 I'm Joey Kanizer. I just made a movie called Mr. Presto. It's my first movie. Up to this point, I've been playing music and touring and mainly I've been a songwriter from most of my adult life. I've always been really into movies and actually movies were my first love affair when I was a kid. My dad had a huge movie collection about maybe a thousand or two thousand VHS tapes and I would watch them all the time. So by the time I was in high school, I'd pretty much seen like every kind of important movie up until that point. The way I got to music was actually from movies in two different ways. One of those ways was that I realized that songs could be narrative and like little movies when I heard like a Rolling Stone and I heard Born to Run and I thought like oh this is like a little tiny movie. It was very very cinematic and the other one was when I was in sixth grade I started skateboarding. I would watch skate videos all the time and that's when I realized like oh you can make movies. Like these these are just kids making movies then they're not ever going to show in a theater or anything and they can do whatever they want and so that was when I really decided that I would you know I wanted to do something with moving pictures. At the time it seemed impossible and when I went to college I originally wanted to go to college to go to film school but my vision is like a if anybody knows about vision or their prescription my my prescription is a minus 18 which is the you know by description of the United States government I'm basically blind and so you know an average person might be like a minus six or a minus four or something okay my vision is minus 18 and so I've never driven a car uh when I went when I originally went to go to film school and I moved to uh out here I wanted to go to the Watkins Institute but at that time it was this was in the early 90s it still was all film and so you had to have a 16 millimeter camera and uh we didn't have the kind of technology that we have now with like monitors that you can put real close to you and you can have focus peaking and so I basically had to wait until technology got to the point where I could actually do it you know the one thing about movies is it's not a young man's game like rock and roll is rock and roll is a young man's game like Robert Altman was making movies into those 80s you know like uh John Houston they were all making movies like way uh well I mean uh there is no age to cinema which is one reason I love it so much that you can be of any age and it it's it doesn't really matter you know I I basically decided you know most people they hit their midlife crisis and like buy a motorcycle or something or they buy a sports car and like I've been wanting to make a movie my whole entire life and I've been wanting to just make movies my whole entire life and so when I hit my midlife crisis I bought a cinema camera and and then once I had the camera my wife was like okay you have the camera you have to make the movie and I was like all right yeah I'll make the movie and so I was uh had to figure out how to make a movie uh with no money and no actors and so I kind of came up with an idea um for Mr. Presto and then Shane who plays Lowell I would call him because I knew right I was just looking at to see what we had access to and so like he has that 1990s van and I was like okay we shoot your van it's free we don't have to have a location uh we can always shoot driving or in parking lots or something like that uh so that let's build it around the van it'll be an easy thing to be able to film and then we'll just have you be in the van and then the my initial idea was to make it somehow about music and I didn't want it to be uh you know I thought it would be too on the nose if I just made a movie about music and so I was just like well how can we make it about being a musician without actually being you know having musicians in it and I was like well we'll we'll just make it about a magician like who who are the other well first I was like who are the other people that live like musicians who make no money and they have to travel all the time like who would potentially live in the van and we're like we could either be a comedian or it could be a magician and then I was like well if we do a magician then we could do all kinds of stupid stuff because it'd be like he's a magician you know and so I was like but well it will still be a love letter to music because um you know I thought like what are the two uh what are the two pieces uh personalities to somebody who is a musician and that is there's the one side of you that is constantly uh wanting to to like live free and like be able to do your art and to be a kid all the time and to like have no responsibilities and then there's the other part of you that is always you know trying to stop that part that's like you gotta grow up you can't you know life is not about you know uh following your dreams unless they pay off you know big or something and it's that nagging voice so I was like well I'm just going to make it two brothers but they're really just it's the two sides of what it's like to be an artist basically one's a straight laced person who complains all the time and doesn't want to try or do anything and then the other one is lives completely free and does not care about anything you know and so that basically it seemed very easy to put something like that together because I had Shane already and then Eric who's play was a drummer for glossary he is also really into movies and so the three of us were just like well just make a movie and I'll make it about these two brothers um and then I just went home and