The Oath: A Batman Fan Film Got Another Pass

Independent film making is hard. It’s even harder when all eyes are on you because you’re using a famous property. Johnny K joins Case and Sam to talk about the challenges in making the award winning Fan Film, The Oath: A Batman Fan Film!

Check out The Oath: https://youtu.be/QNgKEX9cxwg?si=RGorZuDbsWcTVusB

Support Farragut Forward: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/farragut-forward-a-star-trek-fan-production/x/2498098#/

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Transcription

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00:00
Case
So, yeah, I figured this would be a good call, just where we can kind of talk about the making of the oath from. From start to finish. And that'll kind of COVID a lot of the hurdles of filmmaking, especially when we're talking about independent films.

00:11
Sam
I want to know about the rats. I want to know if they were professional or not. Don't know why. That's what I want to know about. That's specifically what I want to know about union.

00:21
Johnny K
Union rats.

00:22
Case
They want scabs. No, no. Scab rats.

00:25
Sam
No scab rats.

00:27
Case
Scab rats. Welcome to certain POVs, another pass podcast with case and Sam. This week is a fifth episode, so we're talking about a movie that overcame adversity. Let's celebrate the creativity of the filmmakers. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another past podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Sam Alicea. Hi, Sam. How do you feel about independent filmmaking?

00:57
Sam
I think it's awesome. I think it's cool, and I think really fun stuff comes out of it, because when you don't have a large budget, you have to think outside of the box. Right. You got to use all the little tools.

01:12
Case
I always say that one of the big through lines of the show is how adversity can really mold and create more interesting works. And that oftentimes the movies that we look at are the ones that didn't handle adversity or didn't really receive adversity going into it. And so that is why I like to work on independent films.

01:30
Johnny K
And maybe I'm being a little self.

01:32
Case
Indulgent today, but I'm bringing on a movie that I was a co producer on.

01:37
Sam
Oh, look at you.

01:39
Case
So, for us to talk about the oath, a Batman fan film, we are joined by which I enjoyed the writer, director, and jack of all trades on that production, Johnny K. What's up, guys?

01:53
Johnny K
Thanks for having me on, Johnny, thank.

01:55
Case
You for indulging that lengthy opening before bringing you on.

01:58
Sam
Fanfare, confetti. Woo.

02:01
Johnny K
You guys can keep going. I love long intros. Yeah.

02:05
Case
So, Johnny, so this is a fifth episode. So, as people who listen to this podcast know, every five episodes we talk about a movie that actually had to go through adversity and came out a better film for it. And like I said, independent filmmaking is rough. I was there, not that much of the shoot, but for the amount of it, I saw quite a bit of the issues that you have to go through when making it. And I heard all of the stories from the rainy nights before and things like that. So I know that making the oath was a labor of love, but it's love that has been rewarded. You're on YouTube. Let me check where we're at now. But you cracked numbers that we could only dream of. So you're at 5.21,000 subscribers, and you're at 19,000 likes.

02:49
Johnny K
Pardon me.

02:50
Sam
One of those was mine. I liked it.

02:53
Case
I don't even see your view count here. So this is a widely seen movie now, and it's been very positively received.

03:00
Johnny K
Yeah, no, it's been awesome. And the last time I looked at it, because I promise I don't obsess over the view count every single day of my life. I promise I don't do that. But the last time I looked at it, I think were 800,000. I know we're slowly sneaking up on a million, which is really cool. We will eventually hit a million views, and obviously it'll be the most seen project I've ever made. And that's a good feeling. The fact that it's a Batman fan film has a lot to do with why so many people are watching it. Batman helps a lot.

03:29
Case
Yeah, that's the wild part about fan films. I've worked on productions that were Sci-Fi and Star Trek ish versus ones that are actually Star Trek, like Farrogate forward, which we're working on currently. And just being a fan film, like having the name, it's going to get people to be paying attention to you in a way that they just wouldn't if you were doing it in a situation that you control.

03:50
Johnny K
Right? Yeah. And for us, there was a lot of benefits to doing a fan film, and we can get into that in a minute, but it kind of came with its own built in audience. When you make a Batman fan film, a lot of Batman fans are going to watch it. And obviously, as an indie filmmaker, the hope is that they will see that and then they will say, what else is this studio putting out? Let me go look at the original stuff. So it helped us all the way around. Definitely got a lot more eyeballs on in our studio. And my goal, since were never going to profit or make a dollar from this, obviously, because I don't really want to go to jail.

04:21
Sam
Right.

04:22
Johnny K
That was a big motivator. But my goal with this was really to get a lot of extra eyeballs on our actors, on our cast. And I think it's probably some of their most watched work as well. And I know those guys have told me they've gotten additional work on other projects because of the oath. So that was an awesome result of all this, too.

04:40
Case
That is such a cool element of it all, where this really feels like a labor of love, but it's one that is a really cool resume piece for everyone. It's so easy to get people to tune into it, check it out, and it's 20 minutes long. It's not like a huge investment that people have to make. But then they look at it and they see the quality, and it kind of makes me think of, what was it? The director for district nine and Chappie doing sort of those kind of like fan projects or sky captain in the world of tomorrow, where that was a proof of concept short that then exploded that guy's career for a minute, and then it collapsed because the movie was a giant bomb. But for a minute there, it looked like this is the beginning of a new auteur.

05:24
Sam
Yeah. And then it didn't.

05:28
Case
But it could have been. It could have been. We should talk about that.

05:33
Johnny K
But, yeah.

05:33
Case
So why don't we actually kind of just walk through the production of the oath? So, again, full disclosure, I was a cop producer on it. I invested in the project. So I don't want to be having anyone think that this is just some sort of random thing that I found and I wanted to champion, but it kind of is. It's because the project was well underway by the time I got attached to it. And I just heard about it, and I was like, that sounds really cool. And the shots looked really cool, and I knew some of the people involved, so it was like, oh, yeah, I do want to champion that. And so why don't we take it all the way back, then? So how did this all get started?

06:06
Case
And I also know many of the actual answers, but I want to hear Johnny tell it.

06:10
Johnny K
Yeah, no, I blame everything on our budy. Guillermo Mejia also goes by the name William J. He's a cosplayer here in the Washington, DC area where we are. And he's done a lot of costumes cosplays over the years. And just one day, randomly, I saw a picture of him wearing a Michael Keaton Batman suit. And he's one of my best friends. And not that he needs to run his purchases by me, but I was a little hurt that he bought a Michael Keaton Batman suit and didn't tell me or consult with me. Guess.

06:40
Sam
Wow.

06:41
Johnny K
I know. It was shattering for me, but I see this picture, and obviously I text him and I said, is that suit yours? He's like, yeah, I just got it, and I love it. You got to come over because I want to do a photo shoot. I think a lot of cinematographers probably got to start with photography, and I'm no exception. I love photography. Came up doing a lot of photography back in the day, and my first thought was definitely not to invest two years of my life in making a short film. It was, no, come over to the garage. I'm going to turn all the lights off. We're going to key light you and edge light you in a very specific style. So I can pretend like I'm Tim Burton for, like, 2 hours. That was my goal.

07:19
Johnny K
And he came over, we got him in the suit. I just started shooting. And typically, you get your shots and then you go edit them and play with them and tweak them. And that day, I can just remember looking at the raw photos on the back of the camera, right on the LCD screen, and I'm just looking at those pictures saying, this looks really good. In my personal opinion. Obviously, the oath has always tried to channel the Michael Keaton Tim Burton Batman 89 aesthetic and vibe. We never wanted anything else. We didn't even want Batman returns aesthetic or vibe. We only wanted Batman 89. So I learned a few things that day. Certain ways to light Batman. Definitely of the opinion that the worst thing you can do is put too much light on Batman.

08:05
Johnny K
There's something about keeping him dark and in the shadows and letting your brain kind of work out all the details that your eyes can't see. I think that's also why the cantina scene in Star wars was so awesome way back in 77, because you couldn't quite see all the creatures in the shadows. You just got hints that they were there. Same thing with Jabba's palace and Return of the Jedi. It was scarier because you couldn't really see it all, and your brain just kind of kicks in and you start scaring yourself at that point. So that's how Batman has always been to me in Batman 89. And when William came over for the photo shoot, my brain just started kicking some ideas around. And I showed a photo to William, and he looked at it.

08:45
Johnny K
He said, this looks like a poster for a movie. But there's no. I said, yeah, let me. Let me think on that. And I didn't commit to anything that day. I got a couple hundred shots. He went home, and then over the next couple of weeks, I got it in my mind, if I was going to do a Batman short film, how would I do it? And my thought then went to, well, I'm a huge fan of John Carpenter. I'm a big horror movie fan. And based on just everything I just told you about my opinions of keeping Batman in the shadows, the idea kind of hit me that if I did a Batman short film, it was obvious to me that Batman was not going to be the main character. Batman needed to be a presence lurking in the shadows.

09:25
Johnny K
And then that begged the question, well, if you're making a Batman movie and Batman is not the main character, who is? And then the idea came up about a cop. What is a Gotham city police officer? A street cop? Sergeant, this is a poor guy that has to live in that world. He has to work in that world. We intentionally set the movie a week before Batman 89. So it's a prequel. And I knew from the first minute that I conceived the script that this was going to start with the death of Johnny Gobbs, which was obviously a reference in the opening scene of Batman 89 about Johnny Gobbs getting ripped and taking a walk off a roof.

