IFH 806: Shooting Sharks in Your Living Room: The Art of DIY Filmmaking with Ron Bonk
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slash free and discover the score lenders use most. At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the Bay Area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com. 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 806. 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.

It's harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films. From predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them, the odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of making money with your film is broken and there needs to be a change.

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If you want to order it, just head over to www.FilmBizBook.com. That's FilmBizBook.com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Dave Bullis. My next guest is a filmmaker and founder and the head of the distributor, SRS Cinema. His latest film, House Shark, is on Amazon Prime right now. Yes, I said House Shark earlier.

with guest Ron Bonk. You know, I grew up liking making up stories and acting them out with friends. Didn't have a film camera or a video camera before camcorders really came along. I had always thought that would be the dream, to direct movies, but didn't really take it seriously.

uh, you know, think it was feasible basically. Uh, uh, so, you know, went off to school for a variety of other things, but after doing it for a while, long story short, decided that, Hey, you know, I took the wrong route. The thing I wanted to do was to make movies. Um, meanwhile, though, I had already, you know, I had a bunch of, uh, years in college, you know, didn't want to, um, continue in college. Wanted to, you know, didn't want to accumulate any more debt. And, um,

So I started looking into what, you know, how I could do this. And in the process of being self-trained, you know, I was learning about film and how expensive it was to make a movie. And I was looking at a minimum of like $100,000 to, you know, to shoot anything on film according to like the best, you know, sources, which obviously it's been done for cheaper, but that's what I was, you know, hearing, you know, pretty much across the board at the time. And then, yeah,

I eventually came across the idea of shooting on camcorders, which had become more prevalent. They were still pretty expensive and not as user-friendly as they would come to be. I think the first one I got was $2,500 or $3,500 worth.

It was a solid machine. It did a good job, but it created an option for me. Maybe it wasn't that much. He's just been so long. Maybe it was like $1,000 to $1,500. But anyways...

I got that and started making movies on video and, you know, proceeded from there. I've only shot a little bit of stuff on film. Never anything that was released was a little bit in my college, you know, in my college years. When I decided to become a filmmaker, I took a few film classes. But for the most part, you know, went from analog video to digital nowadays shooting on HD for She Kills and 4K for Howe Shark.

So when you were in college, Ron, you know, did you actually try to film on campus at all? Like, did you try to like grab any any of the equipment from like the AV studio or anything? Just try to film anything there?

No, what had happened is I had, I mean, I guess a little bit. I had shot, or I'd been to school for four years. I had an associate's in accounting. I was working on a criminal justice degree when I decided to switch over to film. So I went to a fifth year of school, but it was just a community college that had a TV and, well, basically TV classes there.

So, you know, I was using their camcorders and their VCRs, you know, they're like high-end decks. We might have been shooting at some Betacam for the...

for the TV stuff, you know, like the studio stuff, but, you know, was able to borrow their camcorder to shoot on VHS off campus. Um, but I also took, there was an, uh, that was in Monroe community college in Rochester, but at Brockport nearby, uh, I took a single film class each semester and, um, we're shooting on film for that. So they had a Bollock 60 millimeter camera that we can borrow. But the, the two things I shot on film, um,

They both, I think I shot them almost exclusive within the apartments I was renting at the time. So, and then the stuff I shot with video, I remember doing some exterior stuff of like the apartments, you know, I was renting, you know, rented, I think a different one each time.

Each semester? No, maybe it was one of or both semesters. But no, I didn't really get down into the school unless there was stuff we were doing for the TV classes around the school. So it was a very short period. Didn't really do a lot there. I mean, I really didn't get out there with a camcorder until I was out of school, working full-time in the antique business and had invested in the camcorder. I shot an instructional video first. I was down in Florida for half the year.

And then once I got back, I shot my first feature. And that's when I really, for the first time, got out and was being artistic with a camera, you know, on a regular basis. So, Ron, when you made the change from accounting and with a criminal justice background to, you know, wanting to do, wanting to just go into film, you know, were people like, say, would they say to you, hey, Ron, you're nuts? Or like, hey, Ron, what the hell are you thinking?

More so back then, but nowadays not so much. I mean, there's still, you know, for this area, there's still people will be surprised, but Syracuse has grown significantly.

The film community has grown and it's not that uncommon for there to be a sizable production in the area a few times a year. So if I say I make movies, I produce and distribute features, back when I started off I'd always get like, oh, pornos? No, they're low budget horror movies.

And a lot of people weren't educated or still aren't even educated to the fact that you could shoot on a Sumer brand, you know, VHS cameras and distribute those movies, you know, during the 80s, you know, late 80s and 90s.

Uh, but nowadays, like I said, if I mention it, um, you know, it's still true. It was surprised, you know, maybe a little bit of skepticism, but most part it's, it's more like, Oh yeah, cool. And then I'll usually get a followup, but like, are you part of this production that they might've read about recently on the area or something like that?

That's where you should say, "The hell yeah I am." You know, 'cause like when I used to film in parks and stuff like that, like people would, you know, they see you with a camera. Whenever you, and I'm not talking about like a DSLR, but I'm talking about like anything that looks like a camcorder, you know, like a bigger variety of the camcorders, whether it be mini TV or digital, people associate that with like professional grade cameras. As soon as they see that, it's like, "Oh my God, this guy must know what he's doing."

