Podcast: Don't Kill the Messenger with Movie Research Expert Kevin Goetz 
Guest:  Writing, Directing, and Producing team, Will Speck and Josh Gordon
Interview Transcript:

Announcer (00:02):

There's a little-known part of Hollywood that most people are not aware of, known as the audience test preview. The recently released book Audienceology reveals this for the first time. Our podcast series, Don't Kill the Messenger brings this book to life, taking a peek behind the curtain. And now join author and entertainment research expert, Kevin Goetz.

Kevin Goetz (00:24):

We were hopping and bobbing to the Crocodile Rock, well. <laugh>. Listen, I couldn't resist singing a little of this song since my company tested Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile just a couple years ago. 

Josh Gordon (00:37):

That was great. Pretty impressive.

Kevin Goetz (00:38):

My singing or the movie?

Josh Gordon (00:40):

Well, both.

Kevin Goetz (00:41):

<laugh> Thank you. Listeners, I have the dynamic directing, producing, and writing duo with me today. Will Speck and Josh Gordon. They originally met in film school and since then, their live action short film Culture was nominated for an Academy Award in the late nineties. They've directed six feature films together, including Blades of Glory, Office Christmas Party, and Lyle Lyle Crocodile. They've directed hundreds of commercials and they currently have a cool animated series on Hulu that they co-created and are writers on Marvel’s Hit Monkey. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.

Josh Gordon (01:20):

Great to be here.

Kevin Goetz (01:21):

Thanks for having us.

Josh Gordon (01:22):

Yeah, great to see you in a different context. Yeah. Normally when we see you, we're so nervous 'cause we're like about to premiere the movie for the first time in front of an audience. This is so nice to like dig in in a, in a more relaxed way.

Kevin Goetz (01:34):

I have a little PTSD, I have to tell you. Of course. So does everybody that, and I hope I don't get that karma when I preview a movie. Actually, I financed a movie during Covid and I tested it and it went horribly. I really did it as a test case for my new book coming out, which is called How to Score in Hollywood. Wow. You guys met at film school, as I said. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about that and why you bonded.

Josh Gordon (02:00):

I mean, it was a pretty unorthodox thing at the time. I think we became friends in our sort of second year. We were both transfer students into the film program. I transferred from the writing school at NYU and Will transferred from Bennington where he was an acting major. And so if you were a transfer student, they put you in the same kind of boot class called Sight and Sound, which is probably their best class they have at NYU. In film school. In film school, yeah. And you make, you know, five films, you know, immediately and you all crew and each other's crew. And we kind of met there and we became friends and really we started writing together. We kind of helped each other write each other's third year films. And by the time we got to our senior year, we were like, why don't we just pool our resources and do it together? We seem to work so well together. A very strange choice. But we did it and the film was great and got a lot of attention.

Kevin Goetz (03:00):

That one was called?

Josh Gordon (03:01):

That was called Idlewild. And it got nominated for a student Academy award and was good enough to kind of make us go, okay, let's, let's keep doing this.

Kevin Goetz (03:10):

Did it get you guys agents?

Josh Gordon (03:12):

No, we, it gave us a lot of meetings, but we were sort of, we're very self-destructive at that at age we sort of decided we wanted to hold out until we made another film that we thought would be better, even though that film was very good. And so we kind of came out to LA and, and got jobs together in the industry.

Kevin Goetz (03:31):

So Will, you were an actor? Yeah. I can relate.

Will Speck (03:34):

Well, a college actor. Yes.

Kevin Goetz (03:36):

But before that, you obviously had an interest in acting. Yeah. Where were you from and how did you get that interest and how did you switch to filmmaking? 

Will Speck (03:42):

Sort of half my childhood in New York City and then kind of relocated to the Midwest to Shaker Heights, Ohio. And did a lot of theater there and just loved.

Kevin Goetz (03:51):

A lot of theater in Shaker Heights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Summer Stock or?

Will Speck (03:55):

There was a place called the Cleveland Playhouse and they had a Children’s Playhouse.

Kevin Goetz (03:58):

Oh, Cleveland Playhouse.

Will Speck (03:58):

Yeah. And they had a children's theater that was pretty great and kind of an intensive, and a lot of people came out of it, actually. My friend Catherine Hahn and Tom Hanks did some stuff with them and it was great.

Kevin Goetz (04:11):

I love those stories of those little theaters where, yeah, you know, I worked at a place called Bucks County Playhouse. 

Will Speck (04:17):

Oh yeah, I know that one. 

Kevin Goetz (04:17):

Yeah, in New Hope, Pennsylvania. And outside of Bucks County, I did Hello Dolly there in some stock. And there was a truck, an old truck from the twenties and every star that went through Bucks County signed the truck and you'd see these names of these great movie stars and television stars.

Will Speck (04:38):

And yeah, we didn't have a truck. I think there was a wall <laugh>, there was a theater wall. But yeah, so I really got interested in it then. And then in college I started at Bennington and did theater there and started to get really interested in film and knew I wanted to go to film school. Why? I think I just always loved movies and I started to play around with a camera when I was at Bennington. And as much as I loved acting, I actually liked being behind the camera and working with actors more than I liked being on camera. I get very stiff and very in my head because I sort of know how to direct myself. But I, it's sort of a whole different thing, um, when you're actually directing actors, which I much prefer.

Josh Gordon (05:18):

He's a very good actor. Yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't, well.

Kevin Goetz (05:20):

Have you been in all your movies? 

Will Speck (05:24):

We usually will throw ourselves in a cameo unplanned.

Kevin Goetz (05:26):

Like a Hitchcock moment?

Will Speck (05:27):

And, and then we cut ourselves out. I think we've done that like three times. <laugh> actually we did that I think in three movies so far. 

