be cool about it or, like, be weird about like. That was wild. And Barrett worked a bunch of movies. He's like, there's always something that happens, you know. So it's like, good to just get that out of the way. I was like, Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah, amazing. So that that was a wild way to kick off day one of otherwise super fun 15 day experience that we all got to spend together on set of Chrome cops, right? And from there we rolled right into, I mean, we shot kind of sequentially, right? Do we start in the hideout, or do we start with the granny stuff? We started with the granny stuff because the so if you've seen the movie, if you're watching the movie that that scene where the clone cop rolls up on the vespid, that wall right in front of him is the one we're talking about. And then we so we got that shot in the can, and then immediately went into the granny coverage at the door, which for me, my first day experience, was definitely the vested but then immediately the
4:44
borderline nightmare of getting this we shot it like six different ways, because we shot interior to exterior. Exterior to interior did both with and without green screen for comping of granny in the hologram work, which I.
5:00
Know, that was a pain. I remember it being in pain. Barrett was not really into that part. He was into it. It was just, it was just difficult. It was a it was a difficult, like, first day, first half of the day, like we're doing the one of the hardest things, technically driving a scooter.
5:18
Yeah, that was, that was most technically challenging shot in the entire movie, I would say, Well, I gotta tell you, for VFX, it was the easiest to compile because of everything that you guys did to bring that to life. Indie filmmakers, this is why you need a VFX supervisor on site, absolutely. And also people like Barrett, who kind of have done this for VFX to get to be whispering on my ear, you're wrong about this, you know. And then I'll be like, uncertain. Anyway, we'll get to that. Was he right or was he wrong? He was right about that, and was probably right about everything. He was right about everything he was he was, don't tell him that. Don't this is like, this is what I know how to do. Trust me, I know how this works in my head. Yeah, no, it's so raw. Well, right? It was theoretical. Yeah, it was not yet practiced. I had practiced, but I practiced on simple things. I had a firm grasp on that scene and what needed to be shot and how to shoot it, yeah, the lighting I had no grasp on.
6:21
But in terms of, like, where the where we needed green screen and where we didn't, I felt very comfortable in that so I've had no point in that scene. Did I feel like we were lost? I always kind of knew what we were doing. And yeah, it was, but it was a challenge, for sure. And then we jumped straight from that green screen stuff into a stunt, you know, into like us wrestling with the gun, right? Which, like, if we push that to the back end of the film, that probably would have come out a little differently, you know, yeah, instead, it's day one, and we're like, okay, I guess now we're fight over the gun. Yeah, just do it. Just do it.
6:55
Make it look like a struggle. And that night, Laura Holloway, who plays Porter, she and I are sending text messages back and forth. Of our arms all bruised up where we're just like, kind of fighting, you know, I mean, the gun had left these marks on both of us. And I was like, I'm so sorry. Yeah. And for the record, that was one of the scenes that we did not have a coordinator on. Yeah, I don't think you need to tell anybody that they can tell just in case, just in case, yeah. And also, if this is episode four, if you haven't watched the movie yet, go watch the movie. Yeah, see that movie. Where can they watch the movie? You can watch that anywhere that you stream
7:32
transactional video on demand, movies on TV, Amazon, movie. So you can do Apple TV, Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango at home. Or you can watch it for free if you have a library card on hoopla, yeah, indie film, hack, YouTube movies, right? You take
7:49
Google Play, Xbox, Microsoft, if you've got cable, Cox spectrum, Verizon, FiOS, FiOS, FiOS, yeah, you can rent it on all. I mean, it's, it's, it's, which, again, as the filmmaking crew behind it, we're thrilled about to be widely available. Is such a trip. Also, Cox spectrum is a different movie that you might not want to send.
8:12
No, I want them to see.
8:20
Yeah, go check us out. If you're enjoying the podcast, you're gonna love the movie.
8:25
And if you're not enjoying the podcast, you're gonna love you're gonna love the movie, you're still gonna love the movie. Bye. Don't rent
8:34
today.
8:35
Any other day. One big memories, big stories. I blacked out after the motorcycle thing. I loved what we accomplished on that, on the Vespa scene, to kind of map out, okay, we want this to feel larger than life. Can I extend the building? You know, in post, in post? Yep. And wait, so that building wasn't really multiple, no stories. It was one story, very mid century. You know, your typical mid century, one story,
9:05
you know thing, and then so you what panned out. How do you say that you zoomed out for that
9:15
like it. You made it bigger. He didn't pull it Corey. Never bigger. Never pull out. It's gonna be one of those. We couldn't help ourselves for episodes. We're finally there.