09:57
Johnny K
And I thought, well, I'm not going to show how Johnny Gobbs dies, but we're going to start the movie with a corpse, and that corpse is going to be Johnny Gobbs, and that will establish our movie. A week right before Batman 89. And the script came together pretty quick. Again, this is way before crowdfunding, way before anything. This was just an idea, just starting to write a 20 page script. And originally, the character of Sergeant Frank Kelly, who was the cop, he was just purely a corrupt cop. And the movie was basically going to be very linear about a corrupt cop taking a bribe. And then basically Batman just kind of bounces this guy. And then the movie was over. And I thought, well, there's no real emotional climax there.

10:39
Sam
It's just, where's the right?

10:43
Johnny K
Because I was still hung up on how can I make Batman like Michael Myers from Halloween? You know what I mean? How can I play up the horror aspects of know, the point of the movie was showing Batman as a nefarious, shadowy, know, stalking. This I was. My brain was kind of hung up on that. And then obviously, once I spent a few more days on it, I thought, no, Sergeant Kelly can't be this straightforward. What if he's not just a purely corrupt cop? What if he's a cop that's on the edge of being corrupt? And now we're getting a little more into the moral ambiguity here.

11:13
Johnny K
It's like, okay, how would Michael Keaton's Batman treat a cop character who is not corrupt yet, but is getting ready to be and is on the verge of corruption, maybe the cops taking his very first bribe ever that night. And Bruce Wayne, Batman knows. Know. And then I got into a lot of awesome conversations with Joe Gransky, who we credited as a story consultant. Joe's also an awesome artist. He did the Gotham City landscape painting at the opening of the oath. He painted that as well. But he's a story consultant on the oath. And he and I talked many hours about, well, would Michael Keaton's Batman just write this guy off as a loss? Would he just beat him up? Would he save. What? How would he treat this situation? And my idea was always, this is the world's greatest detective, right?

11:57
Johnny K
If he's facing adversity. Speaking of adversity case, if Bruce Wayne is facing adversity and he doesn't have any allies in Gotham because we're a prequel to 89, so he doesn't even have Commissioner Gordon as an ally. He's going to take all the help he can get. And my opinion was, if he can potentially intervene and help scare this guy straight now, the story can go somewhere. Now we have a moment where officer has to decide what he's going to do. And it didn't take me too long to get to that point, but originally, I just wanted to see Batman, kind of like Michael Myers or the shark in Jaws, for that matter. That's how I wanted to see is Jaws is not a movie about a shark. Jaws is a movie about a police chief who's scared of the water.

12:44
Johnny K
The shark just happens to be there. And that's how I always saw the oath. And that's kind of a very long answer to how that all kind of came about originally. Yeah.

12:53
Case
This brings up a question I have, or rather, it brings up a question I was going to ask that you kind of addressed, which is, I was wondering if you started with a full script idea or if you started with scouting, because that, I feel, is the next sort of thing, at least in my head of, like, where are you going to film this thing? Or did that happen later?

13:12
Johnny K
Oh, much later, I don't think. Yeah, we did not nail down a location until nine or ten months after the script was written.

13:19
Case
Oh, wow. Okay.

13:20
Johnny K
Yeah.

13:21
Sam
He was going to say that the artwork in the beginning is gorgeous.

13:24
Johnny K
Yeah. That's all Joe Gransky. Check out, I think his website is Joe gransky.com. He's an art teacher here in DC. Great portrait artist, oil painter. And when I talked to him about the Gotham City painting, I said, do me a favor. Here's my idea. Don't just rip off the landscape painting that opened up Batman 89, that scenic painting. Don't just rip that off. Give me a view of the same Gotham city skyline, but from about a half mile downriver. So we're looking at the same thing. It's just from a different angle. And then once I thought of that, I'm like, that's actually a perfect parallel for what the oath is. The oath is, we're looking at the same thing, which is Batman 89, but from a very different angle. So I thought that was a pretty cool parallel.

14:03
Sam
Yeah.

14:04
Case
Like, the mat work in there. Like, your commitment in general, to having a very practical, very authentic to Batman 89 aesthetic is a really strong point of this all. Even though the suit is the Batman return suit.

14:20
Johnny K
Have we heard that before? No, not at all. And that's a really good example of, like, the costume came first. He had the costume first. That spurred the idea for the. Then, you know, we kind of went from there, and we definitely didn't have the budget to outfit him in a different suit. But you know what? I'm okay with that, because I guarantee a Batman returns was not the first night that Batman wore the Batman returns suit. He had to test that thing out. That was a prototype. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

14:48
Case
He's got to have more than one.

14:49
Johnny K
Suit.

14:52
Sam
In one of the movies. He did go to his closet. I think it was the Clooney movie, so maybe it doesn't count, but he does go to his closet, because I remember the Ronald McDonald commercial had come out where it was like, what to wear? What to wear? And I made that joke when Batman was going through the multiple suits. So he does have multiple suits in film.

15:15
Case
Also, minor spoiler for the Flash, but Keaton, who was know, publicized as being in the movie as Batman, shows up, and he does have a whole wardrobe of Batsuits, so there's, like, even canon that supports this film, weirdly.

15:30
Sam
Sure. For sure. From all over the place.

15:32
Case
Yeah, but, Johnny, you mentioned not having the budget to get a whole new suit, which no one was expecting you to get a whole new suit. I think if anyone has pointed that out, it has only been as, like, a jokey nitpick on that one. But you mentioned budget. And so I feel like the next question is the fundraising, and what were the early steps of that? And then what is the relation between when you started fundraising versus you actually started filming? Because I know it was still running well past you having already started to shoot stuff. So how did that campaign come about. And what were the things you did that you feel like worked well in terms of getting the money you needed to make this thing?

16:09
Johnny K
Sure. Yeah. I desperately tried to not crowdfund this, actually. I have a real problem asking people for money. There's so many truly worthy causes in the world to give your money to and people who need money, because it's tough times breaking news for a lot of people right now. So, like me raising money for a Batman fan film, I just hated the idea of. I call it crowd begging. And I didn't like the idea of crowd begging, but I did it about the time I started looking at the wardrobe expenses, and I'm not talking about the Batsuit. The batsuit was basically bought by William off the shelf from an awesome company down in Columbia, South America, called the Cave Creature workshops. And he bought it off the shelf. So the batsuit was done, bootscape, everything.

16:57
Johnny K
What really raised the costuming budget were those cop costumes, the Gotham city police costumes. I think between the two of them, that was around three grand, just those two costumes. So that's full know, Navy peacoats, the hats. We had the badges custom made for Gotham City. We actually had to sign waivers saying we would destroy those badges because they're real police badges. And we had to sign a waiver that were going to destroy those badges after production, or they would stay in my custody. And, of course, they're still here. I've got them. I'm not getting rid of those, but just all the belt accessories, the prop weapons, I think the boots, like the motorcycle boots the cops were wearing. I mean, those boots are $400 a pair. We quickly got to, like, three grand of costume expenses, and I was hanging in for that.

17:47
Johnny K
I knew there's a price to doing business, right? So I was hanging in for some of that. Obviously, were shooting out of town, which we can get to in a minute. But as soon as you shoot out of town. We did cover the cruise, the casting cruise, hotels, food, several meals a day, just all the travel expenses. We even covered gas. So when I started adding all these expenses up, what really broke the camel's back is the permit process. Working with the city of Petersburg. And I'll touch on scouting real quick. Case we scouted. We're based here in the Washington, DC area, so we actually have access to a lot of really cool urban areas. And we started looking in Philly. We started looking in Baltimore, DC. I looked in Virginia, in the cities here, like Alexandria, Harrisonburg, Charlotesville, some of the smaller cities.

18:33
Johnny K
Out in the 81 corridor. And what really kind of swayed us toward shooting in Petersburg, Virginia, just south of Richmond, where we ended up, is we actually had our base camp space donated to us by a local business owner. So that was awesome because it was obviously all going to be night shoots. And we shot during November in pretty frigid, cold conditions. So having a warm base camp that our cast and crew could retreat to was key. So we had that space donated to us. That's what kind of clicked Petersburg for us. But we didn't want to shoot this gorilla style and go out and just steal a bunch of shots. We went through the full permitting process with the city going through their tourism board. There were costs to that.

19:13
Johnny K
There were costs to shutting down some of the roads and alleys that were looking at shutting down. All these things cost money. Even if you're an indie filmmaker, you could be AMC shooting walking dead, or you can be me shooting an indie film in the city of Petersburg. They're going to work with you as they can, but it's going to cost you money. And kind of what broke the camel's back is they said, well, Petersburg can be a little rough around the know, crime wise, et cetera. And it's one of the reasons that I wanted to shoot there, because it had that kind of gritty urban feel. And the city was asking me, hey, do you want police presence on your set? And in the back of my mind, I'm like, well, that's going to be overtime for a couple police officers.

19:54
Johnny K
Once we kind of got to that point, and we, by the way, did not end up taking them up on that. We had our own security provided within our own crew. But that was really the last expense where I thought, you know what? I'm going to need a little help here. And I'm no longer too proud to take it. I said, let me just do an Indiegogo crowdfunder. If I raise $500, that's awesome. That's a couple of people's hotel rooms. If I raise $1,000, that's great. That's going to feed our crew. And we ended up raising about eight grand, I think around $8,000. And believe it or not, this is a great problem to have as an indie film.

