An Interview with Brandon Drake

Hello again our non-existent readers (we're working on this). Just completed an interview with Brandon Drake, the writer and creative minds behind the new movie 'Visioneers.' Zach Galifianakis plays George in this somewhat Dystopic, Terry-Gilliam-Brazil-esque satire about what it means to care in our modern world.

I met Brandon Drake at a screening of Visioneers at the Gene Siskel Film Center this past Thursday, the 18th. I talked to him a little bit that night, and interviewed him by phone the next day (June 19th, 2009). What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation. Some language we use in the interview is taken from the film, so if you don't follow exactly, don't worry - the movie will be out for release sometime in July.

Roswell Motorpark: So everything went well last night?

Brandon Drake: Yeah, some people liked it for the reasons we hoped they would like it. Some people don't like it for the reasons we thought they wouldn't like it. And some people love it, so it's great. We're just glad people showed up.

RM: I was pretty impressed with the amount of people who showed up. I got an e-mail from the Zach Galifianakis mailing list a few months ago offering 500 free passes to stream the movie online, but I missed that.

BD: I think they're going to announce on Zach Galifianakis' newsletter the whole screening program. Zach fans are just awesome.

RM: Is that how you're getting the attention for the movie? Do you think you would have gotten any attention without Zach Galifianakis?


BD: I think we would have had another somewhat known actor play the role. I think we probably would have had some kind of following depending on the actor. What the film ended up being, I don't think we would of had the online presence that we have and I don't think we have the kind of really dedicated fan support. It worked out really good.

One of the big compliments my brother and I get from the movie is from people who've seen it who are fans of Zach's humor commenting on the similarities. We didn't know Zach when we started. It feels like it was kind of a perfect fit. I hope a lot of Zach fans see the movie as Zach fans and then become Visioneers fans.

RM: I think that's a good way to approach it.

BD: We're really happy that it worked out the way it did.

RM: Let me take a step back here. I contacted you guys because I was interested in your self-starting process. I read an interview with you guys - I can't remember what website it was on - but it was you and your brother. I wanted to ask you about your education, or how you got into film, how you went to film school, how you decided to write this script, and so on.

BD: We were 12 or 10 and all we wanted to do was make movies. Jared got into photography and started doing a documentary for a friend of his who was struggling to pole vault, which besides Visioneers was one of the coolest things Jared ever made. It got him into the film program. I think it was kind of one of those things for him where, we discovered talent we didn't know we had, and it opened doors and that just went from there. All he was trying to do was do something for fun that he enjoyed with his friend.

The story for me is somewhat similar. I've always been a reader and I knew I always wanted to write. I found out through experiments that, when I wrote, sometimes, good things would happen to me that wouldn't normally happen in my life when I wasn't writing. I was actually a science major in college. I was going to go into environmental science and go live in the south Pacific and save the turtles and whatever. But I wasn't very happy leaving behind what I should do. So I was walking down campus one day, I was kind of miserable, and I saw this ad for being a newspaper editor. And I really liked writing in high school so I went to this meeting and I ended up getting the job and ended up spending all of my time working two or three page news stories for some podunk university paper but I just got lost in it. I worked my butt off and I loved them.

I actually ended up meeting my wife that way. She read one of my articles and she became a writer and there's this whole long story where I faked a meeting to meet the writers of the paper, because I never saw them face to face. My friend was like, 'Man, just don't try to date a writer from the university paper, they're all dogs.' But I faked this meeting to meet her and we ended up getting married.

RM: Nice.

BD: In my opinion, she's out of my league. So things like that just kind of happened. For me, the question was, when I got out of college, how am I going to write? A lot of people have ability and have talent and you gotta find a medium. I was in journalism and I hated it.
There's the ability to write well - the ability to craft sentences well; and there's 'do you actually have anything to say?' I had a job working at a newspaper magazine that was a really secure job and had a future where I could be an editor one day. But the things that I wrote about were like, flower shows and it was a travel magazine. I was going nuts.

RM: Is that Jeffers, a little bit?

