More for Me and You Podcast
Brought to you by the free streaming service Mometu, the More for Me and You Podcast blends interviews and movie reviews. Guests from across the entertainment industry share their journeys and what's next for them. Before each episode, they choose a movie on Mometu for us to watch, followed by a spoiler-free review. Fun. Light. Insightful.
More for Me and You Podcast
Episode 27 | Swooning Over Cinema with filmmaker Byron P. Manuel
In this episode, I sit down with award-winning filmmaker Byron P. Manuel, who just released his brand-new feature film Swoon — now streaming on Mometu. We dive into his inspiring journey, starting from the Antelope Valley, where his hustle began selling candy in high school, to breaking into the music industry, then television, and now carving his mark in the film world.
Byron shares stories of grit, creativity, and passion that shaped his career, and we also lighten things up with a fun round of This or That, where listeners get a more personal glimpse into who he is beyond the camera. Finally, we break down his latest film Swoon in a spoiler-free review, so you can head over to Mometu and experience it for yourself.
This is a conversation full of laughs, lessons, and love for the craft — and one you don’t want to miss.
Follow us on Instagram or TikTok for BTS footage @mometupodcast & do not forget to download the Mometu app and watch movies for free today.
That's more for me and you. That's more for me and you. That's more for me and you. Let's go!
SPEAKER_02:Welcome back to the More For Me And You Podcast. Brought to you by the free streaming service, MoMe2. And today we have a very special episode with a friend of mine who I actually just met last weekend, Byron Manuel. Hey. Welcome to the pod, my friend. Man,
SPEAKER_03:thanks for having me. I'm excited.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. We met last weekend, literally. Yeah. I mean, this was less than a week ago. Yeah. It hasn't been a week ago. And I feel like I've known you for a long time, though. We
SPEAKER_03:had a good talk. Absolutely. When you start getting into sports, it's like, oh, I know this guy.
SPEAKER_02:We got into sports and we went back. Yeah. We didn't play against each other because I did not play basketball. I played soccer. But we were kind of rival high schools. Yeah, rival high schools here and there. There's some people. In the preseason. Some mutuals. Some mutuals we talked about. A friend of mine who used to play against, which is pretty fun. It's fun to go back and talk about the good old days of sports. It
SPEAKER_03:was a good time back then, man. You know, before NIL and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Before NIL. Before social media. Before social. Dude, like all my tapes. Yeah. four colleges were like filmed on camcorders. And I remember- My sister was like this. Yeah, yeah. My mom was at every game doing all that stuff. And no joke, our apartment got broken into and all the tapes got stolen. Like we had like two tapes left. That's terrible. I was devastated. Why'd you take my tapes? That's what I, so I was like trying to figure out, I was like, you can have the camera. Take the stuff. I just want the tapes. I think that's evil. That's pure evil. It was pure evil. Yeah. I mean,
SPEAKER_03:camcorder, how much are you going to get for that? Come on, bro. I'm like when nowadays, like early on when cell phones, like if I found a cell phone when they first came out, I would be like, oh, I found a phone. But now I'm like, there's so much personal things in a phone. If I found a phone, I can't keep the phone. Like you've
SPEAKER_02:got people's memories in there, like all kinds of stuff. At the same time, you can't even, sometimes you can't even get into the phone. You can't even use the phone. And then they jailbreak you or whatever. And then they, you know, the Find Me apps and all that stuff. To save some
SPEAKER_03:hundreds?
SPEAKER_02:Come on, bro. So I remember I used to work at, enterprise rent a car first job out of college and this was back when like phones had just come out pretty much like phones were like five years old iPhone specifically smartphones and I remember there was a phone that one of my co-workers had given a person a ride back and that person had like snatched the phone and And took it, sold it for$100, like within like hours. I mean, it was crazy how quick it was. And they found the phone. They used the Find Me. They called Apple, figured it out, pinged it, whatever. Had a cop come to the house, was like, hey. Let me get the phone back. Let me get the phone. And then they'd gotten the phone back. And then they found the person that had sold it. Because they had, like, we dropped you off. It's a trap. Yeah. No, but we, it was, we dropped you off your house. We know where you are. We know where you live. We have your credit card. We have your driver's license. It was so funny. You filled out all the paperwork. Dude almost went to jail for an iPhone. It was crazy. Good times back in... That was actually in Lancaster. K and 10th. It's been a long time. I haven't been up there in a long time. I don't live up there anymore. Talking about the early days, let's get into your early days. Where are you from? How are you as a kid? I just want to get your journey because this podcast is a little different we don't just talk about like the things that are going on now for you we want to get a little bit of context to like who you were because I think that shines a light on to like what you're doing now absolutely really builds that story because most of the time like especially as a filmmaker your stories are based on your own lived experiences
SPEAKER_03:no that's true man like the things that you're shaped by ultimately become visuals in your mind that you want to project and put out there but yeah man I started out humble beginner I'm originally from LA South Central LA and then I moved out to I was in the valley for a little bit like North Ridge area and then ultimately I went to like middle school and high school up in like the Antelope Valley oh you were in the AV yeah yeah I was in the AV tough tough yeah so that's that that's but that's really where I like grew up at so that's where like all my childhood friends are from and everything like that my entire family's in LA so I would just go back and forth but yeah man I grew up athlete playing baseball basketball football thinking that was going to be the journey I would I was... Usually, I was always pretty thin, but I was kind of taller, you know, so I thought I was going to hit six-something, and I was like always kind of like in that mix. Eventually, I'm going to hit that growth spurt that just takes you off. Yeah, for sure. I was a big point guard at one point where I was like, all right, cool, or like just around the norm. So I'm like, this is going to go. But I actually separated my shoulder in my very last high school game on Friday the 13th and never hooped again. So I think that was God saying, have your fun. You got to do something. you're not tall enough bro so
SPEAKER_02:do something else that hits me so hard because I actually did kind of the same thing last year I think I was about a month away from graduating high school and I ended up fracturing my wrist and I was a goalkeeper so I have a screw in my wrist they said you're never going to play again all the offers went off the table everything gone and I literally went to school just to become an athletic trainer wow so I thought like my calling was going to be still in sports and doing that but then And that changed up too. When I
SPEAKER_03:stopped hooping, I was like, man, what am I going to do? For sure. What I didn't know what was going on then is that I was training to be in the arts and didn't even realize it. That, you know, just I was consumed with media all the time, watching all the movies, all the TV shows, Saturday morning cartoons, TGIF on Fridays. Like I was watching things around the clock, like studying. TGIF. Man, what a time. They don't know about this.
SPEAKER_02:That's
SPEAKER_03:breaking me back. Yeah, they don't
SPEAKER_02:know about this. Dating me a little
SPEAKER_03:bit.
SPEAKER_02:What was your favorite show, TGI Friday?
SPEAKER_03:Man, Family Matters. What was the other one? The two families that merged. Step by Step. Step by Step. That was classic.
SPEAKER_02:Full House. They're all the jingles. They weren't show tunes. They were jingles.
SPEAKER_03:And it's funny how they're still... Oh, yeah. In your head.
SPEAKER_02:I'm singing like four of them
SPEAKER_03:right now. Man, crazy. Yeah, so I mean, that's what I was doing. I was playing sports, and then I was studying the arts without realizing I was studying them. And the only thing I really wanted to do when I was a kid was become a businessman. So I'm like, I'll go into college for business and just kind of figure out what that looks like.
SPEAKER_02:So you went to what school?
SPEAKER_03:I ended up first, I went to Dominguez Hills. CSU, Dominguez Hills. I went there for about a year, year and a half. Got a little homesick. Went back home to the Antelope Valley. Did a year or two at the junior college out there, Antelope Valley College. AVC. Yeah. And then I ended up transferring and finished at CSUN.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. You got around a little bit, yeah. Yeah, I was
SPEAKER_03:bouncing back and forth.