20:28
Johnny K
We were in danger of raising too much money because that was going to cover all our production costs, all our costuming, all our permits, all that. And of course, obviously, like I said before, I don't really want to go to jail. So the last thing I wanted to do is ever come close to making a profit on Batman. So I actually ended up shutting down the indiegogo after we hit our goal and we got what we needed. We made our funding quick, and it helped offset all those production costs that really stacked up, I would say.

20:56
Case
I can only imagine. But no, I actually can very much articulate a lot of those because we've been involved in so many of these together at this point. And like I said, I was part of that. It's interesting that the location being donated sort of set that, because I remember that location was really good for where were filming. It was all very short walking distance. Could you go a little bit more into the donation part of it? How did that conversation even start?

21:20
Johnny K
Oh, the donation of the space as base camp. Yeah. It was actually a guy who was a mutual friend with Jerry Morgan, who is our lead actor in the film that played Sergeant Kelly. Jerry lives down in that direction somewhere and knew Bobby lynch was his name, knew Bobby and just had the conversation and connected Bobby and I together. And Bobby is also an independent filmmaker and has his own stuff, and so he knows the pitfalls of filmmaking. And when he and I had a phone conversation, I just mentioned that the perfect place would be somewhere near all these awesome alleys, dense urban areas that aren't crowded because we didn't want any bystanders and tourists walking through our set, which happened anyway. That's okay.

22:01
Johnny K
But we wanted just kind of an urban area near a space that had bathrooms and near a place we could put up folding tables and feed our crew and just kind of have that without building, like, a tent city out in the alleyway and trying to do all this exterior. And again, I mentioned it was a freezing cold few nights that we shot down there. Got into the think one night, and so it was really important to have an indoor area. So that donation case, it really just came from me having another conversation with another filmmaker. And he understood exactly what we needed. And he was just a kind enough gentleman to say, you know what? I will gladly let you guys use my space. And he had a business space right there in the thick of where we needed to be.

22:46
Johnny K
And we actually could then design our locations because we shot in probably five or six different locations in that neighborhood. And we could then kind of plan out our shot lists and stuff based around that. We could run some generators out of there, run long extension cords if we needed. And again, like I said before, you can't put a price on having a warm place for people to come into at 01:00 in the morning when it's 25 degrees outside, for sure. Yeah.

23:11
Case
What was it like when you actually saw the space that was being donated and the alleys around it? Because, again, it was perfectly located. I think the last couple of shots were literally right outside the back door to the base camp.

23:23
Johnny K
I guess to your point about the order of script versus locations. Script came eight, nine months before the script just kind of said, we're going to shoot this in an alley. The fight is going to be in an alley. We didn't really have a lot more specifics in the script, but when we actually saw the locations and saw what was right within a three or four block radius of our base camp, now I could really visualize, okay, this opening scene is going to be in this alley. The fight scene is going to be in this alley because it's a little more private and it's much closer to our base camp.

23:55
Johnny K
And we could even look at the weather, the early forecasts, and try to determine, okay, if it's going to rain on us one night, where do I need to be to kind of avoid the worst of the rain and be close enough to get people indoors really quick? So actually being able to scout the location, it did kind of give us a much better idea of where we'd be shooting some of those scenes. Cool.

24:14
Case
So you have your location. You at this point are starting to fundraise. If I get the timeline right, because that was still going into when you were actually shooting. So you're getting ready for the shoot. What was the key thing you needed to make sure you had equipment, crew wise, what were the bullet points in terms of priority? How did you work your way backwards from most important to least important?

24:39
Sam
Right. And when did casting fall into it? An important question about some of the actors.

24:44
Case
Yeah, just the people. What was the order for some of the big ticket ones there?

24:49
Johnny K
Oh, yeah, definitely. Casting was very early on, and I'm super proud of the cast. And I always say this when I do interviews about the oath. Every actor in the oath was my first pick for that role. There was never a second pick. Like, if Jerry didn't want Jerry Morgan, if he didn't want the job of Sergeant Frank Kelly, I have no idea who number two would be. I don't know. Same thing with Oz Keenum, Chris Conky stumbo. Guillermo is a little different. He came with the batsuit. We couldn't make the movie without him. I love him, he's a good friend, but we couldn't do it without him. But all those guys, they were my first pick for casting. And I'd known each of those guys. We'd all worked together on previous shows. I worked on camera for a little while in my life.

25:29
Johnny K
All those guys are obviously real actors and they work on camera a lot. And I met them on a couple different shows filming in the Richmond area, probably a year or two before we shot the oath. And when I was writing the role of Sergeant Kelly, I always had Jerry Morgan in mind. And I started with him, called him up, and I said, hey, do you want to work for free on a fan film that nobody's ever going to make money from? And he said, sign me up, let's do it. We talked about it, and Jerry was just. He was perfect for that role. Jerry's, you know, he's a marine. He's lived a life. He's had a lot of experiences in life that a lot of people haven't, I think.

26:07
Case
And he's friggin huge, right?

26:10
Johnny K
Jerry's bigger than me. I'm about six three and Jerry's standing over top of me.

26:15
Case
Okay, I just need to point this out because once I found this factoid out, it's just been like, I know a lot of tall people who are like big strapping folk. Alan Richson, who plays reacher on Amazon's reacher, is only six two and that they shoot him to look six four. And I realized like, oh, I've got friends who are that size or bigger. So just, Johnny, just so you're aware you're bigger than reacher, the guy who's everyone is like, oh, the show about the big man. The big man show.

26:39
Johnny K
Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah.

26:42
Case
So Jerry's bigger than that.

26:43
Johnny K
Jerry's bigger than me. Yeah, Jerry's bigger than me. And as William will tell you, and I go back and forth calling William or know who played Batman, as he will tell you, he's the exact height as Michael Keaton, so he doesn't want to hear anything when he's standing up next to six foot four Jerry, who's probably closer to six five because he's wearing motorcycle boots. William would be the first to tell you, hey, I'm the same height as Michael Keaton. You cast a six five giant to stand beside me. Yeah. Casting was. That came very early. And then I went right down the list. Talked to Oz Keenum, who played our mobster Jimmy Atlas, and Chris Conkey. Talked to Stumbo. Mike Stumbo came back. He and I worked together on my first short film called the Killer.

27:23
Johnny K
Of Grassy Ridge, which went across the world and won a ton of awards that I didn't know debut short films could win. And I brought Mike Stumbo back in. I called it a cameo. He played a homeless guy in the alley. We shot him out in one night, and he made a little cameo in that. But, yeah, the casting was the biggest thing. Before I keep going, Sam, you said you had a question about the cast.

27:46
Sam
I specifically have a question about the rats and whether they were actors or you just found, like, listen, everyone was fantastic, and I am not trying to be disrespectful to these very talented actors, but I do want to know about the rats. Was this footage you found? Were these trained rats? Were you just like, oh, look, there's rats. Let me focus on them running around. What was with the rats?

28:10
Johnny K
The rats were our only union actors on set. They got paid a stipend. No, the rats weren't union. So the rats came to me during the editing process. So after we had already shot everything out in the streets. And you got to keep in mind, Sam, like, when you're shooting in the streets at 02:00 in the morning with a group of actors that have flown in from Georgia and different places, the priority shots have to be those guys. It's not the inserts. It's not the, oh, here's a cool stairway or here's a cool industrial pipe or something like that stuff. You can get that later. Right? So I didn't shoot a ton of inserts while were there. I was focusing on our actors, obviously.

28:53
Johnny K
And then as I was editing the movie, know, we got this montage scene where, as Sergeant Kelly's walking through the back alleys of Petersburg, and I just needed some extra spice. The. I had the salt and pepper, but I needed, like, the chipotle and the cumin. And when I was editing, I thought, I got to put some stuff in here. And full disclosure, that shot that you're talking about of those rats, that is the only frames of this movie that I did not shoot myself. I found that footage. I loved it. I put it in as a test to see if it would work. In my opinion, it did. We're only talking about 2 seconds.

29:31
Sam
Honestly, the lighting is pretty good. It matches up pretty well. You don't really get thrown out of the alley seeing it.

29:40
Johnny K
Oh, yeah. Well, I definitely color graded it to match the rest of the movie. So I didn't just throw it in, but I found that footage. I licensed it, definitely had the rights to use it. I think it should be credited, probably in the credits. And, yeah, I basically got it as an asset, threw it in, and I color graded it to match the rest of our shot. But, yeah, those rats you're talking about, that's the only footage in the entire film I didn't shoot myself.

30:05
Sam
Not casted by you either.

30:07
Johnny K
No. And the rats haven't. I don't know if the rats have seen the movie. If they have, they've not sent me, like, a cease and desist for using their likeness or anything.

30:14
Sam
But listen, I'm sure they're a fan. I mean, it's Batman. They're probably happy to be in a Batman film.

30:19
Johnny K
Probably. Yeah. Who wouldn't want that?

30:22
Case
Now, for the other side of the camera, in terms of crew, who did you get first? Who were your priorities? In terms of things like, what is the process when you are like, all right, well, I'm making a Batman movie, and I got a guy who looks like Batman. Make this movie, because you do a lot of work on it. But you're not the only person.