9:28
We added space so I could accomplish one of my favorite things that we did, the thing we didn't do that, I think about a lot, is there was originally we were gonna have a bunch of stuff, shot of the moped, like, close ups we're going to get, like, the wheels on the road, like, establish traditional like, yeah, build it up. Like it was going to be this badass, like, patrolman. Like, Oh, this guy's going to be so badass. And then he puts into the frame. You do see was the end of that, where he puts into the frame.
10:00
Like,
10:01
like, that was the joke in there. And it turns out, you know, we, we managed to make it work, I think, without all that stuff. But, well, why do we cut that? Because, because we shoot it, yeah, well, I'm just saying it was budget restraints. I mean, I know on the on the reel, they had issues replacing some of the parts that I damaged on the Vespa that actually turned into a thing where we had to pay, oh, yeah, no, we, that's not why we didn't shoot we didn't shoot it because it's hard to shoot moving vehicles. It's expensive, and there's a lot of safety concerns. And we didn't want to, like, cut corners and have people hanging off the back of a pickup truck with a camera in their hand. Yeah, if we were going to do it, we wanted to do it right with a whether it was a process trailer for all the close ups, or a follow car, just a whole much bigger deal, yeah, not, not that movie, yeah. Well, right. And that's, and that's where you get into the difference between, you know, just fly by the seat of your pants indie filmmaking, and trying to do it the right way. Because, yeah, we could have run out with just me on the moped and you hanging out a car, but we were very committed to, like, making sure it's done safely and the right way, which in this case, would have included either having a street shut down or finding, you know, finding some back road that we could put people at either end of to make sure there's nobody coming and going, which is a big to do, right? Yeah, it's a lot. And, you know, certainly many fantastic filmmakers have gone out there and shot gorilla style stuff, and come away with great stuff. It just wasn't something
11:26
I was comfortable doing. It's very much the right call. And what you end up getting, though, is still a hilarious entrance of the glowing cob. Yeah, well, and I think you know the stuff that we did later to add so much to it, and you singing the song as you're walking up that was added in post
11:44
that was really funny. Yeah, and we had a lot of ideas, and sometimes you don't just go with the first idea that you have. You got to kind of choose from a bevy of ideas.
11:59
Why don't you let me operate the boys, no.
12:03
So you don't just choose a first idea. You don't just pull the trigger on the first gun that gives you a chub right? You romance it a bit. Take it to Arby's. That's right. Tell them. Brick, yeah,
12:15
yeah.
12:18
Thanks. Corey, yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:23
So day one was a blast, and we packed in. I mean, a lot of the stories that we tell people about the film did happen on day one, right? A lot of our big takeaways we learned quickly on day one. Oh, the stunt you know? I mean, we probably didn't learn the stunt coordinator is so crucial until day Oh, whatever. As we were shooting it, I was like, not getting what you wanted. Yeah, we're this is we're gonna have to save this in the edit and not nothing to knock your performance. Yeah, it was just that kind of stuff is just out of my wheelhouse, and I just didn't know how to shoot it honestly. And I will firm, firmly take the blame on that. I mean, I often have to fight people to take a gun from them in their life, often a lot of experience to draw from. Yeah, no, I mean, just so same, right? It was like, Yeah, I don't know, you know, just back and forth, back. I was this, look good. How about this? When I know we were like, and we shot really frantically, and we were, yeah, we were handheld, and we were doing all this stuff. And I saw in theory on. At the time, I was like, in theory, this should work, this should cut, we should be able to cut this together. And maybe that's another part of it too. It's like, I'm not an action editor either. So, like, I didn't I lacked those skills to take those pieces and cut them together in a way that felt really exciting.
13:37
So here I am, go watch the movie, and here I am trash talking.
13:41
But no, it all worked. You know, it all gets smoothed out. But I'm sure, as people watch it, they're probably wondering why Farah is, you know, doing badass foot sweeps and uppercut slices and then we're, you know, struggling just for a gun back and forth. I can remember too, first day. I mean, this is my first feature film, so, like, it was day one of my first feature film, and I was real nervous, so I definitely had some of that energy as well. And like just being unsure of my place there and working with actors that of the caliber that we had was a new thing to me. I'm just working with you.
14:18
Better. Cover your
14:21
ears. Hurt.
