[upbeat percussive music]
- [unseen man] You can walk this Earth
and claim he's in you all you want,
but you will be judged on your actions.
Hell is real.
It does exist.
Hell fire, simply spoken, and praise be to God for it,
and if you don't want to think about that,
you need to be ready.
We are all going to die, everyone of us.
Maybe in 80 years, maybe right outside those doors.
It does not matter.
We will stand before him for our judgment.
[upbeat instrumental music]
- Hi, welcome to "Director's Cut."
I'm Pete Schwaba, and we just saw
a clip from "Uncle John," a film about a man
who literally tries to get away with murder,
as the people in his small town
become suspicious of his activities.
I'm joined today by the film's co-writer
and producer, Erik Crary.
Erik, welcome to "Director's Cut."
- Thank you, Pete.
- First of all, I just want to say I'm thrilled.
We usually have directors on, but occasionally,
we'll have a writer or producer on,
and I love having a fellow writer on
because we can talk a little about the writing process too.
So, it's great to have you here. - Sure, thanks.
- Okay, so elaborate a little bit
about this character, Uncle John.
Tell us about John, who is this guy?
- John uh...
It starts with where I grew up really.
I grew up in a small town, Lodi.
Very... a lot of people watch out for each other.
Reputation has a lot, you know, a lot to do with
just how you interact with everybody,
and everybody kind of just watches out for each other.
So we, Steven, my co-writer, and the guy
that directed it, we just talked a lot about
what if we saw someone in that world
commit a murder right off the bat,
and we didn't know why, and the rest of the story
is telling that, and allowing it to unfold,
who this guy is,
and hopefully by the end, you're a little but confused by
"Should I feel bad for this guy, or should I not--"
- Yeah - "Feel bad for this guy?"
- I found myself doing that while I was watching it.
Do I like John, or not?
- Good yeah good, that's good. - I love that.
You know, you hate that character
that like crushes a bug right away,
and you go, oh this is the bad guy.
So, it's nice to kind of let that play out,
very nice writing there. - Thanks.
- So, what is it about small towns that lends--
these creepy small-town, mysterious murders,
why do small towns lend themselves to that?
Is it the characters?
- We talked a lot about this.
I think any, any place is about the same,
except you know more in a small town.
So, in a big city, within ten blocks
there's probably all kinds of crazy, dark things
that are happening.
But, in a small town, again you just,
everybody sort of knows everybody,
and there's much more familiarity.
So, I just think it's a-- - Right
- It's a, to Steven and I, it's just an interesting way
to see how that unfolds, in a town where
you're reputation is way more,
it carries a lot more weight,
because, everybody knows you for so long,
and there's, you know, direct contact
between everybody, so... - Great answer, yeah.
Well, let's see another clip from "Uncle John."
- Hey Danny.
You all right?
Hey uh, I'm sorry to hear about your brother.
You heard any news?
[bird calls]
Well...
Alright bud, listen, I'll uh,
I'll just let you be.
- Sheriff seems to think, he got drunk, and just fell in.
They've been dragging that goddamn lake all afternoon.
No body yet.
- Yeah...
I heard.
- I doubt that though.
No way Dutch drowns in there.
- Well...
Let's hope not.
I mean, they're just, you know, doing what they can.
You know, maybe uh,
maybe he just took off for a bit, you know,
dodging somebody or something?
- Yeah, plenty of reason for that lately.
I've never seen a guy so upset my entire life.
That vision, or whatever, just,
scared the #### out of him.
- Yeah, I know, I heard about that.
- You know he had quite a bit to say
to a few people in particular.
Did he come see you the other evening?
- I haven't talked to Dutch in a long time.
- I love when I watch a film,
and the character is saying stuff to provide his alibi,
and I want to say, just tell him you saw him,
it doesn't mean you killed him.
Now, you're going to contradict yourself
if somebody saw you, because it's a small town, you know.
And I love, how in indie films, you just,
they breathe more than studio films.
You're okay with the silence,
and letting the tensions build.
My question about actors is,
is so many indie films, they're working with actors
they find, or people they know,
even a John Ashton, a very accomplished actor,
Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run,
which is one of my favorite movies--
Is that at all intimidating when you're working
with a guy like that, who's a true, seasoned pro?
- It wasn't with John because of the way it came to be.
We-- basically, Steven, when we were writing,
you know, when, you're starting to get your head
into something, everything you're watching
is sort of, oh, does that fit into what I'm trying to do,
so, Beverly Hills Cop was streaming on Netflix.
