Mark Duplass: The Cavalry Is Definitely Not Coming

So I’m off to a couple of meetings today. One with a potential sound recordist for Episode 3 of Silent Eye and then with a producer who said “hi” on twitter, “let’s meet”.

Before that, I’m still mulling over this Mark Duplass talk from 2015. There’s really a lot of interesting stuff here, which connects with me and how I have found myself making films. I think back to the waiting and waiting for others to get things going (he’s right, the cavalry isn’t coming); to the short film projects which ended in “failure” (they had good scripts, but mostly finished as things I wouldn’t show anyone).

I remember the first one. A short about a girl in a wheelchair who goes to an exhibition, only to find all the art is just empty picture frames. When she complains about the lack of artwork, the artist turns to her and says, “I don’t do art, I make statements” and then blows her away with a silver Magnum 45.

I wasn’t trying to be Shakespeare here. It was just a 2-3 page script. Simple, one location and would get us shooting. I knew we just had to shoot something.

My friend, Justin, had just bought a second hand 16mm Bolex. It was a big heavy beast, but we both wanted to try it out.

We managed to hire an empty gallery. My friend’s daughter would play the girl in the wheelchair. But this was the days before CGI became available to the masses, so we had to do practical effects.

So, Justin and I went to a theatrical supplies shop in North London and bought a bottle of fake blood and some squibs (small explosives which blow a hole in the blood bag to make it look like the actor has been shot). We filled some small plastic bags with blood, placed one on top of a squib and fired it. After a few tests, the squib failed to blow a hole in the bag – every time.

This isn’t as easy as it looks.

But we were running out of time and squibs. So we placed all the remaining squibs under one big bag and onto a metal baking tray. We would have one go at making this work. The day of the shoot arrived. I don’t think we were recording sound – I guess we planned to ADR it in post.

For the gun, I went to a weapon hire company in London. God knows how we persuaded them to rent us a gun (decommissioned), but they did. The woman at the company unlocked the weapons cage and showed me in. Hundreds of guns of all varieties were hung up or stored in racks. She advised me which pistols would be most realistic.

I pointed to the big silver one which looked like something Dirty Harry would use, “I want that one.”

“Nobody would use that. It’s too big. You should choose one of these.” She pointed to the sensible-looking, small handguns.

“I want that one.” (we were making a statement, remember).

So she shakes her head and hands me the Magnum 45. “You have something to carry it in?”

“Yeah yeah, no sweat.”

Outside I wrap the gun in a black plastic trash bag. We put it in the boot of the car and hope we don’t get stopped. Not only am I making a movie, but now I feel like I’m in one!

So the moment comes to shoot our bullet hit stunt. There’s no way we are going to strap this thing to my friend’s daughter, so my brother volunteers to be stunt double – not exactly a perfect match! Well, we try to disguise the fact that this girl has suddenly turned into a 25 year old bloke, by having the character wear a baseball cap. And the same t-shirt. Hmm.

The baking tray was taped to his back, under the shirt. Justin rolled the camera. I touched the wire to the battery contact and BOOOOOM!

The bag exploded. Fake blood sprayed everywhere – across the nice white walls of the gallery, across Justin and the camera, across my glasses (pure slapstick movie moment). After that, we left pretty quickly, before the owners turned up and saw what we’d done to their gallery (they never complained so maybe they saw it as art).

The film was processed and my brother had a go at editing (he actually had a mac you could edit on, and I didn’t understand any of that stuff then). Months later, and I had heard nothing but a few mumbles about it not really working.

Time passed.

We all went through lots of changes and life-dramas. My brother’s advertising company went bust and lots of other shit. The rolls of film ended up in a box somewhere and forgotten about. So I never did see a single frame from the footage we shot.

And that was my first attempt at making a short film.

But back to Mark’s talk…

Mark was describing his steps to making a career in film. We had reached the part where you have made a load of shorts, and now your first feature, for $1000. This feature has got into some festivals, big enough that you have an agent. Your next step is to get a bunch of well known TV actors to see your movie. Then you ask them if they want to work on something. Most say no, you’re some $1000 filmmaker, forget it. But this one guy is sick of his boring TV show and wants to do something different – he says yes!

Mark’s idea is that you build your next $1000 feature around this TV star. You go to this actor and you say…

Mark: “I’m going to build you a role Randy (this is the name he gives the fictitious actor). What is the role that you absolutely want to play and no one has offered you?” And Randy is gong to fall in love with you, and follow you to the ends of the Earth.

So, as much as your agent is going to tell you, “You’ve already made your $1000 movie. It’s time to go pitch you for big directing jobs.” Which you’ll never get, by the way. And even if you get them, you won’t want them. Because all the directing jobs that are out there that are open are terrible.

You are going to do the unthinkable. You’re going to make another $1000 movie. But this one has Randy fucking Hercules in it. And this one is going to be the one to monetise your career. Because even if you make a stinker, with Randy Hercules in it, there’s no way you’re selling this movie for less than $50,000.

And all your friends who worked on your cheap movie with you, you’re going to give them big points in the movie. Because you are a communist. You’re developing a group of friends, and you’re all in this shit together. And you’re going to say, “All right. I’ve saved up some money here. We’re going to spend another $1000 here, on this movie. But, this time, when it sells, you – my beloved sound person/lighting person/assistant editor – are going to get 10% of the movie.”

“And, Randy Hercules, you’re going to get 20% of the movie.” And you’ll go to Randy and say, “You’re so rich, will you just give me those points back and give it to the crew?” And he’ll do it, because he’s in love with you and he’s rich and sad.

You make this movie and it’s going to be a little better than your last movie. Because you learned something from your mistakes. And this time, rather than be at those B-Tier festivals, you’re probably going to land at a high B- or a low A-Tier festival. You might go to Sundance and sell it for $1m. It might happen.

Probably not going to happen.

It’s just the way it is. But it’s ok. Because now you have a movie that has extreme value on VOD, because Randy Hercules has 6 years on his CBS show. And this is where I say, “God bless VOD”.

This is a great thing for independent film. Please, please do not reject VOD. Please do not be afraid of it. Please do not be attached to your early movies playing in movie theatres. It’s very important that you don’t blow that money promoting your film in theatres, because then you’ll have no more money to make movies.

It’s important that you own this Randy Hercules movie. Someone’s going to buy it from you. Let them put it out on VOD on places like Netflix or HBO, and you will probably make anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000 on this movie, by the very presence of Randy Hercules.

And this is great. You’re making some money, your friends are making some money and, more importantly, the industry is starting to take notice of you.

Next: Has The Cavalry Arrived Yet?

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