About the Host: Derek Johnson II
This is the second part of our meet the host special! Listen in as we discover how Derek Johnson II got started as a writer-director in LA.
Transcript
This is Film Center, your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff, all facts.
Speaker:Now, here are your anchors, Derrick Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:Film Center, my name's Derrick Johnson II.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And what are we getting into today, Nicholas?
Speaker:Today, we are filming not filming, but we are recording, interviewing,
Speaker:You, me, Derek Johnson ii.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So this is the second part of the meet the host.
Speaker:This is part two of interview the host.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I don't think people want, I think people want more of the la ComicCon.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I am sure that people would love to know how the man that gets it all done ticks.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:the man, the myth, the legend Derek Johnson ii.
Speaker:So where would you like to start Derek?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know, what tell us about your family Tell about your
Speaker:early life where are you from?
Speaker:I'm from Nashville.
Speaker:Let's start off with that.
Speaker:I'm from Nashville I'm technically from Murfreesboro.
Speaker:I think you're lying.
Speaker:But no, I'm technically from Murfreesboro, but no one knows where Murfreesboro is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's the only time my real southern accent comes out is
Speaker:when I'm saying Murfreesboro.
Speaker:And tell us a little bit about Murfreesboro.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:Isn't Taylor Swift from Murfreesboro?
Speaker:She's not.
Speaker:She used to go to my, this is an interesting story,
Speaker:she's from Pennsylvania.
Speaker:She moved to my town of Murfreesboro.
Speaker:Basically berated it and said it sucked, so then her dad, her super
Speaker:rich producer dad gave her 300, 000 to make a to make her first album.
Speaker:And it's funny because she basically was like, oh, country music is
Speaker:so boring and stupid, I bet you I could become a country music star.
Speaker:And she told this to everyone there.
Speaker:And there's gonna be some people listening to this who's ah, that's not true.
Speaker:But it is.
Speaker:Her ex boyfriend was in my Geometry class when we, like After a couple
Speaker:years after she got popular, she came back for a Nashville tour.
Speaker:We bought him tickets, and he didn't want to go.
Speaker:But we thought it was funny, so then we told his mom.
Speaker:Ha.
Speaker:And she made him go.
Speaker:It was awesome.
Speaker:And now, this is not to slander her, this is just what happened.
Speaker:Yeah, it's just literally, it's just literally just what happened.
Speaker:A lot of people who I graduated high school in 2013.
Speaker:But this was several years before then that she went there.
Speaker:And tell us what she was like in high school.
Speaker:I'm sure people would love to know.
Speaker:I didn't know her personally.
Speaker:I've only, there was football games, but it's not like I know who that you can't
Speaker:name every person in your high school.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:She was, it wasn't like, oh, everyone knows who Taylor Swift is.
Speaker:All we knew was that she was just some chick from Pennsylvania
Speaker:who just hated everybody.
Speaker:Which she just not hate as in being mean but she's had disdain of living
Speaker:there And so it's like whatever she thought she was better than kinda and
Speaker:to be fair Mervisboro is boring It's not anymore There's a lot, there's a
Speaker:lot more to do there, there's a whole bunch of Californians who've moved
Speaker:there and developed it, and now it's super expensive, and Californians.
Speaker:And then if you guys don't know, Derrick is an all around renaissance
Speaker:man, so he writes, directs he does everything but basically acts.
Speaker:That's one part that, but you did act before.
Speaker:Yeah, so when I was in high school I think that's my first taste of
Speaker:entertainment, I I was in musical theater.
Speaker:And wow.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah, it was a musical theater.
Speaker:And I think that was really my first exposure to it.
Speaker:My family went to TPAC a lot which is a lot of tours, a lot
Speaker:of like big Broadway show shows.
Speaker:They tour the country first, one of them in Broadway, and one
Speaker:of the stops is in Nashville.
Speaker:You said TPAC?
Speaker:TPAC is the name of the Is the name of the theater.
Speaker:Okay, could you tell us a little bit about the theater?
Speaker:Yeah it's a Giant, it's a beautiful theater honestly, i've been to shows
Speaker:on broadway before in the t pac center.
Speaker:It stands for tennessee Insert letters here and then center.
Speaker:I should know Because like in nashville, what a great representation All I know is
Speaker:like So something that people might know about nashville is a huge Hockey spot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Why do you think that's not wide or known?
Speaker:Because when people think Nashville, they think banjos and moonshine,
Speaker:which isn't exactly inaccurate, but, the Predator Stadium is just
Speaker:right there in downtown Nashville.
