Steve Cuden: On today’s story beat:

Drew Brody: You have to ask these five questions before you get into partnership with anyone on anything significant. Do I like this person? Do I trust this person? Do they do what they say they’re gonna do? Do they finish what they start and have they already successfully done what I need them to do in this partnership?

Announcer: This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the Creative Mind. Story Beat explores how Masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment.

Here now is your host Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Drew Brody is an award-winning writer and producer whose films, web series, stage plays, and other live events in Los Angeles and New York have featured Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Jenny O’Hara, bill Pullman, Sarah Ru, Martin Sheen, James Gammon, and French Stewart.

Among many others, drew has produced dozens of world premieres for the stage, including two plays by Pulitzer Prize winning playwrights. It wasn’t Proust by Sam Shepherd and Tight Pants by Beth Henley. Drew on Back-to-Back Excellence in producing awards at the New York International Fringe Festival, where his production of fluffy bunnies in a field of daisies also earned an award for best ensemble and was named best of Fringe.

Among the movies Drew has produced is the horror film Desert of Blood. I’ve seen desert of Blood and can tell you it’s a sexy, noirish, fun vampire thriller that isn’t for the faint of heart. In addition to writing and producing, drew has worked as a story consultant and coach to Hollywood writers for more than two decades.

For six years, he was a thesis advisor for MA students in the humanities department at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles, where he taught classes in screenwriting and playwriting and helped develop and launch the university’s MFA in screenwriting program. Writers who’ve worked with Drew have collectively written dozens of published novels, scores of paid screenplays, hundreds of hours of Emmy award-winning TV and studio movies that have grossed more than a hundred million dollars worldwide.

Drew recently relocated to right here in Pittsburgh. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m delighted to welcome the writer, producer, and teacher Drew Brody, the story beat today. Drew, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It’s very nice to be here. Oh, it’s a great pleasure to have you here. So let’s go back in time just a little bit.

Where did this begin for you? At what point in your life did you first look at things in the entertainment world and think, that’s interesting. I’d like to get involved in that. 

Drew Brody: I mean, it goes way, way, way back because the very first movie that I remember seeing, I grew up in rural Pennsylvania on the other side of the state, and my parents took me to a drive-in movie theater when I was five years old because Star Wars had just come out and we were in, you know.

Rural pa, like no light pollution. So when you look up, it was a clear, clear sky and everything in the sky was pitch black with bright white stars. And then the movie started and it was pitch black and bright white stars and spaceships, and I was hooked. 

Steve Cuden: That sucked you right down the rabbit hole that did that did indeed.

Yeah. I saw Star Wars on its opening day at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Did you really? Yeah. Nobody even knew what it was gonna be yet. There was no lines, right? There was no hype, there was nothing. No, no. And then I saw that very first day. So anyway, go on. So where did you then start to think about doing this for yourself?

I mean, it was right there that you were hooked. 

Drew Brody: Yeah, I was hooked. And, um, there was a, there was a community theater in our, in our little rural, uh, community, um, which was at the time called the Westchester and Barley She Players. Okay. Um, and, uh. I got involved, they had a children’s theater program that I did every summer and they had a teen program.

And before I got to the teen program, I had started working on the adult shows. And by the time I got to high school I was sort of involved in some way in every production. And they did two productions at once. So they had rehearsals for one while they were in tech for the other. Um, and so I just, I just moved in.

Steve Cuden: And were you involved in acting or in backstage stuff? What were you doing? 

Drew Brody: I did a little bit of acting. I wasn’t terribly uh, skilled at that. I did a lot of backstage stuff. Most of my acting was actually because I was running the lightboard or on crew or assistant stage managing. And then somebody dropped out.

I would have to learn the lines and, and step into it. 

Steve Cuden: And so when did you start thinking about producing as something to do? 

Drew Brody: I, I, I wrote and produced, uh, my first play, which was called How to Get Into College. Uh, I did that before I had applied to college. It was sort of, I wrote it to figure out how to do it, and that was fun.

I’m not crazy about directing my own work, but I like producing and I like working with directors. What is it you like about producing, you know, producing is just juggling chainsaws, which is, which is a ton of fun if you’re the kind of person that really enjoys that and, uh, a nightmare if you’re not. But not just any chainsaws ones that are turned on.

Yeah, of course. I mean, and one of them’s on fire and, you know, and, and then somebody tosses you a fifth or a sixth one, and then you just gotta keep on going. 

Steve Cuden: And one of them is greased in oil. And 

Drew Brody: so, you know, you, you, you make it work. But I love the immediacy of you’ve got something going on that’s been planned.

I mean, you should have lots of planning, you should have lots of collaboration. Mm-hmm. And then inevitably, I mean, especially with, with live theater, you know. Stuff happens 

Steve Cuden: that it does 

Drew Brody: and you gotta roll with it. 

Steve Cuden: Well, as you may know, I started in the theater and I’ve worked on many dozens, if not several hundred productions.

And yeah, you’d never know what’s gonna happen. ’cause it’s live, it’s happening right then and there and you can’t say Cut take two. It doesn’t work that way Quite. So you are a problem solver then. That’s why you like to do shows and produce. 

Drew Brody: Yeah, there’s a certain kind of high that you get off of being able to solve multiple levels of problems at the same time.

Steve Cuden: Have you been writing all along? I know you say you wrote and did stuff when you were in high school. Have you continued to write all along? 

Drew Brody: Uh, yes and no. So I, I actually went to college as a math major and that lasted until I moved into the theater and then I was a theater and film studies major. Um, but I came outta college thinking that I wanted to do was right.

Um, and I went to Paris and studied film for a year and then I did my master’s degree at, uh, what was at the time the best English language playwriting program in the world. It was David Edgar’s, um, master’s. In playwriting studies at Birmingham, England, which was an extraordinary experience and probably most of the teaching that I’ve done is based on his method and his approach.

Steve Cuden: What did you learn from doing that that helped you as a producer? 

Drew Brody: Uh, it’s a good question. When I really fell into producing it was because as a writer, I was writing in Los Angeles, which is the greatest place to put on theater in the world. There’s like something like 87 new plays every year. You know, they had that 99 seat contract for a while.

Steve Cuden: Equity waiver. 

Drew Brody: Yeah. And you have the greatest actors in the country, if not the world, many of whom are desperate to do something of substance, you know, if they’re paid to do their pigeonholed particular thing. So you can find the most amazing actors to do theater. The only problem with theater in Los Angeles is there’s no money in it and there’s no audience.

Steve Cuden: That’s correct. And a lot of it are what are known as Vanity Productions. They put ’em on so that they can showcase themselves and they’re willing to spend 30, 40, 50, a hundred thousand dollars, whatever it is to put a show on so that people can come see them actually work. So I can see, yeah, this is what I can do.

Drew Brody: Yeah. That reminds me there, there was one production that I did at the Met Theater where I was a resident writer and then producer for a couple of years. This was, it was a one act festival to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the theater. And the theater had been founded by Jimmy Gammon, with the board was made up of people like Ed Harris and Holly Hunter and Amy Madigan.

And, uh, Sam Shepherd was involved and Beth Henley was involved. And so we did a one act festival where I asked for world premier plays. You know, I asked writers what they had in a drawer, you know, ’cause I figured everybody had a 10 minute something that I. They hadn’t been able to, you know, ’cause who can publish 10 minute plays other than Right.

