Filmmaker Gerard Clarke on creating visual stories worth telling (and selling)

Mikey Mioduski (00:02)

Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, aka the Storyteller Study Club. This is Mikey Medusky and I'm joined by Molly Gagan out on the West Coast. Today, Molly, we've got a pretty sweet guest who we're pumped to talk to Mr. Gerard Clark.

 

Molly Geoghegan (00:17)

Yes.

 

Welcome. Welcome, Gerard. Filmmaker extraordinaire. ⁓ Gerard, I meant to ask what your preferred title is, but I'm just giving you filmmaker. Is that what you like to call yourself? Yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (00:20)

How's it going, guys?

 

Sure. Yeah,

 

think I've, now that I'm finally in narrative from documentary, think I, my preference is writer-director if I have a preference, but filmmaker is pretty comprehensive and I, because I think it encompasses the full scope of work that I've done over my career.

 

Molly Geoghegan (00:37)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm. Okay.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, I love that. And I mean, what better, welcome to the Storyteller Study Club, what better like person to have on board? I don't think we've really, we've only dabbled in a little bit of film here and there with our very good friend of the ranch, Asha Eladji Sharif, who is the reason we are talking to you today. Tell us a little bit of ⁓ how we are, our meet cute, Asha.

 

Gerard Clarke (01:14)

She's such a special person. She's so talented. And I think more than anything, she has the right energy for creative projects is my feeling on it. I met her because I was working with my younger cousin. Her name is Chelsea. She was helping me design the look of the character for my new film, 500 Seconds to Tell You.

 

she did hair and makeup for hair makeup and wardrobe for the project and she was helping me find and cast for roles and then like two three weeks into it she was like you know what I went to high school with this girl ⁓ you know maybe I should put you in so she put us in touch and Asha auditioned and did it as soon as I watched the audition I was like if that's not the character then I don't know who is like so it was

 

Mikey Mioduski (02:09)

Bye.

 

Molly Geoghegan (02:10)

Yeah, that's such a feeling.

 

Gerard Clarke (02:11)

was basically ⁓ a situation where as soon as I watched the audition, that box was checked in my mind. Yeah, yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (02:20)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (02:21)

Yes, that's

 

so rad. love Asha. I hope you're listening. Shout out. And so Asha was, as far as we're concerned, the world's first presentation design apprentice. That's how she got involved here at Ghost Ranch. just as you said, like just such a versatile person knows, typically she's the one behind the lens as well. So I'm sure she brought a new perspective getting in front of the camera.

 

Molly Geoghegan (02:47)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (02:47)

You know, that was actually something that I valued a lot. When we...

 

I mean, we were probably maybe two weeks into pre-production with Asha when I realized, this person is much, much more valuable than just ⁓ an actor. And so I asked her she would be willing to formally participate in the project as a producer. And she did. And honestly, I don't know that the project would have been as successful as it has been up to this point.

 

Molly Geoghegan (03:09)

Mm-hmm.

 

that's exciting.

 

Gerard Clarke (03:25)

⁓ without her support and contributions. Had I hired another person or cast another person in the role, it would have been a lot of like me trying to partition my brain from the creative side and the business side to both produce and write and direct at the same time. ⁓ We were stronger for having her for sure.

 

Molly Geoghegan (03:41)

Right,

 

Mikey Mioduski (03:44)

Yes.

 

Molly Geoghegan (03:44)

That's, yeah, that's so cool. And Presentation Nation, if you're just tuning in for the first time, you might be wondering, why are we talking about film right now ⁓ on a business podcast? And just to reiterate, like, this is so cool, Gerard. ⁓ Like, our ethos here at Presentation Thinking, AKA Storyteller Study Club, is that we can learn about, know, presentations are everywhere and we can learn about storytelling in so many different facets of life.

 

There's storytelling in the way that scientists present data. There's storytelling in the way that people have been storyboarding ⁓ films and, you know, shows since the beginning of time. We've talked about music videos on the podcast and we've talked to illustrators, galore and PowerPoint technicians. So this is, yeah, very exciting to have like someone that's embodying this creative element of writer, filmmaker, director ⁓ from the film capital.

