D (1:18)

And that's this episode. You try rock your money for free@rockabuddy.com Levonate.

A (1:24)

You're my friend. I figured you should pull me out. All right, ready? We're live. Beating take 643.

D (1:36)

Action.

B (1:36)

Okay, I can do this. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Lemonade Stand and welcome to our special guest markiplier. Welcome on to the Lemonade Stand. We always do. An awkward answer. Particularly awkward.

A (1:45)

That was good.

B (1:46)

Today we're going to be talking all about the five nights at Freddy's Lore. And if we have time, we're going to be talking about Iron Lung, the movie that you just released that has been wildly successful. Over $2 is what you just said. It has made in the.

C (1:57)

It is over two. Yeah.

B (1:59)

And under 51.

C (2:01)

And somewhere in that range. Place your bets now for where it

B (2:05)

lands, I guess in the comments. Yeah, it'll be updating constantly. Mark, thanks so much for joining us. I guess we are super interested in diving into a lot of the, like, interesting details, how you made a movie, a movie that not only is sick as hell, if I may, but also has kind of broken through the, like, indie filmmaking thing into a broader mainstream. And there's so much interesting stuff around how this is going to potentially change and open doors for indie filmmakers. So I guess first, for people who don't know you or the movie. What are Iron Lung?

C (2:36)

What are Iron Lung?

B (2:37)

What am it?

C (2:38)

Iron Lung is the nickname for a submarine that some people built to go into an ocean of blood. The movie is about that thing. It was made by a guy named David Zymanski, who is a prolific. None. Not prolific. He's made some. He certainly makes him work at all.

B (2:58)

Really Got lucky.

C (3:00)

No, no, He's a great game developer. I apparently had played one of his games many years ago, like his first game that he published called Finger Bones. And I didn't know until way later that I had done a let's play on on his earlier games.

A (3:13)

Is there any indie horror game you haven't done a let's play on?

D (3:15)

Like, that's what I want to know.

C (3:17)

I mean, I'm sure there are plenty. There's. There's just so nowadays being made because the tools are more accessible than ever for making video games, which is a cool part of it. And then the retro style of these kind of games also makes it a little more accessible for people to make games, which I think is fun because it emphasizes more on the gameplay itself as opposed to the graphical fidelity of the game, even though that style is interesting by itself. So this is a game, Iron Lung, where it embraced that style because it's kind of his thing. He's made most of his games in this, but he also really likes that style. He's a funny guy because he. He. Everywhere he goes, he's taking pictures of like grungy textures and things like that so he can get inspiration to build it. But, yeah, that's turned that into a movie. And then that's where we are today. It earned me the spot on this podcast.

A (4:02)

That was the end goal, right?

B (4:03)

That was the. Because we were. We were watching the revenue numbers and once it ticked over 20 million, we're

D (4:09)

like, okay, well, it's fine. Yeah, I think I'll have Markiplier on my show.

A (4:15)

19. It was a hard no. I want you to know. It was a hard no, but we flipped.

D (4:20)

Okay.

A (4:20)

Is that Keep off the question?

B (4:21)

Yeah, I mean, let me gas this up a little more. For people who are not aware, this movie, over the past approximately month, has made $50 million in the box office. This is wildly successful for not only an indie film, but particularly for somebody completely outside of the Hollywood space.

D (4:36)

Traditionally on a budget of 3 million,

C (4:38)

it was a little over 3. I don't even know where they got that number.

A (4:41)

The whole Internet says 3.

C (4:43)

It's actually a little over 4 is what it was. So I don't know where they got that, but that's pretty much what the budget is.

A (4:48)

Okay, well, you screwed up my whole math because I did this whole thing on roi. But if it was three, if you just say it was three for this,

C (4:54)

over three, under five.

B (4:55)

There we go.

C (4:56)

I'll give you that.

A (4:57)

If you say it was three, it puts you in the top, like, 150 films of all time for a return on investment. Like, you're up there with like, Reservoir Dogs and.

C (5:05)

Jesus, we haven't even gotten the Blu Ray out. I'll make more. I promise. I'll get two numbers. Good.

B (5:13)

So I think what we want to do is really dive into, like, what the story of making this thing was, like, what are details and crazy stories and all of that, as well as not only the creation of a movie that is a legit ass movie and feels like a real Hollywood thing. It is not, you know, skimping, then how you marketed it and all the challenges around that and how this thing got distributed to thousands of theaters across the country, which is, again, wild for somebody who is, you know, by most media standards, a YouTuber in quotes.

A (5:43)

Yeah, he went toe to toe with Disney on launch weekend. That's pretty. That's cool.

C (5:47)

Almost got him home. We had more people in theaters. They had more money because they had the more premium theaters.

A (5:53)

Wait, really? They were getting like, IMAXes or what?

C (5:55)

Yeah, yeah. So they had all the premium hype ticket. Well, when I think. I don't know this for sure, but I'm pretty sure when you are a studio like Disney, you're able to basically say to the theaters, you're gonna charge this much for a ticket to make more money. But also just the premium theaters have more expensive, like imax and the. The Atmos mix theaters, they are more expensive tickets. Yeah.

D (6:15)

Interesting.

C (6:16)

Okay, okay.

B (6:17)

So years ago, it's like day one, you decide you, you know, you've played this game and you've mentioned this. You know, you play the game, you started to, like, see yourself as, like, role play as the character in the thing. You start to have this idea for making the movie. The actual day that you're like, I want to try making a movie. What do you do? Like, what is the first thing you do?

C (6:35)

I DM David, the creator.

B (6:37)

Yeah.

C (6:38)

And I said. I said a few things. I, hey, love the game. You want to make a movie. Basically, that's all it was because it's just I don't have any acumen to be business savvy or, you know, kind of schmooze my way into it. I kind of just stumble straight into the question. And usually they're receptive to that because they take it as like, wow, he's so non. He's so transparent. He's so approachable. And I'm just like, the movie. You want a movie?

B (7:02)

The truth is, you don't know how to be a professional.

C (7:05)

Yeah, but that's it. Literally, that's it.

B (7:08)

Okay. So you reach out to the guy.

A (7:09)

Presumably, this is like late 22, right? You play the game of 22.

C (7:13)

This is about August of 22.

B (7:15)

Okay, so what's the. What's the point at which it goes from an idea of which I think many people have the idea to make a movie, to, okay, you're now putting money, time, budget into this thing?

C (7:25)

For me, it's pretty much immediate. I started writing right after that. I. I think that the way that I was writing it, first I spent a month about just thinking about it. I would usually go for long walks. That's how I like to think. So I think about it and kind of just get it in my head. And then I'd start putting things. Ideas to paper for an outline, and I'd run them by David every time. So the universe was David's. So I knew that it had to be from his perspective, at least approved of what the ideas were. The framework of the game was there. So it's kind of working backwards from an ending that, you know, and then feeling out how that expands to a movie. And then it was a lot of back and forth between me and him going through that.

B (8:03)

Yeah, that early stage is just primarily you and him fleshing out, like, what conceptually this would be when you start bringing other people. Yeah, yeah.

C (8:11)

Well, I had a crew that I've worked with before on my other things. So I kind of tepidly sent texts being like, hey, are you going to be busy next year? Like, what's your schedule looking like? And they pretty much knew that I was going to have another project ready to go because I talked about. I almost always know what, like, what I'm going to do conceptually before I'm done with the last one. So I knew that my next thing was going to be a feature. I just had to find the right concept for it. So I already had, like, the. The art. The. The makeup and art department set up the costuming I knew the key personnel, I knew who the DP was going to be and I just wanted to make sure that they were relatively open

D (8:49)

during the time you had a previous project and maybe more than this through YouTube Red.

C (8:55)

If I remember, it was originals at that time. But yes, same same thing.

D (8:59)

So when for, for a project like this, when did you decide to pursue this completely independently, like with no outside funding or like studio behind the project?

C (9:13)

Because when I did the YouTube originals, YouTube was obviously involved and they funded it, but they only funded it partially. I had to make up some of it on my own because when it went from YouTube Red to YouTube Red, YouTube Red was purely the subscription of the premium YouTube Premium, or it was called YouTube Red at the time to get access to these, these projects. When it went to YouTube originals, it was simply funding other YouTubers to do higher end production things. And so I approached them with that and so they had less funding, but there was more control that I had over it. So I, I had complete control for those projects anyway. And to be honest, like. Cause they were choose your own adventures, they were so complicated that they didn't really have the ability to give notes. I'm not saying like I'm such a genius. It's a choose your own adventure. You can't follow what the dailies are even looking like. So like we don't know where this fits into the entire story. So I was on my own for most of it, no matter what. I had a production company I was working with Rooster Teeth. But by the time we did this movie, Rooster Teeth had already been sold to Warner Brothers. And right now Rooster Teeth is kind of in, it's in limbo because it kind of went under and then it got bought by the previous owner and then I don't know where it stands right now.

D (10:19)

So the independent aspect wasn't this as big of a decision as I think people often read into it? Like you, this is just the way you've been doing things already for a long time.

B (10:30)

I kind of want to also ask on top of that, were people reaching out to you? Was any production company or studio after your previous success being like, hey, if you're doing a movie, we'd be interested in supporting it?

C (10:42)

There might have been, but nothing really stands out because even though it was a large project, it was still a YouTube project. So there is that level of respect that they just. I haven't met yet. Even if it was. I got nominated for an Emmy, but I didn't win. I don't even think if I won. It would have mattered at all to them because it just didn't have the same prestige, which is why I wanted to do a feature, because that has a level of prestige that even if it's deserved or undeserved, it is still the pinnacle of an art form. And it's like it is. Is in this temple that is a movie theater. And it is respected. Right. So to win and to gain some respect, I knew that I had to do a project. So no one was really bashing down my door to say, like, we want to make your movie.

D (11:22)

Do you. Do you have any window into, like, the cultural conversation within the movie industry of if this movie is changing that stigma at all? Because I know people like Freddie W. Talked about that for a really long time. It's like they come to this, like, traditional world of production and nobody really gives a shit. But is this something that's, like, big enough that you see something changing?

B (11:45)

Yes.

C (11:45)

Yeah, for sure, it's not. It wasn't my goal to set out to do it, but the number of people that are at least talking about it raises this conversation and kind of legitimizes this. It was something that they. They were, I think, willfully ignoring. At least a lot of Hollywood was willfully ignoring the potential of YouTubers here. And actually, that reminds me, because I got catch up with Freddie W. I haven't been ignoring you, Freddie. I swear I will. I've been sleeping a lot and vacations, taking my wife out to dinner. I'll. I'll get back to you really soon.

A (12:12)

He's our top comment on every episode.

D (12:14)

So he'll be there and weirdly, only asking about markiplier. Come on, show.

A (12:19)

He's ignoring me.

B (12:20)

Yeah.

C (12:21)

Yeah. But to answer your question, there is a bit of a shift here because I've had a couple of meetings with some studios, some executives, some key people in the the world, and they're all asking me the same thing, which is, how'd you do it? How did you. How did you do it? How did you do this? And so clearly they want to know because they want to steal it. They want to steal it. I mean, yeah, that's basically it. They should try to bottle your blood.

B (12:46)

Exactly.

C (12:46)

They got money being made and they can see the threat that's there. They see that, oh, if people can make this independently, that means less of the pie is available. So we gotta be smart. And I think that's good. Like, they need some competition. They need a kick in the ass because I don't want to Destroy the studios. I'm not setting out to do that. I think that studios have made some really incredible films that are very important to people. But I feel like the. The kind of complacency and the fear there is, you know, it needs to be turned on its head and it needs to be turned into ambition and opportunity. And I think they're going to be looking out for other YouTubers to kind of take the talent from and get some people in to make cool things. I think that it is going to be good for everybody. And I'm not out to destroy everything. But the change is happening.

