Making of "Remnant": Pre-Production Week 1!

Ken: 00:00

It is imperative that telefilm and Creative BC start looking at carving out a portion of their slate to what could be deemed as mainstream commercial films films that are designed to make money and be seen in theaters or get major distribution deals. You know, that sort of thing.

Ken: 00:16

Hello and welcome to Off the Lot. The film industry is changing fast, and if you want to make movies, it's time to become your own gatekeeper. If you've got a vision and the drive to make it happen, this podcast is for you.

Anthony: 00:26

We're your host, Ken Kabatoff and Anthony EPP, and every week we dive into the hustle, challenges and strategies of independent filmmaking. We talk to directors, producers, and industry pros about what it really takes to get your film made on your own terms.

Ken: 00:38

Let's dive in.

Ken: 00:39

Here we are. We're back.

Anthony: 00:41

We are back. So this is episode two of season

two.

Ken: 00:45

All right. Yeah. It's, uh, it's it is good to be back. I was really looking forward to this all week, actually. And, um, and we've heard some

we've gotten tons of great messages from people over the last week who are listening to Off the Lot season two and really appreciating the, you know, sort of the new format. I think a lot of people are excited to talk about the making of this film and learning more about that. So that's reassuring.

Anthony: 01:08

I think. So, yeah. And it's kind of funny because I've had some people who listen to this last episode and said, I didn't know you guys had a podcast. So now we're getting now suddenly people are getting all that.

Ken:: 01:19

After all of last year, they still didn't know, but they somehow discovered it.

Anthony: 01:23

thirty episodes in and they're like, oh, it's like it's likediscovering a new show, right? A new television show. And you're like, I didn't realize this. And now they're binge listening to the entire series last year, discovering it.

Ken: 01:32

And there's like, there's four seasons of this show. Okay, I'm in, let's go back. But it is fun and I'm enjoying it. And I'm glad we're still able to do this, uh, before it gets too crazy on my end. Um, but again, we're gonna we're gonna push through and make it happen. But, um, Anthony, I noticed this week you've been posting about the quiet Canadians and getting that trained to leave the station again. So what's going on there? How's that coming together?

Anthony: 01:58

Yeah. Long story short, we got to the end of twenty twenty five, and we finished this big project with Blue Box, which we talked about last week, and we were talking about it and we're like, look like the focus for 2026. What's that going to be? And we were like this is how we're doing it kind of year for for the quiet Canadians. So we have we have set it up that this movie is going to get made. We one way or another, we've got a couple of plans in place to, to to get the film financed. Um, we've been talking to some financiers and kind of setting up the rhythm and the there's a phrase like, just like setting up in sales. It's like that whole thing of just repeatable actions that you can take in order to go out and meet with people and so on. And so it's like, okay, I'm going to send an email today. I'm going to do a post on LinkedIn. Today, I'm going to do a post on social media today. And it's like building that audience for the film.

Ken: 02:46

The the Nathan Berry flywheel. Right?

Anthony: 02:49

Yeah, exactly. The Nathan Berry flywheel and very much in line. You know, like we interviewed Darren Smith last year about creating that ecosystem of demand for a project and then looking at what remnant is doing, what your project is doing in terms of the social media behind the scenes and building that audience as well. It's a good time to get those trains going. And so we've been doing the same thing this week with quiet Canadians. The objective is to basically spend the next three to six months putting together different financing stages. So we have a set plan for the next ninety days. We'll finish that in in March, and then we have a sort of a ninety day plan leading up to summer. And then presuming everything gets into place, having ourselves ready to film this by early fall.

Ken: 03:29

Are you going to reapply for telefilm regional or national this year?

Anthony: 03:34

No, we've taken ourselves out of that. We've just decided to focus all of that attention on to pitching investors and brand sponsors. So that's the idea. We said, let's take that attention out not to take away from telefilm at all. We just we put a lot of energy into that last year, and we think that we can better focus it towards finding the right partners to to come on board with and then keeping telefilm as that back door for

post-production if we're able to get them on board, as we find out with lots of things. Right. Um, you find that the, the people you wanted to fund your film come in after you've already made the film. So.

Ken: 04:09

Well, exactly. As soon as remnant became a go movie, it was it was like we had to bat people away from wanting to to come on board, and everything became so much easier. My analogy is like, you're sitting in a rocket ship about to leave Earth's atmosphere, and the ship is shaking and rattling and you think the whole rocket's going to explode, and then you break through and it's just you're floating in this peaceful, serene space and it's just quiet and calm for a moment. And that's that's the moment when your movie is greenlit and you can tell everybody it's happening. That's what that moment feels like. Now, where I'm at is we're

reentering Earth's atmosphere and the ship is shaking again and crazy and falling and, you know, you think it's going to explode because now we're in pre-production and production. But just to go back, I think your approach is great. And here's the thing. Your film is not a telefilm film. My film is not a telefilm film. Like, I think these programs are

