This is a transcript of SYS 506 – Making 3 Western Movies With Joe Cornet .
Welcome to Episode 506 of the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter, blogger with sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I am interviewing Joe Cornet, who just directed a horror film called Night of the Caregiver. So, we talked about that and how that project came together for him. But we also talked about some of his earlier films as well. Like a lot of people, he started out working in another whole industry outside of entertainment, but was always drawn to it. So, we started out by independently producing a Western, which is never easy on any budget, but especially on low budget, and he continued to produce other western films as well. So, we dig into that a little bit, exactly how he was able to put some of these low budget western films together, which I think is a really interesting case study. So, stay tuned for that interview. If you find this episode valuable. Please help me out by giving me a review in iTunes or leaving a comment on YouTube or retweeting the podcast on Twitter or liking sharing it on Facebook. These social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast, so they’re very much appreciated. Any websites or links that I mentioned the podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show or look at something later on. can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast and then just look for episode 506. If you want my free guide, How to Sell a Screenplay in five weeks, you can pick that up by going to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free, you just put in your email address and I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks along with a bunch of bonus lessons. I teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide. I’ll teach you how to write a professional logline and query letter, and how to find agents, managers and producers who are looking for material. Really is everything you need to know to sell your screenplay, just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. So, now let’s get into the main segment. Today, I’m interviewing writer, director, producer, actor Joe Cornet. Here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome, Joe to the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Joe Cornet
Thanks. Nice to be on here. Appreciate it.
Ashley
So, to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up? And how did you get interested in the entertainment business?
Joe Cornet
Well, I grew up in Pasadena, California, which is oddly where I am back at now. I am coming to you from and I always had an interest in film dating back to probably the time I was 12-13 years of age even before then. And I watched a lot of Westerns in those days, and through my teen years. And I really didn’t get into this game seriously until about, oh, I guess it was about 2015 – 2014. And when I started, I had been writing for some time. And I was in a completely different business. I was in property development, commercial property development for many years. And I got out of that, thank God. And I sat around for a year. And I remember you know, when I’m going to show you a little visual here, when I was about 15, this was my second camera. It was sound as you can see, a Kodak Ektar sound. And I took this thing with me everywhere. And I filmed everything. And I made you know as any wanna-be filmmaker does little short films and fun films with high school buddies and all that. And then it all kind of like went by the wayside by my early 20s, and I certainly had an interest in film and film history. But I never really did anything about it until after I got out of the real estate business and focused on just trying to create something. And I started writing. And I took a lot of classes and acting classes and writing classes and other filmmaking things. And I just kind of just started doing it. And of course, like all of us, you know, we start and we make shorts, and we desperately hope that someone will watch it on YouTube or something like that. But that morphed into you know, my first feature which I wrote, which was a prayer for the damned. And, lo and behold, I got a distribution deal. And then I made my second film which was also Western, which I also wrote, which is the one behind me here and that got a distribution deal. And then I had a third one which I had actually written sometime in 2014, and I rewrote the whole thing from top to bottom. And that was my third one, which actually, you know, all three of these films, won me some awards at various festivals, this one won the most. And then that got me introduced to Alexander Nevsky, who was producing, directing and starring in his own pictures for at least a decade by that point. And he and I just hit it off immediately. And somehow, I talked him into doing a Western. Now here’s this body builder that’s known for action movies and acting with all these other action hero guys. I did not write that screenplay. But the great Craig Hammond wrote the screenplay to Gunfight at real Bravo, which we released in January of this year. And then shortly thereafter, when we completed production on that Alexander came to me and said, how do you feel about horror films? I said, well, yeah, I like them, but no zombies. I don’t have anything more to say about zombies. I don’t think anyone, you know, it’s been done. And he goes, No, no, no, it’s a film about the paranormal and demons and Satanism and things like that. And I said, oh. And he goes, and I want you to do it in the style of Dario Argento. I go, oh, got it. Okay, done. Let’s do it.