A (13:28)

There's a kind of parallel with that between what's going on in the indie games industry right now, where a lot of indie games have been taking on the triple A titans and outselling them and changing the cultural conversation. I wonder why it happened first and more often in games than in movies. Is this like, was this extra hard to make or what? Why. I wonder why this is.

C (13:47)

So no matter what, you can make a movie by yourself. You could. You could make a movie with you. Well, I wasn't by myself. And this is the distinction, right? So you can make a movie by yourself. But even this movie required a crew of about 100 people.

B (14:01)

There were.

C (14:01)

There's the people that were building the set. You have to handcraft it. You need artists that are at the top of their game, the best of the best you can get to make it. That's why I say it's kind of a pinnacle of an art form. You still need, even if it's all 3D, you need CG artists that are incredibly good at what they do to be able to represent the vision that is being put forward. Even if I'm directing, editing and acting in it, there's still the set designer, there's still the creature designer. Was done by me. That was a Molly Brownman. Crazy, incredibly talented. Without her, the horrificness of the monster wouldn't have come through. Wouldn't have had as much impact without the set designer having a plan to evolve the set over the whole course of the show. And there was a plan and working in conjunction with the costume designer to have an evolution of like 18 different steps of the costume and the set to evolve along with the makeup having also 18 procedural steps. There's. There's so much planning that goes into that. Whereas a game like David Szymanski can make a game by himself and release it and it do really well. There's other games. I think Ultra Kill is another one that's kind of published by. Well, Iron Lung wasn't published by New Blood, but this New Blood is. It has a couple of developers that I know now. That game has sold maybe over a million, two million copies. And I think that's a very small team that makes that. And so you can get away with a lot with less people with games. Um, but movies still need a lot.

B (15:26)

Okay, so this relates to something I'm curious about. The fact that you self published means you're. You're on the hook for all this. How did you decide what the limit is? Right, because, yeah, you hired a hundred people. You could have hired 200. You could have done more CG. You could have done more sets. Like, when you're going through this whole process of planning this thing, particularly given that you're putting your own money on the line with no guarantee of getting it back, how do you specifically decide that? What does that process look like?

C (15:51)

I already had decided that if I didn't make my money back, I'd be okay with that. That's something you got to do. If you're doing anything like this at this level, you cannot put everything on the line and be like, if I. I'm gonna die if I don't get my money back.

B (16:04)

Like, it's.

C (16:04)

This is everything. You can't push it all on black and be like, I hope I accepted that it wasn't gonna make any money because in the past project, I have not made any money on them because.

B (16:13)

Because the previous YouTube ones did not make a lot of money.

C (16:16)

It's like they made some in ad revenue, but actually I put less ads because I didn't want ads getting in the way of people's experience. So I made that decision openly for this one. It is limited not necessarily by the budget, but by the scope of the idea itself. Iron Lung is a game. In order to treat it with the respect that it needed to, the movie had to follow rules that the game established. Right. So it's inside the sub is one of the biggest rules. It's just there. I would have loved to be able to cut away to another scene. The ship above or in a space station. I would love to have been able to do that, to explore the universe. But that's not the game, so it can't be the movie. The movie. In my mind, there's other people that have different philosophies for adaptations, but in my mind, I have to adapt it to screen and I have to bend the rules as much as necessary to be able to tell the Story as well as I can, but I cannot break the rules. And this game has a feeling. And there's a reason that people loved it. There's a reason I loved it, and I have to pay respect to that. But at the same time, I am pushing the boundaries as hard as I can with this flexible rule without breaking it. So we had to stay inside there. But, like, in a spoiler a bit. But in the movie, we go up out of the ocean, but we stay inside.

A (17:29)

I was just gonna say. Yeah, I saw the movie last night, and it's so claustrophobic. Cause they. You want the camera to go outside that window.

C (17:35)

Really want it.

A (17:36)

I want to see what's going on there. And it's. And I thought that was an interesting choice.

B (17:39)

Yeah, I had assumed that was. Well, I'm not assumed, but I was like, was that a budget thing that you didn't do more these things? But that is really interesting to hear. It was very much, you know, focused on the creative.

C (17:49)

Yeah. So we. We made. We embraced that. Right. He's a prisoner. So we actually designed the way the blood went over thing to look like jail bars. You know, like, it had spacing there to.

B (17:58)

That is.

C (17:58)

Yeah. Give that feel of the feeling, like. And it's so obfuscated. The. The voices are hard to hear. There's a lot of noises. Bang. It's like someone's with a wrench, like, banging on the outside of the drum. And it's. It's intentionally uncomfortable because it's like, you want to get out. The feeling has to be through the whole thing of just like, I want out. I want out. I want out of this. I'm so tired of it. I'm so bored of this. I'm so done with this. You know, you gotta feel like that. You gotta really feel what he's feeling. So, yeah, I wandered a bit on the question, but.

B (18:29)

No, that's so cool. Okay.

D (18:31)

I mean, you mentioned before the difficulty of you have to get all of these people at the top of their game in their art form to be able even come in at this level of production. And this was, I think, a similarity between us is we're really curious about the granularity of how that gets put together. Like, when I watch behind the scenes of Lord of the Rings, I'm like, where do you find the guy that knows how to put together the orc makeup for 10 hours? And how does that network come to you? How do you get in contact with all these people that have such. These unique skills to be able to

C (19:08)

do this, I think that you just trust the crew and you build a good relationship with the crew that you have. I have a philosophy that the set should be fun and the set should be a good time. When it's time to work, of course it's time to work, and that's what working with professionals is all about. But because I have a relationship with the people on set, say, Anna was the head of the makeup department, and her name's Anna.

B (19:30)

She's great.

C (19:30)

She's fantastic. She's a beacon of sunshine on set, and she actually brings a lot of energy and joy to the set, and that's important on top of the skill. But it also is important because she takes her craft very seriously, and so she knows other people and the level of quality that her team needs to be at to meet her own criteria. So she knew Jason and reached out. Jason was the one that did a lot of the prosthetic design, and so a lot of the. The. The. The various practical effects that we did with the makeup was spearheaded by him. So she knew who that was. She would not recommend this job to someone she knew. Maybe she would if top of the game, but it's a lot easier to convince someone to say, don't take any other job. Do this job. Put your skills here. Because I like working with this guy, and I think that this. He's going to have an idea that you're going to really enjoy and be able to fulfill your craft. These artists, they want to put their art out there, but they oftentimes don't get the opportunity to, because working in these environments, which should be fun, making movies should be such an incredibly fulfilling experience for everyone. But, you know, they don't, because the machine grinds things down. So the crew knows. Everyone in the crew probably knows someone else that is their competition in terms of being. But when everyone's able to overlap and you're able to trust the crew to get there, and having good producers, like finding the right people to fill gaps, when there are gaps, you know there's a lot of talent out there. There's not a lack of talent of people that want to fill these roles. So you just have to provide an environment that you hope is going to get more people that want to be on set, and that's how you get the best work. They want to be there, and that starts with feeding them. By the way, feeding people well is the easiest way to make a crew.

B (21:15)

I did my shows Costco pizza. You can get so much Costco pizza

D (21:20)

$10 a buy, Hot dogs.

B (21:22)

No, that was in the esports days. Yeah, Perry knows esports. Or we had no money.

C (21:28)

Yeah.

A (21:28)

Okay, wait. So that's the people. But I want to talk specifically about the budget. Like, how did you choose this 3,4 million number? Or is it just you just, like, got exactly what you needed for the film and that's what it happened to be. Or like, okay, so beforehand you weren't like, this is my number going in?

C (21:41)

No.

A (21:41)

Really?

C (21:42)

Yeah, There's. There's probably people that would do that. But when I'm writing, I had. This is the good thing about this one is, like, single location, it is only going to cost as much as, you know, a single location could possibly. And we put as much money into it as possible. With the amount of evolution they had, the only way that we could have spent more is by building two of them, which, honestly, I probably should have done, because if you've seen the movie, it would have been really nice to have two of them to work with at the same time. One of the decisions that we made was, you know, how do you make the motion inside the sub look realistic? The original idea was we were just going to put on tires and we're going to have people bounce around, you know, fake motion. But then I heard about this thing called a nacmo, which is a motion control rig that can move, like, helicopters and trucks. And they film movies in there. And it's a way to get controllable motion. It's a six axis, like pneumatic, you know, machine. It's really cool. It's expensive. We needed it either for certain days or the entire shoot. And I said, this is going to be instrumental for us to be able to make repeatable motion, especially like the action of moving, the throwing. It'll make everything safer. Tires unpredictable. If you. The other idea was to float it in a pool the whole time. And it's like, that'll look good, but it's so unpredictable of what the motion's gonna be. You can't do a stunt based on that. So we were able to have stunts. And so the extra expense of this was a decision to make. It is going to be expensive, but it will quite literally make the movie. And so I just said, I will do every decision that is going to give the best quality to this movie that I can. And the number was where the number ended up.

B (23:16)

That thing sounds like it would cost $300,000 to rent, like, a day.

C (23:19)

Yeah, it was. I think it was like 25 a day. 25,000 a day.

B (23:23)

Oh, it's actually a lot less than

C (23:24)

I would have had. But we 35 day shoot.

B (23:26)

Oh yeah, okay.

C (23:27)

And then you need, we needed to hire operator and he was like, he was very expensive, but he was also. Nick was his name. He's incredible. He knew what he was doing. He was programming so fast. Like you pay for the expertise. And so it was very expensive. But he was so worth it. It was, it was worth it. So I didn't even think about it. It's just like this is a necessary cost of making this the way that I want to make.

A (23:48)

This is a true passion because I'm hearing the through line here, which is that you didn't care if it made money back, you didn't care how much it cost. Like these are things that would both scare the shit out of me and start. I've done, you know, I invested in an indie game, but I had a very limited budget going in. I'm like, like this must have been something you've really, really wanted to do, but yet the gap between you playing the game and making the movie is pretty small. So like this, you just, you just kind of jumped in on this.

C (24:11)

Yeah, I am, I can't deny I'm in a position where I can financially do these things. I am in a very unique position that I can make those decisions. I wouldn't recommend everyone and there were like budget conscious decisions where we are trying to make sure that every dollar that we have to spend is wisely spent. There was, there was times where it's like we needed to add more, add more shoot days. And that's a huge, like every day on set is the most expensive thing. You, you could have the people, the feeding them. The time, the time and the personnel is like the most expensive cost. So but we need to be conscious about that. Like when do we do an overtime day? When do we go over a weekend which is going to cost one and a half as opposed to renting this longer. We already have it here. There is some things to be smart about it. I wouldn't say just keep chucking money at it. And all those conversations that's happened in

A (25:01)

games and movies where they keep throwing money at a problem and the movie turns out worse. It's not.

C (25:06)

I'll give you an example of a moment when I said this is not worth the expense. There was. We were subcontracting a VFX company to do some of the simulations for the blood and the opening sequence in the movie. And the problem was the iterations that I needed because there was some translation differences between hiring them and what I would say I want and what they would execute upon. And the problem with simulations is they're incredibly computationally intense. They require a lot of hardware specialized for just doing simulations. It's not just about GPU power, it's about distributed CPU power.

