Gratcast - Taking on Hollywood and telling the tale.

Elizabeth Warren boldly tells America what is really happening behind the scenes in Washington, is anyone listening? We’re going to Dallas Cowboys camp for joint practices with the soon to be Los Angeles Rams. We take a moment for a tangent on the difference between middle America and the edges. Joe tries to get us to join Minecraft. John interacted with a homeless defecater at a famous location where a scene from First Timers was shot. He also has concerns about the microchip activated in his debit card. Social Casting is moving on to round 4, we’ve been announcing which actors are moving on one day at a time. Kris wrote a blog this week about his thoughts on social casting and what other filmmakers can take from it. He also forced Joe and John to listen to a recent Elizabeth Warren speech that every person should watch. She went as far as humanly possible to boldly declare that big money has broken our government and we’re quickly reaching a point of no return. The abovetopsecret story of the week is Larry Nichols Admits To Killing People For The Clintons. Tall people versus short people. Plastic surgery is a disaster more often than not. Free Masons and Majestic 12 are close to Gratwick Films.

Directly involved, Joe has the specifics that led to the Cosmopolitan pool fire. Joe goes to Vegas for a fight and gets a Gratcast exclusive. He has the inside (first hand) scoop on the threesome that led to the fire at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino last week. John spent sometime on his red rocket and ran up his absent friends AC bill while apartment sitting. Our second segment is dedicated to the Just Drive indiegogo campaign. Kris answers questions about how the charity give back will work, the social casting process, the cross country tour plan and even a direct answer to what will happen to the money raised if the campaign fails to hit its goal. We give an update on last weeks abovetopsecret.com story, a crazy story that just keeps getting crazier the more it’s verified. Joe gives us war stories from his second week as an Uber driver, including a few lovely ladies who lost their weed and driving Batman. We wrap up the show talking about how it’s time to figure out when we’re going to the Dallas Cowboys training camp before we take our Gratcast vacation.

Uber, Social Casting and the shills protesting the Iran Deal can’t keep us from the man in the Pacific Palisades. Joe talks about being a brand new Uber Driver and how his first fare had some symmetry with the person who referred him to take the job. John lives right across the street from the Scientology Celebrity center, but that doesn’t mean he’s seen anything strange that he is willing to share.  Kris gives an update on Just Drive and round 3 casting, the campaign launches today as does the social interview casting process. Kris explains to the guys that he has decided to start engaging in the online comment sections to try and pull a few people out of the matrix. The first topic he got involved in was about supposed Iran Deal protestors who are so well prepared and funded they have a custom manufactured inflatable nuclear explosion. Ashley Madison got hacked and Google Maps adds a cool feature that the only way to look at it, is at least they’re sharing the info because we all know they have it either way. This week on AboveTopSecret.com we found the craziest story we’ve ever seen on the site. The body of a man who died from heat exhaustion was left in a car in the Pacific Palisades for 2 weeks, because the wife believed he was a spy and the alphabet agencies would come get his body. When police came to investigate they found 1200 guns, $230,000 in cash, 7 tons of ammo and a Toyota SUV that is also a freaking submarine! The story gets even better. Joe offers up a free ride credit with Uber for anyone that tweets us our secret message. But where it won’t get you to is Earth 2, however the good news is Earth 2 has had a billion year head start on us, so they might be able to come here and scoop you up.

The deal with Iran is the line in the sand for the hopelessly corrupt. Joe is officially driving for Uber and that means a new segment starting next week. Interesting tales from Joe's Uber adventures. John's big highlight of the week was flirting with a waitress at the 101 cafe. More importantly, the 101 cafe has the best steak and eggs in the city. Kris gives an update on the social casting process for Just Drive which has moved on to round 3. The interview round. In the second segment Pluto takes center stage. New Horizon has recently sent the first high res images of the planet back to earth and scientists are stunned and baffled by the lack of creators on the planet surface. Kris feels the Iranian deal, and specifically the Presidents speech to announce it, is the proverbial line in the sand between well intentioned politicians and the hopelessly corrupt war mongers. Then there is Donald Trump, love him or hate him, he's shaking the game up and calling a spade, a spade. Ahem Hillary. In our weekly what's happening on AboveTopSecret.com we find out that a few years ago a researcher presented evidence that first century Roman Aristocrats acknowledged that they made up Jesus Christ and the whole shebang.  John can't believe Brandy can't get any love on the NYC subway and a man spent the last 27 years in the woods before promptly walking out and going to jail.

