This is a transcript of SYS 529 – Writing a Cult Classic Horror Comedy with Johnny Wickham and Mike Capes.
Welcome to episode 529 of the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger of itssellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I am interviewing screenwriters, Mike Capes and Johnny Wickham, who wrote an indie comedy action sci-fi script called The Invisible Raptor. They have a great story. They worked creating short form digital content for a long while, and now we’re finally getting into the feature business. We talk how they wrote this film, what their intentions were, and then how they ultimately found producers and got this screenplay produced. 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 or 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 mention in 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. You can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast, and then just look for episode 529. If you want my free guide, How to Sell a Screenplay in Five Weeks, you can pick that up by going to 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 sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. So, now let’s get into the main segment. Today I am interviewing screenwriters, Mike Capes and Johnny Wickham. Here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome Mike and Johnny to the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Mike Capes
Thank you very much for having us.
Johnny Wickham
Hi, glad to be here.
Ashley
Yeah, so to start out, maybe you can give us a quick overview of your background. Where did you guys grow up? How did you get into the entertainment industry? And Mike, why don’t you go first and then Johnny, you can go. And as I said, just one or two minutes, kind of the broad strokes of how you kind of got to the point now where you’re writing this feature film.
Mike Capes
Absolutely. So, I can say I was born and raised in Los Angeles, just kind of on the outer skirts, and I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, always wanted to be a writer, ever since I saw the movie Goonies in the theaters when I was about seven years old. And so I had grown up, I had started making films when I was a kid, as soon as I can grab a camera, I started making what I could, and I ended up getting into film school, making films in high school, then getting into college, going to film school. Funny story, I graduated with Steven Spielberg, which is kind of a fun little aside, he did his honorary degree when I was walking. So, it’s kind of cool. And so yeah, so I’ve always been very into making films. Then after college, I sort of jumped into writing groups. And that’s when I met Johnny. And him and I were both, you know, writing producing digital content at the time, we were doing our own stuff, we were guys, we’re making our own stuff, but then also working for companies to do that. And we joined a group of guys who just wanted to get in and write some jokes and comedy sketches. And that had blossomed our relationship into writing together for the last 20 years. And yeah, we just continued working in the digital platforms a lot. And then also doing a lot of our own stuff.
Ashley
Perfect, perfect. Yeah, Johnny. So maybe you can bring us up to speed on your background.
Johnny Wickham
Yeah, so I am from Tennessee. I’m not an LA native. After college, I actually had an internship in LA during college where I worked for a commercial production company that then offered me a job, which is what prompted me to move out to LA, which kind of kickstarted everything. I really wanted to work in comedy, so I kicked as many doors as I could, finally found someone who would let me be a PA at HBO for the Comedy Festival. And that kind of spurred all kinds of jobs after that, because HBO started a digital division. I jumped over there immediately, and that’s where I really got to start making digital content. And back in those days, which was like the early 2000s, no one was really paying too much attention to what was going on over there. So, as a young producer, young writer, you were able to kind of start making stuff. The track was accelerated because all the professionals were working on movies and TV shows, and no one was really paying attention to the digital stuff. So, we really just got to run wild and do that. And then it kind of snowballed from there. After that job at HBO, Jerry Zucker, the guy who wrote and directed Airplane, a Naked Gun, started a digital company. I started producing writing with him, which is where Mike and I met. We met in a secret writer’s group in his office, where by day we were making sketches for him. By night, we were using all of his equipment to do our own stuff. And a fun little side story there is this stuff that we were doing on our own was getting more views than the stuff we were doing for the company. So it was really building confidence there. And then after that, I worked for a company called Break.com and then Nerdist. And we were doing sketches and making internet content gave us the confidence to say, we’re doing this already. We can do this on our own. And it just took 20 years to write and get a screenplay off the ground, which that’s what they say. An overnight success is not made overnight.
Ashley
Yeah. So, let’s dig into The Invisible Raptor, starring yourself, Mike, and also Sean Astin. Maybe to start out, you guys can just give us a quick pitch or logline for this film. What is this film all about?
Mike Capes
Okay, so the Invisible Raptor is a creature feature with absolutely no creature. And the reason why I pitched that to the guys was we can make a film, and we don’t have to spend any money on visual effects. So, we were really looking at a way, it was kind of during COVID, and we were looking at a way to get together and make a project. And when that came, that idea came into my head, I pitched it to Johnny and in our group, and Johnny and I got on the script, we wrote it in about a month, and we were just having a blast writing it. Again, we’ve been writing jokes for so long that we just make each other laugh, and really we went into the script doing that. We’re like, you know, let’s just write what we want to see. And let’s just break, if there are rules, who cares? Like let’s just really have fun and write something great. And we had a blast writing it, and then when we showed it to everybody else, they were like, this is great. This is something special and unique.