Ashley
So, let me just back up a little bit there and just go back because I’m real curious. Here at Selling Your Screenplay. One of the big things that I sort of promote and try and get screenwriters to do is to write something low-budget that can be shot easily. I feel like there’s a good market for these types of scripts, especially for beginning screenwriters. And one of the things I don’t I sort of tell them to avoid would be precisely what you did, which is westerns, with horses and guns and these sorts of stuff. So maybe you can talk through that a little bit. You’re doing your first film Prayer for the dammed. Just give us the two-minute Spiel. Number one, why did you choose a movie that, you know, it wasn’t a horror movie, a contained horror movie like Night of the Caregiver, it was a much more complicated production. So why did you go in that direction? Was it just a love of this? And did you have experience with horses and guns that you felt you could lean into this?
Joe Cornet
Well, the reason I went that way, number one was obviously my sheer love of the western genre. But I had an incredible advantage in that I had friends, acquaintances, fellow actors, that knew about horses, that knew about the guns of that era, that own guns of that era. So, I had access to this. And I was very, very lucky, from the very beginning to get a location such as White Horse Ranch, which is where we filmed the first three Westerns at, which is a marvelous, fully set dressed western town out by landers, California. And it’s just an amazing set. And I had access to all of this, and I had access to the props, and I had access to costumes, and the weaponry and the right down to the art direction. I was lucky because I had all this. And so, I thought, why not? And obviously, you can see a vast difference between my first Western and my third and my fourth, because the third and the fourth really opened up and we’re big. Because I had bigger budgets and more to work.
Ashley
How did you get this access? Like you had access to, was it just networking in living in Pasadena, you knew a lot of actors just over the years you accumulated these friends?
Joe Cornet
I did. And I knew several people from various acting classes. One of the best ones I ever took was the great clue Gallagher, who was a very famous actor since the mid-1950s. He unfortunately passed away last summer. And he was a tremendous influence on me. And he is the one that actually encouraged me to pursue this, to the degree that I pursued it. And he of course, was famous for making a number of Westerns himself on TV, as well as features. And anyway, he was a big influence. You’re absolutely right, though about one thing. With the screenwriting process, it’s a great idea to tailor it to do exactly what you just enumerated, which is to like, what is my actual budget? Where can I film this? Who can I have in this? And I’ll give you a case in point. Here’s the script I wrote in 2013 called Kaleidoscope. And it’s my attempt at a Hitchcockian thriller. It’s set in the late 1960s. And I wrote it at the time. It’s been extensively rewritten. But I wrote it at the time with all of what I had available to me in mind, which included a lot of mid-century modern houses, and different retro looking office interiors and things like that. And I kept it real tight. You know, I didn’t have you know, I had access to some vintage cars, of course, at that time. But it’s been refined, but even though it’s been refined and enhanced and made a better story than what I had originally, even. It is still even now, with that thought in mind, because whenever you do a period piece, it’s very difficult. It’s very difficult to pull it off, if at all, because a lot of things that I see there a period pieces just don’t look period, that people aren’t talking in the right cadence. They’re not talking to the right language. They’re the backgrounds are obviously from a different era, other than you know. So, you have that. So yes, that is key. Figure out what you have available, who you have available, where you can do this, what your budget is, and write to that tailor it to that I still do that.
Ashley
On this first one, Prayer of the damned. How did you go about raising money for something like that, when you didn’t have a track record of making films starring in films, directing films, just for the newbies out there they’ve got a script, and they want to get this thing into production? Maybe can offer a little insight into that? How do you get something into production, when you don’t have a great track record or any track record?
Joe Cornet
This is rare and unique and it doesn’t often happen, but I financed it myself. And that was a pretty low budget. But I and I financed it with my own money. And I financed basically the first three with my own money. Okay, once I got it into a distribution deal, then it got out there. And then people started watching. And I started getting my money back. Now that’s a very rare case, as you will probably agree with, I definitely decided, what am I going to spend the money on? You know, so in the case of the first Western, I thought, okay, but the key is the look, it has to be really great. So, I didn’t think twice about spending money on the location, or on the costumes, or on the rental of the horses, for instance. I now I have my own horse and have had for several years. I like to write her in my movies if I do westerns, but I just chose very cautiously what I would do. And of course at that time, I had a lot of starving actor friends who wouldn’t work food and booze in a motel room.
