The NoSleep Podcast - Tales From the Void - Behind the Scenes Podcast - Episode 04

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

This Behind the Scenes Podcast is your chance to go behind the curtain to learn more about the people who have created the new horror anthology streaming series: Tales From The Void. Hosted by David Cummings from The NoSleep Podcast and one of the executive producers of Tales From The Void. He'll be speaking with the various writers and directors who brought these sleepless tales to the screen.New episodes of Tales From The Void will be available to stream weekly on Screambox in the US & Super Channel in Canada starting on Oct 13th.On this episode, we meet the two directors who bring us the first two episodes of Tales From the Void: Joe Lynch, director of "Into the Unknown" and Francesco Loschiavo, director of "Fixed Frequency". Our discussions touch not only on the episodes themselves but also on the many facets of filmmaking and what goes into bringing stories to life on the screen.Click here to learn more about Tales From the VoidClick here to learn more about Joe LynchClick here to learn more about Francesco LoschiavoTales From the Void - The Behind the Scenes Podcast is a Creative Reason Media production, in conjunction with Envoi Entertainment.Music by Alex Cuervo and Brandon Boone.Audio program ©2024 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.

From the silence, from the darkness, from your nightmares, Tales from the Void, Behind the Seans podcast. Welcome back to the Tales from the Void behind the scenes podcast. I'm David Cummings, host of the No Sleep podcast, and one of the executive producers of Tales from the Void. Joining me on this episode are the two directors who brought us the first two episodes, of Tales from the Void, Joe Lynch, director of Into the Unknown, and Francesco Los Giavo, director of Fixed Frequency.

Now, when this podcast episode comes out, those two episodes will have been released already, so we hope you've had a chance to watch them. If not, please be aware that while we try not to delve into too many spoilers, it might be better to watch the episodes first before listening to this show. My first conversation is with Joe Lynch. Joe is a filmmaker. Born in Long Island and living in L.A.,

Joe has creatively worked in various medias, including feature films, TV, music videos, commercials, short films, podcasts, and more. Joe's feature films include Wrong Turn 2, Dead End, Mayhem, and most recently, suitable flesh. We talk about the ups and downs of the film industry and what drew Joe to not only want to be a part of Tales from the Void, but why into the unknown was the episode he had to direct. In the second half, showrunner Francesco Los Giavo returns to discuss

how he directed fixed frequency. We delve into the episode's casting, filming on set, and how this rather demanding episode came to life under his watch. And so, join me as we delve into the dark world of the void. Joe Lynch, thank you for joining me at the Tales from the Void behind the scenes podcast. You, of course, directed the very first episode, which we're calling Into the Unknown based on the Black Square, classic No Sleep podcast story, fan favorite. And Joe, you are what the dreaded internet tells me is you are listed as a film and music video director,

a film producer, cinematographer, actor, I'll add, podcaster. There's a lot of hyphenates there. There's like a lot of slashes. And I feel like, you know, in this business, but even just in this like passion, you want to know a little bit of everything because it's part of the process. It is a very collaborative process. So, you know, when I was a little kid, I, to be honest, I wanted to be either the guy that gets to throw the blood on the wall or the guy that gets splashed with the blood. So essentially I wanted to be Tom Savini.

But then I learned how, you know, there were just as much as it was so exciting to see like a film buy. Personally, my favorite movie title like or credit of all time comes from the cinematic classic, Cloudy with a chance of meatballs because it says a film by a lot of people. That's the most fair and balanced version of what it takes to collaborate, you know. So that like, and this is something I learned when I was a little kid, when I went to film. school that it's always best to know at least a little bit of every department because then you can just convey exactly what you want, whether it's the camera department, the sound department, the editing department, you know, writing, directing, acting. If you can at least communicate with those different artisans, then you're going to get a better result and be able to siphon

out whatever is in your head instead of just going, and this happens all the time. Yeah, not that. See, this is the problem. You've just, you've just wound me up and you've just, haven't even asked a question yet and I'm already 20 minutes in. So I will shut up and let you continue. No, no, it's great. And you've touched on a lot of it that I was just going to lead into, you know, say for our audience, for those listeners, foolish enough to not know enough about you. Tell us about who you are. You mentioned you've been involved in this crazy business from a young age and it sounds like horror was right at your core. So I'm curious, how did you end up in the seedy world of horror? I, um, she hates when I'm

mention this, but I kind of blame my mother, as we all do. And one form or another, it all comes back to our mothers, right? psychologically, my mom was a huge movie buff and especially a horror film fan. Back in the day, she'll never admit it now. Joey, don't tell people I like horror movies.

But back in the day, she took me, because she would almost boast when I was a little kid reading Fangoria. It's like, you know, I went to go see the Exorcist at Radio City Music Hall. I saw all these people throwing up, like, she would tell me, like, all these great movies that are classics now, she would see them first run. And she took me to go see Dawn of the Dead. I was three.

You know, to be fair, I have a poster of it because it's such a seminal film in my life. And it says very specifically on the poster, there is no sex in this film. However, this film contains extreme violence. And my mom's like, hey, whatever, you know, it's all fake. I specifically remember that screening and being kind of entranced. And from there, it was a cause and effect. in a way, David, where she would, you know, we would go see Star Wars. And at the time, I thought all the stuff that was going on on that big screen, everyone was behind the screen. So I would run to the front and go, oh, where's the wookie? You know, and there was obviously no wookie there. There was just probably an usher making out with his girlfriend or something. But then she would

buy me Starlog and Sinafantastique and Fangoria. She saw how it really stoked my creativity. And that's where I just got so invested in how do you, how movies are made, how the sausage is made. There was a show on Nickelodeon back in the early 80s that Leonard Nimoy hosted called Lights Camera Action. What's funny is that we just lost James Earl Jones, and I didn't know that that's the same dude who was kind of sort of under the mask in Star Wars.

