Indie Film Craft 3 | How to Get Life Rights As an Indie Filmmaker (and Make the Biopic Indie Audiences Actually Want) ft. The Bragg Brothers

How do you turn a real-life moment into a movie — without studio backing or a big festival launch?

Jeff talks with The Bragg Brothers about making PINBALL: THE MAN WHO SAVED THE GAME, an indie biopic about GQ journalist Roger Sharpe, who helped overturn New York’s ban on pinball in 1976.

They share how they spotted the story’s potential, built trust with Roger and their financier MPI, and crafted a fun, visually bold film — complete with narration and performances from major talent like Mike Faist (CHALLENGERS).

If you’re developing a true story or curious how two filmmakers turned a niche moment into a breakout debut, this episode is for you.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jeff: In 1976, a GQ journalist named Roger Sharpe walked into a New York City Council hearing, pulled back the plunger on a pinball machine and made history. Believe it or not, pinball was actually illegal at the time, considered a form of gambling rather than a game of skill, but Sharpe, after covering the story and becoming a skilled player himself, was determined to make an impact. Under the eyes of the law and in front of the press, he proved that pinball took real skill, helping to overturn New York City's 35 year ban. And until two years ago, this story had actually never been told on film until our guests today made it happen. I'm thrilled to welcome filmmaking duo, the Bragg Brothers, onto Indie Film Craft, to talk about how they turned this wild true story into a budget friendly indie and turned that indie into a hit.

I met Austin and Meredith Bragg during the festival run for my own first feature. They were on the circuit with Pinball, but even before that, Meredith had reached out to me to say he was a fan of the podcast. So before I even saw the movie, I already suspected that they had good taste and thankfully I was right.

What I love most about Pinball is that it doesn't fall into the usual biopic traps we're all used to. It's fast, fun, emotionally grounded and visually alive with bold camera work, unreliable narration, fourth wall breaks, and a touch of Martin Scorsese energy. But most impressive of all, it was made completely outside of the studio system without a Big Five festival premiere, and yet they still managed to attach major talent, including Mike Feist, who I'm sure you know from West Side Story and Challengers.

Today we're gonna talk about how they pulled it off, how they wrote it, funded it, cast it, shot it, and eventually sold it, and how they did it all while keeping the film genuinely. Fun. Meredith and Austin, welcome to the show.

Austin: Thank you for having us.

Meredith: Thank you. That is the first and only time we will ever be put in the same sentence with Scorsese, so I appreciate that.

Jeff: Okay. I'll start with that. I'm surprised that hasn't been mentioned in press or like conversations with other filmmakers or was that a reference for you as you were putting the movie together?

Austin: No. No, really? No. I, although I, it's not the first time we've even mentioned in that sentence 'cause No, we, Meredith and I will look at each other and say you're no Scorsese.

Right. So we had done that before, but no, that was not in any way a touchstone for us.

Jeff: Well then I'll ask, it feels like right from the start you're making choices to differentiate it from a typical biopic. From the start, you have an actor portraying the actual Roger Sharp as his present day self looking back on himself, playing pinball in a bar.

Was that a conversation you two had and were there any references or comps for making those kinds of choices? If not Martin Scorsese.

Austin: There were certainly conversations that we had early on. We knew this was going to be, I mean, look for us, the, by far, the biggest thing we had ever done, right? But in the grand scheme of Hollywood, this is a small movie, right?

And we knew as an independent film, our, the thing we kept saying over and over again was, we gotta make it weird. Right? We gotta stand out somehow. Right from the get go. And part of it was just born out of the process that we had. We, this was a COVID project when we were writing it. Everyone was locked down in their basements and we spent weeks, days, months on Zoom with Roger talking through his life story.

And so a lot of it came straight from that. I mean, the biggest thing for me is. Roger, the actual Roger is a very humble guy. He's had these conversations before. He's very well known in the pinball community, but not so much outside it. When we came talking to him about it, he has this sort of, oh, come on guys.

I don't know. This is. It's not a big deal, it's just a footnote. Right. I'm just some guy in the corner and I threatened, at one point I said, Roger, I'm gonna open this movie with you saying this shouldn't be a movie. And we kinda latched onto that as, oh, this is a fun back and forth that we can have with the filmmakers and with Roger that was yes.

Meredith: I mean, and I would say like that when I think and I rarely give credit to Austin, but that's true. It was his idea, I think, initially to have Roger helping narrate and having the directors and having this pushback. It really mirrored what we were, I. The conversations we were having with Roger, but it gave, it was unique, it was different.

It was a twist that we could play with. And we just really enjoyed it. And we also, I mean, it's funny how much the movie ends up sort of mirroring our process, but the movie in a lot of a good chunk of the movie is about Roger writing a book, writing, you know, basically creating something his first. Book about pinball and the push and pull there.

And we had the same thing. We were creating our first film about pinball and this push and pull, and we just loved the way that we could incorporate sort of our experience into this as well. But I. Yeah, that was the one thing Austin got right on this movie.

Austin: You know what the weird touchstone was? It wasn't a Scorsese film, it was the Princess Bride. Oh yeah. That's what we kept coming back to because you're telling a story about the story, but you need. I was adamant, I think we both were.

Meredith: That we had to have that dynamic. You had to have your characters change over time.

Austin: And in this case, telling the story that meant our filmmakers and our protagonists, right. There needed to be an arc there as well. That's just little, you know, in that way. You know Roger's little Fred Savage in the bed.

Jeff: Yeah.

Meredith: I actually think that Austin, we are the Fred Savage in the bed.

Austin: Roger is the, that is, that's correct. Yeah, that's correct. We are the Fred Savage in the bed.

Meredith: Yeah.