BD: It was Jeffers. It's where Jeffers came from. I worked for nine months. I worked on Level Three in San Francisco. In the movie, George goes out to the Undeveloped Area. There's no guarantee that he's not going to explode. I had that job - this was when Jared got out of film school - he was really great at directing actors, and he needed a writer. So there was this new opportunity to write scripts, and I was looking for a way to express myself, working my ass off at a travel magazine. I'd go to work and it was Jeffers and I'd just sit there. It was ridiculous, the deadlines, the work they'd give you for two weeks that I could do in a half a day. You're just supposed to sit there and pretend you're working. So I would write scripts while I was at work. I'd do research on characters and whatever else. I'd go home and write at night and I did that for nine months and then, kind of at the jumping-off point - I entered a lot of screenwriting contests. I was going to find the standard for good screenwriting and I'm going to force myself to get criticism. My first scripts were horrible and then my third or fourth one won a contest and that's when I got pretty serious about it, so (this was kind of my Jeffers moment), I took a job at a dog kennel. I had an honor's degree from a university. This was 2003, so the economy was still in pain, and San Francisco was competitive for writing. And I'm like 'well I'm gonna go work at a dog kennel because nobody there's going to fuck with my head.'

There's a way I can hang out and read half the day and then go home and write and work, just spend hours uninterrupted making the same amount of money.

Anyone who has a passion for screenwriting or any creative thing, you really need to say 'I really want to do this.' You need to get through the hard times. For me, it was going, trying the other mediums, knowing they're not for me. It was either, write novels, or do this screenwriting thing. Write novels? Good luck. I want to write a novel one day, I'd love to, but there's a process.

RM: The big cities for film are obviously New York and L.A. Did being in California contribute to you actually getting a foot in the door in the film industry? Did it have to do with your geography or was it by your work alone?

BD: I'll finish my little story and I'll answer that. So I took this crap job and I made the same amount of money and I signed up for an online writing program through UCLA that was kind of the same program they did for their Masters screenwriting program. It only cost 800 bucks. A nine month education in screenwriting structure and craft and writing the screenplay. So I did that. I wrote two scripts in nine months, and that's where I got the bare bones work habits and that was essential. So anybody can do that, you know?

You can go online and find a program like that. I recommend that one, absolutely. Because out of that I won the award at the end of the year. San Francisco is not L.A., and it's not going to be. I won that award and that's when people started to pay attention. It was just an online program.

At the same time, Jared's short won, so people started to pay attention. But they payed attention for about a month and then they didn't care. So Jared and I were back in a place where we were like, 'Man, we really worked hard and got some recognition, but if we get jobs at all, it's not going to be much different from the Jeffers crap we've been doing.' So that's when we decided. I know I could write something well, I know he could direct something well. Let's go do our own work.

For me, I moved to Seattle to save money, to live much more cheaply and keep writing. That's where Visioneers came from. I wouldn't have written that script if I had moved to L.A. I would have probably tried to write something a lot more commercial. It was crucial for me to be in my home where I had my voice and I felt really comfortable to lay it out there. That's why I still live in Seattle because I could work really well there.

If you're a writer, that's what matters most. If you don't do the work, then it doesn't matter. Nobody's going to care. I believe anyone who writes well, someone will pay attention to you. Somehow, someone will find it. Even after going to UCLA and going to these people. Jared lived down there for five or six years. It doesn't matter unless you have something. And when you do - it took ten days to go from finishing the script where I lived to getting our first producer signed. We did the work. You do need to know somebody, but I think most people can find somebody.

What bothers me is how most people tend to get hung up on 'how do I get my foot in the door?' and they do things like save all of their money and move to L.A., go out to bars, and try to meet someone. What they should be doing is just working. And with my brother, it worked out. That's sort of our story.