14:22
So I definitely had some jitters. I think on on day one,
14:28
did you Did i Yeah, were you totally comfortable? No, you know. I mean again, just to keep going back to the same thing, slamming that scooter into the wall, spiked me and everything else was pretty chill. Yeah, you know, ice breaker. It is. Got that, yeah, we gotta get you on this bike into a wall, bro. That's, I mean, you want to find Zen. That's, that's how you get there. But, I mean, that really did get me so worked up right off the rip that everything else was just like, huh, all right, it's gonna be okay. And, I mean, acting in my first feature, you know, in this, in this type of role, especially, it was.
15:00
Uh, I probably would have been more nervous, but I'd already been elevated. And then was back to, like, all right, this is cool. These are, these are our friends. And there was that element of, like, we pulled this whole movie together. So, like, you know, it's kind of our thing to live or die by, you know, between all, you know, all of us, the team here, right? Or so, to me, that took a lot of the, the, you know, whatever weird anxiety or Willie's hours, like, Yeah, fuck it. It's our thing. Excuse me.
15:26
Sorry,
15:28
mom. Okay, my children's crying now.
15:33
So yes, a question for you, man. I mean on, on the cinematography side of things, what was your process like getting into it, especially kicking off the whole film, it was very stressful.
15:46
That was a lot of fun. You know, you know, Danny and I had some good conversations early on about what we wanted the film to look like, what we wanted it to feel like. Inspirations, both that, I think, also we previously talked about kind of inspired some of the storytelling from a writing standpoint, but also some of those same films, I think, were big influences on the look from a cinematography standpoint.
16:11
You know, we talked a lot about Robocop, and a lot of films of that era and of that style. And I think what's been great is as we've been out screening the movie for audiences on our theatrical tour. You know, when we do Q and A's after that, before we even talk about inspirations, a lot of times others are sharing or asking the question of, you know, did you pull inspiration from club Robocop? Or there's clear, you know, influences around things like Starship Troopers, all things that are true, that are great for, you know, for us to see and hear people make those connections before we even talk about it. You know, I've always grown up was inspired by the cinematography of Dean Cundy.
16:55
A lot of great sci fi films of our era, and even before us, when I was probably not old enough to watch things like the thing was great
17:07
all the Back to the Future series, pretty much, you name it, late 80s, early 90s sci fi, like big theatrical work was probably Dean Cundy, or somewhere really close to that. So, you know, I wanted to take a similar approach to get a similar feel of that time, whether it's, you know, lighting the majority of our sets in a 360 kind of accompaniment, to be able to really quickly not only cover what was going on, but also, like, light the space, not the face, and be really intentional on like you could walk in here without a camera, say, Damn, this looks cool. I think you put it on camera like, okay, that does look cool. Like, that worked. And then same thing with the camera movement trying to be as intentional as we could around. When was it handheld? When was it? When did it feel almost borderline, too shaky, like in some of the more emotional moments, where the you're no longer a voyeur, but you're actually a part of the gang and like you're really feeling that emotion, or when is the camera just mounted to a dolly, and we're slowly creeping around the space, like all of that, trying to match the energy of the moment in the story versus, you know, what the camera and the lighting does as well. So it's a lot of fun. And you came up doing music videos, a lot of music videos, right? So, like when we would do the elements, like the
18:29
the hit squad, kind of
18:32
30 for 30 style thing that we did, and the music video kind of inspired the dance sequence and stuff. Was that, like dancing? Was that, like, a comfortable, like, going home kind of thing, or was that kind of like, oh, here I am again, doing this? No, those were great because, to your point, it was like, Oh, this I'm most comfortable with, like, very rarely do music videos include coverage of, like, a wide and a close up and a shot in a reverse shot. Like, you don't do coverage in music videos or commercials, the same way you would to give an editor enough to cut a story together. So those were more work than, like, the dance off was great because, like, I just, I look at Barrett and say, you know, make this look like the thing we shot a month ago. And then our first AC Chase, like, hey, you know the deal? Like, stick with me. Here we go. It's just another dance sequence. Like, you know, it all worked out super easy, like, that was a lot of fun, aside from shooting the dance off three different times, yeah? Because we love dancing so much, yeah, that's why, sure. That's why. That was my favorite day of Bill, which one, which one, the first time, the second time,
19:43
first, yeah, first. I understand what you're saying now, yes, yeah, we had, we had a slight continuity, uh, Miss misfire, and we had to shoot it two more times. Well, I don't know that was the second time. We just ran out of time, right? We're on a day like, I think. So, yeah, yeah. And because we kept trying to squeeze it in and.
20:00
Whenever we could. And so if we're running ahead of schedule, it'd be like, let's go outside and shoot the dance off real quick. And so we we did that two more times. And I don't think you can tell. I think it all looks well. And I don't even think do we shoot the actual dance off multiple times? We just shot the sequence at the button right? I think it was the more the button that we did. We definitely did the dance just one time that, but that was one setup. But we kept going back to the finger on the button and then trying to get it to match. No, I heard it too. Can't believe you said that as a family, family podcast.