A missed opportunity for Christians and Roberts Space Industry, opens the door to the Zombies. Our new show format is hitting it's stride. John, in addition to being the newest full time host on the show, has also officially become a bike guy. His maiden voyage was the ride over for the show. Joe reminisces about his worst show ever in front of a room full of lesbians and muslims. (Two separate groups) Kris gives an update on round 2 of the social casting process for Just Drive and gives a shout out to a few of the actors who are still under consideration. In our second segment we introduce a new bit that will be staying with us for a while. It's called 'what's happening on abovetopsecret.com this week'. Our first check in brings us 6 reasons christians lost this past week (at handling the Gay Marriage law) and one way they won. A chat about the devil gives us a seamless transition to that little America hating monster Ariana Grande and how Kris is not surprised at all by her comments and actions. Especially after he read awhile ago about how she treated a couple superfans who won a contest to meet her through MTV.  We end the segment on a high note talking about the indie film Tangerine which was shot on Iphones at a Hollywood intersection. Our final section we check in on those space simulation games Kris was so fired up about the last few months. Apparently the shine has worn off of 'No Man's Sky' thanks to the campy graphics and the endless teasing of a release date that never comes. It's officially jumped the shark in Kris's mind. Even worse is Star Citizen which a major Space Sim game developer (Derek Smart) and a backer of the SC campaign, came out and basically said as much as he wants to see this game happen, he believes that it is technologically impossible based on how it's currently being pitched.  But we do end on a high note, with discussing the Zompie Apocalypse PC game Day-Z, and the endless amount of Youtube videos highlighting the unique psychology of the game and what scenarios you can put other players in.  Three of our favorites to perfectly expose you to the rabbit hole are 'Yellow Jacket Man', 'Logan O'Connor' and 'the Social Experiment'.

We introduce a new format and a new host this week on Gratcast. John Hoadley joins the show as our third host, restoring the holy trinity of talk radio to it's proper order.   The guys talk about where gratcast is headed under this new format and a little about round 2 of the Gratwick Films social casting process. In segment two the conversation turns toward crowdfunding and several recent campaigns that reflect poorly on where we are head as a society. The first is for an anonymous woman using her unborn baby's life for a million dollar ransom demand from the public to not get an abortion. As if that couldn't get any worse, the sister of that scumbag kid that shot 9 people in a church, wants all of us to pay for her new dream wedding, because her first one (planned for 4 days after) was ruined. In our final segment John brings up some recent news about a potential mind expanding drug a la 'Limitless' and Joe and Kris dissect the recent and rapid transformation of the Buffalo Sabres on what will forever be known as Jack Eichel day.

Stephen Kilcullen joins us to talk about his time in L.A. as a Hollywood script reader. In our first segment Stephen Kilcullen talks about how he got started in the film industry, when and why he moved from NYC to L.A. and how he got started reading scripts for producers and production companies in Los Angeles. In our second segment we talk to Stephen about the scripts he's read, what stands out when he's reading a script and what he looks for when deciding if it's a pass or fail. Stephen shares is thoughts on what mistake young writers make the most and what area this the hardest for every writer. In our final segment we each choose a current topic for each of us to comment on. Kris brings up the confederate flag controversy and his rather definitive stance on the subject. Joe talks about his time with Batman: Arkham Knight and Stephen brings up his feelings on missing out on seeing the Rolling Stones once again.

Accountability means committing to course correction the moment things go awry. This week Joe has started an IRA and finally feels like a real adult. Kris is gearing up for a big weekend of casting for Just Drive. Gratwick Films made history as the first production company to ever live stream auditions as part of a social casting process. In the second segment Kris explains how he has become accustom to removing cancers from projects, and why he no longer takes it as a negative. In the early stages of any project there are always an ever-changing group of fringe contributors that come and go until the right people find their way together. The one who have the commitment and integrity to stick it out for the long run and not get frustrated and resentful if success doesn't come over night. More often than not these are self entitled people who believe their simple involvement is a favor to be worshipped regardless of whether or not they are reliable or meaningful contributors. These mindset's and amateur attitudes are the surest ways to sink a ship, no matter how promising. The good news is, this brand of piker almost always reveals and removes themselves in the formative stages. In the final segment Joe and Kris pull up twitter and riff on whats trending.