great. They should exist. But like we've talked about before, they've created a system that is oversubscribed. And they are, based on my experience, looking for more prestige dramas of some kind that could play at festivals and win awards. And they're not necessarily looking to make commercial films. And I think right now with where the industry is at and this whole, you know, last year was all by Canadian elbows up all of this stuff, right. Look at how the economies of the world are changing and the, the dynamics and the and the relationships. We have to start thinking about how we can bolster the Canadian film industry. And, you know, you and I are on a, on a text chain with a whole bunch of other producers about trying to figure out other ways. And, you know, from a policy perspective about how to help indie film in this country. And I think that it is imperative that telefilm and creative BC start looking at carving out a portion of their slate to what is what could be

deemed as like mainstream commercial films, films that are designed to make money and be seen in theaters or get major distribution deals or, you know, that sort of thing. And again, that's it's all subjective. You can't just quantify that. Exactly. But yeah, it's become a thing. And I'm going to be more vocal about it because like three times we've applied to telefilm twice for creative BC and creative BC even told me in August that our application was so good and we were one hundred thousand dollars short that we should reapply. So we spent a whole bunch of time redoing the application, only to get denied again, and it was a complete and utter waste of time. And so if you can avoid it, I recommend go out there and do it and get it done yourself. Don't rely on these programs.

Anthony: 06:48

And I one hundred percent agree with you. And I think that see what people say. Oh, you know, how much time does it take to apply? It does take time, but it also just takes bandwidth. It takes hours to put these applications together and to be constantly waiting. And then you sort of put yourself into that realm where I'd rather be be taking that approach and applying it to finding partners who can help make the film happen. Like there are not ten telefilms out there. They're not ten creative pieces out there that you can. That's right. If one says no, you go to the next one, you go to the next one, you go to the next one. And I think that that's where we, uh, you know, there really is only one option. If you want to get government funding, you have to go this, this route in order to do it. And the onus then we kind of we kind of give away responsibility of ourselves, I think, in a way where as filmmakers, you know, you with your with your movie and me with my movie, it's like we sort of we outsource the responsibility of funding to someone else, to someone else giving us that permission structure to say like, yes, you

can, you can go make. You're allowed to go make your film. You know, we've we've given it our, our government blessing. And what we need to do is take control of that back. And I mean, that's from all of our interviews like with Emily, with with Emily best with with Darren, with all these people last year who just they just went and made the movie. They figured out they got they, they put things together and um, and some of that too is also taking what you have and making it work in a budget level that can be actually financed and actually also can be recoverable

because, you know, I mean, I don't think it's a secret, but you're not making a movie for ten million dollars.

Ken: 08:25

That's right.

Anthony: 08:26

That's going to require thirty million dollars to make a profit. You know, you've got a you've got a good budget, a budget that will make a quality film but has a good chance of making its money back. But that's the idea is like like like like you're not. This is not a lottery ticket,

right? Like, you haven't signed people up for a lottery ticket, like, ooh, you know, if only we get into the right film festival, this will work. It's like. No, like there's a there's a you've got, you've got and you're in a genre that that historically does has, has reasonable rate of return, um, and reasonable expectations there. And you've and but that you're not just you're not just relying on that to make the film work. You're you've got some elevated elements that are going to give it that extra push over the finish line. And and like you said, we can we can talk more about that as we get into it. But um, to, to kind of pivot over, uh, you mentioned you're, you're entering the Earth's atmosphere here. So this is you just ended week one of pre-production, uh, official pre-production, I should say, on pre-production. Yeah. Because I know you've been working on this for, for for years, but, um, official

pre-production this week. Uh, take me through the week. What was it like?

Ken: 09:33

Yeah, it's, um, it's been quite a week. It's been both the fastest and the longest week of my life. Um, we basically Started on Monday, January twelfth. And you know, I have my calendar here, which I thought might be fun to kind of go through and just tell you what meetings I had this week and sort of what that how that broke out. Because again, with a with a

feature film, normally you have between eight to twelve weeks of

prep, right, depending on the size of the movie. I did a big Lionsgate feature in the summer that I did not direct. I was just a script coordinator and that had twelve weeks of prep even. That was pretty tight for the size of the movie, which was, um, over thirty million dollars and an indie might get between, what, five or six weeks would you say of pre-production, if you're lucky? Yeah, that's that's luxury, right? Yeah, exactly. So our film has officially three weeks of pre-production. And what I mean by officially is just that's when all of the crew is actually on the clock getting paid. We're working together and and pushing this boulder up the hill. Now, soft prep went on for five months, and that's where a lot of the heavy lifting happened. Like I explained last week, we found our key location multiple locations. We got most of our casting done and a huge shout out to our casting director, Tina Marie McCulloch, who is a total rock star. I can't recommend her enough. Um, just really, really great to work with. And we got the best cast. I'm so excited about this cast, and we'll talk about that soon. We're going to make an announcement, but if you're in Vancouver or Calgary, hire Tina. I can't recommend her enough. But we did all of these things in soft prep. And so getting into official prep now, this is really where it's all about the execution of the things that you set up. So on Monday I had a meeting

