IFH 800: Behind the Scenes of Sharknado: Turning Sci-Fi Madness into Storytelling Gold with Andrew Shaffer
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You are listening to the IFH Podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork.com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, episode number 800. Cinema should make you forget you're sitting in a theater. Roman Polanski.

Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood, it's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, how to turn your independent film into a profitable business.

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This is a very important podcast because we're going to teach you in this episode how to survive a Sharknado. Now, Sharknado 3 is going to air on the Sci-Fi Channel on July the 22nd. This is going up the day before, but if you're a subscriber, it's going up about one or two days early so you can get even quicker preparation for battling this Sharknado.

I know you all are very interested, so I'm going to get right into it. And without further ado, here's the interview with Andrew Schaefer, author of How to Survive a Sharknado. Joining me today is Andrew Schaefer. Andrew is a humorist and New York Times bestselling author who works include The Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love, The Good Reach Choice Semi-Finalist, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey Tea, and The Good Reach Choice Semi-Finalist, The Good Reach Choice Semi-Finalist, The Good Reach Choice Semi-Finalist,

And sci-fi is how to survive a sharknado and other unnatural disasters. Andrew, how are you doing today, sir? I'm awake. It's about 3 p.m. here on the West Coast. Very cool. So could you just give us a little bit about your background and how you got started as an author? How I got started as an author, I've always sort of been...

I was always into reading as a child, and I sort of thought that the natural thing then was to start writing. And I don't think I realized early on that not everybody who reads books gets the inclination to also write them. It just felt like a very natural progression to me.

But early on as a child I was very much into horror and science fiction. Any type of mystery, any type of genre of fiction was really what I sort of devoured at the time. Then I took a little detour in terms of I went to college.

Uh, where I studied at, um, at the university of Iowa with, uh, with writers workshop, uh, students there, um, which is a very, it's much more of a literary fiction sort of, uh,

And I got into that for a little bit of a while, but I found myself sort of gravitating more back towards genre, fiction, young adult, just stuff that was sort of more entertaining, I thought. And that's kind of where I find myself right now is going from maybe sort of more of a literary nonfiction books, moving more into genre stuff like the How to Survive a Sharknado.

Yeah. Very cool. And that's a very important book because we all know Sharknado's can happen. So, um, I wanted to ask you, um, how did you actually pitch this book? I mean, did you actually pitch it to sci-fi as, as like, cause I know in the book you cover other of their movies too. Yeah. I mean, the great thing about this was I watched a Sharknado, the first movie and I, uh,

Let my agent know. I was like, if, you know, if there's like a novelization or something, I'd love to do that. Of course, there wasn't with the first movie. But then she heard that Random House and the Sci-Fi Channel were looking to do something with the second movie, some type of tie in.

And they had the idea to do a survival guide, sort of like the zombie survival guide by Max Brooks. And it was something that I did. So I don't think I don't think originally, you know, they thought really thought of me because I wasn't writing any type of genre stuff at the time. I just had a parody come out, though, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey.

So they kind of said, well, you kind of do the humor writing. And I did a sample for it. They ended up liking it and asked me to write the book then. So it came together pretty fast. I had to watch about, I don't know, it was like 30 or 40 different sci-fi movies to actually write the book. And it sort of ties them all together sort of in one universe. Yeah.

Okay, excellent. So when you did actually pitch to SyFy, were they really open to using all their other movies as well? We had a list to go off of. I mean I had some that I wanted to use that we weren't able to, but they had a list of somewhere probably about 50 or 60 that they had licensing issues.

that we could work with. And then there was just so much that were off limits. Um, so it was basically, I had to go with what they gave me and then sort of narrow it down from there. And then we actually ended up creating a bunch for the, uh, for the guidebook. So there's about 10 or 12 in there. I think that, that are actually, uh, unique and original to the book.

What's cool is because if you haven't seen all the sci-fi movies, you can actually go through and try to figure out which ones are created and which ones are actually real movies. Yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's a funny thing. I've had some people pick up the book and go, how did you come up with some of this crap? I'm like, I didn't, it's just, uh, you know, you can actually go, they're like, there should be a movie about this. And I'm like, well, guess what? You know, you, you can go see a Piranha Conda movie. Um, and it's pretty amazing. So, uh, could you, uh, elaborate, you know, on some of the monsters that you wanted to use, but you couldn't, uh,

I don't even really remember exactly which ones we couldn't use off the top of my head. But I know that we had to sort of narrow it down to what...

