Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Creativity isn’t tidy—it’s risky, chaotic, and full of surprises. It’s full of breakthroughs and breakdowns, moments of flow and moments of doubt. Join Mishu Hilmy for unfiltered conversations with artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fearless makers who thrive in the unknown, embrace imperfection, and create at the edge of possibility.
This is your front row seat to the self-doubt, unexpected wins, and messy emotional work of making something real. But craft isn’t just about feeling—it’s about problem-solving, process, and the devotion behind mastery.
Subscribe now for weekly episodes that celebrate the unpredictable, the playful, and the deeply human side of making things. Join the mailing list at mischiefpod.com
Email anytime at podcast@ohhmaybe.com and follow us @mischiefpod
Mishu Hilmy (00:03)
Welcome to Mischief in Mastery where we embrace the ups, downs, and all around uncertainty of a creative life and that steady and sometimes not so steady journey toward expertise. Each episode we talk candidly with people I know, people I don't know, folks who produce, direct, write, act, do comedy, make art, make messes, and make meaning out of their lives. You will hear guests lay out how they work, what they're thinking about, where they get stuck, and why they snap out of their comfort zones and into big, bold
risky moves. So if you're hungry for honest insights, deep dives into process philosophies and practical tips, plus maybe a little mischief along the way, you're in the right place. For more, visit mischiefpod.com. Hey everyone, it's Mishu and welcome to the show. Welcome back. Yeah, today's a fun conversation with Shane Drech. We really jump into a music video he made called Sleepwalking. Shane and I, met about half a year ago at Midwest Film Fest.
talked for about an hour at the after party there and really hit it off. So it was great to have him in a more formal setting on the show and we get into it. Shane is a Chicago based director, photography and visual storyteller with a decade of experience in video and film production. He's worked on everything from commercials to documentaries to indie films, taking on roles as DP, gaffer, writer and director.
With regional Emmy nods and recognition at indie film contests, he thrives on crafting unique visuals and taking creative challenges, especially when working with a tight-knit and collaborative crew. So yeah, we get into it. As Shane and I, talk about his most recent music video, how to find inspiration from the song, storyboarding, creating a dreamlike visual world, as well as doing it with like minimal resources. It was really lovely to hear his passion and hustle and late night grind at creating props.
and making a lovely story. So check out the video in the show notes. I also recommend having listened to it and watching it before you listen so you can understand maybe some of the references. You can follow Shane at anxiety on Instagram. Those also be in the notes. So yeah, here we go. Hope you enjoy the conversation with me and Shane.
And watch SLEEP WALKING
Mihu HIlmy (02:19)
is that the most recent project that you just wrapped? Yeah.
Shane Dresch (02:23)
You
got it. That was kind of a request for visuals for Spotify that turned it to like after hearing the song, I was like, oh my gosh, this is beautiful. I think it's not every day you kind of find somebody who's maybe not super well known or super discovered. Definitely has like a few thousand followers and everything on different platforms. hearing his stuff and I met him through opening for one of my friends live and it was just like this guy's voice is insane.
So hearing the song, of course, there's just, you can hear good music, but then there's like music that like immediately puts like visuals in your head or like you kind of start seeing like a life better term like a soundscape or a visual based on the music and was like, okay, I'm gonna, whether he's wants this or not, I'm definitely gonna pitch him a music video idea.
Mishu Hilmy (03:13)
It's still just like good practice in terms of like free image making, like listening to songs. I'm curious, like what was your process for, you you heard the song maybe initially, like, wow, this person's voice is great. I really like, I connect with the atmosphere, the vibes of this, but like what practically, you know, are you sitting down, do you have headphones on? Do have like a sheet of paper, a legal pad? Like what was your approach or is it a little bit more informal?
Shane Dresch (03:36)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little bit of all of that. You kind of hear the song and then I'm kind of like, I think songs as well as movies, it's rare that it's like 100 % grabs me and I get it right away every time. I think it takes me like three watches to like, I am beginning to like fully see the art that's actually happening in this movie. And I think with the sleepwalking, I knew there was a desire to make a product from it and
Mario McLean is his name. mentioned, he's like, this song is giving me like late summer vibes and like walking through like city lights at night. And that was kind of all he mentioned. So I was like, okay, like city lights, can think about that, that sounds good. But then it's just like earlier you mentioned just like repetition and drilling. And I think it just comes down to listening to a song over and over and over. And then you start picking up on like,
little nuances in the song or like beats or sounds or tones you didn't know before or notice before the first few times you listened and like those actually start having like a bigger hit than you actually would initially think. So I feel like it's just kind of through repetition and familiarizing yourself with it. And then just like, yeah, letting your mind I think when I pitched it to him, I was like, hey, I need a little bit of time just like let my mind wander. think it's how I got it.
And so it's just sitting there where there's a few nights in a row, just letting the song play as I was going to bed before I was, that's ironic now that I'm thinking about it, before I would be going to sleep, I would be listening to sleepwalking. And it just kind of had this dreamy floaty vibe to it. And then it kind of gets down to, okay, I've got all these images that I would love to capture. And like the thing that would have been, if I could have like snapped my fingers and had a budget and made anything happen, it would have been like,
this guy walking and then he just like slowly starts like lifting off the ground and he's like floating through the city just because it has this kind of like beautiful, I can't think of any other word than floaty vibe to it. But I'm like, well, how do I do that with like me and maybe best case one or two other people? And you kind of start like honing it in from there. And yeah, the process is just what do I see? What do I hear? And most importantly, what do I feel from what I'm hearing?
