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Your new movies The Bottom
Dweller and The Golden
Boys - in a few words, what are they about?
The Bottom
Dweller is about a married couple
who receive half a million Dollars from
the IRS, completely by accident, in their tax refund. They cash
the check and decide what to do with the money, with some sense of
paranoia as to whether or not the IRS might be after them.
The Golden
Boys is about two lifelong friends,
one of which talks the other into helping track down a serial bank
robber for a reward. They enlist the help of some colorful characters,
all of which are conspiracy theorists and fans of the TV show The Golden
Girls. You play a lead role in both The
Bottom Dweller and The
Golden Boys - so what can you tell us about your characters, how
do they compare, and have you written them with yourself in mind from the
get-go? And do you see yourself more as a director who also acts or as an
actor who also directs, out of necessity or for whatever other reason?
In The Bottom
Dweller, I saw Cameron as
sort of an impulsive weakling. Someone with very little capability, but
also very little fear. And not so much out of ignorance. Just, not able
to help himself haha. I thought that'd be balanced out pretty nicely
with Patricia, the wife, being more level-headed. He's also very much in
love with Patricia, and sees them as a team that's meant to work
together. If he does something she doesn't want, it's just because he
acts before he thinks. It's never to purposefully go against her wishes.
In The Golden
Boys, Antho is much less
impulsive. Always has a plan, always sure of himself, always knows... or
at least thinks he knows exactly what's going to happen. He's assertive,
analytical. Sort of a big fish in a small pond. Also, a very devoted
friend. He likes to give Hans crap, but as with most lifelong
friendships, that comes from a place of love.
The characters are similar in that they both have trouble sitting still
for too long, haha. They're good people. They have a lot of energy.
They're outgoing. That's not like me. I'm generally more introverted.
But I played Antho as someone who is sure of himself. Confident. I
leaned toward people as I spoke to them, always tried to keep an
expression like I was thinking things through, or planning my next move.
With Cameron, I tried to play him a little more like he was making
things up as he went along, or didn't know what the heck was going on.
And for some scenes I'd pull my elbows in a little bit to try and appear
thinner or weaker. I didn't want to give the impression that Cameron was
overly capable, haha.
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I wrote The Bottom
Dweller with
myself and my wife in mind. I thought we'd work well with each other and
would have good on-screen chemistry. and I trusted our comedic timing.
The more emotional scenes, I thought we'd be able to do with some
genuine feeling, since we were doing them together. But with The Golden
Boys, we wrote it with my brother Anthony in mind. That
high-energy behavior, and the dynamic between Hans and Antho in the
movie, is actually a lot more similar to Anthony's real-life personality
and relationship with Hans. Unfortunately, he didn't have the
availability to act as one of the leads, so I stepped in. But I kept the
name, Antho, haha. I'm definitely more of a director who also acts. I started as a
director, always and only stepping into a role out of necessity. But
after years of acting, and eventually doing a film called Confined,
I found that I wanted to really put more of myself into my performances
and take acting more seriously. I've been studying and honing my skills
as an actor a lot more ever since, and now I do consider myself an actor
as well as a director. But directing is my passion. My first love, haha. Let's
talk about The Bottom
Dweller first: What were your inspirations when writing this, and
is any of it based on personal experiences?
So, The Bottom
Dweller was
meant to be a small-scale, simple thing that we could just film. I
wanted to write something I could shoot with my wife, so we wouldn't
have to worry about scheduling a large cast or crew. We were at this
point where we just wanted to film something. I've been writing for a
long time, and it's not uncommon to take on an exercise of writing a
story with limitations. X amount of locations, or X amount of actors. So
that was the basis, was to write something that had, more or less, just
me and my wife in it, and it built from there. We could be alone for
most of it if we were on-the-run, or moving from place to place. It
would have to be dialogue-heavy. So, I set the rules first, then started
writing. This is something you have to do when you don't have the money
to write 12 locations and 20 actors haha.
