After 5 years of an uphill battle through COVID, the strikes, and the worst market for independent film ever, we’ve finally landed on a fantastic path forward. I’ll take you through my experiences in each phase of making a film, and lead with the things I’ve gleaned.
Development & Pre-Production
Write Roles for Specific Actors If You Can
I started writing this thing very willy-nilly, with just a few characters in mind. It all came from a scene about a girl in a dorm window and an AC Repairman yelling at each other across a massive campus lawn, which we just teased ahead of TIFF Next Wave. See that scene on Michael Vlamis’ viral Instagram post below:
Anyway, I knew these characters. I knew their problems. But I had no idea how they would solve them. So I just had to write the whole thing and find out. And because of that, it was always a very character-driven story, and I found that to generate an authenticity for me that is much harder to come by in a plot-driven script.
Although the outcome of the story was uncertain, I did know exactly who I had in mind. From the get-go, I had pictured Michael Vlamis for the AC repairman on the lawn—"Michael." We get creative. Michael’s been one of my best friends for years, so that role was never a question, and it was always a comfort knowing I would have him on set.
The lead character, the girl in the window (Kennedy), was still forming in my mind from the freewrite when I saw Odessa A’zion in a friend’s Instagram story and instantly thought, "There she is!" She wasn’t that big at the time, but I just knew in my gut it was her. (Now she has three huge projects releasing over the next year.) I had a connection to her to be able to set up a coffee and take her through my vision for the movie. She was into it, so I wrote the script with her in mind.
The last role I had in mind was the character of Blake, for Tyler Alvarez. I never talked to him about it, I just loved his work so much in American Vandal and pictured him so clearly in the role. So I wrote it for him and sent it to his agent when I finished it.
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
Thankfully they all liked the script, and off we went. We had three attachments built in. They weren’t mega movie stars (yet), but they were all incredible actors and incredible people, perfect for the roles, and ready to go. And with a little package like that, I could start raising money.
The first commitment was the hardest, and ultimately had to come from pure passion—an investor’s desire to help create some art and help tell a story, regardless of the result. But once we had that, conversations became easier, both with agents for the rest of the talent and with other investors. Soon Ariel Winter came on board and then Mason Gooding. Now we had a full ensemble of super reputable, albeit young, actors. And it became a little easier to keep raising money. (Yet still extremely difficult.)
Don’t Wait, Pick a Date
And now we had schedules to deal with. And we ended up needing to move the shoot up by an entire month, just three months out from the shoot, to keep our cast. So pre-production became a mad dash, a scramble, and a real gamble.
We only had about 1/3 of the total budget actually raised at that time, but we knew it was now or never. Our cast was already starting to blow up within the industry, and booking them for this little indie movie was only going to become harder if we waited until the next summer.
I felt like a crazy person, like I was just bluffing to everyone that this shoot was going to happen. And in fact, I was. I knew that if I didn’t bluff, if I didn’t focus all my energy on trying to materialize this dream, it would never happen. The risk, of course, was that we’d get a week out from the shoot, still not have the money, and I’d have to cancel it, and completely humiliate myself. Thankfully that didn’t happen.
Picking a date was ultimately good for investors, too. Now they had to actually make a decision. And if they didn’t decide quickly enough, they would miss out on the opportunity. If we hadn’t picked a date, I don’t think all the money ever would’ve been raised.
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
Locations Can Make or Break Your Movie
The last piece I’ll talk about is locations. I spent the summer before we shot in Chicago, trying to find locations. I needed a really beautiful old college, and I needed gorgeous old mansions. I needed the town of Lake Forest, really, so that’s where I went. I went to the Lake Forest Historical Society and the Preservation Foundation. I met people who owned these amazing homes. I met the mayor. I knocked on doors and cast the vision for the kind of movie I was trying to make, and why we needed these locations.
And the people of Lake Forest really came through. We have absolutely incredible locations that should have cost a fortune, but were owned by people who appreciated the arts, and wanted to support the film. And equally important, they were incredible to work with. The last thing you want is a crabby location owner—because things will always go wrong, and plans will always change. We needed their positive attitudes as much as we needed their locations.