Mishu Hilmy (05:55)
Right. Yeah, I mean, the credits seem like a pretty lean crew and the beauty of music videos is usually you don't need like boom opera sound team, is like, but it seemed like you had the lightest of initial direction from the artist, right? It's like you're in late summer vibes and, you know, nice lights, exteriors, right? So that's a fair amount of freedom initially. And then as you sat with it more and more, did you present like, hey, this is
this idea of like, you know, we have, it seemed like kind of three or four core spirited locations, right? You got the beach, you got the interior of this person's house, you have an alley, and then you have just general street shots. But like, how did you pitch your concept when the artist might have had just like a vague idea?
Shane Dresch (06:39)
Yeah, he was very taken back by the idea of a music video in general. He's like, I've never done anything like that. He's an extremely humble guy as well. So he's like, being like the main focus, that's kind of like, you I'm not sure if I'm ready for that completely. I think having your photo behind a song that's like playing on Instagram is way different than like, you know, getting in front of camera and people and acting. Fortunately, he had a theater background, which was good. And he knew how to, you know,
hit a mark and how to walk from one place to another, but like the little micro movements of like, you need to open up your hand from here to here. within like a second and a half, can you do that? It gets a little more in the weeds there. As far as pitching it, it was a little vulnerable for me just to be like, well, hey, I don't know if you want this thing or not, but like, can I have a little bit of your time? And then you get into a balancing act of how much time am I willing to put into?
preconceptualizing everything, or I even know that this thing is going to happen or going to take place or is a possibility in general. So you kind of have to like rectify with yourself, like, what is my timeline right now? How am I doing? Can I burn some time in the chance or brainstorming in the chance that doesn't go anywhere? So I think when you're doing things for low budget or no budget and mostly like a passion project, that's just kind of like what it comes down to, like what are the...
odds and ends we have around us, how can we scrap those together to make it happen? So I wrote a very rough outline of like the visuals I was seeing and it was like a guy you can tell is having a hard time. He goes to sleep, the room fills with light. As the light fades, he's walking through the street. He notices this like phone oddly hanging on like a brick wall. He's drawn to it. He answers the phone, but before he can answer it, it starts exploding and like melting and
The rest of the video is you contemplating what you just saw and what your reality is and what is possible within reality. it's almost like, it's not like the process of, it's not exactly the seven steps of grieving or the five steps of grieving, you have to, you go through denial and then there's like,
acceptance and you have all those spaces. So he's kind of like on the bridge spacing out. And I was like, Hey, you mentioned you wanted the Spotify videos to the visuals to go behind your behind your Spotify song. And like, think like a time lapse of cars passing by is really achieving that so we can just by doing that, get that there in that process. And then like, I think we even originally had him like going on the train because he wanted it to be really crowded in Chicago, but just simplicity.
purposes, we nixed that. And eventually when we started filming, we started looking at the footage and it's like, we don't need a train. Like, to give a second or to give a shot like him walking through the taller grass, like heading to the beach, I'm like, if this shot is slated to be like two seconds long, but letting it be 10 seconds long feels so good. And if that means we lose the train, it's really not.
Mishu Hilmy (09:51)
And it's like, you know, don't think that cinematic themes or language necessarily require a train like the
Shane Dresch (09:58)
Yeah, it would have been then like, there's like one, maybe two moments where we see obviously we see cars on the bridge. like movement is happening around you see other humans, right? like, hey, if we go to a train, we could burn an entire night of meeting up with, you know, packed trains. It's a game that we didn't know was getting out. We could get in trouble with CTA. I'm like, if that was like an essential thing.
we could totally have figured out a way to be extremely guerrilla about it and casual, but it's like, just, you kill some darlings sometime and that wasn't even a hard one to kill.
Mishu Hilmy (10:36)
You know, you probably want to go a little bit more handheld if you're running the Gunning Gorilla on a train and then like not, I don't think any of your shots really ever felt handheld. So it's like, you know, you need permits if you ever use a tripod and all that. Yeah. So the pitch sounded like pretty verbal, like you sent an outline, like it doesn't sound like you sent any sort of animatics or like rough drawings or visual references or slides. And it's just like, hey, here's a seven sentence idea. So that would be a different contact.
Shane Dresch (11:05)
It was literally just him driving home from work and I was like, come on, can I talk to you? Like, I've got, can I have a little bit of your time? got an idea. And I just kind of had bullet point lists of like those visuals kind of going through the story and I rattled through it and he's just like, whoa, I love that. Let's do it. But how much is it going to cost and things of that nature? I was in a.
fortunate position where I've been freelance for coming up a shy of a year now. So I can kind of just like step away from taking on work or like there's actively seeking work and then there's work coming to you. So I was letting work come to me, but then was able to take as much time as I needed to be like, yeah, let's meet up. We'll get these super small little scenes. We'll have like one or two people help out whenever we can. And we'll just kind of piece it together extremely slowly.
The initial pitch was just, you liked this idea and ran it through them on the phone, if you're into it, let's make it happen. And don't worry about the money because I can, I'm in a unique position where I need more pieces that I think show off what I like doing, what I can do well and what I want to do more of. And I'm hoping to kind of use.
Music videos as that avenue, because like you hit on earlier, you don't need audio as much. Audio is so important and that's why you can't skimp on it. But a music video gives you this beautiful avenue of, yeah, you can have like a story or a cinematic story before or after the song is taking place. But the song, if it's a good quality song, takes care of all of that. So you can really rely on story and visuals. if you can spin, or in my case, if I could spin a
music video into more of a narrative piece or have a narrative vein that goes all the way through it that turns it more into like a short film, music driven visual short film.
Mishu Hilmy (13:03)
Yeah, especially if it's like a song that lends itself toward either a vibe or a thematic experience or even a narrative experience rather than sometimes the songs or the artists. It's more like this is about vanity or about them, you know, sort of going off, you know, whatever. So how many kind of days overall was it like four days? It seems like you did some pickups early on and just like, we'll be interior. This will take a couple of hours. So what was the general number of days?
