Is Hollywood Filmmaking Dead? Darren Coyle Reveals Shocking Truths You Won’t Believe in SYS Podcast Episode 548
This is a transcript of SYS Podcast Episode 548 – Is Hollywood Filmmaking Dead with Darren Coyle.
Welcome to episode 548 of the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger of sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I am interviewing filmmaker Darren Coyle. He is a filmmaker who works a lot in unscripted television, but he’s also an indie producer and director. And he comes on to talk about his film Chasing Sunshine, which he shot back in 2018, but it’s still out there trying to market it. So, we’ll talk about the long game of film distribution, the state of the industry from a working producer’s perspective. And we get in a little bit to AI and how he sees that affecting the industry. He was on previously in episode 331. So, check that out if you haven’t already. And if you want to get some additional context on Darren. So, stay tuned for that interview.
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So quick few words about what I’ve been working on. We just put out another cut of the Indie rom-com that I’ve been putting together. And I just, as I said, it’s a new cut that we got out. And then I sent it to a few trusted filmmaker friends and got some notes. Other people involved in the project, and so now I’m going to go back in and start trying to implement some of those notes and get it all ready for another cut. Hopefully this one will be a little quicker. I kind of know what I’m doing a little bit more with Adobe Premiere. I’ve gotten better at that. And as I said, I’ve got some more concrete notes here that I can hopefully get in there and execute and get another cut. So hopefully in a month, we’ll have another cut of the film. And hopefully that one will be getting very close to locked picture. And then the other thing I’m working on, obviously the SYS screenplay contest has come to an end. We are reviewing all of the screenplays. I’ve sent a bunch of them out to the industry judges. So, we will be making our second-round announcement on October 7th and then every week after that,we will be announcing the next rounds through October. So, keep an eye out for that. Anyways, that’s what I have been working on. Now let’s get into the main segment. Today I am interviewing filmmaker, Darren Coyle. Here is the interview.
ASHLEY: Welcome back, Darren, to the selling your screenplay podcast. A real appreciate you coming on the show with me again.
DARREN COYLE: Well, thank you for having me, Ash.
ASHLEY: So, you were on the podcast before in episode 331. So, I will refer people to that if they want to learn a little bit more about your background, how you kind of got your start in the business. But today we’re going to talk about your feature film, how you’ve gotten distribution. You also have an extensive background in just physical production. I think mostly correct me if I’m wrong in unscripted. A lot of the stuff we see on Discovery Crime, True Crime type stuff. So maybe we can start there and you can talk about sort of what you’re seeing just on the ground, what you’re doing still in unscripted. As you know, this screenwriter guy, I’m up here sort of just doing independent stuff, I don’t have my finger on the pulse of how production work in LA is going. I get the tick tox from people saying, “oh it’s doing worse than 30% less than last year, which is 30% less than before COVID…” and all that sort of stuff. But maybe you can talk about some of that. You must have a lot of friends in the industry, obviously you’re in the industry. So let’s start there. What are you seeing in terms of just production LA and how that’s been going over the last few years?
DARREN COYLE: – I have to say it’s been a little scary, I’ll be honest with you, as far as production in Los Angeles goes, whether it’s scripted unscripted or otherwise. So, my day job, if you will, my money-making job is producing true crime TV shows, which is considered unscripted. And then obviously there’s scripted production of like TV shows and sitcoms and movies and whatnot. And so, I’ve been kind of keeping one foot in each camp, so to speak, over the years. And in the last year or so, or maybe two years, really, a lot of production has slowed down quite a bit. I mean, like the industry, specifically in Los Angeles, has shrunk by 25%. So, there’s a lot of people who are like, haven’t worked in 12 months, 18 months. And I know, I particularly know a handful of people who literally just kind of just said, “Well, you know what? I’m done with this. I’m going to pivot to something else.” And like they’re in their 40s or 50s. And they’re just saying, all right, I’m going to go do something else now with my career and like literally I have a friend who is now a park ranger. I have another friend who went back to grad school to get her degree in social work and she’s going to become a social worker. So, like people are leaving the industry. And it’s kind of, I can’t say I blame them because if the work isn’t there, the work isn’t there. And even the production that is going on may not be happening in Los Angeles. It might be happening in Atlanta or Norlands or Oklahoma, or these other places that have tax incentives.
ASHLEY: Have you been getting jobs outside of L.A.? Do you spend a lot of your time going and producing outside of L.A.?
