Film Courage: So your first three feature films have grossed 800 million?
David F. Sandberg, Filmmaker: I haven’t checked.
That sounds about right…sure?
Why not?
Film Courage: Okay.
Is this something that 10 years ago you (you at Lotta Losten David’s wife and creative
partner) would have ever imagined?
David: I mean…not to sound like a jerk but in a way yes.
Because it was always my dream to make movies and it was always my dream to be a Hollywood
director but that was kind of like a secret because I’m from Sweden from like the other
side of the world.
I don’t have any family members who are in show biz or anything like that.
So it’s not like you can say to friend and family “Yeah, I’m going to be a Hollywood
director.”
People will be like “Yeah, sure.
I’m going to be a the king of Spain…whatever.”
But that was always the goal and then a lot of times that goal has felt really far away
and I’ve felt very depressed and felt like this is never going to happen.
But that was always the goal, that was what I wanted to do with my life so in a way you
can’t say that it’s been expected but it’s always been the goal so it’s always
been like “Yes, that’s always what I really want.”
So it’s more of like…the feeling is not the surprise…well it is a surprise like
“Wow?
It actually happened.
My dream actually came true.”
But the dream has always been there if that makes sense.
Film Courage: And when you were in Sweden you were posting short films (animated short
films) to your Youtube channel [Ponysmasher], were you working another job?
Were you in animation?
David: I actually haven’t had a lot of jobs.
So…I think video store was my first job which was sort of under-the-table, not really
official but it was kind of cool because I loved it because yes I access to movies.
I could rent all of these free movies.
And sometimes you get screeners so you get movies before they came out on video but I’ve
never been much of a people person…so you have to talk to people a lot so that was the
downside of it but all of the movies, that was the great part.
I worked a little bit in grocery stores and things like that and I hated that even more
because the downsides of working in a video store but without all of the movies.
And then I was unemployed for quite a while, I was really depressed, I was still living
with my mom in my twenties and eventually I started making animation because I always
wanted to make movies.
I was making movies with friends but then as we started getting older my friends are
getting jobs and lives and then suddenly there is not as much time and willingness to make
little dumb shorts.
So that’s when I started doing animation because it was something I could do by myself.
I didn’t have to rely on other people’s schedules or money or whatever.
I always liked drawing so I could do that on my computer all by myself I’ll just record
the voices.
I didn’t even need an expensive camera for it.
I was luck in that this was in 2005, 2006 when YouTube was a new thing and I signed
up to that.
I didn’t really know what it was but I was like “Okay, I can upload videos here.”
And I uploaded a little animated short that I made.
It got a really good response.
People really seemed to like it.
I was like “This is great.”
So I made another one that was a little bit more ambitious than the first one.
The first one was almost like a slideshow.
I mean I hesitate to call it that but it is an actual slideshow.
But then the second one I got more ambitious with.
I made this story that was sort of more personal about the thoughts in your head that put you
down and tell you that you’re crap.
Basically an angel and a devil on your shoulder.
That one really took off on line.
It got all of these views and really went viral.
But it was in Swedish so it didn’t really go out of Scandinavia but like Norway, Denmark,
Finland.
And that got me a lot of attention.
I got to go on TV and like “What’s it like to have a viral hit?”
And it also led to me getting some jobs like companies were like we want to make a little
funny video about our product or whatever and we loved our funny video, can you do something
for us?
And often I would…the short films I made were very crude.
Like they had a lot of language and big phallic symbols and when companies want to do something
they were like “Yes, we want that…but NOT that.”
So you kind of have to do something that is not as fun but now I was actually getting
some money, getting paid which was great so I moved out and didn’t have to live with
my mom anymore and this also led to me meeting my wife.
We actually dated when we were eleven.
She was into acting, I was already into making movies.
Then when this short film went viral she saw it.
We dated when we were eleven and then had a 14 year break and she saw this movie and
recognized my voice and contacted me to reconnect, we did and got back together.
Now when we were dating, she was an actress.
I had a video camera.
It was like “Oohh, now we can make things together.”
We tried getting money from the Swedish Film Institute because in Sweden you apply for
grants for your shorts or your features.
It’s basically how all movies are made there.
But we didn’t have any luck because they weren’t as interested in sort of the genre
stuff (the stuff I always wanted to do).
I think I always had sort of a commercial bent for movies.