Kevin Goetz (05:36):

So yeah, it's, it's a signature thing.

Will Speck (05:37):

Exactly. It's, it's the, it's the drop and pick up.

Kevin Goetz (05:40):

So you graduated as a film major at NYU? Yes. You come to LA immediately after?

Josh Gordon (05:48):

Yeah, we, well we stayed for one year editing a film we'd worked on and then we came.

Kevin Goetz (05:53):

Were you roommates in college?

Will Speck (05:54):

Yeah, we had an apartment together.

Kevin Goetz (05:56):

Are you like brothers?

Will Speck (05:58):

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (05:59):

How do you guys bond so well? Where do you find each other's synergy?

Will Speck (06:04):

I think we really share a sensibility and we see things in a very similar way. We both have a very similar sense of humor. We both will watch something and relate to it in the same way. And I think that's what the original spark was in college is that we would sit and watch the same movies that we both loved for similar, if not different reasons, but very in sync about how the anatomy of a scene, you know, what actors we loved, the kind of comedies we loved and we've just bonded over sort of that shared sensibility.

Kevin Goetz (06:35):

Is there a particular comedy that you both classic comedy that you just both absolutely love? 

Will Speck (06:42):

I think, yeah, there's Tootsie. There's a lot of comedies.

Kevin Goetz (06:43):

One of my favorites. Yeah.

Will Speck (06:44):

Yeah. There's a lot of comedies in that era when, which was sort of very.

Kevin Goetz (06:46):

Gimme Another one.

Will Speck (06:47):

King of Comedy. Oh, we love the, we love the auteurs who then dipped into the studio comedies like Sidney Pollack and Martin, when Martin Scorsese does a comedy, like even Wolf of Wall Street. I mean it's sort of our favorite thing.

Josh Gordon (07:01):

You know, you know, I think we love the Hal Ashby from the seventies. We love Shampoo, we love The Graduate and we also love strange movies. We really bonded over Amadeus as one of our like sort of core.

Kevin Goetz (07:15):

Wasn't that Tom Hulce? Unbelievable.

Will Speck (07:17):

Yeah.

Josh Gordon (07:17):

Yeah. Funny and heartbreaking and cinematic at the same time. 

Will Speck (07:20):

But we also loved Mazursky. Yeah. 

Josh Gordon (07:23):

And like we love Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

Will Speck (07:24):

Yeah. We loved all those kind of studio…

Kevin Goetz (07:26):

Scenes from a Mall.

Will Speck (07:27):

Well you know, everything has its own

Josh Gordon (07:30):

Broadcast News, Jim Brooks,

Will Speck (07:31):

Jim Brooks, like

Kevin Goetz (07:32):

All of those sort of

Will Speck (07:34):

Early eighties auteur comedy guys I think are, are really a like kind of a high water mark for us.

Kevin Goetz (07:40):

How do you direct together? I mean you've probably been asked this six dozen times, but how do you both direct a movie when it's usually a singular vision? Okay. I can understand that you come together on so many things in terms of your sensibility, but practically speaking, how does it work?

Will Speck (07:56):

Well, it is a singular vision because we work a lot of our stuff out in prep at the script stage, either writing on it or developing it. That's where we really find the movie. And then once we get to the set, we're just executing a shared vision on something. So because we really approach things in the same way, it really helps because we kind of know where the other one's head is going to be at in a decision. And as you know, there's so many different jobs to do on a movie that it actually helps to have two of us because Josh can go work with a certain department, I can work with an actor while he's working with the DP. Like we can flip and divide and conquer. And we both know.

Kevin Goetz (08:35):

It sounds like you are more in the actor's camp and Josh might be more in the writing camp.

Josh Gordon (08:41):

A little bit. It is that way. Yeah. For sure. But there's certain scenes that Will will sometimes jump into and say, I want to shoot it this way. And certain actors that I relate to better than him. And so it, it's sort of a hive thing.

Kevin Goetz (08:53):

Do you ever fight? Oh yeah. In front of people?

Will Speck (08:56):

No, never. Our AD may disagree with that. I mean we get into conflict like anybody does, but we know how to get out of it really fast these days. And that's what's great because we have a language with each other that's pretty.

Josh Gordon (09:08):

And I also think if we're not fighting a little bit, we're not invested.

Kevin Goetz (09:13):

Oh, I agree. I mean that's what every healthy relationship goes through. I want to talk about individual movies. Before we do that, the reason we of course met was over test screenings and you've sort of already alluded to the fact that they're kind of terrifying. Yeah. And everything sort of leads up to that. That in your post schedule of that's our first screening. Right? Yeah. Tell me about your first screening and what that was like for you.

Will Speck (09:39):

Well that was actually

Josh Gordon (09:40):

You are a seminal part of it.

Will Speck (09:41):

You were a big part of it. That was on Blades of Glory, our first movie. And it was actually a pretty intense and dramatic screening because…

Kevin Goetz (09:49):

Let's just say it turned out really well.

Will Speck (09:51):

<laugh>. It did. No, we and the score was really high, but I think we were in two separate theaters as often as the case. Because you'll…

Josh Gordon (09:57):

In Sacramento.

Will Speck (09:58):

Yeah. Because you'll test different jokes with a comedy and different cuts will reflect…

Kevin Goetz (10:02):

So we did a 15 minute apart.

Will Speck (10:04):

I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was packed. 

Josh Gordon (10:07):

And we flew up on the company plane.

Will Speck (10:10):

Yeah, on the Amblin jet. The Amblin Jet. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> or the Paramount, I don't remember. Someone's jet.

Kevin Goetz (10:17):

That was Amblin in Paramount. 