Shane Dresch (13:33)
Yeah, general number of days. That is such a hard question to answer because I did this in the most unconventional way you would ever want to even, it's even hard to admit. There was kind of overall like, hey, like let's meet up and work together the first night and get those time lapses on the bridge. Let's just like, have you, you've never acted in front of a camera. Let's just kind of take it slow. We'll do some time lapses. It'll be a different kind of acting.
And then from there, that kind of let me know and informed me how to structure things a little bit more. So we would kind of each location had like a day or a night for like a better term. And we also had like work constraints and like, Hey, like what's the most late you're comfortable.
staying out because we could shoot for 10 hours at night, but you have to be up at 8 a.m. to go to your restaurant job and that's not going to work. So it was so many little meetups of like four hours where like the sunset beach stuff was like, we got to the beach, we were late to the beach, the sun was already like incredible. And we, I mean, we got done with that stuff in like an hour and a half. And it was like, okay, I guess we'll.
Talk to you soon about the next night. So I think if I had to ballpark it, it would be like four or five like meetups where we were actually filming a lot of the story. And then there was some nights where it was just me kind of being like the prop person and being like, okay, I'm going to get this very specialty insert closeup shot and like nobody else needs to be here. And I structured it and wrote it to be in the gangway that's behind my apartment and wrote notes to all my neighbors.
have any, at least if they were weirded out or saw flashing lights or something like that, they would know, they'd have a bit of a heads up. But a lot of nights were just me and maybe one other person, my roommate Bobby, helping out and getting just like one or two insert shots. it's so, if this was like a gig where you're bringing in a massive team, you can get so much stuff done in such a quick period of time.
But since it wasn't that, and I knew I could do things for very cheap myself or with just one other person, we could take it as slow as we wanted to given that we're all available and things of that nature. So yeah, if I look at like the production folder of every day that I shot, was, I mean, there's probably like 10 to 12 days, different days of setting up and filming something, but it wasn't always more than a shot sometimes.
Mishu Hilmy (16:19)
And if it's like an hour to a four hour day, right? You could always do the division of like, what hour wise would this be in sort of 10 hour days, right? But I'm a fan of like the four hour day or the two hour day.
Shane Dresch (16:31)
If it doesn't need to, yeah, if it doesn't need to completely destroy people or wipe people out, like there's nothing wrong with that and you have more energy for the next one. And I think, yeah, when you're doing, whether it's like a short film or a 48 hour film festival or feature, it's just weeks on end of just grinding and draining yourself. And not that the product's gonna suffer from that, but you know, something is gonna.
somebody's gonna be a little more tired, you're a little more clumsy. But yeah, if we can ever have 10 hour days over 12 hour days and that be a standard, that's already a huge step in the right direction.
Mishu Hilmy (17:09)
Yeah, I hope we keep moving toward the eight hour days, but we'll see. So like the opening shot is like the waves coming in and then were you using sliders on the beach or did you have like a steady cam? Because it seemed like that's a nice way to establish that the breathing in and out of like the waves and you have this gliding motif visually or at least motion wise throughout the whole music video. So was that something you discovered or you committed early on like I want this?
you glide, it reminiscent of a wave or is it more reminiscent of a dream? What was the approach you're thinking of?
Shane Dresch (17:42)
I knew that the character was gonna end up on the beach and that's where like the, I refer to it as like ego death takes place, acceptance takes place. And so it was like, if, it's always nice to like sprinkle in a little bit of foreshadowing. And I kept thinking like, okay, he has this weird interaction with his phone that takes place and that's kind of what offsets everything of him not believing in his own reality or.
trying to understand what is possible within his own reality. And if we can drop a breadcrumb of that in the beginning to kind of like peak interest, I think that would be a great way to kind of, you know, make the audience hang around a little bit longer. Clearly I shot myself in a foot by, if I really wanted that to hit as hard as I was saying right there, then that would have been the first shot. You know, why is this foam glowing and buried in the sand? whether it didn't really.
I wanted to make the best thing overall, versus a thing that's gonna hook people the quickest to keep their eyeballs on it longer. The people who do stick around, that's great, but I didn't have an overall goal for how many clicks or anything this needed to get. just wanted to make the best overall piece. So having the waves grounded us, like you said, in the beach, that was mostly a very lightweight gimbal that was attached to a monopod, and then I would hold it upside down.
Definitely thought of that method way too late, because my back suffered from that greatly beforehand. So then I think the slide, like there's a few shots of the waves just establishing that we're there, we're a part of, you know, nature, we're grounded in this environment. And then we slide over us another smooth movement to the foam that's in the ground foreshadowing the, like the foam is kind of this.
a thing that like can be anywhere, so it doesn't matter that it's in the sand, it doesn't matter that it's on the wall, it doesn't matter that it's melting, it doesn't matter that it's in his real world actually too. It's just kind of this, the phone is just representing an idea of you not being completely aware of what you are capable of achieving.
Mishu Hilmy (19:49)
So, you know, melting, is that mostly practical because if you had that insert of just sort of zooming into the internal wiring and then you have like a link behind it and then you actually melted. like, did you do a mix of some of the VFX sparks or did you have some kind of mechanism inside of that read the sparks?
Shane Dresch (20:06)
Yeah, the only VFX shot is when we've removed fishing line from the floating phone shot where it's kind of like self suspended. So even that was technically practical. We just needed to paint out the wires and everything other than that was completely practical. there was, I don't have the proper, it might not be the proper term, but in like Lord of the Rings, there's like a scene where they're climbing the mountain, the fellowship and.
somebody, I guess it's probably Frodo, drops the ring and then Boromir, I think, picks it up and there's like a close up shot of the ring in the snow. And I remember watching some BTS where they actually made like a super large version of the ring. And I think whether that's the exact time the term came out or like the towns, like the cities and castles that they would make, they were like miniatures, but they're really large scale miniatures. And I think they came up with the term bigatures. So I...