We focus on how you can help us choose the stars of Just Drive and what we think of the Madden 16 CFM features. Joe shares a story about his latest trolling experience. After binge watching the SWV reality show, Joe decided to troll Coco and the band at 2am on a Sunday morning. What he didn’t expect was to get a response 5 minutes later telling him to die! I guess I won't be going to a @SWV_Reunited concert in LA.....too bad cus @LeleeLyons is fine! pic.twitter.com/PyJlbLsN0E— Joe Todaro (@sweatpantsjoe) May 24, 2015 Kris discusses the Just Drive social casting plan to find the 3 actors that will star in the film. The producers are holding a 4 round casting process online for the audience and backers to collaborate in picking who they want to see get their big break. Joe and Kris run down the list of deep dive features for the upcoming Madden 16 release. GML year 2 is coming and the boys are fired up to the “improvements” made to the connected franchise portion of Madden. A few of the features have the guys really excited about much needed changes and additions, but some major issues (the franchise financing structures) and some much needed features (scouting reports on your current opponent for starters) still appear to not been addressed.

ALLIn4Kids Event Pushed To Account For Growth, And Social Casting Begins Kris, Joe and Andrea discuss the #ALLIn4Kids event and Just Drive project. When we came up with the idea to host a charity event, it started as a way to kick off a crowdfund campaign with free entertainment and have a positive impact on the community. We rushed and did everything we could to pull off the #ALLIn4Kids event in time to give away a seat in this years WSOP, but the event just got too big.  After speaking with BBBSLA it was clear that the event would be much more beneficial to them if it was added to their official calendar and developed with the proper amount of lead up time. Together we have decided that February 20th, 2016 is the best date for what will now be the annual BBBSLA #ALLIn4Kids Charity Event.  Everything will remain the same, including the availability of tickets. Only the date and size of the event have changed. We hope everyone understands this was done with BBBSLA's best interests in mind.  We look forward to a great event for a great organization and in the meantime we will still be going #ALLIn4kids with Just Drive and our social filmmaking plan to pay your support forward.  There will even still be plenty of live content to look forward to this month from our Social Casting process. We are inviting you to be involved with the casting our movie and have your opinion matter in who gets cast! For more details visit http://justdrivethemovie.com

We Go Through The Business Plan For Social Filmmaking Step By Step UPDATE: Gratwick Films Has A Wild Eye For Social Change In The Culture Of Filmmaking (Press Release) In our latest Gratcast Andrea is doing her best to recover from her Peyton Manni...