Everybody want's to know 'how did you get an agent?' You kind of get one when you deserve one. That sounds kind of crappy, but it's true. You don't get an agent by going around looking for agents. You should be working. Anybody who's interested in learning the craft, I think it's a really good time. And all of the answers are kind of out there where you live. I was working at a dog kennel. Just some guy who had quit this job. I was working with this girl, I don't even know if she finished high school. It was crap. But I was able to work. I think I wrote like three scripts in four months. I found this online program that was available to anyone and I'd put it up there with any masters program because there was no ego involved.

This will be my short film school rant: You get into a film school and everybody thinks you're a genius because you're part of the film school. So they all treat each other like they're geniuses. It works the other way. If you know how to do something really well, you have to work really hard at it, because it's do hard to do something that good, and you have to push yourself really hard. And if you do something well, people think you're a genius, but you really just worked hard. I think a lot of people get shredded in film school because they assume they're talented. And people's voices get destroyed, because they're really original writers, and they walk out and they don't want to work anymore.

But if you're just getting started for five or ten scripts. I had four years of work before something clicked.

RM: So can you tell me - this is kind of an unrelated question - but I was interested, while watching the movie, to figure out what your influences are on the script. Besides written or literary influences or movie influences, I would also like to know what, in your life, lent to some of the jokes in the script.

BD: I was always a big Kurt Vonnegut fan. Huge Kurt Vonnegut fan. I read a lot of the dystopian novels in high school. You know, 1984, Brave New World, that stuff. But I've always just really lived comedies. Jared and I both grew up watching Ghostbusters and Dumb and Dumber. I think we actually watched The Burbs like ten times one summer, as kids. The movies that I watch at home with my wife, like Best in Show, all the Christopher Guest stuff. Whenever there's a good comedy that's well written. I love Dumb and Dumber. People are like 'you love Dumb and Dumber?' And I love Dumb and Dumber. It's a simple idea, but the material is fricking classic. When it comes out when I'm 18, it's hilarious.

This movie was definitely meant to be a comedy first, not a dystopian... whatever it's been characterized as.

RM: When I was watching it, I was thinking a weird marriage of Brazil and Office Space. But maybe with different themes. But I could see how some people might get confused.

BD: Especially because it goes against the grain of the genre of those types of movies. It's a satire. Satire is kind of weird in movies. There isn't a lot of satire that's been done well. Network was a really great satire, but we're doing it through sort of this sci-fi element, so it's a weird combination.

Ours is a story of this guy just trying to get through. I think all of the work we do and all of the things I'm doing now and in the future, it's just simple ideas, how hard it is to be human. So it's just a struggle to be human in a world where we don't care much anymore. Visioneers really emphasizes the human life not being worth very much part of it and so it's a struggle against that. I think most movies we're doing now are just people struggling with people.
I think that's kind of where I'm at now, just writing Visioneers. That's been my experience over the past few years, just being around people. So that's kind of where that comes from. What was the other part of the question?

RM: Yeah, I just think some of the jokes in the movie were obviously inside jokes, and I forgot what else you were talking about last night.

BD: Well one thing was, in order to raise the stakes between George and Michelle, we wanted to have this kid, Howard, who kind of had it all figured out. I don't know how well it comes through in the movie, just because of production design, we didn't have a whole lot of room to do stuff, but Howard was kind of the kid who at the end of the movie goes to run with the wolves and he's not going to be like George, the next generation of Washingtonwinsterhammermen. He's going to go do something else. And he comes out of this world which says a lot about how he views George.

But, there's no way you could have a kid, because they're expensive to have on set. In the film, there's no kid, we just shut the door and said that I'm going to write this so you have to shut the door and you never see Howard.

RM: I thought it was funny in that way, but I also thought it was funny because I couldn't imagine Zach Galifianakis being a father, either.

BD: (laughs) Well, that depends on how you read the situation.

The whole pole vaulting thing [in the movie] was because my parents have a pole vaulting thing in their backyard and we had to use it somehow.

And when I left San Francisco, I got a job in the school district where I grew up, so we moved back my parents little guest house, to live there for free, so I can keep writing. I actually still live in the pool house. So maybe this script will get me out of there.