That was the guy that had the eyeball in the back of his head in Conan the Barbarian. And they showed you how it was done. And there was just something so fascinating about the process of making movies. And, you know, there's a little bit of me that wishes that I could use one of those men in black zappers to zap my brain to forget about and be able to watch movies objectively. But from a very early age, I was already looking to see what was behind the curtain. And then from there, I never looked back.

And then, you know, the responsible parents supposed to be like, you know, this whole movie thing doesn't work out. You know, maybe you should just check out accounting or something. I'm like, no, no, I'm going to be a filmmaker forever. But I never look back from there. And I'm so happy that it has been a very hard road. And I've been very lucky where I've been able to do, God, almost seven features now and a lot of TV and digital. And I've been able to be on both sides of the camera. I wish sometimes I could get in that Delorean and go back a little bit and tell that kid throughout all the hardships of getting to where I am today and say, just stick with it.

Just trust me, stick with it. And then, you know, the 12-year-old me would be like, get away from you, old man. You're creepy. Get in that Delorean. But it's been a wild ride. And doing Tales from the Void has been another extension of that passion because there's so many things in Tales from the Void that I haven't had a chance to do that I've always wanted to do and, you know, and be able to collaborate with such amazing people has been such a dream. And it's interesting. You touch on a theme that I've spoken to a lot of horror writers and just people in this business.

And it always fascinates me how so many of them have that similar story where it's like, yeah, I saw the exorcist when I was eight years old. I know I shouldn't have. And I've done that. And you mentioned about the poster saying no nudity. My understanding is that when kids are exposed to nudity or even, dare I say, pornography, that's very disturbing to them. But there's something about even gory horror that I think kids can, they almost look at it as slapstick in the same way the three stooges would poke each other in the eyes. and everything. So if you present a kid with Dawn of the Dead or movies like that, they're more willing to connect with that. And it always fascinates me that folks like yourself were drawn into horror at an age that most people would say, no, it's not appropriate for kids. But it's also interesting too, David, that like I wonder if I had been born in France or just anywhere in Europe where, you know, sexuality was not as verboten as it is here. You know, And I think it's just a culture, the Western culture that we lived in, you know, where the religious right or just more, it was more of a conservative upbringing, not to say that my parents were very conservative, but I think it was just, it was kind of looked down upon if you were, you know, allowing kids to be able to watch Porkies, you know, like, you know what, Return of the Living Dead is a much better film, even though they had a lot of boobies and some vagina in there too. Don't tell her. But like there, I think there was something about, and I think it still stands today where, you know, you look at how the MPA can be so strict on sexuality in films.

And I just dealt with that in my new film. I think that's probably the reason why I wanted to dive into sexuality and the taboos of sexuality with my film suitable flesh because I hadn't tackled that before. And to watch the reaction that I got from people going, oh, that is way too disturbing. I'm like, that's two people making love. Yes, sure. They swap bodies and they're dealing with tentacles and there's some lovecraft shit involved. Still making love. but having someone repeatedly stabbed in the neck and tearing their head off in front of someone,

totally fine, you know. It is such a fascinating way to grow up, you know, all of this. You know, yes, we're here to entertain. But it's also kind of a cool science experiment too, you know. Right. Yeah. And there's nowadays, like you say, it's not just the big screen. It's not just networks. There's streaming. There's, it's so much content that's available. And once you get away from the broadcast sensors and things like that, then there's, there's carte blanche to do and present whatever you want. And so, yeah, it's, it's exciting to see that people are taking advantage of that and exploring these areas that, like you say, a few years ago would have been taboo. You wouldn't want to go there. But so it's, it's great to hear that,

that world of horror that you've grown up in. And you have, you're part of a long running podcast called The Movie Crip. I think you guys have been around almost as long as the No Sleep podcast has. 11 years now. Yeah, it's crazy. Like we've been kind of parallel in a way. really quick the movie crypt was designed because Adam and I were, you know, we had actually, he had created and written a sitcom. Here, hold on. It's called Holliston for all you people on video right now. We have season one and two now available at Arescope.com. But it was because we loved four camera sitcoms. We also wanted to see more of like ourselves on a show like that. We had done a series of shorts for this film festival and the executive who was starting

this network, saw those and went, you guys are pretty funny. Do you have anything like that? And of course, we're like, of course we do. Yes, of course. And Holliston was born. And we got approached by a podcast company because we had done interviews separately. And they said, you know, would you be interested in doing something that would promote the show? And we said, of course, yes, that sounds like a great idea. It was supposed to be 10 weeks, 11 years later. And the reason why we did it for twofold was one, we used to do it on a Friday. And one of the things that, like, for all you aspiring filmmakers out there, usually the way it goes is on Monday, after the weekend of you going like, I'm going to do this idea or whatever. You know, on Monday, you were full of piss and vinegar, ready to go, full of ambition and passion.

You're going to put that script out there. You're going to get that movie made. You're going to get that cast of whatever it is. You're going to roll that rock uphill. By Friday, you are exhausted. or you've been beaten down so hard, you've gotten the rejections, the nose, whatever. And every Friday we would record, and that was usually what would happen for both of us, because we were both working filmmakers.