I don’t think we could’ve gotten locations like this without putting so much time into it, and starting the conversations a year in advance of the shoot. So the locations became a value-add to the movie, rather than a last minute to-do. The locations were so strong they actually helped us raise money for the film.
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
Production
Every Hire Should Be a Personality Hire
I'm not saying hire people who don’t know what they’re doing, but choose based on character and vibes over experience. You’re making an independent movie. It’s going to be tough. There’s going to be curveballs constantly. You don’t want someone who can’t handle that. You need people you love working with and who love working with you. People who believe in the project and see the vision. We were lucky to have an absolutely amazing crew in Chicago, who worked as hard as they played and did a bit of pool-hopping themselves along the way. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The work was way too much and it wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have any fun while we did it.
Negativity is the last thing you need on an indie film set. It’s already impossible enough. You’ve got to have believers to make that impossible thing happen.
“Stay Relaxed.” - Vince Vaughn
While we were filming, we had the opportunity to pop over to Lake Forest High School one day during lunch, to speak to their summer film camp. And there was Vince Vaughn, helping out with the camp at his alma mater, but ready to give us some advice, too. All he said was, “Stay relaxed. Everything always works better when you’re relaxed.”
I found that couldn’t be truer, and it was most definitely exactly what I needed to hear. Things always take longer when you’re rushing. You don’t make good decisions when you’re anxious or frustrated. And things go a lot better, and everyone works a lot harder, when you’re having fun.
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
Adapt
These two things are both invaluable when you have to adapt, and you will have to adapt. A lot. Don’t resist it, go with it. If you can stay relaxed with a positive attitude, you’ll find that the movie gods tend to bless you with exactly what was meant to be, and not always what you planned.
We were trying to shoot a summer heat wave movie in Chicago and found ourselves in a summer cold snap, where it rained almost every day. On top of that the forecast was just never correct. We had to change locations and scenes last minute–constantly. Grabbing sun and avoiding rain whenever we could. We had to think on our feet and make big decisions very quickly. Half our scenes were outdoors, and at night, in swimsuits.
So the actors were freezing, but to their credit, they had amazing attitudes, and real passion for the work, and powered through. Without that, we simply wouldn’t have been able to get the shots we needed. I’m so lucky to have gotten to work with people of such great character, and I definitely won’t settle for less moving forward. It’s the most important thing.
Post-Production
Take Days Off as Much as You Can Amidst Editing
Being on set is a rush. Editing is an absolute grind. It’s not as intense, but it lasts way longer. 5 days a week with the editor. And then, if you’re directing the film, you’re watching it every weekend and watching everything if you’ve tried, watching string-outs of various versions, trying to get feedback, etc. At least I was. It’s non-stop. And it’s very hard to get a fresh perspective, and very easy to get stuck in limited patterns of thinking without realizing it. Yet fresh perspective is the most important thing when editing.
So the best thing I can recommend is to build in as much time off as you can. Step away from it. Don’t even think about it. Watch and read and work on other stuff. Then come back to it.
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
Seek Fresh Perspectives
In the absence of time off, I did other things to find a fresh perspective too, which proved really helpful. Most importantly–getting great notes from my producers, department heads, and friends. People both in and out of the film industry. Notes are always difficult, but always so worth working through. Especially the ones you disagree with. Those are the ones that will really teach you, whether they work, don’t work, or lead you down a new path entirely, into new ideas you never would have had without the note that “didn’t work.”
For more alternative methods, I listened to the whole movie without watching it. That gave me new insights. I also watched the whole movie without sound. Also learned from that. I watched it high. Loved that. I watched it with people a lot. We had a feedback screening in a theater as well. It’s all helpful. Watch it upside down and backward if you can.
I also edited this film three times. I didn’t give myself the time off I needed to find a fresh perspective initially–so it found its way to me on its own. And I’m so glad it did. The film wasn’t finished, whether I liked it or not, and it still had things to teach me. Of course when I first got the film “done,” I was happy with it. But after a buyer’s screening during the strike, no one was buying. So I had all this time with the film, and I slowly came out of the depths of the edit, gained fresh perspective, gathered more thoughts, and realized the film could get better.