 

second to LA in the country, Atlanta, Georgia. So thank you for taking the time, Gerard. It's fun to make these connections.

 

Gerard Clarke (04:41)

And

 

I'm glad to be here, folks. I really appreciate you having me on. I'm excited to chat. Like you said, it's a business podcast, but I tend to think of being a filmmaker and a writer director as like a business endeavor too, not just a creative one, because you've got to find a way to strike that balance, right? There's not unlimited resources. ⁓ And so you've got to be economical with your decision-making and your...

 

Mikey Mioduski (04:47)

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (05:02)

Mm-hmm, yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (05:09)

those are the little bit of resources that you do have.

 

Molly Geoghegan (05:11)

Yeah, and we're gonna get into that for sure. ⁓ Tell us, Gerard, like, yeah, let's get back into, I mean, this is fresh off the press. You've just kind of wrapped this maybe, what, a few weeks ago? 500 Seconds to Tell You is your latest project. Tell us a little bit about that. And then, yeah, like, there's so much we could get into. The business side of that, how you put the, how do you put the, yeah, they're the creative team. ⁓ Yeah, what is the gist of 500 Seconds to Tell You?

 

Gerard Clarke (05:36)

hmm. So we just, just, just locked, not locked picture, we locked picture a while ago, but we just reached a final cut yesterday. ⁓ so final cut is, is, is officially done. I think we might tweak with the color grade a little bit, but ⁓ done, done. We've submitted to Sidewalk Film Festival in Alabama, Tribeca in New York. ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (05:46)

locked picture. Great for a turn of phrase here.

 

Mikey Mioduski (05:47)

Congrats.

 

Gerard Clarke (06:05)

Atlanta obviously our home court advantage. Hopefully that's how it works out. ⁓ And Chattanooga because that's kind of just up the highway from us. So far more to come, but 500 seconds to tell you came from an idea that I had a long time ago. To be perfectly honest with you guys, I think I remember having this like,

 

Molly Geoghegan (06:10)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (06:36)

like borderline almost romantic encounter with someone at a 4th July party that I was just too bashful to do anything about at the time. And I think I had like imagined a story for years now where I could like imagine what that would have looked like had I been more courageous or whatever the right word is. And, you know, I eventually...

 

Molly Geoghegan (06:41)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (07:03)

like lived my whole life. I became a dad, I got married, all these things happened and I like cared about it less. But then this opportunity, I took a class at Emory University and I was trying to find a motif that I could build a story around for the purposes of a short film, which is like where I think it gets hard because you got to, like we said, be economical. You got to be efficient with the amounts of emotion that you're hopefully unable to.

 

Molly Geoghegan (07:24)

Right.

 

Mikey Mioduski (07:25)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (07:32)

able to elicit in a short amount of time. And I've always thought that fireworks are like romantic. I mean, they're not good for the environment and all that stuff, but like explosions of color in the sky is like, yeah, there's something to it to me. And so I thought back to this situation that I had when I was younger and I was like, let's build something around that. Because to me it was straightforward, but how do I like ratchet up the stakes a little bit? So I set the story at the end of the world.

 

Mikey Mioduski (07:41)

Thank

 

Molly Geoghegan (07:41)

Yeah, but there's romance.

 

Mikey Mioduski (07:46)

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (07:58)

Mm-hmm.

 

Okay, 500 seconds.

 

Mikey Mioduski (08:01)

Ha

 

Gerard Clarke (08:03)

Yeah, that's where the countdown comes from. There's kind of ⁓ like a New Year's Eve motif about the film where it's, you know, like, because it's set at this house party, it's kind of like, why are these people celebrating at the end of the world? But most folks, I think, think of the end of the world or disaster movies and stuff like that in the lens of, I don't know, ⁓ you know, like, yeah, chaos, chaos.

 

Molly Geoghegan (08:29)

Chaos. Dystopia,

 

Mikey Mioduski (08:31)

Apocalyptic,

 

Molly Geoghegan (08:31)

yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (08:32)

yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (08:32)

Yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (08:33)

I wanted to flip that on his head a little bit and do something that felt a little more optimistic. The world is so scary right now to me. And so I wanted to do something that gave us a reason to celebrate life.