Ashley
Gotcha, gotcha.
Joe Cornet
Little bit more, but you know.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. So, let’s dig into your latest film – Night of the caregiver. Maybe to start out you can give us a quick pitch or logline. What is this new film all about?
Joe Cornet
A hospice nurse is sent to an overnight call at this house that’s out in the middle of the boonies, far away from civilization. She gets there, she’s greeted by this very friendly, kindly, elderly lady who is terminal case. And she gives the nurse played by Natalie Denise Pearl, who is fantastic in it. And Eileen Dietz, who played Pazuzu, in The Exorcist, Billy Frequence, original plays the elderly lady. And so, the she gives her cookies. And she’s very kind, but there’s something that’s off about all of this. If you look at the art direction in this film, there’s a scene between the two of them in her kitchen at the very early part of the picture. And then there’s something that’s not quite right, you look at the things that are in the kitchen, and they’re not really of the time of the current era that we’re in to something off, and one thing leads to another and then all of a sudden, it takes this terrible turn, and well, bad things happen.
Ashley
It sounds like you’ve got the script through this partner, Alexander Nevski. And we’ve actually had him on the podcast, it was a number of years ago. I’ll have to round that up. So, he brings you the script, and then you read it. Maybe you can tell us some of your initial reactions, especially as a writer yourself. You read the script, what were some of the things that really drew you to it, some things that you liked, and maybe just for our screenwriting audience, what are those things that drew a director like you into this project?
Joe Cornet
Well, what interested me was the way he sort of pitched it to me was after when he said a horror film, let’s do a horror film. And I said, it’s not a zombie movie, is it? And he goes, no, no, no, it’s paranormal and it’s deeply psychologically based. And I said, okay. And he said, Alexander said to me, I would like you to do approach this in the style of think of Dario Argento. And that was the great hook for me. And so, I read this script, and there’s definitely elements of the great moments in our Argento movie in it. That’s for sure. So that’s what drew me to it.
Ashley
Were there some things on the flip side of that, that those are the things you liked. Were there some things that you thought needed to be changed a little bit? And maybe you can work through that? Was there some development that you guys did on the script once you became involved?
Joe Cornet
Well, there was there was some tweaking of the script with writer Craig, that’s for sure. But nothing major was really changed. This script was written during the first phase of the early days of the pandemic. And it was written, kind of, you know, Alexander was looking for something to do, Craig was looking for something to do. And they got together, I got an idea for a horror movie, let’s see if we could put together a script and when everything opens up, again, we’ll do this. But it kind of sat around for a couple of years, you see. And then we made our western together. And not that much had to be done to it. There was some polish, of course. And we the only thing that was really different was we filmed about three endings, which are all kind of very similar, but we filmed it three different ways. And we went with the ending that the audience will see. And we felt that that was the best choice. That was the only real change. But it was all in there. It was great characters were in there, their development, their backstories, everything was in there.
Ashley
So, maybe you can talk about that process of working with a writer? Are there some tips you can give to people? I mean, most people listening to this are themselves writers, are there some tips you can give them, when they have a script, and they it’s been submitted to a director and the director is coming back with some notes. Maybe there’s a few tips you can take. And as a writer yourself, certainly you’ve gotten criticism and feedback, how do you take that harsh feedback? How do you take feedback sometimes that you just don’t agree with even though the director and the producer might be selling, you know, this is what we need to do to get it into production?