with my DP. And right now my DP is actually in Brazil. He's originally from there, and so he's visiting family over the holidays. And so we're just we've been zooming, uh, for the last couple of weeks just talking about the shot list, the visual style. And there's a big portion of

this movie that takes place I don't really want to say in like an alternate reality, but sort of a more nightmarish version of this house that we're in. And so it's really about defining what that looks like and what are the rules of that world. From a visual standpoint, how are we actually shooting it? How does the lighting work? And like, what are the cool things that we can do on our indie budget? And like, what kind of toys can we bring into this to just make it cool and exciting? Um, but then we had our concept meeting, and so, you know, all about concept meetings as a, as an ad. You've run these things a whole bunch. What what is a concept meeting for our listeners?

Anthony: 12:13

I mean, it depends on the stage that you're at, you're at in production. But where you're at, I'm going to imagine this and you can correct me, but it's basically you kind of do a script read through, but not from the standpoint of the of the, you know, getting the dialogue right or anything. But it's more it's all for the crew, right? It's all for the key creatives and the crew. So, um, as an, as a, as an ad, I basically take the script and I tell the story of the script, but from the standpoint of these are the this is scene one and we're here. So scene one interior this where daytime night, whatever we've got. And then a short synopsis, which as an assistant director will have gone through the entire script and turned each and every scene into like a six to ten word synopsis of what happens in that scene. And so as an ad, you take that, you take the, the key crew and who and partners through the script from beginning to end and then start listing off the elements in the, in the script that are the production elements that need to be considered or that. And a lot of this has come from my from your conversation with the director, um, and things like that, where, you know, so you've gotten a little bit of, of heads up on what the director and what, what some of the creative elements are, but you're basically taking everybody through and going, okay, so in this scene we've got these two characters this this happens. So we're going to need this stunt. We're going to need this special effect. Um, we also need to have greens here for this or we need to have set Dec is going to be preparing this props we need props or this blah blah blah. And then and then kind of take everybody through each and every scene, let people ask questions along the way. So costumes is going to have question at scene five. They're going to have a question. Oh is this is the wardrobe this way now or what's happened here or are we changing. It's not really. You're not drilling into super detail on all of that. It's just more high level questions to help help. And the essential purpose of all of this is to turn the script, which is this creative work of poetry that you and your writer have been working on for years and turning into a work order. It's like, what are we making and how are we making it? And you're giving you're giving direction to your key departments so that they can then go off and do their work. And then eventually you'll have key and very specific department meetings where you'll drill into the like, you know, what color is the cufflink kind of

questions and things like that. So that's kind of it. And it it can last. You know it can it can it can you. Everybody gets some coffee and snacks and things. And I mean, you have to kind of prepare for a couple hours at least.

Ken: 14:41

It's a long one. Yeah, it's a long one. And and that's exactly right. I mean, you totally nailed it. And it is it's the high level overview. But in our case because Prep is limited, we did get into some details. And it's also just one of those things. As we're going through the scene I'll make sure to mention to special effects like, hey, by the way, um, this is the way that this effect should go in my mind. But like, we can talk about that now, or we can wait for our meeting. But just so you know, from a budgetary perspective, keep that in mind.

Anthony: 15:11

Yeah. And I'll jump right in on that just a little bit. Because the real key thing here is it's the it's the one time you have everybody in the room together. That's right. And it's hard. It's hard sometimes because when we all go off on our own, you know, we do things just specifically for our department. But this is the one time where like, you know, stunts, special effects, costumes and so on are all in the same room. And those three departments all might have to work together on one particular thing. And so it's good to get your as the director overview of what you're looking for, so that then they can start talking together and they know oh okay. So we need to worry about this together as a team. We need to work together.

Ken: 15:44

Well you know you think like okay, let's go location scouting and then find a location. And now the wall color of that location might be fine for me and maybe our production designer, but then not for our costume designer or our DP. And so everybody needs to be a part of these conversations. And every department really is intertwined, even though sometimes it may not feel like it. And so the concept meeting was

great. Ours was three hours long. We all had coffees. Um, but it was it was just awesome to get everybody together. Now it was it was over zoom because people are all over the place and we have a little production office. We don't have a massive production office like a big studio film would that that could house everybody. So we're sort of working in a

hybrid situation right now. Um, but that also works for a lot of people because I think given the limited prep time, I really don't want people stuck in traffic, you know, for two or two or three hours a day driving to a meeting when they could be at home working or researching or getting stuff done. And so this hybrid method is really working for us so far. And, uh, and I like it, generally speaking, I much prefer to have in-person meetings as much as possible. And so this week I've been doing a mix of of online and in person. It just depends on our crew availability because some some department heads are volunteering, some a little bit of prep time for a meeting, but then, you know, they'll be with us full time when we're shooting. So you kind of have to just respect people's schedules as well, given the circumstances that we're we're a very small movie, but so far it's been coming together. So we did the concept meeting on Monday and felt great. That was also the first day where I was like, oh, this is real. This is actually happening. This is a real like there was a it really hit me when at the end of the day, our production

coordinator sent out an email with the prep memo. And the prep memo is a document that goes out at the end of each prep day that outlines the

schedule for the week, but specifically tomorrow's schedule, because these prep memos are mere suggestions for how this week is going to go. Things pop up, meetings change, everything shifts around. So all you really can focus on is what is what is happening tomorrow?