SPEAKER_02:So how did the film thing tie in? I mean, you had a love for media, but did you have a love for film growing up, or was it just... Just being around everything.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I loved consuming it. I loved watching it. The funny thing is I always tell people that, you know, being from here, I still didn't realize that there was, like, a career in film. It never really even crossed my mind. It's like I know Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. And then there's a Tom Cruise and a Jamie Foxx. So I'm like, I never really wanted to be an actor. I didn't understand what a director was or a producer and those things. But I ended up getting into music probably around, like, 18. My brother brought home a ton of studio equipment one day and was like, yo, we're about to start rapping. Now, my brother was nice. He was dope. So he brought all this stuff home, and I'm like, just messing with everything, man, figuring out how to mix and master, make beats. I'm rapping. I'm writing music. You know, studio sessions are great. I'm creating. And then it's like, all right, cool, time to shoot. a music video, then it's like, well, how do we do that? Well, I guess we need a camera. So then as soon as I touch the camera, Sony... Canon 7D I think it was the first camera I picked up and then just started shooting music videos and then from there started shooting sketches probably year one of YouTube shooting sketches before sketches were like a thing putting them on YouTube getting 8 views like oh shit we're here we're viral 10 people watch this
SPEAKER_02:I can confirm that's not the camcorder that we own so I'm just making sure everyone we're good the Sony Yeah, so early days of YouTube. I didn't get into YouTube early.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you're making a music video.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, where did you start? What was your process?
SPEAKER_03:Man, we were just randomly just shooting stuff. Sometimes we would try to come up with like a treatment, creative directive, be like some sort of creative direction to it. But we were just like shooting bad music videos. Quality control, not understanding the camera, didn't study it at all. It's like it looks clear. It's out of focus. It's clear maybe. And then I started running into dudes who were like better at it. And then I'm like, okay, you shoot the video. you know, and then just kind of learning from them. And, you know, I went, I really thought it was going to be music. I used to work at Interscope for a little bit. So I did an internship there when I was in college and I'm like, you know, I'm gonna start managing people or try to work my way up or introduce the artists that I'm working with and try to be like some sort of, some sort of bridge. But what I found out really early was how passionate I was about things. Like, you know, I'm super passionate about success, humble beginnings, grew up super poor, you know, all I've been working since I was like 11. I used to sell candy. Yeah, so I used to sell candy. I used to make like$20,$30 a day profit,$100,$150 a week.
SPEAKER_02:Were you one of the kids selling outside the stores? No, I
SPEAKER_03:was in school. Selling candy at school? I would load my backpack up. It was a crew of us. We ended up, what I know now is we were franchised. So we would have multiple candy sellers. I was very elite at it. I went all three years of middle school, no infractions. A lot of people were getting caught getting some detention. But I used to have these methods. I would have sour straws right here. I would have the airheads right here. It
SPEAKER_02:had to be stuff that was probably not chocolate either because of the fact that- Oh, no. I didn't do chocolate. I didn't do chocolate. Well, it's out in the Antelope
SPEAKER_03:Valley. It gets
SPEAKER_02:hot.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, no. It's heated. My boy would do chocolate, and his first couple rounds, he was melted, but then he started bringing a cooler. So he would do that, but that was too much upkeep for me. I'm
SPEAKER_02:like- That's next level. Yeah. I'm like, you're doing too much. You got caught with a cooler inside your locker. That's so funny.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was epic times. But yeah, no, I just. So
SPEAKER_02:you've had this like entrepreneurial, like just mindset, this business mindset, even since the early days, like candy. For sure. So I wanted
SPEAKER_03:to introduce that into music. Yeah. And then once I started, music kind of ran its course. I was like, you know, I was, I remember I was working with some artists that I, while I was at Interscope and I got them some meetings with like some big time engineers and people who were going to record the music and they didn't show up and i was like wow if this was a financial thing i would only be getting paid if they showed up and if they don't show up i don't get paid i'm like no i think i gotta get out of music i gotta find something that i could do yeah that's based on me
SPEAKER_02:i will say that and we're gonna talk about swoon in the latter half of the episode but i will say one thing that stood out to me was the music
SPEAKER_03:man
SPEAKER_02:still got that affinity yeah dude so so good thank you thank you so good and i'm not sure if that was like hands-on with you or that was just great choices or what you did we'll talk about it later but i just want to touch on that phenomenal thank you for your music choices that just it kept it kept it going even those moments of just like kind of the not not dull moments but just the moments that kind of in a movie where it just kind of lulls out it kind of like you need some good music to kind of keep it going that's very well done very well done so and we're not going to get into that yeah yeah
SPEAKER_03:no we'll get to it we'll get to
SPEAKER_02:it yeah so college getting industry in the music Thank you. How did you get into film? You do music videos, but that's a big transition.
SPEAKER_03:It's a huge transition. I remember... You didn't go to film school. And I went to CSUN, which if I would have known at that time, I would have been enrolled in a film program.
SPEAKER_02:They have a very good film
SPEAKER_03:program. Top tier film program.
SPEAKER_02:Very underrated film program.
SPEAKER_03:While I was there, I was a residential advisor in the dorms. I was RA. And there was a dorm dedicated to just film students and I was like I'm already I'm like two years left of school I'm like wait a minute you can go to school for film yeah I'm like first generation college student yeah why didn't I go for the arts I'm over here accounting business this business
SPEAKER_02:that it was crazy I will tell you my father went to film school at UCLA Wow
SPEAKER_03:okay
SPEAKER_02:I didn't even put the two together that I could go to school. So don't, don't even feel bad about it. Like I just, when you go to, especially when you're an athlete, when you're an athlete, you're not thinking about like, unless you're the, that, that dual scholarship type, right. Or your parents have led you down the path of like, Hey, education first, sports second. And if you're just really good at sports, then you go to Harvard. So it's like Harvard or Stanford or whatever, Ivy league school, you can go to both and do the, do, you know, the double scholarship. So, For me, it was sports or bust.
SPEAKER_03:That's all I was thinking.
SPEAKER_02:So I didn't even think about film school, even though my dad went to film school. Which is crazy. Yeah. No,
SPEAKER_03:that's what I mean. Like, I mean, we're here in L.A. Hollywood is right up the street. You know people who are doing it. I know actors. I grew up with a lot of people. And I know it exists, but never really connected like, oh, wait, I could do this too. Yeah. So when I ended up getting into film, man, I was just at a crossroads at my life where I was like, you know, It just hit me. I was like, I think I want to go into writing. So I was good at writing music. I'm like, I think I want to become a writer. So I actually called my mom, who's usually my first call for everything, which is ironic because she's never in any of these worlds, but she'll always have a recommendation. So she actually knew somebody who used to be in the business. I sat down with her, and she was like, I'm going to connect you with five black writers I know. reach out to them, do whatever they want, try to, you know, befriend them and figure out what's going on. One of those guys was Vincent Brown, who was an executive producer on a Disney show, Casey Undercover at the time. So I reached out to Vincent. He knows me from nothing, but the recommendation I came from, he's like, cool, I'll take a meeting with you. He invites me up to the show, you know, and he's like, I'm going to show you what we do here. You can kind of figure out what's going on. And when I got there, he was, like, super busy. He comes back, like, 30 minutes later. He's like, I'm so busy today, bro. Just come back another time. I'm like, cool. I'll come back another time. But then he called me, like, two, three weeks later, and he's like, you want to be a PA? We got a spot opened up. I don't know anything about film. I don't know anything about TV. I don't know what anything is called. I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll do it. Yes, sir. Yeah, it's my dream. Fake a TV. Yeah, this is all I wanted to do. So they let me in. They brought me on the show, and then... From there, I just started getting a lay of the land. I was working the first show that I was on was Casey Undercover for Disney, which was Zendaya's show. It was in season two at the time when I pulled up. So it was already a well-oiled machine that was running. But once I got there and I saw kind of what was going on, I was like, this is what I want to do. You were hooked. Yeah, I'm like, I got to be in the writer's room. I love this.
SPEAKER_02:Very cool. And you have a lot of lived experience. Yeah. Especially being from L.A., then going to the A.V. Mm-hmm. slinging candy. I mean, getting in the music industry. There's a lot of lived experiences and multiple buckets there that you can really, it really does help you when you go to write.