But, you know, when they're talking to me, little do they know that I'm a complete lunatic. So what happens is... So when I'm out filming stuff, no matter what it was, people would stop and they'd say, oh my God, are you filming some kind of movie? And I would just say, oh hell yeah, Mick. No matter what, I'd just be like, yeah, why not? Yeah, we just... I just to the...

Yeah. Yeah. You got to almost be like a chameleon, you know, and he serves all just to whatever the setting is. So if I'm just, you know, say I'm meeting someone in a casual setting, I'll be more clear about what I do. But if I'm out at the park and someone seems interested, I might be like, yeah, I'm shooting a movie, you know, or I'm shooting a documentary or yes, I am part of this group or, or for years I can get away with like, Oh, it's a, it's a college film, you know, if cops are interested, you know, anything. So, so yeah, you kind of, uh, um,

It's kind of like, you know, he's equated to the Ed Wood movie when he was trying to get the church to fund his production. And he would tell them whatever they needed to hear in order to get that money. It would basically tell people whatever you think they need to hear in order to be able to keep shooting, you know.

Yeah, that's so true. And, you know, that's one of the benefits of being in college or just out of college. You can always say, hey, I'm just shooting a student film. And usually everyone's kind of cool with that. Like, oh, you're a student. All right. We will be a little more lenient on you. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

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Sure, yeah. I told my nephew, he's getting ready to, he's finishing up his senior year, and he's getting ready to, you know, he wants to gear up and do his first feature, and it's called Blind Cop 2, and there's no Blind Cop 1, it's just called Blind Cop 2. And I told him to use that as much as possible, and he was like, really, won't people, like, you know, not view that as being professional and stuff? And I told him the same thing, I said, yeah.

You tell people you're doing a college, you're a college student making a college project or working on a college assignment, and they're going to be more forgiving, more willing to work with you, more willing to let you get away with more, as opposed to being like, no, this is a professional feature. Then suddenly it could change anything like, okay, well, how much are you going to pay me to use my location or whatever? Yeah.

And he also has the built-in excuse too of, I don't know. So somebody goes, hey, listen, you can't be filming Blonde Cop 2 out here. And he can go, hey, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I'm just a student. It's such a great get-out-of-jail-free card.

Oh, yeah, definitely. It works with everywhere from, like you said, businesses to the police. Like, hey, do you have permission to go into there? Oh, I thought it was a public area. I'm just a college student. And then most of the time, you can get away with it, so you can take that risk and hope, hey, I'm going to give it a try, get in and out of there as quick as I can and get some cool production values. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly right. And then you can always say you're shooting a documentary. So it's kind of like I'm just shooting this documentary. But when you were in college and you were filming things in your apartment and just using the locations you had, what point did you start to say – because I know you mentioned you were in the antiquing business and you kind of bought the camera. So what point did you start really taking this seriously? I mean I was taking this seriously when I was in college. I hadn't yet determined –

that last year at college, I hadn't yet determined that I was going to start making movies on camcorders. I remember even...

talking to someone in college about shooting on camcorders and they immediately, you know, like a fellow student, but they'd been taking it for a few more years, you know, they were actually in film class and they're, Oh no, no, no, you can't shoot on camcorders. So it pretty much dismissed it. But I mean, I was, you know, looking at it as like, okay, how can I go out there and, uh, turn this into a living and also, uh, uh,

you know, make the movies that I wanted to make, you know, cause I could easily gone down the route of, you know, shooting pornos or shooting wedding videos every weekend, you know, and, and, and both potentially have a lot of, you know, uh, like a good income in them, but they weren't, you know, something that was true to my heart. So I wanted, I was like, how can I turn into a living? And, you know, initially it was, uh,

I'm going to make some so amazing that, you know, Hollywood would be paying me to sit out in Syracuse, New York and make indie films that I wanted to, you know, with the story that I wanted to tell to, you know, reaching the point after the first one was done being like, there's not really, you know, any distributor I want to give my movie to that I would trust that I'd ever see another penny out. So I need to become a distributor too and, and release my own stuff. And,

And that's how it's gone ever since. I might license out parts of the movies or certain media rights or do my own initial release and then a wider release of someone else. But I still will make my movies and then do the initial launch on my own. And lately with the last couple of pictures, the initial launch has at least paid for the production, if not more.

You mentioned people who shoot wedding videos every weekend. I had a friend who used to do that where he would do it part-time, he called it. He would just go shoot a couple things on the weekend.

And he would always be like, hey, look, I'm going to make a movie, this and that. And he never ended. He ended up where the wedding video gave ended up becoming his full time job. And he was just every weekend he was shooting a new wedding and he never actually made a movie. So it's very easy. It's good. You probably avoided that trap because it's very easy to kind of get sucked into that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, you can go right down that rabbit hole and it's hard to turn away from that kind of money. And the, you know, the weddings are weekends, you know, that's usually the ideal time to shoot. If you're doing low budget, you know, features is, you know, people have, you have the, you know, usually you have weekends off, uh, people you want to work on the movies have weekends off, you know, so, you know, unless you're going to take, you know, uh, you know, three or four weeks stretch off from weddings and just shoot a feature, uh,

And it seems like it's doable. It seems like it's something that should be possible if you really want to make a feature. But it's like, you know, having a job, you know, and paying, you know, regular job, paying your bills every day. It's, it's easy to be like, well, I won't work on movies today because I need to, you know, all my bills aren't paid this month or I want to be able to go on vacation or my kids need new clothes or whatever, you know? So it's, it's, um, it's easier said than done.