B (25:39)

This is for the visual of submersing into liquid.

C (25:43)

Right. The fidelity of that shot, the length of it, the amount of time that that blood is visible, and it's from straight up all the way down. It is a really complicated shot to have movie quality. But the iterations, that was costing way too much. And I realized it would be more cost effective for me to buy my own computer equipment and build my own farm, render farm to make this. It would just take time. So I spent about three to six months collecting old servers on ebay, slowly building it out. I turned one of my bathrooms into a render farm. I put another 200amps into the bathroom air conditioners. And all of this was cheaper than continuing to iterate because as soon as I had everything that I needed, all the hardware I needed, I could do it as many times as I needed. And all I was paying for was the power. Right. And so when that was a decision that I made, because it just did not. And let me tell you, it was very expensive to keep doing these iterations, and it was still wasn't quite what I was looking for. So it's like if I. If it's taken me this much to get this far and I'm still not there, is like I'm going to. If even if I had to spend this all again to do it again, and that's what it took to build a rent farm, and it did not. It was still under that. I. I would at the very least learn something about how the VFX pipeline works, and I would have something that would be usable for future projects as well.

A (27:05)

You can turn into a crypto farm now too.

D (27:06)

You can start mining and then you pay it back. I'm. I'm imagining. I'm imagining like Steven Spielberg in his mansion building a server room in his bathroom, just like, no, no.

C (27:18)

Yeah, man. It's something. And I learned a lot about network infrastructure. I didn't know anything about it before, and I still am not great at it, but, hey, I learned a ton. It was working. It's what made the shots in the movie, all of them.

D (27:29)

That is so cool.

C (27:30)

Yeah.

B (27:30)

Something I remember chatting with you about months ago was that several of the tools that Normally a Hollywood production would outsource to X, Y and Z studio. And here in la, you see these all over the place that you just took in house because you're like, this is going to be so expensive.

C (27:47)

Yeah.

B (27:47)

What other things were there besides this render farm? Because that alone is kind of crazy. I believe there's something about like the licenses for theaters, right? Something like that.

C (27:54)

Not necessarily. The licenses for the software for VFX were very expensive because Houdini, when you have a certain size of a company, they charge you more. Or, you know, when you have a certain scale, they have good deals for indie developers and, like, small teams. But I just don't qualify as a small team. Even if I'm like, I'm just one. I'm just a little guy. They're like, did you say that to them?

D (28:15)

Did you say, I'm just a widow?

C (28:17)

You did the two fingers.

B (28:19)

Can I get a discount, please?

C (28:22)

That being said, I would like to do collaborations and I think there's a way to kind of exploit my YouTube channel to be like, I'll do a brand deal for some licenses. But we haven't gotten there yet. What was the original question? Sorry, I drifted.

B (28:33)

What are other areas where normally a Hollywood production would outsource some key part of the process to a big studio? And you instead said, I am just going to do this in house, learn to do it myself?

C (28:43)

Um, there wasn't too much more. I did obviously the editing myself. And that was good because I like editing. I really.

B (28:49)

It's funny you say obviously because that is a huge fucking deal. It's an extremely large deal.

C (28:54)

But yeah, I just.

B (28:55)

Obviously you did the editing, right?

C (28:56)

Yeah, I truly enjoy the editing.

B (28:58)

Obviously you did the acting. Yeah, obviously you did the course. Right.

C (29:01)

Right. Obviously.

D (29:02)

I do like how you're. One more thing. You were like, there's only one way the budget would go up. And I was like, yeah. I mean, you could have hired like Chris Evans or something. Like there could be. It's like you did so much of the movie yourself. I realize that might not be out of, like, budget consideration, but it's impressive how many hats you took on the project, man.

C (29:21)

There's very thank you, but very thank you. I'm very welcome very much.

D (29:27)

Thanks.

C (29:27)

Anyway, it's interesting because I look at that as a YouTuber and I'm like, I'm used to doing this. Anyway. That's what I've been doing when. When a lot of people are out there being a YouTuber and starting out, you know, a lot of them have editors by now and I have hired six editors. I have a team of six other editor that help me out plus the 3D artist Molly who's working on all this. And so obviously I have other people helping me but the main I have them so that I can focus on the bigger project, editing that I like. I like the creative part of it. And I think that a lot of directors and even writers would benefit from doing some editing because it is the final step, the pulling of all the pieces together. It is the laying it in, it's the finishing touches on the painting. It is everything that really, really gets to screen is through the editing process, is the final pass. Now some might say the sound is a final pass because you know, they wait till all the visual effects are done to do the sound. And Brad's great and he did the sound mix in this but you know, I don't want to inflate his ego anymore. So I guess editing would be the one to do it and what editing allows me to do. And I think that this is where a lot of people could benefit from learning. It is like the, the reason Adobe sucks. Can I say that?

A (30:39)

Yeah, yeah.

D (30:39)

Oh yeah.

C (30:39)

Do blows.

B (30:42)

This timing's great. The sponsor just ended.

D (30:45)

Yeah.

B (30:46)

Cinema Cinema.

C (30:48)

I can see good time in there because I worked in Premiere for 10 years and I watched it just get worse and worse with every version. And as soon as I jumped to DaVinci Resolve, I realized, oh my God, this is what it can be. It was so freeing. And DaVinci is great because it has editing, visual effects, color and sound mixing all in a single program. The post production pipeline, even if you need a big team for making the movie and I don't think that will change and I don't want that to change because I want more people to do that. But the post side I believe can be consolidated down more if it takes advantage of these things that are combining them. So one of the things I want to do is kind of like cultivate, you know, this kind of build, build out and refine some of the inefficiencies that I saw in the process of the future project. Much like the render farm, if I have my own way to do it and I have a pipeline for it, then I can make the next projects happen a lot smoother and with less bumps because I've learned all the problems in this one. So I, I hope to make in house not just as a control freak, but just because it is just it'll make ideas come out faster if I can if I know the process of how to do more of it.

A (31:55)

Yeah. Can I ask business questions now, Doug? I want to ask business questions.

C (31:58)

Yes.

B (31:59)

Okay. One more. Forgive me. One more final thing, I think so the process of you have 100 people working on this thing in a set that you've designed with a budget, with a script. You have the thing that turns the sub around. You've got all the fake blood. Just with the average person. What's a, what's a day of shooting look like? You said it was 33 days. Like what are key things that are happening throughout that day? What are the things that everybody needs to coordinate on? What are the hard parts? What are the easy parts? And is there like maybe a moment or two that you were like, holy shit, this is hard or crazy?

C (32:30)

Oh yeah, there was plenty of that. So the average day started with breakfast. So I provided breakfast for everybody. I think that's very impossible.

A (32:38)

Costco pizza.

B (32:39)

Costco Pizza.

C (32:40)

No, no, no. We had a catering trailer there the entire time. So we had a, we had a company that joined us for this. The company name of is right here. I believe it's Dunkin something, but I can't remember. So I'm going to put Dunkin Donuts. Wow.

D (32:56)

Oh, no.

C (32:57)

They're a lovely family. They, they, they joined us for the whole.

D (33:01)

Didn't know it was family owned. Didn't know it was family owned.

A (33:03)

I can't wait for their sponsorship.

B (33:05)

Next time though. You could set up a donut shop in your bathroom.

C (33:07)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don't you just do that yourself?

B (33:09)

Why you catering money bags over here paying for food?

C (33:13)

It was, it was integral because it allowed everyone to show up and at least have warm, freshly cooked food. And we had buffet style. So we had all kinds of options. Eggs, gluten free stuff like vegetarian options. And, and, and that was both for breakfast and lunch. And then if we needed dinner we needed to go over, we would provide that as well. But big meal for breakfast. People walk in, it's early in the morning, usually call times like seven or six some days. And that's pretty typical. The days are 12 hour days or were. I hope to do 10 hour days in the future. I think 12 is just a little too much. But you, you get in. And so we have a production meeting. First thing. I have to get in costume right away because obviously I'm acting. So I get in costume as soon as I can. I usually eat breakfast as I'm getting makeup put on and then we all meet it. What we had was a battle map, right? So we had a big whiteboard table that was about the size of this, if it was rectangular. And we had different squares for the shots that we wanted to get all day long. We had a mini model which, with a cutaway, a 3D printed model of the interior of the sub with a little me and camera blocks that we could put where, like, we're going to first set up here, we're going to next set up here. The next setup is going to be here and here and here. So we plan out the day based on the script. And the reason this was important is because the time it takes to bring the whole thing up on the nacmo, get it activated, is like five minutes from step in. Take the stairs away, Screw the door shut. Well, screw the door shut, take the stairs away, and then lift it up, and then we're ready to go. And that's if everyone who needs to be in their camera or otherwise is in there. If it's a heavy motion scene, we usually would lock down one of the cameras inside. We build, like, you know, braces for it to stay so that the cameraman wasn't going to be a problem or wasn't going to, you know, get hurt. But then we would. Each one had to be a custom plan. So we had to. We had to know exactly how we're going to do it, exactly how long it would be. So the. The efficiency of knowing what was going to happen next had to be planned out from the beginning. And even though we had an overarching plan throughout the. From the beginning of the shoot, every day we would go through and tell exactly what we're going to do. So then as soon as we knew what the first thing was going to be, we'd everyone go off and start setting up for that shot while I'd get finished up with costume and makeup, whatever other touches I would need, or I would talk to Amy and the script supervisor to. To know exactly how this was going to go and what to look for. Because if I can't be behind the camera, I'm telling them what I'm hoping to achieve in this scene. And the biggest problem for all this is I'm acting and I have not had time to rehearse. So then I go and, like, practice my lines and make sure that I'm getting. Getting into the character. That's one of the big detriments of acting and directing is you spend so much time directing, you don't give yourself as an actor enough time to be the actor that you need to be in that scene. And so I think I did a good job on this one. I think I did well. I think I would have done better if I had just been acting or just been directing. You know, I. I think that there were certain scenes that I was like, I'm going to need time. I need you guys to give the marching orders of where we're going to set up. I need to go into a dark room and I need to be this character. And so this. The scenes that were super intense that needed that I took the time to. To have that you do that until lunch. The earlier you get a shot off in a day affects the entire day. It is a. It is a weird thing on set is if you. It doesn't matter what you get so long as you get a shot of anything, insert nothing. The sooner you get it, the better that day is going to be. If you are wasting time trying to perfect a shot, trying to get the right angle, setting something up, it doesn't work is whatever. So long as you're recording, you get a shot in the can and you move on to the next thing. Your day will be much better. Otherwise It'll be like 11 o'. Clock. You get your first shot, lunch is at 12 or 1 or whenever it is you got a break for lunch. People come back from lunch, everyone's already sleepy from lunch. Your whole day's fucked process starts again. Exactly. So it's like getting the first shot is as intense as possible. Then you have an end of day meeting, deciding how the day went, what we got, what we didn't get. If we have extra time, which never happened, we'd be like, let's get set up for the next one or let's do the battle plan for this next one so we get started sooner. Tomorrow never happened. Maybe once or twice it happened but you know, everything's always behind inset but so you have to account for that. And that's a average day.

A (37:30)

It's interesting to the part about the acting. I think the movie was really good and I really liked your acting in it. But I did notice from the beginning of the movie to the end and I heard you shot this chronologically.

C (37:39)

Yeah.

A (37:39)

You, you clearly get more invested in the character. You get like by the end. I as a viewer, I'm like more invested in the performance. So I wonder if you. Was that a deliberate choice issue chronologically or how did that work?