Anthony: 17:53

Yeah, I always.

Ken: 17:53

Say what time.

Anthony: 17:55

Prep memo is like an inventory of what needs to happen. And and a lot of those meetings, even even the ones that that have times with next time like three p m on Wednesday or whatever are like, you know.

Ken: 18:07

We'll see.

Anthony: 18:08

Yeah. We'll see. You know, it's like we're aiming for three, but I there's there's almost always an automatic email going out fifteen minutes before three going, hey, this meeting's been pushed to four or till tomorrow or something like that. Yeah.

Ken: 18:21

But the email hit my inbox and I looked at it and it was like, you know, here's the prep memo for Remnant Day two. And it was like from Remnant Productions with our address and office. You know, it was just it that's

when it really hit me. I'm like, oh, this is a movie. This is real. And it felt amazing.

Anthony: 18:40

You never lose that feeling. And it's still and it's still fresh enough. Where where that's actually exciting. Yeah.

Ken: 18:46

Yeah, yeah. And, um, so then day two, we had first up, uh, I wanted to have an art department meeting because, um, we have this amazing production designer on board, Cheryl Marion, who has brought on just an incredible team. I feel so lucky. Like, totally punching above our

weight here. Okay, if you look up Cheryl's credits, it's insane. And so we're thrilled to have her and her team on board. But with, again, the limited prep, most of the way that this prep is working is because of its limited. And we have to make sure that we're being as efficient as possible. So I wanted to have an art department meeting to just really talk about what the interior of this big house looks like. And the thing about this house is it's a beautiful old heritage home on Zero Avenue. It literally, like, right across the street is the United States. And there isn't even a wall or a fence or anything. It's just if you just cross the ditch, Homeland Security will arrest you. Um, and so we're right there on the border, but it's this beautiful property, heritage home. But the interior walls are like kind of a light, peachy color. And it really doesn't work for a horror film, right? If you're trying to make that

room scary, it's just going to bounce light around everywhere. And so we have to paint most of the interior of the house. And so a lot of prep work has to go into designing the look of the interiors. And the other thing about this house is that it's completely empty. And so because it's owned by the city of Vancouver and that's good because it's it's empty. We don't have to like put the owners up in hotel or get all of their furniture out. But that also means that now we have to dress the entire thing. It doesn't have a refrigerator. It doesn't have a stove. Right? Like everything. So that gets expensive. And so I just wanted to have

this art department meeting. And Cheryl shared her boards, her her design concepts for each room. And I was blown away. It just so many things clicked into place. And this is my favorite part about working with talented people and just being able to to do this job is that, you know, Chris and I, we've been working on this story for two years. We have an idea of what this movie looks and feels like. All of a sudden, you bring super talented people into the fold, and then they share their ideas about what they saw reading the script. And not only is it in the, you

know, right in line with yours, it elevates what you had in every single way. And then I looked at Cheryl's boards and I was like, oh, I didn't realize, yeah, yeah, we could do this. Oh, and this is a cool character

thing that we could do. And it just brought this movie to life. And so coming out of that meeting, I was so thrilled. And I any, any sort of fear I had about being able to pull this off from a production design perspective in the in the time that we have, it all went away. I'm very, very happy with how things are coming together.

Anthony: 21:37

Yeah, and that's fantastic. And you really hit on it like having those art department meetings early. And I mean, I would probably throw like wardrobe and a couple other departments in there as well. I mean, a lot of their heavy lifting work is happening now. It's not going to be when

they're when they're shooting. I mean, yeah, like when we're shooting, we're kind of in triage and so on. But the biggest job that they have right now is getting all the stuff that you need, constructing it, painting all that other stuff. That all has to happen before you even start filming. And that's the big job. I mean, once the room's painted, they don't have to go back in and paint it again during production. Right?

Ken: 22:09

So exactly.

Anthony: 22:10

They need to get going. Like, for them, production started already. Like they're already they.

Ken: 22:14

Have to acquire the rentals. They have to buy all the furniture and you know, it's look, it's it's an indie right. So it's Facebook Marketplace

trying to get deals at rental houses, whatever we can find. We have a little bit of construction that we have to do as well. We have to build a wall in in a shed. We have to um, there's a property, a piece of the property out behind the house that we have to change into, like a burnt down house area. So this all takes construction budget and more bodies to, to pull this off. And so all of this has to be designed and figured out in advance. And so, you know, that's that's where things are at their after the art department meeting, we had a schedule review. We have a fantastic first AD who I think, you know, uh, Carolee Kingsbury.