30:41
Johnny K
Oh, for. No, no. By no means. Logistics. It all comes down to logistics. You shoot a movie the same way you move an army, right? You have to make sure there's a comfy place for them. You got to feed them. You got to make sure the bathrooms are there. You got to make sure there's water. You got to make sure there's coffee. Please let there be coffee. So really, the first stop there was, as you know, case through other projects, is you got to have a rock solid production manager, base camp manager, who can organize all the logistics and get a lot of that done. I roped in heather real quick. She's my better half. And I talked her into being on camera in the killer grassy ridge, which she had no desire at all to ever be on camera.

31:20
Johnny K
And when we started shooting the oath, I asked her, I said, hey, can you help me handle the logistics of base camp to feed all these people and make sure we keep everybody safe. So she was on very early on, and she signed up to help that. She also did it on a broken.

31:33
Case
Foot, by the way.

31:35
Johnny K
So if you remember, she had broken her foot, I think, at a wedding like a month before we shot. So she was not only managing base camp, but she was riding around on a little scooter, which did not make her job easier. She was, very early on, Alan Slonicker, who is a local guy, local friend of mine. He was a part of it as a grip Ramel punzal, who, you know, ended up being the first assistant director, and now that was my first time working directly with Ramel as my first ad, and now I can't even put my shoes on without Ramel on other projects. So the oath was the first time that he and I worked together that closely, and it was awesome. And like I said, now I can't imagine doing anything without Ramel.

32:15
Case
Now, a meeting of mines that I am so happy about, because the two of you are such an incredible team. I just adore seeing that the two of you work together. So the fact that the oath is where it started, I find fascinating.

32:27
Johnny K
Yeah, well, he and I make a good team because I've usually got nothing but problems, and Romel is a problem solver by nature. Right. So I keep him well fed with a bunch of problems, and he likes figuring it out. But, yeah, the oath was the first time he and I worked together. He was a very late addition to that crew, I think. He didn't come on until maybe just a month or two before. And again, I didn't know that we would end up having the great working relationship that we did. I brought him on originally just to help with a lot of the lighting and the generators and running cords and light placements. Basically just to be a right hand man for me on set. One of the downsides to indie film is there never quite seems to be enough people.

33:06
Johnny K
You always need somebody else, and everybody's wearing ten hats already. I'd shot two films by that .2 shorts. So I knew going into the oath that it was unrealistic that I would be able to do a lot of that work by myself. So I had to bring in Ramel again as first ad, and now he's also my first ad on Farragut forward, our Star Trek fan film we're doing now. And I literally couldn't tie my shoes. I whipped out Ramel.

33:34
Case
Yeah, Ramel is amazing. Everyone out there just understand we're talking about just one of the most delightful people. I have been his dungeon master. I have been his production manager. He is just fantastic. And I just can't stop singing the praises of Romel Ponzel. Awesome guy. And if you're ever working with him, just know you're working with a goddamn pro now.

33:53
Johnny K
Absolutely.

33:54
Case
Was he referred by John Broughton?

33:56
Johnny K
He was, yeah. Actually, I met Ramel way back when on a Farrogate shoot. I think I was around for a farrogate shoot, and this is 2014 or 15. I'm talking about the Starship Farrogate fan film series. I was around for a shoot one day and I actually met Ramel on set way back when and probably saw him at a couple of local conventions and stuff like that. But I'd never worked with him until the oath. And like I said, he and I developed a real quick shorthand with each other. We can kind of read each other's minds, and he's really good at reading my mind, which is, if you were to draw up the relationship between a director and a first ad, you can't ask for anything more than that.

34:32
Johnny K
If he's always a step or two ahead of me and knows what I'm thinking and knows what I'm going to ask for next, that's a dream. It's a dream, and you can't find that often. So I'm going to hang on to Romel as much as I can.

34:43
Case
Yeah, it's wild, the networking that happens, especially in small filmmaking, like indie filmmaking. You mentioned Farragut. We both know that we definitely met at some points around that same period and probably at that shoot or that con, whichever one. But we don't really remember because we didn't really start working together until the oath.

35:01
Johnny K
Right.

35:01
Case
And it's just like, funny how people can kind of go in and out of each other's lives, and there is very much a scene for fan filmmaking. There are people who just get kind of involved in that because it's a fun thing to do. And it's like you keep saying, being attached to an IP is exciting.

35:16
Johnny K
Oh, yeah, no, it's a force multiplier. I made original films, a couple of original shorts for a bit, and you can go to all that effort and all that work and hope everything goes well. But at the end of the day, you might just stick it on YouTube and 200 people see it, or 40 people see it. And were super lucky with the oath. Batman put a lot of butts in the seat, obviously, but I'm stunned every time I look at the view count and see we're creeping up on a million views. If you'd asked me a couple of years ago if I thought it would be like that, the answer is no.

35:47
Case
So you've got your cast, you've got your crew, you've got a bat man suit, you've got a location, you've got all this stuff, you've got your rats, and you're ready to go into production. And I feel like here is a good moment for us to take a break. And when we come back, let's actually talk about the hurdles of doing an indie low budget fan film.

36:06
Johnny K
Shoot.

36:07
Case
But before that, let's shout out one of the wonderful shows on our network and also just remind people that farragut forward, I believe, is still crowdfunding at this time, and you should be contributing to that.

36:18
Sam
I did. Guys, do it.

36:20
Case
Yes.

36:21
Johnny K
Thank you.

36:28
Sam
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to books that burn the fortnightly Book review podcast. Focusing on fictional depictions of trauma, we assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark books we love. Find us on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.

37:02
Case
And we're back. All right, so again, cast and crew is assembled. Location is established, funding is underway. The oath is ready to go. Let's talk about actually getting into the shoot. How many nights total? What was the worst thing that happened in all of them?

37:19
Johnny K
Well, one thing that happened about probably three weeks or so before we shot the oath, there was an accident on the Alec Baldwin film rust out in the desert. And that happened right before we shot the oath. And as soon as that happened, and obviously it was a fatal accident, unfortunately. And right as that happened, our production insurance company called me with a lot more questions about what types of firearms we would be using on set. Obviously, were insured. We were required to have insurance by the city, but we got a pretty lengthy questioning process about firearms, use of firearms, et cetera. And we navigated that. And obviously, it goes without saying, but safety was always, and is always our first concern on any film shoot. Just because we're indie film doesn't mean we can take shortcuts with safety.

38:12
Johnny K
And I think sometimes indie films, because they don't have the same safety requirements as Hollywood, they feel like they can take some shortcuts, and that's not smart. Happy to say everything we did was super safe, but that was a last minute thing that obviously no one could have expected. And it worked out. We were able to navigate the insurance and meet the additional requirements they had and show up on set. And at that point, it all came down to the weather. Because it was a rain or shine shoot. We had no backup dates. I mentioned before our actors, not all of them were local. So Oz came all the way up from Georgia. He's based around the Atlanta area. So it was a rain or shine shoot. We were going to shoot in a blizzard if we had to.

38:57
Johnny K
We were going to shoot in a tropical storm monsoon. We just had to get it in. And were very lucky we shot three nights. Case, to answer your question, there was more shoots that came later in the coming months, but the actual stuff on location in Petersburg was shot over the course of three nights. I think it was a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, or maybe a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And the first night the skies opened up and we all got really wet and we got drenched. And that's okay because it was rain or shine. We planned for it. So we got what we needed and banked the footage for the night. Then here's some adversity for you. Our entire film is set in one night, probably over the course of a 20 minutes period.

39:40
Johnny K
Pretty much plays out in real time the length of the film. And right off the bat, I knew we got poured on the first night, and I knew it wasn't going to rain the second and third night. So I've got continuity issues right off the bat and I can't burn the first night's footage. And then we thought about, well, maybe we do a wet down on the know the next two nights, which is basically just know buckets of water onto the streets to make it look like it had just recently rained. That's a piece of adversity that Hollywood could easily overcome. But indie film, we just couldn't. We didn't have the time to just get tons of Home Depot buckets and wet down of all the areas were shooting at to make it look like it had just rained.

40:21
Johnny K
And actually, I think the alleys we shot at in the second and third night, because Ramell and I did talk about doing it wasn't just asphalt. I think it was gravel, which would soak up the water even faster if it was just asphalt. We could pour it down and get some puddles and stuff like that and probably make it work. But that's a really good example of things that it would have taken Hollywood 15 minutes to correct that, and we just did not have the time, didn't have the budget, the people to really bridge that gap. But I don't think anybody other than me notices rain continuity. And were able to put some rain in post and stuff like that.

40:54
Sam
But, yeah, it was all bug you sometimes. What's that? On occasion when you do rewatch it, does it bug you sometime? No, only I had more buckets.

41:03
Johnny K
No, not at all. That's actually a good question because this will sound pretentious right. But, I mean, filmmaking is art. That's a thing, right? Which I guess, by definition makes me an artist, which sounds pretentious. And I think that's a thing that you just have to. Once your finished product is done and you put it out there to the world, you're good with it. You're not going to look back on it and be like, yeah, I mean, I could have done that different, but I don't obsess over it. If the film was good enough for me to be happy with and put out and release to the world, I'm not going to go back and George Lucas at 25 years later when I get more money to dump into it, I'm not going to do that. So, yeah, it doesn't bug.

