Secrets of "Clawfoot" with Director Michael Day ep214

0:24ShareTom:Hello and welcome to Entertain this. It's a podcast about movies, tv shows and video games. My name is Tom, with me I have Mitch and we have a special guest. Today. We have Michael Day and a lot of people probably went Michael Bay and they're like no, we got Michael Day, we got a better Michael. One that doesn't focus on explosives. Yeah, not a lot of the opposite of explosions, Implosions. So for this episode we got a. I guess it was a preview, you could call it. I guess so yeah, an early release perhaps of the 2023 movie Clawfoot.

1:05ShareYeah.

1:06ShareTom:And that's a movie you yourself directed, correct? Yeah, so I already watched the whole thing. Mitch, you've already watched the whole movie. So, michael, would you mind talking us through this film?

1:18ShareYeah, it's just a fun little dark comedy thriller, like the cat and mouse movie, about this stay-at-home wife Janet, and you really don't get much info about her. It just kind of starts out like a little mysterious and then all of a sudden a contractor shows up that wants to renovate the bathroom. She's a little confused by it and she's like, oh no, the husband signed off on it. But she's actually kind of weird. But she kind of goes along with it and the whole time for the audience like why are you going along with this? But then, as the movie starts to reveal itself, there's like a lot of like um, different things at play. You know both sides have their own agenda and you know jen herself has some skeletons in her closet, so to speak, and so

1:55Sharethey're all kind of testing each other until it finally, you know, breaks, breaks and then just all hell breaks first I will say she put up with it way better than I would have, because if I walked upstairs and I had contractors and then they're just walking around shirtless, reading books that they found in my bedroom or playing my, I'd lose my mind.

2:13ShareTom:Yeah, exactly, because for a while I was like man. I was like I hate this contractor guy. Like I want to hit him. And then, like you were doing, scenes where she's going after him and I'm like, finally, and I was like, oh, it was like a dream sequence, and I was like I hope she does hit him with something though.

2:29ShareMitch:Yeah, the first instance where she just hits him over the head with the glass. I was like, oh my gosh.

2:33ShareTom:I was like woo, yes, screw that guy, I'm sick of that guy. When I realized I was like yes yes, you were the worst. I mean, he did a great job, though being like. Pushing the envelope like that, just in every scene he's in. You just can't help but watch the guy. Just be that way the whole time and you're like I was like rocking back and forth a little bit and I was like how's he doing it this well?

3:06ShareYeah, he's not like that smugness to him where he's an asshole the whole time.

3:09ShareTom:Exactly Flawless execution.

3:13ShareYeah.

3:13ShareTom:Right, and we have gotten a couple previews over the years and I will say I mean the cinematography for yours and like the lighting and how just it's very, very, very well done oh, thank you, yeah.

3:28ShareYeah, I know, uh, on the dc, nick lens. He's actually a great friend of mine and neighbor and uh, we're trying to find something to do together. This is the first time we work together and he's so skylized and just has such a good eye for things and so, yeah, like every day was just was just fun seeing how he helped, frames things up and lights it and you know we kind of blast and yeah, so two reps is how it looks.

3:47ShareTom:How long did it take to go through filming for this? Uh, we shot the whole. Thing in 14 days. That's impressive and just two weeks movie yeah.

3:57ShareYeah. Yeah, we love you know we get a little bit small budget and a tight schedule, but uh, yeah, we powered through and I mean, like every day, we, we, we had so many scenes to shoot every day. We've had to just keep our heads down and just keep, keep at it.

4:09ShareTom:Was it your house that you filmed?

4:11Sharein it. No, yeah, we found the house like on, like one of those like a pure space, like you know, like just a little north of LA, and yeah, we worked out a good deal with them and they were like super easy to work with, like they were gone all day for work, whatever. So they kind of let us just have a run of the house and then they'd come home at night and sometimes it's every filming they'd kind of go to their bedrooms, like kind of stay on our way, and but yeah, we were just kind of working together on that. It was fun.

4:37ShareTom:Did you guys actually like destroy the bathroom?

4:40ShareNo, so actually what we did was actually we built a drywall. We built that drywall on top of a brick wall that was already there. So when you see them breaking in through it, we built that. We put pipes behind that drywall and so you can actually see some of the brick behind it. That's the actual wall, okay.

4:59ShareTom:Oh, because I was like, oh, you're going to scout locations, we need a mansion kind of around LA in the mountains. It's like also, do you need your bathroom remodeled?

5:09Sharethat's actually what we started looking for at first. Uh, then this just came really hard. And so then our designer, jordan she had the great idea. She's like, let's just build a fake wall that then you can just bust through and then we'll put some pipes there, make it look like it's a real thing. And so, yeah, they had. She had a construction crew come out and pick it up in like a dag. It was awesome.

5:25ShareTom:I mean that's pretty impressive to put all that together in a dag, watching them like go through and like there's like, oh yeah, we're putting in the tub and I'm like there's no way you're putting in the tub that quickly and I'm like I've done remodeling. Like there's no way. And not with that Sammy guy I'm like I don't know his qualifications as a carpenter or a craftsman, but he didn't seem like he was really on it.

5:44ShareYeah, he's not playing with a full deck.

5:46ShareTom:No, I mean they're making omelets in the morning, letting themselves in the house doing all kinds of stuff and I'm like these guys. I would have lost my mind if it was like a real life situation. But I guess that's why it plays out so well as a film, because you're just like watching an almost absurd like relationship happening between Leo, sammy and then Janet and like everybody else is watching like how have you just not called the cops yeah exactly.