 

Molly Geoghegan (08:39)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

 

No, that's amazing. I mean, I'm looking at some of the stills, like it's like all very joy, like there's a banners up there. like, it's the last day on earth, you know? I think that's such an interesting take on that because there's so many dystopia into the world kind of stories. And we've talked about this, Mikey, where you take like a familiar story to someone and then flip something about it is an interesting, like that's talk about a hook. That's a great hook for sure.

 

Gerard Clarke (08:53)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (08:53)

Ha ha.

 

Molly Geoghegan (09:10)

How long, like, yeah, I know it's a short film that's going around the circuit. How long did the final cut end up being?

 

Gerard Clarke (09:16)

10 minutes and 30 seconds. Yeah, 10 minutes and 30 seconds exactly. I wanted to be, like I didn't wanna make, I intend to make a feature film at some point. And so I figured I'd save the longer runtimes for that real opportunity when that arises, whenever I'm able to make that work. a short film, like I said, the intention is to be efficient, make something that.

 

Molly Geoghegan (09:17)

Ten minutes. Nice.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (09:41)

You know, in theory, if you want to get on the festival circuit that can fit in a festival block with some other short films, because if you have a 30 minute short, then that's like three of my shorts that can't be scheduled because you have one thing. And maybe your 30 minute short is good enough that that's what it is, but you kind of stack the deck in your favor a little bit if you make something that is programmable lengthwise. So that's kind of what I was after.

 

Molly Geoghegan (09:51)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (10:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (10:02)

Gotcha. Yeah, it's accessible.

 

Yeah, that's really cool. And we, know when we first talked to you mentioned that shorts can often be a way to build that portfolio because that is like that's strategic of you to be like, this is under my belt. It's more cost effective, that kind of thing. We're more accessible for people to see. What is that about in the film and creative world? It's not unlike, I mean, I'm thinking of designers who build a portfolio with these like little one-off projects that they do. Not that they don't have meaning, but there's like, there's this kind of strategy of like you're building, you're putting a lot of tools in your belt of sorts.

 

Gerard Clarke (10:12)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah, yeah, know, I think when we first talked about it offline, I referred to short films as like very expensive business cards. ⁓ I think that's true, but I also think that while it's true, they're less expensive typically than feature films. ⁓ And it gives you the opportunity to do what you said with like designing. ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (10:46)

⁓ nice.

 

Gerard Clarke (11:03)

portfolio, it gives you the opportunity to show your voice and your identity and stuff like that in a smaller package. My wife is a graphic designer and when she and I were first figuring out our careers, something that we talked about was maybe shooting commercials and putting some kits together, like a fake Coke commercial, for example, just something to...

 

kind of make something work. This is the equivalent of that, but in the narrative filmmaking space as opposed to the commercial space because ⁓ my goal, you know, it's weird. I didn't think that I, I admire a lot of filmmakers who do a bunch of different kinds of stuff. Like someone that comes to mind is like a Danny Boyle because he'll make like Slumdog Millionaire and then he'll make 28 Days Later. He's just so versatile. I don't know that I'm that versatile. Like I think.

 

Molly Geoghegan (11:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah, that's a little...

 

Gerard Clarke (11:58)

I think that some sort of like science fiction, grounded in serious science fiction, I think is probably my bag, if I were to guess. ⁓ And so I just wanted to make something that felt like my identity was all over it. And that's, think I accomplished that with this film. know, I feel... ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (12:06)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (12:23)

I know, I just feel like there's like an optimism, but also like a bittersweet energy about this that I am really, really in love with. I'm excited for you guys to watch the movie when I'm done. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (12:35)

I know, okay, wait until it gets released.

 

Mikey Mioduski (12:35)

Right. And Gerard, when

 

it's, I mean, this is your vision, literally. And, but we know it takes a whole ensemble, like so many people to truly bring a production together. I'm curious, like, what's the role of communication, selling your dream, making sure your, that vision is actualized without, without losing sort of like fidelity of it. Like

 

Molly Geoghegan (12:42)

Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (13:04)

How did you handle that whole process?