I don’t know if Louisville’s still doing it, but they used to do that every year, the 10 minute play festival. But otherwise you can’t do, you know, real productions like that. But I had this vision for celebration of 30 years of writing at the Met. So we put that together and this is the my favorite review that we ever got.

Speaking to what you were talking about, about vanity projects. Yes. The review essentially was saying. I can’t figure out who’s doing, who a favor here, because the writers and the producers and the actors, and it’s all excellent. And you know, there was a hint of a, like, this feels like it should be a vanity project, but I’m not quite sure how that comes to be.

No, it was a great, well the 

Steve Cuden: reviewers in LA are very, very accustomed to seeing shows that feature people that are either on their way up or they’re somewhat famous. Mm-hmm. They’re used to seeing that, knowing that they’re there, working out there whatevers and trying to expose their career to other people completely.

So they know that. So they’re that’s a great review. You wouldn’t, in Pittsburgh, I don’t think you’d ever get that review. 

Drew Brody: No, no, no, no. That was, uh, and that was back when the LA Times sent people to, uh, to review theater, although they didn’t, this was an off night show. We did Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Um, and ended up outselling the weekend show.

So 

Steve Cuden: tell the listeners from your point of view, what does it mean to be a producer, aside from being a problem solver, 

Drew Brody: what do you do? So, um, my friend Mea, who I, I produced with a little bit, um, she had a framing that she used for producers. Her framing was that that producing is actually at least three completely different things.

So she called it the finders, the minders, and the grinders. Hmm. You know, the finder is part of a producer’s job and sometimes, you know, as you know, the, uh, often we’ll collaborate with other producers so that we can get all of these elements. But on most of the theater things that we did in that 99 seat contract and on Desert of Blood and, you know, there was, um.

I had to do most of this to some degree or another. The finder part is finding the material, finding the people, finding the money. So finding all the pieces that you need in order for it to come together. Uh, the grinder is what I think of as, uh, you know, the person in the back room who’s got the spreadsheets and the budgets and the contracts, and is actually going in detail line by line and making sure scheduling the shoot or scheduling the production or working with contracts, working with unions.

That’s the grinder part. And then the minder is where I think I’ve got my, my proclivities are more in that direction, which is just managing the whole thing from beginning to end. So you’ve got whatever the impetus is for me, it’s usually a script that I love, but sometimes it’s a director who’s got a project, uh, or an actor who has brought something to me.

From the moment that you read it, you can picture what it’s gonna be ideally, but to actually get that to the finish line, as you know, there’s 7,000 different steps to get there. And so the minder part has to just, you know, that’s keep the eye on the ball and figure out how to get everybody to the finish line.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Drew Brody: And of course, the finish line rarely looks like what you thought it was gonna look like when you started the project. 

Steve Cuden: There’s no such thing as a project that you start that concludes the way you thought it would. That just doesn’t exist in any form of medium. 

Drew Brody: No, for sure. And actually that’s something that I talk about when I was teaching writing.

I’m pretty sure this is a Harold Pinter anecdote. When he set out to write, I wanna say the birthday party, but I might have that wrong. He had. Woken up with three characters in his head and he knew these characters and he, he had a very clear idea of who they were. And before he sat down to write it, he only knew one thing.

He knew that the play was gonna end with a murder. He just didn’t know which of the three characters was gonna murder. Which one. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. 

Drew Brody: And so he had to write it to find out. And in the end, there’s no murder, but there’s an amazing play. 

Steve Cuden: That’s exactly the way that works sometimes. Yeah. Is that you, you have the best intentions down one road, but the action of actually doing the work changes what the work becomes.

Drew Brody: And sometimes that’s for the good. And sometimes it’s, uh, you know, it can be disappointing. I would’ve loved to have seen the original concept of Tom Stoppers, Rosecrans and gilding Stern are dead. If he had actually written what he originally intended to write, that would’ve been amazing. Do you know this story?

Do you know what it was supposed to be? I don’t 

Steve Cuden: know. Tell that story. 

Drew Brody: Rosen Grenson. Gild. Cerner dance. So Rose Krens and Gild Stard are minor characters in Hamlet who are then sent away. And the idea is they’ve been sent away with with a note that’s going to get them killed when they get there. And Stopper’s original concept for this is they leave Denmark, they go across to England, they arrive with the note, and they arrive.

They’re brought into the King’s court. They present this message to the king and it’s King Lear, who’s already lost his mind. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. 

Drew Brody: And the second act would be them in Lear’s world rather than Hamlet’s world. And he, I’m not sure he got off the boat with those characters, but he ended up with a play that he liked.

I would really have loved to have seen what would’ve happened if, if they haven’t arrived and met King Lear. 

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, there are lots of people that have made movies and done theater where the end product is so different from what they started out to do. 

Drew Brody: Completely. And then to go back to, you know, what you’re talking about with, you know, the essence of producing to me is being able to keep your eye on the ball even though the ball is moving.

So you’ve got a goal in mind. You’ve gotta both keep the whole team focused on reaching that. And you have to be flexible enough to realize when things have shifted and it needs to be something else. 

Steve Cuden: Correct me if you think I’m wrong, I always look at it as the producer and the director are interpreting what the writer has written.

Sometimes the director is the, also the writer and also the producer. But frequently there are three separate entities. Yep. And I think that the director is the ultimate interpreter of that. They have that vision. Yes. But the producer is helping that vision come to be. But you’re all pulling for the same thing.

You’re all pulling for the end product of what the writer wrote. Uh, correct. But I always think of directors in particular, but producers too. It’s, they’re like coaches in football. Absolutely. You go into every game with a master plan as to what you’re going to do. Yeah. But then you have to be willing to punt.

Drew Brody: Totally. And that’s exactly right. I mean, I think, uh, football coach is a great metaphor because you can do all the preparation in the world and then when you get into the game, it is never gonna go in any way that was planned or anticipated. You can get parameters for what you anticipate happening, but every single game is unique.

And I think the same thing, every production that you go into is gonna be its own unique beast. 

Steve Cuden: It’s a little bit like, it’s the old adage about war. You know, no matter how well you plan a war, it all goes to pieces in the first 10 minutes. Totally. And so then you have to be willing to figure that out from there.

So how did you become a producer? Where did it begin for you? 

Drew Brody: Yeah, so I, I went to do my writing degree and then I moved to New York to be a playwright, and instead I accidentally became a math tutor. And then after a year or two of that, I realized that. The reason it wasn’t going quite where I wanted it to be is ’cause I got into theater because theater’s a team sport.

And then I went off and I became a writer, which was me alone in my apartment with a word processor that I could throw out the window. And I just, I hated the isolation and it just didn’t, it didn’t work for me. So what I realized is I’m supposed to be in television. So I moved to Los Angeles to be a TV writer, and that’s how I became a playwright instead.

And then, as we were talking about, Los Angeles Theater is the most amazing place I’ve been able to work with some of the most extraordinary actors. Some of them, you, you mentioned the ones that are known, but some of them that are still not household names, that are some of the most, most talented people I’ve ever met.

But in every capitalist endeavor in the world. The supply and demand curves come into play. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Drew Brody: And if theater is specifically theater in Los Angeles, if hypothetically that had worked according to the laws of economics, then what would’ve happened is somebody would’ve started a theater. Those productions would’ve been so successful and popular that they could not possibly fit any more audience in.