I worked at a tax firm for a little over 2 years. I got my IRS Enrolled
Agent's license and everything. So, I knew quite a bit about the IRS at
this time, which helped spur on the idea of just happening into money
from a tax refund, instead of something typical happening, like stealing
money, or embezzling, or winning the lottery or whatever. Plus, for most
people, the IRS is a scary, kind of mysterious entity, so I felt like it
would work well for these people to have this looming, but vague
paranoia from an organization that they knew very little about. And,
knowing a bit about the IRS myself, I felt comfortable writing about a
couple who were in the dark about what to expect.
What can you tell us
about the film's look and feel? Well, The Bottom
Dweller was
meant to feel simplistic in style. The story wasn't flashy, not really.
It's about this couple, and how they deal with adversity together, and
how they work as a team, and how they feel about each other. It's about
the people, and their eventual potential surprise when they're talking
to each other in the tent, haha. Having money land in your lap and this
other lifechanging thing are meant to be a symbolic parallel. The film
is a peek into, maybe, how they might be as parents. Kind of a
not-so-hidden theme. But because of that theme, I opted for long,
unbroken cuts, focusing on the dialogue. The communication. It was
important to me to have the conversation in the tent be one take, for
instance. It needed to feel intimate in that way. A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere?
The shoot itself was kind of a funny story. Me and my wife had a couple
of trips planned. And shortly after those trips, we were going to be
moving to another state. So here I was with this script, and very little
time to shoot it. The hotel is one that we stayed at for our
anniversary, and my wife was gracious enough to set aside time for
filming during our anniversary trip. The teepee was a camping trip we
were going on with family. Again, we set aside some time for filming.
And anything in our house, we had to shoot relatively tight shots,
because we were moving. So, as we filmed, more and more of our stuff was
being packed up. This made it a little stressful to film, because it
felt like we were under a constant time constraint. But also, since we
were filming on the go, we did not have the opportunity for any
reshoots. We did not have access to return to any of the locations where
we shot, including our house. What we had was what we had. That being
said, we had a lot of fun filming, and we're both pretty good at
becoming professional once the camera is on. Same
for The Golden Boys
- what were your sources of inspiration?
I had a very small budget for The Golden Boys.
Around $700. Because of the small budget, I knew it was gonna look
indie. So I leaned into it. I wanted it to feel like a 1990's indie comedy. I would've loved for it to feel more like
Tommy
Boy, which was definitely an inspiration. Because of the budget, I
knew it would feel a little more like Swingers
or Clerks, which also offered some inspiration.
I wanted the dynamic and relationship between the main characters, as
well as the absurdity of the side-characters to feel like Tommy
Boy, but it was gonna have to be dialogue heavy and rely on the
jokes and the conversation being funny, like Clerks and Swingers.
Hans Sardo, the star, also happens to be a hilarious stand-up comedian.
It helps to work with someone that funny. They can sometimes offer
themselves as a source of inspiration haha. Having written The
Golden Boys together with Anthony Algiers (any relation I wonder),
what was the writing process like?
I was still editing my film Confined
at the time. I was all amped up and wanted to write the next project
once I was done editing. So I was having dinner with my brother
Anthony. Anthony is a brilliant writer. I'd argue even better than me.