Johnny Wickham
We did not, when we wrote it, there was absolutely not even a glimmer that this would get made, not even the sparkle of it being legitimately being made. We wrote it thinking like, all right, let’s just have fun. Let’s make ourselves laugh. Wouldn’t it be cool? I distinctly remember when we were writing it saying, well, let’s just go crazy, because who cares? It’s not being made now, so we might as well throw everything at it. It was like two people dreaming of what if, the whole time we were writing it, because it wasn’t happening. There were moments where I distinctly remember us saying, oh man, wouldn’t it be so great if this movie actually got made? Wow. That would be so cool. Could you imagine?
Mike Capes
And if we had creative control to make sure we got the things.
Johnny Wickham
And we were lucky enough to work with someone who eventually invested in our film, they gave us absolute creative control. I mean, it was a blessing that we rarely happens. Yeah, it was amazing.
Ashley
So, when this came across my desk, I start, you know, it just, I get sort of the pitch, I get an email from your publicist and it has maybe a log line, the trailer. And, so seeing it, the invisible Raptor, like as soon as I saw that, that was exactly the thought, exactly what you just pitched was exactly what came to mind. Blake Snyder had this, um, it came to mind in the sense that, um, you know, it’s a great way, its high concept, but you don’t actually have to shoot the Raptor. Blake Snyder has this thing and saved the cat called double mumbo jumbo. And how do you overcome that? I mean, the idea with this is your Jurassic Park is one leap of faith, you know, resurrecting dinosaurs and the audience can do one leap of faith, but can they do to resurrecting a Raptor and turning it invisible? Is that something you handle? I mean, it sounds like you guys handle it in a lot of ways just with the comedy, but, um, was that something you, you pushed up against? Was it something you thought about?
Johnny Wickham
Yes, we explain it. We explain it very classically in the movie and I’ll let Mike tell you the line, but in writing it we talked about this and we solved our own problem in a very unique way that is one of my favorite moments in the film. I’ll let Mike tell you how we did it.
Mike Capes
Which also became a runner in the film. So, you know, there were talked there was talking rumors As Jurassic world and stuff was being made that you know, eventually the these raptors are going to become really, you know, they’re going to be parachuting on helicopters There was all kinds of word online of where they’re going to go and how far they’re going to go, so johnny and I talked about that as well. Well, let’s take it. Let’s a to see this or let’s a to z this let’s push it and uh, take it to the furthest limit But you know, it comes down to describing the science of the film Uh, and so we just kind of piggyback off of Jurassic park Because we didn’t want to spend a lot of time describing it. So there is a wonderful, one of my favorite lines in the film where my character confronts one of the scientists that uh was part of the creation of the raptor and uh, he asked them how did the Tyler corporation which is the evil corporation that made it? How did the Tyler corporation make raptors and he uh straight face as possible says did you see Jurassic park? And I say yeah, and he goes we did that.
Johnny Wickham
And then then the next line is well, how did you make them invisible?
Mike Capes
So that became a runner in the film of just, you know what, we don’t, people know, like everything we know about dinosaurs, from how they sound to everything else, basically comes from Jurassic Park. So, there’s no need to overstep any of the information that’s already been given to us.
Johnny Wickham
And totally the movie’s so silly from start to finish that like, that explanation is all you need. You’re like, oh yeah, of course. Yeah, they just did that.
Ashley
Got to tell Mike, when you guys were writing this, did you know this was a role you might want to star in? It doesn’t sound like you guys were that early on. It doesn’t sound like you guys thought this would get into production very easily. But were you in the back of your mind thinking I also want to act in this?
Mike Capes
So, I think a lot of Johnny and I’s background, you know, when we were first writing with our comedy group, I was the guy in the writer’s room that there was some news sketches way back in the day. And they were like, Hey, Mike can put on a tie and he could do the news. He could be the news guy, like a Chevy Chase type thing. And I was like, Yeah, let’s do it. So I started doing more on camera work. So over time, one of the bigger hits during our digital run at break is Johnny and I were both working there. We had a show that I hosted. And we were really crafting a voice. We did 50-some-odd episodes of me playing this character. And then that shifted over to another YouTube channel that became a big success, where I sort of evolved that character and brought him out into the world. This is sort of a play on that. It’s kind of what we’ve been developing over time. So, as we were writing the main character, we were writing for that comedic voice that we had crafted. He’s kind of a snarky, false, confident guy. And there’s a there’s some Chevy Chase in there. There’s some there’s some elements of the stuff we grew up on the fletch type, you know, sort of snarky comp, false, confident guy. And so yeah, we when we wrote the film, we wrote for that kind of character.