And then they would have to, either them or somebody else would’ve to open another theater, which would then accommodate that audience. And then you would grow from there. And instead, what happens in Los Angeles as you were alluding to with the vanity projects, is you put on a play and it’s got three characters in it, and you’ve got a hundred people that audition, which means there’s 97 people that aren’t in it.

And so then those 97 people need to do a play. And so they all go off and they create their own plays. And you have all of these things that are driven by people who want to do the plays and not really driven by people who want to drive through Los Angeles traffic to go see the plays. And so while I had eight of my plays produced in the first three years that I was out there, most of them at the Met Theater, I realized pretty quickly that, um.

There’s no audience and there’s no business plan that is remotely, uh, functional in any of the, the small scale theater stuff that I was encountering. 

Steve Cuden: Well, the economics don’t work at all. 

Drew Brody: The economics don’t work at all, at all. And so I realized the thing that was missing because what’s the good of doing fantastic plays with amazing, talented people if nobody sees it?

And that was the thing that was missing. ’cause your original question was, how do they get into producing? I got into producing ’cause I was like, oh, somebody needs to do that and nobody’s doing it. That’s gonna be my job 

Steve Cuden: again, the playwrights are trying to get TV gigs or feature films, and this is a way to show off their wares.

Yep. But as the old adage goes, in the theater, you can’t make a living, but you can make a killing. Right. And so you have to hit the lotto. You gotta get lucky and hit the lotto. Yeah. And most people do not. Right? Occasionally somebody does, but it’s so rare that it’s not, the economics just don’t work in 99 seat theaters 

Drew Brody: and forget 99 seat theaters.

Tony Kushner can’t make a living in the theater. He’s, you know, 

Steve Cuden: he writes for Steven Spielberg. 

Drew Brody: He’s probably the most extraordinarily talented of our times and. He does plays because that’s his calling. And then he writes movies for Spielberg so that he can afford to live. 

Steve Cuden: Alright. So as a producer, what do you spend most of your time on?

Is it the finding the finder part of it, or is it the grinding part, or is it the keeping part? What do you spend most of your time really working on? 

Drew Brody: It’s interesting. I feel like my focus is often, and this is partly how I ended up doing, uh, you know, coaching more than more than anything else. Um, my specialty in producing is working with writer directors on their passion projects.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Drew Brody: And so I would spend a lot of time with the director on the script, usually their own script, because especially when you get into film, the cheapest and best way to fix a film. Is to do it before you start pre-production. 

Steve Cuden: No kidding. 

Drew Brody: So a lot of times I’m working with people on the script to make it rock solid so that we can actually move forward with it.

But inevitably I say that and then inevitably there’s a deadline, there’s something, there’s some time crunch on that. And before you know it, we’re in pre-production for a film, which is just rehearsals. When you’re in the theater, 

Steve Cuden: then you’re trying to fix it both in production and then after the fact.

Drew Brody: Yeah. And then in LA theater, you know, what I spent the most time with, uh, was um, once you put together a director and a great cast, as a producer, I don’t need to be there for all the rehearsals. What I do need to do is I need to work on the marketing materials and start to talk the show up so that I can build audience so that I can hopefully get reviewers in there working with, you know, we had somebody at the Met who focused on publicity, but that person can only do their job, I think in tight collaboration with the producer who.

Has to give them all of the fodder to go out and do what they do to fill the seats. 

Steve Cuden: How long do you think you worked at producing your own material and other people’s material before you thought to yourself, I am actually pretty good at this. How long did it take you? 

Drew Brody: Interesting. So I remember a moment where I got that fringe award for fluffy bunnies in a field of daisies, which as I’m sure you can guess, is a, is a sex comedy.

Steve Cuden: It doesn’t sound like a dramatic thriller. 

Drew Brody: Yes. A brilliant, brilliant, brilliant script that was written and directed by, um, a talented writer, Matt Chaffee. And, uh, when they gave me the producing award there, Matt. Kind of tongue in cheek started saying to people, you know, with some faux jealousies, like, I don’t know what the big deal is.

I don’t know why he gets an award. We did all this work putting in the show and all he did was hand a postcard to everybody on the island of Manhattan and fill the seats. And that’s, I don’t know why that works. I don’t know why that’s worth an award. Um, but when he framed it that way, I was like, oh, it wasn’t the award itself, it was the way that Matt framed it that I was like, oh, actually I’m really good at this.

Because I was able to work with him to get his vision to work, you know? And that’s part of it too, ’cause directors and actors, it’s such a vulnerable job to do the art. So a big part of the job of the producer is to protect the space so that everybody else can do what they need to do in order for their genius to come out.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Drew Brody: On stage or on the screen. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that is a big part of a producer’s job is to shield people from themselves sometimes. 

Drew Brody: Correct. Yes. And the bugaboo project, the one that I worked on for five years and fell apart on me, that’s ultimately what went wrong, is I, I was able to protect the director from herself for a, for a while.

Um, and ultimately, you know, there’s, uh, you, you couldn’t, yeah. You got to a point 

Steve Cuden: where it just was a lost cause. 

Drew Brody: Yeah. I mean, you know, set the house on fire and it’s hard to keep things afloat. So what would 

Steve Cuden: you say in a live show versus a web series versus a live event versus a movie? What would you say are the most difficult challenges and is it universal or is it different for every medium?

I mean, for me it’s different 

Drew Brody: for every project. Every project. Every project. Yes. I just had this conversation with my daughter yesterday. She wanted to know what was surprising about parenting. I was like, everything, everything. Talk about producing. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I’ve got two kids and I, I feel this is, this applies to producing as well, but just to extend the metaphor a little bit with my son.

I figured out how to swaddle. I figured out how to get him to sleep. And so like a month or two in, I was like, oh, I’m really good at this. I can do this. I can add value here. I can, I can do something. And then two months later, it’s a totally different stage of child development and that doesn’t work anymore.

So it’s like every time you do it, the rules change. And then I had a second kid with my wife and, and I was like, okay, well at least I’ve gone through all of these things before, and then you get to the first step. And none of the tricks that worked with the first kid worked with the second kid. And I feel like I had that same experience in the theater too.

It was like you kind of catch up to like, oh, okay, that worked. Now we’re onto a totally new thing where I gotta learn how to figure out how to do this. I’m like, okay, now I’m doing my third show. Uh, so at least I’ve done these other two. And B no, the everything is completely different. The people you’re working with are 

Steve Cuden: different.

So it sounds to me like the biggest challenges that you have are figuring out each project as its own thing. 

Drew Brody: Yeah. And but that’s the fun part too. That’s the joy of it is, is Well, it keeps it from being boring, doesn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you know, and that’s, I think, uh, like the most fun challenge is until you actually get the production put together, it’s just raw materials, right?

Like, you might have the most talented actors out there, you might have a genius director, you might have a brilliant script, but you have to put the pieces together and get it in front of an audience in such a way that it can come to life and ideally be the best version of whatever that project is.

That is possible, and that is gonna be, that’s gonna be uniquely different for each and every project. So let’s talk a little 

Steve Cuden: bit about your process. When you get a script, do you tend to find scripts or do you tend to have scripts come your way? 