In addition to doing the podcast, we were always making movies at the same time. We've never missed an episode in 11 years that we've done it, even though we've collectively produced and directed maybe five or six films in that time. So it's been a grind. And to be able to have that, it was very therapeutic, to be able to come to a forum and say, holy crap, this happened and inspire other filmmakers to know there is another Monday. Don't give up. That's the reason why we did it. Wow, that's amazing. And you know, you mentioned Holliston, which I have just discovered and I can't wait to start watching it.

I might order a DVD from you. Available now on DVD and Blu-ray. Call 1-800. Yes, we'll do that. I'm always fascinated by the blend of comedy and horror because to me, they just, go so well together. What is it? I mean, your your personality, I think, obviously, leans or has a nice blend of both. So why do you think horror and comedy are like that, the chocolate and peanut butter of the creative world? You take them separately. Perfect example. We take chocolate and peanut butter. They are two very discernible flavors that elicit a very noticeable response, right? Some people like, I need my chocolate fix or peanut butter is the perfect thing to put on anything. Give me a piece of celery. Put some peanut butter.

on it, any kid will eat that shit. So there, they are two distinct flavors, and they both elicit very distinct responses. Comedy and horror, if you break it down from a technical standpoint, they're two of the hardest things to accomplish because it's about timing. It's about execution. It's about how you present it to the audience. And it could fall apart at any moment, the wrong performance, the wrong line of dialogue, the wrong edit, the wrong angle. And any one of the those things can work against you, but you get it right, and it's glorious. Now, take those two things and put it together. Now, it doesn't always work that way. I grew up at a time in the 80s where there was an advent of this subgenre called Splatter, right? It kind of started in the

lit world with Doug Winter and Ramsey Campbell, but more specifically like Skip Inspector, and Stephen King really kind of ushered it in. Clive Barker said, hold my beer and ran with it even further. But he also added like sexuality. But essentially, the splatter to me was always like finding a way to present these things in a roller coaster sort of fashion where you can scream, you can laugh. It's very cathartic. Sometimes you've got to go a little over the top. And the movies that I had discovered at that time in my formidable years of like really kind of jumping into wanting to be a filmmaker and really loving it, look at Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters is absolutely hilarious.

You turn the sound off and there is some freaky, terrifying scenes in that movie, right? But then go into Evil Dead 2 or Return of the Living Dead, Reanimator, Friday the 13th Part 4. There were all these movies that were balancing a sense of humor but never forgetting the stakes. Sean of the Dead is a recent example that I think is a good, like a good baton toss from the forefathers to be able to bring a whole new generation. of people into going, I really find this funny, but oh my God, they killed the mom? Like, that's terrifying. I've always gravitated towards that. And I think, you know, from a filmmaking standpoint, I've set myself up for failure on like twofold because if you screw up the comedy or you screw up the horror, you're in big trouble. That's the beauty of having horror and comedy work together.

As long as you have stakes, but you at least allow the audience to have like a release, then you're in the ballpark. Right. And so often you mean, you know, talking about the gore, I feel like there have been so many movies where you see those ridiculous scenes. And of course, more recently the movie like Terrifier, these absolute gore fests. But there's almost a sense of whimsy about them. And so you're seeing women being sawed in half. And yet at the same time, you're kind of chuckling along with this crazy clown. It's like tongue in cheek, but the tongue is hanging out of the cheat too.

And you can't not laugh at the hoodspot. You know, it's like, you can, look, you can make Sala. You know, you can make, you know, a very dour and very serious version of all the violence that happens in a terrifier movie. But then you have the clown and he's smiling and he's laughing and he's miming. And there's something about that blend that allows it to be like the sugar to make the medicine go down in a way. And some people love that. I personally, I love that roller coaster tone. Now we were talking about the gore fest and the very explicit kind of horror content.

And then we think about your episode of Tales from the Void. Again, we talked about it into the unknown. I'm so scared that some people are going to go like, oh boy, Joe Lynch did this and they're going to watch it and go, hmm, yeah, okay, not what I expected from him. From the guy who did four episodes of Creep Show, not what you'd probably expect for me. But that was the fun. That was the challenge. That's what I loved about it.

Right. And how did you become involved? How did you get drawn into Tales from the Void? Well, luckily enough, or stupidly on their part, who knows, Francesco and John, who were running the show, they had seen my film Mayhem, and the one with Stephen Young and Samar Weaving. It's funny, today, I went back in my emails and went like, you know, how far away was that? And it was back in 2021. While we were still kind of in the throes of the pandemic, I was. going through a lot of life changes. I was like, you know, just, it was a very crazy time. And my agent at the time sent me this pitch deck. And I had known about No Sleep because of, I used to work at G4. And we covered the No Sleep podcast. We covered the stories at one point. Blair Butler, who's a good friend of mine, would talk about it a lot. There was a lot of fans of the stories and everything in the halls of G4 at the time. So I got into it. So I was very, very well versed in the phenomenon. behind it, you know, because it went from like creepy pasta, it's no sleep for a lot of people.