Johnny Wickham
Yeah, there was never a new another actor in mind. We wrote it for that specific voice. And in fact, a lot of the actors in the film, we wrote specifically for, thinking, oh, like for instance, Sandy Martin, there was never another person that we had in mind writing for that character. We knew that we had access to Sandy. So, we just wrote the character for Sandy Martin. Same we did for Mike. So we got really lucky because she liked the script and she wanted to do it. And obviously Mike was going to do it because he wrote it. So, it worked out in those two cases, the two of the main actors in it we were writing for.
Ashley
Right. Gotcha. So, let’s dig into your writing process a little bit. I like to get a sense of sort of how teams work together. I’ve worked with other writers and it’s always a little different depending on the person you’re working with. But what does your collaboration work look like? Did you guys come up with an outline? You’re sitting in the same room. Are you using zoom? Do you divide up scenes? Do you sit in the same room and crank out scenes? Maybe just describe what does that sort of collaborative process look for you look like for you guys?
Mike Capes
Yeah, so one of my biggest things, I’m a big Blake Snyder guy. I absolutely love Saved the Cat. I’ve read every book on screenwriting and that one just resonated with me the most. And so, I always tell Johnny, hey, if we’re going to jump into something, I will go through the most detailed outline before I touch one page of screenplay. And so, Johnny and I, he embraced that and we really dive into the outline. We work together all the time. I don’t like separating it where I write something than he does. We walk through every scene together. We do act outs. We write lines. One of our rules is best joke wins. Nobody gets offended. We’re always, we always give to the other person like, yep, that joke wins. That’s the best word. There’s no ego in our writing. It’s absolutely like, what’s the best version of this?
Johnny Wickham
I love that question too because that’s something that I always ask writers also because it’s so fascinating just because I’m like oh how do you guys do it because it’s so different for everybody and I know a lot of people that just divide and conquer and then kind of smooth through but this process was truly like from A to Z like on Zoom beating it out together like and then as Mike said in a lot of cases we were acting it out you know like oh yeah shooting lines back and forth acting out scenes so it was a lot of fun doing it that way and like you said we did it over COVID so it was all Zoom we were in I don’t think we ever got together and wrote in person once.
Mike Capes
Yeah, I don’t remember. Yeah, a lot of Zoom. Yeah. But yeah, we and then you know, we go through and really dive into all the questions of where a hole might be. If a scene, you know, sometimes there’s a great scene, but and we’re just like, oh, this is so good. But then it doesn’t work. Because if you go back to another point, so so we then what really helps with that process when we’re at we asked several questions about every sequence and how it affects the next and how it is affected from before that really helps with plants, so that you can do callbacks. Like, I feel like this script has a very good flow of planting seeds and having them grow throughout the film. And that really goes to our outline process, digging into everything before we get into the onto the page.
Ashley
And so how long do you guys spend on the outlines versus how long are you in final draft? Actually cranking out script pages. Just what does that ratio look like? 50:50, 60:40?
Mike Capes
80:20, yeah, I think once you have your out…
Ashley
So, 80% on the outline and then 20% and actually crank it out.
Johnny Wickham
And in some cases, the outline was like full scenes like we would just like actually write the scene in the outline because you really go we got we know what we want and then we went back and like did we filled in there funny enough there were very few there were a lot of iterations of the script doing like kind of passes on like fixing grammar and typos but in terms of like a whole new draft we basically shot the first draft.
Mike Capes
Yeah, pretty much yeah outside of some improvised moments and stuff on stat that might have tweaked moments here and there but…
Johnny Wickham
The EP that inevitably bought the script did not have any notes. I mean, one little small note that we changed, but that was surprisingly it.
Mike Capes
And then something, oh sorry, something kind of interesting too, when we were writing my co-star, my co-lead, Denny Danielson, when we were writing him, we were actually writing for someone else in mind, and it was sort of more of a Danny McBride type of feel, and in some senses, but as we, when we, so casting had a lot to do with shaping that character, because when we ended up casting David Shackelford, he ended up bringing a different feel, more like a childlike, feel to it, and it fleshed out the character, to be honest with you, more, it might have felt a little bit more grating on camera if he didn’t bring what he brought to it. So, it’s kind of interesting to see that too, where you might want to write for someone, and be specific, and then an actor can come in and really bring more of a fullness to it, that you didn’t mind.