Drew Brody: I, in terms of the producing that I’ve done? Mm-hmm. Um, 

Steve Cuden: obviously you’ve written your own, that’s another story.

Drew Brody: Yes. Yeah. So some of it, I started off writing and then became a producer because I realized that if I didn’t, nobody was gonna get the audience right. So that was the part of stepping into producing that I needed to do. And then it was after Seven Met Shorts, which was the, which was the project that had the, the Sam Shepherd, uh, one Act and the Beth Henley One Act, and the great reviews from the LA Times.

Once that had happened, I all of a sudden had. Not everyone I had ever met, but a lot of people were bringing me their passion project. So writers who had something that, you know, the project, either film or theater that somebody else wanted to direct, but they wanted to hold onto this one and direct it themselves.

Mm-hmm. Or an actor that had been holding onto this script for a while, that they desperately wanted to play this, this role, uh, and couldn’t get it up on stage or couldn’t get it financed. So that’s when stuff would come to me. 

Steve Cuden: That’s very useful. When they’re come, it’s coming to you. You don’t have to go seek it out.

But that can also be its own daunting issue as well, because you have to wade through things and then you have to tell people No, all those things are difficult. 

Drew Brody: Uh, yeah. And well see. That’s interesting ’cause I think, I think when you’re in Los Angeles, you just assume that the default is no. So I never thought of it as difficult to tell people No.

So much as I. Well, it was also, it was just never a flat No, it was, it was, Hey, here’s what’s interesting about this, and if you wanna sit down and talk about how to make it better, that’s great. Also, I just started this other project that I’d love for you to come see. 

Steve Cuden: So once you get a script that you like mm-hmm.

And you, you said this is something you wanna work on. Obviously you’ve read it. So that’s the very, very first thing you’ve done is to at least read it. What is the next step? Do you look to put the team together? Do you look to raise financing? What steps do you take typically? 

Drew Brody: Yeah. So for, let’s just talk about the films.

Uh, ’cause it’s easier to just focus on one, 

Steve Cuden: well talk about the Desert of Blood, which I’ve seen. Yeah. Great. How did that come together? 

Drew Brody: So, desert of Blood was, um, was again a writer who had written some scripts and sold some scripts, but this is the one that he wanted to direct to himself. Mm-hmm. It was a writer.

His name is Don Henry. And it was a great script. And part of what was great about it was he had written it. There was a family connection to this piece of property, and the property had four or five buildings and then it was a couple hundred yards from, uh, what I later found out was the ruins, not of a church, but the abandoned set from a Hollywood production from 50 or a hundred years ago of abandoned ruins of a church.

But he had written this on a family vacation and he wrote the whole movie. And the movie takes place in lots of, not lots, but several locations, but you could see all of those locations from the porch of the one house. It was all on one property. And so then that became something where it was not only did I like the script, and I like the concept for the script because it’s got a real.

Interesting angle on the monster is not really a monster. It’s something, you know, he’s, the vampire had gone off to try to raise money so that he could come home and, you know, marry the love of his life. You know, both of them poor kids from different cities in, in Mexico and once he came back, something had happened and he had changed and he didn’t really know what that was.

So there was some sympathy for the monster because it was this thing that had happened. And, and when he comes back, it’s 30 or 40 years later. You’ve seen it more recently than I have. It’s 

Steve Cuden: like 35 years. Yeah. 35 years that he 

Drew Brody: was buried underground, but is immortal. And so he’s the monster. But also there’s something interesting and intriguing about that character and for what it was, which is a low budget genre film.

Mm-hmm. It just had more substance mm-hmm. Than a lot of the other scripts that I had read. And a lot, frankly, a lot of the other movies that I had seen. Um, and then when he talked about the location, I was like, oh. This is like, you can just go and park the truck and put up the crew and we’ll just shoot this direction today and this direction tomorrow.

And, and that’s in fact what we did. You know, the, uh, wardrobe was in one building for the first two weeks and then when we had to shoot in that building, wardrobe moved to the building that we had already finished shooting in. 

Steve Cuden: So no company moves. Right. You just had to move wardrobe. 

Drew Brody: Right, right. And I mean, we had to, you know, wardrobe and some other things, but it was really, we brought in the big box truck and we put people up in, a lot of people, uh, stayed on the set.

And otherwise there was a, we managed to get a good rate for a cheap hotel that was not too far away, that didn’t ever have any business at that time of year. And we just bought out all the rooms. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Drew Brody: And so for, it was a 17 day shoot, although I wanna say it was. 15 days in Mexico and then two days at the nursery in, in Los Angeles.

Again, family connection. Somebody who, uh, ran the CNS uh, nursery, which is a, uh, a big plant store landscaping 

Steve Cuden: outfit. 

Drew Brody: Yeah, there you go. Landscaping outfit that’s in Los Angeles. Uh, but the rest of it, it was actually a really unique experience because there was nothing anywhere nearby. Uh, and so we really had much more of a tight experience where like we were all just living together for two weeks, making a movie 

Steve Cuden: when you’re have a low budget, ’cause I’ve made one low or next to no budget movie and everything is about.

How do you do it in the least expensive way possible. 

Drew Brody: Exactly. 

Steve Cuden: And I assume that even on a $200 million movie, they’re still trying to do it in the least expensive way possible, though they wind up spending a whole lot more money than they like. Yeah, 

Drew Brody: no doubt. No doubt. No doubt. But they’re always 

Steve Cuden: looking to cut whatever corners they can cut, even at $200 million.

But when you have no money, now you’re really cutting corners. That was it. So I’m gonna ask you a question that I ask lots of guests and I find it very interesting to hear the answers. And that is what for you then makes a good story good that attracts you? 

Drew Brody: Yeah. So again, using Desert blood as a, as an example, it’s the combination.

So it was a genre story, so I knew kind of where it fit into the world, but it was also a version of the story that I hadn’t seen before. And then, I mean, this is more producing than it is just strictly story. It was part of it was. Him telling me that all of these locations were just right there. That was really the spark for like, oh, this is a pro.

You know, when I got a stack of scripts this high, this is the one that I picked. ’cause I was like, I can see it. I can see how we can make a $2 million movie for $200,000 by doing this in this way where we were all on on one location. Mm-hmm. Um, but none of that would’ve worked if I didn’t also really love the story.

And so the story, you know what makes a great story, you know, it’s gotta have a beginning, middle, and end. It’s gotta have enough similarity so that people can access it. You need to be able to communicate to your audience, ideally in a trailer or a poster or something where they were like, oh, I like that kind of thing and I’d like to go see it.

But then when they actually get in to see it, it has to be. Unique, which is what will make it memorable. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. And so something has to leap out to you that sticks in your brain that makes it memorable for you. Yeah. Is it usually character or is it some effect or is it plot? What typically strikes you? 

Drew Brody: I fall in love, and this goes back to the way David Edgar, uh, taught playwriting back in England.

I go to the scene, you know, if you’ve got the best movies in the world, like, so, you know, one of the ones that I use all the time when I’m teaching is the Princess Bride because it’s one of the great, it’s one of the great movies of all time, but if you pick a scene, you pick like the Miracle Max scene, for example, uh, which is the, the Billy Crystal scene.