Anthony: 22:58

Yeah, I yeah. She's great.

Ken: 23:00

Yeah. Natalie's, um. Fantastic. She's, uh, just this rising star. In ten years, she's going to be no less than that. In five years, she's going to be one of the best first ADs in Vancouver. And. And she's just been killing it. And so she's in charge of the the production or the one line schedule. And so the one line schedule is the the very detailed breakdown of the production days, exactly like the scene order, uh, wardrobe changes, makeup times, all of this. You're figuring out exactly how this movie is going to be shot. Um, and we had a schedule review just to make sure that all of the other departments can work with the schedule that we have. And I know you've been through this before because something might work for me or cast availability the DP, but then it doesn't work for production design. And of course, that that sort of happened where one of the issues that we were battling earlier this week was this house kind of needs to be changed over from a clean state to a dirty state. Yeah. And the schedule worked. But then for for art, it was like, okay, well, we can't just keep going back and forth from clean to dirty. So how do we reorder these scenes so that we can limit those changeovers and not pull our set decorators or set dressers away from the other work that they have to be doing, maybe even prepping the next day set. And so these are all things that you have to factor into. How do I shoot scene four.

Anthony: 24:22

Yeah. And that's where you start to realize like the you know, people always say how, you know, how how does it work for the drama of the film shooting so weirdly out of order and all these other things which those are the factors that come into play and it's like, who wins the day? Usually the art department, because their workload to turn over a set is so huge, and oftentimes they're under departmentalized, if you will. They don't have they yeah, they don't have enough people to do what needs to happen. And also they literally can't be turning the set over while you're filming in it. So there is there is quite literally like they they cannot start their job in turning in changing a set like that until you're out of there. And I mean by out of there, it means like you like everybody, you're filming somewhere else while they're doing that and that that's that dance of like, we've got the perfect schedule. And then what we do is we have to now run that perfect schedule through all the opposing forces, cast schedules, all these other things. I like to say it's like a plan for a football game or something like that. It's like you plan all week for the football game and then you. The first two minutes are when you go to school and find out what wasn't part of the plan. Yeah. And that's and that's what you're going that's what you're going through there. And it's and sometimes it can be very frustrating because of course you're like, oh, this, this all lined up perfectly, but now it doesn't. And then you realize, you know, your cast member is going to be coming in a day later than you hoped they would be, and now you can't. You have to rejig around that or something. So yeah. So so in the end, after all of that scheduling meeting, have you gotten a new schedule? Have you figured has it has it has it lined up? Has it kind of come back into focus again? Like in other words, you made a schedule. We broke it and now we we're bringing it back together. Has it come back together?

Ken: 26:00

Uh, yeah, it should be actually, uh, sent out sometime later this morning and, uh, and it's a good schedule. And then there are also a few other factors that went into that, that, uh, that changed it, I think the next day. And, uh, and that was location dependent. Right. And so there's all of these other things that you have to keep in mind. Um, but at the end of Tuesday, we had a wardrobe meeting with her costume designer, Jada Hay, who is killing it. And and it was just fun to go through and see all of the different wardrobe styles or wardrobe selections for each of our lead characters, and then also talk more about the concepts of some of it because, like, it wasn't entirely, um, some of the scenes weren't fleshed out yet because we just hadn't had a chance to discuss what that scene is about or what sort of wardrobe would work there. And also the location hadn't been found yet. So that also plays a big factor Right. And Jada and Cheryl need to talk about, well, what color is the wall? What does the set deck look like? And so now that we have Cheryl's boards, we can show the color palette and the tone of the movie. And then that will influence wardrobe and that'll influence lighting. And you see, it's like it's constantly shifting, but everybody's working together. But wardrobe was great. Yeah.

Anthony: 27:11

Yeah. And it's really important. Like like like movies, especially, uh, in the horror genre, the color and the theme and the tone of of of all of these, like the, the, the visual is so important. Like you like you can't like that. That matters so much because everything is symbolic. I mean, obviously we don't, you know, when we see the movie, we'll know we'll get it. But it's that idea of like, all of these things are very, very important and they have to be dialed in and they have to be dialed in really specifically. Yeah. And I want to I want to lean into color in this film.

Ken: 27:43

I'm this is you know, I say this is like a horror thrill ride in the vein of insidious, The Conjuring sinister. But if you look at insidious, it

is it's an incredibly desaturated it's not a it's not a nice image to look at. And I want saturation is our friend here. I want to lean into color. I want that to be a part of it. And so tonally, this should feel

incredibly frightening, but also a little welcoming. and it should be a nice image to, to to view. And all of that plays in thematically as well. So we're playing with that. The next day we had a stunt meeting and our stunt coordinator, John Kralt, is top tier, one of the best in Vancouver. He his latest film was Tron Ares. Um, I worked with him last summer on, uh, karoshi, which is going to be coming out later this year, I think.