We didn't want to have like 30 different shark-based ones, you know. So there were some, but we used most of the big sci-fi channel movies that they'd done that were kind of hits like Sharktopus and Piranha Conda and stuff, even Stonato. So it was, so it was, there wasn't really a lot that was left on the cutting room floor, I'd say.

Okay, interesting. So when you're writing this book and you're piecing this all together, did you actually watch each individual movie and sort of make a list and make a lot of notes on each?

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I had to watch every every every movie that we included three, four or five times to really pick up everything that was going on and kind of look at different angles and stuff. So so it was really I approached it sort of like I did my nonfiction books, which was just a lot of research. And then I had to try to figure out scientific explanations for how some of this stuff happened in the real world.

And, you know, that's not something they're thinking about really when they're making a movie. They're thinking of making something entertaining. But to write it down in a book, I was like, I need to come up with reasons why, you know, sharks can survive when flying around inside of a tornado. You know, how do I make that sort of believable? And so I, like, talked to, like, a marine biologist for that. And I was like, you know, is this, you know...

Not could this happen, but what's a logical way to make this happen? So when you interviewed that marine biologist, did he or she know what Sharknado was before you talked to them?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The biologist I spoke to, she was a huge fan of these sci-fi movies, actually, and was really thrilled to answer my questions and stuff. She's like, we really love them. They're, you know, they're, I don't want to say, use the word terrible. I forget what word she used, but I mean, they're just, they're just entertaining. You can turn your mind off while watching them.

We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now, back to the show. And you don't have to worry about the scientific stuff behind it. It's just for pure entertainment value. You know, I was just, when you brought that up, I was actually wondering if she hadn't heard of that and you just went, you know, could a shark and a tornado come together? She would have been like, could you get this crazy man out of my office, please? Yeah.

I know. I know. Yeah. So, yeah. So some of that stuff, you know, was, was a lot of fun to sort of research, you know, and then there's other stuff. I mean, I think there was one movie that I watched that I watched it probably 10 times and I couldn't figure out any way, not only to make the science work in real life, but I couldn't figure out how the science worked in the movie. I was like, this movie doesn't really make much sense. And I was like, I'm probably going to cut this one out of the book. Yeah.

So now you wrote this book and it coincided with the release of Sharknado 2. So now with Sharknado 3 coming out, I wanted to ask you, what are some of your expectations about Sharknado 3? Yeah.

You know, I really didn't have any expectations even for the second Sharknado because I hadn't seen it at a time or read the script or anything. So the second one itself was kind of a surprise. I kind of had an idea that it would kind of be a little bit more meta than the first one, and it was. And so the third one, I was...

I'm kind of hoping it goes a little bit back to basics, which is really taking the concept as seriously as possible. I think it's something that once it gets too meta, it becomes... If everybody's in on the joke...

you know, then the joke itself isn't that funny anymore. So I kind of like Seagull a little more serious, but I don't really know what direction they're going to take it. Yeah, I want to say a more personal Sharknado film. Maybe that's where you have to reboot the franchise and

Yeah, I really want to see a more like David Lynchian Sharknado film. But yeah, I completely agree with you on that point. I also noticed that in the second one, there was a lot more celebrity cameos. Like pretty much – you know what I mean? Like every time they went somewhere, there's always a new celebrity. I hear now there's like even more celebrities in Sharknado 3. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's everybody wants to wants to, you know, be in on it, be in on the joke. And I think, you know, I don't know if it's a situation where celebrities are just contacting them and say, I'll work for no money or something. And they're like, how can we refuse that?

You know, they really can't say, you know, if David Hasselhoff wants to be in your movie or something, they're for no money. You really can't say no to that. It's not like they're courting these celebrities, I don't think. So,

I mean, yeah, I think it's just going to have, it's definitely going to have more celebrity cameos. If you tried to play a celebrity cameo with Drinking Game or something with Sharknado 2, you would have died. I mean, there were so many that were coming so fast, you didn't even know. You know, you couldn't even tell who was an actor or who was a celebrity. You know, it was, it came pretty fast in Furious. Yeah.

It did. And I think you're right too. I think there may have been people who do, uh, attempted to do a drinking game and, um, the results probably weren't so well for them. Um, so, uh, you're jumping back to your book, you know, in the chapter, you have an entire chapter, obviously just to shark NATO. So, you know, I have to ask the question is, you know, how do you survive a shark NATO? Um, how do you survive a shark NATO? Um,

A lot of people said just don't watch it. Um...