41:45
Johnny K
Nothing about that movie bugs me too much. I don't think.

41:47
Case
There won't be. The oath reavowed special edition, and Batman.

41:53
Sam
Is CGI this time.

41:55
Johnny K
Oh, no. Yeah, right.

41:57
Sam
It's only his legs, though. You make him know.

42:00
Johnny K
Right.

42:01
Sam
Taller than Michael Keaton.

42:03
Johnny K
But that was the biggest adversity piece. I guess that night case is just the weather. When you're shooting, you're at the mercy of Mother Nature. In the case of our movie, our whole movie is shot outside at night. That's just what the movie is. With the exception of the very last scene, everything is shot outside at night. And that's just. You hope for the best. You plan as best you can. You have all the waterproof gear. You make sure nobody has hypothermia. If they do have hypothermia, you know what to do, and you just kind of march forward. But that was our biggest thing, was keeping people safe and making sure that we always kept people safe.

42:36
Case
I was there for the Saturday night shoot, so it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and I wasn't off work early enough Friday to come down for that part of it. So I came and stayed, and I ended up staying with John Broughton, who was another producer on this and has been on another pass before, talking about Star Trek stuff because Farragut.

42:55
Sam
Yep.

42:55
Case
It's the incestuous relationship of Farrogate people. But when I was coming down, it's November, I remember people being like, oh, yeah, it gets really cold. And I was like, no, yeah, no, I know what temperature kind of feels like. I'm not that far north of there, and I'll be fine. I'm fat, everything's fine. And then I got down there, and I was like, oh, it gets real cold at night. Down. Oh, okay. And I was ultimately fine, because, again, fat. I went to college in upstate New York on purpose because I'm able to handle lake effect snow fairly. Yeah. Like, just. Just on nights where the weather is clear and everything is fine. It was still fucking cold. And that is a hard thing to do when you're shooting starting at night and going until technically morning.

43:44
Case
And when I say technically morning, you know, I mean, like 01:00 I mean, like 05:00 a.m., like, okay, the sun's about to start coming up. We have to call it now.

43:53
Johnny K
Yeah, we had some long nights, and were probably shooting 810 hours. And we didn't start rolling until 06:00 p.m. Or something like that. We did rehearsals right as dusk was coming in. And then it was all night shoots after that. But I'll tell you mentioned the weather that helped Jerry. Jerry Morgan told me he's playing the role of a beat cop. A beat cop is walking the streets. Rain or shine. Doesn't matter. The weather. And Jerry was the first to tell me. He's like, no, I like this. He's like this. This is what my character would go know. And like I mentioned before, Jerry's a big, tough marine, so he's not too scared of rain. And he's like, no, this is actually helping my performance because I'm soaking wet. I'm cold. But so would. That's how Sergeant Kelly's. That's what his life is like.

44:39
Johnny K
He's out here no matter what. So it actually helped his performance.

44:42
Case
On that note, let's talk about fortunate things. Because I remember distinctly that at least where were filming part of it, there was, like, just a floodlight thing from a post office or some sort of government building that was perfect for lighting purposes. Well, at least Romel and I were discussing, like, at least it's, like, giving us a lot of light. So what was fortunate about the locations besides the fact that it was just cool alleys? What things did you sort of stumble upon that worked out well?

45:07
Johnny K
Well, definitely. So we featured it in the film quite a bit. There's an old civil war era ironworks right there. So it just had all this civil war industrial machinery and these kind of vats looking things. I don't know all the terminology. I don't know what happens in an ironworks. But you just had all this really old rusted metal and crumbling brick. To me, that could be a hidden corner in Gotham City. Because, you know, Gotham City's got a civil war era ironworks. The remnants of it but it was basically just an area, like a ruined building area. And I saw it when we scouted it and I found out it was privately owned. And I got a hold of the owner and said, hey, this is who I am. This is what we're doing.

45:52
Johnny K
Do we have permission to shoot on your property that night? And he said, oh, yeah, I don't care what you do, just don't break anything or make it worse. I said, no, we won't do that. So we had his permission in writing to show up. We were going to shoot in Petersburg in those alleys no matter what because we had the space donated to us. But the fact that there was this awesome civil war ironworks ruins right next to where were shooting, that was definitely a fortunate thing that we took advantage of. And I'll go back to the weather. It rained on us the first night. The second and third night we got lucky. There was no rain. There was no snow or blizzard. So we got pretty fortunate, I think, with that.

46:31
Johnny K
And, yeah, case to your point, were shooting in a downtown area, so there were bars nearby, there were restaurants nearby that could actually cater to our set, or we could send a runner over there to pick up food for folks. So that made life a lot easier because were so close to an actual kind of catering and food source that it was easy to have stuff brought over to keep people fresh.

46:54
Case
Now, what kind of attention did you get? There is a particular incident that I'm thinking about in terms of attention that was local, but I know that stories are being run about a Batman movie being shot around just because it was kind of cool, but also maybe a tour happened to walk right through the chute.

47:12
Johnny K
Yeah, I forget how I first, it's been a couple of years now, but I forget how I first realized it. But I saw some people gathering across the street from our set, and I had talked about hanging up some kind of privacy curtains just so it wouldn't necessarily be obvious what were doing or that were shooting a movie, because I was very concerned about having people just roll through our set and walk through our set. And then I was concerned with how our security guys were going to react to that. We're obviously not going to get into a physical altercation with somebody walking through our set. Best you can do is ask them not to do it, and then if they do or not, then that's kind of up to them.

47:50
Johnny K
But those things were on my mind and were messing with the camera or something, and Guillermo was standing around in his Batman suit. And I start seeing a few people gather across the street. And I don't pay too much attention to it, but it's on my mind a little. I go about my business. We're in between takes. We're not shooting anything right now. So I'm messing with the camera light and I look up again, and now there's twice as many people and they're all aiming their cell phones in our direction, taking pictures. Okay, that's fine. We're not going to run over there and tell them to stop taking pictures or anything. I look up again and now I see the crowd has tripled.

48:26
Johnny K
And some of these people are actually stepping off the curb into the street, which is a busy, trafficked street, to take pictures and to take selfies. And I'm like, all right, now it's a safety issue because I don't want us to be the reason somebody gets hit by a car because they're trying to take a selfie with a guy dressed as Batman 80ft away. So I came on the radio and I said to Romel, I'm like, we got to get Batman inside because they're not going to go away until they no longer see Batman. And they walked Guillermo inside base camp, got him out of there. William was just, his ego was through the roof. He knew exactly what was going on. He was Batman. And that whole crowd was there to see him.

49:08
Johnny K
And I mean, he strutted up that ramp into base camp and we got him inside. And finally across the street, they eventually filtered out of there. And I just had always assumed it was a word got around in a bar not too far away that, hey, they're shooting a movie over here and there's a guy dressed as Batman. And if you say that in a bar, a few people might sneak out to see what's going on. And there were probably, I don't know, 50, 75 people over there. And what I later found out, it was actually a ghost tour, like a walking ghost tour of the city of Petersburg. And that was just one of their normal stops because were shooting right next to a very famous historic building in Petersburg. And I'm sure there's 1000 ghost stories about that building.

49:55
Johnny K
And now I think we're number 1001, the Night Batman came to Petersburg. But it was a ghost tour. And I think were pretty distracting to the tour guide because no one was listening to the tour guide because they were all taking pictures of Batman. But we waited for him to leave and then got back. Yeah, again, I was worried about the safety of it because they were stepping off into that street to take pictures, and I didn't like the vibe of that. Yeah.

50:18
Case
I think the only reason William finally agreed to go inside was because that suit is hard to wear. Like, you can't be in it for that long because it is heavy and it is hot.

50:28
Johnny K
Yeah. He did pretty well on the cold nights, though. He was the only guy not freezing.

50:32
Case
That's true.

50:33
Johnny K
Yeah.

50:35
Case
Just hot leather, just like holding your. Or hot rubber, like just holding your body in.

50:41
Johnny K
I think you said it's 25 or 30 pounds of rubber. I think with the cape and all that. And he was in that thing. Jeez, I don't know, six, 7 hours. And it's not like, again, it's not like we have a stunt double. We don't have a movement double or a stunt double with a secondary batsuit. It's like, no, if you see a guy wearing a batsuit, that's.

51:01
Case
Let's talk about stunts, actually. So there were a couple of them in there. And what was sort of the process in terms of getting that all together? Like, did you have a stunt coordinator from get go or did you work it out with them? Some of this I kind of remember from when I was there. But how did that all kind of come together? And what were the concessions you made because of just physics.

51:22
Johnny K
You know what the toughest concession was, again, it's adversity. Right. In indie film, none of our actors saw each other until were getting them into costume, getting ready to shoot. Oz lives in Georgia, Jerry lives in middle Virginia somewhere, and William's here in DC. And we just did not have the time and budget to get everybody together for a know before to walk through the fight scene and rehearse it and come up with a choreographed fight. So there was just no realistic way to do that. We couldn't bring Oz up for an extra weekend just to work on the fight. So we knew were going to be winging a lot of that. And I wanted to plan as much as I could. So I did bring on Jason White, who's a really talented martial artist and a really talented actor in his own right.