SPEAKER_03:For sure.
SPEAKER_02:There's a lot of writers that I come across that just don't have the lived experience and they try to write about something and they can't. They don't have that creativity to kind of think and create alternate universes and different worlds and a world where things do exist and it could exist in our world, but it doesn't. You have to create that. having a very deep lived experience really helps with doing that because the whole time you've, you've probably ran, even just selling candy, you're probably like thinking of multiple ways you could pitch to people. Right. And then multiple ways that, you know, responses you're going to get back before it even happens. Right. So you're already writing the story. Yeah. And so that's, that's, it makes sense. Yeah. No, that, that like was something you, you know, you kind of fell into and kind of. Yeah. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:that's really what it is. Like when you're riding, they always say when you start out, write what you know. And then when you do have that experience and, you know, even the ups and downs of life, you know, like me not having a smooth ride gave me so much perspective. Originally from South Central LA, then I moved. When I get to the AV, it's like all white. I'm like, damn, this is crazy. I'm like six black kids at the school. We're all in the same neighborhood and we all play basketball ball so we all know each other but then everything else is different
SPEAKER_02:because you were on the west side
SPEAKER_03:yeah so and then i'm on the court sale side so like i grew up in a trailer park out there yeah so we were like poor poor and but but i went to the high school that's like the rich high school yeah so my friends were pulling up to school um tvs in the dash video games in the car brand new lexus is 300s my boy natter
SPEAKER_02:i had all this i had all the same friends yeah yeah exactly except i had the 1990 ford taurus with the hand me down subs from my brother's car like in the back of mine rattled like crazy yeah but didn't matter yeah no ac no ac but you make it work
SPEAKER_03:eight dollar fill up though good times yeah
SPEAKER_02:i miss those days eight dollar fill eight dollars gets you a solid two gallons today not even you
SPEAKER_03:might not even be able to pull off today
SPEAKER_02:it's crazy yeah yeah i remember when driving down to soccer practice talking about gas but uh arco station on 405 and victory got on off there for soccer practices. And it was 98 cents a gallon. Those were the good old days. We took them for granted. That's for sure. I
SPEAKER_03:feel like that old guy now where I'm like, back in my day.
SPEAKER_02:Back in my day. This candy was a
SPEAKER_03:quarter. It's$1.25 now? What the fuck? It's
SPEAKER_02:wild.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So what was your favorite job? Because you obviously had a great job starting out at the gate. Yeah. Your resume shows you worked in a lot of places. Yeah. Industry favorite. Just for the sake of it. the sake of time like we just can't talk about every job you've had yeah it's favorite industry job in the in the film industry i would say you know more
SPEAKER_03:more so that one's tough that one's tough because there was nothing like my first experience on casey undercover like that hit a dopamine right out the gate was like oh man and it was and it's in days yeah and then it's in days she's like superstar but not superstar but like you know she's about to be this thing and like her personality like super great great human and then but then i went from there to um kidding which was like creatively in the writer's room and then i was bumped up i was like a writer's assistant at that time but like being on that show in the writer's room like and participating just watching these writers how their mind worked i'm like bro this is and then it's jim carrey so then it's like oh man that's crazy and then i went back to euphoria with zendaya again and then the showrunner sam levinson and such a genius when it comes to like shooting and like his writing style and like everything that he was doing for that show. And then the last show that I was on was Run the World for Stars, which was Yvette Lee Bowser, who was show running that show. And she's like 30 year veteran, you know, icon of a creative that it's like, man, it was difficult, man. But I think Casey Undercover, just that introduction was like, was amazing. But I would go each show and take away pieces from everybody that I was working with.
SPEAKER_02:How many years apart was? Man, it was all jam packed. From Euphoria to the, from Case Undercover.
SPEAKER_03:It was back to back. So I started in 2016 and I worked all the way up to 2020. So when I would come off a show, I didn't even, I may have had a month or two off. I was very fortunate enough to fall into random scenarios to where I was able to able to get more jobs. Even when I got on Euphoria, I was moving out of Kidding in the office on the Sony lot, and Euphoria was moving in. And one of the coordinators had heard I knew Zendaya from KC Undercover, and they were like, oh, you worked on? They're like, do you want to work on this show? And I literally didn't even move my desk. I was like, all right, cool. So she remembers you. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You're working every day together. Yeah, not that many black people. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Not that many black people on KC Undercover. the undercover. We were all right here. It was all two of us. One just happened to be the star of the show. What do you do here? I'm the lowest on the totem pole. Oh, we're friends. You're the lowest? I'm the highest. That's crazy. Let's be friends. So cool. I was looking through your resume on IMDb and searching about you. There's so many jobs. That's a blessing. Especially within five years. That's It's crazy to just go from desk to desk to desk to desk. That doesn't happen for everyone.
SPEAKER_03:No, it doesn't. I was super fortunate because even people would ask me, like, how do I get a job in this business? And I'm like, I don't know. It's like you have to know somebody, but then how do you get to know somebody without knowing somebody? You know, so it's like I was super fortunate. You know, I just right place, right time. I would also, you know, I would go outside of my job sometimes and, you know, they would kind of talk about me a little bit like where's Byron at but I would be on set talking to the director like can I come shadow you in the morning or I would be just want to learn yeah with wardrobe because at the end of the season they give all the clothes away so it's like making friends with them I'm with the people with the food because I got to order it you know I'm like just networking and learning and consuming as much as possible and then I started making my own stuff while I was on those shows just whatever I was learning I would go home and then just figure out how to do the same thing for myself
SPEAKER_02:and gosh man like Craig we've we're on episode like 27 now 28 I don't know somewhere in there crazy and I'm starting to like some of the episodes are starting to blend together now where I'm like I used to be able to pick out references there was a there was an episode we were talking about that where someone was like hey like any downtime I was always in the mix like I always was on set I wanted to learn it's like okay like I'm gonna go there's a little downtime I'm gonna go talk to the director I'm gonna go talk to this person And you had to be aware of like, can I talk to them or not? Is the timing going to be right? That's smart. A lot of people don't do that. And I think that's the extrovert side of you.
SPEAKER_03:I would do things like I would wait for people. I would hide. Pretend like I just randomly bumped into them. I'm like, hour after I'm off, I'm like, alright, the showrunner is going to come out around this time. I hop out my car when he's walking and bumping. Oh, what's going on, man? How was your try to spark up a conversation and befriend people.
SPEAKER_02:My wife is laughing so hard right now because that's literally how I... It's not how we met, but we hung out one time. Same tactics. I remember we had a lot of fun. In college, you don't see everyone all the time. I was at a small college. It was private school. I remember I saw her and I was like, I have to go talk to her now. If not, I don't know when the next chance is going to be. Literally waited five minutes for her to get off the phone so we could talk for a few minutes I could ask her on another date and the funny thing is now she tells me the real story is that she actually was pretending to be on the phone with her mom because she saw me from a distance but persistence will prevail everyone
SPEAKER_03:that's what they say man you know you have to put you have to put your your energy out there like that otherwise there's no other way for it to even happen you gotta shoot the shot
SPEAKER_02:you have to you have to you got to put your fears behind you and just be like hey the moment's now I have an opportunity take it I mean you can miss it's okay
SPEAKER_03:talking to women is what prepared me for that we used to say like we used to go to the AV mall there you go and like high school middle school like trying to pick up on girls but before you know we would leave our little huddle us three guys it's like alright everybody got their vests on got your bulletproof vests on today like man take it like a champ it's like a one in ten chance of getting a yes We're going to get a lot of no's today. A lot of no's. Be prepared, fellas.
SPEAKER_02:Keep your chin up. That's so funny, man. So when did you know you wanted to make a feature?