DARREN COYLE: No, not really. I mean I mean in this digital day and age, you know you can live anywhere and essentially like you know work remotely like as a story producer or those kinds of things I also work as like a field producer or actually sitting down and interviewing people where they live or where they work or you know and so that I travel for but the actual production companies that I work for are generally in Los Angeles. Some of them happen to, some of them are in Nashville or New York or something like that. But a lot of the production companies are in Los Angeles.
ASHLEY: – Yeah. Are you seeing things boom elsewhere? I mean, I guess there’s been a little bit of a lot, I mean, the Netflix and those guys, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago, they were just spending so much money producing so much content. I guess that’s gone down. I guess the strike set that back. But is it seem like there’s places outside of L.A. that are booming Canada, Europe? Are there any other places that are still producing a lot? Like, and why not move there? Like as a production person, why don’t instead of going back to get your social degree, things why not move to another? I’m just curious like what is the calculus there?
DARREN COYLE: – No, I mean, that’s an excellent question. I mean, if I were a courageous person, I might be inclined to move to Oklahoma or Louisiana or Atlanta or something like that, place where it’s a different production hub. But at the same time, that’s a different production hub, but at the same time, like, that’s a big move. And like if you don’t know anyone there, or maybe you have like one connection there, because networking is networking, whether you’re here or Canada or England or wherever, so like if you don’t know anybody, even if the jobs are there, you know, it’s going to take you some time to kind of like, work your way in and network and figure out your niche. Just up and moving to say New Mexico, there’s a lot of production happening in New Mexico right now, in the Santa Fe area and the Albuquerque area. I think Netflix is building a sound stage outside of Santa Fe. Just because there’s a lot of… Because of tax incentives and also it’s just like… It’s just cheap to build there and they have people there and there’s a lot of… There’s a lot of labor there. So… But that’s a big move. Whether you’re 25 or 55 or 75, like that’s a big move. And so, it’s hard to pull the trigger on something like that, but I mean it’s certainly something that I’ve thought about for sure.
ASHLEY: So, on the scripted side, what is your advice? Just what is your advice now? Because I’ve always given the advice. I’m someone that grew up on the East Coast. I, in fact, you did too. And I moved to Los Angeles and made a calculation that this would be better for as a screenwriter to be immersed in that. And I’ve always preached that on my podcast since I’ve been doing that. But I got to be honest now, I would say, I’m rethinking that. Like would you recommend if someone wants to go in either just physical production or screenwriting or anything in the entertainment industry, do you recommend that they move to LA if they don’t have connections in LA, like is that a good move for them? Precisely what you’re saying. I mean you’re settled here. You have your connections. You’ve been here for years. So, it makes sense for you, as you say. It’s a big move at any age. But if you’re a young person that doesn’t have any roots anywhere, I don’t know. Would you still recommend that they go to LA?
DARREN COYLE: – Well, let’s just say if you’re this person, this example person, maybe you live in no, you know, in Bumblesville, you know, Ohio or whatever, I would recommend you move to at least to a city of some sort, like because the closer you are to the center of power, the closer you are to the handles that make the machine work, you know. So, like if you’re not going to go to LA, you know, maybe Chicago or New York or Atlanta or New Orleans or one of these places is a, I think it’s a better option than just, you know, operating in the sticks. And I don’t, with all due respect to the sticks and everything that like, I’m not necessarily saying that like, it’s a necessary thing to move to LA, but like I would say move somewhere where there are other like-minded people who are doing what you want to do. Whether that’s Los Angeles or some other city or something like that, but like, because you know there’s only, so like you know this is a screenwriting podcast. So, like if you’re a screenwriter and you’re writing movies but you’re doing it in a bubble, there’s only so many competitions and stuff that you can like enter your screenplays into. Eventually at some point you will have to meet someone in person or like work on someone else’s movie and they work on your movie and those kinds of things happen within a community. A community of screenwriters and a community of filmmakers. And you’re not going to get very far operating in a bubble somewhere in the suburbs. Like you need to go to that community wherever that is. So, I wouldn’t necessarily say like, well, it’s LA or bus or anything like that. But I would say like you owe it to yourself to move to someplace where there is a community already built.
ASHLEY: Yeah, that’s sound advice for sure. Yeah. So, let’s talk about AI a little bit. How has AI impacted the workflow that you’re involved in?
DARREN COYLE: Well, as far as… You mean, as far as like unscripted?