I told him that I wanted to do a road-trip style buddy comedy, because
that would allow for us to introduce each character individually. That
way, we wouldn't need more than 4 actors on set at any given time. On a
whim, I said the premise of the film, just as an example. Two guys track
a serial bankrobber for the reward, and they meet interesting people
along the way. Anthony liked the basic idea and said we should pursue
it, so we started mapping out the story. We bounced ideas off of each
other and got through the entire plot of the film very quickly. We even
worked out several details in the movie. Names of characters, little
events that happened. From conception to a complete workup of the story
structure it took maybe an hour. This is very unusual for it to happen
this quickly. Now, to be clear, Anthony has a strong foundation as a
writer, starting first as a short-story writer before writing several
novels and then studying screenwriting. I've been writing since I was
in high school, and have been studying screenwriting ever since. We are
pretty skilled writers. I say this to point out that the speed in which
this story came together was a bit of an anomaly, haha. Me and Anthony
have worked on other projects with each other. Often in the same room,
working out the details, problem-solving. It can take a long time. But
this script just came together. We fleshed it out, got all of the
details, backgrounds on the characters that would explain why things pan
out the way they do. It was very weird, haha. Because we were able to
put this together so quickly, and since I was still editing my last
film, Anthony took the reins, writing the first draft, then giving it to
me to finalize a 2nd draft.
It was probably the smoothest that any of our writing projects have ever
gone. Do talk
about your directorial approach to your story at hand! I love Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock, and I like to think of
them as the standard for some of the best directing you'll ever see, but
with complete opposite styles and approaches. Kubrick loved to lean
heavily into symbolism, which I often like to do in my scripts.
Hitchcock wasn't a fan of symbolism, and generally had a practical
reason for why he shot the way he shot. I took the more Hitchcockian
approach with The
Golden Boys. It's supposed to
be funny. It's supposed to be entertaining. I approached shot-choice
with what best served the storytelling, and the comedy of the situation.
I believe that getting fancy and symbolic would've taken away from the
film, as opposed to The Bottom
Dweller, which
obviously had more symbolism in it. The Bottom
Dweller, I focused a lot more on showcasing the dialogue to make it
feel intimate, since it was largely about this couple and how much they
mean to each other.
Again, to talk about the
shoot as such! The shoot was an absolute blast. Shooting a comedy is always fun, and
you spend a lot of time cracking up. But on top of that, working with
such a funny cast was so amazing. Hans Sardo, Daniel Mills, and Robert
Dunne are all particularly skilled at improvisation, so they often had
us cracking up, and even came up with lines that ultimately made it into
the final script. To be clear, the film wasn't very improv heavy. I'd go
so far as to say that 96% of what's in the final film was scripted. I'm
just pointing out that these guys were so good at it, that they managed
to improvise something good enough to make it into the final product,
haha. Really great guys, all of them. The main struggle in the
filmmaking process was, we didn't have a crew, really. We had approached
cinematographers and sound engineers to help us get a more professional
look, but they ultimately dropped out, leaving us to do it ourselves,
which was definitely a struggle. It was a ton of work. But as
professional and hardworking as everyone was, you'd never know it. With both films being sort-of thrillers,
what can you tell us about your rather unique approach to the genre? These comedies are sort of thrillers, yes, at least in premise. That
probably has more to do with my approach to fiction than anything else.
I believe that if you're going to do fiction, you should jump in with
both feet. You can have a funny film about two guys trying to make it to
the post office before they close. But why? Who cares? Let's have the
same funny film, but with the two guys trying to make it to a bomb under
the opera house before it explodes. You can have a beautiful character
piece about a father and son in an apartment. Or you could have that
same character piece in space. Cops and robbers is just the setting.
Execution of the script is what's most important. So, if I had Cameron
and Patricia have all of the same conversations, but without the IRS
stuff, or if I had Hans and Antho say all the same jokes, but without
the Billy Goat Bandit - well, chances are the films would be okay. But
now they're just movies about relationships or friendship, about life.
Instead of a movie about a couple on the run from the IRS and also about
relationships. Or a movie about a serial bank robber, and also
friendship. Anything I ever want to say about life, death,
relationships, loss, depression, etc. I always approach it with the idea
that there should be a backdrop on which I get to express my thoughts on
these subjects. I tend to believe that it's a heck of a lot more
difficult to entertain an audience than it is to write some long,
introspective, philosophical, pretentious film, haha. I've seen some
brilliant, deep indie films that went nowhere because they were boring.