Johnny Wickham
It made it a lot better. I mean, it was, that’s where …
Mike Capes
Yeah, it kind of grew. It’s funny. He brought like wonder to the character But it grew up and fleshed out the character, which we really appreciate it.
Ashley
Gotcha. So, what does your development process look like? It sounds like you had a number of actors already in mind. So, when you had a first draft, how do you know when it’s time to start pushing it out and getting notes from those people and what is just maybe you can sort of just describe that development process in general. Number one, how do you know when it’s time to start getting notes? And then what does it look like for you guys once you send it out?
Johnny Wickham
Well, I would say that like, the big thing is getting anybody to read it in the first place. I mean, you send it down, you’re like, yeah, I’ll send out 10 people and nobody will get back to you. Mike likes to say the best the best way to get somebody to leave you alone is to send them your screenplay.
Mike Capes
It’s so true. It’s so true. You just get completely ignored. Yeah, you know, we had table reads during COVID because that was a time you could kind of get people on Zooms. And that was really helpful for us to bring some actors in the room and sort of get notes, do a lot of our own sort of question and answer during these table reads. And then this one, you know, we had table reads, but this one kind of we got really lucky. In a lot of senses, as any screenwriter knows, it was a very rare way that it this happened, you know, we wrote it after a month and then word about it got through friends, and then we got to someone who wanted to read it. And then the next week, we were making it.
Johnny Wickham
But we didn’t really change anything. I mean we asked for feedback and people like the kind of unanimous feedback was like oh yeah we love it and then it’s like okay is it really good then because no one’s giving us critical feedback like it was there was a there was about a month or three where we were like I feel like people are afraid to give us notes because the feedback is like oh we love it it’s great we’re like well hold on give us some feedback that’s helps us change so we ended up cutting a few jokes I think and that was about it we cut a few scenes that we weren’t going to be able to like actually produce but that was it I mean we didn’t really do we didn’t really get feedback that affected the…
Ashley
Now when you guys were working with David Zucker, I mean, this is a legend of comedy. Some of these just… Jerry Zucker. So yeah, okay. So, these absolute classic films though, like my understanding with a lot of those really broad comedies is there’s a lot of like workshopping them, honing the jokes, getting feedback on the jokes, a bunch of joke writers in the room and that sort of stuff. It doesn’t sound like that was your experience with this. I mean, is my impression of how a lot of those spoof scripts were developed? Is that wrong? Do you think, are there some lessons from that that you took from working with them?
Johnny Wickham
I think our big thing was if it made us laugh, it was in. It worked, it passed the litmus test there. And I think that’s what they did too. It was, you know, in the height of those, it was Jerry Zucker, David Zucker and Jim Abrams. And I think with them, if it made the three of them laugh, it was in, that was like, that was the audience.
Mike Capes
Yeah, that was in there. That was in their books, surely you can’t be serious. Yeah, they said if it made them laugh, they felt good about it. I think that’s where Johnny and I were coming from. It was like, you know, every time we made each other laugh, we would have these table reads and people would be just, you know, laughing the whole time. And then we had a, when we started getting it out to people to get involved with the film, we were feeling really good about it too. Because, you know, we got a special effects guy who’s Steve Johnson, who’s a legend in the in the practical effects industry. And we were really excited to have and he sculpted Slimer for the original Ghostbusters. And we got the script out to him through our producer Nick. And then all of a sudden, he wanted to get on a zoom with us. And when he did, he’s just sitting there smoking his cigarette and with his cat walking around, he just he looked, he’s just laughing to himself. And he goes, guys, I have read thousands of scripts. He’s like, I worked on Ghostbusters, for Christ’s sake. This is the funniest mother effing script I’ve ever effing read in my effing life. He just went off. And then we were kind of and then he called me later and said, I had a phone call with my friend in the industry of 40 years. I said, let me just read the screenplay to you. The first 15 pages over the phone. And he agreed to it. He says, I read the first 15, we ended up reading the whole script over the phone to him. And he goes, and he was laughing the whole way through. So that was giving us a lot of confidence that what we felt was working, was working. And, you know, and then our biggest rule was, look, you know, we love films like Ghostbusters. They’re comedies, they’re high concepts. But the characters every the world plays it straight. It’s not you don’t want to have a high concept and then put a hat on a hat and have a bunch of people trying to be funny in crazy town with crazy people. We had high concept, but we grounded it as real as it could be within the, you know, the concept of an invisible dinosaur. But these people were reacting just like a human would if this was happening, too. So that was the big challenge.
