This month we have not one but two Tongalers of the Month: Erik Beck and Justin Johnson of The Indie Machines. If you've ever read the details section of a Tongal brief, then you've seen their work under "an example of an effective Pitch." Their What Does LEGO Mean to You video has been viewed so many times at Tongal HQ that every staffer can recite it verbatim. The Video is so stellar that it just won the Tongie for Best Long-Form Video! Read on to get to know them a bit better, and enjoy the photo of them accepting their Tongie award!
Sarah Donze: What are your filmmaking backgrounds? Did you go to film school? Are you self-taught?
Justin Johnson: Neither of us ever went to film school. I went to a small college in Wisconsin for Multimedia Design, and lasted about a year and a half before dropping out. Ever since I was a kid I knew there was something magical about filmmaking. I’d always be re-enacting scenes from the Battle of Hoth with LEGO pieces with my Dad’s black and white Fischer-Price video camera, or putting on weird magic shows where I used in-camera editing to make pillows disappear. It was so fun to bend reality with a camera. Back in 2003, I started a site called FilmFights.com to help give myself, and the tiny community of other online filmmakers I knew (maybe like 10 people) a place where we could have an excuse to create new stuff and compete with each other. That really opened my eyes, and helped me discover tons of other people and work on lots of projects just for the heck of it, that made me better at making stuff.
Erik Beck: I’m also a totally self-taught filmmaker, but I do have a Political Science degree from Chico State that I never use! I was always building things as a kid and did some early experimenting with my parents' VHS-C camera (the same one Marty uses in Back to the Future!), but didn’t really start digging in until I found Justin’s Film Fights site in college. A few years later (thanks to Justin) I ended up working for this great startup called Next New Networks. I ran an indie filmmaking network called “Indy Mogul” and my job was to create low-budget special effects and short films every week! That lasted over 3 years, and ended up being way better than film school. I learned by actually DOING … AND got paid a salary for it (rather than go into soul-crushing debt!).
SD: How did you find Tongal? What made you decide to enter?
JJ: I’m super locked into the video contest world. I’ve been looking to video contests since back in 2006 as a great way to make stuff and earn money without having to put in extra hours at some boring normal-person job. When Next New Networks was bought by Google/YouTube, our jobs started changing significantly - away from just being a creative, and more into being a normal employee. It was still cool, but it wasn’t going to give our creative juices what they needed.
EB: Justin was the one that discovered Tongal and suggested we enter. We had just quit our full time jobs at YouTube and were looking for new forms of income that were also in the realm of filmmaking. I started digging around the site and really loved the format of it all, especially the fact that you can be guaranteed a certain amount of funding for production before you have to dig into your own cash.
SD: What’s your favorite project you’ve done?
EB: Pringles/Star Wars for sure. I loved working on the LEGO project, but getting to plan and film a lightsaber battle with Darth Vader is hard to top.
JJ: Star Wars was a blast, but being on the more “documentary” end of our duo, I do look very fondly on our LEGO video. I’m glad it came out with heart, and it feels like much more than just a commercial.
SD: What was your inspiration for bringing Frank Limbaugh's winning Idea to life in the Pringles/Star Wars Project? Did you work in an office and daydream about fighting your evil boss, Star Wars style?
JJ: Well, we loved the initial idea. It really fit with our brand, and we knew we could knock it out of the park. Thankfully, I’ve never really had a boss I’ve disliked that much, ha!
EB: The two biggest words that jumped out of that creative brief were “fun” and “epic.” Even if we’re not consciously thinking about it, I think our sensibilities lean that way anyway, so it was a no brainer. We love action, special effects and comedy, so the original idea was perfect for that.
SD: What was it like seeing your work on prime time TV?
JJ: Really really surreal. I like to play our stuff on my TV at home just to kind of take it out of the “small preview window in Premiere” world and into the “something real” world. Since we’re on the west coast, and it aired in the east coast first, I started getting texts 2 hours beforehand from people saying they had seen us on TV. Pretty awesome. Even weirder, my brother-in-law’s band actually had a song that played in the Bose ad right before our ad came on.
EB: To be honest, the first thing I thought was “our color correction is off!” But In all seriousness, it was awesome. We had a bunch of people over to Justin’s house to watch it. We bought Pringles and made a party out of it!