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you said you’d still doing some stuff unscripted. I’d be curious to hear just from both angles, but yeah, start with unscripted if that’s mostly where you’re at. I’d be curious to see does it do they do… like it seems to me you could quickly get instead of going out and shooting a little seven-second clip of someone grabbing a gun. You could just get AI to whip that up. It seems to me like the unscripted could use, like there could be some little insert stuff that you could use pretty effectively with unscripted.
DARREN COYLE: Yeah. Well, first and foremost, I will say this, I believe that… artificial intelligence is half baked right now and it is not ready to roll out into the general public, but they’re doing it anyways. So here we are. And yes, AI can like create images for you and that kind of a thing, but out of them don’t look very good. Like, you know, if you want like actor recreations is kind of what you’re talking about where like for like an unscripted true crime show, you want to show someone grabbing a gun or, you know, or a car driving down the road, that kind of a thing is instead of doing it with actors, you’re saying, do it with AI, you can. And lots of people do. But it doesn’t look very good. It looks cheap and kind of half-assed at this point. I’m sure in a year or two, AI will have advanced to the point where a lot of the stuff will look great, and maybe you can’t even tell if it’s real or AI or whatever, but right now, a lot of the AI stuff that is happening just looks kind of cheap and not very good. Your show is operating at, then maybe you don’t care. Maybe you have a YouTube channel like a legacy a media platform like investigation discovery or HBO Max or something like that your audience might be expecting something better than that. So, I guess my answer is, AI is helping the smaller budgeted projects right now. But if the larger budgeted projects are still spending the money on the real thing, and at some point, I’m sure that will change, but it hasn’t changed yet.
ASHLEY: Yeah. So just what about this stuff? Because we hear a lot about these AI tools within the workflow. Like for instance, I could imagine a tool that goes through all of the footage that you guys have shot and indexes it and catalogs it. Have you seen that stuff start to come in just AI, just tools coming and creeping into just as they said, just the workflow? And I’m curious to know where you’re seeing that. and creeping into just as I said, just the workflow. And I’m curious to know where you’re seeing that.
DARREN COYLE: Yeah, we’re definitely seeing that for sure, as far as like for organization, for editing, an assistant editor typically will take all the footage and organize it and do all the tech specs and everything for it. I’m finding now that like there’s definitely AI bots that are kind of taking over those responsibilities, which is a good thing. I mean it sucks that an AE is out of a job, but like if you are a smaller production and you can’t afford an assistant editor, and you can have AI come in and kind of like help you to go through it all, then that’s probably a good thing for your production. It’s definitely happening.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah. So just more generally, what is your take on AI and even just on like a screenwriting, screenwriting landscape, just what does your take on it? How do you think it’s going to play out over these next five or 10 years?
DARREN COYLE: – I’ve definitely noticed some pushback on it. There’s a lot of people who will make a movie and at the very end in the credits say this movie was completely made by human beings. No AI was involved, these kinds of things. So, there’s definitely a lot I pushback from lots of the industry saying, you know, I’ve seen like for like screenwriting competitions and stuff like that, they very specifically say, AI is not, you know, a human being will read your screenplay like for our competition. We’re not relying on AI for that and that kind of thing. So there is a hunger and a thirst for the real thing out there. But I think generally, there’s also lots of unscrupulous people in this industry as well. I think for every lull-out loving person that says this is 100% human-made, there’s going to be one or two unscrupulous people who don’t care and they’re just going to say, “Well, AI will write this script and then we’ll have a big hit on our hands, we’ll all make money.” And it’s like, I don’t, you know, so there’s always going to be some of those people. And I honestly see in the near future, they’re being like two camps. There’s going to be like the AI friendly camp and the AI unfriendly camp. And I mean, eventually the money wins out. I mean, we are making films. And films are a product that we sell tickets to or whatever. And so, I think ultimately, the money will make the decisions, but like there’s definitely like two camps as far as I can see.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah. So, let’s talk about chasing sunshine. When you came on episode 331, I think you’re in the beginning stages of that project. So now you’ve been finished, it’s been out for eightish years. So maybe you can kinda talk us through, maybe just to start, remind our audience, what sort of the log line of this film, and then we can sort of talk through what you did with distribution on it.