Anthony: 28:32

So he does Indies.

Ken: 28:33

Yeah, exactly. That indie film. Tron: Ares. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's been really fun working with John because I'm like, John, like we're the studio. So if you come up with a cool idea that we can afford, like, and it's safe, let's do it right. There's no bureaucracy, there's nothing. There's you don't have to go to business affairs or you don't have to deal with the studio executives. Like, just if we want to do it, we can do it. And so that's been really fun. And we're going to have a meeting next week on location to to adjust one of the stunts and just make it cooler and and figure out another way to, to pull it off. So that was great. And then the rest of Wednesday was followed by a long location scout to a hardware store. So we found a hardware store, and we found a hardware store that could tie into this parking lot. And that sort of made up our very first day of filming. But, um, you know, it budgetarily it's not the best situation. Let's just say that. So I was thinking, well, let's look at some alts in that area. And the other thing about our

movie is that we have to shoot outside the zone. And so for anybody unfamiliar with that, there's basically a map of the Lower Mainland of

Vancouver, the Greater Vancouver area, and there's a line on the

map, basically the border, the border of Langley and Surrey. And if you shoot past that line, you qualify for a regional tax credits. And, um, that is a lot of money for an indie film that you get back from the government. And so if we shoot the entire movie outside of the zone, that that's a lot of money that we get to put on screen. And so basically we're limited to that area. And so we we're looking for a hardware store out there. And we found an amazing one I love it I love it I'll update you next week if if we locked it. But that's in the works right now. And then. So we were sort of rebuilding our day there. Uh, what a potential day one could look like. But then we found this amazing other location called canopy. Now I have to give them a shout out as well. Um, Tara, who used to be you film there? Yeah, yeah, Tara, who used to be an arm. Her and her partner are the liaisons of this place, and it's wild. So it's in the middle of nowhere in, like, langley-aldergrove on zero Ave, and it's a three hundred million dollar cannabis cannabis grow op facility that went bankrupt at ninety five percent completion. So it's it's insane. There's a but it has everything. There's a corporate building. There's a giant parking lot. There's acres of land. There's a laboratory inside of

it. All of these bay doors, stage space, everything. And they're turning it into a film studio. And it's wild. So you shot there?

Anthony: 31:14

I've shot there. Yeah, it's just funny. It's like. It's like you said, it's ninety five percent completed. Imagine having an entire building that was used for an industrial like industrial work like, but was never actually used like, none of those machines were ever actually turned on because they never they didn't quite get to the point where they were in production. So all the piping, all everything, all of it's set up, it's been built, it's industrial grade built. So it's like super strong and

everything, like nothing's falling apart, but nothing was ever turned on. Like they never just that.

Ken: 31:44

one machine is a million dollar cannabis oil generator.

Anthony: 31:48

Yeah, yeah, but but it looks like like, I don't know, there's a bunch of rooms in there that I remember walking through. Even the rooms we never like, there's, like, we used maybe ten percent of the space, but ninety

percent of it. Walking around. I was like, God, this, this is like you could shoot everything here if you wanted to.

Ken: 32:05

Well, yeah you could. So one is, um, thank you to Tara for showing us around. We're really trying to shoot there. We're basically in the midst of figuring that out right now. And if it's going to work for our schedule and, uh, and our budget. But if you're in Vancouver and you were looking to film somewhere, talk to canopy. They have everything. And I know that they could use the work. I was like, I just want to write a movie and shoot the whole thing here because it literally has everything. And what's really cool is as we were walking through, there was construction crews just working in like one giant room and she's like, this is where the courtroom is going to be. And then the next room over,

this is where our hospital set is going to be. So they're building all of these little mini sets that each production can make their own for their movie. And so for us, it has a hospital set. We need a hospital set. Um, it has bay doors that can kind of feel like an ambulance station. So so we're making that work. It has a lunchroom type area. It has a corporate law firm lobby looking area. It has parking lots. It has everything. And it's a huge space for your whole unit to come in. So it's a studio. You base everything there. So all of a sudden we just found this magical place that that checks all of our boxes. And at the end of Wednesday, I was like, okay, if this works out, we have all of our locations and it's looking very likely. So I'll update you next week if it goes through. And if it doesn't go through, we have to just keep scouting and we have to find other spots to to make that work. But but that's what happened there. And then Thursday we had our props meeting. Um, and that was so fun. I love props, and because it's just, it's the little details that nobody really ever thinks about. But it was it was really cool to

talk to our, uh, key props person, Sarah Julia Juricic, uh, who just knocked it out of the park. First try. We all of the props that she

came up with, the ideas for this, these books and the details for these knives and, you know, straps and all. It's kind of tough to explain without the context of the movie, but let's just say it was a very fun meeting, and I look forward to getting my hands literally on some of these things. That's like the toy store, right?