20:35
What did he say? What are you smiling at?
20:39
Finger at the button?
20:52
Really good. So you thought about all that stuff before we shot the movie? Yeah, absolutely. The other thing too was I didn't think about any of that stuff. And it must be nice. You just show up and read your lines, show up and crash things.
21:09
To be fair, you wrote a lot of the lines that you had to memorize later. Oh, I did. It was, it was beautiful. It was great,
21:17
yeah. But, you know, going back to the some of the work put in around the cinematography. You know, we had several different scenes, and some of those scenes occur in like our real world, and some occur in our televised world. So, like the lab was one in particular, where once we got
21:37
into the location, and obviously it was set and lit very much like a stage. We also knew that we would we would see that from our crime time, 360 perspective too. So being really intentional on shooting those scenes with a different camera and a different lens to be a little cleaner, also had a totally different color look to it. What were the a cam and B cam that we shot? Yeah, so the a camera was the Ari Alexa Mini with Atlas Orions, and the B camera was the red Komodo with a
22:12
Canon L series, like super wide angle, almost fish islands that was for like our security footage and the clone cop helmet cam, the webcam, the helmet cam, the security cam, all of that was very much, really wide angle, really kind of weird looking, small, tiny camera feel, even though it was a badass. Oh, absolutely, yeah, that's what's funny. Is like he could have shot on Yeah,
22:41
for those that don't know, yeah, Corey is a serious gear head, right? And, and so that's another strategic advantage that we had to make in the film, is that Corey had a lot of this gear already. It's like, Yeah, I'll bring it out. And it added so much production value. And we did have a GoPro. We did the crab had a GoPro on them. Yeah? Yeah. Two shots
23:04
we spent like, we sent somebody out. We said Jared Gentry out, yeah, to, like, go get some B roll, just so we can have some crab coverage to cut in.
23:14
Never made it. Never made it. It's fun to watch, though. It's, it's zipping around, yeah, just zipping around like him, exploring the grounds with this stupid little crab.
23:24
Yeah, they're fun to watch. Maybe, maybe they'll make the directors cut the like crabs day out.
23:32
See the logo. It's funny. Then Chuck, what about for you the VFX side that there was a ton not only on the day when we were shooting, but also in post. Like, what, what was that experience? Like? That experience was
23:49
almost overwhelming. So I, I, you know, I broke it down into, I basically did it linear, linearly after we had decided on final, basically, what we were calling the final cut at the time.
24:02
And the the very first thing I did then was, to your point, from an earlier episode, we talked about, like, what did we do first? We did the training video. And at that point in my VFX knowledge, I didn't have much, so I did all of the training video in one After Effects file, which was a total 100% stupid mistake, because every time I would have to change that, which we changed, you know, we changed a lot, I would have to re render that stuff. And that takes so long to render. So anyway, started out with that, but then I think the biggest thing that I remember about VFX for me was all of the screen, all of the screens. We had so many screens in this movie, from the hideout to the lab to you know what's happening on. What do you call it? Crime time 360 crime time 360
24:59
and.
25:00
It, and every decision that I wanted to make was based on the experience that I'd already had with replacing screens, which was just me playing around on like a video with a green screen. And those are so easy because you don't have the parameters of reflections and lighting and everything that's going on in a movie. So when we got to set, all I had was that knowledge, and I brought it there, and I thought I knew exactly what to do, and every decision that I made on set was wrong. And Barrett was like, everything with the heavy play it, dude, I think that you just want a blank screen, because that way you get the reflections. I'm like, no, no, no, I need a green screen. I know deck was doing. And
25:42
yeah, I just I beat I beat myself up later because it took so much more work to replace those screens, but I figured it out, and I learned a lot in the process. And now I can probably replace any screen in America with what I want it to be. Yeah, you know, so watch out for the propagate the videos. The
26:04
video is real. People need to know. You need to do your own research. Yeah, yeah. Chuck, how many other people were on your team for VFX?