SD: Haha! You know you're a pro when the first thing you realize is the color, and aren't too distracted by the fact that your work is on broadcast! What’s your favorite type of project (docu/narrative/comedy/etc.)? What would be your dream project?
EB: I would say our TWO favorites are narrative and docs. I lean more towards the narrative side of that and Justin towards the docs.
JJ: Erik’s amazing at pre-production and executing a script to a precise level, and I’m more the “fly by the seat of my pants” type - which is great for documentaries, since so much is about the discovery and the journey of a character or a situation. In the end, though, I just love seeing stuff go from an idea, to a real thing. As for a dream project, I know we’d love to make something in that epic, fun, J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg style. Something where things blow up, and we can stuff lots of detail and awesome into every frame … and have a great budget so we can surround ourselves with a super-talented team.
SD: Outside of Tongal, what are you working on?
EB: We’re currently wrapping up production on a series of DIY special effects focused promos that play between the films on the movie channel EPIX, and in some very new and very exciting news, just signed the papers for a TV development deal with a cable network!
JJ: And even with all this other crazy, exciting stuff, of course we are still checking Tongal for anything that really jumps out at us.
SD: Congrats guys! Any advice for other Tongalers? Either about Tongal or filmmaking in general?
JJ: Filmmaking in general … I have been on both sides of the “advice for filmmakers” question - both as an interviewer and interviewee, and maybe I’m a jerk, but I quite dislike the “just keep on trying and making stuff” answer. For me, the biggest quantum leaps I’ve made in my career have been when I’ve moved to a big city and found myself surrounded by people who were way better than me. Moving to NYC put me in the midst of amazing tech people like Bre Pettis (founder of Maker Bot) David Karp (founder of Tumblr) and more. Coming to Los Angeles has really had the same effect for me in the filmmaking world. If you want to get better at making movies, put yourself in a place where you can meet people that are better than you and learn from them. For some people that’s film school. For me, it was just getting the heck out of my home town in Wisconsin.
EB: “Just keep on trying and make stuff!!” But seriously, for Tongalers I would say be true to your own artistic voice, BUT ALSO try and look at things from the perspective of the brand you are pitching for. Every brand has a very specific style, as well as a specific goal for a project. Make sure to read the project info over and over (and over!) again until you really understand it, and then come up with a great idea.
SD: Thanks for the thoughtful advice. Tell us a fun fact about yourself or a surprising hobby.
JJ: I made an app a couple years ago that was the #1 iPad app in America! It was called “Video Time Machine,” and it was a really fun side project. Making movies with Erik is way more fun though.
EB: I once tried out for the TV show “America’s Funniest People” … but didn’t make it on the show.
SD: What are your daily must-reads?
JJ: I love checking the Coast to Coast AM’s (this wild conspiracy-theory, fringe science late night radio talk show) daily “In the news” section. They always have articles about unexplained stuff from dubious-looking sites and I freaking love it. Always taken with a hefty grain of salt, but I love the glimmer of hope that some of that stuff could actually be real.
EB: Facebook, I guess. This question makes me realize I need to read more!
JJ: What Erik doesn’t want to admit is that he can’t read or write. He just uses Siri for everything. THE SECRET IS OUT.
SD: I see where you get your love of Sci-Fi, Justin! What filmmakers most inspired you growing up? What about now?
JJ: It took quite a few years for me to really pull apart “filmmakers” from the films they made. I loved the universe of Star Wars when I was a kid, and the time-travel adventure of Back to the Future. It was only later that I realized the people behind the films, and the kind of work and passion that went into them. As I got older, the first filmmaker to really leave an impression on me in a big way was Wes Anderson and his “Rushmore” film. I loved its quirk, and the character of Max appealed to me in a big way. Watching it again as an adult, I realize Max is sort of a creep, but I found a common bond in his joy of ignoring his school work while focusing his time on creative endeavors that other people might find silly. I really sucked at school work. I still love Wes Anderson’s work and love to see his progression as a filmmaker.
EB: As a kid, my favorite movies were Star Wars, Ghostbusters and the Blues Brothers. I also really loved horror movies. Today, I would say the directors I look up to most are J.J. Abrams, Edgar Wright and Tarantino.
SD: Thanks guys! Can't wait to see what memorable pieces you create this year, then we hope to see you back for #tongies2015 next year!