Jeff: That is so smart. And I think like when I'm taking away, first of all, I love Austin that you said just make it weird. I think there's, it's so hard to make an independent film that stands out and I think like sometimes just looking at the page, looking at a scene and thinking like, how can we weird this up a little bit?

Make some kind of specific choice. Even if in you're in an early draft and it's maybe not the right choice, if it's a big choice, it's at least gonna take you somewhere and point you to something and help you stand out, especially in a genre that's so tired. I think like just. Maybe even asking the question of like, how can I make this weirder is like a really interesting thought experiment as you're approaching the page.

And I think two, it feels like you said, like a reflection of the character. You know, if you're spending all this time with Roger Sharp interviewing him, getting to know him, it instantly infuses his personality into the like fabric of the movie. And I guess the third thing I would say is it's. Highly personal by incorporating yourself, your experience.

Meredith knows we call that lava on the show. That would be like the way in, but it's weird and it's personal and it has a personality. So right away we're like outside of the trappings of what a biopic usually is.

Meredith: Yeah. Can I just say one of the things that drew us to the story was not the pinball, we're not pinball people.

So that actually it was a weird quirk, but that, you know, a weird quirk is a fun. Maybe five minute documentary Right. That you throw on YouTube. A short maybe. Exactly. And we certainly have done that. But it was when we cold called Roger and we talked to him and I think I ended up speaking to him for about two hours or something on a Sunday.

And he told me all the other story the story about Ellen and Seth and the book and sort of that relationship. Because at that point I had done enough research to know about. The pinball story or what I thought the pinball story was based on what other reporters have written on, or the pinball community knew about it.

But that was our way in 'cause to talk about making a commitment to something and committing, being sometimes the you know, the greatest choice of all like that to me. That was something we could latch onto. That's something we could tell. We had our own experiences, we had our own thoughts about this that we can fuse in the movie. So that's when we got excited about it, about the story. 

Austin: The only other thing I'll say is that we often, it was sort of a mantra on set that we're making a pinball movie. If we're not having fun, we're doing it wrong. Right? This movie should feel like you're playing a pinball game, right? It should be fast.

It should be fun. It should be, you know, flashes of color when you're doing the things right. We, you know, we didn't wanna get too bogged down in, in all of the, I don't know. There, there's a lot of sadness, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that went wrong in seventies New York. Right. Not just with Roger, but with Ellen.

Jeff: It's a cesspool.

Austin: Yeah. Yeah. And so. There was a fine line between, you know, we are, we're doing this, but we're still having fun. That's really smart. Yeah. It's tone, right? It's like you committed. If you wanted to replicate like an optimistic, dorky, weirdo place in the middle of New York and make it feel like a pinball game, that's a very specific tone.

And I want to jump into that once we kind of start talking about how the movie actually got put together. But I think I actually want to point to something you were saying, Meredith, which is a lot of times emerging filmmakers will like, hear a weird story or here's someone's life rights of something that happened in real life and be like, oh my gosh, this is a movie.

But what they don't realize that it's actually maybe a situation. It might be like a good act one, but like it's not Act two and Act two is always the hardest part. I. I mean, it's all hard. Like writing is so hard, but I think like I want to. For our emerging writers who might have an interesting, everyone has a story they really wanna tell or like a true, like my aunt was a cop in the middle of Boston and this crazy thing happened.

But can we jump back into what made you know, this is a movie and not necessarily just a situation and once you knew it was a movie, can you talk about how as independent filmmakers like you secured the rights and figured out how to like actually turn it into a feature?

Meredith: Yeah, I mean, I think it was. It was talking to Roger and when I got on the phone with him that first time, I told him what I knew about the story and asked him to correct anything that I had gotten wrong, or misconceptions that may have been out there, but most of it was what? Most of the conversation was about his life surrounding those events that had nothing to do with pinball.

That's what I wanted to know about. I wanted to know relationships, you know, ups and downs. Did he think he changed over this time period? And Roger is incredibly open. Shockingly open. I mean, he shared so much stuff with us that we it felt. More like making a documentary where we were whittling away than a narrative where we had to build it.

It was, well, which of these amazing storylines are we not going to keep? Because they're not going to be able to tell the story we want. And you know, focusing on the idea of choices and having to make choices and commitment and risk and control, those, it just spoke to us. It seemed like a, it was a very, he, Roger had a very specific story, very specific thing happened to him.

I mean, he was at a specific magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly You know, he was, he had a specific relationship with an older single mom. He had this amazing event in front of City Hall where he played pinball to help legalize it for the for the first time in 30 years. I. We needed something universal.

And so risk control choices, that's universal. That's what we could focus on. So your second part of your question, I'm trying to remember it. Oh, securing the rights.

Jeff: Yeah. And then what do you do once you know, as an emerging filmmaker that you have this juicy story? What next?

Austin: Well, I think we gotta back up a touch. Yeah. So we had done a short film with MPI Original Films that had done very well in the festival circuit during COVID, right? So it was all locked down. But they had asked us if we had anything feature related. No, we should What? Say

Meredith: I was just gonna say, just interrupt really quickly to say that the short is called A Piece of Cake, and it was supposed to premiere at Tribeca. And Tribeca was one of the first film festivals that shut itself down during the beginning of COVID. So that's where we were when we heard this.

Jeff: That's heartbreaking.

Meredith: Oh, you have no idea. Maybe you do. Maybe you do. But yes, we agree. It was tough to swallow. We did a great festival run and we got to go to a lot of virtual festivals that we otherwise wouldn't have go. We did. Yeah.