26:14
No one. It was me, but I utilized a lot of, you know, pre populated
26:23
After Effects files for certain the way that I wanted text to look, the way that we decided we wanted
26:31
the hideout computer to look. I used stuff that had already been created and then modified it to tailor it to us,
26:41
and that way I didn't have to worry about the animation part, but I did have to worry about, okay, well, how does this fit in with the scenes that we have, and which is its own kind of entity, but, but I use a lot of a lot of templates, a lot of, you know, things that are out there, that are not expensive for those people who want to do their or want to take a crack at doing their own VFX to get online and bottle elements. Pixar has some great videos and basically like little, little images. We used a lot of tiny icons in the crime time, 360 stuff that are free to use for commercial use, which is the most important part, everything properly licensed for property. Like, I just have a crap ton of licenses.
27:29
And what else? Go ahead. Sorry, the VFX. What is it called? Action VFX, action in that world that the world keeps getting smaller and smaller, we had so many people tell us, Oh, yeah, all you really need is action VFX. We're like, Well, where are they from? What's that gonna be? Like? They're out of Knoxville, you know. And everybody in the industry uses, everybody in the industry uses them. And I can see why their special effects are top notch. And when I, when I use their things and the action sequences, it only takes a little bit of lighting and maneuvering and, you know, transparency and all that stuff to get it to where I want it. It's just there's so much that you have to do in an action sequence. It takes so long to get it right and to get it to where it looks realistic. And Danny and I have gone round and round with those battle scenes, and I'm happy with probably 85% of what I did, I can still see the stuff that goes, Oh, that could have been better. Well, we don't see nobody. We had an airsoft gun, right, that that provided real recoil that Kinder is using, and then you went in and put every single bullet that popped out of that chamber, right? Yeah, yeah, which is wild to me, shell casing, yeah, yeah, absolutely. The bullets ended up in the clones. The bullets were its own file. But the thing that opens up, yeah, to let the bullets out, that was all like, I created that. So that had to go like that, as y'all can tell. Chuck,
28:55
yeah, yeah, a huge gun guy know exactly what they sound like and exactly what they look like
29:02
Danny's like that, that that blast is not right. Jack. The thing that blew my mind when I would come over and we would work on it is to watch you work on your laptop with the touchpad. I was like, doing that like, you're just like,
29:18
touchpad. All I use is a touchpad. It blew my eyes like I have to have a mouse. I can't do that fine. Work well. And we've had people be like, so who did your VFX? I want to get in touch with that guy, you know, like it came out better than we had any right to be right. And it's like it was just chuck by himself in a room for three I was in my living room. I had the biggest screen in my house, like 72 inches on the wall,
29:46
and I set it up to look at that
29:49
through my laptop trackpad, and I did all the work there for three months. And let's give a shout out to the person who suffered the most, your husband.
30:01
Dead, thanks, buddy. Yeah, he went into the office every chance he could.
30:07
That's fine. That's fine, though, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Yeah, what about, can we talk about the face? I think so at this point again, at this point, everybody we hope, who's listening or watching this has seen the film, and yeah, we had a wild, little Total Recall Quato moment, yeah, yeah. So it's little combination of practical effects, VFX all pulling together, yeah, yeah. We had Rick prince, who was on face off, right
30:38
makeup effects artist. He lives here in Nashville. He came out and did three effects with us. I think he did no four. He did. He did little hand, and he did your melty face, and he did some of the scratches, hallmarks, yeah, hallmarks. And then he did the Quato moment, and he Dion Harris, who plays the bruiser, had already they'd already done like he'd worked with him before, because Dion used to be the Titans mascot. He was the first mascot for the Titans, and so Rick had made the chest plate for him, so he kind of already had some stuff with Dion. So we did that life cast of his chest, which I think we still have somewhere. Yeah, it's in storage, yeah, which is wild. I go check it out from time to
31:27
time. I rent it sometimes.
31:30
But that, that all came from our table read during,
31:34
during the table read, somebody had pitched to us that we should have a little face on the bruiser. And we, we thought that that was hilarious, and so we worked that in to what we already had, working with Dion. But yeah, it's a very funny moment that gets a gas, audible gasp every time we show the movie,
31:53
yeah. And that was a blend of the two types of effects, it was, and a lot of that stuff, you know, we did it practically, oh, five. We had a, we had a jagged piece of wood coming out of brick, yeah. Oh, did Rick do that too? Uh, Rick did? He had the a piece of foam wood, and he'd done that, that effect. And then I think you went in and digitally shrunk it down a little bit, yeah, it was a little chunky looking in the final product. And we shrunk it down so that it wasn't, yeah, the big chunk would, he would definitely have already been dead two by four. Shrunk it down to a large like a two by two, yeah. But to me, as an indie filmmaker without feature experience, that was fascinating, that we had both the practical and then you kind of take the edge off of it, or blend it out a little bit with the with the CG. Yeah, that's cool, though. I haven't thought about that, but, but SFX and VFX kind of coming together, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of our special effects ended up getting blended and modified, same as the acid grenade that was a the green, the the glowing green is practical, but then the melting, like the when it turns black and starts to steam and melting, and you added in a lot of atmosphere that we didn't have on the day. Yeah, there's a lot of like that lens splash too. Yeah, the lens splash was in post. Yeah, yep.
