SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Dread Alert Podcast. Today I'm joined by Kyle Valley and Erin Anya, friends of the show. You've been on a couple of times, uh, and we've been on podcasts together a number of times. But the reason we're all here today is you have just released a vertical format horror film called Autonomous, which I thought was incredibly relevant, timely, interesting, and at the bleeding edge of how storytelling is being done in 2026. Um I I hope I didn't embarrass you with that welcome, because I really did love this film. Uh, but welcome. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

That was an incredible intro. We are deeply humbled and excited and grateful to be back. It's awesome to get to catch up. We've got so much life going on. I know we were just chatting off uh off stream. A lot going on personally with family and kids and beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

Yeah. Yeah. And uh I make a reservation at a restaurant. Would you mind just calling ahead and letting them know all about it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I'll be your hype man all day. That's perfect. No, it's it's a testament though to your commitment to the craft, though, because there is a lot of life and there is a lot of ups and downs and responsibilities, especially I know we share this in common, uh, being parents, but the fact that you've made an effort to be involved in creating art, it's commendable as a former artist myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Right back at you. No, what you do, I every single time that I go to your channel or I stumble across like algorithm puts you in my feet. I'm like, you are so incredibly professional and succinct and precise in the way that you deliver your thoughts and descriptions of things, and I always love your take on it. So it's a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

That means the world to me. That's why we do it. We we just I think the goal of the channel, and I think that we're aligned in our goal, it's that indie horror deserves a voice, and indie horror has something to say that maybe isn't being said elsewhere. And I think that's why we all come to the table.

unknown 1:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

100%.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Totally agree. Let's let's dive into autonomous because I found this to be incredibly fascinating. And the the brief setup, in fact, why don't you give me the log line? Give give our listeners the setup.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Okay, so a couple gets into an autonomous vehicle and has an argument on the way home from a terrible dinner. Unfortunately, things just take a wrong turn and go from terrible to worse and darker as the as the story unfolds.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, I I think that's incredibly succinct and absolutely captures the spirit of the piece. And what I love about it is um I think for the first few parts, I'm like, where is this going? Not like, I mean, obviously, in where are they going in the car? But where is the story going? And I was surprised at who I thought was going to be the antagonist of the piece and how things ended up playing out. So it's incredibly mysterious. I highly recommend you check it out. Uh, and we'll tell you all the details about where you can check it out if you listen to the entire podcast. That's right. Save it till the end. Right, exactly. Um, but no, I thought Autonomous was really interesting, and I thought it was interesting that we're exploring autonomous vehicles because AI is so at the forefront of creative conversations right now. So I have to ask, where did the idea for this film come from?

SPEAKER_04 3:13

So this was interesting for us. This was one of the first projects, not the first, but the first newer project that came to us from actually another company, uh, Screamify, and the founder of Screamify, Sean Overbeek. We had gotten involved with them. They wanted to put ZombieCon on their streaming platform, and through that conversation, we kind of I think developed a mutual appreciation for each other. They're kind of trying to become an uh oasis for indie filmmakers and especially indie horror filmmakers, uh, and trying to support them as much as they can. And he presented us with this script that he had written, and I was reading it, and I'm like, so there are cars just driving around Atlanta that are there are no humans in them, and I wasn't aware of this at this point. And I was like, that's terrifying. But also, I mean, how many times as a storyteller are you gonna have the opportunity to actually you know narrate something that isn't just science fiction? It's literally, it sounds like science fiction, but it's a commercial enterprise happening on the streets where you live, which is you know crazy.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

It was exciting, it felt extremely timely.

SPEAKER_04 4:23

And from like his inspiration, we had talked about this after we got through the script, and I believe a lot of it came from uh his time in Los Angeles. He had ridden in a bunch of these Waymos, and I think as I was when I was riding in them, you know, researching my part for the piece. It is an eerie experience, uh, and there's no really great way to describe it. It's not like, you know, I I've never been in one of those Teslas that drive itself. Um but this I can only imagine is very different from that. Because here you're a passenger, there is no driver. There are no hands on the wheel, the wheel is just jerking, you know, and without hands on the wheel, it it's really hard to see how much a steering wheel moves when people, you know, when someone's holding it, like you don't really notice. When there are no hands on the wheel, that thing really is jerking in really short verse, and it's uh it is extremely eerie with oncoming traffic and all the ways that I'm envisioning, like the ways I'm gonna die before I can ever make this movie. I have a child at home. Why am I doing this? This is I do not want to be a guinea pig for Google and their self-driving car, but I here I am. Uh but I think he had a similar experience, and on the flight back from LA, he was inspired enough to kind of pen the whole thing out.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

So I didn't make the connection when I saw the screenwriter and uh the I mean we've we've worked with Screamify as well, covering a few short independent films that they had. I didn't make the connection. That's so that's so cool. I know that guy. Um no, I those autonomous driving cars, like the self-driving cars. My one of my closest friends works at a company that will not be named, developing software that uh that that fuels those cars. And I'm forever in awe that ones and zeros can make life-changing decisions. It's so bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