And the whole hippie movement in the movie, was little bit like some of the production stuff that went on. A ton of people in my backyard - not all of them really had to be there. There's a lot of stuff that Jared threw in there too. I can't remember though.

RM: I was also interested in you guys talking about your "production company." Your brother said that it kind of reveals the smoke and mirrors of the film world, where you guys kind of put on a ploy to get attention but then it actually became true.

BD: It's totally how it works. A lot of people don't want to stick their neck our, they're so afraid of failure that they kind of get paralyzed. So when somebody has anything - there's two ways, you either have a script or you have money. When someone has a script - you just have that attitude of 'we're gonna do this.' People decide so quickly what success means - maybe they never knew what it meant to them that they just never end up doing it. They're so passive. It's understandable, because it's a totally brutal industry and a lot of people don't have the support that Jared and I were able to give each other. The minute that we just said 'okay, here we are, we're gonna do this, and we have a tiny little bit of money and we can do it.' People felt like, 'what do we have to lose?'

So, people got involved, and that kind of attitude is what it took for us. Even now, we're the guys who made Visioneers. But some people will look at it and say that it's not a success, it didn't go to theaters, it's not doing that well in the box office, so 'who are those guys?' Other people will go 'what a cool movie! Your first time effort!' So we still kind of have to just keep going. My next script is going to be very ambitious, in a different way, but in order to write it, but in order to write it, I still had to go 'somehow, we're going to do this.' We're going to have to have that attitude. I think people get shredded up somewhere along the line. I've seen people who have so much potential, but they're just scared shitless.

People have money and people have tons of connections and people who have been successes in the past, they see themselves as failures, and it's kind of a mindfuck. When you start to realize that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you've done or who you know or how many critics you have or even if your movie is one of the biggest ever. If you're a mess personally, or if you don't trust yourself or want to take a chance, nothing is ever going to happen.

We had huge nightmares on our film. Every indie film does. We almost ran out of film halfway through. The list goes on of things we had to overcome. Some attitudes just say 'well, that's just what happens.' It's tough.

RM: The Film Center gave you guys an award. Have you gotten any other similar attention? Just selections, that kind of thing?

BD: We won the Vegas Audience Award, which was a big deal for us. Hollywoodreporter gave us a good review. Slashfilms gave us a good one. Variety slammed us, but the critics have been pretty good. E-film Critic gave us a good review. Independent Film Directives gave us a good review.

In general, except for the people who don't get it, who don't like it. I think some critics want George to explode at the end, or want Brazil - it's not really innovative. It's a pretty simple story. We're not trying to do anything really profound. At the end it's just a very simple, efficient movie. One guy hopes for a better life. It's really straightforward. We're trying to tell a simple truth in a really complicated world. Some people are turned off by that. They want to see something more profound. The arthouse, intellectual crowd.

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But the middle road, your average viewer, has responded really well. That's what's guiding our movie. We sold out almost every screening we had. In Seattle we had 600 people. We had the biggest theater at the screening and we sold it out twice. I think we had the most attended film event of any of the films at the festival. I think a lot of those were Zach fans. But also, people are intrigued by the concept. It's very topical, especially for the times we're living in.

We're really happy with the product we've made overall. The people we made the movie for, we hoped the average would be Tunt [general type of person in Visioneers] trying to not be a Tunt and that's who we're trying to speak to. That's our audience, we don't have a problem with that. That's enough for us.

RM: One final question. You mentioned you were working a script, can you talk any more about that, or are you a writer who doesn't like to talk about a thing until it's finished, for fear of ruining it?

BD: You know, I can't say too much.

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All I can say is, we really fell in love with the character of George.

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There's lots of funny things out there. I like to write what I think is funny. George is a comic strategy, kind of the straight man who doesn't really speak but everyone else around him does. We want a new character one, because we've already done that and two, because the kind of character we'd fall in love with now wouldn't be that kind of guy. We found it, so that's good. We found it about a year ago. He's there, the story. We're just very excited to introduce him (laughs). That's all I'll say for now.

RM: Yeah, I think that's enough. It was good talking to you man, thanks for your time.

BD: Take care.