 

Gerard Clarke (13:08)

What you just said is so true, Mikey, ⁓ because I suppose that phrase is too many cooks in the kitchen, you run the risk of losing authorship of your thing. That wasn't an issue for me and for us on this project. I'm grateful for that. ⁓ And I think a big part of the reason that that's the case is because we spent a lot of time

 

trying to find the right folks. I think something that is both a blessing and a curse when you're working in the short film and like lobe to no budget space is that because you don't have any money that can scare off some of the extremely skilled folks that have resumes long as a roll of toilet paper. ⁓ But at the same time, those aren't the only people that are very good.

 

Molly Geoghegan (13:55)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (14:05)

I tapped into a community, and especially here in Atlanta, you've got plenty of people that you can look to. ⁓ I tapped into some folks, some kids at my local university at KSU around the corner from me. ⁓ And then, you know, I tapped into Asha's community of collaborators that she's worked with in the past. But then I think the thing that I did differently that I think is a strength of mine is...

 

Molly Geoghegan (14:20)

Shout out.

 

Gerard Clarke (14:29)

I just led with my passion for cinema and filmmaking. I try to get people excited about making a thing that they could be proud of rather than a thing that's gonna go on my resume that they helped contribute to. ⁓ My goal on anything that I ever wanna make is to do justice to the medium more than just get like...

 

Molly Geoghegan (14:42)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (14:57)

make a buck or create something that will hopefully give me an opportunity to make a buck down the road. ⁓ And so when you speak that language of like passion, you can filter out the folks that really just want to make money or, and look, there's nothing wrong with making money. Everybody needs it. ⁓ But if you're not leading with that passion first, then I don't think that this was the production for you.

 

you know what I'm saying? And I said as much, you know, there were some folks that I've collaborated with before or wanted to collaborate with before that I'd said, you know, let's put this one on ice for you and we'll circle back and try and get you on something else when, you know, the budget allows or ⁓ we have a role that makes more sense for you. And that's tough, but you gotta make tough calls when you're dealing with something of this size, you know?

 

Molly Geoghegan (15:27)

Mm-hmm.

 

And also it's not supposed to be for everyone. Like that's something we talk about a lot is like not only with the team that you're grading with, like it's not, you have like, there's a target audience and an intentional project will show that and reach that specifically. Cause you can't just like get it, you can't get everyone.

 

Mikey Mioduski (16:06)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (16:10)

Not sure.

 

Molly Geoghegan (16:11)

I'm curious, I'm reminded of the ⁓ like commander's intent or North Star. We use these phrases to, when you're talking about a new project, new product or new brand or something and people are having to distill an entire story or ⁓ startups have to deal with this when they have a pitch deck, right? Of like, how do I explain all this is in like two lines? And so I'm thinking about your onboarding or quote unquote pitching other people, building that creative team. how did you?

 

Mikey Mioduski (16:31)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (16:37)

go about distilling this beautifully complex story and you're into a couple of lines where this is what it's about ultimately. ⁓ That's tough.

 

Gerard Clarke (16:43)

That's

 

such a good question. I... So there's a practice in screenwriting ⁓ where before you get too deep into your story, you write the log line of your story. It's like the elevator pitch where you can like break it down into like a sentence or two sentences. To be honest with you, I don't remember it off the top of my head because I've like made it so I'm not like pitching it anymore, but I'm gonna pull up the IMDB and I'll tell it to you. So...

 

Molly Geoghegan (16:57)

Ooh, yes, yes, we love this.

 

Mm-hmm, you're right, you're right. So fair, so fair. And that's what I'm thinking of

 

Mikey Mioduski (17:08)

Ha

 

Molly Geoghegan (17:11)

like, you know, in movie posters, Frank, I was just looking at the Frankenstein poster I thought was brilliant, right? It was like, only monsters play God, right? That's like the byline, right? Super, and you're like, and besides the fact that everyone knows what happens in Frankenstein, but like that's, you know what the intent is out there. like, okay, this is the moral question we're working with here, Guillermo, thank you.