Anthony: 34:17

So yeah, exactly. Being in the toy store. Yeah. Yeah. Props and props. And I mean, you know, all of these elements are really, you know, obviously story driven, but props and wardrobe is where you start to also feel like your, your characters have life to them. Right. Like because there's things that you're giving to them now or you're starting to, like, make decisions or come up with ideas that of what your what these what these characters are going to be using for that thing that you wrote in your script, like you wrote a thing in your script. And now we see three options for what that thing looks like. You know, even something as

simple as briefcase. Briefcase has five different as well ten different options for what a briefcase looks like, but the briefcase tells you what the character is one hundred percent. And that's, I'm sure, what you're going through. And that was my best way of sort of steering clear of any story points that might give up the ghost. But just, you know, that idea of like, you know, the characters are defined by those kinds of things, like wardrobe says a lot and, and, and props says a lot about who this person is.

Ken: 35:17

Well, besides the written word like dialogue, um, wardrobe and props are the fastest way to establish a character on screen, right? Right. It's it's it's instantaneous. If somebody walks into a room wearing a certain wardrobe that that should tell you everything about that character in a second and before they even open their mouth. Right. And so, yeah, props. It was a great meeting. And and again, there was just a moment where I saw a prop that I have been thinking about for two years, but to see a version of it made me realize, oh, That means her relationship with her father was like this. And oh, and then I can play with this element of it. And that motivates this part. And it's again, just your story coming to life.

Anthony: 36:02

Yeah. It's backstory without without exposition.

Ken: 36:05

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And then we had a location meeting shortly after that, because that location scout that we had earlier in the week, one of the the plans that we had in place didn't go through. So we had to we had to pivot and find an alternative to make this one location work. And what I mean by that is, is that hardware store scenario, we really want the hardware store, but the parking lot situation didn't really work in our favor. And so we have to find a parking lot nearby, literally across the street, across, you know, a block away, two blocks away. And so we're calling around trying to find places that we can park our unit to still keep this one location work. Now we have backup plans in case this doesn't work out, but that's sort of what the location meeting was about running our crew. Our department heads through that scout to canopy that we had to say, hey, look. Is everybody happy with with this location? Because if so, then let's pursue this and let's lock this down so that we can start prepping with this in mind. And everybody seemed ecstatic about it. And so we'll just see where all of this lands.

Anthony: 37:10

Yeah. And that's always a good thing. And I mean obviously it's Thursday. So you know you kind of have to uh, I imagine you guys are doing this, but you kind of have to do that a little bit of a recap of like, what have we discovered this week? And, and are we all on board because we now we have the weekend and then we have to go into week two.

Ken: 37:29

Anthony: 37:53

You don't feel like you don't feel like you're being given like, like a sort of. Oh, well, I guess kind of. Oh, well, I suppose that'll work

kind of moments.

Ken: 38:02

That's right, that's right. Yeah. These are like, if I had, you know, a blank check, I would say still say, oh, this is, this is fantastic.

Anthony: 38:09

And those constraints actually maybe help a lot because they force those decisions to happen fast. But also that doesn't that means that you're you're not you're not spending three weeks looking for like the perfect scenario, but you're you're getting that ninety percent scenario that can be made ninety nine percent with a little bit of love.

Ken: 38:26

That's right, that's right. Absolutely. And then, um, for the rest of

yesterday, I finally had some time to just focus on my director prep, because one of the issues that I've been up against this entire week is just I've been in meetings, I've been taking phone calls and answering emails, wearing both the director and the producer hat. And it's not a problem, but it's just tough to sit down and have an hour or two to yourself to just focus on the script or the shot list or blocking. And so yesterday I was able to power through and finish off all of my floor plans and my shot list. I'm going to polish that up today and over the weekend, and then we'll have something super solid to show the crew next week. And that'll continue to be revised as we prep. But I just wanted that floor plan document so that everybody knows what the blocking for the scenes is at this current stage. It's totally going to change once we show up to set and actors get there and they have their own opinions. But this is at least a plan to to move forward with.

Anthony: 39:23

Yeah, it's just like everything here. You have to have that in place because of course, you know, you're going to find out when you're actually there shooting or even just a few days before that. Certain things will need to be adjusted. But you can't start from zero on

day one. You have to start from somewhere around seven or eight out of ten and get yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's up to yesterday that gets you through yesterday.

Ken: 39:46

That took me to last night. Yeah. And then here we are Friday morning at the end of week one. And what I have today is, uh, in about five minutes I have a visual effects meeting. And that's going to be illuminating. Let's just say that. But that will basically be a page turn with my visual effects supervisors to figure out exactly what is a visual effect, what's going to what's going to be practical, how do we shoot some of these things? Do we even need this shot, that sort of thing? And then at noon, we're going to have a makeup and hair meeting, uh, which is fun for horror because we have a lot of makeup effects as well. And we have a fantastic hair and makeup team, uh, whose credits are awesome. And I love their work. So I'm very excited to talk about, like, demons and, you know, blood and scars and eyes and all of that good, fun stuff. All the fun stuff. And then at three o'clock today, we have a playback meeting and what playback is. For those that are unaware, it's basically like the the anything that has to do with a screen. So like a cell phone or computer screen, television, whatever's on that screen has to be designed and sometimes animated, but it has to be created because you generally just can't use, you know, the operating system for Apple or Android on your phone without getting legal clearance. And so in this case, we just have like a phone screen designed purposely for the movie. And then that way we don't we're not going to get sued. Right. And so that meeting is just figuring out what's on the phone screen. How does it work? Uh, how does it operate? And just all of those little tiny details that you almost never think about. But if they're not there, you're going to wonder where they are.