DARREN COYLE: Sure. So, it’s a comedy. It’s a feature comedy. It’s like a buddy, an odd couple buddy road trip movie where two people drive around the San Fernando Valley on a scavenger hunt. That’s the premise and hilarity and sews of course. One thing I want to be sure to talk to you about just because like I know you have a screenwriting background, but over the years you’ve seen the need to do more than just write. You now direct, you produce, you edit and so like I feel like especially in this landscape, you can’t be just a writer anymore. You can’t just be a screenwriter and sit back and just and wait for gatekeepers to like make your movie. You got to like make your movie. And so that’s why I don’t consider myself to be a screenwriter. I consider myself to be a filmmaker because I take my scripts and then I produce them and I direct them and then I edit them. And the more things you can do yourself, the better it is. The more control you have over your project, but also like, I edit for free. So like, I don’t have to have, I don’t have to pay myself to do that when normally you’d pay an editor, editors make a lot of money. Like, yeah. And as well they should because their work is valued. But like, so that was one thing that like, after I had the script, the screenplay for this, I was like – well, let’s just raise the money and go do it. Cassie Thornton, and I, who is one of the stars of the movie, she’s an actor. And I said, “Here’s my script. I have no money. I have no connections whatsoever, but I want to make this movie. And I want you to star in it.” And she read it and she said, “Alright, let’s do it.” And so that right there, that’s community. But you have to surround yourself with like-minded people to make your projects. And so, we were able to crowdfund most of, we were able to crowdfund the production budget. That got us through production. Once we got into editing and stuff like that, we needed to raise a little bit more money which we did. And then we finished the movie. It was a long time ago at this point. And then COVID happened because like we were going to roll it out and do like a grassroots campaign to like get it out there into the world in March of 2020. And then the world shut down and no one cared about our stupid little movie. So, we basically like put it in a drawer for like two years. So, we basically put it in a drawer for like two years. Eventually, by the grace of God, we got it in front of a distributor through one of our producers has other films that are going on, and we’re trying to get these other films distributed. In one of their meetings, literally just said, “Hey, are you interested in a comedy? Because we got this other little comedy here that you might want to check out and consider distributing,” and they were like, “All right, send it up, send it over.” And they watched it and they were like, “Yeah, we want to distribute this as well.” And that was like amazing. And that was in, that was literally like in 2022. And I’ll loosely quote Martin Scorsese when he says — “The best director is going to be the one that’s the most patient.” And it’s true because like if I was, you know, I wanted to get the, movie out there into the world, have it find an audience, yada, yada, yada, maybe make some money back and that kind of thing. But like, that wasn’t serving me or serving the project. You just have to have patience and you have to wait for the moment. And like, even once we got the distributor, they were like, well, you need errors and E&O insurance, errors and omissions, which at first I was like, why do you don’t need that? No one’s going to sue us, it’s fine. Because errors and omissions insurance is basically so that like if you have some talking shit about McDonald’s in your movie, if McDonald’s sews you, you have the insurance to kick in to like to yourself and those kinds of things. And so basically the distributor was like you need E&O insurance and I was like I turn to my producer and I said, “well how much is E&O insurance?” And they said “$3,000.” And it was like, well, you can spend $3,000 and get your movie distributed. Or you could not spend $3,000. And your movie will just sit on shelf. At which point in time, I said, I’d rather it not sit on a shelf. So, I went into my savings and I spent three thousand dollars on ENO insurance. And that whole thing took a year, and that was like after we met the distributor and everything like that and then we had tech specs. We had to get you know close captions and all these other things. And eventually, the distributor was happy, and they’ve been able to get it on different platforms, like right now it’s on Tubi, and Roku, and Fawesome. Those are AVOD platforms, so they, you know, you have to sit there to commercials, but they’re free to watch. And so like, and so we were finished with the movie in 2018, but it didn’t see the light of day on any of the platforms or anything like that, basically until 2023/2024. And so, I guess part of my point here is that you really need to be patient, but also wear lots of hats because eventually you’re going to run out of money and run out of friends and a lot of it’s going to be on you, and your shoulders, and you’re going to be on you, and you’re going to need to figure out how to do it.
ASHLEY: – So, what was the strategy in terms of the windowing of the film, like just run through your distribution was the TVOD was first, then the AVOD, but just run through that. What was sort of the thinking and then how did it actually roll out?