It’s an entertaining scene and it’s just him doing his, his shtick. And, um, there’s a longer story on that, but that that’s the only scene where somebody got seriously hurt. It was, um, Mandy Potanin cracked a rib ’cause he was trying to hold in his laughter too much. 

Steve Cuden: I’ve had the great good fortune here in Pittsburgh in uh, Munhal at the Carnegie Music Hall to following the screening of the Princess Bride interview Kerry Ellis live on stage.

Drew Brody: Fantastic. For an hour. 

Steve Cuden: So, uh, yeah, he tells lots of great stories in his book about doing Princess Bride. 

Drew Brody: Yeah. And that scene in particular where they kicked him off the set, they kicked Carrie Ellis off the set. Yeah. They kicked Rob Reiner off the set first, I think. And then they Oh, 

Steve Cuden: that, that’s because they were all laughing too hard.

They couldn’t correct. 

Drew Brody: Yeah. Correct. But Mandy Patinkin couldn’t be ’cause they needed him there for the reactions. Yeah. And he’s a professional and he knows how to be a professional. So he held character and literally cracked a rib. Cracked a rib. Cracked a rib. But, uh, my point is of that scene. He’s a great scene in and of itself.

It’s just fun, right? There’s like great memorable characters and there’s great lines in there, but also there’s conflict and there’s, there’s plot that happens. They come in there, they need this guy, and the only problem with it is that he’s dead. So their goal is to get him to be not dead. That’s the scene.

Steve Cuden: Well, you’ve left out one little minor important thing, and that is that Sure. Billy Crystal was improvising through the whole thing and they were, they were cracking up at his improvisation. 

Drew Brody: Correct. However, even if you read the original book, there’s still an essence of this in here. Sure. And then what Rob Reiner did really is added a whole other layer of character.

I mean, he just, you can tell in all of his movies, he’s just, he loves his characters. And that’s what I’m looking for too when I, when I read something, is if I can fall in love with the characters, that’s, that’s great. But, uh, I wanted to talk about that Miracle Max scene specifically because what I realized, ’cause I, I used to think of this as a great scene and I’ve got rules like, here’s what makes a great scene.

You know, it’s gotta have, it’s gotta be entertaining, it’s gotta have a good beginning, middle, and end. It’s gotta fit the genre. All of that is fine. But beyond that, if you’re gonna have a really great scene. It also has to advance the plot. And the one that sometimes people miss is it also has to tell the audience something about the characters that we didn’t already know.

Mm-hmm. And like what you were saying, I always thought of it as like, well, it’s mostly just fun ’cause Billy Crystal is, is improvising and he’s hilarious. And then I’m pretty sure it was my daughter who pointed out to me. ’cause I was talking about that scene as like, well that’s great, except it doesn’t reveal anything about character.

And then we had a conversation, uh, and after this conversation with my daughter, I realized she was right. It does because, uh, I don’t know how well you, you, you must know the movie I do. And I’m gonna assume that the audience knows the movie as well. Up until that moment, Mandy Patten’s character in Nigo Montoya is just out for revenge.

And he’s a fairly, he’s an extraordinary actor, which means he’s not one dimensional, but the character itself is really just looking for revenge. But in that scene, you get who he is. It’s not new when he’s lying about what the thing is and he is talking about, oh yes, you know, this poor, his, his kids are sick and his and his wife is dying.

And you know, he is just making stuff up that he thinks is gonna sound noble and none of that works. And, and Miracle Max turns him away. And then they do the thing with the, with the, uh, blowing air into the bellows. The bellows, thank you. That’s the word. Um, and Kael was his character, uh, says true love.

And at that moment you see Mandy Patinkin eyes light up and that’s the first moment that he gets excited about something and he’s like, that’s it, that’s the reason. That’s true love. You can’t ask for anything more. Noble. And the character that we knew before that scene was not a character that you would’ve thought, you know, what’s gonna really turn him on?

Is somebody really on a quest for true love? When we see that in that that changes everything. And that from that scene on, he’s now the protagonist. He’s pushing the story forward and he has won the audience over because he is not just out for vengeance, he’s also got this noble heart. So that’s the reveal of character that we get in that scene.

Mm-hmm. And so the combination of, it’s a great scene in and of itself, but it also advances the plot. It brings our, uh, our Wesley back to life. But most important, it reveals something about that, that character that makes him one of the great characters. 

Steve Cuden: Which do you prefer working on? Do you prefer working in the theater or prefer working on film?

Drew Brody: I don’t, it just depends on the project. Um, honestly, I, I love working on whatever is gonna work, so I loved working on Desert of Blood and it was great when we actually got onto set and it was working. Everything that I did in theater was fantastic. When that play did so well in Los Angeles that we ended up bringing it to New York for the Fringe Festival, and then it was a hit at the Fringe.

That was great. And the process of making Shakespeare’s Henry iv, which was our, our Martin Sheen Shakespeare adaptation movie. The process of working with the director and pulling to their cast and trying to figure out how to get financing for this beast of a play, this, this great Shakespeare play that had not, never really been adapted for film because it’s a nine hour, two part monstrosity, which you’re, you had Deacon Matthews on as your guest.

Mm-hmm. Dakin Matthews was the, uh, was the dramaturg. Although after listening to his episode, I rethought some of the stuff that went wrong before I, I believe he actually was more responsible for the script than, than the credit. Indicated and that maybe it would’ve been easier if we had had him more involved in the rewrites.

We would’ve gotten that. 

Steve Cuden: Well, he’s a genius Shakespeare scholar. 

Drew Brody: Oh, he’s, and, and specifically his, his legacy project, the thing that’s gonna outlive him for a hundred years is his stage adaptation of Henry iv, which is the same thing, is taking this nine hour, two part monstrosity and pulling it together into one evening.

That’s a coherent story. Um, and that was fantastic. And I loved, loved working on that project through making the proof of concept with Martin Sheen through the casting, through finding financing, which we did. And it was so much fun right up until it completely fell apart. And when it completely fell apart, that was, that was devastating 

Steve Cuden: as it would be, you put your heart and soul into something, 

Drew Brody: right.

So what’s my preference? You know, the things that I love the most are the things that actually are working well right up until they don’t. That’s everybody’s love. 

Steve Cuden: That’s, 

Drew Brody: that’s not unique to you. Yes. But you know, I, I, I work with, uh, you know, I work with lots of writers, uh, you know, often the TV writers that I’m working, uh, with, you know, they’ve got me helping them to structure and, and, and work on their first novel.

Mm-hmm. And. I’m not a novelist, but working with a writer on their passion project, whatever it is, film, theater, book. That’s the part that I love. 

Steve Cuden: Well, let’s talk about that for a moment. Making movies, making theater. When you’re a novelist, you typically are working alone in a room. And eventually you might get to a publisher or an editor or someone like that, or someone like you to consult.

But usually you’re working alone in a room. Yeah. But making a movie, making a show, anything like that, requires some form of collaboration, if not a lot of collaboration. 

Drew Brody: Completely. 

Steve Cuden: And that’s the best part. That’s the part that you like, is that what you’re saying? 

Drew Brody: Yeah, which is what I was saying before.

You know, I got into theater because it was a team sport, and then I accidentally went and became a playwright, which was miserable, being alone in a room. So 

Steve Cuden: what makes a good collaboration 

Drew Brody: work? Ah, so we talked a little bit before we started the episode about, um, the nature of I. Collaborative writing, and I’ve done it so much as a script coach consultants over the years working with writers to help them make the best of their work.