Will Speck (10:19):

Yeah. And it was, I think the verdict was out from the studio whether or not this movie was working. It wasn't a clear shot for them. And I think there was a lot riding on it for sure. And it was also our cut and our screening, as you know, happens, which is your first screening is your first cut. And that's a DGA sort of, you know, rule mandate.

Kevin Goetz (10:41):

Yeah.

Will Speck (10:41):

And I think we had a little bit of a scare after the movie because we were sitting with somebody from the studio who was saying, I don't think it's working and we gotta figure out who we can bring in to help this. And it was really feeling…

Kevin Goetz (10:57):

Meaning a new editor?

Will Speck (10:58):

Yeah. I mean, or whatever that meant, you know what I mean? 

Kevin Goetz (11:00):

But it was working wasn't it?

Will Speck (11:02):

It was.

Kevin Goetz (11:02):

But we thought so.

Will Speck (11:03):

We thought so. But they didn't.

Kevin Goetz (11:04):

And did the scores...

Josh Gordon (11:05):

The scores. Well so we sat up in the, tell a different story. We sat up in the projector room with our, with our,

Will Speck (11:10):

Which was like you were in a bond villain's lair 'cause it was film. So these giant film spools were just working in the background whipping through our cut.

Josh Gordon (11:20):

I’ll never forget there was a thing that said Ridley Scott 'cause it was a Ridley Scott movie. It just said Ridley Scott Ridley Scott Ridley Scott spinning in front of me.

Will Speck (11:28):

So we were, it was pretty traumatic actually.

Josh Gordon (11:29):

<laugh>. And then we went down and it was just the focus group and it was 20 people. And we went and sat right in the row right behind the focus group. And so I just remember the blood in my ears just throbbing. I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna get fired off my first movie. This is such a disaster. And you started and you started with the first question, how many people liked the movie? And everybody's hands wet up.

Will Speck (11:51):

But you actually before that, I'm now just remembering you did give us like a little wink and nod and said you thought it played very well. Yeah, I do remember that. Which was a really nice thing to say and to reassure filmmakers.

Kevin Goetz (12:02):

And I would never say that if I didn't mean it.

Will Speck (12:04):

Well we don't know that. But I <laugh> I'm glad you said it, but it was our first film so we hadn't been through anything and sure we had just had a talking to in the projection booth. So I think we were in a pretty bad state of mind.

Kevin Goetz (12:14):

That's where the Paramount executive came up to the booth to tell you.

Josh Gordon (12:16):

I don’t.

Will Speck (12:17):

We won't say who, we won't say who. Oh come on.

Josh Gordon (12:18):

It was a nervous exec. When you make a movie with people, you're bonded. You've spent a year of your life with that person. 

Will Speck (12:24):

There was a lot riding on it.

Kevin Goetz (12:25):

There was a lot riding and riding for that person too, quite frankly. Right. That person is also, their jobs are on the line. There's so much at stake when the rubber hits the road with those screenings. Oh yeah, for sure. What did you learn from that first test experience, other than the fact that your movie worked? Where, what did you take away from either the focus group, the questionnaires, or both?

Will Speck (12:43):

I mean, one thing is we actually loved the process of watching it play in front of an audience. What a gift and what an expense and what a benefit to having a movie that has the budget to actually be able to do that. I mean, it's very hard for people.

Kevin Goetz (12:55):

Hundred percent.

Will Speck (12:55):

To have a, I mean, the people that go into it blind and see their movie for the first time at a festival, those are the real brave soldiers 'cause we at least get a few test runs in battle. But it's an incredible privilege to be able to have that. And not everybody does have that because as you know, it's a big financial commitment for somebody to make.

Kevin Goetz (13:15):

So the difference between the two cuts, just so I'm clear, were just different jokes here?

Will Speck (13:18):

Different jokes. Yeah. And comedies as you know. But maybe your listeners don't, oftentimes you, you'll test a different joke because you'll get a different alt.

Kevin Goetz (13:26):

I mean Judd Apatow’s doing well.

Will Speck (13:28):

That's who sort sort of started it. It was kind of Ben Stiller who produced our movie and Judd kind of, that was a little bit of their language. Yeah. And so we were under the Ben umbrella of sort of approach and that was one of them, which is to have editors throw different jokes up and see how they play and film the audience. And then use both of those tools in editing to make sure that the laughs get put close together in your cut.

Kevin Goetz (13:51):

It's funny, I didn't probably have a say in how those two screenings were organized 'cause I probably would've wanted you present at both of them throughout so you could hear how the jokes were landing.

Will Speck (14:01):

I think it did go. And that's the advantage of two of us, I think we did go back and forth.

Josh Gordon (14:04):

For sure because we knew there were certain sections where…

Kevin Goetz (14:07):

Oh, got it. Oh good. Good.

Josh Gordon (14:08):

And then also you, you, we videoed both, both rooms and you could watch people and hear the laughter and all. That's, that's really helpful.

Kevin Goetz (14:16):

Of all the movies you've done this of the, of all six of them, how, was there any substantive change that was made as a result of audience feedback?

Will Speck (14:23):

Oh, many. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

Kevin Goetz (14:25):

Can you give us some examples 'cause I get a lot of comments of people saying, oh, can you gimme some examples of those?

Will Speck (14:30):

I think it's usually the end of comedies.