Joe Cornet
Well, there’s always harsh feedback. And you always get that, and this business is just full of negativity. In fact, I really believe in positivity. And when you run into a situation like that, you try to turn it around and make the best of it. It’s like as a director, there are always challenges, there’s always something that happens that you can’t anticipate. So, you can either get angry, and get temperamental, and turn into a tyrant. Or you could just say, okay, let’s choose something else this day, or let’s approach it differently. And so when a director comes to you as a writer and says, you know what, I don’t like this, find out why, and ask him what it is that he or she doesn’t like about it and ask it? Well, could you consider this approach? I mean, you know, obviously, I wrote the first three films that I directed. And then the next three, Craig Hammond wrote, but Craig and I have a great positive working relationship. And if I want to change something, which is very rare. I’ll just talk about it with him. And I’ll be very respectful because they’re his words. And I respect that. And I don’t really like to get into it with a screenwriter, because I figured that my job is kind of like to present his vision, hopefully. And I think if you take it from a positive, if this makes any sense, from a positive point of, okay, well, how can we work through this? How can we make this better? Can you consider this? You know, and I’m taking it from the writer’s standpoint.
Ashley
Gotcha, gotcha. So, maybe you can talk about just sort of your process, you’re coming on to direct this. Are there some other movies you looked at? And just how do you sort of figure out where your movie is going to going to fit in sort of the canon of these types of horror movies? And I’m just sort of curious, your process, a lot of directors, writers, they might go back and watch a bunch of movies and what were some of those movies and just sort of what is that process of sort of just landing your project and sort of the pantheon of great films that have been made?
Joe Cornet
Well, first of all, you have to be flexible, meaning that you could be absolutely just smitten with a screenplay and just really into the idea of doing that and Something will happen that will come along and something else will come along and you say, okay, well, I’m flipping this, I’m doing this one. And that first and this one later and you have situations like that. And with caregiver, I think I really did want to do an homage to Argento with a little bit of feel of fricking. And I wanted to make it different. I wanted it to be classy, meaning I didn’t want it to get guttural and visceral and just do the same old thing. I have no problem with any of that. But I just wanted to do something that would hopefully set this apart and would confuse at the beginning the audience’s to where this is going, which I think we did, because I’ve been told in the last few days since it came out where it went story wise was not where we expected it to go. Which is great compliment. So, I like in the pantheon of great horror movies, my style is certainly The Shining, The Exorcist, any of the Argento films, even his detective movies, the first two. Definitely The Haunting the original, wise production. The Omen.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, some real classics. And maybe you can talk just briefly sort of about the economics of something like this. Especially since you’ve been through and now with a number of films. Did you guys have a distributor setup? Did you go to film festivals, there’s certainly a whole horror cottage industry of you know, Comic Con or horror cons and horror film festivals. Just maybe you can talk about a little bit a little bit about your approach to actually recoup this money. What was sort of your marketing strategy? How did you guys go about this? And again, you guys have so much experience, I’m sure there was talks with distributor stuff, but maybe just walk us through that. Once you had the film done. What were those next steps like?
Joe Cornet
Well, remember, we had just come out of making a Western, which we had finished, we had delivered to our current distributor. And they were very happy with us. And so, we weren’t really certain and no one is ever certain that there’s going to be that deal at the end of the line. Just because you complete a movie doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to get out there, it is a big struggle for that. So, the idea is how do you then transform because we were we were promoting a Western with a sequel in mind, which we also have in the can will be released very soon in the upcoming months. But we were in that mode. Okay, now shift gears, we’re in the horror film mode. So, you know, you’ve talked to a whole different demographic of people in horror than you do in the western genre. So, we geared up for that. And we have been talking a lot on various podcasts and YouTubers that do this kind of thing. And happily, the distributor that we have was very happy to release it and they enjoyed it. And they had some input for editing and so forth. And we made minor touches here and there based on their ability to sell it, which they did. very effectively, I might add.
Ashley
So, I just like to wrap up the interviews by asking the guests if there’s anything you’ve seen recently that you can recommend to our mostly screenwriting audience? Netflix, HBO, Hulu, anything you’re watching that you think is really good.
Joe Cornet
I think there’s one thing that I think is really good, and it’s on Apple TV, and it’s a show called Physical. And it’s very funny, and it is very clever, and it is very well written. And we’re in season three now. And it’s just it’s very well done, and it’s very watchable. And as I said, it’s very funny, the acting is fantastic in it.