We're talking a lot about actors everyday,
and Steven's like, man, this guy John Ashton is awesome.
I wonder, you know, I wonder, if we could,
if we could reach him somehow, so,
we got a short list together, and
through the magic of Google, I just found an email address
that seemed to lead to John.
So we wrote a very frank letter, saying we don't,
we really don't have hardly any money,
but we have enough to do it,
here's the script.
We are huge fans of you,
and if you respond to the material,
we'd love to just talk.
So, a couple of weeks later,
John had read it, got it touch, and then,
so from the foundation, step one, we were talking about
this is truly an indie film.
It's going to be very homegrown.
We've got a great team, but it's, you know,
this is not a fancy Hollywood thing,
and John was just fully on board the whole time.
- That's so cool. - So, when he showed up
to Lodi, it wasn't uncomfortable
because he knew why he was there,
he knew what he was walking into,
and we just, you know, got to work, pretty much, right away.
- It's really all about the character at that point.
He doesn't care where he is.
He's making some money, he's working,
and he obviously fell in love with the script,
and most of the time I see him,
he's got facial hair.
- Yeah - He didn't here,
and he looks, he looks better with it, I think like--
He looks a little more, you know, nefarious--
- It was a big discussion. - Yeah
I was going to ask you about that,
was it conscious, decision to get rid of it.
- Yeah it was, Steven really uh,
because he's so known for the mustache,
Steven was like, this is not a cop character,
this is a different world, and John was totally into it.
So it was...
Physically, the most baseline thing we could do
to like, just remove that thing from John.
- Yeah, it was great.
Talk a little bit about your casting process.
You have all these great actors,
who I didn't even recognize until Mary, the producer, said,
that's the guy from Hoosiers, that's the guy from Fargo.
How'd you find them?
Did you have an actual casting director?
Are these people you knew?
- We uh...
The first thing we tried to do is cast ourselves.
So, it was sort of a two step process.
We reached out to John.
We reached out to Ronnie, the guy that plays Danny directly,
with the same sort of letter, like,
really like you guys, have no money,
but we're going to make this.
Beyond that we were trying initially to cast it ourselves.
We did the whole CastNet, all that, you know,
weekend auditions, at a studio in Chicago
that our friends let us borrow, that kinda stuff.
We found Jenna that way,
actually through video casting,
but we were just not equipped enough to get the full cast
together, it was becoming clear pretty quickly,
so...
There's a casting director down there, David O'Connor,
who does awesome work.
He's like one of the biggest Chicago casting directors
and I had known him through just work connections
for advertising stuff.
And I wrote, just with a, basically the script,
and just saying, hey man, we are sort of striking out,
can I ask some advice on what you think we should do
to start finding this stuff,
and he, we fit into a fortunate spot in his schedule,
where he liked the script, he knew us a little bit,
and basically we had a meeting
where he cut us a great deal to say,
look, you guys shouldn't be doing this.
You're just going to hate yourself.
- Let the pros do it. - Yeah, let me do this
and we couldn't have been more on board.
He took care of everything. - It's definitely an art,
casting, you have to have a-- - It's way more, way more
than we were able to handle, so.
- Let's see another clip from "Uncle John."
- Morning there, fellas.
- Hey there John, we just talking about the latest.
- What's that?
- Guy they picked up yesterday,
over at the campground at Sauk, the biker guy,
they pretty sure he's got
everything to do with Dutch missing.
- What's that now? - Jeez John.
- What? - You look like hell.
- I do?
- Yesterday afternoon, there was some kind
of a scuffle over there, and once the cops got him in,
turns out he's got some heavy history with Dutch,
over a bunch of money I think.
- Well, who is he?
- Just a biker type from up north.
Not a real gentle soul from what I gather,
you know, tattooed up all over the place,
one on the neck.
- Whoo!
- Apparently, he had something like five grand in cash
locked up in his chopper.
- Five grand, damn!
- That's what I hear, anyway.
- Well, what are they saying about he and Dutch though?
- Well, I mean, it's a--
- He is a person of interest.
Coffee?
- Yeah, coffee, yeah, thanks Franny.
- Anyway, he's a suspect.
Sounds like a no-brainer though, I mean--
You know, speaking of harsh souls,
I'll never understand why that woman dislikes me so much.
- Maybe you should try tipping her something
one of these days.
- I tip.