 

Mikey Mioduski (17:11)

Yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (17:20)

Mm.

 

Right. Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. So ⁓ for 500 seconds to tell you, the log line is, a global catastrophe ends life on Earth, a young man struggles to tell his best friend how he feels about her. But then on the poster, ⁓ on the poster, the line that is the equivalent of what you saw on the Frankenstein poster says, capture the moment before time runs out.

 

Molly Geoghegan (17:34)

Okay, let's hear it. Do you have yours?

 

Oof. Globality.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mmm, beautiful.

 

Gerard Clarke (18:01)

And I

 

liked that and I thought it was like nifty when I made it because he's holding a Hasselblad camera, taking a picture of someone. so like capture the moment felt like it spoke to the themes, but also the image on the poster too.

 

Mikey Mioduski (18:03)

⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (18:06)

camera, yeah.

 

Mikey, is this a case of narrative and messaging kind of working together? I think actually the thing on the poster is what you're actually saying about the narrative. And then the logline is the narrative of sorts where you're like, do I pass it around? And then how do I show it? How do I sell it on the thing?

 

Mikey Mioduski (18:32)

Yeah, there's like

 

the consumer facing the snappy version that's maybe a little more emotionally charged and I assume the log line is like not formulaic but for a producer to buy in, like has to address is there a character, is there a problem? Yeah, all those elements. That's beautiful. That alone is an art. I assume it's like crafting the log line.

 

Molly Geoghegan (18:35)

Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (18:36)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (18:43)

Yeah, to be like, what is this?

 

Gerard Clarke (18:50)

That's literally what it is. Yeah. Dude,

 

Molly Geoghegan (18:52)

Yeah, so hard.

 

Gerard Clarke (18:55)

oh my God. It's actually a nightmare sometimes because like you spend like, especially if you're writing, I submitted a feature film project to the Sundance Development Lab this year. It didn't get accepted, but you spend so much time like writing pages and pages and pages and pages and pages. And then you have to like take all of those ideas and try to pack it down into like a sentence or two. And it's like so difficult.

 

Molly Geoghegan (18:56)

That probably took weeks. Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah, cut it in half, cut it in half.

 

Mikey Mioduski (19:19)

Right,

 

Molly Geoghegan (19:19)

my God, yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (19:20)

I don't wanna say, I would think some people are using ChatGPT or like notebook LM for that. It's damn tempting at least I would think. But. ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (19:31)

like how to distill.

 

Gerard Clarke (19:35)

Yeah, listen,

 

I...

 

I worked with an executive producer who has said to me since chat GPT became, you know, quite a bit more powerful, like in the last two years, that if you're not using chat GPT to at least like support your work, then you're going to get left behind. I don't know whether or not that's true, but I definitely think that there is. Look like I've, I've attempted to use chat GPT to help.

 

Mikey Mioduski (19:59)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (19:59)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (20:09)

compact some of my ideas into like an irreducible thing. And it's just not good at it. Like it might be able to like stuff things down, but I always just end up landing on something that came from me instead of from it for that purpose. Because that like punchy snappy emotional thing that we're speaking to, I don't think it's very good at that.

 

Molly Geoghegan (20:16)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

⁓ Yeah. Mikey and I talked about this.

 

Mikey Mioduski (20:26)

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (20:31)

Mm-hmm.

 

It could get like halfway there. I feel like Mikey and I have talked about where it's like we're using it as a tool, but it can't be like the full output where it's like you can't just trust that that's gonna get everything because ultimately you have to be good with it in a passion project specifically to make sure that like you're good with the way those words are aligned in the log line and that it's authentic to the story you're telling. But.

 

Gerard Clarke (20:44)

for.

 

And to speak like agency language a little bit here, like, you you develop like a brand voice for any project, right? And so like, is this thing that it's coming up with consistent with like the guardrails that you've set up? Because like, even if you communicate it, like for example, you tell it like, yeah, well, whatever you do, just don't give me any dashes. And like, it's like spinning out all these dashes at you or whatever.

 

Molly Geoghegan (20:58)

Mm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah. Right,

 

Mikey Mioduski (21:16)

Still.