C (37:51)

Very deliberate to shoot chronologically. There's certain things that we could do. This is the whole Build two sets. Thing is, there's certain things that we had to make permanent modifications to the set to be able to do some of the effects that we had. Literally cutting into it and changing up things and waterproofing it when it floods. So chronological was from the beginning because it's like we just have to do that. And yes, there was a lot of me in the beginning. You have so many decisions to make. Because this plan, as good as it is, changes every day. Every single day. You have to adapt to something else. And if you can't adapt, you can't make a movie if you're so steadfast. Like, it has to be this way and I will die before I change it. It's like you're never gonna make anything. You'll be stuck there forever and you'll end up with nothing. So you have to adapt and try to make every problem work. So I spent way too much time directing instead of focusing in on what this character was supposed to be. The advantage is the arc of the story works that way. It does fit. So it's like. It's not like I did such a shitty job in the first ones. But I know you're thinking that. I know you're angry. But it's. It also works because the stiffness and uncomfortableness was part of that character arc. It wasn't entirely just like, I couldn't do it. I had confidence that in the beginning, this guy is finding his footing. He is not comfortable. And the whole thing about the monotony of survival, which was a big part of this, is as you get bored, you weirdly get more comfortable. The tension does slip in. It has to slip into boredom. So that as a character, I did get that, but also I got banged up while I was filming it because I did a lot of my own stunts. So the aches and pains that the character felt were my own aches and pains.

B (39:32)

Also in your day, like 31 of

C (39:34)

12 hour days or whatever. And my. And by the time it gets to the end and there's a scene in there where I've just like the characters lost it. Like, just losing it is like I am it. I barely had to act in those scenes where it's just like I am screaming. Exactly. It's just like. So those were when I was really, really starting to feel a deep connection with that. And actors have a really, really tough job and they're always trying to elevate their game. And so I think that I'm a decent actor. But, you know, I do in the future projects want to be more of a director side of things because that's where I'm most comfortable with, and that's what I like the most. Acting is extremely stressful and very difficult, and it's an art form that should not be taken lightly. I want to do it to the best of my ability, but, my God, actors put themselves through some crazy shit to do their craft and huge respect to them.

B (40:23)

Now you have the money for Chris Evans.

A (40:26)

Iron Lung two.

B (40:27)

Iron Lung.

D (40:29)

Iron Lung two. Captain America

A (40:33)

gives you the ip.

C (40:34)

There are so many good actors out. I'm not saying Chris Evans is. Is markiplier.

B (40:41)

I gotta warn you, Chris Evans does also comment on our YouTube videos.

C (40:45)

He's not as nice as people. I've never met the guy. It's just like, I. I understand the reason for names out there, but there's so many really talented, incredibly hardworking actors that are out there that are waiting for their chance. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't hire a big name for a certain project if it works for it. But at the same time, there's a lot of actors out there. I want to give a lot of people a chance to do some incredible things. Troy Baker obviously was probably the biggest actor on this project. He's done tons of things, incredibly popular franchises he's worked in, and he's done a ton of work. So it's like, only because I had a personal relationship with him, I thought he even gave it a time of day to be part of the project. And it's so nice working with these incredibly talented actors where it's just like you put a script in front of and they're like, yep. And they just smash it. Incredible. It's like diamond tears. It was the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. But, yeah, I think that there's. There's just such a wonderful world of talent out there, and I'll never get through it.

D (41:42)

All support for this show comes from tastytrade.

B (41:46)

You guys know me. I have a bad case of the dumb. I want to invest $5 in the stock market.

C (41:53)

Is this.

B (41:54)

Am I doing it?

A (41:55)

This is a piece of paper where you wrote $5 on it.

B (41:59)

So is it going up?

A (42:01)

You're making a lot of money interest.

C (42:04)

Oh, wow.

B (42:05)

Okay. Is there any other part?

D (42:07)

These two guys to my left, they don't know how trading stocks work at all. They're figuring it out right now. But if you want to actually trade stocks, you could go to tastytrade.com/lemonade today.

A (42:21)

I would only do that if it was a registered broker dealer and a member of finra, NFA and sipc.

D (42:26)

Let me check it out. It is. So are you drawing another.

A (42:31)

Oh, a million.

B (42:32)

I know. A million dollars.

D (42:34)

No, this is not. Just to be clear. This is not indicative of how it works.

B (42:38)

Please put it in the stocks.

D (42:40)

You can't just write amounts of money on paper and have it.

B (42:44)

This is my nest egg.

D (42:46)

You can do. You can figure it out. A tasty train.

B (42:48)

You can figure it out.

D (42:49)

A tasty train.

B (42:49)

Oh, it doesn't add up.

A (42:50)

You can actually lose quite.

B (42:51)

Oh, it overrides the number. There's just one slot.

A (42:53)

You only have $4.

B (42:54)

Now, support for this show comes from AG1.

D (42:58)

So admittedly I thought I like the taste of the citrus flavor AG one little packet thing.

C (43:07)

Right.

D (43:08)

It makes me feel like I'm bumping music, if I'm being honest with you. And I just swallowed the powder on the last ad read. Yeah. Do not do that. That is not the way it's meant to be consumed. Just mix it into water like a normal person.

A (43:22)

We have to use this next ad read. Tell people not to do it the way you did it. Which no human being would do. Which your teeth were covered and it was. It was terrible. That's not how it's meant to be.

D (43:32)

Yeah. And it's not meant to be consumed that way. When I mixed it into my water bottle, I actually really liked it and it tasted good. And when I. When I did the powder which they told me not to do, it didn't taste good.

B (43:43)

Well, your mouth is nature's water bottle.

C (43:45)

Yeah.

A (43:46)

That's not nature's.

B (43:47)

AG1 has over 50,000 verified.

D (43:49)

Try it again. Has over 50,000 verified 5 star reviews. It comes with a 90 day money back guarantee for a limited time only. Go drink ag1.com lemonade to get free AG1 flavor sampler and AGZ sampler to try all the flavors. Plus free vitamin D3 plus K2 and AG1 welcome kit with your AG1 subscription order.

A (44:11)

Right. But none of that has to do with you consuming it without liquid.

D (44:14)

This is a limited time offer only available while supplies last. That's drink ag1.com lemonade. Drink ag1.com lemonade.

A (44:22)

I get everything you're saying is true. It doesn't.

D (44:24)

I think I got to try it again. Well, support for the show comes from Quo.

A (44:28)

I know that.

D (44:29)

Yeah. Do you even know what it does?

A (44:32)

Of course I do.

D (44:33)

You don't seem like it.

A (44:35)

I wouldn't.

D (44:36)

I Lecture you every week on what Quo does. Okay. You know how when I try to get a hold of you?

A (44:41)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

D (44:42)

Like, me and Doug were trying to schedule a meeting last week and you didn't reply for days. This is a true story.

B (44:50)

Multiple days.

D (44:51)

And I used multiple ways to contact

B (44:55)

Patreon, by the way. This wasn't that there was. It's like we asked a question and you didn't respond. From multiple days. For multiple days, we ask the question.

D (45:02)

Yeah, yeah. And if you had just made targeting business, if your business had one, which is not to log into like one hub, I wouldn't check all of your messages, calls. Okay, well, if you want to run your business into the ground, don't use Quo. Don't use it. But if you want an easy place that consolidates all the communication in one simple spot, then you could use quality. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try quo for free. Plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com lemonade that's Q-U-O.com lemonade quo. No missed calls, no missed customers.

B (45:42)

This is real sick. Okay, we're getting to business, Mark. You finish filming and making this thing and then becomes, as far as I can tell, the incredibly long process of getting this actually in theaters. So for people to watch it and spend. Queue up for you.

A (45:58)

Money.

B (45:58)

Human money.

C (45:59)

Yeah.

A (46:00)

Okay. I'm seriously. So you finished this movie in early 23?

C (46:04)

Yeah, probably March. I think we were wrapped at the end of March or beginning of April, I can't remember.

A (46:09)

So, okay, so March, April 23rd. A 35 day shoot. And there's this massive gap between then and when it releases now in early 26.

B (46:15)

Almost three years.

A (46:16)

Three years gap. What is. What is going on in that time?

C (46:20)

So at the same time that we did this, there are a few things happening. I got a Spotify podcast deal and so that came with some obligations. I had to make like three to four podcasts a week. So we were recording all the time. Some weeks I had to record like five.

B (46:34)

And we can agree, a lot harder than making a movie, right?

A (46:36)

Yeah. Probably the most noble profession.

C (46:39)

I think anyone who makes a podcast is actually a hero. And I think the Nobel committee should

D (46:44)

consider this day in, day out.

A (46:47)

Yeah, it's just a grind, you know, it really is the toughest job there is.

C (46:51)

Have you guys watched the studio? Yeah. Did you get to the episode where he's dating that doctor and he's at the. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think those Doctors. Those uppity bastards should like step out of the way for the entertainment day

A (47:02)

in a podcaster shoes. Yeah. See if that compares the time at LA General. Okay.

C (47:08)

Yeah, but so I had that and then obviously I have a YouTube channel and then the clothing company that I have cloak that I. I was working on it and then I had to take it over because I wanted to change some things. So all of these things are happening. I worked on the movie on weekends because that was the only time no one would bother me because everyone else.

A (47:27)

Editing.

C (47:28)

Yeah.

B (47:28)

Okay.

C (47:29)

Yeah, everyone else takes weekends off, so I didn't. And that's when I made the movie. Okay.

B (47:35)

Grindset.

C (47:35)

Love it.

A (47:36)

So when is editing finish editing?

C (47:39)

Editing was. Well, see, the way I edit really pisses off the Post house.

A (47:43)

Was it the day before the movie came out?

C (47:45)

Pretty much. No, not necessarily. But it was a couple months before the movie came out because it's really difficult, especially as someone with adhd, to jump back into something after it's been a week. And so it was very hard for me to get the ideas flowing consistently every weekend. So it took a very long time to get there. And ideas would like. I would come up with alternate things and I had the set in. Well, not the set, the front of the ship in mind so I could get like coordinates and things. I was double checking, make sure all the coordinates make sense, making sure the pathing of the map actually worked. There was a whole thing where the. The way the proximity worked from when we filmed it to the post side was we filmed it incorrectly and it's not even a thing. The developer was on set every day and you know, we had talked about it and being like. Because the way in the game works is where the arrow points is forward constantly. And so the proximity isn't just like north of the ship always constant. It's west and east isn't always constant. It changes based on. Or it doesn't change change based on the arrow. We filmed it in a way that it did and even that's confusing to say because if basically in the game, if you're going this way and something's in front of you, it'd be the tip of the arrow would beep it. We filmed it so that it was constantly north because in my mind I was like, oh, the angle is going to change in the camera inside it. So it makes sense to have the front of the ship be. The north would be always a pure reference, no matter what. But it's front of the ship and. And filmed it wrong. So we had to change it for the whole fucking movie.

B (49:14)

Well, in post.

C (49:15)

In post, yeah. So I would. I would be filming either inserts of the front console to change up the shot.

A (49:22)

This is just youtuber brain. Like, seeing the comments like this one nitpicky comment and you're like, preparing. Because there's no way I would be able to track that as a viewer of the. Where this.

