Film Courage: Since your time in Hollywood since what 2006? When have you been your most broke? Adam William Ward, Writer/Director/Actor: Oh?
When I first got here I actually slept in my car one night when I first got
here I stayed with my brother for a while and his girlfriend at the time was
tired of me being there and so they were like you got to get out and so I slept
in my car one night or two and then I ended up staying with another friend for
a while in the beginning yeah I I've always been decent with saving money
I've been lucky in that way so it didn't take long for me to get a job waiting
tables and start saving up and stuff but I've never been like $50,000 in credit
card debt I said for making the movie so I mean that was probably our brokest
point was after we made the movie by that's the truth of it because we had
$40,000 of credit card debt and at that point I R had already saved up I saved
up 15 grand to put into the movie so I already put my all my savings into the
movie and we had 40 grand of credit card debt so that was probably my broke this
point after we made the movie but you don't it was I never I never
second-guessed at once and I was proud and happy to do it so so you slept in
your car do you remember what street with town that was that's interesting
huh where was I think I was in El Segundo that's why I lived down in South
Bay now and rebound a beach and I ended up sleeping in my car that first I did
all my stuff at it was pretty crowded but I was 23 at the time so you could
almost get away with it nowadays I think I'd be like wake up you know once you
hit you early thirties you're not quite the same anymore but yeah that was that
was my hardest time in LA and not knowing anybody other than my brother
you know when I first moved here I had no friends I didn't know anybody and and
eventually you start kind of getting a family you know I was lucky I I did
acting school and so every you know you're surrounded by people that are
going through the exact same thing that you're going through starting out in LA
and and so you kind of become a family you know and so you get new friends that
way and you know all kinds of ways and it
becomes it comes your family here in Los Angeles and I'm sure a lot of people
have the same feeling when they come to LA they kind of start a new family in a
way because a lot of people come here not knowing anybody one of the common
themes you've talked about is on things not going as planned yeah my sense is
you like to plan like to be organized I very much do I don't understand I was
helping a friend recently plan a movie shoot and he has all these things hand
written on a paper I'm like all right well let's type it out on the computer
and get every single location and the address on on a on a page and every
single actor and you know every location we're gonna shoot what time of day and
said why are we doing this and I'm like what do you mean why are we doing this
like you have all the information in your brain but you're gonna have a crew
of you know 15 people maybe more maybe less but these people they have to know
what you're thinking and you can't always be the one telling them it's very
easy to hand all this information so everybody already has it all and when
they forget it they just look at the piece of paper you know you have to save
that time so no everything's about organization with the whole thing and
you have to organize to the last detail because when you get there on the day
it's not gonna go how you planned and there's always problems that arise with
wall-e got wasted there was so many different
problems that arise I mean for one certain locations we couldn't afford
permits you know certain places we had permit certain places we didn't we got
shut down one day you know other days I'd convinced security guards and police
officers to let us keep shooting you know and all while he got wasted for
starters I convinced the crew from Teen Wolf the TV show to come over on my
movie so I was like all the same people who had worked together previously I'm
the new guy as the boss you know I mean so that was really interesting dynamic
but they want nothing to do with cops or security guards like if their union crew
so if they you know if they get any see a cop or a security guy they're just
stopped working they don't want anything to do with them there
no trouble no nothing so it's on me to fix those problems so I might be acting
in the scene and a security guard comes up and I'm like finishing the take real
quick and then turn and take care of my my problem over here and then hopefully
convince them and then come back and do my take or direct or whatever I'm doing
at the time so then the only place we got shut down actually was my apartment
which is the funniest thing ever there was one day we got shut down in my
apartment and basically the this scene it's the iconic scene in the movie
actually the first time they bring the body out in public and it's a
slow-motion scene and they're walking with the body and actually if you look
at Patrick who plays Mitch in the movie he looks left in the slow-motion scene
and he's looking at a woman who's screaming at us going where's your
permit I'm gonna shut you down and that's why he's looking left but it's in
slow motion you barely you know you have no idea what he's looking at he just
glances left that's what he's looking at some woman screaming at us telling us
you know where's your permit and so I managed to get that take done and then I
went up to the woman was like hey I'm so sorry did somebody bother you are we
bothering you or how can I help you she was like I want to see your permit and I
was like okay well I just sent somebody to go get the permit so why don't we
just I'm gonna shoot one more and then and then you know and then I'm sure
somebody be back to show you the permit she's like I need to see now I'm calling
the cops and she has the phone right there and
I'm like okay I try my best you know so I was like guys were shutting it down
everybody wanted to kill her you know the crew they just set up all these
giant lights and everything the cast and I was like don't talk to her don't
bother because I fully know that we have to come back there three days later at
that date and shoot with cops and fake guns and all he does I can't have the
cops be called now Brewer how the heck am I gonna shoot here in three days so
I'm like no one would speak to her just leave her alone and then one of my
actors said to it it was so funny while James Batson who plays Wally he does a
phenomenal job he goes way to destroy art how many passes there is his self ID
today because we were playing like a silly comedy movie but and then
actually when we came back there three days later she did end up calling the
cops and luckily she didn't do in the daytime so there's a scene in the movie