Jeff: It's kind of a scary feeling though, where like it feels like it's your first, it's your big entree, it's your short, it's co-pro with a cool production company and like this is gonna be calling card for you, Tribeca, I consider one of the big five. I mentioned it in the intro, but to me, like the five festivals that can actually, not that other festivals aren't great and move the needle, but like in terms of like markets and festivals, the trades really cover to me. It's TIFF, Telluride, Sundance, Tribeca, and South By, yeah.

That's the other one. And so you got the big kahuna you're like, okay Tribeca, like it's in New York. Who knows what celebrities are gonna show up, who knows what might see it, and then like it goes away. How did you manage that?

Austin: What could we, what's there to manage? That's completely out of our hands.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I think like bitterness though is probably close by when that happens.

Meredith: Well, bitterness is baked into our lives, so Austin and I are, relationship is fueled on competition and bitterness, so, yeah. No, I mean, it's so much else. So much was happening. In the beginning of COVID.

Yeah. That was so much worse than not being able to attend a festival in New York. That's true. Yeah. We were fine.

Austin: Yeah. Yeah. And also, I should say, to their credit I believe it was 2021, the, that next summer they actually did a screening of a bunch of shorts from the previous year. You know, sort of an open air screening on a rooftop.

Cool. That was, you know, they didn't need to do that. That was a very. Kind gesture. It's just sort of a nod to, sorry, your festival got shut down. Yeah,

Jeff: that's great. Okay, so actually if I could even rewind a little more, 'cause I think it's really helpful for our emerging filmmakers. You co-produced and made the short with MPI Original Films?

Austin: No, not even. No. The we we had hooked up with MPI a long time ago and then we did the shorts that they. Produced entirely. I mean, we wrote and directed, and that was, and we edited, but that was the extent of our involvement in the short. But it had done well enough that they said, well, what else have you got?

So we submitted them. But they said, what else have you got? Do you have anything for a feature, by the way? It's a, you know, we're a small production company, so No, no biopics, no period pieces. Perfect. Right. Check. Yeah. So we sent them a list of ideas, but we also tagged on this pinball thing on the end of it, because Meredith had already introed with Roger and he was sold before I was, he had to kind of sell me yeah.

Then we had sent that away to MPI and you know, they sparked to that just as much as we did. So in terms of getting the life rights, yeah. That was a weird thing because here we are talking to Roger and saying, Hey, we wanna make a story about your life. It's gonna be a comedy sign here. Right? So he was a little hesitant, obviously.

MPI was going to be a little hesitant. They're not gonna pay us to write a script if they don't have the life rights. Right. So we basically sat both of them down and said, look, we're gonna do this for. Essentially nothing. Yeah. We will write this script. We will, because I'm confident we're gonna come up with something that Roger will like, that MPI will like.

Once you've got that in hand, then we can sign all the forms and dot all the i's well, I mean, Roger signed before our draft was in. Great.

Meredith: But by that time he, it was very clear what we were doing and how we were doing it and how faithful we were being to his story.

Jeff: Yeah, we had Alex Convery on the show who wrote Air, and he talked about no matter what phase you are in your career, like Air was a spec, even though he had already been on The Black List, he had was, you know, on assignment with other projects.

But if you write something good enough and sell it with enough passion and excitement, sometimes that's your golden ticket. More than a great pitch or a great meeting. Sometimes you just have to write it.

Meredith: So I read The Black List scripts and I loved that script. I actually, when I read it, I think I mentioned it to you, Austin.

You did indeed. I said we should, and then I real, then I saw that Ben Affleck had picked it up. 'cause I literally thought oh, this would be a great script. Can we go this?

Jeff: It's kind of you, having seen Pinball, like it does feel like you guys would've made a good version of that. They made a good version too, so they did too.

Yeah, I do. It's funny, Ben Affleck, however you feel about him, I actually almost feel like he's underrated as a filmmaker. Like even though people love him, I think as a director, he, it might be his best sphere.

Meredith: Yeah.

Jeff: Like he has not made a bad movie.

Meredith: I am always amazed when someone can make a great movie and a good movie and even a movie.

I mean, they're just, it's so difficult. So yeah, I mean, I'm a, I think. That Ben Affleck guy may be going places.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. We'll mention it here to help boost his career. Good idea. I'm just gonna quickly rewind a little bit before we jump into production of pinball, because I think I'm trying to sort out how and when you fostered this relationship with MPI, because I feel like that's a useful takeaway for our audience is like, how do you sort of build a relationship and a connection with an actual production company who has actual power to help get something made? What did that look like for both of you?

Meredith: When we first were approached by MPI, it was to make some sketches for them. We were, we have a, we're comedy nerds. We come from a sketch comedy background. That's sort of where we started. And at that point, I don't believe they were making their own films.

They were simply sort of seeding, finishing money for for some films. And. At a certain point, they decided they wanted to get into making their own. And so they were sort of building things up. But I mean, we had known, there's a producer- a number of people there Rob and Lana and Nick, and we've known them for a decade.

I mean, it was a long time sort of fostering that relationship and building trust that when we say we're gonna do something, we'll do it and we'll exceed expectations. So for the sketches, you know, very small budgets. I mean, Austin and I come from, I. The PBC pipe, skateboard wheel, duct tape, three people on set, including the two people on camera, sort of rule of filmmaking.

Yeah. And that's how we did things for a long time. Probably too long. It was definitely too long. Yeah. There was a point that we realized we had plateaued and we needed to learn what Hollywood learned a hundred years ago and hire specialists. Yeah. But that we, but we were able to, for very little money, give them things that did well for them.

And so the same thing happened for the short, and I think we just built this level of trust with them over a long period of time by hitting our marks, not going over budget.

Jeff: I am fascinated and I feel like this can kind of transition us into talking about production. I do think if you are like a scrappy skeleton crew, micro-budget filmmaker, that can almost become an addiction.