DARREN COYLE: – They wanted to put it on different platforms, but the first iteration is a TVOD, which stands for Transactional Video On Demand. That means if you go to Amazon or Google Play and spend $2.99 to rent a movie. The distributor wants to do that first because you get a bigger percentage of that sale as a distributor and as the producer of the movie. Like, so if Joe Blow goes and spends $5 to rent your movie, the distributor gets, I don’t know, a dollar of that or something like that. But the thing with that is, it’s transactional. It costs money. So like anyone wants to go watch your movie they got to jump down to $4.99 or whatever. And it’s hard to get people to spend money to watch your movie. And so, like that didn’t last very long to be honest with you. We were, it was on Amazon and Google Play and a couple of other, you know, TVOD platforms. And unless you have money to spend on advertising and stuff like that, it’s hard to direct traffic to your movie. So eventually we went to AVOD, which is Advertising Video On Demand, which is, you know, your Tubi and your Fawesome and your Roku, and there’s a bunch of other platforms that are like that where it’s free, but they put in commercials. And so that’s a little easier to get people to go to because it’s free, but at the same time, it’s less money, you know, Tubi makes more money on that. And the distributor and the filmmaker make less money. So the distributor doesn’t want to do that, but eventually they ‘do’ do that. And so that’s kind of where we are right now at the VOD stages or AVOD stage of the whole process.
ASHLEY: Gotcha. So, what are you doing to try and continuously market this film after six years basically, or I guess three years since it got out, what do you do to continue to market? How do you bring people to this film?
DARREN COYLE: One of the amazing things about our cast is that Trevor Pennock is one of the leads in the movie and he is also a member of a band called O-town and they have a pretty fervent fan base. So, what I’ve actually been doing is just so media literally just like messaging people directly. Like I found there’s a lot of people, O-town fans that are like, you know, follow different Instagram channels and stuff like that. And so I’m engaging those people with, literally with direct messages, like just DMing people and saying – ‘Hey, Trevor’s movie is out right now on Tubi and Roku and Fawsome, it’s free, go check it out, tell your friends.’ And I literally will spend 10 or 15 minutes every day on Instagram, I’m literally just like hitting people up and being like, “Hey, if you want to help Trevor out, go check out this movie.” Some people go, “Yeah, I’ve already seen that movie, but I’ll tell my friends,” and so like that. And again, that’s free. That’s just my time. I feel like, especially as an independent filmmaker, the biggest asset you have is time. Like, you might not have all these other things that cost money and stuff like that, but what you do have is your own time. And so use it. You know? And so, I’m just trying to be patient with it and just kind of like roll it out in a very grassroots kind of style. Whether it’s going to move the needle or not, who knows? But like the thing with these platforms is you kind of have to trick the algorithm into believing that your project is something that people are interested in. So even if you can get like 10, 15, 20 different people in different time zones and in different zip codes to watch it, the algorithm for 2B starts to go, “Oh, people are interested in this movie. We should start to recommend it to people.” And then the algorithm kicks in in your favor.
ASHLEY: When I gotten done both of them, the Pinch and the Rideshare Killer, and one of them was a AFM. I just met a dude, but I’ll get emails. There definitely are people or tools, you know, tools that will do this kind of thing for you where you can just go to someone’s Instagram and direct message things. Did you try any of that stuff? Any of those? I mean a lot of it’s sort of black hat. It’s a little bit spammy. But did you try any of that stuff? Any of those, I mean a lot of it sort of black had, it’s a little bit spammy. But do you try any of those to sort of automate that stuff?
DARREN COYLE: You mean like a publicist or something like that?
ASHLEY: I’m talking about more like all, these tools I got, I’ve gotten one that was exactly what you’re talking about. It will, you put in an Instagram channel and then it will go to all the people following that person. So I’m sure Trevor’s got his Instagram, he’s got whatever a million followers. So, then this bot will start going through his followers and DMing the followers with this this message that you’ve written. So then instead of doing it for 10 minutes, you’re let this thing loose and it would run for 24 hours and spam two million people, you know, something like that. –
DARREN COYLE: No. That sounds like a really smart thing to do, and like a time saver, and you’re using the technology to your advantage, and that’s great. I’ve kind of avoided doing that just because I feel like it’s a little not genuine. And it just means, because you’ll spam 1,000 people, and maybe some of those people you spam, you end up pissing off and like, and then they hate your movie, or they start to like message around to their friends of like, “Hey, be aware of this,” or whatever. I guess there’s a part of me that like, I don’t like to get those messages personally. Because you can tell right away that like a real person did not write it. You know, or you’re just like, why did I get this? Just because I own an iPhone means you think I’m going to be interested in your app or something. And so, maybe this is the anti-AI camp that I was talking about earlier of just like I haven’t tried doing something like that and I guess just because there’s a part of me deep down inside that feels like it’s not genuine and like I want to kind of earn it.