And that, that evolution was something that I really enjoyed. So I was very aware of it. And when it floated on my desk, so to speak, I was instantly fascinated because I'm like, hmm, you could do this, you know, like there's, there was so many stories that were just like begging to be visualized and represented. You know, they were very smart in their, the pitch deck was fantastic. And Francesco shot. a pilot, you know, like a teaser pilot, that I was immediately drawn by this one shot of the square. And immediately I went, I don't care who's doing one. I want that one. There was something that just drew me in. And funny enough, like I look back at it now, I feel like one of the

characters from the episode where I think I was drawn in visually and aesthetically by this fascinating object that is just floating in the ether. And I wanted to, you know, to touch it and I wanted to be part of it somehow. And that kind of seduction was really what made me go, yeah, I'm in, you know. And yeah, it took a couple of years, but I remember being there from the jump, just kind of going, guys, let me know when you're ready, you know. This is just one of those things that happens, you know, like people will reach out to you, they're fans or they just think that maybe this guy can make his day. And if you're, you know, truly into it. And this is one of the things that you just have to remember as a filmmaker. Very rarely is it like, all right, kid, you got a green light.

it's usually years before something actually gets from paper to production. And I just kept sticking with it. I remember the initial meeting I had with them. And then about a year later, I was in New Orleans during a hurricane. And I'm doing a Zoom call with the whole team going like, okay, let me know. And then two years later, we're actually in Sue St. Marie actually shooting it. So this whole project is a testament to Francesco and John and the Paper Street guys, all of them who had so much faith in this production and didn't give up. Yeah, absolutely. They just

is so inspiring. And they brought me in. And like you say, yeah, it felt like years ago when Francesco was saying, I think originally it was supposed to be a web series. They were sort of thinking about doing it on YouTube and so to see it grow into this has been amazing. And it's cool to hear you talk about how you were like you basically said, I want this story. So, you know, we have the Black Square into the unknown as the episode is called. Obviously, draws on very subtle and nuance more than flash and gore. So what was it about this story that you wanted to kind of pull out and show the audience in that more overt way? One of my favorite short stories of all time is Stephen King's The Mist. Because I love audiobooks, right? And I'm not just saying

that because some people think I'm lazy. It's like, look, it's the only way that I can actually sit down and read a book is to be able to put it into my ears. And I just, love people telling me stories, letting stories unfold. And I remember as a kid, back when it was cassettes, there would be The Mist. And I was a huge Stephen King fan. I am now, of course. And then a couple of years later, there was a, like, a radio play version of it that was one of the first times that you ever heard stereoscopic sound. And I recommend anybody listening to this to go to YouTube or whatever. You can find it out there. William Sadler is one of the roles in it. And it's a terrifying oral experience. But I,

And the point I bring up with that is, you know, for all the horror histronics and the tentacles and the mist and everything and the kind of almost doomsday lovecraftian feel that it has, the thing that was really scary about it was the people. What happens when a situation like this is dropped into a small town, a small community, and you have people that are in a bit of a vacuum and your neighbor becomes your enemy or your enemy becomes your ally. and how something like this, something, sometimes it's cultural, sometimes it can be based on race or gender or sexuality or anything provocative. Sometimes it can be allegorical. It can be fantastical. It can be supernatural. You know, that's obviously what Matt was working on when he was originally creating the story to a degree. And I think that's what Francesco and John ramped up to not a huge degree, but enough where it was like, huh, this is really fascinating because it could be anything. That doesn't have to be a square that's floating in the middle of their common ground. It could be anything that could have dropped in there.

Like, you know, Guillermo del Toro did, it was devil's backbone. And when he had the bomb that's dropped into that small town and it could go off at any time and how people reacted to that, that's the thing that really fascinated me. And it was really the mist that made me reminded me of like, what could you do? It's not about the effect. It's not about how cool we can make that square look or what's going to happen when something happens when there is interaction with the square in one form or another. Don't want to give too much away. It's more about what happens around it and what are the ramifications and the consequences that the square creates with that community.

That, to me, was both fascinating and absolutely terrifying. Yeah, for sure. And I remember when I first read the story that Matt wrote and then watching your screen version of it, I kept thinking that the black square in a way, it's kind of a Macuffin, isn't it? It's that thing that's, it's essential to the story, but it's really not so much about the square. And like you say, it could be anything. It's Marcellus Wallace's soul, you know. You don't know essentially what it is. And, you know, obviously we delve into more fantastical and, you know, more supernatural.

elements as we go along. But you know what? You could strip that all the way and you can introduce a gun or some form of violent act and it could have the same effect. And that sociological petri dish kind of way of exploring how these characters interact with each other, that was something that I had, honestly, I had never done anything like that or had the opportunity to tell a story like that. to me, sci-fi is fear of the future. Well, I just, I'm thrilled with how it turned out as if, you know, my opinion matters, but it was just, it was so much for watching. Of course it. My God. When you just said that you watched it, I'm like, oh, really? Oh, God. So, like, what you're saying? Come on. Tell me, tell me honestly. You know, but that's the thing that I'm so excited about in general. And that's why I love anthologies, too. Like, as much as I do love serialized television and I'm so glad that long-form entertainment has now been able to give, be given the, the production. value to be able to tell these stories where it's not just so restrained, like, to be able to

do that, but also filmmakers, too, you know, the fact that Maddie and, you know, and the Adams, who are very distinct voices, you might not be able to have a show that allows them a vessel that can give them, you know, like in a serialized form, the ability to hone their voices, still stay within the constraints of, you know, obviously the budget and everything, but also the worldview of the show, but let them show their stuff and let them express their voice. I don't think I would have been able to do what I got to do on this episode if it wasn't this particular type of show. And also because the filmmakers that I collaborated with were incredibly collaborative. They were, you know, they trusted me, stupid, but they did. And for a show like this,

when you don't have time to second guess and your DP is already picking your brain, like, I want to work with that guy again. So that was the thing that was so great about this. Yes, we had three days to shoot and we had no time. And it was brutal at points and the weather wasn't working. And like, you know, all the things that you have to expect from making films. But to see the smile on Francesco's face when we did this one moment, I'm not going to say what it was, after we had a major setback on set and we figured it out,

We problem solved together. And then this moment happened and looking off and seeing Francesco who has been on this thing longer than anybody else. And that's one thing that you have to remember when you're a director on a show like this is that you're kind of a manager. You're not the be all end all. To see the look on his face meant everything. And that's why I did it. Yeah, Martin and the whole crew. Every interview I talk about.