It really is.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

And it also oh sorry. Please go on. Oh, I was gonna say ones and zeros, yes, and also who is kind of behind the ones and zeros, not you know, not against your friend, but who is like kind of you know sitting above the code, above the code. And it added a whole new layer of like, well, if I have anything negative to say about the tech oligarchs, I should probably keep it to myself because I don't want to get into one of these vehicles, and then all of a sudden it's like, hey, there's a bridge, we can afford the loss of a car.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah, that's I had not considered that, and that makes them even more frightening. I mean, of course, the movie raises some of those questions about who is responsible for this car and what is the purpose, but um, in a practical real world sense, man, with facial recognition, that is absolutely terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

It's another movie just waiting to happen.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah, and I feel like I've already got a target on my back by making this thing. It's like no, good good horror should always explore what makes us uncomfortable as a society, and I think that you really do that well here. Um what I what I like most about the format is that it's incredibly uh consumable, this film. And episode to episode, I mean, they all have their own individual flavor, they're all titled very clearly. I I love how the tension ramps up in the consumability. Did you find shooting it that there was any sort of sense of internal arc with each segment, or did you shoot this thing straight through and let the pieces fall where they may?

SPEAKER_04 7:52

So that was a bit of a grab bag, and it came down to functionally breaking apart the script. Uh, not generally around beats. So if we were, you know, shooting a feature film, multiple locations, a number, an ensemble cast, you might find beats, uh, you know, wherever we're moving the camera, however you're shooting it, to kind of cut, give the actors a break, reset the scene, go back through those couple of pages, and circle back to everything else. Here, because we had two actors in a singular location, and we wanted I wanted to capture it from as many angles as possible so that we had a dynamic edit because again, we're stuck in one location, and I wanted it to be, you know, not just camera one, camera two, camera one, camera two, you know, yeah. Kind of that I think it was Austin Powers with the camera one, camera two blinking the eyes. Um, I wanted to give it a little bit of momentum around the car where you were traveling as the viewer, you know, through the argument spatially, and the camera was kind of positioning on the side of the car where the argument was kind of strongest at that moment. Uh so for the beginning of the entire piece, that's basically how we ran it. We did 15-page run-throughs from each angle just because we had a limited time, limited budget, and that was the easiest way to do it. And we were blessed to have obviously Aaron and Dominic, who, you know, were completely off book, true professionals, and I guess he treated it like a stage performance, more or less.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

That's what it felt like.

unknown 9:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

The most intimate stage performance ever, as you're, you know, side by side having a continuous argument over 20 pages at length. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

And as soon as we got done with you know that section of the script and we started getting into the more nitty-gritty of you know, outside elements, we'll call them, coming into play. That's when you start going to a more traditional filmmaking sense where you've got to break things apart uh more strategically, just because you have to allow for these other elements to interact with the car, you know, it coming to a stop and you know, things happening. So a balancing act of just kind of you know, more or less production work in that regard. Uh, but the beginning was truly revolutionary for me because I was like, okay, just well, I get to sit in this extremely uncomfortable position for 15 pages, and I get a whole take from my actors, you know, run it back twice, okay. We got our coverage, moving on.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Wild. I have to ask, what were you shooting on and how did that change maybe your visual composition? Because vertical framing has to be a completely alien landscape for you.

SPEAKER_04 10:34

It was. It was the first time that I had done anything vertically. I don't even film a lot of stuff for you know social media. So, you know, I was completely out of my depth when we first started. But as I was going through the storyboarding process, uh my brain kind of quickly clicked into, okay, got it. So, you know, stretch the frame vertically, you know, look for a wardrobe design that was vertically driven, you know, whether it be long earrings or long coats or things with long seams, and you know, try to get elements of the car in frame that, you know, were giving us a bit of that length as opposed to that you know beautiful width. Uh, but we shot it on an Alexa 35, and uh we actually had a specific kit from Ari that inverted the camera for the specific aspect ratio, and it was a vertical integration set, I believe, and it worked fluidly. It put the base plate on the bottom of the camera. It you know, basically flipped the camera for you more or less. Uh one small hiccup is that I ordered this thing, I searched for this thing in November, couldn't find one in the United States, couldn't find one to rent, couldn't find one to buy. You could buy it, but it was, you know, gonna need to be shipped over from Germany or something, and they didn't give you a real good timeline, but you know, it would be there within six weeks. Okay, ordered that. Moved on, didn't think anything of it. We get within like two weeks of shooting. I'm like, okay, it's been 10 weeks, 12 weeks. Where's my vertical integration set?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

This is kind of important.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Yeah. Uh and uh I called the company and they're like, oh, yeah, so that's set. Um they didn't have any over in Germany. Uh so they had to machine one. And they went on a very long, you know, I guess the Germans do a very long Christmas break. So they were like, they were not working for three weeks or two weeks or some, you know, right in the middle of when this time would be happening. So it should be there, you know, in a couple weeks. I'm like, we start shooting in a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Uh it might get there in time. You might want to search for another solution. I'm like, okay, great.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