Speaker:And everything is just like, all rounded.
Speaker:If something is built around it, if you ask someone like, Oh,
Speaker:they're like, Oh, Where's that bar?
Speaker:And they were like, it's near the Predi It's near the Pred Stadium.
Speaker:You'd be like, okay, thanks, jerk.
Speaker:As if I didn't already know that.
Speaker:And everything was near there.
Speaker:But, something that I have really a lot of fond memories of.
Speaker:Is going with my parents to TPAC, seeing a lot of Broadway shows before
Speaker:they get on Broadway because it's significantly cheaper because it's
Speaker:in Nashville, and it's right there.
Speaker:You get dressed up, all the good stuff, and So it's almost like
Speaker:Broadway for small town prices.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:It's the same exact people you will see in New York.
Speaker:It's the exact same cast and everything.
Speaker:It's just that, they do their tour first.
Speaker:And TPAC is one of the places they stop.
Speaker:And so Those things really influenced me, especially I remember seeing Wicked
Speaker:for the first time, at TPAC, and it was like, that was the first of course
Speaker:Lion King is really great, Rent was really great There was the er The
Speaker:Nutty Professor that came by that was also really awesome, stuff like that.
Speaker:The Nutty Professor?
Speaker:I didn't realize that was a musical.
Speaker:Yeah, there's a musical version of The Nutty Professor, which was incredible.
Speaker:The lead, I feel so bad I'm blanking on his name, but he had to be
Speaker:able to sing in bass and tenor.
Speaker:To play that, because The Nutty Professor's voice is all the way up here.
Speaker:And then the cool guy is like all the way down here.
Speaker:He had to be able to sing in those two voices and go back and forth, and
Speaker:back and forth, and back and forth.
Speaker:I didn't know Incredible talent.
Speaker:I didn't know that you could do that physically, so I was very impressed.
Speaker:But when I watched Saw Wicked, I was like, Oh, There is
Speaker:something so interesting here.
Speaker:It was just, it was an incredible show.
Speaker:And, that's what really got me more into musical theater.
Speaker:And then Yeah, I think that's where I caught the bug.
Speaker:Speaking of your parents, were they supportive of this of this career choice?
Speaker:To be fair, my parents, so my mother she's a college professor.
Speaker:My father's a physician.
Speaker:And they didn't really think that I would be doing something like this.
Speaker:Even when I went off to college, I went to study genetics.
Speaker:And because that's what you were studying before you decided, because can you
Speaker:talk to everybody about how you were based I don't want to say groomed,
Speaker:but You were That's a very That's not That's But the way, because your dad
Speaker:is a doctor, and you were basically, trained To become a geneticist.
Speaker:You went to a lot of camps and yeah, so I you worked with your dad in
Speaker:the, in his office, talk about that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So when I was younger and I was a teen middle school, high school years, I
Speaker:spent a lot of time I went to Space Camp on scholarship several times
Speaker:because I was going to be, studying to be a biologist and they have a, anyone
Speaker:who's listening if your kids want to go to Space Camp has a whole bunch of,
Speaker:NASA Space Camp has a whole bunch of different programs for young kids and,
Speaker:like I said, I was studying biology and they still will give you a scholarship
Speaker:for that because they need all sorts of scientists in space and stuff like that.
Speaker:It's not only about programming and engineering and computer science.
Speaker:Then I spent some time at the University of Maryland College Park they had a over
Speaker:the summer medical program there that, I actually learned how to sew together, they
Speaker:had some pigskin for us to practice doing sutures and stuff like that, and I was
Speaker:really interested in the medical field.
Speaker:I think part of that really came from also, that's where my dad was.
Speaker:My dad was a he only became a doctor when I was like, I want to say I think
Speaker:it was like fifth or sixth grade.
Speaker:Before then, he was in the military, and he was a field
Speaker:medic in the military, correct?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So he was a field medic in the military until about my fifth or sixth grade,
Speaker:and that's when he entered residency.
Speaker:And then I think that I went to college, so when I went to college, I just
Speaker:really had this feeling that I was supposed to be doing something else.
Speaker:And there's some people who know the day it happened, but, I'll
Speaker:tell a short version of that story.
Speaker:The day for me where everything changed is I really had this feeling that
Speaker:I should be doing something else.
Speaker:I wrote, really for therapeutic reasons, not imagining that I should
Speaker:be some filmmaker or something like that, or that I should write
Speaker:or do anything in entertainment.
Speaker:I just felt like I shouldn't be doing science.