 

Molly Geoghegan (21:17)

right.

 

Mikey Mioduski (21:17)

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, on that note too, I'd love to hear. like you're a bit behind the curtains, like your process, do you fully go script and then once that's feeling resolved, then moving into like boarding or how did you approach, for instance, like this project?

 

Gerard Clarke (21:19)

But yeah, I don't know.

 

Molly Geoghegan (21:39)

Yeah, creative process.

 

Gerard Clarke (21:41)

great question. because this is my first time working in narrative, I, I think I've kind of found a little bit of what my process is through this. And I had a subscription to a website called Shotdeck. It's a great, great, great, great, great tool. ⁓

 

I think Larry Schur, I think is his name, the director of photography for Joker one and two. I think he owns the website, but basically it's like this extensive catalog of frames from movies and TV shows and music videos that you can tap into. And you can like describe, know, like I want to support this feeling and I need an image that is this aspect ratio and I need a color palette that is this.

 

and it'll give you a bunch of results that line up with the specifications and the specifications you can filter down way more than what I'm talking about. But so because I'm not an artist and because I didn't have money for someone to board, Shotdeck was a great, great, great, great tool where I could look to films that had something that I wanted to kind of like, yes.

 

Molly Geoghegan (22:40)

Mm.

 

Gerard Clarke (23:03)

You talked about the spice rack. figured I'd slide this real quick.

 

Molly Geoghegan (23:03)

Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (23:06)

there it is. Yeah, yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (23:06)

We love Austin. Austin Kleon, shout out.

 

Gerard Clarke (23:09)

It's an awesome book, but there's a little bit of stealing like an artist from shop deck because I was like, well, there's something in that movie that I definitely want to like take a little bit of for this and kind of like add into this like John Belaya that became my film. ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (23:25)

And sorry,

 

Jared, is Shot Deck like a library of like film shots or is it film storyboard? Like that's so cool. So it becomes kind of public domain. What? Yes and no. Right, right.

 

Gerard Clarke (23:30)

yeah.

 

yeah, it's like literally, no, it's a subscription that you have to pay for, ⁓

 

but it's a library. Like if there's a shot in Dune 2 that you wanna like use for your storyboard, you could just like go and look at Dune 2 and like download it and create a board and do your whole thing. So exactly, exactly. And you can specify all types of stuff. So for me, like...

 

Molly Geoghegan (23:40)

Okay.

 

and study or something. Cool.

 

strategic Pinterest of sorts in a way. Okay, cool, cool, very awesome.

 

Gerard Clarke (23:57)

For this film, I knew that I wanted to lean into the science fiction elements of the story. ⁓ you know, aspect ratio is a choice that is made by every director for different reasons or whatever. My daughter is so mad.

 

Molly Geoghegan (24:09)

Mm-hmm.

 

⁓ no. She's got something to say about this.

 

Mikey Mioduski (24:12)

⁓ sweetie.

 

Gerard Clarke (24:14)

⁓ Aspect ratio is a choice made by different

 

directors for different reasons. And I think I wanted to work in the two, three, nine to one aspect ratio because that just feels like it reminds me of movies like Interstellar and stuff like that. And, know, science fiction movies that are about relationships more than they are about, you know, just the science fiction of it all. And so I tried to find movies that were

 

Molly Geoghegan (24:23)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (24:26)

Hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (24:27)

Mm-hmm.

 

wide.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (24:44)

in that vein, in that ratio that, you know, like how, if you're shooting in such a wide and, you know, short frame, how do you deal with closeups or whatever? Yeah, yeah, because, yeah, so my director of photography and I spent a lot of time thinking about that. ⁓ We boarded for a little bit, but then I think the other thing that we did is shot list.

 

Molly Geoghegan (24:52)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (24:53)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (24:57)

Yeah, that's a tough, tough thing to consider, kind of.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mikey Mioduski (25:15)

yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (25:15)

like

 

relentlessly. And the film opens with a, I think it's like a 97 second shot that moves through the set. so we were, yeah, yeah, without a cut, we just like moving through the space. And so we were like trying to do something that felt very children of men kind of. Yeah, yeah. And so we had to.