All right. Uh so luckily, wooden camera had an L bracket that allowed you to basically, you know, vertically integrate the camera into the you know, whatever Rager configuration you were doing. Small hiccup. Uh, that L bracket was a giant piece of metal and it weighed five pounds, which I know doesn't sound like a lot, you know, separated out from everything else, but when you add five pounds to a camera package, it's like all the tolerance gets blown. Like, okay, so the tripod we got, that's not gonna work. Okay, this isn't gonna work, that's not gonna work. Like, we were already uh cutting the cusp for everything because when you step up, especially in tripods, right? It's like you go from a uh 25-pound threshold on like a Schneider or whatever to like you know the 30-pound threshold, and the price jumps up like 77 grand or something crazy. So, or three grand, I don't know what the prices are exactly, but it's a significant price hike. So we had come in just perfectly. I'd like weighed all the pieces of the camera out, and I'm like, we're gonna be just fine. So that created some problems. We solved them. Uh, and then the second day of shooting, luckily, the pieces came in. And then I had the beautiful job of ripping apart this camera rig that I planned to leave, you know, put together for the next week and then rebuilding it the morning of you know, a shoot where I'm like, I'm the only person building this camera rig, and I've also got to coordinate all these other jobs. And it was because mainly our cast was amazing and our crew who we had worked with them most of them before, they were amazing. So I was like, guys, I need more hands. And they were all over everything. And they knew that they knew the whole job and they were just running with things. And yeah, I got I got very lucky. Dodged a big bullet there, and we obviously got the content.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

So we have a small team, we're an indie production company, but when we build our team, we build them with the right people that are team players that are gung-ho about what we're doing, the passions there, and are also learning constantly on the job, just as we all are. So that that worked out well.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah. I love hearing you say that. I I always say that when I was running a theater company that the director is only as good as the people they surround them with, and I was always happy to have people who were mastering their craft and who have gone on to become masters of their craft, uh, with Tony Awards under their belt in some cases. Wow. Uh but being that, you know, being that proving ground was always helpful for me. Those people are hungry, they do good work, and you get to be a one little tiny pebble in that road of their journey. It's awesome. I love hearing you say that. Aaron, I have to ask you because I uh I love ZombieCon Volume 1. Uh, your character here is so very different than your character in ZombieCon Volume 1. I I I must have made it 30 seconds in before I was like, oh, okay, okay, Miss Range, okay. So uh that was incredible range, and that's just as a fan of you as a person and of you as a performer. But how did your approach vary on this character?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Thank you so much for saying that. I am so humbled. That means the world to me, especially because I I loved playing Claire in ZombieCon Volume 1. I loved her energy and how playful and deep-hearted and open-hearted that she is. And so with this character, I was super excited that not just contextually, the moment that we're dropping in as an audience member in it's a private, awful argument in this hopefully at some point happy couple. But the fact that, yeah, things are getting a little nasty. She's nasty, he's nasty, there's uncomfortable, you know, things that they're saying to each other and truths they're sharing. I was thrilled to get to play a completely different character and this different context. Um process-wise, though, like with everything, it's always about relating to the character as much as I can in whatever way that I can find it. Uh, thinking from also the production standpoint, how a producer, like how do I want this character to fit into the overall puzzle and look and feel and final edit of the film? Um, but also when it comes down to it, and I I keep telling everyone, I don't know what you're talking about, that Amy was like mean or scary or harsh. Like to me as an actor, I did my job, which was I approached her with zero judgment. Like, I approached her like this is me needing to say these things because XYZ. And so for me, Amy was sitting there defending herself and saying things that she needed to get off her chest and having difficult conversations and repeated arguments with her partner that maybe she does love, but knows that things might not be lasting forever with them. I mean, it's I I did the work as as an actor where I don't think that Amy was nasty at all. And in fact, I think she was the victim. So that's that's where I'm I'm gonna stick to it.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah. Well, you know, and and and you'll have to watch through the whole thing to find out whether Amy does become a victim. You'll have to make it through all the parts.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Um but no, no villain ever thinks they're the villain. That's I think the the grounded right approach uh as a performer. I love that. Um, I have to ask about the third uh cast member in in this, the car, uh, which is is is an absolute character in and of itself. Where I mean, I'm sitting here as an audience member, and I don't know if this is true or not, and I think that's to your benefit. It looked to me like an actual autonomous vehicle with all the accoutrement on top of it. I I just where did you find it? How did you get it? And and who let you shoot in an autonomous vehicle?