52:07
Johnny K
And I asked Jason if he wanted to help coordinate the fight, but be very limited. He wouldn't be able to be there on set because he had another conflict. But I asked him to work with William in advance to try to get as much of that fight, at least some of the major movements down, just so William can work through it. And then we would really have no other option but the day that we're shooting it, to show up early and try to rehearse it with the other two actors there on set. William might disagree with me on that. It wasn't so much the limitations of the suit and physics that kind of made that difficult.

52:38
Johnny K
It was more of just not being able to pick a centralized time and location to get everybody together in advance just because of budget and time reasons and work that fight fully through. And I've actually learned a lot from that now. How to film a fight scene and how not to film a fight scene. I learned a lot from that. And we're getting ready to apply some of that to our Star Trek Farrogate shoot. But that night, yeah, I think when we shot the fight, we split that up over a couple of different nights. It all came down to not just the fight, but other stunts that we did. It all came down to Williams comfort in the batsuit. I was very aware of what made him comfortable and what made him uncomfortable.

53:15
Johnny K
There was actually a shot that I wanted to get of him jumping off a ledge, and it was about a four foot ledge or so you'll probably tell you it was closer to six. I don't think it was that high, but there was a ledge. And, you know, I would actually love to get you on this ledge. I can shoot up at you from the street and I'm going to have you jump off of it. It's a quick cut, right? But we get that quick snippet of Batman actually jumping off what looks like the edge of a roof. And William took a look at it and he said, no, I can't do that in the suit. He was happy to jump off a ledge that was like 3ft tall, which we did shoot and get in the movie.

53:49
Johnny K
But he drew the line one of those ledges and said, I don't feel comfortable doing it. And it's not like I fought him on it. He had final say on stunts. It looked easy for me to do in my blue jeans and tennis shoes, but I'm not the guy wearing 30 pounds of rubber. Right? So he had final say on all of that. And he did end up doing a couple of jumps off of a different ledge. And he can tell you that story one day, I think, hyperextended his knees on the first one. He was so concentrated on how he was going to land, he didn't exactly bend his knees. So when he hit the ground, it was just like a lightning rod and it just shot straight up his spine. So he needed a break after that.

54:27
Johnny K
And then I asked him if he had another one in him. And he got it again. But again, I keep going back to safety. And deferring to the guys who are actually doing that. And it's indie film. It's not like William is a professionally trained stunt person. William is a friend of mine that owns a batsuit. So I was being realistic about what we could and could not do. Not just with the fight, but with some of the other stunts as well.

54:51
Case
So on that note, after the initial three night shoot, there's additional stuff. What was shot that you just knew? We're going to shoot it this way elsewhere. Versus what were the things that were pickups you had to get. After starting the editing process, the first.

55:07
Johnny K
Thing we shot after all the exteriors. We got all the exterior stuff done in three nights in Petersburg. And about a month later, I went back down to Richmond. Our set was an apartment building in Richmond. And we had access to use the apartment inside. And that's where we shot the last scene of the movie. Where Sergeant Kelly sits down at the table. He opens up his mail. All that was shot inside. That was a completely different animal in terms of filming and logistics. It was a super small crew. I think it might have just been myself and Alan Slonicker with Jerry. So you're talking a two person crew. There were no time constraints. There was no weather constraints. There was no stress to get it done. We walked off the whole afternoon to shoot it. And it was the most relaxed, stress free.

55:56
Johnny K
That's how it should always be done. Just you have that moment to really get it the way you want it. And fine tune the lights and fine tune the camera movements. And if you didn't like it, do it again. And if you didn't like it, do it again. Because you have that time that was just 180 degrees opposite than shooting on the streets. At 03:00 in the morning. When you're worried about people losing their toes to frostbite. It's just a completely different situation. So we filmed all that in one day in Richmond, that last scene. And then the editing really started in earnest. And the inserts that we shot after that were just simple things. Know, walking past, it wasn't even Jerry. I think we shot Chris Conkey wearing Jerry's coat. Just walking past camera.

56:40
Johnny K
And you see a wanted poster on the wall kind of flapping in the breeze. Or you see a boot splashing into a puddle. And all that stuff was shot probably six months later. Just around the house. Actually, I think we shot the puddle maybe out in the driveway, I think, or maybe in the garage. Fantastic. Yeah, it's just you do what you got to do, and you don't always know what you need until you get to the edit. And then it's just like the rats. I didn't know I needed rats until we got to the edit. And then you get there and you're like, nope, we've got the salt and pepper. We just need the chipotle and the cumin. And now we got to go find that. And it's worth it.

57:17
Johnny K
It takes a little bit of extra time and effort to do it, but it's worth it. It opens up the movie a little bit and gives it a little bit of a different feel.

57:25
Case
Speaking of feel, I wanted to ask you about the score. How did that all come together?

57:29
Johnny K
Yeah, so, actually, I found an awesome composer named Francesco Deandrea, who lives in France. And I always edit to temp tracks. I have to edit to music. That's just a me thing. I'm a musician as well, in a past life, so music is super important to me. I knew I wanted to stick close to that Danny Elfman score from 1989, Batman 89. And I found an awesome composer online, and I actually licensed some of his tracks to use as temp tracks while I edited. And it happens to me all the time now the movie is made, and it's like, you know, what the temp tracks are? What's going to go into the final movie? Because I can't picture any other piece of music going in here now because I like the temp track so much.

58:12
Johnny K
What really sold me on Francesco is what we ended up using for the opening theme of the oath. It's a track called March of the Giants. And it's our opening credits. I think it's our closing credits. We got a lot of flack for having a two minute opening credit sequence on the beginning of a short film that's just not done in these days. And my retort to that is, were trying to channel the Batman 89 vibe, which definitely opened up with a really iconic credit sequence. And it was to show off that score, right? It was to show off the music. It was to set the tone and really just kind of get engaged in the movie. And what I learned with the oath is modern day audiences are not very kind.

58:53
Johnny K
Like, they don't have time to sit around for a two minute opening you can watch on YouTube. People will skip across that opening two minutes just to get to the start of the movie. And I think that's kind of sad. As audience members, I think we're losing patience with a lot of really beautiful things. And the score, the reason that opening credit sequence was two minutes was just to show off that track because I loved it so much and Francesco knocked it out of the park. We had a couple other composers that worked on the film as well, but super happy with the music and how it turned out.

59:24
Sam
Yeah, it was really great. I loved the opening, so I'm a big supporter of your decision to do that.

59:32
Johnny K
Thank you. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. It didn't change me at all.

59:37
Sam
I'm glad you did.

59:39
Johnny K
Yeah.

59:39
Case
The score, it works so well in feeling like just side pieces, like you said, from looking at the same movie, but from a mile down river, it feels like music that is just. Yeah, it's the ones that would have played for those scenes if this was scenes earlier in the movie.

59:57
Johnny K
Yeah, it all ties back to really, and we can talk about just a little bit. It all ties back to really trying to capture that Batman 89 vibe. And that even goes for camera movements, by the way. I was actually very specific. I didn't want to use any camera movements that Tim Burton didn't use in Batman 89. The fight scenes in Batman 89 weren't shot like the Bourne identity, which most fight scenes you would shoot these days, you're going to get right in there. You're going to go handheld. That's just what modern audiences would do. That's the accepted way to shoot a fight scene now. And you go back and look at Batman 89, a lot of static shots, a lot of wide shots.

01:00:33
Johnny K
And so even trying to stick close to that Batman 89 vibe, I mean, I even tried to mimic that with the camera movements as much as I could with an indie film budget.

01:00:41
Case
Did you end up having any dutch angles in there? I can't remember. Now that I'm looking at it, I'm.

01:00:45
Johnny K
Not a fan of dutch angles. That's like asking me to turn my desk at a 20 degree angle. Like, no, I'm too OCD for that. There has to be a really good reason for me to use a dutch angle. And there was nothing going on in the oath that called for a dutch angle.

01:01:00
Case
No nod to Batman 66?

01:01:03
Johnny K
No. As few as possible. Yeah.

01:01:07
Case
So you assemble this movie, you get a wonderful score, you get the matte painting that looks so goddamn cool. It's shot so well. Like, behind the scenes photos that I took that I posted on social media were, like, my highest engagement Instagram post for years. When I posted those because it was just like, that looks really fucking cool. So you put this movie together and then you put it out there. Do you want to talk about the process of deciding how you're going to distribute it? You did it opening night, which I attended, which was awesome. What went into that? Just talk about how you got it out there.

01:01:39
Johnny K
Yeah, of course. So I always knew it was going to go to YouTube. I mean, there's really no other way to put out a nonprofit fan film. If you want people to see, it's got to go to YouTube and you can't monetize it, obviously, which we never did.

01:01:50
Case
Just got to emphasize that. Just got to keep saying that.

01:01:53
Johnny K
Oh, yeah, please, Warner Brothers, please listen to this podcast. Yeah, I guess what's the best way to say was I did my research to find out if were going to get shut down or not. Because that's the thing that happens, right, depending on the, you know, whether it's Warner Brothers or Paramount or whoever owns some of these IPs when you're doing a fan film. The last thing I wanted was to put two years of my life and two years of other people's lives into a project that's going to live on the Internet for two minutes and then get shut down because perceived copyright infringement. So my first thing before we ever even made the movie was, hey, is this going to get shut down?