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
A Tighter Edit is Always Better
Initially, I did a big pass on sound and music, because as brilliant as our Grammy-nominated composer is, as amazing as his music is—I had put too much of it in the film. I was too excited about his music–it was too much of a good thing. I wasn’t giving the audience a chance to breathe. I was telling them how to feel too much, rather than letting the actors’ amazing performances make them feel something. So I did that and the film got way stronger.
But then it still wasn’t selling, and it still wasn't getting into the best festivals. And the market still sucked. And for a while, I just blamed it on that, because a lot of people, distributors included, said they really loved the film, but just couldn’t buy it. But eventually, the horrifying thought began to dawn on me…maybe the film could still get a lot better, again. Maybe I had to open up the edit again. It was the last thing I wanted to do after already pouring years of my life into the thing. The thought of going back into the edit, and raising more money to do it, was literally horrifying, and I put it off for a while.
But during this time I was helping out on another film as a producer. And I was giving notes on a rough cut, and all my notes were about trimming. Cut this. Cut that. You don’t need this. Tighten that. And the director actually took a bunch of these suggestions and made a ton of great cuts, and the film got quite a bit shorter, and way stronger. I saw the power of tightening it up firsthand.
And then I looked back at my own film.
Fuck.
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
I had some serious cutting to do. There were all these little scenes, and bits, especially in the first act, that got laughs in a test screening, and felt like good scenes in and of themselves, but ultimately didn’t serve the story. They were some of my favorite moments on their own. But they weren’t hitting at the heart of the story. And we were losing people in the first act.
I was so worried about losing my personal style, that I was very hesitant to cut these things I loved so much. The “darlings,” as they say. That phrase is true. It’s often the things you love the most, for the most personal reasons, that are getting in the way, because you’re too attached to them, too biased in their favor.
I ended up trimming seven minutes off the film. Seven absolutely precious minutes that I never missed again as soon as I let them go. And that’s how you know they’re worth cutting.
It made a huge difference. I don’t think you can let your audience have any moments in the first act where they fall out of the story. Whether they get bored, confused, or something just feels off-tone. You have more than one of those moments, and I think you’re toast. I think they’re flipping to something else, or moving on to their next submission. And if I had more time to write it and revise it, I can only hope this article would be half as long. Tighter is always better, but that takes time and patience.
And even after all that cutting, the tone, the humor, and my style still comes through. There is still plenty of it. In fact, I was overdoing it before. Not because you can have too much tone, but because I was choosing tone over story, and that just never works. Every scene has to do something that the story cannot live without.
And after biting the bullet two times, editing the film for far longer than I ever thought I would or even could, and learning so much along the way, POOLS is finally seeing some real success. We’ve won our first festival, and been invited to another that only accepts ten films a year—one that’s truly a perfect fit for our film.
So it’s all started to pay off. We see the promise. But we’re not done yet.
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
Festivals
Go to Them Whether You Have a Project There or Not
On number one–if you had your film at a festival, wouldn't you want people to go just to watch your film? Go to these festivals. You want to be a part of the film community? Go and be a part of the film community. Link up with who you know, and meet a whole ton of new people. Why expect your film to be invited if you haven't been to the festival yourself, and don't actually know anything about it?
I meet a lot of people–and I used to be one of these people–who say, ”I'll go when I have a project there.” Like you don't belong, or don't deserve to be there without your own film premiering. If you want one of your films to one day be at that festival, go check it out. You never know who you will meet, what great new projects you will see, and how all of it will inform and inspire you. These things are not just for the filmmakers. Start by being an audience member. Start by learning, and enjoying, everything festivals have to offer. They are the best place for a filmmaker to be–surrounded by other filmmakers, producers, sales agents, programmers, and friends. Just get in there and see what happens. It's a blast.