SPEAKER_04 18:02

So multi-part answer to that. Uh, I'll start with the actual autonomous vehicle. So there are Waymo's in Atlanta. They're in a couple major cities. Unfortunately, they do not have a Waymo app in Atlanta. So they have an Uber app. So you have to, you know, certain, you know, you can up your chances of getting one by selecting like eco-friendly car, and I read every subreddit on like, you know, how to get a Waymo in Atlanta. Honestly, there wasn't too much information out there, but I found out where they nest at night. I was like finding out major traffic flow throughs and all this stuff. So we were able to get uh one for a little bit of shooting. Um, and this was at great effort. The first two days we tried to get one, there was a winter storm in Atlanta, and that apparently had them off the roads, but they said they were still operating, so we decided to go for it. That resulted in a round table of the whole cast and crew sitting at the kitchen table just Uber, Uber, Uber, continually getting real drivers, and then canceling immediately so that we didn't rack up like a $10,000 Uber bill. Uh to nowhere, by the way. Just like, where are you going? We're staying here. But we finally did on reshoots after the storm had passed. Uh, we I I tracked down a couple of them in their main routes with uh actually Aaron's father. We went Waymo hunting. It was my Captain Ahab moment. I was very much like, you know, follow that Waymo. And I don't know what the passengers of these Waymo's thought because they just saw this, you know, sedan following it through the streets and like pulling behind it. Uh, but we did find a location that worked perfectly, and I was like, okay, this is our shooting spot. We'll be able to get one that night. I hope. Okay. We got the casting crew out there, and that resulted in a whole nother comedy section where we were, you know, we got the boom pole out, we've got the camera out, we've got different lighting elements out, the actors are in wardrobe, they're out. We're all in a car waiting for the Waymo to come because it's still fairly cold in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

We call it cold, it was like 30s. Well, it was. It was the least of our worries.

SPEAKER_04 20:09

I'm from New Jersey, so fairly fairly cold. Um, but we we call on the second go round, we get one. And we're like, oh, everyone's like excited. I'm like, okay, now everyone, follow the plan. And I had written up a diagram like a football map uh before you know we left the house. And I was like, this is exactly what we're gonna do with X's and O's and all this stuff. And by the end of it, right, this thing just looks like you know, uh like my daughter scribbled all over the piece of paper. Like it doesn't make sense. But I'm thinking, I've really prepared everyone well for this. We've got this. We get out of the car and everyone's like, what do we do? Where do we go? What's happening? I was like, uh uh, okay, this is when I need to stay calm. You stand there, you stand there, actors on this side, here we go. The Waymo's coming. Waymo starts driving down the street, it stops. Okay, everyone ready? And the Waymo's moving again. Look at the app. Waymo repositioning. Please wait to get in car. Okay, everyone, this way. Okay, everyone in Waymo moving again. And this continues all the way in a slow, terrible circle of us resetting, resetting, resetting around the cul-de-sac until it finally pulls up on the opposite side of the street. So I'm like, okay, it looks like it stopped.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

We're holding up traffic. Everyone, go get to your spots, here we go. And uh these wild Waymo, stay. Action.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

And we got those shots, and we got a few more inside the actual Waymo. Uh, but we also got the exact same type of car, a Jaguar F type, and we had to match the upholstery, the color of the car. There were only two available in the state of Georgia for rental. And we rent one of these things, we put it in a garage, and we used Poor Man's Process for you know, some more of the driving shots where we couldn't just Basically, getaway mo. Or the camera angle was as such where it's like, well, this is impossible to kind of move it. Or we had to go onto that desolate road, which I won't give any more details on. But that actually is called the Walking Dead Road in Georgia. Canonically named because they shot a ton of Walking Dead footage on that specific piece of highway. And it's one of the only pieces of highway where you actually have tree cover from both sides, two lane, two uh yellow lines in the middle, and no spill from neighboring buildings or businesses. So it's like a very rare piece of road to find. So we shut that down uh for a night, drove out there, and then we had to add a bunch of stuff in VFX to the outside of that particular car to make it look like it was like an actual Waymo.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

You fooled me uh for sure. I was like, how did they make it? I know you don't have I was like, I was willing to bet you didn't have an actual self-driving car in your possession. So uh that's amazing that you I want to see the behind the scenes footage, honestly. I want to see the chase around the cul de sac.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Unfortunately, that is not on the behind the scenes, but on Screamify, you can see behind the screams, which they've got a I think it's a 12 to 18 minute long documentary. Because they actually, this is another weird thing with this production that was awesome that Screamify did. They hired a crew to come out and film us filming Autonomous. And so awesome, an unreal moment happens where I'm watching Chad Tolson, our sound guy, mic up Eren as he's being mic'd up by another guy. And I'm like, something's wrong with this.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

And we even had a behind-the-scenes guy, Jeremy Jeremiah Baker, Baker J on Instagram socials. He's awesome. And he literally then was tasked, as he was the entire show, but for that specific day, not just filming us filming that, but filming the behind-the-scenes people filming us for their behind-the-scenes documentary of us filming autonomous.

unknown 23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

That's it was it was a Russian doll. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yes, yes. And what they put together was insanely cool. Not just the way that they portrayed everything and wrapped in and wrote in and edited all the footage, but they even told the story of how Kyle and I, I mean, I was narrating it and they edited, but they told the story of how Kyle and I had gotten together and got involved in production and through ZombieCon and everything. Um, and we're finding photos and media from not just IMDB, but I'm pretty sure Facebook and using that team. So it was like it was really a surreal experience all around. But yeah, definitely watch behind the screens.