Speaker:I was in a freshman, in a junior chemistry class, biology class,
Speaker:doing well, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:But, I just felt like I should do something else, and just, and I'm very
Speaker:religious, so I, I, Remember going to library and asking God like hey
Speaker:God if you want me to do something else you got to give me a sign But
Speaker:please know that as your follower, you know as your child, I'm an idiot.
Speaker:So it has to be a good sign.
Speaker:It's got to be a good sign.
Speaker:It's gotta be a good sign.
Speaker:I'm oblivious.
Speaker:And this is true.
Speaker:First of all, I waited and like I did it like at a chair like at a desk, the
Speaker:University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which is where I went to first.
Speaker:And I don't know what I thought was gonna happen like the sky would open up
Speaker:or something and even if it did I was inside So I wouldn't even have seen it
Speaker:what I'm saying So what I just don't know.
Speaker:I literally waited for 10 minutes and I was like, I don't know why I'm
Speaker:still waiting here I'm like and while I was leaving I saw a whole bunch
Speaker:of people rushing to the auditorium University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
Speaker:and they have this lecture auditorium at the bottom of their main library.
Speaker:Everyone's running over there.
Speaker:And I'm like, I stopped the guy.
Speaker:I was like, Hey, where's everyone going?
Speaker:Like, where is everyone rushing?
Speaker:He goes, Oh, James Wan is doing a surprise lecture here.
Speaker:Isn't that cool?
Speaker:And I was like, that is a really good sign.
Speaker:That's a great sign.
Speaker:That's a really cool sign.
Speaker:And I went to his lecture and just hearing him talk about filmmaking,
Speaker:how much he loved movies.
Speaker:It really moved me.
Speaker:And then they had a drawing.
Speaker:And James gave me a Terminator 2 action figure.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah, it's back at my dad's crib right now, yeah.
Speaker:I was like, okay, this is, I guess what I should be doing.
Speaker:So then instead of doing something smart and intelligent, I was, I mean I was 18.
Speaker:So instead I decided, you know what, I think Disney's cool.
Speaker:So I'm gonna work for Disney, but I don't know how to do that.
Speaker:So I signed up for the Disney college program.
Speaker:I went over there, which is the complete opposite direction of filming.
Speaker:Can you talk about the conversation you had with your parents before
Speaker:you went to the Disney program?
Speaker:Oh yeah, calling my parents and telling them, Hey I know I've been, you've
Speaker:invested a lot of money into me being a geneticist, and this is since I was like,
Speaker:a child that's all I really wanted to do.
Speaker:A good ten years.
Speaker:No one's kid, I remember for Christmas one time, I think it was
Speaker:like in the fourth grade, I asked for Chemistry for Dummies, and my dad
Speaker:was like, you don't want a Gameboy?
Speaker:I want that too, but I also really want this book.
Speaker:Was that the story you were like, yeah, I want a book, I want a book instead of
Speaker:it wasn't, I would say instead of video games, but it was definitely on my list
Speaker:to have all these different science books.
Speaker:I love it's just something I was really interested in.
Speaker:And for my parents to hear I called my mom first.
Speaker:I knew that was going to be the softest blow.
Speaker:Even though, she'd obviously then tell my dad, I told my mom,
Speaker:and my mom thought I was joking.
Speaker:And then she was I was like, oh hey, Ma, I think I think I'm done with science.
Speaker:And remember everyone my whole life, that's all they've
Speaker:known me for is science.
Speaker:And also my parents don't know that I write at all.
Speaker:They didn't really view the arts as something that you did professionally.
Speaker:A viable career.
Speaker:They viewed it as a hobby.
Speaker:I was doing musical theater in school.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:It's just a hobby, just, some extra curriculars.
Speaker:Something DJ's doing.
Speaker:And especially it'll help my, me getting to college, right?
Speaker:Saying, oh, I have these other skills.
Speaker:And also, in high school, I was also in ROTC.
Speaker:Originally, I was supposed to go into the military.
Speaker:And then, when that changed, that's when I went to college.
Speaker:Can you talk about why you weren't accepted into the military?
Speaker:Oh yeah, I can actually.
Speaker:My ASVAB was really good.
Speaker:My ASVAB was 95.
Speaker:It was an ROTC.
Speaker:Segal High School is one of the Best ROTC programs in the state of Tennessee.
Speaker:A lot of my friends just went directly from high school to West point.
Speaker:So it was really cool.
Speaker:It's like a feeder school, right?
Speaker:And basically your high school is a feeder school to West point.
Speaker:A theater school, a feeder.
Speaker:Oh, feeder school.