6:12ShareMitch:Well, my whole thing was like, as I was watching the Janet and her. I can't remember the neighbor's name Natasha, natasha.

6:21ShareTom:The best worst lawyer is like what I was thinking.

6:26ShareMitch:I want to know, like, what is their? What do they do on, like as a side job? Because like they're outside like throwing knives and just nonchalantly ready to cut up people and it almost made me think like they were like part of like the Red Sparrow kind of stuff, like the Russian, like girls that were trained and like they go marry they're like sleeper cell.

6:44ShareTom:Yeah, people like you know someone has to walk up behind them and just go rhubarb and they're activated or something yeah they were easily just like throwing you doing the throwing knives pretty accurately and stuff. So it's like the, the, not janet the lawyer girl like she was like she comes in. I was like, oh, it's just gonna be like like a ditzy kind of character. And then she's just like, oh yeah, this is like, oh, you can clean all these bloodstains up. And I'm just like, oh, she's a lawyer, but she's like she's done this before. She's like you know you're not going to go to prison lawyer. Like it doesn't matter to it, she just starts yelling at whoever it is and I was like yep , that sounds like a good lawyer

7:31ShareTom:.

7:31ShareIt's like say nothing , yeah, yeah, she's like not praying her hands dirty. We had a lot of fun with her character, just like pushing it, like how crazy she can be.

7:36ShareTom:I mean she got in the to the thick of it.

7:39ShareI mean I don't know if we want to spoil too much of it.

7:42ShareTom:But she got in the tub. Yeah, she got in the tub.

7:48ShareMitch:yeah, I like how she would just bring her kid over and just have him sit on the sofa playing his game.

7:52ShareTom:Yeah, multiple homicides and a litany of felonies a mile long is occurring, and this kid's just on his Switch just playing whatever it is Minecraft or Zelda.

8:04ShareYeah, and she's more worried about the grass stains on his pants.

8:08ShareTom:And you watch him like is he going to get grass stains sitting on the couch? Like now is this a movie?

8:15Shareyou wrote no. So a friend of mine, april, she wrote it, I met and it just so. So like I like containing, like you know, I like no past, like minimal locations, I like when you can like put someone in a box and try to get out of it. And I read the script, I loved it and I was working a lot with this company, yale self-producing film before and I knew they were looking for something like this. So I just kind of like, hey, I'm looking to direct this movie , this might be something you guys like, and then, like it took a few months, but then, like a few months later, like hey, like just yeah, we might be able to make this work, let's talk some more. And then they started. They started talking to agents and got some cash lined up and

8:48Sharethen, uh, yeah, the whole thing kind of snowballed and made it happen.

8:52ShareTom:And a tight two week schedule which is really impressive. Has it made it to like the festivals or anything yet?

8:59ShareYeah, so, um, it premiered at the Newport Film Festival in 2023 in October of last year and then it officially got released on Apple and DOD and stuff on the 19th of July. So now it's officially out for everyone to see and at some point it'll make its way to Hulu or Netflix or something.

9:16ShareTom:Nice. Is there going to be a sequel?

9:20ShareYou know, we kind of joke about that a lot Because everyone loves these characters, even the guys at finance it. They're like, what else do we do with these two? Like like, like janet and tasha , like we like these two together and uh, so we've, like we've kicked around a few ideas of like what would happen next. Like now like them, like you know, maybe on the run, like someone louis style or something , I don't know. We like these two characters a lot, so we're definitely, like, open to discussing it. I'd say so we'll see what the guys say.

9:47ShareTom:Because I was waiting for the end of the movie to be like. You know, the helicopter police , helicopter news footage, and it's like we're on scene in a heinous crime scene here in North Hollywood Hills and it's like the delivery guy, like he was just still standing there watching them run over the guy, and he's like oh my god and called the cops yeah, which is funny, we actually did shoot a scene, um, like post everything.

10:09ShareWe're like, uh, like lawyers without like like post-cop anything, like lawyers and like the news are there trying to get the story and everything. But then it just didn't feel right for the ending, so we've ended it that same day. But we definitely kicked around some ideas of like with the delivery driver, even him being killed, and different things, but yeah, or like the kids walking around on nintendo or something.

10:30ShareTom:He's like live streaming or something and everybody's just like what the hell? Eating his chicken nuggets. Yeah, eating dino nuggies just like. Wow, that's a lot of blood. Huh, yeah, exactly. How did you get into the directing game?

10:49ShareYeah, so that kind of happened. I always wanted to produce and that was my thing, and so I was looking to do some sorts to produce and stuff and I just kind of teamed up with some people and it just always felt really hard to kind of think up to find the right director and the schedule and everything. So I'm pretty busy in the future world doing what I do and so I just I just wanted to kind of get more producing and directing or not directing, but producing at the time and I just kind of helped find like things to think up with people. And then my one buddy's like, why don't you just direct it? That way, we just get one in the can see how it goes and we'll move on to the next one and we'll find a director for

11:23Sharethe next one. I'm like all right, yeah, let's do that, since I knew. So I wrote it to the short at the time so I was like, yeah, I know so well, like I'll do that. And then I just got directed. I was like, oh, actually I really like sitting in this chair like this is kind of fun, like now bringing this to life, and so then I'll be right. Another one and then I did a handful of music videos, handful of shorts. I did like over like 40 episodes of like a web series with the groundlings. So yeah, then I just like I just couldn't stop directing and then I just kept going okay, well, I want to get to a feature one day. So I just kind of just kept doing the groundwork of just getting my hands as dirty as I can and just directing as many