SPEAKER_03:Man, I wanted to make a feature as soon as I picked up a camera. Realistically, I wanted to do that. I didn't know how to do it or even how to figure it out. But after going through a couple of years on making digital content, sketches, two-minute sketches, one-minute sketches, eight minute sketches, 15 minute sketches, um, getting into like that longer form, you know, writing, writing TV pilots. Um, cause I was in TV. So I'm like, I want to, I want to get into TV, get into TV. But then I started looking at the road to become a TV writer and I'm like, man, it's a, it's a longer road than if I just figure out how to make a movie, which is less work than creating a TV show. I I got to figure out in my mind what three seasons of TV look like. I've got to have a pilot. I've got to have this show Bible. I've got to have all these things written. And I'm like, film, 60 pages, 80 pages, 120 pages. You've got a movie. So I'm like, anywhere I could write that. So once I just started thinking about it a little bit more from the business side, strategy-wise, like how can I make something that I can get out in the world, I started talking to my team about it. making a movie.
SPEAKER_02:It's a very unconventional path. I mean, just everything that you've gone through didn't go to film school. You got into TV and then you made a feature. It's like most people go to school. They'd make, you know, half a dozen, if not a dozen shorts, depending on how much time and money and resources they had. And then eventually probably get out of school, make another short that was just well done and well funded or whatever to hopefully have a calling for card to get someone to trust them enough to make a feature and hopefully it'd be funded well if not it'd be a low budget feature just to have another calling card to get to the point of making the feature they really want to make it's like you've gone a very unconventional path but I will say after watching your film I'm blown away like you have a very creative mind definitely comes with the writing phenomenal like that's That's something that really sets filmmakers apart is if you can be a writer for the film, you're also going to direct and The next step is if you are able to help edit it as well and know that side of things, you know you're going to shoot it the way you know you're going to edit it. So there's just another piece there, but man, you did something big right out of the gate.
SPEAKER_03:Man, thank you, thank you. I mean, you hit it on the head. Even being in the edit, I worked with the editor who was phenomenal, my boy Josh, but I did probably about 30% of the edit, but I have some edit background from all the digital stuff that I was doing. So just, you know, knowing how to shoot with barely any money, what are we going to do in post with these shots, definitely helped us be able to kind of pull this off for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, you won an award last week. Yep, yep. The Echelon Studios International Film Festival. Absolutely. What was the official title of your award, though?
SPEAKER_03:It was Best U.S. Feature.
SPEAKER_02:Best U.S. Feature, okay. There was like, probably seven or eight different categories and stuff like that so uh and i wish that we had gotten like some good pictures um on the red carpet i know we took some pictures but like there was uh like i got some of the pictures back i'm not sure you got a picture i didn't see them so yeah i got a few pictures they our picture was not selected by the editor so i gotta i need to find the raw footage and get that so yeah find something for us yeah we'll put we'll put it up i'm sure that you have pictures with your your crew oh yeah everyone you showed up with is all on there. I think they've already posted some of those on LinkedIn especially.
SPEAKER_03:I've seen them do one post so far, but everybody from my team is like, where are the photos at?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Everybody's ready to post this week.
SPEAKER_02:I just got them late, late, late last night, so I'm sure you're going to get them soon. Yeah, they'll be rolling out. We sponsored one of the awards. So we had the Mometoo trailer competition. Oh yeah, that's right, that's right. And so we put all the trailers up. Yeah, those were good. All the trailers were up on Mometoo for like two weeks and then just you know use that as a way to hopefully get some you know eyeballs and just brand awareness from me too and then yeah Francesca won the the best trailer trailer award so hats off to her hopefully we're gonna have either her come on or we're talking about having maybe even the lead from her film which was she was amazing she was good she was really good very good so got an award on your belt you're making films but then you also started a podcast.
SPEAKER_03:I did, I did, yep.
SPEAKER_02:So it's fresh. Tell us a little bit about that and then...
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the pod is just, it's a film pod. You know, it's really like a creative therapy. Me and one of my producing partners, Rich Morrow, talk so much about the rigors of this business and we felt like we just had a very unique POV of what it looks like to be a creative, to the day so that's pretty much what we do we get on there we talk we bring on guests and just really talk about the journey we try to hit some of the hard points of like you know how are you dealing with things in this business right now how are you staying afloat how do you stay motivated you know and just for filmmakers that are coming up they can watch the watch the pod and gain a lot of valuable insight from people who are actually making things right now both independently and with the studio still so you get a very unique perspective on like what it really takes to be in this business
SPEAKER_02:yeah and everyone has a podcast now yeah yeah for sure even I have a podcast yeah yeah go figure right go figure who knew this would get to episode 27 yeah who knew who knew look at us look at us killing it so we usually do a podcast promotion segment so we'll just we just bang that out now you can do that so why don't you look in the camera just showcase your podcast tell everyone the name of it where they can find it okay even on socials for just go ahead and Yeah, do that.
SPEAKER_03:What's up, everybody? I'm Byron Manuel. I'm the host of Any Day Now Podcast. We are on all socials under Any Day Now Podcast. The podcast is a film pod. You know, we like to talk about what the industry won't tell you, give you some insight on what it looks like to be a filmmaker today. And we have tons of guests that are coming on, very well-known guests, some up-and-coming guests, people that you've seen before, influencers, creatives, executives. We want to talk to some people behind the camera, too, you know, directors, cinematographers, and really just have a well-balanced conversation about film. But yeah, check it out. Any Day Now podcast on anything where you can watch something
SPEAKER_02:or listen. I've checked out a couple of the episodes, especially the clips on social media. It looks really fun. You have a great setup as well. It looks visually appealing. Yeah. So maybe we can cross-collab in different ways. You
SPEAKER_03:definitely got to come up to the pod,
SPEAKER_02:too. Yeah. I'll come up to the valley. Yeah. I'm guessing you shoot in the valley? Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's a trek for me, but I'll come up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll make a day out of it. I guess I'll come see my family too. Why not? Because most of my family, my side of the family lives up in the Valley or up in Santa Clarita still. So I'll make a whole day of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe come up and spend the night. So we'll see. I love getting a chance to see my nephews and my niece. So hopefully we fit that in. So you're doing all these things. Music, TV, film, podcast. What's
SPEAKER_03:next? Man, really... Um... Consistency is what's next. When I made the film and then went through the festival run, I didn't anticipate what a festival run would look like and how time-consuming it would be. I want to get more consistent in just putting stuff out, like comparative to what I was doing when I was putting out sketches. We're putting out sketches weekly, daily, building audience every day, viewership every day. I want to get to the point where I can put... really a film out a month. Honestly, drop one a month. So I'm in development for a lot of those. I'm back now creating short form content again. I went away from that because I was like, you know, I'm tired of doing internet stuff. I just want to make movies. But I want to find the bridge on how to do both because even when we put Swoon, as Swoon is circulating, we're not really online as much as we used to be. So our audience, isn't even floating to it. So what I realized from a marketing strategy, you know, having a podcast, you know, putting stuff out on social every day gives me an opportunity to speak to viewers, audience, fans daily. So I just want to find that balance of making more movies. I want to get to the place where I can do it in bulk, you know, shooting tons of movies year round, creating a lot of short form content to feed the socials and keep that fan base So, yeah, we got a mentorship coming out pretty soon, too. Very cool. That will be helping filmmakers, you know, get into the film business if they're in a position where they can't afford film school or they're just looking to figure out how to do things on their own. Yeah. We're looking to figure out how to be a liaise
SPEAKER_02:to that. YouTube University. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we have a very successful filmmaker that was on the podcast before, what episode it was? 12, 13, 14. somewhere on there, but James Cullen Bresak.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And he just started making films when he was 18.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No film school. Just get it out the mud. Just out there. And he just directed a film with Jean-Claude Van Damme. To go from just... bootstrapping it, figured it out, like a couple hundred dollars to make a film kind of thing to now be able to do some big stuff with a very well-known name. So yeah, that's great that you do that. I think especially with the day and age with social media, with YouTube, with all the ability to reach out to people without even having to be near them, we have to be doing that kind of stuff. We have to be creative.
