Adam Stovall and Macleod Andrews nerd out and talk comics!

Adam Stovall and Macleod Andrews Talking Comics

[00:00:00] Adam: we’re not going to do a two hour episode this time. I want to do a two hour episode. I mean, I thought we were going to get into comics at some point. Are you in, are you a big comic fan? I told McLeod.

I was like, Oh man, we’re going to talk about sex criminals. It’s going to be amazing. Yeah. Matt fraction and

Kenric: ships at our ski. Yep. We had chips at our ski on just a little bit ago. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We’re you know, you know who else we had on McCloud? We had Chadstone heliski. Whoa. Yeah, he was on, we talked about John wick obviously, and I asked him about Sandman slim, because he was tagged to do the

Adam: movie.

Macleod Andrews: Yeah. He doesn’t say I need, well,

Kenric: don’t tell me I’ve got too many projects. He had to step away from it. I was like, dude, he’s like, he goes, I know they’ll, they’ll find another director to do it, but he’s like, I just don’t have the time, I think. Cause they’re getting ready to do more. John wicks.

Adam: Two more.

Yeah.

Kenric: Yeah. So that was pretty cool, but yeah, chips that our ski was on. He was awesome. [00:01:00] He was a great guy sexually. Is it crazy? He was like, we had no idea that that comic was going to blow up like

Adam: that. Oh, that first, the, the first volume, like it’s so clear, it’s kind of like lost. They really didn’t expect it to do anything.

And it’s so clear that they were just like packing stuff in. So like the jokes in the art. Yeah, the ship was kind of burying. And then once it actually like hit and they decided to kind of explore mental health and whatnot, like, it’d be, it’s always a good book. It became very, like, really fascinating, but it was like so much fun to just see like, Oh, they had no idea.

This was coming. This is just two friends, like, you know, pissing

Kenric: around. They didn’t think that they were going to sell any, because one it’s called sex criminals. So they didn’t think any comic store was going to order anything, you know? And even if they did, are they going to put like a paper bag in front of it?

So you can’t. See it, like it’s a plump penthouse or a Playboy in seven 11, you [00:02:00] know? So

Adam: it, it made me laugh like so hard when they, because you know, they had this like plan when they ended it and they just jumped to, to issue 69 to end. Yeah. Oh yeah. Guys. It was genius. It really was.

Kenric: No those, what, what other books have you ever thought about writing your own comic, Adam?

Adam: I have,

Kenric: I mean, because you’re writing scripts and you’re running a movies, it feels like a natural an Eaton. I don’t, I don’t want to say easy because none of this is ever easy, but you would think, so one thing that you could do is probably jump into that if you

Adam: wanted. You I would love to one of the things that I really love about writing screenplays is I, you know, I love performance, you know, it’s like you watch it go sway.

It’s it’s like, yeah, faces are kind of my, I think the human, I think the face is the greatest, special effect. And so I. I think if I were to write a book, I would, it would really I’d have to find like the right artist. Right. You know? And I mean, there were some great ones out there, but like, Yeah, it definitely appeals to me.

I [00:03:00] used to be, so I was like super into comics when I was growing up. And then I hit a stretch in my thirties where I was very poor and so I could afford any. And now I’m getting to a point, like I read Tom King’s run on vision recently, which blew my mind. I just picked up his Mr. Miracle run, which is my next thing to read.

There’s a lot of hatred on

Kenric: his Batman run right now with people. Not like in Tom King on Batman, for some reason,

Adam: he said, cause everything I’ve read in it. I haven’t read the whole run, but everything I read of it,

Kenric: honestly, I haven’t been reading a lot. The only mainstream stuff I’ve read lately is the Savage Avengers.

And that’s because I’m a huge Conan fan of Marvel and DC stuff. I’ve backed quite a bit away from, you know, and getting more into more independent stuff. Cause it’s just. You just get more of a complete story, you know? Yeah.

Adam: Well, yeah. I mean, you don’t have the like massive cruise liner of, you know, DC [00:04:00] storytelling, Marvel, you know, where you have to like, you know, review what the notes of 48 other books and make sure that you’re not stepping on toes of the superior simple.

Simon’s of Spider-Man. Yeah. It’s but that’s always been, I mean, I remember the nineties when like WildStorm kicked off and like, you know, and it was, I wasn’t like a big WildStorm kid cause I just thought I wasn’t, I just wasn’t that kid, but Yeah. Like that’s where the fascinating stuff tends to kind of seep up.

You know, it’s one of the things I kind of love about like culture in general is that music, film, you know, comics you know, you kind of. You use your leg lower cost of entry, which is like why horror is such a huge thing for first time, filmmakers, you know, splashing some blood on somebody isn’t that expensive.

And so like, but then if you do something that of merit, if you do something that is, or not of merit, but like it’s interesting, people will take notice because [00:05:00] most of what’s out there is kind of the, kind of the same. Yeah. You know, so it’s just like, Oh shit. They, you know, I mean, it’s Mark malar made his entire name on just like what are sorted out more, but it’s like, what if we didn’t take superheroes?

Seriously? Yeah. And that’s revolutionary when the economy is built on. Yep.

Kenric: This is exactly that. And it’s awesome for that. Yeah. You know, in the middle of our, just sold his whole universe to Netflix, not but two years ago. Yeah. So it’s going to be interesting to see what happens in what comes out of that because yeah, they basically own, I think everything he’s developed outside of Marvel,

Adam: my roommate in my twenties, Is now writing Spiderman for Marvel and Spencer.

Oh, cool. Yeah, very cool. We were roommates for a few and like we, we met up in LA one of the last times I was out there and he was just like, wow, that apartment had a a hundred percent success rate, like

score McCloud. Are [00:06:00] you

Kenric: into comic books at all? Dude, I feel like I don’t want to

Adam: put you to sleep. No, no,

Macleod Andrews: I don’t not in anything

Kenric: anymore. I’m in a raising this baby

Adam: basically to take care of

Macleod Andrews: No, I mean, like, I, I collected spawn when I was younger. I still have like issues one through like one through like 52 or 60 on my counter, on my

Adam introduced me to sex criminals, which I liked a lot. And saga, I didn’t finish saga because it was like, whenever I went back to the store and they didn’t have it, or they

Kenric: have all the trade paperbacks you

Adam: can do. Yeah. Did I ever, did I ever give you any Garth Ennis books to read McCloud, preacher and Hitman?

No, no. Okay. There’s a movie. Like I want to make the Hitman movie. I that’s like my comic books that I really want to make.

Kenric: You know, you did saga that’s Brian Kayvon and he also had another series, [00:07:00] which was amazing, which you guys could turn into a movie pretty easily is why the last man. That’s

Adam: becoming

Kenric: a TV show.

Yeah. They’re going to make a TV show, but I’m just saying great book. But if you ever read that book, you should check it out. Yeah. Yeah. Y just the letter, Y Y the last man.

Adam: He has a pet monkey named ampersand. Yep. I love it. It’s really good.

Macleod Andrews: now that you said why the letter as opposed to why I’m like, Oh

Adam: wait, this does sound familiar.

Kenric: Another, another cool one that IDW is doing was written by David Buer and, and drawn by Drew’s Ducker. It’s called Canto C a N T O. And feel Antio if you’re a. Like, if you grew up and you like the wizard of Oz and you like the whole concept of wizard of Oz, then you’re going to love Canto.

It’s just, it’s, it’s not like wizard of Oz. And the fact that somebody goes to a different world, it’s, you know, it’s [00:08:00] all in within this one world, but it’s it’s awesome. It’s a little clockwork Knight and there, his whole race is enslaved and they take their hearts out. So they have no feelings and they’re against the law for them to have a name.

And you meet Canto and the girl that he has feelings for, even though he has no heart gives him a name. And so he’s original because he’s the only call clockwork Knight with a name. And then it goes from there and he goes on this whole adventure. And he’s a tiny little guy and it’s like very much the, the little guy against the rest of the world.