SPEAKER_04 24:33

Yeah, they made me look way cooler than I actually am. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Same.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

I I I feel like I have a new life goal unlocked, and that's have a documentary be made about me.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Like I that sounds so cool. 100% can recommend.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Yeah, there was some questionable stuff on Facebook in the early 2000s. Uh, you know, go back that far.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

That's amazing. Well, uh, so as a producer, how did how did it differ for you? Because I mean, you you bootstrapped ZombieCon Volume 1. You all were managing paperwork, if I recall correctly. You were managing uh, I mean, your apartment was uh one of the main locations. How did this differ? Producing something for another company as opposed to producing it and marketing it and pushing it, pushing it out yourself.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Well, first off, I have to start by saying Screamify were amazing in giving us autonomy. And I see what I did there.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

I love it. It's it's the mom jokes.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

It is. Thank you, Dad. In letting us, you know, have full creative freedom and you know, really letting us run with our vision. And we of course we were checking in with them and sending behind the scenes stuff every day, but they really stuck to their word and their founding principles of their being a home and a champion for independent filmmakers. So kudos to Screamify. It was an awesome experience working with them. Um, but yeah, it just I don't know, it was it was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 25:57

Yeah, so they giving us complete autonomy. We were still responsible for all the paperwork for basically managing the entire production. And Erin was in mom mode, uh, taking care of our child. Uh, and I was kind of tasked with doing a lot of stuff that she was doing prior.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Kyle producer and yeah, Kyle did all the pre-production almost one-handed. I mean, literally, I was taking care of our daughter and still managing ZombieCon marketing. That was all Kyle.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

So, yeah, storyboarding, pulling permits, getting insurance, getting uh, you know, a payment company, payment service company, getting everyone signed on, sending out contracts, getting documents signed, and then you know, all the steps that go into pre-production, finding the car, you know, blocking everything out, uh, doing the schedule, all the stuff that makes filmmaking so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

The wardrobe, the props, like uh of course, everything creative on top of all that you I do have something fun about the props though.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Uh we so for the interior of autonomous car, sorry, I gotta talk about it. It's my it's like my shining moment in this.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Like I've really taken, take it, man.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

So we had that touch screen in the back of the car, and because of a number of reasons, A, we were rebranding the car with you know Gomo instead of Waymo, uh, which we did easily on the exterior. I just BFX'd all that stuff in and you know covered all their logos with my own custom logo and stuff. But on the interior of the car, uh the screen, we will it would have been very difficult for me to get in the backseat of this autonomous car that had cameras everywhere, try to film different angles because it was tight, and I'm fairly certain, you know, as Aaron experienced in actually driving one, they do yell at you if you start moving out of position. So we would have not allowed, would have not been allowed to do that. And because of the back screen on those cars is so specific to Waymo and its custom built, they don't actually have those in the Jaguar F-type. So I had to actually find that same plate where the uh air conditioners in the back seat are usually housed on eBay for like a hundred bucks, got it, had to drill out, you know, a rectangle, pop everything out, dribble it down, add custom, you know, black plastic so that it looked like it was a built-in enclosure, laid in a touch screen that I got for like 20 bucks off Amazon with hot glue and all this stuff, then had to load everything in and create like a mini blue screen in that, then layered it on top of the actual fixture in the car so that our actors could interact with it while pressing those buttons. And I still have that for that problem. And I will have it until Aaron makes me throw it away, which that's a huge win.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

I feel like you had like uh yeah, I feel like you're like the Pepe Sylvia episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with tracking Waymo's, like on the big board with all the uh string, tracking down face plates from a car.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

It was a lot of creative problem solving as with everything filmmaking, but so many creative problem solvings going on.

SPEAKER_04 28:53

Oh, the screens in the Waymo itself were a nightmare. Uh like just even doing uh, you know, in some of the shots where we're watching the steering wheel turn, right? I had to have a sticker created to place over the steering wheel so it imitated the exact sticker that's in the you know actual Waymo's with a small twist on it, but you know, that's for our Gomo branding. Um and then all the screens associated, so from the speedometer to you know, all the different like the front screen, everything. Way there are way more lights in a car than you think about like when you're normally driving one, and I'm like, oh my god. This VFX job just went from a little blue screen replace to 400 shots of extremely intensive VFX work, and that was my next month and a half.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

And he got reshoots because there was so much, you know, obviously within the script, there's a lot of Derek and I, my characters, scrolling and looking at the app and stuff with our cell phones. And it was a nightmare when he'd already done a lot of editing and we needed to come back for reshoots for a couple days for the whole Waymo issue anyway, because of the winter storm. And so he's like, All right, I'm gonna help my VFX editor self out by creating all of the, you know, Instagram stuff, like my character scrolling, the app and tracking, and literally day of sent it via text message to Dominic and I, and we just had to memorize it exactly and then put our fingers not touching but hovering over the cell phone a hair second before where it was going in order to, you know, make it move, which is harder than you think, especially with such a simple thing like you're used to scrolling on Instagram, but then once it's a fake Instagram that you've memorized, you know, it was specific. Oh, it kind of hesitates here and the characters thinking, and it it was more challenging. Those are some of the more challenging shots.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

And I did probably make them too complex. I was like, okay, you go up, then down, then up, then down, because you know, I want you, you know, you see something you like, you want to come back to it. No, I don't like it anymore, keep going up. So kudos to you guys, did a great job. Uh, we ended up cutting a lot of it because it was very difficult to choreograph. They did do a fantastic job. Another highlight for me as a weird post-production person was creating all those little Instagram pictures and names.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Loved it.