Kevin Goetz (14:32):

Talk to us about that. Because the ending is so, so bloody important. Lot

Will Speck (14:35):

Of filmmakers we know who actually don't shoot the ending and actually wait. Or, because you're always looking for a way to resolve the characters. I mean, sometimes you have the perfect punctuation that you can land on and oftentimes you don't know who an audience is gonna get invested in and it'll surprise you. And they'll say, well I loved that character. It'd be so great to see them again. Or, oh, I kind of wished that they had gotten together in the end, is there a way. And as long as it feels like it's cohesive to the movie and not just something that's tacked on it, it becomes a real benefit where you think, well, the audience is really wanting, they love the movie or they, they're confused by the movie or whatever it is, but they're feeling like, to stick the landing, so to speak, it would benefit the movie to have this element at play. And that's only a consequence of the screen.

Kevin Goetz (15:23):

You used a very important word in my world, which is punctuation. I always say that every great comedy needs that punctuation mark. And it's really difficult to know what that punctuation mark should be while you're shooting because you don't know how it's gonna land. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And generally I find it's a callback to something earlier. Yeah. Right. So that's why I think it's difficult to do that. Often it has to be built. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But if you have it and lucky enough to have it, it's, it's gold. Right?

Josh Gordon (15:51):

Yeah. Like Office Christmas Party, for instance, had a huge ensemble of stories that were being simultaneously told. And so the testing process allowed us to kind of understand where the audience was following, where they wanted to go a little bit better. So that was a movie that improved through the testing process for sure.

Kevin Goetz (16:11):

Any other moments?

Will Speck (16:12):

You know, in comedies, especially studio comedies, again a huge advantage that a lot of people don't have and are not afforded for better and sometimes for worse maybe, but is that you often will get a few days of a reshoot at the end of a studio movie, sometimes weeks of a reshoot. But it's sort of like a little bit of a, an insurance policy that if you're lucky, they put aside time and resource for that to happen. Um, and that's why test screenings are advantageous because you're learning things that you might be able to pick up. Oh you know what? I don't know where he got that set of car keys before he jumped in the getaway vehicle. And you think, oh well I can just reshoot an insert shot. And the studio will support that because it'll help that story point. And if you have a research screening or a test screening that have a lot of comments that say, yeah, really bumped me about the where he got that car, it'll support the idea of actually going back and getting that. And on Office Christmas Party, as Josh said, I think everybody wanted everyone in the ensemble. We had originally ended the movie just with Bateman and Olivia Munn's character sort of walking away from the office in the aftermath. That was sort of our romantic end, our kind of shut up and deal. Yeah. That

Kevin Goetz (17:19):

Yeah, that was good.

Will Speck (17:20):

So presumptuous and, and what everybody sort of in the audience wanted was to see all of those characters again once more together. And so we did this little sort of coda where…

Kevin Goetz (17:31):

That was re-shot.

Will Speck (17:32):

Yeah. Well, not, not re-shot but shot. I mean it didn't exist so originally.

Kevin Goetz (17:37):

You had to gather the cast?

Josh Gordon (17:38):

Yeah. It was done as additional photography.

Will Speck (17:39):

Yeah. It was additional. Wow. Yeah. So that was a big one. And then in Blades of Glory was a great triumph of the two of them finishing their last big competition together. But we felt like it needed some other point, some other way to kind of bring it into something different and just extend out of just that sort of straight moment. And so we came to this crazy idea of them flying off together in the sky, you know, which.

Josh Gordon (18:08):

Which, which then tested great and everybody loved it. And you know, but I think it's interesting you have to know how to read the test scores and the best executives and the best filmmakers. Do you know what I mean?

Kevin Goetz (18:20):

100%.

Josh Gordon (18:21):

Stuart Kornfeld, who was our producer, oh he was a great guy. I think he was quoting maybe Lenny Bruce, but he said, look, individually they're all idiots. But together they're a genius. You know, so it's like…

Kevin Goetz (18:31):

Wisdom of the crowd.

Josh Gordon (18:32):

Yeah. You can easily kind of throw out one or two or three or five different comments in a test screening. But if they're all sort of saying the same thing, you should probably listen a little bit. And you also have to let it not drag the movie sideways. You have to be able to take the criticism, absorb it, make the fixes that you can, but not be spun around by it. That's the hard thing.

Kevin Goetz (18:54):

Absolutely. Do you write all your movies?

Josh Gordon (18:56):

No, we write on a lot of our movies, but we don't write those.

Kevin Goetz (18:59):

Something funny on, I think it's your IMDB pages about projects in development hell, so you have a lot of projects like everyone just have never gotten past go. Oh, for sure. And do you have one in particular that is a pain point?

Will Speck (19:17):

A pain point? Oh my god. Wow. You're going there so soon. God.

Josh Gordon (19:21):

Going for the soft bits, we have probably five or six.

Kevin Goetz (19:24):

But there's one passion project usually. And maybe it's different for each of you.

Will Speck (19:28):

I think it's more that there's things that we've pursued that we've really wanted and it's not worked out. I mean that's…

Kevin Goetz (19:36):

I mean that’s not necessarily that you've written.

Will Speck (19:38):

Yeah. Ideas that we've chased. But I mean, look, we have a lot in development as many people do and you know, you just never know what's gonna come together.

Kevin Goetz (19:46):

Is that through Furlined?

Will Speck (19:47):

No, we have a production company called Speck Gordon Inc. 

Kevin Goetz (19:51):

What happened to Furlined though? Am I right about that?

Will Speck (19:52):

Furlined is our commercial and music video production company that we're partners in. So that's a different part of our life. 

Kevin Goetz (19:57):

Does that come from the Caveman by any chance?

Will Speck (19:59):

No.

Will Speck (20:00):

That’s the first time I've heard that.

Kevin Goetz (20:01):

Oh. I was thinking, trying to think, where did that name come from?