Anthony: 41:29

Well, it's also that it's a testimonial to like modern day technology versus, say, twenty years ago, where the idea of having screens on your phone was such a non-issue, whereas nowadays that is a that is a, that is a thing. Like when you talk to someone on the phone, half the time you're seeing their face.

Ken: 41:46

Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony: 41:47

Right. Yeah.

Ken: 41:48

And in our movie we have a zoom call. So we have to talk about, well, how how is that going to be shot and how is it going to look and who's doing that. You know. ET cetera. ET cetera.

Anthony: 41:57

Yeah. And logistically, how does that work? Because, you know, a zoom call, for example, is the person actually live? Is are you are you hearing it pre-recorded? Because because those zoom calls will be in two different sets and both sets have to be lit. And, and so, you know, for the, for the, for when you think about that you go, well, what we used to do is we used to film when we had a phone call, we would just, you know, film, film the other side of the phone call when we were on the other set. That's another day. But here, now we're seeing both sets. So now it's a decision that has to be made of. Are we how do we logistically

make that work?

Ken: 42:30

Yeah. Yeah. And in our case, we are going to be doing it live and we'll have an actor on a different set. And so we just have to make sure that the Wi-Fi is strong enough, etc., etc. all of these little issues. But but that's the rest of today. And then next week will be more meetings, a lot more nuanced and detailed. Director DP prep, we're going to have our tech survey. Um, yeah. And so we'll get into that. And uh, all the fun stuff.

Anthony: 42:59

This feels like a sprint. This just feels like a sprint. Like you're like, there's so much happening in three weeks, uh, and, uh, and you and and, you know, you have the time, but you don't have the time. Like, there's enough time to get it all done, but not a lot of room for error in terms of days like, you know, nobody gets a day off between now and, uh, and the end of production.

Ken: 43:22

Well, certainly not not me or my producing partners, but but, you know, rest is important. And I hope that our crew is taking some time for themselves in the evenings and on weekends. But yeah, it's a sprint. But it's also, I don't know, I feel just after this week I I feel so confident in our team and the things that I've seen that, yeah, we're going to pull this off. Things come up. They always come up during

production, but like you said, you have to plan, you have to have a plan and just understand that it's going to be thrown out the window when you show up. But at least you know what it is so.

Anthony: 43:54

Well and your team is there to help you through those crises, right? Like like the crisis management is part of making a movie. There's, you know, there is every every day. There's a there's a every day there's an unforeseen problem. And every day there's a problem that you kind of maybe thought would be a problem. And you're always working through those. And that's, that's if you if you think you're going to prep everything and be one hundred percent and then just have that go exactly according to plan for the entire shoot, you're delusional. And it's never going to happen that way. But that's okay, because that's not you're not trying to achieve that. You're trying to achieve preparedness so that all these crises have methods and plans to address crisis and who's dealing with what, and so on, you know, and going there. So I guess to because you, you know, I know you have a visual effects meeting coming up. Let's put a bookend to this. What's the one thing you learned this week or maybe overall message you learned this week that you wish you'd known a week ago?

Ken: 44:47

Oh, that's a good question. Um.

Anthony: 44:50

Or is there anything is there any new revelation that's come out, uh, from this week that, uh, has, has kind of changed, changed how you view your role or changed how you're viewing the film or the production process.

Ken: 45:02

Well, it's not that there's been a new revelation about how I'm doing my job, but it's it's reinforced my belief that I have to give my department heads and the people around me the room to bring something to the table,

which I always believed in. But this week it was. It was proven right that if you give yourselves, if you give your department heads, the people around you, creative freedom, great things will happen. You know, as a director, so much of my job is actually just delegating and just saying yes or no to things, to ideas that are presented to me, rather than always coming up with the ideas. I'm not a wardrobe expert. I'm not an interior designer of some kind. I don't know much about those things, but I know if it's going to work with the story thematically and for the characters. And so it's always this great collaboration with these experts that are around me, and that's that's what I love doing. And so on that note, though, I actually do have to run. I have a visual effects meeting. And so why don't we chat next week? I'll tell you about it next week. Thanks again and good luck.

Anthony: 46:05

Good luck with the rest of the week.

Ken: 46:06

Okay, so that's it for this week's episode of Off the Lot. We want to hear from you if there are any topics you want covered or any questions you'd like answered, please email us at podcast.offthelot@gmail.com.

Anthony: 46:17

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