Mishu Hilmy (21:01)
they just-
Shane Dresch (21:03)
when thinking about zooming into the phone, I knew that was something that I wanted and I knew I've messed around with macrofilters and diopters enough to where I'm like, this is totally achievable, but maybe having a little more room to work would be better. So I ended up saving a few containers of protein powder and saving peanut butter, plastic cans and things of that nature. And then...
just over time, like sanding them down and like painting and seeing which like kind of plastic worked the best. And it ended up being like a Costco brand peanut butter container on the bottom, which wasn't even like a lot larger than the phone. It's just maybe double in size, but that allowed me to drill slightly bigger holes and then yeah, just have more room to work and have that like space. Once you do enter the phone to like.
move further and deeper into the phone and then just literally from the phones that were melted along the way I think there were 12 different phones that were no 15 different phones that were used in that process just like harvesting the wire when like gutting all those phones just like showing them into that peanut butter jar and that was definitely a shot that's like this is going to be a night to itself and this is just going be me out in there and hopefully the weather holds up but I will be out here as long as it takes too.
make this happen or if my one prop melts then I'll have a different problem.
Mishu Hilmy (22:27)
Right, because like you essentially have like one phone that looked realistic and then a bunch of these kind of peanut butter jar props or like then you have a couple of actual sort of normal sized phones and then a couple of the other you know plastic.
Shane Dresch (22:41)
Yeah, yeah, was mostly, I think it was 15 different, like, I can't remember, it's not Honeywell, but it's the brand of phone, like the old telephone, water kind. I had like 15 of those, the original five that I bought were kind of like that dark green. And I was like, I like this, because like green's a little semi-supernatural, a little like unnerving, planting a little bit of sci-fi hat nods up there.
But after that, ended up just like reaching out to the same guy. I actually have his card right here. I need to send him the video still, but Cliff the Telephone Man, it's never gonna lock onto it. It almost had it. Cliff the Telephone Man, very nice guy. He didn't understand what I was doing at all, but I was like, it's for a music video. And he's like, that's okay, whatever. But he ended up being nice. And I followed up after getting the original five and I'm like, my gosh, I need.
Mishu Hilmy (23:23)
There it is,
Shane Dresch (23:40)
I need more phones. And he was kind enough to like put up a separate order of just like 10 of those style. And I'm like, it doesn't matter what colors they are. It doesn't matter what condition they're in. Like I'm gonna clean them. I'm gonna paint them. So then I ended up getting a similar color paint to match and painting the rest. And there was really only the peanut butter jar was the only shot that was like specialty to that. The rest I could film with a lot of different.
lighting gags. think there was upwards of four to six different light sources and different kind of like between bike lights to like LED strips that you could run through them to just getting actual like tungsten Christmas lights because those actually have a burning filament so you could actually dim them from 100 % to zero. that was like the thing. I'm like this phone has to light up and it can't be like stepping incremental. It can't go from zero to 10 to 20 to 30. It needs to be a smooth transition.
So a lot of time was spent just figuring out like, okay, what do I have around me? What can I find online that can actually tell me in a review that it dims from zero to a hundred and Christmas lights. Christmas lights was the answer with like a hand dimmer. So many weird little things and just troubleshooting along the way, which was honestly one of the most enjoyable parts about the experience. Just how can I do this as DIY as possible? And it's not the best way and it's
definitely not the right way, but it is a way that at the end of the day, think I like honing in on things that's like, okay, if everything else like failed and burned and everybody like quit on me, like, could I still do this on my own? And you don't say that unless it's like a passion project or something of that nature. it's, kind of had to make sure that was the thing that was able to be done and whether it took me a little
Mishu Hilmy (25:23)
Alright, right.
Shane Dresch (25:37)
while longer to figure that out or not. That's kind of the end thing that had to happen. I needed to be able to make sure it could.
Mishu Hilmy (25:46)
Was this just sort of like a Google find this telephone guy or did you have a friend who knew like a dedicated telephone guy or the prop house linky?
Shane Dresch (25:54)
Yeah, I definitely talked to some prop houses just because I knew the one that was going to be hanging on the wall. Like nothing was going to happen to it. Sitting there. But I spent quite a bit of time at it's is it. I lived in Milwaukee for a while, so I can't remember if it's discounted village or Valley Village in town. So I went there just to see what was available and then eventually found that old style on eBay.
And from there, I think I found one version of that style phone in one of those discount stores and was like, this is great. I love the size. This is what I was thinking of the whole time. You can unscrew the earpiece and the mouthpiece. And then from there, just like figuring out what brand it was. Then it was a deep dive into eBay and trying to find how big of bulk you can buy them for cheap. And, you know, I think a lot of collectors and people like these things. So it's like, okay, how, where's the happy medium between them being like,
kind of gross, kind of banged up, but still look good and I can fix them up enough and buying multiples. So there's definitely a scary moment when I had the five and I'm like, I can do this, this is great. And then I was like, no, I don't even need the whole phones. I just need like the speaker, little caps, and I need a lot of those. So you just have to buy the whole phone to make that happen and it down. Cliff is an eBay hero. So, and I she's from Phoenix, Arizona.
Mishu Hilmy (27:19)
Did you have like a budget for those props? Did the artist kind of kick in or were you like, you know what, I'm really excited about this, I'll eat the cost. Like what, what's kind of the negotiation or the conversation you're having either with yourself or the, the artist.