33:16
A lot of great things that you can do make sure that's in post. Because I remember cleaning that shit off my camera.
33:23
It was in post. And there's a great BTS video of, you know, that, go find it, because it's just Danny there with the thing. And then he got, you know, that coffee cup full of green slime, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, that's yeah. That's really fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:40
What about? So we talked a little bit about green screen already, but we obviously had
33:46
like, two and a half days of green screen all together. Danny, what was that like as a director, like working with the talent on the green screen? You know, I think it's certainly, I think it's more challenging for the talent than it is for the director, it's a challenge in the sense that I'm trying to build the world and trying to, like, kind of help them visualize what's going on there, but ultimately, it's up to them to give that performance. Luckily, all of our green screen work translated what we didn't use it the way that, like, a bigger budget might use that as like to fill in some fantastic scene that they're in. All of our green screen work was them, kind of like on monitors or all of our crime time. 360 stuff was shot in front of green screen because we knew we were just going to cut they were going to be talking heads. So we knew we could just cut them out, replace the backgrounds with whatever we wanted. And again, great job adding so much fun stuff behind them. Well, your inspiration stuff is what made that what it is the but then we had our two biggest stunt casts in the movie, both shot on green screen. So Steve Byrne and Rob Patel were both green screen days, which was great for us, because it allowed us to you.
35:00
Make the process as easy as possible for them, which I think was alluring in getting them to come out and work with us. We we were able to have teleprompter for them so they they didn't have to spend a lot of time, because they were chunks of dialog. They were not, it was not, they were mostly acting to nobody. So it was really nice that we were able to give them the teleprompter so they could just have their lines there. And Steve is a working comedian, so yes, he lives in Nashville, but he actually flew in from from Vegas, right, drove directly to our location, shot for two to three hours, then drove back to the airport and flew back out to Vegas. Yeah, yeah. And he was fantastic, super Yeah. Such a pro man. He was great. They both were, they were fantastic. And, yeah, I think the green screen was for our purposes were it was really great to be able to just know that whatever we get here, we can make them like, like the Robbie stuff on the moon. We had no idea what that was going to look like the moon behind him the golf course. We just knew we were going to do it right. Knew he was on the moon, he's on the moon, right? And he's like, he's playing golf, he's on the moon, he's in space. So that's what we knew going in. So it freed us up to be able to kind of like, mold stuff around to the performance and to just really play with it in post and make it something really fun and interesting, as opposed to us just trying to, like, build a set and have it ready to go when he got there, right, right? And you can, I mean, there's a few different ways you can use a stunt cast, you know, you can use them as the big bad and they just show up in the finale, or place them a few, you know, a few places. But the reality is, you have a limited amount of time with them, and we tried to get creative with, you know, it's like, okay, well, if we're gonna shoot them on green, you don't want to look cheesy each time you see cheesy each time you see them. So how do we make it really fun and different? And Chuck did such a great job on the VFX side of using Ravi really, in like, three different ways, right? And the lunar call as the hologram coming up out of the crab, and then in the commercial at the end. And that's one of my favorite days. Yeah. Well, dude, and we and so we got three different distinct looks out of our probably top build talent there, you know, all from a four hour shoot day, and we were able to put him throughout the movie so he does not just shows up and there's gone. It feels like he's part of more. He is a bigger part of the movie. It doesn't feel like it. He really is. And he has some of the best exposition in the movie. You know, he's the one that's kind of spelling out the themes for us in the hologram. Stuff is probably my favorite visual effect of the whole movie. The hologram looks great. We also get one of the most iconic lines from the movie from his hologram. Good luck, moron. I live in space. Bye.
37:38
It's a laugh every time it does. It hits every time I love it. You You left the sound effect of him just stringing,
37:47
yeah, that's, that's that line. So many of those lines there, there are things in there that I did not think you know were I like a cerebral joke, and some of my favorite jokes in the movie never get laughs. And that, that line, not that, not that it's not smart, but like that delivery is what makes that funny. And so in his delivery, but it was written as by with multiple it was always gonna be that come from, wait, I feel like that's something you and I would it. I don't know. I know the first time I heard it on set was when we were filming the gangs coverage, and Nate was doing the read, yeah, I had written it, yeah. I remember writing Yeah. I just don't remember. I know it came from somewhere. I don't know if, I mean, it's probably me. Anyway, no
38:38
business hitting
38:40
How about this one?