And it’s it’s really well. What do

Adam: you think of a astic? What do you think of the boy’s adaptation on Amazon? I loved it. I loved it. I haven’t watched season two yet, but I thought it was great. Cause I love Garth. And I remember reading the book and I think I got like three issues and I was just like, I don’t think, I, I don’t think I’m in the place for this.

[00:09:00] Kenric: I didn’t read the book. Oh man. It’s like his home run for Punisher. Born is ridiculous. It’s way over the top. It’s exactly how Punisher should be done. Okay. I was the same way. I somebody gave me the boys. I read like the first issue. Simon Pegg is on the cover and he’s an actual character within the book.

And he’s drawn to look just like,

Adam: he’s not actually Simon peg in the book. Quiche, Simon pick is the reference for, I was like, wait, what exactly? He’s a,

Kenric: he’s the guy. He, he is the character. In the TV show that his girlfriend gets ran over by the speedster. And then he becomes that Simon pegs character. But he’s just, I dunno, I, I was the same way I read the first issue and then I was like, I just couldn’t get into it.

Cause that was all back issues. So I didn’t, I didn’t want to go back and pay for a bunch of stuff. I mean, it’s terrible reason, but the [00:10:00] TV show has been was fantastic. It makes you want to go back and read them.

Adam: Yeah, they did a really good job. You mentioned just because you mentioned his publisher run.

Did you read his a Punisher kills the Marvel universe? Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. That’s a crazy, that’s a special little, yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. Punisher board

Kenric: McCloud. They have it in trade paperback. You should read it. It’s just really good writing and it’s just fricking it’s it’s What’s the word I’m looking for.

It’s just fanatic, you know? Yeah. I mean, I’ll give you one of the scenes. That’s crazy. Is that it’s it’s the Vietnam war is going on. I think it’s the Vietnam. Yes. The Vietnam war is going on and they overtake a village, right. Catches like one of his guys raping this girl. Okay. He shoots the girl, the Punisher does, this is nobody’s raping anybody basically.

And then two [00:11:00] pages later, dude, that was raping, the girl was washing his face off in the river. And the, the moral guy, you know, the, the, the the ethically moral group guy in the group is coming out the other side. And he sees Frank Catholic come out of the jungle, walk up behind the dude and just put his boot on the guy’s back of the guy’s head and drowns him in the river.

That’s how this basically starts. And you just go from, there is nuts.

Adam: What’s going on, buddy?

Kenric: What’s going on another good writer too, to follow. Is Warren Ellis.

Adam: Yes. Oh, I cannot tell you how many times in the last four years I’ve been like, when did we just start living in traffic? Metropolitan the news just wasn’t trans metropolitan. I’m like this isn’t even trying.

Kenric: Oh, that’s

Adam: funny. Are you reading anything right now? [00:12:00] No, I’m not. I am not even watching anything right now. I I’ve had so little bandwidth lately. I knew they were watching stuff that I’ve already seen that she hasn’t or documentaries. But I will say because we’re on comics Watchman, the Washington series on HBO was one of the best things I’ve seen in a really long time.

And then. Beyond that Damon Lindelof, who I interviewed when I was back to create a screenwriting magazine for Cowboys and aliens, his, you know, his Opus he, his, the, the PR campaign, like when he was doing all the Q and A’s and round tables and everything. Yeah. Listening to him, talk about the process of making Watchman and how he like went in with like, Kind of the best of intentions and wanting to be the white savior and managed to like surround himself with these like really brilliant and talented black writers [00:13:00] who were who were just like, I see what you’re trying to do.

And the thing is you can’t be our boss and also equal. So we’re going to take the power in the room and you’re going to have to take a back seat. And he was just like, what? That doesn’t. Oh, yeah. And so there was this really cool kind of personal growth journey. He went on in making this show that I just find fascinating.

He tried to get tiny, easy coats to like co-sign and then Ta-Nehisi Coates was like on some show and he’s like, yeah, all these like white people in Hollywood, keep calling me up, trying to get me to like validate their shows and like, that’s not what I was doing. Oh, wait a second. It is shit.

Yeah.

Kenric: That was a good show. That’s unfortunate. That’s going to be the one season.

Adam: Yeah. But it’s, it’s perfect how it is and if they want to come back and you’re like some years from now, HBO has told them that the door is open. So

Kenric: yeah, that’d be, that’d be, it was shockingly [00:14:00] good. Yeah. You know, I mean, even the the whole thing with the cops wearing masks at first, I thought, okay, this is, this is a little corny.

I don’t know if I can get behind this, but then you learn why and how everything goes. It’s like, okay, now it kind of all terrifyingly fits together.

Adam: I think like my favorite genre is this shouldn’t work, but shit it does. Yeah. And Mike McCloud’s had to hear me say this like a million times, but like, it’s my own process.

I don’t really start writing something until I think it doesn’t work because then I have a puzzle to solve. Right. So like, I have an idea. Well, most ideas are very similar to something else that’s already been done. And it’s so much easier to not make a movie than to make a movie that if I have an idea that similar to something else, I’m like, Oh, that’s cool.

I can just pop some popcorn and watch it. It’s only when it’s like, Oh, yeah. I haven’t seen that before. I remember McCloud saying that about like, when Miriam goes to the, her ghosts, you know, to the, to the corporate office. And he was just like, Oh, I haven’t [00:15:00] seen that. I don’t think, okay.

Kenric: It’s a great, it’s a great premise.

It’s a lot of fun. It’s like, Oh, well this is different. You haven’t seen anything like this. I mean, honestly the only thing I could think of that was close to it is beetle juice. Yeah. And that was the only thing. And I was like, And if that’s the closest thing that I’m going to find out, well, it’s been almost.

40 years since beetle juice. So this is awesome, you know,

Adam: and like, it’s, it’s funny. Cause like as soon as we, you know, started showing up, people are like, Oh, so Beetlejuice was a huge inspiration. I was like, Nope, didn’t think about it at all. I’ve watched that movie like a billion times. So it makes sense that it would just like be, I always say my brain is like a hard drive of every song I’ve ever heard and every movie I’ve ever seen.

Yeah. Just on shuffle. Well,

Kenric: you know, things happen in weird ways. Are you guys familiar with man thing? The common character? Okay. So man thing, you know, swamp thing, right? Swamp thing, and man thing we’re literally [00:16:00] created at the same time and we’re released within weeks of each other. And the thing that’s even more funny is that Lynn Wayne created the swap thing and his roommate was Jerry Conway who created man thing.

And they were living together when they both introduced their characters. And. Yeah, and I, and a lot of it is the zeitgeists of just being together and watching the same things and having the same basic ideas and not talking with each other, but these things happened and we had Jerry on and Jerry Conway is awesome because he’s the one who wrote the death of Gwen, Stacy for Spiderman, one of the most famous storylines of all time.

He’s a huge, huge guy in the comic world for a long time. But we, and we were lucky we were talking to her about that. And I was like I said, is this true? Cause you knew Lynn wine. And he goes, it is true. And I’m the one who did, I was his roommate and it was like, it kind of blew me away and he’s like, it just happens.

And it’s, I think, I really do think you were saying you have all this stuff in [00:17:00] your head that you’ve cataloged and when you’re writing, you bring things out. But subconsciously. It’s going to be what it is, and it’s not, I don’t want people get the wrong idea. It is not builders by any stretch of imagination.

It’s just the coast thing that I could think of when when that scene happened. I that’s what I did. It went back to is the lady with the cigarette in her throat. Right.

Adam: Yeah.

Macleod Andrews: I think there’s like, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen stuff similar to it, but it’s usually more angels in like the adjustment Bureau or

Adam: just spending your life matter of life and death.

Kenric: Yeah. Did you ever read the books? The incantations of incarnations of immortality? No. An author named piers. Anthony. I think it’s P I E R

Adam: S. I’ve heard that name. Yeah.

Kenric: Seventies and nineties. Huh? What’s it. What’s the title again? He’s seven books in the series is called the incarnations of immortality.

Okay. And the first book is on a pale horse and it’s about the office of death, [00:18:00] where Zane is the main character he’s going to kill himself because his mom just died and you know, nothing’s going right in his life. So I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill myself. He’s about ready to kill himself. He’s got a gun to the head and through the mirror walks death.