Like I, I hear what you're talking about, where it can, there's a weird way in which you can hit your own wall because you do know how to do everything and you kind of like doing everything and that's a fun part of the filmmaking process. But like it can become your own hurdle if you're sort of refuse to take that next step.

I don't know if what I'm saying is resonating, but I'd be curious to hear you talk about it and how you kind of got yourself out of that mode to make the, like a big feature like this.

Austin: Well, we had made, I mean at this point it's two shorts, right? Two shorts in, one feature with a proper crew. And that first short was how many people?

What, 12 people on crew maybe. Yeah. But prior to that, we were. We were a crew of three, right? And so every time more people were added to set, that was more of a headache that we knew we were gonna have to deal with, right? Because we were the ones doing everything. So that first, you know, micro budget short, suddenly there's 12 people we're thinking, okay, this is gonna be a lot of problems to deal with.

And it wasn't. A lot of problems were dealt with before we even heard about them. There were plenty of problems that I'm sure we never heard about, and that was our first eye-opening moment of going oh, right, this is better this way. And, you know, having dedicated specialists means that our stuff looks better.

Our stuff sounds better. Like all of this, you know, being able to focus our attention made such an enormous difference that we were sold immediately and now we're ruined and we don't ever want to go back.

Meredith: That's what's the tagline for this, that you always say you don't dream.

Jeff: Your dreams don't require anyone else's permission. It's usually how I end it.

Meredith: Right? So that's, that is definitely true when it's just three people on set and you can go out with a camera and start shooting. It is not true at a larger budget level, you need a lot of people. I mean, if you want them to, if you. If you want those dreams to become something people can watch, you need people to give you permission.

And that's just the reality of it. Someone has to write checks, actors have to say yes. Department heads have to say yes. So there's just a lot that has to happen there. And so that is a bit scary and it means doing fewer projects.

Yeah, we were one of the, we cut our teeth, I think doing channel 1 0 1, which I'm not sure if you've heard of, but maybe Austin, you can talk about it since you're a little bit closer to it than I am.

Austin: Sure. Channel 101 was started by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab in LA. It was a monthly gathering where people would submit five minute television shows and 10 of them would screen in front of a live audience. And then the audience would vote and the top five shows would then have to come back a month later with a new episode of that show.

So. It's people creating weird and wonderful five minute television shows on a regular basis. And it was sort of bootcamp. We were actually doing Channel 1 0 1 New York, which was at that time coming out of the UCB Theater in New York. And, we're in, we were in Virginia, right? So we were just doing this, we were submitting and driving up once a month to New York to sit in the audience and watch.

And we did I think three or four different series for them. But I mean, the first big one was The Defenders of Stan that got picked up by Warner Brothers. They had us write the pilot. It didn't go anywhere, but it was that process of doing and learning on the job, you know, and shooting these things at two o'clock in the morning editing them at the same time.

That was sort of our bootcamp, that was our film school and then going up and watching. I'm a big believer in getting an audience of strangers to watch your stuff, especially comedy, because your friends and your family will all be very kind and polite to you, but an audience of strangers is either gonna laugh or not.

And so that was huge for us. And that was our sort of first inkling of, oh maybe we can do this for real.

Meredith: And it was that process of, I mean, every month we were making something and so we went from making, you know, 12 to plus videos, short shorts, TV shows, whatever a year to, you know, maybe we get to write something this year, maybe we're going to you know, I mean.

We, you know, a movie, a short every two years would be great. Right. That's amazing. Yeah. So it's just, it's a very different process just to when you level up to this sort of production, this sort of scale, it is difficult because you're not getting as many reps in, and it is, you get itchy. You do want to just make something, but you also.

You're addicted to a sense of quality now. Yeah. So there's addiction on both ends.

Jeff: It's hard and yeah, I think. You're right that it's like, the weird thing about directing is it's not uncommon that you're the least experienced person on set in terms of days on set. You know, like you're working with a bunch of brilliant crew guys who are doing this every month and you maybe haven't been on set in two years and you're worried that you're gonna get a little cold or a little stale and it's always in there and especially if you're writing it creatively and it's all so close to your heart and your head that it's just gonna work. But it is weird if you're producing your I think you articulated that very well, Meredith, where like your dreams don't necessarily require anyone else's permission, but executing them does at a certain point, if you like level up or at a certain level.

Austin: Yeah, exactly.

Jeff: Yeah, exactly. It can feel a little paralyzing to make something good, you know? And like I, I sort of do miss, like I, my first feature, critics like it and audiences are liking it, but that can be a little hard because it creates a new fear where it's like the next time you go to set, you want to try to answer or level up the thing you already made.

Whereas when you're in your twenties, like filming dumb things on your iPhone, there's less paralysis. I don't know if you guys relate to that at all, but that's. A new challenge that I think is introduced to you if you make something that people like that's big.

Meredith: Yeah. The stakes are higher too. Yeah. So the mistakes for failure when it's just three people doing something for fun are negligible.

The stakes when someone is writing a check with a lot of zeros and telling you to make good on your promises, that's harder. Yeah, I think the. One of the fears in leveling up and doing something on a larger budget was if our early work would translate to a set. The first, we have never been on a film set, a true film set that is, hasn't been ours. Is that right? Austin?

Austin: I mean, yeah.

Meredith: So it's, so we didn't know. But we're very, we didn't know if it was going to work. If the, you know, the years we had spent making these shorts for nothing was going to translate.

Thankfully it did, and it turned out that storytelling is storytelling and there were so many other people who helped us. And that's really, that was our big takeaway was I was so thankful to have all these people on set who knew their jobs. So well, so much better than we could ever execute. Just helping.