Johnny Wickham
It’s a page out of the Zucker book.
Mike Capes
Yeah, take it seriously. Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to play into the jokes. You don’t have to lean into them You just have the people play it like it’s real and let the high concept and the stuff, you know Evolve and happen around them.
Ashley
Go ahead. Go ahead, Johnny.
Johnny Wickham
Well, I was going to say we got lucky enough to sit down with Jerry Zucker recently and, you know, basically fanboy out a little bit and be like, we made a movie. Can you believe it? And it was just great getting to talk. We sent him the movie. I don’t know if he’s watching yet.
Ashley
Yeah, exactly. It’s the only thing that gets you avoid more ascending than a screenplay is an actual movie.
Johnny Wickham
It would be easier for someone to watch a movie.
Ashley
So, it sounds like Mike, you were into Blake Snyder. How do you approach screenplay structure, especially something that’s a broad comedy like this? Do you try and hit all of those beats, the midpoint, the inciting incident, the act breaks, all that sort of stuff?
Mike Capes
Thousand percent. So, funny we had a friends and family screening and one of the people in the audience came up to me and said wow a film about an invisible raptor had a dark night of the soul this is wild and like he was blown away that there was it was it’s funny that when you have a film called the invisible raptor people come up to you later and go this was actually good like they always throw the act like I’m not like I’m your friend but this was actually really good this is a real movie we got a lot of feedback.
Johnny Wickham
Yeah, we got a lot of feedback that made us realize that initially people were like, oh wow, this movie is going to suck. And then they were pleasantly surprised.
Mike Capes
There’s a stigma to a title like that because in no offense to those movies but you get in those the Sharknado kind of world where it’s kind of a follow the plot script. They’re trying to be maybe Dumb funny ish, I guess I don’t but we approached this way different It was a high concept, you know premise, but you know structurally I said Johnny. We’re going to write this as a real film like something Spielberg would have written in the 80s Like we’re going to hearken back to those films. We grew up on I believe that Movies need movies don’t have souls very much for me anymore And I feel like that’s gone because your people aren’t writing character connections that would get you to a dark night of the soul that would get you sort of the beats and Sort of subconscious things that happen to audiences when they’re like, whoa, I’m actually connected to these characters. Why and You know, so structure is Very big for me. I’m a stickler on structure as Johnny knows I’m like, you know, look I look like I really love I shared Blake Snyder with him. I go you look there are screenplay books that let you know Knock it down with like the first 15 you’re inciting incident this there There’s the sort of the mapping of the structure and Blake Snyder broke it down a little bit more relatable and he kind of gave it some fun titles and But it really sinks in that way because like oh that makes sense This is where that the movie should turn and this is where the characters should break apart Maybe and this is where there should be tension and this is you know, the here’s our thesis Here’s our into this and antithesis and here’s our synthesis I believe that the movie should have that ride and I think people are experiencing that every festival we’ve gone to man People are really loving it and you know giving us applause breaks It’s pretty wild to see that structure actually does work.
Ashley
So, once you were done, you had a script that you liked, what was this next step to raising the money? It sounds like you had this executive producer. How did you meet him? And I’m always curious just to get sort of the full scope. I think we, especially on a podcast like this, where you guys have a complete movie, we tend to forget all of the, you know, the, the red herrings and the, you know, the, the dead ends that we ran into. So, were you sending this out to a lot of people and you found this one guy, do you only send out this one guy and things? Maybe you can just sort of tend to tell us sort of what you did once you had a script you like? And how did you go about actually getting this, get raising money and getting executive producer and actually bringing this together?
Johnny Wickham
We had a dead end. We had an investor early on that we thought was committing some money, not enough to make the full movie. So, we kind of just told ourselves, all right, well, let’s make that version of the movie. It was significantly less than we ended up making it for. So, we went down a path of trying to figure that out with this investor. And ultimately, he gave us a little bit of funds to do some storyboards. And we were like, all right, are we going to make this movie? Are we not? We didn’t hear from him for a while. We were pressing him, we were pressing him, we were pressing him. And then miraculously, almost as if heaven’s scent almost might get to a wedding. And I will let him tell you how everything else transpired because it was the thing that made the movie.
