Spencer Whiteout, Filmmaker/Podcaster: Let's make this a second feature and then let's cut
it up into segments and then we'll upload that onto YouTube as part of our marketing strategy.
Film Courage: What is Beast Mode?
Spencer: Beast Mode is the behind-the-scenes documentary of Space Waves it shows the making
of Space Waves and all the ups and downs we experienced as we made this micro budget
Indie feature and so you'll see how 10 of us starting with ten thousand dollars we went
along and we did principal photography and we did posts and pickups and all the different ups
and downs and how we ended at about fifty thousand dollars over this five year long
journey so you're going to see everything it takes to make a small independent movie
when did you decide you were making a documentary was it during making of the feature film so Beast
Mode was one of those things where at first it started with myself and the first AC Rebecca
[Rebecca Baliko] thinking hey let's make just like a little 20-minute thing that shows some behind
the scenes of making Space Waves and then when Space Waves turned into this huge five year long
journey with all this crazy challenges and things we had to overcome this documentary became bigger
and bigger because the story was just so huge and so when it came time to shoot the interviews
to talk about the b-roll that we shot on set and everything the interviews ended up going for hours
because everyone's just telling all these crazy stories of extras not showing up getting kicked
out of locations and the Mustang breaking down and losing the radio tower and just everything you can
think of going wrong so there was so much there was so much to talk about so this documentary
just turned into this big thing and then that the documentaries final run time ended up being
like an hour and 48 minutes which is longer than Space Waves the movie itself which is pretty funny
you barely had enough crew to shoot Space Waves how are you doing behind the scenes
footage I'm just any chance we could just in between I would I'm always a person that's
filming and taking photos on my phone so I would shoot stuff Rebecca would shoot stuff
I had my sister when she wasn't doing production design have a like a T3i camera or something or
a Canon 80d whatever shooting behind the scenes shots in between and so we just kind of just got
footage any way we could I would say next movie I would love to have a dedicated person on set
to just capture behind the scenes video and photo that's going to be really essential but
for Space Waves and Beast Mode it was just kind of we had these footage dumps where we would we
would ask hey who from this week we want to grab everyone's iPhones and just grab all the photos
and videos that you guys have taken and so a lot of the cool videos or whatever came from
just like oh the sound person shot something or the gaffer shot something on their phone and
ended up being a great clip even though they only shot a few things there's stuff like that
how long did it take you to sift through all the footage for the binds it took a very long time I
mean we worked on this documentary for years so it was it was just yeah like I said it's like an hour
and 48 minutes it's very big and very ambitious I think it originally was like two hours and 20
minutes when we had like our first kind of rough cut and so it's just it's been such a huge project
and so to cut it down and to go through everything has has taken a very long time plus you're also
weaving through a story yes so it's its own form of Storytelling and yeah and we had to figure out
one of the tricky things with figuring out what is the meta narrative like the big narrative and what
are what are the narratives for each of these individual kind of segments of the story and
we tried to make sure I don't know it was kind of like the story kind of just came to us as we were
editing the interviews and stuff and we realized okay the kind of thesis and the message of Beast
Mode is like young filmmakers doing whatever it takes overcoming every challenge every step of the
way to make a feature film and so that was kind of the thing that the theme that just kept coming up
and so we tried to structure the the documentary around that and we decided okay we're not going
to shy away from the challenges we're going to show the challenges we're going to show people's
disappointments and people's frustrations as they're making Space Waves because it makes
it makes the film that much greater because it shows how much we conquered and it shows how much
how much Redemption and how much we all grew through the process
how much extra did it cost to make Beast Mode it didn't cost that much extra it was mostly
just the hours that we had to put into making it because it was myself and the first AC Rebecca
just doing this project and so there was a lot of times where things were slow because we were
working on other things or whatever and we had to come back to it and the only things that we really
the only real cost was paying for sound design to get the sound leveled out because interviews
and there's loud b-roll and then there's all this stuff happening so that was the one thing we paid
for to make sure that it all sounded good and then I did the color grade and Becca did an initial
like first sound pass and stuff so we tried to just take care of it all ourselves and then I
think yeah I think sound was the only thing we paid for was it your strategy to make two movies
for the price of one not at the beginning yeah because at the beginning it was oh this will just
be a small thing to accompany the film just like a little behind the scenes 20 minute thing but then
as it went along it just got bigger and bigger and then it became the strategy okay let's make this
a second feature and then let's cut it up into segments and then we'll upload that onto YouTube
as part of our marketing strategy so it was like okay movies out and now you're going to see every
week you're going to see behind the scenes about the making of this film and so not only is it a
really cool keepsake for us for the sentimental types that we want to relive the experience and
see it and hear everyone telling the stories and stuff but it's also a very strategic thing for
our marketing campaign and so it keeps it fresh in people's in people's as they're scrolling they're
seeing more and more content about Space Waves and Beast Mode and makes people appreciate the film
that much more and so I think all of us when we see a film we like we want to go learn about the
making of it and get to know the people behind it who made the film so it became an essential
part of our process and our our social media rollout and our marketing and everything
when it's all said and done how many episodes will there be 15 15 okay great when did you film all of
the cast and crew interviews so we filmed those in Fall 2018 so that was right after we shot the
bulk of principal photography we ended up having to do some interviews later in 2019 just because
we ended up shooting more stuff like at the space Tower and all this stuff so we had to
shoot a couple more interviews to talk about some of that stuff but I would say if if you
are making a behind the scenes documentary shoot the interviews as close to the action as possible
while it's still fresh in everyone's minds because when we showed Beast Mode to people everyone was
like oh my gosh I totally forgot about that or I didn't even remember I said that or so
you want to you want to make sure you shoot it while it's fresh in everybody's minds and that'll
get you the most accurate and the most passionate version of the store story have you thought about
releasing Beast Mode as a full documentary yeah and that was the initial plan was to release it
just in full on YouTube and then we pivoted and we're like no let's release it in parts over the
course of the summer and then we thought okay we'll just put out the full length right after
that but we had to do a lot of strategizing and figuring out the best way to release this thing
and Becca wanted to go to festivals with it so we kind of came up with a an agreement that like
we're going to release it episodically but then the full documentary is going to like hopefully
go to some festivals and it's kind of it's in a feature form and so hopefully it'll get into
some festivals and do good things for Becca and me and the whole Space Waves film and the
crew and everybody involved so we'll see what happens with that but that remains to be seen.