WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 So today we are taking a deep dive into a film 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:07.620 called He's Way More Famous Than You. Which is... 00:00:07.469 --> 00:00:09.429 Quite the title to kick things off with. Right. 00:00:09.609 --> 00:00:11.050 I mean, it doesn't even sound like a movie. It 00:00:11.050 --> 00:00:14.289 sounds like a threat. Or an insult. Yeah, exactly. 00:00:14.289 --> 00:00:16.109 An insult. Like somebody is just pointing a finger 00:00:16.109 --> 00:00:19.149 at your chest at a party. But it's actually a 00:00:19.149 --> 00:00:24.550 2013 indie comedy. And our mission today is to 00:00:24.550 --> 00:00:28.609 unpack this really specific kind of chaotic project. 00:00:28.670 --> 00:00:30.989 It's highly chaotic. Very. Because it's an indie 00:00:30.989 --> 00:00:33.710 movie, right? But it's absolutely packed with 00:00:33.710 --> 00:00:36.609 A -list stars. And it's written by its own stars. 00:00:36.750 --> 00:00:39.509 and directed by a co -star. It is the definition 00:00:39.509 --> 00:00:41.789 of a meta -narrative. The whole thing is just 00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:43.750 actors making a movie about actors trying to 00:00:43.750 --> 00:00:45.630 make a movie. Yeah, the creative team here is 00:00:45.630 --> 00:00:48.649 super tight -knit. You have Michael Urie. Right, 00:00:48.750 --> 00:00:50.509 who directed it. Who directed it, and also co 00:00:50.509 --> 00:00:52.189 -stars in it. Playing a director, naturally. 00:00:52.369 --> 00:00:54.950 Naturally. And then the writers, Haley Pfeiffer 00:00:54.950 --> 00:00:57.770 and Ryan Spahn, they actually star in the film 00:00:57.770 --> 00:01:00.630 as the leads. And playing characters named Haley 00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:04.060 and Ryan. Obviously. So it's this huge hall of 00:01:04.060 --> 00:01:07.099 mirrors. But the source notes describe it as 00:01:07.099 --> 00:01:09.959 a balls to the wall Hollywood comedy, which is 00:01:09.959 --> 00:01:12.760 an accurate description of the energy. But really, 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:16.219 at its core, it's a deep dive into the absolute 00:01:16.219 --> 00:01:19.060 desperation of fame. Yeah, the sheer panic of 00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:22.069 it. So let's get into the plot. Because the inciting 00:01:22.069 --> 00:01:23.989 incident for this whole thing is brutal. Oh, 00:01:24.030 --> 00:01:25.810 it's a nightmare. We have the character of Haley 00:01:25.810 --> 00:01:27.930 Pfeiffer, played by the real Haley Pfeiffer. 00:01:28.269 --> 00:01:30.930 And she goes through what the notes call this 00:01:30.930 --> 00:01:33.150 triple threat of failure. In rapid succession. 00:01:33.269 --> 00:01:35.530 Right. She loses her boyfriend. Yep. She loses 00:01:35.530 --> 00:01:37.370 her agent. The worst one for an actor, maybe. 00:01:37.549 --> 00:01:40.049 Totally. And essentially, she loses her entire 00:01:40.049 --> 00:01:43.569 career all at once. She goes from being a, quote, 00:01:43.829 --> 00:01:47.010 once up -and -coming indie starlet to basically 00:01:47.010 --> 00:01:49.670 zero. And I feel like a normal person's reaction 00:01:49.670 --> 00:01:52.890 to that would be to quit. Yeah. Quit. Move home. 00:01:53.090 --> 00:01:55.170 Re -evaluate your life choices. Take up pottery. 00:01:55.709 --> 00:01:59.409 But not Halle. No. Her aha moment is the exact 00:01:59.409 --> 00:02:02.010 opposite of self -reflection. She decides the 00:02:02.010 --> 00:02:04.069 only way to fix her broken life is to become, 00:02:04.129 --> 00:02:07.629 quote, way more famous. It's such a pure toxic 00:02:07.629 --> 00:02:10.419 Hollywood reaction. If my life is falling apart, 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:13.400 the solution must be more status. So she comes 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:16.080 up with this scheme, and the details of this 00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:17.979 scheme are just my favorite part of the whole 00:02:17.979 --> 00:02:19.960 setup. It's not exactly a professional business 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:22.599 plan. Not at all. She's armed with two things. 00:02:23.180 --> 00:02:25.780 A stolen script. And two pictures of Sangria. 00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:29.520 Two pictures of Sangria, which she uses to basically 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:32.949 fuel this manic energy. And then she enlists 00:02:32.949 --> 00:02:36.229 her brother, Ryan. He played by Ryan Spahn. Right. 