Film Courage: You're saying possibly this is not ready to pitch to investors because we
don't have a lot of things determined, but how can we make this idea better
The Internal Butler [our hypothetical case study]?
Sean Reid, Filmmaker: It's really about we're looking for so we started with a character
and we're looking for is this character truly unique is this character a character conceit yeah
a character we've never seen before on screen this is a story we've never seen before on screen yet
so if you keep asking yourself that question then I would say no I've seen some versions of this
I'm still seeing the movie that I've seen not the movie that we're developing it's still not its own
path it's something that I'm pouring out a world for but it's not its own unique
conceit it's not its own original thing ultimately and so until you see that
I think especially when you're dealing with we haven't even written like a one sentence like
a one-liner that says okay this is who what when where and why like this is what's happening we're
taking these little random pieces and we've pulled it together and gotten something that is going
in a direction but it certainly still could go in so many different directions that it's it's early
development and that's what's great about early development is that you at this point in stage
anybody could get to this point so I think that one of the things like I was saying it's like
when an idea when you're developing an idea it's like you have to get beyond your first
idea of that idea anyone can come up with the first idea it's getting beyond that first layer of
it and getting to your next id and your next idea beyond that so that and that's even with scenes
like making a scene not just resting on the first premise or first idea that you come up with for
a scene but actually pushing it beyond what that coming up with more ideas for that scene
coming up more ideas for how that story can work that's how you test and how you push your story
development rather than just stumbling upon what or what is coming off the top of your head which
is pretty much the same for anybody else and therefore will be mundane and will not be original
do we know the stakes that this character will have to overcome
well I think that though sometimes they'll be life and death in the sense of his existence
as a butler but will they be truly life and death I don't know I mean there's an emotional life and
death that you can face so he'll face one already when he discovers a secret and if he does have
to stand up and go like mad max and protect the whole village of people we never know so he could
we haven't figured out where he's wondering the earth too yet he could be lord of flies in it so
I mean he could go any direction but that would give you the opportunity to give him stakes maybe
just like we were talking about like him being the superhero almost type of sidekick well it's like
that now the youngest son had to go to war and he went with him I mean he could be all kinds of
stuff and protecting him like I mean I could come up with all kinds of life or life or death types
of things but I think as long as it's a spiritual life or death it will have that stakes going on
and I think that's important especially for indie dramas that there's a that arc of like there's
a rebirth or death or phoenix or real life type of thing right because let's suppose he had only
dead he had suppressed so much about himself and it was all in service to this family
and making sure they were seeing maybe they were a very public wealthy family and he wanted to make
sure they were only seen right in the right light and now he finds out this secret and everything
crumbles he doesn't care anymore maybe and now it's about his journey so maybe he shut that
off I don't know I'm just no absolutely that's and I think that's what we talked about from
the beginning it's really about what that what that how far does that wondering go because he
could just go one like he can just go wandering out into the desert he could go wander out into
the palm desert and go live in a hotel with a bunch of like like a whole bunch of weirdos
do what I mean like there's one like in a mat like he goes and he goes and stays in hotel
in the middle of palm springs some abandon or a middle of Palmdale that used to be whatever
and now it's like a it's really like a it's more of a pay-by-week hotel hotel so there's a
family in there doing Mexican family maybe and a Black family and there's the crazy old drag
queen maybe and then there's and you just have this collection of people and in some level his
him having lost himself and those people bringing him back to life if he wanders into that place
now that's actually becoming an interesting movie and that's why you continue to
push your boundaries of what an actual movie can be because the more that you push and allow your
imagination to wonder if that's really what it is and I think that's really what a movie
is a movie is pushing it to something that you want to go see it in a theater and things that
if it's not going to have the scope that we're talking about it has to have the emotional scope
that we're talking about where it's going to rip you into a new person and and change your view
of a world and give you maybe an insight that you never had and then maybe in a view that you didn't
have through eyes that you didn't have that's why Peter Dinklage is such a unique what if the
butler is Peter Dinklage what what so there's so many whatevs what if that character is half Black
yeah and then they're there could be so many other things that are involved in these layers
that you start to when you have an independent mind for casting an independent mind for the movie
rather than I'm going to make this a studio movie because the first thing I think is
I'm going to not make it a studio I'm going to I want to be how am I going to make this
movie is the first thing I think so then I think well how am I going to do that
sure and and when you talk about an abandoned hotel in Palmdale I'm sure
there's some for for rent and that'd be great because maybe it's a hotel of what seems like
transients but it's really people that lost their identities maybe this old drag queen they used to
perform and they were really something back in the day and it was this private club that
no one wanted to be seen at but everybody wanted to be there thing and then this person was no
longer a hot performer because they got older and then maybe somebody so it was all it's all
these people that lost their identities and in a sense became a family maybe dysfunctional whatever
but I like it yeah and has it then it's just then it's just dropping this this random other
rando [random] character into this world now that that really doesn't fit into that world at all
since but it completely does because it's completely lost right now how this butler
would get to this hotel because this seems like this would not be something in their wheelhouse to
ever flow I think it's like it becomes like that the the almost like the wandering in the desert
until I came upon something if I use a great if I'm getting really artsy at that moment that
he goes into this we wondered he literally just wonders he just strips off his clothes literally
and wanders out into the desert and and that's where he's the first place he is found that maybe
the Mexican family that's going to trying to find a place too they they they haul them along on the
thing and then they rescue them and they bring them to this place and then now they're there
I mean it's it I've seen much less believable circumstances so I mean it's a movie right right
and have we determined the this arc that this butler will have I mean it sounds like they lost
they thought they knew who they were they lost themselves and then in the end have they found
themselves well I think they will through like like by changing their preconceived notions about
who they are and what the world is by looking at a completely different way and having to look
at things differently I think that that will but I'm not I'm not into the necessary the very clean
tidy I don't like that tidy telling you stuff I like some of that to just be like it'll end
somewhere and you're gonna have to decide you'll have to think about it yourself as an individual
where that person will end I like those by the way because I think it gets like a good book it's like
it gives you that thing but it gives you something to think about and you for you to decide.