It was a really cool touch.

Thank you.

Well, I have to give all credit to Sean Overbeak with the script.

Um, You know, they were fantastic.

And Screamify overall was fantastic because they were they're super basically indie film focused.

And that's one of their mission statements is to kind of give power back to indie filmmakers.

And, you know, he wrote wrote it in the script, did a brilliant job, handed the script off to us.

After the script was done and, like, you... we're starting to film like what this thing was going to be or we just kind of like well this is like you know hide the face for like most of it and then you know make it just a little abnormal

I just, where did you find it? How did you get it? And, and who let you shoot in an autonomous vehicle?

So multi-part answer to that.

I'll start with the actual autonomous vehicle.

So there are way most in Atlanta.

They're in a couple of major cities.

Unfortunately, they do not have a Waymo app in Atlanta.

So they have an Uber app.

The least of our worries.

No, it's because I fear the HOA.

Understandable.

They have too much power.

We were researching drone shots because I initially wanted to do a bunch of zombie chase scenes.

And this is, you know, remember 10 years ago, drones were just kind of gaining major footing but i got my little drone license and everything and my goal was to basically chase the actors with the drone thinking you know we can't afford like a re trinity system or anything like that so this will be a great way to keep it steady but have really intense chase shots and in we lived in valley village at the time which is surrounded by three airports and obviously have to be you know two miles away from an airport or something to send this thing up in the air So I'm like, I'm not going to drive three hours out of the city to go test this drone.

So I, you know, I was kind of an idiot in that regard, but I found a small like triangle up in the hills where like all the mega mansions are.

And it was like, you're just outside of a two mile radius from all three airports in this small triangle.

Were all of the main characters inspired by actual cosplayers that you know, or is it kind of one of those things where you took a little bit from several different people that you know, and that made this character, and then...

[laughs]

So, um, I'm holding up fingers to Jeremiah, and one meant like, you know, we're in full on city mode.

Two was kinda like start slowing everything down.

Three was bring us to a stop, which sounds very uncomplicated here in talking to you guys, but I can tell you, in the middle of like a film set with, you know, the car being shook and, you know, atmosphere pouring in and the actors kind of in their scene and the camera rolling and, you know, Thien's, uh, w- another fantastic crew member, was pulling focus and trying to signal him over all of this and flashing lights.

Phenomenal.

That's a fantastic, Guillermo del Toro's, uh, genius, and that's, I think, one of his best films.

I think, like the entire vibe he set with that and, like the, it, it just, it felt, like, very real.

And I know, like, you know, in Hellboy, it, it feels real, but it, you could feel like it's a fantastical, like almost comic booky type world.

I

think Miami.

They're starting in Orlando.

There might be a few in Nashville.

Yeah.

In some of these cities, they have an actual Waymo app.

So you can get on the app, you call a Waymo, a Waymo shows up.

So it's really cool to see that they're they're taking that that jump you know it's it's it's really cool to see and you know because most people the attention span is the doom scrolling you know you're constantly just looking for little little quick fixes you know especially at night you're in bed like i i don't do tick tock anymore because it's too addictive um i understand instagram like it's like i still try to avoid that like the plague as well because it's just like i'd be like where did the last two hours go like i don't understand like i know i know and it's like i have to work in the morning like i i do an important job like like this is crazy you know but uh but i don't know it's it's smart it's smart and and i think uh especially with with a company like screamify and maybe maybe it's an option for know people to farm their ideas out to screamify and be like hey i'm an independent filmmaker you know this is my idea for a micro short i'll do it myself and i'll you know see what happens who knows you know there's a lot of filmmakers out there that i'm sure would want to give it a shot

uh building off of that real quick how were the exterior shots filmed like from the i guess some shots were filmed as the car was going forward there was a camera behind it like was that actually on the open road

Oh, no, that stuff is all basically VFX.

That's taking different models of the car, layering in VFX and then using so basically building out the 3D model of the car, building out the VFX city to the best of my abilities.

Then layering in, and I know it's like touching the third rail currently, layering in some AI to help with the reflections and, you know, with the lighting environments just to save time for me because I'm a one man band.

So that's a lot of extra work.

And I was like, I'll save it if I can.

And then going back over that pass, adding atmospheric events are like, you know, basically atmosphere, which you can't really see, but it's in there somewhere.

now you can't really do that in vertical because it's like i guess maybe you do it in a different way so how do you how did you tackle that and keep it visually interesting