C (49:30)

It mattered that it made sense. It didn't matter which one it was. It was matter what. What told the story better. Right. And so there are times in there, especially in the front the shot of the creature going over the sub, when I'm looking up, like, that's in the trailer. If you notice the trailer, the arrow is going a different way, and then in the movie it's going north. Because I realized from that shot it didn't make sense because the arrow should be pointing north because the creature's going over left to right, and if the lights are going west to right. So it made more sense to really teach the audience that this is how the proximity works, because there's such a small window to teach them. And so it doesn't matter for most people. They get the idea. But consistency in those things, attention to detail will matter in the long run because then there is a logic to how it works. And again, the game was correct in how to do that. And I don't want it just to be nonsense. I had to make sure every number made sense, every position on the map made sense, and the way the ship works makes sense, because then you can put it in the back of your mind and you don't question it. It just becomes the universe. And if the universe is more accurate, the then people will not pay attention to it and it won't distract from the story.

A (50:41)

That makes sense. Okay, so here's the question I'm trying to. I'm teasing out. I'm trying to figure out is like, in between you finishing the movie, maybe you're editing during this, you have to get a bunch of theaters to agree to show this movie because you don't have a distributor.

C (50:54)

Yeah, yeah.

A (50:55)

I want to figure out, like, the distributor approach.

D (50:57)

You.

A (50:57)

Did you think about going that route? Did you have to, like, how did this go?

C (51:00)

Because.

D (51:00)

Could I. Yeah. Could I jump in real quick? Because I think I talked to another. A couple of friends who are more embedded in the film industry. And this is one of the things they were most curious about, because from their perspective, this is one of the great, like, gatekeeping things in film of if you were to pursue a project like this independently, it's very difficult to actually distribute and get the movie into a bunch of theaters. So with that context in mind, I'm very curious how you managed to do that.

C (51:27)

Theaters, theater owners, they want to make money no matter what. And that is the bottom line way that, you know, you can get in with them. You can rent a theater screen if you wanted. Today, you could go to a movie theater. You could be like, how much to rent theater number nine? Right. I want to do a private event there. They do that all the time. They want to make money. Or we had the help of this company called Centurion Films, and they are effectively. They're. They're basically a communicator between the. The movie people and the small independent theater theaters. The not amc, not Regal, not Cinemark. They. They go to these independent theaters and they say, like, hey, we will help you communicate with the movie industry to get you movies. But also, if there are smaller things, we can communicate and go back and forth. And they take a very small percentage compared to what some of the bigger studios do, because the work is just purely just like, they're going to go to a theater and they're going to do that, asking, hey, can I rent a theater? So they, they previously did, you know, smaller releases. This is by far the biggest release they've ever done because we started this with just being like, we're just going to try to have an individual relationship. We either call them ourselves or we hire someone to call them. And we basically hired them to call.

B (52:42)

Just to be clear, you're calling theaters and saying, hey, will you show our movie?

C (52:46)

That's what they're doing. Yes. Okay. And so they have a. They have a relationship.

A (52:50)

A sales pitch, though, is it like. Like, hey, this movie's gonna be big. It's got a YouTuber. It's like, yeah, okay, so you're just trying to convince them this is gonna not be wasted their time.

C (52:57)

Yeah, exactly.

B (52:58)

You have to, like, pay them up front of like a guarantee.

C (53:00)

So it could work that way, or it could be how the studios do it, which is just be like ticket share. And so the way that you have a more, you know, it depends on the circumstance. If you're doing an eventized thing where you're only gonna do one weekend or something, it might be better to do. Do the buying out the theater. If you know you can sell it. Right. If you know you can fill a theater, you might make more if you do that. If you don't know what the scope is going to be doing those individual deals might be very difficult to pay up front and, and rent all those if you not going to fill it.

A (53:32)

Yeah, you don't know.

C (53:34)

But the theater owners don't always want to do the split share because they run the risk of, well, if no one shows up and we're not going to make anything off of this, where we could, you know, sell you this whole thing and you buy it, you know, wall to wall, each theater at a time. So the nitty gritty of that is down to the individual project and the person who decides what approach they're going to do better. The theater obviously likes to make money, so they're probably going to be like, oh, we're into the whole thing. But if you want a distribution in this company, they bring this theater, bring the movie to the theater and they're like, hey, we think this can go. This is who the guy is. And thankfully, you know, there's a lot of theater owners who may know who I am. They look at my numbers and they'd be like, okay, this might work. So we had about. He wanted to do three theaters to start with. Three theaters. The guy from Centurion Films wanted to do three. And I said to him, like, I think that. And don't take this wrong way, I think that's an insultingly low number, not to me, but to my audience because my audience is very large and they're going to feel bad if I tell them, hey, buy tickets. The people in these three cities drive

A (54:39)

everyone hundred miles to go nearest.

C (54:42)

And even when we got to 56, I think 60 is how many theaters? 62 or something like that that eventually were there for the day that we launched the sales of it. And even then my audience was like, oh, I gotta drive two hours, okay, I'll do it. And they were willing to do it. So the difference here between this and the traditional model is you don't have a guarantee of how many you're going to get. There's no network, there's no, like, AMC has so many theaters. They're going to put it in these things, they're going to evenly distribute it, they're going to work out a consistent deal. You don't have to individually make deals with these theaters. So it is a bit more complicated. But by hiring this company, we don't have to do all that ourselves. My wife Amy built the website to show where the theaters were going to be. And so this is a long winded way of saying there, there is a system in place for other people to get their movie out there. And even if it's just you call one theater and be like, hey, I would like to show my movie. I have this many things. I will put a pre order up for sales. This is how we're going to do it. Hey, do you think that you have a time where I could do this right? And they could. You could set it up in a completely unrated. You don't need to submit it for rating if you want to. And they could do sell the tickets. Unrated. We obviously got a rating for it. And I knew it was going to be our, so I didn't even question

A (56:05)

was it our, because.

B (56:06)

Yeah.

A (56:07)

Is your main channel more family friendly? Because you curse a lot. You're angry in this movie.

C (56:11)

I curse all the time on my channel. No, no, I curse all the time. Yeah, yeah. And that's. That's basically is a little complicated. But thankfully there's a company like Centurion Films, and I'm sure there are other companies out there that are willing to help out with the smaller steps to get there. And then. Because if it does, well, these other theaters, they get FOMO real easily. They go like, is that what happened to you?

A (56:33)

Did it scale up? Cause I know you had like 1300 theaters, but it.

D (56:35)

Yeah, because now it's in AMCs. Right. Like, I look at listings now.

B (56:39)

So you started with 56, you said, right?

C (56:41)

Yeah, 50, 60 or so.

B (56:42)

I saw the website and then by the time I opened it, which was like, I don't know, two hours or something after you guys launched it already it was in like hundreds of theaters. How do you specifically add theaters to that list? Are they calling you or is your company reaching out to them and saying, look, now we have 100. Add more. Now we have 200.

C (56:59)

It was a logistical nightmare. This is actually where things started to almost break down because we did not have a bookings email. We did not have a way for these theaters to really get to us in mass. Even Centurion Films was kind of overwhelmed because not all the theaters knew to reach out to them. So they were trying to reach out to me personally.

B (57:17)

YouTube comments.

C (57:18)

Yeah, YouTube comments. Like random email addresses. Not lying.

B (57:24)

Oh, it's so funny.

C (57:25)

People are posting on my subreddit. There was a ton of. And it was very difficult because we had to manually converse with each one of these and send them to Centurion Films. And then we had to get the theater information as soon as booked, and then we had to manually put it in the website, there's literally a big spreadsheet because Amy, who, who built the website, did not anticipate making 4,000 entries. So it's a gigantic spreadsheet where it's. It's the theater name, the address, the GPS like, like location of it, the coordinates of it so that a pin can be put on the map and then a website, right? And it had to scale and scale. So every day we were adding manually, just like adding into the spreadsheet more entries while Centurion Films was talking and making arrangements. Then by Monday, when all the other bigger chains were like, hey, something's happening. I got a call from Cinemark and they were like, hey, well, we would love to get it. We'll get in 50 theaters. And then I get a call from Regal, like every theater, we're going to put it in all the theaters legitimately. Regal was so down. Regal was very, very excited. Then AMC joined up because all of them are just like, hey, it's just selling. We want to make money. And that's what I mean, theaters want to make money. If you can get that, that momentum going, even if. And the momentum doesn't have to be to 4,000 or all international at all, it could be like one theater spills over, suddenly you've got. They've got a lot of showings at that theater. And you could see saturate a theater pretty hard. But, you know, all of your audience is going to be there. Then you do like coast to coast, you could do one la, one New York, you could do. And a lot of my audience was actually rural, so there was a lot of smaller theaters in the middle of the country that filled up really quickly. So, like, if you've got. If you got any kind of fan base, you don't need 38 million. 38 million. That'll get you 4,000 theaters. If you want to scale up like that, if you had less, you can fill theaters because people want also the theater experience. People want a reason to go out, have a date night. They want a reason to go. People like movies. And so, yeah, it's.

A (59:17)

It's actually interesting, though, is because you say 38 million will fill 4,000 seaters, but this is the first time that's been proven. Like, if I'm a skeptical theater owner, when you're doing this pitch, I would probably say three months ago, yeah, you have a big YouTube audience, but they're not going to. They're not going to show up and go butts and seeds. That's what I would have Thought as a person three months ago. So you've kind of changed that. I wonder, do you think this will lead to other. At least people maybe not exactly your size but of that larger class trying to do this? Like I. Yeah, this is the first. Proves the point that a big YouTube audience can translate to real seeds.

C (59:51)

Yeah, I don't think everyone's big YouTube audience can. There are certain YouTubers and there's no discredit to them, but there's certain YouTubers that have an audience that is there for the content more than the person. And so like you have certain audiences that just aren't going to go because they don't care enough about.

D (60:05)

And they. And they might be. And there might. Their name might be Ludwig. Like they could never do.

A (60:10)

Ludwig could never do this.

D (60:11)

They could never have. It doesn't matter how charisma.

A (60:13)

He doesn't. He can't have the acting ability unless

B (60:16)

there's some video game there. Unless it's Minecraft is in the movie.

C (60:19)

I don't think they're gonna show up in Ludwig.

A (60:20)

Yeah, they would sit down to watch Minecraft the movie.

C (60:23)

But who's Ludwig?

D (60:25)

That's what. And that's it. I'm sorry. Having brought it. Oh, I know, I'm sorry.

C (60:30)

Ludwig. I know. I hear he's a nice guy. Not even that.

B (60:36)

Cut that out for the video.

A (60:37)

Not really.

D (60:38)

But you think, you think there's. There will be a movement with a certain like tier or audience of creator that could make a move like this that has that support?

C (60:45)

Yeah.

A (60:46)

I mean I got to imagine from a business side, Hollywood sees this. They're trying to suck your blood like a vampire. They are immediately sending their drones out to find other YouTubers of similar size and offer them hey, you want to do a. This has got to be happening right now because they're seeing the opportunity.

C (61:01)

Okay. I would think so. Yeah.

D (61:02)

I actually have a huge, huge question with this because I wonder. You seem to already weigh through your answers the part that your fandom plays in marketing or built like some of the success of this movie. Right?

C (61:19)

Yeah.

D (61:20)

And so if I'm an indie filmmaker looking at the landscape right now, I'm looking at the indie game landscape where there's a number of like influencer backed developers and they're going like that route or if I'm looking at the success of a movie or a project like this. Do you think. But. And there also seems to be kind of a movement of directors maybe in the movie industry cultivating fandom around their. Their work as Individuals. So people are just excited to go see their, like, next, next piece. If I'm an indie filmmaker, watching this world of business unfold around me, what could you give me as my number one takeaway from this project? If I wanted to pursue my dream, what is my best course? From your experience?