But I mean, the simple answer of how do you survive a sharknado is some people think, oh, well, I survive it by going to the basement, same way I'd survive a tornado, which really doesn't work because a lot of times during a sharknado, you also have associated flooding with that. The only way to really escape it is to just drive as fast as possible out of town, which if you're an LNA survivor,

or someplace else where there's going to be a bunch of traffic jams or something, that's just not going to be possible. So, you know, there's really no good answer. The answer in the book is, you know, stand and fight. Grab a chainsaw, grab whatever you can, and fight back when these things fly at you.

So, you know, but I but personally, I'm I'm not like a survivalist or anything. I mean, I had to research survival stuff for the book, but I don't you know, I don't I'm so bad about falling in real life. You know, I'm like I don't have like a natural disaster kid. I don't have, you know, three pallets of bottled water stored up here.

Which I probably should after reading that New Yorker article on earthquakes on the Pacific Northwest this week. So...

Yeah, I read that same article. Apparently in 50 years, Seattle is just going to be nothing. Yeah, yeah. Seattle's going to get the worst of it, I think. Portland, where I'm at, there's going to be some stuff fall off the wall or something. I don't know. It's not going to be too bad in Portland, I don't think.

Yeah, and just in case anybody doesn't know what Andrew and I are talking about, I'll link to that in the show notes so you can read up on that and then get scared to death and be like, oh my god. So Andrew, I've had some fan questions come in if you don't mind answering a few. Sure. So the first question I received was, Andrew, what was the most unstoppable monster that you researched for the book?

The most unstoppable monster was the ghost shark because there's just really no good way to stop a ghost shark. It was actually a movie too with the guy from – Bull from Night Court was in this movie.

And it, this shark appeared manifested anywhere there was water. So it was in a swimming pool. One came out of a toilet. Another came out of a bottle of water and there was no way to get away from it. Anywhere you went, I was just like, and it never got full of eating people. So it just went around and around just eating people and stuff. And I'm like, how do you stop this thing? Um,

And I'm trying to think of – you basically – you have to do some elaborate ghost trapping or something. But really it was like on a one-to-one level, on an individual level, there was nothing you could do to stop it besides find the – whatever talisman it was in the movie. Yeah.

Yeah, Ghost Shark. Pretty frightening stuff. Now, see, I'll have to check that movie out because I had no idea that was actually a real movie. Oh, my God. It is amazing. Just the number of – there's this amazing bikini car wash scene where the ghost shark materializes out of a bucket of water. It's just crazy. Yeah.

So a follow-up question is, Andrew, are you planning on writing a sequel to the book? No, no. And basically I think – I don't know what else I could say about Sharknadoes or actually about most paranormal threats or supernatural stuff like that. But

but I am working on another book, um, that will hopefully be sort of along the similar lines as far as, uh, horror goes. Um,

Oh, very cool. Could you tell us a little bit about it or you want to keep it hush-hush? It's like super hush-hush right now. Okay. So, all right. On to the next question. We had come in from Michelle the trainer who was a big fan of the show. Is Andrew a scuba diver, a conservationist, or –

So I'm sorry. That was the first part of the question. I'm sorry. I was just reading and reading and reading. So are you a scuba diver, Andrew? No, I'm not. No. No. I've never gone scuba diving. And the second part of that was any plans for Sharktopus?

Well, like survival for the shark to plus. Yeah. So the shark to plus is in the book. But in terms of the new movie coming out, Shark to Plus versus Whale Wolf, which is the third shark to plus movie. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Um, and, and which are, which again, if you haven't seen the shark to post movies, those are phenomenally entertaining as well. Um, but in terms of how to survive a shark to plus, um, again, it was like, I started to write some, some of these and I was like, the best thing you can do is just to, to, to move as far away from the coast as possible. Um,

because a lot of these threats in the book that I wrote about were all like sort of water-based threats. And I'm like, unless you like live in Florida or LA or something or along a coast, you're fine. Um, but then you get inland and then I said, then you find yourself in Nebraska. And I mean, eh, I don't, you, I don't know. So, um,

So the next question that came in was, if Andrew was going to create his own sci-fi monster, what kind of monster would he create? Well, I think that what kind of monster I would create. I had an idea for one that was not used in the book, and it was called a wolf blizzard, which was a pun on the CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

And it was just a blizzard of wolves. And, uh, that actually got rejected for the book because they were like, it's, it's the pun is too far. Like it's, they're like, there's like an, there's like a line that we would never go past and you just passed it. And I was like, Oh my God. Yeah.