Gratcast's latest season will follow our plan to make Just Drive Gratcast started out as a way to talk about what we were going to do before we did it, then sharing our efforts to do it. That philosophy took us around the country and beyond our wildest dreams, but we held back at times.  We held back out of fear of the unknown, fear of being judged and a ton of other silly insecurities. The half-in, half-out approach bit us in the ass on many occasions, because were constantly in limbo between two counter philosophies. This time around we are more prepared and ready to do things right. So, once again only on Gratcast will we lay out our entire business model (Feb 4th), explain what our plan is and then share our efforts to execute every step of the plan. It has been a few months since we shared the adventure of our previous horror film, The Perfect House, and we are ready to invite you to join us on the road to our next film, Just Drive.  The Perfect House is now available in almost all territories, more are added every quarter, and will be available on Blu-ray and DVD in the USA this year. What have we been up to since our last episode?  A lot!  Kris landed his first agent, which is good because he has been pumping out more scripts than we have time to shoot.  He polished up Just Drive and Call Box, the next films we plan to shoot.  Andrea was in a bit of a car accident in June and was stuck on the couch with broken bones for the past 5 months, so she edited a few novels and short stories over that time.  We are currently in pre-developed production on Just Drive, and have been lucky to find a wonderful executive producer to join our team, Ryan Angel, with her production company Angel Baby Productions. This Season we are going to have a format to the shows where topics will be broken into segments.  Netflix Nuggets will be about little treasures (movies or tv series) that we discovered and think Netflix is hiding.  Madden Moments is a Recap of Kris’s PS4 2019 Madden season. The Making of Just Drive is the bulk of the show. This is where we will share exactly what we are doing to make our next film’s business model a reality. Netflix Nuggets: Hunger Games 2 This week our Netflix Nugget is actually a movie review of a recently released film, The Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire.  Kris points out the flaws with the franchise mentality of the films and how the rushed storyline lead to redundancy of the first film.  They discuss how each franchise installment needs to be its own stand alone film and how the Hunger Games could’ve benefitted from other films’s methods of releasing epic stories. Madden Moments: 2018 Off Season Recap Kris discusses the parallels between his draft strategies and building Gratwick Films and Andrea recaps an off season that finds the Buffalo Bills rebuilding. Making Just Drive: An Introduction To Social Filmmaking We laid the foundation for social filmmaking when we started The Perfect House with our videos and pics on facebook during production and post, and then continued to build on it with the TPHtour, live Q&As, daily confessions, and tons of videos and pics.  This time we know how to implement the technology that has finally caught up with our ideas and are ready to utilize our experiences and knowledge.   Social filmmaking means sharing the story of what we are doing as we are doing it.   Our business plan is based on a collection of ideas, platforms, and models combined and integrated together that make up social filmmaking.  Our website is going to have content added to to it daily that will include “how to’s”, what we are working on, and how we are accomplishing each step of the plan. On Feb 4th we are going to release the complete social filmmaking business plan for Just Drive on our website as open source for other filmmakers to review and share.  We will also have a special episode of Gratcast on the 4th where Kris will explain how we plan to execute said plan.

The conclusion of our 6 part series about The Perfect House We wrap up our  six part series Behind TPH with a behind the scenes look at 'Dinner Guest', the final vignette in The Perfect House anthology.   The third, and final, story faced the most adversity and set backs during production.  We had to overcome an angry Grandfather, Actors whose hearts weren't into it, Prima Donna's who thought it was still 1983 (Felissa we're looking at you) and the challenge of savagely attacking a man with a weedwacker.  The weedwacker attack was one of the first and the most elaborate gags during the entire production, but it wasn't the only one that presented a challenge. The heat wreaked havoc on our special effects department as well as the morale and temperament of our entire production team.   The peak of this frustration came on a grueling 14 hours day inside a 6 foot bathroom on a crowded, stuffy, smoldering second floor. No great production would be complete with out a wrap party, we had a small one, Buffalo style! Behind TPH is a six party series full of first hand stories and accounts from the production of The Perfect House.

Behind the second vignette. For several weeks now we have been working with a few banks to secure a loan for all the necessary deliverables to hand our film over to a distributor. With several offers on the table and pressure to deliver the film right away, now is the time for TPH. Everything is up and running for our partnership with Tugg.com, and hopefully there will be several theater appearances for 'The Perfect House' in the coming weeks.  Be the first to request a screening in your area, and you can pick the date and location while receiving 5% of ticket sales for the event. To celebrate the one year anniversary of heading out on the open road for the TPH tour, we have started a new weekly blog series entitled One Year Ago. Each post recaps the week that was on the TPH tour. Continuation of Behind TPH: The Chicken Story. By the time we began shooting the second vignette we were starting to hit our stride. A routine had emerged and everyone knew what their responsibilities were and what needed to be done before we left my grandfather's house each night. However, like everything in life, there was a learning curve. Our most recent transgression against my Grandfather was a chilling wake up call. In the basement there is a switch that turns the hot water tank on and off.    It was necessary to turn this off everyday when we were shooting to not interfere with the sound. When my grandfather stumbled into an ice cold shower (none too happy), we quickly learned that someone had to be specifically assigned the task of making sure this switch was turned back on at the end of each night. Day 2 Photos It was during our second story that my cousin, who lives next door, started to do a nightly walk through of the house as we  packed up. Nothing adds tension and awkwardness to a new crew like someone in their tight, volunteer fireman t-shirt and gun holstered at their side walking through the house screw-facing everyone. Day 3 Photos Even though my Grandpa had his moments of doubt over the arrangement, he was also a proud grandfather bragging to all who would listen that "Hollywood comes to him." He was running tours of the set for his friends,  always on the most violent scenes or with the occasional boobies out. Day 4 Photos Being a small production that didn't have the pull or  leverage to clear the production with the Big Man upstairs,  we occasionally had to arm our wonderful producer's assistant Melissa with the garden hose to chase away the extremely vocal birds in nearby trees. Much to the chagrin of our director of photography, Tal Lazar, many of the greatest parts of the second vignette came from spontaneity including the street light above the cages, the smiley face light, and the hiding place for a shank. One thing that was not spontaneously planned, but a fight to pull off none the less, was our gratuitous breast shot. Working with Jonathan Tiersten was a challenge at times, but it was a positive challenge that provided enormous opportunities to grow and evolve as a director and a creator. Much of the acting credit in the second vignette justifiably centers around the performance of Holly Greene and Jonathan Tiersten, but their performances would have fallen flat if not for the physical toll and sacrifices made by co-star Hans Hernke.  For three of the four shooting days, Hans wore eye prosthetics that only allowed him to see through pin holes and took almost four hours to apply each morning. A trooper through and through, Hans took a physical beating in extremely difficult circumstances for three days straight all for the sake of the 'shot'. Next week: we conclude our Behind TPH series with the Production of the final vignette story that inspired the entire movie, The Dinner Guest .