C (62:12)

I think the most important thing for people to realize is the power of people on the Internet is real and tangible. Even in the day and age of chatbots and AIs taking over every social media and dead Internet theory and all that, there are still a lot of real people out there that want to see cool things, new things and new ideas, even if you are not the type that is. I don't want to build a big YouTube channel. I don't want to get a million subscribers. I just want to make my art. That's great, because if Iron Lung didn't have something for people to like about it, and that's why it's like, it's, it's. I'm super happy with where it landed because some people hate it, some people really love it. There's something. There is something polarizing there, and there's an interesting discussion to be had for there. And it wouldn't have done well if people didn't actually enjoy. At least some people didn't enjoy watching it and some people watched it again. It's not entirely just because I have that many subscribers. The content is. Is king above all else. Right. And so that applies to movies too. So if you're an indie filmmaker, you have to understand that I have been working on my craft at this as the same time I've been building my audience, I've been doing both. I have been making sketches since I started. I have been learning about camera cinematography and editing, and I've been learning all the disciplines to do this. I did not approach this from an amateur standpoint. I think that at the same time is like, I'm not amateur in terms of my audience. I'm not amateur in terms of my skill. So I have a long way to go in terms of moviemaking. But there has to be a recognition. There is like, as a filmmaker, you cannot expect that if you have not made a movie yet, or several, which I have, even if people don't think it like YouTube original things that I did, those are longer than movies. The In Space with Markiplier was a much more complicated and involved shoot than Iron Lung was. It had more people, more cast, more locations, bigger budget. It had everything going for it to make it larger than Iron Lung. Was and in a lot of ways harder. And so we have to recognize there that there is still a road for people to travel and they are not at the pinnacle of the mountain yet for their skill. And so one of the greatest things that you can do is recognize that YouTube is a beautiful place to put your projects that are building those skills. Because there is an audience there, even if you have no subscribers. If you've got a good short film, people are going to find it. People are going to talk about it. Other YouTubers are going to be like, I found this fucking great.

B (64:35)

Because.

C (64:35)

And they're going to want to make a video about it, because content they're going to be. I found this great hidden gem of this short film from a director I've never heard of that you all are gonna like. Here's my review of it. They're gonna link the video, people are gonna find it. And then you have to realize that there's a difference between 38 million and a few thousand. Yes, but a few thousand can fill a theater multiple times over. If you have a thousand views on your movie. If those people are really interested in this concept and there is a movie theater near them, if you get 10,000 views, that's a lot of people. A lot of people. And so the metrics of success, even in Hollywood are distorted because a billion dollar movie can seem like the standard. That's a bullshit goal. No one's gonna get there. It's not for the individual filmmaker at all. But if you can level the playing field with the technology that's available, not even AI, but I'm talking like with DaVinci and the editing software and the more accessible cinema cameras and the more accessible cinema lenses, you have this opportunity to make really high quality stuff. But unless you have the skill to do it and the practice and the constant drive and desire to do it, you're never going to get anywhere. I'm 14 years into my career. It took me 14 years to go from 0 to 38 million. It's like, if I had to look at other filmmaker and be like, if it was. If I told you it was going to take 14 years to get your movie in theater and have it be a success, would you take that deal? Would you work 14 years to get there? And I think a lot would. I think a lot would be like, you know, that might be not a bad thing to do. So it's like, yeah, Liz, I think that there's a world of opportunity for other filmmakers to do things.

D (66:07)

Sorry, I rambled that Was a fucking amazing answer. That was a fucking incredible answer. Yeah, see, this is my problem. I've noticed in interviews if I'm stunlocked by the answer, I'm like, well, I just want to get lost. I'm like, that was great. Why we call it.

C (66:27)

Why are we calling it.

A (66:30)

It's been. You asked him his name? It's five minutes in. Okay, wait, so. So here's a question that I had watching the movie and I did a little research because the movie made me interested in the game. So I watched part of your. Let's play. And then I watched a video on the lore of the game afterwards to try to get a better understanding. You've done an absolutely. Like the, the. The field you can mine from, in terms of your gaming history is pretty large.

C (66:56)

Yeah.

A (66:56)

Is that you talk about next projects? Are you thinking about other games? Are you seeing other games as ideas now? Are you like, is this, Is this a lens you're looking at the world in?

C (67:06)

Yes, but also, I have to be careful with that. There's. There's a trap there. Right. If I only do game adaptations, then

A (67:12)

you become the games guy.

C (67:13)

I become the games guy. Right. And especially if I do horror game adaptations, I become that. Everything I've done before, this has been original writing that I've done. So I. All my YouTube originals, obviously, they were just like me writing about myself, but it's like I did the writing and I came up with all the sets and ideas and the story behind it. So I feel like I could probably do another game adaptation next and that'd be fine. But if the next one isn't an original idea, then I am hindering myself as an artist and to be taken seriously as I move forward, you know, it becomes like, you know, you'll be the five nights at Freddy's guy if you only play five nights at Freddy's. And here I am. And it's not the worst thing in the world, but it becomes harder to be taken more seriously and it stifles your own growth as an artist to only take the. I hate to say this word, but it's like crutch of a pre made universe. There is a lubrication to the process from having the universe already built. And therefore if you just need to adapt it, that is actually something. It's what Hollywood really likes because it's built in fan base. But it's not challenging as a writer to say like, I am just going to adapt something and coming up with something entirely novel, entirely new. Isn't probably the most difficult thing, like any anyone could ever do.

A (68:31)

Is that what you're thinking? Is that like your next. You're trying to do an original world or original story?

C (68:35)

Yeah. Maybe not next, but definitely it needs to happen. Yeah. And I don't think I need to jump straight into making a movie about it. I could write a book first and then see how that does and then be like, okay, I can just write a book. You can write a book. What's wrong with writing a book? Everyone can write a book. Whether it'll be everyone can write a

D (68:53)

book and including Doug.

C (68:54)

Yeah, it's written a book.

B (68:57)

Really not that hard. Have you seen it?

C (68:59)

I heard that you wrote it.

B (69:01)

I had not read it. I have a copy to show you later. It's right back there. I have a question. So it's two, part one, what's the name of your next project? And then two, how does the success of this change it? Just strictly monetarily, do you feel like, okay, now that and I don't know of the 50 million in box office, how much goes to you? I imagine a huge chunk of that is not flowing to you. But in theory, you have, you know, a bigger scope. Right. For the next one. Do you feel like that's going to change? I mean, there's, there's part of me, like having. When I worked in production, what I found really frustrating is like, as you increase the scope of it, the, the, the contrast between I have a creative idea and implementation just gets bigger and bigger and harder and harder and more expensive and slow. And so there's this, I think, creative freedom in being really limited and small. Yeah. I'm curious if the success of this is making you think bigger.

C (69:52)

I think that there is. In the same way that I knew that I needed to make a movie to be taken more seriously, you have to tackle something eventually that is going to be of a big enough scope that people will go, how the fuck did you do that? That's kind of a longer term. If I'm looking at YouTube, like the 14 years as I've reached basically a point where maybe I'm not the greatest YouTuber that ever existed, but I think I'm pretty good at what I do. There's suddenly a new mountain to climb with movies. I've started from a spot where it's like, I recognize iron lung has plenty of flaws and I've learned a lot in the process. And if I did it again today, I would make a much better movie, I think. But that's kind of the whole thing is I'm happy where it is and I'm not regretful of any of the decisions that I made because they were the best that I make, at least at the time. I've got another hopefully, you know, quite a few years to make future projects. And if I'm not getting better, then I'm not happy. Right. And that's just me as a creative. Like, if I'm not improving, I'm not happy. So eventually I have to make something that is. That scares me.

D (70:50)

Right.

C (70:50)

That is so big.

B (70:51)

That Chris Evans, he scares me. Huge guy.

C (70:57)

Huge. Oh, man, he is terrible actor.

A (70:59)

I heard from Markiplier.

C (71:00)

Yeah, well, that guy's an. But yeah, you have to do things that kind of scare you because that's how you know that you're being challenged enough to grow. And so I could be comfortable in the. I'm just gonna make small horror movies and I could do that forever and ever. It would be very rewarding and I would be very happy and I'd probably make a good bit of money. But as an artist, I don't think that I would be creatively fulfilled if that's only thing that I did. So you have to push yourself at some points. And the scary thing about that is it's pushing yourself in such a way that the logistics of it become greater and the risks of it becoming a disaster grow exponentially. The number of talented artists that you. That are trusting you with your vision and working, putting their names on the line, working on something becomes more because suddenly there's more people. And it grows from 100 crew set to up 300 crew set with a splinter unit of 100 people working on another part of the movie. You know, it's just like the risk is there, but the. I think the creative fulfillment and the reward for the audience there is definitely just as big and just as important.

B (72:07)

Support for Lemonade Stan comes from Shopify. Now, I worked at a company out of college.

A (72:12)

Okay.

B (72:13)

And I keep trying to tell this story in this particular segment, but Brandon saying that people don't like the company I worked for or the type of games that I worked on.

C (72:21)

It was.

A (72:22)

Oh, I can't say it.

B (72:23)

You're the one who said.

D (72:24)

I didn't say.

B (72:25)

Anyway, I worked on people's favorite part about video games, which is microtransactions.

A (72:29)

Right.

B (72:31)

And I'm going to let you know straight up, having transact, like money transfer is hard. And run a business, a lovely business that people love.

D (72:41)

Yeah.

B (72:41)

That transfers money between customers in the Shop is hard and that's why pride and accomplishment in it like Shopify and that was the paint of my career.

D (72:49)

To be honest, it's all been downhill.

B (72:51)

Shopify can help you set up an e commerce store and take care of all that stuff. Hard stuff for you. Unironically that stuff is hard and difficult and challenging. And if you don't want to deal with it and just get focused on the part that matters, which is like making a cool thing you care about, Shopify can do that.

D (73:06)

You turn your what ifs into a thriving business with Shopify today sign up for your $1 per month trial@shopify.com lemonade go to shopify.com lemonade that's shopify.com lemonade support for this show comes from Rocket Money.

A (73:22)

Little follow up for Aiden here. I found an actual conversation between me and Aiden from 2024. Two things. Number one been watching a ton of your videos lately. Like even more than normal.

B (73:32)

Well, not Twitch though right?

A (73:33)

Great stuff. Number two hey do you actually heavy wreck Rocket Money? I've been skeptical lol. But I have a lot of monthly payments and it sounds very convenient. Does it still work if those monthly payments are spread across multiple things?

B (73:46)

I would also like to know that

A (73:47)

and I said I use this actual message in an ad reads recorded now twice. Yeah I f with it heavy. I use it back before I even sponsored me when it was called true bill but I have lots of descriptions that it helps me keep track. Slash cancel. I legit have 20 to 25 news sub that I cycle through with the

D (74:03)

prices on and that's why you should never waste your hard earned cash on the nature of Twitch sub. Never pay for Atrioc twitch subs again

A (74:10)

unless you want it than usual. You can't give me $5.

D (74:14)

Try Rocket Money for free at rocket money.com lemonade

A (74:20)

sport for lemonade Stan comes from the league now we've been following the journey of our friend Eli on the league and you have a status update.

D (74:28)

Yeah, well we love Eli, right? Yeah, he's. He's strong, works out.

A (74:32)

He's good in the post.

D (74:33)

Yeah, he's pretty good in the post. His layoff's gotten way better. Yeah, he's incredible this year and you know he's been. He's been cruising, looking, looking for. He's been looking for a long term partner I should say for a long time.