Speaker:Yeah, there's a whole bunch of we get recruiter guys all the
Speaker:time, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:I was on the top Raiders team.
Speaker:I was on top orienteering team, all that stuff.
Speaker:And then I went to go sign up for the military at 18 and my grandfather
Speaker:was also a World War II vet.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:So I'm like, okay, cool.
Speaker:I'm about to serve my country.
Speaker:And just a stroke of fate.
Speaker:It turned out that Obama was downsizing the military at that time.
Speaker:And so he had a whole bunch of like stipulations preventing people to
Speaker:get in that previously did not exist.
Speaker:And one of those stipulations was if you take a certain level of ADHD medicine
Speaker:consistently, you would have to be off it for a year first to then join.
Speaker:And I wasn't about to wait a year.
Speaker:So then that's when I was in college.
Speaker:And then I'm gonna speedrun this.
Speaker:Speedrun a little bit, because I've done a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker:So I went to then calling my dad and telling him oh, I'm not gonna do this.
Speaker:He didn't really believe me either, but I think both my parents they
Speaker:said everything in the book.
Speaker:They were like, you need to, what's your plan B?
Speaker:Where is this coming from?
Speaker:Who are you?
Speaker:What is happening?
Speaker:I think a lot of people go through that.
Speaker:It's like telling your parents, Oh, I want to do the art seriously.
Speaker:They don't believe you.
Speaker:They don't think it's a terrible idea.
Speaker:And I remember talking to both my parents about it later on, many years later.
Speaker:And they're like, yeah, we really tried to make sure that you didn't do it.
Speaker:They said it was, they said it was idiotic.
Speaker:But from what I got from that conversation was like, Oh, it's not stupid.
Speaker:It's idiotic and it's not a good idea, but it's not stupid technically.
Speaker:So even though idiotic and stupid are very interchangeable.
Speaker:Your parents never brought up a pregnancy.
Speaker:What do you mean?
Speaker:Just to talk about myself a little bit.
Speaker:Whenever I had the conversation with my parents, they were
Speaker:actually pretty supportive.
Speaker:The only thing my dad told me was, if you get a girl pregnant, that's it for you.
Speaker:Oh, my parents are, my family's super independent.
Speaker:So basically, after I entered college, they were like, yeah, you're on your own.
Speaker:You're just cut off.
Speaker:That's my first summer back from college.
Speaker:My room wasn't even there anymore.
Speaker:Oh, really?
Speaker:Yeah that's how my family is.
Speaker:They were like, 18, you're good, man.
Speaker:I got you.
Speaker:I remember when I turned 17, my dad was like, you wanna go tour some apartments?
Speaker:I was like only 17.
Speaker:We're, because we're all really independent like that, they
Speaker:dissuaded me not to do it, but I also think that's what prevented
Speaker:them from saying, You can't do it.
Speaker:It's because we're all very Because you're so independent.
Speaker:All of us are super independent and that's just how my family
Speaker:rolls, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:I went to Disney.
Speaker:I did the Disney college program for about a year.
Speaker:I laughed, I cried, I would never do it again, but I definitely wouldn't
Speaker:take away that experience from my life.
Speaker:It's like pledging in, in, in college.
Speaker:No it's worse because it's a year long.
Speaker:But, I guess the sentiment I'm saying is you would never do it
Speaker:again, but you're glad you did it.
Speaker:yEah, I'll and then I spent, actually, I spent some time at Universal afterwards,
Speaker:after my Disney contract got off.
Speaker:And then, this was down in Florida, so it was down in Disney World,
Speaker:and then that's how I ended up at Florida State afterwards.
Speaker:Because, then I was at, then I was at Universal Studios, and my parents
Speaker:basically called me, and they were like, Hey man, what are you doing?
Speaker:I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker:They're like, you're just working at theme parks.
Speaker:I'm like To be fair, it was really fun.
Speaker:I was having a good time.
Speaker:From what I heard, it was a lot of fun.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a lot of fun, because I was like, when you're 18, 19, 20, you work
Speaker:at Disney World, a whole bunch of people who you haven't talked to in years,
Speaker:they now want to be your best friend, because you have free tickets to Disney.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Even like people who are like extended, like people you did not
Speaker:know you were related to somehow you're now you're related to them.
Speaker:They're like, yo man, what's up?
Speaker:Can I get some tickets?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And the craziest part is, some of 'em you'd be like how would this even work?
Speaker:Like you leaving Connecticut, if I give you these tickets to, you do
Speaker:still have to come over here , right?
Speaker:To get the tickets.