I can't believe I found the line where you will not cross. So, but I would still like to, I was like, I'm going to go write this script. So for all the aspiring writers listening to this, Andrew has just shown you the line in the sand that Sci-Fi Channel will not cross. Yes, yes.

So, Andrew, I wanted to ask right now, you know, what are your future plans on publishing? I know there's a project that's very hush-hush, but is there any other projects you're working on or anything else you could tell us about right now?

Yeah, I'm also working on a young adult novel. That's something I've been working on for a while. I've got a few things that are in the pipeline, but it's just like you've got to find the right place for them at a publisher or either self-publish it or whatever. And you've just got to wait for the stars to align.

And until that happens, I don't have any good news to announce. It's kind of boring. Like it's something my mom calls me all the time and says, oh, when's your next book coming out? And I'm like, I don't know. You'll be the first one to know. Don't worry. So, Andrew, I wanted to ask you, too, you know, your book Sharknado was on sale. Is it still on sale right now?

Yeah, as of today, it is for like $1.99 e-book. I don't know how long the sale is going to last, though. Okay. So when this is up, hopefully – I will link to Andrew's book in the show notes. Hopefully, if it's not on sale –

It's still a relatively good buy, and I guarantee you it's entertaining, it's hilarious. And look at me. I've learned a lot about the Sci-Fi Channel movies because I've learned about Ghost Shark today. Yeah, it's a value at any price. And the book is like 40 megabytes because it has a bunch of drawings in it. So that's about 20 times the size of another file download for a regular prose book. So, I mean –

That's what a deal, right? Yeah. Because when I was flipping through it, obviously I went to the Sharknado chapter. And Greeting Me is a black and white hand-drawn picture of a Sharknado. Right, right, right. And the book's got recipes, excerpts from classic literature that I have completely trashed.

such as Moby Dick. So yeah, it's got a lot of stuff in there. It's got something for everybody. So, you know, Andrew, in closing, you know, is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you wanted to mention or any, any, you know, closing thoughts or final thoughts?

No, my mind is completely blank. I'm doing this meditation class right now, so I'm learning to sort of wipe away all thoughts in my mind. Normally, I would have 100 things to talk about right now, but right now, it's just like I'm learning to zone out and go blank. All right. Andrew, where can people find you at online?

Oh, my goodness. Anywhere. Twitter, Facebook, Google. You know, all someone has to do is Google my name, Andrew Schaefer, S-H-A-F-F-E-R. As long as they spell it right, they can find me, you know, which is kind of disturbing, but I'm all over the place. Yeah.

And I'll, and I'll make sure to, uh, to link to all that in the show notes. So I'll link to your website and your Twitter. Uh, you don't, you don't have to just make them work for it. Work for it. Okay. I will not link to Andrew's, uh, info in the show notes. So you will have to work for it then. Uh, it'll be the first time, but I will not, I promise you, I will not link to that in the show notes. But, uh,

Andrew, I want to say thank you very much for coming on. Again, everyone, it's How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters. I will link to this in the show notes, but it's right to the Kindle version. And is there a physical version of this book too, Andrew? There is. There is. Because, you know, once a Sharknado or some other type of disaster hits, you need the physical version. You're not going to be able to charge your phone or whatnot. So, yeah.

I always advise people to get the e-book and the physical version just to be on the safe side. See, that's why you're the publisher because that is forethought, my friend. Yes, yes. You won't have – that's right. So the physical – the e-book I have, if it does – the power goes out, I won't be able to find it.

So I'll have to look into the physical version now too. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, Andrew, I want to say thank you so much for coming on everyone. The book is, uh, uh, how to survive a shark NATO. Andrew, thanks again for coming on. And, uh, again, feel free to, you know, drop me an email anytime. And I'd love to have you back sometime. Yeah. Great. Oh, you too, my friend. Uh, take care of one.

I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at IndieFilmHustle.com forward slash 800. And if you haven't already, please head over to FilmmakingPodcast.com. Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening, guys. As always, keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive. Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at IndieFilmHustle.com. That's I-N-D-I-E-F-I-L-M-H-U-S-T-L-E.com.