01:02:27
Johnny K
So I did my research to make sure were safe to put this out on YouTube, and I was comfortable to do that. So, yeah, it launched on YouTube. You mentioned it a couple of nights before the premiere. We did have an opening night for our cast and crew and families at Alamo Drafthouse here in the DC area, and we got to see it on the big screen. And that was really surreal for me, actually. I had to go down about three or four days early for a sound check and an AV check just to sit in a theater. And it was a really surreal moment.

01:02:55
Johnny K
Maybe other indie filmmakers can relate to this because they would have had to do the same thing, but you're sitting in an empty theater by yourself, watching your film from start to finish, which was on a big screen, which was. I didn't expect to be kind of moved by that or affected by that, but I'm sitting there and it sounds great. That score that I just mentioned from Francisco, like that coming through theater speakers. And then it looked good. The film looked good. I was terrified it was going to have a weird cropping ratio and chop somebody's head off or something, but everything looked great. And it sounded good. And we had the premiere night a few nights later and had a red carpet and had a great turnout. I think we ended up, quote unquote, selling it out.

01:03:36
Johnny K
We didn't charge tickets for it, but I think we sold out two theaters. I think the first one wasn't big enough to hold us, so we had to move to a second one. And then we sold that one out, too. I was a. It was just a great night. Know, get that group of people together. Oz came back up from Georgia. Some of the other actors and crew came in from different places in the country. So, I mean, it was actually just a really fun reunion because you got to remember, by the time that movie came out, it was over a year since we shot it. Some people think with indie films, I guess you can shoot this stuff in a weekend and get it out the next Tuesday. But ultimately, from start to finish, this was like two years of my life.

01:04:11
Johnny K
And from shooting that movie until the night we had our red carpet, that was a full year, just over a year. So it was a reunion for us. It was a great night. I remember I didn't eat dinner at all because I was just too busy bouncing back and forth. I wanted to have a bunch of drinks that night. I think I only had one drink. So those are the things I remember about that night. We did a Q and a afterward and got the cast up on stage and did a Q and a with the crowd, which was really fun because I get tired of hearing myself talk. So get to hear the actors talk about their process and their experience. It was a lot of fun for me.

01:04:45
Case
Yeah, it was a great night. I had such a fun time coming out and seeing everyone again. Like you mentioned, all the people who are from out of town being there was just such a fun part of that. Michael Stumbo and I connected for real for the first time, which was great because he's a giant superman nerd and I'm trying to get him on men of steel because nerd, like, we got to stick together. Yeah, that was fantastic. And then it came out. And have you dealt with any sort of feedback or copyright issues or anything? Has anything come up ever with this?

01:05:19
Johnny K
No, not at all. And I think it's just because were always super transparent about what were doing. And by the way, we are not the only Batman fan film out there. There's plenty, and there's plenty who have crowdfunded much more than we raised. So, no, we never had any issues. But maybe it's in my spam folder and I've just not checked it yet, but not that I've seen. We've never had any issues whatsoever. And the reception was awesome. I don't remember any of the numbers now, but the first night that it opened on YouTube, I was watching the views in real time and the number was going up and up and up. And it was awesome. And then I went to sleep and woke up the next day and it was ten times more.

01:06:01
Johnny K
And then I went to sleep and woke up the next day and it was ten times more. And that's pretty exciting. Again, as a filmmaker, you want your stuff to be seen by the widest audience possible. And the oath was definitely our most watched product. And it got a lot of extra eyeballs on our actors, which was, like I mentioned before, a big hope of mine.

01:06:19
Case
Yeah, I want to go into some of those extra eyeballs. What was some of the coverage that you got? For me, this project was, I don't want to say legitimized, but it was interesting when I had friends who started hearing about it from other sources that they followed then being like, oh, wait, fuck. That was the one that you were talking about on Facebook and kind of turning around. What were some of the surprise interviews that you did related to it? How did some of that coverage really come about? Were people reaching out to you or were you reaching out to them? Talk about that.

01:06:52
Johnny K
Yeah. The first big one was CBR comic book resources picked this up and their headline, which I still want to frame, I want to frame it in my office here. The headline of the CBR article was studio quality Batman fan film. That's one thing. If my mom called my movie studio quality, but like CBR, they've seen some comic book movies in their time. And it's like, you know what? That was a huge boost for us and they linked to it and that drove a lot of traffic our way, which was awesome. Your question about did we reach out or did they reach to us? Know, we definitely got hit with a lot of requests for interviews and podcasts and stuff like that through the website, through YouTube as well, and even Facebook.

01:07:32
Johnny K
And then we also had our own little press kit that we would put out to some of the usual suspects to see if they wanted to pick up and talk about the movie. So it worked both ways. You kind of have to be, and other indie filmmakers will relate to this. You have to kind of be your biggest fan, your own biggest fan and your own employee, number one, and really help push out a lot of that stuff because it's not enough just to spend two years making the movie. It's like now you really have to promote it, you have to market it, you have to get it in front of people. And, I mean, there's a lot of people that get paid a lot of money to market stuff. That's the unsung battle right there.

01:08:05
Johnny K
It just seemed to be nonstop for a long time.

01:08:08
Case
So, outside of CBR, what would you say was the interview that you were the most excited about?

01:08:13
Johnny K
Oh, man, that's a hard one to answer. I mean, we did a know went on my budy Kevin Reitzel's show. He does the fandom podcast network. I think he had us on a couple of different times. Those are know, super great interviews. There's just been so many. I was interviewed by a guy who was actually doing his thesis on fan films, and he wanted to interview somebody close to the fan film world, and that was a really interesting one. Just to hear his take on that stuff, it's hard to pick. That's a really tough question because there's no way I could pick just one. We did a whole chain of those, and they were all awesome.

01:08:44
Case
So, shifting gears again, I see there's all this behind the scenes material that you have linked to in the actual show, notes for the oath. What really drove you to make that kind of material? Was that marketing material you were creating beforehand? Was that just like a dedication to continuing to sort of build out the material available to everyone?

01:09:04
Johnny K
Well, for me, I'm a huge nerd of behind the scenes movie stuff. You remember the old show movie magic that used to air back in the day? I think it was on discovery and all the making of books, all my favorite movies like Jaws and Razor, Lost Ark and Batman. I'm just a huge nerd for how movies are made and the behind the scenes aspects of stuff like that. It just interests me. So, yeah, on all my shoots and even today, like all the films, even Farragut, I'm always asking cast, crew, hey, when you got a few seconds, video some stuff, just get some extra footage back there if you have time, because at the end, I would love to edit all this stuff together and have a behind the scenes kind of catalog that's like the official answer. I just love it.

01:09:45
Johnny K
I love behind the scenes. I love seeing how the sausage is made. And you never know, it might help somebody else. Somebody might look at what we're doing and say, oh, wow, you just gave me an idea of how I can make my thing better. Right. So there might be kind of an educational piece to that, too. And then the other answer is, yeah, marketing strategy there, too. Because if you have a YouTube channel like we do, but you only put a movie out every two or three years, I mean, that YouTube algorithm is a bitch, man. You need some content. You got to feed the beast the content. And making a movie every two years and putting one video on your YouTube channel every two or three years is not really how that platform works optimally. Right.

01:10:25
Johnny K
It behooves you to have a constant stream. And I hate the word content. I hate that word because to me it just means like soulless crap that you have to put out. Right. But if you have kind of a library of stuff that you can trickle out every month or so on a YouTube channel, that's going to, again, drive the algorithm, help more eyeballs find you and find your work and that type of stuff. So it's kind of both. It's a mixture of being a nerd who loves how movies are made and then also kind of knowing a little bit about how YouTube works and the need to have a constant stream of stuff to put out to people.

01:10:58
Case
I think that is a masterful explanation and just understanding of how to approach this all. I think that anyone who's out there who is looking to do their own kind of fan film should really look at the type of material you're putting out there, because the oath has done really well. I think it's just a really cool project in general, and I've felt that since the first time I heard about it. So I'm so glad to chat with you about this. I know we've talked off mic about this all the time, but I'm just really glad to get you on and talk about it.

01:11:28
Sam
Thank you so much for coming.

01:11:29
Johnny K
Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate you guys having me. I always like talking about this stuff and hopefully it might help somebody else out there that has an idea to make a story.

01:11:37
Sam
Yeah. And I think also for our listeners it's good because we talk a lot about, we have the joy of hindsight, right, on this podcast where we do another pass at other people's movies. But it's a good reminder. Just remind everyone, making movies, it's hard.

01:11:52
Johnny K
It'S work, but it's getting easier. I want to say that if I can add that on, I think we're living in an olden age of indie film. I think the barrier for entry has never been this low. The camera that I shot the oath on a couple of years ago is a camera that Steven Spielberg would have loved to have had his hands on about 40 years ago. And that's not an incredibly expensive camera. And it makes me happy that it's now easier and easier to make a film and get voices that should be heard, actually heard. And you end up having a platform like YouTube, which is your own distribution company, that you can put your stuff out there to the world and actually find an audience.

01:12:39
Johnny K
And I think part of what slowed me down for many years is I kept getting, in my own way, making excuses. For here's 100 reasons why I should not try to be a filmmaker. And then one day, I got tired of making excuses, and I'm like, you idiot, you have the equipment, you have the resources, go out and make something, and then if it doesn't suck, put it on YouTube and a million people might watch it. And yeah, it's cost you some time, but it's never been so easy to actually do that. And it'll never be easy to do it, but it's never been this easy, right? I mean, the stuff that indie filmmakers are doing now, people couldn't even have conceived of 15 years ago.