Speaker:All I'm giving you is the tickets You have to pay for everything else, right?
Speaker:My parents were like, you should, what happened to, I want to
Speaker:be working in entertainment.
Speaker:I was like, Oh yeah, I did say that.
Speaker:I didn't know.
Speaker:I was like, maybe if I work at Disney, eventually there's some sort of crossover.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Also at this point, I hadn't even Googled what a script looked like.
Speaker:I didn't even, And nothing this is also as long as I work for the companies,
Speaker:maybe something will happen This is also the same line of thinking when
Speaker:people go to extra work and they're like maybe the director will notice
Speaker:me put me in a featured role and I'll right come discovered that way right
Speaker:the same Ridiculous line of thinking.
Speaker:Yeah, so then at Florida State University I spent a lot of time
Speaker:with their film school Shadowing the people who in their graduate program.
Speaker:I was a PA for a lot of them for about 11 films.
Speaker:Could you talk about that process a little bit?
Speaker:Yeah, usually you need to be a part of the graduate college at Florida
Speaker:state university to help on their films or like friends of one of
Speaker:the people or something like that.
Speaker:But when I got on there, when I got to Florida state, I really was like, okay,
Speaker:I'm gonna be here do film stuff and the film school of Florida State University
Speaker:is actually in the football stadium I had some friends who were played football
Speaker:So they told me where it is because that's the only place in the stadium.
Speaker:They're not allowed to go obviously this is you I like I went to the
Speaker:film school and Doors were closed.
Speaker:So there's like this bench outside of it And I literally just sat
Speaker:on the bench, I think it was like a, it was like a Tuesday.
Speaker:So I knew some people were gonna be walking by, it's Tuesday.
Speaker:And I didn't have classes on Tuesdays at that time.
Speaker:I literally sat there all day till I saw someone who like
Speaker:looked like a graduate student.
Speaker:And I think it was Kendra.
Speaker:And it's like Kendra or other, I'm pretty sure, I'm just gonna say Kendra because
Speaker:I'm pretty sure that's who it was.
Speaker:And I basically walked up to her and was like, Hey you're part of this film school,
Speaker:you're a graduate film student here?
Speaker:And she was like, yeah, and I'm like, cool.
Speaker:Are you making any like you make movies and stuff like short films?
Speaker:And she's yeah, I'm like cool.
Speaker:Hi, my name is Derek Johnson.
Speaker:I will do anything on that say Great attitude to have right just all the
Speaker:bullcrap you want to get and she was like, oh you would be a PA and
Speaker:I was like, I don't really know what that means, I'll do it for free.
Speaker:And she was like, oh, really?
Speaker:And I was like, yep.
Speaker:She literally takes me into like her class and they were like apparently all
Speaker:sitting around about to get all their film screen lit for their for Florida State.
Speaker:A lot of film schools work this way.
Speaker:They had their slate of student films, and they had to get greenlit by the
Speaker:teacher or whatever, and it was just the students sitting around at that time.
Speaker:She walked me directly in there and then introduced me to everyone, I was
Speaker:like, hey, this is DJ, he wants to be a PA for free, and everyone was
Speaker:like, whoa, do you want to work on my film, do you want to work on my
Speaker:film, do you want to work on my film?
Speaker:And I literally got to work on everybody's stuff.
Speaker:It was funny by my third, fourth semester there, I had been on literally
Speaker:everyone, not the undergraduates, but all the graduate student films.
Speaker:I had people like Arguing to get me on their student films mainly because I was
Speaker:just doing anything people asked me to do.
Speaker:The biggest thing for me was just, it was such a great experience to learn.
Speaker:It was such a great learning experience.
Speaker:I bet.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause I didn't know anything.
Speaker:At all.
Speaker:And to be able to go and interact with these film school students
Speaker:and see how they're writing, see what it's like to be on set.
Speaker:What do these cameras do?
Speaker:What do these lenses do?
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:And there's a huge balance.
Speaker:That I got used to while working at Disney between being curious and
Speaker:being annoying there's definitely a line razor thin line, right?
Speaker:And how you usually balance that especially someone like
Speaker:me who's really curious.
Speaker:I like to know everything I would ask them a max of three questions.
Speaker:That was like my thing.
Speaker:I was like, you can't ask more than three questions Before lunch and can't
Speaker:ask more than three questions after lunch and by that's a great rule Yeah,
Speaker:and it's like a to a specific department so it's not I'm not going to go to the
Speaker:director and bother them because not three questions for each department
Speaker:or each person that each person.
Speaker:But each department.
Speaker:Someone's super busy.