11:54Sharelittle things as possible, just to try to prove I could do a feature one day and then that's when I yeah, but that's what really helped with having their sorts and stuff and like if you look at my first one versus my last one, like you know they're worlds apart. Like I definitely grew a lot as director and I'm glad I did so many sorts, cause like those first three were just so bad but uh, so yeah. Then like it was like the later ones that you know, when the cast, when we're talking, I just started getting them to sign on to a project I'm directing because I'm a first-time director and so they were more interviewing me. They would be comfortable with signing on, knowing that this is my first time, and so having their shorts and talking about

12:31Shareall this stuff. They saw the shorts and were like, oh yeah, we trust Division now, and so that really helped and yeah, that's kind of how I got into it at the time. So, basically it was just like I want to be a producer, and then he sat in the director's chair and went you know I could do this.

12:49ShareTom:I like this. This is a nice chair. I want to be the director guy.

12:51ShareYeah, I mean, are you like the?

12:52ShareTom:director who's like you know, like the boisterous guy, like all right quiet on set and then action.

12:59ShareOr are you like the Clint Eastwood, just going? All right, go ahead. Yeah, sometimes I'll distract at work and I'm like, oh shit, we got to get back to work here. Guys, I have too much fun in the chair.

13:09ShareTom:I mean, how can you not have fun to be in the chair? You're right, you're the puppeteer. It's like the Godfather thing with the strings and you're the hand holding it. Now, is this something you went to school for?

13:22ShareYeah, I originally I went to film school and I was like a double major with. So I majored in entertainment business, which kind of stood like contracts and producing stuff, and then I was also in filmmaking side of it as well, which is like all hands on, and in that side you can focus on either like directing, producing , editing, writing, and so I did a double focus on that on writing and editing, or not writing I'm sorry editing and producing, and I always wanted to produce or edit. At the time I wasn't sure I liked both, so I just kind of did both focuses and then I really did enjoy editing. But then, when I was all said and done, I was like, yeah, I don't want to be in a dark room for days on end and not see

14:03Shareanybody. I'm a multiple people person so I like to be out in front of it all. That's when I shifted focus from editing to just straight on producing. Right out of college we all was in Pittsburgh PA, so there's a lot of film filming there the Dark Knight Rises, unstoppable, perfumed Wallflower. I got a job within two or three months of graduating college and I was just like you know. I started out as office PA, set PA and then started working my way up through the features. And then one of my bosses was like hey, I'm going to studio in California. She's like you should move out to California and I'll hire you out there. And that was for Django Unchained. And I was like all right. So I packed up my car, moved out to LA and then like all

14:43Shareright, well, I'll come back once I'm done with this movie. So then I went back and I just been working on stuff.

14:52ShareTom:So where'd you come from? Before you went to LA, I was out of Pittsburgh, pennsylvania.

14:56ShareMitch:A northern guy, I'm a .

14:58ShareTom:New York guy Mitch. He's still from Georgia.

15:00ShareMitch:I lived in Georgia my entire life.

15:01ShareYeah, okay, yeah, I was born in race pittsburgh and I moved up to la about 14 years ago now was a little while going from pittsburgh to los angeles yeah, I mean, it was a complete like culture shock. It's like I mean, I've never, that's just.

15:16ShareTom:You're going from just like the rust belt, like small town like blue collar kind of thing shot in a beer yeah, people, yeah, we're just like.

15:24ShareAnd then going up la, we're just complete opposite and just every walk of life is there and first of all, like I mean, I don't know, I gravitate towards that. I love that. It was refreshing to kind of see a whole new side of the world that, like I wasn't like exposed to such jobs. So, yeah, I really clung to it like I just like doing. I love summers, you know, it's always nice out, it's always sunny, always by the beach and yeah, I don't miss the winters.

15:47ShareTom:It sounds like. I mean, you had a really good transition from going to college , doing a double major and then within less than five months you're on a movie.

15:57ShareYeah, no, yeah, I mean I was very fortunate. Yeah, I met the right people at the right time and like we'll get you on a movie, I promise I did. I traced everything back to this one guy from school I knew who asked me to do some free work for free on a few days for a movie. They'd be like I promise I'll get you a paying gig one day. I did a couple free days and he got me a paying gig and then everything literally snowballed from there.

16:28ShareMitch:Well, just looking off over your IMDB stuff, you've worked on a lot of big films as well.

16:35ShareYeah, yeah.

16:37ShareMitch:I saw the Dark Knight Rises, Top Gun. You just worked on different films in different manners and stuff, but that's a lot of big stuff.

16:45ShareTom:Those are big-time films.

