Brad Furman

0:03What's up Matt? How you doing? Good man, nice to meet you. Yeah, you as well. I watched the take yesterday. Oh, you watched my first film. I did. Well, I've seen the Lincoln lawyer as well, but I watched the take yesterday to prepare. And I like it. It's gritty. Oh, thank you, man. That's cool. You know, I speak about the take a lot because it's so, it really informs understanding me as a filmmaker and my experiences, but it's not a movie that, you know, it's commonly seen, although it does have quite a life on cable now. But I always told maybe if people in Flint, Lincoln lawyers, they'll come. Well, it's very different though. I mean, even just the music is like you go from hip hop to mariachi. Oh, yeah, it's very different. Let's actually start with the take because I mean, even the coloring, it's like, it's gritty or it's grannier. It's almost like Soderberg in traffic the way you shot the take. I'm a big Soderberg fan in traffic.

0:50There's very few films. There's only two filmmakers, only two films actually that I reference that are current cinema because I'm not a fan of current cinema unfortunately. I want to be would be traffic in a moroth's carot. I chatted on super 16 millimeter film and I colored time that it company three. Yeah, it's definitely a grittiness to appreciate your thing. Well, and see, and it's funny because you say like Soderberg, but this new film, Lincoln lawyer looks more like a Spike Lee film in the feel of it and all the hip hop music throughout it and everything. It's interesting. Spike Lee is the main reason I became a filmmaker when I told a movie to the right thing. It forever changed my life and the act is which I was on.

1:37But I'm wondering what I'm just so interested that you sort of said that why what what about Spike Lee? I'm so curious now. Well, well, besides all the hip hop music, which I didn't expect to hear in a Matthew McConaughey movie, I guess, right? The quick shots the the trying to think because I saw it when I see I saw it about a week ago and I wrote that down in the theater. Looks like a Spike Lee film. I'm trying to think exactly what I was thinking when I wrote that. I'm trying to think but it was like the quick pace of it almost. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Listen, I don't know. Maybe subconsciously, you know, those those experiences and of watching those movies live within me and and and I don't know. Like I try to put the me in the movie. I mean, I love music period, but there's an era of 90s hip hop and rap that I think is

2:26a really special era that inspires some of the greatest as inspired some of the greatest rap music ever. So character was a conduit in the movie for a famous voice of the streets in the caller. So I really tried to harden back not to what the novel said, but to what I thought in my heart was what should be a book in the movie. Now, but I also really like, I mean, everything to do, you know, so we've seen it before and then we do a flip on it again. You know, if one movie comes out and we like it, we make nine in Hollywood to think kind of movie. I mean, when I went back and looked at every people thriller or drama that came before me, they're all shot the same way. They're all feel very similar. I'll be at some of them are great movies, but they're all really similar. And I just felt like, you know, I'm a white Jewish kid from the East Coast, you know,

3:15from, you know, Philly and New York, but you know, I just felt like, well, what's the world I want to live in? What's the world McAllard should live in? And I tried to evoke that. And I try not to think about what came before me because that just seems completely unoriginal. How did you make the jump from shorts to feature films? How did you do that as a filmmaker? Well, I mean, as far as filmmaking, whether you're making a two minute film or two hour film, that's all the same. You know, that's no different. But I think more, I'm sure in your question, you mean, you know, how do you get from point A to point B in your career? Yeah. Truthfully, I dealt with so much rejection, so much, you know, disdainful, embarrassing behavior, the bureaucracy of this business that I just knew that I loved the movie.

4:03And I wanted to be a filmmaker so much that nothing was going to get my way. I would commonly joke that the only way I wasn't going to be successful, treated in a bus 100 miles per hour hit me when I wasn't. So I just, you know, I was steadfast. You know, every penny I made, I invested in myself, I made a movie. I wanted to, I had an idea, I wanted to try it. I, you know, just like McAllard, I would make some hustlers some deal to get money from this person to make another short. And then another. I kept just hot flinnin'. I just never quit. I was relentless. Cause this is like your, this is like your big break almost in a way. I mean, the take was a feature film, sure, but not, not as critically acclaimed and as big budgeted, I would think, as this one, right? Well, actually the critical claim on the take was pretty unbelievable.