SPEAKER_03:It's been a hustle, you know, like figuring out how to make stuff and then getting good at making stuff and then realizing we can make more stuff. make it bigger and then my evolution of like the class of filmmaker that I'm in running into other filmmakers at these festivals the networking there's just so much talent out there you know I have a lot of conversations with people about like you know the filmmakers that that are the class before us they're like still here and present making things which has made it more difficult to like get into the business because do they want to call me me or do they want to call Ryan Coogler or Spike Lee or somebody else they're still here making stuff so obviously they're going to call them so to figure out like the indie road and where space is because there's still so much space for content it's been like the journey that I've been on to say okay cool if I can just continue to make things at some point I'll excel to these crazy big budgets but I can make tons of things now for a low cost that are impactful, tell stories, build audience, make some money, survive, and tell stories. You're
SPEAKER_02:going to make a vertical version of Swoon? No, no, no. Take that story and spin it into a vertical and make it all kind of like a soap opera version.
SPEAKER_03:The verticals are killing it right now. I have been approached even last month like three or four times to make verticals so hopefully these conversations go well but yeah it's an emerging like genre pretty much
SPEAKER_02:it's a good and terrible genre killing it worldwide yeah the i have known some filmmakers have gone that route to make some verticals they're like yeah the money's good but it's not like the creative control of it like i mean you're kind of selling your soul and sense of creativity just to
SPEAKER_03:for
SPEAKER_02:sure pretty much make a long form commercial at that point you have zero creative control it's like this is what you're doing this you know that's it like
SPEAKER_03:I've wrote I've wrote some for some of the companies I've been hired to write a few and it is like the I remember there's a recipe yeah the last draft of the one that I put out I'm like I don't even I can't even tell I wrote it
SPEAKER_02:yeah it's almost like you don't even put your name on it yeah it's like it's not you
SPEAKER_03:yeah I'm like damn this is not I didn't I didn't really write this after all the notes but I'm like cool Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Just before we get into the next episode, because we don't have to stop at this point. We can just go right into the next segment. Go ahead and shoot down the barrel again one more time, just in case people are watching. If they're listening, they'll hear you, but just let us know where we can find you. Socials, website, whatever it is, just so people can find you. We want to make sure that, obviously...
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for sure,
SPEAKER_02:for sure. We'll put your handles and everything in YouTube and all that stuff, but I think it's good for people to get them right now.
SPEAKER_03:It's Byron P. Manuel on all socials. My YouTube channel, Visionary View, and Any Day Now Podcast, my two channels. But yeah, you can find me, all those socials under that.
SPEAKER_02:That's manual with an E. Not manual, not like your driving stick or manual. It's manual with a little flair. It's
SPEAKER_03:LA, so it's really Manuel when I'm out in these streets. Manuel.
SPEAKER_02:My name is Byron Manuel. You want to play a game a little called This or That? Yeah, yeah. Have you seen this? Nope. It's fun. Craig has a fun time with it. Craig enjoys this. And this or that is actually brought to you by our friends at Coastline Travel. So if you're looking at going anywhere in the world, you're going to go, you know, hop on a plane. You need to get a hotel.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Or book an excursion. You know, go have some fun. Go snorkeling or scuba diving, whatever you want to do. Coastline Travel. I like that. Coastlinetravel.com. Yeah. Yeah. They're fun. Good people. I'm going to ask you a series of 20 questions. Run it. Some of them are going to be fun. The first one we actually ask every guest. We have a running tally, so we'll see how you do. Tacos or pizza? Tacos. Tacos. I'm a taco guy, too. And we're going to be throwing these cards everywhere, so don't get freaked out.
SPEAKER_03:Used to be pizza, and nowadays it's tacos. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:I mean, there's good places everywhere, but yeah, tacos. I lived in San Diego for a little bit. The
SPEAKER_03:pizzas are like, the pizza out here is like dropping. It is. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Phone calls or texts?
UNKNOWN:Texts.
SPEAKER_02:Phone calls. Phone calls are much more important. Yeah, phone calls. I try to call my mom every drive home after the podcast. So she can know how the podcast went. Gotta call mom. I love that. If you haven't today, call your mom. Listen, if you're listening to this, call your mom. Cook at home or eat out?
SPEAKER_03:Cook at home.
SPEAKER_02:What's your favorite meal to cook?
SPEAKER_03:I'm only good at breakfast. So my favorite meal to cook is French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, and fruits.
SPEAKER_02:Are you a breakfast for dinner kind of guy too?
SPEAKER_03:I do do that sometimes
SPEAKER_02:if I'm in a jam. I love breakfast for dinner. It's one of my favorites. I don't do it enough. Breakfast for dinner sounds really nice. I might do that tonight. Magic Mountain or Disneyland?
UNKNOWN:Hmm.
SPEAKER_03:Disneyland now because I got kids. Yeah. Pre-kids at Magic Mountain.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, we grew up really close to it. So, I mean, that was in my backyard. I used to take the bus. I used to take the transit from Caney Country. Yeah. 50 cents on the transit to get to, you know, and that was back in the days when, like, your parents were cool if you just took the bus by yourself. Oh, my goodness. No problem. The
SPEAKER_03:things I would never let a kid
SPEAKER_02:do today that I was doing. 100%. 100%. Getting wild. I used to go to Magic Mountain by myself.
SPEAKER_03:Bro,
SPEAKER_02:same. To meet up with my friends. to hang out for a few hours and then hop back on the transit so you had the transfer ticket so you didn't have to repay to get back on. So I had only 50 cents to go round trip.
SPEAKER_03:We were in the streets.
SPEAKER_02:Biking, miles,
SPEAKER_03:other cities.
SPEAKER_02:I'm going to see if I can hit Craig with these cards. These are new cards though. They're not as thick as the other ones. They sound a little thinner, right? I got a good deal. They were on sale. Had to take it. Working with actors or working with editors? Actors. I don't like being imposed. See, it doesn't fly. I'm going to try to, I'm going to get you today. I'm going to get you somewhere. Popcorn or candy at the movie, if you're going to a movie theater.
SPEAKER_03:Candy in the popcorn.
SPEAKER_02:Candy
SPEAKER_03:in the popcorn? Yeah, I usually put some like a... What? What are they? Really? This is a thing. Sour Patch. Yeah, I dropped a Sour Patch in the popcorn. What?
SPEAKER_02:Is that so you get like a sweet and salty kind of thing?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I want to try that. Yeah. I just do it with Sour Patch. This is fresh popcorn, too. Yeah, I did. It's good, right? Grab some more idea. Costco popcorn's the best. It's one of my favorites. Man, I was thinking you're going to bring candy in there and then sell it to people. Man, I have flashbacks. Be like, I got a good deal for you. It's$8 out there. I can get you half
SPEAKER_03:price. I got these for four. What are we doing? What you got right there? No, I got these for four.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not going to be able to hit Craig today. This is just not working. I'm not happy about this. I love trying to throw the card as far as I can. What's more exciting, March Madness or the NBA Finals?
SPEAKER_03:NBA Finals.
SPEAKER_02:Really? For me. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And you're guessing a Lakers fan? Lakers fan. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, diehard.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't even need to ask if you're a Clippers fan. I just knew. I knew. L.A. or New York? L.A.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. I've never been to New York yet. I plan to go there. Really? Yeah. Oh, you got to go. Yeah. Definitely need to go. I never find a reason to be there or know anybody. I got to get out there, though. I just want to see what the texture is like out there. I
SPEAKER_02:feel like you need to go there for like a week and just not have a plan and just talk to random people. Yeah. And that would bring so many like creative things to your mind about just creating characters. Yeah, people. There's some unique people in New York.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I've heard and seen
SPEAKER_02:through media. My wife and I spent like three days in the Lower East Side and it was amazing. Wow. Like speakeasies. They had a speakeasy Mexican food restaurant, which was crazy. Couldn't get a table. We had to sit in the bar area. Like, it was that busy. Yeah. The only way to get in, though, you had to go to this one place. It was called La Esquina. You go to La Esquina. The real La Esquina. You been there? Yeah. You go to the real La Esquina. And there's a guy that's like, hey, we're here for La Esquina. They're like, oh, no, this is, no. Dude, what? Like, I'm here to go, like, the speakeasy La Esquina. Code word? Yeah, I was like, what's the code word, man? Like, I don't know. And they give you a hard enough time. He's like, all right, go around to this there's a sandwich shop the guy with the red hat say what's up to him he'll let you down go in there there's a staircase that takes you all the way down like underground wow and then you walk through the kitchen so you see all the food being made walk right through the kitchen to get to and it's just this immaculate restaurant
SPEAKER_03:that's dope
SPEAKER_02:all underground wow and it was packed like you could not get a table like we and we planned that's the stuff I'm talking about it was so cool but yeah New York has come it's got some really cool stuff yeah really cool stuff but also Crazy people. Would you rather be stuck in traffic for five hours or stuck on set for 18 hours? Set. Set life. Yeah. Oh, I almost got that one to stick. Yeah. Yeah. You're in it. Over LA traffic. You're in it. You're in it, though. You love what you do. Yeah, for sure. Would you rather have a small intimate crew or a big production? Like a big production team?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:All I know is small, intimate crew. Easy answer.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't make these hard enough for you. I would
SPEAKER_03:like to try the big situation.