 

Molly Geoghegan (25:17)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm. Before a cut. Cool.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. The handheld.

 

Gerard Clarke (25:44)

find a way to...

 

you know, like move through the space. so what we ended up doing was we scheduled, I don't know how common this is or not for short films, but we scheduled a day of rehearsals ahead of time too, to kind of figure out what movements made sense in that space. And I'm just, I think it's so, I'm so proud of it because like, without it, think the movie would have started in a more boring way, to be honest.

 

Molly Geoghegan (26:06)

That makes a lot of sense.

 

Hmm, yeah. I mean, we just had our another friend of the pod works on an AV event production company and his biggest piece of advice is like if you can access the space. Well, they insist. I mean, as the production company, you need to block that block that shit out and know where the doors are. You need to know where the pillar is in front of the screen. Like if you're if you want that one, if there's a shot list and like the time of day is messing it up with the lighting, you need to know what lighting you need to bring in. Like there's so many elements that.

 

Gerard Clarke (26:33)

so necessary.

 

Molly Geoghegan (26:42)

you won't be able to tell until you are on set and on stage or in the event space. So I think that's a huge, huge piece of advice for anyone doing a project like that. That's hard. How was the, like, so it was handheld, not steady cam. I'm picturing the one on tracks versus just like you're moving through. Very cool, very fun. You're amping it up, you're hyping it up for us.

 

Gerard Clarke (26:45)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

100%.

 

The good thing about working with my

 

director of photography is that we have an extensive, and he in particular has an extensive background in doc. And when you're shooting dots, it's just you and the camera and you gotta figure it out and do it. So the camera, you'd be shooting all day and the camera's on your shoulder the whole time. And so he's gotten to a place where his handheld camera work is really, really impressive.

 

Molly Geoghegan (27:13)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (27:30)

And so moving through the space and stuff like that, I knew I could count on Greg to figure it out and make something that felt organic and urgent because like that moment, the character is like running through this house party and there's like extras littered throughout the house looking for this person. And you've got to like feel that sense of urgency that's happening in that moment. yeah, Greg did a great job and the extras did a great job. We blacked the scene out and it felt.

 

When you watch it, I think you're going to be impressed. I think you'll like it.

 

Mikey Mioduski (28:00)

Yeah,

 

Molly Geoghegan (28:01)

Cool. I love it. I love a long cut.

 

Mikey Mioduski (28:02)

this is a super tactical question, but now I'm curious about a shot list. ⁓ What's the format for that? Is it like a spreadsheet or some specific to your industry kind of tool?

 

Molly Geoghegan (28:15)

And are some of them like aspirational where you're like, someone's reviewing it later, like, we're not gonna get this drone, sorry, like this is your tree, like we're not gonna get the drone, I'm sorry, like, ⁓ how does that work?

 

Gerard Clarke (28:16)

⁓

 

Mikey Mioduski (28:18)

⁓ yeah, scratch. Yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (28:21)

You

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

That's hilarious. The answer to the second part is absolutely yes. ⁓ You'll probably have moments on your shot list or shots on your list where you pull up on set the day of and you're like, all right, well, I want to do this, this, this, and you run into reality and there's certain things that you can't do or you don't have the time for or whatever. But I don't know that there's a... That's a lie. I'm sure there's a standard way to write a shot list. ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (28:32)

yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (28:56)

But you make everything your own. ⁓ So I had a spreadsheet and ⁓ I used, saying this to designers, I'm probably gonna lose some credibility here, but I.

 

Molly Geoghegan (29:10)

Don't worry, lots of product marketers,

 

no design background. No judgment here. Safe space.

 

Gerard Clarke (29:15)

⁓ I used Canva

 

to have a shareable spreadsheet that I could give to my crew or invite in and get their feedback on and allow them to make edits in real time if necessary. And I worked with a script supervisor, this really, really talented kid named ⁓ Taylor Crawford, he's a student at KSU. ⁓ So he was able to look at the shot list to like,

 

Molly Geoghegan (29:21)

I love Canva.