Will Speck (20:03):

It's such a strange thing. We were trying to come up with a name. We were signed at Ridley and Tony Scott's company for commercials. And then we sort of peeled off and met our creative partner to Diane McCarter and we were all trying to figure out what name we should come up with. And we were on a boat at a wrap party in Amsterdam. She was wearing a fur vest and somebody said, look at you, you're fur-lined. And we thought, oh well that's sort of an interesting thing. And there's a surrealist painting of a coffee cup, a teacup that's lined in fur. And so it was sort of became a nod to that as well. So, yeah.

Kevin Goetz (20:37):

Just for the listeners who don't know, I brought up caveman because that was one of your most famous commercials. Commercials, yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So, is it fair to say that commercials are sort of your bread and butter and music videos, bread and butter and your films are sort of your passion? Passion?

Josh Gordon (20:55):

A little bit. I mean a little bit. Although, although we've been afforded incredible opportunities in commercials over the years, cinematically and experience wise. And it's interesting, like when you're a director, you're often the least experienced person on the set. You spend the least amount of time of everybody. Actors go from movie to movie. Crew works 300 days a year and the director's lucky if they spend 40 days a year every four years on set.

Kevin Goetz (21:22):

That's an incredible, incredible comment and I never really thought of it like that. Producers can do multiple at one time. A director has to show up and then do the pre the post, the pre-production then post and needs to decide on their next picture. That's why so few movies are made in a director's life. 

Josh Gordon (21:42):

Right. And so what commercials have allowed us to do is keep supple and work with…

Kevin Goetz (21:46):

Keep the muscle going.

Josh Gordon (21:47):

Yeah. And work with the greatest DPs in the world and travel to incredible places.

Will Speck (21:51):

We definitely use it as a lab. It's a fun way to actually meet, as Josh said, the DPs, production designers, and costume designers that we've been afforded to work with as a consequence of commercial.

Josh Gordon (22:02):

And learn how you want to work. Yeah. Both with each other but with also with the crew. You know, directing takes its cues from the personality of the director. Meaning the movie is very keyed to that person.

Kevin Goetz (22:14):

I can't believe how many of you came from commercials and music videos. Yeah. So many successful directors. It's no surprise. You get to have to do it and do it fast. McG told me the turnaround time is just insane. Yeah. Alone. Yeah. And you really have to learn to trust your instincts as well, right? Yeah.

Josh Gordon (22:33):

Well it makes you impatient sometimes for the pace of movies 'cause movies are glacial and they're like a huge military operation is versus a commercial where you get the script and three weeks later you're shooting. So you're able to prep and think much quicker in a commercial.

Kevin Goetz (22:48):

Yes and no, but because it's a day on a commercial shoot could look like a day on a movie set. But where I find the interesting distinction is in the structure, the long form structure. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Some people can't make that jump.

Josh Gordon (23:03):

For sure. Well, and it's interesting 'cause there's like lots of different places where directors come from. There was an era where people came from Playhouse 90 and live theater in television and New York. And then there was a period where there's the film school brats in the seventies and then there was commercial directors in the nineties and aughts, you know?

Kevin Goetz (23:21):

Oh, I love that. I mean, I hadn't framed it like that, but my gosh, I produced a movie called Wild Iris. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> with the great, late great Dan Petri. Oh wow. And he came from exactly that live television background and it gave him such experience. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>

Josh Gordon (23:40):

To handle what comes at you as a director. Yeah, for sure.

Kevin Goetz (23:42):

Exactly. When we come back, I want to talk about what you have planned for the future, but I also want to talk about how you got into film. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. We'll be back in a moment.

Announcer (23:58):

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Kevin Goetz (24:30):

We are back with Will Speck and Josh Gordon, the dynamic duo. Guys, when you left school and came to LA, you didn't just jump into film. There was a path, each of you did different things. Josh, you went into television writing, right?

Josh Gordon (24:46):

Yeah. I was a writer's assistant on a TV show called Mad About You. And I worked for Larry Charles who was running the show.

Kevin Goetz (24:53):

Well, it doesn't get much better than that. Yeah, it was amazing. How did you get that gig? 

Josh Gordon (24:57):

I just went in for it. I liked the show. I knew I wanted to get into writing and I wanted to be a writer's assistant in a TV room. And I lucked out. He was a pretty incredible first boss.

Kevin Goetz (25:06):

I went to school with Leila Kenzle. Oh wow. Oh cool. She was a dear friend because she was just at my house. Oh, that's amazing. A couple weeks ago.

Josh Gordon (25:12):

Yeah. It was an incredible group at that show. 

Kevin Goetz (25:15):

And how long did you stay on that show?

Josh Gordon (25:16):

I only did it for a year, and then we left and directed our second short film, which then launched us.

Kevin Goetz (25:24):

That was called Culture. Culture. Yeah. And what about you Will, you went a little bit different path, you went the studio route.

Will Speck (25:33):

Yeah, but NYU, I had interned for everybody I could in New York City, so I interned at New Line, at Fine Line, at William Morris. We both worked at Miramax for Bob and Harvey as interns. So I had so much experience on my resume that it was actually not as hard for me to get a job.

Kevin Goetz (25:51):

That's incredible. 

Will Speck (25:52):

Yeah. When I came out to LA and I met Laura Ziskin, who was producing at the time, and she was in post-production and needed an assistant and we were working on to Die For, which was Gus Van Sant.

Kevin Goetz (26:05):

Oh, I love that movie.

Will Speck (26:05):

Yeah, yeah. Which was a great movie. It's super fun to work on in post. And I learned a lot about that. And then she got an opportunity to run a studio called Fox 2000 because Fox at the time with Peter Chernin were creating all these smaller divisions sort of under the Miramax influence, like Fox Searchlight, Fox 2000, and something called Fox Family, which was Chris Meledandri. And Tom Rothman ran Searchlight. Laura Ziskin was hired to run Fox 2000 and Chris to do Fox Family. We opened Fox 2000, like I was her assistant. And then she made me an executive there shortly after. And Josh and I were writing at night and then she executive produced our short film and Fox really leaned in and helped us kind of. They even provided the short ends of film they used on Titanic for us to, to shoot the short.