16:48ShareYeah, yeah, no, I yeah I was very fortunate and yeah, I mean, yeah, I got in good with like Paramount and they just kept hiring me on big films and yeah, I mean it's just so great to be like and that's why I learned a lot too. You know, I was looking at the budgets a lot and, like you know , the money got spent. So now, like it's like indie space, like I can just I know where money should go and where it shouldn't go and where the excess is and like how to do things you know a little cheaper . Like I just, you know I got like a blueprint or, like you know, see behind the curtain with all those budgets and how they spent the money. And it's like, yeah, you know what I'm saying, like the DP and

17:24Shareeverything looks great Like, but we did that like with like very little money, one camera, we only had one lens, but we knew how to make it. We knew the tricks on how to make it look bigger than it is, so but yeah, so I learned a lot from, like some of those guys and it's also it's like your schedule or conflict with cast or something and he's got to figure out, like you know, handle it the right way and, like I learned, you know, just diplomatically, like how the big people do it, like studios, and that was very helpful now just to kind of bring that you know, that level of class down like any. Sometimes in indies they, you know, all over the running got a little unorganized. A lot of people I work with on my films we came from the studio

18:07Shareworld, so we bring that organization with us and it makes it really easy and synchronized with everybody.

18:09ShareTom:So you kind of got the reverse where you started out on the huge scale of what you know macro productions. You know lots of moving parts, big budgets, lots of big things happening and then when you go to do your own projects, like you know how to minimize it into okay, I only need X, y and Z to make this work, versus like as someone who's just starting out and like you know, you know, stumbling their way, learning how to walk and this way you know you make it happen a lot seamlessly, or much more seamlessly than anybody else probably would have, coming from a different background.

18:40ShareYeah, exactly, it's like you know, sometimes these people, like you know, you know, when I produce some of these features, right, they're like a pilot, you know, sometimes, like you know, these are first-time directors also sometimes, but like, or DTs are just first-time . You know, especially on these Indies, you get, you know, a camera operator to kind of bump up to a DP, and so you know these, like, when you want all this gear, why do you want it and where is it going to? Like don't just ask what, because you saw it on the gear list on the last movie. Like, have a reason and you know that would be a little more smart about that. And like you know, I I saw, you know, a gne truck for a little

19:23Sharepilot we did with friends. It was like we just did this for fun, basically, but they, you know being like they needed this huge, like 10 ton truck and it was the same size truck we had on a 10 million dollar movie that I did, like a year later and it's like that's just the irony. It's like, yeah, they didn't know that they didn't need all that stuff and but you know, it's a learning curve, but like, so I've been very fortunate where, like, I got to feel all that firsthand and just kind of see what they use and don't use. And you know, I'm always trying to find ways to save money and put more money on camera, when not just having to sit on a truck somewhere.

19:53ShareTom:What would you say was probably the biggest eyeopening thing going from, you know college, you know classes and then all of a sudden you're just a couple months later, you are in it yeah, I mean I think it was um.

20:04ShareYou know, everyone always says like it's, it's non-stop and, like you know, it's just crazy hours and like, yeah, I can handle that, like it's fine. But then, like you know, ria is like you, you're. The shortest day you ever do is like 13 hours, like from. You know, sometimes, by the time you clock in, by the time you clock out, the minimum you'll ever do is 13 hours a day and then, like those days just shift throughout the week. So by the end of the week you're going nights or something , filming overnight, and I think that was just a big buy over. It's like, oh, when you're on a shoot, that's your whole life. You don't have a personal life, you don't have time to go to the doctor, you don't have time to go to a baseball game.

20:37ShareYou live and breathe in a movie . Either you love it or you hate it. And you know I love it.

20:43ShareTom:So it worked out for me what would you say was probably the wildest like production you were on. That was just, you know, really fun, like a lot of crazy stuff was happening or something along those lines yeah, I mean I would say, like those transformers movies, those were just insane.

20:59ShareLike I didn't like it was just complete chaos. Like I mean, like in a weird way, michael Bay, he has that reputation and it's true, but he's got a great vision and he knows what he wants. He doesn't stick to his schedule. Sometimes he's just like, oh, let's shoot business heads, but everyone's just trying to keep up with him and think he's a saint all the time. There were some days where they were flying in stunt guys from LA to Detroit. They had a whole plane of like 10 guys and by the time they land they're like oh, actually you can fly back home, we don't need you now. Like that's how quick the schedule would change. Like you know they're coordinating all these things, but like it just all went well, this doesn't work now.

21:36ShareLet's do this instead and like even know what we're gonna do today, but we'll figure it out as we go. And yeah, so that was just like a wild. And I said but the crew was great, everyone was all great. Michael bay was awesome. Like he had like parties for the crew like all the time in every city he would come and just everyone's welcome, team, the production would pay for everything. Everyone have a good time and just go back to work on monday and it's just a lot of fun and crazy.

22:00ShareTom:But yeah, well, it's just, you know a director's director where he, you know he throws, like there's an appreciation for you know everybody behind the scenes, where he's like throwing some parties, you know giving them some appreciation, versus just like dude, I say now, now, now, now, now, then the movie's done. He's like, alright, cool, get out of here, I'm gonna go get my Oscar yeah, exactly, yeah, he's definitely, yeah, he's like now , now.

22:22ShareMitch:Now they're like alright, let's have some fun guys well, kind of bringing stuff back to your movie Clawfoot, I was kind of wondering, like when you direct, did you go scene by scene, like from beginning to end of the movie, or did you more kind of break it up into what you needed first, what you needed second, as far as like filming-wise?