It was a fantastic crew. Such a fantastic crew. We got so lucky. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, like Sue St. Marie, Ontario up north there, you know, you film there because there's a lot of tax credits and they want to get people working up there. So it has that feel to it. But at the same time, the crew is so passionate. And I keep remarking about how nobody is up there just for a paycheck. They want the project they were doing. They have to really want to be there. Because like, to be honest, it's a little depressing there. You know, it reminded me of hearing about like Sam Ramey and Rob Tappert back in, you know, in the tree. trenches making evil dead. They ain't making it for a paycheck. They're doing because they freaking love making movies and they'll do whatever it takes to do it. Even if they have to suffer, they're going to freaking do it. Um, you know, the restrictions that we had,

it only fueled us. You know, every day being picked up by, whether it was Martin the DP or a camera and the producer and we were just like on site and going like, okay, here's what we have. Here's what we don't have. How can we make that all work? I love that gun to the head in a way, maybe not literally, but I do love the pressure of figuring it out. That's part of filmmaking is, you know, knowing the story well enough, knowing the characters, knowing the tone so that you can stay the course, but anything that comes your way, do whatever you can within legal means, of course, and making sure that everyone is safe, of course. So if you can adhere to those first two things and you're on the right track, and then, you know,

like we'll see what happens and let the chips fall where they may thankfully for this we had really strong scripts i read every single one of them and i was jealous of some of the other ones too because i'm like oh man they get to do this and that really strong scripts with very definitive voices in those scripts that have been there from the page one a production team that wanted to be there not just they're not there for the paychecks trust me and then everyone just kind of knowing how to work together in a really fun mature way it reminded me of the days of grabbing a VCR camera and just going out with my brothers and just making stuff. I think the best thing that a production like this can do is not be big,

not have a million people on set because there's nothing worse than a bunch of PAs who are locking down a block, six blocks away going, I'm missing all the cool shit. You know, it's like, no, that PA on this production was doing four different jobs. And everyone felt invested. So you walk away at the end of the day and, yeah, you're exhausted. Yeah, all you want to do is call Uber Eats. and get an A&W, which was great.

I'm so glad I got to be up in Canada and have an A&W burger. That was awesome. But everyone felt like they contributed. And that to me, that's what makes this show great, is that everybody walked away really proud of what they were able to do. Right. And I'm curious if you, is horror, is it almost reliant on that sort of pressure? Like, I'm curious, if somebody came to you and said, here's $25 million and 12 months,

make a great horror movie. would that be a little too much money, a little too much freedom? Or would you love the more constrictions of budget or time? I will say this. After making a movie, like, Suitable Flesh was probably the lowest budget film that I had done. And, you know, like knowing the restrictions that I had, and I am so proud of what we were able to do with that. But man, at the end of the day, to be able to have a couple extra days of shooting would have been fantastic.

The gun to the head is always great. And I think it yields a lot of creative problem solving that you can look back and go, yeah, you know how many people notice that shit? Maybe 5%. You know, no one in the history of the world, David, has ever watched a movie and said, man, they really made their days. Nobody, maybe except for a couple filmmakers, but that's it. Money is time in most cases.

And it's always nice to think that like, because when you think about it and when you break it down, money equals time. time gives you extra takes. Extra takes allows you to explore a little more. It's not always fun to be the actor and only getting one or two takes because, you know what? That might not be where you get that moment that could be in the trailer that makes someone sit there and watch the movie and go, I got to see that or make them cry or make them laugh. You know, to have a little bit more ability to give options is always great. Joe, I feel like we could talk for hours. I love this kind of conversation. But I want to wrap things up by having you tell the audience what is next for Joe Lynch. You're always busy. What can we find of yours in the future? Well, obviously, Tales from the Void, and I'm very, very excited for people to watch it. Hopefully, look, the beauty about anthologies is if you don't like one, give it a second.

There's another one coming right up, you know? So if mine doesn't work for you, then, you know, Francesco's or the Adams or Maddies or whoever's, I think they're going to blow you away. I think if you're a fan of the No Sleep podcast, if you're fan of those stories, if you're fan of a blend of cautionary tales, science fiction, horror, melodrama, all kind of wrapped up in a very unique package each episode.

We've got the show for you. And hopefully the first episode doesn't dissuade you. We'll see. In terms of myself, you know, I just got off of suitable flesh, which did a great festival run. and it just came out. I think it's now on Hulu,

which is crazy that my mom is like, oh my God, Joey, I saw a film on Hulu. Usually it's like, you know, shutter or something like that. Now it's like, I love the fact that Disney now shows two of my movies, wrong term two, which is one of the most disgusting movies of the 2000s, and suitable flesh,

which is just wall-to-wall sex, which I love. Next for me is, you know, like there's like a couple projects. I don't want to jinx it. And, you know, every director says, I got a few things in the oven or whatever. There's one project that I literally got a call, and I hope I'm not jinxing this now, but it's a project that I wrote a God about five years ago.