ASHLEY: So, you mentioned your film finished 2018 then COVID. We finished the Rideshare Killer. Well, we finished shooting at the end of 2019. So, then we were in post-production 2020. But we found in 2021 the Film Festival circuit was basically non, I mean, they were still taking your money and doing online festivals, but there was really no real Film Festival circuit to speak of. Did you find the same thing? Did you enter festivals later like in 2022? Did you wait a while? Did you have any success with festivals? I’m just sort of curious what your festival around looked like with this film. Because I think I do remember you were in some festivals with it.
DARREN COYLE: Yeah. So, Chasing Sunshine was in a handful of festivals in 2018 and 2019 in the before days. But and those were not so much to like find buyers or anything like that necessarily. But like that was to like have it find an audience and also like I personally like going to film festivals in person because you’re able to talk to other filmmakers and just like compare notes. You watch their movie, they watch your movie and then afterwards you can ask them a bunch of stupid questions like, “Hey, how did you do that one shot?” Or that one location like, “That must have been tricky. How did you manage to shoot there or whatever?” And so like, again, it’s about community and just and being in a community of other filmmakers and you can learn their secrets, you can tell them your secrets and stuff like that. And that’s one of the great things that I really enjoyed about going to a bunch of film festivals. Yeah, I mean, I heard some awards along the way and you get some laurels and that kind of thing and that doesn’t hurt. Like it, especially like especially when you’re trying to find a distributor or a salesperson or whatever,laurels really do help. That tells them that other people besides you and your mom think it’s a good movie. So, all these things help, but a “successful” festival run is not a magic wand. It’s not going to guarantee success or anything like that. You as the filmmaker and you as the producer of your film are going to make it a success or not. It will live and die by your will and person, your personal will and your patience and pushing this project forward. No one’s going to go to a film festival and swoop in and go, “You’re a genius. Thank God you arrived. Your movie’s awesome. Here’s a check for a million dollars.” That’s not going to happen. Even Sundance, people will win Sundance, or win the audience award, or the Super-Secret Award Sundance, whatever. And four months later, they’re back to waiting tables. Like these things are not magic ones. You know, like, I know with Thunder Road, I don’t know if you remember that short that like was the Sundance Starling, they wanted to make a feature version of it and couldn’t find anyone to give them the money for it. So, they ended up self-financing it. So, like maybe 20 years ago, like Winding and Award, Sundance got easier for your movie, but I don’t really think that’s the case anymore. Just I think the landscape has just changed. And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I mean, festivals are fun to go to, especially, if your movie is good and is being well received, but I know I run into plenty of filmmakers who just skip festivals altogether. They make their movie and then they go directly to, they go after, you know, like sales people or distributors or whatever, because like that’s ultimately what they’re going to do with the project anyway, so why not just jump into it and don’t spend all the money and time and effort in film festivals.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. We’re thinking exactly along those lines with the film I’m working on. Okay, so it sounds like having Trevor in the film, you definitely feel like it helped ultimately with sales and it’s one of your marketing angles. But do you think it helped just getting this distributor? Like when you were having meetings with this distributor, was that something he was interested in having just a little bit of name tag attached to the film?
DARREN COYLE: That’s an excellent question. I don’t think so to be honest with you. Yeah, in general, it probably helped. It definitely, but I mean, the distributor never said anything like allowed…
ASHLEY: Yeah, I love O-town. Yeah, yeah.
DARREN COYLE: Yeah, nothing like that, but like, they definitely understood that that was part of the project. There is kind of like, I don’t want to say like I built an audience, but like we’re not starting from scratch, you know? Like he has fans and they are loyal and dedicated and we’ll probably at some point go see the movie. So, I’m sure that didn’t hurt, but no one specifically told me that that was a selling point.
ASHLEY: Gotcha. And just quickly, how did you get him attached to the project? Was this someone you had worked with? Just maybe just quickly tell us how you went about getting him involved.