22:46ShareYeah, so's kind of we went through. We definitely, yeah, we didn't shoot more, we just kind of shot . We also didn't shoot out like each location. Like you know, we didn't shoot out all the bedroom stuff at once, all the bathroom stuff once. We kind of just we had to work around from the task schedules and timing a little bit. So, um, so yeah, I mean like we, yeah definitely like I mean like the first scene we shot ever would be the scene when they're like gear enough to go feel the body, so they're like putting on like tape and gloves and everything on. That was like the first thing we thought. So yeah, because we had to like sit around Nestor's schedule, specifically because he was on the morning show at that time

23:14Shareand so we had him for two days and he's like the one that plays the husband, so like we had him for two days, we kind of just had to sit everything around that schedule. So that's how we kind of packed into it and so just kind of had to shoot in a way that made sense to accommodate his schedule Okay. Is the guy who played the husband is he the same guy who played like the mayor in the third Batman?

23:36ShareTom:movie yeah, I knew it , I knew.

23:39ShareI recognized him. I was like that guy looks so familiar. He's the guy in Lost too.

23:43ShareTom:Yeah, I'm one of the few people who never watched Lost Really, oh wow, that's a good one. I remember being in school and everybody was just going on and on. Every week the new episode would come when there was a season happening and everybody would lose their minds and the ending of the show happened and for two weeks that's all anybody could talk about. And I'm like you know, I was watching there's a hockey game on we could watch that talk about something completely different.

24:08ShareMitch:Yeah now, are you the kind of person who, like, if you had the choice, would you rather shoot your movies for like, in order, or do you? I mean, do you prefer being able to break it up and depending on what you need?

24:19Shareyeah, I mean, um, doing an order would always it is always like if you I mean even like if you're not shooting a whole moving order if you can shoot, like that day in some type of sequence, or it's just always kind of helpful just for the character or like the cast is to kind of understand the trajectory of, like the emotions for that day, or like you know where the character is mentally, so there's something that could be, you know, to shoot in order , just like. Then you're literally on a linear path with this character, which makes it nice but but it just makes it impossible. Like it would be easier if you're in one location, like this was so, like we did do some dates where sometimes I would

24:50Shareshoot in sequential order, but it's just so hard when you're like, hey, we're shooting like one house and another house and just having to like bounce back and forth to wherever You've seen order would be impossible, or like just cost too much money and takes too much time.

25:07ShareMitch:And then another one I was going to kind of ask, without spoiling too much of it, in the foot chase kind of towards, you know, towards the end of the movie. Did y'all film that in order as far as, like as they were running through the house, or is that something that you had to break up, because they start downstairs and they make their way upstairs?

25:23ShareYeah, actually that I would say, that one we did do in order, because that was especially the night stuff. Yeah, it is, the night stuff keeps always harder and like, and especially that too is also like you know he got, he got the blood on himself, so we also just kind of had to keep continuity and so, yeah, on that whole night sequence, that foot chase through the house, like that was all just like work because there's a lot of different scenes there, so I wasn't sure how that would go yeah, if it was me, it would have been like we would have filmed the upstairs part first and then got to the kitchen where he gets stabbed, and I would have been sitting there going.

25:52ShareTom:He didn't have any blood on his shirt when he was upstairs, did he?

25:56Shareyeah, now we gotta reshoot it, yeah yeah, that would be me. Yeah, I mean that day we out of time, uh uh, we took a little long for the fight piece of it all because originally we were going to have her dragon, like her like trying to lunge the body throughout the whole house, like from the bedroom downstairs to the kitchen. That was originally the plan and then we just ran out of time and so I was like, well, I was like let's just do something really funny, let's just like walk off the camera and just have her just go across in the most awkward, slowest way possible struggle. And so we did in one shot and we just like we had like three hours worth of stuff, the actual shoot, and then we did that in

26:33Sharefive minutes instead because we ran out of time I mean it worked out pretty good because it just cuts it.

26:38ShareTom:She's just dragging him through the kitchen and then she's like comes around and like just shoves him into the garage and I was like, and he's just watching his hands I mean he looked like a solidly sized guy. I mean, I wouldn't.

26:50ShareI probably would have a hard time dragging him around yeah, he's a big guy, like solid, so yeah she's so funny. But like to me, like that that was so much funnier too. I'm glad we did it that way, like that's so much funnier than showing her going out throughout the whole house. I think just that one frame just does it all.

27:06ShareTom:That one, the lawyer's beating Sammy to death with a croquet ball. You just hear his cries and then he's just like I love you, miss.

27:15ShareMother.

27:17ShareTom:I was like this guy.

27:20ShareYeah, I like how.

27:22ShareMitch:Sam just gets infatuated with her from the beginning, knowing what Milo is kind of planning on doing anyways.

27:30ShareTom:I mean, was he in on Leo's plan?

27:32ShareMitch:I don't know if he was or not.

27:34ShareNo he was not originally. Right, yeah, he was just there like just thinking, like he was just there to make a few extra bucks, like Leo probably really was going through construction. He was also just looking for the money, um, like we really was going from construction. He's also living for the money, um, and, like you know, family was just going to be his like distraction. Like, oh yeah, keep keep the tools working. You know why, kind of like you might think I'm gonna look for money. You actually renovate the bathroom oh yeah, the little scene where sammy's like in there spraying the perfume all over himself yeah, I remember like we uh, I had an idea like last minute where I was like because I was like, oh, I want

28:08Shareto start doing like a montage thing, because the editor was on set with us and he was editing as we're going. So I was like looking at stuff and I was like, oh, I think we need more of this montage when they're like going through the house, when they're separated. You know, when Janet and I were talking, we need to have a little more stuff. And so with Sammy's improv Sammy's talking at the trees professing his love to Janet that was all improv I was like, hey, just go stand on that tree and just start rambling off what you would say to someone that you want to ask out, or your love voice. I was like you're rehearsing what you're going to say to her later. He's like what am I doing? I was like I was like, trust me, it's gonna be really funny,

28:48Shareit's gonna be really weird. Go upstairs and be weird okay, yeah, and then same, when we did like the, the sprinting with him, he's like wait why am I doing this? I was like could we shot her to what I'd earlier.