Like that’s kind of my taste…American fun popcorn movies.
In Sweden (especially when you have a grant-based system) tax payer money and they have to be
real responsible with that money, it often goes to films that are sort of important and
sort of issues with society and things like that.
There is nothing wrong with that.
It has led to some great movies but it didn’t really work out for us.
So we were turned down and then we felt like whatever….you’re an actress, I have a
camera, let’s just do something.
We don’t need money, we can do little short films ourselves.
So we did a little short film called CAMP CLOSER (it was a horror short) about a phone
that sees the future.
I put that up on my Youtube channel that now had a few thousand followers from my animated
worked and they were kind of surprised (my followers) because they expected sort of humorous
animated things and then suddenly it’s this terrifying horror short.
But people still seemed to like it even though they were surprised and we really enjoyed
doing it.
And then there was an online contest by this horror collective in the UK called Bloody
Cuts, make an under three-minute horror film and you can win prizes and things.
And we were like “That’s what we’re doing.
We just did CAMP CLOSER, let’s do something for this.
And that’s when we did LIGHTS OUT.
Again just me and Lotta in our apartment trying to figure out okay what can we do that is
scary and I think everyone has had that feeling.
In our house it was a coat rack that you walk out in the middle of the night and Oooh!
It looks like someone is standing there and you turn on the lights and…Oh it’s not
really anyone there.
And that is sort of how playing around with the light it sort of gave us okay there something
that actually is there every time you turn on the light.
We did that and uploaded it to the contest and then we found out that we didn’t win
the contest but then a little while later they also had secondary prizes so I won best
director and it was like “Oh?
That’s awesome.”
But we didn’t think anything else would happen with that.
We were like “Oh fun.
Let’s make more movies.”
Then a few months after that (it was in March of 2014) I saw on Reddit that someone had
linked to our short film.
It was like “Oh, that’s awesome.”
I showed Lotta and go into see the stats and it was like 17,000 views.
And then minutes later it was like 70,000 views.
And then it was like over 140,000 views.
And it just kept going and going.
It’s like what is happening?
But it was just like a two and a half minute short film and there is no dialogue in it
and I think that really helped it to spread.
Partly because people don’t have an attention span anymore so if they see “Oh it’s only
two and a half minutes.
I can watch that.”
And because there is no dialogue, it can spread anywhere.
So we really sort of lucked into something that is really universal.
It was just a few days after that I actually said to Lotta that “You know I’ve heard
of people getting representation from shorts, for managers and agents.”
The day after I said that I woke up to an email from management firm here in Hollywood
and I showed Lotta “I told you!
It’s starting.”
And then it just like opened the floodgates and we got emails from agents and producers
and studios and sometimes actors and people as well, make-up artists and all of these
things.
What is this?
And these managers and agents that want to represent.
I had to get an IMDB Pro account just to know who these people are.
Eventually I picked a manager who could help us navigate this whole thing in getting an
agent, then who can we trust with producers and things like that.
This producer Lawrence seemed really good and was into it because a lot of them just
wanted to know who we were and what are plans were and it didn’t explicitly say “We
want to make this movie.”
Or “We want to represent you.”
And I kind of need that, I don’t know if because I am Swedish and kind of introverted.
I’m no good with sort of interpreting subtle signs.
So I went with the producer who was “Yes!
I want to make this movie.
We should make this movie.
Boom!”
It’s like “Alright, let’s go.”
We went with Lawrence Gray and it was kind of a weird situation because once this happened
it was about a year before the movie happened.
Which was actually pretty quick but it feels strange in that situation to sort of wait
for all of these things.
And not knowing if it’s real or if it’s actually going to happen or no because during
this year it was signing with a management firm and an agency and all of that and then
finding a writer and working with a writer to develop the script and making a deal for
all of this and getting a lawyer and getting a lawyer and all of that.
So during this year Lotta and I didn’t know if this was actually real or if it was all
baloney.
So we were like “Well we can’t stop.”
We kept making short films around our house or wherever we were could come up with new
ideas.
We made one up in the attic and one in the basement, trying to come up with new stuff.
For each of these shorts I would make these little behind-the-scenes videos that turned
out to be very appreciated by people who saw it as other up-and-coming-filmmakers and it
was something I did because I love it and that’s what I wanted to see.