4:49I mean, it's, you know, weirdly enough not to run tomatoes as any guidance in my life whatsoever. But we were, we were at like 90 or 95%, I think it was 90. And then literally they bizarrely posted a, a bad tomato and we dropped to 85. But it was one of the best reviewed movies of that year. And nobody knew what the hell it was. We were nominated independent spirit awards. I mean, critically, I could not have been more embraced by the media. But yeah, you know, it's a movie that's been completely lost in obscurity that very few people know about. Whenever I mentioned it, everybody's like, huh, what, you know? So, so I guess in essence, because of the studio release and the amount of screens

5:35that Lincoln lawyers on and working with Matthew McConaughey, a major movie star and then the rest of the cast. Yeah, for me, it's definitively a big break. Speaking of the cast, like was almost in both them. Did you cast him purposely? Cause, cause you liked his work so much in the last film? I mean, he's my, he's one of my best friend in the world. He's probably one of the only people who's really both the loyal and supportive of me early in my career. And I think he's, he's one of the most brilliant actors I've ever worked with. And I hope he does every and any kind of thing. You want to give people a brief synopsis of the film for those who want, who, who have, I guess seen the trailer, but aren't really sure what's going on? Well, it's the story of Mick Mallard. He's sort of a, in my opinion, you know, a bit of a down on his luck attorney who's off to like through the streets of LA, going from courthouse to courthouse.

6:22So as a result, he works out of the back of his Lincoln town car. And he's very much a man of the people. And he finally gets, you know, his big break client, but not everything that actually it sees to his everything that appears to be upside down as a result. And, and, Did you film it in June? It looks like that June L.A. Bloom sky kind of thing. June Bloom. Yeah. Yeah. No, actually we started filming in, in early July. So probably we're still able to capture that, that rollover from June. I'm just going to throw a couple of questions at you. How do you shoot? Do you like to do a lot of takes? Yeah, I do. I mean, I, I don't ever stop shooting. So I know I've thought it, whatever that, and that's an instinctual thing inside me.

7:11But, yeah, I mean, sometimes if I nail it on take two, I'll move on. But, you know, but it's, it's a whatever it takes, type of attitude. What's, what's going on with intricate? I know you, I know you were a big ball player back in the day. Yeah. I'm not, I'm no good anymore. Well, maybe you still are. I don't know. Right. Um, intricate the script is being finished right now. I'm, I'm incredibly passionate about it. And I, I really hope that it's the kind of movie where I live in that world. I know this friends from NYU basketball team story. And I really hope that, that I'm, you know, I'm blessed. We do something on the show called five questions. Five quick questions. One more answers. All right. Let's do it.

7:56Ball or film? Oh, geez. I, I can film fuck. I don't know. You can't swear, man. I apologize. I forgive you. I'll be good. It's fine. Uh, let it in on McCartney. Uh, Landon. We'll go back to the nineties hip-hop, pop or biggie. Fuck. Really being a New Yorker. That's interesting. Pops my heart, man. That guy's got a heart. Cool. Film your most proud of. Okay. And in one word, Brad Furman. Heart. Nice. Good word. Thank you. Quick question. Did you enjoy the take? I did. I did. I, because I expected, I was like, whoa, you killed him in the first 20 minutes of the film. What the hell's going on? And then, of course he ends up living, but, but, yeah, man, I did enjoy it.

8:44I didn't, I didn't know what to expect going into it. I watched it just because we were talking today. But yeah, I dug it. I dug it a lot. Yeah. Now it's a movie that I always knew. Like if I could remake a movie, I would remake that one, but that's the trials and tribulations of getting through it. Make it very special for me. And, uh, what would you change? What would you change? What would you change? Why would you want to redo it? I always, you know, I, because I'm a young filmmaker and the writers were big, multi-million dollar guys, I always wanted to dive into breaking the stereotype of the Adele character played by Tyree. And I wanted to show how their world, Albeit so far apart or actually so different. And I thought that that would really help. I also wanted to, I wanted to escalate the threat against Felix towards the latter part

9:29of the movie. I thought if I did those two things, it really would have, it would have been.