Speaker:I'm not gonna be bothering them.
Speaker:But after I've made five or six with them, everyone just knew me.
Speaker:So they would talk to me more.
Speaker:When I first got on there, don't ask the camera department
Speaker:more than three questions.
Speaker:And so it also makes you raise her down.
Speaker:What are the, what am I trying to ask?
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:It also probably makes you it makes you curate your questions, right?
Speaker:And makes you calculate your questions and think about, okay,
Speaker:what do I actually want to ask?
Speaker:What do I really want to know?
Speaker:I only have these three questions, right?
Speaker:And I spend a lot, most of my time actually with, because I was doing
Speaker:PA stuff, PAs are often funneled into just something, whatever you.
Speaker:Whatever you seem to just do the most, if you're a consistent PA,
Speaker:they just make you just do the, they just shove you into that section.
Speaker:And for me that was PD.
Speaker:Doing a lot of PD and wardrobe.
Speaker:What is PD?
Speaker:Production design.
Speaker:I was working in a lot of the art department, the
Speaker:production design department.
Speaker:I was working with a lot of wardrobe people, and I was making costumes.
Speaker:And I was making some costumes that got into some of their
Speaker:movies, which was really cool.
Speaker:How did you like that?
Speaker:I thought it was awesome.
Speaker:I love, I, I would previously, I, not that, I've been to a couple Comic
Speaker:Con conventions, but I never really thought to myself, oh, let me make a
Speaker:costume, and so I saw them starting to make some, and I was like, oh,
Speaker:I wonder if I could also do that.
Speaker:YouTube Academy, Leo.
Speaker:Texture Metal.
Speaker:Looked it up, and a really great moment for me is, like, when I
Speaker:had this swamp monster costume.
Speaker:That guy did get into one of their short films, which I thought was really cool.
Speaker:That must've made you feel really proud of yourself.
Speaker:Oh, it made me feel like I didn't, I wasn't wasting my time.
Speaker:I need to prove, I still like, cause my parents were still
Speaker:like, what are you doing?
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:A lot of creatives sit there and ask themselves, am I wasting my time?
Speaker:Pretty much all the time.
Speaker:I was making costumes.
Speaker:I went to, then I got into the New York Film Academy, the Los Angeles
Speaker:branch here in California, in Burbank.
Speaker:Can you talk about the story of getting into NYFM?
Speaker:I wish the story was more inter interesting.
Speaker:All that really happened was like, my portfolio after working on so
Speaker:many short films was pretty good.
Speaker:And ironically, I didn't get into Florida State's film school.
Speaker:Even though I helped make them a whole bunch of movies.
Speaker:Having so many connections at Florida State, did you ask them like, Hey man
Speaker:I've worked on all of your movies.
Speaker:I even helped some of the teachers move in.
Speaker:Some people who were judging who gets it or not.
Speaker:And, I was I don't know, it's a little scandalous, but basically
Speaker:what happened was, I'm not gonna say who or what did anything,
Speaker:we'll keep it general for whatever.
Speaker:But, I did get into the school, and then because it was told to
Speaker:me by my registration yeah, of course you got in, yeah, you're in.
Speaker:And then while I was finalizing the list, a person who will be, remain
Speaker:unnamed, paid for their kids to be in Florida State's film school.
Speaker:And took your spot.
Speaker:And took My spot, and also someone else's spot.
Speaker:I don't know who the other person is, but, and literally the students were like,
Speaker:got really upset, obviously, because I'm like, a good friend of theirs, and I've
Speaker:been working with them for three years, two, three years on all their stuff.
Speaker:Here's what it is, and then I was like, okay I prefer it, which
Speaker:I thought was going to Florida State, but my dad was like aren't
Speaker:all movies made in Los Angeles?
Speaker:And I was like, yeah, he goes, why don't you try getting
Speaker:into the Los Angeles school?
Speaker:And I was like, I don't want to go to USC or UCLA, specifically because,
Speaker:I don't know, I was like, okay If I want to go there, I might as well
Speaker:just go to what's the difference between all these film schools anyway?
Speaker:It doesn't really matter which one you go to.
Speaker:And what have you found to be the difference?
Speaker:Not a whole lot.
Speaker:Really, the alumni.
Speaker:And that's about it.
Speaker:Even though that's like razor thin.
Speaker:Because some alumni Director of Moonlight came from Florida State.
Speaker:He didn't go to USC.
Speaker:But then Steven Spielberg went to USC, but again, that was in the 70s.
Speaker:He's it depends.