But how often do you see an indie film that actually makes you laugh? I
think a film rooted in reality, you can make all the same statements as
you can in a hardcore fiction. So, when I write a comedy, I have to give
it a little more than just being funny.
Also,
do talk about your movies' brand of comedy? Honestly, I'd say it's a little difficult to pin down what I'd call
my brand of comedy. But it's fair to say that I prefer wit over sarcasm.
Aside from that, I pull from a lot of different sources for inspiration.
If I had the resources, I'd probably try and do a lot more physical
comedy, slapstick, Buster Keaton type of stuff [Buster
Keaton bio - click here]. Since I had to rely more
on dialogue for these films, I thought more of Abbott and
Costello, or
standup monologues, or even the classic misunderstanding in any of the
best sitcoms. I'm sure some professor will hear that and say it's
peasant humor, but I maintain the belief that it's difficult to
entertain an audience. It's an art in and of itself. So, I suppose my
brand of comedy is an amalgamation of any source that I appreciate. And
I do try and find a flow in which the dialogue will work. It sounds
funny, but it's almost like music. Specific words and the order or
rhythm in which they're spoken are funnier than others. I do pay
attention to the rhythm and word-choice of my comedic dialogue. Needless
to say, I find dialogue very important, haha. They say show, don't tell,
but great dialogue can make a film. And bad dialogue can ruin an
otherwise great film. I place a lot of importance on the dialogue,
especially in comedies. The
Bottom Dweller and The
Golden Boys feature more or less the same cast - so why these
people, and what made you come back to them? My wife has often had to step in for films of mine where the actress
I had on board had to drop out last minute. Because of this, she's
actually gotten a decent amount of acting experience. I always had her
in mind for the part of Patricia in The
Bottom Dweller. But The
Golden Boys was
another case of there being an actress who was interested, but
unavailable. So Bri had to step in. What's funny is we had Bri in mind
when we wrote the part of Cat-Thrine in The
Golden Boys, but more so as inspiration. We tried to get a different
actress to play her, but ended up using Bri after all. Hans Sardo
happens to be my cousin. But he's also a hilarious stand-up comedian,
and a classically trained actor. He's an absolute natural in front of
the camera. I love working with him, and hope to work with him again in
the near future. Anthony Algiers is my brother, co-writer of The
Golden Boys. I had him in mind for Stanley in The
Bottom Dweller, but again, we actually had someone else in mind for
the part of _thor_, but that actor ended up not being available, and
Anthony had to step in last minute. So, both Anthony and my wife Bri
were in The
Golden Boys more or less, by
accident. Robert Dunne and Daniel Mills were both in The
Golden Boys. I'd worked with them before on a short film, and they
were both so good and so professional. I was very lucky that they
wanted to work with me again on this film, and I'd love to work with
them again on future projects. The $64
question of course, where can The
Bottom Dweller and The
Golden Boys be seen?
The
Bottom Dweller: https://tubitv.com/movies/680810/the-bottom-dweller
https://watch.plex.tv/movie/the-bottom-dweller-2022
The
Golden Boys: https://tubitv.com/movies/705185/the-golden-boys
https://watch.plex.tv/movie/the-golden-boys-4
Anything you can tell us
about audience and critical reception of your movies? Since they're streaming online on Tubi and Plex, I haven't had a
chance to see audience reception when it comes to the majority of
viewers for these films. I had a number of private screenings for The
Golden Boys, and was very pleased with the reactions. People liked
it, they thought it was funny. I didn't get to do that with The
Bottom Dweller, unfortunately. But it was well received. The
Bottom Dweller was a semi-finalist in a film
festival, while becoming a finalist in another. The vast majority of
people who have approached me about the films, whether online or not,
really only had positive things to say. And the vast majority of critics
have been giving both films positive reviews. There was one critic who
gave The
Golden Boys a less
than favorable review, but to be honest, it was hard to take that review
seriously. It read like he wrote the review before he even started
watching it, haha. Or like he didn't pay attention, just having it on in
the background while doing other things. At one point they said it was
obvious that we relied heavily on improvisation. I told you before,
easily 96% of the film was right off the page. It was written to feel
natural, like a conversation between friends. It was written to feel
like banter. The poor critic didn't realize he accidentally complimented
me, haha. Any
future projects you'd like to share?