Mike Capes
Well, you know, let me I’m going to trip back just a smidge on the previous investor we, you know, we had the meeting. It was one person who invested in things had some money, we did one of those yacht meetings in LA, you know, and at the time, we had made some materials. And I think that’s kind of fun to know, like, we had made a movie poster, and we put together the imagery, and we gave it this sort of Spielberg 80s feel.
Johnny Wickham
And so we had, we did try to do it Kickstarter that was very unsuccessful.
Mike Capes
Yeah, yeah, I try. Yeah, I tried a Kickstarter. Didn’t work. I went to raise like $250. I think $250 with a goal of 500,000. So that was embarrassing. So yeah, I attempted the Kickstarter, thinking maybe my YouTube channel because it had about 400,000 subscribers. And I was hoping maybe I could get them engaged and didn’t work. So, that’s one avenue that sometimes you’re like, oh, if I got a lot of followers, I’m sure I can raise some money. That’s not the case all the time. And then so we so I put together the poster. I put together of a pitch video that had like a bit with the Raptor. It had interviews with the cast. We’re doing that. And then I also made an action figure because I thought how I told the guys, I go, I want to make an invisible Raptor action figure. Oh, do you have that show in the action figure? And I said, you know, I want to make an invisible Raptor action figure and it’s just an empty package.
Johnny Wickham
These are for sale on the invisibleraptor.com.
Mike Capes
Yeah, on the back, it shows you how to play. Here’s my favorite joke. It just says collect them all. And so we had a blast. So, I brought this toy with me. And I remember, you know, being in the pitch and the guy, you know, he kind of saw, he’s like, wow, the toy is great. This is great. He was interested. And then it’s one of those things where very common, I think, in Hollywood, where you’re always kind of going, hey, he’s not emailing. Hey…
Johnny Wickham
We just got thrown around, strung out for months like yeah.
Mike Capes
I don’t know if anybody does it on purpose, but you know it’s just sometimes in LA a lot of writers and people in this industry realize that there’s a lot more talk than there is action and a friend of mine, a very good friend, had told me that he had a friend that was producing movies. I produced his first film and he pitched a couple of scripts that I had written, a script that I had written before Raptor and then he pitched Raptor. I didn’t even know this. He just sent it to him and he didn’t send him the scripts. He just told him about me. He was in the table reads during COVID for both scripts and he really was just championing me to this potential investor. So, then I’ll catch back up to where Johnny said I go to a wedding in Porta Vallarta and the investor friend was at the wedding. We went down to downtown. We’re partying. I put him on a donkey, which you do in Porta Vallarta. You can ride a donkey around a bar, which is fun. So, I put him on a donkey and we’re having a blast and as we’re walking down the street, he just stops and says, hey, what’s up with that project, Invisible Raptor? And I said, I didn’t know you knew about that. I pitched that and he goes, no, our buddy told me about it and he said, what’s going on with it? We told him the investor story sitting on his hands. We don’t know what’s happening. And then he just goes, well, how about I give you the money? And I said, I didn’t know you had it. And he goes, yeah, I do. And he said, send the script and whatever you got that Monday. So, I did. I sent the pitch video that I made. He immediately got back to me on the pitch video and said, this is hilarious. I can’t wait to read the script. I’ll get back to you by the end of the week. And then by the end of the week, he called me. He set up a meeting with me. We sat down in a wine tasting place in Malibu and he gave me a big hug and said, hey, this is I get tons of scripts sent to me. My girlfriend’s mom sent me a script. He goes, this is the funniest script I’ve ever read. I am all in. He gave me a big hug. And by that next week, the money was in the account ready to go and here in production in like two weeks.
Johnny Wickham
So, it was literally one of those like Serendib stories where it’s like you can plan and plot all day long and scheme and try to figure out how to make a movie and it was just right place right time lightning bottle lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. And sometimes that’s just what it takes. Can you speak a little bit too? I’m casting Sean Astin. Um, I get a lot of emails from actor, from writers asking about specific actors. How could I get this actor attached to that actor attached? I’m curious, how much did that help in terms of raising money or distribution or getting other actors involved? And then just the logistics, did you guys hire casting director had a relationship with him? Just walk through that a little bit for any writer that’s potentially thinking about it.
Johnny Wickham
The last person we cast.
Mike Capes
Yeah, so yeah, so we had already had the funding. And we were looking for a cameo. You know, we were kind of talking to a lot of different people are reaching out and we hired a casting director. And we went through that process. We had some of our ideas. At one point we were talking to we got to Paul Rubens. And he responded greatly to the material. But unfortunately, he was sick at the time. And but he did write back, which was very kind of him. And it’s funny that we didn’t think of Sean Nelson immediately because he was the absolute perfect guy for what we were doing in so many ways.