And for some reason he’s able to move the gun and he shoots death in the head and he kills death. Fate comes walking out in the mirror and says, you just, you know, you killed death. You have, because that’s how the office of death is assumed each incarnation, death fate. Time war Satan, God, they’re all offices that mortals hell hold until the next successor is assigned.

You get what I’m saying? So your goal during the time of holding the office, but as an each ones Successor is done differently. Death is done by the guy who’s killed them is the one who takes over. And the whole book is about him coming through. And there’s a lot of the same kind of things. He goes to purgatory [00:19:00] and he’s in purgatory and it’s all like a big.

Office style cubicle. You know what I mean? Tons of pure

Adam: bureaucracy to get kind of sounds like my jam.

Kenric: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s older. It’s kind of weird. It has some very old world values. It’s really,

Adam: you know, like when we were, I mean, you asked like back at the beginning about the writing of it and like, the thing that I really love about writing is that.

You young, you can kind of do whatever you want to do. You can play jazz. And especially when you’re writing a movie, especially when you’re writing a ghost movie, like some shit saying real, you can do whatever you want. So it’s like so many people kind of keep to this. And in fact, the original ending of the movie.

Kept with the idea that ghosts are here because of unfinished business. Right. And once I told my friend Titi about it, we very quickly were like, Oh, that didn’t, he does not work. And then it just became like, well, why not just [00:20:00] explore, like all this other stuff, that’s kind of be, you know, I remember like telling McLeod about the ghost supervisor and I was like, I was just making myself laugh.

And like MacLeod shows up, like, dude, I’ve been reading all this like, Voltaire stuff and I don’t know what you’re referencing. And I was like, I wasn’t referencing anything. It was a joke. I’m so sorry you’ve been doing that. I was

Macleod Andrews: trying to be a good actor and understand what my, my lines and why I was saying it.

And I was like, this doesn’t make any sense. You’re

Adam: looking for deeper

Kenric: meaning in the surface,

Adam: but like, you know, that’s kind of the, what I, what I love about writing is like, You know, especially if you get stuck and, and on this, there wasn’t time to get stuck. So like just kind of chase, whatever excites you.

You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a thing that I think Tarantino did really well early on. It was like, you watch all these movies. I mean, I watched. No, I was, I was the stereotypical cinema kid. You know, we, we lived in near a movie theater. So in the [00:21:00] summer, especially I would just walk over and go and watch kindergarten cop and Batman and everything else, like 15 times all day.

Yep. And so now, like yeah, it becomes, you know, especially, I like the thing I find really exciting about 21st century storytelling is that the audience has caught up and everyone, you watch a zombie movie and it’s now a joke. Like, why can’t you just, why don’t you know who you’re in a zombie movie?

There’s zombies say the word. And so like, okay, we’re in a ghost movie, let’s be in a ghost movie. And there’s nothing telling us that we can’t go to where the ghosts live and there’s nothing telling us that we can’t do this. So, you know, you just have to make sure that it’s earned emotionally. That it makes sense.

Yeah. Because that’s all it’s, especially with disbelief is, will follow you on your stupid nonsense. Just make sure that it

Kenric: feels true. Yeah. Yeah, I’m, I’m writing a comic book right now called supernatural baby detective. And it’s the hardest it’s. The [00:22:00] hardest thing to do is, is trying to keep it. Real. And it starts off with Frank Solomon is a 60, some year old detective who has he’s the massage monistic.

He wants it to be 1940. He’s living in the in the nineties or the 2000. We have decided what decade he’s in, but he’s in modern times, he’s hunting down a serial child kidnapper called the Easter bunny. Cause he only operates during the month of April takes kids by the sea. He does all this stuff. He gets, he starts to figure out who, where this guy is, right.

Gets to the Island, Easter Island. Let me call it. It’s not Easter Island. It’s it’s this guy calls it Easter anyways, gets on the Island and he instantly gets attacked by this guy. And he dies. It’s actually that. As he dies. I have an entity who is whose name is den and it stands for some thing in [00:23:00] Dennis, like the great balancer of things.

And he tells FRA Frank, he needs, I’m going to, you’re going to be reborn because I need you to figure this out. I can’t go to your, your realm and fix this because if I step in your universe, it’s dead. It’s torn up. It’s torn apart. So he’s, and he doesn’t know what the hell is going on. And so then basically snaps his fingers and all of a sudden he’s looking at a blue light and as he comes out, he’s, here’s Dan St.

He gives them the gift of memory and he’s pulled out of, out of the uterus and the doctor has an up and he’s born again, but he retains 100% of everything that he’s already known and on all of his memories, it’s already him. And so then, you know, as he’s the umbilical, Gord’s getting pulled, he’s. He’s being handed to his new mom and he, and he whispers in her ear, sweetheart.

My name is Frank. Don’t get the birth certificate wrong. And he passes out because he was just murdered Metta God and was born on the same day. And that’s my act one, [00:24:00] basically. And then it goes

Adam: into the vocal chords. It can tell her.

Kenric: Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it’s just, I, I didn’t get that deep into

Adam: it.

Maybe I just wanted

Kenric: that moment of him being born, knowing that he is being born and freaking out and not knowing what to say. And then having his new mom who he refuses to call mom, he keeps calling her Alice. Because he’s like, that’s not my mom. My, my mom is, is so-and-so, that’s his, he calls her his own in his own, his original mother.

And then they go through the whole thing. And then I’m, I’m in the process of doing act two right now, but it’s nice. It’s a lot of fun, but I’m trying so desperately hard not to Overthink what I’m doing and keeping it like real emotions, keeping it true. Like you were just saying, but having this completely outlandish, ridiculous structure, but at the same time, you know, like real emotions, like I’m having him go through.

The fact of [00:25:00] this lady has, is takes care of me. She wipes me. She cleans up after me because he didn’t have a choice. Right. He doesn’t can’t call everything. She obviously loves me unconditionally. And so he started to have these feelings of that’s his mom. You know, but he has all the memories of his childhood of everything all the way up till he dies.

So he’s trying to, you have to think of him trying to wrestle this, and it’s a funny concept, but at the same time you put yourself in that situation, you’d be like, How do you kind of come to terms with all this shit? That’s just

Adam: one, you even have something that like, if you, if you wanted to, like, if, you know, you have the line of, my name is Frank Gannett.

Right. But like, because babies are just crying, like he’s saying that, but it’s, it’s registering as Y but you then have kind of the, like, As we, you know, as we get older and we start to talk, he’s finally able to articulate. So you have the like device of inner monologue and then like, he’s finally able to communicate at [00:26:00] some point you gotta get yourself from a cloud, because let me tell you how often McLeod gets messages from me, where I’m like, this is what we’re doing.

And he’s like, I’m like, I got this idea it’s weird and funny. And he’s just like, yeah, but what does it have to do with the story of the characters? And I’m like, but it’s weird and funny. You got to get yourself on the cloud. It’s the best thing.

Kenric: Well, I got, I got Johnny my coast and I said it to him and he loved, he goes, I’m going to do some rewrites on it.

And it instantly, I clammed up cause I was like, no, no, no, no. Let me finish all the, everything that I have in my head and get it all out. Then we can go back and start doing that kind of stuff. Because if you start making changes now, it might completely change everything about what’s in my head.

Adam: Yeah, give it, I’ll give it a

Macleod Andrews: go.

Giving notes is really tricky in that regard, because you don’t want to squash the creative process. You don’t want to like, you know, you want to, you want to, it’s important to recognize where you are in the process and also how your, your creative partner operates. And, [00:27:00] you know, it’s really easy to shut someone down unnecessarily and not even know that you’re doing it.

Yeah, no, I know where you’re doing it. And also just to be like, we’re not there yet. Like the, like the details that like aren’t working yet. Just they’re, they’re bigger fish to fry, the more holistic it’s not worth getting into.

Adam: I had this last last night I wanted to send the cloud the thing that I’ve been working on, but.

I, and I will sometimes send them things with just like seen placeholders, like, you know, star, star, star insert, you know, action scene star, star, star. And I got to a point where I was like, I can do that, but. He’s not going to be able to react to the full data set that I want him to, if I don’t write this next scene, because this next scene, you know, it’s, it’s the end of a sequence.