That's like a passion project for me. And it's one of those things where it's like you want to be able to put things out there and hopefully they come back and then somebody says, I want to do this or, you know, I'm really interested in that. This was one that's been out there for years. And it's for one reason or another. It's always like, man, that's a little too ambitious or, oh, I don't know if that's like that's our thing. I was having the worst Sunday last weekend, you know, no work. Everything's

drying up. And I went to this burrito place that my wife and I had been dying to go to for months called Lucky Boy in Glendale, has the best breakfast burritos in maybe the state, drive 40 minutes to go get this goddamn breakfast burrito. And I opened the thing up. It's all messed up. It's totally wrong. And I lost it. I literally lost. I was like, this son of a bitch, I'm throwing the burrito. I'm calling the guy up. I'm going, you fucked up my burrito, son of a big. The guy's yelling at me and everything. Could not have gone worse. I get in the car. I'm driving on the 134. And then I get a text from the co-writer of this one project who's producing it with me. And he's like,

dude, you'll never believe it. He wants to do this movie. Everything has changed in the last 48 hours and, you know, knock on wood, you know what, this, the whole thing could fall apart. But that's just the nature of the beast with this, with this crazy industry, is that, like, you could be down on the ropes on Monday and on Friday, you could be prepping for your next film. That could be the project you wanted to do for 10 years. So you never know, you know, so let's see. Maybe the cinema gods will shine down on me, but, uh, you know, I will say this. I went back there and the guy fixed my burrito and it was delightful. So it all works out in the end.

That's amazing. Well, I was going to say, I hope very successful projects are in your future and really good breakfast burritos because that's what it's all around. Everyone deserves. You know what? You know what's the best? When you can go on a set, be with a great cast and crew, and they have breakfast burritos. Life can't be better. Oh, Jill, this has been great.

Thank you so much for joining me. And I know people are going to love not just Tales from the Void, but. into the unknown is going to be a big hit. So thanks for joining me and hopefully we'll connect again soon. You got it. Thanks, man. Francesco, welcome back to the behind the scenes podcast. You're joining us on this episode to discuss the second episode of Tales from the Void in which you direct the story fixed frequency based on I used to hack baby monitors by Manon Lyset. Thanks for being with us again, Francesco. Thanks, David. Excites We're here. So let's talk about fixed frequency. Now, You mentioned on our first episode that this story was adapted by John Thomas Kelly long before the series got off the ground.

And I'm curious, what was it about this story that made it so well suited to be the script that helped you guys pitch this series to others? This script actually, like, was one of the top ones. When people read it, they really understood what we were trying to do with the show. I think it's because if you read the no sleep story, it's such a unique idea and premise. I think it's like the perfect mix of like finding something creepy in an inanimate object, right? Like a baby monitor. There's elements of like the parental fear, which is so primal and everyone understands it. And I think John did a really good job of capturing kind of like the voice of kids in it.

And I think the way this one I think was a bit of a slam dunk, I think for John and I is because John put a lot of his own voice into the characters, which I think is super important. And then I spent a lot of time kind of like thinking about, you know, my childhood and what it was like getting peer pressure to do things you didn't want to do or getting bullied and all that type of stuff. And putting a lot of that into the coaching with the actors and some of the camera angles that we shot. So yeah, I think to me this was like a perfect Mitch because of like it has that nostalgia element. It has the like stranger things for whatever. the reason that's like a popular thing now kids on bikes apparently they they own that you have like coming of age bullying thing that I think everyone understands and then the parental kind of fear I think

there's a lot of elements that are like relatable to the human experience not to sound like cliche and then I think the horror premise is just like so unique but so simple and I think that's the beauty of men's writing so I think all those things kind of coming together I think it's the elements that make a great no sleep story but also just made a good good episode TV And you mentioned the actors. So let's talk a bit about the casting. This episode features three young adults playing the main roles. And you also direct teenage actors in another episode, Whistle in the Woods. Tales from the Void has been very fortunate to have great casting with very talented young actors. What's it like directing younger actors for these more intense stories with darker themes and disturbing emotions? It was an interesting one. Like our process to casting is we actually probably watched almost too much. Like we were treated almost a little bit like casting agents.

We worked with the team at man casting, but we didn't have them filter a ton for us. They gave their opinions on everything. But I think we watched, probably watched close to 2,000 tapes. I think for even Kerry alone, John and I watched 600 for almost one role. And we went cross Canada for this search for the right kids.

So casting, like, I think we spend as much time, I don't want to say as much time as the scripts, but it felt like it. We really spent a long time and didn't give up until we found the right people. So that was the first thing, was kind of like searching for the right kids. And like Juan took a long time for me to find Sean, but I think he did an amazing job. He's like, I'd such a great young talent. So in terms of directing the younger actors, a big thing, funny enough, was making it sure that they knew how to ride a bike. We had a huge issue on our kind of like teaser trailer where we got to set and one of the actors hadn't ridden a bike before. So oddly enough, I made all the kids show me a video of them riding a bike.

We took them out to a parking lot and made sure they could like ride full speed and kind of skid to a stop and be able to maneuver enough that like we weren't going to be nervous about some of the things we're trying to do with the camera. So they probably felt that exercise was silly, but I think it was it was necessary and I was a bit nervous about it. The other kind of thing that we spent a lot of time on is I spent a lot of time with the actors. Sean, who plays Juan, who is amazing. I also spent time with Milton, who played Cedric, and then Bergman, who played Kurt. And each of their characters is kind of like a different moral compass. So Juan is kind of like very innocent and kind of naive youth, right? Kurt is like, sorry, Cedric is the moral center.