DARREN COYLE: Yeah, well, it is kind of a kind of walked backwards into it to be it perfectly honest with you. So, I mentioned my friend, Cassie Thornton, who’s an actor. I brought her the script and I said, “I want to make this movie, I want you to star in it, let’s do it.” And she said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” And here again, I come back to community. Like surround yourself with like-minded people who want to do the same things that you want to do. We did two table reads for the script, okay? A table read is exactly what you think it is. You get a bunch of actors together, you assign them all roles, and you as a writer can hear the words out loud and you take notes and you change the script accordingly. So, we did a table read, it went fine, I did notes, and blah blah blah. And we did a second table read months later. And Cassie’s friend, his name is Eric, he was very nice and he read all the stage directions, which is a thankless job. So, he read all the stage directions for the second table read and we were like – okay, you know, this is working and I got feedback from all the actors and whatever. And then Eric said to me, “Do you have someone for the role of Jack?” And I said, “well, we haven’t really decided on anyone in particular. So, we’re still mulling it over.” And he said, “I have a friend, Trevor, I have a friend who would probably be good for the world, would you mind if I gave him the script?” And I was like, “Sure, go for it, whatever. Who’s your friend?” And he was like, “Oh, it’s this guy named Trevor.” And I was like, “Okay, give him the script.” And then like literally three days later, Trevor read the script. He loves it. He even love it if you would think about him for like to play Jack. And I was like, who’s your friend Trevor? I didn’t know O-town. I’ll be honest with you. But like it literally was like, because Eric is an actor, but he’s also a producer. So, like Eric ended up becoming a producer on the movie. I met up with Trevor. We did a screen test with him and Cassie just to see what their chemistry was like because the whole movie rides on the chemistry between these two main characters. They did a screen test. He was off-booked for the screen test. He was off book for the screen test. The screen test went great. And I was like, I didn’t cast him because of his celebrity. I cast him because he was a good actor. And he was right for the part. And there’s no way we would have gotten him if Cassie wasn’t friends with Eric. And Eric wasn’t a nice guy to read the stage directions for our second table read. Like literally that’s how it happens. And that’s how it happened with Trevor. And I think that is how it happens in general. People know people who know people. And if you surround your community of filmmakers and writers and actors and people like that, then things happen. Those things don’t happen if you’re operating in a bubble and not getting out there and meeting people and talking to people about your project and asking people to work on your project and that kind of thing.
ASHLEY: Yeah. So, this next question, I’m just curious in the context, like, what were your goals for this film? And then ultimately, like, you’ve made a couple of other short films since this film, like, why not stick and continue to stick it out, make some more features? Why do some short films? And I’m sort of just asking a general question, like, what is this as an independent filmmaker myself, who knows that there’s not really a lot of money in these things. I mean, we all hope that one of them takes off and makes a lot of money, but that’s at the end of the day, there’s got to just be a passion for going out and just doing something creative. So, what is your goal and what is sort of your motivation to do these films? The short films obviously you’re very unlikely to ever make your money back. That’s truly just a passion project, a creative project. The feature, I guess there’s always a chance. But what is your goals with these films, specifically with Chase and Sunshine doing a feature? Why not do more features?
DARREN COYLE: Well, filmmaking is a muscle and you need to exercise it and use it, otherwise it will atrophy. So, if a feature film is expensive and it costs not just money, but it costs a lot of time and effort and calling and favors and stuff like that. But a short film is the same thing, but like you’re using the same muscles and everything like that, but it costs way less. And it’s less time and effort and energy to make a short film. So, you’re still using that muscle and you’re still expressing, you’re still telling your stories and stuff like that, but like it’s just it’s easier to make a short that it is to make a feature. I would love to make another feature tomorrow and I’ve got plenty of scripts to shoot, but that’s a big undertaking, especially when you don’t really have a lot of access to funding and that kind of thing. So like, I like to make shorts because they’re fun, but they’re also a way to keep in practice. You’re going to see your short and go, “What else have you got?” And you go, “Well, actually, I got this feature film over here.” And like, I have a screenplay writers’ group that meets every week. And one of the writers in it made a short film that was in a film festival. And it’s the short film version of a feature that she wants to make. People saw the short in a festival and then approached her and there are production coming in. They were like, “We really like your movie. Are you interested in making a feature version of it?” And she was like, “Yes, actually I am.” And they were like, “Great, let’s sit down and talk about it and figure out how we can make that happen.” So, like, you never know which twisty road is going to lead you to the next project, but you have to keep making things and putting yourself out there and meeting people and getting your material in front of other people because like don’t wait 10 years to make your baby, you know, like that’s not doing yourself any good. Like make the projects you can make along the way and eventually you might not even care about making your baby because you’ll have a mass this other body of work and maybe that’s even better than your baby that you’ve been sitting on for 10 years.
