Film Courage: With ESCAPE ROOM, you wrote the script, did you also pitch yourself as
being the director or was this something that came later?
Peter Dukes, Filmmaker: Right off the bat, I always knew I wanted to write and direct.
I had done that with all of my short films.
But directing in the feature world is very tricky.
Investors like their pool of people.
Unless you have a theatrically distributed feature film under your belt and named talent,
you are usually not going to get on their list.
Even if you’ve done amazing shorts, it’s just not going to happen.
I won’t say that is every investor out there but just in my experience I’ve had people
say “Hey, we love your reels.
We love your short films.
It’s not going to happen.
Hope you understand?”
It’s your money, of course I understand.
You need to work with people you are confident can handle a feature.
So I knew I needed to put myself in a position where I had some leverage if I was ever going
to direct one of my own scripts we’ll say.
So ESCAPE ROOM comes around and the guys loved the script.
One of the producers said “I want to direct it.”
And I said “No deal.”
I direct it or it’s no deal.
I gambled and I was willing to gamble.
Just like gambling with money in Las Vegas, if it’s money that you can afford to lose,
then gamble it.
Same thing with film.
I was willing to lose the deal over it.
It wasn’t a bluff because I knew that was my best shot in years to actually direct a
feature and if I passed it up and just sold them the script, I’m back playing the game
I’ve been playing for years.
I was trying to get myself in a position to do it again, so I gambled.
“It’s me or its a no-go.”
And he kind of looked back down at the table for a minute and then he looked back up and
he goes “Okay.”
So I said “Great.”
He had to take me to eventually what would be the production company and the sales agents
in one.
They had to sign off on me also.
I had one meeting with them and I had been doing shorts for years so I knew what I was
talking about.
I wasn’t trying to bluff my way into directing a feature, I knew it was of a scale that I
could handle, I wasn’t in over my head, answered all of their questions and was confident,
all of the things you should be in a business meeting.
And after one fairly brief meeting, the agreement was made and we were off and ready to go.
Not every script I write I would make the same gamble, I would make the same moves.
Some of my scripts are not passion projects, I’m just writing them to be sold.
But I do have some that I would say the same thing again and I wouldn’t be bluffing,
it was me or I’ll keep it on the shelf.
Not everyone will be forced to be in that position where if I want to direct this, if
I want to direct this, I’ll max out my credit cards.
If they won’t give it to me, I’ll just do it myself.
So luckily I didn’t have to go down that route but anyways I engineered a situation
where not force my way in but use what little leverage I had to my advantage and luckily
it panned out.
Film Courage: Where did you film ESCAPE ROOM?
Peter: By and large it was shot in Burbank (local).
We had a good portion of the film I wanted to write something that could be done relatively
inexpensive so a big portion of the film is inside an escape room.
They built one on a stage in a building, they built it on a camera house that was still
open for business (it was a camera rental house is what it was).
We had a little stage and Skeet Ulrich and all of these guys in the hallways out there
also in a building that was open for business.
So people would be leaving their office and walk through the shot.
It was incredible, I wasn’t prepared for that.
You just roll with it, what are you going to do?.
It was this building right next to the Burbank Airport, so we had planes flying over all
of the time ruining our shot, so we had to deal with that also.
Then we had some desert shots that were shot out in Lancaster [California] and some other
various locations but by and large it was local because it was all designed to be.
I wanted to write something that relatively speaking was just the easiest thing to produce.
What’s the most attractive thing I can make for investors?
This is something that can be shot for real quick for very little money, high concept,
good hook, why wouldn’t we produce it?
I was just trying to give them everything you could give them and reduce the amount
of no’s that they could possibly come up with.
Film Courage: That’s pretty cool.
See it’s like these green lights that just happen for you.
Peter: Yes…and I didn’t know what would happen after that.
I was like here I am, I’ve been working all of my life and I’ve got a movie playing
in theaters?
I was like “This is great.”
I was like it’s a small movie so I don’t know what attention I’m going to get?
As I mentioned before, no agency called, no management company called.
I did get press but not like The Hollywood Reporter.
It didn’t really do that much for me so I didn’t know what to expect.
As I said, the fight never ends.
I’ve got a bunch of feature deals that are pending right now.
They are in pre-production, they are in development, one is locking up distribution.
Not one of them stemmed from ESCAPE ROOM.
Those were other deals where I kept up the fight, kept out there going just grinding
away.
So it’s an interesting profession that we’ve choice, we never know what you’re going
to get.
As I’ve said, I’m even keel about it.
I’m always working on new projects and I’ll never stop and I’m not surprised that ESCAPE
ROOM didn’t open up the flood gates for me and I’m actually okay with it.
You kind of just keep going.
Every day you keep going and I’ve been doing it for so many years now that it is all I
know.
But all the more reason for beginner directors to prepare themselves for that.
The fight is kind of endless, it’s kind of forever.
And I think for most of us (for me), the fight is part of what we love about the business
because not all of us can do what it is that we do.
To me it’s kind of a privilege to be able to say that not only do you survive the business,
but you thrive in it.
So you just kind of grasp onto the positive aspects of it and keep going.