- More than nickels I'm saying.
- Everyday.
I'm here every goddamn day.
Probably since she was wetting her pants.
[laughs]
- Okay so, my next question.
You got a lot of outdoor shots.
It's easier to shoot outdoors I think,
when you have a smaller budget.
What did you shoot on?
- We shot on an Alexa, ARRI Alexa with Cooke lenses.
- Okay, 'cause your night shots look great too,
I thought it was-- - Thanks, yeah,
ARRI is, I mean the Alexa is pretty amazing.
- It's unbelievable because I remember
when I did a film like 12 years ago.
The idea of shooting on video was totally unacceptable.
We ended up shooting on super-16,
but now, video just looks phenomenal.
That's really impressive.
- And our DP, Mike Bove, it's his camera and his lenses,
and Mike's just kind of incredibly talented with it.
- Always helps.
So, a lot of people have shot in small towns
and not had a good experience.
We talked yesterday briefly
about out experiences.
Mine was very favorable.
You said yours was very favorable.
Talk about how, being familiar with an area,
and knowing people can help,
add value to your film,
when it comes to budget and that, if you would.
- Yeah, I mean, this film doesn't really get made
without Lodi, at all, I don't think.
Because...
When we were talking, so we wrote,
we knew we had a small budget.
We wrote very carefully for Lodi,
and carefully for Chicago and, you start thinking of,
well, who, my dad was instrumental in helping us get
a lot of the locations in Lodi.
My mom helped line up like all the catering in Lodi.
Steven's mom helped line all the catering
with his sister in Chicago.
So we had, just these family and friends sort of networks
happening, and that pretty much did it all.
My dad, while Steve and I are working in Chicago,
he's going to the diner, that we've been to a million times,
but he's talking to the manager,
and saying, is there any way, would you be even open to it,
and then when they're open to it,
we go up and we talk, and then eventually
you hash out, sure, we can shut down the diner for one day.
You know. - Wow
- John's house is this
awesome guy, Bob Endres, who's a
high school friend of my dad's,
and that's the only reason we got to shoot at,
you know, that's why John's house is that house,
because Bob was willing to, again, cut us a deal,
and, based on my dad's reputation,
allow a bunch of us to come in,
and take over his place for three weeks.
- How were the people in the town,
like, let's say, that weren't involved in the film?
Did they kind of embrace it?
Or did they become like jaded Hollywood people?
- Super-embraced it.
I mean it was very...
We just had a ton of help from family and friends.
Some friends that I went to high school with,
and my cousin, I was leaning on them for favors and advice,
and help to get the cop car,
and help to get, just kind of everything.
You need 80 things, and you've got 16 friends
that are helping you kind of wrangle all of them, so.
- That's great.
We had, when I did an indie, years ago,
called The Godfather of Green Bay ,
and we got a helicopter, a guy from Green Bay,
and I was like, oh, how much is this going to cost,
and the guy goes, he couldn't wait to do it, it's free.
I'm like, what!
You know, it's just like, that kinda stuff,
with people that really get on board,
and I think a lot of it is that they want
to see you be successful, and get your film made right?
Anytime someone is, whether it's in the movies,
or anything, if someone's really passionate
about something, you'd do anything to help them, so...
- And we were trying to embrace that, I mean, it's like,
again, it just doesn't get made if these people
aren't willing to help you.
- That's great.
Well, let's see another clip from "Uncle John."
- What, you're kidding me?
You've never seen " Trains, Planes and Automobiles ?" - No
- " Uncle Buck ?" - Nope
- You are missing some amazing freeze frame,
like, John Candy smiles, like...
That kind of thing. [laughs]
I don't do him very well.
My mom used to love that guy.
- She doesn't anymore?
- Nah.
- Why not?
- Well, she passed away.
- Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
- No, that's okay.
She-- well, it was a really long time ago.
- Well, how old were you?
- I was 11, act--
No, I was 10.
She was in an accident.
- So your dad raised you then?
- He was supposed to.
I, uh...
Like, at the time of the accident,
I was staying at my uncle's house,
and my dad said he was going to come and get me,
and then, he just never really showed, which is...
But, they weren't together at the time, and...
That's okay, I guess he split town or something,
but I didn't really want him to come and get me anyway.
Sorry, that got really personal.
- No, no.
- Is this story based on any particular life event?
Or murders in Erik's past?
- No, thankfully no.
No, it really isn't.
We...