Austin: But it's good. It's good though. It's good. I think to have that experience of doing everything . When it was just the three of us, I, because I now have a wide knowledge base Yeah. Of all aspects of production. It's not deep, it's not very deep. But I can at the very least, have meaningful conversations with all of these people and, you know, I understand the theory behind all of it much better than if I had never done any of that. 

Jeff: I think that's the secret is know a little bit about everything. So you can have speak the same language as all of your department heads and know, having at least gotten your hands dirty in earlier versions of what you're making in all of those departments will make you literate enough that they can do it better than you would.

But that's kind of the director's job is like speak every language a little bit and then the people who are fluent in those languages can actually execute on your behalf. Yes. Especially on a big production, and I do wanna talk about that because. Pinball feels big. I mean, you guys did a really, I don't know the budget, we don't need to get into that, but I suspect it costs less than how it looks and feels.

What were some of the choices that you were making to create a sense of largeness? And I guess at the same time it still is intimate. I'd love to hear you sort of talk about getting to set on a, I hate sometimes this sounds condescending, but a real movie and, you know, making it feel big 'cause it does

Meredith: Well, I think there are a couple things here. It was a Tier Zero movie, which basically allowed us to hire union crew and I. The union crew that we got was just really good. So if you can get, you know, Jon Keng to be your dp, that's gonna help. That's gonna go a long way. Right? I mean, it just having someone who has the eye to be able to help things look cinematic we knew we didn't want to make it simply interiors.

We needed some exteriors and we tried to pepper them throughout the film. We also knew that the last shot of the last scene in the hearing room needed to feel big because it was the, it's the culmination of that plot line and, so I know a good amount of the budget went to that scene.

And I remember being there 'cause it was the first week or the end of the first week and we're in this beautiful old bank, I believe. Yep. And there were 80 plus people on set, dressed up in 70s clothes. It was one of the few days we had a crane. I just, I mean, I was just giddy. I had never experienced anything like that.

And it was great. So having it pep, having those peppered in occasionally throughout the film where there's something outside, where there's something interesting that happens visually I think can help. It's something we, for a while there, Austin and I would make, 48 hour films in DC and we learned early on that if you can create what, we're gonna curse here for a second.

So if we could create what we called an oh shit shot early, all that is, and it could be, it's just a shot for the audience to say, oh shit, they know what they're doing. That's it. You just need one in the beginning. And then you can get away with just basic coverage, like for a lot of the rest. And we tried to incorporate a few of those into this.

Now, I'll tell you, sometimes just having an actor, a good actor, recognizable actor, can also do that for people. I think that's part of the secret is when you have a really good actor, people get comfortable that it's going to be, this is worth their time

Jeff: An oh shit actor, if you will. Right? Like it's the same.

Meredith: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's, so we have a couple of those.

Jeff: I forget who said it, but there was someone who said A movie is five really great scenes and the rest of the scenes are good enough to get you to those five major scenes. And I think that's so smart of if you are putting together a quote, real movie, a big production.

Thinking about your budget as how can we unlock cinematic moments to create trust with the audience. Maybe if they're watching with a defensive arm folded, crouch, let them lower their arms a little bit and enjoy the movie. And I think opening your movie with. You guys do that, right? It's a really cool one-er.

It's a little bit of a, I mean this with a compliment, but it's a very competent shot. It shows you know, what you're doing and then, you know, people give the advice of they don't want to just see a movie of people talking in rooms. The better advice might be. The whole movie can't just be people talking in rooms.

You can have people talking in rooms. In fact, some of the best scenes are the sneaky ones where it is just two people talking in rooms about something emotionally. But it has to be sandwiched by interesting set pieces and behavior and action that maybe costs a little bit more than that scene of them talking in a room.

Meredith: Yeah, we right, over the. I remember in particular, there was one moment that took a little while to set up. It was during the credit sequence when we're panning behind the the pinball machine. The first time Rogers playing, and we're watching him get successively get, we're watching him get better.

While he's in college, it's very short scene, but we had this idea panning behind and ch having everyone change their outfits to sort of show his growth very quickly. And that's a lot of setup time. Everyone's gotta go change their clothes and come back. I mean, it's a lot more of a headache. It's easy to write, it's a lot more of a headache to produce.

And we didn't have to fight for it, but we definitely had to make space for that. That shot in the in the schedule, and we had to sacrifice some other things in order to make sure that we got that shot. But it was important to us because it was early in the film and we wanted to show that we were going to play around visually and keep the pace fast. We sort of wanted to help the audience understand what movie we wanted to tell very quickly in those first few pages.

Jeff: That's great. And that takes confidence on set too, because you know, in your head it's gonna cut together and lead to a really effective set piece or montage, but.

It's costly on the day and like sometimes that those are the moments on set when like actors or even department heads might get a little. Furrow their eyebrows a little bit. Is it worth us, maybe even producers, I don't know. This is just advice for your filmmaker, for our audience, is if you have a really specific, tonally evocative idea that's gonna really help the movie, sometimes you just have to stand on that hill, even if it means people are needing to go back to their trailer to change and come back and it takes all day, you know?

Austin: Yeah, you're also gonna run into problems on the other end where you probably shouldn't be standing on that hill. Because those people who are doing this every week, every month, every year, know that it's going to cost you way more than you are aware of. Like even that shot, like I, we had a much more elaborate opening planned because Meredith said, it's very easy to write it.

We trimmed it down and we cut it down so that it could be more manageable than we could get out you know, before running into overtime.

Jeff: Do you have any advice for that negotiation? Because that's a really sharp observation of sometimes directing is I know this is weird, but like we need to commit to this.