Ashley
Perfect. Yeah, that’s a great recommendation. I have not seen that. So, I’ll have to check that one out. What’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, anything you’re comfortable sharing. I will round up for the show notes people can click over to it.
Joe Cornet
You could find me and everything I’m doing on Facebook. Just go to Joe Cornet. Just look me up and you’ll find me. On Instagram. I’m @Sanrafaelproductions, all run together. You could find me there and if you punch me in on YouTube, there’s all kinds of interviews floating around and stuff on and what happened.
Ashley
Perfect. How can people see Night of the caregiver? Do you know what the release schedule is going to be like for it?
Joe Cornet
It was released two days ago. I know for a fact it’s on Vudu I know much people have watched it on that. It’s supposed to have other platforms, it’s going to get a secondary release, a wider release with DVD and all that good stuff in, I think first part of October. And I’ll probably have a major screening of it at that time, too.
Ashley
Okay, perfect. Perfect. Well, Joe, I really appreciate you coming on the show.
Joe Cornet
It is in theaters right now, though I don’t have the schedule, but it is.
Ashley
Okay, gotcha. Yeah, people can take a look at their local area. Well, Joe, again, I really appreciate you coming on the show with me. Thanks for talking about this film. Good luck with this film and good luck, all your future films as well.
Joe Cornet
Thank you. It was a pleasure being on here.
Ashley
Thank you. We’ll talk to you later.
Joe Cornet
Okay, bye.
I just want to talk quickly about SYS Select. It’s a service for screenwriters to help them sell their screenplays and get writing assignments. The first part of the service is the SYS select screenplay database. Screenwriters upload their screenplays, along with a logline, synopsis and other pertinent information like budget and genre, and then producers search for and hopefully find screenplays they want to produce. Dozens of producers are in the system looking for screenplays right now. There have been a number of success stories come out of the service. You can find out about all the SYS select successes by going to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/success. Also, on SYS podcast episode 222. I talked with Steve Dearing, who was the first official success story to come out of the SYS select database. When you join SYS select you get access to the screenplay database along with all the other services that we’re providing to SYS select members. These services include the newsletter, this monthly newsletter goes out to a list of over 400 producers who are actively seeking writers and screenplays. Each SYS select member can pitch one screenplay in this monthly newsletter. We also provide screenwriting leads, we have partnered with one of the premier paid screenwriting leads services so I can syndicate their leads to SYS select members, there are lots of great paid leads coming in each week from our partner. Recently, we’ve been getting 5 to 10 high quality paid leads per week. These leads run the gamut. There are producers looking for a specific type of spec script to producers looking to hire a screenwriter to write up one of their ideas or properties. They’re looking for shorts, features, TV, and web series, pilots, all types of projects. If you sign up for SYS select you’ll get these leads emailed directly to you several times per week. Also, you get access to the SYS select forum, where we will help you with your logline and query letter and answer any screenwriting related questions that you might have. We also have a number of screenwriting classes that are recorded and available in the SYS select forum. These classes these are all the classes that I’ve done over the years, so you’ll have access to those whenever you want once you join, the classes cover every part of writing your screenplay, from concept to outlining to the first act, second act, third act, as well as other topics like writing short films, and pitching your projects in person. Once again, if this sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, please go to www.sellingyourscreenplayselect.com. Again, that is sellingyourscreenplayselect.com.
On the next episode of the podcast, I’m going to be interviewing Connor Allen, who just did a period feature called In the Fire starring Amber Heard. He’s another very interesting indie filmmaker like Joe who I talked with today. He’s out there doing low budget indie films, but they’re not the typical horror thriller indies that we see so often. He’s doing historical period pieces like In the Fire, and has done some indie war films again, not the typical type of films that we see coming from indie directors and producers. So, we’ll talk about all of this next week kind of give some great insight and how he was able to put some of these films together. So, keep an eye out for that episode next week. That’s our show. Thank you for listening.