Yeah, very true. And that's why – and I'm glad you didn't go that route. And I also – I had an option to go that route and I was like, hell with that. I've made many mistakes in my life, Ron, but that's not one of them. So just to start with your career, just starting back with City of Vampires, even to now making She Kills and House Shark.

What are some of the strategies that you've used when you're approaching about writing and producing these films?

Um, strategy, let me think. I mean, most of the movies that I've made, I mean, pretty much all of them, you know, start off with an idea that I liked, um, for some reason, you know, within the story and said, okay, you know, I'm going to write this out. And there's, there's, you know, and there's been scripts that I've written that I've never made. Um,

and some I've always dreamed of, maybe didn't have the money. Some, you know, I wrote and just said, you know, I wasn't into, or later, you know, I plan to come back to and decide I was no longer into or want to tell that story. But if I finish the script and I really,

was happy with it then i was like okay this is the next thing i want to make and then you would go through the process of making so there wasn't necessarily i mean nowadays sometimes i'd look for the uh... strategy as far as like the stuff i produce where i go okay if i'm gonna put money into this um... i want it to sell you know so if it's a movie i'm producing from afar then um...

There has to be more of a financial basis behind it. If it's a movie I make for myself, then it's more of like, hey, this is a story I want to tell and I don't care if it fits financially into anything. And you're lucky when that stuff crossover, it doesn't always. But sometimes you just rely on a movie to...

you know, hopefully come out extra cool and it builds its own fan base and does reasonably well, generates, you know, at least a modest profit.

And I've been lucky with, you know, the last two, She Kills and House Shark, that they both were able to do that. You know, She Kills was a grindhouse movie, you know, when there had already been a lot of grindhouse type movies out there. So the market was pretty saturated. If I'd made it a few years earlier, it would have had

had a lot more potential. It would have been a bigger release than it was, but it still, you know, people responded to it well. People were fans of my work for years, but this was something vastly different than I'd done before. But they, you know, the fans spread, you know, good words about it and, you know, continued to sell and continues to build and was able to, you know,

you know, recoup before I went even into the wide release and how short, uh, people love the idea. And they happen to be the most marketable idea that I had come up with. Uh, but I'd always wanted to do a Jaws movie. So I wasn't doing it because I was like, Oh, you know, this is gonna be a big moneymaker. I was doing it because it was, you know, it was a story I wanted to tell.

And it was definitely the most expensive movie that I directed myself. And I was lucky that the campaign basically made enough money back to cover the cost of making it. And then thanks to some outside sales, I was able to cover the cost of running all the media because people don't realize when you do like an Indiegogo campaign, you might make, say you got 20, I had like 21,000 in the house shark and we did like 22,000. So with all their fees and stuff,

Yeah, the production was paid for, but then it was like another $10,000. I think it was actually $12,000. And all the stuff that had to be made for the campaign, we ended up doing, you know, full printed Blu-rays and DVDs, you know, fully replicated VHS and all these extras that I kept adding as stretch goals, like stickers and pins and patches and stuff like that. And, you know, once I got all that stuff done, the extras stopped.

you know, sales I had were like, okay, I'm pretty much back to even. So whatever it didn't sell from the campaign, I keep selling this bonus money. And I was lucky enough to get it like into Walmart and stuff, um, uh, and have it do well and wide release. Uh, but I mean, it came out in August of last year. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

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And just a few weeks ago, I actually got my first check from the wide release. So I had like this modest profit from it, but then I finally got the first check from like the Walmart deal and all the other sales around there because all the money it cost to release it and all the money to get into Walmart and stuff like that basically ate up all my profits, you know, for like half a year that I had come in distribution. So I was living off, you know,

all the limited release I do and all the stuff I do direct with fans and any additional house shark sales and the other movies that I made and stuff like that. And, and then to finally see, uh, and so much of it was eaten up. It was still worth it overall, but it's, um, uh, it's just,

Kind of diverged from your strategy question quite a bit, but that's kind of where it starts. You start with that initial strategy of the two-fold approach. Is it a movie I'm making for myself? Then I'm not worried about making something that sells as much, but I still try to make sure...

It'll sell. I don't want to lose. If House Shirt cost me $21,000, I didn't want to lose $21,000 on it. As a matter of fact, I was sweating. So it was great to get all that money back and have a successful Indiegogo campaign pretty quick there. But if it's a movie that I'm producing strictly as a producer to put money into it,

letting a filmmaker reach his own vision, bring his own vision to life with some financial help from me, then I go, okay, this has to be something that sells for me. It's almost guaranteed to be a good seller if I'm going to put money into it.

Yeah, you know, I've actually done a few Indiegogo campaigns myself. And, you know, I did it, you know, before it became like a thing, like it became like the word Kickstarter, crowdfunding became, you know, part of the lexicon. And basically, I always told people, like, you know, once you start, you know,

making the perks that are part of your campaign, you're realizing this is a big... You have to kind of add that in beforehand. You have to actually start to calculate up all those numbers and add them into the budget. And then what you have, what you need, what you really need, all that good stuff. And that's something that... I'm glad you brought that up because it's always a good reminder about that stuff because it's so easy to forget. You're focused on making a movie and you're like, oh shit, now I got to...