And so even though I like, I want to see if this know, if this thing that I just wrote works, it’s like, yeah, but it’s an incomplete idea. [00:28:00] And it has taken years to get to a point of like, I can’t just send everything also. Like he has a baby now and a wife and, you know, like he’s a very busy person, so I can’t send him everything as much as I want to because I just respect his time too much.

And then the

Kenric: really important things that you think I need some feedback on this

Adam: or I, or, or it’s basically just like, I can’t send them anything that needs to be that’s my microwave. It has to have been cooked. Right. You know, I, I like you can’t send placeholders anymore. Right. Which is not a thing I’ve actually sent to you yet, but like, I it’s just been like a thing I’ve been realizing recently of like, I can’t, you know, Yeah, I, I it’s, I need to give, I need to like write it out and that is the worst part of all of this.

Macleod Andrews: Well, it’s like, you know, with like a placeholder it’s you, when you receive that and it’s like to give notes, it’s like, and then here will go a really good scene and you go, okay, well then I guess that’s true. But,

[00:29:00] Kenric: Now that you, you know, you’ve. Been doing this a while. Are we going to see anything directed by or written by,

Macleod Andrews: Probably not written by I don’t know, probably not.

I’m not a terribly motivated person. I prefer, I prefer to help. Like, I don’t have a high enough opinion of like my, my perspective on the world to feel like it needs to hear what I think about it. I prefer, I prefer helping people like Adam, who, who. Who I think have great ideas and who, who also just can’t can’t help it.

Like it’s they were put here to, to create stories. And I, I, I so far I’m happy helping people with, you know, put their Mark on the world. That’s awesome. Playing the

Kenric: tambourine. I got to ask you because I ha why have you on w how sad are you knowing that you were doing the last book?

Macleod Andrews: I haven’t, [00:30:00] I haven’t narrated it yet.

It’s coming though. Right? It’s coming. Yeah.

Kenric: And this is what, when I say the last book to people listening know and I said at the beginning, but I feel I have a feeling we’ll probably cut this into two McCloud. Does the voiceover or the narration work for Sandman slim novels? Yeah. And it’s a it’s I think that.

It’s quite a few books in the series and cadre the author. It has, has said he’s written the last one. And so it’s coming for, from a cloud, but you’ve been doing it for so long since what? 2013, 2012

Macleod Andrews: around there. Yeah.

Kenric: Somewhere around there, around there coming into end of an era. And the Sandman slim fan base has grown exponentially in the last few years.

So it’s. It’s pretty cool. But at the same time, it’s, it’s sad. Yeah,

Macleod Andrews: it is. I, I respect the hell out of the choice, you know, 

you know, I, so, so I’m really, I think it’s awesome that he’s ending it and starting another [00:31:00] chapter. And I mean, I mean, like, I think salmon slim probably to this day, you know, it’s sort of.

It’s kind of one of the series that made my career. Like, it’s certainly one of the things I’m most known for.

Kenric: That’s how I met you. Yeah, exactly. I looked up and I’m like, Oh, I want to go. I want to talk to him cloud because this, this is your work on the books are awesome. Thank you. I mean, I’m dude, I’m not blowing smoke.

They’re really, really good. And I read the books first now. This might be terrible. I have a hard time reading the books. I just want to narrate the story because it’s so good. And it’s just so much fun and they’re unabridged. So it’s not like you’re missing anything, you know, you’re seeing, you’re getting the whole thing and cause you to, I don’t know, you are the voice of Sandman.

So it’s like, Yeah, there’s James Stark. Every time you talk him, I have a hard time not thinking that up into a shadow and all of a sudden be like, I’m out of here,

Macleod Andrews: dude, this guy talking

Adam: about

[00:32:00] Kenric: whatever, but it’s been cool because now that I’ve seen you in a couple of movies, now, my whole. Thought process of, you know, the work that you’re doing is as

Macleod Andrews: changed dramatically. I’ve actually wanted to ask, like having seen me, you know, do movies and a flag. Does it, does it mess with your perception of listening?

Well, okay.

Kenric: It hasn’t, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s been good. I liked, I, our first thing, Adam, you listen to those, those two things. McLeod and I, and Johnny got along so well. I think I probably bugged him, how much I messed instant message him on Twitter. After that we were just going back and forth and every time he has something going on, I’m quick to, I always want us to congratulate him because I think it’s awesome.

The work you guys are doing. And, and so I always think, no, that’s my buddy. Now I get to say, that’s my friend. That’s doing all this stuff. And it’s, it’s, it’s more fun that it’s, it’s been more fun watching you and then [00:33:00] knowing that what you’re doing, when you’re you like what, when you’re recording James Stark and all the stuff that you’ve been doing.

It’s it’s just heightened all the experience. Let’s put it that way.

Macleod Andrews: Yeah. Yeah. I mean like I, when it goes to Wade’s actually got distribution, one of the first thoughts I had was like, Oh good. I have a reason to say, call up Kendrick Kenrick and ask if I can do a spoiler

Kenric: country. Dude, come on. Anytime you want.

Are you kidding? You can talk about how you butter toast.

Adam: I mean, he butters toast very well.

Macleod Andrews: I’m very

Adam: thorough. He’s thorough,

Kenric: but now we can, we can pull out of them in cause the two of you together is even more fun.

Adam: Yeah. I think part of, I mean, with, especially with the books, like. What was the one McLeod. It was like a star Trek parody.

[00:34:00] Macleod Andrews: Oh

Adam: yes. Okay. So I was living with him when he was recording that, and it’s the star Trinity, and there’s the, all these alien races and you’ve got the crew and everything, and he does all the voices. Yeah. And like the coolest part of it, because we would prep it and then he he’d go and record and he’d come home with like cookies from Portos.

Cause he was in Burbank and like his throat is just shredded, but like the smile on his face is so huge because he was having so much fun and like it is working with McLeod. I, I, you know, I, I don’t always. Working with your friends is something that, you know, like our buddy, Jamie Buckner, like, you know, I remember him saying like, all I want to do is make movies to my friends.

He wants to be Kevin Smith part too. Yeah. And I would always say, I don’t want to work with my friends. I want to work with skilled craftsmen who will make a good movie. Yeah. Working with the, kind of the best of that. Like

Kenric: any

Adam: skills. Yeah. Cause he, you know, he’s ridiculously [00:35:00] talented as both an actor and a producer, but like.

I sent him a message last week, I was out running some errands and I just had an idea and it’s like a two line idea. Just like, there’s no meat on the bones yet. But like I had a thought and it’s so cool. I can tell when something really sticks because he’s just like, Oh yeah. It’s cause like, if it’s not really sticking with him, but like, If it’s clear that I like it.

He was like, okay, like walk me through a little bit, like explained. But if it just like on its face, it’s so cool. He’s just like, yep. Okay. Yeah. I’m like, okay, I’ve done something. Right. I made McLeod, you know, I got McLeod

Kenric: people who’ve been listening. You know why I made the joke. When you did the table read, did McLeod do all the voices?

He could be really good if you wanted to do it so

Macleod Andrews: well. Nah. I mean, audio books are a little different because suspension of disbelief, you kind of [00:36:00] like, there’s this agreement that like, okay, we all know that you’re going to be everybody and we’re along for the ride. I think it’s when you throw it into a different context sometimes like, the steel heart the Reckner series the guys now who games made a board game of it.

And they had, they had, they had listened to the audio books as opposed to reading it. And, you know, they, they said, Hey, will you, will you do a promo for us doing the voices from, from steel heart? It’s sort of like, almost like an animated scene kind of thing. And, you know, pushed out of the context of an audio book.

I was like, I really don’t think you should have me voice Megan, you know, the, the lead actress, because it’s just in that world of like a dynamic scene that suspension of disbelief that I am a 20 year old woman. It just doesn’t, it doesn’t sell

is as much versatility as I maybe have. [00:37:00] Like, it’s not gonna, it’s gonna hit the ear weird. And I actually ended up having my wife record that for him. Then I was just like, just so they were like, well,

Adam: but, but we’re

Macleod Andrews: really attached to all of your voices. And I was like, I understand that. And I appreciate that.