Speaker:The reason why I chose, I applied to NYFA was because they were the only
Speaker:film school that had a feature program.
Speaker:In which a select few of their students got to make a feature film.
Speaker:And not a short film.
Speaker:And I was like, oh, that's what I want to do.
Speaker:Why don't other film schools do this?
Speaker:And it's really super selective.
Speaker:Why don't other schools do that?
Speaker:Cause it costs more.
Speaker:It's way easier to teach kids or whoever.
Speaker:Here's a camera, here's, a few thousand dollars, it's gonna make a short film,
Speaker:compared to, okay now you need to write, you don't need to write ten minutes of
Speaker:script, you need to write, hour and a half, two hour script, that needs to
Speaker:be compelling, and obviously it's gonna cost more than a couple thousand dollars,
Speaker:you then run into illegal issues you know what I'm saying, with a short film
Speaker:you can get away with a lot of stuff, when it's a feature, you can't there's
Speaker:a saying, That that I learned working at Florida State's film school, which
Speaker:to this day has seemed very true to me.
Speaker:Short films cost money, feature films make money.
Speaker:For short film, you gotta send it to different film
Speaker:festivals and stuff like that.
Speaker:When it comes to feature films, You don't send them to a whole, I mean
Speaker:you can send them to film festivals if you want to, but you can sell
Speaker:that feature film to be licensed somewhere, and that generates money.
Speaker:Compared to a lot of short films you can't really do that to.
Speaker:You can have a short film with an A list actor in it, and it's less
Speaker:likely to get sold than a feature film with no A listers in it.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you could have just a regular feature with you and your friends and it's
Speaker:more likely to generate money than if I had Jude Law in my short film.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a gem right there.
Speaker:And it'd be good to know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Before you pour all this money.
Speaker:Yeah into a short film.
Speaker:There's some people who spend four, 40k, 50k.
Speaker:There's only, I know a handful of people who regularly perform
Speaker:very well with short films.
Speaker:I know this one guy, he like his short films are consistently like nominated
Speaker:for Oscars and stuff like that.
Speaker:However, he was making, he's been making, that was his thing.
Speaker:He was like, I want to master short films and he'd been
Speaker:doing short films for 40 years.
Speaker:4 0?
Speaker:Yeah almost half a decade.
Speaker:Four decades?
Speaker:Yeah, four decades.
Speaker:Almost half a century he's been doing exclusively short films and just working
Speaker:on making really good short films.
Speaker:And what's the time length on these short films?
Speaker:They're like, for a short film to be short, it needs to be under 40 minutes.
Speaker:And so they usually land around 30.
Speaker:So they're not tiny.
Speaker:Yeah, they're not like 10 minutes long.
Speaker:Which a lot of people do to get their stuff easy, easily programmed.
Speaker:buT yeah.
Speaker:NYFA had a feature film program and so I decided oh, this is what I want to go
Speaker:into and then I became a writer Because I didn't I have never read a script of
Speaker:those screenplay until I was 24 but I Basically went there to make costumes
Speaker:for feature films and a teacher of mine pulled me aside and it was like hey
Speaker:because we had to no one had any money like usual Sorry, spoiler alert to
Speaker:everyone in Los Angeles, to people who don't live in LA, but a lot of people
Speaker:out here don't actually have any money, especially the film school students.
Speaker:We had to make our own films for our costumes to be in the film.
Speaker:So I'm writing and directing in film school so people can see my costumes.
Speaker:And then a teacher of mine pulled me aside Gilbert, and was like,
Speaker:Hey man, can I see you after class?
Speaker:I was like, sure.
Speaker:And he goes, you wanna make costumes?
Speaker:I was like, yeah.
Speaker:He goes, you should be writing.
Speaker:So they recognized your talent in writing, and was like, You should write
Speaker:more than you should make costumes.
Speaker:Yeah, that's what he said, and at first I was like, Eh, I don't really know
Speaker:because I'm really into making costumes.
Speaker:And he was like, No, do me a favor.
Speaker:Write it seriously.
Speaker:Take writing seriously.
Speaker:Just the next two scripts that you write for class, take them very seriously.
Speaker:And, the rest became history.
Speaker:I ended up really enjoying it.
Speaker:And, one of those scripts that I wrote for in film school became Sweating Sand,
Speaker:which was a short that I'm mostly known for, that's now gonna be a TV show.
Speaker:Which is the TV show we're making right now.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It is, yeah.
Speaker:And I wrote that yeah, I wrote that when I was In film school and if
Speaker:that teacher never said that to me, I never would have became a
Speaker:writer director So shout out to mr.