So the writing process, Steven and I had
sort of been writing two scripts independently.
Mine was a little too small,
his was a little too big.
So then we stopped writing independently,
and we said, we should come up with a story.
You know, we should co-write something.
And that started, we started to talk about
where we could shoot, all this hometown advantage stuff
that we've been talking about.
And we're both big, it's probably obvious,
huge Coen brothers fans.
And we wanted to try something, if we're going to do
a rural and a city environment,
then maybe we do like, sort of two genres in the same film,
and we just let them live together
and nobody, we're funding it, and doing it ourselves,
so we don't really have to like justify it,
we can just try it and see if it works.
And we didn't know if it was going to work.
But, it was very--
Once it gets going, it was very
easy to see how, we'll set up this one,
and then we'll just
put them together in the third act.
- And I think any viewer knows
it's going somewhere with these two separate stories.
- Yeah, it takes a minute,
and then once they start understanding the relationship--
- So talk about your writing process a little bit.
Do you write everyday?
Do you tend to binge write, and then not write for awhile?
What's your process?
- So with Steven, we're both freelance,
so it's sort of like, do freelance gigs
to free up time to write,
and those schedules don't always match up,
so, usually we'll outline a whole idea,
and then, I'll do a full pass,
or he'll do a full pass,
or actually at the same time,
we each do a full pass, and then we swap,
and then we start debating, what stays and what goes,
so you end up...
If you're in love with a scene,
but you get out-argued on why his is better,
you're sort of like, okay, well,
I'm a little pissed that it's not my scene,
but, like, it's better now, so.
- Do you find that it helps you edit faster
as you write, when you write with a partner, or...
- We don't even sit in the same room
until we both have had a full pass, and then,
you know, read the other one's pass,
and start to like figure out,
what you're going to be fighting for,
and then, yeah, editing is pretty quick,
because at that point, you're already...
Basically, if you do your own pass,
like, if I had an idea that,
I want to hint at it here,
and then pay it off in 60 pages, or something like that,
but if you're co-writing, you don't really get a chance
to do that, because it may just go away.
But, now I've had my chance, it's in there,
and if it doesn't work, it's very clear it doesn't work,
so you don't have to really fight so much for it.
- Does your upbringing in Lodi
have anything to do with your sensibilities,
or your surroundings, does that affect how you write,
would you say?
- You mean in terms of like...
- Like characters you write, or
scenarios you might envision, or concept, you know?
- I don't know, I mean, I love Wisconsin,
I love the Midwest, I love where I'm from,
so I'm pretty, yeah, I mean, I'm heavily influenced
by all of that, I think.
- When you say you're a Coen brothers fan,
I've never met an indie filmmaker
who's not a Coen-- - Yeah, totally, completely--
- You never say, nah, I don't really care for their work.
- Required, yeah.
- But, like, they're Midwest guys,
and that comes out in their characters,
and obviously, you guys are trying to do the same thing,
with the guys at the diner, and Uncle John.
- I think we, Steve and I both talked about,
the Midwest is a really interesting setting,
and there's not a whole lot that gets set here.
I mean you made a film here as well.
It's a very--
Everyone has seen the coastal
stories, New York, and L.A. stuff,
so the Midwest is a huge, rich
exciting environment, yeah. - It's a gem, that hasn't
been cultivated, in my opinion.
I mean the Coen brothers do a pretty good job of it,
but you're right, there's a lot of great stories
that are un-harvested, yeah.
- And the characters are, you know,
people are a bit more,
grounded and everything here, so you--
It's going back to the question with John.
I mean you take a grounded guy who committed a murder
and now it's like, you know,
I don't know quite what to make of this guy, so.
- And, we're skeptical in the Midwest,
I think too in a way, like,
when I moved to L.A., I couldn't believe how nice
everybody was, and then you remember who you were
two days later, you know, whereas in the Midwest,
they kinda size you up first, and then,
you know, it's more of a process.
- Make sure you're taking it serious.
- Yeah exactly.
Well, let's see another clip from "Uncle John."
- I wanted to come by though, and give you a heads up.
- Heads up?
- Yeah, when we had Danny in the squad car,
he was going on about how he thinks Dutch has been murdered.
- That right?
- I don't know, he certainly has himself convinced,
but, uh, somehow or another,
he's naming you on it too, John.
- Me?
Huh.
How's that?
- No idea.
It's not just you.
It's a whole laundry list of suspects.