Um, that I’d had done, that I had gone away from writing. But recently, since I moved to Pittsburgh, I’m now writing a project with Mike who was on the, on the show with you. And I’m working on a different project with Chris Pearson, who also had an episode of the, of the show. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, wow. Yes. So Drew is talking about Mike Belli, who’s also been a guest on the show and, uh, 

Drew Brody: Chris Pearson.

Chris 

Steve Cuden: Pearson, correct, 

Drew Brody: yep. And what Chris and I figured out, having known each other for Chris and I have known each other for, I can’t remember how many years, 20 some years. He, uh, he and his wife officiated my wedding. Oh, wow. Which was. Uh, 19 years and 11 months ago. ’cause I gotta go get an anniversary gift.

I’m glad we could remind you. And, um, what Chris and I have figured out recently, and we’re still working on this project, we haven’t, we haven’t finished it yet, but after all of these years, we’re finally writing something together. It didn’t, it just, it, I’m, I’m angry that it didn’t happen sooner because he is one of the most amazingly talented and prolific first draft writers.

He writes things that are like, outstanding, amazing outta the gate. And what I didn’t know about him is he hates rewriting. And I, as a writer. Hate blank paper. Uh, I forget whose quote it is, and it’s mis ascribed, but there’s a great quote about writing, like the gist of it is something, something like, um, people say writing’s hard writing isn’t hard.

You just stare at the blank white paper until the blood starts to drip from your forehead. Oh, 

Steve Cuden: you’re talking about Earnest Hemingway? 

Drew Brody: See, I think it’s Misattributed to Ernest Hemingway, and he’s quoted all over the place 

Steve Cuden: online completely, where he says, there’s nothing to being a writer. You just sit down, open a vein and bleed.

Drew Brody: Yeah. There. Exactly. And I, that’s me. But I love digging in. I mean, it’s what I did when I was working with writers on their projects. I love digging in and trying to figure out how to solve the problems. That are there in the first draft, and how do you get that to a finished project? Um, and I also focus on, uh, plot and minutiae and how do you lay pipe for the payoffs that happen in, in the end.

And Chris is naturally gifted and does all of that in his first drafts somewhat, but actually the conversation, uh, where you slow down and, and sit with it and dig in, that’s my forte. And so we compliment each other. 

Steve Cuden: What do you think collaborators should do to make their work successful, to make their collaborations successful and the work?

Drew Brody: Yeah, I mean, the collaboration successful is, um, it’s like a marriage. You’re gonna be working on something whether you like it or not, for an extended period of time. Collaborations in, in theater do not happen on a weekend and then end, you’re working on a project together. If it’s gonna be a successful project, you’re probably tied together for.

Something that counts in, in years more than weeks. And so, you know, this collaboration with Chris is working because we have nice complimentary skills. And the part that I hate the most is the part that he’s best at and the part that he hates the most is the part that I love and that I’m best at. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s a good collaboration.

That 

Drew Brody: is a good collaboration. So a 

Steve Cuden: complimentary relationship. 

Drew Brody: And I think that that was true. You know, as I said, as a producer, my specialty was working with writer directors on their passion projects. Writer directors have a singular vision and sometimes that can be great and sometimes they can get stuck and isolated.

And it’s, again, it’s such a vulnerable place to be, to be an artist, that it’s often hard, especially with writer directors, for them to crack that open and let somebody in. Because you’re always worried that somebody’s gonna take it over or take it the wrong way. And that’s, I think, what I, uh, I guess a strength of my collaboration in those kind of relationships is my goal is to help them realize their vision.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. Well, a writer and a director may get lost in the forest for the trees, that old cliche. Mm-hmm. And when that happens, they, they sort of remember in their minds, I know it’s happened to me. You sort of remember why you started the thing in the first place and what made it great for you and what your joy in it is and what it is you want to accomplish with it.

And then you’ve lost your way a little bit and you can’t quite see the whole picture anymore. And so somebody else coming in might. Either help you or throw you for a loop. Right? One of those two. Right. And so there’s fear 

Drew Brody: in the being thrown for a loop, right? And that, I’m gonna change my answer earlier when you said, you know, how did I know that I was a good producer?

That’s when I knew it was when I figured out, oh, I’m actually really good at that part where I can come in and it’s not a clash of egos, but I can work with somebody in a way that makes them feel safe. And I’m supercharging their vision rather than doing battle with them. Over something, which is, I think what the fear is when people are trying to write and direct their own thing, and they’re a little nervous about getting anybody involved, that, that would be in a, a position to take charge.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s so common, again, going back to the notion that a screenwriter or a novelist, whatever, typically is writing a loan in a room for a period of time, maybe a long time. And now you have to be vulnerable as hell by giving it to others and get that feedback and those opinions and those criticisms.

And it can either be very helpful or very hurtful and it just depends. Right? 

Drew Brody: Yep. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and if you’re doing, especially on the passion projects, but really anything that you’re doing as a, as a writer is such a personal, it’s a vulnerability. It’s really nerve wracking to put that out into the world in any way, but especially before it’s done, right?

Oh yeah, for sure. You know, if you’ve gotten to the place where it’s like, okay, it, now I’m ready for an audience. It’s because you’ve gone through a process to get it where you feel. Ideally, unless it’s just because it was on the calendar and you have to go up, uh, show must go on and all that. But you know, ideally, like by the time you get in front of an audience, you have a certain amount of joy and confidence that this is the version that you wanna tell.

And then you’re still vulnerable because, well now what if the audience doesn’t react the way that you want them to? But even before you get there, before you get to the place where you can say, haha, this is it. This is the project. This is the best version of this that I wanna send out. Uh, you have to get there.

And trying to find people who can give you feedback that you really trust is hard. It’s, it’s part of what I think people have trouble with, with network notes and, and studio notes on TV shows is it’s entirely possible that the notes are good. The relationship between writers and networks, or writers and studios is often not one of trust.

Steve Cuden: It’s sometimes adversarial or it feels adversarial to the writer. That’s right. This is a good segue into what is your philosophy toward both giving notes and receiving notes? 

Drew Brody: Yeah, so, um, I’ve had more success as a script consultant than I have as a writer. Mm-hmm. Because I’m pretty good at giving notes.

How do you do it? Right. And one of the things is I learned actually from my experience with Matt Chaffe on, on fluffy bunnies in a field of daisies, which by the way, the original title was the Untitled Virgin Horror Project. So if you could just picture what the play is, that was called the Untitled Virgin Who Project and then became Fluffy bunnies in a field of daisies, you probably have the right idea of what the tone, uh, is, is of that thing.

It was a brilliant play and Matt. I don’t think, I mean, enough times passed, and I don’t think that he would deny this anyway. Matt’s not great at taking notes, but what I realized is many writers aren’t good at it. I didn’t realize this right away, but there was something that we actually had a fight about.

Like we had an argument about something that I felt very strongly was not working the way he intended it to work, and I had a solution and he did not like the solution, and I let it go. Like I just kind of put my hands up and I walked away because ultimately it’s his project. And two days later, without ever having said anything to me about it, without us ever making up, he just did the thing that I was saying to do, which in the moment he was so furious about.