Kevin Goetz (26:57):

That's so interesting. So you learned the business from a totally different sort of angle.

Will Speck (27:03):

Yeah. But Laura was a director. She was making a short film at the time. You know, she was a real filmmaker who was an executive after that fact. Do you know what I mean? She really, I do. I felt like she was a writer and a producer and a director just as much, if not more than a filmmaker. 

Kevin Goetz (27:21):

Of course she was married to probably my favorite screenwriter of all time.

Will Speck (27:25):

Us as well. Yeah, Alvin Sargent. Alvin Sargent who's incredible, who I got to spend a lot of time with.

Kevin Goetz (27:30):

Both Alvin and Bill Goldman were my two favorites. 

Will Speck (27:33):

Those are classics. Yeah, for sure.

Kevin Goetz (27:34):

You know, I remember going to Bill Goldman's apartment and holding both of his Oscars, one for Butch Cassidy and the other for All the President's Men. And they actually had a different weight <laugh> to them. I remember that. And Alvin had, I think two Oscars also.

Will Speck (27:48):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. You know, there's a mythology that you're not supposed to hold Oscars before you get one or that you never get one. It's sort of like a curse.

Kevin Goetz (27:55):

Oh fuck. <laugh>.

Will Speck (27:56):

I have the same thing, I held Jim Brooks's Oscar and in fact I saw him last weekend and said, I think I got cursed by holding your Oscar <laugh>. Yeah, that's apparently a thing.

Kevin Goetz (28:07):

Well, I'm so glad you told me that <laugh>.

Will Speck (28:09):

Just so you know what, just so you know what's ahead. 

Kevin Goetz (28:12):

Yeah right, right, right. I do want to mention also that Laura, when she got the job, I called and said, how is it Laura? And she said, you know, it's the same. And I said, what do you mean? She goes, you are always selling. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you're always selling. And now I have to sell to whether it was Bill Mechanic at that point Yeah. Or to Peter Chernin. But I thought that was so interesting. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> because you think, oh, they have this, oh, now

Josh Gordon (28:36):

She's on the buyer's side. Yeah. There is no buyer’s side.

Kevin Goetz (28:38):

Exactly. Yeah. So to get to your first feature, how did that happen? How did you get to make that first?

Will Speck (28:44):

Well, we took a long time because we, we had all this momentum from our Oscar nomination. We signed with a commercial production company, which again, as Josh said, kept us on set and kept us sort of limber. But we were writing a lot and we were working on a script. We sort of had our Barton Fink era where we got really lost in a draft of a script that was a passion project and turned every movie down that was sort of chucked in our direction over and over again because we really had a vision of what we wanted to do.

Josh Gordon (29:15):

We finally sort of decided, you know what? Let's not be so self-editing and let's try to go off and make a feature. And we were coming off of the success of the Geico caveman commercials, which were sort of a big thing at that time.

Will Speck (29:29):

And we had done a bunch of other stuff within that world. Like we created the Geico gecko and like we had done like a lot of commercials.

Kevin Goetz (29:36):

You created that?

Will Speck (29:36):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. We've done a lot of commercials that were really kind of seminal work.

Josh Gordon (29:40):

Yeah. And then Ben Stiller was originally attached to star in, in Blades of Glory, and he was looking for a director that maybe was younger that he could shepherd and that also that he could work with. And we went in and had an incredible meeting with him and Stuart Kornfeld and we got hired and it was scary and amazing and we started making that movie and then he fell out of the movie and Will Ferrell came in.

Kevin Goetz (30:06):

Wow, what a great story that is. Yeah. You've got a project right now at Hulu called…

Josh Gordon (30:13):

Hit Monkey.

Kevin Goetz (30:13):

Hit Monkey. Yeah. Tell us about that.

Josh Gordon (30:16):

Hit Monkey is a animated, darkly comedic show based on a sort of little known Marvel comic called Hit Monkey. And we'd almost been hired by Marvel several times to do movies over the years. And they had wanted to do short films at one point that would start the movies almost like Pixar does.

Kevin Goetz (30:37):

Sort of what they ended up doing at the end when they tease characters in the end credits.

Josh Gordon (30:41):

And the goal was to try to find the most obscure characters you could and try to make a a little short film of it. And we sort of picked Hit Monkey outta the pile and it was something that just really spoke to us. It's dark, emotional, comedic, but really kind of, it's almost a Yakuza revenge saga. We're big fans of westerns and Yakuza revenge films. And it really just had all these different interesting flavors in it. That ended up dying because of sort of budget issues. But years later we couldn't get it out of our heads. And we were walking around, I think after finishing Office Christmas Party, we were walking around the Universal lot just talking about like, what do we most want to do? And we made a list of five things and Hit Monkey was on it. And so we went back to our office and wrote a email to our agents like Marvel or Idiots for not making this and why don't they move, blah blah, blah, blah. And our agent just pushed forward and Marvel was like, okay, okay, fine, fine. Come on in and meet with it. And so we met with the film division and they said, look, you know, it's hard to make such an expensive film off of such an obscure character. And the TV people at the time led by Jeff Loeb were like, yeah, we'll Green Light this tomorrow. This sounds great. And that was how we started making it.

Kevin Goetz (31:55):

What's your greatest success? And I don't mean movie as a filmmaker and Josh, I'm looking at you at this first moment here. What was your greatest success, thing you're most proud of that you did that you learned? What you learned?