And then Kurt is your kind of typical high. school bully. And specifically with Milton, when we talked a lot about the Cedric character, I had shared a little bit of my experience kind of growing up, you would be in these kind of situations where somebody's getting bullied or treated unfairly, but you don't want to stand up for them because you don't want to be the target. And that was sort of Cedric's character. It's like it's his cousin that's there, Juan, and he has to be there for him, but he doesn't want Bergman, who's playing Kurt to basically, you know, turn his kind of scope onto him. And that was kind of a big thing that we talked about that we wanted to put into the character.

And then for Kurt, we spent a lot of time Bergman and I talking about different experiences, kind of, you know, being bullied. And Bergman just said to me, I think I know who this guy is and he goes to my high school. And he just all of a sudden had this change in his way of like portraying the character and it was spot on. So I don't know who that person is that Bergman, you know, goes to high school with, but he's exactly what we kind of wrote on the page and what we wanted for the characters. So I think all three of the boys are like super talented. It was a pleasure to have kids that great. And I probably overly coached them. I was, I was nervous about working with, you know, teenagers,

but they were all amazing. And I suppose for those kids who are in high school right now and they fancy themselves a bully, maybe one day you'll inspire a character. So there's something. There you go. It's always something to shoot for. Now, I'm curious about, from a directing standpoint, it feels to me like fixed frequency is one of the more ambitious episodes of the series in terms of the locations and number of sets, not to mention some of the practical effects. What were the main challenges you faced with this somewhat bigger episode? Yeah, this was a tough one to pull off. I think logistically, with how much we had to shoot, number of location changes.

The look I wanted, I think people were not happy with how pushy I was being on that, but I think it was worth it. And the other thing that was like a really tough one with this episode was just like the technical execution of it, which Marty just did an amazing job or cinematographers. So like I give a couple examples. Like we filmed in Sue St. Marie, which is in the country. You know, you were there with us, David. It's, they have a couple areas that are like denser like the city, but like the one area we filmed in was basically three spots that I thought could pass as the suburbs.

I wanted this to feel like the neighborhood that I grew up in in Mississauga. I wanted it to feel like, you know, it's just endless houses. There's nothing to do. There's, you know, maybe gas stations and McDonald's in between the houses and high school. So what do you do at night? You find things to entertain yourself and that's going around coming up with new pranks, right? So locations, because of that, we only had two streets that I felt looked like where I grew up. So when you think about the biking scenes, right, literally what we would do is two kind of circular laps of a street.

And we would do four scenes and four different emotional ranges for the character. What I put Sean through was kind of insane and he did such an amazing job. So we had him on a kind of process trailer. So it's a trailer that's pulled by a truck. And he's like strapped in. It's super safe. And we've got his bike. It has no wheels on it.

It's welded to the process trailer. And Marty's in the process trailer with a camera filming him while he's pretending to bike in a close up. And he had to emotionally go from, I'm biking around. It's a sunny day. It's nice that I'm happy to, you know, I just called my friends and said that the killer. you know, killed those people last night and I'm like distraught. And then all the way to I'm biking down the street and I see a mom, you know, with her baby and I remember the dead baby that I just

saw and I need to start crying. And he had to do all of that in like very short kind of shot sequence within like, I think we did two takes. It was the craziest thing. We had like a close up of Sean. He's happy Sean kind of, you know, biking normally then has to change his emotional range to be kind of traumatized by what he's seen, then we pan the camera to a baby, you know, in a carriage and a mom and pan back and he has to be crying. And he did all of that in about like, he did two takes and we did it in about 30 seconds while he's kind of biking a thing and he gets one lap to do it. So the time constraints was like massive. Being a stickler for the look was a big thing. And then I think you noticed it about like the ambition of it. I think on that episode,

And this is a testament to Martin, our cinematographer. We used the process trailer on one thing. We had two or three drones in the sky. We had two cameras on the kids while they were biking. You know, we used dollies on certain days for kind of the camera movement that we wanted. We had a jib arm. We used every kind of every piece of gear that we had in the truck on that episode. I think the amazing thing, and this is like just a testament to the crew,

is like even with all of that, Marty came to me and said, said like, I don't think you're going to get all the coverage you need to the kids on the bikes. And we're going to get the second DPO with a second camera, kind of capturing extra angles. And a lot of those extra angles are in the episode. So it was kind of like a massive, massive time crunch. And then the other thing just kind of like the amount we were moving around was just location compromises. So like one of the things in the script that we had to adjust just because we couldn't shoot everything was we filmed it like a lot of in the park. And we had to change kind of the settings to take place in the.

park, a lot of that was supposed to take place near convenience stores. And we just couldn't physically make the move to the convenience store. We had this, I'm still upset. It's not in the show, but we had this crazy convenience star called Crazy Ed's Fried Chicken and Convenience. And that was going to be where the kids kind of met and where Juan, you know, called from Milwaukee. And we had all these beautiful neon lights of a convenience store, but it was just location moves.