Johnny Wickham
We had a list of like Steven Spielberg universe people. John Atherton was like very top of that list. And then after we worked with him, we were like, I mean, of course, he’s the only person for this guy. And there’s a huge guy the whole time. And he was lovely to have on set. He was so fun to work with, brought his own ideas. He was a joy to work with.
Mike Capes
Yeah, and he, so we told him about the nods we’re doing because this film has a lot of nods to the Spielberg films as to many other 80s films and 90s films. And he was so on board with doing a huge nod to Goonies, which is, you know, one of my favorite films and the reason why I was doing this since a kid. He did a huge nod for us there, a couple of them actually. And then the best part is when we were kind of tossing jokes at him and different things on set, he, we had come back out of our little writer’s corner and went up to Sean and we were just about to say, hey, man, like, what if you, you know, came back to life? I don’t hate to, I don’t want to spoil anything, but what if you did and right as we’re about to say this to him, he looks at us and goes, hey, guys, I just had a great idea. What if I come back to life so I can be in the sequels and like, come back? And then we were just like…
Johnny Wickham
Oh, you were like, oh yeah, great idea. We would have never thought of that. That’s a really good idea. Yeah.
Mike Capes
So yeah, it was it was through it was through casting. He was the one we knew most of the cast. We knew 98% I’d say as friends that we thought of or friends that we, you know, either thought of for the role or had danced over the process. But Sean, what we hired a casting director, they had got the material to him. He responded, which was awesome. So we were really excited. And then and then he jumped on board with us. It was really cool. So that was that was huge for us.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, perfect. So, I just like to wrap up the interviews by asking the guest if there’s anything you guys have seen recently HBO Netflix Hulu that you can recommend to our mostly screenwriting audience anything out there that you guys’ think is really fantastic.
Johnny Wickham
I also have the thing that I just watched that I’m still thinking about, and it’s not anything that like even exists in the same genre that we’re talking about. But My Old Ass is a movie that I just watched that I am still thinking about. I thought it was. I thought it was called.
Ashley
It’s called My old ass? My old ass. Okay. And where is it? Where is it?
Johnny Wickham
It’s on Netflix, I think.
Mike Capes
No, no, no, that’s on Amazon Prime.
Johnny Wickham
Oh, it’s on Amazon Prime, my old ass. Aubrey Plaza, isn’t it? But it’s great. I went in without knowing what it was about at all. And I was pleasantly surprised.
Ashley
Perfect. Yeah, I’ll have to check that one out Mike you got any recommendations for us?
Mike Capes
You know, you know, I don’t have any deep cuts right now because I’ve been kind of out of the country, but I will say I just watched Alien Romulus. And I don’t know if you’ve seen that yet, but gosh, it was incredible. It was like, I had kind of not, I didn’t dislike any of the previous aliens, but none of them like really grabbed me. And this one had this like really textured 80s feel and like throwback feel and it just, man, I love it. It was tense. It was everything you kind of wanted. And they explored new, you know, visuals that you’d never seen in alien films, just really kind of, it was really cool to see writers who were really good at exploring things you’ve never seen in a franchise that’s been kind of done several different ways. So I recommend Alien Romulus. It’s on Hulu right now, it was really cool.
Ashley
Okay, perfect, perfect. That’s a great recommendation how can people see The Invisible Raptor what is the release schedule going to be like for that film?
Mike Capes
So, the invisible Raptor will be in limited theaters and on digital, December 6th. If you’re in the LA area, it’s playing at the Lemley Glendale and we’ll all be there. And hopefully we’ll bring free orders on Apple TV plus right now. Yep. Free order is huge for us. If you can pre-order on Apple TV plus that’s really big for small films. You know, when you’re one thing that we’ve learned about the sort of distribution side is that you know, there’s not a lot of money in the smaller distribution realm and P and A is like a really big thing, you know, big, big studios and whatnot can put a lot of money into getting your movie out there for, for us, it’s more of a smaller grassroots type of thing. So, if you get a lot of people to pre-order, it actually helps you get on the radar a lot more when it does launch. So, we’re learning these things and we’re just really trying to get people focused on that and, and check it out and buy it.
Johnny Wickham
And an invisible Raptor action figure, Raptor.com is the place to go for that.
Ashley
Yeah, we’ll round that up and put in the show notes and that’s sort of my last question. What social media use of Twitter Facebook Instagram anything you’re comfortable sharing I’ll put in the show notes And you can just tell us that if you have a page for your for the film if you have a personal page that you Use we’ll get that for the show notes.