Just listen to my wife,

Adam: do it because the

Macleod Andrews: context is it’s it’s, it’s going to be weird. What she did.

Kenric: Do they like

Macleod Andrews: what she did? Yeah. Yeah. They ended up doing that. That’s

Kenric: nice. How are you recording the cloud? Are you still going into a studio or are you, did you set up a home studio yet? Nice little whisper room.

The

Macleod Andrews: whisper room. Yeah. For those, for those who are listening, I just tilted my camera to show my three and a half foot by two and a half foot box that I stand six to eight hours a day.

Kenric: How long did it take you to put

Adam: that together? Oh, it’s a, there’s a guy. He came up.

Kenric: Was that a guy

Macleod Andrews: come out and do it?

Yeah. Yeah. Back in my old apartment. [00:38:00] General Jesus Christ. Why am I blanking on the name? Scott. Scott Peterson, I

Adam: think. Did you

Kenric: have one when you came on? I don’t remember if you had that. I think you were, you were going into the studio. Oh yeah, I was, I’ve

Macleod Andrews: had it for years. I’ve I’ve we used to use it to record books and because one, I, I recently moved, so now I’m in a air conditioned home.

No, but for years and years, I was in, you know, a one bedroom apartment with no AC and it was tucked in a closet and fat and miserable. And I was just like, no, I’m not going to record for six hours in there. Now it’s, it’s, it’s

Kenric: manageable. I got to get nerdy on you. What Mike, are you using? I’m using

Macleod Andrews: a custom built knowing menu, 87 clone.

And so it’s, it’s built by. And an engineer named Sebastian Setton, who I worked with for many years who sort of started doing a side hustle and building microphones. And you know, he opened up an old Norman U 87 to see how it worked and then, you know, bought a kit and started building, [00:39:00] building clones.

And it sounds amazing. Sounds fricking fantastic. Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been I’ve been I’ve recorded random house books on him. I’ve recorded Sandman slim on it now. That’s awesome.

Kenric: What and last nerdy question. What’s your audio interface for it?

Macleod Andrews: I use a a Apollo twin. Oh, nice. And then if I have to record locally, which every once in a while you have to just because internet connection or whatever.

Yeah, then I’ll, I’ll use doll. My I’ll use Reaper as my doll.

Kenric: Yeah. Yeah. That’s digital audio workstation for you.

Macleod Andrews: Audio Reaper is also what I did the sound design for a ghost waits on. Oh, nice. Yeah, it’s great. It’s a super versatile program. There’s tons of tutorials on the internet and yep. And it’s really affordable

or something like that. Whereas pro tools is like a grand two grand. So

Kenric: pro tools is too [00:40:00] much. Yeah. You know, and I, I like Adobe premier, but I, the subscription model kills me. Yeah. You know, cause it’s just like, Oh my God, come on. I’d rather pay up front and get like a few, like give me two years of updates.

And then if I want to roll with that for, for the rest of my life, then that should be on me. But yeah, I hate it, but I get it. It’s easier for them to maintain, especially with Adobe had a lot of pirating issues. Hmm. Yeah, that makes sense.

Macleod Andrews: And then now it allows, it does allow people to use the software, you know, add, you know, an affordable price.

You know, if you, if you’re going to be editing for six months or three months or whatever, 20 bucks, it’s like, you can use that as opposed to just one big pop of like $500 or a grand, which most people can, can. Can’t chew. And also, especially if you’re like, I don’t know if I’m going to use this every year, every day. [00:41:00]

So yeah, but I’m, I’m with you. It kind of the idea that I, it irks me, we, we edited ghost weights on Adobe premier and it, it works the clouds, the clouds

Kenric: kind of nice. Yeah. Well, right now we’re using. I mean, I, I hit description model, like I just said, but we’re using descript and descript is amazing because you upload your audio to it.

It automatically transcribes it. And then say you say or right. I can literally highlight and then go delete. And it says, would you like to delete all the filler words and it’ll go through and find all the ums and UHS in the transplant thing and then delete them all out of the audio track automatically.

That’s awesome. Yeah.

Adam: The biggest thing in the marketplace.

Kenric: Yeah. It’s huge. Record yourself, right. Saying some control words, and then you can literally write the script and it’s still, you can still tell it’s not you, but it’s pretty fricking close of sounding. Just like you saying it.

[00:42:00] Adam: Wow. Yeah.

Kenric: Yeah. I don’t

Macleod Andrews: know if I, how I feel about that.

I don’t know if you saw the tweet I tweeted today.

Kenric: It did not. New phone, new phone. Remember,

Macleod Andrews: just read it to you please, because it’s yeah, it’s apropos. What’s the word for the creeping anxiety? That one day your career will be taken by AI and I, the script, the script. Yeah. I linked it to an article that was like, you know, read by. You can still tell it’s mechanized, but when I listened to it, Or when I started listening to it, my first thought was this guy has a nice voice.

And I was like, Oh, that was a weird choice. And I was like, who’s this guy’s editor? And I was like, Oh, it was not a guy, but the fact that it took me a second, I was like,

Kenric: Oh, Oh man, that’s hilarious. Yeah. I th the script is nice, cause it’s like, literally for the audio, like I’ll put this into final cut and I’ll [00:43:00] use final cut pro on my Mac.

Yes. We’re all the video portions, you know, and they’ll edit it out through there. And then I don’t, I’m nowhere near a video editor by any stretch. I’m still learning everything. So I don’t know, like color correction is not a thing for me, you know, because I don’t know what I’m doing with it. Yeah, it’s tough to learn it, but I, you know, but I don’t do, I learned better by like, if Adam, if Adam was like this video editing Wiz and him and I sat down and he said, this is how you do this.

Did I do that? I would learn in a heartbeat like that.

Adam: I. I taught myself to edit, editing the movie. And I definitely would not call myself an editor, although I am credited as one. But like, I appreciate that. I, now I have like a language for when we work with real edit real editors. Right. But when we had already do the color correction, I had tried to do that.

I had tried my hand at it because it’s the same reason I play Neil on the movie. I know I can afford myself and I’ll be there on the day. And so, but I just, I couldn’t get it to [00:44:00] work. And so, you know, RA did it in two days and it looks amazing. And I was, I was talking to my friend Merissa shortly thereafter and she is, she taught herself.

How to run like electricity. She, like, she was redoing her apartment and like TA wasn’t happy with the job the guy did. And so taught herself and she laid redid the floors and the plumbing and wiring and all kinds of crap. And so she was just like, well, could you have, you know, do you, do you think you could have taught yourself to do it?

And I was like, maybe if I had like, Three years to just study and like experiment, you know, but it’s like part of the fun of this is the collaboration and working with people who have just, they have a craft and they have worked at this craft for so long. I’ve been writing scripts for like 20. 22 years now.

Wow. And they were bad for a very long time, but they were also like, this is you know, trying to write here. [00:45:00] Terentino’s trying to write like Sorkin, trying to write like Paul Thomas Anderson, trying to write like, you know, and. That’s how it works though. Yeah, it is. And like, something has to kind of click for you, like for, in my case.

And I, I, I like to use, because more people should watch the movie. I had just seen this like modern, romantic comedy where two people connect almost exclusively through pop culture. Right. And then like a couple days later I saw Marty, which is like the Ernest Borgnine movie that had his wrote in the fifties.

And it’s just these two middle-aged people who meet at a dance hall and they like their souls connect. They don’t talk about music or nothing. It’s just like, this is what it is to live in the world when you’ve given up. And I remember like watching that, like, okay, this is, this is what I want to do. This feels timeless.

And. Once I kind of like that kind of unlocked a lot. Like, and then of course making, you know, there’s no film school, like making a movie. Right. You know, I didn’t understand so much of what a [00:46:00] director needed to do. I can’t tell you how many times Jenny told me to like, make a shot list for Mike. We never had time because there was no money.