I’ve always loved seeing behind-the-scenes and making of’s just to learn as much as
possible just to learn as much as possible and see what it is like on a film set.
And how you create all of these things and how do you create all of these things and
all of that.
So we just kept doing that.
And we even had this idea that we would make a feature just her and I if this didn’t
pan out.
In March (something like that) of 2015 they basically say “Yes, it’s happening.
We need you hear like next week (or whatever.”
So Lotta basically had to quit her job because she worked in a group home.
I was a freelance animator so I basically didn’t have anything steady going.
So I locked our apartment, got on a plane and this was paid for by the studio because
we were broke.
When we first got a manager they were like “Hey can you get out here because we want
you to meet all of these people and go on this tour of Hollywood and hey this is this
guy and whatever.”
But we didn’t have any more so it’s like we couldn’t do that.
But then they paid for us to fly out here.
It was very strange.
We had to find a place to live here and everything is super expensive in LA but we found on AirBnB
this half of a garage in Burbank.
It was sort of parted into two.
So this father and daughter were neighbors in our garage.
For us it was like $2,500 or so a month and for us it was insane.
It was a pretty nice garage, it wasn’t bad or anything but it was quite a shock to find
out how expensive everything was and we still didn’t have any money.
And when we got over here the studio paid for the flight over and they were going to
pay for living expenses but not until the movie was green lit and it wasn’t actually
green lit until quite late.
So we had to…well first of all we borrowed from everyone we knew back home in Sweden
and then when that money ran out it was like “Oooh, what do we do now.”
So we had to borrow from like a producer and a manager.
It was kind of dicey because it was like if this doesn’t happen we are in deep trouble
because we were all bored out when it comes to money but then thankfully it did happen
(the movie) but yes it was all pretty crazy because I had never been on a movie set before
so the first time I actually set foot on a real movie set it was as the director.
Film Courage: Wow!
David: It was pretty crazy.
Especially since everyone there had more experience than me and every assistant and PA, they’ve
all worked on real movies.
And part of me thinks they all thought I was more experience than I was and I wasn’t
going to correct them I was just like “Yeah, sure.
If you want me to make your movie, I will.”
But they would ask me “Do you have a DP or editor or a storyboard artist that you
work with?”
No, I’ve done all of these things myself because I had to.
Film Courage: Had you and Lotta previously been to Los Angeles?
David: Yes, the year before it went viral we were in LA because I made a little animated
documentary and it got into a film festival in San Jose and so we got a little money from
the Swedish Film Institute to actually go to that festival and then it’s like “Let’s
go to LA as well.”
And the producer we worked with to make that little animated documentary he was like “Let’s
go pitch the studios in Hollywood.”
And it was like “What are you insane?
What do you mean pitch the studios in Hollywood?
How are we going to get in?
What are we going to do?”
He was like “My brother actually works at Fox in Sweden.
So he can probably get us into Fox into LA.”
And I was like “Okay?”
And I was like “Let’s like pitch a horror movie or something,” because I actually
wrote a little horror movie which was my first script in English and everything.
And we actually got to go there and pitch this thing and we had to sign all of these
disclaimers because we weren’t represented or anything.
It was an interesting experience but it was clearly just like “Oh he’s a friend of
him, just listen to him.”
Nothing came of it or anything but it was still an interesting experience.
I got to walk on the Fox lot and actually sit there and talk movies.
So yes we had been there before and even got into a studio but that was it.
Film Courage: When you said viral previously, what year are we talking about and what was
that number?
You know how viral has changed?
You know how some people no longer think that one million is a lot of video views?
David: Yes, it was in 2014 (March).
At the time it was like 4 million I remember that.
It landed on like 10 million or 11 million or something?
It kept going because other people have uploaded it as well.
And we didn’t want to be like “Oh we have to take that down.
That’s our movie.”
I mean as long as they didn’t changed anything we were like “Yeah, upload it.”
So I saw it uploaded on Facebook…I don’t trust those numbers.
It was like 70-80 million.
I’m not sure what they do…but yeah…sure.
But a lot of people have seen it.
Film Courage: And the link that was put on Reddit, what that Vimeo or YouTube?
David: That was Vimeo actually.
So it went viral on Vimeo first which seems kind of unique in a way because it seems like
it’s mostly YouTube but then since it was on YouTube to, that explored too.
But it started on Vimeo.