We're going to kill us. So the big thing on that episode was just time being the enemy. me and the number of toys that we had to put in the air on the ground to capture all the stuff with the kids biking because everything you see with kids on bikes, all the different scenes I think is collectively filmed in about an hour and a half, every angle, which is wild. Yeah, that's amazing to hear that kind of stuff. And again, for someone like me, and I'm sure a lot of people in the audience, to hear that kind of stuff, you know, we don't fully grasp what actors go through, as you said, they have such

short times to create these very realistic emotions and bring their character to life. So that's great insight into how talented our cast is and the crew to pull that all together. Yeah, I think Sean, who played Juan's going to be a star like Sean Bandio. He, he broke down every scene and I could tell he had a very firm understanding of like, the camera is going to be very close to me. And I'm kind of like sweaty and afraid this whole episode. So they're having. to be levels to how afraid I am, and I can't be terrified at the first time I hear the walkie with the killer, because I got to save some of my range for when I get to the body pit or whatever. He was very, like, self-aware of his kind of range and when we were going to go big and when we

weren't, and especially when you're asking him to jump from, like, huge shifts in his kind of character, you know, between scenes. He just did an amazing job. Now, we don't want to spoil too much of the episode for those who have yet to see it, but there was the need to include some really cool practical effects featuring some gory bodies and body parts. Can you talk a little bit about how we were able to get those and their connection to a particular horror movie that many may have heard about?

Yeah, we had like a really, really good prosthetics team. The guys we worked with, we worked with the action pants effects. They did the body pit and fixed frequency. They did the, you know, the baby and carry. They helped us find some guys to build the doll for. plastic smile. So it was like a kind of a all encompassing team. And it was my first time working with them. And their like prosthetics team is kind of unbelievable. It's run by Steve Kastanski that I think did The Void and his new movie kind of Frankie Freco and he did Psycho Gorman. So we had Brandy

from his team, Brandy Brulet, who was amazing and did the prosthetics build of Kurt's severed head. And then I found out we had hired this local guy, Chris Nash. on the day to help us with the Body Pit Assembly. And he was telling me about his kind of Jason-inspired, you know, Slashore movie, which turned out to be in a violent nature that got seen in theaters a little while later. So we had a really kind of amazing prosthetics team, all like kind of seasoned filmmakers. That was a surprise to me that a bunch of them have been cooking up kind of hit hit film. So I think we were really lucky to work with some of the best in horror.

The Toronto kind of horror scene and sort of their kind of prosthetics teams are just, I think top notch in the world, so we're really, really fortunate. When I think about this episode, I know that horror is full of stories in which young people make bad decisions, whether it's playing pranks or having sex or getting up to no good, and then they get their comeuppance from some sort of nasty killer or monster or ghost. Do you see the story as a bit of a cautionary tale to be well-behaved, or is it more of just a good old fashion? You mess with the bull and you get the horns kind of thing. There was themes that John and I talked a lot about when we were like putting this together of like

there is intentionally supposed to be a subtle nod to the fact that like the voice of the bully coming through the walkie talkie or the baby monitor that they're kind of the aggressor preying on kind of these new mothers ends up being the voice that they fear. In Manin's original story, there's a time jump that he had put in there and we had to take it out because we had multiple episodes with a time jump and we kind of didn't want to be the time jump show. But I think in the original story, when Manning wrote it, he was kind of like alluding to the fact that there is this kind of years later kind of still having this fear and the killer kind of still lurking. And we thought there was something interesting about the idea that one of these kids

could grow up to be this person and that you could be damaged by bullying and kind of the way you're treated and push to do things that you don't want to do and kind of be made into a monster a little bit. There was like some themes of sort of like toxic masculinity and that Juan is kind of aggressively bullied the whole time and what happens when that catches up to you. So we tried to like lean into that a little bit in the story. And I think, yeah, if you're kind of paying attention, there's some kind of subtle nods to that as like a theme. So yeah, we tried to make it a little a little more deeper than just kind of this creepy voice killer lurking around.

I think there's some kind of visual things that we do to kind of suggest thematically that like this creepy guy who's going around killing people could have come from humbler beginning, so to speak. Now, Francesco, I have to say that Mannon and I both talked about this. And as someone who is a cyclist myself, there are scenes, very disturbing scenes in this episode where you have the kids. They arrive where they're going. They get off their bikes and they just drop them on the ground or they leave them. They don't lock them up. very, very disturbing. I understand that maybe you got a bit of grief on set for these bikes that were so badly mistreated. It's funny what you say, this was like an argument between like crew and some of the cast and stuff or people would say like,

I don't understand why you would just leave the bikes on the ground. Like wouldn't you be chaining it up or whatever? And, you know, we would debate that that was a city thing or like in the suburbs. Like you didn't have to do that. It was funny. Like ultimately we made the decision. I was like, I think them leaving their bike. and not being worried about it speaks to this idea that the neighborhood is super safe. It kind of was reminiscent of when I was a kid, I sometimes leave my bike overnight on the driveway. And you kind of wouldn't be worried about it. So it kind of like bled into the fact that like when this killer shows up, it's even more unexpected because like that type of stuff doesn't happen here. So that was sort of what we were going for.

However, I think Kurt had a brand new BMX bike. So he probably should have treated it better. Very, very much so. Well, Francesco, from many years ago when this script was originally written to now coming to the screen, it's been quite a journey. And so thank you for being with us again and sharing your insights into fixed frequency. Thanks, David. I appreciate time today. I want to thank Joe Lynch and Francesco Los Giavo for joining me and sharing how they see the world of horror from their director's chairs. Tales from the Void, the Behind the Seen's podcast, is a creative.

of Reason Media production in conjunction with Envoy Entertainment. Music by Alex Cuervo and Brandon Boone. Thank you for being with us. Join us next time for a deeper plunge into the void.