 

We love Canva. ⁓

 

Gerard Clarke (29:45)

in combination with the script to kind of break down what we were doing and the exercises for the day so that we could like schedule effectively and efficiently.

 

Molly Geoghegan (29:54)

Yeah, cool. my God. So you're building out this like whole, you've got the script supervisor, director of photography, you're like, obviously we've got the actors, the actors and that kind of thing. ⁓ On the other side, this is all leading up to the actual like production of it. On the other side of it, I heard, like you said earlier, you really felt that your identity was represented like across the film, which is really a beautiful thing to feel. And I'm sure, yeah, from, to use agency, like from a brand perspective, people want that for their brand.

 

So I'm curious with like film specifically, we've got mise en scene, all these elements. Can you dig into that a little more? Like what do you feel about your identity as a creator? Like Gerard Clark was like, how can you represent that in film tonally and all these choices you can make both in the film, the filming and shooting of it and then in post production as well.

 

Mikey Mioduski (30:40)

Mm.

 

Gerard Clarke (30:45)

I love that question. ⁓

 

a tough question to answer on the basis that I think literally any other filmmaker could take my script and make a fundamentally different movie, I think. ⁓

 

Molly Geoghegan (30:56)

There's so much.

 

Sure. Yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (31:09)

I think while that's true, you know, the things that I think show up in this that feel the most like what I intended are this kind of like bittersweet push and pull between these two people. trying to like, like they obviously care about each other in a romantic way and trying to like figure out how to communicate that was something that was important to me. And that's supposed to like kind of bubble over right as time is running out. And that's a way.

 

Molly Geoghegan (31:27)

Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (31:39)

I guess that's a spoiler. ⁓ Yeah, yeah. Nah, it's a short film. I don't think it matters. ⁓ That's supposed to be something that kind of manifests toward the end of the film where like finally you get this payoff for, you know, I don't know if you are into shows like this.

 

Molly Geoghegan (31:41)

No, no, it's the context. It's the context. We can cut it if you need. ⁓

 

Mikey Mioduski (31:44)

Ha ha ha ha.

 

Gerard Clarke (32:06)

Aaron Sorkin is my favorite writer of any kind. I'm a big, big, big fan. Oh, dude, me too. I love this man. He's so good.

 

Molly Geoghegan (32:10)

We took his master class. Here for the post. Yeah,

 

he's brilliant. He's kind of too smart, I think. He's a little scary. He's a little scary, yeah.

 

Gerard Clarke (32:18)

I agree. And he's

 

always like, yeah, I'm not that smart. I'm like, dude, have you watched your shit? Like, what are you talking about? But he does this thing in a lot of his shows. The Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a really good example where like the whole season, Sarah Paulson and Matthew Roderick?

 

Molly Geoghegan (32:24)

Yeah, Yeah.

 

Mikey Mioduski (32:26)

sandbags.

 

Molly Geoghegan (32:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Ugh.

 

Yes.

 

Mikey Mioduski (32:46)

That sounds right.

 

Gerard Clarke (32:46)

their characters

 

are like in love with each other very clearly, but like, will they, won't they, will they, won't they, will they, won't they? And you spend that like, like how many ever episodes it is, like 20 something hours wondering whether or not they will or they won't. I wanted to make something that asked that question, but just like condense the amount of time that you got to ask that question for. So it was a little less frustrating because like 20 hours of will they, won't they can actually be annoying. ⁓ Matthew Perry, yes. Yes, Matthew Perry.

 

Mikey Mioduski (32:51)

Mm-hmm.

 

Molly Geoghegan (32:58)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes, distilled.

 

Mikey Mioduski (33:09)

Yeah.

 

Molly Geoghegan (33:10)

Yeah, Matthew Perry. Sorry, just Googled. Yeah. Aw.

 

Mikey Mioduski (33:12)

Okay, okay.

 

Gerard Clarke (33:15)

Great show, underrated show. But

 

Molly Geoghegan (33:16)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

 

Gerard Clarke (33:17)

yeah, so that was something about the show that felt important to me. And then, you know, there's a scene in the movie that ⁓ takes place in a projector room that is lit with blue light. ⁓ And it just feels...

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