But see, Ron, that's where your accounting degree comes in handy. Sure. It does help a little bit. It's been a long time since I've taken accounting classes, but coming out of those and going almost right into business for myself immediately, it made it easier for me to do at least my own bookkeeping. I won't do my own taxes anymore.

I'll let a professional accountant handle that because they're up to date on the tax laws and all that sort of stuff. But it does help with the bookkeeping and going, okay, is this something I can apply to the business and how should it be applied? That's true, Ron. And if they can get Al Capone, they can get anybody.

True, exactly. So you mentioned some of the Grindhouse movies and you mentioned some of the oversaturation of the market. Sometimes maybe the market's a little oversaturated, what have you. What are some of the Grindhouse movies that you saw maybe when you were releasing She Kills that you were kind of like, maybe there's too many out there? Because I remember when Hobo with a Shotgun came out.

I was at, you know, maybe Machete. You know, I'm really glad to see movies like that, by the way, get like a wider release. I don't know how many like, you know, kind of clones of those came out. But did you start to see like a lot of movies sort of, you know, in the space of where you were like or were going, you know, in the Walmart space? Yeah.

Well, I didn't expect She Kills again to Walmart, and I didn't necessarily see too many of the Grindhouse movies in the Walmart stores. But I think when I was releasing She Kills, Machete Kills had come out around the same time and had done really well at the box office. But, I mean, I'd seen so many low-budget movies at least using that look, even if they didn't really have the...

you know, they weren't really trying to be Grand House movies, but they liked that look, so they had all the grain and scratch and stuff like that, but weren't really capturing the spirit of those movies. And then

I had also noticed a lot of movies that were trying to be grindhouse movies were really more like 80s horror movies or action movies using like a 70s grindhouse look by adding again like scratches and grains and stuff and that's not really what the grindhouse movies look like. They're very unpolished. But I mean

What movies? I mean, you mentioned Hobo with a Shotgun. That was a good example. But that was a movie that had done really well. Father's Day was another one that had that grindhouse look, or at least aesthetic that people were associating with it. But outside of those, I'm trying to think what other ones I saw before that. I don't remember the low-budget titles. I just remember seeing that book so much.

So I don't know if that really helped, if that really answered your question. Well, you know, you brought up some of the, what I've seen a lot of recently is they're kind of like the throwback to the 80s. Now, I love the 80s. You know, I love the 80s horror and, you know, I love all that stuff. But now I think there's so many attempts by filmmakers nowadays to make something look like the 80s. You're starting to get this kind of oversaturation of the market. You know what I mean? And I think we kind of capped out at Stranger Things. Yeah.

And I think, you know what I mean? I, I, I kind of think now it's starting to get a little, uh, I, I want to say repetitious. Um, so it could be on its way out for sure. I mean, I've noticed that, um, I think I saw like my first article on like nineties horror, um, you know, we're gaining, you know, in popularity. Uh, the thing with eighties horror though is, um,

It's one of the most, I think, iconic decades for horror. So if you make a cool horror movie that has awesome practical effects and a cool monster,

carries that vibe. You don't have to necessarily be like, hey, let me throw nods to video games or video arcades or the clothing or whatever into that, but you could still... There's a lot of great horror movies that capture that 80s vibe without looking like they were made in the 80s. I think that's something that could never get old if it's done right, but

But overdoing the nostalgia can certainly, you know, burn itself out on any, you know, before the 80s, the 70s, you know, movies, not just the grindhouse, but, you know, 70s horror in general was, you know, was the hot topic, you know. And then I see it was a little more prevalent a year or so ago, but it still comes up. People were shooting movies on camcorders, old camcorders to kind of capture that 90s, you know,

shot on video feel for their movies. And it's amazing you can shoot on an old camcorder and come pretty close with just that alone capture and that sort of vibe. But it's all revolving. There'll be...

another, you know, five, 10 years with people, you know, uh, in low budget and then eventually moving up to big budget doing nods to 2000 horror movies. And then, you know, the 2010 horror movies, and then it'll come back to the seventies again, or, you know, it's just, uh, um,

these fads and rages hit and sometimes it's, you know, based on the current status of the world or the country. It could be politically motivated. It could be anything, you know. If we're facing war or, you know, we're facing climate change, you might see more and more horror movies about that, you know. But they've got a 70s or 80s or 90s, you know, setting to them.

Yeah, and I think you're going to start seeing a lot of horror movies come out just about the political climate. And I'm not saying that like any particular party. I'm not saying – what I'm saying is the kind of diverse – how divisive the nation is right now. That's what I'm trying to say. You know what I mean? Just trying – that I think is going to be – which is why I think when the first Purge came out,

I think that was... You want to talk about wish fulfillment? I think a lot of people, not that they would, but maybe they kind of wish they could. One night we could just kill anybody. You know what I mean? Um...

It's an extension. I don't know. It's possible. You know, I mean, when you're, when you're a director or actor or you're working in the creative field, I think you had to be a little bit crazy, but, uh, but I think a lot of, um, horror filmmakers are more, uh, closer to activists, you know, than anything. They're a lot of times they're trying to make a statement against, you know, these things that anger them, you know, uh, um,

lack of gun control and mass shootings you know uh... the trump government uh... uh... the worries over climate control you know the the abandonment of the the red dead arms treaty with russia you know raising the risk of uh... you know potential war again and uh... you know you said they had been in nuclear war used to hang over here i grew up in the seventies and you know

And into the 80s, and the threat of nuclear war was always there. And that's people, a lot of young people, they don't realize how heavily they hung over society. At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas.

Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world. Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the Bay Area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com. So, yeah, and you're seeing it in this, you know, like the Jordan Peele horror movies.

We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now, back to the show. You know, addressing social issues, you know, are back to the forefront.

So, yeah, it does reflect that. The movie Apostle I thought was a really good movie. I hope I'm saying that right. I've heard other people pronounce it different. It looks like Apostle to me. The one on Netflix addressed climate change. So, yeah, people, again, I think, like I said, the horror filmmakers are –

um, uh, are very much trying to make a statement as much as they're trying to tell you a story that, you know, is entertaining. It scares you or makes you laugh, uh, whatever. But in the end, you know, a lot of them make you think, you know, and I mean, and you did one, that's a very good, um,

horror movie genre to kind of put political or cultural protests or examination in. And that's not only just horror in general, but also the zombie genre, the sub-genre of horror. And I mean, if you look at Romero's first three zombie films, they're all brilliant. You did Empire State of the Dead. And by the way, I want to say, this is a great idea because I...

I'm going to be one of those guys right now, Ron. I had an idea years ago similar where you take a bunch of different directors and you put them together. You know what I mean? And each one makes a segment. But I think that's a brilliant idea, man, to do something like that. Yeah, we should have done a little better because I would have done like a United States of the Dead sort of movie and then

World of the Dead or something where we encourage more shorts from other filmmakers and maybe one day I will but I was seeing so many people taking shorts and putting them together and the shorts didn't really have a common theme among them and just turning them into anthologies and

I thought, you know, someone needs to do this with a rapper. And I wasn't the first movie producer or director ever to do that by any means. I'm saying, you know, it was being done. You know, VHS, I think, for the most part, was trying to tie all the stories together. But I wanted these to have a very direct

So when you put them all together, it felt like you're watching one movie, not a movie by a bunch of different filmmakers with a bunch of storylines that went in each direction. I felt I wanted each story to kind of propel this, or each individual short kind of propel the story forward. And then I saw what I had to work with, and from there I was like, okay, what's the wraparound story I can make? So I gave them set rules, which basically, for the most part, followed the Romero story.

zombie rules set up, you know, basically what's happened in the timeline, what they couldn't, you know, go on to explore. Like it was early on in the zombie apocalypse. It couldn't make it seem like it was like, you know, deep into it or far end of it or whatever. And from there I was like, and I had the basic idea I would do something like soldiers, you know, trying to keep order and using those as cutaways. And,

And it was a harder one to think of a theme for because, I mean, all my movies do have like a subtext to them almost straight across the board. But this was a harder one because I wasn't, you know, I was only contributing a small portion of

of the full project, but just the idea of the battle of the classes that would kind of emerge between basically the government and the individual factions that would rise up. We pretty much addressed one, but one of the other shorts kind of had its own roving gang in it, and where this battle of power might take

you know, might lead to or evolve into. Yeah, and that's a great idea too because you do see some of the shorts that really don't have anything, you know, that kind of ties everything together. Yeah, I mean, the one short, the girl in the apartment, you know, faced with the...

the monumental decision what to do with her sister who's died and, you know, turning into a zombie was very isolated. Even the one, you know, when they were taking refuge, you know, basically in the, in the room, um, uh, and find that the dead body in there, you know, very, very isolated, uh, very, you know, small, uh, you know, centered stories, um,

you know, in many ways, those actually were a little easier to plot out as opposed to the wider, you know, expansive type of, uh, uh, plots, you know, some of the shorts, but, um, uh,

it gave it gave a wide the guy it gave a wide range of of uh basically you know uh situations that the the populace was facing in the in the uh uh in the face well facing as we repeat facing in the threat of this emerging zombie virus in in society falling apart and you know when when you released it you did have the the type of you know reception that you were hoping for

Yeah, I mean, the reviews for the most part seem to be positive. You know, everyone who worked on it, you know, from the directors down to the actors and so forth, you know, all seemed to enjoy it. I was overall pretty happy with it. Some of the stuff with the shorts, you know, with the wraparound stuff I was shooting, it doesn't always come out the way you want it to. You're, you know, tight on money, tight on time. I think that's the biggest one.

Usually you're stuck, you're tight on time, so you shoot it one weekend and something's not quite working right, you don't have the option to go back and fix it. You kind of pretty much make the decision to fix it on set and hope it works.

comes out okay so it was it was it was a fun project to do I enjoyed it wasn't you know one of the ones that was you know close to my heart as the others but I was pretty happy with it and I'll usually start with that because I you know sometimes you know the audience might not like it as much as you did but if

If you felt like you told the story you wanted to tell, I'm still pretty satisfied with that. But yeah, I mean, I have people like you who have told me that they really enjoy it, and I'm always glad to hear any movie that I've made resonates with the fans. My first movie, City of the Vampires, I loved.

I still think it came out horrible, and it's not just because it's not the movie that I wanted to do, you know, because it was falling apart along the way. My first movie, first feature, it tried to take on way too much and lacked the skill to shoot that movie right, but I'll still get people who will tell me that they love it, and I'll just look at it and be like,

I don't know what you love about it, but I'm glad that you do because I would feel bad that you went out there and bought this movie and watched it and were like, oh, it's a piece of shit. I'm happy to hear that you went out and bought it, hopefully bought it, and watched it and got enjoyment out of it and continue to get enjoyment out of it. Well, yeah, I mean, and you're very welcome for everything, and it's just...