00:02:36.530 --> 00:02:39.449 And she drags him into this mess. She needs him 00:02:39.449 --> 00:02:41.770 to help her make this movie so she can get famous 00:02:41.770 --> 00:02:43.509 again. Because she knows no one's going to cast 00:02:43.509 --> 00:02:46.270 her right now. So she has to cast herself. Exactly. 00:02:46.469 --> 00:02:48.949 But the conflict here and the stakes of the plot 00:02:48.949 --> 00:02:52.030 are actually pretty dark for a comedy. The summary 00:02:52.030 --> 00:02:54.229 explicitly says she will star up at nothing, 00:02:54.669 --> 00:02:56.650 even if it means hurting the only people who 00:02:56.650 --> 00:02:58.610 truly care about her. Which really just means 00:02:58.610 --> 00:03:01.439 Ryan. He's the collateral damage in her pursuit 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:03.919 of the spotlight. Yeah, she is fully willing 00:03:03.919 --> 00:03:06.780 to burn her actual human relationships to the 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:09.120 ground just to get some traction in the industry. 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:11.979 And that's where the meta tone really shines. 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:14.580 Yeah. Because you have these actors writing a 00:03:14.580 --> 00:03:16.699 movie about themselves, acting terribly, trying 00:03:16.699 --> 00:03:18.840 to exploit celebrities to make a movie. It's 00:03:18.840 --> 00:03:21.979 brilliant, honestly. And that brings us to the 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:24.259 most surprising part of this whole deep dive. 00:03:24.930 --> 00:03:27.889 The cast. The famous people. The famous people. 00:03:28.250 --> 00:03:31.629 Because you hear indie comedy, stolen script, 00:03:32.090 --> 00:03:33.949 sangria, and you think... It's gonna be shot 00:03:33.949 --> 00:03:36.250 on an iPhone with their roommate. Exactly. But 00:03:36.250 --> 00:03:37.969 then you look at the cast list and the sources, 00:03:38.129 --> 00:03:41.330 and it's insane. Jesse Eisenberg. Right. Ben 00:03:41.330 --> 00:03:45.210 Stiller. I mean, literal Hollywood titan. What 00:03:45.210 --> 00:03:48.330 is Ben Stiller doing in this scrappy little movie? 00:03:48.550 --> 00:03:50.870 And it keeps going. Ralph Macchio. The karate 00:03:50.870 --> 00:03:54.069 kid. Vanessa Williams. Mamie Gummer. This is 00:03:54.069 --> 00:03:57.310 serious A -list wattage. It really is. And it 00:03:57.310 --> 00:03:59.729 directly mirrors the plot. How do you mean? Well, 00:03:59.909 --> 00:04:02.050 for fictional Halle, his whole plan is to land 00:04:02.050 --> 00:04:04.789 A -list celebrities for her fake movie to make 00:04:04.789 --> 00:04:07.409 herself famous. But the real Halle and Michael 00:04:07.409 --> 00:04:10.439 Airy... actually did land A -list celebrities 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:12.939 for this real movie. Wow, yeah. So the real life 00:04:12.939 --> 00:04:15.479 execution was way more successful than the character's 00:04:15.479 --> 00:04:18.379 plan. Precisely. They used their actual industry 00:04:18.379 --> 00:04:20.639 connections to make a movie about not having 00:04:20.639 --> 00:04:24.160 any industry connections. That is wild. And we 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:26.100 definitely shouldn't ignore the supporting cast 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:28.720 either. No, the ensemble is packed with heavy 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.410 hitters from the theater world. Trace Jameau, 00:04:31.730 --> 00:04:34.129 Austin Pendleton. Austin Pendleton is a legend. 00:04:34.389 --> 00:04:36.449 Total legend. And Michael Cherness is in there 00:04:36.449 --> 00:04:39.269 too. So it's this blend of massive global movie 00:04:39.269 --> 00:04:42.209 stars and deeply respected character actors. 00:04:42.250 --> 00:04:45.430 Which gives the whole project this layer of legitimacy. 00:04:45.970 --> 00:04:47.790 Even when the characters on screen are acting 00:04:47.790 --> 00:04:50.790 completely unhinged, you the audience know you're 00:04:50.790 --> 00:04:53.670 watching top tier talent. So behind the camera, 00:04:53.829 --> 00:04:55.829 how did they actually pull this off? Who is writing 00:04:55.829 --> 00:04:58.699 the checks for the sangria? Well, it was a coalition 00:04:58.699 --> 00:05:01.360 of indie producers. You've got Christopher Sepulveda 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:03.860 and Michael Anderson. From Logolite Entertainment. 