Shane Dresch (27:30)
Yeah,
I would never recommend anybody do this unless it was just something that really excited you, which fortunately for me, it was that. I took on the cost of making it happen because I kind of knew what it could shape up to be. And so buying little things like, you know, the phone that's hanging on the wall, that's different than the phones that would be like hung on it normally, you know, it's like, oh, that's like $30 and these.
Mishu Hilmy (27:46)
Right.
Shane Dresch (27:59)
buying the phones is like $40 to $60 each time you're buying in bulk. And that was just like, still at the end of the day, pretty reasonable versus the idea of like trying to communicate to somebody and not that I couldn't explain very well what I was going for, but just how do you explain fully without there being somebody, somebody needed to spend a lot of time figuring it out. And I didn't feel it wouldn't have felt right to like.
put that burden onto somebody else, especially without paying them an exorbitant amount of money. that, the conversation definitely only happened once. And it was like, Hey, like if you give me creative control and you like what I'm saying, and I promise I'm not going to embarrass you. And you'll be able to see it at the end and approve it and everything. Like, let me take on the costs because I think we're at this beautiful moment of like,
I'm looking for great material to use and this is a very beautiful song and it's catching me at a very interesting time in my career. And I think that you could benefit from a good looking music video. And if you let me use your song and you I promise that you won't be embarrassed by what you see at the end. Then I think it helps everybody out. he was very upfront.
when reaching out to me and was like, hey, like I want to work with and collaborate with other Chicago artists and creatives. So by him reaching out and asking about those like Spotify visuals was, was him kind of building that relationship or him building that like world I think that he like wants to be. I'm like, Hey, I want to be collaborating with locals. I want to be collaborating with my community and him reaching out to me because he liked some of my stuff was a step in that direction. know, it was.
always from the foundation of, let's work together and let's collaborate with one another. And then me just turning it into however many 50, 60, 70 shots instead of just two is a bigger version of that.
Mishu Hilmy (30:01)
I was pretty impressed because said not necessarily the most acting experience, some theater background, but there is the stillness in that time lapse shot was really pretty impressive. And then him hitting the mark on the light on the eyes. So like how many takes did that take? Was it pretty, you know, take down the mark and they were able to just hit it pretty well because it was like a very narrow, narrow move.
Shane Dresch (30:23)
Yeah, yeah, the eye, it definitely took us a few run-throughs and we weren't always rolling on it. It also just so happened to be like wind came out of nowhere. And I know from like trying to do that effect in past projects years before, you can't really just use a Fresnel on the light to like hone it in, pulling the light back and like hanging two like pieces of particle board or something of that nature or cutting a slit in cardboard and hanging that up.
is the quickest way to get that done. But when it's windy, that changes that game a lot. So even though we were just on the sidewalk outside of my apartment, the wind was a massive factor because that's blowing it a little bit. And if he's super still and it's moving around, then that doesn't sell very well. There was also some sort of massive party that had just gone out in the area of edge of Humboldt Logan that I'm at. It is not.
a pop in area. It is not crazy. People aren't out late. It's not very rowdy. But we saw people like riding on top of cars and like they were like hanging out of windows. It was it was kind of wild. And I'm just like, this is like, of course, I would be mad or frustrated in this moment. But this is also just like mind blowing. Like this doesn't happen. Yeah. So between like that kind of being like a distraction for me, and I'm sure him, it definitely took us quite a few run throughs. I think
it being dark and not being able to see the mark as much. It was like, Hey, Mario, need you to just like walk this 20 times and I'm not going to say anything and you're just going to feel it out and you're going to count it. And through doing that quite a few times, we were able to get it. And I think at the end of it, was still like, you get so many that are like, that was good, but was it perfect? I would need to watch it back. But it just between the
people and like people would like pull up in like the background on like mopeds and just like stop and like just like watch us like see what we're doing. We're like, we see you like you're doing great. Between that and the wind, we're just like, we've got something I will find it in the edit and sure enough it was like, it wasn't even the take that I thought was gonna be the best one, but you put it in there in the part of the song you know you're gonna be using and you happen to notice something like his eyebrow like furrow like.
just to the perfect beat of the song or to a note of the piano and you're like, wow, I would never have anticipated that. I knew I wanted it to visual, but that just had to be, you had to bring in your favorite three to six takes or whatnot and line them up and you just kind of start noticing those other little beautiful moments where the visual accents the song really well.
Mishu Hilmy (33:04)
And did you also cut and grade this or did you have someone else at it?
Shane Dresch (33:08)
So I did the editing and then my roommate who's a fellow cinematographer, Bobby Dally, he came in and colored, but we were on a crazy timeline of him going to India for like, it was like two weeks or something like that. And it was to the point where I'm like, if this project doesn't get done and we have to wait two more weeks, it's not even like there was a deadline. It was just, can't let this go on forever because nobody's making a lot of money off of this. So yeah, it was kind of.
divided the work, me doing the edit, sending some stuff to him to color. And then I would like merge that with the edit that I had been currently doing. But there was like a night, I think I had gotten back from like a haunted mansion tour, because it was was around that time of Halloween and he needed to go to bed to catch a flight to India the next morning. So we had this like moment where like I saw him for like 17.
Maybe not even that, it was probably like 12 minutes and he was like, okay, we're gonna watch together. And we only were in the room for, yeah, that 12 minutes of being able to talk about things and see things to be push or pulled in the right direction. And I had so minimal feedback because he is excellent at what he does. I was already able to, you know, between some reference images and things of that nature, tell him what I was going for. And he just knocked it out of the park. And it was fortunate because he was there for most of the filming too. So he could kind of see what was already.
going on or what was being said.