I spent a couple weeks you know writing writing a story and then when we got uh knowing though that we would you know there was no way we'd be able to stick completely to it because we didn't we didn't have any money or no locations we'd have to change stuff we'd have to rewrite on spot we'd have to you know so the movie I would say is probably like 85 percent of the script and then the rest of it is just maybe 80 percent and then the rest of it is having to change it on the fly and improving and stuff making a scene up like oh we should have a scene like this and then we just would make it up on spot put together the whole reason we made that this movie was literally to like three people who like was obsessive movies their whole life to actually make a movie which is such a clock just like join a club that like very rare a few people get to say is that you like made a feature film you know because when I told people I made a film they're like oh it's like 30 minutes I'm like no it's like an hour and 50 minutes like it's like a movie you know and uh so it was it was really the movie was written like for the sole purpose of something that could be made like you know it wasn't like oh let's sit down and and I'm gonna we'll come up with the idea for a movie that we've always wanted to make it was like we got these things how could we make a movie out of them and then and then in that little tiny constraint like like make the best idea up out of it you know that we could do with little to nothing no money or uh you know and no no actors little time all favors like the movie we we might have spent like four thousand dollars on the movie and and thirty five hundred dollars of it was at one point the van uh that is the main character like literally two months before the movie is finished the transmission went out and we had to replace the transmission in it so that that's really where all the money went a lot of it was my friend Andrew Caffer who lives in Portland right outside of Portland did a bunch of it it was just like some of it I actually mastered that record and uh I was like this stuff would fit I tried to I tried to theme the characters so like whenever I wanted something kind of garagy and gritty kind of like lo-fi for Lowell's music when he's on screen and so his stuff worked very well for that and then I for like the magic man and for like a lot of the like the uh tent stuff when I when I was like a kid like one of my favorite directors was John Carpenter and I was just like obsessed with John Carpenter I was obsessed with like especially like big trouble in Little China and like um they live escape from New York and stuff so that's for all his stuff I was like I'm gonna just do synth or you know 80 synth kind of like uh sounds and then for Willie's I did more of just like country bumpkinny americana he kind of like songs for whenever we see him in the in the frame and and so my my buddy Lou Card I used his songs for that kind of stuff um and then uh Shane who is Lowell he has two songs we ended up using in him uh because they just fit really good same kind of thing they're kind of indie garagy uh but yeah I didn't want to make it I was just like I can't I there's no way I got enough time to do this I mean I did all the scoring part all the the synth stuff throughout it and all the full I mean it you know like I said it it took me like six weeks to do the sound mix uh to to add all the sounds and do the mix I mean I think I did like 5 000 fully sounds I mean every sound in it is replaced so like every time somebody walks like moves every ambient sound in a room had to add all that kind of stuff like every car sound every you know so it took a long time that took a long long time because they're gonna be like oh somebody's picking up a piece of paper and I'd be like ah gotta have a I've gotta have to sign a piece of paper it's like somebody's walking through some leaves I can't not put them walking through the leaves you know yeah that that was a whole another thing because I don't think I I don't think I realized how long that part of it was gonna take even though I do audio all stuff all the time and mixing all the time I don't think I had any idea how long it was gonna take to do the audio just like I had labs on everybody and they were covered and so there's rustle and so I had to go in and take every piece of rustle out I had to go in and EQ I mean a lot when it's on your chest you know it's very low you know picks up a lot of low end because it's you know it's really close to your chest and then it's also under your clothes so it's like muffled so I had to go in and like clean all that stuff up and then also like these labs are on like a digital network and so like any time somebody has you know every now and then I get some interference from somebody's cell phone or something uh so yeah I just have to clean all that stuff up too that took a that's what took the longest because I had to clean up every you know every line and then in EQ it also like everybody's mic matched everything was the same level like yeah that was that was a lot yeah that's the one thing I always wanted to have Eric and Shane I was like man if you guys will only just flies on the wall the whole time I did the the post-production you'd have no idea man you'd have you guys have no idea because I like lived upstairs in that room I mean I it took me a month to color grade it and it was right when my son was born so luckily Jolene had three months off of work and so for one month of it I was just in that room in the dark the first month because I was just like we got I got to finish this because if we don't if I don't get fish now