And what I realized was, oh, he heard me. The argument was because I didn’t feel like I was heard yet. And so I was trying to keep on saying it from different angles until he got it. And what I realized is. People who are in that space where they’re taking notes, it’s a vulnerable space, which means you can’t always do it in a way that feels like it’s in the collaborative spirit, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t hear me.

And so once I realized then, I mean, this is, this is 20 years ago, that was a turning point for me is I like, oh, I, all I need to do is I need to say it and I need to trust that they’re gonna hear it. And whether or not they move forward with that or not is not my job. 

Steve Cuden: I think that’s exactly spot on, and I have taught forever to my students that when you’re being given notes, the smart play is to take the notes whether you agree with them or not.

And that the way that you argue notes in a room is to ask questions, not to fight against the notes. And that what happens, what you’re talking about happened for this writer frequently, even the dumbest, silliest, stupidest notes when you’re sitting there getting them, when you later go off and think about them, sometimes it actually triggers a solution to a problem that you didn’t even know was there, and then suddenly you realize it’s there.

Mm-hmm. So that’s what you’re talking about and what you’re saying as a note giver for you, and correct me if I’m wrong, yeah. Is that you needed to learn to just give the note and walk away from that 

Drew Brody: moment. Yep. Answer whatever questions they have, but if they’re just pushing back on it, just let it go.

And I had a similar experience. You know, you and I have both taught, uh, screenwriting at a, at a college level, and when I would teach my students how to take notes, I think that, you know, whatever you’ve had this experience, you know, you give 20 pieces of advice. Some of them are useful. Uh, this is one that I think was actually useful.

You know, what I would tell them in terms of taking notes is if somebody’s giving you a note and they’re trying to tell you how to fix something, and the thing that they’re trying to tell you to do is the most inane, pointless, dumb, counterproductive thing ever ignore the, what they’re trying to do to fix it.

But the most important thing in that moment is there is something not working in that. And the person giving you the note might be saying the wrong thing that’s wrong, and they. Honestly, more than half the time are probably giving you a solution that’s the wrong solution. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Drew Brody: But if you get hung up on what they’re wrong about, then you’re missing the point.

The most important thing is like, okay, there’s something in that part of that scene that isn’t working, so just go away and take a look at that and just know there’s something not working. You don’t have to fix it the way that they said, but you do have to look at where your script is not working. 

Steve Cuden: The note giver has what they call bumped on something.

That’s it. That’s it. And when they’ve bumped on it, even if the note is awful, exactly what you’re saying is right. It’s a moment to consider. What did they bump on? Their solution may not be useful, but the fact that they bumped on it is something to think about. Totally. Totally. I think that’s very, very useful.

I have been having just the most fun conversation for one hour with Drew Brody, and we’re gonna wind the show down just a little bit right now. And I’m just wondering, in all of your many wonderful experiences, can you share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or maybe just plain funny?

Drew Brody: Sure. I’ve got two, and actually I’m not sure that this is funny or if it’s just me bragging on my son and being, uh, Papa proud. So my son Isaiah is a filmmaker and he finished his first feature film, which he’s, right now, he just flew into Toronto for a, a, a film festival. And I, when he was doing that, I intentionally stood out of the way.

Um, and I did not get involved. I later, after he was finished, came on as a producer and helped him in post, but I. You know, that’s a parenting philosophy. Get outta the way and which is, is advice that I would give anybody as a parent, is give the kids the structure and then get outta the way and let them do what they’re gonna do.

But the moment that I realized, oh, this is not just something that he’s doing, he actually might have, he might have the right combination to make, it was the first cut of his movie that he shot when he was 16. I sat down and watched it and I had, at the end of it, I had two big notes and one note was, I think you need title cards.

To break up, you know, you sort of have chapters. And he argued with me vociferously. And by then I had learned the Matt Chaffe lesson and I just 

Steve Cuden: let it go. 

Drew Brody: Just let it go. Um, and the other one was, there was a scene that he had that was like 15 minutes long with no audible dialogue. It’s just subtitles and sound effects.

And I was like, it’s not gonna work. You’re not gonna be able to get an audience to sit still through that. And he argued with me for both of them, and I let it go. And then this was the magic. It was five or six days later, he comes up to me. I, I used to work at the school where he went. So he just came up to me on campus and he goes, oh, by the way, I tried that thing with the title cards.

And that’s what the movie wanted.

And that’s what the movie wanted, was a great. Like he disagreed with me, but he was willing to give it a try and try it. And the other note that I gave him, he still disagreed with. And then I saw it with him when he screened it for 200 people, uh, for the first time. And damn if he wasn’t right and there you could hear a pin drop during that whole 15 minute sequence of silence.

It was one of the most magical experiences I’ve had in a, in a movie theater. And uh, and I was just wrong on that one. And so what I love, like the reason I think he can make it is he both has the conviction of his own vision to be able to hold tight to that thing. ’cause I wasn’t the only one that told him that wasn’t gonna work and he just knew that this is what it was supposed to be.

And also he was flexible enough that this other thing, he was willing to try it. And when he realized that’s what the movie wanted. Then that’s what he did. It was like he was able to get his ego outta the way. 

Steve Cuden: Well it is an art though. It’s called show business. It’s still an art form. Yes. And the artist has to make a decision from their perspective at some point.

Drew Brody: Yeah. And ultimately, you know, the fact that he was able to hold tight on the one, and also he was able to be flexible on the other one. I think in the end he’s got a movie that’s really, really good and you know, he’s, uh, he turned 18 recently and he is, and he is on the film festival circuit with a feature film, which is, which is unbelievable.

That’s amazing. At 18. That’s incredible. It’s unreal. Um, so the Desert Blood, so this is a genre film, so it hits like, I loved it because of the story, but it hits certain, certain things that are important. For this type of genre. And we had the unfortunate experience that the DVD market collapsed after we found financing, before we went to market.

That was like a six month window in there. And you know, we, this was the third of four movies in the series that I produced this one. And the other three were produced by my mentor Suzanne Lyons. And they just steadily got increasingly better in quality and then earned less and less because it was when the, the, the market was collapsing.

But we ended up on Showtime for two years. It was on, like, Showtime had like 15 different networks at that point, and they, they just had unlimited run. Um, and the way that that happened was just, you know, the way that these things sometimes happened, it was a friend of mine had a friend who was on the.

Acquisitions team at Showtime. And so he asked me if he could broker it and bring it in. And I said, sure. ’cause we weren’t, we hadn’t sold it anywhere yet. And this is interesting ’cause I didn’t know how this works, but I imagine it’s sort of the same way that the college admissions work. So the woman who brought it in, there’s a panel, and I guess they met like once a week to talk about all the projects that had come in to decide which one that the network was gonna, which ones the network was gonna buy, and which ones they were gonna pass on.

Um, and so they’ve all, everything’s been seen by at least two or three people at the table. And then they go on and they’ve got their notes and so they, you know, they go along and it’s like, okay, this is the project, so we’re gonna talk about desert or blood now, and let’s talk about what is it and what’s the pros and what’s the cons and what’s your recommendation.

And when it came time to do our movie, I’m told because they were willing to share this with me. And I, I love this story, so I was totally willing to hear it. I’m told that the three people that saw my movie. All disliked it all strongly recommended that the network pass on it. Um, and they had all of these different reasons that I’m sure were completely valid.