This is the essence of the movie. And sometimes it's oh my gosh, our line producer's, right? We need to move on. Is there, there's no right or wrong answer, but any insight for our listeners who might be, who will encounter that when they go to their set?

Austin: It unfortunately just comes down to trust, right?

And a lot of times it's gonna be, I have to trust this person I met three weeks ago. So no I don't have any great advice for that. You have to sort of feel your way around and there will be moments when you know, you desperately are fighting for something. Even just when we're writing Meredith, because Meredith and I write together, there'll be moments where.

I will yield just because of how passionate Meredith is about it, right? That it's that old Young Frankenstein bit, right? I don't know. The old story is you know, the "Puttin on the Ritz" bit Gene Wilder was adamant that it be in fought and fought and fought, and the answer was, okay, well fine.

We'll do it because you're fighting so hard for it, you must see something that I don't. Right. And I don't know that there's any easy way to unlock that knowledge.

Meredith: Yeah, I don't either. I think a lot of it is gut. It's a weird thing. It's gut and taste. I feel like, so once you're on set, the director's job is to juggle all that stuff and try not to let the story break apart because you're co I mean, compromise is part of this, right?

And you know, it's, things don't always go as planned. But the other part of this, and I don't think people talk about it enough, is things don't always go as planned. Sometimes they go a lot better. Something happens or an actor comes in with an idea and you just think, oh crap, that's brilliant. Or a line read that.

I mean, we wrote it and someone would say something and I would think, oh yeah that's not what I was thinking. But it's better. I still remember Connor when when he, when Roger asks the adult bookstore. He says, you know, what's your name? And Connor just went, why? With this really skeptical, like deep knowledge of how weird people who go to adult bookstores might be like, it was great and I don't think I ever heard it the way he said it, and it was just perfect and that happens all the time.

Jeff: Yeah, it's directing is so weird because on one hand it's about maintaining control, but at the exact same time, you have to let go completely of control. Like it's a, it is so hard to explain, but it's like you have to hold both things at the same time because if you completely forego control, you'll lose the movie.

But if you maintain control, you'll also lose the movie. It's like a constant, you're just doing both at all times, all the time. I guess connected to that. Sometimes writer or writer, director pairings will talk about I am the story guy and I am like the actor guy. Or do you feel like the two of you have like sort of more of a niche or role in your partnership, or is it sort of like we both do? I'd love to hear you talk about your partnership, I guess.

Austin: I mean, I would say in terms of directing, sort of just barely like I would, I will give Meredith an edge when it comes to visuals. I think we're usually pretty on point and

Meredith: I give Austin the edge when it comes to actors, but we're talking about 60, 40.

Austin: Yeah. Maybe. I mean, honestly, most of the arguing has already happened. Yeah. By the time we get to set like it needs to before. Yeah. We're pretty much on the same page and there's. There's enough trust there that there's no issue. We had a couple of days where we were about, you know, on separate units, which was not a big deal at all.

And, you know, sometimes we were close enough that we could duck out while they're turning around a room and say, oh, what are you looking at? You know, sort of, but I wouldn't say that there's one thing in particular that that I have that Meredith doesn't, or vice versa.

Meredith: I tell you the, one of the weird this may be interesting and again, cut it out if it's not Austin and I do have a – 

Austin: Cut it.

Meredith: Somewhat – Austin and I have an interesting and perhaps insane way of working before we get onto set, which is that we each write separately. So whether it comes, whether that's the treatment, whether it's a script, even actually in post and edit, sometimes we will both edit the same scene and see what we come up with.

We will write treatments, we'll share those treatments and we'll fight about it until we get to a treatment we're pretty comfortable with and we both agree on. Then we will write really detailed scriptment couple, you know, 20 pages or so, and we'll do the same thing. We'll keep trading them back and forth.

We'll get on the phone, we'll talk it through stress test it. And then when we have a pretty good idea of the beats, we will separate and we will circle a date on a calendar and we will write the script independently. So over those weeks, we will send each other texts saying page 47.

Page 49, just to burn a little, get a little fire under us. And inevitably what happens is that, I'm going page 12, page 14, page 16. I hear nothing from Austin. And Austin's I'm on page two. And then two weeks later it's I'm on page 67. Like, how the hell did you get to 67? I just go incrementally.

Austin writes in bursts. But then we get together physically with printed scripts and I have a Highliner. Mine's green. Austin's yellow, we switch. So now I have Austin script and I read it. He's in the room with me and we are highlighting anything we like, whether it could be a line of dialogue, a scene description, it could be in a circling an entire scene, and then when we're done.

We switch back again. Now I have my script with his highlights and I go back with my highlighter and I highlight all the brilliant things that Austin failed to see in my script. And he does the same with his, and then we talk about it. But what's great is that we now have these two ideas. And because we're so close to each other we've gone scene by scene.

We sort of know what's supposed to happen in each scene. It may deviate a little bit, but not too much. We can sort of take that, it becomes sort of a mini writer's room where we're picking and choosing what we like the best thing, we're discussing it. And then we may do that again and again usually until we have a deadline.

And that's really helped sharpen our focus. But by the time we get to set. We know exactly what we want, so one of us can answer a question from someone. It's not as if only Austin's going to be talking to the DP because only he understands what the visual should be. No, we've talked this thing to death.

We have fought over it so much that on set, it's actually pretty easy and I think efficient because there are two people who can answer people's questions. And as you know, you get a million questions.

Jeff: That's such a cool process. It, I think stress testing is such a astute way to describe it. 'cause it's like when you write and direct solo, just inevitably you have blind spots and those blind spots are revealed when you get to set and you figure it out.

But you're getting asked those questions that I'm sure your partner already asked you as you're like ramping up in pre-production. So you're making very clear the benefits of a partnership versus just working alone. Very cool. In terms of post, like you had primarily edited your own stuff up until this feature, is that right? What was it like working with an editor?

