Byron Q., Writer/Director: Unless you're not trying to make any profit from a movie
you really have to understand genre.
Film Courage: Do you decide on the genre before you come up with a movie idea?
Byron: I do now but I didn't used to do that and and the reason why I do that now
is after Las Vegas Story part of the reason why I didn't get a distribution deal was because
it was a drama and it was really hard when you don't have like a star in in that movie and that
kind of failure made me quite or reassess like okay what does this all mean and I talked to a
lot of distributors and I started understanding more of the business side of things and and now
when I make a film I'm very conscious of like what genre and what the audience is for this movie
and yeah because if you're trying to make a living in the movie business like you really
have to kind of have that in focus whereas before I was really much younger and it was
really just about making a movie and telling a story but within the commercial world you really
unless you're not trying to make any profit from a movie you really have to understand
genre and and what is the requirement of every genre what are your favorite movie genres
I really like sci-fi movies but I also really like dramas so
but when I was really young I used to love horror movies now
I still like horror but only like a smart horror like something like get out was pretty cool for me
but yeah sci-fi definitely because I've always liked to see different worlds that potentially
could happen in our world so that's why sci-fi is something that really draws me
with bang bang and then Las Vegas Story it seems like you're drawn to sort of this crime underworld
that then maybe there's there's a humanizing element to it it's not all I'm just just from the
trailers that I've watched so can you talk about that yeah so the other genre that I really like is
crime drama or just dark dark things I've always been drawn to the underbelly of society and I
don't know there's something interesting about or more interesting to me about somebody who is like
trying to get by scraping by and the things that this person would do to like make some money um
and it's always that world you never really see it that much because I think I think most
people live pretty okay life you're not like dealing with drug dealers all the time and
going into crime bosses houses and stuff and and like the way they portrayed in movies
I don't know if all that is true so that's what makes me more interested in that kind of world
of like okay what is that world really like
yeah and that's I think that's why in some of my movies I really go into this underbelly
and and really kind of explore the psyche of somebody who's at the edge and and um
with what they'll do to make a buck did anyone try to talk you out of it and say hey byron can
you just make why don't you make like a love story that's where two people are in college not where
one is got an underground gambling ring or something no nobody actually really tried to
talk me out of it I feel like I really didn't have that many mentors in the film industry so
you know even at my film school which I wouldn't even call film school
like it was very theoretical like they just made us watch a bunch of
old European movies and we wrote some papers about it but there was never yeah there was
never really much guidance in terms of okay this is how you make a living in the film business this
is what you have to do these are the types of jobs you can get there was really none of that
well I've heard that about other film programs and that you're learning film theory and
just certain criticism and and maybe camera styles but but there's maybe not always real world
maybe that's changed I don't know I haven't gone to film school so I don't know how that is but
that's something I've heard about other film schools as well but it sounds like
you you like to kind of be the man on the street a little bit and really be amongst the people and
and yeah and kind of feel what it's like to if you've ever gone to the metro station in la you
can feel sort of the heartbeat of l.a just being yeah yeah I like to get out there and
wander around and talk to different characters different people I think ever since I was a kid
you know I was free to go out and do whatever hang out with people so there was never like
because I know some people when they're growing up they're sheltered or like their parents
are very strict like for me I grew up with a single mom she was dealing with her own issues so
there was never like I was free to go out at any time in the day or night and and I did
that with my friends and a lot of my friends were kind of in the same situation we would
just like sneak out at night and go to parties or hang out wherever and I think that kind of
feeling of want to get out and explore and meet different people
carried over even in my 20s even in college and after there's always a part of me that want to
get out and I think that might be reflected in some of my movies and the themes of like somebody
feeling trapped trying to get out I don't know exactly where that comes from but probably do a
psychoanalysis that's interesting because you said with bang bang and forgive me I haven't seen it
but that one is from sort of a bourgeois world and one is from sort of a working working-class
world and both are trying to get out almost yeah yeah they're trying to cross over into
each other's worlds right each one has a trap bourgeois you got to keep up appearances and
make sure everybody thinks everything is good and then the working class is
the monthly rent food bills and and other things that come with being poor and yep
why is genre so important to you well now I understand why genre is so important is because
if you don't have a genre that you're fitting you're moving into then you're not going to
be able to sell that movie so you have to understand the genre that you're working in
if you want I guess to appeal to your audience so with a Las Vegas Story there wasn't enough