that's not gonna be done it's the last thing left to do I'm definitely gonna do it again I don't know if I want to do it right away but like I definitely want to do it again you know that's it's it's a weird thing man it's a it's not really like anything else because like it's it's a you have to play a long game with making a movie you know with a because it's like that's the one thing about the next one is you have to go into something knowing that you've you really want to do it and that you're that you know it's something that you can see yourself doing for like the next year to year and a half you know it's it's basically like I mean it's in some ways kind of like you know making a record because you know you go you make this record and then you you know you got to spend a year writing the songs and then you go you spend like a couple weeks making the record but you're committing yourself for the touring on it and playing the songs every night you know so I mean it's it's very much in that vein of of like so it's got to be something you like the next one like this one was trying to be like a quirky kind of comedy and using my friends and kind of like paying homage like all these kind of movies indie movies that we look that I loved and like Michelle and Eric loved but the next one I'd rather you know I want to try to take it up a notch and then try to make something that's like that you know we could maybe try to take to a couple festivals or something you know try to make everything about it like production the acting the writing and actually make you know less of a screwball thing and more of like you know something that has that's more interesting has something to say or something right because like I said like all in a path to just work on for a year and I don't want to just work on something all the time for something that I'm not 100 behind I mean it makes it really makes you I think Shane and Eric like I had studied film so much and how to make a movie and when we started making the movie I think they were blown away and I think anybody who makes a movie you immediately blown away about how much you've been tricked your entire life to think something is happening that's not really happening because a movie is unlike life there's a peripheral things going around you can turn your head you can see like a movie the only thing that's happening is what fits inside the little square so you know I remember when I was a kid and I watched like some like behind the scenes things behind the scenes of Indiana Jones and I remember like like they were looking at some shot they're looking through the camera and then like then they cut and you see what they're actually filming and it's like oh outside of that frame there's like 40 dudes there's like I hang in the background there's like there's like all of these people and like but I don't know that they've taken they have totally taken me like somewhere and and so you know we first started the movie the first scene we filmed was the scene where they're in the van and they had just got into the altercation at the gas station and so it's night time and they're driving the van at night on the way to the hotel and I was like we'll do that scene first we'll try to because we need to try to do something and see what see if it's going to work and stuff with you guys and figure out your character and stuff and then we're like well how are we going to do it like you're going to mount the camera and I'm like no I mean we're not going to mount the camera I'm going to put the camera on a tripod in my driveway and you're we're going to shoot you through the window it's going to be dark I'll be tied up you know so just the front windshield is in it then we'll blast a blast moonlight come in from the side and then I'll have what looks like street lights and you know basically what I did is I had a camera on a tripod I had them talking I had my foot on the bumper of the truck and I had a tennis racket and I just bounced the truck and I waved that tennis racket back and forth over that light to make it go across their face periodically like they were moving and then they were just doing that and I had my friend they came up we did it and then they came in and looked at it and they're like oh my god and I was like yeah wait wait till I put like the sound of the car running and then cars driving by and nobody will ever know that that's how we did it and then from that moment on like you realize like oh this is what movie making is like it's constantly trying to like like convince people that something's happening that's really not happening you know I mean obviously in modern movies you know you go to those sets and and like you know like a Marvel movie and it's just like in a giant like green room it's all fake you know but it but just like simple things like that and then and once you like you start understanding like the the the trickery that's going on when you watch movies you can see it all the time now like movies that you would never really that you never thought about you've watched a million times you know like I remember we did there's a couple things I had to do ADR on because the audio was messed up at the time and we had to go and replace the audio and I was like oh man this ADR is just so hard to get sounding natural like you know you were recording it in this one space and now you're in a different space and you're trying to get it to match and I remember one night after I was doing it I was like my wife went to bed and I was like watching TV with the headphones on and I watched the temple of doom came on and I was like oh my god half of this movie's ADR I never