Austin: Which by the way I should say is also another very good thing for directors to have and writers, is that some basic knowledge of editing, because especially when you're on set and you're looking at things, you gotta think, oh, well we can't do X, Y, or Z, which we had planned.

So how am I gonna cut this together? Yeah. That's a big deal. How is it working with an editor? Well. We set out, 'cause we know we're gonna play with it. We can't help ourselves. We know we're gonna get dirty. So we knew we were gonna be in it and sending things back and forth. But I mean, honestly it's great having another brain that's used to doing things in different ways and showing us other options because, you know, even though Meredith and I are going to be doing different things there.

They're similar, right? We have similar enough tastes that it's not surprising. A lot of our edits look the same. So having a third person come in and showing us other options or other opportunities, it's huge.

Jeff: It's the expert thing too, where I cut my first feature, but I was lucky enough to bring on a real editor. During post, she was a listener of the show and she just pro bono is a big studio editor. She's edited tons of movies, you know, and she just did it 'cause she's a great person and there are specific, seasoned editing choices that, like I, if you're. I'd say most writer directors who edit probably learned it by doing it and getting on set and getting their hands dirty.

Like you said. That's kind of, to me, that's actually one of the most fun parts of the process. But when you bring on someone who's cut 70 features, like they just have a language and some specificity that it's so insightful and I'm sure makes you excited to cut your next one because you learned a lot during post as well.

In terms of like next steps, we talked about it a little bit, but. How are you all feeling right now about the industry?

Meredith: Well, we're outsiders. Yeah. I mean, we're so outside of the bubble. I still can't believe they let two brothers from Virginia make a feature. That's, I mean, obviously we want more opportunity and we're fighting for it and trying, but nothing is guaranteed.

I mean, I'm going back to the Mark Duplass "the cavalry is not coming" speech. Right. That is very true. We have to figure it out ourselves,

Austin: Which is, it's weird 'cause I always heard that Hollywood was the easiest thing to break into. Right, right. And yeah, notoriously, they're just supposed to drop these opportunities in your lap. So it's, it does. Yeah. It's a weird time.

Meredith: The good thing is that because we're writer directors, we there's an option, you know, we can write ourselves something, we just gotta write something great. Yeah. That people connect to, we, frankly, that one person that can green light it will connect to, and then we're off to the races again. And so that's sort of what we're chasing right now.

Jeff: Yeah.

Meredith: But it's, you know, it's, I can't say that it feels very different to us than any other time in the industry because we still feel very much on the periphery.

Austin: And not being producers, I don't have a real handle on how things are going. I mean, we have another script that's out right now that's you know, they're trying to find funding for. I don't, apparently that's a thing that's hard. And maybe now it's harder than usual. But I mean, again, this is not, that's not the world that we live in.

Jeff: It's always hard. That's the truth. Like it maybe it feels exceptionally hard right now, but that's not to imply 10 years ago it was easy to get your feature made. I actually love the optimism of that point of you're always pushing a boulder up a hill just because the hill is three degrees steeper now than it was 10 years ago. Does it mean you're still not pushing a boulder up the hill? I think that's really smart. Okay, we're gonna very quickly, there's a segment I am calling it scene study.

And we've talked a bit about the opening scene. It's this cool one-er where you have a back and forth between an actor playing Roger Sharp and the directors of the movie and the intentions behind what the movie's gonna be. Can we talk about, like on the page, I find it to be very hooky. What were some choices you made on the page to sort of communicate what this scene should be and what it feels like?

Because that's part of your job too as a writer director, is to align your departments with what it is gonna be. So I guess if you wanna talk a little bit about writing those first four pages and what you were hoping to accomplish before you got to set, that would be helpful for our audience.

Meredith: Well, I think the first few minutes of a movie is where you get to tell the audience how to watch the movie. So we needed to put a lot in there. We needed to explain that this is going to be a push and pull between the director and the, and Roger, we needed to explain that there is, Roger will be showing up in scenes that no one will recognize that he is there.

But that he can influence what we see in those scenes. I mean, the Apple box bit where he stands on the apple box to get a height because of the height differential between the actors. I mean, did we write that before we knew Dennis was going to be on?

Austin: No.

Meredith: Okay. That was because, but it wasn't one –

Austin: And it was partly because one of Roger's hesitations was, you know, well, I'm six feet tall and he's not six feet tall right? Now, Dennis was actually Roger's idea, but memory serves, it was definitely on Roger's list. But he. He mentioned fairly often that he was six feet tall, so we're like, oh, well we have to use this.

Meredith: But it was a good way to just explain to the audience that he can affect what we see in when we're in movie land.

In a very quick, short way. And that also, this is a story it's a biopic, but it's a, it's the story's being told by the protagonist looking backwards. So it's kind of an idealized version of idealized version, is that right? It's kind of romanticized maybe. Oh, thank you. It's kind of a romantic, I'm a writer.

It's kind of the romanticized version of his story, which it should be. He's telling it, he's telling the story, he's affecting things. And we also wanted to make it clear that. We wanted to get Pinball out early. So we wanted to make sure we saw pinball game early and made good on that promise of the title.

And we wanted to give a set a tone that this is going to be fast, fun, and weird, not take itself too seriously. Yeah.

Jeff: Weird. Yeah. Yeah. You're the opening of a movie is kind of teaching your audience. What the movie is and like kind of explaining the rules of your movie. I think I'm, I think this is John August who I'm stealing from, who he's like kind of smart, whatever.