I have a friend of mine who made a zombie film and it did not hit with the zombie genre. And to him, I was like, dude, that's your key demographic right there, man. If you fail to get that, forget it. You're done. Yeah, I think if you're going to go something specific as a zombie movie, then you do have to cater to the fans. You could try to set them off balance and go in a different direction than they've seen before. And usually most fans will appreciate that. But sometimes, you know...

You got to be careful. Yeah, there's limits. But anyone who goes out there and really tries to do something different with a genre or subgenre, I applaud them. Even if the fans didn't get it. Even if I didn't like it personally, I always appreciate that they at least tried it. Because at least it gets you thinking about your own work, you know? Yeah, exactly.

And I mean, you know, especially making something like specifically a zombie film, you know, you have to – there is a specific expectation for audiences. And, you know, and that's – Sure. And that's what I think they maybe missed. But, you know, it is what it is. But, Ron, I wanted to – If you go out and make a zombie movie with, say, no zombies in it or no, you know, brutal zombie killings, then, yeah, you probably run the risk of – like there's certain things you got to –

You got to put in there, you know. So if you don't do that, then, yeah, you run the big risk of your audience just being like, oh, that sucked. I love zombie movies. And you didn't have, you know, one good zombie gutting or something on it, you know. So, yeah, I agree with you there. I had a friend. This is a true story. I had a friend who pitched a zombie film that had no zombies in it.

And I said... What's the idea? What's the zombie angle of it then if there's no zombies in it? You hear them. So they're outside. You kind of hear them. They allude to them. But you never see one. And I said, is there at least a kill anywhere? He goes, no. There's no killing by the zombies. And I'm like...

I don't think anyone's going to want to buy it. I don't think any producer is going to be like, yeah, that's great. I mean, maybe they'll save money on makeup, but, I mean, would they really want to invest in something like that? I mean, so it was like a one-location movie with zombies, like, surrounding the place. So you're hearing them scratch. Maybe as a short or something. I mean, I could see it being real spooky, like a bird box, you know, type of thing or something. But, yeah.

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But I love the idea of audience filling in the blanks. And they've certainly seen enough zombie movies that they could picture it. But yeah, that's a fine line. You've got to really be skilled if you're going to pull that off and make it effective.

Yeah, it's – needless to say, he never made it. So I think it was going to be such a fine line to walk. I don't really – the only person I think that could have pulled that off would have probably been somebody like George Romero because he went full tilt the first three. Maybe he made Land of the Dead. Maybe he – and the rest of those. Maybe that was the next evolution. I don't know.

But, you know, I think I was going to say take like a Hitchcock or something. I think because he you know, it's you need you definitely need a master of you need someone who's a master of not showing the monsters. Someone playing with everything else, the sounds and and having the audience fill in the fill in the blank, building up the suspense and tension. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Or maybe even somebody like Christopher Nolan or somebody like that. Just somebody to kind of – but you know, Ron, I just – I know we're running out of time. But the one movie I wanted to talk about which actually got us talking is House Shark. I saw the trailer. It was up to like – what is it? Almost a million views now?

Yeah, past a million views, I think like a week or so ago. It was right around the time I announced that it was getting close and then suddenly it was over, like really quick. So yeah, that was, I mean, it was in part due to the fact that MovieWeb covered it, hosted and everything, but it was cool to have a trailer reach that milestone. So, and congrats, by the way, that is huge. Thank you. So Ron, like where was the impetus for House Shark?

In writing it, you know, because I know you wrote it, you produced and directed it. So, you know, where was the impetus or sort of that idea to come up with this? Well, I had always...

As I mentioned earlier, I think, as part of this conversation, I was saying how I'd always wanted to do a shark movie. I always was like, I want to come up with the Jaws sequel that's a, you know, that is the awesome sequel, you know. I mean, I love all the Jaws movies in cheesy ways for three and four. I wouldn't put them in my top movies, but two definitely is one of, you know, I think is an underrated movie. But, yeah.

But I was trying to come up with a plot, like how could I bring Jaws back and make it very cool. And even a year or so before I started working on House Shark, I thought, we have Lake Ontario near me, which you can't see across. I was like, maybe I could shoot on Lake Ontario and make it look like an ocean. Try to come up with a simple idea that was still effective, that could be done within a budget.

you know, within my budget levels and make, you know, a cool shark movie. And then,

It was actually during the wintertime, and I tell this story all the time. It's not like a great story, but this is really how it came across. We had been freezing temperatures for like a week or two straight, and all this ice had built up on the roof of the houses. And my house in particular, I'd get these loud booming noises. So when I looked up, I found out it was like the ice actually cracking on the roof. And...

I made a comment online about it and some of my friends on Facebook were making comments back and were joking back and forth and eventually I made this joke of zombies on a roof. A movie that was basically like there's a zombie invasion but all the zombies basically just live on the roofs of your houses.

uh... until they were really much of a threat but with him they said that i can't do that i'd that part i had was how sure shark in a house and and it hit me right there i remember a great taxed my producer i said i got the title for an extra vehicle house house share pressure in a house but it's done like you know like a shark

out in the water, you know, except it's within a house. I was like, holy cow, I could do my shark movie that I've wanted to do and I can control the location, you know, which is a big, it was a big deal, you know. You know, when we work this low budget and, you know, you lack funds to have places, you know, unlimited stretch of time or even necessarily very long periods of time to be able to shoot it, look at it, cut it together real quick, okay, what's wrong and go back and fix it, you know.