Mike couldn’t take time off for prep. So there was no prep. We were finding shots on the day onset. Right. And blocking then there was no rehearsal. There was never an, a script read, but like now I, if for like the next thing I can sit down and kind of make a shot list or like something adjacent to one, like I now have at least an understanding, but at the time I was like, I don’t know what I’m doing.

I need someone to hold my hand through this. And so, yeah, like collaboration teaches you so much. And, you know, also like lead you to appreciate and respect, like an editor is someone whose mind just does that. Right. You know, and it is magic. You know, if I were to like sit down with a real editor, I think they would laugh me out of the booth because I don’t do bins or anything.

Or color [00:47:00] correction and sound and acting and everything. Like all of it. Is that’s how their brain works. Yeah. And respecting that and not wanting to like step on anyone, you know, and like, well, let me, let me tell you how your brain should be doing it. It’s like, no, it’s like my philosophy with actors, your job is to know the characters better than I do.

Right. You know? So it’s like, yeah, I, my job as the writer is to create a document that conveys a point of everything, the point of the scenes, the point of the story and the point to the characters. But then you give that to your collaborators and say, please make this look, please make this better. Right.

You know, make me look smart,

Kenric: dude. I’ve managed people for a long time in corporate America. And that’s the one that’s my mantra all the time is I want to hire people that are smarter than me around me, because that’s just, no, that,

Adam: that was Lincoln’s thing. Right? If you’re a, if you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people, if you’re [00:48:00] smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.

Kenric: Yeah. That’s so true. That’s so true. And going back and what you’re talking about, I think when you’re trying to be Quintin Tarantino, or you’re trying to be mammoth or whoever is the people that you look towards, it’s the same thing with music, right? I don’t know of any band that didn’t start off as a cover band.

You know, not the ones that were really good that ended up writing their own stuff and coming up with their own style, steeped in the things that they already loved, you know? And then, then you, you kind of grow from there, like Metallica, that was, they were a garage band, that’s all they did. And then they become like the biggest heavy metal act of the eighties and nineties.

Adam: Right? Yeah. And like, Yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned Metallica. Cause that came up on a recent chat. We did. And like, I’ve been thinking about it since that the question of authenticity in, in th in punk, in metal, in hip hop, you know, you never really have it in pop. You never really, you know, but a horror [00:49:00] has that, you know, there’s a big question of authenticity and horror, you know, and if.

And now you have this like elevated horror and like is silence of the lambs horror. And it’s like, of course it is not a horror movie, but there’s this like ghettoization that happens where they’re like, well, if it’s horror, the horror is, you know, cheap and it’s a guy with a knife, you know? And it’s like, well, It can be like emotion is opera.

Oh, you have your metaphor. Like Friday the 13th is not just about a guy with a knife. Originally. Probably the 13th is about a woman who lost her kid and will never get over it. And like has taken it upon her to like take out anyone who might someday result in an another kid diet, generational trauma. And it’s fascinating, but like, you have a lot of people who don’t want to think about that because horror is boobs and blood.

[00:50:00] Right. I was like, well, it can be, you can, if that’s all you have time

Kenric: for. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s an interesting when it comes to art, it’s so weird. Cause it’s really, doesn’t evoke an emotion, whether you hate it or you love it. And then, you know, It’s good. I mean, I’ve watched plenty of bad movies, but nobody goes in there thinking I’m going to make a bad movie, unless there’s a point to it, you know?

It’s right. I got a chance to write the Avenger or write the fantastic four. I think I’ll just totally screw it up and not understand anything that I’m doing. No one does

Adam: that. I used to say you haven’t seen bad movies unless you’ve programmed a festival because the ones you’re seeing at least got distribution.

Right. And I have seen the undistributed crap of America. But then lately I’ve been watching Christmas movies to research a potential project. And I watched one the other night that got distribution and I [00:51:00] made it 12 minutes and, and I just, I stopped it. And I said, I don’t know if this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but that woman is definitely the worst actress I’ve ever seen.

And I don’t like, and it ruined other, like it ruined visual media for a day. I couldn’t watch anything else. I just had to like, go listen to stuff. Cause like I watched Mr. Mayor afterwards and I was like, is Holly Hunter a bad actor? Or am I just like, unable to appreciate this? Because that movie was such, so it was such shit.

Kenric: Well, you get registered. There was never a time that Holly Hunter is a bad actress. Yeah. Yeah. Always on point. Oh

Adam: my God. And like, but you know, I wouldn’t, like, I kind of went down a rabbit hole of researching this movie that I turned off, like, how did this happen? And man, they were so genuine and they thought they were making the next great thing.

And it’s just like, whew, okay. They’re happy with it,

Kenric: you know, to plenty of people, man. And then, and then I want to go back, you know, I want to watch it because I got excited talking [00:52:00] to them. They didn’t know the movie and I didn’t, you know, I didn’t know the writing or anything. And then you go back and you watch it.

And you’re like, Ooh, that was rough. You know? And if you talk to somebody, you almost feel like you want to make it through the whole thing to give them the, because you know, to give them the benefit. And it’s like, Oh, that was,

Adam: that was a rough watch

Macleod Andrews: story kind of anxiety. When, when, when I told you to watch to maybe watch some of my movies,

Adam: but the story that we’ll tell you off mic.

Yeah. Okay. I will never tell it on the record,

Kenric: but the thing is, is with your guys’ movie and with the other moves that you’ve done, that I’ve seen you in MacLeod, there’s an honesty to them, you know, and there’s a difference that you actually know the craft and convey emotions on your face. I’m not kidding.

I’ve seen some of these movies where it’s just it’s, it’s like. They just have a teleprompter off in the distance and they’re literally, it looks like they’re just reading it.

[00:53:00] Adam: Yeah,

Macleod Andrews: it was. I mean, like it’s terrifying watching bad or even mediocre films, like sometimes watching a mediocre film is even more terrifying because it’s a fine line between like something being bad or mediocre or great.

Like it’s. And like that’s, that’s often been like the, the sort of existential dread of, of making small films is for it. It’s not, it, it they’re bad until it’s until that moment when it clicks in and it’s like, it’s great. And even when it’s great, like yeah. I like, remember sitting, like a lot of people have responded really positively to, they look like people.

I love it, but even when it was out and like, we had won some awards, I remember sitting at like the 10th festival watching it with an audience and being like, fuck, this is terrible movie. Why does anybody like it? Like,

Adam: And it’s not,

Macleod Andrews: I don’t think that

Kenric: bag scene was that [00:54:00] the bag scene with when you have the bag over it.

Oh my God, dude. That was so freaky. I was like, No, no, you do kill it.

Macleod Andrews: You know, like with a gun, with a ghost weights, like there is, you know, there’s the assembly cut and then there’s the next cut and the next cut. And like, you know, it’s over the course of years. So there’s like big chunks of your life where you’re like, I don’t know if we can pull this off. Like there was even like we had a screening in Kentucky where, where it was like at a place.

Where it was like, this is good. Like, this is a good try. This is like, we can be really proud of the effort that we put into making this. And there’s some stuff that’s really great in here. I don’t great movie yet. And then finally there was a week of like an August where like, Adam came out to LA and we just buried ourselves in this intense editing schedule and like where we just kept we’d watch it at night.

We’d do [00:55:00] edits in the morning. We watched at night, we’d edit the end like that. And then there was like this moment at, towards the end of that week where I was like, This is a good movie like this, like, like this is actually no excuses, no, like, Hey, good try. Hey, you didn’t have a lot of resources. Hey, there was just where I was like, no, this is worth it.

This is, this is worthwhile, but it’s like five years to get there

Adam: and like, I think one reason that I’m sorry, but like, I think one reason that McLeod and I worked really well together is that neither one of us really have entitlement and we’re both fairly humble people. So like the fact that, you know, we make a movie it’s not good because we made it, you know, there is no like we’re, we both are chasing things that we want that we think are interesting, but it’s also like.

We’re both more than willing to say, like I made this and it’s not very good. Right. And that is a crucial thing. I know a lot of people [00:56:00] who desperately want to make movies, but you read the scripts that they write. And they’re very clearly just like they like movies and they want to make one and they have nothing to say.