SPEAKER_04 31:01

Which, you know, that's when you got to get really creative. It's like, okay, couple number 10, what are they saying to each other?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

What are their account names? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

So if anyone ever stops the video and is like, what are these people saying? It should sound like vaguely realistic, and there is a follower account and there's a certain amount of likes for each different, you know, account and everything.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

So speaking of your GOMO sticker, by the way, and the branding that he created for our GOMO whole brand, I want a t-shirt that says GOMO FOMO. I don't know why, but I've I've been thinking about it for a while now, and now it's gotta happen.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

I would be totally into that. Uh let's let's make Screamify make it happen. Honestly, though, what a world we live in. Uh, when I was in musical theater school, we were doing choreography. Y'all are doing phone choreography, and I think that is indicative of the time we're in. Uh and and I have to ask, because I think this film is so pointedly relevant, not only in uh maybe I don't know, the stresses that we're seeing because of technology on relationships. Um Sarah pointed out, and and uh at the time of filming this, keep posted for Sarah's review because I believe it's coming very soon. Um I don't want to speak for her. But uh she pointed out that the the the couple as soon as their relationship like gets even crunchier, as soon as some things that are said that maybe can't be taken back, the car starts to veer off course, being a metaphor for the relationship being off course. And I was like, man, I knew I married you for a reason. That's really insightful. But I so we we see the stress that technology puts on relationships in this, and we also see uh AI at the front and center uh of this, and I wonder thematically speaking, is there something you would hope the audience would leave with? Viewing horror as a lens for our fears.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Uh yeah, definitely and I'm speaking for myself as well. Just because society deems and it becomes normal that some new technology just, oh yeah, and the freedoms that we give it, now it's just adapt, it's just a part of our society, our normal everyday life. It doesn't mean that it's not weird or dangerous, or is it, you know, possibly still a bad idea. I'm not sitting here saying, you know, doomsday prep and you know, Terminator style, but it is interesting the kind of freedoms that we so willingly not just surrender, but then don't give a second thought just because, oh yeah, it's just now it's everyone does it, and it's just been a while. Like even down to um, I was it always reminds me when I was in college, it was when Facebook and Instagram were just our marketing professor was saying, you're gonna now be able to geotag your location and post on social media where you are. And everyone, myself included, was like, that's so dangerous. Like, and who's gonna do that? Anyone on the internet can find instantly where you are and where you frequent and when you're gone from your house, like who would do that? And it's just amazing how quickly things become, you know, a a part of just what we do.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

Yeah. I totally agree with what Aaron said, uh, and then building on that and something that we had talked about previously, right? Kind of giving into that sense of uh malaise with AI in general, and just because it is an easy solution to something that you may not want to do, what roads will we drive down with this technology and what are the repercussions of that? And just coming from the human perspective, the erosion of intelligence uh amongst the general like people who use it simply because it you know your brain is the muscle. And if you s if you just take this shortcut, even though it can expedite things and get you there faster, you don't know what you're sacrificing in order to do that. And if you don't keep flexing that brain muscle, you there is a potential that we lose kind of part of our society and what makes us who we are and the strengths that we have developed over the course of the time that we've been here. And that's kind of the point. So I mean, for me at least, I guess we're all on a different journey, but I'm like, okay, well, accumulation of very different skills. I would hate to lose something I spent ten years kind of nurturing, uh, just because I started kind of giving it to a machine randomly, and then that skill atrophies. So the atrophication of skills uh due to the simplification and ease of using AI, and what are the ramifications of that on a global scale?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Yeah, I think that's uh pretty pointed and a pretty relevant and yet to be determined answer question there. I mean, uh there it's an open question at the moment, and uh it is easy to use AI, especially when you're talking about content creation. That's something a line that we try not to cross here uh on Dread Alert Media, and it's a line that I'm glad you didn't cross with this brilliant piece of indie filmmaking. I have one more question. This is just a personal uh question here. How long, what was your shooting timeline for this? How long did it take you to get this in the can?

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Production-wise, I think we had nine days, or was it ten days?

SPEAKER_04 36:03

Well, I was just gonna Because of the reshoots. I was gonna double back for a quick second. Technically, we did use a Gomo.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

So that's technically though, that brings up a really good question of when it's appropriate to oh I said GOMO the car. I missed it. Oh my goodness. Technically, yeah. But when is it appropriate? When is it a tool that services your artistic ends versus when does it replace the artist itself? I think that we have a lot of challenging questions ahead of us uh as a society, and uh I don't have any good answers for those. But yeah, technically you use a GOMO.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