Ray Reynolds, Jake Maitland,
Old Don.
- Old Don?
- Yeah, in fact, we had to go over Don's place
the other day, he'd thought he saw Danny poking
around in his barn.
- No kidding.
- It all doesn't make much sense to me,
so I'm not trying to.
I talked to him already, and warned him about Danny as well.
They all just seemed just as confused.
- I'll bet.
- Aw yeah, he was going on and on
about how Dutch came over a week or so ago,
and started to get all high and mighty on him.
-You mind if I tend to something over here for a minute.
- No, no, no, go right ahead.
Yeah, I guess Dutch and him almost came to blows.
- No kidding. - Yeah.
Dutch came over and tried to apologize,
and asked him to repent or something.
Got real intense I guess.
I guess his power of prayer didn't stop his bullying though.
What was it he did for you?
- He just, you know, helped out.
A favor to Dede mostly.
- Oh, right.
Right.
They were any item there for a while, weren't they.
Right before her accident.
- Yeah, that was a tough time.
- We talked yesterday a little bit about
fundraising for independent films
What would you tell somebody,
having been through the process now,
what would you tell a filmmaker trying to find money
for a film how to go about it, where to start?
Do you have any advice for those watching right now?
- Aw sure, yeah, we, this was actually--
Steven kinda lit the fuse on this, but we
had been saving for a couple of years
a little bit to, to basically have enough money to make it
by ourselves with existing equipment if we had to.
And then in December, I think it was December of 2012,
the script was sort of, in a good spot,
and it takes place in the summer,
and Steven said okay, if we're going to do this,
we pick dates now, and then we back-time
everything into that, so,
we picked August, and then, just basically started
setting everything up.
We wrote a business plan.
We were, you know, we kind of had a plan, A, B, and C,
for like, A would be the highest budget,
C is what we have in hand right now,
and we should plan for A, but
if we can't raise that money, we have to go with C.
So the whole time we were doing this,
and thankfully, Gary Jesdanun, who's our EP,
came on board about six weeks away from shooting.
So, to that point, we had
struck out on basically everything.
All this fundraising, you know--
You have a phone call, it seems good,
and then nothing happens.
Very standard - Pretty stressful.
- Yeah, so we're getting closer and closer,
and we're starting to scale down,
and then Gary came in,
with enough money to get on the Alexa,
and to hire Mike Bove, and to have lenses.
So that was where all the money that we got went.
It was right into the camera department,
and that was it.
- It's so crazy.
I remember getting on a plane, coming to the Midwest
with about half the money I needed,
and about to start pre-production.
It was just terrifying, and somehow, you know,
the gods align, and it's a very stressful process though.
- We decided if we keep it,
even if we don't want to keep it, somewhat fluid,
we need to, and then if we can't raise as much as we want,
we just need to do it with this,
but we can't push, we gotta...
- We have about a minute left.
So I just, I have one more question for you.
What do you think-- Is it hard not to direct?
Like, you wrote it, you have a vision,
you can see how you want things to go,
was it hard for you not to direct?
And was it hard for you to tell your director maybe,
we can't afford that, as a producer?
- It's not-- with Steven it's not hard
for me not to direct because I trust Steven 1000 percent.
I love, writing is my favorite thing,
and writing with Steven is the top of writing, with me.
So, I feel like I've, whatever's happening we've already
talked about months earlier,
and now it's his to--
Steven's a great director, so I love him being in control.
But he affords me the respect of like, if,
if we can afford it, like,
he had dolly shots, we had a bigger crew planned,
and it came a point where I said,
you know, I don't see it.
I don't see how we can do this.
We have to go backwards with the time we're going to spend
on each scene, and the gear, and Steven said okay.
It wasn't really a fight.
We had a unified front the whole time.
- That's great, and I want to thank you for being here,
because I think writing is the most important
part of the process, so I love having a writer here.
Great talking to you today Erik,
and good luck with everything. - Thanks Pete, appreciate it.
Thank you.
- And thank you for watching "Director's Cut."
For more information on "Uncle John,"
please go to W, P, T, dot O, R, G,
and click on "Director's Cut."
While you're there, send us an email,
or find out how to submit a film.
Also, don't forget to like WPT on Facebook,
or follow us on Twitter.
I'm Pete Schwaba, and my question to you is,
how many people have your uncles killed, unbeknownst to you?
We'll see you next time on "Director's Cut."
[upbeat percussive music]
[birds sing]