Josh Gordon (32:09):

It's kind of a strange, it's kind of a strange one. I'm very proud of the movies we made. Very proud of the TV shows we've worked on all, those things. Oddly, it was a PSA, which is a public service announcement that we did for organ donation. And it was called The World's Biggest Asshole. And it kind of became a huge viral thing in 2017, 2018. And it was the same agency that we had done the Geico work with. And they came to us with this spec, which was basically that young men don't sign up for organ donation. And the reason why is because the advertising is too soft and too kind of usually religious based. And they had this idea which was, you can be the world's biggest asshole, it doesn't matter who you are, if you just tick the box, you essentially resurrect yourself. And that was the only thing they gave us. And we kind of were able to write the script, cast it, shoot it, and we pulled in a huge number of favors from our commercial contacts and we shot it. And it was just an incredibly pure experience that still to this day I look at and go, I want to work in that way again. I want to do something like that.

Kevin Goetz (33:22):

You affected lives.

Josh Gordon (33:24):

Yeah. Well that was the, we were at Cannes at the advertising festival? And they told us that for each person that ticks a box, it saves on average three people's lives. Oh. And my, because of the commercial, they said at least half a million people had signed up for the thing. Wow. So I mean, we were like that, that as just as a moment, that was an incredible thing.

Kevin Goetz (33:44):

I'm a little for veclempt hearing that. Hey, Will, what about you? What's one of the sources of pride or something that you've really found to be a success since you started as that young filmmaker and where you're today?

Will Speck (33:55):

I mean, I know this is gonna sound corny. I think our relationship is something that's the biggest success because I feel like we've evolved as people and we've gone through so much together and we've, we still feel excited about working together. And, and, and I feel like that's, that's something that I'm really excited about and feels really good. I think in terms of the movies…

Kevin Goetz (34:17):

Hold on. That's a beautiful sentiment and really rings true to me, especially since I think I shared with you before that my father just passed away. Yeah. And same. And my best, my thank you and my best buddy, uh, from college Joe was there by my side and he's like a brother. Yeah. And I don't know how else to, I have a brother who's extraordinary, but there's something about not having a blood relative have that sort of connection. I'll do anything for you. It's great.

Will Speck (34:42):

Yeah. In terms of the movies, I mean, I'm really proud of the last movie we made just 'cause we, I'd always wanted to make a musical and the process was so fun. 

Josh Gordon (34:52):

Working with Pasek and Paul and working with Javier Bardem was pretty…

Will Speck (34:55):

Yeah. 

Kevin Goetz (34:56):

And also what a creative team, right?

Will Speck (34:57):

Yeah. And it's a book that I, you know, grew up on.

Kevin Goetz (35:01):

And it’s so not in your wheelhouse. How'd you get to it?

Will Speck (35:03):

Because of the, you arrive on, because of the connection to the material. I mean, it was a book that I loved as a kid. I read to my kid. Josh loved it. It was something that we found when we first pursued it, the rights were sort of tied up with somebody else. The family sort of didn't want to deal with it anymore because they'd been through a couple rounds of people who've tried to make it into something. And we just sort of followed our passion. And it just felt like the more people we put into the boat, the more fun it was. Like the writer and our producing partner, Hutch Parker and the writer was Will Davies. And you know, Pasek and Paul, as Josh said, were a huge part of it. And then the cast, you know, Shawn Mendes playing Lyle and Javier Bardem, and it was kind of the end of Covid. So it was a masked situation on set, but it was so joyous. Like every day everybody was super into it and invested and it wasn't a stressy set and it didn't feel in, in a different way it was nice to flex different muscles than when you're on a comedy and you're just like delivering jokes and figuring out how, what's the funniest, what's the funniest, what's the funniest? There were comedic elements in it, but it was really…

Josh Gordon (36:11):

It was more about tone and mood and, and telling the story that we'd kind of grown up on.

Kevin Goetz (36:16):

Yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. What about the opposite side of that coin, which is, what would you have done differently that you now know? What would you tell that young 21-year-old leaving Tisch?

Josh Gordon (36:34):

I would tell him to say yes more often.

Will Speck (36:37):

That’s exactly what I was gonna say.

Kevin Goetz (36:38):

<laugh>. Of course you were gonna, of course.

Will Speck (36:39):

We both have the same, I was gonna say of course you were.

Josh Gordon (36:42):

Gonna say, yeah, I think there's a, I think there's a a tendency certainly…

Kevin Goetz (36:45):

Too careful. Too careful, you mean?

Josh Gordon (36:46):

Yeah. With us to be too careful and you are nervous to fail. And that's also the great thing about commercials are they allow you to say yes all the time. And we've failed in commercials, miserably had terrible shoots and things that didn't work out and, and you end up coming away from it, a better filmmaker stronger. But when you're young you think, oh, any choice I make defines me. And the truth is, it doesn't, you just have to go with your gut. You have to go with what's interesting to you and you have to just try to do as much as you can. And I think that's what I would tell him.

Kevin Goetz (37:20):

Is interesting to you, when you say interesting to, you mean your stomach brain? Or is it like what, what turns you on?

Josh Gordon (37:28):

My gut. Yeah. Trust your gut more and just go with things and don't try to self-analyze. Don't try to outthink everything.

Kevin Goetz (37:38):

A common motif here is that when people, my guests haven't trusted their gut, they've screwed up. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And when they have, they've had the biggest successes. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, a lot of artists say that. Will, you agree with that?

Will Speck (37:51):

Yeah, I mean it's exactly what I was gonna say. I think, look, it's not complicated that we're in sync because we've been experiencing the same career with each other. But yeah, I think early on we were very fear-led and everything was very precious. And the advantage of commercials is we had so much to play with and so many resources and so much time and energy spent. The disadvantage is we did less movies early on than we should have because we could, that was an opportunity we had that we could avoid.