00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:06.519 Right. Along with Ermi Productions and Jeffrey 00:05:06.519 --> 00:05:09.300 Soffer. These are the people who actually wrangled 00:05:09.300 --> 00:05:12.779 the logistics to make this meh joke a reality. 00:05:13.019 --> 00:05:14.920 And on the technical side, the crew gave it a 00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:17.060 really specific polish. The cinematography was 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:19.620 by Austin F. Schmidt. And Jim Mole was the editor. 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:23.579 which is crucial for a comedy with this kind 00:05:23.579 --> 00:05:26.420 of chaotic, overlapping dialogue. Oh, absolutely. 00:05:26.540 --> 00:05:29.220 The pacing has to be perfect. But the technical 00:05:29.220 --> 00:05:31.100 credit that really caught my eye in the research 00:05:31.100 --> 00:05:33.560 was the music. Jeff Beale. Jeff Beale. I mean, 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:35.579 most people know him from scoring House of Cards. 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:40.060 Exactly. Very serious, dramatic, sweeping, orchestral 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:43.079 scores. So putting his music underneath the story 00:05:43.079 --> 00:05:46.660 about a desperate actress stealing a script while 00:05:46.660 --> 00:05:50.129 drunk on sangria. It grounds it. It elevates 00:05:50.129 --> 00:05:52.410 the joke. If the music was goofy, the movie would 00:05:52.410 --> 00:05:55.490 feel cheap. But with Beal's score, it treats 00:05:55.490 --> 00:05:58.470 Haley's desperation with this faux seriousness 00:05:58.470 --> 00:06:00.610 that makes it so much funnier. And again, we 00:06:00.610 --> 00:06:02.610 have to reiterate, Michael Urie is directing 00:06:02.610 --> 00:06:04.829 all of this. He's directing Ben Stiller, he's 00:06:04.829 --> 00:06:06.569 directing his writers, he's directing himself. 00:06:06.769 --> 00:06:08.550 Pulling double duty on a set with your friends 00:06:08.550 --> 00:06:10.930 requires a massive amount of focus. And he kept 00:06:10.930 --> 00:06:12.970 the whole thing tight. The runtime is only 96 00:06:12.970 --> 00:06:15.490 minutes. The perfect comedy runtime. Get in, 00:06:15.589 --> 00:06:18.290 hit the jokes, get out. God bless a 90 -minute 00:06:18.290 --> 00:06:20.610 movie. So they get it in the can, it's finished. 00:06:21.709 --> 00:06:23.750 Let's talk about the release strategy because 00:06:23.750 --> 00:06:26.829 2013 was a very weird transitional time for film 00:06:26.829 --> 00:06:29.250 distribution. It really was. Streaming was just 00:06:29.250 --> 00:06:31.689 starting to figure itself out, and VOD was becoming 00:06:31.689 --> 00:06:34.550 a legitimate strategy, not just a dumping ground. 00:06:34.670 --> 00:06:37.310 But they started traditional. They took it to 00:06:37.310 --> 00:06:39.250 the festival circuit. Which is exactly what you 00:06:39.250 --> 00:06:41.990 do to build hype. They premiered at the Slamdance 00:06:41.990 --> 00:06:44.910 Film Festival. January 20, 2013. Which makes 00:06:44.910 --> 00:06:47.329 total sense for this vibe. Yeah, Slamdance is 00:06:47.329 --> 00:06:49.949 the edgy alternative to Sundance. It's the perfect 00:06:49.949 --> 00:06:52.529 launching pad for something this cynical and 00:06:52.529 --> 00:06:54.569 self -aware. And then they took it on a massive 00:06:54.569 --> 00:06:57.990 tour in April. April 2013 was a busy month for 00:06:57.990 --> 00:07:00.060 them. They were everywhere. They were the opening 00:07:00.060 --> 00:07:02.639 night film at the Friars Club Comedy Film Festival 00:07:02.639 --> 00:07:05.540 on April 1st. Fitting for April Fool's Day. Right. 00:07:05.980 --> 00:07:08.339 And then they hit the Cleveland International, 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:11.060 Phoenix Film Festival, Dallas International, 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:14.220 and the Newport Beach Film Festival, all in that 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:16.220 same month. Just pounding the pavement, doing 00:07:16.220 --> 00:07:18.910 the Q &A's, getting audiences in the room. But 00:07:18.910 --> 00:07:21.269 while they were physically touring it, the actual 00:07:21.269 --> 00:07:24.209 distribution model they used with Gravitas Ventures 00:07:24.209 --> 00:07:26.470 and Warner Bros. was somewhat unique for the 00:07:26.470 --> 00:07:28.750 time. This is the really fascinating part from 00:07:28.750 --> 