noticed it all sounds like it was recording a studio like so weird like you just never realized stuff like that that's what good storytelling is it's like you're watching a movie and even people who make movies and know how they work like that's it's it's the same it's the same with any kind of art it's the same when like you're listening to a record it's like the only things that you should not do in any art form are the things that take somebody out of being in what they're experiencing so like you know like if you're listening to a record and there's like just really bad some crazy like you know one to three k range just ear spiking and you just cannot you know it's just you know hurting your ears like you're never going to be able to get into it or if there's somebody who's just way out of tune or if the temple of the song is just all over the place and you constantly you're like oh I'm listening to human beings playing music as opposed to something bigger is what you want it to happen it's the same way when you're watching a movie it's like you know or the same way when you're reading something you don't want to read something and there's just so many typos and grammatical mistakes that you're constantly reminded that you're reading you know you want to use the other part of your brain uh that takes you somewhere else and so that's like the that's like the one thing that I was trying to do the most with making the movies is try to do stuff that doesn't take you out of it but it's like so impossible to do like especially when you've never done stuff before like that and and also it's like you're doing it so fast so quick and with no you know no team no gaffers no grips no first ac's no nothing like there's just me and then like musician friends acting you know yeah and there's no rehearsal either so it's like you know I'd have the audio I'd have the audio gear on me I have to laugh everybody up hide it have the audio gear on me then get the camera and then you know I'd have all my lights and I have to set up the lights and then like you know most of the time I had all that stuff on me and then I'd have to be like moving a light and uh you know uh yeah it was it was a it was a lot you know I've watched I know all references you know it's like producing it's like I've studied records and listened to everything and had a had a phase with everything you could possibly dream of you know same as movies I've watched I mean I've gone through you know I'm like I'm a cinephile so I've just watched every everything you know like I watched sometimes two if not three movies a day a lot of times like yeah because I'm watching a kid a lot and so I can't really do anything so I'm usually always watching a movie in the morning when I first wake up and then you know and then mean then I'll watch like if I've if I'm watching him I'll I'll try I might be able to squeeze another one but I'll usually always watch one at night and so you know I'll just pick I do do forever is I would pick like a director or genre I'd be like this is French New Wave month you know and I just go through you know I'd be like Kurosawa week you know so many of those things that I stole that are in presto that like are so many cinephile type of things like I would be watching something and like you know I mean there's a scene in Mr. Presto where we had the last day of shooting it was impossible for me to get Mike who played the magic man and to get John Latham who played Willie in the same place at one time because they both had I mean this is why I won't ever have a movie with musicians and again because it's like musicians play shows and tours and so we've had them there and then at the last minute Mike couldn't do it but I already had John Latham in the car headed down to Murfreesboro and I was like well look we're going to figure this out no matter what we're just that's it they're like well how can we have the scene where the magic man kills Willie if the magic man's not there and I was like I had just watched uh Brian De Palma's sisters like the day before and I was like there's a scene in it sisters where they like they uh murder happens and it and it's all silhouetted on the wall and I was like I'm just we're just gonna silhouette you're good we have his clothes here you put his clothes on I'll silhouette you on the wall and we'll have just this silhouette kill him and it'll be like super uber dramatic and you know this is how this is how we have to do it you know this is the limitations we got to do it with and that's how we did it and then like you know my wife was like had the sriracha bottles going like this on the wall I mean I thought this is probably turned out cooler than how we originally were going to do it where it's just going to be like this conversation kind of thing you know it made it a little bit more artsy like I said the thing about it making the movie was to me was it was doing something so like I'm at the point in my life where I want to do things that seem so colossal but but basically like you know I can desensitize them to myself somehow like I used to think like forever I wanted to make a movie I wanted to make a movie and I was just like how do you do that I mean how can just it seems so insane to make a movie but but it's like if we just do it and try to do it and stick with it then we've done it then any other art project we try to do from this point on it's going to seem so small you know because right after it I went and recorded and produced a record and I was just like oh man I can do this in like two months I just spent like a year like every day for a year doing this one thing and it was and you know it was crazy