Film Courage: Spencer, you have a quote on your LinkedIn profile “One question I constantly ask
myself when crafting a film is this what is the deepest place I can write from?”
Spencer Whiteout, Filmmaker: That's the question you need to ask yourself when you're writing.
If you want something to really connect with people, you’ve got to dig deep
because you can't expect the audience to feel the same emotions when they watch
it on screen if you don't first go through those same emotions in the writing process.
Film Courage: Do you ever feel like maybe I should reign it in, it's too much or do you
always err on the side of actually no I want someone to feel exactly what I’m feeling?
Spencer: I don't mind if it just bleeds all over the page, put it all out there, I mean why not? I
think some of my heroes have done that and that's why that's why I’m pushed to do the same thing to
push myself to be more vulnerable because the most yeah the most impactful pieces of art that I’ve
ever seen or heard or consumed are the ones that are the most honest and the most vulnerable and so
there's an album called The Color Clear by Reflections and that whole album
the first time I heard it I was just mind blown with just how personal the whole thing was and
I was just shocked at how much I related to all of it and how many of the how much of the experiences
that that vocalist Jake Wolf went through that were similar to mine and when I heard that and
and there's been other ones too of course but like just that one for example it really opened it just
opened the world to me and it made it it made me feel comforted it made me feel less alone and so I
wanted to do the same for others is that a a metal band or a funk okay yeah they're great they're
based here in LA no they're in Minnesota oh wow and I actually got to fly out to Minnesota and
interview the vocalist on my podcast and it was it was a dream come true and it was we had a really
great time talking about just personal pain and putting putting the pain onto the page and that is
that is what connects with people and that's why people love his band and that's why people love
space waves when you're honest out there it just it can't help but resonate and connect with people
so you were a fan of the band first and then you reached out to them you said wow that's a
cool opportunity oh yeah it was amazing and he's a great guy I flew out to Minnesota for their like
reunion show because they were on hiatus for a while so I flew out there and then he was a super
cool guy he invited me into his home and we got to record a podcast got to talk to him for like two
and a half hours and so he's one of my heroes and so that was an amazing experience but your movie
space waves is is lighter in terms of what you see in the trailer but you wanted to make it where
at the core it was actually much heavier right I mean it's not yeah yeah I mean it is it is
a it's a kind of a balance between that comedy and drama like I said and so it's on the surface
it's just a comedy but if you are watching it with attentive eyes and you connect with the characters
then it is something much deeper and that second half of the film resonates much more
and so I think I think we pulled it off with like with a really good ending and there still is there
still is comedy and fun in the second half of the movie but it just looks a little bit different
and so that's just how life is when you grow up you're still you're still able to have fun but
it just looks different than when you were in high school riding around in shopping carts and
shooting people with paintballs and stuff so it's just it's just different
how was to recreate some of the painful scenes for you in the film it was very difficult
specifically the argument scene and then the dvd handoff scene in space waves those were
they're very they I don't know they were just hard to be in that moment on set because it
felt like I was back in that moment back in high school going through that same
friendship breakup or going through the moment where the dvd handoff at the end where they're
trying to like repair the friendship a little bit and so it yeah it was emotional and it was
emotional for I would say everyone involved and Andrew Gabriel and Rudy Pankow our two leads were
they're friends in real life and so at the time of filming space waves it was very
raw and emotional for them as well because here they are they they went to the same acting class
when when they first got to LA and so they're super close then they're doing this movie together
and they're doing a movie about them breaking up and going separate ways and not being as close of
friends anymore and so it was tough for them as well to kind of go through this and play pretend
that their friendship is ending so it was it was emotional for them it was it was emotional for me
but I think I think that's how it should be it's emotional on set and then it's going
to be emotional on screen when people see it later did you receive notes back from viewers
that their chemistry was great that seemed very true yeah definitely I think people
could see that there was chemistry there and that they're actually friends in real life
do you care more about the emotional impact of a scene or is making an entertaining movie the goal
why do we have to choose how about it's both
I would say it has I mean it has to be both it ha yeah it has to be both but yeah I mean just make
it I say I mean make it as emotional and moving as possible and make it as entertaining and fun
as possible as well I mean those two things aren't mutually exclusive so I try to do it
I try to push it to the limit in every aspect of filmmaking whether that be the acting or the edit
or the sound design every element of filmmaking is there to elevate the story and to make it the most
emotionally impacting as possible and make it the most entertaining fun wild ride as possible
and is darkness bad no we all have it so everyone can relate to it
what about those that don't want to acknowledge darkness they're living in a fantasy land
I think if you just walk around I mean there's something to trying to be positive right and
that's that's great but when I think you can be optimistic to a fault because sometimes
I think there's a lot of truth in the rubble and you can learn a lot about
yourself and about others and about human nature when you examine the uglier parts
of yourself and about humanity and everything and I think that's where the real I think that's
where the real growth happens was there a turning point in the writing process for the screenplay
where you couldn't turn back like were you maybe on the fence in the beginning or not no or never
okay Spencer's never on the fence no I get very obsessed with my ideas and it was just yeah it
was all I thought about for the whole summer and just one and from then on out it was like gotta
make this film so where were you writing it I was writing it just down here in socal where I live
so in college in between classes or you said it's summers yeah yeah it was a break yeah
I mean just summer break and then also just we I revised it over the whole year because we we
had a summer and I wrote the film and then we went the whole year doing pre-production and
so I was just kind of revising it that whole time and then we went and shot it summer 2018
reflecting on it now what were the most important parts of the screenwriting process for space waves
so some of the most important parts of the screenwriting process would be
the dialogue and so I wanted to really make sure that the dialogue reflected real life
and I wanted to incorporate a lot of the jokes that me and my friends or my friends and I
would say to each other and so I tried to put a lot of inside jokes into the film and a lot
of just a lot of things that like an audience watching they might not necessarily understand
what the joke is or whatever but they're laughing along with it because they see that like oh this
is just something that the characters have between each other and it builds history and it builds
out the world when the characters have their own inside jokes and things like that and another part
of the screenwriting process was I really tried to I yeah I really tried to expand the world I tried
to build the world out so whether that be creating these these fake podcasts that are that are going
by on the podcast charts or we have this kind of running gag in the film about where's ruth and
so we had like the the news ticker going across being like this missing person ruth blah blah and
then in the newspaper it's like where's ruth and like we just came up with all these funny little
easter eggs and things that like built the world out and so that was very important to me was just
making this world feel very lived in and feel very real and feel a bit larger than life.