Mishu Hilmy (34:33)
The initial pitch to final cut, what was the timeline? it four months, six months?
Shane Dresch (34:38)
I'm trying to think if it was June, July, August, September. I think it was supposed to be, we talked about it in like late August and then he, the artist mentioned like if he could have it done by like September and September for like the release of it. And then I think he started, we started meeting up and filming and I think through him kind of like seeing the time lapses on the bridge and seeing some of the stuff, he was like,
You can take as much, we can take more time. We can take the time we need. We don't need to rush this, which was great because there were, you know, sometimes like we wouldn't meet up for like a week or whatnot. And I would be like, I get a call to help out on popping in as like a swing on a feature for a weekend or something like that. And I would be working nights and be exhausted during that time. Great. Cause we could kind of like separate. And then when I got my ducks in a row prop wise and things of that nature, we were able to.
to meet up again and keep it going. So I would say if I had to be generous, it would be from early September, October. So it was probably over like two months of filming very casually, we got it done and the edit was, we came together very fast because I kind of knew where everything was gonna go, but then it was just the finessing of.
You know, you have something slotted for two seconds, but then you like it so much and you want to make it four, but that's got to come from somewhere else. And it can only be at the clip before or after it since the story's so honed in already.
Exactly. Oh man, it's amazing the amount of time that is spent just like clicking between the selects you've made. Cause it's like, this can go, no, probably nobody else will notice any of this, but I can tell that, yeah, do I want it to work out timing wise or do I, you know, push and pull and make different selects from the clip before and after just to make this become, I don't even know. It's the, the amount of options in editing are wild. Even when you know exactly what you want.
to see during that.
Mishu Hilmy (36:48)
What was your favorite part? Pre-production, shooting production or editing? What for you, at least for this one, really stood out?
Shane Dresch (36:57)
A little bit of, it's not a good answer, but a little bit of all of it. remember having a very beautiful moment of, I don't have like a work bench or anything in my apartment. And I've got like a 12 by 12 piece of like plywood that I was like leaning over and like drilling the phones and like, it must have been like late at night. And I've got like a noise machine to not bother my roommate as much. And I was like safety glasses on, drilling on over carpet with like a vacuum cleaner near me. And I kind of like looked up.
and like with my goggles and I just like look around, look down at what I'm doing and I'm like, my gosh, I love this. I love, I think it's just the creative problem solving is very exciting because innately within that it's play and it's creativity and it's you're just making art and it's like, this isn't for anything even. And like in a weird way, can't do it all the time, but in a weird way, it not having like the burden of
a price tag or a budget. That was all my call. And it was like, yeah, this is it not being like everybody getting paid like a super low amount or anything. There wasn't that many people involved. It just made it feel so much more like, yeah, like play. And I think when you're troubleshooting things and figuring it out, that like lights up a certain part of our brain that probably nine to fives, I don't think, would ever do unless you were doing this for your nine to five.
Mishu Hilmy (38:24)
Right, yeah. I'm curious around just like struggles in general because it seems like, know, once a project gets started, it's like, well, it's action begets action, right? So it's started. So you can maybe access that play. But like, did you find struggles and motivation to, you know, get those set dates? I'm just curious, where does the world of struggle kind of come for you versus say like, I don't have any projects. I don't have any action. I don't have anything that started.
Like, you find that once you started it was easier or did you still have difficulty staying motivated? I just want to kind of open that idea up.
Shane Dresch (38:58)
Yeah, definitely. think the hardest part, struggle wise, was, I guess it was the logistics of producing. Because I think there's so many times where it's like, can dream and put a song on repeat and have so much fun and figure out how to make these things come together and what it's going to look like and how to problem solve it. But then there's just the brass tacks of sitting down and being like, OK, when are we meeting up? Where are we meeting up?
Where's parking happening? How are you? meeting at the beach. Am I going around picking everybody up? Are we finding this place where I know there's free parking? Am I paying for parking? You know, if we get kicked out of there, what's our backup plan? And so like doing all of that, the reason why production crews are so big is because they have so many people. And the reason why they have so many people is because no one person should do all this stuff. Cause I don't think you physically can, you'll drop the ball or it will take forever. I let it take forever in this instance, but.
Mishu Hilmy (39:46)
Right.
Shane Dresch (39:54)
Yeah, just sitting down and plotting out all of that stuff or like, hey, like what's the best way to like order of shooting these shots, you know, like should we have, should we start the inserts first and then have the actor show up? And I think if there was like somebody there who is like asking me that questions versus you sitting alone with yourself and trying to think about all of the factors and all of the options, I think that would just make the process go so much quicker. So.
Definitely like choice paralysis of how to plan was a factor. And I think it was a necessary evil in this situation. And maybe I'll, I don't know if I'll keep doing all the, I'm sure for a while I'll be doing projects like this, just until I kind of have enough of that, that breadth of work to be like, here's, you know, five to 10 examples of projects that I really love doing. I think show what I do well and.
or what I want to do more of until I have that kind of little library. This is probably what it'll keep looking like project wise. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and there'll be some producer that's just like, put me in coach, let me help out. I'm available after my normal working hours during these times.
Mishu Hilmy (41:09)
to that challenge a lot because it's at the low budget, indie budget, zero budget level. It's, you you want to, like a UPM is gold. is it, because essentially what you're doing is solo unpaid project management with what you'd really be preferring to focus on is like the problems on set, your creative vision, whatever practical kind of skills can do. But now, you know, two to 10 hours a month or a week are dedicated toward administrative project management, producerial work.