Right. And it is to borrow each term. I just read on an MBA blog that I was just like, that’s perfect. And I’m stealing it. A consistent mediocrity. Whereas like with the two of us, you know, and, and because there’s two of us, one of us can kind of have a moment of like, Oh man. Oh, he did it for Jesus.

Great. And the other one can say out there we did some good work, but we’re not done. You know, and then I just watched,

Macleod Andrews: I think the difference between the, the reason the mediocre films like any even bad films are like, so terrifying is it’s like the, it’s the difference of three months of work or like one really hard week of work, you know, it’s like, it’s like, Oh, that version of our movie two passes ago, if we had stopped, [00:57:00] you know, like.

Adam: I’ll tell you one thing that really annoys the living shit out of me

Kenric: is the, the note,

Adam: The, the idea of kill your darlings because people just throw that out. Like it’s a fix it, you know? Oh, you got to kill your darlings. That means nothing. Outside of the moment, because you made a movie, they’re all your darlings.

Yeah. At least at this level, like, you know, I, I made a movie, are you kidding me? It’s you know, this is, this is amazing. And then, you know, they’re like, well, this doesn’t work. And it’s why, you know, we, we did the, we, we cut it together and then. It was like, well, this doesn’t work, this doesn’t work. And it was very apparent that it didn’t work.

Right. So we did the first set of pickups. The first set of pickups was supposed to be the only set of pickups. W I, you know, when we went shot it, I cut it in. We’re working on that. We’re sending it to people, we’re getting notes and you know, [00:58:00] McCloud and I were supposed to go to we were supposed to meet in Delaware for a week.

My mom lives in Delaware, so we were going to stay at the house and like they’ve got a pool and a beautiful deck and it was just going to be a really nice week of work. And we had gotten some notes back and there was this one consistent note that was constantly there. And I was like, no, like it does this, it sets a fist like it has to be there.

And finally you get through the wall of like, Oh, it doesn’t work. It’s there, but it doesn’t work. Okay. We have to figure out a way that does that in a way that works. That’s in English. And like, people can tell what it is. What’s you’re doing I don’t think we’re going to Delaware. I think we’re going back to Cincinnati and shooting some more of this movie, but like you, if you just said, you know, cause people would just say like, yeah, you gotta kill your darlings.

And it’s like, you don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Kenric: The issue all the time. It’s hard for me sometimes to take not that I can’t take critical. You know, I, I, not that I can make somebody telling me what I’m [00:59:00] doing wrong or anything like that, but when it’s something I’m creating and they don’t see what I’m seeing. You know, but at the same time I gotta flip it.

Right. Cause I’m not, I I’m, I’m having a hard time looking through their eyes of I’m presenting this to you, to entertain you. And now I’ve created this whole section that you’re like, I don’t even get what’s happening. I don’t understand anything that’s happening because there’s all this other stuff that’s in my head.

That makes perfect sense to me. I

Macleod Andrews: like note, note receiving is, is truly a skill. Yeah. And it takes a lot of, I think, psychological training. And luckily, you know, I’ve worked with people like Adam and Perry who are really good at receiving feedback.

Kenric: Yeah, that’s good. But

Macleod Andrews: like the, there’s a kind of common saying of like, it’s, what’s the note behind the note.

Yeah. If, cause sometimes. Sometimes, like maybe somebody says something you disagree with or whatever, but [01:00:00] there’s a reason they set it. Right. And it, you don’t necessarily have to fix the thing. They. Are trying to describe, but you do have to understand why they’re feeling that way and why they’re saying it.

Like, it might be like, okay, like they want me to do this. I’m not going to do this, but the reason they want me to do this is because they’re bored. Right. Like, and so I need to make sure they’re not bored right here. Right. Right. Isn’t there saying this is because they’re confused. So I just need to make sure they’re not confused.

I don’t want to say the thing that they want me to say, but I do need to make sure that they understand what I’m trying to say. Right?

Kenric: Right. No, that’s so

Adam: fun. When people give you a note, like it should be a different movie.

Okay. Cool. Thanks. I remember

Macleod Andrews: with like, they looked like people like Evan and I came down so hard on perio for the ending. Like we were just kinda like, you know what, like, because do we want to say like, like, like what about this? What about this sort of Perry finally said, guys, I [01:01:00] understand what you’re saying.

I hear you. And it all makes sense. I just need you to know that it’s just not the movie I want to make. Like the ending you’re telling me is a valid way to go. That’s not what I want to do. Like that’s not the movie we make and that’s not like it’s easy for that to become a cop out. Like, well, yeah, but I just, but like, But it’s important to like, sometimes those challenges force you to reckon with why you want something to be the way it is.

Like you have to justify your choice. You know,

Adam: it’s helped me become such a better communicator because now, like, I think about what, obviously this isn’t true of. Like, if I’ve just met somebody. Right. But especially if I’m telling somebody that I know, well, I think about how I know how I’ve observed them processing information, how they hear things, because I want to say something I don’t like to repeat myself, but I also don’t want to offend anybody.

And I don’t, you know, and it’s like, it’s [01:02:00] really easy to say. I have thought, and then somebody comes at it from the wrong angle and they get the wrong half. And you’re just like, but no, that’s not what I was saying, but that’s what they heard. Right. And I just, I just learned that it’s like, it’s a lot easier to do the work upfront and then say something in a clear manner than to say it immediately and then have to do an hour of like rescue work to find the point that you’re trying to get at.

And by the time you’re tired and you don’t want to talk about it

Kenric: anymore. Just like the scenario. When you tell some you’re you’re explaining a situation and somebody focuses on a minor detail. Yes. That has nothing to do with the, with the whole scope of everything I’m talking about. Why are you talking about the nickel?

That should be 19. You want it to be 1968 and I have 1952 on that. I don’t care. Yeah.

Adam: Like all of a sudden with the ghost weights, like, it was very it’s very important to me that I know the time, you know, like, okay, this takes place over three days, you know? And like, how do we make, how do we [01:03:00] convey that?

So that’s like the t-shirts and, you know, sleeping on me, but like, yeah. So that’s important, but then if somebody says, what day is it like, well, that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he starts out on Monday, Wednesday or not.

Macleod Andrews: Like you try and ask yourself, what’s the note behind the note where you say which, which you say like, okay, for some reason, this person cares if it’s Wednesday, right?

Why? Like, like, like, are they bored? You’re

Kenric: not hearing the lab of times. Are they

Macleod Andrews: checking out

Adam: like, Yeah. And, and in cases like that, and a lot of times when I make the joke of like the note, that is, it should be a different movie, right. That they’re just telling on themselves, they’re kind of, you know, they’re, they watched it.

But like people engage with just random shit. We show the movie and here in Queens one night and a person like cornered me for a while about the pattern on the rug in the bedroom and what [01:04:00] it represented. And I was like, it represented that it was there when we were shooting,

Kenric: but it’s cool that it spoke to them and that it is cool that it spoke to them.

And then they grabbed something out of it. It’s so weird when it comes to movies and, and music and even books. What people gravitate to. Yeah. It’s like something, that’s an afterthought man. Like it was there, but to them,

Adam: Oh, it’s the best. I love the fact, like, there’s so much in this movie that like, I didn’t really like consciously intend that when somebody points out, I was like, Oh yeah, that makes sense.

That’s there, like, you know, there’s, there’s a very strong anticapitalist streak in this movie that I didn’t intend in the writing. But like, you can ask anyone who spends any time with me, I am obsessed with late stage capitalism and the hazards that it is rot. Right. So like as soon as it was pointed out, I was like, Oh yeah, that makes sense.

And like, that’s so cool. Like it’s, you know, it’s, it’s like trying to consciously write subtext. Like you [01:05:00] can’t, you know, it just has to be there.

Kenric: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So, Guys we’re coming up on.

Adam: I got it. I got her to our episode

when split our country, our guests today are the script. Please delete half

Macleod Andrews: of what

Adam: McLeod said.

Kenric: We’ll do a couple of edits. One that I promised McCloud I’ll do. Cause I don’t. We don’t need him getting in trouble for anything,

Macleod Andrews: I suppose.