B (74:47)

He's been swinging for a long term partner.

D (74:50)

Swing for the fences. He uses. He's used a bunch of different dating apps recently. He Tried the League, which he's been really happy with. He says his account got turned around really quickly. You have to get like approved. Said it happened quick, fast and he's found a bunch of higher quality matches. He likes way better than the other apps that he's tried in the past. And also he said he likes that the app only shows him people once per day at 5pm so he doesn't waste a bunch of time scrolling. It's like Daily Scroll. I check the app.

A (75:21)

Incredibly smart idea.

D (75:22)

Simple as that.

A (75:23)

Brilliant.

D (75:24)

And if you want to meet, you know, maybe somebody professional looking for a long term relationship like Eli, you can check out the League. More isn't better. Better is better.

A (75:33)

The League. Find someone in yours, download the app and apply today.

D (75:37)

On the, on the revenue. I had heard, if you're comfortable speaking about this, I had heard that you had a unique profit sharing model with the cast and crew. I was wondering if you could.

C (75:48)

No, not unique. I'm just giving them a bonus book. And what sucks is like that's apparently rare. That's unique. So if you look at the numbers, like 50 million, right, that's, that's what the box office is. But you have the, it's a split with the theaters, right? Like 50, 50 split I think is what we mostly have. I don't know what all the international splits are. I think some of them are 60, 40, some not as good, 6040 to them. And so some might be 6040 to me. I, I really don't know because it happens.

A (76:18)

Why they get a better deal internationally? Why are they, why do they get to where they have leverage for 60,

C (76:21)

40, bunch of foreign. No, no.

B (76:27)

Back to our roots.

C (76:29)

How racist can I be? No, it's, it's just different territories and kind of the speed at, with which you need to like you need to work with this company and we have no other options. Like we got to move fast. So it's like you got to take a deal where it is. And so most of those are just subcontracted through this company, Centurion Films. So you have the splits. It probably averages out to about 50, 50. And then you have, so you cut that in 50 in half, you got 25. The Centurion films takes their cut, you chop it down and then you're left with the amount that's going to be repaid for the budget. And it's like that is, that is repayment that I put into the production company. So that gets repaid possibly with interest and so that gets paid off first. So it could be like, thank far I'm breaking even, right? So as soon as you're like, okay, I've broken even, then everything else is basically profit. So things are based on profit. So the people that have points in the movie, obviously David Zymanski, developer of the game, he has, he gets points in the movie. And this would usually be where the studios would have a big percentage, but in this, I don't have that. So because I don't have that, I'm able to give a bonus to the crew. So I basically, I took their salary that I paid them for the production days and I said, like, I'm going to apply that again as a bonus. And so just like, whatever your salary was, it's now doubled. And so that bonus, given that, you know, personnel and payroll costs are the probably the most expensive thing that you have on set, that's. That's a huge thing. And then the actors get paid and give them bonuses and then the editing team, you know, gets, gets. I've given bonuses to everybody, basically. And then whatever's left over is mine. Goes back to me. As you can see, the number goes. But I didn't do this to make a lot of money.

A (78:08)

It didn't sound like you made it for the money.

C (78:10)

Yeah, even even though I may, I'm making a good deal of money out of it. I. I think that it's. It really has to be recognized that it's like, it's. I'm so happy to be able to give the crew a win, you know, a reward for their hard work and their trust in me. It's not even like I paid them poorly on set. I like to pay people well and I like to treat them well. And I believe that without them, this movie never would have been made. So of course I'm going to give them a bonus. And I wish the industry actually would do that.

B (78:40)

Disney.

A (78:41)

Bob Iger, if you're watching, and I

B (78:42)

know you are, next time you leave a comment on our YouTube video.

C (78:46)

Bob, think about this.

B (78:47)

Bob, think about that answer.

A (78:49)

Well, that actually brings me to a question because, okay, after you're a hit, you've done very well and the studios are interested from what you're talking about, for your motivation. It doesn't sound like being purely indie was a big part of it. You just wanted to challenge yourself. If Disney showed up and said, we're going to give you $50 million to make Avatar 4.

B (79:08)

Captain America crushing X. Avatar, yeah.

A (79:10)

Captain America. Markiplier plays Chris Evans role because we

B (79:12)

get him out, save money.

D (79:14)

Whatever.

A (79:15)

They give you an option for this. Are you taking it down on principle because you want to go indie or like, what. Where's your head on that? Is that something you would be interested in or.

C (79:22)

No, they wouldn't give me control. Really? No. Directors never get control. Not full control. The control that I want. Even Christopher Nolan doesn't get full, full control. Maybe now, like on his.

A (79:34)

How many YouTube subs does he have, though? You know what I'm saying?

C (79:36)

That's what I'm saying, too. I think he's written on. I think that it's. It's very rare for any studio to give that to you.

B (79:43)

There's.

C (79:43)

There's studios that will be much more friendly to work with, but they'll still have notes and opinions and you are contractually obligated to follow them. If they really put their foot down, they get final say. I don't like that, because I don't. I'm a bit of a control freak in that regard, and I don't like being beholden to anybody else's opinion besides the creative team. I listen to the creatives that are part of it. Like, if, if, if Ana, say, had some strong opinions about what she believes in it, I will, I will take her input and I will apply it to the movie. If an actor feels like I want to change this dialogue for the sake of. I believe this character would say it differently, I am absolutely going to take that and I'm going to implement it if I feel like it will benefit the story. I. I'm not saying that there aren't executives at studios that are creatively fulfilled, but if they're not on set with me seeing it happen, I don't trust them. So I don't like the idea of taking a deal like that because it just means that there's going to be difficulties in the post process and I won't be able to make a decision like, yeah, I'm going to just work on it on weekends, you know, whenever I want, whenever I have free time. I'm going to take three years to get this out because that's all the time I got. They're not going to accept that. They're going to be like, you need to get this done Q1 of 2027, or we're going to kill you. You know, so it's. Contracts are fun and all and big dollar bonuses.

A (81:02)

Does it have to be a lake of blood? You know, can we get. Can we lose the blood, Mark?

D (81:07)

It's just so much.

A (81:08)

It's just so Dark.

B (81:10)

Because if you branded it Dr. Pepper, same color, Huge, huge brand.

A (81:15)

You could make some real money on this.

C (81:16)

Oh, wow. Yeah.

B (81:17)

Okay. You're talking about the fact that you took three years because you're still doing YouTube merch. All this other stuff. You. I mean, you don't have to do YouTube anymore. You don't have to do the podcast.

C (81:27)

Right.

B (81:27)

I mean, you've probably technically had that option for a long time. But I'm curious, like, how do you think about the balance of all these different things going forward? That's something. I mean, I'm sure all three of us have wondered at times.

A (81:36)

You know, it's like between our movies and our.

B (81:39)

Right. But, you know, it's like, how much do, like even. You know, I like, Semi retired my YouTube channel kind of. And like, that was hard to be. Like, I'm gonna intentionally let go of this thing. And I still couldn't fully let it go. And what's going through your brain as you weigh all of the things you do?

C (81:53)

I like making YouTube videos. That's it.

B (81:57)

That hasn't diminished or even, let's say, less that you dislike it, but more, hey, I'm gonna need 90% of my time in order to make this next thing even bigger.

C (82:06)

Sure, sure. I've done that. Even with this project where it's like, okay, I gotta work a sprint. Something's gotta sacrifice, I guess. I'm not putting up daily videos on my channel. It's gone maybe a month, a little longer than a month in between some stretches where I wasn't able to post a video for sure, that happens. But I really find a. A lovely, you know, like, catharsis in the cycle of content creation. The simplicity of it. It is like, I found a lot of peace in the process because it's like an instant gratification. You get a product you work on in a day, the next day it comes out. I mean, I know your videos take long because you do long streams and you're building up like that.

B (82:42)

No, I like my. My brother spent seven years working on his most recent indie game. And it's just like I told him multiple times, like, there's no way I could even remotely do a timeline like that. Even the three years for Iron Lung or four, whatever, in total.

C (82:54)

Tough. Yeah.

B (82:55)

The feedback loop of YouTube and streaming is so easy and gratifying.

C (82:59)

It is, it is. And so that's why I don't want to give it up. It's, you know, it's rewarding. It's. That audience is also Important, because it's like, I wouldn't have had this success.

A (83:07)

It gives you the ability to do this, right?

C (83:09)

Exactly. But it's not necessarily about that. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it, you know, unless there was a bigger reason, like a greater goal to do something. Because I can't say the process of making this movie over the three years wasn't fun or was fun the entire time, because it was not fun many times. It was arduous and it was, it was hard. I pulled so many all nighters. I got so many more gray hairs because of it. I lost so much sleep. I lost time with some people that were very important to me that I will never get back again. And I had to postpone even my wedding to work on this things and my relationship, you know, if Amy wasn't so incredible to me and so understanding with this, I, you know, I could see a world where if I was with someone else, I would have lost that relationship and I would love. There are sacrifices that come into all of this and there are deep, deep, deep scars that can run from doing these huge sacrifices. It doesn't happen easily, but because I believed in the end goal of it, I believe that it would open up an entire new chapter of my career. It would open up a door that I could then step through and I could be confident and my ability to say, like, yes, I can stand toe to toe with another director or a studio entirely and I could make a project and I would have the skill that no one could ever take from me and I would have the accolades that only I can give myself that matter the most to what I want to do. And so because I believed in that so much, it was rewarding. The process was arduous. But I also believe that arduous processes and things that terrify you and are way too hard are the things that you need to know your limits so you can actually grow. YouTube is very different from the. It is so relaxing, it is so. It is so gentle. It is so nice and smooth. And, you know, occasionally you'll make a video where you'll really kick a hornet's nest with Poppy's playtime and.

B (84:54)

And then.

C (84:54)

But I've never been bothered by any kind of negativity online. It's just like, oh, it's so nice. Hey, you know, my opinion's getting out there. It's fun. It's really fun. And there's very few parts of the YouTube pipeline that I don't like. And so I think that It's.

A (85:09)

You should start a YouTube politics channel and see.

C (85:11)

Oh, yeah, yeah, I should do that. Yeah, absolutely. It's just, you know, it's just fun. So it's. It's a rewarding kind of break from the cycle of making a movie.

D (85:21)

Where do the other pieces outside of YouTube and making a movie come in? Like, the clothing brand was something I was curious about, like, how much presence that business has in your life now, if there's other pursuits that you're looking to build. And in the same vein as the movie, how much the financial opportunity of those things even plays a part in that anymore.

C (85:52)

Oh, man. I would say that the financial is not a motivation for anything I do, really. It's kind of a. It has happened. And so anyone that's like a super business acumen asking me like, oh, did you make your money? And I'd be like, I don't know, man. I. Because I've never been focused on it with the clothing. The reason that I took it over, it was a very expensive decision because it was working before, but the quality wasn't where I wanted to be. And I was a majority owner, so I had to become majority owner if I wanted to make a decision. It's expensive. And then I had to basically take the whole business and build it up from new. That's expensive. I'm paying people, and we're not selling anything basically for a year and a half. But it was necessary to be like, this is going to be better for the end consumer, for the. My audience, for people actually buying the clothes if they're of higher quality, if we can actually make sure that they're more ethically sourced, whether we're doing things right, we're doing things honestly, it's going to be more difficult on the long run. It may. It may not make profit like it used to, it probably will, but it won't. But I believe that if you make something of a higher quality that you can be proud of and you can understand the process more by learning about rebuilding it, then you can be more confident going into the future. And I think that reflects on the people that want the clothing. And then more people want it because they're like, hey, they're doing something right. And that's kind of the philosophy I've applied to. Everything that I've done is just like, the decisions that I make are not about the money that I want to make. It is just incidental that success follows doing something of quality. And I feel like that is somehow lost on a lot of Businesses like if you, if you put quality into something, it may not be absolutely a financial success, but the people that are gonna, that you're trying to sell to are gonna enjoy it more and have a more rewarding experience. And then the intangible benefits, the non monetary benefits of like having a very supportive audience that is willing to put their trust in me. When I say, hey, I made a movie and they have no reason other than just me saying that to be like, all right, I'll go to a theater, all right, I'll ask a theater that if they can show this movie. I'll email someone, I'll call someone, I'll go there and I'll physically ask for the manager and I'll say, hey, I wanted this movie here.