Don’t Send Your Rough Cut to a Festival
Now getting a little more specific with the second bullet point: The festivals that saw the rough cut before all the trimming and improving have, thus far, never let the new version in. I valued so much the chance I had to learn from the rejection, re-work the film, and make it a way stronger version of itself. And it will benefit the film in the long run, for the audiences who watch it. But that first impression with a festival is so important. It’s hard to shake, and hard to get a festival to look at it as a new film, no matter how new it is, no matter how much better it is.
The festivals we submitted to for the first time with the new cut—we’ve gotten into all of those. We had just finished the new and final cut when SXSW Sydney saw it and invited us down. We jumped at the chance to test this thing on real audiences, and we came out in great shape, with an audience award to carry forward. And we’re Australian now. And I’m moving there.
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
Festivals Are Really Important (And Also Really Fun)
We were accepted into a few great festivals post-SXSW Sydney, but chose to reserve our North American premiere for TIFF Next Wave, and we are so stoked to try this on an even bigger stage at TIFF LightBox, for exactly the audience the film belongs to (Gen-Z).
These festivals matter a lot to sales agents and distributors. So film festivals have found themselves in a position of power to make or break movies. They’re a funnel that makes acquisition jobs more doable amidst the thousands and thousands of independent films made every year. And they’re a marketing machine that gives a film a leg-up on any film that isn’t in a festival.
Distribution
You’ve Got to Create Your Own Buzz
You are stranded on a deserted island with your movie. You had to go there to make it. It was risky, but it’s what you had to do. Now you’re still on this island with this movie and you’re wondering how the fuck anyone is ever going to see it. You’re waiting for the Amazon ship to pass by and scoop you up. You’re hoping Ted Sarandos will fly over in the Netflix jet and spot you making your designs on the beach. Or maybe the Hulu helicopter will pop out from behind a cloud. And quite possibly the Apple submarine could emerge from the depths at any moment. You’ve been living off bananas and wet sand since the birth of the VHS, your best friend is a volleyball that’s really just a coconut, and you might be going crazy.
It slowly dawns on you that maybe no one is coming, that maybe streamers don’t buy much of anything anymore no matter how much they “love it,” and you’ve just got to build a boat and set out into the open sea. It’s gonna be a shit ton of work, and it’s gonna take a while, but maybe if you paddle fast enough, and catch the winds just right, you can find your audience somewhere out there. And if enough people gather for your film, even the streamers will start to join the party.
Independent distribution is a massive problem right now, and it’s not nearly the same as it was even five years ago. It used to be that you made a good movie, you went to a good festival, and you stood a good chance of being picked up by a major streamer. And that was very exciting for a while when there were a million new streamers all trying to buy up whatever they could.
And during that time, the thought of an indie film going to theaters was ridiculous. Why? Who’s going to show up? Just sell it to a streamer, they say. No one is going to a theater for your puny Timothée-Chalamet-less movie.
But now it’s sort of the opposite. Now you have to prove to the streamers that even movies without Timothée Chalamet are sometimes worth watching, and that yours is one of those movies. You have to prove it outside of their networks. And I think the first stop is movie theaters. The original way, the best way, to watch a movie.
'Pools' posterCourtesy of Sam Hayes
We haven’t fully figured out our distribution yet for POOLS, so this is about where I’ll stop talking. But what I’m finding is that you have to find a way to find your audience and build buzz on your own. You have to take it step by step. Theaters and press and reviews into TVOD, and hopefully somewhere along the way you’ve proven there is real demand for this film, and one of the big streamers wants to pay you a reasonable amount of money to show your film to the whole world. But if not, you can still do well on AVOD streaming if people love your movie.
So, we’ll see what happens. Gonna keep giving it my all until this thing has had every possible chance to succeed.
And that’s my treatise on independent filmmaking. I cannot fucking wait to get POOLS all set up and do it again.
Stay tuned to see where POOLS lands on Instagram: @poolsmovie
Daniel Craig as James Bond.Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
On the set of 'Pools'Courtesy of Sam Hayes
'Pools' posterCourtesy of Sam Hayes