00:07:30.649 a business perspective. Yeah, walk us through 00:07:30.649 --> 00:07:34.329 it. They utilized a pre -theatrical ViewOD release 00:07:34.329 --> 00:07:37.689 pattern. So it hit iTunes, Amazon Video, and 00:07:37.689 --> 00:07:42.779 Video on Demand on April 8, 2013. Right in the 00:07:42.779 --> 00:07:45.339 middle of their festival run. Exactly. So you 00:07:45.339 --> 00:07:47.279 could rent it on your TV before it ever hit a 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:49.079 regular movie theater. Because the theatrical 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:51.800 release wasn't until May 10th. Right. May 10th, 00:07:51.800 --> 00:07:54.800 2013 for the U .S. and Canada. A full month after 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:57.079 it was on digital. Which feels backwards if you're 00:07:57.079 --> 00:08:00.139 stuck in the 90s mindset. But for 2013, they 00:08:00.139 --> 00:08:02.360 were using the theaters almost as a marketing 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:04.680 tool for the digital rentals. That's exactly 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:06.600 what it was. The theatrical run gives you the 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:09.519 prestige, the formal reviews, the posters, but 00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:11.689 the actual audience engagement. happening on 00:08:11.689 --> 00:08:14.769 laptops and smart TVs. Exactly. And then finally, 00:08:14.970 --> 00:08:17.009 for the physical media holdouts, they dropped 00:08:17.009 --> 00:08:20.350 the DVD on September 24. Released by Kino Lorber 00:08:20.350 --> 00:08:22.490 and Archstone Distribution. So it had a very 00:08:22.490 --> 00:08:25.269 complete modern life cycle. Yeah, it really covered 00:08:25.269 --> 00:08:27.870 all its bases. Which brings us to the end of 00:08:27.870 --> 00:08:30.269 our journey with Hayley and her son Gria. Let's 00:08:30.269 --> 00:08:32.549 do a quick recap. We have a story of ambition 00:08:32.549 --> 00:08:35.690 gone completely wrong, or maybe completely right, 00:08:36.049 --> 00:08:38.389 depending on how you view the ending. A character 00:08:38.389 --> 00:08:41.649 named Hallie Pfeiffer creating absolute chaos, 00:08:42.169 --> 00:08:44.549 betraying her brother just to save her career. 00:08:45.149 --> 00:08:48.110 And that title. He's way more famous than you. 00:08:48.789 --> 00:08:51.450 It functions as this stark commentary on the 00:08:51.450 --> 00:08:54.070 industry's hierarchy. It's the quiet part said 00:08:54.070 --> 00:08:56.330 out loud. Yeah, it points directly at the reality 00:08:56.330 --> 00:08:58.779 of the cast list. You can be talented, you can 00:08:58.779 --> 00:09:01.799 be driven, but in that world, your worth is almost 00:09:01.799 --> 00:09:04.460 entirely dictated by how famous the person standing 00:09:04.460 --> 00:09:06.539 next to you is. Which is a heavy thought for 00:09:06.539 --> 00:09:08.500 a comedy. And we want to leave you with something 00:09:08.500 --> 00:09:10.600 to really mull over, building on that central 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:13.320 conflict. Because the core of the film is about 00:09:13.320 --> 00:09:15.600 a protagonist willing to hurt the only people 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:18.100 who actually care about her, just to get a movie 00:09:18.100 --> 00:09:20.440 made and get her status back. Right. So think 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:23.009 about that in the context of today. In the age 00:09:23.009 --> 00:09:25.230 of social media, where literally everyone is 00:09:25.230 --> 00:09:27.710 their own brand manager, where everyone is trying 00:09:27.710 --> 00:09:30.230 to build a platform or an audience. Where do 00:09:30.230 --> 00:09:33.809 you draw the line between ambition and alienation? 00:09:34.049 --> 00:09:37.309 At what point does trying to be seen by millions 00:09:37.309 --> 00:09:39.850 of strangers cost you, the people who are actually 00:09:39.850 --> 00:09:41.809 sitting right in front of you? It's a question 00:09:41.809 --> 00:09:44.429 of what fame actually costs. It really is. Something 00:09:44.429 --> 00:09:46.330 to think about the next time you're crafting 00:09:46.330 --> 00:09:48.769 the perfect post. Or pouring a pitcher of sangria. 00:09:48.929 --> 00:09:52.039 That too. Thanks for joining us for this deep 00:09:52.039 --> 00:09:54.480 dive into he's way more famous than you. We will 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:55.440 see you on the next one.