I always have a "next" project. Between me and my brother
Anthony, we have 8 or 9 completed feature-length scripts, just waiting
to be filmed. Some of them were shelved for one reason or another. We
don't have the budget to shoot it ourselves, so we're shopping them
around some producers who might be interested. Or we need to build up
the funds ourselves before shooting a particular project. And we're
always working on new scripts. Aside from those completed projects, I'm
about a third of the way through another feature-length script. We are
not short on ideas, haha.
As
for filming, I'm currently working on another comedy with my wife. A
bottle script. It takes place in one location, in one night. In fact,
we're supposed to start filming in about a week or so. The few that have
read the script have all come back saying they think it's hilarious and
they want to be a part of it. We also have a horror film that we have on
the backburner. We really want to shoot that horror film once we're done
with this comedy, but it will require a bit more of a budget. So, we'll
need to build up those funds so we can get that movie made as well. It's
part of the reason for why I started a Patreon. I need patrons in order
to fund movies like that horror film, haha. What got you into
the filmworld in the first place, and did you receive any formal training
on the subject?
My dad introduced me to classic films at a young age. When I was
around 10 or 11, we started going through the American Film Institute's
top 100 lists. We started with the 100 Thrills list, watching whatever I
was old enough to watch. So I was 11 or 12, saying that my favorite
films were Cool Hand Luke, The General
and Bonnie and Clyde.
In fact, I'd say that Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid was the first movie I saw that made
me realize that there were incredible films out there that I hadn't even
heard of. It made me want to watch them all.
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By the time I was 15 or 16, I knew so much about American films and
their history that I could've been considered a film historian. I'd
seen so many of them. I wanted to start making my own, so I got into
writing. Shortly after I started writing, I got into photography and
editing, and I taught myself piano. Learning all of the peripheral arts,
to me, was always going to lead to making me a better filmmaker. Or at
least, taking all things into account when I finally started filming.
I never went to school for film production, so I wasn't taught how to do
sound or cinematography, but I had been taught editing and having taken
photography, I understood light theory, composition, all that stuff.
Unfortunately, it doesn't all translate when you step into the role of
cinematographer, haha. I'm not as good at cinematography as I'd like to
be. I'm studying more about it now. That's always been my way. If I
don't know something, I study it until I become well-versed in it. I'm
always teaching myself how to get better and better at all the things
that are necessary to make a great film. Of course what would be more
ideal is to hire someone who's already an expert in it, haha, but you
can't always afford to do that, so you gotta make it work yourself. What can you tell us about your filmwork
prior to The Bottom
Dweller and The
Golden Boys?
I've had experience on a few sets here and there, short films,
television. But when it comes to my own stuff, I made short films for
years and years. You learn a lot from making short films. A number of
them were well-received, if not well-known. One of my horror short-films
actually ended up being an award winner at a film festival, which was
pretty cool. The Good Samaritan was
probably my best short film. That was where I first worked with Daniel
Mills and Robert Dunne, who later worked with me on The Golden Boys.
Funny enough, when quarantine hit, that's what ultimately lit the fire
under me to take the leap and film a feature-length movie. Again, I
spoke to my brother Anthony, bouncing ideas off of him, as per usual. I
told him that since we were stuck in quarantine, we needed to shoot a
feature-length film in quarantine with one actor in one location. At first, he suggested that we do it as a short, and I told him that if
it wasn't feature-length, then it wouldn't be worth doing. He ended up
agreeing with me. So, we came up with the idea of a man waking up with
his ankle chained to the floor of a cellar. Food and water are just out
of reach, and he has to use only what's on him to try and figure out how
to get the food and water and how to survive until someone finds him.