SPEAKER_02:You'll get there. Nighttime or daytime?
SPEAKER_03:Ooh, that's tough. Nighttime.
SPEAKER_02:It's one of our favorite questions of all time. We had a really great answer in episode 10. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_03:I might start using that one. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Go check out episode 10 with J.D. Witherspoon.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know J.D.?
SPEAKER_03:That name sounds so familiar.
SPEAKER_02:John Witherspoon's son.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Ice Cube's dad's son. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_02:Ice Cube and Friday. Not Ice Cube's dad. But yeah. So and everyone knows who that name is. J.D., comedian, gamer, talk show host. He was on episode 10. Awesome, awesome episode. And the nighttime, daytime question, you'll know what I'm talking about when you go listen to it. Red carpet events or private screenings?
SPEAKER_03:Hmm. Private screenings. You're like,
SPEAKER_02:who am I going to offend? Yeah, private screenings. Private screenings are fun because you get to be the one inviting people, right? Yeah. Podcast or playlists?
SPEAKER_03:Podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we had a fun episode. There's actually two episodes ago. The cool answer was podcast, get me through the day. Playlist, get me through the night. I really love that answer. That was a great answer. That's true. That's true. I'm going to go deep right here. And this may be an easy one for you, but it may not. Kobe or LeBron?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, no, this is an easy one. It's Kobe. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Actually, so... I
SPEAKER_03:love LeBron, though,
SPEAKER_02:for sure. This watch, and I usually... I got it pretty far. Let's go. Almost gave Craig a paper cut on his toe. This watch, actually, and I wear it all the time. I love this watch. But this was the watch that I had on the day Kobe died. And so when the battery died, I actually changed it. So right now it always says 824. Always. That's all right. Yeah. Now I remember
SPEAKER_03:I was filming when I've got a picture that I'm sitting like this and right behind me on the TV, they're announcing Kobe passed. I'm like, we're all like, is this a joke? Like, what are they talking about?
SPEAKER_02:Everyone knows where they were. Bro. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That was a tough day.
SPEAKER_02:I was at the aquarium. long beach supposed to be a fun day
SPEAKER_03:supposed to be a fun day no yeah kobe passing is like felt like a friend passed yeah it affected la for sure
SPEAKER_02:oh absolutely yeah yeah kobe uh big impact i mean i had i had his jersey hanging in my front window for like for a week like yeah what am i doing like it's just crazy like it was a very big impact yeah um the mentality is something i'll always
SPEAKER_03:oh for sure
SPEAKER_02:Keep that. Mama mentality. I was actually really upset with some of the assistant coach for my three-year-old soccer team. Okay. We're kicking off like two weeks. This is funny. The coach got the jerseys. And usually you make the team name based on the color of your jersey for like little kids, right? And so I guess he had already talked to his kid. Like they pulled out the jerseys at home and his kid was like, we're going to be the Panthers. And I was like, when I heard that, I was like... Why are we not the Black Mambas? Yeah. And we could have used Kobe's logo or whatever. This
SPEAKER_03:is like a layer.
SPEAKER_02:Man. This is an easy one. And so when I told the coach that, he was like, I am such an idiot. Because he's a huge Kobe fan. Yeah. And he didn't even think about it. He's like, I got this sign. This card and this card and my wife's got this. Me and my son are out of here. I was like, I almost want to be on a different team now. They're three. They'll get over it. I won't, but they will. Craft service or... skip meals craft service you got good craft servicing some people don't some people just like i can't eat that get it in yeah i
SPEAKER_03:get it in
SPEAKER_02:make your dream movie or get 20 million dollars and never make a movie again
SPEAKER_03:gotta make the dream movie
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_03:yeah you'll regret it yeah because I could get to the 20 million through film yeah
SPEAKER_02:there you
SPEAKER_03:go 20 million to quit though I like that answer
SPEAKER_02:see some people some people like put the$2 goal I'm gonna take this$20 million and make the film it's like no you can't you gotta do one or the other
SPEAKER_03:no you gotta give it up or you keep going
SPEAKER_02:yeah I'm gonna keep going you're passionate about what you do yeah very apparent in your film people need to go watch it you mentioned Spike Lee earlier yeah Would you rather have lunch with Spike Lee or Oscar Michaud?
SPEAKER_03:Damn.
SPEAKER_02:And by the way, if you need to take a sip of water, that is for you, by the way.
SPEAKER_03:Man, that's a good one. It would have to be Spike, though, because it's just more relevant to me in my time. But I can imagine what Oscar and Michelle would have to say about everything. But Spike, I got to go with Spike.
SPEAKER_02:the Michaud Film Festival, which is phenomenal, by the way. Shout out to those guys. Phenomenal festival.
SPEAKER_03:We won there, too. Really? Best screenplay.
SPEAKER_02:I did not see that. Congrats. That's huge.
SPEAKER_03:Two-time award-winning film.
SPEAKER_02:That is huge. That is huge. I did not know that it was from that festival. I saw the two-time award winner, but I didn't get to that point. I saw you attended. Dude, that's awesome. What a phenomenal festival to win.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they run a good festival, too.
SPEAKER_02:I've seen... pictures, videos, everything. Like, I want to go. And they're in,
SPEAKER_03:like, year, I think this would be year eight for them, year seven, eight. Very young. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still early. And how much traction they've made so far. And, like, getting into L.A. and getting people out. Yeah, they've been phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02:I'm trying to, and maybe you can put the connection together, I'm trying to do something to get some time across collaboration with. Oh, for sure. With up-and-coming, like, black filmmakers. Mm-hmm. that are in college yeah and so we've been able to we just had a winner from Morehouse that won Best Black Cinema and that was the second year we've had that award the first award was won by Will Morissette from Ringling and then Sunima Kitty won this year Best Black Cinema from Morehouse and so I'm trying like I want to involve more HBCU school Yeah. I think there's a way to do a collaboration with Michaud. Oh, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, for sure. You
SPEAKER_02:were going to say something, Craig? No? It looked like he was about to say something. He was in deep thought. He doesn't say much, but when he does, it's really
SPEAKER_04:good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Would you rather make a movie with Jordan Peele or Ryan Coogler?
SPEAKER_03:Ryan Coogler. Yeah, I got to go with Ryan.
UNKNOWN:Why?