And then, you know, in Syracuse, sometimes I forget how crazy the weather can be here because, you know, we'll have days that are super hot and no clouds. And so you're getting these heavy shadows and it's so hard to shoot outside, you know, especially when it comes around midday out here, you know, without fill lights and bounce lights. So you can't really just go on location and shoot, you know, run and gun it quick. It takes a little bit more effort than that.

You can't necessarily shoot in shadows because everything's blown out. And then you'll have tons of rain for days. And then you'll have, you know, it'll be super cold and snowy and heavy snow. And then when you want the snow, you know, we'll get like a crazy early thaw or a series of warm days. It's just all over the place. You know, the weather is just a nightmare. So to be able to shoot inside a house and control that, you know, just so much was appealing about it. But, yeah.

I thought it was a fun idea. I completely ran. Originally, it was going to be more like a kid's movie. My son had always given me a hard time about not being able to watch any of my movies, and I was going to make a movie that was safe for him to watch. And it was going to be done very much in the style of that Super 8 short, like a Super 8 short, but like the Super 8 short at the end of Super 8 that they showed, you know, very cheesy,

you know, going for a lot of humor, completely playing off the idea of what it is. It's a shark in a house. I wasn't going to take it that serious. But I didn't shoot that first summer I was intending to. And over the course of the next year,

of revisiting it. I made it more and more growing up, but it still maintained very much that sort of kid sense. I wanted it to feel like a movie I was making if I had had a film camera or a camcorder back in the late 70s, early 80s, and got all my friends around the neighborhood to come and help me make a shark movie. So it started as that and then just rolled from there.

So when did you actually decide to put all the production dates together and stuff like that? I imagine you kind of had to say, all right, I'm shooting this in my house. I can control the location. But I'm sorry, Ron, are you married?

No, I'm not. Oh, okay. So that actually helps out then. I was just thinking, I was like, I don't know if you are or not. And I was like, okay, because I can imagine that's a whole other conversation of being like, well, I had to tell my wife that she couldn't come home. Yeah, hopefully you're with someone who doesn't mind you doing that. And I mean, when I have been shooting and was dating someone or with somebody, I'm

I never really ran into many issues with that for the most part. It was pretty clear early on, like I love making movies and this is what I'm going to be doing. And, you know, most cases they would actually be on set or trying to help out and that sort of stuff. So that hasn't been a big issue, but, and originally I wasn't going to shoot it, you know, in my house. I was trying to find a house to shoot at and eventually it just made sense. I was like, you know, if I shoot in my house, you know,

I don't have to pay for a location. We're all there. We literally get up, go downstairs, start shooting it. Um, you know, so all that sort of stuff just kind of came together throughout the, uh, throughout the process. But, um, I don't remember what year, you know, I, I don't remember a year I shot it off. I'm talking about, I'd have to go, go and look, but I know, like I said, the summer before I was going to start shooting it and things weren't coming together fast enough for me to feel like, okay, I'm comfortable shooting right now. Um,

So let me take a year off and just develop it some more and take some more time to, you know, get the things I need. And like I said, a lot just changed, you know, in that process. But once you do set a date and eventually somewhere along the way, I settled on doing like the three separate chunks of shooting. We shot in August, then we shot in March, and then we shot in August again. So shooting over the course of a year, which was...

fairly stressful because you always worry about losing an actor or something along the way. The people I work with, they're always trying to get their acting gigs or there's a chance they can move so far away you can't get them or whatever. But

but it allowed me to also make the movie a little more leisurely. It was a bigger project. It was a much bigger project than I originally intended. I was going to do it for a few thousand dollars. And that's always the plan with every movie. I'm going to make this cheap and quick for a few thousand dollars. And then as you...

play around with it and work with it and expand on it. The budget keeps growing and growing and the ideas grow and grow. Suddenly I went from having basically a very simple shark to a more elaborate shark and more scenes added to the movie and

And it was very much like almost being back on City of the Vampires going like, okay, I have to do too much stuff on this set. You know, I'm lighting it. And I had people help with the lighting, but I was still in charge of lighting. And when they weren't there, which, you know, people weren't always there, I still had to go out and move the light. So when you're setting up the camera, setting up the shot, and you're like, oh, these lights aren't perfect, and we're putting all the lights outside and shining them in, I'd have to go outside. At Bright Horizons,

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Then I have to come back in and recheck them. Or if someone I was sending outside who was supposed to adjust them wasn't getting it right, I'd be looking through the camera. I'm trying to tell them where to adjust it to. And sometimes it's just not getting it. Between that, it's just physically exhausting. Focus so much on the shots. You're not always focused on the acting. It's just...

I mean, you know, when you're doing these low-budget movies, you wear a lot of different hats. And it's exhausting, but it's still fun. I mean, we had a great time on that set. And that's not the big reason to enjoy doing it.