Kevin Goetz (38:23):

The fear of screwing up, I think, especially when you come outta the gate with a Blades of Glory, your sophomore effort is usually the one that will lay the foundation or lay the future. Right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I find a lot of filmmakers are very, very nervous about that second movie.

Will Speck (38:41):

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (38:42):

So any other regrets, Will?

Will Speck (38:45):

<laugh>? No. I mean, sure little ones, but no.

Kevin Goetz (38:50):

Here's what I love about you guys. I want to just say this. I love that you have crafted a really balanced way of working and finding your way in this crazy business. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I look at you and I so admire that you work in all of these different areas and have made a living doing it for years and years now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Which is really quite amazing. I was gonna end with the following question, which is, where do you see the next five, 10 years? Not for you guys specifically, for our business and, and then how do you fit into that?

Will Speck (39:28):

Well, it's been really exciting having a company and having a bunch of employees in the film space. We've never done that before.

Kevin Goetz (39:35):

How many employees do you have?

Will Speck (39:36):

We have five. And it feels like what's been really exciting is that we've been producing filmmakers that we are excited about and passionate about their work and advocating on their behalf, teaching them things so that when they're asked what they regret, maybe it's a little less.

Kevin Goetz (39:55):

Giving back.

Will Speck (39:55):

Yeah. No, and that's been really fun because especially in the studio system, it's a hard thing to navigate now more than ever. And so it's been great to have projects that we're really excited about, filmmakers that we can sort of usher through and hold the shield up. And we come at it from a different perspective because we're writer directors as opposed to just producers.

Josh Gordon (40:15):

So I think on the personal side, for us, it's allowing us to develop, look, we're eclectic in our taste and we started in comedy and what we've been able to do in commercials is really, you know, work in a lot of different genres. Hit Monkey is its own genre. Lyle was a little bit of a stretch for us. And what we really are interested as filmmakers in doing is growing and finding those kind of more hybrid projects like we were talking about earlier, that have some humor in them, but that are more about the life experience and those Mike Nichols movies, those kind of films.

Kevin Goetz (40:46):

I read, I think that you have a musical based on a video game or something.

Josh Gordon (40:50):

Yeah, we're developing that. But you know, we have a great project that's based on a book called The Wedding People that's gonna be published next year that Nicole Holofcener is adapting for us.

Kevin Goetz (41:00):

First of all, I think she's one of the most genius, oh, she's, I love her. She has not a fake bone in her body now.

Josh Gordon (41:07):

No, she's incredible.

Kevin Goetz (41:09):

The authenticity of her scripts are so beautiful.

Josh Gordon (41:11):

They're beautiful and the book that she's adapting is beautiful. And so that's an example of kind of, it has comedy in it, but it's really about heartbreak and a lot of great things. So we're, we're excited about that. So I think as filmmakers we're looking to the future and just more ambitious projects and more kind of bending the genres that we're working in. I think in terms of where the industry is going, it's anybody's guess. It's funny, the industry is always perpetually in bad shape. And you look at some of the greatest movies were made during the worst periods in, they were closing the studios when they made The Godfather. Like literally selling the back lot at 20th Century Fox when they made Sound of Music. I mean, it's always been a gambler's business. And in a lot of ways there's more movies being made now than there ever were. When we were younger in the eighties, that was a very hard time to make good movies.

Kevin Goetz (42:06):

Well, it was so tentpole.

Josh Gordon (42:07):

It was so tentpole and everything was, you know, high concept and all these things. And you had a few places, Island and then Miramax and a few places came along and allowed for foreign productions. We now live in a time where there's a plethora of these things. So yes, it's hard and it will always be hard, but I think you just have to kind of carve your path and make the movies that you want to make in the best or worst of times.

Kevin Goetz (42:31):

I'm also very much about finding difference. Finding your difference. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. And that strength. What's your superpower?

Josh Gordon (42:39):

I think it's writing.

Kevin Goetz (42:41):

I'm gonna ask Will the same thing.

Will Speck (42:44):

What's my superpower? I wish it was like being able to see through something, or become invisible, you know.

Josh Gordon (42:51):

I would say taste.

Will Speck (42:53):

Taste. Okay. I'll take it. Taste. That's my superpower.

Kevin Goetz (42:57):

I like that. Guys, I cannot thank you enough for coming on the show and people are really gonna like hearing about your journey. It's inspiring. I mean it really is and it's inspiring for a lot of young filmmakers who don't have to lay a stake in one particular genre. You know, you are working in Hulu, you've done movies, music, videos, and commercials galore. And so thank you so very much.

Josh Gordon (43:23):

It was a real pleasure.

Will Speck (43:23):

Thank you. So nice to see you in different context, in a calmer state. Yeah, we really appreciate it and we're fans of the podcast, so thanks for having us.

Kevin Goetz (43:31):

Well thank you. To our listeners, I hope you enjoyed our interview. I encourage you to check out Will and Josh's work, including the new season of Hit Monkey on Hulu, and also to follow them on their respective social media pages. For more filmmaking and audience testing stories, I invite you to check out my book, Audienceology at Amazon or through my website at KevinGoetz360.com. Next time on Don't Kill the Messenger, I'll welcome veteran film industry marketing executive and former academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs. Until then, I'm Kevin Goetz and to you, our listeners, I appreciate you being part of the movie-making process. Your opinions matter.

Host: Kevin Goetz
Guests: Will Speck and Josh Gordon
Producer: Kari Campano
Writers: Kevin Goetz, Darlene Hayman, and Kari Campano
Audio Engineer: Gary Forbes (DG Entertainment)