And then having done that, they moved on to the next project and they’re just starting to talk about the next project. When the guy at the far end of the table, who clearly must be the guy who’s in charge, says, hang on, go back. Was that female nudity and that’s how Desert of Blood ended up on the air for two years.

’cause there was 

Steve Cuden: female nudity in it 

Drew Brody: because there was female nudity in it. And that there’s very definitely female nudity in it. There is, there’s in the, in the very first scene and I think maybe one other time, but like, we got it right out there so that we know, uh, we got nudity and we’ve got Gore right in the first couple of minutes specifically because that’s what you need in order to sell this as a genre film.

Were they running it late at night? 

Steve Cuden: Was it a late 

Drew Brody: night? It, it ran because we gave them an unlimited, you know, play it as much as you want on all of your channels for a very low amount of money. They just ran it over and over and over again all kinds of times. Mm-hmm. So this is the, this is, you know, people I went to high school with were like, oh, I saw your movie.

I think it’s like two in the afternoon. And 

Steve Cuden: I always love the, I saw your movie, I think. 

Drew Brody: Yes, yes. You just never, you just never know. So that’s the fun story. 

Steve Cuden: So last question for you today, drew, you’ve shared with us a gigantic amount of advice throughout this whole show, but I’m wondering if you have a single piece of advice that you like to give to those who are starting out in the business or maybe they’re in a little bit trying to get to that next level.

Drew Brody: Yes, I’m gonna give advice that’s gonna apply to all kinds of different things, and it’s the best advice I have gotten in the business. And this was, this is courtesy of, um. Another mentor of mine, which side note get mentors would be a good piece of advice, but that’s not what I’m going with. Absolutely.

Uh, mark Zachery, who is an extraordinarily talented writer, producer, he and his wife, uh, both, um, who are also very much a give back community building kind of, kind of couple. His wife is named Elaine, his wife is named Elaine, and they’re both fantastic, terrific people. He gave me this advice and I now share it and I just call it Zachary’s Five questions.

So the idea is you have to ask these five questions before you get into partnership with anyone on anything significant. And here are the five questions. Do I like this person? Do I trust this person? Do they do what they say they’re gonna do? Do they finish what they start? And. Have they already successfully done what I need them to do in this partnership?

And the magic trick is the answer to the five questions. The answers don’t all have to be yes, but you do have to know what the answers are before you get in. And this is what got this movie made. So the way that I applied this advice, and I’m so grateful for it, I had been given several recommendations for line producer, post-production companies, you know, these teams that do all of that.

Line producer, post-production, production manager, post supervisor. It’s sort of a team. The team that did it, uh, for us was two guys, uh, Scott and Ron, and. I had gotten a couple of different recommendations, and I had set up these interviews, including the interview with them, and right before I went in with them, they came from, they had done, I said there was four in that series that Suzanne Lyons, uh, produced.

Three of them. They had just done her last movie. And when I talked to her before I interviewed them, I got the most passionate non recommendation I have ever heard. She gave me all of the terrible reasons why I should absolutely never, ever hire these people. And she went through everything. And you know, one of them is a pathological liar, and the other one never says anything, which means you can’t get any commitments.

And you know, and that’s terrible because he promised this and he promised all of it. But I just had this conversation with Mark about the five questions, and after I met with them, I went through the five questions. Do I like these guys? Fine. I can get along with pretty much everybody. They’re great to go out and have a drink with in the evening after you’ve done a long day shooting.

So I like ’em well enough. Great. Do I trust them? Well, based on the recommendations I got, no. ’cause one of ’em is a pathological liar and the other one won’t ever say anything. So you can’t hold them to anything. So do I trust them? No. And that’s kind of a problem. And that would’ve been a deal breaker in any other thing, except because I got these five questions.

The third one is, do they do what they say they’re gonna do? Well again, one’s a liar and one doesn’t say anything. But the fourth question, do they finish what they start? Suzanne gave me this non recommendation the day that they turned in her movie, the day that they turned in, her completed, finished fine, well put together movie.

So yes. And also, have they already successfully done what I’m asking them to do now? And this was the important thing because I realized in those five questions that I, as a first time film producer. I was a no on that fifth question for anybody who was gonna partner with me and therefore I couldn’t afford to have a no when I’m hiring other people.

’cause I’m already the no. So the most important thing is I needed people who had already successfully done this and I needed them to be people who finished and turned in the movie. And therefore I was willing to not just overlook all of that stuff. You know, I made a conscious choice not to go with people I liked and trusted better because they were a no for that fifth question.

But the more important thing is I knew what the answers were. ’cause that’s the key, as Mark says, the answers don’t all have to be Yes. But you have to know what the answers are. And because I knew. What the pitfalls were on liking and trusting and do they do what they say? I knew that. And so my eyes were open going in and I was able to manage that relationship and I was able to manage expectations and I knew what I was getting into.

And ultimately we, we finished the film and I’m very proud, uh, despite what the Showtime people say, I’m very proud of the movie that we, we made. I think it’s, uh, I think it’s a lot of fun. 

Steve Cuden: Well, one of the jobs of a. Anybody working on a movie in almost any department is the art of compromise and understanding how it works in total, so that even though you don’t agree with every single little thing, you can compromise on it in some way and still get the project done.

And that’s what you’re talking about, about those, you’ve got five things to consider and you don’t have to have a yes on all of them. But knowing it is very useful because then you can compromise. 

Drew Brody: Absolutely. And I just to just to add onto that, knowing it is very useful because I think what often we do, especially if you’ve ever hired anybody, you know, you go through the menu and you go through the pros and cons and you hire the person who’s got the least cons, but there’s still not a hundred percent.

Perfect. And I think that we have the habit of once we’ve cast somebody, or once we’ve hired somebody, or once we’ve engaged in some sort of partnership, we have a habit of assuming the day that we hire them, that all of those negatives are gone and that they are now perfect for that. And actually you wanna know like, okay, this is the place where this person isn’t perfect, and how am I gonna, how am I gonna manage that as we move forward?

Right? Exactly. How am I gonna manage that so that they can be successful so that the partnership can be successful so that the project can be successful? 

Steve Cuden: That’s very wise advice and you’re gonna bump into it a lot if you’re in the business at all, you’re gonna bump into where people are not perfect and they’re not necessarily perfectly what you want, but you are gonna work with them and you’re going to make best do.

And to have that information in advance is very useful. So not knowing it, that’s when you get blindsided. Right? Knowing it in advance. You don’t get blindsided as easily. 

Drew Brody: I think the hard part is not the not knowing. I think that most of us have a habit of forgetting. You knew this before you got in, and then once we started, you just forgot that there were these things that you were gonna have to manage.

So just have that intention going in and say, okay, I’m gonna manage this group. And I know that I don’t trust anything that they say, but I also know that they’re gonna finish my movie and they’ve done it successfully. Drew Brody, this has been 

Steve Cuden: an absolutely terrific hour plus on Story Bee today, and I truly can’t thank you enough for your time, your energy, and certainly your great wisdom having done this for quite some time.

And I thank you greatly for being on the show with me today. 

Drew Brody: Well, thank you. Thank you. It’s been a lot of fun. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s story beat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to.

Your support helps us bring more great story beat episodes to you. Story Beat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tune in and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Den and may all your stories be unforgettable.