Definitely, Ron. And then you finally get to that spot where you're like, what the hell? Why the hell did I start doing this? It's always those first couple of days where I'm like, oh, I made a horrible mistake. And you're like, I'm in way over my head. Let me just cancel this production, regroup, and I'll restart another week or two. And then you're just like, no, I got to push forward. And then you hit your...

you know, you started hitting your stride, you know, three, four days in, and then suddenly, you know, everything's going smooth and you're rattling stuff off quick and you're going back and fixing some of the stuff, you know, you did wrong early on and you, uh,

and next thing you know, it's all done, and then you fall into depression because you're not in a movie set anymore, you know. Yeah, right, and you know, because when you're on the movie set, you're like, you're actually doing it. There's no thinking, like, am I actually making something? No, because you are. You can feel it, you know what I mean? Then when you're on the movie set,

Yeah, you're really kind of like living the dream at that point. You know, you don't have to, I mean, most cases I still do like a little work every morning to keep things going, but in most parts you're able to get away from your regular job. Being sad, you're laughing at you with your friends, you know, you're eating, you know, good food all day and it's, you know, it's

It's like being on vacation, except you're with a camcorder and you're telling people what to do. And then it gets all done and then you're like, oh, shoot, I've got to go back to sitting in front of my computer every day. Exactly, right? You're like, I need this high again. How the hell do I get there again? And I need to make back all that money I just spent. I need to make more money to pay bills. So, yeah, it's just...

It'd be great if someone paid for the production and paid for you to then take the rest of your off. What are the chances? Right? Yeah, that's when you're really living the dream, man. You know you've made it. You know, Ron, I know we're almost out of time. We've been talking for about an hour now. So, Ron, just to sort of put a period at the end of this conversation, do you have anything you'd like to just say to kind of finalize everything?

Uh, if you're looking for like a last minute advice or something, I guess not. I've done that so many times. You could definitely look up old interviews and stuff, but if you wanted to track me down and stuff, uh, look, you know, SRS cinema.com is the website. You can definitely follow me on Facebook. It's probably where I'm most active Instagram too. Um,

My personal profile is maxed out. It's tougher for me to friend request everyone, but the SRS Cinema Facebook page is a great spot to stay up to date on what I'm doing. There's also the Howe Shark, and she kills individual pages. I'm trying to think of what else. A little bit on Twitter, but any of the social media sites.

places work and looks up, see I release a lot of other movies from filmmakers all around the world. And so not only are you supporting my little distribution company by picking up these movies and checking them out, you are also supporting

supporting these filmmakers because you know the more stuff uh... if i do well with them i can license more work from them uh... in some case i can pay him to make movies uh... and uh... you're helping other filmmakers you know sometimes hundreds of filmmakers uh... you know live live their little part of the dream too and you know and that's a very good point ron

And everybody, I'm going to link to everything Ron and I talked about in the show notes. I know House Shark right now. Oh, thank you. Hey, my pleasure, Ron. I know House Shark is actually on Amazon Prime right now. I'm going to make sure to link to that in the show notes as well. By the way, Ron, I don't know who did your poster, but that's exactly what the poster should have been. That is on the money because you know why? It's intriguing. It explains the movie and it stops people in their tracks and goes, what the hell is that?

It does, yeah, catch a lot of attention. I actually paid a lot of money for that work to get done, but I knew there was a chance of getting into Walmart and they really needed killer art to make it happen. So sometimes you just got to put it out there. But I try to apply it to the project if I think the project is. I always try to do the illustrated artwork for

limited edition release that we do, and I do a lot of those, you know, where it's only 50, 100, or 200 units, you know, sold directly from the site, pretty much exclusively. Sometimes I'll list them, the leftovers on Amazon, and might move, you know, five, ten more copies there, or something like that, but for the most part, you know, you get them from my site with Illustrator, because that's what the fans...

that are close to SRS like the best, but then we'll do what's called the real art with the actors or in case I was shark with the shark in the real house and stuff for the wide releases because that's what the retailers like to have on their shelves and stuff. So you just, like I said, you apply a strategy to each release depending on what you're doing with each release at the time.

Right, yeah. You're always trying to get as much eyeballs as possible. And I think whatever – and again, this poster does exactly that. Because I remember a couple years ago, I actually had a friend of mine who – he went to like AFM and all those different places. And he was talking about pitching and he goes, Dave, if there's one thing I learned, he's like, if you don't have a killer poster that sums up the movie in just one image, he's like, you're sunk no matter what it is. Yeah, you got to start there. Yeah.

the title and the image, and then they want a good short synopsis. Having a killer trailer, like a one-minute trailer that just shows the money shots from the movie. And then they might not even ever look at the movie.

If they love your artwork and they love your trailer, you can be in Redbox. You could be potentially in Walmart or Family Video or Best Buy or whatever based off of just that stuff. It'd also help if you have a genre that they like.

Like Walmart does real well with these sorts of movies where Redbox, How Shark Hasn't Got Into Redbox probably never will because Redbox likes more serious horror. So if you have a serious like a paranormal horror movie with killer artwork and a great trailer, then you increase your chances of getting it out on Redbox.

Yeah, right. And again, we talk about all those different streaming platforms and what they're all looking for. But I guess, you know what, Ron? Let's save that for the next conversation. Whenever your next film comes out, let me know. We'll come back on. Sounds good, man. We'll keep this conversation going, Ron. Sounds good. Thank you. Ron Bonk, thank you so much, buddy. Thank you.

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 806. 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.