I I think everything in moderation, you know, like it just like any process with the uh anime like using VFX uh to create anime. I'm a huge anime fan. And you know, the computer generation value and the amount of work that they've been able to create with computers as opposed to hand drawing every you know single frame has allowed more stories to be told, more creators to be heard, has taken a huge burden off of the animators in a big way and you know help them live better lives, while also diminishing, of course, the hand-drawn art form to a small degree because now those jobs are getting replaced by these other jobs, but more of these jobs are being created because more work can be created. So I think it comes down to the personal kind of you know restraint of just moderation above just using it to be easy and only when absolutely necessary if there's absolutely no other way to do it. Like I would never begrudge a you know a 2016 version of myself or another indie filmmaker who's working on a you know an infinitesimally small budget, and they say, I really want to see this big climactic explosion in a city, and I don't know how to do these VFX and I can't do any of this, and I've got you know a thousand dollars to make this thing, and I I did all this storytelling, I got my friends together to do acting here, and you know, I I single-handedly held a camera and a boom pulp, you know, on the other shoulder while holding the camera. It's like I I would never begrudge that person for you know just saying, I can't there's no way to do this, I'm plugging it in and they use it. And I think that that's a very fair way to look at it, and just like everything in life, it's all about the balancing act.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Yeah, and the pendulum does always swing, and the more kind of common and yeah, common it is for everyone to be using AI or you know, in any version, more automated things, like things then go back the other way, I believe, and people will value more the handcrafted, just like you were talking about with animation, the value of having those old school ways or someone that still has the ability to do it and does.

SPEAKER_04 38:45

So, like Christopher Nolan shooting on film. Yeah, it makes it different and special. It makes it a special experience, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Anyway, I think my vinyl record collection would agree with you on that.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

And and I and I think that if I'm going to bring something into the world, which I would not have the budget to bring into the world, a a job that I'm not replacing uh by using it, I think that is probably my moral line there. It's probably okay if you were bring something creative into the world, or maybe not creative, but if you bring something usable into the world and you don't have any other way to realize it, I probably agree with you there. Uh great way to think about it. We still scrounge up to hire an artist for our logo work, though. I will say we were, you know, you gotta you gotta pay your friends.

SPEAKER_04 39:30

Um yeah, logos, logos should definitely be hand-drawn. I'm like, I I've done so many of these logos, especially for movies, because I gotta do all the logos. Yeah. Logos, I feel like that's not something you use AI for. Like if you're destroying a whole city on a thousand dollar budget, like that's like I'm talking about like big, big, you know, crazy stuff, and it's just for a short shot, and you were not gonna be able to hire anyone anyway. Okay, but logos, like everyone's got a pen and a paper. We can all make, you know, a logo, I feel like. Or you've got an artistic friend who can make a great logo.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Exactly, exactly. Uh, but you said you shot this on nine in nine days with reshoots. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I think it was nine or ten. It was right around there.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Yep, nine or ten, I'd say. Uh it felt like more probably because it was freezing cold.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

And every day has got so many challenges and experiences that each day feels like a lifetime, you know? But yeah, I think it was nine or ten all in all, and separated mostly in one big chunk. And then there was like a month break where Kyle was editing, saw the pieces that we needed, slash the reshoots, and we came back and we did two days.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Well, I I'm curious about uh specific and without getting into spoilers, but you mentioned the Walking Dead Highway, and this is my last question about the technical film. So uh we're we're coming to the home stretch here. Um what were the challenges that you saw shooting vertically against such a vast landscape? Because it felt like there was more outside the frame that I wasn't seeing. And I don't know that that was a detraction, I just think it's an interesting uh feature of this new format.

SPEAKER_04 41:01

Yeah, so I was trying to do my best to give you know the film a big look, even though we were on a vertical format, and that just came down to lens choice and distance and give you like, okay, you know, it's a forest. But it was you know, it was difficult to be out there and to have the whole road shut down and not to be able to shoot it horizontally. It was like for me as a filmmaker, I'm like, oh man, this is this is really good stuff. We could turn this thing sideways, it'd be awesome. Like we had a great shot. But you know, in line with that and with the time restraints and budget, it also made things that we couldn't have done had we been doing that doable. For example, setting up lighting became far more easy, you know, as opposed to you know shifting things back, you know, to you know, however far we'd have to get it, maybe like 50 yards or something, so that we could have shot horizontally, we could bring things right up close, which allowed us when we had to do changes or change sides to move things quickly, because again, you had that limited horizontal ratio. Uh so it it had definite drawbacks, uh, but there were also positives that easily outweighed the drawbacks. And hadn't gone into it, uh, my solution to that uh was just to try to manipulate the frame using different lenses and wider lenses for some of the wider shots to give you know a little bit more of the forest or as much as I could.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

As a producer, I was just sitting there knowing that we only had that for one night, and obviously not even the full night. Especially once you even get set up, and then you have a couple hours to get so much material and so many takes it, and that wasn't my job to worry about that, but I was more worrying about are we gonna get all the material needed? You know, are we gonna get just the coverage that we need? But uh, I agree with what Kyle said, and to add my own perspective, from an actor and producer standpoint, I was super excited about the vertical and it felt totally foreign and new. And then you just sink into it and you get used to it. And after, I think Kyle would agree and has said this too, after like the first day, it was like, well, no, this is just how the camera is. Like, what do you mean it's different? Like, this is our home, this is what we're doing, this is the way this story needs to be told, and even more importantly, needs to be consumed on a cell phone right there, late at night, in the dark, as you quickly scroll through. Just something totally different and timely and kind of unsettlingly different, but feels like it was the right way to tell a story all along.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