D (88:00)

Do you think that, do you think that kind of markiplier stamp is something you've intentionally cultivated? Your process here is very intentional, but understanding that that exists and it's like this premium sign off on all of these things that you do and then it's. Now it's, it is proven itself effective in so many ways. Is that something you were like conscious you were building or is it just this is a byproduct of being me?

C (88:27)

Yeah, I'd say calling it a rubber stamp is probably what it might be in the future if I'm working with other people. But because I've always approached my YouTube channel as being like, this is me and this is my journey. This is how I have built myself up, this is what I wanted to do. I didn't like my life was. And this is basically just me making stuff that I think is fun and I think. And I will try bigger projects all the time and I will go forward to there. The, the markiplier stamp in that regard wouldn't necessarily be something because I'm not putting it on anything that I'm not already doing that I'm not already there. So I am the stamp right now. And I think the trust that has been built up with my audience is that I'm going to put everything I have into it. I'm not going to half ass anything and I'm going to try it to the very end. If it fails, it fails and I'll crash and burn with it. That's usually what I like to do. And I think that understanding from my audience has been reached many, many years ago. And so it's important to also cultivate that belief so that it can't fade so I can always show that I'm willing to show up and put in the hard work that is necessary. So in a way, yes, but also in a way it's, it's not even that something that I have thought about. It's just like I have a duty to myself and my audience to do everything I can. Yeah. God, I sound good in these answers. God makes me sound amazing.

D (89:44)

Well, let me, let me, let me ask, I think long term because it sounds like you had this, you had this very understandable goal of I want to prove something to myself. I want to open this door for myself in this future, this future path I'm looking at with, with making movies and continuing to do that. Do you. But you seem to want to stay independent. Is, is your goal to be a recognizable indie director? These people aren't necessarily indie but like if I say Ryan Coogler or if I say Christopher Nolan, people will just go see their next movie and they're a director and I want to go see their project or like the Safdies right now I feel like. Is that who you want to be more so than the YouTuber you've been for recognizes for a long time?

C (90:36)

I think it will be. It will be impossible not to because I've put my name forward on it and clearly I've stuck with Markiplier because I'm proud of where I've come from. And also it's just like people know that name. So it will be impossible not to aim for that because I do want to have a reputation of quality and I want a reputation of at least I will be swinging very hard for whatever project that I'm going for. So yes. But also again, it's not what I'm specifically chasing because my goals are sometimes very selfish, self oriented. I want to be good at what I do. I want to be good for me. I want to be happy with the projects and I won't release a project until I'm happy with it and until I know that it was the best I could do at the time. And I will be very hard on myself if I know that it could be better and I have not put in all the effort that I possibly could that will probably kill me someday because I will just do too many all nighters and my heart will give out and I will die on the floor of the editing room. And I know that's probably where I'm going to end up. But you it's good with the bad,

D (91:35)

you know, Worthy trade off G a

A (91:39)

great clip for the obituary.

B (91:41)

Good with the bad, you know, Art

A (91:43)

Blair dies in his editing room Floor and we're playing. Yeah. You know it's interesting to me because I think hearing your story, it's actually more unique than this question would indicate. I want to talk about creator led businesses which are on the massive rise right now and how culturally it's changing the idea. Like you didn't spend a lot of time or any marketing this movie is my understanding it was just happenstance with the audience and trust you built up. But I, you know, when I was buying snacks for this movie I took pictures of the options available to me. There was Mr. Beast Original Jerky and there was Joyride which I believe is someone else's YouTuber. Ryan Tran Ryan Trans Candy Company. So I'm just seeing these pop up in stores and I'm seeing creator led businesses rise more and more and it does feel like the advantage of their ability to market because it costs them nothing once they have that audience built is so astronomical over what like a established company has to spend on TV or online ads to get to that same level that it's changing the whole industry. It seems like you're doing most of this just because it's a passion project and what you want to do. But have you noticed how like you've at 14 year career, have you noticed how that has changed and opportunities have become available to you?

C (92:52)

I do, yeah. It's impossible not to see the amount of, of different, you know, companies that are partnering with creators to make products and things like that. Making products is very difficult, honestly. So any, any kind of attempt to do that is, is fraught with troubles through the entire process. I think that the important thing to recognize though is pretty much everything even in those of, of free marketing. It's, it's, it's just a different type of currency. Right. So your audience has a trust and you have taken their time and given them content and entertainment and you have this transactional, it's a, that's a very business way of putting it. But in a way they are giving time the most valuable thing they have to you. And this trust is built up to not abuse that exchange. Right. And if you're going to ask them to do anything else or if you're going to give up their time and they're giving their money for the product. It's the exact reason that I took Cloak and I wanted to transform it into something better because it's like if I'm going to ask them to pay for clothes I the want close to be as good as they can be. And so with these other companies it is, again, very, very cool that other. These creators have this. This ability to have marketing, but it's never free. It's not free. A million people in my audience had to go and go out to theaters, physically spend money, and I'm. I hope, and I think that it was worth their time to do that. But if you don't have a constant positive contribution towards that time and paying respect to that, you can't just tap it unlimitedly. Even for Mr. Beast or any of these other bigger creators making these products like Feastables, you know, and things like that, they won't just last on goodwill alone. The goodwill does dry up until you start contributing back into the fund. And I'm not saying he's not. I'm not saying some are. I'm saying that it is. It is still. It's just a different type of currency. And it's sometimes an invisible currency that people don't even know exist, but it does, and recognize it at the first step to understanding that the numbers behind those subscribers are real people with real lives. And if you don't treat them with respect, it's. You're never going to go anywhere.

A (94:59)

I really like that answer. Yeah, I think.

D (95:02)

I think you're totally right. There's a video. I have a. I think I have a very different outlook on, like, content and in success than he does. But Graham Stevens, who's like a finance YouTube YouTuber, talked about canning his coffee business. He did for a few years.

C (95:17)

Yeah.

D (95:17)

And the way it has these, he's talked to a bunch of people that have these types of businesses in this space. And for every, like, you know, Feastables, maybe that's going crazy. Right. But most people are giving their crack at launching a product. Accessing an audience that tied back to what you said at the beginning might not be even the type of audience that really wants to engage with them in that way. And then it has this initial spike of interest and then immediately stagnates and starts falling off. And that's kind of what happened with his coffee company that he. He got rid of. And I think a lot of people, you have to be at this unique cross section where people believe in you because of all the things you've developed and accomplished, but also truly deliver on what that product is in order, like, to give Ryan Trahan some credit. The candy's pretty fucking good. Like, I've tried it, and I think a lot of these products that I've seen or tried from different creators over the years are ultimately pretty bad. Because they're the quick cash grab. You're trying to get it out there. You're not working with the right people.

A (96:21)

No, the way you put it. And just the terms clicked with me way by the currency. Because it's like. It's like a promise. Right? You're making a promise to them, and if it's not good, then you're just trading your trust current. You're just draining that.

C (96:32)

Exactly.

A (96:33)

That's a really. It's an interesting way to put it. That's.

C (96:35)

That's. Yeah.

A (96:36)

I think I've tried to get that across to my editors about videos where it's like, hey, if they're clicking on this, we have to give them either a laugh or learn something every time or they're going to eventually not click. That's the point. That's the promise you're making.

C (96:49)

There's a counterpoint to that where it's just like, sometimes I. Sometimes I mess with my audience because they deserve it. Sometimes they get a little too uppity, and sometimes they get a little too full of themselves, and you just gotta. You gotta. Yeah, you got to smack him now. You know, it's not always a perfect noble.

B (97:05)

You know, sometimes I really love one in a thousand theaters. Doesn't show the right movie.

D (97:10)

Exactly.

A (97:11)

Yeah.

C (97:12)

It's just a jo. It's my. Let's play up there on the screen. They're like, it was just a long $30 to. They go on the subreddit.

D (97:20)

Did anyone. Was anyone else upset? It was just a normal YouTube video.

C (97:24)

Oh, man. No, it's. I. I think it can't be too pure, because if you try to be too pure, they know, you know, they're like, you're not really that good. And I tell people all the time, I'm an. Most of the time. Like, I say it's selfish. A lot of it. I want to succeed, and they know that. It's like you're not human if you don't want a little selfishness. And so reminding them that I'm better than all of you. I'm better is. Is important for the. For all of it.

B (97:47)

Let's. Let's clip that and loop it.

D (97:49)

We'll put that right in the beginning with no context.

B (97:52)

All right, we're wrapping up. Mark, this has been awesome. I have one final, quick, simple question. Anything you did to treat yourself after having a wildly successful indie movie, or is it just back to the grind?

C (98:02)

No, I mean, I've. I've slept, which has been really cool. That's nice. I've been reading some books, which have been great. I haven't had time to do that. I've been starting to watch some TV shows. Like I said, I was watching the studio, which I haven't watched any kind of hilarious. It's great. I really love that the pit has been, you know, depressing, but, you know, kind of fun. It's a good show. I've been, you know, enjoying some time to actually breathe and talk to people because, yeah, it was 16 hour days for about three years and that was. That's no good for anybody sanity. I mean, you saw me at the parties that I would show up to over at Ethan's and I would just be like, yeah, I gotta work on stuff after this.

B (98:40)

And you were like covered in like knives and stuff too. Halloween party. You also looked the part of like an angry pirate.

C (98:46)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was only because Amy said it all up for me is like, I flew in the. An hour before that party, by the way. I don't know if you knew that. Like an hour or two. And I sprinted home, all my costume was laid out, I put it on, then I drove to the party right after that. And that was all the time I had. And I had to make that work.

B (99:05)

But that built trust with me. And now you can spend that currency.

C (99:09)

For you, man. For you.

B (99:11)

Mark, thank you so much for coming on. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. We'll see you next time. Be sure to check out Iron Lun.

C (99:17)

Only in theaters, but by the time this comes out, probably out, but, you

B (99:21)

know, maybe in theaters. Thanks, everybody.

A (99:24)

Thanks, guys for watching.

C (99:24)

Bye.

D (99:27)

Support for the show comes from Tastytrade. And we're at the end of the episode and I don't even know why these guys are here.

C (99:34)

They're still watching.

D (99:35)

They're here when they could be learning. They could be learning about how to trade stocks. Last week I thought you had to fly to New York and go to the stock exchange to do it.

A (99:45)

Keep bringing this up. Turns out so obvious. That's not true.

D (99:48)

I grew up my whole life watching movies where they're at the stock exchange.

B (99:51)

Did you even try writing a big number on a piece of paper?

A (99:54)

Both of you are trying incorrect things so often that it's scary.

D (99:57)

I'm going to tastytrade. Com Lemonade today to get started on how to actually do it.