SPEAKER_03:Just... We're similar in age. We're close in age. So our experiences are really similar, even in upbringing. He's the bae. I'm down here in L.A. I definitely do think his film knowledge is incredible. Every time I hear him speak about the art, I'm like, damn, I need to learn more. So he motivates me in a way. Jordan Peele, though, did show me when he did get out that we should be thinking different about about making movies we should tell stories different so he changed me in that way to where I was like oh wait this is like out of the box wait we should be out of the box
SPEAKER_02:yeah see I would think even more of a reason to make a film with Jordan Peele for you yeah only because your mindset is more similar to so like with ryan like you have similar maybe even creativity wise and like if you're saying lived experience either like part of that it's it keeps you in the same box to get in a different box like with jordan peele especially with his writing just so different
SPEAKER_03:yeah that's true though
SPEAKER_02:so it's true though i thought i would that when i wrote that that was a very i was like i think this is gonna be a tough one for him yeah i think this is no
SPEAKER_03:that is a tough one yeah i gotta go with ryan
SPEAKER_02:yeah yeah he's phenomenal and uh yeah i loved i loved the episode that he did he did an exclusive interview uh with juju green uh straw hat goofy so if you haven't checked out great episode yeah um exclusive interview just the stuff that he was talking about and then obviously when ryan coogler was talking about like the different the different types of film like and that wasn't part of that was some part of something else yeah um i'm sure you saw that clip yeah yeah when he was talking about centers yeah talking about centers and the different types of film that he was using and like how it was going to shoot different and like he's going to shoot with all of them so that he can then put it together on different screens. I'm like, dude, that's so next level. Yeah, no,
SPEAKER_03:he's thinking about it.
SPEAKER_02:Win can or win Sundance?
SPEAKER_03:I think Sundance.
SPEAKER_02:Why Sundance?
SPEAKER_03:I'm just thinking money-wise. I want to say they put out the biggest checks for product that gets bought
SPEAKER_02:out of there. There's pros and cons to both because Sundance, it's like, okay, more domestic.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Very indie-focused. Yeah. Kind of. Indie with an A-list. It's the highest level of indie. The highest level of indie. Yeah. Then Cannes is like the international presence. So it's just like. Yeah. Get out of here. Maybe you just don't like wearing a tux. I mean, you kind of have to. When you go to Cannes, you have to wear a tux. All right, last question here. Would you rather win an Oscar but be forgotten as time goes on or never win an award but inspire generations of filmmakers?
SPEAKER_03:I don't need the awards. I'll take the inspiration. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I'd rather live in that inspiration because if people continue to reference you, you don't– That is the award. Yeah, for sure. That's the real award.
SPEAKER_02:That was this or that. Man, that was dope. Fun? Yeah, that was good. And we made a whole mess that Craig gets to clean up. Do your job, bro. No,
SPEAKER_01:he didn't clean it up. I clean
SPEAKER_02:it up. But shout out to our editor, Ken, because when Ken's in the building, he helps clean up. So thank you, Ken. Craig's lazy.
SPEAKER_01:He's
SPEAKER_03:always pretending like he's on his phone. I'm important. I'm a producer, man. I got to make this call. Wait, what? But your
SPEAKER_02:phone's not on. It is on. Cool. Well, that was this or that brought to you by our friends at Coastline Travel. And go to coastlinetravel.com. You're going anywhere in the world. Coastline. With that, we'll be right back. Being a small business is difficult, and that's why each episode we've decided to shout out a different small business that either we enjoy or a guest enjoys. In this episode, J.D. and I have chosen a cookie company called Floor. Now this cookie company got really popular because they used to only do in-person cookie drops. But now they have a way where you can buy their cookies online. So please go visit flooratsell.com. I'm probably butchering the name and I definitely cannot spell it properly. So go check the comments or you can see it on screen right now if you're watching on YouTube. But flooratsell.com, go support them and I promise you, you will not be disappointed. disappointed with these cookies. I am getting so hungry just thinking about them and saying their name. Please go visit floridcell.com. And with that, let's jump back into the episode. We'll see you in the pod. All right. Welcome back. I'm here with Byron Manuel, the filmmaker behind a new film that we are bringing on to Momitu and a film that is a two-time award winner, which I already knew one of the awards, but now I'm finding out that the other award was one of the coolest films festivals that i really enjoy the me show film festival uh swoon man i was blown away thank you thank you um and i've already mentioned that earlier in the episode but we typically in this segment will have you go on to momitu all 10 000 plus titles in our platform and find a film that we can both watch ahead of time and we'll do a quick little spoiler free you know review on the film we have to do your film like it's appreciate it we have to I mean it's it's not that it's just new on the platform I just man just just watching it like so blown away man like there's so many different levels and we'll get into this but try to do as quick as we can but man you're an incredible filmmaker I just want to tell you that just to your face and just say like dude like you have a very bright future if you continue to pump out stuff that like this
SPEAKER_03:and I appreciate that thank you so much
SPEAKER_02:but getting into the film what inspired you like to make this story
SPEAKER_03:and honestly you So when I was doing an anthology series that I was putting online that I was releasing on my YouTube, eight to 15-minute episodes, and the idea of Swoon was an idea I wanted to do then. We ended up logistically not being able to figure it out, so it never made it to that anthology series. But the idea just kind of hung around. So fast forward four years later, I wanted to do a couple of short films. I'm like, Swoon should be one of these. Good idea. We shot it as a short film. Made the short. Didn't really do anything with the short, but when we watched the short, we were like, if we're going to do a movie, let's probably do this one. We could probably turn this into a movie. So another year passed, and we decided to do it as a film.
SPEAKER_02:So then you have this idea. How did you come upon the title?
SPEAKER_03:Man, so the anthology's The anthology series was called Booty Call Chronicles. You didn't want to call it that? No, no, no. It was about like hookups going wrong. Yeah. Right? So it's like hookups with a crazy twist, a toxic twist at the end or something like that. Or if it was a comedy, something that was hilarious. But this idea was like a toxic lever. I don't want to give away too much of them. movie, but like a toxic lover, you know, looking for love. And then when I started thinking about that emotion of what this could be, the word swoon came about, you know, it's like the over infatuation with the person is like swooning over them, you know, and too much of anything could turn into something else. So that's kind of how the title came up. It was almost like the idea, the title all kind of happened at one time. And
SPEAKER_02:with the casting, was that something that you had, did you just bring that straight over from the short? Or did you recast it and everything? How was that whole process for you?
SPEAKER_03:We recasted one, our male lead, we recasted from the short to the film. We were going to keep our original cast, but we had a scheduling conflict. So then we ended up finding...
SPEAKER_02:And you're talking about the male lead antagonist? Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, everybody else was pretty much the same. I mean, we added a few more people in the film. because it was a longer story. But yeah, everybody kind of came from there. Like Cassandra Lee, one of my good friends, she was somebody who I had always kind of intended for the role. And then her and I together, we kind of found like the rest of the cast just in our friend group pretty much.
SPEAKER_02:She was really good. Yeah, she was
SPEAKER_03:amazing.
SPEAKER_02:The character, I mean, her eye contact within the camera, just her body movements, like everything and just like her, even the way she just spoke. Like it's just like she did a very, very good job. And kudos to you for directing her that way. I mean, I'm not sure if that was like the creative control. Was it more on you or was it more on her? Like, did you kind of let her kind of do her thing? I
SPEAKER_03:mean, I'm more so of a director that just tries to keep talent on task.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:You know, so I definitely give them a lot of room to create and what they believe is going on. But, you know, every now and then there's that moment where I get to be a director where I pull her to the side and go, but you're also sad right now. Remember, you're also sad now. she'll go oh shit I am you're right I'm gonna do it different let's do it again you know so we've always had a great working relationship in that capacity and she was there you know in the drafts of the scripts you know going back through things questioning things she had a lot of DNA into the film too
SPEAKER_02:yeah I mean there's usually a character that really stands out for everyone she was my character like by far like my favorite character in the whole film there's just something about her that just It just draws you into her. It almost makes you want to be one of the relationships. She draws you in so much. Craig will understand soon when it gets on to Momi too. This is the thing where he hasn't seen this film yet. Usually he sees the film too that we're going to do. No, you'll enjoy it. Her performance was commanding. That's a great word. That's probably the better word that I was looking for is commanding yeah definitely um yeah just really jumped out of the screen to me when i was watching like and i will say that the antagonist did a phenomenal job as well very strong he was killing it and and definitely you feel like fearful of him yeah like he definitely had that he had a presence for sure but he also had that rawness and like the softness to him a little bit too that kind of like really kind of stretched that rubber band of his character a little bit to make you feel a little bit on both sides like even even to the part and then again i'm not going to get too much away but it's like even the part of how he was interacting with the other male lead yeah um and i won't say in what capacity but just like there was a softness to him as well because in that moment it could have gone even darker and deeper yeah but it didn't
SPEAKER_03:he had some levels to him too yeah i think one thing we were definitely trying to create was like um who am i what am i rooting for you know in this film like i like these intentions but these intentions feel off but you It seems like this person cares, but do they care? And just kind of create that. So when you watch it once, I think if you watch it the second time, you're like, oh, man, this is kind of crazy. Yeah, when you really start realizing what's going on.