28:58ShareTom:It's really funny how you doing it and like putting like the makeup, like the makeup on, like putting the little dots, like under his eyes and he's just like giving little rubs.

29:07ShareYeah. But that's one thing like the cast, like I would just throw weird stuff out like that to them, and they're like wait. They like say, what are you doing? What are you doing? And then they're like all right , well, I trust you.

29:27ShareMitch:And, like Milo, did a really good job with his portrayal of Leo, because you could, like, at the very beginning you could tell something was off with this guy when he was like insistent on coming in. And then you get the extremely creepy vibe when he's like talking about the pasta and all that stuff.

29:41ShareTom:Yeah, the bolognese, it's. Yeah, the bolognese. It's like you don't need water and in my head, I'm like well, how are you boiling the pasta? Yeah, but he got uncomfortably close to her to begin with, like their whole exchange at the front door, like I was getting uncomfortable because I was like no, and I was like knowing what I know, being you know in my actual job I'm like there ain't no way in hell that a door is going to get opened. If anything, I'm going to look through the people, see who it is and go. I didn't call for anything and I'm just going to silently tiptoe back and pretend no one's home.

30:14ShareYeah.

30:15ShareTom:I think you should definitely do a sequel.

30:17ShareOkay, yeah, we definitely have some ideas cooking. We could be some fun. Fun, because if Jay and Natasha together, yeah, it'd be cool. And we even said, like what if Milo had like a twin brother or something you know like, and brought him back. I don't know.

30:28ShareMitch:Well, when you mentioned like the film and Louise, it would be funny to see them kind of on the run with Natasha giving the advice on how they should get away and all that stuff While she's but they have to stop at.

30:41ShareTom:Starbucks.

30:42ShareYeah, drive on a high-speed.

30:46ShareTom:Chase drinking wine out of solo cups with giant crazy straws Like this is wild yeah.

30:52ShareDarren's in the backseat playing video games. Yeah.

31:00ShareTom:Just sliding around the backseat as they're taking tight turns or getting pitted by highly patrolled. Yeah, that's a movie right there. I mean there you go.

31:06ShareI just wrote it. It took five minutes.

31:07ShareTom:You don't even have to give us a writing credit, we don't need it, or them doing like this stuff in prison.

31:16ShareLike it's like orange is the new black on steroids. Yeah, that was a good idea.

31:20ShareTom:And then Natasha's basically just becomes like the jailhouse lawyer, like going through people's cases and like extorting all of them for like all their commissary and like all their stuff. It's just like, yeah, your case is going to cost me probably every honey bun you're ever going to have in your life. Bring in like bed sheets full of food.

31:38ShareHoney buns for life.

31:39ShareTom:Pretty much, or ramen noodle soup packages.

31:42ShareYeah. And she's in there making toilet wine. Yeah.

31:48ShareTom:Yeah, toilet wine, that's it. And then she's like at her visit and Darren's just sitting there on a switch with the headphones on Just in the back, and then we finally get to see her husband. Because we never see that guy, but I want him to be played by someone you just don't expect. I want it to just be Jason Statham, just walk in. That would make sense why?

32:11ShareMitch:is she so good with the knives?

32:15ShareTom:But it turns out it's an Expendables crossover. And then, all of a sudden, sylvester Stallone is like a prison guard and they're going to do a breakout and that's the end of the movie.

32:28ShareMitch:Now, before Clawfoot, you also worked on the movie Kill Room.

32:33ShareYeah, okay, yeah, I was producing on that?

32:36ShareMitch:How was that yeah?

32:38Sharethat was great. We shot that one right there in Jersey, like Hoboken in Jersey City, right across from New York , and then we did a few days in new york. That was yeah, I mean that was uh, that was like one of the biggest movies I I produced at that point. And um, yeah, that was just like a lot of moving parts, like the cast coming going, um, but yeah, like joe mangelo and with her missing about jackson, like they're all great and just yeah, I don't know, it was just so fun seeing uh sam and uh someone , umar, come together because they have such good chemistry and just such a fun dark little comedy about the art world. Once we got the interest, it's like, oh, this is some real stuff that you know there is money laundering going on in the

33:15Shareart world. It's a whole other thing that I had no idea was going on. But once you start doing your research, you're like, oh yeah, there's definitely some racketeering like rackets going on here.

33:22ShareMitch:It's crazy yeah that was like, yeah, yeah, even in real life there's people that's like why did you spend that much money on a painting?

33:31ShareTom:I just hope, like those like shady characters or swarthy people are just watching the movie and they're going. Who told them?

33:36ShareAnd they're like asking like who squealed?

33:38ShareTom:Yeah, yeah, that would be funny to see a bunch of actual criminals watching a movie and then looking at it and going how the hell do they know every damn detail? Somebody just unwittingly makes a movie that's perfectly aligned to what they did.

33:54ShareYeah, it's like they had to have an inside scoop.

33:56ShareTom:There's no way.