We celebrate our 50th episode with the continuation of our Behind TPH series. We have made it to production and in this segment we cover all the dirty details of our first segment of the film. We shot the storm story and the bookend story over the first four days of production. But, before we continue with Behind TPH, we update you on the most recent developments with the film.  We have partnered with Tugg.com to offer The Perfect House in local theaters.  All you have to do is request a screening in your area and list the top 3 theaters and dates you would like for the event.  You become the event promoter and receive 5% of the ticket sales.  Tugg handles all of the work setting up and booking the event and making ticket sales available.  As long as the minimum number of tickets are sold a week before the event, the event happens.  If not, the event is canceled and no one is charged for anything. As a reward to any fans that request an October screening in your area, we will supply you with 5 DVDs of the film to give away at your event! Behind TPH: The storm story. The first day of shooting got off to a rocky start, we started right out with exteriors on a busy street. As we discussed in the last episode of gratcast, the rain had saturated the ground to the point anymore moisture was going to flood the basement all over again.  On top of the weather issues, we realized we completely forgot to cast a role! Not just a role, but a role in the very first scene we shot! Day 1 photo album Our first day working with a name actor, Chris Raab, was chaotic to say the least, we got some great stuff that actually inspired the storyline for the sequel, but in the end it was all for not, as we had to comeback a few months later and completely rewrite and reshoot the last scene of the movie. Day 2 photo album The next day Monique Parent arrived in Buffalo. Because we were running behind, from the fight with the weather the day before, we had to try and make up for lost time, by shooting some of the next days scenes that night.  That meant, if Monique was up to it, she had to come straight from the airport after a cross country flight, right to set and make-up.  She was not only up to it, but nailed it! More from day 2 While we shot the bookend segment and tour of the house, we got a lead on a potential set designer for the rest of production. Zach Serafin came to set for a lunch break interview, he never left!  From that moment forward Zach was our set designer. Once again, we got ridiculously lucky, Zach's talents and efforts showed up directly on screen, he added depth and detail to our sets that would have never been there without him.  The second story, the John Doesy story, was an entire world he had created in two days! Day 3 photo album During the first story we were all still feeling each other out, as was my grandfather in regards to his feelings about all of this. It became evident right away that the tight rope between loyal grandson and loyal producer was going to be almost impossible to balance.  We had a bullseye on our chest and it wasn't going to go away.   However, thanks to a timely scheduled surgery, my Uncle Dave was out of work recovering for a few weeks, the exact weeks we were shooting.  He became a godsend and a bridge between family and business, without him becoming our 'set manager' we would have been kicked out of the house after day 2. Day 4 photo album Shooting the storm story first, is probably one of my biggest regrets from production, it made sense for a lot of reasons, but once experience set in, there were a lot of reasons it didn't make sense.  Mainly having a young, inexperienced, new crew working for 3 days straight in a pitch black basement lit only by a lightning box.  We fought our way through vertigo and nausea as we completed the story.  I feel these challenges cost us some of the subtle nuances of this story, and it shorted our running time substantially.