But I think he says that a lot of people assume that like an audience will be out on a movie based on the genre or tone right away. But he actually says you get 10 open-minded minutes with an audience where you can kind of do anything you want as long as you maintain the rules. It's like you're giving the audience a contract and saying here's the contract you can either sign or not, but then your job is to deliver on that contract as the filmmaker.

And I love the idea that you're like setting the rules of the world essentially in these opening pages. I think that's really cool.

Meredith: I really like biopics. Like I'm a sucker for narrative fiction. I just love that. Or historical fiction. So we got to play in that genre too, but we're circumventing expectations in a way that's really fun, but also meets those expectations.

Right. I don't know. It's really, it's, that's what we're trying to get a. There's a lot packed in those first pages to try to set people's

Jeff: Yeah it's a great point. 'cause the hard thing about biopics is even the good ones, they're inevitably trapped a little bit by the cliches and conventions of what a biopic is.

So there's something pretty smart that you guys do where you're like immediately kind of both acknowledging, playing with those expectations and it's a weird thing too, 'cause we kind of want them, you know, when you watch a movie, you do sort of want those cliche moments or you feel like you're cheated out of the genre, but.

You, it's just smart how you guys are doing it with something playful and a little subversive, and it's all right there in the opening. So, for our listeners if it's okay with you guys it's attached in the description of the podcast below, check it out. Last thing we do and on this show is just a recent recommendation.

Something you guys are really liking that you've been watching or that feels inspiring to you.

Austin: I mean, I've only just started but I'm a few episodes into Say Nothing. And I'm having a really good time with that so far. Some great, that's great moments. Great. Some really great performances in that.

Meredith: Yeah. This may be cheating Jeff, but the one movie that I watch, and again, it just took me too long to get it, get to it. That I watched over the past year that I can't stop telling people about and recommending is Peanut Butter Falcon, which I just find, it's just tonally. I think I actually reached out to you when came on, right?

I think that's what I sort of rekindled. 'cause I was so excited to hear them. And I like Los Frikis as well, but I really liked Peanut Butter Falcon and it's just tonally incredibly sharp and the performances are crazy.

Austin: The guy is so good in that.

Meredith: So good. Upsettingly good. It's just a really great fun film that also just, I feel like it nails the landing so well. I loved it.

Jeff: It's a pretty brave movie because those guys, and I will shamelessly plug, it's the first episode of this series that I did was with Tyler Nilsen and Michael Schwartz. But I feel like. Making your first features hard enough and they introduced a lot of vulnerable challenges just in the way the story is told.

You know so much about that movie. I just think there's like a lot of bravery in it that makes it such an enjoyable watch. And it's something like, I agree. I'm like aspiring to. Thank you both so much. And Hulu Pinballs on Hulu right now. Is that right?

Meredith: It's on Hulu. You can obviously purchase it anywhere. Vertical picked it up after the festival run and so it's on Hulu right now if you're a subscriber. Otherwise, I think it's a few bucks. I know. Yeah. The other major platforms,

Jeff: It's that classic like 3.99 or 4.99 if you want the HD version. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, congratulations I told you at the top, but I was so impressed when I saw it and, it's a really special feature. I think if any of you are wary about the idea of a biopic, this is also a historical drama. It's a rich period movie. It's a really cool look at what New York feels like in the seventies and Mike Faist, it's kind of cool that you all nabbed him and what feels like maybe an earlier chapter of his career because

Austin: Our timing there was superb. For sure. Yeah, 'cause we got the script to him as he was flying over to a private screening of West Side Story.

Jeff: Nice.

Austin: And he had been sort of outta things for a while and I think if we had handed him that script a month earlier or a month later, he wouldn't have gone for it.

Jeff: Well, he's excellent in the movie and –

Austin: That's a great guy to have on set.

Meredith: Anybody who's listening, who has a high opinion of Mike Faist, raise it like it's even better. Oh, that's great. You could, you're allowed to meet your heroes if it's Mike Faist.

Jeff: Oh, I'm so glad to hear it.

Meredith: We had such good people on set. I mean, we really did the entire crew. We definitely went for a no assholes policy and we hit a home run there. Everyone looks great. Really fun.

Jeff: Well, it does start from the top. I sometimes meet directors who will be like, God set was impossible. And then you like get to know that director a little bit and you're like, maybe it's set. I wonder why that happened. Anyway, I really appreciate both of you and thank you so much for coming on Indie Film Craft.

Meredith: Thank you. Thank you. I'm a fan, you know, that. Appreciate it.

Jeff: I really loved chatting with Austin and Meredith about Pinball, and I have a bunch of takeaways, and the first one has to do with biopics for those listening who are members of our TSL workshops community, you've definitely heard biopics and life rights stories get pitched to Meg and Lorien all the time, but Austin and Meredith understood something crucial about this, which is that Roger Sharpe's true story wasn't just an odd situation or quirky, historical moment. It was a movie. And if you want to tell a true story, especially independently, you have to know why it's cinematic and contains a full character arc, not just why it's true. It's that classic situation versus story thing we always talk about on the show. 

Second, they were deliberate about building a relationship with MPI films who financed their project. They earned this trust by proving early on through sketches and shorts that they could deliver on time, on budget, and hit their marks. Even outside of the studio system independent filmmaking is always about relationships, and I know that can sound intimidating, but it should actually sound encouraging because it means if you do good work, people will notice. 

And finally, my favorite takeaway, make it weird. That's often the secret to a strong narrative turn or tonal surprise, and it'll push you toward bold choices. And all of us know that bold choices are almost always what set great indies apart. 

Thanks again to the Bragg brothers for coming on today's show. If you haven't seen Pinball yet, check it out. It's on Hulu and it's a total blast. I should also mention it has above a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences. So it's great. Check it out. 

And finally, remember your dreams don't require anyone else's permission.