38:43
That's the one, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Danny, a question for you again. You know, looking back. So we shot this movie over two years ago, first time director, then first time director. Now,
39:01
second time director. Now, like this. Director,
39:05
super accomplished, seasoned Hollywood director now, yeah, what I've been to Hollywood
39:12
on our press tour. That's true. Yeah. What advice would you give yourself looking back on day one, knowing what you know now, having gone through everything we did together, pulling this movie across the finish line,
39:28
I think I would tell myself to shoot more.
39:32
I think I I knew inserts. Inserts. Yeah, you guys have referenced that a few times. Why do you keep because that was a thing, right? Because I was pretty adamant that I didn't want it. I and I still do feel this way in that inserts, I think should be used sparingly. I think an insert is telling the audience to, Hey, pay attention to this. This thing is really important. And I do think there are a lot of maybe not a lot, but there are filmmakers and editors who use them as a bridge when they.
40:00
Don't have anything to cut to, right? And so they'll just cut to an insert so that they can get out of that shot and get into the next shot. And when they're used that way, I don't like it. I think it's a messy editing technique. How do you think our editor felt? Did he wish he had inserts? I've had many angry conversations with him, and he definitely wanted more inserts. Who cut the film? Danny, I got the film. I got the film. Yeah. I don't remember any of the specific scenarios that we didn't shoot inserts, but I do remember at least once a week for the three weeks, Nate and I both would look at you and say, Danny, you sure you don't want an insert of this? And it was always nope, yeah. And then when we got an insert, Nate and I both were like, You sure you want an insert?
40:49
I, you know, what's funny is, when we were, when I was editing the movie, there's a scene where, when Porter gets shot, it's very beginning of the movie, she goes down and she's got, you know, she's been shot in the stomach. So we shot all of that stuff the first day, and we came back later to get the shot of the blood, to get the close up of the blood seeping between your fingers. And when we're shooting that Quinn is, she's sitting there, she's going, so when we shot this last time, my hand was here, like, Are you sure you know, I was like, Are you sure? You know, I was like, no, no, it's fine. It's fine, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. And I, when I'm editing the movie, I hear myself saying, it's fine, don't worry about doorway. And I'm yelling at myself, do worry about it. It's a jump cut. Now, you should have worried she's right,
41:35
but, yeah, it's, I think, you know, I was really focused on staying on schedule and getting your buddy out on time, and just trying to keep the train moving and trying to keep everything on track. And I think in doing that, I sacrificed some coverage that if we went back and did it a second time, I would like more coverage of some of the scenes and there, and that's not just inserts, that's across the board. There were just scenes where I had shot, listed it out and coverage was missing from that shot list. And I just said, Nope, we're not going to do it. Because the way I hadn't pre visited in my head was we don't need it. And and I think by and large, probably, like, eight times out of 10, we didn't need it, but the times when we did, I was really kicking myself that we didn't have it.
42:23
That's good advice. That is good advice. And to your credit, I mean, you did, I could tell you held that commitment to getting people out on 10 hour days as sacred, you know, and so that did probably motivate a lot of us to stay on task. And I was appreciative that we weren't shooting 10 takes of whatever, just to see if there was something else there, you had a pretty good idea when you had what you wanted. And generally, most of the takes that are in the movie or the second or third take,
42:53
sometimes the first, yeah, it's, I feel like when you have good actors, they're giving you their best stuff pretty early on,
43:01
barring any technical issues. Usually the first few takes are the best ones. And I do feel like you're just kind of burning energy and burning their emotions out, you know, they, it's they're not machines actors, you know, they they will wear out. They will get tired of doing that scene. And they can only bring so much to it every take, and especially like, high intensity energy scenes like you want them to. You know they're giving you everything they got those first few takes, and there are going to be diminishing returns if you keep shooting it.