With it being our first feature-length film, and not having a cast or a
crew, we decided to start shooting without telling anyone. We didn't
know if we'd even be able to finish it, so we figured we'd keep it to
ourselves. I went over to the cellar and we shot over night until the sun
came up. Just the two of us. This went on for maybe a month and a half.
And there were a couple of days when a close friend, Ellen, came over as
well. She knows cameras better than me, so there were a few days where I
had her come in and operate the camera for us. That was it though. Just
us 3. We finished the film before anyone knew about it, including two of the
voice actors who would become a part of the film, haha. I approached a
couple of people, telling them I needed their voice for a film, they
asked when I was shooting, and I told them I had already finished, haha.
That film is called Confined. I released it for
free on YouTube. It was very well received. This was the film I was
editing when me and Anthony came up with the idea for The
Golden Boys.
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How would you describe yourself as
an actor, and how as a director?
As an actor I'd say, I'm expressive. I rely heavily on my ability to
get a point across with a look, haha. I think a twitch of the eye or the
raise of an eyebrow adds so much to what's being said. That being said,
I think I'm still honing my craft as an actor. It's quite often that I
end up acting while also directing. It's difficult to concentrate on
your performance when you're directing. I'd love to act more often in
projects where I'm not also directing haha.
As a director, I guess the way I'd describe myself is, I'm the
storyteller. As basic as that sounds, I'd argue that my style is not
going to be the same from film to film. Certainly not genre to genre. I
have to take into account the reason why I'm shooting the way I'm
shooting. Identify the point of what you're shooting, and showcase that
point. If I'm leaving a long uncut shot, or doing frequent cuts and
edits, or if the camera's far away or comes in close, no matter what I'm
doing, there's a reason for it. I feel like a lot of indie filmmakers
mistake cinematography and directing as the same thing. They have this
long take of a beautiful sunset. And the picture is gorgeous, and we're
staring at this beautiful picture for 15 seconds. If you asked them why
we're staring at it, they wouldn't be able to tell you, haha. It's just
a pretty picture, and they wanted to show it off, and that, in their
mind, is a strong decision as a director, when really, it's more of a
strong decision as a cinematographer. So, I direct in the way that I
believe will best tell the story to a large audience, and evoke an
emotional response. Whether that's laughter, or tension, whatever. I'm
shooting specifically to serve and entertain the audience that will
eventually watch it.
Filmmakers, actors,
whoever else who inspire you? I'm inspired by so many people. As a writer and filmmaker I'm very
much inspired by Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley
Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow, John Milius, the Coen
Brothers, William Goldman, Stan Lee, Akira Kurosawa, and obviously
Spielberg and Coppola. As an actor, I'm drawn to Buster Keaton [Buster
Keaton bio - click here] and
Charlie Chaplin, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, Marlon
Brando, Robin Williams, and who comes as a surprise to a lot of people,
Nicolas Cage, haha. Love him. That's just a few names on a very, very
long list. Your favourite movies? I believe there's a difference between favorite and best. For
instance, Rocky I think is
one of the best movies ever made. Rocky IV is
one of my favorites, haha. So, for best, let's also throw in The
Godfather, City Lights, and maybe The
Shining. And for favorite, I'm gonna throw in Just Friends,
Airplane, The General and
The Princess Bride. Just to name a few on what again is a very long list
haha. ...
and of course, films you really deplore?
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I'm not often asked that question. I hesitate to say
any by name, haha, but let's go with a number of terrible sequels to
great horror films. Jason X,
Jason Takes Manhattan,
Halloween 6, just awful. Your/your
movies' website, social media, whatever else?
My website, Patreon, films, YouTube and Instagram are all in my
LinkTree. I appreciate followers on any and all of these links: https://linktr.ee/AOProd
Anything
else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? Nothing comes to mind. Just spread the word, tell your friends about
my films. Thanks
for the interview!
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