And it's like not for me at least not very fulfilling. I don't mind jumping on a call and sending an email, but I know that it exerts a degree of effort that is a little bit harder to like find the play in. But like, know, you're trying to build this body of work, this portfolio. If you're aware of that, it's hard or a struggle. Like what kind of what price are you willing to pay to, you know, bring on a UPM or, you know, talk to artists say,
200 bucks or 400 bucks just so you do not worry about taking photos of the parking lot and making sure they're in the email or on the call sheet.
Shane Dresch (42:11)
was agreeing with everything you were saying so much there that I don't even know if I honed in on the question.
Mishu Hilmy (42:17)
Are you allowing yourself to think, instead of you carrying that weight, depending on what is the price you're willing to pay or you can build up to or find relationships where it's like maybe someone's fresh out of college or whatever, even though that sounds exploitative, to let that go versus, I know in the DIY world, it's like, I'll just do it all. But then you find yourself potentially burning out on like, yeah.
Shane Dresch (42:43)
The best way I can answer that is I think it comes from a place of feeling like what you're asking is a burden. And I think you can take that burden away because now it's a job. And I think I have to. And I mean, I can think back to like, you know, 2012 and like pitching to friends like, I've got this idea for this project and you don't have to do it, but I'll tell you about it. And if you're interested and
Mishu Hilmy (42:50)
Yeah.
Shane Dresch (43:13)
Of course they were like, this sounds great, like let's do it. It sounds like fun. But I think part of me is like trying to be respectful of like, I know that not everybody is like me and that I can be, yeah, crawling around on my hands and knees, drilling things at 2 a.m. And I'm like, this is fun. I like this. But I don't want to just assume that's the case for other people. And so I'd have to know them very well or like get the feeling that they're like,
Hey, I'm here to have fun or I'm here to learn from this experience. So it's not that that door or that conversation is closed in any way. just either need to take the time, like actively seeking out those people, which I may not have done or bumped into the right people. And at the end of the day, coming from like, maybe it's a insecurity aspect, like you go to like networking events and you meet people and it's so funny how like
I feel like anytime you go to an event where there's other filmmakers, you probably already follow half of them on social media, but you don't even know and aren't aware of it. So I think it's really cool when you are talking to somebody and they're like, oh my gosh, I saw this thing. I loved it though, so cool. And they're like, let me know when you do the next thing or whatnot. And I think after hearing so many friends say that, I don't know why it hasn't sunk in yet because this project could have had, I'm sure,
dozens of people, you know, who would have like showed up. I think I can't tell, and this is just me talking out loud, I can't tell if it's like, I'm waiting to call in that favor for like the thing that I actually can't do alone or whether it's just a really hard thing to ask. So it's like hard to ask for help in general. And I know I can do it, but I just don't think I wanna.
waste anybody's time and maybe that's the insecurity comes from. It's like, I think I can figure this out, but I don't care if I waste my own time, but if I waste other people's time and this thing doesn't work out, that I've been a part of projects like that in the past. And I fear or loathe the idea of looking at the people who've spent their time and donated time and talent to something and being like, sorry, it didn't work out. Like, that might just be crippling fear of that too.
Mishu Hilmy (45:33)
Yeah, I I relate to it. I usually chalk it up to like guilt, fear and insecurity. Right. Like that's just kind of bubbling up and like to not, you know, make those asks. But ultimately, the need that's not being met is trust. Right. Because I think there's a degree I think of. I just think about myself a lot. The trust issue of I am projecting what like they find valuable or what I'm extracting from them versus to trust a grown adult who's like
consenting to whatever experience that they want to have, right? Like I think artisan to artisan, it's easy because you have a shared language and go like, yeah, you want to grip on this. Like you've been wanting to experiment with exterior lighting setups, maybe you're 22 and you've mostly been doing studio interior work. So you can easily see the value that they're getting by just being on set twice for this 10 day project and learning. So maybe the ass doesn't feel as intense versus
someone who might be doing something a little bit more left brain or administrative and go, I can't imagine how this wouldn't just be a complete waste of time for them. So there's that like lack of trust in just saying, I'm not like responsible for how someone chooses to extract value or gain from this experience. But what I'm doing is I'm letting my fear and security say, I can't even ask the question because they'll be offended.
Shane Dresch (46:57)
Yeah, yeah. And you're absolutely right. Like I'm sure people who AD and do producing or do pre-location scouting or knows what it is, financing, getting people paid or writing contracts, like there's still creativity in that. There's still problem solving in that. There's still challenges. like, us knowing that that's heavy work for myself or for you, it's like, yeah, it could be as simple as that where it's like, I can't imagine.
somebody would want to do that. But it's not the case and how dare I assume that as well.
Mishu Hilmy (47:31)
Right. It's again, it's also like the trust in like, no, anyone can say no. So it's like, how can I integrate part of my pre-production or my workflow to say, I'm going to try and send 10 emails or 10 DMs and go, hey, I'm doing this low budget thing. I'm looking for a UPM or looking for whatever. And to get those nine no's and then maybe a 40 year old or a 20 year old who's been wanting to move away from X department into this department. So, you know what? I'm curious. And then it's again, like navigating the trust and expectations of like that new relationship.
Because yeah, the DIY spirit's like, well, I can do it, but the control freak spirit is also, you know, it creates some necessary exhaustion and you can't build a team over time unless you like learn, okay, this person who was down for it, their emails weren't up to par with what I like, but maybe I just tell them that. Maybe I find a different person or next time around, I notice that better expectations on communication cadences.
