JH: Very cool. We'll have to see if he wants to contribute some witty article on filmmaking (or wrestling) sometime!
Okay, as I'm able to know things that most interviewers don't know, what with the internet being the dangerous research tool it is, I understand something funny happened on this tour. Do you want to talk about it?
KB: A lot of funny things happened on this tour...
JH: Umm, something tells me you're trying to skirt the issue. Let me jog your memory. This was both funny and embarrassing.
KB: You want me to talk about my Iowa gig don't you? I did the wrong work shop. I was so tired and it was in the middle of a tough 2 week stretch. The gig was sponsored by Dream Catcher Productions, really nice folks and it was in a nice theater. Anyway, I did my 3 hour work shop on Making The Extreme No-Budget Feature and I got lots of questions afterwards and everything went really well. I was loading out and one of the organizers came over and asked if I wanted a couple of the posters they had made up for the event for my collection. I thanked her and glanced down at the posters and realized that I had just done the wrong work shop, for the last three hours... And no one bothered to stop me.
JH: What did you do?
KB: I called Joe Sherrman, the main organizer, the next morning and started apologizing and he starts laughing. I asked him why he didn't say anything and he told me he realized about 10 minutes in that I was doing the wrong workshop but I was on such a roll and the audience was totally in to it, he just figured he'd let it go.
JH: So people still got a lot out of it?
KB: Apparently. So, if anyone out there has a copy of one of those posters hang on to it. It'll be a collector's item... I was really tired.
JH: So why do you do it?
KB: Filmmaking or touring?
JH: The touring.
KB: So people don't make the same mistakes that I made. I spent a ton of money on my first feature, Birddog. A lot of people told me they would help me get distribution when I made my first feature and they didn't. I believed them and I probably shouldn't have.
JH: I'm one of these sticklers for timelines. If I recall correctly, you were just coming off of Good Will Hunting weren't you?
KB: Yeah, I was the Sound Designer on that movie and a lot of others before that (My Own Private Idaho, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, among others). I had my "indie street cred" but that didn't seem to matter ultimately. I had a screening for friends in LA and everyone liked the movie, but then they told me how hard it was to get a distributor and then they all walked away.
JH: No one helped?
KB: No one. I arranged some screenings for distributors, I screened in LA, New York, Toronto and London. We also had it at the IFFM. The distributors all said the same thing, "We really like this movie but we can't distribute it because it has no famous stars in it."... I told them it was an independent film and they said that was fine, but if you make an "independent" film you still need a big star in it. I asked about the acting and the writing and direction and was told that was all great. They basically turned it down because there were no stars in it!
JH: That sucks. So, not to rub salt in an old wound, but why did you choose not to use any "name" stars in your first film, since you had some Hollywood connections and possibly some folks who would have done it for free?
KB: It didn’t occur to me. I think I was na・e and felt that if I made a good film it wouldn’t matter. I thought independent films were about story and characters, not stars. I guess I was wrong according to the “Independent Film Scene”, but I still believe that I had a great cast and the acting is great. And even the distributors agreed, they just wanted a name because they say it’s easier to sell.
I don’t believe that having known actors in your film necessarily means you’ll sell it. Look at all of the DVDs you’ve never heard of that went straight to DVD with famous actors. I think distributors and marketing people are lazy, they want the easy way out. I still want to believe that real independent films can break through without having known actors. I really believe that audiences want good stories and they don’t care who’s in the movie if they performances are good. Maybe that’s just me…
JH: No, I think that's something we all believe in our souls. If we didn't, we wouldn't be making films on our own dimes. And, occasionally, even Hollywood agrees, as we see with movies like Clerks, Swingers, and Napoleon Dynamite. But you are right, the chances the current distribution system will take with films that have no “stars” tend to be pretty few and far between. So, how did the film do in film festivals?
KB: It did okay on the festival circuit, in fact it opened the Sao Paulo Film Festival. I have the revue. It's all in Portuguese but I think they liked it. Anyway, I ended up owing a ton of money to the IRS...