ASHLEY: Yeah, that’s an excellent answer and I really hope people listen to that because I totally agree just making stuff. I’m always amazed when I do my films just how many new friends you make, just people that you stay in touch with, for many, many years. It’s almost like going to summer camp, you just go away from every film project with, yeah, but you do, you go away with at least one or two friends from each project that you sort of carry on for the rest of your life. So, what advice do you have now for people as we sort of wrap up the interview, what advice do you have people that are looking to break into the industry? Both on the production side and any tips on the screenwriting side too?
DARREN COYLE: Well, a couple things one is find your tribe like find your community, and you know a simple Google search will give you a list of like screenwriting groups and or different communities of filmmakers and those kinds of things, you know, and work on other people’s things and then for free and they’ll work on your stuff for free. Like you can’t just be a screenwriter though. You need to branch out and be a screenwriter + a producer + an editor + a director or whatever. Expand your level of expertise so that you can make your own stuff but also lend your skills to other people making their projects. And be patient. It’s a process. It’s not going to happen overnight. Nothing happens overnight. Every overnight success was 10 years in the making. So, I would just say, like – become as capable as you can and have patience with it and, you know, your shot will come, but you have to, and ridiculously believe in yourself. You have to be, a little delirious to keep on keeping on, but believe in yourself because that’s a very important aspect to it.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah. So, what’s next for you? What are you starting to work on now?
DARREN COYLE: – Well, I actually just came out with a short film called Devil’s Dilemma a few months back, and that’s been playing it a few festivals and stuff. So again, it’s not something I’m going to make any money off of or any like that, but it is a way to like use those skills and stay in practice and it gets you out in public so that other people can see it and you know, especially here in the San Fernando Valley, there is like a San Fernando Valley filmmaker community and people know each other. And so, I’m kind of at the end of that project and looking to start the next project. One major thing I’m trying to do is I have a bunch of feature screenplays and a couple of pilot screenplays that I’m really trying to engage with either a producer or a manager to try to help get it out into the world or you know, beget some work for myself that isn’t my own project.
ASHLEY: – Yeah, got you. So, well, I like to wrap up the interviews just by asking the guests if they’ve seen anything recently that they can recommend to our audience. What have you been watching that you like? Netflix, Hulu, HBO. Is there anything out there that you’ve been watching that you like?
DARREN COYLE: I just watched a movie called Eat Wheaties, with Tony Hale. It was an independent film that came out in 2020 and for obvious reasons, maybe you know, didn’t really hit it big just because it’s an independent film and I guess Tony Hale’s like a huge star or whatever but I said the other day I thought it was hilarious and it’s a good like dark little comedy I’m pretty sure I watched it on Tubi, so it’s free and it’s available. It’s out there. I think because it came out in 2020, it ended up just like kind of falling through the cracks a little bit and no one really saw it, but like, so I’d recommend, Eat Wheaties.
ASHLEY: Okay, that’s a great recommendation. I’ve not heard of that one, so I’ll check it out. How can people see Chasing Sunshine? Maybe you can run through that. We’ll get some links in the show notes as well, but maybe you can just tell us where that’s available as well.
DARREN COYLE: Sure. You can rent it or buy it on Amazon, or an also Google Play, but you can watch it for free on Tubi or the Roku channel or Fawsome, which is the word awesome with an F in front of it. Those are all free AVOD platforms that have… Tubi actually is like in the last couple years, it’s really like… it’s no longer just like bad sitcoms from the 80s anymore. Like they make original programming for their channel and they’ve really come pretty far as far as the media market. So, you can watch it on any of those platforms.
ASHLEY: Perfect. Yeah, perfect. We’ll get those links in the show notes. What’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing? Anything you’re comfortable sharing – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I’ll put those in the show notes as well.
DARREN COYLE: Sure. Well, you can always go to Darrencoyle.com. That’s my website. That’s got all my current projects and stuff like that there. You can also follow me on Instagram. I’m @Darren_W_Coil. That’s my insta handle. There’s also chasing sunshine… Let me see if I can get this right here. I just want to make sure I’m telling you the right thing…Chasing Sunshine Movie is the Instagram handle.
ASHLEY: Okay, perfect. Yeah, we’ll get that one. Well, Darren, I appreciate you’re coming on the show and talking to me again. You know, good luck with continuing on this project. And I look forward to having you on when you’re ready for your next project.
DARREN COYLE: Awesome, man. Well, thank you for having me again. This is great.
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