Shane Dresch (48:27)
Absolutely. And I think the scope of the project, I'm trying to work all of this into like the process of a project too, because there was like a horror thing that I did a couple of years ago and I actually ended up directing it because it was like a week before the deadline. I finally like had the idea where I was like, okay, this is greenlit in my mind because I like the idea now enough. I had somebody else.
be the cinematographer, I reached out to a friend to be like producer on that and there was like four talents, four actors in it. And it was the biggest crew that I had on like a very short, fast turnaround time thing too. But like for that, why wasn't it hard for me to reach out when that was the case? And it's like, is it because I relinquish control of the visuals or is it because I knew right off the bat that there was gonna be dealing with contracts and I...
would have to learn so much and there just physically wasn't even enough time versus the project I just did now, which was like, well, there's no time limit other than myself and how long. So it's like trying to compare the two or like understand the circumstances of like what dictates you shouldering everything or what dictates you at the drop of a hat reaching out. And that's not a problem at all. It's like, why can't it be like that all the time? And that's, it's three.
Mishu Hilmy (49:49)
building that awareness, right? knowing what works for you and go like, yeah, this is the degree of abstraction, right? Like the more personal it is, maybe the more guarded you are versus the more mercenary it is. You're like, yeah, of course I would reach out to a lawyer or a PM or whatever. knowing your sort of pitfalls and going there. Just to wrap things up, I'm curious, two things, what are you looking forward to in the new year? And then what's one small thing you've been doing that's allowed you to really
explore your creativity.
Shane Dresch (50:20)
Yeah, something that I'm looking forward to in the new year is I've had a soft goal of... Maybe it's a hard goal now. The past five months or so, was like, within the next calendar year, I want to be on a feature. And I've hopped in at points in time to help out for a weekend here or there, whatnot, on a feature when they need extra hands. And the last feature that I was on was back in 2012 when I was in...
art intern in college. So that was a whole different experience completely because being on art, you're like not even really with the set very much. You're there before and when you're there off days, you're building the set that they're to be using the next week. So definitely want like a continuous stream of filming. think that would just be so much fun because I do get a lot of joy of being there and even being freelancers allowed me to hop into like a single role verse before I was
doing every role, you're shooting, you're camera operating, you're grip, you're AC, you're everything. So being like on set and being a grip, it's like, oh my gosh, this is so much fun. Like I don't have to worry about all the pre-pro, is so much, being present in problem solving, it's a blast. So looking forward to hopefully finding my way into a feature. And in the meantime, that was what it was phrased as, in the meantime, something that's keeping me going.
Mishu Hilmy (51:46)
small thing that's like one small thing you've been doing that's been helping your know creativity whether it's practical or you know principle or philosophical
Shane Dresch (51:53)
That project that I just got done was definitely a big, like I needed that. That was scratching so many itches of play and having an idea and then like figuring out how to make that happen or how to make those visuals happen. Cause you can see it in your head and then being able to tinker around and play with things until you can get it there and finding that beautiful like
I don't know if it's Occam's razor's edge or whatever, the beautiful cusp of what is the highest quality thing that you can reach for and how can you do it and pull it off? Because if it was like, oh, we're to do an alien abduction thing and the person's going to get sucked up into the sky, it's like, well, how do we do that then? And finding that how well you can achieve something,
I think there's just that beautiful, how high can you shoot and actually make the shot, you know? That's been really fun. that was, there was very few times where the scope was higher than what was achieved. Cause I think that was like a massive confidence boost. Like I want to do this. How can we do it? And if we can't do it, we're not going to waste time on it, but I think we can. And writing to that I think is.
what's going to make something successful or not. Shooting too high for what your budget is means you need to, once you get that budget, you rework it to match that. And if you don't have a budget at all and you are willing to spend a few dollars and more time, then you can play and figure that out. But I'm trying to think of just other things in the meantime. Dungeons and Dragons has been a thing that's been upticking in recent years with some friend groups. So there'll be so many times where you're tired,
have too much, too many things to do. And you're like, okay, now I'm going to go just like sit and mess around with my friends. Like that sounds, or like even like new people I've never met before. I'm going to go be, have like, try to force fun with people I don't even know yet. Like that sounds exhausting. And then you show up and you hear somebody do like a voice and you're like, that was fun. And then you like, you botch a role completely and you have to come up with a hilarious scenario. And then it turns into improv and it's just like, my gosh, we're just being silly and like,
Yeah, we could all die in this scenario, but I don't know. It's fun to create those environments of like play. I think when you, they say the same thing about meditation where it's like the people who don't have time to meditate are the people who need to meditate the most. And I think that that is always and every single time proven to me where it's like, yeah, I didn't think I needed to, I didn't think I had the time for a.
creative endeavor or to sit down or to brainstorm and listen to a song and over and over on repeat. It's like, no, you do and you probably actually need it depending on who you are. Well, this has been excellent, whatever, if we do this again, it needs to be a lot more with you adults. There was so many questions this direction, but not enough the other way.
Mishu Hilmy (55:12)
Well, thank you so much. was great chatting. Totally stuff to work on for me, at least. But yeah, Shane, was absolutely...
Shane Dresch (55:18)
Yeah, Mishy, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.
Mishu Hilmy (55:27)
Before sending you off with a little creative prompt, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Mischief and Mastery. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support does mean a lot. Until next time, keep taking care of yourself, your likeness, curiosity, and sense of play. And now for a little Mischief motivation. Okay, yeah, here's a fun little prompt. Next time you hear a song that just really grabs you,
Close your eyes and let your mind wander. See what images come up, what colors, movements, settings, and then take 30 seconds to jot down whatever you see, feel, thoughts, no pressure, just play. So yeah, that's the prompt. Listen to a song and muse about it. Give yourself 30 seconds. Do it now. Do it when you get home. Do it anytime to just do the less than bare minimum. No, no, no, no, no, no. Do have your...
Do it when you get home, know. a zero, what do they call it? Non-zero days. Have a non-zero days. Just do it for 30, 60 seconds. All right, yeah, I don't know, it's kinda crazy, but it's cool.