Yeah, it was so intimate and such an intimate relationship that you're uh voyeuristically uh listening in on. So I think I think it really worked. I had my doubts about the format, to be honest with you, but I think that the two of you and the team that you assembled really hit a home run with this. And I just want to say on a personal note that I always love hearing about your process, Erin, and I always love hearing your wisdom about filmmaking, Kyle. I know that it's hard won wisdom that you you put a lot of time into learning this, and uh, it always just blows my mind the little pieces of technique that I get from. Both of you and uh you're your true masters of your craft. Um really, really appreciate you sitting down with me. I do have one more question if we have time for it. And that is what is your favorite sci-fi horror film in honor of Autonomous?

unknown 44:18

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

I know I know what you're gonna say. Now I'm gonna feel like I'm piggybacking off you because you're the bigger fan of it, but it's it's gotta be mine as well.

SPEAKER_04 44:25

No, that's not fair. Okay, well, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Maybe you'll go with the first one.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

So I I well, I was gonna say Aliens is my favorite movie, but I don't think that that is you know horror specific. I think that's much more, you know, action, adventure with horror elements. So I'll have to go with Alien first one.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

My first thought is Aliens, just because it's got everything in it. And I always like the film, but especially after Kyle and his family and getting involved with their love of this entire franchise. Like I know way too much about aliens.

SPEAKER_04 44:59

Just to point this out, we're in my father's office right now, uh, because we're down with my parents in Florida, and there is a literal smart gun up on a shelf over here, like full size. There's a pulse rifle in the other room. We've got pieces of armor that are signed with the cannons.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:17

There are hundreds of alien figures on that wall. Like it is you're seeing the Star Trek stuff behind us, but there is corner of the room.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

I love that Alien versus Aliens keeps coming up on this podcast. I think that's the biggest uh outstanding debate with the guests on this show. Um we always talk, we always end up talking about The Shining, of course. People love that film, but it's always like, who are my alien guests versus who are my aliens guests? And uh I I think I know where to put you both. Uh, although, Kyle, I will acknowledge that Alien is an outer space slasher movie. Yeah. Um awesome. Well, where can people see? I mean, I know we've talked about it, but like let's give a formal plug to our friends over at Screamify.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Absolutely. Go watch Autonomous. It's on Screamify. It's an app, it's $2.99 a month. I think that they also have free trials. So it's available basically on any iOS platform where you download at Randord, whatever. Anywhere that you download apps, it's there. It's awesome. They've been around for a year and they're absolutely exploding. They're basically like the new version of Shudder, but for independent film and especially championing independent horror filmmaking, but they keep adding to their library. So you won't just find smaller independent films, you'll find a lot of classics and larger, big budget horror. So definitely check out Autonomous, check out behind the screens for the most amazing documentary ever. And um, yeah, you can keep up with us uh on Instagram at BigSquid Films and at ZombieConMovie or on the other social platforms, but Instagram is kind of our bread and butter.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

What she said. I I will say that uh Screamify, Erin, Kyle, uh, and here at Dread Alert Media, we're all fighting this good fight of getting independent voices in horror out there into the mainstream and highlighting some of the incredible work that can be done without studio resources behind them. And we are in the middle of a horror renaissance. I just hope that transfers over to you and you get all the uh accolades you deserve because not only are you two of my favorite people to talk to, you do some really excellent work.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Well, right back at you, and also it's a community and it's a whole joint, like communal effort. The horror community are some of the most supportive, creative, and really supportive people ever. Everyone is following each other's channels and commenting and like just championing each other's work. And I we feel so grateful to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

Yeah. It's it's an awesome group to be included in now. I feel like after making the rounds with ZombieCon and now with a ton of us, we've been we've kind of ingratiated ourselves into a little in a little way. And it's a privilege and honor to be a part.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

I will echo that entirely. It is an honor to be a part of this community, and I will speak on behalf of the rest of the uh content creators. We're so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

Vice versa.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Vice versa. And thank you for being here today. As always, it is a pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 48:11

Thank you for having us. It's always a pleasure to speak to you, to see you. And yeah, we just need to make sure not so much time happens between. I'll put most of that on VFX Kyle. He's gonna get his act together and work faster.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yeah. I'll put that on infant parent Vince as well.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

I was just about to say in the meantime, to we chat next, can't wait to hear about all you know the next developmental milestones that your kids are going through because with our 16-month-old, we're like squarely in the middle of your two, and it's it's a wild, beautiful, chaotic adventure.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Yeah, they're they can be little goblins sometimes, and I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Big emotions, zero logic. That's the toddler era.

SPEAKER_04 48:51

She's giving me a few ideas for horror movies. I'm thinking of our next picture, Unleash the Kaka.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Well, I am terrified of that one, and my wife will attest to that. Well, awesome. Thank you again, and stay spooky, my friends.