Watch the video interview on Youtube here
WHEN HOLLYWOOD SAYS NO, DON’T LISTEN
Scott Dunn, Writer/Director/Actor/Editor: Hi, I’m Scott Dunn.
Gina Gomez Dunn, Producer/Actor: And I’m Gina Gomez Dunn.
Scott: You know, I was thinking about something today. I was in the kitchen looking at salt, it made me think about today’s video. I just thought about the first person…who is the first person who is like This! I should sprinkle this on my food! I thought to myself, it was probably a caveman, right? A caveman?
Gina: Probably.
Scott: Caveman Grunts…[translation]Which means This is going to taste good on my meat. And then I thought there was probably another caveman and was [Grunts]…which is You can’t do that! That’s a rock looking thing. You can’t put that on your food.
And imagine if the first caveman listened to that negative caveman, we wouldn’t have salt all right. Things taste better with salt.
Now when you fast-forward to today and 2018 in Hollywood and there’s cavemen all over Hollywood who keep telling You can’t do that. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.
Gina: A lot of naysayers.
Scott: And we want to talk to you today about our second feature film MANDAO OF THE DEAD and all the things people say you can’t do and we did them anyway and if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t be sitting here with a second feature film.
So let’s start…
Gina: Number One “You can’t make a movie (especially a feature film for less than $100K” or they won’t take you seriously.”
Well, our production budget for MANDAO OF THE DEAD was just shy of thirteen thousand. That’s it. I rounded it up. You know it’s one of those things where you have to work with what you got and tailor your script to fit your budget and tailor your script to things that you have available resources that you have available to you.
Our co-producers Chessa Mehlman and Ian Sumner graciously lent us their apartment. So we saved a lot of money on the location.
Scott: Say half the movie was shot there, saving a lot of money. When I was writing the script for MANDAO I made sure that we stayed within the confines of knowing about how much money we had to spend on this feature film and I thought Well I can write it in very few locations but it doesn’t but we didn’t sacrifice any fun. I think it was about as fun as it was ever going to be and I actually think that the limitations made it a better movie.
Gina: And even our crew, our sound mixer had all his own equipment. Our DP had it’s all his own equipment and our associate producer Oscar Munoz he lent us his camera gear so it was like just see finding different ways to save money without sacrificing quality.
Scott: Number Two “It can’t be done in nine days? Not a feature film?”
And they were right. It was done in ten days. So in that tenth day it was really just a pick-up day with a couple of additional scenes after editing and I saw that there needed to be a few things to fill in and ten days is still crazy.
But again Caveman! You bad caveman! You said we couldn’t do it. No, No!
Gina: The reason why we were able to do that is we kept our cast and crew really small so we were able to move fast and we also rehearsed prior to shooting (we rehearsed with an actor).
Scott: This is something that I’m very gung-ho about. Always get the rehearsals going before your movie that’s where you get to work on it because when you’re shooting, you don’t have time to explore as much. You should know what you’re doing and there’s plenty of room for improvisation on set. Do a lot of that work in the rehearsals.
The third one, this is a personal experience. I had been in contact with a producer in Hollywood and we were talking and we had this sort of disagreement. He said to me You’re not a writer. You’re not a director. I mean you’re barely an actor and I remember hearing that. It was obviously painful. It’s painful to be told that you are not something. I had just done our first feature film SCHLEP and it hadn’t gotten into any festivals yet. He’s like What festivals was it has it gotten into? Yeah that’s right, nothing yet.
And weirdly enough a week later we got accepted to First Glance Film Festival and we had a great showing and the audience loved it and it was just a nice thing where I’m glad we didn’t listen to people saying no. I mean no one knows anything.
Gina: No one can tell you that you can’t do anything. I mean they can say it, but don’t believe it for a second.
Scott: It can be really good…I will say after all the time I’ve been in Hollywood it’s been 10 years and I will say this it’s about how you receive words like that. If you people say you can’t do it, you have really two options: believe them or show them. I think it was actually I’d like to thank that guy because it pushed me to really prove him wrong.
The Fourth thing…this is…(Watch the video on Youtube here).
If you’re not quite ready to let go of the Halloween spirit, new indie feature film Mandao of the Dead is now available on Amazon VOD.
Mandao Of The Dead Official Poster – Illustration by Michael Gambriel
Mandao (Man-Day-Oh) of the Dead is about Jay Mandao and his nephew-in-law Jackson who use astral projection to reverse a ghost’s death on Halloween.
This astral comedy is the second feature film written and directed by Scott Dunn and produced by Gina Gomez Dunn. It was filmed in 10 days with a production budget of just $13k. The duo’s first feature film, Schlep won Best Comedy/Dramedy at the Hollywood Boulevard Festival and was nominated in 5 different categories at the FirstGlance Film Festival. Schlep is also available on Amazon. Mandao of the Dead will be released on iTunes and DVD/Blu-ray in January 2019.
For more information and updates, visit Mandaofilms.com.
CONNECT WITH MANDAO OF THE DEAD:
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS:
Scott and Gina Dunn are a filmmaking couple in the Los Angeles area. Together, they’ve collaborated on two feature films: Schlep and Mandao of the Dead. Both films are now available on Amazon.
Scott Dunn is a Korean-American filmmaker from Illinois. Throughout his childhood, he made films with his friends as a hobby. After graduating high school, he began his career acting in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles.
He got his first break in a three-episode arc in Disney XD’s KICKIN’ IT. After appearing in several short films and webisodes, Scott switched back to his filmmaking roots. He made his first feature film, SCHLEP which won Best Comedy/Dramedy at the Hollywood Boulevard Film Festival and was nominated in five different categories at the FirstGlance Film Festival.
MANDAO OF THE DEAD is Scott’s second feature film that he wrote, directed, edited, produced, and starred in.
Follow Scott Dunn on Twitter @ScottyDUNNit
Gina Gomez Dunn is a Mexican-American filmmaker from Maryland. She received a B.A. in Dance and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Maryland. Immediately after graduation, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. After appearing in several student films, short films, and webisodes, Gina delved into filmmaking with her partner, Scott Dunn.
She co-wrote, produced, and acted in her first feature film, SCHLEP. It premiered at the FirstGlance Film Festival in 2017 and was nominated in five different categories. She also produced and acted in MANDAO OF THE DEAD.
Follow Gina Gomez Dunn on Twitter and Instagram @GinaGomezDunn
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If you’re not quite ready to let go of the Halloween spirit, new indie feature film Mandao of the Dead is now available on Amazon VOD.
Mandao (Man-Day-Oh) of the Dead is about Jay Mandao and his nephew-in-law Jackson who use astral projection to reverse a ghost’s death on Halloween.
This astral comedy is the second feature film Written and Directed by Scott Dunn and produced by Gina Gomez Dunn. It was filmed in 10 days with a production budget of just $13k. The duo’s first feature film, Schlep won Best Comedy/Dramedy at the Hollywood Boulevard Festival and was nominated in 5 different categories at the FirstGlance Film Festival. Schlep is also available on Amazon. Mandao of the Dead will be released on iTunes and DVD/Blu-ray in January 2019.
Film Music Mentor – A Youtube channel for filmmakers, television producers, content creators and media professionals of all kinds. Film Music Mentor will help you circumvent problems even the most seasoned professionals face.
Multiple award-winning composer/music producer Andrew Markus breaks down every challenge that motion picture creators face in the process of putting music in their projects. Why it works and why it fails.