of a genre or you said that distributors didn't want it because they felt there wasn't a quote
unquote star yeah so with Las Vegas Story ultimately it's a drama it's a family drama
although maybe from the trailer or whatnot you might think okay there's like some crime
elements or it's like a thriller but if you actually watch the movie it's really a family
drama it's about this woman and her family and she's just trying to get by trying to support
her family and there's some friends that come into her life but really it's just a drama and what the
distributors told me was hey dramas are really hard to sell unless you have a star in there
and and although I had Eric Roberts he wasn't really a bankable star and that has to do with
he's in a bunch of like indie movies he does tons of movies like year-round he's constantly working
so what happens is as a distributor you have so and so movies coming to you and like five
of them have Eric Roberts why would you take a sixth movie that has Eric Roberts and nobody else
right like you can have him but some other stars in there too but if you just have him they're like
yeah we have five movies with him already in it like what else why would I take your movie
interesting I enjoy watching aircraft I loved him in Star 80 I don't know did you see that
the Dorothy Stratten story [1983] no no okay yeah that's going a few years back but he I
think he would be enough of a draw for me to see it but yeah I understand I guess maybe if there's
so much content out there with one person yeah which genre have you had the most
success with success I don't know if I really have found much success with any of the movies
I would say honestly I feel like my first movie probably it definitely made the most
money so gangster drama would definitely be it and and I think a big part of that was
there was really no movie like that there were a couple of things out there
but I think my movie was one of the newer ones at that point to really portray the asian gang
lifestyle in a realistic way and and I had this lead actor who his name is Ty Vietg [Thai Ngo] and
he was like a rapper from the 90’s he was like the first rapper who went viral before
youtube or anything like people were passing his mp3 around on like discs on DVDs or whatever so
he had a fan base already and that's what kind of drew him in drew his fans into the movie and then
yeah I think I really hit like a niche audience with that because a lot of people there were
people buying them dvd from Australia or Ireland like of all like Holland all sorts of places
from all around the world and they were just like they're all Vietnamese or Asian young kids who are
like oh I have to get this movie because like this is my life or I've never seen anything like this
yeah or or the the wealthy kids that sort of wanna they feel at home in that family even though maybe
that's yeah not what they actually yeah there was a few kids where they're like that kid Charlie
that that's like me when I was in high school so there was a lot of people that related to it
and how did you meet the rapper I just found him online I had known about him I at least
listen to his music in high school and I just reached out to him through an email that I found
and where did he grow up he's originally from Portland Oregon oh wow okay interesting and so
then you you made him an offer and he yeah I told him about the movie idea I sent him the script
and then he came out to San Diego and we had lunch and I told him like what I want to do
and he was like all right yeah he was down to do it do you think he was a huge draw for the film
oh yeah definitely I think that was everybody who grew up during the 90s like knew about him
and so for for them to see him in the first movie role like I would have paid to watch that movie
and that's kind of how I approached the movie I was like what would I want to watch and yeah
that's kind of how I did it why not stick with one genre and just build your career with that
be known as the guy that does blank he just keeps making great films in that one genre
some people can do it and if they can do it they should do it that's what I've heard from people
that you just stick to your lane and be known as the guy who does the horror movies in whatever way
right but for me personally like it's hard for me to kind of put myself in a box like that because
like when I think of an idea and I get stuck on an idea like that idea
will lend itself into what genre is supposed to be right and also sometimes I
like if I've already written a horror movie like it's hard for me to write another horror movie
because I might be inspired to write another kind of movie but that's just me like I've tried to do
that where I'm like okay I'm gonna write horror movies only because that's what sells so I did
I wrote like two horror movies and after that somehow I started writing
a science fiction movie so yeah it's hard for me to stick to one genre so just like you said
earlier you like to kind of wander and be free it sounds like in your creativity it's the same
way yeah yeah it's a great way to put it okay so you don't want to be boxed in by yeah you could
do a movie about a filmmaker who's trapped in one genre and they can't get out and they
how much do you think it hurts a filmmaker to not stay in one genre to not stay in one genre I don't
so I know I've heard this from professionals and and whoever
but I don't know if that's really true and it's definitely not true for for everyone because I
know of a writer a friend of mine who she wrote a horror script and then she wrote a comedy
and she got staffed on the show because that show was a horror but with a little bit of a
comedic kind of thing in it so when she showed them both of those scripts she got staffed now
a lot of writing coaches or whoever will tell you oh just stick to your genre right like first write
one thing and then when you get big you can like branch off but for this girl that wasn't the case
and if she didn't have that comedy script ready to go then she wouldn't have gotten that job.