Mike Capes
Yeah. So, on Instagram, we’re at the, we’re @invisibleRaptormovie. And then, I post a lot. So, @Loardmikecapes, and what else we got, Johnny, the invisible Raptor on Facebook?
Johnny Wickham
Yes, the invisible raptor is on Facebook. I think it’s probably just the invisible raptor, or maybe it’s the invisible raptor.
Ashley
Mike, what about your YouTube channel? I think that would be interesting for people to check out some of your shorts and some of that other content you put up. How can people find that? Yeah.
Mike Capes
And you know, I’ll tell you something funny about that. So, it’s called The Hacks of Life, it’s on YouTube. And I’ll tell you something, it’s kind of a fun full circle thing as well. I had made, I had snuck, I was trying to do a thing where I get into Hollywood. I hack my way into Hollywood. So, it’s like really elaborate life hacks. So, I snuck my way into the film, Paranormal Activity, The Next of Kin, which was the most recent paranormal activity. And the way I did it was, I actually got myself onto a TV in the background in a motel room. And they, you know, we did a bit where they couldn’t get me off the TV. So, I’m actually in Paranormal Activity on a television set in the motel room in the background. And I had told my, The Hacks of Life fans, I really want to be an actor. I’m going to sneak my way into a Hollywood film. And I did, but I said, next time you see me, I’m going to star in my own film. And that’s when I was trying to raise money through the Indiegogo. That didn’t work, but through the sheer will of the gods in the universe, I did get to make my own movie and I did start it. So, it’s kind of fun to see that backstory and then me coming full circle to say, I did it.
Johnny Wickham
Yeah, and if anybody knows how to actually make Indiegogo work, let us know.
Ashley
So, the key with those things is having an audience before you start. That’s really, it’s just, it’s not a, it’s not a sexy answer anybody wants to hear cause it’s a lot of work, and I’ve done Kickstarter for my own projects and it’s not a lot of money, but I have a small following here and that’s really what I lean on when I do the Kickstarter is the people that listen to this podcast. But you need that following. I mean, it’s with all, it’s with everything really. You need to just build a following , to some degree. I’m surprised though, Mike, the way you describe having 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, you weren’t able to translate that into any real. That’s not a good sign.
Johnny Wickham
We are too. Our hypothesis was incorrect.
Mike Capes
Well, you know, I will say I took a pretty lengthy break from the YouTube channel because I went through three different television development deals for the show to go from YouTube to TV and three different networks. So, I had this long break where they didn’t really want me making content because it would have been on the show. And then when I came back, the algorithm was not in my favor. So, if I went from every video would get easily a million to five million views, and then it went down to 20,000. And it just really wasn’t in my favor. By the time I was really trying to launch this. So, you know, consistency.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah. Congratulations getting this film done. I look forward to following your careers. Hoping you guys will come back on the podcast when you have another film.
Mike Capes
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us.
Ashley
Thank you, guys. Yep. Thank you. We’ll talk to you later.
Mike Capes
Okay, bye-bye.
Ashley
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On the next episode of the podcast, I’m going to be interviewing screenwriter Jamie Graf, who was on the podcast in episode 306. Jamie has had some success writing and selling scripts for a number of different low-budget producers. Check out that episode again. It’s episode 306 if you haven’t already done so. As we talk about his beginnings in the industry, how he got some of these first credits and was able to kind of work his way up. But he’s back next month to talk about some low-budget horror films that he’s not only writing but also directing and producing. And we really go into this whole model and how this all works. It’s really fascinating. He writes and produces and does a bunch of other stuff too, creating these super low-budget films. And he’s found a market for them where he’s actually able to get them picked up for distribution. I love to highlight these sorts of niches in screenwriting. It’s always incredible when someone has figured out a way how to do something creative and actually pull a profit from it.
So, I think it’s a fascinating interview. Jamie’s very transparent, really open about what he’s doing with all of this. And we really go into some detail. And again, it’s just a very interesting model, just being able to create something, do something that’s just utterly creative. There’s really no one pulling the strings. He has utter creative control, which for myself as sort of an artist myself, I always look at that and it has a great deal of appeal to me. Even if it means working on a lower budget, having that creative control, I just think is so important to this process. And Jamie really has figured out a nice little model here where he’s able to create these very creative, almost avant-garde horror films and as I said, find distribution for them. So very interesting model. That episode will publish on January 6th, early in the new year. So, keep an eye out for it. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.