43:31
Yeah, no, that's really good advice. What about for you? Phil, so as an executive producer, not like, remove your actor hat for a second, which I know is very difficult for you, yeah,
43:45
but it's my favorite. My favorite hat, your favorite hat. I know as an executive producer, looking back knowing what you know now, what if, oh, yeah, would have never done it. Would have never made the movie. For sure, 100%
44:00
No, man, I mean as an executive producer, specifically, you know now that we've walked this whole path from principle to where we're at now, I probably would have had that experience of like, not I mean, it's been a roller coaster ride the past two years, as we've been through ups and downs of distribution and representation and all these things, you Know. But in terms of, like, our experience on set for those three weeks that we shot, there's not much that I would change, you know, because, again, the vibes were so high and the camaraderie was so tight that, like, I mean, I think we got the best stuff that we could get out of everyone at that time, you know, now, if we were just When, when, hopefully we get to shoot a sequel, everybody will bring whatever experience they've picked up from then to now, but at that moment in time, we were all doing the absolute best that we could with what we had. And so to everybody's points like, are there some things that I would have done differently? Well, yeah, now in light of this additional experience, but at the time, man, we everybody gave it 110%
44:57
which is why, I think, for a low budget thing.
45:00
We're able to make some waves in the way that we are, whether that's with reviews and critics or press or whatever, you know, wherever the needles out there, moving on social media. I mean, all that is a direct result of people not half assing it, right? Yeah. And, you know, to your point, around the vibes being so high. I mean, you know, we've heard that
45:18
from so many of our different cast and crew over the last year of just what their experience was like on set, it was unlike anything they had worked on in the past, in a good way. So I think you know to your credit, being the captain of this ship, like great work. Oh, thanks, buddy. Anything you change from a cinematography standpoint? Nope. Loved it all.
45:42
Yeah. You know, it's probably more technical things than anything else, and it's also a budgetary thing, like, like, you know, we didn't have a steady cam operator at all for this film,
45:55
and that would have been great for some of the shots that ended up being handheld, but they still work handheld. And you know,
46:03
when we get the opportunity to do two and three, I'm confident we'll have a dedicated camera operator well, and that that's been our mantra, Danny and I for a long time since we shot it, which is like, oh, wish we had this. Or that it's not that movie, right? That movie, yeah, there. I can remember us talking about shots that I wanted to get. I'm like, All right, and then we'll crane in over, you know, we'll come in this way. We don't got that, nope, all right, well, so we'll Dolly. But nope, we don't got that. We did have a dolly for the whole running, and we had a cool jib, a dope jib, and some, one of those shots made his way in. I mean, there's some, some cool, I thought there's some really cool camera work being done. Thank you, yeah, yeah. And I, we have talked about it, and maybe even this one, but in previous episodes. But I do really appreciate how the camera work was so informed by what was happening in the scene, and that, you know, we talked a lot about that, and I think your instincts were always spot on in those moments. And thank you. There's one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when kindred kind of come and glean to everybody. And we were standing there watching it in the Nashville screening, and just like, Man, I just love the way this looks. It's just so subtle, but it really is evocative, and it really does give you that slightly off kilter, like experience and like you can kind of it really enhances the performance that skyler's Giving there, where you feel his tension and unsureness and how everything's kind of shaking, yeah. Like, you know, I appreciate that. For that one specifically, I can remember thinking like, it would be great to see this come and clean this confession, like, from the gang's point of view, completely, it's like I shot his entire coverage, standing in between them, where one of them would be, and tried to mimic the same body movement they were having when we turned around and shot the reverse, which was, you know, I think it worked out so. And then that line, when he's, you know, ciphers line at that end of that scene, with the ends with you surrounded by the corpus of all your friends, and wearing that wide we already surrounded by all of them. It's, yeah, it's a great shot, yeah, it worked out. It was great, cool, awesome. So other thing I'd add, so as the executive producer of a film that's doing pretty well, I have so much gratitude for somebody like Kevin Smith that has so graciously kind of laid open every every aspect of his indie filmmaking journey. And you know, just want everybody that's out there right now that might be watching us, if you guys have any questions, if there's any way that we can be helpful to anybody out there, hit us up in our DMS, you know, slide in and ask your question. And I know I would love to be of service in the way that some of the people that have come before us have, which is, that's how you do it. That's how you make it. You find the people that have walked the path before. Ask them how they did it, and then you take your own journey, and maybe some of it looks like theirs, and some of it is going to be completely your own. But in any case, man, learning from people that have been there before just is such a nice thing to get to do. Yeah. Christopher Nolan's not opening up his DMS, but Danny, Don's, I'm begging you to get in my DMs. I'm so lonely. I just want to talk to you about film anything.
49:08
How you doing
49:10
awesome? Well, guys again, you know, I appreciate really great conversation. A lot of good insight into the making of clone cops. It was fun. I think in our next episode, we're going to spend some time with our cast
49:23
and maybe some crew, definitely some cast. We'll get them all together. That'll be fun, right? Yeah, can't wait.
49:31
I'm the only one getting getting that you just ate lunch.
49:37
Rabbit,
49:40
the players,
49:42
they was rapping, you, you?