where some dirty cops shoot somebody and that was in the daytime and luckily were
between the two buildings and no one called the cops because if a cop came up
and sauce with fake guns and police uniforms they probably were to shut us
down but cops didn't get there till nighttime and we saw the cop come and he
posts up about I don't know 50 yards from my apartment on the street just
parks there and just watches and luckily at that point we were shooting all the
SUV car scenes so we would we brought this SUV between the two buildings and
we set up all the lights on the hood pointing inward and the cameras on
attached to the hood of the car and how are we gonna leave the cops right there
we can't drive around with this stuff on there and nobody should do that I'm not
encouraging anyone to do this at all you should get a tow truck and not drive a
car with lights pointing at your face and a camera but we we had to do we had
to do at that moment and so basically I got out of the car I turned off all the
lights I turn off the camera and luckily there's no streetlight right outside of
my apartment so when we pulled out you could only see the headlights of the car
and I turned laughter away from the cop and we would drive down the street and
then I'd get out and turn out all on all the lights and turn on the camera and
then we would just drive slowly on these residential roads and shoot the scenes
so or parking in a parking lot and shoot the scenes if you couldn't see out the
windows so that's what we did and then we'd come back after 30 40 minutes of
shooting and drive faster and not past the cop but close enough that he could
see us but there was no streetlights so he couldn't I I'm assuming he couldn't
see the camera on the hood and the lights and uh we managed to get away
with the whole thing so my luck coming into play once again
so and then other days you know like we shot at a casino and and we had no
business being at the casino we didn't have permits but I'm showing up with a
you know three ton grip truck and and a crew of 15 20 people they the nice part
is were so big that people assume we must have permission to be there because
there's no way you would come and try to shoot there without permission and we're
shooting at the parking lot of the casino and the two security guards come
up and they're like it was like a scene out of super bed they're like dude
where's your permit guys where's you you guys have a permit you know and my
friend David Lee was helping with the movie goes yeah we have a permit and
then they laugh and they go because if you do it we don't give a shit haha and
they laughed and then they left they didn't end up even looking at trying to
look at a permit so again luck came into play there and another place a security
the head of security came and he came at the absolute wrong time they were
because we were running next to something it was slightly dangerous what
we were doing and it should have never been done in the first place but I was
looking at the footage focused on the camera and the first ad was trying to
get more footage and she was she was like yeah Ron run Ronald quit Louise in
the movie one of my actors plays a dirty cop run next to that moving object you
know and he did and it's not really safe to do that and then the head of security
comes up right as he's doing that it's like the worst possible time he could
come and and he was like whoa whoa what are you guys doing here like this is not
safe you need a permit to be here and it took like 20-30 minutes to talk to him
and convince them to let us stay there and at the beginning he was totally
against it but I was like I saved up this is my life savings like I saved up
all my money and this is I'm shooting a big YouTube video because the moment you
say a feature they assume you have money so I just told them to say YouTube video
and you can't shut me down and editor died and you just please please please
and eventually after 20 minutes of hearing me sob and talk you know and be
sweet and nice because I was never mean you know he said fine you can shoot but
don't don't shoot there shoot you know you could shoot on the stairs which
like doesn't make any sense to me you could shoot on the stairs in the parking
lot well luckily and scheduling I knew the hardest place would shoot would be
where most of the pedestrians were so we shot that first and that's what he said
you couldn't shoot anymore well I already had all the footage I needed up
there so and only one more take I needed up there I figured we'd do it last now
that we got shut down and we shot the stairs in the parking lot next and so I
scheduled just perfect knowing that we had so much time and went show up with a
crew that I showed up with you usually have some time if you start shooting
right away before people shut you down because they're wondering what you're
doing there and they don't come up and shut you down right away and I actually
had a defense for that because the crew sees a security guard at a cop they
immediately don't do anything so I would sometimes I would just go up to a cop or
security guard and be like hey how you doing are you having a good night yeah
when do you get off oh that's awesome cool well have a great night you know
and I would just walk away I would just make small talk and walk away and the
crew would see me talk to the security guard or the cop and be like oh okay
he's squared everything we're we're good when really in fact I just talked to him
about their day and and was friendly but see after I'm friendly too they assume I
must be there because people that don't they're not supposed to be whether they
stay shy away they act like they're being sneaky no I just come up
completely confront you'd be super nice and walk away so they were like how do
you know about this they do a spy there's so other security Isaac do you
know does a movie shooting here like well let's call the boss you know like
and they'd call maybe their boss and they don't know and then they call their
boss well meanwhile I already had an hour and a half to shoot so I got some
footage and so that's a lot of part of the scheduling is like you you have to
try to think of those kind of problems and solve them so yeah that was and
sometimes cops would just be like oh we saw you're shooting a movie but if I
have a lot of important equipment we're just keeping an eye on you and they
would just watch us but I wasn't in Hollywood I was in South Bay so where I
was in Pasadena or somewhere where you know the cops if you do it in Hollywood
you probably are gonna get shut down and some places you definitely do get shut
down I don't encourage people not to have a permit you know but we had to
take the because we just didn't have the money so
you know we'd go for it
you