Speaker:Gilbert.
Speaker:Yeah, shout out to gilbert.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly And then what did you do coming out of film
Speaker:school coming out of film school?
Speaker:I was hired.
Speaker:It was a pandemic I was gonna make a feature film my first big feature
Speaker:sweating sand was gonna be a feature film because they hired one like We
Speaker:were only on the festival circuit for four or five months and we had 10 awards
Speaker:and two nominations It was going crazy.
Speaker:So Getting the money for the feature actually wasn't too difficult, because
Speaker:it was winning all these awards.
Speaker:But, it got greenlit in January 2020, and by March, everything was a toddly derby.
Speaker:But, I actually got hired to be a development executive when I was right
Speaker:out of film school, when I was 25.
Speaker:I, Yeah.
Speaker:I was like, yeah, I was almost 26, 25, 20, almost 26.
Speaker:It was right before my 26th birthday and That experience was really great.
Speaker:I wrote a script called Blood Related and that's what, So I was pitching, I
Speaker:was taking Blood Related around to anyone who would see it, anyone who would look
Speaker:at it, it was it was a script that I was very passionate about and the guy
Speaker:who I worked for at the time, at the school, David Nelson, I guess gave it
Speaker:to someone who then looked at it and then passed it around until eventually
Speaker:it got recognized by Voyage Media.
Speaker:And then after Voyage Media, and a guy named Ken Koken, who used to
Speaker:work, who was a former executive at Perfect World Pictures, liked it.
Speaker:And then from there, through that connection, I was able to be hired
Speaker:at the development company of Hot Pot Productions, while I was getting founded.
Speaker:And now, I do this.
Speaker:Yeah, I've since left Hot Pot Productions just because internal strife.
Speaker:That and it's you want to be able to create and do bigger stuff when
Speaker:you work in development You all you do is just spend your time making
Speaker:other people's stuff come alive.
Speaker:You want to make your own stuff come alive Right eventually, right?
Speaker:Yeah, that's me That's you.
Speaker:Yeah, and then at the start of the pandemic, that's when you
Speaker:moved into to the apartment.
Speaker:Yeah, for those listening, me and Nicholas know each other from being roommates.
Speaker:Just off random.
Speaker:Off random.
Speaker:Just random, and how did you find the, you found it off Craigslist, right?
Speaker:Yeah, super sketchy, but I was like hey, I'll go check it out.
Speaker:And yeah, because I was leaving, I didn't have dorms at my film school, but it was
Speaker:like they had Designated places for you to live and I was like, ah, you're gonna
Speaker:find some someplace small to be for like, you know a couple months and then leave
Speaker:and then I end up being there for a Year and that's how me and Nick know each other
Speaker:and didn't you say your former roommate was like a crime boss or something?
Speaker:That is a story for another time That is he Yeah, he did international
Speaker:money laundering and owed like millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker:And didn't the FBI kick down your door?
Speaker:Yeah, they That's a story for another time.
Speaker:I think we're running out of time.
Speaker:But yeah I don't know.
Speaker:Everybody might stick around for it.
Speaker:That did happen though.
Speaker:Yeah, they seized the property.
Speaker:It was crazy.
Speaker:Story for another time.
Speaker:But all right Derek, thank you so much for just, being so thorough and letting
Speaker:us into your world for a little bit.
Speaker:I'm sure everybody will enjoy this quite a bit.
Speaker:Yeah, I enjoyed, opening up, and this is probably the reason why we
Speaker:did the meet the host, because we get so many people commenting about
Speaker:who are these people on the show.
Speaker:But hey, that's me.
Speaker:I'm Derek Johnson II.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And we'll see you next time.
Speaker:See you.
Speaker:This has been Film Center on Comic Con Radio.
Speaker:Check out our previous episodes at FilmCenterNews.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:Sign up for our newsletter and get the Hollywood trade straight to you.
Speaker:You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major platforms.
Speaker:Tune in next week for a fresh update.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been Film Center.
Speaker:Hey, do you like anime and manga?
Speaker:Well, Nick and I are big fans of the genre.
Speaker:Yeah, we recently discovered a manga named Tamashii.
Speaker:It's written and created by Ryan McCarthy, and it recently just
Speaker:came out with its 10th volume.
Speaker:Now, Tamashii is an isekai about a girl who gets transported to another
Speaker:world called the Ancient Lands.
Speaker:She gains mysterious powers and must fight demons and monsters to find her way home.
Speaker:Check it out on Amazon, Blurp, and get a physical copy at ryanmccarthyproductions.
Speaker:com