01:13:18
Johnny K
It's interesting to me to look forward and see how Hollywood is going to react over the next ten to 15 years as professional equipment becomes cheaper. More persons are interested in leaving Hollywood to get into the indie film world for reasons of their own. It's just a really interesting space to kind of watch over the next couple of years. And I think we really are in like a golden age of indie film. It's a cool time to be here.

01:13:43
Case
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the fact that these fan films can exist at all is proof of that, because we're talking about emulating movies that cost millions upon millions of dollars to make, and competently getting the look right, competently getting special effects right. Animation is so easy now in a way that it just wasn't before. The fact that we have animated components of this network in animation that would have been mind blowing in 1950. We're really seeing a cool era in filmmaking, and I think the oath is a great example of that. You made a piece that looks like just a deleted scene from the 1989 Batman movie, and you don't have the entire budget of Warner Bros. Behind you, so you don't have a Diet Coke ad campaign running concurrently.

01:14:27
Case
So everyone who is listening to this podcast and is this far in and hasn't seen the oath, they should absolutely go on YouTube and look up the oath award winning Batman fan film Chaotica. Studios. Like, you should check that all out. And then you should also tune into Farrogate forward because that's another thing we're going to want to plug. But, Johnny, do you have anything else you want to plug? Where can people find you and follow you? Give all your info?

01:14:51
Johnny K
Of course. Yeah. So my company is Chaoticastudios Kaotica, and you can check us out@chaoticastudios.com. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and definitely YouTube. You can catch me personally. Best place to get me is on Twitter. I refuse to say x. I don't think anybody actually says x these days, right?

01:15:08
Case
No one says. It's insanely.

01:15:10
Johnny K
I'm refusing to say x. But yeah, the best place to catch me direct is on Twitter. Or, yeah, drop us a note on any of the Chaotica Studios channels. We'd love to hear your feedback and like and subscribe and help us defeat our algorithm overlords.

01:15:22
Case
Awesome. Sam, where can people find you and follow you?

01:15:25
Sam
They can find me here whenever an episode drops and occasionally on our discord when I remember it exists. And then other than that, I'm busy watching the oath for the third time, maybe the fourth time and the fifth time. So if you have any complaints about anything I said or you're really confused why I was obsessed with rats, you can find case at.

01:15:46
Case
Well, you can find me on all the at platforms at case Aiken, except for Instagram, where I'm holding on to my aim screen name for dear life, which is Kessel Coatle five. You can find me on all of those. You can find me on the discord, which you can find a link to@certainpov.com. Or I believe it's in my bio on the various platforms. If not, just go to certainpov.com and you'll find a link to our discord. You'll also find a ton of great shows. There's so many cool productions going on.

01:16:10
Johnny K
I don't know.

01:16:11
Case
Fuck it. I'm going to promote Saturday morning confidential, which Johnny has been on, being interviewed about the oath, back closer to his actual release. So, yeah, Maddie Limerick. Great coverage about things that people feel nostalgia for. And Maddie, great. Check out Maddie. That's a good one to check out. Maddie also, again, Farrogate forward, still crowdfunding as of this time, which is February 6, when we're recording this one. So you can still put money down on making a real recreation of the 1980s film Star Treks a reality. It looks so good. What we have shot looks amazing. We have amazing people behind it. We have people giving the performances of their lives for this thing.

01:16:50
Case
We are doing just incredible work on that and I can't stop raving about it enough because it was just so goddamn cool to be a part of it and to still be a part of it. So be on the lookout for that as well and then tune back in for we're going to have an awesome show next time. Sam, what do we have up on the docket for next time?

01:17:09
Sam
Well, next time we'll be talking about Highlander two, the quickening, but until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.

01:17:18
Case
Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Don't miss an episode, just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

01:17:30
Sam
Another pass is a certain POV production. Our hosts are Sam Alicea and case Aiken. The show is edited by Jeff Moonin. Our logo and episode art is by Case Aiken. Our intro theme is by Vin Macriey and our outro theme is by Matt Brogan.

01:17:46
Johnny K
Case was reacting because I was giving him a dirty look when he was talking about that light. If I had my way of case, I would have gotten a 308 rifle and take in that light out. But I didn't do that. I was not a fan of that light. I went off on a tangent. What was your question?

01:18:01
Case
Cpov certainpov.com.

AI meeting summary:

●      The meeting delved into the making of the independent film **"The Oath"**, emphasizing creativity within limited budgets and how adversity can shape compelling works. Insights were shared by **Case Aiken**, **Sam Alicea**, and filmmaker **Johnny K** regarding production challenges and successes achieved, such as overcoming weather conditions during filming. Noteworthy hurdles included managing insurance requirements and ensuring safety protocols during night shoots.

●      Director **William** discussed challenges faced during the filming of **"The Oath"**, including managing crowds, safety concerns, and coordinating fight scenes with scheduling constraints. The team emphasized authenticity by mirroring camera movements of **Batman '89**. Marketing strategies focused on creating engaging behind-the-scenes content and aligning with platforms like YouTube for visibility. The film gained positive reception from platforms like CBR Comic Book Resources, showcasing its professional production quality despite budget constraints.

●      The team navigated through stunts and emphasized modern technology in indie filmmaking. Authenticity was maintained through detailed efforts in capturing the essence of **Batman '89**. Distribution decisions included a YouTube release and an exclusive premiere night at Alamo Drafthouse before wider online availability, ensuring compliance with copyright regulations and maximizing exposure. The project's success was underscored by media interviews that praised the studio-level production value of **"The Oath"**.

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Conceptualizing "The Oath" (00:00 - 15:30)

●      00:00: Discussion about the creative process and how adversity shapes the production.

●      02:02: Planning and script development for the Batman short film.

●      10:08: Rapid script creation and the importance of visualizing locations for filming.

●      Chapter 2: Pre-Production Logistics and Fundraising (15:46 - 30:58)

●      15:46: Initial budget considerations and the importance of fundraising.

●      18:15: Scouting for locations and aligning the script with chosen settings.

●      30:45: Emphasis on logistics and the role of a solid production manager.

●      Chapter 3: Production Execution and Challenges (36:00 - 54:51)

●      36:00: Transitioning into the shoot and managing the hurdles of a low-budget fan film.

●      39:04: Shooting schedule and navigating logistical challenges during the three-night shoot.

●      53:32: Discussion on filming fight scenes and the editing process post-shoot.

●      Chapter 4: Post-Production and Distribution Strategy (55:03 - 1:10:13)

●      55:03: Editing process initiation post-shoot and the role of exteriors in the film.

●      57:38: Importance of the score in setting the tone and enhancing the viewing experience.

●      1:01:28: Deciding on distribution methods and getting the film out to the audience.

●      1:09:25: Creating behind-the-scenes material for marketing and content strategy.

Action items:

●      **Johnny K**

●      Coordinate with insurance company regarding firearms usage (36:28)

●      Manage logistics of base camp and ensure crew safety (31:09)

●      Secure permissions for shooting at specific locations, such as the civil war era ironworks ruins (45:43)

●      **Heather**

●      Handle logistics of base camp, including feeding crew and ensuring safety measures are in place (31:13)

●      **Ramel Ponzel**

●      Assist with lighting setup and run cords during filming (32:07)

●      Serve as First Assistant Director to support director's vision on set (32:11)

●      **William**

●      Get Batman inside because the crowd won't go away until they no longer see Batman (49:46)

●      Agreed to go inside because the batsuit is hard to wear and he was uncomfortable jumping off a ledge in it (50:18, 53:43)

●      Coordinate the fight with Jason White in advance and work on some major movements for the fight scene (52:12)

●      **Jason White**

●      Coordinate the fight with William in advance and work on some major movements for the fight scene (52:12)

●      **Unknown Stunt Coordinator**

●      Help coordinate the fight, limited presence due to another conflict, work with William in advance for fight movements (52:15)

Notes:

●      🎬 **Making of "The Oath"**

●      **Union's interest in knowing the start-to-finish process

●      Discussion on tools and techniques used in the making

●      Outcome of the project as a significant point of discussion**

●      🎥 **Pre-production Planning**

●      **Scouting for locations

●      Fundraising strategies and early steps

●      Equipment and crew prioritization

●      Actor selection process**

●      🌧️ **Weather Considerations**

●      **Adapting to weather conditions during shooting

●      Planning based on early weather forecasts**

●      ☕ **Logistics in Production**

●      **Importance of logistics in film production

●      Role of a production manager in organizing logistics**

●      🎥 **Shooting Schedule**

●      **Navigating challenges of night shoots and actor availability

●      Importance of prioritizing shots**

●      🎭 **Post-Production and Editing**

●      **Importance of editing process and feedback

●      Planning for additional shoots after initial filming**

●      🎶 **Score and Soundtrack**

●      **Significance of the score in setting the movie's tone

●      Collaboration and decision-making process for soundtrack**

●      📣 **Marketing and Distribution**

●      **Discussion on distribution strategies

●      Creating behind-the-scenes marketing material**

●      📰 **Publicity and Interviews**

●      **Reception and coverage of the movie

●      Highlights of interviews and media attention**

●      🎥 **Upcoming Projects**

●      **Teasing future projects and plans for the next meeting**