SPEAKER_02:What was your biggest challenge on set? I
SPEAKER_03:think really just... really just completing the thing. It was an 11-day shoot. 11-day shoot, little bit of money, small crew, those elements. Once we got the crew up and running and we're in the day, we're kind of blasting through it. We're making good pace, but just overall pulling it off, from the producer standpoint, I produced it as well. My company is responsible for the film, so being the lead producer the writer and the director you know just commanding the team in a way to get everybody done you know and one thing about sometimes that happens on indie sets when you have well established crews who've been you know on big sets and you know they sometimes forget that I'm paying for it we have no money you know and their level of expectation of like well where's my fan this is a little bit late or the bougie-ness of being an artist sometimes spills over onto these sets, which is a challenge for me because I'm like, gutter, get it out of the mud. It's
SPEAKER_02:me. Yeah, you always have to set that precedent the first day and be like, hey guys, just a heads up. I'm wearing four hats in this film, not just to tell you that I'm great at all the things I do. It's because I have to wear all four hats because that's what we can afford. What was your budget?
SPEAKER_03:We ended up completing the entire film when it was all said and done for a little over 100. Wow. Yeah, a little over 100. Dude. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well done.
SPEAKER_03:We started out with, I think we got through production around 50. And then we got some more money in later. That made post go smoother. Yeah. Yeah. And get people paid because there's a short list of people. It's like, well, me included. Well, on this side we won't be receiving anything from this budget but then later on when some money came through I was able to get everybody paid
SPEAKER_02:yeah I told you I was going to circle back to this earlier but the music
SPEAKER_03:yeah
SPEAKER_02:who did the music
SPEAKER_03:man we reached out I mean it was hand selected you know I'm big on there's a lot of bad music in film and I don't agree with that
SPEAKER_02:I just talked about the other day I was literally on a plane watching a movie that like I know the filmmaker and I feel bad like i won't mention the film because i'm just like the music was not good like it was just really bad choices but
SPEAKER_03:the music helps tell some especially in this film like it helps the story it's not a lot going on but then there's a lot going on so it's like you know it helped with pacing mood taking people places you know um but no it's all hand selected we just found a group of artists that we were fans of and we you know the team and i we were reach out to people try to find some songs a couple of songs we reconstructed yeah stripped them down we had the stems so we were able to kind of strip them down add some other sounds to them and stuff like that and the artists were really open about that working with um uh chad who did our our score and stuff like that so but yeah no all
SPEAKER_02:hands selected chad
SPEAKER_03:chad was killing
SPEAKER_02:chad what's chad's last name
SPEAKER_03:chad connelly
SPEAKER_02:chad connelly yeah all right if you're looking for someone to put a good score together yeah chad was chad
SPEAKER_03:was nice
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, drop into Byron's DMs. Let's get Chad and then get him another job, man. Phenomenal. Taking an indie film, whether it's good or bad in a sense, if you want to say that, just better than the other or not, whatever misses that can happen on indie films at times, whether that be from not enough days in shooting, limited budgets, all that stuff, and you just do what you got to do. We
SPEAKER_03:shot a couple air balls.
SPEAKER_02:And you're just like, all right, we'll fix it in post right the famous line sound can really really elevate a film and I go back to this as an example from time to time with a film called Stupid Games and it's a film we premiered on Momitu under$10,000 budget and I will say there was moments that you're like alright this was made for under$10,000 very few moments but the things you couldn't really tell all the time because of the sound yeah the score on it was incredible yeah the everything they did as far as on the editing on the back end like
SPEAKER_04:yeah
SPEAKER_02:just it goes a long way incredibly long they won a tele award for it i mean this is a great film but again yeah just it really stood out to me and i was actually curious i was like did he make any of the songs because of your music background so yeah
SPEAKER_03:no no no we're just good at selecting you have an ear for it yeah good at selecting and then um you know our sound the person who handled all our posts Alec, award-winning sound designer.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, phenomenal. Great job picking not just your cast, but your crew. Man, so important on this level. Thank
SPEAKER_03:you.
SPEAKER_02:Last question. I'm going to couple two together just because I know we're short on time, but... What did you want the audience to feel walking away from this film? And if you had an idea of who you feel would enjoy this film, who would that audience be?
SPEAKER_03:I think the audience is anybody who enjoys thriller. Anybody who enjoys thriller, horror-esque type of vibes, a mystery, something that they're trying to figure out, would enjoy this film. At times we've called it a little genre-less because there's comedic element some comedic undertones to it there's some drama there's some suspense there's a whole bunch of things going on
SPEAKER_02:you got some rom-com in there you got some drama you got some exactly slight horror kind of in the chase kind of in the chase scenes in a sense right
SPEAKER_03:yeah exactly a
SPEAKER_02:lot going on
SPEAKER_03:yeah so we definitely tried to put that mixture in there to leave people with the feeling of entertainment you know to keep them on the edge of their seats you know the whole time guessing trying to figure out what's going on or who's this or that person's you know I just wanted to leave them with the feeling of we felt entertained by this crazy story that really happens in a box you know so to try to keep anybody in our generation's attention in a box is like such a challenge so you know we chose extra angles you know places that we were shooting you know we tried to make unique or the score, the music choices, moments of comedy, moments of suspense. We just tried to put all that in a good story and really just let the talent do their thing. I'm really happy with the way that the talent performed. They were phenomenal. They came to play. No complaints from any of the cast about anything at any time. Long days, short days, more rehearsals. They all wanted their opportunity to get something for their reel. And I think they did that.
SPEAKER_02:For sure. Well, if you are interested in watching Swoon, go download Momitu right now on your smart TV or on your Fire Stick or Roku or download on your phone. Type in Swoon, S-W-O-O-N, or you can search the director, Byron Manuel. Thank you. It's free, right? It's free. It's free. Momitu, more for me and you. Just watch it. It's free. The best movie. Movies and TV you've never seen for free. We got a lot of different taglines. But MoMe Too, though, does mean more for me and you, which is why we have the More For Me and You podcast. Oh, I love that. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome. When you just said that, I made the connection right then and there. You're like, oh, I get it now. I knew this was fire.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, more opportunities for filmmakers. The me is literally us sitting in the couch with you because we don't use algorithms to present content. We do it all by hand.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So like when Swoon goes live, live on Momitu. Will it already be live when people hear this episode? Yeah, by this time for sure. It will be front and center so people can go click on it. They don't have to search for it. It'll be right there. Nice. And the two is you in Latin. So all cultures, diversity. We want to make sure inclusive of all of everyone here in the United States that can come watch our content. United States and Canada. Yeah. Shout out to our friends in the attic. And yeah, that's it. More for me. I love this. So Byron, thank you very much for coming on the podcast again. Uh, sharing your story uh getting real raw and just we just love learning about people and how they kind of got to where they are but uh very excited about where you're going as well because i think a very bright future and swoon is just the first film of many that you're gonna make
SPEAKER_03:absolutely
SPEAKER_02:awesome i
SPEAKER_03:appreciate it thank you
SPEAKER_02:with that we'll uh we'll get out of here thanks for spending your time with us today on the more for me and you podcast if you've made it to the end we appreciate you now go do us a quick favor please like comment and share this episode and before you go don't forget to and subscribe so you never miss an episode with the incredible guests we have coming up. You can also follow us at at Momitu Podcast on Instagram and on TikTok. Oh, and for your next movie night, check out the Momitu app. It's free and packed with amazing movies and shows you've probably never seen. Until next time, take care, stay safe, and we'll see you in the pod.