Adam: Yeah. Oh, the next Spider-Man movie, everybody is wondering what we’re talking about. You’re looking at Peter Parker

Kenric: 30 year run. Married to Mary Jane. Do you guys have your

Adam: kid? Oh man. I would. So make up Spiderman movie with McLeod is Peter Parker. That would be amazing. Actually you,

Kenric: you could pull it off.

I think you could do it, especially if you did like the the Cravens last

[01:06:00] Adam: time,

Macleod Andrews: I feel like I missed my shot with, into the spider verse.

Kenric: That was so good. Yeah, they did such a great job. Have you read that one? McCloud, the Cravens last hunt? No, no, I think that’s my favorite Spiderman moot story ever told it’s about Craven is a classic villain.

And the cool thing is, is the guy who wrote his name is John demon. Do you Mateus went to DC and pitched this as a story for Batman with, and they said, no. And so a couple of years go by and he pitches it again and they say, no. So then he goes to Marvel and JMD Mateus is he’s written thousands of books.

And like, literally he’s been in the game for like 40, 40 years. So he goes to Marvel and they’re like, we love the storyline. We don’t know where to put it. And he’s does a little bit research and he finds this. [01:07:00] Not real well known villain at the time named Craven, who was a Russian big game Hunter, that’s his whole angle.

And he loves, and he falls in love with this guy and they write this whole story. And I swear to God, it’s a Craven story with, with Spider-Man as, as the second level character in it really, because it’s all about this guy’s descent into madness and, and all the stuff that, that, that it rots. And I feel like it should have a huge impact on who Spider-Man is today, even though it’s kind of been retconned, which is unfortunate, but it’s it really is.

It’s it’s like it’s a superhero book that I tell people to read, to try to get them into superheroes. Does that make sense?

Adam: I’m really hoping that the success of Wanda vision shows that we can be a lot more elastic with our approach to, especially now that Disney plus is as run is like running and doing really well.

Like, you know yeah. You’re, you’re making these movies to make a billion dollars and you know, you got around some edges [01:08:00] to do that, but like, Something that’s smaller. And especially if one division is just going to be a nine episode run and like, that’s it. Yeah. Like you can, you can do Craven’s last hunt.

You can do all these things that are just smaller, you know, that you tell 30 to 50 minutes at a time and you’re, you’re done. Yep.

Kenric: Actually out of you’ll probably agree with me. I think for Cravens last time they really needed to do Toby McGuire. Coming back as Spiderman can be the actual director. Cause one, the fact that the weirdness of that story is right up a Rami’s alley, you know, and too, he would be the, you know, that older Spider-Man that gets affected by this.

It’s, it’s a wonderful story, I think.

Adam: So we can include just one Sam Raimi, directing more. I miss that guy so much. And,

Kenric: You know, he’s doing the new Dr. Strange. Yeah.

Adam: So I’m excited for that. Very happy about

Kenric: that. Yeah. And what division goes right into Dr. Strange.

Adam: Yeah, so like, I’ll I’ll admit, like I [01:09:00] started watching one division and I was just like, Oh, I am here for this first, the first two episodes.

And then it stepped beyond the hacks and started introducing all of that. And I was like, don’t care. Don’t care to get back to the weird, back to the weird sitcom, like as she’s processing grief, like, get me back to that. That’s amazing. And yeah. So I it’s kind of been like fits and starts watching it where I’m just like, I don’t care.

I don’t believe a single word out of Kat Dennings mouth. Like, can we please just talk about grief? It’s amazing. I love this so much. And like Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany are doing serious, especially Paul Bettany

Kenric: career. Oh dude. They sh they deserve, I mean, nominations at the very least, because they’re both doing some awesome stuff where you’re just like, you’re in it.

You know what I mean? You’re in there and you’re just like, I can’t even begin that one. They’re taking this completely ridiculous outcome in this, this fantastical situation. You know, but they’re so good and so [01:10:00] serious in their roles that you’re, you’re lost, you’re in it. You’re, you’re like everything else kind of goes away and you’re like, Oh yeah, I can totally believe what I’m seeing now.

I, I

Adam: mean, like I went in wanting it to be the Tom King vision run and then, but then like, once it became like, Oh, she’s processing like. Okay. That’s interesting. I heard

Kenric: house of M, which I haven’t read, but I guess a lot of it’s coming from house with him.

Adam: Yeah. And then, yeah, my friend was telling me about like Agatha Harkness and all that stuff.

And then he said like, and this is going to feed right into multi-verse of madness. And it was just like, well, I mean,

Kenric: I’m so excited for the multi-verse. Cause I, I like the first Dr. Strange. I wasn’t a huge fan of it. I watched the first time I watched it. It was cool. Second time I fell asleep and I don’t think I’ve made it.

Let me get through it without falling asleep since yeah, I was born Sam Raimi fricking good. I’m really excited to see what he does. Cause he’s like, to me, he feels like the original, independent director. You know, doing evil, dead, evil, dead, and then evil dead two is basically his remake of evil [01:11:00] dead because he didn’t like,

Adam: honestly, like, even for love of the game has just like awesome bits to it, you know, quick and the dead rules would be rock socks, and I will fight anyone.

Who’s

Kenric: Sharon Stone fan, but I love with her in it. And you know, that whole scene with gene Hackman and Leonardo DiCaprio going head to

Adam: head. And I’ll tell you. And like that Oz movie he made, like, there are some parts, it’s not a good movie, but there were some, there were some bits. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the one with James Franco.

Yeah. Was that, that was, that was Ramy. I’m almost certain. It was. Wow. Because I feel like that’s why I saw it. I

Kenric: like to use Franco, but man, he’s when you go watch a James Franco movie, you’re just watching James

Adam: Franco. He does not care when he cares. It’s awesome. Like 127 hours. He’s great. Yeah. I just tried to listen to his audio book of slaughterhouse five, which is my favorite book of all time.

And [01:12:00] he’s so bored. Oh, really? It’s like, dude,

what’s wrong with you? Yeah. Oh, that’s funny. And now let’s cut it now because we’re starting to talk shit about people.

Kenric: yeah. Hi guys. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really, really appreciate you taking the time and, and Giving me all the damn you gave me two hours, which is stupendous. I believe it. I got a do, man. He’s out longer. I see McCloud’s name on there. I’m just like,

Adam: it’s a night. We’re making an evening of it.

Thank you. Thank you for having us, like, especially movies of this size. We live and die by word of mouth. And so anytime it’s, I mean, honestly, anytime somebody wants to talk about it, it feels like Christmas. So we really appreciate it. That’s great. Are you taking the time? It’s

Kenric: great. Yeah, out there, no. Go to arrow.

Dash [01:13:00] player.com and for like Adams at the beginning of the show, four 99 a month. And there’s a cute, there’s a promo code. You can get that half off.

Adam: Yep. Arrow UK launch all caps. What was again, Aero, UK launch.

Kenric: Then you’re going to half off. I mean, that’s amazing. And the first movie on there that you should watch is a ghost weights.

It’s fantastic. You guys, you can tell you guys had a lot of fun making it actually, before I let you go, McLeod, I gotta ask you one question in the scene where you’re putting together your utility bill in the kitchen, you drop the night or that you drop a hammer. Was that intentional or was that like, Oh my God.

And then you actually caught it and then you put it back. Could you have this look on your face? Like. Did I just mess that up?

It’s amazing

Macleod Andrews: that that was not intentional. I don’t think it was at least, I think I was trying to like, Give Jack like, Oh, like he does this all the time and like [01:14:00] he’s got skills. And like, I just whacked myself in the chest. Like it was because I was like, it dropped, it was a hammer. It dropped right on the guy’s counter.

And like, he’s been so gracious with his house. And like, I was just, I was like,

Adam: I was afraid that, that I had like, Oh, great. Like

Kenric: he’s been, I legit laughed out loud when that happened.

Macleod Andrews: Yeah. But

Adam: it totally works.

Kenric: All right, guys. Well, thank you so much. We’ll talk. We’ll be chatting. Yeah. Sounds good. Awesome.