33:59ShareYeah, I'll talk with a writer about it. He's like, oh, because the writer that wrote it his wife is an an art dealer actually. And he's like they're at Art Basel in Miami and a few years ago someone got stabbed and there was an altercation and they got stabbed and that person's just kind of running through the art gallery asking for help and everyone just stood around like oh my God, this art is is beautiful and they thought it was like, you know, like an artist did. But if someone ran around a knife digging out of them and like not knowing that someone actually got stabbed, and he's like that's crazy, like someone like no one. Everyone thought that was art and not someone actually being stabbed, and so that's what kind of made him start digging into

34:36Sharethe art world more and then just kind of he wrote the kill room this is.

34:39ShareTom:This is like why the zombie apocalypse would happen. Because it's's stuff like that. Or like the dude high on bath salts, buck naked, eating someone's face in a driveway in Florida and people are just walking by filming it, going Holy crap, world star, and just keep going, it's like, and the plague just spreads.

34:58ShareMitch:Yes.

34:59ShareIt's crazy.

35:00ShareMitch:So, with all the the big sets and stuff that you've been on, is there any one particular actor or actress that kind of left you kind of starstruck as far as meeting them or talking with them or working with them?

35:14ShareYou know, one of the first early movies I did was Unstoppable. And meeting Dendo Washington, there's just something about him . He just got that charm and that air, that and that that airs a little bit like you just know he's a like, he's a big star, like, and he's so talented and like yeah, I don't know. That one really, I think, stuck with me. It's like just meeting him I was like just felt like, oh man, like this is like a legend and like just because I grew up on all his movies too and just and like all the other tonic scott movies he did, that was just really i't know, that was really exciting to meet him. And then also, like the other one was say, like Christian Bale on Dark Knight Rises that was, I mean, batman's always been

35:50Sharelike you know childhood like favorite of mine and getting to work on that and then meet Christian Bale and I got to sit in a Batmobile and hold a towel and everything. I don't know that was such a crazy time to work on that and meet those people.

36:04ShareMitch:Now I'm jealous.

36:05ShareTom:I want to sit in the Batmobile A lot of people we talk to are acted, produced or directed. Everybody has that one fanboy moment where they just suddenly turn back into little kids. One day we talked to him and he was like what was your biggest Starstruck moment? And like, one day we talked to he was like you know what was like your biggest starstruck moment? And he saw John Malkovich.

36:21ShareMitch:Yeah.

36:22ShareLike he's just in.

36:22ShareTom:New York city and he's like in a shop or something and Malcolm Malkovich is just looking through the window to see like what they had and he's like it's John Malkovich and he's like. I followed him for like eight blocks when the guy we talked to our previous guest last time. Last time he got his butt kicked by Chuck Norris for an episode of Walker, texas Ranger.

36:39ShareMitch:Well, no, let's see, he got beat up by the guy that plays Johnny in Cobra Kai, but then he had to work with Chuck Norris and Flash Gordon while they fought.

36:51ShareAnd he was like a student. Yeah, best day ever probably.

36:54ShareTom:And I'd be like go get him. Chuck, hit him Because I think I asked him. I was asked him With the guy who played Flash Gordon when he walked out and you first saw him . Did you actually hear it, flash ? Ah, you hear the music when they show David Bowie in Zoolander it cuts to him and he gets his own title card pop up and just lets Dan start playing. That's how I imagine it would have been meeting David Bowie in real life.

37:20ShareThat's how I imagine it would have been meeting David Bowie In real life. That's how it happens.

37:22ShareTom:Like it's just and like no one can explain it, it just happens.

37:25ShareMitch:Fireworks go off in the background.

37:26ShareTom:Yeah.

37:27ShareYeah, yeah, mitch.

37:33ShareMitch:So like you just finished well, I say you just finished, clawfoot's finally come out. You said on July 19th, you just finished, well, I say you just finished. You, uh, clawfoot's finally come out. Um, you said on july 19th is there anything else that you're working on right now that you could tell us about?

37:47Shareyeah. So, um, I shot another movie and, um, we just pitched a lockout not too long ago and now we're actually going to come out in november of this year and , um, that one is, it's a father of war and so it's uh, it's a world war iienage thriller. So, it's another kind of game, a little bigger, but it's definitely a completely different tone. This is, like you know, a straight-up drama thriller set in World War II time. We've got John Malkovich in it, meir Savino, jake Abel and Brianna Hildebrand, and so it was a lot of fun. Yeah, meeting John and working with John Cusack, that was crazy , like that was. I mean that was another moment of being starstruck, but like had to quickly get into work mode with him and I mean that

38:25Shareguy is such a pro and like he just cares so much about every aspect of filmmaking and like we'd have long, like he'd call me late at night and talk about the scene and the characters and then he'd even, you know, have comments about scenes that he wasn't even in. Like he's cared that much about the whole process and just the script and the project and and just kind of seeing how he tackled the character, like that was. I mean I'm now I feel like I've learned a lot from that, like I'm excited to do my next project to see, like you know. So I'm going to take that knowledge of what I got from him and apply that to the next one, uh, with work with actors, because it's just so impressive how he handles each scene and

39:00Sharehow he takes it on. It was eye-opening for me. I was very educational about it . I learned a lot.

39:07ShareTom:World War II espionage thriller John Malkovich. He's got to be playing a German .

39:13ShareSorry, it was John Cusack.

39:15ShareTom:I thought it was John Malkovich. For a second I was like he's got to be a bad guy there's no other way.

39:22ShareNo, for sure. Wasn't he like a Russian bad guy? Yeah?

39:27ShareTom:with, like the most over the top Russian accent. Yeah, it's like the old, like Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers, where it's like even his French accent is outrageous compared to everyone else's, like even they're questioning what he says. It's like you are breaking de l'eau and they're like de l'eau.

39:47ShareYeah.

39:48ShareTom:What other projects you got going on that you want to pitch?

39:53ShareYou know I got this one that I'm dying to make, where I'm a huge fan of the movie Misery, you know, the Stephen King novel, the one with Kathy Bates, that's all. I'll turn to movies, kathy Bates. I always wanted to spoof it in a way where it's not like a scary movie spoof, but like I spoof it in a way where you're just now like just making it crazy. My idea with this one, if I'm pitching it, is it's like a Harryry potter fan that kidnapped you know this person that she thinks is harry potter and just wants to help get magic back, and so this whole movie happens in, like this cabin in the woods where this guy is like a prisoner but has to play along because this lady's so crazy it's elijah wood, isn't it

40:33Share?

40:34ShareTom:they kidnap elijah wood thinking he's harry potter, I'm not joking.

40:38ShareI wrote it with him in mind. I wrote it as Elijah Wood getting mistaken. He has to do it.

40:43ShareTom:There's no one else who could do it. That's the only way. It's absolutely hilarious the entire time.

40:51ShareIt's actually just Elijah Wood. Yeah Well, I had the script done and I got to get it to his people.

40:55ShareTom:Hopefully it goes well. And then Daniel Radcliffe shows up at the end because he's doing like a police ride along for a movie he's researching that he wants to do.

41:06ShareI'm going to do a little rewrite on the end.

41:10ShareTom:I'm the idea man of this show. Give me a scenario, I'll figure out a way to make it even more stupid.

41:17ShareYeah, it's supposed to be some crazy weird thing, kind of like falsehood. It's supposed to be some crazy weird, kind of like falsehood. It's like just some weird, you know quirky thing. I like those quirky offbeat things.

41:25ShareMitch:Tom pitches all these ideas and then he expects me to be able to just make them happen.

41:29ShareTom:Or like whoever, like the prisoner, or like the person is who takes Elijah Wood who thinks is Harry Potter captive, like they bring him to court, but they actually are actually just shooting a courtroom drama right before he goes in and Emma Watson is playing like a district attorney and he's just like and cut and he's like what it's like? It's a movie, yeah, but then, like you know, when they throw him in jail, rupert Grint's actually just there, drunk, laying on a bench. I can totally see that, yeah.

41:57ShareI mean, I have no clue. If you know the three of them would ever agree to it. Actually, just there, drunk, laying on a bench, I can totally see that.

42:01ShareTom:Yeah, I mean, I have no clue if you know the three of them would ever agree to it, but I feel like if it's written like that, where it's like Daniel Radcliffe actually shows up on a movie, where someone who thought he someone else was Harry Potter is actually kidnapped, Like that's the two of them doing that at the exact same time would just be absolutely hysterical. Especially Elijah Wood's face when he's being rescued and walked away. He's got the big fireman's jacket over him like it's going to be okay. He just sees Daniel Radcliffe, dressed up as a cop, standing there. He's like wait what the they put him in the ambulance and close the door and take off.

42:33ShareThat's hilarious.

42:34ShareTom:Thank.

42:35ShareGod, this is recorded .

42:36ShareTom:This is a great idea. If you make this, please, please, let us know, cause I need to watch it happen I 100%.

42:43ShareLet you. Yeah, I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to rewrite that and I got to get that to be a cover to a lot of people. People go for it. You know we're off beat stuff.

43:00ShareTom:I feel like that's brilliant if I hear that I'll bring you guys out, here we are if we can get to talk to Elijah Wood. I mean, I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I got Lord of the Rings like tattoo. I've read the book. I got like how many copies of the books do I own? More than you need more than one person really actually needs . So that means meeting Elijah Wood would just be wild.

43:21ShareYeah, yeah, they're such great movies. Yeah.

43:25ShareTom:Absolutely timeless classics. But as we start to wrap up here , is there any other projects or business ventures that you got going on that you want to plug before we start wrapping it up?

43:37ShareI mean yeah, I'm just , yeah, I'm going to start working on get this misery one going and just have the final war coming out. Other than that, just kind of taking the downtime a little bit , enjoying it.

43:47ShareMitch:Well, all our listeners, make sure you check out the movie Clawfoot. It's pretty funny. I enjoyed the kind of off-the-wall, like out-of-nowhere daydream sequences a lot.

44:00ShareTom:It was definitely a worthwhile watch and it's very, very well done. I can't stress it enough. A lot of the stuff that gets put out for I don't want to say an indie or a short film that's done quickly. Its production value is very well done. The acting is well done, the pacing is very good. Everything about it is 10 out of 10. Cannot recommend it enough.

44:25ShareThanks, guys, appreciate it.

44:26ShareTom:No problem, especially if you get to meet Elijah Wood and that thing plans through. I'll pitch whatever you want. I love it. Well, I think that's it for this episode of Entertain this.

44:39ShareMitch:Well, we've been here with Michael Day. Make sure you check out any of his other projects coming in the future. Check out the movie Clawfoot I'm Mitch.

44:48ShareTom:I'm Tom.

44:49ShareMitch:And we'll catch you next time. Thank you.